"Don't touch me." Her eyes sparked fire.
"You're mighty high-heeled for a nitchie. I reckon you forget you're
Sleeping Dawn, daughter of a Blackfoot squaw."
"I'm Jessie McRae, daughter of Angus, and if you insult me, you'll have to settle with him."
He gave a short snort of laughter. "Wake up, girl. What's the use of foolin' yourself? You're a breed. McRae's tried to forget it and so have you. But all the time you know damn well you're half Injun."
Jessie looked at him with angry contempt, then wheeled for the door.
Whaley had anticipated that and was there before her. His narrowed, covetous eyes held her while one hand behind his back slid the bolt into place.
"Let me out!" she cried.
"Be reasonable. I'm not aimin' to hurt you."
"Stand aside and let me through."
He managed another insinuating laugh. "Have some sense. Quit ridin' that high horse and listen while I talk to you."
But she was frightened by this time as much as she was incensed. A drum of dread was beating in her panicky heart. She saw in his eyes what she had never before seen on a face that looked into hers—though she was to note it often in the dreadful days that followed—the ruthless appetite of a wild beast crouching for its kill."
"Let me go! Let me go!" Her voice was shrilly out of control. "Unbar the door, I tell you!"
"I'm a big man in this country. Before I'm through. I'll be head chief among the trappers for hundreds of miles. I'm offerin' you the chance of a lifetime. Throw in with me and you'll ride in your coach at Winnipeg some day." Voice and words were soft and smooth, but back of them Jessie felt the panther couched for its spring.
She could only repeat her demand, in a cry that reached its ictus in a sob.
"If you're dreamin' about that red-coat spy—hopin' he'll marry you after he's played fast and loose with you—why, forget such foolishness. I know his kind. When he's had his fling, he'll go back to his own people and settle down. He's lookin' for a woman, not a wife."
"That's a lie!" she flung out, rage for the moment in ascendent. "Open that door or I'll—"
Swiftly his hand shot forward and caught her wrist. "What'll you do?" he asked, and triumph rode in his eyes.
She screamed. One of his hands clamped down over her mouth, the other went round her waist and drew the slim body to him. She fought, straining from him, throwing back her head in another lifted shriek for help.
As well she might have matched her strength with a buffalo bull. He was still under forty, heavy-set, bones packed with heavy muscles. It seemed to her that all the power of her vital youth vanished and left only limp and flaccid weakness. He snatched her close and kissed the dusky eyes, the soft cheeks, the colorful lips….
She became aware that he was holding her from him, listening. There was a crash of wood.
Again her call for help rang out.
Whaley flung her from him. He crouched, every nerve and muscle tense, lips drawn back in a snarl. She saw that in his hand there was a revolver.
Against the door a heavy weight was hurled. The wood burst into splinters as the bolt shot from the socket. Drunkenly a man plunged across the threshold, staggering from the impact of the shock.
CHAPTER XVIII
A GUN ROARS
The two men glared at each other, silently, their faces distorted to gargoyles in the leaping and uncertain light. Wary, vigilant, tense, they faced each other as might jungle tigers waiting for the best moment to attack.
There was a chance for the situation to adjust itself without bloodshed. Whaley could not afford to kill and Morse had no desire to force his hand.
Jessie's fear outran her judgment. She saw the menace of the revolver trained on her rescuer and thought the gambler was about to fire. She leaped for the weapon, and so precipitated what she dreaded.
The gun roared. A bullet flew past Morse and buried itself in a log. Next instant, clinging with both hands to Whaley's wrist, Jessie found herself being tossed to and fro as the man struggled to free his arm. Flung at a tangent against the wall, she fell at the foot of the couch where Fergus slept.
Again the blaze and roar of the revolver filled the room. Morse plunged head down at his enemy, still carrying the log he had used as a battering-ram. It caught the gambler at that point of the stomach known as the solar plexus. Whaley went down and out of consciousness like an ox that has been pole-axed.
