Peyton's Bag

by G. B. Lancaster

PEYTON'S BAG.

By G. B. LANCASTER.

"WELL, if that isn't rotten luck!" said Tony Lascelles. "When we've given that fool Peyton the Chimney, too!"

Walt growled his disgust in his throat, for it was overstrong for selected words; and Peyton, whom Tony's hurried rising had trampled into the earth, fell out of the tent-opening, half-clothed, and extremely wroth.

"Stag," said Walt, in curt answer.

Peyton swept the universe with his glasses; picked up on the Chimney hill that which the other men watched bare-eyed, and crowed in a child's delight.

From their feet the snow-grass blew in ruddy ripples to the birch bush that climbed the steep hill. Above the bush were rounded gullies and straight-eyed ravines and narrow spurs. Behind all, and crowning half the earth, notched ranges rose white to the flushing sky—all to make background for one stag of the fourth year. He stood, monstrous and tense with life, on the snub nose of a bluff, and belled his challenge to the wind and to the sun that was coming up to listen. The antlers showed like naked branches of a tree, and his coat was sleeked with the night's dew.

"It's my beat!" Peyton snatched his things from everywhither in the blankest confusion. "You said last night that I could have the Chimney. It's a royal, I tell you. It's a bub-blessed fourteen-pointer. I counted—an' we've never seen more than a ten-tine before. I don't want any breakfast. Where's my——"

"Oh, go slow, for Heaven's sake!" said Tony in the wrath of a hunter. "You won't hit a hill unless it's the size of a mountain if you go losing your head that way. Keep cool, can't you, you silly ass? Of course it's your beat. Who said it wasn't? And don't you go shooting all over the shop, Peyton. A Mauser's too funny for that kind of thing."

It was Peyton's boast that he had shot eighteen men with the identical carbine which he was now scratching out of its case. That was in the Boer war, and no man in New Zealand believed it. Peyton did not himself. But to require of a man that he should both make a story and believe it is pure greed.

Peyton had turned up at Mindoorie Station, in the county of Southland, some three months back, giving Lane of Mindoorie to understand that they were of one blood, and might, with mutual happiness, be of one purse also. He stuck like a burr, and when Walt and Tony Lascelles agreed to take their holiday together that they might shoot red deer in Otago Central, Peyton offered to go with them.

"C'n yer shoot?" demanded Walt then, with his teeth on an oiled rag. He was trying to sluice some of the rust off his old •303 with the broken leaf.

Peyton was really angry.

"Haven't I told you that I shot eighteen men?"

"But there's jes' two of us"; Walt shook his head gravely. "Not ernuf meat fur sech as you ter feed on. Reckon me an' Tony cud do wi'out all that killin', too."

Peyton stared for a moment. Then he descended to prayers, and so gained grudging permission to help stalk some of the roughest deer country outside Scotland. And Tony, after giving Walt his very frankest opinions, told the men of the whares that he would knock the eternal stuffing out of Peyton before he brought him home again.

"You've heard him," he said. "You've heard him gassing about his Lyman sights, an' his drifts. Well, he won't gas much when he comes back, I'm thinking. You wait."

But the fear of Tony had not yet touched Peyton that bright morning in sight of the Chimney.

"Wind's blowin' up to him, isn't it?" he cried. "From the off, is it? If I go straight, I'll land him, won't I? Not? Which way had I better go, then? Don't you wish you were me, Tony? Nearly a mile off, isn't he?"

Illustration: "Strained with the lust of slaughter."

To the untrained eye it might have been a mile as the crow flies. But the two who stood by knew that it was a five-mile stalk over unkindly country, and that Peyton was not in a condition to face it. And they knew too that it was impossible to say so.

Walt jerked his thumb in the direction of a dimpled hollow at the bluff-foot. A half-score hinds and nobbers were moving in it.

"You kip yer eyes skinned as they don't give the alarm. Come out o' the bush quiet as a wren. Heavens, man, don't you go goin' off wi'out any tucker!"

Peyton swept cold meat and damper into his pocket, scudded through the burnt timber that began the bush, and dived out of sight like a scared rabbit. Walt sat on his heels and mended the fire.

