CHAPTER VIII
IN THE NICK OF TIME
From his position at a wide loophole, low down near the centre of the barricade, Connie Morgan could see the yelling, leaping figures as they sprang straight toward him across the clearing, firing as they ran. Mechanically, the boy worked the lever of his carbine, sighting and firing as in a dream. Above the crash and din of the rifles and the war-whoops of the painted savages, other sounds broke upon his ears—sharp, high-pitched shrieks of pain—the singing whine of bullets—the heavy breathing of Toad Jones, who had climbed to the top of the barricade almost directly above him—the defiant roars of Tex Gordon, who was keeping two rifles hot while an old man loaded. On came the Mooseheads. Connie sighted and fired, first at one painted form and then at another—the whole clearing seemed alive with howling fiends who advanced in short rushes, dodging now behind a tree-stump, now dropping to one knee and firing, so that the little puffs of blue smoke blurred the hideous distinctness of gaping mouths and glaring eyeballs. Many were stopped in their advance, some pitching forward to lie still and inert among the weeds, others leaping high in the air to fall into a grotesque crumpled mass while their rifles struck the rocks with the sharp ring of steel, and still others, pausing, staggered ahead, and sank slowly to the ground to load and fire weakly.
There was the sound of tearing wood. A sharp pain stung the boy's cheek, and the air seemed filled with flying chips. He put his hand to his face and tugged at a sliver the thickness of a lead pencil that protruded from his jaw. The sliver yielded, and warm blood tickled his neck as it trickled beneath his soft collar. A Brushwood staggered past, screaming and dragging his rifle. Connie jammed his magazine full and turned again to his loophole, whose edge was splintered and torn at the point where he had been sighting.
There was a dull, scrunching thud above him. A rifle slipped past, grazing his shoulder, and clattered on the rocks at his feet. The body of a man followed the rifle, sliding slowly down the lodge-poles and tree-trunks of the barrier. It, too, stopped at his feet, where it lay with mouth open and a smallish blue hole over the left eye.
The man was Toad Jones.
Connie saw all this as he jerked at the lever of his carbine, pumping fresh shells into the chamber and firing through his loophole. Saw, also, other bodies lying close along the inside of the barricade. He was not afraid—was not even excited. The whole thing was unreal—like the climax of a great play. Only at first were his nerves out of control—when he had dodged at the whine of the bullets. He was firing faster, now—his carbine barrel was hot—it burned his fingers, and he spit on his hand. He picked up Toad Jones's rifle and fired till it was empty—then his own carbine was thrust into his hand, reloaded, and a squaw caught up the empty rifle. The yellow painted bodies of the Mooseheads were close to the barrier, now, and they pitched forward as he fired,—but, their places were taken by others—always, there were more.
The poles above him moved. He glanced upward into the glaring eyeballs of a hideously painted face. Connie could see the yellow teeth behind the lips drawn wide in a great oblong of ferocity. The Indian's body was outside the barrier, but one arm was inside. And the hand held a short carbine—held it like a pistol. The carbine went off. There was a deafening roar and the boy heard his own carbine clatter upon the rocks. His face burned and he choked as the pungent powder smoke bit into his lungs. Again he looked up. The face was still there. He tried to recover his carbine, but his arm seemed tied to his body. Then, from close behind him sounded another loud report, the painted face with its ferocious grin disappeared, and beyond the barricade a heavy body thumped upon the ground. Ick Far stood at his side with Toad Jones's rifle in his hand. He dropped the rifle and, jerking the knife from his belt, slashed the sleeve from Connie's jacket and shirt. There was blood on the white skin of his arm—the arm that wouldn't move. The boy felt no pain, only a restful numbness, and he watched with interest while the scout applied a rude tourniquet. He glanced toward the barricade. A face leered at the splintered loophole, and the muzzle of an old smooth-bore appeared. Automatically, Connie reached for his revolver and fired point-blank into the face at a distance 
As Ick Far applied a rude tourniquet, Connie glanced up. A face leered over the barricade and the muzzle of an old smooth-bore appeared.
of two feet. The face disappeared. The black muzzle of the smooth-bore veered sharply upward and rocked to a standstill. Then, Ick Far was shooting again, and Connie was firing his service revolver at heads on top of the barricade. There were painted bodies now, among the others inside the barrier.
An aged squaw, with a face withered and drawn, like a sun-dried moccasin, pulled the smooth-bore, muzzle first, through the loophole. She raised the butt to her shoulder, jerked the barrel upward toward a painted figure that straddled the barricade, and pulled the trigger. There was a report like the roar of a cannon. The recoil flattened the squaw among the rocks. The painted figure rocked to and fro, sagged side wise, and slithered slowly toward the ground. The foot caught at the ankle in a crotch, and the Indian hung head downward, with grotesquely twitching limbs and wide-staring eyes.
