_ CHAPTER XXVII. THE BATTLE OF BELL RIVER
The dark of night was creeping up the gorge. A gray sky, still heavy with the smoke of the forest fire, made its progress easy and rapid. The black walls nursed its efforts, yielding their influence upon the deep valley below them. No star could penetrate the upper cloud banks. The new-born moon was lost beyond the earth-inspired canopy.
The fires of the great camp were out. No light was visible anywhere. The fighting men were at their posts on the flanking embankments. Reserves were gathered, smoking and talking in the hush of expectancy. Further afield an outpost held the entrance to the gorge to the north of the camp. A steep rugged split deeply wooded and dropping sharply from the heights above to the great foreshore. It was an admirable point to hold. No living soul could approach the camp from above that way without running the gauntlet of the ambushed rifles in skilful hands. No rush could make the passage, only costly effort. Nature had seen to that.
The white men leaders of the camp were squatting about the doorway of the shanty which had witnessed the brief interview with the chief, Thunder-Cloud. Kars occupied the sill of the doorway. His great body in its thick pea-jacket nearly filled it up. Talk was spasmodic. Kars had little enough inclination, and the others seemed to have exhausted thought upon the work of preparations.
Kars' thoughts were far away at the bald knoll of Fort Mowbray, and the little Mission nestling at its foot. Out of the gray shadows of twilight a pair of soft eyes were gazing pitifully into his, as he had seen them gaze in actual life. His mind was passing over the tragic incidents which had swept down upon that ruddy brown head with such merciless force, and a tender pity made him shrink before his thought, as no trouble of his own could have done.
The moment was perhaps the moment for such feeling. It was the moment preceding battle. It was the moment when each man realized that a thousand chances were crowding. When the uncertainties of the future were so many and so deeply hidden. Resolve alone was definite. Life and purpose were theirs to-day. To-morrow? Who could say of tomorrow? So it was that the mind groped back amongst memories which had the greatest appeal. For Kars all his memories were now centred round the home of the girl who had taught him the real meaning of life.
Bill Brudenell was sitting on a rough log, within a yard or two. He, too, was gazing out into the approaching night while he smoked on in meditative silence. His keen face and usually twinkling eyes were serious. He had small enough claims behind him. There was no woman in his life to hold his intimate regard. The present was his, and the future. The future had his life's work of healing in it. The present held his friend, beside whom he was ranged in perfect loyalty against the work of desperate men.
His purpose? Perhaps he would have found it difficult to explain. Perhaps he could not have explained at all. His was a nature that demanded more than a life of healing could give him. There was the ceaseless call of the original man in him. It was a call so insistent that it must be obeyed, even while his mental attitude spurned the folly of it.
Abe Dodds was propped on an upturned bucket with his lean shoulders squared against the log walls of the shanty. His jaw was moving rhythmically as he chewed with nervous energy. The difference in him from the others was the difference of a calculating mind always working out the sum of life from a purely worldly side. He knew the values of the Bell River strike to an ounce. It was his business to know. And he was ready to pass through any furnace, human or hellish, to seize the fortune which he knew was literally at his feet. There was neither sentiment nor feeling in his regard of that which was yet to come. This was the great opportunity. He had lived and struggled north of "sixty" for this moment. He was ready to die if necessary for the achievement of all it meant.
The men sat on, each wrapped in his own mood as the pall of night unfolded itself. The last word had been given to those at the defences, and it had been full and complete. Joe Saunders held the pass down from above. It had been at his own definite request. But the moment attack came he would be supported by one of these three. It was for this reason that he was absent from the final vigil of his fellow leaders.
It was Abe who finally broke the prolonged silence. He broke it upon indifferent ears. But then he had not the same mood for silence.
