Part 15 (1/2)

”That she's going to marry you if we ever get out of this h.e.l.l of a fix we're in,” grunted Olaf. ”Pretty lucky dog, I say, if it's true.

Imagine Celie Armin marrying a dub like you! But it will never happen.

If you don't believe it fill your eyes with that out there!”

Philip glued his eyes to the long crevice between the logs and found the forest and the little finger of plain between straight in his vision. The edge of the timber was alive with men. There must have been half a hundred of them, and they were making no effort to conceal themselves. For the first time Olaf began to give him an understanding of the situation.

”This is the fortieth day we've held them off,” he said, in the quick-cut, business-like voice he might have used in rendering a report to a superior. ”Eighty cartridges to begin with and a month's ration of grub for two. All but the three last cartridges went day before yesterday. Yesterday everything quiet. On the edge of starvation this morning when I went out on scout duty and to take a chance at game.

Surprised a couple of them carrying meat and had a tall fight. Others hove into action and I had to use two of my cartridges. One left--and they're showing themselves because they know we don't dare to use ammunition at long range. My caliber is thirty-five. What's yours?”

”The same,” replied Philip quickly, his blood beginning to thrill with the antic.i.p.ation of battle. ”I'll give you half. I'm on duty from Fort Churchill, off on a tangent of my own.” He did not take his eyes from the slit in the wall as he told Anderson in a hundred words what had happened since his meeting with Bram Johnson. ”And with forty cartridges we'll give 'em a taste of h.e.l.l,” he added.

He caught his breath, and the last word half choked itself from his lips. He knew that Anderson was staring as hard as he. Up from the river and over the level sweep of plain between it and the timber came a sledge, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth. In the trail behind the sledges trotted a score and a half of fur-clad figures.

”It's Blake!” exclaimed Philip.

Anderson drew himself away from the wall. In his eyes burned a curious greenish flame, and his face was set with the hardness of iron. In that iron was molded indistinctly the terrible smile with which he always went into battle or fronted ”his man.” Slowly he turned, pointing a long arm at each of the four walls of the cabin.

”That's the lay of the fight,” he said, making his words short and to the point. ”They can come at us on all sides, and so I've made a six-foot gun-crevice in each wall. We can't count on Armin for anything but the use of a club if it comes to close quarters. The walls are built of saplings and they've got guns out there that get through.

Outside of that we've got one big advantage. The little devils are superst.i.tious about fighting at night, and even Blake can't force them into it. Blake is the man I was after when I ran across Armin and his people. GAD!”

There was an unpleasant snap in his voice as he peered through the gun-hole again. Philip looked across the room to Celie and her father as he divided the cartridges. They were both listening, yet he knew they did not understand what he and Olaf were saying. He dropped a half of the cartridges into the right hand pocket of the Swede's service coat, and advanced then toward Armin with both his hands held out in greeting. Even in that tense moment he saw the sudden flash of pleasure in Celie's eyes. Her lips trembled, and she spoke softly and swiftly to her father, looking at Philip. Armin advanced a step, and their hands met. At first Philip had taken him for an old man. Hair and beard were white, his shoulders were bent, his hands were long and thin. But his eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, had not aged with the rest of him.

They were filled with the piercing scrutiny of a hawk's as they looked into his own, measuring him in that moment so far as man can measure man. Then he spoke, and it was the light in Celie's eyes, her parted lips, and the flush that came swiftly into her face that gave him an understanding of what Armin was saying.

From the end of the cabin Olaf's voice broke in. With it came the metallic working of his rifle as he filled the chamber with cartridges.

He spoke first to Celie and Armin in their own language, then to Philip.

”It's a pretty safe gamble we'd better get ready for them,” he said.

”They'll soon begin. Did you split even on the cartridges?”

”Seventeen apiece.”

Philip examined his rifle, and looked through the gun-crevice toward the forest. He heard Olaf tugging at the dogs as he tied them to the bunk posts; he heard Armin say something in a strained voice, and the Swede's unintelligible reply, followed by a quick, low-voiced interrogation from Celie. In the same moment his heart gave a sudden jump. In the fringe of the forest he saw a long, thin line of moving figures--ADVANCING. He did not call out a warning instantly. For a s.p.a.ce in which he might have taken a long breath or two his eyes and brain were centered on the moving figures and the significance of their drawn-out formation. Like a camera-flash his eyes ran over the battleground. Half way between the cabin and that fringe of forest four hundred yards away was a ”hogback” in the snow, running a curving parallel with the plain. It formed scarcely more than a three or four foot rise in the surface, and he had given it no special significance until now. His lips formed words as the thrill of understanding leapt upon him.

”They're moving!” he called to Olaf. ”They're going to make a rush for the little ridge between us and the timber. Good G.o.d, Anderson, there's an army of them!”

”Not more'n a hundred,” replied the Swede calmly, taking his place at the gun-crevice. ”Take it easy, Phil. This will be good target practice. We've got to make an eighty percent kill as they come across the open. This is mighty comfortable compared with the trick they turned on us when they got Calkins, Harris and O'Flynn. I got away in the night.”

The moving line had paused just within the last straggling growth of trees, as if inviting the fire of the defenders.

Olaf grunted as he looked along the barrel of his rifle.

”Strategy,” he mumbled. ”They know we're shy of ammunition.”

In the moments of tense waiting Philip found his first opportunity to question the man at his side. First, he said:

”I guess mebby you understand, Olaf. We've gone through a h.e.l.l together, and I love her. If we get out of this she's going to be my wife. She's promised me that, and yet I swear to Heaven I don't know more than a dozen words of her language. What has happened? Who is she?

Why was she with Bram Johnson? You know their language, and have been with them--”