Chapter XII. The Fight--And A Strange Visitor
At DeBar's words the blood leaped swiftly through Philip's veins, and helaughed as he flung the outlaw's hand from his arm.
"I'm not afraid of death," he cried angrily. "Don't take me for a child,William DeBar. How long since you found this God of yours?"
He spoke the words half tauntingly, and as soon regretted them, for ina voice that betrayed no anger at the slur DeBar said: "Ever since mymother taught me the first prayer, Phil. I've killed three men and I'vehelped to hang three others, and still I believe in a God, and I've halta notion He believes a little bit in me, in spite of the laws made downin Ottawa."
The cabin loomed up amid a shelter of spruce like a black shadow, andwhen they climbed up the bank to it they found the snow drifted highunder the window and against the door.
"He's gone--Pierre, I mean," said DeBar over his shoulder as he kickedthe snow away. "He hasn't come back from New Year's at Fort Smith."
The door had no lock or bolt, and they entered. It was yet too dark forthem to see distinctly, and DeBar struck a match. On the table was a tinoil lamp, which he lighted. It revealed a neatly kept interior about adozen feet square, with two bunks, several chairs, a table, and a sheetiron stove behind which was piled a supply of wood. DeBar pointed to ashelf on which were a number of tin boxes, their covers weighted down bychunks of wood.
"Grub!" he said.
And Philip, pointing to the wood, added, "Fire--fire and grub."
There was something in his voice which the other could not fail tounderstand, and there was an uncomfortable silence as Philip put fuelinto the stove and DeBar searched among the food cans.
"Here's bannock and cooked meat--frozen," he said, "and beans."
He placed tins of each on the stove and then sat down beside the roaringfire, which was already beginning to diffuse a heat. He held out histwisted and knotted hands, blue and shaking with cold, and looked up atPhilip, who stood opposite him.
He spoke no words, and yet there was something in his eyes which madethe latter cry out softly, and with a feeling which he tried to hide:"DeBar, I wish to God it was over!"
"So do I," said DeBar.
He rubbed his hands and twisted them until the knuckles cracked.
"I'm not afraid and I know that you're not, Phil," he went on, with hiseyes on the top of the stove, "but I wish it was over, just the same.Somehow I'd a'most rather stay up here another year or two than--killyou."
"Kill me!" exclaimed Philip, the old fire leaping back into his veins.
DeBar's quiet voice, his extraordinary self-confidence, sent a flush ofanger into Philip's face.
"You're talking to me again as if I were a child, DeBar. My instructionswere to bring you back, dead or alive--and I'm going to!"
"We won't quarrel about it, Phil," replied the outlaw as quietly asbefore. "Only I wish it wasn't you I'm going to fight. I'd rather killhalf-a-dozen like the others than you."
"I see," said Philip, with a perceptible sneer in his voice."You're trying to work upon my sympathy so that I will follow yoursuggestion--and go back. Eh?"
"You'd be a coward if you did that," retorted DeBar quickly. "How are wegoing to settle it, Phil?"
Philip drew his frozen revolver from its holster and held it over thestove.
"If I wasn't a crack shot, and couldn't center a two-inch bull's-eyethree times out of four at thirty paces, I'd say pistols."
"I can't do that," said DeBar unhesitatingly, "but I have hit a wolftwice out of five shots. It'll be a quick, easy way, and we'll settle itwith our revolvers. Going to shoot to kill?"
"No, if I can help it. In the excitement a shot may kill, but I want totake you back alive, so I'll wing you once or twice first."
"I always shoot to kill," replied DeBar, without lifting his head. "Anyword you'd like to have sent home, Phil?"
In the other's silence DeBar looked up.
"I mean it," he said, in a low earnest voice. "Even from your pointof view it might happen, Phil, and you've got friends somewhere. Itanything should happen to me you'll find a letter in my pocket. I wantyou to write to--to her--an' tell her I died in--an accident. Will you?"
"Yes," replied Philip. "As for me, you'll find addresses in my pocket,too. Let's shake!"
Over the stove they gripped hands.
"My eyes hurt," said DeBar. "It's the snow and wind, I guess. Do youmind a little sleep--after we eat? I haven't slept a wink in three daysand nights."
"Sleep until you're ready," urged Philip. "I don't want to fight badeyes."
They ate, mostly in silence, and when the meal was done Philip carefullycleaned his revolver and oiled it with bear grease, which he found in abottle on the shelf.
DeBar watched him as he wiped his weapon and saw that Philip lubricatedeach of the five cartridges which he put in the chamber.
Afterward they smoked.
Then DeBar stretched himself out in one of the two bunks, and his heavybreathing soon gave evidence that he was sleeping.
For a time Philip sat beside the stove, his eyes upon the inanimateform of the outlaw. Drowsiness overcame him then, and he rolled intothe other bunk. He was awakened several hours later by DeBar, who wasfilling the stove with wood.
