Isobel (5 page)

Bucky was looking curiously at the two tents.

"Who's with you?" he asked.

Billy shrugged his shoulders. His voice was almost affable.

"Hate to tell you who was with me, Bucky," he laughed, "I came in late
last night, half dead, and found a half-breed camped here— in that
silk tent. He was quite chummy— mighty fine chap. Young fellow, too—
almost a kid. When I got up this morning—" Billy shrugged his
shoulders again and pointed to his empty pistol holster. "Everything
was gone— dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle and automatic. He
wasn't quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a funny cuss,
too. Look at that!" He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still hung
to the front of his tent. "'In honor of the living,' " he read, aloud,
"Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have hit me on the
head with a club if he'd wanted to." He came nearer to Bucky, and
said, good-naturedly: "I guess you've got me beat this time, Bucky.
Scottie Deane is pretty safe from me, wherever he is. I haven't even
got a gun!"

"He must have left a trail," remarked Bucky, eying him shrewdly.

"He did— out there!"

As Bucky went to examine what was left of the trail Billy thanked
Heaven that Deane had placed Isobel on the sledge before he left camp.
There was nothing to betray her presence. Walker had unlaced their
outfit, and Billy was busy preparing a meal when Bucky returned. There
was a sneer on his lips.

"Didn't know you was that easy," he said. "Wonder why he didn't take
his tent! Pretty good tent, isn't it?"

He went inside. A minute later he appeared at the flap and called to
Billy.

"Look here!" he said, and there was a tremble of excitement in his
voice. His eyes were blazing with an ugly triumph. "Your half-breed
had pretty long hair, didn't he?"

He pointed to a splinter on one of the light tent-poles. Billy's heart
gave a sudden jump. A tress of Isobel's long, loose hair had caught in
the splinter, and a dozen golden-brown strands had remained to give
him away. For a moment he forgot that Bucky Smith was watching him. He
saw Isobel again as she had last entered the tent, her beautiful hair
flowing in a firelit glory about her, her eyes still filled with
tender gratitude. Once more he felt the warmth of her lips, the touch
of her hand, the thrill of her presence near him. Perhaps these
emotions covered any suspicious movement or word by which he might
otherwise have betrayed himself. By the time they were gone he had
recovered himself, and he turned to his companion with a low laugh.

"It's a woman's hair, all right, Bucky. He told me all sorts of nice
things about a girl 'back home.' They must have been true."

The eyes of the two men met unflinchingly. There was a sneer on Buck's
lips; Billy was smiling.

"I'm going to follow this Frenchman after we've had a little rest,"
said the corporal, trying to cover a certain note of excitement and
triumph in his voice. "There's a woman traveling with Scottie Deane,
you know— a white woman— and there's only one other north of
Churchill. Of course, you're anxious to get back your stolen outfit?"

"You bet I am," exclaimed Billy, concealing the effect of the
bull's-eye shot Bucky had made. "I'm not particularly happy in the
thought of reporting myself stripped in this sort of way. The breed
will hang to thick cover, and it won't be difficult to follow his
trail."

He saw that Bucky was a little taken aback by his ready acquiescence,
and before the other could reply he hurried out to join Walker in the
preparation of breakfast. He made a gallon of tea, fried some bacon,
and brought out and toasted his own stock of frozen bannock. He made a
second kettle of tea while the others were eating, and shook out the
blankets in his own tent. Walker had told him that they had traveled
nearly all night.

"Better have an hour or two of sleep before you go on," he invited.

The driver's name was Conway. He was the first to accept Billy's
invitation. When he had finished eating, Walker followed him into the
tent. When they were gone Bucky looked hard at Billy.

"What's your game?" he asked.

"The Golden Rule, that's all," replied Billy, proffering his tobacco.
"The half-breed treated me square and made me comfortable, even if he
did take his pay afterward. I'm doing the same."

"And what do you expect to take— afterward?"

Billy's eyes narrowed as he returned the other's searching look.

"Bucky, I didn't think you were quite a fool," he said. "You've got a
little decency in your hide, haven't you? A man might as well be in
jail as up here without a gun. I expect you to contribute one— when
you go after the half-breed— you or Walker. He'll do it if you won't.
Better go in with the others. I'll keep up the fire."

