The White Desert Part 36

Ba'tiste shook his head.

"She would not speak to me. Nothing would, she tell me. At first I go alone--then yesterday, when the snow, he pack, I take Golemar. Then she is unconscious. All day and night I stay beside the bed, but she do not open her eye. Then, with the morning, she sigh, and peuff! She is gone."

"Without a word." It spelled blackness for Houston where there had been light. "I--I--suppose you've taken charge of everything."

"_Oui_! But I have look at nothing--if that is what you mean."

"No--I just had something here that you ought to have," Houston fumbled in his pockets. "She would want it around her neck, I feel sure, I when she is----."

But the sudden glare in Ba'tiste's eyes stopped him as he brought forth the crucifix and its tangled chain. The giant's hands raised. His big lips twisted. A lunge and he had come forward, savage, almost beast-like.

"You!" He bellowed. "Where you get that? Hear me, where you get that?"

"From her. She--"

"Then come! Come--quick with me!" He almost dragged the younger man away, hurrying him toward the sled and its broad-backed old horses.

"We must go to the cabin, _oui_--yes! Hurry--" Houston saw that he was trembling. "Eet is the thing I look for--the thing I look for!"

"Ba'tiste! What do you mean?"

"My Julienne," came hoa.r.s.ely. "Eet is my Julienne's!"

Already they were in the sled, the wolf-dog perched between them, and hurrying along the mushy road, which followed the lesser raises of snow, taking advantage of every windbreak and avoiding the greater drifts of the highway itself. Two miles they went, the horses urged to their greatest speed. Then, with a leap, Ba'tiste cleared the runners and motioned to the man behind him.

"Come with me! Golemar! You shall stay behind. You shall fall in the drift--" The old man was talking excitedly, almost childishly. "No?

Then come--Eet is your own self that must be careful. Ba'teese, he cannot watch you. Come!"

At a run, he went forward, to thread his way through the pines, to flounder where the snow had not melted, to go waist-deep at times, but still to rush onward at a speed which taxed even Houston's younger strength to keep him in sight. The wolf-dog buried itself in the snow, Houston pulling it forth time after time, and lugging it at long intervals. Then at last came the little clearing,--and the cabin.

Ba'tiste already was within.

Houston avoided the figure on the bed as he entered and dropped beside the older man, already dragging forth the drawers of the bureau and pawing excitedly among the trinkets there. He gasped and pulled forth a string of beads, holding them trembling to the light, and veering from his jumbled English to a stream of French. Then a watch, a ring, and a locket with a curly strand of baby hair. The giant sobbed.

"My Pierre--eet was my Pierre!"

"What's that?" Houston had raised suddenly, was staring in the direction of an old commode in the corner. At the door the wolf-dog sniffed and snarled. Ba'tiste, bending among the lost trinkets that once had been his wife's, did not hear. Houston grasped him by the shoulder and shook him excitedly.

"Ba'tiste! Ba'tiste! There's some one hiding--over there in the corner. I heard sounds--look at Golemar!"

"Hiding? No. There is no one here--no one but Ba'tiste and his memories. No one--"

"I tell you I heard some one. The commode moved. I know!"

He rose, only to suddenly veer and flatten himself against the wall.

The yellow blaze of aimless revolver fire had spurted from the corner; then the plunging form of a gnarled, gangling, limping man, who rushed past Houston to the door, swerved there, and once more raised the revolver. But he did not fire.

A furry, snarling thing had leaped at him, knocking the revolver from his hand in its plunging ascent. Then a cry,--a gurgling growl. Teeth had clenched at the throat of the man; together they rolled through the door to the snow without, Golemar, his hold broken by the fall, striving again for the death clutch, the man screaming in sudden frantic fear.

"Take him off!" The voice of the thin-visaged Fred Thayer was shrill now. "Take him off--I'll tell you about it--she did it--she did it!

Take him off!"

"Golemar!" Ba'tiste had appeared in the doorway. Below the dog whirled in obedience to his command and edged back, teeth still bared, eyes vigilant, waiting for the first movement of the man on the ground.

Houston went forward and stood peering down at the frightened, huddled form of Thayer, wiping the blood from the fang wound in his neck.

"You'll tell about what?" came with sudden incisiveness.

The man stared, suddenly aware that he had spoken of a thing that had been mentioned by neither Ba'tiste nor Houston. His lips worked crookedly. He tried to smile, but it ended only in a misshapen snarl.

"I thought you fellows were looking for something. I--I--wanted to get the dog off."

"We were. We've found it. Ba'tiste," and Houston forced back the tigerish form of the big French-Canadian. "You walk in front of us.

I'm--I'm afraid to trust you right now. And don't turn back. Do you promise?"

The big hands worked convulsively. The eyes took on a newer, fiercer glare.

"He is the man, eh? His conscience, eet speak when there is no one to ask the question. He--"

"Go on, Ba'tiste. Please." Houston's voice was that of a pleading son. Once more the big muscles knotted, the arms churned; the giant's teeth showed between furled lips in a sudden beast-like expression.

"Ba'tiste! Do you want to add murder to murder? This is out of our hands now; it's a matter of law. Now, go ahead--for me."

With an effort the Canadian obeyed, the wolf-dog trotting beside him, Houston following, one hand locked about the buckle of the thinner man's belt, the other half supporting him as he limped and reeled through the snow.

"It's my hip--" The man's mind had gone to trivial things. "I sprained it--about ten days ago. I'd been living over here with her up till the storm. Then I had to be at camp. I--"

"That was your child, then?"

Fred Thayer was silent. Barry Houston repeated the question commandingly. There could be no secrecy now; events had gone too far.

For a third time the accusation came and the man beside him turned angrily.

"Whose would you think it was?"

Houston did not answer. They stumbled on through the snow-drifted woods, finally to reach the open s.p.a.ce leading to the sleigh. Thayer drew back.

"What's the use of taking me into town?" he begged. "She's dead and gone; you can't harm her now."

"We're not inquiring about her."

"But she's the one that did it. She told me--when she first got sick.

Those are her things in there. They're--"

"Have I asked you about anything?" Houston bit the words at him.

Again the man was silent. They reached the sled, and Ba'tiste pointed to the seat.

"In there," he ordered. "Ba'teese will walk. Ba'teese afraid--too close." And then, in silence, the trip to town was made, at last to draw up in front of the boarding house. Houston called to a bystander.

"Is the 'phone working--to Montview?"

"Yeh. Think it is. Got it opened up yesterday."