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 detoured 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.