"I'm not a criminal. I never lifted a cent from any man. I didn't get a dollar from the express company—but I tried—I want you to know, anyway," he continued, "that I wouldn't rob an individual—and I wouldn't have tried this, only I was blind drunk and desperate. I needed cash, and needed it bad."
"What did you need it for?" asked Alice, with a steady look.
He hesitated, and a flush crept across his brown face. His eyes wavered. "Well, you see, the old home was mortgaged—and mother was sick—"
"Oh, bosh! Tell me the truth," she demanded. "The papers said you did it for a girl. Why not be honest with me?"
"I will," he responded, impulsively. "Yes, that's right. I did it for a girl—and afterward, when I was on the run, what did she do? Threw me down! Told everything she knew—the little coyote—and here I am hunted like a wolf on account of it." His face settled into savage lines for a moment. But even as he sat thus another light came into his eyes. His gaze took account of Alice's lips and the delicate, rounded whiteness of her neck and chin. Her like he had never met before. The girls he had known giggled; this one smiled. His sweetheart used slang and talked of cattle like a herder, but this woman's voice, so sweet and flexible, made delightfully strange music to his ears.
Peggy's return cut short his confidence, and while she was in the cabin he sat in silence, his eyes always on the girl. He seized every opportunity to speak to her, and each time his voice betrayed increasing longing for her favor.
Mrs. Adams, who had conceived a liking for him, ordered him about as freely as though he were a hired guide, and he made himself useful on the slightest hint.
Alice, on her part, was profoundly interested in him, and whenever her foot would permit her to think of anything else, she pitied him. In the madness of his need, his love, he had committed an act which made all the world his enemy, and yet, as she studied his form and expression, her heart filled with regret. He was very attractive in the Western way, with nothing furtive or evasive about him.
With a directness quite equal to his own she questioned him about his reckless deed.
"Why did you do it?" she exclaimed in despair of his problem.
"I don't know. Hanged if I do, especially now. Since seeing you I think I was crazy—crazy as a loon. If I'd done it for you, now, it wouldn't have been so wild. You're worth a man's life. I'd die for you."
This outburst of passion, so fierce and wild, thrilled the girl; she grew pale with comprehension of his mood. It meant that the sight of her lying there had replaced the old madness with a new one. She was unprepared for this furious outflaming of primitive admiration.
"You mustn't talk like that to me," she protested, as firmly as she could.
He sensed her alarm. "Don't you be scared," he said, gently. "I didn't mean to jar you. I only meant that I didn't know such women as you were in the world. I'd trust you. You've got steady eyes. You'd stick by the man that played his whole soul for you, I can see that. I come of pretty good stock. I reckon that's why you mean so much to me. You get hold of me in a way I can't explain."
"Why don't you fly?" she asked him. "Every minute you spend here increases your danger. The men may return at any moment."
"That's funny, too," he answered, and a look of singular, musing tenderness fell over his face. "I'd rather sit here with you and take my chances."
"But you must not! You are imperiling your life for nothing."
"You're mistaken there. I'm getting something every minute—something that will stay with me all my life. After I leave you it doesn't matter. I came into the hills just naturally, the way the elk does. After that girl reported me, life didn't count. Seeing you has changed me. It matters a whole lot to me this minute, and when I leave you it's stormy sunset for me, sure thing."
Alice gazed upon him with steady eyes, but her bosom rose and fell with the emotion which filled her heart. She debated calling for Mrs. Adams, but there was something in the droop of the outlaw's head, in the tone of his voice, which arrested her. However sudden and frenzied his admiration might seem to others, it was sincere and manly, of that she was persuaded. Nevertheless, she was deeply perturbed.
"I wish you would go," she entreated at last, huskily. "I don't want to see you taken. You have made yourself a criminal and I ought not to find excuses for you, but I do. You're so young. It doesn't seem as if you knew what you were doing. Why don't you ride away into the wild north country and begin a new life somewhere? Can't you escape to Canada?"
