From Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 - "Se quo yah"

James Polk - "State of the Union Addresses of James Polk"

Edith Wharton - "The Valley Of Decision"

Arnold Bennett - "The Old Wives' Tale"

The Golden Snare

J >> James Oliver Curwood >> The Golden Snare




For a matter of a quarter of an hour they traveled as swiftly as
Celie could walk. Philip was confident that the Eskimo whose cries
they had heard would strike directly for the point whence the
first cry had come, and it was his purpose to cover as much
distance as possible in the first few minutes that their enemies
might be behind them. It was easier to watch the back trail than
to guard against ambuscades ahead. Twice in that time he stopped
where they would be unseen and looked back, and in advancing he
picked out the thinnest timber and evaded whatever might have
afforded a hiding place to a javelin-thrower. They had progressed
another half mile when suddenly they came upon a snowshoe trail in
the snow.

It had crossed at right angles to their own course, and as Philip
bent over it a sudden lump rose into his throat. The other Eskimos
had not worn snowshoes. That in itself had not surprised him, for
the snow was hard and easily traveled in moccasins. The fact that
amazed him now was that the trail under his eyes had not been made
by Eskimo usamuks. The tracks were long and narrow. The web
imprint in the snow was not that of the broad narwhal strip, but
the finer mesh of babiche. It was possible that an Eskimo was
wearing them, but they were A WHITE MAN'S SHOES!

And then he made another discovery. For a dozen paces he followed
in the trail, allowing six inches with each step he took as the
snowshoe handicap. Even at that he could not easily cover the
tracks. The man who had made them had taken a longer snowshoe
stride than his own by at least nine inches. He could no longer
keep the excitement of his discovery from Celie.

"The Eskimo never lived who could make that track," he exclaimed.
"They can travel fast enough but they're a bunch of runts when it
comes to leg-swing. It's a white man--or Bram!"

The announcement of the wolf-man's name and Philip's gesture
toward the trail drew a quick little cry of understanding from
Celie. In a flash she had darted to the snowshoe tracks and was
examining them with eager intensity. Then she looked up and shook
her head. It wasn't Bram! She pointed to the tail of the shoe and
catching up a twig broke it under Philip's eyes. He remembered
now. The end of Bram's shoes was snubbed short off. There was no
evidence of that defect in the snow. It was not Bram who had
passed that way.

For a space he stood undecided. He knew that Celie was watching
him--that she was trying to learn something of the tremendous
significance of that moment from his face. The same unseen force
that had compelled him to wait and watch for his foes a short time
before seemed urging him now to follow the strange snowshoe trail.
Enemy or friend the maker of those tracks would at least be armed.
The thought of what a rifle and a few cartridges would mean to him
and Celie now brought a low cry of decision from him. He turned
quickly to Celie.

"He's going east--and we ought to go north to find the cabin," he
told her, pointing to the trail. "But we'll follow him. I want his
rifle. I want it more than anything else in this world, now that
I've got you. We'll follow--"

If there had been a shadow of hesitation in his mind it was ended
in that moment. From behind them there came a strange hooting cry.
It was not a yell such as they had heard before. It was a booming
far-reaching note that had in it the intonation of a drum--a sound
that made one shiver because of its very strangeness. And then,
from farther west, it came--

"Hoom--Hoom--Ho-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m--"

In the next half minute it seemed to Philip that the cry was
answered from half a dozen different quarters. Then again it came
from directly behind them.

Celie uttered a little gasp as she clung to his hand again. She
understood as well as he. One of the Eskimos had discovered the
dead and their foes were gathering in behind them.





CHAPTER XIX




Before the last of the cries had died away Philip flung far to one
side of the trail the javelin he carried, and followed it up with
Celie's, impressing on her that every ounce of additional weight
meant a handicap for them now. After the javelins went his club.

"It's going to be the biggest race I've ever run," he smiled at
her. "And we've got to win. If we don't--"

Celie's eyes were aglow as she looked at him, He was splendidly
calm. There was no longer a trace of excitement in his face, and
he was smiling at her even as he picked her up suddenly in his
arms. The movement was so unexpected that she gave a little gasp.
Then she found herself borne swiftly over the trail. For a
distance of a hundred yards Philip ran with her before he placed
her on her feet again. In no better way could he have impressed on
her that they were partners in a race against death and that every
energy must be expended in that race. Scarcely had her feet
touched the snow than she was running at his side, her hand
clasped in his. Barely a second was lost.

