Back to God's Country and Other Stories - James Oliver Curwood (summer reads .txt) 📗

as if to ward off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the effort brought a groan of agony to his lips. A second crash filled his ears as a second avalanche of fiery debris plunged down upon the trail farther back. He stared straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues of flame were leaping over the wall of the mountain where the edge of the forest was enveloped in a sea of twisting and seething fire. It was only a matter of minutes—perhaps seconds. Death had them both in its grip.

He looked again at O’Grady, and there was no longer the desire for the other’s life in his heart. He could see that the giant was unharmed, except for his eyes.

“Listen, O’Grady,” he cried. “My legs are broken, I guess, and I can’t move. It’s sure death to stay here another minute. You can get away. Follow the wall—to your right. The slope is still free of fire, and—and—”

O’Grady began to move, guiding himself slowly along the wall. Then, suddenly, he stopped.

“Jan Larose—you say you can’t move?” he shouted.

“Yes.”

Slowly O’Grady turned and came gropingly toward the sound of Jan’s voice. Jan held tight to the rock that he had gripped in his left hand. Was it possible that O’Grady would kill him now, stricken as he was? He tried to drag himself to a new position, but his effort was futile.

“Jan! Jan Larose!” called O’Grady, stopping to listen.

Jan held his breath. Then the truth seemed to dawn upon O’Grady. He laughed, differently than he had laughed before, and stretched out his arms.

“My God, Jan,” he cried, “you don’t think I’m clean BEAST, do you? The fight’s over, man, an’ I guess God A’mighty brought this on us to show what fools we was. Where are y’, Jan Larose? I’m goin’ t’ carry you out!”

“I’m here!” called Jan.

He could see truth and fearlessness in O’Grady’s sightless face, and he guided him without fear. Their hands met. Then O’Grady lowered himself and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have lifted a boy. He straightened himself and drew a deep breath, broken by a stabbing throb of pain.

“I’m blind an’ I won’t see any more,” he said, “an’ mebbe you won’t ever walk any more. But if we ever git to that gold I kin do the work and you kin show me how. Now—p’int out the way, Jan Larose!”

With his arms clasped about O’Grady’s naked shoulders, Jan’s smarting eyes searched through the thickening smother of fire and smoke for a road that the other’s feet might tread. He shouted “Left”—“right”—“right”—“right”—“left” into this blind companion’s ears until they touched the wall. As the heat smote them more fiercely, O’Grady bowed his great head upon his chest and obeyed mutely the signals that rang in his ears. The bottoms of his moccasins were burned from his feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his broad chest was a fiery blister, and yet he strode on straight into the face of still greater heat and greater torture, uttering no sound that could be heard above the steady roar of the flames. And Jan, limp and helpless on his back, felt then the throb and pulse of a giant life under him, the straining of thick neck, of massive shoulders and the grip of powerful arms whose strength told him that at last he had found the comrade and the man in Clarry O’Grady. “Right”—“left”—“left”—“right” he shouted, and then he called for O’Grady to stop in a voice that was shrill with warning.

“There’s fire ahead,” he yelled. “We can’t follow the wall any longer. There’s an open space close to the chasm. We can make that, but there’s only about a yard to spare. Take short steps—one step each time I tell you. Now—left—left—left—left—”

Like a soldier on drill, O’Grady kept time with his scorched feet until Jan turned him again to face the storm of fire, while one of his own broken legs dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the Chippewayan had plunged to their death. Behind them, almost where they had fought, there crashed down a third avalanche from the edge of the mountain. Not a shiver ran through O’Grady’s great body. Steadily and unflinchingly—step—step—step—he went ahead, while the last threads of his moccasins smoked and burned. Jan could no longer see half a dozen yards in advance. A wall of black smoke rose in their faces, and he pulled O’Grady’s ear:

“We’ve got just one chance, Clarry. I can’t see any more. Keep straight ahead—and run for it, and may the good God help us now!”

And Clarry O’Grady, drawing one great breath that was half fire into his lungs, ran straight into the face of what looked like death to Jan Larose. In that one moment Jan closed his eyes and waited for the plunge over the cliff. But in place of death a sweep of air that seemed almost cold struck his face, and he opened his eyes to find the clear and uncharred slope leading before them down to the edge of the lake. He shouted the news into O’Grady’s ear, and then there arose from O’Grady’s chest a great sobbing cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, and more than all else of that terrible grief which came of the knowledge that back in the pit of death from which he had escaped he had left forever the vision of life itself. He dropped Jan in the edge of the water, and, plunging in to his waist, he threw handful after handful of water into his own swollen face, and then stared upward, as though this last experiment was also his last hope.

“My God, I’m blind—stone blind!”

Jan was staring hard into O’Grady’s face. He called him nearer, took the swollen and blackened face between his two hands, and his voice was trembling with joy when he spoke.

