Chapter 18

She could conceive of no circumstances whereby her fate would be altered. She knew now, as well as she knew the fact of her own life, that she had been trapped and snared and cheated by a sardonic destiny. For the moment she wished she had never fought her way back to the cabin with Bill after yesterday's adventure, but that side by side in the drifts, they had yielded to the Shadow and the cold.

Through the dragging hours of afternoon, Harold seemed restless and uneasy. He smoked impatiently and was nervous and abstracted in the hours of talk. But the afternoon died at last. Once more the shadows lengthened over the snow; the dusk grew; the first, bright stars thrust through the gray canopy above them. Virginia went to the work of cooking supper,--the last supper in this little, unforgettable cabin in the snow.

Both Bill and Virginia started with amazement at the sound of tapping knuckles on the door. Harold's eyes were gleaming.

XXIX

Harold saw fit to answer the door himself. He threw it wide open; Virginia's startled glance could just make out two swarthy faces, singularly dark and unprepossessing, in the candlelight. She experienced a swift flood of fear that she couldn't understand: then forced it away as an absurdity.

"We--we mushin' over to Yuga--been over Bald Peak way," Joe said stumblingly. "Didn't know no one was here. Want a bunk here to-night."

"You've got your own blankets?"

"Yes. We got blankets."

"On your way home, eh? Well, I'll have to ask this lady."

Harold seemed strangely nervous as he turned to Virginia. He wondered if this courteous reference to her was a mistake; could it be that she would object to their staying? It would make, at best, an awkward situation. However, he knew this girl and he felt sure. He half-closed the door.

"A couple of Indians, going home toward the settlement on the Yuga," he explained quickly. "They've come from over toward Bald Peak and were counting on putting up here to-night. That's the woods custom, you know--to stay at anybody's cabin. They didn't know we were here and want to stay, anyway. Do you think we can put 'em up?"

"Good Heavens, we can't send them on, on a night like this. It is awkward, though--about food----"

"They've likely got their own food."

"Of course they can stay. Bill can sleep on the floor in here--you can take the two of them with you into the little cabin. It will be pretty tight work, but we can't do anything else. Bring them in."

Harold turned again to the door, and in a moment the Indians strode, blinking, into the candlelight. The brighter light did not reveal them at greater advantage. Virginia shot them a swift glance and was instinctively repelled: but at once she ascribed the evil savagery of their faces to racial traits. She went back to her work.

Bill, sitting against the cabin wall, tried to make sense out of a confused jumble of thoughts and impressions and memories that flooded in one wave to his mind. His few hours of blindness had seemingly sharpened his other senses: and there was a quality of the half-breed's voice that was distinctly familiar. He had assumed at once that the two breeds were Joe and Pete whom he had encountered when he first found Harold. Why, then, had the latter made no sign of recognition? Why should he repeat a manifest lie,--that they had been over toward Bald Peak and were traveling toward the Yuga, and that they thought the cabin was unoccupied? He remembered that he had given these particular Indians definite orders to stay away from the district. Outwardly he was cool and at ease, his face impassive and grave; in his inner self he was deeply perturbed and suspicious.

Of course, there was a possibility that he was mistaken in the voice. He resolved to know the truth.

"It's Joe and Pete, isn't it?" he asked abruptly in the silence.

There was no reply at first. Virginia did not glance around in time to see the lightning signal of warning from Harold to the Indians; yet she had an inner sense of drama and suspense.

She had never heard quite this tone in Bill's voice before. It was hard, uncompromising, some way menacing. "I say," he repeated slowly, "are you Pete and Joe, or aren't you?"

"Pete--Joe?" Joe answered at last, in a bewildered tune. Harold himself could not have given a better simulation of amazement. "Don't know 'em. I'm Wolfpaw Black--he's Jimmy--Jimmy DuBois."

The names were convincing,--typical breed names, the latter with a touch of French. But Harold's admiration for the resourcefulness of his confederate really was not justified. Joe hadn't originated the two names. He had spoken the first two that had come to his mind,--the names of a pair of worthy breeds from a distant encampment.

