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The Hunted Woman

by James Oliver Curwood · English · Gutenberg #11328 · 492,682 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Hunted Woman

Author: James Oliver Curwood


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11328]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11328

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNTED WOMAN ***

THE HUNTED WOMAN

BY

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

Author of KAZAN, Etc.

Illustrated by

FRANK B. HOFFMAN


1915

TO MY WIFE

AND

OUR COMRADES OF THE TRAIL




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Look at MacDonald.... It's not the gold, but MacDonald, that's taking me
North, Ladygray.... Up there, another grave is calling MacDonald.'"

A tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure.... "'Another o' them Dotty Dimples
come out to save the world. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little, an'
so I sent her to Bill's place'"

"A crowd was gathering.... A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering
silk was standing beside a huge brown bear"

"'The tunnel is closed,' she whispered.... 'That means we have just
forty-five minutes to live.... Let us not lie to one another.'"




CHAPTER I


It was all new--most of it singularly dramatic and even appalling to the
woman who sat with the pearl-gray veil drawn closely about her face. For
eighteen hours she had been a keenly attentive, wide-eyed, and partly
frightened bit of humanity in this onrush of "the horde." She had heard a
voice behind her speak of it as "the horde"--a deep, thick, gruff voice
which she knew without looking had filtered its way through a beard. She
agreed with the voice. It was the Horde--that horde which has always beaten
the trails ahead for civilization and made of its own flesh and blood the
foundation of nations. For months it had been pouring steadily into the
mountains--always in and never out, a laughing, shouting, singing,
blaspheming Horde, every ounce of it toughened sinew and red brawn, except
the Straying Angels. One of these sat opposite her, a dark-eyed girl with
over-red lips and hollowed cheeks, and she heard the bearded man say
something to his companions about "dizzy dolls" and "the little angel in
the other seat." This same voice, gruffened in its beard, had told her that
ten thousand of the Horde had gone up ahead of them. Then it whispered
something that made her hands suddenly tighten and a hot flush sweep
through her. She lifted her veil and rose slowly from her seat, as if to
rearrange her dress. Casually she looked straight into the faces of the
bearded man and his companion in the seat behind. They stared. After that
she heard nothing more of the Straying Angels, but only a wildly mysterious
confabulation about "rock hogs," and "coyotes" that blew up whole
mountains, and a hundred and one things about the "rail end." She learned
that it was taking five hundred steers a week to feed the Horde that lay
along the Grand Trunk Pacific between Hogan's Camp and the sea, and that
there were two thousand souls at Tête Jaune Cache, which until a few months
before had slumbered in a century-old quiet broken only by the Indian and
his trade. Then the train stopped in its twisting trail, and the bearded
man and his companion left the car. As they passed her they glanced down.
Again the veil was drawn close. A shimmering tress of hair had escaped its
bondage; that was all they saw.

[Illustration: "Look at MacDonald.... It's not the gold, but MacDonald,
that's taking me north, Ladygray.... Up there, another grave is calling
MacDonald."]

The veiled woman drew a deeper breath when they were gone. She saw that
most of the others were getting off. In her end of the car the
hollow-cheeked girl and she were alone. Even in their aloneness these two
women had not dared to speak until now. The one raised her veil again, and
their eyes met across the aisle. For a moment the big, dark, sick-looking
eyes of the "angel" stared. Like the bearded man and his companion, she,
too, understood, and an embarrassed flush added to the colour of the rouge
on her cheeks. The eyes that looked across at her were blue--deep, quiet,
beautiful. The lifted veil had disclosed to her a face that she could not
associate with the Horde. The lips smiled at her--the wonderful eyes
softened with a look of understanding, and then the veil was lowered again.
The flush in the girl's cheek died out, and she smiled back.

"You are going to Tête Jaune?" she asked.

"Yes. May I sit with you for a few minutes? I want to ask questions--so
many!"

The hollow-cheeked girl made room for her at her side.

"You are new?"

"Quite new--to this."

The words, and the manner in which they were spoken, made the other glance
quickly at her companion.

"It is a strange place to go--Tête Jaune," she said. "It is a terrible
place for a woman."

"And yet you are going?"

"I have friends there. Have you?"

"No."

The girl stared at her in amazement. Her voice and her eyes were bolder
now.

"And without friends you are going--_there?_" she cried. "You have no
husband--no brother----"

"What place is this?" interrupted the other, raising her veil so that she
could look steadily into the other's face. "Would you mind telling me?"

"It is Miette," replied the girl, the flush reddening her cheeks again.
"There's one of the big camps of the railroad builders down on the Flats.
You can see it through the window. That river is the Athabasca."

"Will the train stop here very long?"

The Little Angel shrugged her thin shoulders despairingly.

"Long enough to get me into The Cache mighty late to-night," she
complained. "We won't move for two hours."

"I'd be so glad if you could tell me where I can go for a bath and
something to eat. I'm not very hungry--but I'm terribly dusty. I want to
change some clothes, too. Is there a hotel here?"

Her companion found the question very funny. She had a giggling fit before
she answered.

"You're sure new," she explained. "We don't have hotels up here. We have
bed-houses, chuck-tents, and bunk-shacks. You ask for Bill's Shack down
there on the Flats. It's pretty good. They'll give you a room, plenty of
water, and a looking-glass--an' charge you a dollar. I'd go with you, but
I'm expecting a friend a little later, and if I move I may lose him.
Anybody will tell you where Bill's place is. It's a red an' white striped
tent--and it's respectable."

The stranger girl thanked her, and turned for her bag. As she left the car,
the Little Angel's eyes followed her with a malicious gleam that gave them
the strange glow of candles in a sepulchral cavern. The colours which she
unfurled to all seeking eyes were not secret, and yet she was filled with
an inward antagonism that this stranger with the wonderful blue eyes had
dared to see them and recognize them. She stared after the retreating
form--a tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure that filled her with envy and
a dull sort of hatred. She did not hear a step behind her. A hand fell
familiarly on her shoulder, and a coarse voice laughed something in her ear
that made her jump up with an artificial little shriek of pleasure. The man
nodded toward the end of the now empty car.

"Who's your new friend?" he asked.

"She's no friend of mine," snapped the girl. "She's another one of them
Dolly Dimples come out to save the world. She's that innocent she wonders
why Tête Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort. I thought I'd
help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord,
I told her it was respectable!"

She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized
the opportunity to look out of the window.

The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of
the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face. Then she stepped
lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the
mountains. She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned
wonderingly, for a moment forgetful. It was the first time she had left the
train since entering the mountains, and she understood now why some one in
the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshine Pool. Where-ever she
looked the mountains fronted her, with their splendid green slopes reaching
up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or gleaming summits of
snow. Into this "pool"--this pocket in the mountains--the sun descended in
a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more
quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet
as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the
loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring
through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the
hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in him.

The train had stopped at the edge of the big fill overlooking the Flats. It
was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to make history--a
combination of freight, passenger, and "cattle." It had averaged eight
miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel. The
"cattle" had already surged from their stifling and foul-smelling cars in a
noisy inundation of curiously mixed humanity. They were of a dozen
different nationalities, and as the girl looked at them it was not with
revulsion or scorn but with a sudden quickening of heartbeat and a little
laugh that had in it something both of wonder and of pride. This was the
Horde, that crude, monstrous thing of primitive strength and passions that
was overturning mountains in its fight to link the new Grand Trunk Pacific
with the seaport on the Pacific. In that Horde, gathered in little groups,
shifting, sweeping slowly toward her and past her, she saw something as
omnipotent as the mountains themselves. They could not know defeat. She
sensed it without ever having seen them before. For her the Horde now had a
heart and a soul. These were the builders of empire--the man-beasts who
made it possible for Civilization to creep warily and without peril into
new places and new worlds. With a curious shock she thought of the
half-dozen lonely little wooden crosses she had seen through the car window
at odd places along the line of rail.

And now she sought her way toward the Flats. To do this she had to climb
over a track that was waiting for ballast. A car shunted past her, and on
its side she saw the big, warning red placards--Dynamite. That one word
seemed to breathe to her the spirit of the wonderful energy that was
expending itself all about her. From farther on in the mountains came the
deep, sullen detonations of the "little black giant" that had been rumbling
past her in the car. It came again and again, like the thunderous voice of
the mountains themselves calling out in protest and defiance. And each time
she felt a curious thrill under her feet and the palpitant touch of
something that was like a gentle breath in her ears. She found another
track on her way, and other cars slipped past her crunchingly. Beyond this
second track she came to a beaten road that led down into the Flats, and
she began to descend.

[Illustration: A tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure.... "Another o' them
Dotty Dimples come out to save the world. I thought I'd help eggicate her a
little, an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord, I told her it was
respectable!"]

Tents shone through the trees on the bottom. The rattle of the cars grew
more distant, and she heard the hum and laughter of voices and the jargon
of a phonograph. At the bottom of the slope she stepped aside to allow a
team and wagon to pass. The wagon was loaded with boxes that rattled and
crashed about as the wheels bumped over stones and roots. The driver of the
team did not look at her. He was holding back with his whole weight; his
eyes bulged a little; he was sweating, in his face was a comedy of
expression that made the girl smile in spite of herself. Then she saw one
of the bobbing boxes and the smile froze into a look of horror. On it was
painted that ominous word--DYNAMITE!

Two men were coming behind her.

"Six horses, a wagon an' old Fritz--blown to hell an' not a splinter left
to tell the story," one of them was saying. "I was there three minutes
after the explosion and there wasn't even a ravelling or a horsehair left.
This dynamite's a dam' funny thing. I wouldn't be a rock-hog for a
million!"

"I'd rather be a rock-hog than Joe--drivin' down this hill a dozen times a
day," replied the other.

The girl had paused again, and the two men stared at her as they were about
to pass. The explosion of Joe's dynamite could not have startled them more
than the beauty of the face that was turned to them in a quietly appealing
inquiry.

"I am looking for a place called--Bill's Shack," she said, speaking the
Little Sister's words hesitatingly. "Can you direct me to it, please?"

The younger of the two men looked at his companion without speaking. The
other, old enough to regard feminine beauty as a trap and an illusion,
turned aside to empty his mouth of a quid of tobacco, bent over, and
pointed under the trees.

"Can't miss it--third tent-house on your right, with canvas striped like a
barber-pole. That phonnygraff you hear is at Bill's."

"Thank you."

She went on.

Behind her, the two men stood where she had left them. They did not move.
The younger man seemed scarcely to breathe.

"Bill's place!" he gasped then. "I've a notion to tell her. I can't
believe----"

"Shucks!" interjected the other.

"But I don't. She isn't that sort. She looked like a Madonna--with the
heart of her clean gone. I never saw anything so white an' so beautiful.
You call me a fool if you want to--I'm goin' on to Bill's!"

He strode ahead, chivalry in his young and palpitating heart. Quickly the
older man was at his side, clutching his arm.

"Come along, you cotton-head!" he cried. "You ain't old enough or big
enough in this camp to mix in with Bill. Besides," he lied, seeing the
wavering light in the youth's eyes, "I know her. She's going to the right
place."

At Bill's place men were holding their breath and staring. They were not
unaccustomed to women. But such a one as this vision that walked calmly and
undisturbed in among them they had never seen. There were half a dozen
lounging there, smoking and listening to the phonograph, which some one now
stopped that they might hear every word that was spoken. The girl's head
was high. She was beginning to understand that it would have been less
embarrassing to have gone hungry and dusty. But she had come this far, and
she was determined to get what she wanted--if it was to be had. The colour
shone a little more vividly through the pure whiteness of her skin as she
faced Bill, leaning over his little counter. In him she recognized the
Brute. It was blazoned in his face, in the hungry, seeking look of his
eyes--in the heavy pouches and thick crinkles of his neck and cheeks. For
once Bill Quade himself was at a loss.

"I understand that you have rooms for rent," she said unemotionally. "May I
hire one until the train leaves for Tête Jaune Cache?"

The listeners behind her stiffened and leaned forward. One of them grinned
at Quade. This gave him the confidence he needed to offset the fearless
questioning in the blue eyes. None of them noticed a newcomer in the door.
Quade stepped from behind his shelter and faced her.

"This way," he said, and turned to the drawn curtains beyond them.

She followed. As the curtains closed after them a chuckling laugh broke the
silence of the on-looking group. The newcomer in the doorway emptied the
bowl of his pipe, and thrust the pipe into the breast-pocket of his flannel
shirt. He was bareheaded. His hair was blond, shot a little with gray. He
was perhaps thirty-eight, no taller than the girl herself, slim-waisted,
with trim, athletic shoulders. His eyes, as they rested on the
still-fluttering curtains, were a cold and steady gray. His face was thin
and bronzed, his nose a trifle prominent. He was a man far from handsome,
and yet there was something of fascination and strength about him. He did
not belong to the Horde. Yet he might have been the force behind it,
contemptuous of the chuckling group of rough-visaged men, almost arrogant
in his posture as he eyed the curtains and waited.

What he expected soon came. It was not the usual giggling, the usual
exchange of badinage and coarse jest beyond the closed curtains. Quade did
not come out rubbing his huge hands, his face crinkling with a sort of
exultant satisfaction. The girl preceded him. She flung the curtains aside
and stood there for a moment, her face flaming like fire, her blue eyes
filled with the flash of lightning. She came down the single step. Quade
followed her. He put out a hand.

"Don't take offence, girly," he expostulated. "Look here--ain't it
reasonable to s'pose----"

He got no farther. The man in the door had advanced, placing himself at the
girl's side. His voice was low and unexcited.

"You have made a mistake?" he said.

She took him in at a glance--his clean-cut, strangely attractive face, his
slim build, the clear and steady gray of his eyes.

"Yes, I have made a mistake--a terrible mistake!"

"I tell you it ain't fair to take offence," Quade went on. "Now, look
here----"

In his hand was a roll of bills. The girl did not know that a man could
strike as quickly and with as terrific effect as the gray-eyed stranger
struck then. There was one blow, and Quade went down limply. It was so
sudden that he had her outside before she realized what had happened.

"I chanced to see you go in," he explained, without a tremor in his voice.
"I thought you were making a mistake. I heard you ask for shelter. If you
will come with me I will take you to a friend's."

"If it isn't too much trouble for you, I will go," she said. "And for
that--in there--thank you!"




CHAPTER II


They passed down an aisle through the tall trees, on each side of which
faced the vari-coloured and many-shaped architecture of the little town. It
was chiefly of canvas. Now and then a structure of logs added an appearance
of solidity to the whole. The girl did not look too closely. She knew that
they passed places in which there were long rows of cots, and that others
were devoted to trade. She noticed signs which advertised soft drinks and
cigars--always "soft drinks," which sometimes came into camp marked as
"dynamite," "salt pork," and "flour." She was conscious that every one
stared at them as they passed. She heard clearly the expressions of wonder
and curiosity of two women and a girl who were spreading out blankets in
front of a rooming-tent. She looked at the man at her side. She appreciated
his courtesy in not attempting to force an acquaintanceship. In her eyes
was a ripple of amusement.

"This is all strange and new to me--and not at all uninteresting," she
said. "I came expecting--everything. And I am finding it. Why do they stare
at me so? Am I a curiosity?"

"You are," he answered bluntly. "You are the most beautiful woman they have
ever seen."

His eyes encountered hers as he spoke. He had answered her question fairly.
There was nothing that was audacious in his manner or his look. She had
asked for information, and he had given it. In spite of herself the girl's
lips trembled. Her colour deepened. She smiled.

"Pardon me," she entreated. "I seldom feel like laughing, but I almost do
now. I have encountered so many curious people and have heard so many
curious things during the past twenty-four hours. You don't believe in
concealing your thoughts out here in the wilderness, do you?"

"I haven't expressed _my_ thoughts," he corrected. "I was telling you what
_they_ think."

"Oh-h-h--I beg your pardon again!"

"Not at all," he answered lightly, and now his eyes were laughing frankly
into her own. "I don't mind informing you," he went on, "that I am the
biggest curiosity you will meet between this side of the mountains and the
sea. I am not accustomed to championing women. I allow them to pursue their
own course without personal interference on my part. But--I suppose it will
give you some satisfaction if I confess it--I followed you into Bill's
place because you were more than ordinarily beautiful, and because I wanted
to see fair play. I knew you were making a mistake. I knew what would
happen."

They had passed the end of the street, and entered a little green plain
that was soft as velvet underfoot. On the farther side of this, sheltered
among the trees, were two or three tents. The man led the way toward these.

"Now, I suppose I've spoiled it all," he went on, a touch of irony in his
voice. "It was really quite heroic of me to follow you into Bill's place,
don't you think? You probably want to tell me so, but don't quite dare.
And I should play up to my part, shouldn't I? But I cannot--not
satisfactorily. I'm really a bit disgusted with myself for having taken as
much interest in you as I have. I write books for a living. My name is John
Aldous."

With a little cry of amazement, his companion stopped. Without knowing it,
her hand had gripped his arm.

"You are John Aldous--who wrote 'Fair Play,' and 'Women!'" she gasped.

"Yes," he said, amusement in his face.

"I have read those books--and I have read your plays," she breathed, a
mysterious tremble in her voice. "You despise women!"

"Devoutly."

She drew a deep breath. Her hand dropped from his arm.

"This is very, very funny," she mused, gazing off to the sun-capped peaks
of the mountains. "You have flayed women alive. You have made them want to
mob you. And yet----"

"Millions of them read my books," he chuckled.

"Yes--all of them read your books," she replied, looking straight into his
face. "And I guess--in many ways--you have pointed out things that are
true."

It was his turn to show surprise.

"You believe that?"

"I do. More than that--I have always thought that I knew your secret--the
big, hidden thing under your work, the thing which you do not reveal
because you know the world would laugh at you. And so--_you despise me!_"

"Not you."

"I am a woman."

He laughed. The tan in his cheeks burned a deeper red.

"We are wasting time," he warned her. "In Bill's place I heard you say you
were going to leave on the Tête Jaune train. I am going to take you to a
real dinner. And now--I should let those good people know your name."

A moment--unflinching and steady--she looked into his face.

"It is Joanne, the name you have made famous as the dreadfulest woman in
fiction. Joanne Gray."

"I am sorry," he said, and bowed low. "Come. If I am not mistaken I smell
new-baked bread."

As they moved on he suddenly touched her arm. She felt for a moment the
firm clasp of his fingers. There was a new light in his eyes, a glow of
enthusiasm.

"I have it!" he cried. "You have brought it to me--the idea. I have been
wanting a name for _her_--the woman in my new book. She is to be a
tremendous surprise. I haven't found a name, until now--one that fits. I
shall call her Ladygray!"

He felt the girl flinch. He was surprised at the sudden startled look that
shot into her eyes, the swift ebbing of the colour from her cheeks. He drew
away his hand at the strange change in her. He noticed how quickly she was
breathing--that the fingers of her white hands were clasped tensely.

"You object," he said.

"Not enough to keep you from using it," she replied in a low voice. "I owe
you a great deal." He noted, too, how quickly she had recovered herself.
Her head was a little higher. She looked toward the tents. "You were not
mistaken," she added. "I smell new-made bread!"

"And I shall emphasize the first half of it--_Lady_gray," said John Aldous,
as if speaking to himself. "That diminutizes it, you might say--gives it
the touch of sentiment I want. You can imagine a lover saying 'Dear little
_Lady_gray, are you warm and comfy?' He wouldn't say Ladygray as if she
wore a coronet, would he?"

"Smell-o'-bread--fresh bread!" sniffed Joanne Gray, as if she had not heard
him. "It's making me hungry. Will you please hurry me to it, John Aldous?"

They were approaching the first of the three tent-houses, over which was a
crudely painted sign which read "Otto Brothers, Guides and Outfitters." It
was a large, square tent, with weather-faded red and blue stripes, and from
it came the cheerful sound of a woman's laughter. Half a dozen
trampish-looking Airedale terriers roused themselves languidly as they drew
nearer. One of them stood up and snarled.

"They won't hurt you," assured Aldous. "They belong to Jack Bruce and
Clossen Otto--the finest bunch of grizzly dogs in the Rockies." Another
moment, and a woman had appeared in the door. "And that is Mrs. Jack Otto,"
he added under his breath. "If all women were like her I wouldn't have
written the things you have read!"

He might have added that she was Scotch. But this was not necessary. The
laughter was still in her good-humoured face. Aldous looked at his
companion, and he found her smiling back. The eyes of the two women had
already met.

Briefly Aldous explained what had happened at Quade's, and that the young
woman was leaving on the Tête Jaune train. The good-humoured smile left
Mrs. Otto's face when he mentioned Quade.

"I've told Jack I'd like to poison that man some day," she cried. "You poor
dear, come in, I'll get you a cup of tea."

"Which always means dinner in the Otto camp," added Aldous.

"I'm not so hungry, but I'm tired--so tired," he heard the girl say as she
went in with Mrs. Otto, and there was a new and strangely pathetic note in
her voice. "I want to rest--until the train goes."

