ON BELL RIVER
It was an old log shanty. Its walls were stout and aged. Its roof was
flat, and sloped back against the hillside on which it stood. Its
setting was an exceedingly limited plateau, thrusting upon the
precipitous incline which overlooked the gorge of the Bell River.
The face of the plateau was sheer. The only approaches to it were
right and left, and from the hill above, where the dark woods crowded.
A stockade of heavy trunks, felled on the spot, and adapted where they
fell, had been hastily set up. It was primitive, but in addition to
the natural defences, and with men of resolution behind it, it formed
an almost adequate fortification.
The little fortress was high above the broad river. It was like an
eyrie of creatures of the air rather than the last defences of a party
of human beings. Yet such it was. It was the last hope of its
defenders, faced by a horde of blood-crazed savages who lusted only for
slaughter.
Five grimly silent men lined the stockade at the most advantageous
points. Five more lay about, huddled under blankets for warmth,
asleep. A single watcher had screened himself upon the roof of the
shack, whence his keen eyes could sweep the gorge from end to end. All
these were dusky creatures of a superior Indian race. Every one of
them was a descendant of the band of Sioux Indians which fled to Canada
after the Custer massacre. Inside the hut was the only white man of
the party.
A perfect silence reigned just now. There was a lull in the attack.
The Indians crowding the woods below had ceased their futile fire.
Perhaps they were holding a council. Perhaps they were making new
dispositions for a fresh attack. The men at the defences relaxed no
vigilance. The man on the roof noted and renoted every detail of
importance to the defence which the scene presented. The man inside
the hut alone seemed, at the moment, to be taking no part in the
enactment of the little drama.
Yet it was he who was the genius of it all. It was he who claimed the
devotion of these lean, fighting Indians. It was he who had contrived
thus far to hold at bay a force of at least five hundred Indians,
largely armed with modern firearms. It was he who had led the faithful
remnant of his outfit, in a desperate night sortie, from his
indefensible camp on the river, and, by a reckless dash, had succeeded
in reaching this temporary haven.
But he had been supported by his half civilized handful of creatures
who well enough knew what mercy to expect from the enemy. And, anyway,
they had been bred of a stock with a fighting history second to no race
in the world. To a man, the defenders were prepared to sell their
lives at a heavy price. And they would die rifle in hand and facing
the enemy.
The man inside called to the watcher on the roof.
"Anything doing, Keewin?"
"Him quiet. Him see no man. Maybe him make heap pow-wow."
"No sign, eh?"
"Not nothin', boss."
Allan Mowbray turned again to the sheet of paper spread out on the lid
of an ammunition box which was laid across his knees. He was sitting
on a sack of flour. All about him the stores they had contrived to
bring away were lying on the ground. It was small enough supply. But
they had not dared to overload in the night rush to their present
quarters.
He read over what he had written. Then he turned appraisingly to the
stores. His blue eyes were steady and calculating. There was no other
expression in them.
There was a suggestion of the Viking of old about this northern trader.
His fair hair, quite untouched with the gray due to his years, his
fair, curling beard, and whiskers, and moustache, his blue eyes and
strong aquiline nose. These things, combined with a massive physique,
without an ounce of spare flesh, left an impression in the mind of
fearless courage and capacity. He was a fighting man to his fingers'
tips--when need demanded.
He turned back to his writing. It was a labored effort, not for want
of skill, but for the reason he had no desire to fret the heart of the
wife to whom it was addressed.
At last the letter was completed. He signed it, and read it carefully
through, considering each sentence as to effect.
"_Bell River_.
"MY DEAREST WIFE:
"I've had a more than usually successful trip, till I came here. Now
things are not so good."
He glanced up out of the doorway, and a shadowy smile lurked in the
depths of his eyes. Then he turned again to the letter:
"I've already written Murray for help, but I guess the letter's kind of
miscarried. He hasn't sent the help. Star-man took the letter. So
now I'm writing you, and sending it by Keewin. If anybody can get
through it's Keewin. The Bell River Indians have turned on me. I
can't think why. Anyway, I need help. If it's to do any good it's got
to come along right away. I needn't say more to you. Tell Murray.
Give my love to Jessie and Alec. I'd like to see them again. Guess I
shall, if the help gets through--in time. God bless you, Ailsa, dear.
I shall make the biggest fight for it I know. It's five hundred or so
to ten. It'll be a tough scrap before we're through.
"Your loving
"ALLAN."
