The Triumph of John Kars Part 3

"Ma'am," he said, "whatever man can do to help your husband now, I'll do. I'll spare no one in the effort. Certainly not myself. That's my word."

The wife's reply came in a voice that was no longer steady.

"Thank you, Murray--for myself and for Allan. G.o.d--bless you."

Murray had turned already to return to the Fort when Alec suddenly burst out in protest. His eyes lit--the eyes of his mother. His fresh young face was scarlet to the brow.

"And do you suppose I'm going to sit around while father's being done to death by a lot of rotten Indians? Not on your life. See here, Murray, if there's any one needed to hang around the store it's up to you. Father Jose can look after mother and Jessie. My place is with the outfit, and--I'm going with it. Besides, who are you to dictate what I'm to do? You look after your business; I'll see to mine. You get me? I'm going up there to Bell River. I----"

"You'll--stop--right--here!"

Murray had turned in a flash, and in his voice was a note none of those looking on had ever heard before. It was a revelation of the man, and even Father Jose was startled. The clash was sudden. Both the mother and the priest realized for the first time in ten years the antagonism underlying this outward display.

The mother had no understanding of it. The priest perhaps had some.

He knew Murray's energy and purpose. He knew that Alec had been indulged to excess by his parents. It would have seemed impossible in the midst of the stern life in which they all lived that the son of such parents could have grown up other than in their image. But it was not so, and no one knew it better than Father Jose, who had been responsible for his education.

Alec was weak, reckless. Of his physical courage there was no question. He had inherited his father's and his mother's to the full.

But he lacked their every other balance. He was idle, he loathed the store and all belonging to it. He detested the life he was forced to live in this desolate world, and craved, as only weak, virile youth can crave, for the life and pleasure of the civilization he had read of, heard of, dreamed of.

Murray followed up his words before the younger man could gather his retort.

"When your father's in danger there's just one service you can do him,"

he went on, endeavoring to check his inclination to hot words. "If there's a thing happens to you, and we can't help your father, why, I guess your mother and sister are left without a hand to help 'em. Do you get that? I'm thinking for Allan Mowbray the best I know. I can run this outfit to the limit. I can do what any other man can do for his help. Your place is your father's place--right here. Ask your mother."

Murray looked across at Mrs. Mowbray, still standing in her doorway, and her prompt support was forthcoming.

"Yes," she said, and her eyes sought those of her spoiled son. "For my sake, Alec, for your father's, for your sister's."

Ailsa Mowbray was pleading where she had the right to command. And to himself Father Jose mildly anathematized the necessity.

Alec turned away with a scarcely smothered imprecation. But his mother's appeal had had the effect Murray had desired. Therefore he came to the boy's side in the friendliest fas.h.i.+on, his smile once more restored to the features so made for smiling.

"Say, Alec," he cried, "will you bear a hand with the arms and stuff?

I need to get right away quick."

And strangely enough the young man choked back his disappointment, and the memory of the trader's overbearing manner. He acquiesced without further demur. But then this spoilt boy was only spoiled and weak.

His temper was hot, volcanic. His reckless disposition was the outcome of a generous, unthinking courage. In his heart the one thing that mattered was his father's peril, and the sadness in his mother's eyes.

Then he had read that letter.

"Yes," he said. "Tell me, and I'll do all you need. But for G.o.d's sake don't treat me like a silly kid."

"It was you who treated yourself as one," put in Father Jose, before Murray could reply. "Remember, my son, men don't put women-folk into the care of 'silly kids.'"

It was characteristic of Murray McTavish that the loaded canoes cast off from the Mission landing at the appointed time. For all the haste nothing was forgotten, nothing neglected. The canoes were loaded down with arms and ammunition divided into thirty packs. There were also thirty packs of provisions, enough to last the necessary time. There were two canoes, long, narrow craft, built for speed on the swift flowing river. Keewin commanded the leading vessel. Murray sat in the stern of the other. In each boat there were fourteen paddles, and a man for bow "lookout."

It was an excellent relief force. It was a force trimmed down to the bone. Not one detail of spare equipment was allowed. This was a fighting dash, calculating for its success upon its rapidity of movement.