"There's every sort of old chance lying around," he observed, as though following out his own long train of thought. "But I don't guess many of 'em's worth while. There's fellers 'ud hand over any sense they ever collected fer the dame that's had savvee to buy a fi' cent perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right up to my ear-drums." He laughed and spat. "There's a mighty big world to buy, an' when you got your fencing set up around it, why, there ain't a deal left outside that's worth corrallin'. I'd say it's only the folk who fancy the foolish house need to try an' buy a big pot on a pair o' deuces. If you stand on a 'royal' you can grab most anything. I got this thing figgered to a cent. When we're through there's those among us going to make home with a million dollars--cold."
"Ye-es."
Dr. Bill removed his pipe. His gaze was turned on the engineer, whose vigorous mind was searching only one side of the task before them. The side which appealed to him most.
"That million don't worry me a cent," he went on. "If life's just a matter of buying and selling you're li'ble to get sick of it quick."
Abe's eyes shot a swift glance in the doctor's direction.
"Then what brings you up to Bell River?" he exclaimed. "It ain't a circumstance as a health resort."
Bill smiled down at his pipe.
"Much the same as you, I guess," he said. "Say, you're talking dollars. You're figgering dollars. You've got a nightmare of all you can buy with those dollars." He shook his head. "Turn over. Maybe that way you'd see things the way they are with you. Those dollars are just a symbol. You fix your eye on them. It isn't winning the 'pot' with a 'royal.' It isn't winning anyway. It's the play that gets you. If you could walk right into the office of the president of a state bank, and come out of it with a roll of a million, with no more effort than it needed pushing one foot in front of another, guess you'd as soon light your two dollar cigar with a hundred dollar bill as a 'Frisco stinker. I've seen a heap of boys like you, Abe. I've seen them sweat, and cuss, and work like a beaver for a wage, and they've been as happy as a doped Chinaman. I've seen them later, when the dollars come plenty, and they're so sick there isn't dope enough in Leaping Horse can make them feel good. Guess I'm right here because it's good to live, and fight, and work, same as man was meant to. The other don't cut much ice, unless it is the work's made things better--someways."
Abe spat out his chew and sat up. His combative spirit, which was perhaps his chief characteristic, was easily stirred.
"It ain't stuff of that sort made John Kars the richest guy in Leaping Horse. It ain't that play set him doping around 'inside' where there ain't much else but cold, and skitters, and gold. It ain't that play set him crazy to make Bell River with an outfit to lick a bunch of scallawag neches. No, sir. He's wise to the value of dollars in a world where there's nothing much else counts. There ain't no joy to life without 'em. An' you just can't live life without joy. If you're fixed that way, why, you'll hit the trail of the long haired crank, or join the folk who make a pastime of a penitentiary. The dollars for mine. If they come on a cushion of down I'll handle 'em elegant with kid gloves on my hands. I'm sick chasin'--sick to death."
Kars became caught in the interest of the talk. His dream picture faded in the shades of night, and the reality of things about him poured in upon him. He caught at the thread of discussion in his eager, forceful way.
"You ain't right, Abe, and Bill, here, too, is wrong," he said, in his amiably decided fashion. "Human life's just one great big darn foolish 'want.' It's the wage we're asking for all we do. Don't make any Sunday-school mistake. We're asking pay for every act we play, and the purse of old Prov is open most all the time. We all got a grouch set up against life. Most of us know it. Some don't. If I know anything of human nature we'd all squat around waiting till the end, doping our senses without restraining the appetite Nature gave us, if it wasn't for that blamed wage we're always yearning after. It's the law we've got to work, and Prov sets the notion in us we want something as the only way to keep our noses to the grinding mill. Those dollars ain't the end of your want. They're just a kind of symbol, as Bill says--till you've got 'em. After that you'll still be yearning for the big opportunity same as you've been right along up to now. It's just the symbol'll be diff'rent. You'll work, and cuss, and sweat, and fight, just the same as you're ready to do now. You'll still be biting the heels of old Prov for more. And Prov'll dope it out when you've worked plenty, and He figgers you've earned your wage. Bill's here on the same argument. He's got the dollars he needs, but he's still chasing that wage. Maybe his wage is diff'rent from yours or mine. Y'see he's quite a piece older. But he's worrying old Prov just as hard. Bill's here because his notions of things lie along the line of doping out healing to the poor darn fools who haven't the sense to keep themselves whole. It don't matter who's going to be better for his work on this layout. But when he's through, why, he'll open out his hands to old Prov, and Prov'll dope out his wage. And that wage'll come to him plenty when he sets around smoking his foul old pipe over a stove, and thinks back--all to himself."
