The Gun-Brand, James B. Hendryx [i read a book TXT] 📗

moist sweat. Was it fancy, or did the china-blue, fishlike eyes rest for just an instant upon the porcelain cup on the table? With an effort the man composed himself, and stooping, whispered a few hurried words into the ears of the girl who sat with her face buried in her hands.

"Forgive me, Miss Elliston; for the moment I forgot that I had no right. I love you! Love you more than life itself! More than my own life—or the lives of others. It was but the impulse of an unguarded moment that caused me to forget that I had not the right—forget that I am a gentleman. We love as we kill in the North. And now, good-by, I am going Southward. I will return, if it is within the power of man to return, before the ice skims the lakes and the rivers."

He paused, but the girl remained as though she had not heard him. He leaned closer, his lips almost upon her ear. "Please, Miss Elliston, can you not forgive me—wish me one last bon voyage?"

Slowly, as one in a dream, Chloe offered him her hand. "Good-by!" she said simply, in a dull, toneless voice. The man seized the hand, pressed it lightly, and turning abruptly, crossed to the table. As he drew his Stetson toward him, its brim came into violent contact with the porcelain medicine cup. The cup crashed to the floor, its contents splashing widely over the whip-sawed boards.

With a hurried word of apology he passed out of the door—passed close beside the form of Big Lena onto whose cold, fishlike eyes the black eyes stared insolently, even as the thin lips twisted into a smile—cynical, sardonic, mocking.

CHAPTER XII A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT

The days immediately following Lapierre's departure were busy days for Chloe Elliston. The word had passed along the lakes and the rivers, and stolid, sullen-faced Indians stole in from the scrub to gaze apathetically at the buildings on the banks of the Yellow Knife. Chloe with pain-staking repetition, through LeFroy as interpreter, explained to each the object of her school; with the result that a goodly number remained and lost no time in installing themselves in the commodious barracks.

On the evening of the second day the girl tiptoed into the sick-room and, bending over MacNair, was startled to encounter the steady gaze of the steel-grey eyes. "I thought you never would come to," she smiled. "You see, I don't know much about surgery, and I was afraid perhaps—"

"Perhaps Lapierre had done his work well?"

Chloe started at the weak, almost gentle tones of the gruff voice she had learned to associate with this man of the North. She flushed as she met the steady, disconcerting stare of the grey eyes. "He shot on the spur of the moment. He thought you were going to shoot him."

"And he shot from—far to the Southward?"

"Oh! You do not think—you do not believe that I deliberately lied to you! That I knew Lapierre was on Snare Lake!" The words fell from her lips with an intense eagerness that carried the ring of sincerity. The hard look faded from the man's eyes, and the bearded lips suggested just the shadow of a smile.

"No," he answered weakly; "I do not think that. But tell me, how long have I been this way? And what has happened? For I remember nothing—after the world turned black. I am surprised that Lapierre missed me. He has the reputation for killing—at his own range."

"But he didn't miss you!" cried the girl in surprise. "It was his bullet that—that made the world turn black."

"Aye; but it was a miss, just the same, and a miss, I am thinking, that will cost him dear. He should have killed me."

"Please do not talk," said the girl in sudden alarm, and taking the medicine from the table, held the spoon to the man's lips. He swallowed its contents, and was about to speak when Chloe interrupted him. "Please do not talk," she begged, "and I'll tell you what happened. There is not much to tell: after we bound up your wounds we brought you here, where I could give you proper care. It took three days to do this, and two days have passed since we arrived."

"I knew I was in your——"

Chloe flushed deeply. "Yes, in my room," she hastened to interrupt him; "but you must not talk. It was the only place I knew where you could be quiet and—and safe."

"But, Lapierre—why did he allow it?"

Chloe flushed. "Allow it! I do not take orders from Mr. Lapierre, nor from you, nor from anybody else. This is my school; this cottage is mine; I'll do as I please with it, and I'll bring who I please into it without asking permission from any one."

While she was speaking, the man's glance strayed from her flashing eyes to the face of a tarnished, smoke-blackened portrait that showed indistinct in the dull lamplight of the little room. Chloe's glance followed MacNair's, and as the little clock ticked sharply, both stared in silence into the lean, lined features of Tiger Elliston.

"Your eyes," murmured the man—"sometimes they are like that." Suddenly his voice strengthened. He continued to gaze at the face in the dull gold frame. With an effort he withdrew an arm from beneath the cover and pointed with a finger that trembled weakly. "I should like to have known him," he said. "By God, yon is the face of a man!"

"My grandfather," muttered the girl.

"You'll love the North—when you know it," said MacNair. "Tell me, did Lapierre advise you to bring me here?"

"No," answered Chloe, "he did not. He—he said to leave you; that your Indians would care for you."

"And my Indians—did they not follow you?" Chloe shook her head. Once more MacNair bent a searching glance upon the girl's face. "Where is Lapierre?" he asked.

