The Cassowary Part 7

We did it all with a rush, under the scientist's direction. We skinned that half-way n.i.g.g.e.r's leg, and it was immediately and neatly inflected, adjusted, and st.i.tched upon the leg which had loitered a shade too long in the maw of the anaconda. The dark skin fitted on, and grew to be a part of MacGregor in almost no time. Talk about the "hand-me-down" man who a.s.sures the customer that the thing "fits shust like de paper on de vall," well, neither he nor his customer could be counted in with our scientist and MacGregor and a portion of the South American, so lately but so permanently deceased.

That is about all there is to the tropical part of this episode. I was present when Alan met his sweetheart again. Soon came St. Andrew's day.

MacGregor was to be a prominent figure, and his sweetheart awaited the occasion with pride and hopefulness, and great enthusiasm. She waited, anxiously, until she should see her true love conspicuous, as she thought he ought to be, in the crack organization of those who made part of the parade of St. Andrew's day. There came a moment of intense excitement, both to her and to the somewhat overbearing Scottish group about her. When it was generally understood that the most vaunting, aristocratic, and full-blooded Scots company was about to pa.s.s, she watched and watched, watched just for him, to see her great lover stalking n.o.bly in the finest company. Time lagged. Never before had Time so loafed and enjoyed himself in some nonsense by the wayside. Finally, a hundred yards away, came imposing and demanding on the ear-drums the music of the pipes. There wasn't any slogan, because there wasn't any fight, but something almost as appealing to the clean, stubborn, Scottish heart, be it in man or woman. They swung around the corner and into the main street. She saw it all and she knew it all, and looked for Alan MacGregor among those coming barelegged to the fore with the weird music which has for centuries meant ever pluck, and sometimes conquest.

Her eyes turned this way and that way, and finally they lit upon her sweetheart. There was no doubt about it. There he was, marching as lieutenant or something of that sort, of the tartaned company, all barelegged from below the kilt a little above the knee to thick stocking just below the knee, all alike displaying this ancient Scottish endurance of field and flood and of anything else. The girl's stately Alan walked grandly in his place, clad confidently in the tartan of his clan, and showing his strip of leg about the knee as brazenly as did any other man of the parading Scotsmen.

The girl saw him, looked upon him, first buoyant, excited and admiring, then appalled. She saw him lording it abroad among his minions, and, at the same time, she noted that his legs were black and those of the other men white. She could not understand it; it was something ghastly.

What had happened was this:

It was the morning of St. Andrew's day, and they were gathered in the armory, the hundreds of enthusiastic Scots. The sun's rays shot slanting through the windows, lit upon bonnet, tartan, and sporan, and upon legs bare at the knee, "uncomely fair," as a veteran observed, which was not to be wondered at, as they were thus exposed but once a year, to the intense but concealed discomfort of their s.h.i.+vering but patriotic owners. Ringing-voiced and cheerful among them was Alan MacGregor. He dressed himself in the retiring room, as did the others, and came out in all the kilted glory of his ancient clan. He was a fine figure of a man to look upon, but there was a howl when he appeared. The bare patch about the knee of one leg showed white, and on the other, black!

"Ken ye what's the matter wi' your legs, mon?" roared a giant among the group; and MacGregor looked down, to realize in a moment his condition.

It would never do to march through the streets with one leg black and the other white. In desperation he told his story to his a.s.sembled countrymen. There was a groan of sympathy and perplexity, until the tension was relieved by the cry of an inventive young whelp from the Orkneys:

"What's the matter with ink?"

The suggestion was received with a howl of applause, and, three minutes later, the bare portion of MacGregor's white leg was made to correspond in color with the other.

To repeat, in a way, what has been already told, from the armory, the gallant Scotsmen swung upon the street in serried numbers, to march imposingly through streets lined and flanked with thousands and thousands of their fellow-citizens of any birth. They made a spectacle which it was good to see. Each piper "screwed his pipes and garred them skirl," "The pibroch lent its maddening tone," and the pipes droned and clamored and yelped for victory nearer and nearer all the time. The marchers pa.s.sed in gallant style. The moment came at last when, with a defiant howl of the pipes, MacGregor's company pa.s.sed the stand, and it was now that, as has been related, Agnes saw her lover, broad shouldered, cleanly built, and striding with the inherited gait of a thousand chieftains. Eh! but he was fine! For one blissful moment Agnes gazed upon her lover's figure, before she saw his knees. She swooned, and the lady who sat next her applied her salts and led her gently from the scene.

