There, in the black shadow of the pile of firewood, lay the empty whisky bottle where the Indian had tossed it after drinking the last drop of its contents.

Carmody stared a long time at this silent reminder of his first serious brush with King Alcohol, then, from the inner pocket of his mackinaw, he drew the sealed packet and gazed for many minutes at the likeness of the girl—dimming now from the rub of the coarse cloth of the pocket.

Suddenly a great longing came over him—a longing to see this girl, to hear the soft accents of her voice and, above all, to tell her of his great love for her, that in all the world there was no woman but her, and that each day, and a hundred times each day, her dear face was before his eyes, and in his ears, ringing above the mighty sounds of a falling forest, was the soft, sweet sound of her voice.

He could not speak to her, but she could speak to him, even if it were but a repetition of the words of the letters he already knew by heart, but which had remained sealed in the envelope ever since the day he bid farewell to Broadway—and to her.

His fingers fumbled at the flap of the heavy envelope. He could at least feast his eyes upon the lines traced by her pen and press his lips to the page where her little hand had rested.

His foot throbbed with dull persistence. He was conscious of being tired, but he must not sleep this night. Rough work possibly, at any rate, a man's work, awaited him there in the gloom of the silent clearing.

Again his eye sought the whisky bottle and held. His fingers ceased to toy with the flap, for in that moment the thought came to him that had the bottle not been empty, had it been filled with liquor—strong liquor—with the pain in his foot and the stiffness of his tired muscles and the work ahead—well, he might—for the old desire was strong upon him—he might take a drink.

"Not yet," he muttered, and returned the packet to his pocket unopened. "I told her I would beat the game. I've bucked old John Barleycorn's line and scored a touchdown; the hardest of the fighting is past, but there is just a chance that I might miss goal."

Bill looked at his watch; it was eight o'clock. He stood up, wincing as his injured foot touched the floor, and hobbled across the room where he wrenched a rough, split shelf from the wall. This, together with some sticks of firewood, he rolled in a blanket, placing it near the stove. He added more wood until the bundle was about the size and shape of a man, and covered it with his other two blankets. Filling the broken stove with wood he blew out the lantern and limped silently out into the night.

Two hours later Creed, bird's-eye spotter and bad man of the worn-out little town of Hilarity, knocked the ashes from his pipe and held a glowing brand to the dial of his watch.

"The greener should be asleep by now," he muttered, and, rolling his blanket, kicked snow over the remnant of his camp-fire, picked up his rifle, and ascended the steep side of a deep ravine lying some two hundred yards to the westward of the clearing where Bill Carmody had encamped for the night.

After leaving Moncrossen's office on the previous afternoon he had traveled all night, and reached Melton's old No. 8 in the early morning.

All day he had slept by the side of his fire in the bottom of the ravine, and in the evening had lain in the cover of the scrub and watched the greener stable the horses and limp to the deserted shack.

At heart Creed was a craven, a bullying swashbuckler, who bragged and blustered among the rheumy-eyed down-and-outers who nightly foregathered about Burrage's stove, but who was servile and cringing as a starved puppy toward Moncrossen and Stromberg, who openly despised him.

They made good use of his ability to "spot" a bird's-eye tree as far as he could see one, however, an ability shared by few woodsmen, and which in Creed amounted almost to genius.

The man had never been known to turn his hand to honest work, but as a timber pirate and peddler of rotgut whisky among the Indians, he had arisen to comparative affluence.

His hate for the greener was abysmal and unreasoning, and had been carefully fostered by Moncrossen who, instinctively fearing that the new man would eventually expose his nefarious double-dealing with his employer, realized that at the proper time Creed could be induced to do away with the greener under circumstances that would leave him, Moncrossen, free from suspicion.

In the framing of Bill Carmody, Stromberg had no part. Moncrossen could not fathom the big Swede, upon whose judgment and acumen he had come to rely in the matter of handling and disposing of the stolen timber.

Several times during the winter he had tentatively broached plans and insinuated means whereby the Swede could "accidentally" remove his swamper from their path.

The reversing of a hook which would cause a log to roll just at the right time on a hillside; the filing of a link; the snapping of a weakened bunk-pin, any one of these common accidents would render them safe from possible interference.

But to all these suggestions Stromberg turned a deaf ear. The boss even taunted him with the knock-out he had received at the hands of the greener.

"That's all right, Moncrossen," he replied; "I picked the fight purpose to beat him up. It didn't work. He's a better man than me—or you either—an' you know it. Only he had to lick me to prove it. He chilled your heart with a look an' a grin—an' the whole crew lookin' on.

"But beatin' up a man is one thing an' murder is another. Appleton's rich, besides he's a softwood man an' ain't fixed for handlin' veneer, so I might's well get in on the bird's-eye as let you an' Creed an' Lebolt steal it all. But I ain't got to the point where I'd murder a good man to cover up my dirty tracks—an' I never will!"

And so, without consulting Stromberg, Moncrossen bided his time and laid his plans. And now the time had come. The plan had been gone over in detail in the little office, and Creed in the edge of the timber stood ready to carry it out.

Stealthily he slipped into the dense shadows of the scrub and made his way toward the shack where a thin banner of smoke, shot with an occasional yellow spark, floated from the dilapidated stovepipe that protruded from the roof.

The hard crust rendered snowshoes unnecessary, and his soft moccasins made no sound upon the surface of the snow.

Gaining the side of the shack, he peered between the unchinked logs. The play of the firelight that shone through the holes of the broken stove sent flickering shadows dancing over the floor and walls of the rough interior.

Near the fire, stretched long and silent beneath its blankets, lay the form of a man. Creed shifted his position for a better view of the sleeper. His foot caught in the loop of a piece of discarded wire whose ends were firmly frozen into the snow, and he crashed heavily backward into a pile of dry brushwood.

It seemed to the frightened man as if the accompanying noise must wake the dead. He lay for a moment where he had fallen, listening for sounds from within. He clutched his rifle nervously, but the deathlike silence was unbroken save for his own heavy breathing and the tiny snapping of the fire in the stove.

Cautiously he extricated himself from the brush-heap, his heart pounding wildly at the snapping of each dry twig. It was incredible that the man could sleep through such a racket in a country where life and death may hang upon the rustle of a leaf.

But the silence remained unbroken, and, after what seemed to the cowering man an eternity of expectant waiting, he crawled again to the wall and glanced furtively into the interior. The form by the fire was motionless as before—it had not stirred.

Then, as he looked, a ray of firelight fell upon the white label of the black whisky bottle that lay an easy arm's reach from the head of the sleeper. A smile of comprehension twisted the lips of his evil face as he leered through the crevice at the helpless form by the fireside.

"Soused to the guards," he sneered, "an' me with ten years scairt offen my life fer fear I'd wake him." He stood erect and, with no attempt at the stealth with which he had approached the shack, proceeded rapidly in the direction of the stable.

It was but the work of a few moment to bridle the horses, lead them out, and hitch them to the sled.

Tossing the horse-blankets on top of the big tarpaulin which lay in the rear of the sled-box ready for use in the covering of supplies, he settled himself in front and pulled the robes about him.

He turned the team slowly onto the tote-road and glanced again toward the shack. A spark, larger than the others, shot out of the stovepipe and lodged upon the bark roof, where it glowed for a moment before going out. The man watched it in sudden fascination.

He halted the team and stared long at the spot where the spark had vanished in blackness, but which in the brain of the man appeared as an ever-widening circle of red, which spread until it included the whole roof in its fiery embrace, and crept slowly down the log walls.

So realistic was the picture that he seemed to hear the crackle and roar of the leaping flames. He drew a trembling hand across his eyes, and when he looked again the shack stood silent and black in the half-light of the starlit clearing.

"God!" he mumbled aloud. "If it had only happened thataway——" He passed his tongue over his dry, thick lips. "Why not?" he argued querulously. "Moncrossen said 'twa'nt safe to bushwhack him like I wanted to—said how I ain't got nerve nor brains to stand no investigation.

"But if he'd git burnt up in the shack, that's safer yet. He got that booze somewhere—some one knows he had it. He got spiflicated, built a roarin' fire in the old stove—an' there y'are, plain as daylight. No brains! I'll show him who's got brains—an' there won't be no investigation, neither."

He drew the team to the side of the tote-road and, slipping the halters over the bridles, tied them to a stout sapling and made his way toward the shack.

One look satisfied him that the sleeper had not stirred, and noiselessly he slipped the heavy hasp of the door over the staple and secured it with the wooden pin.

He collected dry branches, piling them directly beneath the small, square window which yawned high in the wall. Higher and higher the pile grew until its top was almost on a level with the sill.

His hands trembled as he applied the match. Tiny tongues of flame struggled upward through the branches, lengthening and widening as fresh twigs ignited, and in his ears the crackle and snap of the dry wood sounded as the rattle of musketry.

