MUSCLE AND NERVE
A gasp went around the table. Joe sprang up with a bellow of rage. Sam
was already up. He kicked the impeding box away. When Joe rushed him
he ran around the other side of the table.
Sam had planned everything out. Above all he wished to avoid a rough
and tumble, in which he would stand no chance at all. He had speed,
wind, and nerve to pit against a young mountain of muscle.
"Will you see fair play, boys?" he cried.
"Sure!" answered half a dozen voices.
Big Jack stopped Joe in mid-career. "Let's do everything proper," he
said grimly.
By this time all were up. Of one accord they shoved the trestles back
against the wall and kicked the boxes underneath. Every breast
responded to the thrill of the keenest excitement known to man--a
fight with fists.
Sam and Joe, obeying a clothed creature's first impulse, wriggled out
of their coats and flung them on the ground. Joe took off his boots.
Sam was wearing moccasins.
Young Coulson came to Sam with tears of vexation actually standing in
his eyes. He gripped Sam's hand.
"I can't be present at a thing like this," he said. "Oh, damn the
luck! I'd lose my stripes if it came out. But I'm with you. I hope
you'll lick the tar out of him! I'll be watching through the window,"
he added in a whisper. He ran out.
Big Jack took the centre of the floor. "I'll referee this affair if
agreeable to both," he said.
"Suits me," replied Sam briefly.
Jack pointed out their respective corners and called for a second for
each. Several volunteered to help Joe. He chose young Mattison.
Sam remained alone in his corner. While his pluck had won him friends,
there was no man who wished to embrace a cause which all thought was
hopeless. Young Joe was a formidable figure. He had calmed down now.
From behind the tall white men a little bent figure appeared and went
to Sam.
"I be your man," he whispered; "if you not ashame' for a red man."
Sam smiled swiftly in his white, set face, and gripped the old man's
hand hard. "Good man!" he said. "You're the best!"
Mahooley, Birley, and another, abashed by this little scene, now
stepped forward. Sam waved them back.
"Musq'oosis is my second," he said.
"Straight Marquis of Queensberry rules," said Big Jack. "No hitting in
the break-away."
This was an advantage to Sam.
"Time!" cried Big Jack.
The adversaries stepped out of their corners.
All this while Bela had been standing by the kitchen door with her
hands pressed tight to her breast and her agonized eyes following all
that went on. She did not clearly understand. But when they advanced
toward each other she knew. She ran into the middle of the room
between them.
"Stop!" she cried. "This is my house. I won't have no fightin' here!"
She paused, shielding Sam and glaring defiantly around her. "You
cowards, mak' them fight! This is no fair fight. One is too big!"
All the men became horribly uneasy. In this man's affair they had
completely overlooked the woman. After all, it was her house. And it
was too dark now to pull it off outside.
The silence was broken by a sneering laugh from Joe. He made a move as
if to get his boots again. The sound was like a whiplash on Sam. He
turned to Bela, white with anger.
"Go to the kitchen!" he commanded. "Shut the door behind you. I
started this, and I'm going to see it through. Do you want to shame me
again?"
Bela collapsed under his bitter, angry words. Her head fell forward,
and she retreated to the kitchen door like a blind woman. She did not
go out. She stayed there through the terrible moments that followed,
making no sound, and missing no move with those tragic, wide eyes.
The adversaries advanced once more, Big Jack stepping back. The two
circled warily, looking for an opening. They made a striking contrast.
"David and Goliath," somebody whispered.
Joe's head was thrust forward between his burly shoulders and his face
lowered like a thundercloud. Sam, silent and tense, smiled and paraded
on his toes.
"Why don't you start something, Jeffries?" asked Sam.
Joe, with a grunt of rage, leaped at him with a sledge-hammer swing
that would have ended the fight had it landed. Sam ducked and came up
on the other side. Joe's momentum carried him clear across the room.
Sam laughed. "Missed that one, Jumbo," he taunted. "Try another."
Joe rushed back and swung again. Once more Sam ducked, this time as he
went under Joe's arm, contriving to land an upper-cut, not of
sufficient force to really shake the mountain, but driving him mad
with rage.
Joe wheeled about, both arms going like flails. This was what Sam
desired. He kept out of reach. He kept Joe running from one side of
the room to the other. Joe was not built for running. At the end of
the round, the big man was heaving for breath like a foundered horse.
Such was the general style of the battle. The spectators, pressed
against the wall to give them plenty of room, roared with excitement.
In the beginning the cries were all for Joe. Then Sam's clever
evasions began to arouse laughter. Finally a voice or two was heard on
Sam's side. This was greatly stimulating to Sam, who had steeled
himself to expect no favour, and correspondingly depressing to Joe.
