The prey of the strongest

by Morley Roberts

It was all very well for George Quin, who had brought all the trouble on himself by running after other people's klootchmen, to say the police were fools, but as a matter of fact they had done as much as could be expected of them, and perhaps more, seeing that Quin wasn't very popular with them. His Mill with its Shack-Town gave them more trouble than the whole of the City, and within a year two "damn plismen," as Annie called them, had been laid out cold with clubs in its vicinity. And nobody had gone into the penitentiary for the murderous assaults. Nevertheless they had searched every likely hole and corner for Pete, from his old native hang-out, Pitt River, down to the Serpentine and beyond it. They had beaten the brush along both sides of the Fraser, North and South Arm and the Island. And, indeed, they came within a throw of the dice of catching Pete. One of them missed him and his canoe by a hair's-breadth, and the Sitcum Siwash had been about to cave in and show himself when the man turned aside.

As it was, the very search for Pete worked him up to desperation just as he was beginning to get cold on revenge and to think rather of escape. If the police were so keen as to search the brush and go up and down the river, how was he to get away? Like most of his sort he didn't know the country, and would have been puzzled to get even as far as Whatcom. And even if he did there would be someone waiting for him. And to go down stream in the dug-out would be to run right into a trap, like a salmon. His rage began to burn in him again, and to this was added hunger. He had over a hundred dollars in his pocket but hadn't eaten for four-and-twenty hours. He would have given his soul for a square meal and a long drink, and as hunger bit him he knew that if he lingered any longer mere famine would induce him to give himself up. Then he would be hanged, and get nothing more than he had got already as the price of his neck. When the second night fell he was wholly desperate.

"I fix heem to-night, or they catch me," said Pete. "One ting or the other, Pete, my boy!"

If he only could get a drink! With a drink inside him he would be equal to anything. He wondered if he dare trust any of his old tilikums of the Mill. He thought of Chihuahua and of Chihuahua's klootchman, Annawillee, and then of old Annie. They would give him away for a dollar; he knew that, and very likely there was a price on his head. If poor old Skookum hadn't been killed he would have done anything for him. Pete was very sorry he had killed Skookum, very sorry indeed.

But he kept on thinking about that drink. If there was one woman or man in Shack-Town who always managed to have liquor in her shanty, it was old Annie.

"I'd choke her for it," said Pete, as he shoved off in his dug-out and paddled lightly against the last of the flood coming in from the great Pacific. "I'd choke her for it."

The night was moonless and cloudy and as dark as it ever gets on the Fraser in summer. There was even a touch of an easterly wind about, and the faint chill of it made him shiver. Without a drink he felt almost hopeless.

"I try," said Pete in sudden desperation. The lights were out all over the town. Hardly a solitary lamp starred the opposing darkness of the hill above the river. The world was asleep. There was only a moving lamp in the Mill. He knew it belonged to the night-watchman, a sleepy-headed old German, once a worker in the Planing Mill with old Papp. But since he lost his hand he had been made night-watchman.

"I give heem plenty light by-by," said Pete. He slanted across the river and came to an old deserted rotten wharf a little above the Mill. There in the black shadow he ran his canoe ashore and stepped into the mud. He crept silently to where the shore shelved, and, climbing up, thrust his head out between some broken flooring of the wharf. The world was quiet as a tomb. There was even peace in Shack-Town. Whether he got that drink or not he had business there that night. Though Chihuahua most likely wouldn't give him a drink, Pete meant to make the Mexican help him. For at the back of Chihuahua's shanty, which was only a one-room hiding hole, there was a little outhouse. In that Chihuahua always kept some kerosene.

Pete slipped across the road like a shadow, dodging among the piles of lumber as he went. His senses were as alert as a cougar's. And the sawdust under foot made his steps soundless. On the other side of the road he waited to be sure that no one moved. There was only one light in Shack-Town, and it was at Annie's. That meant that she was either awake or had fallen asleep drunk on the floor, forgetful of her lamp. Perhaps she had a bottle, said Pete thirstily. He felt cold and nervous and forgot about the kerosene. He ran lightly across the road and came to Annie's. He had a sheath knife in his belt. It had once belonged to Jack Mottram, but Pete had stolen it. He had no intention of using it on Annie, that is unless he had to, of course. He carried a heavy stick in his hand.