As Alexander passed him, Brent did not miss the suppressed fury in her
eyes or the disdainful tilt of her chin. Her bearing was that of a
barbaric princess, and a princess of meteorically vivid beauty. There
had been a deliberate purpose in the clear carrying tones with which
she had repulsed Jase Mallows. He had been the first man to make
advances, because he was the boldest, but for all her guise of
unconsciousness she had seen the passion smoulder in the eyes about her
and later others might become emboldened unless they were discouraged
by a clear precedent. Heretofore her father's stern repute had
safeguarded her. Now she was dependent upon herself alone.
Down the yellow river swept the two uninjured rafts and the one that
carried a fringe of raggedness. For the most part the men were busy
with sweep and pike-pole fending off the cumbering drift and clearing
the whirlpools where hidden reefs threatened destruction. There were
sharp turns and angles too, where the yellow water roared into fretful
and vehement menace. With night-fall the heights seemed to draw in and
huddle close and the dirge of flood and wind mounted into a heavier
timbre.
Fires leaped into fitful radiance. Banjos and "dulcimores" came out of
hiding and sounded plaintively over the waste of waters. Scraps of
almost mediaeval life showed out in thumb-nail sketches between the
sooty shadow world and the red flare of the bonfires. Voices were
lifted into weird minors and lugubrious tunes, recitative, of sad love
themes--and these were, of course, addressed to Alexander. She joined
no group, but sat with her hands clasped about her updrawn knees and
her gaze ranging off into distance. The carmine and orange
illumination played upon her color of cheek and hair and eyes and when,
unconsciously her face fell into a reflective quiet and her lips
drooped with a touch of wistfulness, the allurement of her beauty was
arresting and undeniable. Brent fell to wondering what life could hold
for her.
The time must come, he thought, when a beauty like that in a land of
plain and drudgery-enslaved women, must bring for her something like a
crisis. She was twenty-one and unawakened, but that the men about her
should long allow her to remain so was as unlikely as that a
pirate-crew would leave treasure unfought for. A rising tide of human
passion about her seemed as inevitable as this actual flood had
been--and perhaps as swift of coming.
But if the amorous selections of that crude minstrelsy made any
impression upon her, she gave no indication. Before the songs ended
she withdrew to the rude shelter that had been fashioned for her and
wrapped herself in her blanket. But the pistol holster lay close to
her hand. When she rose at day-break they had turned out of the stream
upon which they had embarked into the broader river that it fed and
about them floated a wavering mass of ice from broken gorges above.
Brent shivered and dabbed grudgingly with cold water at the face upon
which a stubble of beard had begun to bristle. But the girl carried an
icy bucket into her shack and reinforced its forward wall with blanket
and rubber coat, not as a protection against the knife-edged sharpness
of the air but against prying eyes. Then she bathed unhurriedly and
fastidiously.
When she emerged the bloom of her cheeks and the luster of her thick
hair would have been the envy of a boudoir where beauty-doctors have
done their utmost. And that day too, save for the smouldering eyes of
the discomfited Jase Mallows, the wolf-like pack treated her with a
cautious deference of bearing.
When at the end of two days the water was dropping as rapidly as it had
risen, Alexander announced, "I reckon we've got a right gay chanst now
ter put in at ther Coal City boom, hain't we?" And several heads
nodded assent. Brent noticed that Jase Mallows' face wore a smile
which did not altogether escape malignity, and at the first opportunity
he inquired: "What were you smiling about, Mr. Mallows, when they spoke
of Coal City?"
The backwoods dandy scowled and gave back the churl's response, "Thet's
my business."
"Certainly," Brent acceded coolly. "You don't have to answer me. I
didn't suppose it was a matter you were ashamed to talk about."
Mallows bent with a truculent narrowing of his lids and an outthrust
chin, but observing that the city man was in no wise cowed by his
scowls he amended his attitude. Two days before Brent would have been
more cautious of offending this man, whose exploits had run, sometimes,
to violence, but a subtle transformation had begun in him. A new
disdain for personal risks had caught fire from that flaming quality in
the woman.
