Chapter 5

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_ CHAPTER V

As Alexander passed him, Brent did not miss the suppressed fury in her eyes or the disdainful tilt of her chin. Her bearing was that of a barbaric princess, and a princess of meteorically vivid beauty. There had been a deliberate purpose in the clear carrying tones with which she had repulsed Jase Mallows. He had been the first man to make advances, because he was the boldest, but for all her guise of unconsciousness she had seen the passion smoulder in the eyes about her and later others might become emboldened unless they were discouraged by a clear precedent. Heretofore her father's stern repute had safeguarded her. Now she was dependent upon herself alone.

Down the yellow river swept the two uninjured rafts and the one that carried a fringe of raggedness. For the most part the men were busy with sweep and pike-pole fending off the cumbering drift and clearing the whirlpools where hidden reefs threatened destruction. There were sharp turns and angles too, where the yellow water roared into fretful and vehement menace. With night-fall the heights seemed to draw in and huddle close and the dirge of flood and wind mounted into a heavier timbre.

Fires leaped into fitful radiance. Banjos and "dulcimores" came out of hiding and sounded plaintively over the waste of waters. Scraps of almost mediaeval life showed out in thumb-nail sketches between the sooty shadow world and the red flare of the bonfires. Voices were lifted into weird minors and lugubrious tunes, recitative, of sad love themes--and these were, of course, addressed to Alexander. She joined no group, but sat with her hands clasped about her updrawn knees and her gaze ranging off into distance. The carmine and orange illumination played upon her color of cheek and hair and eyes and when, unconsciously her face fell into a reflective quiet and her lips drooped with a touch of wistfulness, the allurement of her beauty was arresting and undeniable. Brent fell to wondering what life could hold for her.

The time must come, he thought, when a beauty like that in a land of plain and drudgery-enslaved women, must bring for her something like a crisis. She was twenty-one and unawakened, but that the men about her should long allow her to remain so was as unlikely as that a pirate-crew would leave treasure unfought for. A rising tide of human passion about her seemed as inevitable as this actual flood had been--and perhaps as swift of coming.

But if the amorous selections of that crude minstrelsy made any impression upon her, she gave no indication. Before the songs ended she withdrew to the rude shelter that had been fashioned for her and wrapped herself in her blanket. But the pistol holster lay close to her hand. When she rose at day-break they had turned out of the stream upon which they had embarked into the broader river that it fed and about them floated a wavering mass of ice from broken gorges above.

Brent shivered and dabbed grudgingly with cold water at the face upon which a stubble of beard had begun to bristle. But the girl carried an icy bucket into her shack and reinforced its forward wall with blanket and rubber coat, not as a protection against the knife-edged sharpness of the air but against prying eyes. Then she bathed unhurriedly and fastidiously.

When she emerged the bloom of her cheeks and the luster of her thick hair would have been the envy of a boudoir where beauty-doctors have done their utmost. And that day too, save for the smouldering eyes of the discomfited Jase Mallows, the wolf-like pack treated her with a cautious deference of bearing.

When at the end of two days the water was dropping as rapidly as it had risen, Alexander announced, "I reckon we've got a right gay chanst now ter put in at ther Coal City boom, hain't we?" And several heads nodded assent. Brent noticed that Jase Mallows' face wore a smile which did not altogether escape malignity, and at the first opportunity he inquired: "What were you smiling about, Mr. Mallows, when they spoke of Coal City?"

The backwoods dandy scowled and gave back the churl's response, "Thet's my business."

"Certainly," Brent acceded coolly. "You don't have to answer me. I didn't suppose it was a matter you were ashamed to talk about."

Mallows bent with a truculent narrowing of his lids and an outthrust chin, but observing that the city man was in no wise cowed by his scowls he amended his attitude. Two days before Brent would have been more cautious of offending this man, whose exploits had run, sometimes, to violence, but a subtle transformation had begun in him. A new disdain for personal risks had caught fire from that flaming quality in the woman.

