The Sky Line of Spruce by Edison Marshall

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They moved toward him simultaneously, and Ben summoned the last jot of
his almost-spent strength to hurl them off. They did not need deadly
weapons for this wasted form. Yet for the duration of one second Ben
fought with an incredible ferocity and valor.

He hurled Chan from his path, and his sound right arm leaped to Ray's
throat in a death grip. For that one instant his old-time strength
returned to him,--as to Samson as his arms went about the pillars of the
temple. They found him no weakling, in that first instant, but a deadly,
fighting beast, the "Wolf" Darby of the provinces,--his finger nails
sinking ever deeper into the flesh of Ray's throat, his body braced
against Chan's attack. And for all that Beatrice's arms were tied, she
leaped like a she-wolf to her lover's aid.

But such an unequal battle could last only an instant. Ray focused his
attack upon Ben's injured left arm, Chan struck once at the girl,
hurling her to the ground with a base blow, then lashed brutal blows
into Ben's face. The burst of strength ebbed as quickly as it had come:
his legs wilted under him, and he sank slowly to the ground.

Maddened with battle, for a moment more Chan lashed cowardly blows into
his face; and he left the brutal labor only to help Ray affix ropes
about his ankles. Then the two conquerors stood erect, breathing loudly.

Seemingly the utter limit of their brutality was reached,--but for the
moment only. A strange and foreboding silence fell over the camp: only
the sound of troubled breathing was heard above the lessening crackle of
the fire. They did not turn at once again to the work of crushing Ben's
life out with their fists and boots, nor did they restrain Beatrice as
she crawled over the blood-stained grass to reach her lover's side.

"Let her go," Ray said to Charley. "She can't help him any."

It was true. They had put up their last defense. The girl crept nearer,
lying almost prone beside him, and her soft hands stole over his bruised
flesh. But no tears came now. She was past the kindly mercy of tears.
She could only gaze at him, and sometimes dry half-sobs clutched at her
throat. The man half-opened his eyes, smiling.

Life still remained in his rugged body. Even the cruel test of the last
hour had not taken that from him. The sturdy heart still beat, and the
breath still whispered through his lips: there was life in plenty to
afford such sport as Ray and Chan might have for him.

The last, least quality of redemption--such magic and beauty as might
have been wrought by the firelight dancing over the moonlit glade--was
quite gone now. The powers of wickedness were in the ascendency, and
this was only the abode of horror. Yet it was all tragically true, not a
nightmare from which she would soon waken. This was the remote heart of
Back There--a primeval land where the demons of lust and death walked
unrestrained--and the shadow of the moonlit trees fell dark upon her.

The back logs were burning dully now, and the coals were red, and Chan
and Ray took seats on a huge, dead spruce to talk over their further
plans. It was all easy enough. They could linger here, living mostly on
meat, until the rising waters of the Yuga could carry them down to the
Indian villages. Their methods and procedure in regard to Ben were the
only remaining questions.

For a few minutes they took little notice of the prone figures at the
far edge of the fading firelight. In their hands they were as helpless
as Jeffery Neilson, left already by the receding radiance to the soft
mercy of the shadows. Attention could be given them soon enough. Their
own triumph was beginning to give way to deep fatigue.

Ben and Beatrice had talked softly at first, accepting their fate at
last and trying to forget all things but the fact of each other's
presence. They had kept the faith to-night, they had both been true; and
perhaps they had conquered, in some degree, the horror of death. His
right hand held hers close to his lips, and only she could understand
the message in its soft pressure, and the gentle, kindly shadows in his
quiet eyes. But presently her gaze fastened on some object in the grass
beside him.

He did not understand at first. He knew enough not to attract his
enemies' attention by trying to turn. The girl relaxed again, but her
hand throbbed in his, and her eyes shone somberly as if the luster of
some strange, dark hope.

"What is it?" he asked whispering.

"I see a way out--for us both," she told him. She knew he would not
misunderstand and dream that she saw an actual avenue to life and
safety. "Don't give any sign."

"Then hurry," he urged. "They may be back any instant. What is it?"

"A way to cheat 'em--to keep them from torturing you--and to save
me--from all the things they'll do to me--when you're dead. Oh,
Ben--you won't fail me--you'll do it for me."

He smiled, gently and strongly. "Do you think I'd fail you now?"

"Then reach your good arm on the other side--soft as you can. There's a
knife lying there--your own knife--they knocked out of my hand. They'll
jump at the first gleam. You know what to do--first me, in the
throat--then yourself."

His face showed no horror at her words. They were down to the most
terrible realities; and as she had said, this was the way out! The great
kindness still dwelt in his eyes--and she knew he would do as she asked.

