CHAPTER XXII.
ROUNDED UP.
Ignace Mountain saw it as soon as I, but his practical mind worked faster than mine. Close at hand was an outcrop of broken rock grown around with stunted fir saplings, low and bushy, and he turned for it without hesitation, with the instinct for cover of a hunted animal. We went into it like a brace of hard-run foxes going to earth. Ignace simply collapsed and lay panting. I was winded, too, not from running, for I could have kept going half a day at that gait, but from helping him. But as the low branches swished to behind me, I dropped down and peered back, and thanked the Lord for old Siwash George's 45-70.
It was Hayes, Conover, and the breed who had chased us. They had joined forces, in the shelter of another patch of brush. And behind them, as I looked, came old Siwash George himself in a staggery jog trot, and I could imagine the language he was using.
Our sheltering thicket was not more than a hundred feet through in any direction, and was one of several, scattered irregularly like islands, a tow hundred yards apart, the spaces between being patched with short growths of saskatoons, soap berry, and brier. I crept through to the farther side. As I had feared, there was the rest of the outfit—Ballou and Louis and McGregor. There was no running that gantlet. All we could do was to make a stand. And I cursed old Siwash George because he had not packed more cartridges.
Presently Ballou circumnavigated our position, giving it a very wide berth, and no doubt he joined Hayes, though I had lost sight of that gentleman. Shortly afterward, they began a general advance, picking cover carefully, working in under shelter of isolated clumps of trees. I wanted to blaze away at every bush that shook, but I knew I had no ammunition to waste. Beside me, Ignace Mountain lay quietly resting. Whatever he felt found no expression in his face, and he did not suggest that I should let him handle the rifle.
"Something will happen in a minute," I said.
"Yas," he agreed. "S'pose him get close, begin to shoot. Mebbe so we go mimoluse this time."
I thought that very likely, and I certainly did not want to be shot.
"I'm scared," I admitted. "Halo skookum tumtum, me! How about you, Ignace?"
He shook his head, smiling.
"Don't care," he said. "One time me have hyas yutl tumtum—me hyas happy, me like to live. Long time ago. Now no more. Me kill Nootka Challie. Good! Now me go mimoluse. All right."
A bullet ripped just above our heads, bringing down a shower of fir needles; and another threw up a spatter of dirt. I could see the smoke, but not the marksman, and I waited, husbanding my precious cartridges. Then, for an instant, beside a stump among the bushes, I caught a glimpse of a man's body. It was hidden before I could draw a sight on it, but I covered the spot and waited. In a moment I saw it again. I caught the sight fair and touched the trigger. The old weapon bellowed, and my mark disappeared, but in a moment there it was again. Thinking I had perhaps overshot, not being familiar with the sights, I held lower and pulled more carefully. That time the bullet kicked dirt; and hastily, while I had the chance, I fired a third time, holding higher. The object moved quickly into the protection of the stump.
"You hit um?" Ignace queried.
"If I didn't, I don't know why. I was dead on him."
But as I spoke there was a shot from that very spot. I was disgusted, for with my own rifle I could have put five out of six bullets into a playing card at that distance. How in blazes was this old gas pipe sighted, anyway? Or was the rifling worn so that it threw wild, or the ammunition bad? But the report was clean and hard, and there was a quick punch to the recoil, so that apparently the cartridges were all right and the twist still good.
As I peered out, lying very low, I saw my man's body again, but this time on the other side of the stump. I could see almost half his body. He was keeping his head in cover like an ostrich. I drew the sight just outside the line of the stump.
"Halo shoot!" Ignace exclaimed swiftly. "Him hang coat on bush, shove him out. No man stop inside coat."
The man behind the stump had worked a trick on me ancient as gunpowder itself. I had wasted three precious shells. Well, it could not be helped, and I was relieved to know that the fault was not with the rifle. Thereafter my foxy stump artist exposed his coat in vain, and I think his experience with it made him respect my shooting, for he did not show himself, either.
But now they began to shoot us up systematically. Bullets buzzed and spatted and zipped. We lay flat, getting the best protection we could from the rock outcroppings, but it was more a matter of luck than anything else. They could not see us because of the screen of fir saplings, and that was our salvation.
Suddenly the firing ceased, and as I ventured to raise myself cautiously there was a sharp exclamation from the Indian. I turned. Through the farther side of the thicket came Ballou, Hayes, and Siwash George. While the hot fire had engaged our attention, they had crept up behind us within rushing distance. Now they came at us like three old wolves.
