“I can manage with what I have until tomorrow afternoon.”
“How long do you think they will be down in the cañon?” the girl inquired.
Genevieve shuddered. “I wish I could tell! If only Tom finds that he cannot get down at all, how thankful I shall be!”
“And––Lafe!” murmured the girl.
“It is possible that they may be unable to do it in one day,” went on Genevieve apprehensively––“Down, down into those dreadful depths, and then along the river, all the way to where the tunnel is to be, and back again, and then up the awful cliffs! Surely they cannot finish in one day! Of course they will succeed––Tom can do anything, anything! Yet how I dread the very thought––!”
“We must prepare to stay right here on High Mesa until they do finish!” declared Isobel. “It will be impossible to go back to the ranch tomorrow if they are still in that frightful place! Kid will have to take the hawsses down to the waterhole. He shall go on home, and tomorrow morning fetch us cream and eggs and everything you need. They will have to be told at the ranch; and if Daddy has returned, he will come up to help and be with us.”
“You dear girl! The more I think of this terrible descent, the more I dread it. I feel a presentiment that––But I must try to be brave and not interfere with Tom’s work! It will be a great comfort to have your father with us.”
“Daddy will surely come if he has returned. Isn’t he kind and good? He couldn’t have done more to make me happy if he had been my own real father!”
Genevieve smiled into the girl’s glowing face. “Yes, dear. Yet I am far from surprised, since you are the daughter he wished to make happy. I was more surprised to have him tell me you were adopted. You have never said a word about it.”
“I––you see, I did not happen to,” confusedly murmured the girl.
“Chuckie Knowles is not your real name,” Genevieve gently reproached her.
“No, it is the pet name Daddy gave me. My real one is––Isobel.”
“Isobel––?”
“Yes. Daddy’s sister, in Denver, always calls me that. But here on the ranch––”
“Isobel––?” repeated Genevieve, with a rising inflection.
The color ebbed from the girl’s face, but she answered steadily: “Chuckie––Isobel––Knowles. I am Daddy’s daughter. I have no other father.”
“Is-o-bel––Is-o-bel,” Genevieve intoned the name musically. “It has a beautiful sound. I had a friend at school––Isabella––but we always called her Belle.”
The girl suddenly faced away from her companion, and darted to meet Blake and Ashton, who were bringing the line of levels up over the ridge.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TEMPTATION
When the ladies explained their plans for remaining in camp on High Mesa, Blake gave a ready assent.
“All right, Jenny. It’ll be something like old times. Can’t scare you up any lions or fever, leopards or cyclones; but you may see that wolf.”
“I should welcome all savage Africa if it would rid us of this awful cañon!” replied his wife.
“Won’t you please give it up?” begged Isobel. “I am to blame for your coming here. If anything should happen to you, I––I could never forgive myself––never!”
Blake looked at the two lovely, anxious faces before him, and smiled gravely. “There you go again, and you have yet to see that gulch. But even if you find that it looks dangerous, you wouldn’t want me to let a little risk interfere with my work, would you? Think of the fools who climb the highest and steepest mountains just for sport. I am going down there because it is necessary.”
“But is it?” the girl half sobbed.
“Someone must do it, sooner or later,” he replied, and he took his wife’s hand in his big palm. “Come, little woman, speak up. Do you want your husband to be a shirker and quitter?”
“Of course not, Tom. Yet one should be reasonable.”
“I have had enough experience in climbing to know not to attempt the impossible, Sweetheart,” he assured her. “The worst looking places are not always the most dangerous. I promise you to take only reasonable risks.”
“Have we time enough to look at the place this afternoon?” she inquired.
Blake glanced at the sun, and nodded. “The riding is good. We can get back long before dark. Ashton, you had better stretch out and rest.”
“No, I shall go with you,” replied Ashton, his lips set in as firm lines as Blake’s.
“You cannot go, Lafe, unless you agree to ride my pony,” said Isobel.
“I’m not going to have Gowan call me a baby again,” he objected.
