Part 14

I was conscious now of nothing but a spirit of elation. There was not a pang, not a fear in my thoughts. The old fright-chill along the spine, which hitherto always had come to me when approaching danger, was gone. I was like a boy turned loose for a holiday. All the considerations which cause men to fear danger I had put away. All the responsibilities which hold men to a cautious rôle in life had gone from me. My responsibility toward Betty would be discharged when I had removed for her the danger of Brack. And Betty cared so much for George Chanler that she wouldn’t have him risk his life for her, and consequently there was no reason why anything in the world mattered much to me.

“Faster!” I whispered, digging viciously at the water. “Hurry up; I want it over with.”

“Easy, Brains, easy.”

Pierce silently backed water. We were four or five lengths from the _Wanderer’s_ starboard side, and though we were invisible in the darkness the lights and white paint of the yacht revealed her outlines and superstructure.

“There’s a boat in the water at the stern,” whispered Freddy. “Mebbe it’d be a good thing to cut her loose in case we have to make a getaway.”

“Cut nothing loose,” I whispered contentedly. “Move up to the bow ladder and let’s have it over with quickly.”

He took a stroke forward then backed again.

“Hey! There he is; walking aft. See him? By the last light aft.”

“Yes,” I breathed, as I made out Captain Brack’s figure where Pierce had indicated. “Now hurry and put me aboard, and I may surprise him.”

The canoe moved forward again. Pierce paddled in a semi-circle, heading away from the _Wanderer’s_ side and curving back toward the bows. The yacht was all dark forward, save from a single gleam from a port-hole in George’s stateroom. Leaning well forward in the canoe I held my hands thrust out before me, and presently my finger-tips rested against the _Wanderer’s_ sharp bow.

“Here’s the ladder—right here,” whispered Pierce. I moved the canoe backwards with my hands, and presently held the rope rungs of the ladder in my grasp. I reached up high above my head and gripped a rope rung firmly.

“Now hurry back to Miss Baldwin,” I whispered, and swung myself up.

Pierce did not answer at once.

“Do you hear?” I demanded.

“Oh, sure.”

I was well up the ladder then, but his tone prompted me to turn and look down. Pierce, with his rifle under one arm, was tying the canoe to the ladder. When, looking up, he saw that I had stopped and observed him he started guiltily, then leaped resolutely onto the ladder below me.

“Get off! Go back to the girl!” I commanded.

“I won’t,” said he. And we were hanging so, against the yacht’s sides, when Betty’s voice called softly from the shore beyond the stern:

“Oh, Captain Brack! Quick, please. I’m tired and afraid. Hurry, hurry! Take me aboard at once!”

XXXVI

A moment of silence followed, silence as complete as the darkness of the night. On the ladder Pierce and I hung as if frozen to the rungs. The tone of Betty’s call seemed to permeate the air; its pleading, compelling notes lingered like a perfume. Oh, the power of woman! The might of so slight a part of her as the nuances of her speech! For the call of Betty was a command. Nay, it was a force, a law, as indubitable as the law of gravity. It was surcharged with the thrill and power of Nature’s will. It was Woman. And Brack would go. He must go, in response to it. And Betty knew it.

Brack’s laugh, short and excited, sounded aft.

“Ah! Yes, yes; one minute.” His voice was exultant. “I’m coming.”

He must have leaped at the last words, for instantly there was a clatter as he dropped into the boat. Then the creak of an oar as he swung the boat clear.

“Where are you, Miss Baldwin?” he laughed.

And then, when it was too late, I recovered from the shock that had congealed me. I cried out, an involuntary, agonized cry, and as if in response a man come running swiftly to the ladder and peered over the rail.

“Who’s dere; who is it? Speak, or I’ll shoot!”

Head and voice I recognized as one of the most vicious of Brack’s men, and it was too late to attempt to retreat.

“It’s Mr. Pitt,” said I, and climbed upward.

“Hold on; stop right dere.”

I had thrown one leg over the guard rail. The man was a yard away, a revolver pointed at my chest.

“’S all right, Joe.” From below the quick-witted Freddy sent up a reassuring growl. “’S all right; let ’im go.”

“Hah?” The seaman, startled, bent forward to look, and I leaped, sinking both hands into his throat and bearing him to the rail.

In the same second Pierce seemed to be on the rail. His rifle rose over his head and came down on my man’s arm, knocking the revolver from his hand.

“The gun—the gun! Get his gat’!” whispered Freddy.

