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2017 OK Publishing

 
ISBN 978-80-272-2262-9

Table of Contents

I. A FRESH START

It was snowing. A northwester was rushing over the mountains. As the storm wind shifted a few points west and east, the mountains cut it away, so that one valley lay in a lull of quiet air, with the snow dropping in perpendicular lines; or else the mountains caught the wind in a funnel and poured a venomous blast, in which the snow hardened and became cold teeth.

The two men lying in a covert saw Skinner Mountain, due south of them, withdraw into the mist of white and again jump out at them, blocking half the sky. The weather and the sudden appearances of Mount Skinner troubled Lou Alp. In his own way and in his own time, Alp was a successful sneak thief. He had been known to take chances enough; but that was in Manhattan, where the millions walk the street and where mere numbers offer a refuge. That was in Manhattan, where a man may slip into twisting side streets with a dozen issues through alleys and cellars. That was in Manhattan, where a fugitive turning a corner is as far away as though he had dropped to the other side of the world.

Far different here. Of man there was not a trace, and the huge and brutal face of nature pressed upon the sensitive mind of Lou Alp; the chill air numbed his finger tips and made his only useful weapons helpless. Lou Alp depended upon sleight of hand and agility rather than upon strength. This whirl and rush of snow baffled him and irritated him. He kept repeating to his companion: "Is this your sunshine? Is this your happy country? I say, to hell with it!"

His companion, who lay by his side in the bushes and kept a sharp lookout up the road at such times as the drive of the snow made it possible to see fifty yards, would answer: "It's a freak storm, Lou. Never saw it come so thick and fast so early in December as this. Give the country a chance. It's all right."

Alp would stare at him in amazement. From the time of their first intimacy Jack Chapel had continually amazed him. That was in the shoe shop of the penitentiary where they had sat side by side on their stools. The rule was silence and, though there were many opportunities for speech from the side of the mouth in the carefully gauged whispers which state prisoners learn to use so soon, Chapel had never taken advantage of the chances. Lou would never forget the man as he had first seen him, the clean-cut features, the rather square effect given by the size of his jaw muscles, the prison pallor which made his dark eyes seem darker. On the whole he was a handsome chap, but he had something about him more arresting than his good looks.

For the most part the prisoners pined or found resignation. Their eyes became pathetic or dull, as Lou's eyes became after the first three months. But the eyes of Jack Chapel held a spark which bespoke neither resignation nor inertia. He had a way of sitting forward on his stool all day long, giving the impression of one ready to start to his feet and spring into action. When one of the trusties spoke to him, he did not stare straight before him, as the other prisoners did, but his eyes first looked his questioner full in the face and flashed, then he made his answer. He gave an effect, indeed, of one who bides a day.

These things Lou Alp noted, for there were few things about faces which he missed. He had learned early to read human nature from his life as a gutter urchin who must know which face means a dime, which means a cent, and which means no gift to charity at all. But what lay behind the fire in Jack Chapel's eyes he could not say. Alp was cunning, but he lacked imagination. He knew the existence of some devouring emotion, but what that emotion was he could not tell.

He was not the only one to sense a danger in Chapel. The trusty in charge of the shop guessed it at the end of the first week, and he started to break Chapel. It was not hard to find an opening. Chapel had little skill with his hands, and presently job after job was turned back to him. He had sewed clumsily; he had put in too many nails; he had built up the heel awry. After a time, he began to be punished for his clumsiness. It was at this point that Alp interfered. He had no great liking for Chapel, but he hated the trusty with the hatred of a weasel for a badger. To help Chapel was to get in an indirect dig at the trusty.

Because Lou Alp could do almost anything with his agile fingers, he began to instruct Chapel in the fine points of shoemaking. It was a simple matter. He had only to wait until Chapel was in difficulty, and then Lou would start the same piece of work on one of his own shoes. He would catch the eye of Chapel and work slowly, painstakingly, so that his neighbor could follow the idea. Before long, Chapel was an expert and even the carping trusty could find no fault.

