REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
It was not long before Donald realized that, whatever had been Judd's
primary purpose, he was now fighting to kill, and he sought desperately
to drive home a blow which would knock him out. But, with all his
greater skill, it was not easily to be accomplished. The mountaineer was
tough, agile and actuated by a rage which mere punishment only
increased. And punishment he took aplenty; while Donald remained almost
unscathed, as he met rush after rush, and a storm of wildly flailing
blows, with an unbroken defence.
Nor was it long before the other realized that absolute necessity called
for him to break through that guard, and clinch with his opponent, if he
were to hope to be successful in carrying out his design. Gathering his
physical forces for a final desperate assault--which right and left hand
blows on his already battered, bleeding face could not check--he broke
through Donald's defence, and flung his sinewy arms about his rival.
For a moment both men clung desperately to one another, their breath
coming in labored gasps.
Then, suddenly, the mountaineer twisted his leg about one of Donald's,
catching him off his guard, and they went heavily to the ground
together.
Whatever had been the city man's advantage when they were on their feet,
he shortly discovered that the woodman's great agility and crude skill
in wrestling gave him the upper hand in this more primitive method of
combat. Over and over they rolled, gasping for breath, and, although
Donald exerted his great, but now rapidly failing, strength, more than
once he felt the clutch of the other's lean, powerful fingers gripping
his throat and shutting off his breath, before he could tear them free.
The end came suddenly.
During a deadly grapple--with first one man, then the other, on
top--Donald called into play the last of his nervous reserve force, and,
with a mighty effort, broke free, and flung Judd face downward on the
ground. The latter's right arm was extended, and, grasping the sweaty
wrist, he drew it up and back, at the same instant crowding his knee
into the spine of the prostrate man.
Judd cursed and wriggled frantically; but only succeeded in grinding his
battered face into the torn turf. It was some seconds before the
conqueror could gain breath enough to speak. At last he panted out, "Now
I've got you. If you move I'll dislocate your shoulder like _this_!" An
involuntary shriek of agony was wrung from the defeated man's bleeding
lips.
"I'll let you up when ..."
"Oh, ooooh!" came a startled, terrified cry from above him. Donald
lifted his eyes, and saw Rose standing on the bank where he had stood.
For an instant he remained as though turned to stone, staring at the
girl with growing dismay. Finally he got slowly to his feet,
instinctively gave partial aid to Judd as he too struggled up, his
burning eyes also fixed on Smiles. It seemed as though the two
dishevelled, dirt-covered and bleeding men typified the brute in nature,
and stood arraigned there before the spirit of divine justice, for the
slender girl's white dress, and no less white face, against the
background of dark green, made her appear almost like an ethereal being.
Her breast was rising and falling rapidly as was indicated by the
palpitating movement of her hand pressed close against it; her lips were
parted and her large, shadowy eyes filled with uncomprehending fear and
pain.
"What ... what do hit mean?" she whispered.
As Judd made no answer Donald finally succeeded in summoning up an
unnatural laugh and lied reassuringly, "It ... it isn't anything
serious, Smiles. Judd and I got into a dispute over ... over which was
the better wrestler, and I have been showing him a few city tricks."
"Thet air a lie!" The mountaineer's words lashed out like a physical
blow, and the crimson flamed into the other's cheeks--and those of
Smiles as well.
"Hit air er lie," he repeated with a rasping voice, as he dashed the
blood and dirt from his lips. "We war fightin' ter kill, an' I reckon
yo' kin guess what hit war erbout," he added, flinging the last words up
at the girl.
Once again Donald attempted to save her still greater distress by a
white lie. "I chanced to stumble on his hidden still, Smiles, and he
thought that I would betray him."
"Oh, Juddy," cried the girl wringing her hands, "I've been erfeerin'
this. In course I knowed erbout hit, fer yo' showed me the still
yerself, but I've been worryin', and hit war ter warn ye ... ter beg ye
ter quit fer leetle Lou's sake erfore hit war too late thet I came. Yo'
must quit, oh _please_, Judd." In her eagerness she ran down the bank
and toward him. "_I_ knows thet Doctor Mac wouldn't tell, but hit's a
warnin'."
As though hypnotized, Judd gazed into her pleading face, with his
passion for her overwhelming that other one, which had so short a time
before swayed him. He stepped to meet her with a gesture of
hopelessness, and, realizing that he was for the moment forgotten,
Donald moved softly to the mountaineer's rifle, ejected the cartridges
from the magazine and pocketed them unobserved.
