winter. The wind never ceases there. It builds the dunes into new
shapes every day, and the sagebrush is always bent and lopsided and
torn, and the colors are the gray and brown of the world's secret
tragedy. But when the red sunset is on the dunes there's nothing I
have ever seen so wild and passionate and beautiful.

"It was late in the autumn. I rode out of a deep arroya, and came,
without warning, into all that weird and solemn glory. There was a
cold gush of air from up the valley. Far in the north were purple
patches on the flats, and violet shadows in the foothills. But the
dunes were all vermilion, and I can't tell you what hue of red lay
spread out deep and vivid on the Sangre de Cristo peaks,--a living,
passionate, terrible blood-red. I'm not very devout, but I tell you
candidly that I reined up my horse, took off my hat, and sat there
gazing, with the queerest feelings, and saying, like the old
Spaniards, 'Sangre de Cristo! Blood of Christ!'

"Then something queer happened to me. You've seen a flash of sunlight
reflected from a window, far off? Well, it wasn't like that, except in
the sharpness of its effect. And I knew there was no house in all that
waste of sand. It was just a flash, and was gone. I searched the
horizon, and saw nothing but red dunes, and little puffs of sand
kicked up by the rising wind. Must have been some trick of vision, I
thought, and I looked away again toward the blood-red peaks. And there
it was again, in the corner of my eye. But it was gone when I tried to
fix it. I put spurs to my horse, and rode toward the dunes, and caught
the flash again--just a bright yellow speck in the darkening
vermilion. It came and went, and seemed then to have been lost
completely. I was about convinced that the red sunset had gone to my
head--that I was following something that existed only in my brain.

"Then, as I loped up to the top of a dune--there he stood, on another
dune, perhaps two hundred yards away. His golden hide reflected the
red glow like polished metal, his mane flamed in the wind. You cannot
possibly imagine the effect of it, in that unreal light, in that
setting of desolation, with the crimson mountains behind him. He stood
alone on the hill, with his head high, motionless as a statue. For as
long as half a minute he let me look at him. Then he turned, and was
gone like a flash of fire. I had just one more glimpse of him, flying
over the dunes, and followed by a score or more of wild horses of all
colors except his color, and none worth looking at. With him the red
went out of the landscape, the peaks turned white, and I sat alone in
the gray, raw twilight. But right there I made up my mind about one
thing: I must have that horse. You know the rest."

"But what do you mean to do with him?" asked Marion, vaguely
troubled.

"Ride him."

"Don't!" she gasped.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"He'll kill you!"

Haig laughed.

"Oh, I think not!"

"But what is the use?"

"What's the use of anything?"

"But it's--"

"Mere folly, you think?"

"Yes."

"Now you don't mean that at all, Miss Gaylord. You know perfectly well
that if I were doing it to please you--to win your admiration--you
wouldn't call it folly."

"You will please me--and win my admiration--if you don't do it.
Please!"

"But I don't want--You'll pardon me?--I don't want to win your
admiration."

What could she say to that? There was a moment of silence.

"When?" she asked quietly.

"I'm waiting for Farrish, my foreman. He's the only man I can
absolutely depend upon. He's in Omaha. He'll be back next week."

"And you won't begin without him?"

"No."

She had no choice but to be satisfied with a few days of grace.
Moreover, something might happen before the return of Farrish; the
outlaw might escape, or she might find another opportunity to plead
with Haig, or--What was she thinking of? Something was going to
happen that very evening; and she had almost forgotten it, in her
absorption!

She had meant to do, long before now, what he had prevented her doing
at the stable,--to confess her deception, to plead for mercy, to beg
him to go back. Failing in that, there was Tuesday trotting behind the
trap; she could leap out, prove to Haig that her foot was uninjured,
and insist upon riding home alone. But now the confession seemed ten
times more difficult than it had seemed in the first flush of her
resolution. They were far up the Brightwater by this time; a few
minutes more would bring them to the branch road that led to
Huntington's. Yet how could she tell him?

"My foot doesn't hurt any more," she began, compromising with her
resolution.

"That's because you've been sitting still," he replied.

"But it doesn't hurt when I move it. See!"

She lifted the foot, and rested it on the dashboard, bending and
twisting it.

"By which you mean to tell me that I am to go back," he said.

"Please!"

"No!" he answered curtly.

"It wasn't badly sprained at all," she persisted. "I was only--" She
caught herself, with a shock. "I was only frightened, I think."

"I don't believe you."

"But it's the truth."

"Then it was not the truth in the first place."

There it was now, her best occasion to come out with it. But no; she
could not.

"It's not so bad as I feared," she stammered.

"I trust not. A sprain is a bad business."

"But you'll go back now!" she pleaded.

"No."

"Oh, why won't you?"

"I've started."

"That's not the reason!" she cried desperately.

"True, there's another reason. That makes two."

"What other reason?"

"I want to ask Huntington about his health."

The deviltry had come back into his voice; and just ahead of them she
saw the fork of the road.

"There's a third reason too, I'm afraid," she answered bitterly.

"What's that, do you think?"

"You want to punish me!"

"Perhaps--a little."

"Do you think that's--"

"Noble? Manly? Kind? Generous?" he broke in.

"Do you really think it's worth your while to punish me?" she asked
with passionate irony.

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Because I hope to be let alone hereafter."

At that her anger rose.

"Do you think that is the way a man should speak to a woman?"

"It seems to be the only way to make a woman understand. And even
then--"

She felt that he shrugged his shoulders in the darkness.

"Then I'm sorry for the women you have known!" she retorted.

"That should make it all the easier for you to avoid any more
accidents in my part of the Park," he answered unperturbed. "It's your
own fault if I'm rude. I haven't forced my attentions upon you. If you
feel that you've been mistreated, there's another reason--that makes
four, doesn't it?--for my going to Huntington's. We'll be there in
five minutes. You can tell him."

She could find no answer to all this. Brutal as it was, she knew that
she had deserved it. Her anger fell away, for she had found already
that she could not be angry with him long; and now, even in her
torment, she began to be sorry for him, wondering what he had passed
through that had so hardened and embittered him.

But the team had turned into the branch road; and she must act at
once. There remained but one thing for her to do: to leap out of the
trap, and refuse to go farther with him. On the thought, she measured
the distance to the ground, the speed of the trotting sorrels. Perhaps
she moved a little. Or had he actually read her thoughts? For
suddenly, but very quietly, he laid a hand on her shoulder.

"No!" he said. "You might really hurt yourself this time."

She sank back in dismay, but with a thrill of admiration. What was
this man, who knew her thoughts before she herself knew them, who
mastered her--and despised her? She trembled, and was glad of the
night that concealed her flushed face from him. As for her purpose,
she was at the end of her resources. No confession, no plea would
avail to shake his determination. She could do no more; and judgment
was upon her--soon.

"Hold the reins, please!" commanded Haig.

He leaped out of the trap, opened the gate, and closed it when he had
led the sorrels through. Then he climbed into the trap, and drove on.
There was no moon. The ranch buildings lay huddled and indistinct in
the dim starlight.

At the sound of the hoofs and wheels a man emerged from the stable,
bearing a lantern. He hurried up to them, stumbling sleepily, and
peering at the figures vaguely seen in the gloom.

"Here, Williams!" Haig said shortly. "Hold my team, will you! I'll be
only a few minutes."

The lantern fell from the man's hand, struck the ground with a
clatter, and lay on its side, flaming and smoking.

"Pick it up!" ordered Haig.

The man obeyed, with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box, and stood as
if petrified.

"Quick! The horses! They're no damned broncos!"

Williams jumped to the bridles; and a gleam from the lantern showed
Marion his face. His mouth was open, his eyes staring with incredulity
and alarm. She was seized with a preposterous desire to laugh at that
comical visage, made grotesque by the wavering light of the lantern
that danced in the fellow's hand. She was on the verge of hysteria.

Haig leaped out, and held up his arms for her, snapping his fingers
impatiently. In almost complete inertia, yet with every nerve
quivering, she let him help her to the ground, where he placed her arm
in his, and started toward the ranch house.

"Limp! Limp!" he whispered in her ear.

She obeyed him mechanically. Everything seemed to have become very
still and cold; feeling had frozen in her limbs; terror clutched at
her icily out of the gloom. There were two lighted windows in front of
her, two baleful yellow gleams, like the eyes of a monster of the
night. At any instant the door would open, gulping her in.

She choked down a cry. Her feet were like lead now, and she stumbled
on the first of the half-dozen steps that led to the veranda. Haig
pulled her up quickly, flung his right arm around her waist, and
fairly carried her up the steps. At that moment, just as they stood on
the level floor, the door was opened, and Huntington's huge body
appeared in silhouette against the lamplight.

"That you, Marion?" he called out, peering into the darkness. Then,
almost instantly: "Somebody with you, Marion?"

Haig answered for her.

"Good evening, Cousin Seth!" he called out cheerily. "I just dropped
in to ask about your health."

For perhaps as long as it took him to catch his arrested breath,
Huntington stood motionless. Then, with an oath, he bounded back into
the room, and disappeared, as Marion dully realized, in the direction
of his room, where his revolver hung on a rack. She felt the form
beside her straighten out like a loosed spring; and the next instant
she was borne swiftly forward into the light, into the house, into the
scene she had pictured, the scene she herself had prepared. The arm
that supported her was quickly withdrawn, and she was left standing at
one side of the door, while Haig leaped away from her, and stood
waiting at the other.

Even as this was done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his
bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In
the kitchen doorway was Claire--a stricken thing in blue and
gold--clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with
terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that
smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole attitude
matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with arms folded,
disdaining Huntington's weapon. But not the slightest motion of his
enemy--perhaps not even the thought before it--could have escaped
him. Marion knew him; and she felt as certain as if it had already
happened that if Seth lifted his revolver by so much as another
inch he would be stretched out on the floor there as he had been on
the ground at Paradise.

All this she saw in an interval as brief as that between two clicks of
the shutter of her kodak. Then the clock on the mantel began to
strike. It was a friendly clock, with a musical, soft note. But now
its stroke crashed upon the silence like a tolling bell. It seemed to
have its part in that halted scene, as if all waited on its last
solemn count. If she could only move, think, speak, before it
finished!

The next thing she knew she was in the middle of the room, directly
between the two men, and speaking.

"Wait, Seth!" she heard herself saying. "I did it. I brought him here
to--to make peace with you."

She ended on the clock's last note; and silence fell again.
Huntington's jaw dropped; amazement was printed on his face, and
incredulity. Marion walked quietly up to him, took the revolver from
his hand, and left him standing in the doorway, his arms hanging loose
at his side. She crossed the room to Haig, slowly, somewhat gropingly
like a somnambulist, with a half-smiling, strange expression fixed on
her chalk-white face. She stretched out her left hand to him, her
right still clasping Seth's six-shooter. There was something
magnetic, curiously compelling in her manner; for she said nothing,
made no sound. Haig stared at her, the odious smile fading from his
lips; his arms slowly fell apart, one hand in the direction of the
revolver at his hip; and for a moment it seemed that he too would
yield to her. But suddenly he threw back his head, and laughed.

"By Jupiter!" he cried. "I didn't think it was in you. You almost got
me too. Good night--all!"

On that he turned on his heel, and vanished into the night. Marion
heard him laughing still as his boots crunched on the gravel; heard
his voice in brief and sharp command at the stable; heard the beat of
the sorrels' hoofs on the road, and the fragment of a song wafted back
to her,--something rollicking and insolent, in a foreign tongue. She
stood listening until the sounds had died away in the night, and
silence enveloped her. Then, just as Huntington leaped forward with a
bellow of rage,--too late, as ever,--and Claire, with a shriek, rushed
to throw herself between him and the door, Marion's head drooped
forward, her knees gave way, and she fell senseless on the floor.

Huntington's big revolver, slipping from her nerveless fingers as she
fell, struck the Navajo rug with a muffled thump, bounced and rolled
over, and settled down harmlessly on a patch of barbaric red.

CHAPTER IX

HEARTS INSURGENT

Seth recovered his revolver, and lunged toward the door. But Claire
was before him. She flung herself upon him, clutching the lapels of
his coat.

"Seth! Seth!" she shrieked. "What are you doing?"

"I'll follow him!" he roared. "I'll follow him! I'll end the whole
thing! I'll finish it, I tell you!"

"No! No!" she wailed; and clung to him frantically.

He was beside himself, almost incoherent, for the moment quite
irresponsible. It is very likely that, but for Claire, he would have
mounted a horse and pursued Haig to his ranch, with such consequences
as anybody except himself could easily have foreseen. But he was not
so far gone in frenzy as to hurt Claire, as he must have done in
tearing himself loose from her. He stood a moment in tragic
helplessness, grinding his teeth, and hurling muttered imprecations
out into the night that covered Philip Haig. Then he looked down at
the golden head pressed against his breast, and felt the frail body
quivering; and some sense of what he was doing, or was about to do,
reached his brain through the fumes of rage. There was yet a long
struggle; for he was too ponderous for quick decisions, and at the
same time too outright for successful equivocation. Defeat was always
a staggering blow to him, since he had no art to mask it. And now,
lacking the sagacity to swallow his mortification and to bide his
time, he could only suffer, rending himself in lieu of another on whom
to pour his fury.

In the midst of this futile passion his roving eyes fell on
Marion. She lay where she had fallen, in a dead faint, limp on the
red-and-yellow rug. Seth stared at her a full minute, while an
indefinable suspicion grew in the back of his brain. She had said,
"I've brought him here to make peace with you." And Haig himself had
given the lie to that speech! What did it all mean? By God, he would
find out!

"Come, Claire!" he said. "Attend to Marion!" And he began to loosen
her fingers from his coat.

But she only clutched it the tighter.

"You'll go!" she cried.

"No! Not to-night!"

"You promise?"

"Yes! Yes!" he growled.