Upon the ground the old squaw laughed—a horrid, cackling laugh—and Connie shuddered.
His revolver was empty and a wounded Brushwood reloaded it for him. But he could see no more faces above the barricade. He heard loud yells of triumph. Tex Gordon, with a strip of blanket bound tightly about his head, rushed up.
"They've quit! They've quit, kid! Look at 'em run!" Connie peered through the loophole, and saw the half-naked forms running toward the timber across the clearing. The battle for that day was won!
The sun had long set before the full extent of the fierce onslaught was ascertained. Thanks to the barricade, the defenders of the village, although outnumbered fully two to one, had not fared nearly so badly as the attacking party, which had re- treated, leaving more than half its number dead or wounded upon the ground. The loss within the barricade, however, was serious. Seven dead, including Toad Jones, who had climbed recklessly to the top of the barrier, and whose rifle had spoken to purpose during the earlier moments of the fray. Of the living, only Ick Far and three others had escaped without a scratch, while four were so badly wounded as to be incapable of further action. This left only eight of the original fighting force, but to offset the loss, fifteen squaws clamoured for a place on the firing line, and so eagerly and efficiently did they throw themselves into the work of preparing food, burying the dead, strengthening the defences, and cleaning the rifles, that Connie felt extremely hopeful for the future.
When Tex Gordon and Ick Far had bound up his wounded arm, the boy called a council. It was the unanimous opinion that the Mooseheads would not risk another charge. Their losses could only be estimated as Connie forbade any one to venture beyond the barricade. An Indian, like a rattlesnake, is never dead till he is good and dead, and many a man has been treacherously murdered while endeavouring to aid a wounded enemy.
The gravest danger that confronted the small garrison was the shortage of provisions. Figuring only one meal a day, Connie and Tex saw that their slender stock could last but four days—five at the most. Water, the Brushwoods assured them, could be procured by lowering a bucket on a line to the creek from a projecting ledge—but food they must have.
The small amount hastily commandeered from "Soapy" White's stock had been cached with the canoe, and Tex Gordon volunteered to slip out with a couple of Indians under cover of darkness and recover it. To this Connie reluctantly consented, but it would only stave off the inevitable for one day.
"They'll try to starve us out," Connie said. "We've got to get word to Mayo—Dan McKeever's there, and Rickey."
"Me go!" cried Ick Far. "Me ketch um help. Seex sleeps, an' dem Moosehead, she weesh she stay on de black montaine."
"We c'n hold out six days—eight, on a pinch—can't we, kid?" said Tex Gordon, as he reached over and shook the scout's hand in a mighty grip. "Y'u're a man! Doggone my buttons! Y'u might be a Injun, but y'u're white—clean through to y'ur gizzard! Good-bye an' good luck to y'u—an' if ever any one tries to tell me they ain't no good Injuns, y'u bet I'll go to the floor with him till he yelps they're all good! An', jes' betwixt me an' y'u, they're th' orneriest sect they is—an' we know it, " he added with a grin.
Connie also grasped the old scout's hand as he stepped onto the narrow foot trail and, although no word passed between them, each knew what was in the mind of the other.
Ick Far knew the mountains as few men ever know them. While he had never been there before, he knew instinctively that the steep divide at whose base he and Connie Morgan had stood in their search for a mail-route pass, would let him through somewhere in the vicinity of the village of the Yellow Knives—the Indians whose old chief, White Eagle, had sworn eternal friendship for the Kloshe Tenas Tyee, the good little chief whose medicine arrows had delivered his tribe from the hand of the Red Death.
The scout knew, also, that to undertake the trip to Mayo station would mean ten days at the very least before help could reach the besieged village. He knew that only two officers of the Mounted would be found at the station, and that the Moose- heads, crazy with drink and blood-lust, would stand under no authority, but would murder the uniformed officers as they would murder an obscure Indian. Of course, later, the tribe would suffer the consequences, but—later—well, Ick Far formed his own plan.
And, as the scout knew the mountains, he knew Indians. He knew that not only White Eagle, but every buck in the Yellow Knife village would welcome gladly the chance to show the Kloshe Tenas Tyee that they were his friends. He knew that the Yellow Knives were friendly with the Mooseheads, and hated the Brushwoods, but he knew, also, that above any friendship for the Mooseheads was the bond, amounting almost to idolatry which attached them to Connie Morgan, the Kloshe Tenas Tyee.
Therefore, the scout turned northward from the mouth of the Lansing. In "Soapy" White's store a light burned and, unseen in the darkness, Ick Far paused and looked in at the window at the man who sat smoking upon his counter. He gripped tightly his carbine, and lightly his lean fingers played with the hilt of his sheath knife. But he pressed his lips tightly and hurried on into the dark. Up the river—up the small creek, he passed, travelling night and day. Up and over the steep divide, and down on the other side into a maze of creeks and feeders. Then, on the morning of the third day, he staggered into the village—straight into the lodge of White Eagle, where he told the chief his story—and collapsed upon the robes that covered the floor of the lodge.
