THE WILD BEAST LEAPS
Tom Morse was chopping wood. He knew how to handle an axe. His strokes
fell sure and strong, with the full circling sweep of the expert.
The young tree crashed down and he began to lop off its branches.
Halfway up the trunk he stopped and raised his head to listen.
No sound had come to him. None came now. But dear as a bell he heard
the voice of Win Beresford calling.
"_Help! Help!_"
It was not a cry that had issued from his friend's throat. Tom knew
that. But it was real. It had sprung out of his dire need from the
heart, perhaps in the one instant of time left him, and it had leaped
silently across space straight to the heart of his friend.
Tom kicked into his snowshoes and began to run. He held the axe in his
hand, gripped near the haft. A couple of hundred yards, perhaps, lay
between him and camp, which was just over the brow of a small hill.
The bushes flew past as he swung to his stride. Never had he skimmed
the crust faster, but his feet seemed to be weighted with lead. Then,
as he topped the rise, he saw the disaster he had dreaded.
The constable was crumpling to the ground, his body slack and inert,
while the giant slashed at him with a dub of firewood he had snatched
from the ground. The upraised arm of the soldier broke the force of
the blow, but Morse guessed by the way the arm fell that the bone had
snapped.
At the sound of the scraping runners, West whirled. He lunged
savagely. Even as Tom ducked, a sharp pain shot through his leg from
the force of the glancing blow. The axe-head swung like a circle of
steel. It struck the convict's fur cap. The fellow went down like an
ox in a slaughter-house.
Tom took one look at him and ran to his friend. Beresford was a sorry
sight. He lay unconscious, head and face battered, the blood from his
wounds staining the snow.
The man-hunters had come into the wilderness prepared for emergencies.
Jessie McRae had prepared a small medicine case as a present for the
constable. Morse ran to the sled and found this. He unrolled bandages
and after he had washed the wounds bound them. As he was about to
examine the arm, he glanced up.
For a fraction of a second West's wolfish eyes glared at him before
they took on again the stare of blindness. The man had moved. He had
hitched himself several yards nearer a rifle which stood propped
against a balsam.
The revolver of the deputy constable came to light. "Stop right where
you're at. Don't take another step."
The convict snarled rage, but he did not move. Some sure instinct
warned him what the cold light in the eyes of his captor meant, that
if he crept one inch farther toward the weapon he would die in his
tracks.
"He--he jumped me," the murderer said hoarsely.
"Liar! You've been shammin' for a week to get a chance at us. I'd like
to gun you now and be done with it."
"Don't." West moistened dry lips. "Honest to God he jumped me. Got mad
at somethin' I said. I wouldn't lie to you, Tom."
Morse kept him covered, circled round him to the rifle, and from there
to the sled. One eye still on the desperado, he searched for the steel
handcuffs. They were gone. He knew instantly that some time within the
past day or two West had got a chance to drop them in the snow.
He found rawhide thongs.
"Lie in the snow, face down," he ordered. "Hands behind you and
crossed at the wrists."
Presently the prisoner was securely tied. Morse fastened him to the
sled and returned to Beresford.
The arm was broken above the wrist, just as he had feared. He set it
as best he could, binding it with splints.
The young officer groaned and opened his eyes. He made a motion to
rise.
"Don't get up," said Morse. "You've been hurt."
"Hurt?" Beresford's puzzled gaze wandered to the prisoner. A flash
of understanding lit it. "He asked me--to light--his pipe--and when
I--turned--he hit--me--with a club," the battered man whispered.
"About how I figured it."
"Afraid--I'm--done--in."
"Not yet, old pal. We'll make a fight for it," the Montanan answered.
"I'm sick." The soldier's head sank down. His eyes closed.
All the splendid, lithe strength of his athletic youth had been beaten
out of him. To Morse it looked as though he were done for. Was it
possible for one to take such a terrific mauling and not succumb? If
he were at a hospital, under the care of expert surgeons and nurses,
with proper food and attention, he might have a chance in a hundred.
But in this Arctic waste, many hundred miles from the nearest doctor,
no food but the coarsest to eat, it would be a miracle if he survived.
The bitter night was drawing in. Morse drove West in front of him to
bring back the wood he had been cutting. He made the man prepare the
rubaboo for their supper. After the convict had eaten, he bound his
hands again and let him lie down in his blankets beside the fire.
