The Rainbow Trail

by Zane Grey

  XIII. THE STORY OF SURPRISE VALLEY

  "... Oh, I remember so well! Even now I dream of it sometimes. I hearthe roll and crash of falling rock--like thunder.... We rode and rode.Then the horses fell. Uncle Jim took me in his arms and started up thecliff. Mother Jane climbed close after us. They kept looking back. Downthere in the gray valley came the Mormons. I see the first one now.He rode a white horse. That was Tull. Oh, I remember so well! And I wasfive or six years old.

  "We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out. Thenthere was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cutsteps and the great, red, ruined walls. I looked down over Uncle Jim'sshoulder. I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up. Uncle Jim's bloodspotted the trail. He reached a flat place at the top and fell with me.Mother Jane crawled up to us.

  "Then she cried out and pointed. Tull was 'way below, climbing thetrail. His men came behind him. Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock andleaned against it. There was a bloody hole in his hand. He pushedthe rock. It rolled down, banging the loose walls. They crashed andcrashed--then all was terrible thunder and red smoke. I couldn't hear--Icouldn't see.

  "Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into abeautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone overthe entrance.

  "I don't remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, longtime. I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is nowin my dreams. I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother Jane,learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.

  "But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut infor ever. Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long. Iwas glad. The Mormons would never get me. I was seven or eight years oldthen. From that time all is clear in my mind.

  "Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros, sowe had a good start to begin life there. He had killed off the wildcatsand kept the coyotes out, so the rabbits and quail multiplied till therewere thousands of them. We raised corn and fruit, and stored what wedidn't use. Mother Jane taught me to read and write with the soft redstone that marked well on the walls.

  "The years passed. We kept track of time pretty well. Uncle Jim's hairturned white and Mother Jane grew gray. Every day was like the onebefore. Mother Jane cried sometimes and Uncle Jim was sad because theycould never be able to get me out of the valley. It was long before theystopped looking and listening for some one. Venters would come back,Uncle Jim always said. But Mother Jane did not think so.

  "I loved Surprise Valley. I wanted to stay there always. I rememberedCottonwoods, how the children there hated me, and I didn't want to goback. The only unhappy times I ever had in the valley were when Ring andWhitie, my dogs, grew old and died. I roamed the valley. I climbed toevery nook upon the mossy ledges. I learned to run up the steep cliffs.I could almost stick on the straight walls. Mother Jane called me a wildgirl. We had put away the clothes we wore when we got there, to savethem, and we made clothes of skins. I always laughed when I thought ofmy little dress--how I grew out of it. I think Uncle Jim and Mother Janetalked less as the years went by. And after I'd learned all she couldteach me we didn't talk much. I used to scream into the caves just tohear my voice, and the echoes would frighten me.

  "The older I grew the more I was alone. I was always running round thevalley. I would climb to a high place and sit there for hours,doing nothing. I just watched and listened. I used to stay in thecliff-dwellers' caves and wonder about them. I loved to be out in thewind. And my happiest time was in the summer storms with the thunderechoes under the walls. At evening it was such a quiet place--afterthe night bird's cry, no sound. The quiet made me sad but I loved it. Iloved to watch the stars as I lay awake.

  "So it was beautiful and happy for me there till--till...

  "Two years or more ago there was a bad storm, and one of the great wallscaved. The walls were always weathering, slipping. Many and many a timehave I heard the rumble of an avalanche, but most of them were in othercanyon. This slide in the valley made it possible, Uncle Jim said,for men to get down into the valley. But we could not climb out unlesshelped from above. Uncle Jim never rested well after that. But it neverworried me.

  "One day, over a year ago, while I was across the valley, I heardstrange shouts, and then screams. I ran to our camp. I came upon menwith ropes and guns. Uncle Jim was tied, and a rope was round his neck.Mother Jane was lying on the ground. I thought she was dead until Iheard her moan. I was not afraid. I screamed and flew at Uncle Jim totear the ropes off him. The men held me back. They called me a prettycat. Then they talked together, and some were for hanging Lassiter--thatwas the first time I ever knew any name for him but Uncle Jim--and somewere for leaving him in the valley. Finally they decided to hang him.But Mother Jane pleaded so and I screamed and fought so that they leftoff. Then they went away and we saw them climb out of the valley.

