The Hunted Woman by James Oliver Curwood
CHAPTER XXIX
Sheer amazement made Aldous hold his fire in that first moment. Marie hadsaid that two men were after MacDonald. He had heard three shots nearly amile away, and she was still sobbing that DeBar was dead. That accountedfor _three_. He had expected to see only Quade, and FitzHugh, and one otherbehind the tepee. And there were six! He counted them as they came swiftlyout from the shelter of the rocks to the level of the plain. He was aboutto fire when he thought of Joanne and Marie. They were still behind him,crouching upon the ground. To fire from where he stood would draw afusillade of bullets in their direction, and with another warning cry toJoanne, he sped twenty paces to one side so that they would not be withinrange. Not until then did the attacking party see him.
At a hundred and fifty yards he had no time to pick out Quade or MortimerFitzHugh. He fired first at a group of three, and one of the three crumpleddown as though his skull had been crushed from above. A rifle spat back athim and the bullet sang like a ripping cloth close over his head. Hedropped to his knees before he fired again, and a bullet clove the airwhere he had stood. The crack of rifles did not hurry him. He knew that hehad six cartridges, and only six, and he aimed deliberately. At his secondshot the man he had fired at ran forward three or four steps, and thenpitched flat on his face. For a flash Aldous thought that it was MortimerFitzHugh. Then, along his gun barrel, he saw FitzHugh--and pulled thetrigger. It was a miss.
Two men had dropped upon their knees and were aiming more carefully. Heswung his sight to the foremost, and drove a bullet straight through hischest. The next moment something seemed to have fallen upon him withcrushing weight. A red sea rose before his eyes. In it he was submerged;the roar of it filled his ears; it blinded him; and in the suffocatingembrace of it he tried to cry out. He fought himself out of it, his eyescleared, and he could see again. His rifle was no longer in his hands, andhe was standing. Twenty feet away men were rushing upon him. His brainrecovered itself with the swiftness of lightning. A bullet had stunned him,but he was not badly hurt. He jerked out his automatic, but before he couldraise it, or even fire from his hip, the first of his assailants was uponhim with a force that drove it from his hand. They went down together, andas they struggled on the bare rock Aldous caught for a fraction of a seconda scene that burned itself like fire in his brain. He saw Mortimer FitzHughwith a revolver in his hand. He had stopped; he was staring like onelooking upon the ghost of the dead, and as he stared there rose above therumbling roar of the chasm a wild and terrible shriek from Joanne.
Aldous saw no more then. He was not fighting for his life, but for her, andhe fought with the mad ferocity of a tiger. As he struck, and choked, andbeat the head of his assailant on the rock, he heard shriek after shriekcome from Joanne's lips; and then for a flash he saw them again, andJoanne was struggling in the arms of Quade!
He struggled to his knees, and the man he was fighting struggled to hisknees; and then they came to their feet, locked in a death-grip on the edgeof the chasm. From Quade's clutch he saw Joanne staring at MortimerFitzHugh; then her eyes shot to him, and with another shriek she fought tofree herself.
For thirty seconds of that terrible drama Mortimer FitzHugh stood as ifhewn out of rock. Then he sprang toward the fighters.
In the arms of John Aldous was the strength of ten men. He twisted the headof his antagonist under his arm; he braced his feet--in another moment hewould have flung him bodily into the roaring maelstrom below. Even as hismuscles gathered themselves for the final effort he knew that all was lost.Mortimer FitzHugh's face leered over his shoulder, his demoniac intentionwas in his eyes before he acted. With a cry of hatred and of triumph heshoved them both over the edge, and as Aldous plunged to the depths below,still holding to his enemy, he heard a last piercing scream from Joanne.
As the rock slid away from under his feet his first thought was that theend had come, and that no living creature could live in the roaringmaelstrom of rock and, flood into which he was plunging. But quicker thanhe dashed through space his mind worked. Instinctively, without time forreasoning, he gripped at the fact that his one chance lay in the closeembrace of his enemy. He hung to him. It seemed to him that they turnedover and over a hundred times in that distance of fifty feet. Then a massof twisting foam broke under him, and up out of it shot the head of one ofthe roaring monsters of rock that he and Joanne had looked upon. Theystruck it fairly, and Aldous was uppermost. He felt the terrific impact ofthe other's body. The foam boiled upward again, and they slipped off intothe flood.
