His mind went back to the laughing eyes of the girl that had spoken to
him from the cover of the bushes beside the trail.
Overhead the night-hawks whistled and swooped down with whirring wings
above the tree-tops. The damp scent of low mist-filled hollows came to
him on the motionless air, mingled with the cool fresh fragrance of the
spruce. Little waves of warm air rose from the trail that had lain all
day under a burning sky. The occasional call of a distant coyote whined
across the plains, and returned in numberless echoes till it broke and
died into silence.
Suddenly Sal stopped in the trail and stood looking back, her head up,
her ears pricked forward, her tail brushing from side to side. King
reined his horse in to a walk and listened. He could hear the rhythmic
beat of hoofs on the trail some distance behind him. From the sound
they made he knew the rider was coming fast. Curiosity overcame him, and
he turned about and waited at a point in the trail from which he could
look from cover across a deep hollow to where the trail was visible
winding along near the base of the hill. He had been waiting only a few
moments when the horse and rider came into view. The light had almost
gone by now, but there was still enough left of the long northern summer
twilight to make it possible for him to follow the dimly-outlined
figures of horse and rider until they suddenly vanished where the trail
ran hidden through a stretch of evergreens. When they emerged they were
only a few yards away and in full sight. The rider was none other than
the girl whose image he had kept before him in the failing twilight.
His first impulse was to turn his horse's head across the trail--he
could not believe that the girl he had seen that afternoon was actually
in control of the animal she rode. But not more than a dozen paces away
the horse planted his feet before him suddenly, stopped with a jerk, and
rose on his hind legs. Then with front feet still in the air he pivoted
round and bolted away in the opposite direction. King was amazed to see
the girl keep her seat, but his amazement increased when, just before
reaching the turn, the horse stopped suddenly as he had done before, and
wheeling about came up the trail towards him again at the same wild
pace. King stood aside this time and caught a glimpse of the girl's
face as she shot past him. The expression he saw there was enough to
dispel any fears that he might have entertained for her safety. A few
yards down the trail the horse turned again, and he saw the girl strike
him across the nose with her quirt.
Then for fully ten minutes he watched a battle royal between a slender
girl and a horse whose spirit had never been broken. He had seen men
breaking horses to the saddle, and he had thrilled to the excitement of
it. But this fight was different. The girl who held her seat in the
battle that was being fought out before him did her work fearlessly,
firmly, and without speaking a word, and King took off his hat and sat
watching in silence.
Back and forth they went on the trail, the horse leaping and rearing at
the turns, the girl wearing him down gradually with sharp strokes of her
quirt across the nose. The horse shook his head at every stroke and
came back after each turn with as much apparent determination as ever.
The girl kept her place without a smile, her eyes steadily before her,
intent on every move.
The end came suddenly. A quick stroke caught the animal just as his
front feet were about to leave the ground, and he stood quivering in
every limb, champing his bit and shaking his head in an effort to
slacken the bridle rein that the girl held firmly in her hand. Then as
he stood, trembling and subdued, the girl spoke for the first time, and
turning him slowly round brought him down the trail at a walk.
King wanted to cry out in admiration of the superb manner in which the
girl had conducted herself in the struggle, but when she came to where
he stood she brought her horse to a standstill and turned to him with a
smile--and King was dumb.
Women had never been a concern of King Howden's. He had never been able
to quite understand their ways, and he had come to the conclusion that
if success in life depended upon a man's ability to succeed with
women--and he had known many who had advanced such a theory in all
seriousness---then nothing in the world was more inevitable than that he
should fail, and fail miserably, sooner or later. He had avoided women
generally, and for years had deliberately sought for conditions of
living in which he could reasonably hope for a chance to make good
without them.
But here was a woman no man could avoid. In one slow glance again he
noted the lightning that played in her dark eyes; he caught the wild
witchery of her tumbled hair and the beauty of her cheeks, flushed from
the excitement of the fight she had just won, and he lost himself in
contemplation of the smile that lent an indescribable sweetness to her
firm mouth. She was dressed plainly--even roughly--in a waist that
revealed the soft whiteness of her neck and throat and the firm round
curve of her shoulders and breast, and in a skirt that clung closely to
her limbs. But of these things King Howden was only vaguely conscious.
He could not take his eyes from her face, with its strange contradiction
of flashing eyes and gently smiling mouth.
The girl was the first to speak.
"You must have been riding hard," she said. "I thought I'd never catch
up with you."
"Catch up?" King thought to himself, and was at a loss to understand.
"Come on," she said quickly, and before he was able to reply, "I'm going
to ride a little way with you."
She drew her rein back, pulled her horse about, touched him lightly on
the flank with her quirt, and was off at an easy canter along the trail,
leaving King to follow or not as he pleased. With a slow smile of
recognition of the somewhat anomalous position he was in, he turned into
the trail and rode after her.
When he came up with her he drew his horse in a little and together they
rode for the next half hour through little valleys and over gently
rounding hills dimly outlined in the failing twilight.
Here and there a rabbit started up in the trail before them and ran its
foolish frightened race ahead of them until the dog came and put it to
cover in the low underbrush beside the roadway. Occasionally a partridge
or a prairie chicken got up suddenly from its dust bath in the middle of
the trail and hurried off with much clucking and beating of the wings.
Once a coyote stood with pricked ears before them on the trail until the
sight of Sal sent him off with a lazy, half defiant lope to a little
knoll, where he perched himself and waited while they rode past. They
caught the delicate aroma of dew on the grass, and brushed a warm
fragrance from the foliage as they swept close to where the trees leaned
a little over the trail. Frequently they splashed through little
hurrying streams where the cold water ran only a few inches deep, or
rode through low meadows where the mist lay like white shrouds and
settled lightly above the long grass that carpeted the hollows. And
behind them the sky had deepened to a blood-red hue with long ribbons of
pale gold stretching along the horizon already far to the north of where
the sun had gone down.
They had rounded the brow of a hill and had come out of cover to a point
in the trail where it afforded them a wide outlook across a meadowy
valley. The girl brought her horse to a stand and King reined in beside
her.
"I like this," she said, waving her hand toward the valley.
King looked at her, but she had not so much as turned her head towards
him. For the first time he was able to look at her without
embarrassment. He was no artist to analyze the fine points of symmetry
in face and figure. But he was a man--and the man in him told him that
she was beautiful. What he liked best about her was the strength of her
beauty. He knew at a glance that she was not of the delicate, clinging
kind that practise a languid air and never forget their sex. Here was a
girl whose heart-beat was strong with the confidence and the reliance
she had learned to place in herself--and every line of her face, every
movement of her body, bore evidence to the fact. And yet, as she sat
and looked out over the valley half hidden under the mists, there was a
soft warmth in her dark eyes that made her presence luminous. For King
the girl who sat before him embodied in tangible form, it seemed, all he
had ever aspired to, all he had ever even vaguely dreamed of.
Her voice, when she spoke, was not the voice of reproach that she had
used earlier in the afternoon. Now it was soft, quiet, even deep.
"I like it, too," he said, in response to her simple expression of
admiration for what lay before them. "But you haven't come all this way
for that"--he waved his hand gently in the direction of the valley.
She turned to him quickly. "No--I have seen it before--though I don't
remember when it was ever so beautiful."
"Nor I," thought King, though he kept his thoughts to himself.
"What is your name?" she asked suddenly and with a directness that
brought a smile to King's face.