He followed them in, and stood for a moment near the door.

"There's a room in there, my dear," said the woman, drawing back a curtain.
"Make yourself at home, and lie down on the bed until I have the tea
ready."

When the curtain had closed behind her, John Aldous spoke in a low voice to
the woman.

"Will you see her safely to the train, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "It leaves at
a quarter after two. I must be going."

He felt that he had sufficiently performed his duty. He left the tent, and
paused for a moment outside to touzle affectionately the trampish heads of
the bear dogs. Then he turned away, whistling. He had gone a dozen steps
when a low voice stopped him. He turned. Joanne had come from the door.

For one moment he stared as if something more wonderful than anything he
had ever seen had risen before him. The girl was bareheaded, and she stood
in a sun mellowed by a film of cloud. Her head was piled with lustrous
coils of gold-brown hair that her hat and veil had hidden. Never had he
looked upon such wonderful hair, crushed and crumpled back from her smooth
forehead; nor such marvellous whiteness of skin and pure blue depths of
eyes! In her he saw now everything that was strong and splendid in woman.
She was not girlishly sweet. She was not a girl. She was a woman--glorious
to look at, a soul glowing out of her eyes, a strength that thrilled him in
the quiet and beautiful mystery of her face.

"You were going without saying good-bye," she said. "Won't you let me thank
you--a last time?"

Her voice brought him to himself again. A moment he bent over her hand. A
moment he felt its warm, firm pressure in his own. The smile that flashed
to his lips was hidden from her as he bowed his blond-gray head.

"Pardon me for the omission," he apologized. "Good-bye--and may good luck
go with you!"

Their eyes met once more. With another bow he had turned, and was
continuing his way. At the door Joanne Gray looked back. He was whistling
again. His careless, easy stride was filled with a freedom that seemed to
come to her in the breath of the mountains. And then she, too, smiled
strangely as she reëntered the tent.




CHAPTER III


If John Aldous had betrayed no visible sign of inward vanquishment he at
least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the
target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with
indifferent toleration. The women were his life--the "frail and ineffective
creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days
anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his
heart--and this was his own secret--he did not even despise women. But he
had seen their weaknesses and their frailties as perhaps no other man had
ever seen them, and he had written of them as no other man had ever
written. This had brought him the condemnation of the host, the admiration
of the few. His own personal veneer of antagonism against woman was purely
artificial, and yet only a few had guessed it. He had built it up about him
as a sort of protection. He called himself "an adventurer in the mysteries
of feminism," and to be this successfully he had argued that he must
destroy in himself the usual heart-emotions of the sex-man and the animal.

How far he had succeeded in this he himself did not know--until these last
moments when he had bid good-bye to Joanne Gray. He confessed that she had
found a cleft in his armour, and there was an uneasy thrill in his blood.
It was not her beauty alone that had affected him. He had trained himself
to look at a beautiful woman as he might have looked at a beautiful flower,
confident that if he went beyond the mere admiration of it he would find
only burned-out ashes. But in her he had seen something that was more than
beauty, something that for a flashing moment had set stirring every
molecule in his being. He had felt the desire to rest his hand upon her
shining hair!

He turned off into a winding path that led into the thick poplars,
restraining an inclination to look back in the direction of the Otto camp.
He pulled out the pipe he had dropped into his shirt pocket, filled it with
fresh tobacco, and began smoking. As he smoked, his lips wore a quizzical
smile, for he was honest enough to give Joanne Gray credit for her triumph.
She had awakened a new kind of interest in him--only a passing interest, to
be sure--but a new kind for all that. The fact amused him. In a large way
he was a humourist--few guessing it, and he fully appreciated the humour of
the present situation--that he, John Aldous, touted the world over as a
woman-hater, wanted to peer out through the poplar foliage and see that
wonderful gold-brown head shining in the sun once more!

He wandered more slowly on his way, wondering with fresh interest what his
friends, the women, would say when they read his new book. His title for it
was "Mothers." It was to be a tremendous surprise.

Suddenly his face became serious. He faced the sound of a distant
phonograph. It was not the phonograph in Quade's place, but that of a rival
dealer in soft drinks at the end of the "street." For a moment Aldous
hesitated. Then he turned in the direction of the camp.

Quade was bolstered up on a stool, his back against the thin partition,
when John Aldous sauntered in. There was still a groggy look in his mottled
face. His thick bulk hung a bit limply. In his heavy-lidded eyes,
under-hung by watery pouches of sin and dissipation, there was a vengeful
and beastlike glare. He was surrounded by his friends. One of them was
taking a wet cloth from his head. There were a dozen in the canvas-walled
room, all with their backs to the door, their eyes upon their fallen and
dishonoured chief. For a moment John Aldous paused in the door. The cool
and insolent smile hovered about his lips again, and little crinkles had
gathered at the corners of his eyes.

"Did I hit you pretty hard, Bill?" he asked.

Every head was turned toward him. Bill Quade stared, his mouth open. He
staggered to his feet, and stood dizzily.

"You--damn you!" he cried huskily.

Three or four of the men had already begun to move toward the stranger.
Their hands were knotted, their faces murderously dark.

"Wait a minute, boys," warned Aldous coolly. "I've got something to say to
you--and Bill. Then eat me alive if you want to. Do you want to be square
enough to give me a word?"

Quade had settled back sickly on his stool. The others had stopped,
waiting. The quiet and insolently confident smile had not left Aldous'
lips.

"You'll feel better in a few minutes, Bill," he consoled. "A hard blow on
the jaw always makes you sick at the pit of the stomach. That dizziness
will pass away shortly. Meanwhile, I'm going to give you and your pals a
little verbal and visual demonstration of what you're up against, and warn
you to bait no traps for a certain young woman whom you've lately seen.
She's going on to Tête Jaune. And I know how your partner plays his game up
there. I'm not particularly anxious to butt into your affairs and the
business of this pretty bunch that's gathered about you, but I've come to
give you a friendly warning for all that. If this young woman is
embarrassed up at Tête Jaune you're going to settle with me."

Aldous had spoken without a tremor of excitement in his voice. Not one of
the men noticed his speaking lips, his slim hands, or his careless posture
as he leaned in the door. They were looking straight into his eyes,
strangely scintillating and deadly earnest. In such a man mere bulk did not
count.

"That much--for words," he went on. "Now I'm going to give you the visual
demonstration. I know your game, Bill. You're already planning what you're
going to do. You won't fight fair--because you never have. You've already
decided that some morning I'll turn up missing, or be dug out from under a
fall of rock, or go peacefully floating down the Athabasca. See! There's
nothing in that hand, is there?"

He stretched out an empty hand toward them, palm up.

"And now!"

A twist of the wrist so swift their eyes could not follow, a metallic
click, and the startled group were staring into the black muzzle of a
menacing little automatic.

"That's known as the sleeve trick, boys," explained Aldous with his
imperturbable smile. "It's a relic of the old gun-fighting days when the
best man was quickest. From now on, especially at night, I shall carry this
little friend of mine just inside my wristband. There are eleven shots in
it, and I shoot fairly straight. Good-day!"

Before they had recovered from their astonishment he was gone.

He did not follow the road along which Joanne had come a short time before,
but turned again into the winding trail that led riverward through the
poplars. Where before he had been a little amused at himself, he was now
more seriously disgusted. He was not afraid of Quade, who was perhaps the
most dangerous man along the line of rail. Neither was he afraid of the
lawless men who worked his ends. But he knew that he had made powerful
enemies, and all because of an unknown woman whom he had never seen until
half an hour before. It was this that disturbed his equanimity--the _woman_
of it, and the knowledge that his interference had been unsolicited and
probably unnecessary. And now that he had gone this far he found it not
easy to recover his balance. Who was this Joanne Gray? he asked himself.
She was not ordinary--like the hundred other women who had gone on ahead of
her to Tête Jaune Cache. If she had been that, he would soon have been in
his little shack on the shore of the river, hard at work. He had planned
work for himself that afternoon, and he was nettled to discover that his
enthusiasm for the grand finale of a certain situation in his novel was
gone. Yet for this he did not blame her. He was the fool. Quade and his
friends would make him feel that sooner or later.

His trail led him to a partly dry muskeg bottom. Beyond this was a thicker
growth of timber, mostly spruce and cedar, from behind which came the
rushing sound of water. A few moments more and he stood with the wide
tumult of the Athabasca at his feet. He had chosen this spot for his little
cabin because the river ran wild here among the rocks, and because
pack-outfits going into the southward mountains could not disturb him by
fording at this point. Across the river rose the steep embankments that
shut in Buffalo Prairie, and still beyond that the mountains, thick with
timber rising billow on billow until trees looked like twigs, with gray
rock and glistening snow shouldering the clouds above the last purple line.
The cabin in which he had lived and worked for many weeks faced the river
and the distant Saw Tooth Range, and was partly hidden in a clump of
jack-pines. He opened the door and entered. Through the window to the south
and west he could see the white face of Mount Geikie, and forty miles away
in that wilderness of peaks, the sombre frown of Hardesty; through it the
sun came now, flooding his work as he had left it. The last page of
manuscript on which he had been working was in his typewriter. He sat down
to begin where he had left off in that pivotal situation in his
masterpiece.

He read and re-read the last two or three pages of the manuscript,
struggling to pick up the threads where he had dropped them. With each
reading he became more convinced that his work for that afternoon was
spoiled. And by whom? By _what?_ A little fiercely he packed his pipe with
fresh tobacco. Then he leaned back, lighted it, and laughed. More and more
as the minutes passed he permitted himself to think of the strange young
woman whose beauty and personality had literally projected themselves into
his workshop. He marvelled at the crudity of the questions which he asked
himself, and yet he persisted in asking them. Who was she? What could be
her mission at Tête Jaune Cache? She had repeated to him what she had said
to the girl in the coach--that at Tête Jaune she had no friends. Beyond
that, and her name, she had offered no enlightenment.

In the brief space that he had been with her he had mentally tabulated her
age as twenty-eight--no older. Her beauty alone, the purity of her eyes,
the freshness of her lips, and the slender girlishness of her figure, might
have made him say twenty, but with those things he had found the maturer
poise of the woman. It had been a flashlight picture, but one that he was
sure of.

Several times during the next hour he turned to his work, and at last gave
up his efforts entirely. From a peg in the wall he took down a little
rifle. He had found it convenient to do much of his own cooking, and he had
broken a few laws. The partridges were out of season, but temptingly fat
and tender. With a brace of young broilers in mind for supper, he left the
cabin and followed the narrow foot-trail up the river. He hunted for half
an hour before he stirred a covey of birds. Two of these he shot.
Concealing his meat and his gun near the trail he continued toward the ford
half a mile farther up, wondering if Stevens, who was due to cross that
day, had got his outfit over. Not until then did he look at his watch. He
was surprised to find that the Tête Jaune train had been gone three
quarters of an hour. For some unaccountable reason he felt easier. He went
on, whistling.

At the ford he found Stevens standing close to the river's edge, twisting
one of his long red moustaches in doubt and vexation.

"Damn this river," he growled, as Aldous came up. "You never can tell what
it's going to do overnight. Look there! Would you try to cross?"

"I wouldn't," replied Aldous. "It's a foot higher than yesterday. I
wouldn't take the chance."

"Not with two guides, a cook, and a horse-wrangler on your pay-roll--and a
hospital bill as big as Geikie staring you in the face?" argued Stevens,
who had been sick for three months. "I guess you'd pretty near take a
chance. I've a notion to."

"I wouldn't," repeated Aldous.

"But I've lost two days already, and I'm taking that bunch of sightseers
out for a lump sum, guaranteeing 'em so many days on the trail. This ain't
what you might call _on the trail_. They don't expect to pay for this
delay, and that outfit back in the bush is costing me thirty dollars a day.
We can get the dunnage and ourselves over in the flat-boat. It'll make our
arms crack--but we can do it. I've got twenty-seven horses. I've a notion
to chase 'em in. The river won't be any lower to-morrow."

"But you may be a few horses ahead."

Stevens bit off a chunk of tobacco and sat down. For a few moments he
looked at the muddy flood with an ugly eye. Then he chuckled, and grinned.

"Came through the camp half an hour ago," he said. "Hear you cleaned up on
Bill Quade."

"A bit," said Aldous.

Stevens rolled his quid and spat into the water slushing at his feet.

"Guess I saw the woman when she got off the train," he went on. "She
dropped something. I picked it up, but she was so darned pretty as she
stood there looking about I didn't dare go up an' give it to her. If it had
been worth anything I'd screwed up my courage. But it wasn't--so I just
gawped like the others. It was a piece of paper. Mebby you'd like it as a
souvenir, seein' as you laid out Quade for her."

As he spoke, Stevens fished a crumpled bit of paper from his pocket and
gave it to his companion. Aldous had sat down beside him. He smoothed the
page out on his knee. There was no writing on it, but it was crowded thick
with figures, as if the maker of the numerals had been doing some problem
in mathematics. The chief thing that interested him was that wherever
monetary symbols were used it was the "pound" and not the "dollar" sign.
The totals of certain columns were rather startling.

"Guess she's a millionaire if that's her own money she's been figgering,"
said Stevens. "Notice that figger there!" He pointed with a stubby
forefinger. "Pretty near a billion, ain't it?"

"Seven hundred and fifty thousand," said Aldous.

He was thinking of the "pound" sign. She had not looked like the
Englishwomen he had met. He folded the slip of paper and put it in his
pocket.

Stevens eyed him seriously.

"I was coming over to give you a bit of advice before I left for the
Maligne Lake country," he said. "You'd better move. Quade won't want you
around after this. Besides----"

"What?"

"My kid heard something," continued the packer, edging nearer. "You was
mighty good to the kid when I was down an' out, Aldous. I ought to tell
you. It wasn't an hour ago the kid was behind the tent an' he heard Quade
and Slim Barker talking. So far as I can find from the kid, Quade has gone
nutty over her. He's ravin'. He told Slim that he'd give ten thousand
dollars to get her in his hands. What sent the boy down to me was Quade
tellin' Slim that he'd get _you_ first. He told Slim to go on to Tête
Jaune--follow the girl!"

"The deuce you say!" cried Aldous, clutching the other's arm suddenly.
"He's done that?"

"That's what the kid says."

Aldous rose to his feet slowly. The careless smile was playing about his
mouth again. A few men had learned that in those moments John Aldous was
dangerous.

"The kid is undoubtedly right," he said, looking down at Stevens. "But I am
quite sure the young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has
a tremendous amount of nerve, setting Slim to follow her, hasn't he? Slim
may run up against a husband or a brother."

Stevens haunched his shoulders.

"It's not the woman I'm thinking about. It's you. I'd sure change my
location."

"Why wouldn't it be just as well if I told the police of his threat?" asked
Aldous, looking across the river with a glimmer of humour in his eyes.

"Oh, hell!" was the packer's rejoinder.

Slowly he unwound his long legs and rose to his feet.

"Take my advice--move!" he said. "As for me, I'm going to cross that cussed
river this afternoon or know the reason why."

He stalked away in the direction of his outfit, chewing viciously at his
quid. For a few moments Aldous stood undecided. He would liked to have
joined the half-dozen men he saw lounging restfully a distance beyond the
grazing ponies. But Stevens had made him acutely aware of a new danger. He
was thinking of his cabin--and the priceless achievement of his last months
of work, his manuscript. If Quade should destroy that----

He clenched his hands and walked swiftly toward his camp. To "burn out" an
enemy was one of Quade's favourite methods of retaliation. He had heard
this. He also knew that Quade's work was done so cleverly that the police
had been unable to call him to account.

Quade's status had interested Aldous from the beginning. He had discovered
that Quade and Culver Rann, his partner at Tête Jaune, were forces to be
reckoned with even by the "powers" along the line of rail. They were the
two chiefs of the "underground," the men who controlled the most dangerous
element from Miette to Fort George. He had once seen Culver Rann, a quiet,
keen-eyed, immaculately groomed man of forty--the cleverest scoundrel that
had ever drifted into the Canadian west. He had been told that Rann was
really the brain of the combination, and that the two had picked up a
quarter of a million in various ways. But it was Quade with whom he had to
deal now, and he began to thank Stevens for his warning. He was filled with
a sense of relief when he reached his cabin and found it as he had left
it. He always made a carbon copy of his work. This copy he now put into a
waterproof tin box, and the box he concealed under a log a short distance
back in the bush.

"Now go ahead, Quade," he laughed to himself, a curious, almost exultant
ring in his voice. "I haven't had any real excitement for so long I can't
remember, and if you start the fun there's going to _be_ fun!"

He returned to his birds, perched himself behind a bush at the river's
edge, and began skinning them. He had almost finished when he heard hoarse
shouts from up the river. From his position he could see the stream a
hundred yards below the ford. Stevens had driven in his horses. He could
see them breasting the first sweep of the current, their heads held high,
struggling for the opposite shore. He rose, dropped his birds, and stared.

"Good God, what a fool!" he gasped.

He saw the tragedy almost before it had begun. Still three hundred yards
below the swimming horses was the gravelly bar which they must reach on the
opposite side. He noted the grayish strip of smooth water that marked the
end of the dead-line. Three or four of the stronger animals were forging
steadily toward this. The others grouped close together, almost motionless
in their last tremendous fight, were left farther and farther behind. Then
came the break. A mare and her yearling colt had gone in with the bunch.
Aldous saw the colt, with its small head and shoulders high out of the
water, sweep down like a chip with the current. A cold chill ran through
him as he heard the whinneying scream of the mother--a warning cry that
held for him the pathos and the despair of a creature that was human. He
knew what it meant. "Wait--I'm coming--I'm coming!" was in that cry. He saw
the mare give up and follow resistlessly with the deadly current, her eyes
upon her colt. The heads behind her wavered, then turned, and in another
moment the herd was sweeping down to its destruction.

Aldous felt like turning his head. But the spectacle fascinated him, and he
looked. He did not think of Stevens and his loss as the first of the herd
plunged in among the rocks. He stood with white face and clenched hands,
leaning over the water boiling at his feet, cursing softly in his
helplessness. To him came the last terrible cries of the perishing animals.
He saw head after head go under. Out of the white spume of a great rock
against which the flood split itself with the force of an avalanche he saw
one horse pitched bodily, as if thrown from a huge catapault. The last
animal had disappeared when chance turned his eyes upstream and close in to
shore. Here flowed a steady current free of rock, and down this--head and
shoulders still high out of the water--came the colt! What miracle had
saved the little fellow thus far Aldous did not stop to ask. Fifty yards
below it would meet the fate of the others. Half that distance in the
direction of the maelstrom below was the dead trunk of a fallen spruce
overhanging the water for fifteen or twenty feet. In a flash Aldous was
racing toward it. He climbed out on it, leaned far over, and reached down.
His hand touched the water. In the grim excitement of rescue he forgot his
own peril. There was one chance in twenty that the colt would come within
his reach, and it did. He made a single lunge and caught it by the ear. For
a moment after that his heart turned sick. Under the added strain the dead
spruce sagged down with a warning crack. But it held, and Aldous hung to
his grip on the ear. Foot by foot he wormed his way back, until at last he
had dragged the little animal ashore.

And then a voice spoke behind him, a voice that he would have recognized
among ten thousand, low, sweet, thrilling.

"That was splendid, John Aldous!" it said. "If I were a man I would want to
be a man like you!"

He turned. A few steps from him stood Joanne Gray. Her face was as white as
the bit of lace at her throat. Her lips were colourless, and her bosom rose
and fell swiftly. He knew that she, too, had witnessed the tragedy. And the
eyes that looked at him were glorious.




CHAPTER IV


To John Aldous Joanne's appearance at this moment was like an anti-climax.
It plunged him headlong for a single moment into what he believed to be the
absurdity of a situation. He had a quick mental picture of himself out on
the dead spruce, performing a bit of mock-heroism by dragging in a
half-drowned colt by one ear. In another instant this had passed, and he
was wondering why Joanne Gray was not on her way to Tête Jaune.

"It was splendid!" she was saying again, her eyes glowing at him. "I know
men who would not have risked that for a human!"

"Perhaps they would have been showing good judgment," replied Aldous.

He noticed now that she was holding with one hand the end of a long slender
sapling which a week or two before he had cut and trimmed for a fish-pole.
He nodded toward it, a half-cynical smile on his lips.

"Were you going to fish me out--or the colt?" he asked.

"You," she replied. "I thought you were in danger." And then she added, "I
suppose you are deeply grateful that fate did not compel you to be saved by
a woman."

"Not at all. If the spruce had snapped, I would have caught at the end of
your sapling like any drowning rat--or man. Allow me to thank you."

She had stepped down to the level strip of sand on which the colt was
weakly struggling to rise to its feet. She was breathing quickly. Her face
was still pale. She was without a hat, and as she bent for a moment over
the colt Aldous felt his eyes drawn irresistibly to the soft thick coils of
her hair, a glory of colour that made him think of the lustrous brown of a
ripe wintelberry. She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes upon her.

