Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police Part 54

Following it round on the lee side, he suddenly halted with a shout of grateful triumph. A great section had fallen out of the rock, forming a little cave, storm-proof and dry.

"Thank G.o.d once more!" he said, and this time with even deeper reverence. "Now for a fire. If I could only get some birch bark."

He placed his rifle in a corner of the cave and went out on his hunt.

"By Jove, I must hurry, or my hands will be gone sure." Looking upwards in the shelter of the rock through the driving snow he saw the bare tops of trees. "Birch, too, as I am alive!" he cried, and plunging through the bushes came upon a clump of white birches.

With fingers that could hardly hold the curling bark he gathered a few bunches and hurried back to the cave. Again he went forth and gathered from the standing trees an armful of dead dry limbs. "Good!" he cried aloud in triumph. "We're not beaten yet. Now for the fire and supper."

He drew forth his steel matchbox with numb and shaking fingers, opened it and stood stricken dumb. There were only three matches in the box.

Unreasoning terror seized him. Three chances for life! He chose a match, struck it, but in his numb and nerveless fingers the match snapped near the head. With a new terror seizing him he took a second match and struck it. The match flared, sputtering. Eagerly he thrust the birch bark at it; too eagerly, alas, for the bark rubbed out the tiny flame.

He had one match left! One hope of life! He closed his matchbox. His hands were trembling with the cold and more with nervous fear that shook him in every limb. He could not bring himself to make the last attempt.

Up and down the cave and out and in he stamped, beating his hands to bring back the blood and fighting hard to get back his nerve.

"This is all rotten funk!" he cried aloud, raging at himself. "I shall not be beaten."

Summoning all his powers, he once more pulled out his matchbox, rubbed his birch bark fine and, kneeling down, placed it between his knees under the shelter of his hunting jacket. Kneeling there with the matchbox in his hand, there fell upon his spirit a great calm. "Oh, G.o.d!" he said quietly and with the conviction in his soul that there was One listening, "help me now." He opened the matchbox, took out the match, struck it carefully and laid it among the birch bark. For one heart-racking moment it flickered unsteadily, then, catching a resinous fibre of the bark, it flared up, shot out a tiny tongue to one of the heavier bunches, caught hold, sputtered, smoked, burst into flame. With the prayer still going in his heart, "G.o.d help me now," Cameron fed the flame with bits of bark and tiny twigs, adding more and more till the fire began to leap, dance, and snap, and at length gaining strength it roared its triumph over the grim terror so recently threatened.

For the present at least the blizzard was beaten.

"Now G.o.d be thanked for that," said Cameron. "For it was past my doing."

CHAPTER II

ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM

s.h.i.+vering and hungry and fighting with sleep, Cameron stamped up and down his cave, making now and then excursions into the storm to replenish his fire. On sharpened sticks slices of venison were cooking for his supper. Outside the storm raged with greater violence than ever and into the cave the bitter cold penetrated, effectually neutralizing the warmth of the little fire, for the wood was hard to get and a larger fire he could not afford.

He looked at his watch and was amazed to find it only five o'clock. How long could he maintain this fight? His heart sank at the prospect of the long night before him. He sat down upon the rock close beside his cooking venison and in a few moments was fast asleep.

He awoke with a start and found that the fire had crept along a jutting branch and had reached his fingers. He sprang to his feet. The fire lay in smouldering embers, for the sticks were mere brushwood. A terrible fear seized him. His life depended upon the maintaining of this fire.

Carefully he a.s.sembled the embers and nursed them into bright flame.

At all costs he must keep awake. A further excursion into the woods for fuel thoroughly roused him from his sleep. Soon his fire was blazing brightly again.

Consulting his watch, he found that he must have slept half an hour. He determined that in order to keep himself awake and to provide against the growing cold he would lay in a stock of firewood, and so he began a systematic search for fallen trees that he might drag to his shelter.