He smiled with a curious twisted sort of smile as he gazed almost affectionately at the loyal little man of medicine. Then he turned again to the night which now hid the last outlines of the stern old gorge, as he went on.
"As for me the dollars in this gorge couldn't raise a shadow of joy." He shook his head. "And if I told you the wage I'm asking, maybe you'd laff till your sides split up. I'm not telling you the wage old Prov'll have to hand out my way. But to me it's big. So big your million dollars couldn't buy a hundredth part of it. No, sir. Nor a thousandth. And maybe when Prov has checked my time sheet, and handed out, He won't be through by a sight. I'll still be yepping at His heels for more, only the--symbol'll kind of be changed. Meanwhile----"
He broke off listening. Abe started to his feet. Bill deliberately knocked out his pipe on the log, while his eyes were turned along the foreshore in the direction of the Indian workings. Kars heaved himself to his feet and stood with his keen eyes striving to penetrate the darkness in the same direction.
"--We're going to start right in earning that wage--now!"
A hot rifle fire swept over the camp with reckless disregard of all aim. It came with a sharp rattle. The bullets swept on with a biting hiss, and some of them terminated their careers with a vicious "splat" against the great overhang of rock or the woodwork of the trestle-built sluices.
In an instant the deadly calm of the night was gone, swept away by the sound of many voices, and the rush of feet, and the answering fire of the defenders.
The battle of Bell River had begun. The white men had staked their all in the great play, confident they held the winning hand. The alternative from complete victory for them had one hard, definite meaning. There was no help but that which lay in their own hands, their own wits. Death, only, was on the reverse of the victory they were claiming from Providence.
A fierce pandemonium stirred the bowels of the night. The rattle of musketry with its hundreds of needle-points of flame joined the chorus of fiercely straining human voices. The black calm of night was rent to shreds, leaving in its place only the riot of cruel, warring passions.
The white men leaders and their men received the onslaught of the savage horde with the steadfastness of a full understanding of the meaning of defeat. They were braced for the shock with the nerve of men who have bitterly learned the secret of survival in a land haunted with terror. No heart-quail showed in the wall of resistance. The secret emotions had no power before the realization of the horror which must follow on defeat. The shadow of mutilation, of torture, of unspeakable death made brave the surest weakling.
Many of the defenders were Indian, like the attacking horde, though of superior race. Some were bastard whites, that most evil thing in human production in the outlands. A few were white, other than the leaders. Men belonging to that desperate crew always clinging to the fringe of human effort, where wealth is won by the lucky turn of the spade. Reckless creatures who live sunk in the deeps of indulgence of the senses, and without a shred of the conscience with which they were born. It was a collection of humanity such as only a man of Kars' characteristics could have controlled. But for a desperate adventure it might well have been difficult to find its equal. It was their mission to fight, generally against the laws of society. But fight was their mission, and they would fulfil it.
They were ready braced at their posts, and their leaders were in their midst. The fierce yelling of advancing Indians was without effect. They met the onslaught at close quarters with a fire as coldly calculated as it was merciless. The rush of assault was doubtless calculated to brush all defence aside in the first attack. But as well might the Bell River leaders have hoped to spurn ferro concrete from their path. The method was old. It was tried. It was as old as the ages since the red man was first permitted to curse the joys of a beautiful world. It was brave as only the savage mind understands bravery. But it was as impotent before the defence as the beating of captive wings against the iron bars of a cage.
