CHAPTER XIII.
“What time is it now?”
Sparhawk's voice, feeble and hoarse, aroused us. It was not daylight, and I struck a match, and looked at my watch. It was nearly eight o'clock in the morning. I hastily crawled from my warm robe, and reached for the kindling, and thrust it into the little stove, and set fire to it. It was bitterly, bitingly cold, with that dead still cold that seems almost to stab.
“I didn't want you to get up on my account,” Sparhawk went on, in his labored voice, “but I jest wanted to know the time. I've been thinkin' a lot.”
“Well, suppose you try to go to sleep again,” I said. “It will be warmer in a minute or two, and I'll get that broth working, and wake you when it is good and hot.”
“No use,” he said; but, as if reassured by my friendly presence, and comforted by the warmth so quickly making the little tent comfortable, he was soon sleeping again, and I cautiously made preparations for breakfast.
Kentucky, after turning restlessly to get his face away from the light of the candle, began snoring. I went outside the tent, where the stars were still shining, and the dogs, as if tired by their night of restlessness, were now mere black spots in the holes which Kentuck had scooped for them in the snow. I did not arouse Kentuck until the breakfast was ready, for I surmised that we should be compelled to lay up here for mere humanity's sake, until Sparhawk was better, alive or dead. It was hard that we should have come so far to such an unfortunate end, spelling failure, probably; for one to pass on in such a crisis as this must have a heart of stone. And the food! It was getting scarcer by so many pounds each day.
We finished our breakfast, and fed the dogs, and it was daylight before Sparhawk awoke. I gave him the steaming broth again, and he made a feeble effort to smoke, but it was the effort of the mind trying to resume habit, and he soon tossed the cigarette to one side. He looked up at us, and I saw that his eyes had even a less virile fire than on the night before. The man was dying, and he knew it, and faced it.
“Any wolf signs?” he suddenly asked.
“Why, no. None that we have seen,” Kentuck answered.
“And it ain't snowed none since—since I've been here?”
“No, the trails are still clear and sharp.”
“Then I want you to get 'em and bury 'em. That is, put 'em up in the trees where the wolves can't get 'em,” he said, and Kentuck and I stared at him, wondering if his mind had been delivered to delirium.
“Who do you mean?” I asked, bending forward, and looking at him.
“Royce, my pardner, and that squaw, Mary.”
We were on our knees now, and looking at him open-mouthed.
“Yes, they're dead,” he added. “You'll find Royce just out at the edge of this patch of trees, on the north side. Then, farther to the east, I think you'll find her. Both shot. Go and see, won't you? I could rest better, it seems to me, knowin' that they've been—been cared for. They've been askin' me to see to it, when I was here alone, goin' out and starvin' because I didn't have strength to do more than grab raw oatmeal and bacon, and put on a little more of the wood. Royce was always great for cuttin' wood. He always piled enough up in each camp to last a week. I owe him that much.”
We hurried out of the tent after refilling the stove to its capacity, and made our way toward the northern part of the timber. The dogs began to howl again, that same unearthly call of requiem. We had not far to look. There were tracks where men had run backward and forward, as if dodging behind trees, two freshly cut stumps where Royce had cut wood, and then we found his body. It was doubled up behind a tree, with the face in the snow, with a rifle lying beside it. He had two bullet wounds, as we could make out from the stains on the snow, and such examination as could be made of him under conditions.
“Let's get him into the crotch of a tree,” Kentuck said softly, and we adopted that primitive method, in the bitter cold, of giving him the most fitting tomb we could master. We carried him far away from the camp where he had died, however, as we did not know how long we might be there. Three of the dogs howled dismally as we passed them, but the fourth lay still and inert, lifting a slow head, and running out a tongue that was not red. Even in that moment of gruesomeness, I noticed it with a sinking of the heart, for it meant that another dog, one of my original lot, was doomed; but I said nothing to Kentucky as we lifted that frozen body up into the branches after emptying the pockets, lashed it to the limbs laid in the boughs, and left it to its rest.
“He said to the east,” Kentuck muttered, as we retraced our steps. “I wonder how it all happened! Poor girl! The 'Big Chicken' I called her in a joke. Now I must call her Mary. It seems more fitting.”
We began circling along the outer edge of the trees, seeking, yet dreading to find, that second relic of a tragedy which we could not understand. She was there, laid out on the snow, with her arms folded; but, to our surprise, a breastwork of fallen trees, almost impregnable, had been barricaded across her form to protect her from the ravages of beasts. We tore them away, and spent an hour constructing such a rest as we could between the trees, and then went back to the tent, and found a blanket, in which we bound her body as we lifted her up to that crude sepulcher. Her face was unmarred, and her eyes were closed. She had been shot from behind, and death must have been instantaneous. For this at least we were glad that she had passed without suffering; but we wondered why or how.
“I'm goin' to do one thing more,” Kentuck said softly, “before we leave here. I'm goin' to make a cross for her. You see, I knew her, and she was Constantine's sister. He'd like it better if he knew that she was put to rest like a Christian; like some one who had been to school at Holy Cross Mission.”