She looked steadily up at him, questioning, fearful, until he bent
down and kissed her.

"There!" he said, roughly and yet not ungently. "Now go to Marion!"

They picked her up, and laid her on the couch at one side of the big
room; and Claire unbuttoned her dress at the throat, and bathed her
face and neck with cold water, while Seth rubbed and slapped her
hands.

Her first impulse, on opening her eyes and seeing Claire and Seth
leaning over her, was to raise her head, and look toward the door. She
saw only a patch of darkness, empty and still. Then she remembered how
she had heard his mocking voice fade away in the night; and her eyes
returned to Seth and Claire. Their faces told her what to expect: and
she knew that they were right in demanding, as they would demand, the
fullest explanation.

"Water, please!" she murmured, moistening her dry lips with her
tongue.

She sat up, slowly emptied the glass that Claire placed in her
trembling hand, then buttoned her collar over her bare throat, and
began to pin up the locks of hair that had fallen about her face and
neck. Her hands, she thought, were very thin and white. She had never
fainted before, and was still a little frightened and surprised.

"What does it all mean, Marion?" demanded Huntington.

"Wait, Seth, can't you?" warned Claire. Then to Marion: "There's no
hurry, dear. When you feel better."

But her eyes denied her words. There was indeed no way out of it.
Marion must speak, and without delay.

"I'm cold," she said, shivering.

"Of course!" cried Claire. "Come to the fire. And Seth! Close the
door, please!"

Huntington strode to the door, and slammed it shut. Then he returned
to the chimney piece, and watched Marion as she leaned toward the
blaze. He could barely restrain himself, waiting for her to begin.

"I've been a silly fool, I suppose," she said presently, sitting erect
again, and facing her cousins courageously. "It was all my fault. You
mustn't blame him."

An impatient exclamation by Huntington drew a warning glance from
Claire.

"Tell us just what happened, dear!" she urged gently.

"I don't exactly know--I can't just understand how it happened,"
Marion began. "I had an accident--in the road. My foot was hurt--my
ankle was twisted--or I thought it was--and I was frightened."

"An accident?" said Claire.

"I was off my pony--the cinches were loose--and--when I tried to mount
again--I slipped--somehow--and fell. He was just in time to help me,
and--"

"Where was that?" asked Huntington.

"Just below his place. He was coming back--"

"But what were you doing over there?" demanded Huntington.

"Riding," she said calmly, perhaps a little defiantly.

"Yes, I know that. But on his land?"

"Did you ever tell me anything about that?" she retorted.

"No, but--"

"Then how was I to know?"

"But you've heard--"

"Yes, I heard some things at the post-office. You've told me
nothing."

Huntington's face reddened angrily.

"Never mind that now!" cried Claire sharply, sending another warning
look at Seth. "Go on, dear!"

Marion went on, very carefully. With Claire alone she might have been
more frank and confiding, but Seth's belligerent attitude had begun to
stir resentment in her.

"He thought I had a bad sprain. He was annoyed; he didn't take any
pains to conceal that from me. But he lifted me into the saddle,
and rode with me to his stable, and told one of his men to hitch
up a team, and drive me home. That would have been--all right, and he
had no intention--until--something I said--I must have been
hysterical--something made him angry, and he--said he would drive me
home himself."

"And you let him!" cried Claire reproachfully.

"No, I didn't _let_ him. He did it in spite of all I could do. I
pleaded with him, I tried every way to stop him. Once I started to
leap out of the trap. But he caught me. He laughed at me But he was
very angry too; he scolded me dreadfully. Said I needed to be punished
for--I don't know what. He hates women, and says we're always meddling
in men's affairs. It served me right, of course. And please remember
it was all my fault--truly!"

"Did he say anything about making peace?" asked Claire.

"No. That was all mine. I had to do something quickly. You know
that."

"But what did he say about me?" growled Huntington, who was far from
satisfied, and still suspicious.

"Not much. Oh, yes!" she added impulsively. "He said you and he could
probably come to an understanding quickly enough if--"

She paused, embarrassed.

"If what?" demanded Huntington.

"That was only because he dislikes women, I think. He said--if
Claire--Mrs. Huntington, he said,--would let you alone."

"I?" cried Claire. It was almost a scream of astonishment and
indignation.

"I'll show him!" shouted Huntington. "He'd better keep her name out of
it, or I'll--"

"I haven't done anything!" wailed Claire.

"I'll make him pay for that!" bellowed Huntington, bringing his fist
down on the mantel.

"You mustn't blame him!" protested Marion hastily. "He was angry at
me, and I don't think he's as bad as you think he is."

"Marion!" cried Claire, her eyes widening with wonder.

Then Marion had the misfortune to blush under Claire's curious gaze.
She blushed, at first, merely because she had gone too far in her
effort to clear Haig of responsibility for what had occurred that
evening; and then the blood stormed into her cheeks as she encountered
Claire's look, and attached a deeper meaning to it than it actually
conveyed.

Huntington leaned forward, and gazed suspiciously into Marion's
crimsoned face.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he broke out. "You'd think the girl was in
love with this ruffian!"

For an instant there was a silence much like the silence that follows
a clap of thunder. Then Marion rose slowly to her feet, quivering, her
eyes ablaze.

"Ruffian?" she cried. "If there's any ruffian it's--"

She caught herself. She was innately gentle and fastidious, and she
could not, without shame, have forced her lips to say the things that
she felt in her outraged heart. But she looked at him; and under that
look Seth quailed and shrank. What had he said to evoke this luminous
hatred? He had not meant--

"And I think she's right, Seth Huntington!" exclaimed Claire, coming
to Marion, and putting an arm, around her. "If there's any ruffian
it's you, and I'm ashamed of you!"

Huntington's jaw dropped, and he stared at them, his eyes bulging with
astonishment. Then suddenly he turned, and bolted from the room. The
door leading to the kitchen was flung shut behind him; then the outer
door banged; and in a moment his heavy footsteps were heard on the
veranda, where he strode to and fro in helpless rage and shame and
wonder. He had a feeling of soreness over all his body, as if some one
had roundly pummelled him; his face itched beneath his beard; he could
not find a comfortable place for his hands. Well, he agreed with Haig
about one thing: women were hell! And here was Claire siding with
Marion against him; and calling him a ruffian! Was he a ruffian? What
had he said to merit that? Couldn't they take a joke? But this
casuistry did not go down, though he tried to hammer it down with many
violent gestures. He began to have certain qualms that he recognized
as premonitory signs of weakening; and he struggled to bolster up his
anger. Damn Haig! If he had only finished him that day in the timber,
when the others had wanted to! But this was a vain regret. There
remained the present situation. Gradually his steps faltered. He
stopped often to look vacantly at the stars. They had nothing to say
to him. He felt very solitary, alone in the world.

After a time the kitchen door was opened softly.

"Seth!" came a whisper from that direction.

"Well?" he answered uncertainly.

"Aren't you cold?"

"No."

"Well, we are. The fire's going out."

"Umph!"

"Won't you please fetch some wood?"

No reply. Claire slipped out, and crept up to him.

"Come!" she commanded softly. "Do you want us to freeze?"

Still no reply.

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"It's time you went to bed."

"No, it isn't. We're not going to bed until you come in and beg
Marion's pardon."

"No, I'll be--"

She tried to clap her hand over his mouth, but succeeded only in
hitting his nose a smart tap, which was just as effective, since it
checked him.

"No swearing, either!" she went on. "You've been rude enough for one
night, don't you think? I'll tell you my opinion of it later. She's
going to be easy with you because she's sorry about it all. Come!"

Huntington did not move, or answer her.

"Do you want her to leave by the next stage--and have this all over
the Park too--like Haig's visit? Come!"

He groaned, but followed her. At the door of the living room he caught
sight of Marion seated before the fireplace, where only embers glowed
dull red.

"I'll get some wood," he said quickly, glad of even a few minutes'
grace.

Fortune tossed him a small favor: the wood bin near the kitchen door
was empty--almost. Another time that would have brought a storm down
on the head of the unlucky stable hand whose duty it was to keep the
bin filled. But now Seth rejoiced at having to go to the wood yard,
and found it much too near.

He re-entered the house with an armload of sticks, and placed them
carefully on the embers; stirred up the glowing mass with a poker;
readjusted the fresh wood; provoked the red coals once more; and at
last, having exhausted the dilatory possibilities of the fire, stood
up clumsily to face the ordeal.

"Well, Marion," he began awkwardly, "I'm in for it, I reckon."

She did not reply; she only looked at him. There were dark shadows
around her eyes that heightened the pallor of her cheeks; but the eyes
themselves were clear and piercing, and as cold now as they had been
fiery before. For once in his life Huntington was conscious of his
bulk; he felt conspicuous; and the wound in his shoulder, almost
healed, began to itch and ache.--There were worse things than being
shot.--If she would only turn those eyes away from him! And then it
dawned upon him that she was waiting.

"I beg your pardon, Marion!" he stammered. "I was ugly. I didn't
really mean--I hope you'll forgive me."

For a minute longer she let him stew in his kettle, then lifted him
out scrupulously, at the end of a very long fork, and dropped him
steaming, as if he had been a lump of unsavory fat.

"Yes, I forgive you," she said, very, very distantly. "You probably
weren't thinking."

If that was forgiveness! But he did not know--even Claire did not know
then--how deeply he had wounded Marion with his rude and accusing
speech,--as if he had called a jeering crowd to look at the little
flower that blooms but once, and very secretly, in a woman's heart.
Forgive him? She never would forgive him for that blundering outburst,
which was indeed the more unforgivable because he did not seriously
mean, and certainly did not believe, the thing he said.

"Thank you, Marion dear!" said Claire softly.

At that Marion suddenly rushed to Claire, and knelt by her chair. She
had her own faults to be forgiven.

"I've been very foolish!" she cried. "I've caused you pain and
humiliation. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!"

So they cried it out in each other's arms, while Huntington rolled a
cigarette, took one whiff of it, and tossed it into the fire. It
required a stronger narcotic than tobacco to soothe his fevered
spirits. After a while he whirled around and faced the two women.

"See here, Marion!" he said. "It's all our fault for not telling you
about Haig. But we didn't want to annoy you with our troubles, and we
never imagined you'd stumble on to him. Do you know now what this is
all about?"

She spared him the answer that she had heard something on that point
the day of the shooting.

"No; that is, very little."

"Well, it's just this: Before he came here we were all playing the
game peacefully together. Each of us had just about enough land, with
the cut hay and the winter pastures, to pull through the winter, and
there was just enough free grazing up in the edges of the timber to
keep the cattle going through the summer and early fall."

"That was government land," explained Claire.

"And open to all of us," added Seth. "We never had any dispute with
the Englishman who owned Haig's ranch before him, and he got fair
treatment, though he wasn't here much of the time to look after it. We
heard he had some family trouble, and one day when he'd been gone a
long time--"

"That's four years now," interrupted Claire.

"Yes. Haig showed up, and said the ranch was his. He started in
straight off to hog the whole thing. Bought a thousand head of
cattle--that made thirteen hundred head--almost as many as all the
rest of us had put together. He turned the thirteen hundred into the
open range, and hired men to keep them moving the right way for the
good feed, and--"

"He had a perfect right to do that, you see," Claire put in hastily.

"Legal right, maybe," Huntington went on. "But he didn't have any real
right to more than his share. We organized, bunched our cattle, and
stayed with 'em. That way we were stronger than he, and soon had his
cattle starving. Then he disappeared, and we didn't see anything of
him for three weeks. And what do you suppose the damned skunk--"

"Seth!" cried Claire warningly, with an anxious look at Marion.

Marion merely shook her head.

"Well, he fooled us. He went to Denver, got a lawyer on the job,
looked up the records, found there'd been a mistake in the surveys,
and came back to us with a government deed to almost half the forest
reserve that we'd been using as free pasture. Then he ordered us off,
and we went, with six Winchesters pointed at our fool backs. What do
you think of that, Marion?"

"But why?" asked Marion. "I mean what was his motive in all that? He
isn't a cattleman. I mean--I don't think he cares enough--"

She stopped, finding herself in dangerous waters.

"Why? Because he's a--" Huntington checked himself. "Anyhow, he barely
escaped a lynching that night. And if he only knew it, I'm the one
that stopped it. I said we'd find some other way. But we haven't found
it. We had to bring most of our stock down to the pastures we needed
for winter, and in winter we had to buy hay at eighteen dollars a ton.
And Haig had hay to sell. Three of our men were driven out of
business. Tom Jenkins, being dead broke and discouraged, with a
family, killed himself. I had to sell off a third of my cattle, and
twenty head disappeared, and I never saw them again. And maybe you can
understand now how I felt when I saw him this evening, standing there
in my own house, grinning at me. God!"

He turned, grabbed up the poker, and began jabbing viciously at the
fire.

Yes, Marion could understand that, but--She was not satisfied. There
was something missing from Seth's narrative. Haig's accusations that
day at the post-office--his missing cattle, and the cut wires at the
Forbidden Pasture--And if all that Seth had said was true, which she
doubted, the mystery was only deepened. She was sure that Haig was
only playing a part, that he was not a cattleman by choice, and that
his heart was not in the game, whatever it was. She wanted to ask
questions, but refrained, lest she should again arouse Seth's
suspicions. She would see Smythe.

CHAPTER X

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

The next afternoon Huntington, with painful diffidence, yet anxious to
come to some sort of terms with Marion, proposed that she should begin
her shooting lessons. She acquiesced in a manner that relieved him
immensely, for she, on her side, was sorely in need of distraction. So
they were presently on the hillside behind the ranch house with the
rifles,--Seth's Winchester and the little Savage he had bought for
Claire, who, to his great disappointment, did not like guns, and never
could be taught to see the sights with one eye closed. His delight,
therefore, was unbounded when Marion took to the Savage with almost
the quick adaptability of a man. True, her first shots went high and
wild among the foliage, but she was fast getting the grip of the gun,
and had actually once scraped the bark of the tree on which the target
of white paper was tacked, when they were hailed by a cheerful voice
demanding permission for an unarmed and perfectly harmless man to
approach.

