CHAPTER XX
A FIRE IN THE NIGHT
The sledding was good on the tote-road.
The thaw that ruined the iced surface of the skid-ways was followed byseveral days of freezing weather that put a hard, smooth finish on thedeep snow of the longer road, over which the runners of the box-bodiedtote-sled slipped with scarcely any resistance to the pull of thesharp-shod team.
Bill Carmody, snugly bundled in robes in the bottom of the sled, idlywatched the panorama of tree-trunks between which the road twisted inan endless succession of tortuous windings.
It was not yet daylight when he rounded the bend which was the scene ofhis fight with the werwolf.
But by the thin, cold starlight and the pale luminosity of the fadingaurora, he recognized each surrounding detail, and wondered at theaccuracy with which the trivialities of the setting had beensubconsciously impressed upon his memory.
It was here he had first met Fallon, and he remembered the undisguisedapproval in the Irishman's voice and the firm grip of the hand thatwelcomed him into the comradery of the North-men as he stood, faintfrom hunger and weary from exertion, staring dully down at themisshapen carcass of Diablesse.
"Good old Irish," he muttered, and smiled as he thought of himself,Bill Carmody, proud of the friendship of a lumberjack.
He had come to know that in the ceaseless whirl of society the heaviertimbers--the real men are thrown outward--forced to the very edges ofthe bowl, where they toil among big things upon the outskirts ofcivilization.
He pulled off his heavy mitten and fumbled for his pipe. In theside-pocket of his mackinaw his hand encountered an object--hard andcold and unfamiliar to his touch.
He withdrew it and looked at the wicked, blue-black outlines of anautomatic pistol. Idly he examined the clip, crowded with shiny, yellowcartridges. He recognized the gun as Fallon's, and smiled as hereturned it to his pocket.
"Only in case of a pinch," he grinned, and glanced approvingly at thefist that doubled hard to the strong clinch of his fingers.
Hour after hour he slipped smoothly southward, relieving the monotonyof the journey by formulating his plan of action in case theforebodings of Fallon should be realized.
Personally he apprehended no trouble, but he made up his mind thattrouble coming should not find him unprepared.
When at last the team swung into the clearing of Melton's old No. 8,the stars winked in cold brilliance above the surrounding pines, andthe deserted buildings stood lifeless and dim in the deepening gloom.
Bill headed the horses for the stable which he found, as Irish had toldhim, located at some distance from the other buildings and cut off fromsight by a knoll and a heavy tangle of scrub that had sprung up in theclearing.
He climbed stiffly and painfully from the sled-box, and with the aid ofhis crutch, hobbled about the task of unhitching the horses. He wateredthem where a plume of thin vapor disclosed the whereabouts of anever-freezing spring which burbled softly between its low,ice-encrusted banks.
It proved a difficult matter, crippled as he was, to handle the horses,but at length he got them into the stable, chinked the brokenfeed-boxes as best he could, and removed the bridles, hanging them uponthe hames.
He closed the door and, securing his lantern, blankets, andlunch-basket, made his way toward the old shack where he had spent hisfirst night in the timber land.
The sagging door swung half open, and upon the rough floor thesnow-water from the recent thaw had collected in puddles and frozen,rendering the footing precarious.
Bill noted with satisfaction that there still remained a goodly portionof the firewood which he had cut and carried in upon his previousvisit, and he soon had a fire roaring in the rusty stove.
He was in no hurry. He knew that any attempt to make away with the teamwould be delayed until the thief believed him to be asleep, and hisplans were laid to the minutest detail.
Setting the lantern upon the table, he proceeded to eat his lunch,after which he lighted his pipe, and for an hour smoked at thefireside. In spite of the pain of his injured foot his mind wanderedback to the events of his first visit to the shack.
There, in the black shadow of the pile of firewood, lay the emptywhisky bottle where the Indian had tossed it after drinking the lastdrop of its contents.
Carmody stared a long time at this silent reminder of his first seriousbrush with King Alcohol, then, from the inner pocket of his mackinaw,he drew the sealed packet and gazed for many minutes at the likeness ofthe girl--dimming now from the rub of the coarse cloth of the pocket.
Suddenly a great longing came over him--a longing to see this girl, tohear the soft accents of her voice and, above all, to tell her of hisgreat love for her, that in all the world there was no woman but her,and that each day, and a hundred times each day, her dear face wasbefore his eyes, and in his ears, ringing above the mighty sounds of afalling forest, was the soft, sweet sound of her voice.
He could not speak to her, but she could speak to him, even if it werebut a repetition of the words of the letters he already knew by heart,but which had remained sealed in the envelope ever since the day he bidfarewell to Broadway--and to _her_.
His fingers fumbled at the flap of the heavy envelope. He could atleast feast his eyes upon the lines traced by her pen and press hislips to the page where her little hand had rested.
His foot throbbed with dull persistence. He was conscious of beingtired, but he must not sleep this night. Rough work possibly, at anyrate, a man's work, awaited him there in the gloom of the silentclearing.