One gleam of steal, one swift touch at the throat--and they would never
know the unspeakable fate that their depraved captors planned for them.
_It was no less than victory in the last instant of despair!_ It was
freedom: although they did not know into what Mystery and what Fear the
act would dispatch them, it was freedom from Ray and Chan, none the
less. And Ben welcomed the plan as might a prisoner, waiting in the
death-cell, welcome a reprieve.

He turned, groping with his hand. There was no use of waiting longer.
The knife lay just beyond his reach; and softly he moved his body
through the grass.

But this gate to mercy was closed before they reached it. A sudden
flaring of the fire revealed them--the gleam of the blade and Ben's
stretching hand--and Ray left his log in a swift, catlike leap.

If Ben had possessed full use of both hands there still might have been
time to send home the two crucial blows, or at least to dispatch
Beatrice out of Ray's power to harm. But his injured arm impeded him,
and his hand fumbled as he tried to seize the hilt. With a sharp oath
Ray crushed the blade into the ground with his heel; then kicked
viciously at the prone body of his enemy.

And at that first base blow his rage and blood-lust that had been
gathering was swiftly freed. It was all that was needed to set him at
the work of torture. For an instant he stood almost motionless except
for the spasmodic twitching--now almost continuous--at his lips and for
the slow turning of his head as he looked about for a weapon with which
he could more quickly satiate the murder-madness in his veins. The knife
appealed to him not at all; but his eye fell on a long, heavy club of
spruce that had been cut for fuel. He bent and his strong hands seized
it.

As he swung it high the girl leaped between--with a last, frantic
effort, wholly instinctive--to shield Ben's body with her own. But it
was only an instant's reprieve. Chan had followed Ben, and sharing Ray's
fiendish mood, jerked her aside. Ben raised himself up as far as he
could at a final impulse to thrust the girl out of harm's way.

Yet it was to be that Ray's murderous blow was never to go home. A
mighty and terrible ally had come to Ben's aid. He came pouncing from
the darkness, a gaunt and dreadful avenger whose code of death was as
remorseless as Ray's own.

It was Fenris the wolf, and he had found his master at last. Missing him
at the accustomed place in the cave, he had trailed him to the lake
margin: a smell on the wind had led him the rest of the way. He was not
one to announce his coming by an audible footfall in the thicket. Like a
ghost he had glided almost to the edge of the firelight, lingering
there--with a caution learned in these last wild weeks of running with
his brethren--until he had made up his brute mind in regard to the
strangers in the camp. But he had waited only until he saw Ray kick the
helpless form before him,--that of the god that Fenris, for all the wild
had claimed him, still worshipped in his inmost heart. With fiendish,
maniacal fury he had sprung to avenge the blow.

And his three followers, trained by the pack laws to follow where he
led, and keyed to the highest pitch by their leader's fury, leaped like
gray demons of the Pit in his wake.

XLII

As a young tree breaks and goes down in the gale Ray Brent went down
before the combined attack of the wolves. What desperate struggle he
made only seemed to increase their fury and shatter him the faster.
Utterly futile were all his blows: his frantic, piercing screams of fear
and agony raised to heaven, but were answered with no greater mercy than
that he would have shown to Ben a moment before.

Seemingly in an instant he was on his back and the ravening pack were
about him in a ring. In that lurid firelight their fangs gleamed like
ivory as they flashed, here and there, over his body and throat, and
their fierce eyes blazed with pale-blue fire,--the mark and sign of the
blood madness of the beasts of prey.

Seemingly in a single instant the life had been torn from him, leaving
only a strange, huddled, ghastly thing beside the dying fire. But the
pack leaped from him at once. Fenris had caught sight of Chan's figure
as he ran for the nearest tree and seemingly with one leap he was upon
him. He sprang at him from the side; and his fangs gleamed once.

He had struck true, his fangs went home, and the life went out of Chan
Heminway in a single, neighing scream. He pitched forward, shuddered
once in the soft grass, and lay still. The pack surged around his body,
struck at it once or twice, then stood growling as if waiting for their
leader's command.

Before ever Ray fell, Ben had taken what measures of self-defense he
could in case the pack, forgetting its master's master, might turn on
himself and the girl. He had reached the knife hilt and severed the
ropes about the girl's wrists. "Stay behind me," he cautioned. "Don't
move a muscle."

He knew that any attempt to reach and climb a tree would attract the
attention of the pack and send them ravening about her. Again he knew
that her life as well as his own depended on his control of the pack
leader. He saw Chan go down, seemingly in a single instant, and he
braced himself against attack. "Down, Fenris!" he shouted. "Down--get
down!"

The great wolf started at the voice, then stood beside the fallen,
gazing at Ben with fierce, luminous eyes. "Down, down, boy," Ben
cautioned, in a softer voice. "There, old fellow--down--down."