  "Uncle Jim said they were Mormons, and some among them had been born inCottonwoods. I was not told why they had such a terrible hate for him.He said they would come back and kill him. Uncle Jim had no guns tofight with.

  "We watched and watched. In five days they did come back, with more men,and some of them wore black masks. They came to our cave with ropes andguns. One was tall. He had a cruel voice. The others ran to obey him. Icould see white hair and sharp eyes behind the mask. The men caught meand brought me before him.

  "He said Lassiter had killed many Mormons. He said Lassiter had killedhis father and should be hanged. But Lassiter would be let live andMother Jane could stay with him, both prisoners there in the valley, ifI would marry the Mormon. I must marry him, accept the Mormon faith, andbring up my children as Mormons. If I refused they would hang Lassiter,leave the heretic Jane Withersteen alone in the valley, and take me andbreak me to their rule.

  "I agreed. But Mother Jane absolutely forbade me to marry him. Then theMormons took me away. It nearly killed me to leave Uncle Jim and MotherJane. I was carried and lifted out of the valley, and rode a long wayon a horse. They brought me here, to the cabin where I live, and I havenever been away except that--that time--to--Stonebridge. Only little bylittle did I learn my position. Bishop Kane was kind, but stern, becauseI could not be quick to learn the faith.

  "I am not a sealed wife. But they're trying to make me one. The masterMormon--he visited me often--at night--till lately. He threatened me. Henever told me a name--except Saint George. I don't--know him--except hisvoice. I never--saw his face--in the light!"

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  Fay Larkin ended her story. Toward its close Shefford had growninvoluntarily restless, and when her last tragic whisper ceased all hisbody seemed shaken with a terrible violence of his joy. He strode to andfro in the dark shadow of the stone. The receding blood left him cold,with a pricking, sickening sensation over his body, but there seemedto be an overwhelming tide accumulating deep in his breast--a tide ofpassion and pain. He dominated the passion, but the ache remained. Andhe returned to the quiet figure on the stone.

  "Fay Larkin!" he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief that the secretwas disclosed. "So you're not a wife!... You're free! Thank Heaven! ButI felt it was sacrifice. I knew there had been a crime. For crime it is.You child! You can't understand what crime. Oh, almost I wish you andJane and Lassiter had never been found. But that's wrong of me. One yearof agony--that shall not ruin your life. Fay, I will take you away."

  "Where?" she whispered.

  "Away from this Mormon country--to the East," he replied, and he spokeof what he had known, of travel, of cities, of people, of happinesspossible for a young girl who had spent all her life hidden between thenarrow walls of a silent, lonely valley--he spoke swiftly and eloquentlytill he lost his breath.

  There was an instant of flashing wonder and joy on her white face, andthen the radiance paled, the glow died. Her soul was the darker for thatone strange, leaping glimpse of a glory not for such as she.

  "I must stay here," she said, shudderingly.r />
  "Fay!--How strange to SAY Fay aloud to YOU!--Fay, do you know the way toSurprise Valley?"

  "I don't know where it is, but I could go straight to it," she replied.

  "Take me there. Show me your beautiful valley. Let me see where you ranand climbed and spent so many lonely years."

  "Ah, how I'd love to! But I dare not. And why should you want me to takeyou? We can run and climb here."

  "I want to--I mean to save Jane Withersteen and Lassiter," he declared.

  She uttered a little cry of pain. "Save them?"

  "Yes, save them. Get them out of the valley, take them out of thecountry, far away where they and YOU--"

  "But I can't go," she wailed. "I'm afraid. I'm bound. It CAN'T bebroken. If I dared--if I tried to go they would catch me. They wouldhang Uncle Jim and leave Mother Jane alone there to starve."