Again his eye sought the whisky bottle and held. His fingers ceased totoy with the flap, for in that moment the thought came to him that hadthe bottle not been empty, had it been filled with liquor--strongliquor--with the pain in his foot and the stiffness of his tiredmuscles and the work ahead--well, he might--for the old desire wasstrong upon him--he might take a drink.
"Not yet," he muttered, and returned the packet to his pocket unopened."I told her I would beat the game. I've bucked old John Barleycorn'sline and scored a touchdown; the hardest of the fighting is past, butthere is just a chance that I might miss goal."
Bill looked at his watch; it was eight o'clock. He stood up, wincing ashis injured foot touched the floor, and hobbled across the room wherehe wrenched a rough, split shelf from the wall. This, together withsome sticks of firewood, he rolled in a blanket, placing it near thestove. He added more wood until the bundle was about the size and shapeof a man, and covered it with his other two blankets. Filling thebroken stove with wood he blew out the lantern and limped silently outinto the night.
Two hours later Creed, bird's-eye spotter and bad man of the worn-outlittle town of Hilarity, knocked the ashes from his pipe and held aglowing brand to the dial of his watch.
"The greener should be asleep by now," he muttered, and, rolling hisblanket, kicked snow over the remnant of his camp-fire, picked up hisrifle, and ascended the steep side of a deep ravine lying some twohundred yards to the westward of the clearing where Bill Carmody hadencamped for the night.
After leaving Moncrossen's office on the previous afternoon he hadtraveled all night, and reached Melton's old No. 8 in the earlymorning.
All day he had slept by the side of his fire in the bottom of theravine, and in the evening had lain in the cover of the scrub andwatched the greener stable the horses and limp to the deserted shack.
At heart Creed was a craven, a bullying swashbuckler, who bragged andblustered among the rheumy-eyed down-and-outers who nightlyforegathered about Burrage's stove, but who was servile and cringing asa starved puppy toward Moncrossen and Stromberg, who openly despisedhim.
They made good use of his ability to "spot" a bird's-eye tree as far ashe could see one, however, an ability shared by few woodsmen, and whichin Creed amounted almost to genius.
The man had never been known to turn his hand to honest work, but as atimber pirate and peddler of rotgut whisky among the Indians, he hadarisen to comparative affluence.
His hate for the greener was abysmal and unreasoning, and had beencarefully fostered by Moncrossen who, instinctively fearing that thenew man would eventually expose his nefarious double-dealing with hisemployer, realized that at the proper time Creed could be induced to doaway with the greener under circumstances that would leave him,Moncrossen, free from suspicion.
In the framing of Bill Carmody, Stromberg had no part. Moncrossen couldnot fathom the big Swede, upon whose judgment and acumen he had come torely in the matter of handling and disposing of the stolen timber.
Several times during the winter he had tentatively broached plans andinsinuated means whereby the Swede could "accidentally" remove hisswamper from their path.
The reversing of a hook which would cause a log to roll just at theright time on a hillside; the filing of a link; the snapping of aweakened bunk-pin, any one of these common accidents would render themsafe from possible interference.
But to all these suggestions Stromberg turned a deaf ear. The boss eventaunted him with the knock-out he had received at the hands of thegreener.
"That's all right, Moncrossen," he replied; "I picked the fight purposeto beat him up. It didn't work. He's a better man than me--or youeither--an' you know it. Only he had to lick me to prove it. He chilledyour heart with a look an' a grin--an' the whole crew lookin' on.
"But beatin' up a man is one thing an' murder is another. Appleton'srich, besides he's a softwood man an' ain't fixed for handlin' veneer,so I might's well get in on the bird's-eye as let you an' Creed an'Lebolt steal it all. But I ain't got to the point where I'd murder agood man to cover up my dirty tracks--an' I never will!"
And so, without consulting Stromberg, Moncrossen bided his time andlaid his plans. And now the time had come. The plan had been gone overin detail in the little office, and Creed in the edge of the timberstood ready to carry it out.
Stealthily he slipped into the dense shadows of the scrub and made hisway toward the shack where a thin banner of smoke, shot with anoccasional yellow spark, floated from the dilapidated stovepipe thatprotruded from the roof.
The hard crust rendered snowshoes unnecessary, and his soft moccasinsmade no sound upon the surface of the snow.
Gaining the side of the shack, he peered between the unchinked logs.The play of the firelight that shone through the holes of the brokenstove sent flickering shadows dancing over the floor and walls of therough interior.
Near the fire, stretched long and silent beneath its blankets, lay theform of a man. Creed shifted his position for a better view of thesleeper. His foot caught in the loop of a piece of discarded wire whoseends were firmly frozen into the snow, and he crashed heavily backwardinto a pile of dry brushwood.
It seemed to the frightened man as if the accompanying noise must wakethe dead. He lay for a moment where he had fallen, listening for soundsfrom within. He clutched his rifle nervously, but the deathlike silencewas unbroken save for his own heavy breathing and the tiny snapping ofthe fire in the stove.
Cautiously he extricated himself from the brush-heap, his heartpounding wildly at the snapping of each dry twig. It was incrediblethat the man could sleep through such a racket in a country where lifeand death may hang upon the rustle of a leaf.
