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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promise, by James B. Hendryx
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Promise
+       A Tale of the Great Northwest
+
+Author: James B. Hendryx
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2007 [EBook #23730]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by K. Nordquist, Barbara Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have
+been retained.
+
+
+
+THE PROMISE
+
+A Tale of the Great Northwest
+
+
+
+By
+
+JAMES B. HENDRYX
+
+
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers    New York
+
+Published by Arrangements with G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1915
+BY
+JAMES B. HENDRYX
+
+Seventh Impression
+
+
+
+BY JAMES B. HENDRYX
+
+The Promise
+The Gun Brand
+Connie Morgan in Alaska
+Connie Morgan with the Northwest Mounted
+
+
+
+This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                   PAGE
+
+      I.--THE PACE                                           1
+
+     II.--"BROADWAY BILL"                                    8
+
+    III.--THE FINAL KICK                                    17
+
+     IV.--LOVE OR HATE                                      26
+
+      V.--"THIEF!"                                          34
+
+     VI.--THE CROOKED GAME                                  39
+
+    VII.--THE WRECK                                         47
+
+   VIII.--NEW FRIENDS                                       53
+
+     IX.--BILL GETS A JOB                                   59
+
+      X.--NORTHWARD, HO!                                    65
+
+     XI.--BILL HITS THE TRAIL                               72
+
+    XII.--THE TEST                                          83
+
+   XIII.--ON THE TOTE-ROAD                                  90
+
+    XIV.--AT BAY                                            99
+
+     XV.--THE WERWOLF                                      106
+
+    XVI.--MONCROSSEN                                       116
+
+   XVII.--A TWO-FISTED MAN                                 125
+
+  XVIII.--"BIRD'S-EYE" AND PHILOSOPHY                      133
+
+    XIX.--A FRAME-UP                                       138
+
+     XX.--A FIRE IN THE NIGHT                              147
+
+    XXI.--DADDY DUNNIGAN                                   161
+
+   XXII.--CREED SEES A GHOST                               169
+
+  XXIII.--HEAD-LINES                                       178
+
+   XXIV.--THE LOG JAM                                      187
+
+    XXV.--"THE-MAN-WHO-CANNOT-DIE"                         196
+
+   XXVI.--MAN OR TOY MAN?                                  209
+
+  XXVII.--JEANNE                                           217
+
+ XXVIII.--A PROPHECY                                       222
+
+   XXIX.--A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT                         230
+
+    XXX.--CREED                                            235
+
+   XXXI.--THE ROBE OF DIABLESSE                            246
+
+  XXXII.--THE ONE GOOD WHITE MAN                           253
+
+ XXXIII.--THE PROMISE                                      259
+
+  XXXIV.--THE NEW BOSS                                     263
+
+   XXXV.--A HUNTING PARTY                                  274
+
+  XXXVI.--TOLD ON THE TRAIL                                282
+
+ XXXVII.--IN THE OFFICE                                    287
+
+XXXVIII.--CHARLIE FINDS A FRIEND                           296
+
+  XXXIX.--BILL'S WAY                                       306
+
+     XL.--CHARLIE GOES HUNTING                             314
+
+    XLI.--THE BLIZZARD                                     319
+
+   XLII.--BUCKING THE STORM                                326
+
+  XLIII.--IN CAMP AGAIN                                    338
+
+   XLIV.--THE MISSING BONDS                                347
+
+    XLV.--SNOW-BOUND                                       358
+
+   XLVI.--AN ANNOUNCEMENT                                  366
+
+  XLVII.--MONCROSSEN PAYS A VISIT                          374
+
+ XLVIII.--THE WEDDING                                      382
+
+   XLIX.--ON THE RIVER                                     391
+
+      L.--FACE TO FACE                                     399
+
+     LI.--THE PROMISE FULFILLED                            406
+
+    LII.--THE BIG MAN                                      415
+
+
+
+
+THE PROMISE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PACE
+
+
+Young Carmody awoke to the realization of another day.
+
+The sun of mid-forenoon cast a golden rhombus on the thick carpet, and
+through the open windows the autumnal air, stirred by just the
+suspicion of a breeze, was wafted deliciously cool against his burning
+cheeks and throbbing temples.
+
+He gazed about the familiar confines of the room in puffy-eyed
+stupidity.
+
+There was a burning thirst at his throat, and he moistened his dry lips
+with a bitter-coated tongue. His mouth was lined with a brown slime of
+dead liquor, which nauseated him and sent the dull ache to his head in
+great throbbing waves.
+
+Upon a beautifully done mahogany table near the door stood a silver
+pitcher filled to the brim with clear, cold ice-water. It seemed miles
+away, and, despite the horrible thirst that gnawed at his throat, he
+lay for many minutes in dull contemplation of its burnished coolness.
+
+The sodden condition of his imagination distorted his sense of
+proportion. The journey across the room loomed large in the scheme of
+things. It was a move of moment, to be undertaken not lightly, but
+after due and proper deliberation.
+
+He threw off the covers and placed a tentative foot upon the floor.
+
+A groan escaped him as his right hand brushed the counterpane. Gingerly
+he brought the member within range of his vision--it was swollen to the
+wrist and smeared with dried blood, which had oozed from an ugly split
+in the tight-drawn skin. Slowly he worked the fingers and frowned--more
+in perplexity than distress--at the sharp pain of the stiffened
+knuckles.
+
+He crossed to the table and, springing the silver catch of a tiny door,
+cunningly empaneled in the wall, selected from the cellaret a
+long-necked, cut-glass decanter, from which he poured a liberal drink.
+The sight of it sickened him, and for an instant he stood contemplating
+the little beads that rushed upward and ranged themselves in a
+sparkling semicircle along the curve of the liquor-line.
+
+"The hair of the dog is good for the bite," he muttered, and with an
+effort closed his eyes and conveyed the stuff jerkily to his lips. Part
+of the contents spilled over his fingers and splashed upon the polished
+table-top. As the diffused odor reached his nostrils a wave of nausea
+swept over him. With a shudder he drained the glass at a gulp and
+groped blindly for the water-pitcher, from which he greedily swallowed
+great quantities of ice-water.
+
+He paused before a tall pier-glass and surveyed himself through
+bloodshot eyes. The telephone upon the opposite wall emitted a
+peremptory ring. Young Carmody turned with a frown of annoyance. He
+ignored the summons and carefully scrutinized his damaged hand.
+
+His brain was rapidly clearing and, from out the tangled maze of
+dancing girls, popping corks, and hilarious, dress-suited men, loomed
+large the picture of a policeman. Just how it all happened he could not
+recollect. He must see the boys and get the straight of it.
+
+His mirrored image grinned at the recollection of the officer, the
+quick, hard-struck blow, and the hysterical screams and laughter of the
+girls as they were seized in the strong arms of their companions,
+rushed across the sidewalk, and swung bodily into the waiting taxis.
+
+_B-r-r-r-r-r. B-r-r-r-r-r-r. B-r-r-r-r-r!_ Again the telephone bell cut
+short his musing. There was a compelling insistency in the sound and,
+with a muttered imprecation, he jerked the receiver from the hook.
+
+"Well?" he growled. "Yes, this is William Carmody. Oh, hello, governor!
+I will be right down. I overslept this morning. Stay where I am! Why?
+All right, I'll wait."
+
+"Now what?" he murmured. "The old gentleman seems peeved."
+
+After a cold bath and a vigorous rub he began leisurely to dress. His
+eyes cleared and he noted with satisfaction that aside from a slight
+pouchiness, and the faint mottling of red that blotched his cheeks, all
+traces of the previous night's orgy had disappeared. True his hand
+pained him, but he had neatly mended the split with plaster and the
+swelling had, in a great measure, yielded to the cold water.
+
+"Getting fat," he grunted, as he noticed the increasing heaviness at
+his girth. "Fat and soft," he added, as a huge muscle yielded under the
+grip of his strong fingers.
+
+In college this man had pulled the stroke oar of his crew, and on the
+gridiron had become a half-back of national renown. By the end of his
+second year no amateur could be found who would willingly face him with
+the gloves, and upon several occasions, under a carefully guarded
+sobriquet, he had given a good account of himself against some of the
+foremost professionals of the squared circle. He was a man of mighty
+muscles, of red blood, and of iron, to whom the strain and sweat of
+physical encounter were the breath of life.
+
+He wondered as he carefully selected a tie, at the strange request he
+had received at the telephone. He glanced at the French clock on the
+mantel. His father, he knew, had been at his desk these two hours.
+
+They had little in common--these two. After the death of his young
+wife, years before, Hiram Carmody had surrounded himself with a barrier
+of imperturbability beyond which even his son never ventured. Cold and
+unyielding, men called him--a twentieth century automaton of big
+business. Rarely, outside of banking hours, did the two meet. Never but
+once did they hold extended conversation. It was upon the occasion of
+the younger man's return from a year's Continental travel that his
+father summoned him and, with an air of impersonal finality, laid out
+his life work. The time had come for him to settle down to business. In
+regard to the nature of this business, or any choice he might have in
+the matter, William was not consulted. As a matter of course, being a
+Carmody, he was to enter the bank. His official position was that of
+messenger. His salary, six dollars a week, his private allowance, one
+hundred. And thus he was dismissed.
+
+It cannot be chronicled that young Carmody was either surprised or
+disappointed at thus being assigned to a career. In truth, up to that
+time he had thought very little of the future and made no plans. He
+realized in a vague sort of way that some time he would engage in
+business; therefore, upon receipt of the paternal edict he merely
+looked bored, shrugged, and with a perfunctory, "Yes, sir," quit the
+room without comment.
+
+He entered upon his duties stoically and without enthusiasm. At the end
+of a year his salary had increased to twelve dollars a week, and his
+sphere of usefulness enlarged to embrace the opening and sorting of
+mail. The monotony of the life palled upon him. He attended to his
+duties with dogged persistence and in the evenings haunted the
+gymnasiums. His athletic superiority was soon demonstrated and after a
+time, neither in the ring nor on the mat could he find an opponent
+worthy the name.
+
+More and more he turned for diversion toward the white lights of
+Broadway. Here was amusement, excitement--life! He became immensely
+popular among certain of the faster set and all unconsciously found
+himself pitted against the most relentless foeman of them all--John
+Barleycorn.
+
+Gradually the personnel of his friends changed. Less and less
+frequently did he appear at the various social functions of the Avenue,
+and more and more did he enter into the spirit of the Great White Way.
+On every hand he was hailed as "Bill Carmody," and by the great force
+of his personality maintained his universal popularity. Many smiled at
+the rumors of his wild escapades--some even envied--a few frowned. If
+his father knew he kept his own council--it was his way.
+
+Only one warned him. Ethel Manton, beautiful, imperious, and altogether
+desirable, with just the suspicion of a challenge in her daringly
+flashing eyes, was the one person in all the world that Bill Carmody
+loved. And loving her, he set her high upon a pedestal and entered the
+lists with all the ardor of his being. His was the love of desire--the
+love of a strong man for his mate, bringing out by turns all that was
+best and worst in him.
+
+Yet she remained cold--this girl of his golden dreams. Only at rare
+intervals did she unbend and allow him a fleeting glimpse of her very
+soul. At such times her eyes grew tender and she seemed very near to
+him--and very dear. And then he would tell her of his great love, and
+always her answer was the same: She would marry no man who was content
+to live upon an allowance. He must make good--must win to the fore in
+the business world as he had won in the athletic. And above all he must
+forswear the pace!
+
+In vain he explained that business held no interest for him; that it
+was no man's game, but a sordid struggle of wits for the amassing of
+unneeded gold. In vain he argued that his father, already rich, would,
+in the event of their marriage, settle a large amount upon them in
+their own right. In answer to her reference to his habits he would
+laugh. He was not afraid; _there_ was a man's game!
+
+Of course, once married, all that would be changed. But, pshaw; it is
+all in a lifetime! And then he would lightly promise to mend his
+ways--a promise that was forgotten within the hour. What do women know
+of a strong man's play?
+
+But one woman did know, and, knowing, cared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"BROADWAY BILL"
+
+
+William Carmody had scarcely completed his careful grooming when, with
+a tap at the door, his father entered, closely followed by a rather
+burly individual in citizen's clothing, whose jaw was correctly and
+artistically swathed in bandages.
+
+The two advanced a few paces into the room and paused. Father and son
+regarded each other in silence. At length the older man spoke:
+
+"Where were you last night?"
+
+William flushed at the tone and cast an inquiring glance at the man in
+bandages, who awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
+His father motioned him to proceed.
+
+"I was out with a bunch from Philly. Chesterton, '05; Burke, '03;
+little Hammond, '06; and old Busk Brater, star guard of the
+naughty-naughts."
+
+"Drunk, were you?" The words sounded coldly impersonal, and the tone
+showed no surprise.
+
+"Why, no, that is, I wouldn't exactly say----" his father silenced him
+with a gesture.
+
+"Did you ever see this man before?"
+
+William scrutinized the other carefully.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Oh, you hain't, eh?"
+
+The man's awkwardness disappeared, he advanced a step and it was
+evident that he spoke with difficulty.
+
+"How about last night in front of Shanley's? Guess you wasn't there,
+eh? Guess I just dreamt about a bunch of souses turkey-trottin' along
+the sidewalk? I'd of stood for it, at that, but the girls got to
+pullin' it too raw even for Broadway.
+
+"I know'd you by sight an' started in to give you the tip to put the
+soft pedal on the wiggle stuff, when, zowie! I guess you didn't reach
+out an' soak me--a cop!" He tapped the bandage upon the aggressively
+advanced jaw.
+
+"Maybe the Times Building just tangoed across the square an' fell on
+me!" he went on with ponderous sarcasm. "An' that ain't all; when I
+gathers myself up, here's the tail-lights of a couple of taxis
+disappearin' into Forty-fourth Street, an' the crowd laughin' an'
+joshin' me somethin' fierce. I guess I dreamt that, too, eh?
+
+"An' that ain't the worst of it. Down to headquarters I draws a
+thirty-day space--without! An' then, again, I guess they'll shove me
+right along for promotion on top of this. Not! I tell you I'm in bad
+all the ways around, with the whole force passin' me the grin an'
+askin' me have I saw Broadway Bill lately? An' in comes the inspector
+this mornin' with an order when I came back on, to report to McClusky,
+up in Harlem, an' help shoo the goats away from eatin' up the new
+sidewalks in front of the five-dollar-instalment lots.
+
+"Nice kettle of fish for me, that was in line for a lieut. I ain't
+layin' it up again' you so much for the jolt; you're sure there with
+the punch, nor for the thirty-day space, neither, though with my family
+I can't afford that none. But, damn it, kid, you've broke me! With this
+here again' me I'll never be a lieut in a thousand years. I'm done!"
+
+During the recital, the officer's voice lost its belligerent tone. He
+spoke as man to man, with no hint of self-pity. Young Carmody was
+honestly sorry. Here was a man who, in the act of giving him a friendly
+warning, had been felled by a brutal and unexpected blow. A hot blush
+of shame reddened his cheeks. He was about to speak but was interrupted
+by the voice of his father.
+
+The old man seemed suddenly to have aged. His fine features, always
+pallid, appeared a shade paler. Gone was the arrogant poise of the head
+which for forty years had dominated boards of directors. The square-set
+shoulders drooped wearily, and in the eyes was the tired, dumb look of
+a beaten man.
+
+"Officer, it seems hardly necessary for me to express my thanks for the
+consideration you have shown in coming directly to me with this
+matter," he said at last. "Had you been so inclined you could have
+stirred up a nasty mess of it, and no one would have blamed you."
+
+He stepped to a small table and, seating himself, produced check-book
+and pen.
+
+"I trust this will reimburse you for any financial loss you may have
+incurred by reason of this most unfortunate affair," he went on; "and
+as for the rest, leave that to me. I have, I believe, some little
+influence at headquarters, and I shall personally call upon the
+inspector."
+
+The officer glanced at the slip of paper which the other thrust into
+his hand. It was written in four figures. He looked up. Something in
+the old man's attitude--the unspoken pain in the eyes--the pathetic
+droop of the shoulders, struck a responsive chord in the heart of the
+officer.
+
+Impulsively he extended the hand in which the check remained unfolded.
+
+"Here, Mr. Carmody, I can't take your money. You didn't get me right. I
+start out to knife you for what I can get, an' you wind up by treatin'
+me white. It wasn't your fault, nohow, an' I didn't know how you felt
+about--things."
+
+There may have been just the shadow of a smile at the corners of Hiram
+Carmody's mouth as he waved a dismissal.
+
+"We will consider the incident closed," he said.
+
+At the door the officer turned to the younger man, who had been a
+silent listener.
+
+"It's a pity to waste yourself that way. It's a punk game, kid, take it
+from me--they don't last! Where's your Broadway Bills of ten years ago?
+Stop an' think, kid. Where are they at?"
+
+"My God," he muttered, as he passed down the broad stairway, "how many
+old fathers in New York is hidin' their feelin's behind a bold front,
+an' at the same time eatin' their hearts out with worry for their boys!
+An' folks callin' _them_ good fellows!
+
+"Money ain't everything in this here world, after all," he added, as
+his gaze traveled over the paintings and tapestries that lined the
+great hall.
+
+Above stairs an uncomfortable atmosphere of constraint settled upon
+father and son. Both felt the awkwardness of the situation.
+
+Young Carmody was a man with a heart as warm as his ways were wild. His
+was an impulsive nature which acted upon first impressions. Loving
+alike a fight or a frolic, he entered into either with a zest that made
+of them events to be remembered. He glanced across to where his father
+stood beside the table toying with a jade ink-well, and noted the
+unwonted droop of the shoulders and the unfamiliar gaze of the gray
+eyes in which the look of arrogance had dulled almost to softness--a
+pathetic figure, standing there in his own house--alone--unloved--a
+stranger to his only son.
+
+The boy saw for the first time, not the banker, the dictator of high
+finance--but the _man_. Could it be that here was something he had
+missed? That through the long years since the death of his wife, the
+sweet-faced mother whom the boy remembered so vividly, this strange,
+inscrutable old man had craved the companionship of his son--had loved
+him?
+
+At that moment, had the elder man spoken the word--weakened, he would
+have called it--the course of lives would have been changed. But the
+moment passed. Hiram Carmody's shoulders squared to their accustomed
+set, and his eyes hardened as he regarded his son.
+
+"Well?" The word rang harsh, with a rising inflection that stung. The
+younger man made no reply and favored the speaker with a level stare.
+
+"And _you_ a Carmody!"
+
+"Yes, I am a Carmody! But, thank God, I am only half Carmody! It is no
+fault of mine that I bear the Carmody name! At heart I am a McKim!"
+
+The young man's eyes narrowed, and the words flashed defiantly from his
+lips. The shaft struck home. It was true. From the boy's babyhood the
+father had realized it with fear in his heart.
+
+The beautiful, dashing girl he had wooed so long ago; had married, and
+had loved more deeply than she ever knew, was Eily McKim, descendant of
+the long line of Fighting McKims, whose men-children for five hundred
+years had loomed large in the world-wars of nations. Men of red blood
+and indomitable courage--these, who pursued war for the very love of
+the game, and who tasted blood in every clime, and under the flag of
+every nation. Hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-fighting cavaliers, upon
+whose deeds and adventures the staid, circumspect Carmodys looked
+aghast. And this girl-wife, whose soft eyes and gentle nature had won
+his love, had borne him a son, and by some freak of atavism had
+transmitted to him the turbulent spirit of the Fighting McKims.
+
+Again the old man spoke, and his voice was the voice that Wall Street
+knew--and feared.
+
+"I suppose you are well pleased with yourself. You are referred to as
+one of 'a bunch of souses.' You were 'pulling it too raw even for
+Broadway.' You are known to fame as 'Broadway Bill.' You are a sport!
+You, and your college friends. And last night you achieved the crowning
+success of your career--you 'soaked a cop'! You, the last of a line of
+men, who for a hundred years have dominated the finances of a nation!
+You, the last of the Carmodys, are Broadway Bill, _the sport!_"
+
+The biting scorn of his father's tone was not lost upon the younger
+man, who paled to the lips.
+
+"Where are the securities you were supposed to have delivered to
+Strang, Liebhardt & Co.?"
+
+"Here, in my desk. I intended to deliver them on my way to the bank
+this morning. The boys blew in yesterday and it was up to me to show
+them around a bit."
+
+"I will relieve you of the securities. The deal with Strang, Liebhardt
+& Co. is off. It depended upon the delivery of those bonds during
+banking hours yesterday."
+
+Without a word William crossed to the desk and, withdrawing a packet
+sealed in a heavy manila envelope, handed it to his father.
+
+"The bank no longer requires your services," went on the old man
+coldly. "That a Carmody should prove himself absolutely untrustworthy
+and unreliable is beyond my ken. I do not intend to take you to task
+for your manner of living. It is a course many have chosen with varying
+results. You have made your bed--now lie in it. I need only say that I
+am bitterly disappointed in my son. Henceforth we are strangers.
+
+"Here is my personal check for ten thousand dollars. That is the last
+cent of Carmody money you will receive. Properly invested it will yield
+you a competence. Many men have builded fortunes upon less. As pocket
+money for a Broadway Bill it will soon be squandered."
+
+Mechanically the younger man picked up the check from the table.
+
+"I think, sir," he answered, "that you have succeeded in making
+yourself perfectly clear. As a Carmody, I am a failure. You spoke of an
+investment. I am about to make one of which any McKim would approve."
+
+With slow, deliberate movements he tore the check into tiny pieces and
+scattered them upon the carpet. "I shall leave your house," he
+continued, meeting the other's gaze squarely, "without a dollar of
+Carmody money, but with ten thousand dollars' worth of McKim
+self-respect. Good-by."
+
+There was a note of cold finality in those last two words and the elder
+Carmody involuntarily extended his hand. He quitted the room abruptly
+as the boy, ignoring the civility, turned away.
+
+An hour later William walked hurriedly down the steps of the Carmody
+mansion and, with never a backward glance, hailed a taxi and was
+whirled rapidly uptown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FINAL KICK
+
+
+It was Saturday, and Ethel Manton was lunching early that she might
+accompany her fifteen-year-old brother on a ride through the park.
+
+A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she
+reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as
+newspaper stories go, this account of a lurid night on Broadway which
+wound up in a crescendo of brilliance with the flooring of a policeman.
+No names were mentioned, but the initiated who read between the lines
+knew that only one man could have pulled off the stunt and gotten by
+with it.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Eth, aren't you ever going to finish? You'll waste
+the whole afternoon over that old paper!"
+
+Young Charlie had bolted his luncheon and waited impatiently in a deep
+window-seat overlooking the park. His sister laid down the paper with a
+sigh.
+
+"Are the horses ready?" She asked the question in a dull, listless
+tone, so unlike her usual self that even Charlie noticed.
+
+"Gee! You don't seem very keen about it. And look what a day! You look
+like you were going to a funeral."
+
+Before the girl could reply he turned again to the window: "Look, a
+taxi is stopping and somebody is getting out. Oh, it's Bill Carmody!
+Ain't he a crackerjack, though? Say, Eth, why don't you marry Bill?
+He's just crazy about you--everybody says so, and----"
+
+"Charlie!" The word was jerked out hysterically, and the boy was
+puzzled at the crimson of her face.
+
+"Well, I don't care, it's so! And then I'd be a brother-in-law to Bill
+Carmody! Why, he can lick everybody down to the gym. He put on the
+gloves with _me_ once," he boasted, swelling visibly, "just sparring,
+you know; but he promised to teach me the game. And football! There
+never was a half-back like Bill Carmody! Why he----"
+
+"Do hush! He might hear you. Run along, now. You ride on and I will
+overtake you. I--I must see Mr. Carmody alone."
+
+"_Mr._ Carmody! So you two have had a scrap! Well, if I was a girl, and
+Bill Carmody wanted to marry _me_, you bet, I'd marry him before he got
+a chance to change his mind. You bet, when I grow up I'm going to be
+just like him--so there!"
+
+The boy flounced defiantly out of the room, leaving the girl alone with
+a new fear.
+
+Since the death of her parents she had bravely and capably undertaken
+the management of the household, and her chief care was this impulsive
+boy who was so dear to her heart.
+
+"Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you." The words of her
+dying mother came to her vividly. "He is really a noble little
+fellow--but hard to manage."
+
+And now, added to the sorrow that already seemed crushing her, was this
+new anxiety.
+
+Charlie had set up an idol--and the fact that his idol was also her
+idol--although she never admitted it--struck fear to her heart. For the
+undiscerning eyes of the boy were blind to the feet of clay.
+
+In the library across the hall, William Carmody paced nervously up and
+down, pausing at each turn to gaze abstractedly out of the window.
+
+After what seemed an interminable wait, the portieres parted and the
+girl stepped into the room. In her hand she carried a carefully folded
+newspaper. She crossed to the table and, regarding the man with a cold,
+disconcerting stare, waited for him to speak.
+
+"Hello, Ethel! No, thank you, I have had luncheon. I----" His gaze
+encountered the unwavering blue eyes, and he suddenly dropped the air
+of flippant assurance. "Er, I came to see you," he added lamely.
+
+"Yes?" There was little of encouragement in the word with its
+accompanying inflection.
+
+"You see, I am leaving New York."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, I am going away." He paused, but receiving no answer, continued,
+"I am going away to--to make good. And I came to say good-by. When I
+return, if--if you are still free, I will have something to tell
+you--something I have often told you before, but--well, things will be
+different, then."
+
+"I suppose you said good-by to your _other_ friends last night?" Her
+glance rested for a moment on the folded newspaper, and the silky sneer
+of her retort was brutal--with the studied brutality of the female of
+the species who would inflict pain. The man winced under its sting.
+
+"Last night cannot be recalled," he replied gravely. "Whatever happened
+then is past and gone. You are right; figuratively speaking, I _have_
+said good-by to the others--to Broadway, and all it stands for. You
+alone know of my going. I am making no promises. If I fail no one will
+know--nor care. When I make good I will return--and then----"
+
+The girl looked up. Their glances met, and in the depths of the steady
+gray eyes the soft blue ones read purpose--unflinching purpose to fight
+and win for the glory of an infinite love.
+
+Her eyes dropped. She felt the hot blood mount to her face under the
+compelling magnetism of his gaze. She loved this man. In all the world
+no other could so move her. She loved--yet feared him. The very
+strength of him--the overmastering force of his personality--his
+barbaric disregard of conventionality at once attracted and frightened
+her.
+
+In that moment she knew, deep down in her heart, that if this man
+should take her in his arms and hold her close against the throbbing of
+his great heart, his lips find hers, and should he pour into her ears
+the pent-up torrent of his love, her surrender would be complete.
+
+His was the master mind, and in all the years to come that mind would
+rule, and she, the weaker one, would be forced under the yoke of its
+supremacy. She prayed for strength.
+
+Let those who believe that once the living flesh has turned to clay the
+spirit dies, ascribe to a trick of memory the vision of her dying
+mother that flashed before the eyes of the girl, and the whispered
+words: "Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you."
+
+But those there are who know that in that momentary vision spoke in
+faint memory-whispers the gentle spirit-mother, who--ranking high in
+that vast army which, in the words of the immortal Persian,
+
+    "Before us passed the door of Darkness through,"
+
+--would guide the footsteps of her loved ones.
+
+Thus strength came and steeled the heart of one great little woman who
+battled alone against love for her right to rule and shape the destiny
+of lives. The momentary flush receded from her face, and when her eyes
+again sought the man's, their glance was coldly repellent. She even
+forced a smile.
+
+"Is it so amusing, then--my going?" he asked a little grimly.
+
+"Yes, rather amusing to consider where a man would go and what he would
+do. A man, I mean, whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can
+'lick' most anybody, and can 'drink more and stay soberer than any of
+the sports he travels with.'"
+
+The dull red flooded the man's face at her words. Unconsciously he
+squared his shoulders and there was an unwonted dignity in his reply:
+
+"I am well aware that my accomplishments are more in the nature of
+liabilities than assets. In spite of this I will make good--somewhere."
+
+He stepped closer to the girl, and his voice grew harsh, almost rasping
+in its intensity. "I _can_ beat the game. And I will beat it--now! Just
+to show you and your kind what a _man_ can do--a man, I mean," he
+added, "'whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can lick most
+anybody--and can drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he
+travels with.' Incidentally, I am glad to know your real opinion of me.
+I once believed that you were different from the others--that in you I
+had found a woman who possessed a real soul."
+
+He laughed, a short, grating laugh--deep down, as though rude fingers
+drew a protest from raw heart-strings--a laugh that is not good to
+hear.
+
+"I even thought," he went on, "that you cared for me--a little. That
+you were the one woman who, at the last of things, would give a man a
+helping hand, a little word of encouragement and hope, perhaps, instead
+of the final kick."
+
+He bowed stiffly and turned toward the door. "Good-by!" he said, and
+the heavy portieres closed behind him.
+
+In the room the girl, white as marble, heard the click of the front
+door, the roar of a newly cranked motor, and the dying _chug, chug_ of
+the retreating taxi.
+
+That afternoon Charlie Manton rode alone, and when he returned, hungry
+as a young wolf, to be told that his sister had retired with a sick
+headache, he drew his own conclusions, nodding sagely over his solitary
+dinner.
+
+Later, as he passed her door on the way to his room, he placed his ear
+at the keyhole and listened a long time to her half-muffled sobs.
+
+"Gee!" he muttered as he passed down the hall, "they must have had an
+awful scrap!" He turned and quietly retraced his steps. In the library
+he switched on the lights and crossed to the telephone.
+
+"There isn't any sense in that," he said, speaking to himself. "Bill
+loves Eth--that's a cinch. And she does love him, too, even if she
+won't let on.
+
+"She wouldn't stick up in her room all day bawling her eyes out if she
+didn't. I'll call Bill up and tell him so, then he'll come and they'll
+make up. I bet he's sorry, too, by now."
+
+At the Carmody residence he was told that Bill was not in. He received
+the same answer from several clubs, at each of which he left explicit
+instructions for Mr. Carmody to call him up at the first possible
+moment.
+
+Thereafter Charlie frequented the gymnasiums and made industrious
+inquiry, but it was many a day before he again saw his idol. Bill
+Carmody was missing from his accustomed haunts, and none could tell
+whither he had gone.
+
+Those were days fraught with anxiety for the boy. Ethel, to whom he was
+devoted, went about the house listless and preoccupied, in spite of her
+efforts to appear cheerful. When he attempted to reason with her she
+burst into tears and forbade him to mention Bill Carmody's name in her
+hearing as long as he lived. Whereupon the youngster retired
+disconsolately to his room to think things over.
+
+"Love's a bum thing," he told himself. "If they do get married they die
+or get a divorce or something; and if they don't--well, Bill has
+prob'ly committed suicide and Eth is moping around, and most likely now
+she'll marry that dang St. Ledger." He made a wry face as he thought of
+St. Ledger.
+
+"Runty little mollycoddle! Couldn't lick a chicken--him and his
+monocle. And that day the wind took his hat and rolled it through the
+mud, and he said: 'Oh, pshaw!' instead of damn it! Oh--_slush!_ And I
+promised mother I'd take care of Eth."
+
+He burrowed his face deep into the pillow, as, in spite of himself,
+tears came to his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LOVE OR HATE
+
+
+Thus a week passed, in the course of which the heart of the girl was
+torn by conflicting emotions. Love clashed with hate and self-pity with
+self-reproach. Was it true--what he had said? Had she administered the
+final kick to a man who was down--who, loving her--and deep down in her
+heart she knew that he did love her--had come to her in the extremity
+of his need for a word of encouragement?
+
+Now that he was gone she realized how much he had meant to her. How, in
+spite of his reckless disregard of life's serious side, she loved him.
+Try as she would she could not forget the look of deep hurt that dulled
+his eyes at her words.
+
+Had she not been justified? Had he not needed just that to bring him to
+a realization of his responsibilities? Had she not, at the sacrifice of
+her own love, spurred and strengthened his purpose to make good? Or,
+had she, by raising a barrier between them, removed his one incentive
+to great effort?
+
+Over and over the girl pondered these things. One moment her heart
+cried out for his return, and the next she reiterated her undying hate
+for the man in whose power it was so sorely to wound her with a word.
+
+And so she sat one evening before an open fire in the library which had
+been the scene of their parting. Mechanically she turned the pages of a
+novel, but her mind was elsewhere, and her eyes lingered upon the
+details of the room.
+
+"He stood there," she mused, "and I here--and then--those awful words.
+And, oh! the look in his eyes that day as the portieres closed between
+us--and he was gone. Where?"
+
+Somehow the idea obsessed her that he had gone to sea. She pictured him
+big and strong and brave, battling before the mast on some wallowing,
+storm-hectored trading ship outbound, bearing him away into the
+melting-pot of strange world-ways.
+
+Would he come clean through the moil, winning honor and his place among
+men? And thus would he some day return--to _her_? Or would the sea
+claim him for her own, roughen him, and buffet him about through the
+long years among queer Far Eastern hell-ports where, jostling shoulder
+to shoulder with brutish men and the women who do not care, he would
+drink deep and laugh loud among the flesh-pots of society's discards?
+
+The uncertainty was terrible to the girl, and she forced her thoughts
+into the one channel in which there was a ray of comfort.
+
+"At least," she murmured, "he has ceased to be a menace to Charlie."
+
+"Mr. Hiram Carmody, miss."
+
+The old manservant who had been with the Mantons always, stood framed
+in the inverted V of the parted portieres.
+
+Ethel started. Why had he called? During the lifetime of her father the
+elder Carmody had been a frequent visitor in the Manton home.
+
+Was it about Bill? Was he sick? Had there been an accident, and was he
+hurt--possibly dead? There was an icy grip at her heart, though her
+voice was quite firm as she replied:
+
+"I will see Mr. Carmody at once, Craddon."
+
+As the man silently withdrew from the doorway a new thought came to
+her.
+
+Could it be that Bill was still in New York? That his going away had
+been an empty threat? And was he now trying to bring about a
+reconciliation through the medium of his father? How she could despise
+him for that!
+
+Her lips thinned, and there was a hint of formality in her greeting as
+she offered her hand to the tall, gray-haired man who advanced toward
+her.
+
+"Well, well! Miss Ethel," he began, "all alone with a book and a cozy
+fire. That is what I call solid comfort." He crossed the room and
+extended his hands to the blaze.
+
+"It is a long time since you have called, Mr. Carmody."
+
+"Yes. We old fellows rarely drift outside the groove of our fixed orbit.
+One by one we drop out, and as each one passes beyond it shortens the
+orbit of the others. The circle is always contracting--never expanding.
+The last one of us will be found in his dotage never venturing beyond
+the circle of his own fireside until he, too, shall answer the call."
+
+The voice held a note of sadness which touched the girl deeply, and she
+suddenly noted that the fine patrician face had aged.
+
+"You should not speak of being old," she said gently. "Why, you are
+called the Wizard of Wall Street."
+
+"A man is only as old as he feels. Until recently I have considered
+myself a young man. But of late I feel that I am losing my grip."
+
+"Isn't that a dangerous admission? If it should become known on the
+Street----"
+
+"Ha!"--the heavy gray eyebrows met with a ferocity which belied the
+smile that curved the thin lips--"if it were but whispered upon the
+Street the wolves would be at my throat before morning. But they would
+have a fight on their hands! However, all that is beside the purpose. I
+suppose you are wondering why I called?"
+
+The girl was momentarily at a loss for a reply. "Why, I--You know you
+are always welcome here."
+
+"Yes, yes. But, as you must have surmised, I called with a definite
+object in view. A matter that concerns you and--er, my son."
+
+The girl turned a shade paler.
+
+"I do not understand," she replied.
+
+"Nor do I. I have come to you at the risk of being thought a meddling
+old fool! But the fact is, I have several times lately heard your name
+mentioned in connection with William's, and recently there came into my
+possession this packet of letters addressed to my son in a feminine
+hand and bearing the Manton crest."
+
+The girl's face flushed as she took the proffered packet and waited for
+him to continue.
+
+"Fred Manton was my best friend," went on the old man, "and I won't see
+harm come to his daughter, if I can prevent it. You two may be just
+friends; you may be engaged--or married, for all I know. My son never
+deemed it worth while to take me into his confidence. In either case, I
+am here--and I will have my say. I shall put myself in the place of
+your father and speak as, I believe, he would have spoken. I may seem
+harsh and bitter toward my own son, but remember, Miss Ethel, I have
+had vastly more experience in the ways of the world than you have--and
+I know whereof I speak.
+
+"Slight as is the difference between your ages, you are but an
+inexperienced girl, as the world knows experience, and William is a
+man--and a man, I am sorry to say, who is no fit associate for a woman
+like you."
+
+Surprised and perplexed the girl felt her anger rise against this man.
+Instinctively she rallied to Bill's defense:
+
+"He is not bad at heart!" she said resentfully.
+
+"What worse can you say?" returned Carmody with a harsh laugh. "Of all
+expressions coined to damn a man with faint praise, there is only one
+more effective: 'He means well.'"
+
+Ethel was thoroughly angry now. She drew herself up, and her blue eyes
+darkened as she faced him.
+
+"That is not so!" she cried. "Bill is _not_ bad at heart! And he _does_
+mean well! Whose fault is it that he has grown up reckless and wild?
+Who is to blame? What chance has he had? What have you done for him?
+Filled his pockets with money and packed him off to school. Filled his
+pockets with money and sent him to college. Filled his pockets with
+money and shipped him abroad.
+
+"Then, without consulting his taste or desire, you peremptorily thrust
+him into a business which he loathes--on an office boy's salary and an
+allowance out of all proportion to his requirements.
+
+"You say he has never taken you into his confidence. Have you ever
+invited that confidence? Have you ever sought his companionship--even
+his acquaintance?"
+
+The man was astonished at her vehemence. Uncomfortably he found himself
+forced to the defensive.
+
+"He had his chance. I placed him in the bank that he might learn the
+business as I learned it. If he had had the right stuff in him he would
+have made good. As it was, he attended to his duties in the most
+perfunctory and superficial manner. He showed not the slightest
+interest in the business. In fact, his position could have been ably
+filled by the veriest gutter-snipe. And _he_ is the man who one day, in
+all probability, would have come into control of the Carmody millions!
+And he would have scattered them in a riot of dissipation the length
+and breadth of Broadway.
+
+"But I have forestalled him. He is foot-loose--gone, God knows where,
+to follow the fortune of adventure, perhaps, at the ends of the earth.
+For in him, transmitted in some unaccountable manner through the blood
+of the gentlest, sweetest little woman who ever warmed a heart, is the
+restless spirit of the roistering, fighting McKims."
+
+"Is it the boy's fault that he is a McKim?" returned the girl a little
+sharply. "Who chose his mother? Of all men you should be the last to
+speak disparagingly of a McKim. Turn the pages of history and you will
+find written large in the story of the upbuilding of nations the name
+of McKim. Carmody gold is the cabala of Carmody suzerainty. But the
+McKim name has been carved deep in the annals of nations by sheer force
+of the personalities behind blades of naked steel.
+
+"Even now the crying world-need for men--big men--is as great as in the
+days when the fighting McKims deserted their hearthstones to answer the
+call of the falchion's clash or the cannon's roar. And some day you
+will realize this--when your bank messenger makes good!"
+
+The old man regarded her with a look of admiration.
+
+"You love him!" he said quietly.
+
+The girl started. Her eyes flashed and the play of the firelight gave
+an added touch of crimson to her cheeks.
+
+"I do not love him! I--I _hate him!_" Her voice faltered, and the man
+saw that she was very near to tears.
+
+"A strange hate, this, Miss Ethel. A strange and a most dangerous hate
+for a girl to hold against a man who is a _thief_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"THIEF!"
+
+
+"A man who is a thief!" The words fell distinctly from Carmody's lips
+with the studied quiet of desperation. Ethel stared wild-eyed at the
+speaker, and in the frozen silence of the room her tiny fists doubled
+until the knuckles whitened.
+
+Noting the effect upon the girl, he continued, speaking more rapidly
+now that the dreaded word had been uttered.
+
+"I had no wish to tell you this thing. It is a secret I would gladly
+have kept locked within my own breast. But I came here this evening
+with a purpose--to save, in spite of herself, if need be, the daughter
+of my dead friend from a life of suffering which would inevitably fall
+to the lot of any pure-hearted woman who linked her life with that of
+an unscrupulous scoundrel, in whom even common decency is dead, if,
+indeed, it ever lived."
+
+"He is _not_ a thief! He----" began Ethel vehemently, but the man
+interrupted her.
+
+"Wait until you have heard the facts. Last week, on Friday, there was
+entrusted to my son's care for delivery a heavy manila envelope
+containing fifty thousand dollars' worth of negotiable bonds. It was a
+matter of vital importance that these be delivered within a specified
+time. Ignoring this fact, he pocketed the bonds, and, in company with a
+number of his acquaintances, indulged in a drunken spree which
+culminated after midnight in a disgraceful street scene in the Broadway
+theatre district.
+
+"The following morning, when I confronted him, he flouted me to my
+face, whereupon I virtually disinherited him. Not wishing to turn him
+away penniless, I handed him a check for a considerable amount which he
+saw fit to destroy melodramatically in my presence. Upon my request for
+the return of the securities, he handed me an envelope identical with
+that in which the bonds had been placed. I carried the packet to the
+bank where it was opened and found to contain not the bonds--but those
+letters.
+
+"To avoid a scandal I made good the loss. I learned later, through
+investigation, that upon leaving home he came directly to this house,
+where he remained for upward of a half-hour.
+
+"Further than this I know nothing of his movements except that he
+reentered the taxi and proceeded down-town. At Thirty-Fourth Street,
+where the chauffeur slowed down for instructions, he found the cab
+empty."
+
+"And _these_ are the facts upon which you base your accusation?" asked
+the girl coldly. "You, his own father!"
+
+"To an unbiased mind the evidence allows but one interpretation."
+
+"But his eyes! Oh, can't you see there has been some mistake? His eyes
+are not the eyes of a thief!"
+
+"There has been no mistake. A most thorough search of the premises has
+failed to disclose a trace of the missing securities. In his desk from
+which he took the substituted packet were found several similar
+envelopes, but these contained only worthless rubbish--newspaper
+clippings of sporting events and the like.
+
+"No, Miss Ethel, when William Carmody left my house that morning he
+carried with him those bonds. And he came here, knowing that he was a
+thief, with his pocket bulging with plunder!
+
+"As I told you, I know nothing of the relations existing between you
+and my son. I only hope that he has gone forever out of your life, as
+he has gone out of mine."
+
+The light died out of the girl's eyes and her voice sounded strangely
+dull as she replied:
+
+"Yes, he has gone out of my life--maybe forever. He came to me here, to
+tell me that he was going away to make good. And I--I was not big
+enough to see it. I sent him away with a sneer. Bill is no thief. For
+what he has been you are to blame--you and the Carmody money. For the
+first time in his life he has a fair chance. He has left New York the
+man you made him. He will return the man he makes himself. Oh! If--if I
+only----"
+
+"There, there, Miss Ethel, your loyalty is admirable, if misplaced----"
+
+"Don't speak to me of loyalty! I have been as narrow and as _mean_
+as--as _you_ have!"
+
+"My dear girl, you are overwrought. The sooner we learn that William
+Carmody has ceased to exist the better it will be for both of us. I bid
+you good-night."
+
+The girl sank into the depths of her big chair and watched the
+sputtering little jet-flames lick futilely at the artificial logs of
+the fireplace. Believing herself alone, she was startled by the sound
+of footsteps hurrying noisily across the room. The next instant a
+tousle-headed boy with eyes ablaze was at her side working her hands
+like pump-handles.
+
+"By Jimmy, Eth, you're a brick--the way you gave it to him! You bet
+I'll tell Bill how you stuck up for him."
+
+"Charlie Manton! You were listening--eavesdropping."
+
+"I didn't! I wasn't! I mean I couldn't help hearing! The door of the
+den was open and I was in there studying. Old man Carmody is an old
+liar!"
+
+"Charlie!"
+
+"Well, he is, and you know it! I hate him! You bet he wouldn't dare
+call Bill a thief to his face! Bill could lick forty-seven like him
+with one hand tied behind his back. Bill is square. He wouldn't swipe a
+million dollars--let alone a rotten, measly fifty thousand!"
+
+"Charlie Manton! What kind of talk is that? You ought to be ashamed!"
+
+"Well, I ain't--so there! And I'm Bill's friend, and I ain't afraid to
+say so, either. You do love Bill--and you know it! You can claim you
+hate him till you're black in the face, but you can't fool _me_! What
+did you stick up for him for if you hated him? I bet old man Carmody
+swiped the bonds himself!"
+
+"Stop right there! Aren't you ashamed to speak so disrespectfully of
+Mr. Carmody? He was an old friend of father's."
+
+"I don't care if he was. I'm an old friend of Bill's, too. And Bill
+_ain't_ a thief, no matter what he says!"
+
+"You go to bed this minute. I am surprised and mortified to think that
+you would be so contemptible as to listen to other people's affairs."
+
+"'Taint any worse than lying!"
+
+The boy stamped angrily from the room, and the girl sat long by the
+fire and, one by one, fed letters to the flames.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CROOKED GAME
+
+
+"Clickity-click, clickity-click, clickity-click," the monotonous song
+of the rails told off the miles as the heavy train rushed westward
+between the endless cornfields of a flat middle State. To the
+well-built athletic young man who was one of the four occupants of the
+little end-room, smoking compartment, the outlook was anything but
+cheerful.
+
+As far as the eye could reach long rows of shriveled husks, from which
+the season's crop of yellow ears had been torn, flapped dejectedly
+against their dried and broken stalks. Here and there a square of rich,
+black loam, freshly turned, bespoke the forehanded farmer; while in the
+fields of his neighbors straggling groups of cattle and hogs gleaned
+half-heartedly in the standing roughage.
+
+"Not much for scenery, is it?" The offensively garrulous passenger
+directed his remarks to the young man, who abstractedly surveyed the
+landscape. "No, sir," he continued, "you've got to go West for Scenery.
+Ever been West?"
+
+The young man nodded without removing his gaze from the window.
+
+"I live in Colo_ray_do," the other persisted. "Went out there for my
+health--and I stayed. Johnson's my name. I'm in the mining business."
+
+His eyes swept the compartment to include the others in the too evident
+geniality of their glance.
+
+"Now that we're all acquainted," he ventured--"how about a little game
+of seven-up, just to pass away the time? How about you, dad?"
+
+Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman in
+gray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon the
+lengthening ash of his cigar.
+
+With enthusiasm undampened by the curtness of the latter's refusal, he
+turned to the remaining passenger--a youth upon whose lip sprouted a
+tenderly pruned mustache, so obviously new that it looked itchy.
+
+"How about you, captain?" The top-heavy youth closed his magazine and
+unlocked a brain-cell.
+
+"I don't mind." He ostentatiously consulted a very gold watch. "Must be
+in Chicago this evening," he muttered quite audibly, pulling a ten,
+twent, thirt frown that caused his labial foliage to rustle with
+importance.
+
+He drew from his pocket a card upon which the ink was scarcely dry and
+handed it to the effervescent Johnson, who read aloud:
+
+    Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL
+                   Municipal Investigator
+
+"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of the
+managing editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various forms
+flourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordered
+a sweeping investigation."
+
+Further information was forestalled by the entrance of a suave-mannered
+individual who introduced himself as a cigar salesman, and who was
+readily induced to take a hand in the game.
+
+The lightning-like glances that passed between the newcomer and the
+Western Mr. Johnson, while entirely unnoted by the investigator of
+municipal vice, aroused the interest of the athletic young man to the
+point of assenting to make the fourth. Here, evidently, was something
+about to be pulled off, and he decided to be actively among those
+present.
+
+The game progressed through several uneventful deals. Suddenly Johnson,
+scrutinizing a hand dealt him by the cigar salesman, emitted a low
+whistle.
+
+"If we were playing poker now I'd have something to say!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I've got some poker hand myself," opined the dealer.
+"Discard one, to make a five-card hand, and I bet you five dollars I
+beat you."
+
+"You're on!" Each produced a bill which he handed to the athletic young
+man to hold.
+
+"Three eights and a pair of deuces," boasted the Westerner, exposing
+the full hand upon the board.
+
+"Beats three kings," admitted the other, ruefully laying down his hand.
+The winner pocketed the money with an exaggerated wink in the direction
+of the newspaper youth who had been an interested spectator.
+
+The game progressed, and before many deals another challenge was passed
+and accepted between the two. This time it was the salesman who
+profited to the extent of twenty-five dollars which he received from
+the stakeholder with the remark that he would bet his whole roll on a
+jack full any old day.
+
+The elderly gentleman smoked in silence and amused himself by mentally
+cataloguing the players. Suddenly his attention became riveted.
+
+What he saw jarred harshly upon his estimate of the athletic young man
+who, at the conclusion of his deal, dexterously slipped some cards
+beneath the table from his pile of tricks, then, bunching the pack,
+passed it to the Westerner for the next deal.
+
+He was on the point of exposing this cheap bit of knavery when the
+young man glanced in his direction. Something in the steady gaze of the
+gray eyes, though for the life of him he could not have told what,
+stayed his purpose, and he settled into his seat, more puzzled than
+before.
+
+"If it had been any one of the others," he thought to himself; "and
+then to think that he turns around and with a look virtually makes me a
+party to his tuppenny trickery!"
+
+His reflections were cut short by a sharp exclamation from the
+investigator of vice who, in spite of his desire to appear composed,
+was evidently laboring under great excitement.
+
+"I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!"
+He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his hand
+over--and with a careless:
+
+"Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man,
+who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in:
+
+"Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And just
+to show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred."
+
+He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly at
+the newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to his
+pocket.
+
+"Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!"
+
+"Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see my
+hand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling good
+one----"
+
+"I'll bet"--the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from the
+leather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto--"I've
+got you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back at
+you."
+
+"You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. I
+ain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as good
+as they did."
+
+"I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watch
+across the board. Both men examined it.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your word
+for it. Stick her up--here's the fifty."
+
+"I've got _four_ aces!" squealed the reporter as he spread them out
+face upward. He stared wildly at the other, and his hands made wet
+marks where they touched the board.
+
+"No good," remarked his opponent blandly. "Mine's hearts--all in a row,
+with the jack at the top." One by one he laid them down--a straight
+flush. South Bend stared incredulously at the cards.
+
+"All right, Mr. Stakeholder," laughed the salesman, "pass over the
+kale. Just slip out a five for your trouble."
+
+"Just a minute." The voice of the stakeholder was quiet and his lips
+smiled. The two across the board bristled aggressively and the plucked
+one sniffled.
+
+"Well"--there was an ugly note in the cigar salesman's voice--"a
+straight flush beats four aces, don't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, there is no question as to that. Are these the same cards we
+have been using?"
+
+"Of course they are! What do you mean?" asked the dealer.
+
+"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know. Our friend here has the right to
+know that he got a square deal. Count the cards." The look of
+apprehension on the faces of the two men faded into smiles.
+
+"Sure thing. That's fair enough," acquiesced the dealer, proceeding to
+gather the cards from the board. Slowly and deliberately he counted;
+"fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two," he finished. "Here, captain, count them
+yourself." He handed them to the youth, who mechanically ran them
+through.
+
+"They are all here," he admitted.
+
+"Now, that is funny," smiled the stakeholder, "because last deal I
+dropped several cards onto the floor. This gentleman saw me do it."
+
+He nodded toward the elderly gentleman, who was now keenly interested,
+and reached under the table.
+
+"See--here they are. And, by the way, the nine and ten of hearts are
+among them. And now, you cheap crooks," he added as he flung a handful
+of bills onto the board, "take your money and beat it!"
+
+The two men opposite looked for an instant into the narrowing gray
+eyes, noted a certain tightening of the square jaw and the clenching of
+a pair of very capable fists, and tarried not upon further orders.
+Sweeping the money into their pockets they quit the compartment,
+casting venomous back glances toward the young man whose lips could
+smile while his eyes threatened.
+
+"Here is yours, kid. And let me put you wise to something. The first
+thing you do when you strike Chicago, buy a ticket to South Bend. They
+are waiting for you in the wicked town--they can see you coming. The
+next ones will spring a real live game, green goods, or wire tapping.
+They will roll you before you can locate a rescue mission. About the
+only form of vice they will give you time to investigate will be what
+the taxi boy does to you.
+
+"The cold-deck stunt you just fell for, sonny, is so old it totters. It
+is the identical trick that started the coolness between Brutus and
+Julius Caesar."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WRECK
+
+
+The early darkness of late autumn settled over the flat country. Tiny
+lights twinkled from distant farmhouses as the Limited plowed through
+the night.
+
+The athletic young man continued to stare moodily out of the window.
+
+The black expanse of country became more thickly studded with lights.
+They flashed in the foreground in regular constellations as the train
+whizzed with undiminished speed past tall block towers and tiny
+suburban stations.
+
+Long parallel rows, narrowing to a point under a distant hazy nimbus,
+marked the course of the outreaching arteries of a great city. Warning
+bells clanged peremptorily at the lowered gates of grade crossings.
+
+The car wheels crashed noisily over an ever-increasing number of frogs
+and switch points, an occasional brilliantly illuminated trolley car
+crept slowly over its rails, and the hundreds of green and red and
+yellow lights of the widening railroad yards lent a variety of color to
+the scene.
+
+That infallible harbinger of an approaching terminal, the colored
+porter, had appeared in the doorway, whisk-broom in hand,
+when--suddenly--there was a grinding jar; the heavy coach trembled
+through its length, and from forward came a muffled roar followed by
+the tearing crash of riven metal.
+
+The car reared upward--higher and higher it climbed to the
+accompaniment of the terrible crunching grind that proclaims undirected
+power and benumbs the brain with the horrid possibilities of energy
+uncontrolled. When almost perpendicular the sleeper toppled and crashed
+sidewise across other tracks at right angles to its course.
+
+New sounds supplanted the mighty noise of tearing and rending--little
+sounds--the sharp jangle of smashing glass, and the thin wail of an
+infant. These were borne to the young man's ears as from a distance.
+
+It was very dark and he was conscious of a great weight which seemed to
+be crushing the breath from his body. He raised his arms and tore at
+the thing on his chest. It yielded slightly to the pressure of his
+hands but remained immovable. He reached above it and encountered
+metal--a large iron cylinder with projecting pipes twisted and bent.
+Frantically he tore at the weight, exerting to the utmost the mighty
+strength of his shoulders. Inch by inch he worked it sidewise, using
+the pipes as levers until at length it rolled free and settled with a
+crash among the wreckage at his side. The other--the thing that
+yielded--he lifted easily and sat up, filling his exhausted lungs with
+great drafts of cool air.
+
+His head ached terribly. He passed his hand across his forehead and
+withdrew it wet and dripping. He struck a match and as the tiny flame
+flickered and went out he struck another and another.
+
+At his side lay the torso of the young reporter, his head mashed by the
+heavy water-cooler. He shuddered as he realized that this was the thing
+he had lifted from his chest.
+
+In the opposite corner the elderly man struggled to release his arm
+from the grip of a wedging timber. The body of the porter, doubled
+grotesquely, partially protruded from under a seat.
+
+His last match died out and he crept to the side of the imprisoned man.
+A heave at the timber satisfied him as to the futility of accomplishing
+anything in the darkness and without tools.
+
+He stood erect and groped for the door of the compartment which he
+located in the ceiling almost directly above him. Drawing himself
+through the aperture, he made the narrow passage, but such was the
+position of the car that it was only with the greatest difficulty he
+succeeded in worming his way along, using the dividing wall as a floor.
+
+He gained the body of the coach, and from the darkness about him came
+groans and curses mingled with great gasping sobs, and that most
+terrible of all sounds, the shriek of a woman in the night-time.
+
+He located a window and, smashing the glass with his elbow, crawled
+through.
+
+From every direction men were running toward the scene of the wreck,
+calling to each other in hoarse, throaty bellows, while here and there
+in the darkness lanterns flashed.
+
+Sick and dizzy he lowered himself to the ground and staggered across
+some tracks. He snatched a lantern from the hand of a bewildered
+switchman and stumbled again toward the overturned car.
+
+Others swarmed upon it. He heard the blows of axes and the smashing of
+glass. Already an army of men were engaged in the work of rescue.
+
+Inert forms were passed through windows into waiting arms to be
+deposited in long, ghastly rows upon the cinders of the road-bed, under
+the flaring torches. A cold, drizzling rain was falling and the smell
+of smoke was in the air.
+
+A group of firemen hurried past carrying hand-extinguishers. The
+lantern-light gleamed wetly upon their black rubber coats and metal
+helmets, from under the brims of which their set faces showed grimly
+white. Far up the track an ambulance gong clanged frantically.
+
+The young man reentered the coach through a window and made his way
+slowly toward the smoking compartment, pushing his lantern before him.
+Reaching the door, he peered over the edge.
+
+Some one was kneeling beside the elderly man, working swiftly by the
+narrow light of an electric pocket lamp. As his eyes became accustomed
+to the dim light of the interior, he realized that the elderly man
+seemed to be resisting the efforts of the other who knelt upon his
+unpinioned arm. From between the lips, which were forced wide apart,
+protruded the ends of a handkerchief--he was gagged!
+
+The hands of the kneeling man worked rapidly, but not in the prying
+loose of the timber which lay across the other's arm. From the side
+pocket of his coat, where it evidently had been hurriedly thrust,
+dangled a watch chain which the young man recognized as belonging to
+the dead reporter.
+
+Suddenly the atrocity of the situation dawned upon him. He had heard of
+such things, of the ghouls who haunt the scenes of great disaster,
+preying upon the bodies of the dead--robbing the helpless.
+
+With a curse he seized the wirebound railway lantern. At the sound the
+man looked up--it was the cigar salesman. The young man swung the
+weapon with all his might. It cut the air in a descending arc, but the
+other avoided the blow and the heavy lantern crashed against the wall
+and went out.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation he dived through the opening and met
+the fiend as he was rising to his feet. Together they rolled among the
+wreckage. While no match for his antagonist in size, the pickpocket was
+tough and wiry and apparently uninjured. He fought viciously, with the
+violence of desperation.
+
+The athlete could hear the voice of the elderly man, who with his free
+hand had torn the gag from his mouth, roaring encouragement. He
+received a stinging blow on the cheek from which the warm blood gushed
+instantly. Knucks, he thought, the cur!
+
+Suddenly his groping hand came in contact with the other's throat just
+above the rim of his collar. Instantly his fingers closed about
+yielding flesh, their ends biting deep between the muscles.
+
+As the clutch tightened the man redoubled his efforts. His body writhed
+and he lashed out furiously with hands and feet. Blows rained upon the
+young man's head but he burrowed close, shielding his face--and always
+his grip tightened--the finger ends drawing closer and closer together.
+
+He was only half-conscious now and the blows ceased to hurt. He
+experienced a sense of falling from a great height. His subconscious
+mind concentrated upon one idea--to maintain his hold. He must grip
+tighter and ever tighter.
+
+The other ceased to struggle and lay limp beneath his body, but of this
+he knew nothing. The muscles of his arms were rigid, the clamped
+fingers, nearly together now, were locked, and all the world was a
+blank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+NEW FRIENDS
+
+
+William Carmody opened his eyes to a sense of drowsy contentment and
+well-being. That the elegantly appointed room over which his glance
+traveled was not his room, disturbed him not at all.
+
+He realized that his head was heavily bandaged and that the
+white-capped, linen-clad young woman at the window was a nurse. He
+watched her fingers move swiftly and surely in the fashioning of a
+small round of needlework.
+
+Her face was turned from him but somehow he knew that she was young
+and, in a dreamy sort of way, hoped she was pretty. He thought of
+attracting her attention but decided to prolong the suspense--the
+chances were against it--so many girls are not.
+
+He closed his eyes and tried to think. The fact that he was in a
+strange room with his head swathed in bandages, and that a young and
+possibly pretty nurse sat at the window, evidently for the purpose of
+ministering to him, suggested a hospital.