He seized eagerly upon her suggestion. "Will you write to me if I do?"
"No, I cannot promise that."
"Why can't I play the ranger here and wait upon you till the men return?"
"Because Professor Ward read that placard with me. He will know you instantly. I wish you'd go. Gage may come at any moment now."
Peggy came in with disturbed look. "It looks like rain," she announced; "the clouds are settling down all over the peaks."
The outlaw sprang up and went to the door. "It looked bad when I got up," he said, as he studied the sky. "I guess we're in for trouble. It may be snow."
His fears were soon realized. Rain began to fall in a thin drizzle, and at four o'clock the first faint flakes of snow began to flash amid the gray veils of the water-drops. The women looked at each other in alarm as the cabin's interior darkened with the ominous shadow of the storm.
"I don't like this a bit," said Peggy, after a while. "This is no mountain squall. I wish the men were here."
"It can't be anything that will last," replied Alice. "It isn't time for the winter snows."
"I know," replied Peggy. "But it's snowing perfect feather beds now, and no wind. Lucky this forest-ranger is here. The men may get lost in this storm."
"Mercy! Don't speak of such a thing!" exclaimed Alice; but she knew, just the same, that Ward and his party were high in the peaks, far, far above the cabin, and that the storm there would be proportionately fiercer. She listened with growing thankfulness to the outlaw's blows upon the dry limbs of wood that he was chopping for the fire. He was very capable and would not desert them—of that she felt assured.
As the man worked on, the women both came to keen realization of the serious view he took of the storm. He mounted his horse and with his rope dragged great bundles of fagots from the thickets. As he came up, laden with one of his bundles of hard-won fuel, Mrs. Adams asked:
"You don't think it will keep this up, do you?"
"You never can tell what will happen in these mountains. It doesn't generally snow much till later, but you can't bank on anything in this range."
Alice called to him and he stepped inside. "What do you think we'd better do?" she asked.
"There isn't a thing you can do, miss. It's just a case of stick it out. It may let up by sundown; but, as it is, your party can't get back to-night, and if you don't mind I'll camp down just outside the door and keep the fire going."
"You will be a comfort to us," she replied, "but I feel that—that you ought to be going. Isn't it dangerous for you? I mean you will be shut in here."
"If I'm shut in, others are shut out," he answered, with a grim smile. "My job is to keep fire." With these words he returned to his work of breaking limbs from the dead firs.
Alice said: "If it does turn out as this—this ranger says—if the storm keeps up, you mustn't let him sleep out in the snow."
"Of course not," said Peggy. "He can sleep inside. I trust him perfectly—and, besides, you have your revolver."
Alice smiled a little, wondering how Peggy's trust would stand the strain of a fuller knowledge concerning their guardian's stirring career.
III
In spite of her knowledge of the mountains and her natural intrepidity of character the wounded girl's heart sank as the snow and the night closed down over the tiny cabin in its covert of firs. To be on foot in such gloom, in the heart of such a wilderness, was sufficiently awe-inspiring, but to be helpless on a hard bed was to feel the utter inconsequence of humank
ind. "Suppose the storm blocks the trails so that the men cannot return for a week? What will we do for food?"
Each time she heard the outlaw deliver his burden of wood her heart warmed to him. He was now her comfort and very present stay. "If it should happen that the trails become impassable he alone will stand between us and death," she thought.
The outlaw came in to say, abruptly, "If you weren't hurt and if I weren't in such a hurry I'd rather enjoy this."
He slashed his sombrero against his thigh as he spoke, and Mrs. Adams answered his remark without knowledge of its inner meaning.
"You mustn't think of sleeping outdoors to-night—Mr.—?"
"Smith. I belong to the big family, the Smiths," he promptly replied.
"Why don't you take away that improvised table by the wall and make your bed there?"
"We'll need the table," he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll just crawl under it. What's giving me most trouble is the question of grub. They didn't leave you any too much, did they?"
