_And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors_.
ELINOR WREAM was standing at the gate as Victor Burleigh came striding
up the street.
“Where are you going so fast, Victor?” she asked. “Everybody is in a
rush this evening. We had a telegram from the East this afternoon. Uncle
Joshua is very ill, and Uncle Lloyd had to get away on short notice. Old
Bond Saxon went by just now, but,” lowering her voice, “he was awfully
drunk and slipped along like a snake.”
“Have you seen Bug?” Victor asked. “Dennie says he left a little while
ago to find his ball he lost out north this afternoon. He wouldn't tell
where, because he had promised not to.”
“No, I have not seen him. But don't be uneasy about Bug. He never plays
near the river, nor the railroad tracks, and he always comes in at the
right time,” Elinor said, comfortingly.
“I know he always has before, but I want to find him, anyhow.” The
affectionate tone told Elinor what a loving guardianship was given to
the unknown orphan child.
“There was a man here to see Uncle Lloyd just after he left this
evening. The same man that brought a little package for you the night we
came home. I suppose he comes from your part of the state out West, for
he seemed to know you and Bug. He asked me if Bug ever played along the
river and if he was a shy child. He was a strange-looking man, and
I thought he had the cruelest face I ever saw, but I am no expert on
strange faces.”
Victor did not wait for another word.
“I must find Bug right away. You can't think what he is to me, Elinor,”
and he hurried away.
At the bend in the Walnut Vic saw Bug's little scarlet stocking cap
beside the flat stone. The twilight was almost gone, but the glistening
river reflected on the torn bushes above the bank-full stream.
The crushing agony of the first minutes made them seem like hours. And
then the college discipline put in its work. Vic stopped and reasoned.
“Bug isn't down there. He never goes near the river. That strange man is
Tom Gresh. He killed my father and he's laid a trap for me. He doesn't
want to kill Bug. He wants to keep him to workout vengeance and hate on
me. He says he'll send me to my father if I go near him. Well, I'm going
so near he'll not doubt who I am, and I'll have Bug unharmed if I have
to send Gresh where my father could not go even with water to cool his
tongue. A man may fight with a man as he would fight with a beast to
save himself or something dearer than himself from beastly destruction,
Fenneben says. That's the battle before me now, and it's to the death.”
The tiger light was in the yellow eyes as never before and the stern jaw
was set, as Victor Burleigh hurried away. And this was the man who, such
a little while ago, was debating with himself over the quiet possession
of Bug Buler's inheritance. Truly the Mastery comes very near to such as
he.
It was with tiger-like step and instinct, too, that the young man went
leaping up the dark, frost-coated glen. About the mouth of the cave the
blackness was appalling. It seemed a place apart, cursed with the frown
of Nature. Yet in the April time, the sweetest moments of Vic's young
life had been spent in this very spot that now showed all the difference
between Love and Hate.
As he neared the opening of the cavern he guarded his footsteps more
carefully. The jungle beast was alert within him and the college
training was giving way to the might of muscle backed by a will to win.
A dim light gleamed in the cave and he watched outside now, as Gresh on
the April day had watched him inside. Down by a wood fire, whose smoke
was twisting out through a crevice overhead somewhere, little Bug was
sitting on Tom Gresh's big coat, the fire lighting up his tangle of
red-brown curls. His big brown eyes looking up at the man crouching by
the fire were eyes of innocent courage, and the expression on the sweet
child-face was impenetrable.
“He's a Burleigh. He's not afraid,” Vic thought, exultingly. “That's
half my battle. I had it out with the rattlesnakes. I'll do better
here.”
At that moment the outlaw turned toward the door and leaped to his feet
as Vic sprang inside.
Bug started up with outstretched arms.
“Keep out of the way, Bug,” Vic cried, as the two men clinched.
And the struggle began. They were evenly matched, and both had the
sinews of giants. The outlaw had the advantage of an iron strength,
hardened by years of out-door life. But the college that had softened
the country boy somewhat gave in return the quick judgment and superior
agility of the trained power that counts against weight before the
battle is over. But withal, it was terrible. One fighter was a murderer
by trade, his hand steady for the blackest deeds, and here was a man he
had waited long months to destroy. The other fighter was in the struggle
to save a life dear to him, a life that must vindicate his conscience
and preserve his soul's peace.
Across the stone-floored cave they threshed in fury, until at the
farther wall Gresh flung Vic from him against the jagged rock with a
force that cut a gash across the boy's head. The blood splashed on both
men's faces as they renewed the strife. Then with a quick twist Burleigh
threw the outlaw to the floor and held him in a clutch that weighed him
down like a ledge of rock; and it was pound for pound again.
Away from the mass of burning coals the blackness was horrible. Beyond
that fire Bug sat, silent as the stone wall behind him. Gresh gained the
mastery again, and with a grip on Vic's throat was about to thrust his
head, face downward, into the burning embers. Vic understood and strove
for his own life with a maniac's might, for he knew that one more wrench
would end the thing.
“You first, and then the baby; I'll roast you both,” Gresh hissed, and
Vic smelled the heat of the wood flame.