He told her.
"And I am Cherry McBain--my father is Keith McBain--'Old Silent,' the
men call him," she replied. "I came to tell you that I need your
help--not for me--for my father."
King looked at her strangely. "But a man," he said slowly, "a man who
takes a dare--"
"Don't be silly!" she broke in suddenly. "I only half believed that."
"Don't you think that's bad enough?" replied King.
"Can you fight?" asked the girl abruptly, disregarding his reply.
The smile that had rested upon King's face during the conversation
vanished all at once before the old grave look that was habitual with
him. He did not answer at once--he turned the question over and over
again in his mind.
"Cherry McBain," he said at last, "I'm not used to women--and women's
ways." His eyes were looking off across the valley when he spoke, and
his voice was like that of a man speaking to himself. "I've known some
women--a few--but no woman ever asked me if I could fight--only
once--but she was a foolish woman--she wasn't good. No good woman ever
asked me that before."
He turned his face towards her slowly and looked at her with searching
eyes.
"But you," he said hesitatingly, "you're good, Cherry McBain."
He was silent as he looked at her now, and his lips tightened before he
spoke again. "Years ago," he said at last, "I fought, and the man I
struck--we were boys then--was a brother. I was not myself--I struck him
in anger. When I understood what I had done I left him--left my home
and all--and came west. That was ten years ago. I wrote him a letter
and he asked me to come back. He said he had forgotten--but I--I could
never go back."
"Do you think that's silly too?"
She shook her head.
"I have not hit any man since that day," he said with emphasis. "I can
fight--I would fight--quicker for a good woman than anything else."
Cherry McBain held out her hand to him. "I needn't have asked you
that," she said. "I didn't know. But promise me that you will come and
see my father when you are on your way back--old Gabe has told me you
are carrying the mail for the settlement."
King pressed her hand gently.
"I guess I'll come," he said.
A smile brightened the girl's face.
"Come," she said. "We'll have raspberries for tea."
"If it rains wildcats," he declared as he released her hand.
"To-morrow afternoon, then," she said, and the next moment she was gone.
King stood and watched her, hat in hand, until she had vanished from his
sight. When the beat of the hoofs on the hard trail was no longer
audible he shook his horse's bridle gently and resumed his way.
King did not cease to think of his brother when the last sound of
hoof-beats had died in the distance. His conversation with Cherry
McBain had started in his mind a train of thought that he could not
control.
As long as King could remember, his best friend in all the world, the
one he had loved the most--even during that one mad regrettable moment
of passion--was his younger brother, Dick. As boys at home in eastern
Canada, Dick had always been the lucky one--King's pranks had always
been discovered. In the ten long years that had elapsed since King had
struck west in shame and humiliation, it was the thought of having left
Dick that weighed most heavily upon him. It was the memory of Dick's
laughing face that had made his heart burn with remorse whenever he
remembered how weak, how foolish he had been. During those ten years his
heart had quailed before one fear only--the fear that something might
happen to Dick before he could see him again.
And now as he rode alone over the trail that was all but hidden in the
heavy dusk, this fear had gripped his heart so fiercely that he was
helpless to shake himself free. A nameless dread, a pressing sadness
brooded over him. He was seized with a sense of utter loneliness.
Some will say that there is no such thing as presentiment. But when
King Howden reached the end-of-the-steel that night and found among the
mail a letter for himself announcing the death of his brother, Dick
Howden, he was convinced, whether reasonably or not, that voices had
spoken to him out of the silence--had been speaking to him, indeed, for
years, if he had only heard and tried to understand.
King knew no rest that night. Early in the morning he left the
bunkhouse where he had been lying during the night and went out into the
open where the light of another day was growing in an eastern sky all
rose and gold. He found a path leading into the woods and followed it
for some distance among the trees to a spot where it led across a little
stream. Here he sat down and for a long time looked at the water and
the trees and the changing colors of the sky.
When the red sun pushed its way at last above the tree-tops, there came
the sound of men stirring in the camp, and the distant sharp rattle of
the wheels of a wagon bumping along over a rough trail. A new day had
begun--a day when strong men would go out to work, singing and bantering
as they went.
King got up from his place beside the stream and stood with his face to
the east. Slowly he lifted his right hand and closed his fingers. Then
he laid his left hand over it.
In the east the day was springing.
In his heart there was a prayer--a prayer such as big men speak when
they have seen the wrong they have done. And who shall say that the
prayer was not heard?
In his face there was a resolve--a resolve that expressed itself in the
tightening of the fingers that closed over his right hand. And who
shall say that the resolve was not recorded?
*CHAPTER THREE*
In a country where women are seldom seen, the presence of a pretty girl
of twenty-one is a matter worthy of record--even if she is the daughter
of a railway construction boss. For Keith McBain, reticent, profane to
a frankly amazing degree on those rare occasions when he did speak to
his men, was a seasoned old man of his class. Silent and
unapproachable--as is the manner of camp bosses--Keith McBain seemed at
times the least human of them all. "Old Silent" the men called him,
partly on account of an instinctive grudge they all bore him for his
mode of hard dealing, and partly, too, on account of a kind of
unreasoned affection which they cherished for him because of his
rough-handed honesty and his indomitable will. When Old Silent spoke no
man spoke back. Not that he was a man to fear physically--he was a
small, dyspeptic, nervous man whom anyone of his deep-chested
camp-followers could have brushed aside with one hand. It was rather
the man's face that they feared, with its black piercing eyes that never
shifted their glance when he spoke, and its black sardonic smile that
made an impenetrable mask for a soul that no man had ever seen revealed.
His men all feared him--some of them hated him--and yet they never left
him, once their names had been placed on the pay-roll.
Once only in the memory of those who worked for him had the hope ever
arisen that the old contractor's manner might soften and his hard face
relax in the presence of the men. Just a year ago, nearly a hundred
miles back along the line, Keith McBain had lost his wife after a long
illness. She had lingered for weeks in a pathetic fight for life, and
the old camp boss had watched by her bedside almost continuously,
leaving the oversight of the work wholly in the hands of his foremen.
Never had a gang of men worked so hard as those men had worked day after
day while Old Silent was absent from his place, not only out of
deference to the frail woman who was struggling gamely against too great
odds, but out of sheer respect for their old boss whose burden of sorrow
was daily growing heavier. And when at last the word came that the
struggle was over, the men had sat about very late into the night and
had spoken in whispers. Keith McBain had made the grave with his own
hands, just off the right-of-way, and had marked the spot with a pile of
stones and a rough-hewn cross. Then in the days that followed he had
been more silent than ever, more unremitting in his dealing with the
men, and, if possible, more profane. And yet every last one of his men
could not help knowing that Keith McBain's heart was breaking. His
light had burned late into the night--and every night--for months
following the day that had brought him his great sorrow.
Cherry McBain had come unannounced into the camp. In fact the men had
not known of her existence until she rode into camp one afternoon a
couple of weeks before the death of Mrs. McBain. Only a few of the more
fortunate among them had had a glimpse of her as she came up the trail
escorted by McBain's timekeeper, who had gone out to meet her and bring
her to the camp. But the few that had seen her knew at once that she was
the daughter of the woman who was dying in Keith McBain's cabin--so
striking was the resemblance between mother and daughter.
During the days that immediately followed her arrival Cherry was never
seen abroad except late in the evenings when she walked out with her
father and came back with her arms laden with wild flowers and fern.
