The Triumph of John Kars Part 47

Abe Dodds chewed and spat.

"Worried? Gee, that don't say a thing--not a thing. Guess that old guy ain't had a shake up like that since he first choked himself with gravel when his momma wa'n't around. I allow Louis Creal, whoever he is, is going to get an earful that'll nigh bust his drums."

But Kars had no responsive smile.

"They'll be on us by nightfall," he said quietly. "We need to get busy." Then he suddenly called out. His voice was stern and threatening. "Quit that, Charley! Quit it or by----!"

His order came in the nick of time. All the pent-up spleen and hatred of Peigan Charley had culminated in an irresistible desire. He had seized a rifle from one of the camp Indians standing by, and had flung himself on the banked up defences. Even as his boss shouted, his eye was running over the sights, and his finger was on the trigger.

He flung the weapon aside with a gesture of fierce disgust, and stood scowling after the hurrying deputation, his heart tortured with the injustice of his chief in robbing him of the joy of sheer murder.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BATTLE OF BELL RIVER

The dark of night was creeping up the gorge. A gray sky, still heavy with the smoke of the forest fire, made its progress easy and rapid.

The black walls nursed its efforts, yielding their influence upon the deep valley below them. No star could penetrate the upper cloud banks.

The new-born moon was lost beyond the earth-inspired canopy.

The fires of the great camp were out. No light was visible anywhere.

The fighting men were at their posts on the flanking embankments.

Reserves were gathered, smoking and talking in the hush of expectancy.

Further afield an outpost held the entrance to the gorge to the north of the camp. A steep rugged split deeply wooded and dropping sharply from the heights above to the great foresh.o.r.e. It was an admirable point to hold. No living soul could approach the camp from above that way without running the gauntlet of the ambushed rifles in skilful hands. No rush could make the pa.s.sage, only costly effort. Nature had seen to that.

The white men leaders of the camp were squatting about the doorway of the shanty which had witnessed the brief interview with the chief, Thunder-Cloud. Kars occupied the sill of the doorway. His great body in its thick pea-jacket nearly filled it up. Talk was spasmodic. Kars had little enough inclination, and the others seemed to have exhausted thought upon the work of preparations.

Kars' thoughts were far away at the bald knoll of Fort Mowbray, and the little Mission nestling at its foot. Out of the gray shadows of twilight a pair of soft eyes were gazing pitifully into his, as he had seen them gaze in actual life. His mind was pa.s.sing over the tragic incidents which had swept down upon that ruddy brown head with such merciless force, and a tender pity made him shrink before his thought, as no trouble of his own could have done.

The moment was perhaps the moment for such feeling. It was the moment preceding battle. It was the moment when each man realized that a thousand chances were crowding. When the uncertainties of the future were so many and so deeply hidden. Resolve alone was definite. Life and purpose were theirs to-day. To-morrow? Who could say of tomorrow?

So it was that the mind groped back amongst memories which had the greatest appeal. For Kars all his memories were now centred round the home of the girl who had taught him the real meaning of life.

Bill Brudenell was sitting on a rough log, within a yard or two. He, too, was gazing out into the approaching night while he smoked on in meditative silence. His keen face and usually twinkling eyes were serious. He had small enough claims behind him. There was no woman in his life to hold his intimate regard. The present was his, and the future. The future had his life's work of healing in it. The present held his friend, beside whom he was ranged in perfect loyalty against the work of desperate men.

His purpose? Perhaps he would have found it difficult to explain.

Perhaps he could not have explained at all. His was a nature that demanded more than a life of healing could give him. There was the ceaseless call of the original man in him. It was a call so insistent that it must be obeyed, even while his mental att.i.tude spurned the folly of it.

Abe Dodds was propped on an upturned bucket with his lean shoulders squared against the log walls of the shanty. His jaw was moving rhythmically as he chewed with nervous energy. The difference in him from the others was the difference of a calculating mind always working out the sum of life from a purely worldly side. He knew the values of the Bell River strike to an ounce. It was his business to know. And he was ready to pa.s.s through any furnace, human or h.e.l.lish, to seize the fortune which he knew was literally at his feet. There was neither sentiment nor feeling in his regard of that which was yet to come.

