Chapter XI. The Law Versus The Man
Suddenly a great thrill shot through Philip, and for an instant he stoodrigid. What was that he saw out in the gray gloom of Arctic desolation,creeping up, up, up, almost black at its beginning, and dying away likea ghostly winding-sheet? A gurgling cry rose in his throat, and he wenton, panting now like a broken-winded beast in his excitement. It grewnear, blacker, warmer. He fancied that he could feel its heat, which wasthe new fire of life blazing within him.
He went down between two great drifts into a pit which seemedbottomless. He crawled to the top of the second, using his pulselesshands like sticks in the snow, and at the top something rose from theother side of the drift to meet him.
It was a face, a fierce, bearded face, the gaunt starvation in it hiddenby his own blindness. It seemed like the face of an ogre, terrible,threatening, and he knew that it was the face of William DeBar, theseventh brother.
He launched himself forward, and the other launched himself forward, andthey met in a struggle which was pathetic in its weakness, and rolledtogether to the bottom of the drift. Yet the struggle was no lessterrible because of that weakness. It was a struggle between twolingering sparks of human life and when these two sparks had flickeredand blazed and died down, the two men lay gasping, an arm's reach fromeach other.
Philip's eyes went to the fire. It was a small fire, burning morebrightly as he looked, and he longed to throw himself upon it so thatthe flames might eat into his flesh. He had mumbled something aboutpolice, arrest and murder during the struggle, but DeBar spoke for thefirst time now.
"You're cold," he said.
"I'm freezing to death," said Philip.
"And I'm--starving."
DeBar rose to his feet. Philip drew himself together, as if expecting anattack, but in place of it DeBar held out a warmly mittened hand.
"You've got to get those clothes off--quick--or you'll die," he said."Here!"
Mechanically Philip reached up his hand, and DeBar took him to hissledge behind the fire and wrapped about him a thick blanket. Then hedrew out a sheath knife and ripped the frozen legs of his trousers upand the sleeves of his coat down, cut the string of his shoe-packs andslit his heavy German socks, and after that he rubbed his feet and legsand arms until Philip began to feel a sting like the prickly bite ofnettles.
"Ten minutes more and you'd been gone," said DeBar.
He wrapped a second blanket around Philip, and dragged the sledge onwhich he was lying still nearer to the fire. Then he threw on a fresharmful of dry sticks and from a pocket of his coat drew forth somethingsmall and red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird about thesize of a robin. DeBar held it up between his forefinger and thumb, andlooking at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an instant over hisgrizzled face.
"Dinner," he said, and Philip could not fail to catch the low chucklingnote of humor in his voice. "It's a Whisky Jack, man, an' he's the firstand last living thing I've seen in the way of fowl between here and Fonddu Lac. He weighs four ounces if he weighs an ounce, and we'll feaston him shortly. I haven't had a full mouth of grub since day beforeyesterday morning, but you're welcome to a half of him, if you're hungryenough."
"Where'd your chuck go?" asked Philip.
He was conscious of a new warmth and comfort in his veins, but it wasnot this that sent a heat into his face at the outlaw's offer. DeBarhad saved his life, and now, when DeBar might have killed him, he wasoffering him food. The man was spitting the bird on the sharpened endof a stick, and when he had done this he pointed to the big Mackenziehound, tied to the broken stub of a dead sapling.
"I brought enough bannock to carry me to Chippewayan, but he got intoit the first night, and what he left was crumbs. You lost yours in thelake, eh?"
"Dogs and everything," said Philip. "Even matches."
"Those ice-traps are bad," said DeBar companionably, slowly turning thebird. "You always want to test the lakes in this country. Most of 'emcome from bog springs, and after they freeze, the water drops. Guessyou'd had me pretty soon if it hadn't been for the lake, wouldn't you?"
He grinned, and to his own astonishment Philip grinned.
"I was tight after you, Bill."
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the outlaw. "That sounds good! I've gone byanother name, of course, and that's the first time I've heard my ownsince--"
He stopped suddenly, and the laugh left his voice and face.
"It sounds--homelike," he added more gently. "What's yours, pardner?"
"Steele--Philip Steele, of the R.N.W.M.P.," said Philip.
"Used to know a Steele once," went on DeBar. "That was back--where ithappened. He was one of my friends."
For a moment he turned his eyes on Philip. They were deep gray eyes,set well apart in a face that among a hundred others Philip would havepicked out for its frankness and courage. He knew that the man beforehim was not much more than his own age, yet he appeared ten years older.
