In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.
The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.
The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."
In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.
The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."
A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength, the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the others away--everybody--but her."
O papa, papa! exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.
Never mind, daughter, came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."
As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue, seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."
When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."
Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.
After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow. Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's _him_ you want--and you--you have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you. But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his evil life.
The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him, livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.
With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.
From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few remaining revelers.
* * * * *
When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.
Well, boy, he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see them again, isn't it?"
Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist, declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar for company, to sit for a while on the porch.
Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks, he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with Sibyl Andres in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering, hoping, fearing.
Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care. In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting, while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him, her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed to call to the best that was in him.
So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life, how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.
In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life, profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.
But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andres could come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days of his testing were so near at hand.
It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.
Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.
There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog. Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.
Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away, and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note, explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the writing material before her, and disappeared.
Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly, in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil, appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room, nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle, she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her face betraying the agony of her mind.
With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable. She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner, filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she could, the things she had come to say.
Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her. She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.
In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly drew aside the curtain.
The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andres.
With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her. Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture. But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid. As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had herself perfectly in hand.
Sibyl Andres drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I thought--" and would have fled.
But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do, Miss Andres; come in."
She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched. Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.
Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever model--quite the best he has ever had."
The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though, that it is really a splendid portrait."
Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child. "Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very little of pictures."
Perhaps you are right, returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."
Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"
Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."
Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of artists and their methods."
To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King, this summer, in the mountains."
Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude, "May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andres?"
Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine.
An artist, said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service, you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."
The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading, frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.
The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is _so_ careless. I told him he should be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he laughed at me. He said that it was your _innocence_ that he wanted to paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished." She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic. "He really _has_ caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."
When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"
No, faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always been covered when I have been in the studio."
Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait. "And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for which you posed was finished?"
The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she answered, falteringly, "Yes."
You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not more careful. She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.
I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine, faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is wrong for me to come here?"
Surely, Miss Andres, you must understand what I mean.
No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please.
Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so often, has led people to say unpleasant things."
But what do people say? persisted Sibyl.
The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr. King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."
Sibyl Andres shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry, she buried her face in her hands.
The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the pretext that she is a model."
As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss Andres. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."
The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"
When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andres sat for a little while before her portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again, she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know why.
Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest of my story would not have happened.
But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andres held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.
Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.
Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had left for him.
As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame. When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch. "Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."
For which, returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."
As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that signalized the approach of a friend.
Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went quicklv forward to meet her.
Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion. That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter from Sibyl. The girl was gone.
As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.
Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he asked, when he could speak.
The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."
And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you now to reassure you. I love her.
Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity, but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness and the purity and strength of his passion.
Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding reverently--"as your mother would be glad."
I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King, said Myra Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too, am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl, my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.
It's clear enough what has sent her away, growled Conrad Lagrange, with a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think there's no doubt as to where she's gone."
You mean the mountains? asked Myra Willard, quickly.
Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think! Where else _would_ she go?
She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road, hasn't she, Miss Willard? asked Aaron King.
Yes. I'll run over there at once.
Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."
Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.
That will put her at Brian's by nine, said the novelist.
And I will arrive there about the same time, added Aaron King, eagerly. "It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour harder."
With an automobile you could overtake her, said Myra Willard.
I know, returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back together."
He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.
By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on his ride, it was six o'clock.
Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then, telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first plan.
But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely. Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs. Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.
Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet. The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andres, he lived again that hour when his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had, himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.
It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive, now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat with Sibyl Andres that day when she had tried to make him see the train that had brought him to Fairlands.
He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing; when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself, had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known, when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?
It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his. And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.
It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees, the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate. Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall form of Brian Oakley.
Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice.
The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is left of me."
Aaron King, by all that's holy! cried the Ranger, coming quickly down the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of night?"
Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"
Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."
The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not been here to-day?"
She has not been here, returned the officer, coolly.
Good God! exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.
Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder. "Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to find Sibyl here?"
When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows. But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."
The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.
The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.
When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the canyon?"
No, replied the other. "Why?"
A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down. Where did the Doctor pass you?
He didn't pass me.
What? said the Ranger, sharply.
No one passed me after I left Fairlands.
Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or something, or he would have passed the Station before he did.
It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.
We don't want to start any excitement, said the officer, as they drew rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."
It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.
The baby is better, he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon. Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut across to Carleton's."
Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the deserted place.
It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer. Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you; it's Oakley."
A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian? What's up?"
Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?
Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp. What's the matter?
Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made known the identity of his companion.
