Snow-blind
movement of his expanded pinions he changed his course, slackened his
silent flight. Some clairvoyance of instinct at that instant warned the
rat of the stealthy form that had just skimmed the tree-tops. His sharp,
twitching nose twisted upward, he spotted the monstrous thing drifting
like a fog-wraith above him, and he tried to run, shrieking in terror.
For those few seconds the men in the clearing, white and Indian, lost
sight of their own grim business to watch tensely this lesser drama of
the wilderness.
The rat was doomed. Its tiny feet and legs sank deep in the loose packed
snow and it piled a drift in front of itself as it tried to drag its
body forward. The nearest thicket was a dozen yards away, and there
wasn’t a chance of its gaining cover.
The feathered legs of the owl reached down stiffly and the terrible
talons opened for their clutching stroke. Unhurried, unexcited the big
bird swerved and dipped earthward as lightly as a wafted ball of fluff.
Backed against a stump the rat turned at bay, squealing insanely.
The owl had turned his staring eyes towards the men for a moment, and
then he went about his butcher’s work, as indifferent to the human
spectators as though he were the unearthly spirit that the Indians
believed him to be. The men of the forest were mortally afraid of the
devils that owned these birds, and never dared to molest them. There was
no beast of the wilderness able to cope with the giant owls. So they
grew up without the instinct of fear.
Like a fleshless, disembodied thing, as aloof from the world, as quiet
as death, the great owl swooped.
What prompted Kitchener’s act, he could not have said. But somehow he
found his pistol butt set comfortably in the arch of his hand. His
sights notched themselves in line, and his finger squeezed the trigger.
He fired--not at the swift-moving owl, which was mostly invulnerable
feathers--but at the crouching rat. Nothing could have saved the little
animal, and it is better to die instantaneously than to be plucked to
bits alive. Kit might have missed the rushing bird, but the rat was
standing still. As the report slammed across the clearing the small,
gray body flopped headless in the snow, twitched once or twice, and
settled quietly at rest.
The great owl, almost scooping the ground, braked his descent as his
victim crumpled beneath him. The connoisseur of death recognized death
at sight. He was no vulturous feeder. He took his meat alive. With a
throaty, hissing sound that was not like any earthly sound, he lifted
himself on his shadows of wings, and vanished between here and there
like a smoke-puff dissipating in twilight.
Kitchener straightened his back and eased out a breath that was
threatening to burst his lungs. He looked at the beheaded rat lying so
still under its stump, he looked across the clearing at the
gaping-mouthed Giffard, and then he turned to look at the Indians.
Something had happened to the Yellow Knives in that astonishing moment.
Kit felt the change in their manner, he saw it in their gawking faces
and in their awed, incredulous eyes. They were huddled in an irresolute
group not far from the cabin door, watching him askance.
In an intuitive flash he realized that a miracle had intervened in his
behalf. These were no longer the fierce, rash men who would have shot
him down and burned the cabin above him. They knew nothing about the
law, but they knew much about shooting. They had seen him snip off a
rat’s head with his short-barreled gun at twenty paces. That sight
somehow had spoiled their stomachs for fighting. That same, quick-firing
gun might as readily pop off a half-dozen Yellow-Knife heads before they
could stop its spitting.
It might be impossible even to down a man who dared to cheat one of the
devil-birds of its prey. Such a one, who stood unsmitten afterwards and
mocked at fate with one high-cocked eyebrow--it was more than possible
that he also might be under the diabolical protection.
Kit read all of this in the guileless, bewildered faces, and he made the
most of his advantages. He moved nonchalantly outside the doorway,
keeping his pistol in his hand.
“You, Tom Salmonfish!” he said so sharply that the Indian jumped. “What
do you mean by bringing your friends here? It’s a bad place. None of you
may get out again.”
Salmonfish raised his anxious, squinting eyes, moistened his lips and
started to say something. Then he ducked his head with a spasmodic
movement and almost seemed to shrink within himself as another huge,
blood-smeared owl sailed in from the barrens to cross low over the cabin
roof.
Before the great, lazy-drifting bird had passed across the clearing a
second and a third and a fourth hove in sight above the whited line of
trees. One of them wheeled for an instant in his course, peered around
below him with solemn, glaring eyes. It might have seemed for those few
seconds as though he were trying to stare the watching men out of
countenance, twisting his gory head from side to side while he circled
and singled out individuals for his somber scrutiny.
The Yellow Knives refused to face the evil eyes looking down upon them.
Their shoulders hunched up, their heads bowed, and they huddled
together, looking absurdly like people who had been caught out
unprotected in bad weather. Kit, who was watching them narrowly,
suddenly raised his voice in a wild, singing shout:
“The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful
pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up
in a five-pound note.”
He howled the refrain after the owls and beat the time in the air with
the muzzle of his pistol.
For a few seconds the Indians seemed to stop breathing, and they looked
at Kit like so many petrified men. They could not have understood the
words. It might have been an infernal chant for all they knew. In that
hushed nook of the forest the profane outburst of noise was
nerve-shattering. Two or three of the Indians on the outskirts began to
edge away from the cabin, and those in front heard the uneasy shuffling
behind them and were quick to catch the infection.
