It was Buck. He moved forward, and in a moment the girl was lying close upon his breast.
“Is that the reason you mustn’t, daren’t, listen to me?” he cried, in a voice thrilling with hope and confidence. “Is that the only reason? Jest because of death an’ disaster to me? Jest that, an’—nothing more? Tell me, little gal. Tell me or—or I’ll go mad.”
“Yes, yes. But oh, you don’t——”
“Yes, I do. Say, Joan, my little, little gal. Tell me. Tell me right now. You ain’t—hatin’ me for—for loving you so bad. Tell me.”
Joan hid her face, and the tall man had to bend low to catch her words.
“I couldn’t hate you, Buck. I—I——”
But Buck heard no more. He almost forcibly lifted the beautiful, tearful face to his, as he bent and smothered it with kisses.
After a few moments he stood her away from him, holding her slight shoulders, one in each hand. His dark eyes were glowing with a wild happiness, a wonderful, reckless fire, as he peered into her blushing face.
“You love me, little gal? You love me? Was ther’ ever such a thought in the mind of sane man? You love me? The great big God’s been mighty good to me. Disaster? Death? Let all the powers of man or devil come along, an’ I’ll drive ’em back to the hell they belong to.”
* * *
CHAPTER XXVI
IRONY
The hills roll away, banking on every side, mounting up, pile on pile, like the mighty waves of a storm-swept ocean. The darkening splendor, the magnificent ruggedness crowds down upon the narrow open places with a strange sense of oppression, almost of desolation. It seems as if nothing on earth could ever be so great as that magnificent world, nothing could ever be so small as the life which peoples it.
The oppression, the desolation grows. The silent shadows of the endless woods crowd with a suggestion of horrors untold, of mysteries too profound to be even guessed at. A strange feeling as of a reign of enchantment pervading sets the flesh of the superstitious creeping. And the narrow, patchy sunlight, by its brilliant contrast, only serves to aggravate the sensitive nerves.
Yet in the woods lurk few enough dangers. It is only their dark stillness. They are still, still in the calm of the brightest day, or in the chill of a windless night. A timid bear, a wolf who spends its desolate life in dismal protest against a solitary fate, the crashing rush of a startled caribou, the deliberate bellow of a bull moose, strayed far south from its northern fastnesses. These are the harmless creatures peopling the obscure recesses. For the rest, they are the weird suggestions of a sensitive imagination.
The awe, however, is undeniable and the mind of man can never wholly escape it. Familiarity may temper, but inborn human superstition is indestructible. The brooding silence will shadow the lightest nature. The storms must ever inspire wonder. The gloom hushes the voice. And so the growing dread. Man may curse the hills in his brutal moments, the thoughtful may be driven to despair, the laughter-loving may seek solace in tears of depression. But the fascination clings. There is no escape. The cloy of the seductive drug holds to that world of mystery, and they come to it again, and yet again.
Something of all this was vaguely drifting through the mind of one of the occupants of a four-horsed, two-wheeled spring cart as it rose upon the monstrous shoulder of one of the greater hills. Before it lay a view of a dark and wild descent, sloping away unto the very bowels of a pit of gloom. The trail was vague and bush-grown, and crowding trees dangerously narrowed it. To the right the hill fell sharply away at the edge of the track, an abyss that might well have been bottomless for aught that could be seen from above. To the left the crown of the hill rose sheer and barren, and only at its foot grew the vegetation that so perilously narrowed the track. Then, ahead, where the trail vanished, a misty hollow, dark and deep—the narrowing walls of a black canyon.
The blue eyes of the teamster were troubled. Was there ever such a country for white man to travel? His horses were jaded. Their lean sides were tuckered. Gray streaks of sweat scored them from shoulder to flank.
The man lolled heavily in his driving seat in the manner of the prairie teamster. He knew there was trouble ahead, but it was practically all he did know of the journey before him.
As the cart topped the rise he bestirred himself. His whip flicked the air without touching the horses, and he chirrupped encouragingly. The weary but willing creatures raised their drooping heads, their ribs expanded as they drew their “tugs” taut, and, at a slow, shuffling trot, they began the descent.
