THE NICKED BULLET
The grey daylight was creeping into the little tent and Alton sleeping
at last when Seaforth rose to his feet. His eyes were heavy with the
long night's watch which had followed a twelve hours' march, and he
shivered as he went out. The morning was bitterly cold, and a fire
burned redly outside the tent, but there was no sign of Okanagan, who
had joined him during the night, nor had any preparations for breakfast
been made.
"Tom," he twice called softly, but only the moaning of the branches
overhead answered him, and with a little gesture of impatience he
strode into the bush.
Seaforth had no definite purpose, but he was glad to stretch his
stiffened limbs, and instinctively turned towards the spot where he had
found his comrade. As he approached it he stopped, and watched the dim
moving object that caught his eyes with some bewilderment. Tom of
Okanagan was kneeling beside a thicket with a stick in his hand, and
apparently holding it carefully in line with a fir. After moving once
or twice he drove it into the soil, and crawled on hands and knees into
the fern so that Seaforth could only see his boots, and surmise by the
rustling that he was groping amidst the withered fronds. Once he
caught a muffled expletive, after which the rustling ceased awhile, but
it commenced again, and Seaforth wondered the more when Okanagan
crawled out of the opposite side of the thicket, and set up a second
stick in line with the other. He had not the faintest notion of what
his companion could be doing.
"Are you finding anything down there, Tom?" he said. Okanagan rose up
with a little grim laugh. "Thorns," he said. "There's a condemned big
one in my thumb."
Seaforth stared at him with a vague suspicion that the hardships of the
forced march they had made had left their mark upon his comrade, though
he had never noticed any signs of mental weakness in the big axeman
before.
"Aren't there plenty to be picked up in this country without looking
for them?" he said.
Okanagan glanced at him with a little twinkle which was not altogether
mirthful in his eyes. "Oh, yes. More than I've any use for. You were
trying to figure on what I was after? The thing's quite as easy as
trailing a deer."
"I was," said Seaforth dryly, and Okanagan approaching him dropped a
big hand upon his shoulder.
"Come right along, and I'll show you," said he.
Seaforth followed him, until he stopped by the fir he had worked his
alignment from, where he picked up a spent cartridge and pointed to a
mark in the snow.
"Nothing particular about that, anyway, a forty-four Winchester," he
said. "The fellow had long boots on with one heel down, and he stood
right here waiting for Harry. Harry was coming along yonder with the
deer, forty yards I make it, and he jumped when the fellow started
shooting."
"You think he did?" said Seaforth, slightly bewildered, and Okanagan
laughed.
"No, sir, I'm sure," he said. "I could show you where his heels went
in if it would do you any good. Harry was coming along quick as he
could, thinking about his supper, and the other fellow was crouching
here, clawing his rifle and waiting until he came into the moonlight."
The blood surged into Seaforth's forehead, and he clenched one hand.
"The condemned villain! It was devilish," he said.
Okanagan nodded gravely, and his rugged face was stern.
"Oh, yes, but, slinging names at him's not much use," he said. "Well,
I feel it in me that we're going to see more of that man by and by, and
that's just why I'm working up the whole thing from the beginning. Now
I'll show you some more of it."
They floundered through one or two thickets until Okanagan stopped
again, and pointed to the red smear upon the fern and withered
pine-needles. "That's where Harry lay and waited for him," he said.
"He was bleeding pretty bad, but he knew the other fellow meant to
finish him."
"Waited for him when he was almost helpless and the man meant to murder
him?" said Seaforth, with cold rage and horror in his face.
Okanagan laughed a little almost silent laugh that had a very grim
undertone in it. "Yes, sir. That's just what he did. Don't you know
Harry yet?" he said. "Still, he didn't figure that all the killing
would be done by the other man. See here, this is where he gripped
him, and tried to get the knife in. They fell over together there.
Harry was played out and bleeding hard, or that man would never have
got away when he once had his hands on him."
Seaforth stared at the rent-down undergrowth, and had no great
difficulty in reconstructing the scene. Smashed fern and scattered
leaves as well as the red smears on the snow bore plain testimony to
the fierceness of that struggle, and he pictured his comrade grappling
with his adversary while his strength flowed from him with that
horrible red trickle. The light that came down between towering trunks
showed that his face was grey and stern, and Okanagan, who looked at
him, nodded as it were approvingly.
"I've seen enough," said the former. "If I can find that man he will
not get away from me."
"Well," said Okanagan simply, "we're short of the bullet now, and I'll
know better what to do with Harry when we find it. It's low down in
one of those cedars yonder."
"It will be deep in at that range," said Seaforth.
"No," said Okanagan quietly. "I don't think it will. It's pretty
plain from the hole it made that it wasn't a common bullet, and I'm
kind of anxious to know if all of it came out again."
