two men were rushing toward them. They were O'Grady and the
Chippewayan. He caught the gleam of a knife in the Indian's hand. In
O'Grady's there was something larger and darker--a club, and Jan
dropped his end of the canoe with a glad cry, and drew one of the
knives from his belt. Jackpine came to his side, with his hunting knife
in his hand, measuring with glittering eyes the oncoming foe of his
race--the Chippewayan.
And Jan laughed softly to himself, and his teeth gleamed again, for at
last fate was playing his game. The fire had burned O'Grady's canoe,
and it was to rob him of his own canoe that O'Grady was coming to
fight. A canoe! He laughed again, while the fire roared over his head
and the whirlpool thundered at his feet. O'Grady would fight for a
canoe--for gold--while he--HE--would fight for something else, for the
vengeance of a man whose soul and honor had been sold. He cared nothing
for the canoe. He cared nothing for the gold. He told himself, in this
one tense moment of waiting, that he cared no longer for Marie. It was
the fulfillment of the code.
He was still smiling when O'Grady was so near that he could see the red
glare in his eyes. There was no word, no shout, no sound of fury or
defiance as the two men stood for an instant just out of striking
distance. Jan heard the coming together of Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. He heard them straggling, but not the flicker of an
eyelash did his gaze leave O'Grady's face. Both men understood. This
time had to come. Both had expected it, even from that day of the fight
in the woods when fortune had favored Jan. The burned canoe had only
hastened the hour a little. Suddenly Jan's free hand reached behind him
to his belt. He drew forth the second knife and tossed it at O'Grady's
feet.
O'Grady made a movement to pick it up, and then, while Jan was partly
off his guard, came at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was
his catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the great northern loon
that evades a rifle ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It
saved him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried
by the momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the
full force of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife
swept in an upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of
his enemy's forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and
the two crashed to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack
that Jan had feared and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like
squirming movement he swung himself half free, and on his back, with
O'Grady's huge hands linking at his throat, he drew back his knife arm
for the fatal plunge.
In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in
the time, his eyes took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace.
All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the
roused-up hatred that fired them now in their desire to kill. They had
drawn close to the edge of the chasm. Under them the thundering roar of
the whirlpool was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning
surge of the flames far over their heads. Even as Jan stared
horror-stricken in that one moment, they locked at the edge of the
chasm. Above the tumult of the flood below and the fire above there
rose a wild yell, and the two plunged down into the abyss, locked and
fighting even as they fell in a twisting, formless shape to the death
below.
It happened in an instant--like the flash of a quick picture on a
screen--and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible face,
his hand drove eight inches of steel toward O'Grady's body. The blade
struck something hard--something that was neither bone nor flesh, and
he drew back again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on
O'Grady's belt. This time--
A sudden hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not
strike--but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the
fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the
mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from
under a weight that was not O'Grady's--a weight that stifled the breath
in his lungs, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his face and his
hands, and was burning out his eyes. A shriek rang in his ears unlike
any other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was
O'Grady's. He pulled himself out, foot by foot, until fresher air
struck his nostrils, and dragged himself nearer and nearer to the edge
of the chasm. He could not rise. His limbs were paralyzed. His knife
arm dragged at his side. He opened his eyes and found that he could
see. Where they had fought was the smoldering ruin of a great tree, and
standing out of the ruin of that tree, half naked, his hands tearing
wildly at his face, was O'Grady. Jan's fingers clutched at a small
rock. He called out, but there was no meaning to the sound he made.
Clarry O'Grady threw out his great arms.
"Jan--Jan Larose--" he cried. "My God, don't strike now! I'm
blind--blind--"
He staggered back, as if expecting a blow. "Don't strike!" he almost
shrieked. "Mother of Heaven--my eyes are burned out--I'm blind--blind--"
He backed to the wall, his huge form crouched, his hands reaching out
as if to ward off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the effort
brought a groan of agony to his lips. A second crash filled his ears as
a second avalanche of fiery debris plunged down upon the trail farther
back. He stared straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues
of flame were leaping over the wall of the mountain where the edge of
the forest was enveloped in a sea of twisting and seething fire. It was
only a matter of minutes--perhaps seconds. Death had them both in its
grip.
