XXII
I stood with my head up until the boat had whisked Brack out of sight, then slumped down in despair upon a convenient boulder. I was horrified and frightened. My thoughts had cleared by now and the full significance of what I had seen, heard, and undergone came to me. Brutal robbery, probably murder; such was the sum and substance of Brack’s plans. The expedition and the Wanderer turned in the tools of a piracy which would have been unbelievable with any other man than the captain! And Miss Baldwin back there on the yacht, ignorant of the morning’s happenings, unsuspecting of Brack’s true character, and I helpless to warn her or be of any assistance.
Brack would keep up the pretense. He would be the smooth-talking captain this morning as if nothing untoward had happened, or was going to happen. He would maintain this pose until he had accomplished the robbery, until it pleased him to drop it. And after this morning I knew that he would go to any lengths to fulfil his will.
“Cold?” sneered Barry as I shivered. “Well, don’t worry, sissy, Cap’ll make it warm enough for you when he gets ready to ’tend to you.”
I turned to plead with him, and he laughed delightedly at the fear and wretchedness in my face. For I was afraid. This was no place for me. It was all too strange, too harsh. I was literally sick at my stomach; and yet I knew all the time that I was going to try to warn those unsuspecting miners whom Captain Brack planned to catch in their mine like rats in a pit. Heaven knows I did not wish to do it! In my heart I protested against the Fate that had placed such a task to my lot. I was unfit for it. Somebody else, more used to such things, should have had the job.
I would have pleaded with Barry, have sought to bribe him, but the expression on his vicious countenance made me hold my tongue. What could I do? This sort of thing was new to me; how did one go about it?
I thought of the two miners delving away in their shafts, of them suddenly looking up to find Brack grinning down at them. The unfairness of the thing was revolting. Did men do such things to their fellows in this day and age?
I glanced at Barry and his rifle and knew that they did. Craft and brutality, those were the laws governing this situation. And craft and brutality soon began to enter my thoughts as readily as they might enter those of Brack, Garvin, or the lout who was guarding me.
At my feet lay several stones the size of a man’s fist. Presently I feigned sleepiness, nodded, and slipped from the boulder to a seat on the sand.
“Sleepy, eh?” Barry sneered. “You’re a fine piece o’ cheese.”
“I’m sick,” I muttered. “My head aches.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” He prodded me carelessly with the butt of his rifle. “For two cents I’d give you a clout that’d take the ache out of that head for good.”
The minutes went by in silence. Half an hour later, perhaps, I saw Barry’s vigilance begin to relax.
My right hand dropped languidly at my side and found a round stone, slightly larger than a baseball. Barry did not see.
More time passed. At last Barry, catching himself nodding, straightened up and again prodded me with the butt.
“Don’t do that again,” I whined. “Please don’t.”
“‘Please don’t!’” mocked Barry.
In his estimation I was such a weakling that he had no need to be cautious. The rifle-butt again touched my side. I grasped it suddenly with my left hand, the fingers fastening themselves around the trigger-guard, and sprang up, the stone in my right hand. Barry jerked at the rifle, drawing me close, and I felled him to the ground with a blow from the stone on the temple.
I had the rifle now, and as he strove to rise I struck him on the head with the heavy barrel and he lay still. I stood over him, ready to strike again, but he did not move and with the rifle in my hand I ran through the green-leaved brush which fringed the fiord and started to climb the rocky hills that walled it in.
What I had to do I knew must be done in a hurry, before Brack or Madigan were in a position to keep a watch on the lake, and I ran on, regardless of the fissures and gaps with which the hill was pitted. In my haste I paid little attention to my path, and near the top I plunged suddenly through a tangle of brush and fell into what proved to be the mouth of a cave-like opening in the rocky portion of the hill.
The cave was so well hidden by the spring foliage that I had literally to walk into it before suspecting its existence. I hid the rifle there, clambered out and went on. If my senses of direction and distance were right the lake should be straight north and about a mile and a half away.
