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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 wasenough. He understood the situation better than words could tell it.
To Jessie, at this critical moment of her life, even Whaley seemed aGod-send. She pushed across the room awkwardly, not waiting to freeherself of the webs packed with snow. In the dusky eyes there was acry for help.
"Save me from him!" she cried simply, as a child might have done. "Youwill, won't you?"
The black eyebrows in the cold, white face drew to a line. Thegambler's gaze, expressionless as a blank wall, met hers steadily.
"Why don't you send for your friend Morse?" he asked. "He's in thatbusiness. I ain't."
It was as though he had struck her in the face. The eyes that clung tohis we're horror-filled. Did there really live men so heartless thatthey 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 theNorth-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 needto hunt more," sneered the gambler. "I had a notion the red-coats wereon your heels to take you across the plains to hang you."
"I'll learn 'em about that," the huge fugitive bragged. "They sayI'm a killer. Let it ride. I'll sure enough let 'em see they're goodguessers."
Whaley shrugged his shoulders and looked at him with cold contempt."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 thisthrough 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 yourfeet to freeze, you'd better get those duffles off."
The girl took off her mits and tried to unfasten the leggings aftershe had kicked the snowshoes from her feet. But her stiff fingerscould not loosen the knots.
The free trader stooped and did it for her while West watched himsulkily. 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 onethat jugged you."
The big ruffian shook a furious fist in the air. "Curse him!" heshouted, and added a dozen crackling oaths.
"Curse him and welcome," Whaley replied. "But don't fool yourselfabout him. He's a go-getter. Didn't he go up Peace River after PierrePoulette? 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 chancefor a safe getaway rests on one thing. You've got to have friends inthe 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 knewwhat he wanted. His life was forfeit, anyhow. He might as well gothrough to a finish.
From where she sat before the great fire Jessie's whisper reachedWhaley. "Don't let him, please." It was an ineffective little wailstraight 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 wortha plugged nickel."
"Hell's hinges! In two days she'll be crazy about me. Tha's how I amwith women."
"In two days she'll hate the ground you walk on, if she hasn't killedherself or you by that time."
Waves of acute pain were pricking into Jessie's legs from the pinktoes to the calves. She was massaging them to restore circulation andhad 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 reestablish over the other themental dominance he had always held. It was a frail enough tenure, nodoubt, likely to be upset at any moment by vanity, suspicion, or headygusts of passion. In it, such as it was, lay a hope. Watching thegambler's cold, impassive face, the stony look in the poker eyes, shejudged him tenacious and strong-willed. For reasons of his own he wasfighting her battle. He had no intention of letting West take her withhim.
Why? What was the motive in the back of his mind? She acquitted theman of benevolence. If his wishes chanced to march with hers, it wasbecause of no altruism. He held a bitter grudge against Angus McRaeand incidentally against her for the humiliation of his defeat at thehands of Morse. To satisfy this he had only to walk out of the houseand leave her to an ugly fate. Why did he not do this? Was he playinga deep game of his own in which she was merely a pawn?
She turned the steaming duffles over on the mud hearth to dry theother side. She drew back the moccasins and the leggings that the heatmight not scorch them. The sharp pain waves still beat into her feetand up her limbs. To change her position she drew up a stool and saton it. This she had pushed back to a corner of the fireplace.
For Bully West was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcanoready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would besuicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he hadnever disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her.Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated atthe sight of some one young and fine trembling before him: all thesewere factors contributing to the same end. By gar, he would have whathe had set his mind on, no matter what Whaley said.
Jessie knew the fellow was dangerous as a wounded buffalo bull in acorral. He would have his way if he had to smash and trample downany one that opposed him. Her eyes moved to Whaley's black-browed,bloodless face. How far would the gambler go in opposition to theother?
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 thecopper-colored face of Onistah was framed in the pane.