The trail was the trail to the farm. Ike had gone to the farm. A horseman was returning along that trail from the direction of the farm. Such was the argument behind his aggressive action. It was a simple argument which in his sober senses might have needed support to urge him to the course he now contemplated. But he was not sober; Beasley had seen to that. He was no more sober than was Ike.

Ike's horse was moving slowly—much slower than its usual walking gait The man was craning forward. Who, he wondered, was riding toward the farm, and for what purpose? His right hand was on the butt of his revolver, but his weapon was still in its holster, for his action was purely precautionary in a country where, when a man has enemies, or has done those things which he knows his fellows resent, it is advisable to look for no support outside his own ability to defend himself.

He remembered the screams of Joan, and he knew how the hills echoed. He wondered, and wondering he regretted something of what he had done. But he regretted it only for possible consequences to himself. In reality he reveled in the warm memory of the feel of the girl's soft cheek.

His horse reached the bend. He could no longer hear the hoof-beats of the other. He drew up with a sudden, nervous movement, and his gun left its holster. But his nerves passed, and, with a foul oath, he urged his horse forward. He rounded the bend and came face to face with the figure of Blue Grass Pete.

"Wher' you bin?" demanded the latter in a manner that was a deliberate insult.

Ike did the only thing his wit could prompt. He laughed. It was a harsh, mirthless laugh, which was equally an insult.

"Quit it!" roared Pete in a blind fury. "Wher' you bin, I say?"

Ike abandoned his laugh, but his face was furiously grinning.

"Bin?" he echoed. "I bin wher' you needn't to go—wher' it ain't no use your goin'," he cried, his love of boast prompting him. "I bin to fix things up. She's goin' to mar——"

A shot rang out. Ike's face blanched, but like lightning his pistol bit out its retort. Pete reeled and recovered himself, and again he fired. Ike leant forward as though seeking support from the horn of his saddle. Pete had fallen forward on to his horse's neck. Ike raised his gun and fired again, but there had really been no need for the shot. Even as his gun spoke the other man fell to the ground and rolled over. His dark face was turned upward, so that the waiting crows had a full view of it.

After that Ike remained quite still. His pale face, turning to a greenish hue in contrast to his ginger hair, was staring down at the result of his handiwork. But his eyes were almost unseeing. He was faint and weary, and in great pain.

The moments passed. At last he stirred. But his movement was merely to clutch with feeble fingers at the mane of his horse. Vainly his left hand clawed amongst the lank hair, while the fingers of his right released their grip upon his pistol and let it clatter to the ground.

He crouched there breathing heavily, while a harsh croak from above split the air. Again he moved as though the sound had awakened him. He strove to sit up, to lift the reins, and to urge his horse forward. The beast moved in response to his effort. But the movement was all that was needed. The man reeled, lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground. He too had rolled on to his back—he too was gazing up with unseeing eyes at the dark-hued carrion whose patience was inexhaustible.

For a moment all was still. Then the horses moved as by common consent. They drew near to each other, and their noses met in that inquiring equine fashion which suggests friendly overtures. They stood thus for a while. Then both moved to the side of the trail and began to graze upon the parching grass after the unconcerned manner of their kind.

The heavy flapping of wings told of a fresh movement in the trees above. Two great black bodies swung out upon the air. They circled round as though assuring themselves that all was as they could wish it. Then they settled again. But this time it was on the boughs of a low bush less than six feet above the staring faces of their intended victims.



CHAPTER XXII

A MAN'S SUPPORT

Buck looked up as two crows flew low over his head and passed on their way, croaking out their alarm and dissatisfaction. Mechanically his eyes followed their movements. For he was well versed in the sights, and sounds, and habits of his world.

Presently he turned again to the trail, and the expression of his eyes had changed to one of speculation. Caesar was traveling eagerly. He had not yet forgotten that farther on along that trail lay the old barn which had been his home from his earliest recollections.

Buck had had no intention of making this visit to the farm when he left Beasley's saloon. He had not had the remotest intention of carrying out the man's broadly-given hint. A hint from Beasley was always unwelcome to him, and generally roused an obstinate desire to take an opposite course. Nor was it until he reached the ford of the creek that the significance of the man's tone penetrated his dislike of him. Quite abruptly he made up his mind to keep straight on. Curiosity, added to a slight feeling of uneasiness, urged him, and, leaving the ford behind him, he kept on down the trail.

His decision once taken, he felt easier as he rode on. Besides, he admitted to himself now, he was rather thankful to the saloon-keeper for providing him with something in the nature of an excuse for such a visit. He was different from those others, who, in perfect confidence and ignorance, required not the least encouragement to persecute Joan with their attentions. He found it more than difficult to realize that his visits were anything but irksome to the new owner of the farm now that she had settled down with the adequate support of her "hired" man.

Joan's graciousness to him was the one great delight of his every waking hour. But he dreaded the moment when her manner might become the mere tolerance she displayed toward Ike and Pete, and any of the others who chose to make her farm a halting-place. So his visits had become rarer; far rarer than made for his own peace of mind, for Joan was always in his thoughts.

Tramping the long trail of the mountains her smiling eyes were always somewhere ahead of him, encouraging him, and shedding a radiance of hope and delight upon the dullest moments of his routine. Never for one moment was the delightful picture of her presence absent from his thoughts. And to him there was nothing in the whole wide world so fair, and sweet, and worthy of the worship he so willingly cast at her feet.

His life had always been full in his wilderness of Nature's splendor. In his moments of leisure he had been more than happily content in the pleasant friendship of the man who had sheltered him from childhood. But now—now as he looked back over all those years, the associations seemed dull and empty—empty of all that made life worth living. Not only had he come to realize the woman's place in a man's life. It was the old story of the fruit of knowledge. Woman had always been a sealed book to him. Now, at last, the cover had been turned and the pages lay before him for the reading. He yearned for Joan with all the strength and passionate ardor of his strong young heart. Nor, even in his yearning, had he full understanding of the real depths of his feelings.

How could he study or analyze them? His love had no thought of the world in it. It had no thought of anything that could bring it down to the level of concrete sensation. He could not have told one feeling that was his. With Joan at his side he moved in a mental paradise which no language could depict. With Joan at his side he lived with every nerve pulsating, attuned to a perfect consciousness of joy. With Joan at his side there was nothing but light and radiance which filled every sense with a happiness than which he could conceive no greater. Alone, this great wide world about him was verily a wilderness.

The man's feelings quickly mastered his momentary uneasiness as his horse bore him on toward his goal. The forest path over which he was traveling had lost its hue of gloom which the shadowed pine woods ever convey. There was light everywhere, that light which comes straight from the heart and is capable of lending radiance even to the grave-side itself.

The trail lay straight ahead of him for some distance. Then it swerved in a big sweep away to the left. He knew this bend. The farm lay something less than half a mile beyond it. As they neared it Caesar pricked his ears and whinnied. Buck leant forward and patted his neck out of the very joy of anticipation. It almost seemed to him as if the creature knew who was waiting at the end of the journey and was rejoicing with him. For once he had misunderstood the mood of his horse.

He realized this in a moment. The eager creature began to move with a less swinging stride, and his gait quickly became something in the nature of a "prop." They were round the bend, and the horse whinnied again. This time it raised its head and snorted nervously. And instantly Buck was alive to the creature's anxiety. He understood the quick glancing from side to side, and the halting of that changing step which is always a sign of fear.

Ahead the trail completed the letter S it had begun. They were nearing the final curve to the right. Buck searched the distance for the cause of Caesar's apprehension. And all unconsciously his mind went back to the winging of the crows overhead and the sound of their harsh voices. He spurred the creature sharply, and steadied him down.

They reached the final bend and passed round it, and in a moment Buck had an answer to the questions in his mind. It was a terrible spectacle that greeted his eyes as he reined his horse in and brought him to an abrupt halt. He had reached the battle-ground where death had claimed its toll of human passion. There, swiftly, almost silently, two men had fought out their rivalry for a woman's favor—a favor given to neither.

It needed little enough imagination to read the facts. All the ingredients of the swift-moving drama were there before his eyes—the combatants stretched out in the sand of the trail, with staring eyes and dropping jaws, gazing up at the brilliant vault of the heavens, whither, may be, their savage spirits had fled; the woman crouching down at the roadside with face buried upon outstretched arms, her slight body heaving with hysterical sobs; the horses, horses he knew well enough by sight, lost to the tragedy amidst the more succulent roots of the parching grass beneath the shadow of overhanging trees.

One glance at the combatants told Buck all he wanted to know. They were dead. He had been too long upon the western trail to doubt the signs he beheld. His duty and inclination were with the living. In a moment he was out of the saddle and at Joan's side, raising her from her position of grief and misery in arms as gentle as they were strong.

He had no real understanding of the necessities of the moment. All he knew, all he desired, was to afford the girl that help and protection he felt she needed. His first thought was to keep her from a further sight of what had occurred. So he held her in his arms, limp and yielding, for one uncertain moment. Then, for the second time in his life, he bore her off toward her home.

But now his feelings were of a totally different nature. There was neither ecstasy nor dreaming. He was anxious and beset. As he bore her along he spoke to her, encouraging her with gentle words of sympathy and hope. But her fainting condition left him no reward, and her half-closed eyes, filled with unshed tears, remained dull and unresponsive.

* * * * *

No sound broke the stillness in the parlor at the farm. Buck was leaning against the small centre-table gravely watching the bowed head of the silently-weeping girl, who was seated upon the rough settle which lined the wall. Her slight figure was supported by the pillows which had been set in place by the ministering hands of Mrs. Ransford.

Buck's reception by the farm-wife had been very different on this occasion. She had met him with his burden some distance down the trail, whither she had followed her young mistress, whose fleetness had left her far behind. Her tongue had started to clack at once, but Buck was in no mood to put up with unnecessary chatter. A peremptory order had had the astonishing effect of silencing her, and a further command had set her bustling to help her mistress.

Once immediate needs had been attended to, the man told his story briefly, and added his interpretation of the scene he had just witnessed. He further dispatched the old woman to summon the hired man from his ploughing, and, for once, found ready obedience where he might well have expected nothing but objection.

