Читать книгу The Mystery of The Woods - W. H. H. Murray - Страница 11

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For a moment the old Trapper stood watching the gambler as he paddled away; and as he gazed after the departing boat his face settled into gravity, and he said,—

"The ball will open in short order, now, for sartin; and I shouldn't wonder ef the vagabonds started off with a jig. Lord! won't there be a howlin' on that P'int when that canoe gets in and the boy has had a chance to tell 'em the result of his arrand! I'm sorry for him. Yis, I'm sorry that he and me will have to pull triggers agin each other, for he's young yit, and ought, in reason, to make a long life of it; and though he's got a good deal of a cant in the wrong direction, still it's not by any means settled, as I conceit, to which place he goes arter death, and his shootin' is sartinly in his favor. He's acted like a man and not like a vagabond in this business, anyway," continued the Trapper, after a pause, "and I'll remember it to his credit ef I ever line the sights on him. Ah me! I've seed blood enough, and hoped to eend my days in peace, as a man should whose head is whitenin'; but the vagabonds on the P'int be onreasonable and the devil'll be to pay afore another mornin'."

The scene on the Point was in truth very like what the Trapper had predicted when the gambler had told the renegades the result of his mission. The behavior of the vulgar ruffians and of the gambler was respectively characteristic. His going had been in the face of their wishes; indeed, in spite of their threats,—for they felt that he would be successful in his mission, and that the man for whose blood they thirsted would escape them. For, that one man should set himself in opposition to and defy the utmost endeavors of seven, bent on his destruction, after he had been forewarned, and a chance of escape given him, seemed to them incredible. Even the half-breed, who was "captain" of the gang,—although the gambler had in fact the ultimate authority, especially having been intrusted by his friend with the care of the secret of the tent,—knowing as he did, and had ample cause of knowing, the determined character of the Trapper, had not the shadow of doubt in his mind but that the old man, when warned by the gambler of the formidable forces arrayed against him, would conclude that resistance would be hopeless, and that ordinary prudence required that he should forego his determination to discover the mystery of the tent, and remain quiescent, even if he did not decamp altogether.

When, therefore, the gambler, at rising, had told the wretches that "the game must stop," and that he was going down to call on the Trapper and "settle the little business quietly," his announcement had called down upon him the curses of the entire gang. Indeed, nothing but the supreme coolness of the man who trusted to "luck," and his quiet remark as he took the duelling pistols from their case, "that if any of them wanted to take a quiet hand with him, they might measure off ten paces on the beach and see who held the cards for this little game," had prevented them from resisting by force his departure on his errand of peace. Knowing, as they supposed they did, what would be the upshot of the matter, and not doubting but that the gambler had brought back the Trapper's pledge that he would leave the lake or at least forego his effort to discover the secret of the tent and thwart them in their wickedness, his return created no excitement.

Not doubting the result of the gambler's visit, they remained seated in sullen silence around the remnants of the breakfast they had been eating. Not until the young man had landed and actually joined their circle and begun to break his own fast on the fragments of the food that remained, did they even notice his coming. At length the half-breed, who had been puffing huge rolls of smoke from his vicious-looking mouth, fastened his glowing eyes on the gambler's face, and with a voice whose tone, in spite of his assumed indifference, trembled with hatred, said,—

"Well, what's the result?"

The gambler finished chewing the piece of meat he had placed in his mouth, and when he had swallowed it, answered in his quietest tone:

"The game goes on."

Had a bolt from the sky overhead, descended in their midst, the astonishment of the villains could not have been greater. For an instant the astonishment kept them silent, and then a yell leaped from their throats so strong, so fierce, so wickedly joyful, that it might have been poured from the throats of those who are said to be only happy when a human soul falls suddenly into their power. Up rose the devilish yell, sharp, quick, terrible, and then silence.

"By God, he's a dead man!" shouted the half-breed, and as he spoke he clinched the hand that held the pipe and shook it fiercely over his head, while the pipe shivered and fell in fragments over his person.

For a moment the gambler said not a word. He continued eating with a face in which not a muscle tightened. He lifted a cup of warm coffee to his lips and sipped it quietly, then carelessly asked,—

"When do you deal the cards?"

"To-night!" answered the half-breed. "To-night, the old cuss shall die. Twice have his bullets drawn my blood. Twice has he killed my friends. To-night my knife shall be in his heart." And the look on the half-breed's face was the look of a devil.

