The Mistress of Bonaventure

CHAPTER VI

A HOLOCAUST

It was late one sultry night when I sat moodily beside an open window in my house at Gaspard's Trail. I had risen before the sun that morning, but, though tired with a long day's ride, I felt restless and ill-disposed to sleep. Thomas Steel, whose homestead stood some leagues away, lounged close by with his unlighted pipe on his knee and his coarse sun-faded shirt flung open showing his bronzed neck and the paler color of his ample chest. He was about my own age and possessed the frame of a gladiator, but there was limp dejection in his attitude.

"It's just awful weather, but there's a change at hand," he said. "It will be too late for some of us when it comes."

I merely nodded, and glanced out through the window. Thick darkness brooded over the prairie, though at intervals a flicker of sheet lightning blazed along the horizon and called up clumps of straggling birches out of the obscurity. A fitful breeze which eddied about the building set the grasses sighing, but it was without coolness, and laden with the smell of burning. Far-off streaks of crimson shone against the sky in token that grass-fires were moving down-wind across the prairie. They would, however, so far as we could see, hurt nobody. Steel fidgeted nervously until I began to wonder what was the matter with him, and when he thrust his chair backwards I said irritably: "For heaven's sake sit still. You look as ill at ease as if you had been told off to murder somebody."

The stalwart farmer's face darkened. "I feel 'most as bad, and have been waiting all evening to get the trouble out," he said. "Fact is, I'm borrowing money, and if you could let me have a few hundred dollars it would mean salvation."

I laughed harshly to hide my dismay. The prairie settlers stand by one another in time of adversity, and in earlier days Steel had been a good friend to me; but the request was singularly inopportune. Two bad seasons had followed each other, when the whole Dominion labored under a commercial depression; and though my estate was worth at ordinary values a considerable sum, it was only by sacrificing my best stock I could raise money enough to carry it on.

"If I get anything worth mentioning for the beasts I'll do my utmost, and by emptying the treasury perhaps I can scrape up two or three hundred now. What do you want with it?" I said.

"I thought you would help me," answered Steel, with a gasp of relief. "I've been played for the fool I am. I got a nice little book from the – Company, and it showed how any man with enterprise could get ahead by the aid of borrowed capital. Then its representative – very affable man – came along and talked considerable. I was a bit hard pressed, and the end was that he lent me money. There were a blame lot of charges, and the money seemed to melt away, while now, if I don't pay up, he'll foreclose on me."

I clenched my right hand viciously, for the man who had trapped poor Steel had also a hold on me, and I began to cherish a growing fear of the genial Lane.

"It's getting a common story around here," I said. "That man seems bent on absorbing all this country, but if only for that very reason we're bound to help each other to beat him. It will be a hard pull, but, though it all depends on what the stock fetch, I'll do the best I can."

Steel was profuse in his thanks, and I lapsed into a by no means overpleasant reverie. So some time passed until a glare of red and yellow showed up against the sky where none had been before.

"Looks like a mighty big fire. There's long grass feeding it, and it has just rolled over a ridge," said Steel. "Seems to me somewhere near the Indian Spring Bottom, but Redmond and the other fellow would drive the stock well clear."

Flinging my chair back I snatched a small compass from a shelf, laid it on the window-ledge, and, kneeling behind it, with a knife blade held across the card I took the bearings of the flame. "It's coming right down on the bottom, and though by this time the stock is probably well clear, I'm a little uneasy about it. We'll ride over and make quite sure," I said.

"Of course!" Steel answered, and seemed about to add something, but thought better of it and followed me towards the stable. Thorn, who was prompt of action, had also seen the fire, for he was already busy with the horses; and inside of five minutes we were sweeping at a gallop across the prairie. Save for the intermittent play of lightning the darkness was Egyptian; and the grass was seamed by hollows and deadly badger-holes; but the broad blaze streamed higher for a beacon, and, risking a broken neck, I urged on the mettled beast beneath me. Grass fires are common, and generally are harmless enough in our country; but that one seemed unusually fierce, and an indefinite dread gained on me as the miles rolled behind us.