+
+Young Carmody had never been in a hospital, but the atmosphere of this
+room did not in any way conform to his rather vague notion of what a
+hospital should be. There was no long row of white beds all just alike,
+nor white walls, nor tiled floors over which people tip-toed to and fro
+and talked in hurried, low-voiced tones; nor was the air laden with the
+smell of drugs which he had always associated in his mind with such
+places. He must ask the nurse.
+
+He was so drowsily comfortable that it was with an effort he opened his
+eyes. A rebellious lock of hair strayed from under her cap as she
+leaned over her work. The sunlight caught it and through the rich
+threads of its length shot tiny glints of gold.
+
+"Ethel!" The name sprang involuntarily from his lips and even as he
+spoke he smiled at the thought. The girl laid aside her work and
+crossed to the bed.
+
+"You called?" she asked, and the man realized vaguely that her voice
+was low and very pleasant.
+
+"Yes--that is, no--I mean, you _are_ pretty, aren't you?" He smiled
+frankly up at her, and somehow the smile was contagious--she even
+blushed slightly.
+
+"You must excuse me this time," he continued, "I must have been
+thinking out loud."
+
+"You seem to be a--well, a rather abrupt young man," she smiled. "But
+you must not try to think--yet. And my name is not Ethel."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. You can't help that, you know--I mean, I think
+your name is very pretty--whatever it is," he floundered. "The truth
+is, I don't seem to be able to say what I do mean. But really I am not
+a fool, although I don't suppose you will ever believe it."
+
+"There, you have talked quite enough. The doctor said you must rest and
+not get excited." She smoothed the covers with little pats of her soft
+hands.
+
+"But what I want to know," he persisted, with a frown of perplexity,
+"is, where am I?"
+
+"You are all right," she soothed. "You are here."
+
+"But why am I here?"
+
+"Because. Now go to sleep like a good boy. The doctor will be here
+before long and he will hold me responsible for your condition."
+
+Oddly enough her answers seemed eminently sufficient and satisfactory,
+and he closed his eyes and slept contentedly.
+
+Hours later he was awakened by the opening of a door.
+
+A tall, dark man, with a brown beard neatly trimmed to a point, entered
+closely followed by an elderly man who carried his arm in a sling, and
+whom young Carmody recognized as his fellow-passenger of the smoker.
+
+At once the whole train of recent events flashed through his brain: the
+wild escapade on Broadway, the scene with his father, his parting with
+Ethel Manton, the wreck, and his fight in the dark--each in its proper
+sequence.
+
+He was very wide awake now and watched the brown-bearded man eagerly as
+he picked up a chart from the table and scrutinized it minutely.
+
+"How is the head?" the man asked, with his fingers on the pulse.
+
+"Fine, doctor. Wouldn't know I had one if it were not for these
+bandages. And your arm, sir?" he added, with a smile of recognition
+toward the elderly man.
+
+"Doing fairly, thank you. It is broken, but our friend here thinks it
+will come along all right."
+
+The doctor, with a nod of approval returned the watch to his pocket and
+was preparing to leave when his patient detained him with a question.
+
+"I have not been able to locate myself. This is not a hospital, is it?"
+
+"Hardly," smiled the other, "although it answers the purpose admirably.
+This is the Brownstone Hotel."
+
+"With rooms at twenty per!" gasped the invalid. "Doctor, some one has
+blundered. After buying my railroad ticket I had just four dollars
+left, and no chance in the world of getting hold of any more until I
+connect with a job."
+
+The men laughed.
+
+"I must be going," said the doctor. "You two can chat for a while.
+Don't tire yourself out, young man, and in a day or two you will be fit
+as a fiddle. Wish I had your physique! That system of yours is a
+natural shock absorber. We run across them once in a long
+while--half-killed one day and back the next hunting for more on the
+rebound."
+
+At the door he paused: "Take care of yourself, eat anything that looks
+good to you, smoke if you want to, talk, read, sleep, and in the
+morning we will let you get up and stretch your legs. Good by!"
+
+"Some doctor, that," laughed the patient. "Does a man good just to hear
+him talk. Most of them go away leaving the patient guessing whether the
+next visit will be from them or the undertaker--and rather hoping for
+the latter. But with this fellow the professional man is swallowed up
+in the human being--he fairly radiates life."
+
+The other smiled as he settled himself into the chair near the bedside,
+vacated by the physician.
+
+"Yes, he is a great doctor. Stands well toward the head of his
+profession. We have no finer in the Northwest." Young Carmody's face
+clouded.
+
+"But how am I to pay for all this? It is all well enough for you to
+laugh, but to me it is a serious matter. I----"
+
+"Young man, you are my guest. I don't know who you are, nor where you
+came from, but, by gad, I know a man when I see one! From the time you
+sat in that game to save that poor young fool from being fleeced until
+you dove into that black hole and throttled that skunk----"
+
+"They caught him, did they?"
+
+"Caught him! They had to pry him loose! You have got the grip of the
+devil himself. The police surgeon told me they would have to put a
+whole new set of plumbing in his throat. Said he wouldn't have believed
+that any living thing, short of a gorilla, could have clamped down that
+hard with one hand.
+
+"And there I had to lie pinned down and watch him go through a dead
+man's pockets--it was our friend the reporter. And then he turned
+around and calmly went through mine. Gad! If I'd had a gun! All the
+time he kept up a run of talk, joking about the wreck and the easy
+pickings it gave him.
+
+"He was disappointed when he failed to find you--said he owed you
+something for gumming his game. Well, he found you all right--and when
+he gets out of the hospital he is slated for twenty years in Joliet."
+The man paused and glanced at his watch.
+
+"Bless my soul! It is after two o'clock! We will have luncheon served
+here."
+
+"It is a peculiar situation," mused the invalid. "The last thing I
+remember is being in the thick of a railroad wreck, and here I wake up
+in bed, with a trained nurse in the room, to find myself the guest of a
+man whose name I do not even know."
+
+"Appleton--H. D. Appleton, of Minneapolis. I am a lumberman--just
+returning from the National Lumberman's Convention in Buffalo. And
+yours?"
+
+He was interrupted by a tap at the door and a couple of waiters entered
+bearing trays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BILL GETS A JOB
+
+
+After luncheon, over cigars, the conversation again became personal.
+Appleton regarded the younger man thoughtfully.
+
+"You spoke of being temporarily out of funds. Allow me to loan you what
+you require."
+
+"Thank you, sir, but I could not think of it. I am already deeply
+indebted to you. If it were only a temporary embarrassment I wouldn't
+mind. But I have no definite plans. I must find work, and I freely
+confess I don't know exactly how to go about it. It might be a long
+time before I could repay the loan. Then, too, if a man is broke he
+will tackle the first job that comes along, whereas if he had money in
+his pocket he would be tempted to wait for something better, no matter
+what was offered."
+
+"If you work it right you can easily get a couple of thousand out of
+the railroad company--damages, you know."
+
+The younger man looked up quickly. "Not me," he smiled. "I have not
+sustained any loss to speak of. That crack on the head when the coach
+tipped over didn't even knock me out. And as for the pummeling I got
+afterward with the knucks--that was my own lookout--the railroad
+company is not to blame for that. No. Getting something for nothing is
+not playing the game--it savors too strongly of the methods of our
+friend the pickpocket."
+
+As he talked the elder man subjected him to a careful scrutiny. He
+noted the deep-set, unwavering eyes, the smiling lips, and the firm,
+square set of the jaw.
+
+"So you are really in earnest about going to work?"
+
+"In earnest! Mr. Appleton, you have just witnessed a fair demonstration
+of the demands of my appetite," with a nod toward the array of empty
+dishes. "I am subject to those attacks on an average of three times a
+day. In my pocket are just four one-dollar bills. Can you guess the
+answer?"
+
+The lumberman smiled.
+
+"What kind of position were you thinking of? What is your business?"
+
+"Haven't any. And I am not thinking of a position--what I want is a
+_job_."
+
+"Know anything about lumber?"
+
+"No."
+
+The two smoked in silence while the waiters removed the remains of the
+luncheon. When the door closed behind them the lumberman spoke. He
+dropped the conversational tone and his words cut crisp and to the
+point:
+
+"Young man, I can use you. If you are foot-loose and are willing to
+work, I will give you your chance. I am going to put it up to you
+straight and let you decide for yourself.
+
+"I can use you in my office at a very fair salary. In two or three
+years you will, in all probability, become a valuable clerk--later, a
+lumber salesman at a good salary and better commissions.
+
+"Your duties will not be strenuous, and as you enlarge your
+acquaintance you will naturally assume the social position to which you
+are entitled.
+
+"Or I can use you in the woods. Send you into a logging camp to learn
+the business where it starts. Up there the work is not easy. Instead of
+a salary you will receive wages--and you will earn them--every cent of
+them. There are no snap jobs in a logging camp. Everybody, from the
+boss down, works--and works hard. Instead of roast lamb and green peas
+you will eat salt pork and baked beans.
+
+"You will be called a lumberjack--a social pariah. Your associates will
+be big men--some good and some bad--bad as they make them--and all
+rough. Good and bad, they would rather fight than eat, and they would
+rather watch others fight than fight.
+
+"In summer you can loaf and blow in your wages, or you can go into the
+mills and learn how lumber is made--learn to tell at a glance whether a
+log will saw to the best profit into bridge timber or lath.
+
+"It is no sinecure--the life of the logging camp. A hundred times you
+will be called upon to face battle, murder, and sudden death, and it
+will be up to you to make good.
+
+"In the office I have clerks who will be found at the same desk twenty
+years from now. And in the woods I have hundreds of swampers, skidders,
+and sawyers who will always be swampers, skidders and sawyers. I have
+camp bosses who will always be camp bosses, and a few who will become
+lumbermen.
+
+"But the man who comes up through that school is the man who learns the
+game--the man who eventually will sit behind locked doors and talk in
+millions, while the office-made salesman is out on the road dickering
+in car-loads."
+
+He paused and relighted his cigar.
+
+"And you are offering me the choice of these jobs?"
+
+"Just so. Take your time. Think it over carefully and give me your
+answer in the morning."
+
+"I have already made up my mind. If it is just the same to you I will
+go to the woods. I need the exercise," he grinned.
+
+"By the way, you have not told me your name."
+
+"Bill," he answered, and watched the blue smoke curl upward from the
+end of his cigar.
+
+"Bill what?" Appleton regarded him through narrowing lids.
+
+"Bill," he repeated. "Just Bill, for the present--and no references.
+Sometime--if I make good, perhaps--but surely Bill ought to be name
+enough for a lumberjack."
+
+"Well, Bill, you are hired! Most men would call me a fool! Maybe I
+am--but it's got to be proven. I came up through the woods myself and I
+know men. It is my business to know men. A name is nothing to me--nor
+references. Both are easy to get. I hire men--not names. And as for
+references--I don't pay for past performances. It is up to you to make
+good!
+
+"I like your eyes. There is honesty in those eyes--and purpose. Your
+mother's eyes, I should say." The young man turned his face away and
+the blood surged upward, reddening the skin below the white bandages.
+
+Thoughts of his mother crowded his brain--the beautiful, gentle
+girl-mother, who used to snatch him up and hold him close--way back in
+the curly-locks days.
+
+He remembered her eyes--deep, soft blue eyes that shone bright and
+mysterious with love for the little boy--so often such a bad,
+self-willed little boy--and he thought of the hurt in those eyes. It
+was his very worst punishment in the long ago--to read the pain and
+sorrow in those eyes.
+
+"No, no, no!" he murmured. "Not her eyes--not mother's! Oh, I am glad
+that she did not live to know--" He stopped abruptly and faced the
+other, speaking quietly:
+
+"Mr. Appleton, I am not a criminal--not a fugitive from justice--as you
+may have guessed. But I have been an--an awful fool!" The older man
+arose and extended his hand:
+
+"Good-by, Bill. You better sleep now. I will see you in the morning."
+
+As the door closed behind Appleton, the pleasant-voiced nurse appeared
+at the bedside. She straightened the covers, patted the pillows into
+shape, and fed the patient medicine out of a spoon. She hesitated when
+she finished and smiled down at him.
+
+"Would you like to send any messages," she asked--"telegrams, to let
+your people know you are safe?"
+
+Young Carmody returned the smile. The nurse looked into his face and
+knew that behind the smile was sadness rather than mirth.
+
+"No," he said; "there is no one to tell." She leaned over and laid soft
+fingers on his bandaged brow.
+
+"Isn't--isn't there a real Ethel--somewhere?" He did not resent the
+question of the sweet-faced nurse.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "there _is_ a real Ethel--but she would not care.
+Nobody cares."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+NORTHWARD, HO!
+
+
+Buck Moncrossen was a big man with a shrunken, maggoty soul, and no
+conscience.
+
+He had learned logging as his horses learned it--by repetition of
+unreasoning routine, and after fifteen years' experience in the woods
+Appleton had made him a camp boss.
+
+His camps varied from year to year in no slightest detail. He made no
+suggestions for facilitating or systematizing the work, nor would he
+listen to any. He roared mightily at the substitution of horses for
+oxen; he openly scoffed at donkey engines, and would have none of them.
+
+During his years as a sawyer, by the very brute strength and doggedness
+of him, he had established new records for laying down timber. And now,
+as boss, he bullied the sawyers who could not equal those records--and
+hated those who could.
+
+Arbitrary, jealous, malignant, he ruled his camps with the bluff and
+bluster of the born coward.
+
+Among the lumber-jacks, he was known and hated as a hard driver of men
+and a savage fighter. In the quick, brutish fights of the camps, men
+went down under the smashing blows of his huge fists as they would go
+down to the swing of a derrick-boom, and, once down, would be jumped
+upon with calked boots and spiked into submission.
+
+It was told in the woods that whisky flowed unchallenged in Buck
+Moncrossen's camps. His crews were known as hard crews; they "hired out
+for tough hands, and it was up to them to play their string out."
+
+At the first cry of "gillon" (stormy days when the crews cannot work)
+flat flasks and round black bottles circulated freely in the
+bunk-house, and the day started, before breakfast, in a wild orgy of
+rough horse-play, poker, and profanity.
+
+But woe betide the man who allowed overindulgence to interfere with the
+morrow's work. Evil things were whispered of Moncrossen's man-handling
+of "hold-overs."
+
+In the office, back in Minneapolis, if these things were known they
+were winked at. For Moncrossen was a boss who "got out the logs," and
+the details of his discipline were unquestioned.
+
+On the Appleton holdings along Blood River the pine stood tall and
+straight and uncut.
+
+In the years of plenty--those wasteful years of frenzied logging, when
+white pine lumber brought from twelve to twenty dollars a thousand and
+rival concerns were laying down only the choicest of logs--Appleton's
+crews were ordered to clean up as they went.
+
+Toothpick logging it was called then, and H. D. Appleton was
+contemptuously referred to as "the toothpicker."
+
+Twenty years later, with the market clamoring for white pine at any
+price, Appleton was selling white pine, while in the denuded forest the
+crews of his rivals were getting out cull timber and Norway.
+
+And this fall Appleton sent Buck Moncrossen into the Blood River
+country with orders to put ten million feet of logs into the river by
+spring.
+
+So it was that the few remaining inhabitants of Hilarity were aroused
+from their habitual apathy one early fall evening by the shrill shrieks
+of an engine whistle as Moncrossen's ten-car train, carrying crew and
+supplies for the new camp, came to a stop at the rusty switch. There
+was something reminiscent in this whistle-sound. It came as a voice
+from the past.
+
+Time was, some eight or ten years before, when the old No. 9 and her
+companion engine, No. 11, whistled daily and importantly into Hilarity,
+pushing long strings of "flats" onto the spurs; and then whistled out
+again with each car groaning and creaking under its towering pyramid of
+logs.
+
+But that was in the days of Hilarity's prosperity--in the days when the
+little town was the chief loading point for two thousand square miles
+of timber.
+
+It had been a live town then--work and wages and the spirit to
+spend--quick, hot life, and quick, cold death danced hand in hand to
+the clink of glasses.
+
+Everything ran wide open, and all night long rough men sinned abysmally
+in their hell-envied play, and, crowding the saloons, laughed and
+fought and drank red liquor in front of long pine bars, where the
+rattle of chips and the click of pool-balls, mingled with lurid
+profanity, floated out through the open doors and blended with the
+incessant tintinnabulation of the dance-hall pianos.
+
+These were the days of Hilarity's prosperity, when twenty train-loads
+of logs were jerked from her spurs by day, and the nights rang loud
+with false laughter.
+
+A vanished prosperity--for now the little town stood all but deserted
+in its clearing, with the encircling hills denuded of all vegetation
+save a tangle of underbrush and a straggling growth of stunted jack
+pine.
+
+Even the "pig-iron loggers"--the hardwood men--had gleaned the last
+stick from the ridges, and Hilarity had become but a name on the map.
+
+Only those remained who were old or crippled, and a few--a very
+few--who had undertaken to grub out tiny farms among the stumps.
+
+Each evening these forlorn remnants were wont to forsake their
+stolid-faced wives and yammering offspring and pick their way through
+the solitary stump-dotted street, past windowless, deserted buildings
+which were the saloons and dance-halls of better days, to foregather
+around the huge stove in the rear of Hod Burrage's general store, which
+was decrepit Hilarity's sole remaining enterprise, and there to brag
+and maunder over the dead town's former glory.
+
+The fact that certain of Hod's jugs never tilted to the filling of the
+vinegar bottles or molasses pails of the women, not only served to
+insure unflagging attendance, but the sale of their contents afforded
+the storekeeper a small but steady income which more than offset any
+loss incident to the preoccupied inroads upon his cracker barrel.
+
+The sound of the once familiar whistle brought the men tumbling from
+Burrage's door, while up and down the deserted street aproned forms
+stood framed in the doorways, beflanked by tousled heads which gazed
+wonder-eyed from behind tight-gripped skirts.
+
+Not a person in town, except the very newest citizens, and they were
+too young to care--for nobody ever came to Hilarity except by the stork
+route--but recognized old No. 9's whistle.
+
+Strange, almost apologetic, it sounded after its years of silence; not
+at all like the throaty bellow of derision with which the long,
+vestibuled coast trains thundered through the forsaken village.
+
+A brakeman leaped from the cab and ran ahead. Stooping, he cursed the
+corroded lock of the unused switch which creaked and jarred to the pull
+of the lever as old No. 9 headed wheezily onto the rust-eaten rails of
+the rotting spur.
+
+An hour later she puffed noisily away, leaving Moncrossen's crew
+encamped in the deserted cabins and dilapidated saloons of the worn-out
+town.
+
+Moncrossen, by making use of old tote-roads, saved about forty of the
+eighty miles of road building which lay between Hilarity and the Blood
+River.
+
+Toward the end of October the work was completed, the camp buildings
+erected, and a brush and log dam thrown across the river at the narrows
+of a white water rapid.
+
+Swampers and axe-men set to work building skidways and cross-hauls, and
+the banks of the river were cleared for the roll-ways. The ground was
+still bare of snow, but the sawyers were "laying them down," and the
+logs were banked at the skidways.
+
+Then one morning the snow came.
+
+Quietly it fell, in big, downy flakes that floated lazily to earth from
+the even gray of the cloud-spread sky, tracing aimless, zigzag patterns
+against the dark green background of the pines, and covering the brown
+needles of the forest floor and the torn mold of the skidways with a
+soft blanket of white.
+
+The men sprang eagerly to their work--heartened by the feel of the
+snow. The tingling air was filled with familiar man-sounds--the
+resonant stroke of axes, and the long crash of falling trees, the
+metallic rattle of chains, the harsh rasp of saws, and the good-natured
+calls of men in rude banter; sounds that rang little and thin through
+the mighty silence of the forest.
+
+Gradually the flakes hardened and the zigzag patterns resolved
+themselves into long, threadlike lines which slanted earthward with a
+soft, hissing sound.
+
+Fast it fell, and faster, until the background disappeared, and all the
+world was a swift-moving riot of white.
+
+It was a real snow now--a snow of value which buried the soft blanket
+of the feathery flakes under a stable covering which would pack hard
+under the heavy runners of the wide log sleds.
+
+It lodged in thick masses in the trees whose limbs bent under the
+weight, and the woods rang to the cries of the sawyers when the
+tottering of a mighty pine sent a small avalanche hurtling through the
+lower branches, half-burying them in its white smother.
+
+As the early darkness of the North country settled about them the men
+plowed heavily to the bunk-house through a foot and a half of
+fresh-fallen snow--and still it snowed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILL HITS THE TRAIL
+
+
+In a long-abandoned shack midway between Moncrossen's Blood River camp
+and Hilarity, Bill Carmody hugged close the rusty, broken stove.
+
+All day he had tramped northward, guided through the maze of abandoned
+roads by the frozen ruts of Moncrossen's tote wagons, and it was long
+after dark when he camped in the northernmost of the old shacks with
+civilization, as represented by Hilarity's deserted buildings and the
+jug-tilting, barrel-head conclave of Hod Burrage's store, forty miles
+to the southward.
+
+It had been a hard day--this first day of his new life in the
+Northland. And now, foot-sore, dog-tired, and dispirited, he sat close
+and fed sticks to his guttering fire which burned sullenly and flared
+red for want of draft.
+
+The chinking had long since fallen from between the logs and the night
+wind whipped the smoke in stinging volleys from gaping holes in the
+rust-eaten jacket of the dilapidated air-tight.
+
+Tears streamed from the man's smoke-tortured eyes, every muscle of his
+body ached horribly from the unaccustomed trail-strain, and his feet,
+unused to the coarse woolen socks beneath heavy boots, were galled and
+blistered until the skin hung in rolls from the edges of raw scalds.
+
+He removed his foot-gear and the feel of the cold wind was good to his
+burning feet. He scowled resentfully at the galling newness of his
+high-laced boots and with a tentative finger explored his hurts.
+
+Unbuckling his pack, he drew forth the ready prepared food with which
+he had supplied himself at the store. The pack had seemed trifling when
+he swung lightly into the trail that morning, but twelve hours later,
+when he stumbled painfully into the disused shack, it had borne upon
+his aching shoulders as the burden of Atlas.
+
+Hungry as he was, he glared disgustedly at the flaunting label of the
+salmon can and the unappetizing loaf of coarse bread dried hard, rather
+than baked, from sodden dough, by Hod Burrage's slovenly spouse.
+
+And as he glared he pondered the words of advice offered by the old man
+with the twisted leg who sat upon Burrage's counter and punctuated his
+remarks with quick, jerky stabs of his stout, home-made crutch.
+
+"Tha' cann't fish ben't no good f'r trail grub, son. Ye're a greener,
+you be. Better ye lay in what'll stay by ye--a bit o' bacon, like, or
+some bologny--an' a little tin coffee-pot yonder.
+
+"Ye'll be thinkin' o' steppin' out the door wi' ye're new boots an'
+ye're pack an' trippin' up to Blood River in maybe it's two walks, wi'
+naught in ye're belly but a can o' cold fish an' a stun weight o' Mary
+Burrage's bread, which there ain't no more raisin' into it nor a
+toggle-chain.
+
+"'Tis plain ye're a greener, son; but take an old fool's advice an' get
+ye a pair o' the shoe-packs yonder to spell off the boots. Bran' new,
+they be, an' they'll gald ye're feet till ye'll be walkin' ankle-deep
+in hell again' night. F'r Oi'll be tellin' ye Blood River lays a fine
+two walks f'r a _good_ man, an' his boots broke in to the wear."
+
+Now Bill Carmody was, by environment, undemocratic, and he resented
+being called a greener. Also the emphasis which old Daddy Dunnigan had
+placed upon the words "good man," in evident contrast to himself,
+rankled.
+
+How he wished, as he sat in the cold discomfort of the shack, that he
+had heeded the timely and well-meant advice. His was not an arrogant
+nature, nor a surly--but the change in his environment had been
+painfully abrupt. All his life he had chosen for companions men whom he
+looked upon as his social equals, and he knew no others except as paid
+hirelings to do his bidding. And all his life money had removed from
+his pathway the physical discomforts incident to existence.
+
+But all this was in the past. Unconsciously he was learning a lesson
+and this first lesson would be hard--but very thorough, and the next
+time he met Daddy Dunnigan he would take him by the hand. For here was
+a man--a good man--in the making. But a man new to his surroundings. A
+man who would learn hard--but quickly--and who would fight hard against
+the very conditions which were to make him.
+
+His perspective must first be broken on the wheel of experience, that
+he might know human nature, and the relative worth of men. His
+unplastic nature would one day be his chief bulwark; as now, it was his
+chief stumbling block. For in his chosen life-work he must take
+men--many men--rough men--of diverse codes and warring creeds, and with
+them build an efficient unit for the conquering of nature in her own
+fastnesses. And this thing requires not only knowledge and strength,
+but courage, and the will to do or die.
+
+Alighting from the caboose of the local freight train on the previous
+evening, he entered Hod Burrage's door as he had entered the doors of
+trades-places all his life. To him, Hod Burrage was not a personality,
+but a menial existing for the sole purpose of waiting upon and
+attending to the wants of him, Bill Carmody. The others--the old men,
+and the crippled ones, and the hard-handed grubbers of stumps, who sat
+about in faded mackinaws and patched overalls--he regarded not at all.
+
+He deposited his pack-sack on the floor where its canvas sides,
+outbulging with blankets and duffel, fairly shrieked their newness.
+
+After some minutes of silence--a silence neither friendly nor hostile,
+during which Bill was conscious that all eyes were turned upon him in
+frank curiosity, he spoke--and in speaking, inadvertently antagonized
+the entire male population of Hilarity. For in his speech was no word
+of greeting.
+
+He addressed no one in particular, but called peremptorily, and with a
+trace of irritation, for a salesman.
+
+Now, Hod Burrage was anything but a salesman. His goods either sold
+themselves or remained on their shelves, and to Mr. Burrage it was a
+matter of supreme indifference which. He was wont to remark to
+hesitating or undecided customers that "if folks didn't know what they
+wanted when they come into the store, they better keep away till they
+find out."
+
+So, in answer to the newcomer's demand, Hod shifted his quid and, with
+exasperating deliberation, spat in the direction of a sawdust-filled
+box near which the other was standing.
+
+Without rising from his seat in the one undamaged chair, he answered:
+"If it's the storekeeper you mean, I'm him." Then, as an after-thought.
+"Was they somethin' you wanted?"
+
+Bill resented the implied rebuke in the storekeeper's words even more
+than he resented the bombardment of tobacco juice which barely missed
+his boots. Take it all in all he was having a rather rough time of it.
+
+The railway people had refused to stop their fast train at Hilarity for
+his special benefit, and he had been compelled to get off at the
+nearest division point, some forty miles to the westward, and continue
+his journey in the evil-smelling caboose of the local freight-train
+which crawled jerkily over the rails, and stopped to shunt cars at
+every siding.
+
+Nearly the whole day had been consumed for the trip, during which time
+he had sat in the stuffy, superheated car, whose foul air reeked of
+cheap tobacco and drying garments, and listened to the guffaws of the
+train-crew as they regaled each other with vile stories and long
+accounts of revolting personal experiences among the dives of cities.
+
+So now, tired, grimy, and with his head aching dully from the long
+breathing of foul air, he was in no humor for comprehensive amiability.
+
+He made his few purchases and replied curtly to the questions of the
+storekeeper. It is doubtful if he would have replied at all but for the
+fact that he must have information in regard to the whereabouts of
+Moncrossen's Blood River camp.
+
+There was a roar of merriment, which he answered with a scowl, when he
+inquired the location of the hotel.
+
+"Jest help yourself, stranger," said Burrage, with a generous sweep of
+the arm which included all Hilarity not within the confines of the
+room. "They's about fifty buildin's, cabins, an' shacks along the
+street, an' you can take your pick. Rent's the cheapest thing they is
+in Hilarity--jest kick out the rats an' spread your blankets."
+
+It was when Bill stooped to add the gaudy-labeled cans to his pack that
+Daddy Dunnigan, of the twisted leg, volunteered the bit of advice that
+fell upon his ears unheeded.
+
+He was openly resentful now, having detected certain smiles, winks, and
+nudgings with which the assembled men called each other's attention to
+various details of his clothing and pack.
+
+During the storekeeper's temporary cessation of vigilance while waiting
+upon his customer, the others had seized the opportunity to refresh
+themselves at his expense.
+
+A thick, heavy tumbler, so cloudy and begrimed as to be almost opaque,
+was filled from a large jug placed conveniently upon a sack of
+potatoes, and passed from one to the other, each absorbing little or
+much as the thirst was upon him, and passing it on to his neighbor.
+
+Daddy Dunnigan offered it to Bill along with the advice; but the latter
+ungraciously refused and, turning abruptly away, shouldered his pack
+and proceeded to select his "hotel."
+
+"Wonder who's he?" remarked Hod Burrage as he lazily resumed his seat.
+
+"Too damned upity to suit me!" vociferated Creed, Hilarity's
+self-alleged bad man, with a fierce exhalation that dislodged a thin
+volley of cracker-crumbs from his overhanging mustache. "A heap too
+damned upity for this camp, says I."
+
+He shook a hairy fist menacingly toward the door through which the man
+had departed. "It's lucky for him it was old Daddy there 'stead of me
+he wouldn't drink with or I'd of went to the floor with him an' teached
+him his manners."
+
+"Naw ye wouldn't, Creed," said the old man. "Ye'd done jest loike ye
+done--set there atop yer barr'l an' blinked. An' when he'd went out
+ye'd blowed an' bragged an' blustered, an' then fizzled out like a wet
+fuse. 'Stead of which Oi predic' that the young feller's a real
+man--once he gets strung out. Anyways, Oi bet he does his foightin'
+whiles the other feller's there 'stead of settin' 'round an' snortin'
+folks' whisky full o' cracker-crumbs."
+
+He gazed ruefully into his half-filled glass.
+
+"Throw it out, Daddy, an' have one on me," offered Burrage, reaching
+for the jug.
+
+With a sly wink toward the others, the old man drained the glass at a
+gulp and passed it innocently to be refilled.
+
+"I'll let him go this time," rumbled Creed with a frown. "He's headin'
+for Buck Moncrossen's camp--Moncrossen'll break him!"
+
+"Or he'll break Moncrossen!" interrupted Daddy, bringing his crutch
+down upon the floor. "The one camp'll not hold the two o' thim f'r
+long. Heed ye now, Oi predic' there'll be hell a poppin' on Blood
+River, an' be this time a year fr' now one o' thim two'll be broke f'r
+good an' all, an', not to mention no names, it won't be yon stranger."
+
+The strong liquor had loosened the tongue of the ordinarily silent old
+man and he continued:
+
+"Oi catched his eye fair; an' 'tis the eye of a foightin' man--an eye,
+the loike o' which Oi ain't seen since Oi looked f'r the last time in
+the dead eyes o' Captain Fronte McKim, in the second outbreak o' the
+wild Boh, Hira Kal, in the brown hills o' the Punjab."
+
+The men listened expectantly, for when the liquor was right the old man
+could tell of strange wars in far climes.
+
+"One night the little hillmen sneaked up on Captain Barkley's flyin'
+battery. They left his head an' his men's stickin' atop a row o' stakes
+an' dragged the guns to a hilltop overlookin' the pass. An' in the
+mornin' they unlimbered, sweepin' our left wing.
+
+"Fronte McKim was captain o' the Lights an' Oi was a corp'l. All that
+mornin' the Boh kep' pepperin' away, wi' 'Miss Fanny,' the colonel he
+was, an' his parade-groun' staff o' book sogers, wi' tables o' figgers
+an' the book o' rules an' maps an' a pair o' dividers, tryin' to figger
+out how to chase a bad Boh offen a hilltop wi'out clim'in' the same.
+
+"An' he lived a long time after, did Miss Fanny, to die in his bed o'
+some nice, fine disease, wi' his fambly an' his Scotch an' sody
+gathered about him.
+
+"An' he was put in a foine, big coffin wi' a bran' new flag spread atop
+to keep off the dust, an' carried back to Englan' in a war-ship, wi'
+the harbor guns firin' salutes--the whiles Fronte McKim lays back among
+the hills o' Punjab, wropped in his powder-burnt, shot-tore blanket.
+
+"The hillmen an' their women an' the shiny hill kids give wide berth in
+passin', an' make low salaams to the grave o' the terrible fightin'
+_sahib_ that put the fear o' God in the heart o' the wild Boh. An' it's
+as Captain Fronte would wished--Oi know'd um well.
+
+"But, as Oi was sayin', the whiles Miss Fanny was tryin'--by nine times
+six is forty-seven an' traject'ry an' muzzle v'locity an' fours right
+an' holler squares--to wish the Boh offen the hilltop so he could march
+us through the pass accordin' to Hoyle, Fronte McKim was off ahead
+among the rocks, layin' on his belly behint a ant-hill studyin' the
+hillside through his spyglass.
+
+"Well, 'long 'bout noon he come gallopin' up, wi' his big black horse
+all a lather, to where we was layin' in the scrub cursin' the flies an'
+the department an' the outbreaks o' Bohs.
+
+"'Come on, boys!' he hollers, wi' the glitter in his eye; 'Oi found the
+way! All together now, an' we'll see the top o' yon hill or we'll see
+hell this day!'
+
+"Wi' that he tears loose a yell 'twould strike a chill to the heart o'
+an iceberg, an' wheels his horse into the open--an' us in the saddle
+an' follerin', all yellin' like a hellful o' devils turned loose for
+recess."
+
+The old man shifted his crutch and sipped at his liquor.
+
+"Most o' us seen the top o' the hill," he resumed, "an' the brown
+hillmen, what of 'em wasn't layin' limp by the guns, a skitterin'
+through the scrub after a Boh who'd took off on a stray cavalry horse.
+
+"But they was a many o' us as didn't--layin' sprawled among the rocks
+o' the bare hillside, an' their horses runnin' wild to keep up wi' the
+charge. We found Captain Fronte wi' his whole front blow'd out by a
+shell an' his shoulders kind o' tumbled in where his lungs
+belonged--but thim eyes was lookin' straight at the hilltop.
+
+"An' Oi looked in 'em long--for Oi loved him--an' was glad. 'Cause Oi
+know'd Captain Fronte McKim was seein' hell--an' enjoyin' it."
+
+He set down the empty glass and favored Creed with a cold stare: "An'
+his eyes is like _that_--the stranger's--an' yours ain't, nor
+Moncrossen's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TEST
+
+
+With only one-half of his journey behind him and the chill night-wind
+whipping through the unchinked crevices of the deserted shack; with the
+prospect of an unsavory supper of soggy sock-eye and a lump of frozen
+bread, Bill Carmody fervently wished himself elsewhere.
+
+His mind lingered upon the long row of squat, fat-footed shoe-packs
+which the old man had indicated with his gnarled crutch. How good they
+would feel after the grinding newness of his boots! And coffee--he
+could see the row of tin pots hanging from their wires, and the long,
+flat slabs of bacon suspended from the roof-logs of the store.
+
+He found himself, for the first time in his life, absolutely dependent
+upon his own resources. He cut the top from a can of salmon and thawed
+out his bread on the top of the dirty stove. He had no cup, so he used
+the salmon-can, limping in stockinged feet to the spring near the door,
+whose black waters splashed coldly in a tiny rivulet that found its way
+under the frozen surface of a small creek. The water was clear and
+cold, but tasted disgustingly fishy from its contact with the can.
+
+As he entered the shack and closed the sagging door, his glance was
+arrested by an object half concealed in the cobwebbed niche between the
+lintel and the sloping roof-logs--an object that gleamed shiny and
+black in the dull play of the firelight. He reached up and withdrew
+from its hiding-place a round quart bottle, across whose top was pasted
+a familiar green stamp which proclaimed that the contents had been
+bottled in bond.
+
+He carried it to the fire and with the sleeve of his mackinaw removed
+the accumulated dust from the label. "Old Morden Rye," he read aloud,
+holding it close to the firelight. And as he read his thoughts flew
+backward to past delights. Here was an old friend come to cheer him in
+the wilderness.
+
+He was no longer cold nor hungry, and before his eyes danced the
+bright, white lights of the man-made night of Broadway. His shoulders
+straightened and the sparkle came into his eyes. Forgotten was his
+determination to make good, and the future was a remote thing of no
+present moment nor concern. Once again he was Broadway Bill, the sport!
+
+Carefully and deliberately he broke the seal and removed the
+cork-rimmed glass stopper, which he flung to a far corner of the
+room--for that was Bill's way--to throw away the cork. There was
+nothing small in his make-up; and for why is whisky, but to drink while
+it lasts? And one cannot drink through a cork-rimmed stopper. So he
+threw it away.
+
+Only that day as he had laboriously stepped off the long miles he had
+thought with virtuous complacence of the completeness of his
+reformation.
+
+He thought how he had refused to drink with Daddy Dunnigan from the
+smeared and cloudy glass half-filled with the raw, rank liquor, across
+the surface of which had trailed the tobacco-stained mustaches of the
+half-dozen unkempt men.
+
+A week before he had refused to drink good whisky with Appleton--but
+that was amid surroundings against which he had fortified himself;
+surroundings made familiar by a little veneered table in the corner of
+the tile-floored bar of a well-known hotel, and while the spirit of his
+determination to quit was strong upon him. Besides, it was good policy.
+
+Therefore, he ordered ginger ale; but Appleton drank whisky and noted
+that the other eyed the liquor as the little beads rose to the top, and
+that as he looked he unconsciously moistened his lips with his
+tongue--just that little thing--as he looked at the whisky in
+Appleton's glass. By that swift movement Appleton understood, for he
+knew men--it was his business to know men--and then and there he
+decided to send Bill to Moncrossen's camp, where it was whispered
+whisky flowed freely.
+
+Appleton had no son, and he felt strangely drawn toward the young man
+whose eyes had held him from the time of their first meeting. But he
+must prove his worth, and the test should be hard--and very thorough.
+
+Appleton realized that to place him in any one of the other camps,
+where the ban was on whisky, and where each smuggled bottle was
+ferreted out and smashed, would be no test. It is no credit to a man to
+refrain from whisky where no whisky is.
+
+But place a man who has created an appetite for whisky among men who
+drink daily and openly, and enjoy it; who urge and encourage him to do
+likewise; where whisky is continually before his eyes, and the rich
+bouquet of it in his nostrils, and that _is_ a test.
+
+Appleton knew this, and knowing, he sent Bill to Moncrossen, and smiled
+as he bet with himself on the outcome. But there is one other test--the
+supreme test of all, of which even Appleton did not know.
+
+Place this same man alone, tired out, hungry, thirsty, and cold, with
+every muscle of his body crying its protest of aches against the
+overstrain of a long day's work; surround him with every attribute of
+physical discomfort; with the future stretching away in a dull gray
+vista of uncertainty, and the memory strong upon him that the girl--the
+one girl in all the world--has ceased to believe in him--has ceased to
+care; add to this the recollection of good times gone--times when good
+liquor flowed freely among good fellows, and at this particular
+psychological moment let him come suddenly and unexpectedly upon a
+bottle of whisky--good whisky, of a brand of which he has always
+approved--_that_ is the acid test--and in writing this I know whereof I
+write.
+
+And that is why Bill Carmody carefully and deliberately broke the seal
+and threw the cork away, and shook the bottle gently, and breathed deep
+of its fragrance, and smiled in anticipation as the little beads flew
+upward.
+
+The fire had died down, and he set the bottle on the floor beside him
+and reached for the firewood. As he did so a long, sealed envelope, to
+the outside of which was tightly bound a photograph, fell to the floor
+from the inner pocket of his mackinaw.
+
+As he stooped to recover it his eyes encountered those of the picture
+gazing upward through the half-light. A flickering tongue of flame
+flared brightly for a moment and illumined the features, bringing out
+their expression with startling distinctness.
+
+It was the face of the girl. The flame died out, leaving the pictured
+likeness half concealed in the soft semi-darkness of the dying embers.
+
+It seemed hours that the man sat motionless, staring into the upturned
+eyes--those eyes into which he had so often gazed, but which were now
+lost to him forever. And as he looked, other thoughts crowded his
+brain; thoughts of his father, and the scorn of their parting; thoughts
+of the girl, of her words, and of his own boast: "_I_ can beat the
+game! And I will beat it--now!... And some day you will know."
+
+His anger rose against the man whose own flesh and blood he was, who
+had driven him from home with words of bitter sarcasm, and against the
+girl and her sneering repudiation of him. He leaped to his feet and
+shook a clenched fist to the southward:
+
+"I told you I would make good!" he roared, "and, by God, I will! I am a
+McKim--do you hear? I am a McKim--and I shall make good!"
+
+He reached for the bottle and placed it beside him on the pine table.
+He did not pour out the whisky, for he did not fear it--only if he
+drank it need he fear.
+
+Just one little drink, and he was lost--and he knew this. And now he
+knew that he would never take that drink--and he looked at the bottle
+and laughed--laughed as the girl had laughed when she sent him from her
+forever.
+
+"It's no go, old boy," he smiled, apostrophizing John Barleycorn. "I
+served you long--and well. But I quit. You would not believe that I
+quit, and came out here to get me. And you almost got me. Almost, but
+not quite, John, for I have quit for good and all. We can still be
+friends, only now I am the master and you are the servant, and to start
+out with, I am going to pour half of you over my blistered feet."
+
+He recovered the packet from the floor and looked long at the picture.
+"And some day you will know," he repeated, as he returned it to his
+pocket.
+
+Thus did the lonely girl in a far distant city unconsciously win a
+silent victory for the man she loved--and who loved her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ON THE TOTE-ROAD
+
+
+Very early in the morning on the day of the storm which had been
+welcomed by the lumber-jacks of the Blood River camp, old Wabishke
+started over his trap-line.
+
+The air was heavy with the promise of snow, and one by one the Indian
+took up his traps and hung them in saplings that they might not be
+buried.
+
+After the storm, with the Northland lying silent under its mantle of
+white, and the comings and goings of the fur-bearers recorded in
+patterns of curious tracery, Wabishke would again fare forth upon the
+trap-line.
+
+With wise eyes and the cunning of long practice, he would read the sign
+in the snow, and by means of craftily concealed iron jaws and innocent
+appearing deadfalls, renew with increased confidence in his "winter
+set," the world-old battle of skill against instinct.
+
+On the crest of a low ridge at the edge of the old chopping where
+Moncrossen's new Blood River tote-road made a narrow lane in the
+forest, the Indian paused.
+
+In the stump-dotted clearing, indistinct in the sullen dimness of the
+overcast dawn, rotted the buildings of the abandoned log-camp. From one
+of these smoke rose. Wabishke decided to investigate, for in the
+Northland no smallest detail may pass unaccounted for. Swiftly he
+descended the ridge and, gliding silently into the aftergrowth of
+spindling saplings that reared their sickly heads among the stumps,
+gained the rear of the shack. Noiselessly he advanced, and, peering
+between the unchinked logs, surveyed the interior.
+
+A man sat upon the floor near the stove and laboriously applied
+bandages to his blistered feet. Near by was a new pack-sack against
+which leaned a pair of new high-laced boots toward which the man shot
+wrathful glances as he worked.
+
+"_Chechako_," muttered the Indian, and passed around to the door.
+
+A popular-fiction Indian would have glided stealthily into the shack
+and, with becoming dignity, have remarked "How."
+
+But Wabishke was just a common Indian--one of the everyday kind, that
+may be seen any time hanging about the trading-posts of the
+North-country--unimaginative, undignified--dirty. So he knocked loudly
+upon the door and waited.
+
+"Come in!" called Carmody, and gazed in surprise at the newcomer, who
+stared back at him without speaking. Wabishke advanced to the stove,
+and, fumbling in the pocket of his disreputable mackinaw, produced a
+very old and black cob-pipe, which he gravely extended toward the
+other.
+
+"No, thanks!" said Bill hastily. "Got one of my own."
+
+He eyed with disfavor the short, thick stem, about the end of which was
+wound a bit of filthy rag, which served as a mouthpiece for the grip of
+the yellow fangs which angled crookedly at the place where a portion of
+the lip had been torn away in some long-forgotten combat of the wilds.
+
+"T'bacco," grunted the visitor, with a greasy distortion of the
+features which passed for a smile.
+
+"Oh, that's it? Well, here you are."
+
+Carmody produced a bright-colored tin box, which he handed to the
+Indian, who squatted upon his heels and regarded its exterior in
+thoughtful silence for many minutes, turning it over and over in his
+hand and subjecting every mark and detail of its lettered surface to a
+minute scrutiny.
+
+Finally with a grunt he raised the lid and contemplated the tobacco,
+which was packed evenly in thin slices.
+
+He stared long and curiously at his own distorted image, which was
+reflected from the unpainted tin of the inside of the cover, felt
+cautiously of the paraffined paper, and, raising the box to his nose,
+sniffed noisily at the contents.
+
+Apparently satisfied, he removed a dozen or more of the slices and
+ground them slowly between the palms of his hands. This done, he rammed
+possibly one-tenth of the mass into the bowl of his ancient pipe and
+carefully conveyed the remainder to his pocket.
+
+"Match?" he asked. And Bill passed over his monogrammed silver
+match-box, which received its share of careful examination, evidently,
+however, not meeting the approval accorded the gaudy tobacco-box.
+
+The Indian abstracted about one-half of the matches, which he
+transferred to the pocket containing the tobacco. Then, calmly
+selecting a dry twig from the pile of firewood, thrust the end through
+a hole in the broken stove, and after much noisy puffing at length
+succeeded in igniting the tightly tamped tobacco in his pipe-bowl.
+
+"Thank you," said Bill, contemplating his few remaining matches.
+"You're a bashful soul, aren't you? Did you ever serve a term in the
+Legislature?"
+
+The Indian's command of English did not include a word Bill had
+uttered; nevertheless, his mangled lip writhed about the pipe-stem in
+grotesque grin.
+
+"Boots!" he grunted, eying the bandaged feet. "No good!" and he
+complacently wriggled the toes in his own soft moccasins. Bill noted
+the movement, and a sudden desire obsessed him to possess at any cost
+those same soft moccasins.
+
+Wabishke, like most Indians, was a born trader, and he was quick to
+note the covetous glance that the white _chechako_ cast toward his
+footgear.
+
+"Will you sell those?" asked Bill, pointing toward the moccasins. The
+Indian regarded them thoughtfully, and again the toes wriggled
+comfortably beneath the pliable moose-skin covering. Bill tried again.
+
+"How much?" he asked, touching the moccasins with his finger.
+
+The Indian pondered the question through many puffs of his short pipe.
+He pointed to the new boots, and when Bill handed them to him he
+carefully studied every stitch and nail of each. Finally he laid them
+aside and pointed to the tobacco-box, which he again scrutinized and
+laid with the boots.
+
+"Match," he said.
+
+"Get a light from the fire like you did before, you old fraud! I only
+have a few left."
+
+"Match," repeated the Indian, and Bill passed over his match-box, which
+was placed with the other items. Wabishke pointed toward the pack-sack.
+
+"Look here, you red Yankee!" exclaimed Bill. "Do you want my whole
+outfit for those things?"
+
+The other merely shrugged and pointed first at the bandaged feet, and
+then at the boots. One by one, a can of salmon, a sheath-knife, and a
+blue flannel shirt were added to the pile, and still Wabishke seemed
+unsatisfied.
+
+While the Indian pawed over the various articles of his pack, Bill
+found time to put the finished touches on his bandages, and, reaching
+under the table, drew forth the whisky bottle and poured part of its
+contents upon the strips of cloth.
+
+At the sight of the bottle the Indian's eyes brightened, and he reached
+for it quickly. Bill shook his head and set the bottle well out of his
+reach.
+
+"Me drink," the other insisted, and again Bill shook his head. The
+Indian seemed puzzled.
+
+"No like?" he asked.
+
+"No like," repeated Bill, and smiled grimly.
+
+Wabishke regarded him in wondering silence. In his life he had seen
+many strange things, but never a thing like this--a white man who of
+his own choice drank spring-water from a fish-can and poured good
+whisky upon his feet!
+
+The Indian's eyes wandered from the pile of goods to the bottle, in
+which about one-fourth of the contents remained, and realized that he
+was at a disadvantage, for he knew by experience that a white man and
+his whisky are hard to part.
+
+Selecting the can of salmon from the pile, he shoved it toward the man,
+who again shook his head. Then followed the match-box, the
+sheath-knife, and the shirt, until only the tobacco-box and the boots
+remained, and still the man shook his head.
+
+Slowly the tobacco-box was handed back, and the Indian was eying the
+boots. Bill laughed.
+
+"No. You'll need those. Just hand over the moccasins, and you are
+welcome to the boots and the booze."
+
+The Indian hastily untied the thongs, and the white man thrust his
+bandaged feet into the soft comfort of the mooseskin moccasins. A few
+minutes later he took the trail, following the windings of Moncrossen's
+new tote-road into the North.
+
+The air was filled with a light, feathery snow, and, in spite of the
+ache of his stiffened muscles, he laughed.
+
+"The first bottle of whisky _I_ ever entered on the right side of the
+ledger," he said aloud--and again he laughed.
+
+He was in the big timber now. The tall, straight pines of the Appleton
+holdings stretched away for a hundred miles, and formed a high wall on
+either side of the tote-road, which bent to the contour of ridge and
+swamp and crossed small creeks on rough log bridges or corduroy
+causeways.
+
+Gradually the stiffness left him, and his aching muscles limbered to
+their work. His moccasins sank noiselessly into the soft snow as mile
+after mile he traversed the broad ribbon of white.
+
+At noon he camped, and over a tiny fire thawed out his bread and warmed
+his salmon, which he washed down with copious drafts of snow-water.
+Then he filled his pipe and blew great lungfuls of fragrant smoke into
+the air as he rested with his back against a giant pine and watched the
+fall of the snow.
+
+During the last hour the character of the storm had changed. Cold, dry
+pellets, hissing earthward had replaced the aimless dance of the
+feathery flakes, and he could make out but dimly the opposite wall of
+the rod-wide tote-road.
+
+He returned the remains of his luncheon to his pack, eying with disgust
+the heel of the loaf of hard bread and the soggy, red mass of sock-eye
+that remained in the can.
+
+"The first man that mentions canned salmon to me," he growled, "is
+going to get _hurt_!"
+
+The snow was ankle-deep when he again took the trail and lowered his
+head to the sting of the wind-driven particles. On and on he plodded,
+lifting his feet higher as the snow deepened. As yet, in his ignorance
+of woodcraft, no thought of danger entered his mind. "It is harder
+work, that is all," he thought; but, had he known it, his was a
+situation that no woodsman wise in the ways of the winter trails would
+have cared to face.
+
+During the morning he had covered but fifteen of the forty miles which
+lay between the old shack and Moncrossen's camp. Each minute added to
+the difficulties of the journey, which, in the words of Daddy Dunnigan
+was "a fine two walks for a good man," and, with the added hardship of
+a heavy snowfall, would have been a man's-sized job for the best of
+them equipped, as they would have been, with good grub and snowshoes.
+
+Bill was forced to rest frequently. Not only were his softened muscles
+feeling the strain--it was getting his wind, this steady bucking the
+snow--but each time he again faced the storm and plowed doggedly
+northward.
+
+Darkness found him struggling knee-deep in the cold whiteness, and, as
+he paused to rest in the shelter of a pile of tops left by the axe-men,
+the foremost of the gray shadows that for the last two hours had dogged
+his footsteps, phantom-like, resolved itself into a very tangible pair
+of wicked eyes which smoldered in greenish points of hate above a very
+sharp, fang-studded muzzle, from which a long, red tongue licked
+suggestively at back-curled lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AT BAY
+
+
+Bill Carmody was no coward; but neither was he a fool, and for the
+first time the seriousness of his position dawned upon him. Other
+shapes appeared and ranged themselves beside their leader, and as the
+man looked upon their gaunt, sinewy leanness, the slavering jaws, and
+blazing eyes, he shuddered. Here, indeed, was a very real danger.
+
+He decided to camp. Fire, he remembered to have read, would hold the
+brutes at bay. Wood there was in plenty, and, quickly clearing a space
+in the snow, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing tiny tongues of
+flame crackle in a pile of dry branches.
+
+He unslung his light axe and attacked the limbs of a dead pine that lay
+at the edge of the road.
+
+After an hour's work his cleared space was flanked on either side by
+piles of dry firewood, and at his back the great pile of tops afforded
+shelter from the wind which swept down the roadway, driving before it
+stinging volleys of snow.
+
+He spread his blanket and drew from his pack the unappetizing food. He
+warmed the remaining half-can of salmon and whittled at his nubbin of
+bread.
+
+"Dinner is served, sir," he announced to himself, "dead fish with
+formaldehyde dressing, petrified dough, and _aqua nivis_." The storm
+continued, and as he smoked the gravity of his plight forced itself
+upon him.
+
+The laggards had caught up, and at the edge of the arc of firelight a
+wide semicircle of insanely glaring eyeballs and gleaming fangs told
+where the wolf-pack waited.
+
+There was a terrifying sense of certainty in their method. They took no
+chance of open attack, wasted no breath in needless howling or
+snarling, but merely sat upon their haunches beyond the circle of the
+firelight--waiting.
+
+Again the man shuddered. Before him, he knew, lay at least fifteen
+miles of trail knee-deep with snow, and he had left but one small
+ration of unpalatable and unnutritious food.
+
+"I seem to be up against a tough proposition," he mused. "What was it
+Appleton said about battle, murder, and sudden death? It looks from
+here as if the old boy knew what he was talking about. But it is kind
+of rough on a man to roll them all up into one bundle and hand it to
+him right on the kick-off."
+
+He had heard of men who became lost in the woods and died horribly of
+cold and starvation, or went down to the rush of the wolf-pack.
+
+"As long as I stick to this road I won't get lost," he thought. "I may
+freeze to death, or starve, or furnish a cozy meal for the wolves
+yonder, but even at that I still have the edge on those others--I'm
+damned if I'm _lost_!"
+
+And, strange as it may seem, the thought gave him much comfort.
+
+He tossed more wood on the fire and watched the shower of sparks which
+shot high above the flames.
+
+"To-morrow will be my busy day," he remarked, addressing the wolves.
+"Good night, you hell-hounds! Just stick around and see that nothing
+sneaks up and bites me."
+
+He hurled a blazing firebrand among the foremost of the hungry hoard,
+but these did not retreat--merely leaped back, snarling, to lurk in the
+outer shadows.
+
+Bill's sleep was fitful. The snow ceased to fall during the early hours
+of the night, and the pair of blankets with which he had provided
+himself proved entirely inadequate protection against the steadily
+increasing cold.
+
+Time and again he awoke and replenished the fire, for, no matter in
+what position he lay, one side of his body seemed freezing, while the
+other toasted uncomfortably in the hot glare of the flames. And
+always--just at the rim of the fire-light--sat the wolves, waiting in
+their ominous circle of silence.
+
+But in the interims between these awakenings he slept profoundly,
+oblivious alike to discomfort and danger--as the dead sleep.
+
+At the first hint of dawn Bill hastily consumed the last of his
+unpalatable food and resumed his journey.
+
+Hour after hour he toiled through the snow, and always the wolf-pack
+followed, haunting his trail in the open roadway and flanking him in
+the deep shade of the evergreen forest, moving tirelessly through the
+loose snow in long, slow leaps.
+
+Seventeen of them he counted--seventeen murderous, ill-visaged curs of
+the savage kill! And the leader of the pack was a very demon wolf. A
+monstrous female, almost pure white, huge, misshapen, hideous--the
+ultimate harridan of the wolf-breed--she stood a full two hands above
+the tallest of the rank and file of her evil clan.
+
+The foot and half of a foreleg had been left between iron jaws where
+she had gnawed herself out of a trap, and the shrunken stub, depending
+from a withered shoulder, dragged over the surface of the snow, leaving
+a curious mark like the trail of a snake.
+
+The remaining foreleg was strong and thick and, from redistribution of
+balance, slanted inward from the massive shoulder, which was developed
+out of all proportion to its mate, giving the great white brute a
+repulsive, lopsided appearance.
+
+The long, stiff hair stood out upon her neck in a great ruff, which
+accentuated the fiendish ferocity of her, adding a hyena-like slope to
+her ungainly body. But it was in the expression of her face that she
+reached the climax of hideous malevolence.
+
+One pointed ear stood erect upon her head, while the other, mangled and
+torn into a serried red excrescence, formed the termination of a broad,
+ragged scar which began at the corner of her mouth, giving her face the
+expression of a fiendish grin that belied the green glare of her
+venomous, opalescent eyes.
+
+The loss of the leg seemed in nowise to hamper her freedom of action.
+She moved ceaselessly among the pack with a peculiar bounding gallop,
+fawning in subtle cajolery upon those in the forefront, slashing right
+and left among the laggards with vicious clicks of her long, white
+fangs; and always she watched the tiring man who found his own gaze
+fixed upon her in horrid fascination.
+
+There was something sinister in the wolf-pack's noiseless pursuit. The
+brutes drew nearer as the man's pace slowed to the wearying of his
+muscles.
+
+Instinctively he knew that at the last there would be no waiting--no
+delay. The very minute he sank exhausted into the snow they would be
+upon him--the great white leader and her rapacious horde--and in his
+imagination he could feel the viselike clench of iron jaws and the
+tearing rip with which the quivering flesh would be stripped from his
+bones.
+
+At midday the man placed the sheath-knife in his belt and threw away
+the pack. Relieved of the burden, his shoulders felt strangely light.
+There was a new buoyancy in his stride.
+
+But the relief was temporary, and as the sun sank early behind the
+pines his brain was again driving his wearied muscles to their work.
+
+The wolves were following close in now, and the silence of their
+relentless persistence filled the man with a dumb terror which no
+pandemonium of howling could have inspired.
+
+His advance was halting. Each step was a separate and conscious
+undertaking, and it was with difficulty that he lifted his moccasins
+clear of the snow.
+
+Suddenly he stumbled. The leaders were almost upon him as he recovered
+and faced them there in the white reach of the tote-road. They halted
+just out of reach of the swing of his axe, and as the man looked into
+their glaring eyes a frenzy of unreasoning fury seized him.
+
+His nerves could no longer stand the strain. Something seemed to snap
+in his brain, and through his veins surged the spirit of his fighting
+ancestors.
+
+A sudden memory flash, as of deeds forgotten through long ages, and
+with it came strength--the very abandon of fierce, brute strength of a
+man with the mind to kill.
+
+"Come on!" he cried. "Fight it out, you fiends! I may die, but I'll be
+damned if I'll be hounded to death! You may get me, but you'll _fight_!
+When a McKim goes down some one pays! And if it is die--By God!
+There'll be fun in the dying!"
+
+With a weird primordial scream, as the first man might have screamed in
+the face of the first saber-tooth, he hurled his axe among them and
+sprang forward, flashing the cold, gray blade of his sheath-knife!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WERWOLF
+
+
+Now, as all men know, Bill Carmody had done a most foolish and insane
+thing.
+
+But the very audacity of his act--and the god of chance--favored him,
+for as the axe whizzed through the air the keen edge of the whirling
+bit caught one of the larger wolves full on the side of the head.
+
+There followed the peculiar, dull scrunching sound that stands alone
+among all other sounds, being produced by no other thing than the
+sudden crush of a living skull.
+
+The front and side of the skull lifted and turned backward upon its
+hinge of raw scalp and the wolf went down, clawing and biting, and over
+the snow flowed thick red blood, and a thicker mucus of soft, wet
+brains.
+
+At the sight and scent of the warm blood, the companions of the
+stricken brute--the gaunt, tireless leaders, who had traveled beside
+him in the van, and the rag-tag and bobtail alike--fell upon him tooth
+and nail, and the silence of the forest was shattered by the blood-cry
+of the meat-getters.
+
+Not so the great she-wolf, who despised these others that fought among
+themselves, intent only upon the satisfaction of their hunger.