But when Keith McBain turned again to resume his duties after the
darkest episode of his life had been closed, Cherry McBain wandered
alone along the new grade or saddled her horse and explored the trails
wherever they led in both directions from the camp.
Men who work a whole season in the woods or on a right-of-way, and at
the end of the season fling their total earnings away in one hilarious
week or two in the nearest city, are likely to classify women roughly
and perhaps quickly, even if for ten months out of every twelve they
never hear the sound of a woman's voice. They may sometimes make errors
in their classifications, but not often. The first morning that Cherry
McBain strolled along the edge of the works and paused here and there to
watch the men as they swung their teams round in the ever moving circle
that carried the earth away from both sides of the right-of-way to the
centre where it was graded up into the first rough form of a
road-bed--that morning the men registered their own judgments concerning
the daughter of Old Silent. In her dark eyes there was the fearless
look of her father, the look that pierced through the surface and saw
through the veneer to what lay behind. In her smile there was the
essence of her mother's gentle nature--a nature before which men down
through the centuries have bowed in silent worship.
But there was something more, something that was her own. Men saw it in
her lightning glance and in the quick toss she gave her head when she
shook back her wind-blown, dark-brown hair. Not one of the men had been
able to tell exactly what it was that was there, but all alike were
convinced that while Keith McBain might command obedience in his men and
squelch even his foreman with a look or an explosive word or two, he had
no look that could have served him in a contest with the will of Cherry
McBain.
It was six o'clock by the time King reached McBain's camp on his return
trip. In the distance he saw the men leaving the grade and making their
way towards the camp, the sound of their voices coming to him with
heartening effect after his long silent trip, during which his mind had
gone back irresistibly to the days when he and his brother had romped
together as boys.
When he came to where the path led from the trail to McBain's cabin he
turned abruptly, and getting down from the saddle allowed his horse to
follow him while he made his way on foot along the narrow path. The
little cabin was built of logs and stood well back from the trail, in
the protecting shade of a clump of tamaracs.
Keith McBain was sitting by the doorway, his pipe in his mouth, his eyes
turned to the hills that rose up, scraggly and covered with fallen and
charred timbers, to the south of the cabin.
King's first feeling was one of pity. The old man who sat there smoking
his pipe and musing was a broken man, and every line on his face showed
it. There was in his eyes the look of a man whose power of will was
almost gone. There was a look of fear in them, a fear lest he should
reveal his weakness to others. He had an odd trick of glancing quickly
about him as if he wished to assure himself that no one was coming upon
him unannounced. His mouth was tight-lipped, his face covered with a
short-clipped beard that once had been black but now showed gray and
pale against the bloodless cheeks.
And yet, for all the face showed of weakness, King was at once struck by
the intensity and the unswerving directness of his gaze when Keith
McBain turned to look at him. At first there seemed to be a shadow of
suspicion in the grizzled old face, but King could not help observing
the slow change to something almost kindly that showed deep in the old
man's eyes as he got up and extended his hand.
"Come and sit down," he said. "The girl told me you were coming. She's
off somewhere in the hills after berries--come and sit down."
When they had talked a little King was so much moved by the note of
pathos that crept into the voice of Keith McBain that he determined at
once to share with him the news that he had received only the night
before. Evidently Old Silent was in a pensive mood, and King inwardly
longed for someone to whom he could speak concerning what had lain
heavily on his heart all day.
For a long time after King had spoken, Keith McBain sat without uttering
a word.
"Aye, boy, you've suffered a great loss," he said at last, and his gaze
was straight before him towards the hill-tops in the distance. As he
continued he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to King. "It's
hard for men to know what a thing like this means until they have tasted
it themselves. For years I have gone out in the morning with men when
the light was scarce showing through the swamp and have come in again at
night tired after the work of the day to sleep--and make ready for the
next day. And I've watched them--all ready for the 'roll out' when the
call came at daybreak. And I've marvelled at their punctuality--and
their willingness. And then a day would come when one of them wouldn't
be in his place. He'd heard the call but couldn't go out. And
later--perhaps a few days just--he didn't hear it--and the rest of us
were quieter for a while--a little less given to talking; and then
things went on very much as usual and we forgot. It's very good to
forget."
King was pleased with the complete freedom from restraint that now
marked the old man's manner. He talked well, with the merest trace of
Scotch accent recognizable in the way he rolled his r's. He paused a
moment and King made no attempt to interrupt. Finally he began again.
"Aye--it's good to forget--when you can. But there are times when a man
can't forget--not altogether. You and I know that, my boy--we know it
too well. And we won't talk about it either--except to mention it in
passing. And in passing I want to say that I am very sorry. Where's the
use trying to say more--a man can't."
He tapped his pipe gently against his hand and went leisurely about the
task of filling it again.
"A straight man--and a clean man," he said gently, "is a rare enough
article. As men go, I haven't seen many that could answer to that
description. The world is full of good women, my boy--I've seen a few
they told me weren't straight and weren't clean, but I've never known
any such myself--though I've known a lot of women, too. But the men
I've known--"
He paused as if in contemplation of how he should express most
effectively what was on his mind. In the interval of silence there was
a sound of excited voices and hurried footsteps coming down the path
towards the cabin. Looking up King recognized the two men approaching
as the camp cook and his assistant. Their differences had apparently
reached a head, and they were coming to thresh the matter out before the
boss.
In an instant Keith McBain was himself again. Leaping up before the men
had come within speaking distance he met them in the pathway and fell
upon them with a flow of profanity that not only reduced the two to
impotent silence but sent them back along the pathway and up the trail
to the camp, the picture of mute dejection and defeat.
When the old contractor returned and took his seat again, he lighted his
pipe in bad mood and puffed at it vigorously without speaking a word. It
required only a glance at his face to realize that a change had come
over him. Keith McBain was Old Silent again and nothing would bring him
out of his surly mood.
King got up slowly and started down the footpath that led to the hills
back of the cabin. Somewhere back in the shambles of pitched timbers and
broken tree-trunks was Cherry McBain. When he came finally to where the
path was so dimly marked that he could follow it no farther he climbed
to the top of a little knoll and looked in every direction along the
face of the hill to see if Cherry were anywhere in sight. Finally, when
he had looked for some time in vain, he called and waited until the
echoes died away in silence. There was no reply. Getting down from the
knoll he scrambled further up the hill. He had seen a patch of grey
ground away to the west where the fires of the year before had swept the
hills clear of vegetation. In ten minutes he emerged from the cover of
the evergreens and looked across the tangled mass of half-burned and
fallen timbers. The climb had not been an easy one, and it was only with
slight hope that he gave his call again and stood tense and motionless
as he listened for a reply. From every side the echoes came back and
gradually died away in faint waves that finally settled into stillness.
He was about to turn back again and make for the camp, but just once
more he called and waited.
Almost immediately and from a surprisingly short distance away Cherry's
voice came clear to him across the patch of grey. Turning at once in
the direction of the voice he looked and saw her waving her hand to him.
In a few moments he was beside her, where she was seated on the ground
picking twigs and leaves out of the small pail of berries she held in
her lap. She looked up at him and laughed roguishly, then offered him a
large red berry which she held up to him between stained finger and
thumb.
"Didn't you hear me call the first time?" he asked her.
She dropped her eyes and seemed very intent upon rolling the berries
about in a vain search for more leaves. He waited for her answer.
