The Hunted Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XXVI

  They rode on into the Valley of Gold. Again MacDonald took the lead, and herode straight into the face of the black mountain. Aldous no longer made aneffort to keep Joanne in ignorance of what might be ahead of them. He put asixth cartridge into the chamber of his rifle, and carried the weaponacross the pommel of his saddle. He explained to her now why they wereriding behind--that if their enemies were laying in wait for them,MacDonald, alone, could make a swift retreat. Joanne asked no questions.Her lips were set tight. She was pale.

  At the end of three quarters of an hour it seemed to them that MacDonaldwas riding directly into the face of a wall of rock. Then he swung sharplyto the left, and disappeared. When they came to the point where he hadturned they found that he had entered a concealed break in the mountain--achasm with walls that rose almost perpendicular for a thousand feet abovetheir heads. A dark and solemn gloom pervaded this chasm, and Aldous drewnearer to MacDonald, his rifle held in readiness, and his bridle-reinfastened to his saddle-horn. The chasm was short. Sunlight burst upon themsuddenly, and a few minutes later MacDonald waited for them again.

  Even Aldous could not restrain an exclamation of surprise when he rode upwith Joanne. Under them was another valley, a wide-sweeping valley betweentwo rugged ranges that ran to the southwest. Up out of it there came totheir ears a steady, rumbling roar; the air was filled with that roar; theearth seemed to tremble with it under their feet--and yet it was not loud.It came sullenly, as if from a great distance.

  And then they saw that MacDonald was not looking out over the sweep of thevalley, but down. Half a mile under them there was a dip--a valley within avalley--and through it ran the silver sheen of a stream. MacDonald spoke noword now. He dismounted and levelled his long telescope at the littlevalley. Aldous helped Joanne from her horse, and they waited. A greatbreath came at last from the old hunter. Slowly he turned. He did not givethe telescope to Aldous, but to Joanne. She looked. For a full minute sheseemed scarcely to breathe. Her hands trembled when she turned to give theglass to Aldous.

  "I see--log cabins!" she whispered.

  MacDonald placed a detaining hand on her arm.

  "Look ag'in--Joanne," he said in a low voice that had in it a curiousquiver.

  Again she raised the telescope to her eyes.

  "You see the little cabin--nearest the river?" whispered Donald.

  "Yes, I see it."

  "That was our cabin--Jane's an' mine--forty years ago," he said, and nowhis voice was husky.

  Joanne's breath broke sobbingly as she gave Aldous the glass. Somethingseemed to choke him as he looked down upon the scene of the grim tragedyin which Donald MacDonald and Jane had played their fatal part. He saw thecabins as they had stood for nearly half a century. There were four. Threeof them were small, and the fourth was large. They might have been builtyesterday, for all that he could see of ruin or decay. The doors andwindows of the larger cabin and two of the smaller ones were closed. Theroofs were unbroken. The walls appeared solid. Twice he looked at thefourth cabin, with its wide-open door and window, and twice he looked atthe cabin nearest the stream, where had lived Donald MacDonald and Jane.

  Donald had moved, and Joanne was watching him tensely, when he took theglass from his eyes. Mutely the old mountaineer held out a hand, and Aldousgave him the telescope. Crouching behind a rock he slowly swept the valley.For half an hour he looked through the glass, and in that time scarce aword was spoken. During the last five minutes of that half-hour both Joanneand Aldous knew that MacDonald was looking at the little cabin nearest thestream, and with hands clasped tightly they waited in silence.

  At last old Donald rose, and his face and voice were filled with awonderful calm.

  "There ain't been no change," he said softly. "I can see the log in fronto' the door that I used to cut kindling on. It was too tough for them tosplit an' burn after we left. An' I can see the tub I made out o' sprucefor Jane. It's leaning next the door, where I put it the day before we wentaway. Forty years ain't very long, Johnny! It ain't very long!"

  Joanne had turned from them, and Aldous knew that she was crying.

  "An' we've beat 'em to it, Johnny--we've beat 'em to it!" exultedMacDonald. "There ain't a sign of life in the valley, and we sure couldmake it out from here if there was!"