His first impulse as the flames gained headway was to fly—to place distance between himself and the scene of his crime. But he dared not go. His knees shook, and he stared with blanched face in horrid fascination as the flames roared and crackled through the brushwood.

They were curling about the window now, and the whole clearing was light as day. He slunk around the corner and gained the shadow of the opposite wall. Fearfully he applied his eye to a crevice—the form by the stove had not moved.

The air of the interior was heavy with smoke and tiny flames were eating their way between the logs. The smoke thickened, blurring and blotting out the prostrate figure. He glanced across at the window. Its aperture was a solid sheet of flame—he was safe!

With a low, animal-like cry Creed sprang away and dashed in the direction of the team. With shaking fingers he clawed at the knots and slipped the halters.

Leaping into the sled, he grabbed up the lines and headed the horses southward at a run. Behind him the sky reddened as the flames licked hungrily at the dry logs of the shack.

"It's his own fault! It's his own fault!" he mumbled over and over again. "Serves him right fer gittin' soused an' buildin' up a big fire in a busted stove. 'Twasn't no fault of his that spark didn't catch the roof. Serves him right! Maybe it did catch—maybe it did. 'Taint my fault no-how—it must 'a' caught—I seen it thataway so plain! Oh, my God! Oh, my God," he babbled, "if they git to askin' me!

"It was thisaway, mister; yes, sir; listen: I was camped in the ravine, an' all to wunst I seen the flare of the fire an' I run over there; but 'twas too late—the roof had fell in an' the pore feller must 'a' been cooked alive. It was turrible, mister—turrible!

"An' I run an' hitched up the team an' druv to Hilarity hell bent fer a potlatch—that's the way of it—s'elp me God it is! If you don't b'lieve it ask Moncrossen—ask Moncrossen, I mean, if he didn't have no booze along—he must 'a' been drunk—an' him crippled thataway!

"Oh, Lordy, Lord! I ain't supposed to know it was the greener, let alone he was crippled! I'm all mixed up a'ready! They better not go askin' me questions lessen they want to git me hung—Goda'mi'ty! I'd ort to done like Moncrossen said!"

So he raved in a frenzy of terror as the horses sped southward at a pace that sent the steam rising in clouds from their heaving sides.

And under the big tarpaulin in the rear of the sled-box the greener grinned as he listened, and eyed the gibbering man through a narrow slit in the heavy canvas.



CHAPTER XXI

DADDY DUNNIGAN

It was broad daylight when Creed pulled the team up before a tumbled-down stable in the rear of one of the outstraggling cabins at the end of Hilarity's single street. Hastily he unhitched and led the horses through the door.

As he disappeared Bill slipped from under the canvas and limped stiffly around the corner of the stable, and none too soon, for as Creed returned to the sled for the oats and blankets the cabin door opened, and a tall, angular woman appeared, carrying an empty water-pail.

"So ye've come back, hev ye?" she inquired in a shrewish voice. "Well, ye're jest in time to fetch the water an' wood. Where d'ye git that rig?" she added sharply, eying the sled.

"None o' yer damn business! An' you hurry up an' cook breakfast ag'in' I git back from Burrage's, er I'll rig you!"

"Yeh, is that so? Jest you lay a finger on me, you damn timber-thievin' boot-legger, an' I'll bust you one over the head with the peaked end of a flatiron! Where ye goin' ter hide when the owner of them team comes a huntin' of 'em? Ha, ha, ha!"

"Shet up!" growled the man so shortly that the woman, eying him narrowly, turned toward the rickety pump, which burbled and wheezed as she worked the handle, filling the pail in spasmodic splashes.

"One of Moncrossen's teamsters got burnt up in the shack at Melton's No. 8, an' I found the team in the stable an' druv 'em in," he vouchsafed as he brushed by the woman on his way to the street. "'Twouldn't look right if I shet up about it; I'll be back when I tell Burrage."

"Fetch some bacon with ye," called the woman as she filled her dirty apron with chips. She paused before lifting the pail from the spout of the wooden pump and gazed speculatively at the tote-sled.

"He's lyin'," she said aloud. "He's up to some fresh devilment, an' 'pears like he's scairt. Trouble with Creed is, he ain't got no nerve—he's all mouth. I sure was hard up fer a man when I tuk him—but he treats me middlin' kind, an' I'd kind of hate to see him git caught—'cause he ain't no good a liar, an' a man anyways smart'd mix him up in a minit."

She lifted the pail and pushed through the door of the cabin.

"Nice people," muttered Bill as he cast about for an exit.

Keeping the stable in line with the window of the cabin, he made his way through a litter of tin cans and rubbish, gaining the shelter of the scrub, where he bent a course parallel with the street.

He was stiff and sore from his cramped position in the sled, and his foot pained sharply. His progress was slow, and he paused to rest on the edge of a small clearing, in the center of which, well back from the highway, stood a tiny cabin.

In the doorway an old man, with a short cutty-pipe between his lips, leaned upon a crutch and surveyed the sky with weatherwise eyes.

Bill instantly recognized him as the old man with the twisted leg who tendered the well-meant advice upon the night of his first arrival in the little town, and his face reddened as he remembered the supercilious disregard with which he had received it.

For a moment he hesitated, then advanced toward the door. The old man removed his cutty-pipe and regarded him curiously.

"Good morning!" called Bill with just a shade of embarrassment.

"Good marnin' yersilf!" grinned the other, a twinkle in his little eyes.

"May I ask where I will find a man called Daddy Dunnigan?"

"In about foive minutes ye'll foind um atein' breakfust wid a shtrappin' young hearty wid a sore fut. Come an in. Oi'm me own housekaper, cook, an' bottle-washer; but, av Oi do say ut mesilf, Oi've seen wor-rse!"

"So you are Daddy Dunnigan?" asked Bill as he gazed hungrily upon the steaming saucers of oatmeal, the sizzling ham, and the yellow globes of fresh eggs fried "sunny side up."

"Ye'll take a wee nip befoor ye eat?" asked his host, reaching to the chimney-shelf for a squat, black bottle.

"No, thanks," smiled Bill. "I don't use it."

"Me, nayther," replied the other with a chuckle; "Oi misuse ut," and, pouring himself a good half tin cupful, swallowed it neat at a gulp.

The meal over, the men lighted their pipes, and Bill broached the object of his visit. The old man listened and, when Bill finished, spat reflectively into the wood-box.

"So Buck Moncrossen sint ye afther me, did he?"

"Yes. He said you were a good cook, and I can certainly bear him out in that; but he said that you would only work if you damn good and felt like it, and if you didn't you wouldn't." The old man grinned.

"He's roight agin, an' Oi'll be tellin' ye now Oi damn good an' don't feel loike wor-rkin' f'r Moncrossen, th' dirthy pirate, takin' a man's pay wid wan hand an' shtealin' his timber wid th' other. He'd cut th' throat av his own mither f'r th' price av a dhrink.

"An' did he sind ye down afoot an' expict me to shtroll back wi' ye, th' both av us on crutches?"

"No, I have a team here," laughed Bill. "They are in Creed's stable."

"Creed's!" The old man glanced at him sharply. "Phwat ar-re they doin' at Creed's?"

"Well, that is a long story; but it sums up about like this: I see you know Moncrossen—so do I. And Moncrossen is afraid I will crab his bird's-eye game—and I will, too, when the proper time comes.

"But he saw a chance to get rid of me, so he sent me after you, probably knowing that you would not come; but it offered an excuse to get me where he wanted me. Then he framed it up with Creed to steal the team in the night while I was camped at Melton's No. 8, and leave me to die bushed.

"I built a fire in the shack, ate my supper, rigged up a dummy near the fire, and then went out to the sled and crawled under the tarp. After making sure that I was asleep Creed stole the team as per schedule, but he did not stop at that. He decided to make sure of me, so he locked the door on the outside and fired the shack. I remained under the tarp, and as Creed was going my way I let him do the driving. While he put up the team I slipped out the back way, and here I am."

"Th' dirthy, murdherin' hound!" exclaimed the old man, chuckling and weaving his body from side to side in evident enjoyment of the tale.

"An' phwat'll ye do wid um now ye're here?" The old man sat erect and stared into the face of his guest, whose eyes had narrowed and whose lips had curved into an icy smile.

"First, I'll give him the damnedest licking with my two fists that he ever got in his life; then I'll turn him over to the authorities."

Daddy Dunnigan leaned forward and, laying a gnarled hand upon his shoulder, shook him roughly in his excitement:

"Yer name, b'y? Phwat is yer name?" His voice quavered, and the little eyes glittered between the red-rimmed lids, bright as an eagle's. The younger man was astonished at his excitement.

"Why, Bill," he replied.

"Bill or Moike or Pat—wurrah! Oi mane yer rale name—th' whole av ut?"

"That I have not told. I am called Bill."

"Lord av hiven! I thocht ut th' fir-rst toime Oi seen ye—but now! Man! B'y. Wid thim eyes an' that shmile on yer face, d'ye think ye c'd fool owld Daddy Dunnigan, that was fir-rst corp'l t'rough two campaigns an' a scourge av peace f'r Captain Fronte McKim?