For a moment, again, there was a pause; then the gambler said,—

"Shall I assist, or will you fellows play it alone?"

"No, damn you," answered the half-breed, "you shan't assist. You've done your best to cheat me of my revenge; you shall stay here. My men and I will wipe him out ourselves. I've sworn by the bones that lie buried in the north to kill him; and John Norton dies to-night—dies with my knife in his chest and my face close to his eyes." And as he spoke the villain drew his knife and brandished it wildly over his head.

"Look here, you dirty dog," said the gambler, and as he spoke he rose to his feet, "once before on this trip you've forgotten your manners—if you ever had any—and while I'm in this thing to serve a friend who served me once, and shall play it through to the last card, still, I want you and your gang here to understand that if you or they forget your manners again when speaking to me, I will upset the table. I don't imagine," continued he, as he looked saucily, but with an evil glitter in his eye, into one after another of the scowling faces that were around him, "I don't imagine that your education is very extended, but it is possible that you know what it means when one of my class says that if the game isn't played fair he will upset the table; but if you don't"—and here the gambler whipped a six-shooter from his pocket—"I'll say right here that if one of you ever gets careless of speech when talking to me, I'll lift the top of his head while the word is on his tongue. Do any of you chaps want to pick this up?" and as he asked the question, the deadly glitter in his eye grew deadlier.

There was no mistaking the effect of the gambler's threat; for scarce had his mouth closed, before the outlaws broke forth in abject protestations of their regret, if they had ever offended him. The half-breed, who was cunning enough to see that he could not afford, at such a juncture, to alienate the support of any one, much less the support of so cool-headed and determined a man as the gambler—was loudest of all in his apologies. Indeed, he overdid the thing, and it was as much to interrupt the disagreeable flow of his speech, as aught else, that the gambler, breaking suddenly in upon them, said laughingly,—

"All right; you have rather a poor hand, so we will pack the cards and start anew. I'll stay at the camp, and you go down and murder the Trapper,—for that's the word to call it. But you had better notch your cards, for the old fellow holds a strong hand, and you want to play your papers about right, or he'll take your tricks. Do you want the giant, or are you five enough?"

"I don't know," answered the half-breed, "call him up and let us see what he says."

The gambler lifted a silver whistle to his lips, and blew a signal of two sharp notes, with a third that prolonged itself quiveringly.

In a moment a man came round the corner of the lodge, from the direction of the big tent, and joined them.

He was a giant, indeed. In height he was at least full seven feet, built in burliest proportions. Judged from the athletic standpoint he was over stout; but monstrous as was his size, he did not impress one as being clumsy in action. As to his nationality it would be difficult to decide. His skin was as black as the blackest negro's. His monstrous bullet head was matted with curls of coarsest wool; yet his nose was straight, and his lips were of moderate thickness. His cheek bones were high, and a straggling beard ran its circle round the curvature of the huge face from ear to ear. His eyes were black in color and mild in look. "A huge, benevolent brute, put into human form," might have been the judgment of one who attempted to analyze the strange creation, and yet a brute, who, though naturally of sluggish action, if once thoroughly aroused, might prove a lion in strength and a tiger in ferocity.

For an instant he stood looking mildly at the group, and then, turning his eyes toward the gambler, he lifted his huge hand awkwardly to his head, and, with a more awkward attempt at a salute, said,—

"What is it, kunnel?"

"I am not a colonel, you son of Ajax," said the gambler, and he laughed merrily up into the ponderous face in front of him; "what do you call me colonel for?"

The man made no reply, but his face began to smile. I use the word began discriminatingly, for certainly nothing short of a process, including the passage of a certain amount of time, could bring a change to so vast a countenance. You have noted, doubtless, reader, that small dogs bark quick, and deliver themselves on the instant; but the huge mastiff makes preparation when he is to sound forth his sonorous signal. So it was with this monstrous human. He moved slowly to the results of his action. Even when he stepped, you could see the preparation for the motion going on within his huge bulk; and when he raised his arm, it was as if within his frame shafts and pulleys had been put up in order to effect the movement.

We say he began to smile. His mouth was of enormous proportions, and the smile began at either corner as a ripple begins at either end of a circular beach that indents a coast, and runs, nearing the centre, till the two racing points of white meet in the middle; so his smile starting at either corner of his mouth, where it recessed itself underneath the overhanging cheeks, ran along the curving lines of his lips until the two sections came together at the centre, and lifted the lips apart in laughter.

