Part 17

She did not speak directly. She was like one brutally struck. Then infinite contempt rose in her face; her deep eyes flamed, and her voice, when she found speech, took its contralto notes. "You say that. You. When you know the situation was thrust upon him. When you, yourself, left me alone with our baby, in this rough milling camp, for weeks together, with no possible protection but his. Think of it. When I told you I was afraid, you asked him to see that the house had special watch at night; when I said that I missed you, you asked him to bring his violin and spend his evenings with me; even when Si's hard illness came, it was not you who shared my anxiety; it was not you who quieted him, carried him in your strong arms. No, it was not you, but Paul Forrest. And he saved--little Silas; you know he risked his own life for him." Her voice broke. "Oh, you must see that he was forced into it; you must. He had enough else to do--but--you left him no alternative."

"I left him no alternative? Well, I own it. But you, Louise, come, out with it. It's true. You do love him."

"No," and her voice thrilled him, "No. When a woman is married and has her little child--to think of, she doesn't turn so easily to--other loves."

At this he began to walk the floor again. She watched him with lifted head and flaming eyes.

"I wonder," he said, stopping suddenly and regarding her with a touch of humor in his face, "I wonder if you think I don't care anything for you."

"Yes, you have led me to think so."

He laughed aloud. "Why, I couldn't care that," he snapped his fingers, "for any other woman. I couldn't love any woman but you. Don't you know it, Sweetheart?" He put his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. "Come, say you forgive me."

But she drew away, freeing herself desperately with her two arms. His own fell. She moved back and the step was immeasurable space between them. "No," she said. "No. Do not ask it."

He took another turn across the floor, uncertainly, his hands seeking his pockets. "Tell me this," he said quietly, stopping before her. "Is there something else? Something more than--well--my neglect. Something I don't know about."

"How can I tell you?" She pressed her hands to her head and let them fall, meeting his look. "Your way of loving has never been my way. I could never make you understand how much I cared for you. You were everything to me, Philip; everything. I worshipped you. To have you indifferent, away, to lose you as I did, was to have nothing. But I still could teach Silas to respect you, to believe in you. No slight, no neglect of me could make me doubt you in--other ways. You were a man of honor among men; you had your place--until--last night."

His glance wavered while she spoke. He felt an unaccountable weakness, a sudden tightness at the throat, and he reached back to a chair behind him and sank down.

"Philip," she said, "how could you do it? How--could--you?" Tears rushed to her eyes; she brushed them impatiently away. "Think of it. To lend the _Phantom_, that clean, white yacht, to an opium smuggler; to make him your companion, friend; to be his willing tool. Oh, the shame of it! The shame of it! How could you?"

He dropped his face in his hands. He felt suddenly that a court of justice might be more merciful than this proud, sweet, unrelenting woman. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. "I see," he said, "you saw the revenue boat and you accepted Forrest's version. The captain of the cutter would have told you different. There is some suspicion hanging over Stratton, I admit, and those inspectors were looking for the _Phantom_, in fact they boarded her, merely because he happened to make the cruise with me over from Victoria. They of course found nothing."

"No," she said slowly, "they found--nothing." There was a brief silence, then she went on. "I was there, in the old hotel, when you landed. I often walked that way when the house seemed too--unbearably--lonely. I liked the sounds of the tide. I believed, at first, the _Phantom_ had missed the dock in the smoke; then I thought it might be another boat, and some secret plot going on about the mills; something Paul should know. I am not a very brave woman, as you have often said, and I crept under the bar to wait. I was even afraid when I knew it was you. The key you dropped fell on my skirt. Afterwards, when the cutter came, I understood. And while the inspectors searched through these rooms, I went back to the ruin and lifted enough of the floor to get--the chest--through."

"You did that? Oh, Louise, Louise!" He dropped his face again in his hands. He saw in a flash the magnitude of what she had done; the terrible moral as well as the physical effort it had cost her. But he felt more, in that bitter moment, that it was to her, the one in all the world from whom he had most cared to hide his dishonor, he owed his salvation. "Oh, Louise," he repeated, "and you did it for me."

