The Promise / A Tale of the Great Northwest

by James B. Hendryx

It seemed to the frightened man as if the accompanying noise must wake the dead. He lay for a moment where he had fallen, listening for sounds from within. He clutched his rifle nervously, but the deathlike silence was unbroken save for his own heavy breathing and the tiny snapping of the fire in the stove.

Cautiously he extricated himself from the brush-heap, his heart pounding wildly at the snapping of each dry twig. It was incredible that the man could sleep through such a racket in a country where life and death may hang upon the rustle of a leaf.

But the silence remained unbroken, and, after what seemed to the cowering man an eternity of expectant waiting, he crawled again to the wall and glanced furtively into the interior. The form by the fire was motionless as before—it had not stirred.

Then, as he looked, a ray of firelight fell upon the white label of the black whisky bottle that lay an easy arm's reach from the head of the sleeper. A smile of comprehension twisted the lips of his evil face as he leered through the crevice at the helpless form by the fireside.

"Soused to the guards," he sneered, "an' me with ten years scairt offen my life fer fear I'd wake him." He stood erect and, with no attempt at the stealth with which he had approached the shack, proceeded rapidly in the direction of the stable.

It was but the work of a few moment to bridle the horses, lead them out, and hitch them to the sled.

Tossing the horse-blankets on top of the big tarpaulin which lay in the rear of the sled-box ready for use in the covering of supplies, he settled himself in front and pulled the robes about him.

He turned the team slowly onto the tote-road and glanced again toward the shack. A spark, larger than the others, shot out of the stovepipe and lodged upon the bark roof, where it glowed for a moment before going out. The man watched it in sudden fascination.

He halted the team and stared long at the spot where the spark had vanished in blackness, but which in the brain of the man appeared as an ever-widening circle of red, which spread until it included the whole roof in its fiery embrace, and crept slowly down the log walls.

So realistic was the picture that he seemed to hear the crackle and roar of the leaping flames. He drew a trembling hand across his eyes, and when he looked again the shack stood silent and black in the half-light of the starlit clearing.