The insensate horde came like the surging tide of driven waters. It reeled before the flaming weapons like rollers on a breakwater. There came the swirl and eddy. Then, in desperate defeat, it dropped back to gather fresh impetus from the volume behind.
The conflict was shadowy, yet searching eyes outlined without difficulty the half-naked, undersized forms as they came. There was nothing wild in the defence. Fire was withheld till the moment of contact. Then it poured out at pointblank range.
The carnage of that first onslaught was horrible. But the defenders suffered only the lightest casualties. They labored under no delusion. The attack would come again and again in the hope of creating a breach, and that breach was the thought in each leader's mind. Its prevention was his sheet anchor of hope. Its realization was his nightmare.
The tide of men surged once more. It came on under a rain of reckless fire. The black wings of night were illuminated with a fiery sparkle, and the smell of battle hung heavily on the still air. Kars shouted encouragement to his men.
The response was all he could desire. The Indians surged to the embankment only to beat vainly, and to fall back decimated. But again and again they rallied, their temper growing to a pitch of fury that suggested the limit of human endurance. The defence was hard put to it, and only deliberation, and the full knowledge of consequences, saved the breach.
The numbers seemed endless, rising out of the black beyond only to take shape at the rifle muzzle. Thought and action were simultaneous. Each rifle was pressed tight into the shoulder, while the hot barrel hurled its billet of death deep into the dusky bodies.
For Kars those moments were filled to the brim with the intoxicating elixir demanded by his elemental nature. He fought with a disregard of self that left its mark upon all those who were near by. He spared nothing, and his "automatic" drove terror, as well as death, into the hearts of those with whom he was confronted. It was good to fight for life in any form. The life of ease and security had small enough attraction for him. But now--now he fought with the memory of the wrongs which, through these creatures, had been inflicted upon the girl who had taught him the true meaning of life.
Bill was no less stirred, but he possessed another incentive. He fought till the first casualties in the defence claimed mercy in exchange for the merciless, and he was forced regretfully to obey the demands of his life's mission. All his ripeness of thought, all his philosophy, gleaned under the thin veneer of civilization, had been swept away by the tidal wave of battle. The original man hugged him to his bosom, and he rested there content.
With Abe Dodds emotion held small place. A cold fury rose under the lash of motive. It was the motive of a man ready at all times to spurn obstruction from his path. His heart was without mercy where his interests were threatened. These creatures were a wolf pack, from his view-point, and he yearned to shoot them down as such. Like Peigan Charley his desire was that every shot should sink deeply into the bowels of the enemy.
In a moment of lull Bill dragged a wounded man off the embankment at Kars' side. Kars withdrew his searching gaze from the dark beyond.
"How's things?" he demanded. His voice was thick with a parching thirst.
"He's the fifth."
Bill's reply was preoccupied. Kars was thinking only of the defence.
"Bully!" he exclaimed. It was the appreciation of the fighter. He had no thought for anything else. "We'll get 'em hunting their holes by daylight," he went on. Then suddenly he turned back. His rifle was ready, and he spoke over his shoulder.
"There's just one thing better than chasing the long trail, Bill. It's scrap."
With a fierce yell a dusky form leaped out of the darkness. He sprang at the embankment with hatchet upraised. Kars' rifle greeted him and he fell in his tracks.
Bill shouldered his wounded burden. A grim smile struggled to his lips as he bore it away. Nor did his muttered reply reach his now preoccupied friend.
"And we cuss the poor darn neche for a savage."
It was midnight before the final convulsions of the great storming assaults showed a waning. The first signs were the lengthening intervals between the rushes. Then gradually the rushes lessened in determination and only occasionally did they come to close quarters. To Kars the signs were the signs he looked for. They were to him the signs of first victory. But no vigilance was relaxed. The stake was far too great. None knew better than he the danger of relaxing effort under the assurance of success. And so the straining eyes of the defence were kept wide.
