LAST-STAND OUTPOST
In the great North the lands of “big-sticks” and “little-sticks” and the
treeless arctic prairies are not divided evenly by the lines of
latitude. There are no definitely marked borders of forestation. For
long stretches the timber country dwindles through graduations of
stunted, failing growth across the frontiers of the open barrens. But
there are other places where the forests send out the massed array of
their mightiest giants, like shock-forces, to wage the endless, bitter
fight with the polar winds.
Great Owl Run stood at the head of one of these last-stand outposts of
the great forests. A broad, sheltered valley and an unusual fertility of
soil gave the trees a chance to root and grow tall and thrust their
dense ranks northward in a hundred-mile fringe. Huge spruces and firs
and wild, dark underwoods crowded each other in a jungle-like wilderness
that reached to the southern edge of the deep-cut creek.
On the opposite bank of the stream the ground rose abruptly into a high
plateau that was exposed to the furious assaults of the arctic gales.
Here the forest stopped as suddenly as though the line had been cut
level with axes. For a mile or so farther on a few dwarfed,
wind-tortured trees struggled to hold their own, and after that there
was nothing but the bare, frozen tundras reaching in a vast, appalling
emptiness to the polar seas.
Kitchener Tearl came westward along the thickly wooded side of Great Owl
Run as the smoky dawn was beginning to break. He had traveled all night
down the creek, skirting the Indian village on the tributary lake
towards the southwest, hurrying on his way because of the fear that Hell
Bent might return to the cabin and leave again before Kit could
intercept him. Kit was hoping at any time to cross the trail of the
waffle-web snowshoes.
It had stopped snowing during the night and the wind was dying. Before
the darkness paled Kit had seen patches of starlight through the
scattering clouds. The storm was blowing itself out, and there was a
promise of clear, below-zero weather for the holidays.
He was walking through the alders that skirted the high embankment of
the ice-bound creek, scanning the ground before him, watching the
shadows changing from purple to misty, twilight grays. The clearing and
the cabin and the owl-infested woods, he knew, could not be far beyond.
As he peered ahead, expecting at any minute to see the break among the
trees, he heard a sudden snapping sound behind him, and as he whirled to
look he saw a man’s muffled figure come out from behind a neighboring
windfall.
Kitchener planted his feet apart and shifted his rifle for
eventualities, and then his second glance reassured him. The newcomer
was short and slight in build, in no wise resembling Bent. He shuffled
forward into the open, and Kit recognized Giffard, the Runt.
The little trapper looked haggard in the early morning light, and as he
drew nearer Kit noticed that he was limping slightly and that there was
a streak of fresh blood across his left cheekbone.
“Hello!” remarked Kit. “What happened to you?”
“Who, me?” Giffard rubbed the back of his hand across his face, and then
looked tentatively at his fingers. “Why, nothin’ much, if you ask me. I
just got torn a little in a bramble thicket.”
To Kit the wound did not have the appearance of a thorn scratch, but he
let the statement pass. “You live around here?” he inquired.
“My shack’s down that way, about two mile in from the creek.”
Kit eyed the man curiously. His back pack was thickly encrusted with
snow, and it was apparent that he had not been home since he left _Saut
Sauvage_ the night before.
“Where does Bruyas live?” asked Kit.
Giffard pointed with his mittened thumb. “North side of the creek. He
hangs out mostly along the barrens.”
The little man moved closer, looked about him in a full circle, and
lowered his voice confidentially. “Last night you wanted to know about
an Indian murder, and I found out about one this morning. The Yellow
Knives is more apt to talk to me than to a policeman. I run into a
couple of ’em this A.M. and I asked ’em and they told me.”
“Yes?”
“One of their bucks was shoved into an ice-hole on Long Lake by an
Esquimau.”
“I thought the Esquimaux had all gone back north by now,” said Kit.
“Yeah. That’s right. The bands come down in the summer to get wood for
sleds and snowshoe frames, and they go back to the coast in the Winter
for the seal hunting. But this man was taken sick an’ left behind. He’s
been moochin’ around here ever since.”
“He murdered a Yellow Knife?”
“That’s the story. Picked him up by the heels and chucked him through a
hole in the ice.”