"I _kaint_ quit, Rose," answered Judd, looking into her face with a
hungry expression. "I kaint stop. Hit's my work, an' hit pays better
then ever hit done. I wants ter make money ... fer yo'. Besides, ef hit
hadn't ha' been fer the white liquor what I sell ter the storeman down
in Fayville, I wouldn't have been able ter sell yo'r baskets for ye. I
wouldn't hev had no money ter give ..."
He checked his impetuous, unconsidered words too late. The girl's quick
mind delved into his unspoken thought. She started and stepped back,
crying, "'To give?' Judd Amos, war hit yo' thet paid me ther extry price
on them baskets?"
Confused and distressed, the other remained silent until she repeated
her question insistently. Then he answered pleadingly, "I loves ye,
Smiles. Yo' know hit, an' so does _he_. I wanted ter holp ye, an' 'twar
ther only way."
Even while Donald--rejoicing in the opportunity to regain his
self-possession--had stood apart from the other two, none of the
conversation had escaped him. With his wrath now fanned to flame afresh
by Judd's apparent falsehood, he, too, burst into hot words without
pausing to consider the effect of them on the girl, "What? You dare
attempt to curry favor with her by lyingly claiming credit for the
additional money her work brought, you cur? You didn't know that I held
the cards to call that outrageous bluff, too, did you? You didn't know
that I bought every one of those baskets, and told the storekeeper what
price to pay for them, did you?"
No sooner had the anger-impelled words left his lips than Donald felt
heartily ashamed of himself, and wished that he might unsay them. Half
afraid, he turned his eyes toward the girl to find his fears realized.
Her eyes were flaming from her deathly white face, and a mingled look
of hurt pride and bitter scorn struggled for supremacy on her lips.
"Yo' ... yo' think I would accept yo'r charity?" she cried. "Yo' think I
would take money gifts from any man? I allows ter pay ye both every cent
uv thet money; and I hates ye ... I hates ye both."
For an instant she stood trembling with anger and mortification, then
turned and sped up the bank and away into the woods.
Judd sank down with a muffled groan, but Donald, shocked at the result
of his ill-advised and hasty words, forgot his late adversary and sprang
in pursuit, crying, "Smiles. Dear child, wait. I want to talk with you,
to explain...."
He ran over rock and crag blunderingly into the forest in the direction
she had taken, and, as he disappeared, Mike, who, during the combat, had
continually raged at his leash in futile frenzy, made a last desperate
effort, snapped the leather collar, although the effort drew a yelp of
pain from him, and tore after him.
He passed his master and overtook the fleeing girl, sagaciously sensing
the situation; but, as she paid no heed to his appealing barks and tugs
at her skirt, but merely ran the faster, he turned back to await his
lord. Body-weary and discomforted, Donald likewise gave up the chase as
the sound of Smiles' flight grew more distant and died away.
Eventually she too dropped into a walk, and finally stopped altogether,
with a deep, gasping sob. Throwing herself down at the foot of an
ancient tree, she pressed her flushed face hard against the rough bark,
her mind in a wretched turmoil.
For the first time in Smiles' young life her eyes had been opened, and
she had looked upon the brute passions of men, had tasted the bitter
gall of trust abused, had felt an anger which brought with it the desire
to hurt another as she herself had been hurt.
Stabbed to the quick of her soul, she lay on the moss-bedded roots of
the impassive tree, her body quivering with soundless, shuddering sobs.
She hated herself, the two men--and Judd less than Donald, for she had
known and excused his shortcomings, while in her childish eyes Dr.
MacDonald had been all that was noble, a super-man, an idol whose feet
were now clay. She hated the world where such things were possible.
For a long time Rose lay as she had fallen, hardly moving, and
when--pale and dry-eyed--she did arise to return to the cabin through
the twilight shadows, something beautiful, but indefinable, which had
gone to make up the fresh, childlike charm of her face, had vanished.
Meanwhile, Donald walked heavily on with bowed head, heedless of the
direction he took. The sound of rushing waters finally struck upon his
ear, and his heated, dirt-covered body turned instinctively in their
direction. A few minutes brought him to the river at a point where it
tore through a narrow ravine of rock, in dashing cataract and noisy
rapid. Donald, with increasing lameness, made his way painfully along
the craggy bank until it descended to the river's edge, and, kneeling
beside the leaping waters, he plunged his bruised, aching hands and face
into them gratefully.
As he stood up again at last, his ears caught faintly above the river's
tumult the distant crack of a rifle, followed immediately by another
sound nearer at hand on the bank above him.
It was the agonized yelp of pain from a dog. Donald sprang erect, his
heart seeming to lift with a convulsive action, and crowd his throat. He
well knew that canine cry, now filled with mortal agony.
