The strong liquor had loosened the tongue of the ordinarily silent old man and he continued:
"Oi catched his eye fair; an" "tis the eye of a foightin" man--an eye, the loike o" which Oi ain"t seen since Oi looked f"r the last time in the dead eyes o" Captain Fronte McKim, in the second outbreak o" the wild Boh, Hira Kal, in the brown hills o" the Punjab."
The men listened expectantly, for when the liquor was right the old man could tell of strange wars in far climes.
"One night the little hillmen sneaked up on Captain Barkley"s flyin"
battery. They left his head an" his men"s stickin" atop a row o" stakes an" dragged the guns to a hilltop overlookin" the pa.s.s. An" in the mornin" they unlimbered, sweepin" our left wing.
"Fronte McKim was captain o" the Lights an" Oi was a corp"l. All that mornin" the Boh kep" pepperin" away, wi" "Miss f.a.n.n.y," the colonel he was, an" his parade-groun" staff o" book sogers, wi" tables o" figgers an" the book o" rules an" maps an" a pair o" dividers, tryin" to figger out how to chase a bad Boh offen a hilltop wi"out clim"in" the same.
"An" he lived a long time after, did Miss f.a.n.n.y, to die in his bed o"
some nice, fine disease, wi" his fambly an" his Scotch an" sody gathered about him.
"An" he was put in a foine, big coffin wi" a bran" new flag spread atop to keep off the dust, an" carried back to Englan" in a war-ship, wi"
the harbor guns firin" salutes--the whiles Fronte McKim lays back among the hills o" Punjab, wropped in his powder-burnt, shot-tore blanket.
"The hillmen an" their women an" the shiny hill kids give wide berth in pa.s.sin", an" make low salaams to the grave o" the terrible fightin"
_sahib_ that put the fear o" G.o.d in the heart o" the wild Boh. An" it"s as Captain Fronte would wished--Oi know"d um well.
"But, as Oi was sayin", the whiles Miss f.a.n.n.y was tryin"--by nine times six is forty-seven an" traject"ry an" muzzle v"locity an" fours right an" holler squares--to wish the Boh offen the hilltop so he could march us through the pa.s.s accordin" to Hoyle, Fronte McKim was off ahead among the rocks, layin" on his belly behint a ant-hill studyin" the hillside through his spygla.s.s.
"Well, "long "bout noon he come gallopin" up, wi" his big black horse all a lather, to where we was layin" in the scrub cursin" the flies an"
the department an" the outbreaks o" Bohs.
""Come on, boys!" he hollers, wi" the glitter in his eye; "Oi found the way! All together now, an" we"ll see the top o" yon hill or we"ll see h.e.l.l this day!"
"Wi" that he tears loose a yell "twould strike a chill to the heart o"
an iceberg, an" wheels his horse into the open--an" us in the saddle an" follerin", all yellin" like a h.e.l.lful o" devils turned loose for recess."
The old man shifted his crutch and sipped at his liquor.
"Most o" us seen the top o" the hill," he resumed, "an" the brown hillmen, what of "em wasn"t layin" limp by the guns, a skitterin"
through the scrub after a Boh who"d took off on a stray cavalry horse.
"But they was a many o" us as didn"t--layin" sprawled among the rocks o" the bare hillside, an" their horses runnin" wild to keep up wi" the charge. We found Captain Fronte wi" his whole front blow"d out by a sh.e.l.l an" his shoulders kind o" tumbled in where his lungs belonged--but thim eyes was lookin" straight at the hilltop.
"An" Oi looked in "em long--for Oi loved him--an" was glad. "Cause Oi know"d Captain Fronte McKim was seein" h.e.l.l--an" enjoyin" it."
He set down the empty gla.s.s and favored Creed with a cold stare: "An"
his eyes is like _that_--the stranger"s--an" yours ain"t, nor Moncrossen"s."
CHAPTER XII
THE TEST
With only one-half of his journey behind him and the chill night-wind whipping through the unc.h.i.n.ked crevices of the deserted shack; with the prospect of an unsavory supper of soggy sock-eye and a lump of frozen bread, Bill Carmody fervently wished himself elsewhere.
His mind lingered upon the long row of squat, fat-footed shoe-packs which the old man had indicated with his gnarled crutch. How good they would feel after the grinding newness of his boots! And coffee--he could see the row of tin pots hanging from their wires, and the long, flat slabs of bacon suspended from the roof-logs of the store.
He found himself, for the first time in his life, absolutely dependent upon his own resources. He cut the top from a can of salmon and thawed out his bread on the top of the dirty stove. He had no cup, so he used the salmon-can, limping in stockinged feet to the spring near the door, whose black waters splashed coldly in a tiny rivulet that found its way under the frozen surface of a small creek. The water was clear and cold, but tasted disgustingly fishy from its contact with the can.