It was only after full time had transpired, and the change which occurs in a countenance passing from gravity to laughter had by this laborious process been fully developed, that the huge being made answer to the gambler's interrogation, and then he said,—

"Every man's a kunnel that bosses things."

"The next time you try to get up a laugh, you human pyramid," responded the gambler, "I'll time you. Your laugh is slower than a sunrise, but I will admit that it fills the whole world when it comes," and the gambler laughed like a happy boy at his own wit, and the good-natured benevolence of the monster in front of him.

"What do you want me for?" asked the man after a pause. "I don't like to leave the tent, for where I'm put I stay. You called, kunnel, and I came, for I do as you say, as I was told by him who pays me, but if you have nothing for me to do I had better go back."

"In a moment," answered the gambler, "our friends here are going on a little trip,—going to make a call—and they didn't know but that you would like to go along with them."

"How many are they to meet?" asked the giant.

"One," answered the gambler.

The man might be slow of motion, but it was evident that he was no fool, nor lacking wit, for as the gambler answered one, he looked toward the five outlaws, held up four fingers of one huge hand, and one finger of the other, and made preparations for another laugh.

The implication was so direct that the outlaws themselves felt the sting of the satire, and the half-breed said, speaking suddenly, while his eyes gleamed wickedly at the giant,—

"Stay by the tent; we don't want you; I thought it was only fair to offer you the chance."

The giant without a word turned slowly on his heel, and paced with lazy gait back to his post. The gambler retired to the lodge and proceeded to clean the pistol he had used that morning, whistling a merry tune as he worked, although he knew, as he said to himself as he stopped for a moment between two lively bars, "that the old man's life is at stake, and the cards are packed."

The outlaws drew apart by themselves, and proceeded to concoct their murderous plan.

At three o'clock they ate their dinner, and left the camp, and striking into the woods started towards the Trapper's cabin.

The gambler who was seated on a log amusing himself, practising some favorite tricks with a pack of highly enamelled cards, saw the five steal away on their murderous errand; noted that four were armed only with their knives, but that the half-breed had knife and revolver both, and as the last man disappeared behind a balsam thicket, said,—

"Four aces and a joker! They'll take the pile, unless the old man upsets the table."

At six o'clock a man crept up to the corner of the Trapper's cabin, and putting his ear to the butts of the logs listened. Then he lifted a small stick that lay on the ground and rubbed it up and down the cabin's side with sharp quick motions. Not a sound from within.

A look of fiendish joy broke over the half-breed's face—for it was he—and he said,—

"Gone, dogs and all; we have got him!" and he swore a dreadful oath; then blew a sharp whistle, and passing round the corner of the cabin, lifted the latch of the door and stepped boldly in. In a moment the four companions joined him, and there, within the old man's cabin, stood his five enemies, plotting his death.

The outlaws acted with great discretion—they were thoroughly under the control of the half-breed, and he was a man of skill and experience in woodcraft and accustomed to the management of deadly undertakings. By his orders not a thing was touched in the cabin, not even a chair was moved from its place. In the inspection that the villain made of the cabin he discovered a trap-door, which lifted, revealed a stairway leading into the cellar. Down this the half-breed passed, pistol in hand—and when he returned the look of satisfaction on his face showed that his plan was formed.

"It's just as I expected," he said to his gang: "the old fool has gone to hide his dogs, thinking that we wouldn't attack until night, and left the way to his death open to us. It'll be a quiet job, boys," he continued, "as I fancied when I ordered you to leave your shooting-irons at home, for the knife is surer than a bullet and gives no alarm. The cellar is large and deep, the trap-door without a bolt, and the stairway steep. Down into the cellar with you and loosen the cleats that hold the top stair, so that should the old cuss mistrust anything, or come into the cellar by accident, he'll come head foremost; and if his fall don't break his neck, it'll stun him for a moment, and our knives will finish the work. So down with you while I shut the door and sweep up the dirt we've brought in on the floor,—for we are dealing with a man whose eye is keen and who knows how to use it when his life is threatened."

In obedience to this command, the four men descended into the cellar, and soon had the cleat of the upper stair so weakened that it would give way at the least pressure. Then the leader, having arranged matters rightly up-stairs, also descended carefully into the cellar, and all with their knives drawn awaited the coming of the Trapper. What fate is it that waits on human life, blinding the good to their peril and permitting them to walk into the deadly toils the wicked have laid for them?