Now charity warms the heart; a gift is more pleasant to him who gives than to him who takes. Lou Alp, having for once in his life performed a good deed, was amazed by the gradual unlocking of his heart that followed. He had lived a friendless life; vaguely, delightfully, he felt the growth of a new emotion.

When the time came, he had leaned over to pick something from the floor and had whispered sidewise: "What's the charge?"

The other had made no attempt to reply guardedly. His glance held boldly on the face of the sneak thief, as the latter straightened again on his stool. There was a slight tightening of his jaw muscles, and then Chapel said: "Murder!"

The word knocked at the heart of Lou Alp and made him tremble. Murder! Looking at the strong, capable, but rather clumsy hands of Chapel, he saw how all that strength could have been applied. Suppose those square-tipped fingers had clutched someone by the throat—an ache went down the windpipe of the thief.

If Lou had been interested before, he was fascinated now. In all their weeks of labor side by side, only four words had been interchanged between them, and here he was in the soul of his companion. He was not horrified. Rather, he felt a thrill of dog-like admiration. He, Lou Alp, had wished to kill more than one man. There was the "flatty" who ran him down in "Mug" McIntyre's place. He had wanted to bump that man off. There were others. But fear, which was the presiding deity in the life of the sneak thief, had warded him away from the cardinal sin. He respected Chapel; he was glad he had helped his neighbor; he felt even a touch of reverence for the boy.

And later on he had said: "How?"

"It was a frame," answered Chapel. "A dirty frame!"

And then Alp knew the meaning of the spark behind those eyes. It took some of the thrill from his feeling for Chapel, but now he understood that undying alertness, for it sprang out of the hate of a man who has been wronged. After all, it is almost as exciting to be seated beside a man who has been wrongly convicted of murder as it is to sit beside a man who is really guilty.

A little later Chapel put his first question.

"And you?" he said.

"They framed me, too," said Alp, and with marvelous skill he was able to put a touch of a whine even in his whisper. "The dirty dogs framed me, too!"

He hardened his face in lines of sadness, prepared to meet unbelief in the eyes of the other, but there was no questioning in Jack Chapel's mind. Instead, he sat rigid on his stool and his eyes flamed at his companion. Then he smiled. The last bar was down between them; he admitted the sneak thief into his friendship.

Events came swiftly to a head. About his past Chapel was reticent. He had come from the West and he was going back to some part of his own great country when he was out. He was not going to attempt to get even for the double-cross which in the first place had brought him East and then lodged him in prison for a ten-year term. His vengeance was barred, for it was a girl who had engineered the whole scheme to save her lover. Alp learned of this reticence with amazement. If a strong man had injured him in a similar manner, he might well have postponed his vengeance as he had often postponed it in times past; but to withhold the heavy hand from a woman, this was a thing which he could not comprehend. As always when a thing passed his understanding, he remained silent. In the future he was to find that silence was often necessary when he talked with the falsely accused murderer.

A new event came. Chapel was planning an escape and he confided his plan to the sneak thief. That night Lou sat in his cell and brooded. If he took part in the attempt, it meant a probable recapture and a far heavier sentence for breaking jail. The other alternative was to tell the prison authorities everything. They would make him a trusty at once, lighten his service, and cut his term as short as was possible. On the other hand a still, small voice kept assuring him that if he betrayed Chapel, he would sooner or later die by the hand of that man. There was a third possibility, to remain quietly in the prison, say nothing, and take no part in the attempted escape.

