Kitabı oku: «Harrigan», sayfa 5
CHAPTER 12
Then understanding flooded Kate's mind like waves of light in a dark room. She tilted back her head and laughed, laughed heartily, laughed till the tears brimmed her eyes. The gloomy scowl of Harrigan stopped her at last. As her mirth died out, the tall form of McTee appeared suddenly before them with his arms crossed. Where they touched his breast, the muscles spread out to a giant size. He was turned toward her, but the gleam of his eye fell full upon Harrigan.
"I suppose," said McTee, and his teeth clicked after each word like the bolt of a rifle shot home, "I suppose that you were laughing at me?"
The Irishman rose and faced the Scotchman, his head thrust forward and a devil in his eyes.
"An' what if we were, Misther McTee?" he purred. "An' what if we wer-r-re, I'm askin'?"
Kate leaped to her feet and sprang between them.
"Is there anything we can do," she broke in hurriedly, "to get away from the island?"
"A raft?" suggested Harrigan.
McTee smiled his contempt.
"A raft? And how would you cut down the trees to make it?"
"Burn 'em down with a circle of fire at the bottom."
"And then set green logs afloat? And how fasten 'em together, even supposing we could burn them down and drag them to the water? No, there's no way of getting off the island unless a boat passes and catches a glimpse of our fire."
"Then we'll have to move this fire to the top of the hill," said Harrigan.
"Suppose we go now and look over the hill and see what dry wood is near it," said McTee.
"Good."
Something in their eagerness had a meaning for Kate.
"Would you both leave me?" she reproached them.
"It was McTee suggested it," said Harrigan.
McTee favored his comrade with a glance that would have made any other man give ground. It merely made Harrigan grin.
"We'll draw straws for who goes and who stays," said McTee.
Kate picked up two bits of wood.
"The short one stays," she said.
"Draw," said Harrigan in a low voice.
"I was taught manners young," said McTee. "After you."
They exchanged glares again. The whole sense of her power over these giants came home to her as she watched them fighting their duel of the eyes.
"You suggested it," she said to McTee.
He stepped forward with an expression as grim as that of a prize fighter facing an antagonist of unknown prowess. Once and again his hand hovered above the sticks before he drew.
"You've chosen the walk to the hill," she said, and showed the shorter stick. "Do you mind?"
"No," mocked Harrigan, "he always walks after meals."
Their eyes dwelt almost fondly upon each other. They were both men after the other's heart. Then the Scotchman turned and strode away.
Kate watched Harrigan suspiciously, but his eyes, following McTee, were gentle and dreamy.
"Ah," he murmured, "there's a jewel of a man."
"Do you like him so much?"
"Do I like him? Me dear, I love the man; I'll break his head with more joy than a shtarvin' man cracks a nut!"
He recovered himself instantly.
"I didn't mean that—I—"
"Dan, you and McTee have planned to fight!"
He growled: "If a man told me that, I'd say he was a liar."
"Yes; but you won't lie to a girl, Harrigan."
She rose and faced him, reaching up to lay her hands on his thick shoulders.
"Will you give me your promise as an honest man to try to avoid a fight with him?"
For she saw death in it if they met alone; certainly death for one, and perhaps for both.
"Kate, would you ask a tree to promise to avoid the lightning?"
She caught a little breath through set teeth in her angry impatience, then: "Dan, you're like a naughty boy. Can't you be reasonable?"
Despite her wrath, she noticed a quick change in his face. The blue of his eyes was no longer cold and incurious, but lighted, warm, and marvelously deep.
And she said rapidly, making her voice cold to quell the uneasy, rising fire behind his eyes: "If you have made McTee angry, aren't you man enough to smooth things over—to ask his pardon?"
He answered vaguely: "Beg his pardon?"
"Why is that so impossible? For my sake, Dan!"
The light went out of his face as if a candle had been snuffed.
"For you, Kate?"
Then she understood her power fully for the first time, and found the thing which she must do.
"For me. I—I—"
She let her head droop, and then glanced up as if beseeching him to ask no questions.
"Look me square in the eye—so!"
He caught her beneath the chin with a grip that threatened a bruise, and his eyes burned down upon her.
"Are ye playin' with me, Kate? Are ye tryin' to torment me, or do ye really care for McTee?"
She tried with all her might, but could not answer. The rumble and ring of his voice brought her heart to her throat.
