Chapter 12

She shook her head. "I couldn't stand the suspense," she said simply. "Do not be afraid on my account," she added; "merely looking with my outward eyes at something that always faces me within won't hurt me. Come on!"

But presently she reined up her pony again, and turning a pair of brimming eyes on him, extended her hand. "Garth!" she murmured, "I--I would like to thank you--but I can't!"

"Oh, don't!" he begged.

"Whatever we find down there," she said wistfully, "it can't make any difference, can it? We will still be the same partners of the trail?"

Garth went pale to his lips--but he contrived to smile at her. He took her hand and looked at her full. "Until death," he said quietly.

She drew her hand away, with a deep breath. "Come on," she said. "We've got to face it!"

XV

THE MEETING

The spot of the lake shore where Garth picketed the two horses was something under two miles from Mabyn's hut. The way led among the trees which filled this part of the valley of the lake; and underfoot they could distinguish traces of an old trail. The growth ended abruptly at the edge of a small, dry watercourse, which came down to the lake; and issuing into the open here, the riders beheld the dreaded goal of their long journey immediately before them.

As they crossed the stones, they were ready to fancy they could hear, each the beating of the other's heart; and the scene before them was bitten into their brains, to endure hideously vivid and minute while life endured. The shack presented a three-quarter view, front and side. It topped a gentle, uneven acclivity of grass, rising from the watercourse at its side; while in front, the ground extended level a hundred feet to the edge of a cut-bank. This bank rose out of the lake sheer and loamy, to the height of a cottage roof; and over the edge hung a tangled fringe of grass-roots.

Desolation was the cry of it all; winters upon winters had bleached the logs of the shack silvery like old hair; the chimney had fallen; and all four quarters of glass in the single window were out. At one time the slope between the hut and the bed of the stream had evidently been a theatre of industry; for the ground was pitted and hummocked and rutted; but long ago the grass had indifferently muffled it over, like graves in an old cemetery. In the centre of this waste stood, the picture of dejection, an Indian-bred cayuse, miserable burlesque of the equine species, no bigger than a donkey, and incredibly hairy and misshapen. His back was galled; and one leg, which he painfully favoured, puffed to treble its size at the hock. Even the great cottonwood trees springing beyond the hut, with their shattered branches, and blotched and greenish trunks, breathed decay. An ancient dugout, lying at the mouth of the watercourse, was, like everything else, rotting and seamed.

And on the bench at the door of the hut sat the evil genius of the scene; a man with his legs sprawling in front of him, and his head fallen over and back against the wall. He made no move at their approach; and when they came close, they saw that he slept. Pitilessly revealed in the strong sunlight, he made a spectacle at which the most indifferent stranger would have shuddered and sickened--and it was reserved for the woman who had exalted him in her maiden's heart, to see him then. His mouth hung open; he breathed stertorously; and the flies, buzzing in and out of the open door beside him, crawled at will over his ashen face. That his chin was freshly shaven, and his hair brushed, added to the ghastliness. The whole picture was horribly vivid; the littlest details of it struck on the retinas of the two observers like blows--the oblong patch of sunlight cleaving the gloom of the shack inside the door; six muskrat pelts above the man's head, tacked to the logs to dry; an old foul pipe with a silver mounting, half fallen from his relaxed fingers and spilling ashes on the bench; his old-fashioned rifle leaning against the door-frame. Garth could have furnished the size, the style and the make of that gun.

Natalie turned a stony face to Garth. "It is he," she whispered.

Garth thought of an old photograph she had shown him of a dark-haired youth sitting on a horse, with a charming, imperious grace of body and feature, in which there was something godlike and unanswerable; and looking at this wreck of a man, toothless, bald and livid, he was struck with awe.

"You have seen," he whispered to Natalie. "Let us ride back."

She shook her head. "I must say what I came for," she said.

"Will you dismount?" he asked.

Natalie shuddered. "Never, here!" she whispered.

In a moment she had commanded herself again. "Please speak to him," she said.

"Mabyn!" called Garth peremptorily.

The man's lids parted. Natalie was directly in front of him. As his sleep-stupefied eyes slowly took her in, he raised himself to an upright position, and struck his eyeballs sharply with his knuckles.

