The night wore away. There was no question of travel. Beresford was in the grip of a raging fever and could not be moved. Morse made West chop wood while he stood over him, rifle in hand. They were short of food and had expected to go hunting next day. The supplies might last at best six or seven more meals. What was to be done then? Morse could not go and leave West where he could get at the man who had put him in prison and with a dog-train to carry him north. Nor could he let West have a rifle with which to go in search of game.
There were other problems that made the situation impossible. Another night was at hand, and again Tom must keep awake to save himself and his friend from the gorilla-man who watched him, gloated over him, waited for the moment to come when he could safely strike. And after that there would be other nights—many of them.
What should he do? What could he do? While he sat beside the delirious officer, Tom pondered that question. On the other side of the fire lay the prisoner. Triumph—a horrible, cruel, menacing triumph—rode in his eye and strutted in his straddling walk when he got up. His hour was coming. It was coming fast.
Once Tom fell asleep for a cat-nap. He caught himself nodding, and with a jerk flung back his head and himself to wakefulness. In the air was a burning odor.
Instinct told him what it was. West had been tampering with the rawhide thongs round his wrists, had been trying to burn them away.
He made sure that the fellow was still fast, then drank a tin cup of strong tea. After he had fed the sick man a little caribou broth, persuading him with infinite patience to take it, a spoonful at a time, Morse sat down again to wear out the hours of darkness.
The problem that pressed on him could no longer be evaded. A stark decision lay before him. To postpone it was to choose one of the alternatives. He knew now, almost beyond any possibility of doubt, that either West must die or else he and his friend. If he had not snatched himself awake so promptly an hour ago, Win and he would already be dead men. It might be that the constable was going to die, anyhow, but he had a right to his chance of life.
On the other hand there was one rigid rule of the North-West Mounted. The Force prided itself on living up to it literally. When a man was sent out to get a prisoner, he brought him in alive. It was a tradition. The Mounted did not choose the easy way of killing lawbreakers because of the difficulty of capturing them. They walked through danger, usually with aplomb, got their man, and brought him in.
That was what Beresford had done with Pierre Poulette after the Frenchman had killed Buckskin Jerry. He had followed the man for months, captured him, lived with him alone for a fourth of a year in the deep snows, and brought him back to punishment. It was easy enough to plead that this situation was a wholly different one. Pierre Poulette was no such dangerous wild beast as Bully West. Win did not have with him a companion wounded almost to death who had to be nursed back to health, one struck down by the prisoner treacherously. There was just a fighting chance for the officers to get back to Desolation if West was eliminated from the equation. Tom knew he would have a man’s work cut out for him to win through—without the handicap of the prisoner.
Deep in his heart he believed that it was West’s life or theirs. It wasn’t humanly possible, in addition to all the other difficulties that pressed on him, to guard this murderer and bring him back for punishment. There was no alternative, it seemed to Tom. Thinking could not change the conditions. It might be sooner, it might be later, but under existing circumstances the desperado would find his chance to attack, if he were alive to take it.
The fellow’s life was forfeit. As soon as he was turned over to the State, it would be exacted of him. Since his assault on Beresford, surely he had lost all claim to consideration as a human being.
Just now there were only three men in the world so far as they were concerned. These three constituted society. Beresford, his mind still wandering with incoherent mutterings, was a non-voting member. He, Tom Morse, must be judge and jury. He must, if the prisoner were convicted, play a much more horrible role. In the silence of the cold sub-Arctic night he fought the battle out while automatically he waited on his friend.
West snored on the other side of the fire.
CHAPTER XXXVII
NEAR THE END OF A LONG CROOKED TRAIL
When West awoke, Morse was whittling on a piece of wood with his sharp hunting-knife. It was a flat section from a spruce, and it had been trimmed with an axe till it resembled a shake in shape.
The outlaw’s curiosity overcame his sullenness at last. It made him jumpy, anyhow, to sit there in silence except for the muttering of the sick man.
“Whajamakin’?” he demanded.
