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by Raine, William MacLeod

  Jessie's one hope was that Onistah would hasten to the rescue. Yet she dreaded the moment of his coming. He was a gentle soul, one of Father Giguère's converts. It was altogether likely that he would walk into the camp of the escaped convict openly and become a victim of the murderer's guile. Onistah did not lack courage. He would fight if he had to do so. Indeed, she knew that he would go through fire to save her. But bravery was not enough. She could almost have wished that her foster-brother was as full of devilish treachery as the huge ape-man slouching at her heels. Then the chances of the battle would be more even.

  The desperado drove her down into the muskeg, directing the girl's course with a flow of obscene and ribald profanity.

  It is doubtful if she heard him. As her lithe, supple limbs carried her from one moss hump to another, she was busy with the problem of escape. She must get away soon. Every hour increased the danger. The sun would sink shortly. If she were still this ruffian's prisoner when the long Arctic night fell, she would suffer the tortures of the damned. She faced the fact squarely, though her cheeks blanched at the prospect and the heart inside her withered.

  From the sloping side of a hummock her foot slipped and she slid into the icy bog to her knees. Within a few minutes duffles and leggings were frozen and she was suffering at each step.

  Out of the muskeg they came into the woods. A flake of snow fell on Jessie's cheek and chilled her blood. For she knew that if it came on to snow before Onistah took the trail or even before he reached the place to which West was taking her, the chances of a rescue would be very much diminished. A storm would wipe out the tracks they had made.

  "Swing back o' the rock and into the brush," West growled. Then, as she took the narrow trail through the brush that had grown up among half a dozen small down trees, he barked a question: "Whadjasay yore Injun name was?"

  "My name is Jessie McRae," she answered with a flash of angry pride. "You know who I am—the daughter of Angus McRae. And if you do me any harm, he'll hunt you down and kill you like a wolf."

  He caught her by the arm and whirled the girl round. His big yellow canines snapped like tusks and he snarled at her through clenched jaws. "Did you hear yore master's voice? I said, what was yore squaw name?"

  She almost shrieked from the pain of his fingers' savage clutch into her flesh. The courage died out of her arteries.

  "Sleeping Dawn they called me."

  "Too long," he pronounced. "I'll call you Dawn." The sight of her terror of him, the foretaste of the triumph he was to enjoy, restored him for a moment to a brutal good-humor. "An' when I yell 'Dawn' at you o' mornin's, it'll be for you to hump yoreself an' git up to build the fires and rustle breakfast. I'll treat you fine if you behave, but if you git sulky, you'll taste the dog-whip. I'm boss. You'll have a heluva time if you don't come runnin' when I snap my fingers. Un'erstand?"

  She broke down in a wailing appeal to whatever good there was in him. "Let me go back to Father! I know you've broke prison. If you're good to me, he'll help you escape. You know he has friends everywhere. They'll hide you from the red-coats. He'll give you an outfit to get away—money—anything you want. Oh, let me go, and—and—"

  He grinned, and the sight of his evil mirth told her she had failed.

  "Didn't I tell you I'd git you right some day? Didn't I promise Angus McRae I'd pay him back aplenty for kickin' me outa his hide camp? Ain't you the lil' hell-cat that busted my whiskey-kegs, that ran to the red-coat spy an' told him where the cache was, that shot me up when I set out to dry-gulch him, as you might say? Where do you figure you got a license to expect Bully West to listen to Sunday-school pap about being good to you? You're my squaw, an' lucky at that you got a real two-fisted man. Hell's hinges! What's eatin' you?"

  "Never!" she cried. "It's true what I told you once. I'd rather die. Oh, if you've got a spark of manhood in you, don't make me kill myself. I'm just a girl. If I ever did you wrong, I'm sorry. I'll make it right. My father—"

  "Listen." His raucous voice cut through her entreaties. "I've heard more'n plenty about McRae. All I want o' him is to get a bead on him once with a rifle. Get me? Now this other talk—about killin' yoreself—nothin' to it a-tall. Go to it if tha's how you feel. Yore huntin'-knife's right there in yore belt." He reached forward and plucked it from its sheath, then handed it to her blade first, stepping back a pace at once to make sure she did not use it on him. "You got yore chance now. Kill away. I'll stand right here an' see nobody interferes with you."

