For two very good reasons, Dan didn't call to Cranston at once. The two
reasons were that Cranston had a rifle and that Dan was unarmed. It
might be extremely likely that Cranston would choose the most plausible
and effective means of preventing an interruption of his crime, and by
the same token, prevent word of the crime ever reaching the authorities.
The rifle contained five cartridges, and only one was needed.
But the idea of backing out, unseen, never even occurred to Dan. The
fire would have a tremendous headway before he could summon help.
Although it was near the lookout station, every condition pointed to a
disastrous fire. The brush was dry as tinder, not so heavy as to choke
the wind, but yet tall enough to carry the flame into the tree tops. The
stiff breeze up the ridge would certainly carry the flame for miles
through the parched Divide before help could come. In the meantime stock
and lives and homes would be endangered, besides the irreparable loss of
timber. There were many things that Dan might do, but giving up was not
one of them.
After all, he did the wisest thing of all. He simply came out in plain
sight and unconcernedly walked down the trail toward Cranston. At the
same instant, the latter struck his match.
As Dan was no longer stalking, Cranston immediately heard his step. He
whirled, recognized Dan, and for one long instant in which the world
seemed to have time in plenty to make a complete revolution, he stood
perfectly motionless. The match flared in his dark fingers, his
eyes--full of singular conjecturing--rested on Dan's face. No instant of
the latter's life had ever been fraught with greater peril. He
understood perfectly what was going on in Cranston's mind. The
fire-fiend was calmly deciding whether to shoot or whether to bluff it
out. One required no more moral courage than the other. It really didn't
make a great deal of difference to Cranston.
He had been born in the hills, and his spirit was the spirit of the
wolf,--to kill when necessary, without mercy or remorse. Besides, Dan
represented, in his mind, all that Cranston hated,--the law, gentleness,
the great civilized world that spread below. But in spite of it, he
decided that the killing was not worth the cartridge. The other course
was too easy. He did not even dream that Dan had been shadowing him and
had seen his intention. He would have laughed at the idea that a
"tenderfoot" could thus walk behind him, unheard. Without concern, he
scattered with his foot the little heap of kindling, and slipping his
pipe into his mouth, he touched the flaring match to it. It was a wholly
admirable little piece of acting, and would have deceived any one who
had not seen his previous preparations. The fact that the pipe was empty
mattered not one way or another. Then he walked on down the trail toward
Dan.
Dan stopped and lighted his own pipe. It was a curious little truce. And
then he leaned back against the great, gray trunk of a fallen tree.
"Well, Cranston," he said civilly. The men had met on previous
occasions, and always there had been the same invisible war between
them.
"How do you do, Failing," Cranston replied. No perceptions could be so
blunt as to miss the premeditated insult in the tone. He didn't speak in
his own tongue at all, the short, guttural "Howdy" that is the greeting
of the mountain men. He pronounced all the words with an exaggerated
precision, an unmistakable mockery of Dan's own tone. In his accent he
threw a tone of sickly sweetness, and his inference was all too plain.
He was simply calling Failing a milksop and a white-liver; just as
plainly as if he had used the words.
The eyes of the two men met. Cranston's lips were slightly curled in an
unmistakable leer. Dan's were very straight. And in one thing at least,
their eyes looked just the same. The pupils of both pairs had contracted
to steel points, bright in the dark gray of the irises. Cranston's
looked somewhat red; and Dan's were only hard and bright.
Dan felt himself straighten; and the color mounted somewhat higher in
his brown cheeks. But he did not try to avenge the insult--yet. Cranston
was still fifteen feet distant, and that was too far. A man may swing a
rifle within fifteen feet. The fact that they were in no way physical
equals did not even occur to him. When the insult is great enough, such
considerations cannot possibly matter. Cranston was hard as steel, one
hundred and seventy pounds in weight. Dan did not touch one hundred and
fifty, and a deadly disease had not yet entirely relinquished its hold
upon him.
"I do very well, Cranston," Dan answered in the same tone. "Wouldn't you
like another match? I believe your pipe has gone out."
Very little can be said for the wisdom of this remark. It was simply
human,--that age-old creed to answer blow for blow and insult for
insult. Of course the inference was obvious,--that Dan was accusing him,
by innuendo, of his late attempt at arson. Cranston glanced up quickly,
and it might be true that his fingers itched and tingled about the
barrel of his rifle. He knew what Dan meant. He understood perfectly
that Dan had guessed his purpose on the mountain side. And the curl at
his lips became more pronounced.
"What a smart little boy," he scorned. "Going to be a Sherlock Holmes
when he grows up." Then he half turned and the light in his eyes blazed
up. He was not leering now. The mountain men are too intense to play at
insult very long. Their inherent savagery comes to the surface, and they
want the warmth of blood upon their fingers. The voice became guttural.
"Maybe you're a spy?" he asked. "Maybe you're one of those city rats--to
come up and watch us, and then run and tell the forest service. There's
two things, Failing, that I want you to know."
Dan puffed at his pipe, and his eyes looked curiously bright through the
film of smoke. "I'm not interested in hearing them," he said.
"It might pay you," Cranston went on. "One of 'em is that one man's word
is good as another's in a court--and it wouldn't do you any good to run
down and tell tales. A man can light his pipe on the mountain side
without the courts being interested. The second thing is--just that I
don't think you'd find it a healthy thing to do."
"I suppose, then, that is a threat?"
"It ain't just a threat." Cranston laughed harshly,--a single, grim
syllable that was the most terrible sound he had yet uttered. "It's a
fact. Just try it, Failing. Just make one little step in that direction.
You couldn't hide behind a girl's skirts then. Why, you city sissy, I'd
break you to pieces in my hands!"