"No." Her voice rang. "No. I did it for little Silas; to save him the disgrace. I am going to take him away, where the smallest hint or suspicion can never reach him. But I will not have a divorce--unless you wish." And the break in her voice, the white stillness of her face more than her words convinced him.

He rose to his feet. "The scheme was all Mark Stratton's," he said. "He took advantage of my being in a tight place. He promised to assume the whole risk; let him shoulder the disgrace."

She was silent.

"Louise," he said desperately, "you can't be so hard. I know what I did. I know there isn't the shadow of excuse for me, but you can't be so hard. You don't mean a separation. You are only trying me. Fix a limit; give me a certain time to prove myself. Give me some sort of hope, Louise."

He was very handsome at that moment. He possessed great personal magnetism; his emotion softened his voice and the brilliancy of his black eyes. He came a step towards her, opening his arms impetuously. "I will do anything you say, Sweetheart; only don't leave me."

She stood shrinking against the table. "I could never respect myself--again," she said slowly, with manifest effort, "unless--you accepted your share of the atonement; and--my own confession--would follow; but--little Silas--would begin life--handicapped."

"Silas. Well, it's all right, put him first; I deserve it. But count in old Si, too; it would cut him pretty bad. After all, we are in the same boat. Let us forget it and make a new start." Her face was very white; her body rocked. He thought that she was falling. He took her in his arms. "Sweetheart," he said, "don't send me away; I love you so."

But she laid her palms against his breast, holding herself aloof. His arms fell. "Then make it a probation," he pleaded. "I will be good. Promise me you will come back--in a year."

She shook her head. She was almost past speaking. She braced herself with her hand on the table again, her whole body trembling. "No," she said at last, "no. Please go; don't say any more. It must be separation--nothing less--as long as we two live!"

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*"A MAN OF STRAW"*

Smith, having slower horses and the bulk of the outfit, started for the Pass at daybreak, with the understanding that Stratton would overtake him at the crossing of the Nisqually; and it was hardly two hours later that the thoroughbred forded the Des Chutes above the lodge, and, followed by a pack-animal, made a sharp ascent to the rock tower, where his master halted to load the remainder of the cache.

The forest fires that had been the salvation of the _Phantom_, had proved a disadvantage on the road from Seattle. The two horsemen had been forced to make wide detours around blazing timber; sometimes the trail was lost in the charred ruins of burned out tracts, and arriving at the ranch where Stratton had expected to pick up pack-animals, they found the buildings completely wiped away, and all signs of humanity and life gone. But Smith annulled these delays by starting a red trail backward from the Nisqually plains through the untouched woods they had travelled; cutting off any chance of pursuit for several days.

Stratton had been further handicapped by the pain in his head, which the heat and glare brought on with increasing violence. There were moments when riding became impossible, and he threw himself from the saddle, prone on the earth, to wait for harder paroxysms to pass. But as they approached the headwaters, they came into the shade of clean, unbroken timber; the smoke decreased to scarcely more than a haze, and, while Smith pressed Laramie to forage for the necessary pack-horses, Stratton was able to allow himself twenty-four hours of absolute rest, induced by a few drops of the mixture he had learned to use in the solitude of his lodge, and this put him on his feet again.

Still he made slow progress down the rough path from the tower that morning, and even when he struck the main trail he halted repeatedly, like a man of two minds. Finally he wheeled and, encumbered by the pack-horse, which led indifferently, paced back, and turned into a by-way that brought him into the school branch. He held Sir Donald at a walk and studied the ground, until, though he noticed Mose's footprints in a moist place, he was satisfied the black had not yet passed. Presently he stopped, listening. The track, there, doubled a trunk of great girth; a hollow cedar stump, roofed like an arbor by the branches of young alders, which also screened a break in the inner wall, like a curtain before a door.

