adrian conrad withdrew his feet from the table and consulted his watch. benny, his cook, a large fair-haired norwegian, pushed through from the kitchen with an armful of dishes and gravely arranged them on the oilcloth-covered table in preparation for tomorrow's breakfast. then, with a cough--his nightly farewell--he disappeared.
conrad, still examining his watch, heard him depart by the back door, drawing it carefully behind him, and tramp in his heavy dragging way round the shack to the path leading down to the camp. alone, the foreman rose and pulled out a drawer, frowning critically into it.
the task of selecting his evening tie was interrupted by a subdued grunt from the doorway. the ruddy face of benny, the silent, was poking through, alive with excitement.
at the same instant conrad became aware of the source of the norwegian's agitation. from the camp below broke the distant clamour of altercation, the full-mouthed curses of excited foreigners building up a structure of more strenuous argument. in four strides the foreman was at the door.
conrad's shack was strategically situated. half-way up the sloping path between camp and trestle, it overlooked the former unobtrusively. from his door he had his men under his eye, with all the advantages of a not too distant isolation.
the scene of the commotion was apparent enough, a small excited group of men, probably the participators in one of the games of chance always in progress in the evenings in the open space between the camp and the water. far more industriously the bohunk gambled his pay away in the evening than he earned it by day. and always overhung the contractors this peril of a camp quarrel.
almost before conrad had seized the spirit of the incident, it was swelled by the accession of other disputants. five seconds' thoughtful scrutiny warned him that to attempt to quell it without assistance was taking an unjustifiable risk. small groups were rising angrily everywhere about the river bottom, and crowding to the fringes of the altercation. alone, he might fail, and it were better then not to have tried. by the time he could reach the scene half the camp would probably be involved.
for he saw at a glance that this was no personal squabble but one of the infrequent but always impending race feuds.
he jerked his head about to see if torrance knew. but the shack door up at the trestle was empty; torrance and tressa would be in the kitchen cleaning up. thereupon conrad set off at a run up the sloping path, watching intermittently the angry scene below.
a hundred yards from the grade he put his fingers to his lips and whistled. torrance came instantly to the door. he saw the fight, saw conrad's beckoning hand, and, without hat or coat, dashed out to the grade. but even as he leaped the rails his mood altered: pulling up, he strolled leisurely on down the path.
conrad was intent on the waxing conflict. group by group it was extending. he realised the wisdom of the instinct that had sent him for help--if the affray had not already passed control. there were only the two of them to count on. koppy, whose duty it was to forestall such conflicts, was nowhere in sight; and anyway conrad had learned not to trust the pole. casting hasty eyes upward toward the underforeman's shack topping the promontory overlooking the camp, he fancied a dim movement in the darkness of the interior. unless his eyes deceived him, koppy was out of the reckoning in case of need. irritated, conrad swung about impatiently. torrance was sauntering downward, filling his pipe.
"here," the foreman called sharply, "we must stop that, and quick."
"it's only a fight," drawled torrance.
conrad's face darkened with disgust. "don't cut your own throat. you don't seem to have heard of where these fights sometimes lead--swanson's, for instance, and tillman's, to mention only last year's. you'd be in a fine mess with one of those on your hands in late july, wouldn't you?"
"let it go for a couple of minutes longer, adrian," pleaded torrance. "they're just getting into it. i see a knife out."
"and that's what we must forestall. or it'll end only when the italians and the hungarians have cleaned out the swedes and the poles, or vice versa. there's not a second to waste."
he had hold of torrance's arm and was forcing him to run.
"i know you're right, adrian," panted torrance, "but i don't want to."
as they neared the camp, running now at top speed, conrad saw koppy emerge fussily from his shack above the camp and come leaping down--too late, of course, to be of much service.
the fight had grown to alarming proportions. originating in a mere normal act of cheating at cards, naturally resented by a huge swede who had been losing steadily to a one-eyed italian, it had passed swiftly into the realms of the smouldering feud between the races. and the first blow had excited the onlookers to take vociferous sides; the first weapon had roused their lingering instincts of antagonism; and the first drop of blood had driven a dozen of them headlong into the melee. before conrad and torrance arrived, knives and knife-ended knuckle-dusters and clubs were swinging.
the most disgusting feature of the shrieking, struggling mass was the presence on its outskirts of sneaking villains intent only on their personal enemies.
one of these had just plunged his knife into an unsuspecting arm when torrance caught sight of him. it fired his blood to a blind fury. with a lunge he planted his heavy boot on the brute's forehead, and the fellow crumpled up and lay record to an honest man's anger. thereafter torrance knew only that he was enjoying himself, as fist and boot struck snarling face or struggling body. followed a few minutes of more careful fighting, as the roused bohunks began to retaliate; and then a sense of personal danger not to be countered by any amount of exertion.
as he threw himself into the fight he glowed with the satisfaction of knowing that every face before him belonged to an enemy. normally slinking cowards before authority, the bohunks were now inflamed beyond anything but brute force. curses too deep and furious to express more than their tone--the cries of the wounded--the panting of laboured breathing--torrance roared into it, striking right and left.
at the last moment conrad turned aside. he had an idea that the impression on the warring elements would be increased by separate attacks. from another angle, therefore, silently and recklessly he fought his way into the mob. he had no thought of defence--merely slugged, trusting to the surprise and speed of his attack to protect him.
five convulsed faces had fallen before the fury of torrance's assault before there was resistance. the first threatening arm he seized in relentless clutch, flinging back over his head the knife it held. then a hungarian, saved from a swinging club by torrance's quick blow, recognised only another foe and lunged with a knife. the contractor kicked him out of the fray and went on.