Still Aldous held to his enemy. He could feel that he was limp now; he nolonger felt the touch of the hands that had choked him, or the embrace ofthe arms that had struggled with him. He believed that his antagonist wasdead. The fifty-foot fall, with the rock splitting his back, had killedhim. For a moment Aldous still clung to him as they sank together under thesurface, torn and twisted by the whirling eddies and whirlpools. It seemedto him that they would never cease going down, that they were sinking avast distance.
Dully he felt the beat of rocks. Then it flashed upon him that the dead manwas sinking like a weighted thing. He freed himself. Fiercely he struggledto bring himself to the surface. It seemed an eternity before he rose tothe top. He opened his mouth and drew a great gulp of air into his lungs.The next instant a great rock reared like a living thing in his face; heplunged against it, was beaten over it, and again he was goingdown--down--in that deadly clutch of maelstrom and undertow. Again hefought, and again he came to the surface. He saw a black, slippery wallgliding past him with the speed of an express train. And now it seemed asthough a thousand clubs were beating him. Ahead of him were rocks--nothingbut rocks.
He shot through them like a piece of driftwood. The roaring in his earsgrew less, and he felt the touch of something under his feet. Sunlightburst upon him. He caught at a rock, and hung to it. His eyes cleared alittle. He was within ten feet of a shore covered with sand and gravel. Thewater was smooth and running with a musical ripple. Waist-deep he wadedthrough it to the shore, and fell down upon his knees, with his face buriedin his arms. He had been ten minutes in the death-grip of the chasm. It wasanother ten minutes before he staggered to his feet and looked about him.
His face was beaten until he was almost blind. His shirt had been torn fromhis shoulders and his flesh was bleeding. He advanced a few steps. Heraised one arm and then the other. He limped. One arm hurt him when hemoved it, but the bone was sound. He was terribly mauled, but he knew thatno bones were broken, and a gasp of thankfulness fell from his lips. Allthis time his mind had been suffering even more than his body. Not for aninstant, even as he fought for life between the chasm walls, and as he layhalf unconscious on the rock, had he forgotten Joanne. His one thought wasof her now. He had no weapon, but as he stumbled in the direction of thecamp in the little plain he picked up a club that lay in his path.
That MacDonald was dead, Aldous was certain. There would be four againsthim--Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh and the two men who had gone to themountain. His brain cleared swiftly as a part of his strength returned, andit occurred to him that if he lost no time he might come upon Joanne andher captors before the two men came from killing old Donald. He tried torun. Not until then did he fully realize the condition he was in. Twice inthe first hundred yards his legs doubled under him and he fell down amongthe rocks. He grew steadily stronger, though each time he tried to run orspring a distance of a few feet his legs doubled under him like that. Ittook him twenty minutes to get back to the edge of the plain, and when hegot there it was empty. There was no sign of Quade or FitzHugh, or ofJoanne and Marie; and there was no one coming from the direction of themountain.
He tried to run again, and he found that over the level floor of the valleyhe could make faster time than among the rocks. He went to where he haddropped his rifle. It was gone. He searched for his automatic. That, too,was gone. There was one weapon left--a long skinning-knife in one of thepanniers near the tepee. As he went for this, he passed two of the men whomhe had shot. Quad
More swiftly now he made his way into the break out of which his assailantshad come a short time before. The thought came to him again that he hadbeen right, and that Donald MacDonald, in spite of all his years in themountains, had been fatally wrong. Their enemies had come down from thenorth, and this break led to their hiding-place. Through it Joanne musthave been taken by her captors. As he made his way over the rocks, gaininga little more of his strength with each step, his mind tried to picture thesituation that had now arisen between Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh. Howwould Quade, who was mad for possession of Joanne, accept FitzHugh's claimof ownership? Would he believe his partner? Would he even believe Joanneif, to save herself from him, she told him FitzHugh was her husband? Evenif he believed them, _would he give her up?_ Would Quade allow MortimerFitzHugh to stand between him and the object for which he was willing tosacrifice everything?