The sound became a brisk and steady lope. To this man, who had waited for it often, who was accustomed to read the individuality of horses as a psychologist studies men, it was unmistakable. He backed the pack-animal into the salal, and held the thoroughbred in, while Colonel, falling to a gentle pace, rounded the curve and came to a playful standstill.

"Good morning." Alice's glance moved from Stratton to the laden pack-horse. "But it looks like good-by," she said.

"Yes, I turned back to say it. I missed seeing you at the homestead, yesterday, and I am starting on another trading and hunting trip. I should find elk now, in the mountains, and I hope to bring you the horns of a goat."

"I'll have a place for all you bring," she answered, her lips dimpling. "Mose told me you were going. But," she added seriously, "I'm glad you are going alone. Mose saw Pete Smith, late last evening, creeping along from the foot-bridge, and this morning, of course you know, Mill Thornton's horse was gone."

"Not the sorrel?" Sir Donald, accustomed to every fluctuation of his master's voice, trembled and wheeled. But the hand on the bridle steadied and brought him around. "No," Stratton added, "No, I had not heard. I came the other way, by the ford and the canyon trail, and so missed seeing Mrs. Mill. And Thornton believes it was Smith?"

"Yes, he is sure of it. There was a clear track on the wet grass across my claim to strike the canyon trail. He followed it far enough to be certain, then started for the prairie to get Jake's horse. Ketchem is very swift and he expected to bring the Government detectives back with him. They have tracked Pete to the settlement, and spent last night at the Myers homestead."

Stratton put his hand on the black's glossy neck, giving it a quick, firm stroke. "And they are looking for--Smith?" he asked.

"Yes. He has committed some new crime; Samantha didn't understand what. I doubt if the man who told Mill knew. But," she halted an instant, compelling his eyes with her clear, steadfast look that seemed to expect a best in him, "you will help the Government now. You will stop him if the opportunity comes. And you know how Mill needs his horse. Think if it was Sir Donald; think how it must go all against the grain of a fine, mettlesome creature to be touched, even, by those unclean, wicked hands."

"I will do what I can about the sorrel," he answered. "But I am going a long and hazardous journey; I may never see you again." He gave the black another quick, firm stroke, then, meeting her eyes, once more lost himself. "Smith is with me," he said. "Those men are looking for me. Think. Go back to that day at the tower when you stumbled on that strange, leaking tin. Go back farther to that time on Orcas Island; the story I told you there on the summit. I was that boy."

"You were that boy?"

"Yes. The time has come; I want you to know it from me. I was that boy. And you,"--he paused, and the quiver that was the surface stir of unsounded depths swept his face. "You were that woman. I can't give you up. You don't know how I love you. Wait. Listen. Never mind that friendliness; I break the truce. Never mind your impossible duty to the Judge. When a woman loves a man, as you are capable of loving, she doesn't hold him off the breadth of the whole continent; she goes when he calls. Wait. Listen. Forget that Puritan conscience of yours, this one half-hour, and I pledge myself to live up to it the rest of my life. Trust me. Promise you will join me in Chicago, New York, Montreal, whenever, wherever I write."

The color flamed in her face. "I shall be late to school," she said. "Turn Sir Donald, please."

She spoke to her horse, but the thicket crowded close and the chestnut continued to hold the way. "Wait, just one moment more," Stratton went on, "you do not understand. I will take you away, to the ends of the earth, if I must, and make a new start. I can do it; I can become the most rigid patriot, I swear, with you to back me. It rests completely with you, to make of me your kind of man, or to send me--I don't care where."

"I could never be any man's prop," she answered. "I thought you knew that!" Then suddenly her manner changed. Her face softened; her eyes filled with a great appeal. "Face it out, pay the price," she said. "I will help you; only be the man of character, of force, I have believed you to be, and not--a man of straw."

"Force," he caught at the word. "Force. Would you like me better if I should carry you away? I could do it, now, to-day; over the mountains, into the big Palouse wilderness. Sir Donald is very fleet,"--he watched her narrowly,--"and so is the black."

