The Spirit of the Border and the Last Trail (46 page)

From beyond the barroom, through a door entering upon the back porch, came the rattling of dice. Jonathan crossed the barroom apparently oblivious to the keen glance Metzar shot at him, and went out upon the porch. This also was crowded, but there was more room because of greater space. At one table sat some pioneers drinking and laughing; at another were three men playing with dice. Colonel Zane, Silas, and Sheppard were among the lookers-on at the game. Jonathan joined them, and gazed at the gamesters.

Brandt he knew well enough; he had seen that set, wolfish expression in the riverman's face before. He observed, however, that the man had flushed cheeks and trembling hands, indications of hard drinking. The player sitting next to Brandt was Williams, one of the garrison, and a good-natured fellow, but garrulous and wickedly disposed when drunk. The remaining player Jonathan at once saw was the Englishman, Mordaunt. He was a handsome man, with fair skin, and long, silken, blond mustache. Heavy lines, and purple shades under his blue eyes, were the unmistakable stamp of dissipation. Reckless, dissolute, bad as he looked, there yet clung something favorable about the man. Perhaps it was his cool, devil-may-care way as he pushed over gold piece after gold piece from the fast diminishing pile before him. His velvet frock and silken doublet had once been elegant; but were now sadly the worse for border roughing.

Behind the Englishman's chair Jonathan saw a short man with a face resembling that of a jackal. The grizzled, stubbly beard, the protruding, vicious mouth, the broad, flat nose, and deep-set, small, glittering eyes made a bad impression on the observer. This man, Jonathan concluded, was the servant, Case, who was so eager with his knife. The borderman made the reflection, that if knife-play was the little man's pastime, he was not likely to go short of sport in that vicinity.

Colonel Zane attracted Jonathan's attention at this moment. The pioneers had vacated the other table, and Silas and Sheppard now sat by it. The colonel wanted his brother to join them.

“Here, Johnny, bring drinks,” he said to the serving boy. “Tell Metzar who they're for.” Then turning to Sheppard he continued: “He keeps good whiskey, but few of these poor devils ever see it.” At the same time Colonel Zane pressed his foot upon that of Jonathan's.

The borderman understood that the signal was intended to call attention to Brandt. The latter had leaned forward, as Jonathan passed by to take a seat with his brother, and said something in a low tone to Mordaunt and Case. Jonathan knew by the way the Englishman and his man quickly glanced up at him, that he had been the subject of the remark.

Suddenly Williams jumped to his feet with an oath.

“I'm cleaned out,” he cried.

“Shall we play alone?” asked Brandt of Mordaunt.

“As you like,” replied the Englishman, in a tone which showed he cared not a whit whether he played or not.

“I've got work to do. Let's have some more drinks, and play another time,” said Brandt.

The liquor was served and drank. Brandt pocketed his pile of Spanish and English gold, and rose to his feet. He was a trifle unsteady; but not drunk.

“Will you gentlemen have a glass with me?” Mordaunt asked of Colonel Zane's party.

“Thank you, some other time, with pleasure. We have our drink now,” Colonel Zane said courteously.

Meantime Brandt had been whispering in Case's ear. The little man laughed at something the riverman said. Then he shuffled from behind the table. He was short, his compact build gave promise of unusual strength and agility.

“What are you going to do now?” asked Mordaunt, rising also. He looked hard at Case.

“Shiver my sides, cap'n, if I don't need another drink,” replied the sailor.

“You have had enough. Come upstairs with me,” said Mordaunt.

“Easy with your hatch, cap'n,” grinned Case. “I want to drink with that ther' Injun killer. I've had drinks with buccaneers, and bad men all over the world, and I'm not going to miss this chance.”

“Come on; you will get into trouble. You must not annoy these gentlemen,” said Mordaunt.

“Trouble is the name of my ship, and she's a trim, fast craft,” replied the man.

His loud voice had put an end to the conversation. Men began to crowd in from the barroom. Metzar himself came to see what had caused the excitement.

The little man threw up his cap, whooped, and addressed himself to Jonathan:

“Injun-killer, bad man of the border, will you drink with a jolly old tar from England?”

