The prey of the strongest

by Morley Roberts

This was, indeed, the nature of the man, as Long Mac knew it. He was capable of fierce resentment, capable of secret though unsubtle revenge, but he was not capable of standing up like a man at the stake of necessity; not his the blood of those nobler Indians of the Plains who could endure all things at the last. His blood was partly water, of a truth, and now it melted within him.

"They catch me fo' su'e," said Pete. His muscles weakened, his very soul was feeble. What a fool, a thrice-sodden fool, he had been to cut the hose in the Mill. But for that they might not have known he had fired it. But Long Mac knew, and perhaps Long Mac himself, who had nerves and muscles of steel, was out after him in the night. Oh, rather even Quin than that man, whom Quin himself treated with a courtesy he denied to all the others who worked for him.

But now the light of the Mill faded. On both sides of the river were heavy shadows: the great moving flood was but a mirror of darkness and a few stars that flicked silver into the lip and lap of the moving waters. Pete knew the ebb and current ran fastest in the middle of the stream, and yet to be out in the middle meant that he would be seen easier, if indeed he was pursued. He could not make up his mind whether to chance this or not. He sheered from the centre to the banks and back again. And every now and again it seemed to him that it would be wisest to run ashore, turn his dugout loose and take to the brush. And yet he did not do it. He was weak, now that fear was in him, and the alcohol died out of him, and he felt renewed pangs of hunger. To wander in the thick brush would be fatal. They would renew their search on the morrow: every avenue of escape would be guarded. And hunger would so tame the little spirit he had within him that he would give himself up.

"They hang me, they hang me," he said piteously, even as Ned Quin had said it. But there was none to help him. The very men who had been his brothers, his tilikums, would give him up now.

He cursed himself and Jenny and Quin and the memory of Skookum Charlie. He took the centre of the river at last and paddled hard. It was his only chance. If he could but get out to sea and then run ashore somewhere in the Territory, among some of the Washington Indians who knew nothing of him, he would be hard to find. The very thought of this helped him. He might escape after all.

And then his ears told he was not to escape so easily. He heard the sound of oars in the rowlocks of a boat. Or was it only the beating of his own heart? He could not locate the sound. At one moment it seemed to him that after all it was but someone further down the river and then it seemed behind him. If it were down stream it might be only some stray salmon boat doing its poor best in a bad year. Even they would say they had met him. He ceased to row and sheered across towards the darkest shadow of the bank.

And, as he sheered inwards, from behind the last bend of that very bank there shot a boat which was inshore of him. For Quin knew the river below the City as Pete did not, and he had kept in the strongest of the stream, which sometimes cut its deepest channel close to the shore. He was but a hundred yards from Pete when the Sitcum Siwash saw him and knew it was Quin.

Here the great river below the Island, where North and South Arms were one, was at its widest. And by the way his enemy came Pete knew that his hour had arrived. Though he paddled for awhile in sheer desperation he knew that his wretched heavy dug-out had no chance against a light boat, driven by the strongest arms in the City, perhaps the strongest in the whole country. And Quin was an oarsman and had loved the water always. The wretched fugitive changed his tune even as he strove in vain.

"He fix me, oh, he fix me——!"

Hot as he was with paddling, the cold sweat now ran down his brow and cheeks. He felt his heart fail within him: he felt his muscles fail. Yet still he strove and kept a distance between himself and Quin that only slowly lessened. For now Quin himself slackened his pace. He was sure he had the man, and yet it needed coolness to secure him.