Ordinarily he would not have asked the question seriously. Even now he
had no thought of accusing her. When she finally spoke he was at a loss
to know what was in her mind.
"I--heard--you," she said, very slowly, and the tone of her voice was
strange to King.
He waited, not knowing what to say in return, and hoping, too, that she
might say something without his prompting her. When he saw that she was
not going to speak, he asked another question as directly as he had
asked the first.
"Why didn't you answer?"
The next moment he wished with all his heart that he had not spoken.
The look she gave him was one in which appeal and disappointment were so
deeply mingled that he cursed himself inwardly for his own clumsiness.
"Don't ask me why," she said. Then as she saw the grave look in King's
eyes she got up and placed her hand on his arm. "Oh, it has nothing to
do with you," she said in a voice that was all softness. "I--I didn't
know at first that--that it was you."
Suddenly her manner changed.
"Let's go down now," she said quickly, picking up her pail of berries.
"We're going to have tea."
Almost as she spoke the words she was off down the hill at a pace that
made King exert himself to keep up with her. She ran along the smooth
round timbers and leaped from one to another of the fallen logs so
lightly and gracefully that King was put to it to save himself from
being completely outstripped. She carried her berries in one hand and
her hat in the other, and her hair, blown loose by the breeze, shone in
the sunlight--transparent gold against a mass of black.
As he watched her, something of the wonder of their first meeting came
back to him. He had never seen a girl so lithe, so wild, so beautiful.
There was exultation in her every movement, and her laugh rippled
musically as she leaped and climbed and ran along over the most
difficult ground. Sometimes she looked back at him as if to make sure
that he was following, and he saw her face radiant with life and youth.
Once she waited till he came up to her before venturing along a dizzy
bit of footing that required care in passing. When he came to her she
placed her hand in his and together they went on.
From the look she gave him he scarcely knew whether she wanted help
herself or wished to help him. But the clasp of her hand was so firm,
so throbbing with vitality, that he wished he might still hold those
fingers closed within his own after they had come to level footing. The
thought of it sent the blood coursing through his veins, and an impulse
started up within him--an impulse that came out of the very depths of
his being and made him forget for the time being everything in the world
except this moment on a wild hillside with beauty and grace and youth
within his reach.
When they reached the evergreens Cherry bounded ahead and left him to
follow. The ground was level and soft underfoot and carpeted with cones
and needles. Once she stopped suddenly in a little space open to the
sky, and stooping down picked a wildflower and held it up to him.
"Not often you find them growing in a place so sheltered as this," she
remarked as she gave him the flower.
He took it and looked from the flower, pure, white and soft, to her
face. Unconsciously his gaze shifted to her throat, as pure and white
and soft as the flower he held in his hand. Then she turned quickly and
hurried off again into the cover of the evergreens.
Once she stopped so suddenly and turned so unexpectedly to meet him that
he had almost run into her before he could check himself. Then as he
stood in questioning attitude she shook her hair back from her face and
with a ripple of a laugh was away again before he could speak.
As King followed her an unpleasant thought came suddenly to him. There
was one thing he had always dreaded in women. He had never been quite
unconscious of the subtle power they exerted--but he had always been
suspicious of their motives. There was something so free, so healthful,
so simple in Cherry's manner that he was almost disarmed of suspicion.
And yet she was so coy, so wilful, so roguish that instinctively he felt
himself assuming the defensive--a defensive, too, against himself and
the impulses that arose within him and clamored for expression.
Suddenly she stopped and looked down at a small pool of cool fresh water
fed from a little spring that bubbled out of the earth just a few yards
away. A half dozen large stones lay touching the edge of the water, and
before King realized what she was about, she had dropped her berries and
hat and was on her knees with her two hands resting on a small boulder,
her lips touching the surface of the water. As he looked at her he
could not help thinking what a child she was--and how very much older he
was. Nor could he think it any less when in a moment she raised her
head and glanced up at him with a rare flush in her cheeks.
"Oh, this is good," she cried. "Look--there's a stone for you!"
He smiled slowly, but her spirit was irresistible. He got down beside
her, his hands upon a boulder almost touching the stone upon which she
was leaning for support.
When they had both drunk from the pool, instead of getting up
immediately, they remained where they were, their hands upon the
boulders, their eyes fixed upon the smooth surface of the water beneath
them. For a moment only they looked, a moment in which both felt a
power like a spell that held them gazing into the far depths that lay
mirrored in the quiet pool. They were gazing like two children deep
down into the depths of the blue skies reflected far below where the
white clouds floated beyond the downward pointing tops of evergreens.
All at once, however, King glanced at the face of the girl where it was
smiling up at him from the water--and in a moment he was conscious of a
change. Though her face was smiling it was grave too, grave even as
his, and he knew that in the look each gave the other there were depths
that were more unfathomable than the skies--the depths of life itself in
all its mystery and serious meaning.
They got up and walked off down the path towards the cabin, strangely
silent, both of them. As they emerged from the cover of the woods and
came within sight of the cabin only a few yards ahead of them, Cherry
stopped and laid her hand quickly upon King's arm. King glanced at her,
and then turned in the direction indicated by her eyes. A man was just
leaving the doorway of the cabin where old Keith McBain was still
sitting. It was McCartney.
For a moment Cherry stood silently watching him, her hand still upon
King's arm. Then she started slowly towards the cabin, her eyes still
following the movements of the big foreman as he walked down the path
that led from the cabin to the camp.
"You wanted to know why I didn't answer when first you called me
to-day," she said, almost in a whisper. "Well--I wasn't sure that it
was you--I thought it might be him."
There came into her eyes a look of appeal which changed quickly to the
look that King had seen there the night before when she had asked him if
he could fight. She seemed on the point of speaking, but with an
impatient toss of her head she hurried down the pathway, King following
closely behind her.
*CHAPTER FOUR*
In another hour King was ready to take the trail again. Beside him
stood Cherry, her own black horse waiting only a few yards away.
A dark cloud had risen in the north-east, and King glanced quickly about
him at the skies and at the trees rustling noisily in the little breeze
that had sprung up.
"It's like rain," he warned her quietly. "Perhaps you'd better not go
this time."
The faintest suspicion of a frown passed quickly over her face, but that
was all the reply his warning drew from her. Before he could help her
she had stepped upon a low-cut stump and had sprung lightly into the
saddle.
Keith McBain watched them from his seat near the doorway.
"I'll be looking for you early, my girl," he said.
"I'll be back before it begins to rain," she replied, and turning her
horse about started towards the trail.
King got up at once, pausing a moment to bid the old man good-bye before
he followed Cherry.
"Look after yourself," the old fellow replied, "and come in next trip.
It'll be dull for you now--and we'd be glad to see you."
"I'll come," King replied. "I'd like to come--and I'd like to hear you
talk again."
"And send that girl of mine back before she gets too far away," the old
fellow called to King who had already started down the pathway.