"Who lucked afther um loike a brother—an' loved um more—an' who fought an' swore an' laughed an' dhrank wid um trough all th' plague-ridden counthry from Kashmir to th' say—an' who wropped um in his blanket f'r th' lasht toime an' helped burry um wid his eyes open—f'r he'd wished ut so—on th' long, brown slope av a rock-pocked Punjab hill, ranged round tin deep wid th' dead naygers av Hira Kal?"

Bill stared at the man wide-eyed.

"Fronte McKim?" he cried.

"Aye, Fronte McKim! As sh'u'd 'a' been gineral av all Oirland, England, an' Injia. Av he'd 'a' been let go he'd licked th' naygers fir-rst an' diplomated phwat was lift av um. He'd made um shwim off th' field to kape from dhroundin' in their own blood—an' kep' 'em good aftherward wid th' buckle ind av a surcingle.

"My toime was up phwin he was kilt, an' Oi quit. F'r Oi niver 'listed to rot in barracks. Oi wint back to Kerry an' told his mither, th' pale, sad Lady Constance—God rist her sowl!—that sint foor b'ys to th' wars that niver come back—an' wud sint foor more if she'd had 'em.

"She give me char-rge av th' owld eshtate, wid th' big house, an th' lawn as wide an' as grane as th' angel pastures av hiven—an' little Eily—his sisther—th' purtiest gur-rl owld Oirland iver bred, who was niver tired av listhenin' to tales av her big brother.

"Oi shtayed till th' Lady Constance died an' little Eily married a rich man from Noo Yor-rk—Car-rson, or meby Carmen, his name was; an' he carried her off to Amur-rica. 'Twas not th' same in Kerry afther that, an' Oi shtrayed from th' gold camps av Australia to th' woods av Canada."

The far-away look that had crept into the old man's eyes vanished, and his voice became gruff and hard.

"Oi've hear-rd av yer doin's in th' timber—av yer killin' th' werwolf in th' midst av her pack—an yer lickin' Moncrossen wid a luk an' a grin—av yer knockin' out Shtromberg wid t'ree blows av yer fisht.

"Ye might carry th' name av a Noo York money-grubber, but yer hear-rt is th' hear-rt av a foightin' McKim—an' yer eyes, an' that smile—th' McKim smile—that's as much a laugh as th' growl av a grizzly—an' more dangerous thin a cocked gun."

The old man paused and filled his pipe, muttering and chuckling to himself. Bill grasped his hand, wringing it in a mighty grip.

"You have guessed it," he said huskily. "My name does not matter. I am a McKim. She was my mother—Eily McKim—and she used to tell me of my uncle—and of you."

"Did she, now? Did she remember me?" he exclaimed. "God bless th' little gur-rl. An' she is dead?" Bill nodded, and Daddy Dunnigan drew a coarse sleeve across his eyes and puffed hard at his short pipe.

"And will you go back with me and work the rest of the winter for Moncrossen?"

The old man remained silent so long that Bill thought he had not heard. He was about to repeat the question when the other laid a hand upon his knee.

"Oi don't have to wor-rk f'r no man, an' Oi'll not wor-rk f'r Moncrossen. But Oi'd cross hell on thin ice in July to folly a McKim wanst more, an' if to do ut Oi must cook f'r Appleton's camp, thin so ut is. Git ye some shleep now whilst Oi loaf down to Burrage's."



CHAPTER XXII

CREED SEES A GHOST

When Bill awoke, yellow lamplight flooded the room and Daddy Dunnigan was busy about the stove, from the direction of which came a cheerful sizzling and the appetizing odor of frying meat and strong coffee.

For several minutes he lay in a delicious drowse, idly watching the old man as he hobbled deftly from stove to cupboard, and from cupboard to table.

So this was the man, he mused, of whom his mother had so often spoken when, as a little boy, he had listened with bated breath to her tales of the fighting McKims.

He remembered how her soft eyes would glow, and her lips curve with pride as she recounted the deeds of her warrior kin.

But, most of all, she loved to tell of Captain Fronte, the big, fighting, devil-may-care brother who was her childish idol; and of one, James Dunnigan, the corporal, who had followed Captain Fronte through all the wars, and to whose coolness and courage her soldier brother owed his life on more than one occasion, and whose devotion and loyalty to the name of McKim was a byword throughout the regiment, and in Kerry.

"And now," thought Bill, "that I have found him, I will never lose sight of him. He needs someone to look after him in his old age."

Over the little flat-topped stove the leathern old world-rover muttered and chuckled to himself as he prodded a fork into the browning pork-chops, shooting now and then an affectionate glance toward the bunk.

"Saints be praised!" he muttered. "Oi'd av know'd um in hiven or hell, or Hong-Kong. Captain Fronte's own silf, he is, as loike as two peas. An' the age av Captain Fronte befure he was kilt, phwin he was th' besht officer in all th' British ar-rmy—or an-ny ar-rmy.

"Him that c'd lay down th' naygers in windrows all day, an' dhrink, an' play car-rds, an' make love all noight—an' at 'em agin in th' marnin'! An' now Oi've found um Oi'll shtay by um till wan av us burries th' other. For whilst a McKim roams th' earth James Dunnigan's place is to folly um.

"An', Lord be praised, he's a foightin' man—but a McKim that don't dhrink! Wurrah! Maybe he wasn't failin' roight, or th' liquor didn't look good enough fer um. Oi'll thry um agin."

Bill threw off the blankets and sat up on the edge of the bunk.

"That grub smells good, Daddy," he sniffed.

"Aye, an 'twill tashte good, too, av ye fly at ut befure ut gits cold. Ye've had shleep enough fer two min—Captain Fronte'd git along fer wakes at a toime on foorty winks in th' saddle."

"I am afraid I will have a hard time living up to Captain Fronte's standard," laughed Bill, as he adjusted his bandages.

"Well, thin, Oi'll tell yez th' fir-rst thing Captain Fronte'd done phwin his two feet hit th' flure: he'd roar fer a dhrink av good liquor. An' thin he'd ate a dozen or two av thim pork-chops, an' wash 'em down wid a gallon av black coffee—an' he'd be roight fer an-nything from a carouse wid th' brown dancin' Nautch gir-rls, to a brush in th' hills wid their fightin' brown brothers.

"Th' liquor's waitin'—ut moightn't be as good as ye're used, but Oi've seen Captain Fronte himself shmack his lips over worse. An' as fer th' tin cup—he'd dhrink from a batthered tomaty can or a lady's shlipper, an' rasp th' dhregs from his t'roat wid a cur-rse or a song, as besht fitted th' toime or th' place he was in."

The old man began to pour out the liquor: "Say phwin," he cried, "an' Oi've yit to see th' McKim 'twud hurry th' wor-rd."

Bill crossed to the old man, who, propped against the table, watched the contents of the bottle gurgle and splash into the huge tin cup, and laid a hand upon his arm.

"That will do, Daddy," he said.

The man ceased to pour and peered inquisitively into the cup. "'Taint half full yit!" he protested, passing it to Bill, who set it before him upon the table, where the rich fumes reached his nostrils as he spoke:

"This whisky," he began, "smells good—plenty good enough for any man. But, you don't seem to understand. I don't drink whisky—good whisky, or bad whisky, or old whisky, or new whisky, or red, white, and blue whisky—or any other kind of booze.

"I have drunk it—bottles of it—kegs of it—barrels of it, I suppose, for I played the game from Harlem to the Battery. And then I quit."

"Ye ain't tellin' me ye're timperence?" The old man inquired with concern as he would have inquired after an ailment.

"No; that is, if you mean am I one of those who would vote the world sober by prohibiting the sale of liquor. It is a personal question which every man must meet squarely—for himself—not for his neighbor. I am not afraid of whisky. I am not opposed to it, as an issue. In fact, I respect it, for, personally, it has given me one peach of a scrap—and we are quits."

The old man listened with interest.

"Ye c'n no more kape a McKim from foightin' thin ye c'n kape a dacoit from staylin," he chuckled. "So ye tur-rned in an' give th' crayther himsilf a foight—an' ye win ut? An' phwat does th' gir-rl think av ut?"

"What!"

"Th' gir-rl. Is she proud av ye? Or is she wan av thim that thinks ut aisy to quit be just lavin' ut alone? For, sure, ut niver intered th' head av man—let alone a McKim, to tur-rn ag'in' liquor, lessen they was a gir-rl at th' bottom av ut. An' phwin ar-re ye goin' to be marrit? For, av she's proud av ye, ye'll marry her—but av she takes ut as a mather av coorse—let some wan ilse git stung."

Bill regarded the old man sharply, but in his bearing was no hint of jesting nor raillery, and the little eyes were serious.

"Yes, there was a girl," said Bill slowly; "but she—she does not know."

