The Courage of Marge O'Doone

by James Oliver Curwood

That amazing lie seemed for a moment to daze Brokaw. David realized the audacity of it, and knew that Brokaw would remember too well what had happened to believe him. Its effect was what he was after, and if he had had a doubt as to the motive of the other's visit that doubt disappeared almost as quickly as he had spoken. The grin went out of Brokaw's face, his jaws tightened, the red came nearer to the surface in the bloodshot eyes. As plainly as if he were giving voice to his thought he was saying: "You lie!" But he kept back the words, and as David noted carelessly the slow clenching and unclenching of his hands, he believed that Hauck was not very far away, and that it was his warning and the fact that he was possibly listening to them, that restrained Brokaw from betraying himself completely. As it was, the grin returned slowly into his face.

"Hauck says he's sorry he couldn't have breakfast with you," he said. "Couldn't wait any longer. The Indian's going to bring your breakfast here. You'd better hurry if you want to see the fun."

With this he turned and walked heavily toward the end of the hall. David glanced across at the door of Marge's room. It was closed. Then he looked at his watch. It was almost nine o'clock! He felt like swearing as he thought of what he had missed—that breakfast with Hauck and the Girl. He would undoubtedly have had an opportunity of seeing Hauck alone for a little while—a quarter of an hour would have been enough; or he could have settled the whole matter in Marge's presence. He wondered where she was now. In her room?

Approaching footsteps caused him to draw back deeper into his own and a moment later his promised breakfast appeared, carried on a big Company keyakun, by an old Indian woman—undoubtedly the woman that Marge had told him about. She placed the huge plate on his table and withdrew without either looking at him or uttering a sound. He ate hurriedly, and finished dressing himself after that. It was a quarter after nine when he went into the hall. In passing Marge's door he knocked. There came no response from within. He turned and passed through the big room in which he had seen so many unfriendly faces the night before. It was empty now. The stillness of the place began to fill him with uneasiness, and he hurried out into the day. A low tumult of sound was in the air, unintelligible and yet thrilling. A dozen steps brought him to the end of the building and he looked toward the cage. For a space after that he stood without moving, filled with a sudden, sickening horror as he realized his helplessness in this moment. If he had not overslept, if he had talked with Hauck, he might have prevented this monstrous thing that was happening—he might have demanded that Tara be a part of their bargain. It was too late now. An excited and yet strangely quiet crowd was gathered about the cage—a crowd so tense and motionless that he knew the battle was on. A low, growling roar came to him, and again he heard that tumult of human voices, like a great gasp rising spontaneously out of half a hundred throats, and in response to the sound he gave a sudden cry of rage. Tara was already battling for his life—Tara, that great, big-souled brute who had learned to follow his little mistress like a protecting dog, and who had accepted him as a friend—Tara, grown soft and lazy and unwarlike because of his voluntary slavery, had been offered to the sacrifice which Brokaw had told him was inevitable!

And the Girl! Where was she? He was unconscious of the fact that his hand was gripping hard at the automatic in his pocket. For a space his brain burned red, seething with a physical passion, a consuming anger which, in all his life, had never been roused so terrifically within him. He rushed forward and took his place in the thin circle of watching men. He did not look at their faces. He did not know whether he stood next to white men or Indians. He did not see the blaze in their eyes, the joyous trembling of their bodies, their silent, savage exultation in the spectacle.

He was looking at the cage.

It was 20 feet square—built of small trees almost a foot in diameter, with 18-inch spaces between—and out of it came a sickening, grinding smash of jaws. The two beasts were down, a ton of flesh and bone, in what seemed to him to be a death embrace. For a moment he could not tell which was Tara and which was Brokaw's grizzly. They separated in that same breath, gained their feet, and stood facing each other. They must have been fighting for some minutes. Tara's jaws were foaming with blood and out of the throat of Brokaw's bear there rolled a rumbling, snarling roar that was like the deep-chested bellow of an angry bull. With that roar they came together again, Tara waiting stolidly and with panting sides for the rush of his enemy. It was hard for David to see what was happening in that twisting contortion of huge bodies, but as they rolled heavily to one side he saw a great red splash of blood where they had lain. It looked as if some one had poured it there out of a pail.

Suddenly a hand fell on his shoulder. He looked round. Brokaw was leering at him.

"Great scrap, eh?"

There was a look in his red face that revealed the pitiless savagery of a cat. David's clenched hand was as hard as iron and his brain was filled with a wild desire to strike. He fought to hold himself in.