"Smythe!" growled Huntington, resenting the interruption. Then aloud,
as heartily as he could: "Hello, Smythe! You're quite safe."

"What's going on here, anyhow?" asked Smythe.

"Where are your boasted powers of observation?" retorted Marion.

"It's more polite to ask."

"In Paradise Park?" she queried, in a tone of mild surprise.

Seth's face reddened as he stooped over a half-empty cartridge-box. He
had congratulated himself too soon. But while Smythe and Marion
exchanged more badinage he refilled the magazine of the Savage, and
held it ready.

"Will you have another try?" he asked.

"Yes, please, if Mr. Smythe will only keep still. I know I can never
hit anything if he talks."

"I'm mum!" he answered.

The first shot went wild. So, indeed, the second and third.

"There! What did I tell you?" cried Marion petulantly.

"But I didn't say a word!" protested Smythe.

"What were you thinking, then?"

"What a charming Diana--"

"Don't think any more, please!"

"But I can't stop thinking!"

"In that case you'd better talk. You certainly talk enough without
thinking."

"Bull's-eye!" he cried joyously. "Now try again!"

"I suppose I must learn not to be bothered."

She pressed her lips together, and steadied herself resolutely. She
would show him! The next shot cut a furrow in the bark of the pine;
the second struck within two inches of the target; and the third
pinked the edge of the paper itself.

"That will do for this time," she said, in some elation, as she handed
the gun to Huntington.

"To-morrow you'll do better," he assured her. "And then we'll try it
at longer range."

He began to pick up the cartridge boxes and his own rifle.

"You're not riding to-day?" said Smythe.

"How did you guess it?" she demanded, laughing.

"Oh, a truce! A truce!" he pleaded. "I mean, if you are not going for
a ride, will you walk up the hill there?"

He pointed toward the pines.

"Why?"

"To please me," he answered.

But she caught a look in his eyes that decided her.

"Certainly, if you are so easily pleased."

"Oh, I'm a very Lazarus at the table of life!" he retorted gaily.
"Every crumb comforts me."

She laughed, and stepped away with him among the rocks, while
Huntington, still swearing at Smythe for a meddling fool, strode down
the hill.

Marion surmised that Smythe had something to say to her. Had he heard
already? Had the news of yesterday's comedy, that was so near a
tragedy, already spread far and wide over the Park? But that was
scarcely possible, since Haig's men would be silent, and Seth had kept
Williams too busy all day for gossip.

They climbed the rocky slope without more words, clambering over
bowlders and fallen tree trunks, until they reached the summit of the
hill, and flung themselves down, hot and panting, on a great flat rock
that commanded a sweeping view of the Park. At one side more hills
rose, small mountains in themselves, thickly wooded, with white peaks
towering behind. On the other, the valley of the Brightwater lay green
and bronze in the sun, with the white stream curling and curving among
the meadows. Far across the valley, beyond the ridge that divided the
Park in unequal halves--that fateful ridge!--the western range of
mountains glittered, dazzling white.

Marion's eyes at once sought out Thunder Mountain. What would it say
to her to-day? Storm! Its top was half-hidden in a gray-black swirl of
clouds, though the sun was bright on the snow-clad peaks around it.

"What do you see?" asked Smythe, as soon as his lungs would consent to
speech.

"My mountain," she answered, without turning her head.

"Which is that?"

"Thunder Mountain."

"Umph! You're welcome to it!"

She was silent.

"Why your mountain?" he asked presently.

"I don't know."

"But there must be a reason--or something."

"That's just it--something. It's hideous, but it fascinates me. I
can't help thinking that--"

"That what?"

"I don't know."

They laughed together.

"It's got a bad reputation," said Smythe.

"Perhaps that's the reason."

Then she was embarrassed, thinking unexpectedly of another bad
reputation in the Park.

"Perhaps," he answered, smiling at the back of her head, where the
tawny hair curved up adorably from the soft, white neck.

"Tell me about it!" she said at length.

"It's a death trap."

"You mean--men have gone up there?"

"Oh, yes!"

"How?"

"There's a trail, what's left of it. The Warpath, they call it."

"The Warpath?"

"Yes. It was first a war trail, when fighting tribes lived in these
mountains. But even the Indians didn't use it often--only in
midsummer. It's a trail over bare rocks, marked by stones set up at
long intervals. The Indians didn't mark it. They had their own ways of
knowing it. But after the Indians came trappers, hunters, prospectors,
and some of them set up the stones. It would be a valuable short cut
between the Park and the San Luis country, if it were safe. But it's
not. I'm told that many lives have been lost on it. I can't find
details except of one tragedy. Some ten years ago a party of English
people, guests at the ranch that Haig now owns, went on a pleasure
trip to Thunder Mountain. They meant to go only as far as timber line.
It's not difficult as far as the foot of the scarp that lifts to the
flat top you see yonder. It's done on horseback to that point--and
across too, if you care to try it. But on top--that's another matter.
It isn't the mountain itself that gets you. It's the storms. The
English party ventured on top, and three of them never came back. The
wind hurled them into a chasm, and their bodies were never recovered.
That's enough for me, thank you!"

"Has nobody in the Park ever been across?" Marion persisted.

"Old Parker--Jim Parker's father--crossed it once, many years ago. But
he came back another way, around by Tellurium. Young Parker has been
as far as the Devil's Chair. That's the top of the notch where the
wind sucks you into it--unless, by good chance, it blows you away from
it."

"And no one else?" Marion insisted, breathless.

"One other man has gone to the Twin Sisters. That's halfway over."

"Who was that?" she asked; as if she did not know.

"He balked at the women, you see."

Smythe chuckled.

"The Twin Sisters," Smythe went on, "are two huge gray rocks, I'm
told, vaguely resembling carved figures. The trail passes between
them. There's no other possible way, and when the wind is blowing it
shoots out between them like water from a fire-hose. Haig was caught
just there by a storm. He came back fighting mad, and swore he'd cross
Thunder Mountain yet, or die there. But that reminds me. I've got news
for you."

"News?" asked Marion, with a start.

Her first thought was of Sunnysides. Had Haig decided not to wait for
Farrish? But no! It would be something about yesterday's sensation.

"It keeps well, I see," she said lightly.

"I didn't want to excite you so soon after that long climb."

"Thank you! If you think I can't stand it you just keep it to
yourself--if you can!"

"But I came expressly to tell you."

"Then why don't you expressly tell me? Don't be exasperating, Mr.
Smythe!"

He grinned exultantly.

"Well," he said, "I've been eavesdropping."

"What?"

"Not intentionally. Pure accident. But I didn't stick my fingers in my
ears."

"No, I can understand that."

"Thanks. It was this way: I was fishing--for fish, really. Under a
clump of willows, just where the road from Haig's joins the main
valley road. You know?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Haig and another man, Higgins, it turned out to be--he's a Denver
lawyer--with his family for an outing down at Cobalt Lake. It appeared
he'd been up to see Haig partly on business and partly just for a
friendly visit. They separated there, after a little conversation.

"'It's strange you've never heard a word from him,' said Higgins.

"'Four years,' answered Haig.

"'He's probably off in South Africa somewhere.'

"'Or India. It's a long trail be followed, no doubt.'

"'You can only wait, I suppose,' Higgins said.

"'Well, I've nothing else to do,' Haig replied, with a laugh." Smythe
paused.

"That's something to think about," he said musingly. "Who is this
'he'? And why is Haig waiting for him? Well, that was all I heard
about that. Higgins next asked Haig if he wouldn't please change his
mind about riding down to see them.

"'No,' Haig answered. 'I never go anywhere. I'm not very sociable, no
longer a gregarious creature. Ask my neighbors about that!'

"'Oh, hang your neighbors! This is different. We're not living here,
and we can't pester you. But you see I got Hail Columbia from my wife
for not bringing you to see her in Denver, and she's dead set on
getting acquainted with you here. She says you're the most unselfish
man in the world. I'd be jealous if--'

"'Oh, come now!' protested Haig, laughing.

"'It's true. So you'll drop this hermit business for once, won't you?
It will give my wife much pleasure.'

"There was a little silence.

"'Well, have your own way,' said Haig at last 'I suppose a man's got
to humor his lawyer, if he doesn't want to lose a plain case some day.
But I warn you. I'm not very amusing, that is, I trust not.'

"'Good!' cried Higgins. 'We'll not keep you long. The day after
to-morrow, shall we say? Right! Now good-by! And don't let Huntington
pot you--before you've seen Mrs. Higgins.'

"They both laughed at that. Higgins drove off down the valley in his
road wagon, and Haig galloped toward home. And then I found a trout
had run away with my hook. Big fellow too, and clever as Satan.
Scuttled away under a rock and worked loose before I could get after
him. But it was a good day's fishing just the same, don't you think?"

She did not reply at once; and Smythe discreetly busied himself
tossing stones at an impertinent chipmunk that popped in and out among
the rocks and fallen limbs.

"Have you seen this Mrs. Higgins?" asked Marion suddenly.

"No," Smythe answered gravely, though his eyes twinkled wickedly. "But
Higgins is sixty at least, and I fancy his wife's too old to be--" A
warning look checked him. "But really, Miss Gaylord, you ought not to
jump down my throat after I've brought you such an interesting knot
for your pretty hands to untie."

She laughed at his lugubrious countenance, then stood up, and reached
out a hand to him, letting him hold it for just a breath of time.

"No, you're a good friend. I know it."

"I'm not very deep," he said, with a touch of dejection. "Nobody ever
takes me very seriously. But I hope you'll trust me!"

"Indeed I will! But come! We must go back."

So they went slipping and sliding down the hill, digging their heels
into the ground, clinging to rocks and trees to check their swift
descent, laughing at their wild plunges and gyrations. At the house,
when they had rested a while on the veranda, Marion dismissed Smythe
as quickly as she could without abruptness; and when he had gone she
hastened to her room, and locked the door, and flung herself down on
the bed, with her hands clasped behind her head, to stare up at the
ceiling in a whirl of thoughts. There was a mystery! There was a
motive behind Haig's conduct! "The most unselfish man in the world"
And she repeated the words over and over again, and gathered them to
her heart.

CHAPTER XI

AVALANCHE

Huntington soon had his revenge on Marion, though, in his blindness,
he never knew it. She and Claire, after an unusually protracted Small
Talk the night before, arose late one morning to find the house
topsy-turvy from masculine activity. On the veranda they discovered
Seth cleaning rifles, surrounded by cartridge boxes, hunting knives,
canvas bags and wrappings, rubber coats, leather straps, fishing
tackle and what not.

"In the name of goodness, Seth Huntington! What are you doing?"
shrilled Claire.

"Guess!" replied Huntington, with a rather heavy attempt at
tantalizing.

"Oh, I know! Camping. But you don't mean to-day?"

"Sure!"

"But why didn't you ask us?" demanded Claire. "Maybe we don't
choose--"

"But you do, though. I promised Marion that as soon as I--"

He stopped, for even his habitually veiled eyes could not miss the
look of consternation on Marion's face.

"Why--I thought--" he began uncertainly. "Of course, if you don't want
to go--"

The oiled rag dropped from his hand. His descent from elation (he had
planned a little surprise) to dejection and chagrin was a tumble that
touched Marion's commiseration and disarmed her. She did not want to
go camping; she did not want to leave the Park for even a day, an
hour; she did not want to miss any opportunity to see Haig. More than
ever now was she determined to solve his mystery. So Huntingdon's
"surprise" was a greater shock to her than he, simple man, could
possibly have foreseen or perceived. But even if she had not been
moved by his rather ludicrous disappointment she would not have dared
to refuse acquiescence in his programme. She had indeed expressed an
ardent--oh, too ardent!--desire to go camping, and any explanation she
could think of on the instant would have led her into regions where
she could not trust herself.

"Indeed, I want to go!" she cried quickly, though there was a big lump
in her throat. "You took me by surprise, that's all."

"I should say so!" said Claire. "Think you're smart, don't you? We
might have been all dressed for it if you'd only told us. When do we
start, Big Boss?"

Huntington recovered his good spirits quickly, assured that he had
succeeded after all.

"I thought we'd ride to Ely's to-day, sleep there to-night, and make
Mount Avalanche to-morrow evening."

"Then we must hurry," said Claire. "Come, Marion."

"How long--shall we be gone?" asked Marion, struggling to appear
enthusiastic.

"Four or five days, I suppose."

Her heart sank. She could have cried with vexation. But she managed to
conceal her real feelings in the bustle of preparation. There were
provisions to be packed: cans and jars and bottles; bacon and ham and
flour against the possible event of bad luck with the guns and rods;
warm clothes and bedding; medicines and bandages. So fully occupied
were her hands and brain with these details, and later with her first
real experience with the mountain trails, that her heart must perforce
keep its peace until some hour of solitude.

Toward five o'clock of the second day they reached their destination,--a
grassy shelf a little below timber line on Mount Avalanche. There, in
some past age, an avalanche of titanic proportions had carried away
part of the mountain itself; and they camped now on the top of the
débris, long since concealed by a dense forest growth, as if nature had
employed her utmost arts to hide the wound. Marion could not but yield a
little to emotions of delight and wonder. On that high platform she
stood above a marvelous mountain world, below another mountain world as
marvelous. Behind her Avalanche reared sheer and sharp and white
against the sky. On either side were snow-clad peaks. At her feet
were forests in solid masses of green, now darkening in the
twilight. And beyond, far, far beyond, the Park they had left lay
bright under the sun's after-glow, with a background of range on range
of mountains in their violet haze. On the shelf was forage for the
horses; near at hand were moss and balsam for their beds; and at a
little distance a rivulet, ice-cold, had shady pools where small
trout awaited capture. And the air was like dry wine on the lips, with
a tang of resin in the nostrils; and the woods sang a song that even
Marion could not resist.