I had it even as he spoke, and with a weapon in each hand I ran aft, madly, unthinkingly, wishful only to follow whither Captain Brack had gone. Riordan was the first man I met, and as he retreated at the sight of me and tugged at his hip pocket, I struck at him, saw him fall, and went on with scarcely a pause.

I heard Freddy pounding at George’s stateroom, but I ran past. Garvin leaped at me from aft the main cabin. I fired twice at his right arm and heard his weapon clatter on the deck.

On the after-deck Barry caught me about the hips and threw me down, the violence of the fall throwing my weapons from my hands. I was beneath him and the man was trying to stab me as I hugged him tight to my breast. I felt the knife enter my thigh. Barry was the stronger, and I cried out a curse of despair.

“Hang tough for a jiffy, sir,” came Wilson’s calm voice from a companionway. He, too, was fighting. I heard the sound of two bodies falling. “Hang tough!”

I put all my strength into a paroxysm of pressure, but Barry managed to cut me once more ere Wilson, hobbling on one leg, came to my relief.

I found myself on my knees feeling ill.

“That’s three down,” said Wilson.

He was at the rail, pulling the stern sea-ladder up on deck. Vaguely I realized then that Wilson, too, had heard Brack leave the ship. Afterward I learned that he had attacked his guards at the sound of my first shot, which he had thought to come from Dr. Olson’s revolver as a signal for the revolt. In that way only had it been possible for him to reach me in time to save my life.

The negro and Garvin were fighting near us, with a stamping and roaring as of two great animals locked in battle. Like the hissing of an over-driven pump came the negro’s:

“Got you now; got you now, bad man.”

Garvin in turn panted.

“You —— nigger! You —— nigger!”

They whirled from the darkness into the shaft of light from a port-hole. The negro struck with some weapon; the thick glass crashed in splinters. They whirled on, into the dark again.

“Swing him around, Sam, and I’ll club him for you,” said Wilson quietly, hobbling after them.

“Don’ touch ’im!” pleaded the negro. “’Foh Gawd! Don’ nobody touch ’im. He’s mah meat.”

Forward, at George’s stateroom, there was a tumult; then cries and shots. The door was locked, and as I came running up, Pierce and Dr. Olson were fighting Riordan, and the man who had detected me on the ladder. In the stateroom George and Simmons were battling to keep their guards from joining the fight on deck.

I leaped upon Riordan from behind and Wilson, with his iron bar, began to beat down the door. Barry had recovered consciousness and with one of my pistols came hurrying forward, dancing around seeking for a chance to shoot one of us.

Pierce was knocked down, and as Barry sprang toward him, Wilson turned, and hurled himself clumsily at the fellow’s legs. Barry fell, leaped up, and still holding the revolver, went over the side. The other seaman did likewise at the sight of Wilson, and Riordan, felled by the butt of Dr. Olson’s revolver, soon followed his example.

“—— ’im! He copped my rifle, too!” spluttered Pierce, Riordan having snatched the weapon from the deck as he went over the side.

In the cabin cracked a shot and there came a shriek which we knew to be Simmons’s. Three of us threw our weight with Wilson’s, and the door went in.

George was on his feet, throttling one of the guards over a chair. Simmons lay like a bundle of old clothes in a corner. Near by the other guard, on all fours, strove to rise and fell flat. Wilson’s right fist smote George’s victim senseless and Chanler stood up, gory and calm.

“They’ve hurt Simmons bad,” he said. “Poor old Simmons. My fault. But I’ll pay that devil, Brack, out if I never do anything else as long as I live.”

The negro had cornered Garvin in the dining-saloon. These two had ceased to resemble human beings. They were all but naked, and their nakedness was red, with spots of white or black showing through. Garvin was crouching on one side of the table with a knife, and at the sight of the negro’s empty hands we sprang to help.

“Don’t spoil it, white folks, don’t spoil it!” growled the negro, moving toward his victim. “I done got ’im; he’s mah meat—mah meat!”

He knocked the knife from Garvin’s hand somehow. Then they wrecked the room with their hurtling falling bodies. The roar of battle rose to a crescendo and began to diminish. Garvin was losing.

“Guahd dat do’h!” cried the negro, but it was too late.

Garvin had turned to flee. In a bound he was in the doorway, one more and he was at the rail, and the negro cried in real agony as the bruiser vaulted over into the water.

“You got ’im plenty, Sam,” said Freddy.