"It's the worst I've seen for several seasons. Whole ridge is blazing," panted Steel, as, with a great crackling, we swept neck and neck together through the tall grass of a slough in the midst of which Thorn's horse blundered horribly. Then we dipped into a ravine, reeling down the slope and splashing through caked mire where a little water had been. Every moment might be precious, and turning aside for nothing, we rode straight across the prairie, while at last I pressed the horse fiercely as a long rise shut out the blaze. Once we gained its crest the actual conflagration would be visible. The horse was white with lather, and I was almost blinded with sweat and dust when we gained the summit. Drawing bridle, I caught at my breath. The Sweetwater ran blood red beneath us, and the whole mile-wide hollow through which it flowed was filled with fire, while some distance down stream on the farther side a dusky mass was discernible through the rolling smoke which blew in long wisps in that direction. It seemed as though a cold hand had suddenly been laid on my heart, for the mass moved, and was evidently composed of close-packed and panic-stricken beasts.

"It's the Gaspard draft held up by the wing fence!" a voice behind me rose in a breathless yell.

I smote the horse, and we shot down the declivity. How the beast kept its footing I do not know, for there were thickets of wild berries and here and there thin willows to be smashed through; but we went down at a mad gallop, the clods whirling behind us and the wind screaming past, until we plunged into the Sweetwater through a cloud of spray. In places soft mire clogged the sinking hoofs, in others slippery shingle rolled beneath them, while the stream seethed whitely to the girth; but steaming, panting, dripping, we came through, and I dashed, half-blinded, into the smoke. A confused bellowing came out of the drifting wreaths ahead, and there was a mad beat of hoofs behind, but I could see little save the odd shafts of brightness which leaped out of the vapor as I raced towards the fire. Then somebody cried in warning, and the horse reared almost upright as – while I wrenched upon the bridle – a running man staggered out of the smoke. A red blaze tossed suddenly aloft behind him, and as he turned the brightness smote upon his blackened face. It was set and savage, and the hair was singed upon his forehead.

"It's blue ruin. The green birches are burning, and all your beasts are corraled in the fence wings," he gasped. "Fire came over the rise without warning, in Redmond's watch. Somehow he got the rest clear, but your lot stampeded and the wire brought them up. I'm off to the shanty for an ax – but no living man could get them out."

Thorn pulled up his plunging horse as the other spoke, and for a few seconds I struggled with the limpness of dismay. Then I said hoarsely: "If the flame hasn't lapped the wings yet, we'll try."

By this time the horses were almost in a state of panic, and Thorn's nearly unseated him, but we urged them into the vapor towards the fence. Fences were scarce in our district then, but after a dispute as to the grazing I had shared the cost of that one with another man, partly because it would be useful when sheep washing was forward and would serve as a corral when we cut out shipping stock. It consisted of only two wings at right angles – a long one towards the summit of the rise, and another parallel to the river, which flowed deep beneath that rotten bank; but the beasts on each side would seldom leave the rich grass in the hollow to wander round the unclosed end, and if driven into the angle two riders could hold the open mouth. Now I could see that the simple contrivance might prove a veritable death-trap to every beast within it.

It was with difficulty we reached the crest of the rise, but we passed the wing before the fire, which now broke through the driving vapor, a wavy wall of crimson, apparently two fathoms high, closing in across the full breadth of the hollow at no great pace, but with a relentless regularity. Then I rode fiercely towards the angle or junction of the wires where the beasts were bunched together as in the pocket of a net. Thorn and Steel came up a few seconds later.

The outside cattle were circling round and jostling each other, thrusting upon those before them; the inside of the mass was as compact as if rammed together by hydraulic pressure, and, to judge by the bellowing, those against the fence were being rent by the barbs or slowly crushed to death. Our cattle wander at large across the prairie and exhibit few characteristics of domestic beasts. Indeed, they are at times almost dangerous to handle, and when stampeded in a panic a squadron of cavalry would hardly turn them. Yet the loss of this draft boded ruin to me, and it was just possible that if we could separate one or two animals from the rest and drive them towards the end of the fence the others might follow. The mouth of the net might remain open for a few minutes yet.

