CHAPTER XI
Where a bit of the big river curved inward like the tongue of afriendly dog, lapping the shore at Athabasca Landing, there stillremained Fingers' Row--nine dilapidated, weather-worn, andcrazily-built shacks put there by the eccentric genius who had foreseena boom ten years ahead of its time. And the fifth of these nine,counting from either one end or the other, was named by its owner,Dirty Fingers himself, the Good Old Queen Bess. It was a shack coveredwith black tar paper, with two windows, like square eyes, fronting theriver as if always on the watch for something. Across the front of thisshack Dirty Fingers had built a porch to protect himself from the rainin springtime, from the sun in Summer time, and from the snow in themonths of Winter. For it was here that Dirty Fingers sat out all ofthat part of his life which was not spent in bed.
Up and down two thousand miles of the Three Rivers was Dirty Fingersknown, and there were superstitious ones who believed that little godsand devils came to sit and commune with him in the front of thetar-papered shack. No one was so wise along those rivers, no one was sosatisfied with himself, that he would not have given much to possessthe many things that were hidden away in Dirty Fingers' brain. Onewould not have suspected the workings of that brain by a look at DirtyFingers on the porch of his Good Old Queen Bess. He was a great softlump of a man, a giant of flabbiness. Sitting in his smooth-worn,wooden armchair, he was almost formless. His head was huge, his hairuncut and scraggy, his face smooth as a baby's, fat as a cherub's, andas expressionless as an apple. His folded arms always rested on a hugestomach, whose conspicuousness was increased by an enormous watch-chainmade from beaten nuggets of Klondike gold, and Dirty Fingers' thumb andforefinger were always twiddling at this chain. How he had come by thename of Dirty Fingers, when his right name was Alexander ToppetFingers, no one could definitely say, unless it was that he always borean unkempt and unwashed appearance.
Whatever the quality of the two hundred and forty-odd pounds of fleshin Dirty Fingers' body, it was the quality of his brain that madepeople hold him in a sort of awe. For Dirty Fingers was a lawyer, awilderness lawyer, a forest bencher, a legal strategist of the trail,of the river, of the great timber-lands.
Stored away in his brain was every rule of equity and common law of thegreat North country. For his knowledge he went back two hundred years.He knew that a law did not die of age, that it must be legislated todeath, and out of the moldering past he had dug up every trick and trapof his trade. He had no law-books. His library was in his head, and hisfacts were marshaled in pile after pile of closely-written,dust-covered papers in his shack. He did not go to court as otherlawyers; and there were barristers in Edmonton who blessed him for that.
His shack was his tabernacle of justice. There he sat, hands folded,and gave out his decisions, his advice, his sentences. He sat untilother men would have gone mad. From morning until night, moving onlyfor his meals or to get out of heat or storm, he was a fixture on theporch of the Good Old Queen Bess. For hours he would stare at theriver, his pale eyes never seeming to blink. For hours he would remainwithout a move or a word. One constant companion he had, a dog, fat,emotionless, lazy, like his master. Always this dog was sleeping at hisfeet or dragging himself wearily at his heels when Dirty Fingerselected to make a journey to the little store where he bartered forfood and necessities.
It was Father Layonne who came first to see Kent in his cell themorning after Kent's unsuccessful attempt at flight. An hour later itwas Father Layonne who traveled the beaten path to the door of DirtyFingers' shack. If a visible emotion of pleasure ever entered intoDirty Fingers' face, it was when the little missioner came occasionallyto see him. It was then that his tongue let itself loose, and untillate at night they talked of many things of which other men knew butlittle. This morning Father Layonne did not come casually, butdeterminedly on business, and when Dirty Fingers learned what thatbusiness was, he shook his head disconsolately, folded his fat armsmore tightly over his stomach, and stated the sheer impossibility ofhis going to see Kent. It was not his custom. People must come to him.And he did not like to walk. It was fully a third of a mile from hisshack to barracks, possibly half a mile. And it was mostly upgrade! IfKent could be brought to him--
In his cell Kent waited. It was not difficult for him to hear voices inKedsty's office when the door was open, and he knew that the Inspectordid not come in until after the missioner had gone on his mission toDirty Fingers. Usually he was at the barracks an hour or so earlier.Kent made no effort to figure out a reason for Kedsty's lateness, buthe did observe that after his arrival there was more than the usualmovement between the office door and the outside of the barracks. Oncehe was positive that he heard Cardigan's voice, and then he was equallysure that he heard Mercer's. He grinned at that. He must be wrong, forMercer would be in no condition to talk for several days. He was gladthat a turn in the hall hid the door of the detachment office from him,and that the three cells were in an alcove, safely out of sight of thecurious eyes of visitors. He was also glad that he had no otherprisoner for company. His situation was one in which he wanted to bealone. To the plan that was forming itself in his mind, solitude was asvital as the cooperation of Alexander Toppet Fingers.
