The Strength of Men

The Strength of Men

There was the scent of battle in the air. The whole of Porcupine City
knew that it was coming, and every man and woman in its two hundred
population held their breath in anticipation of the struggle between two
men for a fortune--and a girl. For in some mysterious manner rumor of the
girl had got abroad, passing from lip to lip, until even the children
knew that there was some other thing than gold that would play a part in
the fight between Clarry O'Grady and Jan Larose. On the surface it was
not scheduled to be a fight with fists or guns. But in Porcupine City
there were a few who knew the "inner story"--the story of the girl, as
well as the gold, and those among them who feared the law would have
arbitrated in a different manner for the two men if it had been in their
power. But law is law, and the code was the code. There was no
alternative. It was an unusual situation, and yet apparently simple of
solution. Eighty miles north, as the canoe was driven, young Jan Larose
had one day staked out a rich "find" at the headwaters of Pelican Creek.
The same day, but later, Clarry O'Grady had driven his stakes beside
Jan's. It had been a race to the mining recorder's office, and they had
come in neck and neck. Popular sentiment favored Larose, the slim, quiet,
dark-eyed half Frenchman. But there was the law, which had no sentiment.
The recorder had sent an agent north to investigate. If there were two
sets of stakes there could be but one verdict. Both claims would be
thrown out, and then--

All knew what would happen, or thought that they knew. It would be a
magnificent race to see who could set out fresh stakes and return to the
recorder's office ahead of the other. It would be a fight of brawn and
brain, unless--and those few who knew the "inner story" spoke softly
among themselves.

An ox in strength, gigantic in build, with a face that for days had worn
a sneering smile of triumph, O'Grady was already picked as a ten-to-one
winner. He was a magnificent canoeman, no man in Porcupine City could
equal him for endurance, and for his bow paddle he had the best Indian in
the whole Reindeer Lake country. He stalked up and down the one street of
Porcupine City, treating to drinks, cracking rough jokes, and offering
wagers, while Jan Larose and his long-armed Cree sat quietly in the shade
of the recorder's office waiting for the final moment to come.

There were a few of those who knew the "inner story" who saw something
besides resignation and despair in Jan's quiet aloofness, and in the
disconsolate droop of his head. His face turned a shade whiter when
O'Grady passed near, dropping insult and taunt, and looking sidewise at
him in a way that only HE could understand. But he made no retort, though
his dark eyes glowed with a fire that never quite died--unless it was
when, alone and unobserved, he took from his pocket a bit of buckskin in
which was a silken tress of curling brown hair. Then his eyes shone with
a light that was soft and luminous, and one seeing him then would have
known that it was not a dream of gold that filled his heart, but of a
brown-haired girl who had broken it.

On this day, the forenoon of the sixth since the agent had departed into
the north, the end of the tense period of waiting was expected. Porcupine
City had almost ceased to carry on the daily monotony of business. A
score were lounging about the recorder's office. Women looked forth at
frequent intervals through the open doors of the "city's" cabins, or
gathered in two and threes to discuss this biggest sporting event ever
known in the history of the town. Not a minute but scores of anxious eyes
were turned searchingly up the river, down which the returning agent's
canoe would first appear. With the dawn of this day O'Grady had refused
to drink. He was stripped to the waist. His laugh was louder. Hatred as
well as triumph glittered in his eyes, for to-day Jan Larose looked him
coolly and squarely in the face, and nodded whenever he passed. It was
almost noon when Jan spoke a few low words to his watchful Indian and
walked to the top of the cedar-capped ridge that sheltered Porcupine City
from the north winds.

