CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STAND-OFF.
"Come on," said Toft, when, having recovered my wind, I had given them a more connected account, "we ain't got a minute to lose."
"What are you going to do?" asked Mr. Fothergill.
"Pull!" Toft replied. "This ain't no place to work a stand-off—too much brush and no chance for clear shootin'."
"But do you think"
"Get a hump on you, Fothergill," Dinny interrupted. "Quit talkin' and grab your iktas. We got to be in them canoes quicker'n scat. Fly at it now. Load everything in a hurry."
Luckily the canoes were but partially unloaded. We piled in what had been taken out without waiting to stow, shoved out, and made for the opposite bank. Hugging it closely, we paddled upstream, but we could not have gone more than five hundred yards when we heard a shout and a clamor of voices from the site of our camp.
We paddled on steadily for half an hour, and then held a council of war.
"Their canoes is below the rapids," said Toft, "and that's lucky. They won't be able to get 'em over the portage before mornin' likely. That gives us a chance to organize ourselves."
"Do you seriously think they'll try to take the furs by force?" Mr. Fothergill asked.
"If Ballou and them was with Nitche's bunch there ain't no doubt about it," Toft replied. "Nootka and Siwash George would be in any play like that, too. If you want to keep them furs you got to fight for them, that's my tumtum."
"It's a safe supposition, anyway," Dunleath agreed.
"Well," said Dinny, "all we can do is to keep on goin' till we find some place that looks good. We want to get something like a hill at our backs and clear ground in front. In this brush we wouldn't have no show."
If it has ever been your lot to paddle all day, and then at night turn around and buck a current with a heavily loaded canoe, you know that it is no joke. Always against your weary arms and shoulders there is the unwearied pressure of the current, no matter how cunningly you strive to take advantage of eddies and backwaters. The moment you relax your efforts the dark banks, which seem to be passing you so slowly, stand still; and if there are other canoes these draw away from you, and you must fight back your lost distance at the cost of extra exertion.
The first gray of dawn found me swinging my paddle doggedly, but mechanically, with the snap and drive of the effective stroke all gone. There were cold cramps between my shoulders, and I was dog tired to my very bones.
But dawn revealed also a broken country. Along the river bank it was still heavily bushed, but back from that, perhaps a quarter of a mile, rose a steep hill with outcroppings of bare rock. Toft and Pack landed to investigate, and shortly returned with a favorable report.
"Good as we can hope for," said the former. "Anyway, we got to get off this river. By swampin' out a trail a little ways we can pack in the whole outfit, canoes and all. We'll have to do that. It's some job, but it's a case."
Toft and I swamped a trail while the others packed, and, when we were through, we helped them. I staggered in under the foot of the hill with my first load, and saw the place which Toft had chosen.
It was at the base of the rocky hill, which afforded positive protection from the rear. Bowlders and huge fragments which had fallen would give shelter in front. There the ground was fairly open for several hundred yards. On the whole, we might have searched far for a better natural defensive position.
At last we finished the job, and I was glad of it. It seemed to me that I could not have carried another load. And Jim Dunleath and Dinny, who had worked like demons, apparently matching their strength and endurance, frankly lay down and panted.
"Of course they'll see the trail we swamped out," said Toft; "but they'd find us anyhow. They'll have a man or two on each side skinnin' the banks for sign, and the rest will come up in the canoes. There wouldn't be much get past them."
Dinny went back to the river to keep watch, and I went to sleep. I woke with the sound of his voice.
"They're comin' just about the way you said, Ike. Some of 'em must be ashore, for they ain't all in the canoes."
"Let 'em come," said Toft. "While we're waitin' we may's well pile up a few more rocks."
While I had slept they had been busy constructing a breastwork of stones, and it made an excellent shelter. I helped them add to it, and, while we were working, the half-breed appeared. For a moment he stood watching us, and then disappeared.