Minutes crept by, passed under a desultory fire from the distance. The bullets whistled widely overhead, doing no damage to life. The time lengthened into half an hour and still no fresh assault came. Kars stirred from his place. He wiped the muck sweat from his forehead, and passed down the line of embankment to where Abe Dodds held command.
"We got to get the boys fed coffee and sow-belly," he said.
Abe with his watchful eyes on the distance replied reluctantly.
"Guess we'll have to."
Kars nodded.
"I sent word to the cook-house. Pass 'em along in reliefs. There's no figgerin' on the next jolt. We can't take chances--yet."
"We'll have to--later."
Again Kars nodded.
"That's how I figger. But we got to get through this night first. There's no chances this night. Pass your men along easy. Hold 'em up on the least sign of things doing."
He was gone in a moment. And the operation he had prescribed for Abe's men was applied to his own.
Another hour passed and still there was no sign from the enemy. It almost seemed as if the victory had been more complete for the defence than had at first been thought. The men were refreshed, and the rest was more than welcome. Kars refused to leave his post. For all his faith in the defence he trusted the vigilance of no one.
A meal of sorts was sent down to him from the cook-house, and he shared it with the stalwart ruffian, Abe, and, for the most part, they quenched their thirst with the steaming beverage in silence. The thought of each man was busy. Both were contemplating the ultimate, rather than the effort of the moment.
Abe was the first to yield to the press of thought.
"How's Bill doin'?" he demanded. "What's the figures? I lost four."
"Wounded--only?"
"Wounded."
"Guess that raises the tally."
"How about your boys?"
Kars gazed in the direction of the rough storehouse now converted into a hospital.
"I'd say five. Bill was here a while back. He reckoned he'd got five then."
Abe laughed. It was not a mirthful laugh. He rarely gave way to mirth. Purpose had too profound a hold on him.
"Figger up nine by eight nights like this and you ain't got much of a crowd out of eighty."
Kars' eyes came swiftly to the lean face shadowed under the night.
"No." Then he glanced in the direction whence came the reckless Indian fire. "You mean we can't sit around, and let the neches play their own war game. That so?"
"Guess it seems that way."
"I don't reckon they're going to." Kars tipped out the coffee grounds from his pannikin with unnecessary force. He laid the cup aside and turned on the engineer. "Say, boy," he cried, with a deliberate emphasis, "I've got this thing figgered from A to Z. I've spent months of thought on it. You're lookin' on the dollars lying around, and you're yearning to grab them plenty. It's a mighty strong motive. But it's not a circumstance beside mine. I'd lose every dollar in my bank roll; I'd hand up my life without a kick, rather than lose this game. Get me? Say, don't you worry a thing, so we hold this night through. That's what matters in my figgering. If we hold this night, I got a whole stack of aces and things in my sleeve. And I'm goin' to play 'em, and play 'em--good."
The assurance of his manner had a deep effect. Passivity of resistance at no time appealed to the forceful Abe. Aggression was the chief part of his doctrine of life. He was glad to hear his chief talk in that fashion.
"That talk suits me," he said readily. "I----"
He broke off, his eyes searching the distance, his hearing straining. Kars, too, had turned, searching beyond the embankment.
"It's coming," he said. "It's coming plenty."
But Abe had not waited. His lean figure was swallowed up in the darkness as he made off to his post where his men were already assembled.
In less than two minutes the battle was raging with all its original desperation. The black night air was filled with the fury of yelling voices which vied with the rattle of firearms for domination. Bare, shadowy bodies hurled themselves with renewed impetus against the defences, and went down like grain before the reaper.
The embankments were held with even greater confidence. Earlier experience, the respite; these things had made their contribution, a contribution which told heavily against the renewed assault.