From this ridge he could look straight into the north--the north where he
was born. Only the Cree knew that for five nights he had slept, or sat
awake, on the top of this ridge, with his face turned toward the polar
star, and his heart breaking with loneliness and grief. Up there, far
beyond where the green-topped forests and the sky seemed to meet, he
could see a little cabin nestling under the stars--and Marie. Always his
mind traveled back to the beginning of things, no matter how hard he
tried to forget--even to the old days of years and years ago when he had
toted the little Marie around on his back, and had crumpled her brown
curls, and had revealed to her one by one the marvelous mysteries of the
wilderness, with never a thought of the wonderful love that was to come.
A half frozen little outcast brought in from the deep snows one day by
Marie's father, he became first her playmate and brother--and after that
lived in a few swift years of paradise and dreams. For Marie he had made
of himself what he was. He had gone to Montreal. He had learned to read
and write, he worked for the Company, he came to know the outside world,
and at last the Government employed him. This was a triumph. He could
still see the glow of pride and love in Marie's beautiful eyes when he
came home after those two years in the great city. The Government sent
for him each autumn after that. Deep into the wilderness he led the men
who made the red and black lined maps. It was he who blazed out the
northern limit of Banksian pine, and his name was in Government reports
down in black and white--so that Marie and all the world could read.

One day he came back--and he found Clarry O'Grady at the Cummins' cabin.
He had been there for a month with a broken leg. Perhaps it was the
dangerous knowledge of the power of her beauty--the woman's instinct in
her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with
O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with fire--the fire
of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after
that. There came the day when, in fair fight, he choked the taunting
sneer from O'Grady's face back in the woods. He fought like a tiger, a
mad demon. No one ever knew of that fight. And with the demon still
raging in his breast he faced the girl. He could never quite remember
what he had said. But it was terrible--and came straight from his soul.
Then he went out, leaving Marie standing there white and silent. He did
not go back. He had sworn never to do that, and during the weeks that
followed it spread about that Marie Cummins had turned down Jan Larose,
and that Clarry O'Grady was now the lucky man. It was one of the
unexplained tricks of fate that had brought them together, and had set
their discovery stakes side by side on Pelican Creek.

To-day, in spite of his smiling coolness, Jan's heart rankled with a
bitterness that seemed to be concentrated of all the dregs that had ever
entered into his life. It poisoned him, heart and soul. He was not a
coward. He was not afraid of O'Grady.

And yet he knew that fate had already played the cards against him. He
would lose. He was almost confident of that, even while he nerved himself
to fight. There was the drop of savage superstition in him, and he told
himself that something would happen to beat him out. O'Grady had gone
into the home that was almost his own and had robbed him of Marie. In
that fight in the forest he should have killed him. That would have been
justice, as he knew it. But he had relented, half for Marie's sake, and
half because he hated to take a human life, even though it were
O'Grady's. But this time there would be no relenting. He had come alone
to the top of the ridge to settle the last doubts with himself. Whoever
won out, there would be a fight. It would be a magnificent fight, like
that which his grandfather had fought and won for the honor of a woman
years and years ago. He was even glad that O'Grady was trying to rob him
of what he had searched for and found. There would be twice the justice
in killing him now. And it would be done fairly, as his grandfather had
done it.

Suddenly there came a piercing shout from the direction of the river,
followed by a wild call for him through Jackpine's moose-horn. He
answered the Cree's signal with a yell and tore down through the bush.
When he reached the foot of the ridge at the edge of the clearing he saw
the men, women and children of Porcupine City running to the river. In
front of the recorder's office stood Jackpine, bellowing through his
horn. O'Grady and his Indian were already shoving their canoe out into
the stream, and even as he looked there came a break in the line of
excited spectators, and through it hurried the agent toward the
recorder's cabin.

Side by side, Jan and his Indian ran to their canoe. Jackpine was
stripped to the waist, like O'Grady and his Chippewayan. Jan threw off
only his caribou-skin coat. His dark woolen shirt was sleeveless, and his
long slim arms, as hard as ribbed steel, were free. Half the crowd
followed him. He smiled, and waved his hand, the dark pupils of his eyes
shining big and black. Their canoe shot out until it was within a dozen
yards of the other, and those ashore saw him laugh into O'Grady's sullen,
set face. He was cool. Between smiling lips his white teeth gleamed, and
the women stared with brighter eyes and flushed cheeks, wondering how
Marie Cummins could have given up this man for the giant hulk and
drink-reddened face of his rival. Those among the men who had wagered
heavily against him felt a misgiving. There was something in Jan's smile
that was more than coolness, and it was not bravado. Even as he smiled
ashore, and spoke in low Cree to Jackpine, he felt at the belt that he
had hidden under the caribou-skin coat. There were two sheaths there, and
two knives, exactly alike. It was thus that his grandfather had set forth
one summer day to avenge a wrong, nearly seventy years before.

