Peon of the Snows by Chart Pitt Read online

  Rod Selkirk hurried up to the post. He

  There was a troubled look in his eyes.

  intended to pass for a prospector, and had no

  “I was softer than I thought—and tried

  fear of being recognized. That time when he to do too much yesterday,” he admitted came down the river with a cargo of marten-woefully. “I’ll have to stay in camp to-day.”

  skins he had bristled with a six month’s

  That suited Rod exactly. He hurriedly

  growth of hair and beard. Now he was freshly ate his breakfast and swung his pack to his shaved and shorn, and felt that his identity was shoulders.

  safely hidden.

  “So-long, parson,” Selkirk offered his

  As he drew near he noticed that a new

  hand.

  building had been added to the settlement, a

  “So-long, old timer. If we ever meet up

  little block-house perched upon the edge of there, just forget that you ever saw me the river-bank.

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  When he stepped around the corner of

  swarthy giant had failed to recognize his new the company store, Selkirk nearly dropped in customer, he was trying hard to remember.

  his tracks.

  The trapper looked about him for a

  The parson was seated in front of the

  suitable place to camp. He held up a

  building puffing at a fat cigar.

  moistened finger to catch the direction of the Rod passed him without a word. Not

  breeze. It came out of the northeast.

  because of his promise, but because of a

  Rod moved up-stream. He didn’t want

  sudden resentment at the dogged persistency to spend a night down-wind from the Indian of the man.

  village. He knew that the first catch of mink He hadn’t an idea what kind of game

  were coming in to the post, and they would be the pious fraud was playing; but the fur-sorter thickly covered with fat. It always fell to the couldn’t shake off the feeling that this man lot of the native women to scrape away this who wouldn’t take no for an answer would in musky grease before drying the skins, and

  some way get tangled up in the web of their huts would smell to the high heavens as intrigue from which Tom Larkin had found it soon as the wind freshened.

  impossible to escape.

  Night swooped down upon the

  De Friers himself was tending the homeless forest, and something in the abysmal store. With deliberate care he marked the page loneliness of the surroundings crept into the and paragraph in the cheap novel he was heart of the trapper as he crouched above his reading; then he faced his customer across the speck of flame.

  greasy counter.

  Caution prompted him to move well

  “How

  many

  prospectors

  were

  back from the fire, and stretch his sleeping-operating up-stream this summer?” Rod bag in a clump of young spruces. Nothing ventured, as he took out his moose-hide would be able to prowl among those sharp-wallet.

  spined shrubs without awaking him.

  “About a dozen—but they all went

  Some time in the night he was roused

  down last week.” The man behind the counter by the wailing of a gale among the-spruce-loosened the collar about his thick neck. His tops. Rod sniffed the air in disgust. The fetid small eyes gleamed like those of a trapped odor of mink-grease filled the night. The wind weasel. Yet there was a trace of a smile must have changed while he slept.

  beneath his unkempt beard.

  Then his sharp eyes caught a faint

  “Any of the fellows strike pay dirt?”

  flicker in the dark, where the gale had

  “Don’t think so.” The man who ruled

  uncovered an ember among the ashes of his

  the Wolf Canon country looked his visitor

  camp-fire. That speck of fire gave him his over from top to toe.

  bearings. Rod Selkirk sat up with a start. The

  “Give me a half-pound of black tea.”

  wind had not changed. The smell of mink-The pretended prospector walked over to the grease was coming down the river!

  door and looked anxiously at a bank of soft The trapper had spent years in the

  gray clouds that were beginning to show pathless wilderness, and knew that life always above the spruce-tops to the northeast.

  hung by a hair. Often the correct reading of a As soon as the package was on the

  footprint in the snow, or the far call of a bird counter Rod stowed it in his pocket, threw in the night, had saved him from disaster. It down a half-dollar and walked out of the store.

  was upon such trifles that he had learned to There was something in the eyes of De

  lean. That one secret had enabled him to fight Friers that put Selkirk upon his guard. If the famine and flood, and yet live.

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  7

  There was a reason for that mink-odor

  and the blinding white moonlight flashed

  coming from the direction of the blockhouse across the black forests like the sudden glare instead of the Indian camp. It was a part of of lightning in the night. That ghastly light Rod Selkirk’s creed to know why.

  poured through the little window, and fell in a He was pitting his wits against the

  checkered pattern upon the opposite side of cunning of the wild—against something that the room.

  crouched in the gloom of the northern spruces, With horror-stricken eyes Rod Selkirk

  and refused to come out into the open to tight.

  clung to the bars of that northern prison, and Now, if ever, he must rely upon his

  stared at the thing which moved about in the natural cunning for safety.

  patch of moonlight.