With the swift directness of the trained man-hunter Philip had
measured his chances of winning. The Eskimos, first of all, would
gather about their dead. After one or two formalities they would
join in a chattering council, all of which meant precious time for
them. The pursuit would be more or less cautious because of the
bullet hole in the Kogmollock's forehead.

If it had been possible for Celie to ask him just what he expected
to gain by following the strange snowshoe trail he would have had
difficulty in answering. It was, like his single shot with Celie's
little revolver, a chance gamble against big odds. A number of
possibilities had suggested themselves to him. It even occurred to
him that the man who was hurrying toward the east might be a
member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Of one thing,
however, he was confident. The maker of the tracks would not be
armed with javelins. He would have a rifle. Friend or foe, he was
after that rifle. The trick was to catch sight of him at the
earliest possible moment.

How much of a lead the stranger had was a matter at which he could
guess with considerable accuracy. The freshness of the trail was
only slightly dimmed by snow, which was ample proof that it had
been made at the very tail-end of the storm. He believed that it
was not more than an hour old.

For a good two hundred yards Philip set a dog-trot pace for
Celie, who ran courageously at his side. At the end of that
distance he stopped. Celie was panting for breath. Her hood had
slipped back and her face was flushed like a wildflower by her
exertion. Her eyes shone like stars, and her lips were parted a
little. She was temptingly lovely, but again Philip lost not a
second of unnecessary time. He picked her up in his arms again and
continued the race. By using every ounce of his own strength and
endurance in this way he figured that their progress would be at
least a third faster than the Eskimos would follow. The important
question was how long he could keep up the pace.

Against his breast Celie was beginning to understand his scheme as
plainly as if he had explained it to her in words. At the end of
the fourth hundred yards she let him know that she was ready to
run another lap. He carried her on fifty yards more before he
placed her on her feet. In this way they had gone three-quarters
of a mile when the trail turned abruptly from its easterly course
to a point of the compass due north. So sharp was the turn that
Philip paused to investigate the sudden change in direction. The
stranger had evidently stood for several minutes at this point,
which was close to the blasted stub of a dead spruce. In the snow
Philip observed for the first time a number of dark brown spots.

"Here is where he took a new bearing--and a chew of tobacco," said
Philip, more to himself than to Celie. "And there's no snow in his
tracks. By George, I don't believe he's got more than half an
hour's start of us this minute!"

It was his turn to carry Celie again, and in spite of her protest
that she was still good for another run he resumed their pursuit
of the stranger with her in his arms. By her quick breathing and
the bit of tenseness that had gathered about her mouth he knew
that the exertion she had already been put to was having its
effect on her. For her little feet and slender body the big
moccasins and cumbersome fur garments she wore were a burden in
themselves, even at a walk. He found that by holding her higher in
his arms, with her own arms encircling his shoulders, it was
easier to run with her at the pace he had set for himself. And
when he held her in this way her hair covered his breast and
shoulders so that now and then his face was smothered in the
velvety sweetness of it. The caress of it and the thrill of her
arms about him spurred him on. Once he made three hundred yards.
But he was gulping for breath when he stopped. That time Celie
compelled him to let her run a little farther, and when they
paused she was swaying on her feet, and panting. He carried her
only a hundred and fifty yards in the interval after that. Both
realized what it meant. The pace was telling on them. The strain
of it was in Celie's eyes. The flower-like flush of her first
exertion was gone from her face. It was pale and a little haggard,
and in Philip's face she saw the beginning of the things which she
did not realize was betraying itself so plainly in her own. She
put her hands up to his cheeks, and smiled. It was tremendous--
that moment;--her courage, her splendid pride in him, her manner
of telling him that she was not afraid as her little hands lay
against his face. For the first time he gave way to his desire to
hold her close to him, and kiss the sweet mouth she held up to his
as her head nestled on his breast.

After a moment or two he looked at his watch. Since striking the
strange trail they had traveled forty minutes. In that tine they
had covered at least three miles, and were a good four miles from
the scene of the fight. It was a big start. The Eskimos were
undoubtedly a half that distance behind them, and the stranger
whom they were following could not be far ahead.

They went on at a walk. For the third time they came to a point in
the trail where the stranger had stopped to make observations. It
was apparent to Philip that the man he was after was not quite
sure of himself. Yet he did not hesitate in the course due north.