There had been no farewell or verbal "G.o.dspeed." The old priest had watched them go.

He saw the round figure of Murray in the stern of the rear boat. He watched it out of sight. The figure had made no movement. There had been no looking back. Then the old man, with a shake of the head, betook himself back through the avenue of lank trees to the Mission.

He was troubled.

The glowing eyes of Murray gazed out straight ahead of him. He sat silent, immovable, it seemed, in the boat. That curious burning light, so noticeable when his strange eyes became concentrated, was more deeply lurid than ever. It gave him now an intense aspect of fierceness, even ferocity. He looked more than capable, as he had said, of driving his men, the whole expedition, to the "limit."

CHAPTER IV

ON BELL RIVER

It was an old log shanty. Its walls were stout and aged. Its roof was flat, and sloped back against the hillside on which it stood. Its setting was an exceedingly limited plateau, thrusting upon the precipitous incline which overlooked the gorge of the Bell River.

The face of the plateau was sheer. The only approaches to it were right and left, and from the hill above, where the dark woods crowded.

A stockade of heavy trunks, felled on the spot, and adapted where they fell, had been hastily set up. It was primitive, but in addition to the natural defences, and with men of resolution behind it, it formed an almost adequate fortification.

The little fortress was high above the broad river. It was like an eyrie of creatures of the air rather than the last defences of a party of human beings. Yet such it was. It was the last hope of its defenders, faced by a horde of blood-crazed savages who l.u.s.ted only for slaughter.

Five grimly silent men lined the stockade at the most advantageous points. Five more lay about, huddled under blankets for warmth, asleep. A single watcher had screened himself upon the roof of the shack, whence his keen eyes could sweep the gorge from end to end. All these were dusky creatures of a superior Indian race. Every one of them was a descendant of the band of Sioux Indians which fled to Canada after the Custer ma.s.sacre. Inside the hut was the only white man of the party.

A perfect silence reigned just now. There was a lull in the attack.

The Indians crowding the woods below had ceased their futile fire.

Perhaps they were holding a council. Perhaps they were making new dispositions for a fresh attack. The men at the defences relaxed no vigilance. The man on the roof noted and renoted every detail of importance to the defence which the scene presented. The man inside the hut alone seemed, at the moment, to be taking no part in the enactment of the little drama.

Yet it was he who was the genius of it all. It was he who claimed the devotion of these lean, fighting Indians. It was he who had contrived thus far to hold at bay a force of at least five hundred Indians, largely armed with modern firearms. It was he who had led the faithful remnant of his outfit, in a desperate night sortie, from his indefensible camp on the river, and, by a reckless dash, had succeeded in reaching this temporary haven.

But he had been supported by his half civilized handful of creatures who well enough knew what mercy to expect from the enemy. And, anyway, they had been bred of a stock with a fighting history second to no race in the world. To a man, the defenders were prepared to sell their lives at a heavy price. And they would die rifle in hand and facing the enemy.

The man inside called to the watcher on the roof.

"Anything doing, Keewin?"

"Him quiet. Him see no man. Maybe him make heap pow-wow."

"No sign, eh?"

"Not nothin', boss."

Allan Mowbray turned again to the sheet of paper spread out on the lid of an ammunition box which was laid across his knees. He was sitting on a sack of flour. All about him the stores they had contrived to bring away were lying on the ground. It was small enough supply. But they had not dared to overload in the night rush to their present quarters.

He read over what he had written. Then he turned appraisingly to the stores. His blue eyes were steady and calculating. There was no other expression in them.

There was a suggestion of the Viking of old about this northern trader.

His fair hair, quite untouched with the gray due to his years, his fair, curling beard, and whiskers, and moustache, his blue eyes and strong aquiline nose. These things, combined with a ma.s.sive physique, without an ounce of spare flesh, left an impression in the mind of fearless courage and capacity. He was a fighting man to his fingers'

tips--when need demanded.

He turned back to his writing. It was a labored effort, not for want of skill, but for the reason he had no desire to fret the heart of the wife to whom it was addressed.