As he was setting forth upon his search he became aware of a new sound mingling with the roaring of the storm about him, a soft, pounding, rhythmic sound. With every nerve strained he listened. It was like the beating of hoofs. He ran out into the storm and, holding his hands to his ears, bent forward to listen. Faintly over the roaring of the blizzard, and rising and falling with it, there came the sound of singing.

"Am I mad?" he said to himself, beating his head with his hands. He rushed into the cave, threw upon the fire all the brushwood he had gathered, until it sprang up into a great glare, lighting up the cave and its surroundings. Then he rushed forth once more to the turn of the rock. The singing could now be plainly heard.

"Three cheers for the red, white--Get on there, you variously coloured and mult.i.tudinously cursed brutes!--Three cheers for the red--Hie there, look out, Little Thunder! They are off to the left."

"h.e.l.lo!" yelled Cameron at the top of his voice. "h.e.l.lo, there!"

"Whoa!" yelled a voice sharply. The sound of hoof beats ceased and only the roaring of the blizzard could be heard.

"h.e.l.lo!" cried Cameron again. "Who are you?" But only the gale answered him.

Again and again he called, but no voice replied. Once more he rushed into the cave, seized his rifle and fired a shot into the air.

"Crack-crack," two bullets spat against the rock over his head.

"Hold on there, you fool!" yelled Cameron, dodging back behind the rock.

"What are you shooting at? h.e.l.lo there!" Still there was no reply.

Long he waited till, desperate with anxiety lest his unknown visitors should abandon him, he ran forward once more beyond the ledge of the rock, shouting, "h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! Don't shoot! I'm coming out to you."

At the turn of the rocky ledge he paused, concentrating his powers to catch some sound other than the dull boom and hiss of the blizzard.

Suddenly at his side something moved.

"Put up your hands, quick!"

A dark shape, with arm thrust straight before it, loomed through the drift of snow.

"Oh, I say--" began Cameron.

"Quick!" said the voice, with a terrible oath, "or I drop you where you stand."

"All right!" said Cameron, lifting up his hands with his rifle high above his head. "But hurry up! I can't stand this long. I am nearly frozen as it is."

The man came forward, still covering him with his pistol. He ran his free hand over Cameron's person.

"How many of you?" he asked, in a voice sharp and crisp.

"I am all alone. But hurry up! I am about all in."

"Lead on to your fire!" said the stranger. "But if you want to live, no monkey work. I've got you lined."

Cameron led the way to the fire. The stranger threw a swift glance around the cave, then, with eyes still holding Cameron, he whistled shrilly on his fingers. Almost immediately, it seemed to Cameron, there came into the light another man who proved to be an Indian, short, heavily built, with a face hideously ugly and rendered more repulsive by the small, red-rimmed, blood-shot eyes that seemed to Cameron to peer like gimlets into his very soul.

At a word of command the Indian possessed himself of Cameron's rifle and stood at the entrance.

"Now," said the stranger, "talk quick. Who are you? How did you come here? Quick and to the point."

"I am a surveyor," said Cameron briefly. "McIvor's gang. I was left at camp to cook, saw a deer, wounded it, followed it up, lost my way, the storm caught me, but, thank G.o.d, I found this cave, and with my last match lit the fire. I was trying to cook my venison when I heard you coming."

The grey-brown eyes of the stranger never left Cameron's face while he was speaking.

"You're a liar!" he said with cold insolence when Cameron had finished his tale. "You look to me like a blank blank horse thief or whiskey trader."

Faint as he was with cold and hunger, the deliberate insolence of the man stirred Cameron to sudden rage. The blood flooded his pale face.

"You coward!" he cried in a choking voice, gathering himself to spring at the man's throat.

But the stranger only laughed and, stepping backward, spoke a word to the Indian behind him. Before he could move Cameron found himself covered by the rifle with the malignant eye of the Indian behind it.

"Hold on, Little Thunder, drop it!" said the stranger with a slight laugh.