Chapter IX: The Chinook Comes

Jim Ludwig was looking at a wall and seeing considerable handwriting. He realized that two months ago he had underestimated Todd’s abilities. The man’s injuries had lulled him to a sense of security, then in a twinkling that security had been kicked from under him.

“And I said too much,” he growled, “Dorothy sees through my game. But that brother is still under my thumb. I’ve got to get hold of him; but first I must protect these logs.”

He called a foreman. “Get a gang of men to branding those cedar logs. Another thing: be ready for a raid from Lowe’s loggers. Send a man down the line and if anything looking like a sheriff heads this way to take legal possession, telephone up and we’ll take care of him. I’m going to see Bob Lowe. After that I’m going up to Yates’s cabin.”

Then he took a speeder and headed for town. He found Bob on a boom working logs up to the conveyor. “Bob, come here a minute! Things look bad for me. That is, Todd’s twisted facts and your sister believes them. You’re sticking to me? You’d better!”

“I’m sticking to you as against Todd. You’d better clear out, it doesn’t look right to the men to see you around. It’ll put me in wrong.”

“I’ll let you know what I want you to do. And, Bob, in case Todd shows his teeth at you, remember my teeth are longer than his and I’ve got claws besides. I’m telling you now, for if you weaken I might not be around to tell you.” Ludwig hurried away.

Again the speeder was called into action. He noted men were working on the Black Lake logs as he passed, but he did not stop until he was opposite Bull Yates’s cabin. Bull had already been advised by telephone that “the boss is coming and he’s wild.”

The cougar was tied up; Yates was ready for anything. He had experienced such moods before. But this was the worst of the lot, as he saw at a glance! “I told you to get Todd,” he shouted, advancing in a threatening manner, “and you failed!”

“I thought he was got,” Yates answered. “Is he running around loose again?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll finish him this time!”

“You’d better. If you can’t do a fancy job, do a bum one: I’ve got money enough to clear you on a self-defense plea. But get that man or we’re ruined. Round up your men in the woods; bring ’em in. There may be a fight at Black Lake. If so, we’re on our own ground and that’s self-defense.”

He was gone, leaving Yates in a sullen mood. He never blamed Ludwig for anything that happened. Instead he blamed the man who riled his employer up. He walked over to the restless cougar. “Horse meat, sure!” he growled.

* * * * *

An hour after Ludwig had left Bob Lowe, Dan Todd burst in on him. “Come on to the office, Bob, I want to talk to you.”

Sullenly Bob followed. A packet of mail lay on Dan’s desk. The top letter, bearing a British Columbia stamp, caught his eye. “Excuse me a minute, Bob, there’s a letter I’ve been waiting six months for!” He read it quickly, smiled, then passed it over to the younger man.

“Read it, Bob, and you’ll understand I’m not alone in my conservation ideas. These men have seen the forests go in other countries and are planning to profit by it. In the letter was an offer that would attract any young man. A summer cruising timber in the shadow of snow-capped peaks. There would be camps by trout streams; bird shooting in season and, best of all, life in the open. After that would come the finest logging equipment and a mill to be built at tide water. You see, Bob, they want an estimate of the annual growth and they plan to cut just that amount, and no more.”

“Why don’t you take it and leave us alone,” the youth growled. “We can get along without you.”

“Listen, Bob. Give me a chance, won’t you? You’ve not got a thing on me. I’ve something on you. I’ve fought clean from start to finish. You haven’t! Now listen to this. Dorothy and I are going to be married. For your sister’s sake, make the best of it.”

Bob Lowe’s face went gray. He gasped, then shaking a fist under Todd’s nose, he cried. “Marry Sis, eh? You? Over my dead body. I mean that, damn you! Before I’ll see her tied up for life to trash like you, I’ll kill you if I have to stab you in the back or shoot from underbrush!”

“A truce, Bob, for forty-eight hours. After that I’ll get out. That’s all I want. I’m going to get it if I have to hog-tie you. But if you’re half as loyal to Dorothy as you say you are, then you’ll fight beside me. Keep an eye on the bay and if you see any logs floating there, bring ’em in to the boom. If you can’t do it alone, get some help.”

When alone, Dan shook his head sadly. “I may have to beat some sense into that young fool yet. It’s going to be tough on Dorothy if he’s at outs with me. I thought he had brains enough to see which was the right and which was the wrong side of a question.”