  "Fay, Lassiter and Jane both will starve--at least they will die thereif we do not save them. You have been terribly wronged. You're a slave.You're not a wife."

  "They--said I'll be burned in hell if I don't marry him.... Mother Janenever taught me about God. I don't know. But HE--he said God was there.I dare not break it."

  "Fay, you have been deceived by old men. Let them have their creed. ButYOU mustn't accept it."

  "John, what is God to you?"

  "Dear child, I--I am not sure of that myself," he replied, huskily."When all this trouble is behind us, surely I can help you to understandand you can help me. The fact that you are alive--that Lassiter and Janeare alive--that I shall save you all--that lifts me up. I tell you--FayLarkin will be my salvation."

  "Your words trouble me. Oh, I shall be torn one way and another.... But,John, I daren't run away. I will not tell you where to find Lassiter andMother Jane."

  "I shall find them--I have the Indian. He found you for me. Nas Ta Begawill find Surprise Valley."

  "Nas Ta Bega!... Oh, I remember. There was an Indian with the Mormonswho found us. But he was a Piute."

  "Nas Ta Bega never told me how he learned about you. That he learned wasenough. And, Fay, he will find Surprise Valley. He will save Uncle Jimand Mother Jane."

  Fay's hands clasped Shefford's in strong, trembling pressure; the tearsstreamed down her white cheeks; a tragic and eloquent joy convulsed herface.

  "Oh, my friend, save them! But I can't go.... Let them keep me! Let himkill me!"

  "Him! Fay--he shall not harm you," replied Shefford in passionateearnestness.

  She caught the hand he had struck out with.

  "You talk--you look like Uncle Jim when he spoke of the Mormons," shesaid. "Then I used to be afraid of him. He was so different. John, youmust not do anything about me. Let me be. It's too late. He--and hismen--they would hang you. And I couldn't bear that. I've enough to bearwithout losing my friend. Say you won't watch and wait--for--for him."

  Shefford had to promise her. Like an Indian she gave expression toprimitive feeling, for it certainly never occurred to her that, whateverShefford might do, he was not the kind of man to wait in hiding for anenemy. Fay had faltered through her last speech and was now weak andnervous and frightened. Shefford took her back to the cabin.

  "Fay, don't be distressed," he said. "I won't do anything right away.You can trust me. I won't be rash. I'll consult you before I make amove. I haven't any idea what I could do, anyway.... You must bear up.Why, it looks as if you're sorry I found you."

  "Oh! I'm glad!" she whispered.

  "Then if you're glad you mustn't break down this way again. Suppose someof the women happened to run into us."

  "I won't again. It's only you--you surprised me so. I used to think howI'd like you to know--I wasn't really dead. But now--it's different.It hurts me here. Yet I'm glad--if my being alive makes you--a littlehappier."

  Shefford felt that he had to go then. He could not trust himself anyfurther.

  "Good night, Fay," he said.

  "Good night, John," she whispered. "I promise--to be good to-morrow."

  She was crying softly when he left her. Twice he turned to see the dim,white, slender form against the gloom of the cabin. Then he went onunder the pinyons, blindly down the path, with his heart as heavy aslead. That night as he rolled in his blanket and stretched wearily hefelt that he would never be able to sleep. The wind in the cedars madehim shiver. The great stars seemed relentless, passionless, white eyes,mocking his little destiny and his pain. The huge shadow of the mountainresembled the shadow of the insurmountable barrier between Fay and him.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  Her pitiful, childish promise to be good was in his mind when he wentto her home on the next night. He wondered how she would be, and herealized a desperate need of self-control.

  But that night Fay Larkin was a different girl. In the dark, before shespoke, he felt a difference that afforded him surprise and relief. Hegreeted her as usual. And then it seemed, though not at all clearly,that he was listening to a girl, strangely and unconsciously glad to seehim, who spoke with deeper note in her voice, who talked where alwaysshe had listened, whose sadness was there under an eagerness, a subduedgaiety as new to her, as sweet as it was bewildering. And he respondedwith emotion, so that the hour passed swiftly, and he found himself backin camp, in a kind of dream, unable to remember much of what she hadsaid, sure only of this strange sweetness suddenly come to her.