“What’s his name?” asked Kit.
“Oogly,” said Giffard.
“Ugly?”
“Yeah. Only you spell it with an ‘O.’”
“Where is he now?”
“That’d be hard to tell. The Indians have been hunting him for a month
and ain’t found him yet. He’s too good a hider.”
“Thanks, anyhow,” said Kit. “I’ll look into it.”
He started on his way again, and after a momentary hesitation Giffard
decided that he might as well follow along. The trapper did not actually
accompany Kit, but hovered aimlessly a few paces behind.
They reached the clearing in the nebulous light of daybreak. Kit halted
at the edge of the alders to reconnoiter. Before him lay half an acre of
stumpy ground, hemmed in on three sides by the deep forest, and flanked
on the fourth side by the steep-banked creek. The cabin faced the west,
and stood on the sheer brink beside the stream.
Kit had seen the place only in a pitch-black hour of horror two nights
ago when he and Diane Durand had stumbled out of the woods into the
blood-spattered room. His eyes had grown hard and grim as he paused
under the alders, inspecting the lonely dwelling.
The cabin probably had been standing there, weathering and rotting these
many seasons. The place was more forlorn and tumble-down even than he
had supposed. Yet somebody had been making a few pathetic repairs. Since
his visit a square of old tarpaulin had been tacked over the hole in the
roof, the door was properly squared in its frame, and the broken
window-panes had been replaced with rabbit pelts. A wisp of blue smoke
issued from the crumbling chimney. Apparently there was somebody inside.
From the cabin Kit’s glance shifted across the dismal clearing. The snow
was trampled every direction by a confusion of snowshoe prints. Perhaps
they had been left there by Diane Durand, perhaps by others. He saw only
that there were no waffle-web tracks. But this meant nothing. He knew
now that Hell Bent was equipped with an extra, unidentified pair of
raquettes. For all Kit could tell the man at this moment might be
watching from one of the cabin windows.
There was nothing to do but accept the chance. Kit ventured into the
open, but a hand reached after him to pluck at his sleeve.
“There’s somebody in there,” Giffard informed him in a husky whisper.
“Yes, I know. No doubt it’s the young woman I was telling the constables
about.”
“There’s somebody else,” the trapper insisted. “A man. I saw his face at
one of the window chinks.”
Kit looked around with a sobering expression. “Which window?”
“He ain’t there now,” said Giffard.
Kitchener faced the man with a narrowing scrutiny. “You mean you saw him
a while ago? You’ve been here before?”
Giffard’s eyes dropped and he relapsed into a sullen silence.
“If you’ll take the advice of the police,” said Kit evenly, “you’ll keep
away from this place in the future.” He turned on his heel and started
across the clearing.
He advanced without a sound, a wary eye on the door and the window
openings. So far he had passed unchallenged, but as he drew opposite the
cabin the breathless quiet was assailed by a savage, barking chorus, and
a pack of dogs came tearing around the corner of the building to fling
themselves at the intruder.
They were Kit’s dogs. Buzz-saw, the big Chinook, charged in the fore and
behind him came the tatterdemalions that Kit had purchased in the
Chippewyan encampment. The four beasts caught the familiar scent at the
same instant, recognized their man, and they sat down in a half circle
to yowl beseechingly for breakfast.
It was too late to arrive unobtrusively as Kit had hoped to do. He
strode to the door and flattened himself against the frame, to be out of
range of the flanking windows. The latchstring had been pulled through
its hole, and he found that the bar was down. He rapped heavily with his
fist.
The answer was unexpectedly prompt. “If you don’t get away from here
I’ll shoot you again, and this time you’ll get the full charge!” The
voice came from behind the barred door--a woman’s voice, tingling with
hostility. It was Diane Durand.
“I beg your pardon?” said Kitchener.
There was a short, uncertain interlude before the girl spoke again. “Who
are you?” she asked.
“It’s Tearl.”
“Oh!” she said, and there was another pause.
“Who’d you think I was?”
“Another man,” she told him through the barrier.
“Giffard?”
“I don’t know his name. I don’t want to. A little, horrid, rat-faced
thing.”
“That’s Giffard.”
“You tell him to keep away from here.”
“What did he do?” asked Kit.
