Part 10

Ward turned to the outlaw. “What would you advise? I’ve only had one idea, and that was to reach this cabin. Now what would you do?”

The outlaw was ready. “I would send a part of the men with the horses down the valley to grass and I’d wait here till Miss Mansfield is able to ride.”

“Will this snow go off?”

“That’s my notion.”

“It’s certain we can’t camp here--the horses must have grass.”

“I’ll be able to ride in a day or two,” Alice said, bravely.

“We could frame up a portable bed and carry you,” suggested the outlaw; “but it can’t be done to-night, so you’d better send your outfit down to the marsh to camp. The horses are worn out and so are the men.”

“Will you guide them to grass and help them find shelter?”

The outlaw hesitated for an instant, and Alice interposed: “No, no! Let Gage do that. I want Mr. Smith to remain here.”

Ward perceived in her entreaty something of anxiety and fear, and after the men and horses had started down the slope he turned to the outlaw and said: “I’m mighty grateful to you, Mr. Smith. It must have surprised you to find these women here.”

The outlaw dryly replied, “It did!”

Alice added: “It was in the middle of the night, too; but Mr. Smith was very nice about it. He slept outdoors without a word of complaint.”

Ward had figured the situation to conclusion: “Smith is a poacher,” and though he had a savage dislike of these illicit game-slaughterers, he could not but be glad of the presence of this particular outlaw, and resolved to overlook his trade in gratitude for his cabin and service.

The outlaw helped Adams and Ward to clear away the snow for a tent, and Alice, seeing the three men thus amicably joined in her defense, could not find it in her heart to condemn one of them as a criminal. Here in the white isolation of the peaks the question of crime and its punishment became personal. To have this man’s fate in her hand was like grasping the executioner’s sword for herself.

“If women had to punish criminals themselves, with their own hand,” she asked, “how many of them would do it?”

Peggy came in and whispered to her: “No one else seems to have recognized him. He may get away safely. I hope he will. Shall we tell the men who he is?”

“Yes, we shall have to do that soon, but I’m afraid they won’t take the sentimental view of him that we do. I tremble to think of what they will do when they know.”

Ward explained to Adams: “Our friend Smith here is a poacher--but as our account stands I don’t feel it my duty to report him, do you?”

“No; Peggy tells me he has acted like a gentleman all through.”

In this spirit they made themselves comfortable for the night.

The sun set gloriously, but the air bit ever sharper, and while Peggy went about her cooking, assisted by her husband and the outlaw, Alice pulled Ward down to her bedside and hurriedly began:

“You remember that placard we read in the station--the one about the train-robber?”

“Yes!”

“Well, this is the man--our Mr. Smith.”

Ward looked at her a moment with reflective eyes, then exclaimed: “You’re right! I thought I’d seen him somewhere.”

“And the sheriff is after him. He was here yesterday morning.”

“Here?”

“Yes. You see, Mr. Smith stayed with us till he thought the storm was over, then rode away, intending to cross the divide, but when the snow began again he turned back. He said he couldn’t leave us alone. He left us just before dawn, and four or five hours afterward the sheriff came. Of course he saw the poor fellow’s trail and instantly set off after him.”

“But why didn’t they meet?”

“Because Mr. Smith came back a different way and then the blizzard came on and covered up his tracks. He thinks the sheriff has gone on over the divide. You must help him, Freeman. Help him to get away and find some way to give him a start. Nobody could have been more considerate, and I can’t see him taken by these cold-blooded men who want that two thousand dollars’ reward. He really could have escaped, only for us. He came back to protect us.”

Ward pondered. “The problem is not so easy of solution. A train robbery is a pretty serious matter. I’m very grateful to him, but to connive at his escape is itself a punishable act. Why did you tell me? I could have passed it over--”

“Because I’m afraid the sheriff may come back at any moment.”

Ward’s brow was troubled. “I could ignore his deed and pretend not to know who he is, but definitely to assist a bandit to escape is a very serious matter.”

“I know it is; but remember he gave up his chance to cross the divide in order to keep us from suffering.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me,” he repeated, almost in irritation. “If the sheriff only keeps on over the range Smith can take care of himself.”

As the outlaw re-entered the cabin Alice acknowledged in him something worth a woman to love. In the older man was power, security, moral, mental, and physical health, the qualities her reason demanded in a husband; but in the other was grace and charm, something wildly admirable. He allured as the warrior, intrepid and graceful, allured the maiden, as the forest calls the householder. Something primordial and splendid and very sweet was in her feeling toward him. There could be no peaceful wedlock there, no security of home, no comfort, only the exquisite thrill of perilous union, the madness of a few short weeks--perhaps only a few swift days of self-surrender, and then, surely, disaster and despair. To yield to him was impossible, and yet the thought of it was tantalizingly sweet.