Thus it was the man and girl were alone in the parlor. Buck was waiting for Joan's storm of tears to pass.

The moment came at last, and quite abruptly. Joan stirred; she flung her head up and dashed the weak tears from her eyes, struggling bravely for composure. But the moment she spoke her words belied the resolution, and showed her still in the toils of an overwhelming despair.

"What can I do?" she cried piteously. "What am I to do? I can see nothing—nothing but disaster in every direction. It is all a part of my life; a part of me. I cannot escape it. I have tried to, but—I cannot. Oh, I feel so helpless—so helpless!"

Buck's eyes shone with love and pity. He was stirred to the depths of his manhood by her appeal. Here again was that shadow she had spoken of before, that he had become familiar with. He tried to tell himself that she was simply unnerved, but he knew her trouble was more than that. All his love drove him to a longing for a means of comforting her.

"Forget the things you seen," he said in a low tone. And he felt that his words were bald—even stupid.

The girl's troubled eyes were looking up into his in a desperate hope. It was almost as if this man were her only support, and she were making one final appeal before abandoning altogether her saving hold.

"Forget them? Oh, Buck, Buck, you don't know what you are saying. You don't understand—you can't, or you would not speak like that. You see," she went on, forgetting in her trouble that this man did not know her story, "Ike was here. Here! He made—love to me. He—he kissed me. He brutally kissed me when I had no power to resist him. And now—now this has happened."

But the man before her had suddenly changed while she was speaking. The softness had left his eyes. They had suddenly become hot, and bloodshot, and hard. His breath came quickly, heavily, his thin nostrils dilating with the furious emotion that swept through his body. Ike had kissed her. He had forgotten all her sufferings in his own sudden, jealous fury.

Joan waited. The change in the man had passed unobserved by her. Then, as no answer was forthcoming, she went on—

"Wherever I go it is the same. Death and disaster. Oh, it is awful! Sometimes I think I shall go mad. Is there no corner of the earth where I can hide myself from the shadow of this haunting curse?"

"Ike kissed you?"

Buck's voice grated harshly. Somehow her appeal had passed him by. All his better thoughts and feelings were overshadowed for the moment. A fierce madness was sweeping through his veins, his heart, his brain, a madness of feeling such as he had never before experienced.

The girl answered him, still without recognizing the change.

"Yes," she said in a dull, hopeless way. "And the inevitable happened. It followed swiftly, surely, as it always seems to follow. He is dead."

"He got it—as he should get it. He got no more than he'd have got if I'd been around."

Buck's mood could no longer escape her. She looked into the hard, young face, startled. She saw the fury in his eyes, the clenched jaws, with their muscles outstanding with the force of the fury stirring him.

The sight agitated her, but somehow it did not frighten. She half understood. At least she thought she did. She read his resentment as that of a man who sees in the outrage a breaking of all the laws of chivalry. She missed the real note underlying it.

"What does his act matter?" she said almost indifferently, her mind on what she regarded as the real tragedy. "He was drunk. He was not responsible. No, no. It is not that which matters. It was the other. He left me—to go to his death. Had Pete not been waiting for him it would have been just the same. Disaster! Death! Oh! can you not see? It is the disaster which always follows me."

Her protest was not without its effect. So insistent was she on the resulting tragedy that Buck found himself endeavoring to follow her thought in spite of his own feelings. She was associating this tragedy with herself—as part of her life, her fate.

But it was some moments before the man was sufficiently master of himself—before he could detach his thought altogether from the human feelings stirring him. The words sang on his ear-drums. "He—he kissed me." They were flaming through his brain. They blurred every other thought, and, for a time, left him incapable of lending her that support he would so willingly give her. Finally, however, his better nature had its way. He choked down his jealous fury, and strove to find means of comforting her.

"It's all wrong," he cried, with a sudden force which claimed the girl's attention, and, for the time at least, held her troubled thought suspended. "How can this be your doing? Why for should it be a curse on you because two fellers shoot each other up? They hated each other because of you. Wal—that's natural. It's dead human. It's been done before, an' I'm sure guessin' it'll be done again. It's not you. It's—it's nature—human nature. Say, Miss Joan, you ain't got the lessons of these hills right yet. Folks out here are diffrent to city folks. That is, their ways of doin' the same things are diff'rent. We feel the same—that's because we're made the same—but we act diff'rent. If I'd bin around, I'd have shot Ike—with a whole heap of pleasure. An' if I had, wher's the cuss on you? Kissin' a gal like that can't be done around here."

"But Pete was not here. He didn't know."

Joan was quick to grasp the weakness of his argument.

"It don't matter a cent," cried Buck, his teeth clipping his words. "He needed his med'cine—an' got it."

Joan sighed hopelessly.

"You don't understand, and—and I can't tell it you all. Sometimes I feel I could kill myself. How can I help realizing the truth? It is forced on me. I am a leper, a—a pariah."

The girl leant back on her cushions, and her whole despairing attitude became an appeal to his manhood. The last vestige of Buck's jealousy passed from him. He longed to tell her all there was in his heart. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, and protect her from every shadow the whole wide world held for her. He longed to tell her of the love that was his, and how no power on earth could change it. But he did none of these things.

"The things you're callin' yourself don't sound wholesome," he said simply. "I can't see they fit in anyway. Guess they ain't natural."

Joan caught at the word.

"Natural!" she cried. "Is any of it natural?" She laughed hysterically.

Buck nodded.

"It's all natural," he said. "You've hit it. You don't need my word. Jest you ask the Padre. He'll give it you all. He'll tell you jest how notions can make a cuss of any life, an' how to get shut of sech notions. He's taught me, an' he'll teach you. I can't jest pass his words on. They don't git the same meaning when I say 'em. I ain't wise to that sort of thing. But ther's things I am wise to, and they're the things he's taught me. You're feeling mean, mean an' miser'ble, that makes me ter'ble mean to see. Say, Miss Joan, I ain't much handin' advice. I ain't got brain enough to hand that sort of thing around, but I'd sure ask you to say right here ther' ain't no cuss on your life, an' never was. You jest guess there's a cuss around chasin' glory at your expense. Wal, git right up, an' grit your teeth an' fight good. Don't sit around feeling mean. If you'd do that, I tell you that cuss'll hit the trail so quick you won't git time to see it, an' you'll bust yourself laffin' to think you ever tho't it was around your layout. An' before I done talkin' I'll ast you to remember that when menfolks git around insultin' a helpless gal, cuss or no cuss, he's goin' to git his med'cine good—an' from me."

Buck's effort had its reward. The smile that had gradually found its way into his own eyes caught something of a reflection in those of the girl. He had dragged her from the depths of her despair by the force of the frank courage that was his. He had lifted her by the sheer strength and human honesty which lay at the foundation of his whole, simple nature. Joan sighed, and it was an acknowledgment of his success.

"Thank you, Buck," she said gently. "You are always so good to me. You have been so ever since I came. And goodness knows you have little enough reason for it, seeing it is I who have turned you out of this home of yours——"

"We got your money," interrupted Buck, almost brusquely. "This farm was the Padre's. You never turned me out. An' say, the Padre don't live a big ways from here. Maybe you'd like him to tell you about cusses an' things." His eyes twinkled. "He's sure great on cusses."

But Joan did not respond to the lightness of his manner, and Buck realized that her trouble was still strong upon her.

He waited anxiously, watching for the signs of her acceptance of his invitation. But they were not forthcoming. The deep violet of her eyes seemed to grow deeper with a weight of thought, and gradually the man's hopes sank. He had wanted her to see his friend, he had wanted his friend to see her. But more than all he had wanted to welcome her to his own home. Nor was the reason of his desire clear even to himself.

At last she rose from her seat and crossed over to the window, just as the sound of voices heralded the return of Mrs. Ransford and the hired man. It was at that moment she turned to him, speaking over her shoulder.

"They've got back," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"Send those—others—on into camp."

"Yes." Joan shivered.

Then she came back to him, and stood with one hand resting on the table.

"I—I think I should like to see the Padre. Will you take me to him one day?"



CHAPTER XXIII

THE BRIDGING OF YEARS

It was nearly a week later that Joan paid her visit to the fur fort.

The Padre moved about the room a little uncertainly. Its plainness troubled him, but its cleanliness was unquestionable. Both he and Buck had spent over two hours, earlier in the day, setting the place to rights and preparing for their visitor.

He shook his head as he viewed the primitive condition of the furniture. It was all very, very home-made. There was not one seat he felt to be suitable to offer to a lady. He was very dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with it all, and particularly with Buck for bringing Joan to this wretched mountain abode. It would have been far better had he called at the farm. It even occurred to him now as curious that he had never done so before.

Yet perhaps it was not so curious after all. He had been attached to the home which had sheltered him all those years, the home his own two hands had built. Yes, it was different making a place, building it, driving every nail oneself, setting up every fence post, turning every clod of soil. It was different to purchasing it, ready-made, or hiring labor. He had no desire to go near the farm again. That, like other things, had passed out of his life forever.

Three times he rearranged the room in the vain hope of giving it an added appearance of comfort, but the task was hopeless. Finally, he sat down and lit his pipe, smiling at his almost childish desire that his home should find favor in the eyes of the girl Buck was bringing to see him.

Buck had told him very little. He had spoken of the visit, and hinted at Joan's desire for advice. He had been very vague. But then that was Buck's way in some things. It was not often that he had need to go into reasons in his intercourse with his friend. Such a perfect understanding had always existed between them that they were rarely discoursive. He had told the Padre of the shooting, and explained the apparent cause. He had also told him of the reception of the news in the camp, and how a small section of the older inhabitants had adopted an attitude of resentment against the innocent cause of it. He had shown him that there was plainly no sympathy, or very little, for Joan when the story was told. And to the elder man this was disquieting. Buck had treated it with the contempt of youth, but the Padre had detected in it a food for graver thought than he let the boy understand.

It would be time enough to break up Buck's confidence should any trouble develop. In the meantime he had understood that there was something like real necessity for him to see this girl. If she needed any help then it was plainly his duty to give it her. And, besides, there was another reason. Buck desired this interview.