in the meantime conrad was realising his mistake in dividing forces. the mob was quieting a little, it was true, but it was the comparative calm only of discovering new foes. torrance, ten yards away, was battling like a madman, but now advance was hopelessly blocked by weight of numbers and concentrated resistance. two dozen bohunks, lost now to any ordinary sense of peril, were bent on paying off old scores. conrad began seriously to fight his way over to torrance.
across the crowd he could see koppy making headway at last, and he vaguely wondered why. a face loomed before him, and he struck into it viciously. it dropped away, but a shooting pain across his scalp warned him that he was cut; a moving spot of warm moisture on the back of his neck located a small stream of blood.
the maddest fury of the fight seemed to have waned, yet conrad knew that the danger to him and torrance had increased. italian and hungarian, pole and swede, had forgotten their race feud in the greater hatred of their bosses. the noise, so hideous and snarling when they arrived, was stilled in unity of purpose.
many had retired, some to nurse their wounds, others not yet blind enough to custom to ignore authority. those who remained knew what they were doing. murder was in their eyes.
through a temporary opening in his own group conrad caught torrance's eye, anxious and a little uncertain. the foreman made a peremptory movement of his head urging retreat--for torrance. if one of them could get away for a rifle! at that instant he ducked to avoid a side attack, and torrance saw the blood on his neck. with a bellow the contractor charged through.
"back to back!" he shouted, and lashed out sideways with one foot at a fresh onset against the tiring foreman. conrad smiled. he was feeling the strain--had been for minutes--but torrance's arrival lent him fresh strength. back to back they continued the losing struggle.
a gleam of light darted on conrad's right, and he knew he could not avoid it. but suddenly the knife dropped, and the one who had wielded it grabbed his wrist with the other hand. the foreman dare not look to see what had happened, but he was aware of a sudden thinning in the crowd of spectators.
a lumbering pole, his club knocked away by an unexpected blow from torrance, leaped furiously on the contractor. the latter turned his back to receive the shock, at the same time ducking forward. the pole's legs shot into the air before conrad's eyes--a shriek--and a sudden stain of blood on the pant leg. yet no one had touched the place where the blood gushed.
the scene was changing curiously. a score of men still fought to reach their prey, blind and deaf to everything but their own passions; but the great crowd that had made the threat of disaster so ominous had disappeared. one of the mad group about them, teeth bared, was creeping closer to torrance, a long stiletto held aloft. but as it jerked back to strike, the hand that held it opened nervelessly, and a spurt of blood covered the fingers.
many pairs of eyes had been on that stiletto, and when it dropped, bloody and useless, a sudden silence fell. in the midst of it a rifle snapped from the trees behind the camp. an italian, into whose bloodshot eyes a sudden sense of fear was crowding, grabbed his ear and howled. a thin stream of blood trickled down his wrist.
not another blow was struck. it was not the casualties, not alone the sound of the rifle, but rather the uncanny mystery of the hidden marksman and his aim. almost before the two hard-pressed men dare look about them, the river bottom was empty of life, save for themselves and koppy, and two or three delayed by the nature of their wounds.
"right again, adrian," puffed torrance, picking at the torn sleeve of his shirt and feeling himself over gingerly. "i thought they'd got you when i saw that scratch. here, let's look at it."
but even as he reached to conrad's shoulder his interest faded before the marvel of their succour, and he turned to run his eye in a puzzled way along the thin trees of the slope behind the camp.
"by hickory! the horse-thief again! there ain't two can shoot like that." he noticed koppy staring angrily in the same direction. "it sure ain't one of your gang, koppy. that would be one too many."
"no bohunk--no bohunk!" assented the pole, and there was that in his voice boded ill for proof to the contrary. "no bohunk . . . maybe. . . . i don't think."
tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and a small automatic in the other. she saw the blood on adrian's collar and made straight for him. for a moment her father frowned jealously.
"a man brings a daughter into the world," he sulked, "frets and stews and labours over her until she's old enough--to fall in love with some young fellow who never had a moment's worry about her."
"and so it has been since ribs ceased to become women," grinned conrad. "it's only another beauty mark, tressa. it's stopped bleeding already." he turned angrily on koppy. "you saw this fight from the first--"
"i come as soon as i see," protested the pole indignantly.
"you lie! you wanted to see it get beyond us. you thought they'd do for us, didn't you?"
"why do i fight, then?" enquired koppy, with lifted eyebrows.
"heaven only knows," muttered conrad. "but you saw we had 'em licked."
"don't be an ass," chided torrance, his eyes still on the trees. "we can lick four hundred and ninety-five of them, but it was that fellow in there did for the extra five. find him for me, koppy, and i'll put him in your place and kick you to hell."
"if koppy find him, you no need," replied the pole, the expression of his face clearing away the ambiguity of his words. "i find him."
as if in challenge, the unseen rifle replied. koppy leaped aside, stooping to examine a long slit in the side of his high boots.
"i find him," he hissed, shaking his fist at the trees.
torrance chuckled delightedly. "a dandy eye for beauty, that chap has. he seems to like us; i'd hate to have him shooting the boots off me like that."
he started for home, but bethought himself.
"get the wounded rounded up, koppy. nobody dead. just as well. funerals are a nuisance. can't see why a bohunk can't sneak off into the bush and die without any bother. if there's more than one speeder load to lug that seventy-five miles to the hospital, there'll be the devil to pay. you and the cooks have your hands full bandaging the rest of the evening, i guess. come up in an hour and report."
as they toiled up the slope to the trestle torrance broke a long silence.
"in your prayers to-night, tressa, you might put in a word for a mysterious stranger with an eye like an eagle. i think we're going to need him a lot before this job's finished."