When she looked toward Ward she perceived herself sitting serenely in matronly grace behind a shining coffee-urn in a well-ordered, highly civilized breakfast-room, facing a most considerate husband who nevertheless was able to read the morning paper in her presence. When she thought of life with the outlaw all was dark, stormy, confused, and yet the way was lit by his adoring eyes. A magical splendor lay in the impulse. His love, sudden as it seemed, was real--she was certain of that. She felt the burning power, the conjury of its flame, and it made her future with Ward, at the moment, seem dull and drab.

“Why, why could not such a man and such a passion come with the orderly and the ethical?” she asked herself.

At the best he was fitted only for the mine or the ranch, and the thought of life in a lonely valley, even with his love to lighten it, made her shudder. On one side she was a very practical and far-seeing woman. The instant she brought her reason to bear on the problem she perceived that any further acquaintance with this man was dangerous. They must part here at this moment, and yet she could not let him go without in some way making him feel her wish to help him.

VIII

Ward and the outlaw were discussing plans for getting out of the basin when Adams came in to say, “A couple of other weary wanderers are turning up.”

“The sheriff!” instantly exclaimed Alice, her face whitening in swift dismay.

In that moment the forester was transformed. With a weapon in his hand he stood aside, his eyes on the door, a scowl of battle on his face. He resembled a wolf with bared fangs ready to die desperately.

Ward, quick to read his purpose, interposed. “Wait!” he commanded. “Stay here; I’ll see them. Don’t be rash.”

As he passed out into the firelight the outlaw, without relaxing his vigilance, said in a low voice, “Well, girl, I reckon here’s where I say good night.”

“Don’t resist,” she pleaded. “Don’t fight, please! Please! What is the use? Oh, it’s too horrible! If you resist they will kill you!”

There was no fear in his voice as he replied: “They may not; I’m handy with my gun.”

She was breathless, chilled by the shadow of the impending tragedy. “But that would be worse. To kill them would only stain your soul the deeper. You must not fight!”

“It’s self-defense.”

“But they are officers of the law.”

“No matter; I will not be taken alive.”

She moaned in her distress, helplessly wringing her hands. “O God! Why should I be witness of this?”

“You won’t be. If this is the sheriff I am going to open that door and make a dash. What happens will happen outside. You need not see it. I’m sorry you have to hear it. But I give you my word--if you must hear something I will see to it that you hear as little as possible.”

The latch clicked--he stepped back, and again stood waiting, silent, rigid, ready to act, murderous in design.

Mrs. Adams entered quickly, and, closing the door behind her, hurriedly whispered: “It’s the sheriff. Hide! The men will hold them as long as they can. Hide!”

The outlaw looked about and smiled. “Where?” he asked, almost humorously. “I’m not a squirrel.”

“Under the bunk. See, there is room.”

He shook his head. “No, I refuse to crawl. I won’t sneak. I never have. I take ’em as they come.”

“For my sake,” pleaded Alice. “I can’t bear to see you killed. Hide yourself. Go to the door,” she said to Peggy. “Don’t let them in. Tell Freeman--” She rose and stood unsteadily, forgetful of her own pain.

Mrs. Adams urged her to lie down, but she would not. The moments passed in suspense almost too great to be endured.

“Listen!” commanded the outlaw. “They’re coming in.”

As they harkened Ward’s voice rose clearly. “You can’t miss the camp,” he was saying, as if speaking to some one at a distance. “Just keep the trail in the snow and you’ll find them. I’m sorry we can’t put you up--but you see how it is.”

“They’re going!” exclaimed Alice. “Thank God, they’re going!”

“It can’t be they’ll go without searching the shack,” the fugitive muttered, in no measure relaxing his attitude of watchful menace. “They’re playing a game on us.”

Again the latch clicked, and this time it was Ward who confronted the outlaw’s revolver mouth.

“It’s all right,” Ward called, instantly understanding the situation. “They’re gone. The old man was about played out, for they’ve been fighting snow all day, but I told him we couldn’t take care of them here and they have gone on down to the camp. He thinks you got over the divide. You are all right for the present.”

“They’ll come back,” replied the other. “It only puts the deal off a few hours. They’ll return, trailin’ the whole camp after them. What can I do? My horse is down there in the herd.”

“That’s bad,” exclaimed Ward. “I wonder if I could get him for you?”

“If I had him he’s weak and hungry, and the high places are feet deep in drifts. It doesn’t signify. I’m corralled any way you look at it, and the only thing left is to fight.”

“There’s our trail to the glacier,” Ward musingly suggested; “it’s a pretty deep furrow--you might make it that way.”

A spark of light leaped into the man’s eyes. “How far up does it run? Where does it end?”

“In Glacier Basin, just at timber-line.”

