Chapter XI

Jeff rightly felt that his first work in connection with the commission given him was a close scrutiny of Alaskan conditions. He did not care to work in the dark. He felt that a full understanding of the international and local situation was a debt he owed not only to Seward but also to himself; he believed himself, in a sense, a free agent who must act in the end according to his own conscience and wisdom. The first day in Sitka had been enlightening; but he was as yet far from a decision as to his ultimate course.

In the week that followed he spared no pains to dig out the truth. He talked to otter hunters and trappers, to tradesmen and clerks, to members of the clergy and to soldiers of the garrison. He conferred with the officials of the Company; he investigated all rumors dealing with the proposed Russian-British treaty; he tried to learn the people’s real sentiment toward America.

It appeared that some rumor had already got about that the United States was interested in Alaska; but the officials of the monopoly as well as of Hudson’s Bay Company seemed to regard it lightly. They were taking their time over the new treaty; and were probably still haggling over details. The sentiment seemed to be that Russia would make no move to find a purchaser for Alaska at least for some years.

As he was quietly making his investigations, Jeff did not fail to allay suspicions as to his real mission by pretending a great interest in the now abandoned transpacific cable, as well as in certain minor disputes that had come up regarding fishing and trading rights between the people of Washington territory and the Russians. Nor did he hesitate to take part in the gay Sitkan social life.

He found that the days passed quickly and rather pleasantly. He met various of the Russian ladies and was frequently entertained by them; he attended every function of importance at the Governor’s house; and he even had certain pleasant times with Molly. As he still made his quarters on the ship, he saw a great deal of the American girl, and although she was not included in the social life of the post, she was a pleasant companion in his idle hours. They had many a fine walk together along the beach and back into the forest, and she was his companion at the first Indian potlatch he ever attended—given at the shack of a successful Aleut sea otter hunter.

It came about that after the affair was over, the moon beguiled them into a midnight walk along the Kolosh Ryeka trail, across the quaint bridge and up a path leading toward Mt. Verstovia. Almost at once the forest closed around them; and they were hushed and awed by the presence of the giants. There was a magic in the moonlit Northern woods that even the wild creatures seemed to feel; a mystery that mere reason could not reach, a brooding loneliness, the sense of on eternal and secret wisdom. Though they were not unaware of each other, both the man and the girl were busy with dreams.

Because they had entered into the mood of the forest they had no wish to disturb its all-pervading silence, and so they crept softly along the dim trail, their only communion that of their thoughts and spirits. Except for this fact they might have completed their walk and turned back to the ship without the least adventure of any kind. As it was, they came unseen and unheard, and a minor drama that was in progress on the hillside moved on unaware of their nearing presence.

Although Jeff was dreaming his eyes were wide open. Perhaps he knew the old forest maxim that he who will seek will behold wonders surpassing belief; perhaps there was also a warning of impending events in the still, breathless air. He suddenly paused in the trail, and Molly, walking behind him, pressed against his shoulder.

Instantly she saw what had halted him: a momentary silhouette of a man’s form at the brow of a low hill, just above the forks in the trail. Almost at once it faded in the shadows; and although they waited, it did not at once reappear.

This was not just a late traveler from the mountain. His furtive movements indicated that he was lying in ambush beside the trail. Jeff touched Molly’s arm, and together they drew farther into the shadows—waiting for what might transpire.

The girl did not question him with one word. This fact shot home to him with considerable force, intent though he was on the business in hand. She quietly took her place at his side; and altogether seemed to be a full partner in the adventure. All at once he made the surprising discovery that she was somewhat of an asset rather than a liability. He was not obliged to spend part of his energy quieting her or combating her fear; so he knew the considerable relief of putting her entirely out of his mind. He felt free and strangely capable of handling any sort of an emergency.

For some little time nothing whatever happened. The girl breathed softly beside him, and he felt the pleasing touch of her warm shoulder. The longer he waited, the stronger was his sense that they were twain. Whatever the crisis, Molly at least could be counted on to stay out of the way.

“It’s a false alarm, I think,” he whispered. “Did we imagine that figure?”

But it might not be, after all, a false alarm. Presently he heard the distant pat-pat of moccasined feet on the path, and peering intently between the trees, they saw the long shadows of a man moving in jerking motions along one of the side trails toward the forks. What part he had in the hillside drama as yet they did not know; he was making no attempt to walk silently or in any way to conceal his advance. If there were indeed an ambush at the forks of the trail, this man was walking straight into it.