+
+Her purpose in trailing this man to destruction was of deep vengeance:
+the assuagement of an abysmal hatred that smoldered in her heart
+against every individual of the terrible man kind, whose cruel traps of
+iron, blades of steel, and leaden bullets had made her a monstrous,
+sexless thing, feared and unsought by mating males, hated of her own
+breed.
+
+And now, at the moment she had by the cunning of her generalship
+delivered this man an easy prey to her followers, they deserted her and
+fell in swinish greed upon the first meat at hand.
+
+So that at the last she faced her enemy alone, and the smoldering fury
+of her heart blazed green from her wicked eyes. She stood tense as a
+pointer, every hair of her long white coat bristlingly aquiver.
+
+Suddenly she threw back her head, pointed her sharp muzzle to the sky,
+and gave voice to the long-drawn ululation which is the battle-cry of
+wolves.
+
+Yet it was not the wolf-cry, for long ago the malformation of a healing
+throat-wound had distorted the bell-like cry into a hideous scream like
+the shriek of a soul foredamned, which quavered loud and shrill upon
+the keen air and ended in a series of quick jerks, like stabs of
+horrible laughter.
+
+And then, with tight-drawn lips and jaws agape, she hurled herself
+straight at the throat of the stumbling man.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Darkness was gathering when, a mile to the northward, Jake LaFranz and
+Irish Fallon, who were laboring with six big horses and a rough log
+drag to break out the trail, suddenly paused to listen.
+
+Through the thin, cold air rang a sound the like of which neither had
+ever heard. And then, as if in echo, the long-drawn wail of the great
+white wolf.
+
+They stared at each other white-lipped; for that last cry was a thing
+men talked about of nights with bated breath and deep curses. Neither
+had heard it before--nor would either hear it again--but each
+recognized the sound instinctively, as he would recognize the sound of
+Gabriel's trump.
+
+"It's _her_!" gasped LaFranz. "God save us! It's Diablesse--the
+_loup-garou_!"
+
+"'Tis none other--that last. But, man! Man! The first wan! Was it a
+human cry or from the throat of another of her hell-begotten breed?"
+
+Without waiting to reply the Frenchman swung the big six-team in their
+tracks and headed them toward camp. But Irish Fallon reached for him as
+he fumbled at the clevis.
+
+"Howld on, ye frog-eater! Be a man! If 'twas human tore loose that yell
+he'll be the bether fer help, notwithstandin' there was more av foight
+nor fear in th' sound."
+
+"No, no, no! It's _her_! It's Diablesse!" He crossed himself.
+
+"Sure, an' ut is; bad cess to her altogether. But Oi got a hear-rt in
+me ribs o'good rid blood that takes relish now an' agin in a bit av a
+foight. An', man or baste, Oi ain't particular, so 'tis a good wan.
+Oi'll be goin' down th' thrail a piece an' see phwat's to see. Oi ain't
+axin' ye to go 'long. Ye poor prayer-dhrivlin' haythen, wid yer limon
+av a hear-rt ye've got a yallar shtripe that raches to th' length an'
+width av ye. Ye'd be no good nohow.
+
+"But 'tis mesilf ain't fearin' th' evil eye av th' werwolf--an' she is
+called be the name av th' divil's own.
+
+"But listen ye here, ye pea-soup Frinchy! Ye'll not go shnakin' off wid
+thim harses. Ye'll bide here till Oi come back."
+
+The other made a whimper of protest, but Irish Fallon reached out a
+great hairy hand and shook him roughly.
+
+"Yez moind now, an' Oi mane ut! Here ye shtay. An' av ye ain't here,
+ye'd bether kape on goin'. F'r th' nixt toime Oi lay eyes on ye Oi'll
+br-reak ye in two! An' don't ye fergit ut!"
+
+The big Irishman turned and swung down the tote-road, the webs of his
+rackets leaving a broad trail in the snow. LaFranz cowered upon the
+snow-plow and sought refuge in craven prayer and curses the while he
+shot frightened glances into the darkening forest.
+
+He thought of cutting the horses loose and starting them for camp at a
+run. But, much as he feared the werwolf, he feared Irish Fallon more;
+for many were the tales of Fallon's man-fights when his "Irish was up."
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+When the white wolf sprang the man had nearly reached the snarling
+pack. Before him, scarcely six feet away, lay his axe, the blade
+smeared with blood and brains, to which clung stiff gray hairs.
+
+Instinctively he ducked and, as the huge form flashed past, his right
+arm shot out straight from the shoulder. The long, clean blade entered
+just at the point of the brisket and, ranging upward, was buried to the
+haft as the knife was torn from his grasp.
+
+One step and the man's fingers closed about the helve of his axe, and
+he whirled to meet the second onslaught.
+
+But there was small need. The great brute stood still in her tracks
+and, with lowered head, snapped and wrenched at the thing that bit into
+her very lungs.
+
+The stag-horn plates of the protruding hilt were splintered under the
+clamp of the mighty jaws, and the long, gleaming teeth made deep dents
+in the brass beneath. Her lips reddened, and before her the snow was
+flecked with blood.
+
+All this the man took in at a glance without conscious impression. He
+gripped his weapon and sprang among the fighting pack, which ripped and
+dragged at the carcass of the dead wolf.
+
+Right and left he struck in a reckless fume of ferocity, which spoke of
+unreasoning fights in worlds of savage firstlings. And under the
+smashing blows of the axe wolves went down--skulls split, spines
+crushed, ribs caved in--a side at a stroke, and shoulders were cloven
+clean and deep to pink sponge lungs.
+
+As if realizing that her hurt was mortal, the great she-wolf abandoned
+her attack on the knife-haft and, summoning her strength for a supreme
+effort, sprang straight into the midst of the red shambles.
+
+The man, caught unawares, went down under the impact of her body. For
+one fleeting second he stared upward into blazing eyes. From between
+wide-sprung rows of flashing fangs the blood-dripping tongue seemed to
+writhe from the cavernous throat, and the foul breath blew hot against
+his face. Instantly his strong fingers buried themselves in the shaggy
+fur close under the hinge of the jaw, while his other hand closed about
+the dented brass of the protruding knife-hilt.
+
+With the whole strength of his arm he held the savage jaws from his
+face as he wrenched and twisted at the firmly embedded knife. Finally
+it loosened, and as the thick-backed blade was withdrawn from the wound
+it was followed by spurt after spurt of blood--bright, frothy blood,
+straight from the lungs, which gushed hot and wet over him.
+
+Blindly he struck; stabbing, thrusting, slashing at the great form
+which was pressing him deeper and deeper into the snow. Again and again
+the knife was turned against rib and shoulder-blade, inflicting only
+shallow surface wounds.
+
+At length a heavy, straight upthrust encountered no obstacle of bone,
+and the blade bit deep and deeper into living flesh.
+
+As with a final effort the knife was driven home, a convulsive shiver
+racked the body of the great white wolf, and with a low, gurgling moan
+of agony her jaws set rigid, her muscles stiffened, and she toppled
+sidewise into the snow, where she lay twitching spasmodically with
+glazing eyes.
+
+Bill staggered weakly to his feet.
+
+The uninjured wolves had vanished, leaving their dead upon the snow,
+while the wounded left flat, red trails as they sought to drag their
+broken bodies to the cover of the forest.
+
+Irish Fallon rounded a turn of the tote-road. He brought up sharply and
+stared open-mouthed at the man who, sheath-knife in hand, stood looking
+down at an indistinct object which lay upon the blood-trampled snow.
+
+Carmody turned and shouted a greeting, but without a word the Irishman
+advanced to his side until he, too, stood looking down at the thing in
+the snow. Suddenly Bill's hand was seized in a mighty grip.
+
+"Man! 'Tis _her_, an' no mistake! She's done for at lasht--an' blade to
+fang, in open foight ye've knoifed her! Sure, 'tis a gr-rand toime
+ye've had altogether," he said, glancing at the carcasses, "wid six
+dead besides her an' three more as good as."
+
+Bill laughed: "This wolf--the big white one--seems to enjoy a
+reputation, then?"
+
+"R-r-reputation! R-r-reputation, is ut? Good Lord, man! Don't ye know
+her? 'Tis th' werwolf! D'ablish, th' _loup-garou_, the Frinchies call
+her; an' the white divil, the Injuns--an' good rayson, f'r to me own
+knowledge she's kilt foive folks, big an' shmall, an' some Injuns
+besides. They claim she's a divil, an' phwin she howls, 'tis because
+some sowl has missed th' happy huntin' grounds in th' dyin', an' she's
+laughin'."
+
+"I don't know that I blame them," said Bill. "She favored me with a
+vocal selection. And, believe me, she was no mocking-bird."
+
+"Well, she looks dead, now," grinned Fallon; "but we'd besht make sure.
+Owld man Frontenelle kilt her wunst. Seven year back, ut was over on
+Monish.
+
+"He shot her clean t'rough th' neck an' dhrug her to his cabin be th'
+tail. He was for skinnin' her flat f'r th' robe she'd make. He had her
+stretched out phwin wid a flash an' a growl, she was at um, an' wid wan
+clap av th' jaws she ripped away face an' half th' scalp.
+
+"They found um wanderin' blind on th' lake ice an' carried um to
+Skelly's phwere he died in tin days' toime av hydrophoby, shnarlin' an'
+bitin' at folks till they had to chain um in th' shtoreroom."
+
+As he spoke, Fallon picked up the axe, and with several well-directed
+blows shattered the skull of the werwolf against any possibility of a
+repetition of the Frontenelle incident.
+
+"But come, man, get yer rackets an' we'll be hittin' the thrail f'r
+camp. Sure, Frinchy'll be scairt shtiff av we lave um longer."
+
+"Rackets?" asked Bill, with a look of perplexity.
+
+"Yer shnow shoes, av coorse."
+
+"Haven't got any. And I don't suppose I could use them if I had." The
+other stared at him incredulously.
+
+"Not got any! Thin how'd ye git here?"
+
+"Walked--or rather, stumbled along."
+
+"Phwere from?"
+
+"It started to snow as I left the old shack--the last one this way, I
+don't know how far back. It was there I traded my boots to an Indian
+for these." He extended a moccasined foot.
+
+"'Tis a good job ye traded. But even at that--thirty-foive moile
+t'rough th' snow widout webs!" The Irishman looked at him in open
+admiration. "An' on top av that, killin' th' werwolf wid a knoife, an'
+choppin' her pack loike so much kindlin's! Green, ye may be--an'
+ignorant. But, frind, ye've done a man's job this day, an' Oi'm pr-roud
+to know yez."
+
+Again he extended his hand and Bill seized it in a strong grip.
+Somehow, he did not resent being called green, and ignorant--he was
+learning the North.
+
+"Fallon's me name," the other continued, "an' be an accident av birth,
+Oi'm called Oirish, f'r short."
+
+"Mine is Bill, which is shorter," replied Carmody, smiling.
+
+For just a second Irish hesitated as if expecting further
+enlightenment, but, receiving none, reached down and grasped the tail
+of the white wolf.
+
+"'Tis a foine robe she'll make, Bill, an' in th' North, among white min
+an' Injuns, 'twill give ye place an' shtandin'--but not wid
+Moncrossen," he added with a frown.
+
+"Come on along. Foller yez in behint, f'r th' thrail'll be fair
+br-roke. Phwat wid two thrips wid th' rackets an' th' dhrag av th'
+wolf, 'twill not be bad. 'Tis only a mather av twinty minutes to phwere
+Frinchy'll bether be waitin' wid th' harses."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MONCROSSEN
+
+
+They found LaFranz waiting in fear and trembling. The heavy snow-plow
+was left in readiness for the morrow's trail-breaking, and the horses
+hitched to a rough sled and headed for camp.
+
+"An' ye say Misther Appleton sint ye up to wor-rk in Moncrossen's
+camp?" The two were seated on the log bunk at the back of the sled
+while the Frenchman drove, keeping a fearful eye on the white wolf. For
+old man Frontenelle had been his uncle.
+
+"Yes, he told me to report here."
+
+"D'ye know Moncrossen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, ye will, ag'in' shpring," Irish replied dryly.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bill.
+
+Irish shrugged. "Oi mane this," he answered. "Moncrossen is a har-rd
+man altogether. He hates a greener. He thinks no wan but an owld hand
+has any business in th' woods, an' 'tis his boast that in wan season
+he'll make a lumberjack or a corpse out av any greener.
+
+"An' comin' from Appleton hisself he'll hate ye worse'n ever, f'r he'll
+think ye'll be afther crimpin' his bird's-eye game. Take advice, Bill,
+an' kape on th' good side av um av ye can. He'll t'row ut into ye wid
+all manner av dhirty thricks, but howld ye're timper, an' maybe ye'll
+winter ut out--an' maybe ye won't."
+
+"What is a bird's-eye game?"
+
+Fallon glanced at him sharply. "D'ye mane ye don't know about th'
+bird's-eye?" he asked.
+
+"Not a thing," replied Bill.
+
+"Thin listen to me. Don't ye niver say bird's-eye in this camp av ye
+expect to winter ut out."
+
+Bill was anxious to hear more about the mysterious bird's-eye, but the
+sled suddenly emerged into a wide clearing and Irish was pointing out
+the various buildings of the log camp.
+
+Bright squares of light showed from the windows of the bunk-house,
+office, and grub-shack, with its adjoining cook-shack, from the iron
+stovepipe of which sparks shot skyward in a continuous shower.
+
+Fallon shouldered the wolf and, accompanied by Bill, made toward the
+bunk-house, while the Frenchman turned the team toward the stable.
+
+"Ag'in' we git washed up, supper'll be ready," announced Irish, as he
+deposited the wolf carcass beside the door and entered.
+
+Inside the long, low room, lined on either side by a double row of
+bunks, were gathered upward of a hundred men waiting the supper call.
+
+They were big men, for the most part, rough clad and unshaven. Many
+were seated upon the edges of the bunks smoking and talking, others
+grouped about the three big stoves, and the tobacco-reeking air was
+laden with the rumble of throaty conversation, broken here and there by
+the sharp scratch of a match, a loud laugh, or a deep-growled,
+good-natured curse.
+
+Into this assembly stepped Irish Fallon, closely followed by Bill, the
+sight of whose blood-stained face attracted grinning attention. The two
+men passed the length of the room to the wash-bench, where a few
+loiterers still splashed noisily at their ablutions.
+
+"I heard it plain, I'm tellin' you," some one was saying. "'Way off to
+the south it sounded."
+
+"That ain't no lie," broke in another, "I hearn it myself--jest before
+dark, it was. An' I know! Didn't I hear it that night over on Ten Fork?
+The time she got Jack Kane's woman, four year ago, come Chris'mus. Yes,
+sir! I tell you the werwolf's nigh about this camp, an' it's me in off
+the edges afore dark!"
+
+"They say she never laughs but she makes a kill," said one.
+
+"God! I was at Skelly's when they brought old man Frontenelle in,"
+added a big man, whose heavy beard was shot with gray, as he turned
+from the stove with a shudder.
+
+"They's some Injuns trappin' below; she might of got one of them,"
+opined a short, stockily built man who, catching sight of the
+newcomers, addressed Fallon:
+
+"Hey, Irish, you was down on the tote-road; did you hear Diablesse?"
+
+Fallon finished drying his face upon the coarse roller-towel and turned
+toward the group who waited expectantly. "Yis, Oi hear-rd her, all
+roight," he replied lightly. "An' thin Oi _see'd_ her."
+
+Others crowded about, hanging upon his words. "An' thin, be way av
+showin' me contimpt," he added, "Oi dhrug her a moile or more t'rough
+th' woods be th' tail."
+
+Loud laughter followed this assertion; but not a few, especially among
+the older men, shook their heads in open disapproval, and muttered
+curses at his levity.
+
+"But me frind Bill, here," Irish continued, "c'n tell ye more about
+her'n phwat Oi kin. He's new in th' woods, Bill is; an' so damned green
+he know'd nayther th' manein' nor use av th' rackets. So, be gad, he
+come widout 'em. Mushed two whole days t'rough th' shnow.
+
+"But, listen; no mather how ignorant, nor how much he don't know, a
+good man's a man--an' to pr-rove ut he jumps wid his axe roight into
+th' middle av th' werwolf's own an' kills noine, countin' th' three
+cripples Oi finished.
+
+"But wid D'ablish herself, moind, he t'row'd away his axe an' goes to a
+clinch wid his knoife in his fisht. An' phwin 'tis over an' he picks
+himsilf up out av th' shnow an' wipes th' blood from his eyes--her
+blood--f'r he comes out av ut widout scratch nor scar--D'ablish lays at
+his feet dead as a nit."
+
+Fallon gazed triumphantly into the incredulous faces of the men, and,
+with a smile, added, "'Twas thin Oi dhrug her be th' tail to th' sled,
+afther shmashin' her head wid th' axe to make sure."
+
+"An' where is she now, Irish?" mocked one. "Did she jump off the sled
+an' make a get-away?"
+
+Over at the grub-shack the cook's half-breed helper beat lustily upon
+the discarded saw-blade that hung suspended by a wire, and the men
+crowded noisily out of the doors.
+
+"Oi'll show ye afther supper, ye damned shpalpeen, how much av her got
+away!" shouted Irish, who waited for Bill to remove the evidence of his
+fight before piloting him to the grub-shack.
+
+A single table of rough lumber covered with brown oilcoth extended the
+full length of the center of the room. Above this table six huge
+"Chicago burners" lighted the interior, which, as the two men entered,
+was a hive of noisy activity.
+
+Men scuffled for places upon the stationary benches arranged along
+either side of the table. Heavy porcelain thumped the board, and the
+air was filled with the metallic din of steel knives and forks being
+gathered into bearlike hands.
+
+Up and down the wide alleys behind the benches hurried flunkies bearing
+huge tin pots of steaming coffee, and the incessant returning of thick
+cups to their saucers was like the rattle of musketry.
+
+But the thing that impressed the half-famished Bill was the profusion
+of food; never in his life, he thought, had he beheld so tempting an
+array of things to eat. Great trenchers of fried pork, swimming in its
+own grease, alternated the full length of the table with huge pans of
+baked beans.
+
+Mountains of light, snowy bread rose at short intervals from among
+foot-hills of baked potatoes, steaming dishes of macaroni and stewed
+tomatoes, canned corn, peas, and apple sauce, and great yellow rolls of
+butter into which the knives of the men skived deeply.
+
+The two passed behind the benches in search of vacant places when
+suddenly an undersized flunky stumbled awkwardly, dropping the
+coffee-pot, which sent a wash of steaming brown liquid over the floor.
+
+Instantly a great, hulking man with a wide, flat face and low forehead
+surmounted by a thick thatch of black hair, below which two swinish
+eyes scintillated unevenly, paused in the act of raising a great
+calk-booted foot over the bench.
+
+The thick, pendulous lips under his ragged mustache curled backward,
+exposing a crenate row of jagged brown teeth. He stepped directly in
+front of the two men and, reaching out a thick hand caught the
+unfortunate flunky by the scruff as he regained his balance.
+
+From his lips poured an unbroken stream of vile epithets and
+soul-searing curses while he shook the whimpering wretch with a
+violence that threatened serious results, and ended by pinning him
+against the log wall and drawing back his huge arm for a terrific
+shoulder blow.
+
+The vicious brutality of the attack following so trivial an offense
+aroused Bill Carmody's anger. The man's back was toward him, and Bill
+grasped the back-drawn arm at the wrist and with an ungentle jerk
+whirled the other in his tracks.
+
+The man released the flunky and faced him with a snarl. "Who done
+that?" he roared.
+
+"I did. Hit me. I tripped him."
+
+Bill's voice was dead level and low, but it carried to the farthest
+reaches of the room, over which had fallen a silence of expectation.
+Men saw that the hard gray eyes of the stranger narrowed ominously.
+
+"An' who the hell are _you_?" The words whistled through the bared
+teeth and a flush of fury flooded the man's face.
+
+"What do you care? I tripped him. Hit me!" and the low, level tone
+blended into silence. It seemed a _thing_--that uncanny silence when
+noise should have been.
+
+There were sounds--sounds that no one heeded nor heard--the heavy
+breathing of a hundred men waiting for something to happen--the thin
+creak of the table boards as men leaned forward upon hands whose
+knuckles whitened under the red skin, and stared, fascinated, at the
+two big men who faced each other in the broad aisle.
+
+The swinish eyes of the brutish man glared malignantly into the gray
+eyes of the stranger, in which there appeared no slightest flicker of
+rage nor hate, nor any other emotion.
+
+Only a cold, hard stare which held something of terrible intensity,
+accentuated by the little fans of whitening wrinkles which radiated
+from their corners.
+
+In that instant the other's gaze wavered. He knew that this man had
+lied; and he knew that every man in the room knew that he had lied.
+That he had deliberately lied into the row and then, without raising
+his guard, had dared him to strike.
+
+It was inconceivable.
+
+Had the man loudly shouted his challenge or thrown up his guard when he
+dared him to strike, or had his eye twitched or burned with anger, he
+would have unhesitatingly lunged into a fight to the finish.
+
+But he found himself at a disadvantage. He was up against something he
+did not understand. The calm assurance of the stranger--his fists were
+not doubled and his lips smiled--disconcerted him.
+
+A strange, prickly chill tingled at the back of his neck, and in his
+heart he knew that for the first time in his life he dared not strike a
+man. He cast about craftily to save his face and took his cue from the
+other's smile. With an effort his loose, thick lips twisted into a
+grin.
+
+"G'wan with yer jokin', stranger," he laughed.
+
+"Y'u damn near made me mad--fer a minute," and he turned to the table.
+
+Instantly a clatter of noise broke forth. Men rattled dishes nervously
+in relief or disappointment, and the room was filled with the rumble of
+voices in unmeaning chatter. But in the quick glances which passed from
+man to man there was much of meaning.
+
+"God, man, that was Moncrossen!" whispered Fallon, when the two found
+themselves seated near the end of the table. Bill smiled.
+
+"Was it?" he asked. "I don't like him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A TWO-FISTED MAN
+
+
+A half-hour later when Bill sought out the boss in the little office,
+the latter received him in surly silence; and as he read Appleton's
+note his lip curled.
+
+"So you think you'll make a lumberjack, do you?"
+
+"Yes." There was no hesitation; nothing of doubt in the reply.
+
+"My crew's full," the boss growled. "I don't need no men, let alone a
+greener that don't know a peavey from a bark spud. Wha'd the old man
+send you up here for, anyhow?"
+
+"That, I presume, is _his_ business."
+
+"Oh, it is, is it? Well, let me tell you first off--I'm boss of this
+here camp!" Moncrossen paused and glared at the younger man. "You get
+that, do you? Just you remember that what I say goes, an' I don't take
+no guff offen no man, not even one of the old man's pets--an' that's
+_my_ business--see?"
+
+Bill smiled as the scowling man crushed the note in his hand and
+slammed it viciously into the wood-box.
+
+"Wants you broke in, does he? All right; I'll break you! Ag'in' spring
+you'll know a little somethin' about logs, or you'll be so damn sick of
+the woods you'll run every time you hear a log chain rattle; an' either
+way, you'll learn who's boss of this here camp."
+
+Moncrossen sank his yellow teeth into a thick plug of tobacco and tore
+off the corner with a jerk.
+
+"Throw yer blankets into an empty bunk an' be ready fer work in the
+mornin'. I'll put you swampin' fer the big Swede--I guess that 'll hold
+you. Yer wages is forty-five a month--an' I'm right here to see that
+you earn 'em."
+
+"Can I buy blankets here? I threw mine away coming out."
+
+"Comin' out! Comin' in, you mean! Men come _in_ to the woods. In the
+spring they go _out_--if they're lucky. Get what you want over to the
+van; it'll be charged ag'in' yer wages." Bill turned toward the door.
+
+"By the way," the boss growled, "what's yer name--back where you come
+from?"
+
+"Bill."
+
+"Bill what?"
+
+"No. Just Bill--with a period for a full stop. And that's _my_
+business--see?" As Moncrossen encountered the level stare of the gray
+eyes he leered knowingly.
+
+"Oh, that's it, eh? All right, _Bill_! 'Curiosity killed the cat,' as
+the feller says. An' just don't forget to remember that what a man
+don't know don't hurt him none. Loggin' is learned _in_ the choppin's.
+Accidents happens; an' dead men tells no tales. Them that keeps their
+eyes to the front an' minds their own business gen'ally winters
+through. That's all."
+
+Bill wondered at the seemingly irrelevant utterances of the boss, but
+left the office without comment.
+
+On the floor of the bunk-house Irish Fallon, assisted by several of the
+men, was removing the skin from Diablesse, while others looked on.
+
+The awkward hush that fell upon them as he entered told Bill that he
+had been the subject of their conversation. Men glanced at him
+covertly, as though taking his measure, and he soon found himself
+relating the adventures of the trail to an appreciative audience, which
+grinned approval and tendered flasks, which he declined.
+
+Later, as he helped Fallon nail the wolfskin to the end of the
+bunk-house he told him of the interview with Moncrossen. The Irishman
+listened, frowning.
+
+"Ye've made a bad shtar-rt wid um," he said, shaking his head. "Ye eyed
+'im down in th' grub-shack, an' he hates ye fer ut. How ye got by wid
+ut Oi don't know, fer he's a scr-rapper from away back, an' av he'd
+sailed into ye Oi'm thinkin' he'd knocked th' divil out av ye, fer he's
+had experience, which ye ain't. But he didn't dast to, an' he knows ut,
+an' he knows that the men knows ut. An' now he'll lay fer a chanst to
+git aven. Ut's th' besht ye c'n do--loike he says, kape th' two eyes av
+ye to th' front an' moind yer own business--only kape wan eye behint ye
+to look out fer throuble. Phwat fer job did he give yez?"
+
+"I am to start swamping, whatever that is, for the big Swede."
+
+The Irishman grinned.
+
+"Oi thoucht so; an' may God have mercy on yer sowl."
+
+"What is the matter with the Swede?"
+
+"Mather enough. Bein' hand an' glove wid Moncrossen is good rayson to
+suspicion any man. Fer t'is be the help av Shtromberg that Moncrossen
+kapes a loine on th' men an' gits by wid his crooked wor-rk.
+
+"He ain't long on brains nohow, Moncrossen ain't, an' he ain't a good
+camp-boss nayther, fer all he gits out th' logs.
+
+"Be bluff an' bullyin' he gits th' wor-rk out av th' crew; but av ut
+wasn't that Misther Appleton lets um pay a bit over goin' wages, he'd
+have no crew, fer th' men hate um fer all they're afraid av um.
+
+"Th' rayson he puts ye shwampin' fer th' big Swede is so's he'll kape
+an eye on yez. As long as ye do yer wor-rk an' moind yer own business
+ye'll get along wid him as well as another. But, moind ye, phwin th'
+bird's-eye shtar-rts movin' ye don't notice nothin,' or some foine
+avenin' ye'll turn up missin'."
+
+"What is this bird's-eye thing?" asked Bill. "What has it got to do
+with Moncrossen--and me?"
+
+The Irishman considered the question and, without answering, walked to
+the corner of the bunk-house near which they were standing and peered
+into the black shadow of the wall. Apparently satisfied, he returned
+again to where Bill was standing.
+
+"Come on in th' bunk-house, now," he said. "I want to locate Shtromberg
+an' wan or two more. We'll sit around an' shmoke a bit, an' phwin they
+begin rollin' in ye'll ask me phwere is th' van, fer ye must have
+blankets an' phwat not. Oi'll go along to show ye, an' we'll take a
+turn down th' tote-road phwere we c'n talk widout its gittin' to th'
+ears av th' boss."
+
+Wondering at the man's precautions for secrecy, he followed, and for a
+half-hour listened to the fireside gossip of the camp. He noticed that
+Fallon's glance traveled over the various groups as if seeking some
+one, and he wondered which of the men was Stromberg.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open and a huge, yellow-bearded man stamped
+noisily to the stove, disregarding the curses that issued from the
+bunks of those who had already turned in.
+
+This man was larger even than Moncrossen, with protruding eyes of china
+blue, which stared weakly from beneath heavy, straw-colored eyebrows.
+Two hundred and fifty pounds, thought Bill, as the man, snorting
+disagreeably, paused before him and fixed him with an insolent stare.
+
+"Hey, you! Boss says you swamp for me," he snorted. Bill nodded
+indifferently.
+
+"You know how to swamp good?" he asked. Bill studied the toes of his
+moccasins and, without looking up, replied with a negative shake of his
+head.
+
+"I learn you, all right. In couple days you swamp good, or I fix you."
+
+Bill looked up, encountered the watery glare of the blue eyes, and
+returned his gaze to the points of his moccasins. The voice of the
+Swede grew more aggressive. He snorted importantly as the men looked
+on, and smote his palm with a ponderous fist.
+
+"First thing, I duck you in waterhole. Then I slap you to peak an'
+break off the peak." The men snickered, and Stromberg, emboldened by
+the silence of his new swamper, continued:
+
+"It's time boys was in bed. To-morrow I make you earn your wages."
+
+Bill rose slowly from his seat, and as he looked again into the face of
+the big Swede his lips smiled. But Fallon noticed, and others, that in
+the steely glint of the gray eyes was no hint of smile, and they
+watched curiously while he removed his mackinaw and tossed it
+carelessly onto the edge of a near-by bunk from where it slipped
+unnoticed to the floor.
+
+Stromberg produced a bottle, drank deep, and returned the flask to his
+pocket. He rasped the fire from his throat with a harsh, grating sound,
+drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and kicked contemptuously
+at the mackinaw which lay almost at his feet.
+
+As he did so a long, thick envelope, to which was tightly bound the
+photograph of a girl, slipped from the inner pocket. Instantly he
+stooped and seized it.
+
+"Haw, haw!" he roared, "the greener's got a woman. Look, she's a----"
+
+"Drop that!" The voice was low, almost soft in tone, but the words cut
+quick and clear, with no hint of gentleness.
+
+"Come get it, greener!" The man taunted as he doubled a huge fist, and
+held the photograph high that the others might see.
+
+Bill came. He covered the intervening space at a bound, springing
+swiftly and straight--as panthers spring; and as his moccasined feet
+touched the floor he struck. Once, twice, thrice--and all so quickly
+that the onlookers received no sense of repeated effort.
+
+The terrific force of the well-placed blows, and their deadly accuracy,
+seemed to be consecutive parts of a single, continuous, smoothly
+flowing movement.
+
+In the tense silence sounds rang sharp--the peculiar smack of living
+flesh hard hit, as the first blow landed just below the ear, the dull
+thump of a heavy body blow, and the clash of teeth driven against teeth
+as the sagging jaw of the big Swede snapped shut to the impact of the
+long swing that landed full on his chin's point.
+
+The huge form stiffened, spun half-way around, and toppled sidewise
+against a rack of drying garments, which fell with a crash to the
+floor.
+
+Without so much as a glance at the ludicrously sprawled figure, Bill
+picked up his mackinaw and returned the envelope to the pocket.
+
+"Irish," he asked, "where is the van? I must get some blankets. My
+nurse, there, says it's time to turn in."
+
+"Oi'll go wid ye," said Fallon, and a roar of laughter followed them
+out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"BIRD'S-EYE" AND PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+Bill quickly made his purchases, and shouldering the roll of blankets,
+followed Irish to the head of a rollway, where the two seated
+themselves on the bunk of a log sled.
+
+"Oi don't know how ye done ut," Fallon began. "'Twas th' handiest bit
+av two-fisted wor-rk Oi iver see'd. 'Tis well ye've had ut out wid
+Shtromberg. Fer all his crookedness, he's a bether man thin th' boss,
+an' he'll not be layin' that lickin' up ag'in yez. 'Twas a foight av
+his own pickin', an' he knows ye've got him faded.
+
+"Aven av he w'ud of befoor, he'll see to ut that no har-rm comes to ye
+now t'rough fault av his own, fer well he knows the men 'ud think 'twas
+done to pay ye back, an' he'll have no wish to play th' title role at a
+hangin'.
+
+"From now on, 'tis only Moncrossen ye'll have to watch, fer ye're in
+good wid th' men. We undershtand ye now. Ye see, in th' woods we don't
+loike myshtery an', whiles we most av us know that Moncrossen's givin'
+Appleton th' double cross, 'tis none av our business, an' phwin we
+thoucht ye'd come into th' woods undher false pretinces to catch um at
+ut, they was more or less talk.
+
+"Mesilf was beginnin' to think ye'd come into th' woods fer th' rist
+cure, ye read about in th' papers, seein' ye'd loafed about fer maybe
+it's foive hours an' done nothin' besides carve up th' werwolf an' her
+pack, eye down th' boss in his own grub-shack, an' thin top off th'
+avenin' be knockin' th' big Swede cold, which some claims he c'ud put
+th' boss himself to th' brush, wunst he got shtar-rted. But now we know
+phy ye're here. We're pr-roud ye're wan av us."
+
+"What do you mean--you know why I am here? I am here because I needed a
+job, and Appleton hired me."
+
+"Sure, lad. But, ye moind th' picture in yer pocket. 'Twas a woman."
+
+"But----"
+
+"'Tis none av our business, an' 'tis nayther here nor there. Av there's
+a woman at th' bottom av ut, 'tis rayson enough--phwativer happens."
+
+Bill laughed.
+
+"You were going to tell me about the bird's-eye," he reminded.
+
+"Ut's loike this: Here an' yon in th' timber there's a bird's-eye
+tree--bird's-eye maple, ye know. 'Tis scarce enough, wid only a tree
+now an' again, an' ut takes an expert to spot ut.
+
+"Well, th' bird's-eye brings around a hundred dollars a thousan', an'
+divil a bit av ut gits to Appleton's mills.
+
+"Moncrossen's got a gang--Shtromberg's in ut, an' a Frinch cruiser
+named Lebolt, an' a boot-leggin' tree-spotter named Creed, that lives
+in Hilarity, an' a couple av worthless divils av sawyers that's too
+lazy fer honest wor-rk, but camps t'rough th' winter, trappin' an
+sawin' bird's-eye an calico ash on other men's land.
+
+"Shtromberg'll skid till along toward sphring phwin he'll go to
+teamin'. Be that toime th' bird's-eye logs'll be down, here an' there
+in th' woods beyant th' choppin's, an' Shtromberg'll haul um an' bank
+um on some river; thin in th' summer, Moncrossen an' his men'll slip
+up, toggle um to light logs so they'll float, an' raft um to th'
+railroad phwere there'll be a buyer from th' Eastern vaneer mills
+waitin'.
+
+"Ut's a crooked game, shtealin' Appleton's logs, an' haulin' um wid
+Appleton's teams, an' drawin' Appleton's wages fer doin' ut.
+
+"Now, bechune man an' man, th' big Swede's th' brains av th' gang. He's
+a whole lot shmar-rter'n phwat he lets on. Such ain't th' nature av
+men, but 'tis th' way av women."
+
+Irish thoughtfully tamped his pipe-bowl, and the flare of the match
+between his cupped palms brought out his honest features distinctly in
+the darkness. Bill felt a strong liking for this homely philosopher,
+and he listened as the other eyed him knowingly and continued:
+
+"'Tis be experience we lear-rn. An' th' sooner a man lear-rns, th'
+bether ut is fer um, that all women know more thin they let on--an'
+they've always an ace fer a hole car-rd bekase av ut.
+
+"Fer women run men, an' men politics, an' politics armies, an' armies
+th' wor-rld--an' at th' bottom av ut all is th' wisdom an' schemin' av
+women.
+
+"Phwin a man fools a woman, he's a fool--fer she ain't fooled at all.
+But, she ain't fool enough to let on she ain't fooled, fer well she
+knows that as long as she knows more thin he thinks she knows, she
+holds th' edge--an' th' divil av ut is, she does.
+
+"Take a man, now; phwin ye know um, ye know um. He's always willin' to
+admit he's as shmar-rt as he is, or a damn soight shmar-rter, which
+don't fool no wan, fer 'tis phwat they expect.
+
+"A man c'n brag an' lie about phwat he knows, an' phwere he's been, an'
+phwat he's done; an' noine toimes out av tin, ye cud trust him to th'
+inds av th' earth wid ye're lasht dollar.
+
+"But wanst let um go out av his way to belittle himsilf an' phwat he
+knows, an' Oi w'udn't trust him wid a bent penny as far as Oi cud t'row
+a bull be th' tail fer 'tis done wid a purpose. 'Tis so wid
+Shtromberg."
+
+Fallon arose, consulted his watch, and led the way toward the
+bunk-house.
+
+"So now ye know fer phwy Moncrossen hates ye," he continued. "He knows
+ye're a greener in th' woods, but he knows be this toime ye'll be a
+har-rd man to handle, an' he fears ye. Oi've put ye wise to th'
+bird's-eye game so ye c'n steer clear av ut, an' not be gittin' mixed
+up in ut wan way or another."
+
+"I am much obliged, Fallon, for what you have told me," replied Bill
+quietly; "but inasmuch as I am working for Appleton, I will just make
+it my business to look after his interests in whatever way possible. I
+guess I will take a hand in the bird's-eye game myself. I am not afraid
+of Moncrossen and his gang of thieves. Anyway, I will give them a run
+for their money."
+
+Fallon shrugged.
+
+"D'ye know, Oi thoucht ye'd say that. Well, 'tis ye're own funeral.
+Tellin' ye about me, Oi ain't lost no bird's-eye trees, mesilf, but av
+ye need help--Be th' way, th' bunk above mine's empty; ye moight t'row
+ye're blankets in there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A FRAME-UP
+
+
+In the days that followed Bill threw himself into the work with a vigor
+that won the approval of the men. A "top" lumber crew is a
+smooth-running machine of nice balance whose working units are
+interdependent one upon another for efficiency. One shirking or
+inexperienced man may appreciably curtail the output of an entire camp
+and breed discontent and dissatisfaction among the crew. But with Bill
+there was no soldiering. He performed a man's work from the
+start--awkwardly at first, but, with the mastery of detail acquired
+under the able tutelage of Stromberg, he became known as the best
+swamper on the job.
+
+Between him and the big Swede existed a condition of armed neutrality.
+Neither ever referred to the incident of the bunk-house, nor did either
+show hint of ill-feeling toward the other. The efficiency of each
+depended upon the efforts of the other, and neither found cause for
+complaint.
+
+With the crew working to capacity to supply Appleton's demand for ten
+million feet of logs, there was little time for recreation.
+Nevertheless, Bill bought a pair of snowshoes from a passing Indian
+and, in spite of rough weather and aching muscles, utilized stormy days
+and moonlight nights in perfecting himself in their use.
+
+He and Fallon had become great chums and contrary to the Irishman's
+prediction, instead of hectoring the new man, Moncrossen left him
+severely alone.
+
+And so the routine of the camp went on until well into February. The
+clearing widened, the timber line receded, and tier upon tier of logs
+was pyramided upon the rollways. As yet Bill had made no
+progress--formulated no definite plan for the detection and ultimate
+exposure of the gang of bird's-eye thieves.
+
+Occasionally men put up at the camp for a short stay. Creed and Lebolt
+were the most frequent visitors, but neither gave evidence of being
+other than he appeared to be--Creed a hunter seeking to dispose of
+venison taken out of season, and Lebolt a company cruiser engaged in
+estimating timber to the northward.
+
+It was about this time that Bad Luck, that gaunt specter that lurks
+unseen in the shadows and hovers over the little lives of men for the
+working of harm, swooped down upon the camp and in a series of untoward
+happenings impaired its efficiency and impregnated the atmosphere with
+the blight of discontent.
+
+An unprecedented thaw set in, ruining the skidways and reducing the
+snow of the forest to a sodden slush that chilled men to the bone as
+they floundered heavily about their work.
+
+Reed and Kantochy, two sawyers, were caught by a "kick-back." One of
+the best horses was sweenied. A teamster who fell asleep on the top of
+his load awoke in the bottom of a ravine with a shattered arm, a dead
+horse, and a ruined log-sled. Bill's foot was mashed by a rolling log;
+and last, and most far-reaching in its effect, the cook contracted
+spotted fever and died in a reverse curve.
+
+Moncrossen raged. From a steady eighty thousand feet a day the output
+dropped to seventy, sixty, fifty thousand--and the end was not in
+sight. Good-natured banter and friendly tussles among the men gave
+place to surly bickering and ugly fist-fighting, and in spite of the
+best efforts of the second cook the crew growled sullenly or openly
+cursed the grub.
+
+Then it was that Moncrossen knew that something must be done--and that
+something quickly. He shifted Stromberg and Fallon to the sawing crew,
+made a skidder out of a swamper, and filled his place with a grub-shack
+flunky.
+
+Then one afternoon he dropped in upon Bill in the bunk-house, where
+that young man sat fuming at his inaction with his foot propped up on
+the edge of a bunk.
+
+"How's the foot?" growled the boss.
+
+"Pretty sore," answered Bill, laying aside a magazine. "Swelling is
+going down a bit."
+
+"Ever handle horses?"
+
+"Yes, a few."
+
+The boss cleared his throat and proceeded awkwardly.
+
+"I don't like to ask no crippled man to work before he's able," he
+began grudgingly. "But things is goin' bad. What with them two pilgrims
+that called theirselves sawyers not bein' able to dodge a kick-back,
+an' Gibson pickin' a down-hill pull on an iced skidway for to go to
+sleep on his load, an' your gettin' pinched, an' the cook curlin' up
+an' dyin' on us, an' the whole damned outfit roarin' about the grub,
+there's hell to pay all around."
+
+He paused and, receiving no answer, shot a crafty look at the man
+before him.
+
+"Now, if you was able," he went on, "you c'd take the tote-sled down to
+Hilarity an' fetch us a cook. It seems like that's the onliest way;
+there ain't nary 'nother man I c'n spare--an' he's a good cook, old
+Daddy Dunnigan is, if he'll come. He's a independent old cuss--work if
+he damn good an' feels like it, an' if he don't he won't.
+
+"If you think you c'n tackle it, I'll have the blacksmith whittle you
+out a crutch, an' you c'n take that long-geared tote team an' make
+Hilarity in two days. They's double time in it for you," he added, as a
+matter of special inducement.
+
+Bill did not hesitate over his decision.
+
+"All right; I think I can manage," he said. "When do I start?"
+
+"The team'll be ready early in the mornin'. If you start about four
+o'clock you c'n make Melton's old No. 8 Camp by night without crowdin'
+'em too hard. It's the first one of them old camps you strike, and you
+c'n stable the horses without unharnessin'; just slip off the bridles
+an' feed 'em."
+
+Bill nodded. At the door Moncrossen halted and glanced at him
+peculiarly.
+
+"I'm obliged to you," he said. "For a greener, you've made a good hand.
+I'll have things got ready."
+
+Bill was surprised that the boss had paid him even this grudging
+compliment, and as he sat beside the big stove, puzzled over the
+peculiar glance that had accompanied it.
+
+In a few minutes, however, he dismissed the matter and turned again to,
+his six-months-old magazine. Could he have followed Moncrossen and
+overheard the hurried conversation which took place in the little
+office, he would have found food for further reflection, but of this he
+remained in ignorance; and, all unknown to him, a man left the office,
+slipped swiftly and noiselessly into the forest, and headed southward.
+
+"'Tis a foine va-acation ye're havin' playin' nurse fer a pinched toe,
+an' me tearin' out th' bone fer to git out th' logs on salt-horse an'
+dough-gods 't w'd sink a battle-ship. 'Tis a lucky divil ye ar-re
+altogither," railed Fallon good-naturedly as he returned from supper
+and found Bill engaged in the task of swashing arnica on his bruised
+foot.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I'll be back in the game to-morrow."
+
+"To-morry!" exclaimed Irish, eying the swollen and discolored member
+with a grin. "Yis; ut'll be to-morry, all right. But 'tis a shame to
+waste so much toime. Av ye c'd git th' boss to put ye on noight shift
+icin' th' skidways, ye wudn't have to wait so long."
+
+"It's a fact, Irish," laughed Bill. "I go on at 4 A.M. to-morrow."
+
+"Fure A.M., is ut? An' phwat'll ye be doin'? Peelin' praties fer that
+dommed pisener in th' kitchen. Ye've only been laid up t'ree days an'
+talk av goin' to wor-rk. Man! Av Oi was lucky enough to git squose
+loike that, Oi'd make ut lasht a month av Oi had to pour ink on me foot
+to kape up th' color."
+
+"I'm going to Hilarity for a cook," insisted Bill. "Moncrossen says
+there is a real one down there--Daddy Dunnigan, he called him."
+
+"Sure, Dunnigan'll not come into th' woods. An' phy shud he? Wid money
+in th' bank, an' her majesty's--Oi mane, his nibs's pension comin' in
+ivery month, an' his insides broke in to Hod Burrage's whisky--phwat
+more c'd a man want?"
+
+"The boss thinks maybe he'll come. Anyway, I am going after him."
+
+"Ye shud av towld um to go to hell! Wor-rkin' a man wid a foot loike
+that is croolty to animals; av ye was a harse he'd be arrested."
+
+"He didn't tell me to go. He is crowded for men; the grub is rotten;
+something has to be done; and he asked me if I thought I could make
+it."
+
+Irish pulled thoughtfully at his pipe, and slowly his brows drew
+together in a frown.
+
+"He said ye c'd make ut in two days?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes. The tote-road is well broken, and forty miles traveling light
+with that rangy team is not such an awful pull."
+
+"An' he towld ye phwere to camp. It'll be Melton's awld No. 8, where ye
+camped comin' in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Fallon nodded thoughtfully, and Bill wondered what was passing in his
+mind. For a long time he was silent, and the injured man responded to
+the hearty greetings and inquiries of the men returning from the
+grub-shack.
+
+When these later had disposed themselves for the evening, the Irishman
+hunched his chair closer to the bunk upon which Bill was sitting.
+
+"At Melton's No. 8, Oi moind, th' shtables is a good bit av a way from
+th' rist av th' buildin's, an' hid from soight be a knowl av ground."
+
+"I don't remember the stables, but they can't be very far; they are in
+the clearing, and Moncrossen had the blacksmith make me a crutch."
+
+"A crutch, is ut? A crutch! Well, a man ud play hell makin' foorty
+moiles on a crutch in th' winter--no mather how good th' thrail was
+broke."
+
+"Forty miles! Look here, Irish--what are you talking about? I thought
+your bottle had been empty for a week."
+
+"Impty ut is--which me head ain't. Listen: S'posin'--just s'posin',
+moind yez Oi'm sayin'--a man wid a bum leg was camped in th' shack av
+Melton's No. 8, an' th' harses in th' shtable. An' s'posin' some one
+shnaked in in th' noight an' stole th' harses on um an' druv 'em to
+Hilarity, an' waited f'r th' boss to sind f'r 'em. An' s'posin' a wake
+wint by befoor th' boss c'd sind a man down to look up th' team he'd
+sint f'r a cook, wid orders to hurry back. An' s'posin' he found th'
+bum-legged driver froze shtiff on th' tote-road phwere he'd made out to
+hobble a few moiles on his crutch--phwat thin? Why, th' man was a
+greener, an', not knowin' how to handle th' team, they'd got away from
+um."
+
+Bill followed the Irishman closely, and knew that he spoke with a
+purpose. His eyes narrowed, and his lips bent into that cold smile
+which the men of the camp had come to know was no smile at all, but a
+battle alarm, the more ominous for its silence.
+
+"Do you mean that it is a frame-up? That Moncrossen----" Fallon silenced
+him with a motion.
+
+"Whist!" he whispered and glanced sharply about him, then leaned over
+and dug a stiffened forefinger into the other's ribs. "Oi don't mane
+nothin'. But 'tis about toime they begun bankin' their bird's-eye.
+
+"Creed et dinner in camp, but he never et supper. Him an' th' boss made
+medicine in th' office _afther_ th' boss talked to ye. Put two an' two
+togither an' Oi've towld ye nothin' at all; but av ye fergit ut Oi'll
+see that phwat th' wolves lave av th' bum-legged teamster is buried
+proper an' buried deep, an' Oi'll blow in tin dollars f'r a mass f'r
+his sowl.
+
+"Av ye _don't_ fergit ut, ye moight fetch back a gallon jug av Hod
+Burrage's embalmin' flooid, f'r me inwards is that petrified be th'
+grub we've been havin' av late, they moight mishtake ut f'r rale
+liquor. Good-by, an' good luck--'tis toime to roll in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A FIRE IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+The sledding was good on the tote-road.
+
+The thaw that ruined the iced surface of the skid-ways was followed by
+several days of freezing weather that put a hard, smooth finish on the
+deep snow of the longer road, over which the runners of the box-bodied
+tote-sled slipped with scarcely any resistance to the pull of the
+sharp-shod team.
+
+Bill Carmody, snugly bundled in robes in the bottom of the sled, idly
+watched the panorama of tree-trunks between which the road twisted in
+an endless succession of tortuous windings.
+
+It was not yet daylight when he rounded the bend which was the scene of
+his fight with the werwolf.
+
+But by the thin, cold starlight and the pale luminosity of the fading
+aurora, he recognized each surrounding detail, and wondered at the
+accuracy with which the trivialities of the setting had been
+subconsciously impressed upon his memory.
+
+It was here he had first met Fallon, and he remembered the undisguised
+approval in the Irishman's voice and the firm grip of the hand that
+welcomed him into the comradery of the North-men as he stood, faint
+from hunger and weary from exertion, staring dully down at the
+misshapen carcass of Diablesse.
+
+"Good old Irish," he muttered, and smiled as he thought of himself,
+Bill Carmody, proud of the friendship of a lumberjack.
+
+He had come to know that in the ceaseless whirl of society the heavier
+timbers--the real men are thrown outward--forced to the very edges of
+the bowl, where they toil among big things upon the outskirts of
+civilization.
+
+He pulled off his heavy mitten and fumbled for his pipe. In the
+side-pocket of his mackinaw his hand encountered an object--hard and
+cold and unfamiliar to his touch.
+
+He withdrew it and looked at the wicked, blue-black outlines of an
+automatic pistol. Idly he examined the clip, crowded with shiny, yellow
+cartridges. He recognized the gun as Fallon's, and smiled as he
+returned it to his pocket.
+
+"Only in case of a pinch," he grinned, and glanced approvingly at the
+fist that doubled hard to the strong clinch of his fingers.
+
+Hour after hour he slipped smoothly southward, relieving the monotony
+of the journey by formulating his plan of action in case the
+forebodings of Fallon should be realized.
+
+Personally he apprehended no trouble, but he made up his mind that
+trouble coming should not find him unprepared.
+
+When at last the team swung into the clearing of Melton's old No. 8,
+the stars winked in cold brilliance above the surrounding pines, and
+the deserted buildings stood lifeless and dim in the deepening gloom.
+
+Bill headed the horses for the stable which he found, as Irish had told
+him, located at some distance from the other buildings and cut off from
+sight by a knoll and a heavy tangle of scrub that had sprung up in the
+clearing.
+
+He climbed stiffly and painfully from the sled-box, and with the aid of
+his crutch, hobbled about the task of unhitching the horses. He watered
+them where a plume of thin vapor disclosed the whereabouts of a
+never-freezing spring which burbled softly between its low,
+ice-encrusted banks.
+
+It proved a difficult matter, crippled as he was, to handle the horses,
+but at length he got them into the stable, chinked the broken
+feed-boxes as best he could, and removed the bridles, hanging them upon
+the hames.
+
+He closed the door and, securing his lantern, blankets, and
+lunch-basket, made his way toward the old shack where he had spent his
+first night in the timber land.
+
+The sagging door swung half open, and upon the rough floor the
+snow-water from the recent thaw had collected in puddles and frozen,
+rendering the footing precarious.
+
+Bill noted with satisfaction that there still remained a goodly portion
+of the firewood which he had cut and carried in upon his previous
+visit, and he soon had a fire roaring in the rusty stove.
+
+He was in no hurry. He knew that any attempt to make away with the team
+would be delayed until the thief believed him to be asleep, and his
+plans were laid to the minutest detail.
+
+Setting the lantern upon the table, he proceeded to eat his lunch,
+after which he lighted his pipe, and for an hour smoked at the
+fireside. In spite of the pain of his injured foot his mind wandered
+back to the events of his first visit to the shack.
+
+There, in the black shadow of the pile of firewood, lay the empty
+whisky bottle where the Indian had tossed it after drinking the last
+drop of its contents.
+
+Carmody stared a long time at this silent reminder of his first serious
+brush with King Alcohol, then, from the inner pocket of his mackinaw,
+he drew the sealed packet and gazed for many minutes at the likeness of
+the girl--dimming now from the rub of the coarse cloth of the pocket.
+
+Suddenly a great longing came over him--a longing to see this girl, to
+hear the soft accents of her voice and, above all, to tell her of his
+great love for her, that in all the world there was no woman but her,
+and that each day, and a hundred times each day, her dear face was
+before his eyes, and in his ears, ringing above the mighty sounds of a
+falling forest, was the soft, sweet sound of her voice.
+
+He could not speak to her, but she could speak to him, even if it were
+but a repetition of the words of the letters he already knew by heart,
+but which had remained sealed in the envelope ever since the day he bid
+farewell to Broadway--and to _her_.
+
+His fingers fumbled at the flap of the heavy envelope. He could at
+least feast his eyes upon the lines traced by her pen and press his
+lips to the page where her little hand had rested.
+
+His foot throbbed with dull persistence. He was conscious of being
+tired, but he must not sleep this night. Rough work possibly, at any
+rate, a man's work, awaited him there in the gloom of the silent
+clearing.
+
+Again his eye sought the whisky bottle and held. His fingers ceased to
+toy with the flap, for in that moment the thought came to him that had
+the bottle not been empty, had it been filled with liquor--strong
+liquor--with the pain in his foot and the stiffness of his tired
+muscles and the work ahead--well, he might--for the old desire was
+strong upon him--he might take a drink.
+
+"Not yet," he muttered, and returned the packet to his pocket unopened.
+"I told her I would beat the game. I've bucked old John Barleycorn's
+line and scored a touchdown; the hardest of the fighting is past, but
+there is just a chance that I might miss goal."
+
+Bill looked at his watch; it was eight o'clock. He stood up, wincing as
+his injured foot touched the floor, and hobbled across the room where
+he wrenched a rough, split shelf from the wall. This, together with
+some sticks of firewood, he rolled in a blanket, placing it near the
+stove. He added more wood until the bundle was about the size and shape
+of a man, and covered it with his other two blankets. Filling the
+broken stove with wood he blew out the lantern and limped silently out
+into the night.
+
+Two hours later Creed, bird's-eye spotter and bad man of the worn-out
+little town of Hilarity, knocked the ashes from his pipe and held a
+glowing brand to the dial of his watch.
+
+"The greener should be asleep by now," he muttered, and, rolling his
+blanket, kicked snow over the remnant of his camp-fire, picked up his
+rifle, and ascended the steep side of a deep ravine lying some two
+hundred yards to the westward of the clearing where Bill Carmody had
+encamped for the night.
+
+After leaving Moncrossen's office on the previous afternoon he had
+traveled all night, and reached Melton's old No. 8 in the early
+morning.
+
+All day he had slept by the side of his fire in the bottom of the
+ravine, and in the evening had lain in the cover of the scrub and
+watched the greener stable the horses and limp to the deserted shack.
+
+At heart Creed was a craven, a bullying swashbuckler, who bragged and
+blustered among the rheumy-eyed down-and-outers who nightly
+foregathered about Burrage's stove, but who was servile and cringing as
+a starved puppy toward Moncrossen and Stromberg, who openly despised
+him.
+
+They made good use of his ability to "spot" a bird's-eye tree as far as
+he could see one, however, an ability shared by few woodsmen, and which
+in Creed amounted almost to genius.
+
+The man had never been known to turn his hand to honest work, but as a
+timber pirate and peddler of rotgut whisky among the Indians, he had
+arisen to comparative affluence.
+
+His hate for the greener was abysmal and unreasoning, and had been
+carefully fostered by Moncrossen who, instinctively fearing that the
+new man would eventually expose his nefarious double-dealing with his
+employer, realized that at the proper time Creed could be induced to do
+away with the greener under circumstances that would leave him,
+Moncrossen, free from suspicion.
+
+In the framing of Bill Carmody, Stromberg had no part. Moncrossen could
+not fathom the big Swede, upon whose judgment and acumen he had come to
+rely in the matter of handling and disposing of the stolen timber.
+
+Several times during the winter he had tentatively broached plans and
+insinuated means whereby the Swede could "accidentally" remove his
+swamper from their path.
+
+The reversing of a hook which would cause a log to roll just at the
+right time on a hillside; the filing of a link; the snapping of a
+weakened bunk-pin, any one of these common accidents would render them
+safe from possible interference.
+
+But to all these suggestions Stromberg turned a deaf ear. The boss even
+taunted him with the knock-out he had received at the hands of the
+greener.
+
+"That's all right, Moncrossen," he replied; "I picked the fight purpose
+to beat him up. It didn't work. He's a better man than me--or you
+either--an' you know it. Only he had to lick me to prove it. He chilled
+your heart with a look an' a grin--an' the whole crew lookin' on.
+
+"But beatin' up a man is one thing an' murder is another. Appleton's
+rich, besides he's a softwood man an' ain't fixed for handlin' veneer,
+so I might's well get in on the bird's-eye as let you an' Creed an'
+Lebolt steal it all. But I ain't got to the point where I'd murder a
+good man to cover up my dirty tracks--an' I never will!"
+
+And so, without consulting Stromberg, Moncrossen bided his time and
+laid his plans. And now the time had come. The plan had been gone over
+in detail in the little office, and Creed in the edge of the timber
+stood ready to carry it out.
+
+Stealthily he slipped into the dense shadows of the scrub and made his
+way toward the shack where a thin banner of smoke, shot with an
+occasional yellow spark, floated from the dilapidated stovepipe that
+protruded from the roof.
+
+The hard crust rendered snowshoes unnecessary, and his soft moccasins
+made no sound upon the surface of the snow.
+
+Gaining the side of the shack, he peered between the unchinked logs.
+The play of the firelight that shone through the holes of the broken
+stove sent flickering shadows dancing over the floor and walls of the
+rough interior.
+
+Near the fire, stretched long and silent beneath its blankets, lay the
+form of a man. Creed shifted his position for a better view of the
+sleeper. His foot caught in the loop of a piece of discarded wire whose
+ends were firmly frozen into the snow, and he crashed heavily backward
+into a pile of dry brushwood.
+
+It seemed to the frightened man as if the accompanying noise must wake
+the dead. He lay for a moment where he had fallen, listening for sounds
+from within. He clutched his rifle nervously, but the deathlike silence
+was unbroken save for his own heavy breathing and the tiny snapping of
+the fire in the stove.
+
+Cautiously he extricated himself from the brush-heap, his heart
+pounding wildly at the snapping of each dry twig. It was incredible
+that the man could sleep through such a racket in a country where life
+and death may hang upon the rustle of a leaf.
+
+But the silence remained unbroken, and, after what seemed to the
+cowering man an eternity of expectant waiting, he crawled again to the
+wall and glanced furtively into the interior. The form by the fire was
+motionless as before--it had not stirred.
+
+Then, as he looked, a ray of firelight fell upon the white label of the
+black whisky bottle that lay an easy arm's reach from the head of the
+sleeper. A smile of comprehension twisted the lips of his evil face as
+he leered through the crevice at the helpless form by the fireside.
+
+"Soused to the guards," he sneered, "an' me with ten years scairt offen
+my life fer fear I'd wake him." He stood erect and, with no attempt at
+the stealth with which he had approached the shack, proceeded rapidly
+in the direction of the stable.
+
+It was but the work of a few moment to bridle the horses, lead them
+out, and hitch them to the sled.
+
+Tossing the horse-blankets on top of the big tarpaulin which lay in the
+rear of the sled-box ready for use in the covering of supplies, he
+settled himself in front and pulled the robes about him.
