Part 11 (1/2)

”Biggest you no see. At bottom.”

That satisfied her, and she watched him silently while he found her rod, and reeled in the offending fly.

”Brown fly better now,” he said. ”You ought see what trout eating before you try catch big ones.”

On this he drew a book of flies from his pocket, and replaced the gray hackle with a brown one. She questioned him eagerly, following this plain lead; and presently they were seated on the pile of driftwood, while he told her about the native trout and the rainbow and the California, of little brooks far up among the mountains where the trout were small but of a delicious flavor, of the time for flies and the time for worms, of famous catches he had made, of the way the Indians fished before the white man showed them patent rods and reels.

By slow degrees Pete's iron features softened, and he smiled at her, not with his lips, but with his eyes, which were the blackest, surely, in the world.

But Marion was not diverted from the questions that were next her heart. With all her woman's cunning of indirection, she brought the talk around to Philip Haig. Did he fish? Sometimes. Did he hunt? Much, when the deer came down from the heights with the first snows.

Then--she could resist no longer.

”It must have been terrible--the accident,” she said, placing a finger on her cheek.

He looked at her strangely, while she held her breath.

”That no accident,” he said at last, after what seemed to her an interminable interval of suspense.

”No accident?” she repeated, trying not to appear too eager.

”He call it accident, maybe. He say it is nothing. Pete say it is much. It is big debt. Some day Pete pay.”

There was deep silence for a moment. The stream gurgled and splashed; the breeze whispered through the cottonwoods; and over all, or under all, was the vague, insistent, seductive sound that the summer makes in the fulness of its power.

Marion hesitated, quivering with eagerness and uncertainty. She was afraid to ask more, lest she should be shortly rebuffed, and lose her opportunity. But Pete was looking at her steadily. She felt a flush coming into her face again. Had he guessed--something--already in her manner, in her impulsive questions? More likely it was the charm that, for once unconsciously, she wielded--the elusive charm of woman that makes men want to tell, without the asking.

”You like to hear?” Pete said; and her heart leaped.

”Oh, please!”

And she was keenly disappointed. She had expected something romantic, something enn.o.bling and fine. And it was only a barroom brawl, though Philip was not in it until the end, to be sure! Five Mexican sheep herders against the lone Indian. Guns and knives in the reeking border saloon; and afterwards in the street; and the Indian almost done for, bleeding from a dozen wounds; and then a voice ringing out above the fracas: ”No, I'm d.a.m.ned if you do! Five to one, and greasers at that!”

And Philip Haig had jumped from his horse, and plunged into the melee, disdaining to draw his gun on greasers. Smas.h.!.+ Bang! went his fists, front and right and left.

Pete had accounted for one Mexican, who would herd sheep no more on the plains of Conejos. The others fled. Then Haig, despite the knife-wound in his face, grabbed the Indian, and somehow lifted him up behind him on his horse.

”Quick, Indian!” he cried. ”This town's full of greasers. You've got no chance here.”

And then the long ride to Del Norte, with the Indian drooping on Haig's back; and a doctor of Haig's acquaintance, who sheltered and cured the silent savage. And Pete, convalescent, had come straight to Haig's ranch, and remained there, despite Haig's protests that he did not need another hand.

”Pete stay until big debt is paid,” said the Indian solemnly. And then, with a straight look into Marion's eyes, ”You ought tell Huntington he is d.a.m.n fool.”

Marion started. There it was again--the warning!

”But why?” she managed to ask.

”Haig is brave man. Brave man always good man. So--Huntington got no chance.”

CHAPTER VII