Hayes raised his six-shooter and fired. I do not know whether he meant to kill me or merely intimidate me, but the bullet burned my ear. I shot back without putting the rifle to my shoulder, and I think Providence must have directed that bullet, for it got Hayes. I saw him leering evilly, triumphantly through the smoke of his gun as I pressed the trigger; and the next instant he was stumbling, pitching forward, the triumph in his face replaced by stupid amazement.
I threw the lever forward and yanked it back. To my horror, the action jammed. Later, when I came to investigate, I found the empty shell caught by the breechblock.
If it had not been for the rifle jamming, I would have got Ballou or he would have got me. As it was, I could not shoot, and for reasons of his own he did not. I suppose he wanted to take me prisoner, following out the plan which my escape had upset.
"Get the Injun, George!" he cried. "The kid's mine!"
He pounced at me like an old fox for a young rabbit, and I don't think he expected much more trouble than the fox. But that was where he was wrong. Those of us who are getting along in years are continually making the same mistake of underestimating youth. Many a cunning, leathery old invincible has discovered when too late that the youngster in the opposite corner has the wind and the punch and the legs which more than offset experience. Not that I could have done very much if he had once got hold of me; but as his great, sinewy old hand grabbed for me I ducked and dodged, and as I did so I shoved the barrel of the useless rifle between his legs, so that he plunged forward like a landslide. But the jerk tore the weapon from my hands. I came up unarmed behind him, facing Ignace Mountain and Siwash George; and, beyond them, in the clear, three hundred yards away, running toward us at top speed, came Jim Dunleath and Dinny Pack, with Fothergill and Toft trailing in the rear hopelessly outdistanced but straining to be in it, too.
The old squaw man was just cutting down on the Indian with a six-shooter which he must have borrowed from somebody, for he had none when we left him. He was standing, legs wide apart, flat-footed, taking his time, making a sure thing of it. Not a dozen feet separated them. The Indian was crouching, bent-kneed, like a wrestler circling for an opening, his left arm extended, his right drawn back and around behind him. In the palm of that hand lay the big knife, the blade in a line with the fingers. But Siwash George could not see it at all.
"Shootin's too good for you!" he gritted. "You copper-hided murderer, I've a good notion to"
Then it happened. The Indian's right leg straightened like the snap of a spring, throwing his entire weight on his left foot. His right arm swept forward, stopping suddenly at the waistline, while the shoulder rose in a tremendous jerk. The eye could scarcely follow the knife as it flew. All I saw was a blurred streak, and then I heard a "sput" like the cut of the air beneath the wing of a frightened teal. And there stood Siwash George, wide-legged, flat-footed, gun in hand; but his head was back, and his mouth open for the air that would never be his to breathe, and the hilt of the buffalo knife was all that stood out from his throat.
Now this, which takes so long to tell, happened in no time at all, in fact before Ballou was on his feet again. He came up with a glare in his eyes like the old wolf that he was at heart. He saw Siwash George, and more than that Jim Dunleath and Pack coming, and he raised his rifle deliberately. For a moment the black ring covered me, and then shifted past me. I think he was going to get the Indian or perhaps Pack or Dunleath first. But just then there was the rush of feet and the crash of brush behind him, and Louis came through upon us. And Louis, of being the first of the crew from that side, was quite alone. He caught Ballou by the arm.
"Come 'long, Tom!" he cried. "Ron! We got for mak' dat get-away!"
"Run! What for?" Ballou demanded.
"For because dere's two canoe land wit' police!" Louis returned.
'We can stand 'em off!" snapped Ballou.
"Stand off not'ing!" roared Louis. "Are you going crazee? De boys, she's halfway on dat camp now. Me, I tak' beeg chance for tol' you. Stay if you lak." And, so saying, he plowed through the sweeping branches and was gone.
Just for a moment Ballou hung in the wind. I think he would have liked to shoot it out. The old, fierce blood of his youth had mounted to his brain. He put me in mind of an old wolf hemmed by hounds, snarling and full of light, despising them and yet knowing that they must pull him down. His eye met mine for an instant, and it cast the shadow of death. I know he was minded to kill me and the Indian and as many more as he could.
And then prudence got the upper hand. No doubt it was the name of the police which decided him, for from the boundary to the Arctic Sea there is no mercy for the man who raises his hand against them, and neither refuge nor rest for the man whose trail they take. And Ballou knew it well.
"I guess you get them furs, Bob, after all," he said, almost in his ordinary manner. "You won't see me on the Carcajou no more. Help yourself to what there is in the shack. So long!"
The fir boughs parted and swished shut as he went through them with the long, running stride of a moose, and that was the last I ever saw of him. I stood there looking after him stupidly, as Jim Dunleath and Dinny Pack tore in at the other side of the little bluff.