THE FIGHT IN THE SNOW
Young Dan Evans slanted across the white field, heading for the highroad
which led smoothly into the little town of Harlow. His journey was
within a half-mile of its completion. He had worked hard ever since
leaving Bean’s Mill, through thick timber and untracked snow; and now he
was tired and hungry but in fine spirits. He had thought much of Andy
Mace and Pete Sabatis during the journey—of their admiration for one
another’s qualities of physical and spiritual fiber—and believed that
they would soon take him as seriously as they now considered each other.
Of course Andy was his firm friend and already thought highly of his
“smartness” along certain lines—but he feared that he had not yet made a
very deep impression on the one-eyed Indian. He suspected that Pete
Sabatis considered him a trifle too big for his cap and boots. He had
seen something of the kind in the old man’s one eye that very morning.
“I guess he thinks I’m just a cub playing at something and trying to
fool folks into thinking I’m a smart man,” he reflected. “But when I
have that big Luke Watt jumping to my say-so, and that thieving drunkard
Jim Conley come to heel like a trained partridge-dog, and Mrs. Conley
and the kids fed and looked after properly, I guess he will have to
admit that I know what I’m doing.”
Thus engaged with his thoughts, he drew near to an extensive grove of
swamp-birches and alders which grew along the snow-drifted fence like a
screen between the field and the highroad. He carried his blankets and
pack of furs on his back, his axe on his right shoulder and his cased
rifle hung by its sling on his left shoulder.
He was close to the edge of the tangle of birches and alders, and about
midway of its length, when a bulky figure in a coonskin coat arose from
the snow and stepped out in front of him.
Young Dan Evans did so many things all at once then that it is difficult
to disentangle and describe his actions. Mind and body worked quick as
thought—quicker, perhaps, for he was scarcely conscious of thinking. As
he recognized Luke Watt in the very instant of seeing him he let
everything he carried slip and fall from him into the snow in one
shrugging motion—pack and rifle and axe—and jumped forward straight and
hard. Even as he jumped, he saw Luke Watt draw something from a
side-pocket of the fur coat—but he did not flinch from the mark. He
struck Watt with his whole body all at once. His knees dug into the big
man’s middle and his left arm went around the fur-clad thick neck; and
as they fell he heard the revolver explode twice and felt the jolt of
the gloved hand that held it against his ribs; and he drew up his left
knee and stamped a wide snowshoe on Watt’s right arm, and struck the big
face with his right fist. Thus they sank into the drift, with Luke Watt
underneath and flat on his back. Young Dan trod the hand that held the
revolver deep into the snow; and he struck the vanishing face again and
again, though the snow muffled the blows of his mittened fist; and, all
the while, his right knee crushed and pounded.
Luke Watt struggled—but what was the use! He was breathless, helpless,
bound and half smothered by the snow. All this violence had occurred so
swiftly that he could not fully realize exactly what had happened. He
had confronted the young trapper with his gun ready and the game in his
hand; and now, a few seconds later, his mouth was choked with snow, his
eyes were blinded, his arms and weapon were powerless and he was being
beaten to death!
Young Dan shook the mitten from his left hand and thrust his bare hand
deep into the snow. In a moment he stood up and stepped backward a pace
or two, with Luke Watt’s revolver in his grasp. He looked about him and
saw a stooped figure on the road walking hastily townward. He turned
again to his enemy, who was sitting up by this time and struggling
painfully for breath. He flung the revolver far away and recovered his
axe, pack and rifle.
“How’re you feeling now?” he asked.
Mr. Watt gulped a mouthful of air but made no attempt to answer. He did
not even open his eyes. He paid no attention to the other’s departure.
Young Dan found the hotel without difficulty and entered the office
fully equipped.
“Will you kindly tell me the way to the nearest sheriff?” he asked of
the man at the desk.
“The nearest sheriff?” repeated the hotel-keeper. “Do I get you, young
feller? Ye’re askin’ the way to the nearest sheriff?”
There were four other men in that dreary little office of varnished
brown woodwork, mangey mooseheads and crockery cuspidors. These all
stared curiously at the young trapper and shifted their positions in
their chairs. The hotel-keeper leaned far over his little counter.
“D’ye want to give yerself up?” he added, with a rude attempt at wit.
“I have asked you a simple and civil question,” said Young Dan in his
quietest voice. “If you don’t understand simple questions here and don’t
answer civil ones, then I’ll ask somewhere else. What about it?”