+
+He turned the team slowly onto the tote-road and glanced again toward
+the shack. A spark, larger than the others, shot out of the stovepipe
+and lodged upon the bark roof, where it glowed for a moment before
+going out. The man watched it in sudden fascination.
+
+He halted the team and stared long at the spot where the spark had
+vanished in blackness, but which in the brain of the man appeared as an
+ever-widening circle of red, which spread until it included the whole
+roof in its fiery embrace, and crept slowly down the log walls.
+
+So realistic was the picture that he seemed to hear the crackle and
+roar of the leaping flames. He drew a trembling hand across his eyes,
+and when he looked again the shack stood silent and black in the
+half-light of the starlit clearing.
+
+"God!" he mumbled aloud. "If it had only happened thataway----" He
+passed his tongue over his dry, thick lips. "Why not?" he argued
+querulously. "Moncrossen said 'twa'nt safe to bushwhack him like I
+wanted to--said how I ain't got nerve nor brains to stand no
+investigation.
+
+"But if he'd git burnt up in the shack, that's safer yet. He got that
+booze somewhere--some one knows he had it. He got spiflicated, built a
+roarin' fire in the old stove--an' there y'are, plain as daylight. No
+brains! I'll show him who's got brains--an' there won't be no
+investigation, neither."
+
+He drew the team to the side of the tote-road and, slipping the halters
+over the bridles, tied them to a stout sapling and made his way toward
+the shack.
+
+One look satisfied him that the sleeper had not stirred, and
+noiselessly he slipped the heavy hasp of the door over the staple and
+secured it with the wooden pin.
+
+He collected dry branches, piling them directly beneath the small,
+square window which yawned high in the wall. Higher and higher the pile
+grew until its top was almost on a level with the sill.
+
+His hands trembled as he applied the match. Tiny tongues of flame
+struggled upward through the branches, lengthening and widening as
+fresh twigs ignited, and in his ears the crackle and snap of the dry
+wood sounded as the rattle of musketry.
+
+His first impulse as the flames gained headway was to fly--to place
+distance between himself and the scene of his crime. But he dared not
+go. His knees shook, and he stared with blanched face in horrid
+fascination as the flames roared and crackled through the brushwood.
+
+They were curling about the window now, and the whole clearing was
+light as day. He slunk around the corner and gained the shadow of the
+opposite wall. Fearfully he applied his eye to a crevice--the form by
+the stove had not moved.
+
+The air of the interior was heavy with smoke and tiny flames were
+eating their way between the logs. The smoke thickened, blurring and
+blotting out the prostrate figure. He glanced across at the window. Its
+aperture was a solid sheet of flame--he was safe!
+
+With a low, animal-like cry Creed sprang away and dashed in the
+direction of the team. With shaking fingers he clawed at the knots and
+slipped the halters.
+
+Leaping into the sled, he grabbed up the lines and headed the horses
+southward at a run. Behind him the sky reddened as the flames licked
+hungrily at the dry logs of the shack.
+
+"It's his own fault! It's his own fault!" he mumbled over and over
+again. "Serves him right fer gittin' soused an' buildin' up a big fire
+in a busted stove. 'Twasn't no fault of his that spark didn't catch the
+roof. Serves him right! Maybe it did catch--maybe it did. 'Taint my
+fault no-how--it must 'a' caught--I seen it thataway so plain! Oh, my
+God! Oh, my God," he babbled, "if they git to askin' me!
+
+"It was thisaway, mister; yes, sir; listen: I was camped in the ravine,
+an' all to wunst I seen the flare of the fire an' I run over there; but
+'twas too late--the roof had fell in an' the pore feller must 'a' been
+cooked alive. It was turrible, mister--turrible!
+
+"An' I run an' hitched up the team an' druv to Hilarity hell bent fer a
+potlatch--that's the way of it--s'elp me God it is! If you don't
+b'lieve it ask Moncrossen--ask Moncrossen, I mean, if he didn't have no
+booze along--he must 'a' been drunk--an' him crippled thataway!
+
+"Oh, Lordy, Lord! I ain't supposed to know it was the greener, let
+alone he was crippled! I'm all mixed up a'ready! They better not go
+askin' me questions lessen they want to git me hung--Goda'mi'ty! I'd
+ort to done like Moncrossen said!"
+
+So he raved in a frenzy of terror as the horses sped southward at a
+pace that sent the steam rising in clouds from their heaving sides.
+
+And under the big tarpaulin in the rear of the sled-box the greener
+grinned as he listened, and eyed the gibbering man through a narrow
+slit in the heavy canvas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DADDY DUNNIGAN
+
+
+It was broad daylight when Creed pulled the team up before a
+tumbled-down stable in the rear of one of the outstraggling cabins at
+the end of Hilarity's single street. Hastily he unhitched and led the
+horses through the door.
+
+As he disappeared Bill slipped from under the canvas and limped stiffly
+around the corner of the stable, and none too soon, for as Creed
+returned to the sled for the oats and blankets the cabin door opened,
+and a tall, angular woman appeared, carrying an empty water-pail.
+
+"So ye've come back, hev ye?" she inquired in a shrewish voice. "Well,
+ye're jest in time to fetch the water an' wood. Where d'ye git that
+rig?" she added sharply, eying the sled.
+
+"None o' yer damn business! An' you hurry up an' cook breakfast ag'in'
+I git back from Burrage's, er I'll rig you!"
+
+"Yeh, is that _so_? Jest you lay a finger on me, you damn timber-thievin'
+boot-legger, an' I'll bust you one over the head with the peaked end of
+a flatiron! Where ye goin' ter hide when the owner of them team comes a
+huntin' of 'em? Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Shet up!" growled the man so shortly that the woman, eying him
+narrowly, turned toward the rickety pump, which burbled and wheezed as
+she worked the handle, filling the pail in spasmodic splashes.
+
+"One of Moncrossen's teamsters got burnt up in the shack at Melton's
+No. 8, an' I found the team in the stable an' druv 'em in," he
+vouchsafed as he brushed by the woman on his way to the street.
+"'Twouldn't look right if I shet up about it; I'll be back when I tell
+Burrage."
+
+"Fetch some bacon with ye," called the woman as she filled her dirty
+apron with chips. She paused before lifting the pail from the spout of
+the wooden pump and gazed speculatively at the tote-sled.
+
+"He's lyin'," she said aloud. "He's up to some fresh devilment, an'
+'pears like he's scairt. Trouble with Creed is, he ain't got no
+nerve--he's all mouth. I sure was hard up fer a man when I tuk
+_him_--but he treats me middlin' kind, an' I'd kind of hate to see him
+git caught--'cause he ain't no good a liar, an' a man anyways smart'd
+mix him up in a minit."
+
+She lifted the pail and pushed through the door of the cabin.
+
+"Nice people," muttered Bill as he cast about for an exit.
+
+Keeping the stable in line with the window of the cabin, he made his
+way through a litter of tin cans and rubbish, gaining the shelter of
+the scrub, where he bent a course parallel with the street.
+
+He was stiff and sore from his cramped position in the sled, and his
+foot pained sharply. His progress was slow, and he paused to rest on
+the edge of a small clearing, in the center of which, well back from
+the highway, stood a tiny cabin.
+
+In the doorway an old man, with a short cutty-pipe between his lips,
+leaned upon a crutch and surveyed the sky with weatherwise eyes.
+
+Bill instantly recognized him as the old man with the twisted leg who
+tendered the well-meant advice upon the night of his first arrival in
+the little town, and his face reddened as he remembered the
+supercilious disregard with which he had received it.
+
+For a moment he hesitated, then advanced toward the door. The old man
+removed his cutty-pipe and regarded him curiously.
+
+"Good morning!" called Bill with just a shade of embarrassment.
+
+"Good marnin' yersilf!" grinned the other, a twinkle in his little
+eyes.
+
+"May I ask where I will find a man called Daddy Dunnigan?"
+
+"In about foive minutes ye'll foind um atein' breakfust wid a
+shtrappin' young hearty wid a sore fut. Come an in. Oi'm me own
+housekaper, cook, an' bottle-washer; but, av Oi do say ut mesilf, Oi've
+seen wor-rse!"
+
+"So you are Daddy Dunnigan?" asked Bill as he gazed hungrily upon the
+steaming saucers of oatmeal, the sizzling ham, and the yellow globes of
+fresh eggs fried "sunny side up."
+
+"Ye'll take a wee nip befoor ye eat?" asked his host, reaching to the
+chimney-shelf for a squat, black bottle.
+
+"No, thanks," smiled Bill. "I don't use it."
+
+"Me, nayther," replied the other with a chuckle; "Oi misuse ut," and,
+pouring himself a good half tin cupful, swallowed it neat at a gulp.
+
+The meal over, the men lighted their pipes, and Bill broached the
+object of his visit. The old man listened and, when Bill finished, spat
+reflectively into the wood-box.
+
+"So Buck Moncrossen sint ye afther me, did he?"
+
+"Yes. He said you were a good cook, and I can certainly bear him out in
+that; but he said that you would only work if you damn good and felt
+like it, and if you didn't you wouldn't." The old man grinned.
+
+"He's roight agin, an' Oi'll be tellin' ye now Oi damn good an' don't
+feel loike wor-rkin' f'r Moncrossen, th' dirthy pirate, takin' a man's
+pay wid wan hand an' shtealin' his timber wid th' other. He'd cut th'
+throat av his own mither f'r th' price av a dhrink.
+
+"An' did he sind ye down afoot an' expict me to shtroll back wi' ye,
+th' both av us on crutches?"
+
+"No, I have a team here," laughed Bill. "They are in Creed's stable."
+
+"Creed's!" The old man glanced at him sharply. "Phwat ar-re they doin'
+at Creed's?"
+
+"Well, that is a long story; but it sums up about like this: I see you
+know Moncrossen--so do I. And Moncrossen is afraid I will crab his
+bird's-eye game--and I will, too, when the proper time comes.
+
+"But he saw a chance to get rid of me, so he sent me after you,
+probably knowing that you would not come; but it offered an excuse to
+get me where he wanted me. Then he framed it up with Creed to steal the
+team in the night while I was camped at Melton's No. 8, and leave me to
+die bushed.
+
+"I built a fire in the shack, ate my supper, rigged up a dummy near the
+fire, and then went out to the sled and crawled under the tarp. After
+making sure that I was asleep Creed stole the team as per schedule, but
+he did not stop at that. He decided to make sure of me, so he locked
+the door on the outside and fired the shack. I remained under the tarp,
+and as Creed was going my way I let him do the driving. While he put up
+the team I slipped out the back way, and here I am."
+
+"Th' dirthy, murdherin' hound!" exclaimed the old man, chuckling and
+weaving his body from side to side in evident enjoyment of the tale.
+
+"An' phwat'll ye do wid um now ye're here?" The old man sat erect and
+stared into the face of his guest, whose eyes had narrowed and whose
+lips had curved into an icy smile.
+
+"First, I'll give him the damnedest licking with my two fists that he
+ever got in his life; then I'll turn him over to the authorities."
+
+Daddy Dunnigan leaned forward and, laying a gnarled hand upon his
+shoulder, shook him roughly in his excitement:
+
+"Yer name, b'y? Phwat is yer name?" His voice quavered, and the little
+eyes glittered between the red-rimmed lids, bright as an eagle's. The
+younger man was astonished at his excitement.
+
+"Why, Bill," he replied.
+
+"Bill or Moike or Pat--wurrah! Oi mane yer rale name--th' whole av ut?"
+
+"That I have not told. I am called Bill."
+
+"Lord av hiven! I thocht ut th' fir-rst toime Oi seen ye--but now! Man!
+B'y. Wid thim eyes an' that shmile on yer face, d'ye think ye c'd fool
+owld Daddy Dunnigan, that was fir-rst corp'l t'rough two campaigns an'
+a scourge av peace f'r Captain Fronte McKim?
+
+"Who lucked afther um loike a brother--an' loved um more--an' who
+fought an' swore an' laughed an' dhrank wid um trough all th'
+plague-ridden counthry from Kashmir to th' say--an' who wropped um in
+his blanket f'r th' lasht toime an' helped burry um wid his eyes
+open--f'r he'd wished ut so--on th' long, brown slope av a rock-pocked
+Punjab hill, ranged round tin deep wid th' dead naygers av Hira Kal?"
+
+Bill stared at the man wide-eyed.
+
+"Fronte McKim?" he cried.
+
+"Aye, Fronte McKim! As sh'u'd 'a' been gineral av all Oirland, England,
+an' Injia. Av he'd 'a' been let go he'd licked th' naygers fir-rst an'
+diplomated phwat was lift av um. He'd made um shwim off th' field to
+kape from dhroundin' in their own blood--an' kep' 'em good aftherward
+wid th' buckle ind av a surcingle.
+
+"My toime was up phwin he was kilt, an' Oi quit. F'r Oi niver 'listed
+to rot in barracks. Oi wint back to Kerry an' told his mither, th'
+pale, sad Lady Constance--God rist her sowl!--that sint foor b'ys to
+th' wars that niver come back--an' wud sint foor more if she'd had 'em.
+
+"She give me char-rge av th' owld eshtate, wid th' big house, an th'
+lawn as wide an' as grane as th' angel pastures av hiven--an' little
+Eily--his sisther--th' purtiest gur-rl owld Oirland iver bred, who was
+niver tired av listhenin' to tales av her big brother.
+
+"Oi shtayed till th' Lady Constance died an' little Eily married a rich
+man from Noo Yor-rk--Car-rson, or meby Carmen, his name was; an' he
+carried her off to Amur-rica. 'Twas not th' same in Kerry afther that,
+an' Oi shtrayed from th' gold camps av Australia to th' woods av
+Canada."
+
+The far-away look that had crept into the old man's eyes vanished, and
+his voice became gruff and hard.
+
+"Oi've hear-rd av yer doin's in th' timber--av yer killin' th' werwolf
+in th' midst av her pack--an yer lickin' Moncrossen wid a luk an' a
+grin--av yer knockin' out Shtromberg wid t'ree blows av yer fisht.
+
+"Ye might carry th' name av a Noo York money-grubber, but yer hear-rt
+is th' hear-rt av a foightin' McKim--an' yer eyes, an' that smile--th'
+McKim smile--that's as much a laugh as th' growl av a grizzly--an' more
+dangerous thin a cocked gun."
+
+The old man paused and filled his pipe, muttering and chuckling to
+himself. Bill grasped his hand, wringing it in a mighty grip.
+
+"You have guessed it," he said huskily. "My name does not matter. I am
+a McKim. She was my mother--Eily McKim--and she used to tell me of my
+uncle--and of you."
+
+"Did she, now? Did she remember me?" he exclaimed. "God bless th'
+little gur-rl. An' she is dead?" Bill nodded, and Daddy Dunnigan drew a
+coarse sleeve across his eyes and puffed hard at his short pipe.
+
+"And will you go back with me and work the rest of the winter for
+Moncrossen?"
+
+The old man remained silent so long that Bill thought he had not heard.
+He was about to repeat the question when the other laid a hand upon his
+knee.
+
+"Oi don't have to wor-rk f'r no man, an' Oi'll not wor-rk f'r
+Moncrossen. But Oi'd cross hell on thin ice in July to folly a McKim
+wanst more, an' if to do ut Oi must cook f'r Appleton's camp, thin so
+ut is. Git ye some shleep now whilst Oi loaf down to Burrage's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CREED SEES A GHOST
+
+
+When Bill awoke, yellow lamplight flooded the room and Daddy Dunnigan
+was busy about the stove, from the direction of which came a cheerful
+sizzling and the appetizing odor of frying meat and strong coffee.
+
+For several minutes he lay in a delicious drowse, idly watching the old
+man as he hobbled deftly from stove to cupboard, and from cupboard to
+table.
+
+So this was the man, he mused, of whom his mother had so often spoken
+when, as a little boy, he had listened with bated breath to her tales
+of the fighting McKims.
+
+He remembered how her soft eyes would glow, and her lips curve with
+pride as she recounted the deeds of her warrior kin.
+
+But, most of all, she loved to tell of Captain Fronte, the big,
+fighting, devil-may-care brother who was her childish idol; and of one,
+James Dunnigan, the corporal, who had followed Captain Fronte through
+all the wars, and to whose coolness and courage her soldier brother
+owed his life on more than one occasion, and whose devotion and loyalty
+to the name of McKim was a byword throughout the regiment, and in
+Kerry.
+
+"And now," thought Bill, "that I have found him, I will never lose
+sight of him. He needs someone to look after him in his old age."
+
+Over the little flat-topped stove the leathern old world-rover muttered
+and chuckled to himself as he prodded a fork into the browning
+pork-chops, shooting now and then an affectionate glance toward the
+bunk.
+
+"Saints be praised!" he muttered. "Oi'd av know'd um in hiven or hell,
+or Hong-Kong. Captain Fronte's own silf, he is, as loike as two peas.
+An' the age av Captain Fronte befure he was kilt, phwin he was th'
+besht officer in all th' British ar-rmy--or an-ny ar-rmy.
+
+"Him that c'd lay down th' naygers in windrows all day, an' dhrink, an'
+play car-rds, an' make love all noight--an' at 'em agin in th' marnin'!
+An' now Oi've found um Oi'll shtay by um till wan av us burries th'
+other. For whilst a McKim roams th' earth James Dunnigan's place is to
+folly um.
+
+"An', Lord be praised, he's a foightin' man--but a McKim that don't
+dhrink! Wurrah! Maybe he wasn't failin' roight, or th' liquor didn't
+look good enough fer um. Oi'll thry um agin."
+
+Bill threw off the blankets and sat up on the edge of the bunk.
+
+"That grub smells good, Daddy," he sniffed.
+
+"Aye, an 'twill tashte good, too, av ye fly at ut befure ut gits cold.
+Ye've had shleep enough fer two min--Captain Fronte'd git along fer
+wakes at a toime on foorty winks in th' saddle."
+
+"I am afraid I will have a hard time living up to Captain Fronte's
+standard," laughed Bill, as he adjusted his bandages.
+
+"Well, thin, Oi'll tell yez th' fir-rst thing Captain Fronte'd done
+phwin his two feet hit th' flure: he'd roar fer a dhrink av good
+liquor. An' thin he'd ate a dozen or two av thim pork-chops, an' wash
+'em down wid a gallon av black coffee--an' he'd be roight fer
+an-nything from a carouse wid th' brown dancin' Nautch gir-rls, to a
+brush in th' hills wid their fightin' brown brothers.
+
+"Th' liquor's waitin'--ut moightn't be as good as ye're used, but Oi've
+seen Captain Fronte himself shmack his lips over worse. An' as fer th'
+tin cup--he'd dhrink from a batthered tomaty can or a lady's shlipper,
+an' rasp th' dhregs from his t'roat wid a cur-rse or a song, as besht
+fitted th' toime or th' place he was in."
+
+The old man began to pour out the liquor: "Say phwin," he cried, "an'
+Oi've yit to see th' McKim 'twud hurry th' wor-rd."
+
+Bill crossed to the old man, who, propped against the table, watched
+the contents of the bottle gurgle and splash into the huge tin cup, and
+laid a hand upon his arm.
+
+"That will do, Daddy," he said.
+
+The man ceased to pour and peered inquisitively into the cup. "'Taint
+half full yit!" he protested, passing it to Bill, who set it before him
+upon the table, where the rich fumes reached his nostrils as he spoke:
+
+"This whisky," he began, "smells good--plenty good enough for any man.
+But, you don't seem to understand. I don't drink whisky--good whisky,
+or bad whisky, or old whisky, or new whisky, or red, white, and blue
+whisky--or any other kind of booze.
+
+"I have drunk it--bottles of it--kegs of it--barrels of it, I suppose,
+for I played the game from Harlem to the Battery. And then I quit."
+
+"Ye ain't tellin' me ye're timperence?" The old man inquired with
+concern as he would have inquired after an ailment.
+
+"No; that is, if you mean am I one of those who would vote the world
+sober by prohibiting the sale of liquor. It is a personal question
+which every man must meet squarely--for himself--not for his neighbor.
+I am not afraid of whisky. I am not opposed to it, as an issue. In
+fact, I respect it, for, personally, it has given me one peach of a
+scrap--and we are quits."
+
+The old man listened with interest.
+
+"Ye c'n no more kape a McKim from foightin' thin ye c'n kape a dacoit
+from staylin," he chuckled. "So ye tur-rned in an' give th' crayther
+himsilf a foight--an' ye win ut? An' phwat does th' gir-rl think av
+ut?"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Th' gir-rl. Is she proud av ye? Or is she wan av thim that thinks ut
+aisy to quit be just lavin' ut alone? For, sure, ut niver intered th'
+head av man--let alone a McKim, to tur-rn ag'in' liquor, lessen they
+was a gir-rl at th' bottom av ut. An' phwin ar-re ye goin' to be
+marrit? For, av she's proud av ye, ye'll marry her--but av she takes ut
+as a mather av coorse--let some wan ilse git stung."
+
+Bill regarded the old man sharply, but in his bearing was no hint of
+jesting nor raillery, and the little eyes were serious.
+
+"Yes, there _was_ a girl," said Bill slowly; "but she--she does not
+know."
+
+"So ye've had a scrap wid her, too! But, tell me ye didn't run away
+from ut--ye're goin' back?" Bill made no reply, and the old man
+conveyed the food to the table, muttering to himself the while:
+
+"Sure they's more foightin' goin' on thin Oi iver thought to see ag'in.
+Ut ain't rid war, but ut ain't so bad--werwolves, Moncrossen, booze,
+Creed, a bit av a gir-rl somewheres, Shtromberg--th' wor-rld is growin'
+bether afther all, an' Oi'm goin' to be in th' thick av ut!"
+
+Supper over, Bill donned mackinaw, cap, and mittens.
+
+"Phwere ye goin'?" asked Dunnigan.
+
+"To find Creed."
+
+"Wait a bit, 'tis early yit. In half an hour he'll be clost around
+Burrage's shtove, tellin' th' b'ys about th' bur-rnt shack at
+Melton's."
+
+Bill resumed his chair.
+
+"Oi've been thinkin' ut out," continued Daddy, between short puffs at
+his cutty-pipe. "Ye'll have no fun lickin' Creed--'tis shmall
+satisfaction foightin' a man that won't foight back. An-ny-how, a black
+eye or a bloody nose is soon minded. An' av ye tur-rn um over to th'
+authorities ye ain't got much on um, an' ye can't pr-rove phwat ye have
+got.
+
+"But listen: Creed's a dhrivlin' jobbernowl that orders his comin's be
+th' hang av th' moon, an' his goin's be th' dhreams av his head. He
+thinks y're dead. Now, av ye shtroll into Burrage's loike nothin' out
+av th' oordinary has happened, he'll think ye're a ghost--an' th' fear
+in his heart will shtay by um.
+
+"Oi'll loaf down there now, same as ivery noight. In about a half an
+hour ye'll come limpin' in an' ask fer Dunnigan, an' will he cook out
+th' sayson fer Moncrossen? 'Twill be fun to watch Creed. He'll be
+scairt shtiff an' white as a biled shirt, or he'll melt down an'
+dhribble out t'rough a crack av th' flure."
+
+And so, a half-hour later, Bill Carmody for the second time pushed open
+Hod Burrage's door and made his way to the stove.
+
+The scene in no wise differed from the time of his previous visit.
+Slabs of bacon still hung from the roof logs beside the row of tin
+coffee-pots; the sawdust-filled box was still the object of
+intermittent bombardment by the tobacco-chewers, the uncertainty of
+whose aim was mutely attested by the generous circumference of
+brown-stained floor of which the box was the center.
+
+Grouped about the stove, upon counter, barrel-head, and up-ended goods
+box, were the same decaying remnants of the moldering town's vanishing
+population.
+
+The thick, cloudy glass with its sticky edges still circulated for the
+common good, and above the heads of the unkempt men the air reeked gray
+with the fumes of rank tobacco.
+
+Only the man who entered had changed. In his bearing was no hint of
+superiority nor intolerance; he advanced heartily, hailing these men as
+equals and friends. Near the stove he halted, leaning upon his crutch,
+and swept the group with a glance.
+
+"Good evening! Do any one of you men happen to be named Dunnigan?"
+
+From the moment the tap of Bill's crutch sounded upon the wooden floor,
+Creed, who had paused in the middle of a sentence of his highly colored
+narrative, stared at the newcomer as one would ordinarily stare when a
+person known to be dead casually steps up and bids one good evening.
+
+His mouth did not open, his lower jaw merely sagged away from his face,
+exposing his tongue lying thick and flabby upon yellow teeth. His
+out-bulging eyes fixed the features of the man before him with a
+glassy, unwinking stare, like the stare of a fish.
+
+Into his brain, at first, came no thought at all merely a dumb sense of
+unreasoning terror under which his muscles went flaccid, and out of
+control, so that his body shrank limp and heavy against its backing of
+bolt-goods.
+
+Then, suddenly a rush of thoughts crowded his brain, tangled thoughts,
+and weird--of deep significance, but without sequence nor reason.
+
+What had they told of this man in the woods? How he had battled hand to
+claw with the werwolf and received no hurt. How he had cowed the boss
+with a look, and laid the mighty Stromberg cold in the batting of an
+eye.
+
+He himself had, but twenty hours since, seen this man lying helpless
+upon the floor of a locked shack, ringed round with roaring flames,
+beyond any human possibility of escape.
+
+And here he stood, crippled beyond peradventure of trail-travel, yet
+fresh and unfatigued, forty miles from the scene of his burning! A thin
+trickle of ice crept downward along his spine and, overmastering all
+other emotions, came the desire to be elsewhere.
+
+He slid from the counter and, as his feet touched the floor, his knees
+crumpled and he sprawled his length almost at the feet of the man who
+could not die.
+
+As a matter of fact, Creed aged materially during his journey to the
+door, but to the onlookers his exit seemed a miracle of frantic haste
+as he clawed and scrambled the length of the room on hands and knees in
+a maudlin panic of terror.
+
+And out into the night, as he ran in the first direction he faced, the
+upper most thought in his mind was a blind rage against Moncrossen.
+
+The boss himself was afraid of this man, yet he had sent him, Creed, to
+make away with him--alone--in the night! The quavering breath left his
+throat in long moans as he ran on and on and on.
+
+"Your friend seems to have been in something of a hurry," ventured
+Bill, as Burrage gave a final twist to the old newspaper in which he
+was wrapping Fallon's jug.
+
+The storekeeper regarded his customer quizzically and spat with
+surprising accuracy into the box.
+
+"Yes," he replied dryly, "Creed, he's mostly in a hurry when they's
+strangers about. But to-night he seemed right down _anxious_ thataway."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+HEAD-LINES
+
+
+The brute in Moncrossen held subservient the more human emotions, else
+he must surely have betrayed his surprise when, twelve hours ahead of
+schedule, the greener swung the long-geared tote team to a stand in
+front of the office door.
+
+Not only had he made the trip without mishap, but accomplished the
+seemingly impossible in persuading Daddy Dunnigan to cook for a log
+camp, when in all reason the old man should have scorned the
+proposition in a torrent of Irish profanity.
+
+Moncrossen dealt only in facts. Speculation as to cause and effect
+found no place in his mental economy. His plan had miscarried. For that
+Creed must answer later. The fact that concerned him now was that the
+greener continued to be a menace to his scheme.
+
+Had Creed in some manner bungled the job? Or had he passed it up? He
+must find out how much the greener knew. The boss guessed that if the
+other had unearthed the plot, he would force an immediate crisis.
+
+And so he watched narrowly, but with apparent unconcern, while Bill
+climbed from the sled, followed by Daddy Dunnigan. On the hard-packed
+snow of the clearing the two big men faced each other, and the
+expression of each was a perfect mask to his true emotions.
+
+But the greener knew that the boss was masking, while Moncrossen
+accepted the other's guileless expression at its face value, and his
+pendulous lips widened into a grin of genuine relief as he greeted the
+arrivals.
+
+"Hullo! You back a'ready? Hullo, Dunnigan! I'm sure glad you come;
+we'll have some real grub fer a change.
+
+"Hey, LaFranz!" he called to the passing Frenchman. "Put up this team
+an' pack the gear to the bunk-house."
+
+As the man drove away in the direction of the stable, Moncrossen
+regarded the others largely.
+
+"Come on in an' have a drink, boys," he invited, throwing wide the
+door. "How's the foot?"
+
+"Better," replied Bill. "It will be as good as ever in a week."
+
+"I'm glad of that, 'cause I sure am cramped fer hands. I'll let Fallon
+break you into sawin' an put Stromberg to teamin'; he's too pot-gutted
+fer a sawyer."
+
+Moncrossen produced a bottle as the others seated themselves.
+
+"What--don't drink?" he exclaimed, as Bill passed the bottle to
+Dunnigan. "That's so; b'lieve I did hear some one say you didn't use no
+booze. Well, every man to his own likin'. Me--about three good, stiff
+jolts a day, an' a big drunk in the spring an' fall, is about my gait.
+Have a _see_gar." Bill accepted the proffered weed and bit off the end.
+
+"How!" he said, with a short sweep of the arm; then, scratching a match
+on the rung of his chair, lighted the unsavory stogie.
+
+Thus each man took measure of the other, and Daddy Dunnigan tilted the
+bottle and drank deep, the while he took shrewd measure of both.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was in the early afternoon of the following day that Bill Carmody
+tossed aside his magazine and yawned drowsily. Alone in the bunk-house,
+his glance roved idly over the room, with its tiers of empty bunks and
+racks of drying garments.
+
+It rested for a moment upon his bandaged foot propped comfortably upon
+Fallon's bunk, directly beneath his own, and strayed to the floor where
+just under its edge, still wrapped in the soiled newspaper, sat the
+gallon jug that Fallon suggested in case the greener saw fit to heed
+his warning.
+
+Bill smiled dreamily. Unconsciously his lips spelled out the words of
+some head-lines that stared at him from the rounded surface of the jug:
+
+    POPULAR MEMBERS OF NEW YORK'S FOUR HUNDRED TO WED.
+
+"Wonder who?" thought Bill. Reaching for his crutch, he slipped the end
+through the handle of the jug and drew it toward him. He raised it to
+his lap and the words of the succeeding line struck upon his brain like
+an electric shock:
+
+    _Engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger Soon to
+    be Announced._
+
+Feverishly his eyes devoured the following lines of the extended
+heading:
+
+    _Time of Wedding Not Set. Will Not Take Place Immediately, 'Tis
+    Said. Prospective Bridegroom to Sail for Europe in Spring._
+
+And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom,
+where the paper folded under the edge of the jug:
+
+    NEW YORK, February 1. (Special to _Tribune_.)--As a distinct
+    surprise in elite circles will come the announcement of the
+    engage
+
+He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the
+bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had
+worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose
+rolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable.
+
+Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandoned
+the hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines.
+
+Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, and
+then, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes and
+sat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.
+
+For he had hoped. In spite of the scorn in her voice as she dismissed
+him, and the bitter resentment of his own parting words, he loved her;
+and upon the foundation of this love he had builded the hope of its
+fulfillment.
+
+A hope that one day he would return to her, clean and strong in the
+strength of achievement, and that his great passion would beat down the
+barrier and he would claim her as of right.
+
+Suddenly he realized that as much as upon the solid foundation of his
+own great love, the hope depended upon the false substructure of her
+love for him.
+
+And the false substructure had crumbled at the test. She loved another;
+had suddenly become as unattainable as the stars--and was lost to him
+forever.
+
+The discovery brought no poignant pain, no stabbing agony of a fresh
+heart-wound; but worse--the dull, deep, soul-hurt of annihilation; the
+hurt that damns men's lives.
+
+He smiled with bitter cynicism as his thoughts dwelt upon the little
+love of women, the shifting love, that rests but lightly on the heart,
+to change with the changing moon. And upon the constancy of such love
+he had dared to build his future!
+
+"Fool!" he cried, and laughed aloud, a short, hard laugh--the laugh
+that makes God frown. From the water-pail at his side he drew the
+long-handled dipper and removed the cork from the jug and tilted the
+jug, and watched the red liquor splash noisily from its wide mouth.
+
+From that moment he would play a man's game; would smash Moncrossen and
+his bird's-eye men; would learn logs and run camps, and among the big
+men of the rough places would win to the fore by the very force and
+abandon of him.
+
+He had beaten the whisky game; had demonstrated his ability to best
+John Barleycorn on his own terms and in his own fastnesses.
+
+And now he would drink whisky--much whisky or little whisky as he saw
+fit, for there was none to gainsay him--and in his life henceforth no
+woman could cause him pain.
+
+He raised the dipper to his lips, and the next instant it rang upon the
+floor, and over the whole front of him splashed the raw liquor, and in
+his nostrils was the fume and reek of it.
+
+Unmindful of his injury, he leaped to his feet and turned to face Daddy
+Dunnigan, who was returning his crutch to his armpit.
+
+"Toimes Oi've yanked Captain Fronte from th' road av harm," the old man
+was saying, and the red-rimmed, rheumy eyes shone bright; "wanst from
+in front av a char-rge av the hillmen an' wanst beyant Khybar. But Oi'm
+thinkin' niver befoor was Oi closter to th' roight place at th' roight
+toime thin a minit agone.
+
+"Whisky is made to be dhrank fer a pastime av enj'ymint--not alone--wid
+a laugh loike that. Ye've got th' crayther on th' run, but ye must give
+no quarter. Battles is won not in th' thruse, but in th' foightin'.
+
+"No McKim iver yit raised th' white flag, an' none iver died wid his
+back to th' front. Set ye down, lad, an' think it over."
+
+He finished speaking and hobbled toward the door, and, passing out,
+closed it behind him. Alone in the bunk-house Bill Carmody turned again
+to the jug and fitted the cork to its mouth, and with his crutch pushed
+it under the edge of Fallon's bunk.
+
+Hours later, when the men stamped in noisily to the wash-bench, he was
+sitting there in the dark--thinking.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+The results of Daddy Dunnigan's cooking were soon evident in the Blood
+River camp. Men no longer returned to the bunk-house growling and
+cursing the grub, and Moncrossen noted with satisfaction that the daily
+cut was steadily climbing toward the eighty-thousand mark.
+
+The boss added a substantial bonus for each day's "top cut," and in the
+lengthening days an intense rivalry sprang up between the sawyers; not
+infrequently Bill and Fallon were "in on the money."
+
+It was nearly two weeks after the incident, that Creed came to
+Moncrossen with his own story of what happened that night at Melton's
+No. 8, and the boss knew that he lied.
+
+As they talked in the little office the greener, accompanied by Fallon,
+passed close to the window.
+
+At the sight of the man the spotter's face became pasty, and he shrank
+trembling and wide-eyed, as from the sight of a ghost, and Moncrossen
+knew that his abject terror was not engendered by physical fear.
+
+He flew into a rage, cursing and bullying the craven, but failed
+utterly to dispel the unwholesome fear or to shake the other's repeated
+statement that at a few minutes past ten o'clock that night he had seen
+the greener lying hopelessly drunk upon the floor of the shack with the
+flames roaring about him, and at six o'clock the next evening had seen
+him hobble into Burrage's store, forty miles to the southward, fresh
+and apparently unharmed save for his injured foot.
+
+Moncrossen's hatred of the greener rested primarily upon the fear that
+one day he would expose him to Appleton; added to this was a mighty
+jealousy of his rapid rise to proficiency and the rankling memory of
+the scene of their first meeting in the grub-shack.
+
+But his fear of him was a physical fear--a fear born of the certain
+knowledge that, measured by his own standards, the greener was the
+better man.
+
+And now came the perplexing question as to how the man had reached
+Hilarity when Creed was known to have arrived there with the team eight
+hours after the burning of the shack.
+
+The boss had carefully verified so much of Creed's story by a guarded
+pumping of Dunnigan, and the crafty old Irishman took keen delight in
+so wording his answers, and interspersing them with knowing winks and
+quirks of the head, as to add nothing to the boss's peace of mind.
+
+While not sharing Creed's belief in the greener's possession of uncanny
+powers, nevertheless he knew that, whatever happened that night, the
+greener knew more than he chose to tell, and as his apprehension
+deepened his rage increased.
+
+Hate smoldered in the swinish eyes as, in the seclusion of the office,
+he glowered and planned and rumbled his throaty threats.
+
+"The drive," he muttered. "My Bucko Bill, you're right now picked for
+the drive, an' I'll see to it myself that you git yourn in the river."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE LOG JAM
+
+
+The feel of spring filled the air; the sun swung higher and higher; and
+the snow turned dark and lay soggy with water. With the increasing
+warmth of the longer days, men's thoughts turned to the drive.
+
+They talked of water-front streets, with their calk-riddled plank
+sidewalks and low-fronted bars; of squalid back wine-rooms, where for a
+week they would be allowed to bask, sodden, in the smiles of the
+painted women--then, drugged, beaten, and robbed, would wake up in a
+filthy alley and hunt up a job in the mills.
+
+It was all in a lifetime, this annual spring debauch. The men accepted
+it as part of the ordered routine of their lives; accepted it without
+shame or regret, boasting and laughing unblushingly over past
+episodes--facing the future gladly and without disgust.
+
+"You mind Jake Sonto's place, where big Myrtle hangs out? They frisked
+Joe Manning fer sixty bucks last year. I seen 'em do it. What! Me? I
+was too sleepy to give a cuss--they got mine, too."
+
+And so the talk drifted among them. Revolting details of abysmal
+man-failings, brutal reminiscences of knock-out drops, robbery, and
+even murder, furnished the themes for jest and gibe which drew forth
+roars of laughter.
+
+And none sought to avoid the inevitable; rather, they looked forward to
+it in brutish anticipation, accepting it as a matter of course.
+
+For so had lumber-jacks been drugged, beaten, and robbed since the
+first pine fell--and so will they continue to be drugged, beaten, and
+robbed until the last log is jerked, dripping, from the river and the
+last white board is sawed.
+
+On the night of the 8th of April the cut was complete, and on the
+morning of the 9th ten million feet of logs towered on the rollways
+along the river, ready for the breaking up of the ice.
+
+Stromberg had banked the bird's-eye to his own satisfaction, and
+Moncrossen selected his crew for the drive--white-water men, whose
+boast it was that they never had walked a foot from the timber to the
+mills; bateau men, who laughed in the face of death as they swarmed
+over a jam; key-log men, who scorned dynamite; bend watchers, whose
+duty it is to stay awake through the long, warm days and prevent the
+formation of jams as the drive shoots by--each selected with an eye to
+previous experience and physical fitness.
+
+For, among all occupations of men, log driving stands unique for its
+hardships of peril, discomfort, and bone-racking toil.
+
+From the breaking out of the rollways until the last log slips smoothly
+into its place in the boom-raft, no man's life is safe.
+
+Yet men fight for a place on the drive--for the privilege of being
+soaked to the bone for days at a time in ice-cold water; of being
+crushed to a pulp between grinding logs; of being drowned in
+white-water rapids, where a man must stand, his log moving at the speed
+of an express train, time and again shooting half out of water to meet
+the spray of the next rock-tossed wave; of making hair-trigger
+decisions, when an instant's hesitation means death, as his log rushes
+under the low-hanging branches of a "sweeper."
+
+For pure love of adventure they fight--and that a few more dollars may
+find their way into the tills of the Jake Sontos of the water-front
+dives. For among these men the baiting of death is the excitement of
+life, and their pleasures are the savage pleasures of firstlings.
+
+Those who were not of the drive were handed their vouchers and hauled
+to Hilarity, while those who remained busied themselves in the packing
+and storing of gear; for, in the fall, the crew would return to renew
+the attack on the timber.
+
+Followed, then, days of waiting.
+
+The two bateaux--the cook's bateau, with its camp stove and store of
+supplies; and the big bateau, with its thousand feet of inch and a half
+manila line coiled for instant use, whose thick, flaring sides and
+floor of selected timber were built to override the shock and battering
+of a thousand pitching logs--were carried to the bank ready for
+launching.
+
+The sodden snow settled heavily, and around the base of stumps and the
+trunks of standing trees appeared rings of bare ground, while the
+course of the skidways and cross-hauls stood out sharp and black, like
+great veins in the clearing.
+
+Each sag and depression became a pond, and countless rills and rivulets
+gurgled riverward, bank-full with sparkling snow-water.
+
+Over the frozen surface of the river it flowed and wore at the
+shore-bound ice-floor. And then, one night, the ice went out.
+
+Titanically it went, and noisily, with the crash and grind of broken
+cakes; and in the morning the river rushed black, and deep, and
+swollen, its roiled waters tearing sullenly at crumbling banks, while
+upon its muddy surface heaved belated ice-cakes and uprooted trees.
+
+At daylight men crowded the bank, the bend watchers strung out and took
+up their positions, and white-water men stood by with sharp axes to
+break out the rollways.
+
+The first rollway broke badly.
+
+A thick-butted log slanted and met the others head-on as they thundered
+down the bank, tossing them high in the air whence they fell splashing
+into the river, or crashed backward among the tumbling logs, upending,
+and hurling them about like jack-straws.
+
+The air was filled with the heavy rumble of rolling logs as other
+rollways tore loose at the swift blows of the axes, where, at the crack
+of toggle-pins, men leaped from in front of the rolling, crushing
+death; and the surface of the river became black with bucking, pitching
+logs which shot to the opposite bank.
+
+Coincident with the snapping of the first toggle-pin, the branches of a
+gigantic, storm-blasted pine, whose earth-laded butt dragged heavily
+along the bottom of the river, became firmly entangled in the
+low-hanging limbs of a sweeper, and swung sluggishly across the
+current.
+
+Against this obstruction crashed the leaping, upending logs of the
+wrecked rollway. Other logs swept in and wedged, forcing the heavy butt
+and the riven trunk of the huge tree firmly against the rocks at the
+head of the rapid.
+
+Rollway after rollway tore loose and the released logs, swept downward
+by the resistless push of the current, climbed one upon another and
+lodged. Higher and higher the jam towered, the interlocking logs piling
+in hopeless tangle.
+
+Moncrossen was beside himself. Up and down the bank he rushed,
+bellowing orders and hurling curses at the men who, gripping their
+peaveys, swarmed over the heaving jam like flies.
+
+The bateau men, forty of them, lifted the heavy boat bodily, and
+working it out to the very forefront of the jam, lowered it into the
+water, while other men made the heavy cable fast to the trunk of a
+tree. Close under the towering pile the bateau was snubbed with a
+short, light line, and the men clambered shoreward, leaving only
+Moncrossen, Stromberg, Fallon, and one other to search for the key-log.
+
+It was a comparatively simple jam, the key to which was instantly
+apparent to the experienced rivermen, in two large logs wedged in the
+form of an inverted V. The quick twist of a peavey inserted at the
+vertex of the angle, and the drive should move.
+
+Fallon and Stromberg, past masters both of the drive made ready while
+the other stood by to cast off the light line and allow the bateau to
+swing free on the main cable.
+
+Moncrossen clambered to the top to shout warning to those who swarmed
+over the body of the jam and along the edges of the river.
+
+At the first bellowed orders of the boss, Bill Carmody had leaped onto
+the heaving jam and, following in the wake of others, began picking his
+way to the opposite shore.
+
+New to the game, he had no definite idea of what was expected of him,
+so, with an eye upon those nearest him, he determined to follow their
+example.
+
+To watch from the bank and see men whose boast it is that they "c'd
+ride a bubble if their calks wouldn't prick it," leap lightly from log
+to rolling log; hesitate, run its length, and leap to another as it
+sinks under them, nothing looks simpler.
+
+But the greener who confidently tries it for the first time instantly
+finds himself in a position uncomfortably precarious, if not actually
+dangerous.
+
+Bill found, to his disgust, that the others had gained the opposite
+bank before he had reached the middle, where he paused, balancing
+uncertainly and hesitating whether to go ahead or return.
+
+The log upon which he stood oscillated dizzily, and as he sprang for
+another, his foot slipped and he fell heavily, his peavey clattering
+downward among the promiscuously tangled logs, to come to rest some six
+feet beneath him, where the white-water curled foaming among the logs
+of the lower tier.
+
+Bill glanced hastily about him, expecting the shouts of laughter and
+good-natured chaffing which is the inevitable aftermath of the clumsy
+misadventure of a riverman. The bateau men were just gaining the shore
+and the attention of the others was engaged elsewhere, so that none
+noticed the accident, and, with a grin of relief, Bill clambered down
+to recover his peavey.
+
+And Moncrossen, peering over the top of the jam, took in the situation
+at a glance--the river apparently clear of men, and the greener,
+invisible to those on shore, crawling about among the logs in the
+center of the pile.
+
+It was the moment for which he had waited. Even the most careful
+planning could not have created a situation more to his liking. At last
+the greener was "his."
+
+"There she goes!" he roared, and turning, slid hastily from the top and
+leaped into the waiting bateau.
+
+"Let 'er go!" he shouted.
+
+Fallon and Stromberg leaped forward and simultaneously their peaveys
+bit into the smaller of the two key-logs.
+
+Both big men heaved and strained, once, twice, thrice, and the log
+turned slowly, allowing the end of the other to pass.
+
+The logs trembled for an instant, then, forced by the enormous weight
+behind them, shot sidewise, crossed each other, and pressed the
+tree-trunk deep under the boiling water.
+
+A mighty quiver ran through the whole mass of the jam, it balanced for
+a shuddering instant, then with a mighty rush, let go.
+
+Over the side of the bateau tumbled Fallon and Stromberg, sprawling on
+the bottom at the feet of the boss, while the man in the bow cast off
+the light line.
+
+The next instant the heavy boat leaped clear of the water, overriding,
+climbing to the very summit of the pounding, plunging logs which
+threatened each moment to crush and batter through her sides and
+bottom.
+
+The strong, new line was singing taut to the pull of the heavy bateau
+which was being gradually crowded shoreward by the sweep of the
+down-rushing logs.
+
+Suddenly a mighty shout went up from those on the bank. The men in the
+bateau looked, and there, almost in the middle of the stream, was the
+greener leaping from log to log of the wildly pitching jam.
+
+They stared horror-stricken, with tense, blanched faces. Each instant
+seemed as if it must be his last, for they knew that no man alive could
+hope to keep his feet in the mad rush and sweep of the tumbling,
+tossing drive.
+
+Yet the greener was keeping his feet. Time and again he recovered his
+balance when death seemed imminent, and amid wild shouts and yells of
+encouragement, climbing, leaping, running, stumbling, he worked his way
+shoreward.
+
+He was almost opposite the bateau now, and Stromberg, hastily coiling
+the light line, leaped into the bow. Then, just when it seemed possible
+the greener might make it, a huge log shot upward from the depths and
+fell with a crash squarely across the log upon which he was riding.
+
+A cry of horror went up from half a hundred throats as the man was
+thrown high in the air and fell back into the foaming white-water that
+showed here and here through the thinning tangle of logs.
+
+The next instant a hundred logs passed over the spot, drawn down by the
+suck of the rapid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"THE-MAN-WHO-CANNOT-DIE"
+
+
+During the infinitesimal interim between the shock which hurled him
+into the air, and the closing of the waters of Blood River over his
+head, Bill Carmody's brain received a confusion of flashlike
+impressions: The futile shouting and waving of arms upon the
+man-crowded bank of the river; the sudden roar of the rapid; the tense
+face of Fallon; the set jaw of big Stromberg as he stood ready to shoot
+out the line; and, above all, the leering eyes and sneering lips of
+Moncrossen.
+
+The accident happened a scant sixty feet from the side of the straining
+bateau, and the features of its occupants were brought out strongly in
+the clear morning light.
+
+As he disappeared beneath the surface Bill drew a long breath and,
+opening his eyes, looked upward. A couple of swift strokes and his head
+emerged where a small patch of light showed an open space.
+
+Reaching out he grasped the rough bark of a log, shook the icy water
+from his eyes, and reviewed his situation. His first thought was of the
+bateau, but a shoreward glance revealed only the swiftly gliding trunks
+of the forest wall with the bateau and the gesticulating crowd but a
+blur in the distance.
+
+Near him floated smoothly a huge forked trunk from whose prongs
+protruded the stubs of lopped limbs. Releasing his hold, he swam toward
+the big log which floated butt foremost among its lesser neighbors,
+and, diving, came up between the forks and gripped firmly a limb stub.
+
+On every hand thousands of logs floated quietly, seemingly motionless
+as logs on the bosom of a mill-pond. Only the rushing walls of pine on
+either side of the narrow river-aisle spoke of the terrific speed of
+the drive.
+
+Suddenly, as the great forked log swept around a bend, the peril of his
+situation dawned upon him in all its horror. The dull roar changed to a
+mighty bellow where the high-tossed white-water leaped high among the
+submerged rocks of the rapid, and above its thunder sounded the heavy
+rumble of the shock and grind of thousands of wildly pitching logs.
+
+Only for a moment did he gaze out over the heaving forefront of the
+drive. His log shot forward with the speed of a bullet as it was seized
+in the grip of the current; the next moment it leaped clear of the
+water and plunged blindly into the whirling tossing pandemonium of the
+white-water gut.
+
+Bill clung desperately to the stub, expecting each moment to be his
+last. Close in the fork he was protected on either side from the
+hammering blows of the caroming timber. All about him the air was
+filled with flying logs which ripped the bark from each other's sides,
+while the shock and batter of the wild stampede threatened momentarily
+to tear loose his grip.
+
+It seemed to the desperate man that hours passed as he clung doggedly
+to the huge trunk which trembled and shivered and plunged wildly at the
+pounding impact, when suddenly it brought up against a half-submerged
+rock, stopped dead, grated and jarred at the crash of following logs,
+poised for an instant, and then slanted into deeper water, while up the
+man's leg shot a twisting, wrenching pain, sickening--nerve-killing in
+its intensity.
+
+His grasp relaxed and his whole body went limp and lifeless as the big
+log overrode the last rock barrier and was caught in the placid, slowly
+revolving water of a shore eddy.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Half concealed by the naked tangle of underbrush on the verge of a low
+bluff where the rock-ribbed rapid broke suddenly into smooth water, an
+old Indian woman and a beautiful half-breed girl of twenty crouched
+close, watching the logs plunge through the seething white-water.
+
+The dark eyes of the girl shone with excitement, but this was no new
+sight to the eyes of the older woman who in times past had watched
+other drives on other rivers. As she looked her frown deepened and the
+hundred little weather wrinkles in the tight-drawn smoke-darkened skin
+showed thin and plain, like the crisscross cracks in old leather.
+
+The shriveled lips pressed tight against the hard, snag-studded gums,
+and in the narrow, lashless black eyes glowed the spark of undying
+hate.
+
+The sight of the rushing logs brought bitter memories. These were
+things of the white man--and, among white men, only Lacombie was
+good--and Lacombie was dead.
+
+Young Lacombie, who came into the North with a song on his lips to work
+for the great company whose word is law, and whose long arm is destiny.
+Lacombie, who, in the long ago had won her, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the
+daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, who was called the most beautiful
+maiden among all the tribes of the rivers.
+
+The old crone drew her blanket about her and shuddered slightly as she
+glanced from her own withered, clawlike hands, upon which dark veins
+stood out like the cords of a freight bale, to the fresh beauty of the
+young girl at her side who gazed in awed fascination upon the rush of
+the pounding logs.
+
+Lacombie was dead, and Pierre, his son, who was her first-born, was
+dead also; and his blood was upon the head of the men of the logs. For
+he had left the post and gone among white men, and she, the mother who
+bore him, and Lacombie, his father, had seen him no more.
+
+Years slipped by, bringing other children; Jacques, in whom the white
+blood of Lacombie was lost in the blending, and the girl who crouched
+at her side.
+
+Long after, from the lips of a passing _Bois brule_, she heard the
+story of Pierre's death--how, crazed by whisky and the taunts of a
+drunken companion, he had leaped upon a passing log and plunged into
+the foaming white chute of the dreaded Saw Tooth rapid through which no
+man had passed and lived.
+
+_Sacre._ He was brave! For he came nearly to the end of the rapid,
+standing upon his log--but, only nearly to the end--for there he was
+dashed and broken upon the rocks in the swirl of the leaping
+white-water, and here was she, his mother, gazing at other logs in the
+rush of other rapids.
+
+She started at the sudden clutch at her blanket and glanced sharply at
+the girl who strained forward upon the very edge of the bluff and
+stared, not at the rapid, but straight downward where a few logs
+revolved lazily in the grip of the shore eddy.
+
+The girl was pointing excitedly with a tapering white-brown finger to
+the fork of a great log where, caught on a sharp limb stub, was the
+striped sleeve of a mackinaw, from the end of which protruded a hand,
+while after the log, trailing sluggishly in the V of the fork, was the
+lifeless body of a man.
+
+As she looked a light of exultation gleamed in the sharp old eyes. Here
+was vengeance! For the life of her son--the life of a white man.
+
+She noted with satisfaction that the body was that of a large man. It
+was fitting so. For her Pierre had been tall, and broad, and
+strong--she would have been disappointed in the meaner price of a small
+man's life.
+
+Suddenly she leaped to her feet and ran swiftly along the bluff seeking
+a place to descend.
+
+Even among the men of the logs, who are bad, one man stands alone as
+the archfiend of them all.
+
+And now--it is possible, for he is a big man--she, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the
+mother of Pierre and of Jeanne, maybe is permitted to stoop close and
+breathe upon the dead face of this man the weird curse of the barren
+lands--almost forgotten, now, even among her own people--the blighting
+curse of the "Yaga Tah!"
+
+In the telling, the _Bois brule_ had mentioned the name of the drunken
+lumber-jack who had baited her Pierre to his death, and in the old
+woman's brain the name of Moncrossen was the symbol of all black
+deviltry.
+
+After the death of Lacombie, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta had stolen Jeanne from the
+mission that she might forget the ways of the white man, and returned
+to her people.
+
+Jeanne, whose soft skin, beneath the sun tan, was the white skin of
+Lacombie, and who was the most beautiful among all the women of the
+North, with her straight, lithe body, and dark, mysterious eyes--eyes
+which, in color, were the eyes of the wood folk, but in whose baffling,
+compelling depths slumbered the secrets of an alien race.
+
+Jacques, she could understand, for in thought and deed and body he was
+Indian--a whelp of her own breed. But the girl, she did not understand,
+and her love for her was the idolatrous love with which she had loved
+Lacombie.
+
+Through many lean years they lived among the tepees of the Indians,
+but, of late, they had come to the lodge of Jacques, who had become a
+trapper and guide.
+
+His lodge, of necessity, must be pitched not too far from the lumber
+camps of the white men, whose laws make killing deer in winter a
+crime--and pay liberally for fresh venison.
+
+Swiftly she descended a short slope of the bluff, uttering quick, low
+whines of anticipation. For Jacques, Blood River Jack he was called by
+the white men, had told her that Moncrossen was boss of the camp at the
+head of the rapid.
+
+All through the winter she had kept the girl continually within her
+sight, for she remembered the previous winter when this same Moncrossen
+had accidentally come upon their lodge on the south fork of Broken
+Knee, and the look in his eyes as he gazed upon the beauty of Jeanne.
+
+She remembered the events that followed when Jacques was paid liberally
+by the boss to make a midwinter journey to the railroad, and the low
+sound in the night when she awakened to find the girl struggling in the
+bear-like grasp of the huge lumberjack, and how she fought him off in
+the darkness with a hatchet while Jeanne fled shrieking into the
+timber.
+
+Now she stood upon the brink, and beside her stood the girl in whose
+dark eyes flashed a primitive tiger-hate--for she, too, remembered the
+terror of that night on the south fork of Broken Knee.
+
+And, although she knew nothing of the wild death-curse of the Yaga Tah,
+she could at least stoop and spit upon the dead face of the one worst
+white man.
+
+Almost touching their feet lapped the brown, bubble-dotted waters of
+the river, and close in, at a hand's reach from the bank, the logs
+passed sluggishly in the slow swing of the shore eddy.
+
+The eyes of the pair focused in intense eagerness upon the great forked
+log which poised uncertainly at the outer edge of the whirl.
+
+For a breathless moment they watched while it seemed that the great log
+with its gruesome freight must be swept out into the main current of
+the stream. Sluggishly it revolved, as upon an axis, and then, in the
+grip of a random cross-current, swung heavily shoreward.
+
+The form of the old woman bent forward and, as the log drifted slowly
+past, a talon-like hand shot out and fastened upon the bit of striped
+cloth, and the next moment the two were tugging and hauling in their
+efforts to drag the limp body clear of the brown waters.
+
+Seizing upon the heavy calked boots they worked the body inch by inch
+up the steep slope, and the dry lips of the old squaw curled in a
+snaggy grin as she noted the shattered leg and the toe of the boot
+twisted backward--a grin that deepened into a grimace of sardonic
+cruelty at the feel of the grating rasp of the shattered bone ends.
+
+After frequent pauses they returned to their task, and at each jerk
+water gushed from the man's wide-sprung jaws.
+
+At last, panting with exertion, they gained the top of the bank. With
+glittering eyes the old squaw stooped swiftly and turned the body upon
+its back. The unseeing eyes stared upward, water ceased to gush from
+the open mouth, and the lolling tongue settled flabbily between the
+mud-smeared lips.
+
+A cry of savage disappointment escaped her, for the face into which she
+looked was not the face of Moncrossen!
+
+The curse of the Yaga Tah died upon her lips, for this curse may be
+breathed but once in a lifetime, and if, as Father Magnus said, "God is
+good," she might yet live to gaze into the dead face of the one worst
+white man, and chant the curse of the Yaga Tah.
+
+So she stifled the curse and contented herself with gloating over the
+battered body of the man of logs which the churning white-water of the
+Blood River rapid had tossed at her feet, even as the seething
+white-water of the Saw Tooth had tossed the body of her Pierre at the
+feet of the white men.
+
+At her side the girl gazed curiously at the exanimate form. In her
+heart was no bitterness against the people of her father--no damning of
+the breed for the sins of the individual.
+
+Lacombie, she knew, was good--the one good white man--old
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him. And Moncrossen was bad.
+
+Between these two extremes were the unnumbered millions of whom
+Lacombie used to tell her in the long Northern twilight, when, as a
+little girl, she would creep upon his knees as he sat before the door
+of the log trading-post, and his arms would steal about her, and a
+far-away look would creep into his blue eyes.
+
+Often he spoke of beautiful women; of mighty tepees of stone; of
+bridges of iron, and of trains which rushed along the iron trails at
+the speed of the flight of a bird, and spat fire and smoke, and whose
+voice shrieked louder than the mate-call of the _loup-cervier_.
+
+And she would listen, round-eyed, until the little head would droop
+slowly against the great chest, and the words would rumble softly and
+blend bewilderingly with the wheezing of the black pipe and the strong
+smell of rank tobacco.
+
+Sometimes she would wake up with a start to hear more, and it would be
+morning, and she would be between the blankets in her own little bunk,
+and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta would come and laugh, and pinch her fat legs, and
+croon strange Indian songs in low minor keys.
+
+There were stories, too; stories of Kas-ka-tan, the chief; of the Crazy
+Man of the Berry Moon; of Zuk, the lost hunter; of the Maiden of the
+Snows, whose heart was of ice, and whose voice was the splashing of
+tiny waters, and of the mighty Fire God, whose breath alone could move
+the heart of the Maiden of the Snows, so that in the springtime when he
+spoke to her of love, her laughter was heard in the tiny rills of the
+woodland.
+
+But it was of Lacombie's tales she thought most. Only she could never
+stay awake to hear the end, and the next night there would be other
+tales of other wonders, and all without end.
+
+So in her heart grew a strange unrest, a wild, irrepressible longing to
+see these things in the wonderful country of the white men, to whom, in
+time of sickness and death, came smiling, round-faced priests, with
+long black clothes and many buttons; instead of hideous medicine-men,
+with painted faces and strings of teeth and shriveled claws.
+
+As she gazed upon the form of the white man, a soft wistfulness stole
+into her eyes. Unconsciously, she drew closer, and the next instant
+threw herself upon the body, tearing frantically at the shirt-front.