As Aldous asked himself these questions his blood ran hot and cold byturns. And the answer to them drew a deep breath of fear and of anguishfrom him as he tried again to run among the rocks. There could be but oneanswer: Quade would fight. He would fight like a madman, and if this fighthad happened and FitzHugh had been killed Joanne had already gone utterlyand helplessly into his power. He believed that FitzHugh had not revealedto Quade his relationship to Joanne while they were on the plain, and thethought still more terrible came to him that he might not reveal it at all,that he might repudiate Joanne even as she begged upon her knees for him tosave her. What a revenge it would be to see her helpless and broken in thearms of Quade! And then, both being beasts----
He could think no farther. The sweat broke out on his face as he hobbledfaster over a level space. The sound of the water between the chasm wallswas now a thunder in his ears. He could not have heard a rifle-shot or ascream a hundred yards away. The trail he was following had continuallygrown narrower. It seemed to end a little ahead of him, and the fear thathe had come the wrong way after all filled him with dread. He came to theface of the mountain wall, and then, to his left, he saw a crack that wasno wider than a man's body. In it there was sand, and the, sand was beatenby footprints! He wormed his way through, and a moment later stood at theedge of the chasm. Fifty feet above him a natural bridge of rock spannedthe huge cleft through which the stream was rushing. He crossed this,exposing himself openly to a shot if it was guarded. But it was notguarded. This fact convinced him that MacDonald had been killed, and thathis enemies believed he was dead. If MacDonald had escaped, and they hadfeared a possible pursuit, some one would have watched the bridge.
The trail was easy to follow now. Sand and grassy earth had replaced rockand shale; he could make out the imprints of feet--many of them--and theyled in the direction of a piece of timber that apparently edged a valleyrunning to the east and west. The rumble of the torrent in the chasm grewfainter as he advanced. A couple of hundred yards farther on the trailswung to the left again; it took him around the end of a huge rock, and ashe appeared from behind this, his knife clutched in his hand, he droppedsuddenly flat on his face, and his heart rose like a lump in his throat.Scarcely fifty yards above him was the camp of his enemies! There were twotepees and piles of saddles and panniers and blankets about them, but not asoul that he could see. And then, suddenly, there rose a voice bellowingwith rage, and he recognized it as Quade's. It came from beyond the tepee,and he rose quickly from where he had thrown himself and ran forward, withthe tepee between him and those on the other side. Close to the canvas hedropped on his knees and crawled out behind a pile of saddles and panniers.From here he could see.
So near that he could almost have touched them were Joanne and Marie,seated on the ground, with their backs toward him. Their hands were tiedbehind them. Their feet were bound with pannier ropes. A dozen paces beyondthem were Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh.
The two men were facing each other, a yard apart. Mortimer FitzHugh's facewas white, a deadly white, and he was smiling. His right hand restedcarelessly in his hunting-coat pocket. There was a sneering challenge onhis lips; in his eyes was a look that Aldous knew meant death if Quademoved. And Quade was like a great red beast ready to spring. His eyesseemed bulging out on his cheeks; his great hands were knotted; hisshoulders were hunched forward, and his mottled face was ablaze withpassion. In that moment's dramatic tableau Aldous glanced about swiftly.The men from the mountain had not returned. He was alone with Quade andMortimer FitzHugh.
Then FitzHugh spoke, very quietly, a little laughingly; but his voicetrembled, and Aldous knew what the hand was doing in the hunting-coatpocket.
"You're excited, Billy," he said. "I'm not a liar, as you've veryimpolitely told me. And I'm not playing you dirt, and I haven't fallen inlove with the lady myself, as you seem to think. But she belongs to me,body and soul. If you don't believe me--why, ask the lady herself, Billy!"
As he spoke, he turned his sneering eyes for the fraction of a secondtoward Joanne. The movement was fatal. Quade was upon him. The hand in thecoat pocket flung itself upward, there followed a muffled report, but thebullet flew wide. In all his life Aldous had never heard a sound like theroar that came from Quade's throat then. He saw Mortimer FitzHugh's handappear with a pistol in it, and then the pistol was gone. He did not seewhere it went to. He gripped his knife and waited, his heart beating withwhat seemed like smothered explosions as he watched for the opportunitywhich he knew would soon come. He expected to see FitzHugh go down underQuade's huge bulk. Instead of that, a small, iron fist shot upward andQuade's head went back as if broken from his neck.
