I stood with my head up until the boat had whisked Brack out of sight,
then slumped down in despair upon a convenient boulder. I was
horrified and frightened. My thoughts had cleared by now and the full
significance of what I had seen, heard, and undergone came to me.
Brutal robbery, probably murder; such was the sum and substance of
Brack’s plans. The expedition and the _Wanderer_ turned in the tools
of a piracy which would have been unbelievable with any other man than
the captain! And Miss Baldwin back there on the yacht, ignorant of the
morning’s happenings, unsuspecting of Brack’s true character, and I
helpless to warn her or be of any assistance.
Brack would keep up the pretense. He would be the smooth-talking
captain this morning as if nothing untoward had happened, or was going
to happen. He would maintain this pose until he had accomplished the
robbery, until it pleased him to drop it. And after this morning I
knew that he would go to any lengths to fulfil his will.
“Cold?” sneered Barry as I shivered. “Well, don’t worry, sissy, Cap’ll
make it warm enough for you when he gets ready to ’tend to you.”
I turned to plead with him, and he laughed delightedly at the fear and
wretchedness in my face. For I was afraid. This was no place for me.
It was all too strange, too harsh. I was literally sick at my stomach;
and yet I knew all the time that I was going to try to warn those
unsuspecting miners whom Captain Brack planned to catch in their mine
like rats in a pit. Heaven knows I did not wish to do it! In my heart
I protested against the Fate that had placed such a task to my lot. I
was unfit for it. Somebody else, more used to such things, should have
had the job.
I would have pleaded with Barry, have sought to bribe him, but the
expression on his vicious countenance made me hold my tongue. What
could I do? This sort of thing was new to me; how did one go about it?
I thought of the two miners delving away in their shafts, of them
suddenly looking up to find Brack grinning down at them. The
unfairness of the thing was revolting. Did men do such things to their
fellows in this day and age?
I glanced at Barry and his rifle and knew that they did. Craft and
brutality, those were the laws governing this situation. And craft and
brutality soon began to enter my thoughts as readily as they might
enter those of Brack, Garvin, or the lout who was guarding me.
At my feet lay several stones the size of a man’s fist. Presently I
feigned sleepiness, nodded, and slipped from the boulder to a seat on
the sand.
“Sleepy, eh?” Barry sneered. “You’re a fine piece o’ cheese.”
“I’m sick,” I muttered. “My head aches.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” He prodded me carelessly with the butt of his
rifle. “For two cents I’d give you a clout that’d take the ache out of
that head for good.”
The minutes went by in silence. Half an hour later, perhaps, I saw
Barry’s vigilance begin to relax.
My right hand dropped languidly at my side and found a round stone,
slightly larger than a baseball. Barry did not see.
More time passed. At last Barry, catching himself nodding,
straightened up and again prodded me with the butt.
“Don’t do that again,” I whined. “Please don’t.”
“‘Please don’t!’” mocked Barry.
In his estimation I was such a weakling that he had no need to be
cautious. The rifle-butt again touched my side. I grasped it suddenly
with my left hand, the fingers fastening themselves around the
trigger-guard, and sprang up, the stone in my right hand. Barry jerked
at the rifle, drawing me close, and I felled him to the ground with a
blow from the stone on the temple.
I had the rifle now, and as he strove to rise I struck him on the head
with the heavy barrel and he lay still. I stood over him, ready to
strike again, but he did not move and with the rifle in my hand I ran
through the green-leaved brush which fringed the fiord and started to
climb the rocky hills that walled it in.
What I had to do I knew must be done in a hurry, before Brack or
Madigan were in a position to keep a watch on the lake, and I ran on,
regardless of the fissures and gaps with which the hill was pitted. In
my haste I paid little attention to my path, and near the top I
plunged suddenly through a tangle of brush and fell into what proved
to be the mouth of a cave-like opening in the rocky portion of the
hill.
The cave was so well hidden by the spring foliage that I had literally
to walk into it before suspecting its existence. I hid the rifle
there, clambered out and went on. If my senses of direction and
distance were right the lake should be straight north and about a mile
and a half away.