  Upon the following night, however, he discovered what had wrought thissingular change in Fay Larkin. She loved him and she did not know it.How passionately sweet and sad and painful was that realization forShefford! The hour spent with her then was only a moment.

  He walked under the stars that night and they shed a glorious light uponhim. He tried to think, to plan, but the sweetness of remembered word orlook made mental effort almost impossible. He got as far as the thoughtthat he would do well to drift, to wait till she learned she lovedhim, and then, perhaps, she could be persuaded to let him take her andLassiter and Jane away together.

  And from that night he went at his work and the part he played in thevillage with a zeal and a cunning that left him free to seek Fay when hechose.

  Sometimes in the afternoon, always for a while in the evening, he waswith her. They climbed the walls, and sat upon a lonely height to lookafar; they walked under the stars, and the cedars, and the shadowsof the great cliffs. She had a beautiful mind. Listening to her, heimagined he saw down into beautiful Surprise Valley with all its weirdshadows, its colored walls and painted caves, its golden shafts ofmorning light and the red haze at sunset; and he felt the silence thatmust have been there, and the singing of the wind in the cliffs, and thesweetness and fragrance of the flowers, and the wildness of it all. Lovehad worked a marvelous transformation in this girl who had lived herlife in a canyon. The burden upon her did not weigh heavily. She couldnot have an unhappy thought. She spoke of the village, of her Mormoncompanions, of daily happenings, of Stonebridge, of many things in amatter-of-fact way that showed how little they occupied her mind. Sheeven spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy abstraction. Somethinghad possession of her, something as strong as the nature which haddeveloped her, and in its power she, in her simplicity, was utterlyunconscious, a watching and feeling girl. A strange, witching, radiantbeauty lurked in her smile. And Shefford heard her laugh in his dreams.

  The weeks slipped by. The black mountain took on a white cap of snow;in the early mornings there was ice in the crevices on the heights andfrost in the valley. In the sheltered canyon where sunshine seemedto linger it was warm and pleasant, so that winter did not kill theflowers.

  Shefford waited so long for Fay's awakening that he believed it wouldnever come, and, believing, had not the heart to force it upon her. Thenthere was a growing fear with him. What would Fay Larkin do when sheawakened to the truth? Fay was indeed like that white and fragile lilywhich bloomed in the silent, lonely canyon, but the same nature thathad created it had created her. Would she droop as the lily would in afurnace blast? More than that, he feared a sudden flashing into life ofstren
gth, power, passion, hate. She did not hate yet because she did notyet realize love. She was utterly innocent of any wrong having been doneher. More and more he began to fear, and a foreboding grew upon him.He made up his mind to broach the subject of Surprise Valley and ofescaping with Lassiter and Jane; still, every time he was with Fay thegirl and her beauty and her love were so wonderful that he put off theordeal till the next night. As time flew by he excused his vacillationon the score that winter was not a good time to try to cross the desert.There was no grass for the mustangs, except in well-known valleys, andthese he must shun. Spring would soon come. So the days passed, and heloved Fay more all the time, desperately living out to its limit thesweetness of every moment with her, and paying for his bliss in theincreasing trouble that beset him when once away from her charm.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  One starry night, about ten o'clock, he went, as was his custom, todrink at the spring. Upon his return to the cedars Nas Ta Bega, whoslept under the same tree with him, had arisen, with his blanket hanginghalf off his shoulder.

  "Listen," said the Indian.

  Shefford took one glance at the dark, somber face, with its inscrutableeyes, now so strange and piercing, and then, with a kind of coldexcitement, he faced the way the Indian looked, and listened. But heheard only the soft moan of the night wind in the cedars.

  Nas Ta Bega kept the rigidity of his position for a moment, and thenhe relaxed, and stood at ease. Shefford knew the Indian had made acertainty of what must have been a doubtful sound. And Shefford leanedhis ear to the wind and strained his hearing.