When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto' going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here you'd a met it."
Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk? asked the officer.
Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up to her old home do you, Brian?
She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on the chance.
You'll stop in on your way back? called the rancher, as the two horsemen moved away.
Sure, answered the Ranger.
An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.
Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house. Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons, and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.
I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that we'd better be ready to ride when you got back, said the mountain ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his household in command of the Ranger.
The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains. While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."
Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of the night.
The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through the window, his desk.
The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch. "Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.
The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three Company men will be up here at daybreak."
Good boy, said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.
The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know. You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait.
Yes, sir, came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished into the night.
While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."
Never mind about my folks, Brian, returned the rancher as he mounted. "You know they'll be on the job."
You bet I know, Henry, came the answer as the mountaineer rode away. Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."
When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more that can be done, until daylight."
Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words that he was not tired.
You must rest, man, said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible, to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us. Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."
As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it _did_ come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road, to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"
I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know where she was going.
Who saw her last?
I think Mrs. Taine did.
The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs. Taine and Sibyl in his studio.
Hu-m-m, said the other.
Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know, said the artist.
Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said. The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and what for."
Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking, thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile, some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest. While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call was a relief.
As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went that far anyway."
At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light, the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and, turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care, Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.
Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."
With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals. There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness. Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on, afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond to their wills.
There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl Andres, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andres' death. When the officer and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.
Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out of sight in the mountain wilderness.
A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley, heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself, and be ready for whatever comes next."
He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."
All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party, and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point where they stood.
Boys, he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers. Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena trail to the fire-break."
While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure, seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro, he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours that she had spent there with him?
As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her, that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse, leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night! Was it only last night?
Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there, for a look around."
At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron King and Sibyl Andres had eaten their lunch.
We'll be here some time, said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."
With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside him.
They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"
The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to the trail and follow the break the other way."
In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below, across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek, the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old, weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard.
But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra? asked the Ranger, when he had told them that his day's work was without results.
Listen, Mr. Oakley, returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament. Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did. If she _is_ alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."
The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"
Yes, answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."
When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch, the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now, the girl may be just wandering around. If she _is_, the boys will pick her up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If _that's_ it, we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."
The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting, and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him. He had come, now, to help in the search.
Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.
Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that could scarcely be called sleep.
At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a camp-fire's light, came in.
All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.
Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen. The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been left to wander at will.
Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the result of the day's work.
The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead or--I would know it."
In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by her words, to hope.
The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself, had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.
When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion, steadily.
Is there nothing that I can do, Brian? returned the young man, hopelessly. "God, man! I _must_ do something! I _must_, I tell you!"
Steady, old boy, steady, returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."
Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right, Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of course."
The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle. Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.
The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"
The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."
Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"
The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I hesitate to assign you to the position."
The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face. Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I understand. You can depend upon me."
Good boy! came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will stay over at Pine Glen."
Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb, Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried not to think.
It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied, watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.
Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause. For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order: --- -- - - -- ---.
At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another. With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to be the orange groves about Fairlands.
Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do? What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing. Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every possibility, and letting nothing _nothing_, get away from me." Instantly, he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could accomplish nothing.
Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock. Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.
Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home. Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and what was left of his lunch.
There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times, he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff, clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush, found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was gone.
On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his beat.
In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and hard.
Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs. Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.
Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then, as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and another and then--
The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a smaller, lighter foot.
For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense, quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.
* * * * *
It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.
Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to find the artist.
At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.
Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man in the car.
Jack, said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this, with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."
A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in opposite directions.
Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.
A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on the trail.
* * * * *
High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range, Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.
When Sibyl Andres left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian Oakley.
Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life, the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the race.
Love had come to Sibyl Andres, not as it comes to those girls who, in the hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.
Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their children?
The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl Andres possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened, dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.
It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents, that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.
The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood. It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.
In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once. Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would understand.
Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.
As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.
It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently, majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and, somehow, all would be well.
The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor, to see some one of the mountain folk.
As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them, and stopped; its engine still running.
Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very nicely."
But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.
It is Miss Andres, is it not? He spoke as though he was known to her; and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his face, as she answered.
Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine, had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.
Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled, silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands, the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you. I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good to wear yourself out."
Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.
The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All right there?"
All right, sir, gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine. An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an "auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.
The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength; watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car was effectually hidden.
Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.
At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.
The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she were in her own home."
Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do anything else."
Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.
Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder, asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.
Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it easier for him to do his master's bidding.
Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine, where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.
Oh, thank you, she said quietly. "That is so much better."