Then Fenris whined in answer, and Ben knew that he was no longer to be
feared. The three lesser wolves seemed startled, standing in a nervous
group, yet growling savagely and eyeing him across the dying fire. For a
moment Fenris's fury had passed to them, but now that his rage was dead,
all they had left was an inborn fear of such a breed as this,--these
tall forms that died so easily in their fangs. Fenris trotted slowly
toward Ben, but with the true instincts of the wild his followers knew
that this was no affair of fangs and death. He came in love, in a
remembered comradeship, just as often he had led them to the mouth of
the cavern, and they did not understand. They slowly backed away into
the shadows, fading like ghosts.

Ben's arms, in unspeakable gratitude, went about the shoulders of the
wolf. Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably yet swept with that infinite
thankfulness of the redeemed, crept to his side. Fenris whined and
shivered in the arms of his god.

Quietude came at last to that camp beside the lake, in the far, hidden
heart of Back There. Once more the blood moved with sweet, normal
tranquillity in the veins, the thrill and stir died in the air, and the
moonlight was beautiful on the spruce.

The wolves had gone. Fenris's three brethren had slipped away, perhaps
wholly mystified and deeply awed by their madness of a moment before;
and from the ridge top they had called for their leader to join them. He
had done his work, he had avenged the base blow that had seemed to
strike at his own wild heart, he had received the caress he had
craved,--and there was no law for him to stay. The female called
enticingly; the wild game was running for his pleasure on the trails.

Ben had watched the struggle in his fierce breast, and Beatrice's eyes
were soft and wonderfully lustrous in the subdued light as she gave the
wolf a parting caress. But he could not stay with them. The primal laws
of his being bade otherwise. His was the way of the open trails, the
nights of madness and the rapture of hunting--and these were folk of the
caves! They were not his people, although his love for them burned like
fire in his heart.

He could not deny the call of his followers on the ridge. It was like a
chain, drawing him remorselessly to them. Whining, he had sped away into
the darkness.

The fire had been built up, Beatrice had rallied her spent strength by
full feeding of the rich, dried meat, and had done what she could for
Neilson's injury. Ben, exhausted, had lain down in some of the blankets
of his enemy's outfit. Neilson was not, however, mortally hurt. The
bullet had coursed through the region of his shoulder, missing his heart
and lungs, and although he was all but unconscious, they had every
reason to believe that a few weeks of rest would see him well again.

Beatrice bathed the wound, bandaged it the best she could, then covered
him up warmly and let him go to sleep. And the time came at last, long
past the midnight hour, that she crept once more to Ben's side.

There was little indeed for them to say. The stress of the night had
taken from them almost all desire to talk. But Ben took her hand in his
feebly, and held it against his lips.

"We're safe now," Beatrice told him, her eye's still bright with tears.
"We've seen it through, and we're safe."

Ben nodded happily. It was true: there was nothing further for them to
fear. With the aid of the rifles of the three fallen, they could procure
meat in plenty for their remaining time at Back There; besides, the
store of jerked caribou and moose was enough to hold them over. When the
rains came again, the three of them--Neilson and Ben and Beatrice--could
glide on down to the Indian encampments in the canoe. Thence they could
reach the white settlements beyond the mountains.

Her glance into the future went still farther, because she knew certain
news that as yet Ben had not heard. She had heard from Ray's lips that
night that Ben's claim had been legally filed; he had only to return and
take possession. It straightened out the future, promised success in the
battle of life, gave him an interest to hold him in these northern
forests. But she would not tell him to-night. It could wait for a more
quiet hour.

Presently she saw that he was trying to speak to her, whispering; trying
to draw her ear down to his lips. She smiled, with an infinite
tenderness. Dimly though he spoke, she heard him every word.

"I love you," he told her simply. He watched her face, as intently as
the three Wise Men watched the East, for a sign. And he saw it, clear
and ineffably wonderful, in the stars that came into her eyes.

"I love you," she answered, with equal simplicity. They lay a while in
silence, blissful in this wonder each had for the other, wholly content
just that their hands and lips should touch.

The same miracle was upon them both; and the girl's thought, ranging
far, seized upon a deep and moving discovery. "All this belongs to us,"
she told him, indicating with one movement of her arm the boundless
solitudes about them. "This is our own country, isn't it, Ben? We can't
ever--go away."

It was true: they could never leave the forest for long. They were its
children, bred in the bone. Their strong thews would waste in a gentler
land. It was their heritage. They must not go where they could not
behold the dark line of the forest against the sky.

The fire burned down. The moon wheeled through the sky. The tall spruce
saw the dawn afar and beckoned.

THE END.

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