Before Tom Salmonfish could have realized what was happening he found
himself alone, confronting the mad white man who dared to taunt the
fearsome owls, who could shoot like a fiend, whether he really was one
or not, and who was waving his deadly pistol with a crazy disregard for
those in front of it.
Tom Salmonfish might have stuck, in spite of the owls and the loony
policeman, if anybody had stood behind him. But his braves had thought
of something to do somewhere else. Some of them were already half way
across the clearing, peering furtively over their shoulders as the owls
disappeared in the black timber below the creek. The remaining two or
three lingered momentarily, and then they shambled in an aimless fashion
behind their comrades.
“I’d beat it,” said Kit.
Tom Salmonfish scowled after his departing friends, and then his morbid
glance came back for an instant to the doorway. “We comin’ back an’ get
um soon,” he threatened. “Plenty time to-morrow. Plenty more of us.”
He stalked away with dignity to overtake the last man of the file, who
felt himself being crowded from behind, and stepped on the heels of the
man in front of him. It was like a push given to a line of ten-pins.
Those up ahead moved faster to keep out of the way of those in the rear,
who moved faster to keep up. By the time the retreat began to lose
itself in the underbrush on the farther side of the clearing it had
begun to look like a contest to see who could go at the best walking
clip, without running.
Kit closed the door and dropped the heavy draw-bar. He looked around the
smoky interior, and laughed. Mrs. Mayauk Oogly stood beside him, smiling
up at him, a friendly, cheerful smile. With a sudden surging of good
spirits he leaned forward and kissed the Esquimau woman first on one
roly-poly cheek, and then on the other.
This done, he thought there ought to be no partiality, so he turned and
caught Diane Durand in his arms and firmly kissed her startled, open
mouth. As the girl gasped and lithely struggled free he looked around at
the man who had caused all the trouble.
“We’ve got a reprieve for you, Oogly,” he said. “You lucky stiff! Now
you can be hanged decently, as you should be, by the police.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE HONORABLE MURDERER
The promise of future punishment did not bother Oogly in the least. He
lived happily in his immediate moments, and anything that happened to
him at a later date was something not to be worried about until that
time came. Any day after to-day was too remote even to be thought about.
He gazed up in rapt admiration at the man who had chased off the Yellow
Knives and laughed at their departing backs. Oogly was a humorist
himself, and loved to laugh as well as anybody. His grin of appreciation
included his chin, the top of his forehead and both frost-bitten ears.
Suddenly he thought of something that had been overlooked on this joyful
occasion. He ran to the bunk and came back with the baby in his arms.
“Uttaktuak want kissum too,” he said.
“Being female,” remarked Kit, “she would.” He bent lightly and touched
his lips to the funny little sleeping face that Oogly held up to him.
Then he looked around at Diane with mocking eyes.
The girl was rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand. She flushed
with annoyance for an instant, and then her mood changed and she smiled
caustically. “You’ve certainly given us three women a glorious
Christmas,” she remarked in biting irony.
As she observed Kit from under her thick, hazel eyelashes her face
suddenly grew sober. “Did you mean that?” she demanded.
“I always mean it,” said Kitchener lightly. “Just ask any of the
girls--”
She shook her head impatiently. “You know what I’m asking you. What you
said about Oogly?”
“What did I say about him?”
“That you’re going to arrest him, and--”
“Hang him?” Kit supplied as the girl delicately hesitated. “I would if I
could. That’s part of my job. He deserves it, but I don’t just really
see how it can be done. Not right away, anyhow.”
Diane’s features brightened. “You really meant what you told the Yellow
Knives?”
“I’m afraid I did. You can’t prove that a murder has been committed by
the murderer’s unsupported testimony. Odd as it sounds, that’s the law.
Oogly’s confession isn’t worth a darn without a substantiating witness
and a dead body for an inquest. A man accused of a capital crime isn’t
allowed to convict himself. A nice situation, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s fine,” said Diane.
“You think it’s fine to let an admitted murderer go scot-free?” Kit
scowled at her. “Maybe that’s your idea of the way a world should be
run, but it’s not mine. I’ve got to try and find the dead man’s body.
Then maybe I can do something about it.”
“I hope you never find it,” said Diane.
“I go ’long when you go show you best places for looking,” put in the
irrepressible Oogly.
Kitchener eyed the Esquimau in perplexity. While he wore the scarlet of
the police and called himself by his dead brother’s name he was
conscientiously determined to acquit himself in his borrowed rôle as
sincerely and honestly as though he himself had taken the oath of
service. The responsibilities that once had been Jerry’s had shifted to
his own shoulders. And now his first police case left him in a decided
quandary. He hadn’t the faintest notion what he ought to do.
In spite of himself he secretly felt the same sympathy and liking for
Oogly that Diane Durand frankly expressed. By his own lights the little
Esquimau was a good man. He loved his wife and baby. He would freeze for
them and starve for them and die for them calmly if need be. Men who