"I came quite by accident," she explained quickly. "I wanted to be alone,
and Mrs. Otto said this path would lead to the river. When I saw you I was
about to turn back. And then I saw the other--the horses coming down the
stream. It was terrible. Are they all drowned?"

"All that you saw. It wasn't a pretty sight, was it?" There was a
suggestive inquiry in his voice as he added, "If you had gone to Tête Jaune
you would have missed the unpleasantness of the spectacle."

"I would have gone, but something happened. They say it was a cave-in, a
slide--something like that. The train cannot go on until to-morrow."

"And you are to stay with the Ottos?"

She nodded.

Quick as a flash she had seemed to read his thoughts.

"I am sorry," she added, before he could speak. "I can see that I have
annoyed you. I have literally projected myself into your work, and I am
afraid that I have caused you trouble. Mrs. Otto has told me of this man
they call Quade. She says he is dangerous. And I have made him your enemy."

"I am, not afraid of Quade. The incident was nothing more than an agreeable
interruption to what was becoming a rather monotonous existence up here. I
have always believed, you know, that a certain amount of physical
excitement is good oil for our mental machinery. That, perhaps, was why you
caught me hauling at His Coltship's ear."

He had spoken stiffly. There was a hard note in his voice, a suggestion of
something that was displeasing in his forced laugh. He knew that in these
moments he was fighting against his inner self--against his desire to tell
her how glad he was that something had held back the Tête Jaune train, and
how wonderful her hair looked in the afternoon sun. He was struggling to
keep himself behind the barriers he had built up and so long maintained in
his writings. And yet, as he looked, he felt something crumbling into
ruins. He knew that he had hurt her. The hardness of his words, the
coldness of his smile, his apparently utter indifference to her had sent
something that was almost like a quick, physical pain into her eyes. He
drew a step nearer, so that he caught the soft contour of her cheek. Joanne
Gray heard him, and lowered her head slightly, so that he could not see.
She was a moment too late. On her cheek Aldous saw a single creeping
drop--a tear.

In an instant he was at her side. With a quick movement she brushed the
tear away before she faced him.

"I've hurt you," he said, looking her straight in the eyes. "I've hurt you,
and God knows I'm a brute for doing it. I've treated you as badly as
Quade--only in a different way. I know how I've made you feel--that you've
been a nuisance, and have got me into trouble, and that I don't want to
have anything more to do with you. Have I made you feel that?"

"I am afraid--you have."

He reached out a hand, and almost involuntarily her own came to it. She saw
the change in his face, regret, pain, and then that slow-coming, wonderful
laughter in his eyes.

"That's just how I set out to make you feel," he confessed, the warmth of
her hand sending a thrill through him. "I might as well be frank, don't you
think? Until you came I had but one desire, and that was to finish my book.
I had planned great work for to-day. And you spoiled it. I couldn't get you
out of my mind. And it made me--ugly."

"And that was--all?" she whispered, a tense waiting in her eyes. "You
didn't think----"

"What Quade thought," he bit in sharply. The grip of his fingers hurt her
hand. "No, not that. My God, I didn't make you think _that?_"

"I'm a stranger--and they say women don't go to Tête Jaune alone," she
answered doubtfully.

"That's true, they don't--not as a general rule. Especially women like you.
You're alone, a stranger, and too beautiful. I don't say that to flatter
you. You are beautiful, and you undoubtedly know it. To let you go on alone
and unprotected among three or four thousand men like most of those up
there would be a crime. And the women, too--the Little Sisters. They'd
blast you. If you had a husband, a brother or a father waiting for you it
would be different. But you've told me you haven't. You have made me change
my mind about my book. You are of more interest to me just now than that.
Will you believe me? Will you let me be a friend, if you need a friend?"

To Aldous it seemed that she drew herself up a little proudly. For a moment
she seemed taller. A rose-flush of colour spread over her cheeks. She drew
her hand from him. And yet, as she looked at him, he could see that she was
glad.

"Yes, I believe you," she said. "But I must not accept your offer of
friendship. You have done more for me now than I can ever repay. Friendship
means service, and to serve me would spoil your plans, for you are in great
haste to complete your book."

"If you mean that you need my assistance, the book can wait."

"I shouldn't have said that," she cut in quickly, her lips tightening
slightly. "It was utterly absurd of me to hint that I might require
assistance--that I cannot take care of myself. But I shall be proud of the
friendship of John Aldous."

"Yes, you can take care of yourself, Ladygray," said Aldous softly, looking
into her eyes and yet speaking as if to himself. "That is why you have
broken so curiously into my life. It's _that_--and not your beauty. I have
known beautiful women before. But they were--just women, frail things that
might snap under stress. I have always thought there is only one woman in
ten thousand who would not do that--under certain conditions. I believe you
are that one in ten thousand. You can go on to Tête Jaune alone. You can go
anywhere alone--and care for yourself."

He was looking at her so strangely that she held her breath, her lips
parted, the flush in her cheeks deepening.

"And the strangest part of it all is that I have always known you away back
in my imagination," he went on. "You have lived there, and have troubled
me. I could not construct you perfectly. It is almost inconceivable that
you should have borne the same name--Joanne. Joanne, of 'Fair Play.'"

She gave a little gasp.

"Joanne was--terrible," she cried. "She was bad--bad to the heart and soul
of her!"

"She was splendid," replied Aldous, without a change in his quiet voice.
"She was splendid--but bad. I racked myself to find a soul for her, and I
failed. And yet she was splendid. It was my crime--not hers--that she
lacked a soul. She would have been my ideal, but I spoiled her. And by
spoiling her I sold half a million copies of the book. I did not do it
purposely. I would have given her a soul if I could have found one. She
went her way."

"And you compare me to--_her?_"

"Yes," said Aldous deliberately. "You are that Joanne. But you possess what
I could not give to her. Joanne of 'Fair Play' was splendid without a soul.
You have what she lacked. You may not understand, but you have come to
perfect what I only partly created."

The colour had slowly ebbed from Joanne's face. There was a mysterious
darkness in her eyes.

"If you were not John Aldous I would--strike you," she said. "As it
is--yes--I want you as a friend."

She held out her hand. For a moment he felt its warmth again in his own.
He bowed over it. Her eyes rested steadily on his blond head, and again she
noted the sprinkle of premature gray in his hair. For a second time she
felt almost overwhelmingly the mysterious strength of this man. Perhaps
each took three breaths before John Aldous raised his head. In that time
something wonderful and complete passed between them. Neither could have
told the other what it was. When their eyes met again, it was in their
faces.

"I have planned to have supper in my cabin to-night," said Aldous, breaking
the tension of that first moment. "Won't you be my guest, Ladygray?"

"Mrs. Otto----" she began.

"I will go to her at once and explain that you are going to eat partridges
with me," he interrupted. "Come--let me show you into my workshop and
home."

He led her to the cabin and into its one big room.

"You will make yourself at home while I am gone, won't you?" he invited.
"If it will give you any pleasure you may peel a few potatoes. I won't be
gone ten minutes."

Not waiting for any protest she might have, Aldous slipped back through the
door and took the path up to the Ottos'.




CHAPTER V


As soon as he had passed from the view of the cabin door Aldous shortened
his pace. He knew that never in his life had he needed to readjust himself
more than at the present moment. A quarter of an hour had seen a complete
and miraculous revolution within him. It was a change so unusual and
apparently so impossible that he could not grasp the situation and the fact
all at once. But the truth of it swept over him more and more swiftly as he
made his way along the dark, narrow trail that led up to the Miette Plain.
It was something that not only amazed and thrilled him. First--as in all
things--he saw the humour of it. He, John Aldous of all men, had utterly
obliterated himself, and for a _woman_. He had even gone so far as to offer
the sacrifice of his most important work. Frankly he had told Joanne that
she interested him more just now than his book. Again he repeated to
himself that it had not been a surrender--but an obliteration. With a pair
of lovely eyes looking quietly into him, he had wiped the slate clean of
the things he had preached for ten years and the laws he had made for
himself. And as he came in sight of the big Otto tent, he found himself
smiling, his breath coming quickly, strange voices singing within him.

He stopped to load and light his pipe before he faced Mrs. Otto, and he
clouded himself in as much smoke as possible while he explained to her
that he had almost forced Joanne to stop at his cabin and eat partridges
with him. He learned that the Tête Jaune train could not go on until the
next day, and after Mrs. Otto had made him take a loaf of fresh bread and a
can of home-made marmalade as a contribution to their feast, he turned back
toward the cabin, trying to whistle in his old careless way.

The questions he had first asked himself about Joanne forced themselves
back upon him now with deeper import. Almost unconsciously he had revealed
himself to her. He had spread open for her eyes and understanding the page
which he had so long hidden. He had as much as confessed to her that she
had come to change him--to complete what he had only half created. It had
been an almost inconceivable and daring confession, and he believed that
she understood him. More than that, she had read about him. She had read
his books. She knew John Aldous--the man.

But what did he know about her beyond the fact that her name was Joanne
Gray, and that the on-sweeping Horde had brought her into his life as
mysteriously as a storm might have flung him a bit of down from a swan's
breast? Where had she come from? And why was she going to Tête Jaune? It
must be some important motive was taking her to a place like Tête Jaune,
the rail-end, a place of several thousand men, with its crude muscle and
brawn and the seven passions of man. It was an impossible place for a young
and beautiful woman unprotected. If Joanne had known any one among the
engineers or contractors, or had she possessed a letter of introduction to
them, the tense lines would not have gathered so deeply about the corners
of Aldous' mouth. But these men whose brains were behind the Horde--the
engineers and the contractors--knew what women alone and unprotected meant
at Tête Jaune. Such women floated in with the Horde. And Joanne was going
in with the Horde. There lay the peril--and the mystery of it.

So engrossed was Aldous in his thoughts that he had come very quietly to
the cabin door. It was Joanne's voice that roused him. Sweet and low she
was singing a few lines from a song which he had never heard.

She stopped when Aldous appeared at the door. It seemed to him that her
eyes were a deeper, more wonderful blue as she looked up at him, and
smiled. She had found a towel for an apron, and was peeling potatoes.

"You will have some unusual excuses to make very soon," she greeted him.
"We had a visitor while you were gone. I was washing the potatoes when I
looked up to find a pair of the fiercest, reddest moustaches I have ever
seen, ornamenting the doorway. The man had two eyes that seemed about to
fall out when he saw me. He popped away like a rabbit--and--and--there's
something he left behind in his haste!"

Joanne's eyes were flooded with laughter as she nodded at the door. On the
sill was a huge quid of tobacco.

"Stevens!" Aldous chuckled. "God bless my soul, if you frightened him into
giving up a quid of tobacco like that you sure _did_ startle him some!" He
kicked Stevens' lost property out with the toe of his boot and turned to
Joanne, showing her the fresh bread and marmalade. "Mrs. Otto sent these to
you," he said. "And the train won't leave until to-morrow."

In her silence he pulled a chair in front of her, sat down close, and
thrust the point of his hunting knife into one of the two remaining
potatoes.

"And when it does go I'm going with you," he added.

He expected this announcement would have some effect on her. As she jumped
up with the pan of potatoes, leaving the one still speared on the end of
his knife, he caught only the corner of a bewitching smile.

"You still believe that I will be unable to take care of myself up at this
terrible Tête Jaune?" she asked, bending for a moment over the table. "Do
you?"

"No. You can care for yourself anywhere, Ladygray," he repeated. "But I am
quite sure that it will be less troublesome for me to see that no insults
are offered you than for you to resent those insults when they come. Tête
Jaune is full of Quades," he added.

The smile was gone from her face when she turned to him. Her blue eyes were
filled with a tense anxiety.

"I had almost forgotten that man," she whispered. "And you mean that you
would fight for me--again?"

"A thousand times."

The colour grew deeper in her cheeks. "I read something about you once that
I have never forgotten, John Aldous," she said. "It was after you returned
from Thibet. It said that you were largely made up of two emotions--your
contempt for woman and your love of adventure; that it would be impossible
for you not to see a flaw in one, and that for the other--physical
excitement--you would go to the ends of the earth. Perhaps it is this--your
desire for adventure--that makes you want to go with me to Tête Jaune?"

"I am beginning to believe that it will be the greatest adventure of my
life," he replied, and something in his quiet voice held her silent. He
rose to his feet, and stood before her. "It is already the Great
Adventure," he went on. "I feel it. And I am the one to judge. Until to-day
I would have staked my life that no power could have wrung from me the
confession I am going to make to you voluntarily. I have laughed at the
opinion the world has held of me. To me it has all been a colossal joke. I
have enjoyed the hundreds of columns aimed at me by excited women through
the press. They have all asked the same question: Why do you not write of
the good things in women instead of always the bad? I have never given them
an answer. But I answer you now--here. I have not picked upon the
weaknesses of women because I despise them. Those weaknesses--the
destroying frailties of womankind--I have driven over rough-shod through
the pages of my books because I have always believed that Woman was the one
thing which God came nearest to creating _perfect_. I believe they should
be perfect. And because they have not quite that perfection which should be
theirs I have driven the cold facts home as hard as I could. I have been a
fool and an iconoclast instead of a builder. This confession to you is
proof that you have brought me face to face with the greatest adventure of
all."

The colour in her cheeks had centred in two bright spots. Her lips formed
words which came slowly, strangely.

"I guess--I understand," she said. "Perhaps I, too, would have been that
kind of an iconoclast--if I could have put the things I have thought into
written words." She drew a deep breath, and went on, her eyes full upon
him, speaking as if out of a dream. "The Great Adventure--for you. Yes; and
perhaps for both."

Her hands were drawn tightly to her breast. Something about her as she
stood there, her back to the table, drew John Aldous to her side, forced
the question from his lips: "Tell me, Ladygray--why are you going to Tête
Jaune?"

In that same strange way, as if her lips were framing words beyond their
power to control, she answered:

"I am going--to find--my husband."




CHAPTER VI


Silent, his head bowed a little, John Aldous stood before her after those
last words. A slight noise outside gave him the pretext to turn to the
door. She was going to Tête Jaune--to find her husband! He had not expected
that. For a breath, as he looked out toward the bush, his mind was in a
strange daze. A dozen times she had given him to understand there was no
husband, father, or brother waiting for her at the rail-end. She had told
him that she was alone--without friends. And now, like a confession, those
words had come strangely from her lips.

What he had heard was one of Otto's pack-horses coming down to drink. He
turned toward her again.

Joanne stood with her back still to the table. She had slipped a hand into
the front of her dress and had drawn forth a long thick envelope. As she
opened it, Aldous saw that it contained banknotes. From among these she
picked out a bit of paper and offered it to him.

"That will explain--partly," she said.

It was a newspaper clipping, worn and faded, with a date two years old. It
had apparently been cut from an English paper, and told briefly of the
tragic death of Mortimer FitzHugh, son of a prominent Devonshire family,
who had lost his life while on a hunting trip in the British Columbia
Wilds.

"He was my husband," said Joanne, as Aldous finished. "Until six months ago
I had no reason to believe that the statement in the paper was not true.
Then--an acquaintance came out here hunting. He returned with a strange
story. He declared that he had seen Mr. FitzHugh alive. Now you know why I
am here. I had not meant to tell you. It places me in a light which I do
not think that I can explain away--just now. I have come to prove or
disprove his death. If he is alive----"

For the first time she betrayed the struggle she was making against some
powerful emotion which she was fighting to repress. Her face had paled. She
stopped herself with a quick breath, as if knowing that she had already
gone too far.

"I guess I understand," said Aldous. "For some reason your anxiety is not
that you will find him dead, Ladygray, but that you may find him alive."

"Yes--yes, that is it. But you must not urge me farther. It is a terrible
thing to say. You will think I am not a woman, but a fiend. And I am your
guest. You have invited me to supper. And--the potatoes are ready, and
there is no fire!"

She had forced a smile back to her lips. John Aldous whirled toward the
door.

"I will have the partridges in two seconds!" he cried. "I dropped them when
the horses went through the rapids."

The oppressive and crushing effect of Joanne's first mention of a husband
was gone. He made no effort to explain or analyze the two sudden changes
that swept over him. He accepted them as facts, and that was all. Where a
few moments before there had been the leaden grip of something that seemed
to be physically choking him, there was now again the strange buoyancy with
which he had gone to the Otto tent. He began to whistle as he went to the
river's edge. He was whistling when he returned, the two birds in his hand.
Joanne was waiting for him in the door. Again her face was a faintly tinted
vision of tranquil loveliness; her eyes were again like the wonderful blue
pools over the sunlit mountains. She smiled as he came up. He was
amazed--not that she had recovered so completely from the emotional
excitement that had racked her, but because she betrayed in no way a sign
of grief--of suspense or of anxiety. A few minutes ago he had heard her
singing. He could almost believe that her lips might break into song again
as she stood there.

From that moment until the sun sank behind the mountains and gray shadows
began to creep in where the light had been, there was no other reference to
the things that had happened or the things that had been said since
Joanne's arrival. For the first time in years John Aldous completely forgot
his work. He was lost in Joanne. With the tremendous reaction that was
working out in him she became more and more wonderful to him with each
breath that he drew. He made no effort to control the change that was
sweeping through him. His one effort was to keep it from being too apparent
to her.

The way in which Joanne had taken his invitation was as delightful as it
was new to him. She had become both guest and hostess. With her lovely arms
bared halfway to the shoulders she rolled out a batch of biscuits. "Hot
biscuits go so well with marmalade," she told him. He built a fire. Beyond
that, and bringing in the water, she gave him to understand that his duties
were at an end, and that he could smoke while she prepared the supper. With
the beginning of dusk he closed the cabin door that he might have an excuse
for lighting the big hanging lamp a little earlier. He had imagined how its
warm glow would flood down upon the thick soft coils of her shining hair.

Every fibre in him throbbed with a keen and exquisite satisfaction as he
sat down opposite her. During the meal he looked into the quiet, velvety
blue of her eyes a hundred times. He found it a delightful sensation to
talk to her and look into those eyes at the same time. He told her more
about himself than he had ever told another soul. It was she who spoke
first of the manuscript upon which he was working. He had spoken of certain
adventures that had led up to the writing of one of his books.

"And this last book you are writing, which you call 'Mothers,'" she said.
"Is it to be like 'Fair Play?'"

"It was to have been the last of the trilogy. But it won't be now,
Ladygray. I've changed my mind."

"But it is so nearly finished, you say?"

"I would have completed it this week. I was rushing it to an end at fever
heat when--you came."

He saw the troubled look in her eyes, and hastened to add:

"Let us not talk about that manuscript, Ladygray. Some day I will let you
read it, and then you will understand why your coming has not hurt it. At
first I was unreasonably disturbed because I thought that I must finish it
within a week from to-day. I start out on a new adventure then--a strange
adventure, into the North."

"That means--the wild country?" she asked. "Up there in the North--there
are no people?"

"An occasional Indian, perhaps a prospector now and then," he said. "Last
year I travelled a hundred and twenty-seven days without seeing a human
face except that of my Cree companion."

She had leaned a little over the table, and was looking at him intently,
her eyes shining.

"That is why I have understood you, and read between the printed lines in
your books," she said. "If I had been a man, I would have been a great deal
like you. I love those things--loneliness, emptiness, the great spaces
where you hear only the whisperings of the winds and the fall of no other
feet but your own. Oh, I should have been a man! It was born in me. It was
a part of me. And I loved it--loved it."

A poignant grief had shot into her eyes. Her voice broke almost in a sob.
Amazed, he looked at her in silence across the table.

"You have lived that life, Ladygray?" he said after a moment. "You have
seen it?"

"Yes," she nodded, clasping and unclasping her slim white hands. "For years
and years, perhaps even more than you, John Aldous! I was born in it. And
it was my life for a long time--until my father died." She paused, and he
saw her struggling to subdue the quivering throb in her throat. "We were
inseparable," she went on, her voice becoming suddenly strange and quiet.
"He was father, mother--everything to me. It was too wonderful. Together
we hunted out the mysteries and the strange things in the out-of-the-way
places of the earth. It was his passion. He had given birth to it in me. I
was always with him, everywhere. And then he died, soon after his discovery
of that wonderful buried city of Mindano, in the heart of Africa. Perhaps
you have read----"

"Good God," breathed Aldous, so low that his voice did not rise above a
whisper. "Joanne--Ladygray--you are not speaking of Daniel Gray--Sir Daniel
Gray, the Egyptologist, the antiquarian who uncovered the secrets of an
ancient and wonderful civilization in the heart of darkest Africa?"

"Yes."

"And you--are his daughter?"

She bowed her head.

Like one in a dream John Aldous rose from his chair and went to her. He
seized her hands and drew her up so that they stood face to face. Again
that strange and beautiful calmness filled her eyes.

