Part 10 (2/2)

”That was how Jim c.o.c.krell felt when he prayed for the dog,” said the tall man.

”Did he get the dog?”

He nodded.

”That's what he said anyway. He was took with just such a lonesome spell once when he was trapping in the Mandans country. He was a pious critter, great on prayer and communing with the Lord. And he felt--I've heard him tell about it--just as if he'd go wild if he didn't get something for company. What he wanted was a dog and you might just as well want an angel out there with nothin' but the Indian villages breakin' the dazzle of the snow and you as far away from them as you could get. But that didn't stop Jim. He just got down and prayed, and then he waited and prayed some more and 'ud look around for the dog, as certain he'd come as that the sun 'ud set. Bimeby he fell asleep and when he woke there was the dog, a little brown varmint, curled up beside him on the blanket. Jim used to say an angel brought it. I'm not contradictin', but----”

”Wal,” said old Joe, ”he most certainly come back into the fort with a dog. I was there and seen him.”

Leff snickered, even the doctor's voice showed the incredulous note when he asked:

”Where could it have come from?”

The tall man shrugged.

”Don't ask me. All I know is that Jim c.o.c.krell swore to it and I've heard him tell it drunk and sober and always the same way. He held out for the angel. I'm not saying anything against that, but whatever it was it must have had a pretty powerful pull to get a dog out to a trapper in the dead o' winter.”

They wondered over the story, offering explanations, and as they talked the fire died low and the moon, a hemisphere clean-halved as though sliced by a sword, rose serene from a cloud bank. Its coming silenced them and for a s.p.a.ce they watched the headlands of the solemn landscape blackening against the sky, and the river breaking into silvery disquiet. Separating the current, which girdled it with a sparkling belt, was the dark blue of an island, thick plumed with trees, a black and mysterious oblong. Old Joe pointed to it with his pipe.

”Brady's Island,” he said. ”Ask Hy to tell you about that. He knew Brady.”

The tall man looked thoughtfully at the crested shape.

”That's it,” he said. ”That's where Brady was murdered.”

And then he told the story:

”It was quite a while back in the 30's, and the free trappers and mountain men brought their pelts down in bull boats and mackinaws to St. Louis. There were a bunch of men workin' down the river and when they got to Brady's Island, that's out there in the stream, the water was so shallow the boats wouldn't float, so they camped on the island.

Brady was one of 'em, a cross-tempered man, and he and another feller'd been pick-in' at each other day by day since leavin' the mountains.

They'd got so they couldn't get on at all. Men do that sometimes on the trail, get to hate the sight and sound of each other. You can't tell why.

”One day the others went after buffalo and left Brady and the man that hated him alone on the island. When the hunters come home at night Brady was dead by the camp fire, shot through the head and lyin' stiff in his blood. The other one had a slick story to tell how Brady cleanin' his gun, discharged it by accident and the bullet struck up and killed him. They didn't believe it, but it weren't their business.

So they buried Brady there on the island and the next day each man shouldered his pack and struck out to foot it to the Missouri.

”It was somethin' of a walk and the ones that couldn't keep up the stride fell behind. They was all strung out along the river bank and some of 'em turned off for ways they thought was shorter, and first thing you know the party was scattered, and the man that hated Brady was left alone, lopin' along on a side trail that slanted across the prairie to the country of the Loup Fork p.a.w.nees.

”That was the last they saw of him and it was a long time--news traveled slow on the plains in them days--before anybody heard of him for he never come to St. Louis to tell. Some weeks later a party of trappers pa.s.sin' near the p.a.w.nee villages on the Loup Fork was hailed by some Indians and told they had a paleface sick in the chief's tent.

The trappers went there and in the tent found a white man, clear headed, but dyin' fast.

”It was the man that killed Brady. Lyin' there on the buffalo skin, he told them all about it--how he done it and the lie he fixed up. Death was comin', and the way he'd hated so he couldn't keep his hand from murder was all one now. He wanted to get it off his mind and sorter square himself. When he'd struck out alone he went on for a spell, killin' enough game and always hopin' for the sight of the river. Then one day he caught his gun in a willow tree and it went off, sending the charge into his thigh and breaking the bone. He was stunned for a while and then tried to move on, tried to crawl. He crawled for six days and at the end of the sixth found a place with water and knowed he'd come to the end of his rope. He tore a strip off his blanket and tied it to the barrel of his rifle and stuck it end up. The p.a.w.nees found him there and treated him kind, as them Indians will do sometimes. They took him to their village and cared for him, but it was too late. He wanted to see a white man and tell and then die peaceful, and that's what he done. While the trappers was with him he died and they buried him there decent outside the village.”

The speaker's voice ceased and in the silence the others turned to look at the black shape of the island riding the gleaming waters like a funeral barge. In its dark isolation, cut off from the land by the quiet current, it seemed a fitting theater for the grim tragedy. They gazed at it, chilled into dumbness, thinking of the murderer moving to freedom under the protection of his lie, then overtaken, and in his anguish, alone in the silence, meeting the question of his conscience.

Once more the words came back to David: ”Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

Susan pressed against her father, awed and cold, and from old Joe, stretched in his blanket, came a deep and peaceful snore.

<script>