Wilson was hobbling here and there on deck.

“We’ve cleared ship, sir,” he reported. “Now we’ve got to hold her.”

Then I remembered why I had started aft. I was in a fog. Presently I found myself trying to climb the after rail while a cluster of arms held me back.

“Betty! Brack!” I was muttering. “Over there. Let me go.”

“No, no, Gardy, old man. Steady down, Brains; you can’t walk the water. Easy, sir, easy.”

George, Freddy and Wilson; they were all holding me, pleading with me. They drew me forward toward the staterooms.

Suddenly I tore myself free. The light from the open door of George’s room reached up to and illuminated the port bow rail. I had seen a head appear where the ladder reached the deck. It was a small, wet head. Then showed a wet, white face and much wet hair, and finally over the rail came a very wet young woman, pausing bewildered in the glare of light and calling:

“Mr. Pitt! Gardy! Where are you?”

The fog cleared. I was sane again. In the shaft of light Betty Baldwin stood balanced ready to run forward at my response. Her right hand was at her bosom, her head on one side in an attitude of anxious listening, but the darkness hid us from her sight!

There was not one of us but was hideous to behold. Wilson, who had done the most fighting in spite of his wounded leg, was the least damaged and he required water, bandages, and fresh clothes, before being presentable. I closed George’s door, leaving the deck in total darkness.

“Everything is all right,” I said as quietly as I could. “Now come straight ahead.”

I met her in the darkness, caught her wet sleeve and guided her swiftly to the door of her stateroom.

“Go in and shut the door. Quick!”

She obeyed without questioning.

“Where’s Captain Brack?” I asked through the keyhole.

“Over there—ashore, I suppose. I slipped into the water and swam out here you know, as soon as I heard him go crashing into the brush where he thought I was.”

“You—what? You called—you swam?”

“That was why I called to him, of course,” she said. “To get him ashore and slip past him and come aboard. Was it too treacherous to be decent?”

“You—you fooled Captain Brack?” At first the thing seemed impossible. “You fooled Brack!” I laughed wildly because the joke was on the captain.

“Gardy—Mr. Pitt, are you all right? Is——”

“George is all right!” I cried. “Rest easy; he’s all right. But stay where you are.”

I ran aft to break the news. There was no need for this, however. Brack’s boat was even then scraping at our stern.

“Throw down that ladder!” he was bellowing. “Riordan! You —— swab! The ladder!”

Chanler leaned on the rail and called down into the darkness:

“You lose, cappy, Riordan’s overboard, and Wilson is captain. Come aboard, cappy. I promise you that I’ll see you hanged if it takes every cent I’ve got.”

“Ah save you dat trouble, boss,” laughed Black Sam, and fired instantly.

We heard Brack fall on his oars. The boat drifted away out of sight. Then we heard him move again. Presently the sound of a faint laugh came out of the darkness.

“Poor shooting! Pitt, you there?” he called easily.

“Yes,” I said, stepping forward.

“My only mistake was in underestimating you, Pitt. One tiny mistake in an otherwise perfect plan. You haven’t won yet, but—my compliments, Pitt.”

I saw the flash as he fired, a roaring, brain-splitting streak of red, which hurled me like a blast into the pit of oblivion.

XXXVII

Of what took place on board during the rest of that night I had only the vaguest of knowledge. Once I had an indistinct impression of consciousness, such as one may have through the film of opiates. Dr. Olson was explaining to some one that it was a pretty close call, considering that it wasn’t going to amount to anything. Brack’s bullet had struck me under the angle of the left jaw, had ranged upward through the muscles of the neck and gone out squarely above the occiput.

“Those cuts in his leg will give him more trouble,” the doctor was saying.

My next impression was of hearing the same sharp report as had ushered me into unconsciousness. I smiled. My senses had cleared now and I was sure that what I fancied I heard was simply the echo of Brack’s shot in my disordered mind.

I sank gratefully back toward the slumber that invited me, and then— _Crack! Crack-crack!_ _Crack-crack-crack!_ Up on the after deck a perfect splatter of shots which seemed echoed from a distance, drove the sleepiness from my head.

I opened my eyes and sat up. I was in bed in my own stateroom, and the gray light of dawn was coming through the port-hole. From a distance far off came two more reports, and on the steel plates of the _Wanderer’s_ after cabin resounded two heavy, dull blows.

