Читать книгу The Mystery of The Woods - W. H. H. Murray - Страница 9

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For a moment the fingers kept their hold. The man writhed and struck out once or twice wildly with his arms. His paddle, that he had lifted, dropped from his relaxing fingers and fell noisily into the bottom of the boat, and then his body wilted down in a heap; and the Trapper, loosening his grip, pushed the limp form forward that it might not fall into the lake, and then placing the end of his paddle against the body of the man as it lay stretched in the bottom of the boat, he shoved his own out noiselessly into the darkness.

Nor did he act a minute too quick, for the camp-fire kindling suddenly in answer to a piece of pitchy pine that had been flung into it by one of the men, as the captain's call sounded, shot a bright flame suddenly upward, revealing the two boats at the edge of the beach—the one with their captain lying as if dead in the bottom, and the other with the form of the Trapper in the very act of shoving away; and on the instant a rifle ripped its explosion out, and a bullet cut the sleeve of the old Trapper's shirt as his elbows were lifted in the act of pushing off.

"I knowed the vagabond," said the Trapper to himself, as he brought his boat to a stand-still forty rods out in the lake; "yis, I knowed the vagabond the minit I heerd his voice; and I trust the Lord will forgive me that I didn't pinch him a leetle harder. For his doin's be the doin's of Satan, and it's time that his devilments come to an eend. Ye may hoot and ye may yell," he continued, alluding to the uproar in the camp caused by the gang's discovery of their leader stretched limp and lifeless in the bottom of the boat, "but I advise ye to mix a leetle rubbin' with yer hootin', or ye won't bring him to; for memories got into my fingers as they sot on to his neck, and they tightened the grip a good deal beyend playfulness. I guess I'll paddle in and hear what the vagabonds be sayin'; for a man is apt to let out in his wrath what he's hid in his coolness; and it may be that amid their swearin' I'll git some useful knowledge of what they're up to. And ef there's any more boats runnin' agin me ther'll be somethin' more than pinchin' done; for an honest man can't stand everything ef it be peace time."

So saying the old man paddled in, curving to the right that he might bring his boat beyond the range of the firelight into the shadow of a heavy pine that stood a few yards to the left of the flame. It was a dangerous experiment, and to one of less skill and courage, the attempt would have been hazardous in the extreme; but he was at home in the work he was at, and the training of a lifetime passed amid peril fitted him for the endeavor. In less than two minutes his light boat was again within twenty feet of the beach, and with his rifle resting against his knee and both hammers cocked, the old man again sat in the attitude of listening.

The scene around the fire was a most extraordinary one. The captain of the gang lay stretched on the ground, his head lifted in the lap of one of the men, while the others, kneeling around him, were engaged in chafing his limbs and exercising their rude skill in their attempt to restore him to consciousness. In a few moments they succeeded; for the man struggled to his feet, and drawing his knife, while yet too weak to stand steady, glared into one dark visage after another, with a ferocity of expression frightful to behold. His weakness and ungovernable rage for a moment kept him silent, while his eyes seemed searching for a breast into which to drive his knife. At length, as reason gained its control, he drove the blade into the sheath, while with a voice that actually trembled and choked with passion, he exclaimed,—

"Who are you that allow a man to ambush your camp and strangle your leader within fifty feet of your fire? Have you no eyes nor ears, that on such a job as we have on our hands, and left in charge as I left you, you allow an enemy to bring his boat to the very sands of the beach, while you doze in your camp like boys on a pleasure trip?"

"Easy, easy, captain," said the man who had been the spokesman of the party the night before, when the Trapper paid them a visit, "easy, captain, our eyes and ears may not be as good as yours in the woods, but only one man has come into the camp since we struck this point."

"Where is his body?" shouted the leader. "Were not your orders to prevent one coming in; or if one came, to prevent his going out?"

"Your orders were all right, captain; but orders are one thing and carrying them out is another. But the man who came in didn't tell us he was coming, and the first that we knew he was standing by the fire here."

"Why didn't you kill him where he stood?" shouted the leader.

"Easily asked and easily answered," replied the man. "The man who stood by the fire had a rifle, while we had nothing but knives; and knives are one thing and a rifle is another, especially if the man who holds it knows how to use it; and I think you will admit, captain, when I tell you his name, that the man who held the rifle knew how to use it."

"What was his name?" yelled the leader.

"John Norton," said the man, quietly. And then he added as quietly, "I think I have heard you speak of him."

The look that came to the villain's face as he heard the name was a revelation of the passions which the human countenance, when powerfully excited, can make. As the name was spoken the leader's face blanched till its swarthy skin showed ghastly in the pallor of uncontrollable fear. He stared at the speaker as if he himself were the adequate cause of supreme terror. His jaw dropped, and out of the opened mouth were projected in a hoarse whisper, the words;—

"John Norton!"

And then, quick as a flash, as if life depended on the movement, he dashed his foot into the centre of the blazing brands and sent them flying into the air and the camp, which had been lighted by the fire, was, on the instant, buried in darkness.

