Harold saw fit to answer the door himself. He threw it wide open;
Virginia's startled glance could just make out two swarthy faces,
singularly dark and unprepossessing, in the candlelight. She
experienced a swift flood of fear that she couldn't understand: then
forced it away as an absurdity.
"We--we mushin' over to Yuga--been over Bald Peak way," Joe said
stumblingly. "Didn't know no one was here. Want a bunk here to-night."
"You've got your own blankets?"
"Yes. We got blankets."
"On your way home, eh? Well, I'll have to ask this lady."
Harold seemed strangely nervous as he turned to Virginia. He wondered
if this courteous reference to her was a mistake; could it be that she
would object to their staying? It would make, at best, an awkward
situation. However, he knew this girl and he felt sure. He half-closed
the door.
"A couple of Indians, going home toward the settlement on the Yuga," he
explained quickly. "They've come from over toward Bald Peak and were
counting on putting up here to-night. That's the woods custom, you
know--to stay at anybody's cabin. They didn't know we were here and
want to stay, anyway. Do you think we can put 'em up?"
"Good Heavens, we can't send them on, on a night like this. It is
awkward, though--about food----"
"They've likely got their own food."
"Of course they can stay. Bill can sleep on the floor in here--you
can take the two of them with you into the little cabin. It will be
pretty tight work, but we can't do anything else. Bring them in."
Harold turned again to the door, and in a moment the Indians strode,
blinking, into the candlelight. The brighter light did not reveal them
at greater advantage. Virginia shot them a swift glance and was
instinctively repelled: but at once she ascribed the evil savagery of
their faces to racial traits. She went back to her work.
Bill, sitting against the cabin wall, tried to make sense out of a
confused jumble of thoughts and impressions and memories that flooded in
one wave to his mind. His few hours of blindness had seemingly
sharpened his other senses: and there was a quality of the half-breed's
voice that was distinctly familiar. He had assumed at once that the two
breeds were Joe and Pete whom he had encountered when he first found
Harold. Why, then, had the latter made no sign of recognition? Why
should he repeat a manifest lie,--that they had been over toward Bald
Peak and were traveling toward the Yuga, and that they thought the cabin
was unoccupied? He remembered that he had given these particular
Indians definite orders to stay away from the district. Outwardly he
was cool and at ease, his face impassive and grave; in his inner self he
was deeply perturbed and suspicious.
Of course, there was a possibility that he was mistaken in the voice.
He resolved to know the truth.
"It's Joe and Pete, isn't it?" he asked abruptly in the silence.
There was no reply at first. Virginia did not glance around in time to
see the lightning signal of warning from Harold to the Indians; yet she
had an inner sense of drama and suspense.
She had never heard quite this tone in Bill's voice before. It was
hard, uncompromising, some way menacing. "I say," he repeated slowly,
"are you Pete and Joe, or aren't you?"
"Pete--Joe?" Joe answered at last, in a bewildered tune. Harold
himself could not have given a better simulation of amazement. "Don't
know 'em. I'm Wolfpaw Black--he's Jimmy--Jimmy DuBois."
The names were convincing,--typical breed names, the latter with a
touch of French. But Harold's admiration for the resourcefulness of his
confederate really was not justified. Joe hadn't originated the two
names. He had spoken the first two that had come to his mind,--the
names of a pair of worthy breeds from a distant encampment.
Except for a little lingering uneasiness, Bill was satisfied. It would
be easy to mistake the voice. He had heard it only a few times in his
life. Virginia went on with her supper preparations, and at last the
three of them drew chairs around their crude little table. The two
breeds took their lunch from their packs and munched it, sitting beside
the stove.
The night had fallen now, impenetrably dark, and the Northern Lights
were flashing like aerial searchlights in the sky. The five of them
were singularly quiet, deep in their own thoughts. Bill heard his watch
ticking loudly in his pocket.
All at once Joe grunted in the stillness, and all except Bill whirled to
look at him. He went to his pack and fumbled among the blankets. Then,
a greedy light in his eyes, he put two dark bottles upon the table.
Bill, unseeing, did not understand. His finer senses, however, told him
that the air was suddenly electric, charged with suspense. Virginia was
frankly alarmed.
In her past life she had had intimate acquaintance with strong drink.