Seaforth shivered a little as he assisted in the search, and his lips
were set when Okanagan, digging something out of the cedar-bark with
his knife, laid it in his palm. It was a little piece of blackened
lead that was ragged in place of round, as though the soft metal had
been rent open and bent backwards. Then the two men looked at each
other, and the hot fury that for a moment flushed Seaforth to the
temples, passed and left him with a curious vindictive coldness and a
faint shrinking from the touch of the murderous lead. Okanagan's eyes
were very steady, but there was a little glow down at the back of them.
"Nicked across with a hack saw or a file--and it's not all here," he
said. "It strikes me the sooner we find the rest of it the better this
weather."
Seaforth drew in his breath. A strip of lead torn off that bullet was
rankling in his comrade's flesh, and during the night bitter frost had
laid its grip upon the forest. Wounds, he knew, do not heal, but
fester under such conditions.
"You can do it, Tom!" he said, and his voice was hoarse.
"I'll try--when he wakes," said Okanagan. "You'll find some flat
stones by the river. I want one with an open grit that you could grind
a knife down with."
It was long before Alton awakened, and then it became evident that he
was not wholly sensible. Loss of blood, over-fatigue, exposure and
hunger had left their mark on him, and while he rambled disjointedly a
bitter wind sprang up. It raged down the valley, bringing with it the
cold of the Pole, and while the pines raised their wild voices, the
water congealed in the kettle, and in spite of the great fire built
outside it the tent grew icy. At noon Tom of Okanagan glanced at his
patient and shook his head, while Seaforth felt his misgivings
confirmed as he saw his face.
"I guess we've got to wait for to-morrow. There'll be snow to-night,"
he said.
It was a long day to Seaforth. Alton moved restlessly in his sleep, or
talked and laughed meaninglessly during most of it, while when his eyes
closed Tom, who sat in a corner, laid the stone upon his lap and ground
at his knife. He had already rubbed the blade down to half its width,
but was apparently not contented, and Seaforth felt colder and set his
lips each time the harsh grating of steel broke through the roaring of
the pines that swelled in volume as the wind increased. It was seldom
that either of them spoke, though the big axeman's face would soften
momentarily when Alton moaned a little in his sleep. Then it grew
sombre and impassive again save for the little gleam in the eyes, and
Seaforth guessed what was in his companion's thoughts as the hard,
gnarled fingers tightened viciously on the steel.
Somehow the day wore through, and the snow came with the night. It
beat upon the canvas and fell hissing in the fire, which snapped and
crackled the more fiercely, while acrid vapour crept into the tent, and
now and then one of the men's eyes would close a moment. Seaforth had
indeed roused himself several times with a jerk when Okanagan pointed
to the roll of blankets and layer of springy twigs, and he saw that at
last Alton was sleeping restfully. Five minutes later the roar of the
branches seemed to sink into a musical lullaby, and the last thing he
saw was the big, impassive bushman sitting as still as the motionless
figure beneath him on the opposite side of the tent. Then he was
wafted back to England on the wings of dreams.
It was broad daylight and warmer when he awakened. Outside the fire
crackled noisily, and the great pines rose spires of sombre green
against a field of white. Alton was also awake, and smiled at him,
while Tom, who stood behind him, made a sign.
"It has got to be done right now before the frost comes back, but we're
not going to hurt you, Harry," he said. "You'll walk down to the river
and fill that kettle up, Charley."
Seaforth wondered a little, because the snow lay a foot deep in the
bush and he could have filled the kettle beside the fire, but he
floundered down to the river and felt a little more prepared to face
what must be done when he returned. When he did so he found that Tom
had rolled back Alton's jean trousers to the knee, and saw a red smear
that broadened across the brawny limb. It pulsed over the swell of the
corded muscles that showed through the clear, smooth skin, and then
Seaforth shivered and turned his eyes away as they fell upon the
welling depression with the discoloured edges. Alton noticed the
movement, and glanced at him with a twinkle in his eyes. "It isn't
pretty, but I don't think Tom will keep us long," he said.
Seaforth felt the blood surge into his face, for it seemed most
unfitting that the wounded man should sympathize with him, but finding
nothing apposite to say he kept silent, and Okanagan shook his head at
them.
"Get hold of his hands, and keep hold. The quieter you are, Harry, the
quicker I'll be," he said.
Alton smiled a little. "I don't think it's necessary," he said.
"Still, if it will please you, Tom."
Seaforth clutched the fingers held out to him, and felt suddenly
chilly. He would have touched his lips with his tongue, for the blood
seemed to have gone out of them, but that he felt Alton's eyes were
upon him. Accordingly he turned his face, which he fancied was growing
a trifle colourless, aside, and for a moment or two watched Okanagan,
who was kneeling with one hand pressed upon the smeared whiteness of
the uncovered limb. Seaforth could hear his own heart beating and the
thud of snow shaken off a swinging branch upon the tent, and see the
light the whiteness outside flung in glint upon the slender knife. He
saw it move a little, and sternly repressed a shiver when the lean,
hard fingers closed suddenly upon his own. A tremor ran through them,
and then the pressure increased, until Seaforth was glad that it grew
painful. He dare not glance at his comrade, he would not look at Tom,
and sat very still in torment for a space, while he felt that Alton's
arms had grown rigid by the cruel grip upon his hands.