FitzHugh sprang a step backward, and in the movement his heel caught theedge of a pack-saddle. He stumbled, almost fell, and before he couldrecover himself Quade was at him again. This time there was something inthe red brute's hand. It rose and fell once--and Mortimer FitzHugh reeledbackward with a moaning cry, swayed for a second or two on his feet, andfell to the ground. Quade turned. In his hand was a bloody knife. Madnessand passion and the triumphant joy of a demon were in his face as he glaredat his helpless prey. As Aldous crouched lower his shoulder touched one ofthe saddles. It slipped from the pile, one of the panniers followed it, andQuade saw him. There was no longer reason for concealment, and as Quadestood paralyzed for a moment Aldous sprang forth into the space between himand Joanne. He heard the cry that broke strangely from her lips but he didnot turn his head. He advanced upon Quade, his head lowered, the longskinning-knife gleaming in his hand.
John Aldous knew that words would avail nothing in these last few minutesbetween him and Quade. The latter had already hunched himself forward, thered knife in his hand poised at his waistline. He was terrible. His hugebulk, his red face and bull neck, his eyes popping from behind their fleshylids, and the dripping blade in the shapeless hulk of his hand gave him theappearance as he stood there of some monstrous gargoyle instead of a thingof flesh and blood. And Aldous was terrible to look at, but in a way thatwrung a moaning cry from Joanne. His face was livid from the beat of therocks; it was crusted with blood; his eyes were partly closed, and whatremained of his shirt was drenched with blood that still ran from the deepcuts in his arms and shoulders. But it was he who advanced, and Quade whostood and waited.
Aldous knew little or nothing of knife-fighting; and he realized, also,that there was a strange weakness in his arms and body caused by his battlewith the maelstroms in the chasm. But he had wrestled a great deal with theIndians of the north, who fought as their half-wolf sledgedogs fought, andhe employed their methods now. Slowly and deliberately he began to circlearound Quade, so that Quade became the pivot of that circle, and as hecircled he drew nearer and nearer to his enemy, but never in a frontaladvance. He edged inward, with his knife-arm on the outside. His deadlydeliberateness and the steady glare of his eyes disco
It was always when the Indian made this step that his opponent darted in;and Aldous, with this in mind, sprang to the attack. Their knives clashedin midair. As they met, hilt to hilt, Aldous threw his whole weight againstQuade, darted sidewise, and with a terrific lunge brought the blade of hisknife down between Quade's shoulders. A straight blade would have gone fromback to chest through muscle and sinew, but the knife which Aldous heldscarcely pierced the other's clothes.
Not until then did he fully realize the tremendous odds against him. Thecurved blade of his skinning-knife would not penetrate! His one hope was tocut with it. He flung out his arm before Quade had fully recovered, andblind luck carried the keen edge of the knife across his enemy's pouchycheek. The blood came in a spurt, and with a terrible cry Quade leaped backtoward the pile of saddles and panniers. Before Aldous could follow hisadvantage the other had dropped his knife and had snatched up a four-footlength of a tepee pole. For a moment he hesitated while the blood ran in ahot flood down his thick neck. Then with a bellow of rage he rushed uponAldous.
It was no time for knife-work now. As the avalanche of brute strengthdescended upon him Aldous gathered himself for the shock. He had alreadymeasured his own weakness. Those ten minutes among the rocks of the chasmhad broken and beaten him until his strength was gone. He was panting fromhis first onset with Quade, but his brain was working. And he knew thatQuade was no longer a reasoning thing. He had ceased to think. He was blindwith the passion of the brute, and his one thought was to crush his enemydown under the weight of the club in his huge hands. Aldous waited. Heheard Joanne's terrified scream when Quade was almost upon him--when lessthan five feet separated them. The club was descending when he flunghimself forward, straight for the other's feet. The club crashed over him,and with what strength he had he gripped Quade at the knees. With atremendous thud Quade came to earth. The club broke from the grip of hishands. For a moment he was stunned, and in that moment Aldous was at histhroat.