"Hev ye ever seed Coal City?" inquired Mallows, and when the other shook his head, he continued in a lowered voice. "Wa'al hit's a right rough sort of place. Hit's a coal minin' town with only one tavern--an' things goes forward thar right sensibly similar ter hell on a hot night. With ther flood holdin' up ther mines hit's apt ter kinderly out-do hitself jest now." He paused a moment then capped his prediction with an added detail.

"Thar'll be plentiful drunkenness an' harlotry thar. Alexander couldn't speak civil ter me, but I war jest a studyin' erbout how well she's goin' ter like Coal City."

When the rafts were safe in the boom. Brent looked about for Mallows, but Mallows was already gone. Alexander herself was among the last to start along the ill-lighted and twisting street that climbed along, the broken levels of the town toward the tavern. It was, at best, a squalid village and a tawdry one. Now it was to boot a wholly demoralized town, cut off from the other world by inundated highways and the washing out of its railroad bridge. The kerosene street lamps burned dully and at long intervals and high up the black slopes a few coke furnaces still burned in red patches of inflamed and sullen glare.

Brent had dropped out of sight, meaning to follow the girl as an unofficial body guard. Knowing her impatience at gratuitous services of protection he made no announcement of his purpose, but fell in behind the light of the lantern she carried and followed her in the shadows. When he had gone only a little way, he had the vague feeling that someone else was following him so he halted and wheeled suddenly. After peering vainly through the murk, he told himself that he was letting his imagination play him tricks but the disquieting impression of soft footsteps padding along behind him he could not dispel.

Before they had readied the main street and the disreputable pile which was the tavern, sounds of lewd and raucous voices floated out--a chorus of profane and blatant roistering.

The houses along the way presented faces utterly blank and devoid of life. Brent would have wondered at that, had he not had his brief talk with Mallows. Now he understood. Respectable folks had withdrawn to shelter behind barred doors and tightly shuttered windows until such time as the unleashed element of outlawry should evacuate the town. The law-abiding were, in effect, undergoing a siege and avoiding the ill-lighted streets.

But the light at the court-house square was relatively bright and as Brent crossed in front of the squat and shadowy bulk of the old jail-house--empty now, though it should have been full--he made out a figure hastening about him in a circuitous fashion at a dog trot as though bent on arriving at the hostelry first. That, then, must have been the presence he had felt at his back, and a fresh alarm assailed him. It was the figure of Bud Sellers.

When at last Alexander had gone up the several steps that led to the closed door of the tavern, and stood for a moment, evidently hesitating with disgust for the babel within, Brent drew back into a convenient shadow and looked anxiously about for the other figure. It had disappeared.

That hostelry was the property of one D. W. Kelly, a huge and unclean lout of a man and the establishment was as wholesome a place as a bear pit, and no more so.

It was not with complacency that the landlord saw his house given over to the destructive caprices of a drunken and uncontrollable mob. He had no means of freeing himself of his guests. When his slatternly wife had complained: "Them miners an' loggers jest louzes up a body's house," he had wagged his head dejectedly and spread his great black-nailed hands. "If that's ther wu'st thing they does hit'll be a plum God's blessin'," he replied. "Ther law p'intedly fo'ces a tavern-keeper ter sleep an' eat man an' beast--ef so be they kin pay."

Now the motley crew was in unchallenged possession--and would remain in possession until the river went down and fords were once more passable. That a reign of terror would prevail so long as they tarried in town, in no wise dampened their own exuberance of spirit.

Two or three traveling salesmen had been marooned here, but since the beginning of this saturnalia they had not been in evidence beyond the thresholds of their own rooms.

There was no bar at D. W. Kelly's tavern and none was needed, since every man was duly and individually provisioned and since even in these flood times a dollar left unwatched on a certain stump up the mountain side would cause a jug to appear mysteriously in its place.

But since there was no bar, the great room whose door opened directly upon the porch had been commandeered as a wassailing hall. Here the entering guest must run the gantlet of the rollicking horde before he could attain the more peaceful harbor of his own quarters.