Morse did not sleep. He sat beside his friend and watched the fever
mount in him till he was wildly delirious. Such nursing as was
possible he gave.
The prisoner, like a chained wild beast, glowered at him hungrily. Tom
knew that if West found a chance to kill, he would strike. No scruple
would deter him. The fellow was without conscience, driven by the fear
of the fate that drew nearer with every step southward. His safety and
the desire of revenge marched together. Beresford was out of the way.
It would be his companion's turn next.
After a time the great hulk of a man fell asleep and snored
stertorously. But Tom did not sleep. He dared not. He had to keep
vigilant guard to save both his friend's life and his own. For though
West's hands were tied, it would be the work of only a minute to burn
away with a live coal the thongs that bound them.
The night wore away. There was no question of travel. Beresford was
in the grip of a raging fever and could not be moved. Morse made West
chop wood while he stood over him, rifle in hand. They were short of
food and had expected to go hunting next day. The supplies might last
at best six or seven more meals. What was to be done then? Morse could
not go and leave West where he could get at the man who had put him in
prison and with a dog-train to carry him north. Nor could he let West
have a rifle with which to go in search of game.
There were other problems that made the situation impossible. Another
night was at hand, and again Tom must keep awake to save himself and
his friend from the gorilla-man who watched him, gloated over him,
waited for the moment to come when he could safely strike. And after
that there would be other nights--many of them.
What should he do? What could he do? While he sat beside the delirious
officer, Tom pondered that question. On the other side of the fire lay
the prisoner. Triumph--a horrible, cruel, menacing triumph--rode in
his eye and strutted in his straddling walk when he got up. His hour
was coming. It was coming fast.
Once Tom fell asleep for a cat-nap. He caught himself nodding, and
with a jerk flung back his head and himself to wakefulness. In the air
was a burning odor.
Instinct told him what it was. West had been tampering with the
rawhide thongs round his wrists, had been trying to burn them away.
He made sure that the fellow was still fast, then drank a tin cup of
strong tea. After he had fed the sick man a little caribou broth,
persuading him with infinite patience to take it, a spoonful at a
time, Morse sat down again to wear out the hours of darkness.
The problem that pressed on him could no longer be evaded. A stark
decision lay before him. To postpone it was to choose one of the
alternatives. He knew now, almost beyond any possibility of doubt,
that either West must die or else he and his friend. If he had not
snatched himself awake so promptly an hour ago, Win and he would
already be dead men. It might be that the constable was going to die,
anyhow, but he had a right to his chance of life.
On the other hand there was one rigid rule of the North-West Mounted.
The Force prided itself on living up to it literally. When a man
was sent out to get a prisoner, _he brought him in alive_. It was
a tradition. The Mounted did not choose the easy way of killing
lawbreakers because of the difficulty of capturing them. They walked
through danger, usually with aplomb, got their man, and brought him
in.
That was what Beresford had done with Pierre Poulette after the
Frenchman had killed Buckskin Jerry. He had followed the man for
months, captured him, lived with him alone for a fourth of a year in
the deep snows, and brought him back to punishment. It was easy enough
to plead that this situation was a wholly different one. Pierre
Poulette was no such dangerous wild beast as Bully West. Win did not
have with him a companion wounded almost to death who had to be nursed
back to health, one struck down by the prisoner treacherously. There
was just a fighting chance for the officers to get back to Desolation
if West was eliminated from the equation. Tom knew he would have a
man's work cut out for him to win through--without the handicap of the
prisoner.
Deep in his heart he believed that it was West's life or theirs. It
wasn't humanly possible, in addition to all the other difficulties
that pressed on him, to guard this murderer and bring him back for
punishment. There was no alternative, it seemed to Tom. Thinking could
not change the conditions. It might be sooner, it might be later, but
under existing circumstances the desperado would find his chance to
attack, _if he were alive to take it_.
The fellow's life was forfeit. As soon as he was turned over to the
State, it would be exacted of him. Since his assault on Beresford,
surely he had lost all claim to consideration as a human being.
Just now there were only three men in the world so far as they were
concerned. These three constituted society. Beresford, his mind still
wandering with incoherent mutterings, was a non-voting member. He,
Tom Morse, must be judge and jury. He must, if the prisoner were
convicted, play a much more horrible role. In the silence of the cold
sub-Arctic night he fought the battle out while automatically he
waited on his friend.
West snored on the other side of the fire.