"Jack," said Colonel Zane to his brother next morning, "to-day is
Saturday and all the men will be in. There was high jinks over at
Metzar's place yesterday, and I'm looking for more to-day. The two
fellows Alex Bennet told me about, came on day-before-yesterday's
boat. Sure enough, one's a lordly Englishman, and the other, the
cussedest-looking little chap I ever saw. They started trouble
immediately. The Englishman, his name is Mordaunt, hunted up the
Sheppards and as near as I can make out from George's story, Helen
spoke her mind very plainly. Mordaunt and Case, that's his servant,
the little cuss, got drunk and raised hell down at Metzar's where
they're staying. Brandt and Williams are drinking hard, too, which is
something unusual for Brandt. They got chummy at once with the
Englishman, who seems to have plenty of gold and is fond of gambling.
This Mordaunt is a gentleman, or I never saw one. I feel sorry for
him. He appears to be a ruined man. If he lasts a week out here I'll
be surprised. Case looks ugly, as if he were spoiling to cut somebody.
I want you to keep your eye peeled. The day may pass off as many other
days of drinking bouts have, without anything serious, and on the
other hand there's liable to be trouble."
Jonathan's preparations were characteristic of the borderman. He laid
aside his rifle, and, removing his short coat, buckled on a second
belt containing a heavier tomahawk and knife than those he had been
wearing. Then he put on his hunting frock, or shirt, and wore it loose
with the belts underneath, instead of on the outside. Unfastened, the
frock was rather full, and gave him the appearance of a man unarmed
and careless.
Jonathan Zane was not so reckless as to court danger, nor, like many
frontiersmen, fond of fighting for its own sake. Colonel Zane was
commandant of the fort, and, in a land where there was no law, tried
to maintain a semblance of it. For years he had kept thieves,
renegades and outlaws away from his little settlement by dealing out
stern justice. His word was law, and his bordermen executed it as
such. Therefore Jonathan and Wetzel made it their duty to have a keen
eye on all that was happening. They kept the colonel posted, and never
interfered in any case without orders.
The morning passed quietly. Jonathan strolled here or loitered there;
but saw none of the roisterers. He believed they were sleeping off the
effects of their orgy on the previous evening. After dinner he smoked
his pipe. Betty and Helen passed, and Helen smiled. It struck him
suddenly that she had never looked at him in such a way before. There
was meaning in that warm, radiant flash. A little sense of vexation,
the source of which he did not understand, stirred in him against this
girl; but with it came the realization that her white face and big,
dark eyes had risen before him often since the night before. He
wished, for the first time, that he could understand women better.
"Everything quiet?" asked Colonel Zane, coming out on the steps.
"All quiet," answered Jonathan.
"They'll open up later, I suspect. I'm going over to Sheppard's for a
while, and, later, will drop into Metzar's. I'll make him haul in a
yard or two. I don't like things I hear about his selling the
youngsters rum. I'd like you to be within call."
The borderman strolled down the bluff and along the path which
overhung the river. He disliked Metzar more than his brother
suspected, and with more weighty reason than that of selling rum to
minors. Jonathan threw himself at length on the ground and mused over
the situation.
"We never had any peace in this settlement, an' never will in our day.
Eb is hopeful an' looks at the bright side, always expectin' to-morrow
will be different. What have the past sixteen years been? One long
bloody fight, an' the next sixteen won't be any better. I make out
that we'll have a mix-up soon. Metzar an' Brandt with their allies,
whoever they are, will be in it, an' if Bing Legget's in the gang,
we've got, as Wetzel said, a long, hard trail, which may be our last.
More'n that, there'll be trouble about this chain-lightnin' girl, as
Wetzel predicted. Women make trouble anyways; an' when they're winsome
an' pretty they cause more; but if they're beautiful an' fiery, bent
on havin' their way, as this new lass is, all hell couldn't hold a
candle to them. We don't need the Shawnees an' Girtys, an' hoss
thieves round this here settlement to stir up excitin' times, now
we've got this dark-eyed lass. An' yet any fool could see she's sweet,
an' good, an' true as gold."
Toward the middle of the afternoon Jonathan sauntered in the direction
of Metzar's inn. It lay on the front of the bluff, with its main doors
looking into the road. A long, one-story log structure with two doors,
answered as a bar-room. The inn proper was a building more
pretentious, and joined the smaller one at its western end. Several
horses were hitched outside, and two great oxen yoked to a cumbersome
mud-crusted wagon stood patiently by.