He sat up on his sledge as DeBar left his bird to thrust sticks into thesnow, on the ends of which he hung Philip's frozen garments close to thefire. From the man Philip's eyes traveled to the dog. The hound yawnedin the heat and he saw that one of his fangs was gone.
"If you're starving, why don't you kill the dog?" he asked.
DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleaming through his beard.
"Because he's the best friend I've got on earth, or next to the best,"he said warmly. "He's stuck to me through thick and thin for ten years.He starved with me, and fought with me, and half died with me, and he'sgoing to live with me as long as I live. Would you eat the flesh of yourbrother, Steele? He's my brother--the last that your glorious law hasleft to me. Would you kill him if you were me?"
Something stuck hard and fast in Philip's throat, and he made no reply.DeBar came toward him with the hot bird on the end of his stick. Withhis knife the outlaw cut the bird into two equal parts, and one of theseparts he cut into quarters. One of the smaller pieces he tossed to thehound, who devoured it at a gulp. The half he stuck on the end of hisknife and offered to his companion.
"No," said Philip. "I can't."
The eyes of the two men met, and DeBar, on his knees, slowly settledback, still gazing at the bird, said DeBar, after a moment, "don't be afool, Steele. Let's forget, for a little while. God knows what's goingto happen to both of us to-morrow or next day, and it'll be easier todie with company than alone, won't it? Let's forget that you're the Lawand I'm the Man, and that I've killed one or two. We're both in the sameboat, and we might as well be a little bit friendly for a few hours, andshake hands, and be at peace when the last minute comes. If we get outof this, and find grub, we'll fight fair and square, and the best manwins. Be square with me, old man, and I'll be square with you, s'elp meGod!"
He reached out a hand, gnarled, knotted, covered with callouses andscars, and with a strange sound in his throat Philip caught it tightlyin his own.
"I'll be square. Bill!" he cried. "I swear that I'll be square--on thoseconditions. If we find grub, and live, we'll fight it out--alone--andthe best man wins. But I've had food today, and you're starving. Eatthat and I'll still be in better condition than you. Eat it, and we'llsmoke. Praise God I've got my pipe and tobacco!"
They settled back close in the lee of the drift, and the wind swirledwhite clouds of snow-mist over their heads, while DeBar ate his bird andPhilip smoked. The food that went down DeBar's throat was only a morsel,but it put new life into him, and he gathered fresh armfuls of sticksand sapling boughs until the fire burned Philip's face and his dryingclothes sent up clouds of steam. Once, a hundred yards out in the plain,Philip heard the outlaw burst into a snatch of wild forest song as hepulled down a dead stub.
"Seems good to have comp'ny," he said, when he came back with his load."My God, do you know I've never felt quite like this--so easy and happylike, since years and years? I wonder if it is because I know the end isnear?"
"There's still hope," replied Philip.
"Hope!" cried DeBar. "It'
s more than hope, man. It's a certainty forme--the end, I mean. Don't you see, Phil--" He came and sat down closeto the other on the sledge, and spoke as if he had known him foryears. "It's got to be the end for me, and I guess that's what makes mecheerful like. I'm going to tell you about it, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind; I want to hear," said Philip, and he edged a littlenearer, until they sat shoulder to shoulder.
"It's got to be the end," repeated DeBar, in a low voice. "If we get outof this, and fight, and you win, it'll be because I'm dead, Phil. D'yeunderstand? I'll be dead when the fight ends, if you win. That'll be oneend."
"But if you win, Bill."
A flash of joy shot into DeBar's eyes.
"Then that'll be the other end," he said more softly still. He pointedto the big Mackenzie hound. "I said he was next to my best friendan earth, Phil. The other--is a girl--who lived back there--when ithappened, years and years ago. She's thirty now, and she's stuck to me,and prayed for me, and believed in me for--a'most since we were kidstogether, an' she's written to me--'Frank Symmonds'--once a month forten years. God bless her heart! That is what's kept me alive, and inevery letter she's begged me to let her come to me, wherever I was.But--I guess the devil didn't get quite all of me, for I couldn't, 'n'wouldn't. But I've give in now, and we've fixed it up between us. Bythis time she's on her way to my brothers in South America, and if Iwin--when we fight--I'm going where she is. And that's the other end,Phil, so you see why I'm happy. There's sure to be an end of it forme--soon."