The hotel-keeper and his chaired patrons exchanged glances.
“Sure, sure,” said the former, hurriedly. “We ain’t got a sheriff in
this town, but we got a fust-class depity-sheriff by the name of Archie
Wallace. Maybe ye’ve heared of him; an’ maybe he kin do yer business for
yer as well as the full-blowed high sheriff of the county. What was it
you said you wanted to see him about?”
“I didn’t say,” replied Young Dan, with a disarming smile. “Thank you
very much for the information; and now if you’ll tell me where I can
find Mr. Wallace I’ll step along and stop troubling you.”
The hotel-keeper reached for his coat, which hung on a hook behind him.
“No trouble at all,” he said. “Glad to oblige. I’ll step along an’ show
you his very door. I always aim to help strangers all I know how.”
“Ye hadn’t ought to leave yer seegar-stand in the rush hour, Dave,” said
one of the patrons, getting quickly out of his chair. “I’ll take the
young man to Archie Wallace. It’s fair on my way home.”
The hotel-keeper paid no attention to this offer but donned coat and cap
and issued from behind the counter and dusty cigar-stand.
“Follow me, stranger,” he invited, leading the way out. “Me and the
depity-sheriff are old friends. I’ll make you known to him.”
So Young Dan followed the hotel-keeper, and three of the four patrons
followed close upon the heels of Young Dan. The deputy-sheriff’s house
was not more than fifty yards from the hotel; and the young trapper
smiled politely and said nothing all the way to it. The hotel-keeper
rang the bell and took up a position on the top step in front of Young
Dan.
The door was opened by a tall, lean man who looked like a woodsman and
wore a Cardigan jacket and grey homespun trousers tucked into
high-legged larrigans of oil-tanned leather.
“Here’s a young feller lookin’ for you on important business, Archie,”
said the hotel-keeper. “It is so all-fired important that I brought him
right along to you myself, so there wouldn’t be no possible mistake.”
The deputy-sheriff looked at Young Dan Evans with calm inquiry.
“It is private business,” explained Young Dan, smiling; “and these
gentlemen don’t know any more about it or me than I do about them. I
never so much as set eyes on any one of them in my life until five
minutes ago. What I have to say is for your private hearing, if you are
really an officer of the law.”
“Step in,” said the tall man to Young Dan; and to the others he said
drily, “Thanks, boys, for escortin’ the young stranger to the right
place.” Then he closed the door in the hotel-keeper’s face. He led the
way into a small room opening off the narrow hall—an untidy, stale
cigar-scented room poorly illumined by an oil lamp with a green paper
shade.
“Dump your outfit in the corner and sit down,” he invited.
Young Dan obeyed and removed his cap and mitts and outer coat. The
deputy-sheriff sat down in his own arm-chair beside the untidy table and
removed the shade from the lamp so that the light reached his visitor’s
face. For several seconds he gazed keenly but pleasantly at Young Dan.
“I’ve seen you before, somewheres or other,” he said. “Seems to me I
have known you pretty well, sometime or other. Who are you an’ where
from?”
Young Dan answered the questions briefly but clearly.
“You remind me of someone I know well,” said Mr. Wallace. “But it isn’t
yerself, for I never saw nor heard of you before. A full-grown man—and a
smart one. You speak like him—whoever he is.”
“Bill Tangler, maybe? You’d know him, I guess. He’s my uncle.”
“Bill Tangler it is! Your uncle, hey? Well, son, you’ve got a smart
uncle. More than that, he’s able; an’ better still, he’s white. If Bill
Tangler’s your uncle we don’t need any more introduction—so fire away.”
Young Dan told briefly of his partnership with old Andy Mace, and
produced from an inner pocket the letter from his uncle containing the
suggestion of the venture and the partnership and the offer of camp and
outfit. Archie Wallace chuckled over the letter. Then the trapper told
of his encounters with Jim Conley, of the rebaited trap, and of the
night Conley went off his course in the woods with a cargo of gin inside
and out. He produced and exhibited the piece of paper upon which Mr.
Luke Watt had figured out Jim Conley’s bill. The deputy-sheriff studied
that exhibit very intently and slapped his hand on his thigh.
“You’re a winner, Dan Evans!” he exclaimed. “Have a cigar.”
Young Dan shook his head to the cigar and told his adventures of the
day, up to the very minute of telling. He raised his short coat of
wool-lined blanketing from the floor and held it up to the other’s view.
