IN THE NICK OF TIME
From his position at a wide loophole, low down near the centre of the
barricade, Connie Morgan could see the yelling, leaping figures as
they sprang straight toward him across the clearing, firing as they
ran. Mechanically, the boy worked the lever of his carbine, sighting
and firing as in a dream. Above the crash and din of the rifles and
the war-whoops of the painted savages, other sounds broke upon his
ears--sharp, high-pitched shrieks of pain--the singing whine of
bullets--the heavy breathing of Toad Jones, who had climbed to the
top of the barricade almost directly above him--the defiant roars of
Tex Gordon, who was keeping two rifles hot while an old man loaded.
On came the Mooseheads. Connie sighted and fired, first at one
painted form and then at another--the whole clearing seemed alive
with howling fiends who advanced in short rushes, dodging now behind
a tree-stump, now dropping to one knee and firing, so that the little
puffs of blue smoke blurred the hideous distinctness of gaping mouths
and glaring eyeballs. Many were stopped in their advance, some
pitching forward to lie still and inert among the weeds, others
leaping high in the air to fall into a grotesque crumpled mass while
their rifles struck the rocks with the sharp ring of steel, and still
others, pausing, staggered ahead, and sank slowly to the ground to
load and fire weakly.
There was the sound of tearing wood. A sharp pain stung the boy's
cheek, and the air seemed filled with flying chips. He put his hand
to his face and tugged at a sliver the thickness of a lead pencil
that protruded from his jaw. The sliver yielded, and warm blood
tickled his neck as it trickled beneath his soft collar. A Brushwood
staggered past, screaming and dragging his rifle. Connie jammed his
magazine full and turned again to his loophole, whose edge was
splintered and torn at the point where he had been sighting.
There was a dull, scrunching thud above him. A rifle slipped past,
grazing his shoulder, and clattered on the rocks at his feet. The
body of a man followed the rifle, sliding slowly down the lodge-poles
and tree-trunks of the barrier. It, too, stopped at his feet, where
it lay with mouth open and a smallish blue hole over the left eye.
The man was Toad Jones.
Connie saw all this as he jerked at the lever of his carbine, pumping
fresh shells into the chamber and firing through his loophole. Saw,
also, other bodies lying close along the inside of the barricade. He
was not afraid--was not even excited. The whole thing was
unreal--like the climax of a great play. Only at first were his
nerves out of control--when he had dodged at the whine of the
bullets. He was firing faster, now--his carbine barrel was hot--it
burned his fingers, and he spit on his hand. He picked up Toad
Jones's rifle and fired till it was empty--then his own carbine was
thrust into his hand, reloaded, and a squaw caught up the empty
rifle. The yellow painted bodies of the Mooseheads were close to the
barrier, now, and they pitched forward as he fired,--but, their
places were taken by others--always, there were more.
The poles above him moved. He glanced upward into the glaring
eyeballs of a hideously painted face. Connie could see the yellow
teeth behind the lips drawn wide in a great oblong of ferocity. The
Indian's body was outside the barrier, but one arm was inside. And
the hand held a short carbine--held it like a pistol. The carbine
went off. There was a deafening roar and the boy heard his own
carbine clatter upon the rocks. His face burned and he choked as the
pungent powder smoke bit into his lungs. Again he looked up. The
face was still there. He tried to recover his carbine, but his arm
seemed tied to his body. Then, from close behind him sounded another
loud report, the painted face with its ferocious grin disappeared,
and beyond the barricade a heavy body thumped upon the ground. Ick
Far stood at his side with Toad Jones's rifle in his hand. He
dropped the rifle and, jerking the knife from his belt, slashed the
sleeve from Connie's jacket and shirt. There was blood on the white
skin of his arm--the arm that wouldn't move. The boy felt no pain,
only a restful numbness, and he watched with interest while the scout
applied a rude tourniquet. He glanced toward the barricade. A face
leered at the splintered loophole, and the muzzle of an old
smooth-bore appeared. Automatically, Connie reached for his revolver
and fired point-blank into the face at a distance of two feet. The
face disappeared. The black muzzle of the smooth-bore veered sharply
upward and rocked to a standstill. Then, Ick Far was shooting again,
and Connie was firing his service revolver at heads on top of the
barricade. There were painted bodies now, among the others inside
the barrier.
[Illustration: As Ick Far applied a rude tourniquet, Connie glanced
up. A face leered over the barricade and the muzzle of an old
smooth-bore appeared.]
An aged squaw, with a face withered and drawn, like a sun-dried
moccasin, pulled the smooth-bore, muzzle first, through the loophole.
She raised the butt to her shoulder, jerked the barrel upward toward
a painted figure that straddled the barricade, and pulled the
trigger. There was a report like the roar of a cannon. The recoil
flattened the squaw among the rocks. The painted figure rocked to
and fro, sagged side wise, and slithered slowly toward the ground.
The foot caught at the ankle in a crotch, and the Indian hung head
downward, with grotesquely twitching limbs and wide-staring eyes.