"You're tremblin'," said Harrigan, and he released her. "So it's all true. McTee!"
He turned on his heel like a soldier, lest she should mark the change of his expression; but she must have noticed something, for she called: "Harrigan—Dan!"
He stopped, but would not face her.
"You have your hands clenched. Are you going out to hunt for McTee in that black mood?"
"Kate," said Harrigan, "by my honor I'm swearin' he's as safe in my hands as a child."
CHAPTER 13
Harrigan strode off through the trees. To loosen the tight, aching muscles of his throat he began to sing—old Irish songs with a wail and a swing to them. He had taken no certain direction, for he only wished to be alone and far away from the other two; but after a time he realized that he was on the side of the central hill to which McTee had gone to look for the dry wood. Above all things in the world he wished to avoid the Scotchman now, and as soon as he became conscious of his whereabouts, he veered sharply to the right. He had scarcely walked a minute in the new direction before he met McTee. The latter had seen him first, and now stood with braced feet in his position of battle, rolling the sleeves of his shirt away from his forearms. Harrigan stepped behind a tree.
"Come out," roared McTee. "I've seen you. Don't try to sneak behind and take me from the back."
With an exceeding bitterness of heart, Harrigan stepped into view again.
"You look sick," went on McTee. "If you knew what would happen when we met, why did you come? If you fear me, go back and hug the skirts of the girl. She'll take pity on you, Harrigan."
The Irishman groaned. "Think your thoughts an' say your say, McTee. I can't lay a hand on you today."
The latter stepped close, stupefied with wonder.
"Do I hear you right? Are you taking water, Harrigan?"
Harrigan bowed his head, praying mutely for strength to endure.
"Don't say it!" pleaded McTee. "I've hunted the world and worn the roads bare looking for one man who could stand up to me—and now that I've found him, he turns yellow inside!"
And he looked upon the Irishman with a sick horror, as if the big fellow were turning into a reptile before his eyes. On the face of Harrigan there was an expression like that of the starving man whom the fear of poison induces to push away food.
"There's no word I can speak to you, McTee. You could never understand.
Go back to the girl. Maybe she'll explain."
"The girl?"
At the wild hope in that voice Harrigan shuddered, and he could not look up.
"Harrigan, what do you mean?"
"Don't ask me. Leave me alone, McTee."
"Here's a mystery," said the Scotchman, "and our little party is postponed. The date is changed, that's all. Remember!"
He stepped off through the trees in the direction of the shelter on the beach, leaving Harrigan to throw himself upon the ground in a paroxysm of shame and hate.
But McTee, with hope to spur him on—a vague hope; a thought half formed and therefore doubly delightful—went with great strides until he came to Kate where she sat tending the fire. He broke at once into the heart of his question.
"I met Harrigan. He's changed. Something has happened. Tell me what it is. He says you know."
He crouched close to her, intent and eager, his eyes ready to read a thousand meanings into the very lowering of her lashes; but she let her glance rove past him.
"Well?" he asked impatiently.
"It is hard to speak of it."
Cold doubt fell upon the captain; he moistened his lips before he spoke.
"Hit straight from the shoulder. There's something between you and the Irishman?"
She dropped a hand over his mighty fist.
"After all, you are our only friend, Angus. Why shouldn't you know?"
He stood up and made a few paces to and fro, his hands locked behind him and his leonine head fallen low.
"Yes, why shouldn't you tell me! I think I understand already."
All desire to laugh went from her, and deep fear took its place; her eyes were held fascinated upon his interlaced fingers, white under their own terrific pressure; yet she understood that she must go on. If she failed, this mighty force would be turned against Harrigan; and Harrigan, not less grim in battle, as she could guess, would be turned against him.
She said quickly, to conceal her fear: "I thought there was some trouble between you and Dan. I asked him to promise that he would not fight with you. But I don't need to ask you to promise not to fight with him, for now that you know—"
He leaped up and beat his hands together over his head.
"And that was why! I taunted him and all the time he was laughing to himself!"
He stopped and then whispered to himself: "Still, it's only postponed.
The tune will come! The time will come!"
She understood the promise.
"Angus! What are you saying?"
He said quietly: "Harrigan's safe from me while you care for him. Do you think I'm fool enough to make a martyr of him? Not I! But when we get back to the world—"
He finished the sentence by slowly flexing his fingers.