Though I ran and walked as rapidly as possible, it was half an hour
before I struck the ridge which shut out the lake from sight of the
bay. Then I knew that in spite of my ignorance of the woods, I had
gone straight to my goal. I went down the farther side at once,
keeping myself hidden in the brush as much as possible in case
Madigan’s crew should be on the lookout, and finding the trail along
the river I went straight up toward the miners’ camp.
A man was waiting for me as I stepped from the alder-brush into the
clearing about the mine. My clumsy traveling had warned of my approach
and he lay behind a pile of dirt before a shaft, a large blue pistol
pointing straight down the trail where I emerged.
“Don’t shoot!” I cried running toward him, with my hands in the air.
“I’m a friend. I’ve come to warn you that a man named Brack with a
crew of cutthroats is on his way to raid your camp.”
The mention of Brack’s name had a pitiful effect upon the man. He
leaped back, his eyes shifty with fright, and made as if to run back
to the cabins. He caught himself, however, and swung his pistol
steadily on the trail behind me.
He was an old man with a patriarchal beard and a gentle face. When he
saw that no one was following me he said—
“Come with me, stranger; we’ll get Bill.”
He retreated, walking backward, covering me and the trail with his
weapon, while I followed. Arriving at the first shaft, still keeping
his eyes on me, he called—
“Oh, Bill!”
A tall, laughing youth, with a soft, curly beard, came clambering out
of the mine in response to his summons. At the sight of me his hand
flashed to the pistol on his hip.
“Tell it to Bill, stranger,” said the patriarch. “Bill, the Laughing
Devil’s back and this gentleman says he’s layin’ to come an’ clean us
_pronto_.”
“Brack?” gasped the youth, with a frightened glance down the trail.
“Foxy Brack?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s here to rob you. He’s sent one of his lieutenants
around the ridge to cut off your back trail. He has ten of the worst
men in Christendom with him.”
“Oh, my God!” groaned the young man. Steadying himself he said, “Who
are you, stranger?”
I told about the _Wanderer_ and its party, and about the morning’s
happenings as swiftly as possible.
“Why did you run the risk of coming here and telling us this?” asked
the youth when I concluded. “And how do we know you’re telling the
truth?”
“Bill!” said the old man reprovingly. “Can’t you see? Stranger, we
take this right neighborly of you. My name’s Slade, and this is my
partner, young Bill Harris. Pitt, you said your name was? Well, Mr.
Pitt, you’re a man. This Brack, now, he’s a devil. Bill and me saved
his life when he come ashore up at Omkutsk, and he spoke us fine and
friendly, and acted like a man, and we took him in with us on this
gold find.
“Then one day he tried to put us both out of business and we caught
him in the act just in time. It’s hard to kill a man when you got him
helpless, stranger, though we should ’a’ done it then. We give him a
boat with grub, and when the wind was blowing offshore we sent him out
to sea. The devil must ’a’ took care of its own, since he’s still
living; and now he’s come back to clean us out. We been sort of ’fraid
of it all the time.”
“How many d’ you say with him?” queried young Harris. “And all bad
men, too, eh? God! There’s only two of us——”
“Bill,” said Slade patiently, “we can’t stay an’ fight him. You know
what he is.”
“They’re circling round us now?” Harris was looking around wildly.
“We’re cut off.”
“How many went around to cut our trail, neighbor?”
“Five.”
“We may be able to handle five of ’em, Bill,” said Slade. “We wouldn’t
have no chance with ten. We mustn’t let ’em head us off. Brack ’ud use
fire to make us tell where the gold is cached. We’ll start right away
and travel light.”
Harris ran into the large cabin. I started to go back the way I had
come.
“Wha-a-at? You ain’t going back to Brack’s boat, are you? Neighbor,
there’ll be only hell where that devil is.”
“And for that reason I must go back there.”
“Why?”
“There is a girl—a young lady—on the yacht.”
Old Slade shook his head.
“That dirty devil! But we can’t stay and fight ten men and Brack.
Well, Mr. Pitt, I reckon we owe you our lives and everything we got,
but I dunno how we’re goin’ to square it with you.”
My eyes fell on the automatic pistol in his hand.
“You’re —— whistlin’!” cried Slade suddenly as he thrust the weapon
into my hands. I put it inside my shirt. “That don’t square us. Best I
can do, though. Now, Mr. Pitt—” he gripped my hand—“God bless yoh!”