by Dean Owen
The ’breed spoke again. “We been tryin’ dozen tams—ever’ evening—to meet op wit’ you two, but you wise lak trap-line carcajou, and take differen’ trails on way home. But dis tam our guess about your trail, it hit de bull right on de eye. S’pose now, frien’, you jus’ let Eutrope tie op your han’s good and tight. Skunk-Bear wen’ after you wan tam and he didn’ come back, and we don’ wan’ you to try any of your fonny treeks on us. So we tie you op and den hyak to camp. Dis gal, she goes ’long wit’ us. M’sieu Hugh say very streectly dat we fetch her ’long.”
Gary shivered, and it was not from the chill wind. The avalanche which he had been expecting for days had at last let loose, and not only himself but Leda too was caught in the slideway. In spite of the tumult of those moments he wondered why Hugh Ludlow wanted Leda brought to that camp down valley. And with a shudder of vague premonition he wondered what was in store for himself.
Without weighing the frightful risk or the hopelessness of her act, Leda seized the rifle again and tried to pull it away. Cool-headed, Gary kept the gun in his own hands. Against those unseen rifles and enemies, she would only get herself killed. These men were taking no chances, were not even showing themselves. They were too mindful of the oblivion which had hit Skunk-Bear.
Eutrope stepped closer, holding a thick babische thong in his hand. “Jus’ turn ’round’, frien’i. I tie your wrists behin’ your back so’s you don’ peecli yourself loose on de trail.”
In quick flashes of thought Gary debated what to do. If he had been alone, he would have smashed the huge ’breed and leaped for shelter of the big rock and tried to break out. But Leda, beside him… One wrong move from him and those rifles would crack down on him and her.
He stepped back from the métis, fighting for a few seconds, fighting to think, to seize on some way of outwitting these enemies without danger to Leda. He felt that he would rather be shot outright than taken prisoner and led down to Hugh Ludlow’s camp.
Impatient—and afraid of him—the métis spoke up raising his voice and speaking to one of those hidden men.
“Cézar! Show dis feller dat we don’ mean no monkey beezness. Show heem w’at chance he’s hees fonny treecks.”
From behind a boulder which Gary had not even noticed, a rifle cr-aa-ck-ed sharply, a rope of fire lashed out, and Gary’s hat flipped off his head as though knocked off by invisible hands. Leda screamed and seized Gary’s arm, all oblivious of danger to herself. Behind the boulder the man Cézar rammed a fresh cartridge home; and from three other points in the dark shadows around him Gary heard the ominous sn-ii-ck of rifle triggers earing back.
His hands dropped in a little gesture of surrender. He was no quitter. In his death battle with Skunk-Bear he had hung on through black hopelessness, fighting with his last flicker of strength. But here he dared not fight. Leda’s cry, and that bullet zz-ing-ing past her, murderously close, showed him what he had to do. Regardless of what awaited him down at Hugh Ludlow’s camp, he dared not hesitate or make one move to save himself.
“Put up your guns,” he commanded in steady tones. “You’ve got me. I give in.” He turned to Eutrope. “Go ahead with that rawhide.”
When Eutrope had finished tying him up, the others of Hugh’s outfit left their hiding places and stepped close—two Indians, another half-breed and two white men.
“Better tie that rawhide tight,” Gary advised scornfully, as one of the men poked a rifle against his back. “There’s only half a dozen of you against me.”
“I t’ink you’ll stay tied aw-right,” Eutrope assured. “But don’ make no s’picious move, frien’. Cézar, he lak to shoot off dat rifle of hees. Now s’pose we hyak.”
They started down the dark couloir toward the valley bottom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was near midnight when the strange little cavalcade—Eutrope in the lead, then Gary, then Cézar with the rifle, then the two Indians and Leda and the two nondescript whites—reached the camp. As Gary saw the fireglow through the trees ahead, he maneuvered himself close to Leda and whispered a last caution:
“Whatever we come up against here, Lee, keep cool and keep your own self out of it. Hugh’ll treat you decent, of course. What he’s got on tap for me I don’t know, but it won’t be pleasant, and we’d better make up our minds to that beforehand. Keep remembering, all the time, that if you stick up for me it’ll only inflame Hugh all the worse. What I say or do won’t matter. And just because you’re not tied up, Lee, don’t think you’ve got any chance against these men. For heaven’s sake, don’t lose your head and try any fast play here. These slinkers would shoot us as quick as a wink. They’re scared of us, scared all through.”