Garth instinctively drew away a little.

"A white woman!" muttered the man, lost in amazement.

Natalie, her head slightly averted, sat her horse like a carven woman.

Fear grew apace with wonder in Mabyn's eyes; his breath quickened; he ceaselessly passed his hand in front of his face. "Natalie!" he muttered, still in the toneless voice of one who sleeps. "Oh, my God! It's Natalie!"

Grasping the edge of the bench, he pulled himself to his feet; and took a few uncertain steps toward her. He put out his hand fearfully.

Natalie sharply reined back her horse. "Don't touch me!" she said.

It broke the spell that held him--but not wholly. His hands dropped to his sides; a saner light appeared in his eyes; and he looked all around, as if to convince himself of the realness of his surroundings. On Garth his eyes lingered stupidly for a moment; then impatiently returned to Natalie.

"If it's you, how did you get here?" he asked quietly enough--still bemused.

"I came over the prairie, as every one comes," she said sharply.

Mabyn frowned. "I'm wide awake," he said irritably. "I know where I am. I fell asleep on the bench half an hour ago--but," his voice deepened and swelled on the note of awe, "_you_, Natalie! You or your wraith! I--I can't take it in!" The faded eyes bolted, and swept wearily and unseeingly over the lake.

Natalie winced every time he spoke her name. "Try to collect yourself," she said coldly. "There is no doubt of its being I."

"The voice too!" he muttered, struck with the new thought. His eyes returned to her. "Natalie--and not changed at all!" he murmured dreamily. "But more beautiful!"

"If you please!" said Natalie haughtily.

He still stood looking at her with something the air of a bewildered child, but more of the aged lunatic. "The first time I saw her, she was on a horse," he said in his dull voice. "But she was better dressed. Where did you get those clothes?" he asked suddenly.

Natalie shot an appealing glance at Garth.

He, in his over-mastering disgust of the man, could not put away the thought that there was something feigned in this excessive bewilderment. "Come to yourself, Mabyn!" he said sharply. "We can't stop here!"

Mabyn darted a startled, spiteful glance at the new speaker, and without another word, turned and went back to the bench, where he sat, burying his face in his hands. Natalie and Garth looked at each other, scarcely knowing how to act. But presently Mabyn lifted his head again; and, spying his pipe where it had fallen, picked it up, and attentively knocked out what remained of the ashes in the bowl.

Natalie thought she might venture to address him again. "I have something important to tell you," she began.

Mabyn darted a queer, furtive look at her; shame, suspicion, obsequiousness and a sudden, reborn passion all had a part in it. "Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked suddenly.

Natalie drew the long breath that invokes Patience and looked elsewhere.

"You've changed toward me," the man whined.

Indignation suddenly reddened her cheeks, and she levelled her blue eyes upon him in a glance that should have struck to his soul.

But it failed to penetrate very far. "I know I've treated you badly," he went on. "I was coming out in the spring, though; just as soon as I got things straight. I've worked like a son-of-a-gun too, but luck has always been against me." His voice gathered assurance from his own excuses.

"Never mind that now," said Natalie. "Please listen to what I have to say."

But the man, shrinking from matter hateful to his ears, strove to divert her. He struck his forehead with his knuckles, and jumped up. "By Gad! What's the matter with me!" he cried. "I never asked you in! It's a wretched hole, but such as it is----" He had turned to the door. Sudden recollection chopped off the speech midway; and he turned a furtive, frightened face over his shoulder to Natalie.

"N-never mind," he gabbled hurriedly. "Don't come in! It's not fit to receive you! It's better out here!" Little beads of sweat were springing out on his forehead.

His whole bearing had been so wild and stupefied since his waking, that they attached small importance to this display of terror. Natalie patiently essayed to speak again; but again he interrupted.

His face cleared. "You've left your outfit somewhere back on the trail," he said eagerly. "I'll go back with you; and we can talk things over quietly there!" He actually started toward the watercourse, walking with jerky, uneven steps.

Natalie made no move to follow. "I will say what I have to say here," she spoke after him.

