Chapter XVII: Ascota Escapes

When Etzeeah caught sight of the little tents through the trees, he pulled up his horse. Extending a trembling forefinger, he asked hoarsely:

"Ascota, is he there?"

"Yes," said Jack. "He can't hurt you. He's tied up."

Etzeeah slipped from his horse. "I wait here," he said. "I not go where he is."

"Are you afraid?" asked Jack with curling lip.

Etzeeah had turned pale; his eyes darted from side to side, and he moistened his lips. "I am afraid," he muttered doggedly. "He is more than a man. He has made the beasts speak to me; the porcupine, the bear, the beaver, each after his own nature. He has made men mad before my eyes, and brought their senses back when it pleased him. He mastered the white man, and made him kneel before him, and bring him his food. This I saw. The like was never known before. Who would not be afraid? What if he is tied? He will wither me with his eyes!"

Jack and Mary looked at each other in perplexity.

"Blindfold Jean Paul," Mary suggested.

"Good," said Jack with clearing brow. "Watch him," he added in English, "and come over when I wave my hand."

Jack led his horse across the brook. Here another evidence of Jean Paul Ascota's evil power awaited him. Davy at sight of Jack sprang up with an odd, low cry, and came running to meet him, running waveringly as if his knees were sinking under him. He cast himself on Jack, trembling like aspen leaves.

"Oh, Jack!" he gasped. "I'm glad--oh, Jack! Jean Paul--"

"He's safe?" demanded Jack.

"He's safe. Oh, Jack!--he said--he's a devil, Jack. He made me want to let him go! He said--oh! it's horrible! He said--oh! I can't tell you! Jack!----"

The boy's agonized voice trailed off; he sighed, and, his slender frame relaxing, hung limply over Jack's arm. Jack let his horse go, and waving to Mary to keep back, he bent, and dashed the cold brook water in Davy's face.

He revived in a moment or two, and clung to Jack. "Oh, Jack!" he murmured, "I thought you'd never come! I was near crazy. He said--oh! I can't tell you!"

"Never you mind, old boy," said Jack gruffly. "Forget it! Mary and I are both here. It's all right now."

He carried him up the bank, and put him down by the fire. A sip from Jack's flask further restored him. Then Jack turned with grim eyes and clenched fists toward Jean Paul's tent.

"You devil!" he muttered. It was the word they all used.

"I want to smoke," Jean Paul said impudently.

"Lie there and want it, damn you!" said Jack. He had much ado to restrain himself from kicking the beast. As it was he flung him over none too tenderly, and taking the handkerchief from the breed's neck, tied it tight round his eyes.

"There's somet'ing you don't want me to see, huh?" sneered Jean Paul.

Jack was a little staggered by his perspicacity.

He waved his hand to Mary. She brought Etzeeah across, and flew to comfort and restore Davy. They never did learn exactly what Jean Paul had said to him. At any mention of the subject the boy's agitation became painful to see.

Etzeeah after coming into camp never once opened his mouth. He regarded Jean Paul's tent as nervously as if its flimsy walls confined a man-eating grizzly. He sat down at some distance, and at the side of the tent where Jean Paul could not have seen him even had his eyes not been blindfolded.

Jack brought wood, and Mary started to prepare a meal for them all, before taking to the trail again. At a moment when there was comparative silence a loud voice suddenly issued from the tent, speaking the Sapi tongue.

"Etzeeah is there!"

They all started violently. It was uncanny. Etzeeah paled, and sprang up. Jack laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"I smell him!" the voice of Jean Paul went on, full of mocking triumph. "Nothing can be hidden from me! Etzeeah has betrayed me! Bound and helpless though I am, don't think you can escape me, old Etzeeah! My medicine travels far! Your son, your fine boy Etzoogah, shall pay. He's paying now! He falls and twists on the ground with the frothing sickness--the fine boy! He curses his father!"

Jack was struggling with the frantic father. "For God's sake, stop his mouth!" he cried to Mary. "A gag!"

She flew to the tent, and presently the voice was stilled. The last sound it uttered was a laugh, a studied, slow, devilish laugh, frightful to untutored ears. We are accustomed to such tricks on our stage.

Etzeeah lay moaning and wailing, clawing up handfuls of earth to put on his matted gray head. Jack arose from him white and grim, and with a new light in his eyes.

"We've had about enough of this," he muttered between his teeth.

Mary, divining what was in his mind, flew to him.

"Jack! Not that! Not that!" she gasped, breathless with horror.

"I'm not going to do it here," Jack said harshly. "I'll take him away. What else can I do? Look at Davy! Look at the Indian! This breed is like a pestilence among us! He'll have us all stark mad if I don't--"

"No! No!" she implored, clinging to him. "You and I are strong enough to stand it, Jack. We'll come through all right. But we never could forget"--her voice sunk low--"not his _blood_, Jack!"

His purpose failed him. He caught up her hand and pressed it hard to his cheek with an abrupt, odd motion. Dropping it, he turned away. "All right," he said shortly. His eyes fell on Etzeeah. "Get up!" he cried scornfully. "This is old woman's talk! If he can send sickness through the air, why doesn't he strike _me_ down, who bound him, and blinded, and gagged him?"