Almost blind with reborn rage and fear, Donald sprang up the steep bank,
scrambling, stumbling, heedless of boughs which lashed across his face,
and rocks which bruised his legs. He reached the top, and, parting the
bushes, found what he had sought--and feared to find. On the stubbly
grass lay little Mike, whining and biting at a spot on his side where
the tawny hair was already matted and dark with flowing blood.
Made speechless by the clutching pressure in his throat, and suddenly
dizzy from a mist which rose before his eyes, the man bent and lifted
the panting animal--his bosom friend and faithful companion through many
days and nights--in his trembling arms.
Mike painfully turned his head and licked his master's drawn face. The
next instant came the sound of crashing underbrush, and, through
vistas, Donald saw a man approaching them on a lumbering run. It was Big
Jerry. His beard and clothing were dishevelled, and, as he drew near,
his deep, gasping breaths became audible. From his ghastly gray and
working face his deep eyes looked forth with an expression which spelt
pain of body and wrack of mind.
Donald stood up, with the dog clasped to his breast, and a terrible
expression on his countenance.
"Mike ... my friend ... shot ... he is dying," came his words, in an
unnatural voice. "God have mercy on the man who did it. I shall not!"
The giant's frame seemed to collapse visibly; two big tears started from
his eyes and ran down the furrows of his cheeks as he moved closer and
laid his big, shaking hand on the dog's head.
"_I_ done hit," he answered dully.
Mike licked the wrinkled hand which moved in slow caress over his jaws.
"You?" whispered Donald in amazed unbelief.
"Gawd help me, yes. I shot him ... I wish hit hed er been myself,"
returned the old man, between breaths which came in deep, body-shaking
gasps.
Slowly the doctor bent, laid his chum back on the ground, and knelt
beside him until the fast glazing eyes--which never wavered from
his--closed forever, and the pain-tortured little body lay still. Big
Jerry, too, sank down and dropped his massive head onto his hands,
while his frame rose and fell with convulsive heaving.
"Hit war this erway," he began to speak at last, and told his story in
broken, laboring sentences. "I war erhuntin' with ... with yo'r
rifle-gun in the woods thar beyond ther ravine. Jest es I war startin'
fer the cabin, I seen ... I seen a man erstandin' hyar on the bank, er
peerin' down towards the river, thar. I looked whar he war erlookin',
an' seen ye down thar, bathin' yo'r face in ther water. The man war
ertotin' a rifle-gun, an' uv a sudden he drapped ter his knee an' raised
hit, an' I knowed he war kalkerlatin' ter shoot ye.
"I tried fer ter shout, ter cry out a warnin' ter ye, but my voice hed
somehow lost hits power, an' wouldn't kerry above the noise of the
falls. Thar war but one thing fer ter do, an' hit called fer powerful
quick action.
"Yo' war my foster-son, an' ef 'twar yo'r life er his'n I allowed I
knowed whar my duty lay. But I didn't aim fer ter kill him.... I wish
ter Gawd I hed. 'Taint boastin' none fer me ter say ter ye thet I aimed
only fer ter shoot the arm what war holdin' the gun.
"In course hit takes time fer ter tell ye all this, but I acted like I
thought. Then ..." he paused, and went on only with a supreme effort,
"then, jest as I started the trigger-pull, I seen ... I seen leetle Mike
spring out o' the bushes straight at ... at the man. I _seen_ him, I
tells ye, erfore I fired. My mind told me not ter pull thet trigger,
an' ... an' I done hit. My aim war true, but ..." he stopped altogether.
"The man," asked Donald at length, through clenched teeth. "What
happened to him?"
"He turned et the crack of my gun. He ... he seen me, and run off inter
the wood thar."
There ensued a long silence. Then Donald's hand stretched out and
grasped that of the sorrowing giant.
"Jerry," he said steadily. "Don't feel so bad, it wasn't your fault. You
did all that man could do. You were trying to ... to save my life, just
as ... as Mike was, God bless the little dog. He must have realized that
Judd was following me by the exercise of a sense beyond our knowledge,
and rushed back to attack him--for my sake."
"Yo' said ... yo' said ... 'Judd.' How did yo' come ter know 'twar him?"
With new and deepened remorse, Donald sadly outlined the chief incidents
of the quarrel, without, however, mentioning the discovery of the still,
or the immediate cause of the combat.
"Gawd help us all ef er new feud hes broken out hyar," said Jerry
solemnly, as he finished. "But yo' air my friend, enjyin' ther
hospitality of my roof, an' from this day Judd Amos air my mortal enemy,
even though he be my next neighbor."
Donald sadly removed his coat, and, wrapping it around the body of his
chum, arose, and the silent, painful journey home was begun.