The Courage of Marge O'Doone Part 21

It was his last warning. The door opened slowly, with a creaking sound, and they entered into a long, gloomy hall, illumined by a single oil lamp that sputtered and smoked in its bracket on one of the walls. The hall gave him an idea of the immensity of the building. From the far end of it, through a partly open door, came a reek of tobacco smoke, and loud voices--a burst of coa.r.s.e laughter, a sudden volley of curses that died away in a still louder roar of merriment. Some one closed the door from within. The girl was staring toward the end of the hall, and shuddering.

"That is the way it has been--growing worse and worse since Nisikoos died," she said. "In there the white men who come down from the north, drink, and gamble, and quarrel. They are always quarrelling. This room is ours--Nisikoos' and mine." She touched with her hand a door near which they were standing. Then she pointed to another. There were half a dozen doors up and down the hall. "And that is Hauck's."

He threw off his pack, placed it on the floor, with his rifle across it.

When he straightened, the girl was listening at the door of Hauck's room. Beckoning to him she knocked on it lightly, and then opened it.

David entered close behind her. It was a rather large room--his one impression as he crossed the threshold. In the centre of it was a table, and over the table hung an oil lamp with a tin reflector. In the light of this lamp sat two men. In his first glance he made up his mind which was Hauck and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who was facing them as they entered--a man he could hate even if he had never heard of him before. Big. Loose-shouldered. A carnivorous-looking giant with a mottled, reddish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery stare in them. Apparently the girl's knock had not been heard, for it was a moment before the other man swung slowly about in his chair so that he could see them. That was Hauck. David knew it. He was almost a half smaller than the other, with round, bullish shoulders, a thick neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible cruelty. He popped half out of his seat when he saw the girl, and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was Brokaw's face that held David's eyes. He was two thirds drunk. There was no doubt about it, if he was any sort of judge of that kind of imbecility. One of his thick, huge hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck had evidently been reading him something out of a ledger, a Post ledger, which he held now in one hand. David was surprised at the quiet and unemotional way in which the girl began speaking. She said that she had wandered over into the other valley and was lost when this stranger found her. He had been good to her, and was on his way to the settlement on the coast. His name was....

She got no further than that. Brokaw had taken his devouring gaze from her and was staring at David. He lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned over the table, a new sort of surprise in his heavy countenance. He stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow.

"McKenna!"

He was speaking directly at David--calling him by name. There was as little doubt of that as of his drunkenness. There was also an unmistakable note of fellows.h.i.+p in his voice. McKenna! David opened his mouth to correct him when a second thought occurred to him in a mildly inspirational way. Why not McKenna? The girl was looking at him, a bit surprised, questioning him in the directness of her gaze. He nodded, and smiled at Brokaw. The giant came around the table, still holding out his big, red hand.

"Mac! G.o.d! You don't mean to say you've forgotten...."

David took the hand.

"Brokaw!" he chanced.

The other's hand was as cold as a piece of beef. But it possessed a crus.h.i.+ng strength. Hauck was staring from one to the other, and suddenly Brokaw turned to him, still pumping David's hand.

"McKenna--that young devil of Kicking Horse, Hauck! You've heard me speak of him. McKenna...."

The girl had backed to the door. She was pale. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning, and she was looking straight at David when Brokaw released his hand.

"Good-night, _Sakewawin_!" she said.

It was very distinct, that word--_Sakewawin_! David had never heard it come quite so clearly from her lips. There was something of defiance and pride in her utterance of it--and intentional and decisive emphasis to it. She smiled at him as she went through the door, and in that same breath Hauck had followed her. They disappeared. When David turned he found Brokaw backed against the table, his hands gripping the edge of it, his face distorted by pa.s.sion. It was a terrible face to look into--to stand before, alone in that room--a face filled with menace and murder. So sudden had been the change in it that David was stunned for a moment. In that s.p.a.ce of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither uttered a sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward, his great hands clenched, and demanded in a hissing voice:

"What did she mean when she called you that--_Sakewawin_? What did she mean?"

It was not now the voice of a drunken man, but the voice of a man ready to kill.

CHAPTER XXI

"_Sakewawin!_ What did she mean when she called you that?"

It was Brokaw's voice again, turning the words round but repeating them.

He made a step toward David, his hands clenched more tightly and his whole hulk growing tense. His eyes, blazing as if through a very thin film of water--water that seemed to cling there by some strange magic--were horrible, David thought. _Sakewawin!_ A pretty name for himself, he had told the girl--and here it was raising the very devil with this drink-bloated colossus. He guessed quickly. It was decidedly a matter of guessing quickly and of making prompt and satisfactory explanation--or, a throttling where he stood. His mind worked like a race-horse. "Sakewawin" meant something that had enraged Brokaw. A jealous rage. A rage that had filled his aqueous eyes with a lurid glare. So David said, looking into them calmly, and with a little feigned surprise:

"Wasn't she speaking to you, Brokaw?"

It was a splendid shot. David scarcely knew why he made it, except that he was moved by a powerful impulse which just now he had not time to a.n.a.lyze. It was this same impulse that had kept him from revealing himself when Brokaw had mistaken him for someone else. Chance had thrown a course of action into his way and he had accepted it almost involuntarily. It had suddenly occurred to him that he would give much to be alone with this half-drunken man for a few hours--as McKenna. He might last long enough in that disguise to discover things. But not with Hauck watching him, for Hauck was four fifths sober, and there was a depth to his cruel eyes which he did not like. He watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. The tenseness left his body, his hands unclenched slowly, his heavy jaw relaxed--and David laughed softly. He felt that he was out of deep water now. This fellow, half filled with drink, was wonderfully credulous. And he was sure that his watery eyes could not see very well, though his ears had heard distinctly.

