CHAPTER XXVI

ONE WHOLE MAN

The two brothers were both over the bank, crawling in the scuffled snow. Kit scarcely noticed the buzzing bullets. He shook his head in petty irritation, as though he were annoyed by a swarm of gnats. Jerry had reached the fallen man, and grasped one of the limp ankles. Kit caught hold of the other leg. They wriggled backwards and dragged the body with them over the terrace and down into the shallow trench behind the sledges.

Kit spoke with a curious, measured calmness. “It’s a lot better to remember and die,” he said, “than to forget and go on living.”

Then his voice thrilled with a swelling emotion. “They had to kill him--not once--but three times!”

Jerry said nothing. He was giggling like a girl in a most amazing falsetto.

Kit turned to him blankly. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Fun-ny bone,” exclaimed Jerry, and tried to stop his spasmodic gasping. He moved half way around to exhibit his right forearm, which hung from his elbow like an old, fagged rope-end. “One of the dum-dums--smashed the bone. It--it’s not so darned funny as--as it sounds.”

Kitchener grasped his brother’s hairy, dangling wrist and explored with his fingers up under the dripping sleeve. “Gee, that’s rotten, Jerry.” It gave him a pang to feel the magnificent muscles changed in a moment to numbed and useless flesh. “When was it?”

“Just as we came back over the bank.” Jerry was in control of his fretted nerves again. He laughed ruefully in his own deep voice. “Doggone ’em, Cocky-bird. They’ve got us winging. You’ve got no eyes to speak of and they’ve turned me into a port-sider. Well, there’s still one whole Tearl left if we combine our good points.”

Kit had ripped the puckering string out of his hood. He pushed up the sleeve and wound a tourniquet above the broken elbow. This was as much as he could do for the present.

Jerry dug into his pocket for a pipe and tobacco pouch, and stuffed the bowl full with one hand. Then he struck a light and inhaled with a gusty sigh.

For the moment Kit was bending in gentle abstraction over the body stretched alongside the sledge. He took off his mitten and his warm fingers touched the upstaring face. With a caressing lightness he traced the line of the rugged features, the high, bulging brow, the keen, hawk-like nose, the straight-formed mouth compressed in death, and the square and dogged chin. Then he softly folded together the flaps of the rudely made Ahiagmuit hood.

“Did you hear what he said, Jerry?”

“Umph. He fought that old fight all over again.”

“You can fill in the gaps without much trouble and know about what happened back there that day.”

“He and the two musk-ox hunters, the brother and sister, were traveling south in a heavy snow storm with the gold sledge,” suggested Jerry. “They were ambushed somewhere near Great Owl Run by Hell Bent and some chaps named Buya--what was it?”

“Bruyas. Bruyas and Giffard. Those two!” The muscles of Kitchener’s mouth contracted. “I might have suspected before. As ornery a pair as you ever want to see. They’re still living down there--trapping. They must have been a couple of the guides that came back from the musk-ox country, along with Hell Bent. It’s certain now that they were in the bunch that attacked Dad’s party. He evidently saw them at the time, and knew them.”

“The girl in the party,” mused Jerry--“she must have gone down at the first few shots. From then on it was a free-for-all. Dad and this other man--battling from behind the sledge of gold bags. And the dogs got scared in the midst of it all and bolted.”

“And ran for a few miles,” put in Kit--“with Dad after ’em. And Hell Bent after Dad.”

“The other two,” supplemented Jerry--“what’s their names--stayed behind to fight it out with Dad’s friend. That chap, standing over his dead sister’s body! After seeing what he had seen I guess he wouldn’t give much of a damn what happened to him. Probably just went shootin’ crazy. My guess would be that he ran those two scuts clear out of the woods.”

“Meantime,” pursued Kit, “the frightened dogs must have reached the bluff that runs along with Great Owl Run. Swung in too close, lost their footing on the slippery incline, and went down into the creek, dragging the sledge with them.”

“My gosh!” Jerry checked his pipe-stem as he was about to put it between his teeth. “Why, it must--maybe it’s there still!”

“It is. I found the bags, and shifted them.”

“You what?”

“Found ’em--at the place where the sledge dumped off the bluff, years ago. I dived for the gold bags, brought them up and jettisoned them farther up stream, where Bent won’t easily locate them.”

Jerry stared for a moment. “Smart boy!” he declared finally.

