FACE TO FACE
Before daylight next morning the two men dragged the little flat boat
to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night
and out of the darkness came the crash and grind of ice, the dull roar
and splash of undermined banks, and the purling rumble of swift moving
water.
After breakfast Bill and Jeanne, armed with light spruce poles, took
their places; Chenault pushed the boat into the current and it shot
downstream, whirling in the grip of the flood.
There was no need for oars. Both Bill and the girl had their work cut
out warding off from drifting ice cakes and the thrashing branches of
uprooted trees.
Time and again they came within a hair's-breadth of destruction. The
eddying, seething surface of the swift rushing river seemed to hurl its
debris toward their little craft in fiendish malevolence. Ice cakes
crashed together on every hand, water-logged tree-butts snagged them
bow and stern, and the low-hanging limbs of "sweepers" clawed and tore
at them like the teeth of a giant rake as they swept beneath, lying
flat upon the bottom of the boat.
Bill grinned at the thought of a canoe. In the suck and swirl of the
current the odds were heavily against even the stout flat boat's
winning through.
He estimated their speed to be about eight miles an hour and devoted
his whole attention to preventing the boat from fouling the drift. They
were riding the "run out," and he knew that Moncrossen would wait for
the river to become comparatively free of drift before breaking out his
rollways.
The rain ceased, but the sky remained heavily overcast and darkness
overtook them while yet some distance above the log camp and skirting
the opposite shore.
Eager as he was to meet Moncrossen, Bill decided not to risk crossing
the river in the fast gathering darkness. Gradually the boat was worked
toward shore and poled into the backwater of submerged beaver meadow.
Landing upon a slope a couple of hundred yards back from the river,
they tilted the boat on edge, and, inclining it forward, rested it upon
the tops of stakes thrust into the ground. The blanket was spread, and
with the roaring fire directly in front the uptilted boat made an
excellent shelter.
An awkward constraint, broken only by necessary monosyllables, had
settled upon the two. On the river each had been too busy with the
workin hand to give the other more than a passing thought, but now, in
the intimacy of the campfire, each felt uneasily self-conscious.
Supper over, Bill lighted his pipe and stared moodily into the flames
with set face and brooding eye. From her position at his side Jeanne
covertly watched the silent man.
Of what was he thinking? Surely not of the girl--his wife! She winced
at the word--but the tense, almost fierce expression of his face, the
occasional spasmodic clenching of the great fists, could scarcely
accompany a man's thoughts of his wife of an hour.
Of Moncrossen? she wondered. Of the shooting of Jacques? Of the attack
upon her? Of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta? But, no--the gray eyes were staring into
the fire calmly, and in their depths she could see no gleam of hate nor
steely glitter of rage.
What was it he said the day she told him of the affair on Broken Knee?
"I, too, could kill him for that." The girl gave it up, and fell to
wondering what the morrow would bring forth.
At daylight, when they poled the boat into the river, Bill gazed in
surprise at the surface of the stream. A few belated ice cakes floated
lazily in the current, and many uprooted snags reared their scraggly
heads as they rolled sluggishly in the water.
But what riveted his attention were the logs. Hundreds and hundreds of
smoothly floating logs dotted the river, and as far as the eye could
reach more logs were coming.
He leaped to his feet and stood, shading his eyes with his hand. Far up
the stream the surface seemed solid with logs, and here and there he
could make out moving figures--tiny and frail they looked, like
strange, misshapen insects, as they leaped from log to rolling log--the
white-water men of the North.
"It's the drive!" he cried excitedly. "_My_ drive! Come, pole for your
life--we've got to work her across!"
A mile farther down they swept around a wide bend, and before them
loomed the cleared rollways of Moncrossen's camp, and on top of the
slope, for all the world like fortifications commanding the river, were
pile after pile of pyramided logs.
The little flat boat was rapidly approaching, and men could be seen
swarming about the rollways. One man with a shirt of flaming red rushed
among them, gesticulating wildly, and faintly to their ears came the
raucous bellowing of his voice. At the sight of him Jeanne paled
visibly. The man was Moncrossen.