"Our trails have strangely crossed, Lady Joanne," he said. "They have been
crossing--for years. While Sir Daniel was at Murja, on the eve of his great
discovery, I was at St. Louis on the Senegal coast. I slept in that little
Cape Verde hotel, in the low whitewashed room overlooking the sea. The
proprietor told me that Sir Daniel had occupied it before me, and I found a
broken fountain pen in the drawer of that sickly black teakwood desk, with
the carved serpent's head. And I was at Gampola at another time, headed for
the interior of Ceylon, when I learned that I was travelling again one of
Sir Daniel's trails. And you were with him!"

"Always," said Joanne.

For a few tense moments they had looked steadily into each other's eyes.
Swiftly, strangely, the world was bridging itself for them. Their minds
swept back swiftly as the fire in a thunder-sky. They were no longer
strangers. They were no longer friends of a day. The grip of Aldous' hands
tightened. A hundred things sprang to his lips. Before he could speak, he
saw a sudden, startled change leap into Joanne's face. She had turned her
face a little, so that she was looking toward the window. A frightened cry
broke from her lips. Aldous whirled about. There was nothing there. He
looked at Joanne again. She was white and trembling. Her hands were
clutched at her breast. Her eyes, big and dark and staring, were still
fixed on the window.

"That man!" she panted. "His face was there--against the glass--like a
devil's!"

"Quade?"

"Yes."

She caught at his arm as he sprang toward the door.

"Stop!" she cried. "You mustn't go out----"

For a moment he turned at the door. He was as she had seen him in Quade's
place, terribly cool, a strange, quiet smile on his lips. His eyes were
gray, smiling steel.

"Close the door after me and lock it until I return," he said. "You are the
first woman guest I ever had, Ladygray. I cannot allow you to be insulted!"

As he went out she saw him slip something from his pocket. She caught the
glitter of it in the lamp-glow.




CHAPTER VII


It was in the blood of John Aldous to kill Quade. He ran with the quickness
of a hare around the end of the cabin, past the window, and then stopped to
listen, his automatic in his hand, his eye piercing the gloom for some
moving shadow. He had not counted on an instant's hesitation. He would
shoot Quade, for he knew why the mottled beast had been at the window.
Stevens' boy had been right. Quade was after Joanne. His ugly soul was
disrupted with a desire to possess her, and Aldous knew that when roused by
passion he was more like a devil-fish than a man--a creeping, slimy,
night-seeking creature who had not only the power of the underworld back of
him, but wealth as well. He did not think of him as a man as he stood
listening, but as a beast. He was ready to shoot. But he saw nothing. He
heard no sound that could have been made by a stumbling foot or a moving
body. An hour later, the moon would have been up, but it was dark now
except for the stars. He heard the hoot of an owl a hundred yards away. Out
in the river something splashed. From the timber beyond Buffalo Prairie
came the yapping bark of a coyote. For five minutes he stood as silent as
one of the rocks behind him. He realized that to go on--to seek blindly for
Quade in the darkness, would be folly. He went back, tapped at the door,
and reëntered the cabin when Joanne threw back the lock.

She was still pale. Her eyes were bright.

"I was coming--in a moment," she said, "I was beginning to fear that----"

"--he had struck me down in the dark?" added Aldous, as she hesitated.
"Well, he would like to do just that, Joanne." Unconsciously her name had
slipped from him. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to
call her Joanne now. "Is it necessary for me to tell you what this man
Quade is--why he was looking through the window?"

She shuddered.

"No--no--I understand!"

"Only partly," continued Aldous, his face white and set. "It is necessary
that you should know more than you have guessed, for your own protection.
If you were like most other women I would not tell you the truth, but would
try to shield you from it. As it is you should know. There is only one
other man in the Rocky Mountains more dangerous than Bill Quade. He is
Culver Rann, up at Tête Jaune. They are partners--partners in crime, in
sin, in everything that is bad and that brings them gold. Their influence
among the rougher elements along the line of rail is complete. They are so
strongly entrenched that they have put contractors out of business because
they would not submit to blackmail. The few harmless police we have
following the steel have been unable to touch them. They have cleaned up
hundreds of thousands, chiefly in three things--blackmail, whisky, and
women. Quade is the viler of the two. He is like a horrible beast. Culver
Rann makes me think of a sleek and shining serpent. But it is this man
Quade----"

He found it almost impossible to go on with Joanne's blue eyes gazing so
steadily into his.

"--whom we have made our enemy," she finished for him.

"Yes--and more than that," he said, partly turning his head away. "You
cannot go on to Tête Jaune alone, Joanne. You must go nowhere alone. If you
do----"

"What will happen?"

"I don't know. Perhaps nothing would happen. But you cannot go alone. I am
going to take you back to Mrs. Otto now. And to-morrow I shall go on to
Tête Jaune with you. It is fortunate that I have a place up there to which
I can take you, and where you will be safe."

As they were preparing to go, Joanne glanced ruefully at the table.

"I am ashamed to leave the dishes in that mess," she said.

He laughed, and tucked her hand under his arm as they went through the
door. When they had passed through the little clearing, and the darkness of
the spruce and balsam walls shut them in, he took her hand.

"It is dark and you may stumble," he apologized. "This isn't much like the
shell plaza in front of the Cape Verde, is it?"

"No. Did you pick up any of the little red bloodshells? I did, and they
made me shiver. There were strange stories associated with them."

He knew that she was staring ahead into the blank wall of gloom as she
spoke, and that it was not thought of the bloodshells, but of Quade, that
made her fingers close more tightly about his own. His right hand was
gripping the butt of his automatic. Every nerve in him was on the alert,
yet she could detect nothing of caution or preparedness in his careless
voice.

"The bloodstones didn't trouble me," he answered. "I can't remember
anything that upset me more than the snakes. I am a terrible coward when it
comes to anything that crawls without feet. I will run from a snake no
longer than your little finger--in fact, I'm just as scared of a little
grass snake as I am of a python. It's the _thing_, and not its size, that
horrifies me. Once I jumped out of a boat into ten feet of water because my
companion caught an eel on his line, and persisted in the argument that it
was a fish. Thank Heaven we don't have snakes up here. I've seen only three
or four in all my experience in the Northland."

She laughed softly in spite of the uneasy thrill the night held for her.

"It is hard for me to imagine you being afraid," she said. "And yet if you
were afraid I know it would be of just some little thing like that. My
father was one of the bravest men in the world, and a hundred times I have
seen him show horror at sight of a spider. If you were afraid of snakes,
why did you go up the Gampola, in Ceylon?"

"I didn't know the snakes were there," he chuckled. "I hadn't dreamed there
were a half so many snakes in the whole world as there were along that
confounded river. I slept sitting up, dressed in rubber wading boots that
came to my waist, and wore thick leather gloves. I got out of the country
at the earliest possible moment."

When they entered the edge of the Miette clearing and saw the glow of
lights ahead of them, Aldous caught the sudden upturn of his companion's
face, laughing at him in the starlight.

"Kind, thoughtful John Aldous!" she whispered, as if to herself. "How nice
of you it was to talk of such pleasant things while we were coming through
that black, dreadful swamp--with a Bill Quade waiting for us on the side!"

A low ripple of laughter broke from her lips, and he stopped dead in his
tracks, forgetting to put the automatic back in his pocket. At sight of it
the amusement died in her face. She caught his arm, and one of her hands
seized the cold steel of the pistol.

"Would he--_dare?_" she demanded.

"You can't tell," replied Aldous, putting the gun in his pocket. "And that
was a creepy sort of conversation to load you down with, wasn't it,
Ladygray? I imagine you'll catch me in all sorts of blunders like that." He
pointed ahead. "There's Mrs. Otto now. She's looking this way and wondering
with all her big heart if you ought not to be at home and in bed."

The door of the Otto home was wide open, and silhouetted in the flood of
light was the good-natured Scotchwoman. Aldous gave the whistling signal
which she and her menfolk always recognized, and hurried on with Joanne.

Before they had quite reached the tent-house, Joanne put a detaining hand
on his arm.

"I don't want you to go back to the cabin to-night," she said. "The face at
the window--was terrible. I am afraid. I don't want you to be there alone."

Her words sent a warm glow through him.

"Nothing will happen," he assured her. "Quade will not come back."

"I don't want you to return to the cabin," she persisted. "Is there no
other place where you can stay?"

"I might go down and console Stevens, and borrow a couple of his horse
blankets for a bed if that will please you."

"It will," she cried quickly. "If you don't return to the cabin you may go
on to Tête Jaune with me to-morrow. Is it a bargain?"

"It is!" he accepted eagerly. "I don't like to be chased out, but I'll
promise not to sleep in the cabin to-night."

Mrs. Otto was advancing to meet them. At the door he bade them good-night,
and walked on in the direction of the lighted avenue of tents and shacks
under the trees. He caught a last look in Joanne's eyes of anxiety and
fear. Glancing back out of the darkness that swallowed him up, he saw her
pause for a moment in the lighted doorway, and look in his direction. His
heart beat faster. Joyously he laughed under his breath. It was strangely
new and pleasing to have some one thinking of him in that way.

He had not intended to go openly into the lighted avenue. From the moment
he had plunged out into the night after Quade, his fighting blood was
roused. He had subdued it while with Joanne, but his determination to find
Quade and have a settlement with him had grown no less. He told himself
that he was one of the few men along the line whom it would be difficult
for Quade to harm in other than a physical way. He had no business that
could be destroyed by the other's underground methods, and he had no job to
lose. Until he had seen Joanne enter the scoundrel's red-and-white striped
tent he had never hated a man as he now hated Quade. He had loathed him
before, and had evaded him because the sight of him was unpleasant; now he
wanted to grip his fingers around his thick red throat. He had meant to
come up behind Quade's tent, but changed his mind and walked into the
lighted trail between the two rows of tents and shacks, his hands thrust
carelessly into his trousers pockets. The night carnival of the railroad
builders was on. Coarse laughter, snatches of song, the click of pool balls
and the chink of glasses mingled with the thrumming of three or four
musical instruments along the lighted way. The phonograph in Quade's place
was going incessantly. Half a dozen times Aldous paused to greet men whom
he knew. He noted that there was nothing new or different in their manner
toward him. If they had heard of his trouble with Quade, he was certain
they would have spoken of it, or at least would have betrayed some sign.
For several minutes he stopped to talk with MacVeigh, a young Scotch
surveyor. MacVeigh hated Quade, but he made no mention of him. Purposely he
passed Quade's tent and walked to the end of the street, nodding and
looking closely at those whom he knew. It was becoming more and more
evident to him that Quade and his pals were keeping the affair of the
afternoon as quiet as possible. Stevens had heard of it. He wondered how.

Aldous retraced his steps. As though nothing had happened, he entered
Quade's place. There were a dozen men inside, and among them he recognized
three who had been there that afternoon. He nodded to them. Slim Barker was
in Quade's place behind the counter. Barker was Quade's right-hand man at
Miette, and there was a glitter in his rat-like eyes as Aldous leaned over
the glass case at one end of the counter and asked for cigars. He fumbled a
bit as he picked out half a dollar's worth from the box. His eyes met
Slim's.

"Where is Quade?" he asked casually.

Barker shrugged his shoulders.

"Busy to-night," he answered shortly. "Want to see him?"

"No, not particularly. Only--I don't want him to hold a grudge."

Barker replaced the box in the case and turned away. After lighting a cigar
Aldous went out. He was sure that Quade had not returned from the river.
Was he lying in wait for him near the cabin? The thought sent a sudden
thrill through him. In the same breath it was gone. With half a dozen men
ready to do his work, Aldous knew that Quade would not redden his own hands
or place himself in any conspicuous risk. During the next hour he visited
the places where Quade was most frequently seen. He had made up his mind to
walk over to the engineers' camp, when a small figure darted after him out
of the gloom of the trees.

It was Stevens' boy.

"Dad wants to see you down at the camp," he whispered excitedly. "He says
right away--an' for no one to see you. He said not to let any one see me.
I've been waiting for you to come out in the dark."

"Skip back and tell him I'll come," replied Aldous quickly. "Be sure you
mind what he says--and don't let any one see you!"

The boy disappeared like a rabbit. Aldous looked back, and ahead, and then
dived into the darkness after him.

A quarter of an hour later he came out on the river close to Stevens' camp.
A little nearer he saw Stevens squatted close to a smouldering fire about
which he was drying some clothes. The boy was huddled in a disconsolate
heap near him. Aldous called softly, and Stevens slowly rose and stretched
himself. The packer advanced to where he had screened himself behind a
clump of bush. His first look at the other assured him that he was right in
using caution. The moon had risen, and the light of it fell in the packer's
face. It was a dead, stonelike gray. His cheeks seemed thinner than when
Aldous had seen him a few hours before and there was despair in the droop
of his shoulders. His eyes were what startled Aldous. They were like coals
of fire, and shifted swiftly from point to point in the bush. For a moment
they stood silent.

"Sit down," Stevens said then. "Get out of the moonlight. I've got
something to tell you."

They crouched behind the bush.

"You know what happened," Stevens said, in a low voice. "I lost my outfit."

"Yes, I saw what happened, Stevens."

The packer hesitated for a moment. One of his big hands reached out and
gripped John Aldous by the arm.

"Let me ask you something before I go on," he whispered. "You won't take
offence--because it's necessary. She looked like an angel to me when I saw
her up at the train. But you _know_. Is she good, or----You know what we
think of women who come in here alone. That's why I ask."

"She's what you thought she was, Stevens," replied Aldous. "As pure and as
sweet as she looks. The kind we like to fight for."

"I was sure of it, Aldous. That's why I sent the kid for you. I saw her in
your cabin--after the outfit went to hell. When I come back to camp, Quade
was here. I was pretty well broken up. Didn't talk to him much. But he seen
I had lost everything. Then he went on down to your place. He told me that
later. But I guessed it soon as he come back. I never see him look like he
did then. I'll cut it short. He's mad--loon mad--over that girl. I played
the sympathy act, thinkin' of you--an' _her_. He hinted at some easy money.
I let him understand that at the present writin' I'd be willing to take
money most any way, and that I didn't have any particular likin' for you.
Then it come out. He made me a proposition."

Stevens lowered his voice, and stopped to peer again about the bush.

"Go on," urged Aldous. "We're alone."

Stevens bent so near that his tobacco-laden breath swept his companion's
cheek.

"He said he'd replace my lost outfit if I'd put you out of the way some
time day after to-morrow!"

"Kill me?"

"Yes."

For a few moments there was a silence broken only by their tense breathing.
Aldous had found the packer's hand. He was gripping it hard.

"Thank you, old man," he said. "And he believes you will do it?"

"I told him I would--day after to-morrow--an' throw your body in the
Athabasca."

"Splendid, Stevens! You've got Sherlock Holmes beat by a mile! And does he
want you to do this pretty job because I gave him a crack on the jaw?"

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Stevens quickly. "He knows the girl is a
stranger and alone. You've taken an interest in her. With you out of the
way, she won't be missed. Dammit, man, don't you know his system? And, if
he ever wanted anything in his life he wants her. She's turned that
poison-blood of his into fire. He raved about her here. He'll go the limit.
He'll do anything to get her. He's so crazy I believe he'd give every
dollar he's got. There's just one thing for you to do. Send the girl back
where she come from. Then you get out. As for myself--I'm goin' to
emigrate. Ain't got a dollar now, so I might as well hit for the prairies
an' get a job on a ranch. Next winter I guess me 'n the kid will trap up on
the Parsnip River."

"You're wrong--clean wrong," said Aldous quietly. "When I saw your outfit
going down among the rocks I had already made up my mind to help you. What
you've told me to-night hasn't made any difference. I would have helped you
anyway, Stevens. I've got more money than I know what to do with right now.
Roper has a thirty-horse outfit for sale. Buy it to-morrow. I'll pay for
it, and you needn't consider yourself a dollar in debt. Some day I'll have
you take me on a long trip, and that will make up for it. As for the girl
and myself--we're going on to Tête Jaune to-morrow."

Aldous could see the amazed packer staring at him in the gloom. "You don't
think I'm sellin' myself, do you, Aldous?" he asked huskily. "That ain't
why you're doin' this--for me 'n the kid--is it?"

"I had made up my mind to do it before I saw you to-night," repeated
Aldous. "I've got lots of money, and I don't use but a little of it. It
sometimes accumulates so fast that it bothers me. Besides, I've promised to
accept payment for the outfit in trips. These mountains have got a hold on
me, Stevens. I'm going to take a good many trips before I die."

"Not if you go on to Tête Jaune, you ain't," replied Stevens, biting a huge
quid from a black plug.

Aldous had risen to his feet. Stevens stood up beside him.

"If you go on to Tête Jaune you're a bigger fool than I was in tryin' to
swim the outfit across the river to-day," he added. "Listen!" He leaned
toward Aldous, his eyes gleaming. "In the last six months there's been
forty dead men dragged out of the Frazer between Tête Jaune an' Fort
George. You know that. The papers have called 'em accidents--the 'toll of
railroad building.' Mebby a part of it is. Mebby a half of them forty died
by accident. The other half didn't. They were sent down by Culver Rann and
Bill Quade. Once you go floatin' down the Frazer there ain't no questions
asked. Somebody sees you an' pulls you out--mebby a Breed or an Indian--an'
puts you under a little sand a bit later. If it's a white man he does
likewise. There ain't no time to investigate floaters over-particular in
the wilderness. Besides, you git so beat up in the rocks you don't look
like much of anything. I know, because I worked on the scows three months,
an' helped bury four of 'em. An' there wasn't anything, not even a scrap of
paper, in the pockets of two of 'em! Is that suspicious, or ain't it? It
don't pay to talk too much along the Frazer. Men keep their mouths shut.
But I'll tell you this: Culver Rann an' Bill Quade know a lot."

"And you think I'll go in the Frazer?"

"Egzactly. Quade would rather have you in there than in the Athabasca. And
then----"

"Well?"

Stevens spat into the bush, and shrugged his shoulders. "This beautiful
lady you've taken an interest in will turn up missing, Aldous. She'll
disappear off the face of the map--just like Stimson's wife did. You
remember Stimson?"

"He was found in the Frazer," said Aldous, gripping the other's arm in the
darkness.

"Egzactly. An' that pretty wife of his disappeared a little later. Up there
everybody's too busy to ask where other people go. Culver Rann an' Bill
Quade know what happened to Stimson, an' they know what happened to
Stimson's wife. You don't want to go to Tête Jaune. You don't want to let
_her_ go. I know what I'm talking about. Because----"

There fell a moment's silence. Aldous waited. Stevens spat again, and
finished in a whisper:

"Quade went to Tête Jaune to-night. He went on a hand-car. He's got
something he wants to tell Culver Rann that he don't dare telephone or
telegraph. An' he wants to get that something to him ahead of to-morrow's
train. Understand?"




CHAPTER VIII


John Aldous confessed to himself that he did not quite understand, in spite
of the effort Stevens had made to impress upon him, the importance of not
going to Tête Jaune. He was bewildered over a number of things, and felt
that he needed to be alone for a time to clear his mind. He left Stevens,
promising to return later to share a couple of blankets and a part of his
tepee, for he was determined to keep his promise to Joanne, and not return
to his own cabin, even though Quade had left Miette. He followed a moonlit
trail along the river to an abandoned surveyors' camp, knowing that he
would meet no one, and that in this direction he would have plenty of
unbroken quiet in which to get some sort of order out of the chaotic tangle
of events through which he had passed that day.

Aldous had employed a certain amount of caution, but until he had talked
with Stevens he had not believed that Quade, in his twofold desire to
avenge himself and possess Joanne, would go to the extraordinary ends
predicted by the packer. His point of view was now entirely changed. He
believed Stevens. He knew the man was not excitable. He was one of the
coolest heads in the mountains. And he had abundant nerve. Thought of
Stimson and Stimson's wife had sent the hot blood through Aldous like fire.
Was Stevens right in that detail? And was Quade actually planning the same
end for him and Joanne? Why had Quade stolen on ahead to Tête Jaune? Why
had he not waited for to-morrow's train?

He found himself walking swiftly along the road, where he had intended to
walk slowly--a hundred questions pounding through his brain. Suddenly a
thought came to him that stopped him in the trail, his unseeing eyes
staring down into the dark chasm of the river. After all, was it so strange
that Quade would do these things? Into his own life Joanne had come like a
wonderful dream-creature transformed into flesh and blood. He no longer
tried to evade the fact that he could not think without thinking of Joanne.
She had become a part of him. She had made him forget everything but her,
and in a few hours had sent into the dust of ruin his cynicism and
aloneness of a lifetime. If Joanne had come to him like this, making him
forget his work, filling him more and more with the thrilling desire to
fight for her, was it so very strange that a beast like Quade would
fight--in another way?

He went on down the trail, his hands clenched tightly. After all, it was
not fear of Quade or of what he might attempt that filled him with
uneasiness. It was Joanne herself, her strange quest, its final outcome.
With the thought that she was seeking for the man who was her husband, a
leaden hand seemed gripping at his heart. He tried to shake it off, but it
was like a sickness. To believe that she had been the wife of another man
or that she could ever belong to any other man than himself seemed like
shutting his eyes forever to the sun. And yet she had told him. She had
belonged to another man; she might belong to him even now. She had come to
find if he was alive--or dead.