Mabyn was voluble, scarcely coherent in his incontinent desire to take her away from the hut. Natalie waited, letting him talk himself out. Finally compelled to give in, he returned with strange, apprehensive glances around the hut, and over the summits of the hills behind. Garth thought his brain was beginning to be affected by a solitary life.

However, he now listened patiently enough.

"You have not written to your mother or to me in many months," began Natalie coldly; "and your letters for three years past have given us no information. Your mother's whole thought is of you; and through her anxiety and suspense she is worn to a shadow of what she was; the doctors tell her she has a mortal disease that must soon prevail."

In spite of herself Natalie's voice softened as she delivered her pitiful plea; but it was not from any kindness for him. "She has been very kind to me all these years," she went on, "and I, to ease her what I could of the torment of her mind during her last days, volunteered to go with her to find you. Her age and her infirmities prevented her from coming any farther than Prince George. I have been fortunate in finding friends who have assisted me the rest of the way. I have come to beg you, on behalf of your mother, to let her see you before she dies. She is waiting in Prince George. She bade me tell you that neither poverty, misfortune nor disgrace could abate any of her love for you; that she would die happy if she might once more press your hand against her cheek."

Garth watched Mabyn narrowly while Natalie was speaking. He saw by the man's rapt expression that her voice charmed his senses, while the purport of what she said was wholly lost on his consciousness. When her voice broke a little at the close, Mabyn's lips parted, and his breath came quicker--but it was no tenderness for a devoted parent, only a passion purely selfish, that caused his lack-lustre eyes to glitter again.

"These letters," concluded Natalie, drawing them forth as she spoke, "three of which I have brought from the post office, and the fourth which she gave me herself, will let you know, better than I can tell you, what she feels."

Mabyn took the letters; and thrusting them carelessly in his pocket--one fell to the ground and lay there unheeded--snatched back at Natalie's hand, and attempted to retain it. Reining her horse back, she wrenched it free.

A little shame reached the seat of Mabyn's consciousness. He reddened. "I'm not a leper," he muttered. "You came to me of your own free will, didn't you?"

"Build nothing on that!" said Natalie instantly and clearly. "I allow no claim on me!"

Mabyn quickly changed to obsequiousness. "I don't want to quarrel with you, Natalie," he whined. "Especially not after what you've just done!"

He went to his bench again; and sat heavily. Again he struck his forehead with his knuckles. "Gad! I can't yet realize it is you that is here!"

Natalie looked at Garth as much as to say that she had accomplished what she came for.

The look was not lost on Mabyn. He sprang up. "I'll do just what you want!" he said hurriedly. "I'll start for Prince George at once--to-day--this minute! God knows there's nothing to keep me here! You have a spare horse, I suppose. I've nothing but that galled cayuse and another as bad!" He uttered his cracked laugh in a tone that was intended to be ingratiating. "That's the advantage of poverty! I've no preparations to make; so lead on!"

Natalie paused irresolutely. This was a contingency she had not foreseen. She shuddered at the possibilities it opened up. In her perplexity she looked again at Garth.

"We will leave you a horse," said he curtly. "And your passage out from the lake Settlement will be arranged for."

"And what money you need," added Natalie in a low tone, and blushing painfully.

But Mabyn's feelings were not hurt. "I can go with you just as well," he blustered.

Natalie looked at Garth once more.

"You may follow us as soon as you choose," said Garth coolly. "We do not desire your company on the way."

For the first time Mabyn appeared to recognize Garth's presence on the scene. He turned a baleful eye on him; and his lips curled back over his gums. "Who are _you_?" he snarled, adding an oath.

"That is neither here nor there," said Garth. "I speak for Miss Bland."

"Mrs. Mabyn, you mean," sneered the other, thinking to crush him with the information.

"She does not use that name," returned Garth imperturbably.

Mabyn turned furiously to Natalie. "Who is this man?" he cried, his cracked voice sliding into falsetto; "this sleek young sprig that rides alone with you through the country! I demand to know! I have a right to know!"

"I admit no right!" Natalie said firmly.

