CHAPTER V.

A SHORT RIDE AND A LONG WALK.

Two days passed without any event worthy of record. Every thing at the ranche went on quietly enough, and a stranger happening there might have believed it an orderly and well regulated family as any that could be found in the State.

The two men held long conversations in private. Even Sybil was not made acquainted with their cause; and although she was too acute not to have perceived that there was a secret from which she was excluded, she betrayed neither interest nor curiosity, evidently quite willing to allow affairs to take their own course, and await the pleasure of her husband and his confederate to hear a disclosure of the scheme which they might be revolving in their minds.

On the third day the two made preparations to go up to the mines. Yates owned a claim which he did not work himself, for labor was not a thing he actually enjoyed, but he had hired men to work it, being able, even in that rage for gold which had taken possession of all, to find men who preferred secure daily wages to the uncertainty of working upon their own account.

Yates was in the habit of making weekly visits to the place, so that Sybil received the information of the departure as a matter of course, and supper was prepared before sunset, that they might make their journey during the cool of the evening.

The mules were brought out, and Sybil followed her husband and his friend out on to the veranda to see them mount and ride away.

"You will have a beautiful night," she said. "The wind blows cool and refreshing."

"You had better ride a little way with us, Mrs. Yates," said Dickinson.

"I would, but I have a headache," she answered, sweetly.

"Now, why can't you be honest and say you are glad to see us start?" returned her husband.

"Because I never tell stories," she replied, with her pleasant laugh; "I was always taught to consider it wicked."

"What heavenly principles!" sneered Yates. "I declare, Sybil, you are too good for this world."

"Well," exclaimed Tom, "she's needed in it, anyhow! Smart, handsome women are too scarce for her to be spared."

Sybil swept him a courtesy, and Yates laughed outright.

"Tom waxes gallant," said he. "You ought to be grateful, Syb, for his compliments. He isn't given to flattering you women, I can tell you."

"I am very grateful," she replied, giving Tom one of her flashing glances. "Admiration is as rare a thing in this region as Mr. Dickinson considers bright women."

Tom was quite abashed; like many another bad man, he was never at ease in the presence of a well-bred woman--and that Sybil was a lady no one could have denied; it was perceptible in every word and movement.

Yates had to go through his usual routine of maledictions upon his servants and mules; then he mounted his own particular beast, blew a kiss to Sybil, and called out:

"Come, Tom, are you going to stand all night flirting with my wife, I should like to know?"

"What abominable things you do say!" exclaimed Tom, coloring like a girl, and making all haste to get on to his mule, by way of covering his confusion.

"Oh, Mr. Dickinson," said Sybil, "I would not have believed you so ungallant!"

"As how?" questioned Tom.

"You said that it was an abominable thing to admire me. Really, I am astonished!"

"That wasn't what I meant," he replied. "But you know I never can say what I want to, I'm such a stupid fool of a fellow--always was, among women folks."

"There, Tom, that will do! You have got out of the scrape beautifully," said Yates, lending his friend's mule a cut with his black whip. "You have danced attendance on the Graces long enough for one day."

The mule started off with Dickinson, at a sharp canter, and deprived him of an opportunity to reply even if he had wished it. Yates gathered up his reins, nodded to Sybil, and prepared to follow.

"When shall I expect you?" she asked.

"To-morrow night, at the furtherest. I only want to see how the men get on."

"Good-by, then, till to-morrow."

He rode away, and Sybil stood watching them for some time; but her face had lost the sweet expression which possessed so great a charm for Dickinson.

"How long must this continue?" she muttered. "Will there never be an end? Oh, Sybil--Sybil! what a weak, miserable fool you have been! This is the end of your art and talent--a home in the wilderness, a gambler's wife! But it shall change--oh! it shall change, I say!"

She clasped her hands hard over her heart, gave one other glance toward the retreating riders, and entered the house. She went up to her own room, and remained there a long time.

At length she rose and glanced out of the window. The sun had set, and the twilight would have been gloomy and gray but for a faint glory heralding the moon which had not yet appeared in sight over the towering mountains.

"I must be gone!" she exclaimed. "I can not bear this any longer--I should go crazy!"

She went to a chest of drawers that stood in a corner of the room, unlocked them, and took out a small and richly mounted revolver--one of those charming death trifles that Col. Colt has fashioned so exquisitely. It was so elaborate in its workmanship, and so delicately pretty, that it looked rather like a plaything than the dangerous implement it really was. But, small and fanciful as it was, the weapon would have been a dangerous instrument in the hands of that woman had interest or self-preservation rendered it necessary for her to use it.

She loaded the several barrels with dexterity and quickness, which betrayed a perfect knowledge of her task, locked the drawers again, and hid the pistol in her pocket.

She put on a pretty gipsy hat, threw a mantle over her shoulders, and went out of her room, locking the door behind her that any one who chanced to try the door might suppose her occupied within. Down stairs she stole with her quick, stealthy tread, passed through the hall, and saw the men-servants at their supper in the kitchen, with the two Indian women obediently attending to their wants.