The agent had entered the cabin, and now he reappeared, wiping his
sweating face with a big red handkerchief. The recorder followed. He
paused at the edge of the stream and made a megaphone of his hands.

"Gentlemen," he cried raucously, "both claims have been thrown out!"

A wild yell came from O'Grady. In a single flash four paddles struck the
water, and the two canoes shot bow and bow up the stream toward the lake
above the bend. The crowd ran even with them until the low swamp at the
lake's edge stopped them. In that distance neither had gained a yard
advantage. But there was a curious change of sentiment among those who
returned to Porcupine City. That night betting was no longer two and
three to one on O'Grady. It was even money.

For the last thing that the men of Porcupine City had seen was that cold,
quiet smile of Jan Larose, the gleam of his teeth, the something in his
eyes that is more to be feared among men than bluster and brute strength.
They laid it to confidence. None guessed that this race held for Jan no
thought of the gold at the end. None guessed that he was following out
the working of a code as old as the name of his race in the north.

As the canoes entered the lake the smile left Jan's face. His lips
tightened until they were almost a straight line. His eyes grew darker,
his breath came more quickly. For a little while O'Grady's canoe drew
steadily ahead of them, and when Jackpine's strokes went deeper and more
powerful Jan spoke to him in Cree, and guided the canoe so that it cut
straight as an arrow in O'Grady's wake. There was an advantage in that.
It was small, but Jan counted on the cumulative results of good
generalship.

His eyes never for an instant left O'Grady's huge, naked back. Between
his knees lay his .303 rifle. He had figured on the fraction of time it
would take him to drop his paddle, pick up the gun, and fire. This was
his second point in generalship--getting the drop on O'Grady.

Once or twice in the first half hour O'Grady glanced back over his
shoulder, and it was Jan who now laughed tauntingly at the other. There
was something in that laugh that sent a chill through O'Grady. It was as
hard as steel, a sort of madman's laugh.

It was seven miles to the first portage, and there were nine in the
eighty-mile stretch. O'Grady and his Chippewayan were a hundred yards
ahead when the prow of their canoe touched shore. They were a hundred and
fifty ahead when both canoes were once more in the water on the other
side of the portage, and O'Grady sent back a hoarse shout of triumph. Jan
hunched himself a little lower. He spoke to Jackpine--and the race began.
Swifter and swifter the canoes cut through the water. From five miles an
hour to six, from six to six and a half--seven--seven and a quarter, and
then the strain told. A paddle snapped in O'Grady's hands with a sound
like a pistol shot. A dozen seconds were lost while he snatched up a new
paddle and caught the Chippewayan's stroke, and Jan swung close into
their wake again. At the end of the fifteenth mile, where the second
portage began, O'Grady was two hundred yards in the lead. He gained
another twenty on the portage and with a breath that was coming now in
sobbing swiftness Jan put every ounce of strength behind the thrust of
his paddle. Slowly they gained. Foot by foot, yard by yard, until for a
third time they cut into O'Grady's wake. A dull pain crept into Jan's
back. He felt it slowly creeping into his shoulders and to his arms. He
looked at Jackpine and saw that he was swinging his body more and more
with the motion of his arms. And then he saw that the terrific pace set
by O'Grady was beginning to tell on the occupants of the canoe ahead. The
speed grew less and less, until it was no more than seventy yards. In
spite of the pains that were eating at his strength like swimmer's cramp,
Jan could not restrain a low cry of exultation. O'Grady had planned to
beat him out in that first twenty-mile spurt. And he had failed! His
heart leaped with new hope even while his strokes were growing weaker.