Suddenly a silence reigned, like that in the depths of the forest. To those who knew the borderman, and few did not know him, the invitation was nothing less than an insult. But it did not appear to them, as to him, like a prearranged plot to provoke a fight.

“Will you drink, redskin-hunter?” bawled the sailor.

“No,” said Jonathan in his quiet voice.

“Maybe you mean that against old England?” demanded Case fiercely.

The borderman eyed him steadily, inscrutable as to feeling or intent, and was silent.

“Go out there and I'll see the color of your insides quicker than I'd take a drink,” hissed the sailor, with his brickred face distorted and hideous to look upon. He pointed with a long-bladed knife that no one had seen him draw, to the green sward beyond the porch.

The borderman neither spoke, nor relaxed a muscle.

“Ho! ho! my brave pirate of the plains!” cried Case, and he leered with braggart sneer into the faces of Jonathan and his companions.

It so happened that Sheppard sat nearest to him, and got the full effect of the sailor's hot, rum-soaked breath. He arose with a pale face.

“Colonel, I can't stand this,” he said hastily. “Let's get away from that drunken ruffian.”

“Who's a drunken ruffian?” yelled Case, more angry than ever. “I'm not drunk; but I'm going to be, and cut some of you white-livered border mates. Here, you old masthead, drink this to my health, damn you!”

The ruffian had seized a tumbler of liquor from the table, and held it toward Sheppard while he brandished his long knife.

White as snow, Sheppard backed against the wall; but did not take the drink.

The sailor had the floor; no one save him spoke a word. The action had been so rapid that there had hardly been time. Colonel Zane and Silas were as quiet and tense as the borderman.

“Drink!” hoarsely cried the sailor, advancing his knife toward Sheppard's body.

When the sharp point all but pressed against the old man, a bright object twinkled through the air. It struck Case's wrist, knocked the knife from his fingers, and, bounding against the wall, fell upon the floor. It was a tomahawk.

The borderman sprang over the table like a huge catamount, and with movement equally quick, knocked Case with a crash against the wall; closed on him before he could move a hand, and flung him like a sack of meal over the bluff.

The tension relieved, some of the crowd laughed, others looked over the embankment to see how Case had fared, and others remarked that for some reason he had gotten off better than they expected.

The borderman remained silent. He leaned against a post, with broad breast gently heaving, but his eyes sparkled as they watched Brandt, Williams, Mordaunt, and Metzar. The Englishman alone spoke.

“Hardily done,” he said, cool and suave. “Sir, yours is an iron hand. I apologize for this unpleasant affair. My man is quarrelsome when under the influence of liquor.”

“Metzar, a word with you,” cried Colonel Zane curtly.

“Come inside, kunnel,” said the innkeeper, plainly ill at ease.

“No; listen here. I'll speak to the point. You've got to stop running this kind of a place. No words, now, you've got to stop. Understand? You know as well as I, perhaps better, the character of your so-called inn. You'll get but one more chance.”

“Wal, kunnel, this is a free country,” growled Metzar. “I can't help these fellars comin' here lookin' fer blood. I runs an honest place. The men want to drink an' gamble. What's law here? What can you do?”

“You know me, Metzar,” Colonel Zane said grimly. “I don't waste words. ‘To hell with law!' so you say. I can say that, too. Remember, the next drunken boy I see, or shady deal, or gambling spree, out you go for good.”

Metzar lowered his shaggy head and left the porch. Brandt and his friends, with serious faces, withdrew into the barroom.

The borderman walked around the corner of the inn, and up the lane. The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely fashion. At a shout from some one they turned to see a dusty, bloody figure, with ragged clothes, stagger up from the bluff.

“There's that blamed sailor now,” said Sheppard. “He's a tough nut. My! What a knock on the head Jonathan gave him. Strikes me, too, that tomahawk came almost at the right time to save me a whole skin.”

“I was furious, but not at all alarmed,” rejoined Colonel Zane.

“I wondered what made you so quiet.”

“I was waiting. Jonathan never acts until the right moment, and then—well, you saw him. The little villain deserved killing. I could have shot him with pleasure. Do you know, Sheppard, Jonathan's aversion to shedding blood is a singular thing. He'd never kill the worst kind of a white man until driven to it.”

