XXXIII
Whispering eagerly, Virginia told Bill the plan that would give them their fighting chance. His mind, working clear and true, absorbed every detail. "It depends first," she said, "whether or not you can crawl through the little window of the cabin."
Bill remembered his experience in the smoke-filled hut and he kissed her, smiling. "I've got into smaller places than that, in my time," he told her. "I can take the little window right out. I put it in myself."
They were not so awed by their dilemma that they couldn't have gay words. "You got into my heart, too, Bill—a great dealer smaller place than the window," she whispered. "The next thing—are Harold's snowshoes in this room?"
"So it depends on Harold, does it? I believe his snowshoes are here. Harold left rather hurriedly—and I don't think he took them."
"What everything depends on—is getting out. Getting out quickly. The longer we stay here, without food, the more certain death is. I know I can't walk and you can't see. We have no food—except enough for one meal, perhaps—but we've got to take a chance on that. Bill, Harold is waiting, right now—probably in the little cabin where he sleeps—for a chance to get those shoes. He's helpless without them. When he gets them, he can go to the Yuga—enlist more of his breed friends—and wait in ambush for us, just as he said. He's hoping we've forgotten about them. I am sure he didn't take the shoes. They were behind the stove last night."
To make sure, Bill groped his way across the cabin and found not only Harold's shoes, but his own and Virginia's, bringing them all back to her side.
"What's now, Little Corporal?" he asked.
"As soon as it gets light enough for him to see, I want you to go out the cabin door. Turn at once into the brush at your right, so he can't shoot you with the rifle. Then come around to the side of the cabin and re-enter through the window. You can feel your way, and I can guide you by my voice, but you mustn't go more than a few feet or you'll get bewildered. The moment he thinks you are gone, he'll come—not only to get his snowshoes but to gloat over me. I know him now! I can't understand why I didn't know him before. And then—we've got to take him by surprise."
"And then——?"
Quickly, with few words, she told him the rest of her plot. It was wholly simple, and at least it held a fighting chance. He was not blind to the deadly three-day battle that they would have to wage against starvation and cold, in case this immediate part of their plot was a success. But the slightest chance when death was the only alternative was worth the trial.
Very carefully and softly Bill went to work to loosen the window so that he could take it out. It was secured by nails, but with such tools as he had in the cabin, he soon had it free. Then he lifted out the window, putting it back loosely so that he could remove it in a second's time. There was no wisdom in leaving it open until morning. The bitter cold without was waiting for just that chance.
He secured certain thongs of rawhide—left over from the moose skin that he had used for snowshoe webs—and put them in his coat pocket. Then he made a little bed for the girl, on the floor and against the wall, exactly in front and opposite the doorway. It was noticeable, too, that he restored her pistol to her hand.
"I don't think you'll need it," he told her, "but I want you to have it anyway—in case of an emergency."
There was nothing to do thereafter but to build up the fire and wait for dawn.
In reality, Virginia had guessed the situation just right. In the adjoining cabin, scarcely one hundred yards away, Harold waited and watched his chance to recover his snowshoes. He was wise enough to care to wait for daylight. He wanted no further meeting with Bill in the darkness. But in the light he would have every advantage; he could see to shoot and his blind foe could not return his fire.
After all, he had only to be patient. Vengeance would be swift and sure. When the morning broke he would come into his own again, with never a chance for failure. One little glance along his rifle sights, one quarter-ounce of pressure on the trigger,—and then he could journey down to the Yuga and his squaw in happiness and safety. It would be a hard march, but once there he could get supplies and return to jump Bill's claim. Everything would turn out right for him after all.
The fact that his confederates were slain mattered not one way or another. Pete had gone out with a bullet through his lungs; Virginia had dealt him that. Joe's neck had been broken when Bill had hurled him against the cabin wall. But in a way, these things were an advantage. There was sufficient food in the cabin for one meal for the three of them, and that meant it was three meals for one. A day's rations, carefully spent, would carry him the two day's march to the Yuga. Besides, the breeds would not be present to claim their third of the mine. He wondered why he hadn't handled the whole matter himself, in the first place. He would have been fully capable, he thought. As to Virginia,—he hadn't decided about Virginia yet. He didn't know of her wound, or his security would have seemed all the more complete. Virginia might yet listen to reason and accompany him down to the Yuga. He had only to wait till dawn.