For half an hour they continued in that direction. Not for an
instant now did Philip allow; his caution to lag. Eyes and ears
were alert for sound or movement either behind or ahead of them,
and more and more frequently he turned to scan the back trail.
They were at least five miles from the edge of the open where the
fight had occurred when they came to the foot of a ridge, and
Philip's heart gave a sudden thump of hope. He remembered that
ridge. It was a curiously formed "hog-back"--like a great windrow
of snow piled up and frozen. Probably it was miles in length.
Somewhere he and Bram had crossed it soon after passing the first
cabin. He had not tried to tell Celie of this cabin. Time had been
too precious. But now, in the short interval of rest he allowed
themselves, he drew a picture of it in the snow and made her
understand that it was somewhere close to the ridge and that it
looked as though the stranger was making for it. He half carried
Celie up the ridge after that. She could not hide from him that
her feet were dragging even at a walk. Exhaustion showed in her
face, and once when she tried to speak to him her voice broke in a
little gasping sob. On the far side of the ridge he took her in
his arms and carried her again.

"It can't be much farther," he encouraged her. "We've got to
overtake him pretty soon, dear. Mighty soon." Her hand pressed
gently against his cheek, and he swallowed a thickness that in
spite of his effort gathered in his throat. During that last half
hour a different look had come into her eyes. It was there now as
she lay limply with her head on his breast--a look of unutterable
tenderness, and of something else. It was that which brought the
thickness into his throat. It was not fear. It was the soft glow
of a great love--and of understanding. She knew that even he was
almost at the end of his fight. His endurance was giving out. One
of two things must happen very soon. She continued to stroke his
cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again, and then she
held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind
them, and listened. He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart.
If he needed greater courage then it was given to him.

They went on. And then, so suddenly that it brought a stifled cry
from the girl's lips, they came upon the cabin. It was not a
hundred yards from them when they first saw it. It was no longer
abandoned. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney.
There was no sign of life other than that.

For half a minute Philip stared at it. Here, at last, was the
final hope. Life or death, all that the world might hold for him
and the girl at his side, was in that cabin. Gently he drew her so
that she would be unseen. And then, still looking at the cabin, he
drew off his coat and dropped it in the snow. It was the
preparation of a man about to fight. The look of it was in his
face and the stiffening of his muscles, and when he turned to his
little companion she was as white as the snow under her feet.

"We're in time," he breathed. "You--you stay here."

She understood. Her hands clutched at him as he left her. A gulp
rose in her throat. She wanted to call out. She wanted to hold him
back--or go with him. Yet she obeyed. She stood with a heart that
choked her and watched him go. For she knew, after all, that it
was the thing to do. Sobbingly she breathed his name. It was a
prayer. For she knew what would happen in the cabin.





CHAPTER XX




Philip came up behind the windowless end of the cabin. He noticed
in passing with Bram that on the opposite side was a trap-window
of saplings, and toward this he moved swiftly but with caution. It
was still closed when he came where he could see. But with his ear
close to the chinks he heard a sound--the movement of some one
inside. For an instant he looked over his shoulder. Celia was
standing where he had left her. He could almost feel the terrible
suspense that was in her eyes as she watched him.

He moved around toward the door. There was in him an intense
desire to have it over with quickly. His pulse quickened as the
thought grew in him that the maker of the strange snowshoe trail
might be a friend after all. But how was he to discover that fact?
He had decided to take no chances in the matter. Ten seconds of
misplaced faith in the stranger might prove fatal. Once he held a
gun in his hands he would be in a position to wait for
introductions and explanations. But until then, with their Eskimo
enemies close at their heels--

His mind did not finish that final argument. The end of it smashed
upon him in another way. The door came within his vision. As it
swung inward he could not at first see whether it was open or
closed. Leaning against the logs close to the door was a pair of
long snowshoes and a bundle of javelins. A sickening
disappointment swept over him as he stared at the javelins. A
giant Eskimo and not a white man had made the trail they had
followed. Their race against time had brought them straight to the
rendezvous of their foes--and there would be no guns. In that
moment when all the hopes he had built up seemed slipping away
from under him he could see no other possible significance in the
presence of the javelins. Then, for an instant, he held his breath
and sniffed the air like a dog getting the wind. The cabin door
was open. And out through that door came the mingling aroma of
coffee and tobacco! An Eskimo might have tobacco, or even tea. But
coffee--never!

