AT THE BLACK CAÑON.
Now, as far as I have gone in this story, I have related nothing
which I did not see or hear myself, which is, as it seems to me, the
proper way to do it, provided nothing important is left out. But as
I have learnt since then what happened to other people, and have
pieced the story together in my mind, I see it is necessary to depart
from the rule I have observed hitherto, if I don't want to explain,
after I have come to the end of the whole history, what occurred
before; and that, I can see, would be a very clumsy way of narrating
any affair. Now, what I am going to tell I have on very good
evidence, for Dave at the Forks, and Conlan's stableman told me part,
and afterward, as will be seen, I actually learnt something from
Siwash Jim himself, who here plays rather a curious and important
part.
It appears that the day after I was at the Forks (which day I spent,
by the way, with Mr. Fleming, riding round the country, returning
afterward by the trail which led from the Black Cañon down to my
house) Siwash Jim, who had to all appearance recovered from the
injuries, which, however, were only bruises, that I had inflicted on
him, began to drink early in the morning. He had, so Dave says,
quite an unnatural power of keeping sober--and Dave himself can drink
more than any two men I am acquainted with, unless it is Mac, my old
partner, so he ought to know. And though Jim drank hard, he did not
become drunk, but only abused me. He called me all the names from
coyote upward and downward which a British Columbian of any standing
has at his tongue's end, and when Jim had exhausted the resources of
the fertile American language, he started in Siwash or Indian, in
which there are many choice terms of abuse. But in spite of his
openness, Dave says it was quite evident he was dangerous, and that I
might really have been in peril at any time of the day if I had come
to town, for Jim was deemed a bad character among his companions, and
had, so it was said, killed one man at least, though he had never
been tried for it. But though he sat all day in the bar, using my
name openly, he never made a move till eight in the evening, when he
went out for awhile.
When he returned he was accompanied by a thin dark man, wearing a
slouch hat over his eyes, whom Dave took to be a half-breed of some
kind, and they had drinks together, for which the stranger paid,
speaking in good English, but not with a Western accent. Then the
two went to the other side of the room. What their conversation was,
no one knows exactly, nor did I ever learn; but Dave, who was keeping
his eye on Jim, says that it seemed as if the stranger was trying to
persuade Jim to be quiet and stay where he was, and from what
occurred afterward there is little doubt his supposition was correct.
Moreover, my name undoubtedly occurred in this conversation, for Dave
heard it, and the name of my ranch as well. Soon after that some men
came in, and, in consequence of his being busy, Dave did not see Jim
go out. But Conlan's stableman says Jim came to the stable with the
stranger and got his horse. When asked where he was going, he said
for a ride, and would answer no more questions. And all the time the
strange man tried to persuade him not to go, and to come and have
another drink. If Jim had been flush of money there might have been
a motive for this, but as he was not, there seemed then to be none
beyond the sudden and absurd fondness that men sometimes conceive for
each other when drunk. But if this were the case, it was only on the
stranger's side, for when the horse was brought round to the door Jim
mounted it, and when the other man still importuned him not to go,
Siwash Jim struck at him with his left hand and knocked off his hat
as he stood in the light coming from the bar. And just then
attention was drawn from Jim by a sudden shriek from the other side
of the road where Conlan's private house stood. When Dave came out
and looked for him again, both he and the other man had disappeared
down the road, which branched about half a mile out of town into two
forks, one leading eastward and the other southward to the Flemings'.
Now, as I said before, most of that day I had been out riding with
Mr. Fleming, who left me early, in order to go to the next ranch down
the road, and I had told him the whole story about Mat's escape, and
my brother's death; which he agreed with me were hardly likely to be
connected. Yet he acknowledged if they were I was in much more
danger than one would have thought before, because such a deed would
show the Malay was a desperado of the most fearless and dangerous
description; and besides, if he had robbed Will, it was more than
likely he knew where I was from my own letters, or from my address
written in a pocketbook my brother always carried, and which was
missing. Of course, this conversation made me full, as it were, of
Mat; and that, combined with the unlucky turn affairs had taken with
regard to Elsie, made me more nervous than I was inclined to
acknowledge to her father. So before I went to bed, which I did at
ten o'clock--for I was very tired, being still unaccustomed to much
riding--I locked my door carefully, and put the table against it,
neither of which things I had ever done before, and which I was
almost inclined to undo at once, for it seemed cowardly to me. Yet I
thought of Elsie, and, still hoping to win her, I was careful of my
life. I went to sleep, in spite of my nervous preoccupation, almost
as soon as I lay down, and I suppose I must have been asleep two
hours before I woke out of a horrible dream. I thought that I was on
board ship, in my own berth, lying in the bunk, and that Mat was on
my chest strangling me with his long lithe fingers. And all the time
I heard, as I thought, the sails flap, as though the vessel had come
up in the wind. As I struggled--and I did struggle desperately--the
blood seemed to go up into my head and eyes, until I saw the fiend's
face in a red light, and then I woke. The house was on fire, and I
was being suffocated! As the flames worked in from the outside, and
made the scorching timbers crack again and again, I sprang out of
bed. I had lain down with my trousers on, and, seeing at once there
must be foul play for the house to catch fire on the outside, and at
the back too, where I never went, I drew on my boots, snatched my
revolver up, and leapt at the front window, through which I went with
a crash, uttering a loud cry as I did so, for a piece of the glass
cut my left arm deeply. As I came to the ground, I saw a horseman in
front of me, and by the light of the fire, which had already mounted
to the roof of the house, I recognized Siwash Jim. Then, whether it
was that the horse he rode was frightened at the crash I made or not,
it suddenly bounded into the air, turned sharp round, and bolted into
the brush, just where the trail came down from the Black Cañon. As
Jim disappeared, I fired, but with no effect; and that my shot was
neither returned nor anticipated was, I saw, due to the fact that the
villain had dropped his own six-shooter, probably at the first bound
of his horse, just where he had been standing.
