“What!” roared Jack.
“I know. Sounds queer. And she’d be mighty mad! But I can’t get along very well carrying this lie on my shoulders, Jack. I don’t feel no ways nacheral.”
“Listen to me,” said Trainor solemnly. “If she finds out about this, she’ll be through with you for good. You think that the lie is a terrible thing to her. I don’t agree with you. She sort of would admire a man with the brains to get away with a good lie once in a while. And I don’t think that she’d be any too much shocked if she knew that you’d told something that wasn’t true but had had the brains to cover it up pretty well. It’d open up a new side of you to her. And, Joe, what she’s looking for, it seems to me, is excitement.”
“And that’s where she’ll find me out,” said the unfortunate trapper. “I can never keep her entertained.”
“I dunno,” answered Jack. “Seems to me that you’ve made a pretty good start.” He grinned as he spoke. “Haines is the rat that we’ve got to watch,” he went on, “or he’ll gnaw a hole in the ship and sink you before you know it.”
“Aye, he hates me,” said Joe, “I could see that.”
“That ain’t the important thing. The important thing is that he loves Alice. And he’d sell his soul to spoil your chances with her.”
“If he should do that,” said the trapper slowly, “I would kill him, Jack, I’m afraid.”
That quietly spoken sentence stayed in the ear of Trainor with a strange ring. It was as though the threat had been spoken to him in person. It showed him, in a glimpse, other and unexpected depths in the nature of the giant. And the ability to hate profoundly was apparently one of these.
At the supper table that night, Trainor found that the girl’s family was hardly distinguishable from many families that he had known in his own country. A sort of happy-go-lucky carelessness pervaded the talk and the manners. The talk this evening, of course, turned very largely upon Joe and his experiences during the winter. Most of all, the questions were directed toward the strange Russian who had appeared in the storm. But upon this one subject, strangely, Joe was very reticent, not as though reluctant to talk about the Russian, but as though the subject wearied him.
The meal was concluded happily enough, then Jack started for his hotel, and Joe walked part of the way with him.
“Tonight,” said Trainor as they went down the quiet street with the dim sounds of voices coming from the houses on either side, “Joe, I’ve got to get under way. I’ve got to leave town.”
“Tonight?” protested Joe eagerly. “But you can’t do that, partner. I can’t let you. You haven’t had a chance to get to know folks. You haven’t had a chance to get to know Alice.”
“I’ve seen enough of her,” said Jack with a peculiar heaviness of voice that caused the other to look at him in amazement. “I’ve seen enough,” he went on, qualifying his statement, “so’s I can get a good picture of her when I’ve gone along. I know how happy you’ll be with her, partner.”
At this, Joe clapped him on the shoulder. Still he could not understand the purpose of Jack in leaving at once.
“It’s Haines,” explained Jack. “It’s Haines that bothers me. I can’t get him out of my head.”
“Haines? I thought he was perfectly quiet.”
“That’s it. Too quiet. He bothers me for that reason. He’s got some plan in his head, and, when that plan begins to take shape, I think it’d be better for me to be out of town. I know too much. He’s liable, some way, to corner you about me. Better for me to be gone, son.”
Joe Bigot nodded. “He’s a bad one,” he admitted. “But you’ll come back, Jack?”
“Sure,” lied Trainor. “I’ll be back. Keep a thought for me, Joe.”
“I’ll never forget you,” said Joe Bigot simply. “I’ll think of you every minute of my life. And if I marry Alice, I’ll know that it’s been on account of you. But still, it looks as though I’m getting something I don’t deserve.”
And with that he turned and went slowly up the street.
Chapter 9
To Jack Trainor, following with his eyes as the gigantic trapper swung down the street, it seemed that he was watching Joe Bigot march ahead to a great happiness, the greatest that had come to any man he had ever known. For himself, he felt that he was doing the only honorable thing in leaving the town and leaving it forever. It was not Haines. Haines was only a partial reason, although a strong reason, at that. But the real impulse came from the thought that he must not see too much of the girl. She was too beautiful for him to feel safe. He could not trust himself. There was a dash of headlong recklessness in his nature that had not been checked by the freedom of his life during the past few months, and that recklessness was tingling in his soul now. He knew that, given a fair opportunity, he would be swept off his feet.
It was this knowledge that made him go. But, in obeying all that was best in his heart, he was gloomy indeed as he turned around and faced the little shack of a building that did duty as a hotel in the little town. He had not yet reached the doorway of the small building when a hand was laid gently upon his shoulder. He whirled like a shot and found himself looking into the face of no other person than Larry Haines himself.
Larry Haines had apparently recovered from his deep gloom.
“I’ve a story to tell you,” he said, “and there’s such a laugh to it that I guess you’ll forgive me for stopping you in the street with it.”
“Go ahead,” answered Jack, and waited uneasily. On the whole, he felt that he would have preferred frowns or even open threats to this continual smiling.
“Well,” said Larry, “I’d better put it up to you to decide for yourself. When a bear goes off and starts barking like a fox, is it reasonable to suppose that he has actually turned into a fox, or sha’n’t we conclude that there is a fox at hand doing the barking for him?”
“I don’t get the drift of that,” said Trainor coldly.
“I didn’t think you would. But you’ll get a laugh out of it by tomorrow at the latest.”
There was such an open and defiant insolence under this apparent good nature that Trainor saw the other was simply aching for a fight and was perfectly confident of his ability to end the battle in his favor. It brought a flush into the head of Jack. Never in his life—and he had done many a deed of violence in his time—had he been so desirous of annihilating a man root and branch. But two things held him back. The first was a sudden knowledge sweeping over him that poor Joe Bigot would never get married to Alice Cary so long as this cunning devil was around to interfere. The second, speaking very frankly, was a decided doubt as to his ability to cope with Haines. He decided that he must not venture a battle until his back was against the wall. But first of all, he must find out what Haines knew and what he merely guessed. That was of the very greatest importance.
“Maybe I’ll be laughing tomorrow, then,” he said. “But I don’t get the bear story.”
Haines nodded. “I can’t make you understand,” he declared, “so I’ll drop the fable and get down to facts. My friend, I’ve made up my mind to several things. The first is that Mister Rasmussen of wintry memory is a myth.”
“Rasmussen? Well, that’s strange. But why would Bigot invent a yarn like that?”
Haines shook his head. “You are Rasmussen,” he said. “That’s plain, whatever your real name may be.”