Chapter 21

THE NICKED BULLET

The grey daylight was creeping into the little tent and Alton sleeping at last when Seaforth rose to his feet. His eyes were heavy with the long night's watch which had followed a twelve hours' march, and he shivered as he went out. The morning was bitterly cold, and a fire burned redly outside the tent, but there was no sign of Okanagan, who had joined him during the night, nor had any preparations for breakfast been made.

"Tom," he twice called softly, but only the moaning of the branches overhead answered him, and with a little gesture of impatience he strode into the bush.

Seaforth had no definite purpose, but he was glad to stretch his stiffened limbs, and instinctively turned towards the spot where he had found his comrade. As he approached it he stopped, and watched the dim moving object that caught his eyes with some bewilderment. Tom of Okanagan was kneeling beside a thicket with a stick in his hand, and apparently holding it carefully in line with a fir. After moving once or twice he drove it into the soil, and crawled on hands and knees into the fern so that Seaforth could only see his boots, and surmise by the rustling that he was groping amidst the withered fronds. Once he caught a muffled expletive, after which the rustling ceased awhile, but it commenced again, and Seaforth wondered the more when Okanagan crawled out of the opposite side of the thicket, and set up a second stick in line with the other. He had not the faintest notion of what his companion could be doing.

"Are you finding anything down there, Tom?" he said. Okanagan rose up with a little grim laugh. "Thorns," he said. "There's a condemned big one in my thumb."

Seaforth stared at him with a vague suspicion that the hardships of the forced march they had made had left their mark upon his comrade, though he had never noticed any signs of mental weakness in the big axeman before.

"Aren't there plenty to be picked up in this country without looking for them?" he said.

Okanagan glanced at him with a little twinkle which was not altogether mirthful in his eyes. "Oh, yes. More than I've any use for. You were trying to figure on what I was after? The thing's quite as easy as trailing a deer."

"I was," said Seaforth dryly, and Okanagan approaching him dropped a big hand upon his shoulder.

"Come right along, and I'll show you," said he.

Seaforth followed him, until he stopped by the fir he had worked his alignment from, where he picked up a spent cartridge and pointed to a mark in the snow.

"Nothing particular about that, anyway, a forty-four Winchester," he said. "The fellow had long boots on with one heel down, and he stood right here waiting for Harry. Harry was coming along yonder with the deer, forty yards I make it, and he jumped when the fellow started shooting."

"You think he did?" said Seaforth, slightly bewildered, and Okanagan laughed.

"No, sir, I'm sure," he said. "I could show you where his heels went in if it would do you any good. Harry was coming along quick as he could, thinking about his supper, and the other fellow was crouching here, clawing his rifle and waiting until he came into the moonlight."

The blood surged into Seaforth's forehead, and he clenched one hand. "The condemned villain! It was devilish," he said.

Okanagan nodded gravely, and his rugged face was stern.

"Oh, yes, but, slinging names at him's not much use," he said. "Well, I feel it in me that we're going to see more of that man by and by, and that's just why I'm working up the whole thing from the beginning. Now I'll show you some more of it."

They floundered through one or two thickets until Okanagan stopped again, and pointed to the red smear upon the fern and withered pine-needles. "That's where Harry lay and waited for him," he said. "He was bleeding pretty bad, but he knew the other fellow meant to finish him."

"Waited for him when he was almost helpless and the man meant to murder him?" said Seaforth, with cold rage and horror in his face.

Okanagan laughed a little almost silent laugh that had a very grim undertone in it. "Yes, sir. That's just what he did. Don't you know Harry yet?" he said. "Still, he didn't figure that all the killing would be done by the other man. See here, this is where he gripped him, and tried to get the knife in. They fell over together there. Harry was played out and bleeding hard, or that man would never have got away when he once had his hands on him."

Seaforth stared at the rent-down undergrowth, and had no great difficulty in reconstructing the scene. Smashed fern and scattered leaves as well as the red smears on the snow bore plain testimony to the fierceness of that struggle, and he pictured his comrade grappling with his adversary while his strength flowed from him with that horrible red trickle. The light that came down between towering trunks showed that his face was grey and stern, and Okanagan, who looked at him, nodded as it were approvingly.

"I've seen enough," said the former. "If I can find that man he will not get away from me."

"Well," said Okanagan simply, "we're short of the bullet now, and I'll know better what to do with Harry when we find it. It's low down in one of those cedars yonder."

"It will be deep in at that range," said Seaforth.

"No," said Okanagan quietly. "I don't think it will. It's pretty plain from the hole it made that it wasn't a common bullet, and I'm kind of anxious to know if all of it came out again."