Ahead of them, at the far end of the lake, there loomed up the black
spruce timber which marked the beginning of the third portage, thirty
miles from Porcupine City. Jan knew that he would win there--that he
would gain an eighth of a mile in the half-mile carry. He knew of a
shorter cut than that of the regular trail. He had cleared it himself,
for he had spent a whole winter on that portage trapping lynx.

Marie lived only twelve miles beyond. More than once Marie had gone with
him over the old trap line. She had helped him to plan the little log
cabin he had built for himself on the edge of the big swamp, hidden away
from all but themselves. It was she who had put the red paper curtains
over the windows, and who, one day, had written on the corner of one of
them: "My beloved Jan." He forgot O'Grady as he thought of Marie and
those old days of happiness and hope. It was Jackpine who recalled him at
last to what was happening. In amazement he saw that O'Grady and his
Chippewayan had ceased paddling. They passed a dozen yards abreast of
them. O'Grady's great arms and shoulders were glistening with
perspiration. His face was purplish. In his eyes and on his lips was the
old taunting sneer. He was panting like a wind-broken animal. As Jan
passed he uttered no word.

An eighth of a mile ahead was the point where the regular portage began,
but Jan swung around this into a shallow inlet from which his own secret
trail was cut. Not until he was ashore did he look back. O'Grady and his
Indian were paddling in a leisurely manner toward the head of the point.
For a moment it looked as though they had given up the race, and Jan's
heart leaped exultantly. O'Grady saw him and waved his hand. Then he
jumped out to his knees in the water and the Chippewayan followed him. He
shouted to Jan, and pointed down at the canoe. The next instant, with a
powerful shove, he sent the empty birchbark speeding far out into the
open water.

Jan caught his breath. He heard Jackpine's cry of amazement behind him.
Then he saw the two men start on a swift run over the portage trail, and
with a fierce, terrible cry he sprang toward his rifle, which he had
leaned against a tree.

In that moment he would have fired, but O'Grady and the Indian had
disappeared into the timber. He understood--O'Grady had tricked him, as
he had tricked him in other ways. He had a second canoe waiting for him
at the end of the portage, and perhaps others farther on. It was unfair.
He could still hear O'Grady's taunting laughter as it had rung out in
Porcupine City, and the mystery of it was solved. His blood grew hot--so
hot that his eyes burned, and his breath seemed to parch his lips. In
that short space in which he stood paralyzed and unable to act his brain
blazed like a volcano. Who--was helping O'Grady by having a canoe ready
for him at the other side of the portage? He knew that no man had gone
North from Porcupine City during those tense days of waiting. The code
which all understood had prohibited that. Who, then, could it be?--who
but Marie herself! In some way O'Grady had got word to her, and it was
the Cummins' canoe that was waiting for him!

With a strange cry Jan lifted the bow of the canoe to his shoulder and
led Jackpine in a run. His strength had returned. He did not feel the
whiplike sting of boughs that struck him across the face. He scarcely
looked at the little cabin of logs when they passed it. Deep down in his
heart he called upon the Virgin to curse those two--Marie Cummins and
Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out
of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now
through perfidy and trickery.

His face and his hands were scratched and bleeding when they came to the
narrow waterway, half lake and half river, which let into the Blind Loon.
Another minute and they were racing again through the water. From the
mouth of the channel he saw O'Grady and the Chippewayan a quarter of a
mile ahead. Five miles beyond them was the fourth portage. It was hidden
now by a thick pall of smoke rising slowly into the clear sky. Neither
Jan nor the Indian had caught the pungent odors of burning forests in the
air, and they knew that it was a fresh fire. Never in the years that Jan
could remember had that portage been afire, and he wondered if this was
another trick of O'Grady's. The fire spread rapidly as they advanced. It
burst forth in a dozen places along the shore of the lake, sending up
huge volumes of black smoke riven by lurid tongues of flame. O'Grady and
his canoe became less and less distinct. Finally they disappeared
entirely in the lowering clouds of the conflagration. Jan's eyes searched
the water as they approached shore, and at last he saw what he had
expected to find--O'Grady's empty canoe drifting slowly away from the
beach. O'Grady and the Chippewayan were gone.

