CHAPTER V
A DUEL
"What's amiss with Keeko?"
The sick woman opened a pair of startled eyes. She half turned her facetowards the darkened doorway.
Nicol was standing there. He had entered the room at that moment, butwith a quiet unusual to him. She gazed at him without reply. Perhaps theactivity of her brain was dulling. Perhaps she was searching the face,the sight of which she had learned in years to hate and fear.
It was a handsome face still, for all the man was approaching fifty. Itwas fleshy, and its dark beard did not improve it. But the eyes werekeen and fine for all there was coldness and cruelty in their harddepths. The abundant moustache was without a tinge of grey in it, but itlacked trimness, and hung over a cruel mouth like a tattered curtain.The woman knew the value of these good looks, however. They served tomask a mind and heart that knew no scruple. So it was that her replyfinally came in a quick apprehensive question.
"What d'you mean?" she gasped, in her spasmodic way. "What's she done?"
Nicol laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. He moved across to the bedand sprawled himself upon its foot, while his eyes searched theemaciated face as though some secret speculation was going on in hismind while he talked of other things.
"She held me up with a gun," he said slowly. "That's all. She held meup! Me! And she did it with a nerve I had to reckon was pretty fine.There were twenty or more of the darn Shaunekuks around. Guess I was madat the time. But I had to laff after."
The unmoving eyes of the woman on the bed were reading him. No mood ofhis could deceive her. She had learned her lesson bitterly in somethinglike seventeen years. The man was acting now. He was laughing over anincident which filled him with a consuming rage.
"You came here to tell me about it." The voice was faint with bodilyweakness, but there was no weariness in the anxious watchfulness of hereyes. "Guess you'd best tell it. It's not your way to waste time in thisroom with anything pleasant to hand out. It's easier for me to listen,and nothing you can say can do me much hurt."
The man laughed again. It was a laugh that was cut off abruptly.
"I don't need to look for sympathy where you are," he said. "Anyway Idon't guess I need any."
"No."
The antagonism of the monosyllable was unmistakable.
Nicol shrugged.
"That swine, Snake Foot," he said. "He refused to do as I told him. Heguessed Keeko needed him at the landing, and he hadn't time for me. So Itook him to the flogging post."
It was said coldly. Quite without emotion.
"And you flogged him with your--quirt?"
"Sure."
The man's teeth clipped together.
"Oh, yes," he went on, after a moment. "I'm not the sort to let a necheget away with that sort of thing. You see, I reckon I'm master aroundthis layout."
"And Keeko?"
Again came the man's ominous laugh in reply.
"She was quick. I reckoned she was here with you. Making her fancyfarewell. But she was around before I'd hardly begun. Oh, yes. She actedher show piece, and if you'd seen it I guess she'd have got yourapplause good. It was against me. She jumped in front of thatred-skinned swine so my quirt nearly came down on her. But it didn't.And I'm glad. Guess she's too soft, and pretty, and dandy to hurt--yet.A feller doesn't feel that way with women later, when they show him thehell they've always got waiting on any fool man. She's got grit. Sureshe has. It's good for a girl to have grit, and I'd say she's gotit--plenty. But she put up a gun at me. And I reckon she meant to use itif need be. It's that that's the matter. That's been put into her darnfool head. That's not Keeko."
The man's manner had changed abruptly. His heavy brows depressed, and,to the listener, it was as though she could hear his teeth grit overeach word he spoke. But even so she could not restrain her passionatejoy at the defeat the man's words admitted.
"She beat you?" she said, a great light flooding her big eyes. "She beatyou," she repeated, "and made you quit. She took your measure for thecoward who could flog a wretched neche who couldn't defend himself. I'mglad."
For a moment the sting of the woman's words looked like overwhelming theman's restraint. But the black shadow of his brows suddenly lightened,and again he shrugged his heavy shoulders with a transparentindifference.
"Oh, yes," he admitted. "She beat me." Then he added slowly, and withan appearance of deep reflection: "But then she's young. How old?Nineteen?" He nodded. "Nineteen, and as pretty as a picture. Prettier bya heap than her mother ever was." His lips parted with a noise thatexpressed appreciation and appetite. "Say, did you ever see such afigure? She kind of makes you think of a yearling deer, or the pictureof one of those swell girls Diana always has chasing around her. And shedon't know a thing but what this country's taught her--which I guessisn't a lot. But she can learn. Oh, yes. She can learn." Then withdeliberate, cold emphasis: "And one of the things she'll learn is thatshe can't hold me up with a gun without paying for it."
The mother's eyes widened with fear, with loathing.
"What do you mean?" she cried, with a force which must have alarmedanyone who understood or cared for her bodily condition. "Pay? How canyou make her pay? Oh, you don't know Keeko. You don't know what you'reup against. Keeko would shoot you like a dog if you dared----"
The man raised a protesting hand and smiled into the eyes which betrayedso much.
