CHAPTER X
THREE MEN CALL FROM THE LITTLE GIANT
WILL STEELE, losing himself in the big forests, found life infinitely pleasant. Whatever business project had brought him here was shelved for the first few glorious days, shoved out of mind and replaced by each day's plan for enjoyment. With rifle on shoulder, line and hook and fly in his pocket and hat band, a small roll on his shoulders carrying both bed and larder, he left Turk Wilson and Bill Rice at the Goblet and plunged into the deepest of the south woods. The two men discharged by Beatrice Corliss were content to take Steele's wage, and as he nodded his "So long," their axes sent bright, white chips after him to mark the site of the cabin-to-be. It was while Beatrice and Embry were speeding on to Camp Corliss and Summit City that Steele turned southward into the North Fork of Long Cañon country.
Here was a land where he need fear no warning against trespassing, a land which still belonged to the wild because it was virtually inaccessible save to a man on foot, where seldom cattle were pushed because of an abundance of brush and a scarcity of readily reaped grass, where not yet, thank God, had the sheepman come. Yet there was a good trail and Steele followed it for several hours, having a desire for the companionable silences of French Meadows, a trail made and maintained by that silent, thoughtful eyed, capable son of the woods who is the California forest ranger. Here and there was the sign of his passing, the slanting bite of his axe blade blazing the way, infrequently the cloth notice with its black letters warning the hunter whose happy feet came herewards to be careful with his fires. For when Steele came to French Meadows he would be in the heart of one of the national forest preserves.
Fifteen or eighteen miles did Steele tramp that day. Three times in the forenoon his hand tightened hard on the grip of his rifle, the automatic response to the sight of a deer, and each time did he lower his gun without firing, a smile in his eyes. He did not need the meat and he found that he was in no mood for slaughter. So filled with the pulsing joy of life himself, he was without wish to drain the red flow from the throat of a single one of his fellow woodland beings.
At noon he idled over a cold lunch and a lingering pipe, lying for an hour flat on his back, staring up through the still, wide flung arms of the forest, listening to the quiet voices which make the deep silences what they are. At dusk, having crossed many a ridge and narrow cañon, he was in the upper end of French Meadows, with glooming, cliff sided mountains about him and French Creek racing by him eager for its long journey to the sea.
He cut many fir boughs with his belt hatchet, making his bed wide and thick and soft and warm. He made his fire and in the hush of the evening went whistling softly about his dinner-getting. Then, stretched out upon his blankets, he watched the first stars come out, and watching them went to sleep.
It was a full week, perhaps longer, before he so much as thought of returning to his eighty acres. He didn't count the days as they fled by, all golden sunshine and blue nights, any more than he sought to count the butterflies in the tiny meadows, or the cliffs or trees or stars. Never had he been more richly content than now; he didn't plan for the future, he didn't even think a great deal. He just emulated the environment into which he had come, loafed through the woods, lay stretched out luxuriously half in sun and half in shadow, ate and slept and lived quietly. He shot what game he needed, caught the fish which he required and grew every day browner, clearer eyed, more thankful that he had gone broke down in Mexico and had had this nook of the world waiting for him.
When his thoughts did go back along the trail which had brought him here they either clung brightly to Beatrice Corliss who, he admitted, interested him, darkly to Joe Embry whom he distrusted, or to Bill Rice and Turk who had his commands. He had emptied his pockets of his small pile of gold and silver into Bill Rice's hard palm, instructing him to buy what provisions and tools he and Turk required. He supposed that his men had lost no time in packing in a much needed supply, that they had now bacon and beans and flour, hammers, nails and saws, all in sufficient plenty, all purchased from the store at Camp Corliss or in Summit City. Toward the end of his idle sojourn in French Meadows he began to look forward with keen appetite to becoming acquainted with certain delicacies which he knew Rice and Turk would have considered necessities, tins of tomatoes and fruit, prunes and perchance a few cans of tamales and a bottle of beer. Such are the dreamings which draw men back from the trail and to the door of civilization. He even found himself longing for an impossible cup of fresh milk. When he awoke one morning with a craving for something to read, be it only an old newspaper, he recognized the summons and, having breakfasted, made into an exceedingly small package what provisions remained to him, rolled his bedding, took up his rifle and turned back toward the Goblet.
"It's been paradise for a week," was his way of regarding the matter, "No man can stand heaven for any longer than that. Now, maybe, we'll get a chance at the old thing."