Few men can make a threat without a muscular accompaniment. Its very
utterance releases pent-up emotions, part of which can only pour forth
in muscular expression. And anger is a primitive thing, going down to
the most mysterious depths of a man's nature. As Cranston spoke, his lip
curled, his dark fingers clenched on his thick palm, and he half leaned
forward.
Dan knocked out his pipe on the log. It was the only sound in that whole
mountain realm; all the lesser sounds were stilled. The two men stood
face to face, Dan tranquil, Cranston shaken by passion.
"I give you," said Dan with entire coldness, "an opportunity to take
that back. Just about four seconds."
He stood very straight as he spoke, and his eyes did not waver in the
least. It would not be the truth to say that his heart was not leaping
like a wild thing in his breast. A dark mist was spreading like madness
over his brain; but yet he was striving to keep his thoughts clear. It
was hard to do, under insult. But he knew that only by craft, by cool
thinking and planning, could he even hope to stand against the brawny
Cranston. He kept a remorseless control over his voice and face.
Stealthily, without seeming to do so, he was setting his muscles for a
spring.
The only answer to his words was a laugh,--a roaring laugh of scorn from
Cranston's dark lips. In his laughter, his intent, catlike vigilance
relaxed. Dan saw a chance; feeble though it was, it was the only chance
he had. And his long body leaped like a serpent through the air.
Physical superior though he was, Cranston would have repelled the attack
with his rifle if he had had a chance. His blood was already at the
murder heat--a point always quickly reached in Cranston--and the dark,
hot fumes in his brain were simply nothing more nor less than the most
poisonous, bitter hatred. No other word exists. If his class of
degenerate mountain men had no other accomplishment, they could hate.
All their lives they practiced the emotion: hatred of their neighbors,
hatred of law, hatred of civilization in all its forms. Besides, this
kind of hillman habitually fought his duels with rifles. Hands were not
deadly enough.
But Dan was past his guard before he had time to raise his gun. The
whole attack was one of the most astounding surprises of Cranston's
life. Dan's body struck his, his fists flailed, and to protect himself,
Cranston was obliged to drop the rifle. They staggered, as if in some
weird dance, on the trail; and their arms clasped in a clinch.
For a long instant they stood straining, seemingly motionless.
Cranston's powerful body had stood up well under the shock of Dan's
leap. It was a hand-to-hand battle now. The rifle had slid on down the
hillside, to be caught in a clump of brush twenty feet below. Dan called
on every ounce of his strength, because he knew what mercy he might
expect if Cranston mastered him. The battles of the mountains were
battles to the death.
They flung back and forth, wrenching shoulders, lashing fists, teeth and
feet and fingers. There were no Marquis of Queensbury rules in this
battle. Again and again Dan sent home his blows; but they all seemed
ineffective. By now, Cranston had completely overcome the moment's
advantage the other had obtained by the power of his leap. He hurled Dan
from the clinch and lashed at him with hard fists.
It is a very common thing to hear of a silent fight. But it is really a
more rare occurrence than most people believe. It is true that serpents
will often fight in the strangest, most eerie silence; but human beings
are not serpents. They partake more of the qualities of the
meat-eaters,--the wolves and the felines. After the first instant, the
noise of the fight aroused the whole hillside. The sound of blows was in
itself notable, and besides, both of the men were howling the primordial
battle cries of hatred and vengeance.
For two long minutes Dan fought with the strength of desperation,
summoning at last all that mysterious reserve force with which all men
are born. But he was playing a losing game. The malady with which he had
suffered had taken too much of his vigor. Even as he struggled, it
seemed to him that the vista about him, the dark pines, the colored
leaves of the perennial shrubbery, the yellow path were all obscured in
a strange, white mist. A great wind roared in his ears,--and his heart
was evidently about to shiver to pieces.
But still he fought on, not daring to yield. He could no longer parry
Cranston's blows. The latter's arms went around him in one of those
deadly holds that wrestlers know; and Dan struggled in vain to free
himself. Cranston's face itself seemed hideous and unreal in the mist
that was creeping over him. He did not recognize the curious thumping
sound as Cranston's fists on his flesh. And now Cranston had hurled him
off his feet.
Nothing mattered further. He had fought the best he could. This cruel
beast could pounce on him at will and hammer away his life. But still he
struggled. Except for the constant play of his muscles, his almost
unconscious effort to free himself that kept one of Cranston's arms busy
holding him down, that fight on the mountain path might have come to a
sudden end. Human bodies can stand a terrific punishment; but Dan's was
weakened from the ravages of his disease. Besides, Cranston would soon
have both hands and both feet free for the work, and when these four
terrible weapons are used at once, the issue--soon or late--can never be
in doubt.
But even now, consciousness still lingered. Dan could hear his enemy's
curses,--and far up the trail, he heard another, stranger sound. It was
that second of acute sensibilities that usually immediately precedes
unconsciousness, and he heard it very plainly. It sounded like some one
running.
And then he dimly knew that Cranston was climbing from his body. Voices
were speaking,--quick, commanding voices just over him. Above Cranston's
savage curses another voice rang clear, and to Dan's ears, glorious
beyond all human utterance.
He opened his tortured eyes. The mists lifted from in front of them, and
the whole drama was revealed. It had not been sudden mercy that had
driven Cranston from his body, just when his victim's falling
unconsciousness would have put him completely in his power. Rather it
was something black and ominous that even now was pointed squarely at
Cranston's breast.
None too soon, a ranger of the hill had heard the sounds of the
struggle, and had left the trysting place at the spring to come to Dan's
aid. It was Snowbird, very pale but wholly self-sufficient and
determined and intent. Her pistol was quite cocked and ready.