The Hunted Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The next morning, when Aldous joined the engineer in the dining-room below,he was disappointed to find the breakfast table prepared for two instead offour. It was evident that Peggy Blackton and Joanne were not going tointerrupt their beauty nap on their account.

  Blackton saw his friend's inquiring look, and chuckled.

  "Guess we'll have to get along without 'em this morning, old man. Lordbless me, did you hear them last night--after you went to bed?"

  "No."

  "You were too far away," chuckled Blackton again, "I was in the room acrossthe hall from them. You see, old man, Peggy sometimes gets fairly starvedfor the right sort of company up here, and last night they didn't go to beduntil after twelve o'clock. I looked at my watch. Mebby they were in bed,but I could hear 'em buzzing like two bees, and every little while they'dgiggle, and then go on buzzing again. By George, there wasn't a break init! When one let up the other'd begin, and sometimes I guess they were bothgoing at once. Consequently, they're sleeping now."

  When breakfast was finished Blackton looked at his watch.

  "Seven o'clock," he said. "We'll leave word for the girls to be ready atnine. What are you going to do meantime, Aldous?"

  "Hunt up MacDonald, probably."

  "And I'll run down and take a look at the work."

  As they left the house the engineer nodded down the road. MacDonald wascoming.

  "He has saved you the trouble," he said. "Remember, Aldous--nine o'clocksharp!"

  A moment later Aldous was advancing to meet the old mountaineer.

  "They've gone, Johnny," was Donald's first greeting.

  "Gone?"

  "Yes. The whole bunch--Quade, Culver Rann, DeBar, and the woman who rodethe bear. They've gone, hide and hair, and nobody seems to know where."

  Aldous was staring.

  "Also," resumed old Donald slowly, "Culver Rann's outfit is gone--twentyhorses, including six saddles. An' likewise others have gone, but I can'tfind out who."

  "Gone!" repeated Aldous again.

  MacDonald nodded.

  "And that means----"

  "That Culver Rann ain't lost any time in gettin' under way for the gold,"said Donald. "DeBar is with him, an' probably the woman. Likewise threecut-throats to fill the other saddles. They've gone prepared to fight."

  "And Quade?"

  Old Donald hunched his shoulders, and suddenly John's face grew dark andhard.

  "I understand," he spoke, half under his breath. "Quade hasdisappeared--but he isn't with Culver Rann. He wants us to believe he hasgone. He wants to throw us off our guard. But he's watching, andwaiting--somewhere--like a hawk, to swoop down on Joanne! He----"

  "That's it!" broke in MacDonald hoarsely. "That's it, Johnny! It's his oldtrick--his old trick with women. There's a hunderd men who've got to do hisbidding--do it 'r get out of the mountains--an' we've got to watch Joanne.We have, Johnny! If she should disappear----"

  Aldous waited.

  "You'd never find her again, so 'elp me God, you wouldn't, Johnny!" hefinished.

  "We'll watch her," said Aldous quietly. "I'll be with her to-day, Mac, andto-night I'll come down to the camp in the coulee to compare notes withyou. They can't very well steal her out of Blackton's house while I'mgone."

  For an hour after MacDonald left him he walked about in the neighbourhoodof the Blackton bungalow smoking his pipe. Not until he saw the contractordrive up in the buckboard did he return. Joanne and Peggy were more thanprompt. They were waiting. If such a thing were possible Joanne was moreradiantly lovely than the night before. To Aldous she became more beautifulevery time he looked at her. But this morning he did not speak what was inhis heart when, for a moment, he held her hand, and looked into her eyes.Instead, he said:

  "Good morning, Ladygray. Have you used----"

  "I have," she smiled. "Only it's Potterdam's Tar Soap, and not the other.And you--have not shaved, John Aldous!"

  "Great Scott, so I haven't!" he exclaimed, rubbing his chin. "But I didyesterday afternoon, Ladygray!"

  "And you will again this afternoon, if you please," she commanded. "I don'tlike bristles."

  "But in the wilderness----"

  "One can shave as well as another can make curls," she reminded him, andthere came an adorable little dimple at the corner of her mouth as shelooked toward Paul Blackton.

  Aldous was glad that Paul and Peggy Blackton did most of the talking thatmorning. They spent half an hour where the explosion of the night beforehad blown out the side of the mountain, and then drove on to Coyote NumberTwenty-eight. It was in the face of a sandstone cliff, and all they couldsee of it when they got out of the wagon was a dark hole in the wall ofrock. Not a soul was about, and Blackton rubbed his hands withsatisfaction.

  "Everything is completed," he said. "Gregg put in the last packing thismorning, and all we are waiting for now is four o'clock this afternoon."

  The hole in the mountain was perhaps four feet square. Ten feet in front ofit the engineer paused, and pointed to the ground. Up out of the earth cametwo wires, which led away from the mouth of the cavern.