"I'll tell yer what he'll git," he said. "An' it ain't no heads. He'll git blown in ten minutes. An' then he'll git lost. An' then he'll git scared, 'n like enough shoot us when we come nosin' him out. What'd I let him along fur, I wonner?"

"So's we could teach him things," said Tony solemnly.

Walt was dribbling tea-dust into the bubbling billy. He cast a swift upward glance at the young, keen face. Then he took the billy off the hook.

"Spit it out," he said. "You've got some devilment wakin', Tony. What yer goin' ter do? Foller up Peyton an' pepper his legs?"

Tony flung one glance at the branching horns now stooped to earth as the stag fed. And after, he laughed softly, reaching for the tea.

"I'm going to get that head," he said.

"Well," said Walt tolerantly, "Peyton'll never sight it agin, o' course. But he'll be rakin' the landskip up ter two thousand. I know his breed. And he'll mos' likely hit yer 'cos he won't be aimin' at yer. Hev yer thought o' that, Tony?"

"Yes," said Tony Lascelles.

He finished his breakfast and gathered up necessaries serenely. Then he flung Walt a caution as he loped off down-wind.

"Mind you rag Peyton well when he doesn't bring in the head. An' if you give me away, you'll smart for it."

The tasselled snowgrass dripped with dew, and where the sun drew up the sharp, fresh breath of earth Tony ran light as a hare, with something like quicksilver in his veins.

".… And it's well for me that I'm in condition," he said, tucking his rifle into his armpit. "Peyton will be sweating like green wood by now. Peyton, my son, I'm taking the long trail an' the hard trail, an' then I'm going to have you beat."

He crashed into the bush where the clematis and supple-jack tangle grew rife. And half a mile off the ends of that tangle were tripping Peyton and casting him headlong among the native nettle that slapped fiercely back again.

The sun rode gorgeously over the eastern ranges; but a tui had sighted him first from the swaying tip of a hundred-foot birch, and was already ringing her liquid notes down to the ferns by the waking creeks.

Tony trotted like a mustering dog up the ascent where it steepened and grew slippery with mosses and the soft peat of rotting tree-boles. He swung, hand by hand, up the vines dripping over the rocky frontlets, and walked with sure eye and sure foot over sliding shingle with giddy depths below. The bush was damp with breathless heat, and once, when he lay flat to cool his face on the moss, a wild sheep burst through the undergrowth with a five-year fleece on it. It sprang away uphill as a deer springs, and Tony rolled over to swear at it. For, being a sheep, and therefore quite devoid of sporting instincts, it was likely to run until it gave the alarm to the fourteen-pointer where he probably fed still on the bluff.

"But I'm goin' to have Peyton beat," grunted Tony, shaking his dripping head. "I'm going to have him beat, if it takes me all my life."

He crept out into the open, and found his feet among the dried litter of burnt bush which makes the very nastiest stalking country in the world. For in air that is absolutely still and clear, the snap of a stick under the boot rings like a rifle-shot.

Tony slid through the rubbish on cautious heels and toes. His heart thumped against his side, and his eyes were contracted. For the salt-lick to rightward dazzled, and the flinty hog-back that sprang from it winked with a thousand eyes.

Over a low hill he fell, suddenly with a clatter of shingle, on a house-party of hinds and young stags that had lately shed their antlers. A big, moth-eaten mother of the herd sprang out and began to cough at him, her head up, and her slim feet striking loud on the flint. Tony did not wait to explain. He turned and struggled up the naked, hot ridge behind him, in fear lest her anger should have disturbed her lord where he browsed.

From the ridge-top Tony saw him—saw him close, and dropped flat on the skyline with the blood throbbing in his eyes and murder in his heart.

".… For I'll kill Peyton if he interferes now," he said.

The stag fed slowly down the bluff-side, and the muscles rippled in sunlight over a massive shoulder and well-set ribs. His head was purely perfect. He raised it once, and Tony shuddered in soul-sick. But there was no alarm in the easy, powerful movements that brought him near—near—and nearer.