It seemed to the Scotchwoman there was but one thing for her to do. When she recovered sufficiently, she wrote this letter to her Alan:

Oh, Alan! Are ye no patriot, no product of the Scotsmen of the old time? And I, I thought your blood as blue as the water in the mountain lakes fresh tinted from the sky. Oh, Alan! my Alan! ye looked so braw, barrin' the black breeks ye wore to protect the single patch of ye from the raw weather. Oh, Alan!

did our stern ancestors do the like of that? Cared they for squall or flurry or the frost rime? Oh, my Alan! I love ye. Ye ken it well, but we must not marry. Think ye I would tak pride in children of the man of the black breeks? I'm gey--sore gey!

Your AGNES.

Now note what happened! Now pity me! Alan was heart-riven and wild, and came to me in his distress. I was the only person in the great city who could give authoritatively the story of his brown leg. I was the only person who could re-establish him in Agnes' mind as an ardent Scot.

Imagine a mission like that. Imagine a man having to go and talk to a young lady about one of her lover's legs! I don't know how I did it, but certainly I did it. I want to say here and now and frankly--and I don't care whether she reads it or not--that when I first met her, the temperature was far more sultry than we had ever found it upon the Amazon. It dropped many degrees, though, before my story was concluded.

Well, they have a boy about two years old, and they have named him after me. I don't know what I'll do to that boy. The little wretch hugs me so strenuously that I believe he is part anaconda.

And this ended the story-telling for the day. Their imaginations had been "stretched enough" commented kindly Mrs. Livingston.

CHAPTER IX

THE HUGE HOUND'S MOOD

The morning of the third day of rude experience opened somewhat more brightly for "the wastrels of the waste," as the Young Lady of the party very nicely designated them, for it had cleared. There remained, however, the thought that the addition to the snowfall must delay the work of rescue, an apprehension which was soon confirmed. Stafford was using the telegraph with no inconvenience now. He had contrived to bring a wire from the main line into the smoking car, and communication from there with those on the relief train was an easy matter. The news that came was not exhilarating. Very slow headway was being made, so the workers beyond the drifts reported. The railroad company had not yet installed the rotary snow-plows which, later, proved most effective, hurling the snow to a distance and clearing the way thoroughly, while the one in use but bored its way through the drifts, only to have a part of the tossed-up ma.s.s come whelming back to the track again. There was a vast amount of shovelling to do, and that took time. The resolute workers "at the other end of the trouble," as the trainmen called it, were not discouraged, but they admitted that they were not attending a midsummer picnic. In fact there was no semblance of a picnic about it.

They were not so a.s.sured now that release would come to the enthralled on the fourth day, at the latest. They but expressed a glittering confidence that the fifth day, beyond all doubt, would see the end. This a.s.surance by no means satisfied the captive pa.s.sengers. They felt that the White Jailor still held the keys and had them in his inside pocket.

There was much gossip over the emergency line and, despite the somewhat oppressive news, there was infused an element of cheerfulness by this easy, sympathetic communication with the outside world. The car in which the instrument was placed was a magnet, for, though Stafford was the only one on the train possessing sufficient experience to accomplish what he had done, there were some who understood a little of the science of telegraphy and could receive and send messages, after a fas.h.i.+on.

Communication between the trains was going on most of the time.

Stafford had completed his work at the instrument and returned to his own car, where the usual group, with others who had wandered in, were a.s.sembled, amusing themselves as best they could for the after-luncheon hour. He had noted the outline of a woman's head as he entered, and though her face was not toward him, knew very well to whom the fair head belonged. A sudden courageous impulse swayed him to its way, an impulse for which he had reason to be grateful all his life. He advanced and seated himself directly across the aisle from the Far Away Lady, who looked at him and smiled a quiet welcome. He was not quite himself as he began talking to her, but he did well, under the circ.u.mstances, and so did she. It was a meeting as delicious as constrained, for this was the first occasion on which they had opportunity to engage in anything like a real conversation. Hesitant, happy but, in a vague way, apprehensive, with a trying past recalled by tones as familiar to each as if five years were but an hour, the two exchanged only commonplaces at first, comment on the curious manner in which they were now held from the rest of humanity, or speculation over the immediate prospect. It was all commonplace, or would have been so, if either been able to veil the story of the eyes. Eyes are faithful but sometimes faithless servitors, meaning well and doing ill. None can control them absolutely, lovers least of all.

And then their misgivingly sweet communion was ended by what was so inconceivably and suddenly alarming and dangerous that even Stafford was, for a moment, dazed.

From outside came the sound of a wild yell followed by what was a man's shout, or rather shriek, of terror, then, commingled with a fierce yelp and growl, a sound of clattering on the car steps a rattling of the door, its sudden violent opening, as a man's form veered away from it and plunged into the snow on the other side, and then the appearance of a Thing which hesitated but a second, then turned and entered the car leapingly, a monstrous brute with fanged jaws agape and glaring eyes and death in his fierce intent. Not the Black Dog of the Marshes, not Red Wull, the murderer of Scottish sheep, not the Hound of the Baskervilles could have presented an appearance more utterly demoniacal.