Dan ran up the steps of the Lowe home and rang the bell. “A letter, Dorothy,” he cried. “Read it over and tell me what you think. See you tomorrow sometime.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Up beyond the forks of Flaming River.” He looked at the sky. The wind was shifting toward the south; the air was warmer. “I’ve got to get a move on.”

“Going alone? I wish you wouldn’t!”

“The job I have in mind is a lone wolf’s job. The enemy won’t be expecting me to strike in just that way.”

“In what way?”

He leaned close. “The walls have ears,” he said, “so I’ll whisper!”

“Oh, Dan!” she exclaimed. “Who would have thought of it?”

“Anybody with a lick of sense,” he answered, “it is the only way.” Then he was gone.

Dan Todd had hardly left town before the telephones along the Ludwig logging line began to ring. Bull Yates fairly leaped to his instrument, for it was his call. Ludwig’s voice came crisp and commanding:

“Dan Todd just left on Chinook. He must be going far or he wouldn’t take the horse. Keep your eyes open. I’ll have the other stations check up as he goes along. It’s a fine night. Good-by!”

“Yes,” Yates muttered, “it’s a fine night for a murder!”

From time to time he received telephone calls. At last he got up, his manner grim, satisfied. “Todd’s passed the last station, he’s going up to their forks camp, sure!”

He fastened a chain to the cougar’s collar and set forth. The wind had died down; the moon was shining. How silently the cat moved, he noticed; just the brush of the fur against the thicket, a soft sound audible to only the keenest ear. His own footfalls were almost as silent.

He did not take to a stream this night. There wasn’t time, but he had discarded his boots for moccasins. Such footwear was not logical in this country, but they could be burned up. Besides, it would take an Indian to track him down.

The silence was broken by the snort of a horse. He gripped the whip and unsnapped the collar. “Up,” he ordered. “Up!” The cat hesitated, then ran up a tree and out on a limb. The eyes, gleaming in the moonlight, took on a sinister flame. He had forgotten that on a still night sound travels far. The horse was farther than he figured. The cat hadn’t caught the scent yet.

Yates grew nervous and drew the whip back. Why didn’t that horse hurry? Why did the cat look at him so steadily? Was it possible that the creature—? “God!”

Yates shuddered and for the first time experienced fear. The steady threat in those flaming eyes above had broken down his nerve. Fear! It is something invisible. We cannot put our finger on it, yet it bridges space and wild creatures sense it.

The great muscles grew tense. The cougar had not forgotten his cruelty, any more than it had forgotten that in the pen at the cabin was catnip. As a man runs risks for the things he desires, so did the cat return to the cage for the catnip—returned, knowing the cruel collar awaited.

Yates moved backward slowly. He must get beyond reach of that threatened leap. Where was the horse? Todd, confound him, had stopped for the black to drink! Something struck him behind the legs. Yates sensed it was a snag, but a movement of the cat stampeded him just when he should have gripped his nerve and stood still. He clutched at a branch, missed and fell.

The fall of something living is the signal for wild creatures to attack. Thus they prey! The cat sprang to the ground and at the same moment Yates got to his feet and ran. Through a brief stretch of moon-splashed forest he raced, screaming in terror. Each moment he could feel the crushing impact, the claws, the fangs at his throat! He knew the process, for he had watched the cougar bring down bucks.

Silence! He ran from it, knowing its menace. Gleaming eyes from a thicket, the silent rush to a log, the brief run along the timber’s length, another leap to an overhanging tree, and then—

Yates leaped a split second ahead of the cat. The paws struck the ground as he left it. He ran to a rocky point and turned, a creature at bay. Behind was a sheer drop of seventy feet to a deep pool in the river. In front, the cat.

Even then, had he really been a man of courage and rushed at the cat, the cougar would have retreated. But he was afraid, and the cat knew it. Of the two cowards the cat was the lesser, hence the braver. Confidently it advanced. Slowly. Surely. Its problem was to bring down the man without going over the brink. It gathered for the spring.

From Yates’s throat came a scream that matched the cat’s. He turned and leaped! The mist-drenched walls of the gorge echoed with another scream as he shot downward, hands above his head, fingers clutching again and again at the air.

Water leaped high from the point where he struck, then settled back, foaming. The cat peered down with gleaming eyes, but nothing came to the surface. The stream rushed on to the sea. The cat turned and vanished in the timber. For an hour or more its hunting was aimless, a criss-crossing quest that might bring a scent.

