第 23 页

The gray mists of the big basin were writhing in fleecy, translucent billows, in preparation for their aerial journey, when Gawne, on Meteor, swung up the sand ridge near where the Colonel had been shot down by Paisley.

Gawne’s lips were hard-pressed with a vicious satisfaction. He had uprooted an evil that had been a reproach to his conscience for many days, and in serving the community he also had served himself. He was jubilant; filled with a vindictive triumph. He attempted no self-justification for the effect the campaign against Hame Bozzam would have on Kathleen. Hame Bozzam was getting what he deserved; Kathleen deserved the humiliation and pain that Hame Bozzam’s banishment would give her. Any faithless, frivolous woman deserved punishment.

It was not an heroic frame of mind to be in; but Gawne never felt further from enacting the role of self-effacement and sacrifice. He had read of such things; there had been times in his past life when he had practiced a modified form of them; when, if he could have been assured of woman’s honorableness, he would have gone to extremes. But that was before he had discovered certain things about his wife—Marie Calvert; it was before he had found his brother murdered, and his brother’s wife unfaithful; it was before the bitter cynicism of the black, abysmal passion of hatred had gripped his soul. He was back, now, to where he had been before the coming of Kathleen Harkless; the proof of her perfidy had aroused all the violent, ruthless, elemental passions of his nature. He fed them, as he rode, linking Kathleen Harkless and Hame Bozzam; promising himself that his vengeance was not yet completed.

He was half-way through the second section of the big basin when, far ahead of him, he caught sight of a moving dot. The dot was off the Diamond Bar trail; it seemed to be even a little distant from the Harkless trail—which veered in the basin, and swept off toward the river.

He was too far away to observe in which direction the dot was moving; though he had a black hope, after he watched it for a time, that it might be Hame Bozzam returning to his ranch—or to what was left of it.

His lips twisting crookedly, Gawne swerved off the Diamond Bar trail and cut across the basin toward where the dot was moving. Farther on, he was able to make out the outlines of a horse; but he could see no rider. Also, he observed that the horse was going toward the Harkless ranch. Glowering his disappointment, though yielding to an eager curiosity to see what was meant by a riderless horse going through the basin, he spoke sharply to Meteor, and the horse went forward with a long, swinging lope that ate up the distance with amazing rapidity.

Gawne’s curiosity increased as he proceeded. It was not until he was within half a mile of the riderless horse that he noticed that it seemed to be dragging something. And then Meteor flashed forward in a burst of speed that equaled anything he had ever before attempted.

At first, viewing the object from a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, Gawne thought it was a puncher, thrown, and unluckily tangled in his rope; but a second look, as he leaped Meteor alongside, told him the truth; and with a sharp exclamation he flung himself out of the saddle, to the man’s side.

Gawne’s face was white and set when he rose from the Colonel’s side half an hour later. He had done what he could—the process entailing several heartbreaking rides to the river, for water—bathing and rubbing, and the applying of various emergency methods to restore respiration and circulation—during which the Colonel’s suffering was acute, even in his unconsciousness. But Gawne’s efforts had succeeded, at last; though it was a pitifully broken and mutilated human figure that finally opened its eyes and stared in bewilderment at him. It was long, after the Colonel opened his eyes, before he recognized his rescuer. Then he smiled wanly. And, bending over him, answering the appeal in the Colonel’s eyes, Gawne heard, through macerated lips which could be moved only with agony, the story of the attempted flight, the meeting with Hame Bozzam and Nigger Paisley, the shooting, and the abduction of Kathleen.

More the Colonel whispered, with painful effort. It was the Colonel’s second accession of moral courage. His glazed eyes pleaded dumbly with Gawne for forgiveness, and the blazing, widening eyes that held the Colonel’s seemed not to see him at all; they were stern, cold, implacable; the fire in them was the glint of flame on transparent ice.

“Go on!” said Gawne, when the Colonel paused for breath. He spoke through his teeth, and his breath seemed to clog in his throat.

“That’s all, Gawne,” mumbled the Colonel. “Except that Kathie ain’t to blame—not one bit. I lied to her—about you; and about Hame Bozzam. I told her you’d always been friendly with the Le Claire woman, that you’d brought her over to the Diamond Bar because—you wanted her. I told her the Le Claire woman was only working for Hame Bozzam. I—I made it black—for you. And Blanche Le Claire did, too. She came over to see Kathie. She told Kathie you’d sent for her—that you belonged to her. She don’t like Hame Bozzam—Kathie doesn’t. She hates him, Jeff. She wouldn’t marry him; she wouldn’t have anything to do with him; she wouldn’t have looked at him, if it hadn’t been for what I and the Le Claire woman and Hame Bozzam, told her. Save her, Jeff—won’t you? You can do it!”