  He climbed into his saddle, and started down the slope of the mountain.Aldous went to Joanne. She was sobbing. Her eyes were blinded by tears.

  "It's terrible, terrible," she whispered brokenly. "And it--it's beautiful,John. I feel as though I'd like to give my life--to bring Jane back!"

  "You must not betray tears or grief to Donald," said Aldous, drawing herclose in his arms for a moment. "Joanne--sweetheart--it is a wonderfulthing that is happening with him! I dreaded this day--I have dreaded it fora long time. I thought that it would be terrible to witness the grief of aman with a heart like Donald's. But he is not filled with grief, Joanne. Itis joy, a great happiness that perhaps neither you nor I canunderstand--that has come to him now. Don't you understand? He has foundher. He has found their old home. To-day is the culmination of forty yearsof hope, and faith, and prayer. And it does not bring him sorrow, butgladness. We must rejoice with him. We must be happy with him. I love you,Joanne. I love you above all else on earth or in heaven. Without you Iwould not want to live. And yet, Joanne, I believe that I am no happierto-day than is Donald MacDonald!"

  With a sudden cry Joanne flung her arms about his neck.

  "John, is it _that?_" she cried, and joy shone through her tears. "Yes,yes, I understand now! His heart is not breaking. It is life returning intoa heart that was empty. I understand--oh, I understand now! And we must behappy with him. We must be happy when we find the cavern--and Jane!"

  "And when we go down there to the little cabin that was their home."

  "Yes--yes!"

  They followed behind MacDonald. After a little a spur of the mountain-sideshut out the little valley from them, and when they rounded this they foundthemselves very near to the cabins. They rode down a beautiful slope intothe basin, and when he reached the log buildings old Donald stopped anddismounted. Again Aldous helped Joanne from her horse. Ahead of themMacDonald went to the cabin nearest the stream. At the door he paused andwaited for them.

  "Forty years!" he said, facing them. "An' there ain't been so very muchchange as I can see!"

  Years had dropped from his shoulders in these last few minutes, and evenAldous could not keep quite out of his face his amazement and wonder. Verygently Donald put his hand to the latch, as though fearing to awaken someone within; and very gently he pressed down on it, and put a bit of hisstrength against the door. It moved inward, and when it had openedsufficiently he leaned forward so that his head and a half of his shoulderswere inside; and he looked--a long time he looked, without a movement ofhis body or a breath that they could see.

  And then he turned to them again, and his eyes were shining as they hadnever seen them shine before.

  "I'll open the window," he said. "It's dark--dark inside."

  He went to the window, which was closed with a sapling barricade that hadswung on hinges; and when he swung it back the rusted hinges gave way, andthe thing crashed down at his feet. And now through the open window the sunpoured in a warm radiance, and Donald entered the cabin, with Joanne andAldous close behind him.

  There was not much in the cabin, but what it held was earth, and heaven,and all else to Donald MacDonald. A strange, glad cry surged from his chestas he looked about him, and now Joanne saw and understood what John Aldoushad told her--for Donald MacDonald, after forty years, had come back to hishome!

  "Oh, my Gawd, Johnny, they didn't touch anything! They didn't touchanything!" he breathed in ecstasy. "I thought after we ran away they'd comein----"

  He broke off, and his hat dropped from his hand, and he stood and stared;and what he was looking at, the sun fell upon in a great golden splash, andJoanne's hand gripped John's, and held to it tightly. Against the wall,hanging as they had h
ung for forty years, were a woman's garments: a hood,a shawl, a dress, and an apron that was half in tatters; and on the floorunder these things were _a pair of shoes_. And as Donald MacDonald went tothem, his arms reaching out, his lips moving, forgetful of all things butthat he had come home, and Jane was here, Joanne drew Aldous softly to thedoor, and they went out into the day.