Except for a little lingering uneasiness, Bill was satisfied. It would be easy to mistake the voice. He had heard it only a few times in his life. Virginia went on with her supper preparations, and at last the three of them drew chairs around their crude little table. The two breeds took their lunch from their packs and munched it, sitting beside the stove.

The night had fallen now, impenetrably dark, and the Northern Lights were flashing like aerial searchlights in the sky. The five of them were singularly quiet, deep in their own thoughts. Bill heard his watch ticking loudly in his pocket.

All at once Joe grunted in the stillness, and all except Bill whirled to look at him. He went to his pack and fumbled among the blankets. Then, a greedy light in his eyes, he put two dark bottles upon the table.

Bill, unseeing, did not understand. His finer senses, however, told him that the air was suddenly electric, charged with suspense. Virginia was frankly alarmed.

In her past life she had had intimate acquaintance with strong drink. While it was true that she had never partaken of it beyond an occasional cocktail before dinner, it was common enough in the circle in which she had moved. She was used to seeing the men of her acquaintance drink whisky-and-sodas, and many of her intimate girl friends drank enough to harden their eyes and injure their complexions. She herself had always regarded it tolerantly, thinking that much of the hue and cry that had been raised about it was sheer sentimentality and absurdity. She didn't know that evil genii dwelt in the dark waters that could change men into brutes: such mild exhilaration as she had received from an unusually potent cocktail had only seemed harmless and amusing.

But she was not tolerant now. She was suddenly deeply afraid. She looked at Bill, forgetting for the moment that in his blindness he could not see what was occurring and that in his helplessness she could not depend upon him in a crisis. She turned to Harold, hoping that he would refuse this offering at a word. And her fear increased when she saw the craving on his face.

Harold had gone a long time without strong drink. The sight of the dark bottles woke his old passion for it in a flash. His blood leaped, a strange and dreadful eagerness transcended him. Virginia was horrified at the sudden, insane light in his eyes, the drawing of his features.

"Have a drink?" Joe invited.

Bill started then, but he made no response. Harold moved toward the table.

"You're a real life-saver, Wolfpaw," he replied genially. "It's a cold night, and I don't care if I do. Virginia, pass down the cups."

Of course there were not enough cups to go around. There were three of tin, however, counting one that Bill made from an empty can. "You'll drink?" Joe asked Bill.

The woodsman's face was grave. "Wolfpaw, it's against the law of this province to give or receive liquor from Indians," he replied gravely. "I won't drink to-night."

Pete turned with a scowl. His thought had already flashed to the white blade at his belt. "You're damn particular----" he began.

But Joe shook his head, restraining him. The hour to strike had not yet come. They must enjoy their liquor first and engender fresh courage from its fire. He saw fit, however, to glance about the room and locate the weapon of which Harold had spoken,--the deadly miner's pick that leaned against the wall back of the stove.

Curiously, Virginia's thought had flung to the weapons, too. She had taken off her pistol when she had been nursing Bill and hadn't put it on since. Quietly, so as not to attract attention, she glanced about to locate it. It was hanging on a nail at the opposite end of the table,--and Joe stood just beside it. She had no desire to waken his suspicions of her fear. She knew she must put up a bold front, at least. Nevertheless her fingers longed for the comforting feel of its butt. She resolved to watch for a chance to procure it.

"Have a drink?" Joe asked Virginia.

She didn't like the tone of his voice. He was speaking with entire familiarity, and again she expected interference from Harold. Her fiance, however, was fingering the bottle. She saw Bill straighten, ever so little, and beheld the first signs of rising anger in the set of his lips. But she didn't know the full fierceness of his inward struggle,--an almost resistless desire to spring at once and smite those impertinent tones from the breed's lips. But he knew that he must take care--for Virginia's sake--and avoid a fight as long as it was humanly possible to do so.

"No," the girl responded coldly.