Kars wondered. He had said these men were like sheep. Now they were like sheep herded on to the slaughter-house. The senselessness of it was growing on him with his increased confidence. It all seemed unworthy of the astute half white mind lying behind the purpose. These were the thoughts which flashed through his mind as he plied his weapons and encouraged the men of his command, and they grew in conviction with each passing moment.
But there was more wit in it all than he suspected.
The battle was at its height. The insensate savages came on, regardless of the numbers who fell. The whole line of defence was resisting with all the energy and resource at its disposal. Then came the diversion.
It came by water. It came with a swirl of paddles in the black void enveloping the great river. Out of the darkness grew the shadowy outlines of four laden canoes, and the beaching of the craft was the first inkling Abe Dodds, who held the left defences, had of the adventure.
Action and thought were almost one with him. Claiming the men nearest him he hurled himself on the invaders with a ferocity which had for its inspiration a full understanding of the consequences of disaster in such a direction. Outflanking stared at him with all its ugly meaning, and as he went he shouted hoarsely back to Kars his ill-omened news. Kars needed no second warning. He passed the call on to Bill. He claimed the reinforcement which only desperate emergency had the right to demand. Then he flung himself to the task of making good the depleted defence where Abe had withdrawn his men.
The crisis was more deadly than could have seemed possible a moment before. The whole aspect of the scene had been changed. The breach, that dreaded breach with all its deadly meaning, was achieved in something that amounted only to seconds.
The neches swarmed on the embankments on the lower foreshore. The defenders who had been left were driven back before the fierce onslaught. They were already giving ground when Kars flung himself to their support. The whole position looked like being turned.
It was no longer a battle of coldly calculated method. Here at least it had become a conflict where individual nerve and ability alone could win out. Already some dozen of the half-nude savages had forced themselves across the embankment, and more were pressing on behind. It was a moment to blast the sternest courage. It was a moment when the whole edifice of the white man's purpose looked to be tottering, if not falling headlong. Kars understood. He had the measure of the threat to the last fraction, and he flung himself into the battle with a desperateness of energy and resolve that bore almost immediate fruit.
His coming had checked the breaking of the defenders. But he knew it was like patching rotten material. His influence could not last without Bill and his reinforcements. He plied his guns with a discrimination which no heat or excitement could disturb, and the first invaders fell under his attack amidst a din of fierce-throated cries. His men rallied. But he knew they were fighting now with a shadow at the back of their minds. It was his purpose to remove that shadow, and he strove with voice and act to do so.
The first support of his coming passed with the emptying of his pistols. He flung them aside without a moment's hesitation, and grabbed a rifle from a fallen neche. It was the act of a man who knew the value of every second gained. He knew, even more, the value of his own gigantic strength.
The weapon in his hands became a far-reaching club. And, swinging it like a fiercely driven flail, he rushed into the crowd of savages, scattering them like chaff in a gale. The smashing blows fell on heads that split under their superlative force, and the ground about him became like a shambles. In a moment he discovered another figure in the shadowy darkness, fighting in a similar fashion, and he knew by the crude, disjointed oaths which were hurled with each blow, so full of a venomous hate, that Peigan Charley had somehow come to his support. His heart warmed, and his onslaught increased in its bitter ferocity.
He was holding. Just holding the rush, and that was all. Without the reinforcements he had claimed he could not hope to drive his attack home. He knew. Nor did he attempt to blind himself. The whole thing was a matter of minutes now. Defeat, complete disaster hung by a thread, and the fever of the knowledge fired his muscles to an effort that was almost superhuman.
He drove his way through the raging savages, whose crude weapons for close quarters were aimed at him from every direction. He was fighting for time. He was fighting to hold--simply hold. He was fighting to demoralize the rush, and drive terror into savage hearts. And he knew his limits were steadily approaching.
His first call had reached the ears of the man for whom it was intended. Nor had they been indifferent. A call for help from Kars was an irresistible clarion of appeal to Bill Brudenell. Mercy? There was no consideration of healing or mercy could claim him from his friend's succor. He flung aside his drugs, his bandages. He had no thought for his wounded. He had no thought for himself.