"But you can kill game, can't you?" asked Peggy.
"We're pretty high up for elk, and the blue grouse are scarce this year, but I reckon I can jump a deer or a ground-hog. We won't starve, anyway."
Alice perceived in his voice a note of exultation. He was glad of his reprieve, and the thought of being her protector, at least for the night, filled him with joy. She read his mind easily and the romance of this relationship stirred her own heart. The dramatic possibilities of the situation appealed to her. At any moment the men might return and force her into the rôle of defender. On the other hand, they might be confined for days together in this little cabin, and in this enforced intimacy Peggy was sure to discover his secret and his adoration.
The little hovel was filled with the golden light of the blazing fagots, and through the open door Alice could see the feathery crystals falling in a wondrous, glittering curtain across the night. The stream roared in subdued voice as though oppressed by the snows, and the shadow of the fugitive as he moved about the fire had a savage, primal significance which awed the girl into silence.
He was very deft in camp work, and cooked their supper for them almost as well as they could have done it themselves, but he refused to sit at the table with Peggy. "I'll just naturally stick to my slicker, if you don't mind. I'm wet and my hands are too grimy to eat with a lady."
Alice continued to talk to him, always with an under-current of meaning which he easily read and adroitly answered. This care, this double meaning, drew them ever closer in spirit, and the girl took an unaccountable pleasure in it.
After supper he took his seat in the open doorway, and the girl in the bunk looked upon him with softened glance. She had no fear of him now; on the contrary, she mentally leaned upon him. Without him the night would be a terror, the dawn an uncertainty. The brave self-reliance of his spirit appeared in stronger light as she considered that for weeks he had been camping alone, and that but for this accident to her he would be facing this rayless wintry night in solitude.
He began again to question her. "I wish you'd tell me more about yourself," he said, his dark eyes fixed upon her. "I can't understand why any girl like you should come up here with a bunch of rock-sharps. Are you tied up to the professor?"
If Peggy expected her patient to resent this question she must have been surprised, for Alice merely smiled as if at the impertinence of a child.
Mrs. Adams replied: "I can tell you that she is—and a very fortunate girl her friends think her."
He turned to her with unmoved face. "You mean he's got money, I reckon."
"Money and brains and good looks and a fine position."
"That's about the whole works, ain't it—leastwise he will have it all when he gets you. A man like that doesn't deserve what he's got. He's a chump. Do you suppose I'd go off and leave you alone in a hole like this with a smashed leg? I'd never bring you into such a country, in the first place. And I certainly wouldn't leave you just to study a shack of ice on the mountainside."
"I urged him to go, and, besides, Peggy is mistaken; we're not engaged."
"But he left you! That's what sticks in my crop. He can't be just right in his head. If I had any chance of owning you I'd never let you out of my sight. I wouldn't take a chance. I don't understand these city fellows. I reckon their blood is thinned with ice-water. If I had you I'd be scared every minute for fear of losing you. I'd be as dangerous to touch as a silver-tip. If I had any place to take you I'd steal you right now."
This was more than banter. Even Mrs. Adams perceived the passion quivering beneath his easy, low-toned speech. He was in truth playing with the conception of seizing this half-smiling, half-musing girl whose helpless body was at once a lure and an inspiration. It was perfectly evident that he was profoundly stirred.
And so was Alice. "What," she dared ask herself, "will become of this?"
IV
To the outlaw in the Rocky Mountain cabin in that stormy night it was in every respect the climax of his life. As he sat in the doorway, looking at the fire and over into the storm beyond, he realized that he was shaken by a wild, crude lyric of passion. Here was, to him, the pure emotion of love. All the beautiful things he had ever heard or read of girlhood, of women, of marriage, rose in his mind to make this night an almost intolerable blending of joy and sorrow, hope and despair.