And if alive? Aldous stopped again, and looked down into the dark pit
through which the river was rushing a hundred feet below him. It tore in
frothing maelstroms through a thousand rocks, filling the night with a low
thunder. To John Aldous the sound of it might have been a thousand miles
away. He did not hear. His eye saw nothing in the blackness. For a few
moments the question he had asked himself obliterated everything. If they
found Joanne's husband alive at Tête Jaune--what then? He turned back,
retracing his steps over the trail, a feeling of resentment--of hatred for
the man he had never seen--slowly taking the place of the oppressive thing
that had turned his heart sick within him. Then, in a flash, came the
memory of Joanne's words--words in which, white-faced and trembling, she
had confessed that her anxiety was not that she would find him dead, but
that _she would find him alive_. A joyous thrill shot through him as he
remembered that. Whoever this man was, whatever he might have been to her
once, or was to her now, Joanne did not want to find him alive! He laughed
softly to himself as he quickened his pace. The tense grip of his fingers
loosened. The grim, almost ghastly part of it did not occur to him--the
fact that deep in his soul he was wishing a man dead and in his grave.

He did not return at once to the scenes about Quade's place, but went to
the station, three quarters of a mile farther up the track. Here, in a
casual way, he learned from the little pink-faced Cockney Englishman who
watched the office at night that Stevens had been correct in his
information. Quade had gone to Tête Jaune. Although it was eleven o'clock,
Aldous proceeded in the direction of the engineers' camp, still another
quarter of a mile deeper in the bush. He was restless. He did not feel that
he could sleep that night. The engineers' camp he expected to find in
darkness, and he was surprised when he saw a light burning brightly in
Keller's cabin.

Keller was the assistant divisional engineer, and they had become good
friends. It was Keller who had set the first surveyor's line at Tête Jaune,
and it was he who had reported it as the strategic point from which to push
forward the fight against mountain and wilderness, both by river and rail.
He was, in a way, accountable for the existence of Tête Jaune just where it
did exist, and he knew more about it than any other man in the employ of
the Grand Trunk Pacific. For this reason Aldous was glad that Keller had
not gone to bed. He knocked at the door and entered without waiting for an
invitation.

The engineer stood in the middle of the floor, his coat off, his fat,
stubby hands thrust into the pockets of his baggy trousers, his red face
and bald cranium shining in the lamplight. A strange fury blazed in his
eyes as he greeted his visitor. He began pacing back and forth across the
room, puffing volumes of smoke from a huge bowled German pipe as he
motioned Aldous to a chair.

"What's the matter, Peter?"

"Enough--an' be damned!" growled Peter. "If it wasn't enough do you think
I'd be out of bed at this hour of the night?"

"I'm sure it's enough," agreed Aldous. "If it wasn't you'd be in your
little trundle over there, sleeping like a baby. I don't know of any one
who can sleep quite as sweetly as you, Peter. But what the devil _is_ the
trouble?"

"Something that you can't make me feel funny over. You haven't heard--about
the bear?"

"Not a word, Peter."

Keller took his hands from his pockets and the big, bowled pipe from his
mouth.

"You know what I did with that bear," he said. "More than a year ago I made
friends with her up there on the hill instead of killing her. Last summer I
got her so she'd eat out of my hands. I fed her a barrel of sugar between
July and November. We used to chum it an hour at a time, and I'd pet her
like a dog. Why, damn it, man, I thought more of that bear than I did of
any human in these regions! And she got so fond of me she didn't leave to
den up until January. This spring she came out with two cubs, an' as soon
as they could waddle she brought 'em out there on the hillside an' waited
for me. We were better chums than ever. I've got another half barrel of
sugar--lump sugar--on the way from Edmonton. An' now what do you think that
damned C.N.R. gang has done?"

"They haven't shot her?"

"No, they haven't shot her. I wish to God they had! They've _blown her
up!_"

The little engineer subsided into a chair.

"Do you hear?" he demanded. "They've blown her up! Put a stick of dynamite
under some sugar, attached a battery wire to it, an' when she was licking
up the sugar touched it off. An' I can't do anything, damn 'em! Bears ain't
protected. The government of this province calls 'em 'pests.' Murder 'em
on sight, it says. An' those fiends over there think it's a good joke on
me--an' the bear!"

Keller was sweating. His fat hands were clenched, and his round, plump body
fairly shook with excitement and anger.

"When I went over to-night they laughed at me--the whole bunch," he went on
thickly. "I offered to lick every man in the outfit from A to Z, an' I
ain't had a fight in twenty years. Instead of fighting like men, a dozen of
them grabbed hold of me, chucked me into a blanket, an' bounced me for
fifteen minutes straight! What do you think of _that_, Aldous?
Me--assistant divisional engineer of the G.T.P.--_bounced in a blanket_!"

Peter Keller hopped from his chair and began pacing back and forth across
the room again, sucking truculently on his pipe.

"If they were on our road I'd--I'd chase every man of them out of the
country. But they're not. They belong to the C.N.R. They're out of my
reach." He stopped, suddenly, in front of Aldous. "What can I do?" he
demanded.

"Nothing," said Aldous. "You've had something like this coming to you,
Peter. I've been expecting it. All the camps for twenty miles up and down
the line know what you thought of that bear. You fired Tibbits because, as
you said, he was too thick with Quade. You told him that right before
Quade's face. Tibbits is now foreman of that grading gang over there. Two
and two make four, you know. Tibbits--Quade--the blown-up bear. Quade
doesn't miss an opportunity, no matter how small it is. Tibbits and Quade
did this to get even with you. You might report the blanket affair to the
contractors of the other road. I don't believe they would stand for it."

Aldous had guessed correctly what the effect of associating Quade's name
with the affair would be. Keller was one of Quade's deadliest enemies. He
sat down close to Aldous again. His eyes burned deep back. It was not
Keller's physique, but his brain, and the fearlessness of his spirit, that
made him dangerous.

"I guess you're right, Aldous," he said. "Some day--I'll even up on Quade."

"And so shall I, Peter."

The engineer stared into the other's eyes.

"You----"

Aldous nodded.

"Quade left for Tête Jaune to-night, on a hand-car. I follow him to-morrow,
on the train. I can't tell you what's up, Peter, but I don't think it will
stop this side of death for Quade and Culver Rann--or me. I mean that quite
literally. I don't see how more than one side can come out alive. I want to
ask you a few questions before I go on to Tête Jaune. You know every
mountain and trail about the place, don't you?"

"I've tramped them all, afoot and horseback."

"Then perhaps you can direct me to what I must find--a man's grave."

Peter Keller paused in the act of relighting his pipe. For a moment he
stared in amazement.

"There are a great many graves up at Tête Jaune," he said, at last. "A
great many graves--and many of them unmarked. If it's a _Quade_ grave
you're looking for, Aldous, it will be unmarked."

"I am quite sure that it is marked--or _was_ at one time," said Aldous.
"It's the grave of a man who had quite an unusual name, Peter, and you
might remember it--Mortimer FitzHugh."

"FitzHugh--FitzHugh," repeated Keller, puffing out fresh volumes of smoke.
"Mortimer FitzHugh----"

"He died, I believe, before there was a Tête Jaune, or at least before the
steel reached there," added Aldous. "He was on a hunting trip, and I have
reason to think that his death was a violent one."

Keller rose and fell into his old habit of pacing back and forth across the
room, a habit that had worn a path in the bare pine boards of the floor.

"There's graves an' graves up there, but not so many that were there before
Tête Jaune came," he began, between puffs. "Up on the side of White Knob
Mountain there's the grave of a man who was torn to bits by a grizzly. But
his name was Humphrey. Old Yellowhead John--Tête Jaune, they called
him--died years before that, and no one knows where his grave is. We had
five men die before the steel came, but there wasn't a FitzHugh among 'em.
Crabby--old Crabby Tompkins, a trapper, is buried in the sand on the
Frazer. The last flood swept his slab away. There's two unmarked graves in
Glacier Canyon, but I guess they're ten years old if a day. Burns was shot.
I knew him. Plenty died after the steel came, but before that----"

Suddenly he stopped. He faced Aldous. His breath came in quick jerks.

"By Heaven, I do remember!" he cried. "There's a mountain in the Saw Tooth
Range, twelve miles from Tête Jaune--a mountain with the prettiest basin
you ever saw at the foot of it, with a lake no bigger than this camp, and
an old cabin which Yellowhead himself must have built fifty years ago.
There's a blind canyon runs out of it, short an' dark, on the right. We
found a grave there. I don't remember the first name on the slab. Mebby it
was washed out. But, so 'elp me God, _the last name was FitzHugh_!"

With a sudden cry, Aldous jumped to his feet and caught Keller's arm.

"You're sure of it, Peter?"

"Positive!"

It was impossible for Aldous to repress his excitement. The engineer stared
at him even harder than before.

"What can that grave have to do with Quade?" he asked. "The man died before
Quade was known in these regions."

"I can't tell you now, Peter," replied Aldous, pulling the engineer to the
table. "But I think you'll know quite soon. For the present, I want you to
sketch out a map that will take me to the grave. Will you?"

On the table were pencil and paper. Keller seated himself and drew them
toward him.

"I'm damned if I can see what that grave can have to do with Quade," he
said; "but I'll tell you how to find it!"

For several minutes they bent low over the table, Peter Keller describing
the trail to the Saw Tooth Mountain as he sketched it, step by step, on a
sheet of office paper. When it was done, Aldous folded it carefully and
placed it in his wallet.

"I can't go wrong, and--thank you, Keller!"

After Aldous had gone, Peter Keller sat for some time in deep thought.

"Now I wonder what the devil there can be about a grave to make him so
happy," he grumbled, listening to the whistle that was growing fainter down
the trail.

And Aldous, alone, with the moon straight above him as he went back to the
Miette Plain, felt, in truth, this night had become brighter for him than
any day he had ever known. For he knew that Peter Keller was not a man to
make a statement of which he was not sure. Mortimer FitzHugh was dead. His
bones lay under the slab up in that little blind canyon in the shadow of
the Saw Tooth Mountain. To-morrow he would tell Joanne. And, blindly, he
told himself that she would be glad.

Still whistling, he passed the Chinese laundry shack on the creek, crossed
the railroad tracks, and buried himself in the bush beyond. A quarter of an
hour later he stole quietly into Stevens' camp and went to bed.




CHAPTER IX


Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the
river, slept uneasily. He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged
himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John
Aldous on his knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into
a frying-pan. The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and
face and the listless droop of his shoulders. John Aldous, with three hours
between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire
itself. He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour. Seeing Stevens, he
began now.

"I wasn't going to rouse you until breakfast was ready," he interrupted
himself to say. "I heard you groaning, Stevens. I know you had a bad night.
And the kid, too. He couldn't sleep. But I made up my mind you'd have to
get up early. I've got a lot of business on to-day, and we'll have to rouse
Curly Roper out of bed to buy his pack outfit. Find the coffee, will you? I
couldn't."

For a moment Stevens stood over him.

"See here, Aldous, you didn't mean what you said last night, did you? You
didn't mean--that?"

"Confound it, yes! Can't you understand plain English, Stevens? Don't you
believe a man when he's a gentleman? Buy that outfit! Why, I'd buy twenty
outfits to-day, I'm--I'm feeling so fine, Stevens!"

For the first time in forty-eight hours Stevens smiled.

"I was wondering if I hadn't been dreaming," he said. "Once, a long time
ago, I guess I felt just like you do now."

With which cryptic remark he went for the coffee.

Aldous looked up in time to see the boy stagger sleepily out of the tepee.
There was something pathetic about the motherlessness of the picture, and
he understood a little of what Stevens had meant.

An hour later, with breakfast over, they started for Curly's. Curly was
pulling on his boots when they arrived, while his wife was frying the
inevitable bacon in the kitchen.

"I hear you have some horses for sale, Curly," said Aldous.

"Hi 'ave."

"How many?"

"Twenty-nine, 'r twenty-eight--mebby twenty-seven."

"How much?"

Curly looked up from the task of pulling on his second boot.

"H'are you buying 'orses or looking for hinformation?" he asked.

"I'm buying, and I'm in a hurry. How much do you want a head?"

"Sixty, 'r six----"

"I'll give you sixty dollars apiece for twenty-eight head, and that's just
ten dollars apiece more than they're worth," broke in Aldous, pulling a
check-book and a fountain pen from his pocket. "Is it a go?"

A little stupefied by the suddenness of it all, Curly opened his mouth and
stared.

"Is it a go?" repeated Aldous. "Including blankets, saddles, pack-saddles,
ropes, and canvases?"

Curly nodded, looking from Aldous to Stevens to see if he could detect
anything that looked like a joke.

"Hit's a go," he said.

Aldous handed him a check for sixteen hundred and eighty dollars.

"Make out the bill of sale to Stevens," he said. "I'm paying for them, but
they're Stevens' horses. And, look here, Curly, I'm buying them only with
your agreement that you'll say nothing about who paid for them. Will you
agree to that?"

Curly was joyously looking at the check.

"Gyve me a Bible," he demanded. "Hi'll swear Stevens p'id for them! I give
you the word of a Hinglish gentleman!"

Without another word Aldous opened the cabin door and was gone, leaving
Stevens quite as much amazed as the little Englishman whom everybody called
Curly, because he had no hair.

Aldous went at once to the station, and for the first time inquired into
the condition that was holding back the Tête Jaune train. He found that a
slide had given way, burying a section of track under gravel and rock. A
hundred men were at work clearing it away, and it was probable they would
finish by noon. A gang boss, who had come back with telegraphic reports,
said that half a dozen men had carried Quade's hand-car over the
obstruction about midnight.

It was seven o'clock when Aldous left for the Miette bottom. He believed
that Joanne would be up. At this season of the year the first glow of day
usually found the Ottos at breakfast, and for half an hour the sun had been
shining on the top of Pyramid Mountain. He was eager to tell her what had
passed between him and Keller. He laughed softly when he confessed to
himself how madly he wanted to see her.

He always liked to come up to the Otto home very early of a morning, or in
the dusk of evening. Very frequently he was filled with a desire to stand
outside the red-and-white striped walls of the tent-house and listen
unseen. Inside there was always cheer: at night the crackle of fire and the
glow of light, the happy laughter of the gentle-hearted Scotchwoman, and
the affectionate banter of her "big mountain man," who looked more like a
brigand than the luckiest and most contented husband in the mountains--the
luckiest, quite surely, with the one exception of his brother Clossen, who
had, by some occult strategy or other, induced a sweet-faced and
aristocratic little woman to look upon his own honest physiognomy as the
handsomest and finest in the world. This morning Aldous followed a narrow
path that brought him behind the tent-house. He heard no voices. A few
steps more and he emerged upon a scene that stopped him and set his heart
thumping.

Less than a dozen paces away stood Mrs. Otto and Joanne, their backs toward
him. They were gazing silently and anxiously in the direction of the thick,
low bush across the clearing, through which led the trail to his cabin. He
did not look toward the bush. His eyes were upon Joanne. Her slender figure
was full in the golden radiance of the morning sun, and Aldous felt himself
under the spell of a joyous wonder as he looked at her. For the first time
he saw her hair as he had pictured it--as he had given it to that other
_Joanne_ in the book he had called "Fair Play." She had been brushing it in
the sun when he came, but now she stood poised in that tense and waiting
attitude--silent--gazing in the direction of the bush, with that marvellous
mantle sweeping about her in a shimmering silken flood. He would not have
moved, nor would he have spoken, until Joanne herself broke the spell. She
turned, and saw him. With a little cry of surprise she flung back her hair.
He could not fail to see the swift look of relief and gladness that had
come into her eyes. In another instant her face was flushing crimson.

"I beg your pardon for coming up like an eavesdropper," he apologized. "I
thought you would just about be at breakfast, Mrs. Otto."

The Scotchwoman heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.

"Goodness gracious, but I'm glad to see you!" she exclaimed thankfully.
"Jack and Bruce have just gone out to see if they could find your dead
body!"

"We thought perhaps something might have happened," said Joanne, who had
moved nearer the door. "You will excuse me, won't you, while I finish my
hair?"

Without waiting for him to answer, she ran into the tent. No sooner had she
disappeared than the good-natured smile left Mrs. Otto's face. There was a
note of alarm in her low voice as she whispered:

"Jack and Bruce went to the barn last night, and she slept with me. She
tried to be quiet, but I know she didn't sleep much. And she cried. I
couldn't hear her, but the pillow was wet. Once my hand touched her cheek,
and it was wet. I didn't ask any questions. This morning, at breakfast, she
told us everything that happened, all about Quade--and your trouble. She
told us about Quade looking in at the window, and she was so nervous
thinking something might have happened to you last night that the poor dear
couldn't even drink her coffee until Jack and Bruce went out to hunt for
you. But I don't think that was why she cried!"

"I wish it had been," said Aldous. "It makes me happy to think she was
worried about--me."

"Good Lord!" gasped Mrs. Otto.

He looked for a moment into the slow-growing amazement and understanding in
her kind eyes.

"You will keep my little secret, won't you, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "Probably
you'll think it's queer. I've only known her a day. But I feel--like that.
Somehow I feel that in telling this to you I am confiding in a mother, or a
sister. I want you to understand why I'm going on to Tête Jaune with her.
That is why she was crying--because of the dread of something up there. I'm
going with her. She shouldn't go alone."

Voices interrupted them, and they turned to find that Jack and Bruce Otto
had come out of the bush and were quite near. Aldous was sorry that Joanne
had spoken of his trouble with Quade. He did not want to discuss the
situation, or waste time in listening to further advice. He was anxious to
be alone again with Joanne, and tell her what he had learned from Peter
Keller. For half an hour he repressed his uneasiness. The brothers then
went on to their corral. A few minutes later Joanne was once more at his
side, and they were walking slowly over the trail that led to the cabin on
the river.

He could see that the night had made a change in her. There were circles
under her eyes which were not there yesterday. When she looked at him their
velvety blue depths betrayed something which he knew she was struggling
desperately to keep from him. It was not altogether fear. It was more a
betrayal of pain--a torment of the soul and not of the body. He noticed
that in spite of the vivid colouring of her lips her face was strangely
pale. The beautiful flush that had come into it when she first saw him was
gone.

Then he began to tell her of his visit to Peter Keller. His own heart was
beating violently when he came to speak of the grave and the slab over it
that bore the name of FitzHugh. He had expected that what he had discovered
from Keller would create some sort of a sensation. He had even come up to
the final fact gradually, so that it would not appear bald and shocking.
Joanne's attitude stunned him. She looked straight ahead. When she turned
to him he did not see in her eyes what he had expected to see. They were
quiet, emotionless, except for that shadow of inward torture which did not
leave them.

"Then to-morrow we can go to the grave?" she asked simply.

Her voice, too, was quiet and without emotion.

He nodded. "We can leave at sunrise," he said. "I have my own horses at
Tête Jaune and there need be no delay. We were to start into the North from
there."

"You mean on the adventure you were telling me about?"

She had looked at him quickly.

"Yes. Old Donald, my partner, has been waiting for me a week. That's why I
was so deuced anxious to rush the book to an end. I'm behind Donald's
schedule, and he's growing nervous. It's rather an unusual enterprise
that's taking us north this time, and Donald can't understand why I should
hang back to write the tail end of a book. He has lived sixty years in the
mountains. His full name is Donald MacDonald. Sometimes, back in my own
mind, I've called him History. He seems like that--as though he'd lived for
ages in these mountains instead of sixty years. If I could only write what
he has lived--even what one might imagine that he has lived! But I cannot.
I have tried three times, and have failed. I think of him as The Last
Spirit--a strange wandering ghost of the mighty ranges. His kind passed
away a hundred years ago. You will understand--when you see him."

She put her hand on his arm and let it rest there lightly as they walked.
Into her eyes had returned some of the old warm glow of yesterday.

"I want you to tell me about this adventure," she entreated softly. "I
understand--about the other. You have been good--oh! so good to me! And I
should tell you things; you are expecting me to explain. It is only fair
and honest that I should. I know what is in your mind, and I only want you
to wait--until to-morrow. Will you? And I will tell you then, when we have
found the grave."

Involuntarily his hand sought Joanne's. For a single moment he felt the
warm, sweet thrill of it in his own as he pressed it more closely to his
arm. Then he freed it, looking straight ahead. A soft flush grew in
Joanne's cheeks.

"Do you care a great deal for riches?" he asked. "Does the golden pot at
the end of the rainbow hold out a lure for you?" He did not realize the
strangeness of his question until their eyes met. "Because if you don't,"
he added, smiling, "this adventure of ours isn't going to look very
exciting to you."

She laughed softly.

"No, I don't care for riches," she replied. "I am quite sure that just as
great education proves to one how little one knows, so great wealth brings
one face to face with the truth of how little one can enjoy. My father used
to say that the golden treasure at the end of the rainbow in every human
life was happiness, and that is something which you cannot buy. So why
crave riches, then? But please don't let my foolish ideas disappoint you.
I'll promise to be properly excited."

