Chapter 25

HALLAM TRIES AGAIN

There was frost in the valley when one clear morning Alton lay partly dressed in a big chair beside the stove at Somasco ranch. Outside the snow lay white on the clearing, and the great pines rose above it sombre and motionless under the sunlight that had no warmth in it, while the peaks beyond them shone with a silvery lustre against the cloudless blue. It was a day to set the blood stirring and rouse the vigour of the strong, and Alton felt the effect of it as he lay listening to the rhythmic humming of the saws. The sound spoke of activity, and raising himself a trifle in his chair he glanced at his partner with a faint sparkle in his eye.

"It's good to feel alive again," he said.

Seaforth's smile was somewhat forced, for he had reason for dreading the moment when his comrade would take an interest in the affairs of life again. There was something that Alton must know, and glancing at his hollow face he shrank from telling him.

The struggle had been a long one, for fever had once more seized Alton when he was apparently on the way to recovery, and there had been times when it seemed to Seaforth that two angels kept the long night watches with him beside his comrade's bed. One was terrible and shadowy, and stooped lower and lower and above the scarcely breathing form; the other bright and beautiful, an angel of tenderness and mercy, and if Seaforth was fanciful there were excuses for him. His endurance had been strained to the uttermost as day and night he kept his vigil, while the humanity of the girl who watched with him had become etherealized until her beauty was almost spiritual. The coldness had gone out of it, and now and then it seemed to the worn-out man that a faint reflection of a light that is not kindled in this world shone through the pity in her eyes. That spark was all that had been lacking, and Seaforth, who had doubted, bent his head in homage when it came, for it appeared to him that in sloughing off her pride and becoming wholly womanly the girl had reached out in her gentleness and compassion towards the divine. When at last the turning had been passed, and Alice Deringham went down with her father for a brief rest to Vancouver, she took Seaforth's limitless respect and gratitude with her, though it occurred to him that she had gone somewhat suddenly as though anxious to escape from the ranch. They were, however, to return that evening.

"I talked a good deal, Charley, when I was sick?" said Alton.

Seaforth smiled dryly. "There is no use in denying it, because you did," he said.

Alton's face grew clouded. "I'd have bitten my tongue right through if I'd known. There were one or two things I'd been through that would come back to me, things one would sooner forget."

Seaforth appeared thoughtful, but evidently decided that frankness was best. "There certainly were occasions when your recollections were somewhat realistic."

Alton groaned, and his face was a study of consternation. "Lord, what brutes we are," he said. "There was the trouble over the Bluebird claim down in Washington. Did I talk about that?"

Seaforth crossed over and sat down on the arm of his comrade's chair. His expression was somewhat whimsical, but there was a suggestion of tenderness in his eyes, for he saw the direction in which Alton's thoughts were tending, and that he should speak of such matters to him betokened the closeness of the bond between them.

"I don't think you need worry about it, Harry." he said.

"No?" said Alton sternly. "Are those the things you would like a dainty English lady who knows nothing of what we have to do now and then to hear?"

Seaforth smiled again as he said, "Miss Deringham struck me as an especially sensible young woman. Now you need not get savage, for I am speaking respectfully, but I fancy that Miss Deringham knows almost as much about the ins and outs of life as many bush ranchers of seventy. Young women brought up as she has been in the old country not infrequently do, and as it happened you mentioned nothing about that last affair in the bush; while though one or two incidents were somewhat startling, there are, I fancy, girls in the old country who would be rather inclined to look with approval on--the type of man she might have reason for supposing you to be. In any case, there was no word of any other woman."

Alton drew in his breath. "No," he said simply. "Thank God, there never was another."

Seaforth's expression perplexed his comrade, and his voice was a trifle strained. "Yes," he said. "That is a good deal to be thankful for, Harry."

Alton looked at him thoughtfully in silence for a space. Then he said, "I never asked you any questions about the old country, Charley, and I don't mean to now, but I have fancied now and then that you brought out some trouble along with you."

Seaforth glanced down at his comrade, smiling curiously. "I may tell you some time--but not now. You do well to be thankful, Harry, and do you believe that any woman would think the worse of you because you cut down the man who meant to take your life, you big, great-natured fool?"