Just how far he could win that cooperation was the problem whichconfronted him now, and he waited anxiously for the return of FatherLayonne, listening for the sound of his footsteps in the outer hall.If, after all, that inspirational thought of last night came tonothing, if Fingers should fail him--
He shrugged his shoulders. If that happened, he could see no otherchance. He would have to go on and take his medicine at the hands of ajury. But if Fingers played up to the game--
He looked out on the river again, and again it was the river thatseemed to answer him. If Fingers played with him, they would beatKedsty and the whole of N Division! And in winning he would prove outthe greatest psychological experiment he had ever dared to make. Themagnitude of the thing, when he stopped to think of it, was a littleappalling, but his faith was equally large. He did not consider hisphilosophy at all supernatural. He had brought it down to the level ofthe average man and woman.
He believed that every man and woman possessed a subliminalconsciousness which it was possible to rouse to tremendous heights ifthe right psychological key was found to fit its particular lock, andhe believed he possessed the key which fitted the deeply-buried andlong-hidden thing in Dirty Fingers' remarkable brain. Because hebelieved in this metaphysics which he had not read out of Aristotle, hehad faith that Fingers would prove his salvation. He felt growing inhim stronger than ever a strange kind of elation. He felt betterphysically than last night. The few minutes of strenuous action inwhich he had half killed Mercer had been a pretty good test, he toldhimself. It had left no bad effect, and he need no longer fear thereopening of his wound.
A dozen times he had heard a far door open and close. Now he heard itagain, and a few moments later it was followed by a sound which drew alow cry of satisfaction from him. Dirty Fingers, because of overweightand lack of exercise, had what he called an "asthmatic wind," and itwas this strenuous working of his lungs that announced his approach toKent. His dog was also afflicted and for the same reasons, so that whenthey traveled together there was some rivalry between them.
"We're both bad put out for wind, thank God," Dirty Fingers would saysometimes. "It's a good thing, for if we had more of it, we'd walkfarther, and we don't like walking."
The dog was with Fingers now, also Father Layonne, and Pelly. Pellyunlocked the cell, then relocked it again after Fingers and the dogentered. With a nod and a hopeful look the missioner returned withPelly to the detachment office. Fingers wiped his red face with a bighandkerchief, gasping deeply for breath. Togs, his dog, was panting asif he had just finished the race of his life.
"A difficult climb," wheezed Fingers. "A most difficult climb."
He sat down, rolling out like a great bag of jelly in the one chair inthe cell, and began to fan himself with his hat. Kent had already takenstock of the s
ituation. In Fingers' florid countenance and in hisalmost colorless eyes he detected a bit of excitement which Fingers wastrying to hide. Kent knew what it meant. Father Layonne had found itnecessary to play his full hand to lure Fingers up the hill, and hadgiven him a hint of what it was that Kent had in store for him. Alreadythe psychological key had begun to work.
Kent sat down on the edge of his cot and grinned sympathetically. "Ithasn't always been like this, has it, Fingers?" he said then, leaning abit forward and speaking with a sudden, low-voiced seriousness. "Therewas a time, twenty years ago, when you didn't puff after climbing ahill. Twenty years make a big difference, sometimes."
"Yes, sometimes," agreed Fingers in a wheezy whisper.
"Twenty years ago you were--a fighter."
It seemed to Kent that a deeper color came into Dirty Fingers' paleeyes in the few seconds that followed these words.