She saw his face suddenly aflame with enthusiasm.

"By George, but you're a--a brick, Joanne!" he exclaimed. "You are! And
I--I----" He was fumbling in his breast pocket. He brought out his wallet
and extracted from it the bit of paper Stevens had given him. "You dropped
that, and Stevens found it," he explained, giving it to her. "I thought
those figures might represent your fortune--or your income. Don't mind
telling you I went over 'em carefully. There's a mistake in the third
column. Five and four don't make seven. They make nine. In the final, when
you come to the multiplication part of it, that correction will make you
just thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars richer."

"Thanks," said Joanne, lowering her eyes, and beginning to tear the paper
into small pieces. "And will it disappoint you, Mr. John Aldous, if I tell
you that all these figures stand for riches which some one else possesses?
And won't you let me remind you that we're getting a long way from what I
want to know--about your trip into the North?"

"That's just it: we're hot on the trail," chuckled Aldous, deliberately
placing her hand on his arm again. "You don't care for riches. Neither do
I. I'm delighted to know we're going tandem in that respect. I've never had
any fun with money. It's the money that's had fun with me. I've no use for
yachts and diamonds and I'd rather travel afoot with a gun over my shoulder
than in a private car. Half the time I'm doing my own cooking, and I
haven't worn a white shirt in a year. My publishers persist in shoving more
money my way than I know what to do with.

"You see, I pay only ten cents a plug for my smoking tobacco, and other
things accordingly. Somebody has said something about the good Lord sitting
up in Heaven and laughing at the jokes He plays on men. Well, I'm sitting
back and laughing now and then at the tussle between men and money over all
creation. There's a whole lot of humour in the way men and women fight and
die for money, if you only take time to stand out on the side and look on.
There's nothing big or dramatic about it. I may be a heathen, but to my
mind the funniest of all things is to see the world wringing its neck for a
dollar. And Donald--old History--needs even less money than I. So that puts
the big element of humour in this expedition of ours. We don't want money,
particularly. Donald wouldn't wear more than four pairs of boots a year if
he was a billionaire. And yet----"

He turned to Joanne. The pressure of her hand was warmer on his arm. Her
beautiful eyes were glowing, and her red lips parted as she waited
breathlessly for him to go on.

"And yet, we're going to a place where you can scoop gold up with a
shovel," he finished. "That's the funny part of it."

"It isn't funny--it's tremendous!" gasped Joanne. "Think of what a man like
you could do with unlimited wealth, the good you might achieve, the
splendid endowments you might make----"

"I have already made several endowments," interrupted Aldous. "I believe
that I have made a great many people happy, Ladygray--a great many. I am
gifted to make endowments, I think, above most people. Not one of the
endowments I have made has failed of complete success."

"And may I ask what some of them were?"

"I can't remember them all. There have been a great, great many. Most
conspicuous among them were three endowments which I made to some very
worthy people at various times for seven salted mines. I suppose you know
what a salted mine is, Ladygray? At other times I have endowed railroad
stocks which were very much in need of my helping mite, two copper
companies, a concern that was supposed to hoist up pure asbestos from the
stomach of Popocatapetl, and a steamship company that never steamed. As I
said before, they were all very successful endowments."

"And how many of the other kind have you made?" she asked gently, looking
down the trail. "Like--Stevens', for instance?"

He turned to her sharply.

"What the deuce----"

"Did you succeed in getting the new outfit from Mr. Curly?" she asked.

"Yes. How did you know?"

She smiled at the amazement which had gathered in his face. A glad, soft
light shone in her eyes.

"I guess Mrs. Otto has been like a mother to that poor little boy," she
explained. "When you and Mr. Stevens went up to buy the outfit this morning
Jimmy ran over to tell her the news. We were all there--at breakfast. He
was so excited he could scarcely breathe. But it all came out, and he ran
back to camp before you came because he thought you wouldn't want me to
know. Wasn't that funny? He told me so when I walked a little way up the
path with him."

"The little reprobate!" chuckled Aldous. "He's the best publicity man I
ever had, Ladygray. I did want you to know about this, and I wanted it to
come to you in just this way, so that I wouldn't be compelled to tell you
myself of the big and noble act I have done. It was my hope and desire that
you, through some one else, would learn of it, and come to understand more
fully what a generous and splendid biped I am. I even plotted to give this
child of Stevens' a silver dollar if he would get the news to you in some
one of his innocent ways. He's done it. And he couldn't have done it
better--even for a dollar. Ah, here we are at the cabin. Will you excuse
me while I pick up a few things that I want to take on to Tête Jaune with
me?"

Between two trees close to the cabin he had built a seat, and here he left
Joanne. He was gone scarcely five minutes when he reappeared with a small
pack-sack over his shoulders, locked the door, and rejoined her.

"You see it isn't much of a task for me to move," he said, as they turned
back in the direction of the Ottos'. "I'll wash the dishes when I come back
next October."

"Five months!" gasped Joanne, counting on her fingers. "John Aldous, do you
mean----"

"I do," he nodded emphatically. "I frequently leave dishes unwashed for
quite a spell at a time. That's the one unpleasant thing about this sort of
life--washing dishes. It's not so bad in the rainy season, but it's fierce
during a dry spell. When it rains I put the dishes out on a flat rock,
dirty side up, and the good Lord does the scrubbing."

He looked at Joanne, face and eyes aglow with the happiness that was
sweeping in a mighty tumult within him. Half an hour had worked a
transformation in Joanne. There was no longer a trace of anguish or of fear
in her eyes. Their purity and limpid beauty made him think of the rock
violets that grew high up on the mountains. Her lips and cheeks were
flushed, and the soft pressure of her hand again resting on his arm filled
him with the exquisite thrill of possession and joy. He did not speak of
Tête Jaune again until they reached the Otto tent-house, and then only to
assure her that he would call for her half an hour before the train was
ready to leave.

As soon as possible after that he went to the telegraph office and sent a
long message to MacDonald. Among other things he told him to prepare their
cabin for a lady guest. He knew this would shock the old mountain wanderer,
but he also knew that Donald would follow his instructions in spite of
whatever alarm he might have. There were other women at Tête Jaune, the
wives of men he knew, to whom he might have taken Joanne. Under the
conditions, however, he believed his own cabin would be her best refuge, at
least for a day or so. In that time he could take some one into his
confidence, probably Blackton and his wife. In fact, as he thought the
circumstances over, he saw the necessity of confiding in the Blacktons that
very night.

He left the station, growing a bit nervous. Was it right for him to take
Joanne to his cabin at all? He had a tremendous desire to do so, chiefly on
account of Quade. The cabin was a quarter of a mile in the bush, and he was
positive if Joanne was there that Quade, and perhaps Culver Rann, would
come nosing about. This would give him the opportunity of putting into
execution a plan which he had already arranged for himself and old
MacDonald. On the other hand, was this arrangement fair to Joanne, even
though it gave him the chance to square up accounts with Quade?

He stopped abruptly, and faced the station. All at once there swept upon
him a realization of how blind he had been, and what a fool he had almost
made of himself. Blackton was one of the contractors who were working
miracles in the mountains. He was a friend who would fight for him if
necessary. Mrs. Blackton, who preferred to be on the firing line with her
husband than in her luxurious city home, was the leader of all that was
decent and womanly in Tête Jaune. Why not have these friends meet them at
the train and take Joanne direct to their house? Such recognition and
friendship would mean everything to Joanne. To take her to his cabin would
mean----

Inwardly he swore at himself as he hurried back to the station, and his
face burned hotly as he thought of the chance such a blunder on his part
would have given Quade and Culver Rann to circulate the stories with which
they largely played their scoundrelly game. He sent another and longer
telegram. This time it was to Blackton.

He ate dinner with Stevens, who had his new outfit ready for the mountains.
It was two o'clock before he brought Joanne up to the station. She was
dressed now as he had first seen her when she entered Quade's place. A veil
covered her face. Through the gray film of it he caught the soft warm glow
of her eyes and the shimmer of gold-brown tendrils of her hair. And he knew
why she wore that veil. It set his heart beating swiftly--the fact that she
was trying to hide from all eyes but his own a beauty so pure and wonderful
that it made her uncomfortable when under the staring gaze of the Horde.

The hand that rested on his arm he pressed closer to his side as they
walked up the station platform, and under his breath he laughed softly and
joyously as he felt the thrill of it. He spoke no word. Not until they were
in their seat in the coach did Joanne look at him after that pressure of
her hand, and then she did not speak. But in the veiled glow of her eyes
there was something that told him she understood--a light that was
wonderfully gentle and sweet. And yet, without words, she asked him to
keep within his soul the things that were pounding madly there for speech.

As the train rolled on and the babble of voices about them joined the
crunching rumble of the wheels, he wanted to lean close to her and tell her
how a few hours had changed the world for him. And then, for a moment, her
eyes turned to him again, and he knew that it would be a sacrilege to give
voice to the things he wanted to say. For many minutes he was silent,
gazing with her upon the wild panorama of mountain beauty as it drifted
past the car window. A loud voice two seats ahead of them proclaimed that
they were about to make Templeton's Curve. The man was talking to his
companion.

"They shot up a hundred thousand pounds of black powder an' dynamite to
make way for two hundred feet of steel on that curve," he explained in a
voice heard all over the car. "They say you could hear the explosion fifty
miles away. Jack Templeton was near-sighted, an' he didn't see a rock
coming down on him that was half as big as a house. I helped scrape up what
was left of 'im an' we planted him at this end of the curve. It's been
Templeton's Curve ever since. You'll see his grave--with a slab over it!"

It was there almost as he spoke, marked by a white-painted cross in a
circle of whitewashed stones. John Aldous felt a sudden shiver pass through
his companion. She turned from the window. Through her veil he saw her lips
tighten. Until he left the car half an hour later the man in the second
seat ahead talked of Templeton's grave and a dozen other graves along the
right of way. He was a rock-hog, and a specialist on the subject of
graves. Inwardly Aldous cursed him roundly. He cursed him all the way to
Tête Jaune, for to him he attributed the change which had again come over
Joanne.

This change she could only partly conceal from him under her veil. She
asked him many questions about Tête Jaune and the Blacktons, and tried to
take an interest in the scenery they were passing. In spite of this he
could see that she was becoming more and more nervous as they progressed
toward the end of their journey. He felt the slow dampening of his own joy,
the deadening clutch of yesterday at his heart. Twice she lifted her veil
for a moment and he saw she was pale and the tense lines had gathered about
her mouth again. There was something almost haggard in her look the second
time.

In the early dusk of evening they arrived at Tête Jaune. Aldous waited
until the car had emptied itself before he rose from his seat. Joanne's
hand clutched at his arm as they walked down the aisle. He felt the fierce
pressure of her fingers in his flesh. On the car platform they paused for a
moment, and he felt her throbbing beside him. She had taken her hand from
his arm, and he turned suddenly. She had raised her veil. Her face was dead
white. And she was staring out over the sea of faces under them in a
strange questing way, and her breath came from between her slightly parted
lips as if she had been running. Amazed for the moment, John Aldous did not
move. Somewhere in that crowd _Joanne expected to find a face she knew!_
The truth struck him dumb--made him inert and lifeless. He, too, stared as
if in a trance. And then, suddenly, every drop of blood in his body blazed
into fierce life.

In the glow of one of the station lamps stood a group of men. The faces of
all were turned toward them. One he recognized--a bloated, leering face
grinning devilishly at them. It was Quade!

A low, frightened cry broke from Joanne's lips, and he knew that she, too,
had seen him. But it was not Quade that she had looked for. It was not his
face that she had expected to see nor because of him that she had lifted
her veil for the mob!

He stepped down from the car and gave her his hand. Her fingers clutched
his convulsively. And they were cold as the fingers of the dead.




CHAPTER X


A moment later some one came surging through the crowd, and called Aldous
by name. It was Blackton. His thin, genial face with its little spiked
moustache rose above the sea of heads about him, and as he came he grinned
a welcome.

"A beastly mob!" he exclaimed, as he gripped his friend's hand. "I'm sorry
I couldn't bring my wife nearer than the back platform."

Aldous turned to Joanne. He was still half in a daze. His heart was choking
him with its swift and excited beating. Even as he introduced her to
Blackton the voice kept crying in his brain that she had expected to find
some one in this crowd whom she knew. For a space it was as if the Joanne
whom he had known had slipped away from him. She had told him about the
grave, but this other she had kept from him. Something that was almost
anger surged up in him. His face bore marks of the strain as he watched her
greet Blackton. In an instant, it seemed to him, she had regained a part of
her composure. Blackton saw nothing but the haggard lines about her eyes
and the deep pallor in her face, which he ascribed to fatigue.

"You're tired, Miss Gray," he said. "It's a killing ride up from Miette
these days. If we can get through this mob we'll have supper within fifteen
minutes!"

With a word to Aldous he began worming his long, lean body ahead of them.
An instant Joanne's face was very close to Aldous', so close that he felt
her breath, and a tendril of her hair touched his lips. In that instant her
eyes looked into his steadily, and he felt rush over him a sudden shame. If
she was seeking and expecting, it was to him more than ever that she was
now looking for protection. The haunting trouble in her eyes, their
entreaty, their shining faith in him told him that, and he was glad that
she had not seen his sudden fear and suspicion. She clung more closely to
him as they followed Blackton. Her little fingers held his arm as if she
were afraid some force might tear him from her. He saw that she was looking
quickly at the faces about them with that same questing mystery in her
search.

At the thin outer edge of the crowd Blackton dropped back beside them. A
few steps more and they came to the end of the platform, where a buckboard
was waiting in the dim light of one of the station lamps. Blackton
introduced Joanne, and assisted her into the seat beside his wife.

"We'll leave you ladies to become acquainted while we rustle the baggage,"
he said. "Got the checks, Aldous?"

Joanne had given Aldous two checks on the train, and he handed them to
Blackton. Together they made their way to the baggage-room.

"Thought Miss Gray would have some luggage, so I had one of my men come
with another team," he explained. "We won't have to wait. I'll give him the
checks."

Before they returned to the buckboard, Aldous halted his friend.

"I couldn't say much in that telegram," he said. "If Miss Gray wasn't a
bit tired and unstrung I'd let her explain. I want you to tell Mrs.
Blackton that she has come to Tête Jaune on a rather unpleasant mission,
old man. Nothing less than to attend to the grave of a--a near relative."

"I regret that--I regret it very much," replied Blackton, flinging away the
match he had lighted without touching it to his cigar. "I guessed something
was wrong. She's welcome at our place, Aldous--for as long as she remains
in Tête Jaune. Perhaps I knew this relative. If I can assist you--or
her----"

"He died before the steel came," said Aldous. "FitzHugh was his name. Old
Donald and I are going to take her to the grave. Miss Gray is an old friend
of mine," he lied boldly. "We want to start at dawn. Will that be too much
trouble for you and your wife?"

"No trouble at all," declared Blackton. "We've got a Chinese cook who's
more like an owl than a human. How will a four o'clock breakfast suit you?"

"Splendidly!"

As they went on, the contractor said:

"I carried your word to MacDonald. Hunted him down out in the bush. He is
very anxious to see you. He said he would not be at the depot, but that you
must not fail him. He's kept strangely under cover of late. Curious old
ghost, isn't he?"

"The strangest man in the mountains," said Aldous "And, when you come to
know him, the most lovable. We're going North together."

This time it was Blackton who stopped, with a hand on his companion's arm.
A short distance from them they could see the buckboard in the light of
the station lamp.

"Has old Donald written you lately?" he asked.

"No. He says he hasn't written a letter in twenty years."

Blackton hesitated.

"Then you haven't heard of his--accident?"

The strange look in the contractor's face as he lighted a cigar made John
Aldous catch him sharply by the arm.

"What do you mean?"

"He was shot. I happened to be in Dr. Brady's office when he dragged
himself in, late at night. Doc got the bullet out of his shoulder. It
wasn't a bad wound. The old man swore it was an accident, and asked us to
say nothing about it. We haven't. But I've been wondering. Old Donald said
he was careless with his own pistol. But the fact is, Aldous--_he was shot
from behind!_"

"The deuce you say!"

"There was no perforation except from _behind_. In some way the bullet had
spent itself before it reached him. Otherwise it would have killed him."

For a moment Aldous stared in speechless amazement into Blackton's face.

"When did this happen?" he asked then.

"Three days ago. Since then I have not seen old Donald until to-night.
Almost by accident I met him out there in the timber. I delivered the
telegram you sent him. After he had read it I showed him mine. He scribbled
something on a bit of paper, folded it, and pinned it with a porcupine
quill. I've been mighty curious, but I haven't pulled out that quill. Here
it is."

From his pocket he produced the note and gave it to Aldous.

"I'll read it a little later," said Aldous. "The ladies may possibly become
anxious about us."

He dropped it in his pocket as he thanked Blackton for the trouble he had
taken in finding MacDonald. As he climbed into the front seat of the
buckboard his eyes met Joanne's. He was glad that in a large measure she
had recovered her self-possession. She smiled at him as they drove off, and
there was something in the sweet tremble of her lips that made him almost
fancy she was asking his forgiveness for having forgotten herself. Her
voice sounded more natural to him as she spoke to Mrs. Blackton. The
latter, a plump little blue-eyed woman with dimples and golden hair, was
already making her feel at home. She leaned over and placed a hand on her
husband's shoulder.

"Let's drive home by way of town, Paul," she suggested. "It's only a little
farther, and I'm quite sure Miss Gray will be interested in our Great White
Way of the mountains. And I'm crazy to see that bear you were telling me
about," she added.

Nothing could have suited Aldous more than this suggestion. He was sure
that Quade, following his own and Culver Rann's old methods, had already
prepared stories about Joanne, and he not only wanted Quade's friends--but
all of Tête Jaune as well--to see Joanne in the company of Mrs. Paul
Blackton and her husband. And this was a splendid opportunity, for the
night carnival was already beginning.

"The bear is worth seeing," said Blackton, turning his team in the
direction of the blazing light of the half-mile street that was the
Broadway of Tête Jaune. "And the woman who rides him is worth seeing, too,"
he chuckled. "He's a big fellow--and she plays the Godiva act. Rides him up
and down the street with her hair down, collecting dimes and quarters and
half dollars as she goes."

A minute later the length of the street swept out ahead of them. It is
probable that the world had never before seen a street just like this
Broadway in Tête Jaune--the pleasure Mecca of five thousand workers along
the line of steel. There had been great "camps" in the building of other
railroads, but never a city in the wilderness like this--a place that had
sprung up like magic and which, a few months later, was doomed to disappear
as quickly. For half a mile it blazed out ahead of them, two garishly
lighted rows of shacks, big tents, log buildings, and rough board
structures, with a rough, wide street between.

To-night Tête Jaune was like a blazing fire against the darkness of the
forest and mountain beyond. A hundred sputtering "jacks" sent up columns of
yellow flame in front of places already filled with the riot and tumult of
the night. A thousand lamps and coloured lanterns flashed like fireflies
along the way, and under them the crowd had gathered, and was flowing back
and forth. It was a weird and fantastic sight--this one strange and almost
uncanny street that was there largely for the play and the excitement of
men.

Aldous turned to Joanne. He knew what this town meant. It was the first and
the last of its kind, and its history would never be written. The world
outside the mountains knew nothing of it. Like the men who made up its
transient life it would soon be a forgotten thing of the past. Even the
mountains would forget it. But more than once, as he had stood a part of
it, his blood had warmed at the thought of the things it held secret, the
things that would die with it, the big human drama it stood for, its hidden
tragedies, its savage romance, its passing comedy. He found something of
his own thought in Joanne's eyes.

"There isn't much to it," he said, "but to-night, if you made the hunt, you
could find men of eighteen or twenty nationalities in that street."

"And a little more besides," laughed Blackton. "If you could write the
complete story of how Tête Jaune has broken the law, Aldous, it would fill
a volume as big as Peggy's family Bible!"

"And after all, it's funny," said Peggy Blackton. "There!" she cried
suddenly. "Isn't _that_ funny?"

The glare and noisy life were on both sides of them now. Half a dozen
phonographs were going. From up the street came the softer strains of a
piano, and from in between the shrieking notes of bagpipe. Peggy Blackton
was pointing to a brilliantly lighted, black-tarpaulined shop. Huge white
letters on its front announced that Lady Barbers were within. They could
see two of them at work through the big window. And they were pretty. The
place was crowded with men. Men were waiting outside.

"Paul says they charge a dollar for a haircut and fifty cents for a shave,"
explained Peggy Blackton. "And the man over there across the street is
going broke because he can't get business at fifteen cents a shave. _Isn't_
it funny?"

As they went on Aldous searched the street for Quade. Several times he
turned to the back seat, and always he found Joanne's eyes questing in that
strange way for the some one whom she expected to see. Mrs. Blackton was
pointing out lighted places, and explaining things as they passed, but he
knew that in spite of her apparent attention Joanne heard only a part of
what she was saying. In that crowd she hoped--or feared--to find a certain
face. And again Aldous told himself that it was not Quade's face.