Morse said nothing. He smoothed the board to his satisfaction, then began lettering on it with a pencil.
“I said whajadoin’,” growled West, after another silence.
The special constable looked at him, and in the young man’s eyes there was something that made the murderer shiver.
“I’m making a tombstone.”
“What?” West felt a drench of ice at his heart.
“A marker for a grave.”
“For—for him? Maybe he won’t die. Looks better to me. Fever ain’t so high.”
“It’s not for him.”
West moistened his dry lips with his tongue. “You will have yore li’l joke, eh? Who’s it for?”
“For you.”
“For me?” The man’s fear burst from him in a shriek. “Whajamean for me?”
From the lettering Morse read aloud. “‘Bully West, Executed, Some Time late in March, 1875.’” And beneath it, “‘May God Have Mercy on His Soul.’”
Tiny beads of sweat gathered on the convict’s clammy forehead. “You aimin’ to—to murder me?” he asked hoarsely.
“To execute you.”
“With—without a trial? My God, you can’t do that! I got a right to a trial.”
“You’ve been tried—and condemned. I settled all that in the night.”
“But—it ain’t legal. Goddlemighty, you got no right to act thataway. All you can do is to take me back to the courts.” The heavy voice broke again to a scream.
Morse slipped the hunting-knife back into its case. He looked steadily at the prisoner. In his eyes there was no anger, no hatred. But back of the sadness in them was an implacable resolution.
“Courts and the law are a thousand miles away,” he said. “You know your crimes. You murdered Tim Kelly treacherously. You planned to spoil an innocent girl’s life by driving her to worse than death. You shot your partner in the back after he did his best to help you escape. You tortured Onistah and would have killed him if we hadn’t come in time. You assaulted my friend here and he’ll probably die from his wounds. It’s the end of the long trail for you, Bully West. Inside of half an hour you will be dead. If you’ve anything to say—if you can make your peace with heaven—don’t waste a moment.”
The face of West went gray. He stared at the other man, the horror-filled eyes held fascinated. “You—you’re tryin’ to scare me,” he faltered. “You wouldn’t do that. You couldn’t. It ain’t allowed by the Commissioner.” One of the bound arms twitched involuntarily. The convict knew that he was lost. He had a horrible conviction that this man meant to do as he had said.
The face of Morse was inexorable as fate itself, but inside he was a river of rushing sympathy. This man was bad. He himself had forced the circumstances that made it impossible to let him live. None the less Tom felt like a murderer. The thing he had to do was so horribly cold-blooded. If this had been a matter between the two of them, he could at least have given the fellow a chance for his life. But not now—not with Win Beresford in the condition he was. If he were going to save his friend, he could not take the chances of a duel.
“Ten minutes now,” Morse said. His voice was hoarse and low. He felt his nerves twitching, a tense aching in the throat.
“I always liked you fine, Tom,” the convict pleaded desperately. “Me ’n’ you was always g
ood pals. You wouldn’t do me dirt thataway now. If you knew the right o’ things—how that Kelly kep’ a-devilin’ me, how Whaley was layin’ to gun me when he got a chanct, how I stood up for the McRae girl an’ protected her against him. Goddlemighty, man, you ain’t aimin’ to kill me like a wolf!” The shriek of uncontrollable terror lifted into his voice once more. “I ain’t ready to die. Gimme a chance, Tom. I’ll change my ways. I swear I will. I’ll do like you say every minute. I’ll nurse Beresford. Me, I’m a fine nurse. If you’ll gimme a week—jus’ one more week. That ain’t much to ask. So’s I can git ready.”
The man slipped to his knees and began to crawl toward Morse. The young man got up, his teeth set. He could not stand much of this sort of thing without collapsing himself.
“Get up,” he said. “We’re going over the hill there.”
“No—no—no!”
It took Morse five minutes to get the condemned man to his feet. The fellow’s face was ashen. His knees shook.
Tom was in almost as bad a condition himself.