"He is gone," Chloe answered. "Two days ago he left for the——" She hesitated as there flashed through her brain the moment on Snare Lake when, once before, she had answered MacNair's question in almost the same words. "He said he was going to the southward," she corrected.

MacNair smiled. "I think, this time, he has gone. But why he left without killing me I cannot understand. Lapierre has made a mistake."

"You do him an injustice! Mr. Lapierre does not want to kill you. He is sorry he was forced to shoot; but, as he said, it was your life or his. And now please do be quiet, or I must leave you to yourself."

MacNair closed his eyes, and, seating herself by the table, Chloe stared silently into the face of the portrait until the man's deep, regular breathing told her that he slept.

Slowly the moments passed, and the girl's gaze roved from the face of the portrait along the walls of the little room. Suddenly her eyes dilated in horror; for there, tight pressed against an upper pane of the window, whose lower sash was daintily curtained with chintz, appeared a dark, scowling face—the face of an Indian, which she instantly recognized as one of the two who had accompanied MacNair upon his first visit to her clearing.

Even as she looked the face vanished, leaving the girl staring wide-eyed at the black square of the window. Curbing her impulse to awake MacNair, she stole softly from the room and, unlocking the outer door, sped swiftly through the darkness toward the little square of light that glowed from the window of the store.

The distance was not great from the door of the cottage to the soft square of radiance that showed distinctly in the darkness. But even as Chloe ran, the light was suddenly extinguished, and the outlines of the big storehouse loomed vague and huge and indistinct against the black background of the encircling scrub. The girl stopped abruptly and stared uncertainly into the darkness. Her heart beat wildly. A strange sense of terror came over her as she stood alone, surrounded by the blackness of the clearing. Why had LeFroy extinguished his light? And why was the night so still?

She strained to catch the familiar sounds of the wilderness—the little night sounds to which she had grown accustomed: the bellowing of frogs in the sedges, the chirp of tree-toads, and the harsh squawk of startled night-fowls. Even the air seemed unnaturally still, and the ceaseless drone of the mosquitoes served but to intensify the unnatural silence. The mosquitoes broke the spell of the nameless terror, and she slapped viciously at her face and neck.

"I'm a fool," she muttered; "a perfect fool! LeFroy puts out his light every night and—and what if there are no sounds? I'm just listening for something to be afraid of."

She glanced backward toward her own cottage where the light still glowed from the window. It was reassuring, that little square of yellow lamp-light that shone softly from the window of her room. She was not afraid now. She would return to the cottage and lock the door. She shuddered at the thought. Before her rose the vision of that dark, shadowy face, tight-pressed against the glass. Instinctively she knew that Indian was not alone. There were others, and—once more her eyes swept the blackness.

Suddenly the question flashed through her brain: Why should these Indians seek to avenge MacNair—the man who held the power of life and death over them—who had practically forced them into servitude? Then, swift as the question, flashed the answer: It was not to avenge MacNair they came, but, knowing he was helpless, to strike the blow that would free themselves from the yoke. Had Lapierre known this? Had he left, knowing that the man's own Indians would finish the work his bullet had only half completed? No! Lapierre would not have done that. Did he not say: "I am glad I did not kill him"? He was thinking only of my safety.

"We'll be safe enough till morning," she muttered. "Surely I have read somewhere that Indians never attack in the night. Tomorrow we must hide MacNair where they cannot find him. They will murder him, now that he is wounded. How they must hate him! Must hate the man who has oppressed and debauched and cheated them!"

The girl had nearly reached the door of the cottage when once more she halted, rooted in her tracks. Out of the unnatural silence of the night, close upon the edge of the clearing, boomed the cry of the great horned owl. It was a sound she had often heard here in the northern night—this hooting of an owl; but, somehow, this sound was different. Once more her heart thumped wildly against her ribs. Her fists clenched, and she peered tensely toward the wall of the scrub timber that showed silent and black and impenetrable in the little light of the stars. Again the portentous silence and then—was it fancy, or were there shapes, stealthy, elusive, shadowy, moving along the wall of the intense blackness?

A light suddenly flashed from the window of the storehouse. It disappeared. The great door banged sharply, and out of the blackness sounded a rush of moccasined feet, padding the earth as they ran.

From the edge of the timber—from the direction of the shadowy shapes—came a long, thin spurt of flame, and the silence was broken by the roar of a smooth-bore rifle. The next instant the roar was increased tenfold, and from the loopholes high on the walls of the storehouse flashed other thin red spurts of flame.

Terror-stricken, Chloe dashed for the cottage. Along the entire length of the timber-line, spikes of flame belched forth, and the crash and roar of rifles drowned the rush of the moccasin feet. A form dashed past her in the darkness, and then another, forcing Chloe from the path. The terrified girl realized that these forms were speeding straight for the door of the cottage. Her first thought was for MacNair. He would be murdered as he slept.

She redoubled her efforts, feeling blindly in