Near the end of the street a crowd was gathering, and here, for a moment,
Blackton stopped his team within fifty feet of the objects of attraction. A
slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a
huge brown bear. Her sleek black hair, shining as if it had been oiled,
fell in curls about her shoulders. Her rouged lips were smiling. Even at
that distance her black eyes sparkled like diamonds. She had evidently just
finished taking up a collection, for she was fastening the cord of a silken
purse about her neck. In another moment she bestrode the bear, the crowd
fell apart, and as the onlookers broke into a roar of applause the big
beast lumbered slowly up the street with its rider.

"One of Culver Rann's friends," said Blackton _sotto voce_, as he drove on.
"She takes in a hundred a night if she makes a cent!"

[Illustration: A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was
standing beside a huge brown bear. In another moment she bestrode the bear,
and the big beast lumbered up the street with its rider.]

Blackton's big log bungalow was close to the engineers' camp half a mile
distant from the one lighted street and the hundreds of tents and shacks
that made up the residential part of the town. Not until they were inside,
and Peggy Blackton had disappeared with Joanne for a few moments, did
Aldous take old Donald MacDonald's note from his pocket. He pulled out the
quill, unfolded the bit of paper, and read the few crudely written words
the mountain man had sent him. Blackton turned in time to catch the sudden
amazement in his face. Crushing the note in his hand, Aldous looked at the
other, his mouth tightening.

"You must help me make excuses, old man," he said quietly. "It will seem
strange to them if I do not stay for supper. But--it is impossible. I must
see old Donald as quickly as I can get to him."

His manner more than his words kept Blackton from urging him to remain. The
contractor stared at him for a moment, his own eyes growing harder and more
direct.

"It's about the shooting," he said. "If you want me to go with you,
Aldous----"

"Thanks. That will be unnecessary."

Peggy Blackton and Joanne were returning. Aldous turned toward them as they
entered the room. With the note still in his hand he repeated to them what
he had told Blackton--that he had received word which made it immediately
urgent for him to go to MacDonald. He shook hands with the Blacktons,
promising to be on hand for the four o'clock breakfast.

Joanne followed him to the door and out upon the veranda. For a moment they
were alone, and now her eyes were wide and filled with fear as he clasped
her hands closely in his own.

"I saw him," she whispered, her fingers tightening convulsively. "I saw
that man--Quade--at the station. He followed us up the street. Twice I
looked behind--and saw him. I am afraid--afraid to let you go back there. I
believe he is somewhere out there now--waiting for you!"

She was frightened, trembling; and her fear for him, the fear in her
shining eyes, in her throbbing breath, in the clasp of her fingers, sent
through John Aldous a joy that almost made him free her hands and crush her
in his arms in the ecstasy of that wonderful moment. Then Peggy Blackton
and her husband appeared in the door. He released her hands, and stepped
out into the gloom. The cheery good-nights of the Blacktons followed him.
And Joanne's good-night was in her eyes--following him until he was gone,
filled with their entreaty and their fear.

A hundred yards distant, where the trail split to lead to the camp of the
engineers, there was a lantern on a pole. Here Aldous paused, out of sight
of the Blackton bungalow, and in the dim light read again MacDonald's note.

In a cramped and almost illegible hand the old wanderer of the mountains
had written:

   Don't go to cabin. Culver Rann waiting to kill you. Don't show
   yorself in town. Cum to me as soon as you can on trail striking
   north to Loon Lake. Watch yorself. Be ready with yor gun.

   DONALD MacDONALD.

Aldous shoved the note in his pocket and slipped back out of the
lantern-glow into deep shadow. For several minutes he stood silent and
listening.




CHAPTER XI


As John Aldous stood hidden in the darkness, listening for the sound of a
footstep, Joanne's words still rang in his ears. "I believe he is out
there--waiting for you," she had said; and, chuckling softly in the gloom,
he told himself that nothing would give him more satisfaction than an
immediate and material proof of her fear. In the present moment he felt a
keen desire to confront Quade face to face out there in the lantern-glow,
and settle with the mottled beast once for all. The fact that Quade had
seen Joanne as the guest of the Blacktons hardened him in his
determination. Quade could no longer be in possible error regarding her. He
knew that she had friends, and that she was not of the kind who could be
made or induced to play his game and Culver Rann's. If he followed her
after this----

Aldous gritted his teeth and stared up and down the black trail. Five
minutes passed and he heard nothing that sounded like a footstep, and he
saw no moving shadow in the gloom. Slowly he continued along the road until
he came to where a narrow pack-trail swung north and east through the thick
spruce and balsam in the direction of Loon Lake. Remembering MacDonald's
warning, he kept his pistol in his hand. The moon was just beginning to
rise over the shoulder of a mountain, and after a little it lighted up the
more open spaces ahead of him. Now and then he paused, and turned to
listen. As he progressed with slowness and caution, his mind worked
swiftly. He knew that Donald MacDonald was the last man in the world to
write such a message as he had sent him through Blackton unless there had
been a tremendous reason for it. But why, he asked himself again and again,
should Culver Rann want to kill him? Rann knew nothing of Joanne. He had
not seen her. And surely Quade had not had time to formulate a plot with
his partner before MacDonald wrote his warning. Besides, an attempt had
been made to assassinate the old mountaineer! MacDonald had not warned him
against Quade. He had told him to guard himself against Rann. And what
reason could this Culver Rann have for doing him injury? The more he
thought of it the more puzzled he became. And then, in a flash, the
possible solution of it all came to him.

Had Culver Rann discovered the secret mission on which he and the old
mountaineer were going into the North? Had he learned of the gold--where it
was to be found? And was their assassination the first step in a plot to
secure possession of the treasure?

The blood in Aldous' veins ran faster. He gripped his pistol harder. More
closely he looked into the moonlit gloom of the trail ahead of him. He
believed that he had guessed the meaning of MacDonald's warning. It was the
gold! More than once thought of the yellow treasure far up in the North had
thrilled him, but never as it thrilled him now. Was the old tragedy of it
to be lived over again? Was it again to play its part in a terrible drama
of men's lives, as it had played it more than forty years ago? The gold!
The gold that for nearly half a century had lain with the bones of its
dead, alone with its terrible secret, alone until Donald MacDonald had
found it again! He had not told Joanne the story of it, the appalling and
almost unbelievable tragedy of it. He had meant to do so. But they had
talked of other things. He had meant to tell her that it was not the gold
itself that was luring him far to the north--that it was not the gold alone
that was taking Donald MacDonald back to it.

And now, as he stood for a moment listening to the low sweep of the wind in
the spruce-tops, it seemed to him that the night was filled with whispering
voices of that long-ago--and he shivered, and held his breath. A cloud had
drifted under the moon. For a few moments it was pitch dark. The fingers of
his hand dug into the rough bark of a spruce. He did not move. It was then
that he heard something above the caressing rustle of the wind in the
spruce-tops.

It came to him faintly, from full half a mile deeper in the black forest
that reached down to the bank of the Frazer. It was the night call of an
owl--one of the big gray owls that turned white as the snow in winter.
Mentally he counted the notes in the call. One, two, three, _four_--and a
flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal
in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without
frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's
quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent
back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down
for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated
faintly back to him through the forest. Continuing to hold his pistol, he
went on, this time more swiftly.

MacDonald did not signal again. The moon was climbing rapidly into the sky,
and with each passing minute the night was becoming lighter. He had gone
half a mile when he stopped again and signalled softly. MacDonald's voice
answered, so near that for an instant the automatic flashed in the
moonlight. Aldous stepped out where the trail had widened into a small open
spot. Half a dozen paces from him, in the bright flood of the moon, stood
Donald MacDonald.

The night, the moon-glow, the tense attitude of his waiting added to the
weirdness of the picture which the old wanderer of the mountains made as
Aldous faced him. MacDonald was tall; some trick of the night made him
appear almost unhumanly tall as he stood in the centre of that tiny moonlit
amphitheatre. His head was bowed a little, and his shoulders drooped a
little, for he was old. A thick, shaggy beard fell in a silvery sheen over
his breast. His hair, gray as the underwing of the owl whose note he
forged, straggled in uncut disarray from under the drooping rim of a
battered and weatherworn hat. His coat was of buckskin, and it was short at
the sleeves--four inches too short; and the legs of his trousers were cut
off between the knees and the ankles, giving him a still greater appearance
of height.

In the crook of his arm MacDonald held a rifle, a strange-looking,
long-barrelled rifle of a type a quarter of a century old. And Donald
MacDonald, in the picture he made, was like his gun, old and gray and
ghostly, as if he had risen out of some graveyard of the past to warm
himself in the yellow splendour of the moon. But in the grayness and
gauntness of him there was something that was mightier than the strength of
youth. He was alert. In the crook of his arm there was caution. His eyes
were as keen as the eyes of an animal. His shoulders spoke of a strength
but little impaired by the years. Ghostly gray beard, ghostly gray hair,
haunting eyes that gleamed, all added to the strange and weird
impressiveness of the man as he stood before Aldous. And when he spoke, his
voice had in it the deep, low, cavernous note of a partridge's drumming.

"I'm glad you've come, Aldous," he said. "I've been waiting ever since the
train come in. I was afraid you'd go to the cabin!"

Aldous stepped forth and gripped the old mountaineer's outstretched hand.
There was intense relief in Donald's eyes.

"I got a little camp back here in the bush," he went on, nodding riverward.
"It's safer 'n the shack these days. Yo're sure--there ain't no one
following?"

"Quite certain," assured Aldous. "Look here, MacDonald--what in thunder has
happened? Don't continue my suspense! Who shot you? Why did you warn me?"

Deep in his beard the old hunter laughed.

"Same fellow as would have shot you, I guess," he answered. "They made a
bad job of it, Johnny, an awful bad job, an' mebby there'd been a better
man layin' for you!"

He was pulling Aldous in the bush as he spoke. For ten minutes he dived on
ahead through a jungle in which there was no trail. Suddenly he turned,
led the way around the edge of a huge mass of rock, and paused a moment
later before a small smouldering fire. Against the face of a gigantic
boulder was a balsam shelter. A few cooking utensils were scattered about.
It was evident that MacDonald had been living here for several days.

"Looks as though I'd run away, don't it, Johnny?" he asked, laughing in his
curious, chuckling way again. "An' so I did, boy. From the mountain up
there I've been watching things through my telescope--been keepin' quiet
since Doc pulled the bullet out. I've been layin' for the Breed. I wanted
him to think I'd vamoosed. I'm goin' to kill him!"

He had squatted down before the fire, his long rifle across his knees, and
spoke as quietly as though he was talking of a partridge or a squirrel
instead of a human being. He wormed a hand into one of his pockets and
produced a small dark object which he handed to Aldous The other felt an
uncanny chill as it touched his fingers. It was a mis-shapened bullet.

"Doc gave me the lead," continued MacDonald coolly, beginning to slice a
pipeful of tobacco from a tar-black plug. "It come from Joe's gun. I've
hunted with him enough to know his bullet. He fired through the window of
the cabin. If it hadn't been for the broom handle--just the end of it
stickin' up"--he shrugged his gaunt shoulders as he stuffed the tobacco
into the bowl of his pipe--"I'd been dead!" he finished tersely.

"You mean that Joe----"

"Has sold himself to Culver Rann!" exclaimed MacDonald. He sprang to his
feet. For the first time he showed excitement. His eyes blazed with
repressed rage. A hand gripped the barrel of his rifle as if to crush it.
"He's sold himself to Culver Rann!" he repeated. "He's sold him our secret.
He's told him where the gold is, Johnny! He's bargained to guide Rann an'
his crowd to it! An' first--they're goin' to kill _us!_"

With a low whistle Aldous took off his hat. He ran a hand through his
blond-gray hair. Then he replaced his hat and drew two cigars from his
pocket. MacDonald accepted one. Aldous' eyes were glittering; his lips were
smiling.

"They are, are they, Donald? They're going to kill us?"

"They're goin' to try," amended the old hunter, with another curious
chuckle in his ghostly beard. "They're goin' to try, Johnny. That's why I
told you not to go to the cabin. I wasn't expecting you for a week.
To-morrow I was goin' to start on a hike for Miette. I been watching
through my telescope from the mountain up there. I see Quade come in this
morning on a hand-car. Twice I see him and Rann together. Then I saw
Blackton hike out into the bush. I was worrying about you an' wondered if
he had any word. So I laid for him on the trail--an' I guess it was lucky.
I ain't been able to set my eyes on Joe. I looked for hours through the
telescope--an' I couldn't find him. He's gone, or Culver Rann is keeping
him out of sight."

For several moments Aldous looked at his companion in silence. Then he
said:

"You're sure of all this, are you, Donald? You have good proof--that Joe
has turned traitor?"

"I've been suspicious of him ever since we come down from the North,"
spoke MacDonald slowly. "I watched him--night an' day. I was afraid he'd
get a grubstake an' start back alone. Then I saw him with Culver Rann. It
was late. I heard 'im leave the shack, an' I followed. He went to Rann's
house--an' Rann was expecting him. Three times I followed him to Culver
Rann's house. I knew what was happening then, an' I planned to get him back
in the mountains on a hunt, an' kill him. But I was too late. The shot came
through the window. Then he disappeared. An'--Culver Rann is getting an
outfit together! Twenty head of horses, with grub for three months!"

"The deuce! And our outfit? Is it ready?"

"To the last can o' beans!"

"And your plan, Donald?"

All at once the old mountaineer's eyes were aflame with eagerness as he
came nearer to Aldous.

"Get out of Tête Jaune to-night!" he cried in a low, hissing voice that
quivered with excitement. "Hit the trail before dawn! Strike into the
mountains with our outfit--far enough back--and then wait!"

"Wait?"

"Yes--wait. If they follow us--_fight!_"

Slowly Aldous held out a hand. The old mountaineer's met it. Steadily they
looked into each other's eyes.

Then John Aldous spoke:

"If this had been two days ago I would have said yes. But to-night--it is
impossible."

The fingers that had tightened about his own relaxed. Slowly a droop came
into MacDonald's shoulders. Disappointment, a look that was almost despair
settled in his eyes. Seeing the change, Aldous held the old hunter's hand
more firmly.

"That doesn't mean we're not going to fight," he said quickly. "Only we've
got to plan differently. Sit down, Donald. Something has been happening to
me. And I'm going to tell you about it."

A little back from the fire they seated themselves, and Aldous told Donald
MacDonald about Joanne.

He began at the beginning, from the moment his eyes first saw her as she
entered Quade's place. He left nothing out. He told how she had come into
his life, and how he intended to fight to keep her from going out of it. He
told of his fears, his hopes, the mystery of their coming to Tête Jaune,
and how Quade had preceded them to plot the destruction of the woman he
loved. He described her as she had stood that morning, like a radiant
goddess in the sun; and when he came to that he leaned nearer, and said
softly:

"And when I saw her there, Donald, with her hair streaming about her like
that, I thought of the time you told me of that other woman--the woman of
years and years ago--and how you, Donald, used to look upon her in the sun,
and rejoice in your possession. Her spirit has been with you always. You
have told me how for nearly fifty years you have followed it over these
mountains. And this woman means as much to me. If she should die to-night
her spirit would live with me in that same way. You understand, Donald. I
can't go into the mountains to-night. God knows when I can go--now. But
you----"

MacDonald had risen. He turned his face to the black wall of the forest.
Aldous thought he saw a sudden quiver pass through the great, bent
shoulders.

"And I," said MacDonald slowly, "will have the horses ready for you at
dawn. We will fight this other fight--later."




CHAPTER XII


For an hour after Donald MacDonald had pledged himself to accompany Joanne
and Aldous on their pilgrimage to the grave in the Saw Tooth Range the two
men continued to discuss the unusual complications in which they had
suddenly become involved, and at the same time prepared themselves a supper
of bacon and coffee over the fire. They agreed upon a plan of action with
one exception. Aldous was determined to return to the town, arguing there
was a good strategic reason for showing himself openly and without fear.
MacDonald opposed this apprehensively.

"Better lay quiet until morning," he expostulated. "You'd better listen to
me, an' do that, Johnny. I've got something in my shoulder that tells me
you'd better!"

In the face of the old hunter's misgiving, Aldous prepared to leave. It was
nearly ten o'clock when he set back in the direction of Tête Jaune, Donald
accompanying him as far as the moonlit amphitheatre in the forest. There
they separated, and Aldous went on alone.

He believed that Joanne and the Blacktons would half expect him to return
to the bungalow after he had seen MacDonald. He was sure that Blackton, at
least, would look for him until quite late. The temptation to take
advantage of their hospitality was great, especially as it would bring him
in the company of Joanne again. On the other hand, he was certain that this
first night in Tête Jaune held very large possibilities for him. The
detective instinct in him was roused, and his adventurous spirit was alive
for action. First of all, he wanted proof of what MacDonald had told him.
That an attempt had been made to assassinate the old mountaineer he did not
for an instant doubt. But had Joe DeBar, the half-breed, actually betrayed
them? Had he sold himself to Culver Rann, and did Rann hold the key to the
secret expedition they had planned into the North? He did not, at first,
care to see Rann. He made up his mind that if he did meet him he would stop
and chat casually with him, as though he had heard and seen nothing to
rouse his suspicions. He particularly wanted to find DeBar; and, next to
DeBar, Quade himself.

The night carnival was at its height when Aldous re-entered the long,
lighted street. From ten until eleven was the liveliest hour of the night.
Even the restaurants and soup-kitchens were crowded then. He strolled
slowly down the street until he came to a little crowd gathered about the
bear equestrienne. The big canvas dance-hall a few doors away had lured
from her most of her admirers by this time, and Aldous found no difficulty
in reaching the inner circle. He looked first for the half-breed. Failing
to find him, he looked at the woman, who stood only a few feet from him.
Her glossy black curls were a bit dishevelled, and the excitement of the
night had added to the vivid colouring of her rouged lips and cheeks. Her
body was sleek and sinuous in its silken vesture; arms and shoulders were
startlingly white; and when she turned, facing Aldous, her black eyes
flashed fires of deviltry and allurement.

For a moment he stared into her face. If he had not been looking closely he
would not have caught the swift change that shot into the siren-like play
of her orbs. It was almost instantaneous. Her slow-travelling glance
stopped as she saw him. He saw the quick intake of her breath, a sudden
compression of her lips, the startled, searching scrutiny of a pair of eyes
from which, for a moment, all the languor and coquetry of her trade were
gone. Then she passed him, smiling again, nodding, sweeping a hand and arm
effectively through her handsome curls as she flung a shapely limb over the
broad back of the bear. In a garish sort of way the woman was beautiful,
and this night, as on all others, her beauty had nearly filled the silken
coin-bag suspended from her neck. As she rode down the street Aldous
recalled Blackton's words: She was a friend of Culver Rann's. He wondered
if this fact accounted for the strangeness of the look she had given him.

He passed on to the dance-hall. It was crowded, mostly with men. But here
and there, like so many faces peering forth from living graves, he saw the
Little Sisters of Tête Jaune Cache. Outnumbered ten to one, their voices
rang out in shrill banter and delirious laughter above the rumble of men.
At the far end, a fiddle, a piano, and a clarinet were squealing forth
music. The place smelled strongly of whisky. It always smelled of that, for
most of the men who sought amusement here got their whisky in spite of the
law. There were rock-hogs from up the line, and rock-hogs from down the
line, men of all nationalities and of almost all ages; teamsters,
trail-cutters, packers, and rough-shod navvies; men whose daily task was to
play with dynamite and giant powder; steel-men, tie-men, and men who
drilled into the hearts of mountains. More than once John Aldous had looked
upon this same scene, and had listened to the trample and roar and wild
revelry of it, marvelling that to-morrow the men of this saturnalia would
again be the builders of an empire. The thin, hollow-cheeked faces that
passed and repassed him, rouged and smiling, could not destroy in his mind
the strength of the picture. They were but moths, fluttering about in their
own doom, contending with each other to see which should quickest achieve
destruction.

For several minutes Aldous scanned the faces in the big tent-hall, and
nowhere did he see DeBar. He dropped out, and continued leisurely along the
lighted way until he came to Lovak's huge black-and-white striped
soup-tent. At ten o'clock, and until twelve, this was as crowded as the
dance-hall. Aldous knew Lovak, the Hungarian.

Through Lovak he had found the key that had unlocked for him many curious
and interesting things associated with that powerful Left Arm of the Empire
Builders--the Slav. Except for a sprinkling of Germans, a few Italians, and
now and then a Greek or Swiss, only the Slavs filled Lovak's place!--Slavs
from all the Russias and the nations south: the quick and chattering Polak;
the thick-set, heavy-jowled Croatian; the silent and dangerous-eyed
Lithuanian. All came in for Lovak's wonderful soup, which he sold in big
yellow bowls at ten cents a bowl--soup of barley, rice, and cabbage, of
beef and mutton, of everything procurable out of which soup could be made,
and, whether of meat or vegetable, smelling to heaven of garlic.

