The next morning Bush McTaggart heard the clanking of a chain when he
was still a good quarter of a mile from the "nest." Was it a lynx? Was
it a fishercat? Was it a wolf or a fox? OR WAS IT BAREE? He half ran
the rest of the distance, and it last he came to where he could see,
and his heart leaped into his throat when he saw that he had caught his
enemy. He approached, holding his rifle ready to fire if by any chance
the dog should free himself.
Baree lay on his side, panting from exhaustion and quivering with pain.
A hoarse cry of exultation burst from McTaggart's lips as he drew
nearer and looked at the snow. It was packed hard for many feet about
the trap house, where Baree had struggled, and it was red with blood.
The blood had come mostly from Baree's jaws. They were dripping now as
he glared at his enemy. The steel jaws hidden under the snow had done
their merciless work well. One of his forefeet was caught well up
toward the first joint; both hind feet were caught. A fourth trap had
closed on his flank, and in tearing the jaws loose he had pulled off a
patch of skin half as big as McTaggart's hand. The snow told the story
of his desperate fight all through the night. His bleeding jaws showed
how vainly he had tried to break the imprisoning steel with his teeth.
He was panting. His eyes were bloodshot.
But even now, after all his hours of agony, neither his spirit nor his
courage was broken. When he saw McTaggart he made a lunge to his feet,
almost instantly crumpling down into the snow again. But his forefeet
were braced. His head and chest remained up, and the snarl that came
from his throat was tigerish in its ferocity. Here, at last--not more
than a dozen feet from him--was the one thing in all the world that he
hated more than he hated the wolf breed. And again he was helpless, as
he had been helpless that other time in the rabbit snare.
The fierceness of his snarl did not disturb Bush McTaggart now. He saw
how utterly the other was at his mercy, and with an exultant laugh he
leaned his rifle against a tree, pulled oft his mittens, and began
loading his pipe. This was the triumph he had looked forward to, the
torture he had waited for. In his soul there was a hatred as deadly as
Baree's, the hatred that a man might have for a man. He had expected to
send a bullet through the dog. But this was better--to watch him dying
by inches, to taunt him as he would have taunted a human, to walk about
him so that he could hear the clank of the traps and see the fresh
blood drip as Baree twisted his tortured legs and body to keep facing
him. It was a splendid vengeance. He was so engrossed in it that he did
not hear the approach of snowshoes behind him. It was a voice--a man's
voice--that turned him round in his tracks.
The man was a stranger, and he was younger than McTaggart by ten years.
At least he looked no more than thirty-five or six, even with the short
growth of blond beard he wore. He was of that sort that the average man
would like at first glance; boyish, and yet a man; with clear eyes that
looked out frankly from under the rim of his fur cap, a form lithe as
an Indian's, and a face that did not bear the hard lines of the
wilderness. Yet McTaggart knew before he had spoken that this man was
of the wilderness, that he was heart and soul a part of it. His cap was
of fisher skin. He wore a windproof coat of softly tanned caribou skin,
belted at the waist with a long sash, and Indian fringed. The inside of
the coat was furred. He was traveling on the long, slender bush country
snowshoe. His pack, strapped over the shoulders, was small and compact;
he was carrying his rifle in a cloth jacket. And from cap to snowshoes
he was TRAVEL WORN. McTaggart, at a guess, would have said that he had
traveled a thousand miles in the last few weeks. It was not this
thought that sent the strange and chilling thrill up his back; but the
sudden fear that in some strange way a whisper of the truth might have
found its way down into the south--the truth of what had happened on
the Gray Loon--and that this travel-worn stranger wore under his
caribou-skin coat the badge of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. For
that instant it was almost a terror that possessed him, and he stood
mute.
The stranger had uttered only an amazed exclamation before. Now he
said, with his eyes on Baree:
"God save us, but you've got the poor devil in a right proper mess,
haven't you?"
There was something in the voice that reassured McTaggart. It was not a
suspicious voice, and he saw that the stranger was more interested in
the captured animal than in himself. He drew a deep breath.
"A trap robber," he said.
The stranger was staring still more closely at Baree. He thrust his gun
stock downward in the snow and drew nearer to him.
"God save us again--a dog!" he exclaimed.
From behind, McTaggart was watching the man with the eyes of a ferret.
"Yes, a dog," he answered. "A wild dog, half wolf at least. He's robbed
me of a thousand dollars' worth of fur this winter."
The stranger squatted himself before Baree, with his mittened hands
resting on his knees, and his white teeth gleaming in a half smile.
"You poor devil!" he said sympathetically. "So you're a trap robber,
eh? An outlaw? And--the police have got you! And--God save us once
more--they haven't played you a very square game!"
He rose and faced McTaggart.
"I had to set a lot of traps like that," the factor apologized, his
face reddening slightly under the steady gaze of the stranger's blue
eyes. Suddenly his animus rose. "And he's going to die there, inch by
inch. I'm going to let him starve, and rot in the traps, to pay for all
he's done." He picked up his gun, and added, with his eyes on the
stranger and his finger ready at the trigger, "I'm Bush McTaggart, the
factor at Lac Bain. Are you bound that way, M'sieu?"
"A few miles. I'm bound upcountry--beyond the Barrens."
McTaggart felt again the strange thrill.
"Government?" he asked.
The stranger nodded.
"The--police, perhaps," persisted McTaggart.
"Why, yes--of course--the police," said the stranger, looking straight
into the factor's eyes. "And now, m'sieu, as a very great courtesy to
the Law I'm going to ask you to send a bullet through that beast's head
before we go on. Will you? Or shall I?"
"It's the law of the line," said McTaggart, "to let a trap robber rot
in the traps. And that beast was a devil. Listen--"
Swiftly, and yet leaving out none of the fine detail, he told of the
weeks and months of strife between himself and Baree; of the maddening
futility of all his tricks and schemes and the still more maddening
cleverness of the beast he had at last succeeded in trapping.
"He was a devil--that clever," he cried fiercely when he had finished.
"And now--would you shoot him, or let him lie there and die by inches,
as the devil should?"
The stranger was looking at Baree. His face was turned away from
McTaggart. He said:
"I guess you are right. Let the devil rot. If you're heading for Lac
Bain, m'sieu, I'll travel a short distance with you now. It will take a
couple of miles to straighten out the line of my compass."
He picked up his gun. McTaggart led the way. At the end of half an hour
the stranger stopped, and pointed north.
"Straight up there--a good five hundred miles," he said, speaking as
lightly as though he would reach home that night. "I'll leave you here."
He made no offer to shake hands. But in going, he said:
"You might report that John Madison has passed this way."
After that he traveled straight northward for half a mile through the
deep forest. Then he swung westward for two miles, turned at a sharp
angle into the south, and an hour after he had left McTaggart he was
once more squatted on his heels almost within arms' reach of Baree.
And he was saying, as though speaking to a human companion:
"So that's what you've been, old boy. A trap robber, eh? An OUTLAW? And
you beat him at the game for two months! And for that, because you're a
better beast than he is, he wants to let you die here as slow as you
can. An OUTLAW!" His voice broke into a pleasant laugh, the sort of
laugh that warms one, even a beast. "That's funny. We ought to shake
hands, Boy, by George, we had! You're a wild one, he says. Well, so am
I. Told him my name was John Madison. It ain't. I'm Jim Carvel. And, oh
Lord!--all I said was 'police.' And that was right. It ain't a lie. I'm
wanted by the whole corporation--by every danged policeman between
Hudson's Bay and the Mackenzie River. Shake, old man. We're in the same
boat, an' I'm glad to meet you!"