SNOW-BLIND
West grinned up at the officer, his yellow canines showing like
tusks. His matted face was an unlovely sight. In it stark, naked fear
struggled with craftiness and cruelty.
"Good you came back--good for you. I ain't blind. I been foolin' you
all along. Wanted, to try you out. Now we'll mush. Straight for the
big lake. North by west like we been going. Un'erstand, Stomak-o-sox?
I'll not beat yore head off this time, but if you ever try any monkey
tricks with Bully West again--" He let the threat die out in a sound
of grinding teeth.
Beresford spoke. His voice was gentle. Vile though this murderer
was, there was something pitiable in his condition. One cannot see a
Colossus of strength and energy stricken to helplessness without some
sense of compassion.
"It's not Stomak-o-sox. We're two of the North-West Mounted. You're
under arrest for breaking prison and for killing Tim Kelly."
The information stunned West. He stared up out of sightless eyes. So
far as he had known, no member of the Mounted was within five hundred
miles of him. Yet the law had stretched out its long arm to snatch
him back from this Arctic waste after he had traveled nearly fifteen
hundred miles. It was incredible that there could exist such a police
force on earth.
"Got me, did you?" he growled. He added the boast that he could not
keep back. "Well, you'd never 'a' got me if I hadn't gone blind--never
in this world. There ain't any two of yore damned spies could land
Bully West when he's at himself."
"Had breakfast?"
He broke into a string of curses. "No, our grub's runnin' low. That
wood Cree slipped away with all we had. Wish I'd killed him last week
when I skinned him with the dog-whip."
"How long have you been blind?"
"It's been comin' on two-three days. This damned burnin' glare from
the snow. Yesterday they give out completely. I tied myself by a line
to the Injun. Knew I couldn't trust him. After all I done for him
too."
"Did you know he was traveling south with you--had been since
yesterday afternoon?"
"No, was he?" Again West fell into his natural speech of invective.
"When I meet up with him, I'll sure enough fill him full o' slugs," he
concluded savagely.
"You're not likely to meet him again. We've come to take you back to
prison."
Morse brought the train up and the hungry man was fed. They treated
his eyes with the simple remedies the North knows and bound them with
a handkerchief to keep out the fierce light reflected from the snow.
Afterward, they attached him by a line to the driver. He stumbled
along behind. Sometimes he caught his foot or slipped and plunged down
into the snow. Nobody had ever called him a patient man. Whenever any
mishap occurred, he polluted the air with his vile speech.
They made slow progress, for the pace had to be regulated to suit the
prisoner.
Day succeeded day, each with its routine much the same as the one
before. They made breakfast, broke camp, packed, and mushed. The swish
of the runners sounded from morning till night fell. Food began to run
scarce. Once they left the blind man at the camp while they
hunted wood buffalo. It was a long, hard business. They came back
empty-handed after a two-day chase, but less than a mile from camp
they sighted a half-grown polar bear and dropped it before the animal
had a chance to move.
One happy hour they got through the Land of Little Sticks and struck
the forests again.
They had a blazing fire again for the first time in six weeks. Brush
and sticks and logs went into it till it roared furiously.
Morse turned from replenishing it to notice that West had removed the
bandage from his eyes.
"Better keep it on," the young man advised.
"I was changin' it. Too tight. Gives me a headache," the convict
answered sulkily.
"Can you see anything at all yet?"
"Not a thing. Looks to me like I never would."
Tom turned his head for him, so that he faced the blaze squarely. "No
light at all?"
"Nope. Don't reckon I ever will see."
"Maybe you will. I've known' cases of snow-blindness where they
couldn't see for a month an' came out all right."
"Hurts like blazes," growled the big fellow.
"I know. But not as bad as it did, does it? That salve has helped
some."
The two young fellows took care of the man as though he had been a
brother. They bathed his eyes, fed him, guided him, encouraged him. He
was a bad lot--the worst that either of them had known. But he was
in trouble and filled with self-pity. Never ill before, a giant of
strength and energy, his condition now apparently filled him with
despair.
He would sit hunched down before the fire, head bowed in his hands, a
mountain of dole and woe. Sometimes he talked, and he blamed every one
but himself for his condition. He never had had a square deal. Every
one was against him. It was a rotten world. Then he would fall to
cursing God and man.
In some ways he was less trouble than if he had been able to see. He
was helpless and had to trust to them. His safety depended on their
safety. He could not strike at them without injuring himself. No
matter how much he cringed at the thought of being dragged back to
punishment, he shrank still more from the prospect of death in the
snow wastes. The situation galled him. Every decent word he gave them
came grudgingly, and he still snarled and complained and occasionally
bullied as though he had the whip hand.
"A nice specimen of _ursus horribilis_," Beresford murmured to his
companion one day. "Thought he was game, anyhow, but he's a yellow
quitter. Acts as though we were to blame for his blindness and for
what's waiting for him at the end of the journey. I like a man to
stand the gaff when it's prodding him."
Morse nodded. "Look out for him. I've got a notion in the back o' my
head that he's beginning to see again. He'd kill us in a holy minute
if he dared. Only his blindness keeps him from it. What do you say?
Shall we handcuff him nights?"
"Not necessary," the constable said. "He can't see a thing. Watch him
groping for that stick."
"All his brains run to cunning. Don't forget that. Why should he have
to feel so long for that stick? He laid it down himself a minute ago.
Tryin' to slip one over on us maybe."
The Canadian looked at the lean, brown face of his friend and grinned.
"I've a notion our imaginations too are getting a bit jumpy. We've had
one bully time on this trip--with the reverse English. It's all in the
day's work to buck blizzards and starve and freeze, though I wouldn't
be surprised if our systems were pretty well fed up with grief before
we caught Mr. Bully West. Since then--well, you couldn't call him a
cheerful traveling companion, could you? A dozen times a day I want to
rip loose and tell him how much I don't think of him."
"Still--"
"We'll keep an eye on him. If necessary, it'll be the bracelets for
him. I'd hate to have the Inspector send in a report to headquarters,
'Constable Beresford missing in the line of duty.' I've a prejudice
against being shot in the back."
"That's one of the reasons I'm here--to see you're not if I can help
it."
Beresford's boyish face lit up. He understood what his friend meant.
"Say, Faraway isn't New York or London or even Toronto. But how'd you
like to be sitting down to one of Jessie McRae's suppers? A bit of
broiled venison done to a juicy turn, potatoes, turnips, hot biscuits
spread with raspberry jam. By jove, it makes the mouth water."
"And a slice of plum puddin' to top off with," suggested Morse,
bringing his own memory into play. "Don't ask me how I'd like it.
That's a justifiable excuse for murder. Get busy on that rubaboo. Our
guest's howlin' for his dinner."
The faint suspicions of Morse made the officers more wary. They
watched their prisoner a little closer. Neither of them quite believed
that he was recovering his sight. It was merely a possibility to be
guarded against.
But the guess of Morse had been true. It had been a week since flashes
of light had first come to West faintly. He began to distinguish
objects in a hazy way. Every day he could see better. Now he could
tell Morse from Beresford, one dog from another. Give him a few more
days and he would have as good vision as before he had gone blind.
All this he hid cunningly, as a miser does his gold. For his warped,
cruel brain was planning death to these two men. After that, another
plunge into the North for life and freedom.