She gave one glance, retraced her steps, hurried out of the front door, and followed the path opposite that which her husband and his companion had taken an hour before.

She was speedily concealed from the view of those within the house by a thicket of almond-trees, and passed fearlessly and rapidly along the path which she had trodden in many a long walk when the wretched isolation of her life had become unendurable.

The night came on; the moon was up, giving forth a brilliant but fitful light, for a great troop of clouds were sweeping through the sky and at intervals obscured her beams completely, leaving only traces of struggling light on the edges of the clouds.

The path was rugged and broken--a greater portion of the way led through a heavy forest; but Sybil walked quickly on, disturbed by none of the forest-sounds which might have terrified a less determined woman from following out the end she had set her heart upon.

The wind sighed mournfully among the great trees over her head and dashed the swaying vines against her face; but she resolutely pushed them aside and forced for herself a passage. Lonely night-birds sent forth their cries, so like human wails that they were fairly startling; noisome reptiles, disturbed by her approach, slid away through the gloom with venomous hisses; but still Sybil passed on, upright, defiant, her hand clenching the weapon concealed in her dress with a tight grasp, and her eyes flashing with the fearful enjoyment which the scene produced upon her mind, to which excitement was necessary as oxygen is to the air.

It would have been a singular study, the manner in which this woman's determination overcame her physical cowardice when any cause for prompt action was presented to her. Upon ordinary occasions nothing could have induced her to enter that wood after nightfall; but, under the influence of the insane desire which had been upon her for days, she trod its recesses as untremblingly as the boldest pioneer who ever crossed the Rocky Mountains could have done.

The greater portion of her way led along the bank of the stream, which flowed in the woods after breaking through the heart of the valley and forcing its way between the narrow of the mountains, that gave it an unwilling egress. The waters rung pleasantly in the shadow, but Sybil did not pause to listen, although her rare nature contained enough of ideality to have led her away into many a romance, had she been thrown among these picturesque shades when her mind was at rest.

It was a weary walk, but in her excitement Sybil thought little of the fatigue. She reached the end of her journey, at length. It was the ranche to which she had directed the party who came with that wounded man to ask shelter of her. Sybil did not go directly to the house. At a considerable distance from the dwelling was a rude hut where the family of one of the workmen lived. Sybil knew the woman; she had once taken a fancy to be very kind to a sick child of the poor creature, and that favor had never been forgotten.

When Sybil knocked at the door, a querulous voice bade her enter, and she went into the miserable abode. The woman was nursing her baby, and two older children sat crouching at her feet, munching black crusts of bread with the sharp appetite which follows a long fast. The room was so bare that it could hardly be called untidy; but the appearance of the female and her children was famished and miserable enough.

She started up--a haggard, raw-boned creature--with a cry at the sight of her visitor, exclaiming:

"Mrs. Yates!"

"Hush!" said Sybil, motioning her back. "I want to ask you a few questions, about which you are to say nothing to any living soul."

"I will," replied the woman. "You were good to my boy. I don't forget that."

Sybil waved that claim to consideration carelessly aside, and went on:

"There was a party of strangers at the house one night last week?"

"Yes," said the woman; "I was up at the ranche when they come in; they had been to your place, and said you wouldn't let them stop. I didn't believe it."

"Go on," said Sybil, breathlessly; she had waited for nearly a week to gain information--waited with the patience which was one of her most remarkable characteristics; but now that the moment was at hand, she could hardly give the woman time to speak.

"One of the gentlemen had a hurt--"

"Was the doctor here?"

"Yes; it wasn't nothing but a sprain."

"You are certain?"

"Sartin of it, ma'am. They staid here that night and the next; he was quite well by that time, and then they went on--that's all I know about them; I wish it was more, if it could oblige you."

"That is enough," said Sybil.

She appeared satisfied; she had walked five miles through the forest to obtain those meager crumbs of information--braved dangers from which even a man might have shrunk; but in that lonely, miserable life of hers, it was something even to have gained those brief tidings.

A few more questions she asked: how the gentleman looked; if he had quite recovered; if the woman had heard him speak.

"Pretty much, ma'am, and he seemed as full of fun as a boy; I guess he didn't mind. Oh, them that's rich can afford to be funny, and folks say he's got a mighty heap of gold."

Sybil made no answer to the woman's remark, but sat for a time in silence, looking straight before her after her old fashion.

"I wish I could give you a bite to eat or drink," said the woman, "but we hain't got a living thing."

Sybil roused herself at once.

"I am in want of nothing," she said; "I must go home now."

"Dear me, you ain't rested; it's a hard ride."

Sybil did not inform her that she had come alone and on foot. She placed some money in the woman's hand, and said kindly, but with emphasis:

"You need not say that I have been here."

"Nobody'll ask," replied the woman; "if they did, it wouldn't do no good--I hain't forgot! Oh, ma'am, I ain't a good woman; I'm a poor, ignorant, bad-tempered critter, that Joe often says would be better off in my grave; but God bless you, that can't do you no harm, forlorn as I be. God bless you, ma'am!"