Gawne did not answer. He swung the Colonel up in front of him, and sent Meteor on his way through the basin. Not once during the ride did he seem to hear the Colonel’s incoherent babbling.

The sun was up when he rode up to the Diamond Bar ranchhouse and deposited his burden on the porch. Aunt Emily and Uncle Lafe met him there, and took charge of the Colonel. Then, without a word, Gawne swung back into the saddle and sent Meteor leaping toward Bozzam City.

From Bozzam City—later—other riders went scurrying to cow-camp and ranchhouse, repeating the story of the outrage and and recruiting a larger and a more vindictive vigilance committee. About noon a posse of grim-faced men rode out of town, skirted the ruins of Bozzam’s ranch, swept through the chaparral where Gawne had pursued Nigger Paisley, and began to eat into into the hot, dusty desert that stretched into the southern haze. They would find Hame Bozzam and his men at William’s Cache, was the opinion of every man in the posse—and they would leave him there, to stay always.

At the head of the posse rode a white-faced penitent who spoke not at all, but whose brain kept repeating a phrase that greater doubters than he had reiterated with much the same agony of remorse:

“Fool—fool—fool!”

CHAPTER XXVII

A MAN RIDES

With Nigger Paisley, a sinister figure in the moonlight, leading the way, Kathleen and Jane riding behind him, followed by Hame Bozzam, captors and captives rode down the river trail until they came to a narrow gorge that intersected the stream. The gorge was dry, but its high, towering walls, seeming to narrow at the top so that only a thin streak of the luminous sky showed above, created a darkness through which they rode—it seemed to Kathleen, blindly. Paisley, however, appeared to be well acquainted with the trail. Kathleen could hear him ahead of her; his horse clattering over the rocks of the canyon bottom; her own animal followed, rather recklessly, she thought, for it stumbled much. Hame Bozzam’s horse was never very far behind her. Several times Bozzam spoke to her. But she would not answer him; she had determined never to speak to him again.

They got out of the gorge presently; Nigger Paisley’s figure grew from nothing to a black blotch; then became a shadowy outline; and at last, as the canyon widened, Kathleen felt herself settling back against the cantle of the saddle, and knew they were mounting a rise. Then Paisley became distinct. Other objects began to take on form. Up, and up they went, the light growing, until, with a quickening of the pulses, Kathleen realized that they were traversing the trail that she and Gawne had taken on the day he had kissed her.

Later, however, they swung off that trail and began to ascend the shoulder of a mountain. Here the light was clearer, and Kathleen could see Jane and Ginger quite plainly. The girl was riding stiffly, with a proud set to her head, as though she had recovered from her fright and was determined to treat her captors with the contempt they deserved. And yet, despite the rigidness of the girl’s poise, Kathleen noted that she seemed to take a keen interest in her surroundings. Later, on a high level, where Kathleen’s horse was forced close to Ginger because of a sharp doubling of the trail, Kathleen saw the girl looking at her with a smile. Still later—while Hame Bozzam and Paisley were conferring at a little distance, the significance of Jane’s smile was explained to Kathleen.

“They’re taking us to Sunshine Gap!” whispered the girl, excitedly. “Daddy will find us!”

“Bozzam mentioned Williams’ Cache,” Kathleen reminded her.

“That’s the desert,” answered the girl. “There are three trails to it from the Diamond Bar. One is straight on down the canyon to Fillet’s Wells—a town; the other way is back through Bozzam City; and the third trail is through Sunshine Gap, over the gray ridge. Don’t you think daddy will hunt for us?”

“For you, of course,” smiled Kathleen. “He won’t know about me—nor care.”

Jane frowned. “Daddy’s got awful solemn again—since you don’t come any more. He likes you. Why did you stop coming?”

Kathleen flushed; she could not let this child into her secret. “Paisley made some noise when he took you, of course?” she asked, quickly.

“Not much,” said Jane, pouting at the recollection. “I—I tried, awfully hard, to make a fuss, but I don’t think anybody heard me. Aunt Emily and Uncle Lafe didn’t get up.” She looked sharply at Kathleen. “You are wondering if they will miss me. Daddy will. He’ll be after us—on Meteor. And he’ll kill Hame Bozzam and Nigger Paisley. For he hates them—like poison!”