He would have sold the best of his life for the skinning-knife. But he hadlost it in gripping Quade. And now he choked--with every ounce of strengthin him he choked at the thick red neck of his enemy. Quade's hands reachedfor his own throat. They found it. And both choked, lying there gasping andcovered with blood! while Joanne struggled vainly to free herself, andscream after scream rang from her lips. And John Aldous knew that at lastthe end had come. For there was no longer strength in his arms, and therewas something that was like a strange cramp in his fingers, while theclutch at his own throat was turning the world black. His grip relaxed. Hishands fell limp. The last that he realized was that Quade was over him, andthat he must be dying.
Then it was, as he lay within a final second or two of death, no longerconscious of physical attack or of Joanne's terrible cries, that a strangeand unforeseen thing occurred. Beyond the tepee a man had risen from theearth. He staggered toward them, and it was from Marie that the wildest andstrangest cry of all came now. For the man was Joe DeBar! In his hand heheld a knife. Swaying and stumbling he came to the fighters--from behind.Quade did not see him, and over Quade's huge back he poised himself. Theknife rose; for the fraction of a second it trembled in midair. Then itdescended, and eight inches of steel went to the heart of Quade.
And as DeBar turned and staggered toward Joanne and Marie, John Aldous wassinking deeper and deeper into a black and abysmal night.
CHAPTER XXX
In that chaotic night in which he was drifting, light as a feather floatingon the wind, John Aldous experienced neither pain nor very much of thesense of life. And yet, without seeing or feeling, he seemed to be living,All was dead in him but that last consciousness, which is almost thespirit; he might have been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even yearsmight have passed in that dream. For a long time he seemed to be sinkingthrough the blackness; and then something stopped him, without jar orshock, and he was rising. He could hear nothing. There was a vast silenceabout him, a silence as deep and as unbroken as the abysmal pit in which heseemed to be softly floating.
After a time Aldous felt himself swaying and rocking, as though tossedgently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took shapein his struggling brain--he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of ablack night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemedgone. It seemed a very long time before day broke, and then it was astrange day. Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shotlike flashes of weblike lightning through the darkness, and after that hesaw for an instant a strange glare. It was gone in one big, powderlikeflash, and he was in night again. These days and nights seemed to followone another swiftly now, and the nights grew less dark, and the daysbrighter. He was conscious of sounds and buffetings, and it was very hot.
Out of this heat there came a cool, soft breeze that was continuallycaressing his face, and eyes, and head. It was like the touch of a spirithand. It became more and more real to him. It caressed him into a dark andcomfortable oblivion. Out of this oblivion a still brighter day roused him.His brain seemed clear. He opened his eyes. A white cloud was hovering overthem; it fell softly; it was cool and gentle. Then it rose again, and itwas not a cloud, but a hand! The hand moved away, and he was looking into apair of wide-open, staring, prayerful eyes, and a little cry came to him,and a voice.
"John--John----"
He was drifting again, but now he knew that he was alive. He heardmovement. He heard voices. They were growing nearer and more distinct. Hetried to cry out Joanne's name, and it came in a whispering breath betweenhis lips. But Joanne heard; and he heard her calling to him; he felt herhands; she was imploring him to open his eyes, to speak to her. It seemedmany minutes before he could do this, but at last he succeeded. And thistime his vision was not so blurred. He could see plainly. Joanne was there,hovering over him, and just beyond her was the great bearded face of DonaldMacDonald. And then, before words had formed on his lips, he did awonderful thing. He smiled.
"O my God, I thank Thee!" he heard Joanne cry out, and then she was on herknees, and her face was against his, and she was sobbing.
He knew that it was MacDonald who drew her away.
The great head bent over him.
"Take this, will 'ee, Johnny boy?"
Aldous stared.
"Mac, you're--alive," he breathed.
"Alive as ever was, Johnny. Take this."
