Part 21 (1/2)

”Don't! Richard. Hung? What have you done? What do you mean? When was it?”

”Sunday night.”

”But you had to start for Cheyenne early this morning. Where have you been all day? I thought you were gone forever, dear.”

”I hid myself down by the river. I lay there all day, and heard them talking, but I couldn't see them nor they me. It was a hiding place we knew of when our camp was there--Peter Junior and I. He's gone. I did it--I did it with murder in my heart--Oh, my G.o.d!”

”Don't, Richard. You must tell me nothing except as I ask you. It is not as if we did not love each other. What you have done I must help you bear--as--as wives help their husbands--for I will never marry; but all my life my heart will be married to yours.” He reached for her hands and covered them with kisses and moaned. ”No, Richard, don't.

Eat the bread and meat I have brought you. You've eaten nothing for two days, and everything may seem worse to you than it is.”

”No, no!”

”Richard, I'll go away from you and leave you here alone if you don't eat.”

”Yes, I must eat--not only now--but all the rest of my life, I must eat to live and repent. He was my dearest friend. I taunted him and said bitter things. I goaded him. I was insane with rage and at last so was he. He struck me--and--and I--I was trying to push him over the bluff--”

Slowly it dawned on Betty what Richard's talk really meant.

”Not Peter? Oh, Richard--not Peter!” She shrank from him, wide-eyed in terror.

”He would have killed me--for I know what was in his heart as well as I knew what was in my own--and we were both seeing red. I've felt it sometimes in battle, and the feeling makes a man drunken. A man will do anything then. We'd been always friends--and yet we were drunken with hate; and now--he--he is better off than I. I must live. Unless for the disgrace to my relatives, I would give myself up to be hanged. It would be better to take the punishment than to live in such torture as this.”

The tears coursed fast down Betty's cheeks. Slowly she drew nearer him, and bent down to him as he sat, until she could look into his eyes. ”What were you quarreling about, Richard?”

”Don't ask me, darling Betty.”

”What was it, Richard?”

”All my life you will be the sweet help to me--the help that may keep me from death in life. To carry in my soul the remembrance of last night will need all the help G.o.d will let me have. If I had gone away quietly, you and Peter Junior would have been married and have been happy--but--”

”No, no. Oh, Richard, no. I knew in a moment when you came--”

”Yes, Betty, dear, Peter Junior was good and faithful; and he might have been able to undo all the harm I had done. He could have taught you to love him. I have done the devil's work--and then I killed him--Oh, my G.o.d! My G.o.d!”

”How do you know you pushed him over? He may have fallen over. You don't know it. He may have--”

”Hush, dearest. I did it. When I came to myself, it was in the night; and it must have been late, for the moon was set. I could only see faintly that something white lay near me. I felt of it, and it was Peter Junior's hat. Then I felt all about for him--and he was gone and I crawled to the edge of the bluff--but although I knew he was gone over there and washed by the terrible current far down the river by that time, I couldn't follow him, whether from cowardice or weakness.

I tried to get on my feet and could not. Then I must have fainted again, for all the world faded away, and I thought maybe the blow had done for me and I might not have to leap over there, after all. I could feel myself slipping away.

”When I awoke, the sun was s.h.i.+ning and a bird was singing just as if nothing had happened, and I thought I had been dreaming an awful dream--but there was the wound on my head and I was alive. Then I went farther down the river and came back to the hiding place and crept in there to wait and think. Then, after a long while, the boys came, and I was terrified for fear they were searching for me. That is the shameful truth, Betty. I feared. I never knew what fear was before.

Betty, fear is shameful. There I have been all day--waiting--for what, I do not know; but it seemed that if I could only have one little glimpse of you I could go bravely and give myself up. I will now--”

”No, Richard; it would do no good for you to die such a death. It would undo nothing, and change nothing. Peter was angry, too, and he struck you, and if he could have his way he would not want you to die.

I say maybe he is living now. He may not have gone over.”