"How's the eyes?" he asked, sitting up.
"Good," said the other. "Glad you're awake. The light will be bad insideof an hour."
He was rubbing and warming his hands, and Philip came to the oppositeside of the stove and rubbed and warmed his hands. For some reason hefound it difficult to look at DeBar, and he knew that DeBar was notlooking at him.
It was the outlaw who broke the suspense.
"I've been outside," he said in a low voice. "There's an open in frontof the cabin, just a hundred paces across. It wouldn't be a bad ideafor us to stand at opposite sides of the open and at a given signalapproach, firing as we want to."
"Couldn't be better," exclaimed Philip briskly, turning to pull hisrevolver from its holster.
DeBar watched him with tensely anxious eyes as he broke the breech,looked at the shining circle of cartridges, and closed it again.
Without a word he went to the door, opened it, and with his pistol armtrailing at his side, strode off to the right. For a moment Philip stoodlooking after him, a queer lump in his throat. He would have liked toshake hands, and yet at the same time he was glad that DeBar had gone inthis way. He turned to the left--and saw at a glance that the outlawhad given him the best light. DeBar was facing him when he reached hisground.
"Are you ready?" he shouted.
"Ready!" cried Philip.
DeBar ran forward, shoulders hunched low, his pistol arm half extended,and Philip advanced to meet him. At seventy paces, without stoppingin his half trot, the outlaw fired, and his bullet passed in a hissingwarning three feet over Philip's head. The latter had planned to holdhis fire until he was sure of hitting the outlaw in the arm or shoulder,but a second shot from him, which seemed to Philip almost to nip him inthe face, stopped him short, and at fifty paces he returned the fire.
DeBar ducked low and Philip thought that he was hit.
Then with a fierce yell he darted forward, firing as he came.
Again, and still a third time Philip fired, and as DeBar advanced,unhurt, after each shot, a cry of amazement rose to his lips. At fortypaces he could nip a four-inch bull's-eye three times out of five,and here he missed a man! At thirty he held an unbeaten record--and atthirty, here in the broad open, he still missed his man!
He had felt the breath of DeBar's fourth shot, and now with onecartridge each the men advanced foot by foot, until DeBar stoppedand deliberately aimed at twenty paces. Their pistols rang out in onereport, and, standing unhurt, a feeling of horror swept over Philip ashe looked at the other. The outlaw's arms fell to his side. His emptypistol dropped to the snow, and for a moment he stood rigid, with hisface half turned to the gloomy sky, while a low cry of grief burst fromPhilip's lips.
In that momentary posture of DeBar he
saw, not the effect of a woundonly, but the grim, terrible rigidity of death. He dropped his ownweapon and ran forward, and in that instant DeBar leaped to meet himwith the fierceness of a beast!
It was a terrible bit of play on DeBar's part, and for a moment tookPhilip off his guard. He stepped aside, and, with the cleverness of atrained boxer, he sent a straight cut to the outlaw's face as he closedin. But the blow lacked force, and he staggered back under the other'sweight, boiling with rage at the advantage which DeBar had taken of him.
The outlaw's hands gripped at his throat and his fingers sank into hisneck like cords of steel. With a choking gasp he clutched at DeBar'swrists, knowing that another minute--a half-minute of that death clutchwould throttle him. He saw the triumph in DeBar's eyes, and with a lastsupreme effort drew back his arm and sent a terrific short-arm punchinto the other's stomach.
The grip at his throat relaxed. A second, a third, and a fourth blow,his arm traveling swiftly in and out, like a piston-rod, and the triumphin DeBar's eyes was replaced by a look of agony. The fingers at histhroat loosened still more, and with a sudden movement Philip freedhimself and sprang back a step to gather force for the final blow.
The move was fatal. Behind him his heel caught in a snow-smothered logand he pitched backward with DeBar on top of him.
Again the iron fingers burned at his throat. But this time he made noresistance, and after a moment the outlaw rose to his feet and stareddown into the white, still face half buried in the snow. Then he gentlylifted Philip's head in his arms. There was a crimson blotch in the snowand close to it the black edge of a hidden rock.
As quickly as possible DeBar carried Philip into the cabin and placedhim on one of the cots. Then he gathered certain articles of food fromPierre's stock and put them in his pack. He had carried the pack halfway to the door when he stopped, dropped his load gently to the floor,and thrust a hand inside his coat pocket. From it he drew forth aletter. It was a woman's letter--and he read it now with bowed lead,a letter of infinite faith, and hope, and love, and when once morehe turned toward Philip his face was filled with the flush of a greathappiness.
"Mebby you don't just understand, Phil," he whispered, as if the otherwere listening to him. "I'm going to leave this."
With the stub of a pencil he scribbled a few words at the bottom of thecrumpled letter.