Kit wrinkled his forehead reflectively. “Here’s what happened. Dad saw the dogs take their last plunge. Hell Bent was chasing close behind, and he also saw it. These two were the only ones who knew what had become of that sledge of gold.”

“They faced each other in the snow storm on the brink of Great Owl Run,” Kit ruminated. “They shot it out, and Bent fired first.”

“That’s it, of course,” assented Jerry. “Left Dad there for dead, helped himself to one bag of nuggets, and went his way. Meant to come back after his pals had passed out of the picture and salvage the rest.”

“Those other two,” said Kit--“Bruyas and Giffard--they must have made a shrewd guess at the truth. Knew the treasure was still around here somewhere. Sticking in the neighborhood all these years. Living by their trapping, and hunting for the lost sledge.”

“Yep. And waiting for Bent to come back. Probably they heard he was in the jug. But they’d know that as soon as he got out he’d come back here, and they were sitting tight waiting for him to betray himself to them.”

Jerry knocked the ashes out of his pipe and lifted his head cautiously to peer over the top of the river embankment. The shooting had almost ceased in the last two or three minutes, and the continued quiet was beginning to grow ominous.

“The two middle sledges have pushed in close together,” he remarked casually. “They’re holding a pow-wow.” He glanced across at the waning sun. “The daylight won’t last much longer, and they’re probably thinking they ought to do something about it pretty soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if they rushed us anytime.”

Kit was strangely unconcerned over the war councils of the Yellow Knives. When they decided to come on they’d do it, and worrying wouldn’t stop them. For the moment he was much more disturbed by the revelation of past events.

“Jerry!” he broke in sharply. “The murdered man you found with money-order receipts--what did he look like?”

“Why, he’d been a pretty tall guy I’d say--six feet or more.” Jerry faced his brother curiously. “Dark, keen-featured chap, black hair shot with gray, clean-shaven, couple of welts across his cheek like old knife or bullet scars. He had on a tannish mackinaw--”

“Jerry!” Kit sprang to his feet, forgetting that the top of his head offered an inviting target for any of the Indian marksmen who happened to be looking that direction. “Do you know who he was?”

The elder brother looked startled. “Why, yes,” he said after a moment. “Sure! The man who was in the fight with Dad. The brother of the murdered woman.”

“Of course!” he ejaculated after a briefest pause.

“Funny I never thought of that before! That would explain the money orders. He dragged Dad into that mess. After Dad disappeared he felt that he owed the family something, and started sending the annuity--”

“Wait!” interrupted Kit. “That isn’t what I’m getting at. Do you know who he really was?”

“Huh?”

“You heard the name, didn’t you? The man who stood fighting over his dead sister?”

“It was--” Jerry scowled in an effort of recollection.

“Durand,” said Kit.

“That was it. I remember now--” Jerry stopped as he caught the expression of his brother’s face.

“The man I met down at the Chippewyan village, weeks and weeks ago!” burst out Kit. “He tallies in every detail with your description of the body in the river. Unquestionably he’s the man who was murdered in that cabin. Diane’s uncle. She told us his name was Durand--Jim Durand. And we didn’t believe her. You said he was Hell Bent!”

“I thought he was,” Jerry started to say, but Kitchener stopped him.

“You put me on his trail, made me think he was a scoundrel. And he was Dad’s friend, and ours! We might have gotten together, if we’d only known. And now he’s dead, and we aren’t much better off ourselves.” Kit’s voice rose in sharp accusation. “Jerry! How’d you ever make a dumb bull like that?”

“Now hold on!” protested the sergeant. “Take it easy. I supposed he was Bent. Gosh! He came into the wilderness at the time and place I was expecting Bent. I didn’t get a close look at him, and when I saw him through the thickets he was wearing a hood. And remember--you told me yourself he was carrying the old ivory-butted .45 that had belonged to the inspector.”

“Yes. And you saw a few minutes ago how he got it. Dad himself handed the gun to him in the thick of the scrap. And he carried it ever after, up until the day somebody killed him at the Great Owl cabin.”

Kit scowled at his brother. “I thought it was you who had been killed that day, and that Bent did the job. But Durand was the victim. Who do you suppose the murderer was?”

“If you must be oratorical,” said Jerry pleasantly, “don’t bob your head around up there where a bullet can knock it off.” He reached up with his useful hand and pulled his brother down behind the embankment. “How do I know who that particular gunman was? Maybe it was the real Bent himself, or maybe Bruyas or this other trapper.”