I was out of bed and on my feet ere the two shots from our stern spat out their reply. I understood the significance of those sounds now. Brack and his gang were attacking at the first light of dawn, and they had not caught our men napping.

My legs bent weakly under me as I stood up, the thigh which Barry had cut seemed numb and helpless, and my head whirled till I nearly fell. With my hands hugging the wall for support I made my way to the door. I wished to step out on deck, and so, naturally, in my tumbled mental condition it was the door leading into the cabin saloon that I found.

I opened the door but slightly and stopped. Betty was sitting before the door. Her back was toward me, there was a book in her lap and her hair was hanging down her back in the disordered condition of a woman who has kept ceaseless vigil, regardless of appearances, through the night.

Softly as I closed the door she heard and was up in a flash.

“Gardy! Mr. Pitt! Are you up?” she called, her hand on the knob. I had slipped the catch as I closed the door so she could not come in. “Do you want anything? I’ll get it for you. You mustn’t move, you know. Are you—are you feeling stronger—Mr. Pitt?”

“I am all right,” I said.

“Oh! Are you really? Are you able to get up?”

“Certainly.” I was flinging a dressing gown about me. “What is happening aft?”

Another volley of shots from the shore was answered from the yacht.

“Brack and his men shot Mr. Wilson, and now they’re trying to shoot the rest of us.”

“Badly? Is Wilson hurt badly?”

“I don’t know. I—I’ve been sitting here. You—you have been so terribly quiet for such a long time, Mr. Pitt.”

“And who’s back there? Who’s doing the shooting on our side?”

“All of them. Pierce, and the negro, and Dr. Olson, and George.”

I opened the door and stepped out.

“Oh! Oh, you mustn’t,—Mr. Pitt! Really you mustn’t. Go back—what are you going to do?”

I laughed.

“George mustn’t be allowed to risk his life, you know.”

She recoiled with a sudden wilting, as a child before an unexpected blow.

“Oh!” she moaned. “Oh! How can you?”

My weakness forced me to clutch the wall for support.

“I can’t,” I said, “unless you get me some whisky.”

She was still shrinking, her hands to her breast, and her face white.

“Oh! I didn’t know—I couldn’t believe—there was anything like—like this in you.”

“Hidden country,” I laughed, stumbling along the wall. “There’s hidden country in all of us.”

My hand was on the door of George’s stateroom. I pushed it open. Simmons was lying in George’s bed, a horrified expression upon his wooden-like countenance as he viewed his surroundings.

“Not my fault, sir,” he apologized as I betrayed surprise at seeing him there. “I was put here, sir; I couldn’t help it.”

“Glory be, Simmons! You’re looking sound.”

“Oh, I’m doing nicely, thank you, sir. A bit shot off the bottom of my liver, sir, the doctor says. I’ll do, says he, thank you.”

A revolver was lying on a table and I picked it up. It was loaded.

“Whisky, Simmons! Where is it? I’ve got to have some, quick.”

He grimaced guiltily.

“I—I had a tiny bottle in my coat, sir. It’s lying over there. If the bottle isn’t smashed—ah! The master’s silver flask, so it was. I—I had a bit of cold, sir, and there was no other bottle——”

I drank the stuff like water. My veins, which had felt empty and slack, seemed to fill with warm blood.

I drank again. My legs stiffened and grew firm. My head was in a whirl, but I had strength enough to move easily now, and I went out of the room with a rush. Betty tried to stop me as I went through the saloon, but I lurched on.

The sound of firing came to me as if from far away. In the whirl of my head it seemed first in one direction then in another. I steadied myself for an instant as I came out on deck. The yacht seemed to be heaving and falling, and presently it felt as if it were whirling in a maelstrom.

Where was the aft? Where was the firing? I held my head to steady it. The firing broke out afresh. There it was! It was in front of me. No, it was behind me. A non-drinker shouldn’t take so much whisky. Ah! There it was. I lurched forward, intending to go aft. It was not strange that I should cross the fore-deck on my way aft. Nothing was strange in my present condition. Not even the fact that Brack and Garvin were climbing over the rail at the bow, as I came forward.

I was very steady.

“Hello, Brack.”

At the sound of my voice and the sight of the revolver in my hand Garvin gave a spring backward and splashed into the water. Brack smiled and vaulted on to the deck. There was a wound on one side of his head where the negro’s bullet had marked him, but he bore himself as confidently and masterful as ever. He had two revolvers in his belt, but as I made ready to shoot him when his hands moved toward them he desisted and smiled again.

