A Lover in Homespun Part 8

The sight of the girl made Harry forget his resentment, and he walked toward her with the intention of apologizing; but the moment her eyes fell upon him she burst forth furiously, "Get out of this, you little fool; I am sick of making a fool of you. There's not a man in the tent but knows how I have been laughing at your attempts at love-making."

Pointing her finger derisively at him she continued ironically, "What do you think, men, of _that thing_ making love to me?"

All eyes were turned on her unhappy little lover, whose face was now pitifully white and drawn. The jeers which she expected, to her surprise did not come, for the little fellow's appreciation of his trying position was so painfully apparent in his drooping figure and pallid face, that there was not a man among them who did not feel more like gathering him in their strong arms than jeering at him. Never before had they realized what a weakly, effeminate little soul he was.

"It's all right, boys, you can let go." It was Joe who broke the silence. They had almost forgotten they were still holding him lest he should lay hands again on Shuter. Without a word they released him, for they knew by the tone of his voice, and from the pitiful look he gave his little driver, that he had forgotten all about his enemy. As Joe strode toward Harry, and the yellow glare from the coal lamps, fastened to posts behind the counter, fell athwart his powerful, weather-beaten face and ma.s.sive figure, they realized as they had never done before the striking physical difference between the sc.r.a.per-handler and his driver, and wondered vaguely how two such dissimilar characters could attract each other so powerfully.

"Don't mind her, Harry, don't mind her; she's not worthy of you. Let's go." As arm and arm they strode out of the tent the men quietly parted.

"I'll have a reckoning with that cub of yours some other time, Joe Swan," shouted Shuter, with an attempt of bravado, as they were disappearing. He had mistaken the humor of the men; one of them told him to shut his cursed mouth.

Before the two silent figures had taken a dozen steps in the thick darkness toward their own tent, the storm broke out afresh. The turbulent clouds, un.o.bstructed for hundreds of miles by either hills or trees, were now hovering over the very sod, and at short intervals vivid, sinuous gleams broke from them, and, serpent-like, went writhing and glistening through the matted gra.s.s, while the roar of the thunder made the apprehensive earth tremble perceptibly.

Joe had seen two such dread storms before, and so paid but little attention to them. Thinking his companion might be afraid of the appalling sight, he said, as he glanced down at his drawn face, "It's only on the prairies one sees storms like these; and I've seen men as didn't fear a revolver get mighty scared at a sight like this. First time I saw it I felt queer enough."

"No, Joe, you misunderstand; if my face is white it's not because I'm afraid of the lightning. I have been hurt to-night, Joe, worse than it could ever hurt me."

Utterly forgetful of the warring elements, Joe halted abruptly, and throwing his great arm around the slender shoulders of his companion, said fiercely, "For G.o.d's sake, Harry, don't talk like that; it makes me feel like going back and choking the life out of both of them."

While he was speaking, a flash of lightning, more vivid than its fellows, shot across the prairie and revealed the two troubled figures to some of the laborers who were in the act of leaving Shuter's store, and their hearts--unluckily for Shuter--hardened against him for the part he that night had played.

The deep thrill in Joe's voice went to Harry's heart like a balm, and he said gratefully, "You're an awful decent fellow, Joe, and it's too bad of me bringing my troubles into your life in this way."

Joe's only reply, as they again hurried along, was to hug the little arm more closely. When they finally reached their tent Joe uttered an exclamation, for one of the flashes revealed that it was at least two feet deep in water. Groping his way into the tent, Joe lit a candle, and holding it high above his head, looked around. "This is hard luck," he said to his companion, who was standing in the opening; "we've pitched the tent in a little hollow, and the water's drained into it. There'll be no sleeping here for us to-night; we shall have to move the tent and stretchers to higher ground."

Half an hour later the tent was pitched several acres away. Had the lightning not died away, they would have seen that they were near two other tents of exactly the same size as their own.

It was about five o'clock when Joe awoke, and looking out of the tent saw the sun was already casting a warm glow in the east. Seeing Harry showed no signs of waking, he slipped quietly from his stretcher, dressed, and stealing past his mate, left the tent. Signs of life were already visible in camp. In another hour the entire camping outfit would be loaded on the waiting flat-cars and taken to the end of the track--which again stretched over two miles westward--and a new camping-ground found, after which breakfast would be served and the phenomenal track-laying be again continued.

"It's a great country," Joe muttered, as his gaze swept across the broad expanse, "and if it hadn't been for the trouble my little mate's had, I should have been happy out here."