I agreed with him, and we cut two saplings that we could take into the tent, thaw, and peel, for that humble headmark of the young woman who had paid her life for the red gold. I do not think we felt as much sympathy for Royce, of whose antecedents we had heard nothing creditable, and of whose end we were still unaware. But it did seem hard that this Indian girl should have delivered her life so uselessly, when but a few weeks before we had seen her dancing vainly with the gaudy moccasins in a smoke-filled hut back in the camp. The camp! That was hundreds of mile? away, and now seemed the heart of civilization fully developed!
It was after noon by the time we had performed these simple services for the dead, and we went back to the tent, and warmed water for our hands, and piled more fuel in the stove, which, from time to time, we had replenished.
“You—you put 'em away? Put 'em away right, did you? I heard your axes.” Sparhawk rolled his head feebly toward me and asked.
“Yes. In the very best way we could.”
“I'm glad. I think it makes it easier for me. And—say—you'll do as much for me?”
“If we have to; but, pshaw! You haven't left us yet! Brace up.”
“Oh, what's the use in your tryin' to con me? I know! I'm 'most in. You can go to cuttin' the poles now. It won't bother me. I'm ready to go. The game's over.”
In the face of that brave submission I could not dissemble with false, encouraging words, for I knew, as well as did he, that it was a matter of but a few hours. He did not say anything more until we had made our meal, and I had examined and done what I could for the stricken dog. But that loss to ourselves, vital as it was, was forgotten in the recollection of the graver tragedies which we had brought to a close. Sparhawk recurred to it himself, and all the time his strength was rapidly failing.
“A buck up at Fort Hamlin told me and Royce about this red gold and its cuss,” he said, looking at me as I sat beside him. “We came down to Neucloviat, hopin' to find out somethin' about it. Then we heard that Barstow was dead, and about give up. Mary and her brother comes back. She shows up with the moccasins with the nuggets on 'em, and she tells Royce that the woman that dies told her what Barstow had said about his findin' the gold, and where it was; but she won't tell Royce; He plans to marry her, but along comes this Hatchet.”
He twisted in his blankets with pain, and I tried to make him more comfortable; but he was querulous, and wanted to finish his story. Perhaps as a vindication of his own part in the affair.
“The Hatchet and Royce sized each other up. The buck knew that Royce was after the girl, and he was after her, and I guess it was for the same reason—to find where that cussed gold came from. I wish to Heaven we'd never heard of it! But she takes to the Sioux. You remember that night-at the dance? Well, Royce was for killin' him then. I wish I'd have let him do it. I was an idiot that I didn't!
“We found that the Hatchet had won her, and says Royce to me: 'We'll watch the buck. He's after the gold, because he knows what gold'll do. We'll watch the buck!' So from that time we never paid no attention to this Mary, but the Hatchet couldn't cook a bean without our knowin' it. Royce and me took turns. Maybe the Hatchet knew it. I'm not sure that he did, or that he didn't. If he did he showed some guts, because he kept his trap shut, and just led us on, and on, till he got us where he wanted us.
“We saw him pull out, and he met the girl down by the Ramparts. It was all made up, I guess, between them. We went back to the camp, and got our dogs and outfit, which had been lashed to the sled for a week, just waitin' for this. We kept behind 'em all the time, and the Hatchet either let on he didn't know we were follerin' him, or kept from showin' it. He took us farther than we reckoned he would go, but we hung on like coyotes on a herd.
“By and by we got careless like, and one of our dogs died, and the wolves got another, and we had to leave one, and it was hard sleddin'. The wolves was around us nearly all the time. They'd come nights, out in the woods, lean and hungry, and try to get the dogs; but we always drove 'em off. Maybe it was the shots let the Hatchet know he was bein' chased. I don't know about that. Then we camped here. Some time. I don't know when. It seems like three or four years ago, now.
“We killed one of our last dogs to feed the others. Grub was gettin' scarcer all the time. We got up in the mornin' to break camp. Royce goes out to see whether the wind's come up to fin the Hatchet's trail. I was in the tent. He yells for me, and I knows by the sound somethin's wrong. I runs out. Bing! goes a rifle off in that patch of timber you'll see about a hundred yards ahead, and Royce begins to run back toward the tent. He runs in, and says to me: It's the Hatchet. He's after us.'
“Then he grabs his rifle, and starts back out. He makes it to the trees where you found him, and I'm tryin' to see where the Sioux is. There was another crack, and I heard Royce yell: 'Get your gun! Quick! He's plugged me!' I runs back to the tent, and while I'm inside I hears another shot or two, and then, when I comes out, there's an other, and Royce, my pardner, is crumplin' up like a busted egg, and the rifle falls out of his hand. I'm sore, and run to see if I can help him, when I hear another shot, and a bail takes past my head.
“Well, that made me hotter'n ever, and I ran outside the woods to see. There stands the Hatchet, with his gun up, takin' aim at me. I gets behind a tree, just as he shoots, although it's no bigger'n your thumb.”