He smiled to himself as he thought of the turn events had taken with Buck. He must have been blind indeed if he had not seen from the very first the way things were going. The boy had fallen hopelessly in love with the first girl with whom he had definitely been brought into contact. And why not? Yes, he was rather anxious to see and talk with this girl who had set the boy's heart on fire.

Yet it seemed strange. Buck had never been anything but a boy to him. He had never really grown up. He was still the small, pathetic figure he had first encountered on the trail-side. And now here he was hopelessly, madly in love with a girl. He would never forget the fire of jealousy that had lain behind his words when Buck had told him that Ike had forcibly kissed her.

His thought lost its more sympathetic note, and he became grave. Love had come into this youngster's life, and he wondered in what direction it would influence it. He knew well enough, no one better, how much damage love could do. He knew well enough the other, and right side of the picture. But Buck was an unusual experiment. Even to him, who knew the boy so well, he was still something of a problem in many ways. One thing was certain. He would get the trouble badly, and time alone could show what ravages and complications might be forthcoming.

He rose from his chair and knocked out his pipe. Then, in smiling dismay, he sniffed the air. He had done the very thing he had meant to avoid. He shook his white head, and opened wide both the window and the door in the hope that the fresh mountain air would sweeten the atmosphere before the girl's arrival.

But his hopes were quickly dashed. As he took up his position in the doorway, prepared to extend her the heartiest greeting, he heard the clatter of hoofs on the trail, and the man and the girl rode into the stockade.

Buck had departed to perform his usual evening tasks. He had gone to water and feed the horses, to "buck" cord-wood for the stove, and to draw the water for their household purposes. He was full early with his work, but he was anxious that the Padre and Joan should remain undisturbed. Such was his faith in the Padre that he felt that on this visit depended much of the girl's future peace of mind.

Now the white-haired man and the girl were alone—alone with the ruddy westering sun pouring in through window and door, in an almost horizontal shaft of gracious light. Joan was sitting bending over the cook-stove, her feet resting on the rack at the foot of the oven, her hands outstretched to the warming glow of the fire. The evenings in the hills, even in the height of summer, were never without a nip of cold which drifted down from the dour, ages-old glaciers crowning the distant peaks. She was talking, gazing into the glowing coals. She was piecing out her story as it had been told her by her Aunt Mercy, feeling that only with a full knowledge of it could this wise old white-haired friend of Buck's understand and help her.

The Padre was sitting close under the window. His back was turned to it, so that his face was almost lost in the shadow. And it was as well. As the story proceeded, as incident after incident was unfolded, the man's face became gray with unspeakable emotion, and from robust middle age he jumped to an old, old man.

But Joan saw none of this. Never once did she turn her eyes in his direction. She was lost in painful recollections of the hideous things with which she seemed to be surrounded. She told him of her birth, those strange circumstances which her aunt had told her of, and which now, in her own cold words, sounded so like a fairy tale. She told him of her father and her father's friend, the man who had always been his evil genius. She told him of her father's sudden good fortune, and of the swift-following disaster. She told him of his dreadful death at the hands of his friend. Then she went on, mechanically reciting the extraordinary events which had occurred to her—how, in each case where men sought her regard and love, disaster had followed hard upon their heels; how she had finally fled before the disaster which dogged her; how she had come here, here where she thought she might be free from associations so painful, only to find that escape was impossible.

"I need not tell you what has happened since I came," she finished up dully. "You know it all. They say I brought them their luck. Luck? Was there ever such luck? First my coming cost a man's life, and now—now Ike and Pete. What is to follow?"

The Padre had not once interrupted her in her long story, and, even now, as the last sound of her voice died out, it was some moments before he spoke.

The fire in the grate rustled and the cinders shook down.

It was then that the girl stirred as though suddenly made aware of the silence. Immediately the man's voice, cold—almost harsh, in contrast to his usual tone, startled her.

"'Rest' is not your name," he said. "You have changed your name—to further aid your escape from——"

"How do you know that?" Then the girl went on, wondering at the man's quickness of understanding. "I had not intended telling you. But it doesn't matter. Nothing seems to matter. Evidently my disguise is useless with you. No, my name is not Rest. My father was Charles Stanmore."

The man made no reply. He did not move. His keen eyes were on the red-gold hair so neatly coiled about the girl's head. His lips were compressed, and a deep frown had disturbed the usual serenity of his broad brow.

For a moment Joan bowed her head, and her hands clasped tightly as they were held toward the fire. Presently her voice sounded again. It began low, held under a forced calm.

"Is there no hope?" she implored him. "Buck said you could help me. What have I done that these things should curse my life? I only want peace—just a little peace. I am content to live and die just as I am. I desire nothing more than to be left—alone."

"Who told you—all this?" The Padre's voice had no sympathy.

"My aunt. Aunt Mercy."

"You were—happy before she told you?"

"Yes."

"Why did she tell you?"

"I don't know. At least—yes, she told me so as to warn me. So that I might avoid bringing disaster upon those whom I had no desire to hurt."

The Padre rose from his seat and crossed to where the girl was sitting. He stood for a moment just behind her chair. Then, very gently, he laid one sunburnt hand upon her shoulder.

"Little girl," he said, with a wonderful kindliness that started the long-threatened tears to the girl's eyes, "you've got a peck of trouble inside that golden head of yours. But it's all in there. There's none of it outside. Look back over all those things you've told me. Every one of them. Just show me where your hand in them lies. There is not a disaster that you have mentioned but what possesses its perfectly logical, natural cause. There is not one that has not been duplicated, triplicated, ah! dozens and dozens of times since this quaint old world of ours began. You believe it is due to your influence because a silly old woman catches you in an overwrought moment and tells you so. She has implanted a parasite in your little head that has stuck there and grown out of all proportion. Believe me, child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It has been your lot to witness many disasters, but had these things occurred with other girls as the central figure, would you have attributed this hideous curse to their lives? Would you? Never. But you readily attribute it to your own. I am an old man my dear; older to-day, perhaps, by far than my years call for. I have seen so much of misery and trouble that sometimes I have thought that all life is just one long sea of disaster. But it isn't—unless we choose to make it so. You are rapidly making yours such. You are naturally generous, and kind, and sympathetic. These things you have allowed to develop in you until they have become something approaching disease. Vampires sucking out all your nervous strength. Abandon these things for a while. Live the life the good God gave you. Enjoy your living moments as you were intended to enjoy them. And be thankful that the sun rises each morning, and that you can rise up from your bed refreshed and ready for the full play of heart, and mind, and limbs. Disasters will go on about you as they go on about me, and about us all. But they do not belong to us. That is just life. That is just the world and its scheme. There are lessons in all these things for us to learn—lessons for the purification of our hearts, and not diseases for our silly, weak brains. Now, little girl, I want you to promise that you will endeavor to do as I say. Live a wholesome, healthy life. Enjoy all that it is given you to enjoy. Where good can be done, do it. Where evil lies, shun it. Forget all this that lies behind you, and—Live! Evil is merely the absence of Good. Life is all Good. If we deny that good, then there is Evil. Live your life with all its blessings, and your God will bless you. This is your duty to yourself; to your fellows; to life; to your God."

Joan had risen from her seat. Her face was alight with a hope that had not been there for many days. The man's words had taken hold of her. Her troubled mind could not withstand them. He had inspired her with a feeling of security she had not known for weeks. Her tears were no longer tears of despair. They were tears of thankfulness and hope. But when she spoke her words seemed utterly bald and meaningless to express the wave of gratitude that flooded her heart.

"I will; I will," she cried with glistening eyes. "Oh, Padre!" she went on, with happy impulse, "you don't know what you've done for me—you don't know——"

"Then, child, do something for me." The man was smiling gravely down into the bright, upturned face. "You must not live alone down there at the farm. It is not good in a child so young as you. Get some relative to come and share your home with you."

"But I have no one—except my Aunt Mercy."

"Ah!"

"You see she is my only relative. But—but I think she would come if I asked her."

"Then ask her."

* * * * *

The Padre was sitting in the chair that Joan had occupied. He too was bending over the stove with his hands outstretched to the warming blaze. Perhaps he too was feeling the nip of the mountain air. Feeling it more than usual to-night. Buck was sitting on the edge of the table close by. He had just returned from taking Joan back to the farm.

The young man's journey home had been made in a condition of mental exhilaration which left him quite unconscious of all time and distance. The change wrought in Joan had been magical, and Caesar, for once in his life, felt the sharp spur of impatience in the man's eager desire to reach his friend and speak something of the gratitude he felt.

But habit was strong upon Buck, and his gratitude found no outlet in words when the moment came. Far from it. On his arrival he found the Padre sitting at their fireside without even the most ordinary welcome on his lips. A matter so unusual that it found Buck dumb, waiting for the lead to come, as he knew it inevitably would, in the Padre's own good time.

It took longer than he expected, however, and it was not until he had prepared their frugal supper that the elder man stirred from his moody contemplation of the fire.

He looked up, and a smile struggled painfully into his eyes.

"Hungry, Buck?" he inquired.

"So!"

"Ah! then sit right down here, boy, an' light your pipe. There's things I want to say—first."

"Get right ahead." Buck drew up a chair, and obediently filled and lit his pipe.

"Life's pretty twisted," the Padre began, his steady gray eyes smiling contemplatively. "So twisted, it makes you wonder some. That girl's happier now, because I told her there were no such things as cusses. Yes, it's all queer."

He reached out and helped himself from Buck's tobacco pouch. Then he, too, filled and lit his pipe.

"You've never asked me why I live out here," he went on presently. "Never since I've known you. Once or twice I've seen the question in your eyes, but—it never stayed there long. You don't ask many questions, do you, Buck?"

The Padre puffed slowly at his pipe. His manner was that of a man looking back upon matters which had suddenly acquired an added interest for him. Yet the talk he desired to have with this youngster inspired an ill-flavor.

"If folks want to answer questions ther' ain't no need to ask 'em." Buck's philosophy interested the other, and he nodded.

"Just so. That's how it is with me—now. I want to tell you—what you've never asked. You'll see the reason presently."

Buck waited. His whole manner suggested indifference. Yet there was a thoughtful look in his dark eyes.