I was in a blind fury of rage, for such a cowardly and treacherous
attack on an unoffending man's life seemed hardly credible to me.
And there my home was burning, and it was no fault of his that I was
not burning with it, or shot dead outside my own door. But he should
not escape, if I chased him for a month. I was glad he had been
forced to take the trail, for there was no possible outlet to it for
miles, so thick was the brush in that mountainous region.
Fortunately, I now had two horses; and the one in my stable, which I
had only bought from Fleming a week before, was not the one I had
been riding all that day. I threw the saddle on him, clinched it up
tightly, and led him out. I carried both the weapons, my own and
Jim's, and I rode up the narrow and winding path in a blind and
desperate fury, which seldom comes to a man, but it when it does it
makes him careless of his own life and utterly reckless; and as I
rode, in a fashion I had never done before, even though I trusted a
mountain-bred and forest-trained horse, I swore that I myself should
die that night, or that Siwash Jim should feel the just weight of my
wrath. But before I can tell the terrible story of that terrible
night I must return once more, and for the last time, to Thomson
Forks.
I said, some pages back, that attention had been drawn from Siwash
Jim and his strange companion by a sudden shriek from Ned Conlan's
house. That shriek had been uttered by Helen, who was still staying
with Mrs. Conlan, as she and her hostess were standing outside in the
dying twilight, and, after screaming, she had fainted, remaining
insensible for nearly half an hour. When Dr. Smith, as he called
himself--though an Englishman has natural doubts as to how the
practitioners in the West earn their diplomas--had helped her
recovery, she spoke at once in a state of nervous excitement painful
to witness.
"Oh, I saw him--I saw him!" she said, in an hysterical voice.
"Who, my dear?" asked Mrs. Conlan, in what people call a comforting
way.
"Where is Mr Conlan?" was Helen's answer. He came into the room in
which she was lying. Helen turned to him at once.
"Mr. Conlan, I want you to take me out to my brother-in-law's
house--to Mr. Ticehurst's farm!"
They all exclaimed against her foolishness and demanded why; while
Conlan scratched his head in a puzzled manner.
"I tell you I must see him to-night, and at once! For I saw the man
who swore to kill him."
The bystanders shook their heads sagely, thinking she was mad, but
Conlan asked if she meant Siwash Jim.
"No," she said, "it was not Jim." But she must go, and she would.
With an extraordinary exhibition of strength, she rose and ordered
horses in an imperative tone, saying she was quite well enough to do
as she liked.
Mrs. Conlan appealed to the doctor, and he, perhaps being glad to
advise against the opinion of those present, as such a course might
indicate his superior knowledge, said he thought it best to let her
have her own way. I think, too, that Helen, who seemed to have
regained her strength, had regained with it her old power of making
people do as she wished. At any rate, Mr. Conlan meekly acquiesced,
and, saying he would drive her himself, went out to order horses at
once. When the buggy was brought to the door, Helen got up without
assistance, and begged him to be quick. His wife, who would never
have dared to even suggest his hurrying, stood aghast at seeing her
usually masterful husband do as he was bid. They drove off, leaving
Mrs. Conlan to prophesy certain death as the result of this
inexplicable expedition, while the others speculated, more or less
wildly, as to what it all meant.
Conlan told me that Helen never spoke all the way except to ask how
much longer they were going to be, or to complain of the slowness of
the pace.
"Most women," said Ned, "would have been scared at the way I drove,
for it was pitch dark; and if the horses hadn't known the road as
well, or better, than I did, we should have come to grief in the
first mile. But she never turned a hair. She was a wonderful woman,
sir!"
It was already past eleven o'clock when they got to the top of the
hill just above Fleming's, and from there the light of my house
burning could be distinctly seen, although the place itself was
hidden by a rise, and Helen pointed to it, nervously demanding what
it was.
"Ticehurst must have been burning brush," said Conlan, offering the
very likeliest explanation. But Helen said, "No, no," impatiently,
and told him to hurry. Just then Conlan remembered that he did not
know the road across from Fleming's to my place, and said so.
"You had better stop at Fleming's, and send for him. They aint in
bed yet, ma'am. I see their light."
"I don't want to see the Flemings; I want Mr. Ticehurst," said Helen
obstinately.