"Hev ye ever seed Coal City?" inquired Mallows, and when the other
shook his head, he continued in a lowered voice. "Wa'al hit's a right
rough sort of place. Hit's a coal minin' town with only one
tavern--an' things goes forward thar right sensibly similar ter hell on
a hot night. With ther flood holdin' up ther mines hit's apt ter
kinderly out-do hitself jest now." He paused a moment then capped his
prediction with an added detail.
"Thar'll be plentiful drunkenness an' harlotry thar. Alexander
couldn't speak civil ter me, but I war jest a studyin' erbout how well
she's goin' ter like Coal City."
When the rafts were safe in the boom. Brent looked about for Mallows,
but Mallows was already gone. Alexander herself was among the last to
start along the ill-lighted and twisting street that climbed along, the
broken levels of the town toward the tavern. It was, at best, a
squalid village and a tawdry one. Now it was to boot a wholly
demoralized town, cut off from the other world by inundated highways
and the washing out of its railroad bridge. The kerosene street lamps
burned dully and at long intervals and high up the black slopes a few
coke furnaces still burned in red patches of inflamed and sullen glare.
Brent had dropped out of sight, meaning to follow the girl as an
unofficial body guard. Knowing her impatience at gratuitous services
of protection he made no announcement of his purpose, but fell in
behind the light of the lantern she carried and followed her in the
shadows. When he had gone only a little way, he had the vague feeling
that someone else was following him so he halted and wheeled suddenly.
After peering vainly through the murk, he told himself that he was
letting his imagination play him tricks but the disquieting impression
of soft footsteps padding along behind him he could not dispel.
Before they had readied the main street and the disreputable pile which
was the tavern, sounds of lewd and raucous voices floated out--a chorus
of profane and blatant roistering.
The houses along the way presented faces utterly blank and devoid of
life. Brent would have wondered at that, had he not had his brief talk
with Mallows. Now he understood. Respectable folks had withdrawn to
shelter behind barred doors and tightly shuttered windows until such
time as the unleashed element of outlawry should evacuate the town.
The law-abiding were, in effect, undergoing a siege and avoiding the
ill-lighted streets.
But the light at the court-house square was relatively bright and as
Brent crossed in front of the squat and shadowy bulk of the old
jail-house--empty now, though it should have been full--he made out a
figure hastening about him in a circuitous fashion at a dog trot as
though bent on arriving at the hostelry first. That, then, must have
been the presence he had felt at his back, and a fresh alarm assailed
him. It was the figure of Bud Sellers.
When at last Alexander had gone up the several steps that led to the
closed door of the tavern, and stood for a moment, evidently hesitating
with disgust for the babel within, Brent drew back into a convenient
shadow and looked anxiously about for the other figure. It had
disappeared.
That hostelry was the property of one D. W. Kelly, a huge and unclean
lout of a man and the establishment was as wholesome a place as a bear
pit, and no more so.
It was not with complacency that the landlord saw his house given over
to the destructive caprices of a drunken and uncontrollable mob. He
had no means of freeing himself of his guests. When his slatternly
wife had complained: "Them miners an' loggers jest louzes up a body's
house," he had wagged his head dejectedly and spread his great
black-nailed hands. "If that's ther wu'st thing they does hit'll be a
plum God's blessin'," he replied. "Ther law p'intedly fo'ces a
tavern-keeper ter sleep an' eat man an' beast--ef so be they kin pay."
Now the motley crew was in unchallenged possession--and would remain in
possession until the river went down and fords were once more passable.
That a reign of terror would prevail so long as they tarried in town,
in no wise dampened their own exuberance of spirit.
Two or three traveling salesmen had been marooned here, but since the
beginning of this saturnalia they had not been in evidence beyond the
thresholds of their own rooms.
There was no bar at D. W. Kelly's tavern and none was needed, since
every man was duly and individually provisioned and since even in these
flood times a dollar left unwatched on a certain stump up the mountain
side would cause a jug to appear mysteriously in its place.
But since there was no bar, the great room whose door opened directly
upon the porch had been commandeered as a wassailing hall. Here the
entering guest must run the gantlet of the rollicking horde before he
could attain the more peaceful harbor of his own quarters.