I'm sorry that I had to do it, he returned, as he unbound her arms. "There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for you."
The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said. "But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"
No, returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a long road ahead. You must rest."
Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.
As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where you are taking me?"
It's a long road, Miss Andres. We'll be there to-morrow night, he answered reluctantly.
Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at the end of our journey?"
The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andres; there'll he just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear _me_."
I am not at all afraid of you, she returned gently. "But I am--" she hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."
The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."
For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail, toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way, known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.
As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face. It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent. In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness, as though there were memories that could not be escaped.
We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andres, he said gravely.
I'm so hungry, she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"
He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."
You seem very familiar with the country, she said, moving easily toward the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with the pack of supplies.
I am, he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the way, Miss Andres,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good. It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."
The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."
I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear at once, he answered. "Breakfast is ready."
The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her, against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.
The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she realized toward accomplishing her purpose.
During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation, quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl venture to approach dangerous ground.
Really, she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"
The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded with somber thought.
I beg your pardon, she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."
My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andres, he said deliberately. "But it is not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from you."
Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep the trust."
By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek Canyon.
They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that first day of their search.
With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face grow dark with anger. She did not speak.
They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."
Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then, slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again, the girl understood and made no comment.
Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."
Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge, where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand, sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl, enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andres?"
Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered. "You need not fear for me."
Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the opposite wall of the gorge.
It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.
The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread for her upon the ground.
As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you, he said, regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for you. For me--"
Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage, and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.
While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily; which won an admiring comment from her captor.
The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andres, for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here, until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door. You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good night."
Before she could answer, he was gone.
A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she called.
Yes, Miss Andres, came, instantly, out of the darkness.
Please come into the cabin.
There was no answer.
It will be cold out there. Please come inside.
Thank you, Miss Andres; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to sleep.
But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are comfortable.
The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andres, that you would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"
No, she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."
But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?" he asked curiously.
Because, she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."
The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection with myself for many a year, Miss Andres. You have little reason for using it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."
Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You _are_ a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard day.
God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andres, the man said brokenly. "But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he added savagely, "don't you see that I--I _can't?_ Bar your door, please, and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your confidence in me, is wasted."
He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.
The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andres that the man who said his name was Henry Marston had not slept.
All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand; but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her. What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for submitting?
Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray that her companion might be given strength.
The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.
Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you, Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I would rather stay."
You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to make trouble for me? he asked.
It wouldn't be so terrible, she answered, "and I would like to do something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to me. There's nothing else I _can_ do, is there?"
The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment. Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned away.
At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andres, you shall not stay in the cabin to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."
At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially concealed as they were, the distance was too great.
When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting, fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished, gazing into the fire.
The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andres, I would like to ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to myself."
She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.
What is it, Mr. Marston?
I will put it in the form of a story, he answered. Then, after a wait of some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old story, Miss Andres; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man, with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born. He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.
"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andres. He was twenty-five when he went in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten years,--ten years,--Miss Andres, the man watched and prayed for a chance to escape. Then he got away. He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish, now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly, useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go back.
" "Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a _man_. Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his savior?""
"No, said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man who had escaped, loved his friend."
But listen, said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder of your life.'
Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict obeyed his master?
The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think, Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his freedom. What was it the man wanted?"
Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.
The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.
At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andres?"
I think, she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was that the man wanted the convict to do."
I will go on with the story, said the other.
"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying, only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone, because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the man whom he could send back to prison to help him. The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must remember, Miss Andres. He knew that this man was able to give his wife everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she should remain under the convict's protection until she _was_ his wife, and that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony."" The man paused.
"When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict obeyed his master?"
No, said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the girl?"
I know what he would have done in that case, the other answered with conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his freedom at such a price."
The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"
For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in two, falling in the ashes.
What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl? persisted Sibyl.
Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would die, Miss Andres. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."
The girl uttered a low cry.
The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss Andres. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world, she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he choose, Miss Andres? The convict is past deciding for himself."
The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr. Marston, I do not know."
A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising, he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until she heard the door close.
* * * * *
In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country, Sibyl Andres sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high, wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a man strove to know right from wrong.
Neither Sibyl Andres nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.
Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.
The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick, do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."
She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the heavy underbrush.
A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle under his arm.
The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with, "Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"
Miss Andres is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it was you.
Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry. Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."
You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose? said the convict.
Yes, I brought what I could, Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it back by noon, to-morrow."
The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear. The convict spoke again.
What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?
Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must start at once. You say Miss Andres is in the cabin? He turned toward the door.
