The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  West smothered a laugh and an oath. He saw the trick now. She must have back-tracked carefully, at each step putting her feet in exactly the same place as when she had moved forward. Of course! The tracks showed where she had brushed the deep drifts occasionally when the moccasin went in the second time.

  It was slow business, for while he studied the sign he must keep a keen eye cocked against the chance of a shot from his hidden prey.

  Twice he quartered over the ground before he knew he had reached the place where the back-tracking ceased. Close to the spot was a pine. A pile of snow showed where a small avalanche had plunged down. That must have been when she disturbed it on the branches in climbing.

  His glance swept up the trunk and came to a halt. With his rifle he covered the figure crouching close to it on the far side.

  "Come down," he ordered.

  He was due for one of the surprises of his life. The tree-dweller slid down and stood before him. It was not Jessie McRae, but a man, an Indian, the Blackfoot who had ridden out with the girl once to spoil his triumph over the red-coat Beresford.

  For a moment he stood, stupefied, jaw fallen and mouth open. "Whad you doin' here?" he asked at last.

  "No food my camp. I hunt," Onistah said.

  "Tha's a lie. Where's the McRae girl?"

  The slim Indian said nothing. His face was expressionless as a blank wall.

  West repeated the question. He might have been talking to a block of wood for all the answer he received. His crafty, cruel mind churned over the situation.

  "Won't talk, eh? We'll see about that. You got her hid somewheres an' I'm gonna find where. I'll not stand for yore Injun tricks. Drop that gun an' marchê-back to the cabin. Un'erstand?"

  Onistah did as he was told.

  They reached the cabin. There was one thing West did not get hold of in his mind. Why had not the Blackfoot shot him from the tree? He had had a score of chances. The reason was not one the white man would be likely to fathom. Onistah had not killed him because the Indian was a Christian. He had learned from Father Giguère that he must turn the other cheek.

  West, revolver close at hand, cut thongs from the caribou skins. He tied his captive hand and foot, then removed his moccasins and duffles. From the fire he raked out a live coal and put it on a flat chip. This he brought across the room.

  "Changed yore mind any? Where's the girl?" he demanded.

  Onistah looked at him, impassive as only an Indian can be.

  "Still sulky, eh? We'll see about that."

  The convict knelt on the man's ankles and pushed the coal against the naked sole of the brown foot.

  An involuntary deep shudder went through the Blackfoot's body. The foot twitched. An acrid odor of burning flesh filled the room. No sound came from the locked lips.

  The tormentor removed the coal. "I ain't begun to play with you yet. I'm gonna give you some real Apache stuff 'fore I'm through. Where's the girl? I'm gonna find out if I have to boil you in grease."

  Still Onistah said nothing.

  West brought another coal. "We'll try the other foot," he said.

  Again the pungent acrid odor rose to the nostrils.

  "How about it now?" the convict questioned.

  No answer came. This time Onistah had fainted.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  "IS A' WELL WI' YOU, LASS?"

  Jessie's shoes crunched on the snow-crust. She traveled fast. In spite of Onistah's assurance her heart was troubled for him. West and Whaley would study the tracks and come to at least an approximation of the truth. She did not dare think of what the gorilla-man would do to her friend if they captured him.

  And how was it possible that they would not find him? His footsteps would be stamped deep in the snow. He could not travel fast. Since he had become a Christian, the Blackfoot, with the simplicity of a mind not used to the complexities of modern life, accepted the words of Jesus literally. He would not take a human life to save his own.

  She blamed herself for escaping at his expense. The right thing would have been to send him back again for her father. But West had become such a horrible obsession with her that the sight of him even at a distance had put her in a panic.

  From the end of the lake she followed the trail Onistah had made. It took into the woods, veering sharply to the right. The timber was open. Even where the snow was deep, the crust was firm enough to hold.

  In her anxiety it seemed that hours passed. The sun was still fairly high, but she knew how quickly it sank these winter days.

  She skirted a morass, climbed a long hill, and saw before her another lake. On the shore was a camp. A fire was burning, and over this a man stooping.

  At the sound of her call, the man looked up. He rose and began to run toward her. She snowshoed down the hill, a little blindly, for the mist of glad tears brimmed her eyes.

  Straight into Beresford's arms she went. Safe at last, she began to cry. The soldier petted her, with gentle words of comfort.

  "It's all right now, little girl. All over with. Your father's here. See! He's coming. We'll not let anything harm you."

  McRae took the girl into his arms and held her tight. His rugged face was twisted with emotion. A dam of ice melted in his heart. The voice with which he spoke, broken with feeling, betrayed how greatly he was shaken.

  "My bairn! My wee dawtie! To God be the thanks."

  She clung to him, trying to control her sobs. He stroked her hair and kissed her, murmuring Gaelic words of endearment. A thought pierced him, like a sword-thrust.