“You will need all your strength tomorrow,” predicted Blake.
“You must ride,” insisted Isobel.
“Very well––to please you,” he agreed. “We shall take turns.”
Blake again looked at the sun. “As long as we are going, we may as well carry forward the line of levels. We can take long turns nearly all the way, so there will be little delay.”
“And I shall rod for you!” delightedly exclaimed Isobel.
“Only part of the time,” qualified Ashton with a sharpness that the others attributed to his zeal to serve her.
He filled his canteen from one of the cans of water brought up by Gowan, and rinsed out the mouths and nostrils of the thirsty ponies. This done, he and Genevieve mounted, and the party started off on a route parallel with the cañon, which here trended back away from the edge of the plateau.
They soon came to where the surface of the mesa was slashed with gulleys and ravines, all running down into the cañon. Blake swung away from the cañon, in order to head the worst of these ravines or to cross them where they were less precipitous. Presently, however, he struck in again towards the great rift along the flank of a high barren ridge. At last he led over the ridge and down to the side of a very large ravine where it pitched into the cañon at an angle little less steep than the descent of Dry Fork Gulch.
The line of levels, as Blake had foretold, had been an easy one to run. It was stopped on the corner of a shelf of rock that jutted out above the gorge. Having provided a soft nest for the baby, the four went out on the shelf and peered down the dizzy slope into the black shadows of the depths.
The two ladies drew back shuddering. Blake looked about at them and seeing their troubled faces, sought to quiet their dread.
“You have not looked close enough,” he said. “With spikes and ropes, the worst of this will be comparatively easy. There are ledges and crevices all the way down. You cannot see the lower half. When I was here with Gowan and Mr. Knowles, the sun was shining to the bottom. The lower half of the descent is much less steep than this you see.”
Genevieve smiled trustfully. “Oh, if you say it is safe, Tom!”
“We shall take down the rope and all the spikes we can carry,” he explained in further reassurance. “At the worst places a spike and a piece of the rope will not only let us down safely, but can be left for our ascent.”
“Then it will be all right!” sighed Isobel.
“For him––yes!” broke in Ashton, his voice harsh and strained. He was cringing back, white-faced, from the edge of the gulch.
“Why, Lafe!” exclaimed the girl. “If Tom––Mr. Blake goes down, surely you can’t mean that you––”
“He’s used to climbing––I’m not!” Ashton sought to excuse himself.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “Of course it is not right to ask you to do it if you suffer from vertigo. I shall ask Kid to take your place. If he refuses, Daddy will do it.”
“That may mean delay,” remarked Blake. “If that scoundrel really is headed for Utah, your father may not be back for several days. Yet he asked me to settle this matter as soon as possible.”
“Then, if Kid will not go down with you, I shall,” declared the girl, her blue eyes flashing.
“No, no indeed, dear!” protested Genevieve. “It is simply
impossible! You shall not do it!”
“I shall, unless Kid––”
“You shall not ask him!” interposed Ashton, his pale face suddenly flushing a hot red. “I am going down!”
“You will, Lafayette?” cried Genevieve. “That is very brave and––and kind of you!”
“But if you have no experience in climbing?” objected Isobel in a tone that transmuted the young man’s angry flush into a glow of delight.
“Don’t inexperienced climbers go up the Alps with guides?” he nonchalantly replied. “I can trust Blake to get me safe to the bottom. He will need me in his business.”
“Good for you, Lafe!” commended Blake.
It was the first time that he had ever addressed Ashton so familiarly. He accompanied it with the proffer of his hand. But Ashton did not look at him. He was basking in the frankly admiring gaze of Miss Knowles.
The party returned in the same manner that they had come out, for Isobel firmly refused to permit Ashton to walk. Blake allowed her to set the pace, and she chose such a rapid one that they reached camp a full half hour before sunset.
