Part 16 (1/2)
”An' comin' from Appleton hisself he'll hate ye worse'n ever, f'r he'll think ye'll be afther crimpin' his bird's-eye game. Take advice, Bill, an' kape on th' good side av um av ye can. He'll t'row ut into ye wid all manner av dhirty thricks, but howld ye're timper, an' maybe ye'll winter ut out--an' maybe ye won't.”
”What is a bird's-eye game?”
Fallon glanced at him sharply. ”D'ye mane ye don't know about th'
bird's-eye?” he asked.
”Not a thing,” replied Bill.
”Thin listen to me. Don't ye niver say bird's-eye in this camp av ye expect to winter ut out.”
Bill was anxious to hear more about the mysterious bird's-eye, but the sled suddenly emerged into a wide clearing and Irish was pointing out the various buildings of the log camp.
Bright squares of light showed from the windows of the bunk-house, office, and grub-shack, with its adjoining cook-shack, from the iron stovepipe of which sparks shot skyward in a continuous shower.
Fallon shouldered the wolf and, accompanied by Bill, made toward the bunk-house, while the Frenchman turned the team toward the stable.
”Ag'in' we git washed up, supper'll be ready,” announced Irish, as he deposited the wolf carca.s.s beside the door and entered.
Inside the long, low room, lined on either side by a double row of bunks, were gathered upward of a hundred men waiting the supper call.
They were big men, for the most part, rough clad and unshaven. Many were seated upon the edges of the bunks smoking and talking, others grouped about the three big stoves, and the tobacco-reeking air was laden with the rumble of throaty conversation, broken here and there by the sharp scratch of a match, a loud laugh, or a deep-growled, good-natured curse.
Into this a.s.sembly stepped Irish Fallon, closely followed by Bill, the sight of whose blood-stained face attracted grinning attention. The two men pa.s.sed the length of the room to the wash-bench, where a few loiterers still splashed noisily at their ablutions.
”I heard it plain, I'm tellin' you,” some one was saying. ”'Way off to the south it sounded.”
”That ain't no lie,” broke in another, ”I hearn it myself--jest before dark, it was. An' I know! Didn't I hear it that night over on Ten Fork?
The time she got Jack Kane's woman, four year ago, come Chris'mus. Yes, sir! I tell you the werwolf's nigh about this camp, an' it's me in off the edges afore dark!”
”They say she never laughs but she makes a kill,” said one.
”G.o.d! I was at Skelly's when they brought old man Frontenelle in,”
added a big man, whose heavy beard was shot with gray, as he turned from the stove with a shudder.
”They's some Injuns trappin' below; she might of got one of them,”
opined a short, stockily built man who, catching sight of the newcomers, addressed Fallon:
”Hey, Irish, you was down on the tote-road; did you hear Diablesse?”
Fallon finished drying his face upon the coa.r.s.e roller-towel and turned toward the group who waited expectantly. ”Yis, Oi hear-rd her, all roight,” he replied lightly. ”An' thin Oi _see'd_ her.”
Others crowded about, hanging upon his words. ”An' thin, be way av showin' me contimpt,” he added, ”Oi dhrug her a moile or more t'rough th' woods be th' tail.”
Loud laughter followed this a.s.sertion; but not a few, especially among the older men, shook their heads in open disapproval, and muttered curses at his levity.
”But me frind Bill, here,” Irish continued, ”c'n tell ye more about her'n phwat Oi kin. He's new in th' woods, Bill is; an' so d.a.m.ned green he know'd nayther th' manein' nor use av th' rackets. So, be gad, he come widout 'em. Mushed two whole days t'rough th' shnow.
”But, listen; no mather how ignorant, nor how much he don't know, a good man's a man--an' to pr-rove ut he jumps wid his axe roight into th' middle av th' werwolf's own an' kills noine, countin' th' three cripples Oi finished.