"I love you, Kate, and until the strength goes out of my hands, I'll still love you. I want you; and what I want I get. You'll hate me for it, eh?"
He went off without waiting for an answer, stumbling as he walked like one who was dazed. Her strength held with her until he was out of sight among the trees, but then she sank to the ground, panting. Sooner or later they were sure to discover her ruse, and the moment one of them learned that she did not love the other, they would rush into battle. She only prayed that the discovery would not come till they were safely off the island. Once back in the world the strong arm of the law might suffice to keep them apart.
The falling of the fire roused her at last and she set about gathering wood to keep it alive. It was the Irishman who returned first. He waved her to the shade of the shelter and finished collecting the wood.
CHAPTER 14
Afterward he inquired, frowning: "Where's McTee? I met him an' he started back to find you."
"He's gone off with his thoughts, Dan."
Harrigan sighed, looking up to the stainless blue of the sky: "Aye, that's the way of the Scotch. When they're happy in love, they go off by themselves an' brood like a dog that's thinking of a fight. But were I he, I'd never be leavin' your side, colleen."
His head tilted back in the way she had come to know, and she waited for the soft dialect: "I'd be singin' songs av love an' war-r-r, an' braggin' me hear-rt out, an' talkin' av the sea-green av your eyes, colleen. Look at him now!"
For the great form of McTee left the circle of the trees and approached them.
"He's got his head down between his shoulders like a whipped cur. He's broodin', an' his soul is thick in a fog."
"Dan, I trust you to cheer him up; but you'll not speak of me?"
"Not I. He's a proud man, Black McTee, an' he'd be angered to the core of him if he thought you'd talked about him an' his love to Harrigan. Whisht, Kate, I'll handle him like fire!
"The wood," he began, as McTee came in. "Did you find it on top of the hill, lad?"
McTee rumbled after a pause, and without looking at Harrigan: "There's plenty of it there. I made a little heap of the driest on the crown of the hill."
"Then the next thing is to move our fire up there."
"Move our fire?" cried Kate. "How can you carry the fire?"
"Easy. Take two pieces of burnin' wood an' walk along holdin' them close together. That way they burn each other an' the flame keeps goin'. Watch!"
He selected two good-sized brands from the fire and raised them, holding one in either hand and keeping the ignited portions of the sticks together. McTee looked from Kate to Harrigan.
"Sit down and talk to Kate. I'll carry the sticks; I know where the pile of timber is."
Harrigan made a significant and covert nod and winked at McTee with infinite understanding.
"Stay here yourself, lad. I wouldn't be robbing you–"
Kate coughed for warning, and he broke off sharply.
"You've made one trip to the hill. This is my turn. Besides, you wouldn't know how to keep the stick burnin'. I've done it before."
McTee stared, agape with astonishment. The meaning of that wink still puzzled his brain. He turned to Kate for explanation, and she beckoned him to stay. When Harrigan disappeared, he said: "What's the meaning? Doesn't Harrigan want to be with you?"
She allowed her eyes to wander dreamily after Harrigan.
"Don't you see? He's like a big boy. He's overflowing with happiness and he has to go off to play by himself."
McTee watched her with deep suspicion.
"It's queer," he pondered. "I know the Irish like a book, and when they're in love, they're always singing and shouting and raising the devil. It looked to me as if Harrigan was making himself be cheerful."
He went on: "I'll take him aside and tell him that I understand.
Otherwise he'll think he's fooling me."
"Please! You won't do that? Angus, you know how proud he is! He will be furious if he finds out that I've spoken to you about—about—our love. Won't you wait until he tells you of his own accord?"
He ground his teeth in an ugly fury.
"You understand? If I find you've been playing with me, it'll mean death for Harrigan, and worse than that for you?"
She made her glance sad and gentle.
"Will you never trust me, Angus?"
He answered, with a sort of wonder at himself: "Since I was a child, you are the first person in the world who has had the right to call me by my first name."
"Not a single woman?" and she shivered.
"Not one."
She pondered: "No love, no friendship, not even pity to bring you close to a single human being all your life?"
"No child has ever come near me, for I've never had room for pity. No man has been my friend, for I've spent my time fighting them and breaking them. And I've despised women too much to love them."
The tears rose to her eyes as she spoke: "I pity you from the bottom of my soul!"
"Pity? Me? By God, Kate, you'll teach me to hate you!"