He folded the sheet of paper in an abstracted fashion. For some
seconds he held it in his fingers as though weighing the advisability
of sending it. Then his abstraction passed, and he summoned the man on
the roof.
A moment or two later Keewin appeared in the doorway, tall, wiry, his
broad, impassive face without a sign.
"Say, Keewin," the white chief began, "we need to get word through to
the Fort. Guess Star-man's dead, hey?"
"Star-man plenty good scout. Boss Murray him no come. Maybe Star-man
all kill dead. So."
"That's how I figger."
Allan Mowbray paused and glanced back at the trifling stores.
"No much food, hey? No much ammunition. One week--two weeks--maybe."
"Maybe."
The Indian looked squarely into his chief's eyes. The latter held up
his letter.
"Who's going? Indians kill him--sure. Who goes?"
"Keewin."
The reply came without a sign. Not a movement of a muscle, or the
flicker of an eyelid.
The white man breathed deeply. It was a sign of emotion which he was
powerless to deny. His eyes regarded the dusky face for some moments.
Then he spoke with profound conviction.
"You haven't a dog's chance--gettin' through," he said.
The information did not seem to require a reply, so far as the Indian
was concerned. The white man went on:
"It's mad--crazy--but it's our only chance."
The persistence of his chief forced the Indian to reiterate his
determination.
"Keewin--him go."
The tone of the reply was almost one of indifference. It suggested
that the white man was making quite an unnecessary fuss.
Allan Mowbray nodded. There was a look in his eyes that said far more
than words. He held out his letter. The Indian took it. He turned it
over. Then from his shirt pocket he withdrew a piece of buckskin. He
carefully wrapped it about the paper, and bestowed it somewhere within
his shirt.
The white man watched him in silence. When the operation was complete
he abruptly thrust out one powerful hand. Just for an instant a gleam
of pleasure lit the Indian's dark eyes. He gingerly responded. Then,
as the two men gripped, the "spat" of rifle-fire began again. There
was a moment in which the two men stood listening. Then their hands
fell apart.
"Great feller--Keewin!" said Mowbray kindly.
Nor was the white man speaking for the benefit of a lesser
intelligence, nor in the manner of the patronage of a faithful servant.
He meant his words literally. He meant more--much more than he said.
The rifle fire rattled up from below. The bullets whistled in every
direction. The firing was wild, as is most Indian firing. A bullet
struck the lintel of the door, and embedded itself deeply in the
woodwork just above Keewin's head.
Keewin glanced up. He pointed with a long, brown finger.
"Neche damn fool. No shoot. Keewin go. Keewin laugh. Bell River
Indian all damn fool. So."
It was the white man who had replaced the Indian at the lookout on the
roof. He was squatting behind a roughly constructed shelter. His
rifle was beside him and a belt full of ammunition was strapped about
his waist.
The wintry sky was steely in the waning daylight. Snow had fallen.
Only a slight fall for the region, but it had covered everything to the
depth of nearly a foot. The whole aspect of the world had changed.
The dark, forbidding gorge of the Bell River no longer frowned up at
the defenders of the plateau. It was glistening, gleaming white, and
the dreary pine trees bowed their tousled heads under a burden of snow.
The murmur of the river no longer came up to them. Already three
inches of ice had imprisoned it, stifling its droning voice under its
merciless grip.
Attack on attack had been hurled against the white man and his little
band of Indians. For days there had been no respite. The attacks had
come from below, from the slopes of the hill above, from the approach
on either side. Each attack had been beaten off. Each attack had
taken its heavy toll of the enemy. But there had been toll taken from
the defenders, a toll they could ill afford. There were only eight
souls all told in the log fortress now. Eight half-starved creatures
whose bones were beginning to thrust at the fleshless skin.
Allan Mowbray's hollow eyes scanned the distant reaches of the gorge
where it opened out southward upon low banks. His straining gaze was
searching for a sign--one faint glimmer of hope. All his plans were
laid. Nothing had been left to the chances of his position. His
calculations had been deliberate and careful. He had known from the
beginning, from the moment he had realized the full possibilities of
his defence, that the one thing which could defeat him was--hunger.
Once the enemy realized this, and acted on it, their doom, unless
outside help came in time, was sealed. His enemies had realized it.
There were no longer any attacks. Only desultory firing. But a cordon
had been drawn around the fortress, and the process of starvation had
set in.