"A fighter," he repeated. "Most men were fighters in those days of thegold rushes, weren't they, Fingers? I've heard a lot of the old storiesabout them in my wanderings, and some of them have made me thrill. Theyweren't afraid to die. And most of them were pretty white when it cameto a show-down. You were one of them, Fingers. I heard the story oneWinter far north. I've kept it to myself, because I've sort of had theidea that you didn't want people to know or you would have told ityourself. That's why I wanted you to come to see me, Fingers. You knowthe situation. It's either the noose or iron bars for me. Naturally onewould seek for assistance among those who have been his friends. But Ido not, with the exception of Father Layonne. Just friendship won'tsave me, not the sort of friendship we have today. That's why I sentfor you. Don't think that I am prying into secrets that are sacred toyou, Fingers. God knows I don't mean it that way. But I've got to tellyou of a thing that happened a long time ago, before you canunderstand. You haven't forgotten--you will never forget--Ben Tatman?"
As Kent spoke the name, a name which Dirty Fingers had heard no lipsbut his own speak aloud in nearly a quarter of a century, a strange andpotent force seemed suddenly to take possession of the forest bencher'shuge and flabby body. It rippled over and through him like anelectrical voltaism, making his body rigid, stiffening what had seemedto be fat into muscle, tensing his hands until they knotted themselvesslowly into fists. The wheeze went out of his breath, and it was thevoice of another man who answered Kent.
"You have heard--about--Ben Tatman?"
"Yes. I heard it away up in the Porcupine country. They say it happenedtwenty years ago or more. This Tatman, so I was told, was a youngfellow green from San Francisco--a bank clerk, I think--who came intothe gold country and brought his wife with him. They were bothchuck-full of courage, and the story was that each worshiped the groundthe other walked on, and that the girl had insisted on being herhusband's comrade in adventure. Of course neither guessed the sort ofthing that was ahead of them.
"Then came that death Winter in Lost City. You know better than I whatthe laws were in those days, Fingers. Food failed to come up. Snow cameearly, the thermometer never rose over fifty below zero for threestraight months, and Lost City was an inferno of starvation and death.You could go out and kill a man, then, and perhaps get away with it,Fingers. But if you stole so much as a crust of bread or a single bean,you were taken to the edge of the camp and told to go! And that meantcertain death--death from hunger and cold, more terrible than shootingor hanging, and for that reason it was the penalty for theft.
"Tatman wasn't a thief. It was seeing his young wife slowly dying ofhunger, and his horror at the thought of seeing her fall, as otherswere falling, a victim to scurvy, that made him steal. He broke into acabin in the dead of night and stole two cans of beans and a pan ofpotatoes, more precious than a thousand times their weight in gold. Andhe was caught. Of course, there was the wife. But those were the dayswhen a woman couldn't save a man, no matter how lovely she was. Tatmanwas taken to the edge of camp and given his pack and his gun--but nofood. And the girl, hooded and booted, was at his side, for she wasdetermined to die with him. For her sake Tatman had lied up to the lastminute, protesting his innocence.
"But the beans and the potatoes were found in his cabin, and that wasevidence enough. And then, just as they were about to go straight outinto the blizzard that meant death within a few hours, then--"
Kent rose to his feet, and walked to the little window, and stoodthere, looking out. "Fingers, now and then a superman is born on earth.And a superman was there in that crowd of hunger-stricken andembittered men. At the last moment he stepped out and in a loud voicedeclared that Tatman was innocent and that he was guilty. Unafraid, hemade a remarkable confession. He had stolen the beans and the potatoesand had slipped them into the Tatman cabin when they were asleep. Why?Because he wanted to save the woman from hunger! Yes, he lied, Fingers.He lied because he loved the wife that belonged to another man--liedbecause in him there was a heart as true as any heart God ever made. Helied! And his lie was a splendid thing. He went out into that blizzard,strengthened by a love that was greater than his fear of death, and thecamp never heard of him again. Tatman and his wife returned to theircabin and lived. Fingers--" Kent whirled suddenly from the window."Fingers--"
And Fingers, like a sphynx, sat and stared at Kent.