For a moment not a sound was heard save the sputtering of the scattered brands, as they cooled to extinction where they lay far and near on the ground. For a full minute, not a sound was heard; in the midst of the darkness the six men stood unseen by the Trapper; unseen by each other; and then a voice asked, and the voice sounded cool and steady,—

"Will you allow me to ask, captain, why you extinguished that fire?"

"Fools!" was the answer, "fools, every one of you! Do you not know that a rifle whose bullet never yet missed its mark, covered us from the darkness as we stood by that fire? What devil of ill-luck was it that directed me to this lake, and threw us into the power of a man, whom, of all men living, I dread most to meet, especially when on an errand like this and with such a job as we have on our hands, cumbered with that cursed tent and what is within it! Ay, ay, now I know whose boat lay against that beach and whose fingers gripped my throat; it was John Norton's boat and John Norton's hand;" and again the man muttered,—and he swore a dreadful oath as he muttered it,—

"What devil of ill-luck brought me to this lake!"

Again there was a pause. After a minute or two, the same cool and steady voice said,—

"I'll confess, captain, that we who make up this crowd don't know much about your Indian tricks and this prowling about in the night like a panther, but I know we are seven, all told, and there is only one man against us,—and if that one man stands in the way, I think we had better wipe him out."

"Come this way," said the leader, "and I'll tell you what our danger is, and the only way to escape it." And he moved through the darkness to where the shanty stood, followed by the others, and the six seated themselves in the darkness at the front of the lodge. And thus seated they held their murderous council.

It is said that darkness is the shelter of guilt. May it not with equal truth be said that it is the friend and ally of innocence? At least it was this at this juncture, for no sooner had the renegade extinguished the fire than the Trapper, without an instant's hesitation, had run his boat against the beach, and leaving it, moved with a quick step across the sand, and with the swiftness of a man moving in broad daylight, passed from tree to tree, until he had come within a hundred feet of the shanty, and then dropping to his knees, had begun to work himself toward the group. Fortunately for him, Nature assisted his efforts; for a puff of wind, such as occasionally moves unattended by any current through the calm stillness of the woods, starting high up the mountain-side, moved suddenly downward toward the lake, swaying the pine-tops and rustling their tassels noisily.

The Trapper was not slow to take advantage of so helpful an incident, for under cover of the noise overhead he crept yet nigher and nigher to the group, until he was within forty feet of the six men, as they sat in the gloom.

"Sh!" whispered the leader of the gang, "did you hear a noise?" And then he added, "Curse the wind! If John Norton was in the woods, and not in his boat, he would crawl within twenty feet of us under cover of that noise."

Again another puff came down the mountain-side, and passed merrily through the pine trees under which they were sitting, and under cover of it again the Trapper crept nearer. When he stopped this time, and lay at full length, hidden in the darkness, he was within arm's length of the leader himself, as he sat crouched on the end of the log that made the front frame-work of the lodge.

It was perilous. In cooler moments the Trapper himself would have called it foolhardy; but the old man, who for years had done no such work as this, thrilled in every drop of his blood with the daring of the enterprise. Nor was his confidence in himself exaggerated or his movement without the support of careful calculation, for he knew that with the exception of the leader himself, there was not one in the gang whose senses were trained to such a degree that they could detect an ambush such as he, with his skill and his courage, was making.

"You said," at last spoke the leader, "that the way for us to do was to wipe the man out, and that it was seven against one; but the man whom you propose to wipe out is one among a thousand. I have seen him"—and the man ground his teeth as he said it—"I have seen him in the fight and on the trail; and in a fight he is a devil, and on the trail his movements are as noiseless as a snake's."

"Who is this John Norton, anyway?" interrogated a voice.

"I know not who he is," responded the leader; "I know only that his strength is that of a giant, that in battle he is without fear, and that his bullet is death. When I was but a boy in the tent of my father I heard his name spoken by the chiefs,—spoken in a whisper, as men speak a name of terror. When I was in the far West, ten years ago, the Indians of the Plains had his name, and they, too, spoke it in whispers, as did the chiefs of the North. And wherever I heard his name they told me the same story"—

"What was the story they told you, captain?"

"The story of a man who was never beaten in battle, never met his match in strength, never outwitted by cunning, never driven from his purpose,—a man whose knife is certain and whose bullet is sure. Such was the story they told me; and little did I think, when I heard of him as a boy, or when, years later, I heard of him on the Plains, that I should ever meet him in battle, or bear his marks on my body, curse him!"

"Then you had a set-to with the old fellow, did you?" interrogated the voice. "Tell us all about it, captain. Where was it, and how did it come about?"

For several moments there was no response, and then the leader said,—

"It's five years ago, and in the Company's country, that I met him. I was ranging with a band I had picked up, and we had pretty much our own way, for we were a dozen in all, and we hadn't many scruples about whose skins we took, nor whose money, for that matter. We didn't set many traps that fall, but we made a good gathering of furs, nevertheless. We ran across a line one day set with unusual skill, and we cleaned it out and camped on it at night. The next morning at dawn a man walked into our midst, and, putting his foot on the pack of green skins, said the skins were his, and wished to know if any of us wanted to take them. We were eight in all, and we weren't used to that kind of talk, and we went for him."