Tom picked up the revolver and dropped it into the pocket of his fur coat. He stooped to make sure that his foe was beyond the power of doing damage. Then he lifted Jessie from the corner where she lay huddled.
"Hurt?" he asked.
The girl shuddered. "No. Is he—is he killed?"
"Wind knocked out of him. Nothing more."
"He didn't hit you?"
There was the ghost of a smile in his eyes. "No, I hit him."
"He was horrid. I—I—" Again a little shiver ran through her body. She felt very weak at the knees and caught for a moment at the lapel of his coat to steady herself. Neither of them was conscious of the fact that she was in his arms, clinging to him while she won back self-control.
"It's all right now. Don't worry. Lucky I came back to show Blandoine which furs to take."
"If you hadn't—" She drew a ragged breath that was half a sob.
Morse loved her the more for the strain of feminine hysteria that made her for the moment a soft and tender child to be comforted. He had known her competent, savage, disdainful, one in whom vital and passionate life flowed quick. He had never before seen the weakness in her reaching out to strength. That by sheer luck it was his power to which she clung filled him with deep delight.
He began to discount his joy lest she do it instead. His arm fell away from her waist.
"I 'most wrecked the house," he said with a humorous glance at the door. "I don't always bring one o' the walls with me when I come into a room."
"He bolted the door," she explained rather needlessly. "He wouldn't let me out."
"I heard you call," he answered, without much more point.
She glanced at the man lying on the floor. "You don't think he might be—" She stopped, unwilling to use the word.
Tom knelt beside him and felt his heart.
"It's beating," he said. And added quickly, "His eyes are open."
It was true. The cold, fishy eyes had flickered open and were taking stock of the situation. The gambler instantly chose his line of defense. He spoke, presently.
"What in the devil was bitin' you, Morse? Just because I was jokin' the girl, you come rampagin' in and knock me galley west with a big club. I'll not stand for that. Soon as I'm fit to handle myself, you and I'll have a settlement."
"Get up and get out," ordered the younger man.
"When I get good and ready. Don't try to run on me, young fellow. Some other fools have found that dangerous."
Whaley sat up, groaned, and pressed his hands upon the abdomen at the point where he had been struck.
The reddish-brown glint in the eyes of Morse advertised the cold rage of the Montanan. He caught the gambler by the collar and pulled him to his feet.
"Get out, you yellow wolf!" he repeated in a low, savage voice.
The white-faced trader was still wobbly on his feet. He felt both sore and sick at the pit of his stomach, in no mood for any further altercation with this hard-hitting athlete. But he would not go without saving his face.
"I don't know what business you've got to order me out—unless—" His gaze included the girl for a moment, and the insult of his leer was unmistakable.
Morse caught him by the scruff of the neck, ran him out of the room, and flung him down the steps into the road. The gambler tripped on the long buffalo coat he was wearing and rolled over in the snow. Slowly he got to his feet and locked eyes with the other.
Rage almost choked his words. "You'll be sorry for this one o' these days, Morse. I'll get you right. Nobody has ever put one over on Poker W
haley and nobody ever will. Don't forget that."
Tom Morse wasted no words. He stood silently on the steps, a splendid, supple figure of menacing power, and watched his foe pass down the road. There was in him a cruel and passionate desire to take the gambler and break him with his hands, to beat him till he crawled away a weak and wounded creature fit for a hospital. He clamped his teeth hard and fought down the impulse.
Presently he turned and walked slowly back into the house. His face was still set and his hands clenched. He knew that if Whaley had hurt Jessie, he would have killed him with his naked fingers.
"You can't stay here. Where do you want me to take you?" he asked, and his cold hardness reminded her of the Tom Morse who had led her to the whip one other night.
She did not know that inside he was a caldron of emotion and that it was only by freezing himself he could keep down the volcanic eruption.
"I'll go to Susie Lemoine's," she said in a small, obedient voice.
With his hands in his pockets he stood and let he find a fur coat and slip into it. He had a sense of frustration. He wanted to let go of himself and tell all that was in his torrid heart. Instead, he encased himself in ice and drove her farther from him.
