CHAPTER V
VENGEANCE RUNS A RED ROAD
It helped much that Hal Crawford had hunted with Mohawks and had worked his way during these frozen months across an unknown wilderness. Now, heading into the northwest, he had need of all his woods lore, all his hard iron strength, all his sheer fighting frenzy.
Of this last he had no lack; indeed, his mood was little short of actual madness, and the more he thought about that note from Art Bocagh, the more infuriated he became. He cared much less about himself than about the men who trusted him. The murder of Phelim Burke had formed his resolution to torture Maclish to the uttermost; but the treacherous slaughter of his men smashed this resolution, wakened in him a furious resolve to kill the burly Scot at the first chance, and in default of him, those who followed him.
During two days and nights he pressed through unbroken woods, throwing caution to the winds, driven by the insurgence of cold fury which had become his reckless master. With the third morning, all the sky was black with magnificent storm-clouds massing up from the south—huge silver-edged billows, pile upon pile and turret upon turret, ranked before and behind as though spelling the immensity of the heavens and spanning that awful depth into the infinity beyond. Stillness abode in the air that morning, a dreadful and expectant stillness of nature, though now and again the cedars shook to the distant mutter of crepitant thunder.
Midway of the morning, Crawford struck into the trail of the Assiniboine war-party and followed it furiously. Toward noon, lightning began to streak across the dark heavens, and rain threatened at every moment. Just as the first breath of the rain-bearing wind was felt, a tremendous thunderbolt crashed into the trees a half-mile distant. Hard upon that pealing reverberation, Crawford loped into a small opening and ran slap upon two Stone Men standing above a dead deer; the roar of the thunderbolt had drowned the sound of the shot.
They saw Crawford ere he sighted them. One of the two flung up musket and let fire, the second hurriedly reloading empty gun. Crawford had no time to prime and fire. Dropping his own gun as the slugs whistled over his head, he whipped out knife and tomahawk, and the keen little axe whirled in air like a streak of vivid light. This was a new weapon-play to the Stone Men, and the Mohawk cast split scalplock and skull of the first. The second warrior was ready with his knife, but Crawford smote him terribly; and two men lay under the singing pines with a reeking five-point star slit in each brown forehead.
The pines were singing now, sure enough; the storm hurtled down with a howl of wind to shake the high trees, torrents of rain blurring the horizon, thunder volleying and rumbling over the black sky. The back of winter had broken in storm, and now was come a second and greater upheaval of nature to complete the work. Through the thick of it drove Crawford, on his trail, disregarding all precaution, until in the midst of the afternoon he was brought to swift sanity. Somewhere wood smoke fought against rain and wind, and catching the pleasant reek of it, he regained his lost caution.
He sniffed the fragrance of birch and cedar, paused to get direction, found the richer scent of fresh meat abroil, and scouted the nostriled warning until he came upon the camp of the Stone Men, lying below him on a long hillside. There were the sodden warriors huddled about fires, others bringing in game, muskets piled near by with powder-horns protected against the wet by blankets. Over all lifted the roaring blast of the storm, the thundering pæan of destruction that swept earth and sky, and between the bursts of rain and wind broke livid and ghastly leven-flashes.
Men paused cowering in this stour, and Crawford might have circled the camp and gone on his way had he not caught sight of Maclish stalking about. Sight of the man brought up Crawford’s gun, but he found that by some carelessness his powder-horn had come unstopped and was empty. With an oath he flung it away, hurled the musket after it, and settled down to wait.
The storm raged on more fiercely, then gradually lessened as evening approached. When twilight fell the rain had become a steady downpour, the thunder had crept across the horizon, and Crawford was stealing down toward the glimmering fires, the noise of his approach drowned by the streaming swish of the rain. All too well was it drowned, in fact. Crawford was not a rod from the fires and the piled muskets, when an Assiniboine coming in with a load of wood went stumbling over him, and let out one startled howl ere the tomahawk took his life.