Bucky rose sullenly. He was still suspicious of Billy's hospitality,
but at the same time he could see the strength of Billy's argument and
the importance of the price he was asking. He joined Walker and
Conway. Fifteen minutes later Billy approached the tent and looked in.
The three men were in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Instantly Billy's
actions changed. He had thrown his pack outside the tent to make more
room, and he quickly slipped a spare blanket in with his provisions.
Then he entered the other tent, and a flush spread over his face, and
he felt his blood grow warmer.

"You may be a fool, Billy MacVeigh," he laughed, softly. "You may be a
fool, but we're going to do it!"

Gently he disentangled the long silken strands of golden brown from
the tent-pole. He wound the hair about his fingers, and it made a soft
and shining ring. It was all that he would ever possess of Isobel
Deane, and his breath came more quickly as he pressed it for a moment
to his rough and storm-beaten face. He put it in his pocket, carefully
wrapped in Isobel's note, and then once more he went back to the tent
in which the three men were sleeping. They had not moved. Walker's
holster was within reach of his hand. For a moment the temptation to
reach out and pluck the gun from it was strong. He pulled himself
away. He would win in this fight with Bucky as surely as he had won in
the other, and he would win without theft. Quickly he threw his pack
over his shoulder and struck the trail made by Deane in his flight. On
his snow-shoes he followed it in a long, swift pace. A hundred yards
from the camp he looked back for an instant. Then he turned, and his
face was grim and set.

"If you've got to be caught, it's not going to be by that outfit back
there, Mr. Scottie Deane," he said to himself. "It's up to yours
truly, and Billy MacVeigh is the man who can do the trick, if he
hasn't got a gun!"

From the first Billy could see the difficulty with which Deane and his
dogs had made their way through the soft drifts of snow piled up by
the blizzard. In places where the trees had thinned out Deane had
floundered ahead and pulled with the team. Only once in the first mile
had Isobel climbed from the sledge, and that was where traces,
toboggan, and team had all become mixed up in the snow-covered top of
a fallen tree. The fact that Deane was compelling his wife to ride
added to Billy's liking for the man. It was probable that Isobel had
not gone to sleep at all after her hard experience on the Barren, but
had lain awake planning with her husband until the hour of their
flight. If Isobel had been able to travel on snow-shoes Billy reasoned
that Deane would have left the dogs behind, for in the deep, soft snow
he could have made better time without them, and snow-shoe trails
would have been obliterated by the storm hours ago. As it was, he
could not lose them. He knew that he had no time to lose if he made
sure of beating out Bucky and his men. The suspicious corporal would
not sleep long. While he had the advantage of being comparatively
fresh, Billy's snow-shoes were smoothing and packing the trail, and
the others, if they followed, would be able to travel a mile or two an
hour faster than himself. That Bucky would follow he did not doubt for
a moment. The corporal was already half convinced that Scottie Deane
had made the trail from camp and that the hair he had found entangled
in the splinter on the tent-pole belonged to the outlaw's wife. And
Scottie Deane was too big a prize to lose.

Billy's mind worked rapidly as he bent more determinedly to the
pursuit. He knew that there were only two things that Bucky could do
under the circumstances. Either he would follow after him with Walker
and the driver or he would come alone. If Walker and Conway
accompanied him the fight for Scottie Deane's capture would be a fair
one, and the man who first put manacles about the outlaw's wrists
would be the victor. But if he left his two companions in camp and
came after him alone—

The thought was not a pleasant one. He was almost sorry that he had
not taken Walker's gun. If Bucky came alone it would be with but one
purpose in mind— to make sure of Scottie Dean by "squaring up" with
him first. Billy was sure that he had measured the man right, and that
he would not hesitate to carry out his old threat by putting a bullet
into him at the first opportunity. And here would be opportunity. The
storm would cover up any foul work he might accomplish, and his reward
would be Scottie Deane— unless Deane played too good a hand for him.