"Well, we must stop at Fleming's," said Conlan, "if it's only to ask
the way. I don't know the road, and I'm not going to kill you and
myself by driving into the creek such a night as this."
And Helen was fain to acquiesce, for she could not do otherwise.
When they reached the house Fanny was standing outside, and as the
light from the open door fell on Helen's pallid face, she screamed.
"Good Heavens, Mrs. Ticehurst! Is it you?" she cried--"and you, Mr.
Conlan? Oh, I am so glad!--father's away, and Mr. Ticehurst's house
must be on fire."
"Ah!" said Helen, "I thought so. Oh, oh! he's dead, I know he's
dead! I must go to him! Fanny, dear, can you show us the way--can
you? You must! Perhaps we can save him yet!"
She frightened Fanny terribly, for her face was so pale and her eyes
glittered so, and for a moment the girl could hardly speak.
"I don't know it by night, Mrs. Ticehurst; but Elsie does," she said
at last.
"Where is she, then?" said Helen eagerly.
"She's gone over there now," cried Fanny, "for father had not come
home; and when we saw the fire, we were afraid something had
happened, so Elsie took the black horse and went over. She's there
now."
"Then what shall we do?" cried Helen, in an agony, "he will be
killed!"
"What is it, Mrs. Ticehurst?" asked Fanny, trembling all over. "Oh,
what is it!"
But she took no notice and sat like a statue, only she breathed hard
and heavily, and her hands twitched; as she looked toward my burning
home.
"Silence!" she cried suddenly, though no one spoke. "There is
somebody coming."
And the three of them looked into the darkness, in which there was a
white figure moving rapidly.
"It is Elsie!" screamed Fanny joyfully; and Helen sprang from the
buggy, and stood in the light, as Elsie exclaimed in wonder at
Fanny's excited voice.
The two women stood face to face, looking in each other's eyes, and
then Elsie, who for one moment had shown nothing but surprise, went
white with scorn and anger. How glad I should have been to have seen
her so, or to have learnt, even at that moment when I stood in the
greatest peril I have ever known, that she had ridden over to save or
help me, even though her acts but added a greater danger to those in
which I already stood. For her deed and her look were the deed and
look of a woman who loves and is jealous. But it might have seemed
to me, had I been there, that Helen's coming had overbalanced the
scale once more against me, and perhaps for the last time. I am glad
I did not know that fear until it was only imagination, and the
imaginary canceling of a series of events, that could place me again
in such a situation.
The two women looked at each other, and then Elsie turned away.
"Stop, stop!" cried Helen; "what has happened? Where is Mr.
Ticehurst?"
"What is that to you?" said Elsie cruelly, and with her eyes flaming.
"Tell us, Elsie," said Fanny imploringly.
"I will _not_!" said her sister--"not to this woman! Go back, Mrs.
Ticehurst! What are you doing here?"
Helen caught her by the arm, and looked in her face.
"Girl, I know your thoughts!" she said; "but you are wrong--I tell
you, you are wrong! You love him----"
"I do not!" said Elsie angrily. "I love no other woman's lover!"
Surely, though there were two dazed onlookers, these women were in a
state to speak their natural minds.
"Girl, girl!" said Helen, once more, "I tell you again, you are
wrong! You are endangering _your_ lover's life. Is he not your
lover, or did you go over there to find out nothing? I tell you, I
came to save him, and to save him for you--no, not for you, you are
not worth it, though he thinks you perfection! You are a wicked
girl, and a fool! Come, come! why don't you speak? What has become
of him? Is he over there now?"
Elsie was silent, but yielding. Fanny spoke again.
"Elsie--Elsie, speak--answer her! What happened over there, and
where is the horse?"
Elsie turned to her, as though disdaining to answer Helen.
"Someone set his house on fire, I think; perhaps it was Jim, and Mr.
Ticehurst has gone after him!"
"Ah!" said Helen, as if relieved, "if that is all! How did you know
he is gone--did you see him, speak to him?"
"No," said Elsie; "I did not!"
"Then how do you know?" cried Fanny and Helen, together.
"There was a man there----"
Helen cried out as if she were struck, and Elsie paused.
"Go on!" the other cried--"go on!"
"And when I came up he was sitting by the house. I asked him if Mr.
Ticehurst was there----"
"Oh, you fool!" groaned Helen, but only Fanny heard it.
"And he got up," continued Elsie, "and said there was no one there,
but just as he was coming from his camp to see what the fire was, he
heard a shot, and when he got to the house he saw somebody just
disappear up the trail toward the cañon."
"Did you know him?" said Helen, as Elsie paused to take breath, for
when she began to speak she spoke rapidly, and, conceal it as she
would, it was evident she was in a fearful state of excitement.
"No," said Elsie; "but I think I have seen him before."
"Where is he, then?" cried Helen, holding her hand to her heart. "Is
he there still?"
"No," cried Fanny, almost joyfully, "you gave him your horse to go
and find Tom, and help him, didn't you, Elsie?"
And Helen screamed out in a terrible voice, "No, no! you did not, you
did not--say you did not, girl!"
Elsie, who had turned whiter and whiter, turned to her suddenly.