  It was the pitiful wreckage of what

  IV.

  once had been a mighty hunter— Tom Larkin, chained like a dog to the wall.

  LIKE an animal of the wilderness, Rod

  The fire of madness glared in his

  Selkirk crawled from his lair and followed up-sunken eyes, and his wasted face bore the red wind through the night.

  welts of a dog-whip above his tangled beard.

  The soft rustle of spruce-needles

  The clouds scurried over the face of

  against his clothing ceased. He was out into the moon, and once more the northern

  the clearing at last. He could hear the eery wilderness was steeped in the murk of the

  calling of the wind as it sucked around the night.

  eaves of a building. A moment later the block-With the lust of battle burning in his

  house rose up before him out of the night-

  heart, Rod Selkirk flung himself against the gloom.

  locked door. It refused to yield an inch.

  The acrid smell of mink-grease hung

  Regardless of consequences he drew his

  like a curse about the little structure. In a lull hunting-ax and attacked it savagely.

  of the gale Rod heard the rattle of a chain With the strength of a maniac he tore

  from within.

  aside the last splinter that stood between him

  “A fur-house, I guess, and they have

  and his friend, and plunged into the room.

  got a dog watching it,” he grumbled to

  For a moment he fumbled with his

  himself.

  flash-light. Then the glare of a suddenly

  The man outside was already turning

  uncovered lantern behind him flooded the

  away when he heard a human voice—a interior of the prison with its yellow glow.

  broken, babbling voice as mad as the mirthless Rod Selkirk turned with uplifted ax,

  laugh of a loon upon some night-bound determined to fight to the death in defense of northern lake.
r />   the old man whose life had been one endless Cautiously Rod groped his way to the

  battle, that weaker men might live.

  window and peeped through the bars. The

  The fur-sorter was half-blinded by the

  stygian blackness within mocked even the sudden light in his eyes. Before he could sharp eyes of the hunter. He fished a flash-discover anything against which to launch his light from his pocket, determined to know the attack a cudgel came whizzing through the air meaning of the strange combination of sounds toward him.

  that came from beyond the guarded window.

  He tried to dodge the treacherous

  Then with a gasp he dropped the weapon, but he was a fraction of a second too electric device back into its hiding-place. The slow, and the heavy club crashed against his gale had whipped a hole in the heavy clouds, head.

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  He felt the thud as the wood came in

  stayed out of the game I’d be down there in contact with his skull, and a multitude of Seattle now, living off the fat of the land. But horrible sounds were loosened within his I’m going back—and I’ll think of you brain.

  sometimes when the wind is out of the

  Then a smothering blackness surged

  north—and I get a whiff of the mink-grease.”

  up about him—a blackness that was shot full

  “We’ll give him a day to think it over,”

  with a thousand blood-red lights.

  De Friers suggested as they started to go. “Let When Rod Selkirk recovered his him see how he likes the life. We’ll come senses the glow of a lantern shone over him.

  back to-morrow night and settle things.”

  The smell of tobacco smoke had partly

  Once more the room was in darkness.

  deadened the stench of the mink-fat.

  Rod lay upon the dirt floor and listened to his

  “I guess you had reason for wanting to

  jailors as they patched up the broken door and travel alone,” a sarcastic, familiar voice stamped off into the night.

  greeted him from across the room.

  For a while the beaten man huddled

  For a moment Rod blinked at the light,

  against the wall, listening to the eery whining trying to make out the face of the man in the of the wind. A storm was sweeping down

  shadows beyond. Then he saw.

  from the polar wastes. Soon the wilderness

  “You—you hound of hell,” the trapper

  would be covered with a garment of spotless choked. Like a panther he sprang at the snow. But winter and summer would be the parson.

  same to the two men who were chained up

  His body was in mid air when like dogs in their vile-smelling kennel. There something tugged at him from behind, and he would be no more camps out under the open

  fell face downward upon the floor. He, too, skies of the northland for them so long as De was chained to the wall. Carefully Rod slipped Friers was master of the wilderness miles.

  his hand to his hip. His weapons were gone.

  Rod Selkirk rebelled at the thought. He

  De Friers and the parson moved knew there always was one weak mesh in the closer—just beyond the reach of his chain.

  web of evil men. He must find that one place The new prisoner glared at them in silence.

  where the strands were rotten. Then De Friers

  “When you get ready to tell us where

  must pay for the suffering of Tom Larkin.

  you caught that bunch of marten, I’ll let you Still groping for some means of

  and the old man go,” the boss of Wolf Canon escape, he fell asleep.

  gloated.

