The sun was low when Young Dan came out of the woods and headed slantwise across a wide field beside the highway.
CHAPTER IX
THE FIGHT IN THE SNOW
Young Dan Evans slanted across the white field, heading for the highroad which led smoothly into the little town of Harlow. His journey was within a half-mile of its completion. He had worked hard ever since leaving Bean’s Mill, through thick timber and untracked snow; and now he was tired and hungry but in fine spirits. He had thought much of Andy Mace and Pete Sabatis during the journey—of their admiration for one another’s qualities of physical and spiritual fiber—and believed that they would soon take him as seriously as they now considered each other. Of course Andy was his firm friend and already thought highly of his “smartness” along certain lines—but he feared that he had not yet made a very deep impression on the one-eyed Indian. He suspected that Pete Sabatis considered him a trifle too big for his cap and boots. He had seen something of the kind in the old man’s one eye that very morning.
“I guess he thinks I’m just a cub playing at something and trying to fool folks into thinking I’m a smart man,” he reflected. “But when I have that big Luke Watt jumping to my say-so, and that thieving drunkard Jim Conley come to heel like a trained partridge-dog, and Mrs. Conley and the kids fed and looked after properly, I guess he will have to admit that I know what I’m doing.”
Thus engaged with his thoughts, he drew near to an extensive grove of swamp-birches and alders which grew along the snow-drifted fence like a screen between the field and the highroad. He carried his blankets and pack of furs on his back, his axe on his right shoulder and his cased rifle hung by its sling on his left shoulder.
He was close to the edge of the tangle of birches and alders, and about midway of its length, when a bulky figure in a coonskin coat arose from the snow and stepped out in front of him.
Young Dan Evans did so many things all at once then that it is difficult to disentangle and describe his actions. Mind and body worked quick as thought—quicker, perhaps, for he was scarcely conscious of thinking. As he recognized Luke Watt in the very instant of seeing him he let everything he carried slip and fall from him into the snow in one shrugging motion—pack and rifle and axe—and jumped forward straight and hard. Even as he jumped, he saw Luke Watt draw something from a side-pocket of the fur coat—but he did not flinch from the mark. He struck Watt with his whole body all at once. His knees dug into the big man’s middle and his left arm went around the fur-clad thick neck; and as they fell he heard the revolver explode twice and felt the jolt of the gloved hand that held it against his ribs; and he drew up his left knee and stamped a wide snowshoe on Watt’s right arm, and struck the big face with his right fist. Thus they sank into the drift, with Luke Watt underneath and flat on his back. Young Dan trod the hand that held the revolver deep into the snow; and he struck the vanishing face again and again, though the snow muffled the blows of his mittened fist; and, all the while, his right knee crushed and pounded.
Luke Watt struggled—but what was the use! He was breathless, helpless, bound and half smothered by the snow. All this violence had occurred so swiftly that he could not fully realize exactly what had happened. He had confronted the young trapper with his gun ready and the game in his hand; and now, a few seconds later, his mouth was choked with snow, his eyes were blinded, his arms and weapon were powerless and he was being beaten to death!
Young Dan shook the mitten from his left hand and thrust his bare hand deep into the snow. In a moment he stood up and stepped backward a pace or two, with Luke Watt’s revolver in his grasp. He looked about him and saw a stooped figure on the road walking hastily townward. He turned again to his enemy, who was sitting up by this time and struggling painfully for breath. He flung the revolver far away and recovered his axe, pack and rifle.