Sybil hurried away to escape the wound these words gave her. Her better feelings were aroused, and somehow that simple, uncouth benediction jarred upon her ear; it made her more nervous than she had been while threading her way through the lonely woods, and she hastened out into the night once more.

A change had passed over the sky; great masses of heavy clouds were piled up against the horizon and scattered over the heavens, through which the moon rushed in frightened haste. The wind had fallen, and an oppressive sultriness superseded the cool of the woods which had been so apparent a few hours before. Once or twice distant peals of thunder rolled afar off, and the jagged edges of the precipice of clouds were colored with blue lightning.

Sybil struck into the path and took her way homeward. The feeling which supported her had in a measure subsided, and the fears natural to a place and scene like that began to force themselves on her imagination.

Since the day that Laurence and his party stopped at her house, she had been half mad to learn if his injury had proved of little consequence, and if he had been enabled to pursue his journey. There was no one at the ranche whom she dared to trust; for well she knew, although he had not again alluded to the subject, that her husband was watching every movement, and that the slightest show of anxiety on her part would be followed by a repetition of cruelties that since her marriage and removal to that wild place had been of frequent occurrence. She was afraid of this now, and fear took its usual result, craft and concealment. She had borne her fears and suffering in silence up to this time; but when Yates left home, so keen was her anxiety that she could not have lived another hour without starting forth to obtain such information as could be gathered; had the distance been quadrupled she would have undertaken the journey, for in that mood no danger or fatigue could have deterred her.

Long before Sybil reached the edge of the forest the clouds had gathered force, and swept up to the very zenith; suddenly the moon plunged down behind them, and the woods were buried in darkness. The thunder pealed out again, rolling and booming through the heavens like parks of artillery; terrible flashes of lightning ran like fiery serpents through the clouds, and made every object fearfully distinct. Every shrub and tree took spectral shapes. The path seemed to lose itself in dizzy windings, and Sybil could only cover her face with both hands and rush blindly on, terrified but still courageous.

Great drops of rain began to fall; the thunder increased in violence, and the lightning flashes succeeded each other in such rapid succession that the whole forest was wrapped in flame. Still Sybil hurried on, panting for breath, half crazed with fear, and keeping the path more from instinct than any thought or power of reason.

The storm grew stronger, gathered its mighty powers among the gorges, and surged up into one of those fearful tempests which desolate mountain regions so suddenly. The wind howled through the forest, the thunder pealed and broke directly overhead, and renewed lightning leaped and blazed before her very eyes till she was blinded and stunned. There was no hope of shelter; the thickets which lined the path might conceal wild beasts, frightened into seeking refuge within their depths, but to her they threatened death; she could only totter on, feeling her strength fail with every gust of the storm beat against her. Many times her feet struck against fragments of broken rocks, or became entangled in the rank vines, which brought her heavily to the ground, tearing her garments and bruising her limbs; but in her fright and anguish she did not heed the pain, and, catching at the branches for support, would stagger to her feet again, and plunge on through the darkness, growing more and more desperate each moment. Her drenched garments clung about her form like a shroud--the cold touch made her shudder; and when, in a sudden pause of the tempest, a great owl rushed past her with his ill-omened cry, her senses almost forsook her in the fright. She heard the cracking of branches, the thunder of giant trees, as they came crashing to the earth, and their mangled boughs fell close to her as she tottered on. Long briars, blown out into the road, tore her face and pierced her arms; she shrieked with fear as she forced herself away from their clutches, that were like the talons of wild animals tearing at her life.

The tempest was of short duration; suddenly as it had sprung up the wind died in the depths of the forest; the rain ceased; the black wall of clouds tottered and crumbled against the horizon, breaking away like mountains in a dream.

As Sybil left the wood, the moon soared up again from the prison of clouds where it had been confined, and the night grew serene and quiet, as if no blast had swept through it.

Feeble, weary and faint, Sybil toiled on until she reached her home. The lights were out, the doors fastened, but she had means of entrance, and made her way up to her chamber so stealthily that even the great dogs who bayed and kept watch upon the veranda were not disturbed by her tread.

Once in her room, and feeling that she was safe, the desperation that had nerved her gave way, and she fell a dead weight upon the floor. She had not fainted, but it was a long time before she could find strength to rise; her limbs were stiffened--her very heart was chilled. She could only lie there, staring out at the moon, while her troubled senses heard still the roar of the tempest, and dismal shapes came out of the gloom to torture her more sorely than the storm had done--cold specters from the past that refused to lie quiet in their graves; painful memories, blighted hopes--every sight and sound from which her tortured soul strove to escape but had no power--she could only look through her strained, glaring eyes, and watch the pale procession in its course.

She shook off the weakness and that terrible fear, at last; struggled to her feet, threw off her drenched garments, and crept into bed chilled and trembling, only to renew in sleep the mournful images from which she had tried to escape during her waking hours.