That same hour, four miles down the Racquette, a passer would have seen a boat, drawn up into a little creek, that emptied itself into the river at the base of an overhanging hill. Had he landed, prompted by curiosity, and followed a trail that led through the marsh grass, some forty rods beyond, he would have come upon a man seated on the banks of the stream at the foot of a pine, with two dogs, lying one on his right hand, the other on his left, with their muzzles resting on either leg. Could the man have crept near enough to have heard the words that were being spoken, he would have heard the Trapper say,—

"It be a leetle hard, pups, yis it sartinly be a leetle hard, for a man at my time of life to be parted from his dogs, considerin' the time we have consorted together, and the comfort we be to each other. But the vagabonds have sworn to pizen ye, and though ye be sensible pups, yit natur is natur, and it's onreasonable to think that ye would refuse to eat. Leastwise Rover, I conceit that ye would sartinly make a fool of yerself and eat meat from any man's hand ef ye knowed it was pizen. I've better thought of Sport, for the Lad was a timid boy, and didn't consort with strangers, and a dog's ways be the ways of his master, as I've noted, and I sartinly think that Sport would be more reasonable and even show his teeth to the vagabonds ef they tempted him."

"And now, pups," said the old man, as he rose to his feet, "there is no tellin' when we three meet ag'in, for the vagabonds will be up to their deviltry, and the boy isn't here. Here is meat enough to last ye a week, ef ye be reasonable in yer appetite, but ef ye be wasteful ye'll sartinly fast without any credit to ye afore the week be ended. The water is within reach, and ef wust comes to wust, and the man that leaves ye don't come back to ye, ye can use yer teeth on the thong, and take yer own course to the camp. The boy will find yer there when he comes in, and yer noses will keep ye alive until then. I shall sartinly try to sarcumvent the vagabonds, but my years be many and it may be the Lord's time to call has come. But I shan't go till I'm sartin he's in arnest, and I've helped him out a leetle in his management of the vagabonds on the P'int. And now, pups," said the old man again, as he turned to go, "I say good-by to ye, not knowin' what'll happen. Ef ye come back to the cabin and find me one way, it'll be all right. Ef ye come back to the cabin and find me another way, why then do ye stay by the cabin till the boy comes in, and then it will be all right; for he'll know what to do with me, and he'll know what to do with ye, for we talked both matters over afore our last partin'. Yis," said the Trapper to himself, as he turned back on his trail and started to his boat, "it will be all right whichever way the pups find me; but it's hard for a man of my years to be parted from his dogs."

It was well-nigh on to eight o'clock when the Trapper approached his cabin, which he did with the utmost caution. Not until he had circled it three several times with narrowing circles, and at last had inspected the inside of his home through a hole cut in the wall by himself for such an emergency, did he venture to enter; and even then he did it with his rifle cocked and his finger on the trigger. But no one was within the room; that was certain; and, having closed the door, he proceeded to kindle a fire, that he might cook his supper. He pulled the table to the centre of the room and supplied it with the necessary dishes, pausing now and then to listen. But no sound disturbed him, and, confident that his enemies had not yet moved, he said,—

"It's jest as I thought. The vagabonds ain't the ones to strike openly in the daytime, but to sneak in upon ye when ye be asleep. I conceited that I'd have time to git the pups off and be back afore they started their diviltry, and I've done it. The cabin is a good un, and I can hold it a week agin a rigiment of the scamps; and ef they can be outlyin' round this log-house for a week and keep their number good, they're better at dodgin' and hidin' than I think they be. I'll go down and see ef the water pipe in the cellar runs clear, for ef they actually lay siege to the shanty the man inside will want water and powder both. I'll draw the smaller bar across the door, afore I go down, for there's no tellin' how soon the knaves will have their ears agin the logs, and I don't propose to have them play any of their tricks on me. A square, honest sort of a fight is one thing, but a sneakin' trick is another.

"There," continued he, as he dropped the smaller of two bars across the stout door, "that wouldn't stand a batterin' ram, for sartin, but a man who tried to push in would make a good deal of noise, and when he got his head through he'd find a rifle and a man back of it lookin' at him. They mustn't think to outwit an old man whose head has whitened on the trail, and who know'd the meanin' of an ambushment afore they was born."

So saying, the Trapper threw an extra stick on the fire, and then going to the trap-door, he lifted it and started to descend. But no sooner had he put his full weight upon the upper stair, than the slab, whose support had been weakened by the outlaws, suddenly gave way, and the Trapper dropped like a plummet into the cellar.