The outlaw pondered, speaking his thoughts aloud. “From there across to the Indian reservation there isn’t a wolf track.... It’s a man’s job crossing there, almost sure death, but it’s my only show.” He had replaced his weapon in his belt and was weighing his chance, his eyes fixed on Alice’s face. To leave this shelter, this warm circle of light, this sweet girlish presence, and plunge into the dark, the cold, and the snow, was hard. No one but a man of unconquerable courage would have considered it. This man was both desperate and heroic. “It’s my only chance and I’ll take it,” he said, drawing his breath sharply. “I’ll need your prayers,” he added, grimly, with eyes that saw only the girl. “If I fail you’ll find me up there. I carry my sleeping-powder with me.” He touched his revolver as he spoke.

Alice’s mind, sweeping out over that desolate expanse, had a moment’s vision of him as he would appear toiling across those towering cliffs, minute as a fly, and her heart grew small and sick.

“Why don’t you stay and take your lawful punishment?” she asked. “You will surely perish up there in the cold. Wait for sunlight at least.”

“I’m ready to stay and to die here, near you,” he replied, with a significant glance.

“No, no, not that!” she cried out. “Talk to him, Freeman; persuade him to give himself up. I’ve done my best to influence him. Don’t let him uselessly sacrifice himself.”

Ward perceived something hidden in her voice, some emotion which was more than terror, deeper than pity, but his words were grave and kindly. “It is a frightful risk, young man, but the trail to the glacier is your only open road. The sheriff is tired. Even if he finds out that you are here he may not come back to-night. He will know you cannot escape. You can’t stir without leaving a telltale mark. If you could only get below the snow on the west slope--”

“Whichever trail I take it’s good-by,” interrupted the fugitive, still addressing Alice. “If there was anything to live for--if you’d say the word!”--she knew what he meant--“I’d stay and take my schooling.” He waited a moment, and she, looking from his asking face to Ward’s calm brow, could not utter a sound. What could she promise? The outlaw’s tone softened to entreaty. “If you’ll only say I may see you again on the other side of the range ’twill keep my heart warm. Can’t you promise me that? It’s mighty little.”

He was going to almost certain death, and she could not refuse this. “You may write to me--” she faltered. “You know my address--”

He struck the little book in his pocket. “Yes, I have it safe. Then I may see you again?”

Alice, supported by Mrs. Adams, unsteadily rose. “Yes, yes, only go. They are coming back! I can hear them.”

He took her hand. “Good-by,” he said, chokingly. “You’ve given me heart.” He bent swiftly and kissed her forehead. “I’ll win! You’ll hear from me.”

“Hurry!” she wildly cried. “I hear voices!”

He caught up his hat and opened the door. As he faced them his lips were resolute and his eyes glowing. “It’s only good night,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

“Hold!” shouted Ward. “You must take some food.” He tore the door open. “Wait--”

Even as he spoke a pistol-shot resounded through the night. It cut through the deathly silence of the forest like a spiteful curse, and was answered by another--then, after a short pause, a swift-tearing volley followed.

“They are killing him!” cried Alice.

They brought him in and laid him at her feet. He had requested this, but when she bent to peer into his face he had gone beyond speech. Limp and bloody and motionless he lay, with eyes of unfathomable regret and longing, staring up at her, and as the men stood about with uncovered heads she stooped to him, forgetful of all else; knelt to lay her hand upon his brow.

“Poor boy! Poor boy!” she said, her eyes blinded with tears.

His hand stirred, seeking her own, and she took it and pressed it in both of hers. “Jesus be merciful!” she prayed, softly.

He smiled faintly in acknowledgment of her presence and her prayer, and in this consolation died.

Wonderingly, with imperious frown, she rose and confronted the sheriff. “How is it that you are unhurt? Did he not fight?”

“That’s what I can’t understand, miss,” he answered. “He fired only once, and then into the air. ’Pears like he wanted to die.”

Alice understood. His thought was of her. “You shall hear as little as possible,” he had said.

“And you killed him--as he surrendered,” she exclaimed, bitterly, and turned toward the dead man, whose face was growing very peaceful now, and with a blinding pain in her eyes she bent and laid a final caressing hand upon his brow.

As she faced the sheriff again she said, with merciless severity: “I’d rather be in his place than yours.” Then, with a tired droop in her voice, she appealed to Ward: “Take me away from here. I’m tired of this savage world.”

VI. NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!

By Zane Grey

From “The Last of the Plainsmen,” copyright, 1908, by A. C. McClurg & Co. By special permission from the author.

It was a waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The lonesome, far-northern Hudson’s Bay Trading Post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the banks of the Slave River and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric, semi-civilized splendor, but black-browed, austere-eyed, stood in savage dignity with folded arms and high-held heads. Lounging on the grassy bank were white men, traders, trappers and officials of the post.