Even as they looked the first rollway tore loose; the logs, rolling and
tumbling down the steep slope, leaped into the river with a roar and a
splash that sent a fountain of white spray flying skyward. Bill set his
pole and fairly hurled the boat into the bank well above the rollways.
"Good God!" he cried. "Can't he see the drive? They'll jam and my men
will be killed!" He leaped ashore and crashed through the intervening
underbrush in great bounds, closely followed by the light-footed
Jeanne.
They gained the top, and while rushing along the rollways could hear
Moncrossen roaring his orders--could catch the words that foamed from
his lips amid volleys of crashing oaths.
"Cut them toggles! Let 'em go! Let 'em go! Damn you! Foul that drive!
I'll show 'em if they c'n slip a drive through me!"
And then--face to face between two high-piled pyramids--they met. The
words died in a horrible, throaty gurgle; and Moncrossen's face, livid
with rage, turned chalky as his eyes roved vacantly from Bill Carmody's
face to the face of the girl beyond. His jaw wagged weakly, his flabby
lips sagged open, exposing the jagged, brown teeth, and he passed his
hand uncertainly across his eyes.
"It's the greener," he mumbled thickly. "It's the greener hisself."
Another rollway rumbled into the river, and Bill leaped into the open.
"Stop!" he cried. "It's murder! There are men on that drive!"
The two lumber-jacks who stood almost at his side turned at the sound
of his voice. For one moment they stared into his face, and then with a
wild yell dropped their peavies and fled toward the bunk-house. Other
men looked, and from lip to lip flashed the word, "The greener!" Men
stared at him dumbly, or turned and dashed for the clearing in a panic
of fear.
"He come up out of the river!" shrilled one as he ran. "I seen him! An'
I seen him go under a year back! He come hell a rippin' up through the
bushes--an' a she one a follerin'!"
Men crowded about--the bolder spirits, the matter of fact, and the
unsuperstitious among the crew--and Bill turned again to Moncrossen,
who stood rooted in his tracks.
"Where is she?" he asked in a low voice that cut distinctly upon the
silence. "The mother of this girl?" Moncrossen started. With a visible
effort he strove for control of himself.
"Who are you?" he blurted, and the words rasped hollow and dry.
Bill turned to the men.
"Do _you_ know?" he asked. "An old Indian woman--did he bring her to
this camp?"
The men stared blankly from the speaker to Moncrossen and into each
other's faces. Suddenly, one stepped forward.
"Look in the storeroom!" he cried. "A little while back--it was at
night--I seen 'em drag somethin' in--him an' Larson of the van." At the
words, Moncrossen sprang toward the speaker with an inarticulate growl
of rage.
"You lie!" he screamed; but before he reached the man, who shrank back
into the crowd, Bill stepped in front of him. He raised his arm and
pointed toward the clearing.
"To the storehouse," he said in the same low voice. For a fleeting
second Moncrossen glared into his eyes, and without a word, turned and
led the way, closely followed by Bill and Jeanne, while the crowd of
wondering lumber-jacks brought up the rear.
At the storehouse Moncrossen paused. "I'll fetch the key from the
office," he leered; but Bill turned to a man who stood leaning upon his
axe.
"Smash that door!" he commanded; and a half-dozen men sprang to the
task. The next instant the door flew inward, and the men crowded into
the building to return a few moments later bearing the old squaw,
gagged, bound, and wrapped tightly in a blanket, but with the undimmed
black eyes glaring upon them like a hawk's.
The cords were cut and the gag removed by willing hands. Someone held a
bottle to her lips, and she drank greedily. Jeanne dropped to her knees
by the old woman's side.
"He has come," she whispered. "M's'u' Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die, has
come to you." Wa-ha-ta-na-ta nodded her understanding, and her beady
black eyes flashed.
"She must have water!" cried the girl; "and food!"
At the words a half-dozen men rushed toward the cook-shack, returning a
few minutes later laden as to victual a regiment.