“So I didn’t quite get you, eh, Pitt? Well, it was pretty dark, though you did step out into the light like an accommodating lamb to the butcher. Well, what are you going to do?”

“Put up your hands.”

He looked at me, smiled, and calmly folded his arms across his chest.

“Putting up one’s hands is undignified. I do not do so. What are you going to do about it?”

I was nonplussed. Here I was, the victor. I was armed, he was helpless; and yet he had taken the upper hand. What did one do under such circumstances?

“This revolver is loaded, Brack,” I warned, but I knew that my speech was futile.

“I know it is: I can see the lead in the cylinder. That doesn’t make any difference. To be of any danger to me said loaded revolver must be in the hands of a man who is capable of shooting another man. You can’t do that, Pitt; you know you can’t. You’re too civilized. Try it. Just try it. Pick out a certain spot on me—my forehead, for instance—point the gun at that spot and pull the trigger. Try it. You’ll find that it’s a very hard thing to do—impossible for you, in fact.”

He laughed low.

“No, Pitt, you can’t shoot me.” With imperceptible movements he began to approach me. “Do you hear me, Pitt: You can’t shoot me—you can’t shoot me.”

Suddenly he stopped. His countenance seemed to break into flame. I heard a light step behind me and understood.

“Go back, Betty!” I said, keeping my eyes on Brack. “Go back!”

I was retreating slowly. For the moment Brack was invincible, he was great! His colossal will was mastering us. With it he was driving me back, helpless in spite of my weapon, and he was holding Betty fascinated to the spot.

“Go back!” My shoulder had touched hers. I turned to look at her.

“Gardy!” she gasped, pointing.

I turned. Brack’s mighty spring had carried him on to us, and I sprang between him and Betty. He paid scarcely any attention to me, merely struck with his right arm and smashed me to the deck. Then he had Betty in his arms, kissing her, sweeping her to his breast like a struggling child, and retreating toward the rail, the girl held as a shield before him.

I sprang up and ran toward them. My weapon had been knocked from my hands, and as Brack crouched to spring over the rail with his burden I threw myself on him. He shifted Betty to his left arm and with his right drove me back with a single blow.

“Never fear, Pitt,” he laughed, tugging at his revolver, “I don’t intend leaving before I’ve settled you.”

I rushed again as his weapon came free. I struck him between the eyes and tore Betty from his grasp. My blow staggered and blinded him for the instant. He was at the rail brushing his hand across his eyes when two rifle reports sounded far across the bay and Brack fell flat on the deck without a struggle.

“But you’ve got to admit he was game—game as a mad ol’ silver-tip,” said the patriarchal Slade when a boat had brought him and Harris aboard from the point from which they had shot Brack. “A devil he was, with a twisted laugh, but too game to live if he was licked. Me ’n’ Bill we was hiding up in the hills and come down to take a peek when the shooting begun. We see him and the other fellow crawling up the anchor-chains, and Brack was driving the other fellow with a gun.

“We couldn’t believe it was him at first; didn’t seem any man’d try anything so desp’rit; but when we see you scuffling with him, Mr. Pitt, we knew it was him, and savvied how he’d had his gang to start shooting from the other shore to draw everybody aft so we could take one desp’rit whirl at you. Me ’n’ Bill we put the sights on him then, but we was afraid of hitting your young lady. So I prayed a little for a clear shot, and the Lord answered my prayer pretty _pronto_. Amen.”

XXXVIII

Then the _Wanderer_ for days became a hospital ship, for with the end of Brack, his crew, including Garvin and Riordan, fled promptly out of the Hidden Country into the vast Alaskan wilderness that lay beyond the gap in the mountains, and with the sudden release from danger came the inevitable collapse of the wounded members of our company.

Wilson now had a bullet-wound through each leg and another through his great chest, and for the time being was helpless. Pierce told me afterward how Wilson, suddenly shot down on the after-deck, had borrowed a chew from Black Sam and, lying flat on his back, had reloaded the rifles in the fight that followed.

Pierce, now that the excitement of danger was gone, discovered that Riordan’s boot had broken one of his ribs in the battle at Chanler’s state-room; Black Sam had lost so much blood that he collapsed and was content to sit basking in the sun like a sick bear; and Dr. Olson was a nervous and physical wreck. Only Chanler had escaped disablement. He was scarred and bruised, but he was up and around while the rest of us lay helpless.