A voice from behind caused the man to glance swiftly over his shoulder.
“It’s no use asking you where we are now, I suppose?” it said in a peevish tone.
But the teamster’s mood was its match.
“Not a heap, I guess, ma’m,” he retorted, and gave up his attention to avoiding the precipice on his right.
“How far is the place supposed to be?”
The woman’s unease was very evident. Her eyes were upon the darkening walls of the canyon toward which they were traveling.
“Eighty miles from Crowsfoot. That’s how the boss said, anyways.”
“How far have we come now?”
The man laughed. There seemed to be something humorous in his passenger’s inquiries.
“Crowsfoot to Snarth’s farm, thirty-five miles, good. Snarth’s to Rattler Head, thirty. Sixty-five. Fifteen into this precious camp on Yellow Creek. Guess we bin comin’ along good since sun-up, an’ now it’s noon. Countin’ our stop fer breakfast we ought to make thirty odd miles. Guess we come a good hundred.” He laughed again.
The woman gave an exclamation of impatience and vexation.
“I think your employer ought to be ashamed of himself sending you to do the journey. You don’t know where you are, or what direction we’re going in. The horses are nearly foundered, and we may be miles and miles from our destination. What are you going to do?”
“Ke’p goin’ jest as long as the hosses ken ke’p foot to the ground. Guess we’ll ease ’em at the bottom, here. It’s nigh feed time. Say, ma’m, it ain’t no use worritin’. We’ll git som’eres sure. The sun’s dead ahead.”
“What’s the use of that?” Mercy Lascelles snapped at the man’s easy acceptance of the situation. “I wish now I’d come by Leeson Butte.”
“That’s sure how the boss said,” retorted the man. “The Leeson trail is the right one. It’s a good trail, an’ I know most every inch of it. You was set comin’ round through the hills. Guessed you’d had enough prairie on the railroad. It’s up to you. Howsum, we’ll make somewheres by nightfall. Seems to me I got a notion o’ that hill, yonder. That one, out there,” he went on, pointing with his whip at a bald, black cone rising in the distance against the sky. “That kind o’ seems like the peak o’ Devil’s Hill. I ain’t jest sure, but it seems like.”
Mercy looked in the direction. Her eyes were more angry than anxious, yet anxiety was her principal feeling.
“I hope to goodness it is. Devil’s Hill. A nice name. That’s where the camp is, isn’t it? I wish you’d hurry on.”
The teamster spat over the dashboard. A grim smile crept into his eyes. His passenger had worried him with troublesome questions all the journey, and he had long since given up cursing his boss for sending him on the job.
“’Tain’t no use,” he said shortly. Then he explained. “Y’ see, it ’ud be easy droppin’ over the side of this. Guess you ain’t yearnin’ fer glory that way?”
“We’ll never get in at this pace,” the woman cried impatiently.
But the teamster was losing patience, too. Suddenly he became very polite, and his pale blue eyes smiled mischievously down upon his horses’ backs.
“Guess we don’t need to hurry a heap, ma’m,” he said. “Y’ see, in these hills you never can tell. Now we’re headin’ fer that yer canyon. Maybe the trail ends right ther’.”
“Good gracious, man, then what are we going to do?”
“Do? Why, y’
see, ma’m, we’ll have to break a fresh trail—if that dogone holler ain’t one o’ them bottomless muskegs,” he added thoughtfully.
He flicked his whip and spat again. His passenger’s voice rose to a sharp staccato.
“Then for goodness’ sake why go on?” she demanded.