There were cries and shouts of alarm and the occupants of the car were on their feet as the great brute plunged forward. He saw, apparently, but one object. The Far Away Lady had been sitting close to the outside of her seat and it was her white, startled face which drew the red eyes of the charging monster. Two great leaps he made and the third was at her throat.

But not so swift the leap as that of the man opposite the imperiled woman. As a panther starts, Stafford shot from his place and was before her. With arm upraised, to s.h.i.+eld his throat, he met the full impact of the tremendous force, staggering before it, but not falling. Then began a struggle brief but terrifying.

The hound's teeth found nothing as they came together, missing the fending left arm as the man thrust it forward, and coming together viciously as the brute fell back for an instant and leaped again. This time the arm was siezed fiercely as the man's right hand grasped firmly the dog's throat. There was a momentary wrenching and swaying, the dog's hold on the arm was lost and, at the same instant, almost, the hand of the arm released was aiding its fellow in the throat grip, when the fierce wrestle became more even. The dog writhed and twisted madly while the man stood, pale but firm, his legs braced against the seats as he sought a mastery of the folding skin and to bring his hands together until they should find the windpipe and afford a chance of throttling his powerful adversary. The feat was not an easy one, for there were great size and the strength of savage rage to overcome. Growling hoa.r.s.ely, foaming at the mouth, whining hungrily in its blood-thirst, the brute surged forward again and again, and wrenched and swayed in the effort to free himself from that merciless, seeking hold. So they swung and tottered for a moment, and then, at last, the man found the deadly grip he had been feeling for; he had the windpipe of the beast!

Now came another aspect to the struggle. The hound, in peril now, no longer aggressive, for the moment, was fighting for his life. His strength was going. With a mighty effort, Stafford swung him about and backward against the seat, gasping and gurgling. With the utmost strength of his hands the man squeezed and bore forward, at the same time, with all the weight and impulse of his body. The dog twisted in frightful paroxysms, the red tongue protruded and the eyes stared blindly, but there was too much vitality in the animal for a sudden end of all. Still the man surged forward with all his might, bearing so closely that the hot slaver of the beast was on his cheek and in his hair. The straining lasted for a little time, and then at last came what was certain; there was a sudden yielding, a great final gasp, the big body relaxed and straightened out and the fight was over. Stafford rose weakly upright, a.s.sisted by the men who had vainly sought opportunity to a.s.sist him in the sudden fight and turned toward the woman who lay faint and white, against the window ledge, with face upturned and eyes unseeing. They carried her gently to her stateroom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BIG BODY RELAXED AND STRAIGHTENED OUT"]

There was a rush of the pa.s.sengers to Stafford's side and there were showering thanks and congratulations and all the exclamatory comment which would naturally follow a scene so startling and with such a termination, but one man swept the others aside, with suddenly acquired authority, and demanded an examination of Stafford's hurt. It was the physician of the group, and the wisdom of his action was recognized at once. It was found that the dog's teeth had entered the fore-arm deeply, but the marks were clean and the blood was flowing readily. "It would be nothing serious," commented the doctor, "if it were not for the chance of hydrophobia. Do you think the dog was mad?" he asked of Stafford.

And, even as he spoke, something happened, something which, as before, was so unexpected, so alarming, so utterly beyond all ordinary chance, as to rob the men there of the moment's reason. There was a snarl like that of a tiger at their very feet and the dog's neck upreared among them fiercely. He had not been strangled utterly unto death, and had revived to breath and life again. His strength seemed to return to him instantaneously. With a growl which was almost a roar, the beast surged into the aisle, his glaring eyes unseeing at first but, as perception came to them, discerning again but a single object. Their devouring intent was upon a figure just entering the other doorway. The animal's sighted quarry was the effervescent youth who had first made himself generally known on the train because of his air of optimism. He had instant opportunity for an exhibition of all his blithesome qualities.

Straight toward the man the dog plunged furiously, in an uplifting leap which was but a hurling of himself squarely at his throat as he had leaped at that thinner one of the Far Away Lady, but the youth lacked not presence of mind, which was ill.u.s.trated in so diminutive a fraction of a second as to be practically unrecordable. Far and well he sprang from the steps of the car and landed in a drift up to his armpits, falling forward as the dog plunged after him. The beast collided with the railing of the platform and turned and rolled into the snow as he struck the earth, or as nearly the earth as he could go. The snow was above his head, and well it was for the pursued that it was the case.

