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He was thinking of the immediate rather than of the significance of his friend's discovery. His cheerful face was grave. He was calculating chances with all the care of a clear-thinking, experienced brain. John Kars was thinking too. But the direction which absorbed him was quite different. He was regarding his discovery in connection with Fort Mowbray. At last he stirred restlessly.
Perhaps it was the haste, perhaps the whisky had left its effect on him. His shot tore its way through Kars' pea-jacket, grazing the soft flesh of his side below his ribs. The second and third shots, as the automatic did its work, were even less successful.
Silently, almost automatically, he relit it, using his sound arm with the skill of weeks of practice. He passed the matches back. He offered no thanks. Then, with a sudden stirring of his unshapely body, he glanced swiftly in the direction of Kars. A moment later he was gazing across at Bill and addressing him. "We'll make the Fort before sun-up?" he said.
Can you beat it? And Murray figgers more on dollars than any feller I know." "You never know your friends till you get a gun-hole in your stomach," Kars laughed. "Murray's more of a sport than you guessed. He certainly don't unroll easy." The boy's face was alight with good feeling. He sat up eagerly. "That's just how I thought," he cried.
"I can't get it right!" he exclaimed. "I just can't." "How's that?" Bill's plans were complete. For a day or so he knew that his would be the responsibility. Kars would have to take things easy. "What can't you get right?" he added. "Why, the whole darn play of it. That strike has been worked years, I'd say. We've trailed this country with eyes and ears mighty wide.
He had eyes and thought for nothing but those injured bodies under their light blanket coverings, and the groans of suffering that came from lips, which, in health, were usually tainted with blasphemy. All Kars' thoughts were at the moment concerned with the busy man. That array of figures had already told him its story. A painful story. A story calculated to daunt a leader.
That she could not take Silistria or Kars against Turkish troops, except by the accident of famine, will never be forgotten by German armies or statesmen.... The native Russian peasants and low persons do not yet know that the Czar was beaten; they suppose him to have conquered with immense cost; but the nobility knew the truth, and it will leak through to the lowest people, I expect, in the course of a few years.
It's in case of accident?" "I'll join you, and leave Bill, here, with the Padre and the outfit." Kars' suggestion came on the instant. But Murray vetoed it promptly. He shook his head. "It's up to me," he said curtly. Then he became more expansive. "You've had yours. I'm looking for mine. I'm getting out for the sake of the women-folk. That's why I'm asking you to stop right here. You can't tell.
Bill Brudenell sat in the middle of the canoe, a smallish, thickly coated figure with a beaver cap pressed low down on his iron gray head. Kars and the Indian were at the paddles, kneeling and resting against the struts. Kars was in the bow. He was a skilled paddle, but just now the Indian claimed responsibility for their destination and the landing. Charley, in consequence, felt his importance.
It came with a promptness that suggested his estimation of the importance of the news. "What is it?" he demanded. "Is he going to wipe out the Bell River outfit?" Kars' eyes regarded his friend steadily. For some moments no further word was spoken. Each was contemplating the ruthless purpose of a man who contemplated wiping out a tribe of savages to suit his own sordid ends.
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