Alton sighed. "Well," he said very slowly, "perhaps it is better over, because that and other things would have to be told; but though I had only an axe against his pistol I can't get that man's face out of my memory."

Seaforth's face was somewhat awry just then. "You can tell your story without a blush--if you think it necessary, but I have not the courage to tell mine--and the silence may cost me very dear," he said.

Alton seemed a trifle bewildered. "When you can I'll listen, but there's nothing you could tell me would make any difference between you and me."

Seaforth laughed mirthlessly. "I'm glad of that, but it wasn't you I was thinking of just then," he said. "Still it seems to me that we are both a little off our balance this morning, and may be sorry for it afterwards."

Alton rose up and moved somewhat stiffly towards the window, where he leaned against the log casing, looking out greedily upon the sunlit valley. Then he limped back to the table and rested both hands upon it.

"I figure it's because I haven't used it, but this leg doesn't feel the same as it used to," he said. "Did it strike you that I walked kind of stiffly?"

Seaforth knew that the moment he feared had come, but he felt his courage fail him and turned his head aside. "I was not watching you," he said.

Alton, who appeared a trifle perturbed, sat down, and glanced at the partly finished meal upon the table disgustedly. "Tell them to take those things away, and bring me something a man can eat. Then I want my long boots and the nicest clothes I have."

"They will not be much use to you. You're not going out for another week, anyway."

Alton laughed a little. "Well," he said, "we'll see. Bring me a good solid piece of venison, and take those things away."

He made an ample meal, dressed himself with wholly unusual fastidiousness, and when Seaforth left him for a few moments strode out of the room. One leg felt very stiff and he clutched the balustrade a moment when he came to the head of a short stairway, then stiffened himself, and, putting all the weight he could on the limb that was least useful, stepped forward resolutely to descend it. His knee bent suddenly under him, he clutched at the rails, and missed them, reeled and lost his balance, and there was a crash as Seaforth sprang out of his room. He was in time to see his comrade rise and lean against the logs at the foot of the stairway very white and grim in face, and shivered a little as he went down.

"What's the meaning of this, Charley ?" said Alton with an ominous quietness. "I just put my weight on my left foot--and down I came."

Again Seaforth shrank from his task. "You were warned not to try to walk much for a week or two."

"Pshaw!" said Alton with sudden fierceness. "There's more than that."

Seaforth laid his hand compassionately upon his comrade's shoulder. "It had to come sooner or later--and I was afraid to tell you before. You will never walk quite as well as you used to, Harry."

Alton clutched the balustrade, and a greyness crept into his face. "I," he said very slowly, "a cripple--all my life!"

Seaforth said nothing, and there was a silence for almost a minute until Alton slowly straightened himself. "Well," he said quietly, "there is no use kicking--but this was to have been the best day of my life."

Seaforth understood him and saw his opportunity. "I don't think that will make any difference, Harry."

Alton seemed to choke down a groan. "I had so little before," he said.

Again Seaforth laid his hand upon his shoulder, "Shake yourself together, Harry. After all, I don't think it is the things that one can offer which count," he said. "Let me help you back."

Alton resolutely shook off his grasp, and moved very slowly and stiffly towards the living-room. "No," he said. "I'm not going back there any more. Get me a big black cigar, Charley--and then go right away."

Seaforth did as he was bidden, for there were many things which demanded his attention, but he glanced at his comrade as he went out, and the sight of the gaunt figure sitting very grim and straight in a chair by the window would return long afterwards to his memory.

"He takes it badly--and a little while ago I should have thought he was right," he said.

It was several hours later when Seaforth returned to the house, and found Mrs. Margery in a state of consternation.

"Where's Harry?" he said.

"'Way down to the settlement," said the woman. "Okanagan was fool enough to hoist him on a horse, and though I talked half-an-hour solid I couldn't stop him."

Seaforth smiled dryly. "I scarcely think you could. Harry is himself again. What has taken him to the settlement, anyway?"