"Yes, I did," she cried; "I did give him the horse."
Helen lifted her hands up over her head with an awful gesture of
despair, and fell on her knees, catching hold of both the girls'
dresses. But she held up and spoke.
"Oh, you wretched, unhappy girl!" she cried. "What have you
done--what _have_ you done? To whom did you give the horse? I know,
I know! I saw him this very night--the man who swore to be revenged
on him if it were after a century. The man who nearly killed him
once, and who has escaped from prison. You have given him the means
of killing your lover--you have given Tom Ticehurst up to Matthias,
to a murderer--a murderer!"
And she fell back, and this time did not recover herself, but lay
insensible, still holding the girls' dresses with as desperate a
clutch as though she were keeping back from following me the man who
was upon my track that terrible midnight. But Elsie stooped, freed
her dress, and saying to Fanny, "See to her--see to her!" ran down to
the stable again, just as her father rode through the higher gate.
And as that girl, who had known and ridden from her childhood, was
saddling the first one she came to in the stable, I was riding hard
and desperately in the dark not a quarter of a mile behind Siwash Jim.
The trail upon which we both were ran from my house, straight up into
the mountains for nearly ten miles, and then followed the verge of
the Black Cañon for more than a mile farther. When I came up to that
place I stayed for one moment, and heard the dull and sullen roar of
the broken waters three hundred feet beneath me, and then I rode on
again as though I was as irresistibly impelled as they were, and was
just as bound to cut my way through what Fate had placed before as
they had been to carve that narrow and tremendous chasm in the living
rock. And at last I came to a fork in the trail. If I had not been
there before with Mr. Fleming, I should most likely have never seen
Jim that night, perhaps never again. But we had stayed at that very
spot. The left-hand fork was the main track, and led right over the
mountains into the Nicola Valley; while the left and disused one,
which was partially obliterated by thick-growing weeds, led back
through the impassable scrub and rough rocks to the middle of the
Black Cañon. I had passed that end of it without thinking, for
indeed it was scarcely likely he would have turned off there. The
chances seemed a thousand to one that Jim would take the left-hand
path, but just because it did seem so certain, I alighted from my
horse and struck a light. The latest horse track led to the right
hand! He had relied on my taking the widest path, and continuing in
it until it was too late to catch a man who had so skillfully doubled
on me. I had no doubt that his curses at losing his revolver were
changed into chuckles, as he thought of me riding headlong in the
night, until my horse was exhausted, while he was returning the way I
had come. I stopped to think, and then, getting on my horse, I rode
back slowly to where the trails joined at the edge of the Cañon. I
would wait for him there. And I waited more than half an hour.
It is strange how such little circumstances alter everything, for not
only would Jim's following the Nicola trail have resulted in
something very different, but, waiting half an hour, during which I
cooled somewhat and lost the first blind rage of passion in which I
had set out, set me reflecting as to what I should do. If I had come
up with him at full gallop I should have shot him there and then. He
would have expected it, and it would have been just vengeance; but
now I was quietly waiting for him, and to shoot him when he appeared
seemed to me hardly less cowardly conduct than his own. Then, if I
gave him warning, he would probably escape me, and I was not so
generous as to let him have the chance. Yet, in after years, seeing
all that followed from what I did, I think I was more generous than
just. I ought to have regarded myself as the avenging arm of the
law, and have struck as coolly as an executioner. But I determined
to give him a chance for his life, though giving him that was risking
my own, which I held dear, if only for Elsie's sake; and so I backed
my horse into the brush, where I commanded both trails, and, cocking
both revolvers, I sat waiting. In half an hour I heard the tramp of
a horse, though at first I could not tell from which way the sound
came. But at last I saw that I had been right in my conjecture, and
that my enemy was given into my hands. My heart beat fast, but my
hands were steady, for I had full command over myself. I waited
until he was nearly alongside of me, and then I spoke.
"Throw up your hands, Siwash Jim!" I said, in a voice that rang out
over the roar of the waters below us, "or you are a dead man!"
And he threw them up, and as he sat there I could see his horse was
wearied out. If it had not been, perhaps my voice would have
startled it, and compelled me to fire.
"What are you going to do?" said he, sullenly peering in my
direction, for he could barely see me against my background of trees
and brush, whereas I had him against the sky.
"I will tell you, you miserable scoundrel!" I answered. "But first,
get off your horse, and do it slowly, or I will put two bullets
through you! Mind me!"
He dismounted slowly.
"Tie your horse to that sapling, if you will be kind enough," I said
further; "and don't be in a hurry about it, and don't attempt to get
behind it, or you know what will happen."
When he had done as I ordered, I spoke again.
"Have you got any matches?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Of course you have, you villain! The same you set my house on fire
with. Well, now rake up some brush, and make a little fire here."
"What for?" said he quickly, for I believe he thought for a moment I
meant to roast him alive. I undeceived him if that was his idea.
"So that we can see each other," I replied, "for I'm going to give
you a chance for your life, though you don't deserve it. Where's
your six-shooter?"
"I dropped it," he grunted.
"And I picked it up," said I. "So make haste if you don't want to be
killed with your own weapon!"