“Nothing. He didn’t get a chance.”
“And you say you shot him?” demanded Kit incredulously.
“I certainly did.”
“In Heaven’s name--what for?”
“He came here and tried to give me a silver fox skin for a present. I
told him I didn’t want any presents, and for him to keep out. He tried
to force his way in, and I slammed the door in his face. Then he went to
get an ax, saying he was going to smash down the door.”
Kit looked around at the furtive figure that still lurked at the edge of
the clearing, and his left eyebrow slanted upward at an unpleasant
angle. “I guessed right!” he muttered. “I thought so.”
“What?” asked the girl.
“You mean you really shot him?” Kit asked again.
“When he started back with his ax from the other side of the clearing I
let him have it.”
“What with?”
“A shotgun. The one that was on your sledge.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Kit, realizing for the first time that the girl was
telling the truth. There had been a double-barreled twelve-gauge among
the effects that Jerry had traded him, and also a box of shells. He
recalled Giffard’s limp and the furrowed streak over his cheekbone.
Diane actually fired at the trapper, and a couple of the little missiles
had found flesh.
“Well,” demanded the defiant voice from behind the door, “I suppose I’m
not allowed to defend myself.”
Kit grinned maliciously at Giffard who, this time, was staying at a
discreet distance. _Noondea_, the weasel, probably in the future would
sell his silver fox pelts and not try to give them away to
helpless-looking maidens in lonely cabins.
“Who’s in there with you?” Kit asked the girl.
There was a dead silence on the other side of the door.
“Hello!” he persisted. “Did you hear me? Are you alone?”
Again there was no answer. Kitchener’s half-smiling lips suddenly drew
together in a set and rigid line. “Open that door!” he commanded.
“I’m not going to,” returned Diane. “This for the moment is my home, and
I’m not going to let anybody in.”
Kitchener unslung his ax and leaned the handle against the door-frame.
Then he shoved his pistol holster around to the front of his belt, and
unfastened the flap. There was a stealthy movement behind the door crack
and he thought he heard two people whispering.
The genial-featured Kit magically was gone, and in his place stood a
hard-jawed, stern-eyed man, cool and nerveless and dangerous. There was
somebody in that room with the girl, and his implacable instincts told
him that that somebody must be Jerry Tearl’s murderer.
He caught up his ax, swung the blade, and drove the bit deep into the
quivering door. A second crashing blow slashed a six inch chip out of
the wood above the latch-hole. A gasping protest sounded from within,
and as he lifted his ax a third time the bar rattled suddenly in its
socket and the door was flung open.
Diane Durand confronted him in the dim opening, her head up, her eyes
aflame, a shotgun gripped against her taut body.
“You keep out of here!” she warned the intruder.
Kit scarcely noticed her. Intuition told him that she would be too
squeamish to fire at such close range. A more imminent peril awaited him
in the gloom behind her.
He tried to peer into the thick, smoky atmosphere of the cabin, and was
aware of a gliding movement on the farther side of the room. The girl
was attempting recklessly to bar his way. He strode across the threshold
and grabbed the barrel of the gun. A tug and a twist, and the gun was
wrenched from her hands. He flung the weapon through the door, into the
snow outside.
“You--” she tried to say, and stopped with a choking sound as his elbow
jammed itself into her ribs. He shouldered her aside ruthlessly and
strode past her.
In the dingy light he made out two upright figures standing stolid and
motionless before him. Both were short and squat in build. Neither was
Hell Bent. He needed only a glance to assure himself of that. With his
pistol clenched for business his glance darted around the murky
interior, and then checked in blinking wonderment as a squalling little
human cry suddenly greeted him from the bunk.
“There!” broke in Diane Durand in a tense and furious voice. “You’ve
done it! I knew it! You’ve gone and wakened him!”
Kit was staring weakly at a tiny, squirming bundle, tucked up in a
blanket on the lower bunk. He was too flabbergasted to speak or to
think. At that moment an enemy could have shot him dead without a
flicker of resistance on his part.
Diane had rushed at him in an outburst of indignation. “You bully!” she
exploded. “You brute! I told you to stay out. Oh, doggone it! After all
the time we’ve had getting him asleep! You’ve waked the baby!”