Part 35 (1/2)

He realized this in a moment. The eager creature began to move with a less swinging stride, and his gait quickly became something in the nature of a ”prop.” They were round the bend, and the horse whinnied again. This time it raised its head and snorted nervously. And instantly Buck was alive to the creature's anxiety. He understood the quick glancing from side to side, and the halting of that changing step which is always a sign of fear.

Ahead the trail completed the letter S it had begun. They were nearing the final curve to the right. Buck searched the distance for the cause of Caesar's apprehension. And all unconsciously his mind went back to the winging of the crows overhead and the sound of their harsh voices.

He spurred the creature sharply, and steadied him down.

They reached the final bend and pa.s.sed round it, and in a moment Buck had an answer to the questions in his mind. It was a terrible spectacle that greeted his eyes as he reined his horse in and brought him to an abrupt halt. He had reached the battle-ground where death had claimed its toll of human pa.s.sion. There, swiftly, almost silently, two men had fought out their rivalry for a woman's favor--a favor given to neither.

It needed little enough imagination to read the facts. All the ingredients of the swift-moving drama were there before his eyes--the combatants stretched out in the sand of the trail, with staring eyes and dropping jaws, gazing up at the brilliant vault of the heavens, whither, may be, their savage spirits had fled; the woman crouching down at the roadside with face buried upon outstretched arms, her slight body heaving with hysterical sobs; the horses, horses he knew well enough by sight, lost to the tragedy amidst the more succulent roots of the parching gra.s.s beneath the shadow of overhanging trees.

One glance at the combatants told Buck all he wanted to know. They were dead. He had been too long upon the western trail to doubt the signs he beheld. His duty and inclination were with the living. In a moment he was out of the saddle and at Joan's side, raising her from her position of grief and misery in arms as gentle as they were strong.

He had no real understanding of the necessities of the moment. All he knew, all he desired, was to afford the girl that help and protection he felt she needed. His first thought was to keep her from a further sight of what had occurred. So he held her in his arms, limp and yielding, for one uncertain moment. Then, for the second time in his life, he bore her off toward her home.

But now his feelings were of a totally different nature. There was neither ecstasy nor dreaming. He was anxious and beset. As he bore her along he spoke to her, encouraging her with gentle words of sympathy and hope. But her fainting condition left him no reward, and her half-closed eyes, filled with unshed tears, remained dull and unresponsive.

No sound broke the stillness in the parlor at the farm. Buck was leaning against the small centre-table gravely watching the bowed head of the silently-weeping girl, who was seated upon the rough settle which lined the wall. Her slight figure was supported by the pillows which had been set in place by the ministering hands of Mrs. Ransford.

Buck's reception by the farm-wife had been very different on this occasion. She had met him with his burden some distance down the trail, whither she had followed her young mistress, whose fleetness had left her far behind. Her tongue had started to clack at once, but Buck was in no mood to put up with unnecessary chatter. A peremptory order had had the astonis.h.i.+ng effect of silencing her, and a further command had set her bustling to help her mistress.

Once immediate needs had been attended to, the man told his story briefly, and added his interpretation of the scene he had just witnessed. He further dispatched the old woman to summon the hired man from his ploughing, and, for once, found ready obedience where he might well have expected nothing but objection.

Thus it was the man and girl were alone in the parlor. Buck was waiting for Joan's storm of tears to pa.s.s.

The moment came at last, and quite abruptly. Joan stirred; she flung her head up and dashed the weak tears from her eyes, struggling bravely for composure. But the moment she spoke her words belied the resolution, and showed her still in the toils of an overwhelming despair.

”What can I do?” she cried piteously. ”What am I to do? I can see nothing--nothing but disaster in every direction. It is all a part of my life; a part of me. I cannot escape it. I have tried to, but--I cannot. Oh, I feel so helpless--so helpless!”

Buck's eyes shone with love and pity. He was stirred to the depths of his manhood by her appeal. Here again was that shadow she had spoken of before, that he had become familiar with. He tried to tell himself that she was simply unnerved, but he knew her trouble was more than that. All his love drove him to a longing for a means of comforting her.

”Forget the things you seen,” he said in a low tone. And he felt that his words were bald--even stupid.

The girl's troubled eyes were looking up into his in a desperate hope.

It was almost as if this man were her only support, and she were making one final appeal before abandoning altogether her saving hold.

”Forget them? Oh, Buck, Buck, you don't know what you are saying. You don't understand--you can't, or you would not speak like that. You see,” she went on, forgetting in her trouble that this man did not know her story, ”Ike was here. Here! He made--love to me. He--he kissed me. He brutally kissed me when I had no power to resist him.

And now--now this has happened.”

But the man before her had suddenly changed while she was speaking.

The softness had left his eyes. They had suddenly become hot, and bloodshot, and hard. His breath came quickly, heavily, his thin nostrils dilating with the furious emotion that swept through his body. Ike had kissed her. He had forgotten all her sufferings in his own sudden, jealous fury.

Joan waited. The change in the man had pa.s.sed un.o.bserved by her. Then, as no answer was forthcoming, she went on--

”Wherever I go it is the same. Death and disaster. Oh, it is awful!

Sometimes I think I shall go mad. Is there no corner of the earth where I can hide myself from the shadow of this haunting curse?”

”Ike kissed you?”

Buck's voice grated harshly. Somehow her appeal had pa.s.sed him by.

All his better thoughts and feelings were overshadowed for the moment.

A fierce madness was sweeping through his veins, his heart, his brain, a madness of feeling such as he had never before experienced.