The Promise Page 43

  CHAPTER XLII

  BUCKING THE STORM

  Bill Carmody wheeled against the solid rock wall and frantically felthis way along its broken surface. His groping hands encountered a cleftbarely wide enough to admit the passage of a man's body.

  With a final effort he called again; instantly the high, clear tones ofthe boy's voice rang in his ears from the depths of the rock cavern,and the next moment small hands were tugging at his armpits.

  "Oh! Bill, I knew you would come!" a small voice cried close to hisear. "It was my last three shots. I've been shooting every little whilefor hours and hours. Hold on! We've got to take off your snowshoes;they won't come through the door."

  A few minutes later the man sat upon the hard floor of the cave whichreeked of the rank animal odor of a long-used den. The place was bareof snow and he leaned back against a soft, furry body while the boyrattled on:

  "I killed the _loup-cervier_! I chased him in here and shot him rightsquare through the head. And he never kicked--just slunked down in aheap and dropped his rabbit. And now, if we had some matches, we couldbuild a fire--if we had some wood--and cook him. I'm hungry--aren'tyou?"

  The boy's utter disregard of the real seriousness of their plight, andthe naive way in which he accepted the coming of his friend as a matterof course, irritated the man, who listened in scowling silence.

  "Blood River Jack _was_ right," Charlie went on. "I thought he justwanted a chance to sleep for a day. Pretty good storm, isn't it? Say,Bill, how did he know it was going to snow?"

  "Look here, young man," Bill replied wrathfully, "do you realize thatwe are in a mighty bad fix, right this minute? And that it is yourfault? And that there was only about one chance in a thousand that Iwould find you? And that if we ever get out of this, and your UncleAppleton don't give you a darn good whaling, I _will_?" The man felt asmall body press close against him in the darkness.

  "Honest, Bill, I'm sorry," a subdued voice answered. "I thought Jackwas fooling, and I _did_ want to show 'em I could kill something biggerthan a rabbit. You aren't mad, are you, Bill? I hope Eth won't worry;we'll prob'ly have to stay here all night, won't we?"

  "All night! Won't worry! Don't you know that this is a _regular_blizzard--the kind that kills men at their own doors--and that it maylast for a week? And here we are with no fire-wood, and nothing to eat!The chances are mighty good that we'll never see camp again--and youpipe up and hope your sister won't worry!"

  Charlie leaned over closer against Carmody's body.

  "Why, we've _got_ to get back, Bill!" he said, and his voice was veryearnest now. "We're all Eth's got--you and me--and she _needs_ us."

  The boy felt a sudden tightening of the muscles beneath the heavymackinaw, and the quick gasp of an indrawn breath. A big arm stoleabout his shoulders. The harshness was gone from Bill's voice, and whenhe spoke the sound fell softly upon the culprit's ears.

  "Sure, kid, we'll get back. Buck up! We've got a fighting chance, andthat's all we need--men like you and me. Life up here is a hard game,kid, but we're no quitters! This is just one of the rough places in thelong, long trail.

  "And, say, kid--just man to man--I want you always to remember_that_--she needs you--and some day she may need you _bad_. This St.Ledger may be all right, but----"

  "St. Ledger!" The voice of the boy cut sharply upon the darkness. "Say,Bill, you aren't going to marry Blood River Jack's sister, are you?"

  "What!"

  "Why, Blood River Jack's sister, you know, that helped fish you out ofthe river."

  "Lord! _No!_ What ever put that into your head?"

  "Blood River Jack told us when we were coming out about you--only wedidn't know it was _you_, then. And he said that his sister was pretty,and she loved you, and she went down the river with you for three orfour days, or something. And Eth thinks you love this half-breed girl.And, maybe, if you did marry her, Eth would marry St. Ledger; but shedon't love him."

  Bill sat suddenly erect, and the arm about the boy's shoulder tightenedand shook him roughly.

  "Look here! How do you know? I read an account of their engagement 'wayalong last winter."

  "That was a _dang lie_! 'Cause I was in the den when she called St.Ledger up about it. She gave him the darndest talking to he ever got,and she told him she never would marry him as long as she lived. AndEth _does_ love you! And you ought to heard her stick up for you whenold----"

  The boy stopped abruptly, suddenly remembering his uncle's injunctionof silence. "There's an old dead tree right close to the door of thecave," he added hastily. "We might get some wood off that."

  "What were you saying?" inquired Bill. "Never mind the wood."

  "Nothing--I forget, I mean. Come on, let's get some wood--I'm hungry."