He bowed his wild, unshorn head in his mittened hands, and for a timethere was silence between them.
Philip broke it, almost in a whisper.
"Why don't you kill me--here--now-while I'm sitting helpless beside you,and you've a knife in your belt?"
DeBar lifted his head slowly and looked with astonishment into hiscompanion's face.
"I'm not a murderer!" he said.
"But you've killed other men," persisted Philip.
"Three, besides those we hung," replied DeBar calmly. "One at MooseFactory, when I tried to help John, and the other two up here. Theywere like you--hunting me down, and I killed 'em in fair fight. Was thatmurder? Should I stand by and be shot like an animal just because it'sthe law that's doing it? Would you?"
He rose without waiting for an answer and felt of the clothes beside thefire.
"Dry enough," he said. "Put 'em on and we'll be hiking."
Philip dressed, and looked at his compass.
"Still north?" he asked. "Chippewayan is south and west."
"North," said DeBar. "I know of a breed who lives on Red PorcupineCreek, which runs into the Slave. If we can find him we'll get grub, andif we don't--"
He laughed openly into the other's face.
"We won't fight," said Philip, understanding him.
"No, we won't fight, but we'll wrap up in the same blankets, and die,with Woonga, there, keeping our backs warm until the last. Eh, Woonga,will you do that?"
He turned cheerily to the dog, and Woonga rose slowly and withunmistakable stiffness of limb, and was fastened in the sledge traces.
They went on through the desolate gloom of afternoon, which in latewinter is, above the sixtieth, all but night. Ahead of them there seemedto rise billow upon billow of snow-mountains, which dwarfed themselvesinto drifted dunes when they approached, and the heaven above them, andthe horizon on all sides of them were shut out from their vision by awhite mist which was intangible and without substance and yet which roselike a wall before their eyes. It was one chaos of white mingling withanother chaos of white, a chaos of white earth smothered and torn bythe Arctic wind under a chaos of white sky; and through it all, saplingsthat one might have twisted and broken over his knee were magnified intogiants at a distance of half a hundred paces, and men and dog lookedlike huge specters moving with bowed heads through a world that was nolonger a world of life, but of dead and silent things. And up out ofthis, after a time, rose DeBar's voice, chanting in tones filled withthe savagery of the North, a wild song that was half breed and halfFrench, which the forest men sing in their joy when coming very near tohome.
They went on, hour after hour, until day gloom thickened into night,and night drifted upward to give place to gray dawn, plodding steadilynorth, resting now and then, fighting each mile of the way to the RedPorcupine against the stinging lashes of the Arctic wind. And through itall it was DeBar's voice that rose in encouragement to the dog limpingbehind him and to the man limping behind the dog--now in song, now inthe wild shouting of the sledge-driver, his face thin and gaunt in itsstarved whiteness, but his eyes alive with a strange fire. And it wasDeBar who lifted his mittened hands to the leaden chaos of sky when theycame to the frozen streak that was the Red Porcupine, and said, in avoice through which there ran a strange thrill of something deep andmighty, "God in Heaven be praised, this is the end!"
He started into a trot now, and the dog trotted behind him, and behindthe dog trotted Philip, wondering, as he had wondered a dozen timesbefore that night, if DeBar were going mad. Five hundred yards downthe stream DeBar stopped in his tracks, stared for a moment into thebreaking gloom of the shore, and turned to Philip. He spoke in a voicelow and trembling, as if overcome for the moment by some strong emotion.
"See--see there!" he whispered. "I've hit it, Philip Steele, and whatdoes it mean? I've come over seventy miles of barren, through night an'storm, an' I've hit Pierre Thoreau's cabin as fair as a shot! Oh, man,man, I couldn't do it once in ten thousand times!" He gripped Philip'sarm, and his voice rose in excited triumph. "I tell 'ee, it meansthat--that God--'r something--must be with me!"
"With us," said Philip, staring hard.
"With me," replied DeBar so fiercely that the other startedinvoluntarily. "It's a miracle, an omen, and it means that I'm going towin!" His fingers gripped deeper, and he said more gently, "Phil, I'vegrown to like you, and if you believe in God as we believe in Him uphere--if you believe He tells things in the stars, the winds and thingslike this, if you're afraid of death--take some grub and go back! I meanit, Phil, for if you stay, an' fight, there is going to be but one end.I will kill you!"