Part 16

As Buckmaster's figure darkened the doorway Sinnet seemed to waken as from a dream, and he got swiftly to his feet. "Wait--you wait, Buck. You've got to hear all. You haven't heard my story yet. Wait, I tell you."

His voice was so sharp and insistent, so changed, that Buckmaster turned from the doorway and came back into the room.

"What's the use of my hearin'? You want me not to kill Greevy, because of that gal. What's she to me?"

"Nothing to you, Buck, but Clint was everything to her."

The mountaineer stood like one petrified.

"What's that--what's that you say? It's a damn lie!"

"It wasn't cards--the quarrel, not the real quarrel. Greevy found Clint kissing her. Greevy wanted her to marry Gatineau, the lumber-king. That was the quarrel."

A snarl was on the face of Buckmaster. "Then she'll not be sorry when I git him. It took Clint from her as well as from me." He turned to the door again.

"But, wait, Buck, wait one minute and hear--"

He was interrupted by a low, exultant growl, and he saw Buckmaster's rifle clutched as a hunter, stooping, clutches his gun to fire on his prey.

"Quick, the spy-glass!" he flung back at Sinnet. "It's him, but I'll make sure."

Sinnet caught the telescope from the nails where it hung, and looked out toward Juniper Bend. "It's Greevy--and his girl, and the half-breeds," he said, with a note in his voice that almost seemed agitation, and yet few had ever seen Sinnet agitated. "Em'ly must have gone up the trail in the night."

"It's my turn now," the mountaineer said, hoarsely, and, stooping, slid away quickly into the undergrowth.

Sinnet followed, keeping near him, neither speaking. For a half mile they hastened on, and now and then Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked up the valley, to keep Greevy and his bois brûlées in his eye. Just so had he and his son and Sinnet stalked the wapiti and the red deer along these mountains; but this was a man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with none of the joy of the sport which had been his since a lad; only the malice of the avenger. The lust of a mountain feud was on him; he was pursuing the price of blood.

At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. Greevy would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He turned to Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. "You go back," he said. "It's my business. I don't want you to see. You don't want to see, then you won't know, and you won't need to lie. You said that the man that killed Clint ought to die. He's going to die, but it's none o' your business. I want to be alone. In a minute he'll be where I kin git him--plumb. You go, Sinnet--right off. It's my business."

There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet's face; it was as hard as stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them.

"It's my business right enough, Buck," he said, "and you're not going to kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It's broke her heart almost, and there's no use making her an orphan too. She can't stand it. She's had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, let up!" He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the mountaineer was to take aim.

There was a terrible look in Buckmaster's face. He raised his single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might not have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly.

"Git away from here," he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. "Git away quick; he'll be down past here in a minute."

Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster's wrist in a grip like a vise.

"Greevy didn't kill him, Buck," he said. But the mountaineer was gone mad, and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm round the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free Sinnet's hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet's neck. He did not realize what he was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the murderer of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive in him. Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which there was a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther for safety, but no sane man's strength could withstand the demoniacal energy that bent and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then he said, in a hoarse whisper: "Greevy didn't kill him. I killed him, and--"

At that moment he was borne to the ground with a hand on his throat, and an instant after the knife went home.

Buckmaster got to his feet and looked at his victim for an instant, dazed and wild; then he sprang for his gun. As he did so the words that Sinnet had said as they struggled rang in his ears, "Greevy didn't kill him; I killed him!"

He gave a low cry and turned back toward Sinnet, who lay in a pool of blood.

Sinnet was speaking. He went and stooped over him.

"Em'ly threw me over for Clint," the voice said, huskily, "and I followed to have it out with Clint. So did Greevy, but Greevy was drunk. I saw them meet. I was hid. I saw that Clint would kill Greevy, and I fired. I was off my head--I'd never cared for any woman before, and Greevy was her father. Clint was off his head too. He had called me names that day--a cardsharp, and a liar, and a thief, and a skunk, he called me, and I hated him just then. Greevy fired twice--wide. He didn't know but what he killed Clint, but he didn't. I did. So I tried to stop you, Buck--"

Life was going fast, and speech failed him; but he opened his eyes again and whispered: "I didn't want to die, Buck. I am only thirty-five, and it's too soon; but it had to be. Don't look that way, Buck. You got the man that killed him--plumb. But Em'ly didn't play fair with me--made a fool of me, the only time in my life I ever cared for a woman. You leave Greevy alone, Buck, and tell Em'ly for me I wouldn't let you kill her father."

"You--Sinnet--you, you done it! Why, he'd have fought for you. You--done it--to him--to Clint!"