"Then there's enough cups after all," Harold observed. "I was going to take the pitcher, if either Virginia or this conscientious teetotaler cared for a shot." He chuckled unpleasantly. "I thought I could get more that way."

They poured themselves mighty drinks,--staggering portions that more than half-emptied the first of the quarts. Then they threw back their heads and drained the cups.

The liquor was cheap and new, such as reaches the Indian encampments after passing through many hands. It burned like fire in their throats, and almost at once it began to distill its poison into their veins.

Harold and Pete immediately resumed their chairs; Joe still stood at the table end. He, too, had seen the little pistol of blue steel hanging on the nail. At first the three men were sullen and silent, enjoying the first warmth of the liquor. Then the barriers of self-restraint began to break down.

Harold began to grow talkative, launching forth on an amusing anecdote. But there was no laughter at the end of it. The Indians were never given to mirth in their debauches; both Bill and Virginia were far indeed from a receptive humor.

"What's the matter with this crowd--can't you see a joke?" Harold demanded. "Say, Bill, over there--you who wouldn't take a gentleman's drink--what you sitting there like an old marmot for on a rock pile? Why don't you join in the festivities?"

For all the rudeness of Harold's speech, Bill answered quietly. "Not feeling very festive to-night. And if I were you--I'd go easy on too much of that. You're out of practice, you know."

"Yes--thanks to you. At least, before I came here I lived where I could get a drink when I wanted it, not in a Sunday-school."

Virginia suddenly leaned forward. "Where did you live before you came here, Harold?" she asked.

There was a sudden, unmistakable contempt in her voice.

XXX

Harold caught the note of scorn in Virginia's voice, and he had an instant of sobriety. He looked at her with eager eyes. The poison in his veins had enhanced her beauty to him; his eyes leapt quickly over her slender form. It would pay to be careful, he thought. He didn't want to lose her now. But in an instant his reckless mood returned.

"Where I lived? What do you care, as long as I'm here? I suppose Bill has already told you, the dirty----"

"Don't say it," Virginia cautioned quickly. "I wouldn't answer for the consequences."

But for all her brave words, terror swept her. She remembered that Bill was helpless and blind. "Bill has told me nothing. It wouldn't be like him to tell me things--that might make me unhappy."

"Sing another little song about him, why don't you?" Harold scorned. "I haven't heard you talk anything else for a month. But what do I care?" He tried to steady himself, to control his erring tongue. "But, Virginia--that's all right, if he's one of your friends. He's good enough according to his lights--but you can't expect much from some one who's never been outside these tall woods! No wonder he couldn't see a joke, or take a drink with a gentleman. He hasn't the chances, the environment--that's it, environment--that you and I have had. And speaking of drinks----"

He went to the table again and poured his cup half full. Then with unsteady hand he poured an equal portion for the two Indians. They took their cups with burning eyes, and Harold raised his own drink aloft.

"A little toast--and everybody stand up," he cried. "We're going to drink to Virginia! To my future wife, gentleman--the lady who's promised me her hand! Look at her there, you breeds--the most beautiful woman that ever came to the North! Drink her down!"

The burning poison poured into their throats. Virginia glanced again at her pistol, but Joe still stood, half-covering it with his arm. Her face was no longer merely anxious. All color had swept from it; her eyes were wide and pleading. But there was no one to give aid to-night. Bill sat, helpless and blind, against the wall.

She had not dared to resent aloud the bandying of her name, the insult of their searching eyes upon her beauty. It seemed to her that she heard a half-muttered exclamation from Bill, but his face belied it. And in reality the man's thoughts were as busy as never before.

He opened his eyes, struggling for vision. But he could not make out the forms of the men at all, except when they crossed in front of the candles. The candles themselves were mere points of yellow between his lids. One of the candles was sitting just beside him, on a shelf; the other was on the table. He tried to locate the position of all four of his fellow-occupants of the cabin,--Virginia at one end of the table, Joe at the other, Pete opposite him on the other side of the stove, Harold standing in the middle of the room, babbling in his drunkenness.