He looked again at O'Grady, and there was no longer the desire for the
other's life in his heart. He could see that the giant was unharmed,
except for his eyes.
"Listen, O'Grady," he cried. "My legs are broken, I guess, and I can't
move. It's sure death to stay here another minute. You can get away.
Follow the wall--to your right. The slope is still free of fire,
and--and--"
O'Grady began to move, guiding himself slowly along the wall. Then,
suddenly, he stopped.
"Jan Larose--you say you can't move?" he shouted.
"Yes."
Slowly O'Grady turned and came gropingly toward the sound of Jan's
voice. Jan held tight to the rock that he had gripped in his left hand.
Was it possible that O'Grady would kill him now, stricken as he was? He
tried to drag himself to a new position, but his effort was futile.
"Jan! Jan Larose!" called O'Grady, stopping to listen.
Jan held his breath. Then the truth seemed to dawn upon O'Grady. He
laughed, differently than he had laughed before, and stretched out his
arms.
"My God, Jan," he cried, "you don't think I'm clean BEAST, do you? The
fight's over, man, an' I guess God A'mighty brought this on us to show
what fools we was. Where are y', Jan Larose? I'm goin' t' carry you
out!"
"I'm here!" called Jan.
He could see truth and fearlessness in O'Grady's sightless face, and he
guided him without fear. Their hands met. Then O'Grady lowered himself
and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have lifted a
boy. He straightened himself and drew a deep breath, broken by a
stabbing throb of pain.
"I'm blind an' I won't see any more," he said, "an' mebbe you won't
ever walk any more. But if we ever git to that gold I kin do the work
and you kin show me how. Now--p'int out the way, Jan Larose!"
With his arms clasped about O'Grady's naked shoulders, Jan's smarting
eyes searched through the thickening smother of fire and smoke for a
road that the other's feet might tread. He shouted
"Left"--"right"--"right"--"right"--"left" into this blind companion's
ears until they touched the wall. As the heat smote them more fiercely,
O'Grady bowed his great head upon his chest and obeyed mutely the
signals that rang in his ears. The bottoms of his moccasins were burned
from his feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his broad chest was a
fiery blister, and yet he strode on straight into the face of still
greater heat and greater torture, uttering no sound that could be heard
above the steady roar of the flames. And Jan, limp and helpless on his
back, felt then the throb and pulse of a giant life under him, the
straining of thick neck, of massive shoulders and the grip of powerful
arms whose strength told him that at last he had found the comrade and
the man in Clarry O'Grady. "Right"--"left"--"left"--"right" he shouted,
and then he called for O'Grady to stop in a voice that was shrill with
warning.
"There's fire ahead," he yelled. "We can't follow the wall any longer.
There's an open space close to the chasm. We can make that, but there's
only about a yard to spare. Take short steps--one step each time I tell
you. Now--left--left--left--left--"
Like a soldier on drill, O'Grady kept time with his scorched feet until
Jan turned him again to face the storm of fire, while one of his own
broken legs dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the
Chippewayan had plunged to their death. Behind them, almost where they
had fought, there crashed down a third avalanche from the edge of the
mountain. Not a shiver ran through O'Grady's great body. Steadily and
unflinchingly--step--step--step--he went ahead, while the last threads
of his moccasins smoked and burned. Jan could no longer see half a
dozen yards in advance. A wall of black smoke rose in their faces, and
he pulled O'Grady's ear:
"We've got just one chance, Clarry. I can't see any more. Keep straight
ahead--and run for it, and may the good God help us now!"
And Clarry O'Grady, drawing one great breath that was half fire into
his lungs, ran straight into the face of what looked like death to Jan
Larose. In that one moment Jan closed his eyes and waited for the
plunge over the cliff. But in place of death a sweep of air that seemed
almost cold struck his face, and he opened his eyes to find the clear
and uncharred slope leading before them down to the edge of the lake.