A few minutes later, as they were sitting down to a hastily prepared supper, Gowan appeared with the second load from the lower camp. Blake and Ashton sprang up to loosen the packs of the sweating, panting horses. The puncher swung down from his saddle, not to assist them, but to remonstrate with Isobel.
“Been expecting to meet you, all the way up, Miss Chuckie,” he said. “Ain’t you staying too late? You won’t get home before long after dark.”
“Mrs. Blake and I are not going down tonight, Kid,” replied the girl, and she explained the change of plans.
Gowan listened attentively, though without commenting either by look or word. When she had quite finished, he asked a single question: “Think your Daddy won’t mind, Miss Chuckie?”
“He will understand that we simply can’t leave here until Lafe and––Mr. Blake are safe up out of the cañon.”
“All right. You’re the boss,” he acquiesced. “Just write out a list of what you want. I’ll take all the hawsses down to the waterhole, and go on to the ranch. You can look for me back at sunup. The moon rises between three and four.”
“Genevieve, will you make out the list? Sit down and eat, Kid.”
“Well, just a snack, Miss Chuckie. Wouldn’t stop for that if the hawsses didn’t know the trail well enough to go down in the dark.”
“Have you seen any sign of the murderer?” inquired Ashton.
Gowan drained the cup of scalding hot coffee handed to him by Isobel, and answered jeeringly: “Don’t worry, Tenderfoot. He won’t try to get you tonight. If he came back today, he saw me around. If he comes back tonight, he won’t think of climbing High Mesa to look for you.”
Blake came to the puncher with a list written by himself and his wife on a leaf from his fieldbook. Gowan folded it in his hatband, washed down the last mouthful of bread and ham that he had been bolting, and went to shift his saddle to Isobel’s pony, the youngest and freshest of the horses. In two minutes he was riding away down the ridge, willingly followed by the four other horses. They knew as well as he that they were returning to the waterhole.
As the campers again sat down to their supper Isobel paused with the coffeepot upraised. “Genevieve,” she inquired, “did you put cream on the list?”
“Why, no, my dear. It did not occur to me.”
“Nor may it to Yuki. He will be sure to send eggs and butter, but unless he thinks to save tonight’s cream––I’ll run and tell Kid.”
Ashton sprang up ahead of her. “I’ll catch him,” he said, and sprinted down the ridge.
Racing around a thicket of scrub oak, he caught sight of Gowan more than an eighth of a mile ahead. He whistled repeatedly. At last Gowan twisted about in the saddle, and drew rein. He did not turn back, but made Ashton come all the way to him.
“Well, what’s wanted?” he demanded.
“Cream,” panted Ashton. “Miss Chuckie says––tell Yuki.”
“Shore pop, I’ll bring all there is,” replied Gowan. Ashton started back. “Hold on,” said the puncher. “I want to say something to you, and here’s the chance.”
“What is it?”
“About him. I want you to keep a mighty close watch tonight.”
“But you said that the murderer would not––”
“Bah! What does he count in this deal? It’s this engineer. I’ve been chewing it over all afternoon. Miss Chuckie is as innocent and trusting as a lamb, spite of her winterings in Denver, and she’s plumb locoed over him, reading so much about him in the reports.”
“Still, it does not necessarily follow––”
“Don’t it, though!” broke in the puncher. “Guess you didn’t find it any funnier than I did seeing her hanging onto his shoulder.”
“Curse him!” cried Ashton, his jealousy flaring at the remembrance.
“Now you’re talking!” approved Gowan. “That shows you like her like I do. You’re not going to stand for her losing her fortune.”
“Her fortune?”
“By his flooding us off our range.”
“Ah––as for that, I have been thinking it over. She told me Mr. Knowles owns five sections. If water is put on them––Western Colorado fruit lands are very valuable, you know.”
“That’s a lie. Water can’t make five sections worth a range like ours. But supposing it could––” the puncher leaned towards Ashton, his eyes glaring with the cold malignancy of a striking rattlesnake’s––“supposing it could, how about us letting her lose her good name?”