"I can't help it. Why, if you have never loved, you have never lived!"
"You talk like a girl in a Sunday school! Ha, have I never lived? Men were made strong so that a stronger man should be their master; and women—"
"And women, Angus?"
"All women are fools; one woman is divine!"
The yearning of his eyes gave a bitter meaning to his words, and she was shaken like a leaf blown here and there by contrary winds. Unheeded, the sudden tropic night swooped upon them like the shadow of a giant bird, and as the dark increased, they saw the glimmering of the fire upon the hill. She rose, and he followed her until they reached the upward slope.
Then he said: "You will want to be alone with him for a time. Can you find the rest of the way?"
"Yes. You'll come soon?"
"I'll come soon, but I have to be by myself for a while. I may hate you for it afterward, but now I'm weak and soft inside—like a child—and I only wish for your happiness."
"God bless you, Angus!"
"God help me," he answered harshly, and stepped into the blank night of the shadow of the trees.
Harrigan shook his head in wonder when he saw her coming alone. He had built up the fire and heaped fresh fuel in towering piles nearby. The flames shot up twenty and thirty feet, making a wide signal across the sea.
"He's gone off by himself again?" questioned the Irishman.
She complained: "I can't understand him. Will he be always like this?
What shall I do, Dan?"
He met her appeal with a smile, but the blue eyes went cold at once and he sighed. It would never do to have the two sitting silent beside that fire. The brooding of McTee would excite no suspicions in the mind of Harrigan, but the quiet of the Irishman would be sure to excite the suspicions of the other.
"Will you do something for me, Dan?"
He looked up with a whimsical yearning.
"Teach McTee manners? Aye, with all me heart!"
She laughed: "No; but cheer him up. You said that if you were in his place, you'd be singing all the time."
"And I would."
"Then sing for me—for Angus and me—tonight when we're sitting by the fire. He's fallen into a brooding melancholy, and I can't altogether trust him. Can you understand?"
"And I'm to do the cheering up?"
"You won't fail me?"
He turned and occupied himself for a moment by hurling great armfuls of wood upon the fire. The flames burst up with showering sparks, roaring and leaping. Then, as if inspired by the sight, he came to her with his head tilting back in the way he had.
"I'll do it—I'll sing my heart out for you."
As McTee came up, the three sat down; a strange group, for the two men stared fixedly before them at the fire, conscientiously avoiding any movement of the eyes toward Kate and the other; and she sat between them, watching each of them covertly and humming all the while as if from happiness. Each of them thought the humming a love song meant for the ears of the other. Finally McTee turned and stared curiously, first at Kate and then at Harrigan. Manifestly he could not understand either their silence or their aloofness. It was for the Scotchman that she would have to play her role; Harrigan was blind. The Irishman also, as if he felt the eyes of McTee, turned his head. Kate nodded significantly and moved closer to him.
Obedient to his promise, he turned away again and raised his head to sing. Alternate light and shadow swept across his face and made fire and dark in his hair as the wind tossed the flame back and forth. At the other side of her McTee rested upon one elbow. Whenever she turned her head, she caught the steel-cold glitter of his eyes.
The first note from Harrigan's lips was low and faltering and off key; she trembled lest McTee should understand, but the Scotchman attributed the emotion to another cause. As his singing continued, moreover, it increased in power and steadiness. One thing, however, she had not counted on, and that was the emotion of Harrigan. Every one of his songs carried on the theme of love in a greater or less degree, and now his own singing swept him beyond the bounds of caution; he turned directly to Kate and sang for her alone "Kathleen Mavourneen." There was love and farewell at once in his singing, there was yearning and despair.
She knew that a crisis had come, and that McTee was pressed to the limits of his endurance. The game had gone too far, and yet she dared not appear indifferent to the singing. That would have been too direct a betrayal, so she sat with her head back and a smile on her lips.
There was a groan and a stifled curse. McTee rose; the song died in the throat of Harrigan.
CHAPTER 15
"Is this what you feared?" said the Scotchman. "Is this what you wanted protection against? No; you're in league together to torture me, and all this time you've been laughing up your sleeves at my expense!"
"At your expense?" growled Harrigan, rising in turn. "Is it at your expense that I've been sittin' here breakin' me heart with singin' love tunes for you an' the girl?"
She sprang up in an agony of fear.