They walked down the road side by side, neither of them speaking. She too was a victim of chaotic feeling. It would be long before she could forget how he had broken through the door and saved her.
But she could not find the words to tell him so. They parted at the door of Lemoine's cabin with a chill "Good-night" that left them both unhappy and dissatisfied.
CHAPTER XIX
"D'YOU WONDER SHE HATES ME?"
To Morse came Angus McRae with the right hand of friendship the day after the battle in the log house.
Eyes blue as Highland lochs fastened to those of the fur-trader. "Lad, I canna tell ye what's in my heart. 'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.'"
Tom, embarrassed, made light of the affair. "Lucky I was
Johnnie-on-the-Spot."
The old Scot shook his head. "No luck sent ye back to hear the skreigh o' the lass, but the whisper of the guid Father withoot whose permission not even a sparrow falls to the ground. He chose you as the instrument. I'll never be forgettin' what you did for my dawtie, Tom Morse. Jess will have thankit you, but I add mine to hers."
In point of fact Jessie had not thanked him in set words. She had been in too great an agitation of spirit to think of it. But Morse did not say so.
"Oh, that's all right. Any one would have done it. Mighty glad I was near enough. Hope she doesn't feel any worse for the shock."
"Not a bit. I'm here to ask ye to let bygones be bygones. I've nursed a grudge, but, man, it's clean, washed oot o' my heart. Here's my hand, if you'll tak it."
Tom did, gladly. He discovered at the same moment that the sun was striking sparks of light from a thousand snow crystals. It was a good world, if one only looked for the evidence of it.
"The latchstring is always oot for you at the hame of Angus McRae.
Will you no' drap in for a crack the nicht?" asked the trapper.
"Not to-night. Sometime. I'll see." Tom found himself in the position of one who finds open to him a long-desired pleasure and is too shy to avail himself of it immediately. "Have you seen Whaley yet to-day?" he asked, to turn the subject.
The hunter's lip grew straight and grim. "I have not. He's no' at the store. The clerk says a messenger called for him early this mornin' and he left the clachan at once. Will he be hidin' oot, do you think?"
Tom shook his head. "Not Whaley. He'll bluff it through. The fellow's not yellow. Probably he'll laugh it off and say he was only stealin' a kiss an' that Miss Jessie was silly to make a fuss about it."
"We'll let it go at that—after I've told him publicly what I think o' him."
Where Whaley had been nobody in Faraway knew. When he returned at sunset, he went direct to the store and took off his snowshoes. He was knocking the packed and frozen slush from them at the moment Angus McRae confronted him.
The trader laughed, from the lips, just as Tom had prophesied he would do. "I reckon I owe you an apology, McRae," he said. "That li'l' wild-cat of yours lost her head when I jollied her and Morse broke the door down like the jackass he is."
The dressing-down that Angus McRae gave Whaley is still remembered by one or two old-timers in the Northwest. In crisp, biting words he freed his mind without once lapsing into profanity. He finished with a warning. "Tak tent you never speak to the lass again, or you an' me'll come to grips."
The storekeeper heard him out, a sneering smile on his white face. Inside, he raged with furious anger, but he did not let his feelings come to the surface. He was a man who had the patience to wait for his vengeance. The longer it was delayed, the heavier would it be. A characteristic of his cold, callous temperament was that he took fire slowly, but, once lit, his hate endured like peat coals in a grate. A vain man, his dignity was precious to him. He writhed at the defeat Morse had put upon him, at his failure with Jessie, at the scornful public rebuke of her father. Upon all three of these some day he would work a sweet revenge. Like all gamblers, he followed hunches. Soon, one of these told him, his chance would come. When it did he would make all three of them sweat blood.
Beresford met Tom Morse later in the day. He cocked a whimsical eye at the fur-trader.
"I hear McRae's going to sue you for damages to his house," he said.
"Where did you hear all that?" asked his friend, apparently busy inspecting a half-dozen beaver furs.