"I guess it's hopeless, but we've just got to try," said Thorn, who understood what was in my mind. "Start in with that big one. There's not a second to lose."

Steel, leaning down from the saddle, drove his knife-point into the rump of one beast, and when it wheeled I thrust my horse between it and the herd and smote it upon the nostrils with my clenched fist, uselessly. The terrified creature headed round again, jamming me against its companions, and when my horse backed clear, one of my legs felt as though it were broken. This, however, was no time to trouble about minor injuries or be particular on the score of humanity; and while Thorn endeavored to effect a diversion by twisting one beast's tail I pricked another savagely. It wheeled when it felt the pain, and when it turned again with gleaming horns and lowered head Steel pushed recklessly into the opening. Then a thick wisp of smoke filled my eyes, and I did not see how it happened, but man and horse had gone down together when the vapor thinned, and the victorious animal was once more adding its weight to the pressure on the rear of the surging mass.

Steel was up next moment, struggling with his horse, which, with bared teeth, was backing away from him at full length of its bridle; but, answering my shout, he said breathlessly: "I don't know whether half my bones are cracked or not, but they feel very much like it. It's no good, Ormesby. We'll have to cut the fence from the other side, and if we fool here any longer we'll lose the horses, too."

I saw there was truth in this, and almost doubted if we could clear the fence wing now. It was at least certain that nothing we could do there would extricate the terrified beasts; and when Steel got himself into the saddle we started again at a gallop. There was less smoke, and what there was towered vertically in a lull of the breeze; but the crackling flame tossed higher and higher. For a moment I fancied it had cut us off within the fence, which would have made a dangerous leap; but though the terrified horses were almost beyond guidance, fear lent them speed, and with very little room to spare Steel and I shot round the end of the wire.

"Look out for the setting-up post nearest the corner, and slack the turn-screws until the wire goes down, while I try to cut the strand close in to the herd!" I roared "Is Thorn behind you?"

"No," the answer came back. "Good Lord! we've left him inside the fence!"

I managed to pull my horse up, when a glance showed me the foreman's stalwart figure silhouetted against the crimson flame as he strove to master his plunging horse. It was evident that the horse had refused to face the fire, which now rolled right up the wings of the fence.

"Come down and let him go! You can either climb the wires or crawl under them!" I shouted, wondering whether the crackling of the flame drowned my husky voice.

"This horse is worth three hundred dollars, and he's either going through or over," the answer came back; and I shouted in warning, for it appeared impossible to clear that fence, though the beast, which was not of common bronco stock, had good imported blood in him. Then there was a yell from the foreman as he recklessly shot forward straight at the fence. The horse was ready to face anything so long as he could keep the fire behind him, and I held my breath as he rose at the wire. Our horses are not good jumpers, and the result seemed certain. His knees struck the topmost wire; there was a heavy crash; and the man, shooting forward as from a catapult, alighted with a sickening thud, while the poor brute rolled over and lay still on the wrong side of the fence. Thorn rose, but very shakily, and I was thankful I had lost only some three hundred dollars, which I could very badly spare.

"Nothing given out this trip," he spluttered. "I've dropped my knife, though. Go on and try the cutting. I'll follow when I can."

In another few moments I dismounted abreast of the angle, and hitched the bridle round a strand of the wire, knowing that the possibility of getting away almost instantaneously when my work was done might make all the difference between life and death. The fence was tall, built of stout barbed wire strained to a few screw standards and stapled to thick birch posts. I had neither ax nor nippers, only a long-bladed knife, and densely packed beasts were wedging themselves tighter and tighter against the other side of the barrier. Already some had fallen and been trampled out of existence, while others seemed horribly mangled and torn. The man who had gone for an ax had not reappeared, and I regretted I had not bidden him take one of our horses, for the shanty was some distance away.