"That girl," the Padre went on, his gaze returning to a contemplation of the fire. "She's put me in mind of something. She's reminded me how full of twists and cranks life is. She's full of good. Full of good thoughts and ideals. Yet life seems to take a delight in impressing her with a burden so unwholesome as to come very nearly undoing all the good it has endowed her with. It seems queer. It seems devilish hard. But I generally notice the harder folk try in this world the heavier the cross they have to carry. Maybe it's the law of fitness. Maybe folks must bear a burden at their full capacity so that the result may be a greater refining. I've thought a lot lately. Sometimes I've thought it's better to sit around and—well, don't worry with anything outside three meals a day. That's been in weak moments. You see, we can't help our natures. If it's in us to do the best we know—well, we're just going to do it, and—and hang the result."

"H'm." Buck grunted and waited.

"I was thinking of things around here," the other went on. "I was wondering about the camp. It's a stinking hole now. It's full of everything—rotten. Yet they think it's one huge success, and they reckon we helped them to it."

"How?"

"Why, by feeding them when they were starving, and so making it possible for them to hang on until Nature opened her treasure-house."

Buck nodded.

"I see."

"All I see is—perhaps through our efforts—we've turned loose a hell of drunkenness and debauchery upon earth. These people—perhaps through our efforts—have been driven along the very path we would rather have saved them from. The majority will end in disaster. Some have already done so. But for our help this would not have been."

"They'd jest have starved."

"We should not have sold our farm, and Ike and Pete would have been alive now."

"In Ike's case it would have been a pity."

The Padre smiled. He took Buck's protest for what it was worth.

"Yes, life's pretty twisted. It's always been the same with me. Wherever I've got busy trying to help those I had regard for I generally managed to find my efforts working out with a result I never reckoned on. That's why I am here."

The Padre smoked on for some moments in silence.

"I was hot-headed once," he went on presently. "I was so hot-headed that I—I insulted the woman I loved. I insulted her beyond forgiveness. You see, she didn't love me. She loved my greatest friend. Still, that's another story. It's the friend I want to talk about. He was a splendid fellow. A bright, impetuous gambler on the New York Stock Exchange. We were both on Wall Street. I was a gambler too. I was a lucky gambler, and he was an unlucky one. In spite of my love for the woman, who loved him, it was my one great desire to help him. My luck was such that I believed I could do it—my luck and my conceit. You see, next to the woman I loved he was everything in the world to me. Do you get that?"

Buck nodded.

"Well, in spite of all I could and did do, after a nice run of luck which made me think his affairs had turned for the better, a spell of the most terrible ill-luck set in. There was no checking it. He rode headlong for a smash. I financed him time and again, nearly ruining myself in my effort to save him. He took to drink badly. He grew desperate in his gambling. In short, I saw he had given up all hope. Again I did the best I could. I was always with him. My object was to endeavor to keep him in check. In his drinking bouts I was with him, and when he insisted on poker and other gambling I was there to take a hand. If I hadn't done these things—well, others would have, but with a different object. By a hundred devices I managed to minimize the bad results of his wild, headstrong career.

"Then the end came. Had I been less young, had I been less hopeful for him, less wrapped up in him, I must have foreseen it. We were playing cards in his apartments. His housekeeper and his baby girl were in a distant room. They were in bed. You see, it was late at night. It was the last hand. His luck had been diabolical, but the stakes were comparatively low. I shall never forget the scene. His nerves were completely shattered. He picked up his hand, glanced at it—we were playing poker—jack pots—and flung it down. 'I'm done,' he cried, and, kicking back his chair, rose from the table. He moved a pace away as though to go to the side-table where the whisky and soda stood. I thought he meant having a drink. His back was turned to me. The next moment I heard shots. He seemed to stumble, swung round with a sort of jerk, and fell face downward across the table.

"I jumped to his assistance. But—he was dead. He had shot himself through the heart and in the stomach. My horror? Well, it doesn't matter now. I was utterly and completely unnerved. If I hadn't been perhaps I should have acted differently. I should have called his—housekeeper. I should have summoned the police—a doctor. But I did none of these. My horror and grief were such that I—fled; fled like the coward I was. Nor did I simply flee from the house. I left everything, and fled from the city that night. It was not until some days afterward that I realized what my going meant to me. You see, I had left behind me, in his housekeeper, the woman I loved—and had insulted past forgiveness. I was branded as his murderer. Do you see? She loved him, and was his housekeeper. Oh, there was nothing wrong in it! I knew that. His baby girl was the child of his dead wife. Several times I thought of returning to establish my innocence, but somehow my conduct and my story wouldn't have fitted in the eyes of a jury. Besides, there was that insulted woman. She had accused me of the murder. It was quite useless to go back. It meant throwing away my life. It was not worth it. So I came here."

Buck offered no comment for a long time. Comment seemed unnecessary. The Padre watched him with eyes striving to conceal their anxiety.

Finally, Buck put a question that seemed unnecessary.

"Why d'you tell me now?" he asked. His pipe had gone out and he pushed it into his hip-pocket.

The Padre's smile was rather drawn.

"Because of you. Because of my friend's—baby girl."

"How?"

"The child's name was Joan. Joan Rest is the daughter of Charles Stanmore—the man I am accused of murdering. This afternoon I advised her to have some one to live with her—a relative. She is sending for the only one she has. It is her aunt, Stanmore's housekeeper—the woman I insulted past forgiveness."

Not for an instant did Buck's expression change.

"Why did you advise—that?" he asked.

The Padre's eyes suddenly lit with a subdued fire, and his answer came with a passion such as Buck had never witnessed in him before.

"Why? Why? Because you love this little Joan, daughter of my greatest friend. Because I owe it to you—to her—to face my accusers and prove my innocence."

The two men looked long and earnestly into each other's eyes. Then the Padre's voice, sharp and strident, sounded through the little room.

"Well?"

Buck rose from his seat.

"Let's eat, Padre," he said calmly. "I'm mighty hungry." Then he came a step nearer and gripped the elder man's hand. "I'm right with you, when things—get busy."



CHAPTER XXIV

BEASLEY PLAYS THE GAME

Joan lost no time in carrying out the Padre's wishes. Such was her changed mood, such was the strength of her new-born hope, such was the wonderful healing his words had administered to her young mind, that, for the time at least, her every cloud was dispersed, lost in a perfect sheen of mental calm.

The change occurred from the moment of her return home. So changed indeed was she that her rough but faithful housekeeper, dull of perception to all those things outside the narrow focus of her life in domestic service, caught a faint glimpse of it without anything approaching a proper understanding. She realized an added energy, which seriously affected her own methods of performing her duties and caused her to make a mental note that her young mistress was assuming "airs" which did not fit in with her inexperience of those things amidst which she, the farm-wife, had floundered all her life. She heard her moving about the house, her joy and hope finding outlet in song such as had never echoed through the place before. And promptly she set this new phase down to the result of her associations with the young "scallawag" Buck. She noted, too, an added care in her toilet, and this inspired the portentous belief that she was "a-carryin' on" with the same individual. But when it came to a general "turning-out" of the living-rooms of the house, a matter which added an immense amount of effort to her own daily duties, her protest found immediate vent in no uncertain terms.

It came while the midday dinner was in preparation. It rose to boiling-point amidst the steam from her cooking pots. Finally it bubbled over, much as might one of her own kettles.

Joan was standing in the kitchen giving her orders preparatory to departing to the camp, whither she was going to mail her letter to her aunt at Beasley's store.

"You see," she was saying, "I'll have to make some changes in the house. I'm expecting my aunt from St. Ellis to come and stay with me. She won't be able to do with the things which have been sufficient for me. She will have my room. I shall buy new furniture for it. I shall get Beasley to order it for me from Leeson Butte. Then I shall use the little room next yours. And while we're making these changes we'll have a general housecleaning. You might begin this afternoon on the room I am going to move into."

The old woman turned with a scarlet face. It may have been the result of the heat of cooking. Then again it may have had other causes.

"An' when, may I ast, do I make bricks?" she inquired with ponderous sarcasm.

Joan stood abashed for a moment. So unexpected was the retort, so much was it at variance with her own mood that she had no answer ready, and the other was left with the field to herself.

"Now jest look right here, Miss Joan—ma'm," she cried, flourishing a cooking spoon to point her words. "I ain't a woman of many words by no means, as you might say, but what I sure says means what I mean, no more an' no less, as the sayin' is. I've kep' house all my life, an' I reckon ther's no female from St. Ellis ken show me. I've bin a wife an' a mother, an' raised my offsprings till they died. I did fer a man as knew wot's wot in my George D. An' if I suffered fer it, it was jest because I know'd my duty an' did it, no matter the consequences to me an' mine. I tell you right here, an' I'm a plain-spoken woman who's honest, as the sayin' is, I turn out no house, nor room, nor nothin' of an afternoon. I know my duty an' I do it. Ther's a chapter of the Bible fer every day o' my life, an' it needs digestin' good—with my dinner. An' I don't throw it up fer nobody."

"But—but——" Joan began to protest, but the other brushed objection aside with an added flourish of her spoon.

"It ain't no use fer you to persuade, nor cajole, nor argify. What I says goes fer jest so long as I'm willin' to accept your ter'ble ordinary wages, which I say right here won't be fer a heap long time if things don't change some. I'm a respectable woman an' wife that was, but isn't, more's the pity, an' it ain't my way to chase around the house a-screechin' at the top o' my voice jest as though I'd come from a cirkis. You ain't got your mind on your work. You ain't got your heart in it, singin' all over the house, like—like one o' them brazen cirkis gals. No, nor wot with scallawags a-comin' around sparkin' you, an' the boys shootin' theirselves dead over you, an' folks in the camp a-callin' of you a Jony gal, I don't guess I'll need to stay an' receive con—contamination, as you might say. That's how I'm feelin'; an' bein' a plain woman, an' a 'specterble widow of George D., who was a man every inch of him, mind you, if he had his failin's, chasin' other folks' cattle, an' not readin' their brands right, why, out it comes plump like a bad tooth you're mighty glad to be rid of, as the sayin' is."

The woman turned back to her cooking. Her manner was gravely disapproving, and she had managed to convey a sting which somehow hurt Joan far more than she was willing to admit. Her refusal to undertake the added work was merely churlish and disconcerting, but those other remarks raised a decided anger not untouched by a feeling of shame and hurt. But Joan did not give way to any of these feelings in her reply. She did the only dignified thing possible.