Here they pitched two tents just large enough to cover the beds of
balsam boughs and moss and blankets. In the three days they passed in
camp Marion learned many things that were to be of incalculable value
to her one day, though she never could have guessed that all this too,
like the encounter in the Forbidden Pasture, had been ordered in the
Beginning, details in the Scheme of Things. She learned surprising
secrets of makeshift cookery; she learned the Indian's lesson of a
very little fire; she learned the mountaineer's economy of matches and
like precious articles. She fished in the small pools that lay hidden
away in dark recesses of the forest, practised shooting with her
rifle, and on the third day, in the timber below the camp, with Seth
at her side, brought down her first deer.

"I told you!" cried Huntington, delighted at the progress of his
pupil.

But her heart was not in all this; it was clamoring now to be heard,
and would by no means be stilled. Each evening Marion walked apart
from the others, to stand at the edge of the lofty platform, and watch
her green and violet Elysium swallowed up in night. Each morning she
searched for it through her field glasses to assure herself that it
had not vanished in the dark. And when the last day of their outing
came, the last evening, the last night, she could scarce contain her
impatience. To-morrow they would start; and the day after--

She could not sleep that night. Every twig and every needle of her
pine mattress seemed to have conspired to torture her. She tossed
about until she could no longer endure her bed; and in the middle of
the night she crept out of the tent, and sat, wrapped in a blanket,
before the smouldering embers of the fire. The hobbled horses grazed
not far away; a night bird twitted solitarily in the brush; and from
the depths of the forest came the scream of some savage creature out
on its kill. Against the star-crowded sky the peaks stood up cold and
impassive. What cared they? What did the world care? What did Philip
care?

For now she knew that she loved him. Yes, yes, she loved him! In her
heart she had known it from the beginning, since that meeting in the
Forbidden Pasture, had known it as one knows things without
acknowledgment. Her mind had acknowledged only the hundred reasons why
she should not, could not love him. He had repelled her; he had not
veiled his meaning, had not concealed his antagonism; he had told her
plainly, brutally almost, that he would not endure her presence, that
she must avoid his side of the Park.

Then she thought of Robert,--Robert, so devoted and so true. What was
she doing: throwing away his love that was so unselfishly, so
whole-heartedly laid at her feet? Had she been mad to flee from him?
Yes, mad! Pride rose to support the fondness and the admiration she
had felt for him. And so there ensued a struggle between the two fine
spirits that dwelt in her,--the proud little lady of the Fragonard and
the Viking with red hair.

The Viking won. Had not her father said to her, in those long talks
about her mother, that love is the only thing? And back she came, on
swiftest wings of passion, to Philip; and she was glad. She knew now
the meaning of her restlessness in the dark days in the unheeding
city; she knew whose voice had called, whose arms had held her, though
he was unaware. He needed her, though he did not know it. And she had
come to him, without understanding. Somewhere she had read a fugitive
bit of verse that had meant nothing then, and had been forgotten until
now, when it suddenly sang across the years and the spaces like a call
to courage:

                         "The wild wind bloweth
                         The cross of fire.
                       The wild heart knoweth
                         Its own desire."

The wild heart knoweth its own desire! She rose to her feet with a
singing and a resurrection of her heart. She scarcely knew that her
limbs were stiff and that her body ached with cold. Her spirit was
aroused. She could not go and take Philip as her father had taken the
one he loved. But there were ways; when had a woman ever failed, in
love, of finding them? She set herself to thinking, planning,
scheming, while she walked swiftly to and fro before the tents. And
presently she stopped her pacing, and looked curiously around her.
There had come a subtle alteration in the aspect of the night. A
shivering freshness had crept insensibly into the air. Leaves and
grass and the very air appeared to be astir, though the silence and
the darkness were as before. She looked up eagerly at the sky, and saw
that the stars were pale. It was not yet the dawn; it was only the
passing of the night. But the dawn was near. The dawn! The dawn!

She did not wish Seth to find her there. He would ask questions,
staring at her. She crept stealthily back into her tent, and lay
there, shaking with cold, to wait for the noise that Huntington would
make as he sought for live embers in the ashes of the fire.

Once out of the mountains and in the foothills, she rode far ahead of
Seth and Claire, impatient at the slow progress necessitated by the
difficulties of the pack horses. Late in the afternoon she found
herself at a fork of the road with which she was familiar. A little
way up the less-used of the two branches there was a glade where
columbines grew in extraordinary profusion. She had gathered armloads
of them there, and seemed scarcely to have touched the edge of that
wild garden where nature had been seized with a prodigal impulse. And
now, rather to be doing something than to await in irritation for Seth
and Claire, she turned her pony's head and rode toward the glade. In
five minutes she was fording a little stream, beyond which the road
rose slightly to cross the shoulder of a hill, and dipped again to run
in a sharp curve along the margin of the glade. She took the rise at a
gallop, sped down the other slope, and at the curve of the road reined
up her horse with a startled cry. She had come suddenly upon a team
hitched at the side of the road,--the sorrels and the trap in which
Philip Haig had driven her to Huntington's that terrible evening.

For a moment she was bereft of thought and feeling. At that very
instant she had been thinking of him; what instant was she not
thinking of him? But the utterly unexpected encounter--for he was
there somewhere, in the glade, no doubt--swept away all that courage
she had found on Avalanche. She felt suddenly helpless, inert,
afraid; and before she could regain her self-possession, call back her
high resolve, the bushes at the roadside parted, and Philip stood
before her. He bore a great bouquet of columbines, their stems wrapped
in damp moss and leaves and tied securely with a string. At sight of
her he halted; and that look of annoyance she had seen him wear in the
road below his ranch house came again into his pale face. For some
seconds they regarded each other in silence.

"True," he said at length, with a smile that tortured her, "this is
not my side of the Ridge. I am the trespasser, even though this is
public domain. You have as much right here as I--more, since I said
the Ridge was the dividing line. So--"

He stepped quickly to her horse's side, pressed the great bunch of
pale-blue flowers into her limp but obedient hands, lifted his
battered hat, turned on his heel, walked directly to the trap, leaped
into the seat, and drove swiftly away. She watched him dully until he
was out of sight behind a bend in the road, among the trees; watched
the spot where he had disappeared until it became a blur to her aching
eyes. Then she looked slowly down at the flowers in her hands.
Columbines! Frail, lovely things, the fairest product, she had
thought, of nature's laboratory, reflecting the infinite, ineffable
blue of God's skies, delicate as the flower that had bloomed with such
wonderful, unexpected beauty in her own heart! How she could have
treasured them, wept over them, hugged them to her breast, if he had
given them to her in another way. Slowly her fingers relaxed. The
flowers fell into the dust of the road. She stared down, at them a
moment; and then, with a cry, leaped from her horse, picked them up
eagerly, clasped them to her breast, buried her face in them, and
watered them with her tears.

Seth said he guessed he would ride down to the post-office before
supper; yesterday was mail day; might be something. Marion was glad of
his departure, and to avoid Claire was not difficult, considering what
baths, and changing of linen, and brushing of hair they required after
their outing. Refreshed and rested, they had scarcely met before the
new-lighted fire at twilight when Seth returned, stamping vigorously
into the room.

"You're the lucky one, Marion," he said.

He fumbled in his pockets, and finally produced a letter. She took it,
glanced at it, and let it fall into her lap. A great stillness seemed
to have come upon the world. She appeared to be looking at Seth and
Claire across great distances. She could hear her heart pounding in
her bosom, like something that hammered for freedom. Ages seemed to
have passed before she was able to rise slowly, to smile, to beg to be
excused a moment. In her room she stood quite still, mechanically tore
open the envelope, and read:

  Dear Marion: You told me not to write, and I have obeyed till now.
  Don't scold, please! You see I am in Denver. It's business.
  Honest! A mining deal, just for a flyer. It may mean millions or
  nothing. I am here for several days, possibly weeks. Won't you
  _please_ let me run up to see you? Don't say no, Marion. I promise
  to be good. I have an auto here, and they tell me the roads are
  O. K. at this season. I'll come away the minute you tell me to. If
  I can see you only for an hour it will make me very happy.

                                                   Yours always,
                                                           Robert.

She read it twice, while the color slowly returned to her cheeks. Then
the letter faded from her sight, and she saw a face that wore a cruel
smile, and heard a voice that bade her begone. And suddenly a wave of
resentment, of anger, swept over her. To have been scorned, flouted,
humiliated by one to whom--And here was a man who wanted her as he
wanted nothing else in the world, who would toil for her, die for her,
who would treasure every word and smile she should consent to give
him, whose one desire was to make her happy. What madness had come
over her that she--she the Viking's daughter--Her eyes were drawn, she
knew not how, to the columbines that she had carefully, tenderly
arranged in a bowl on her dressing table. In a passion she rushed upon
them, snatched them up dripping, bore them to the open window, and
flung them with all her strength out upon the lawn. A moment she stood
looking at them, her hands clutched upon her heaving breast, her whole
body quivering with the storm that raged within her. Then she whirled
around, flung herself down at her little writing table, and wrote:

  Dear Robert: Yes, come. MARION.

Her hand trembled now so that she could scarcely address the envelope,
and seal it. But it was done at last. She rose, and paused a moment to
collect herself. Her mouth was dry, her forehead was hot under the
hand that she pressed upon it. Nervously she poured a glass of water
from the crystal pitcher that stood on a little table by the window,
and gulped it down. Her eyes, as she did so, fell again upon the
bouquet of columbines lying forlorn, their tender faces half buried in
the dry grass. A cry rose to her lips, but she forced it back, and
with a tightening of her lips, turned and went rapidly out into the
room where Seth and Claire awaited her.

"What do you think?" she cried, in a voice that sounded strangely
shrill and unmusical in her ears. "It's from Robert--Robert
Hillyer--Papa's good friend--and mine. He wants to come up and see
me--he's in Denver--on business. He wants to come up--he says--just
for a day or two--do you mind--if I ask him?"

"Of course, dear!" cried Claire, with enthusiasm.

"Sure!" seconded Seth. "Tell him he's very welcome."

"I knew you'd say that!" said Marion excitedly. "So--the letter--it's
all ready. Can it go out--the stage goes to-morrow, doesn't it?"

"Yes," replied Huntington. "I'll take it down in the morning--before
you're up."

"Please!"

She stood a moment, smiling at them. Then her eyes wandered aimlessly
around the room. She must do something quick, or she would go to
pieces. She saw the piano, and fairly ran to it. Crash! went the
chords. Rippling and tumbling on one another came the notes under her
nervous fingers. Out of the jumble of unrelated sounds presently
emerged a gay and sparkling melody; and then a gayer one; and after
that a rollicking song from one of the latest musical comedies. There
followed two of the sauciest, most irresponsible tunes that ever made
a vaudeville success. She played with abandon, a kind of reckless
fury, sitting erect, with her head flung back, an insouciant smile
flickering about her lips, her lithe body swaying with the music. Then
suddenly, in the midst of a tune, she stopped, arose, faced Seth and
Claire with flaming cheeks and eyes unnaturally bright.

"Great, Marion!" cried Seth, slapping his thigh. "Go on, please!"

But Claire had seen what Huntington had not. She turned to him
swiftly, with a quick command, as if she had suddenly remembered
something.

"I've clean forgot that pie, Seth. Go to the cave and bring me some
apples. Quick, now!"

He sensed something a little queer in that order, which would have
been very natural and pleasing at any other time, but he did not stop
to question. Claire waited until the door had closed behind him, then
ran to Marion, with anxiety pictured in her face.

"What is it, Marion?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, Claire, Claire!" cried Marion, breaking. "I'm so--so--unhappy!"

Then she flung herself into Claire's arms, weeping without restraint.

CHAPTER XII

SUNNYSIDES

Marion was not alone in her misery; but knowledge of this, had it by
any chance come to her, would not have eased her heart, though it
might indeed have hardened it a little against more suffering to
come.

Toward bedtime of the eighth day after that encounter at the glade of
the columbines, Philip Haig sat stiffly silent in his armchair,
staring into the fire. His brow was dark with discontent, his cheeks
had paled with the slow ebbing of the tide of passion that had swept
over him. It had begun to rise, though he was not then aware of it, or
barely aware of it, the day Marion had halted him in the road below
his ranch house; it had reached its flood as he drove away from her
and left the bouquet of columbines in her limp hands.

Who was this girl? And why had she come to torture him? To him she now
appeared as the incarnation of his tragedy. In her the Past, from
which he had fled to the far corners of the earth, hiding his trail in
seas and deserts and in stagnant backwaters of humanity, had tracked
him down at last. And all the grief and bitterness and hatred that he
had beaten down, or thought he had beaten down, had returned to rend
and tear him.

Two beings he had loved, and to them he had given, to each in a
different way, all his heart and soul and mind: his father and--that
other. She had come to him at his most susceptible age, when, devoted
only to art, he knew nothing of the world--a green boy, the wise ones
had called him. She had come to him with all the surprise and wonder
of a revelation, a coronation, a fulfillment, a golden epiphany. He
had attributed to her such spiritual perfections as should have
gone with her beauty and her grace; worshipped her for all that she
was not and all that he was himself. And she had deceived him,
exploited him, plundered him,--and laughed at him when by chance, one
tragic, intolerable night, he found her out. And the next morning,
as if his cup were not already full, he had received a cablegram,
in his attic studio in Paris, telling him that his father had killed
himself in a moment of despair over financial difficulties. So he
had killed his father with his excessive demands for money to
squander on 'Tonite. To be sure, he did not know--had had no hint
from home--had never guessed that his father was in trouble.
Nevertheless he had killed him--rather, she had killed him. What a
fool he had been! Never such another fool since God placed man and
woman together in one world. Cursing himself and her, and in her
cursing all her sex, he fled--he knew not where. So stunned and
dazed he was that he never really came to himself, found himself,
until one day he awoke in Hong Kong.