"You were that man," Kent went on, coming nearer to him. "You lied,because you loved a woman, and you went out to face death because ofthat woman. The men at Lost City didn't know it, Fingers. The husbanddidn't know it. And the girl, that girl-wife you worshiped in secret,didn't dream of it! But that was the truth, and you know it deep downin your soul. You fought your way out. You lived! And all these years,down here on your porch, you've been dreaming of a woman, of the girlyou were willing to die for a long time ago. Fingers, am I right? Andif I am, will you shake hands?"
Slowly Fingers had risen from his chair. No longer were his eyes dulland lifeless, but flaming with a fire that Kent had lighted again aftermany years. And he reached out a hand and gripped Kent's, still staringat him as though something had come back to him from the dead.
"I thank you, Kent, for your opinion of that man," he said. "Somehow,you haven't made me--ashamed. But it was only the shell of a man thatwon out after that day when I took Tatman's place. Something happened.I don't know what. But--you see me now. I never went back into thediggings. I degenerated. I became what I am."
"And you are today just what you were when you went out to die for MaryTatman," cried Kent. "The same heart and the same soul are in you.Wouldn't you fight again today for her?"
A stifled cry came from Fingers' lips. "My God, yes, Kent--I would!"
"And that's why I wanted you, of all men, to come to me, Fingers," Kentwent on swiftly. "To you, of all the men on earth, I wanted to tell mystory. And now, will you listen to it? Will you forgive me for bringingup this memory that must be precious to you, only that you might morefully understand what I am going to say? I don't want you to think ofit as a subterfuge on my part. It is more than that. It is--Fingers, isit inspiration? Listen, and tell me."
And for a long time after that James Kent talked, and Fingers listened,the soul within him writhing and dragging itself back into fierce life,demanding for the first time in many years the something which it hadonce possessed, but which it had lost. It was not the lazy, mysterious,silent Dirty Fingers who sat in the cell with Kent. In him the spiritof twenty years ago had roused itself from long slumber, and the thrillof it pounded in his blood. Two-Fisted Fingers they had called himthen, and he was Two-Fisted Fingers in this hour with Kent. TwiceFather Layonne came to the head of the cell alcove, but turned backwhen he heard the low and steady murmur of Kent's voice. Nothing didKent keep hidden, and when he had finished, something that was like thefire of a revelation had come into Fingers' face.
"My God!" he breathed deeply. "Kent, I've been sitting down there on myporch a long time, and a good many strange things have come to me, butnever anything like this. Oh, if it wasn't for this accursed flesh ofmine!"
He jumped from his chair more quickly
than he had moved in ten years,and he laughed as he had not laughed in all that time. He thrust out agreat arm and doubled it up, like a prizefighter testing his muscle."Old? I'm not old! I was only twenty-eight when that happened up there,and I'm forty-eight now. That isn't old. It's what is in me that'sgrown old. I'll do it, Kent! I'll do it, if I hang for it!"
Kent fairly leaped upon him. "God bless you!" he cried huskily. "Godbless you, Fingers! Look! Look at that!" He pulled Fingers to thelittle window, and together they looked out upon the river, shimmeringgloriously under a sun-filled sky of blue. "Two thousand miles of it,"he breathed. "Two thousand miles of it, running straight through theheart of that world we both have known! No, you're not old, Fingers.The things you used to know are calling you again, as they are callingme, for somewhere off there are the ghosts of Lost City, ghosts--andrealities!"
"Ghosts--and hopes," said Fingers.
"Hopes make life," softly whispered Kent, as if to himself. And then,without turning from the window, his hand found Fingers' and clasped ittight. "It may be that mine, like yours, will never come true. Butthey're fine to think about, Fingers. Funny, isn't it, that their namesshould be so strangely alike--Mary and Marette? I say, Fingers--"
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Both turned from the window asConstable Pelly came to the door of the cell. They recognized thisintimation that their time was up, and with his foot Fingers roused hissleeping dog.
It was a new Fingers who walked back to the river five minutes later,and it was an amazed and discomfited dog who followed at his heels, forat times the misshapen and flesh-ridden Togs was compelled to trot fora few steps to keep up. And Fingers did not sink into the chair on theshady porch when he reached his shack. He threw off his coat andwaistcoat and rolled up his sleeves, and for hours after that he wasburied deep in the accumulated masses of dust-covered legal treasuresstored away in hidden corners of the Good Old Queen Bess.