Lou Alp had not sufficient moral courage to be reticent. As a result he found himself dragged into the plan. On the appointed night, after five minutes of quiet work and murderous suspense, he stood outside the black walls a free man, with Jack Chapel at his side. Instinct told him, as strongly as it tells the homing pigeon, safety lay in the slide across country to the all-sheltering labyrinth of Manhattan, but the voice of Jack Chapel was stronger than instinct and Alp started West with his friend. They had aimed for a district safely north of Jack Chapel's home, had ridden the beams as far as the railroad would take them, and then plunged into the wilderness of mountains on a road that led them here. The night before they had spent in a small village and there, with his usual ferretlike skill, Lou learned of the payroll which was to go the next day from the village up to the mine in the hills under charge of two armed men. He had told Chapel, and the latter insisted on a holdup.

"I'll take what's coming to me, and no more," he said. "What's my time worth for two years? I don't count in the pain or the work or the dirty disgrace, but write me down for a thousand a year. That's two thousand. Then you come in. A year and a half at the same rate. That's thirty-five hundred the world owes us and here's where we collect. Thirty-five hundred, no more and no less. We use that to make a new start. Tell me straight, is that square? And we take it from old Purvis's payroll. God knows Purvis can afford to spare the coin. He's so crooked he can't lie in bed. How'd he get his mines? By beating out poor devils who hit hard times. So he's our paymaster. Something is coming to us. We're both innocent. We've both been hit between the eyes. Now we can get something back. Is that logic?"

There had been a sort of appeal in his voice as he made the proposition to Alp early that morning.

"Sure it's justice," nodded Lou.

Then Chapel drew a little breath and his eyes flashed from one side to the other. "I ain't much on a holdup," he faltered.

"You never stuck 'em up before?" cried Lou, horrified by such rash inexperience.

"Sure I never did. That doesn't make any difference. I know how holdups go. You step out and shove a gun under the nose of somebody. He jerks his hands over his head. You go through his pockets or whatever he has the coin in. You take his guns. He rides into town like a shot. A posse starts out after you. You go one way and they go the other way. Haven't I seen it work out that way a hundred times? I tell you there's nothing to it, Lou."

Once more Lou had been drawn into the dragnet of the other's commanding will.

II. WITH A TWIG

Alp did not like it, no matter from what angle he looked at it. It was foreign to him. The game was not his. He was used to playing a lone hand and now he lay like a rabbit in a covert, not knowing what was expected of him, or if he would have courage to carry through the part assigned him. If it had been spring weather, he kept saying to himself, with a good, clear sky to pour content through the mind of a man and air through which one could see, things would have been very different with him. His one comfort was the bright eye of his companion. Cold had turned the fingers of Jack Chapel purple around the knuckles, but for some reason Alp could not imagine him stopped or even seriously embarrassed by such a thing as cold.

Yet he asked to make assurance doubly sure: "Pretty smooth with a gun?"

"Me? Smooth with a gun?" asked the heavyshouldered young fellow. "Why, Lou, I couldn't hit the side of a barn with a rifle, let alone a revolver."

The terror which had been reined up in Lou Alp's vitals now burst loose and flooded him. The chill which swept through him was a mortal cold that had nothing to do with either wind or snow. It was fear, horrible, strength-devouring fear. He could not even speak, as he heard his companion continue carelessly.

"But what does gun work have to do with it? I wouldn't hurt those two fellows if I could. Their boss is a skunk. He deserves anything that comes his way, but I don't hold any grudge against those two fellows. Not me! But there'll be no shooting. No, all you need for a game like this is a little bluff and some sand."

He followed his statement with his usual chuckle. Alp was seized in a fresh amazement. There were qualities about this man which never grew old. There was a surprising freshness, a nearness to the soil. Two things about him spoke the two sides of his nature. There were the bright, steady, and dangerous eyes. Lou Alp had been among the defiers of society long enough to recognize that glance. On the other hand, there was that ready chuckle. It came deeply out of his throat; it was musical, changing, and redolent with good nature. It was a laugh which instantly made a roomful of people smile and turn around. It was a laugh which never offended because there was not the slightest suggestion of mockery or derision or self complacency in it.