“Good God!” gasped Ashton. “It can’t come to that!”
“Can’t it? can’t it? Where’s your eyes? And him a married man! The––” Gowan cursed horribly.
“You really believe it!” cried Ashton, convinced by the other’s outburst.
“Believe it? I know it!” declared Gowan. “If you thought half as much of her as I do––”
“I do!––not half, but a hundred times more!”
“Yes, you do?”
“I swear it! I’d do anything for her!”
“Except save her from him.”
“No, no! How can I? Tell me how!”
The puncher bent nearer to the half-frenzied man. “You’re going down that gulch with him. Suppose a spike gets knocked out or a rope breaks or a loose rock gets pushed over?”
“God!” cried Ashton, putting his hands over his eyes. “That would be murder!”
“Bah! You’d make a dog sick! Willing to do anything for her––except save her from him! And nothing to it but just an accident that’s just as like as not to happen anyway.”
“But––murder!” shudderingly muttered Ashton.
“Murder a skunk,” sneered Gowan. “If saving her from him isn’t a case of justifiable homicide, what is? Don’t you get the idea? Just a likely accident, down there where nobody can see.”
Ashton dropped his hands, half clenched, to his sides. Beads of cold sweat were gathering and running down his drawn face.
“I can’t!” he whispered. “I––I can’t!”
“Not if I agree to get out of the way and give you clear running?” tempted Gowan.
“You would?”
“Yes. You see how much I like her. You rid her of him, and I’ll let you have her for doing it.”
Ashton shuddered.
“Think it over––and watch him mighty close tonight,” advised the tempter.
A red flush leaped into Ashton’s face. Gowan struck his spurs into his horse’s flank and loped away.
Ashton stood motionless. The puncher disappeared down the mountain side. The twilight faded and darkness closed down about the tortured man. He stood there motionless, his convulsed face alternately flushing and paling, his eyes now clouding, now burning with rage and hate.
When at last he returned to the camp he kept beyond the circle of firelight. Hurriedly he rolled up in his blankets for the night, muttering somethi
ng about his head and his need of rest for the next day’s work. The others accepted the explanation without question. They formed a cheerful domestic group about the fire from which he was shut out by his passion.
The ladies withdrew into the tent at an early hour. Blake strolled around the camp until after nine o’clock, but finally came with his blankets and companionably rolled up near Ashton. He was soon fast asleep. But Ashton lay tossing until after midnight. Weariness at last weighed down the lids of his hot eyes and numbed his tortured brain. He sank into a feverish sleep haunted with evil dreams.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIV
BLIND LOVE
At sunrise the harassed dreamer awoke to find Gowan gazing down at him somberly.
“You––you here?” he exclaimed, starting up on his elbow. “What is––” He checked himself and muttered brokenly, “I’ve been dreaming––horrible nightmares.”
“He’s down there overhauling his outfit,” said Gowan. “Hope you’ve thought the matter over.”
“My answer must be the same. I cannot do it, I cannot!” replied Ashton. He spoke hurriedly, as if afraid to linger on the thought.
“You can’t––not to save her and have me give her to you?” asked Gowan.
Ashton clenched his hands and bent over in an agony of doubt and indecision.
“You devil!” he groaned.
“What! Because I’m willing to give her up, in order to see her saved?”
“Why don’t you shoot him, if you’re so anxious?” queried Ashton.
“And hang for it,” retorted the puncher. “You can do it with an accident, and no risk. Anyway, that’ll make things easier for his wife––to have him meet a natural death. Won’t be anything said about why he was taken off. She hasn’t begun to suspect what’s going on between him and––”
Gowan paused, looked at the tent, and concluded: “I’ve done my part. I won’t say any more. But just you remember what I’ve told you. You won’t run any risk. Mr. Knowles hasn’t come back yet. There’ll be only them and me along, and we won’t be able to see you do it. Just remember what it will mean to her––just remember that––when you get him where a shove or a loosened spike––Savvy?”
Out of the Depths Page 19