The clouds that were gathering behind them as they rode westward seemed
to hasten the coming of the darkness, although the sun was just setting
when they started. Far up the right-of-way, along which the trail ran
for a little distance, the western sky was a blaze of glory between the
rows of tall trees that stood back from the grade on either side. Once
or twice as they rode along King turned in his saddle to look again at
the storm clouds gathering in the east. There was little fear of their
being overtaken by the storm--it was still a long way off and was coming
up very slowly. And yet King wondered that the girl should be so keen
upon taking a ride when at any moment the dark bank of heavy thunder
clouds might suddenly rush up and force her to ride back through a
drenching rain, to say nothing of the thunder and lightning. But such a
possibility apparently never entered the mind of Cherry McBain, or if it
did she never showed the least concern about it. She urged her horse
forward at a steady pace that made King hurry to keep up. Not till they
had covered the whole length of the trail lying along the right-of-way
and had gone some distance beyond where it turned into the woods and
started up the hill did she draw rein. Then she brought her horse
slowly to a walk and turned to look behind her. She had not spoken since
she left the cabin, and as King drew up with her he ventured to ask if
she didn't think she had gone far enough. The look she gave him by way
of reply was enough to make him wish he had not spoken.
"Are you really so anxious to have me go back?" she asked.
It was King's turn to look at her in surprise. There was something more
than surprise in his voice, however, when he spoke.
"I guess I must have said what wasn't in my mind to say," he replied
very quietly. "I don't think you got me quite right there."
Suddenly she brought her horse to a standstill and slipped out of the
saddle to the ground.
"Get down and walk for a little while," she said, looking about her as
she spoke. "The rain is a long way off yet and I'm not afraid."
King responded by getting down at once. He stood for a moment with the
bridle in his hand and waited for her to come up to him. Then they
walked slowly side by side along the trail. For a few minutes they
proceeded in silence, King waiting for her to begin.
"I was afraid you might want to send me back," she began at last, "and I
didn't want to go. I wanted to talk to you. I want to tell you about
my father. You saw him to-night, and you know there is something
wrong--you couldn't help knowing that as well as I do."
She was not asking a question. She was merely stating a fact in which
she confidently expected King's concurrence. The pause was not to give
him an opportunity of replying. She wished only to collect her
thoughts, to marshal the parts of the story she was about to tell him.
"My father is a railway construction contractor," she went on after she
had walked a few yards without speaking. "The men love him--and they
hate him--both at the same time. He's generous and he's straight, and
he's good--but he's hard in his dealings and he crushes everyone who
opposes him. For years he has taken railway contracts and worked in the
woods. I was born in a mining camp out west, where my father was
prospecting. When I began to grow up I was allowed to spend only a few
weeks each summer in camp with him and mother. The rest of the summer I
spent with my aunt in Winnipeg, where I went to school. But I never
liked it. I always wanted to be with them in the camp. I loved the
life and I loved the men and their rough ways. Most of all, I loved my
father--my mother was very quiet and very sweet, but my father and I
have always been chums."
She paused a moment to pick up a small stick from the road which she
sent whirling along the trail ahead of her.
"One day something happened. My mother told me what she knew about it
and my father knows that she told me, but he has never spoken to me
about it. Two years ago he left my mother and me in the city and went
to the coast with some others to look for gold. One of the men was Bill
McCartney, who was a teamster for my father during the previous summer.
In the spring they came back unexpectedly. Father had written us to
tell us that he had made a good strike, but when he came back there was
a change. McCartney was with him, and one night they sat all night long
and there were loud words between them. In the morning my father told
us that he had lost everything and that McCartney was going back to the
coast again. He told mother something that made her cry, but he said,
'A bargain is a bargain--and I count this a good bargain.' Those are
the only words I ever heard him speak about the affair. McCartney left
that night. After that my mother grew sick--and she never got better.
Later I came to camp to be with her, and one night she told me that she
was dying--she said her heart was breaking--breaking for my father. She
told me that some day McCartney would be back--that she hoped she might
die before he came. She died last summer and McCartney came back just a
few weeks later."
The muscles in King's arms grew rigid and his hands clenched fiercely as
his mind rested upon the fragmentary story that Cherry McBain had told
him. Instinctively he felt that Bill McCartney had been in some way the
cause of the death of Keith McBain's wife.
"There was something more," she said, suddenly breaking in upon his
musing. "When McCartney came back my father made him foreman of the
camp and ever since then the control of the work has been gradually
passing out of father's hands. To make matters worse, father has been
drinking until his very mind is going. Some day, I am afraid, he will
drink himself to death. And it is not all on account of the loss of my
mother. There is something else. The bargain he made with McCartney
did not work out satisfactorily. The claim turned out badly and
McCartney came back dissatisfied. And now--though he has never said so
openly--he has plans of a different kind. Once he met me alone on the
trail--he had followed me without my knowing it--and when he tried to be
pleasant to me in his own way, I told him to leave me. He grinned and
took me by the arm and then--I struck him with my hand across the face.
His expression never changed, but he warned me never to do that
again--and he spoke of my father. The next day father came to me--his
voice broken--his face haggard; he hadn't slept all night. And he told
me not to make McCartney angry. He told me to stay away from him--go
back to the city--anything, but to keep out of his way and give him no
cause for anger. I told my father that I would not leave him--and I
won't. But I can't go anywhere without that man shadowing me. I can't
speak to one of the men but he comes and forces his attentions upon me,
though he knows that I hate him. One thing--he has never offered to
touch me again, and I have never had the heart to tell him what I think.
I am always thinking of what may happen--and I can see the fear in my
father's eyes."
She came a little closer to King and laid her hand on his arm.
"Some day," she said slowly, and her breast rose and fell fitfully as
she spoke, "some day he will not wait any longer. I shall have to make
my choice. Either I shall smile on him and accept his attentions--or I
shall send him away and bring upon myself the complete ruin of a life
that is already broken beyond hope of repair."
A faint rumbling of distant thunder caused them both to stop and look
behind them.
"It is something new for me to be afraid. I never was afraid
before--only there has been a change--a change that I don't like because
I don't know how to meet it. The men in the camp have always been good
to me. My mother was good to them and they liked her--and I have tried
to be good to them. I have always thought they liked me too. But there
are some--we meet them once in a while--who can't stand good treatment.
They weren't born for it. And McCartney has got a few of that kind with
him."
They had come to a ridge overlooking a valley, a sort of ravine, through
which a small stream picked its straggling course between the hills.
Dusk had already set in and the stream was only faintly visible.
Without announcing her intentions, Cherry dropped her bridle-rein and
left her horse standing on the trail while she led the way to a knoll
that commanded a better view of the ravine. For a long time she stood
looking to the westward where only a faint arc of light was still left
low upon the horizon. Her hat was in her hand and the quiet breeze that
came from the east blew a few loose locks of her dark hair about her
face. King gazed at her intently, and thought of McCartney.
He had picked up a stout tamarac stick on his way to the knoll. It was
almost as thick as his wrist and was sound and dry. Without speaking a
word and without twitching a muscle of his face he slowly bent the stick
in his two hands until it began to snap. Then he twisted it until the
frayed ends parted and he held the two ragged bits of stick in his
hands. These he flung into a clump of bushes on the slope below.
Cherry looked at him quietly.
"No," she said slowly, "not that--not that. Some day it may have to
come--some day I may call you--but not yet."
King smiled gravely.
"I told you last night about my brother, Dick," he said. "Well--Dick is
dead."
"King!"
She had never before called him by his first name.
"Yes--I had a letter last night. It was waiting for me when I got down.
But that's all gone now--it's past and settled. But this other
thing--it has mixed me some. I didn't think I'd ever want to hit a man
again. And I'm not looking for McCartney--not for any man," he said,
and his eyes turned to the spot where he had thrown the broken stick.
