CHAPTER XIX

ON EQUAL TERMS

She did not know what it was that had made the man she loved a fugitive from the law. She did not care. She was glad--glad because now her dream of happiness with him was possible.

As Marta ran to meet him, Hugh Edwards could not but see that she was elated and happy. Not since that morning before the storm had she been in such a joyous mood. The depression, that since her meeting with the Lizard had been so marked, was gone. She was again her own frank, radiant self. But Edwards did not respond to the girl’s happiness. When she would have spoken of the sheriff and the escaped convict he coldly prevented her. Concealing every hint of emotion under a mask of formal politeness, he repelled every advance and received her loving overtures of sympathy and loyal comradeship in silence.

In those months when his friendship for Marta had ripened into love it had not been easy for Hugh Edwards to deny himself the happiness which the girl in her love had so innocently offered. With all the strength of his will he had fought to do the thing that he knew to be right. A thousand times he had told himself that to speak the words that would make her share the black shame of the fate that hung over him would be the part of a selfish coward. He must protect her from himself. When he had won gold enough to insure his freedom from the life of a convict, then he would tell her everything. With gold enough he could escape to a foreign land and Marta, when she knew his story, would go with him. But until he could assure himself that complete and final safety from the prison that threatened was within his reach, both for his own sake and for hers, he would not speak of his love.

And now suddenly the girl had learned a part of the truth. And it had only made her love for him more evident. At the same time the incident that had revealed to her his real purpose in coming to the Cañada del Oro had shown him that his fancied security in the Cañon of Gold was fancy indeed. Any day, any hour, any moment, the officers might come for him. The Lizard, the Indian, a chance unguarded word of the Pardners, any one of a hundred things might happen to put the men of the law upon his track. He must not--he must not--say the word that would bring upon the girl he loved the shame and misery that so surely awaited him if the sheriff should find him. More than ever now he was determined to save Marta from himself. But it was not easy. It had been hard before Marta knew what Sheriff Burks’ visit had revealed to her--it was harder now. If only he could find the gold.

But nothing could dampen the girl’s spirit. She was as sure of Hugh Edwards’ love as if he had spoken. When she had believed that her own nameless and questionable birth was the reason for his refusal to declare his love, she had been miserable. But now that his own disgrace had been revealed she felt that the shame of her unknown parentage need be no longer a barrier between them. She did not know what it was that had made the man she loved a fugitive from the law. She did not care. She was glad--glad--because now her dream of happiness with him was possible. She saw now that the thing which had kept him from telling his love was not her lack of an honorable name but the dishonor of his own. He had been shielding her from himself. His silence had not been to save himself from the shame that she might bring to him, but rather to save her from the shame that was already his and which an avowal of his love would have led her to share.

And so she tried in every way to win through the guard he had set against her and to restore the dear comradeship which had been broken--first by the Lizard, and now through the visit of Sheriff Burks. With every wile of her womanhood--with every art of her sex--with all the frankness of her unspoiled nature--she offered herself. Secure in the confidence of his love, she tempted him to break the silence which he had with such fortitude imposed upon himself. And while her loving, generous heart was wrung with pity for his suffering, she gloried in the strength that enabled him to endure against her, and rejoiced in the knowledge that his self-imposed torture was for love of her.

When she tried to make him talk to her of his past, he was silent. When she told him of her own history, he answered, bitterly, that she was fortunate in having no parents to disgrace, no name to dishonor. When she asserted her belief in him no matter what he was in the eyes of the law, he smiled grimly and remarked that, while he appreciated and was grateful for her confidence, her opinion could in no way alter the hard facts of the case. And every day, from the first light of the morning until it was so dark that he could no longer see, he toiled with desperate strength for the gold that would enable him to escape and, by insuring his freedom, make it possible for him to ask Marta to share his future.

He no longer saw the beauty and the grandeur of the mountains. The flowers no longer bloomed for him. He did not hear the birds that filled the Cañon of Gold with music. He did not now glory in the vigorous freshness of the morning. He no longer knew the peace of the restful nights. His every thought was of gold, gold, gold, because gold to him meant Marta. As so many men in the Cañon of Gold had whispered in the night, after a day of heavy fruitless toil: “To-morrow, perhaps,” this man in the night whispered to himself: “To-morrow, perhaps.”

Then came that night when Hugh Edwards was startled out of his dream of the golden possibilities of to-morrow by a sound at his cabin door.

Springing to his feet he stood trembling with fear and dread--had the officers come?

Again came the sound of some one knocking lightly on the door.

With white lips he whispered to himself:

“It’s only Thad or Bob or Marta, it’s not late yet.”

But he knew that it was late. He had seen the light in Marta’s window go out two hours ago.

Again the knocking sounded.

In desperation he threw open the door.

It was Natachee.