"Go! Go!" she begged of McTee. "If you doubt me, go, and when you come back calm, I will explain."
He brushed her to one side and made a step toward Harrigan.
"Love songs for me?" he repeated incredulously.
"Aye, love songs for you. Ye black swine, ye could not be happy till I was brought in to be the piper while you an' Kate danced!"
"While I and Kate danced?" thundered McTee. "My God, man—"
He broke off short, and a cruel light of understanding was in his eyes.
"Harrigan," he said quietly, "did Kate tell you she loved me?"
"Ye fool! Why else am I sittin' here singin' for your sake? Would I not rather be amusin' myself by takin' the hollow of your throat under my thumbs—so?"
McTee laughed softly, and Kate could not meet his eye.
"Well?" he said.
"Yes, I lied to you."
She turned to Harrigan: "And to you. Don't you see? I found you on the verge of a fight, and I knew that in it you would both be killed. What else could I do? I hoped that for my sake you would spare each other. Was it wrong of me, Dan? Angus, will you forgive me?"
Harrigan raised his arms high above his head and stretched like one from whose wrists the manacles have been unlocked after a long imprisonment.
"McTee, are ye ready? There's a weight gone off my soul!"
"Harrigan, I've been a driver of men, but this girl has put me under the whip. When I'm through with you, I'm coming back to her."
"It'll be your ghost that returns."
Kate hesitated one instant as if to judge which was the greatest force toward evil. Then she dropped to her knees and caught the hands of McTee, those strong, cruel hands.
"If you will not fight, I'll—I'll be kind to you, I'll be everything you ask of me—"
"You're pleading for him?"
"No, no! For him and for you; for your two souls!"
"Bah! Mine was lost long ago, and I'll answer that there's a claim on Harrigan filed away in hell. He's too strong to have lived clean."
"Angus, we're all alone here—on the rim of the world, you've said—and in places like this the eye of God is on you."
He laughed brutally: "If He sees me, He'll look the other way."
"Have done with the chatter," broke in Harrigan. "Ah-h, McTee, I see where my hands'll fit on your throat."
"Come," McTee answered without raising his voice; "there's a corner of the beach where a current stands in close by the shore. You've been a traveling man, Harrigan. When I've killed you, I'll throw your body into the sea, and the tide will take you out to see the rest of the world."
"Come," said Harrigan; "I'd as soon finish you there as here, and when you're dead, I'll sit you up against a tree and come down every day to watch you rot."
The girl fell to the ground between them with her face buried in her arms, silent. The two men lowered their eyes for a moment upon her, and then turned and walked down the hill, going shoulder to shoulder like friends. So they came out upon the beach and walked along it until they reached the point of which McTee had spoken.
It was a level, hard-packed stretch of sand which offered firm footing and no rocks over which one of the fighters might stumble at a critical moment.
"Tis a lovely spot," sighed Harrigan. "Captain, you're a jewel of a man to have thought of it."
"Aye, this is no deck at sea that can heave and twist and spoil my work."
"It is not; and the palms of my hands are almost healed. Had you thought of that, captain?"
"As you lie choking, Harrigan, think of the girl. The minute I've heaved you into the sea, I go back to her."
The hard breathing of the Irishman filled up the interval.
"I see one thing clear. It's that I'll have to kill you slow. A man like you, McTee, ought to taste his death a while before it comes. Come to me ar-rms, captain, I've a little secret to whisper in your ear. Whisht! 'Twill not be long in the tellin'!"
McTee replied with a snarl, and the two commenced to circle slowly, drawing nearer at every step. On the very edge of leaping forward, Harrigan was astonished to see McTee straighten from his crouch and point out to sea.
"The eye of God!" muttered the Scotchman. "She was right!"
Harrigan jumped back lest this should prove a maneuver to place him off his guard, and then looked in the indicated direction. It was true; a point of light, a white eye, peered at them from far across the water. Then the shout of McTee rang joyously: "A ship!"
"The fire!" answered Harrigan, and pointed back to the hill, for Kate had allowed the flames to fall in their absence.
All thought of the battle left them. They started back on the run to build high their signal light, and when they came to the top of the hill, they found Kate lying as they had left her. She started to her knees at the sound of their footsteps and stretched out her arms to them.
"God has sent you back to me!"