"But no man ever found me running--and Bill McCartney won't."
Cherry laid one hand on his arm and looked at him.
"He has gone to town with a lot of men to-night," she said. "They often
ride in on Saturday night--that's why we have been able to ride and talk
together. He will be there when you get to town--and all day to-morrow.
And listen--I'm not afraid--not afraid for you, nor for me. But I don't
want you to meet him yet."
King's reply came quietly and with great deliberation.
"I've been in that town since the first tent was pitched," he observed
in a voice that was even and showed no excitement. "I've watched it
grow up--and I've gone pretty much where I liked. I guess I'll go on in
about the same way."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of that," Cherry replied. "I've told you I'm not
afraid for you--and not for myself. But if the break should come--"
"I guess you don't need to worry about that," King remarked. "There
won't be any break between me and McCartney--not till there's a reason
for it."
Cherry went back again to the trail and taking the bridle-rein in her
hand led the way down towards the river. King followed her until they
came to the roughly-made bridge that spanned the little stream, a
hurriedly constructed bridge of tamarac poles that had been thrown into
place by the advance parties of railway workers.
"I have never gone farther than this," said Cherry, when they had come
to the centre of the bridge. "I often ride out in the evenings and
stand here for a while before going back. Some day I am going on to
town, just to see what sort of place you have."
"This is the White Pine," said King. "I have crossed it often higher
up. It gets very nasty after two or three days' rain."
Suddenly a flash of lightning reminded them that the storm was
approaching. While they talked they had all but forgotten the black
clouds rolling up from the east. Cherry got up at once upon the stout
log that ran along the side of the bridge to keep the poles in place,
and putting one foot into the stirrup drew herself up lightly into the
saddle. When she was seated she turned and looked at King.
"We shall ride out again some time," she said, and gave him her hand.
He closed his big hand over her fingers for a moment without speaking.
When he was about to turn away she clung still to his hand and looked at
him very earnestly.
"Why don't you sometimes talk a little?" she asked.
The abruptness with which she asked the question brought the slow smile
back to King's face.
"I'm not good at talking," he replied. "Besides--I like to hear you
talk."
King had not ventured before in their short acquaintance to offer a
compliment. He did not mean to compliment her now. He was speaking his
mind simply, directly, sincerely.
She regarded him strangely for a moment in silence.
"Sometimes," she said at last, "sometimes I think--"
She paused a moment and then withdrew her hand suddenly and wheeling her
horse about went off at a gallop down the trail, leaving him gazing
after her in wonderment.
When she had passed out of sight he looked once at the clouds before
getting into the saddle and then, getting up, he gave a sharp whistle
that brought Sal bounding to him, and set off along the trail that led
to town. Behind him the storm was coming up rapidly.
"It's you for it now," he said to his horse as he leaned forward and
stroked the warm neck.
Only once after that did his voice break the silence of the long ride.
The first drops of rain brought him suddenly out of his dreaming.
"If you could only talk!" he said to himself, and his voice was full of
impatience.
But King Howden was no talker.
*CHAPTER FIVE*
The town was in a state of excitement that was not altogether new. In
fact, the few score of permanent residents in the place always looked to
Saturday night to furnish some little change from the humdrum existence
of the week. There is nothing very stirring about sitting in a
village--even if it is an outpost of civilization a hundred and
twenty-five miles from anywhere--with nothing to do from day to day
except to greet the newcomers who arrive from the outside to begin their
search for land. But when a couple of red-coated men wearing blue
breeches striped on either side with gold, their heads covered with
wide-brimmed Stetsons, their feet stoutly booted and spurred--when two
such men ride in from over the Saskatchewan border and go clanking down
the one street in the place a certain amount of shuffling is almost
inevitable.
Nor was the flutter of excitement due to any fear that the "Mounties"
were on business bent. Since the jurisdiction of the famous riders of
the plains did not extend any farther than the border, their sudden
appearance set no one guessing as to who, among the men of the town, was
being entertained, a criminal unawares. The place had served as a
week-end retreat for the men of the force before, and all such occasions
had turned out more or less eventful.
No previous arrangement had been made that would have explained the
sudden influx of men who came into town from all over the district to
spend the week-end together. But small groups had begun to arrive
before the sun had set--some of the settlers had come in during the day
from their shacks on lonely homesteads and made a fair-sized reception
committee to greet the later arrivals. There were men there from
Rubble's survey gang, and a dozen or more from the camp of Keith McBain.
That they should make their rendezvous late in the evening at Mike
Cheney's was only natural. There was MacMurray's lodging house, of
course, that stood at the end of the street near the river, but no one
came to town to eat. Cheney's place stood at the other end of the
street--discreetly apart. And those who came and went exercised
considerable discretion and talked very little when others were in
hearing.
Mike Cheney himself treated his business very philosophically. In a
man's country where men were in the habit of taking life none too
seriously, there must needs be some place to foregather--so he
thought--on the days when the rain drove everyone indoors, and on nights
when the rest of the town had gone to bed. Furthermore, there was need
of a place of last call for the men on their way to the railway camps or
the homesteads. Besides, what were men to do in the winter, with the
thermometer dancing back and forth between thirty and forty degrees
below zero, if they had to depend solely upon bad tea and weak coffee?
Mike declared, and to all intents and purposes he believed, that he
served the community in proportion as he was successful in dispensing
conviviality among its members. It didn't occur to him to feel abashed
that a few held him and his business in abhorrence. Nor did it worry
him that he was conducting his business without legal sanction. It
would have caused him as much trouble to win the regard of such as held
him in contempt as to procure an official document setting the seal of
the government's approval on his business. He was content to give
little or no heed to either.
And so, without any special announcement, and without any invitation,
the visitors took their way, when it was late enough, to the large room
at the back of Mike Cheney's place, where they knew they would be made
heartily welcome. And to tell the truth, a welcome of some kind was
something the men felt the need of. Rain had begun to fall quite
heavily--what had looked like a mere thunder shower when it appeared
first in the north-east, had steadied down to an all-night rain. And
certainly MacMurray's lodging house offered no cheer. No one,
furthermore, even cast his eyes a second time in the direction of the
two large log buildings the government had erected for immigrants
without shelter.
The room at the back of Cheney's place was blue with smoke that rendered
almost useless the large kerosene lamp that hung from the ceiling. In
one corner of the room a small group were already well into a game of
poker. Though the stakes were of necessity low--for what can men do on
a dollar a day?--the interest in the game was sufficiently high to
attract a half dozen spectators who watched the play in silence and
smoked incessantly.
In another corner three or four land-seekers were exchanging opinions of
the fine points of the law governing the rights of the "squatter," and
the rather intricate regulations that made provision for what is known
as "jumping" a claim.
In the corner farthest from the door where Mike Cheney stood at the
service of his customers, Big Bill McCartney was listening to what one
of the red-coated visitors had to say about the effect of solitude on a
man's nerves. The subject was one that evidently appealed strongly to
one of MacDougall's men, whose mood was rather too jovial for so early
in the evening and whose literary instincts prompted him to attempt the
metrical flights of the lines beginning,
"I am monarch of all I survey."
McCartney pushed him back on the bench where he had been sitting and
turned to hear something that Cheney was offering to the discussion.
"There's another thing about this country," said Mike, leaning towards
McCartney and the red-coat. "It's a-gettin' to some of the boys in a
way they never expected."