"So ye've had a scrap wid her, too! But, tell me ye didn't run away from ut—ye're goin' back?" Bill made no reply, and the old man conveyed the food to the table, muttering to himself the while:

"Sure they's more foightin' goin' on thin Oi iver thought to see ag'in. Ut ain't rid war, but ut ain't so bad—werwolves, Moncrossen, booze, Creed, a bit av a gir-rl somewheres, Shtromberg—th' wor-rld is growin' bether afther all, an' Oi'm goin' to be in th' thick av ut!"

Supper over, Bill donned mackinaw, cap, and mittens.

"Phwere ye goin'?" asked Dunnigan.

"To find Creed."

"Wait a bit, 'tis early yit. In half an hour he'll be clost around Burrage's shtove, tellin' th' b'ys about th' bur-rnt shack at Melton's."

Bill resumed his chair.

"Oi've been thinkin' ut out," continued Daddy, between short puffs at his cutty-pipe. "Ye'll have no fun lickin' Creed—'tis shmall satisfaction foightin' a man that won't foight back. An-ny-how, a black eye or a bloody nose is soon minded. An' av ye tur-rn um over to th' authorities ye ain't got much on um, an' ye can't pr-rove phwat ye have got.

"But listen: Creed's a dhrivlin' jobbernowl that orders his comin's be th' hang av th' moon, an' his goin's be th' dhreams av his head. He thinks y're dead. Now, av ye shtroll into Burrage's loike nothin' out av th' oordinary has happened, he'll think ye're a ghost—an' th' fear in his heart will shtay by um.

"Oi'll loaf down there now, same as ivery noight. In about a half an hour ye'll come limpin' in an' ask fer Dunnigan, an' will he cook out th' sayson fer Moncrossen? 'Twill be fun to watch Creed. He'll be scairt shtiff an' white as a biled shirt, or he'll melt down an' dhribble out t'rough a crack av th' flure."

And so, a half-hour later, Bill Carmody for the second time pushed open Hod Burrage's door and made his way to the stove.

The scene in no wise differed from the time of his previous visit. Slabs of bacon still hung from the roof logs beside the row of tin coffee-pots; the sawdust-filled box was still the object of intermittent bombardment by the tobacco-chewers, the uncertainty of whose aim was mutely attested by the generous circumference of brown-stained floor of which the box was the center.

Grouped about the stove, upon counter, barrel-head, and up-ended goods box, were the same decaying remnants of the moldering town's vanishing population.

The thick, cloudy glass with its sticky edges still circulated for the common good, and above the heads of the unkempt men the air reeked gray with the fumes of rank tobacco.

Only the man who entered had changed. In his bearing was no hint of superiority nor intolerance; he advanced heartily, hailing these men as equals and friends. Near the stove he halted, leaning upon his crutch, and swept the group with a glance.

"Good evening! Do any one of you men happen to be named Dunnigan?"

From the moment the tap of Bill's crutch sounded upon the wooden floor, Creed, who had paused in the middle of a sentence of his highly colored narrative, stared at the newcomer as one would ordinarily stare when a person known to be dead casually steps up and bids one good evening.

His mouth did not open, his lower jaw merely sagged away from his face, exposing his tongue lying thick and flabby upon yellow teeth. His out-bulging eyes fixed the features of the man before him with a glassy, unwinking stare, like the stare of a fish.

Into his brain, at first, came no thought at all merely a dumb sense of unreasoning terror under which his muscles went flaccid, and out of control, so that his body shrank limp and heavy against its backing of bolt-goods.

Then, suddenly a rush of thoughts crowded his brain, tangled thoughts, and weird—of deep significance, but without sequence nor reason.

What had they told of this man in the woods? How he had battled hand to claw with the werwolf and received no hurt. How he had cowed the boss with a look, and laid the mighty Stromberg cold in the batting of an eye.

He himself had, but twenty hours since, seen this man lying helpless upon the floor of a locked shack, ringed round with roaring flames, beyond any human possibility of escape.

And here he stood, crippled beyond peradventure of trail-travel, yet fresh and unfatigued, forty miles from the scene of his burning! A thin trickle of ice crept downward along his spine and, overmastering all other emotions, came the desire to be elsewhere.

He slid from the counter and, as his feet touched the floor, his knees crumpled and he sprawled his length almost at the feet of the man who could not die.

As a matter of fact, Creed aged materially during his journey to the door, but to the onlookers his exit seemed a miracle of frantic haste as he clawed and scrambled the length of the room on hands and knees in a maudlin panic of terror.

And out into the night, as he ran in the first direction he faced, the upper most thought in his mind was a blind rage against Moncrossen.

The boss himself was afraid of this man, yet he had sent him, Creed, to make away with him—alone—in the night! The quavering breath left his throat in long moans as he ran on and on and on.

"Your friend seems to have been in something of a hurry," ventured Bill, as Burrage gave a final twist to the old newspaper in which he was wrapping Fallon's jug.

The storekeeper regarded his customer quizzically and spat with surprising accuracy into the box.

"Yes," he replied dryly, "Creed, he's mostly in a hurry when they's strangers about. But to-night he seemed right down anxious thataway."



CHAPTER XXIII

HEAD-LINES

The brute in Moncrossen held subservient the more human emotions, else he must surely have betrayed his surprise when, twelve hours ahead of schedule, the greener swung the long-geared tote team to a stand in front of the office door.

Not only had he made the trip without mishap, but accomplished the seemingly impossible in persuading Daddy Dunnigan to cook for a log camp, when in all reason the old man should have scorned the proposition in a torrent of Irish profanity.

Moncrossen dealt only in facts. Speculation as to cause and effect found no place in his mental economy. His plan had miscarried. For that Creed must answer later. The fact that concerned him now was that the greener continued to be a menace to his scheme.

Had Creed in some manner bungled the job? Or had he passed it up? He must find out how much the greener knew. The boss guessed that if the other had unearthed the plot, he would force an immediate crisis.

And so he watched narrowly, but with apparent unconcern, while Bill climbed from the sled, followed by Daddy Dunnigan. On the hard-packed snow of the clearing the two big men faced each other, and the expression of each was a perfect mask to his true emotions.

But the greener knew that the boss was masking, while Moncrossen accepted the other's guileless expression at its face value, and his pendulous lips widened into a grin of genuine relief as he greeted the arrivals.

"Hullo! You back a'ready? Hullo, Dunnigan! I'm sure glad you come; we'll have some real grub fer a change.

"Hey, LaFranz!" he called to the passing Frenchman. "Put up this team an' pack the gear to the bunk-house."

As the man drove away in the direction of the stable, Moncrossen regarded the others largely.

"Come on in an' have a drink, boys," he invited, throwing wide the door. "How's the foot?"

"Better," replied Bill. "It will be as good as ever in a week."

"I'm glad of that, 'cause I sure am cramped fer hands. I'll let Fallon break you into sawin' an put Stromberg to teamin'; he's too pot-gutted fer a sawyer."

Moncrossen produced a bottle as the others seated themselves.

"What—don't drink?" he exclaimed, as Bill passed the bottle to Dunnigan. "That's so; b'lieve I did hear some one say you didn't use no booze. Well, every man to his own likin'. Me—about three good, stiff jolts a day, an' a big drunk in the spring an' fall, is about my gait. Have a seegar." Bill accepted the proffered weed and bit off the end.

"How!" he said, with a short sweep of the arm; then, scratching a match on the rung of his chair, lighted the unsavory stogie.

Thus each man took measure of the other, and Daddy Dunnigan tilted the bottle and drank deep, the while he took shrewd measure of both.

* * * * *

It was in the early afternoon of the following day that Bill Carmody tossed aside his magazine and yawned drowsily. Alone in the bunk-house, his glance roved idly over the room, with its tiers of empty bunks and racks of drying garments.

It rested for a moment upon his bandaged foot propped comfortably upon Fallon's bunk, directly beneath his own, and strayed to the floor where just under its edge, still wrapped in the soiled newspaper, sat the gallon jug that Fallon suggested in case the greener saw fit to heed his warning.

Bill smiled dreamily. Unconsciously his lips spelled out the words of some head-lines that stared at him from the rounded surface of the jug:

POPULAR MEMBERS OF NEW YORK'S FOUR HUNDRED TO WED.

"Wonder who?" thought Bill. Reaching for his crutch, he slipped the end through the handle of the jug and drew it toward him. He raised it to his lap and the words of the succeeding line struck upon his brain like an electric shock:

Engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger Soon to be Announced.

Feverishly his eyes devoured the following lines of the extended heading:

Time of Wedding Not Set. Will Not Take Place Immediately, 'Tis Said. Prospective Bridegroom to Sail for Europe in Spring.

And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom, where the paper folded under the edge of the jug:

NEW YORK, February 1. (Special to Tribune.)—As a distinct surprise in elite circles will come the announcement of the engage

He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose rolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable.

Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandoned the hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines.

Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, and then, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes and sat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.