That was the beginning of the new life, if such it might be called. He
became a wanderer, an adventurer, seeking always new faces, new
places, new experiences, trying always to forget, hoping always for a
blessed knock on the head in some mad undertaking, for a thin knife in
the back in some wild adventure. But in all his wanderings the one
kind of adventure that he refused, the one excitement that he
steadfastly shunned, was the one that, because of his very aloofness,
and of something that women ever saw in his eyes, was offered to him
the most freely, in every land beneath the sun.

Slim Jim entered, bringing whisky and hot water. Haig turned his head
to look at him. Jim never changed, whatever his environment; he was
always the Orient, the inscrutable East. And now, slipping in so
stealthily, he seemed to bring with him an atmosphere, an odor, a
call, and Haig, still looking at Jim, but scarcely seeing him, began
to murmur lines that intoxicated him:

  "I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue hills are,
  But man can have the sun for friend, and for his guide a star;
  And there's no end of voyaging when once the voice is heard,
  For the river calls and the road calls, and--"

He stopped and sat suddenly erect.

"Jim!" he cried. "Do you remember the night we took old Kwang's girl
away from the river rats in Tien-Tsin?"

"Vellee well," answered the Chinaman.

His face was expressionless; he concealed the joy that this mood of
his master aroused in his thin breast. Jim did not like the Park, and
only the recollection of one day when he had stood tied to a capstan
on a pirate junk, with a dozen fiends around him trying to make him
tell something he did not know, and Haig had suddenly descended upon
them like the foreign devil he was,--well, Jim took his gods where he
found them, and from that day Haig had never been able to rid himself
of this idolater.

"Tien-Tsin! Tien-Tsin!" Haig repeated, lingering covetously on the
words. "But that was a fight, eh!"

"No likee!" replied Jim.

"No likee!" cried Haig. "Why, you hypocritical young ruffian, you!
That was one of the happiest nights of your life. You're always trying
to make people think you're asleep, or timid. I can see, right now,
that long knife of yours slip under my arm, and catch the big fellow
in the stomach. He just coughed once, and crumpled up at my feet. In
the nick of time, too, Jim, and I let the next one have it. The rest
of them took to their heels, and you with your long pigsticker after
them. No likee! Jim, you're a moon-faced old liar, and a disgrace to
your ten thousand and seven ancestors."

Jim's smile was perfectly noncommittal. He was too wily to appear
eager. Besides, he did not really like fighting, which made all the
more trouble for somebody when he had to fight. But he was heartily
sick of this cold and uneventful life in the Park. Better a thousand
times the foolish adventures, the unnecessary battles, the restless
wanderings of other days!

"That was a night!" said Haig, flinging himself back in his chair to
gaze dreamily into the flames, while Jim, like a blue ghost, stole
noiselessly away. And there, in the glow of the dying fire, bright
and alluring visions successively took shape: A red-and-yellow temple
on a hill, to which a thousand steps led up from a lake the color of a
blue heron's breast; a junk with sails of purple creeping out of a
morning mist as yellow as saffron; an island with a still lagoon in
its center, and coconut palms alive with screaming parrots of every
gorgeous hue; a sandy beach where jabbering natives dragged the
flotsam of a wrecked steamer out of the breakers; a village on a high
plateau, where a drum throbbed incessantly, and naked Indian children
peered out from behind the huts; a skirmish line in khaki crawling up
to the brow of a shell-swept hill; a dog-team yelping under the long
lash of a half-breed Aleut, on a frozen river that sparkled in the
sun; a sweating jungle where two bright spots glowed balefully in the
gloom.

"God!" groaned Haig, as he sat erect at last, and reached for the
glass, now cold. He tasted it, and set it back with a wry face.

"Damn Thursby!" he muttered. "Does he think I'm going to stay here
forever, like a bear in a pit?"

He woke the next morning in an ugly humor, having slept little, and
then only to dream such dreams as fed his discontent. He berated Jim
because the biscuits were cold (which was not Jim's fault), and
because the coffee was hot (which was according to his orders).
Trivial annoyances, most of them of his own making or imagining,
multiplied on all sides, fomenting his irritability until, by the time
he strode out of the cottage, his temper was at white heat. What might
have happened to the patient, devoted men about the stable and
corrals is not difficult of conjecture, but they were saved by
Sunnysides. Almost the first object that caught Haig's eye was the
yellow outlaw gleaming in the morning sunlight.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

His inner turmoil of these last few days had banished all thought of
the stallion of the San Luis. But now, his eyes gleamed as he
quickened his steps toward the stable.

Farrish and Pete were at work among the stalls; Bill stood guard over
Sunnysides; and the fourth man, Curly, was mending a saddle in the
harness-room.

"Farrish!" Haig called out, striding into the stable. "We'll tackle
the yellow fellow this morning."

Farrish and Pete turned, and looked at him curiously.

"All right!" answered Farrish; and then added doubtfully: "Now?"

"Yes. At once."

Farrish, in a manner that showed a certain reluctance, put up the
currycomb with which he had been grooming the sorrels, and started
toward the rear door. But Pete stood still.

"You too, Pete!" said Haig, impatiently.

"I think you better not--to-day," answered the Indian, in his slow
way.

"Why?" snapped Haig.

Pete had seen the expression on Haig's face, and did not like it. But
he hesitated to utter what was in his mind.

"Why?" repeated Haig.

"I think you better wait," was all that Pete could say.

"Hell!" cried Haig. "Get your lariat! And be quick about it!"

He had read Pete's thought; his ill-humor had evidently shown itself
in his face; but the caution only whetted his purpose. Throwing off
his coat as he went, he passed through the rear door of the barn, and
climbed into the outlaw's corral, followed by Farrish, Curly, and
Pete.

Sunnysides received them with suspicion. His head was high, his
nostrils were dilated, his tail swished slowly, like a tiger's. One
forefoot was raised a little, resting on the toe, and the muscles of
his shoulders quivered under the glossy hide. He had fully recovered
from the effects of his rough treatment on the road, and his skin
shone with a satin-like luster in the morning sun.

There was a moment's pause, while Haig and the others looked at the
horse, and he at them.

"Now then, Farrish! Pete!" commanded Haig.

And the battle began. Farrish and Pete turn by turn flung their
lariats at the horse's head and feet, but time after time he dodged,
and ducked, and capered away from the whirling noose, or wriggled out
of the coil as it tightened around him.

"He's greased lightning!" ejaculated Bill, from his perch on the
fence.

"He's hell, that's what he is!" retorted Curly, from a corner of the
corral.

Farrish and Pete went silently on with their work. They knew that
eventually, dance and squirm as he might, the horse would be caught in
one or the other of the relentless loops. And so it proved. While
Sunnysides was side-stepping a throw by Farrish, Pete's rope slipped
snakily over his head, and tightened around the arched neck. With an
artful lunge toward the Indian, and a lowering of his head, the horse
struggled to throw off the coil. But it held.

Then followed a mad performance. The horse was over all the corral at
once, it seemed: rearing, plunging, leaping, tossing his head,
crashing into the fence with such fury that it barely stood up under
his onslaughts. Bill was knocked off the fence backward on to his
head; Curly, crowded into his corner, barely avoided a vicious kick;
and Haig's temper was not improved by the narrow escape he had from
being crushed against a post.

"Bill!" he yelled. "Get a rope!"

The man ran into the barn, returned with a lariat, and joined the
fray. Plainly chagrined, though unhurt by his fall, Bill took long
chances to even up the score; and under the very hoofs of the
infuriated animal, he made a throw that brought Sunnysides sprawling
on the ground, his forefeet caught in Bill's noose. It was the work of
a few seconds then for Farrish to secure the hind feet also; and the
horse lay prostrate, panting and half-choked, but defiant still.

Giving him no time to recover, and no more breath than he actually
required, Haig and Curly forced the bit of a bridle into the outlaw's
foaming mouth. Then the noose on his hind feet was cautiously removed,
one forefoot was freed, and the horse was allowed to rise. The next
proceeding appeared to be resented by Sunnysides even more than what
he had already been subjected to. While Farrish and Pete held his
head, Haig approached him cautiously with a saddle, and dropped it on
his back. There was a lightning-like motion, and the saddle was tossed
a dozen feet away, while the two men at the horse's head were jerked
almost off their feet. Again and again the saddle was laid on his
back, to remain there barely an instant. But at the fifth attempt, to
the astonishment of all, Sunnysides stood still, as if, being an
equine Napoleon, he had changed his plan of battle in the face of the
enemy. Without further resistance, he permitted the saddle to be
adjusted and cinched, permitted the men to lead him out of the corral
into the larger one adjoining it, and permitted Haig to mount him and
take the bridle reins in his hand.

"I'll be damned!" said Curly. "You'd think--"

"Shut up!" cried Farrish. "That's a bluff."

"Now then!" ordered Haig, pointing to the rope that still held one
forefoot.

The rope was removed.

"The other!"

Pete and Farrish slipped off the lariat that remained noosed around
the outlaw's neck, and stepped back.

For some seconds there was no sound, no motion, no sign of any design
on the part of Sunnysides. Then, with the swiftness and surprise of a
flash of powder in the dark, a shocking thing occurred. Without a
preliminary movement, either of lunging or bucking or leaping to one
side, or any of the expected tactics, Sunnysides, with incredible
suddenness, reared straight up into the air, threw himself over, and
fell on his back, pinning Haig to the ground beneath him.

Before any of the men could move, the horse rolled over sprawling,
scrambled to his feet, and charged at the fence. There was a crash
and the sound of splintering wood. The top plank fell, broken in two
jagged pieces, and the horse's forefeet were over the second plank.
But before he could leap again, Curley had caught the bridle rein, and
swung the outlaw's head around, holding him there until Bill had
leaned over the broken fence and roped the forelegs once more. After a
moment of furious struggle, Sunnysides appeared to realize that it was
useless; and thus the two men held him, with his forefeet still
hanging outside the fence, while they turned their eyes toward Haig.

Farrish and the Indian knelt at his side. He lay quite still,
unconscious, and for a moment they thought him dead. Pete put his head
down on Haig's breast, and listened. Then he rose to his feet.

"Whisky!" he muttered, and ran toward the stable.

In two minutes he was back, bearing a flask, which he uncorked as he
ran. Forcing the mouth of it between Haig's lips, he let the scorching
liquor trickle down the throat until the flask was half emptied. Then
he poured some of the whisky in the palm of his hand, and rubbed it on
Haig's face and bared breast and wrists, while Farrish, in his turn,
ran to the stable and brought a lap robe, which he folded and placed
under Haig's head.

They waited helplessly, without speech. At the fence, Bill and Curley
clung to their ropes. Sunnysides, his forefeet still projecting over
the plank, and the saddle hanging lopsided from his back, had his head
drawn back so far that he could see the group in the middle of the
corral. His eyes were bloodshot, foam dripped from his mouth, the
breath came whistling through his half-shut windpipe.

But in the cottonwoods the birds sang undisturbed, and the pines far
up the hill droned their old tune unchanged. From the ranch house came
the rattle of tin pans, and the voice of the cook singing a song of
the round-up.

After a long time, Haig stirred. A moan came with the first deep
breath; his eyes opened, staring up at the two faces above him; his
lips moved, but at first no sound came from them. Pete leaned closer,
and listened.

"Did--he--get--away?" came in a whisper.

"No," answered Pete. "He caught."

A smile flickered on Haig's lips, and went out; and at the same time a
tiny trickle of blood oozed out, and ran down through the dust on the
white cheek. Pete and Farrish looked at each other; and when they
turned to Haig again, his eyes were closed, and the pallor of his face
had deepened to a bluish, ashen hue.

Pete bent quickly to put his ear again to Haig's breast.

CHAPTER XIII

HILLYER'S DILEMMA

Hillyer's loyal heart was near to bursting with joy. In all the days
of his eager courtship Marion had never seemed so close to him, so
fairly within his grasp, as now. She had welcomed him with totally
unexpected warmth, considering the many times she had rejected him,
and considering, too, the letter he had received from her on her
departure. Absence, he thought, had advanced his cause for him. A
dozen times he was on the point of boldly violating the six months'
embargo she had placed upon his pleadings; but as often as the fervent
words rose to his lips fear froze them there, and he was silent.

As for Marion, she was for the moment absorbed in a little plan that
was not for Robert's knowledge. She was intent upon meeting Philip in
Robert's company; she wanted to bow to him, and smile, and let him see
that there was one man at least who prized her, if he did not. But the
imp of perversity seemed to have come to abide permanently in the
Park. Though Marion, in the first two days of Robert's visit, guided
him, in the big automobile, everywhere except beyond the Ridge and to
the glade of the columbines, she had never a glimpse of Philip. All
this maddened her; and if Robert had but spoken, there were times
when--But Robert did not speak.

Near noon of the third day they met Smythe in the main valley road a
mile or so below the post-office. At sight of him bobbing along toward
them, almost lost between his horse and his sombrero, Marion's first
impulse was to speed past him without stopping. She was not sure she
could trust his discretion; for she had told Robert nothing about
Philip Haig. But she did not wish to offend the faithful Smythe; and
so, on second thought, she hurriedly acquainted Robert with the
identity of the approaching figure, and warned him to control his
inevitable mirth.

"He is funny," she said, laughing in spite of herself, "but he can't
help that. He's been very good to me, in his way."

In the meantime Smythe's horse was deciding the matter on his own
account. This was the first automobile the pony had ever seen, and he
made up his mind promptly that he did not like it. He reared and
bucked, bolting first to one side and the other of the road, and
refused to consider Smythe's well-worded assurance that wise horses
were really fond of automobiles, which were taking a great deal of
work off their shoulders.