Upon the ground the old squaw laughed--a horrid, cackling laugh--and
Connie shuddered.
His revolver was empty and a wounded Brushwood reloaded it for him.
But he could see no more faces above the barricade. He heard loud
yells of triumph. Tex Gordon, with a strip of blanket bound tightly
about his head, rushed up.
"They've quit! They've quit, kid! Look at 'em run!" Connie peered
through the loophole and saw the half-naked forms running toward the
timber across the clearing. The battle for that day was won!
The sun had long set before the full extent of the fierce onslaught
was ascertained. Thanks to the barricade, the defenders of the
village, although outnumbered fully two to one, had not fared nearly
so badly as the attacking party, which had retreated, leaving more
than half its number dead or wounded upon the ground. The loss
within the barricade, however, was serious. Seven dead, including
Toad Jones, who had climbed recklessly to the top of the barrier, and
whose rifle had spoken to purpose during the earlier moments of the
fray. Of the living, only Ick Far and three others had escaped
without a scratch, while four were so badly wounded as to be
incapable of further action. This left only eight of the original
fighting force, but to offset the loss, fifteen squaws clamoured for
a place on the firing line, and so eagerly and efficiently did they
throw themselves into the work of preparing food, burying the dead,
strengthening the defences, and cleaning the rifles, that Connie felt
extremely hopeful for the future.
When Tex Gordon and Ick Far had bound up his wounded arm, the boy
called a council. It was the unanimous opinion that the Mooseheads
would not risk another charge. Their losses could only be estimated
as Connie forbade any one to venture beyond the barricade. An
Indian, like a rattlesnake, is never dead till he is good and dead,
and many a man has been treacherously murdered while endeavouring to
aid a wounded enemy.
The gravest danger that confronted the small garrison was the
shortage of provisions. Figuring only one meal a day, Connie and Tex
saw that their slender stock could last but four days--five at the
most. Water, the Brushwoods assured them, could be procured by
lowering a bucket on a line to the creek from a projecting ledge--but
food they must have.
The small amount hastily commandeered from "Soapy" White's stock had
been _cached_ with the canoe, and Tex Gordon volunteered to slip out
with a couple of Indians under cover of darkness and recover it. To
this Connie reluctantly consented, but it would only stave off the
inevitable for one day.
"They'll try to starve us out," Connie said. "We've got to get word
to Mayo--Dan McKeever's there, and Rickey."
"Me go!" cried Ick Far. "Me ketch um help. Seex sleeps, an' dem
Moosehead, she weesh she stay on de black montaine."
"We c'n hold out six days--eight, on a pinch--can't we, kid?" said
Tex Gordon, as he reached over and shook the scout's hand in a mighty
grip. "Y'u're a _man_! Doggone my buttons! Y'u might be a Injun,
but y'u're _white_--clean through to y'ur gizzard! Good-bye an' good
luck to y'u--an' if ever any one tries to tell me they ain't no good
Injuns, y'u bet I'll go to the floor with him till he yelps they're
_all_ good! An', jes' betwixt me an' y'u, they're th' orneriest sect
they is--an' we know it," he added with a grin.
Connie also grasped the old scout's hand as he stepped onto the
narrow foot trail and, although no word passed between them, each
knew what was in the mind of the other.
Ick Far knew the mountains as few men ever know them. While he had
never been there before, he knew instinctively that the steep divide
at whose base he and Connie Morgan had stood in their search for a
mail-route pass, would let him through somewhere in the vicinity of
the village of the Yellow Knives--the Indians whose old chief, White
Eagle, had sworn eternal friendship for the _Kloshe Tenas Tyee_, the
good little chief whose medicine arrows had delivered his tribe from
the hand of the Red Death.
The scout knew, also, that to undertake the trip to Mayo station
would mean ten days at the very least before help could reach the
besieged village. He knew that only two officers of the Mounted
would be found at the station, and that the Mooseheads, crazy with
drink and blood-lust, would stand under no authority, but would
murder the uniformed officers as they would murder an obscure Indian.
Of course, later, the tribe would suffer the consequences,
but--later--well, Ick Far formed his own plan.
And, as the scout knew the mountains, he knew Indians. He knew that
not only White Eagle, but every buck in the Yellow Knife village
would welcome gladly the chance to show the _Kloshe Tenas Tyee_ that
they were his friends. He knew that the Yellow Knives were friendly
with the Mooseheads, and hated the Brushwoods, but he knew, also,
that above any friendship for the Mooseheads was the bond, amounting
almost to idolatry which attached them to Connie Morgan, the _Kloshe
Tenas Tyee_.
Therefore, the scout turned northward from the mouth of the Lansing.
In "Soapy" White's store a light burned and, unseen in the darkness,
Ick Far paused and looked in at the window at the man who sat smoking
upon his counter. He gripped tightly his carbine, and lightly his
lean fingers played with the hilt of his sheath knife. But he
pressed his lips tightly and hurried on into the dark. Up the
river--up the small creek, he passed, travelling night and day. Up
and over the steep divide, and down on the other side into a maze of
creeks and feeders. Then, on the morning of the third day, he
staggered into the village--straight into the lodge of White Eagle,
where he told the chief his story--and collapsed upon the robes that
covered the floor of the lodge.
