Huddled behind a rock which was scarcely larger than his body,
groveling in the white, soft sand like a turtle making a nest for its
eggs, Carrigan told himself this without any reservation. He was, as he
kept repeating to himself for the comfort of his soul, in a deuce of a
fix. His head was bare--simply because a bullet had taken his hat away.
His blond hair was filled with sand. His face was sweating. But his
blue eyes were alight with a grim sort of humor, though he knew that
unless the other fellow's ammunition ran out he was going to die.
For the twentieth time in as many minutes he looked about him. He was
in the center of a flat area of sand. Fifty feet from him the river
murmured gently over yellow bars and a carpet of pebbles. Fifty feet on
the opposite side of him was the cool, green wall of the forest. The
sunshine playing in it seemed like laughter to him now, a whimsical
sort of merriment roused by the sheer effrontery of the joke which fate
had inflicted upon him.
Between the river and the balsam and spruce was only the rock behind
which he was cringing like a rabbit afraid to take to the open. And his
rock was a mere up-jutting of the solid floor of shale that was under
him. The wash sand that covered it like a carpet was not more than four
or five inches deep. He could not dig in. There was not enough of it
within reach to scrape up as a protection. And his enemy, a hundred
yards or so away, was a determined wretch--and the deadliest shot he
had ever known.
Three times Carrigan had made experiments to prove this, for he had in
mind a sudden rush to the shelter of the timber. Three times he had
raised the crown of his hat slightly above the top of the rock, and
three times the marksmanship of the other had perforated it with
neatness and dispatch. The third bullet had carried his hat a dozen
feet away. Whenever he showed a patch of his clothing, a bullet replied
with unerring precision. Twice they had drawn blood. And the humor
faded out of Carrigan's eyes.
Not long ago he had exulted in the bigness and glory of this country of
his, where strong men met hand to hand and eye to eye. There were the
other kind in it, the sort that made his profession of manhunting a
thing of reality and danger, but he expected these--forgot them--when
the wilderness itself filled his vision. But his present situation was
something unlike anything that had ever happened in his previous
experience with the outlawed. He had faced dangers. He had fought.
There were times when he had almost died. Fanchet, the half-breed who
had robbed a dozen wilderness mail sledges, had come nearest to
trapping him and putting him out of business. Fanchet was a desperate
man and had few scruples. But even Fanchet--before he was caught--would
not have cornered a man with such bloodthirsty unfairness as Carrigan
found himself cornered now. He no longer had a doubt as to what was in
the other's mind. It was not to wound and make merely helpless. It was
to kill. It was not difficult to prove this. Careful not to expose a
part of his arm or shoulder, he drew a white handkerchief from his
pocket, fastened it to the end of his rifle, and held the flag of
surrender three feet above the rock. And then, with equal caution, he
slowly thrust up a flat piece of shale, which at a distance of a
hundred yards might appear as his shoulder or even his head. Scarcely
was it four inches above the top of the rock before there came the
report of a rifle, and the shale was splintered into a hundred bits.
Carrigan lowered his flag and gathered himself in tighter. The accuracy
of the other's marksmanship was appalling. He knew that if he exposed
himself for an instant to use his own rifle or the heavy automatic in
his holster, he would be a dead man before he could press a trigger.
And that time, he felt equally sure, would come sooner or later. His
muscles were growing cramped. He could not forever double himself up
like a four-bladed jackknife behind the altogether inefficient shelter
of the rock.
His executioner was hidden in the edge of the timber, not directly
opposite him, but nearly a hundred yards down stream. Twenty times he
had wondered why the fiend with the rifle did not creep up through that
timber and take a good, open pot-shot at him from the vantage point
which lay at the end of a straight line between his rock and the
nearest spruce and balsam. From that angle he could not completely
shelter himself. But the man a hundred yards below had not moved a foot
from his ambush since he had fired his first shot. That had come when
Carrigan was crossing the open space of soft, white sand. It had left a
burning sensation at his temple--half an inch to the right and it would
have killed him. Swift as the shot itself, he dropped behind the one
protection at hand, the up-jutting shoulder of shale.
For a quarter of an hour he had been making efforts to wriggle himself
free from his bulky shoulder-pack without exposing himself to a
coup-de-grace. At last he had the thing off. It was a tremendous relief
when he thrust it out beside the rock, almost doubling the size of his
shelter. Instantly there came the crash of a bullet in it, and then
another. He heard the rattle of pans, and wondered if his skillet would
be any good after today.
For the first time he could wipe the sweat from his face and stretch
himself. And also he could think. Carrigan possessed an unalterable
faith in the infallibility of the mind. "You can do anything with the
mind," was his code. "It is better than a good gun."