+
+Sounded the tiny popping of buttons and the smooth rip of flannel, and
+a small, white-brown hand slipped beneath the tattered cloth and
+pressed tight against the white skin of the mighty chest.
+
+For a long moment it rested there while the old woman looked on in
+wonder. Then the girl faced her, speaking rapidly, with shining eyes:
+
+"He is not dead!" she gasped. "There is life in the heart that moves!
+See! It is not the face of Moncrossen, but of the great _chechako_ of
+whom Jacques told us. The man who is hated of Moncrossen. Who killed
+Diablesse, the _loup-garou_, with a knife.
+
+"The man whom Creed fears, and of whom he spoke the night he came
+whining to the tepee with his heart turned to water within him, and
+told Jacques of how this man lay helpless in the flames of the burning
+shack, and the next day walked unscorched into the store at Hilarity.
+
+"He is The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die. Quick! Help me, and together we will
+bring him to life!"
+
+The old squaw held aloof, scowling.
+
+"Lacombie is dead," she muttered. "There is no good white man. The men
+of the logs are bad. Where is Pierre, thy brother? And where are the
+fathers of the light-skinned breeds of the rivers?
+
+"Who bring sorrow and death among the women of my people? Whence comes
+the whisky that is the curse of the red men of the North? Would you
+warm the rattlesnake in your bosom, to die from its poisoned tooth? All
+men die! Lacombie, who was good, is dead. And this one who, being a man
+of logs, is bad, will die also. Come away while yet there is time!"
+
+The girl sprang to her feet and, with uplifted hand, faced
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, and in her eyes was the compelling light of prophecy.
+
+"Is it not enough, O Wa-ha-ta-na-ta," she cried, "that Moncrossen, the
+evil one, hates this man? He is M's'u Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die.
+Neither by wolves nor fire nor water can he die, nor will he be killed
+in the fighting of men. But one day he will kill Moncrossen, that thou
+mayest lay upon the head of the evil one the black curse of the Yaga
+Tah! And then will the blood of Pierre, thy son, be avenged."
+
+At the words, the smoldering black eyes of the old squaw wavered, they
+swept the limp form upon the ground, and returned a long, searching
+gaze into the blazing eyes of the girl. With a low guttural
+throat-sound, she dropped to her knees, and together they bent to their
+task. At the end of an hour the breath fluttered irregularly between
+the bearded lips and the gray eyes closed of their own accord.
+
+As the two women rested, the sound of shouting voices was borne to
+their ears. The old woman started, listening.
+
+"Back from the river!" she cried, "soon will come men who, with long,
+sharp poles, will push out the logs from the eddies, and from the still
+waters of the bends, and, should the men of Moncrossen find this man
+they will kill him--for all men die! Did not Lacombie die?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+MAN OR TOY MAN?
+
+
+The newspaper prediction of the forthcoming announcement of the
+engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger was published,
+not without color of authority, nor was it entirely out of keeping with
+appearances.
+
+As the gay calendar of society's romp and rout drew toward its close,
+the names of these two became more and more intimately associated. It
+was an association assiduously cultivated by young St. Ledger, and
+earnestly fostered and abetted by the St. Ledger sisters who,
+fluttering uncertainly upon the outermost rim of the circle immediately
+surrounding society's innermost shrine, realized that the linking of
+the Manton name with the newer name of St. Ledger, would prove an open
+sesame to the half-closed doors of the Knickerbockers.
+
+Despite two years' residence in the most expensive suite of a most
+expensive hotel, nobody seemed to know much about the St. Ledgers. It
+was an accepted fact that they were islanders from somewhere, variously
+stated to be Jamaica, The Isle of Pines, and Barbadoes, whose wealth
+was founded upon sugar, and appeared limitless.
+
+St. Ledger _pere_, tall and saturnine, divided his time about equally
+between New York and "the islands."
+
+The two girls, ravishingly beautiful in their dark, semi-mysterious
+way, had been brought from some out-of-the-way French convent to the
+life of the great city, where to gain entree into society's holy of
+holies became a fetish above their gods.
+
+There was no _mere_ St. Ledger, and vague whisperings passed back and
+forth between certain bleached out, flat-chested virgins, whose
+forgotten youth and beauty were things long past, but whose tenure upon
+society was as firm and unassailable as Plymouth Rock and the silver
+leg of Peter Stuyvesant could make it.
+
+It was hinted that the high-piled tresses of the sisters matched too
+closely the hue of the raven's wing, and that the much admired "waves"
+if left to themselves would resolve into decided "kinks."
+
+They were guarded whisperings, however, non-committal, and so worded
+that a triumphantly blazoned "I told you so!" or a depreciatory and
+horrified: "You misunderstood me, _dear_," hung upon the pending
+verdict of the powers that be.
+
+Gregory St. Ledger, in so far as any one knew, was neither liked nor
+disliked among men; being of the sort who enjoy watching games of
+tennis and, during the later hours of the afternoon, drive pampered
+Pekingese about the streets in silver-mounted electrics.
+
+He enjoyed, also, a baby-blue reputation which successfully cloaked
+certain spots of pale cerise in his rather negligible character.
+
+He smoked innumerable scented cigarettes, gold as to tip and monogram,
+which he selected with ostentatious unostentation from a heavy gold
+case liberally bestudded with rubies and diamonds.
+
+He viewed events calmly through a life-size monocle, was London
+tailored, Paris shod, and New York manicured; and carried an embossed
+leather check-book, whose detachable pink slips proved a potent safety
+factor against undue increment of the St. Ledger exchequer.
+
+Thus equipped, and for reasons of family, young St. Ledger decided to
+marry Ethel Manton; and to this end he devoted himself persistently and
+insidiously, but with the inborn patience and diplomacy of the South
+Islander.
+
+Bill Carmody he hated with the snakelike hate of little men, but
+shrewdly perceiving that the girl held more than a friendly regard for
+him, enthusiastically sang his praises in her ears; praises that,
+somehow, always left her with a strange smothering sensation about the
+heart and a dull resentment of the fact that she cared.
+
+With the disappearance of young Carmody, St. Ledger redoubled his
+attentions. The young man found it much easier than did his sisters to
+be numbered "among those present" at the smart functions of the elite.
+
+When New York shivered in the first throes of winter, a well-planned
+cruise in mild waters under soft skies on board the lavishly appointed
+and bountifully supplied St. Ledger yacht, whose sailing list included
+a carefully selected and undeniably congenial party of guests, worked
+wonders in the matter of St. Ledger's social aspirations.
+
+At the clubs, substantial and easily forgotten loans to members of the
+embarrassed elect, coupled with vague hints, rarely failed to pay
+dividends in the form of invitations to ultra-exclusive _affaires_.
+
+At the hostelry the St. Ledger _soirees_, if so glitteringly bizarre as
+to draw high-browed frowns from the more reserved and staid of the
+thinning old guard of ancestor-worshipers, nevertheless, were
+enthusiastically hailed and eagerly attended by the younger set, and
+played no small part in the insinuation of "those St. Ledgers" into the
+realms of the anointed.
+
+Thus the winter wore away, and, at all times and in all places Gregory
+St. Ledger appeared as the devoted satellite of Ethel Manton, who
+entered the social melee without enthusiasm, but with dogged
+determination to let the world see that the disappearance of Bill
+Carmody affected her not at all.
+
+She tolerated St. Ledger, even encouraged him, for he amused and
+offered a welcome diversion for her thoughts.
+
+She was a girl of moods whose imagination carried her into far places
+in the picturing of a man--her man--big, and strong, and clean;
+fighting bare-fisted among men for his place in the world, and alone
+conquering the secret devil of desire that he might claim the right to
+her love.
+
+Then it was, curled up in the big armchair in the library, the blue
+eyes would glow softly and tenderly in the flare of the flickering
+firelight, and between parted lips the warm breath would come and go in
+short stabbing whispers to the quick rise and fall of the rounded
+bosom, and the little fists would clench white in the tense gladness of
+it.
+
+But there were other times--times when the dancing wall-shadows were
+dark specters of ill-omen gloating ghoulishly before her horror-widened
+eyes as her brain conjured the picture of the man--battered, broken,
+helpless, with bloated, sottish features, and bleared eyes--a beaten
+man drifting heedlessly, hopelessly, furtive-eyed, away from his
+standards--and from her.
+
+At such times the breath would flutter uncertainly between cold,
+bloodless lips, and the marble whiteness of her face became a pallid
+death mask of despair.
+
+Always in extremes she pictured him, for, knowing the man as she knew
+him--the bigness of him--the relentless dynamic man-power of his being,
+she knew that with him there would be no half-way measure--no median
+line of indifferent achievement which should stand for neither the good
+nor the bad among men.
+
+Here was no Tomlinson whose little sins and passive virtues became the
+jest of the gods; but a man who in the final accounting would stand
+four-square upon the merit of his works, and in the might of their
+right or wrong, accept fearlessly his reward.
+
+The days dragged into weeks and the weeks into months--empty months to
+the heart of the girl who waited, dreading, yet hoping for word from
+the man she loved. Yet knowing, deep down in her heart, she would hear
+no word.
+
+He would come to her--would answer the call of her great love--would
+beat down the barriers and in the flush of victory would claim her as
+his own; or, in the everlasting silence of the weird realm of missing
+men, be lost to her forever.
+
+Daily she scanned the newspapers. Not front pages whose glaring
+headlines flaunted world-rumblings, politics, and the illness of rich
+men's dogs, but tiny cable-whispers from places far from the beaten
+track, places forgotten or unknown, whose very names breathed mystery;
+whispers that hinted briefly of life-tragedies, of action and the
+unsung deeds of men.
+
+And as she read, she mused.
+
+A tramp steamer dashed upon the saw-tooth rocks off Sarawak. Thirty
+perish--seven saved--no names. "Where is Sarawak? Is it possible that
+_he_----?"
+
+Four sailors killed in the rescue of a girl from a dive in Singapore.
+Investigation ordered--no names. "_He_ would have done that."
+
+The rum-sodden body of a man, presumably a derelict American, picked up
+on the bund at Papiete; no marks of identification save the tightly
+clutched photograph of a well-dressed young woman. "Had _he_ given up
+the fight? And was this the end?"
+
+Eight revolutionist prisoners taken by General Orotho in yesterday's
+battle were shot at sunrise this morning before the prison wall of
+Managua.
+
+One, an American, faced the firing squad with a laugh, and the next
+instant pitched forward, his body riddled with bullets. "_He_ would
+have laughed! Would have played gladly the game with death and,
+losing--laughed!"
+
+Each day she read the little lines of the doings of men; unnamed
+adventurers whose deeds were virile deeds; rough men, from whose
+contaminating touch society gathers up her silken skirts and passes by
+upon the other side; unlovely men, rolled-sleeved and open-throated,
+deep-seamed of face, and richly weather-tanned of arm, who tread
+roughshod the laws of little right and wrong; who drink red liquor and
+swear lurid oaths and loud; but who, shoulder to shoulder, redden the
+gutters of Singapore with their hearts' blood in the snatching of a
+young girl from danger.
+
+And in the reading there grew up in her heart a mighty respect for
+these men, for, in the analysis of their deeds, the beam swayed
+strongly against the measure of the world in its balance of good and
+harm.
+
+Many times her feet carried her into strange streets among strange
+people, where the reek of shipping became incense to her nostrils, and
+hairy-chested men of many ports stared boldly into her face and,
+reading her aright, made room with deference.
+
+Upon an evening just before the annual surcease of frivolity, Gregory
+St. Ledger called at the Manton home and, finding Ethel alone in the
+library, asked her to be his wife.
+
+Because it was an evening of her blackest mood she neither refused nor
+accepted him, but put him off for a year on the ground that she did not
+know her mind.
+
+In vain he protested, arguing the power and prestige of the St. Ledger
+millions, and in the end departed to seek out an acquaintance who had
+to do with a blatant Sunday newspaper.
+
+During the interview that followed, in the course of which the reporter
+ordered and St. Ledger paid for many tall drinks of intricate
+concoction, the gilded youth made no statement of fact, but the
+impression he managed to convey furnished the theme for the news story
+whose headlines seared into Bill Carmody's soul to the crashing of his
+tenets and gods.
+
+In the library the girl sat far into the night and thought of the man
+who had won her heart and of the toy man who would buy her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+JEANNE
+
+
+Bill Carmody opened his eyes. A weird darkness surrounded him through
+which dancing half-lights played upon a close-thrown screen. Dully he
+watched the grotesque flickering of lights and shadows. He was not
+surprised--not even curious. Nothing mattered--nothing save the
+terrible pain in his head and the racking ache of the muscles of his
+body. His skin felt hot and drawn and he gasped for air. A great weight
+seemed pressing upon him, and when he tried to fill his bursting lungs
+instead of great drafts of cooling air, hot, stabbing pains shot
+through his chest and he groaned aloud at the hurt of it.
+
+He turned his aching body, wincing at the movement, and stared dully
+through a low aperture in the encircling screen. Beyond, in another
+world, it seemed, a tiny fire flickered under a suspended iron kettle.
+
+Near the fire a blanketed form sat motionless with knees tight-hugged
+against shrunken breast. Upon the blanket-covered knees rested the
+angular chin of a dark-skinned, leathern face, upon which the firelight
+played fitfully, and beneath a tangled mop of graying hair two eyes
+flashed and dulled like black opals.
+
+He glanced upward and realized that the close-thrown screen, upon which
+danced the lights and shadows, was the smoke-blackened canvas of a
+tepee, loosely stretched upon its slanting lodge-poles.
+
+Again he attempted to fill his congested lungs with cool, sweet air,
+and again the attempt ended in a groan and he relaxed, gasping, while
+upon his forehead the cold sweat stood in clammy beads.
+
+Yet his head was burning hot, and the blankets which covered him were
+blankets of fire. Suddenly it dawned upon him that this was a hideous
+nightmare.
+
+The blackened lodge with its terrifying shadow-pictures that flickered
+and faded and flickered again; the old crone by the fire; the pain in
+his head, and the hot aches of his body, were horrid brain fancies.
+
+With a mighty effort he would break the spell, and from the bunk below
+the rich brogue of Fallon would "bawl him out" for his restlessness--good
+old Fallon!
+
+Vainly he attempted to marshal his scattered wits, and break the spell
+of the torturing brain picture. The shadows above him took on weird
+shapes; grinning faces with tangled gray locks; long snakelike bodies,
+and tails of red and yellow light twined and writhed sinuously about
+the beautiful face of a girl.
+
+How real--how distinct in the half-light, was the face beneath the mass
+of gleaming black hair. And eyes! Dark, serious eyes, into which one
+might gaze far into mysterious depths--soft, restful eyes, thought the
+man as he stared upward into the phantom face.
+
+From the curve of the parted red lips the perfect teeth flashed
+whitely, and from the delicately turned chin the soft full-throated
+neck swept beneath the open throat of the loose-fitting buckskin
+hunting shirt whose deep fringed trimmings only half-concealed the rich
+lines of a rounded bosom.
+
+The man remained motionless, fearing to move lest the vision fade and
+the harsh voice of Fallon blare out from below. "Damn Fallon!" he
+muttered, and then the pictured lips moved and in his ears was the
+soft, sweet sound of a voice.
+
+The writhing snakes with the shining tails resolved into flickering
+wall-shadows which danced lightly among the slanting lodge-poles. But
+the dream-face did not fade, the dream-eyes gazed softly into his, the
+dream-lips moved, and the low sound of the dream-voice was music to his
+ears.
+
+"You are sick," the voice said; "you are in pain." Bill's throat was
+dry with a burning thirst.
+
+"Water!" he gasped, and the word rasped harsh.
+
+The girl reached into the shadows and a tiny white-brown hand appeared
+holding a dripping tin cup. She bent closer and the next instant the
+man's burning cheek was pillowed against the soft coolness of her bared
+arm and his head was raised from the blanket while the tiny white-brown
+hand held the tin cup to his lips.
+
+With the life-giving draft the man's brain cleared and he smiled into
+the eyes of his dream-girl. Her lips returned the smile and there was a
+movement of the rounded arm that pillowed his head.
+
+"No! No!" he whispered, and pressed his cheek closer against the soft,
+bare flesh. The arm was not withdrawn, the liquid eyes gazed for a
+moment into his and were veiled by the swift downsweep of the long,
+dark lashes.
+
+In the silence, a little white-brown hand strayed over his face and
+rested with delicious coolness upon the fevered brow. Bill's eyes
+closed and for blissful eons he lay, while in all the world was no such
+thing as pain--only the sweet, restful peace of Dreamland.
+
+Unconsciously his lips pressed close against the softness of her arm,
+and at their touch the arm trembled, and from far away came the quick,
+sibilant gasp of an indrawn breath.
+
+The arm pressed closer, the tapering fingers of the little hand strayed
+caressingly through the tangled curls of his hair, and Bill Carmody
+slipped silently into the quiet of oblivion.
+
+The fire under the iron kettle died down, and the shadows faded from
+the walls of the tepee. Inside, the girl sat far into the night, and
+the mystery of the dark eyes deepened as they gazed into the bearded
+face close pillowed against her arm.
+
+By the dying fire the old crone drew her blanket more closely about her
+and glowered into the red embers as her beady, black eyes shot keen
+glances toward the motionless forms in the blackness beyond the open
+flap of the tepee.
+
+On Blood River the logs floated steadily millward, the bateau followed
+the drive, and the men of the logs passed noisily out of the North.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A PROPHECY
+
+
+In the gray of the morning Jacques Lacombie returned to his lodge to
+find Wa-ha-ta-na-ta seated in front of the tepee staring into the dead
+ashes of the fire.
+
+In answer to his rough questioning she arose stiffly, stalked to the
+open flap of the lodge and, standing aside, pointed mutely to the
+silent figures within.
+
+Both slept. The fever-flushed face of the man pillowed upon the bare
+arm of the girl, whose body had settled wearily forward until her head,
+with its mass of black tresses, rested upon his breast, where it rose
+and fell to the heave of his labored breathing.
+
+Long the half-breed looked, uttering no word, while the old squaw
+searched his face which remained as expressionless as a face of stone.
+
+"Make a fire," he commanded gruffly, and slung his pack upon the
+ground. She obeyed, muttering the while, and Jacques watched her as he
+filled and lighted his pipe.
+
+"The man is M's'u' Bill," he observed, apparently talking to himself,
+"The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
+
+The old woman shot him a keen glance as she hovered over the tiny flame
+that licked at the twigs of dry larchwood. "All men die," she muttered
+dully. "Did not Lacombie die?"
+
+"At midnight I passed through the deserted camp of Moncrossen," the man
+continued, paying no heed to her remark. "Creed did not go out with the
+drive, but stayed behind to guard the camp, and he told me of the death
+of this man; how he himself saw him sink beneath the waters of the
+river and saw the logs of the jam rush over him.
+
+"As we talked, and because he had been drinking much whisky, he told me
+that it was he who locked this man in the shack last winter and then
+set fire to the shack. He told me also Moncrossen desired this man's
+death above any other thing, and had ordered the breaking of the jam at
+a moment when he knew the _chechako_ could not escape, so that he was
+hurled into the water and killed."
+
+The old woman interrupted him. "I drew him upon the bank, thinking he
+was Moncrossen, and that I might breathe upon him the curse. Because
+his heart is bad, being a man of logs, I would have returned him to the
+river whence he came; but Jeanne prevented." Jacques smiled at the
+bitter disappointment in her voice.
+
+"It is well," he returned. "See to it that he lives. Moncrossen is
+great among the white men--and his heart is bad. But the heart of the
+_chechako_ is good, and one day will come a reckoning, and in that day
+the curse of the Yaga Tah shall fall from thy lips upon the dead face
+of Moncrossen."
+
+"All white men are bad," grumbled the squaw. "There is no good white
+man."
+
+Jacques silenced her with a gesture of impatience. "What is that to
+you, oh, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, good or bad, if he kills Moncrossen?"
+
+The old woman leaped to her feet and pointed a sharp skinny finger
+toward the tepee, her eyes flashed, and the cracked voice rang thin
+with anger.
+
+"The girl!" she cried. "Jeanne, thy sister!"
+
+Her son stepped close to her side and spoke low with the quiet voice of
+assurance:
+
+"No harm will come to the girl. I have many times talked with this man
+as he worked in the timber. His heart is good--and his lips do not lie.
+I, who have looked into his eyes, have spoken. And, that you shall know
+my words are true, if harm befall the girl at the hand of the white
+_chechako_, with this knife shall you kill me as I sleep."
+
+He withdrew a long, keen blade from its sheath and handed it to the
+squaw, who took it.
+
+"And not only you will I kill, but him also," she answered, testing its
+edge upon her thumb. "For the moon has spoken, and blood will flow.
+Last night, in the wet red moon, I saw it--dripping tears of
+blood--twelve, besides one small one, and they were swallowed up in the
+mist of the river. I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the
+chief, who know the signs, have spoken.
+
+"Before the full of the thirteenth moon blood will flow upon the bank
+of the river. But whose blood I know not, for a great cloud came and
+covered the face of the moon, and when it was gone the tears of blood
+were no more and the mist had returned to the river--and the meaning of
+this I know not."
+
+She ceased speaking abruptly at a sound from the tepee as the girl
+emerged and stepped quickly to the fire.
+
+"I am glad you have come," said Jeanne hurriedly to her brother. "You,
+who are skilled in the mending of bones. The man's leg is broken; it is
+swollen and gives him much pain."
+
+Jacques followed her into the tepee and, after a careful examination,
+removed the unconscious man.
+
+The setting of the bones required no small amount of labor and
+ingenuity. Carmody was placed between two trees, to one of which his
+body was firmly bound at the shoulders.
+
+A portion of the bark was removed from the other tree and the smooth
+surface rubbed with fat. Around this was passed a stout line, one end
+of which was made fast to the injured leg at the ankle.
+
+A trimmed sapling served as a capstan bar, against which the two women
+threw their weight, while Jacques fitted the bone ends neatly together
+and applied the splints.
+
+The Indians, schooled in the treatment of wounds and broken bones, were
+helpless as babes before the ravages of the dreaded pneumonia which
+racked the great body of the sick man.
+
+Bill Carmody's recollection of the following days was confined to a
+hopeless confusion of distorted brain pictures in which the beautiful
+face of the girl, the repulsive features of the old crone, and the
+swart countenance of the half-breed were inextricably blended.
+
+For two weeks he lay, interspersing long periods of unconsciousness
+with hours of wild, delirious raving. Then the disease wore itself out,
+and Jeanne Lacombie, entering the tepee one morning, encountered the
+steady gaze of the sunken eyes.
+
+With a short exclamation of pleasure she crossed the intervening space
+and knelt at his side. The two regarded each other in silence. At
+length Bill's lips moved and he started slightly at the weak, toneless
+sound of his own voice.
+
+"So you are real, after all," he smiled.
+
+The girl returned the smile frankly.
+
+"M's'u' has been very sick," she imparted, speaking slowly, as though
+selecting her words.
+
+Bill nodded; he felt dizzy and helplessly weak.
+
+"How long have I been here?" he asked.
+
+"Since the turning of the moon."
+
+"I'm afraid that is not very definite. You see I didn't even know the
+moon had been turned. Who turned it? And is it really turned to cheese
+or just turned around?"
+
+The girl regarded him gravely, a puzzled expression puckering her face.
+Bill laughed.
+
+"Forgive me," he begged. "I was talking nonsense. Can you tell me how
+many days I have been here?"
+
+"It is fifteen days since we drew you from the river."
+
+"Who's _we_?"
+
+Again the girl seemed perplexed.
+
+"I mean, who helped you pull me out of the drink?"
+
+"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She is my mother. She is an Indian, and very old."
+
+"Are _you_ an Indian?" asked the man in such evident surprise that the
+girl laughed.
+
+"My father was white. I am a breed," she answered; then with a quick
+lifting of the chin, hastened to add: "But not like the breeds of the
+rivers! My father was Lacombie, the factor at Crossette, and
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, and they were
+married by a priest at the mission.
+
+"That was very long ago, and now Lacombie is dead and the priest also,
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta has a paper; also it is written in the book at the
+mission that men may read it and know."
+
+Carmody was amused at her eagerness and watched the changing expression
+of her face as she continued more slowly:
+
+"My father was good. But he is dead and, until you came, there has been
+no good white man."
+
+Bill smiled at the naive frankness of her.
+
+"Why do you think that I am good?" he inquired.
+
+"In your eyes I have read it. That night, before the wild fever-spirit
+entered your body, I looked long into your eyes. And has not Jacques
+told me of how you killed the _loup-garou_; of how you are hated by
+Moncrossen, and feared by Creed?
+
+"Do I not know that fire cannot burn you nor water drown? Did you not
+beat down the greatest of Moncrossen's fighting men? And has not
+Wabishke told in the woods, to the wonder of all, how you drink no
+whisky, but pour it upon your feet?"
+
+The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flushing.
+
+"Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at
+your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the
+voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the
+lips speak the truth."
+
+She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell
+upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A
+delicious thrill passed through his body at the touch.
+
+As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white
+flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous,
+like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him.
+
+She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that
+he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting
+out the face--and he slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT
+
+
+The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days
+fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.
+
+Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his
+needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to
+be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing,
+the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.
+
+Jacques, whom he had known in the logging-camp as Blood River Jack,
+treated him with open friendliness, and as he became able to move about
+the camp, taught him much of the lore of the forest, of the building of
+nets and traps, the smoke-tanning of buckskin, and the taking and
+drying of salmon.
+
+During the long evenings the two sat close to the smudge of the
+camp-fire and talked of many things, while the women listened.
+
+But of the three it was the girl who most interested him. She was his
+almost constant companion, silent and subtle at times, and with the
+inborn subtlety of women she defied his most skilful attempts to share
+her thoughts.
+
+At other times her naive frankness and innocent brutality of expression
+surprised and amused him. Baffling, revealing--she remained at all
+times an enigma.
+
+By the middle of June Bill was able to make short excursions to the
+river with the aid of the crutches which Blood River Jack crudely
+fashioned from young saplings.
+
+With his increased freedom of movement his restlessness increased.
+Somewhere along the river, he knew, the bird's-eye logs were banked,
+awaiting the arrival of Moncrossen and Stromberg to raft them to the
+railway, and he surmised that their coming would not be long delayed.
+
+Over and over in his mind he turned schemes for outwitting the boss.
+The strength was rapidly returning to his injured leg and he discarded
+one crutch, using the other only to help him over the rough places.
+
+He was in no condition to undertake a journey to the railway, and in
+spite of Blood River Jack's expressed hatred of Moncrossen and
+friendship for himself, he hesitated about taking the half-breed into
+his confidence.
+
+At length he could stand the suspense no longer. Each day's delay
+lessened his chance of success. He decided to act--to lay the matter
+before Blood River Jack and ask his cooeperation, and if he refused, to
+play the game alone.
+
+He came to this decision one afternoon while seated upon a great log
+overlooking the rushing rapid. Beside him sat Jeanne, apparently deeply
+engrossed in the embroidering of a buckskin hunting-shirt.
+
+After a long silence Bill knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and his
+jaw squared as he looked out over the foaming white-water. He turned
+toward the girl and encountered the intense gaze of her dark eyes.
+
+The neglected needlework lay across her knees, the small hands were
+folded, and the shining needle glinted in the sun where it had been
+deftly caught into the yellow buckskin at the turning of an unfinished
+scroll.
+
+"The logs which you seek," she said quietly, "are piled upon the bank
+of the river, half a mile below the rapids." The man regarded her with
+a startled glance.
+
+"What do you know about these logs--and of what I was thinking?"
+
+She answered him with a curious, baffling smile, and, ignoring his
+question, continued:
+
+"You need help. I am but a girl and know naught of logs nor why these
+logs did not go down the river with the others. But in your face as you
+pondered from day to day I have read it. Is it not that you would
+prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do
+it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the
+river?"
+
+"You are a wonder!" he exclaimed in admiration. "That's exactly what's
+been bothering me." She blushed furiously under his gaze and, with
+lowering eyes, continued:
+
+"I do not know how it can be managed, but Jacques will know. You may
+trust Jacques as you trust me. For we are your friends, and his hatred
+of Moncrossen is a real hatred."
+
+She raised her eyes to his.
+
+"Do you know why Jacques hates Moncrossen, and why Wa-ha-ta-na-ta hates
+all white men?" she asked. Bill shook his head and listened as the
+girl, with blazing eyes, told him of the death of Pierre, and then, of
+the horror of that night on Broken Knee.
+
+At her words Bill Carmody's face darkened, and his great fists clenched
+until the nails bit deep into his palms. The steel-gray eyes narrowed
+to slits and, as the girl finished, he arose and gently lifted one of
+the little hands between his own.
+
+"I, too, could kill Moncrossen for _that_," he said, and the tone of
+his voice was low, and soft, with a tense, even softness that sounded
+in the ears of the girl more terrible than a thousand loud hurled
+threats.
+
+She looked up quickly into the face of the glinting eyes, her tiny hand
+trembled in his, and a sudden flush deepened the warm color of her
+neck.
+
+"For me?" she faltered. "_Me?_" And, with a half-smothered, frightened
+gasp, tore her hand free and fled swiftly into the forest.
+
+Bill stared a long time at the place where she disappeared, and,
+smiling, stooped and picked up her needlework where it had fallen at
+his feet.
+
+He examined it idly for a moment and then more closely as a puzzled
+look crept into his eyes. The garment he held in his hand was never
+designed for a covering for the girl's own lithe body, nor was it small
+enough even for Jacques.
+
+"She's worked on it every day for a month," he murmured, as he glanced
+from the intricate embroidered design to his own shirt of ragged
+flannel, and again he smiled--bitterly.
+
+"She's a queer kid," he said softly, as he recovered his crutch; "and a
+mighty good kid, too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CREED
+
+
+That night the four sat late about the campfire.
+
+Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, silent and forbidding, as usual, but with a sharp
+ear for all that was said, listened as they laid their plans.
+
+At their conclusion the others sought their blankets, while Jacques
+took the trail for the camp of old Wabishke whose help was needed in
+the undertaking which was to involve no small amount of labor.
+
+As the two women finished the preparation of breakfast the following
+morning, the half-breed appeared, followed closely by the old Indian
+trapper whose scarred lips broke into a hideous grin at the sight of
+Bill.
+
+"This is Wabishke, of whom I spoke," said Jacques, indicating the
+Indian. Bill laughingly extended his hand, which the other took.
+
+"Well! If it isn't my friend, the Yankee!" he exclaimed. "Wabishke and
+I are old friends. He is the first man I met in the woods." The Indian
+nodded, grunted, and pointed to his feet which were encased in a very
+serviceable pair of boots.
+
+"Oh, I remember, perfectly," laughed Bill. "Have you still got my
+matches?" Wabishke grinned.
+
+"You keel _loup-garou_ with knife?" he asked, as if seeking
+corroboration for an unbelievable story.
+
+"I sure did," Bill answered. "The old gal tried to bite me."
+
+The Indian regarded him with grave approval and, stepping to his side,
+favored him with another greasy hand-shake, after which ceremony he
+squatted by the fire and removing a half-dozen pieces of bacon from the
+frying-pan proceeded to devour them with evident relish.
+
+Breakfast over, the three men accompanied by Jeanne set out for the
+river, leaving to old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta the work of the camp. Sliding a
+canoe into the water, they took their places, Jacques and Wabishke at
+the paddles, with Jeanne and Bill seated on the bottom amidships.
+
+Close to the opposite bank the canoe was headed down-stream and, under
+the swift, strong strokes of the paddles, glided noiselessly in the
+shadows. A few minutes later, at a sign from Jacques who was in the
+bow, Wabishke, with a deft twist of his paddle, slanted the canoe
+bankward.
+
+With a soft, rustling sound the light craft parted the low hanging
+branches of killikinick and diamond willow, and buried its nose in the
+soft mud.
+
+Peering through the tangle of underbrush the occupants of the canoe
+made out, some fifty yards below their position, a small clearing in
+the center of which, just above the high-water mark of the river, was a
+small pyramid of logs.
+
+Seated beside the pile, with his back resting against the ends of the
+logs, sat a man holding a rifle across his knees.
+
+Bill Carmody's fighting spirit thrilled at the sight. Here at last was
+action. Here were the stolen logs of bird's-eye, and guarding them was
+Creed!
+
+While the others steadied the canoe he stepped noiselessly onto the
+bank, where he sank to his ankles in the mud, and, seizing hold of the
+bow shot the canoe out into the current.
+
+Creed had been left in the woods by Moncrossen, ostensibly to guard the
+Blood River camp against pilfering Indians and chance forest fires, but
+his real mission was to keep watch on the bird's-eye until it could be
+safely rafted to the railway.
+
+Moncrossen promised to return about the middle of June, and ten
+mornings Creed had skulked the three miles from the lumber camp to the
+logs, and ten evenings he had skulked fearfully back again, muttering
+futile curses at the boss's delay.
+
+Creed was uneasy. Not since the evening the greener had walked into Hod
+Burrage's store at the very moment when he, Creed, was recounting to
+the interested listeners the circumstances attending his demise, had he
+been entirely free from a haunting, nameless fear.
+
+True, as he told Blood River Jack, he had afterward seen with his own
+eyes, the greener go down under the rushing jam where no man could
+possibly go down and live.
+
+But, nevertheless, deep in his heart was the _terror_--nameless,
+unreasoning, haunting,--that clung to him night and day. So that a
+hundred times a day, alone in the timber, he would start and cast
+quick, jerky glances over his shoulder and jump, white-faced and
+trembling, at the snapping of a twig.
+
+As the days went by the nameless terror grew, dogging his footsteps,
+phantomlike by day, and haunting him at night, as he lay shaking in his
+bunk in the double-locked little office.
+
+With the single exception of Blood River Jack, he had seen no human
+being since the drive, and his frenzied desire for companionship would
+have been pitiful, had it been less craven.
+
+He slept fitfully with his rifle loaded and often cocked in his bunk
+beside him, while during the day it was never out of reach of his hand.
+
+In his daily excursions to the bird's-eye rollway he never took the
+same route twice, but skulked, peering fearfully about in the
+underbrush, avoiding even the game trails.
+
+And always he detoured widely the place where he had seen the greener
+disappear beneath the muddy, log-ridden waters.
+
+And so it was that upon this particular morning Creed sat close against
+the pyramid of logs--waiting.
+
+At a sound from the river he jerked his rifle into readiness for
+immediate action and sat nervously alert, his thumb twitching on the
+hammer. Approaching down-stream came a canoe.
+
+Creed leaped to his feet with a maudlin grin of relief as he recognized
+the three occupants. Apparently they had not seen him, and he stepped
+to the bank fearful lest they pass.
+
+"Hey! You, Jack!" he called, waving his cap.
+
+The bow-man ceased paddling and gazed shoreward in evident surprise;
+the man on the bank was motioning them in with wide sweeps of the arm.
+The half-breed called a few hasty words over his shoulder and the canoe
+shot toward shore.
+
+"Where y' goin'?" asked Creed, as the three stepped onto the bank.
+Blood River Jack replied with an indefinite sweep of his arm to the
+southward.
+
+"Well, y' ain't in no hurry. Never seen a Injun yet cudn't stop long
+'nough to take a drink o' licker. Har, har, har!"
+
+He laughed foolishly, with an exaggerated wink toward the old Indian.
+
+"How 'bout it, Wabishke; leetle fire-water make yer belt fit better?
+'Tain't a goin' to cost y' nawthin'."
+
+The Indian grinned and grunted acquiescence, and Creed inserted his arm
+between two logs and withdrew a squat, black bottle.
+
+"Here's some reg'lar ol' 'rig'nal red-eye. An' here's lookin' at ye,"
+he said, as he removed the cork and sucked greedily at the contents.
+"Jest tuk a taste fust, 'cause I don't like to give vis'tors whisky I
+wudn't drink m'self, har, har, har! Anyways, the way I figger, it's
+white men fust, then half white, then Injuns." He passed the bottle to
+Jacques.
+
+"'Fraid's little too strong fer ladies," he smirked, at Jeanne, and,
+reaching out quickly, jerked the upturned bottle from Wabishke's lips.
+
+"Hey, y' ol' pirate! Y' don't need fer to empty it all to wunst. Set
+roun' a while, an' bimeby we'll have 'nother. 'S all on me to-day; this
+here's my party."
+
+They seated themselves on the ground and engaged in conversation, in
+which Creed did most of the talking.
+
+"Trade rifles?" asked Blood River Jack, idly picking up Creed's gun and
+examining it minutely.
+
+"Beats all how a Injun allus wants to be a tradin'," grinned Creed.
+"Don't know but what I mought, though, at that. What's yourn?"
+
+"Winchester, 30-40," replied Jacques, handing it over for inspection.
+
+"Mine, too," said Creed; "only mine's newer. What'll y' give to boot?"
+Jacques did not hurry his answer, being engaged in removing the
+cartridges for the better inspection of magazine and chamber.
+
+"Mine's better kep'," he opined after a careful squinting down the
+muzzle.
+
+"Kep' nawthin'! 'S all nicked up. An', besides, it pulls hard."
+
+Jacques was deliberately refilling the magazine, but so intent was
+Creed in picking out fancied defects in the other's weapon that he
+failed to notice that the cartridges which were being placed in his own
+rifle had had their bullets carefully drawn, while his original
+cartridges reposed snugly in the pocket of the half-breed's mackinaw.
+
+"Tell y' what I'll do," said Creed, speaking in a tone of the utmost
+generosity. "Give me ten dollars to boot, an' we'll call it a trade."
+
+Jacques laughed loudly and, handing the other his rifle, picked up his
+own.
+
+"We must be goin'," he observed, and rose to his feet.
+
+"Better have 'nother drink 'fore y' go," said Creed, tendering the
+bottle. They drank around and Creed returned the bottle to its cache,
+while the others took their places in the canoe.
+
+"Make it five, then," Creed extended the rifle as though giving it
+away.
+
+Jacques shook his head, and pushed the canoe out into the stream.
+
+The man on shore eyed the widening strip of water between the bank and
+the canoe.
+
+"I'll make it three, seein' ye're so hell-bent on a trade," he called.
+But his only answer was a loud laugh as the canoe disappeared around a
+sharp bend of the river.
+
+Creed resumed his position with his back against the ends of the logs.
+
+At a point some fifty feet up-stream from the diminutive rollway, and
+about the same distance from the shore, a blackened snag thrust its
+ugly head above the surface of the water, and against this snag
+brushwood and drift had collected and was held by the push of the
+stream which gurgled merrily among its interstices.
+
+Creed's gaze, resting momentarily upon this miniature island, failed
+entirely to note that it concealed a man who stood immersed in the
+river from his neck down, and eyed him keenly through narrowed gray
+eyes; and that also this man was doing a most peculiar thing.
+
+Reaching into the pocket of his water-soaked shirt he withdrew several
+long, steel-jacketed bullets and, holding them in the palm of his hand,
+grinned broadly.
+
+Then, one by one, he placed them in his mouth, drew a long breath, and
+dived. The water at this point was about four feet in depth and the man
+swam rapidly, close to the bottom.
+
+Creed's glance, roving idly over the river, was arrested by a quick
+commotion upon the surface of the water almost directly in front of
+him.
+
+He seized his rifle and leaped to his feet, hoping for a shot at a
+stray otter. The next instant the rifle slipped from his nerveless
+fingers and struck upon the ground with a muffled thud.
+
+Instead of an otter he was looking directly into the face of a man.
+
+"God A'mi'ty," he gurgled, "it's the greener!" He leaned heavily
+against the logs, plucking foolishly at the bark. His scalp tingled
+from fright.
+
+His mouth sagged open and the lolling, flabby tongue drooled thickly.
+His face became a dull, bloodless gray, glistening glaireously with
+clammy sweat, and his eyes dilated until they seemed bulging from their
+sockets.
+
+It seemed ages he stood there, staring in horrible fascination at the
+man in the river--and then the man moved!
+
+He was advancing slowly shoreward, with a curious limp, as he had
+entered Burrage's store. Creed's ashen lips moved stiffly, and his
+tongue seemed to fill his mouth.
+
+"I've got 'em! I've got 'em," he maundered. "'S the booze, an' I'm
+seein' things!"
+
+His groping brain grasped at the idea, and it gave him strength--better
+the "snakes" than _that_! But he must do something, the man was coming
+toward him--only hip-deep now--
+
+"Go 'way! Go 'way!" he shrieked in a sudden frenzy of action. "Damn
+you! Y're dead! D'ye hear me! Go 'way from here!"
+
+Suddenly his weakening knees stiffened under him, and he reached
+swiftly for the rifle on the ground at his feet.
+
+Slowly and deliberately he raised it, cocked it, rested it across a
+log, and took deliberate aim at the center of the man's face--twenty
+paces away.
+
+"Bang!" The crack of the rifle sounded loud and sharp in the tense
+stillness.
+
+The apparition, at the water's edge, raised its hand slowly to its
+lips, and from between its teeth took a small object which it tossed
+toward the other. The object struck lightly against Creed's breast and
+dropped to the ground.
+
+He looked, downward--it was a 30-40 bullet--his own! He stared dumbly
+at the thing on the ground. Then, automatically, he fired again, taking
+careful aim.
+
+Again the ghost's hand moved slowly toward its mouth, and again the
+light tap upon his chest--and two bullets lay upon the ground at his
+feet.
+
+His head felt strange and large, and inside his skull things were
+moving--long, gray maggots that twisted, and writhed, and squirmed,
+like fishing worms in a can.
+
+He laughed flatly, a senile, cackling laugh. He did not want to laugh,
+but laughed again and, stooping, reached for the bullets. He stared at
+his fingers, bewildered; they groped helplessly at a spot a foot from
+the place where lay the two bullets with their shining steel jackets.
+
+He must move his fingers to the right--this way. Again he
+stared--puzzled; they were moving farther and farther toward the
+left--away from the bullets. Again the dry, cackling laugh. He would
+fool his fingers. He would move them _away_ from the bullets.
+
+He tried, and the next instant the groping fingers closed unerringly
+upon the little cylinders. The laugh became an inarticulate babble of
+satisfaction, his knees collapsed, and he pitched forward and lay still
+with wide, staring eyes, while upon the corners of his mouth appeared
+little flecks of white foam.
+
+A shadow fell across his face--he was staring straight into the eyes of
+the greener, who stood, dripping wet with the water of the river into
+which he had fallen more than two months before.
+
+The man leaped from the ground in a sudden frenzy of terror, and fled
+screaming into the forest, crashing, wallowing, tearing through the
+underbrush, he plunged, shrieking like a demon.
+
+The greener stood alone in the clearing and listened to the diminishing
+sounds.
+
+At length they ceased and, in the silence, the greener turned toward
+the sparkling river, and as he looked there came to his ear faint and
+far, one last, thin scream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE ROBE OF DIABLESSE
+
+
+It required three days of hard labor to remove the fifty-two bird's-eye
+maple logs to a position of safety. Jacques made a trip to the log
+camp, returning with a stout rope and an armload of baling wire which
+he collected from the vicinity of the stables.
+
+The fact that bird's-eye maple logs, when green, will sink in water,
+rendered necessary the use of two large pine logs as floats. These were
+connected at the ends and in the middle with rope sufficiently long to
+permit four of the heavier logs to rest upon the ropes between the
+floats.
+
+The raft thus formed was laboriously towed up-stream to the eddy where
+the bird's-eye logs were wired together, weighted with stones, and
+allowed to sink.
+
+During the whole time Jeanne worked tirelessly by the side of the men,
+and when the last log rested safely upon the bottom of the river, and
+the scars were carefully removed from the bank, Bill surveyed the
+result with satisfaction.
+
+"I think that will keep Moncrossen guessing," he laughed. "He won't
+know whether Creed ate the logs or an air-ship made away with them."
+
+"But, he will know they are _somewhere_," said Jeanne gravely, "and he
+will search for them far and wide."
+
+"He will not find them," Jacques interrupted. "No man would search
+up-stream for logs, even though he believed them to be upon the bottom
+of the river."
+
+"But, in the searching, he may come upon the lodge, and in his rage,
+who can tell what he would do?" Bill's eyes narrowed, and he answered
+the girl with a smile.
+
+"I will remain, and if Moncrossen comes----"
+
+The girl laid a small hand upon his arm and looked into his eyes.
+
+"I am but a girl and know nothing of logs, but, is it not better that
+he return down the river without searching?"
+
+Carmody smiled into the serious dark eyes. "Go on, Jeanne," he said,
+"tell us what you would do."
+
+"It is simple--only to build a big fire upon the spot where the logs
+were piled, and when Moncrossen finds the ashes he will seek no farther
+for his logs."
+
+"Great!" cried Bill, in undisguised admiration and, with the help of
+the others, proceeded to carry the plan into effect. All night they
+piled fuel upon the fire, and in the morning their efforts were
+rewarded by a pile of ashes that would easily be mistaken for the ruins
+of the bird's-eye rollway.
+
+With the passing of the long, hot days of summer, Bill Carmody regained
+his strength, and yet he lingered in the camp of the Lacombies.
+
+Creed was seen no more upon Blood River, and Bill assumed the
+responsibility of guarding the log camp, making for the purpose almost
+daily excursions with Jeanne or Jacques.
+
+August mellowed into smoky September--September gave place to the red
+and gold of October, and the blood of the forest folk quickened to the
+tang of the North.
+
+At the conclusion of one of these tours of inspection, Bill came
+suddenly upon the girl standing in awe before the skin of Diablesse,
+which remained where he and Fallon had nailed it on the wall of the
+bunk-house. Bill carefully removed the nails and laid the dry pelt at
+the feet of the girl.
+
+"See," he said, "the skin of the werwolf--it is yours."
+
+"Mine!" she cried, with shining eyes. "You would give me _this_!"
+
+Bill smiled. "Yes, that is all I have, here in the woods. But when I
+return I will bring you many things from the land of the white men."
+
+"The robe of Diablesse!" she breathed softly, as she gazed down upon
+the peculiar silvery sheen of the great white wolfskin. "I had rather
+you gave me this than anything else in the world."
+
+She stopped in sudden confusion.
+
+"And why?" questioned Bill, pleased at her evident delight.
+
+"It is," she hesitated, and a slender hand clutched at her breast. "It
+is as you spoke of the hunting shirt--that you would always keep it
+because it is the work of my hands. Only the robe means much more, for,
+among men but one man could have slain the _loup-garou_, and in all the
+North there is none like it--the robe of Diablesse! and it shall bring
+us luck--and--and happiness?" she added, the rich voice melting to
+softness.
+
+At the words the man glanced quickly into the face of the girl and
+encountered the shy, questioning gaze of the mysterious dark eyes. The
+gaze did not falter, and the deep, lustrous eyes held the man
+enthralled in their liquid depths. She advanced a step, and stood her
+lithe young body almost touching his own, holding him fascinated in the
+compelling gaze of the limpid eyes.
+
+"And happiness?" The words were a whispered breath; the bronzed face of
+the man paled and, with an effort, he turned swiftly away.
+
+"Luck! Happiness!" he repeated dully, with bowed head. "For me there
+can be no happiness."
+
+With a low cry the girl was at his side and two tiny, white-brown hands
+clutched at the fringed arm of his buckskin shirt. The beautiful face
+was flushed, the bosom heaved, and from between the red lips poured a
+torrent of words:
+
+"You _shall_ find happiness! You, who are great and strong and brave
+above all men! You, who are good, and whom the Great Spirit sent to me
+from the waters of the river!
+
+"You, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die, shall turn from your own kind, and shall
+find your happiness beside the rivers, and in the forests of my people!
+Together we will journey to some far place, and in our lodge will dwell
+love and great happiness.
+
+"And you shall become a mighty hunter, and in all the North you shall
+be feared and loved."
+
+The girl paused and gazed wildly into the eyes of the man. His face was
+drawn and pale, and in his eyes she read deep pain. Gently his hand
+closed over the slender fingers that gripped his sleeve, and at the
+touch the girl trembled and leaned closer, until her warm body rested
+lightly against his arm. Bill's lips moved and the words of his
+toneless voice fell upon her ears like the dry rustle of dead husks.
+
+"Jeanne--little girl--you do not understand. These things cannot be.
+Only unhappiness would come to us. There is nothing in the world I
+would not do for you.
+
+"To you I owe my life--to you and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. But, love cannot be
+ordered. It is written--and, far away, in the great city of the white
+men, is a girl--a woman of my own people----"
+
+The girl sprang from his side and faced him with blazing eyes.
+
+"A woman of your people!" she almost hissed. "In your sleep you talked
+of her, while the fever-spirit was upon you. I _hate_ her--this Ethel!
+She does not love you, for she will marry another! Ah, in the darkness
+I have listened, and listening, have learned to _hate_! She sent you
+away from her--for, in your eyes she could not read the goodness of
+your heart!"
+
+Bill raised his hand.
+
+"You do not understand," he repeated, patiently. "I was not good--I was
+a bad man!"
+
+"Who, then, among white men is good? The men of the logs, who drink
+whisky, and fight among themselves, and kill one another? Is it these
+men that are good in the sight of your woman? And are you, who scorn
+these things--are you bad?"
+
+"I, too, drank whisky--and for that reason she sent me away."
+
+"But, you cannot return to her! She is the wife of another! Over and
+over again you said it, in the voice of the fever-spirit."
+
+"No," replied the man softly. "To her I cannot return. But, listen; I
+start to-morrow for the white man's country. To find the man for whom I
+work, and tell him of the bird's-eye.
+
+"Soon I shall come again into the woods. I cannot marry you, for only
+evil would come of it. I will bring you many presents, and always we
+shall be friends--and more than friends, for you shall be to me a
+sister and I shall be your brother, and shall keep you from harm.
+
+"To-morrow I go, and you shall promise me that whenever you are in
+trouble of whatsoever kind you will send for me--and I shall come to
+you--be it far or near, in the night-time or in the daytime, I will
+come--Jeanne, look into my eyes--will you promise?"
+
+The girl looked up, and a ray of hope lightened the pain in her eyes.
+
+"You will surely return into the North?"
+
+"I will surely return."
+
+"I will promise," she whispered, and, side by side, in the silence of
+the twilight, they left the clearing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE ONE GOOD WHITE MAN
+
+
+The following morning Bill parted from his friends. As he was about to
+step into the canoe Jeanne appeared at the water's edge bearing the
+mackinaw which he had worn when they drew him from the river.
+
+Without meeting his glance she extended it toward him, speaking in a
+low, tense voice.
+
+"In the lining I have sewed them--the papers that fell dripping from
+your pocket--and the picture. Many times I have looked upon the face of
+this woman, who has caused you pain. And I have hated! Oh, how I have
+hated! So that I could have torn her in pieces.
+
+"And many times I would have burned them, that you might forget. But,
+instead, I sewed them from sight in the lining of the coat--and here is
+the coat."
+
+Bill tossed the mackinaw into the bottom of the canoe.
+
+"Thank you, Jeanne," he said. "And until we meet again, good-by!"
+
+With a push of the paddle he shot the light canoe far out into the
+current of the stream.
+
+Bill paddled leisurely, camping early and sitting late over his
+camp-fire smoking many pipefuls of tobacco. And, as he smoked, his
+thoughts drifted over the events of the past year, and the people who
+comprised his little world.
+
+Appleton, who had offered him the chance to make good; whole-hearted
+Fallon; devoted old Daddy Dunnigan; Stromberg, in whom was much to
+admire; Creed, the craven tool of Moncrossen; the boss himself,
+crooked, brutal, vicious; Blood River Jack, his friend; Wa-ha-ta-na-ta,
+the sinister old squaw, who believed all white men to be bad; and
+Jeanne, the beautiful, half-wild girl, within whose breast a great soul
+fluttered against the restraint of her environment.
+
+To this girl he owed his life, and he had repaid the debt by trampling
+roughshod upon her heart. Bitterly he reproached himself for not seeing
+how things were going. For not until the day she told him in the
+clearing had he guessed that she loved him.
+
+And yet now as he looked backward he could remember a hundred little
+things that ought to have warned him--a word here, a look, a touch of
+the hand--little things, insignificant in themselves, but in the light
+of his present understanding, looming large as the danger signals of a
+well-ordered block system--signals he had blindly disregarded, to the
+wrecking of a heart. Well, he would make all amends in his power; would
+look after her as best he could, and in time she would forget.
+
+"They _all_ forget," he muttered aloud with a short, bitter laugh, as
+the memory of certain staring head-lines flashed through his brain. "I
+wish to God I could forget--_her!_"
+
+But the old wound would not heal, and far into the night he sat staring
+into the fire.
+
+"It's a man's game," he murmured as he spread his blankets, "and I will
+win out; but why?"
+
+Beyond the fire came the sound of a snapping twig. The man started,
+staring into the gloom, when suddenly into the soft light of the dying
+embers stepped Jeanne Lacombie. He stared at her speechless.
+
+There, in the uncertain glow, she stood, a Diana of flesh and blood,
+whose open hunting-shirt fell away from her rounded throat in soft,
+fringed folds. Her short skirt of heavy drilling came only to her
+knees; she wore no stockings, and her tiny feet were incased in heavily
+beaded moccasins.
+
+And so she stood there in the midnight, smiling down upon the man who
+gazed speechless from his blanket upon the opposite side of the dying
+fire; and then she spoke:
+
+"I have come," she said simply.
+
+"Jeanne!" cried the man, "why have you done this thing?"
+
+"I love you, and I will go with you."
+
+"But, girl, don't you realize what it means? This is the third night
+since I left the camp of Jacques----" The girl interrupted him with a
+laugh:
+
+"And I, too, have been gone three nights; have struck straight through
+the forest, and because the river makes a great bend of many miles I
+came to this place before you, and have waited for you here a night and
+a day.
+
+"And now I'm hungry. I will eat first, and then we will sleep, and
+to-morrow we will start together for the land of the white men."
+
+The man's mind worked rapidly as he watched in silence while the girl
+removed some bacon and bannock from his pack-sack and set the
+coffee-pot upon the coals. When she had finished her meal he spoke,
+slowly but firmly.
+
+"Jeanne, you have waited here a night and a day; you are rested, you
+have eaten. I will now make up the pack, and we will take the trail."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes, to-night--now. The back trail for the lodge of Jacques." The girl
+regarded him in amazement, and then smiled sadly, as a mother smiles on
+an erring child.
+
+"We cannot return," she said, speaking softly. "Wa-ha-ta-na-ta would
+kill me. She thinks we came away together. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was married;
+we are not married; we cannot go back." The man rolled the blankets and
+buckled the straps of his pack-sack. He was about to swing it to his
+shoulders when the girl grasped his arm.
+
+"I love you," she repeated, "and I will go with you."
+
+"But, Jeanne," the man cried, "this cannot be. I cannot marry you. In
+my life I have loved but one woman----"
+
+"And she is the wife of another!" cried the girl.
+
+Bill winced as from a blow, and she continued, speaking rapidly:
+
+"I do not ask that you marry me--not even that you love me. It is
+enough that I am at your side. You will treat me kindly, for you are
+good. Marriage is nothing--empty words--if the heart loves; nothing
+else matters, and some day you will love me."
+
+The man slowly shook his head:
+
+"No, Jeanne, it is impossible. Come, we will return to the lodge of
+Jacques. I myself will tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta that no harm has befallen
+you, and----"
+
+"Do you think she will believe _you_? Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, who hates all
+white men and, next to Moncrossen, you most of all, for she has seen
+that I love you. We have been gone three nights. She will not believe
+you. If you will not take me I will go alone to the land of the white
+men; I have no place else to go."
+
+The man's jaw squared, his eyes narrowed, and the low, level tones of
+his voice cut upon the silence in words of cold authority:
+
+"We are going back to-night. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will believe me. She is
+very old and very wise; and she will know that I speak the truth."
+
+The words ceased abruptly, and the two drew closer together, their eyes
+fixed upon the blanketed form which, silent as a shadow, glided from
+the bushes and stood motionless before them.
+
+Within an arm's reach, in the dull, red glow, the somber figure stood
+contemplating the pair through beady, black eyes, that glowed ominously
+in the half-light.
+
+Slowly, deliberately, a clawlike hand was withdrawn from a fold of the
+blanket, and the feeble rays of the fire glinted weakly upon the cold,
+gray steel of a polished blade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE PROMISE
+
+
+The silent, shadowy figure swayed toward Bill Carmody, who met the
+stabbing glare of the black eyes with the steady gaze of his gray ones.
+For long, tense moments their eyes held, while the girl watched
+breathlessly.
+
+Raising the blade high above her head, the old squaw brought it
+crashing upon a rock at Carmody's feet. There was the sharp ring of
+tempered steel, and upon the pine-needles lay the broken blade, and
+beyond the rock the hilt, with a scant inch of blade protruding at the
+guard.
+
+Stooping, the old woman picked up the two pieces of the broken
+sheath-knife, and, handing the hilt gravely to the astonished man
+carefully returned the blade to her blanket. She pointed a long, skinny
+finger at Bill, and the withered lips moved.
+
+"You are the one good white man," she said. "I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the
+daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, have spoken. I--who, since the death
+of Lacombie, have said 'there is no good white man'--was wrong, and the
+words were a lie in my mouth. In your eyes I have read it. You have the
+good eye--the eye of Lacombie, who is dead.
+
+"I have followed upon the trail of my daughter, thinking it was in your
+heart to meet her here and carry her to her ruin in the land of the
+white man. With this blade I would have killed you--for all men
+die--would have followed and killed you in the land of your people. But
+now I know that your heart is good. I have broken the knife.
+
+"You will keep the hilt, and when you are in trouble, in need, in want
+of a friend, you will send me this hilt, and I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the
+daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, will come to you."
+
+Her eyes rolled upward as though seeking among the tiny, far-winking
+stars the words of some half-forgotten ritual, and her voice rose in a
+weird, hesitating chant:
+
+    "Through the snows of Winter,
+    Through the heat of Summer,
+    Across high Mountains,
+    Over broad Waters,
+    Braving lean Want,
+    Scorning fat Plenty,
+    Nor turning aside
+    From the fang of Wolf,
+    From the forked arrows of Lightning,
+    From the mighty voice of Thunder,
+    From the hot breath of Fire,
+    From the rush of Waters,
+    From the sting of Frost.
+    Nor lingering to the call of Love,
+    Nor heeding the words of Hate.
+    In the face of Sickness,
+    In defiance of Death
+    Will I come
+    That you may know I am your Friend.
+    Hear all ye Spirits and Devils that rule the World,
+    And sit upon the High Places of the Great World,
+    This is my Vow!
+    Should my feet lag upon the Trail,
+    Should my heart turn to Water,
+    Should I forget--
+    So that in the time of my friend's need
+    I answer not his call;
+    Then, upon my head--upon the heads of my children--and
+        their children
+    Shall descend the Curse--the Great Curse of the Yaga Tah!
+    The Man-Who-Lies-Hid-in-the-Sky!"
+
+The quavering chant ceased, and the undimmed old eyes looked again into
+the face of the man.
+
+"And because you are good," she went on, "and because you have heard
+the vow, when this broken blade comes to your hand you will know that
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, in the last
+extremity of her need, is calling you.
+
+"And because you are strong and brave and have the good eye--you will
+come. And no people of the earth, and nothing that is upon the earth,
+nor of the earth, shall prevent you. I have spoken."
+
+Bill Carmody listened in awed silence until the old woman finished.
+
+"I, whom you choose to regard as the one good white man," he replied
+with a dignity matching her own, "will one day prove my friendship.
+Upon sight of the fragment of blade I will come.
+
+"No people of the earth, and nothing that is upon the earth, nor of the
+earth, shall prevent me--and one day you will know that my words are
+true."
+
+He raised his hand and, gazing upward, repeated the words of the
+strange chant. At their conclusion he gazed steadily into the face of
+the old squaw.
+
+"This is _the promise_," he said gravely. "I have spoken."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE NEW BOSS
+
+
+The twilight of late autumn darkened the landscape as Bill Carmody
+found himself once again at the edge of the tiny clearing surrounding
+the cabin of Daddy Dunnigan.