Hillyer stopped the machine, and cut off the power. But the pony's
suspicions had been thoroughly aroused, and the sudden silence seemed
to him more portentous than even the noise of the motor. Smythe
thereupon had his work cut out for him, but he would not compromise
either by dismounting, or by turning and riding away. Slowly and
patiently he urged the frightened pony toward the automobile until,
after many setbacks and panics, he had brought him near enough for
conversation.

"There now, Peanuts!" he said to the prancing animal. "You see you
were quite mistaken." Then, to Hillyer and Marion: "He's a little like
myself. He doesn't really believe in ghosts, but he's dreadfully
afraid of them."

"I didn't know you were such an accomplished horseman," said Marion.

"Didn't you? Well, you see--"

At that instant the pony suffered a fresh access of alarm. He bounded
suddenly sideways, and at the same time ducked as if he purposed to
stand on his head, though what good that would have done only he knew.
The movement threw Smythe over the pony's head, and flat on his back
in the dust; and in a twinkling Peanuts was dashing up the road, with
his tail in the air, and the stirrups flapping at his sides.

For some seconds Smythe lay half-stunned; but before Marion and
Hillyer, leaping from the automobile, were able to reach him, he sat
up, and began to straighten out his crushed sombrero, eyeing it
critically. He was covered with dust, and one end of his white collar,
torn from the button, stuck out above his coat. But his aplomb was
perfect.

"As I was saying, when interrupted," he began, continuing to minister
to the sombrero, "you see I am an accomplished horseman."

Marion and Hillyer broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Then Hillyer
hastened to assist Smythe to rise.

"Not hurt, I hope?" said Robert.

"Objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. Sartorially, a wreck."

They laughed now without restraint, which seemed to please Smythe
immensely. He proceeded to tuck the end of the torn collar back into
its place, where it refused to stay; to brush his clothes; to adjust
the abused sombrero in exactly the long-studied angle on his head.

"I hope you'll forgive us for laughing," said Marion, "but--"

"Say no more about it, please!" protested Smythe. "I'd rather make you
laugh than weep--assuming that anybody would weep for me."

"Oh, I'd have felt very badly if you'd been hurt," Marion assured him.
"And you might have been, too."

"No, a cropper like that's nothing. Peanuts isn't--" He paused just a
second to look into Marion's eyes with an expression that arrested her
attention sharply. "Peanuts isn't Sunnysides."

"Sunnysides?" she cried out unguardedly.

Smythe's eyes warned her, as he waited to give her time for
self-control. He did not know how far Hillyer was in her confidence.

"Is there news--about--Sunnysides?" she faltered, struggling
desperately with herself.

"Yes," he answered. Then he continued slowly, in as light a manner as
possible, the while he held her with a concentrated gaze: "I'd been
down the valley as far as the mouth of the canyon. Coming back, about
two miles below where Haig's road joins this, I saw the sorrels in a
cloud of dust. 'Hello!' I said. 'Something's up, or the sorrels
wouldn't be driven like that.' In a minute or two I made out Bill
Craven, one of Haig's men, leaning forward in the seat of a road
wagon, and laying on the whip. 'If Haig saw that!' I thought. And so
I--"

"Go on, please!" said Marion shrilly.

But Smythe was purposely deliberate; for he saw Hillyer looking at her
curiously.

"I wasn't going to let anybody abuse his horses if I could prevent it.
Besides, how did I know but Craven was stealing the sorrels? I threw
my pony straight across the road. Craven reined the sorrels up on
their hind legs, almost on top of me.

"'What in hell?' he yelled.

"'That's what I want to know,' I answered.

"'Can't you see I'm in a hurry, damn you?' he shouted angrily.

"'That's exactly what I do see,' I replied. 'But Haig never whips
those horses.'

"'That's none of your business, and Haig ain't carin' much now,' he
fired back at me. 'Get out o' my way, or I'll--'

"'Now just keep cool!' I told him. 'What's the trouble?'

"Craven snorted, but he told me, as the quickest way out of it. Haig
had been hurt--trying to ride Sunnysides. He's--"

"Hurt? How?" asked Marion; and Smythe was relieved to detect a new
steadiness in her voice. She had passed the danger point.

"The horse went over backwards, pinning him to the ground, with the
saddle horn in his stomach. Craven's gone for the doctor."

She gave him one long, searching look, as if to pluck out anything he
might have been hiding from her. Then she turned swiftly toward the
automobile.

"Come, Robert! Quick!" she commanded.

She climbed quickly into the machine, followed by Hillyer, who was
puzzled and alarmed by what he had seen in Marion's face.

"You too, Mr. Smythe. Hurry!" cried Marion.

"But my horse?" objected Smythe.

"He'll run home," answered Marion impatiently. "Come! We may need
you."

Smythe obeyed, and jumped into the tonneau, while Robert cranked up
and threw in the clutch.

"Fast!" cried Marion.

Hillyer glanced at her. She was very white; her lips were pressed
together, her eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The machine lurched
under them.

"Faster!" urged Marion, in another minute.

The machine, with a kind of shudder, responded to Hillyer's hand, and
shot out with fresh speed.

Another brief silence.

"The cut-out!" she ordered.

Hillyer bent to the mechanism, and the engine, with the muffler off,
roared and shrieked as it took the smooth white road, with every bar
and rivet throbbing under the pressure. Only then did Marion turn, and
motion to Smythe. He leaned forward, clinging to the back of her
seat.

"The doctor?" she shouted in his ear.

"Craven had started for Tellurium," he yelled back. "Said he'd kill
the sorrels. I told him there was a doctor at Lake Cobalt--Doctor
Norris of Omaha--just arrived, with his family. 'You're not such a
fool after all,' said Craven. (I'll talk with him about that later.)
'Thanks!' I said, and pulled my horse out of the way. 'That saves two
days.' He gave the horses the whip again, and I started for
Huntington's to tell you--Watch out! There's the turn!" he shouted in
Hillyer's ear.

The wheels tore up the sand as the machine, with the power off but
still going at more than half-speed under its momentum, skidded and
scraped around the turn into Haig's road.

"Now!" cried Marion.

Again the automobile shivered, and plunged, and went clamoring like a
mad thing up the little valley, the hills echoing back its roar. The
white road leaped up at them, gulping them in. A red steer, astray
from some pasture, crossed the road far ahead of them, and Marion
closed her eyes as the machine, with a sickening swerve, missed it by
inches. The next instant she was pointing to the group of buildings
squatting under the hill; and then she was out of the automobile, and
running to Farrish at the door of the barn. His face confirmed her
worst fears.

"Where is he?" she asked, with a swift look around.

He pointed toward the larger of the two cottages. With Hillyer and
Smythe silently following, she ran to the cottage, and through the
open door. There she found herself in a bare, uncarpeted room,
furnished only with two chairs and a table. On the table lay a faded
and battered gray hat. For an instant her gaze rested on it, and a
lump rose in her throat. But she resolutely turned away, tightening
her lips.

There were two inner doors, one of which, ajar, revealed a glimpse of
brightly polished pans hanging on the wall. The other door was closed.
After an instant of hesitation, she walked straight toward it.

"Marion!" called Hillyer warningly.

She did not heed him, but turned the knob, softly opened the door, and
with Robert and Smythe at her heels, stepped into a dimly lighted room
where the aroma of a pine log blazing in the fireplace mingled with
the pungent odor of ammonia. Smythe was quick to observe, over
Marion's shoulder, that the room was a sort of library and bedroom
combined, carpeted in dark red, the walls papered in red also, and the
windows curtained with heavy tapestry silk of the same rich hue. There
were low bookcases on two sides of the room, with pictures above them;
several marble statuettes on the bookcases; and a little jade Buddha
beside a two-foot bronze god of terrifying aspect on the mantelpiece.
In the middle of the apartment stood a solid library table, of which
the cover was a curious strip of faded yellow silk embroidered with a
dragon in green, a fragment of an old Chinese banner.

At the left of the door, its head against the wall, was a brass bed in
which a figure moved restlessly under the covers. Near the head of the
bed, on the side nearest the door, stood the Indian, his stolid,
bronzed face turned toward Marion as she entered. On the other side,
holding one of Haig's hands, knelt Slim Jim in his blue silks, his
yellowish face as expressionless as Pete's, except for an alert and
questioning look in his eyes. There was no sound except the low
crackling of the fire, and the rasp of heavy breathing, with sharp
catches in it that spoke eloquently of pain.

Marion stepped to Pete's side, and looked down into the face of Philip
Haig. In the dim light it had the pallor of death, with the parted
lips and the staring eyes of the dead, or the dying. But he breathed;
and presently her steady, searching, pitying gaze brought his eyes to
meet her own, and she saw that they were living eyes, though clouded
and darkened with agony. Almost was she on her knees, weeping over
him, regardless of those in the doorway watching her. And it was not
their presence so much as the necessity for action that restrained and
steadied her. She did not even speak his name; but after her one long
look, she turned away, and with every outward sign of calm, removed
her gloves and hat and coat, and placed them on a chair in a corner of
the room. Then she beckoned to Pete, who followed her, with Smythe and
Hillyer, into the bare outer room.

"Close the door, please!" she commanded quietly.

Smythe closed it.

"Where is he hurt?" she asked the Indian.

"Here." He laid a hand on his stomach.

"Was he unconscious?"

"Yes. Long time."

"How long has he been like that--awake?"

"Maybe two hours."

"What have you done? What have you given him?"

"Whisky."

"Nothing else?"

"Water. Ammonia on face and breast."

"Was there blood?"

"Yes. From mouth."

She had another struggle then, and the tears started in spite of all
that she could do. But she conquered them.

"Much blood?"

"No. Little, only at first."

"Thank you, Pete." Then, turning to Hillyer: "I want you, Robert,
please, to drive home, and tell Mrs. Huntington to make up a bundle of
the things I shall need. Wait! A pencil and a bit of paper, please."

For a moment he did not move to comply.

"What are you going to do, Marion?" he asked, his voice shaking
slightly with the effort of speaking calmly.

"I'm going to nurse him," she replied, meeting his look without
flinching.

"But, Marion! I don't--"

"Pencil and paper, Robert!" she said firmly.

He tore a leaf from a notebook, and gave it to her with his pencil.

"Thank you," she said; and seated herself at the table to write.

But there was the dilapidated hat again--so stained and soiled, a
crumpled, tragic, intimate thing--arresting her. How it had filled her
dreams! How she had laughed at it, fondly, tenderly, as a mother
smiles at the battered school hat of her boy! Once, she had fancied it
hanging on the pink wall in her room, a trophy, with a ribbon tied
around its sweated band. And now she wanted to grab it up, and hug it
to her breast. But she only lifted it gently, and placed it a little
farther away, on the other side of the table. Then she made her
notes.

"There, Robert!" she said, rising, and handing the list to him.
"Claire will know where to find them."

He took the paper mechanically, his eyes fixed on Marion.

"Will you come down, to the car for a moment?" he asked.

She saw the look, and softened under it. But she could not answer his
questions then.

"No," she said. "Later, if you wish it."

For a moment he hesitated. But he could say no more in the presence of
Smythe and Pete, though they were talking together at the other side
of the room. So he moved slowly away, but was suddenly stopped by a
cry from Marion.

"Oh! Oh!" she exclaimed. "Why didn't somebody--why didn't I think of
it before? The car? Run, Robert! Drive down the road toward the lake.
You'll overtake the sorrels--or meet them. Bring the doctor in the
car. Fast, please!"

Hillyer, without another word, ran and leaped into the automobile, and
was soon bringing the echoes out of the hills again. He sank low in
the seat, and fixed his eyes on the road that stretched out blinding
white in the sunlight.

CHAPTER XIV

COALS OF FIRE

Seth was oiling a pair of boots on the veranda, while Claire talked to
him about Hillyer, who had pleased her immeasurably by his devotion to
Marion, and even more, of course, by his generous compliments to
herself. She was delicately calling Seth's attention to the pleasure,
the profits, and the sanctity of politeness, when she caught sight of
Hillyer's automobile emerging slowly and silently from the trees that
concealed the road at a little distance from the corrals.

"There he is now!" she exclaimed. And then, an instant later: "Why,
he's alone!"

She stood up excitedly, and Seth also, dropping a half-oiled boot on
the floor.

"What the devil?" ejaculated Huntington.

So they stood, waiting and wondering, while Hillyer alighted from the
automobile, and walked, with exasperating slowness--with reluctance,
if they had but known it--up the graveled path among the flower beds.
Something in the look of him caused Claire to clutch a post of the
veranda for support.

"Where's Marion?" she cried.

"She's all right," replied Hillyer, as he mounted the steps. "That is,
nothing has happened to her. But there's been an accident." He
hesitated. "Who is this Philip Haig?"

"Haig? What about Haig?" demanded Huntington.

"He's been hurt. A horse threw him."

"Sunnysides?" cried Huntington excitedly.

"I believe so."

"He will, will he?" chuckled Huntington. "That serves--"

"But Marion?" interrupted Claire. "What about Marion?"

Hillyer looked doubtfully from one to the other, in much embarrassment.
What did they know? Or were they as ignorant as he of the situation
that had been revealed to him as if by the flash of a thunderbolt? And
how much should he disclose to them, in loyalty to Marion? But in his
pocket was Marion's list.

"She's there--with him," he said at length.

"There? Where?" thundered Huntington.

"At his house."

They stood stock-still, staring at him.

"She wishes Mrs. Huntington to make up a bundle of these things for me
to take to her."

He handed the list to Claire, who took it, and held it at arm's
length, regarding it curiously, as if she had not understood.

"You mean that--" she began, and stopped.

"She says she's going to nurse him."

"She's going to--what?" Claire's voice rose almost to a shriek.

"Nurse him."

"And you've left her there with that--"

Huntington was going to say "ruffian," but was checked by a sudden
recollection, as well as by the look that Hillyer flashed at him. For
a moment the two men faced each other, the one with anger boiling up
inside of him, the other struggling to put down the resentment aroused
by Huntington's belligerent tone. Claire crushed the slip of paper in
her hand, and watched them fearfully.

