THE COMPLETE JIM MAITLAND SERIES. H. C. McNeile / Sapper
briefly, and my gun went into MacTavert's waistcoat. His great, coarse face was within a few inches of mine, but it was the look of triumph in his eyes that warned me of the trap. He was staring at something over my shoulder, and suddenly he gave a great shout of "Now!"
I swung round, like the fool I was, and the next moment he'd knocked my revolver away, and his hands were round my throat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jim fighting desperately with two men who had sprung through the door, but it wasn't there that the trap lay; it wasn't that which had caused the sudden shout of "Now!"
Coming towards the window from the outside along a flat piece of roof was the man who had been talking to MacTavert downstairs. He had a revolver in his hand, and he was covering Jim through the window—Jim, who was all unconscious of the danger. I strove to shout—to warn him, but MacTavert had got my throat, and it was all I could do to hold my own. And all the time the triumph deepened in MacTavert's eyes.
The two men were being flung all over the place by Jim, but they hung on to him. And steadily they manoeuvred him nearer and nearer to the window. He had his back towards it, and once the man outside raised his revolver, only to drop it again as the three of them spun round, spoiling his shot.
But it couldn't last long, and I put forth one supreme effort to get the better of MacTavert. We crashed, both of us rolling over and over on the floor. And so I didn't see the actual deed by which Colette saved our lives. All I knew was that suddenly we were fighting in darkness, MacTavert and I. I heard dimly the crashing of the window, and the splintering of wooden shutters. Then two shots rang out quite quickly, and the room was light again.
Instinctively MacTavert and I loosened our hold on one another, and got dazedly to our feet. And, save for our heavy breathing and a little sobbing whimper from that wonderful girl, there was silence in the room.
"She closed those wooden shutters," said Jim at length, and his voice was a little dazed. "She closed those wooden butters, and put her arm where the bar ought to be that bolts them. She hadn't time, I guess, for the bar. And he broke her arm for her."
He looked at the man who had done it—the man who had smashed through the shutters, and fired at him—and he was lying motionless on his face. He looked at Colette, and she had fainted. And then he looked at MacTavert, and his face was terrible to see.
"Get out!" snarled Jim to the two men whom he had been fighting. He slipped his own revolver back in his pocket. "Get out—or I might shoot you, as I shot him."
And the men slunk out, leaving MacTavert alone. For a moment Jim stared at him, and his eyes were hard and merciless. Then without a word he sprang on him, and MacTavert gave a hoarse cry for help. But there was no one to answer it, and Jim laughed gently.
He could have done it by himself, for MacTavert was like a child in his hands. But since I was there to help him it took less time. We lashed him to the bed face down.
"The cat is the proper weapon for MacTavert," Jim remarked, "as I think I told you last night. But since I haven't got one a leather strap must do instead."
And he flogged MacTavert with his leather belt till MacTavert fainted, even as Colette had fainted. Then, with the tenderness of a woman, he picked the girl up in his arms, and carried her down the stairs to the saloon below. It was still empty, and we chartered a passing cab, and got in. It was on the way to a doctor that Colette opened her eyes and looked at him.
"He didn't hurt you, Jim?" she whispered.
And Jim bent and kissed her. I don't think he could quite trust his voice.
We fixed up a passage for her, and as I said before she has two little Colettes of her own now. But I wonder if she realises...
V. — THE FIGHT AT BULL MINE CREEK
WE first heard the rumour at Sydney three months later, from a man in our hotel. And two nights after, he confirmed it: gold had been found at a place called Bull Mine Creek. The wildest stories were flying around: it was going to be a second Klondyke.
There was gold in the river, masses of it. And since easily worked placers are nearly all exhausted, thousands of the old-time miners arrived in force. Deep placer deposits, requiring shaft sinking and therefore capital, are today the source of almost all the gold in the world, and the gold-mining industry is a highly organised affair. The wild rushes of the last century are things of the past, though occasionally they still occur. And Bull Mine Creek was one of them.
Exactly why Jim and I went there I don't know. Novelty, perhaps—a new experience; and new experiences were the wine of life to him. We didn't much mind if we made a fortune or not, though we should neither of us have refused it if we had. Incidentally we didn't, and what we did net after expenses had been paid, we handed over to One-eyed Mike, an old scoundrel of repulsive aspect, who had lost his left eye in circumstances we never fully got to the bottom of. He was a remarkable character, was Mike. His nationality varied according to his company—with us he was English, and he appeared to have been in every mining rush during the last thirty years. I think he robbed us right and left, though like the Chinese servant, he took care that nobody else did. And he knew everything there was to know about the game.
He talked about sluice-boxes and riffles in the intervals of telling the most lurid stories I have ever listened to, and for six weeks we camped out by our claim some fifteen miles from the town of Bull Mine Creek.
The town consisted of a few shanties, a store and the hotel. Before the rush it must have been a fairly pleasant little place; within a week of the boom it became a miniature hell on earth. Gambling saloons were opened, and the place was invaded by a horde of blackguards whose sole aim in life was to see that the miner and his gold were soon parted. And in many cases it wasn't a difficult proposition. Unlimited drink, gold to chuck about, and crooked gambling after the drink had taken effect, generally produced the desired result, after which the miner returned to his claim with an empty "poke" and a bursting head.
* * * * *
It was One-eyed Mike who insisted on going down to the town for Christmas. And since he had been going teetotal—or rather confining himself to only one bottle of whisky a day—for some weeks, we felt he deserved a respite. So Jim gave him his share of all the proceeds up to date, and on Christmas Eve we all drove into Bull Mine Creek.
Outside the door of the hotel was a buggy drawn by two fine Arabs, around which stood a ring of loungers contemplatively spitting. The horses were tied up to the rail of the veranda, and Jim glanced at them as we drove past.
"A nice pair of cattle," he remarked. "I wonder whom they belong to."
The next moment our own horse stopped suddenly, and then gave a sudden plunge forward. She was not used to having her head nearly pulled off unexpectedly, and Jim was certainly not accustomed to treat an animal in such a way. In some surprise I looked at him, and the expression on his face amazed me. It also decided me against making any comment.
Instead, I looked back and made a further inspection of the owner of the two Arabs, whose sudden appearance had so upset my companion. He was a tall, good-looking man whose age I put at about thirty. He had a small, fair moustache, and was rather of the pink-and-white type. So much I saw before we turned the corner and were out of sight. My last glimpse of him was leading his two horses towards the back of the hotel while the ring of loungers still contemplatively spat.
Jim drove on in silence to the shanty where we were putting up. He was frowning thoughtfully, and underneath the beard which he had allowed to grow during the past two months his mouth was set in a straight line. But he said nothing, even after we had put the mare up; and he only nodded curtly at One- eyed Mike's earnest hope that we would raise the roof with him that night. So Mike, fully capable of performing the operation on his own, departed to the hotel to lay the foundation for a forty-eight-hour jag.
"Did you see that fellow, Dick?" said Jim at length. "The fellow at the hotel with those two greys?"
"I