Fifty men were eating when Aldous went in, devouring their soup with the
utter abandon and joy of the Galician, so that the noise they made was like
the noise of fifty pigs at fifty troughs. Now and then DeBar, the
half-breed, came here for soup, and Aldous searched quickly for him. He was
turning to go when his friend, Lovak, came to him. No, Lovak had not seen
DeBar. But he had news. That day the authorities--the police--had
confiscated twenty dressed hogs, and in each porcine carcass they had found
four-quart bottles of whisky, artistically imbedded in the leaf-lard fat.
The day before those same authorities had confiscated a barrel of
"kerosene." They were becoming altogether too officious, Lovak thought.

Aldous went on. He looked in at a dozen restaurants, and twice as many
soft-drink emporiums, where phonographs were worked until they were cracked
and dizzy. He stopped at a small tobacco shop, and entered to buy himself
some cigars. There was one other customer ahead of him. He was lighting a
cigar, and the light of a big hanging lamp flashed on a diamond ring. Over
his sputtering match his eyes met those of John Aldous. They were dark
eyes, neither brown nor black, but dark, with the keenness and strange
glitter of a serpent's. He wore a small, clipped moustache; his hands were
white; he was a man whom one might expect to possess the _sang froid_ of a
devil in any emergency. For barely an instant he hesitated in the operation
of lighting his cigar as he saw Aldous. Then he nodded.

"Hello, John Aldous," he said.

"Good evening, Culver Rann," replied Aldous.

For a moment his nerves had tingled--the next they were like steel. Culver
Rann's teeth gleamed. Aldous smiled back. They were cold, hard, rapierlike
glances. Each understood now that the other was a deadly enemy, for Quade's
enemies were also Culver Rann's. Aldous moved carelessly to the glass case
in which were the cigars. With the barest touch of one of his slim white
hands Culver Rann stopped him.

"Have one of mine, Aldous," he invited, opening a silver case filled with
cigars. "We've never had the pleasure of smoking together, you know."

"Never," said Aldous, accepting one of the cigars. "Thanks."

As he lighted it, their eyes met again. Aldous turned to the case.

"Half a dozen 'Noblemen,'" he said to the man behind the counter; then, to
Rann: "Will you have one on me?"

"With pleasure," said Rann. He added, smiling straight into the other's
eyes, "What are you doing up here, Aldous? After local colour?"

"Perhaps. The place interests me."

"It's a lively town."

"Decidedly. And I understand that you've played an important part in the
making of it," replied Aldous carelessly.

For a flash Rann's eyes darkened, and his mouth hardened, then his white
teeth gleamed again. He had caught the insinuation, and he had scarcely
been able to ward off the shot.

"I've tried to do my small share," he admitted. "If you're after local
colour for your books, Aldous, I possibly may be able to assist you--if
you're in town long."

"Undoubtedly you could," said Aldous. "I think you could tell me a great
deal that I would like to know, Rann. But--will you?"

There was a direct challenge in his coldly smiling eyes.

"Yes, I think I shall be quite pleased to do so," said Rann.
"Especially--if you are long in town." There was an odd emphasis on those
last words.

He moved toward the door.

"And if you are here very long," he added, his eyes gleaming significantly,
"it is possible you may have experiences of your own which would make very
interesting reading if they ever got into print. Good-night, Aldous!"

For two or three minutes after Rann had gone Aldous loitered in the tobacco
shop. Then he went out. All at once it struck him that he should have kept
his eyes on Quade's partner. He should have followed him. With the hope of
seeing him again he walked up and down the street. It was eleven o'clock
when he went into Big Ben's pool-room. Five minutes later he came out just
as a woman hurried past him, carrying with her a strong scent of perfume.
It was the Lady of the Bear. She was in a street dress now, her glossy
curls still falling loose about her--probably homeward bound after her
night's harvest. It struck Aldous that the hour was early for her
retirement, and that she seemed somewhat in a hurry.

The woman was going in the direction of Rann's big log bungalow, which was
built well out of town toward the river. She had not seen him as he stood
in the pool-room doorway, and before she had passed out of sight he was
following her. There were a dozen branch trails and "streets" on the way to
Rann's, and into the gloom of some one of these the woman disappeared, so
that Aldous lost her entirely. He was not disappointed when he found she
had left the main trail.

Five minutes later he stood close to Rann's house. From the side on which
he had approached it was dark. No gleam of light showed through the
windows. Slowly he walked around the building, and stopped suddenly on the
opposite side. Here a closely drawn curtain was illuminated by a glow from
within. Cautiously Aldous made his way along the log wall of the house
until he came to the window. At one side the curtain had caught against
some object, leaving perhaps a quarter of an inch of space through which
the light shone. Aldous brought his eyes on a level with this space.

A half of the room came within his vision. Directly in front of him,
lighted by a curiously shaped iron lamp suspended from the ceiling, was a
dull red mahogany desk-table. At one side of this, partly facing him, was
Culver Rann. Opposite him sat Quade.

Rann was speaking, while Quade, with his bullish shoulders hunched forward
and his fleshy red neck, rolling over the collar of his coat, leaned across
the table in a tense and listening attitude. With his eyes glued to the
aperture, Aldous strained his ears to catch what Rann was saying. He heard
only the low and unintelligible monotone of his voice. A mocking smile was
accompanying Rann's words. To-night, as at all times, this hawk who preyed
upon human lives was immaculate. In all ways but one he was the antithesis
of the beefy scoundrel who sat opposite him. On the hand that toyed
carelessly with the fob of his watch flashed a diamond; another sparkled in
his cravat. His dark hair was sleek and well brushed; his bristly little
moustache was clipped in the latest fashion. He was not large. His hands,
as he made a gesture toward Quade, were of womanish whiteness. Casually, on
the street or in a Pullman, Aldous would have taken him for a gentleman.
Now, as he stared through the narrow slit between the bottom of the curtain
and the sill, he knew that he was looking upon one of the most dangerous
men in all the West. Quade was a villain. Culver Rann, quiet and cool and
suave, was a devil. Behind his depravity worked the brain which Quade
lacked, and a nerve which, in spite of that almost effeminate
immaculateness, had been described to Aldous as colossal.

Suddenly Quade turned, and Aldous saw that he was flushed and excited. He
struck the desk a blow with his fist. Culver Rann leaned back and smiled.
And John Aldous slipped away from the window.

His nerves were quivering; in the darkness he unbuttoned the pocket that
held his automatic. Through the window he had seen an open door behind
Rann, and his blood thrilled with the idea that had come to him. He was
sure the two partners in crime were discussing himself and MacDonald--and
Joanne. To hear what they were saying, to discover their plot, would be
three quarters of the fight won, if it came to a fight. The open door was
an inspiration.

Swiftly and silently he went to the rear of the house. He tried the door
and found it unlocked. Softly he opened it, swinging it inward an inch at
a time, and scarcely breathing as he entered. It was dark, and there was a
second closed door ahead of him. From beyond that he heard voices. He
closed the outer door so that he would not be betrayed by a current of air
or a sound from out of the night. Then, even more cautiously and slowly, he
began to open the second door.

An inch at first, then two inches, three inches--a foot--he worked the door
inward. There was no light in this second room, and he lay close to the
floor, head and shoulders thrust well in. Through the third and open door
he saw Quade and Culver Rann. Rann was laughing softly as he lighted a
fresh cigar. His voice was quiet and good humoured, but filled with a
banter which it was evident Quade was not appreciating.

"You amaze me," Rann was saying. "You amaze me utterly. You've gone
mad--mad as a rock-rabbit, Quade! Do you mean to tell me you're on the
square when you offer to turn over a half of your share in the gold if I
help you to get this woman?"

"I do," replied Quade thickly. "I mean just that! And we'll put it down in
black an' white--here, now. You fix the papers, same as any other deal, and
I'll sign!"

For a moment Culver Rann did not reply. He leaned back in his chair, thrust
the thumbs of his white hands in his vest, and sent a cloud of smoke above
his head. Then he looked at Quade, a gleam of humour in his eyes.

"Nothing like a woman for turning a man's head soft," he chuckled. "Nothing
in the world like it, 'pon my word, Quade. First it was DeBar. I don't
believe we'd got him if he hadn't seen Marie riding her bear. Marie and
her curls and her silk tights, Quade--s'elp me, it wouldn't have surprised
me so much if you'd fallen in love with _her!_ And over this other woman
you're as mad as Joe is over Marie. At first sight he was ready to sell his
soul for her. So--I gave Marie to him. And now, for some other woman,
you're just as anxious to surrender a half of your share of what we've
bought through Marie. Good heaven, man, if you were in love with Marie----"

"Damn Marie!" growled Quade. "I know the time when you were bugs over her
yourself, Rann. It wasn't so long ago. If I'd looked at her then----"

"Of course, not then," interrupted Rann smilingly. "That would have been
impolite, Quade, and not at all in agreement with the spirit of our
brotherly partnership. And, you must admit, Marie is a devilish
good-looking girl. I've surrendered her only for a brief spell to DeBar.
After he has taken us to the gold--why, the poor idiot will probably have
been sufficiently happy to----"

He paused, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders.

"--go into cold storage," finished Quade.

"Exactly."

Again Quade leaned over the table, and for a moment there was silence, a
silence in which Aldous thought the pounding of his heart must betray him.
He lay motionless on the floor. The nails of his fingers dug into the bare
wood. Under the palm of his right hand lay his automatic.

Then Quade spoke. There must have been more in his face than was spoken in
his words, for Culver Rann took the cigar from between his lips, and a
light that was deadly serious slowly filled his eyes.

"Rann, we'll talk business!" Quade's voice was harsh, deep, and quivering.
"I want this woman. I may be a fool, but I'm going to have her. I might get
her alone, but we've always done things together--an' so I made you that
proposition. It ain't a hard job. It's one of the easiest jobs we ever had.
Only that fool of a writer is in the way--an' he's got to go anyway. We've
got to get rid of him on account of the gold, him an' MacDonald. We've got
that planned. An' I've showed you how we can get the woman, an' no one ever
know. Are you in on this with me?"

Culver Rann's reply was as quick and sharp as a pistol shot.

"I am."

For another moment there was silence. Then Quade asked:

"Any need of writin', Culver?"

"No. There can't be a written agreement in this deal because--it's
dangerous. There won't be much said about old MacDonald. But questions, a
good many of them, will be asked about this man Aldous. As for the
woman----" Rann shrugged his shoulders with a sinister smile. "She will
disappear like the others," he finished. "No one will ever get on to that.
If she doesn't make a pal like Marie--after a time, why----"

Again Aldous saw that peculiar shrug of his shoulders.

Quade's head nodded on his thick neck.

"Of course, I agree to that," he said. "After a time. But most of 'em have
come over, ain't they, Culver? Eh? Most of 'em have," he chuckled coarsely.
"When you see her you won't call me a fool for going dippy over her,
Culver. And she'll come round all right after she's gone through what we've
got planned for her. I'll make a pal of her!"

In that moment, as he listened to the gloating passion and triumph in
Quade's brutal voice, something broke in the brain of John Aldous. It
filled him with a fire that in an instant had devoured every thought or
plan he had made, and in this madness he was consumed by a single
desire--the desire to kill. And yet, as this conflagration surged through
him, it did not blind or excite him. It did not make him leap forth in
animal rage. It was something more terrible. He rose so quietly that the
others did not see or hear him in the dark outer room. They did not hear
the slight metallic click of the safety on his pistol.

For the space of a breath he stood and looked at them. He no longer sensed
the words Quade was uttering. He was going in coolly and calmly to kill
them. There was something disagreeable in the flashing thought that he
might kill them from where he stood. He would not fire from the dark. He
wanted to experience the exquisite sensation of that one first moment when
they would writhe back from him, and see in him the presence of death. He
would give them that one moment of life--just that one. Then he would kill.

With his pistol ready in his hand he stepped out into the lighted room.

"Good evening, gentlemen!" he said.




CHAPTER XIII


For a space of perhaps twenty seconds after John Aldous announced himself
there was no visible sign of life on the part of either Quade or Culver
Rann. The latter sat stunned. Not the movement of a finger broke the
stonelike immobility of his attitude. His eyes were like two dark coals
gazing steadily as a serpent's over Quade's hunched shoulders and bowed
head. Quade seemed as if frozen on the point of speaking to Rann. One hand
was still poised a foot above the table. It was he who broke the tense and
lifeless tableau.

Slowly, almost as slowly as Aldous had opened the door, Quade turned his
head, and stared into the coldly smiling face of the man whom he had
plotted to kill, and saw the gleaming pistol in his hand. A curious look
overcame his pouchy face, a look not altogether of terror--but of shock. He
knew Aldous had heard. He accepted in an instant, and perceptibly, the
significance of the pistol in his hand. But Culver Rann sat like a rock.
His face expressed nothing. Not for the smallest part of a second had he
betrayed any emotion that might be throbbing within him. In spite of
himself Aldous admired the man's unflinching nerve.

"Good evening, gentlemen!" he repeated.

Then Rann leaned slowly forward over the table. One hand rose to his
moustache. It was his right hand. The other was invisible. Quade pulled
himself together and stepped to the end of the table, his two empty hands
in front of him. Aldous, still smiling, faced Rann's glittering eyes and
covered him with his automatic. Culver Rann twisted the end of his
moustache, and smiled back.

"Well?" he said. "Is it checkmate?"

"It is," replied Aldous. "I've promised you scoundrels one minute of life.
I guess that minute is about up."

The last word was scarcely out of his mouth when the room was in
darkness--a darkness so complete and sudden that for an instant his hand
faltered, and in that instant he heard the overturning of a chair and the
falling of a body. Twice his automatic sent a lightning-flash of fire where
Culver Rann had sat; twice it spat threadlike ribbons of flame through the
blackness where Quade had stood. He knew what had happened, and also what
to expect if he lost out now. The curiously shaped iron lamp had concealed
an electric bulb, and Rann had turned off the switch-key under the table.
He had no further time to think. An object came hurtling through the thick
gloom and fell with terrific force on his outstretched pistol arm. His
automatic flew from his hand and struck against the wall. Unarmed, he
sprang back toward the open door--full into the arms of Quade!

Aldous knew that it was Quade and not Culver Rann, and he struck out with
all the force he could gather in a short-arm blow. His fist landed against
Quade's thick neck. Again and again he struck, and Quade's grip loosened.
In another moment he would have reached the door if Rann had not caught him
from behind. Never had Aldous felt the clutch of hands like those of the
womanish hands of Culver Rann. It was as if sinuous fingers of steel were
burying themselves in his flesh. Before they found his throat he flung
himself backward with all his weight, and with a tremendous effort freed
himself.

Both Quade and Culver Rann now stood between him and the door. He could
hear Quade's deep, panting breath. Rann, as before, was silent as death.
Then he heard the door close. A key clicked in the lock. He was trapped.

"Turn on the light, Billy," he heard Rann say in a quiet, unexcited voice.
"We've got this house-breaker cornered, and he's lost his gun. Turn on the
light--and I'll make one shot do the business!"

Aldous heard Quade moving, but he was not coming toward the table.
Somewhere in the room was another switch connected with the iron lamp, and
Aldous felt a curious chill shoot up his spine. Without seeing through that
pitch darkness of the room he sensed the fact that Culver Rann was standing
with his back against the locked door, a revolver in his hand. And he knew
that Quade, feeling his way along the wall, held a revolver in his hand.
Men like these two did not go unarmed. The instant the light was turned on
they would do their work. As he stood, silent as Culver Rann, he realized
the tables were turned. In that moment's madness roused by Quade's gloating
assurance of possessing Joanne he had revealed himself like a fool, and now
he was about to reap the whirlwind of his folly. Deliberately he had given
himself up to his enemies. They, too, would be fools if they allowed him to
escape alive.

He heard Quade stop. His thick hand was fumbling along the wall. Aldous
guessed that he was feeling for the switch. He almost fancied he could see
Rann's revolver levelled at him through the darkness. In that thrilling
moment his mind worked with the swiftness of a powder flash. One of his
hands touched the edge of the desk-table, and he knew that he was standing
directly opposite the curtained window, perhaps six feet from it. If he
flung himself through the window the curtain would save him from being cut
to pieces.

No sooner had the idea of escape come to him than he had acted. A flood of
light filled the room as his body crashed through the glass. He heard a
cry--a single shot--as he struck the ground. He gathered himself up and ran
swiftly. Fifty yards away he stopped, and looked back. Quade and Rann were
in the window. Then they disappeared, and a moment later the room was again
in gloom.

For a second time Aldous hurried in the direction of MacDonald's camp. He
knew that, in spite of the protecting curtain, the glass had cut him. He
felt the warm blood dripping over his face; both hands were wet with it,
The arm on which he had received the blow from the unseen object in the
room gave him considerable pain, and he had slightly sprained an ankle in
his leap through the window, so that he limped a little. But his mind was
clear--so clear that in the face of his physical discomfort he caught
himself laughing once or twice as he made his way along the trail.

Aldous was not of an ordinary type. To a curious and superlative degree he
could appreciate a defeat as well as a triumph. His adventures had been a
part of a life in which he had not always expected to win, and in
to-night's game he admitted that he had been hopelessly and ridiculously
beaten. Tragedy, to him, was a first cousin of comedy; to-night he had set
out to kill, and, instead of killing, he had run like a jack-rabbit for
cover. Also, in that same half-hour Rann and Quade had been sure of him,
and he had given them the surprise of their lives by his catapultic
disappearance through the window. There was something ludicrous about it
all--something that, to him, at least, had turned a possible tragedy into a
very good comedy-drama.

Nor was Aldous blind to the fact that he had made an utter fool of himself,
and that the consequences of his indiscretion might prove extremely
serious. Had he listened to the conspirators without betraying himself he
would have possessed an important advantage over them. The knowledge he had
gained from overhearing their conversation would have made it comparatively
easy for MacDonald and him to strike them a perhaps fatal blow through the
half-breed DeBar. As the situation stood now, he figured that Quade and
Culver Rann held the advantage. Whatever they had planned to do they would
put into quick execution. They would not lose a minute.

It was not for himself that Aldous feared. Neither did he fear for Joanne.
Every drop of red fighting blood in him was ready for further action, and
he was determined that Quade should find no opportunity of accomplishing
any scheme he might have against Joanne's person. On the other hand, unless
they could head off DeBar, he believed that Culver Rann's chances of
reaching the gold ahead of them would grow better with the passing of each
hour. To protect Joanne from Quade he must lose no time. MacDonald would
be in the same predicament, while Rann, assisted by as many rascals of his
own colour as he chose to take with him, would be free to carry out the
other part of the conspirators' plans.

The longer he thought of the mess he had stirred up the more roundly Aldous
cursed his imprudence. And this mess, as he viewed it in these cooler
moments, was even less disturbing than the thought of what might have
happened had he succeeded in his intention of killing both Quade and Rann.
Twenty times as he made his way through the darkness toward MacDonald's
camp he told himself that he must have been mad. To have killed Rann or
Quade in self-defence, or in open fight, would have been playing the game
with a shadow of mountain law behind it. But he had invaded Rann's home.
Had he killed them he would have had but little more excuse than a
house-breaker or a suspicious husband might have had. Tête Jaune would not
countenance cold-blooded shooting, even of criminals. He should have taken
old Donald's advice and waited until they were in the mountains. An
unpleasant chill ran through him as he thought of the narrowness of his
double escape.

To his surprise, John Aldous found MacDonald awake when he arrived at the
camp in the thickly timbered coulee. He was preparing a midnight cup of
coffee over a fire that was burning cheerfully between two big rocks.
Purposely Aldous stepped out into the full illumination of it. The old
hunter looked up. For a moment he stared into the blood-smeared face of his
friend; then he sprang to his feet, and caught him by the arm.

"Yes, I got it," nodded Aldous cheerfully. "I went out for it, Mac, and I
got it! Get out your emergency kit, will you? I rather fancy I need a
little patching up."

MacDonald uttered not a word. From the balsam lean-to he brought out a
small rubber bag and a towel. Into a canvas wash-basin he then turned a
half pail of cold water, and Aldous got on his knees beside this. Not once
did the old mountaineer speak while he was washing the blood from Aldous'
face and hands. There was a shallow two-inch cut in his forehead, two
deeper ones in his right cheek, and a gouge in his chin. There were a dozen
cuts on his hands, none of them serious. Before he had finished MacDonald
had used two thirds of a roll of court-plaster.

Then he spoke.

"You can soak them off in the morning," he said. "If you don't, the lady'll
think yo're a red Indian on the warpath. Now, yo' fool, what have yo' gone
an' done?"

Aldous told him what had happened, and before MacDonald could utter an
expression of his feelings he admitted that he was an inexcusable idiot and
that nothing MacDonald might say could drive that fact deeper home.

"If I'd come out

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