They came out of the dense woods into the small camp open, where the trees had been cut and the ground cleared of underbrush. By the light of the big fire Gary saw three tents; one equipped with mosquito door and stove, for Hugh Ludlow; another, larger, for his men; and a third for cooking and general utility.
Together with the fire the three tents formed a little quadrangle, with a sward of moss in the middle.
Except for Hugh Ludlow’s silk tent, the place seemed to Gary as barbaric and savage as though it were the camp of Chilcote Rusk and his pack, seventy-odd years ago. In a bent sapling at the woods’ edge, out of reach of prowling bears, hung part of a caribou, and a white goat, unflensed, blood-splotched, grotesquely stiff as it dangled.
The midnight hush, the black woods all round, the fire-glow on the swart faces of the men, the shifting shadows from the large bright fire—all this made him feel as though he had indeed been whisked back across the decades to the time when Chilcote Rusk and his killers had lived here in Little Saghelia and taken their grisly toll of human lives and gold.
From the pile of sawed birch by the cook tent Hugh Ludlow was carrying wood to the fire: but as the party came out of the timber, he saw them and whirled around; the wood dropped from his arms; and for long moments he stood there stock-still, staring at them as though he could not believe that his men had at last brought in the two he wanted.
Presently he started toward them. Eutrope said something to him in bush-French; but Hugh did not seem to notice. Silent, his face a curious mixture of elation and festering jealousy, he came on up and confronted them, staring at Gary, ignoring Leda except for a nod and glance.
In a vague fashion Gary knew what was coming to him. Three hours ago, on the way to the tarn, he had prophesied to himself that Hugh Ludlow was not aiming now at any plain killing. Sooner than he had thought, his prophecy was coming true.
He fancied that Hugh’s attempts to pin the Skunk-Bear death on him had failed, and Hugh’s other attempts had all failed, and now the man was resorting to brute criminal force. It seemed, in fact, that Hugh had had little faith in those other plans and had been trying for nearly two weeks to capture Leda and him and bring them here.
In cold hard tones Hugh demanded of him:
“I warned you, didn’t I, to clear out of Little Saghelia?”
Gary nodded curtly. “Yes, you warned me. What about it?”
“And you didn’t go, did you?”
“I have as much privilege in here as you. What right have you got to order people out of the country and boss ’em around to suit yourself?”
Hugh brushed the question aside. Because of Leda he was trying to hide his rage and jealousy and appear coldly commanding.
“I told you,” he went on, “to get away from Leda Barton and stay away. Why? Because, as her friend, I knew that if you lived up there at the cabin, you’d have the whole damned town talking about her. Well, they’re talking, as I said they would. I tried to shoot square with you—bought you a railroad ticket, would have given you money. But you didn’t listen, don’t care a whisky-damn about the shame and disgrace you’d cause her.”
Gary could well imagine the vicious talk in Saghelia. A strange man living at that
isolated cabin and going on long trips every day with Leda Barton—it was like a confirmation of all the evil gossip about her. Plainly that talk had come to Hugh’s ears and galled him intolerably. For the girl he loved to be the subject of coarse street-corner jokes had infuriated him. That was understandable.
But the man’s proprietary air toward Leda and his pose of being her protector made Gary smile. Long before he himself had ever known Leda, Hugh had had a chance to be her true friend and blast that talk. But he had not been man enough. Afraid that he might be disinherited and have to make his own way in the world, he had wavered between Mona Casper and Leda; between his desires and a cowardly sort of discretion.
“Don’t attempt to justify yourself, Ludlow,” he said. “There isn’t any justification for hiring a bush-sneak to rub me out, or for what you’re aiming to do here now, with the help of half a dozen men. You’re trying to make Leda believe it was all done for her sake.”