  He held her at arm's length, a fierce anxiety in his haggard face. "Is a' well wi' you, lass?" he asked, almost harshly.

  She understood his question. Her level eyes met his. They held no reservations of shame. "All's well with me, Father. Mr. Whaley was there the whole time. He stood out against West. He was my friend." She stopped, enough said.

  "The Lord be thankit," he repeated again, devoutly.

  Tom Morse, rifle in hand, had come from the edge of the woods and was standing near. He had heard her first call, had seen her go to the arms of Beresford direct as a hurt child to those of its mother, and he had drawn reasonable conclusions from that. For under stress the heart reveals itself, he argued, and she had turned simply and instinctively to the man she loved. He stood now outside the group, silent. Inside him too a river of ice had melted. His haunted, sunken eyes told the suffering he had endured. The feeling that flooded him was deeper than joy. She had been dead and was alive again. She had been lost and was found.

  "Where have you been?" asked Beresford. "We've been looking for days."

  "In a cabin on Bull Creek. Mr. Whaley took me there, but West followed."

  "How did you get away?"

  "We were out of food. They went hunting. West took my snowshoes. Onistah came. He saw them coming back and gave me his shoes. He went and hid in the woods. But they'll see his tracks. They'll find him. We must hurry back."

  "Yes," agreed McRae. "I'm thinkin' if West finds the lad, he'll do him ill."

  Morse spoke for the first time, his voice dry as a chip. "We'd better hurry on, Beresford and I. You and Miss McRae can bring the sled."

  McRae hesitated, but assented. There might be desperate need of haste. "That'll be the best way. But you'll be carefu', lad. Yon West's a wolf. He'd as lief kill ye baith as look at ye."

  The younger men were out of sight over the brow of the hill long before McRae and Jessie had the dogs harnessed.

  "You'll ride, lass," the father announced.

  She demurred. "We can go faster if I walk. Let me drive. Then you can break trail where the snow's soft."

  "No. You'll ride, my dear. There's nae sic a hurry. The lads'll do what's to be done. On wi' ye."

  Jessie got into the cariole and was bundled up to the tip of the nose with buffalo robes, the capote of her own fur being drawn over the head and face. For riding in the sub-Arctic winter is a freezing business.

  "Marché,"[6] ordered McRae.

  [Fo
otnote: Most of the dogs of the North were trained by trappers who talked French and gave commands in that language. Hence even the Anglo-Saxon drivers used in driving a good many words of that language. (W.M.R.)]

  Cuffy led the dogs up the hill, following the trail already broken. The train made good time, but to Jessie it seemed to crawl. She was tortured with anxiety for Onistah. An express could not have carried her fast enough. It was small comfort to tell herself that Onistah was a Blackfoot and knew every ruse of the woods. His tracks would lead straight to him and the veriest child could follow them. Nor could she persuade herself that Whaley would stand between him and West's anger. To the gambler Onistah was only a nitchie.

  The train passed out of the woods to the shore of the lake. Here the going was better. The sun was down and the snow-crust held dogs and sled. A hundred fifty yards from the cabin McRae pulled up the team. He moved forward and examined the snow.

  With a heave Jessie flung aside the robes that wrapped her and jumped from the cariole. An invisible hand seemed to clutch tightly at her throat. For what she and her father had seen were crimson splashes in the white. Some one or something had been killed or wounded here. Onistah, of course! He must have changed his mind, tried to follow her, and been shot by West as he was crossing the lake.

  She groaned, her heart heavy.

  McRae offered comfort. "He'll likely be only wounded. The lads wouldna hae moved him yet if he'd no' been livin'."

  The train moved forward, Jessie running beside Angus.

  Morse came to the door. He closed it behind him.

  "Onistah?" cried Jessie.

  "He's been--hurt. But we were in time. He'll get well."

  "West shot him? We saw stains in the snow."

  "No. He shot Whaley."

  "Whaley?" echoed McRae.

  "Yes. Wanted to get rid of him. Thought your daughter was hidden in the woods here. Afraid, too, that Whaley would give him up to the North-West Mounted."

  "Then Whaley's dead?" the Scotchman asked.

  "No. West hadn't time right then to finish the job. Pretty badly hurt, though. Shot in the side and in the thigh."

  "And West?"

  "We came too soon. He couldn't finish his deviltry. He lit out over the hill soon as he saw us."

  They went into the house.

  Jessie walked straight to where Onistah lay on the balsam boughs and knelt beside him. Beresford was putting on one of his feet a cloth soaked in caribou oil.

  "What did he do to you?" she cried, a constriction of dread at her heart.

  A ghost of a smile touched the immobile face of the native. "Apache stuff, he called it."

  "But--"

  "West burned his feet to make him tell where you were," Beresford told her gently.