Because in the woods it is the pleasant thing to go by one trail and return by another, Steele having come to a certain remembered forking of the ways turned off to the left, meaning to come back to the Goblet from the west and above, whereas he had left it going downstream and toward the east. The way he chose now was a mile or two longer, a little harder, but he had all day to devote to the handful of miles and still craved new wide spreading panoramas from new ridges. So, pure chance and a man's whim shaping the event, it came about that he did a very fortunate thing.
It was slow going at best and therefore the afternoon was well advanced when Steele came up over the ridge whence he could look down into the upper waters of Thunder River. Now, in gala mood, fancying a tin platter heaped high with good things to eat, his big voice booming out in one of his melodious but not entirely tuneful songs, he hurried on down the steep trail, only Thunder River's roar of sound capable of deadening news of his approach. Singing he came to the edge of his own little stretch of tableland, his eager eyes expecting a cabin well along towards completion. And what he saw was the well remembered plateau just as he had left it, with never a sign or hint of a cabin. He stopped suddenly, his eyes frowning.
The first suspicion was that Turk and Rice, going for supplies, had got drunk and stayed drunk, reckless with the little gold and silver he had given into their keeping. But he shook his head; they might get drunk, but he didn't believe they would do it on his money. It wasn't like Rice; he didn't believe that Turk was that sort, either. Then, catching a glimpse of two men through the trees, he went on with big strides, hot words forming to his tongue.
One of the men was Turk. He was squatting with his back to a tree, his face turned toward Steele. He had seen Steele, but gave no sign save for a tell-no-tales grin which came slowly to his heavy features. But the other man was not Rice; Steele was only a score of steps away, still advancing swiftly, when the fellow turned and Steele saw a big, lumbering, shaggy chap, all mouth and nose and wide ears, a rough looking customer if the mountains ever harboured one.
"Look out for him, Steele!" shouted Turk suddenly. "I'm all tied up."
In an instant Steele was in possession of the incredible fact that Turk's hands were bound with a bit of rope behind him, that another rope, run about his ankles, held him powerless. And, in the same flash, that the look of surprise upon the face of Turk's captor had changed swiftly to one of determination, that the big fellow had whirled and was running toward a tree against which an old rifle rested. …
"At him, Steele!" yelled Turk, straining at his ropes until his fiery complexion grew an ugly purple. "Don't let him get his gun!"
Steele's pack slipped from his back, falling behind him as he sprang forward. His own rifle was in his hands, clutched hard, but he had no desire of using it, being, as Bill Rice had said of him, a man who never turned his back on a fight, but one who had never yet been in the situation from which he could not free himself with his hands. As Turk's captor whipped up his gun Steele was upon him; as Turk, still straining frantically, half whimpered: "Oh, hell. He'll get the drop on you!" Steele shifted his own rifle to his left hand and struck out with his right. A hard fisted blow, driven with all of the force and all of the weight of Bill Steele, landing fair and square in another man's face; a blow to which there was but the one answer, promptly given: the rugged form of the newcomer upon Steele's land crumpled and fell to lie still, half stunned.
Steele, his eyes blazing, wheeled upon Turk.
"What in the name of idiocy does this mean?" he cried wonderingly. "Who is he? What the devil is he up to? Where's Rice?"
Turk, who in his struggle with his bonds had fallen forward, wriggled over and got his back again to his tree. The eyes turned upon his employer were eyes to measure a man, taking careful stock of him.
"I didn't think you could do it, Steele," he remarked gravely. "Not that-away, with your hands, jus' one wallop. Why, that's Johnnie Thorp, that's who it is!"
"Who's he?" demanded Steele curtly.
"He's the secon' best scrapper this side of hell," grunted Turk. "He figgered he was the firs' until jus' now, I reckon. Now, if you'll grab these ropes off'n me, I'll go slap 'em on him. … Look out!"
Johnnie Thorp, enraged, weak from the blow in his face, but not yet accounting himself beaten, was on his knees, his hands groping for the rifle in the grass. Steele swept it away from his clutching fingers, thrusting the man back.
"Damn you," muttered Thorp.
"A man like you, from the looks of you," returned Steele in hot contempt, "ought to be big enough to depend on his hands and leave this sort of sneaking gun play to the indoor sports. Now, stand up if you like and get your wind and I'll knock the eternal daylight out of you."
"Don't you do it, Steele!" warned Turk eagerly. "They'll get you if you do. There's two more of 'em, down trail a bit, waitin' for you to come in that away. Turn me loose, can't you?"
"And Rice?" demanded Steele sharply. "Have they got him, too?"