"She was looking at you, Brokaw--straight at you--when she said good-night," he added.

"You sure--sure she said it to me, Mac?"

David nodded, even as his blood ran a little cold.

A leering grin of joy spread over Brokaw's face.

"The--the little devil!" he said, gloatingly.

"What does it mean?" David asked. "_Sakewawin_--I had never heard it."

He lied calmly, turning his head a bit out of the light.

Brokaw stared at him a moment before answering.

"When a girl says that--it means--_she belongs to you_," he said. "In Indian it means--_possession_! Dam' ... of course you're right! She said it to me. She's mine. She belongs to me. I own her. And I thought...."

He caught up the bottle and turned out half a gla.s.s of liquor, swaying unsteadily:

"Drink, Mac?"

David shook his head.

"Not now. Let's go to your shack if you've got one. Lots to talk about--old times--Kicking Horse, you know. And this girl? I can't believe it! If it's true, you're a lucky dog."

He was not thinking of consequences--of to-morrow. To-night was all he asked for--alone with Brokaw. That mountain of flesh, stupefied with liquor, was no match for him now. To-morrow he might hold the whip hand, if Hauck did not return too soon.

"Lucky dog! Lucky dog!" He kept repeating that. It was like music in Brokaw's ears. And such a girl! An angel! He couldn't believe it!

Brokaw's face was like a red fire in his exultation, his l.u.s.tful joy, his great triumph. He drank the liquor he had proffered David, and drank a second time, rumbling in his thick chest like some kind of animal. Of course she was an angel! Hadn't he, and Hauck, and that woman who had died, made her grow into an angel--just for him? She belonged to him.

Always had belonged to him, and he had waited a long time. If she had ever called any other man that name--Sakewawin--he would have killed him. Certain. Killed him dead. This was the first time she had ever called him that. Lucky dog? You bet he was. They'd go to his shack--and talk. He drank a third time. He rolled heavily as they entered the hall, David praying that they would not meet Hauck. He had his victim. He was sure of him. And the hall was empty. He picked up his gun and pack, and held to Brokaw's arm as they went out into the night. Brokaw staggered guidingly into a wall of darkness, talking thickly about lucky dogs.

They had gone perhaps a hundred paces when he stopped suddenly, very close to something that looked to David like a section of tall fence built of small trees. It was the cage. He jumped at that conclusion before he could see it clearly in the clouded starlight. From it there came a growling rumble, a deep breath that was like air escaping from a pair of bellows, and he saw faintly a huge, motionless shape beyond the stripped and upright sapling trunks.

"Grizzly," said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on an even balance. "Big bear-fight to-morrow, Mac. My bear--her bear--a great fight! Everybody in to see it. Nothing like a bear-fight, eh? S'prise her, won't it--pretty little wench! When she sees her bear fighting mine? Betchu hundred dollars my bear kills Tara!"

"To-morrow," said David. "I'll bet to-morrow. Where's the shack?"

He was anxious to reach that, and he hoped it was a good distance away.

He feared every moment that he would hear Hauck's voice or his footsteps behind them, and he knew that Hauck's presence would spoil everything.

Brokaw, in his cups, was talkative--almost garrulous. Already he had explained the mystery of the cage, and the Indians. The big fight was to take place in the cage, and the Indians had come in to see it. He found himself wondering, as they went through the darkness, how it had all been kept from the girl, and why Brokaw should deliberately lower himself still more in her esteem by allowing the combat to occur. He asked him about it when they entered the shack to which Brokaw guided him, and after they had lighted a lamp. It was a small, gloomy, whisky-smelling place. Brokaw went directly to a box nailed against the wall and returned with a quart flask that resembled an army canteen, and two tin cups. He sat down at a small table, his bloated, red face in the light of the lamp, that queer animal-like rumbling in his throat, as he turned out the liquor. David had heard porcupines make something like the same sound. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes to hide the gleam of them as Brokaw told him what he and Hauck had planned. The bear in the cage belonged to him--Brokaw. A big brute. Fierce. A fighter. Hauck and he were going to bet on his bear because it would surely kill Tara.

Make a big clean-up, they would. Tara was soft. Too easy living. And they needed money because those scoundrels over on the coast had failed to get in enough whisky for their trade. The girl had almost spoiled their plans by going away with Tara. And he--Mac--was a devil of a good fellow for bringing her back! They'd pull off the fight to-morrow. If the girl--that little bird-devil that belonged to him--didn't like it....

He brought the canteen down with a bang, and shoved one of the cups across to David.

"Of course, she belongs to you," said David, encouragingly, "but--confound you--I can't believe it, you old dog! I can't believe it!" He leaned over and gave Brokaw a jocular slap, forcing a laugh out of himself. "She's too pretty for you. Prettiest kid I ever saw! How did it happen? Eh? You--_lucky_--dog!"

He was fairly trembling as he saw the red fire of satisfaction, of gloating pleasure, deepen in Brokaw's face.

"She hasn't belonged to you very long, eh?"

"Long time, long time," replied Brokaw, pausing with his cup half way to his mouth. "Years ago."