"You need not wait until your dissatisfaction with me overwhelms you, Mrs. Ransford," she said promptly. "I engaged you by the month, and I shall be glad if you will leave me to-day month." Then she added with a shadow of reproach: "Really, I thought you were made of better stuff."

But her attitude had a far different result to what she had expected. She turned to go, preferring to avoid a further torrent of abuse from the harsh old woman, when the spoon flourished in the air as the widow of George D. swung round from her pots with an amazing alacrity.

"You ain't chasin' me out, Miss Joan—ma'm?" she cried aghast, her round eyes rolling in sudden distress. "Why, miss—ma'm, I never meant no harm—that I didn't. Y' see I was jest sore hearin' them sayin' things 'bout you in the camp, an' you a-singin' made me feel you didn't care nuthin'. An' these scallawags a-comin' around a-sassin' you, an' a-kissin' you, sort o' set my blood boilin'. No, miss—ma'm, you ain't a-goin' to chase me out! You wouldn't now, would you?" she appealed. "Jest say you won't, an' I'll have the house turned sheer upside down 'fore you know wher' you are. There, jest think of it. You may need some un to ke'p that scallawag Buck in his place. How you goin' to set about him without me around? I ain't quittin' this day month, am I, miss—ma'm?"

The old woman's abject appeal was too much for Joan's soft heart, and her smiling eyes swiftly told the waiting penitent that the sentence was rescinded. Instantly the shadow was lifted from the troubled face.

"It was your own fault, Mrs. Ransford," Joan said, struggling to conceal her amusement. "However, if you want to stay——Well, I must drive into the camp before dinner, and we'll see about the little room when I return."

"That we will, mum—miss. That we will," cried the farm-wife in cordial relief as Joan hurried out of the room.

* * * * *

Joan drew up at Beasley's store just as that individual was preparing to adjourn his labors for dinner. The man saw her coming from the door of his newly-completed barn, and softly whistled to himself at the sight of the slim, girlish figure sitting in the wagon behind the heavy team of horses he had so long known as the Padre's.

This was only the third time he had seen the girl abroad in the camp, and he wondered at the object of her visit now.

Whatever malice he bore her, and his malice was of a nature only to be understood by his warped mind, his admiration was none the less for it. Not a detail of her appearance escaped his quick, lustful eyes. Her dainty white shirt-waist was covered by the lightest of dust coats, and her pretty face was shadowed by a wide straw hat which protected it from the sun's desperate rays. Her deeply-fringed eyes shone out from the shade, and set the blood pulsing through the man's veins. He saw the perfect oval of her fair face, with its ripe, full lips and delicate, small nose, so perfect in shape, so regular in its setting under her broad open brow. Her wonderful hair, that ruddy-tinted mass of burnished gold which was her most striking feature, made him suck in a whistling breath of sensual appreciation. Without a moment's hesitation, hat in hand he went to meet her.

As he came up his foxy eyes were alight with what he intended for a grin of amiability. Whatever his peculiarly vindictive nature he was more than ready to admit to himself the girl's charms.

"Say, Miss Golden," he cried, purposely giving her the name the popular voice had christened her, "it's real pleasant of you to get around. Guess the camp's a mighty dull show without its lady citizens. Maybe you'll step right up into my storeroom. I got a big line of new goods in from Leeson. Y' see the saloon ain't for such as you," he laughed. "Guess it does for the boys all right. I'm building a slap-up store next—just dry goods an' notions. Things are booming right now. They're booming so hard there's no keepin' pace. I'll tie your hosses to this post."

His manner was perfect in its amiability, but Joan detested it because of the man. He could never disguise his personality, and Joan was beginning to understand such personalities as his.

"Thanks," she said coldly, as, taking advantage of his being occupied with the horses, she jumped quickly from the vehicle. "I came to mail a letter," she said, as she moved on up to the big barn which was Beasley's temporary storehouse, "and to give you a rather large order for furnishing and things."

She produced a paper with her list of requirements, and handed it to him.

"You see, I'm refurnishing the farm," she went on, while the man glanced an appreciative eye over the extensive order. "Can you do those things?" she asked as he looked up from his perusal.

"Why, yes. There's nothing difficult there. What we can't do here we can send on to Leeson Butte for. I've got some elegant samples of curtains just come along. Maybe you'll step inside?"

In spite of her dislike of the man Joan had no hesitation in passing into the storeroom. She had no desire in the world to miss the joy of inspecting a fresh consignment of dry goods. She felt almost as excited, and quite as much interested, as though she were visiting one of the great stores in St. Ellis.

In a few moments she was lost in a close inspection of the display. Nor had she any thought, or wonder, that here in the wilderness, on the banks of Yellow Creek, such things should already have found their way. For a long time the keen man of business expended his arts of persuasion upon her, and, by the time the girl had exhausted his stock, he had netted a sound order. His satisfaction was very evident, and now he was prepared to regard her rather as a woman than a customer.

"Makes you think some," he observed, with a wave of his hand in the direction of the piled-up fabrics and unopened cases. Then he laughed in a way that jarred upon the girl. "Ther's money to burn here. Money! Whew!" Then his eyes became serious. "If it only lasts!"

"Why shouldn't it?" asked Joan unsuspiciously. She had finished, and was anxious to get away. But the man seemed to want to talk, and it seemed churlish to deny him.

Beasley shook his head, while his eyes devoured her appealing beauty.

"It won't," he said decidedly. "It's too big—too rich. Besides——"

"Besides what?"

The man's eyes had lost their grin. They were the eyes of the real man.

"It's—devil's luck. I've said it all along. Only ther's sech plaguey knowalls around they won't believe it. Buck now—I got nothing against Buck. He's a good citizen. But he's got a streak o' yeller in him, an' don't hold with no devil's luck. Maybe you remember." He grinned unpleasantly into the girl's eyes.

She remembered well enough. She was not likely to forget the manner in which Buck had come to her help. She flushed slightly.

"What do you mean by 'a streak of yellow'?" she demanded coldly.

"It don't need a heap of explaining. He's soft on mission talk."

Joan's flush deepened. This man had a mean way of putting things.

"If you mean that he doesn't believe in—in superstitions, and that sort of thing, if you mean he's just a straightforward, honest-thinking man—well, I agree with you."

Beasley was enjoying the spectacle of the warmth which prompted her defense. She was devilish pretty, he admitted to himself.

"Maybe you feel that way," he said, in a tone that jarred. "Say," he went on shrewdly, "I'm no sucker, I'm not one of these slobs chasin' gold they're eager to hand on to the first guy holdin' out his hand. I'm out to make a pile. I had a claim in the ballot. Maybe it's a good claim. I ain't troubled to see. Why? I'll tell you. Maybe I'd have taken a few thousand dollars out of it. Maybe a heap. Maybe only a little. Not good—with all these slobs around." He shook his head. "I figured I'd git the lot if I traded. I'd get the show of all of the claims. See? The 'strike' ain't goin' to last. It's a pocket in the hill, an' it'll peter out just as dead sure as—well as can be. An' when it's petered out there's going to be jest one feller around here who's made a profit—an' it ain't one of those who used the sluice-boxes. No, you can believe what you like. This 'strike' was jest a devil's laugh at folks who know no better. An' master Buck has handed you something of devil's luck when he made you take that gold."

There was something very keen about this man, and in another Joan might have admired it; but Beasley's mind was tainted with such a vicious meanness that admiration was impossible.

"I don't believe it," said Joan staunchly. "Neither does Buck. He would never willingly hand me the trouble you suggest."

Her words were the result of an impetuous defense of the absent man. To hear this man attack Buck was infuriating. But the moment she had uttered them, the moment she had seen their effect, that meaning laugh which they brought to the storekeeper's lips, she wished they had never been spoken.

"Don't guess Buck needs to scrap fer himself with you around, Miss Golden," he laughed. "Gee! He's in luck. I wonder!"

Joan choked back her swift-rising indignation. The man wasn't worth it, she told herself, and hurriedly prepared to depart. But Beasley had no intention of letting her go like that.

"I wonder whether he is in luck, though," he went on quickly, in a tone he knew the girl would not be able to resist. His estimate was right. She made no further move to go.

"How?" she asked.

"Oh, nuthin' of consequence," he said aggravatingly. "I was just thinking of the way folks are talking." Then he laughed right out; and if Joan had only understood the man she would have known that his merriment was but the precursor of something still more unpleasant.

But such natures as his were quite foreign to her. She merely instinctively disliked him.

"What do you mean?" she asked unsuspiciously.

Beasley was serious again, and wore an air of deprecation when he answered her.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "'tain't nuthin'. Y' see folks are always most ready to gas around. It's 'bout them two boys. They're hot about 'em. Y' see Pete was a mighty popular feller, an' Ike had good friends. Y' see they were always good spenders—an' most folks like good spenders. But ther'—'tain't nuthin' that needs tellin' you. Guess it'll only make a dandy gal like you feel mean."

The man's purpose must have been evident to anybody less simple than Joan. As it was she jumped at the bait so skilfully held out.

"But you must tell me," she said, remembering Mrs. Ransford's remarks. "I insist on knowing if it is anything concerning me."

Beasley's air was perfect. His eyes were as frankly regretful as he could make them.

"Wal," he said, "it certainly does concern you—but I'd rather not say it."

"Go on."

Joan's face was coldly haughty.

"I wouldn't take it too mean," said Beasley warningly. "I sure wouldn't. You see folks say a heap o' things that is trash. They guess it's your doin' 'bout them boys. They reckon you played 'em one ag'in t'other for their wads, an' both o' them ag'in—Buck. Y' see—mind I'm jest tellin' you cos you asked—they guess you ast 'em both to supper that evenin'. Pete said he was ast, an' Ike let on the same. You ast 'em both for the fun of the racket. An' you had Buck around to watch the fun. Yes, they're pretty hot. An' you can't blame 'em, believin' as they do. One of 'em—I forget who it rightly was—he called you the camp Jonah. Said just as long as you wer' around ther'd be trouble. He was all for askin' you to clear right out. He said more than that, but I don't guess you need to know it all."