The leader had told his story so far with a voice that gathered earnestness as he proceeded, and when he had reached the words, "We went for him!" from the remembrance of a scene that stirred his passions, it actually trembled.

"What happened then?" asked the quiet voice out of the darkness.

"The two that jumped first fell dead at his feet, with a bullet hole in each head," answered the man, "and then he was among us. No matter about the fight," said the leader, "it went against us; that's enough."

"Went against you?" asked the voice. "I thought you were eight against one, and armed, and used to having your own way. How could it go against you?"

"The devil knows, I don't," answered the leader surlily. "I know that we were well armed and used to combat, and that we did our best, and that only two came out of that fight alive,—the man that claimed the skins and myself,—and nothing saved me but an accident; the merest twig that turned the bullet from its course, enough to save my life, and barely enough, for it ploughed across my breast deep as the bone."

"And the man who claimed the skins, captain, was John Norton?"

"Yes, the name leapt out of his mouth in the midst of the fight, and I've often thought that it helped him win the fight, for we had come through from the plains, and his name terrified the boys; but it didn't terrify me," continued the renegade, "for I never saw a man yet I was afraid to meet in equal battle, and I had always sworn that if I ever met John Norton I would kill him; and when his name broke out of his mouth, and I knew that my chance had come, I drawed on him, standing not ten feet away."

"Did your gun miss fire, captain?" asked the voice.

"No, my gun did not miss fire," was the answer.

"How did he escape, then?" asked the voice excitedly.

"He saw me drawing on him," said the leader, "though how, I know not, for three men were at him with their knives; but see me he did, and with a motion quick as lightning he snatched one of them from the ground, and flung him through the air, as if he had been but a dog; flung him upon the very muzzle of my rifle, and I shot my own companion instead of him."

"You didn't give the matter up there, did you, captain?"

"No, I did not," exclaimed the leader with an awful oath. "I went and gathered another band, twenty in all, and we struck his camp the very morning he had left it. His trail led southward, and we followed it, and the next day at noon we came upon him heavily loaded with his traps and with his skins, and for four days we had a running fight."

"I should think you might have killed him."

"That's because you don't know the man," answered the leader. "Kill him! That man for four days played with us, and at the end of the fourth day only six of the twenty were on his trail. My left arm was bandaged where his bullet had passed through, and in three other spots had his lead touched me, drawing blood."

"Did you give up then?" asked the voice.

"Give up! Does a man of my cross leave the trail of the man who has beaten him twice, and whose bullets have four times scarred his body? I followed him for a month after I had sent the others back, and before I left his trail I had been in his tent, and he was asleep, and my knife was with me; but an accident saved him from my knife even as an accident had saved me from his bullet.

"Yes, as you say, he must be wiped out, for if by any accident of any devil's luck such as brought us to this lake, a detective should run against him, we would have to fight for it; and I would sooner fight a dozen of the best officers that were ever sent against us than this one man. For he knows no fear, and he knows everything else that a life spent in woodcraft and war can teach him."

"Look here," asked one of the men, "why not move the camp farther on?"

"Move the camp farther on!" exclaimed the leader, "what good would that do? There isn't a lake nor a creek in these woods that John Norton don't know. You can hide in cities, for the pavement leaves no trail and multitudes make concealment; but no one can hide in these woods so that his eye won't find him out, nor can you move either by land or water that he won't detect your trail."

"Surely," said the voice in reply, "surely, captain, with your blood and your training you ought to be a match in what you call woodcraft, of any man living."

"My father was a chief," answered the renegade, and his voice sounded haughtily as he answered, "my father was a chief, and I can make my moccasins as light as the air, and my paddle moves like the fin of a fish. John Norton himself knows that in all the north country there is not a lighter foot nor a quicker eye than mine. For I have been in his camp myself, as I said, and, but for his cursed dogs, my knife would have been in his breast."

"Very well," said the man answering back through the darkness, "if you have been in his camp once, you can go into it again; and if the dogs stand in the way, why then, dogs are hungry, and dogs will eat. We will poison the dogs."

Was it the result of rage kindled to a flame at the dastard suggestion; or was it the result of one of those swift intuitions which, while it seemed the height of rashness, was coolest calculation, making for himself, when in danger, a quick and sure way out of it which had made the Trapper's name synonymous with daring and success? Whatever was the cause, the words had scarcely left the lips of the speaker, before a man's fist smote him on the head, and he tumbled from the log on which he was sitting, into the very lap of the leader, and then, as the five men leaped to their feet, and as many pistols flashed in the darkness, their ears caught the sound of hurrying feet scurrying through the gloom, and the next instant they caught the splash of a boat launched hastily from the beach and heard the muttered words:—

"Pizen the pups, will ye, ye vagabonds!"