“You’re not blind—not for good—O’Grady,” he said. “I’ve seen men like you before—twice. You—you’ll get well. O’Grady—Clarry O’Grady—let’s shake! I’m a brother to you from this day on. And I’m glad—glad—that Marie loves a man like you!”

O’Grady had gripped his hand, but he dropped it now as though it had been one of the live brands that had hurtled down upon them from the top of the mountain.

“Marie—man—why—she HATES me!” he cried. “It’s you—YOU—Jan Larose, that she loves! I went there with a broken leg, an’ I fell in love with her. But she wouldn’t so much as let me touch her hand, an’ she talked of you—always—always—until I had learned to hate you before you came. I dunno why she did it—that other thing—unless it was to make you jealous. I guess it was all f’r fun, Jan. She didn’t know. The day you went away she sent me after you. But I hated you—hated you worse’n she hated me. It’s you—you—”

He clutched his hands at his sightless face again, and suddenly Jan gave a wild shout. Creeping around the edge of a smoking headland, he had caught sight of a man and a canoe.

“There’s a man in a canoe!” he cried, “He sees us! O’Grady—”

He tried to lift himself, but fell back with a groan. Then he laughed, and, in spite of his agony, there was a quivering happiness in his voice.

“He’s coming, O’Grady. And it looks—it looks like a canoe we both know. We’ll go back to her cabin together, O’Grady. And when we’re on our legs again—well, I never wanted the gold. That’s yours—all of it.”

A determined look had settled in O’Grady’s face. He groped his way to Jan’s side, and their hands met in a clasp that told more than either could have expressed of the brotherhood and strength of men.

“You can’t throw me off like that, Jan Larose,” he said. “We’re pardners!”

THE MATCH

Sergeant Brokaw was hatchet-faced, with shifting pale blue eyes that had a glint of cruelty in them. He was tall, and thin, and lithe as a cat. He belonged to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and was one of the best men on the trail that had ever gone into the North. His business was man hunting. Ten years of seeking after human prey had given to him many of the characteristics of a fox. For six of those ten years he had represented law north of fifty-three. Now he had come to the end of his last hunt, close up to the Arctic Circle. For one hundred and eighty-seven days he had been following a man. The hunt had begun in midsummer, and it was now midwinter. Billy Loring, who was wanted for murder, had been a hard man to find. But he was caught at last, and Brokaw was keenly exultant. It was his greatest achievement. It would mean a great deal for him down at headquarters.

In the rough and dimly lighted cabin his man sat opposite him, on a bench, his manacled hands crossed over his knees. He was a younger man than Brokaw—thirty, or a little better. His hair was long, reddish, and untrimmed. A stubble of reddish beard covered his face. His eyes, too, were blue—of the deep, honest blue that one remembers, and most frequently trusts. He did not look like a criminal. There was something almost boyish in his face, a little hollowed by long privation. He was the sort of man that other men liked. Even Brokaw, who had a heart like flint in the face of crime, had melted a little.

“Ugh!” he shivered. “Listen to that beastly wind! It means three days of storm.” Outside a gale was blowing straight down from the Arctic. They could hear the steady moaning of it in the spruce tops over the cabin, and now and then there came one of those raging blasts that filled the night with strange shrieking sounds. Volleys of fine, hard snow beat against the one window with a rattle like shot. In the cabin it was comfortable. It was Billy’s cabin. He had built it deep in a swamp, where there were lynx and fisher cat to trap, and where he had thought that no one could find him. The sheet-iron stove was glowing hot. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling. Billy was sitting so that the glow of this fell in his face. It scintillated on the rings of steel about his wrists. Brokaw was a cautious man, as well as a clever one, and he took no chances.

“I like storms—when you’re inside, an’ close to a stove,” replied Billy. “Makes me feel sort of—safe.” He smiled a little grimly. Even at that it was not an unpleasant smile.

Brokaw’s snow-reddened eyes gazed at the other.

“There’s something in that,” he said. “This storm will give you at least three days more of life.”

“Won’t you drop that?” asked the prisoner, turning his face a little, so that it was shaded from the light.

“You’ve got me now, an’ I know what’s coming as well as you do.” His voice was low and quiet, with the faintest trace of a broken note in it, deep down in his throat. “We’re alone, old man, and a long way from anyone. I ain’t blaming you for catching me. I haven’t got anything against you. So let’s drop this other thing—what I’m going down to—and talk something pleasant. I know I’m going to hang. That’s the law. It’ll be pleasant enough when it comes, don’t you think? Let’s talk about—about—home. Got any kids?”

Brokaw shook his head, and took his pipe from his mouth.

“Never married,” he said shortly.

“Never married,” mused Billy, regarding him with a curious softening of his blue eyes. “You don’t know what you’ve missed, Brokaw. Of course, it’s none of my business, but you’ve got a home—somewhere—” Brokaw shook his head