"But I do need to know it all. I need to know all they said, and—who said it."

Joan's eyes were blazing. Beasley made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction, and went on at once—

"Course I can't give you names. But the facts I don't guess I'm likely to forget—they made me so riled. They said that farm of yours was just a blind. It—it was—well, you'd come along here for all you could get—an' that——"

Joan cut him short.

"That's enough," she cried. "You needn't tell me any more. I—I understand. Oh, the brutal, heartless ruffians! Tell me. Who was it said these things? I demand to know. I insist on the names. Oh!"

The girl's exasperation was even greater than Beasley had hoped for. He read, too, the shame and hurt underlying it, and his satisfaction was intense. He felt that he was paying her off for some of the obvious dislike she had always shown him, and it pleased him as it always pleased him when his mischief went home. But now, having achieved his end, he promptly set about wriggling clear of consequences, which was ever his method.

"I'd like to give you the names," he said frankly. "But I can't. You see, when fellers are drunk they say things they don't mean, an' it wouldn't be fair to give them away. I jest told you so you'd be on your guard—just to tell you the folks are riled. But it ain't as bad as it seems. I shut 'em up quick, feeling that no decent citizen could stand an' hear a pretty gal slandered like that. An' I'll tell you this, Miss Golden, you owe me something for the way I made 'em quit. Still," he added, with a leer, "I don't need payment. You see, I was just playin' the game."

Joan was still furious. And somehow his wriggling did not ring true even in her simple ears.

"Then you won't tell me who it was?" she cried.

Beasley shook his head.

"Nuthin' doin'," he said facetiously.

"Then you—you are a despicable coward," she cried. "You—oh!" And she almost fled out of the hated creature's storeroom.

Beasley looked after her. The satisfaction had gone from his eyes, leaving them wholly vindictive.

"Coward, am I, ma'm!" he muttered. Then he looked at the order for furniture which was still in his hand.

The sight of it made him laugh.



CHAPTER XXV

BUCK LAUGHS AT FATE

The telling of the Padre's story cost Buck a wakeful night. It was not that he had any doubts either of the truth of the story, or of his friend. He needed no evidence to convince him of either. Or rather, such was his nature that no evidence could have broken his faith and friendship. Strength and loyalty were the key-note of his whole life. To him the Padre was little less than a god, in whom nothing could shake his belief. He honored him above all men in the world, and, such as it was, his own life, his strength, his every nerve, were at his service. Moreover, it is probable that his loyalty would have been no whit the less had the man pleaded guilty to the crime he was accused of.

No, it was not the story he had listened to which kept him wakeful. It was not the rights or wrongs, or the significance of it, that inspired his unrest. It was something of a far more personal note.

It was the full awakening of a mind and heart to a true understanding of themselves. And the manner of his awakening had been little short of staggering. He loved, and his love had risen up before his eyes in a manner the full meaning of which he had only just realized. It was his friend who had brought about his awakening, his friend who had put into brief words that which had been to him nothing but a delicious dream.

The man's words rang through his brain the night long.

"Why? Why?" they said. "Because you love this little Joan, daughter of my greatest friend. Because I owe it to you—to her, to face my accusers and prove my innocence."

That brief passionate declaration had changed the whole outlook of his life. The old days, the old thoughts, the old unexpressed feelings and hazy ambitions had gone—swept away in one wave of absorbing passion. There was neither future nor past to him now. He lived in the thought of this woman's delightful presence, and beyond that he could see nothing.

Vaguely he knew that much must lay before him. The past, well, that was nothing. He understood that the drift of life's stream could no longer carry him along without his own effort at guidance. He knew that somewhere beyond this dream a great battle of Life lay waiting for his participation. He felt that henceforth he was one of those struggling units he had always regarded as outside his life. And all because of this wonderful sunlight of love which shone deep into the remotest cells of brain and heart. He felt strong for whatever lay before him. This perfect sunshine, so harmonious with every feeling, thrilled him with a virile longing to go out and proclaim his defiance against the waiting hordes in Life's eternal battle. No road could be so rough as to leave him shrinking, no fight so fierce that he was not confident of victory, no trouble so great that it could not be borne with perfect cheerfulness. As he had awakened to love so had he awakened to life, yearning and eager.

As the long night wore on his thought became clearer, more definite. So that before his eyes closed at last in a broken slumber he came to many decisions for the immediate future. The greatest, the most momentous of these was that he must see Joan again without delay. He tried to view this in perfect coolness, but though the decision remained with him the fever of doubt and despair seized him, and he became the victim of every fear known to the human lover's heart. To him who had never known the meaning of fear his dread became tenfold appalling. He must see her—and perhaps for the last time in his life. This interview might well terminate once and for all every thought of earthly happiness, and fling him back upon the meagre solace of a wilderness, which now, without Joan, would be desolation indeed.

Yet he knew that the chances must be faced now and at once. For himself he would probably have delayed, rather basking in the sunshine of uncertainty than risk witnessing the swift gathering clouds which must rob him of all light forever. But he was not thinking only of himself. There was that other, that white-haired, lonely man who had said, "Because you love this little Joan."

The wonderful unselfishness of the Padre had a greater power to stir Buck's heart than any other appeal. His sacrifice must not be permitted without a struggle. He knew the man, and he knew how useless mere objection would be. Therefore his duty lay plain before him. Joan must decide, and on her decision must his plans all be founded. He had no reason to hope for a return of his love. On the contrary, it seemed absurd even to hope, and in such an event then the Padre's sacrifice would be unnecessary. If on the other hand—but he dared not let the thought take shape. All he knew was that with Joan at his side no power of law should touch one single white hair of the Padre's head, while the breath of life remained in his body.

It was a big thought in the midst of the most selfish of human passions. It was a thought so wide, that, in every aspect, it spoke of the great world which had been this man's lifelong study. It told of sublime lessons well learned. Of a mind and heart as big, and broad, and loyal as was the book from which the lessons had been studied.

With the morning light came a further steadiness of decision. But with it also came an added apprehension, and lack of mental peace. The world was radiant about him with the wonder of his love, but his horizon was lost in a mist of uncertainty and even dread.

The morning dragged as such intervening hours ever drag, but at length they were done with, and the momentous time arrived. Neither he nor the Padre had referred again to their talk. That was their way. Nor did any question pass between them until Caesar stood saddled before the door.

The Padre was leaning against the door casing with his pipe in his mouth. His steady eyes were gravely thoughtful.

"Where you making this afternoon?" he inquired, as Buck swung into the saddle.

Buck nodded in the direction of Joan's home.

"The farm."

The Padre's eyes smiled kindly.

"Good luck," he said. And Buck nodded his thanks as he rode away.

But Buck's outward calm was studied. For once in his life his confidence had utterly failed him. He rode over the trail in a dazed condition which left him almost hopeless by the time he reached the familiar corrals of the girl's home. As a consequence he reduced Caesar's pace to a walk with something almost childlike in his desire to postpone what he now felt must be his farewell to the wonderful dream that had been his.

But even at a walk the journey must come to an end. In his case it came all too soon for his peace of mind, and, to his added disquiet, he found himself at the door of the old barn. Just for one moment he hesitated. Then he lightly dropped to the ground. The next moment the horse itself had taken the initiative. With none of its master's scruples it clattered into the barn, and, walking straight into its old familiar stall, commenced to search in the corners of the manger for the sweet-scented hay usually awaiting it.

The lead was irresistible to the man. He followed the creature in, removed its bridle and loosened the cinchas of the saddle. Then he went out in search of hay.

His quest occupied several minutes. But finally he returned with an ample armful and filled up the manger. Then came upon him a further avalanche of doubt, and he stood beside his horse, stupidly smoothing the beautiful creature's warm, velvet neck while it nuzzled its fodder.

"Why—is that you, Buck?"

The exclamation startled the man out of his reverie and set his pulses hammering madly. He turned to behold Joan framed in the doorway. For a moment he stared stupidly at her, his dark eyes almost fearful. Then his answer came quietly, distinctly, and without a tremor to betray the feelings which really stirred him.

"It surely is," he said. Then he added, "I didn't know I was coming along when you were up at the fort yesterday."

But Joan was thinking only how glad she was of his coming. His explanation did not matter in the least. She had been home from the camp something over an hour, and had seen some one ride up to the barn without recognizing Buck or the familiar Caesar. So she had hastened to investigate. Something of her gladness at sight of him was in the manner of her greeting now, and Buck's despondency began to fall from him as he realized her unfeigned pleasure.

"I'm so glad you came," Joan went on impulsively. "So glad, so glad. I've been in camp to order things for—for my aunt's coming. You know your Padre told me to send for her. I mailed the letter this morning."

"You—sent for your aunt?"

In a moment the whole hideous position of the Padre came upon him, smothering all his own personal feelings, all his pleasure, all his doubts and fears.

"Why—yes." Joan's eyes opened wide in alarm. "Have I done wrong? He said, send for her."

Buck shook his head and moved out of the stall.

"You sure done dead right. The Padre said it."

"Then what was the meaning in your—what you said?"

Buck smiled.

"Nothing—just nothing."

Joan eyed him a moment in some doubt. Then she passed the matter over, and again the pleasure at his coming shone forth.

"Oh, Buck," she cried, "there are some mean people in the world. I've been talking to that horror, Beasley. He is a horror, isn't he? He's been telling me something of the talk of the camp. He's been telling me how—how popular I am," she finished up with a mirthless laugh.

"Popular? I—I don't get you."

Buck's whole expression had changed at the mention of Beasley's name. Joan had no reason to inquire his opinion of the storekeeper.

"You wouldn't," she hastened on. "You could never understand such wicked meanness as that man is capable of. I'm sure he hates me, and only told me these—these things to make me miserable. And I was feeling so happy, too, after seeing your Padre," she added regretfully.

"An' what are the things he's been sayin'?"

Buck's jaws were set.

"Oh, I can't tell you what he said, except—except that the men think I'm responsible for the death of those two. The other things were too awful. It seems I'm—I'm the talk of the camp in—in an awful way. He says they hate me. But I believe it's simply him. You see, he's tried to—to ingratiate himself with me—oh, it's some time back, and I—well, I never could stand him, after that time when the boys gave me the gold. I wish they had never given me that gold. He still persists it's unlucky, and I—I'm beginning to think so, too."