The woman glanced at him contemptuously. "All men are fools," said she. "He went to meet that girl from the old country, and find out his mistake."

Seaforth said nothing, but went out in haste and saddled a horse, for although it had been apparent to him that there was no affection wasted between Alice Deringham and Mrs. Margery, her words had left him with a vague uneasiness.

In the meantime Alton dropped very stiffly from the saddle in front of Horton's hotel, and, limping up the stairway, found the man who kept it upon the verandah.

"Glad to see you coming round, Harry; but you're looking very white, and walking kind of stiff," he said.

"Yes," said Alton dryly. "I shall probably walk just that way all my life."

Horton made no attempt to condole with him. He knew Alton tolerably well, and felt that any sympathy he could offer would be inadequate. "Well," he said, "here's a letter Thomson brought you in from the railroad."

Alton tore open the envelope, and read the message with a faint relief, for it was from Deringham, and stated that an affair of business would prevent him returning to Somasco for some little time. Then he remembered that to delay a question which must be asked would but prolong the suspense.

"I'm going through to the railroad, but the ride has shaken me, and I'll lie down and sleep a while," he said.

"Well," said Horton, "you know best, but you look a long way more fit to be sitting beside the stove up there at the ranch. That was a tolerably bad accident you had?"

Alton glanced at him sharply, but his voice was indifferent as he answered. "Oh, yes, I came to grief bringing in a deer, and lay out in the frost a good while before they found me. Have you had many strangers round here?"

Horton nodded. "The bush is just full of them--looking for timber rights and prospecting round the Crown lands--Hallam's friends, I think. There was one of them seemed kind of anxious about you lately."

Alton's eyes grew a trifle keener, but he was shaken and weary, and made a little gesture which seemed to indicate that he would ask questions later.

"You'll give the horse a light feed, and let me know when supper's on," he said.

It was dark when he mounted with Horton's assistance, and the horse plunged once or twice. Then it started at a gallop, and Alton had some difficulty in pulling it up, for the snow was beaten down and the trail was good. He had not been gone half-an-hour when Seaforth, whose horse was smoking, swung himself down before the hotel.

"Where's Harry?" he said.

"On the trail," said Horton. "I wanted to keep him, but he lit out a little while ago, and borrowed a rifle. What he wanted it for I don't know, but he wouldn't be lonely, anyway. One of the boys who was staying here pulled out for the railroad just before him."

"Did you know the man?" asked Seaforth with unusual sharpness.

"No," said Horton. "He was timber-righting, but I'd a kind of fancy I'd once seen somebody very like him working round Somasco."

Seaforth said nothing further, but swung himself into the saddle and rode off at a gallop. He had been unsettled all day, and now it was with vague apprehensions he sent his heels home and shook the bridle.

In the meantime Alton was riding almost as fast, though the saddle galled him and he was stiff and aching. His senses also grew a trifle lethargic under the frost, but he knew there would be little rest for him until he reached Vancouver, and strove to shake off his weakness. The horse was, however, unusually restive, and would at times break into a gallop in spite of him where the trail was level, but Alton, who fancied there was something troubling the beast, was more than a little dubious of his ability to mount again if he got out of the saddle. Until that day he had not ventured outside the ranch.

The shadowy pines flitted by him, here and there the moon shone down, and the drumming of hoofs rang muffled by the snow through a great silence which was curiously emphasized when twice a wolf howled. Still, plunging and snorting now and then, the beast held pluckily on while the miles melted behind them, and midnight was past when Alton, turning, half-asleep, in his saddle, fancied he heard somebody riding behind him. For a moment his fingers tightened on the bridle, but his hearing was dulled by weakness and the numbing cold, and pressing his heels home he rode on into the darkness.

It would probably have occurred to him at any other time that the beast responded with suspicious readiness, but his perceptions were not of the clearest just then, which was unfortunate, because the trail led downwards steeply through black darkness along the edge of a ravine. The rain had also washed parts of it away, and no ray of moonlight pierced the vaulted roof of cedar-sprays. The drumming of hoofs rolled along it, there was a hoarse growling far down in the darkness below, and Alton strove to rouse himself, knowing that a stumble might result in a plunge down the declivity. He could dimly see the great trunks stream past him on the one hand, but there was only a gulf of shadow on the other.