It was toward evening of the sixth day after the scout's departure.
The setting sun blazed red and angry above the peaks to the westward.
Behind the barricade the little garrison, with set, tense faces,
watched the preparation of the final move of the painted Mooseheads.
The provisions had been exhausted. Tex Gordon and his two Indians
had found the _cache_ rifled, and the small stock on hand had been
consumed the previous evening. Even this meagre store had not lasted
as long as anticipated. Connie had been awakened upon the fourth
night by a commotion near the commissary, which consisted of some
skins thrown over the buckets of provisions. There was the sound of
a struggle--a loud shriek--silence--a muffled splash from the
creek-bed far below, and when the boy investigated, a huge squaw rose
up from the ground beside the skins and pointed at her sheath
knife--at an empty provision bucket--at the cliff's edge. And, in
the morning, the garrison was short one defender. After that a guard
was set, but the harm had been done, and now the Mooseheads were
getting ready to rush the hungry little band. For six days they had
showed themselves in the clearing to shoot random shots and draw the
fire of the village. But the ruse failed because Connie gave orders
to save ammunition, and now, as the boy walked up and down the line
of his grim fighters, his eyes were serious; for he knew that only
five rounds of cartridges remained for each rifle, and that most of
the rifles were in the hands of squaws whose zeal far outweighed
their marksmanship.
The Mooseheads were forming, now--scattering out among the stumps of
the clearing--yelling and exposing themselves to draw the fire at
long range--but no shots were fired and, tiring of these tactics, the
painted savages advanced. Only one hundred yards separated the
nearest Indian from the barricade and Connie was about to give the
order to fire, when, from the timber beyond the clearing, came a
chorus of the wildest, most blood-curdling yells and whoops that ever
assailed the ears of mortal man, and the next instant the whole
clearing was filled with howling, shooting forms, and the crashing
reports of their rifles drowned all other sounds. Connie stared in
horror at what appeared to be the reinforcements of the enemy, while
all about him the Brushwoods were dropping the rifles from their
nerveless hands: "The Yellow Knives!" "The Yellow Knives!" "We die!"
"_Nesika memaloose_--we die!" "They are the friends of the
Mooseheads!" "We die!" "We die!"
An old crone started the death chant and in a moment it was taken up
by every Brushwood behind the barricade. It rose and mingled in a
weird phantasmagoria of horror with the war cry of the Yellow Knives,
the crash of rifles, and the shrieks of the stricken Mooseheads. The
events of the next few moments transpired with bewildering rapidity.
Connie saw the Yellow Knives fall upon the surprised Mooseheads; saw
the Mooseheads go down like grain before the reaper. He saw a few
stragglers turn and dash for the forest, only to be pursued and
stricken to the last man. Then, old White Eagle himself leaped over
the barricade and picked Connie up in his arms--and his warriors
followed, all yelling and howling and singing their wild chant of
victory.
The death chant died on the lips of the Brushwoods and they gazed in
stupid wonder into the faces of their ancient enemies--these wild,
fierce enemies who had rushed to their aid upon the word of the
small, white policeman.
Next day came Sergeant Dan McKeever and Corporal Rickey, and the
prospectors who had escaped across the mountains when the Mooseheads
swept down the river. Came, also, Ick Far, from the village of the
Yellow Knives, where he had lain in a heavy sleep while the hands of
his huge silver watch crept twice around its dial.
The bodies of the Mooseheads were buried and the soldier-policemen
shook warmly the hands of the Yellow Knives--and of Tex Gordon.
Then, the prospectors returned to their diggings--and the Yellow
Knives to their lodges beyond the divide.
"And, now," said Connie, as the officers sat around their camp-fire
at the close of the gruesome day, "there is just one more thing to
do. 'Soapy' White was at the bottom of all this. We've got him with
the goods at last."
"He'll go to Stony Mountain fer seven hundred years!" growled
McKeever.
"He'll be lucky if he ever sees Stony Mountain!" opined Rickey. But
Ick Far said nothing, and continued to stare gloomily into the
camp-fire's glowing coals.
Next morning the four officers stood beside the heap of ashes that
had been the trading post of "Soapy" White. From a corner of the
heap they dug a burned, charred _thing_, which they buried in a hole
scooped in the gravel of the bar. "Soapy" White's score had been
paid in full. But, whether by accident, by the hands of the
Mooseheads who had returned for liquor during the days of the siege,
by the avenging hand of the Yellow Knives as they swooped down the
valley to the rescue of the _Kloshe Tenas Tyee_, or by the
retributive hand of Ick Far, who followed in the space of a day, will
never be known. For no investigation was conducted by the Mounted.
And Ick Far, man of silence and mystery, stares gloomily into the
distance--thinking his own thoughts.