Yet it failed to warm the trembling heart of the thief at this juncture. He continued to stare as though at a revelation of madness.

"But for heaven's sake..." was all he could say. Then: "I've been wonderin' about your gun, where you been keepin' it all this time?"

"Here," said the other and, reaching above him, he snapped off a twig, shook the snow from it, and presented to Lou Alp the frost-blackened, curved fragment of wood. The sneak thief threw back his head and began to laugh wildly. The sound came up through his slender throat cackling. It was singularly like the wind-shaken scream of some bird of prey.

"That!" he cried. "Man, don't you know that you got two armed men to handle? Don't you know that they're lookin' for trouble? That's why they're with the coin! And even if you had a gun..." he broke off, unable to continue. Then: "Let's get out of this. I'm froze clear through."

"What's the matter?" asked Chapel. "Don't you trust me?"

Again Alp was staggered. He had dragged his cold-cramped body to his knees and now he paused, agape. He was about to say, "What has trust got to do with powder and lead?" but he checked himself. It occurred to him that this singular fellow might be angered by any doubts cast upon him; already there was the queer, thoughtful flicker in his eyes, and Alp dropped back into his bed of leaves and snow. It came to him that much as he dreaded the storm and the coming of the armed men, he dreaded Jack Chapel even more. He knew now why the twelve good men and true had looked into the face of this man and had believed all too readily, with only the most circumstantial evidence to back their belief, that he had been guilty of a murder. Aside from the escape from the prison he had never seen Chapel meet danger or perform any violent act, and yet he was ready to premise the most tremendous things of this bright-eyed man.

He lay back in the snow without a word and began to massage his lips with his knuckles, so as to be able to speak when he had mentally framed his argument. He must prevent this incipient act of madness that would destroy them both. His agile brain began to turn and twist around the subject, looking back on a score of arguments; but, when he was on the verge of beginning, there was a low exclamation from Jack Chapel.

"They're here!"

He cast one wild glance down the road, but a whirl of snow rose and closed the way before him. Then, like the coward that he was, he looked to his companion, prepared with the protest, prepared with the plea, to let the danger and the money pass. He was stopped by the singular expression of happiness in the face of his companion. Somewhere he had seen such a look. Now he remembered. It was when he had taken a girl out of the slums to the theater; when the curtain slipped up, in the dim glow from the stage, he had turned and watched the face of the girl, her lips parted, her eyes at once dreaming, wistful, and eager.

Such was the face of Jack Chapel. The same hushed expectancy, the same trembling alertness, the same love of the unknown that lay before him. Now, through the curtain of the snow, the heads of two horses thrust out, powdered and unreal. Instantly the whole of the buckboard and the two men who rode in it came out upon Lou Alp. They were humped into bunches of flesh, shrinking from the cold, made numb and sleepy by it. Looking up at them they seemed huge and formidable to Alp. A shudder went through his meager body when he thought of a single man, armed with a bent twig, trying to halt that on-sweeping force of horses and wagon and fighting men.

Chapel was on his hands and feet like a runner at the mark. The wagon rushed nearer, rattling above the hum of wind and the soft crushing of the snow among the naked trees. Suddenly the man leaped out from behind his screen with a deep shout.

The horses stopped and veered to one side, cramping the wagon dangerously. The men in the wagon sat and stared stupidly at the apparition. There stood Jack Chapel before them, crouched a little, with the twig in his hand not extended at full arm's length, but drawn back close to his breast. For the moment Alp forgot that it was simply a crooked piece of wood. He expected to see fire flash from the end of it.

The guards must have expected the same thing. For they made no attempt at resistance, but slowly—or was it the feverish activity of Lou's mind that made it seem slow—they put their hands up to their shoulders and then, inch by inch, above their heads.

Chapel was barking orders. Obediently they climbed down and turned their backs, still with hands above their heads. Jack went to them at a run, still speaking swiftly, cautioning them not to make a suspicious move. He jerked a revolver out of the holster that hung at the hip of one of them and tossed his twig away.