Jonathan bent his tall head as he entered the noisy bar-room. The
dingy place reeked with tobacco smoke and the fumes of vile liquor. It
was crowded with men. The lawlessness of the time and place was
evident. Gaunt, red-faced frontiersmen reeled to and fro across the
sawdust floor; hunters and fur-traders, raftsmen and farmers, swelled
the motley crowd; young men, honest-faced, but flushed and wild with
drink, hung over the bar; a group of sullen-visaged, serpent-eyed
Indians held one corner. The black-bearded proprietor dealt out
the rum.
From beyond the bar-room, through a door entering upon the back porch,
came the rattling of dice. Jonathan crossed the bar-room apparently
oblivious to the keen glance Metzar shot at him, and went out upon the
porch. This also was crowded, but there was more room because of
greater space. At one table sat some pioneers drinking and laughing;
at another were three men playing with dice. Colonel Zane, Silas, and
Sheppard were among the lookers-on at the game. Jonathan joined them,
and gazed at the gamesters.
Brandt he knew well enough; he had seen that set, wolfish expression
in the riverman's face before. He observed, however, that the man had
flushed cheeks and trembling hands, indications of hard drinking. The
player sitting next to Brandt was Williams, one of the garrison, and a
good-natured fellow, but garrulous and wickedly disposed when drunk.
The remaining player Jonathan at once saw was the Englishman,
Mordaunt. He was a handsome man, with fair skin, and long, silken,
blond mustache. Heavy lines, and purple shades under his blue eyes,
were the unmistakable stamp of dissipation. Reckless, dissolute, bad
as he looked, there yet clung something favorable about the man.
Perhaps it was his cool, devil-may-care way as he pushed over gold
piece after gold piece from the fast diminishing pile before him. His
velvet frock and silken doublet had once been elegant; but were now
sadly the worse for border roughing.
Behind the Englishman's chair Jonathan saw a short man with a face
resembling that of a jackal. The grizzled, stubbly beard, the
protruding, vicious mouth, the broad, flat nose, and deep-set, small,
glittering eyes made a bad impression on the observer. This man,
Jonathan concluded, was the servant, Case, who was so eager with his
knife. The borderman made the reflection, that if knife-play was the
little man's pastime, he was not likely to go short of sport in
that vicinity.
Colonel Zane attracted Jonathan's attention at this moment. The
pioneers had vacated the other table, and Silas and Sheppard now sat
by it. The colonel wanted his brother to join them.
"Here, Johnny, bring drinks," he said to the serving boy. "Tell Metzar
who they're for." Then turning to Sheppard he continued: "He keeps
good whiskey; but few of these poor devils ever see it." At the same
time Colonel Zane pressed his foot upon that of Jonathan's.
The borderman understood that the signal was intended to call
attention to Brandt. The latter had leaned forward, as Jonathan passed
by to take a seat with his brother, and said something in a low tone
to Mordaunt and Case. Jonathan knew by the way the Englishman and his
man quickly glanced up at him, that he had been the subject of
the remark.
Suddenly Williams jumped to his feet with an oath.
"I'm cleaned out," he cried.
"Shall we play alone?" asked Brandt of Mordaunt.
"As you like," replied the Englishman, in a tone which showed he cared
not a whit whether he played or not.
"I've got work to do. Let's have some more drinks, and play another
time," said Brandt.
The liquor was served and drank. Brandt pocketed his pile of Spanish
and English gold, and rose to his feet. He was a trifle unsteady; but
not drunk.
"Will you gentlemen have a glass with me?" Mordaunt asked of Colonel
Zane's party.
"Thank you, some other time, with pleasure. We have our drink now,"
Colonel Zane said courteously.
Meantime Brandt had been whispering in Case's ear. The little man
laughed at something the riverman said. Then he shuffled from behind
the table. He was short, his compact build gave promise of unusual
strength and agility.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Mordaunt, rising also. He looked
hard at Case.
"Shiver my sides, cap'n, if I don't need another drink," replied the
sailor.
"You have had enough. Come upstairs with me," said Mordaunt.
"Easy with your hatch, cap'n," grinned Case. "I want to drink with
that ther' Injun killer. I've had drinks with buccaneers, and bad men
all over the world, and I'm not going to miss this chance."
"Come on; you will get into trouble. You must not annoy these
gentlemen," said Mordaunt.
"Trouble is the name of my ship, and she's a trim, fast craft,"
replied the man.
His loud voice had put an end to the convention. Men began to crowd in
from the bar-room. Metzar himself came to see what had caused the
excitement.
The little man threw up his cap, whooped, and addressed himself to
Jonathan:
"Injun-killer, bad man of the border, will you drink with a jolly old
tar from England?"