“And here I am; and here’s where Luke Watt burnt two holes in my jacket
with his revolver,” he concluded.
Archie Wallace examined the holes in the coat without a word. Then he
lit a fresh cigar from the butt of an old one, returned the green shade
to the lamp and sat well back in his chair. He gazed at the lamp-shade
in meditative silence. His manner impressed Young Dan. Suddenly he
turned his glance upon his visitor and asked abruptly, “Can you cook?”
The nature of the question was so unexpected that Young Dan was far too
astonished to reply. He blushed and stared, wondering if he was being
made fun of.
“Can you cook?” repeated the deputy-sheriff.
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll oblige me by goin’ to the kitchen and gettin’ supper for
the two of us,” said the official. “Here are matches, and you’ll find a
lamp on the table. The kettle’s b’ilin’, the coffee-pot an’ fryin’ pan
are on the back of the stove, and there’s ham and eggs all ready set out
on the dresser. I’m a bum cook myself. There’s an old hound somewheres
in the house who is the only person besides myself who can stomach my
cookery. He won’t bite you if you treat him friendly. While you’re
gettin’ supper I’ll sit right here an’ study over what you told me. It
needs some study.”
So Young Dan started for the kitchen. In the narrow hall he met the old
hound, which seemed delighted with him and followed eagerly into the
kitchen. It was an extraordinary kitchen. All the dishes were jumbled up
on the table, and not one of them was clean. But the fire of dry
hardwood was burning clear in the stove and both pot and kettle were
full and boiling. He went briskly to work; and in half an hour all the
dishes were washed, the table was laid and supper was ready.
The deputy-sheriff swallowed his first cup of coffee in silence. Then he
said, “Jim Conley’s a trap-thief all right, all right—but you can’t
prove it on him. He’s a liar I reckon, and I know darned well you ain’t
a liar—but his word about that trap and whatever he took from it is as
good as yours to the Law. So I can’t round him up—but I can scare all
the blood and gin in his nose back to his rotten heart.”
“I guess that’ll be all he will need,” replied Young Dan.
Mr. Wallace nodded and devoured ham and eggs for five minutes or so with
undivided attention.
“As for Luke Watt—well, that feller is nigh as strong as he is
slippery,” he said, pouring more coffee. “He’s so danged crooked that he
had ought to’ve been thrown away with all the corkscrews when the
country went dry. Or he’d ought to of moved over into Quebec. He is
strong, too—but I reckon we got the goods on him all right, all right.
Do you think you could find that revolver of his you threw away?—or do
you reckon he’s maybe picked it up himself?”
“I guess I could find it; and I don’t think he has picked it up because
his eyes were shut and full of snow when I threw it away,” replied Young
Dan. “I was mad, you know, what with his shooting at me and everything;
and it was only the deep snow and my mitts that saved him from getting a
sight worse than he got.”
“Do you want to arrest him for assault with intent to kill, an’ for
sellin’ gin; or do you want to run him out of the country on a pair of
cold feet?” asked the deputy-sheriff. “Take your choice, Dan.”
“Neither,” said the youth. “Neither, if we can scare him enough to
handle him the way I want to. If we can scare him into keeping the law
and doing something for Jim Conley’s wife and kids, I’ll be satisfied.”
“But we got him cold,” said the other. “You’ve done a smart piece of
work, Dan Evans. You’ve caught Luke just how I’ve been tryin’ to catch
him this six months back. But what’s your idee? What’s this about
wantin’ that fat lubber to do something for Conley’s wife an’ kids?”
“They need help. Jim Conley’s no good. The way I figger it is, Luke Watt
cheated Conley on the price of that skin. Whatever the skin was, patch
or black, we know Conley didn’t get even as much as a third of the right
price. And if we can’t prove that the skin belonged to Andy Mace and me,
then it was Conley’s rightful property, in the law. So if we can shoot a
real scare into Luke Watt—a regular death-cold fright—then we can make
him hand over the rest of the price of that skin, in groceries and boots
and clothing, to Jim Conley’s family. I’ll pick out the goods—enough to
last them till well on in the spring; and Watt’ll have to pay to have
them packed in to Conley’s camp. That’s my idea.”
The deputy-sheriff drank more coffee, scratched his chin and relit the
half-smoked cigar.
“You’re a philanthropist, Dan Evans,” he said. “You’re like your uncle
Bill Tangler in that.”