Over that half-mile portage Jan staggered with his eyes half closed and
his breath coming in gasps. The smoke blinded him, and at times the heat
of the fire scorched his face. In several places it had crossed the
trail, and the hot embers burned through their moccasins. Once Jackpine
uttered a cry of pain. But Jan's lips were set. Then, above the roar of
the flames sweeping down upon the right of them, he caught the low
thunder of Dead Man's Whirlpool and the cataract that had made the
portage necessary. From the heated earth their feet came to a narrow
ledge of rock, worn smooth by the furred and moccasined tread of
centuries, with the chasm on one side of them and a wall of rock on the
other. Along the crest of that wall, a hundred feet above them, the fire
swept in a tornado of flame and smoke. A tree crashed behind them, a
dozen seconds too late. Then the trail widened and sloped down into the
dip that ended the portage. For an instant Jan paused to get his bearing,
and behind him Jackpine shouted a warning.

Up out of the smoldering oven where O'Grady should have found his canoe
two men were rushing toward them. They were O'Grady and the Chippewayan.
He caught the gleam of a knife in the Indian's hand. In O'Grady's there
was something larger and darker--a club, and Jan dropped his end of the
canoe with a glad cry, and drew one of the knives from his belt. Jackpine
came to his side, with his hunting knife in his hand, measuring with
glittering eyes the oncoming foe of his race--the Chippewayan.

And Jan laughed softly to himself, and his teeth gleamed again, for at
last fate was playing his game. The fire had burned O'Grady's canoe, and
it was to rob him of his own canoe that O'Grady was coming to fight. A
canoe! He laughed again, while the fire roared over his head and the
whirlpool thundered at his feet. O'Grady would fight for a canoe--for
gold--while he--HE--would fight for something else, for the vengeance of
a man whose soul and honor had been sold. He cared nothing for the canoe.
He cared nothing for the gold. He told himself, in this one tense moment
of waiting, that he cared no longer for Marie. It was the fulfillment of
the code.

He was still smiling when O'Grady was so near that he could see the red
glare in his eyes. There was no word, no shout, no sound of fury or
defiance as the two men stood for an instant just out of striking
distance. Jan heard the coming together of Jackpine and the Chippewayan.
He heard them straggling, but not the flicker of an eyelash did his gaze
leave O'Grady's face. Both men understood. This time had to come. Both
had expected it, even from that day of the fight in the woods when
fortune had favored Jan. The burned canoe had only hastened the hour a
little. Suddenly Jan's free hand reached behind him to his belt. He drew
forth the second knife and tossed it at O'Grady's feet.

O'Grady made a movement to pick it up, and then, while Jan was partly off
his guard, came at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was his
catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the great northern loon that
evades a rifle ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It saved
him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried by the
momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the full force
of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife swept in an
upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's
forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and the two crashed
to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack that Jan had feared
and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like squirming movement he swung
himself half free, and on his back, with O'Grady's huge hands linking at
his throat, he drew back his knife arm for the fatal plunge.

In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in
the time, his eyes took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace.
All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the roused-up
hatred that fired them now in their desire to kill. They had drawn close
to the edge of the chasm. Under them the thundering roar of the whirlpool
was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning surge of the
flames far over their heads. Even as Jan stared horror-stricken in that
one moment, they locked at the edge of the chasm. Above the tumult of the
flood below and the fire above there rose a wild yell, and the two
plunged down into the abyss, locked and fighting even as they fell in a
twisting, formless shape to the death below.