“That's commendable. How about Wetzel?”

“Well, Lew is different,” replied Colonel Zane with a shudder. “If I told him to take an ax and clean out Metzar's place—God! what a wreck he'd make of it. Maybe I'll have to tell him, and if I do, you'll see something you can never forget.”

 

CHAPTER IX

 

On Sunday morning under the bright, warm sun, the little hamlet of Fort Henry lay peacefully quiet, as if no storms had ever rolled and thundered overhead, no roistering ever disturbed its stillness, and no Indian's yell ever horribly broke the quiet.

“'Tis a fine morning,” said Colonel Zane, joining his sister on the porch. “Well, how nice you look! All in white for the first time since—well, you do look charming. You're going to church, or course.”

“Yes, I invited Helen and her cousin to go. I've persuaded her to teach my Sunday-school class, and I'll take another of older children,” replied Betty.

“That's well. The youngsters don't have much chance to learn out here. But we've made one great stride. A church and a preacher means very much to young people. Next shall come the village school.”

“Helen and I might teach our classes an hour or two every afternoon.”

“It would be a grand thing if you did! Fancy these tots growing up unable to read or write. I hate to think of it; but the Lord knows I've done my best. I've had my troubles in keeping them alive.”

“Helen suggested the day school. She takes the greatest interest in everything and everybody. Her energy is remarkable. She simply must move, must do something. She overflows with kindness and sympathy. Yesterday she cried with happiness when Mabel told her Alex was eager to be married very soon. I tell you, Eb, Helen is a fine character.”

“Yes, good as she is pretty, which is saying some,” mused the colonel. “I wonder who'll be the lucky fellow to win her.”

“It's hard to say. Not that Englishman, surely. She hates him. Jonathan might. You should see her eyes when he is mentioned.”

“Say, Betts, you don't mean it?” eagerly asked her brother.

“Yes, I do,” returned Betty, nodding her head positively. “I'm not easily deceived about those things. Helen's completely fascinated with Jack. She might be only a sixteen-year-old girl for the way she betrays herself to me.”

“Betty, I have a beautiful plan.”

“No doubt; you're full of them.”

“We can do it, Betty, we can, you and I,” he said as he squeezed her arm.

“My dear old matchmaking brother,” returned Betty, laughing, “it takes two to make a bargain. Jack must be considered.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed the colonel, snapping his fingers. “You needn't tell me any young man—any man, could resist that glorious girl.”

“Perhaps not; I couldn't if I were a man. But Jack's not like other people. He'd never realize that she cared for him. Besides, he's a borderman.”

“I know, and that's the only serious obstacle. But he could scout around the fort, even if he was married. These long, lonely, terrible journeys taken by him and Wetzel are mostly unnecessary. A sweet wife could soon make him see that. The border will be civilized in a few years, and because of that he'd better give over hunting for Indians. I'd like to see him married and settled down, like all the rest of us, even Isaac. You know Jack's the last of the Zanes, that is, the old Zanes. The difficulty arising from his extreme modesty and bashfulness can easily be overcome.”

“How, most wonderful brother?”

“Easy as pie. Tell Jack that Helen is dying of love for him, and tell her that Jack loves—”

“But, dear Eb, that latter part is not true,” interposed Betty.

“True, of course it's true, or would be in any man who wasn't as blind as a bat. We'll tell her Jack cares for her; but he is a borderman with stern ideas of duty, and so slow and backward he'd never tell his love even if he had overcome his tricks of ranging. That would settle it with any girl worth her salt, and this one will fetch Jack in ten days, or less.”

“Eb, you're a devil,” said Betty gayly, and then she added in a more sober vein, “I understand, Eb. Your idea is prompted by love of Jack, and it's all right. I never see him go out of the clearing but I think it may be for the last time, even as on that day so long ago when brother Andrew waved his cap to us, and never came back. Jack is the best man in the world, and I, too, want to see him happy, with a wife, and babies, and a settled occupation in life. I think we might weave a pretty little romance. Shall we try?”

“Try? We'll do it! Now, Betts, you explain it to both. You can do it smoother than I, and telling them is really the finest point of our little plot. I'll help the good work along afterwards. He'll be out presently. Nail him at once.”