+
+Through the window, in the yellow lamplight of the interior, he could
+see the form of the old man as he hobbled back and forth between the
+stove and the table.
+
+Remembering Creed, Bill feared the effect upon the old man should he
+present himself suddenly at the door. Advancing into the clearing, he
+whistled. Daddy Dunnigan paused, frying-pan in hand, and peered
+futilely out of the window. Again Bill whistled and watched as the
+other returned the pan to the stove and opened the door.
+
+"Come on in out av that, ye shpalpeen!" called Dunnigan. "Ut's toime ye
+be comin' back to let th' owld man know how ye're farin'!"
+
+Bill grasped the extended hand and peered into the twinkling eyes of
+the old Irishman.
+
+"Well, Daddy, you don't seem much surprised."
+
+"Oi know'd ye'd be along wan av these days, but ye tuk yer own toime
+about ut."
+
+"How did you know I wasn't drowned in the river?"
+
+"Sur-re, Oi know'd ye _wuz_--didn't Oi see ye go undher th' logs wid me
+own eyes? An' didn't th' jam go rippin' an' tearin' into th' rapids?
+An' c'd on-ny man live t'rough th' loike av that? Oi _know'd_ ye wuz
+dead--till Oi seed Creed. Thin Oi know'd ye wuzn't. But Moncrossen
+don't know ut--nor on-ny wan ilse, ondly me. Oi'd 'a' gone to hunt ye,
+ondly Oi know'd phwin th' toime suited ye ye'd come here; so Oi waited.
+
+"Set by now er th' grub'll be cowld. They'll be toime fer palaverin'
+afther."
+
+When the dishes had been washed and returned to their shelves the two
+seated themselves and lighted their pipes.
+
+"You say Creed returned to Hilarity and told of having seen me?" asked
+Bill.
+
+"Well, he did--an' he didn't," replied the old man slowly. "Ut's loike
+this: Along in July, ut wuz, Moncrossen an' his gang av bur-rd's-eye
+pirates come roarin' out av th' woods huntin' fer Creed. They'd wint in
+be th' river, but come out be th' tote-road, an' mad clean t'rough to
+th' gizzard. No wan hadn't seed um, an' they clum aboord th' thrain,
+cursin' an' swearin' vingince on Creed phwin they caught um.
+
+"Thin, maybe it's two wakes afther, we wuz settin' in Burrage's phwin
+th' dure bust open, an' in come Rad Cranston loike th' divil wuz afther
+um.
+
+"'They's a woild man,' he yells, 'come out av th' woods, an' he's
+tearin' things up in Creed's cabin!'
+
+"Hod picks up a cleaver an' makes fer th' dure, wid us follyin' um,
+afther providin' oursilves wid what utinsils wuz layin' handy--a scythe
+here an' an axe there, an' some wan ilse wid a pitchfork. Rad brung up
+lasht wid a sixteen-pound posht-maul, bein' in no hurry at all fer
+another luk.
+
+"Trut' is, none av us wuz in no great hurry--Creed's woman havin'
+cashed his pay-check an' skipped out--but at lasht we come to phwere we
+c'd see th' place, an' sure enough th' dure shtood open an' insoide
+come a racket av shmashin' furniture an' yellin' 'tw'd done proud to
+camp-meetin' salvation.
+
+"Thin come a foine loud rattle av glass, an' out t'rough a windie come
+th' half av a chair, follyed be a len'th av shtovepoipe an' a grane
+glass wather-pitcher.
+
+"Fer me own part, Oi'd seed such loike brick-a-brack befoor, an'
+besides Oi remimbered a dhrink Oi hadn't tuk earlier in th' evenin', so
+Oi shtarted workin' me way to th' back av th' crowd, th' bether some
+wan ilse c'd see.
+
+"Oi'd no more thin tur-rned around phwin wid a whoop, 'tw'd wake th'
+dead, out t'rough th' windie come th' domnedest-lukin' cryther this
+side av Borneo, a wavin' over his head wan av th' owld lady Creed's rid
+cotton table-cloths--an' niver another stitch to his name but a leather
+belt wid about six inches av pants a hangin' onto ut, an' a pair av
+corked boots.
+
+"Phwin Oi shtar-rted from Burrage's Oi laid holt av a man's-size
+crowbar, but at that minit th' thing Oi helt in me hand luked about th'
+heft av a tinpinny nail. Be that toime all th' others wuz av loike
+moind to me. They wuz considerable crowdin', an', bein' crippled, Oi
+dhropped me crowbar an' laid a good holt on th' tail av Hod's coat.
+
+"Th' shtore wuz clost by, an' we had a good shtart; but th' thing that
+wuz afther us wuz thravelin' loight an' in foorty-fut leps.
+
+"'Twuz a good race, an' wan Oi wanted to win; but, owin' to th'
+unyversal willin'ness av th' crowd to get into th' shtore, we plugged
+up th' dureway, an' befoor we c'd get unstuck th' thing wuz onto us,
+gibberin' an' jabberin' an' screamin' an' laughin' all to wunst.
+
+"Ut tuk eight av us to howld um whilst Burrage toied um hand an' fut,
+an' phwin we'd dhrug um into th' shtore we seed 'twuz Creed hissilf.
+Twuz two days befoor th' sheriff come fer um, an' in th' mane toime
+he'd gabble an' yell about th' greener comin' afther um, an' how he
+come out av th' wather, an' so on.
+
+"Th' rist think ut's th' shtayin' alone made um loony, but Oi put two
+an' two togither--here's Moncrossen losht his bur-rd's-eye an' Creed
+scairt witless be th' soight av th' greener--phwat's th' answer?
+
+"Phy, th' b'y ain't dead at all. Some ways he got out av th' river,
+scairt th' dayloights out av Creed, an' made off wid th' bur-rd's-eye.
+Am Oi roight?"
+
+"Exactly!" exclaimed Bill.
+
+"Oi know'd ut! Ye've th' luck av Captain Fronte's own silf! That come
+out av ivery shcrape wid his loife, save th' lasht wan, an' he w'd thin
+av a domned nayger shell hadn't bust ag'in' his ribs--but that's toimes
+gone."
+
+"I wonder where Moncrossen is now?"
+
+"Right here in Hilarity; him an' his crew unloaded yisterday fer to
+shtar-rt fer th' camp in th' marnin'."
+
+"I think I'll just let the boss believe I'm still in the river until
+after I have had a talk with Appleton. By the way, Daddy, how are you
+fixed for money?"
+
+"Sure, Oi got more money thin a man ought to have--money in th' bank
+an' money in me pocket--take ut an' welcome"--he tossed a thick wallet
+onto the table--"ondly ye won't have to go to Minneapolis.
+
+"Owld man Appleton's over to Creighton, eighty moiles wesht av here,
+sooperintindin' a new camp on Blood River, wan hundred an' tin moiles
+above Moncrossen's. Fallon's wid um, an' Shtromberg, an' a lot more av
+th' good min that's toired av worrkin' undher Moncrossen."
+
+"He is not bossing the camp himself!" exclaimed Bill.
+
+"No, but he's got to kape an eye on't. Fallon'll be a kind av shtraw
+boss an' luk afther th' wor-rk, but th' owld man'll have to figger th'
+toime an' th' scale--Fallon ain't got no aggicatin'.
+
+"'Tis roight glad Oi'm thinkin' th' owld man'll be to lay eyes on ye.
+They say he wuz all bruk up phwin he heerd ye wuz dhr-rounded."
+
+Bill's visit to Hilarity was known to no one except Daddy Dunnigan, and
+the following evening after Moncrossen's departure for the woods, the
+two proceeded to the railway by a circuitous route.
+
+Unobserved, he swung aboard the caboose of the local freight-train
+which stood at the tiny platform, discharging goods.
+
+"He'll be afther makin' ye boss av th' new camp," opined the old man
+from his position beside a pile of ties. "An' av ye nade a cook just
+dhrop me a loine an' Oi'll come."
+
+"I haven't got the job yet," laughed Bill.
+
+"But ye will. Owld Appleton'll be glad enough not havin' to come
+thrapsin' into th' woods ivery month or so durin' th' winther." The old
+man leaned forward upon his crutch, and with pathetic eagerness scanned
+the face of the younger man.
+
+"Me b'y," he said, "av yer plans is changed--wor-rd from th' gir-rl, or
+what not, that'll be takin' ye back to Noo Yor-rk--ye'll take me wid
+ye?
+
+"Oi may be a bit owld, but Oi'm as good as iver Oi wuz. Oi c'd lear-rn
+to run yer otymobile er take care av th' harses, er moind th' babies,
+ut makes no difference; for whilst a McKim lives owld Dunnigan belongs
+to luk afther um."
+
+"Never fear, Daddy!" cried Bill, as the train jerked into motion. "Now
+that we've found each other, we'll stick together until the end." And
+he stood silent upon the steps of the caboose until the figure of the
+old Irishman blended into the background.
+
+In the front room of the one-story building with its undeceptive
+two-story front, where Appleton had established his headquarters in the
+little town of Creighton, the lumber magnate sat talking with Irish
+Fallon.
+
+The tote-road leading to the new camp had been pushed to completion,
+and Appleton was giving Fallon some final instructions.
+
+"I must leave for Minneapolis in the morning," he said. "Do the best
+you can, and I will run up as often as possible."
+
+"Oi'll do ut, sorr," replied Irish. "Oi c'n lay down th' logs all
+roight; th' throuble'll be wid th' figgers. If ondly me frind, Bill,
+wuz here--sure, there wuz th' foine lad!"
+
+Appleton pulled at his gray mustache and regarded the other
+thoughtfully.
+
+"You knew him well--this Bill?" he asked.
+
+"Oi wuz th' fur-rst whoite man he seen in th' woods th' day he stud
+knee-dape in th' shnow av th' tote-road, lukin' down at th' carcass av
+D'ablish. An' from that toime on till he wint down undher th' logs we
+wuz loike two brothers--ondly more so."
+
+"Pretty good man, was he?"
+
+"A-a-h, there wuz a man!" Fallon's big fist banged noisily upon the
+table, and his blue eyes lighted as he faced his employer. "Misther
+Appleton, ye losht a _man_ phwin th' greener wint undher. Fearin'
+nayther God, man, nor th' divil, he come into th' woods, an' in wan
+sayson lear-rnt more about logs thin th' most av us'll iver know."
+
+"Moncrossen liked him--spoke very highly of him, and that is unusual
+with Moncrossen." Fallon's breath whistled through his teeth at the
+words.
+
+"Loiked um, did he? Sure he loiked um--loike a rabbit loikes a wolf!"
+
+He leaned forward in his chair, punctuating his remarks with stabs of a
+huge forefinger upon the other's knee.
+
+"Misther Appleton, Moncrossen _hated um_! An' ivery man along th' river
+that day knows that av ut wuzn't fer Moncrossen, th' greener'd be
+livin' this minit--ondly we can't pr-roove ut. Th' boss hated um
+because he wuz a bether man--because he know'd he wuz a clane man, wid
+a foightin' hear-rt an' two fists an' th' guts to carry um t'rough. He
+chilled th' har-rt av th' boss th' fur-rst noight he seen um, an' from
+thin on th' fear wuz upon um fer th' bird's-eye."
+
+"The bird's-eye?" inquired Appleton. "What do you mean?"
+
+Fallon hesitated; his enthusiasm had carried him further than he had
+intended. He gazed out of the window, wondering how to proceed, when
+his eyes fastened upon a large, heavily bearded man who approached
+rapidly down the wooden sidewalk, a folded mackinaw swung carelessly
+across the fringed arm of his buckskin shirt.
+
+The iron latch rattled; the man entered, closed the door behind him,
+and, turning, faced the two with a smile. For a long moment the men
+gazed at the newcomer in silence; then Fallon's chair crashed backward
+upon the floor as the Irishman leaped to his feet.
+
+"Thim _eyes_!" he cried, throwing a huge arm across the man's shoulders
+and shaking him violently in his excitement. "Bill! Bill! Fer th' love
+av God, tell me 'tis yersilf! Ye damn' shcoundril, ain't ye dhrounded
+at all, at all? An' phwere ye ben kapin' yersilf?"
+
+Bill laughed aloud and wrung Appleton's hand.
+
+The lumberman had risen to his feet, staring incredulously into the
+other's face while he repeated over and over again: "My boy! My boy!"
+
+Fallon danced about, waving his arms and shouting: "Th' new camp'll go
+t'rough hell a whoopin'! Bill'll be boss, an' th' min'll tear out th'
+bone to bate Moncrossen!"
+
+Order was finally restored, and the three seated themselves while Bill
+recounted his adventures. Appleton's brow clouded as he learned the
+details of the bird's-eye plot.
+
+"So that's the way he worked it?" he exclaimed. "I knew that there was
+some bird's-eye in the timber, and that I was not getting it. But I
+laid it to outside thieves--never supposed one of my own foremen was
+double-crossing me.
+
+"That is Moncrossen's finish!" he added grimly. "I need him this
+winter. Too many contracts to afford to do without him. In the spring,
+though, there will be an accounting; and mark my words, he will get
+what is coming to him!"
+
+"What next--for me?" asked Bill.
+
+Appleton smiled.
+
+"I think Fallon has disposed of your case," he replied. "My boy, I want
+you to take this new camp and _get out logs_. I won't set any specific
+amount, I will tell you this: I _must_ have twenty-five million feet
+out of the Blood River country this winter. You are the first
+inexperienced man I have ever placed in charge of a camp. I don't know
+what you can do. I'll take the chance. It's up to you.
+
+"My camps are run without interference from the office. Results count
+with me--not methods. Feed your crew all they can eat--of the best you
+can get. Knock a man down first and argue with him afterward. Let them
+know who is boss, and you will have no trouble. Don't be afraid to
+spend money, but _get out the logs_!"
+
+The following morning the new foreman stood upon the platform of the
+station as the heavy, vestibuled Imperial Limited ground to a stop,
+under special orders to take on the great lumberman.
+
+"So-long, Bill!" Appleton called. "See you next month. Bringing a party
+into the woods for a deer-hunt. May put up at your camp for a couple of
+weeks."
+
+The train pulled out for the East, leaving Bill Carmody gazing, just a
+shade wistfully, perhaps, at the contented-looking men and women who
+flashed past upon the rich plush cushions.
+
+But as the last coach passed he squared his shoulders with a jerk and
+turned quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A HUNTING PARTY
+
+
+H. D. Appleton, millionaire lumberman, sighed contentedly as he added
+cream to his after-dinner coffee. He glanced toward his wife, who was
+smiling at him across the table.
+
+"Oh, you can drink yours black if you want to, little girl," he
+grinned; "but, remember 'way back when we were first married and I was
+bossing camps for old Jimmie Ferguson, and we lived in log shacks 'way
+up in the big woods, I used to say if we ever got where we could have
+cream for our coffee, I'd have nothing else to ask for?
+
+"Well, to this day, drinking cream in my coffee is my idea of the
+height of luxury. This is all right, and I enjoy it, too, I suppose."
+He indicated with a wave of his black cigar the rich furnishings, the
+heavy plate and cut-glass that adorned the dining-room. "But, somehow,
+nothing makes me feel _successful_ like pouring real cream into my
+coffee."
+
+The gray-haired "little girl" laughed happily.
+
+"You never have quite grown up, Hubert," she replied. "Did you have a
+hard trip, dear? The three weeks you have been away have seemed like
+three months to me."
+
+"No, no! I had a good trip. It looked rather hopeless at first, trying
+to establish a new camp, with no one really capable of running it; but
+just at the last minute--You remember the man I told you about last
+fall--the young fellow who throttled that scoundrel after the wreck in
+the Chicago railroad yards, and who refused to tell me his name until
+after he had made good?"
+
+"Yes--he was drowned last spring, wasn't he? Poor boy, I have often
+wondered who he was--a gentleman, you said?"
+
+"By gad, he's more than a gentlemen--he's a _man_! And he wasn't
+drowned at all. Got rescued somehow by an old squaw and her daughter.
+His leg was broken, and when he got well he stayed in the woods and
+looked after the camp all summer; and not only that, he recovered
+fifty-two bird's-eye maple logs that had been stolen by some of my own
+men.
+
+"He found me in Creighton, and I made him boss of the new camp. He's a
+winner, and the men will work for him till they drop."
+
+"Oh, by the way, Hubert," said Mrs. Appleton. "Mr. Sheridan called up a
+day or two ago and wanted to know when you would return. He said you
+and he had planned a deer-hunt this fall."
+
+"Yes; we'll go about the first of the month. It's been a good while
+since Ross Sheridan and I have had a hunt together; not since the old
+days on the Crow Wing. Remember the time Ross and I got lost, and
+nearly scared you womenfolks to death?"
+
+"Indeed I do. I never will forget that blizzard, and those three awful
+days--we had been married only six months, and Mary Sheridan and I were
+the only women in the camp.
+
+"I remember how good all the men were to us--telling us you were in no
+danger, and not to worry--and all during the storm they were searching
+the woods in squads. Oh, it was awful! And yet----" Her voice trailed
+into silence, and she stared a long time into the open fire that blazed
+in the huge fireplace.
+
+"And yet, what, little girl," asked Appleton, smiling fondly upon
+her--"what are you thinking about? Come, tell me."
+
+She turned her eyes toward him, and the man detected a wistful look in
+them.
+
+"I was thinking, dear, of how happy we were those three years we spent
+'way up in the timber while you were getting your start. Not that we
+haven't always been happy," she hastened to add, "because we have. We
+couldn't have been happier unless--unless--some children had come. But,
+dear, those days when we were so poor and had to work so hard, and
+every dollar counted--and we had to do without things we both wanted,
+and sometimes things we really needed.
+
+"And, oh, Hubert dear, do you remember the organ? And how long it took
+us to save up the sixty dollars? And how I cried half the night for
+pure joy when you brought it home on the ox-sled? And how I used to
+play in the evenings, and the Sheridans were there, and the men would
+come and listen, and their big voices would join in the singing, and
+how sometimes a man would draw a rough sleeve across his eyes when he
+thought no one was looking--do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes--of course I remember!" The lumberman's voice was
+suspiciously gruff. "Seems almost like another world." His wife
+suddenly stretched her arms towards the open fire:
+
+"Oh, Hubert, I want to go back!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Yes, dear, just once more." Appleton saw the tears in her eyes. "I
+want to smell the fragrance of the pine woods--and sit on the thick
+pine-needles--and cook over an open fire! Bacon and trout and
+coffee--yes, and no _real cream_, either!" She smiled at him through
+her tears. "Canned milk, and maybe some venison steaks.
+
+"I want to borrow your pocket-knife and dig out spruce gum and chew it,
+with the little bits of bark in it," she went on, "and I won't promise
+not to 'pry,' with it, either. I hope I do break the blade! Do you
+remember that day, and how mad you were?
+
+"I want to see the men crowd into the grub-shack, and hear the sound of
+the axes and saws and the rattle of chains and the crashing of big
+trees. I want to see the logs on the rollways; and, Hubert, you won't
+think I'm awful, will you, dear, but I want to--just once more in my
+life--I want to hear a big man _swear_!"
+
+H. D. Appleton stared at his wife in blank amazement, and then,
+throwing back his head, roared with laughter.
+
+"Well, you sure will, little girl, if you try to slip any canned milk
+into _my_ coffee!"
+
+His wife regarded him gravely.
+
+"I am not joking, Hubert. Oh, can't you see? Just once more I _must_
+have a taste of the old, hard, happy days--can't I?"
+
+"Why, Margaret, you don't really mean that you want to go into the
+woods--seriously?"
+
+"Yes, I do mean just exactly that--seriously!"
+
+Appleton tugged at his mustache and puckered his forehead.
+
+"We might make up a party," he mused. "I'll speak to Ross in the
+morning."
+
+The little gray-haired woman stepped lightly around the table, and,
+seating herself on his lap, captured his big fingers in her own.
+
+"How many times must I tell you not to pull your mustache, dear? Now,
+listen; I have a plan. There will be Mary Sheridan and Ross and Ethel
+Manton--you know she promised us a visit this fall, and I expect her
+any day now. A trip into the woods will do her a world of good, poor
+girl. She has had lots of responsibility thrust upon her since brother
+Fred died, with young Charlie to look out for, and the care of that big
+house.
+
+"Mrs. Potter, you know she lives next door to Ethel, writes me that she
+does not believe the girl is happy--that this St. Ledger, or whatever
+his name is, that she is reported engaged to, is not the kind of a man
+for Ethel at all--and, that she hasn't seemed herself for a year--some
+unhappy love affair--the man was a scamp, or something--so this trip
+will be just what she needs. Charlie will be with her, of course, and
+we can invite that young Mr. Holbrooke; you have met him, that nice
+young man--the VanNesses' nephew.
+
+"We will go away up into the big woods where you men can hunt to your
+heart's delight; and we women will stay around the camp and do the
+cooking and smell the woods and chew spruce gum. Oh, Hubert, won't it
+be just _grand_?"
+
+Appleton caught something of his wife's enthusiasm.
+
+"It sure will, little girl! But what's _he_ for?"
+
+"What is who for?"
+
+"This Holbrooke person. Where does he come in on this?"
+
+"Why, for Ethel, of course! Goose! Don't you see that if Ethel is not
+happy--if she is not really in love with this St. Ledger--and she
+spends two or three weeks in the same camp with a nice young man like
+Mr. Holbrooke--well, there's no place like the woods for romance, dear;
+you see, I know. And he has money, too," she added.
+
+Appleton suddenly lifted his wife to her feet and began pacing up and
+down the room.
+
+"Money!" he exclaimed. "He never earned a cent in his life."
+
+"But he is the VanNess heir!"
+
+"Old VanNess made his money selling corsets and ribbons."
+
+"Why, dear, what difference does that make? I am sure the VanNesses are
+among----"
+
+"I don't care who they're among, or what they're among!" interrupted
+her husband. "We don't want any niece of ours marrying ribbons. Hold on
+a minute, let me think. By gad, I've got a scheme!"
+
+He continued to pace up and down the length of the room, puffing
+shortly upon his cigar and emitting emphatic grunts of satisfaction.
+
+"I've got it!" he exclaimed. "If you're bound to marry Ethel off we
+will give her the chance to marry a _man_. Go ahead and make up the
+party, but leave ribbons out of it. We will let Ethel rest up for a few
+days and then we will start--straight for the new camp. There is a
+_man_ there."
+
+"But," objected his wife, "you know nothing about him. You don't know
+even his name."
+
+"What difference does that make? I know a good man when I see one. I
+know enough about him to know that he is good enough for Ethel or any
+other woman. And, if he hasn't got a name now, by gad, he is making
+one--up there in the big country!"
+
+"But he has no money."
+
+"No money! How much did we have when we were married? Why, little girl,
+you just got through saying that the happiest days we ever spent were
+up there in the woods when money was so scarce that we knew the date on
+every dollar we owned--and every scratch and nick on them--and the
+dimes and pennies too."
+
+The little woman smiled. "That is true, Hubert, but somehow----"
+
+"Somehow nothing! If we did it, these two can do it. They've got a
+better chance than we had. I'm not going to live forever. I need a
+partner. I'm getting old enough to begin to take things easier--to step
+aside and let a younger man shoulder the burden."
+
+He threw his arm lovingly about his wife's shoulders, and drew her
+close. "We never had a son, sweetheart," he said gravely, "but if we
+had I'd want him to be just like that boy. He is making good."
+
+Margaret Appleton looked up into her husband's eyes.
+
+"You haven't made many mistakes, dear," she whispered. "I hope he will
+make good--for your sake and--maybe for Ethel's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+TOLD ON THE TRAIL
+
+
+It was a merry party that clambered into the big tote-wagon in the
+little town of Creighton one morning in early November. Upon request of
+Appleton and Sheridan, two of the road's heaviest lumber shippers, a
+private car had been coupled to the rear of the Imperial Limited at
+Winnipeg.
+
+Later the big train hesitated at Hilarity long enough to permit a
+half-breed guide in full hunting regalia to step proudly aboard, to the
+envy of the dead little town's assembled inhabitants. And later still
+the Limited stopped at Creighton and shunted the private car onto a
+spur.
+
+Appleton promptly impressed one of his own tote-wagons which had been
+sent to town for supplies; and before noon the four-horse team was
+swung into the tote-road carrying the hunting party into the woods.
+
+Tents, blankets, and robes had been ranged into more or less
+comfortable seats for the accommodation of the party, while young
+Charlie Manton insisted upon climbing onto the high driver's seat,
+where he wedged himself uncomfortably between the teamster and Blood
+River Jack, the guide.
+
+From the time the latter had joined the party at Hilarity the boy had
+stuck close to his side, asking innumerable questions and listening
+with bated breath to the half-breed's highly colored narratives in
+which wolves, bears, and Indians played the important parts.
+
+In the evening, when they camped beside the tote-road, and he was
+permitted to help with the tents and the fire-wood, the youngster
+fairly bristled with importance, and after supper when the whole party
+drew about the great camp-fire the boy seated himself close by the side
+of the guide.
+
+"You never told me your name," he ventured.
+
+"Blood River Jack," the man replied.
+
+"That's a funny kind of a name," puzzled the boy. "Why did they name
+you that?"
+
+"Jacques--that is my name. Blood River--that is where I live. It is
+that my lodge is near the bank of the river and in the Blood River
+country I hunt and lay my trap lines, and in the waters of the river I
+fish. What is your name?"
+
+"New York Charlie," unhesitatingly replied the boy and flushed deeply
+at the roar of laughter with which the others of the party greeted his
+answer. But the long-haired, dark-skinned guide, noting the angry flash
+of the wide, blue eyes, refrained from laughter.
+
+"That is a good name," he said gravely. "In the land of the white man
+men are called by the name of their fathers. In the woods it is not
+often so, except when it be written upon papers. The best man in the
+North is one of whom men know only his first name. He is M's'u'
+Bill--The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
+
+"Why can't he die?" asked the youngster eagerly.
+
+Jacques shook his head.
+
+"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta says 'all men die,'" he replied; "but--did not the
+_chechako_ come into the North in the time of a great snow, and without
+rackets mush forty miles in two days? Did he not kill with a knife
+Diablesse, the werwolf, whom all men feared, and with an axe chop in
+pieces the wolves of her pack?
+
+"Did he not strike fear to the heart of the great Moncrossen with a
+look of his eye? And, with three blows of his fist, lay the mighty
+Stromberg upon the floor like a wet rag? Did he not come without hurt
+through the fire when Creed locked him in the burning shack? And did he
+not go down through the terrible Blood River rapids, riding upon a log,
+and live, when Moncrossen ordered the breaking out of the jam that he
+might be killed among the pounding logs? These are the things that kill
+men--yet the _chechako_ lives."
+
+"Gee, Eth, think of that!" exclaimed the boy, turning toward his
+sister, who from her place by the side of her Aunt Margaret had been an
+interested listener. "He must be _some man_! Where does he live? Will
+we see him?"
+
+Before the half-breed could reply Appleton broke in.
+
+"He sure is _some man_!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "And you will
+see him about day after to-morrow night, if we have good luck. I don't
+know about all the adventures Blood River Jack mentioned, but I have
+heard of some of them, and I can add the story of the outwitting of a
+couple of card-sharps and a fight in the dark, in the cramped quarters
+of an overturned railway coach, in which he all but choked the life out
+of a human fiend who was robbing the dead and injured.
+
+"And I might tell of another fight--the gamest fight of all--but, wait
+till you know him. He is foreman of the camp which will be our
+headquarters for the next two or three weeks."
+
+"To hear them talk," said Mrs. Appleton to her niece, "one would
+imagine this man a huge, bloodthirsty ruffian; but he isn't. Hubert
+says that he is in every respect a gentleman."
+
+"Yes," agreed her husband, "but one who is not afraid to get out and
+work with his two hands--and work hard--and who has never learned the
+meaning of fear. I took a chance on him, and he has made good."
+
+The phrase fell upon the ears of the girl with a shock. They were the
+words _he_ had used, she remembered. Was _he_ making good--somewhere?
+She felt her heart go out with a rush to this big man she had never
+seen, and she found herself eagerly looking forward to their meeting.
+
+"Oh, he must be splendid!" she exclaimed impulsively, and her face
+glowed in the play of the firelight--a glow that faded almost to pallor
+at the words of the half-breed.
+
+"He has come again into the woods?" he asked quickly. "It is well. For
+now Jeanne need have no fear. He promised her that he would return
+again into the North--and to her."
+
+"What?" cried Appleton in surprise. "Who is this Jeanne? And why should
+he return to her?"
+
+"She is my sister," Jacques replied simply. "Her skin is white like the
+skin of my father. She is beautiful, and she loves him. She helped
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta to draw him from the river, and through all the long
+days and nights of his sickness she took care of him. When he went out
+of the woods she accompanied him for three days and three nights upon
+the trail to the land of the white man, and he promised her that he
+would come again into the woods and protect her from harm."
+
+At a hurried glance from his wife Appleton changed the subject
+abruptly. "I wish to thunder it would snow!" he exclaimed. "Hunting
+deer without snow is like fishing without bait. You might accidentally
+hook one, but it's a long chance."
+
+Blood River Jack sniffed the air and shrugged, glancing upward.
+
+"Plenty of snow in a few days," he said. "Maybe too much."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+IN THE OFFICE
+
+
+The setting sun shone weak and coppery above the pines as the big
+four-horse tote-team dashed with a flourish into the wide clearing of
+the new camp on upper Blood River. The men had not yet "knocked off,"
+and from the impenetrable depths of the forest came the ring of axes
+and the roar of crashing trees.
+
+In the little blacksmith-shop a grimy-faced, leather-aproned man bent
+over a piece of glowing iron which he held in long tongs, and the red
+sparks radiated in showers as the hammer thumped dully on the soft
+metal--thumps sharply punctuated by the clean ring of steel as the
+polished face of the tool bounced merrily upon the chilled surface of
+the anvil.
+
+The feel of snow was in the air and over by the cook-shack men were
+hauling fire-wood on a pole-drag. The team brought up sharply before
+the door of the office which was located at one end of a long, low
+building of logs, the two other rooms of which contained stoves,
+chairs, and a few rough deal-tables.
+
+Appleton leaped from the wagon and swung the ladies lightly to the
+ground, while the teamster and Blood River Jack, assisted by Charlie,
+proceeded to unload the outfit. The lumberman pushed open the door of
+the office and glanced within. It was empty. He called one of the men
+from the cook-shack and bade him build a fire in the little air-tight.
+
+"Well, H. D., your man ain't an office foreman, anyhow," grinned
+Sheridan, with a nod of approval toward the cold stove.
+
+Sheridan was a bluff man with a bristling red mustache--the kind that
+invariably chew upon their cigars as they talk.
+
+Appleton turned to the ladies.
+
+"Make yourselves at home," he said as the fire roared up the
+stove-pipe. "Ross and I will look over the works a bit. Where is the
+boss?" he asked of the man who was returning to the wood-pile.
+
+"Out in the cuttin' somewheres; er me'be over to the rollways," replied
+the man, laughing. "Big Bill he's out among 'em _all_ the time."
+
+"By Glory! H. D., we've all got to hand it to you when it comes to
+picking out men. I'd like to catch one of _my_ foremen out on the works
+some time--I wouldn't know whether to fire him or double his wages!"
+
+Sheridan mouthed his cigar, and the two turned into a skidway.
+
+Appleton smiled. He raised a finger and touched his eyelid.
+
+"It's the eye," he said. "Look in a man's eye, Ross. I don't give a
+damn what a man's record is--what he's done or what he hasn't done. Let
+me get a good look into his eye when he talks and in half a minute I'll
+know whether to hire him or pass him on to you fellows. Here he comes
+now."
+
+Bill took keen delight in showing the two lumbermen about the camp.
+
+"What's the idea of the ell on the bunk-house?" asked Appleton.
+
+"Teamster's bunk-house," replied the foreman. "You see, I know how it
+feels to be waked up at four in the morning by the teamsters piling out
+of their bunks; so I built a separate bunk-house for them. The men work
+too hard to have their sleep broken into that way. And another thing--I
+built a couple of big rooms onto the office where the men can play
+cards and smoke in the evening. I ordered a phonograph, too. I expect
+it in on the tote-wagon."
+
+Sheridan grinned skeptically and spat out part of his cigar. Appleton
+made no comment.
+
+"Come over to the office, Bill," he said. "I want you to meet the
+ladies--my wife and niece and Mrs. Sheridan."
+
+"I am afraid I am not very presentable," replied Bill dubiously as they
+crossed the clearing in the lengthening shadows; but he went with them
+without hesitation.
+
+They were met at the door by a plump-faced lady of ample proportions
+who was evidently fighting a losing battle with a tendency toward
+_embonpoint_; and a slight, gray-haired one who stood poised upon the
+split puncheon that served as a door-step.
+
+"Ladies, this is Bill, the foreman of this camp. Mrs. Sheridan, Bill,
+and my wife."
+
+The ladies bowed formally, and secretly approved of the grace with
+which the foreman removed his cap and returned their salute.
+Nevertheless, there was an icy note in Mrs. Appleton's voice as she
+said:
+
+"My niece begs to be excused. She is very tired after her rather hard
+trip." If Bill noticed the frigidity in the tone he gave no sign.
+
+"I imagine it has been a very trying trip for you all. However, I will
+offer you the best accommodations the camp affords. If you will kindly
+choose which of those two rooms you prefer I will have your belongings
+moved in at once."
+
+"I suppose you brought cots," he added, turning to Appleton.
+
+"Yes, everything necessary for a tenderfoot outfit."
+
+"When the ladies have selected their room I will have your gear moved
+into the other," said Bill; and, with a bow to the ladies, moved off in
+the direction of the cook-shack.
+
+Alone in the office, Ethel Manton gazed about upon the meager
+furnishings; a desk, the little air-tight stove with its huge wood-box;
+three wooden chairs, a trunk secured by a padlock, and a bunk neatly
+laid with heavy blankets.
+
+Several pairs of boots, moccasins, and heavy mittens were ranged along
+the floor next to the wall, while from pegs above them hung a faded
+mackinaw, a slicker, and several pairs of corduroy trousers.
+
+Tacked to the wall above the desk was a large, highly colored calendar,
+while upon the opposite wall hung a rifle and a belt of yellow
+cartridges. Her woman's eye took in the scrupulous neatness of the room
+and the orderly disposition of the various articles.
+
+For the first time in her life she was in a man's room, and she felt a
+keen thrill of interest in her surroundings. Upon the top of the desk
+beside the little bracket-lamp was a short row of books.
+
+"It is too bad," she muttered, "that he couldn't have been _nice_. How
+I would have enjoyed talking with him and telling him how splendid it
+is that he is _making good_!
+
+"Maybe somewhere a girl is wondering where he is--and waiting day after
+day for word from him--and worrying her very heart out. Oh, I hope she
+will never know about this Jeanne--ugh! An Indian--and Uncle Appleton
+said he is a _gentleman_!"
+
+She paused before the desk and idly read the titles of the books; there
+were a logger's manual, a few text-books on surveying and timber
+estimating, several of the latest novels, apparently unread and a
+well-thumbed copy of Browning.
+
+"Browning! Of all things--in a log camp! Now I know there is a
+girl--poor thing!" Open, face downward upon the surface of the desk
+where it had been pushed aside to make room for a rough sketch of the
+camp with its outreaching skidways and cross-hauls, lay a small volume.
+
+"And Southey!" she exclaimed under her breath, and picked up the book.
+It was "Madoc," and three lines, heavily underscored, stood boldly out
+upon the page:
+
+    "Three things a wise man will not trust,
+    The wind, the sunshine of an April day,
+    And woman's plighted faith."
+
+Over and over she read the lines, and, returning the book to its place,
+pondered, as she allowed her glance to rove again over the little room
+whose every detail bespoke intense masculinity.
+
+"I might at least be nice to him," she murmured. "Maybe the girl _was_
+horrid. And he is 'way up here, trying to forget!" Unconsciously she
+repeated the words of her Uncle Appleton: "He _has_ made good."
+
+And then there flashed through her mind the words of the guide: "She is
+beautiful, and she loves him. She accompanied him for three days and
+three nights on the trail to the land of the white man, and he promised
+that he would come again into the woods and protect her from harm."
+
+"This Indian girl," she whispered--"she loves him, and he persuaded her
+to accompany him, and when they drew near to civilization he sent her
+back--with a promise!"
+
+Her lips thinned and the hot blood mounted to her cheeks. No matter
+what conditions sent this man into the woods, there could be no
+justification for _that_. She shuddered as she drew her skirts away
+where they brushed lightly against the blankets of his bunk, and turned
+toward the door.
+
+And just at that moment the door opened, and in the gathering darkness
+a man stood framed in the doorway. She drew back, startled, and with
+the swiftness of light her glance swept him from the top of his cap to
+the soles of his heavy boots.
+
+He was a large man whose features were concealed by a thick beard. His
+fringed and beautifully embroidered shirt of buckskin was open at the
+throat, as if to allow free play to the mighty muscles of his
+well-formed neck.
+
+Only a few seconds he stood thus, and with a swift movement removed the
+cap from his head.
+
+"You will pardon me," he said, and his eyes sought hers; "I did not
+know any one was here."
+
+At the first sound of his voice the girl started. One quick step, and
+she stood before him, staring into his eyes. She felt her flesh grow
+cold, and her heart seemed gripped between the jaws of a mighty vise.
+
+"_You!_" she gasped, and swayed unsteadily as her hand sought her
+throat. Her voice came dry and hard and choking as she repeated the
+word: "_You!_" And in that moment the man saw her face in the deepening
+gloom of the room.
+
+"_Ethel!_" he cried, springing toward her with outstretched arms. Then,
+when she was almost within their grasp, the arms dropped, for the girl
+shrank from his touch and her eyes blazed.
+
+Thus for a moment they stood facing each other, the girl--white,
+tense--with blazing eyes, and the big man, who fought for control of
+himself. Finally he spoke, and his voice was steady and very low.
+
+"Forgive me, Ethel," he said. "For the moment I forgot that I have not
+the right--that there is another----"
+
+With a low, moaning cry the girl covered her face with her hands. Even
+since she faced him there the thought had flashed through her brain
+that there might be some mistake--that the man might even yet be as he
+appeared to be--big and brave and _clean_.
+
+But now--from his own lips she had heard it--"there is another"--and
+that other--an _Indian_!
+
+A convulsive shudder shook her whole body, the room seemed to reel; she
+pressed her hands more tightly to her eyes, as if to shut out the sight
+of him, and the next instant all was dark, and she pitched heavily
+forward into the arms of the man.
+
+For one brief moment he held her, straining her limp body to his. The
+hands relaxed and fell away from her pallid face, and the bearded lips
+bent close above the soft lips of the unconscious girl--but _only_ for
+a moment.
+
+Without touching the lips, the man straightened up and, crossing to the
+bunk, laid the still form upon the blankets. With never a backward
+glance, he passed out through the door.
+
+It was dark in the clearing, and a couple of steps brought him face to
+face with Appleton, who was coming to tell his niece that the ladies'
+quarters were ready.
+
+The foreman paused and looked squarely into the face of his employer.
+He slowly raised an arm and pointed to the open door of the office.
+
+"Miss Manton," he said, "has fainted." And without waiting for a reply,
+passed on into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+CHARLIE FINDS A FRIEND
+
+
+The following morning the camp looked out upon a white world. The
+threatened snow which began during the night was still falling, and
+from the windows the dark walls of the clearing could be seen but dimly
+through the riot of dancing flakes.
+
+It was a constrained and rather glum party that sat down to breakfast
+shortly after daylight in the room adjoining the office, where two deal
+tables had been drawn together and spread with a new, white oilcloth.
+
+Ethel Manton had entirely recovered from her syncope of the previous
+evening, and had offered no elucidation other than that of fatigue.
+Nevertheless, not a person in the room but felt that there had been
+another and more immediate cause for the girl's collapse.
+
+Charlie had begged to be allowed to "eat with the men," and the foreman
+had courteously declined Appleton's invitation to join the party during
+their stay in camp.
+
+The dismal and sporadic attempts at conversation had slumped into an
+awkward silence, in the midst of which the door burst open and young
+Charlie catapulted into the room.
+
+"Oh, Eth! Guess who he is!" he cried. "Guess who's the boss--the man
+the Indians call The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die'! It's _Bill Carmody_! And I
+knew him the minute I saw him, if he _has_ got whiskers all over his
+face and a buckskin shirt.
+
+"And he knew _me_! And he shook hands with me right before all the
+men--and you ought to seen 'em look! And he's going to teach me how to
+walk on snowshoes! Oh, ain't you _glad_! 'Cause now you and Bill
+can----"
+
+"_Charlie!_" The girl's face flamed, and the word seemed wrung from her
+very heart. The boy paused for a moment in the midst of his breathless
+harangue and eyed his sister with disgust.
+
+"You know you _do_ love him," he continued, his eyes flashing
+defiantly, "even if you did have a scrap--and he loves you, too! And
+that dang St. Ledger's just nothing but a--a--a _squirt_--that's what
+he is--and if I was Bill Carmody I'd punch his head for him if he even
+_spoke_ to you again--if you was _my_ girl!
+
+"And I'm going to tell him we _know_ he never swiped those bonds, and
+you stuck up for him when old man Carmody told you he did."
+
+The last words of the boy's remarks were addressed to an empty chair,
+for the girl, white and trembling, had fled into the other room and
+banged the door after her.
+
+Mrs. Appleton, with an unintelligibly muttered excuse, hurriedly
+followed, leaving her husband gazing from her retreating back to the
+excited face of the youngster, and muttering: "Bless my soul! Bless my
+soul!" between the gulps of his coffee, which for once in his life he
+swallowed with never a growl at the canned milk. A moment later he
+abruptly left the table and, motioning the boy to follow, led the way
+to the office.
+
+A half-hour passed, and Charlie left the building under the strictest
+kind of orders not to mention to Bill Carmody either Ethel or the
+bonds.
+
+Puzzling his small head over the inexplicable doings of grown-up
+people, he wandered toward the cook-shack to hunt up Daddy Dunnigan,
+with whom he had already struck up a great friendship.
+
+"She loves him and he loves her," he muttered to himself as he scuffed
+his brand-new moccasins through the soft snow, "and each one tries to
+let on they don't. And Uncle Appleton won't let me tell Bill _she_ does
+so he'd go and tell her _he_ does; and then old man Carmody and his
+bonds could go to the _devil_!
+
+"You bet, I hope I never get in love and act like a couple of fools.
+Now, I bet she'll marry that _sniffit_, and he'll marry Blood River
+Jack's sister." The boy paused and glanced speculatively at the falling
+snow. "I wonder if he wants to? Anyhow, I can ask him that much."
+
+Later, in the office, Mrs. Appleton broke in upon her husband's third
+black cigar. There was no doorway connecting the office with the other
+two rooms, and the lumberman watched the snowflakes melt on his wife's
+hair as she seated herself directly in front of him.
+
+"Well, Hubert Appleton, this is a nice mess you have got us into, I
+must say!"
+
+"_Me!_" grinned the man. "Why, little girl, this is your party."
+
+"I wish you would tell me who it was that suggested leaving out young
+Mr. Holbrooke, and coming here so that Ethel could meet this _man_?"
+
+"She--er--met him--didn't she?"
+
+"You needn't try to be facetious! What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Who--me? Oh, just stick around and watch the fun."
+
+"Fun! Fun! Hubert Appleton, aren't you _ashamed_ of yourself? And that
+poor girl in there crying her eyes out! Fun, indeed--it's _tragedy_!"
+
+"There, there, little woman; don't let's get excited. It's up to us to
+kind of figure things out a bit; but the young folks themselves will be
+the real actors.
+
+"Now, just how much--or, how little did she tell you?"
+
+"She told me _everything_. Poor dear, it did her good. She has had
+nobody to tell--nobody to cry with her and sympathize with her."
+
+When his wife concluded, H. D. Appleton had received a very accurate
+chronicle of the doings of Bill Carmody from the time of his boyhood
+until chance threw them together in the smoking-compartment of the
+west-bound sleeper.
+
+The lumberman listened attentively, without interrupting, until his
+wife finished.
+
+"Does she think Bill took those bonds?" he asked.
+
+"No. She does not. Even with everything else against him, she cannot
+bring herself to believe that he is a thief."
+
+"Do _you_ think he took them?"
+
+"Why--I--I don't know," she hesitated.
+
+"Do you _think_ he took them?"
+
+The little woman looked into her husband's eyes as she purposely
+delayed her reply.
+
+"No," she said at length. "I do not. But his own father accused him."
+
+Appleton leaned forward in his chair and brought his fist down upon the
+desk-top.
+
+"I don't give a damn _who_ accused him!" he cried. "That boy never
+stole a bond, or any other thing, and I'll stake my last cent on it!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't the bonds. Ethel does not believe he stole them. But--the
+other--you heard what the guide said--and Ethel heard it. She never
+_can_ get over _that_! He may be honest--but he is a perfect
+_villain_!"
+
+"Hold on, now. Let's go easy. Maybe it isn't so bad as it sounds."
+
+"Not so bad! Hubert Appleton, do you mean to tell me that you would,
+for a minute, think of allowing your niece to _marry_ such a man?"
+
+Appleton smiled into the outraged eyes of his wife.
+
+"Yup. I think I would," he replied, and then hastened to add:
+
+"Wait here and I will fetch Blood River Jack. He may have told more
+than he knows, or he may not have told all he knows. When you come to
+think of it, from what he _did_ tell, we only jumped at conclusions."
+
+He hurried from the office, returning a few minutes later with the
+half-breed, who seated himself and lighted the proffered cigar with
+evident enjoyment.
+
+"Now, Jack," Appleton began, speaking with his accustomed brevity,
+"tell us about Monsieur Bill and this sister of yours. Did you say he
+was going to marry her?"
+
+The guide looked from one to the other as if silently taking their
+measure. Finally he seemed satisfied.
+
+"No," he said gravely, "he will not marry Jeanne."
+
+The lumberman cleared his throat and waited while the man looked out
+upon the whirling snow, for well he knew that the half-breed must be
+allowed to take his own time--he could not be "pumped." And Mrs.
+Appleton, taking her cue from her husband, curbed her impatience, and
+waited with apparent unconcern.
+
+"It is," the guide began, as if carefully weighing his words, "that you
+are the good friends of M's'u' Bill. Also I have seen that you know the
+men of the logs.
+
+"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, my mother, who is old and very wise, knows the men of
+the logs, and, knowing them, hated M's'u' Bill, and would have returned
+him to the river, but Jeanne prevented. For Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, knowing of
+the fatherless breeds of the rivers, hated all white men, and a great
+fear was in her heart for the girl, who is her daughter, and the
+daughter of Lacombie whom, she says, was the one good white man; but
+Lacombie is dead.
+
+"So always in the days of the summer, when these two would leave the
+lodge to visit the deserted camp of Moncrossen, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta followed
+them. Stealthily and unknown she crept upon their trail, and always her
+sharp eyes were upon them, and in the fold of her blanket was concealed
+a long, keen blade, and behind the unfailing gaze of the black eyes was
+the mind to kill.
+
+"Thus passed the days of the summer, and the hand of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was
+stayed, but her vigilance remained unrelenting. For deep in her heart
+is seared the memory of two winters ago, when Moncrossen gazed upon the
+beauty of Jeanne, and came to the tepee in the night, knowing I was
+away, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta fought him in the darkness until he fled,
+cursing and swearing vengeance.
+
+"Never since that night has the girl been safe, for Moncrossen, with
+the cunning of the wolf, is waiting his time--and some day he will
+strike!
+
+"But I shared not the fear of my mother that harm would come to Jeanne
+at the hand of the great _chechako_, for I have looked into his eyes,
+and I know that his heart is good.
+
+"Upon the day before his departure for the land of the white man he
+gave to the girl the skin of Diablesse, and then she told him she loved
+him, and begged him to remain with her in the country of the Indians.
+
+"But he would not, for he does not love Jeanne, but another--a woman of
+his own people, who lives in the great city of the white man. And even
+though this woman sent him from her, he loves her, and will marry no
+other.
+
+"Listening, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta heard him tell this to Jeanne; but of this
+woman the girl knew, for he talked incessantly of her, and cried out
+that she would marry another--in the voice of the fever-spirit, in the
+time of his great sickness.
+
+"The following day he departed in a canoe, and as he pushed from the
+shore, Jeanne handed him his mackinaw, and words passed between them
+that Wa-ha-ta-na-ta could not hear from her position behind a log.
+
+"But, as the canoe passed from sight around a bend in the river, the
+girl plunged into the woods, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta returned to the tepee
+and made up a light pack and slipped silently upon her trail. The girl
+cut through the forest and came again to the river, and for a night and
+a day awaited the coming of the canoe.
+
+"The third evening it came and the man camped, and Jeanne crept close
+and watched him across the blaze of his little fire as he smoked and
+stared into the embers. While Wa-ha-ta-na-ta also crept stealthily to
+the fire, making no sound, and she came to within an arm's reach of the
+man's back, and in her hand was clutched tightly the sheath-knife with
+its long, keen blade.
+
+"At the midnight the man unrolled his blankets and laid down to sleep,
+and then it was that Jeanne stepped into the firelight. And in the deep
+shadow, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta gripped more tightly the knife and made ready to
+strike."
+
+The half-breed paused while the others waited breathlessly for him to
+resume.
+
+"Think not that Jeanne is bad. She is good, and her heart is the pure
+heart of a maiden. But, such is the love of woman--to face gladly the
+sneers of the world, and the wrath of her people--for she did not ask
+him to marry her--only to take her.
+
+"But the man would not, and commanded her to return to the lodge. She
+told him that she could not return--that three days and three nights
+had passed since they had departed together, and that, if he would not
+take her, she would go alone to the land of the white man.
+
+"Then M's'u' Bill arose and folded his blankets and made up his pack,
+and when he spoke to her again it was in the voice of the terrible
+softness--the softness that causes men first to wonder, and then to
+obey, though they know not why. He said that he himself would take her
+back, and that Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, who is old and very wise, would know
+that his words were true.
+
+"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, lurking there in the deep shadow, in that moment knew
+that the man's heart was good. And she stepped into the firelight, and
+looked long into his eyes--and she broke the knife--and between them
+there passed the _promise_."
+
+Jacques puffed slowly upon his cigar, arose to his feet, and stood
+looking down upon the two who had listened to his words.
+
+"It is well," he said, and his dark eyes flashed, "for the heart of
+Moncrossen is bad, and the beauty of Jeanne has inflamed the evil
+passions of him, and he will stop at nothing in the fulfillment of his
+desire.
+
+"But, into the North has come a greater than Moncrossen. And terrible
+will be the vengeance of this man if harm falls upon Jeanne. For he is
+her friend, his word has passed, his heart is strong and good, and he
+knows not fear.
+
+"Upon Moncrossen will fall the day of the Great Reckoning. And, in that
+day, justice will be done, for he will stand face to face with M's'u'
+Bill--The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die--the man whom Wa-ha-ta-na-ta has named
+'The One Good White Man'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+BILL'S WAY
+
+
+"And, to think," whispered Mrs. Appleton as she wiped a tear from her
+eye, after the half-breed's departure, "that in New York this same man
+had earned the name of 'Broadway Bill, the sport'!"
+
+"Yes," answered her husband; "but Broadway Bill has passed, and in his
+place, out here in the big country, is Broadgauge Bill, the _man_! I
+knew I was right, Margaret, by gad, I knew it! Look in his eye!"
+
+Followed, then, in the little office, an hour of intimate conversation,
+at the conclusion of which the two arose.
+
+"Not a word to Ethel, remember," admonished the woman, and laughed
+knowingly as her husband stooped and kissed her.
+
+During the days that followed, Appleton and Sheridan, accompanied by
+Blood River Jack, hunted from early morning until late evening, when
+they would return, trail-weary and happy, to spend hours over the
+cleaning and oiling of guns and the overhauling of gear.
+
+Young Charlie was allowed to go on some of the shorter expeditions, but
+for the most part he was to be found dogging the heels of Bill Carmody;
+or perched upon a flour-barrel in the cook-shack, listening to the
+tales of Daddy Dunnigan.
+
+The ladies busied themselves with the care of the two rooms, with
+useless needlework, and with dummy auction, varying the monotony with
+daily excursions into the near-by forest in quest of spruce-gum and
+pine-cones.
+
+Since the morning Charlie had broken in so incontinently upon their
+breakfast no reference had been made to Bill Carmody by any member of
+the party; while the foreman pursued the even tenor of his way,
+apparently as unconcerned by their existence as they were by his.
+
+One afternoon as the ladies were starting upon one of their tramps they
+came face to face with the foreman, who tipped his cap, bowed coldly,
+and passed into the office, closing the door behind him.
+
+Mrs. Appleton halted suddenly, glanced toward the building, and
+retraced her steps. It was but a short distance, and Ethel walked back,
+waiting at the door while her aunt entered their own apartment.
+
+The girl watched abstractedly, thinking the older woman had returned
+for something she had forgotten.
+
+Suddenly she became all attention, and a hot flush of anger mounted to
+her face as she saw her aunt walk to the table, pick up her purse and
+several rings which she had left, and with a glance at the thick, log
+wall which separated the room from the office, deliberately walk to her
+trunk and place the articles under lock and key.
+
+Apparently Mrs. Appleton had not noticed the girl's presence, but more
+than once during the afternoon the corners of her mouth twitched when,
+in response to some question or remark of hers, the shortness of the
+girl's replies bordered upon absolute rudeness.
+
+And late that night she smiled broadly in the darkness when the low
+sound of stifled sobs came from the direction of the girl's cot.
+
+Immediately after breakfast the following morning, Ethel put on her
+wraps and started out alone. Arriving, after a long, aimless ramble, at
+the outermost end of a skidway, she sat upon a log to rest and watch a
+huge swamper who, unaware of her presence, was engaged in slashing the
+underbrush from in front of a group of large logs.
+
+Finally, tiring of the sight, she arose and started for the clearing,
+and then suddenly drew back and stepped behind the bole of a great
+pine, for, striding rapidly toward her on the skidway was Bill Carmody,
+and she pressed still closer to the tree-trunk that he might pass
+without observing her.
+
+He was very close now, and the girl noticed the peculiar expression of
+his face--an expression she had seen there once before--his lips were
+smiling, and his gray eyes were narrowed almost to slits.
+
+The man halted scarcely fifty feet from her, at the place where the
+swamper, with wide blows of his axe, was laying the small saplings and
+brushwood low. She started at the cold softness of the tones of his
+voice.
+
+"Leduc," he said, "just a minute--it will hardly take longer."
+
+The man turned quickly at the sound of the voice at his side, and for
+the space of seconds the two big men faced each other on the packed
+snow of the skidway.
+
+Then, with a motion of incredible swiftness, and without apparent
+effort, the foreman's right arm shot out and his fist landed squarely
+upon the nose of the huge swamper.
+
+The girl heard the wicked spat, and the peculiar, frightened grunt as
+the man reeled backward, and saw the quick gush of red blood that
+splashed down his front and squirted out over the snow.
+
+Before the man had time to recover, the foreman advanced a step and
+struck again. This time it was his left hand that clove the air in a
+long, clean swing, and the man went down into the snow without a sound
+as the fist thudded against his neck just below the ear.
+
+Without so much as a glance at the man in the snow, Bill Carmody turned
+on his heel and started back down the skidway.
+
+Few seconds had elapsed, and a strange, barbaric thrill ran through the
+girl's body as she looked out upon the scene, quickly followed by a
+wave of sickening pity for the poor wretch who lay sprawled in the
+snow.
+
+And, then, a great anger surged into her heart against the man who had
+felled him. She dashed from her hiding-place, and in a moment stood
+facing him, her blue eyes flashing.
+
+"You _brute_!" she cried, "what right had you? Why did you strike him?"
+The man regarded her gravely, lifting his cap politely as if answering
+a most commonplace question.
+
+"Because," he replied, "I wanted to," and, with a curt bow, stepped
+into the timber and disappeared, leaving her alone in the skidway with
+the bloody, unconscious form in the snow.
+
+Never in her life had Ethel Manton been so furiously angry--not because
+a man had been felled by a blow--she had forgotten that--but because,
+in demanding an explanation, in attempting to call Bill Carmody to
+account, she had laid herself open to his stinging rebuff.
+
+Without pretense of defense or justification, the man had quietly told
+her that he knocked the swamper down "because he wanted to"; and
+without waiting for comment--as if the fact that "he wanted to" was
+sufficient in itself--had gone about his business without giving the
+matter a second thought.
+
+The flash of anger, which in the first place had prompted her to speak
+to the man, was but an impulsive protest against what she considered an
+act of brutality; but that quickly passed.
+
+The anger that surged through her heart as she gazed, white-faced, at
+the spot where the big man disappeared, was the bitter anger of
+outraged dignity and injured pride.
+
+He had not taken the trouble to find out what she thought, for the very
+obvious reason that he had not cared what she thought--and so he left
+her. And when he had gone the girl plodded wrathfully back to camp and
+spoke to no one of what she had seen. But, deep down in her heart, she
+knew there had been a reason for Bill's act--and she knew that the
+reason was good.
+
+That same evening Appleton pushed his chair back from the table and
+glanced toward Ethel, who had got out a bit of crochet-work. Then, with
+a sidewise glance at his wife, he remarked thoughtfully:
+
+"I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of Bill. A Canuck swamper named Leduc
+complained to me that the boss slipped up on him and knocked him
+insensible with a club. I can't stand for that--not even from Bill."
+
+At the mention of the foreman's name the girl looked up quickly.
+
+"He _didn't_ hit him with a club! He hit him with his fist! And there
+_was_ a reason----" The girl stopped abruptly, and a wave of crimson
+suffused her face. She could have bitten her tongue off for speaking--for
+defending this man.
+
+"How do _you_ know?" asked her uncle in surprise.
+
+"I saw him do it," she replied; realizing that, having gone so far, she
+must answer.
+
+"Why did he strike him?" persisted Appleton.
+
+"You might ask _him_ that," she said and, with a defiant toss of her
+head, quitted the room and closed the door behind her.
+
+The Sheridans had been taken into confidence, and when the four found
+themselves alone they smiled knowingly.
+
+As the days slipped into the second week of their stay, the carcasses
+of many deer hung from poles in the clearing, and the outside walls of
+the log building were adorned with the skins of numerous wolves and
+bobcats.
+
+Hardly a day passed but some one, by word or look, or covert sneer,
+expressed disapproval of the boss; and Ethel, entirely ignorant of the
+fact that these expressions of disapproval were made only in her
+presence, and for her special benefit, was conscious of a feeling of
+great pity for the lonely man.
+
+The indescribable restlessness of a great longing took possession of
+her; she found herself, time and again, watching from the window, and
+from places of concealment behind the trunks of trees, while the big
+foreman went stolidly about his work.
+
+The fact that she should hate Bill Carmody was logical and proper; but
+she bitterly resented the distrust and criticism of the others. She
+wished now with all her heart that she had not confided in her aunt,
+and a dozen times she caught herself on the point of rushing to his
+defense.
+
+Not since that morning on the skidway had the two met. Bill deviated
+not one whit from the regular routine of his duties, and the girl
+purposely avoided him.
+
+She hated him. Over and over again she told herself that she hated and
+despised him, and yet, on two or three occasions when she knew he had
+gone to the farthest reaches of the cutting, she had slipped unobserved
+into the office and read from his books--not the uncut novels--but the
+well-thumbed copies of Browning and Southey; and as she read she
+pondered.
+
+She came upon many marked passages; and in her heart the unrest
+continued, and she allowed her hands to stray over the coarse cloth of
+his mackinaw, and once she threw herself upon his bunk and buried her
+face in his blankets, and sobbed the dry, racking sobs of her deep
+soul-hurt.