  She shifted the knife and gripped the handle. A tumult seethed in her brain. She saw nothing but that evil, grinning face, hideous and menacing. For a moment murder boiled up in her, red-hot and sinister. If she could kill him now as he stood jeering at her—drive the blade into that thick bull neck….

  The madness passed. She could not do it even if it were within her power. The urge to kill was not strong enough. It was not overwhelming. And in the next thought she knew, too, that she could not kill herself either. The blind need to live, the animal impulse of self-preservation, at whatever cost, whatever shame, was as yet more powerful than the horror of the fate impending.

  She flung the knife down into the snow in a fury of disgust and self-contempt.

  His head went back in a characteristic roar of revolting mirth. He had won. Bully West knew how to conquer 'em, no matter how wild they were.

  With feet dragging, head drooped, and spirits at the zero hour, Jessie moved down a ravine into sight of a cabin. Smoke rose from the chimney languidly.

  "Home," announced West.

  To the girl, at the edge of desperation, that log house appeared as the grave of her youth. All the pride and glory and joy that had made life so vital a thing were to be buried here. When next she came out into the sunlight she would be a broken creature—the property of this horrible caricature of a man.

  Her captor opened the door and pushed the girl inside.

  She stood on the threshold, eyes dilating, heart suddenly athrob with hope.

  A man sitting on a stool before the open fire turned his head to see who had come in.

  CHAPTER XXII

  "MY DAMN PRETTY LI'L' HIGH-STEPPIN' SQUAW"

  The man on the stool was Whaley.

  One glance at the girl and one at West's triumphant gargoyle grin was enough. He understood the situation better than words could tell it.

  To Jessie, at this critical moment of her life, even Whaley seemed a God-send. She pushed across the room awkwardly, not waiting to free herself of the webs packed with snow. In the dusky eyes there was a cry for help.

  "Save me from him!" she cried simply, as a child might have done. "You will, won't you?"

  The black eyebrows in the cold, white face drew to a line. The gambler's gaze, expressionless as a blank wall, met hers steadily.

  "Why don't you send for your friend Morse?" he asked. "He's in that business. I ain't."

  It was as though he had struck her in the face. The eyes that clung to his we're horror-filled. Did there really live men so heartless that they would not lift a hand to snatch a child from a ferocious wolf?

  West's laughter barked out, rapacious and savage. "She's mine, jus' like I said she'd be. My damn pretty li'l' high-steppin' squaw."

  His partner looked at him bleakly. "Oh, she's yours, is she?"

  "You bet yore boots. I'll show her—make her eat outa my hand," boasted the convict.

  "Will you show McRae too—and all his friends, as well as the

  North-West Mounted? Will you make 'em all eat out of your hands?"

  "Whadjamean?"

  "Why, I had a notion you were loaded up with trouble and didn't need to hunt more," sneered the gambler. "I had a notion the red-coats were on your heels to take you across the plains to hang you."

  "I'll learn 'em about that," the huge fugitive bragged. "They say I'm a killer. Let it ride. I'll sure enough let 'em see they're good guessers."

  Whaley shrugged his shoulders and looked at him with cold contempt.

&n
bsp; "You've got a bare chance for a getaway if you travel light and fast.

  I'd want long odds to back it," he said coolly.

  "Tha's a heluva thing to tell a friend," West snarled.

  "It's the truth. Take it or leave it. But if you try to bull this through your own way and don't let me run it, you're done for."

  "How done for?"

  The gambler did not answer. He turned to Jessie. "Unless you want your feet to freeze, you'd better get those duffles off."

  The girl took off her mits and tried to unfasten the leggings after she had kicked the snowshoes from her feet. But her stiff fingers could not loosen the knots.

