Suddenly a holocaust of warlike desire caught the cowboy, and he bolted forward with the speed of a broncho. "Go it, Johnnie! go it!
Kill him! Kill him!"
Scully confronted him. "Kape back," he said; and by his glance the cowboy could tell that this man was Johnnie"s father.
To the Easterner there was a monotony of unchangeable fighting that was an abomination. This confused mingling was eternal to his sense, which was concentrated in a longing for the end, the priceless end.
Once the fighters lurched near him, and as he scrambled hastily backward he heard them breathe like men on the rack.
"Kill him, Johnnie! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!" The cowboy"s face was contorted like one of those agony masks in museums.
"Keep still," said Scully, icily.
Then there was a sudden loud grunt, incomplete, cut short, and Johnnie"s body swung away from the Swede and fell with sickening heaviness to the gra.s.s. The cowboy was barely in time to prevent the mad Swede from flinging himself upon his p.r.o.ne adversary. "No, you don"t," said the cowboy, interposing an arm. "Wait a second."
Scully was at his son"s side. "Johnnie! Johnnie, me boy!" His voice had a quality of melancholy tenderness. "Johnnie! Can you go on with it?" He looked anxiously down into the b.l.o.o.d.y, pulpy face of his son.
There was a moment of silence, and then Johnnie answered in his ordinary voice, "Yes, I--it--yes."
a.s.sisted by his father he struggled to his feet. "Wait a bit now till you git your wind," said the old man.
A few paces away the cowboy was lecturing the Swede. "No, you don"t!
Wait a second!"
The Easterner was plucking at Scully"s sleeve. "Oh, this is enough,"
he pleaded. "This is enough! Let it go as it stands. This is enough!"
"Bill," said Scully, "git out of the road." The cowboy stepped aside.
"Now." The combatants were actuated by a new caution as they advanced towards collision. They glared at each other, and then the Swede aimed a lightning blow that carried with it his entire weight. Johnnie was evidently half stupid from weakness, but he miraculously dodged, and his fist sent the over-balanced Swede sprawling.
The cowboy, Scully, and the Easterner burst into a cheer that was like a chorus of triumphant soldiery, but before its conclusion the Swede had scuffled agilely to his feet and come in berserk abandon at his foe. There was another perplexity of flying arms, and Johnnie"s body again swung away and fell, even as a bundle might fall from a roof.
The Swede instantly staggered to a little wind-waved tree and leaned upon it, breathing like an engine, while his savage and flame-lit eyes roamed from face to face as the men bent over Johnnie. There was a splendor of isolation in his situation at this time which the Easterner felt once when, lifting his eyes from the man on the ground, he beheld that mysterious and lonely figure, waiting.
"Arc you any good yet, Johnnie?" asked Scully in a broken voice.
The son gasped and opened his eyes languidly. After a moment he answered, "No--I ain"t--any good--any--more." Then, from shame and bodily ill he began to weep, the tears furrowing down through the blood-stains on his face. "He was too--too--too heavy for me."
Scully straightened and addressed the waiting figure. "Stranger," he said, evenly, "it"s all up with our side." Then his voice changed into that vibrant huskiness which is commonly the tone of the most simple and deadly announcements. "Johnnie is whipped."
Without replying, the victor moved off on the route to the front door of the hotel.
The cowboy was formulating new and un-spellable blasphemies. The Easterner was startled to find that they were out in a wind that seemed to come direct from the shadowed arctic floes. He heard again the wail of the snow as it was flung to its grave in the south. He knew now that all this time the cold had been sinking into him deeper and deeper, and he wondered that he had not perished. He felt indifferent to the condition of the vanquished man.
"Johnnie, can you walk?" asked Scully.
"Did I hurt--hurt him any?" asked the son.
"Can you walk, boy? Can you walk?"
Johnnie"s voice was suddenly strong. There was a robust impatience in it. "I asked you whether I hurt him any!"
"Yes, yes, Johnnie," answered the cowboy, consolingly; "he"s hurt a good deal."
They raised him from the ground, and as soon as he was on his feet he went tottering off, rebuffing all attempts at a.s.sistance. When the party rounded the corner they were fairly blinded by the pelting of the snow. It burned their faces like fire. The cowboy carried Johnnie through the drift to the door. As they entered some cards again rose from the floor and beat against the wall.
The Easterner rushed to the stove. He was so profoundly chilled that he almost dared to embrace the glowing iron. The Swede was not in the room. Johnnie sank into a chair, and, folding his arms on his knees, buried his face in them. Scully, warming one foot and then the other at a rim of the stove, muttered to himself with Celtic mournfulness.
The cowboy had removed his fur cap, and with a dazed and rueful air he was running one hand through his tousled locks. From overhead they could hear the creaking of boards, as the Swede tramped here and there in his room.
The sad quiet was broken by the sudden flinging open of a door that led towards the kitchen. It was instantly followed by an inrush of women. They precipitated themselves upon Johnnie amid a chorus of lamentation. Before they carried their prey off to the kitchen, there to be bathed and harangued with that mixture of sympathy and abuse which is a feat of their s.e.x, the mother straightened herself and fixed old Scully with an eye of stern reproach. "Shame be upon you, Patrick Scully!" she cried. "Your own son, too. Shame be upon you!"
"There, now! Be quiet, now!" said the old man, weakly.
"Shame be upon you, Patrick Scully!" The girls, rallying to this slogan, sniffed disdainfully in the direction of those trembling accomplices, the cowboy and the Easterner. Presently they bore Johnnie away, and left the three men to dismal reflection.
VII
"I"d like to fight this here Dutchman myself," said the cowboy, breaking a long silence.
Scully wagged his head sadly. "No, that wouldn"t do. It wouldn"t be right. It wouldn"t be right."
"Well, why wouldn"t it?" argued the cowboy. "I don"t see no harm in it."
"No," answered Scully, with mournful heroism. "It wouldn"t be right.
It was Johnnie"s fight, and now we mustn"t whip the man just because he whipped Johnnie."
"Yes, that"s true enough," said the cowboy; "but--he better not get fresh with me, because I couldn"t stand no more of it."
"You"ll not say a word to him," commanded Scully, and even then they heard the tread of the Swede on the stairs. His entrance was made theatric. He swept the door back with a bang and swaggered to the middle of the room. No one looked at him. "Well," he cried, insolently, at Scully, "I s"pose you"ll tell me now how much I owe you?"
The old man remained stolid. "You don"t owe me nothin"."
"Huh!" said the Swede, "huh! Don"t owe "im nothin"."
The cowboy addressed the Swede. "Stranger, I don"t see how you come to be so gay around here."
Old Scully was instantly alert. "Stop!" he shouted, holding his hand forth, fingers upward. "Bill, you shut up!"
The cowboy spat carelessly into the sawdust box. "I didn"t say a word, did I?" he asked.
"Mr. Scully," called the Swede, "how much do I owe you?" It was seen that he was attired for departure, and that he had his valise in his hand.
"You don"t owe me nothin"," repeated Scully in his same imperturbable way.
"Huh!" said the Swede. "I guess you"re right. I guess if it was any way at all, you"d owe me somethin". That"s what I guess." He turned to the cowboy. ""Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"" he mimicked, and then guffawed victoriously. ""Kill him!"" He was convulsed with ironical humor.
But he might have been jeering the dead. The three men were immovable and silent, staring with gla.s.sy eyes at the stove.
The Swede opened the door and pa.s.sed into the storm, giving one derisive glance backward at the still group.