The Flockmaster of Poison Creek. George W. Ogden

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      In the next breath Mackenzie was down, Carlson’s hand at his throat. Mackenzie could see Swan’s face as he bent over him, the lantern light on it fairly. There was no light of exultation in it as his great hand closed slowly upon Mackenzie’s throat, no change from its stony harshness save for the dark gash and the flood of blood that ran down his jaw and neck.

      Mackenzie writhed and struggled, groping on the floor for something to strike Carlson with and break his garroting grip. The blood was singing in his ears, the breath was cut from his lungs; his eyes flashed a thousand scintillating sparks and grew dark. His hand struck something in the debris on the floor, the handle of a table knife it seemed, and with the contact a desperate accession of life heaved in him like a final wave. He struck, and struck at Swan Carlson’s arm, and struck again at his wrist as he felt the tightening band of his fingers relax, heard him curse and growl. A quick turn and he was free, with a glimpse as he rolled over at Swan Carlson pulling a table fork out of his hairy wrist.

      Mackenzie felt blood in his mouth; his ears were muffled as if he were under water, but he came to his feet with a leg of the broken table in his hand. Swan threw the fork at him as he rose from his knees; it struck the lantern, breaking the globe, cutting off more than half the dim light in which the undetermined battle had begun.

      Over against the door Mrs. Carlson stood with the ax 31 in her hands, holding it uplifted, partly drawn back, as if she had checked it in an intended blow. Swan tore a broad plank from the table top, split it over his knee to make it better fit his hand, and came on to the attack, bending in his slouching, bearish attitude of defiant strength. Mackenzie gave way before him, watching his moment to strike the decisive blow.

      This maneuver brought Mackenzie near the door, where the wild-eyed woman stood, an ally and a reserve, ready to help him in the moment of his extremity. He believed she had been on the point of striking Swan the moment his fingers closed in their convulsive pang of death over the handle of the fork.

      Swan followed, warily now, conscious of this man’s unexpected strength and agility, and of his resources in a moment of desperation, making feints with his board as a batter does before the ball is thrown. Mackenzie passed Mrs. Carlson, backing away from Swan, sparring for time to recover his wind and faculties after his swift excursion to the borderland of death. He parried a swift blow, giving one in return that caught Swan on the elbow and knocked the plank out of his hand. Mackenzie sprang forward to follow up his advantage with a decisive stroke, when, to his amazement, Mrs. Carlson threw herself between them, the ax uplifted in her husband’s defense.

      “No, no!” she screamed; “he is my man!”

      Swan Carlson laughed again, and patted her shoulder, stooping to recover his board. But he flung it down again, taking the ax in its place, pushing his woman, not without some tenderness in his hand, back 32 into the corner, throwing himself in front of her, his wild laugh ringing in the murky room, stifling from the smoke of lantern and stove.

      Mackenzie felt his hope break like a rope of straw at this unexpected turn of the woman. With those two mad creatures––for mad he believed the isolation and cruelty suffered by the one, the trouble and terror of the law by the other, had driven them––leagued against him it seemed that he must put down all hope of ever looking again upon the day.

      If there was any chance for him at all, it lay in darkness. With this thought Mackenzie made a quick dash past Carlson, smashing the lantern with a blow.

      There was one window in the room, a small, single-sash opening near the stove. Even this was not apparent for a little while following the plunge into the dark; Mackenzie stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust themselves to the gloom. No sound but Carlson’s breathing came from the other side of the kitchen. The square of window appeared dimly now, a little to Mackenzie’s left. He moved cautiously away from it, yet not without noise for all his care. Swan let drive with his board at the sound of movement. His aim was good; it struck Mackenzie’s shoulder, but fortunately with its flat surface, doing no hurt.

      Mackenzie threw himself down heavily, getting cautiously to his feet again instantly, hoping to draw Carlson over in the belief that he had put him out of the fight. But Carlson was not so rash. He struck a match, holding it up, peering under it, blinking in the sudden light.

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      Mackenzie was not more than eight feet away. He closed the distance in a bound, swung the heavy oak table leg, and stretched Carlson on the floor. Mrs. Carlson began wailing and moaning, bending over her fallen tyrant, as Mackenzie could gather from her voice.

      “You’ve killed him,” she said; “you’ve killed my man!”

      “No, but I will kill him if you don’t open the door!”

      Mackenzie stood by Carlson as he spoke, feeling his body with his foot. He bent over Carlson, exploring for his heart, fearing that he had killed him, indeed. His first efforts to locate a pulse were not assuring, but a feeble throbbing at last announced that the great ruffian’s admirable machinery was stunned, not broken.

      “Open the door; he’ll be all right in a little while,” Mackenzie said.

      Mrs. Carlson was moaning in a sorrow as genuine as if the fallen man had been the kindest husband that fate could have sent her, and not the heartless beast that he was. She found the key and threw the door open, letting in a cool, sweet breath of the night. Under it Carlson would soon revive, Mackenzie believed. He had no desire to linger and witness the restoration.

      Mackenzie had a bruised and heavy feeling about him as he shouldered his pack and hurried from that inhospitable door. He knew that Swan Carlson was not dead, and would not die from that blow. Why the feeling persisted as he struck off up the creek through the dew-wet grass he could not tell, but it was strong upon him that Swan Carlson would come into his way again, to make trouble for him on a future day.

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CHAPTER IV

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KEEPER OF THE FLOCK

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      John Mackenzie, late schoolmaster of Jasper, marched on through the cool of the night, regretting that he had meddled in the domestic arrangements of Swan Carlson, the Swede. The outcome of his attempted kindness to the oppressed woman had not been felicitous. Indeed, he was troubled greatly by the fear that he had killed Swan Carlson, and that grave consequences might rise out of this first adventure that ever fell in his way.

      Perhaps adventure was not such a thing to be sought as he had imagined, he reflected; hand to his swollen throat. There was an ache in his crushed windpipe, a dryness in his mouth, a taste of blood on his tongue. That had been a close go for him, there on the floor under Swan Carlson’s great knee; a few seconds longer, and his first adventure would have been his last.

      Yet there was a vast satisfaction in knowing what was in him. Here he had stood foot to foot with the strong man of the sheeplands, the strangler, the fierce, half-insane terror of peaceful men, and had come off the victor. He had fought this man in his own house, where a man will fight valiantly, even though a coward on the road, and had left him senseless on the floor. It was something for a schoolteacher, counted a mild and childlike man.

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