All eyes were on the distant curve of the river where, as it lost itself in a fine-fringed bend of dark green, white-glinting waves danced and fluttered. A June sky lay blue in the majestic stream; ragged, spear-topped, dense green trees massed down to the water; beyond rose bold, bald-knobbed hills, in remote purple relief.

A long Indian arm stretched south. The waiting eyes discerned a black speck on the green, and watched it grow. A flatboat, with a man standing to the oars, bore down swiftly.

Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help the voyager in the difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavily laden boat surged with the current and passed the dock despite the boatman’s efforts. He swung his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glance on those above. The silvery gleam in his fair hair told of years.

Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level, grassy beach on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too, were a couple of Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.

The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, in a faded military coat.

“Are you the musk-ox hunter?” he asked, in tones that contained no welcome.

The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh--a strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play.

“Yes, I am the man,” he said.

“The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been apprised of your coming. They have held council and are here to speak with you.”

At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to the level beach and formed a half-circle before the voyager. To a man who had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black Thunder of the Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this semi-circle of savages--lords of the north--was a sorry comparison. Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and slovenly, these low-statured chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien. They made a sad group.

One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled out a haughty sonorous voice over the listening multitude. When he had finished, a half-breed interpreter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal from the commandant.

“He says listen to the great orator of the Chippewayan. He has summoned all the chiefs of the tribes south of Great Slave Lake. He has held council. The cunning of the pale-face, who comes to take the musk-oxen, is well known. Let the pale-face hunter return to his own hunting-grounds; let him turn his face from the north. Never will the chiefs permit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from their country. The Ageter, the musk-ox, is their god. He gives them food and fur. He will never come back if he is taken away, and the reindeer will follow him. The chiefs and their people would starve. They command the pale-face hunter to go back. They cry Naza! Naza! Naza!”

“Say, for a thousand miles I’ve heard that word Naza!” returned the hunter, with mingled curiosity and disgust. “At Edmonton Indian runners started ahead of me, and every village I struck the redskins would crowd round me and an old chief would harangue at me, and motion me back, and point north with Naza! Naza! Naza! What does it mean?”

“No white man knows; no Indian will tell,” answered the interpreter. “The traders think it means the Great Slave, the North Star, the North Spirit, the North Wind, the North Lights and Ageter, the musk-ox god.”

“Well, say to the chiefs to tell Ageter I have been four moons on the way after some of his little Ageters, and I’m going to keep on after them.”

“Hunter, you are most unwise,” broke in the commandant, in his officious voice. “The Indians will never permit you to take a musk-ox alive from the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is a wonder you have not been stopped.”

“Who’ll stop me?”

“The Indians. They will kill you if you do not turn back.”

“Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!” The hunter paused a steady moment, with his eyelids narrowing over slits of blue fire. “There is no law to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and the greed of the Hudson’s Bay people. And I am an old fox, not to be fooled by pretty baits. For years the officers of this fur-trading company have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an Englishman, could not buy food of them. The policy of the company is to side with the Indians, to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a little tobacco and rum for millions of dollars’ worth of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man, Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get a helper? Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of craven Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk-oxen for forty years, to slink south now, when I begin to feel the north? Not I.”

Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hissing snake, spat in the hunter’s face. He stood immovable while they perpetrated the outrage, then calmly wiped his cheeks, and in his strange, cool voice addressed the interpreter.

“Tell them thus they show their true qualities, to insult in council. Tell them they are not chiefs, but dogs. Tell them they are not even squaws, only poor, miserable starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on them. Tell them the paleface has fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who could teach them to raise the musk-oxen and the reindeer, and to keep out the cold and the wolf. But they are blinded. Tell them the hunter goes north.”

Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter as of gathering thunder.

True to his word, the hunter turned his back on them. As he brushed by, his eye caught a gaunt savage slipping from the boat. At the hunter’s stern call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. He had stolen a parcel, and would have succeeded in eluding its owner but for an unforeseen obstacle, as striking as it was unexpected.

A white man of colossal stature had stepped in the thief’s passage, and laid two great hands on him. Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian, and he spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash. Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore. Whereupon the champion of the stranger in a strange land lifted a bag, which gave forth a musical clink of steel, and throwing it with the camp articles on the grassy bench, he extended a huge, friendly hand.

“My name is Rea,” said he, in deep, cavernous tones.

“Mine is Jones,” replied the hunter, and right quickly did he grip the proffered hand. He saw in Rea a giant, of whom he was but a stunted shadow. Six and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide shoulders, a hulk of bone and brawn. His ponderous, shaggy head rested on a bull neck. His broad face, with its low forehead, its close-shut mastiff under jaw, its big, opaque eyes, pale and cruel as those of a jaguar, marked him a man of terrible brute force.