To collect reinforcements from the northern defences was the work of a few minutes. Even the elderly breed cook at the cook-house was claimed, though his only weapons were an ancient patterned revolver and a pick-haft he had snatched up. Fifteen men in all he was able to collect and at the head of them he rushed for the battle-ground.
Nor was he a moment too soon. Kars' vigor was rapidly exhausting itself. Peigan Charley was fighting with a demoniac fury, but weakening. The handful of men who were still supporting were nearly defeated.
Bill knew the value of creating panic. As he came he set up a yell. His men took it up, and it sounded like the advance of a legion of demons. In a moment they were caught in the whirl of battle, and the flash of their weapons lit the scene, while the clatter of firearms, and the hoarse-throated shouting, gave an impression of overwhelming force. Back reeled the yelling horde in face of the onslaught. Back and still back. Confusion with those pressing on behind set up a panic. The wretched creatures fell like flies in the darkness. Then came flight. Headlong flight. The panic which Bill had sought.
In half an hour from the moment of the first break the position was restored. Within an hour Kars knew the Battle of Bell River had been won. But it had been won at a cost he had never reckoned upon. The margin of victory had been the narrowest.
Abe had been able to complete his work in the cold businesslike manner which was all his own. The attack from the river was an unsupported diversion with forces limited to its need. How nearly it had succeeded no doubt remained. But in that direction Abe's heavy hand had fallen in no measured fashion. Those of the landing party who were not awaiting burial on the foreshore were meeting death in the deep waters of the swiftly flowing river. Even the smashed canoes were flotsam on the bosom of the tide.
The battle degenerated from the moment of the failure of the intended breach. There was no further attack in force. Small, isolated raids came at intervals only to be swept back by rifle fire from the embankments. These, and a desultory and notoriously wild fire, which, to the defence, was a mere expression of impotent, savage rage, wore the long night through. Kars had achieved his desire. The night had been fought out, and the defence had held.
Kars was standing in the doorway of the storehouse where Bill was calmly prosecuting his work of mercy. The doctor's smallish figure was moving rapidly about the crowded hut. His preoccupation was heart whole. He had eyes and thought for nothing but those injured bodies under their light blanket coverings, and the groans of suffering that came from lips, which, in health, were usually tainted with blasphemy.
All Kars' thoughts were at the moment concerned with the busy man. That array of figures had already told him its story. A painful story. A story calculated to daunt a leader. Just now he was thinking how his debt to this man was mounting up. Years of intimate friendship had been sealed by incident after incident of devotion. Now he felt that he owed his present being to the prompt response to his signal of distress. But Bill had never failed him. Bill would never fail when loyalty was demanded. He breathed devotion in every act of his life. There could be no thanks between them. There never had been thanks between them. Their bond was too deep, too strong for that.
The dull lamplight revealed the makeshift of the hospital. There were no bunks, only the hard earthen floor cleared of stones. Its log walls were stopped with mud to keep the weather out. A packing case formed the table on which the doctor's instruments were laid out. It was rough, uncouth. Its inadequacy was only mitigated by the skill and gentle mercy of the man.
Kars' voice broke in upon the doctor's preoccupation.
"Twenty," he said. "Twenty out of eighty."
Bill glanced up from the wounded head he was dressing.
"And the fight just started."
Kars stirred from the support of the door-casing which had served to rest his weary body.
"Yes," he admitted.
Then he turned away. There seemed to be nothing further to add. He drew a deep breath as he moved into the open.
A moment later he was moving with rapid strides in the direction of the battle-ground. A hard light was shining in his steady eyes, his jaws were sternly set. All feeling of the moment before had passed. The gray of dawn was spreading over the eastern sky. His nightmare was over. There was only left for him the execution of those plans he had so carefully worked out during the long days of preparation. _