About a red hot stove hung a crew of as dirty and disorderly men as ever came out of coal mine or lumber camp. Those who remained sober remained also somewhat aloof against the walls and kept their mouths shut. From the ceiling downward hung the thick, stale cloud of smoke from many strong pipes and the rancid poison of air discharged from many lungs had become a stench in the nostrils. Occasional figures walked with an unsteady lurch, while through the whole chaotic pandemonium others slept heavily in their chairs--or even on the floor.

But just before Alexander reached the porch and hesitated on the threshold Jase Mallows had been there. Now he was gone but he had first imparted the information that the "'he-woman' from ther head of Shoulderblade branch" was coming hither. So it was likely that she would have a noisy welcome. On the outskirts of the crowd sat a giant who seemed a shade rougher of guise than those about him. When he stood, this man topped six feet by as many inches. His shoulders had such a spread that one thought of them as of an eagle's wings--from tip to tip. His face, now bristling with dark stubble, was none the less clear-chiseled and arrestingly featured. At first sight a stranger would be apt to exclaim, "What a magnificent figure of a man he would make, if he were only clean-shaven and well dressed." This fellow was not drinking but looking on from a table at which no one ventured to challenge his sole occupancy or his evident preference for his own society.

A somewhat amused and indulgent gleam dwelt in his eye, tinged, it is true, with a certain unveiled contempt--but it was not the disgust that might have been expected in a sober man looking on at such a loathsomeness of debauchery.

There were women present too,--coarse and vicious creatures who lacked even the sort of tawdry finery that their sisters in western mining camps affect. There was here no shimmer of even the slaziest satin. In dress as in character they were drab.

So was the stage set when the door opened and Alexander stepped in, dropping her pack to the floor and standing speechless for a moment or two as her amazed eyes took in the composition of the picture. Alexander had never seen such a spectacle before, and as she looked about for someone who appeared to have authority here, her fine eyes and lips fell into an unmasked scorn.

She had not closed the door and through it, close on her heels, slipped Brent. For, a little space the confusion took no account of her coming but the city man was standing directly behind her and he saw the pliancy of her attitude stiffen and then across her shoulder he recognized in a rear door the tense figure of Bud Sellers.

Sellers stood looking through a lane which chance had left open and Brent thought that his posture was the electrically expectant one of a man poised for instant action. He remembered that when Bud went on a spree he was known as the "mad dog."

That same insanity which had attacked the father might now even forget that the daughter's assumption of being a man was only a pretense. He might act as though she were a man bent on avenging a mortal injury. There was no leisure then to speculate on how Bud had gotten here--that he was here with his gaze fixed in that galvanized fashion on the girl was a sufficient cause for apprehension.

Then the eyes of the many began following the eyes of the few, until a brief lull settled down on the dissonance, and everyone was staring at the girl who stood inside the door, dressed as a man, but holding their gaze with the lodestone of her womanly beauty.

A hoarse shout went up from the rear. "A gal in pants! Hit's ther he-woman!"

"I wants ter see ther tavern-keeper. Whar's he at?" demanded Alexander in a clear voice that went through the place like the note of a xylophone. She stood out, a picture of serene beauty drawn against an infernally evil and confused background.

Two of the wretched women came forward and bent upon her the full battery of their brazen and leering curiosity.

"Pants!" exclaimed one of them satirically.

"Ther wench hain't got no shame!" The second used an even uglier word.

But Alexander ignored that criticism.

"Whar's ther landlord at?" she repeated and a chorus of laughter ensued.

Then a bewhiskered fellow, red-eyed and dirty, to whom Jase Mallows had previously spoken, came to the front with a burlesqued attempt at a low bow.

"Don't heed these hyar fool women, sweetheart," he said. "They hain't nothin' but low-down trash nohow-- They're jealous, but thar's some right upstandin' men-folks hyar fer ye ter keep company with. I reckon fust off ye needs a leetle dram--hits's right chilly outside."

As he proffered a flask, Brent caught the glitter of his eye, and knew that this time it would not be easy to decline. The crowd was drifting forward, and through the closing lane of humanity, Bud Sellers glided rapidly to a place near its front. His hand was inside his coat now--where the holster lay.

