Chapter 30

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 détoured 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.