Turning, he saw for the first time the two small tents, and at once recognized them as the ones Shuter and his daughter slept in. While he was thinking how queer it was that above all other spots they should have chosen this to pitch their tent, Shuter came out of one of the tents, and in a loud voice called to his daughter, in the other, to get up. Not wanting to speak to him, Joe hurried back into his own tent and began to wash.

By some mischance the tin bowl upset and fell noisily to the ground.

Expecting to see Harry start up, Joe looked across at him as he stooped to pick up the wayward bowl, but the quiet form did not move.

"Sleeping mighty sound," Joe soliloquized, as he vigorously began to scour his face with a coa.r.s.e, unsanitary-looking towel. Suddenly the towel fell from his hands, and a startled, curious look shot into his face; it had come to him that the scanty clothing which covered his little driver neither rose nor fell.

For a few moments he stood gazing at the dimly outlined figure in the yet uncertain light, a feeling of growing terror stealing over him. He tried to convince himself that his eyes were deceiving him, yet his laboring heart would not be comforted. Twice he opened his mouth to call Harry's name, but his parched throat refused to utter any sound.

He could endure the growing horror no longer, and with set, terrified gaze began to move toward the stretcher. When at last his laggard steps reached it he had not the courage to shake the slim figure, but in a voice, which sounded strangely unnatural, called his mate's name.

The quiet of the tent was broken by no response. With pitiful hesitancy he finally stretched out his hand till it rested on the wan face; then he uttered a great cry--it was as cold as the face of the dead!

In his terror and excitement he was about to s.n.a.t.c.h him up in his arms, when a sight, which made him start back with an exclamation of horror met his eyes: in the side of the tent against which the body rested was a sinister cut, stained with blood. Pus.h.i.+ng the canvas back, the whole treacherous story stood out as clear as daylight; while sleeping, his companion had been stabbed through the folds of the tent.

"There's only one man under G.o.d's heaven, who'd do a deed like this, and that's Bill Shuter." There was something weirdly ominous in the tones in which he uttered the words; in his dogged manner as he strode out of the tent, cut several of the ropes that fastened it to the ground, pieced them together, tried them to see if the knots were firm--especially those which formed the noose at the end of the line--and then winding the rope around his huge arm, strode into Bill Shuter's tent.

Scarcely had he entered it when a man's cry of terror rang out on the quiet morning air, and roused the few who already had not risen.

Before the echo had died away, Nellie Shuter ran out of her tent toward her father's; but before she could reach it Joe Swan emerged from it, his ma.s.sive hands grasping the rope, which was now wound tightly around her father's throat. In vain Shuter struggled to utter another cry, and to thrust away the avenging hand which grasped the rope.

With a terrified scream Nellie sprang upon Joe and endeavored to stop his march toward the derrick in the near distance, the ponderous arm of which stretched enticingly out some nine feet above the ground.

Without swerving an inch to the right or the left, Joe hurried on toward it, while with his disengaged hand, and without apparently using any force, he kept Nellie aside.

Before he had got half-way to it, however, shouts fell upon his ears, and glancing hastily backward, he saw over a hundred laborers running toward him. For a brief s.p.a.ce he stopped, measured with his eyes the distance he was from the arm of the derrick and his pursuers, then stooped, threw Shuter across his shoulder, and started off on a brisk run. Nellie made another desperate effort to stop him, but this time he pushed her to the earth and sped on.

Despite his great weight, and the burden which enc.u.mbered him, he was the first to reach the derrick--although the crowd had been close behind him when he began to run. He had deftly thrown the end of the rope over the arm of the derrick, and was about to hoist Shuter into mid-air, when the crowd was upon him. The rope was wrenched from his hands, and the noose unloosened from the man's throat. "For heaven's sake, what does all this mean?" asked a foreman, turning toward Joe.

Before he could reply Shuter gasped, "He's mad, he's mad; he ran into my tent, and without a word wound that rope about my neck and then tried to hang me." As he looked at his implacable enemy he edged towards the foreman.

"He pretends," began Joe, in a compressed voice, "that he don't know why I was going to hang him; he's a liar; yes, a million times worse than a liar--he's a murderer! I thought I'd save you the trouble of helping me to string him up, for when you hear what he's done you'll riddle him full of holes and string him up as well!"

The crowd had now gathered about the speaker, and were gazing at him with growing excitement. "There's a lot of you," Joe went on, "who saw him last night, in that gambling whiskey dive of his, try to draw his knife on Harry Langdon, and heard him shout after me that he'd have a reckoning some other time with that cub of mine; and, boys, he's kept his word, for Harry lies in his tent there, dead, stabbed to the heart, in the dead of night, through the folds of the tent, by that cuss there that you were so afraid I'd string up."