About a red hot stove hung a crew of as dirty and disorderly men as
ever came out of coal mine or lumber camp. Those who remained sober
remained also somewhat aloof against the walls and kept their mouths
shut. From the ceiling downward hung the thick, stale cloud of smoke
from many strong pipes and the rancid poison of air discharged from
many lungs had become a stench in the nostrils. Occasional figures
walked with an unsteady lurch, while through the whole chaotic
pandemonium others slept heavily in their chairs--or even on the floor.
But just before Alexander reached the porch and hesitated on the
threshold Jase Mallows had been there. Now he was gone but he had
first imparted the information that the "'he-woman' from ther head of
Shoulderblade branch" was coming hither. So it was likely that she
would have a noisy welcome. On the outskirts of the crowd sat a giant
who seemed a shade rougher of guise than those about him. When he
stood, this man topped six feet by as many inches. His shoulders had
such a spread that one thought of them as of an eagle's wings--from tip
to tip. His face, now bristling with dark stubble, was none the less
clear-chiseled and arrestingly featured. At first sight a stranger
would be apt to exclaim, "What a magnificent figure of a man he would
make, if he were only clean-shaven and well dressed." This fellow was
not drinking but looking on from a table at which no one ventured to
challenge his sole occupancy or his evident preference for his own
society.
A somewhat amused and indulgent gleam dwelt in his eye, tinged, it is
true, with a certain unveiled contempt--but it was not the disgust that
might have been expected in a sober man looking on at such a
loathsomeness of debauchery.
There were women present too,--coarse and vicious creatures who lacked
even the sort of tawdry finery that their sisters in western mining
camps affect. There was here no shimmer of even the slaziest satin.
In dress as in character they were drab.
So was the stage set when the door opened and Alexander stepped in,
dropping her pack to the floor and standing speechless for a moment or
two as her amazed eyes took in the composition of the picture.
Alexander had never seen such a spectacle before, and as she looked
about for someone who appeared to have authority here, her fine eyes
and lips fell into an unmasked scorn.
She had not closed the door and through it, close on her heels, slipped
Brent. For, a little space the confusion took no account of her coming
but the city man was standing directly behind her and he saw the
pliancy of her attitude stiffen and then across her shoulder he
recognized in a rear door the tense figure of Bud Sellers.
Sellers stood looking through a lane which chance had left open and
Brent thought that his posture was the electrically expectant one of a
man poised for instant action. He remembered that when Bud went on a
spree he was known as the "mad dog."
That same insanity which had attacked the father might now even forget
that the daughter's assumption of being a man was only a pretense. He
might act as though she were a man bent on avenging a mortal injury.
There was no leisure then to speculate on how Bud had gotten here--that
he was here with his gaze fixed in that galvanized fashion on the girl
was a sufficient cause for apprehension.
Then the eyes of the many began following the eyes of the few, until a
brief lull settled down on the dissonance, and everyone was staring at
the girl who stood inside the door, dressed as a man, but holding their
gaze with the lodestone of her womanly beauty.
A hoarse shout went up from the rear. "A gal in pants! Hit's ther
he-woman!"
"I wants ter see ther tavern-keeper. Whar's he at?" demanded Alexander
in a clear voice that went through the place like the note of a
xylophone. She stood out, a picture of serene beauty drawn against an
infernally evil and confused background.
Two of the wretched women came forward and bent upon her the full
battery of their brazen and leering curiosity.
"Pants!" exclaimed one of them satirically.
"Ther wench hain't got no shame!" The second used an even uglier word.
But Alexander ignored that criticism.
"Whar's ther landlord at?" she repeated and a chorus of laughter ensued.
Then a bewhiskered fellow, red-eyed and dirty, to whom Jase Mallows had
previously spoken, came to the front with a burlesqued attempt at a low
bow.
"Don't heed these hyar fool women, sweetheart," he said. "They hain't
nothin' but low-down trash nohow-- They're jealous, but thar's some
right upstandin' men-folks hyar fer ye ter keep company with. I reckon
fust off ye needs a leetle dram--hits's right chilly outside."
As he proffered a flask, Brent caught the glitter of his eye, and knew
that this time it would not be easy to decline. The crowd was drifting
forward, and through the closing lane of humanity, Bud Sellers glided
rapidly to a place near its front. His hand was inside his coat
now--where the holster lay.