For three rounds Sam maintained his tactics without receiving a
serious blow. He was trying to break the big man's wind--not good at
the best--and to wear him out in a vain chase. He aimed to make him so
blind with rage he could not see to land his blows. To this end he
kept up a running fire of taunts.
"I shan't have to knock you out, Blow-Hard. You're doing for yourself
nicely. Come on over here. Pretty slow! Pretty slow! Who was your
dancing teacher, Joe? You're getting white around the lips now. Bum
heart. You won't last long!"
Between rounds little Musq'oosis, watching all that Mattison did, did
likewise for his principal.
Finally the spectators began to grow impatient with too much footwork.
They required a little blood to keep up their zest. Sam was blamed.
"Collide! Collide!" they yelled. "Is this a marathon or hare and
hounds? Corner him, Joe! Smash him! Stand, you cook, and take your
punishment!"
Big Jack fixed the last speaker with a scowl.
"What do you want--a murder?" he growled.
The referee's sympathies were clearly veering to Sam's corner. Big
Jack, whatever his shortcomings, was a good sport, and Joe was showing
a disposition to fight foul. Jack watched him closely in the clinches.
Joe was beginning to seek clinches to save his wind. Jack, in parting
them, received a sly blow meant for Sam.
Like a flash, Jack's own experienced right jabbed Joe's stomach,
sending him reeling back into his corner. The spectators howled in
divided feelings. Jack, however, controlled the situation with a look.
In the fourth round Joe turned sullen and refused to force the
fighting any longer. He stood in front of his corner, stooping his
shoulders and swinging his head like a gorilla. Such blows as Sam had
been able to land had all been addressed to Joe's right eye. His
beauty was not thereby improved.
Now he stood, deaf alike to Sam's taunts and to the urgings of his own
supporters. Sam, dancing in front of him, feinting and retreating,
could not draw a blow. Strategy was working in Joe's dull brain. He
dropped his arms.
Instantly Sam ran in with another blow on the damaged eye.
Over-confidence betrayed him. Joe's right was waiting. The slender
figure was lifted clean from the floor by the impact. He crashed down
in a heap and, rolling over, lay on his face, twitching.
A roar broke from the spectators. That was what they wanted.
Bela ran out from her corner, distracted. Musq'oosis intercepted her.
"No place for girl," he said sternly. "Go back."
"He's dead! He's dead!" she cried wildly.
"Fool! Only got wind knocked out!" He thrust her back to her place by
the door.
Big Jack was stooping over the prostrate figure, counting with
semaphore strokes of his arm: "One! Two! Three!"
The spectators began to think it was all over, and the tension let
down. Joe grinned, albeit wearily. There was not much left in him.
Meanwhile Sam's brain was working with perfect clearness. He stirred
cautiously.
"Nothing broken," he thought. "Take nine seconds for wind enough to
keep away till the end of the round. Then you have him!"
At the count of nine he sprang up, and the spectators roared afresh.
Joe, surprised, went after him without overmuch heart. Sam managed to
escape further punishment.
A growing weariness now made Joe's attacks spasmodic and wild. He was
working his arms as if his hands had leaden weights attached to them.
A harrowing anxiety appeared in his eyes. At the sight of it a little
spring of joy welled up in Sam's breast.
"Pretty near all in, eh?" he said. "You're going to get licked, and
you know it! There's fear in your eye. You always had a yellow streak.
Crying Joe Hagland!"
Joe, missing a wild swing, fell of his own momentum amid general
laughter. Derision ate the heart out of him. He rose with a hunted
look in his eyes. Sam suddenly took the offensive, and rained a
fusillade of blows on the damaged eye, the heart, the kidneys. Joe,
taken by surprise, put up a feeble defence.
The next round was the last. Around Caribou Lake they still talk about
it. A miracle took place before their eyes. David overcame Goliath at
his own game. Jack beat down the giant. At the referee's word, Sam
sprang from his corner like a whirlwind, landing right and left before
Joe's guard was up.
The weary big man was beaten to his knees. Struggling up, he tried to
clinch, only to be met by another smashing blow in the face. He turned
to escape, but the dancing figure with the battering fists was ever in
front of him.
He went down again, and, stretching out on the floor, began to blubber
aloud in his confusion and distress.
"He's had enough," said Sam grimly.
The result was received in the silence of surprise. A few laughed at
the spectacle Joe made. Others merely shrugged. The victory was not a
popular one.
Big Jack went through the formality of counting, though it was patent
to all that the fighting was done. Afterward he turned to Sam and
shook his hand.
"I didn't think you had it in you," he said.
This was sweet to Sam.
Joe raised himself, snivelling, and commenced to revile Sam.
"Aw, shut up!" cried Big Jack, with strong disgust. "You're licked!"