“Wal, y’ see, you can’t never tell till you get ther’ in these hills. Maybe that canyon is a river, an’ if so the entrance to it’s nigh sure a muskeg. A bottomless muskeg. You seen ’em, ain’t you? No? Wal, they’re swamps, an’ if we get into one, why, I guess ther’s jest Hail Columby, or some other fool thing waitin’ for us at the bottom. Still ther’ mayn’t be no muskeg. As I sez, you never can tell, tho’ ther’ most gener’ly is. Mebbe that’s jest a blank wall without no trail. Mebbe this trail ends at a sheer drop of a few hundred feet an’ more. Mebbe agin the trail peters out ’fore we get ther’. That’s the way in these yer hills, ma’m; you never can tell if you get lost. An’ gittin’ lost is so mighty easy. Course we ain’t likely to starve till we’ve eat up these yer dogone ol’ hosses. Never eaten hoss? No? ’Tain’t so bad. Course water’s easy, if you don’t light on one o’ them fever swamps. Mountain fever’s pretty bad. Still, I don’t guess we’ll git worried that way, ma’m. I’d sure say you’re pretty tough fer mountain fever to git a holt of. It’s the time that’s the wust. It might take us weeks gittin’ out,—once you git lost proper. But even so I don’t guess ther’s nothin’ wuss than timber wolves to worry us. They’re mean. Y’ see they’re nigh allus starvin’—or guess they are. B’ars don’t count a heap, less you kind o’ run into ’em at breedin’ season. Le’s see, this is August. No, ’tain’t breedin’ season.” He sighed as if relieved. Then he stirred quickly and glanced round, his face perfectly serious. “Guess you got a gun? It’s allus good to hev a gun round. You never ken tell in these yer hills—when you git lost proper.”
“Oh, you’re a perfect fool. Go on with your driving.” Mercy sat back in her seat fuming, while the teamster sighed, gently smiling down at his horses.
“Mebbe you’re right, ma’m,” he said amiably. “These dogone hills makes fools o’ most fellers, when they git lost proper—as I’d sure say we are now.”
But the man had achieved his object. The woman desisted from further questioning. She sat quite still, conscious of the unpleasant fact that the man was laughing at her, and also perfectly aware that his incompetence was responsible for the fact that they were utterly lost amongst the wild hills about them.
She was very angry. Angry with the man, angry with herself, for not being guided by the hotel keeper at Crowsfoot, but more than all she was angry with Joan for bidding her make the journey.
Yet she had been unable to resist the girl’s appeal. Her inability was not from any sentimental feeling or sympathy. Such feelings could never touch her. But the appeal of the manner in which her curse still followed the girl, and the details she had read through the lines of her letter, a letter detailing the circumstances of her life on Yellow Creek, and written under the impulse and hope inspired by the Padre’s support had given her the keenest interest. All the mystical side of her nature had been stirred in a manner she could not deny, had no desire to deny.
Yes, she had come to investigate, to observe, to seek the truth of her own pronouncement. She had come without scruple, to watch their effect. To weigh them in the balance of her scientific mysticism. She had come to watch the struggles of the young girl in the toils which enveloped her. Her mind was the diseased mind of the fanatic, prompted by a nature in which cruelty held chief place.
But now had come this delay. Such was her nature that personal danger ever appalled her. Death and disaster in the abstract were nothing to her, but their shadows brushing her own person was something more than terrifying. And as she thought of the immensity of the world about her, the gloom, the awful hush, the spirit of the hills got hold of her and left her full of apprehension.
The teamster now devoted his whole attention to his whereabouts. His passenger’s interminable questioning silenced, he felt more at his ease. And feeling at his ease he was able to bring his prairie-trained faculties to bear on the matter in hand. As they progressed down the slope he closely observed the tall, distant crown which he thought he recognized, and finally made up his mind that his estimate was right. It certainly was the cone crown of Devil’s Hill. Thus his certainty now only left him concerned with the ultimate development of the trail they were on.
It was quite impossible to tell what that might be. The road seemed to be making directly for the mouth of the canyon, and yet all his experience warned him that such a destination would be unusual. It must turn away. Yet where? How?
He searched ahead on the hillside above him for a modification of its slope. And a long way ahead he fancied he detected such an indication. But even so, the modification was so slight that there seemed little enough hope.
He kept on with dogged persistence. To return was not to be thought of yet. Any approach to vacillation now would be quite fatal.
The trail was fading out to little more than a double cattle track, and the farther he looked along it the more indistinct it seemed to become. Yet it continued, and the ever downward slope went on, and on.