It happened in an instant--like the flash of a quick picture on a
screen--and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible face, his
hand drove eight inches of steel toward O'Grady's body. The blade struck
something hard--something that was neither bone nor flesh, and he drew
back again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on O'Grady's belt.
This time--

A sudden hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not
strike--but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the
fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the
mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from
under a weight that was not O'Grady's--a weight that stifled the breath
in his lungs, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his face and his
hands, and was burning out his eyes. A shriek rang in his ears unlike any
other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was O'Grady's. He
pulled himself out, foot by foot, until fresher air struck his nostrils,
and dragged himself nearer and nearer to the edge of the chasm. He could
not rise. His limbs were paralyzed. His knife arm dragged at his side. He
opened his eyes and found that he could see. Where they had fought was
the smoldering ruin of a great tree, and standing out of the ruin of that
tree, half naked, his hands tearing wildly at his face, was O'Grady.
Jan's fingers clutched at a small rock. He called out, but there was no
meaning to the sound he made. Clarry O'Grady threw out his great arms.

"Jan--Jan Larose--" he cried. "My God, don't strike now! I'm
blind--blind--"

He staggered back, as if expecting a blow. "Don't strike!" he almost
shrieked. "Mother of Heaven--my eyes are burned out--I'm blind--blind--"

He backed to the wall, his huge form crouched, his hands reaching out as
if to ward off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the effort brought a
groan of agony to his lips. A second crash filled his ears as a second
avalanche of fiery debris plunged down upon the trail farther back. He
stared straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues of flame
were leaping over the wall of the mountain where the edge of the forest
was enveloped in a sea of twisting and seething fire. It was only a
matter of minutes--perhaps seconds. Death had them both in its grip.

He looked again at O'Grady, and there was no longer the desire for the
other's life in his heart. He could see that the giant was unharmed,
except for his eyes.

"Listen, O'Grady," he cried. "My legs are broken, I guess, and I can't
move. It's sure death to stay here another minute. You can get away.
Follow the wall--to your right. The slope is still free of fire,
and--and--"

O'Grady began to move, guiding himself slowly along the wall. Then,
suddenly, he stopped.

"Jan Larose--you say you can't move?" he shouted.

"Yes."

Slowly O'Grady turned and came gropingly toward the sound of Jan's voice.
Jan held tight to the rock that he had gripped in his left hand. Was it
possible that O'Grady would kill him now, stricken as he was? He tried to
drag himself to a new position, but his effort was futile.

"Jan! Jan Larose!" called O'Grady, stopping to listen.

Jan held his breath. Then the truth seemed to dawn upon O'Grady. He
laughed, differently than he had laughed before, and stretched out his
arms.

"My God, Jan," he cried, "you don't think I'm clean BEAST, do you? The
fight's over, man, an' I guess God A'mighty brought this on us to show
what fools we was. Where are y', Jan Larose? I'm goin' t' carry you out!"

"I'm here!" called Jan.

He could see truth and fearlessness in O'Grady's sightless face, and he
guided him without fear. Their hands met. Then O'Grady lowered himself
and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have lifted a boy.
He straightened himself and drew a deep breath, broken by a stabbing
throb of pain.

"I'm blind an' I won't see any more," he said, "an' mebbe you won't ever
walk any more. But if we ever git to that gold I kin do the work and you
kin show me how. Now--p'int out the way, Jan Larose!"

With his arms clasped about O'Grady's naked shoulders, Jan's smarting
eyes searched through the thickening smother of fire and smoke for a road
that the other's feet might tread. He shouted
"Left"--"right"--"right"--"right"--"left" into this blind companion's
ears until they touched the wall. As the heat smote them more fiercely,
O'Grady bowed his great head upon his chest and obeyed mutely the signals
that rang in his ears. The bottoms of his moccasins were burned from his
feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his broad chest was a fiery blister,
and yet he strode on straight into the face of still greater heat and
greater torture, uttering no sound that could be heard above the steady
roar of the flames. And Jan, limp and helpless on his back, felt then the
throb and pulse of a giant life under him, the straining of thick neck,
of massive shoulders and the grip of powerful arms whose strength told
him that at last he had found the comrade and the man in Clarry O'Grady.
"Right"--"left"--"left"--"right" he shouted, and then he called for
O'Grady to stop in a voice that was shrill with warning.