What his thoughts were I can't say, but without more words he set
about making a fire, soon having a vigorous blaze, by which I saw
plainly enough the looks of fear, distrust, and hatred he cast at me.
But he piled on the branches, though I checked him once or twice when
I thought he was going too far to gather them. When there was
sufficient light to illuminate the whole space about us and the
opposing bank of the cañon, I told him that was enough.
"That will do," I said; "go and stand at the edge of the cañon!"
He hesitated.
"You're not going to shoot me like a dog, and put me down there, are
you?" said he, trembling.
"Like a dog?" said I passionately; "did you not try to smother me
like a bear in his den, to burn me alive in my own house? Do as I
tell you, or I'll shoot you now and roll your body in the river! Go!"
And he went as I asked him.
"Have you got any cartridges?" I demanded.
He pointed to his belt, and growled that he had plenty.
"Then stay there, and I will tell you what I will do with you. I am
going to empty your revolver, and you can have it when it is empty.
I will get off my horse and then you can load it again, and when I
see you have filled it, you can do your best for yourself. Do you
hear me?"
He nodded his head, and kept his eyes fixed on me anxiously, as
though not daring to hope I was going to be so foolish as my word.
But I was, even to the extent of firing his revolver into the air,
though I had no suspicion of what I was really doing, nor what such
an act would bring about.
I alighted from my horse, and let him go, for there was no danger of
his running away. I even struck him lightly, and sent him up the
trail out of the way of accident; and then, keeping my own revolver
pointed at Jim, who stood like a statue, I raised his in my left
hand. I fired, and the reports rang out over the hills. I threw
Siwash Jim his weapon, saying:
"Load the chambers slowly, and count as you do so."
What a fool I was, to be sure, not to have shot him dead and let him
lie! Though I should not have been free from the dangers that
encompassed me, yet they would have been fewer, far fewer, and more
easily contended with. But I acted as Fate would have, and even as I
counted I heard Jim count too, in a strained, hoarse voice--one, two,
three, four, five, six--and he was an armed man again, armed in the
light, almost half-way between us, that glittered in his eyes and
fell on my face. And it was his life or mine; his life that was
worth nothing, and mine that was precious with the possibilities of
love that I yet knew not, of love that was hurrying toward me even
then, side by side with hate and death.
When Jim's weapon was loaded, he turned toward me with the barrel
pointed to the ground. His eyes were fixed on mine, fixed with a
look of fear and hatred, but hatred now predominated. I lowered my
own revolver until we both stood on equal terms.
"Look," said I sternly; "you see that burning branch above the fire.
It is already half burnt through; when it falls, look out for
yourself."
And he stood still, perfectly still, while behind and under him the
flood in the cañon fretted and roared menacingly, angrily, hungrily,
and the sappy branch cracked and cracked again. It was bending,
bending slowly, but not yet falling, when Jim threw his weapon up and
fired, treacherous to the last. But his aim was not sure, no surer
than mine when I returned his shot. As we both fired again, I felt a
sting in my left shoulder, and the branch fell, slowly, slowly--ah!
as slowly as Jim did, for he sank on his knees, rolled over sideways,
and slipped backward on the verge of the cañon, its sloping,
treacherous verge. And as he slipped, he caught a long root
disclosed by the falling earth, and with the last strength of life
hung on to it, a yard below me; as I ran to the edge, and stopped
there, horror-struck. My desire for vengeance was satisfied, more
than satisfied, for if I could have restored him to solid ground and
life I would have done it, and bidden him go his way, so that I saw
him no more. For his face was ghastly and horrible to see; his lips
disclosed his teeth as he breathed through them convulsively, and his
nostrils were widely distended. I knelt down and vainly reached out
my hands. But he was a yard below me, and to go half that distance
meant death for me as well. I knelt there and saw him fail
gradually; his eyes closed and opened again and again; he caught his
lower lip between his teeth and bit it through and through, and then
his head fell back, his hands relaxed, and he was gone. And I heard
the sullen plunge of his body as it fell three hundred feet into the
waters below. I remained still and motionless for a moment. What a
thing man was that he should do such deeds! I rose, and a feeling of
sorrow and remorse for this terrible death of a fellow-creature made
me stagger. I put my hand to my brow, and then peered over the edge
of the cañon. What was I looking for? Was I looking into the river
of Fate? I took my revolver and threw it into the cañon, that it
should slay no other man. As it fell it struck a projecting rock,
and, exploding, the echoes in the narrow space roared and thundered
up the gorge toward the east, where, just beyond the mountains, the
first faint signs of rosy dawn were written upon the heavens. Was
that an omen of peace and love to me, of a fairer, brighter day? I
lifted my heart above and prayed it might be so. But it was yet
night, still dark, and the darkest hour is before the dawn, for as I
turned my back to the cañon and stepped across to the fire which had
lighted poor, foolish, ignorant Jim to his death, I looked up, and
saw before me the thin face I feared more than all others, and the
wicked eyes of my escaped enemy, Matthias of the _Vancouver_.