As he entered the shack and closed the sagging door, his glance was arrested by an object half concealed in the cobwebbed niche between the lintel and the sloping roof-logs--an object that gleamed shiny and black in the dull play of the firelight. He reached up and withdrew from its hiding-place a round quart bottle, across whose top was pasted a familiar green stamp which proclaimed that the contents had been bottled in bond.
He carried it to the fire and with the sleeve of his mackinaw removed the acc.u.mulated dust from the label. "Old Morden Rye," he read aloud, holding it close to the firelight. And as he read his thoughts flew backward to past delights. Here was an old friend come to cheer him in the wilderness.
He was no longer cold nor hungry, and before his eyes danced the bright, white lights of the man-made night of Broadway. His shoulders straightened and the sparkle came into his eyes. Forgotten was his determination to make good, and the future was a remote thing of no present moment nor concern. Once again he was Broadway Bill, the sport!
Carefully and deliberately he broke the seal and removed the cork-rimmed gla.s.s stopper, which he flung to a far corner of the room--for that was Bill"s way--to throw away the cork. There was nothing small in his make-up; and for why is whisky, but to drink while it lasts? And one cannot drink through a cork-rimmed stopper. So he threw it away.
Only that day as he had laboriously stepped off the long miles he had thought with virtuous complacence of the completeness of his reformation.
He thought how he had refused to drink with Daddy Dunnigan from the smeared and cloudy gla.s.s half-filled with the raw, rank liquor, across the surface of which had trailed the tobacco-stained mustaches of the half-dozen unkempt men.
A week before he had refused to drink good whisky with Appleton--but that was amid surroundings against which he had fortified himself; surroundings made familiar by a little veneered table in the corner of the tile-floored bar of a well-known hotel, and while the spirit of his determination to quit was strong upon him. Besides, it was good policy.
Therefore, he ordered ginger ale; but Appleton drank whisky and noted that the other eyed the liquor as the little beads rose to the top, and that as he looked he unconsciously moistened his lips with his tongue--just that little thing--as he looked at the whisky in Appleton"s gla.s.s. By that swift movement Appleton understood, for he knew men--it was his business to know men--and then and there he decided to send Bill to Moncrossen"s camp, where it was whispered whisky flowed freely.
Appleton had no son, and he felt strangely drawn toward the young man whose eyes had held him from the time of their first meeting. But he must prove his worth, and the test should be hard--and very thorough.
Appleton realized that to place him in any one of the other camps, where the ban was on whisky, and where each smuggled bottle was ferreted out and smashed, would be no test. It is no credit to a man to refrain from whisky where no whisky is.
But place a man who has created an appet.i.te for whisky among men who drink daily and openly, and enjoy it; who urge and encourage him to do likewise; where whisky is continually before his eyes, and the rich bouquet of it in his nostrils, and that _is_ a test.
Appleton knew this, and knowing, he sent Bill to Moncrossen, and smiled as he bet with himself on the outcome. But there is one other test--the supreme test of all, of which even Appleton did not know.
Place this same man alone, tired out, hungry, thirsty, and cold, with every muscle of his body crying its protest of aches against the overstrain of a long day"s work; surround him with every attribute of physical discomfort; with the future stretching away in a dull gray vista of uncertainty, and the memory strong upon him that the girl--the one girl in all the world--has ceased to believe in him--has ceased to care; add to this the recollection of good times gone--times when good liquor flowed freely among good fellows, and at this particular psychological moment let him come suddenly and unexpectedly upon a bottle of whisky--good whisky, of a brand of which he has always approved--_that_ is the acid test--and in writing this I know whereof I write.
And that is why Bill Carmody carefully and deliberately broke the seal and threw the cork away, and shook the bottle gently, and breathed deep of its fragrance, and smiled in antic.i.p.ation as the little beads flew upward.
The fire had died down, and he set the bottle on the floor beside him and reached for the firewood. As he did so a long, sealed envelope, to the outside of which was tightly bound a photograph, fell to the floor from the inner pocket of his mackinaw.
As he stooped to recover it his eyes encountered those of the picture gazing upward through the half-light. A flickering tongue of flame flared brightly for a moment and illumined the features, bringing out their expression with startling distinctness.
It was the face of the girl. The flame died out, leaving the pictured likeness half concealed in the soft semi-darkness of the dying embers.
It seemed hours that the man sat motionless, staring into the upturned eyes--those eyes into which he had so often gazed, but which were now lost to him forever. And as he looked, other thoughts crowded his brain; thoughts of his father, and the scorn of their parting; thoughts of the girl, of her words, and of his own boast: "_I_ can beat the game! And I will beat it--now!... And some day you will know."
His anger rose against the man whose own flesh and blood he was, who had driven him from home with words of bitter sarcasm, and against the girl and her sneering repudiation of him. He leaped to his feet and shook a clenched fist to the southward:
"I told you I would make good!" he roared, "and, by G.o.d, I will! I am a McKim--do you hear? I am a McKim--and I shall make good!"
He reached for the bottle and placed it beside him on the pine table.
He did not pour out the whisky, for he did not fear it--only if he drank it need he fear.