Suddenly a silence reigned, like that in the depths of the forest. To
those who knew the borderman, and few did not know him, the invitation
was nothing less than an insult. But it did not appear to them, as to
him, like a pre-arranged plot to provoke a fight.
"Will you drink, redskin-hunter?" bawled the sailor.
"No," said Jonathan in his quiet voice.
"Maybe you mean that against old England?" demanded Case fiercely.
The borderman eyed him steadily, inscrutable as to feeling or intent,
and was silent.
"Go out there and I'll see the color of your insides quicker than I'd
take a drink," hissed the sailor, with his brick-red face distorted
and hideous to look upon. He pointed with a long-bladed knife that no
one had seen him draw, to the green sward beyond the porch.
The borderman neither spoke, nor relaxed a muscle.
"Ho! ho! my brave pirate of the plains!" cried Case, and he leered
with braggart sneer into the faces of Jonathan and his companions.
It so happened that Sheppard sat nearest to him, and got the full
effect of the sailor's hot, rum-soaked breath. He arose with a
pale face.
"Colonel, I can't stand this," he said hastily. "Let's get away from
that drunken ruffian."
"Who's a drunken ruffian?" yelled Case, more angry than ever. "I'm not
drunk; but I'm going to be, and cut some of you white-livered border
mates. Here, you old masthead, drink this to my health, damn you!"
The ruffian had seized a tumbler of liquor from the table, and held it
toward Sheppard while he brandished his long knife.
White as snow, Sheppard backed against the wall; but did not take the
drink.
The sailor had the floor; no one save him spoke a word. The action had
been so rapid that there had hardly been time. Colonel Zane and Silas
were as quiet and tense as the borderman.
"Drink!" hoarsely cried the sailor, advancing his knife toward
Sheppard's body.
When the sharp point all but pressed against the old man, a bright
object twinkled through the air. It struck Case's wrist, knocked the
knife from his fingers, and, bounding against the wall, fell upon the
floor. It was a tomahawk.
The borderman sprang over the table like a huge catamount, and with
movement equally quick, knocked Case with a crash against the wall;
closed on him before he could move a hand, and flung him like a sack
of meal over the bluff.
The tension relieved, some of the crowd laughed, others looked over
the embankment to see how Case had fared, and others remarked that for
some reason he had gotten off better than they expected.
The borderman remained silent. He leaned against a post, with broad
breast gently heaving, but his eyes sparkled as they watched Brandt,
Williams, Mordaunt and Metzar. The Englishman alone spoke.
"Handily done," he said, cool and suave. "Sir, yours is an iron hand.
I apologize for this unpleasant affair. My man is quarrelsome when
under the influence of liquor."
"Metzar, a word with you," cried Colonel Zane curtly.
"Come inside, kunnel," said the innkeeper, plainly ill at ease.
"No; listen here. I'll speak to the point. You've got to stop running
this kind of a place. No words, now, you've got to stop. Understand?
You know as well as I, perhaps better, the character of your so-called
inn. You'll get but one more chance."
"Wal, kunnel, this is a free country," growled Metzar. "I can't help
these fellars comin' here lookin' fer blood. I runs an honest place.
The men want to drink an' gamble. What's law here? What can you do?"
"You know me, Metzar," Colonel Zane said grimly. "I don't waste words.
'To hell with law!' so you say. I can say that, too. Remember, the
next drunken boy I see, or shady deal, or gambling spree, out you go
for good."
Metzar lowered his shaggy head and left the porch. Brandt and his
friends, with serious faces, withdrew into the bar-room.
The borderman walked around the corner of the inn, and up the lane.
The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely
fashion. At a shout from some one they turned to see a dusty, bloody
figure, with ragged clothes, stagger up from the bluff.
"There's that blamed sailor now," said Sheppard. "He's a tough nut.
My! What a knock on the head Jonathan gave him. Strikes me, too, that
tomahawk came almost at the right time to save me a whole skin."
"I was furious, but not at all alarmed," rejoined Colonel Zane.
"I wondered what made you so quiet."
"I was waiting. Jonathan never acts until the right moment, and
then--well, you saw him. The little villain deserved killing. I could
have shot him with pleasure. Do you know, Sheppard, Jonathan's
aversion to shedding blood is a singular thing. He'd never kill the
worst kind of a white man until driven to it."
"That's commendable. How about Wetzel?"
"Well, Lew is different," replied Colonel Zane with a shudder. "If I
told him to take an ax and clean out Metzar's place--God! what a wreck
he'd make of it. Maybe I'll have to tell him, and if I do, you'll see
something you can never forget."