His anxious eyes were painfully alert. Where? Where? He was asking himself with every jog of his weary horses. Then all of a sudden his questions ceased, and a decided relief leapt into his eyes as he drew his horses up to a halt.
He turned to his passenger and pointed with his whip at the hill abreast of them, his eyes undoubtedly witnessing his relief.
“See that, ma’m?” he cried. And Mercy beheld a narrow, rough flight of steps cut in the face of the hill. Each step was deliberately protected with a timber facing securely staked against “washouts,” and though the workmanship was rough it was evidently the handiwork of men who thought only of endurance. It rose from the trail-side in a slanting direction, and, adopting the easiest course on the slope, wound its way to the very crown of the hill, over the top of which it vanished.
“Well?”
The woman’s inquiry was ungracious enough.
“Why, that’s the meanin’ o’ this yer trail.” The man pointed above. “That sure leads somewheres.”
“I suppose it does.”
Mercy snapped her reply.
“Sure,” said the man. “There’s shelter up ther’, anyways. An’ by the looks o’ them steps I’d say folks is livin’ ther’ right now.”
“Then for goodness’ sake go up and see, and don’t sit there wasting time. I never had to deal with such a perfect fool in my life. Pass the reins over to me, and I’ll wait here.”
The man grinned. But instead of handing her the reins he secured them to the iron rail of the cart.
“Guess them hosses know best wot to do ’emselves,” he observed quietly, as he scrambled from the cart. “Best let ’em stand theirselves, ma’m,—you never know wot’s along the end of that trail—muskegs is——” His final jibe was lost in a deep-throated chuckle as he began the steep ascent before him.
Mercy watched him with angry eyes. The man added impertinence to his foolishness, and the combination was altogether too much for her temper. But for the fact that she required his services, she would well have wished that he might fall and break his neck. But her chief concern was to reach her destination, so she watched him climb the long steps in the hope that some comforting result might follow.
As the man rose higher and higher, and his figure grew smaller, his climb possessed an even greater interest for Mercy Lascelles than she admitted. She began to appreciate the peril of it, and peril, in others, always held her fascinated.
He was forced to move slowly, clinging closely with both hands to the steps above him. It would be easy to slip and fall, and she waited for that fall. She waited with nerves straining and every faculty alert.
So absorbed was she that she had forgotten the horses, forgotten her own position, everything, in the interest of the mo
ment. Had it been otherwise, she must have noticed that something had attracted the drooping horses’ attention. She must have observed the suddenly lifted heads, and pricked ears. But these things passed her by, as did the approach of a solitary figure bearing a burden of freshly taken fox pelts, which quite enveloped its massive shoulders.
The man was approaching round a slight bend in the trail, and the moment the waiting cart came into view, he stood, startled at the apparition. Then he whistled softly, and glanced back over the road he had come. He looked at a narrow point where the trail suddenly ended, a sharp break where the cliff dropped away abruptly, and further progress could only be made by an exhausting downward climb by a skilled mountaineer.
Then he came slowly on, his gray eyes closely scrutinizing the figure in the cart. In a moment he saw that it was a woman, and, by her drooping pose, recognized that she was by no means young. His eyes took on a curious expression—half doubt, half wonder, and his face grew a shade paler under his tan. But the change only lasted a few seconds. He quickly pulled himself together, and, shaking his white head thoughtfully, continued his way toward the vehicle with the noiseless gait which moccasins ever give to the wearer. He reached the cart quite unobserved. The woman’s whole attention was absorbed by the climbing man, and the newcomer smiled curiously as he passed a greeting.
“You’ve hit a wrong trail, haven’t you?” he inquired.
The woman in the cart gave a frantic start, and clutched at the side rail as though for support. Then her eyes came on a level with the man’s smiling face, and fear gave way to a sudden expression of relentless hatred.
“You?” she cried, and her lean figure seemed to crouch as though about to spring.
The man returned her stare without flinching. His eyes still wore their curious smile.
“Yes,” he said. “It is I.”
The woman’s lips moved. She swallowed as though her throat had suddenly become parched.
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