CHAPTER V
THE WAY OF THE NORTH
"Oh, mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" half sobbed old Marquette. "They will killone the other! Another time it matters not. But to-night, here! . . .Stop; I forbid it!"
One blow had been struck and already the compact circle about the twomen had squared as those who watched drew back along the walls leavingthe centre of the room clear. They had jerked tables and chairs awaywith them. One table, the one at which Drennen and George had sat amoment ago, with its load of virgin gold and minted coins, was nowagainst the further counter, young Frank Marquette guarding it, thatthe gold upon it might go to Drennen when the fight was over. . . .
"If he is alive then," he muttered, his eyes narrowing as they tooknote of the black rage distorting the big Canadian's face. "If Georgedoes not kill him it is a miracle of Satan."
"You are come to-night for trouble." Slowly Kootanie George slippedhis heavy coat from his shoulders. His deep, hairy chest, swelling tothe breath which fairly whistled through his distended nostrils, poppeda button back through a frayed button hole and stood out like aninflated bellows. "I just say, 'Damn you.' That is nothin' for a manto fight. You look for trouble, an' by God, I am ready!"
He flung the coat from him and lifted his big hands. Drennen wasstanding waiting for him, his own hands at his sides, his steely eyesfilled with an evil light. He made no answer beyond the silent one ofa slight lifting of his lip, like a soundless wolfish snarl.
"I forbid!" screamed Pere Marquette again. "Another time it isnothing. To-night it is to insult Mamma Jeanne. Stop it, _chiens_!"
But Mamma Jeanne had her own word to say. Her plump arms were abouther indignant spouse, dragging him back.
"Let them be," she commanded. "Is not George a guest and has he notthe right to put his heel upon an evil serpent? It is just," shecried, her eyes all fire. "It will be but a little minute and, _pouf_!it is all over. Let them be!"
She had great faith in the prowess of her man, had Mere Marquette. Hadthere been a thunder storm outside, had Pere Marquette wished it tostop while Mere Marquette wanted it to continue, she would have put herarms about him and pleaded, "Let it be."
"There shall be fon, _mes enfants_," whispered the old prophet fromMoosejaw.
Slowly, but light footed enough, lifting his great hands still a littlehigher, Kootanie George came forward. Drennen waited, his lip raisedin the bitter snarl which seemed frozen upon his dark face, his greyeyes malevolent. He had fought with many men, he was not afraid tofight; all men there knew that. But they wondered, looking at him andthen at the other, if he understood the thing standing unhidden inKootanie George's eyes.
Yes, he understood. For, just the wee fraction of a second before theCanadian struck, Drennen jerked up his own hands, ready for him. Andthe two struck at the same instant. There was to be no finesse ofboxing; these men had no knowledge of fistic trickery. All that theyknew was to fight, to strike hard and straight from the shoulder,opposing strength with strength, swiftness with swiftness, mercilesshatred with a hatred as merciless. And so it happened that both blowslanded, two little coughing grunts following close upon the impacttelling how mightily, and both men reeled back. There was blood uponDrennen's lower lip. The upper was still lifted snarlingly from thered-stained teeth.
Ramon Garcia, watching with an interested smile, nodded his head asthough in approval and glanced at Ernestine Dumont upon the table abovehim. Much of the colour had gone out of her cheeks, leaving them drawnand pallid. Her parted lips too showed the whiteness of her hard setteeth.
"I," meditated Ramon Garcia as his eyes returned to the two men, "Ishould be less frightened of George than of her. Her eyes are like adevil."
A bare fisted, relentless, give and take fight such as this promised tobe is common enough wherever hard men foregather, dirt-common in acountry where the fag end of a long winter of enforced idleness leavesrestless nerves raw. The uncommon thing about the brief battle or inany way connected with it lay in the attitude of the onlookers. Rarelyis a crowd so unanimous both in expectation and desire. George wouldkill Drennen or would nearly kill him, and it would be a good thing. Aman of no friends, Drennen had no sympathiser. No man who watched withnarrowed eyes, no woman on table or chair or hiding her face in herhands, but asked and looked for the same ending.
Though from the first it was apparent that George was the bigger man,the heavier, the stronger, it was silently conceded that thesequalities though they mean much do not count for everything. It becameclear almost as they met for the first blows that the slenderer wasquicker and that if Kootanie George was confident Drennen was no lessso. And, when they both reeled backward, a many-voiced murmur ofsurprise was like a reluctant admission: Drennen had done two thingswhich no other man had ever done before him; he had kept his feetagainst the smashing drive of that big fist in his face and he had madeGeorge stagger. For the moment it looked as though the two would fall.