  "Oh!" she cried, in horror.

  "Good old Onistah. He gamed it out. Wouldn't say a word. West saw us coming and hit the trail."

  "Is he--is he--?"

  "He's gone."

  "I mean Onistah."

  "Suffering to beat the band, but not a whimper out of him. He's not permanently hurt--be walking around in a week or two."

  "You poor boy!" the girl cried softly, and she put her arm under the Indian's head to lift it to an easier position.

  The dumb lips of the Blackfoot did not thank her, but the dark eyes gave her the gratitude of a heart wholly hers.

  All that night the house was a hospital. The country was one where men had learned to look after hurts without much professional aid. In a rough way Angus McRae was something of a doctor. He dressed the wounds of both the injured, using the small medical kit he had brought with him.

  Whaley was a bit of a stoic himself. The philosophy of his class was to take good fortune or ill undemonstratively. He was lucky to be alive. Why whine about what must be?

  But as the fever grew on him with the lengthening hours, he passed into delirium. Sometimes he groaned with pain. Again he fell into disconnected babble of early days. He was back again with his father and mother, living over his wild and erring youth.

  "... Don't tell Mother. I'll square it all right if you keep it from her.... Rotten run of cards. Ninety-seven dollars. You'll have to wait, I tell you.... Mother, Mother, if you won't cry like that ..."

  McRae used the simple remedies he had. In themselves they were, he knew, of little value. He must rely on good nursing and the man's hardy constitution to pull him through.

  With Morse and Beresford he discussed the best course to follow. It was decided that Morse should take Onistah and Jessie back to Faraway next day and return with a load of provisions. Whaley's fever must run its period. It was impossible to tell yet whether he would live or die, but for some days at least it would not be safe to move him.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  NOT GOING ALONE

  "Morse, I've watched ye through four-five days of near-hell. I ken nane I'd rather tak wi' me as a lone companion on the long traverse. You're canny an' you're bold. That's why I'm trustin' my lass to your care. It's a short bit of a trip, an' far as I can see there's nae danger. But the fear's in me. That's the truth, man. Gie me your word you'll no' let her oot o' your sight till ye hand her ower to my wife at Faraway."

  Angus clamped a heavy hand on the young man's shoulder. His blue eyes searched steadily those of the trader.

  "I'll not let her twenty yards from me any time. That's a promise, McRae," the trader said quietly.

  Well wrapped from the wind, Onistah sat in the cariole.

  Jessie kissed the Scotchman fondly, laughing at him the while. "You're a goose, Father. I'm all right. You take good care of yourself. That West might come back here."

  "No chance of that. West will never come back except at the end of a rope. He's headed for the edge of the Barrens, or up that way somewhere," Beresford said. "And inside of a week I'll be north-bound on his trail myself."

  Jessie was startled, a good deal distressed. "I'd let him go. He'll meet a bad end somewhere. If he never comes back, as you say he won't, then he'll not trouble us."

  The soldier smiled grimly. "That's not the way of the Mounted. Get the fellow you're sent after. That's our motto. I've been assigned the job of bringing in West and I've got to get him."

  "You don't mean you're going up there alone to bring back that--that wolf-man?"

  "Oh, no," the trooper answered lightly. "I'll have a Cree along as a guide."

  "A Cree," she scoffed. "What good will he be if you find West? He'll not help you against him at all."

  "Not what he's with me for. I'm not supposed to need any help to bring back one man."

  "It's--it's just suicide to go after him alone," she persisted. "Look what he did to the guard at the prison, to Mr. Whaley, to Onistah! He's just awful--hardly human."

  "The lad's under orders, lass," McRae told her. "Gin they send him into the North after West, he'll just have to go. He canna argy-bargy aboot it."

  Jessie gave up, reluctantly.

  The little cavalcade started. Morse drove. The girl brought up the rear.

  Her mind was still on the hazard of the journey Beresford must take. When Morse stopped to rest the dogs for a few moments, she tucked up Onistah again and recurred to the subject.

  "I don't think Win Beresford should go after West alone except for a Cree guide. The Inspector ought to send another constable with him. Or two more. If he knew that man--how cruel and savage he is--"

  Tom Morse spoke quietly. "He's not going alone. I'll be with him."

  She stared. "You?"

  "Yes. Sworn in as a deputy constable."

  "But--he didn't say you were going when I spoke to him about it a little while ago."

  "He didn't know. I've made up my mind since."

  In point of fact he had come to a decision three seconds before he announced it.

  Her soft eyes applauded him. "That'll be fine. His friends won't worry so much if you're with him. But--of course you know it'll be a horrible trip--and dangerous."

  "No picnic," he admitted.r />
  She continued to look at him, her cheeks flushed and her face vivid. "You must like Win a lot. Not many men would go."