He wrote in a crude, awkward hand:
You'd won if it hadn't been for the rock. But I guess mebby that itwas God who put the rock there, Phil. While you was asleep I took thebullets out of your cartridges and put in damp-paper, for I didn't wantto see any harm done with the guns. I didn't shoot to hit you, and afterall, I'm glad it was the rock that hurt you instead of me.
He leaned over the cot to assure himself that Philip's breath was comingsteadier and stronger, and then laid the letter on the young man'sbreast.
Five minutes later he was plodding steadily ahead of his big Mackenziehound into the peopleless barrens to the south and west.
And still later Philip opened his eyes and saw what DeBar had left forhim. He struggled into a sitting posture and read the few lines whichthe outlaw had written.
"Here's to you, Mr. Felix MacGregor," he chuckled feebly, balancinghimself on the edge of the bunk. "You're right. It'll take two men tolay out Mr. William DeBar--if you ever get him at all!"
Three days later, still in the cabin, he raised a hand to his bandagedhead with an odd grimace, half of pain, half of laughter.
"You're a good one, you are!" he said to himself, limping back and forthacross the narrow space of the cabin. "You've got them all beaten to arag when it comes to playing the chump, Phil Steele. Here you go up toBig Chief MacGregor, throw out your chest, and say to him, 'I canget that man,' and when the big chief says you can't, you call him afour-ply ignoramus in your mind, and get permission to go after himanyway--just because you're in love. You follow your man up here--fourhundred miles or so--and what's the consequence? You lose all hope offinding her, and your 'man' does just what the big chief said he woulddo, and lays you out--though it wasn't your fault after all. Then youtake possession of another man's shack when he isn't at home, eat hisgrub, nurse a broken head, and wonder why the devil you ever joined theglorious Royal Mounted when you've got money to burn. You're a wise one,you are, Phil Steele--but you've learned something new. You've learnedthere's never a man so good but there's a better one somewhere--even ifhe is a man-killer like Mr. William DeBar."
He lighted his pipe and went to the door. For the first time in days thesun was shining in a cold blaze of fire over the southeastern edge ofthe barrens, which swept away in a limitless waste of snow-dune and rockand stunted scrub among which occasional Indian and half-breed trappersset their dead-falls and poison baits for the northern fox. Sixtymiles to the west was Fort Smith. A hundred miles to the south lay theHudson's Bay Company's post at Chippewayan; a hundred and fifty milesto the south and east was the post at Fond du Lac, and to thenorth--nothing. A thousand miles or so up there one would have struckthe polar sea and the Eskimo, and it was with this thought of thelifelessness and mystery of a dead and empty world that Philip turnedhis eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that reached from PierreThoreau's door to the end of the earth. Far off to the north he sawa black speck moving in the chaos of white. It might have been a foxcoming over a snow-dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusivewhere the sky and the earth seem to meet in a cold gray rim about one;or it might have been a musk-ox or a caribou at a greater distance, butthe longer he looked the more convinced he became that it was none ofthese--but a man. It moved slowly, disappeared for a few minutes in oneof the dips of the plain, and came into view again much nearer. Thistime he made out a man, and behind, a sledge and dogs.
"It's Pierre," he shivered, closing the door and coming back to thestove. "I wonder what the deuce the breed will say when he finds astranger here and his grub half gone."
After a little he heard the shrill creaking of a sledge on the crustoutside and then a man's voice. The sounds stopped close to the cabinand were followed by a knock at the door.
"Come in!" cried Philip, and in the same breath it flashed upon him thatit could not be the breed, and that it must be a mighty particular andunusual personage to knock at all.
The door opened and a man came in. He was a little man, and was bundledin a great beaver overcoat and a huge beaver cap that concealed allof his face but his eyes, the tip of his nose, and the frozen end of abeard which stuck out between the laps of his turned-up collar likea horn. For all the world he looked like a diminutive drum-major, andPhilip rose speechless, his pipe still in his mouth, as his strangevisitor closed the door behind him and approached.
"Beg pardon," said the stranger in a smothered voice, walking as thoughhe were ice to the marrow and afraid of breaking himself. "It's sobeastly cold that I have taken the liberty of dropping in to get warm."
"It is cold--beastly cold," replied Philip, emphasizing the word. "Itwas down to sixty last night. Take off your things."
"Devil of a country--this," shivered the man, unbuttoning his coat. "I'drather roast of the fever than freeze to death." Philip limped forwardto assist him, and the stranger eyed him sharply for a moment.
"Limp not natural," he said quickly, his voice freeing itself atlast from the depths of his coat collar. "Bandage a little red, eyesfeverish, lips too pale. Sick, or hurt?"
Philip laughed as the little man hopped to the stove and began rubbinghis hands.
"Hurt," he said. "If you weren't four hundred miles from nowhere I'd saythat you were a doctor."
"So I am," said the other. "Edward Wallace Boffin, M.D., 900 NorthWabash Avenue, Chicago."