While it was true that she had never partaken of it beyond an occasional
cocktail before dinner, it was common enough in the circle in which she
had moved. She was used to seeing the men of her acquaintance drink
whisky-and-sodas, and many of her intimate girl friends drank enough to
harden their eyes and injure their complexions. She herself had always
regarded it tolerantly, thinking that much of the hue and cry that had
been raised about it was sheer sentimentality and absurdity. She didn't
know that evil genii dwelt in the dark waters that could change men into
brutes: such mild exhilaration as she had received from an unusually
potent cocktail had only seemed harmless and amusing.
But she was not tolerant now. She was suddenly deeply afraid. She
looked at Bill, forgetting for the moment that in his blindness he could
not see what was occurring and that in his helplessness she could not
depend upon him in a crisis. She turned to Harold, hoping that he would
refuse this offering at a word. And her fear increased when she saw the
craving on his face.
Harold had gone a long time without strong drink. The sight of the dark
bottles woke his old passion for it in a flash. His blood leaped, a
strange and dreadful eagerness transcended him. Virginia was horrified
at the sudden, insane light in his eyes, the drawing of his features.
"Have a drink?" Joe invited.
Bill started then, but he made no response. Harold moved toward the
table.
"You're a real life-saver, Wolfpaw," he replied genially. "It's a cold
night, and I don't care if I do. Virginia, pass down the cups."
Of course there were not enough cups to go around. There were three of
tin, however, counting one that Bill made from an empty can. "You'll
drink?" Joe asked Bill.
The woodsman's face was grave. "Wolfpaw, it's against the law of this
province to give or receive liquor from Indians," he replied gravely.
"I won't drink to-night."
Pete turned with a scowl. His thought had already flashed to the white
blade at his belt. "You're damn particular----" he began.
But Joe shook his head, restraining him. The hour to strike had not yet
come. They must enjoy their liquor first and engender fresh courage
from its fire. He saw fit, however, to glance about the room and locate
the weapon of which Harold had spoken,--the deadly miner's pick that
leaned against the wall back of the stove.
Curiously, Virginia's thought had flung to the weapons, too. She had
taken off her pistol when she had been nursing Bill and hadn't put it
on since. Quietly, so as not to attract attention, she glanced about
to locate it. It was hanging on a nail at the opposite end of the
table,--and Joe stood just beside it. She had no desire to waken his
suspicions of her fear. She knew she must put up a bold front, at
least. Nevertheless her fingers longed for the comforting feel of its
butt. She resolved to watch for a chance to procure it.
"Have a drink?" Joe asked Virginia.
She didn't like the tone of his voice. He was speaking with entire
familiarity, and again she expected interference from Harold. Her
fiance, however, was fingering the bottle. She saw Bill straighten,
ever so little, and beheld the first signs of rising anger in the set of
his lips. But she didn't know the full fierceness of his inward
struggle,--an almost resistless desire to spring at once and smite
those impertinent tones from the breed's lips. But he knew that he must
take care--for Virginia's sake--and avoid a fight as long as it was
humanly possible to do so.
"No," the girl responded coldly.
"Then there's enough cups after all," Harold observed. "I was going to
take the pitcher, if either Virginia or this conscientious teetotaler
cared for a shot." He chuckled unpleasantly. "I thought I could get
more that way."
They poured themselves mighty drinks,--staggering portions that more
than half-emptied the first of the quarts. Then they threw back their
heads and drained the cups.
The liquor was cheap and new, such as reaches the Indian encampments
after passing through many hands. It burned like fire in their throats,
and almost at once it began to distill its poison into their veins.
Harold and Pete immediately resumed their chairs; Joe still stood at the
table end. He, too, had seen the little pistol of blue steel hanging on
the nail. At first the three men were sullen and silent, enjoying the
first warmth of the liquor. Then the barriers of self-restraint began
to break down.
Harold began to grow talkative, launching forth on an amusing anecdote.
But there was no laughter at the end of it. The Indians were never
given to mirth in their debauches; both Bill and Virginia were far
indeed from a receptive humor.
"What's the matter with this crowd--can't you see a joke?" Harold
demanded. "Say, Bill, over there--you who wouldn't take a gentleman's
drink--what you sitting there like an old marmot for on a rock pile?
Why don't you join in the festivities?"
For all the rudeness of Harold's speech, Bill answered quietly. "Not
feeling very festive to-night. And if I were you--I'd go easy on too
much of that. You're out of practice, you know."
"Yes--thanks to you. At least, before I came here I lived where I
could get a drink when I wanted it, not in a Sunday-school."
Virginia suddenly leaned forward. "Where did you live before you came
here, Harold?" she asked.
There was a sudden, unmistakable contempt in her voice.