He swallowed. And then Joanne hovered over him again, and he put up hishands to her face, and her glorious eyes were swimming seas as she kissedhim and choked back the sobs in her throat. He buried his fingers in herhair. He held her head close to him, and for many minutes no one spoke,while MacDonald stood and looked down on them. In those minutes everythingreturned to him. The fight was over. MacDonald had come in time to save himfrom Quade. But--and now his eyes stared upward through the sheen ofJoanne's hair--he was in a cabin! He recognized it. It was DonaldMacDonald's old home. When Joanne raised her head he looked about himwithout speaking. He was in the wide bunk built against the wall. Sunlightwas filtering through a white curtain at the window, and in the open doorhe saw the anxious face of Marie.
He tried to lift himself, and was amazed to find that he could not. Verygently Joanne urged him back on his pillow. Her face was a glory of lifeand of joy. He obeyed her as he would have obeyed the hand of the Madonna.She saw all his questioning.
"You must be quiet, John," she said, and never had he heard in her voicethe sweetness of love that was in it now. "We will tell youeverything--Donald and I. But you must be quiet. You were terribly beatenamong the rocks. We brought you here at noon, and the sun is setting--anduntil now you have not opened your eyes. Everything is well. But you mustbe quiet. You were terribly bruised by the rocks, dear."
It was sweet to lie under the caresses of her hand. He drew her face downto him.
"Joanne, my darling, you understand now--why I wanted to come alone intothe North?"
Her lips pressed warm and soft against his.
He watched her as she went out of the cabin, one white hand lifted to herthroat.
Old Donald MacDonald seated himself on the edge of the bunk. He looked downat Aldous, chuckling in his beard; and Aldous, with his bruised and swollenface and half-open eyes, grinned like a happy fiend.
"It was a wunerful, wunerful fight, Johnny!" said old Donald.
"It was, Mac. And you came in fine on the home stretch!"
"What d'ye mean--home stretch?" queried Donald leaning over.
"You saved me from Quade."
Donald fairly groaned.
"I didn't, Johnny--I didn't! DeBar killed 'im. It was all over when I come.On'y--Johnny--I had a most cur'ous word with Culver Rann afore he died!"
In his eagerness Aldous was again trying to sit up when Joanne appeared inthe doorway. With a little cry she darted to him, forced him gently back,and brushed old Donald off the edge of the bunk.
"Go out and watch the broth, Donald," she commanded firmly. Then she saidto Aldous, stroking back his hair, "I forbade you to talk. John, dear,aren't you going to mind me?"
"Did Quade get me with the knife?" he asked.
"No, no."
"Am I shot?"
"No, dear."
"Any bones broken?"
"Donald says not."
"Then please give me my pipe, Joanne--and let me get up. Why do you want meto lie here when I'm strong like an ox, as Donald says?"
Joanne laughed happily.
"You _are_ getting better every minute," she cried joyously. "But you wereterribly beaten by the rocks, John. If you will wait until you have thebroth I will let you sit up."
A few minutes later, when he had swallowed his broth, Joanne kept herpromise. Only then did he realize that there was not a bone or a muscle inhis body that did not have its own particular ache. He grimaced when Joanneand Donald bolstered him up with blankets at his back. But he was happy.Twilight was coming swiftly, and as Joanne gave the final pats and turns tothe blankets and pillows, MacDonald was lighting half a dozen candlesplaced around the room.
"Any watch to-night, Donald?" asked Aldous.
"No, Johnny, there ain't no watch to-night," replied the old mountaineer.
He came and seated himself on a bench with Joanne. For half an hour afterthat Aldous listened to a recital of the strange things that hadhappened--how poor marksmanship had saved MacDonald on the mountain-side,and how at last the duel had ended with the old hunter killing those whohad come to slay him. When they came to speak of DeBar, Joanne leanednearer to Aldous.
"It is wonderful what love will sometimes do," she spoke softly. "In thelast few hours Marie has bared her soul to me, John. What she has been shehas not tried to hide from me, nor even from the man she loves. She was oneof Mortimer FitzHugh's tools. DeBar saw her and loved her, and she soldherself to him in exchange for the secret of the gold. When they came intothe North the wonderful thing happened. She loved DeBar--not in the way ofher kind, but as a woman in whom had been born a new heart and a new souland a new joy. She defied FitzHugh; she told DeBar how she had tricked him.