Before Jeff could fully realize this possibility and make any move to warn him, the man had reached a small opening between the trees where a moment before the skulking figure had disappeared. He was in plain sight in the moonlight as he started to walk through. At this instant, the affair lost its commonplace character.

There was a sudden confusion of swiftly moving figures in the small clearing. The foe had not been content with decent odds; not one, but three, sprang from the thickets and fell upon the lone pedestrian.

The rest that Jeff saw, he saw as he ran. He saw that the three men evidently lacked faith in their naked hands to master a lone foe and were chivalrously armed with clubs; and he saw further that the pedestrian, instead of instantly yielding to overwhelming numbers, was putting up the gamest kind of a fight, meanwhile looking for a chance to take to his heels. Jeff saw these things as he ran, and he was not obliged to look back over his shoulder. He was running with the idea of getting into the affair in the shortest possible time.

He felt quite sure that it was none of his concern. He was unarmed except for his cane, he had a lady in his charge, and sooner or later he would meet an unhappy end simply by this sort of interference in other people’s affairs. Nevertheless, it was not in him to stand aside when one fought three. Love of fair play is deeply ingrained in Southern youth—part of the heritage of chivalry that has come straight down to the sons of the Cavaliers—and his legs would have wilted under him had he tried to run away. He was like a war horse who smelled battle from afar, breaking any rein of caution that tried to hold him.

He sprinted up the trail fast as he could go, hoping in his heart that the excitement would not be over before he reached the scene. He forgot his fine clothes, any stateliness that he might have fancied he possessed, and he went eight feet at a jump. His eyes flashed and he brandished his club about his head like a battle-ax.

But there was serious business enough when he charged up into the small clearing. The three men had launched a most brutal and deadly attack; and death might come at the end of it. He was presently aware, now that he came near enough to see plainly, that if his old war gods were not with him still, this adventure on the hillside might easily put an end to him. There was valiant fighting before him if he were to come through.

He realized now that the fight had significance beyond what he had first thought. It was not a mere attack by footpads. The aggressors were evidently desperate, or they would certainly make some effort to flee as he sped among them. Their victim was now shown to be an Indian doubtless on the way home from the native potlatch; certainly not acceptable prey to roadside bandits. The three men were evidently soldiers, as they wore the uniform of the garrison.

Jeff did not for a moment suppose he was interfering in an official arrest. Honorable law enforcement is not carried out on wayside trails in the midnight hours. And there was no time to deliberate further. The nearest of the three men lunged at him as he ran past to give aid to the Indian, and in an instant they were grappling like wrestlers.

The conflict was a desperate one, from the first instant. Jeff’s man was a powerful Russian of about his own age; and the grasp of his strong hand precluded any attempt on the Southerner’s part to use his cane. With his left hand, a fighting tool that seemed of forged steel rather than mortal human flesh, he reached and seized Jeff’s throat.

The latter had cause to remember certain hand-to-hand combats at Five Forks; and an honored foe who had passed whooping into Valhalla from his arms. The sport and the adventure of this present fight on the Kolosh Ryeka trail speedily passed away and left it a grim and terrible business neither pleasant to see nor sweet to know. With the closing of those iron fingers on his windpipe the brawl became literally one of life and death. Jeff forgot how he came there, how it all had happened, and what had been the issues involved, and only remembered he must break this hold or perish.

He did not have any large amount of time. Inability to breathe may be tolerated for a few seconds; but thereafter comes a noticeable slump in one’s prowess, accompanied by acute disorders in all the physical and mental processes. Unlike most things, an enemy’s hold on one’s own throat grows stronger with passing time, simply because of increasing inability to struggle against it. Jeff dropped his cane, and wrenched with both hands at the cruel pinchers which were depriving him of life.

He gave all he had, an amount that was not without honor in the tales that veterans told, and it was just enough. The Russian was forced to let go to save the bones of his wrists and fingers; but the throat skin was flayed off under his raking nails. Jeff’s breath came back in a torturing sob, but his strength came with it; and he met the Russian’s next attack with considerable power.

Bear-like arms encircled him, and with a terrific wrench his foe hurled him to the ground. He wished to have him where, when an opportunity again presented itself, he could hold Jeff’s windpipe undisturbed. In one fight and another throughout his youth Jeff had never met a more satisfactory opponent than this strapping Muscovite, or encountered such ungentle alacrity as this with which he was now laid upon his back. If he lost, at least it would be to some one worthy of his steel.