"And Whaley, for damages to his internal machinery. Don't you know you can't catapult through a man's tummy with a young pine tree and not injure his physical geography?" the constable reproached.
"When you're through spoofin' me, as you subjects of the Queen call it," suggested Tom.
"Why, then, I'll tell you to keep an eye on Whaley. He doesn't love you a whole lot for what you did, and he's liable to do you up first chance he gets."
"I'm not lookin' for trouble, but if Whaley wants a fight—"
"He doesn't—not your kind of a fight. His idea will be to have you foul before he strikes. Walk with an eye in the back of your head. Sleep with it open, Don't sit at windows after lamps are lit—not without curtains all down. Play all your cards close." The red-coat spoke casually, slapping his boot with a small riding-switch. He was smiling. None the less Tom knew he was in dead earnest.
"Sounds like good advice. I'll take it," the trader said easily.
"Anything more on your chest?"
"Why, yes. Where did Whaley go to-day? What called him out of town on a hurry-up trip of a few hours?"
"Don't know. Do you?"
"No, but I'm a good guesser."
"Meanin'?"
"Bully West. Holed up somewhere out in the woods. A fellow came in this morning and got Whaley, who snowshoed back with him at once."
Tom nodded agreement. "Maybeso. Whaley was away five or six hours.
That means he probably traveled from eight to ten miles out."
"Question is, in what direction? Nobody saw him go or come—at least, so as to know that he didn't circle round the town and come in from the other side."
"He'll go again, with supplies for West. Watch him."
"I'll do just that."
"He might send some one with them."
"Yes, he might do that," admitted Beresford. "I'll keep an eye on the store and see what goes out. We want West. He's a cowardly murderer—killed the man who trusted him—shot him in the back. This country will be well rid of him when he's hanged for what he did to poor Tim Kelly."
"He's a rotten bad lot, but he's dangerous. Never forget that," warned the fur-buyer. "If he ever gets the drop on you for a moment, you're gone."
"Of course we may be barking up the wrong tree," the officer reflected aloud. "Maybe West isn't within five hundred miles of here. M
aybe he headed off another way. But I don't think it. He had to get back to where he was known so as to get an outfit. That meant either this country or Montana. And the word is that he was seen coming this way both at Slide Out and crossing Old Man's River after he made his getaway."
"He's likely figurin' on losin' himself in the North woods."
"My notion, too. Say, Tom, I have an invitation from a young lady for you and me. I'm to bring you to supper, Jessie McRae says. To-night. Venison and sheep pemmican—and real plum pudding, son. You're to smoke the pipe of peace with Angus and warm yourself in the smiles of Miss Jessie and Matapi-Koma. How's the programme suit you?"
Tom flushed. "I don't reckon I'll go," he said after a moment's deliberation.
His friend clapped an affectionate hand on his shoulder. "Cards down, old fellow. Spill the story of this deadly feud between you and Jessie and I'll give you an outside opinion on it."
The Montanan looked at him bleakly. "Haven't you heard? If you haven't, you're the only man in this country that hasn't."
"You mean—about the whipping?" Beresford asked gently.
"That's all," Morse answered bitterly. "Nothing a-tall. I merely had her horsewhipped. You wouldn't think any girl would object to that, would you?"
"I'd like to hear the right of it. How did it happen?"
"The devil was in me, I reckon. We were runnin' across the line that consignment of whiskey you found and destroyed near Whoop-Up. She came on our camp one night, crept up, and smashed some barrels. I caught her. She fought like a wild-cat." Morse pulled up the sleeve of his coat and showed a long, ragged scar on the arm. "Gave me that as a lil' souvenir to remember her by. You see, she was afraid I'd take her back to camp. So she fought. You know West. I wouldn't have taken her to him."
"What did you do?"
"After I got her down, we came to terms. I was to take her to McRae's camp and she was to be horsewhipped by him. My arm was hurtin' like sin, and I was thinkin' her only a wild young Injun."
"So you took her home?"
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