I have never believed myself a coward, for I have faced death too
often, and but a few minutes ago I had risked my life in a manner
which few men would have imitated; but I confess that in the horrible
surprise of that moment, in the strange unexpectedness of this sudden
and most unlooked-for appearance, I was stricken dumb and motionless,
and stood glaring at him with opened eyes, while my heart's blood ran
cold, For I was unarmed, by my own act of revulsion and remorse; and
wounded too, for I could feel the blood trickle slowly from my
shoulder that had been deeply scored by the second bullet from Jim's
revolver. And I was in the same position that I had put him in, in a
clear space with thick brush on both sides, through which there was
no escape, and in which there was no shelter but a single tree to the
left of the blazing fire, which was already gradually crawling in the
dry brush. Surely I was delivered into my enemy's hands, for he was
armed and carried a revolver, on whose bright barrel the fire glinted
harshly. How long we stood facing each other I cannot say, but it
seemed hours. If he had but fired then, he might have killed me at
once, for I was unable to move; but he did not desire that, I could
see he did not, as his hot eyes devoured me and gleamed with a light
of savage joy and triumph. He spoke at last, and in a curiously
quiet voice, that was checked every now and again with a sort of sob
which made me shiver.
"Ah! Mr. Ticehurst," he said slowly, "you know me? You look as if
you did. I am glad you feel like that. You are afraid!"
I looked at him and answered:
"It is a lie!"
And from that time forward it was a lie, for I feared no more.
"No," he said, "I think not; you are pale, and just now you shook. I
don't shake, even after what I have been through. Look at me!"
He pointed his weapon at me, and his hand was as steady as a rock.
He lowered it again and stroked the barrel softly with his lean left
hand.
"You remember what I said to you," he went on, "don't you, Thomas
Ticehurst? I do, and I have kept my word. Ah! I have thought of
this many times, many times. They tortured me and treated me like a
dog in the jail you sent me to; they beat me, and kicked me, and
starved me, but I never complained, lest my time there should be
longer. And when I lay down at night I thought of the time when I
should kill you. I knew it would come, and it has. But just now,
when I saw you by the side of your own grave, looking down, I didn't
know whether it was you or the other man, and I thought perhaps he
had killed you. If it had been he, I would have killed him."
He paused, and I still stood there with a flood of thoughts rushing
through me. What should I do? If he had taken his eyes off mine for
but one single moment I would have sprung on him; but he did not, and
while he talked, I heard the horses champing their bits in the brush.
And cruelest of all, my own horse moved, and put his head through the
branches and looked at me. Oh, if I were only on his back! But I
did not speak.
"How shall I kill you?" said Matthias at last; "I would like to cut
you to pieces!"
He paused again, and then another horse that I had not yet seen moved
on the other side of the trail where he had come up. It had heard
the others, and I knew it must be the animal he had ridden. It came
out of the brush into the light of the fire, and I knew it was
Elsie's. My heart gave a tremendous leap, and then stood still. How
had he become possessed of it? I spoke, and in a voice I could not
recognize as my own, so hoarse and terrible it was.
"How did you get that white horse, you villain?" I asked.
He looked at me fiercely without at first seeing how he could hurt
me, and then a look of beast-like, cruel cunning came into his eyes.
"Ah!" said he, "I knew her! It was your girl's horse! How did I get
it? Perhaps you would like to know? You will never see her
again--never! Where is she now--where?"
He knew as little as I did, but the way he spoke, and the horrible
things he put into his voice, made me boil with fury.
"You are a lying dog!" I cried, though he had said nothing that I
should be so wrathful. He grinned diabolically, seeing how he had
hurt me, and then laughed loud in an insulting, triumphant manner.
It was too much, and I made one tremendous bound across the fire, and
landed within three feet of him. He fired at the same moment, and
whether he had wounded me or not I did not know; but the revolver
went spinning two yards off, and we grappled in a death-hug.
I have said that Siwash Jim was a hard man to beat, but whether it
was that I was weak with my wound or not, I found Matthias, who was
mad with hate and fury, the most terrible antagonist I had ever
tackled. He was as slippery as an eel, as lithe as a snake, and
withal his grip was like that of a steel trap. Yet if I could but
prevent him drawing his knife, which was at his belt, I did not care.
I was his match if not in agility, at least in strength, and I would
never let him go. We were for one moment still, after we grappled,
and I trust I shall never see anything that looks more like a devil
than his eyes, in which the light of the fire shone, while he gnashed
his teeth and ground them until the foam and saliva oozed out of his
mouth like a mad dog's venom. His forehead was seamed and wrinkled,
his cheeks were sucked in and then blown out convulsively, and his
whole aspect was more hideous than that of a beast of prey. And then
the struggle began.