Presently it rushed across the trail, caught the horse scent and whirled like a flash. The odor was recent, maddeningly fresh. Almost heedlessly the cat followed.

* * * * *

Dan Todd pulled up his horse and looked about. “Chinook, I’ve got to leave you for a half hour or so, but we’ll play safe and be sure no cougar followed.” Dan doubled back afoot and examined the trail. There were no cat tracks. “Guess Bull Yates isn’t out to-night. Just as well for me—I’ve got troubles enough.”

Carrying a small pack on his back, Dan began climbing a timbered hogback. When he emerged, snow was under his boots and a scene beyond description stretched around him. Above, the snow lay deep on ridge and valley. Moonlight gave it a silvery aspect, more like something seen on the stage than something actual. A green carpet of timber rolled away toward the waters of the Sound.

Fifteen miles away a lighthouse gleamed. A narrow path of gold came from the light, across the waters to the timber. It almost met the silver thread breaking the blackish green of the forest—the thread that was Flaming River.

He looked below and an exclamation escaped his lips. Chinook was rearing violently. Even as Dan guessed the cause the cougar burst from the brush that ringed the clearing. The scream of the horse, always terrible to hear, floated upward. Throwing his full weight backward, the rope snapped and Chinook was free. His was the courage of a range stallion running wild. He whirled and faced his enemy, and the cat, surprised at the offer of battle, grew wary, and slunk into the brush. While the horse trembled, now on the verge of panic because of the uncertainty, the cat ran several hundred feet, rushed from a thicket and leaped. Its claws struck the saddle and held. A hind claw dug into Chinook’s flank.

Unable to aid, Dan could only watch from the ridge while the drama of the wild unfolded. The moon and the surroundings changed the fight to something shadowy, like the softening of a picture for the effect. Only the screams of the horse broke the illusion and told of the cruel conflict.

Chinook reared high, almost shook the cat free, then came to earth with a thud. He bucked frantically, keeping the cat so busy hanging on that it could not start its offensive. This was no frightened buck beneath its claws.

Suddenly the horse broke into a gallop. He vanished into the timber, and with loudly beating heart Dan Todd stood tense, waiting. The screams no longer came, only silence and the rush of a gentle breeze. It was warm, blowing from the south; the chinook that always comes at night, according to legend, warm in spite of the snow-fields over which it swept. A twisted scrub, burdened with snow, suddenly shook itself free and lifted a green top, as if to observe the coming of summer.

The scream of the horse again! It chilled Dan as the breeze had warmed him. As he looked Chinook hurled himself against a cedar snag and the cougar, hurt by the impact, dropped off.

“At him, boy!” yelled Dan; “get him while you’ve the chance. Quick! There he comes! Too late!”

But Dan was wrong. Chinook reared and his hoofs caught the cougar in midair. The cat squirmed backward, almost got free, then was pinned to the ground with both hoofs. It slashed out viciously and drove its teeth into the horse’s fore-leg. When Chinook reared again the cat was still clinging to the leg.

Again the horse screamed. This time there was more of anger, less of fear. The cat was ready to quit. It broke loose and skulked for the brush. On the very edge the horse caught it again.

Down came steel-shod hoofs and tawny fur was driven into forest muck. A shudder ran through the cat, it half stood up, then dropped. Again and again came the hoofs, until fur, sod and brush became a crimsoned, formless mixture. To Dan Todd’s ears came the shrill whinny of the victor.

“It’s been long in coming, old hoss,” he cried, “but luck’s breaking our way at last. You’ve won your fight and the chinook’s come.”

To the south great banks of black clouds were rolling across the sky. Light was wiped from the valley, silver was replaced with inky black; only the lighthouse with the path of gold across the water remained. A splatter of warm rain struck Dan’s face. He grinned, worked his way along the face of the mountain until the north fork waters rushed almost below him, then he stopped; dug deep into the rocks, snow and dirt; tamped a charge of powder in place, lit a long fuse and ran for the timber.

Minutes passed, then the earth trembled. Rocks and débris leaped from the mountain face and a mighty slide started downward. Dan Todd faded into the timber. The rain now was coming in torrents. And, curiously enough, the snow was melting from the mountain tops downward. For this is the way of the Chinook.