For he had hoped. In spite of the scorn in her voice as she dismissed him, and the bitter resentment of his own parting words, he loved her; and upon the foundation of this love he had builded the hope of its fulfillment.

A hope that one day he would return to her, clean and strong in the strength of achievement, and that his great passion would beat down the barrier and he would claim her as of right.

Suddenly he realized that as much as upon the solid foundation of his own great love, the hope depended upon the false substructure of her love for him.

And the false substructure had crumbled at the test. She loved another; had suddenly become as unattainable as the stars—and was lost to him forever.

The discovery brought no poignant pain, no stabbing agony of a fresh heart-wound; but worse—the dull, deep, soul-hurt of annihilation; the hurt that damns men's lives.

He smiled with bitter cynicism as his thoughts dwelt upon the little love of women, the shifting love, that rests but lightly on the heart, to change with the changing moon. And upon the constancy of such love he had dared to build his future!

"Fool!" he cried, and laughed aloud, a short, hard laugh—the laugh that makes God frown. From the water-pail at his side he drew the long-handled dipper and removed the cork from the jug and tilted the jug, and watched the red liquor splash noisily from its wide mouth.

From that moment he would play a man's game; would smash Moncrossen and his bird's-eye men; would learn logs and run camps, and among the big men of the rough places would win to the fore by the very force and abandon of him.

He had beaten the whisky game; had demonstrated his ability to best John Barleycorn on his own terms and in his own fastnesses.

And now he would drink whisky—much whisky or little whisky as he saw fit, for there was none to gainsay him—and in his life henceforth no woman could cause him pain.

He raised the dipper to his lips, and the next instant it rang upon the floor, and over the whole front of him splashed the raw liquor, and in his nostrils was the fume and reek of it.

Unmindful of his injury, he leaped to his feet and turned to face Daddy Dunnigan, who was returning his crutch to his armpit.

"Toimes Oi've yanked Captain Fronte from th' road av harm," the old man was saying, and the red-rimmed, rheumy eyes shone bright; "wanst from in front av a char-rge av the hillmen an' wanst beyant Khybar. But Oi'm thinkin' niver befoor was Oi closter to th' roight place at th' roight toime thin a minit agone.

"Whisky is made to be dhrank fer a pastime av enj'ymint—not alone—wid a laugh loike that. Ye've got th' crayther on th' run, but ye must give no quarter. Battles is won not in th' thruse, but in th' foightin'.

"No McKim iver yit raised th' white flag, an' none iver died wid his back to th' front. Set ye down, lad, an' think it over."

He finished speaking and hobbled toward the door, and, passing out, closed it behind him. Alone in the bunk-house Bill Carmody turned again to the jug and fitted the cork to its mouth, and with his crutch pushed it under the edge of Fallon's bunk.

Hours later, when the men stamped in noisily to the wash-bench, he was sitting there in the dark—thinking.

* * * * *

The results of Daddy Dunnigan's cooking were soon evident in the Blood River camp. Men no longer returned to the bunk-house growling and cursing the grub, and Moncrossen noted with satisfaction that the daily cut was steadily climbing toward the eighty-thousand mark.

The boss added a substantial bonus for each day's "top cut," and in the lengthening days an intense rivalry sprang up between the sawyers; not infrequently Bill and Fallon were "in on the money."

It was nearly two weeks after the incident, that Creed came to Moncrossen with his own story of what happened that night at Melton's No. 8, and the boss knew that he lied.

As they talked in the little office the greener, accompanied by Fallon, passed close to the window.

At the sight of the man the spotter's face became pasty, and he shrank trembling and wide-eyed, as from the sight of a ghost, and Moncrossen knew that his abject terror was not engendered by physical fear.

He flew into a rage, cursing and bullying the craven, but failed utterly to dispel the unwholesome fear or to shake the other's repeated statement that at a few minutes past ten o'clock that night he had seen the greener lying hopelessly drunk upon the floor of the shack with the flames roaring about him, and at six o'clock the next evening had seen him hobble into Burrage's store, forty miles to the southward, fresh and apparently unharmed save for his injured foot.

Moncrossen's hatred of the greener rested primarily upon the fear that one day he would expose him to Appleton; added to this was a mighty jealousy of his rapid rise to proficiency and the rankling memory of the scene of their first meeting in the grub-shack.

But his fear of him was a physical fear—a fear born of the certain knowledge that, measured by his own standards, the greener was the better man.

And now came the perplexing question as to how the man had reached Hilarity when Creed was known to have arrived there with the team eight hours after the burning of the shack.

The boss had carefully verified so much of Creed's story by a guarded pumping of Dunnigan, and the crafty old Irishman took keen delight in so wording his answers, and interspersing them with knowing winks and quirks of the head, as to add nothing to the boss's peace of mind.

While not sharing Creed's belief in the greener's possession of uncanny powers, nevertheless he knew that, whatever happened that night, the greener knew more than he chose to tell, and as his apprehension deepened his rage increased.

Hate smoldered in the swinish eyes as, in the seclusion of the office, he glowered and planned and rumbled his throaty threats.

"The drive," he muttered. "My Bucko Bill, you're right now picked for the drive, an' I'll see to it myself that you git yourn in the river."



CHAPTER XXIV

THE LOG JAM

The feel of spring filled the air; the sun swung higher and higher; and the snow turned dark and lay soggy with water. With the increasing warmth of the longer days, men's thoughts turned to the drive.

They talked of water-front streets, with their calk-riddled plank sidewalks and low-fronted bars; of squalid back wine-rooms, where for a week they would be allowed to bask, sodden, in the smiles of the painted women—then, drugged, beaten, and robbed, would wake up in a filthy alley and hunt up a job in the mills.

It was all in a lifetime, this annual spring debauch. The men accepted it as part of the ordered routine of their lives; accepted it without shame or regret, boasting and laughing unblushingly over past episodes—facing the future gladly and without disgust.

"You mind Jake Sonto's place, where big Myrtle hangs out? They frisked Joe Manning fer sixty bucks last year. I seen 'em do it. What! Me? I was too sleepy to give a cuss—they got mine, too."

And so the talk drifted among them. Revolting details of abysmal man-failings, brutal reminiscences of knock-out drops, robbery, and even murder, furnished the themes for jest and gibe which drew forth roars of laughter.

And none sought to avoid the inevitable; rather, they looked forward to it in brutish anticipation, accepting it as a matter of course.

For so had lumber-jacks been drugged, beaten, and robbed since the first pine fell—and so will they continue to be drugged, beaten, and robbed until the last log is jerked, dripping, from the river and the last white board is sawed.

On the night of the 8th of April the cut was complete, and on the morning of the 9th ten million feet of logs towered on the rollways along the river, ready for the breaking up of the ice.

Stromberg had banked the bird's-eye to his own satisfaction, and Moncrossen selected his crew for the drive—white-water men, whose boast it was that they never had walked a foot from the timber to the mills; bateau men, who laughed in the face of death as they swarmed over a jam; key-log men, who scorned dynamite; bend watchers, whose duty it is to stay awake through the long, warm days and prevent the formation of jams as the drive shoots by—each selected with an eye to previous experience and physical fitness.

For, among all occupations of men, log driving stands unique for its hardships of peril, discomfort, and bone-racking toil.

From the breaking out of the rollways until the last log slips smoothly into its place in the boom-raft, no man's life is safe.

Yet men fight for a place on the drive—for the privilege of being soaked to the bone for days at a time in ice-cold water; of being crushed to a pulp between grinding logs; of being drowned in white-water rapids, where a man must stand, his log moving at the speed of an express train, time and again shooting half out of water to meet the spray of the next rock-tossed wave; of making hair-trigger decisions, when an instant's hesitation means death, as his log rushes under the low-hanging branches of a "sweeper."

For pure love of adventure they fight—and that a few more dollars may find their way into the tills of the Jake Sontos of the water-front dives. For among these men the baiting of death is the excitement of life, and their pleasures are the savage pleasures of firstlings.

Those who were not of the drive were handed their vouchers and hauled to Hilarity, while those who remained busied themselves in the packing and storing of gear; for, in the fall, the crew would return to renew the attack on the timber.

Followed, then, days of waiting.

The two bateaux—the cook's bateau, with its camp stove and store of supplies; and the big bateau, with its thousand feet of inch and a half manila line coiled for instant use, whose thick, flaring sides and floor of selected timber were built to override the shock and battering of a thousand pitching logs—were carried to the bank ready for launching.

The sodden snow settled heavily, and around the base of stumps and the trunks of standing trees appeared rings of bare ground, while the course of the skidways and cross-hauls stood out sharp and black, like great veins in the clearing.

Each sag and depression became a pond, and countless rills and rivulets gurgled riverward, bank-full with sparkling snow-water.

Over the frozen surface of the river it flowed and wore at the shore-bound ice-floor. And then, one night, the ice went out.