In Tony's hand the rifle seemed to breathe, and Tony understood that its spirit also strained with the lust of slaughter.

"He's mine," sobbed Tony in his throat. "Mine—mine——" And then a dead stick cracked under his elbow.

The crack of the rifle rang with it, and before the eye blinked, the stag fled upward, carrying a bullet behind his off shoulder.

Tony had the lungs and the legs of a musterer, and he followed with tight lips and wide-blown nostrils. He had learnt that concentration which thrusts all but the main issue aside, and he had no time for anger or disgust. He took knoll and sharp descent and smothering bush-patches bravely, and his second wind found him undistressed and gaining, inch by inch,

"I hit! I'll swear I hit! Oh-h-h!" The brute stumbled to his knees, rose again and swerved down a long stone gully. Tony put his whole mind-power into his legs.

"A hare runs half-mile after it's dead," he said. "I'm bound to get another shot in sooner or later, and then——"

And then, over spur a full hundred chain nearer the stag, rose Peyton, who fell on his knees and began pumping lead into the valley after the approved manner of a slayer of men.

The black figure on the knife-edged spur was to Tony Lascelles like the devil who comes up through a trap-door in "Faust," and Tony cursed it whilst absolute despair shook him on his feet. For, by all the laws which a man of honour may know, the Chimney and that which moved upon it belonged in this hour to Peyton.

Peyton splintered a rock and pushed in a new clip before he gave chase. But that did not matter. Death had charge of the stag, and when He took the life, Peyton would unquestionably take the head—and the glory.

"I can prove it's mine," said Tony, swinging downward through the shadeless glare. "Peyton uses soft-nosed bullets. I can prove——" And yet he knew that he must not prove it.

Peyton had no wind, and Tony closed up rapidly, as the stag's pace slowed to an uneven trot. But he was yet half the length of the gully away, making for the bush that led into the unknown.

Down a steep, narrow gut Tony drew to the lead. But he ran in cover of matakuri and manuka that Peyton might not see. That head was his only if Peyton fell out. And this although he knew very surely that Peyton had not hit.

Peyton rolled down a shingle-slope and lay, sick and giddy, on the sun-baked tussock below. But the stag veered to drink at a puddle in a flax-swamp, to leftward, and the action pricked Peyton forward on an unsteady gait. And at this moment both men would have given all the days of their lives to sit on those mighty branching horns and saw them away from the gleaming neck.

"Plop, plop!" said Peyton's rifle insistently. "Plop! Plop! Plop!"

"Always said those Lyman sights were no good for fast work," murmured Tony, taking swift observations through the scrub. "Either that, or the fellow can't shoot worth a tinker's benediction. Ah-h! Down again! That was a good shot that nicked him. A deuced good shot!"

The end came swiftly. A slip scored a wide track out of the sheer bush some hundred yards to northward, and on the red clay breast of it the red deer's life left the body with a roar of defiance.

Peyton crawled up to give thanks over what remained, and Tony sat below, loathing all things created and Peyton in particular. But in time curiosity overrode pride, and he too climbed up to locate the one good shot which had won the game for another.

Peyton was proud beyond authorised conceit, and so self-engrossed that he did not ask Tony's business on his beat. He put his finger in the little round hole behind the shoulder and demanded praise.

"Only had two shots at him," he explained. "And this one was a clean thousand-yarder."

Tony said nothing. There did not appear to be any words yet invented which would fit the case.

".… Pity you've not had the training I've had," ended Peyton. "And course it isn't every man even then who—er—how d'you get the brute's head off?"

Tony showed, touching the beautiful thing lovingly. For, when all was said, it was still his by his right hand's cunning.

Peyton had not the instincts of a gentleman. He was purely and unrelievedly a bounder, and Tony's senses were raw with disgust before the head was off and set on Peyton's back, that he might carry it home for the envy of his fellows.

The ground was incredibly rough. Peyton knew nothing of short cuts, nor did Tony enlighten him: the fresh breeze of morning had forged the still heat of noonday.