Now that he was physically more at ease, he began reassembling his
scattered mental faculties. Who was this stranger who was pot-shotting
at him with such deadly animosity from the ambush below? Who--
Another crash of lead in tinware and steel put an unpleasant emphasis
to the question. It was so close to his head that it made him wince,
and now--with a wide area within reach about him--he began scraping up
the sand for an added protection. There came a long silence after that
third clatter of distress from his cooking utensils. To David Carrigan,
even in his hour of deadly peril, there was something about it that for
an instant brought back the glow of humor in his eyes. It was hot,
swelteringly hot, in that packet of sand with the unclouded sun almost
straight overhead. He could have tossed a pebble to where a bright-eyed
sandpiper was cocking itself backward and forward, its jerky movements
accompanied by friendly little tittering noises. Everything about him
seemed friendly. The river rippled and murmured in cooling song just
beyond the sandpiper. On the other side the still cooler forest was a
paradise of shade and contentment, astir with subdued and hidden life.
It was nesting season. He heard the twitter of birds. A tiny, brown
wood warbler fluttered out to the end of a silvery birch limb, and it
seemed to David that its throat must surely burst with the burden of
its song. The little fellow's brown body, scarcely larger than a
butternut, was swelling up like a round ball in his effort to vanquish
all other song.
"Go to it, old man," chuckled Carrigan. "Go to it!"
The little warbler, that he might have crushed between thumb and
forefinger, gave him a lot of courage.
Then the tiny chorister stopped for breath. In that interval Carrigan
listened to the wrangling of two vivid-colored Canada jays deeper in
the timber. Chronic scolds they were, never without a grouch. They were
like some people Carrigan had known, born pessimists, always finding
something to complain about, even in their love days.
And these were love days. That was the odd thought that came to
Carrigan as he lay half on his face, his fingers slowly and cautiously
working a loophole between his shoulder-pack and the rock. They were
love days all up and down the big rivers, where men and women sang for
joy, and children played, forgetful of the long, hard days of winter.
And in forest, plain, and swamp was this spirit of love also triumphant
over the land. It was the mating season of all feathered things. In
countless nests were the peeps and twitters of new life; mothers of
first-born were teaching their children to swim and fly; from end to
end of the forest world the little children of the silent places,
furred and feathered, clawed and hoofed, were learning the ways of
life. Nature's yearly birthday was half-way gone, and the doors of
nature's school wide open. And the tiny brown songster at the end of
his birch twig proclaimed the joy of it again, and challenged all the
world to beat him in his adulation.
Carrigan found that he could peer between his pack and the rock to
where the other warbler was singing--and where his enemy lay watching
for the opportunity to kill. It was taking a chance. If a movement
betrayed his loophole, his minutes were numbered. But he had worked
cautiously, an inch at a time, and was confident that the beginning of
his effort to fight back was, up to the present moment, undiscovered.
He believed that he knew about where the ambushed man was concealed. In
the edge of a low-hanging mass of balsam was a fallen cedar. From
behind the butt of that cedar he was sure the shots had come.
And now, even more cautiously than he had made the tiny opening, he
began to work the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole. As he did
this he was thinking of Black Roger Audemard. And yet, almost as
quickly as suspicion leaped into his mind, he told himself that the
thing was impossible. It could not be Black Roger, or one of Black
Roger's friends, behind the cedar log. The idea was inconceivable, when
he considered how carefully the secret of his mission had been kept at
the Landing. He had not even said goodby to his best friends. And
because Black Roger had won through all the preceding years, Carrigan
was stalking his prey out of uniform. There had been nothing to betray
him. Besides, Black Roger Audemard must be at least a thousand miles
north, unless something had tempted him to come up the rivers with the
spring brigades. If he used logic at all, there was but one conclusion
for him to arrive at. The man in ambush was some rascally half-breed
who coveted his outfit and whatever valuables he might have about his
person.
A fourth smashing eruption among his comestibles and culinary
possessions came to drive home the fact that even that analysis of the
situation was absurd. Whoever was behind the rifle fire had small
respect for the contents of his pack, and he was surely not in grievous
need of a good gun or ammunition. A sticky mess of condensed cream was
running over Carrigan's hand. He doubted if there was a whole tin in
his kit.
For a few moments he lay quietly on his face after the fourth shot. His
eyes were turned toward the river, and on the far side, a quarter of a
mile away, three canoes were moving swiftly up the slow current of the
stream. The sunlight flashed on their wet sides. The gleam of dripping
paddles was like the flutter of silvery birds' wings, and across the
water came an unintelligible shout in response to the rifle shot. It
occurred to David that he might make a trumpet of his hands and shout
back, but the distance was too great for his voice to carry its message
for help. Besides, now that he had the added protection of the pack, he
felt a certain sense of humiliation at the thought of showing the white
feather. A few minutes more, if all went well, and he would settle for
the man behind the log.