At first it was a trial of strength, for although I was so much the
bigger, he knew his own power and the force of his iron nerves, and
he hoped to overcome me thus. We reeled to and fro, and twice went
through the fire, where I once held him for an instant with a
malicious joy that was short-lived, for the pain added to his
strength, and he forced me backward, until I struck the trunk of the
tree a heavy blow. Then we swayed hither and thither, for I had him
by the right wrist and the left shoulder, not daring to alter my grip
on his right hand, lest he should get his knife. He held me in the
same way, and at last we came to the very verge of the cañon, and
spurned the tracks that Jim had made in his agony. For a moment I
thought he would throw us both in, but he had not lost hope. If he
had, that moment would have been my last. In another second we had
staggered to the fire, and he tried all his strength to free his
right hand. At last, by a sudden wrench he did it, and dropped his
fingers like lightning on his knife, just as I bent his left wrist
over, and struck him in the face with his own clenched hand. We both
went down; his knife ripped my shoulder by the very place that Jim's
bullet had struck, and we rolled over and over madly and blindly,
burning ourselves on the scattered embers, tearing ourselves on the
jagged roots and small branches, which we smashed, as I strove to
dash him on the ground, and he struggled to free his arm, which I had
gripped above the elbow, to end the battle at one blow. But though
he once drove the point more than an inch into the biceps, and three
times cut me deeply, he did not injure any nerve so as to paralyse
the limb. And yet I felt that I was becoming insensible, so
tremendous was the strain and the excitement, and I felt that I must
make a last effort, or die. Somehow we rose to our knees, still
grappling, and if I looked a tithe as horrible as he did, covered
with blood, saliva, and sweat, I must have been horrible to see. We
glared in each other's eyes for one moment, and then, loosing my hold
on his left arm, I caught his right wrist with both hands. With his
freed hand he struck me with all his remaining strength full in the
face while I twisted his right wrist with a force that should have
broken it, but which only compelled him to relinquish the bloody
piece of steel. And then we rolled over again, and lay locked in
each other's arms. There was a moment's truce, for human nature
could not stand the strain. But I think he believed I was beaten,
and at his mercy, for he was on top of me, lying half across my
breast, with his face not six inches from mine. He spoke in a
horrible voice, that shook with hate and pain and triumph.
"I've got you now--and I'll kill you, as I did your brother!"
Great God! then it was he who had done it, after all. Better had it
been for him to have held his peace, for that word roused me again as
nothing else could have done, and I caught his throat with both
hands, though he struck me viciously. I held him as he lay on top of
me, and saw him die. Then I knew no more for a little while, and as
I lay there insensible, I still bled.
What was it that called me to myself? Whether it was that my soul
had gone out to meet someone, and returned in triumph, for I awoke
with a momentary feeling of gladness; or whether it was an
unconscious effort of the brain, in the presence of a new and
terrible danger, I cannot say. All I know is that, when that spasm
of joy passed, I felt weak and unable to move under the weight of
Matthias, whose protruding eyes and tongue mocked at me hideously in
death, as though his revenge was even now being accomplished; and I
saw the fiery brush creeping across the space that lay between me and
the fire Jim had kindled at my bidding. Was I to die by fire at the
last, when that horrible night was passing and the dawn was already
breaking on the eastern horizon? For I could not stir, my limbs were
like lead, my heart beat feebly, and my feet were cold. I lay
glaring at the fire, and, as I did so, I saw that the revolver I had
struck out of Matthias's hand was lying as far from the fire as the
fire was from me. How is it that there is such a clear intellect at
times in the very presence of death? I saw then that the shots I had
fired from that weapon had brought my enemy up just in time, for
otherwise he might have been wearied out or lost; and now I thought
if I could only get to it, to fire it, I might thus bring help: for
what enemies had I left now save the crawling fire? I might even
bring Elsie. But then, how did the dead villain who lay across me,
choking me still, get her horse, and what had happened to her in his
hands! I tried to scream, and I sighed as softly as the vague wind
which was impelling the slow fires toward me. How near they
came!--how near--and nearer yet, like serpents rearing their heads,
spitting viciously as they came? And then I thought how slow they
were; why did they not come and end it at once, and let me die? And
I looked at the fires again. They were within two feet of me, I
could feel the heat, and within eighteen inches of the revolver. I
was glad, and watched it feverishly. But then the weapon's muzzle
was pointed almost at me. Suppose it exploded, and shot me dead as
it called for help! How strange it was! I put up my hands feebly
and tried to move the dead body, so as to screen myself. I might as
well have tried to uproot a tree, for I could barely move my hands.
I looked at the fire again as it crawled on and on, now wavering, now
staying one moment to lift up its thousand little crests and vicious
eyes, and then stooping to lick up the grass and the dried brush on
which I lay. But as I glared at it intently, at last it reached the
weapon, and coiled round it triumphantly as though that had been its
goal, licking it round and round. Would the flames heat the
cartridges enough, and if they did, where would the bullets go? I
asked that deliriously, for I was in a fever, and instead of being
cold at heart, the blood ran through me like fire. I thought I began
to feel the fire that was so close to me. I heard the explosion of
the heated weapon. I was yet alive. "Come, Elsie! come, if you are
not dead--come and save me--come!" I thought I cried out loudly, but
not even her ear, that heard a sharper sound afar, could have caught
that. Once more and once again the cartridges fired, and I heard a
crash, saw a horse burst like a flame through the black brush, and
there was a white thing before my eyes. I looked up and saw Elsie,
my own true love after all, and then I fainted dead away, and did not
recover until long, long after.