Sparhawk stopped to cough in the ghastly, broken-lunged cough of a dying man, and it was a full three minutes before we could get him comfortable again, and then he laid there for some time, gasping, before he spoke.
“Where was I? Oh, yes. About the Hatchet. He started back toward the woods, as if tryin' to draw me out. He did, because I was sore, so sore I'd have gone to hell to have felt his sorrel throat in my hands. The trees was in the way, so I stepped to the open. I lifts the rifle to shoot, and just as my finger was on the trigger somethin' happened. I heard a yell! It was that Mary, and she run out and got between me and him before I could stop my finger. I could have shot myself when I see her fall. I hadn't nothin' agin' her. I sort of liked her. And there she went down, like a sack of salt with the bottom cut, slow like.
“I dropped my gun down and cussed, and would have gone over to see how bad she was hurt. The Hatchet is above her. I don't look at him. I'm sorry for her. Then comes something that knocks me over, there's a streak of red fire through me, and as I fall the sound of a shot. That Hatchet's got me!
“I don't know what it was made me lie still when somethin' kicked me in the ribs. Maybe because I was too weak to open my eyes, and didn't care. I knew without lookin' at him that the Hatchet did it, and that he was standin' there over me to see whether I was done for or not. I reckon he thought I was, for he went on over, and from where I could lay I saw he done the same to poor old Royce. He's a ravin' madman, and is mutterin' to himself. He gets our ax, and I hear him slashin', and I worked my hand up, and stuffed my parka into the hole he'd drilled in me, and waited.
“I guess I went off onct or twice, and it's a wonder I didn't cash in then. When I come to I heard an ax, then it stopped, and through my eyewinkers I see the Hatchet make for the tent, as if he was in a hurry, He takes what he wants, grabs our other two dogs, and away he goes, stoppin' only onct, and that was when he passed the place where Mary lay. Then he went on. I waited a long time. The cold had kind of stopped the blood. I crawled back to where my pardner was. Already he was cold. It took me an hour to make the tent, and when I come to the next time, I was about froze. There was coals left, and I put in some of the pile of wood Royce had cut, and got into the blankets, and went off again.”
He coughed violently, and Kentucky threw more wood into the stove, and handed me the flask, as if suggesting that it might prolong Sparhawk's life. I gave the dying man another dram of it, and he strengthened momentarily, and went on, as if eager to be through:
“It seemed to me it must have been a year that I was here alone, with them outside there in the cold, and me crawlin' out to get the last of the sticks Royce had cut. I know'd I had to make 'em last a long time, because I was too weak to cut any more, and so, sometimes for what seemed like two or three days, I'd let the fire go out after I'd clawed off a piece of blanket to make another start with. Sometimes I think I slept a week.
“Things began to come to the tent—the Hatchet, Mary askin' me to tell Constantine, and Royce sayin', 'The wolves'll get me if you don't get up and make a cache. You ain't goin' to leave me out there in the cold, are you, pard?' and then I'd try to get up, and fall over again. And I couldn't cook stuff, because I was too tired, and it hurt too bad, and I ate the grub raw. And a lot of fellers I know'd down in the Cœur d'Alenes, men that's been dead a long time, came and sat around the blankets, and talked, and said I was about due, and then it didn't seem so bad, and everything got blurred like, and I felt better. All I had to do was to put in a stick of wood now and then, rememberin' all the time that when it was gone I was done for, and I didn't care so much, at that.”
He was babbling again, and Kentucky got up and went outside, as if he could not endure the sound, while I sat by his side, and tried to soothe him. His mind ran on the trail and other actions. Sparhawk was one of the dynamiters, all right. I learned that while I sat there by his side at the end. It came late at night, and was preceded by clarity, that strange gift of God, as if He lends time for review to those whose lives are done.
It was late, and still, and cold outside, snapping cold, when Sparhawk suddenly lifted himself to his elbows, and said, in a hollow, far-away voice, as if he were already speaking from beyond the pale:
“I'm goin' now. And I'm not afraid! It's the Hatchet's winning. He's got his satisfaction. He's gone on after the gold—the red gold that was the kind on the moccasins, and it'll do him no good. Hell itself made it red, and it'll redden the lives of all them that goes after it! You've stood by me, and—thanks!”
He dropped back before that final word was spoken, and it came fluttering from his lips to pass unheard in a silence less profound than that which engulfed us as we vainly tried to revive him, there in the cold heart of the arctic wastes and the arctic night, and the candle, steadily burning in its stick, showed that he had died with a cynical leer on his face, as if ridiculing us for our quest, and for the very act of pausing to be with him in the end.
Had either of us been in his place, and he in ours, he might have passed on callously, justifying himself with the reasoning that to pause would not prolong life, and that sooner or later all men must die. Hard had he lived, and hard did he die, up there in the end of the world, and we knew that from then on the trail would have but one set of sled marks, and one of moccasins', to the very end, whatever that might be.