Lou Alp stood up. The blood was beginning to run freely again in his veins. A spot of red stood out in the hollow of each sallow, thin cheek. For the madman was turning his madness into sane matter of fact. With his twig he had rendered two stalwart men helpless. With a cry of encouragement, Lou was about to step out and render such help as he was capable of when the second of the guards, whose revolver had not yet been taken, jerked down his arms, whirled, and fired.

It happened with incredible suddenness. Lou felt his left leg go numb, but he forgot that, giving his whole attention on Chapel. He expected to see that broad, strong form topple to the earth. Instead, his friend smashed the fist that carried the revolver into the face of the man who had just fired. The fellow tossed up both arms, staggered back, and sank slowly into the snow. His companion, turning at the shot, grappled the bandit. For a moment they swayed and twisted and then were torn apart. The guard came close again, his arms reaching out. He was met by the lunging fist of Chapel and dropped loosely upon his face.

By the time Alp's brain began to work, he felt the numbness in his leg give place to a sharp pain, as though a red-hot knife had been thrust into his calf and left there to burn the flesh. Not until then did he realize that he had been shot through the leg by that first wild bullet from the gun of the guard. A red trickle was running out over his trousers. He watched it, fascinated.

Chapel was tying the fallen guards. Now that the danger was past, Lou attempted to go to him, but his left leg crumbled beneath his weight. Lying on his side, he saw his friend climb into the buckboard, take up a box, smash the lock with a bullet, and then drop to the snow with a stack of what he knew to be money. Chapel was counting it. Was it possible that the fool was only taking the thirty-five hundred? There must be at least twelve thousand in that payroll!

He dragged himself out from the covert at the same time that the other finished dumping his loot into a sack. Chapel was instantly beside him with an exclamation while tears of self-pity rose into the eyes of Alp.

"The dirty swine," he moaned. "Look what they done to me? Will you? And what harm was I doin' 'em?"

Before he answered, Chapel knelt beside Lou, ripped up the leg of his trousers, and examined the wound. "It's an easy one," he said. He was tearing away his own coat as he spoke, and now he ripped his undershirt into strips and made a swift and skillful bandage. "Clean as a whistle, Lou," he went on reassuringly. "You won't lose a tablespoonful of blood hardly. Keep your chin up, will you?"

A hot rage sent a mist across the vision of Lou. "Pump 'em full of lead!" he said through his teeth.

"Why?" asked Jack Chapel.

"Didn't they do this? You ask me why?"

Something in the face of his companion cleared Alp's eyes again. He saw that Chapel was looking at him with a curiously cold glance.

"It was just a chance that you got hurt," he said. "Besides, do you blame 'em for tryin' to protect the stuff they were sent out to guard? No, they showed they had... courage. I like 'em all the better for it, but the luck was against 'em. And that's the only reason why we're not blown full of lead, the way you want me to fix them now that they got their hands tied."

Lou Alp forgot the pain of his wound as he met the new glance of Chapel.

"Say, Bo," he grinned feebly. "You don't think I meant it, do you? The leg was hurting like fire and it peeved me for a minute."

"Sure," said Jack Chapel slowly, "I know what you mean. Only..." He did not finish the sentence.

III. WHITE VS. YELLOW

Somehow that incomplete sentence tied the tongue of the sneak thief even when he saw Jack Chapel take up the box with the gold coin and drop it in the snow beside the guards. There went close to ten thousand dollars perhaps. Yet Lou Alp merely writhed in silence. He dared not speak.

Lou was lifted in the strong arms of Jack Chapel and placed in the rear of the buckboard. Looking over the side, he saw Chapel search the two guards for weapons, and then in amazement he saw him cut the bonds of his enemies. Such faulty procedure took the breath of Lou Alp. Still he attempted no advice, and even flattened himself on the bottom of the buckboard.