The Snowshoe Trail

by Edison Marshall

The act had been so swift and unexpected that neither Joe, standing nearest to the girl, or Harold across the room could draw their pistols and fire. Seemingly in a flash the darkness was upon them. No more was Bill the blind and helpless mole, to strike down with one careless blow. He was face to face with his enemies in his own dark lair. He had turned the tables; the advantage of vision on which they had presumed had been in an instant removed. They could see no more than he could now. Besides, in the hours since his rescue, he had already learned to find his way around the cabin.

And this was no half-darkness—that which descended as the candles were struck down. It was the infinite, smothering gloom of an underground cave in which no shadow could live, nor the sharpest outline remain visible. Harold cursed in the blackness; as if in a continuation of the leap he had made to upset the candles, Bill seized Virginia in his strong arms. He thrust her to the floor and into the angle between her bunk and the wall, the point that he instinctively realized would be easiest to defend and safest from stray bullets. Then, widening his arms, almost to the width of the little space between the table and the wall, he lunged forward again.

Virginia's pistol was in Joe's hand by now, and he shot in Bill's direction. Two spurts of yellow fire broke for an instant the utter gloom. But there was no time for a third shot. He was the nearest of the three attackers, and Bill's outstretched arms seized him. The woodsman's muscles gave a mighty wrench.

His grasp was about Joe's chest at first, but with a great lurch he slung the man's body out far enough so that he could loop his sinewy arms about the man's knees. Joe was shifted in his arms as workmen are sometimes snatched up by a mighty belt in a machine shop; he seemed simply to snap in the remorseless grasp. Bill himself had no sensation of his enemy's weight. He had him about the knees by now, Joe's body thrust out almost straight from centrifugal force, and with a terrific wrench of his mighty shoulders Bill hurled him against the wall.

It was well for his enemies that none of them were in the road of that human missile. They would have taken no further part in the ensuing battle. Joe's body crushed against the logs with a sound that was strange and horrible in the utter darkness; the pistol spun from his hand and rattled down'; then he fell with a crash to the floor. There was no further movement from him thereafter. His neck had been broken like a match. The odds were but two to one.

Harold had taken out his own revolver now and was shooting blindly in the darkness. Ducking low, Bill leaped for him. In that leap there was none of the gentle mercy with which he had dealt with him first, so long ago in Harold's cabin. But a quick movement by Harold saved him from the full force of the leap; in a moment they were grappling in each other's arms.

Bill wrenched him back and forth, and in an instant would have crushed the life out of him if it hadn't been for the interference of Pete. The latter breed leaped on his back, and Bill had to neglect Harold an instant to stretch up his arms and hurl Pete to the floor. Harold still clung to him, trying to seize his throat, but Bill wrenched him down. He flung his own body down on top of him, then seized him by the throat with the deadly intention of hammering his head on the floor; but before he could accomplish his purpose Pete was upon him again.

It was the end of the preliminaries. In that second the fight began in earnest. They were both powerful men, the breed and Harold; and Bill was like a wild beast—quick as a cougar, resistless as a grizzly—a fighting fury that in the darkness was terrible as death. Mighty muscles, stinging blows, striking fists and grasping arms; the rage and glory of battle was upon him as never before.

It was the death fight—in the darkness—and that meant it was a savage, nightmare thing that called forth those most deep and terrible instincts that in the first days of the earth were stored and implanted in the germ plasm. These were no longer men of the twentieth century. They were simply beasts, fighting to the death in a cave. It was a familiar thing to be warring thus in the darkness: Neither Harold nor Pete missed the light now. They were carried back to no less furious battles, fought in dark caverns under the sea; murder flamed in their hearts and fire ran riot in their blood.

They were no longer conscious of time; already it was as if they had struggled thus through the long roll of the centuries. It was hard to remember what had been the cause of the fight. It didn't matter now, anyway; the only issue left was the life of their adversary. To kill, to tear their enemies' hearts from their warm breasts and their arteries from their throats,—this was all that any of the three could remember now. It was true that Bill kept his adversaries away from Virginia's corner as well as he could, but he did it by instinct rather than by conscious planning. He had not hated Harold in these months past, but had only regarded him with contempt; but hate came to him fast enough in those first moments of battle.