Mabyn, beside himself with jealous rage, no longer knew what he said. "You won't explain!" he cried. "You _can't_ explain! Here's a nasty situation for a married woman!"

Garth's self-control, stretched on the rack through all this scene, suddenly snapped in twain. Temper with Garth took the form of laughter; mocking, dangerous laughter, that issued startlingly from his grave lips.

He laughed now. "You scoundrel!" he said in cool, incisive tones--though he was not a whit less blinded by passion than Mabyn himself--"after the kind of life you've been leading up here, have you still the assurance to lay a claim upon _her_! And to cast a reflection on _her_ good name! Have you no mirror to see what you are? Go in the lake, then, and see the vile record written on your face!"

Mabyn was staggered. Garth's terrible scorn penetrated the last wrappings of the warmly nurtured ego within. He shot a startled glance at Garth; and from Garth to the hut and behind, as if wondering how much he knew.

Garth was not through with him. He slipped his stirrups, preparatory to leaping off his horse. Natalie trembled at the quiet man's new aspect.

"Garth!" she entreated urgently.

The sound of her voice recalled him to himself. Settling back in his saddle, he abruptly turned his horse, and went off a little way, struggling to regain his self-command.

Mabyn, misunderstanding, was vastly lifted up by this word of Natalie's, and the writhing ego within hastened to repair the horrid breach Garth had made. He approached her, hidden by her horse from Garth.

"Oh, Natalie!" he gabbled whiningly; "don't listen to him. He's a low cur! But he can't make trouble between you and me! Send him away! Natalie, I seem to have acted badly; but I can explain everything! Circumstances were all against me! In my heart I've never swerved from you! I dream of you every night in my lonesomeness! Wherever I look I see your face before my eyes!"

It was the old trick of passionate speech; Natalie remembered the very words of old; but the man--she averted her head from the hideous spectacle. She was afraid to move or cry out, sure that Garth in his present mind would kill him if he heard.

Mabyn, conceiving nothing of the sublime irony of the figure he made, continued to plead. "Natalie, don't turn away from me! You took me for better or worse, remember! You found me at a disadvantage to-day; I don't look like this ordinarily. And you can make whatever you like of me! Remember the old days at home! I am the same man--Bert--your Bert! Look--he can't see us--I kneel to you as I did then!"

And down he went on his knees, stretching out his arms to her.

There was an odd, slight sound behind him. They both looked--and froze in the attitude of looking. Garth from his station, seeing the new look of horror overspread Natalie's face, spurred to join her.

There, clinging to the corner of the cabin for support, stood the figure of a woman. Her brown skin was blanched to a livid yellow; and her eyes were the eyes of one dead from a shock. She swayed forward from the waist as if her backbone could no longer support her. At her feet a tin pail emptied wild cherries on the ground.

Mabyn scrambled to his feet, shamed, chagrined, furious. "What do you want around here?" he cried brutally--even now seeking to outface her.

The piteous, stricken girl moistened her lips; and essayed more than once to speak, before any words came. "'Erbe't, who is this woman?" she said quite simply at last.

"What is that to you?" he blustered roughly, thinking to beat her down; perhaps to kill her outright with cruelty. "This is my wife!"

"Oh, no! no!" whispered Natalie, sick with the sight of so much misery.

It is doubtful if the girl heard her. She tottered forward; and seized and clung to Mabyn's arm. Her breast was heaved on hard, quick pants like a wounded animal's; and her eyes were as frantic, and as inhuman.

"'Erbe't, who am I?" she breathed.

Mabyn, seeing that Natalie heard and understood, beside himself, and reckless with rage, flung out his arm, throwing her heavily to the ground. "You! damn you!" he cried. "You're just my----"

Natalie, with a low cry of horror, instinctively clapped her heels to her horse's ribs, and set off down the hill. Garth wheeled after her.

"Oh, stay--stay and help her!" she gasped.

"You come first!" said Garth grimly.

Mabyn, as Natalie turned, sprang after her; and running desperately, managed to cling to her stirrup. Casting off the last vestiges of manliness he wept and prayed her to wait for him. Her horse, Caspar, kicked out wildly, and struck him off. He lay on the ground sobbing and cursing; striving to drag himself along with clawing hands.