"Did he—insult you?" Buck asked sharply, ignoring the rest.

Joan looked quickly into the man's hot eyes, and in that moment realized the necessity for prudence. The fierce spirit was shining there. That only partly tamed spirit, which made her so glad when she thought of it.

"Oh, no," she said. "It wasn't that he insulted me. No—no. Don't think that. Only he went out of his way to tell me these things, to make me miserable. I was angry then, but I've got over it now. It—it doesn't matter. You see I just told you because—because——"

"If that man insulted you, I'd—kill him!"

Buck had drawn nearer to her. His tall figure was leaning forward, and his eyes, so fiercely alight, burned down into hers in a manner that half frightened her, yet carried with it a feeling that thrilled her heart with an almost painful delight. There was something so magnetic in this man's outburst, something so sweeping to her responsive nature. It was almost as though he had taken her in his two strong hands and made her yield obedience to his dominating will. It gave her a strange and wonderful confidence. It made her feel as if this power of his must possess the same convincing strength for the rest of the world. That he must sway all who came into contact with him. Her gladness at his visit increased. It was good to feel that he was near at hand.

But her woman's mind sought to restrain him.

"Please—please don't talk like that," she said, in a tone that carried no real conviction. "No, Beasley would not dare insult me—for himself."

The girl drew back to the oat-box, and seated herself. Buck's moment of passion had brought a deep flush to his cheeks, and his dark eyes moved restlessly.

"Why did you tell me?"

There was no escaping the swift directness of this man's mind. His question came with little less force than had been his threat against Beasley. He was still lashed by his thought of the wretched saloon-keeper.

But Joan had no answer ready. Why had she told him? She knew. She knew in a vague sort of way. She had told him because she had been sure of his sympathy. She had told him because she knew his strength, and to lean on that always helped her. Without questioning herself, or her feelings, she had come to rely upon him in all things.

But his sharp interrogation had given her pause. She repeated his question to herself, and somehow found herself avoiding his gaze. Somehow she could give him no answer.

Buck chafed for a moment in desperate silence. He turned his hot eyes toward the door, and stared out at the distant hills. Caesar rattled his collar chain, and scattered the hay in his search for the choicest morsels. The heavy draft horses were slumbering where they stood. Presently the man's eyes came back to the girl, devouring the beauty of her still averted face.

"Say," he went on presently, "you never felt so that your head would burst, so that the only thing worth while doin' would be to kill some one?" He smiled. "That's how I feel, when I know Beasley's been talkin' to you."

Joan turned to him with a responsive smile. She was glad he was talking again. A strange discomfort, a nervousness not altogether unpleasant had somehow taken hold of her, and the sound of his voice relieved her.

She shook her head.

"No," she said frankly. "I—don't think I ever feel that way. But I don't like Beasley."

Buck's heat had passed. He laughed.

"That was sure a fool question to ask," he said. "Say, it 'ud be like askin' a dove to get busy with a gun."

"I've heard doves are by no means the gentle creatures popular belief would have them."

"Guess ther's doves—an' doves," Buck said enigmatically. "I can't jest see you bustin' to hurt a fly."

"Not even Beasley?"

Joan laughed slily.

But Buck ignored the challenge. He stirred restlessly. He thrust his fingers into the side pockets of the waist-coat he wore hanging open. He withdrew them, and shifted his feet. Then, with a sudden, impatient movement, he thrust his slouch hat back from his forehead.

"Guess I can't say these things right," he gulped out with a swift, impulsive rush. "What I want to say is that's how I feel when anything happens amiss your way. I want to say it don't matter if it's Beasley, or—or jest things that can't be helped. I want to get around and set 'em right for you——"

Joan's eyes were startled. A sudden pallor had replaced the smile on her lips, and drained the rich, warm color from her cheeks.

"You've always done those things for me, Buck," she interrupted him hastily. "You've been the kindest—the best——"

"Don't say those things," Buck broke in with a hardly restrained passion. "It hurts to hear 'em. Kindest? Best? Say, when a man feels same as me, words like them hurt, hurt right in through here," he tapped his chest with an awkward gesture. "They drive a man nigh crazy. A man don't want to hear them from the woman he loves. Yes, loves!"

The man's dark eyes were burning, and as the girl rose from her seat he reached out one brown hand to detain her. But his gesture was needless. She made no move to go. She stood before him, her proud young face now flushing, now pale with emotion, her wonderful eyes veiled lest he should read in their depths feelings that she was struggling to conceal. Her rounded bosom rose and fell with the furious beatings of a heart she could not still.

"No, no," the man rushed on, "you got to hear me, if it makes you hate me fer the rest of your life. I'm nothing but jest a plain feller who's lived all his life in this back country. I've got no education, nothin' but jest what I am—here. An' I love you, I love you like nothing else in all the world. Say," he went on, the first hot rush of his words checking, "I bin gropin' around these hills learning all that's bin set there for me to learn. I tried to learn my lessons right. I done my best. But this one thing they couldn't teach me. Something which I guess most every feller's got to learn some time. An' you've taught me that.

"Say." The restraint lost its power, and the man's great passion swept him on in a swift torrent. "I never knew a gal since I was raised. I never knew how she could git right hold of your heart, an' make the rest of the world seem nothing. I never knew how jest one woman could set the sun shining when her blue eyes smiled, and the storm of thunder crowding over, when those eyes were full of tears. I never dreamed how she could get around in fancy, and walk by your side smilin' and talkin' to you when you wandered over these lonesome hills at your work. I never knew how she could come along an' raise you up when you're down, an' most everything looks black. I've learned these things now. I've learned 'em because you taught me."

He laughed with a sort of defiance at what he felt must sound ridiculous in her ears. "You asked me to teach you! Me teach you! Say, it's you taught me—everything. It's you taught me life ain't just a day's work an' a night's sleep. It's you taught me that life's a wonderful, wonderful dream of joy an' delight. It's you taught me the sun's shining just for me alone, an' every breath of these mountains is just to make me feel good. It's you taught me to feel there's nothing on God's earth I couldn't and wouldn't do to make you happy. You, who taught me to Live! You, with your wonderful blue eyes, an' your beautiful, beautiful face. You, with your mind as white an' pure as the mountain snow, an' your heart as precious as the gold our folks are forever chasin'. I love you, Joan. I love you, every moment I live. I love you so my two hands ain't enough by a hundred to get helping you. I love you better than all the world. You're jest—jest my whole life!"

He stood with his arms outstretched toward the shrinking girl. His whole body was shaking with the passion that had sent his words pouring in a tide of unthought, unconsidered appeal. He had no understanding of whither his words had carried him. All he knew was that he loved this girl with his whole soul and body. That she could love him in return was something unbelievable, yet he must tell her. He must tell her all that was in his simple heart.

He waited. It seemed ages, but in reality it was only moments.

Presently Joan looked up. She raised her eyes timidly, and in a moment Buck saw that they were filled with unshed tears. He started forward, but she shrank back farther. But it was not with repugnance. Her movement was almost reluctant, yet it was decided. It was sufficient for the man, and slowly, hopelessly he dropped his arms to his sides as the girl's voice so full of distress at last broke the silence.

"Oh, Buck, Buck, why—oh, why have you said these things to me? You don't know what you have done. Oh, it was cruel of you."

"Cruel?" Buck started. The color faded from his cheeks. "Me cruel—to you?"

"Yes, yes. Don't you understand? Can't you see? Now—now there is nothing left but—disaster. Oh, to think that I should have brought this upon you—you of all men!"

Buck's eyes suddenly lit. Unversed as he was in all such matters, he was not blind to the feeling underlying her words. But the light swiftly died from his eyes as he beheld the great tears roll slowly down the girl's fair cheeks, and her face droop forward into her hands.

In a moment all restraint was banished in the uprising of his great love. Without a thought of consequences he bridged the intervening space at one step, and, in an instant, his arms were about the slim, yielding figure he so tenderly loved. In a moment his voice, low, tender, yet wonderful in its consoling strength, was encouraging her.

"Disaster?" he said. "Disaster because I love you? Where? How? Say, there's no disaster in my love for you. There can't be. All I ask, all I need is jest to make your path—easier. Your troubles ain't yours any longer. They sure ain't. They're mine, now, if you'll jest hand 'em to me. Disaster? No, no, little gal. Don't you to cry. Don't. Your eyes weren't made for cryin'. They're jest given you to be a man's hope. For you to see just how much love he's got for you."

Joan submitted to his embrace for just so long as he was speaking. Then she looked up with terrified eyes and released herself.

"No, no, Buck. I must not listen. I dare not. It is my fate. My terrible fate. You don't understand. Beasley was right. I was responsible for Ike's death. For Pete's death. But not in the way he meant. It is my curse. They loved me, and—disaster followed instantly. Can't you see? Can't you see? Oh, my dear, can't you see that this same disaster must dog you—now?"

Buck stared. Then he gathered himself together.

"Your fate?"

"Yes, yes. I am cursed. Oh," Joan suddenly gave a shrill laugh that was painful to hear. "Every man that has ever told me—what you have told me—has met with disaster, and—death."

For one second no sound broke the stillness of the barn but the restless movements of Caesar. Then, suddenly, a laugh, a clear, buoyant laugh, full of defiance, full of incredulity, rang through the building.

It was Buck. He moved forward, and in a moment the girl was lying close upon his breast.

"Is that the reason you mustn't, daren't, listen to me?" he cried, in a voice thrilling with hope and confidence. "Is that the only reason? Jest because of death an' disaster to me? Jest that, an'—nothing more? Tell me, little gal. Tell me or—or I'll go mad."

"Yes, yes. But oh, you don't——"

"Yes, I do. Say, Joan, my little, little gal. Tell me. Tell me right now. You ain't—hatin' me for—for loving you so bad. Tell me."

Joan hid her face, and the tall man had to bend low to catch her words.

"I couldn't hate you, Buck. I—I——"

But Buck heard no more. He almost forcibly lifted the beautiful, tearful face to his, as he bent and smothered it with kisses.

