"Parasite!" he cried; and his hand flew down to his holster, wavered,
and fell soundless on his crossed legs.
It was the first time he had looked on me in anger.
"What's parasite?" asked Donoghue.
"A louse," said Apache Kid.
"Hell!" drawled Donoghue, and glanced at me. "You need lookin' after."
"There are parasites and parasites," said I. "In this case it is more
like these deer-lice we came by in the forest."
We had suffered from these, but I have not said anything of them, for
the subject is not pleasant.
"Well," drawled Donoghue. "They are fighters, anyway, they are. You
kind o' respect them."
Apache Kid smiled.
"Yes," he said, in a low voice, "it's the right word, nevertheless."
Donoghue jeered.
"Waal! Here's where I come in! Here's the beauty of not being
ediccated to big words nor what they mean, nor bein' able to follow a
high-toned talk except the way a man follows a poor-blazed trail."
Apache surveyed him with interest for a moment and then again turning to
me he heaved a little sigh and said:
"I wonder if you would do something for me after we get through with
this expedition? If I were to give you a little wad of bills, enough
for a year's holiday at home, I wonder if you 'd go and take a squint at
the house where my folks lived when I left home; find out if they are
still there, and if not, trace them up? You 'd need to promise me not
to let that sentimental side of you run away with you. You 'd need to
promise not to go and tell them I'm alive; for I 'm sure they have given
me up for dead years ago and mourned the allotted space of time that men
and women mourn--and forgotten. It would only be opening fresh wounds
to hear of me. They have grieved for my death; I would not have them
mourn for my life. But I--well, I sometimes wonder. You understand
what I mean----"
"Watch your eye!" roared Donoghue. "Watch your----" but a shot out of
the forest sent him flying along the ground, he having risen suddenly
and stretched for his rifle.
Instead of clutching it he went far beyond, ploughing the earth with his
outstretched hands; and right on the first report came a second and
Apache cried: "O!"
He sagged down all in a heap, but I flung round for my revolver--the one
with which I had had no practice. I heard the quick, dull plod of
running feet and before I could get my finger on my weapon a voice was
bellowing out:
"Don't shoot, man; don't shoot! It's Canlan; Mike Canlan. You ain't
hostile to Mike Canlan."
I wheeled about, and there he was trailing his smoking rifle in his left
hand and extending his right to me; Mike Canlan, little Mike Canlan with
the beady eyes, the parchment-like, pock-marked face, and the boy's
body.
Had my revolver been to hand, he had been a dead man, I verily
believe--he or I. As it was, I leapt on him crying:
"Murderer! Murderer!"
Down came my fist on his head and at the jar his rifle fell from his
grasp. The next stroke took him on the lips, sending him backwards. I
pounded him till my arms were weary, he lying there with his faded,
pock-marked face and his colourless eyes dancing in pain and crying out:
"Let up! Let up, you fool! We ain't hostile. It's Canlan!" he cried,
between blows. "Mike Canlan."
At last I did "let up" and stood back from him.
He sat up and wiped the blood from his mouth and spat out a tooth.
"Ah, lad," he said. "Here's a fine way to repay me for savin' your
life. Think I could n't have laid you out stark and stiff there aside
them two?"
My gorge rose to hear him talk thus.
"Easy I could have done it," he went on, "but I didn't. And why?"
He sidled to me on his hams without attempting to rise, and held up a
finger to me.
"Why, lad, you saved my life once, so I spared yours this blessed night.
That's me, that's Mike Canlan. And see here, lad, you and me now----"
"Silence!" I cried, drawing back from his touch, as he crept nearer.
I had seen murder done, of the most horrible kind. I had seen a
big-hearted, sparkling-eyed man, not yet in his prime, struck out of
life in a moment. What he was telling me of himself was nothing to me
now. I only knew that I had come to like him and that he was
gone--slain by this little, insignificant creature that you could not
call a man. And I had seen another man, whom I did not altogether hate,
sent to as summary an end. I held this man who talked in the sing-song
voice at my feet in horror, in loathing. I bent to feel the heart of
Apache Kid, for I thought I saw a movement in his sun-browned neck, as
of a vein throbbing and--
"O! They're dead, dead and done with," cried Canlan. "If they was n't,
I 'd shove another shot into each of 'em just to make sure. But they
're dead men, for Canlan killed 'em. If they was n't, I 'd shove
another shot into each of them!"
The words rang in my ears with warning. I had just been on the point of
trying to raise Apache Kid; a cry of joy was almost on my lips to think
that life was not extinct; but the words warned me and I turned about.
"He's dead, ain't he?" said Canlan, and I lied to him.
"Yes," I replied. "He is dead, and as for you----"
"As for me--nothing!" said Canlan, and he looked along his gleaming
barrel at where my heart fluttered in my breast.
"You and me," said he, "has to come to terms right now. Oh! I don't
disrespec' you none for not takin' kindly to this. I like you all the
better for it. But think of what you 've fallen into all through me.
Here 's half shares in the Lost Cabin Mine for you now instead of a
paltry third--half shares, my lad. How does that catch you?"