Titanically it went, and noisily, with the crash and grind of broken cakes; and in the morning the river rushed black, and deep, and swollen, its roiled waters tearing sullenly at crumbling banks, while upon its muddy surface heaved belated ice-cakes and uprooted trees.

At daylight men crowded the bank, the bend watchers strung out and took up their positions, and white-water men stood by with sharp axes to break out the rollways.

The first rollway broke badly.

A thick-butted log slanted and met the others head-on as they thundered down the bank, tossing them high in the air whence they fell splashing into the river, or crashed backward among the tumbling logs, upending, and hurling them about like jack-straws.

The air was filled with the heavy rumble of rolling logs as other rollways tore loose at the swift blows of the axes, where, at the crack of toggle-pins, men leaped from in front of the rolling, crushing death; and the surface of the river became black with bucking, pitching logs which shot to the opposite bank.

Coincident with the snapping of the first toggle-pin, the branches of a gigantic, storm-blasted pine, whose earth-laded butt dragged heavily along the bottom of the river, became firmly entangled in the low-hanging limbs of a sweeper, and swung sluggishly across the current.

Against this obstruction crashed the leaping, upending logs of the wrecked rollway. Other logs swept in and wedged, forcing the heavy butt and the riven trunk of the huge tree firmly against the rocks at the head of the rapid.

Rollway after rollway tore loose and the released logs, swept downward by the resistless push of the current, climbed one upon another and lodged. Higher and higher the jam towered, the interlocking logs piling in hopeless tangle.

Moncrossen was beside himself. Up and down the bank he rushed, bellowing orders and hurling curses at the men who, gripping their peaveys, swarmed over the heaving jam like flies.

The bateau men, forty of them, lifted the heavy boat bodily, and working it out to the very forefront of the jam, lowered it into the water, while other men made the heavy cable fast to the trunk of a tree. Close under the towering pile the bateau was snubbed with a short, light line, and the men clambered shoreward, leaving only Moncrossen, Stromberg, Fallon, and one other to search for the key-log.

It was a comparatively simple jam, the key to which was instantly apparent to the experienced rivermen, in two large logs wedged in the form of an inverted V. The quick twist of a peavey inserted at the vertex of the angle, and the drive should move.

Fallon and Stromberg, past masters both of the drive made ready while the other stood by to cast off the light line and allow the bateau to swing free on the main cable.

Moncrossen clambered to the top to shout warning to those who swarmed over the body of the jam and along the edges of the river.

At the first bellowed orders of the boss, Bill Carmody had leaped onto the heaving jam and, following in the wake of others, began picking his way to the opposite shore.

New to the game, he had no definite idea of what was expected of him, so, with an eye upon those nearest him, he determined to follow their example.

To watch from the bank and see men whose boast it is that they "c'd ride a bubble if their calks wouldn't prick it," leap lightly from log to rolling log; hesitate, run its length, and leap to another as it sinks under them, nothing looks simpler.

But the greener who confidently tries it for the first time instantly finds himself in a position uncomfortably precarious, if not actually dangerous.

Bill found, to his disgust, that the others had gained the opposite bank before he had reached the middle, where he paused, balancing uncertainly and hesitating whether to go ahead or return.

The log upon which he stood oscillated dizzily, and as he sprang for another, his foot slipped and he fell heavily, his peavey clattering downward among the promiscuously tangled logs, to come to rest some six feet beneath him, where the white-water curled foaming among the logs of the lower tier.

Bill glanced hastily about him, expecting the shouts of laughter and good-natured chaffing which is the inevitable aftermath of the clumsy misadventure of a riverman. The bateau men were just gaining the shore and the attention of the others was engaged elsewhere, so that none noticed the accident, and, with a grin of relief, Bill clambered down to recover his peavey.

And Moncrossen, peering over the top of the jam, took in the situation at a glance—the river apparently clear of men, and the greener, invisible to those on shore, crawling about among the logs in the center of the pile.

It was the moment for which he had waited. Even the most careful planning could not have created a situation more to his liking. At last the greener was "his."

"There she goes!" he roared, and turning, slid hastily from the top and leaped into the waiting bateau.

"Let 'er go!" he shouted.

Fallon and Stromberg leaped forward and simultaneously their peaveys bit into the smaller of the two key-logs.

Both big men heaved and strained, once, twice, thrice, and the log turned slowly, allowing the end of the other to pass.

The logs trembled for an instant, then, forced by the enormous weight behind them, shot sidewise, crossed each other, and pressed the tree-trunk deep under the boiling water.

A mighty quiver ran through the whole mass of the jam, it balanced for a shuddering instant, then with a mighty rush, let go.

Over the side of the bateau tumbled Fallon and Stromberg, sprawling on the bottom at the feet of the boss, while the man in the bow cast off the light line.

The next instant the heavy boat leaped clear of the water, overriding, climbing to the very summit of the pounding, plunging logs which threatened each moment to crush and batter through her sides and bottom.

The strong, new line was singing taut to the pull of the heavy bateau which was being gradually crowded shoreward by the sweep of the down-rushing logs.

Suddenly a mighty shout went up from those on the bank. The men in the bateau looked, and there, almost in the middle of the stream, was the greener leaping from log to log of the wildly pitching jam.

They stared horror-stricken, with tense, blanched faces. Each instant seemed as if it must be his last, for they knew that no man alive could hope to keep his feet in the mad rush and sweep of the tumbling, tossing drive.

Yet the greener was keeping his feet. Time and again he recovered his balance when death seemed imminent, and amid wild shouts and yells of encouragement, climbing, leaping, running, stumbling, he worked his way shoreward.

He was almost opposite the bateau now, and Stromberg, hastily coiling the light line, leaped into the bow. Then, just when it seemed possible the greener might make it, a huge log shot upward from the depths and fell with a crash squarely across the log upon which he was riding.

A cry of horror went up from half a hundred throats as the man was thrown high in the air and fell back into the foaming white-water that showed here and here through the thinning tangle of logs.

The next instant a hundred logs passed over the spot, drawn down by the suck of the rapid.



CHAPTER XXV

"THE-MAN-WHO-CANNOT-DIE"

During the infinitesimal interim between the shock which hurled him into the air, and the closing of the waters of Blood River over his head, Bill Carmody's brain received a confusion of flashlike impressions: The futile shouting and waving of arms upon the man-crowded bank of the river; the sudden roar of the rapid; the tense face of Fallon; the set jaw of big Stromberg as he stood ready to shoot out the line; and, above all, the leering eyes and sneering lips of Moncrossen.

The accident happened a scant sixty feet from the side of the straining bateau, and the features of its occupants were brought out strongly in the clear morning light.

As he disappeared beneath the surface Bill drew a long breath and, opening his eyes, looked upward. A couple of swift strokes and his head emerged where a small patch of light showed an open space.

Reaching out he grasped the rough bark of a log, shook the icy water from his eyes, and reviewed his situation. His first thought was of the bateau, but a shoreward glance revealed only the swiftly gliding trunks of the forest wall with the bateau and the gesticulating crowd but a blur in the distance.

Near him floated smoothly a huge forked trunk from whose prongs protruded the stubs of lopped limbs. Releasing his hold, he swam toward the big log which floated butt foremost among its lesser neighbors, and, diving, came up between the forks and gripped firmly a limb stub.

On every hand thousands of logs floated quietly, seemingly motionless as logs on the bosom of a mill-pond. Only the rushing walls of pine on either side of the narrow river-aisle spoke of the terrific speed of the drive.

Suddenly, as the great forked log swept around a bend, the peril of his situation dawned upon him in all its horror. The dull roar changed to a mighty bellow where the high-tossed white-water leaped high among the submerged rocks of the rapid, and above its thunder sounded the heavy rumble of the shock and grind of thousands of wildly pitching logs.

Only for a moment did he gaze out over the heaving forefront of the drive. His log shot forward with the speed of a bullet as it was seized in the grip of the current; the next moment it leaped clear of the water and plunged blindly into the whirling tossing pandemonium of the white-water gut.

Bill clung desperately to the stub, expecting each moment to be his last. Close in the fork he was protected on either side from the hammering blows of the caroming timber. All about him the air was filled with flying logs which ripped the bark from each other's sides, while the shock and batter of the wild stampede threatened momentarily to tear loose his grip.

It seemed to the desperate man that hours passed as he clung doggedly to the huge trunk which trembled and shivered and plunged wildly at the pounding impact, when suddenly it brought up against a half-submerged rock, stopped dead, grated and jarred at the crash of following logs, poised for an instant, and then slanted into deeper water, while up the man's leg shot a twisting, wrenching pain, sickening—nerve-killing in its intensity.

His grasp relaxed and his whole body went limp and lifeless as the big log overrode the last rock barrier and was caught in the placid, slowly revolving water of a shore eddy.

* * * * *

Half concealed by the naked tangle of underbrush on the verge of a low bluff where the rock-ribbed rapid broke suddenly into smooth water, an old Indian woman and a beautiful half-breed girl of twenty crouched close, watching the logs plunge through the seething white-water.