The man plunged ahead, hampered, it is true, but making swift headway in his alarm, straight toward a tree on the ascending slope, a stunted pine which was providentially but a few yards away, while the brute pursuing him plunged wildly about yelping and barking, guided only by scent and sound in his fierce chase. The man had the advantage and what had seemed a prospective tragedy one moment became something very like a comedy the next. It was droll but well was it for the evading man that the snow he had lately been anathematizing had now become his ally and protector. He reached the tree not much ahead of the raving dog, who was at its trunk in a moment as soon as the pursued came fairly into sight, and clambering to safety upon a lower limb, not very far up but sufficiently high to a.s.sure him immunity from the snapping jaws of the beast leaping upward in a vain attempt to reach the perching chase. The youth wound his arms about the bole and dangled his legs down tantalizingly, meanwhile announcing exuberantly to the people who had rushed to the platform that snow was the finest thing in the world, when it was deep enough. All would have been over with in a moment and the youth free to come down from his eyrie but for a sudden interruption, for half a dozen of the pa.s.sengers had, by this time, secured revolvers from their grips and were about to end at once the career of the raging animal. A shot, which missed had already been fired when the voice of Stafford rang out sharply:

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot the brute, yet! I want to know first whether or not he is a mad dog. Wait a few moments."

His request was obeyed unhesitatingly, all recognizing its good sense and forethought, while the Gallus Youth called out cheerily: "That's right. I'll amuse him here Mr. Stafford while you diagnose his ailment.

It's a good idea. May save a record case of hydrophobia. Try him on, but look out, or 'dar's gwine ter be not only trubble in de chu'ch but discawd in de choir.'"

And while the pa.s.sengers crowded at the windows and on the platforms, Stafford did "try him on." He sent for bread and meat and, stepping down to the lower step of the car, waited until the dog had become silent for a moment and was gazing intently and watchfully upward at his undestined prey, and then called out, attracting his attention. There was a general shrinking back, the majority of the pa.s.sengers expecting a rush of the animal toward the car again, but to the surprise of all he did not move as Stafford spoke to him soothingly, though he turned his head and showed his teeth. Stafford leaned forward and tossed to the dog's very feet the steaming meat and other food which had been brought and no sooner had the scent reached the nostrils of the beast than, ignoring instantly the man perched in the tree he pounced upon the food voraciously, gulping it down as if he had not fed for months. Stafford called for more and fed the suffering creature until he would eat no longer. Then he called the dog to him, good-naturedly and in an ordinary tone, and, astounding as it was to all, the beast responded, approaching him though somewhat cautiously. Stafford sent for water, and finally the dog lapped it from a pail in quant.i.ties which told a story. Dumb animal though it was upon which they were gazing the onlookers could not but sympathize with its evident past distress and recognize what had been the natural consequence. Stafford rose and drew a long breath of relief.

a.s.suredly he had good reason. The chance of hydrophobia was past. "The dog is not mad," he said. "He was only starving and crazed with thirst and raging blindly at everything and anybody. I don't blame the unreasoning beast. How did it happen?"

The whole thing was soon made clear. The dog, a dappled monster Ulm, or Siberian bloodhound, had been s.h.i.+pped from San Francisco to the East by an owner to whom the hound was as the apple of his eye. It had been confined in the forward baggage car the man in charge of which had been ill during the train's imprisonment and had forgotten the beast entirely. The car had not been opened before and the imprisoned animal crazed by thirst and hunger, had gone practically insane with suffering and, upon the opening of the door, had leaped out furiously, in pursuit of the first object upon which it could vent its fury. One man's neglect had resulted in something very close to tragedy.

Now the dog was fawning at Stafford's feet. He patted it on the head and the beast followed him into the baggage car again where it lay down contentedly. There was no thought of killing it now. As one man said: "We may be all going mad ourselves before we get out of this." But he created no apprehension.

Stafford returned to his car and another examination of his hurt was made. The punctures in his arm were treated by the doctor, to avoid all chances, as he said, and the episode of the dog was ended.

CHAPTER X

THE SIREN

The startling episode of the attack of the dog had not sufficed to distract Colonel Livingston's regard from his manifest duty as guide, philosopher and friend to all the incarcerated wayfarers. He was too old a campaigner for that. After the confusion had ceased and comment on the stirring incident had died away, he looked about in austere contemplation. His eyes rested upon the Conductor and Porter, who were discussing something together at the end of the car. He acted promptly.

"Here," he called out, cheerfully but imperatively, "if you think that this train crew has but one sort of responsibility just now, you are mistaken. Pa.s.sengers must, under the circ.u.mstances, have even more attention than usual. They must be entertained. You must each tell a story. Mr. Conductor, I call upon you first."

The conductor was mightily embarra.s.sed. Evidently story-telling was not his specialty. Recognizing, however, the fact that there was nothing for him but submission to the inflexible Colonel, he succ.u.mbed, red in the face and twisting nervously his short mustache.