But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say, before I go."
Well, out with it.
You are not going to forget your promise to me?
Certainly not, George. You are safe.
I mean regarding Miss Andres.
Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?
Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife.
James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back. You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"
If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andres with me, answered the convict, simply.
James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"
Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you _should_ forget your promise--
Well, what would you do if I should forget?
The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill you, Mr. Rutlidge."
James Rutlidge did not reply.
Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.
Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"
You may come out now, please, Miss Andres.
As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you, Mr. Marston. I heard."
I meant you to hear, he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andres. I will be back to-morrow noon."
He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.
Sibyl Andres faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid, now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.
[Illustration: Still she did not speak.]
James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction. "Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."
She made no reply.
I am frightfully hungry--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for breakfast."
She stepped out, and moved away from the door.
With another laugh, he entered the cabin.
Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.
She did not speak.
You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?
Still she did not speak.
He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know. Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."
All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how could you do such a thing?"
His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you. Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a certainty; then you will go East with me."
But you cannot do a thing so horrible! she exclaimed "I would tell my story to the first people we met."
He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the time comes to go."
Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could you--oh how could you! Why, why--"
Why! he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you! Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"
He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror. Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.
At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little opening.
Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.
The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.
What are you doing here? demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the matter?"
Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak.
Well, what are you carrying that rifle for? said Rutlidge, harshly, with an oath.
There may be others near enough to hear a shot, answered the convict. "Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not agree to commit murder for you."
Where did you see him?
A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the supply point.
Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he set out at a run.
The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andres, Miss Andres, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"
Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet. "You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."
An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.
But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't, don't leave me again."
The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andres, can you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."
* * * * *
The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as Mrs. Taine was insane.
What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?
James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life. Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andres, James Rutlidge was insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the same--the end sought is identical.
As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I did not agree to commit murder for you."
Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the thought of _taking_ life--he was trained to consider its _perversion_. The heroes in _his_ fiction did not _kill_ men--they _betrayed_ women. The heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.
But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andres to be taken from him--to face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.
While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew, the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must come.
Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped. There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking, thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.
A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.
When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak, after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he knew must lead him to Sibyl Andres.
He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake of the girl he loved, he went on.
Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail, following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."
At the word, Aaron King halted.
A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.
In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved toward the weapon that hung at his hip.
Don't do that, said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."
The other stood still.
James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me, King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are following leads to Sibyl Andres. You had her all summer. I've got her now. If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll meet on the ledge there."
James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on the night of his death, boasted that he was game.
Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle behind the rock.
Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats. For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist, in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.
It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other, each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately, they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.
As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers, warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers, they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier, but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut, muscular firmness.
They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and clenched teeth they wrestled.
James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going. Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him. James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage triumph.
They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing the other downward and back.
At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andres reached the cliff. With a cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.
Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.
With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called, "Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"
The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.
Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr. Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."
Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered, "Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle to his shoulder.
Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for the last triumphant effort.
The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again, "Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of the rifle.
James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second, his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron King lay still.
The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right, presently, Miss Andres. I'll fetch his coat and hat."
Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.
Listen, Miss Andres, said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances. Good-by."
From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.
Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for me?"
A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like some hunted creature of the wilderness.
Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion of her woman heart, Sibyl Andres bent over the unconscious object of her love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes; she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.
In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.
As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron, Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.
He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl, Sibyl."
She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr. King."
Am I dreaming, again? he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling to command his senses.
No, Mr. King, she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."
Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued, "I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a fight? Or is that part of my dream?"
No, she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."
And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?
Yes.
Then where-- with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God! Sibyl--Miss Andres, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but sank back, overcome with emotion.
The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his mind and forced him to command himself.
Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you must!
Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"
Yes, she answered.
And I did not--I did not--?
No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for the shot that you heard.
And Rutlidge is--?
He is dead, she answered simply.
But who--?
Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs. Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before. "And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin. There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."
But first, he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you are ready to hear, now."
She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff, understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."
And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell you? he said.
Yes, she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."
* * * * *
At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later, with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.
Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the night before, the convict had told that girl his story.
Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well, then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night," she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice, he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she crept back to her couch.
* * * * *
All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andres and Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.
* * * * *
At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.
When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and, shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of the gorge on the other side.
Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept like a child as he held the girl in his arms.
When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they, guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below there, a bit."
As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"
Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes, smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"
You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that might lead to his capture.
God bless you, child, answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official reports on the matter."
And you're not going to find which way he went?
Listen, Sibyl, said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions. In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."
When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can, solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."
A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.
It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.