To stay time in its flight, to make this hour his own, to cheat the law, to hold the future at bay—these were the avid desires, the vague resolutions, of his brain. So sure as the day came this happiness would end. To-morrow he must resume his flight, resigning his new-found jewel into the hands of another. To this thought he returned again and again, each time with new adoration for the girl and added fury and hate against his relentless pursuers and himself. He did not spare himself! "Gad! what a fool I've been—and yet, if I had been less a fool I would not be here and I would never have met her." He ended with a glance toward Alice.
Then he arose, closed the door of the cabin, and stood without beside the fire, so that the women might prepare for bed. His first thought of suicide came to him. Why not wait with his love as long as possible—stay till the law's hand was in the air above his head, uplifted to strike, and then, in this last moment, die with this latest, most glorious passion as climax to his career? To flee meant endless fear, torment. To be captured meant defeat, utter and final dismay.
A knock upon the door startled him, and Peggy's voice cut short his meditation. "You can come in now, Mr. Smith," she said.
The broad crystals were still falling thickly and the fire was hissing and spluttering around a huge root which he had rolled upon it. In its light the cabin stood hardly higher than a kennel, and yet it housed the woman whose glance had transformed his world into something mystical. A man of commonplace ancestry would have felt only an animal delight in shelter and warmth, but this youth was stirred to a spiritual exaltation. The girl's bosom, the rounded beauty of her neck, appealed to him, but so also did the steady candor of her gaze and the sweet courage of her lips. Her helplessness roused his protective instinct, and her words, the sound of her voice, so precise, so alien-sweet, filled him with bitter sadness, and he re-entered the house in such spirit of self-abasement as he had never known before.
He lay down upon the hard floor in silence, his audacity gone, his reckless courage deep-sunk in gloomy foreboding.
Alice, on her part, could not free her mind from the burden of his crime. He was so young and so handsome, to be hunted like a noxious beast! She had at the moment more concern of him than of Ward, and in this lay a certain disloyalty. She sighed deeply as she thought of the outlaw resuming his flight next day. Would it not be better for him to sacrifice himself to the vengeance of the state at once and so end it? What right had she to shield him from the law's demand? "He is a criminal, after all. He must pay for his rash act."
She could not sleep, and when he rose to feed the fire she softly asked, "Does it still storm?"
"No," he ans
wered in a tone that voiced disappointment; "the sky is clear."
"Isn't that cheering!" she exclaimed, still in the same hushed voice.
"For you," he replied. "For me it's another story." He felt the desire for a secret consultation which moved her, and on his way back to his corner he halted and fixed his eyes upon her in hungry admiration of her fire-lit face. Then he spoke: "I should have pulled out before the storm quit. They can trail me now. But no matter; I've known you."
She still kept to ambiguous speech. "Wouldn't it be better to give up and take your—misfortune, and begin again? Professor Ward and I will do all we can to help you."
"That's mighty white of you," he responded, slowly. "But I can't stand the thought of confinement. I've been free as an Injun all my life. Every way of the wind has been open to me. No; just as long as I can find a wild spot I must keep moving. If it comes to 'hands up!' I take the short cut." He tapped his revolver as he spoke.
"You mustn't do that," she entreated. "Promise me you won't think of that!"
He made a stride toward her, but a movement of her companion checked him.
"Is it morning?" Peggy sleepily asked.
"Not quite," answered the outlaw, "but it's time for me to be moving. I'd like to hear from you some time," he said to Alice, and his voice betrayed his sadness and tenderness. "Where could I reach you?"
She gave her address with a curious sense of wrong-doing.
He listened intently. "I'll remember that," he said, "when I've forgotten everything else. And now—" He reached his hand to her and she took it.
"Poor boy! I'm sorry for you!" she whispered.
Her words melted his heart. Dropping on his knees beside her bed, he pressed her fingers to his lips, then rose. "I'll see you again—somewhere—some time," he said, brokenly. "Good-by."
No sooner had the door closed behind the outlaw than Peggy rose in her place beside Alice and voiced her mystification. "Now what is the meaning of all that?"
They of the High Trails Page 16