Joe got to his feet. "Only by trickery!" he cried. "He wouldn't stand
up to me! I could have knocked him out any time. Everybody was against
me! It takes the heart out of a man." Tears threatened again.
General laughter greeted this.
"That's all right!" cried Joe furiously from the door. "I'll get you
yet!" He went out.
The others now began to crowd around Sam, congratulating him a little
sheepishly, slapping his back. A great, sweet calm filled Sam. This
was the moment he had dreamed of during his long days on the trail and
his lonely nights at Grier's Point.
He had made good. He was a man among men. They acknowledged it. It was
like a song inside him. The hideous wound that Bela had dealt him was
healed.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. From her corner she was gazing at
him as at a young god. Calm filled her breast, too. Joe was gone, and
her secret still safe. Surely after to-night, she thought, there would
be no need of keeping it.
They heard Joe climb into his wagon outside and curse at his horses.
Instead of turning into the road, he drove back to the door and pulled
up. Bela turned pale again.
Joe shouted through the doorway: "Anyhow, no woman keeps me!"
"Damn you! What do you mean?" cried Sam.
"You owe the clothes you wear to her, and the gun you carry! The
horses you drive are hers!"
"You lie!" cried Sam, springing toward the door.
Joe whipped up his horses. "Ask her!" he shouted back.
Sam whirled about and, seizing the wrist of the shrinking Bela,
dragged her out of her corner.
"Is it true," he demanded--"the horses? Answer me before them all!"
She fought for breath enough to lie.
He saw it. "If you lie to me again I'll kill you!" he cried. "Answer
me! Is it your team that I drive?"
His violence overbore her defences. "Yes," she said tremulously. "What
difference does it make?"
The men looked on, full of shamefaced curiosity at this unexpected
turn. One or two, more delicate-minded, went outside.
Sam's ghastly wound was torn wide open again. "What difference?" he
cried, white and blazing. "Oh, my God, it means you've made a fool of
me a second time! It means I've nerved myself and trained myself to
fight this brute only to find he's able to give me the laugh after
all!"
"Sam--you so poor, then," she murmured.
It was like oil on the flames. He flung off her beseeching hand. "I
didn't ask your help!" he cried passionately. "I told you to leave me
alone! You can't understand a man has his pride. You're loathsome to
me now!"
Mahooley interfered with good intent. "Sam, you're foolish. What
difference does it make? Nobody blames you!"
"Keep your mouth out of this!" cried Sam, whirling on him.
To Bela he went on blindly: "The team is at the Point. I'll have it
here in an hour! My credit at the store is yours! You hear that,
Mahooley? Turn over what's coming to me to her. The gun, the axe, the
blankets I'll keep. I'll pay you for them when I earn it. I'll make
you a present of my labour, driving for you. And I hope to God I'll
never see you again!" He ran out.
* * * * *
Bela stood in an oddly arrested attitude, as if an icy blast had
congealed her in full motion. There was no sense in her eyes. In acute
discomfort, the men stood on one foot, then the other.
Mahooley, as the leader, felt that it was incumbent on him to make the
first move.
"Look here, Bela," he began. "Don't you take on----"
The sound of his voice brought her to life. She threw back her head
with a laugh. It had a wretched, mirthless sound; but a laugh is a
laugh. They were glad to be deceived. They laughed with her.
"Tak' on?" cried Bela recklessly. Her voice had a tinny ring. "W'at do
I care? I glad he gone. I glad both gone. I never let them come here
again. Maybe we have some peace now."
Naturally the other men were delighted.
"Good for you, Bela!" they cried. "You're a game sport, all right!
You're right; they're not worth bothering about. We'll stand by you!"
She seemed unimpressed by their enthusiasm.
"Time to go," she said, shepherding them toward the door. "Come
to-morrow. I have ver' good dinner to-morrow."
"You bet I'll be here!" "Count on me!" "Me, too!" "You're all right,
Bela!" "Good night!" "Good night!"
They filed out.
Only Musq'oosis was left sitting on the floor, staring into the fire.
He did not turn around as Bela came back from the door.
"Why don't you go, too?" she demanded in a harsh, tremulous voice.
"T'ink maybe you want talk to me."
"Talk!" she cried. "Too moch talk! I sick of talkin'!" Her voice was
breaking. "Go 'way! Let me be!"
He got up. He had dropped his innocent affectations. "My girl----" he
began simply.
"Go 'way!" cried Bela desperately. "Go quick, or I hit you!"
He shrugged and went out. Bela slammed the door after him and dropped
the bar in place. She barred the other door.
She looked despairingly around the disordered cabin, and moving
uncertainly to the nearest box, dropped upon it, and spreading her
arms on the table, let her head fall between them and wept like a
white woman.