In a very little time Peyton's joints were loosed by exhaustion, and when he flagged and fell, Tony's scorn alone scourged him to the labour again. Tony was getting such small consolation out of this as the situation held, and the joy of living came back to him as Peyton turned plum-colour and breathed with gasping mouth.

The burdened man stumbled, dropped the stark thing from him, whimpered.

"Tony," he said. "Oh .… Tony, do carry it a bit! Please, Tony. Just a mile. Half, then. Till I get my second wind. Please, old chap." He hesitated before Tony's expressionless face. "I'll pay you for it," he said.

{[c|Illustration: "Oh, Tony, do carry it a bit!"}}

"You almighty bounder!" said Tony in his heart. But his face did not change, and his words came levelly. "You say it's your kill," he said. "You say I've nothing to do with it. Well, then, you'll lump it yourself. I've nothing to do with your beastly arrangements. Why didn't you drive him home first?"

Peyton had at least learnt some kinds of language in the Boer war. He proceeded to prove this until Tony's desire for blows shrunk him to penitence. He pulled out his food and ate, muttering underbreath, and Tony, opposite, fed in a stern silence.

The halt sent the sun well to the westing, but it did not greatly refresh Peyton. He staggered on with his burden, and Tony noted that the very marrow of the man had dripped from him, that his knees shook, that he crowed in his breath.

A short quarter-mile further and the head pitched on its raw neck into the bracken. Tony's eyes flooded with a sudden, glorious hope.

"Peyton," he cried, "are you coming back for this to-morrow?"

Peyton staggered on blindly.

"Never! I'm never coming back. No."

"Peyton! Do you give up all claim to this head?"

"Y—yes! Don't talk of it. I don't want to think of it. It makes me sick."

"Then I'll take it home myself," said Tony in solemn joy.

It was a simple thing now. So simple that he wondered that he had not foreseen it. The matter could wait until Peyton left Mindoorie, and than all Southland men should learn that Tony Lascelles had shot a fourteen-pointer in Otago Central.

With all the strength and knack that were in him, he heaved up the head and trudged forward.

"You buoolock!" growled Peyton, stumbling after.

The raw skin flapped on Tony's neck and the weight taxed his powerful muscles most cruelly. But he was content. The head was his. His very own. And also, Peyton had already carried it half the distance. This was a joy not to be forgotten when all should be told in the future.

Haze of night was on the hills and firelight in the tent when they came to it. Tony dropped the head by the chopping-block and cast himself beside it. And his chest laboured like an ungreased crank, and his limbs ached bitterly.

Walt fell on his knees in open admiration, and Peyton, being partially recovered, thrust a hand in his trouser-pocket and held out silver to Tony.

"Thanks, Tony," he said. "I don't know how I'd have got the thing back by myself. A good head, isn't it, Walt? Worth a decent tip, eh?"

Peyton had been assorting moves for the last hour. Tony was unprepared.

"You hound!" he shouted, and sent the handful spinning into the snowgrass. "What the blazes——"

Then Walt put his arms round Tony and forced the silence necessary for Peyton's explanation. This was simple.

"I offered to pay Tony for carrying it, and at first he said he wouldn't. But when I got done an' chucked it, he said he would. What's he making the row about? Didn't I offer him enough?"

"Yer'd better not go clean off yer head, Tony," said Walt sympathetically. "What yer got ter say, now?"

"It's mine—mine! He said he gave up all claim. Peyton, you——"

Peyton stood with his legs apart, and the firelight washing over his little, mean face and body.

"You Colonial fellows have queer ideas of ethics," he observed. "No gentleman would want to set up a head shot by another man. And what were you doin' on my beat, anyway? We call that sort o' thing poaching at home."

Tony looked at the four sides of the thing and saw that he was beaten.

"You've as much right to it as to your eighteen men," he said. "An' you can put 'em all in one bag. Let me go, Walt. I'm not going to touch the pig. I wouldn't touch him without—without a disinfectant. Oh, shut up that giggling, can't you?"

"What way was yer goin' ter teach Peyton things, then?" inquired Walt, later.

But Tony Lascelles gave not any answer at all.