  And in spite of his most persistent efforts, not another word couldBill Carmody get out of the youngster, except the mournful soliloquythat:

  "I bet Uncle Appleton _will_ whale me--anyway, he couldn't whale ashard as you."

  In the thick blackness of the storm the man groped blindly near thesnow-choked entrance to the den, guided in his search for the dead treeby the voice of the boy from the interior.

  It was no easy task to twist off the dead limbs and carry them one byone to the cavern where the boy piled them against the wall. At length,however, it was accomplished, and Bill crept in and whittled a pile offine shavings.

  A few minutes later the flicker of a tiny flame flashed up, theshavings ignited, and the narrow cavity lighted to the crackle of thefire. Together they skinned the rabbit which the dead lynx had dropped,and soon they were busily engaged in roasting it over the flames.

  The two were far from comfortable. Despite the fact that the fire hadbeen built as near as possible to the entrance, the smoke whipped backinto their faces. The air became blue and heavy, they coughed, andtears streamed from their eyes at the sting of it.

  "I'm thirsty," said the boy, as he finished his portion of the rabbit."I guess we'll have to eat snow; there's nothing to melt it in."

  "Never eat snow," the man cautioned as his eyes swept the barreninterior.

  "Why not?"

  "It will burn you out. I don't know why, but when a man starts eatingsnow, it's all off."

  Directly in front of him, in the rock floor, was a slight depression,and with a stick Bill scraped the fire close to this natural basin andfilled it with dry snow. At the end of ten minutes the snow had melted,leaving a pool of filthy, black water.

  "It's the best we can do," laughed the man as the boy made a wry faceas he gulped down a swallow of the bitter floor-washing.

  They set about skinning the _loup-cervier_, and spread the pelt uponthe floor for a robe.

  "We'll have to tackle the cat for breakfast," grinned Bill.

  "Oh, this is fun!" cried the boy. "It's like getting cast away andliving in a cave, like you read about." But the humor of the situationfailed to enthuse Bill, who lighted his pipe and stared moodily intothe tiny fire.

  The two spent a most uncomfortable night, their brief snatches of sleepbeing interrupted by long hours of wakefulness when they huddled closeto the small blaze.

  The scarcity of wood and the danger of suffocation precluded thebuilding of an adequate fire, and the miserable night wore interminablyupon the nerves of the imprisoned pair.

  At last the dull gray light of morning dispersed the gloom, and the twocrept to the snow-choked door.

  The storm raged unabated, and their eyes could not penetrate the opaquewhiteness of the powdery snow. Bill gathered more firewood, cut up thelynx, and roasted the hams, shoulders, and back.

  The meat was dry and stringy, with a disagreeable, strong flavor thatsavored intimately of the rancid odor of the den. Nevertheless, theydevoured a great quantity of the tough, unpalatable food, washing itdown with bitter drafts from the pool of dirty snow-water, thick withashes and the pungent animal reek.

  Again the man filled his pipe and sat gazing out upon the whirlingvoid.

  "Bill, let's try it," said a voice at
his elbow. "She's waiting forus--and worrying."

  Carmody glanced quickly into the determined little face. The boy hadvoiced his own thoughts to the letter, and he remained long withoutspeaking, carefully weighing the chances.

  "It's better than staying here," pursued the youngster; "'Cause, if wedon't snufficate, we'll starve to death, or freeze. We can tie us toeach other so we won't get lost, and all we got to do is stick to theriver. I can make it if you can," he added naively.

  Bill grinned, and then his eyes became serious and he beganmethodically to stow the remains of the roast cat into his pockets.

  "It's going to be an awful pull, kid. You are a man, now, and I'll giveit to you straight--maybe we'll make it, and maybe we won't. But I'dhate to 'snufficate'--and she _is_ worrying. We'll try it--and God helpus, if we don't keep the river."

  The skin of the lynx was cut into strips and fashioned into a rawhideline which Bill made fast to their belts, leaving plenty of slack toallow free use of the rackets. The rifle was left in the cave, and,muffled to the ears, the two stepped out into the storm.

  Bill judged it to be well after noon when a sudden tightening of theline brought him to an abrupt halt.

  Many times during the long hours in which they forged slowly ahead hadthe line gone taut as the boy fell in the snow, but each time it wasfollowed by a wriggling and tugging, and the youngster scrambled gamelyto his feet and floundered on in the wake of his big friend.

  But this time Carmody waited in vain for the movement of the line thatwould tell him that the boy was regaining his feet--the line remainedtaut, and Bill turned and groped in the snow. He lifted the boy to hisfeet, but the small body sagged limply against his own, and the headrolled weakly.