  Then the soft night breeze brought a faint patter--the slow trot ofhorses on a hard trail. Some one was coming into the village at a latehour. Shefford thought of Joe Lake. But Joe lay right behind him, asleepin his blankets. It could not be Withers, for the trader was in Durangoat that time. Shefford thought of Willetts and Shadd.

  "Who's coming?" he asked low of the Indian.

  Nas Ta Bega pointed down the trail without speaking.

  Shefford peered through the white dim haze of starlight and presentlyhe made out moving figures. Horses, with riders--a string ofthem--one--two--three--four--five--and he counted up to eleven. Elevenhorsemen riding into the village! He was amazed, and suddenly keenlyanxious. This visit might be one of Shadd's raids.

  "Shadd's gang!" he whispered.

  "No, Bi Nai," replied Nas Ta Bega, and he drew Shefford farther into theshade of the cedars. His voice, his action, the way he kept a hand onShefford's shoulder, all this told much to the young man.

  Mormons come on a night visit! Shefford realized it with a slight shock.Then swift as a lightning flash he was rent by another shock--one thatbrought cold moisture to his brow and to his heart a flame of hell.

  He was shaking when he sank down to find the support of a log. Likea shadow the Indian silently moved away. Shefford watched the elevenhorses pass the camp, go down the road, to disappear in the village.They vanished, and the soft clip-clops of hoofs died away. There wasnothing left to prove he had not dreamed.

  Nothing to prove it except this sudden terrible demoralization of hisphysical and spiritual being! While he peered out into the valley,toward the black patch of cedars and pinyons that hid the cabins,moments and moments passed, and in them he was gripped with cold andfire.

  Was the Mormon who had abducted Fay--the man with the cruel voice--washe among those eleven horsemen? He might not have been. What a torturinghope! But vain--vain, for inevitably he must be among them. He was therein the cabin already. He had dismounted, tied his horse, had knocked onher door. Did he need to knock? No, he would go in, he would call her inthat cruel voice, and then...

  Shefford pulled a blanket from his bed and covered his cold andtrembling body. He had sunk down off the log, was leaning back upon it.The stars were pale, far off, and the valley seemed unreal. He foundhimself listening--listening with sick and terrible earnestness, tryingto hear against the thrum and beat of his heart, straining to catch asound in all that cold, star-blanched, silent valley. But he could hearno sound. It was as if death held the valley in its perfect silence.How he hated that silence! There ought to have been a million horrible,bellowing demons making the night hideous. Did the stars serenely lookdown upon the lonely cabins of these exiles? Was there no thunderboltto drop down from that dark and looming mountain upon the silent cabinwhere tragedy had entered? In all the world, under the sea, in theabysmal caves, in the vast spaces of the air, there was no such terriblesilence as this. A scream, a long cry, a moan--these were natural toa woman, and why did not one of these sealed wives, why did not FayLarkin, damn this everlasting acquiescent silence? Perhaps she would flyout of her cabin, come running along the path. Shefford peered into thebright patches of starlight and into the shadows of the cedars. But hesaw no moving form in the open, no dim white shape against the gloom.And he heard no sound--not even a whisper of wind in the branchesoverhead.

  Nas Ta Bega returned to the shade of the cedars and, lying down on hisblankets, covered himself and went to sleep. The fact seemed to bringbitter reality to Shefford. Nothing was going to happen. The valleywas to be the same this night as any other night. Shefford accepted thetruth. He experienced a kind of self-pity. The night he had thought somuch about, prepared for, and had forgotten had now arrived. Then hethrew another blanket round him, and, cold, dark, grim, he faced thatlonely vigil, meaning to sit there, wide-eyed, to endure and to wait.