But who had counted on Bug? He had watched this fearful grapple,
motionless and terror-stricken, and now with a child's vision he saw
what Gresh meant to do. Springing up, he caught the heavy coat on which
he had been sitting and flung it on the fire, smothering the embers and
putting the cavern into complete darkness.
Vic gained the vantage by this unlooked for movement and the grip
shifted. The fighters fell to the floor and then began the same kind of
struggle by which Burleigh had out-generaled big, unconquerable Trench
one day. The two had rolled and fought in college combat from the top
of the limestone ridge to the lower campus and landed with Burleigh
gripping Trench helpless to defend further. That battle was friend with
friend. This battle was to the death. The blood of both men smeared the
floor as they tore at each other like wild beasts, and no man could have
told which oftenest had the vantage hold, nor how the strife would end.
But it did end soon. The heavy coat, that had smothered the fire and
saved Vic, smoldered a little, then flared into flame, lighting
the whole cave, and throwing out black and awful shadows of the two
fighters. They were close to the hole in the inner wall now. Gresh's
face in that unsteady glare was horrible to see. He loosed his hold a
second, then lunged at Vic with the fury of a mad brute. And Vic, who
had fought the devil in himself to a standstill three hours ago, now
caught the fiend outside of him for a finishing blow, and the strength
of that last struggle was terrific.
Up to this time Vic had not spoken.
“I killed the other snakes. I'll kill you now,” he growled, as he held
the outlaw at length in a conquering grip, his knees on Gresh's breast,
his right hand on Gresh's throat.
In that weird light the conqueror's face was only a degree less brutal
than the outlaw's face. And Burleigh meant every word, for murder was
in his heart and in his clutching fingers. Beneath the weight of his
strength Gresh slowly relaxed, struggling fiercely at first and groping
blindly to escape. Then he began to whine for mercy, but his whining
maddened his conqueror more than his blows had done. For such strife is
no mere wrestling match. Every blow struck against a fellowman is as
the smell of blood to the tiger, feeding a fiendish eagerness to kill.
Beside, Burleigh had ample cause for vengeance. The creature under his
grip was not only a bootlegger through whose evil influence men took
other lives or lost their own; he had slain one innocent man, Vic's own
father, and in the room where his dead mother lay had robbed Vic's home
of every valuable thing. He had sworn vengeance on all who bore the
name of Burleigh. What fate might await Bug, Vic dared not picture. One
strangling grip now could finish the business forever, and his clutch
tightened, as Gresh lay begging like a coward for his own worthless
life.
“It's a good thing a fellow has a guardian angel once in a while. We
get pretty close to the edge sometimes and never know how near we are to
destruction,” Vic had said to Elinor in here on the April day.
It was not Vic's guardian angel, but little Bug whose white face was
thrust between him and his victim, and the touch of a soft little hand
and the pleading child-voice that cried:
“Don't kill him, Vic. He's frough of fighting now. Don't hurt him no
more.”
Vic staid his hand at the words. The few minutes of this mad-beast duel
had made him forget the sound of human voices. He half lifted himself
from Gresh's body at Bug's cry. And Bug, wise beyond his years,
quaint-minded little Bug, said, softly:
“Fordive us our debts as we fordive our debtors.”
Strange, loving words of the Man of Galilee, spoken on the mountain-side
long, long ago, and echoed now by childish lips in the dying light of
the cavern to these two men, drunk with brute-lust for human blood! For
Vic the words struck like blows. All the years since his father's death
he had waited for this hour. At last he had met and vanquished the man
who had taken his father's life, and now, exultant in his victory, came
this little child's voice.
The cave darkened. A mist, half blood, half blindness, came before his
eyes, but clear to his ears there sounded the ringing words:
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay!”
It was the voice of Discipline calling to his better judgment, as Bug's
innocent pleading spoke to the finer man within him.
Under his grip Gresh lay motionless, all power of resistance threshed
out of him.
“Are you ready to quit?” Vic questioned, hoarsely, bending over the
almost lifeless form.
The outlaw mumbled assent.
“Then I'll let you live, you miserable wretch, and the courts will take
care of you.”
Burleigh himself was faint from strife and loss of blood. As he relaxed
his vigilance the last atom of strength, the last hope of escape
returned to Gresh. He sprang to his feet, staggered blindly then, quick
as a panther, he leaped through the hole in the farther wall, wriggled
swiftly into the blind crevices of the inner cave, and was gone.
It was Trench who dressed Vic's head that night and shielded him until
his strength returned. But it was Bond Saxon who counseled patience.
“Don't squeal to the sheriff now,” he urged. “The scoundrel is gone, and
it would make a nine days' hooray, and nothing would come of it. He was
darned slick to take the time when Funnybone was away.”
“Why?” Vic asked.
But Bond would not tell why. And Vic never dreamed how much cause Bond
Saxon had to dread the day when Tom Gresh should be brought into court,
and his own great crime committed in his drunken hours would demand
retribution. So Lagonda Ledge and Sunrise knew nothing of what had
occurred. Burleigh had no recourse but to wait, while Bug buttoned
up his lips, as he had done for Burgess out at Pigeon Place, and
conveniently “fordot” what he chose not to tell. But he wandered no more
alone about the pretty by-corners of Lagonda Ledge.