Though I ran and walked as rapidly as possible, it was half an hour before I struck the ridge which shut out the lake from sight of the bay. Then I knew that in spite of my ignorance of the woods, I had gone straight to my goal. I went down the farther side at once, keeping myself hidden in the brush as much as possible in case Madigan’s crew should be on the lookout, and finding the trail along the river I went straight up toward the miners’ camp.
A man was waiting for me as I stepped from the alder-brush into the clearing about the mine. My clumsy traveling had warned of my approach and he lay behind a pile of dirt before a shaft, a large blue pistol pointing straight down the trail where I emerged.
“Don’t shoot!” I cried running toward him, with my hands in the air. “I’m a friend. I’ve come to warn you that a man named Brack with a crew of cutthroats is on his way to raid your camp.”
The mention of Brack’s name had a pitiful effect upon the man. He leaped back, his eyes shifty with fright, and made as if to run back to the cabins. He caught himself, however, and swung his pistol steadily on the trail behind me.
He was an old man with a patriarchal beard and a gentle face. When he saw that no one was following me he said—
“Come with me, stranger; we’ll get Bill.”
He retreated, walking backward, covering me and the trail with his weapon, while I followed. Arriving at the first shaft, still keeping his eyes on me, he called—
“Oh, Bill!”
A tall, laughing youth, with a soft, curly beard, came clambering out of the mine in response to his summons. At the sight of me his hand flashed to the pistol on his hip.
“Tell it to Bill, stranger,” said the patriarch. “Bill, the Laughing Devil’s back and this gentleman says he’s layin’ to come an’ clean us pronto.”
“Brack?” gasped the youth, with a frightened glance down the trail. “Foxy Brack?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s here to rob you. He’s sent one of his lieutenants around the ridge to cut off your back trail. He has ten of the worst men in Christendom with him.”
“Oh, my God!” groaned the young man. Steadying himself he said, “Who are you, stranger?”
I told about the Wanderer and its party, and about the morning’s happenings as swiftly as possible.
“Why did you run the risk of coming here and telling us this?” asked the youth when I concluded. “And how do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“Bill!” said the old man reprovingly. “Can’t you see? Stranger, we take this right neighborly of you. My name’s Slade, and this is my partner, young Bill Harris. Pitt, you said your name was? Well, Mr. Pitt, you’re a man. This Brack, now, he’s a devil. Bill and me saved his life when he come ashore up at Omkutsk, and he spoke us fine and friendly, and acted like a man, and we took him in with us on this gold find.
“Then one day he tried to put us both out of business and we caught him in the act just in time. It’s hard to kill a man when you got him helpless, stranger, though we should ’a’ done it then. We give him a boat with grub, and when the wind was blowing offshore we sent him out to sea. The devil must ’a’ took care of its own, since he’s still living; and now he’s come back to clean us out. We been sort of ’fraid of it all the time.”
“How many d’ you say with him?” queried young Harris. “And all bad men, too, eh? God! There’s only two of us——”
“Bill,” said Slade patiently, “we can’t stay an’ fight him. You know what he is.”
“They’re circling round us now?” Harris was looking around wildly. “We’re cut off.”
“How many went around to cut our trail, neighbor?”
“Five.”
“We may be able to handle five of ’em, Bill,” said Slade. “We wouldn’t have no chance with ten. We mustn’t let ’em head us off. Brack ’ud use fire to make us tell where the gold is cached. We’ll start right away and travel light.”
Harris ran into the large cabin. I started to go back the way I had come.
“Wha-a-at? You ain’t going back to Brack’s boat, are you? Neighbor, there’ll be only hell where that devil is.”
“And for that reason I must go back there.”
“Why?”
“There is a girl—a young lady—on the yacht.”
Old Slade shook his head.
“That dirty devil! But we can’t stay and fight ten men and Brack. Well, Mr. Pitt, I reckon we owe you our lives and everything we got, but I dunno how we’re goin’ to square it with you.”
My eyes fell on the automatic pistol in his hand.
“You’re —— whistlin’!” cried Slade suddenly as he thrust the weapon into my hands. I put it inside my shirt. “That don’t square us. Best I can do, though. Now, Mr. Pitt—” he gripped my hand—“God bless yoh!”