Every drop of blood in his body pounded like tiny beating fists as
he crossed silently and swiftly the short space between the corner
of the cabin and the open door. For perhaps half a dozen seconds
he closed his eyes to give his snow-strained vision an even
chance with the man in the cabin. Then he looked in.

It was a small cabin. It was possibly not more than ten feet
square inside, and at the far end of it was a fireplace from which
rose the chimney through the roof. At first Philip saw nothing
except the dim outlines of things. It was a moment or two before
he made out the figure of a man stooping over the fire. He stepped
over the threshold, making no sound. The occupant of the cabin
straightened himself slowly, lifting with, extreme care a pot of
coffee from the embers. A glance at his broad back and his giant
stature told Philip that he was not an Eskimo. He turned. Even
then for an infinitesimal space he did not see Philip as he stood
fronting the door with the light in his face. It was a white man's
face--a face almost hidden in a thick growth of beard and a tangle
of hair that fell to the shoulders. Another instant and he had
seen the intruder and stood like one turned suddenly into stone.

Philip had leveled Celie's little revolver.

"I am Philip Raine of His Majesty's service, the Royal Mounted,"
he said. "Throw, up your hands!"

The moment's tableau was one of rigid amazement on one side, of
waiting tenseness on the other. Philip believed that the shadow of
his body concealed the size of the tiny revolver in his hand.
Anyway it would be effective at that distance, and he expected to
see the mysterious stranger's hands go over his head the moment he
recovered from the shock that had apparently gone with the
command. What did happen he expected least of all. The arm holding
the pot of steaming coffee shot out and the boiling deluge hissed
straight at Philip's face. He ducked to escape it, and fired.
Before he could throw back the hammer of the little single-action
weapon for a second shot the stranger was at him. The force of the
attack sent them both crashing back against the wall of the cabin,
and in the few moments that followed Philip blessed the
providential forethought that had made him throw off his fur coat
and strip for action. His antagonist was not an ordinary man. A
growl like that of a beast rose in his throat as they went to the
floor, and in that death-grip Philip thought of Bram.

More than once in watching the wolf-man he had planned how he
would pit himself against the giant if it came to a fight, and how
he would evade the close arm-to-arm grapple that would mean defeat
for him. And this man was Bram's equal in size and strength. He
realized with the swift judgment of the trained boxer that open
fighting and the evasion of the other's crushing brute strength
was his one hope. On his knees he flung himself backward, and
struck out. The blow caught his antagonist squarely in the face
before he had succeeded in getting a firm clinch, and as he bent
backward under the force of the blow Philip exerted every ounce of
his strength, broke the other's hold, and sprang to his feet.

He felt like uttering a shout of triumph. Never had the thrill of
mastery and of confidence surged through him more hotly than it
did now. On his feet in open fighting he had the agility of a cat.
The stranger was scarcely on his feet before he was at him with a
straight shoulder blow that landed on the giant's jaw with
crushing force. It would have put an ordinary man down in a limp
heap. The other's weight saved him. A second blow sent him reeling
against the log wall like a sack of grain. And then in the half-
gloom of the cabin Philip missed. He put all his effort in that
third blow and as his clenched fist shot over the other's shoulder
he was carried off his balance and found himself again in the
clutch of his enemy's arms. This time a huge hand found his
throat. The other he blocked with his left arm, while with his
right he drove in short-arm jabs against neck and jaw. Their
ineffectiveness amazed him. His guard-arm was broken upward, and
to escape the certain result of two hands gripping at his throat
he took a sudden foot-lock on his adversary, flung all his weight
forward, and again they went to the floor of the cabin.

Neither caught a glimpse of the girl standing wide-eyed and
terrified in the door. They rolled almost to her feet. Full in the
light she saw the battered, bleeding face of the strange giant,
and Philip's fist striking it again and again. Then she saw the
giant's two hands, and why he was suffering that punishment. They
were at Philip's throat--huge hairy hands stained with his own
blood. A cry rose to her lips and the blue in her eyes darkened
with the fighting fire of her ancestors. She darted across the
room to the fire. In an instant she was back with a stick of wood
in her hands. Philip saw her then--her streaming hair and white
face above them, and the club fell. The hands at his throat
relaxed. He swayed to his feet and with dazed eyes and a weird
sort of laugh opened his arms. Celie ran into them. He felt her
sobbing and panting against him. Then, looking down, he saw that
for the present the man who had made the strange snowshoe trail
was as good as dead.