It was toward evening of the sixth day after the scout's departure. The setting sun blazed red and angry above the peaks to the westward. Behind the barricade the little garrison, with set, tense faces, watched the preparation of the final move of the painted Mooseheads. The provisions had been exhausted. Tex Gordon and his two Indians had found the cache rifled, and the small stock on hand had been consumed the previous evening. Even this meagre store had not lasted as long as anticipated. Connie had been awakened upon the fourth night by a commotion near the commissary, which consisted of some skins thrown over the buckets of provisions. There was the sound of a struggle—a loud shriek—silence—a muffled splash from the creek-bed far below, and when the boy investigated, a huge squaw rose up from the ground beside the skins and pointed at her sheath knife—at an empty provision bucket—at the cliff's edge. And, in the morning, the garrison was short one defender. After that a guard was set, but the harm had been done, and now the Mooseheads were getting ready to rush the hungry little band. For six days they had showed themselves in the clearing to shoot random shots and draw the fire of the village. But the ruse failed because Connie gave orders to save ammunition, and now, as the boy walked up and down the h'ne of his grim fighters, his eyes were serious; for he knew that only five rounds of cartridges remained for each rifle, and that most of the rifles were in the hands of squaws whose zeal far outweighed their marksmanship.
The Mooseheads were forming, now—scattering out among the stumps of the clearing—yelling and exposing themselves to draw the fire at long range—but no shots were fired and, tiring of these tactics, the painted savages advanced. Only one hundred yards separated the nearest Indian from the barricade and Connie was about to give the order to fire, when, from the timber beyond the clearing, came a chorus of the wildest, most blood-curdling yells and whoops that ever assailed the ears of mortal man, and the next instant the whole clearing was filled with howling, shooting forms, and the crashing reports of their rifles drowned all other sounds. Connie stared in horror at what appeared to be the reinforcements of the enemy, while all about him the Brushwoods were dropping the rifles from their nerveless hands: "The Yellow Knives!" "The Yellow Knives!" "We die!" "Nesika memaloose—"we die!" "They are the friends of the Mooseheads!" "We die!" We die!"
An old crone started the death chant and in a moment it was taken up by every Brushwood behind the barricade. It rose and mingled in a weird phantasmagoria of horror with the war cry of the Yellow Knives, the crash of rifles, and the shrieks of the stricken Mooseheads. The events of the next few moments transpired with bewildering rapidity. Connie saw the Yellow Knives fall upon the surprised Mooseheads; saw the Mooseheads go down like grain before the reaper. He saw a few stragglers turn and dash for the forest, only to be pursued and stricken to the last man. Then, old White Eagle himself leaped over the barricade and picked Connie up in his arms—and his warriors followed, all yelling and howling and singing their wild chant of victory.
The death chant died on the lips of the Brushwoods and they gazed in stupid wonder into the faces of their ancient enemies—these wild, fierce enemies who had rushed to their aid upon the word of the small, white policeman.
Next day came Sergeant Dan McKeever and Corporal Rickey, and the prospectors who had escaped across the mountains when the Mooseheads swept down the river. Came, also, Ick Far, from the village of the Yellow Knives, where he had lain in a heavy sleep while the hands of his huge silver watch crept twice around its dial.
The bodies of the Mooseheads were buried and the soldier-policemen shook warmly the hands of the Yellow Knives—and of Tex Gordon. Then, the prospectors returned to their diggings—and the Yellow Knives to their lodges beyond the divide.
"And, now," said Connie, as the officers sat around their camp-fire at the close of the gruesome day, "there is just one more thing to do. 'Soapy' White was at the bottom of all this. We've got him with the goods at last."
"He'll go to Stony Mountain fer seven hundred years!" growled McKeever.
"He'll be lucky if he ever sees Stony Mountain!" opined Rickey. But Ick Far said nothing, and continued to stare gloomily into the camp-fire's glowing coals.
Next morning the four officers stood beside the heap of ashes that had been the trading post of "Soapy" White. From a corner of the heap they dug a burned, charred thingy which they buried in a hole scooped in the gravel of the bar. "Soapy White's score had been paid in full. But, whether by accident, by the hands of the Mooseheads who had returned for liquor during the days of the siege, by the avenging hand of the Yellow Knives as they swooped down the valley to the rescue of the Kloshe Tenas Tyee, or by the retributive hand of Ick Far, who followed in the space of a day, will never be known. For no investigation was conducted by the Mounted. And Ick Far, man of silence and mystery, stares gloomily into the distance—thinking his own thoughts.