He continued again the slow operation of worming his rifle barrel
between the pack and the rock. The near-sighted little sandpiper had
discovered him and seemed interested in the operation. It had come a
dozen feet nearer, and was perking its head and seesawing on its long
legs as it watched with inquisitive inspection the unusual
manifestation of life behind the rock. Its twittering note had changed
to an occasional sharp and querulous cry. Carrigan wanted to wring its
neck. That cry told the other fellow that he was still alive and moving.
It seemed an age before his rifle was through, and every moment he
expected another shot. He flattened himself out, Indian fashion, and
sighted along the barrel. He was positive that his enemy was watching,
yet he could make out nothing that looked like a head anywhere along
the log. At one end was a clump of deeper foliage. He was sure he saw a
sudden slight movement there, and in the thrill of the moment was
tempted to send a bullet into the heart of it. But he saved his
cartridge. He felt the mighty importance of certainty. If he fired
once--and missed--the advantage of his unsuspected loophole would be
gone. It would be transformed into a deadly menace. Even as it was, if
his enemy's next bullet should enter that way--
He felt the discomfort of the thought, and in spite of himself a tremor
of apprehension ran up his spine. He felt an even greater desire to
wring the neck of the inquisitive little sandpiper. The creature had
circled round squarely in front of him and stood there tilting its tail
and bobbing its head as if its one insane desire was to look down the
length of his rifle barrel. The bird was giving him away. If the other
fellow was only half as clever as his marksmanship was good--
Suddenly every nerve in Carrigan's body tightened. He was positive that
he had caught the outline of a human head and shoulders in the foliage.
His finger pressed gently against the trigger of his Winchester. Before
he breathed again he would have fired. But a shot from the foliage beat
him out by the fraction of a second. In that precious time lost, his
enemy's bullet entered the edge of his kit--and came through. He felt
the shock of it, and in the infinitesimal space between the physical
impact and the mental effect of shock his brain told him the horrible
thing had happened. It was his head--his face. It was as if he had
plunged them suddenly into hot water, and what was left of his skull
was filled with the rushing and roaring of a flood. He staggered up,
clutching his face with both hands. The world about him was twisted and
black, a dizzily revolving thing--yet his still fighting mental vision
pictured clearly for him a monstrous, bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as
a house. Then he toppled back on the white sand, his arms flung out
limply, his face turned to the ambush wherein his murderer lay.
His body was clear of the rock and the pack, but there came no other
shot from the thick clump of balsam. Nor, for a time, was there
movement. The wood warbler was cheeping inquiringly at this sudden
change in the deportment of his friend behind the shoulder of shale.
The sandpiper, a bit startled, had gone back to the edge of the river
and was running a race with himself along the wet sand. And the two
quarrelsome jays had brought their family squabble to the edge of the
timber.
It was their wrangling that roused Carrigan to the fact that he was not
dead. It was a thrilling discovery--that and the fact that he made out
clearly a patch of sunlight in the sand. He did not move, but opened
his eyes wider. He could see the timber. On a straight line with his
vision was the thick clump of balsam. And as he looked, the boughs
parted and a figure came out. Carrigan drew a deep breath. He found
that it did not hurt him. He gripped the fingers of the hand that was
under his body, and they closed on the butt of his service automatic.
He would win yet, if God gave him life a few minutes longer.
His enemy advanced. As he drew nearer, Carrigan closed his eyes more
and more. They must be shut, and he must appear as if dead, when the
other came up. Then, when the scoundrel put down his gun, as he
naturally would--his chance would be at hand. If a quiver of his eyes
betrayed him--
He closed them tight. Dizziness began to creep over him, and the fire
in his brain grew hot again. He heard footsteps, and they stopped in
the sand close beside him. Then he heard a human voice. It did not
speak in words, but gave utterance to a strange and unnatural cry. With
a mighty effort Carrigan assembled his last strength. It seemed to him
that he brought himself up quickly, but his movement was slow,
painful--the effort of a man who might be dying. The automatic hung
limply in his hand, its muzzle pointing to the sand. He looked up,
trying to swing into action that mighty weight of his weapon. And then
from his own lips, even in his utter physical impotence, fell a cry of
wonder and amazement.
His enemy stood there in the sunlight, staring down at him with big,
dark eyes that were filled with horror. They were not the eyes of a
man. David Carrigan, in this most astounding moment of his life, found
himself looking up into the face of a woman.