He shouted the news into O'Grady's ear, and then there arose from
O'Grady's chest a great sobbing cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, and
more than all else of that terrible grief which came of the knowledge
that back in the pit of death from which he had escaped he had left
forever the vision of life itself. He dropped Jan in the edge of the
water, and, plunging in to his waist, he threw handful after handful of
water into his own swollen face, and then stared upward, as though this
last experiment was also his last hope.
"My God, I'm blind--stone blind!"
Jan was staring hard into O'Grady's face. He called him nearer, took
the swollen and blackened face between his two hands, and his voice was
trembling with joy when he spoke.
"You're not blind--not for good--O'Grady," he said. "I've seen men like
you before--twice. You--you'll get well. O'Grady--Clarry O'Grady--let's
shake! I'm a brother to you from this day on. And I'm glad--glad--that
Marie loves a man like you!"
O'Grady had gripped his hand, but he dropped it now as though it had
been one of the live brands that had hurtled down upon them from the
top of the mountain.
"Marie--man--why--she HATES me!" he cried. "It's you--YOU--Jan Larose,
that she loves! I went there with a broken leg, an' I fell in love with
her. But she wouldn't so much as let me touch her hand, an' she talked
of you--always--always--until I had learned to hate you before you
came. I dunno why she did it--that other thing--unless it was to make
you jealous. I guess it was all f'r fun, Jan. She didn't know. The day
you went away she sent me after you. But I hated you--hated you worse'n
she hated me. It's you--you--"
He clutched his hands at his sightless face again, and suddenly Jan
gave a wild shout. Creeping around the edge of a smoking headland, he
had caught sight of a man and a canoe.
"There's a man in a canoe!" he cried, "He sees us! O'Grady--"
He tried to lift himself, but fell back with a groan. Then he laughed,
and, in spite of his agony, there was a quivering happiness in his
voice.
"He's coming, O'Grady. And it looks--it looks like a canoe we both
know. We'll go back to her cabin together, O'Grady. And when we're on
our legs again--well, I never wanted the gold. That's yours--all of it."
A determined look had settled in O'Grady's face. He groped his way to
Jan's side, and their hands met in a clasp that told more than either
could have expressed of the brotherhood and strength of men.
"You can't throw me off like that, Jan Larose," he said. "We're
pardners!"
THE MATCH
Sergeant Brokaw was hatchet-faced, with shifting pale blue eyes that
had a glint of cruelty in them. He was tall, and thin, and lithe as a
cat. He belonged to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and was one of
the best men on the trail that had ever gone into the North. His
business was man hunting. Ten years of seeking after human prey had
given to him many of the characteristics of a fox. For six of those ten
years he had represented law north of fifty-three. Now he had come to
the end of his last hunt, close up to the Arctic Circle. For one
hundred and eighty-seven days he had been following a man. The hunt had
begun in midsummer, and it was now midwinter. Billy Loring, who was
wanted for murder, had been a hard man to find. But he was caught at
last, and Brokaw was keenly exultant. It was his greatest achievement.
It would mean a great deal for him down at headquarters.
In the rough and dimly lighted cabin his man sat opposite him, on a
bench, his manacled hands crossed over his knees. He was a younger man
than Brokaw--thirty, or a little better. His hair was long, reddish,
and untrimmed. A stubble of reddish beard covered his face. His eyes,
too, were blue--of the deep, honest blue that one remembers, and most
frequently trusts. He did not look like a criminal. There was something
almost boyish in his face, a little hollowed by long privation. He was
the sort of man that other men liked. Even Brokaw, who had a heart like
flint in the face of crime, had melted a little.
"Ugh!" he shivered. "Listen to that beastly wind! It means three days
of storm." Outside a gale was blowing straight down from the Arctic.
They could hear the steady moaning of it in the spruce tops over the
cabin, and now and then there came one of those raging blasts that
filled the night with strange shrieking sounds. Volleys of fine, hard
snow beat against the one window with a rattle like shot. In the cabin
it was comfortable. It was Billy's cabin. He had built it deep in a
swamp, where there were lynx and fisher cat to trap, and where he had
thought that no one could find him. The sheet-iron stove was glowing
hot. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling. Billy was sitting so that the
glow of this fell in his face. It scintillated on the rings of steel
about his wrists. Brokaw was a cautious man, as well as a clever one,
and he took no chances.