Beresford’s high voice cut in. In his delirium he was perhaps living over again his experience with Pierre Poulette.
“Maintiens le droit. Get your man and bring him in. Tough sledding. Never mind. Go through, old fellow. Bring him in. That’s what you’re sent for. Hogtie him. Drag him with a rope around his neck. Get him back somehow.”
The words struck Tom motionless. It was as though some voice were speaking to him through the sick man’s lips. He waited.
“Righto, sir,” the soldier droned on. “See what I can do, sir. Have a try at it, anyhow.” And again he murmured the motto of the Mounted Police.
Tom had excused himself for what he thought it was his duty to do on the ground that it was not humanly possible to save his friend and bring West back. It came to him in a flash that the Mounted Police were becoming so potent a power for law and order because they never asked whether the job assigned them was possible. They went ahead and did it or died trying to do it. It did not matter primarily whether Beresford and he got back alive or not. If West murdered them, other red-coats would take the trail and get him.
What he, Tom Morse, had to do was to carry on. He could not choose the easy way, even though it was a desperately hard one for him. He could not make himself a judge over this murderer, with power of life and death. The thing that had been given him to do was to bring West to Faraway. He had no choice in the matter. Win or lose, he had to play the hand out as it was dealt him.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
OVER A ROTTING TRAIL
Tom believed that Beresford’s delirious words had condemned them both to death. He could not nurse his friend, watch West night and day, keep the camp supplied with food, and cover the hundreds of miles of bleak snow fields which stretched between them and the nearest settlement. He did not think that any one man lived who was capable of succeeding in such a task.
Yet his first feeling was of immediate relief. The horrible duty that had seemed to be laid upon him was not a duty at all. He saw his course quite simply. All he had to do was to achieve the impossible. If he failed in it, he would go down like a soldier in the day’s work. He would have, anyhow, no torturings of conscience, no blight resting upon him till the day of his death.
“You’re reprieved, West,” he announced simply.
The desperado staggered to the sled and leaned against it faintly. His huge body swayed. The revulsion was almost too much for him.
“I—I—knowed you couldn’t treat an old pardner thataway, Tom,” he murmured.
Morse took the man out to a fir tree. He carried with him a blanket, a buffalo robe, and a part of the dog harness.
“Whad you aimin’ to do?” asked West uneasily. He was not sure yet that he was out of the woods.
“Roll up in the blankets,” ordered Morse.
The fellow looked at his grim face and did as he was told. Tom tied him to the tree, after making sure that his hands were fast behind him.
“I’ll freeze here,” the convict complained.
The two officers were lean and gaunt from hard work and insufficient nourishment, but West was still sleek and well padded with flesh. He had not missed a meal, and during the past weeks he had been a passenger. All the hard work, the packing at portages, the making of camp, the long, wearing days of hunting, had fallen upon the two whose prisoner he was. He could stand a bit of hardship, Tom decided.
“No such luck,” he said brusquely. “And I wouldn’t try to break away if I were you. I can’t kill you, but I’ll thrash you with the dog-whip if you make me any trouble.”
Morse called Cuffy and set the dog to watch the bound man. He did not know whether the St. Bernard would do this, but he was glad to see that the leader of the train understood at once and settled down in the snow to sleep with one eye watchful of West.
Tom returned to his friend. He knew he must concentrate his efforts to keep life in the battered body of the soldier. He must nurse and feed him judiciously until the fever wore itself out.
While he was feeding Win broth, he fell asleep with the spoon in his hand. He jerkily flung back his head and opened his eyes. Cuffy still lay close to the prisoner, evidently prepared for an all-night vigil with short light naps from which the least movement would instantly arouse him.
“I’m all in. Got to get some sleep,” Morse said to himself, half aloud.
He wrapped in his blankets. When his eyes opened, the sun was beating down from high in the heavens. He had slept from one day into the next. Even in his sleep he had been conscious of some sound drumming at his ears. It was the voice of West.
“You gonna sleep all day? Don’t we get any grub? Have I gotta starve while you pound yore ear?”