"Easy, easy," he said. "You're jumping too far. It's taken you years,and I guess you haven't learnt yet. Guess I'll have to do better. You'reone of those fool women who never learn. If you'd horse sense youwouldn't have said what you handed me just now. You're glad Keeko tookmy measure for a coward. You're pleased, mighty pleased she beat me. Oh,yes, I know, you've done your best she should act that way. That'sbecause you're scared, and you don't love me like you used to. Youreckon she'd shoot me like a dog. Anyway you hope so."
Nicol shook his head, and prolonged the smile with which he regarded themother's emaciated features.
"Oh, no," he went on. "She won't shoot me like a dog. But I'll tell youwhat will happen. I don't mind telling you now. She won't get back tillthe fall. And when she comes back you won't see her. So you won't beable to hand her the things I'm saying. You're more than half dead now.You'll be all the way before she comes back, and I guess you'll be ableto lie around somewhere out of sight in the woods watching the game Iplay. I'm going to show Keeko what a fool she was to listen to yourtalk. She's just going to see the dandy fellow I really am. She's goingto be queen of this camp, set up on a throne I've made for her. And if Iknow women she's going to fall for it. There's no need for scruple.She's not my daughter. I'm not even her step-father. I've a hand full oftrumps waiting for her, and when you're dead, and she gets back, I'mgoing to play 'em all. Then--after--when I'm tired of the game, she'sgoing to pay for that gun play till she hates to remember the foolmother whose talk she ever listened to. We're here a thousand miles fromanywhere, which is the sort of thing only a crazy woman like you couldever for--Hello! What in hell d'you want?"
Nicol sat up. In a moment his entire manner changed. He scowledthreateningly as he eyed the dusky figure in the doorway. It was thesquaw Lu-cana whose moccasined feet had given out no sound as sheapproached.
"White feller man come by river," she said, in the soft, hushed voice ofher race, while her eyes refused to face the scowl of the white man.
"White man? What the hell! Who the devil is he?"
Nicol had risen to his feet, his manner brutally threatening. The squawfeared him, as did all the Indians. But in the presence of the sickwhite woman she found a measure of courage.
"Him wait. Him say, 'Boss Nicol, yes?'" she replied, and stood waitingwith her dark eyes fixed upon the woman she served.
But the sick woman gave no sign. Her poor troubled brain was staggeredby the hideous threat which she had been forced to listen to. She laythere like a corpse prepared for burial, utterly unconcerned for thatwhich was passing.
Just for a moment the man hesi
tated. He glanced back at the bed asthough regretful at being dragged from his torture of the defencelesswoman lying there. Then with a shrug, he moved across the room, and,thrusting the squaw aside, hurried out to meet his unexpected visitor.
* * * * *
It was an utterly different man who shook the visitor by the hand. Nicolwas smiling with a pleasant amiability. And no man could better expresscordiality than he.
"It's 'Tough' Alroy," he said, as though that individual were the onlyperson in the world he wanted to see. "Well, well," he went on heartily."My head's just bursting with pleasure and surprise. Say, I oftenremember the days--and nights--in Seal Bay. Gee! This brings back times,eh? Is it just a trip or?----"
"Business."
The man grinned. He was more than well named. His black eyes were fullof good-humoured deviltry. He was a type, in his picturesque buckskin,familiar enough among the trail men of the Northland. Tough, as hisnickname suggested, hard, unscrupulous, ready for anything that the godsof fortune passed down to him, nothing concerned, nothing mattered sothat he gathered enough for a red time at his journey's end.
"Business?"
"Yep. Lorson Harris. It's big. Guess I've a brief along with me that'sto be set right into your hands, an' when you've eaten the stuff wrotether', why, you need to light a pipe with it, an' see ther's none leftover. I've been takin' a hand up to now. But ther's reasons why I've cutout. It's for you now. Can we parley?"
The trader's cordiality had become absorbed in a deeply serious regard.He was guessing hard. Lorson Harris was the one man in the world whom heseriously feared. He knew he was bound to him by chains which galledevery time he strained against them. The great trader's tentacles werespread out over the length and breadth of the Northland. There was noescape from them. He had said a few moments before that here, at FortDuggan, they were a thousand miles from anywhere. But then he wasthinking of something quite different. So long as he lived in theNorthland he knew he was within immediate reach of Lorson Harris. Whatwas this message from Lorson Harris? What did it portend?
He abruptly turned and indicated the broad sill of the door of the mainfort building.
"Sit right here, boy," he said, forcing himself to a return to hisoriginal cordiality. "Guess there's room for us both. We can talk tillyou're tired here. After we're through I don't seem to see anydifficulty in raking out a bucket of red-hot fire juice or any other oldthing you happen to fancy."
Tough Alroy grinned and accepted the invitation.
"That's the talk," he said. "Here's Lorson's letter. You read that rightaway, and I'll make a big talk after."
The two men sat down, and while Nicol tore open the dirty envelope, andread his taskmaster's orders, Tough lit a pipe, and watched him out ofthe corners of his black, restless, wicked eyes.