Seaforth shivered a little as he assisted in the search, and his lips were set when Okanagan, digging something out of the cedar-bark with his knife, laid it in his palm. It was a little piece of blackened lead that was ragged in place of round, as though the soft metal had been rent open and bent backwards. Then the two men looked at each other, and the hot fury that for a moment flushed Seaforth to the temples, passed and left him with a curious vindictive coldness and a faint shrinking from the touch of the murderous lead. Okanagan's eyes were very steady, but there was a little glow down at the back of them.

"Nicked across with a hack saw or a file--and it's not all here," he said. "It strikes me the sooner we find the rest of it the better this weather."

Seaforth drew in his breath. A strip of lead torn off that bullet was rankling in his comrade's flesh, and during the night bitter frost had laid its grip upon the forest. Wounds, he knew, do not heal, but fester under such conditions.

"You can do it, Tom!" he said, and his voice was hoarse.

"I'll try--when he wakes," said Okanagan. "You'll find some flat stones by the river. I want one with an open grit that you could grind a knife down with."

It was long before Alton awakened, and then it became evident that he was not wholly sensible. Loss of blood, over-fatigue, exposure and hunger had left their mark on him, and while he rambled disjointedly a bitter wind sprang up. It raged down the valley, bringing with it the cold of the Pole, and while the pines raised their wild voices, the water congealed in the kettle, and in spite of the great fire built outside it the tent grew icy. At noon Tom of Okanagan glanced at his patient and shook his head, while Seaforth felt his misgivings confirmed as he saw his face.

"I guess we've got to wait for to-morrow. There'll be snow to-night," he said.

It was a long day to Seaforth. Alton moved restlessly in his sleep, or talked and laughed meaninglessly during most of it, while when his eyes closed Tom, who sat in a corner, laid the stone upon his lap and ground at his knife. He had already rubbed the blade down to half its width, but was apparently not contented, and Seaforth felt colder and set his lips each time the harsh grating of steel broke through the roaring of the pines that swelled in volume as the wind increased. It was seldom that either of them spoke, though the big axeman's face would soften momentarily when Alton moaned a little in his sleep. Then it grew sombre and impassive again save for the little gleam in the eyes, and Seaforth guessed what was in his companion's thoughts as the hard, gnarled fingers tightened viciously on the steel.

Somehow the day wore through, and the snow came with the night. It beat upon the canvas and fell hissing in the fire, which snapped and crackled the more fiercely, while acrid vapour crept into the tent, and now and then one of the men's eyes would close a moment. Seaforth had indeed roused himself several times with a jerk when Okanagan pointed to the roll of blankets and layer of springy twigs, and he saw that at last Alton was sleeping restfully. Five minutes later the roar of the branches seemed to sink into a musical lullaby, and the last thing he saw was the big, impassive bushman sitting as still as the motionless figure beneath him on the opposite side of the tent. Then he was wafted back to England on the wings of dreams.

It was broad daylight and warmer when he awakened. Outside the fire crackled noisily, and the great pines rose spires of sombre green against a field of white. Alton was also awake, and smiled at him, while Tom, who stood behind him, made a sign.

"It has got to be done right now before the frost comes back, but we're not going to hurt you, Harry," he said. "You'll walk down to the river and fill that kettle up, Charley."

Seaforth wondered a little, because the snow lay a foot deep in the bush and he could have filled the kettle beside the fire, but he floundered down to the river and felt a little more prepared to face what must be done when he returned. When he did so he found that Tom had rolled back Alton's jean trousers to the knee, and saw a red smear that broadened across the brawny limb. It pulsed over the swell of the corded muscles that showed through the clear, smooth skin, and then Seaforth shivered and turned his eyes away as they fell upon the welling depression with the discoloured edges. Alton noticed the movement, and glanced at him with a twinkle in his eyes. "It isn't pretty, but I don't think Tom will keep us long," he said.

Seaforth felt the blood surge into his face, for it seemed most unfitting that the wounded man should sympathize with him, but finding nothing apposite to say he kept silent, and Okanagan shook his head at them.

"Get hold of his hands, and keep hold. The quieter you are, Harry, the quicker I'll be," he said.

Alton smiled a little. "I don't think it's necessary," he said. "Still, if it will please you, Tom."

Seaforth clutched the fingers held out to him, and felt suddenly chilly. He would have touched his lips with his tongue, for the blood seemed to have gone out of them, but that he felt Alton's eyes were upon him. Accordingly he turned his face, which he fancied was growing a trifle colourless, aside, and for a moment or two watched Okanagan, who was kneeling with one hand pressed upon the smeared whiteness of the uncovered limb. Seaforth could hear his own heart beating and the thud of snow shaken off a swinging branch upon the tent, and see the light the whiteness outside flung in glint upon the slender knife. He saw it move a little, and sternly repressed a shiver when the lean, hard fingers closed suddenly upon his own. A tremor ran through them, and then the pressure increased, until Seaforth was glad that it grew painful. He dare not glance at his comrade, he would not look at Tom, and sat very still in torment for a space, while he felt that Alton's arms had grown rigid by the cruel grip upon his hands.