Hugh’s face reddened as Gary, with this one thrust, punctured the whole argument. He was getting distinctly the worst of the clash, and he broke it off short. With a curt gesture to one of the Indians, he bade, “Cut him loose.”
The Indian drew a belt knife, stepped up behind Gary and slashed the babische thongs; and Gary stood free.
Without having to be told what to do, the other Indian brought more wood, threw it on the fire and stirred the flames till the whole little quadrangle was lighted up brightly. One of the nondescript whites stepped into the large tent and came out with a whip, a heavy black-snake. Three of the men backed up to the spaces between the tents, one man to each space, and crouched down, guarding against any break on Gary’s part.
To make doubly sure on that score, the man called Cézar, evidently the crack shot of the outfit, stepped back far enough to command the entire quadrangle, and stood watching alertly, his rifle ready.
There was something about these methodic preparations which told Gary that this whole affair had been planned days ago—planned to the last detail.
At first sight of the black-snake he thought that Hugh intended to give him a brutal flogging. But then he realized that flogging a defenseless man would hardly raise Hugh Ludlow in Leda’s esteem. And that esteem was chiefly what this evening’s business was aimed at.
As he waited for the next move, he glanced at Leda. Though she was pale and trembling, she was valiantly holding onto herself and keeping silent, as he had asked her.
Hugh stripped off his jacket, flung it across a tent rope and turned to Gary.
“The first thing I’m going to do,” he said, “is to show you I don’t need any hired help in handling you. After the shame you’ve put Leda to, I’m going to have the satisfaction of knocking hell out of you personally. Suppose you get ready.”
Gary was astounded. Ever since the afternoon when Hugh Ludlow whipped him, there in Saghelia, he had been aching for a chance to settle that score. Now his wish had suddenly come true, but under circumstances which he had never imagined. And he was astounded, too, at this fulfillment of his prophecy—that Hugh would try, in some unpredictable way, to raise himself in Leda’s eyes and win back his lost ground.
“Oh, I see,” he said to Hugh. “You want to show Leda who’s the better man. Doesn’t that strike you as being a rather primitive way of impressing a girl, Ludlow?”
“Are you yellow? Are you afraid of a fair-square fight?” He added, “If you beat me, you own the valley.”
Gary laughed scornfully at this promise of safety if he won. When and if he stretched Hugh Ludlow out, these six men would gang him and maul him half to death and horse-whip him out of Little Saghelia. At least, he hoped they would do nothing worse than that.
“Since you’re calling the play,” he said, “I guess a fight will have to be all right with me. But,”—he motioned to Leda—“does she have to see this? What you and these men are planning to do here—d’you believe it’s anything for a girl to have to watch?”
“What d’you think I had her brought along for?”
“All right. What’s the rules of this so-called fair-square fight?”
“Anything goes!” Hugh rasped at him. “Quit stalling and get ready.”
Gary tossed his hat aside and looked at Leda, who had been hovering close to him throughout these preparations.
“Better step out of the road, partner,” he suggested. “And for heaven’s sake, remember what I told you a while ago.”
With a final glance around to get his bearings he turned to Hugh Ludlow and nodded.
A few minutes ago he had been thinking that it would be wisdom, if he wanted to live, to take a beating from Hugh Ludlow and not whip the man under any circumstances. But that mood had passed. Whether he won or not, the cards were hopelessly stacked against him; and as he squared away he swore he was going to mess Hugh Ludlow up all he could before those other men jumped in and stopped the battle. Confident, Hugh came at him, feinted cleverly, jabbed in a short left to the ribs that drew Gary’s guard down, and then drove in a hard smashing right to Gary’s jaw—a terrific bare-knuckle blow that sounded like the crack of a flat board on canvas.
The smash jolted Gary to his shoes but it did not stagger him. He was not the hunger-weak fugitive of a month ago. Instead of wilting, he clipped in a jarring uppercut that snapped Hugh Ludlow’s head back.
Something of Hugh’s confidence ebbed. As he glared at his opponent, he seemed to realize that in this fight he might get more than he had bargained for.