But he had not lost yet. The fight had just begun. In fact, he had no intention of losing, and he struggled like a demon against his foe’s effort to pin him down. The two of them rolled about on the hill, too intent on the business of fighting even to howl, and though their clothes and skins were torn and their faces battered, at first neither could seem to gain the slightest advantage. The Russian sought in vain for another grip on Jeff’s throat, and the latter, relying on American methods, could not at first break through the foe’s guard to the vulnerable point of his bearded chin.

But now, with the passing moments, a great self-confidence overswept the Rebel. Except for accidents he knew he would surely win. Some toughness that had been put in his frame at birth—perhaps a heritage from frontiersmen ancestors whom he might now, in his little wisdom, be ashamed to claim—had begun to make itself felt, sustaining him through punishment that the Russian could not endure. It was a characteristic American quality; and never did Jeff appreciate it more.

With a strong effort he put his foe beneath him and slowly and patiently began the work necessary to keep him there. His superior stamina was now making itself plainly manifest. The foe struggled desperately and with convulsive strength, but Jeff could not be driven off, nor did his iron hold relax. And now there was but one flaw in his perfect happiness.

As his foe had gone down and Jeff had wheeled up, he had glanced toward the other fighters, and what he saw filled him with concern. It was true that the Indian seemed to be making out fairly well. He was fighting the biggest man of the three—the veritable giant of the lusty trio—but he seemed to be a singularly powerful fellow, and although he was hard pressed Jeff saw in a glance that he was still far from defeat. The thing that now troubled Jeff was not the fate of the savage, but the activities of the third Russian.

Until now he had forgotten about this individual. He had cause to remember an old general’s teachings: not to disregard either wing of the enemy that might be temporarily in the background. This was just what Jeff had done; his strategy had ignored a third of the enemy force. Now the intrusion of this factor might easily turn victory into defeat.

Until a moment ago this man had aided his companion in the combat with the Indian. The battle proving too hot for his liking, he had turned now in search of easier prey. In a little half-glimpse between one blow and another Jeff caught sight of him in the act of circling about through the shadows to attack him from the rear.

He could not get up to meet that attack in the teeth. His man kept him too busy for that. He could not even turn his head to watch. And now he knew that very real terror and most hideous anticipation of cold steel being driven into his back.

All these soldiers were armed with knives and were altogether too fond of using them. Blades were particularly useful in hole-and-corner business of this kind because, unlike a rifle, they struck with the softest kind of a sliding sound. Besides, a man who would leave his companion during a fray to seek other conquests is just the kind to whom stabbing comes natural and easy. Unable to break the hold of his first enemy that now clung desperately to his arms, unable to wheel him over as a shield for his own body, there was nothing for Jeff to do but to pray to his gods of chance and wait for what might befall.

One second passed, then another. Nothing whatever happened except that which had already been happening—the interchange of a few pleasantries between himself and the man on whom he lay. The time lengthened almost to a minute; and instead of a renewed attack with reinforcements on the part of the foe there was only a strange and growing silence. The third Russian did not come in sight; neither was any sound to be heard from him. Nothing remained to believe but that he had had no intention of helping his friend, but that Jeff had seen him in the act of retiring from the company.

Now he had lost his chance. In another instant Jeff would be free to handle him. His first opponent was limp in his arms now, quite unconscious from a short tap which Jeff had dealt him under the curve of his jaw; and although no grave after effects were to be anticipated, he would not be able to resume the fight for some moments at least.

Jeff knocked away his restraining arms and jumped to his feet. He wanted to make sure about the third Russian. And then he uttered a long, tired gasp that was partly wonder and partly a mixture of other emotions too complex to trace.

The man had not gone away, after all. He was lying down. A knife lay near his hand. Jeff had guessed right as to his murderous intentions. The Indian, who had put down his man, walked near and looked him over, discovering at length a slight but evidently effective abrasion on the side of his head. He also would not be himself for some moments to come.

Old generals had taught the young soldier always to keep his eye open for the unexpected, the intruding circumstance that turns the tide of battle. Here it stood, most wonderfully beautiful in the moonlight that streamed down between the trees.

It was Molly; her eyes lustrous with tears, but her capable hand still firmly clasping Jeff’s heavy-handled cane.