But the first exhilaration of the drink was dying now, giving way to a more dangerous mood. Even Harold was less talkative: the tones of his voice had harshened. The two Indians, when they spoke at all, were surly and threatening.

The moments passed. For a breath the cabin was still. Only too well Bill knew that matters were approaching the explosive stage. A single word might invoke murderous passions that would turn the cabin into shambles. The men drank the third time, emptying the first quart and beginning upon the second.

"You're a pretty little witch," Harold addressed Virginia. "You're hard to kiss, but your kisses are worth having. What you think about that, Joe? Aren't I tellin' you the truth?"

Joe! Bill's first impression had been right, after all. His face made no sign, but he shifted in his chair. For all the ease and almost inertness with which he sat, his muscles were wholly ready for such command as his mind might give them,--to spring instantly to their full power for a fight to the death. Virginia heard the name too, and her fears increased.

"Joe?" she repeated. "You know him, then?"

"Of course I know Joe. He's an old friend. He's one that Bill told never to show his face in this part of Clearwater again--but you don't see anything happening to him, do you?"

He waited, hoping Bill would make response. But the latter was holding hard, waiting for the moment of crisis, hoping yet that it might be avoided. There was time enough when Virginia was safe and his sight had returned him to answer such speeches as this.

"You see he hasn't anything to say," Harold gloated. "I asked you a question, Joe--about Virginia. Didn't I tell the truth?"

The girl flinched, then caught herself with a half-sob. She resolved to make one more appeal. "Oh Harold--please--please be careful what you say," she pleaded. "You're drunk now--but don't forget you were a gentleman--once. Don't drink any more. Don't let these Indians drink any more, either."

"A gentleman once, eh? So you don't think I'm one any more. But Bill, there--he's one, ain't he? It seems to me you've been getting kind of bossy around here, lately--and the women of we northern men don't behave that way."

"I'm not your woman, thank God--and I ask you to be careful."

"And I repeat that warning." Bill spoke gravely, quietly from his chair. "You're acting like a rotter, Harold, and you know it. Shut up the bottle and try to hold yourself--and then remember what you've been saying. Remember that I'm still here--and if I'm not able to avenge an insult now, the time is coming when I will. And I've got one weapon _now_ that I won't hesitate to use. I mean--an answer to a question of a while ago. If you want to keep her love, be careful."

The Indians turned to him, the murder-madness darkening their faces. Pete's hand began to steal toward his hip. He had no ancestral precedent for the use of a miner's pick for such work as faced him now. And he held high regard for the thin, cruel blade.

"Do you think I care?" Harold answered. "Tell her if you want to--all about Sindy and everything else. Do you think I'm ashamed of it? I've heard all I want to from you too--and I'll say and drink what I please."

Bill had no answer at first. He had thought that this threat might bring Harold to time; he had supposed that the man valued Virginia's love as much as he, in a similar position, would have valued it. Harold turned to the girl. "So you're _not_ my woman, eh?"

"No, no, no! I never will be!" The girl's eyes were blazing, and she had forgotten her fear in her magnificent wrath. "I suppose--you were a squaw man. These Indians are your own friends."

Harold smiled cruelly. "Yes, a squaw man. And these are my friends. Don't you suppose I've known--for the last week--you were just fooling me along, all the time fondling Bill? Sindy at least was faithful--and her form wouldn't take anything from yours."

Pete, watching Joe, was somewhat amazed at the curious start the man made. His searching gaze had leaped over the girl's form; his dark, smoldering eyes suddenly blazed red. There was no other word than red. They were like two coals of fire.

There ensued a moment of strange and menacing silence. Pete chuckled, already receptive to Joe's thought. Harold turned to stare at him.

Joe put his pipe to his lips, then fumbled at his pocket. He seemed to search in vain. "Will you give me a match, please, lady?" he asked.