Closing in warily this time, he began boxing skillfully, watching for a good opening. Gary backed up and took half a dozen punches, waiting for that feint and left jab again. It finally came. Tensed and ready, he caught Hugh off guard and nailed him with a right cross to the jaw—so hard that he sent Hugh staggering backward.
In the second or two while Hugh was pulling himself together, Gary took a swift glance around, thinking that Leda might have a chance to dart into those black woods a few steps away. Excepting Eutrope, who had commandeered her light Savage, and the man Cézar, who was still holding his rifle at alert, none of the men had guns handy. Watching the battle, they seemed oblivious of her.
He tried to catch her glance and give her a sign to vanish when the next savage clash drew the attention of Cézar and Eutrope. But Leda did not seem to notice or understand; and in the next moment Hugh Ludlow lunged at him again.
Swinging wildly, Hugh closed in and tried to grapple, fighting with the blind fury of a person who had felt his enemy’s power and knew himself outmatched. He was breathing heavily and he came in cursing and snarling.
Gary stopped his lunge with a jolting left, tore out of the grapple and backed off once more—toward the tent rope where Hugh’s jacket was hanging. The big suspicious bulge in the pocket of that jacket was an automatic, he knew; and he was maneuvering for a chance to grab the gun. He probably would be killed before he could put both Eutrope and Cézar out, but that was better than what he was going to get here at the hands of these men; and Leda at least could get away in the confusion.
Hugh closed in a third time and started slugging. Only a jump from the tent rope, Gary stopped, stood leg-to-leg with him, and slugged back.
It was a fierce hot mêlée, so murderous that in twenty seconds Hugh Ludlow was backing away and swiping the blood from his eyes. Gary closed in, braced himself; and as Hugh lunged once again, Gary caught him a solid crash to the jaw, with all his strength behind the swing.
The smash sent Hugh reeling backwards, dazed and staggering—so dazed that he stumbled and fell to his knees. As he went down, he instinctively flung up his arm in a gesture, almost a plea, for his enemy not to hit him again. His face was bloody, his puffed eyes were nearly shut, he was so limp that Gary expected him to topple and sprawl on the ground.
Snarling an inarticulate oath, Hugh managed, in a few seconds, to stagger to his feet and stand up. Instead of coming in, he
turned, tried to see where his men were, swiped at his eyes again, and motioned a command to those others.
Watching him, Gary knew that the gesture was an order for the men to rush into the fight and stop it. He backed up and whirled for the tent rope, to grab out that automatic and start shooting. In kaleidoscopic flashes he visioned the gang-beating, the whip, and all the revenge that Hugh Ludlow would treat him to for this mauling; and he wanted to go down fighting. Before he got it himself he intended to put Hugh Ludlow out. The man had hounded him for a month, tried to kill him, and now, beaten in this “fair-square” fight, Hugh was motioning those six bush-sneaks to rush in and gang a lone-handed enemy.
In the instant that he whirled, a sharp-speaking rifle cr-aa-ck-ed, over to his right—in front of Hugh Ludlow’s tent. He heard the vicious splaat of a steel-jacket smashing into metal, and heard a yelp of pain from the man Cézar across the quadrangle. Jerking his head around, he saw Cézar’s shattered gun fly out of his hands; saw the man sprawl backward, still yelling in pain and thunderstruck astonishment.
Bewildered himself by that mysterious rifle crack, Gary whirled to see where it had come from. He stared wide-eyed… Near the door of the small tent, between Eutrope and one of the nondescript whites, Leda was backing off, backing toward those black woods, her own rifle smoking in her hands as its muzzle swept the stunned men.
“Gary! Break free! Here—here with me! I’m holding them. I’ll kill the first man that moves!”
In spite of his daze and the turmoil of those giddy moments, Gary realized that somehow, while Hugh Ludlow was stumbling to his knees and Eutrope was all oblivious of her, Leda had edged close to the big ’breed, seized her gun, leaped aside and driven a bullet at Cézar before the man could lift his deadly rifle at her.
As Gary snapped out of his daze, he saw that the white man nearest Leda was sidling closer, to lunge and knock her rifle down and overpower her. She did not see the man or guess his intentions. She was too busy covering those other six.