"You go outside, Clipper! Watch! Back door—for the love o' God, watch that back door!"
"Listen," grumbled one of the men, "this ain't no way to get him. Damn' place is full uh holes an' shadders. Le's go outside and string around it. Burn the joint. Can't miss him then."
"I want to get my hands on him," muttered Perrine.
"Use yore head—"
"Shut up! This is my party!"
The giant had gone mad. Chaffee's groping arm touched a table in the hallway. There was a piece of Indian pottery on it. Seizing the jar, he bent over the banister and dropped it down. The smash of it on the lower floor, woke their restless guns. Smoke swirled upward; hot profanity beat along the darkness. They were falling flat, overturning chairs and tables for protection.
"That corner—"
"Chaffee—yore dead now!"
Chaffee went on down the upper hall a-tiptoe. A window opened to the roof of the back porch, and he hoped to let himself down quietly and circle around to his horse. But in treading the hall his boots struck a loose board. It sent out a sharp protest, and as he reached the window there seemed to be a general break-up of Perrine's party. The renegades broke in all directions, boots drumming the lower flooring, sounding out of the doors. He debated, trying to catch the meaning of the move. Then he heard a brace of shots cracking from the general direction of the barn. Hard after, Perrine went a-bellowing across the yard.
"He's wiggled clear! He's monkeyin' with our hosses! Clipper—Clipper, where in the name o' Judas are yuh? Nev' mind upstairs—that's just a sound!" The rest of his vast fury rolled out unprintable and blasphemous. Chaffee shook his head, not understanding. He drew the catches of the window and raised it, noise lost in the general racket going on below. He shoved himself through and worked to the edge of the porch roof. Back here was quietness; out front the guns were playing. Looking to the ground from this elevation was like staring into some black pool of water.
"Maybe it's another neat little device of Mr. Perrine's," he said to himself. "He's as crazy as a louse on a hot brick. But I can't be speculatin' all night. Here's a break. Better take it. Now, if they's a man waitin'—"
He dropped and hit the ground on all fours, feeling the impact stabbing his still insecure ankle. So far so good. No gun met him, nobody came catapulting out of the surrounding shadows. He rose and galloped away from the house, hearing the thundering voice of Theodorik Perrine rise and fall from one raging epithet to another. He skirted a shed, reached the corral, and hurried around it. His horse still stood, though restless and circling the reins. Chaffee never gave it a thought; he sprang up and turned the pony. A voice came sibilantly from somewhere.
"Jim."
"Who's that?"
"Mark—Mark Eagle." Horse and rider closed in, came beside Jim. The Indian's arm dropped on Chaffee's shoulder. "I am your friend."
"How in the name of—"
"Let's ride out first."
The pair spurred off, the drum of their ponies bringing Perrine's gang down the yard on the jump. But presently they had become only murmuring figures in the distance. The reports of the shooting were damped. "Better swing," said Chaffee. "They'll be on our heels pretty quick."
"No," said Mark Eagle with the quiet, expressionless manner so characteristic of him. "I drove their horses away before I fired those shots. They will hunt around some while, my friend."
"Now, listen Mark, how did you bust into this?"
"This afternoon I saw you going north. I was hidden in a gully. I have led a solitary life recently, Jim. I have come near nobody. But I saw you and I followed. I know many things—too many things! But I was by the corral when Perrine's outfit opened up. The rest was not hard. I am glad to see you back."
"That goes double," muttered Chaffee. "I owe you somethin', Mark. Blamed if I don't. Well—let's swing around anyhow. I sent word ahead for the old outfit to meet me back there. It's plain they won't. So we'll try Linderman's, which is the alternate rendezvous."
"They will not be at Linderman's," said Mark Eagle, never altering his tones a whit. "They were at Melotte's a little before sundown—part of them. Others are scattered."
"How do you know, Mark? You were on my trail around then."
"I saw Melotte's from a distance at four o'clock. He is building a barn and they are working on it. I saw them."
"They'd still have time to reach Linderman's," insisted Chaffee. "And they wouldn't turn me down. I told Red Corcoran in Bannock City ten days ago to round 'em up."
"Red Corcoran," said Mark softly, "never reached Melotte's, Jim. He is dead—killed eight days ago—up in the bench behind Cherry's horse ranch. I found him, with a bullet in his heart. And I saw a big boot track near by, as big a boot track as you found back on the livery stable."
"Dead!" cried Chaffee, struck clean through by the news. "Red? Why—Perrine killed him?" He sat a long time, staring up to the hidden stars, sad and outraged and remembering the sturdy, reckless courage of the man. "Another fine friend gone. Why was it Jeff Ganashayd didn't mention that when I saw him to-day?"
"Nobody knows but me—and Perrine. It is way back on the bench, Jim. The story was on the ground. Corcoran coming from the low pass—coming from you. And Perrine ran into him. Wasn't it a good chance for Perrine to settle a grudge? I buried Red."
Chaffee's hand rose and fell. "Mark, I wish you'd help me. I wish you'd round up the boys and have them meet me somewhere."
"I will. And the time has come to tell you something else. Light a match."
Chaffee found and struck a match. The light flared on Mark Eagle's rounding coppered cheeks and revealed the smeared paint, revealed as well the blanket enfolding him, the fringed leggings. The Indian drew the blanket open and displayed his bare chest. Then the light went out and Mark Eagle was speaking with a rising sonorousness. "I was raised an Indian till I went to government school. A white man's ways looked good to me. I learned them; I followed them. To be like a white man was to be honorable, to keep a straight tongue. I have kept a straight tongue. But, my friend, it is hard to go against a man's own blood. My heart kept running out even while I turned the pages of the ledgers. And one day after you were gone, when I saw how evil a time had come to Roaring Horse, I went back to the blanket. And now what have I found? That I am no longer an Indian. The blanket is not for me. My heart is divided—and always will be. It is bad. Never should I have left my father for a government school."
He paused a moment, expelling a great breath; and Chaffee thought the Indian was staring at the sky. "I have kept a straight tongue. I am proud of it. But I know things that you should know. And now I will tell. I was back of the stable that night—in the darkness, thinking of my father. Men came there, each one apart. I saw them, but they didn't see me. The gambler came, breathing very hard. Perrine came, swearing to himself—but these men did not kill Satterlee even if they meant to do it. Another man came, hardly breathing at all. And he was there long before any of the others, no more than five yards away from me. He killed Satterlee, Jim. And his heart was very cold and hard when he did it. He had thought about it a long time, or he would have breathed harder. I know these things because that is my blood. I have said nothing all this while. It is not a white man's way to keep a straight tongue—and a still one. Maybe. But it is an Indian's way to help his friends. Is that not a better thing? Satterlee was my friend. So are you. I tell you Woolfridge killed Satterlee."
After that, long moments of silence intervened. Mark Eagle had wrapped himself in his blanket again, stolid, patient. Chaffee drew a breath. The match snapped between his fingers. Out of the distant wastes rose the ancient chant of the coyote, bearing in it the impress of primeval desolation and eternal mystery; and far, far away that cry was taken up and reechoed, indescribably mournful. Chaffee