"No," said Turk. "They ain't. But if you don't hurry up—"
Thorp had turned and was making off downstream.
Steele, now that Turk's information put a new look upon matters, called to him sharply:
"None of that, Thorp. Come back here or I'll just naturally have to blow off that left hind leg of yours. I mean it, old man."
Thorp, turning to see the look in Steele's eyes, cursed but came back. It was Turk's own hands which, a moment later, ran a rope tight about Thorp's big wrists and thick ankles.
"Which is one of the happies' jobs I ever done," admitted Turk cheerfully. "Now, Steele, let's go get them other fresh guys."
Steele noted that Turk walked with a bad limp, further that his face was bruised and cut.
"The three of them jump you, Turk?" he asked quietly.
"Yep," answered Turk. "Let's go get 'em, Bill."
"And Rice?"
"Gone for grub an' stuff. Before they showed a-tall."
With a glance backward at the prone and cursing Johnnie Thorp they left him, Turk carrying Thorp's old rifle. Seeing the look in Turk's eyes Steele said firmly:
"I rather think this is my scrap by rights, Turk. Anyway I won't have any shooting that isn't necessary. I'd almost rather take a good two fisted licking than kill some poor devil."
"Huh!" grunted Turk, staring at him. "You haven't got mauled yet today by them guys, though."
As they went on down through the boulders, it appeared that Turk had had an ankle badly turned in the fight with Johnnie Thorp and his two companions, and now limping his best, he fell behind the eager Steele.
"Wait, can't you?" he expostulated over and over. "Oh, damn it, don't be a hawg, Steele. I got a right to be in on this from the jump."
"You've had more than your share already," grinned Steele over his shoulder.
The brief struggle with the man who now lay cursing on the plateau behind him, coming all unexpectedly, had set his blood racing, his pulses hammering. Not in anger … there had been scant time for anger and he had never so much as laid eyes upon the bulk of Johnnie Thorp before … but impelled by the sheer force of immediate necessity, had he driven his fist into a man's face. Now, still not in anger, but in wonderment and with rising, solidifying determination in every heart beat, he strode on to demand a reckoning of the two men who waited for him, facing the other way in the lower trail. His rifle he carried loosely in his hand, trusting that if he were forced to use it at all it might be as a club merely. At the moment the emotion riding him was purely pleasurable; in the man like Bill Steele there lives on to the last the boy who loves a fair fight.
On the rim of the little meadow where his freed horse now browsed Steele saw them. Two men, one stretched out on the ground, leaning on his elbow, the other humped over where he sat on a rock, their eyes turned the other way, looking toward the trail which led southward and to French Meadows. Steele paused, waiting for Turk.
"See them?" he asked quietly. "Got a camp here, have they?"
"Been here two nights," returned Turk, his eyes with Steele's on the men down below. "Had me tied up since las' night. We can get the drop on 'em from here, Steele, make 'em throw up their hands an'—"
"And be forced to let them go or drop them when they start to make a break for it," cut in Steele. "Have they got any side arms, Turk?"
"Nope. Jus' one rifle, besides this'n."
"And that's leaning against a tree over there," said Steele, pointing. "They're mighty dead sure sort of cusses, figuring a man has got to travel back the same trail he went out on. Come ahead, Turk, and if you don't fall down, the river will cover any noise we make."
Slipping among trees and boulders, they drew nearer. The two men were talking, but the sound of their voices did not carry to Steele and Turk until they were within a score of paces of the meadow's edge. Steele, with a wink at Turk which set that individual staring again, put his rifle down quietly and nodded to Turk to do the same. One of the two men turned. …
There was a startled cry as the fellow lying down whipped to his feet and stared, doubly taken aback at seeing Turk freed and lumbering forward and witnessing the approach of a man who must be Steele, but who came from the west when he should come from the southeast. It was just that little shock of surprise, bringing with it a brief moment of hesitation, that decided a matter of some moment there in the woods that pleasant afternoon. The other man upon the rock had sprung to his feet at his companion's cry and Steele saw that the two of them, like Johnnie Thorp, were big, man-sized men, the sort to be chosen for just such work as had brought them here. Then, Turk with a little gurgling, throaty curse, Steele with the joyous whoop of some battle waging wild man, the two of them had leaped forward, their eager hands out, rushing in between their visitors and the lone rifle. And, the moment of hesitation over, they were met body to body, unflinchingly, by men who knew how to fight and were not afraid.