Then the tension slackened, and the injured man drew in his breath with a gasp, while Okanagan rose to one knee with great drops of sweat upon his face.

"You got it?" said Alton in a low, strained voice, and nodded when the axeman answered him.

"No," he said, a trifle huskily. "I'm going to try again. Lift him over on his side, Charley."

Seaforth trembled a little as he did it, and glanced for just a moment at his comrade's face. It was set and grey, but it went suddenly awry into the grotesque semblance of a smile.

"Tom never was in a hurry. It's rough on you," he said. Still, Seaforth, who had once held his own with men and women in quick retort and graceful badinage in England, did not answer, but only pressed the hard fingers that now lay somewhat limply in his palm and wondered vaguely whether the ordeal would never be over. It was only then he realized to the full all that Alton had been to him since the day he limped, ragged and very hungry, into a little mining camp. His friends in the old country had turned their backs on him, and Seaforth, who had been hopeless and desperate then, knew that he owed a good deal more than material prosperity to Alton of Somasco.

"Tom," he said hoarsely, "I think we're ready."

Okanagan said nothing, but stooped again, and Seaforth tightening his grasp of the contracting fingers, heard the sound of uneven breathing through the thud of snow upon the tent. He was by this time a little more master of himself, and looked steadily down on the white face with the grimly-set lips. His own was distorted into what was not a sympathetic smile, but a grotesque grin, and there was every now and then a reflection of it in the one awry with pain which looked up at him. Then Alton drew in his breath with a little quivering sigh, and there was a rattle as Okanagan dropped the steel.

"I want that bandage--quick. We are through now," he said.

Seaforth had afterwards a hazy recollection of helping him to twist the strip of fabric about the firm white flesh, and that his hands made red smears on Alton's deerskin jacket when he stooped and lifted him a little. There was no bronze in his comrade's face, but in place of it a curious yellow tinge, through which the greyness showed in patches, and with fingers that were strangely clumsy he held a flask to Alton's lips.

The latter choked, and then his eyes opened wide again. "Pass it round. I'm figuring you're all wanting some," he said.

Seaforth to humour him touched the flask with his lips, and handed it to Tom, who did the same, and then screwing the top on it passed it back to Seaforth no emptier than when it reached him. Alton, however, raised his head a trifle further, and looked at both of them.

"You'll have to do it better. Let me see the thing," he said.

Okanagan glanced at him severely. "I guess you'll lie right where you are and keep very still, or I'll make a hole through the other leg," he said.

Alton appeared to chuckle, but his arm slipped from under him, and he dropped back heavily amidst the blankets with eyes closed while Seaforth bent over him.

"That's all right," said Okanagan. "You needn't worry. I was kind of hoping he would do it because I was anxious about the bleeding. Now we'll get everything fixed up before he comes round again."

Seaforth did what he was bidden, and nothing more, for he had been reared in England, and not amidst the firs and snows of Northern Canada where misadventures are many and doctors very few, but he envied the big bushman his skill that day, and Okanagan may have guessed it, for he once smiled a little as he said:

"There are lots of things I can't do, and it's not your fault that you were raised back in the old country, where you have other folks to put the patches on to you."

"No," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, he is my partner, you see. Now I want to know what we are going to do with him."

Okanagan's smile was just perceptible as he held up a ragged piece of lead, but Seaforth saw that he understood all the speech implied, though he made no reference to it,

"There's half the trouble gone," he said. "The rest of it went straight through the bone, and I kind of fancy smashed it up considerable."

"Will the pieces knit as they were before?" said Seaforth very anxiously, and for a moment or two Okanagan did not answer him.

"That," he said very slowly, "is what I don't quite know. One of them bones is a rocker, and she swings on the other. That one's cut, but I don't think it's smashed right through. Now if it goes as well as the other, it's quite possible Harry will limp ever after."

Seaforth stood up with a little shiver. "Good Lord. Harry of all men a cripple! Tom, you must do something."

Okanagan slowly shook his head. "I've done my best now," he said. "We can get him down to Somasco and a live doctor up from Vancouver as soon as we can, and that's about all. There's no time to lose. We'll start to-morrow."

Seaforth cast one glance at the still figure and grey face amidst the blankets, and then clenched his hands as he blundered out of the tent. A white flake fell upon his face, another on his hands, and he shivered again as he glanced at the forest. It was very evident that much depended upon their speed, and down between the sombre pines came the sliding snow.