Etzeeah, struck by the reasonableness of this, ceased his frantic lamentations.

In an hour they were ready for the trail again. Jack sent Mary and Davy on ahead with Etzeeah and the pack-horses. It was arranged that as soon as they reached the site of the former Indian camp, where Etzeeah said Jean Paul had turned Garrod adrift, they were to drop the baggage and go in search of the missing man.

As soon as the others had ridden out of sight, Jack removed the blind and the gag from Jean Paul and cut the cord that bound his ankles and his wrists together. He freed his wrists; his ankles he left bound. The half-breed stretched out, and rolled on the ground in an ecstacy of relief. Finally he sat up, and Jack put the food that had been left for him where he could reach it. Jack stood back, watching him grimly, a hand on the butt of his revolver.

"Are you goin' to shoot me?" Jean Paul demanded coolly.

"I wouldn't waste good food on you if I were," returned Jack. "Hurry up and put it away."

"You not got the nerve to shoot me," sneered Jean Paul.

"Try to hypnotize me and you'll see," Jack said with a hard smile. "I'd be glad of an excuse."

"Why don' you shoot me now?" Jean Paul persisted, with a look like a vain and wilful child, experimenting to see how far he can go against a stronger force.

"I'd rather see you hang," said Jack.

"The police can't touch me. I do not'ing against the law, me."

"There's a thing called treason in this country," said Jack. "You can hang for that."

Jean Paul laughed. "Fort Cheever long way," he said. "You not bring me there, never."

"Then I'll bury you on the way," said Jack with his grim start of laughter.

When Jean Paul had eaten, Jack bound his hands in front of him this time, and liberated his feet.

"Get on," he said, pointing to the horse.

"You can't make me," Jean Paul said with his sidelong look.

"Shan't try," said Jack coolly. "You can run along at my horse's tail if you'd rather."

Jean Paul scowled at the suggested indignity, and climbed on without more ado. Jack tied his hands to the saddle horn.

It was seventeen miles down the forested valley back to the site of the former Indian camp. This, the ancient route between Forts Cheever and Erskine, was a good trail, and they covered the distance without stopping. Jean Paul rode ahead, Jack following with his revolver loose in its holster. It may be said that he almost hoped the breed would try to escape, to give him a chance to use it, but perhaps Jean Paul guessed what was in his mind. At any rate he rode quietly.

Issuing out of the forest at last, the Spirit River valley was spread before them, with the big stream winding among its wide, naked bars. The abandoned camp lay below them, a village of bare tepee poles in a rich meadow surrounded by an open park of white-stemmed poplars. As they approached it a fresh anxiety struck at Jack's breast, for he saw the three pack-horses picketed to the trees with their packs on their backs. He knew that only an emergency would have taken Mary and Davy away without unloading them. The animals had been rolling, to the no small detriment of their baggage. Jean Paul laughed at the sight.

Jack had no recourse but to possess his soul in patience until they came back. Meanwhile he unpacked the horses, and pitched their four little tents, two on each side of the fire. He bound Jean Paul securely as before, and put him in his own tent. He hung the gag from the ridge-pole with significant action. Jean Paul's lips were already bruised and blue as a result of the previous application.

Not until late afternoon was Jack's anxious breast relieved by the sight of the three horses single-footing it across the meadow. Davy rode first, then Etzeeah, looking crestfallen and sullen, and Mary bringing up the rear, her rifle across her arm, and determination making her girl's face grim. Evidently there had been trouble; but the three of them, and uninjured! Jack could have shouted with relief.

"He ran away," Mary explained briefly. "Davy and I had hobbled two of the riding horses, when he suddenly jumped on the third and headed north. He got a couple of minutes' start before we could get the hobbles off and after him. When he got in the timber, he turned the horse adrift, and we lost more time following its tracks. But I guessed he would make back to the trail as soon as you had passed, so we patrolled it, and we nabbed him at last."

"Good work!" said Jack briefly. It did not occur to him that there was something rather extraordinary in a mere girl and boy bringing in the headman of the Sapi Indians by themselves. He expected it of their white blood.

There seemed to be nothing for it now but to bind Etzeeah hand and foot also, and to convert Jack's tent into a cell for him. The two prisoners lay in their separate shelters on one side of the fire, while their captors watched them from the other. Jack was to sleep with Davy, and except for Mary's rifle, all the weapons in camp were stowed in that tent. The long-threatened rain set in steady and cold, and the night threatened to be as dark as winter.

They ate their supper inside Davy's tent, while the fire sputtered and sulked in the rain. A heavy silence prevailed; for one thing, they were dead weary, and their difficulties were pressing thick upon them. The rain did not lighten them. Jack, looking at Mary and Davy, thought with softening eyes:

"They're clear grit! But if I only had another man!"

The instant they had finished eating he ordered the two youngsters to bed. "I'll feed the two of them," he said, nodding across the fire, "and clean up. It will help keep me awake."

"You need sleep more than either of us," Mary objected.