"I like storms--when you're inside, an' close to a stove," replied
Billy. "Makes me feel sort of--safe." He smiled a little grimly. Even
at that it was not an unpleasant smile.
Brokaw's snow-reddened eyes gazed at the other.
"There's something in that," he said. "This storm will give you at
least three days more of life."
"Won't you drop that?" asked the prisoner, turning his face a little,
so that it was shaded from the light.
"You've got me now, an' I know what's coming as well as you do." His
voice was low and quiet, with the faintest trace of a broken note in
it, deep down in his throat. "We're alone, old man, and a long way from
anyone. I ain't blaming you for catching me. I haven't got anything
against you. So let's drop this other thing--what I'm going down
to--and talk something pleasant. I know I'm going to hang. That's the
law. It'll be pleasant enough when it comes, don't you think? Let's
talk about--about--home. Got any kids?"
Brokaw shook his head, and took his pipe from his mouth.
"Never married," he said shortly.
"Never married," mused Billy, regarding him with a curious softening of
his blue eyes. "You don't know what you've missed, Brokaw. Of course,
it's none of my business, but you've got a home--somewhere--" Brokaw
shook his head again.
"Been in the service ten years," he said. "I've got a mother living
with my brother somewhere down in York State. I've sort of lost track
of them. Haven't seen 'em in five years."
Billy was looking at him steadily. Slowly he rose to his feet, lifted
his manacled hands, and turned down the light.
"Hurts my eyes," he said, and he laughed frankly as he caught the
suspicious glint in Brokaw's eyes. He seated himself again, and leaned
over toward the other. "I haven't talked to a white man for three
months," he added, a little hesitatingly. "I've been hiding--close. I
had a dog for a time, and he died, an' I didn't dare go hunting for
another. I knew you fellows were pretty close after me. But I wanted to
get enough fur to take me to South America. Had it all planned, an' SHE
was going to join me there--with the kid. Understand? If you'd kept
away another month--"
There was a husky break in his voice, and he coughed to clear it.
"You don't mind if I talk, do you--about her, an' the kid? I've got to
do it, or bust, or go mad. I've got to because--to-day--she was
twenty-four--at ten o'clock in the morning--an' it's our wedding day--"
The half gloom hid from Brokaw what was in the other's face. And then
Billy laughed almost joyously. "Say, but she's been a true little
pardner," he whispered proudly, as there came a lull in the storm. "She
was just born for me, an' everything seemed to happen on her birthday,
an' that's why I can't be downhearted even NOW. It's her birthday? you
see, an' this morning, before you came, I was just that happy that I
set a plate for her at the table, an' put her picture and a curl of her
hair beside it--set the picture up so it was looking at me--an' we had
breakfast together. Look here--"
He moved to the table, with Brokaw watching him like a cat, and brought
something back with him, wrapped in a soft piece of buckskin. He
unfolded the buckskin tenderly, and drew forth a long curl that rippled
a dull red and gold in the lamp-glow, and then he handed a photograph
to Brokaw.
"That's her!" he whispered.
Brokaw turned so that the light fell on the picture. A sweet, girlish
face smiled at him from out of a wealth of flowing, disheveled curls.
"She had it taken that way just for me," explained Billy, with the
enthusiasm of a boy in his voice. "She's always wore her hair in
curls--an' a braid--for me, when we're home. I love it that way. Guess
I may be silly but I'll tell you why. THAT was down in York State, too.