+
+Then she had leaped to her feet and smoothed out the wrinkles in the
+blankets, and stooped and straightened the row of boots and moccasins
+along the base-log--and quickly disarranged them again for fear he
+might remember how he left them--and rushed from the office.
+
+Of these secret visits the members of the party knew nothing, but Daddy
+Dunnigan, from the window of the cook-shack, took note of the girl's
+comings and goings, and nodded sagely and chuckled to himself. For
+Daddy Dunnigan, wise in the ways of women, had gathered much from the
+talk of the impetuous youngster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+CHARLIE GOES HUNTING
+
+
+Blood River Jack halted suddenly in his journey from the bunk-house to
+the grub-shack and sniffed the air.
+
+He dropped the butt of his rifle to the hard-packed snow of the
+clearing and glanced upward, where a thin sprinkling of stars winked
+feebly in the first blush of morning.
+
+The dark sky was cloudless, and the trees stood motionless in the
+gloom, which slowly dissipated where the first faint light of
+approaching day grayed the east. The air was dry and cold, but with no
+sting of crispness. The chill of it was the uncomfortable, penetrating
+chill that renders clothing inadequate, yet brings no tingle to the
+exposed portions of the body.
+
+Again the man sniffed the dead air and, swinging the rifle into the
+crook of his elbow, continued toward the grub-shack.
+
+Appleton and Sheridan accepted without remonstrance the guide's
+prediction of a storm and retired to the "house," as the rooms in which
+the party was quartered had come to be known--not entirely unthankful
+for a day of rest.
+
+The crew went into the timber, as usual; the guide retired to his bunk
+for a good snooze; and young Charlie Manton, tiring of listening to
+Daddy Dunnigan's yarns, prowled about the camp in search of amusement.
+
+Entering the bunk-house, his attention was attracted by the loud
+snoring of Blood River Jack, and his eye fell upon the half-breed's
+rifle and cartridge-belt, which reposed upon the floor just beneath the
+edge of his bunk.
+
+The boy crept close, his soft moccasins making no sound, until he was
+within reach of the gun, when he dropped to the floor and lifted it in
+his hands. For many minutes he sat upon the floor examining the rifle,
+turning it over and over.
+
+At length he reached for the cartridge-belt, and buckling it about his
+waist, left the room as noiselessly as he had entered and, keeping the
+bunk-house in line with the window of the cook-shack, slipped
+unobserved into the timber.
+
+Upon his hunting expeditions with the others, Charlie had not been
+allowed to carry a high-power rifle. It was a sore blow to his pride
+that his armament had consisted of a light, twenty-gauge shotgun, whose
+possibilities for slaughter were limited to rabbits, spruce-hens, and
+ptarmigan.
+
+Farther and farther into the timber he went, avoiding the outreaching
+skidways and the sound of axes. Broad-webbed snow-shoe rabbits leaped
+from under foot and scurried away in the timber, and the whir of an
+occasional ptarmigan or spruce-hen passed unheeded.
+
+He was after big game. He would show Uncle Appleton that he _could_
+handle a rifle; and maybe, if he killed a buck or a wolf or a bobcat,
+the next time he went with them he would be allowed to carry a
+man's-size weapon.
+
+An hour's tramp carried him to the bank of the river at a point several
+miles below the camp, where he seated himself upon a rotten log.
+
+"Blood River Jack just wanted to sleep to-day, so he told 'em it was
+going to storm," he soliloquized as he surveyed the narrow stretch of
+sky which appeared above the snow-covered ice of the river.
+
+But somehow the sky did not look as blue as it had; it was a sickly
+yellow color now, like the after-glow of a sunset, and in the center of
+it hung the sun--a dull, copper sun, with uneven, red edges which lost
+themselves in a hazy aureola of yellowish light.
+
+The boy glanced uneasily about him. The woods seemed uncannily silent,
+and the air thick and heavy, so that the white aisle of the river
+blurred into dusk at its farther reaches.
+
+It grew darker, a peculiar fuliginous darkness, which was not of the
+gloom of the forest. Yet no smell of smoke was in the air, and in the
+sky were no clouds.
+
+"Looks kind of funny," thought the boy, and glanced toward the river.
+Suddenly all thought of the unfamiliar-looking world fled from his
+brain, for there on the snow, not twenty yards distant, half crouched a
+long, gray body with the claws of an uplifted forefoot extended, and
+cruel, catlike lips drawn into a hideous snarl.
+
+The other forefoot rested upon the limp, furry body of a rabbit, and
+the great, yellow-green eyes glowed and waned in the dimming light,
+while the sharply tufted ears worked forward and back in quick, nervous
+twitches.
+
+"A _loup-cervier_," whispered the boy, and slowly raised Blood River
+Jack's rifle until the sights lined exactly between the glowing eyes.
+He pulled the trigger and, at the sharp metallic click with which the
+hammer descended upon the firing-pin, the brute seized the rabbit
+between its wide, blunt jaws and bounded away in long leaps.
+
+Hot tears of disappointment blurred the youngster's eyes and trickled
+down his cheeks--he had forgotten to load the rifle, and his hands
+trembled as he hurriedly jammed the long, flask-shaped cartridges into
+the magazine and followed down to the river on the trail of the big
+cat.
+
+He remembered as he mushed along on his small rackets that Bill had
+told him of a rocky ledge some five or six miles below camp, and had
+promised to take him to this place where the _loup-cerviers_ had their
+dens among the rocks.
+
+The trail held to the river, whose banks rose more abruptly as he
+proceeded, and at length, as he rounded a sharp bend, he could make out
+dimly through the thickening air the outline of a high rocky bluff; but
+even as he looked, the ledge was blotted out by a quick flurry of snow,
+and from high among the tree-tops came a long, wailing moan of wind.
+
+The trees pitched wildly in the icy blast; the moan increased to a
+mighty roar, and the air was thick with flying snow. Not the soft,
+flaky snow of the previous storm, but particles fine as frozen fog,
+that bit and stung as they whirled against his face in the eddying
+gusts that came from no direction at all and every direction at once.
+
+The boy bowed his head to the storm and pushed steadily forward--he
+_must_ kill the _loup-cervier_, whose trail was growing momentarily
+more indistinct.
+
+His eyes could penetrate but a few yards into the white smother, and
+suddenly the dark wall of the rock ledge loomed in front of him, and
+the trail, almost obliterated now, turned sharply and disappeared
+between two huge, upstanding bowlders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE BLIZZARD
+
+
+At eleven o'clock in the morning Bill Carmody ordered his teams to the
+stables.
+
+At twelve o'clock, when the men crowded into the grub-shack, the air
+was filled with fine particles of flinty snow, and the roar of the wind
+through the pine-tops was the mighty roar of the surf of a pounding
+sea.
+
+At one o'clock the boss called "gillon," and with loud shouts and rough
+horse-play, the men made a rush for the bunk-house.
+
+At two o'clock Daddy Dunnigan thrust his head through the doorway of
+the shop where Bill, under the blacksmith's approving eye, was
+completing a lesson in the proper welding of the broken link of a log
+chain.
+
+With a mysterious quirk of the head he motioned the foreman to follow,
+and led the way to the cook-shack, where Blood River Jack waited with
+lowering brow.
+
+"D'yez happin to know is th' b'y up yonder?" asked the old Irishman,
+with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the house. Bill beat the
+dry snow from his clothing as he stared from one to the other.
+
+"The boy!" he cried. "What do you mean? Come--out with it--_quick_!"
+
+"It is that my rifle and belt have gone from under the bunk," Blood
+River Jack answered. "They were taken while I slept. The boy did not
+come to dinner in the grub-shack. Is it that he eats to-day with his
+people?"
+
+"Good Lord! I don't know! Haven't you seen him, Daddy?"
+
+"Not since mebbe it's noine o'clock in th' marnin', an' he wint to th'
+bunk-house. I thoucht he wuz wid Jack." Bill thought rapidly and turned
+to the old man.
+
+"Here, you, Daddy--get a move on now!" he ordered. "That ginger cake of
+yours that the kid likes, hustle some of it into a pail or a basket or
+something, and carry it up to the house. Tell them it's for Charlie,
+and you'll find out if he's there. If not, get out by saying that he's
+probably in the bunk-house, and get back here as quick as you can make
+it. There is no use in alarming the people up there--yet."
+
+"Here you, Jack, go help the old man along. It's a tough job bucking
+that storm even for a short distance. Come now, beat it!"
+
+After ten minutes the two returned, breathless from their short battle
+with the storm.
+
+"He ain't there," gasped the old man and sank down upon the wood-box
+with his head in his hands. "God help um, he's out in ut!"
+
+"I'm going to the office," said the foreman and stepped out into the
+whirling snow.
+
+"Man! Man!" called Daddy, springing to his feet; "ye ain't a goin' to
+thry----" The door banged upon his words and he sagged slowly onto his
+rough seat.
+
+A few minutes later Appleton stamped into the cook-shack. "Did you find
+him, Daddy?" he asked.
+
+The old man shook his head. "He ain't in th' camp," he muttered. "He
+tuk Jack's gun whilst he slep' an' ut's huntin' he's gone--Lard hilp
+um!"
+
+"Where is Bill?" the lumberman inquired.
+
+"Av ye're quick, ye may catch um in th' office--av ye ain't Oi'm
+thinkin' ye niver will foind um. Be th' luk in his eye, he's gone
+afther th' b'y."
+
+The lumberman plunged again into the storm and made his way to the
+office. It was empty. As he turned heavily away the door opened and
+Ethel Manton flung herself into the room, gasping with exertion. Giving
+no heed to her uncle's presence, the girl's glance hurriedly swept the
+interior.
+
+Her hand clutched at the bosom of her snow-powdered coat as she noted
+that the faded mackinaw was gone from its accustomed peg and the
+snowshoes from their corner behind the door.
+
+Instantly the truth flashed through her brain--Charlie was lost in the
+seething blizzard and somewhere out in the timber Bill Carmody was
+searching for him.
+
+With a smothered moan she flung herself onto the bunk and buried her
+face in the blankets.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+The situation the foreman faced when he plunged into the whirling
+blizzard in search of the boy, while calling for the utmost in man's
+woodsmanship and endurance, was not so entirely hopeless as would
+appear. He remembered the intense interest evinced by the boy a few
+days before, when he had listened to the description of the rocky ledge
+which was the home of the _loup-cerviers_, and the eagerness with which
+he begged to visit the place.
+
+What was more natural, he argued, than that the youngster, finding
+himself in unexpected possession of a rifle and ammunition, had decided
+to explore the spot and do a little hunting on his own account?
+
+The full fury of the storm had not broken until noon, and he figured
+that the boy would have had ample time to reach the bluff where he
+could find temporary shelter among the numerous caves of its rocky
+formation.
+
+Upon leaving the office, the boss headed straight for the rollway, and
+the mere holding his direction taxed his brain to the exclusion of all
+other thoughts.
+
+The air was literally filled with flying snow fine as dust, which
+formed an opaque screen through which his gaze penetrated scarcely an
+arm's reach.
+
+Time and again he strayed from the skidway and brought up sharply
+against a tree, but each time he altered his course and floundered
+ahead until he found himself suddenly upon the steep slope where the
+bank inclined to the river.
+
+When Bill Carmody turned down-stream the gravity of his undertaking
+forced itself upon him. The fury of the storm was like nothing he had
+ever experienced.
+
+The wind-whipped particles cut and seared his face like a shower of
+red-hot needles, and the air about him was filled with a dull roar,
+mighty in volume but strangely muffled by the very denseness of the
+snow.
+
+It took all his strength to push himself forward against the terrific
+force of the wind which seemed to sweep from every quarter at once into
+a whirling vortex of which he himself was the center.
+
+One moment the air was sucked from his lungs by a mighty vacuum, and
+the next the terrible compression upon his chest caused him to gasp for
+breath.
+
+The fine snow that he inhaled with each breath stung his lungs and he
+tied his heavy woolen muffler across his mouth. He stumbled frequently
+and floundered about to regain his balance. He lost all sense of
+direction and fought blindly on, each bend of the river bringing him
+blunderingly against one or the other of its brush-grown banks.
+
+The only thought of his benumbed brain was to make the rock ledge
+somewhere ahead. It grew dark, and the blackness, laden with the
+blinding, stinging particles, added horror to his bewilderment.
+
+Suddenly his snowshoe struck against a hard object, and he pitched
+heavily forward upon his face and lay still. He realized then that he
+was tired.
+
+Never in his life had he been so utterly body-weary, and the snow was
+soft--soft and warm--and the pelting ceased.
+
+He thrust his arm forward into a more comfortable position and
+encountered a rock, and sluggishly through his benumbed faculties
+passed a train of associated ideas--rock, rock ledge, _loup-cerviers_,
+the boy! With a mighty effort he roused himself from the growing
+lethargy and staggered blindly to his feet.
+
+He filled his lungs, tore the ice-incrusted muffler from his lips and,
+summoning all his strength, gave voice to the long call of the woods:
+
+"Who-o-o-p-e-e-e!"
+
+But the cry was cut off at his lips. The terrific force of the shifting
+gusts hurled the sound back into his throat so that it came to his own
+ears faint and far. Again and again he called, and each time the feeble
+effort was drowned in the dull roar of the storm.
+
+An unreasoning rage at the futility of it overcame him and he plunged
+blindly ahead, unheeding, stumbling, falling, rising to his feet and
+staggering among the tumbled rocks at the foot of the bluff--and then
+almost in his ear came the sharp, quick sound of a rifle-shot and
+another and another, at a second apart--the distress signal of the
+Northland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+BUCKING THE STORM
+
+
+Bill Carmody wheeled against the solid rock wall and frantically felt
+his way along its broken surface. His groping hands encountered a cleft
+barely wide enough to admit the passage of a man's body.
+
+With a final effort he called again; instantly the high, clear tones of
+the boy's voice rang in his ears from the depths of the rock cavern,
+and the next moment small hands were tugging at his armpits.
+
+"Oh! Bill, I knew you would come!" a small voice cried close to his
+ear. "It was my last three shots. I've been shooting every little while
+for hours and hours. Hold on! We've got to take off your snowshoes;
+they won't come through the door."
+
+A few minutes later the man sat upon the hard floor of the cave which
+reeked of the rank animal odor of a long-used den. The place was bare
+of snow and he leaned back against a soft, furry body while the boy
+rattled on:
+
+"I killed the _loup-cervier_! I chased him in here and shot him right
+square through the head. And he never kicked--just slunked down in a
+heap and dropped his rabbit. And now, if we had some matches, we could
+build a fire--if we had some wood--and cook him. I'm hungry--aren't
+you?"
+
+The boy's utter disregard of the real seriousness of their plight, and
+the naive way in which he accepted the coming of his friend as a matter
+of course, irritated the man, who listened in scowling silence.
+
+"Blood River Jack _was_ right," Charlie went on. "I thought he just
+wanted a chance to sleep for a day. Pretty good storm, isn't it? Say,
+Bill, how did he know it was going to snow?"
+
+"Look here, young man," Bill replied wrathfully, "do you realize that
+we are in a mighty bad fix, right this minute? And that it is your
+fault? And that there was only about one chance in a thousand that I
+would find you? And that if we ever get out of this, and your Uncle
+Appleton don't give you a darn good whaling, I _will_?" The man felt a
+small body press close against him in the darkness.
+
+"Honest, Bill, I'm sorry," a subdued voice answered. "I thought Jack
+was fooling, and I _did_ want to show 'em I could kill something bigger
+than a rabbit. You aren't mad, are you, Bill? I hope Eth won't worry;
+we'll prob'ly have to stay here all night, won't we?"
+
+"All night! Won't worry! Don't you know that this is a _regular_
+blizzard--the kind that kills men at their own doors--and that it may
+last for a week? And here we are with no fire-wood, and nothing to eat!
+The chances are mighty good that we'll never see camp again--and you
+pipe up and hope your sister won't worry!"
+
+Charlie leaned over closer against Carmody's body.
+
+"Why, we've _got_ to get back, Bill!" he said, and his voice was very
+earnest now. "We're all Eth's got--you and me--and she _needs_ us."
+
+The boy felt a sudden tightening of the muscles beneath the heavy
+mackinaw, and the quick gasp of an indrawn breath. A big arm stole
+about his shoulders. The harshness was gone from Bill's voice, and when
+he spoke the sound fell softly upon the culprit's ears.
+
+"Sure, kid, we'll get back. Buck up! We've got a fighting chance, and
+that's all we need--men like you and me. Life up here is a hard game,
+kid, but we're no quitters! This is just one of the rough places in the
+long, long trail.
+
+"And, say, kid--just man to man--I want you always to remember
+_that_--she needs you--and some day she may need you _bad_. This St.
+Ledger may be all right, but----"
+
+"St. Ledger!" The voice of the boy cut sharply upon the darkness. "Say,
+Bill, you aren't going to marry Blood River Jack's sister, are you?"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Why, Blood River Jack's sister, you know, that helped fish you out of
+the river."
+
+"Lord! _No!_ What ever put that into your head?"
+
+"Blood River Jack told us when we were coming out about you--only we
+didn't know it was _you_, then. And he said that his sister was pretty,
+and she loved you, and she went down the river with you for three or
+four days, or something. And Eth thinks you love this half-breed girl.
+And, maybe, if you did marry her, Eth would marry St. Ledger; but she
+don't love him."
+
+Bill sat suddenly erect, and the arm about the boy's shoulder tightened
+and shook him roughly.
+
+"Look here! How do you know? I read an account of their engagement 'way
+along last winter."
+
+"That was a _dang lie_! 'Cause I was in the den when she called St.
+Ledger up about it. She gave him the darndest talking to he ever got,
+and she told him she never would marry him as long as she lived. And
+Eth _does_ love you! And you ought to heard her stick up for you when
+old----"
+
+The boy stopped abruptly, suddenly remembering his uncle's injunction
+of silence. "There's an old dead tree right close to the door of the
+cave," he added hastily. "We might get some wood off that."
+
+"What were you saying?" inquired Bill. "Never mind the wood."
+
+"Nothing--I forget, I mean. Come on, let's get some wood--I'm hungry."
+
+And in spite of his most persistent efforts, not another word could
+Bill Carmody get out of the youngster, except the mournful soliloquy
+that:
+
+"I bet Uncle Appleton _will_ whale me--anyway, he couldn't whale as
+hard as you."
+
+In the thick blackness of the storm the man groped blindly near the
+snow-choked entrance to the den, guided in his search for the dead tree
+by the voice of the boy from the interior.
+
+It was no easy task to twist off the dead limbs and carry them one by
+one to the cavern where the boy piled them against the wall. At length,
+however, it was accomplished, and Bill crept in and whittled a pile of
+fine shavings.
+
+A few minutes later the flicker of a tiny flame flashed up, the
+shavings ignited, and the narrow cavity lighted to the crackle of the
+fire. Together they skinned the rabbit which the dead lynx had dropped,
+and soon they were busily engaged in roasting it over the flames.
+
+The two were far from comfortable. Despite the fact that the fire had
+been built as near as possible to the entrance, the smoke whipped back
+into their faces. The air became blue and heavy, they coughed, and
+tears streamed from their eyes at the sting of it.
+
+"I'm thirsty," said the boy, as he finished his portion of the rabbit.
+"I guess we'll have to eat snow; there's nothing to melt it in."
+
+"Never eat snow," the man cautioned as his eyes swept the barren
+interior.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It will burn you out. I don't know why, but when a man starts eating
+snow, it's all off."
+
+Directly in front of him, in the rock floor, was a slight depression,
+and with a stick Bill scraped the fire close to this natural basin and
+filled it with dry snow. At the end of ten minutes the snow had melted,
+leaving a pool of filthy, black water.
+
+"It's the best we can do," laughed the man as the boy made a wry face
+as he gulped down a swallow of the bitter floor-washing.
+
+They set about skinning the _loup-cervier_, and spread the pelt upon
+the floor for a robe.
+
+"We'll have to tackle the cat for breakfast," grinned Bill.
+
+"Oh, this is fun!" cried the boy. "It's like getting cast away and
+living in a cave, like you read about." But the humor of the situation
+failed to enthuse Bill, who lighted his pipe and stared moodily into
+the tiny fire.
+
+The two spent a most uncomfortable night, their brief snatches of sleep
+being interrupted by long hours of wakefulness when they huddled close
+to the small blaze.
+
+The scarcity of wood and the danger of suffocation precluded the
+building of an adequate fire, and the miserable night wore interminably
+upon the nerves of the imprisoned pair.
+
+At last the dull gray light of morning dispersed the gloom, and the two
+crept to the snow-choked door.
+
+The storm raged unabated, and their eyes could not penetrate the opaque
+whiteness of the powdery snow. Bill gathered more firewood, cut up the
+lynx, and roasted the hams, shoulders, and back.
+
+The meat was dry and stringy, with a disagreeable, strong flavor that
+savored intimately of the rancid odor of the den. Nevertheless, they
+devoured a great quantity of the tough, unpalatable food, washing it
+down with bitter drafts from the pool of dirty snow-water, thick with
+ashes and the pungent animal reek.
+
+Again the man filled his pipe and sat gazing out upon the whirling
+void.
+
+"Bill, let's try it," said a voice at his elbow. "She's waiting for
+us--and worrying."
+
+Carmody glanced quickly into the determined little face. The boy had
+voiced his own thoughts to the letter, and he remained long without
+speaking, carefully weighing the chances.
+
+"It's better than staying here," pursued the youngster; "'Cause, if we
+don't snufficate, we'll starve to death, or freeze. We can tie us to
+each other so we won't get lost, and all we got to do is stick to the
+river. I can make it if you can," he added naively.
+
+Bill grinned, and then his eyes became serious and he began
+methodically to stow the remains of the roast cat into his pockets.
+
+"It's going to be an awful pull, kid. You are a man, now, and I'll give
+it to you straight--maybe we'll make it, and maybe we won't. But I'd
+hate to 'snufficate'--and she _is_ worrying. We'll try it--and God help
+us, if we don't keep the river."
+
+The skin of the lynx was cut into strips and fashioned into a rawhide
+line which Bill made fast to their belts, leaving plenty of slack to
+allow free use of the rackets. The rifle was left in the cave, and,
+muffled to the ears, the two stepped out into the storm.
+
+Bill judged it to be well after noon when a sudden tightening of the
+line brought him to an abrupt halt.
+
+Many times during the long hours in which they forged slowly ahead had
+the line gone taut as the boy fell in the snow, but each time it was
+followed by a wriggling and tugging, and the youngster scrambled gamely
+to his feet and floundered on in the wake of his big friend.
+
+But this time Carmody waited in vain for the movement of the line that
+would tell him that the boy was regaining his feet--the line remained
+taut, and Bill turned and groped in the snow. He lifted the boy to his
+feet, but the small body sagged limply against his own, and the head
+rolled weakly.
+
+He shook him roughly and, with his lips close to the boy's ear, shouted
+words of encouragement. But his only answer was a dull look from the
+half-closed eyes, and a sleepily muttered jumble of words, in which he
+made out: "Can't make it--all in--go on--she does love you."
+
+Again and again he tried to rouse him, but all to no purpose; the boy
+had battled bravely to the end of his endurance, and now only wanted to
+be let alone. Bill sat beside him in the snow and, sheltering him as
+best he could from the sting of the wind-driven particles, produced a
+piece of the meat from his pocket.
+
+The boy gnawed it feebly, and the food revived him somewhat, so that
+for a few rods he staggered on, but the line again tightened, and this
+time the man knew that it was useless to attempt to arouse his little
+companion.
+
+Hurriedly removing his mackinaw, he wrapped it around the body of the
+boy and, by means of a "squaw hitch" sling, swung him to his back. The
+boy's dangling rackets hindered his movement, and he slashed the thongs
+and left them in the snow.
+
+Then, straining the last atom of his vitality, he plunged ahead.
+
+The early darkness of the North country settled about the staggering
+man. His progress was painfully slow and, without sense of direction,
+he wallowed forward, stumbling, falling, struggling to his feet only to
+fall again a few rods farther on.
+
+The weight of the boy seemed to crush him into the snow, and each time
+it became harder and harder to regain his feet against the merciless
+rush of the blizzard.
+
+He lost all hope of making camp. He did not know whether it was near or
+far, he only knew that he was upon the river, and that he must push on
+and on.
+
+He realized dully that he might easily have passed the rollways hours
+ago. He even considered doubling back; but what was the use? If he
+passed them once, he would pass them again.
+
+Every drop of his fighting blood was up. He would push on to the end.
+He would die, of course; but he wouldn't die _yet_! And when he did
+die, he would _fall_ to die--he would never _lie down_ to die!
+
+It was not far off, he knew--that fall, when he would never get up. He
+wondered who would find them; Blood River Jack, probably. As he leaned
+into the whirling, cutting wind, he thought of Jeanne and of his
+promise to Wa-ha-ta-na-ta.
+
+His fists clenched, and a few more rods were gained. He thought of
+Ethel, and of what Charlie had told him in the cave:
+
+"_She needs us; we're all she's got--you and me._"
+
+Again the fists in the heavy mittens clenched, and more rods were
+covered. It was growing black; the white smother of snow ceased to
+dance before his eyes. His advance now was hesitating, dogged; each
+step became a measure of time.
+
+He reeled suddenly against an unyielding object. A tree, he thought,
+and grasped it for support as he struggled to get his bearings. He was
+off the river; yet, when had he ascended the bank?
+
+The tree felt smooth to the touch, and he moved his mittens up and down
+the trunk. Suddenly he realized that it was no tree, but a skinned
+pole. His numbed brain groped dully as his hands traveled up and down
+its smooth length.
+
+At the height of his waist he encountered a rope, and at the feel of
+the heavy line the blood surged to his head, clearing his brain.
+
+"The _water-hole_!" he cried thickly. "They've roped off the
+water-hole!" Frantically he pulled himself along, hand over hand. The
+rope seemed endless, stretching from stake to stake.
+
+He was ascending the bank now at the foot of the rollways--and, at the
+top was the camp!
+
+He exerted his strength to the uttermost ounce, heaving and lifting
+with the huge muscles of his legs, and pulling with his arms until it
+seemed they must be torn from his shoulders, inching himself along,
+gasping, sweating, straining.
+
+The incline grew steeper, his frozen mittens slipped, the guide-rope
+tore from his grasp, and he pitched heavily backward into the soft
+smother.
+
+He struggled helplessly. Something seemed pressing him down, down--at
+last he was _home_. He had won out against the terrible odds, and the
+boy was safe.
+
+He had brought him back to her, and now he must sleep. How warm and
+comfortable it was in the bunk. He did not know a man could be so
+sleepy.
+
+What was it the girl was singing as he passed her window only a few
+nights ago--when he paused in the darkness of the clearing to listen?
+
+Dreamily the words floated through his brain:
+
+    "And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
+    For those who will never come back to the town."
+
+But he had come back. He smiled vaguely; they needn't wring their hands
+and weep--and the rest of it:
+
+    "For men must work, and women must weep,
+    And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
+    And good-by to the bar and its moaning."
+
+Sleep! That's what he needed--sleep. He could sleep forever and ever,
+here in his warm, warm bunk. And the moaning of the bar--he liked that;
+he could hear it moaning now--roaring and moaning.
+
+Bill Carmody closed his eyes. The fine, sifting snow came and covered
+his body and the smaller body of the boy who was lashed firmly to his
+broad back--and all about him the blizzard howled and roared and
+moaned.
+
+And it was night!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+IN CAMP AGAIN
+
+
+The violence of the storm precluded the use of horses about the camp,
+and the trail that slanted from the clearing to the water-hole was soon
+drifted high with snow, rendering useless the heavy tank-sled. Fallon,
+who had been placed in temporary charge of the camp, told the men into
+water-shifts; barrels were lashed to strong sleds and man-hauled to the
+top of the bank, where the guide-rope had been run to the water-hole.
+
+The men of the shift formed a long line reaching from the sled to the
+river, and the water dipped from the hole cut in the ice was passed
+from man to man in buckets to be dumped into the barrels and
+distributed between the stables, cook-shack, bunk-house, and "house."
+
+Darkness had fallen when the men of the afternoon shift wallowed toward
+the river upon the last trip of the second day of the great blizzard.
+The roar of the wind as it hurled the frozen particles against their
+cold-benumbed faces drowned their muttered curses as, thirty strong,
+they pushed and hauled the cumbersome sled to the top of the bank.
+Seizing the buckets, they strung out, making their way down the steep
+slope with one hand on the guide-rope.
+
+Suddenly the foremost man stumbled and fell. He scrambled profanely to
+his knees and began feeling about in the thick darkness for his bucket.
+His mittened hand came into contact with the object which, protruding
+from the snow, had tripped him, and with a vicious wrench he endeavored
+to remove it from the trail. It yielded a little, but remained firmly
+imbedded.
+
+With a wild yell he forgot his bucket and began digging and clawing in
+the snow, for the object he grasped was the bent ash edge of a
+snowshoe, and firmly lashed in the center of the webbing was the
+moccasined foot of a man.
+
+Other men came, floundering and sprawling over each other in the
+darkness, and the word was bellowed from lips to listening ear that a
+man lay buried beneath the drift.
+
+"Dig! Ye tarriers!" roared Fallon as his heavy mittens gouged into the
+snow. "Dig! Ut's th' boss!" he yelled into the ear of the nearest man.
+"Oi know thim rackets!"
+
+And from lip to bearded lip the word passed, and the big men of the
+logs redoubled their efforts; but the fine snow had packed hard around
+the prostrate form, and it was many minutes before they had uncovered
+him sufficiently to note the smaller body lashed tightly upon his back.
+The frozen lash was soon severed and the two exanimate bodies lifted in
+eager hands.
+
+Buckets were left to snow under as the men crowded up the bank, howling
+into each other's ears. Big Stromberg, who bore the boss in his arms,
+was propelled up the steep slope by the men who crowded about him,
+pushing, pulling, hauling--the ground-gaining, revolving wedge of the
+old days of mass formation in football.
+
+"To th' office wid um!" roared Fallon in Stromberg's ear as they milled
+across the clearing. "Th' b'ys'll crowd th' bunk-house till they
+hindher more thin hilp!"
+
+The boy responded quickly to vigorous treatment and stimulants and was
+removed to his own bunk and placed under the able care of his Aunt
+Margaret and Mrs. Sheridan.
+
+In the office Ethel Manton, white-faced and silent, watched
+breathlessly the efforts of Appleton and Blood River Jack to revive the
+exhausted and half-frozen foreman. The lumber magnate unscrewed the
+silver cap from a morocco-covered flask and poured out a generous dose
+of liquor; but before it reached the unconscious man's lips the
+half-breed stayed his hand.
+
+"M's'u' Bill drinks no whisky," he said. "Even in the time of his great
+sickness would he drink no whisky; and if you give him whisky he will
+be very angry."
+
+Appleton paused and glanced curiously from the face of the half-breed
+to the still form upon the bunk, and the other continued:
+
+"It is strange--I do not know--but he told it to Jeanne one day--that,
+in the great city of the white man is a girl he loves. He used to drink
+much whisky, and for that reason she sent him from her--and now he
+drinks no whisky--even though this girl has married another."
+
+Ethel stared at the speaker, wide-eyed, and the pallor of her face
+increased.
+
+"Married another!" she gasped.
+
+Jacques regarded her gravely. "I know nothing except it was told me by
+Jeanne," he returned--"how he talked in the voice of the fever-spirit,
+that this girl would marry another. In the paper he read it--but even
+so, will he drink no whisky. One week ago did he not hear how one night
+in the bunk-house Leduc tried to make the little boy drink whisky? And
+did he not hunt up Leduc the next morning, and, upon the skidway, smash
+the nose of him and knock four teeth from his jaw?"
+
+The guide paused, and Appleton slowly screwed the silver top to his
+flask and returned it to his pocket.
+
+"Upon the stove is a pot of very strong coffee which Daddy Dunnigan
+told me to bring," Jacques went on; "and he is even now making broth in
+the cook-shack. M's'u' Bill cannot die. The strong coffee and the good
+broth will bring him back to life; for he is called in the woods
+The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die.
+
+"If he could die he would die in the blizzard. For, since blizzards
+were known, has no man done a thing like this--to search for two days
+and a night for one boy lost in the snow, and carry him home in
+safety."
+
+The half-breed finished, and the girl, with a low cry, sank into a
+chair and, leaning forward upon the desk, buried her face in her arms
+while her shoulders shook with the violence of her sobbing.
+
+Appleton crossed to her side and laid a hand gently upon her shoulder.
+
+"Come, Ethel," he said; "this has been too much for you. Let me take
+you to the house."
+
+But the girl shook her head. She raised her eyes, wet with tears, and
+with an effort controlled her voice.
+
+"My place is here--with _him_," she said softly as she arose, and,
+walking to the side of the cot, looked down at the set face of the
+unconscious man. "Leave me alone now. There is nothing you can do. I
+will stay with him while you sleep. Draw your cot close to the wall,
+and if I need you I will knock. Jacques will go to the cook-shack," she
+added, turning to the half-breed, "and when the broth is ready bring it
+to me."
+
+The men obeyed without question, and as the office door closed behind
+them the girl dropped to her knees beside the bunk and, throwing her
+arms about the man's neck, pressed her soft cheek close against his
+bearded face.
+
+The little tin lamp in its bracket beside the row of books on the top
+of the desk was turned low and its yellow light illuminated dimly the
+interior of the rough room. She slipped into an easier position and,
+seated upon the floor at the edge of the low bunk, drew his head close
+against her breast. At the touch--the feel of this strong man lying
+helpless in her arms--the long-pent yearning of her soul burst the
+studied bonds of its restraint and through her whole body swept the
+torrent of a mighty love.
+
+Resistlessly it engulfed every nerve and fiber of her--wave upon wave
+of wild, primitive passion surged through her veins until her heart
+seemed bursting with the sweet, intense pain of it. Fiercely, in the
+hot, quick flame of passion, she strained him to her breast and her
+lips sought his in an abandon of feverish kisses.
+
+And in that moment she knew that, in all the world of men, this man was
+_her_ man. Always he had dominated her life--always she had known this
+great love, had fought against it, and feared it--and always she had
+held it in check.
+
+But now, alone in the night, with the man lying helpless in her arms,
+this mighty passion welled to the bursting of restraint.
+
+Her heart, subservient no longer to the will of her brain nor to creeds
+nor the tenets of convention, had this night come into its own, and she
+loved with the hot, savage mate-love of her pristine forebears.
+
+The man's lips moved feebly upon hers and the closed eyelids fluttered.
+The girl sprang to the stove and returned a second later bearing a
+thick porcelain cup steaming with strong, black coffee.
+
+She raised his head upon her arm and, holding the cup, let part of its
+contents trickle between his lips. He strangled weakly and swallowed.
+
+Again she tilted the cup and again he swallowed. "My darling! My
+darling!" she sobbed as the fluttering eyelids half opened and the lips
+moved, and then leaned close to catch their faintest murmur.
+
+"Jeanne," he whispered, "Jeanne, little girl----" and then the lips
+ceased to move, he shuddered slightly through the length of him, his
+eyes closed, and he slept.
+
+The thick cup thudded heavily upon the floor and its contents splashed
+unheeded over her gown, as the girl sat motionless, staring past the
+bunk at the blank wall of logs.
+
+The little nickel-plated alarm-clock ticked loudly in sharp, insistent
+threes, as she sat, white of face, with set lips and unwinking eyes
+staring stonily at the parallel logs of the wall.
+
+Centuries of supercultivation and the refinement of breeding were
+concentrated in that white-lipped, cold-eyed stare, which is the
+heart-mask of the _recherche_ woman of empire. And then--the mask
+dropped.
+
+The inevitable artificiality of years of unconscious eugenic selection
+melted in a breath before the fierce onrush of savage emotion. The girl
+sprang to her feet as the hot blood surged to her face and paced
+frantically back and forth in a fume of primordial hate. Her small
+fists clenched till pink nails bit deep into soft, pink palms. Her
+nostrils dilated, quivering; her eyes flashed, and the breath hissed
+through her lips in deep sobs of impotent rage against the woman who
+had robbed her of this man's love and whose name was upon his lips in
+the first moment of his awakening.
+
+She paused and gazed into the face of the man who was the hero of her
+fondest dreams--the man who had overcome obstacles, who defied danger
+and death, and had won, with his two hands and the great force of his
+personality, the respect and devotion of the big men of the rough
+country.
+
+And he was hers--never had he been aught else but hers--and she had
+lost him! Wildly she resumed her restless pacing, while the words of
+the half-breed rang in her ears: "She is beautiful, and she loves him."
+
+She halted abruptly, and in her eye flashed a momentary ray of hope;
+the man had said, not "He loves her," but, "She loves him." Could it
+be--but, no, there were his own words, spoken at the time of their
+first meeting in the gloom of this very room: "I forgot that I have not
+the right--that there is another."
+
+And was it not _her_ name that sprang to his lips in the
+half-consciousness of a few moments ago? In her mind she pictured the
+wild, dark beauty of the other girl, and in the jealous fury of her
+heart could have torn her in pieces with her two hands.
+
+"M's'u' Bill drinks no whisky"--the dream of her life had been
+realized, but in the realization she had been beaten--all her hopes and
+prayers, the long, bitter hours of her soul-anguish, which burned and
+gnawed beneath the stoicism and apathy her environment demanded, had
+gone for naught, and she, who had borne the brunt of the long battle,
+was brushed aside and forgotten.
+
+The spoils belonged to another--and that other, an _Indian_!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+THE MISSING BONDS
+
+
+The walls of the room seemed the restraining bars of a prison, shutting
+her apart from life and the right to love. She lifted the latch and
+flung open the door, standing upon the threshold amid the seething
+inrush of the storm.
+
+The fine snow felt good against her throbbing temples, and she stared
+into the blackness whose whirling chaos voiced the violence of the
+heart-storm that raged within her breast. _He_ had conquered the storm!
+
+She shivered as an icy blast sent the snow-powder flying half across
+the room, closed the door, and resumed her tireless journey to and fro,
+to and fro, and at each turn she glanced at the sleeping man.
+
+She dropped to her knees beside the bunk and looked long into his
+rugged face. He, too, had suffered. She remembered the deep hurt in his
+eyes at their parting. Yet he was not beaten.
+
+She had sent him from her, heartsick and alone into the great world,
+and he had fought and conquered and earned a place among men.
+
+And as the girl looked, her eyes grew tender and the pain in her heart
+seemed more than she could bear. When she rose to her feet the savage
+hatred was gone from her heart, and in its place was determination--the
+determination to win back the love of this man.
+
+She, too, would fight, even as he had fought--and win. He had not been
+discouraged and beaten. She remembered the look upon his face as he
+strode toward her that morning on the skidway in search of Leduc.
+
+Unconsciously her tiny fists doubled, her delicate white jaw squared,
+and her eyes narrowed to slits, even as his had narrowed--but her lips
+did not smile.
+
+He was _her_ man! She could give him more than this half-breed girl
+could give him, and she would fight to win back her own--that which had
+been her own from the first.
+
+Almost at her feet upon the floor, just under the edge of the bunk
+where it had been carelessly tossed, lay his mackinaw of coarse,
+striped cloth. The girl stooped, drew it forth, and smoothed it out.
+
+"His coat," she breathed almost reverently as she patted its rough
+folds. "He took it off and wrapped it around Charlie. Oh, it must have
+been terrible--_terrible_!"
+
+She was about to hang it upon its peg when something fell to the floor
+with a sharp slap--a long, heavy envelope that had dropped from a
+ragged tear in the lining where the men had ripped it from the body of
+the boy.
+
+She hung the garment upon its peg and stooped to recover the packet.
+The envelope was old, and had evidently been exposed to the action of
+water, for the flap gaped open and the edges were worn through at the
+ends. Upon one side was tightly bound a photograph, dim and indistinct
+from the rub of the coarse cloth.
+
+Her lips tightened at the corners as she stepped to the desk and turned
+up the lamp. She would see what manner of girl it was who had scored so
+heavily against her in this battle of hearts. She held the picture
+close to the yellow flame and stared unbelievingly at the nearly
+effaced features.
+
+With a swift movement she tore the encircling cord from the packet and
+examined it more closely. Her heart beat wildly, and the blood surged
+through her veins in great, joyous waves. For the photograph showed,
+not the dark features of the Indian girl, but--_her own_!
+
+Worn almost beyond recognition it was, with corners peeled and rolled
+back from the warped and water-thickened mounting--but unmistakably
+_her picture_.
+
+"He cares! He does care!" she repeated over and over. "Oh, my boy! My
+boy!" And then her eyes fell upon the thick envelope with its worn
+edges and open flap which lay unheeded upon the desk-top.
+
+Mechanically she reached for it, and her hand came in contact with its
+thick, heavily engraved contents. She raised the papers to the light
+and stared; there were five in all, neatly folded, lying one upon
+another.
+
+The green background of the topmost one was faded and streaked, and a
+thin, green wash had trickled over the edges of the others, staining
+them.
+
+A yellow slip of paper fluttered to the desk. She picked it up and read
+the almost illegible, typewritten lines. It was a memorandum addressed
+to Strang, Liebhardt & Co., and bearing the faded signature of Hiram
+Carmody.
+
+A sudden numbness overcame the girl. She sank slowly into the chair in
+front of the desk and stared dully from the yellowed slip of paper to
+the faded green bonds.
+
+The room seemed suddenly cold, and she stared, unseeing, at her
+bloodless finger-tips. She tried to think--to concentrate her mind upon
+the present--but her brain refused to act, and she muttered helplessly:
+
+"The bonds--the bonds--he took the bonds!"
+
+Like one in a dream, she arose and replenished the fire in the little
+air-tight. It had burned almost to ashes.
+
+She watched the yellow flames lick hungrily at the bubbling pitch of
+the knot she had thrown upon the coals, and glanced from the flaring
+flames to the little pile of green papers--and back again at the little
+flames that climbed higher about the resinous chunk.
+
+"Why not?" she muttered. "They can never prove he took them, and he
+would think that they were lost." For a long time she sat, thinking,
+and then she closed the stove and returned to the desk.
+
+"I stood by him when his father accused him," she murmured, "when I
+thought he was innocent. And now--oh, I can't! I can't give him up!"
+Her voice quavered pitifully, and she clutched at the hurt in her
+throat.
+
+"I can't!" she gasped again. "He needs me now. He is mine! _Mine!_" she
+cried fiercely. "We will work it out together. He was weak then--but
+now he is strong. I will tell him that I know, and persuade him to
+return them. And then he will be clean--brave and strong and _clean_!"
+
+She started nervously at the sound of a fumbling at the latch. Hastily
+catching up the bonds, she thrust them into the bosom of her gown and
+turned to face Blood River Jack, who entered, bearing a steaming pail
+of broth and a larger pail covered with a clean white cloth.
+
+Behind him Daddy Dunnigan noisily stamped the snow from his feet. The
+old man hobbled to the side of the bunk and looked intently into the
+face of the sleeper, and, stooping, held his ear close to the man's
+heart.
+
+With a satisfied nod he turned to the girl, who stood close by his
+side.
+
+"He's shlaypin' foine," he said, and the little red-rimmed eyes looked
+straight into the eyes of blue. "But, miss, hear-rt-hunger has kilt
+more good min thin belly-hunger--ye'll foind th' _broth_ in yon
+buckut."
+
+He joined the half-breed, who waited in silence. At the door he turned
+and again addressed the girl.
+
+"In th' big buckut's ye're oun snack. Ate ut befoor ut gits cowld.
+Phwin ye're done, wake um up an' make um dhrink some coffee an' all he
+c'n howld av th' broth. He's th' bist man in th' woods, an' ut's up to
+you to pull um t'rough."
+
+Before the girl could reply the door closed and the two men were
+swallowed up in the storm.
+
+Ethel was surprised to find that she was hungry, and the appetizing
+luncheon which old Daddy Dunnigan had carefully prepared and packed for
+her was soon disposed of.
+
+The hands of the little alarm-clock pointed to two as she crossed and
+knelt at the side of the sleeping man. She leaned over and kissed his
+forehead--his lips--and whispered softly into his ear.
+
+"Bill--Bill, _dear_."
+
+She blushed at the sound of the word, and glanced hurriedly about the
+room, but there was no one to hear, and the man slept on undisturbed by
+the tiny whisper. She laid a hand upon his shoulder and shook him
+gently.
+
+"Bill--wake up!" He stirred slightly, and a sigh escaped him.
+
+"Come, wake up, dear, you must eat."
+
+This time she did not blush at the word, and the shaking became more
+vigorous. Carmody moved uneasily, grunted, and opened his eyes. Ethel
+started at the steady gaze of the grey eyes so close to her own. The
+grey eyes closed and he passed a hand slowly across them.
+
+"A dream," he muttered, and the girl leaned closer.
+
+"No, Bill," she whispered, "it is not a dream. I am here--Ethel--don't
+you know me?"
+
+"Ethel," he repeated, and the name seemed to linger on his lips. "We
+must get back to her, kid, she is worrying--come--mush, kid--mush!" The
+girl laid a soft hand on his forehead and smoothed back the tangled
+hair.
+
+"Bill, dear," she whispered, with her lips close to his, "Charlie is
+safe. And you are safe, here in the office--with me."
+
+Bill seemed suddenly to grasp the situation.
+
+"Ethel!" he exclaimed. And then, in a dull, tired voice, "I--I brought
+him back to you." His eyes closed, and he turned his face toward the
+wall.
+
+Ethel poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, and returning,
+seated herself upon the edge of the bunk. Deftly her arm slipped under
+his head, and she held the cup to his lips. Bill drank greedily to the
+last drop, and the girl filled another cup with broth.
+
+This time he helped a little, and she raised him higher and pillowed
+his head against her breast. He sipped the broth hungrily, but very
+slowly, pausing a long time between sips.
+
+Ethel's body thrilled at the touch of him, the little hand that held
+the cup trembled, and the man, close-pressed against her soft breast,
+heard the wild pounding of her heart.
+
+Suddenly he looked up into her eyes. Her face flushed crimson, and the
+swift down-sweep of the long lashes hid the soft, blue eyes from the
+intense, burning gaze of the hard grey ones. In confusion she averted
+her face.
+
+There was a swift movement beside her, and the next instant strong arms
+were about her, and she heard, as from afar, the heavy thud as the
+porcelain cup struck the floor.
+
+Vainly she struggled in a sudden frenzy of panic to free herself from
+the embrace of the encircling arms, and her heart was filled with a
+great, passionate gladness at the futility of her tiny efforts as she
+felt herself drawn closer and ever closer against the mighty chest of
+the big man whom, in spite of herself, and of his own shortcomings and
+weaknesses, she loved with the savage abandon that is the wonder-love
+of woman. She knew, too, that the deep music in her ears was the sound
+of his voice which came in short, stabbing, half-sentences.
+
+"Ethel! Ethel! Little girl--you are mine, mine, _mine_! You _do_ love
+me! Darling, better than life itself, I love you. I have always loved
+you! Tell me, dear, it was all a lie--about St. Ledger. Tell me you
+love me, dearest!"
+
+The bearded lips found hers, and for answer, her struggles ceased, her
+body relaxed against his body, her soft arms stole timidly about his
+neck, and there was a wild singing in her heart.
+
+"And there has never been another?" she whispered a few minutes later
+as she sat close beside him and watched him sip hot broth from the
+thick cup. The grey eyes twinkled.
+
+"Don't you _know_, sweetheart, that there has never been another? Why,
+you have known me all my life!" But the blue eyes were serious.
+
+"I mean, since--since you went away?" For answer the man raised his arm
+and pointed toward the opposite wall.
+
+"Hand me that mackinaw," he said. Ethel gasped and stared at him wide
+eyed. "The _mackinaw_--that old striped coat next to the slicker," he
+smiled.
+
+"But----" she stifled the protest, and the man wondered at the sudden
+pallor of her face.
+
+"Hand it here," he repeated, "there is something I want to show you."
+
+Without a word the girl crossed the room and, removing the mackinaw
+from its peg, laid it upon the blanket within reach of his hand. He
+drew it to him, and the girl watched in silence while he ran his
+fingers over the lining.
+
+He plunged his arm to the elbow into the ragged hole and explored to
+the very corners the space between the lining and the cloth. With a
+blank expression of disappointment he looked up at her.
+
+"They are gone," he said in a low voice. "My letters and my picture.
+_Your_ letters, dear--and _your_ picture----"
+
+"Letters!" the girl gasped, leaning forward and staring into his eyes.
+
+"Why, yes, darling. There were only a few. You wrote them when I was in
+Europe. They were all I had--those few little letters, and the
+photograph. You remember--the one you gave me----"
+
+"But--I don't understand----"
+
+"I always kept it on my desk at home," he continued, ignoring the
+interruption. "And your letters, too--all sealed in a big envelope. And
+the morning I went away I bound the picture to the envelope and put it
+in my pocket, and I have always kept it with me.
+
+"A thousand times, dear, I have looked at the picture. It has been my
+fetish--the little amulet that keeps a man from harm. And whether or
+not it has succeeded, dear heart, you must judge for yourself."
+
+"But, the letters--you never took them out--never read them?" The man
+was surprised at the intense eagerness of her tone.
+
+"No," he answered, "I never read them. You see, it got to be a sort of
+game with me. It was a big game that I played against myself, and when
+I was sure I had won I was going to open the letters."
+
+He paused and looked into the girl's eyes. "And then, one day I
+happened to read in an old newspaper the account of your engagement to
+St. Ledger. I almost lost the game, then--but I didn't. And--after
+that--the letters never were the same, and I--I just played the game to
+_win_."
+
+There were tears in the girl's eyes, and she clutched at his hand.
+
+"But the bonds?" she cried. The man regarded her with a puzzled look.
+
+"Bonds--bonds--what bonds?"
+
+"Why, the bonds you were to have delivered to Strang, Liebhardt & Co.
+Securities, or something."
+
+Bill stared uncomprehendingly, then suddenly he laughed.
+
+"Oh! Those! Why, I handed them over to father. You see, Dad handed it
+to me pretty straight that morning. In fact, he--er--fired me. So I
+gave him the bonds and----"
+
+The sentence was never finished. With a glad cry the girl flung herself
+upon him, and to his unutterable wonder sobbed and sobbed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+SNOW-BOUND
+
+
+Late in the following afternoon Ethel awoke and lay for a long time
+revelling in her new-found happiness, and thinking of the big man who
+had come once more into her life, this time bringing her only gladness
+and the joy of an infinite love.
+
+Her heart glowed with pride as she thought of the strength and the fine
+courage of him, and she flushed as she wondered how, even with the
+bonds in her hands, she could have doubted his innocence. Ah, well, she
+would never doubt him again.
+
+She smiled fondly, but the smile slowly faded, for in her mind at that
+moment was a doubt--a vague, elusive doubt, that rested upon the
+slender fabric of a half-breed's fireside tale.
+
+Somewhere in the wild country was another girl--a girl who was
+beautiful and who loved this man--_her_ man.
+
+In the small hours of the morning as they talked he had not mentioned
+this girl, and Ethel forbore to question him, hoping that he would tell
+her of his own accord. But whether or not he purposely avoided the
+subject she did not know.
+
+She believed in him--believed in his great love for her, in his
+absolute honesty and the new-found strength in him. Yet, hovering like
+a specter, intangible, elusive, menacing--the one disturbing element in
+her otherwise perfect happiness--was the other girl.
+
+Who was she? What was she? What had she been to him? What had been
+their relations? And why had she accompanied him on his journey out of
+the woods? The phantom girl took on a sinister form as the question
+tantalized her brain.
+
+This wild woman had helped to draw him from the river, had nursed him
+through a long sickness. He was under obligations to her, and--was that
+the _only obligation_?
+
+The girl flushed hotly, and with an impatient movement flung the
+blankets from her, and proceeded to dress.
+
+"I will never, never ask him," she decided, as she sat upon the thick
+bearskin in front of the stove and drew on her stockings. "He loves me
+and I love him.
+
+"If he tells me it will be of his own free will; he shall not know that
+I ever heard of this girl. What is past, is past. There are sealed
+chapters in the lives of most men--why should I care?
+
+"He is mine--mine!" she cried aloud, "and I love him!"
+
+But deep down in her heart she knew that she did care--and that she
+would always care. And the knowledge hurt.
+
+Her toilet completed, the girl passed into the other room, where
+Appleton and Sheridan were engaged in a lively discussion with the
+ladies.
+
+"How is he?" She addressed her uncle, who answered with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Bill? Oh, he's all right. Feeling fit as a fiddle. Wanted to get out
+on the job, but I wouldn't let him. He was going anyhow, and the only
+way I could make him stay in was to threaten to wake you up to give him
+his orders straight from headquarters."
+
+Ethel blushed furiously as the smiles of the others were directed
+toward her. "Yup, he wouldn't stand for that," went on Appleton. "Said
+he'd rather lie in bed for a week than have you puttering around."
+
+With a disdainful toss of her head the girl seated herself at the
+table.
+
+"Now, Hubert Appleton, you stop teasing that poor girl!" Aunt Margaret
+rallied in her defence. "Don't pay any attention to him, honey. Bill is
+doing nicely, and we're all crazy to congratulate you. We think he is
+just _grand_!"
+
+Dinner had been kept piping hot, and Ethel hid her confusion behind an
+appetizing array of steaming dishes.
+
+"And what do you think?" continued her aunt, who hovered about the
+table with fussy little pats and arrangement of dishes, "we have to
+stay here all winter!"
+
+"What?" cried the girl in dismay.
+
+"That is just what we both said--Mary and I. But there is no help for
+it. The tote-road is drifted twenty feet deep. Hubert and Mr. Sheridan
+are going to make the trip on snowshoes; they must get back to
+business. The supplies will have to be brought in on dog-sleds, and we
+have got to stay."
+
+"I'll bet Ethel could think of a worse predicament," grinned Appleton.
+"She'll be a regular sourdough before spring; won't want to come out."
+
+"But I have nothing to wear!"
+
+"Nothing to wear!" scoffed her uncle. "Tell me, please, what in time
+you women have got packed in those half a dozen trunks, then? It's not
+grub. I'll bet there's clothes enough in those trunks to last three
+women fourteen years! Still, if you really get cold, you might ask Bill
+to lend you a pair of his----"
+
+"Hubert Appleton!" The lumberman glanced at his wife in surprise. "A
+pair of his moccasins--they'll keep your toes warm."
+
+The girl finished her belated dinner, and throwing a coat over her
+shoulders stepped out into the clear, crisp air. Immediately in front
+of the building the wind had swept the ground almost bare of snow, but
+Ethel gasped with surprise as her eyes sought the other buildings of
+the camp.
+
+The blacksmith's shop was entirely buried under a huge drift; only one
+half of the cook-shack roof was visible, and the bunk-house was buried
+to the eaves. A twenty-foot drift cut off the view of the stables, and
+the whole crew was busy digging paths and breaking out skidways.
+
+The storm had ceased as suddenly as it had come, and the sun shone with
+dazzling whiteness upon the mystic, snow-buried world.
+
+In the office she found Bill fully dressed, propped against his
+pillows, a villainous black pipe between his lips, reading. He laid
+aside his book and pipe and stretched his arms toward her.
+
+She crossed, blushing, to his side, and for a long time sat with her
+head resting upon his shoulder, while his great arms held her close
+against his beating heart.
+
+And under the spell of his presence and his gently murmured words of
+love, the disquieting fear vanished, and she knew that he was all hers.
+And she laughed at her fear, and drove it from her in the foolish
+belief that it could never return.
+
+"Dear," she said later when their conversation assumed an intelligible
+form, "you must send those bonds back by Uncle Appleton. Just
+think--your father thinks you _stole_ them!"
+
+The man smiled:
+
+"Yes, poor old dad. It must be kind of rough on him to think his son is
+a thief. He was sore that morning, and so was I, and we didn't part the
+best of friends. But I would rather return the bonds myself. Darling,
+we will take them to him, you and I, next summer, when we go back to
+the old town."
+
+"Go back!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+"Sure. When we go back on our honeymoon. Now that I have you I am
+never, never going to let you go, and when next you see the big burg,
+you will be Mrs. Bill Carmody."
+
+He kissed the serious blue eyes that looked up into his.
+
+"But, dear, we are coming back here?"
+
+"Back here!" he exclaimed in surprise. "You! Back here! In the woods!"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"I love the woods; I will always love them. It was in the woods that
+you found _yourself_ and your place among men. And it was in the woods
+that I found you--the _real_ you--the _you_ I have always loved!"
+
+"But, dear heart, it is a rough life up here. It is new to you now, and
+you are enchanted; but there is so much you would miss. I have to come
+back, of course--will have to for several years to come. We could have
+a house in Minneapolis, and Charlie could go to school."
+
+"What! And only have you for five or six months in the year? No, _sir_!
+Charlie could live with Uncle and Aunt Margaret and go to school, but
+you and I are coming into the woods.
+
+"Aunt Margaret lived in camps for years when she was first married, and
+they were as poor as church mice. She told me all about it. Of course,
+there is hard work; but it is all so big, and grand, and free, and
+there is lots of fun, too, and you will have to teach me to shoot and
+walk on snowshoes and fish through holes cut in the ice.
+
+"I can cook and sew, and we will have a victrola, and lots of books and
+things--anyway, that is the way it is going to be, so there is no use
+arguing about it." And the boss smiled as he realized what Appleton
+meant when he said: "Orders straight from headquarters."
+
+The two lumbermen took their departure the following morning amid the
+hearty farewells of the snow-bound camp. They were accompanied by Blood
+River Jack, who reluctantly agreed to see the dog-team tote service
+established before returning to his lodge at the foot of the rapid.
+
+"We'll come up for you in the spring," called Appleton, "and we'll
+follow the drive in a bateau. You got a bigger taste of the old life
+than you bargained for, little girl," he smiled at his wife; "but the
+tote-road is ruined for this winter and you'll have to make the best of
+it."
+
+"H. D. and I will sure think of you girls while we're sitting in the
+baldheaded pews at the Gaiety this winter gloating over the grand opera
+we're missing!" called Sheridan, rolling his cigar juicily between his
+grinning lips.
+
+"Men of your age----" began Mrs. Sheridan.
+
+"Hubert Appleton! If I hear----" But the protests of the "girls" fell
+upon deaf ears as the men disappeared in the wake of the guide,
+slapping each other upon the back in high glee.
+
+The question of grand opera was a joke of long standing between them,
+and up to the present had been on the husbands, who, despite their
+protests, had manfully endured their annual week of martyrdom.
+
+"Cheer up, ladies," smiled Bill, "the graphophone is a very good one,
+and in the office is a whole box of records of my own selection. If we
+are snow-bound we will not have to entirely forego even grand opera."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+AN ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+Despite the handicap of the deep snow, results in the new camp were
+highly satisfactory to Bill Carmody.
+
+Not a man in the crew but swore by the boss, and each day threw himself
+into the work with a will that made for success. And each night, as he
+rolled into his bunk, not a man but knew that the boss himself had that
+day worked harder than he.
+
+"Niver wuz such a crew in th' woods, miss," boasted Daddy Dunnigan one
+afternoon as Ethel stood in the door of the cook-shack and watched the
+old man's preparation of the gigantic supper.
+
+"Oi've logged a bit, here an' there, an' always Oi've be'n where min
+wuz--but niver Oi've seed 'em buckle down an' tear out th' bone, wan
+day wid another, save in th' so'gerin' days av Captain Fronte McKim.
+
+"Th' same wuz th' boss's uncle, an' he's a McKim fr' th' sole av his
+feet to th' peak av his head, barrin' th' licker, an' th' min'll go
+t'rough hell an' hoigh wather fer um, beggin' ye're pardon--an' he
+ain't no dommed angel, nayther, beggin' ut ag'in, miss.