"If I once let myself go I'd never wake," he said with a laugh. "I'll call you at midnight." It was tacitly understood between them that Davy was not to keep watch.

His work done, Jack sat down inside the door of Davy's tent to smoke, and if he could, to keep the fire going in spite of the rain. He found that it required too great a blaze to be proof against the downpour. He had not nearly enough wood to last throughout the night, so he let it out in order that Mary might enjoy what remained of the fuel. When the fire went out he could no longer see into Jean Paul's tent, so he crossed over and sat down beside him. Throughout the weary hours he sat smoking to keep himself awake, until his mouth was raw. From the adjoining tent issued the reassuring sound of Etzeeah's snores; Jean Paul, too, never stirred, and his breathing was deep and slow.

Midnight had passed before Jack had the heart to waken Mary. He first took advantage of a lull in the rain to start the fire again. As he threw back the curtain of her little tent, the firelight shone in her face, rosy and serene in sleep, her cheek pillowed on her round arm. The sight stirred him to the very core of his being. He knelt, gazing at her breathlessly. He forgot everything, except that she was lovely. He suddenly bent over her with a guilty air, and lightly kissed her lips.

She opened her eyes. He sprang away in a panic at the thought of her scorn. But she awoke with an enchanting smile. "Jack I dreamed----" she began, as if it were the sweetest and the most natural thing in the world for her to find him bending over her at night--and caught herself up with a burning blush. Jack hastily retreated outside. Neither of them referred to it again.

Jack was asleep as soon as he stretched himself beside Davy. The next thing he knew, something had happened, what it was he could not tell. He staggered to his feet, and out into the open, drunken, paralyzed with sleep, and fighting for consciousness.

"Jack, he's gone!" cried Mary.

That awakened him. He saw her on her knees before Jean Paul's tent, and ran to her. The tent was empty. The rain poured down on their heads unheeded. The fire was out.

Mary was in great distress. "My fault," she said. "It rained harder than ever, and the fire went out. I could not bear to sit beside him as you did. It made me sick to be so near him! I thought I could watch from my tent. The wind came up and it was hard to see. He fixed the blanket to look as if he was still under it. He must have slipped out of the back!"

"But tied hand and foot!" cried Jack.

"The cords are here," she said, displaying them.

"But how?" demanded Jack.

Mary's searching hand found two small stones in the blanket that she showed Jack; one had a sharp, jagged edge, and the explanation was clear. Throughout the hours when Jack sat beside him, and he seemed to be so sound asleep, the wily breed had been patiently rubbing at the cords until they frayed apart.

"No more your fault than mine," said Jack grimly.

Simultaneously the thought of Etzeeah occurred to them, and they sprang to look under the adjoining shelter. At first glance in the darkness, the Indian seemed to be safely there, but when Jack put out his hand the puffed-up blanket collapsed, and there was nothing under it. At that, for the first, their strong young breasts were shaken by awe.

"Good God!" Jack gasped. "He's got him, too! How could he? With you not twenty feet away. And not a sound. Is it a man or a devil?"

The pegs that held down the back of Jack's lean-to were drawn, showing how Jean Paul had entered, and how he had removed his prey.

"Etzeeah--" said Mary tremblingly, "do you suppose Jean Paul has--

"He would hardly take him alive," said Jack grimly, "without a sound."

"But he had no weapon, we know that."

"His hands!"

They were silent.

"But if he did," faltered Mary, "why would he take--take the body away?"

Jack shook his head. "They are always mysterious," he said.

"He may be near," whispered Mary. "What's to be done?"

"He's not dangerous to us until he gets a weapon," said Jack. "Wake Davy, and you two watch our guns. I'll bring in the horses."

It was near four, and beginning to be light. The rain ceased, and a thick white mist clung to the river-meadows. It was not easy to find the horses. Jack satisfied himself that two of them were missing. Why two? he thought. He did not find the body of Etzeeah, as he half expected.

He had to wait for better light before he could look for tracks. He found them at last, leading back up the Darwin valley, the fresh hoof-prints of two horses superimposed on the confusion of tracks they had made coming and going. The horses had been ridden at a gallop. Jack returned to tell Mary.

"He's gone all right," he said. "And alive or dead, he's taken Etzeeah with him. The second horse carried a load too. He's gone back to the Sapis for grub and a gun."

Mary searched Jack's face with a poignant anxiety to see what he intended to do. "Let him go," she suggested. "We know that Garrod is near here somewhere."

Jack stood considering with bent brows and clenched hands. He finally shook his head. "He could come back to-night, and pick us off one by one around our fire. We'll have no peace or security until I get him, Mary. I'll have to leave Garrod to you and Davy. You know how much finding him means to me!"

"But you," she faltered, her eyes wide with terror for him, "you can't go back alone to the Sapis. They shot at you!"

Jack's uncertainty was gone. He raised a face, transfigured.

"Pshaw! That mongrel crew!" he cried. "They're the least of my difficulties. I'll drop on them before Jean Paul can work them up to mischief. _I've got to get that breed_! No murder can be done in my camp, and the murderer get away! No redskin shall ever live to brag of how he bested me! I'll get him if I have to ride to hell and drag him out!"