Then the tension slackened, and the injured man drew in his breath with
a gasp, while Okanagan rose to one knee with great drops of sweat upon
his face.
"You got it?" said Alton in a low, strained voice, and nodded when the
axeman answered him.
"No," he said, a trifle huskily. "I'm going to try again. Lift him
over on his side, Charley."
Seaforth trembled a little as he did it, and glanced for just a moment
at his comrade's face. It was set and grey, but it went suddenly awry
into the grotesque semblance of a smile.
"Tom never was in a hurry. It's rough on you," he said. Still,
Seaforth, who had once held his own with men and women in quick retort
and graceful badinage in England, did not answer, but only pressed the
hard fingers that now lay somewhat limply in his palm and wondered
vaguely whether the ordeal would never be over. It was only then he
realized to the full all that Alton had been to him since the day he
limped, ragged and very hungry, into a little mining camp. His friends
in the old country had turned their backs on him, and Seaforth, who had
been hopeless and desperate then, knew that he owed a good deal more
than material prosperity to Alton of Somasco.
"Tom," he said hoarsely, "I think we're ready."
Okanagan said nothing, but stooped again, and Seaforth tightening his
grasp of the contracting fingers, heard the sound of uneven breathing
through the thud of snow upon the tent. He was by this time a little
more master of himself, and looked steadily down on the white face with
the grimly-set lips. His own was distorted into what was not a
sympathetic smile, but a grotesque grin, and there was every now and
then a reflection of it in the one awry with pain which looked up at
him. Then Alton drew in his breath with a little quivering sigh, and
there was a rattle as Okanagan dropped the steel.
"I want that bandage--quick. We are through now," he said.
Seaforth had afterwards a hazy recollection of helping him to twist the
strip of fabric about the firm white flesh, and that his hands made red
smears on Alton's deerskin jacket when he stooped and lifted him a
little. There was no bronze in his comrade's face, but in place of it
a curious yellow tinge, through which the greyness showed in patches,
and with fingers that were strangely clumsy he held a flask to Alton's
lips.
The latter choked, and then his eyes opened wide again. "Pass it
round. I'm figuring you're all wanting some," he said.
Seaforth to humour him touched the flask with his lips, and handed it
to Tom, who did the same, and then screwing the top on it passed it
back to Seaforth no emptier than when it reached him. Alton, however,
raised his head a trifle further, and looked at both of them.
"You'll have to do it better. Let me see the thing," he said.
Okanagan glanced at him severely. "I guess you'll lie right where you
are and keep very still, or I'll make a hole through the other leg," he
said.
Alton appeared to chuckle, but his arm slipped from under him, and he
dropped back heavily amidst the blankets with eyes closed while
Seaforth bent over him.
"That's all right," said Okanagan. "You needn't worry. I was kind of
hoping he would do it because I was anxious about the bleeding. Now
we'll get everything fixed up before he comes round again."
Seaforth did what he was bidden, and nothing more, for he had been
reared in England, and not amidst the firs and snows of Northern Canada
where misadventures are many and doctors very few, but he envied the
big bushman his skill that day, and Okanagan may have guessed it, for
he once smiled a little as he said:
"There are lots of things I can't do, and it's not your fault that you
were raised back in the old country, where you have other folks to put
the patches on to you."
"No," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, he is my partner, you see. Now
I want to know what we are going to do with him."
Okanagan's smile was just perceptible as he held up a ragged piece of
lead, but Seaforth saw that he understood all the speech implied,
though he made no reference to it,
"There's half the trouble gone," he said. "The rest of it went
straight through the bone, and I kind of fancy smashed it up
considerable."
"Will the pieces knit as they were before?" said Seaforth very
anxiously, and for a moment or two Okanagan did not answer him.
"That," he said very slowly, "is what I don't quite know. One of them
bones is a rocker, and she swings on the other. That one's cut, but I
don't think it's smashed right through. Now if it goes as well as the
other, it's quite possible Harry will limp ever after."
Seaforth stood up with a little shiver. "Good Lord. Harry of all men
a cripple! Tom, you must do something."
Okanagan slowly shook his head. "I've done my best now," he said. "We
can get him down to Somasco and a live doctor up from Vancouver as soon
as we can, and that's about all. There's no time to lose. We'll start
to-morrow."
Seaforth cast one glance at the still figure and grey face amidst the
blankets, and then clenched his hands as he blundered out of the tent.
A white flake fell upon his face, another on his hands, and he shivered
again as he glanced at the forest. It was very evident that much
depended upon their speed, and down between the sombre pines came the
sliding snow.