"A ship!" thundered McTee for answer, and he flung a great armful of wood upon the blaze. It rose with a rush, leaping and crackling, but all three kept at their work until the pile of wood was higher than their heads. Only when the supply of dry fuel was exhausted did they pause to look out to sea. In place of the one eye of white there were three lights, one of white, one of red, and one of green—the lights of a ship running in toward land.
In a moment the moon slipped up above the eastern waters, and right across that broad white circle moved a ship with the smoke streaming back from her funnel. Unquestionably the captain had seen the signal fire and understood its meaning.
They waited until the red light became fairly stationary, showing that the steamer had been laid-to. Then they ran for the beach and took up their position on the line between the glow of their fire and the position of the ship, guessing that in this way they would be on the spot where the ship's boat would be most likely to touch the shore.
"McTee," said Harrigan, "it may be half an hour before that boat reaches the beach. Is there any reason why both of us should go aboard it?"
"Harrigan, there is none! Stand up to me."
"If you do this," broke in Kate, "I will bring the sailors who come ashore to the spot where the dead man lies, and I'll tell how he died."
They looked at her, knowing that she could be trusted to fulfill that threat. The moon lay on the beauty of her face; never had she seemed so desirable. They looked to each other, and each seemed doubly hateful to the other.
"Kate, dear," said Harrigan hastily, "I see the boat come tossin' there over the water. Speak out like a brave girl. Neither of us will leave the other in peace as long as we have a hope of you. Choose between us before we put a foot in that boat, and if you choose McTee, I'll give you God's blessin' an' say no more nor ever raise my hand against ye. McTee, will ye do the like?"
"For the sake of the day of the fight and the wreck I will. If she chooses you now, I'll raise no hand against you."
A shout came faintly across the rush and ripple of the breakers.
"Speak out," said Harrigan.
"Hallo!" she screamed in answer to the hail from the boat, and then turning to them: "I choose neither of you!"
"McTee," growled Harrigan, "I'm thinkin' we've both been fools."
"Think what you will, I'll have her; and if you cross me again, I'll finish you, Harrigan."
"McTee, ten of your like couldn't finish me. But look! There's the girl wadin' out to the boat. Let's steady her through the waves."
They ran out and, catching her beneath the shoulders, bore her safe and high through the small rollers. When they were waist-deep, the boat swung near. A lantern was raised by the man in the bows, and under that light they saw the four men at the oars, now backing water to keep their boat from washing to the beach. The sailors cheered as the two men swung Kate over the gunwale and then clambered in after her. The man at the bows all this time had kept his lantern high above his head with a rigid arm, and now he bellowed: "Black McTee!"
"Right!" said McTee. "And you?"
"Salvain—put back for the ship, lads—Pietro Salvain. D'you mean to say you've forgotten me?"
"Shanghai!" said McTee, as light broke on his memory. "What a night that was."
"But you—"
"The Mary Rogers took a header for Davy Jones's locker; first mate drunk and ran her on a reef; all hands went under except the three of us; we drifted to this island."
"Black McTee shipwrecked! By God, if we get to port with our old tramp, I'll get a farm and stick to dry land."
"Your ship?"
"The Heron, four thousand tons, White Henshaw, skipper."
"White Henshaw?" cried McTee in almost reverent tones.
"The same. Old White still sticks to his wheel. He's as hard a man as you, McTee, in his own way."
They were pulling close to the freighter by this time, and Salvain gave quick orders to lay the boat alongside. In another moment they stood on the deck, where a tall man in white clothes advanced to meet them.
"Good fishing, sir," said Salvain. "We've picked up three shipwrecked people, with Angus McTee among them."
"Black McTee!" cried the other, and even in the dim light he picked out the towering form of the Scotchman.
"It took a wreck to bring us together, Captain Henshaw," said McTee, "but here we are, I've combed the South Seas for ten years for the sake of meeting you."
"H-m!" grunted Henshaw. "We'll drink on the strength of that. Come into the cabin."
They trooped after him, Salvain and the three rescued, and stood in the roomy cabin, the captain and the first mate dapper and cool in their white uniforms, the other three marvelously ragged. Barefooted, their hair falling in jags across their foreheads, their muscles bulging through the rents in their shirts, McTee and Harrigan looked battered but triumphant. Kate Malone might have been the prize which they had safely carried away. She was even more ragged than her companions, and now she withdrew into a shadowy corner of the cabin and shook the long, loose masses of her hair about her shoulders.