The dark eyes of the girl shone with excitement, but this was no new sight to the eyes of the older woman who in times past had watched other drives on other rivers. As she looked her frown deepened and the hundred little weather wrinkles in the tight-drawn smoke-darkened skin showed thin and plain, like the crisscross cracks in old leather.

The shriveled lips pressed tight against the hard, snag-studded gums, and in the narrow, lashless black eyes glowed the spark of undying hate.

The sight of the rushing logs brought bitter memories. These were things of the white man—and, among white men, only Lacombie was good—and Lacombie was dead.

Young Lacombie, who came into the North with a song on his lips to work for the great company whose word is law, and whose long arm is destiny. Lacombie, who, in the long ago had won her, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, who was called the most beautiful maiden among all the tribes of the rivers.

The old crone drew her blanket about her and shuddered slightly as she glanced from her own withered, clawlike hands, upon which dark veins stood out like the cords of a freight bale, to the fresh beauty of the young girl at her side who gazed in awed fascination upon the rush of the pounding logs.

Lacombie was dead, and Pierre, his son, who was her first-born, was dead also; and his blood was upon the head of the men of the logs. For he had left the post and gone among white men, and she, the mother who bore him, and Lacombie, his father, had seen him no more.

Years slipped by, bringing other children; Jacques, in whom the white blood of Lacombie was lost in the blending, and the girl who crouched at her side.

Long after, from the lips of a passing Bois brule, she heard the story of Pierre's death—how, crazed by whisky and the taunts of a drunken companion, he had leaped upon a passing log and plunged into the foaming white chute of the dreaded Saw Tooth rapid through which no man had passed and lived.

Sacre. He was brave! For he came nearly to the end of the rapid, standing upon his log—but, only nearly to the end—for there he was dashed and broken upon the rocks in the swirl of the leaping white-water, and here was she, his mother, gazing at other logs in the rush of other rapids.

She started at the sudden clutch at her blanket and glanced sharply at the girl who strained forward upon the very edge of the bluff and stared, not at the rapid, but straight downward where a few logs revolved lazily in the grip of the shore eddy.

The girl was pointing excitedly with a tapering white-brown finger to the fork of a great log where, caught on a sharp limb stub, was the striped sleeve of a mackinaw, from the end of which protruded a hand, while after the log, trailing sluggishly in the V of the fork, was the lifeless body of a man.

As she looked a light of exultation gleamed in the sharp old eyes. Here was vengeance! For the life of her son—the life of a white man.

She noted with satisfaction that the body was that of a large man. It was fitting so. For her Pierre had been tall, and broad, and strong—she would have been disappointed in the meaner price of a small man's life.

Suddenly she leaped to her feet and ran swiftly along the bluff seeking a place to descend.

Even among the men of the logs, who are bad, one man stands alone as the archfiend of them all.

And now—it is possible, for he is a big man—she, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the mother of Pierre and of Jeanne, maybe is permitted to stoop close and breathe upon the dead face of this man the weird curse of the barren lands—almost forgotten, now, even among her own people—the blighting curse of the "Yaga Tah!"

In the telling, the Bois brule had mentioned the name of the drunken lumber-jack who had baited her Pierre to his death, and in the old woman's brain the name of Moncrossen was the symbol of all black deviltry.

After the death of Lacombie, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta had stolen Jeanne from the mission that she might forget the ways of the white man, and returned to her people.

Jeanne, whose soft skin, beneath the sun tan, was the white skin of Lacombie, and who was the most beautiful among all the women of the North, with her straight, lithe body, and dark, mysterious eyes—eyes which, in color, were the eyes of the wood folk, but in whose baffling, compelling depths slumbered the secrets of an alien race.

Jacques, she could understand, for in thought and deed and body he was Indian—a whelp of her own breed. But the girl, she did not understand, and her love for her was the idolatrous love with which she had loved Lacombie.

Through many lean years they lived among the tepees of the Indians, but, of late, they had come to the lodge of Jacques, who had become a trapper and guide.

His lodge, of necessity, must be pitched not too far from the lumber camps of the white men, whose laws make killing deer in winter a crime—and pay liberally for fresh venison.

Swiftly she descended a short slope of the bluff, uttering quick, low whines of anticipation. For Jacques, Blood River Jack he was called by the white men, had told her that Moncrossen was boss of the camp at the head of the rapid.

All through the winter she had kept the girl continually within her sight, for she remembered the previous winter when this same Moncrossen had accidentally come upon their lodge on the south fork of Broken Knee, and the look in his eyes as he gazed upon the beauty of Jeanne.

She remembered the events that followed when Jacques was paid liberally by the boss to make a midwinter journey to the railroad, and the low sound in the night when she awakened to find the girl struggling in the bear-like grasp of the huge lumberjack, and how she fought him off in the darkness with a hatchet while Jeanne fled shrieking into the timber.

Now she stood upon the brink, and beside her stood the girl in whose dark eyes flashed a primitive tiger-hate—for she, too, remembered the terror of that night on the south fork of Broken Knee.

And, although she knew nothing of the wild death-curse of the Yaga Tah, she could at least stoop and spit upon the dead face of the one worst white man.

Almost touching their feet lapped the brown, bubble-dotted waters of the river, and close in, at a hand's reach from the bank, the logs passed sluggishly in the slow swing of the shore eddy.

The eyes of the pair focused in intense eagerness upon the great forked log which poised uncertainly at the outer edge of the whirl.

For a breathless moment they watched while it seemed that the great log with its gruesome freight must be swept out into the main current of the stream. Sluggishly it revolved, as upon an axis, and then, in the grip of a random cross-current, swung heavily shoreward.

The form of the old woman bent forward and, as the log drifted slowly past, a talon-like hand shot out and fastened upon the bit of striped cloth, and the next moment the two were tugging and hauling in their efforts to drag the limp body clear of the brown waters.

Seizing upon the heavy calked boots they worked the body inch by inch up the steep slope, and the dry lips of the old squaw curled in a snaggy grin as she noted the shattered leg and the toe of the boot twisted backward—a grin that deepened into a grimace of sardonic cruelty at the feel of the grating rasp of the shattered bone ends.

After frequent pauses they returned to their task, and at each jerk water gushed from the man's wide-sprung jaws.

At last, panting with exertion, they gained the top of the bank. With glittering eyes the old squaw stooped swiftly and turned the body upon its back. The unseeing eyes stared upward, water ceased to gush from the open mouth, and the lolling tongue settled flabbily between the mud-smeared lips.

A cry of savage disappointment escaped her, for the face into which she looked was not the face of Moncrossen!

The curse of the Yaga Tah died upon her lips, for this curse may be breathed but once in a lifetime, and if, as Father Magnus said, "God is good," she might yet live to gaze into the dead face of the one worst white man, and chant the curse of the Yaga Tah.

So she stifled the curse and contented herself with gloating over the battered body of the man of logs which the churning white-water of the Blood River rapid had tossed at her feet, even as the seething white-water of the Saw Tooth had tossed the body of her Pierre at the feet of the white men.

At her side the girl gazed curiously at the exanimate form. In her heart was no bitterness against the people of her father—no damning of the breed for the sins of the individual.

Lacombie, she knew, was good—the one good white man—old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him. And Moncrossen was bad.

Between these two extremes were the unnumbered millions of whom Lacombie used to tell her in the long Northern twilight, when, as a little girl, she would creep upon his knees as he sat before the door of the log trading-post, and his arms would steal about her, and a far-away look would creep into his blue eyes.

Often he spoke of beautiful women; of mighty tepees of stone; of bridges of iron, and of trains which rushed along the iron trails at the speed of the flight of a bird, and spat fire and smoke, and whose voice shrieked louder than the mate-call of the loup-cervier.

And she would listen, round-eyed, until the little head would droop slowly against the great chest, and the words would rumble softly and blend bewilderingly with the wheezing of the black pipe and the strong smell of rank tobacco.

Sometimes she would wake up with a start to hear more, and it would be morning, and she would be between the blankets in her own little bunk, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta would come and laugh, and pinch her fat legs, and croon strange Indian songs in low minor keys.

There were stories, too; stories of Kas-ka-tan, the chief; of the Crazy Man of the Berry Moon; of Zuk, the lost hunter; of the Maiden of the Snows, whose heart was of ice, and whose voice was the splashing of tiny waters, and of the mighty Fire God, whose breath alone could move the heart of the Maiden of the Snows, so that in the springtime when he spoke to her of love, her laughter was heard in the tiny rills of the woodland.

But it was of Lacombie's tales she thought most. Only she could never stay awake to hear the end, and the next night there would be other tales of other wonders, and all without end.

So in her heart grew a strange unrest, a wild, irrepressible longing to see these things in the wonderful country of the white men, to whom, in time of sickness and death, came smiling, round-faced priests, with long black clothes and many buttons; instead of hideous medicine-men, with painted faces and strings of teeth and shriveled claws.