  He shook him roughly and, with his lips close to the boy's ear, shoutedwords of encouragement. But his only answer was a dull look from thehalf-closed eyes, and a sleepily muttered jumble of words, in which hemade out: "Can't make it--all in--go on--she does love you."

  Again and again he tried to rouse him, but all to no purpose; the boyhad battled bravely to the end of his endurance, and now only wanted tobe let alone. Bill sat beside him in the snow and, sheltering him asbest he could from the sting of the wind-driven particles, produced apiece of the meat from his pocket.

  The boy gnawed it feebly, and the food revived him somewhat, so thatfor a few rods he staggered on, but the line again tightened, and thistime the man knew that it was useless to attempt to arouse his littlecompanion.

  Hurriedly removing his mackinaw, he wrapped it around the body of theboy and, by means of a "squaw hitch" sling, swung him to his back. Theboy's dangling rackets hindered his movement, and he slashed the thongsand left them in the snow.

  Then, straining the last atom of his vitality, he plunged ahead.

  The early darkness of the North country settled about the staggeringman. His progress was painfully slow and, without sense of direction,he wallowed forward, stumbling, falling, struggling to his feet only tofall again a few rods farther on.

  The weight of the boy seemed to crush him into the snow, and each timeit became harder and harder to regain his feet against the mercilessrush of the blizzard.

  He lost all hope of making camp. He did not know whether it was near orfar, he only knew that he was upon the river, and that he must push onand on.

  He realized dully that he might easily have passed the rollways hoursago. He even considered doubling back; but what was the use? If hepassed them once, he would pass them again.

  Every drop of his fighting blood was up. He would push on to the end.He would die, of course; but he wouldn't die _yet_! And when he diddie, he would _fall_ to die--he would never _lie down_ to die!

  It was not far off, he knew--that fall, when he would never get up. Hewondered who would find them; Blood River Jack, probably. As he leanedinto the whirling, cutting wind, he thought of Jeanne and of hispromise to Wa-ha-ta-na-ta.

  His fists clenched, and a few more rods were gained. He thought ofEthel, and of what Charlie had told him in the cave:

  "_She needs us; we're all she's got--you and me._"

  Again the fists in the heavy mittens clenched, and more rods werecovered. It was growing black; the white smother of snow ceased todance before his eyes. His advance now was hesitating, dogged; eachstep became a measure of time.

  He reeled suddenly against an unyielding object. A tree, he thought,and grasped it for support as he struggled to get his bearings. He wasoff the river; yet, when had he ascended the bank?

  The tree felt smooth to the touch, and he moved his mittens up and downthe trunk. Suddenly he realized that it was no tree, but a skinnedpole. His numbed brain groped dully as his hands traveled up and downits smooth length.

  At the height of his waist he encountered a rope, and at the feel ofthe heavy line the blood surged to his head, clearing his brain.

  "The _water-hole_!" he cried thickly. "They've roped off thewater-hole!" Frantically he pulled himself along, hand over hand. Therope seemed endless, stretching from stake to stake.

  He was ascending the bank now at the foot of the rollways--and, at thetop was the camp!

  He exerted his strength to the uttermost ounce, heaving and liftingwith the huge muscles of his legs, and pulling with his arms until itseemed they must be torn from his shoulders, inching himself along,gasping, sweating, straining.

  The incline grew steeper, his frozen mittens slipped, the guide-ropetore from his grasp, and he pitched heavily backward into the softsmother.

  He struggled helplessly. Something seemed pressing him down, down--atlast he was _home_. He had won out against the terrible odds, and theboy was safe.

  He had brought him back to her, and now he must sleep. How warm andcomfortable it was in the bunk. He did not know a man could be sosleepy.

  What was it the girl was singing as he passed her window only a fewnights ago--when he paused in the darkness of the clearing to listen?

  Dreamily the words floated through his brain:

  "And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come back to the town."

  But he had come back. He smiled vaguely; they needn't wring their handsand weep--and the rest of it:

  "For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep, And good-by to the bar and its moaning."

  Sleep! That's what he needed--sleep. He could sleep forever and ever,here in his warm, warm bunk. And the moaning of the bar--he liked that;he could hear it moaning now--roaring and moaning.

  Bill Carmody closed his eyes. The fine, sifting snow came and coveredhis body and the smaller body of the boy who was lashed firmly to hisbroad back--and all about him the blizzard howled and roared andmoaned.

  And it was night!