  Jealousy and pain, following his frenzy, abided with him long hours, andwhen they passed he divined that selfishness passed with them. What hesuffered then was for Fay Larkin and for her sisters in misfortune. Hegrew big enough to pity these fanatics. The fiery, racing tide of bloodthat had made of him only an animal had cooled with thought of others.Still he feared that stultifying thing which must have been hate. Whata tempest had raged within him! This blood of his, that had received astronger strain from his desert life, might in a single moment flood outreason and intellect and make him a vengeful man. So in those starlithours that dragged interminably he looked deep into his heart and triedto fortify himself against a dark and evil moment to come.

  Midnight--and the valley seemed a tomb! Did he alone keep wakeful? Thesky was a darker blue, the stars burned a whiter fire, the peaks stoodlooming and vast, tranquil sentinels of that valley, and the wind roseto sigh, to breathe, to mourn through the cedars. It was a sad music.The Indian lay prone, dark face to the stars. Joe Lake lay prone,sleeping as quietly, with his dark face exposed to the starlight. Thegentle movement of the cedar branches changed the shape of the brightpatches on the grass where shadow and light met. The walls of the valleywaved upward, dark below and growing paler, to shine faintly at therounded rims. And there was a tiny, silvery tinkle of running water overstones.

  Here was a little nook of the vast world. Here were tranquillity,beauty, music, loneliness, life. Shefford wondered--did he alone keepwatchful? Did he feel that he could see dark, wide eyes peering intothe gloom? And it came to him after a time that he was not alone in hisvigil, nor was Fay Larkin alone in her agony. There was some one else inthe valley, a great and breathing and watchful spirit. It enteredinto Shefford's soul and he trembled. What had come to him? And heanswered--only added pain and new love, and a strange strength from thefirmament and the peaks and the silence and the shadows.

  The bright belt with its three radiant stars sank behind the westernwall and there was a paler gloom upon the valley.

  Then a few lights twinkled in the darkness that enveloped the cabins; awoman's laugh strangely broke the silence, profaning it, giving the lieto that somber yoke which seemed to consist of the very shadows; thevoices of men were heard, and then the slow clip-clop of trotting horseson the hard trail.

  Shefford saw the Mormons file out into the paling starlight, ride downthe valley, and vanish in the gray gloom. He was aware that the Indiansat up to watch the procession ride by, and that Joe turned over, as ifdisturbed.

  One by one the stars went out. The valley
became a place of grayshadows. In the east a light glowed. Shefford sat there, haggard andworn, watching the coming of the dawn, the kindling of the light; andhad the power been his the dawn would never have broken and the rose andgold never have tipped the lofty peaks.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  Shefford attended to his camp chores as usual. Several times he wasaware of Joe's close scrutiny, and finally, without looking at him,Shefford told of the visit of the Mormons. A violent expulsion of breathwas Joe's answer and it might have been a curse. Straightway Joe ceasedhis cheery whistling and became as somber as the Indian. The camp wassilent; the men did not look at one another. While they sat at breakfastShefford's back was turned toward the village--he had not looked in thatdirection since dawn.

  "Ugh!" suddenly exclaimed Nas Ta Bega.

  Joe Lake muttered low and deep, and this time there was no mistake aboutthe nature of his speech. Shefford did not have the courage to turn tosee what had caused these exclamations. He knew since today had dawnedthat there was calamity in the air.

  "Shefford, I reckon if I know women there's a little hell coming toyou," said the Mormon, significantly.

  Shefford wheeled as if a powerful force had turned him on a pivot. Hesaw Fay Larkin. She seemed to be almost running. She was unhooded andher bright hair streamed down. Her swift, lithe action was withoutits usual grace. She looked wild, and she almost fell crossing thestepping-stones of the brook.

  Joe hurried to meet her, took hold of her arm and spoke, but she did notseem to hear him. She drew him along with her, up the little bench underthe cedars straight toward Shefford. Her face held a white, mute agony,as if in the hour of strife it had hardened into marble. But her eyeswere dark-purple fire--windows of an extraordinarily intense and vitallife. In one night the girl had become a woman. But the blight Sheffordhad dreaded to see--the withering of the exquisite soul and spirit andpurity he had considered inevitable, just as inevitable as the death ofsomething similar in the flower she resembled, when it was broken anddefiled--nothing of this was manifest in her. Straight and swiftly shecame to him back in the shade of the cedars and took hold of his hands.