"I judge from your manner," said Hillyer at length, when he had
controlled himself, "that you dislike her being there as much as I do.
But as I am all in the dark, I'll be greatly obliged to you if you
will answer my question. Who is Philip Haig?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" blurted out Huntington.

Hillyer made a gesture of impatience.

"But he's your neighbor," he said curtly.

"And that's about all I know of him," Huntington replied, "except that
we ought to have run him out of the Park long ago, and will do it yet,
so help me God!"

"Why?" asked Hillyer shortly.

Then, as clearly as he could in his rage, Seth gave Hillyer a brief
account of the events of the four years that Haig had been in the
Park,--an account that satisfied Hillyer as little as it had satisfied
Marion. He had meant, in the beginning, to ask how Marion had come to
know Haig, and if they had been much together; but he now surmised
that Huntington and his wife were as ignorant as himself of that
acquaintanceship, or friendship, or whatever it was that could have
made possible the astounding emotions he had seen on Marion's face.
Hillyer's situation was difficult. If Marion had a secret he must
guard it for her, whatever it might cost him. Yet now he needed help,
and no one could help him but Huntington and his wife. And at the
first words on the subject, Huntington had (more in the tone of his
speech than the matter) shown him that little help could be expected
in that quarter. Last of all, and not to be forgotten, he was the
Huntingtons' guest.

"How bad's he hurt?" asked Huntington.

Hillyer shook his head dubiously.

"It's impossible to say just yet. Doctor Norris fears that the
pancreas is ruptured. In that case--" He shrugged his shoulders. "At
any rate, the pancreas and the stomach are temporarily paralyzed by
the blow of the saddle horn--the horse seems to have gone over
backward on him. If he gets over the shock there's still the danger of
inflammation. There ought to be ice packs. Cold water will have to do.
They must be changed every minute. Doctor Norris told me--" He paused
to look intently at Claire--"Doctor Norris told me that nothing but
the most careful nursing can save him."

"Let the Chinaman do it!" Huntington blurted out.

Hillyer shook his head.

"No. Norris says he will not trust him. You see, Haig's pleading for
water must be denied. He can command the Chinaman, and that--Besides,
all this is not to the point. Marion has made up her mind, and I
assure you--Please get the things she asks for, Mrs. Huntington."

"You don't mean you're going to take them!" shouted Huntington.

"Certainly. She's asked for them."

"And you're going to let her stay there--with him?"

Hillyer smiled. Having abandoned all hope of assistance from
Huntington, he was thinking of other measures, and was scarcely as
attentive as he might have been to the increasing truculence of his
host.

"What would you do?" he asked quietly.

"I'd bring her away!"

"Would you care to go and try it?"

This was a keener thrust than Hillyer had any intention of delivering,
provoked though he was by Huntington's behavior; for Seth had not
included in his narrative any reference to the affair at the
post-office, or to Haig's visit to his house. Huntington's face became
purple; and if he had been apoplectic in disposition he would surely
have suffered a seizure in that moment of choking rage.

"I'll go there right enough!" he bellowed. "I'll go, when I get ready.
I'll go when he's able to stand up and take what's coming to him. As
for her--you can take her things, and her trunks too, while you're
about it."

Hillyer gazed at him dumbfounded for just a breath of time. Then his
own face flamed.

"Quite right, Mr. Huntington!" he said, taking a step toward him. "I
haven't seen much of Haig, but from what I've seen of you, I think his
house can be no worse place for Miss Gaylord than yours. What's more,
you're an--" He caught himself, whirled on his heel, and addressed
Claire. "May I ask you, please, to pack Marion's trunks. I'll attend
to mine."

Claire had stood quite silent, with her blue eyes opening wider and
wider, for the moment helpless, but trusting more to Hillyer's
resources of diplomacy than to her husband's self-control. Now her
face crimsoned with mortification, and she stood up with all the
inches of her five foot two.

"You'll do no such thing!" she cried, and one little heel came down on
the floor with a jolt. "The idea! The very idea! Oh!"

For a moment she stood poised, like a butterfly in a rage, if one can
imagine it; then she tripped straight to Huntington, clasped the
lapels of his coat, and drew herself up on tiptoes, trying to meet his
eyes.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" she cried.

"No, I'm not!" he growled.

But he was, or at least was dimly conscious of his egregious
misbehavior; for he looked neither at Hillyer nor his wife, and was
red now where he had been purple.

"But you are, though!" She turned her face toward Hillyer, without
loosing her hold on Seth's coat. "Don't you mind him, Mr. Hillyer!
He's just a big bear. And Haig has been a trial to us. Marion's my
guest, and--" She looked up into Seth's beard again--"If you think
you're going to send her away like this--"

She stopped short, as on a sudden thought, and then, with a giggle,
buried her face in his flannel shirt. And the next thing, as
unexpected as her blue-eyed rage, she dropped her hands from his coat,
stooped to catch up the hem of her skirt between thumb and forefinger
of each hand, and began to pirouette around the room.

"Oh, ho!" she exclaimed, laughing triumphantly, her little body
swaying as she tripped, with low curtsies to Seth and Hillyer, who for
the moment forget their animosity in wonder at this feminine
diversion. "Beautiful! Gorgeous! Oh, splendid!"

She stopped, at length, in front of Seth, dropped to one knee, bowed
till her golden head almost touched the floor, and rose again to stand
with her hands on her hips, her arms akimbo, her face flushed with
excitement.

"Seth Huntington!" she cried ecstatically. "Do you know what we're
going to do?"

He merely stared.

"We're going to heap coals of fire on his head."

"What do you mean?" demanded Huntington uneasily.

"Marion's going to nurse Haig. There's no way any of us can stop her.
She's our cousin and guest, and we've got to show it. If they want to
talk, we'll give them something to talk about. _I'll go and nurse Haig
too!_"

Dead silence.

"Ah!" cried Hillyer.

"You'll not!" roared Huntington.

"Watch me!" retorted Claire, turning swiftly, and running toward her
bedroom. But halfway there she stopped. "No, don't watch me! You just
go and look after the cattle. Leave this Mr. Haig to us, and he'll be
the best friend you ever had before Marion and I get through with
him."

Hillyer, recovering from his amazement, stepped smiling to where she
stood, and reached both his hands to her.

"Mrs. Huntington," he said warmly. "You're a peach!"

She laughed gaily, and put both her tiny hands in his, for just an
instant.

This was the last straw. Seth snorted like a baited animal, whirled
around, bolted from the house, and ran blindly to the barn.

"Saddle Nigger!" he yelled to Williams, who obeyed with stumbling
alacrity, while Huntington strode up and down before the door.

From the window of the ranch house Claire and Hillyer, silent, watched
him until he had flung himself into the saddle, dug the spurs into the
flanks of his favorite and now astonished black horse, and disappeared
up the hill.

"Where's he going?" asked Hillyer, suspicious that Huntington meant
mischief.

Claire drew back from the window with a sigh of relief.

"He's going to--" She laughed softly, but with just a little tremor in
her voice--"He's going to--look after the cattle."

Hillyer saw that her blue eyes were moist.

"He's the best man in the world, and--I love him," she said, looking
at Hillyer with a soft appeal. "You believe that, don't you?"

"Indeed I do, Mrs. Huntington," Hillyer answered heartily.

"Then you must forgive him; he has such a temper!"

"I'm sorry we had any misunderstanding," Hillyer was able to say
sincerely. "I'll talk it over with him--later."

"Please!" urged Claire.

"But I must go now. Those things for Marion, please."

"I'll have them ready in a minute. And I've only to slip on another
dress, and--"

"But you don't mean--You're not going?"

"Of course I am!" she answered, with a look of surprise.

"I think you'd better not," he said quietly.

"But why?"

"Now think a minute, Mrs. Huntington. Your husband objects to your
going. It will not only anger him more, but it will hurt him. Isn't
that so?"

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly.

Her coals of fire had kindled her imagination. Such a romantic idea!
There would be such talk, such a sensation!

"It would be another matter if there were anything you could do,"
Hillyer went on. "But there isn't. And I know very well that Marion
would send you back if you did go."

That was true enough, on reflection; but it was a disappointment!

"But Marion! There alone!" she said, making her last stand.

"I shall be there," replied Hillyer. "The Chinaman's going to fix a
bed for me. I'll look after Marion."

So she yielded, and was glad of it when she had time to think it over.
She gave Hillyer the bundle for Marion, and watched him go, waving a
good-by from the veranda. Then she hastened to the kitchen to make
apple dumplings for supper. If there was one thing that could always
be counted on to soothe Seth it was apple dumplings.

Meanwhile it was indeed a black day for Huntington. Fate was against
him. Tearing himself, mangled in spirit, out of one trap, he rode
blindly into another. Far up in the hills, riding savagely, he knew
not where, nor cared, vowing dark vengeance on Haig, his attention was
drawn at last by the weird and ominous bellowing of cattle. Following
the sound, he came to a little hollow where a hundred or more cattle
were gathered, like the rapt spectators in an amphitheater, around two
bulls engaged in mortal combat. One, as Seth quickly saw, was a red
Hereford, his best thoroughbred; the other, a black Angus, and even
more valuable, was Haig's. The red bull, bleeding from many wounds,
was plainly being worsted in the encounter. With a roar of rage,
Huntington drew his revolver, urged his unwilling horse down into the
arena where the turf was torn up for many yards around the combatants,
circled about until he could take sure aim, and emptied every chamber
of the gun into the head and neck of the Angus. The bull sank to the
ground, head first, in a lumbering mass that kicked once or twice,
shivered, and lay still.

But the Hereford, red-eyed with blood and fury, turned on Huntington,
and drove him, barely escaping being gored, into the thick timber. In
a place of safety Huntington jerked his horse around, and sat limp in
the saddle, staring down at the scene of his final humiliation.

"That's it! That's it!" he bellowed. "Even my own bull turns on me.
Haw! Haw!" His hollow, hoarse, and unmirthful laughter echoed among
the pines. "Great joke! Haig will like that. And the rest of them.
Hell!"

But Haig! And the Angus! Well, there'd got to be a show-down anyhow
pretty soon. He dismounted, and seated himself on a fallen tree trunk,
and gave himself up to reflections upon which it is only the most
obvious kindness and discretion to draw the curtain.

CHAPTER XV

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

The days dragged by under the burdens of doubt and torture, and out of
the Valley of the Shadow came Philip Haig, with some new and
disquieting thoughts to occupy him in his convalescence. Toiling up
out of the darkness, where foul fiends seemed to have torn and mangled
his body with their fiery claws, his fingers were still warm from the
pressure of a soft, guiding hand; there was a haunting memory of
kisses on his forehead, of a cheek laid close to his; and he could
still hear the gentle but commanding voice that told him to be
patient--to be still--that life was coming back to him.

Life! As if he cared for life! Had he not spent years on years in
seeking what just now had been in his very grasp, only to be withdrawn
by two caressing hands? And Doctor Morris, on the day of his final
visit, had left him no possibility of misunderstanding.

"Miss Gaylord has saved your life," he said. "I could do little. It
was her nursing that pulled you through."

He wanted much to tell the doctor just how much value he placed on
that life. But to what purpose? Doctors lived in their own peculiar
atmosphere of conceit and self-deception, crowing like a hen over a
new-laid egg whenever they chanced to bring back a soul to the
miseries from which it had struggled to escape. It would be a waste of
words, for Norris would never understand. Would Marion? Cold terror
seized him at the thought of the coming, the inevitable scene with
her. She, he realized vaguely, was different from--from all the others
he had ever seen and looked down upon from his safe heights of cynical
hatred and contempt. She was not selfish or mercenary--not consciously
selfish or mercenary. And she was not vile. But she was all the more
dangerous because her heart was pure. She was too high-bred, too fine,
to demand payment of his debt; but her very reticence and delicacy, he
foresaw, would make his repudiation of that debt--that factitious
debt--more difficult. Twice or thrice, as he struggled with his
problem, he was conscious of a curious, disturbing thrill. She loved
him. There had been a time, long, long ago--But now he was a man; he
had learned his lesson; and he knew that the chains would be no less
hateful because they were made of gold.

There came a day when he sat, wrapped in blankets, in an armchair near
the window, where he could see the grass waving in the sunlight on the
slope above the cottage, and the pines bending in the breeze high up
the hill. Marion, near him, her hands folded in her lap, looked
sometimes out of the window but more often at him, though his eyes
avoided hers. She was scarcely less pale than he, and very tired and
worn. Despite Hillyer's protestations she had slept little in the ten
days of Philip's peril; for she would trust no one but herself to do
with iron determination exactly what the doctor had commanded.
Philip's pitiable pleading for water in his semi-delirium her love
alone was strong enough to resist. But this was the last day of her
watch over him. In an hour she must go. She had frankly asked Robert
to let her have this last afternoon alone with Philip; and had
promised him that he should then have the answer to every question
that he had loyally put aside for her.

They sat a long time silent, while the shadow of the cottage
lengthened on the grass.

"It wasn't worth it, Miss Gaylord," Haig said at length.

"I--I don't understand," she faltered.

"Doctor Norris tells me that you saved my life."

"I'm glad if he thinks I helped a little," she answered, trying to
smile.

"He left me no room for doubt. Very plain-spoken is Doctor Norris."

"I'm afraid he exaggerated," she protested gently.

"No."

"But Jim--"

"Jim's all right in his way, but he couldn't have done it."

"I am paid," she said simply.

"Paid?"

"Yes. Knowing that you live."

"No. You think you mean that, perhaps, but you don't."

"I don't mean what?" she asked in surprise.

"You don't mean that you are paid."

She turned away, and looked out the window, her heart throbbing.

"I must tell you something, Miss Gaylord," he went on resolutely. "I'm
not grateful."

"Not grateful?"