When he returned the whole crew came with him. They halted well in shelter, but Ballou walked straight toward us. He was unarmed, and as he came he held up his right hand, palm toward us.
"Peace sign," said Dinny. "How close is he to come?"
"All the way," said Dunleath. "If he wants to talk we may as well hear him."
Ballou came up, picking his way carefully among the rocks. He smiled grimly at our breastwork.
"You look sorter organized," he commented.
"That's exactly the idea," Jim Dunleath told him.
"All right," he returned. "Now let's get right down to case cards. I want to make you a proposition about them furs."
"No use," said Dunleath.
"Don't get stiff-legged in such a hurry," Ballou reproved him. "Let's talk things over sensible. I'm willin' to go through them furs now, sort and grade 'em with you, and give you folks a third of 'em and call it square. How does that strike you?"
"Seeing that the furs are ours," said Dunleath, "it strikes me as a pretty nervy proposition."
"Never heard of such gall in my life!" Mr. Fothergill exploded wrathfully. "We know you for the infernal rascal that you are, Ballou. We know that you were with Nitche McNab. You can't fool us any longer."
"So Bob heard that, did he?" said Ballou, with a cold glance at me. "Well, I was with Nitche, and so was Hayes and Louis, and I guess you know that, too. We went through a hard racket, and in the end we lost the furs by Nitche liftin' the cache. All the same we consider 'em ours. You've got no right to 'em at all, but you had the luck to find the letter, and for that we'll give you a third, like I said."
"Generous of you!" Dunleath commented. "Why didn't you make that proposition back on the lakes?"
"I only make it now to save trouble," Ballou admitted brazenly. "That's what I've been tryin' to do all along. If I'd listened to Hayes you'd have been held up at the lakes to start with. But I thought it would be better to get you out of the country quiet and easy. Then, when you come back and spoiled that play, some of the boys was for bushwhackin' you along the river. I wouldn't let 'em do that. I don't want to hurt nobody now, and nobody would have been hurt last night. We'd just nave taken the furs, that's all."
The old raider spoke quietly, in the most matter-of-fact way. It was as if we had done him an injury, for which he forgave but reproved us.
"I'm tellin' you these things," he went on, "so's you'll savvy how the land lies. From first to last I've tried to steer clear of trouble. I've seen too much of that. But all the same I want to make it clear that we're goin' to have them furs. I've made you a fair proposition. I make it again. If you turn it down we'll just take what we want any way we can get it. There'll be somebody killed, like as not. I don't want that, and I don't suppose you do."
"You can't kill anybody nowadays and get away with it," said Mr. Fothergill. "You can't bluff us a little bit."
Ballou shook his head at him, as if he had been reproving a foolish child.
"About gettin' away with a killin'," he said, "it don't help them that's killed whether we do or not. That's a chance we take. But if you think I'm bluffin' I've just wasted my time. I hope you don't think that—the rest of you that has more sense than him—because if you do you're awful wrong."
If the matter had not been so serious I would have laughed at Mr. Fothergill's face. But as it was, Ballou's quiet words carried conviction far better than any bluster.
"Whether you're bluffing or not," said Dunleath, "we turn your proposition down cold. We're going to keep the furs, and you can do what you like about it."
"You're making a mistake," Ballou told him. "A third of them furs ain't a bad stake."
"The whole is that much better," Dunleath replied.
"Oh, well," Ballou returned, "if that's the way you look at it I'm just wastin' time. I'm sorry we can't deal, but it ain't my fault. So long."
He turned and walked slowly away. At thirty yards he paused to light his pipe, and, I think, to give Dunleath an opportunity to call him back. He rejoined his outfit, and we lost sight of them.
"I wouldn't show myself too much," said Toft. "Things is liable to happen any time."
Five minutes after, a bullet bit against the rock behind us, and the report of the rifle racketed back and forth between hill and river timber. Ballou had delivered his ultimatum. This was his declaration of war.