Once more George came forward slowly while Drennen waited for him,again they met, Drennen leaping forward just as the Canadian's sledgeof a clenched hand was lifted. Each man threw up a guarding left armonly to have his brawny guard beaten through as again the tworesounding blows landed almost like one; this time there was a trickleof red from the Canadian's mouth, a panting, wheezing cough from theAmerican as he received the other's blow full in the chest. For adizzy moment they stood separated by the very fury of their onslaught,each balancing.
"They are men!" murmured Garcia in delight. And Ernestine, leaning farout from her table, cried breathlessly:
"George! If you love me . . ."
George glanced at her, a slow smile upon his battered lips. He ran theback of his hand across his mouth and again moved forward, slowly. Andagain Drennen snarling, awaited him.
This time George crouched a little as he made his attack, and as hedrew closer he moved more swiftly, bunching his big muscles, fairlyhurling his great body as he leaped and struck, reckless of what blowsmight find him, determined by his superior weight alone to carry theother back and down. And as though Drennen had read the purpose in thesmouldering eyes he too leaped forward so that the two big bodies metin mid air. Like one blow came the sounds of the two blows given andtaken as the impact of the two bodies gave out its soft thud. And asone man the two went down together, fighting, beating brutally at eachother, all rules of the game forgotten save that one alone which says,"He wins who wins!"
For a little they clenched and rolled upon the floor like two great,grim cats. Through the sound of scuffling came the noise ofshort-armed jabs, the deep throated curses of Kootanie George and once. . . his first vocal utterance . . . one of Dave Drennen's laughs. Itwas when he had again driven his fist against George's mouth, drawingblood from both lips and hand cut by breaking teeth.
Kootanie George's left arm was flung about the neck of the man at whosebody his white knuckled fist was driving like a piston; the Americanhad craned his neck and in order to protect his face held it pressedclose to George's breast. Drennen's right arm was about George's body,caught against the floor as they fell, Drennen's left hand with thumbsunken deep was already at the Canadian's throat. The snarl uponDrennen's face was the more marked now, more filled with menace andhate as his body experienced the torture of the other's regular blows.
For a little they were strangely silent, Kootanie having given over hisripping oaths, strangely quiet as they lay with no movement apparentbeyond the ceaseless rhythmic striking of George's arm. Even thoseblows ceased in a moment as George's hand went hurriedly to the wristat his breast. The thumb at his throat had sunk until the place whereit crooked at the joint was lost; George's face from red had gone towhite, then to a hectic purple. Now they strove for the mastery of thehand at the throat, George dragging at it mightily, Drennen's fingerscrooked like talons with the tendons standing out so that they seemedwhite cords in the lamplight. George's breath came in short, shortergasps, he tugged with swelling muscles, his own
hand a terriblewrenching vice at Drennen's wrist. And when the purple face grew morehideously purple, when the short gasps were little dry sounds, speakingpiteously of agony and suffocation, when still the relentless grip athis throat was unshaken, men began for the first time to guage thestrength which lay in the great, gaunt frame of Dave Drennen.
And George too had begun to understand. Suddenly his hand came awayfrom the iron wrist and sought Drennen's throat for which his widebulging eyes quested frantically. His hand found what it sought atlast, but Drennen had twisted his head still a little further to theside, brought his face still lower and closer against the Canadian'schest, and George could not get the grip where he wanted it, full uponthe front of the throat. He tore at the rigid muscles below the jaw amoment and the bloody, broken skin of Drennen's neck told with whatfury George had striven.
But George must hasten now and he knew it. Again his right hand soughtDrennen's left, fought at the deadly grip at his own throat. In hisreach a quick cunning came to him and his groping fingers passed alongDrennen's wrist and did not tarry there. Up and up they went, thegreat questing fingers of the Canadian, until at last they found thefingers of the other man. Here they settled. And then those whowatched saw the middle finger of Drennen's hand drawn back from theflesh of George's neck, saw it bent back and back, still further backuntil it was a pure wonder that Drennen held on, back and back. . . .And then there was a little snap of a bone broken and Drennen's handfell away and Kootanie George, drawing a long, sobbing breath, rolledclear of him and slowly rose to his feet.
Drennen too rose but not so slowly. His left hand was at his side, theone broken finger standing oddly apart from its fellows, as he ran thethree steps to meet Kootanie George. George threw up his arm, but thesavagery of the blow beating upon him struck the guard aside andKootanie George, caught fairly upon the chin flung out his arms andwent down. He brushed against the wall behind him in falling and socame only to his knees on the floor, his hands out before him. Drennenstood over him, breathing deeply, gathering his strength for a lasteffort. George staggered perceptibly as he got to his feet, a queerlook in his eyes. Drennen struck swiftly, his fist grinding into thepit of Kootanie's stomach and, as the big man crumpled, finding hischin again. And as George staggered a second time Drennen was uponhim, Drennen's laugh like the snarl of a wolf, Drennen's hand, theright this time, at George's throat. . . .