  "Those wires go down to the explosives," he explained. "They're batterywires half a mile long. But we don't attach the battery until the finalmoment, as you saw last night. There might be an accident."

  He bent his tall body and entered the mouth of the cavern, leading his wifeby the hand. Observing that Joanne had seen this attention on thecontractor's part, Aldous held out his own hand, and Joanne accepted it.For perhaps twenty feet they followed the Blacktons with lowered heads.They seemed to have entered a black, cold pit, sloping slightly downward,and only faintly could they see Blackton when he straightened.

  His voice came strange and sepulchral:

  "You can stand up now. We're in the chamber. Don't move or you mightstumble over something. There ought to be a lantern here."

  He struck a match, and as he moved slowly toward a wall of blackness,searching for the lantern, he called back encouragingly through the gloom:

  "You folks are now standing right over ten tons of dynamite, and there'sanother five tons of black powder----"

  A little shriek from Peggy Blackton stopped him, and his match went out.

  "What in heaven's name is the matter?" he asked anxiously. "Peggy----"

  "Why in heaven's name do you light a match then, with us standing over allthose tons of dynamite?" demanded Peggy. "Paul Blackton, you're----"

  The engineer's laughter was like a giant's roar in the cavern, and Joannegave a gasp, while Peggy shiveringly caught Aldous by the arm.

  "There--I've got the lantern!" exclaimed Blackton. "There isn't any danger,not a bit. Wait a minute and I'll tell you all about it." He lighted thelantern, and in the glow of it Joanne's and Peggy's faces were white andstartled. "Why, bless my soul, I didn't mean to frighten you!" he cried. "Iwas just telling you facts. See, we're standing on a solid floor--four feetof packed rock and cement. The dynamite and black powder are under that.We're in a chamber--a cave--an artificial cavern. It's forty feet deep,twenty wide, and about seven high."

  He held the lantern even with his shoulders and walked deeper into thecavern as he spoke. The others followed. They passed a keg on which was ahalf-burned candle. Close to the keg was an empty box. Beyond these thingsthe cavern was empty.

  "I thought it was full of powder and dynamite," apologized Peggy.

  "You see, it's like this," Blackton began. "We put the powder and dynamitedown there, and pack it over solid with rock and cement. If we didn't leavethis big air-chamber above it there would be only one explosion, andprobably two thirds of the explosive would not fire, and would be lost.This chamber corrects that. You heard a dozen explosions last night, andyou'll hear a dozen this afternoon, and the biggest explosion of all isusually the fourth or fifth. A 'coyote' isn't like an ordinary blast orshot. It's a mighty expensive thing, and you see it means a lot of work.Now, if some one were to touch off those explosives at this minute----What's the matter, Peggy?
Are you cold? You're shivering!"

  "Ye-e-e-e-s!" chattered Peggy.

  Aldous felt Joanne tugging at his hand.

  "Let's take Mrs. Blackton out," she whispered. "I'm--I'm--afraid she'lltake cold!"

  In spite of himself Aldous could not restrain his laughter until they hadgot through the tunnel. Out in the sunlight he looked at Joanne, stillholding her hand. She withdrew it, looking at him accusingly.

  "Lord bless me!" exclaimed Blackton, who seemed to understand at last."There's no danger--not a bit!"

  "But I'd rather look at it from outside, Paul, dear," said Mrs. Blackton.

  "But--Peggy--if it went off now you'd be in just as bad shape out here!"

  "I don't think we'd be quite so messy, really I don't, dear," shepersisted.

  "Lord bless me!" he gasped.

  "And they'd probably be able to find something of us," she added.

  "Not a button, Peggy!"

  "Then I'm going to move, if you please!" And suiting her action to the wordPeggy led the way to the buckboard. There she paused and took one of herhusband's big hands fondly in both her own. "It's perfectly wonderful,Paul--and I'm proud of you!" she said. "But, honestly, dear, I can enjoy itso much better at four o'clock this afternoon."

  Smiling, Blackton lifted her into the buckboard.

  "That's why I wish Paul had been a preacher or something like that," sheconfided to Joanne as they drove homeward. "I'm growing old just thinkingof him working over that horrid dynamite and powder all the time. Everylittle while some one is blown into nothing."

  "I believe," said Joanne, "that I'd like to do something like that if Iwere a man. I'd want to be a man, not that preachers aren't men, Peggy,dear--but I'd want to do things, like blowing up mountains for instance, orfinding buried cities, or"--she whispered, very, very softly under herbreath--"writing books, John Aldous!"

  Only Aldous heard those last words, and Joanne gave a sharp little cry; andwhen Peggy asked her what the matter was Joanne did not tell her that JohnAldous had almost broken her hand on the opposite side--for Joanne wasriding between the two.