“These two trappers probably had kept tabs on Bent,” Jerry pursued. “They would have known that when he got out of the cooler he’d be coming up to recover the hidden sledge. They’d be laying for him, and for anybody else that butted into the proceedings.”

“The man who disposed of Durand took the gun and his snowshoes,” Kit ruminated. “A pair of waffle-webbed snowshoes that I’d followed down the Vermilion River to Great Owl Run. The murderer, whoever he was, put them on instead of his own when he fled from the cabin. That’s what brought about the confusion of identities. Afterwards he used those same raquettes to mislead me. And all the time I took it for granted that he was the same man I’d trailed through the wilderness from Port-o’-Prayer.

“All this while I thought Jim Durand was Bent,” Kit went on bitterly. “And Diane! Because he was Diane’s uncle, I suspected her of the evilest things. Why, I treated her as though she were some criminal. And she hated me--”

Jerry had not forgotten to watch the Yellow Knives. Every minute or two he had hoisted himself to peer over the terrace. His warning grip suddenly closed over Kit’s arm. “Now!” he interrupted coolly. “You save the shotgun until they’re in close. I’ll try to chime in with a left fistful of .45s.” He laughed devil-may-care. “Well-o, Cocky-bird, we were a good family while we lasted.”

A babel of yells breaking out suddenly along the east shore were flung back in a whooping chorus from the other side of the river. Pieces of lead clipped the air in a gust and knocked up the snow crust in flying chunks.

Kit crept against the rampart beside his brother. He pushed up his head warily, with no more than a hand’s-span of his skull risking itself above the embankment.

“They saw Dad go down, and they’ve about figured out how wabbly we are,” muttered Jerry. “They’ll whoop it up a minute, and then one’ll get reckless enough to start, and they’ll all come.”

Kitchener was trying to distinguish substance in the milky haze that seemed to have flooded the barrens. He felt as though inflated bags had been sewed into his eye-sockets. Wavering, uncertain things loomed vaguely and distantly--men or dogs or sledges--they were shapeless and unreal and wouldn’t stay still.

“Half of ’em are up, testing us out,” Jerry informed him. “And there’s a white man, waving them on.”

“What’s he like?”

“Big lookin’ zob with a black beard.”

“Sounds as though he might be-- He’s the one who picked Dad off--and poor Oogly.”

“He’s crouching with his rifle now, trying for a crack at us. If I only had my right arm!” Jerry groaned impotently. “Nice, easy shot around four hundred. We could pay off the hands--”

“Jerry! You’ve got it!” Kit’s voice was so fiercely exultant that his brother turned to stare. “Are they still where they were?”

“They are now. But they won’t be long. Any second--”

“Where’s my gun?” Kit cut in. “The sights are set at the correct range, windage and everything. All you need to do is to notch ’em point blank.”

“Yeah! And then what?”

“I’ll pull the trigger for you. I’ll squeeze it so gently you won’t even feel it.”

“My gosh!” For an instant Jerry surveyed his brother with glowing approval. “Why--why, you blood-thirsty little gnat.”

With his hand reaching behind him he stooped and came up with Kit’s rifle. He chucked the butt to his shoulder and leaned his weight against the terrace.

Kitchener stepped behind and circled the sergeant’s broad back with his arms. He pulled the firing-bolt pin, and dug his chin firmly into the hollow of his brother’s neck. Then he crooked his forefinger under the trigger-guard.

“Look out!” grunted Jerry. “Here they come!”

Without actually seeing, Kit’s instinct told him that the line of men had surged forward. The yelling swelled into an appalling savagery, he caught the distant crunch of oncoming feet. Bullets were plowing around his face.

Jerry’s brawny bulk settled, stiffened. His breathing stopped. He became rock-like in his transcendental calm. Kitchener waited in readiness. Seconds passed--minutes, it seemed to him. He could hear the advancing snowshoes cutting through the snow. The suspense was growing unbearable.

“Jerry!” he whispered. “What’s the matter? Can’t you line ’em?”

“A second!” soothed the sergeant. “He’s kneeling to fire. It’s hard to hold a rifle with one hand. Easy now! I’ll say ‘go.’”

The back muscles hardened to steel--the physical rigidity of the cool marksman inexorably engrossed.

“Ready!” said Jerry crisply.

Kit’s trigger-finger clenched to the steel--put on all but the final ounce of pressure.

“_Go!_”