He paused a moment to wipe up a little water from the table with his
cloth.
"Now there was old Bob Nason--he was before your time here, Bill. He
was one of the first to come in here when the trail was opened into the
valley. There was a good fellow for you--an' a good man too. No better
ever put foot on the ground. Saw him heave a barrel of salt into the
back end of his wagon--just like that."
Mike used appropriate gestures to show how easily the thing had been
done.
"I'd like to have seen you an' him together, Bill," he went on, and a
broad smile accompanied his remarks. "Could 'a' give you about all you
could handle, Bill, if size counts for anything. Anyhow--poor old Bob
came in here one night--it was a night like this--only there was a
regular howlin' wind and the rain was heavy. I hears a poundin' at the
door--I was all alone--an' I gets up and opens it. An' there stands Old
Bob--feet bare--shirt gone--head bare--pants all in rags--an' mud an'
water--it was awful!"
He paused in an effort, evidently, to call the picture more vividly to
mind.
"An' I says, 'Bob, what's wrong?' An' then I knew right away what it
was--from the grin he gave me. But I says, 'Come in an' get something'.
An' poor old Bob comes in an' sits down an' starts cryin' like a baby.
An' I says, 'Bob, you're lookin' bad,' but he wouldn't talk. I sat with
him all night an' the next day we sent him out with a couple of boys
that was totin' freight."
For a moment Mike paused while he turned to pick up an empty glass and
look at it.
"My God," he said, looking into the glass, "to think of old Bob losin'
his head out there--just for the sake of someone to talk to. I'll never
forget it."
"It'll get to anyone if he's only left alone long enough," commented the
policeman, and he went on to tell of a similar case that had come under
his observation in the West.
"There's just one thing this country needs right now, Mike--an' it needs
it bad," McCartney offered by way of supplementing what had just been
said. As he spoke he held a lighted match in his hand ready to apply to
a cigarette he had just rolled.
"You mean--" Cheney waited.
For a moment McCartney was silent while he applied the match to his
cigarette.
"I mean--"
The door opened suddenly and a girl stepped into the room.
"----there's the answer," he concluded.
Several of the men glanced up as the door closed and the girl came
forward to where Cheney was standing on the corner. He greeted her
quite casually.
"Hello, Anne," he said, "you sure picked a good night for strollin'.
What's the idea?"
For a moment she said nothing by way of reply as she shook the rain from
the cloak that hung loosely about her shoulders. Then she looked round
the room at the men.
"Nothin's the idea," she remarked. "It's my night off and--well, where
can you go in this place. Slingin' grub's all right--ten hours a
day--but you want a change, don't you? Give me a smoke."
The request was addressed to McCartney, who proceeded at once to roll a
cigarette while she looked on.
"Nobody in this town let's me in if they know I'm comin'," she remarked
in a tone that carried not the slightest trace of regret. She wished
simply to record the fact merely.
And a fact it was, for Anne, who was the single waitress at the
lodging-house, had been placed in a class by herself in the town, though
not a man in it--or woman either--had any facts upon which to base their
prejudice.
For a moment only during the process of rolling the cigarette the eyes
of McCartney and the girl met. No one in the room saw the exchange of
glances and no one could have detected the slightest change of
expression in either face.
McCartney smiled oddly as he folded the edge of the cigarette paper into
place and tapped the ends lightly against his hand.
"Shouldn't have any trouble findin' a little entertainment in this
bunch," he observed.
She regarded him coldly. "You didn't hear me sayin' anything about
entertainment, did you?" she returned.
Without making any immediate reply he gave her the cigarette and offered
his own for a light.
"Tell you what, Anne," he said at last, "I've a hunch you've brought me
luck to-night an' I'd like to sit in to a game. I'd like to know if the
boys here play the kind of a game I'm used to. Come on over, Anne, an'
look on."
They walked over to the corner where the men were playing cards. On the
far side of the table was Lush Currie, the pile of chips before him
indicating that he had held a few good hands during the evening. As
McCartney took his place at the table, Currie hesitated for a moment and
acted as if he wanted to withdraw from the game. McCartney received his
pile of chips and arranged them in three little piles under his right
hand, then scanned the faces of the men before him.
For men who take life as it comes, one day at a time and little thought
of the morrow, poker is the game of games. It matters little whether it
is played in the Far North where men take fortunes from the beds of
frozen creeks, or on the quieter and less rugged frontiers where they
build the nation's highways at a dollar a day and three square meals
always in sight. In one case the stakes are for thousands, with a
jack-pot sometimes growing into six figures. In the other the limits
are set by the meagre earnings of a season of some six months or so
between the spring and the freeze-up. One man risks a fortune he may
retrieve in a single month of good luck with his shovel and pan. The
other lays a wager that will take him a whole season to pay if he comes
off loser. But in any case, whatever the circumstances, the game is the
same, and the men are the same--playing the game for the game's sake and
despising nothing so much as a poor loser--unless it be a crooked
winner.
For the first half hour or so the game that McCartney had just taken a
hand in went along very quietly--like the first rounds of a match with
the boxers sparring for an opening. The cards having been cut, the deal
fell to the man on McCartney's left. The round found them all without
openers and the pack was dealt again. This time Lush Currie opened the
game and the others stayed.
"Cards?" said the dealer, who was Dan Martin, of Rubble's gang.
He came to Currie and looked at him questioningly.
"This is good enough for me," replied Currie and left his cards where he
had put them face downwards on the table before him.
When Martin came to McCartney the latter drew three cards, glanced at
them and laying them down smiled across the table at Anne. Currie made a
small bet which was raised by the next man. Then they waited for
McCartney. He picked up his cards, glanced at them again--and tossed
them to one side. Dan Martin seemed about to raise the bet, but on
second thought decided to let it stand. The next man followed
McCartney's example and with three men in the game Currie called and won
with three queens.
"Pretty easy pickin', Currie," he said.
"Why didn't you stay, then?" asked Martin. "I didn't tell you to get
out."
"I might 'a' stayed at that," McCartney replied.
The next two games were won on a pair of aces and two pairs,
respectively. The cards then went to the man on McCartney's left and he
dealt. McCartney picked up his cards one by one as they came to him and
arranged them in his hand.
"Comin' like trained pigs!" he said. "What'd I tell you, Anne? You're
my luck--just see this thing through an' I'll split the loot."
There was nothing contagious in his pleasantries. Though he appeared in
high spirits, his hilarity was so obviously artificial that no one paid
any particular attention to him--except, perhaps, Lush Currie, who
glanced back at Anne with his cards still in his hand. Then, as if a
thought suddenly struck him, he closed his hands quickly over his cards
and laid them down.
The girl, on her part, did not even so much as look up--either at
McCartney or at Currie. She appeared too busy with her own thoughts and
was unaware of the suspicions that were being entertained regarding her.
When the round was completed McCartney drew the chips towards him and
reached for the deck--he had won on a show-down with three fives and a
pair of jacks. It was his deal.
"Now then, you're comin' to me, see?" he cried as he slipped the cards
one by one from the pack and slid them to the players. "That makes
first blood--an' the night's young!"
For a few moments there was silence while the players looked at their
cards. This time Currie opened high and the others stayed. They took
their draws and settled down. No one bet until it came round to
McCartney.
"I'll just kick 'er along a little bit," he said, and put in his chips.