"Carry me away? Carry me?" Again her manner changed. She tipped back her head, laughing in soft derision.

"I know every byway northward to the British boundary and far beyond," he went on hurriedly. "Only give me the start over the divide, and the whole roused Northwest could never find you."

"But you forget my part; I should find a way back." And she laughed again, less merrily, still in derision.

He backed his horse a little among the alders, close to the cedar trunk, and swung himself from the saddle, moving to the chestnut's head and thrusting his arm through the bridle. The position brought him again to the neck of the black, and he slipped the same hand on through the coil of Colonel's lariat. "At least you are not afraid of me," he said. "I am glad of that."

"Afraid? Afraid of you? Oh, no. Why should I be? But the children will be waiting." Though the words were brave her voice trembled. It was not the first time she had tried to laugh this man off dangerous ground, but now, suddenly looking into his face, for the first time, she felt he had passed beyond her influence.

She was afraid. This was not the Stratton she had known; whose companionship hitherto had seemed a security on the trail; whose frequent visits to the headwaters had kept her in touch with the outside world; the friend who had once saved her from fire; whom, earlier, she had rescued from an ice-crevasse. That Stratton had been mocking, debonair; a few times she had seen him shaken with passion, but he had shown her strong under-currents of fine feeling; and, always, in any mood, he had remembered to be courteous, chivalrous; that was bred in the bone. But this man--it was as though she had not seen him before. His face was determined, hard. It might have been chiseled of rock. His silence was a threat. And, clearly, he did not mean to let her pass.

She turned in her saddle to look at the space behind her and gathered her rein. And instantly Stratton laid his palm on her hand and drew the bridle from her surprised hold. "You will hate me at first," he said, "perhaps hard and long; but--I can be patient--you will love me in the end and marry me."

He made a hitch in the rein and dropping it on the black's neck, lifted his hand to the silk handkerchief knotted at his throat.

"I will not," she said, and caught a great breath, "I will not." She reached for the bridle, but again his hand closed over hers. She flashed him a look; unspeakable contempt, aversion, rose in her face. "You ruffian," she added. "You common ruffian, outlaw."

And he let the hand go. He released, too, his hold on the coiled lariat, and stood back like a man unexpectedly struck. He had ceased to bar the way; she was free to ride on, but she failed to notice that. She saw only this "ruffian" and her eyes stormed. "Listen," she said, and her voice, like her sister's, deepened to contralto notes. "I warn you. I can die just once and it will come to that before I ever bring myself to marry you. As long as I live I shall never love any man but--_Paul Forrest_."

So, at last, in this moment of great anger, the truth which she had not even admitted to herself, was surprised from her. Then she was silent. A wave of color surged and ebbed in her face. She began to tremble, a little at first, then harder; her whole body rocked.

And Stratton watched her. The light like a blade flashed in his eyes, but he gathered himself, slowly, in check, the Stratton she knew once more. "So," he said, finally, "so, after all, it is the black's master, as I thought, as I feared at the beginning. You might have told me; it was hardly fair to me to fabricate that yarn about the Judge, and stay by it so long."

"It was not a fabrication. I am going to marry Judge Kingsley," her voice broke and she finished almost in a whisper, "as I told you."

"I see," he answered slowly, "I see." He paused and went on yet more slowly. "To think of it, the irony of it, that Forrest should love your sister."

Colonel had started, but she drew him in and turned, again facing this man. "Hush," she said, and he saw that she shook once more, from head to foot. "Hush. Deny it. Own that you know, it isn't true."

He folded his arms, one drawn still through his bridle, and met her look steadily. "But I believe it," he answered. "I am sorry, but I believe it. How do you know it isn't true?"

"You know them both, yet you can ask. You--you must have seen that she could never care for any man but Philip Kingsley."

"I grant that," he answered and smiled. "I spoke merely of Forrest. It is he who is generally blamed."

"Blamed?" She lifted her chin high; her eyes storming.

"Yes, it is common talk among the mill men; I have overheard it discussed in a hotel lobby at Seattle, and at Olympia, where they are generally and intimately known."