This was the great opportunity. He had lived and struggled north of "sixty" for this moment. He was ready to die if necessary for the achievement of all it meant.

The men sat on, each wrapped in his own mood as the pall of night unfolded itself. The last word had been given to those at the defences, and it had been full and complete. Joe Saunders held the pa.s.s down from above. It had been at his own definite request. But the moment attack came he would be supported by one of these three. It was for this reason that he was absent from the final vigil of his fellow leaders.

It was Abe who finally broke the prolonged silence. He broke it upon indifferent ears. But then he had not the same mood for silence.

"There's every sort of old chance lying around," he observed, as though following out his own long train of thought. "But I don't guess many of 'em's worth while. There's fellers 'ud hand over any sense they ever collected fer the dame that's had savvee to buy a fi' cent perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right up to my ear-drums." He laughed and spat. "There's a mighty big world to buy, an' when you got your fencing set up around it, why, there ain't a deal left outside that's worth corrallin'. I'd say it's only the folk who fancy the foolish house need to try an' buy a big pot on a pair o' deuces. If you stand on a 'royal' you can grab most anything. I got this thing figgered to a cent. When we're through there's those among us going to make home with a million dollars--cold."

"Ye-es."

Dr. Bill removed his pipe. His gaze was turned on the engineer, whose vigorous mind was searching only one side of the task before them. The side which appealed to him most.

"That million don't worry me a cent," he went on. "If life's just a matter of buying and selling you're li'ble to get sick of it quick."

Abe's eyes shot a swift glance in the doctor's direction.

"Then what brings you up to Bell River?" he exclaimed. "It ain't a circ.u.mstance as a health resort."

Bill smiled down at his pipe.

"Much the same as you, I guess," he said. "Say, you're talking dollars. You're figgering dollars. You've got a nightmare of all you can buy with those dollars." He shook his head. "Turn over. Maybe that way you'd see things the way they are with you. Those dollars are just a symbol. You fix your eye on them. It isn't winning the 'pot'

with a 'royal.' It isn't winning anyway. It's the play that gets you.

If you could walk right into the office of the president of a state bank, and come out of it with a roll of a million, with no more effort than it needed pushing one foot in front of another, guess you'd as soon light your two dollar cigar with a hundred dollar bill as a 'Frisco stinker. I've seen a heap of boys like you, Abe. I've seen them sweat, and cuss, and work like a beaver for a wage, and they've been as happy as a doped Chinaman. I've seen them later, when the dollars come plenty, and they're so sick there isn't dope enough in Leaping Horse can make them feel good. Guess I'm right here because it's good to live, and fight, and work, same as man was meant to. The other don't cut much ice, unless it is the work's made things better--someways."

Abe spat out his chew and sat up. His combative spirit, which was perhaps his chief characteristic, was easily stirred.

"It ain't stuff of that sort made John Kars the richest guy in Leaping Horse. It ain't that play set him doping around 'inside' where there ain't much else but cold, and skitters, and gold. It ain't that play set him crazy to make Bell River with an outfit to lick a bunch of scallawag neches. No, sir. He's wise to the value of dollars in a world where there's nothing much else counts. There ain't no joy to life without 'em. An' you just can't live life without joy. If you're fixed that way, why, you'll hit the trail of the long haired crank, or join the folk who make a pastime of a penitentiary. The dollars for mine. If they come on a cushion of down I'll handle 'em elegant with kid gloves on my hands. I'm sick chasin'--sick to death."

Kars became caught in the interest of the talk. His dream picture faded in the shades of night, and the reality of things about him poured in upon him. He caught at the thread of discussion in his eager, forceful way.