Two players threw their cards away, leaving Currie, McCartney and two
others in the game. It was Currie's turn to bet. He picked up one card
that had been dealt to him in the draw and was about to look at it. As
he did so he hesitated and looked across the table. McCartney's eyes
were on Anne. Something in the latter's face made Currie postpone his
bet for a moment.
"Anne," he said, glancing over his shoulder, "you're sittin' too close
to me. It ain't lucky--an' I don't like it."
His voice betrayed excitement and the girl was not slow to catch the
implication.
"Say, Lush Currie--look here," she protested, "what are you tryin' to
tell me?"
"Nothin' only what I said," Currie replied. "Don't sit behind me in this
game."
His voice was shaking as he spoke and he fingered his cards nervously.
"Sit round here, Anne," said McCartney, his voice full of sarcasm.
"He's jealous--he doesn't like you lookin' at me so often."
McCartney's efforts to make a joke of the whole affair were pathetically
inadequate, and served only to heighten Currie's suspicion. But the
girl stood up and faced McCartney with a look that was as cold as it was
direct.
"Say, Bill McCartney," she remarked in a voice that was cutting in its
deliberateness, "does Lush Currie think I'm tippin' you off to his hand?
Well, listen to me. I've been lookin' a whole long time for the kind of
man I'd do that for an'--you--ain't--him."
McCartney's expression changed suddenly.
"What the hell are you anyhow?" he asked, with a sneer, and turned to
Currie. "Your bet, Currie."
For answer Currie threw his cards into the centre of the table and got
up from his chair.
"This game can go on without me," he said, and he moved his chair back
and walked away from the group.
A couple of the players put out restraining hands and tried to persuade
him to go on with the game. Cheney came forward and invited him to take
a drink, but Currie was obstinate.
"I don't sit in to no game with a----"
The epithet he used brought McCartney to his feet. He pushed his chair
to one side with his foot and stepped towards Currie.
"You ain't big enough to say that to me," he said, tossing his cigarette
to one side.
The men showed no desire to interfere. The history of Currie's previous
encounter had gone the rounds and left them all hoping that Currie might
some day have an opportunity to meet his man fairly and have it out.
They had little respect for Currie, whose untimely accusations against
Anne were, they felt sure, not only out of place but without foundation.
The girl's rebuff had rung true and no one doubted her--though they were
convinced that Bill McCartney would have used any advantage, had it been
offered to him.
They stood back to give room to the two men who occupied a space near
the centre of the floor. They liked a fight and they wanted to see the
much-talked-of foreman in action.
McCartney bore down steadily on Currie, who relied upon his quick,
cat-like movements as his sole means of defending himself against the
towering strength of his opponent. But wherever Currie went McCartney
followed relentlessly, taking the short quick jabs of his antagonist
without showing the slightest uneasiness. He displayed the full
confidence of one who knows that if he can get his man into a corner he
can end the fight in a few seconds. But that was precisely what Currie
avoided. He danced about McCartney and landed light blows almost at
will. Finally the big fellow began to show signs of ugly temper and
quickened his advance in an effort to get within fair striking distance.
As he came close Currie crouched near the door and then leaped and sent
his foot out in a vicious kick that barely missed McCartney's chin. As
it was, the foreman took the full force of the blow on his neck and for
a few seconds staggered backwards, shaking his head savagely and
blinking his eyes as if to clear his sight. Had Currie followed up his
advantage at once the affair might have been ended right there. But
while he hesitated McCartney recovered sufficiently to size up the
situation afresh.
He stood for a few moments looking at Currie, his face twisted into a
smile. Those who saw that smile began to feel pity for the smaller man
who had put up a good fight and a plucky one. There was a look in
Currie's face too, that seemed to reveal for the first time his failing
confidence in the outcome.
"It's going to be stiff travellin' for Lush from now on," murmured one
of the men to Cheney in a voice that was barely audible.
McCartney, who was near enough to the speaker to overhear the remark,
seemed about to speak, but he shut his teeth hard and went towards
Currie crouching in an attitude of cautious defence. His face was the
face of an animal.
Suddenly Cheney pushed his way forward, a look of consternation on his
face as he watched Currie vainly shifting his position in a last effort
to get out of the way and gain the open space in the middle of the
floor.
"Ain't someone goin' to stop this before it's gone too far?" he muttered
to one of the men.
No one made reply.
There was a quick, sharp cry as Anne came out of the semi-darkness of
one corner and rushed forward in a frantic effort to get between the two
men.
"Stop--for God's sake! Oh, you damned fools!" she cried, struggling
vainly to break the grip of a couple of men who held her back. Then she
was pushed gently into her place in the corner, where she sat down on
the bench and covered her face with her hands.
Currie was now in a narrow space between the door and the table at which
only a few minutes before they had been playing poker. Twice he made a
quick move to get out, and twice McCartney caught him before he was well
started and drove him back. In another moment it would all be over.
Then something happened which no one among the onlookers seemed
altogether for the moment to understand. Currie crouched low as if
preparing for another spring--but everyone knew it would be a hopeless
attempt. Suddenly he straightened up--his hand came quickly from behind
him and shot towards McCartney--but not for a blow.
"No--no, sir," said Currie, his breath coming short and labored,
"no--you can't--you can't get me--like that. Get back--I'll get
you--sure as God--I'll bore you. Now--get back."
McCartney sprang back and looked at Currie who had covered him. He
knew--they all knew--that Lush Currie was fool enough to shoot if it
came to a show-down. And no man can trust a gun in the hands of a fool.
The big foreman turned in mute appeal to one of the mounted policemen
who stood near.
Suddenly the door opened and King Howden stepped into the room, took off
his hat, shook the rain from it, and then looked around him. His mind,
usually slow at taking in a situation, seemed to react quickly to what
he saw on this occasion. He took a step farther down the room and
rubbed his eyes quickly with one hand as if the light bothered him.
Then he looked again at the men and turned to Currie, who was crouching
near him. Something like a smile played upon his face as he stepped to
Currie and extended his hand.
"You ain't clear on some things, I guess," he said, in a voice that was
unusually stern and direct. "This ain't a gunning country."
Without another word he stepped deliberately to where Currie stood, and
taking the gun from him, opened it and having emptied it into his hand,
returned it. Turning round, his eyes fell upon Anne, who had got up
again and was coming forward.
"Anne," he said, "you better be getting along home."
There was a note in his voice that the girl had never heard before.
This man was not the King Howden she had talked to often during the
summer. She drew her cloak about her shoulders and went out.
Then King looked at Bill McCartney. He was standing back against the
table behind which Mike Cheney had stood earlier in the evening when
there had been customers to serve. King had been cool and
deliberate--now he felt the old demon rising in him and he struggled to
gain control of himself. He realized now that he hated this man, though
he could scarcely have told why. With a supreme effort he mastered his
rising temper and stood regarding McCartney in silence. The latter,
however, realizing that Currie was now at his mercy, and mastered by an
uncontrollable desire to end the affair to his advantage, stepped
deliberately in the direction of Currie who was cowering near the door.
"Stand back!" he roared, and the words were meant more for King than for
the two or three men who made weak attempts to restrain him.
King, recognizing that McCartney was speaking to him, stepped
deliberately between the two men.
"You'd better leave," he said, glancing behind him, and even as he spoke
Currie opened the door and slipped out.
King was about to follow but turned as McCartney's voice came to him,
muttering something he only half heard.
"You're not talking to me, are you?" he said.