  "Last night--HE CAME!" she said.

  "Yes--Fay--I--I know," replied Shefford, haltingly.

  He was tremblingly conscious of amaze at her--of something wonderful inher. She did not heed Joe, who stepped aside a little; she did not seeNas Ta Bega, who sat motionless on a log, apparently oblivious to herpresence.

  "You knew he came?"

  "Yes, Fay. I was awake when--they rode in. I watched them. I sat up allnight. I saw them ride away."

  "If you knew when he came why didn't you run to me--to get to me beforehe did?"

  Her question was unanswerable. It had the force of a blow. It stunnedhim. Its sharp, frank directness sprang from a simplicity and a strengththat had not been nurtured in the life he had lived. So far men hadwandered from truth and nature!

  "I came to you as soon as I was able," she went on. "I must havefainted. I just had to drag myself around.... And now I can tell you."

  He was powerless to reply, as if she had put another unanswerablequestion. What did she mean to tell him? What might she not tell him?She loosed her hands from his and lifted them to his shoulders, and thatwas the first conscious action of feeling, of intimacy, which she hadever shown. It quite robbed Shefford of strength, and in spite of hissorrow there was an indefinable thrill in her touch. He looked at her,saw the white-and-gold beauty that was hers yesterday and seemed changedto-day, and he recognized Fay Larkin in a woman he did not know.

  "Listen! He came--"

  "Fay, don't--tell me," interrupted Shefford.

  "I WILL tell you," she said.

  Did the instinct of love teach her how to mitigate his pain? Sheffordfelt that, as he felt the new-born strength in her.

  "Listen," she went on. "He came when I was undressing for bed. I heardthe horse. He knocked on the door. Something terrible happened to methen. I felt sick and my head wasn't clear. I remember next--his beingin the room--the lamp was out--I couldn't see very well. He thought Iwas sick and he gave me a drink and let the air blow in on me throughthe window. I remember I lay back in the chair and I thought. And Ilistened. When would you come? I didn't feel that you could leave methere alone with him. For his coming was different this time. That painlike a blade in my side!... When it came I was not the same. I lovedyou. I understood then. I belonged to you. I couldn't let him touch me.I had never been his wife. When I realized this--that he was there, thatyou might suffer for it--I cried right out.

  "He thought I was sick. He worked over me. He gave me medicine. And thenhe prayed. I saw him, in the dark, on his knees, praying for me. Thatseemed strange. Yet he was kind, so kind that I begged him to let me go.I was not a Mormon. I couldn't marry him. I begged him to let me go.

  "Then he thought I had been deceiving him. He fell into a fury. Hetalked for a long time. He called upon God to visit my sins upon me. Hetried to make me pray. But I wouldn't. And then I fought him. I'd havescreamed for you had he not smothered me. I got weak.... And you nevercame. I know I thought you would come. But you didn't. Then I--I gaveout. And after--some time--I must have fainted."

  "Fay! For Heaven's sake, how could I come to you?" burst out Shefford,hoarse and white with remorse, passion, pain.

  "If I'm any man's wife I'm yours. It's a thing you FEEL, isn't it? Iknow that now.... But I want to know what to do?"

  "Fay!" he cried, huskily.

  "I'm sick of it all. If it weren't for you I'd climb the wall and throwmyself off. That would be easy for me. I'd love to die that way. All mylife I've been high up on the walls. To fall would be nothing!"

  "Oh, you mustn't talk like that!"

  "Do you love me?" she asked, with a low and deathless sweetness.

  "Love you? With all my heart! Nothing can change that!"

  "Do you want me--as you used to want the Fay Larkin lost in SurpriseValley? Do you love me that way? I understand things better than before,but still--not all. I AM Fay Larkin. I think I must have dreamed of youall my life. I was glad when you came here. I've been happy lately. Iforgot--till last night. Maybe it needed that to make me see I've lovedyou all the time.... And I fought him like a wildcat!... Tell me thetruth. I feel I'm yours. Is that true? If I'm not--I'll not live anotherhour. Something holds me up. I am the same.... Do you want me?"

