Isobel by James Oliver Curwood Read Free Book Online Page A

the team had dragged themselves from the snow avalanche did he
breathe freely again. Isobel was safe! He laughed in his joy and wiped
the nervous sweat from his face as he saw the prints of her moccasins
where Deane had righted the sledge. And then, for the first time, he
observed a number of small red stains on the snow. Either Isobel or
Deane had been injured in the fall, perhaps slightly. A hundred yards
from the "trap" the sledge had stopped again, and from this point it
was Deane who rode and Isobel who walked!
    He followed more cautiously now. Another hundred yards and he stopped
to sniff the air. Ahead of him the spruce and balsam grew close and
thick, and from that shelter he was sure that something was coming to
him on the air. At first he thought it was the odor of the balsam. A
moment later he knew that it was smoke.
    Force of habit brought his hand for the twentieth time to his empty
pistol holster. Its emptiness added to the caution with which he
approached the thick spruce and balsam ahead of him. Taking advantage
of a mass of low snow-laden bushes, he swung out at a right angle to
the trail and began making a wide circle. He worked swiftly. Within
half or three-quarters of an hour Bucky would reach the ridge.
Whatever he accomplished must be done before then. Five minutes after
leaving the trail he caught his first glimpse of smoke and began to
edge in toward the fire. The stillness oppressed him. He drew nearer
and nearer, yet he heard no sound of voice or of the dogs. At last he
reached a point where he could look out from behind a young ground
spruce and see the fire. It was not more than thirty feet away. He
held his breath tensely at what he saw. On a blanket spread out close
to the fire lay Scottie Deane, his head pillowed on a pack-sack. There
was no sign of Isobel, and no sign of the sledge and dogs. Billy's
heart thumped excitedly as he rose to his feet. He did not stop to ask
himself where Isobel and the dogs had gone. Deane was alone, and lay
with his back toward him. Fate could not have given him a better
opportunity, and his moccasined feet fell swiftly and quietly in the
snow. He was within six feet of Scottie before the injured man heard
him, and scarcely had the other moved when he was upon him. He was
astonished at the ease with which he twisted Deane upon his back and
put the handcuffs about his wrists. The work was no sooner done than
he understood. A rag was tied about Deane's head, and it was stained
with blood. The man's arms and body were limp. He looked at Billy with
dulled eyes, and as he slowly realized what had happened a groan broke
from his lips.
    In an instant Billy was on his knees beside him. He had seen Deane
twice before, over at Churchill, but this was the first time that he
had ever looked closely into his face. It was a face worn by hardship
and mental torture. The cheeks were thinned, and the steel-gray eyes
that looked up into Billy's were reddened by weeks and months of
fighting against storm. It was the face, not of a criminal, but of a
man whom Billy would have trusted— blonde-mustached, fearless, and
filled with that clean-cut strength which associates itself with
fairness and open fighting. Hardly had he drawn a second breath when
Billy realized why this man had not killed him when he had the chance.
Deane was not of the sort to strike in the dark or from behind. He had
let Billy live because he still believed in the manhood of man, and
the thought that he had repaid Deane's faith in him by leaping upon
him when he was down and wounded filled Billy with a bitter shame. He
gripped one of Deane's hands in his own.
    "I hate to do this, old man," he cried, quickly. "It's hell to put
those things on a man who's hurt. But I've got to do it. I didn't mean
to come— no, s'elp me God, I didn't— if Bucky Smith and two others
hadn't hit your trail back at the old camp. They'd have got you—
sure. And she wouldn't have been safe with them. Understand? She
wouldn't have been