"You ain't right, Abe, and Bill, here, too, is wrong," he said, in his amiably decided fashion. "Human life's just one great big darn foolish 'want.' It's the wage we're asking for all we do. Don't make any Sunday-school mistake. We're asking pay for every act we play, and the purse of old Prov is open most all the time. We all got a grouch set up against life. Most of us know it. Some don't. If I know anything of human nature we'd all squat around waiting till the end, doping our senses without restraining the appet.i.te Nature gave us, if it wasn't for that blamed wage we're always yearning after. It's the law we've got to work, and Prov sets the notion in us we want something as the only way to keep our noses to the grinding mill. Those dollars ain't the end of your want. They're just a kind of symbol, as Bill says--till you've got 'em. After that you'll still be yearning for the big opportunity same as you've been right along up to now. It's just the symbol'll be diff'rent. You'll work, and cuss, and sweat, and fight, just the same as you're ready to do now. You'll still be biting the heels of old Prov for more. And Prov'll dope it out when you've worked plenty, and He figgers you've earned your wage. Bill's here on the same argument. He's got the dollars he needs, but he's still chasing that wage. Maybe his wage is diff'rent from yours or mine.

Y'see he's quite a piece older. But he's worrying old Prov just as hard. Bill's here because his notions of things lie along the line of doping out healing to the poor darn fools who haven't the sense to keep themselves whole. It don't matter who's going to be better for his work on this layout. But when he's through, why, he'll open out his hands to old Prov, and Prov'll dope out his wage. And that wage'll come to him plenty when he sets around smoking his foul old pipe over a stove, and thinks back--all to himself."

He smiled with a curious twisted sort of smile as he gazed almost affectionately at the loyal little man of medicine. Then he turned again to the night which now hid the last outlines of the stern old gorge, as he went on.

"As for me the dollars in this gorge couldn't raise a shadow of joy."

He shook his head. "And if I told you the wage I'm asking, maybe you'd laff till your sides split up. I'm not telling you the wage old Prov'll have to hand out my way. But to me it's big. So big your million dollars couldn't buy a hundredth part of it. No, sir. Nor a thousandth. And maybe when Prov has checked my time sheet, and handed out, He won't be through by a sight. I'll still be yepping at His heels for more, only the--symbol'll kind of be changed. Meanwhile----"

He broke off listening. Abe started to his feet. Bill deliberately knocked out his pipe on the log, while his eyes were turned along the foresh.o.r.e in the direction of the Indian workings. Kars heaved himself to his feet and stood with his keen eyes striving to penetrate the darkness in the same direction.

"--We're going to start right in earning that wage--now!"

A hot rifle fire swept over the camp with reckless disregard of all aim. It came with a sharp rattle. The bullets swept on with a biting hiss, and some of them terminated their careers with a vicious "splat"

against the great overhang of rock or the woodwork of the trestle-built sluices.

In an instant the deadly calm of the night was gone, swept away by the sound of many voices, and the rush of feet, and the answering fire of the defenders.

The battle of Bell River had begun. The white men had staked their all in the great play, confident they held the winning hand. The alternative from complete victory for them had one hard, definite meaning. There was no help but that which lay in their own hands, their own wits. Death, only, was on the reverse of the victory they were claiming from Providence.

A fierce pandemonium stirred the bowels of the night. The rattle of musketry with its hundreds of needle-points of flame joined the chorus of fiercely straining human voices. The black calm of night was rent to shreds, leaving in its place only the riot of cruel, warring pa.s.sions.

The white men leaders and their men received the onslaught of the savage horde with the steadfastness of a full understanding of the meaning of defeat. They were braced for the shock with the nerve of men who have bitterly learned the secret of survival in a land haunted with terror. No heart-quail showed in the wall of resistance. The secret emotions had no power before the realization of the horror which must follow on defeat. The shadow of mutilation, of torture, of unspeakable death made brave the surest weakling.

Many of the defenders were Indian, like the attacking horde, though of superior race. Some were b.a.s.t.a.r.d whites, that most evil thing in human production in the outlands. A few were white, other than the leaders.

Men belonging to that desperate crew always clinging to the fringe of human effort, where wealth is won by the lucky turn of the spade.

Reckless creatures who live sunk in the deeps of indulgence of the senses, and without a shred of the conscience with which they were born. It was a collection of humanity such as only a man of Kars'

characteristics could have controlled. But for a desperate adventure it might well have been difficult to find its equal. It was their mission to fight, generally against the laws of society. But fight was their mission, and they would fulfil it.