  "Yes, Fay Larkin, I want you," replied Shefford, steadily, with his gripon her arms.

  "Then take me away. I don't want to live here another hour."

  "Fay, I'll take you. But it can't be done at once. We must plan. I needhelp. There are Lassiter and Jane to get out of Surprise Valley. Giveme time, dear--give me time. It'll be a hard job. And we must plan so wecan positively get away. Give me time, Fay."

  "Suppose HE comes back?" she queried, with a singular depth of voice.

  "We'll have to risk that," replied Shefford, miserably. "But--he won'tcome soon."

  "He said he would," she flashed.

  Shefford seemed to freeze inwardly with her words. Love had made hera woman and now the woman in her was speaking. She saw the truth as hecould not see it. And the truth was nature. She had been hidden all herlife from the world, from knowledge as he had it, yet when love betrayedher womanhood to her she acquired all its subtlety.

  "If I wait and he DOES come will you keep me from him?" she asked.

  "How can I? I'm staking all on the chance of his not coming soon. ...But, Fay, if he DOES come and I don't give up our secret--how on earthcan I keep you from him?" demanded Shefford.

  "If you love me you will do it," she said, as simply as if she werefate.

  "But how?" cried Shefford, almost beside himself.

  "You are a man. Any man would save the woman who loves himfrom--from--Oh, from a beast!... How would Lassiter do it?"

  "Lassiter!"

  "YOU CAN KILL HIM!"

  It was there, deep and full in her voice, the strength of the elementalforces that had surrounded he
r, primitive passion and hate and love, asthey were in woman in the beginning.

  "My God!" Shefford cried aloud with his spirit when all that was red inhim sprang again into a flame of hell. That was what had been wrong withhim last night. He could kill this stealthy night-rider, and now, faceto face with Fay, who had never been so beautiful and wonderful as inthis hour when she made love the only and the sacred thing of life, nowhe had it in him to kill. Yet, murder--even to kill a brute--that wasnot for John Shefford, not the way for him to save a woman. Reasonand wisdom still fought the passion in him. If he could but cling tothem--have them with him in the dark and contending hour!

  She leaned against him now, exhausted, her soul in her eyes, and theysaw only him. Shefford was all but powerless to resist the longing totake her into his arms, to hold her to his heart, to let himself go. Didnot her love give her to him? Shefford gazed helplessly at the strickenJoe Lake, at the somber Indian, as if from them he expected help.

  "I know him now," said Fay, breaking the silence with startlingsuddenness.

  "What!"

  "I've seen him in the light. I flashed a candle in his face. I saw it. Iknow him now. He was there at Stonebridge with us, and I never knew him.But I know him now. His name is--"

  "For God's sake don't tell me who he is!" implored Shefford.

  Ignorance was Shefford's safeguard against himself. To make a name ofthis heretofore intangible man, to give him an identity apart from thecrowd, to be able to recognize him--that for Shefford would be fatal.

  "Fay--tell me--no more," he said, brokenly. "I love you and I will giveyou my life. Trust me. I swear I'll save you."

  "Will you take me away soon?"

  "Yes."

  She appeared satisfied with that and dropped her hands and moved backfrom him. A light flitted over her white face, and her eyes grewdark and humid, losing their fire in changing, shadowing thought ofsubmission, of trust, of hope.

  "I can lead you to Surprise Valley," she said. "I feel the way. It'sthere!" And she pointed to the west.

  "Fay, we'll go--soon. I must plan. I'll see you to-night. Then we'lltalk. Run home now, before some of the women see you here."

  She said good-by and started away under the cedars, out into theopen where her hair shone like gold in the sunlight, and she took thestepping-stones with her old free grace, and strode down the path swiftand lithe as an Indian. Once she turned to wave a hand.

  Shefford watched her with a torture of pride, love, hope, and fearcontending within him.