Angry exclamations followed this fierce tirade, and a rush was made for Shuter.

"It's a lie! I swear it's a lie! I never stabbed the lad!"

But his words were cut short by the rope, which was again being wound around his throat. As they dragged him towards the derrick Nellie once more threw herself across her father's body and begged piteously for mercy. The sight of the girl's intense grief somewhat cooled the unreasoning rage which had been kindled in their hearts by Joe's rude eloquence, and they hesitated as though they hardly knew what to do.

"Let's see the body before we string him up, anyway," cried a voice.

The fairness of the proposition appealed to the men--more especially as they had begun to realize that they had acted impulsively. There was a general move toward the tent where the body lay.

In the rush none of them noticed the rapid approach of the Indian girl, who so prodigally, and unasked, had given her heart to the murdered boy. As they entered the tent she was close behind Joe, whose huge body hid Shuter and his daughter, who were in front of him, from her view.

As Joe stepped forward to remove the coat he had thrown across the dead face, a low cry, full of the keenest apprehension and fear, sounded behind him. Turning, his eyes fell upon the Indian girl, who was crouching close at his feet, her palsied hands raised as though to guard off some deadly apparition or danger, while her eyes, full of the most intense fear and horror, were fixed on Nellie Shuter.

Joe's temper had been sorely tried, and laying his hand heavily on her shoulder, he said fiercely, "What's the meaning of this?"

Instead of trying to escape from his grasp, she caught him hysterically by the arm, and pointing at Nellie, said wildly, in her queer broken English, "See, see, de Great Spirit send her back to me!

She's dead."

As Nellie stood and continued to gaze in amazement at her, the insane terror of the Indian girl rose to an ungovernable height, and burying her face in the gra.s.s, she screamed to Joe to send her away. The deep superst.i.tion in her nature--bred by her people--had been stronger than the love of revenge or the fear of punishment. Joe was the first to read the meaning of her superst.i.tious horror, knowing as he did her hatred of Nellie and her love for Harry. And suddenly pointing at the grovelling figure, he said in a shocked voice: "Boys, I see it all now; she's the murderer. She meant to stab Nellie, her rival, and would have done it if we hadn't in the darkness last night pitched our tent next to Nellie's. The tents are alike, and she mistook ours for hers."

The mention of Harry's name brought a gleam of reason to the distracted girl's face, and springing to her feet--apparently now forgetful of Nellie's presence--she begged Joe to take her from the tent to Harry. Not for a moment did she appear to realize the dreadful mistake she had made.

"He's there!" said Joe, pitilessly, pointing to the stretcher.

Thinking in her half-crazed manner that he was sleeping through it all, she ran to the stretcher, and tore away the sheet that covered the face she loved. It was not till she had caught the dear head to her bosom and pressed her face to his, that the truth broke upon her clouded mind. They had been drawing near her; but as she let his head fall back, they all--except Joe--drew away from her; the heart-broken, insane look on her face was more than they could bear. As she stood, wildly pressing her hands to her forehead, Joe pointed at the gash in the tent and then at the blood-stained clothing at Harry's side. Then with fascinated gaze they watched the rapid changes which sped across her face, for reason had not yet altogether flown, and they saw that she was recalling the fearful mistake she had made. Suddenly her hands slid to her side, and in doing so encountered the handle of the knife which lay concealed beneath her blanket. That was the connecting link which brought home to her the whole truth of the tragedy, and with a cry that haunted many of them for years afterwards, she drew the knife, gave one glance at the stained blade that had robbed her of him for whom she would willingly have died, stabbed again and again the fatal gash in the canvas, and then throwing away the knife, caught up the lifeless body in her arms and began madly to chant a wild, weird song which her people sang when they had triumphed over their enemies.

She was so violently insane when she reached Winnipeg that they decided a trial was unnecessary, so she was placed at once in an asylum.

After they had buried his little mate on the great silent prairie, Joe tried to forget and to do his work as usual; but the odor of the newly-severed sod, the cracking of the drivers' whips, the shouting to the stubborn mules, the stampede over the prairie at noon, the hateful sight of Shuter and his daughter--in fact, everything around him--made the longing for the company of his little driver so keen that he could not bear it, and a week after his death he drew his wages and slipped away, none knew whither.

A Daughter of the Church.