  The free trader stooped and did it for her while West watched him sulkily. Jessie unwound the cloth and removed moccasins and duffles. She sat barefooted before the fire, but not too close.

  "If they're frozen I'll get snow," Whaley offered.

  "They're not frozen, thank you," she answered.

  "Whadjamean done for?" repeated West.

  His partner's derisive, scornful eye rested on him. "Use your brains, man. The Mounted are after you hot and heavy. You know their record. They get the man they go after. Take this fellow Beresford, the one that jugged you."

  The big ruffian shook a furious fist in the air. "Curse him!" he shouted, and added a dozen crackling oaths.

  "Curse him and welcome," Whaley replied. "But don't fool yourself

  about him. He's a go-getter. Didn't he go up Peace River after Pierre

  Poulette? Didn't he drag him back with cuffs on 'most a year later?

  That's what you've got against you, three hundred red-coats like him."

  "You tryin' to scare me?" demanded West sullenly.

  "I'm trying to hammer some common sense into your head. Your chance for a safe getaway rests on one thing. You've got to have friends in the Lone Lands who'll hide you till you can slip out of the country. Can you do that if the trappers—friends of McRae, nearly all of 'em—carry the word of what you did to this girl?"

  "I'm gonna take her with me." West stuck doggedly to his idea. He knew what he wanted. His life was forfeit, anyhow. He might as well go through to a finish.

  From where she sat before the great fire Jessie's whisper reached Whaley. "Don't let him, please." It was an ineffective little wail straight from the heart.

  Whaley went on, as though he had not heard. "It's your deal, not mine. I'm just telling you. Take this girl along, and your life's not worth a plugged nickel."

  "Hell's hinges! In two days she'll be crazy about me. Tha's how I am with women."

  "In two days she'll hate the ground you walk on, if she hasn't killed herself or you by that time."

  Waves of acute pain were pricking into Jessie's legs from the pink toes to the calves. She was massaging them to restore circulation and had to set her teeth to keep from crying.

  But her subconscious mind was wholly on what passed between the men. She knew that Whaley was trying to reëstablish over the other the mental dominance he had always held. It was a frail enough tenure, no doubt, likely to be upset at any moment by vanity, suspicion, or heady gusts of passion. In it, such as it was, lay a hope. Watching the gambler's cold, impassive face, the stony look in the poker eyes, she judged him tenacious and strong-willed. For reasons of his own he was fighting her battle. He had no intention of letting West take her with him.

  Why? What was the motive in the back of his mind? She acquitted the man of benevolence. If his wishes chanced to march with hers, it was because of no altruism. He held a bitter grudge against Angus McRae and incidentally against her for the humiliation of his defeat at the hands of Morse. To satisfy this he had only to walk out of the house and leave her to an ugly fate. Why did he not do this? Was he playing a deep game of his own in which she was merely a pawn?

  She turned the steaming duffles over on the mud hearth to dry the other side. She drew back the moccasins and the leggings that the heat might not scorch them. The sharp pain waves still beat into her feet and up her limbs. To change her position she drew up a stool and sat on it. This she had pushed back to a corner of the fireplace.

  For Bully West was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated at the sight of some one young and fine trembling before him: all these were factors contributing to the same end. By gar, he would have what he had set his mind on, no matter what Whaley said.

  Jessie knew the fellow was dangerous as a wounded buffalo bull in a corral. He would have his way if he had to smash and trample down any one that opposed him. Her eyes moved to Whaley's black-browed, bloodless face. How far would the gambler go in opposition to the other?

  As her glance shifted back to West, it was arrested at the window. The girl's heart lost a beat, then sang a paean of joy. For the copper-colored face of Onistah was framed in the pane.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A FORETASTE OF HELL

  Jessie's eyes flew to West and to Whaley. As yet neither of them had seen the Blackfoot. She raised a hand and pretended to brush back a lock of hair.

  The Indian recognized it as a signal that she had seen him. His head disappeared.