  “I’ll see you dead and rotten first,”

  V.

  Rod defied them. “I wouldn’t tell if you killed me.”

  HE was awakened by the voice of Tom

  “That’s what Tom said,” the parson

  Larkin.

  sneered. “He was wise to the fact that they

  “Don’t you tell them a thing, Rod-

  couldn’t afford to kill him—a dead man can’t promise you won’t tell. They would kill us show you the way to a good trapping-ground.

  both as soon as they found out.”

  But now it is different. We don’t need the old Selkirk shook the sleep from him. It

  boy since we got you. He’s getting sort of was broad daylight. The old man stared at him nutty—and makes trouble.”

  from the end of his chain.

  “How did you come in on this, you

  The madness had left the old hunter’s

  cheap skate?” Rod flared at him.

  eyes. But the daring had also vanished. Tom

  “Same as you did—butted in. If you’d

  Larkin’s spirit had broken at last under the

  Peon of the Snows

  9

  torture of his imprisonment.

  Larkin labored over the skins. There was a

  “Sure I won’t,” Rod promised. “I’m

  dumb resignation in his face that told of a going to get that bunch yet—see if I don’t?”

  broken spirit. But the brain of the younger

  “I thought I was going to get them

  man was busy, searching for some means of

  myself when I discovered that they were escape.

  stealing all the best skins that passed through However, De Friers had left no weak

  the post—but they got me instead.”

  spot in the deadly web he had spun about

  There was a new sound in the wind.

  them.

  Selkirk looked up. A few flakes of snow were The heap of scraped skins grew higher

  fluttering past the window. Soon everything and higher as Rod slashed away at the

  was hidden in a wall of dancing white.

  offensive grease, and the bag that held his The sound of footsteps came from day’s allotment shrank in size. Then the outside, and De Friers stumbled in under a searching fingers of the new-made peon

  heavy load. He threw a few scraps of food to touched cold iron among the mink-pelts.

  his prisoners, and placed a sack of raw mink-A great hope surged up in his heart at

  skins in front of each—his allotment for the the thought of a possible weapon. In fancy the day.

  battle already was won, and he was free to The old man reached out for his sack

  wander once more upon his beloved game-

  of fur, and began work without his breakfast.

  trails.

  The hawk-eyed task-master caught up

  He sank deeper than ever into the

  a dog-whip from the wall and snapped its

  hopeless depression of the condemned man

  sharp lash across the head and shoulders of the when he fished out a wolf-trap that some

  prisoner who had lost his appetite.

  hunter had forgotten to remove from his bag

  “Come, son, take your bitters. You got

  of furs.

  to eat or you can’t work,” the fur-man

  But the old habits were heavy upon the

  tormented his helpless victim as the lash fell man who had spent his life in the forest.

  once more.

  Thoughtfully he toyed with the steel

  Tom Larkin squealed pitifully as the

  contrivance, setting and resetting it. At last he stinging rawhide coiled about him. With a

  concealed it under a layer of mink-fat, and feigned eagerness he gulped the scraps of fastened the chain to the lower log of the food.

  building.

  “That’s the way he is going to die

  It was slow work, as he had nothing

  tonight if you don’t come across with a map of but the heel of his shoe with which to drive the hunting-grounds,” De Friers threatened as the staple into the wood. But it was a welcome he walked away
.

  change from scraping the skins.

  With a hopeless rebellion flaming in

  Carefully he shoved the trap and its

  his heart, Rod Selkirk began work upon the covering of fat beyond the reach of his hands.

  filthy skins. The broken blade from a table-Several times he was forced to draw it back by knife was the only tool the crafty jailor had the chain and begin all over. At last it was allowed him.

  fixed to his satisfaction. He resumed work Outside the blizzard shrieked and upon the skins with a new energy.

  whined. The cold crept in through the log

  In the middle of the day there was the

  walls, and the two prisoners heaped the furs soft thud of feet in the snow outside. A key-about their feet to keep them from freezing.

  chain jingled and the click of the padlock Like an unthinking machine, Tom announced a visitor.

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  The door swung open with a rush of

  Rod said nothing to take any luster

  cold air, and a cloud of snow came swirling from the man’s self-asserted prowess.

  into the room. Rod glanced up.

  “Well, when the parson came into the

  Louie Raus stood smiling at him.

  game, that changed things.” Raus went on.

  “How did you get here?” Selkirk “We had to split the loot three ways. That demanded.

  meant we had to drive a harder bargain than

  “On the same ship with you—kept to