Suddenly a flash of light sprang up almost under the horse's feet. The beast flung its head up, and next moment they were flying at a gallop down the winding and almost precipitous trail. Alton's strength had not returned to him, and he set his lips, realizing the uselessness of it as he shifted his numbed hands on the bridle. Twice the horse stumbled, but picked up its stride again, and the man had almost commenced to hope they might reach the foot of the declivity when it stumbled once more, struck a young fir, and reeled downwards from the trail.

It all happened in a moment, but there was just time enough for Alton to clear his feet from his stirrups, and though he was never quite sure what next he did he found himself sitting in the snow, shaken and dazed by his fall, while the horse rolled downwards through the shadows beneath him. He heard the brushwood crackle, and then a curiously sickening thud as though something soft had fallen from a height upon a rock. After that there was an oppressive silence save for a faint drumming that grew louder down the trail.

Alton unslung the rifle which still hung behind him, and crawled behind a big hemlock that grew out of the slope. He could hear nothing but the increasing thud of hoofs for a while, and then there was a sound that suggested stealthy footsteps in the darkness up the trail. Alton crouched very still and waited, but the footsteps came no nearer, and then pitching up the rifle fired in their direction at a venture. The sound ceased suddenly, and while the great trunks flung back the concussion it was evident that the rider was coming on at a furious gallop, and Alton rising sent out a hoarse cry, "Pull him before you come to the edge of the dip!"

The beat of hoofs sank into silence, and a shout came down. "Hallo. Is that you, Harry?"

"Yes," said Alton. "Lead your beast down."

It was five minutes later when Seaforth found him leaning against a tree with the rifle in his hand.

"What was the shooting for, and where's your horse?" said he.

Alton appeared to laugh softly and venomously, and his voice jarred upon the listener. "Down there, and stone dead. The last drop's most of a hundred feet," he said.

"But how did he get there?" and Seaforth felt a little chill strike through him.

Alton grasped his arm, and his voice was harsher still. "This is the second time."

"Good Lord!" said Seaforth, who understood him, huskily.

"Well," said Alton, "I think the thing's quite plain. If we could get down to the poor beast I figure we'd find something that had no business there under the girth or saddle. The rest is simpler--a little coal oil or giant powder, and--just at the turning yonder--a lariat across the trail. That man knows his business, Charley."

"Good Lord!" said Seaforth once more. "It's devilish, Harry. You're not going to tell anybody, and repeat the mistake you made?"

"Yes," said Alton grimly. "That's just what I figure on doing."

"But," and Seaforth's horror was evident, "he may try again. There are more than the Somasco ranchers who would be sorry if--he was successful--Harry."

Alton laughed, but the grating cachination sent a shiver through his companion. "Yes," he said, "I think he will, and that's why I'm waiting. He may give himself away the third time, and then it will be either him or me."

Seaforth stood silent for almost a minute. "If you would only listen to me--but of course you will not. Can't you see that you are in the way of somebody who stands behind that man?"

"Yes," and Alton's smile was now quietly grim. "It don't take much genius to figure out that. Before I'm through I'll know just who he is, and all about him."

Once more Seaforth was silent a space. Then he spoke very slowly. "Are you sure you're wise?"

Alton gripped his comrade's arm so that he winced with pain. "It's the second time you've asked me that," he said. "There will not be room for you and me in this province if you ask it me again."

Seaforth shook his grasp off. "You are my partner, Harry, and the only friend I have. God send you safe through with it. Now, is there any use in looking for the fellow with the lariat?"

"No," said Alton in his usual voice. "There isn't. He would have been waiting up there ready to whip the thing away, and by this time he has doubled back down the trail. If you met a man riding along quietly what could you do to him?"

"It's devilish," said Seaforth, as a fit of impotent anger shook him.

"Oh, yes," said Alton languidly. "Still, there isn't much use in slinging names, and I'm kind of tired. Help me up into your saddle, and lead the beast by the bridle. We'll head for Gordon's."