  Thoughts in the girl's mind raced. If Winthrop Beresford or Tom Morse had been outside instead of Onistah, she would not have attempted to give directions. Either of them would have been more competent than she to work out the problem. But the Blackfoot lacked initiative. He would do faithfully whatever he was told to do, but any independent action attempted by him was likely to be indecisive. She could not conceive of Onistah holding his own against two such men as these except by slaughtering them from the window before they knew he was there. He had not in him sufficient dominating ego.

  Whaley was an unknown quantity. It was impossible to foresee how he would accept the intrusion of Onistah. Since he was playing his own game, the chances are that he would resent it. In West's case there could be no doubt. If it was necessary to his plans, he would not hesitate an instant to kill the Indian.

  Reluctantly, she made up her mind to send him back to Faraway for help. He would travel fast. Within five hours at the outside he ought to be back with her father or Beresford. Surely, with Whaley on her side, she ought to be safe till then.

  She caught sight of Onistah again, his eyes level with the window-sill. He was waiting for instructions.

  Jessie gave them to him straight and plain. She spoke to Whaley, but for the Blackfoot's ear.

  "Bring my father here. At once. I want him. Won't you, please?"

  Whaley's blank poker stare focused on her. "The last word I had from Angus McRae was to keep out of your affairs. I can take a hint without waiting for a church to fall on me. Get some one else to take your messages."

  "If you're going back to town I thought—perhaps—you'd tell him how much I need him," she pleaded. "Then he'd come—right away."

  Onistah's head vanished. He knew what he had to do and no doubt was already on the trail. Outside it was dark. She could hear the swirling of the wind and the beat of sleet against the window-pane. A storm was rising. She prayed it might not be a blizzard. Weather permitting, her father should be here by eight or nine o'clock.

  West, straddling past, snarled at her. "Get Angus McRae outa yore head. Him an' you's come to the partin' o' the ways. You're travelin' with me now. Un'erstand?"

  His partner, sneering coldly, offered a suggestion. "If you expect to travel far you'd better get your webs to hitting snow. This girl wasn't out looking at the traps all by herself. Her trail leads straight here. Her friends are probably headed this way right now."

  "Tha's right." West stopped in his stride. His slow brain stalled. "What d' you reckon I better do? If there's only one or two we might—"

  "No," vetoed Whaley. "Nothing like that. Your play is to get out. An
d keep getting out when they crowd you. No killing."

  "Goddlemighty, I'm a wolf, not a rabbit. If they crowd me, I'll sure pump lead," the desperado growled. Then, "D' you mean light out to-night?"

  "To-night."

  "Where'll I go?"

  "Porcupine Creek, I'd say. There's an old cabin there Jacques Perritot used to live in. The snow'll blot out our tracks."

  "You goin' too?"

  "I'll see you that far," Whaley answered briefly.

  "Better bring down the dogs from the coulée, then."

  The gambler looked at him with the cool insolence that characterized him. "When did I hire out as your flunkey, West?"

  The outlaw's head was thrust forward and down. He glared at his partner, who met this manifestation of anger with hard eyes into which no expression crept. West was not insane enough to alienate his last ally. He drew back sullenly.

  "All right. I'll go, since you're so particular." As his heavy body swung round awkwardly, the man's eyes fell on Jessie. She had lifted one small foot and was starting to pull on one of the duffle stockings. He stood a moment, gloating over the beautifully shaped ankle and lower limb, then slouched forward and snatched her up from the stool into his arms.

  His savage, desirous eyes had given her an instant's warning. She was half up before his arms, massive as young trees, dragged her into his embrace.

  "But before I go I'll have a kiss from my squaw," he roared. "Just to show her that Bully West has branded her and claims ownership."

  She fought, fiercely, desperately, pushing against his rough bearded face and big barrel chest with all the force in her lithe young body. She was as a child to him. His triumphant laughter pealed as he crushed her warm soft trunk against his own and buried her in his opened coat. With an ungentle hand he forced round the averted head till the fear-filled eyes met his.