"A leetle dram won't do ye no harm," insisted the man of the blood-shot eyes and then as he caught the quiet contempt on the girl's face, his manner changed to truculent bullying. "Folks says ye wants ter be treated ther same as a man--an' any man thet holds I hain't good enough ter drink with--thet man's my enemy."

Brent hesitated to draw his weapon lest in such a situation it should provoke a holocaust. Yet he felt that in a moment he might need it. Then as he stood, still uncertain, he saw the giant who had until now looked on with detached emotionlessness come elbowing his way through the press, much as an elephant goes through small timber, uprooting obstacles and tossing them aside as he moves.

But Alexander had gone dead white with the pallor of outraged wrath. Her lips had tightened and her eyes taken on a quality like the blue flame which is the hottest fire that burns.

Then suddenly she moved with a swiftness that was electric and stood, before her purpose could be guessed, with a heavy-calibered revolver outthrust into the face of the man whose pistol hand had held the whiskey bottle. The flask crashed into splinters from an abruptly relaxed grip.

"I don't drink--without hit pleasures me ter drink," said the girl with an inflexible coldness and levelness of voice, yet one no more unfalteringly firm than the hand which held the gun. "Hit won't never pleasure me ter drink with a man I wouldn't wipe my feet on. Ye hain't a man nohow--ye're jest a pole-cat."

The bearded jaw dropped in amazement, and a sense of the nearness of death intruded itself upon Lute Brown's thoughts. Still since even such a situation called for a retort he essayed one in a falter that travestied the boldness of his words.

"When a man names me thet name--I wants him ter come _towards_ me. Of course ye hain't no man though."

"I'm man enough ter take yore measure," she flung back at him, "an' I'm comin' towards ye right now. Ef yore hands ain't high when I git's thar, I aims ter kill ye."

She moved forward and the bully gave grudgingly back, but at that instant the gigantic on-looker casually laid hand upon him by one shoulder and flung him sidewise as casually as a terrier tosses a rat. His manner was precisely that of a man who removes a chair which obstructs his path.

"Stranger," said the titanic fellow in a pleasantly drawling intonation, "I think I heered ye say ye wanted ther landlord. Ef ye'll come with me I'll find him fer ye. A decent feller wouldn't hardly relish this company nohow."

There had been in his form of address no masculine patronage proffering rescue to the beset feminine, and looking up into a face which was smiling with an engaging radiance of white teeth, Alexander nodded and said only, "I'd be right obleeged ter ye."

Through a path that opened itself in silence for them, they went out of a back door, but when they had gone, Brent saw in astonishment that Bud Sellers was crouching with defiant eyes over Lute Brown as he slowly regained his feet.

"Hev ye done hed enough?" demanded Bud in a voice of deadly calm and absolute sobriety. "Because ef ye hain't, I'm hyar ter finish hit up with ye."

"Air ye one of her beaus, too?" came the surly question and Bud answered deliberately. "She don't tolerate no sweet-heartin', but whilst I was crazed with licker I hurt her paw--an' I reckon I owes her somethin'."

When the giant had returned he went nonchalantly back to his table as though nothing had occurred, but Brent followed and joined him there.

"How did you come to be here, Halloway?" asked the city man in a guarded and incredulous voice.

The tall man looked about him and then, since the drone of voices was again gathering volume he replied: "Oh, ye're right liable ter meet up with a driftin' lumberjack anywhar's at all."

After filling a disreputable pipe with tobacco crumbs he leaned a little forward, then in lowered tones, from which every trace of mountain dialect had abruptly departed he said:

"By gad, Brent, an episode that gives a man a new sensation--a new thrill, in a world of threadbare ones--is worth a king's ranson. I've seen the beauties of Occident and Orient but until now----"

A figure drifted near enough to overhear, and rising slowly Halloway finish up:

"Wa'al, stranger, hit's mighty nigh my bed time. I reckon I'll santer up ter my room and lay down. I hopes ye git's took keer of yourself, but ef ye don't ye're right welcome ter bunk in with me."

"I'll go with you now," declared the timber buyer. _

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