"But you--you have denied it?"

He shook his head. "I am sorry, but how could I deny it?"

"Because Paul Forrest isn't that kind of man; you know it. You know he is as true, as steadfast as these hills."

"True to her," Stratton persisted softly, "true to her, yes."

"No--to me."

Then suddenly on the silence there rang an ominous sound. Colonel wheeled and looked, head up, sensitive ears playing, towards the Nisqually trail; he wheeled again and she allowed him to set the pace in the direction of the school.

Plainly there were many hoof-beats and they struck into the branch leaving the river trail. Stratton spoke to the indifferent pack-horse, touched him smartly on the flank and sent him careering after the black. Then he urged the thoroughbred quickly along the trunk to the break that was like a door. There was barely room to press through, and the chestnut's head rose among the alder branches that roofed the stump. But a word, a firm touch on the forelegs, and the trained animal dropped to his knees. Another word and he rolled to his side with his head flattened to receive his master's weight. It was the method used in breaking a cavalry mount for field drill; and Sir Donald remained motionless, while Bates and his deputies thundered by with Thornton, in hot pursuit of the black and the laden pack-horse.

Stratton rested lightly, easing his weight by bracing one knee on the earth. A bough rustled outside of the trunk; a twig snapped faintly, and he was conscious that a pair of ferret eyes peered cautiously, briefly, around through the aperture. But he made no sign until the posse had passed; then he threw out his arm, feeling, and drew Lem, struggling, towards him. "You spy," he whispered, and the anger flashed in his eyes; "you spy. Tell what you know and I will skin you--by inches--alive."

Then he tossed the shaking boy aside, in a heap, and in another instant had his horse up and out of his hiding-place, and mounting, galloped lightly back in the direction of Nisqually crossing and the Pass.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*THE ROCKSLIDE*

Stratton made a steep rise and stopped, breathing the chestnut on a level shoulder of the Pass. Behind him a clump of mountain hemlock and some scrub pines marked the tree line, and, looking ahead, he saw, rounding a bald and higher spur, a rider with two pack-horses. For a brief interval these figures moved, well-defined, gathering nearness in the slanting rays of the low sun, then a black buttress closed, shutting them out like a mighty door. The man was Smith. He had not waited at Nisqually ford and he rode Thornton's sorrel.

Stratton whistled, a soft, peremptory note, and the thoroughbred sprang, moving swiftly down a short incline, and up towards the buttress. The passage grew difficult. The trail, which took the edge of a precipitous slope, was obstructed by fallen rock. Presently these loose accumulations increased to a slide. Sir Donald dropped to a walk, picking his way lightly. Finally, under the cliff, he halted, balanced nicely on a huge rocking slab, and inspected with suspicion the pitfalls before him. His master waited, motionless; the bridle hung loosely, but in a firm, alert hand. "It's all right, old fellow," he said, "It's all right, but take your own time."

The chestnut shook his mane in remonstrance and put one forefoot out cautiously, trying for hold. Then he withdrew, backing carefully, swiftly, off the slab, and with hoofs set, head high, whole body quivering, waited. The next instant the solid earth shook, and like a sprung mine, clang, clash, roar, a terrific cannonading filled the gorge.

Stratton understood. Smith had seen him at the lower curve, and, bent on deferring a meeting until the return of the sorrel was impossible, had pressed hurriedly on. The autumn frosts, thawing by day, continually split and loosened rock on the face of the cliff, and this incautious passing of the horses, a false step, a stumble, had been the slight jar necessary to start a fresh avalanche.

The final echo died far off; the profound silence which had followed him all day settled again like an intangible presence over the gorge. It was a stillness to challenge the very breathing of a man, if he lived, and Stratton waited, listening, for any slight disturbance beyond the buttress. None reached him. But the sorrel was fleet. She would have sprung like the wind at the first crack of the catastrophe; and if there had been space to pass the pack-animals, it was possible she had carried Smith out of the track of the slide.