"I mean, I'm not glad to owe my life to you."

"But I haven't asked--"

"No. Not directly." He hesitated a moment. "It's like this: If a man
had saved my life, I could pay him. There would be a clasp of the
hand, and a look from man to man. Or I should save his life in turn,
or do him some service. Or--there are other ways. There's Pete's way
and Jim's way--of paying. But I can't pay you in any of the ways I
could pay a man. And I can't pay in the only way a woman knows."

"Don't," she cried. "Don't, please!"

She was right, he thought. He was doing it brutally. He must try
another method. There followed a long silence, while he tried to frame
a speech that would tell her, and would not hurt too much; for now,
strangely, he found himself reluctant to give her pain, even to put
himself in a false light before her--to be misunderstood. At last he
leaned toward her--forced her to meet his gaze.

"Could you--if you had ever loved one man with all your heart
and soul--held him as dear to you as life--dearer than life
itself--without whom life would be impossible--could you ever
love another?"

For all her anguish she was able to detect the trap that he had set
for her. "Yes" would cheapen the quality and deny the finality of her
love for him; "no" would be an acceptance of the doom and tragedy she
saw shadowing his eyes. She did not answer.

"You see, you dare not answer that," he went on. "I suppose I ought to
tell you the story. But I won't. It's long, and not a pretty story at
all. But this much I will tell you. I gave one woman all I had to
give. She threw it away--and laughed at me. I have nothing more."

She took it very bravely and very quietly, as it seemed to him. He
felt a certain admiration. There was good blood in the girl. Her
father must have been worth knowing. His thoughts would have taken a
different direction--would have been nothing so complacent if he had
known just what she was thinking. His speech, terrifying at first, had
actually renewed a hope that had fallen very low. She did not believe
a word of what he had said, that is, of his having nothing more to
give. Whenever did woman believe any such thing as that, no matter how
solemnly, on what stoutest oaths, with what tragic air a man has told
it to her? Love is not love that doubts its own compelling power. And
Marion, gazing fondly at Philip now, felt somewhat as a mother feels
who smilingly indulges some childhood tragedy of her boy, knowing that
it will pass as the cloud upon an April sky. If this was the worst he
had to say to her--

But it was not the worst. Philip felt an intense relief to see her
accept the situation with such unexpected calm. He admired her
consciously now,--for her intelligence. He began to think that he
might almost take her hand, and thank her, as he would thank a man for
doing him a service, however mistakenly. But something held him back
from that folly. He wondered a little at her silence, and it was by
way of breaking it before it should become embarrassing that he
searched for something safe and commonplace to say to her.

"It was my own fault, you know, that I was injured."

"Why your own fault?"

"I was in a bad humor. I lost my self-control. And I got what I
deserved."

He thought she would ask him why he had been in a bad humor, and he
purposed to say that he was raging in discontent, longing for the
white road again. It would be safe enough now, no doubt, to tell her
in this fashion that if ever she should come to the Park again she
would not find him there. But his words had suggested something
entirely different to her mind.

"What are you going to do with him?" she asked, in sudden vague
anxiety.

"Do with him?"

"Yes--Sunnysides? I wish you'd please sell him."

"Sell him? Sell Sunnysides?" His voice betrayed his astonishment.

"Yes."

"But I haven't ridden him yet."

"You don't mean--" Her voice failed.

"That I'm going to ride him? Just as soon as I get well."

For some seconds she sat dazed. It was so utterly unexpected. The
thought had not once occurred to her that he would try again what had
all but cost him his life. It is at some such point as this that man's
and woman's natures make one of their many departures from the
parallel. To Haig the taming of Sunnysides now meant everything; to
Marion it seemed a useless, a worse than useless risk, a wicked waste.
What had been the worth, then, of all her labor of love, if it was to
be thrown away? He would be killed the next time. And in the horror
with which she foresaw that tragic end of all that she had planned and
builded, her courage and confidence fell away from her, and left her
weak and helpless. She uttered a thin, little cry, and slipped to the
floor on her knees, clasping his emaciated hand that lay on an arm of
the chair.

"No! No!" she cried frantically. "Please, Philip! Please promise me
you won't do that!"

Then she broke down completely, her head drooped, and she sank down in
a heap, with her face between her hands.

Haig was stunned. He had blundered again. Fool, not to have let her go
away from him in silence, in calm! He looked down at that crumpled
figure, at the mass of tawny hair, with the red-gold lights in it, the
enticing soft whiteness of her neck where the hair curved cleanly
upward, the graceful slope of the shoulders that now shook with sobs.
And something stirred in him, something deep, too deep to be reached
and overpowered. It grew until it sang through all his being, a
feeling such as he had never known before. She was fine and beautiful;
she was a thing to be desired; and he had only to reach out, and take
her for his own. Before he was aware of it, he had stretched out his
hand until it almost touched her hair. Then from across the years a
mocking voice rang out shrill and cold and cruel: "Now don't you go
mussing up my apartment, Pipo!"

He drew back his hand with a jerk, and clutched the chair; and sat
bolt upright, while every nerve rang with the alarm.

Minutes passed. The sobs gradually subsided; the figure on the floor
slowly ceased its convulsive movements; and again a deep silence
enveloped the room. Out on the brown-green slope the sun's rays were
slanting low, the shadow of the cottage climbed the hill.

Well, Haig thought, he had bungled the business after all. That was
what came of trying to do it nicely, with delicacy. Hard words were
the kindest in the end, because the quickest understood.

She had not yet lifted her head when he turned to look at her again;
and that made it easier.

"I can't leave the ranch--just now," he said slowly. "If I could, I
would. So I think--I think you ought to go back home--to New York, I
mean--at once."

She did not answer. And it was only after another silence that she
looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were still filled with
tears, and there was a curious little puckering of her chin.

"You said you wished you could repay me," she said. "Do you?"

"Yes," he answered, wondering. "But I told you--"

"But there is a way!"

"Well?"

"Promise me you will not ride Sunnysides."

He shook his head.

"No. I can't promise that."

"Why?"

"That's one of the things you couldn't possibly understand."

"But it's such a little thing!"

"If I gave you that, I should indeed have nothing left. You would have
all."

It was true that she could not in the least understand. But she knew
she could not move him.

"Then promise me," she pleaded, "that you'll not try it until you are
quite, quite well!"

"Oh. I promise you that!" he replied, with a grim smile.

"Thank you--Philip!"

Presently she arose, and looked down at him with a long, lingering
gaze that seemed to be searching for something in his features.

"You'll take just what Jim gives you?" she asked anxiously.

"Of course."

"And not try to--boss him about the medicines and the food?"

"I promise to obey orders."

"And you'll be very careful?"

"Yes."

She moved slowly toward the door. But halfway there she stopped, and
turned to look at him again. How could she leave him now? She
couldn't! She couldn't! He was gazing away from her, out through the
window. Wasn't he going to say a word to her--of farewell? She came
back unsteadily, and stood behind his chair, her hands stretched out
above his head. Then suddenly, impulsively, not touching him with her
hands, she leaned down, and kissed his forehead.

"Good-by!" she said, her voice breaking.

"Good-by!" he answered gently, but without turning his head.

He heard the door opened and closed, very softly. After that he sat a
long time in silence. Well, she was gone! It had been a trying
afternoon, and he was glad to have it ended. And yet the room seemed
to be extraordinarily empty, as it had never been before his illness.
The stillness rather oppressed him. Damn it all, sickness did strange
things to a man! Took a lot out of him! He straightened himself in his
chair.

Presently Jim entered.

"Well, Jim!" said Haig. "Here we are again, eh? I'm hungry."

"You eat, she come back," Jim answered shrewdly.

Haig looked at him sharply, but the Chinaman's face was like a paper
mask.

"Shut up!" he cried savagely.

CHAPTER XVI

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Hillyer was waiting for her at the barn when she came at last, with a
smile that eased his anxiety, if only in an inconsiderable degree. But
he saw, as he took her handbag and bundle, and placed them in the
automobile, that she had been crying. This gladdened while it angered
him, and he was lost among the many interpretations that might be put
upon those signs of distress. Had she come to the end of her
infatuation? Had she been subjected to insults as the reward of her
service? He dared not ask her such questions--not yet; but he was
resolved (and there were material reasons, too, for that decision) to
have his own case settled, one way or another, at once.

Neither of them spoke more than a conventional word or two until
Hillyer, after full speed down Haig's road to the junction, slowed up
on the main highway along the Brightwater. It was the serenest of
summer evenings, very still and fragrant, with a touch of autumn in
the air. The eastern sky was filled with pale golds and pinks, and the
foothills were warm with purples. Marion's face was averted from
Hillyer, and her eyes were fixed, not on the soft alternations of
color in the sky, but on Thunder Mountain, where the only clouds to be
seen in all the expanse of blue lay low upon its uncompromising head.

"Marion!" said Hillyer, at length.

She did not miss the note in his voice that exposed his intention, but
long preparation for this moment enabled her to face him calmly.

"Yes, I know, Robert," she said. "You have much to say to me."

"I'm going to-morrow," he began abruptly. "Will you go with me?"

"To-morrow? Go with you?" she repeated, with a little start of
surprise.

"Yes. Will you go with me?"

"But I don't understand, Robert."

"I must be in Denver the day after to-morrow."

"I--I didn't know your time was so short. I'm afraid--I've spoiled
your visit."

"That doesn't matter, Marion, if you'll go back with me."

"But I can't--just yet."

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready. I haven't half finished my visit with Claire."

She was, after all, somewhat confused, for she had not expected him to
approach the subject in just this way.

"But the summer is almost gone. It's near the end of August,"
persisted Hillyer.

"There's another month of good weather. And September, Claire says, is
the most beautiful of all."

"That may be, unless Huntington's right. He told me only yesterday
that it's going to be an early winter. There's come a chill in the air
even since I've been here."

"Nonsense!" she replied, recovering her composure. "I'll go out with
the last stage."

"And get caught in an avalanche or something!"

"I suppose Seth does want to get rid of me!" she said, with a faint
laugh.

"That's not it at all."

"Well, I'm not afraid."

"But suppose you stay too late, and get caught. You'd have to remain
here all winter. The Park, Huntington says, is as tight as a jail
after the snows come."

"Claire stays here through the winter sometimes."

He felt a fresh alarm, and showed it. It would be just like her! he
thought.

"See here, Marion!" he said, plunging at last. "I've obeyed your order
not to say anything about--the future. I meant not to say anything
until the time was up. But you must see I can't keep silent now,
after--what's happened. You must know I can't go away and leave you
without knowing what--it all means. You said you'd tell me as soon as
you'd finished nursing--him. No, wait, please! Let me say it at once.
You know I love you. I want you to marry me. I need you, Marion.
There's never been an hour, a minute that I haven't thought of you. I
can't work--I can't do anything without you. I love you more than--"

"Stop, Robert!" she cried. "You're making it harder for both of us."

"Harder--for--both of us?" he repeated slowly.

"Yes."

There was a moment's silence. Hillyer, while he spoke, had
half-consciously stopped the automobile, which stood now, humming
softly, in the middle of the road that stretched white and empty ahead
of them and behind them. The night breeze had risen, blowing cold from
the snows, and the shadows were creeping down into the valley, as if
they came from dark caverns in the hills.

"Robert," she said sadly. "It's no use. I must tell you. I--I can't
marry you."

"Why?"

"You make me say it!" she cried. "Well, Robert, I--I don't love you."

"I'm not asking you to love me!" he rejoined, almost savagely. "I only
ask you--"

"Listen!" she interrupted, placing a hand on his arm. "That's not
all."

"You mean--"

She stopped him with a pressure on his arm.

"Once, not knowing, I almost consented," she went on. "But something
checked me--held me back. You remember how restless I was--how
troubled. You would have laughed at me if I had told you. But
something seemed to be calling me--a voice from a long distance. I
laughed at myself for a foolish girl--at first. I said it was nerves,
and I fought against it. And it was then that I came nearest to saying
yes to you, thinking that I was indeed foolish in holding back. I
liked you. I've always liked you, Robert. You'd been such a splendid
friend, and I was grateful. I wanted to repay you--"

She stopped suddenly, and a flush mounted swiftly into her pale
cheeks. Repay! The word recalled sharply to her, acutely and
painfully, all that Haig had said about paying her. Were they, then,
in the same dreadful situation, she and Haig, with debts they could
never pay? For the first time some sense of the terrible finality of
his decision struck in upon her secret hopes.

"Don't talk of that!" Robert was saying, seizing the moment of
silence. "I never--"

"But always, when I was about to yield--I couldn't. I didn't know why
then. But now I do."

"You mean--Haig?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

"You don't--" He could not bring himself to speak the word.

"Yes, Robert. I love him."

It took all the courage she possessed. But she owed it to him and to
herself.

"I don't believe it!" he blurted out. "I won't believe it! You are not
yourself, Marion. You are worn out. You have been fascinated. He's
strange--different--new to you. It's your imagination, not your heart,
that's been--won. He's led you on by--"

"No!" she broke in. "You're quite wrong. It's not his fault at all. He
doesn't love me."

"Of course not. I know that kind of fellow. You didn't need to leave
New York to find plenty like him. He only wants to--"

"Robert!" she cried warningly.

"Then what--"

"He hates me, I think," she replied sadly.

"Then why in the world do you--" He was floundering. "What do you know
about him, anyhow? Who is he? Where did he come from?"

That sounded so much like Seth Huntington that she smiled, thinking of
the picture that he must have drawn for Hillyer.

"I know very little about him," she replied quietly. "But I know that
Cousin Seth is mistaken."

"But how do you know he hates you?"

"He made that clear in the beginning--not me alone, but all women. He
shunned me. He told me twice that I must not speak to him again. And
this afternoon, while you waited for me--" Her voice broke, with a
laugh that was half a sob. "He--finished it."

"He was rude to you!" he cried. "I'll make him--"