At thought of Deane Billy chuckled. Until now he had not taken him
fully into consideration, and suddenly it dawned upon him that there
was a bit of humor as well as tragedy in the situation. He cheerfully
conceded to himself that for a long time Deane had proved himself a
better man than either Bucky or himself, and that, after all, he was
the man who held the situation well in hand even now. He was well
armed. He was as cautions as a fox, and would not be caught napping.
And yet this thought filled Billy with satisfaction rather than fear.
Deane would be more than a match for Bucky alone if he failed in
beating out the corporal. But if he did beat him out—

Billy's lips set grimly, and there was a hard light in his eyes as he
glanced back over his shoulder. He would not only beat him out, but he
would capture Scottie Deane. It would be a game of fox against fox,
and he would win. No one would ever know why he was playing the game
as he had planned to play it. Bucky would never know. Down at
headquarters they would never know. And yet deep down in his heart he
hoped and believed that Isobel would guess and understand. To save
Deane, to save Isobel, he must keep them out of the hands of Bucky
Smith, and to do that he must make them his own prisoners. It would be
a terrible ordeal at first. A picture of Isobel rose before him, her
faith and trust in him broken, her face white and drawn with grief and
despair, her blue eyes flashing at him— hatred. But he felt now that
he could stand those things. One moment— the fatal moment, when she
would understand and know that he had remained true— would repay him
for what he might suffer.

He traveled swiftly for an hour, and paused then to get his wind where
the partly covered trail dipped down into a frozen swamp. Here Isobel
had climbed from the sledge and had followed in the path of the
toboggan. In places where the spruce and balsam were thick overhead
Billy could make out the imprints of her moccasins. Deane had led the
dogs in the darkness of the storm, and twice Billy found the burned
ends of matches, where he had stopped to look at his compass. He was
striking a course almost due west. At the farther edge of the swamp
the trail struck a lake, and straight across this Deane had led his
team. The worst of the storm was over now. The wind was slowly
shifting to the south and east, and the fine, steely snow had given
place to a thicker and softer downfall. Billy shuddered as he thought
of what this lake must have been a few hours before, when Isobel and
Deane had crossed it in the thick blackness of the blizzard that had
swept it like a hurricane.

It was half a mile across the lake, and here, fifty yards from shore,
the trail was completely covered. Billy lost no time by endeavoring to
find signs of it in the open, but struck directly for the opposite
timber field and swung along in the shelter of the scrub forest. He
picked up the trail easily. Half an hour later he stopped. Spruce and
balsam grew thick about him, shutting out what was left of the wind.
Here Scottie Deane had stopped to build a fire. Close to the charred
embers was a mass of balsam boughs on which Isobel had rested. Scottie
had made a pot of boiling tea and had afterward thrown the grounds on
the snow. The warm bodies of the dogs had made smooth, round pits in
the snow, and Billy figured that the fugitives had rested for a couple
of hours. They had traveled eight miles through the blizzard without a
fire, and his heart was filled with a sickening pain as he thought of
Isobel Deane and the suffering he had brought to her. For a few
moments there swept over him a revulsion for that thing which he stood
for— the Law. More than once in his experience he had thought that
its punishment had been greater than the crime. Isobel had suffered,
and was suffering, far more than if Deane had been captured a year
before and hanged. And Deane himself had paid a penalty greater than
death in being a witness of the suffering of the woman who had
remained loyal to him. Billy's heart went out to them in a low,
yearning cry as he looked at the balsam bed and the black char of the
fire. He wished that he could give them, life and freedom and
happiness, and his hands clenched tightly as he thought that he was
willing to surrender everything, even to his own honor, for the woman
he loved.

Fifteen minutes after he had struck the shelter of the camp he was
again in pursuit. His blood leaped a little excitedly when he found
that Scottie Deane's trail was now almost as straight as a plumb-line
and that the sledge no longer became entangled in hidden windfalls and
brush. It was proof that it was light when Deane and Isobel had left
their camp. Isobel was walking now, and their sledge was traveling
faster. Billy encouraged his own pace, and over two or three open
spaces he broke into a long, swinging run. The trail was comparatively
fresh, and at the end of another hour he knew that they could not be
far ahead of him. He had followed through a thin swamp and had climbed
to the top of a rough ridge when he stopped. Isobel had reached the
bald cap of the ridge exhausted. The last twenty yards he could see
where Deane had assisted her; and then she had dropped down in the
snow, and he had placed a blanket under her. They had taken a drink of
tea made back over the fire, and a little of it had fallen into the
snow. It had not yet formed ice, and instinctively he dropped behind a
rock and looked down into the wooded valley at his feet. In a few
moments he began to descend.