But the silence remained unbroken, and, after what seemed to thecowering man an eternity of expectant waiting, he crawled again to thewall and glanced furtively into the interior. The form by the fire wasmotionless as before--it had not stirred.
Then, as he looked, a ray of firelight fell upon the white label of theblack whisky bottle that lay an easy arm's reach from the head of thesleeper. A smile of comprehension twisted the lips of his evil face ashe leered through the crevice at the helpless form by the fireside.
"Soused to the guards," he sneered, "an' me with ten years scairt offenmy life fer fear I'd wake him." He stood erect and, with no attempt atthe stealth with which he had approached the shack, proceeded rapidlyin the direction of the stable.
It was but the work of a few moment to bridle the horses, lead themout, and hitch them to the sled.
Tossing the horse-blankets on top of the big tarpaulin which lay in therear of the sled-box ready for use in the covering of supplies, hesettled himself in front and pulled the robes about him.
He turned the team slowly onto the tote-road and glanced again towardthe shack. A spark, larger than the others, shot out of the stovepipeand lodged upon the bark roof, where it glowed for a moment beforegoing out. The man watched it in sudden fascination.
He halted the team and stared long at the spot where the spark hadvanished in blackness, but which in the brain of the man appeared as anever-widening circle of red, which spread until it included the wholeroof in its fiery embrace, and crept slowly down the log walls.
So realistic was the picture that he seemed to hear the crackle androar of the leaping flames. He drew a trembling hand across his eyes,and when he looked again the shack stood silent and black in thehalf-light of the starlit clearing.
"God!" he mumbled aloud. "If it had only happened thataway----" Hepassed his tongue over his dry, thick lips. "Why not?" he arguedquerulously. "Moncrossen said 'twa'nt safe to bushwhack him like Iwanted to--said how I ain't got nerve nor brains to stand noinvestigation.
"But if he'd git burnt up in the shack, that's safer yet. He got thatbooze somewhere--some one knows he had it. He got spiflicated, built aroarin' fire in the old stove--an' there y'are, plain as daylight. Nobrains! I'll show him who's got brains--an' there won't be noinvestigation, neither."
He drew the team to the side of the tote-road and, slipping the haltersover the bridles, tied them to a stout sapling and made his way towardthe shack.
One look satisfied him that the sleeper had not stirred, andnoiselessly he slipped the heavy hasp of the door over the staple andsecured it with the wooden pin.
He collected dry branches, piling them directly beneath the small,square window which yawned high in the wall. Higher and higher the pilegrew until its top was almost on a level with the sill.
His hands trembled as he applied the match. Tiny tongues of flamestruggled upward through the branches, lengthening and widening asfresh twigs ignited, and in his ears the crackle and snap of the drywood sounded as the rattle of musketry.
His first impulse as the flames gained headway was to fly--to placedistance between himself and the scene of his crime. But he dared notgo. His knees shook, and he stared with blanched face in horridfascination as the flames roared and crackled through the brushwood.
They were curling about the window now, and the whole clearing waslight as day. He slunk around the corner and gained the shadow of theopposite wall. Fearfully he applied his eye to a crevice--the form bythe stove had not moved.
The air of the interior was heavy with smoke and tiny flames wereeating their way between the logs. The smoke thickened, blurring andblotting out the prostrate figure. He glanced across at the window. Itsaperture was a solid sheet of flame--he was safe!
With a low, animal-like cry Creed sprang away and dashed in thedirection of the team. With shaking fingers he clawed at the knots andslipped the halters.
Leaping into the sled, he grabbed up the lines and headed the horsessouthward at a run. Behind him the sky reddened as the flames lickedhungrily at the dry logs of the shack.
"It's his own fault! It's his own fault!" he mumbled over and overagain. "Serves him right fer gittin' soused an' buildin' up a big firein a busted stove. 'Twasn't no fault of his that spark didn't catch theroof. Serves him right! Maybe it did catch--maybe it did. 'Taint myfault no-how--it must 'a' caught--I seen it thataway so plain! Oh, myGod! Oh, my God," he babbled, "if they git to askin' me!
"It was thisaway, mister; yes, sir; listen: I was camped in the ravine,an' all to wunst I seen the flare of the fire an' I run over there; but'twas too late--the roof had fell in an' the pore feller must 'a' beencooked alive. It was turrible, mister--turrible!
"An' I run an' hitched up the team an' druv to Hilarity hell bent fer apotlatch
--that's the way of it--s'elp me God it is! If you don'tb'lieve it ask Moncrossen--ask Moncrossen, I mean, if he didn't have nobooze along--he must 'a' been drunk--an' him crippled thataway!
"Oh, Lordy, Lord! I ain't supposed to know it was the greener, letalone he was crippled! I'm all mixed up a'ready! They better not goaskin' me questions lessen they want to git me hung--Goda'mi'ty! I'dort to done like Moncrossen said!"
So he raved in a frenzy of terror as the horses sped southward at apace that sent the steam rising in clouds from their heaving sides.
And under the big tarpaulin in the rear of the sled-box the greenergrinned as he listened, and eyed the gibbering man through a narrowslit in the heavy canvas.
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