Just before they gained the watercourse, Garth looked over his shoulder; and his heart leapt into his throat. The brown woman was reaching for Mabyn's rifle. He shouted a warning; and desperately strove to throw his horse behind Natalie. But it was too late. Hard upon his voice, the shot rang. A strange, low cry broke from Natalie; and she reeled in her saddle. Garth, spurring ahead, grasped Caspar's bridle, and caught her from falling. A pang, far more dreadful than the hurt of a bullet, smote his own breast.

XVI

NATALIE WOUNDED

The frightened horses struggled over the watercourse, and gained the trees before Garth, hampered as he was, succeeded in drawing their heads together, and stopping them. Slipping out of the saddle without loosening his grasp of Natalie, he lifted her off, ever careful to shield her from possible further shots with his own body. He remembered Mabyn's was a single-shot weapon; and he counted on the time it would take the Indian woman to obtain ammunition, and reload. Quickly and tenderly laying Natalie on the ground under shelter of a stump, he unslung his own rifle. But as he dropped to his knee, and raised it, he saw the woman on the edge of the cut-bank swing the stock of her gun around her head, and send the weapon spinning out over the water. Meanwhile Mabyn was running up the hill toward her with significant action. No immediate further danger threatened. Garth put the pair out of his mind, and bent over Natalie. What happened to the woman at Mabyn's hands was a matter of indifference to him now.

Natalie's left arm hung useless; and a soaking crimson stain spread broadly on her sleeve between elbow and shoulder. Her face had gone chalky white, her eyes were half closed, and her teeth were set painfully in her blue nether lip. To see his sparkling, vivid Natalie brought so low, was a sight to open all the doors of Garth's brain to madness. His heart swelled suffocatingly with rage and grief, but there was no time for that, when every faculty he possessed must be concentrated on saving her; and forcing it back, he picked her up again with infinite tenderness. His first and instinctive thought was to return and seize the hut; so that he might at least have a roof to cover her. He suspected the other two were now without arms; but even if they had a weapon, he had a better one; was a sure shot; and was on his guard.

At the first move he made in the direction of the hut, Natalie, whom he had thought unconscious, divined his intention.

"Garth! Not in his house!" she murmured feverishly. "I will not go in there! I will not!"

He paused in a painful perplexity. "But dearest, there is no other house," he said.

"Put me down in the open air," she begged. "It would suffocate me! I will not endure it!"

So Garth turned back among the trees. He strode over the dead leaves and the pine needles to the lake shore. Here, between the willows that grew thickly at the water's verge, and the heavier timber, extended an open strip of grass, still fresh and green. He laid his burden down upon it; and, rolling up his coat, put it under her head for a pillow.

He hastily cut away her sleeve, exposing the injury. The ball had passed through, making a clean opening where it entered, and a jagged wound whence it issued. It was clear the bone was broken; but from the character of the bleeding, even Garth could see that the artery was uninjured. He brought water from the lake in his hat, and gently washed the wound; but even in this he doubted if he did right; for the water was cold--but he had nothing in which to heat it. The best he could do was to take the chill out of it by pressing the handkerchief between his hot hands.

Everything they possessed that might have been of service was two miles off; and might just as well have been a hundred; for Garth could not think of leaving her; and he shrank from the thought of inflicting the agony it would cause her to be carried so far. And even suppose they gained their own camp, the situation would be little improved; for how was he in his ignorance to undertake the delicate task of setting the shattered bone; of improvising splints and bandages; and supplying, what a glance at the ugly wound showed to be needful, antiseptics? A surgeon, whatever his skill, rarely dares trust the steadiness of his hand on the bodies of those he loves; what then was Garth to do, who had no skill at all?

He had his dark hour then, tasting ultimate despair. He sat beside her, gripping his dull head between his hands, and striving desperately to contrive, where there was nothing to contrive with. Oh, the pity and the wrong of it, that it was _she_ who must be hurt! he thought; and how joyfully he would have taken it himself to relieve her. _He_ bled inwardly; and the physical pain of the most hideous wounds could not equal the agony he experienced in his helplessness.