After a few moments he stood her away from him, holding her slight shoulders, one in each hand. His dark eyes were glowing with a wild happiness, a wonderful, reckless fire, as he peered into her blushing face.

"You love me, little gal? You love me? Was ther' ever such a thought in the mind of sane man? You love me? The great big God's been mighty good to me. Disaster? Death? Let all the powers of man or devil come along, an' I'll drive 'em back to the hell they belong to."



CHAPTER XXVI

IRONY

The hills roll away, banking on every side, mounting up, pile on pile, like the mighty waves of a storm-swept ocean. The darkening splendor, the magnificent ruggedness crowds down upon the narrow open places with a strange sense of oppression, almost of desolation. It seems as if nothing on earth could ever be so great as that magnificent world, nothing could ever be so small as the life which peoples it.

The oppression, the desolation grows. The silent shadows of the endless woods crowd with a suggestion of horrors untold, of mysteries too profound to be even guessed at. A strange feeling as of a reign of enchantment pervading sets the flesh of the superstitious creeping. And the narrow, patchy sunlight, by its brilliant contrast, only serves to aggravate the sensitive nerves.

Yet in the woods lurk few enough dangers. It is only their dark stillness. They are still, still in the calm of the brightest day, or in the chill of a windless night. A timid bear, a wolf who spends its desolate life in dismal protest against a solitary fate, the crashing rush of a startled caribou, the deliberate bellow of a bull moose, strayed far south from its northern fastnesses. These are the harmless creatures peopling the obscure recesses. For the rest, they are the weird suggestions of a sensitive imagination.

The awe, however, is undeniable and the mind of man can never wholly escape it. Familiarity may temper, but inborn human superstition is indestructible. The brooding silence will shadow the lightest nature. The storms must ever inspire wonder. The gloom hushes the voice. And so the growing dread. Man may curse the hills in his brutal moments, the thoughtful may be driven to despair, the laughter-loving may seek solace in tears of depression. But the fascination clings. There is no escape. The cloy of the seductive drug holds to that world of mystery, and they come to it again, and yet again.

Something of all this was vaguely drifting through the mind of one of the occupants of a four-horsed, two-wheeled spring cart as it rose upon the monstrous shoulder of one of the greater hills. Before it lay a view of a dark and wild descent, sloping away unto the very bowels of a pit of gloom. The trail was vague and bush-grown, and crowding trees dangerously narrowed it. To the right the hill fell sharply away at the edge of the track, an abyss that might well have been bottomless for aught that could be seen from above. To the left the crown of the hill rose sheer and barren, and only at its foot grew the vegetation that so perilously narrowed the track. Then, ahead, where the trail vanished, a misty hollow, dark and deep—the narrowing walls of a black canyon.

The blue eyes of the teamster were troubled. Was there ever such a country for white man to travel? His horses were jaded. Their lean sides were tuckered. Gray streaks of sweat scored them from shoulder to flank.

The man lolled heavily in his driving seat in the manner of the prairie teamster. He knew there was trouble ahead, but it was practically all he did know of the journey before him.

As the cart topped the rise he bestirred himself. His whip flicked the air without touching the horses, and he chirrupped encouragingly. The weary but willing creatures raised their drooping heads, their ribs expanded as they drew their "tugs" taut, and, at a slow, shuffling trot, they began the descent.

A voice from behind caused the man to glance swiftly over his shoulder.

"It's no use asking you where we are now, I suppose?" it said in a peevish tone.

But the teamster's mood was its match.

"Not a heap, I guess, ma'm," he retorted, and gave up his attention to avoiding the precipice on his right.

"How far is the place supposed to be?"

The woman's unease was very evident. Her eyes were upon the darkening walls of the canyon toward which they were traveling.

"Eighty miles from Crowsfoot. That's how the boss said, anyways."

"How far have we come now?"

The man laughed. There seemed to be something humorous in his passenger's inquiries.

"Crowsfoot to Snarth's farm, thirty-five miles, good. Snarth's to Rattler Head, thirty. Sixty-five. Fifteen into this precious camp on Yellow Creek. Guess we bin comin' along good since sun-up, an' now it's noon. Countin' our stop fer breakfast we ought to make thirty odd miles. Guess we come a good hundred." He laughed again.

The woman gave an exclamation of impatience and vexation.

"I think your employer ought to be ashamed of himself sending you to do the journey. You don't know where you are, or what direction we're going in. The horses are nearly foundered, and we may be miles and miles from our destination. What are you going to do?"

"Ke'p goin' jest as long as the hosses ken ke'p foot to the ground. Guess we'll ease 'em at the bottom, here. It's nigh feed time. Say, ma'm, it ain't no use worritin'. We'll git som'eres sure. The sun's dead ahead."

"What's the use of that?" Mercy Lascelles snapped at the man's easy acceptance of the situation. "I wish now I'd come by Leeson Butte."

"That's sure how the boss said," retorted the man. "The Leeson trail is the right one. It's a good trail, an' I know most every inch of it. You was set comin' round through the hills. Guessed you'd had enough prairie on the railroad. It's up to you. Howsum, we'll make somewheres by nightfall. Seems to me I got a notion o' that hill, yonder. That one, out there," he went on, pointing with his whip at a bald, black cone rising in the distance against the sky. "That kind o' seems like the peak o' Devil's Hill. I ain't jest sure, but it seems like."

Mercy looked in the direction. Her eyes were more angry than anxious, yet anxiety was her principal feeling.

"I hope to goodness it is. Devil's Hill. A nice name. That's where the camp is, isn't it? I wish you'd hurry on."

The teamster spat over the dashboard. A grim smile crept into his eyes. His passenger had worried him with troublesome questions all the journey, and he had long since given up cursing his boss for sending him on the job.

"'Tain't no use," he said shortly. Then he explained. "Y' see, it 'ud be easy droppin' over the side of this. Guess you ain't yearnin' fer glory that way?"

"We'll never get in at this pace," the woman cried impatiently.

But the teamster was losing patience, too. Suddenly he became very polite, and his pale blue eyes smiled mischievously down upon his horses' backs.

"Guess we don't need to hurry a heap, ma'm," he said. "Y' see, in these hills you never can tell. Now we're headin' fer that yer canyon. Maybe the trail ends right ther'."

"Good gracious, man, then what are we going to do?"

"Do? Why, y' see, ma'm, we'll have to break a fresh trail—if that dogone holler ain't one o' them bottomless muskegs," he added thoughtfully.

He flicked his whip and spat again. His passenger's voice rose to a sharp staccato.

"Then for goodness' sake why go on?" she demanded.

"Wal, y' see, you can't never tell till you get ther' in these hills. Maybe that canyon is a river, an' if so the entrance to it's nigh sure a muskeg. A bottomless muskeg. You seen 'em, ain't you? No? Wal, they're swamps, an' if we get into one, why, I guess ther's jest Hail Columby, or some other fool thing waitin' for us at the bottom. Still ther' mayn't be no muskeg. As I sez, you never can tell, tho' ther' most gener'ly is. Mebbe that's jest a blank wall without no trail. Mebbe this trail ends at a sheer drop of a few hundred feet an' more. Mebbe agin the trail peters out 'fore we get ther'. That's the way in these yer hills, ma'm; you never can tell if you get lost. An' gittin' lost is so mighty easy. Course we ain't likely to starve till we've eat up these yer dogone ol' hosses. Never eaten hoss? No? 'Tain't so bad. Course water's easy, if you don't light on one o' them fever swamps. Mountain fever's pretty bad. Still, I don't guess we'll git worried that way, ma'm. I'd sure say you're pretty tough fer mountain fever to git a holt of. It's the time that's the wust. It might take us weeks gittin' out,—once you git lost proper. But even so I don't guess ther's nothin' wuss than timber wolves to worry us. They're mean. Y' see they're nigh allus starvin'—or guess they are. B'ars don't count a heap, less you kind o' run into 'em at breedin' season. Le's see, this is August. No, 'tain't breedin' season." He sighed as if relieved. Then he stirred quickly and glanced round, his face perfectly serious. "Guess you got a gun? It's allus good to hev a gun round. You never ken tell in these yer hills—when you git lost proper."

"Oh, you're a perfect fool. Go on with your driving." Mercy sat back in her seat fuming, while the teamster sighed, gently smiling down at his horses.

"Mebbe you're right, ma'm," he said amiably. "These dogone hills makes fools o' most fellers, when they git lost proper—as I'd sure say we are now."

But the man had achieved his object. The woman desisted from further questioning. She sat quite still, conscious of the unpleasant fact that the man was laughing at her, and also perfectly aware that his incompetence was responsible for the fact that they were utterly lost amongst the wild hills about them.

She was very angry. Angry with the man, angry with herself, for not being guided by the hotel keeper at Crowsfoot, but more than all she was angry with Joan for bidding her make the journey.

Yet she had been unable to resist the girl's appeal. Her inability was not from any sentimental feeling or sympathy. Such feelings could never touch her. But the appeal of the manner in which her curse still followed the girl, and the details she had read through the lines of her letter, a letter detailing the circumstances of her life on Yellow Creek, and written under the impulse and hope inspired by the Padre's support had given her the keenest interest. All the mystical side of her nature had been stirred in a manner she could not deny, had no desire to deny.

Yes, she had come to investigate, to observe, to seek the truth of her own pronouncement. She had come without scruple, to watch their effect. To weigh them in the balance of her scientific mysticism. She had come to watch the struggles of the young girl in the toils which enveloped her. Her mind was the diseased mind of the fanatic, prompted by a nature in which cruelty held chief place.

But now had come this delay. Such was her nature that personal danger ever appalled her. Death and disaster in the abstract were nothing to her, but their shadows brushing her own person was something more than terrifying. And as she thought of the immensity of the world about her, the gloom, the awful hush, the spirit of the hills got hold of her and left her full of apprehension.

The teamster now devoted his whole attention to his whereabouts. His passenger's interminable questioning silenced, he felt more at his ease. And feeling at his ease he was able to bring his prairie-trained faculties to bear on the matter in hand. As they progressed down the slope he closely observed the tall, distant crown which he thought he recognized, and finally made up his mind that his estimate was right. It certainly was the cone crown of Devil's Hill. Thus his certainty now only left him concerned with the ultimate development of the trail they were on.