"This morning FitzHugh attempted his old familiarity with her, and DeBarstruck him down. The act gave them excuse for what they had planned to do.Before her eyes Marie thought they had killed the man she loved. She flungherself on his breast, and she said she could not feel his heart beat, andhis blood flowed warm against her hands and face. Both she and DeBar haddetermined to warn us if they could. Only a few minutes before DeBar wasstabbed he had let off his rifle--an accident, he said. But it was not anaccident. It was the shot Donald heard in the cavern. It saved us, John!And Marie, waiting her opportunity, fled to us in the plain. DeBar was notkilled. He says my screams brought him back to life. He came out--andkilled Quade with a knife. Then he fell at our feet. A few minutes laterDonald came. DeBar is in another cabin. He is not fatally hurt, and Marieis happy."
She was stroking his hand when she finished. The curious rumbling camesoftly in MacDonald's beard and his eyes were bright with a whimsicalhumour.
"I pretty near bored a hole through poor Joe when I come up," he chuckled."But you bet I hugged him when I found what he'd done, Johnny! Joe saystheir camp was just over the range from us that night FitzHugh looked usup, an' Joanne thought she'd been dreamin'. He didn't have any help, buthis intention was to finish us alone--murder us asleep--when Joanne criedout. Joe says it was just a devil's freak that took 'im to the top of themountain alone that night. He saw our fire an' came down to investigate."
A low voice was calling outside the door. It was Marie. As Joanne went toher a quick gleam came into old Donald's eyes. He looked behind himcautiously to see that she had disappeared, then he bent over Aldous, andwhispered hoarsely:
"Johnny, I had a most cur'ous word with Rann--or FitzHugh--afore he died!He wasn't dead when I went to him. But he knew he was dyin'; an' Johnny, hewas smilin' an' cool to the end. I wanted to ask 'im a question, Johnny. Iwas dead cur'ous to know _why the grave were empty!_ But he asked forJoanne, an' I couldn't break in on his last breath. I brought her. Thefirst thing he asked her was how people had took it when they found outhe'd poisoned his father! When Joanne told him no one had ever thought he'dkilled his father, FitzHugh sat leanin' against the saddles for a minit sowhite an' still I thought he 'ad died with his eyes open. Then it came out,Johnny. He was smilin' as he told it. He killed his father with poison toget his money. Later he came to America. He didn't have time to tell us howhe come to think they'd discovered his crime. He was dyin' as he talked. Itcame out sort o' slobberingly, Johnny. He thought they'd found 'im out. Hechanged his name, an' sent out the report that Mortimer FitzHugh had diedin the mount'ins. But Johnny, he died afore I could ask him about thegrave!"
There was a final note of disappointment in old Donald's voice that wasalmost pathetic.
"It was such a cur'ous grave," he said. "An' the clothes were laid out soprim an' nice."
Aldous laid his hand on MacDonald's.
"It's easy, Mac," he said, and he wanted to laugh at the disappointmentthat was still in the other's face. "Don't you see? He never expected anyone to dig _into_ the grave. And he put the clothes and the watch and thering in there to get rid of them. They might have revealed his identity.Why, Donald----"
Joanne was coming to them again. She laid a cool hand on his forehead andheld up a warning finger to MacDonald.
"Hush!" she said gently, "Your head is very hot, dear, and there must beno more talking. You must lie down and sleep. Tell John good-night,Donald!"
Like a boy MacDonald did as she told him, and disappeared through the cabindoor. Joanne levelled the pillows and lowered John's head.
"I can't sleep, Joanne," he protested.
"I will sit here close at your side and stroke your face and hair," shesaid gently.
"And you will talk to me?"
"No, I must not talk. But, John----"
"Yes, dear."
"If you will promise to be very, very quiet, and let me be very quiet----"
"Yes."
"I will make you a pillow of my hair."
"I--will be quiet," he whispered.
She unbound her hair, and leaned over so that it fell in a flood on hispillow. With a sigh of contentment he buried his face in the rich, sweetmasses of it. Gently, like the cooling breeze that had come to him in hishours of darkness, her hand caressed him. He closed his eyes; he drank inthe intoxicating perfume of her tresses; and after a little he slept.