+
+"Ye sh'd see th' hand av poker he plays, an' th' beautiful swearin' av
+um, phwin things goes wrong! An' ye sh'd see um foight wanst! An' now
+he's gone an' poshted a foive per cint bonus av they bate Moncrossen's
+cut, an' uts loike handin' ut to 'em, 'cause he knows th' b'ys is
+already doin' their dommedest, beggin' ye're pardon, miss.
+
+"Oi'll bet me winther's wages, come shpr-ring, we'll have Moncrossen
+shnowed undher dayper thin' yon smithy, an' they had to tunnel to foind
+ut."
+
+The girl laughed happily and passed on with a great love in her heart
+for Daddy Dunnigan and the big, rough men out in the timber who were
+"tearing out the bone" that _her_ man might make good.
+
+Day by day the black pyramids of the rollways lengthened, and the
+skidways were pushed farther and farther into the timber. And, of all
+the men in the crew, none worked harder nor to better purpose than
+Stromberg, the big hulking Swede, whom Fallon had warned Bill was the
+brains of Moncrossen's bird's-eye gang.
+
+Neither Bill nor the big swamper had ever alluded to that affair in the
+bunk-house upon the night of their first meeting, and it was with a
+feeling of surprise that the foreman looked up one evening as he sat
+alone in the little office to see Stromberg enter and cross to his
+side.
+
+The man lost no time in coming to the point.
+
+"Bill," he began, "I went up with Buck Moncrossen this summer to bring
+down the bird's-eye. We found a pile of ashes where the logs should
+have been. Moncrossen thinks Creed burned them--or let someone do it.
+
+"It was a crooked game, and I was in it as deep as any one. I ain't
+trying to beg off--but, I'd rather be square than crooked--and that's
+the truth. I ain't spent most of my life in the woods not to be able to
+tell hardwood ashes from soft-wood, and I know you slipped one over on
+us.
+
+"You're going to make good in the woods. You'll be the big boss, some
+day. I expect to do time for my part in the bird's-eye game, and I'll
+take all that's coming to me. And I won't snitch on the rest to get a
+lighter sentence, either.
+
+"I know Appleton, and I know we'll get ours in the spring, but what I
+want to know is: when I get out, can I come to you for a job?"
+
+Bill rose from his chair and thrust a big hand toward the other.
+
+"Stromberg," he said, "you are no more a crook than I am. You threw in
+with a bad bunch--that's all. Suppose we just forget the bird's-eye
+business. You and Fallon are the two best men I've got.
+
+"We are going to beat Moncrossen this year, and every man in the crew
+has got to help do it--and next winter--well, Mr. Appleton will have an
+eye peeled for a man to take Moncrossen's job--see?"
+
+The two big men shook hands, and as he made his way to the bunk-house,
+Stromberg wondered at the peculiar smile on the boss's lips as he said:
+
+"There are a hell of a lot of good men wasted because of a bad start.
+So-long."
+
+The weeks slipped rapidly by. The weather settled, keen and cold, with
+the crew keyed to the highest pitch of efficiency.
+
+"Beat Buck Moncrossen!" became the slogan of the camp, and with the
+lengthening days it became apparent that a record cut was being banked
+on the rollways.
+
+It was a wonderful winter for Ethel Manton. The spirit of the big
+country entered her blood. More and more she loved the woods, and
+learned to respect and admire the rough loyalty of the big men of the
+logs.
+
+She had come to call most of them by name, as with a smile and a nod,
+or a wave of the hand, she passed them in the timber on her daily
+excursions in search of rabbits and ptarmigan. And not a man in the
+crew but would gladly have fought to the last breath for "the boss's
+girl."
+
+And now the feel of spring was in the air. Each day the sun climbed
+higher and higher, and the wind lost its sting. The surface of the snow
+softened by day, and high-piled white drifts settled slowly into soggy
+masses of saturated, gray slush.
+
+Bill figured that he had nearly fifteen million feet down when he
+called off his sawyers and ordered the clean-up. The nights remained
+cold, freezing the surface of the sodden snow into a crust of excellent
+footing, so that the day's work began at midnight and continued until
+the crust softened under the rays of the morning sun.
+
+The men laughed and sang and talked of the drive, and of the waterfront
+dives of cities, whose calk-pocked floors spoke the shame of the men of
+the logs.
+
+But most of all they talked of the wedding. For as they sat at the
+supper-table on the day the last tree fell, the boss entered,
+accompanied by the girl.
+
+In a few brief words he told them that he was proud of every man jack
+of them; that they were the best crew that ever came into the woods,
+and that they had more than earned the bonus.
+
+He told them that he realized he was a greener, and thanked them for
+their loyalty and cooeperation, without which his first season as camp
+foreman must have been doomed to failure.
+
+Cheer after cheer interrupted his words, and when he took Ethel by the
+hand and announced that they were soon to be married in that very room
+and invited all hands to the wedding, their cheers drowned his voice
+completely.
+
+But when the girl tried to speak to them, choked in confusion, and with
+her eyes brimming with tears, extended both hands and gasped: "Oh, I--I
+love you all!" the wild storm of applause threatened to tear the roof
+from the log walls.
+
+It was Ethel's idea that they should be married in the woods. Her love
+for the wild country grew deeper with the passing days. She loved it
+all--the silent snow-bound forest, the virile life of the big camp with
+its moments of tense excitement, the mighty crash with which tall trees
+tore through the branches of lesser trees to measure their length on
+the scarred snow, the thrill of hunting wild things, and the long
+evenings when the rich tones of the graphophone fell upon her ears amid
+rough surroundings, like a voice from the past.
+
+But most of all she loved the long walks in the forest, in the deep
+gloom of moonlit nights with the weird, mysterious shadows all about
+them as the big man at her side told her of his great love while they
+planned and dreamed of the future; and then returned to the little
+office where she listened while he read aloud, pausing now and then to
+light his black pipe and blow clouds of blue smoke toward the low
+ceiling.
+
+He had grown very close to her, and very dear, this big, impetuous boy,
+who had suddenly become a masterful man, and in whom she found each day
+some new depth of feeling--some entirely unsuspected and unexplored
+nook of his character.
+
+Her doubts and fears had long since been thrust aside, and even the
+existence of the Indian girl had been forgotten. And so it was that
+when Ethel told Bill one evening she wished their wedding to take place
+in the camp, amid the scenes of their future hardships and happiness,
+he acquiesced gladly, and to the laughing outrage of her dignity picked
+her up in his two hands and tossed her high in the air as he would have
+tossed a baby.
+
+And now the time of the wedding was very near. The clean-up was
+finished, and day by day they awaited the coming of Appleton and
+Sheridan, and of Father Lapre, of the Rice Lake Mission.
+
+The men of the crew set about to make the event one long to be
+remembered in the Northland. Flowers were unobtainable, but a frame in
+the form of a giant horseshoe was constructed and covered over with
+pine-cones.
+
+A raid was made upon the oat-bin, and the oats sifted between the
+scales of the cones and moistened. The structure was placed near the
+stove in the bunk-house, and when the tiny, green shoots began to
+appear, woe to him who procrastinated in the closing of the door or
+neglected to tend fire when it was his turn!
+
+The walls of the grub-shack were completely hidden behind
+pine-branches, and festoons of brilliant red _bakneesh_ encircled the
+room and depended from the chains of the big, swinging lamps.
+
+In the bunk-house the men busied themselves in the polishing of
+buck-horns for the fashioning of a wonderful chair in whose make-up
+would be found neither nails nor glue, its parts being bound together
+by means of sinews and untanned buckskin thongs.
+
+The bateaux were set up and waiting at the head of the rollways. The
+snow of the forest slumped lower and lower, and innumerable icy rills
+found their way to the river over the surface of whose darkened,
+honeycombed ice flowed a shallow, slushy stream.
+
+Father Lapre arrived one morning, pink, smiling, and wet to the middle,
+having blundered onto thin ice in the darkness. The following morning
+Sheridan and Appleton appeared with mysteriously bulging packs, and
+weary from their three nights' battle with the slippery, ice-crusted
+tote-road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+MONCROSSEN PAYS A VISIT
+
+
+In the filthy office of the camp on the Lower Blood River, Buck
+Moncrossen sat at his desk and glowered over his report sheets. The
+ill-trimmed lamp smoked luridly, and the light that filtered through
+its blackened chimney illumined dimly the interior of the little room.
+
+The man pawed over his papers with bearlike clumsiness, pausing now and
+then to wet a begrimed thumb and to curse his luck, his crew, his
+employer, and any and everything that had to do with logs and logging.
+
+It had been a bad season for Buck Moncrossen. The spring break-up was
+at hand, and the best he could figure was a scant nine million feet,
+where Appleton had expected the heavy end of a twenty-five-million-foot
+cut.
+
+Many of his best men had gone to the new camp to work, as they
+supposed, under Fallon. The previous winter's bird's-eye cut was lost;
+Creed was gone; Stromberg was gone, and he trusted none of his men
+sufficiently to continue the game. The boss rose with a growl, and spat
+copiously in the direction of the stove.
+
+"Damn Appleton! And damn the crew! Nine million feet! At that, though,
+I bet I've laid down half agin as much as the new camp. Fallon never
+run a crew, an' he had his camp to build to boot."
+
+He resumed his seat, and reaching to the top of the desk drew down a
+quart bottle, from which he drank in long, deep gurgles. He stared a
+long time at the bottle, drank again, and stooping, began to unlace his
+boots.
+
+"I'll start the clean-up in the mornin', an' then I'll find time to pay
+a little visit I be'n aimin' to pay all winter. Creed said she was
+somewheres below the foot of the rapids. It's anyways ten days to the
+break-up; an' I ain't worryin' a damn if I do happen to foul Fallon's
+drive."
+
+Jacques Lacombie had so arranged his trap-lines that on his longest
+circle he should be absent only one night from the lodge where old
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta kept an ever-vigilant eye upon the comings and goings of
+Jeanne.
+
+Since his return after the great blizzard the half-breed had made
+numerous trips to the camp of Moncrossen, carrying fresh venison, and
+he did not like the shifting glances the boss bent toward him, nor the
+leering smile with which he inquired after Jeanne.
+
+As the freezing nights hardened the crust upon the surface of the
+sodden snow, Jacques discarded his rackets and, spending his days in
+the lodge, attended his traps at night by the light of a lantern.
+
+Daylight found him one morning headed homeward on a course paralleling
+the river and nearly opposite Moncrossen's camp. Steadily he plodded
+onward, and a smile came to his lips as he formulated his plans for the
+summer, which included the removal of Jeanne from her dangerous
+proximity to Moncrossen.
+
+He would change his hunting-ground, move his lodge up the river, and
+next season he would supply the camp of M's'u' Bill, whose heart was
+good, and who would see that no harm came to the girl.
+
+He swung onto the marshy arm of a small lake, whose surface was
+profusely dotted with conical muskrat houses which reared their brown
+domes above the broken rice-straw and cattail stalks.
+
+He had nearly reached the center when suddenly he halted, whirled half
+around, and clutched frantically at the breast of his shirt. It was as
+though some unseen hand had dealt him a sharp blow, and a dull,
+scorching pain shot through his chest.
+
+He drew away his hand, red and dripping, glanced wildly about,
+staggered a few steps, and crashed headlong, with a rustling sound,
+into the thick growth of dry cattail stalks.
+
+On the bank of the marsh a thin puff of vapory smoke drifted across the
+face of a blackened stump and dissolved in the crisp air, and the sharp
+crack of a high-power rifle of small caliber raised scarcely an echo
+against the wall of the opposite shore.
+
+A man stepped from behind the stump, glanced sharply about him, and
+grinned as he leisurely pumped another cartridge into the chamber.
+
+He bit the corner from a thick plug of tobacco, and gazed out over the
+marsh, which showed only the light yellow of the dry stalks and the
+brown domes of the rat-houses.
+
+"That ain't so bad fer two hundred yards--plugged him square in the
+middle, too. God! I'd hate to die!" he muttered, and, turning, followed
+the shore of the lake and struck into the timber in the direction in
+which the other had been going.
+
+An hour later he slipped silently behind the trunk of a tree at the
+edge of a tiny clearing in the center of which stood a single,
+smoke-blackened tepee.
+
+The blue smoke from a small fire in front of the opening floated lazily
+upward in the still air, and beside the blaze a leathern-faced crone
+squatted and stirred the contents of a black pot which simmered from a
+cross-piece supported at the ends by crotched sticks driven into the
+ground.
+
+The old squaw fitted the lid to the pot, hung the long-handled spoon
+upon a projection of a forked upright, and, picking up a tin pail,
+disappeared down the well-worn path to the river. With an evil leer the
+man stepped boldly into the clearing and crossed to the opening of the
+tepee.
+
+Stooping, he suddenly looked within, where Jeanne Lacombie knelt upon
+one knee as she fastened the thongs of her moccasin. The man grinned as
+he recognized the silvery hairs of the great white wolf skin which the
+girl had thrown across her shoulders.
+
+"So you swiped the greener's wolf-hide, did you? I seen it was gone
+offen the end of the bunk-house."
+
+At the sound the girl looked up, and the blood froze in her veins at
+the sight of the glittering eyes and sneering lips of Moncrossen. He
+spoke again:
+
+"You thought I was done with you, did you? Thought I'd forgot you, an'
+the fight the old she-tiger put up that night on Broken Knee? But that
+was in the dark, or there'd been a different story to tell."
+
+The words came in a horrible nasal snarl, and the little eyes glowed
+lustfully as they drank in the rich curves of the girl who had sprung
+to her feet, her muscles tense with terror.
+
+"Come along, now--an' come peaceable. You're _my_ woman now. I'm
+willin' to let bygones be bygones, an' I'll treat you right long as you
+don't try none of your tricks. You'll learn who's boss, an' as long as
+you stay by me you'll get plenty to eat an' white folks clothes to
+wear--that's a heap better'n livin' like a damned Injun--you'll soon
+fergit all this."
+
+His promises terrified the girl even more than the angry snarl, and
+with a loud cry she tried to spring past him, but his arms closed about
+her and he laughed a hard, brutal laugh of contempt for her puny
+struggles.
+
+A shadow fell upon them, and the man whirled, dodging quickly as the
+sharp bit of an axe grazed his shoulder and tore through the wall of
+the tepee. He released the girl and lunged toward the old squaw, who
+was reaching for the pot with its scalding contents.
+
+Seizing her by the arm, he threw her heavily to the ground, where she
+lay while the girl fled to the edge of the clearing and paused, for she
+knew that in the forest she could easily elude the heavy-footed lumber
+boss. Moncrossen, too, realized that pursuit would be useless, and in
+his rage leveled his rifle at the figure upon the ground.
+
+"Come back here!" he cried. "Come back, or by God I'll plug her like I
+plugged----" He stopped abruptly and glanced along the sights.
+
+The girl hesitated, and the voice of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta fell sharply upon
+her ear:
+
+"No! No! Do not come! He will not shoot! Even now his finger flutters
+upon the trigger! He is afraid to shoot!" And she glared defiantly into
+the glittering eyes that squinted above the gun-barrel. Slowly the
+muzzle lowered and the man laughed--a hard, dry laugh.
+
+"You're right!" he sneered. "I won't shoot. But if she don't come back
+you'll wish to God I had shot!"
+
+He turned to the girl: "I ain't goin' to chase you. I'm goin' to stand
+pat. When you git ready you c'n come to me--up to the camp. Meanwhile
+I'll put the old hag where the dogs won't bite her, an' while you stay
+away she don't eat--see? She ain't nothin' but a rack o' bones nohow,
+an' a few days'll fix her clock."
+
+"Go find Jacques!" cried the old woman, fumbling at her blanket.
+
+The man laughed. "Sure, go find him!" he taunted.
+
+A skinny hand was withdrawn from the blanket and the clawlike fingers
+clutched a fragment of broken knife-blade. She held it before the man
+and the shrunken lips mumbled unintelligible words; then, with a swift
+movement, she flung it from her and it rang upon the ice at the feet of
+the girl, who stooped swiftly and seized it.
+
+"Go!" cried the old woman. "Far up the river to the camp of the
+One-Good-White-Man!"
+
+Again Moncrossen laughed harshly.
+
+"You can't work none of your damned charms on me!" he sneered. "G'wan
+up the river. There ain't no one up there but Fallon's camp, an' you
+might better stick with me. Only don't stay too long. This here old
+leather image can't live without eatin', an' when you come we'll have
+heap big potlatch."
+
+The wigwam of old Wabishke, the Indian trapper, was pitched in a dense
+thicket on the shore of the little muskrat lake. In the early gray of
+the morning the old Indian was startled by the sound of a shot.
+
+He peered cautiously through the branches and saw a man pitch forward
+among the rice-stalks. Five minutes later another man carrying a rifle
+passed within a hundred feet of him and disappeared in the timber in
+the direction of Blood River Rapids. When he was gone Wabishke ran
+swiftly to the fallen man and conveyed him to the wigwam, where he
+plugged the bullet-hole with fat and bound up the wound.
+
+Two hours later the bushes parted and Jeanne Lacombie burst panting
+into the wigwam. The girl uttered a wild cry at the sight of her
+brother lying motionless upon the robe and dropped to her knees at his
+side.
+
+"Moncrossen," grunted the Indian, and watched in silent wonder as the
+girl leaped to her feet and, seizing an empty pack-sack, began stuffing
+it with food. Snatching a light blanket from the floor, she swung the
+pack to her shoulders and without a word dashed again into the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+THE WEDDING
+
+
+The events incident to the wedding of Bill Carmody and Ethel Manton are
+indelibly stamped upon the memory of every person present. The day was
+warmer than any preceding one, with a lowering, overcast sky. The dark,
+soggy snow melted rapidly, and the swollen surface stream gnawed and
+tore at the honeycombed ice of the river.
+
+In the cook-shack Daddy Dunnigan superintended the labors of half a
+dozen flunkies in the preparation of the Gargantuan wedding feast which
+was to follow the ceremony, and each man of the crew worked feverishly
+in the staging of the great event.
+
+The table, which extended the full length of the grub-shack, was
+scrubbed until it shone and was moved to one side to make room for the
+heavy benches arranged transversely, one behind the other.
+
+The wide aisle between the table and the ends of the benches, leading
+from the door to the improvised altar at the farther end of the room,
+was carpeted with blankets from the bunk-house, and suspended from the
+ceiling immediately in front of the altar swung the massive horseshoe,
+fresh and green with sprouting grain.
+
+During the afternoon a warm drizzle set in and the men completed the
+preparations amid a muttered cursing of the weather.
+
+An ominous booming and cracking now and then reached their ears from
+the direction of the river where the sullen, pent-up waters threatened
+momentarily to break their ice bonds, and the men knew that the logs
+must go out on the flood though the heavens fell.
+
+The drizzle continued, the gray daylight wore into darkness, and with
+the darkness came the return of good cheer. For rollways must be broken
+out in the light of day, and the air rang with loud laughter and the
+rhythmic swing of roaring chanteys, as the men realized that they were
+not to be robbed of their gala day with its long night of feasting.
+
+The phonograph, with its high-piled box of records, occupied a
+conspicuous place upon the dais, and upon the long table was displayed
+an enormous collection of gifts, chief among which was the ingeniously
+constructed chair with its broad back of flaring moose antlers.
+
+At seven-thirty the men filed in from the bunk-house and found places
+upon the benches where they sat awkwardly, conversing in loud whispers.
+
+Father Lapre, book in hand, took his place at the altar, and a few
+minutes later Bill Carmody entered with Sheridan and strode rapidly up
+the aisle. At the sight of the boss the crew rose as one man and the
+room rang with a loud, spontaneous cheer.
+
+The little priest held up his hand for silence. At a signal someone
+started the graphophone, and to the sweet strains of a march the bride
+appeared, leaning upon the arm of her uncle.
+
+Slowly, with bowed head, in the midst of a strained silence, she
+traversed the length of the long room, the cynosure of all eyes. When
+almost at the altar she raised her eyes to the man who awaited her
+there.
+
+Her quick, indrawn breath was almost a gasp, and Appleton felt her arm
+tremble upon his.
+
+He stood waiting for her--this man into whose keeping she was giving
+her life--exactly as she had seen him at the time of their first
+meeting in the North country when he stood, big and bearded, in the
+gathering dusk, framed in the doorway of the little office.
+
+In one swift glance she saw that every detail was the same, from the
+high-laced boots to the embroidered hunting-shirt open at the
+throat--only his eyes were different--there was no pain, now, in the
+gray eyes that blazed eagerly into her own--only happiness, and the
+burning passion of love.
+
+And then her uncle retired, and she stood alone with the man, facing
+the priest. She could hear the voice of the little pink priest and of
+the big man at her side, and as in a dream she found herself repeating
+the words of the ritual.
+
+She knew that a ring was being placed upon her finger, and she was a
+wife. And that the priest, in solemn voice, with outstretched hands,
+was extending them his blessing.
+
+The voice hesitated--stopped.
+
+In the rear of the room the door was thrown violently open and banged
+loudly against the log wall. There was a confused scuffling of feet and
+a scraping of heavy benches as the men craned their necks toward the
+entrance.
+
+Involuntarily Ethel turned, and there, gliding swiftly toward her up
+the blanket-carpeted aisle, was the most picturesquely beautiful woman
+she had ever seen.
+
+Wide-eyed she stared at the newcomer. Her face went deathly white, and
+the heart within her breast turned to ice, for instinctively she knew,
+by the wild, intense beauty of the woman, that she stood face to face
+with the Indian girl--the Jeanne of Bill Carmody's whispered words!
+
+Her brain took in the details with incredible rapidity; and the girl
+was still coming toward her as she noted the dazzling brightness of the
+great silvery wolf-skin that was flung about her shoulders and caught
+together at her soft throat; the mass of black hair, upon which the
+mist-beads sparkled like a million diamonds; the dark, liquid eyes, and
+the even, white teeth that glistened between the curving red lips.
+
+The girl was at her side now, and with a low cry threw herself upon her
+knees before the man, and stretched her arms toward him gropingly.
+
+"M's'u' Bill!" she cried, and the voice was sweet and soft; the words
+uttered with imploring intensity. And then in Ethel's ears was the
+voice of her husband.
+
+"Jeanne, Jeanne," he said; "why have you come? Speak, girl; why have
+you come to me?"
+
+At the sound of the name, the thought that at the very altar this
+woman's name was upon the lips of her husband, the hot blood surged to
+her face and the tiny fists clenched. She was about to speak, but was
+forestalled by the half-breed girl who had leaped to her feet and
+thrown her arms about Bill's neck and was speaking in short, stabbing
+words:
+
+"Come! Come now--with me! Oh, do not wait! Come--even now it may be too
+late!"
+
+The low voice quivered with excitement, and the man's hand patted her
+shoulder soothingly as he endeavored to quiet her. Ethel took a quick
+step forward, and the hard tone of her voice cut upon the air like the
+ring of tempered steel.
+
+"Who are you?" she cried. "Speak! What is this man to you?"
+
+The Indian girl turned and faced her, seeming for the first time aware
+of her presence. The dark, liquid eyes flashed as she drew herself to
+her full height.
+
+"To me, he is _everything_! I would die for him! _I love him!_"
+
+The tense tones rang through the long room where a hundred and fifty
+big men sat silent--hypnotized by the intense drama of the scene.
+
+With a lithe, swift movement the half-breed girl raised her hands to
+her bosom and tore at the fastenings of her hunting-shirt. There was
+the sound of popping buttons, the heavily embroidered shirt flew open,
+and there, gleaming cold and gray in the lamplight, upon the warm ivory
+of her bared breast lay a naked blade--the broken blade of a sheath
+knife!
+
+She broke the cord that held it suspended about her neck and extended
+the blade toward the man, uttering but a single word:
+
+"Come!"
+
+And as Bill's eyes fell upon the bit of metal his form stiffened and
+his fists clenched.
+
+"I will come--lead on!" he answered For in his mind rang the words of
+his solemn promise: "No people of the earth, and nothing that is upon
+the earth, nor of the earth, shall prevent me--and one day you will
+know that my words are true."
+
+The half-breed girl had already turned away when the man's eyes sought
+the eyes of his wife. She was regarding him with a strange, frightened
+stare. Her face had turned marble white at his words, and she gasped
+uncertainly for breath.
+
+Her pallor alarmed Bill, who stepped toward her with outstretched arms;
+but she shrank from his touch and her blue eyes fixed him with their
+cold, frightened stare.
+
+"Ethel!" he cried. "Darling--my wife! _I must go!_ It is _The
+Promise_!" Unconsciously he repeated the words of the old squaw.
+"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, in the last extremity of her need, is calling--and I
+must go to her.
+
+"Oh, can't you see?" he cried suddenly, as the look of horror deepened
+upon the face of his wife. "Darling--only long enough to give her
+aid--then I will return! Surely, surely, dear, you trust me! You will
+believe in me--just this once! When I return to you I will explain
+all--I can't wait, now--good-by!"
+
+He turned to follow the Indian girl, but before he could take a step
+his wife's arms were about his neck and her words came in great choking
+sobs:
+
+"No! No! No! You are _mine_! You cannot go! You will not leave me at
+the altar! Oh, if you loved me--if you loved me, you could not go!"
+
+Bill's arms were about her, and the words rushed from his lips: "Love
+you! I love you more than life itself--I live for _you_! But I
+promised--my word has passed--_I must go!_ In a day--two days--a
+week--you shall know and understand."
+
+With a low, moaning cry Ethel tore herself from his embrace and reeled,
+fainting into the arms of the priest, while her husband, white lipped,
+followed swiftly after the Indian girl who had already gained the end
+of the aisle.
+
+But a few moments had elapsed since Jeanne Lacombie had burst into the
+room. Moments so tense--so laden with terrible portent--that, although
+every person in the room heard each spoken word, brains failed to grasp
+their significance; and Appleton, from his bench near the door, as he
+saw Bill Carmody turn from his fainting wife, for the first time
+doubted his sincerity.
+
+Men were on their feet now, gazing incredulously at the boss, who,
+looking neither to the left nor to the right, strode rapidly down the
+aisle.
+
+Scarcely knowing what he did, with the one thought uppermost in his
+mind, to stop the foreman and bring him to his senses, Appleton leaped
+the intervening benches and, slamming the heavy door, shot the stout
+bar.
+
+With a roar of anger Bill seized a heavy split log bench, sending a
+couple of lumber-jacks tumbling among the feet of their fellows, and
+whirling it high above his head, drove it crashing through the door.
+
+The bar snapped like a toothpick, the heavy panel split in half and
+dropped sidewise, and without a moment's hesitation Bill grasped the
+half-breed girl about the waist and swung her through the splintered
+aperture.
+
+Turning, he swept the room with a glare of defiance. For a moment men
+looked into the narrowed eyes; and then, as the eyes of the boss rested
+for an instant upon the inert form of his wife, they saw the defiant
+glare melt into a look of compassion and misery such as none had ever
+seen in human eyes.
+
+Then his shoulders stiffened, his jaw squared, and without a word he
+stepped through the shattered door and disappeared in the black
+drizzle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+ON THE RIVER
+
+
+That Blood River Jack's fear for the safety of Jeanne was well founded
+was borne home to Bill Carmody in the story the girl poured into his
+ears as they pushed on in the direction of Moncrossen's camp.
+
+The night was jet black, and Bill marveled at the endurance of the girl
+and the unfailing sagacity with which she led the way.
+
+The honeycombed river ice sagged toward the middle of the stream, and
+the water from the melting snow followed this depression, leaving the
+higher edges comparatively dry and free from snow.
+
+The drizzling rain continued as the two stumbled forward, slipping and
+splashing through deep pools of icy water. Each moment they were in
+danger of plunging through some hole in the rotting ice; but the girl
+pushed unhesitatingly onward, and the man followed.
+
+Between them and the camp of Moncrossen lay upward of a hundred miles
+of precarious river trail, and with no crust on the water-soaked snow
+of the forest they could not take advantage of the short cuts which
+would have stricken many miles from their journey.
+
+It was broad daylight when Bill called a halt, and after many
+unsuccessful attempts succeeded in kindling a sickly blaze in the
+shelter of a clay-streaked cut-bank.
+
+He unslung the pack which he had taken from the shoulders of the girl,
+and removed some bacon and sodden bannock. As they toasted the bacon
+and dried the bannock at the smoky fire the girl hardly removed her
+gaze from the face of the big, silent man who, during the whole long
+night, had scarcely spoken a word.
+
+Her eyes flashed as they traveled over the mighty breadth of him and
+noted the great muscular arms, the tight-clamped jaw, and the steely
+glint of the narrowed gray eyes.
+
+Her face glowed with the pride of his strength as she recalled the
+parting scene in the bunk-house when he had hurled the heavy bench,
+crashing through the door, and defied the men of the logs.
+
+He had done this thing for _her_, she reflected--for her, and that he
+might keep his promise to old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She wondered at his
+silence. Why did he not speak? And why did he sit gazing with
+tight-pressed lips into the flaring, spitting little fire?
+
+Her breath came faster, and she laid a timid hand upon the man's arm.
+
+"The woman?" she asked abruptly. "Who is this woman with the hair of
+gold and the eyes of the summer sky?" The slender fingers gripped his
+arm convulsively. "She is the woman of the picture!" she cried, and her
+eyes sought his.
+
+Bill Carmody nodded slowly and continued to stare into the fire.
+
+"She is my--my wife," he groaned.
+
+"Your--_wife_!"
+
+The girl repeated the words dully, as if seeking to grasp their import.
+Her fingers relaxed, her eyes closed, and she lay heavily back upon the
+blanket. A long time she remained thus while Bill stared stolidly into
+the fire.
+
+At length he aroused himself and glanced toward Jeanne, who lay at his
+side, breathing the long, regular breaths of the deep sleep of utter
+weariness; and he noted the deep lines of the beautiful face and the
+hollow circles beneath the closed eyes that told of the terrible
+trail-strain.
+
+"Sixty straight hours of _that_!" he exclaimed as his glance traveled
+over the precarious river trail. Curbing his patience, he waited an
+hour and then gently awoke the sleeping girl.
+
+"Jeanne," he said as she gazed at him in bewilderment, "you need sleep.
+I will go alone to the camp of Moncrossen." At the words she sprang to
+her feet.
+
+"No! No!" she cried; "I have slept. I am not tired. Come--to-day, and
+to-night--and in the morning we come to the camp."
+
+"We must go then," said Bill, and added more to himself than to Jeanne:
+"I wonder if he would _dare_?"
+
+"He would dare _anything_--that is not good!" the girl answered
+quickly. "He has the bad heart. But Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will not starve
+quickly. She is old and tough, and can go for many days without food;
+as in the time of the famine when she refused to eat that we, her
+children, might live.
+
+"Even in times of plenty she eats but little, for she lives in the long
+ago with Lacombie--in the days of her youth and--and happiness. For she
+loved Lacombie, and--Lacombie--loved--her."
+
+The girl's voice broke throatily, and she turned abruptly toward the
+river.
+
+The fine, drizzling rain, which had fallen steadily all through the
+night, changed to a steady downpour that chilled them to the bone.
+
+The stream of shallow water that flowed over the surface of the ice
+swelled to a torrent, forcing them again and again to abandon the river
+and slosh knee-deep through the saturated snow of the forest.
+
+Broken ice cakes began to drift past--thick, black cakes which scraped
+and ground together as they swung heavily in the current.
+
+"The ice is going out!" cried the girl in dismay. "We can no longer
+keep to the river!"
+
+Bill's teeth clenched. "The breakup!" he groaned. "Moncrossen will go
+out on the flood, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta----"
+
+He redoubled his efforts, fairly dragging the girl through the deep
+slush. The rain was carrying off the snow with a rush. The gullies and
+ravines were running bankful, and time and again the two were forced to
+plunge shoulder-deep into the icy waters.
+
+At noon they halted, and in the dripping shelter of a dense thicket
+wolfed down a quantity of sodden bannock and raw bacon. The river rose
+hourly, and the crash and grind of the moving ice thundered
+continuously upon their ears.
+
+Progress was slow and grueling. By the middle of the afternoon they had
+covered about forty miles. The water from the rising river began to set
+back into the ravines, forcing them to make long detours before daring
+to chance a ford.
+
+Darkness came as an added hardship, and as they toiled doggedly around
+an abrupt bend they saw on a tiny plateau, high above the dark waters
+of the river, a faint flicker of light.
+
+The girl paused and regarded it curiously; then, hurrying to the point,
+she peered up and down the river, striving for landmarks in the
+gathering gloom.
+
+"Vic Chenault's cabin!" she cried. "I missed it coming up. I knew it
+was somewhere up the river. He is a friend of Jacques, and his father
+was the good friend of Lacombie."
+
+Drenched and weary, the two pushed toward the light, crossing
+swift-rushing gullies whose icy waters threatened each moment to sweep
+them from their feet.
+
+Slipping and stumbling through the muck and slush, crashing through
+dripping underbrush, they stood at length before the door of the
+low-roofed log cabin.
+
+Their knock was answered by a tousled-headed man who stood, lamp in
+hand, and blinked owlishly at them from the shelter of the doorway.
+
+"You are Vic Chenault?" asked the girl, and, without waiting for his
+grunted assent, continued: "I am Jeanne Lacombie, and this is M's'u'
+Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
+
+At the mention of the names the door swung wide and the man smiled a
+welcome. They entered amid a rabble of sled-dogs and puppies, which
+rolled about the floor in a seemingly inextricable tangle, with
+numerous dusky youngsters of various ages and conditions of nudity.
+
+Chenault's Indian wife sat upon the edge of the bunk, a blackened
+cob-pipe between her teeth, industriously beading a moccasin; and
+seemed in no wise disturbed by the arrival of visitors, nor by the
+babel of hubbub that arose from the floor, where dogs and babies howled
+their protest against the cold draft from the open door and the pools
+of ice-cold water that drained from the clothing of the strangers.
+
+Chenault pronounced a few guttural syllables, and the stolid squaw
+reached behind her and, removing a single garment of flaming red calico
+from a nail, extended it toward Jeanne.
+
+The girl accepted it with thanks, and her eyes roved about the cabin,
+which, being a one-roomed affair, offered scant privacy. The woman
+caught the corner of a blanket upon a projecting nail and another
+corner upon a similar nail in the upright of the bunk, and motioned the
+girl behind the screen with a short wave of her pipe.
+
+The man offered Bill a pair of faded blue overalls and a much-bepatched
+shirt of blue flannel, and when Jeanne emerged, clad in the best dress
+of her hostess, Bill took his turn in the dressing-room.
+
+"Can't be too pedicular in a pinch," he grinned as he wriggled
+dubiously into the dry garments, and in a few minutes he was seated
+beside the girl upon a rough bench drawn close to the fire.
+
+Chenault, being a half-breed, was more inclined toward garrulity than
+his Indian spouse.
+
+"How you come?" he asked with evident interest. Jeanne answered him,
+speaking rapidly, and at the end of a half-hour the man was in full
+possession of the details of their plight. He slowly shook his head.
+
+"Moncrossen camp ver' far--feefty--seexty mile," he said. "You no
+mak'."
+
+Bill looked up suddenly. "Have you a canoe?" he inquired.
+
+The other looked at him in surprise. "Canoe, she no good!" he grunted.
+"Too mooch ice. Bre'k all to hell in one minute!"
+
+With an exclamation he leaped to his feet. "By gar! De flat boat!" he
+cried triumphantly.
+
+"She is all build for tak' de fur. De riv', she run ver' swift. In de
+morning you go--in de evening you come on de camp!"
+
+"I will pay you well for the boat," said Bill eagerly. "I have no money
+here. Give me a pencil; I will write an order on Monsieur Appleton, the
+man who owns the woods."
+
+At the words the half-breed shrugged.
+
+"You no got for mak' write," he said. "You tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta you
+come--by gar! You come! You tell me you pay--you pay. You no got for
+mak' write."
+
+Bill smiled.
+
+"That is all right, providing I get through. What if the boat gets
+tipped over or smashed in the ice?"
+
+Chenault shrugged again. "You De-Man-Who-Cannot-Die," he said. "You got
+de good heart. In de woods all peoples know. You no mak' write. I got
+no penzil."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+FACE TO FACE
+
+
+Before daylight next morning the two men dragged the little flat boat
+to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night
+and out of the darkness came the crash and grind of ice, the dull roar
+and splash of undermined banks, and the purling rumble of swift moving
+water.
+
+After breakfast Bill and Jeanne, armed with light spruce poles, took
+their places; Chenault pushed the boat into the current and it shot
+downstream, whirling in the grip of the flood.
+
+There was no need for oars. Both Bill and the girl had their work cut
+out warding off from drifting ice cakes and the thrashing branches of
+uprooted trees.
+
+Time and again they came within a hair's-breadth of destruction. The
+eddying, seething surface of the swift rushing river seemed to hurl its
+debris toward their little craft in fiendish malevolence. Ice cakes
+crashed together on every hand, water-logged tree-butts snagged them
+bow and stern, and the low-hanging limbs of "sweepers" clawed and tore
+at them like the teeth of a giant rake as they swept beneath, lying
+flat upon the bottom of the boat.
+
+Bill grinned at the thought of a canoe. In the suck and swirl of the
+current the odds were heavily against even the stout flat boat's
+winning through.
+
+He estimated their speed to be about eight miles an hour and devoted
+his whole attention to preventing the boat from fouling the drift. They
+were riding the "run out," and he knew that Moncrossen would wait for
+the river to become comparatively free of drift before breaking out his
+rollways.
+
+The rain ceased, but the sky remained heavily overcast and darkness
+overtook them while yet some distance above the log camp and skirting
+the opposite shore.
+
+Eager as he was to meet Moncrossen, Bill decided not to risk crossing
+the river in the fast gathering darkness. Gradually the boat was worked
+toward shore and poled into the backwater of submerged beaver meadow.
+
+Landing upon a slope a couple of hundred yards back from the river,
+they tilted the boat on edge, and, inclining it forward, rested it upon
+the tops of stakes thrust into the ground. The blanket was spread, and
+with the roaring fire directly in front the uptilted boat made an
+excellent shelter.
+
+An awkward constraint, broken only by necessary monosyllables, had
+settled upon the two. On the river each had been too busy with the
+workin hand to give the other more than a passing thought, but now, in
+the intimacy of the campfire, each felt uneasily self-conscious.
+
+Supper over, Bill lighted his pipe and stared moodily into the flames
+with set face and brooding eye. From her position at his side Jeanne
+covertly watched the silent man.
+
+Of what was he thinking? Surely not of the girl--his wife! She winced
+at the word--but the tense, almost fierce expression of his face, the
+occasional spasmodic clenching of the great fists, could scarcely
+accompany a man's thoughts of his wife of an hour.
+
+Of Moncrossen? she wondered. Of the shooting of Jacques? Of the attack
+upon her? Of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta? But, no--the gray eyes were staring into
+the fire calmly, and in their depths she could see no gleam of hate nor
+steely glitter of rage.
+
+What was it he said the day she told him of the affair on Broken Knee?
+"I, too, could kill him for that." The girl gave it up, and fell to
+wondering what the morrow would bring forth.
+
+At daylight, when they poled the boat into the river, Bill gazed in
+surprise at the surface of the stream. A few belated ice cakes floated
+lazily in the current, and many uprooted snags reared their scraggly
+heads as they rolled sluggishly in the water.
+
+But what riveted his attention were the logs. Hundreds and hundreds of
+smoothly floating logs dotted the river, and as far as the eye could
+reach more logs were coming.
+
+He leaped to his feet and stood, shading his eyes with his hand. Far up
+the stream the surface seemed solid with logs, and here and there he
+could make out moving figures--tiny and frail they looked, like
+strange, misshapen insects, as they leaped from log to rolling log--the
+white-water men of the North.
+
+"It's the drive!" he cried excitedly. "_My_ drive! Come, pole for your
+life--we've got to work her across!"
+
+A mile farther down they swept around a wide bend, and before them
+loomed the cleared rollways of Moncrossen's camp, and on top of the
+slope, for all the world like fortifications commanding the river, were
+pile after pile of pyramided logs.
+
+The little flat boat was rapidly approaching, and men could be seen
+swarming about the rollways. One man with a shirt of flaming red rushed
+among them, gesticulating wildly, and faintly to their ears came the
+raucous bellowing of his voice. At the sight of him Jeanne paled
+visibly. The man was Moncrossen.
+
+Even as they looked the first rollway tore loose; the logs, rolling and
+tumbling down the steep slope, leaped into the river with a roar and a
+splash that sent a fountain of white spray flying skyward. Bill set his
+pole and fairly hurled the boat into the bank well above the rollways.
+
+"Good God!" he cried. "Can't he see the drive? They'll jam and my men
+will be killed!" He leaped ashore and crashed through the intervening
+underbrush in great bounds, closely followed by the light-footed
+Jeanne.
+
+They gained the top, and while rushing along the rollways could hear
+Moncrossen roaring his orders--could catch the words that foamed from
+his lips amid volleys of crashing oaths.
+
+"Cut them toggles! Let 'em go! Let 'em go! Damn you! Foul that drive!
+I'll show 'em if they c'n slip a drive through me!"
+
+And then--face to face between two high-piled pyramids--they met. The
+words died in a horrible, throaty gurgle; and Moncrossen's face, livid
+with rage, turned chalky as his eyes roved vacantly from Bill Carmody's
+face to the face of the girl beyond. His jaw wagged weakly, his flabby
+lips sagged open, exposing the jagged, brown teeth, and he passed his
+hand uncertainly across his eyes.
+
+"It's the greener," he mumbled thickly. "It's the greener hisself."
+
+Another rollway rumbled into the river, and Bill leaped into the open.
+"Stop!" he cried. "It's murder! There are men on that drive!"
+
+The two lumber-jacks who stood almost at his side turned at the sound
+of his voice. For one moment they stared into his face, and then with a
+wild yell dropped their peavies and fled toward the bunk-house. Other
+men looked, and from lip to lip flashed the word, "The greener!" Men
+stared at him dumbly, or turned and dashed for the clearing in a panic
+of fear.
+
+"He come up out of the river!" shrilled one as he ran. "I seen him! An'
+I seen him go under a year back! He come hell a rippin' up through the
+bushes--an' a she one a follerin'!"
+
+Men crowded about--the bolder spirits, the matter of fact, and the
+unsuperstitious among the crew--and Bill turned again to Moncrossen,
+who stood rooted in his tracks.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked in a low voice that cut distinctly upon the
+silence. "The mother of this girl?" Moncrossen started. With a visible
+effort he strove for control of himself.
+
+"Who are you?" he blurted, and the words rasped hollow and dry.
+
+Bill turned to the men.
+
+"Do _you_ know?" he asked. "An old Indian woman--did he bring her to
+this camp?"
+
+The men stared blankly from the speaker to Moncrossen and into each
+other's faces. Suddenly, one stepped forward.
+
+"Look in the storeroom!" he cried. "A little while back--it was at
+night--I seen 'em drag somethin' in--him an' Larson of the van." At the
+words, Moncrossen sprang toward the speaker with an inarticulate growl
+of rage.
+
+"You lie!" he screamed; but before he reached the man, who shrank back
+into the crowd, Bill stepped in front of him. He raised his arm and
+pointed toward the clearing.
+
+"To the storehouse," he said in the same low voice. For a fleeting
+second Moncrossen glared into his eyes, and without a word, turned and
+led the way, closely followed by Bill and Jeanne, while the crowd of
+wondering lumber-jacks brought up the rear.
+
+At the storehouse Moncrossen paused. "I'll fetch the key from the
+office," he leered; but Bill turned to a man who stood leaning upon his
+axe.
+
+"Smash that door!" he commanded; and a half-dozen men sprang to the
+task. The next instant the door flew inward, and the men crowded into
+the building to return a few moments later bearing the old squaw,
+gagged, bound, and wrapped tightly in a blanket, but with the undimmed
+black eyes glaring upon them like a hawk's.
+
+The cords were cut and the gag removed by willing hands. Someone held a
+bottle to her lips, and she drank greedily. Jeanne dropped to her knees
+by the old woman's side.
+
+"He has come," she whispered. "M's'u' Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die, has
+come to you." Wa-ha-ta-na-ta nodded her understanding, and her beady
+black eyes flashed.
+
+"She must have water!" cried the girl; "and food!"
+
+At the words a half-dozen men rushed toward the cook-shack, returning a
+few minutes later laden as to victual a regiment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+THE PROMISE FULFILLED
+
+
+Again the interest centered upon the two big men who faced each other
+on the trodden ground of the clearing. Other men came--the ones who had
+fled from the rollway, their curiosity conquering their fear at the
+sight of the dead man.
+
+And now the greener was speaking, and the tone of his voice was gentle
+in its velvety softness. His lips smiled, and his gray eyes, narrowed
+to slits, shone cold--with a terrible, steely coldness, so that men
+looked once, and shuddered as they looked.
+
+"And, now, Moncrossen," he was saying, "_we will fight_. It is a long
+score that you and I have to settle. It starts with your dirty schemes
+that Stromberg wouldn't touch.
+
+"Then, the well-laid plan to have Creed bump me off that night at
+Melton's No. 9; and the incident of the river, when you broke the jam.
+You thought you had me, then, Moncrossen. You thought I was done for
+good and all, when I disappeared under the water.
+
+"There are other things, too--little acts of yours, that we will figure
+in as we go. The affair on Broken Knee, when you attacked this young
+girl; the shooting of Blood River Jack, from ambush; the second attack
+on the girl at the foot of the rapid--and the brutal starving of
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta.
+
+"Oh, yes; and the little matter of the bird's-eye. I have the logs,
+Moncrossen, all safely cached--the pile of ashes you found was a blind.
+Quite a long score, take it first and last, isn't it, Moncrossen?"
+
+The silence, save for the sound of the voice, was almost painful. Men
+strained to listen, looking from one to the other of the two big men,
+with white, tense faces.
+
+At the words, the blood rushed to the boss's face. His little, swinish
+eyes fairly blazed in their sockets. He was speechless with fury. The
+cords knotted in his neck, and a great blue vein stood out upon his
+forehead. The breath hissed through his clenched teeth as the goading
+words fell in the voice of purring softness.
+
+"But it has come to a show-down at last, between you and me," the
+greener went on as he slowly and methodically turned the sleeves of his
+shirt back from his mighty forearms. "They tell me you are a fighting
+man, Moncrossen. They tell me you have licked men--here in the
+woods--good men, too. And they tell me you have knocked down drunken
+men, and stamped on their faces with your steel-calked boots.
+
+"Maybe--if you last well--I will save a couple of punches for those
+poor devils' account. I think you will last, Moncrossen. You are big,
+and strong, and you are mad enough, in your blind, bull-headed way.
+
+"But I am not going to knock you out. I am going to make you _lie
+down_--to make you show your yellow, and quit cold; for this is going
+to be your last fight. When I am through, Moncrossen, you won't be
+worth licking--no ten-year-old boy will think it worth his while to
+step out of his way to slap your dirty face."
+
+With a hoarse bellow, Moncrossen launched himself at the speaker. And
+just at that moment--swarming over the bank at the rollways--came the
+men of the upper drive. The leaders paused, and sizing up the
+situation, came on at a run.
+
+"A fight!" they yelled. "A fight! H-o-o-r-a-y!"
+
+Then came Appleton and Sheridan with their wives, and beside them
+walked a slender, girlish figure, whose shoulders drooped wearily, and
+whose face was concealed by a heavy, dark-blue veil.
+
+The two lumbermen guided the ladies hurriedly in the direction of the
+office, when suddenly the shrill voice of Charlie Manton broke upon
+their ears.
+
+"Whoo-p-e-e! It's _Bill_! Go to it, Bill! Swing on him! Give him your
+left, Bill! Give him your left!"
+
+They halted, and obeying some strange impulse, the girlish figure
+turned and made straight for the wildly yelling men, who stood in the
+form of a great circle in the center of which two men weaved and milled
+about each other in a blur of motion.
+
+Old Daddy Dunnigan was the first to see her hovering uncertainly upon
+the edge of the crowd. Brandishing his crutch he howled into the ears
+of those nearest him:
+
+"Give th' lady a chanst! Come on, miss! He's _her_ man, an' God be
+praised! she wants to see 'um foight!"
+
+The men made a lane, and scarcely knowing what she did, Ethel found
+herself standing beside the old Irishman, who had wormed his way to the
+very front rank of the crowding circle. She stared in fascinated
+terror, throwing back her veil for a clearer view, regardless of the
+men who stared at _her_ in surprise and wondered at the whiteness of
+her face.
+
+Bill Carmody met Moncrossen's first rush with a quick, short jab that
+reached the corner of his eye. With an almost imperceptible movement he
+leaned to one side, and the flail-like swing of the huge boss's arm
+passed harmlessly within an inch of his ear.
+
+Moncrossen lost no time. Pivoting, he swung a terrific body blow which
+glanced lightly against Bill's lowered shoulder, and the greener came
+back with two stiff raps to the ear.
+
+Again and again Moncrossen rushed his antagonist, lashing out with both
+fists, but always the blows failed by a barely perceptible margin, and
+Bill--always smiling, and without appreciable effort--stung him with
+short, swift punches to the face.
+
+And always he talked. Low and smooth his voice sounded between the thud
+of blows and the heavy breathing of the big boss.
+
+"Poor business, Moncrossen--poor judgment--for a fighting man. Save
+your wind--take it easy, and you'll last longer--this is a _long_
+fight, Moncrossen--take it slow--slow and steady."
+
+The taunting voice was always in the boss's ears, goading him to blind
+fury. He paused for breath, with guard uplifted, and in that moment
+Bill Carmody saw for the first time the figure of his wife. For an
+instant their eyes met, and then Moncrossen was at him again. But
+Bill's low, taunting voice did not waver.
+
+"That's better," he said, and moved his head to one side as a vicious
+blow passed close. "And now, Moncrossen, I'm going to hit you on the
+nose--I haven't hit you yet--those others were just to feel you out."
+
+With an incredibly swift movement he swung clear from the shoulder.
+There was the wicked, smashing sound of living flesh hard struck. The
+big boss staggered backward, pawing the air, and the red blood spurted
+from his flattened nose.
+
+"That one is for trying to get Stromberg to file a link." Bill ducked a
+lunging blow without raising his guard. "And now your ear, Moncrossen;
+I won't knock it off, but it will never be pretty again."
+
+Another long swing landed with a glancing twist that split the ear in
+half. "That is for the Creed item--and this one is for the river."
+
+The boss's head snapped backward to the impact of a smashing blow;
+again he staggered, and, turning, spat a mouthful of blood which seeped
+into the ground, leaving upon the surface several brownish, misshapen
+nuggets.
+
+"God!" breathed a man, and turned away. "It's his teeth!"
+
+The yelling had ceased and men stared white faced. This was not the
+fighting they were used to; they understood only the quick, frenzied
+fighting of fury, where men pummel each other in blind rage, fighting
+close--as tigers fight--gouging and biting one another as they roll
+upon the ground locked in each other's grip.
+
+The men gazed in awe, with a strange, unspoken terror creeping into
+their hearts, upon the vicious battering blows, the coldly gleaming
+eyes and smiling lips of the man who fought, not in any fume of
+passion, but deliberately, smoothly, placing his terrific blows at will
+with a cold, deadly accuracy that smashed and tore.
+
+Moncrossen rushed again.
+
+"And now for the other things," Bill continued; "the attacks upon the
+defenseless girl--the attempted murder from ambush--and the starving of
+an old woman."
+
+Blow followed blow, until in the crowd men cried out sharply, and those
+who had watched a hundred fights turned away white lipped.
+
+Moncrossen fought blindly now. His eyes were closed and his face one
+solid mass of blood. And still the blows fell. Smash! Smash! Smash! It
+was horrible--those deliberate, tearing blows, and the lips that smiled
+in cold, savage cruelty.
+
+No blow landed on the point of the jaw, on the neck, on the heart, or
+the pit of the stomach--blows that bring the quiet of oblivion; but
+each landed with a cutting twist that ground into the flesh.
+
+At last, with his face beaten to a crimson pulp, Moncrossen sagged to
+his knees, tried to rise, and crashed limp and lifeless to the ground.
+And over him stood Bill Carmody, smiling down at the broken and
+battered wreck of the bad man of the logs.
+
+Gradually the circle that surrounded the fighters broke into little
+groups of white-faced, silent men who shot nervous, inquiring glances
+into each other's faces and swore softly under their breath--the
+foolish, meaningless oaths of excitement.
+
+Minutes passed as Ethel stood gazing in terrible fascination from the
+big man to the thing on the ground at his feet. And as she looked, a
+hideous old squaw, apparently too weak to stand, struggled from her
+place of vantage among the feet of the men, and crawled to the limp,
+sprawled form.
+
+Leaning close she peered into the shapeless features, crooning and
+gurgling, and emitting short, sharp whines of delight. Her beady eyes
+glittered wickedly, like the eyes of a snake, and the withered lips
+curled into a horrid grin, exposing the purple snag-toothed gums.
+
+Suddenly the bent form knelt upright, the skeleton arms raised high
+above the tangle of gray-black hair, the thin, high-pitched voice
+quavered the words of a weird chant, the clawlike fingers twitched in
+short, jerky spasms, and the emaciated body swayed and weaved to the
+wild, barbaric rhythm of the chanted curse.
+
+Terrible, blighting, the words were borne to the ears of the girl.
+Bearded men looked, listened, and turned away, shuddering. The sun
+burst suddenly through a rift in the flying clouds, and his golden
+radiance fell incongruously upon the scene.
+
+Ethel gazed as at some horrid phantasm--the rough men with gaudy shirts
+of red and blue and multicolored checks, standing in groups with tense,
+set faces--the other man--_her_ man--standing alone, silent and
+smiling, by the side of his blood-bathed victim, and the old crone,
+whose marcid form writhed in the swing of the thin-shrieked chant.
+
+And then before she sensed that he had moved he stood before her. She
+raised her eyes to his in which the hard, cold gleam had given place to
+a look of intense longing, of infinite love, and the long-pent yearning
+of a soul.
+
+He stretched his arms toward her and she saw that the bruised and
+swollen hands were stained with blood. Suddenly she realized that this
+man was her _husband_. A sickening fear overcame her, and she shrank,
+shuddering, from the touch of the blood-smeared hands.
+
+A look of terror came into her face; she covered her eyes with her
+hands as if to shut out the horror of it all, and, turning, fled
+blindly--she knew not where.
+
+As she ran there still sounded in her ears the words of the high, thin
+chant--the blighting curse of Yaga Tah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+THE BIG MAN
+
+
+Darkness settled over the North country. The sky had cleared, the wind
+gone down, and the air was soft and balmy with the feel of spring. A
+million stars sparkled overhead and above the intense blackness of the
+pines the moon rose, flooding the timberland with the mystery of her
+soft radiance.
+
+Ethel tossed uneasily in her cot and glanced across to where her aunt
+and Mrs. Sheridan slumbered heavily. Then she arose and stood at the
+window gazing out on the moonlit clearing with its low, silent
+buildings, and clean-cut, black shadows.
+
+Noiselessly she dressed and stole into the silvery world. Utterly
+wretched, dispirited, heartsick, she wandered aimlessly, neither
+knowing nor caring whither her slow, dragging steps carried her.
+
+Somewhere in the distance, sounding faint and far, came the shouts of
+men. Unconsciously she wandered toward the river. On the edge of a high
+bluff overlooking the rollways and the rushing waters she paused,
+leaning wearily against the bole of a giant birch.
+
+Thanks to the quick action of Bill Carmody Moncrossen's scheme of
+fouling the upper drive had taken no toll of human life. The few
+rollways that were broken out, however, were sufficient to cause a
+nasty jam, and far below where the girl stood the men of both crews
+worked furiously among the high-piled logs.
+
+Weird and unreal it seemed to Ethel as she gazed down upon the flare of
+huge fires built upon the bank, the tiny flash of lanterns and the
+flicker of torches, where the men swarmed out upon the uncertain
+footing.
+
+Rough calls of rough men sounded above the crash and pound of logs and
+the roar of the rushing waters. Now and then a scrap of rude chantey
+reached her ears, a hoarse oath, or a loud, clear order in a voice she
+knew so well.
+
+It was like some eery fantasy, born of an overwrought brain. And yet
+she knew it was real--intensely real. Down there among the flashing
+lights men played with death--big, rough men who laughed loud as they
+played, and swore mighty oaths, and sang wild, full-throated songs.
+
+From the shadow almost at her side came the sound of a half-stifled
+sob. She started. There was a soft footfall on the leaf-mold, and
+before her stood Jeanne Lacombie. The soft moonlight touched with
+silvery sheen the long hairs of the great, white wolf-skin which the
+girl wore thrown loosely across her shoulders.
+
+As Ethel gazed upon the wild, dark beauty of the Indian girl her tiny
+fists clenched, and her breath came in short, quick gasps.
+
+Why was she here? Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty
+rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced
+the girl her blue eyes flashed.
+
+And then the Indian girl spoke, and at the first words of the soft,
+rich voice, the rage died in her heart. She looked closely, and in the
+dark, liquid eyes was a look the white girl will never forget.
+
+She listened, and with few words and all the dramatic eloquence of the
+pure Indian the half-breed girl told of the rescue from the river; of
+her own love for M's'u' Bill, "The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die"; of his firm
+rejection of that love; of her pursuit of him when he started for the
+land of the white man; of the scene at the camp-fire when old
+Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him "The One Good White Man"; of the broken
+knife; of The Promise; of her peril at the hand of Moncrossen, and of
+the cold-blooded shooting of her brother.
+
+And then she told of Bill's all-absorbing love for her, Ethel. And of
+how he always loved her, even when he believed she hated and despised
+him; of his deep hurt and the misery of his soul when he believed that
+she was to marry another.
+
+Until suddenly there in the moonlight the girl of the city saw for the
+first time the bigness of the man--_her man_. She saw him as he was now
+and as he had been in the making--the man who had been dubbed "Broadway
+Bill, the sport"; the "souse," who had "soaked a cop" and then "beat it
+in a taxi."
+
+And then the man who, without name or explanation, had won the regard
+of such a keen judge of men as Appleton, and who, under the stigma of
+theft, held that regard without question; the man who beat the booze
+game after he had lost his heart's desire, and had been sneered at as a
+coward and a quitter; the man who having gained his heart's desire, in
+the very bigness of him, had unhesitatingly risked wrecking his whole
+life's happiness to keep his promise to an old, toothless, savage
+crone; and who, in brute fashion, bare-fisted, had all but pounded the
+life from the body of the hulking Moncrossen in defense of a woman's
+honor.
+
+And _this_ was the man who, eighteen short months before, had
+turkey-trotted upon the sidewalk in front of a gay resort, and had
+"pulled it too raw even for Broadway!"
+
+The flood-gates of her soul opened, as is the way of women in all the
+world. The great sobs came, and with them tears, and in the
+tree-filtered moonlight the two girls--the tutored white girl and the
+half-savage Indian--women both--wept in each other's arms.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Up the trail from the river, almost at their feet, wearily climbed a
+man, dog-tired from physical exertion; and worn out with responsibility
+and heart-rack he toiled slowly up the steep ascent.
+
+At the top he paused and removed his cap to let the cool air blow
+against his throbbing temples. At the sight of the two forms he drew
+back; but at the same moment they saw him.
+
+With one last, long look, and no word of farewell save a dry, choking
+sob, the Indian girl glided silently into the darkness of the forest,
+which was her home, and the home of her people.
+
+On the edge of the bluff the other stood silhouetted against the
+star-flecked sky. She, too, gazed at the man who stood motionless in
+the moonlight. Then with a lithe, quick movement she opened her arms to
+him, her lips parted, and in the blue eyes blazed the love of all the
+ages.
+
+As her body poised to meet his the man sprang toward her. His arms
+closed about her, their lips met; and for a long, long time they looked
+deep into each other's eyes.
+
+Then slowly the tiny fingers closed about his, the girl raised them
+reverently to her lips and covered with kisses the great, bruised, and
+swollen hands.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Promise, by James B. Hendryx
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROMISE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 23730.txt or 23730.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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