I ask myself sometimes even now, when those hours that were burnt
into my soul return to my sight like an old brand coming out on the
healed flesh when it is struck sudden and sharply, whether, after
all, my enemy had been balked of his revenge. To die one death and
go into oblivion is the lot of all who face the rising sun, and,
after a while, veil their eyes when its last fires sink in the
western sea. But I suffered ten thousand deaths by violence, by
cruel ambush and torture, by crawling flames and flashing knives in
the interval between my rescue and my recovery from the fever that my
wounds and the horror of it all brought upon me. They told me--Elsie
herself told me--that I lay raving only ten days; but it seemed
incredible to me, as I shook my head in a vague disbelief that made
them fear for my reason. If I had been in the care of strangers who
were unfamiliar to me, I might have thought myself a worn-out relic
of some dead and buried era, whose monuments had crumbled slowly to
ashes in the very fires through which my soul had passed, shrieking
for the forgetful dead I had loved. But though I saw her only
vaguely like a spirit in clouds, or knew her, without sight as I lay
half unconscious, as a beneficent presence only, I grew gradually to
feel that Elsie, who still lived after the centuries of my delirium,
loved me with the passion I had felt for her. I say _had_ felt, for
I was like a child, and my desire for her was scarcely more than a
pathetic longing for tenderness of thought and touch, until the great
strength which had been my pride returned in a flood and brought
passion with it once more.
How strangely that came to pass which I had foretold in my last talk
with Elsie! I had said, angrily--for I was angered--that she should
one day speak to me, though she swore she would not, and that she
should implore my pardon. And she did it, she who had been so strong
and self-contained, in the meekest and dearest way the thoughts of a
maiden could devise. And then she asked me if I would marry her?
Would I marry her? I stared at her in astonishment, not at her
asking, for it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to
do, but at the idiocy of the Question. "I do believe you love me,
Elsie," I said at last, "for I have heard that love makes the most
sensible people quite stupid. If you were in your right senses,
dear, you would not have asked it----"
"I should think not, indeed!" she broke in. But she smiled tenderly.
"Because you know very well that I settled that long enough ago, on
board the _Vancouver_," I said stoutly.
"Then I had no voice in it?" Elsie said.
"Not the least, I assure you! I made up my mind."
"And so did I," said Elsie, softly.
"What do you mean, dear?"
She leant her head against my shoulder, and against my big beard, and
whispered:
"I made up my mind, dear Tom, that if you didn't love me, I would
never love anyone else, but go and be a nun or a nurse all my life.
And that's why I was so hard, you know!"
Yes, I knew that well enough.
And where was Helen, meantime? I am drawing so near the end of my
story that I must say what I have to in a few words. She had
remained at the ranch until the doctor had declared I was going to
recover (it was no fault of his that I did), and then she went away.
What she told Elsie I have never known, nor shall I ever ask; but
they parted good friends--yes, the best of friends--and she returned
home to Melbourne. I never saw her again, at least not to my
knowledge, although once, when Elsie and I were both in that
city--for I returned to my profession--I thought, nay, for the moment
I made sure, that she had come to know of our presence there. For
Elsie had presents of fruit and flowers almost every day she was at
Melbourne. I part with her now with a strange regret, and somehow I
have never confessed to anyone that I was very vexed at her not
waiting until I was well enough to recognize her before she went.
For, you see, she loved me.
But--and this is the last--the time came when I was able to go out
with Elsie and Fanny, and though we rode slowly, it did not need
rapid motion to exhilarate me when she was by my side. As for Fanny,
she used to lose us in the stupidest way, just as if she had not been
brought up in the bush, and been able to follow a trail like a black
fellow. But when Harmer came out on Sundays, it was we who lost
them, for Fanny used to go off at full speed, while Jack, who never
got used to a horse for many months, used to risk his neck to keep up
with her. Then she used to annoy him at night by offering him the
softest seat, which he stoutly refused, preferring to suffer untold
tortures on a wooden stool, rather than confess. But I don't think
they will ever imitate us, who got married at last in the autumn at
Thomson Forks. I invited almost everyone I knew to the wedding, and
I made Mac my chief man, much to Jack's disgust. I would even have
invited Montana Bill, but he was lying in the hospital with a bullet
in his shoulder; while Hank Patterson could not come on account of
the police wanting him for putting it there. But half the population
of the Forks had bad headaches next day; and if I didn't have to wear
my right hand in a sling on account of the shaking it got, it was
because I was as strong as ever. The only man who looked unhappy was
Mr. Fleming, and he certainly had a right to be miserable,
considering that I had robbed him of his housekeeper, leaving him to
the tender mercies of flighty Fanny. And she was so vicious to poor
Jack that he actually dared to say to me, "that if Elsie had the
temper of her sister, he was sorry for me, and that it was a pity
Siwash Jim and Mat had made a mess of it." When I rebuked him, he
said merrily, "he guessed it was a free country, and not the poop of
the _Vancouver_." So I let him alone, being quite convinced then,
and I have never changed my opinion since, though we have been
married almost five years, that Elsie Ticehurst is the best wife a
man ever had, and worth fighting for, even against the world.
THE END