She lived in a cottage, all grown over with honeysuckle an' morning
glory, with green hills and valleys all about it--and the old apple
orchard just behind. That day we were in the orchard, all red an' white
with bloom, and she dared me to a race. I let her beat me, and when I
came up she stood under one of the trees, her cheeks like the pink
blossoms, and her hair all tumbled about her like an armful of gold,
shaking the loose apple blossoms down on her head. I forgot everything
then, and I didn't stop until I had her in my arms, an'--an' she's been
my little pardner ever since. After the baby came we moved up into
Canada, where I had a good chance in a new mining town. An' then--" A
furious blast of the storm sent the overhanging spruce tops smashing
against the top of the cabin. Straight overhead the wind shrieked
almost like human voices, and the one window rattled as though it were
shaken by human hands. The lamp had been burning lower and lower. It
began to flicker now, the quick sputter of the wick lost in the noise
of the gale. Then it went out. Brokaw leaned over and opened the door
of the big box stove, and the red glow of the fire took the place of
the lamplight. He leaned back and relighted his pipe, eyeing Billy. The
sudden blast, the going out of the light, the opening of the stove
door, had all happened in a minute, but the interval was long enough to
bring a change in Billy's voice. It was cold and hard when he
continued. He leaned over toward Brokaw, and the boyishness had gone
from his face.
"Of course, I can't expect you to have any sympathy for this other
business, Brokaw," he went on. "Sympathy isn't in your line, an' you
wouldn't be the big man you are in the service if you had it. But I'd
like to know what YOU would have done. We were up there six months, and
we'd both grown to love the big woods, and she was growing prettier and
happier every day--when Thorne, the new superintendent, came up. One
day she told me that she didn't like Thorne, but I didn't pay much
attention to that, and laughed at her, and said he was a good fellow.
After that I could see that something was worrying her, and pretty soon
I couldn't help from seeing what it was, and everything came out. It
was Thorne. He was persecuting her. She hadn't told me, because she
knew it would make trouble and I'd lose my job. One afternoon I came
home earlier than usual, and found her crying. She put her arms round
my neck, and just cried it all out, with her face snuggled in my neck,
and kissin' me--"
Brokaw could see the cords in Billy's neck. His manacled hands were
clenched.
"What would you have done, Brokaw?" he asked huskily. "What if you had
a wife, an' she told you that another man had insulted her, and was
forcing his attentions on her, and she asked you to give up your job
and take her away? Would you have done it, Brokaw? No, you wouldn't.
You'd have hunted up the man. That's what I did. He had been
drinking--just enough to make him devilish, and he laughed at me--I
didn't mean to strike so hard.--But it happened. I killed him. I got
away. She and the baby are down in the little cottage again--down in
York State--an' I know she's awake this minute--our wedding
day--thinking of me, an' praying for me, and counting the days between
now and spring. We were going to South America then."
Brokaw rose to his feet, and put fresh wood into the stove.
"I guess it must be pretty hard," he said, straightening himself. "But
the law up here doesn't take them things into account--not very much.
It may let you off with manslaugher--ten or fifteen years. I hope it
does. Let's turn in."
Billy stood up beside him. He went with Brokaw to a bunk built against
the wall, and the sergeant drew a fine steel chain from his pocket.
Billy lay down, his hands crossed over his breast, and Brokaw deftly
fastened the chain about his ankles.
"And I suppose you think THIS is hard, too," he added. "But I guess
you'd do it if you were me. Ten years of this sort of work learns you
not to take chances. If you want anything in the night just whistle."
It had been a hard day with Brokaw, and he slept soundly. For an hour
Billy lay awake, thinking of home, and listening to the wail of the
storm. Then he, too, fell into sleep--a restless, uneasy slumber filled
with troubled visions. For a time there had come a lull in the storm,
but now it broke over the cabin with increased fury. A hand seemed
slapping at the window, threatening to break it. The spruce boughs
moaned and twisted overhead, and a volley of wind and snow shot
suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft
of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the
cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Billy's dreams. In
all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl--his wife--was
present. Once they had gone for wild flowers and had been caught in a
thunderstorm, and had run to an old and disused barn in the middle of a
field for shelter. He was back in that barn again, with HER--and he
could feel her trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair, as
the thunder crashed over them and the lightning filled her eyes with
fear. After that there came to him a vision of the early autumn nights
when they had gone corn roasting, with other young people. He had
always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated
him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and she
had always laughed when the smoke persisted in following him about,
like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was
unusually persistent to-night. He tossed in his bunk, and buried his
face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him
even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant the girl's face
disappeared. He sneezed again--and awoke.