"A leetle dram won't do ye no harm," insisted the man of the blood-shot
eyes and then as he caught the quiet contempt on the girl's face, his
manner changed to truculent bullying. "Folks says ye wants ter be
treated ther same as a man--an' any man thet holds I hain't good enough
ter drink with--thet man's my enemy."
Brent hesitated to draw his weapon lest in such a situation it should
provoke a holocaust. Yet he felt that in a moment he might need it.
Then as he stood, still uncertain, he saw the giant who had until now
looked on with detached emotionlessness come elbowing his way through
the press, much as an elephant goes through small timber, uprooting
obstacles and tossing them aside as he moves.
But Alexander had gone dead white with the pallor of outraged wrath.
Her lips had tightened and her eyes taken on a quality like the blue
flame which is the hottest fire that burns.
Then suddenly she moved with a swiftness that was electric and stood,
before her purpose could be guessed, with a heavy-calibered revolver
outthrust into the face of the man whose pistol hand had held the
whiskey bottle. The flask crashed into splinters from an abruptly
relaxed grip.
"I don't drink--without hit pleasures me ter drink," said the girl with
an inflexible coldness and levelness of voice, yet one no more
unfalteringly firm than the hand which held the gun. "Hit won't never
pleasure me ter drink with a man I wouldn't wipe my feet on. Ye hain't
a man nohow--ye're jest a pole-cat."
The bearded jaw dropped in amazement, and a sense of the nearness of
death intruded itself upon Lute Brown's thoughts. Still since even
such a situation called for a retort he essayed one in a falter that
travestied the boldness of his words.
"When a man names me thet name--I wants him ter come _towards_ me. Of
course ye hain't no man though."
"I'm man enough ter take yore measure," she flung back at him, "an' I'm
comin' towards ye right now. Ef yore hands ain't high when I git's
thar, I aims ter kill ye."
She moved forward and the bully gave grudgingly back, but at that
instant the gigantic on-looker casually laid hand upon him by one
shoulder and flung him sidewise as casually as a terrier tosses a rat.
His manner was precisely that of a man who removes a chair which
obstructs his path.
"Stranger," said the titanic fellow in a pleasantly drawling
intonation, "I think I heered ye say ye wanted ther landlord. Ef ye'll
come with me I'll find him fer ye. A decent feller wouldn't hardly
relish this company nohow."
There had been in his form of address no masculine patronage proffering
rescue to the beset feminine, and looking up into a face which was
smiling with an engaging radiance of white teeth, Alexander nodded and
said only, "I'd be right obleeged ter ye."
Through a path that opened itself in silence for them, they went out of
a back door, but when they had gone, Brent saw in astonishment that Bud
Sellers was crouching with defiant eyes over Lute Brown as he slowly
regained his feet.
"Hev ye done hed enough?" demanded Bud in a voice of deadly calm and
absolute sobriety. "Because ef ye hain't, I'm hyar ter finish hit up
with ye."
"Air ye one of her beaus, too?" came the surly question and Bud
answered deliberately. "She don't tolerate no sweet-heartin', but
whilst I was crazed with licker I hurt her paw--an' I reckon I owes her
somethin'."
When the giant had returned he went nonchalantly back to his table as
though nothing had occurred, but Brent followed and joined him there.
"How did you come to be here, Halloway?" asked the city man in a
guarded and incredulous voice.
The tall man looked about him and then, since the drone of voices was
again gathering volume he replied: "Oh, ye're right liable ter meet up
with a driftin' lumberjack anywhar's at all."
After filling a disreputable pipe with tobacco crumbs he leaned a
little forward, then in lowered tones, from which every trace of
mountain dialect had abruptly departed he said:
"By gad, Brent, an episode that gives a man a new sensation--a new
thrill, in a world of threadbare ones--is worth a king's ranson. I've
seen the beauties of Occident and Orient but until now----"
A figure drifted near enough to overhear, and rising slowly Halloway
finish up:
"Wa'al, stranger, hit's mighty nigh my bed time. I reckon I'll santer
up ter my room and lay down. I hopes ye git's took keer of yourself,
but ef ye don't ye're right welcome ter bunk in with me."
"I'll go with you now," declared the timber buyer.