But Harold's thought was not entirely clear. The fury in his brain and the madness in his blood distorted it,—just a little. Otherwise he might have conceived of some error in his plans. He would have been a little more careful, a little less sure. His insane and devastating longing for vengeance, as well as his late drunkenness, cost him the fine but essential edge of his self-mastery.
Slowly the stars faded, the first ghostly light came stealing from the east. The blood began to leap once more in his veins. Already it was almost light enough to shoot. Then his straining eyes saw Bill emerge from the cabin.
Every nerve in his body seemed to jerk and thrill with renewed excitement. Yet there wasn't a chance to shoot. The light was dim; the shadows of the spruce trees hid the woodsman's figure swiftly. He was gone; the cabin was left unoccupied except for Virginia. And for all that she had shot so straight to save Bill's life, there was nothing to fear from her. Her fury was passed by now; he thought he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't shoot him in cold blood. And perhaps some of her love for him yet lingered.
He did not try to guess the mission on which Bill had gone. If his thought had been more clear and his fury less, he would have paused and wondered about it; perhaps he would have been somewhat suspicious. Bill was blind; except to procure fuel there was no conceivable reason for an excursion into the snow. But Harold only shivered with hatred and rage, drunk with the realization that his chance had come.
He would go quickly to the cabin, procure his snowshoes, and be ready to meet Bill with loaded rifle when he returned. There was no chance for failure. He plunged and fought his way, floundering in the deep snow, toward Bill's cabin.
He found to his great delight that the door was open,—nothing to do but walk through. At first he was a little amazed at the sight of Virginia lying so still against the opposite wall; it occurred to him for the first time that perhaps she had been wounded in the fight. If so, it made his work all the safer. Yet she opened her eyes and gazed at him as he neared the threshold. He could see her but dimly; mostly the cabin was still dusky with shadows.
"I'm coming for my snowshoes, Virginia," he told her. "Then I'm going to go away." He tried to draw his battered, bloody lips into a smile.
"Come in and get them," she replied. Her voice was low and lifeless. Harold stepped through the door. And then she uttered a curious cry.
"Now!" she called sharply. There was no time for Harold to dart back, even to be alarmed. A mighty force descended upon his body.
Even in that first instant Harold knew only too well what had occurred. Instead of lying in wait himself he had been lured into ambush. Bill had re-entered the window and had stood waiting in the shadow, just beside the open door. Virginia had given him the signal when to leap down.
He leaped with crushing force,—as the grizzly leaps, or the cougar pounces from a tree. There was nothing of human limitations about that attack. Harold tried to struggle, but his attempt was futile as that of a sparrow in the jaws of the little ermine. Only too well he knew the strength of these pitiless arms that clasped him now. He had learned it the night before, and his lust for vengeance gave way to ghastly and blood-curdling terror. What would these two avengers do to him; what justice would they wreak on him, now that they had him in their power? The resistless shoulders hurled him to the floor. Virginia left her bed and came creeping to be of such aid as was needed.
She wholly disregarded her own injury. Her own countrymen, in wars agone, had fought all day with wounds much worse. She crept with her pistol ready in her hands.
Bill's strong fingers were at Harold's throat by now; the man's resistance was swiftly crushed out of him. With his knee Bill held down one of Harold's arms; with his free arm he struck blow after blow into his face. Then as unconsciousness descended upon him, Harold felt his wrists being drawn back and tied.
He struggled for consciousness. Opening his eyes, he saw their sardonic faces. The worst terror of his life descended upon him.
"My god, what are you going to do to me?" he asked.
"Why, Harold, you are going to be our little truck horse," Virginia replied gayly, as she handed Bill more thongs. "You are going to pull the sled and show the way down into Bradleyburg."