For many hours Joanne sat at his bedside, sleepless, and rejoicing.
When Aldous awoke it was dawn in the cabin. Joanne was gone. For a fewminutes he continued to lie with his face toward the window. He knew thathe had slept a long time, and that the day was breaking. Slowly he raisedhimself. The terrible ache in his body was gone; he was still lame, but nolonger helpless. He drew
This was the beginning of the three wonderful days that yet remained forJoanne and John Aldous in Donald MacDonald's little valley of gold andsunshine and blue skies. They were strange and beautiful days, filled witha great peace and a great happiness, and in them wonderful changes were atwork. On the second day Joanne and Marie rode alone to the cavern whereJane lay, and when they returned in the golden sun of the afternoon theywere leading their horses, and walking hand in hand. And when they camedown to where DeBar and Aldous and Donald MacDonald were testing therichness of the black sand along the stream there was a light in Marie'seyes and a radiance in Joanne's face which told again that world-old storyof a Mary Magdalene and the dawn of another Day. And now, Aldous thought,Marie had become beautiful; and Joanne laughed softly and happily thatnight, and confided many things into the ears of Aldous, while Marie andDeBar talked for a long time alone out under the stars, and came back atlast hand in hand, like two children. Before they went to bed Mariewhispered something to Joanne, and a little later Joanne whispered it toAldous.
"They want to know if they can be married with us, John," she said. "Thatis, if you haven't grown tired of trying to marry me, dear," she added witha happy laugh. "Have you?"
His answer satisfied her. And when she told a small part of it to Marie,the other woman's dark eyes grew as soft as the night, and she whisperedthe words to Joe.
The third and last day was the most beautiful of all. Joe's knife wound wasnot bad. He had suffered most from a blow on the head. Both he and Aldouswere in condition to travel, and plans were made to begin the homewardjourney on the fourth morning. MacDonald had unearthed another dozen sacksof the hidden gold, and he explained to Aldous what must be done to securelegal possession of the little valley. His manner of doing this wasunnatural and strained. His words came haltingly. There was unhappiness inhis eyes. It was in his voice. It was in the odd droop of his shoulders.And finally, when they were alone, he said to Aldous, with almost a sob inhis voice:
"Johnny--Johnny, if on'y the gold were not here!"
He turned his eyes to the mountain, and Aldous took one of his big gnarledhands in both his own.
"Say it, Mac," he said gently. "I guess I know what it is."
"It ain't fair to you, Johnny," said old Donald, still with his eyes on themountains. "It ain't fair to you. But when you take out the claims downthere it'll start a rush. You know what it means, Johnny. There'll be athousand men up here; an' mebby you can't understand--but there's thecavern an' Jane an' the little cabin here; an' it seems like desecratin'_her_."
His voice choked, and as Aldous gripped the big hand harder in his own helaughed.
"It would, Mac," he said. "I've been watching you while we made the plans.These cabins and the gold have been here for more than forty years withoutdiscovery, Donald--and they won't be discovered again so long as Joe DeBarand John Aldous and Donald MacDonald have a word to say about it. We'lltake out no claims, Mac. The valley isn't ours. It's Jane's valley andyours!"
Joanne, coming up just then, wondered what the two men had been saying thatthey stood as they did, with hands clasped. Aldous told her. And then oldDonald confessed to them what was in his mind, and what he had kept fromthem. At last he had found his home, and he was not going to leave itagain. He was going to stay with Jane. He was going to bring her from thecavern and bury her near the cabin, and he pointed out the spot, coveredwith wild hyacinths and asters, where she used to sit on the edge of thestream and watch him while he worked for gold. And they could return eachyear and dig for gold, and he would dig for gold while they were away, andthey could have it all. All that he wanted was enough to eat, and Jane, andthe little valley. And Joanne turned from him as he talked, her facestreaming with tears, and in John's throat was a great lump, and he lookedaway from MacDonald to the mountains.
So it came to pass that on the fourth morning, when they went into thesouth, they stopped on the last knoll that shut out the little valley fromthe larger valley, and looked back. And Donald MacDonald stood alone infront of the cabin waving them good-bye.
THE END