The air he was taking into his half strangled lungs cleared his
head and he drew away from Celie to begin the search of the room.
His eyes were more accustomed to the gloom, and suddenly he gave a
cry of exultation. Against the end of the mud and stone fireplace
stood a rifle and over the muzzle of this hung a belt and holster.
In the holster was a revolver. In his excitement and joy his
breath was almost a sob as he snatched it from the holster and
broke it in the light of the door. It was a big Colt Forty-five--
and loaded to the brim. He showed it to Celie, and thrust her to
the door.

"Watch!" he cried, sweeping his arm to the open. "Just two minutes
more. That's all I want--two minutes--and then--"

He was counting the cartridges in the belt as he fastened it about
his waist. There were at least forty, two-thirds of them soft-
nosed rifle. The caliber was .303 and the gun was a Savage. It was
modern up to the minute, and as he threw down the lever enough to
let him glimpse inside the breech he caught the glisten of
cartridges ready for action. He wanted nothing more. The cabin
might have held his weight in gold and he would not have turned
toward it.

With the rifle in his hands he ran past Celie out into the day.
For the moment the excitement pounding in his body had got beyond
his power of control. His brain was running riot with the joyous
knowledge of the might that lay in his hands now and he felt an
overmastering desire to shout his triumph in the face of their
enemies.

"Come on, you devils! Come on, come on," he cried. And then,
powerless to restrain what was in him, he let out a yell.

From the door Celie was staring at him. A few moments before her
face had been dead white. Now a blaze of color was surging back
into her cheeks and lips and her eyes shone with the glory of one
who was looking on more than triumph. From her own heart welled up
a cry, a revelation of that wonderful thing throbbing in her
breast which must have reached Philip's ears had there not in that
same instant come another sound to startle them both into
listening silence.

It was not far distant. And it was unmistakably an answer to
Philip's challenge.





CHAPTER XXI




As they listened the cry came again. This time Philip caught in it
a note that he had not detected before. It was not a challenge but
the long-drawn ma-too-ee of an Eskimo who answers the inquiring
hail of a comrade.

"He thinks it is the man in the cabin," exclaimed Philip, turning
to survey the fringe of forest through which their trail had come.
"If the others don't warn him there's going to be one less Eskimo
on earth in less than three minutes!"

Another sound had drawn Celie back to the door. "When she looked
in the man she had stunned with the club was moving. Her call
brought Philip, and placing her in the open door to keep watch he
set swiftly to work to make sure of their prisoner. With the
babiche thong he had taken from his enemies he bound him hand and
foot. A shaft of light fell full on the giant's face and naked
chest where it had been laid bare in the struggle and Philip was
about to rise when a purplish patch, of tattooing caught his eyes.
He made out first the crude picture of a shark with huge gaping
jaws struggling under the weight of a ship's anchor, and then,
directly under this pigment colored tatu, the almost invisible
letters of a name. He made them out one by one--B-l-a-k-e. Before
the surname was the letter G.

"Blake," he repeated, rising to his feet. "GEORGE Blake--a sailor
--and a white man!"

Blake, returning to consciousness, mumbled incoherently. In the
same instant Celie cried out excitedly at the door.

"Oo-ee, Philip--Philip! Se det! Se! Se!"

She drew back with, a sudden movement and pointed out the door.
Concealing himself as much as possible from outside observation
Philip peered forth. Not more than a hundred and fifty yards away
a dog team was approaching. There were eight dogs and instantly he
recognized them as the small fox-faced Eskimo breed from the
coast. They were dragging a heavily laden sledge and behind them
came the driver, a furred and hooded figure squat of stature and
with a voice that came now in the sharp clacking commands that
Philip had heard in the company of Bram Johnson. From the floor
came a groan, and for an instant Philip turned to find Blake's
bloodshot eyes wide open and staring at him. The giant's bleeding
lips were gathered in a snarl and he was straining at the babiche
thongs that bound him. In that same moment Philip caught a glimpse
of Celie. She, too, was staring--and at Blake. Her lips were
parted, her eyes were big with amazement and as she looked she
clutched her hands convulsively at her breast and uttered a low,
strange cry. For the first time she saw Blake's face with the
light full upon it. At the sound of her cry Blake's eyes went to
her, and for the space of a second the imprisoned beast on the
floor and the girl looking down on him made up a tableau that held
Philip spellbound. Between them was recognition--an amazed and
stone like horror on the girl's part, a sudden and growing glare
of bestial exultation in the eyes of the man.

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