WEST MAKES A DECISION
Came to those in the cabin a string of oaths, the crack of a whip
lashing out savagely, and the yelps of dogs from a crouching, cowering
team.
Whaley slipped a revolver from his belt to the right-hand pocket of
his fur coat.
The door burst open. A man stood on the threshold, a huge figure
crusted with snow, beard and eyebrows ice-matted. He looked like the
storm king who had ridden the gale out of the north. This on the
outside, at a first glance only. For the black scowl he flung at his
partner was so deadly that it seemed to come red-hot from a furnace of
hate and evil passion.
"Run to earth!" he roared. "Thought you'd hole up, you damned fox,
where I wouldn't find you. Thought you'd give Bully West the slip,
you'n' that li'l' hell-cat. Talk about Porcupine Creek, eh? Tried to
send me mushin' over there while you'n' her--"
What the fellow said sent a hot wave creeping over the girl's face to
the roots of her hair. The gambler did not speak, but his eyes, filmed
and wary, never lifted from the other's bloated face.
"Figured I'd forget the ol' whiskey cache, eh? Figured you could gimme
the double-cross an' git away with it? Hell's hinges, Bully West's no
fool! He's forgot more'n you ever knew."
The man swaggered forward, the lash of the whip trailing across the
puncheon floor. Triumph rode in his voice and straddled in his gait.
He stood with his back to the fireplace absorbing heat, hands behind
him and feet set wide. His eyes gloated over the victims he had
trapped. Presently he would settle with both of them.
"Not a word to say for yoreselves, either one o' you," he jeered.
"Good enough. I'll do what talkin' 's needed, then I'll strip the hide
off'n both o' you." With a flirt of the arm he sent the lash of the
dog-whip snaking out toward Jessie.
She shrank back against the wall, needlessly. It was a threat, not an
attack; a promise of what was to come.
"Let her alone." They were the first words Whaley had spoken. In his
soft, purring voice they carried out the suggestion of his crouched
tenseness. If West was the grizzly bear, the other was the forest
panther, more feline, but just as dangerous.
The convict looked at him, eyes narrowed, head thrust forward and
down. "What's that?"
"I said to let her alone."
West's face heliographed amazement. "Meanin'--?"
"Meaning exactly what I say. You'll not touch her."
It was a moment before this flat defiance reached the brain of the big
man through the penumbra of his mental fog. When it did, he strode
across the room with the roar of a wild animal and snatched the girl
to him. He would show whether any one could come between him and his
woman.
In three long steps Whaley padded across the floor. Something cold and
round pressed against the back of the outlaw's tough red neck.
"Drop that whip."
The order came in a low-voiced imperative. West hesitated. This
man--his partner--would surely never shoot him about such a trifle.
Still--
"What's eatin' you?" he growled. "Put up that gun. You ain't fool
enough to shoot."
"Think that hard enough and you'll never live to know better. Hands
off the girl."
The slow brain of West functioned. He had been taken wholly by
surprise, but as his cunning mind Worked the situation out, he saw how
much it would be to Whaley's profit to get rid of him. The gambler
would get the girl and the reward for West's destruction. He would
inherit his share of their joint business and would reinstate himself
as a good citizen with the Mounted and with McRae's friends.
Surlily the desperado yielded. "All right, if you're so set on it."
"Drop the whip."
The fingers of West opened and the handle fell to the floor. Deftly
the other removed a revolver from its place under the outlaw's left
armpit.
West glared at him. That moment the fugitive made up his mind that he
would kill Whaley at the first good opportunity. A tide of poisonous
hatred raced through his veins. Its expression but not its virulence
was temporarily checked by wholesome fear. He must be careful that the
gambler did not get him first.
His voice took on a whine intended for good-fellowship. "I reckon
I was too pre-emtory. O' course I was sore the way you two left me
holdin' the sack. Any one would 'a' been now, wouldn't they? But no
use friends fallin' out. We got to make the best of things."
Whaley's chill face did not warm. He knew the man with whom he was
dealing. When he began to butter his phrases, it was time to look out
for him. He would forget that his partner had brought him from Faraway
a dog-team with which to escape, that he was supplying him with funds
to carry him through the winter. He would remember only that he had
balked and humiliated him.
"Better get into the house the stuff from the sled," the gambler said.
"And we'll rustle wood. No telling how long this storm'll last."
"Tha's right," agreed West. "When I saw them sun dogs to-day I figured
we was in for a blizzard. Too bad you didn't outfit me for a longer
trip."
A gale was blowing from the north, carrying on its whistling breath
a fine hard sleet that cut the eyeballs like powdered glass. The men
fought their way to the sled and wrestled with the knots of the frozen
ropes that bound the load. The lumps of ice that had gathered round
these had to be knocked off with hammers before they could be freed.
When they staggered into the house with their packs, both men
were half-frozen. Their hands were so stiff that the fingers were
jointless.
They stopped only long enough to limber up the muscles. Whaley handed
to Jessie the revolver he had taken from West.
"Keep this," he said. His look was significant. It told her that in
the hunt for wood he might be blinded by the blizzard and lost. If he
failed to return and West came back alone, she would know what to do
with it.
Into the storm the two plunged a second time. They carried ropes and
an axe. Since West had arrived, the gale had greatly increased. The
wind now was booming in deep, sullen roars and the temperature had
fallen twenty degrees already. The sled dogs were nowhere to be seen
or heard. They had burrowed down into the snow where the house would
shelter them from the hurricane as much as possible.
The men reached the edge of the creek. They struggled in the frozen
drifts with such small dead trees as they could find. In the darkness
Whaley used the axe as best he could at imminent risk to his legs.
Though they worked only a few feet apart, they had to shout to make
their voices carry.
"We better be movin' back," West called through his open palms. "We
got all we can haul."
They roped the wood and dragged it over the snow in the direction
they knew the house to be. Presently they found the sled and from it
deflected toward the house.
Jessie had hot tea waiting for them. They kicked off their webs and
piled the salvaged wood into the other end of the cabin, after which
they hunkered down before the fire to drink tea and eat pemmican and
bannocks.
They had with them about fifty pounds of frozen fish for the dogs and
provisions enough to last the three of them four or five meals. Whaley
had brought West supplies enough to carry him only to Lookout, where
he was to stock for a long traverse into the wilds.
As the hours passed there grew up between the gambler and the girl a
tacit partnership of mutual defense. No word was spoken of it, but
each knew that the sulky brute in the chimney corner was dangerous. He
would be held by no scruples of conscience, no laws of friendship or
decency. If the chance came he would strike.
The storm raged and howled. It flung itself at the cabin with what
seemed a ravenous and implacable fury. The shriek of it was now
like the skirling of a thousand bagpipes, again like the wailing of
numberless lost souls.
Inside, West snored heavily, his ill-shaped head drooping on the big
barrel chest of the man. Jessie slept while Whaley kept guard. Later
she would watch in her turn.
There were moments when the gale died down, but only to roar again
with a frenzy of increased violence.
The gray day broke and found the blizzard at its height.