A thin scream from Ernestine Dumont quivering with a strange blend ofemotions, a spit of flame, a puff of smoke hanging idly in the stillair of the room, the sharp bark of a small calibre revolver, andDrennen's hand dropped from Kootanie's throat. He swayed unsteadily amoment, stepped toward her, his eyes flecked with red and brimming withrage, his hand going to the wound in his side.
"Cat," said Drennen deliberately.
As he fell back, a sudden weakness upon him, settling unsteadily into achair, Ramon Garcia struck up the barrel of the smoking gun inErnestine's hand and the second bullet ripped into the papered ceiling.Then Kootanie George turned slowly, his eyes full upon Ernestine's, andsaid as Drennen had said it,
"Cat!"
"You are one big brute!" cried Mere Jeanne angrily. "You, to call herthat when she shoot because she love you! I should do like that forMarquette here."
"She has put me to shame, made me a man for men to laugh at," saidGeorge heavily. "What, am I no man but a little baby that a woman mustfight my fight? I am done with her."
Drennen's face had gone white; the fingers gripping his torn side weresticky and wet and red. He rose half way from his chair only to dropback, the rigid muscles along his jaw showing how the teeth were hardset. He had seemed to forget Ernestine, George, all of them, his gazeseeking and finding the table where his gold lay, then lifting to FrankMarquette's face suspiciously. Then it was that he noted and thatothers marked for the first time how again the outer door had openedthat night to admit tardy guests. A little flicker of surprise cameinto his eyes, and small wonder.
Three persons had entered before Ernestine had cried out and fired thefirst shot, two men and a girl. The men would come in for their shareof attention later; the girl demanded hers now, like a right and atribute. She stood a little in front of her companions. Her eyeswidened, growing a little hard as they watched the end of the fight,passed from Drennen and Kootanie George to Ernestine Dumont, cameslowly back to George, rested finally upon Drennen as though theirchief interest lay with him. She did not show fear as a woman of herappearance might be looked upon to show it; there were interest andcuriosity in her look and, finally, when after a long time she lookedagain from Drennen to Ernestine, a high contempt.
In spite of the heavy white sweater whose collar was drawn high abouther throat, in spite of the white hood concealing all but one straywisp of brown hair, her loveliness was unhidden, looking out in all ofthe splendid glory of youthful health and vigour. Her eyes were asgrey as Drennen's own, but with little golden flecks seeming to floatupon sea-grey, unsounded depths. She might have been seventeen, shecould not have been more than twenty, and yet her air was one ofconfidence and in it was an indefinable something which was neitherarrogance nor yet hauteur, and which in its subtle way hinted that theblood pulsing through her perfect body was the blood of those who hadknown how to command since babyhood and who had never learned to obey.When later men learned that that blood was drawn in riotous, convergingcurrents from unconquerable fighting Scotch highlanders and from a longline of French nobility there came no surprise in the discovery. Menand women together, Kootanie George and Ernestine, Garcia and Drennen,Pere Marquette and Mere Marquette, felt the difference between her andthemselves.
"We seem to interrupt," she said coolly, her voice deeply musical, asshe turned to Pere Marquette. He, looking a little dazed and stupidfrom all that had taken place, but never forgetful of his duties ashost, had come toward her hesitantly, his lips seeking to form a newphrase of greeting. "We are tired and need food. Everything seemedclosed but your place. So we came in."
"You are welcome, mam'selle," he said hurriedly. "Mos' welcome. It isunfortunate . . ."
"Captain Sefton," went on the girl quite calmly, "will you see what youcan do for that man? He is losing a great deal of blood."
Captain Sefton, a thin, hawk-eyed man with a coppery Vandyke beard,shrugged his shoulders distastefully but passed her, drawing near DaveDrennen. The girl turned toward the second of her companions, ayounger man by half a dozen years, who brought the stamp of the citiesin his fashionable clothes, the relentless marks of a city'sdissipation about his small mouth and light eyes and, in air andfeatures, a suggestion of the French.
"Marc," she said, drawing at her gauntlets, her back upon Sefton andDrennen, "if you can arrange for a room for me I shall go to itimmediately."
Marc obeyed her as Captain Sefton had done, turning to Marquette withan inquiry. Drennen's eyes were only for a fleeting moment upon Seftonwhose quick fingers were busy at the wound. Then they returned to thetable at which he had diced. Frank Marquette, seeing the look, pouredthe gold all into the canvas bag and brought it to him.
The eyes of one man alone did not waver once while the girl was in theroom, black eyes as tender as a woman's, eloquent now with admiration,their glance like a caress. Ramon Garcia spoke softly, under hisbreath. Ernestine Dumont looked down at him curiously. She had norunderstood the words for they were Spanish. They had meant,
"Now am I resigned to my exile!"
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