Turk, his wounded ankle failing him, stumbled just as his knotted fist sought a flushed, bearded face, pitched forward and went down with another knotted fist driving at his jaw and striking him high on the forehead. Steele saw this, saw that Turk had rolled over and grasped with both hands the knees of the man above him, seeking at once to draw himself up and the other down. Then, for a little, Steele saw nothing in the wide world but that other man who had sprung forward to meet his onrush.
A pretty even match in most things were Bill Steele and Tom Hardy, two men who, physically, might have been twin brothers, both big and hard and fearless and quick, both long of arm, steady of eye, deep breasted. From the moment that Turk Wilson's great arms tightened about the legs of his antagonist, drawing him relentlessly down, there was no doubt of the outcome there. For in Turk's wide shouldered, squat, ungainly form there was twice the endurance and power that was to be met in the man who beat and hammered at him, in Turk's soul there was room for two emotions only, rage and confidence. But Steele and Tom Hardy, meeting squarely, both on their feet, both glimpsing a little of what the next few moments might offer, the issue was in doubt until the end. Which came swiftly enough, even so.
For frequently it chances that the battle royal between two mighty belligerents is sooner done with than the stand-off and spar of lesser forces. A pair of chipmunks may quarrel all day while the grapple of two mountain cats must perforce find a quicker conclusion. The very force with which Steele and Tom Hardy met, the shock of their big panting bodies, precluded thought of a long drawn issue.
Smite, be smitten and smite back again, such is the way that men know how to fight in the land about Hell's Goblet. Strike, strike hard, ignoring all the subtle arts of artificial fistic encounter, for a blow on the cheek return a blow to the jaw, for a cut and bleeding mouth pay back in the coin of a bruised and battered eye, seeking always and always the one consummation of putting the other man down, down to stay.
Turk Wilson's long arms had passed upward along a man's legs, found his thighs, at last wrapped about a heaving body. The two were down, had rolled out into the meadow ten feet away, where they threshed about in a strange sort of silence. Only the beating of arms and legs, the hammering of hard fists, to tell that the two writhing bodies were endowed with purpose and grim earnestness. Then, at last, there was Turk Wilson squatting in his old familiar way, this time on top of a man who lay still under Turk's big, hard hands, while Turk's red rimmed eyes sought Steele.
"Go to it, Bill," cried Turk encouragingly. "I got ol' Pete all sewed up fine. You get Tom now …"
Steele, under a terrific blow, had gone reeling backward, down the slope, saved from falling only by the tree whose trunk his labouring shoulders struck. And Steele, with a twisted sort of laugh from battered lips, was shouting:
"Good shot, old boy. Nearly got me that trip!"
Turk tightened his grip warningly upon the throat under him.
"Lay still, can't you, Pete? " he demanded angrily. "Look at that man Steele! He's laughin'! Laughin', I tell you. An' … Attaboy! Attaboy, Bill! Give him hell!"
For Tom Hardy had leaped forward, charging down hill upon Steele, and Steele had sprung to one side and whipped about and struck out and in the twinkling of an eye Hardy was lower down on the slope, Steele above and, in turn, charging downward. And while Turk chuckled and grasped Pete's throat, urging him to watch, oblivious of the fact that all that Pete could see was the insect life in the grass, the fight on the slope was ended. For Steele, seeing his chance, had hurled his body through the air upon Tom Hardy's, striking him both in bulging chest and flushed face, throwing him backward to stagger and trip and fall prone, heavily. And, in that dizzy moment before he could rise, Steele was upon him, Steele's hands, like Turk's, commanding peace.
"We're not doing this just for fun, are we?" panted Steele, though not yet had all trace of good humour gone from his face. "Lie still, or I'll just have to put you out with one smash on the jaw."
"Damn it," grunted Tom Hardy. But with aching head, dizzy brain and a view of what stood in Steele's eyes, he lay still.
"Which," came Turk Wilson's voice thoughtfully, "is puttin' over the firs' trick on the Young Queen! Huh, Steele? Say, Pete, will you lay still long enough so's I can bite off a chaw tobacca?"
"What do you mean by that, Turk?" demanded Steele sharply. For, given until now little enough time for reflection, he had not so much as thought of Beatrice Corliss.
"Sure," said Turk. "Whoa, Pete! Ain't you got no sense a-tall? Have I got to twis' your tail any more to make you rec'lec' who's ridin' you? You see," and it became evident that he was again addressing his employer, "Tom Hardy, what you're settin' on his wish bone, an' Pete Olsen what I'm breakin* in, an' ol' Johnnie Thorp, is all three Little Giant men, her men."