The tone was strange, thick and strained, yet Virginia's heart thrilled with hope. The request was a welcome interlude in a quarrel that was already rapidly approaching the fighting stage. Perhaps if these men started to smoke, their blood would cool; she had known of old that tobacco was a wonderful bromide to overstretched nerves. He turned quickly to the shelf above Bill's head and procured half a dozen matches from the box.

As her back was turned she heard Pete laugh again,--one evil syllable that filled her with instinctive horror. Her wide eyes turned to him; he was watching her intently. Then she stepped back to give Joe the matches.

Instinctively her eyes turned to the wall for a reassuring sight of her pistol. It was gone from its place.

For an instant she stared in horrified amazement. The matches dropped idly from her hand. A sob caught in her throat, a sob of hopeless and utter terror, but she fought a brave little fight to suppress it. She knew she must appear to be brave; at least she must do this much. She looked at Joe; his evil, leering face told her only too plainly that his eager hand had seized and secreted her pistol. Pete's face was drawn too; Harold only looked bewildered.

He was her last hope, but in one instant's scrutiny she saw that this had vanished, too. Some terrible thought had sobered and engrossed him. Now he was eyeing her like a witless thing, his features drawn, his eyes burning. The moment was charged with ineffable suspense.

"What is it, Virginia?" Bill asked.

"One of these men--" she answered brokenly--"has taken my pistol. I want him to give it back----"

The circle laughed then,--a harsh and sinister sound that filled her with inexpressible horror. For a moment she stood motionless in the center of that leering circle, her eyes wide, her face white as death,--a slight figure, trying to hard to stand straight, crushed and defenseless, only her eyes pleading in last appeal. Instinctively her lips whispered a prayer.

Joe spoke then, a single sentence in the vernacular for Harold's ears. With one gesture he indicated Harold, himself, and Pete in turn, then pointed to the girl. His face was hideous with eagerness.

Harold started at the words, but at first made no answer. He had lost her anyway; there was no need of further restraint. The silence, the stress, most of all the burning liquor flung a wild and devastating flame through his veins, a dreadful madness seized his brain. There was no saving grace, no impulse of manhood, no memory of virtue to hold him back.

His degeneracy was complete. He could not go lower. His father's wicked blood pulsed in his veins; the final brutality that the North bestows upon those it conquers was upon him. He answered with a curse.

"Why not?" he said. "The slut's thrown me over. When I'm through you can do what you want. And crack the skull of that mole with the pick and throw him out in the snow."

The two Indians lurched forward at his words. Bill left his chair in a mighty leap.

XXXI

When Bill sprang forward to intercept the attack upon the girl he came with amazing accuracy and power. There was nothing of blindness or misdirection about that leap. It was as if his sight had already returned to him. The real truth was that by means of his acute ear he had located the exact position of every actor in the impending drama.

What was more important, he knew the location of both candles. For all his almost total blindness, he could discern through his watering eyes the faint, yellow gleam of each. The one that burned beside him, on the little shelf, he brushed off with one sweep of his hand as he leaped. He knocked the second from the table; it fell, flickered, filled the room an instant with dancing light, and then went out. The utter darkness dropped down.

The act had been so swift and unexpected that neither Joe, standing nearest to the girl, or Harold across the room could draw their pistols and fire. Seemingly in a flash the darkness was upon them. No more was Bill the blind and helpless mole, to strike down with one careless blow. He was face to face with his enemies in his own dark lair. He had turned the tables; the advantage of vision on which they had presumed had been in an instant removed. They could see no more than he could now. Besides, in the hours since his rescue, he had already learned to find his way around the cabin.

And this was no half-darkness--that which descended as the candles were struck down. It was the infinite, smothering gloom of an underground cave in which no shadow could live, nor the sharpest outline remain visible. Harold cursed in the blackness; as if in a continuation of the leap he had made to upset the candles, Bill seized Virginia in his strong arms. He thrust her to the floor and into the angle between her bunk and the wall, the point that he instinctively realized would be easiest to defend and safest from stray bullets. Then, widening his arms, almost to the width of the little space between the table and the wall, he lunged forward again.