  Joanne did not speak, and Aldous did not urge her. He saw her white throatthrobbing as if there were a little heart beating there, and her eyes werebig and dark and velvety, like the eyes of a fawn that had been frightened.There was a thickness in his own throat, and he found that it was difficultfor him to see far out over the plain. They waited near the horses. Fiftyyards from them ran the stream; a clear, beautiful stream which flowed inthe direction from which the mysterious ramble of thunder seemed to come.This, Aldous knew, was the stream of gold. In the sand he saw wreckagewhich he knew were the ancient rockers; a shovel, thrust shaft-deep, stillremained where it had last been planted.

  Perhaps for ten minutes Donald MacDonald remained in the cabin. Then hecame out. Very carefully he closed the door. His shoulders were thrownback. His head was held high. He looked like a monarch.

  And his voice was calm.

  "Everything is there, Johnny--everything but the gold," he said. "They tookthat."

  Now he spoke to Joanne.

  "You better not go with us into the other cabins," he said.

  "Why?" she asked softly.

  "Because--there's death in them all."

  "I am going," she said.

  From the window of the largest cabin MacDonald pulled the sapling shutter,and, like the other, it fell at his feet. Then they opened the door, andentered; and here the sunlight revealed the cabin's ghastly tragedy. Thefirst thing that they saw, because it was most terrible, was a rough table,half over which lay the shrunken thing that had once been a man. A part ofits clothes still remained, but the head had broken from its column, andthe white and fleshless skull lay facing them. Out of tattered anddust-crumbling sleeves reached the naked bones of hands and arms. And onthe floor lay another of these things, in a crumpled and huddled heap, onlythe back of the skull showing, like the polished pate of a bald man. Thesethings they saw first, and then two others: on the table were a heap ofage-blackened and dusty sacks, and out of the back of the crumbling thingthat guarded them stuck the long buckhorn hilt of a knife.

  "They must ha' died fighting," said MacDonald. "An' there, Johnny, is theirgold!"

  White as death Joanne stood in the door and watched them. MacDonald andAldous went to the sacks. They were of buckskin. The years had not agedthem. When Aldous took one in his hands he found that it was heavier thanlead. With his knife MacDonald cut a slit in one of them, and the sun thatcame through the window flashed in a little golden stream that ran from thebag.

  "We'll take them out and put 'em in a pannier," said MacDonald. "The otherswon't be far behind us, Johnny."

  Between them they carried out the seven sacks of gold. It was a load fortheir arms. They put it in one of the panniers, and then MacDonald noddedtoward the cabin next the one that had been his own.

  "I wouldn't go in there, Joanne," he said.

  "I'm going," she whispered again.

  "It was _their_ cabin--the man an' his wife," persisted old Donald. "An'the men was beasts, Joanne! I don't know what happened in there--but Iguess."

  "I'm going," she said again.

  MacDonald pulled down the barricade from the window--a window that alsofaced the south and west, and this time he had to thrust against the doorwith his shoulder. They entered, and now a cry came from Joanne's lips--acry that had in it horror, disbelief, a woman's wrath. Against the wall wasa pile of something, and on that pile was the searching first light of daythat had fallen upon it for nearly half a century. The pile was a mancrumpled down; across it, her skeleton arms thrown about it protectingly,was a woman. This time Aldous did not go forward. MacDonald was alone, andAldous took Joanne from the cabin, and held her while she swayed in hisarms. Donald came out a little later, and there was a curious look ofexultation and triumph in his face.

  "She killed herself," he said. "That was her husband. I know him. I gavehim the rock-nails he put in the soles of his boots--and the nails arestill there."

  He went alone into the remaining two cabins, while Aldous stood withJoanne. He did not stay long. From the fourth cabin he brought an armful ofthe little brown sacks. He returned, and brought a second armful.

  "There's three more in that last cabin," he explained. "Two men, an' awoman. She must ha' been the wife of the man they killed. They were thelast to live, an' they starved to death. An' now, Johnny----"

  He paused, and he drew in a great breath.

  He was looking to the west, where the sun was beginning to sink behind themountains.

  "An' now, Johnny, if you're ready, an' if Joanne is ready, we'll go," hesaid.