Young Dan let that pass with a noncommittal smile, for the word was one
which he had somehow overlooked in his explorations into literature. But
he felt that it was nothing to be ashamed of if the same could be said
of his uncle Bill Tangler.
“And maybe you’re right,” continued Mr. Wallace. “You know the situation
and I don’t, so it’s for you to say. As for the scare—if we find that
revolver we can scare Watt into totin’ a year’s supply of grub all the
way in to the Right Prong of Oxbow on his own fat back. And I reckon
he’ll keep the law after we’ve had a chat with him, for he ain’t a fool.
He’d sooner keep it along with his freedom than behind stone walls and
iron bars, you can betcher hat on that. But there are other sides to the
question to be considered. There’s no sense in jumpin’ before we look
all round for the dryest place to land. So far you’ve considered nothin’
but Jim Conley’s family’s need of grub and clothes. Well, that’s all
right in its way, and as far as it goes—but it will sure encourage Jim
Conley to sit at home all day and eat his head off. If he can’t drink
he’ll eat. A feller like him has just got to be doin’ something with his
mouth all the time; and I reckon he ain’t got brains enough to do much
talkin’. If feedin’ his wife and children will make a good citizen out
of him, then you’re dead right. But what about Luke Watt? We can scare
him into keeping the law as far as bootleggin’ gin is concerned, but we
can’t stop him cheatin’ in his trade every chance he gets. We couldn’t
make a good citizen of him in a hundred years. And that ain’t all. Not
by a long shot! Suppose I nab him in my official capacity, with his
number right in my pocket? What’ll folks say about Deputy-Sheriff Archie
Wallace then, d’ye think? They’ll say that Deputy-Sheriff Archie Wallace
is an all-fired smart, able, slick and deserving officer! Yes, Dan
Evans, it will sure mean feathers a foot high in my hat. And what will
be said about the young trapper from ’way back in the woods who did the
brain-work and took the risk? They’ll say you’re the best detective
outside the covers of a book they ever heard tell of. You’ll be a big
man with your name in the newspapers—and I’ll be the next high sheriff
of this county. That’s _my_ idea.”
“And it is a good idea,” replied Young Dan, reflectively. “It sounds
mighty good to me, of course. I’d like fine to see my name in the papers
as a detective, but I wasn’t figgering on anything like that. I want to
see that woman and her children decently fed. I don’t like her much,
mind you—but she’s sure a courageous mother, and I pity her, and so
would you if you knew Jim Conley. If we could scare him into earning a
living for his family, then I’d certainly like your idea better’n mine.”
“But you ain’t reckonin’ on makin’ Luke Watt support Conley’s wife and
kids all the rest of their lives, surely?” returned Mr. Wallace. “That
would be goin’ a mite too far with it. He’d sooner go to jail than do
that, I wouldn’t wonder. No, that won’t do! You got to make Conley get
to work. Philanthropy’s a fine thing, but justice is a fine thing, too.”
“You’re right, Mr. Wallace—and you are the deputy-sheriff. I guess
whatever you say goes. All I want to do is scare Jim Conley off of our
trap-lines, and help his family, and smash that hound, Luke Watt.”
“Then we’d best sleep on it, an’ have a look for that revolver first
thing in the morning,” said the other. “Maybe we’ll hit on a way of
reconciling your hunger for philanthropy with my thirst for fame and
promotion.”
“They sound as if they’d ought to pull all right in double-harness,”
remarked the youth, with that smile which reminded the deputy-sheriff of
Bill Tangler.
The deputy-sheriff wakened his guest at the first peep of day; and after
breakfast they set out in a red pung behind a long-gaited
three-year-old. Young Dan left his skins locked securely away in one of
Mr. Wallace’s closets, with the understanding that Wallace would ship
them to an honest fur-dealer immediately upon his return from the
present expedition. This arrangement would be sure to prove advantageous
to Young Dan and his partner, for Archie Wallace, as deputy-sheriff of
the county, would obtain a higher price for the furs than a private
trapper could possibly make any buyer consider reasonable. They stopped
near the scene of the trapper’s swift and violent encounter with the
storekeeper from Bean’s Mill, slipped on their snowshoes and entered the
slanting field. Mr. Wallace regarded the deep marks of the struggle with
chuckles of satisfaction. Then Young Dan led him about thirty yards away
to a very small cut in the snow and dug up Luke Watt’s revolver. He
handed the weapon to Wallace, who wiped it off, tied it up carefully in
his handkerchief and stowed it away in his pocket.
[Illustration]