  "It's lame for life," she said to him half an hour later, when he wasbidding her good-bye, preparatory to accompanying Blackton down to theworking steel. "And I deserve it for trying to be kind to you. I think somewriters of books are--are perfectly intolerable!"

  "Won't you take a little walk with me right after dinner?" he was askingfor the twentieth time.

  "I doubt it very, very much."

  "Please, Ladygray!"

  "I may possibly think about it."

  With that she left him, and she did not look back as she and Peggy Blacktonwent into the house. But as they drove away they saw two faces at thewindow that overlooked the townward road, and two hands were wavinggood-bye. Both could not be Peggy Blackton's hands.

  "Joanne and I are going for a walk this afternoon, Blackton," said Aldous,"and I just want to tell you not to worry if we're not back by fouro'clock. Don't wait for us. We may be watching the blow-up from the top ofsome mountain."

  Blackton chuckled.

  "Don't blame you," he said. "From an observer's point of view, John, itlooks to me as though you were going to have something more than hope tolive on pretty soon!"

  "I--I hope so."

  "And when I was going with Peggy I wouldn't have traded a quiet little walkwith her--like this you're suggesting--for a front seat look at a blow-upof the whole Rocky Mountain system!"

  "And you won't forget to tell Mrs. Blackton that we may not return by fouro'clock?"

  "I will not. And"--Blackton puffed hard at his pipe--"and, John--the TeteJaune preacher is our nearest neighbour," he finished.

  From then until dinner time John Aldous lived in an atmosphere that was notquite real, but a little like a dream. His hopes and his happiness were attheir highest. He knew that Joanne would go walking with him thatafternoon, and in spite of his most serious efforts to argue to thecontrary he could not keep down the feeling that the event would mean agreat deal for him. Almost feverishly he interested himself in PaulBlackton's work. When they returned to the bungalow, a little before noon,he went to his room, shaved himself, and in other ways prepared for dinner.

  Joanne and the Blacktons were waiting when he came down.

  His first look at Joanne assured him. She was dressed in a soft graywalking-suit. Never had the preparation of a dinner seemed so slow to him,and a dozen times he found himself inwardly swearing at Tom, the Chinesecook. It was one o'clock before they sat down at the table and it was twoo'clock when they arose. It was a quarter after two when Joanne and he leftthe bungalow.

  "Shall we wander up on the mountain?" he asked. "It would be fine to lookdown upon the explosion."

  "I have noticed that in some things you are very observant," said Joanne,ignoring his question. "In the matter of curls, for instance, you areunapproachable; in others you are--quite blind, John Aldous!"

  "What do you mean?" he asked, bewildered.

  "I lost my scarf this morning, and you did not notice it. It is quite anunusual scarf. I bought it in Cairo, and I don't want to have it blown up."

  "You mean----"

  "Yes. I must have dropped it in the cavern. I had it when we entered."

  "Then we'll return for it," he volunteered. "We'll still have plenty oftime to climb up the mountain before the explosion."

  Twenty minutes later they came to the dark mouth of the tunnel. There wasno one in sight, and for a moment Aldous searched for matches in hispocket.

  "Wait here," he said. "I won't be gone two minutes."

  He entered, and when he came to the chamber he struck a match. The lanternwas on the empty box. He lighted it, and began looking for the scarf.Suddenly he heard a sound. He turned, and saw Joanne standing in the glowof the lantern.

  "Can you find it?" she asked.

  "I haven't--yet."

  They bent over the rock floor, and in a moment Joanne gave a littleexclamation of pleasure as she caught up the scarf. In that same moment, asthey straightened and faced each other, John Aldous felt his heart ceasebeating, and Joanne's face had gone as white as death. The rock-walledchamber was atremble; they heard a sullen, distant roaring, and as Aldouscaught Joanne's hand and sprang toward the tunnel the roar grew into adeafening crash, and a gale of wind rushed into their faces, blowing outthe lantern, and leaving them in darkness. The mountain seemed crumblingabout them, and above the sound of it rang out a wild, despairing cry fromJoanne's lips. For there was no longer the brightness of sunshine at theend of the tunnel, but darkness--utter darkness; and through that tunnelthere came a deluge of dust and rock that flung them back into theblackness of the pit, and separated them.

  "John--John Aldous!"

  "I am here, Joanne! I will light the lantern!"

  His groping hands found the lantern. He relighted it, and Joanne crept tohis side, her face as white as the face of the dead. He held the lanternabove him, and together they stared at where the tunnel had been. A mass ofrock met their eyes. The tunnel was choked. And then, slowly, each turnedto the other; and each knew that the other understood--for it was Deaththat whispered about them now in the restless air of the rock-walled tomb,a terrible death, and their lips spoke no words as their eyes met in thatfearful and silent understanding.