He was giving his Fate its last chance now. If the sign of help he was
seeking did not appear before the feeble wintry light had passed then
the die was cast.
The minutes slipped by. The meagre light waned. The sign had not
come. As the last of the day merged into the semi-arctic night he left
his lookout and wearily lowered himself to the ground. His men were
gathered, huddled in their blankets for warmth, about a small fire
burning within the hut.
Allan Mowbray imparted his tidings in the language of the men who
served him. With silent stoicism the little band of defenders listened
to the end.
Keewin, he told them, had had time to get through. Full time to reach
the Fort, and return with the help he had asked for. That help should
have been with them three days ago. It had not come. Keewin, he
assured them, must have been killed. Nothing could otherwise have
prevented the help reaching them. He told them that if they remained
there longer they would surely die of hunger and cold. They would die
miserably.
He paused for comment. None was forthcoming. His only reply was the
splutter of the small fire which they dared not augment.
So he went on.
He told them he had decided, if they would follow him, to die fighting,
or reach the open with whatever chances the winter trail might afford
them. He told them he was a white man who was not accustomed to bend
to the will of the northern Indian. They might break him, but he would
not bend. He reminded them they were Sioux, children of the great
Sitting Bull. He reminded them that death in battle was the glory of
the Indian. That no real Sioux would submit to starvation.
This time his words were received with definite acclamation. So he
proceeded to his plans.
Half an hour later the last of the stores was being consumed by men who
had not had an adequate meal for many days.
The aurora lit the night sky. The northern night had set in to the
fantastic measure of the ghostly dance of the polar spirits. The air
was still, and the temperature had fallen headlong. The pitiless cold
was searching all the warm life left vulnerable to its attack. The
shadowed eyes of night looked down upon the world through a gray
twilight of calculated melancholy.
The cold peace of the elements was unshared by the striving human
creatures peopling the great white wilderness over which it brooded.
War to the death was being fought out under the eyes of the dancing
lights, and the twinkling contentment of the pallid world of stars.
A small bluff of lank trees reared its tousled snow-crowned head above
the white heart of a wide valley. It was where the gorge of the Bell
River opened out upon low banks. It was where the only trail of the
region headed westwards. The bowels of the bluff were defended by a
meagre undergrowth, which served little better purpose than to
partially conceal them. About this bluff a ring of savages had formed.
Low-type savages of smallish stature, and of little better intelligence
than the predatory creatures who roamed the wild.
With every passing moment the ring drew closer, foot by foot, yard by
yard.
Inside the bluff prone forms lay hidden under the scrub. And only the
flash of rifle, and the biting echoes of its report, told of the epic
defence that was being put up. But for all the effort the movement of
the defenders, before the closing ring, was retrograde, always
retrograde towards the centre.
Slowly but inevitably the ring grew smaller about the bluff. Numbers
of its ranks dropped out, and still forms littered the ground over
which it had passed. But each and every gap thus made was
automatically closed as the human ring drew in.
The last phase began. The ring was no longer visible outside the
bluff. It had passed the outer limits, and entered the scrub. In the
centre, in the very heart of it, six Indians and a white man crouched
back to back--always facing the advancing enemy. Volley after volley
was flung wildly at them from every side, regardless of comrade,
regardless of everything but the lust to kill. The tumult of battle
rose high. The demoniac yells filled the air to the accompaniment of
an incessant rattle of rifle fire. The Bell River horde knew that at
last their lust was to be satisfied. So their triumph rose in a
vicious chorus upon the still air, and added its terror to the night.
The defenders were further reduced to four. The white man had
abandoned his rifle. Now he stood erect, a revolver in each hand, in
the midst of the remainder of his faithful band. He was wounded in
many places. Nor had the Indians with him fared better. Warm blood
streamed from gaping wounds which were left unheeded. For the fight
was to the finish, and not one of them but would have it so.
Nor was the end far off. It came swiftly, ruthlessly. It came with a
ferocious chorus from throats hoarse with their song of battle. It
came with a wild headlong rush, that recked nothing of the storm of
fire with which it was met. A dozen lifeless bodies piled themselves
before the staunch resistance. It made no difference. The avalanche
swept on, and over the human barricade, till it reached striking
distance for its crude native weapons.
Allan Mowbray saw each of his last three men go down in a welter of
blood. His pistols were empty and useless. There was a moment of wild
physical struggle. Then, the next, he was borne down under the rush,
and life was literally hacked out of him.