"There's fire ahead," he yelled. "We can't follow the wall any longer.
There's an open space close to the chasm. We can make that, but there's
only about a yard to spare. Take short steps--one step each time I tell
you. Now--left--left--left--left--"

Like a soldier on drill, O'Grady kept time with his scorched feet until
Jan turned him again to face the storm of fire, while one of his own
broken legs dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the
Chippewayan had plunged to their death. Behind them, almost where they
had fought, there crashed down a third avalanche from the edge of the
mountain. Not a shiver ran through O'Grady's great body. Steadily and
unflinchingly--step--step--step--he went ahead, while the last threads of
his moccasins smoked and burned. Jan could no longer see half a dozen
yards in advance. A wall of black smoke rose in their faces, and he
pulled O'Grady's ear:

"We've got just one chance, Clarry. I can't see any more. Keep straight
ahead--and run for it, and may the good God help us now!"

And Clarry O'Grady, drawing one great breath that was half fire into his
lungs, ran straight into the face of what looked like death to Jan
Larose. In that one moment Jan closed his eyes and waited for the plunge
over the cliff. But in place of death a sweep of air that seemed almost
cold struck his face, and he opened his eyes to find the clear and
uncharred slope leading before them down to the edge of the lake. He
shouted the news into O'Grady's ear, and then there arose from O'Grady's
chest a great sobbing cry, partly of joy, partly of pain, and more than
all else of that terrible grief which came of the knowledge that back in
the pit of death from which he had escaped he had left forever the vision
of life itself. He dropped Jan in the edge of the water, and, plunging in
to his waist, he threw handful after handful of water into his own
swollen face, and then stared upward, as though this last experiment was
also his last hope.

"My God, I'm blind--stone blind!"

Jan was staring hard into O'Grady's face. He called him nearer, took the
swollen and blackened face between his two hands, and his voice was
trembling with joy when he spoke.

"You're not blind--not for good--O'Grady," he said. "I've seen men like
you before--twice. You--you'll get well. O'Grady--Clarry O'Grady--let's
shake! I'm a brother to you from this day on. And I'm glad--glad--that
Marie loves a man like you!"

O'Grady had gripped his hand, but he dropped it now as though it had been
one of the live brands that had hurtled down upon them from the top of
the mountain.

"Marie--man--why--she HATES me!" he cried. "It's you--YOU--Jan Larose,
that she loves! I went there with a broken leg, an' I fell in love with
her. But she wouldn't so much as let me touch her hand, an' she talked of
you--always--always--until I had learned to hate you before you came. I
dunno why she did it--that other thing--unless it was to make you
jealous. I guess it was all f'r fun, Jan. She didn't know. The day you
went away she sent me after you. But I hated you--hated you worse'n she
hated me. It's you--you--"

He clutched his hands at his sightless face again, and suddenly Jan gave
a wild shout. Creeping around the edge of a smoking headland, he had
caught sight of a man and a canoe.

"There's a man in a canoe!" he cried, "He sees us! O'Grady--"

He tried to lift himself, but fell back with a groan. Then he laughed,
and, in spite of his agony, there was a quivering happiness in his voice.

"He's coming, O'Grady. And it looks--it looks like a canoe we both know.
We'll go back to her cabin together, O'Grady. And when we're on our legs
again--well, I never wanted the gold. That's yours--all of it."

A determined look had settled in O'Grady's face. He groped his way to
Jan's side, and their hands met in a clasp that told more than either
could have expressed of the brotherhood and strength of men.

"You can't throw me off like that, Jan Larose," he said. "We're
pardners!"

-THE END-
James Oliver Curwood's short story: The Strength of Men

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