As she gazed upon the form of the white man, a soft wistfulness stole into her eyes. Unconsciously, she drew closer, and the next instant threw herself upon the body, tearing frantically at the shirt-front.

Sounded the tiny popping of buttons and the smooth rip of flannel, and a small, white-brown hand slipped beneath the tattered cloth and pressed tight against the white skin of the mighty chest.

For a long moment it rested there while the old woman looked on in wonder. Then the girl faced her, speaking rapidly, with shining eyes:

"He is not dead!" she gasped. "There is life in the heart that moves! See! It is not the face of Moncrossen, but of the great chechako of whom Jacques told us. The man who is hated of Moncrossen. Who killed Diablesse, the loup-garou, with a knife.

"The man whom Creed fears, and of whom he spoke the night he came whining to the tepee with his heart turned to water within him, and told Jacques of how this man lay helpless in the flames of the burning shack, and the next day walked unscorched into the store at Hilarity.

"He is The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die. Quick! Help me, and together we will bring him to life!"

The old squaw held aloof, scowling.

"Lacombie is dead," she muttered. "There is no good white man. The men of the logs are bad. Where is Pierre, thy brother? And where are the fathers of the light-skinned breeds of the rivers?

"Who bring sorrow and death among the women of my people? Whence comes the whisky that is the curse of the red men of the North? Would you warm the rattlesnake in your bosom, to die from its poisoned tooth? All men die! Lacombie, who was good, is dead. And this one who, being a man of logs, is bad, will die also. Come away while yet there is time!"

The girl sprang to her feet and, with uplifted hand, faced Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, and in her eyes was the compelling light of prophecy.

"Is it not enough, O Wa-ha-ta-na-ta," she cried, "that Moncrossen, the evil one, hates this man? He is M's'u Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die. Neither by wolves nor fire nor water can he die, nor will he be killed in the fighting of men. But one day he will kill Moncrossen, that thou mayest lay upon the head of the evil one the black curse of the Yaga Tah! And then will the blood of Pierre, thy son, be avenged."

At the words, the smoldering black eyes of the old squaw wavered, they swept the limp form upon the ground, and returned a long, searching gaze into the blazing eyes of the girl. With a low guttural throat-sound, she dropped to her knees, and together they bent to their task. At the end of an hour the breath fluttered irregularly between the bearded lips and the gray eyes closed of their own accord.

As the two women rested, the sound of shouting voices was borne to their ears. The old woman started, listening.

"Back from the river!" she cried, "soon will come men who, with long, sharp poles, will push out the logs from the eddies, and from the still waters of the bends, and, should the men of Moncrossen find this man they will kill him—for all men die! Did not Lacombie die?"



CHAPTER XXVI

MAN OR TOY MAN?

The newspaper prediction of the forthcoming announcement of the engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger was published, not without color of authority, nor was it entirely out of keeping with appearances.

As the gay calendar of society's romp and rout drew toward its close, the names of these two became more and more intimately associated. It was an association assiduously cultivated by young St. Ledger, and earnestly fostered and abetted by the St. Ledger sisters who, fluttering uncertainly upon the outermost rim of the circle immediately surrounding society's innermost shrine, realized that the linking of the Manton name with the newer name of St. Ledger, would prove an open sesame to the half-closed doors of the Knickerbockers.

Despite two years' residence in the most expensive suite of a most expensive hotel, nobody seemed to know much about the St. Ledgers. It was an accepted fact that they were islanders from somewhere, variously stated to be Jamaica, The Isle of Pines, and Barbadoes, whose wealth was founded upon sugar, and appeared limitless.

St. Ledger pere, tall and saturnine, divided his time about equally between New York and "the islands."

The two girls, ravishingly beautiful in their dark, semi-mysterious way, had been brought from some out-of-the-way French convent to the life of the great city, where to gain entree into society's holy of holies became a fetish above their gods.

There was no mere St. Ledger, and vague whisperings passed back and forth between certain bleached out, flat-chested virgins, whose forgotten youth and beauty were things long past, but whose tenure upon society was as firm and unassailable as Plymouth Rock and the silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant could make it.

It was hinted that the high-piled tresses of the sisters matched too closely the hue of the raven's wing, and that the much admired "waves" if left to themselves would resolve into decided "kinks."

They were guarded whisperings, however, non-committal, and so worded that a triumphantly blazoned "I told you so!" or a depreciatory and horrified: "You misunderstood me, dear," hung upon the pending verdict of the powers that be.

Gregory St. Ledger, in so far as any one knew, was neither liked nor disliked among men; being of the sort who enjoy watching games of tennis and, during the later hours of the afternoon, drive pampered Pekingese about the streets in silver-mounted electrics.

He enjoyed, also, a baby-blue reputation which successfully cloaked certain spots of pale cerise in his rather negligible character.

He smoked innumerable scented cigarettes, gold as to tip and monogram, which he selected with ostentatious unostentation from a heavy gold case liberally bestudded with rubies and diamonds.

He viewed events calmly through a life-size monocle, was London tailored, Paris shod, and New York manicured; and carried an embossed leather check-book, whose detachable pink slips proved a potent safety factor against undue increment of the St. Ledger exchequer.

Thus equipped, and for reasons of family, young St. Ledger decided to marry Ethel Manton; and to this end he devoted himself persistently and insidiously, but with the inborn patience and diplomacy of the South Islander.

Bill Carmody he hated with the snakelike hate of little men, but shrewdly perceiving that the girl held more than a friendly regard for him, enthusiastically sang his praises in her ears; praises that, somehow, always left her with a strange smothering sensation about the heart and a dull resentment of the fact that she cared.

With the disappearance of young Carmody, St. Ledger redoubled his attentions. The young man found it much easier than did his sisters to be numbered "among those present" at the smart functions of the elite.

When New York shivered in the first throes of winter, a well-planned cruise in mild waters under soft skies on board the lavishly appointed and bountifully supplied St. Ledger yacht, whose sailing list included a carefully selected and undeniably congenial party of guests, worked wonders in the matter of St. Ledger's social aspirations.

At the clubs, substantial and easily forgotten loans to members of the embarrassed elect, coupled with vague hints, rarely failed to pay dividends in the form of invitations to ultra-exclusive affaires.

At the hostelry the St. Ledger soirees, if so glitteringly bizarre as to draw high-browed frowns from the more reserved and staid of the thinning old guard of ancestor-worshipers, nevertheless, were enthusiastically hailed and eagerly attended by the younger set, and played no small part in the insinuation of "those St. Ledgers" into the realms of the anointed.

Thus the winter wore away, and, at all times and in all places Gregory St. Ledger appeared as the devoted satellite of Ethel Manton, who entered the social melee without enthusiasm, but with dogged determination to let the world see that the disappearance of Bill Carmody affected her not at all.

She tolerated St. Ledger, even encouraged him, for he amused and offered a welcome diversion for her thoughts.

She was a girl of moods whose imagination carried her into far places in the picturing of a man—her man—big, and strong, and clean; fighting bare-fisted among men for his place in the world, and alone conquering the secret devil of desire that he might claim the right to her love.

Then it was, curled up in the big armchair in the library, the blue eyes would glow softly and tenderly in the flare of the flickering firelight, and between parted lips the warm breath would come and go in short stabbing whispers to the quick rise and fall of the rounded bosom, and the little fists would clench white in the tense gladness of it.

But there were other times—times when the dancing wall-shadows were dark specters of ill-omen gloating ghoulishly before her horror-widened eyes as her brain conjured the picture of the man—battered, broken, helpless, with bloated, sottish features, and bleared eyes—a beaten man drifting heedlessly, hopelessly, furtive-eyed, away from his standards—and from her.

At such times the breath would flutter uncertainly between cold, bloodless lips, and the marble whiteness of her face became a pallid death mask of despair.

Always in extremes she pictured him, for, knowing the man as she knew him—the bigness of him—the relentless dynamic man-power of his being, she knew that with him there would be no half-way measure—no median line of indifferent achievement which should stand for neither the good nor the bad among men.

Here was no Tomlinson whose little sins and passive virtues became the jest of the gods; but a man who in the final accounting would stand four-square upon the merit of his works, and in the might of their right or wrong, accept fearlessly his reward.

The days dragged into weeks and the weeks into months—empty months to the heart of the girl who waited, dreading, yet hoping for word from the man she loved. Yet knowing, deep down in her heart, she would hear no word.

He would come to her—would answer the call of her great love—would beat down the barriers and in the flush of victory would claim her as his own; or, in the everlasting silence of the weird realm of missing men, be lost to her forever.

Daily she scanned the newspapers. Not front pages whose glaring headlines flaunted world-rumblings, politics, and the illness of rich men's dogs, but tiny cable-whispers from places far from the beaten track, places forgotten or unknown, whose very names breathed mystery; whispers that hinted briefly of life-tragedies, of action and the unsung deeds of men.