Hurriedly Tom flung aside his wraps. He leaped to his feet, a new man, his confidence and vitality all restored.
The fire had died to ashes. He could hear the yelping of the dogs in the distance. They were on a private rabbit hunt of their own, all of them but Cuffy. The St. Bernard still lay in the snow watching West.
Beresford’s delirium was gone and his fever was less. He was very weak, but Tom thought he saw a ghost of the old boyish grin flicker indomitably into his eyes. As Tom looked at the swathed and bandaged head, for the first time since the murderous attack he allowed himself to hope. The never-say-die spirit of the man and the splendid constitution built up by a clean outdoor life might pull him through yet.
“West was afraid you never were going to wake up, Tom. It worried him. You know how fond of you he is,” the constable said weakly.
Morse was penitent. “Why didn’t you wake me, Win? You must be dying of thirst.”
“I could do with a drink,” he admitted. “But you needed that sleep. Every minute of it.”
Tom built up the fire and thawed snow. He gave Beresford a drink and then fed more of the broth to him. He made breakfast for the prisoner and himself.
Afterward, he took stock of their larder. It was almost empty. “Enough flour and pemmican for another mess of rubaboo. Got to restock right away or our stomachs will be flat as a buffalo bull’s after a long stampede.”
He spoke cheerfully, yet he and Beresford both knew a hunt for game might be unsuccessful. Rabbits would not do. He had to provide enough to feed the dogs as well as themselves. If he did not get a moose, a bear, or caribou, they would face starvation.
Tom redressed the wounds of the trooper and examined the splints on the arm to make sure they had not become disarranged during the night in the delirium of the sick man.
“Got to leave you, Win. Maybe for a day or more. I’ll have plenty of wood piled handy for the fire—and broth all ready to heat. Think you can make out?”
The prospect could not have been an inviting one for the wounded man, but he nodded quite as a matter of course.
“I’ll be all right. Take your time. Don’t spoil your hunt worrying about me.”
Yet it was with extreme reluctance Tom had made up his mind to go. He would
take the dog-train with him—and West, unarmed, of course. He had to take him on Beresford’s account, because he dared not leave him. But as he looked at his friend, all the supple strength stricken out of him, weak and helpless as a sick child, he felt a queer tug at the heart. What assurance had he that he would find him still alive on his return?
Beresford knew what he was thinking. He smiled, the gentle, affectionate smile of the very ill. “It’s all right, old fellow. Got to buck up and carry on, you know. Look out—for West. Don’t give him any show at you. Never trust him—not for a minute. Remember he’s—a wolf.” His weak hand gripped Tom’s in farewell.
The American turned away hurriedly, not to show the tears that unexpectedly brimmed his lids. Though he wore the hard surface of the frontier, his was a sensitive soul. He was very fond of this gay, gallant youth who went out to meet adventure as though it were a lover with whom he had an appointment. They had gone through hell together, and the fires of the furnace had proved the Canadian true gold. After all, Tom was himself scarcely more than a boy in years. He cherished, deep hidden in him, the dreams and illusions that long contact with the world is likely to dispel. At New Haven and Cambridge lads of his age were larking beneath the elms and playing childish pranks on each other.
West drove the team. Tom either broke trail or followed. He came across plenty of tracks, but most of them were old ones. He recognized the spoor of deer, bear, and innumerable rabbits. Toward noon fresh caribou tracks crossed their path. The slot pointed south. Over a soft and rotting trail Morse swung round in pursuit.
They made heavy going of it. He had to break trail through slushy snow. His shoes broke through the crust and clogged with the sludgy stuff so that his feet were greatly weighted. Fatigue pressed like a load on his shoulders. The dogs and West wallowed behind.
By night probably the trail would be much better, but they dared not wait till then. The caribou would not stop to suit the convenience of the hunters. This might be the last shot in the locker. Every dragging lift of the webs carried Morse farther from camp, but food had to be found and in quantity.
The Second Western Megapack Page 176