They were urged on again, in the same formation in which they had traveled before, Hame Bozzam grinning blandly at them.

“Holding a confab, eh?” he laughed at Kathleen’s back. “Well, that’s good; you can let off considerable steam that way. And you must be about ready to explode.”

He rode close to her and peered intently at her.

“You’re standing it rather well; you’re not nearly ready to explode. Beginning to understand that things might be worse?”

She averted her face. This action seemed to inflame him, for his horse lunged against her, and leaning over, he crushed her to him and kissed her fiercely on lips, cheeks and throat, letting her go free presently, and laughing deeply as she lashed him verbally.

“Spirit, eh?” he said; “I told the Colonel you had it!” He laughed again. “We stop at the Carter shack in Sunshine Gap, tonight, my dear. The devil himself couldn’t get within half a mile of Williams’ Cache at night. Just the right sort of solitude, in the Gap, for honeymoon purposes—eh?”

“You—you devil!” she breathed hoarsely, filled with a wild longing to slay him—to do something that would drive the fierce passion from his eyes.

Kathleen had had one glimpse of Sunshine Gap, at a distance, on the day that Gawne had told her that he loved her; but when, descending the mountainside tonight, she saw it in the mellow moonlight—peaceful, slumberous; surrounded by the mysterious hills; the river, like a ribbon of quicksilver, gleaming and shimmering in the ghostly light—she caught her breath with a gasp of delight that almost dispelled her dread of Bozzam.

When they got to the cabin, Bozzam swung down and untied her feet, which had been lashed to the stirrups. “I’m sorry we had to do that,” he said.

She made no reply, but sat in the saddle, swinging her legs back and forth in an endeavor to restore the circulation to them. She had determined that when they should release her feet she would try to escape. She had seen the gray ridge on the other side of the river; she knew that it rimmed the desert. For several minutes after Bozzam had untied her feet she sat, pretending that she was not yet able to dismount. At a moment when Bozzam appeared to be giving his whole attention to the cabin, she spoke softly to her horse and urged it gently away.

She was a dozen yards from the cabin when Bozzam turned and saw her. He ran, leaped on his horse, and pursued her. He caught her at the water’s edge, pulled her from the saddle to his own, calling Paisley to get the riderless horse.

“You’ll not try that again,” Bozzam assured her. Reaching the cabin, he dismounted, carried her into the cabin and barred both doors—one from the outside as he went out. She could hear him talking with Paisley, and she waited, anxiously, for them to put Jane into the cabin with her.

They did not put Jane in. From a window Kathleen caught glimpses of them, at times, as they moved about outside. Breathlessly, remembering Bozzam’s words, she searched for something with which to bar the doors and the windows. A table, a chair, a bench, and a cupboard which had once been used for the storage of dishes, were all the articles that could possibly be used for her purpose, and so she shoved and lifted them against the door that Bozzam had barred from the outside. There was nothing for the windows; and she would have to trust to the bars that were already on the door that was fastened on the inside.

Then, nerveless, quivering inwardly; every muscle taut with the tension of desperation, she walked from door to door; from one window to the other, dreading, vigilant and sleepless. Once, remembering that she had heard Bozzam lock only one door from the outside, she stole to the other, took down the bars and tried it. It, too, was fastened from the outside—Bozzam must have secured it while she had been moving the furniture against the other door. The windows, she noted thankfully, after a long fearing examination, were not large enough to permit Bozzam to get into the cabin through them. But Bozzam did not trouble her that night. Twice, from a window, she saw him ride across the river, climb the gray ridge and stand for a long time, seeming to watch something in the desert Three times she saw Nigger Paisley do likewise. After Paisley’s last trip to the ridge she overheard the two talking near the door. Their voices seemed to be freighted with concern.

It must have been long past midnight when she heard a light tap at one of the doors—the one that Bozzam had gone out of. She waited, frozen with dread, for the knock to be repeated before she answered. Then she heard Jane’s voice:

“Please open the door, Kathie. It’s cold out here, and I have no blankets. They said I might come in with you.”

Receiving the girl’s assurance that neither of the men was within reach of the door, she removed the barricade and permitted Jane to enter. The girl was shaking with cold. By chafing her hands and huddling her close, Kathleen was able to impart some warmth to her. And then, with chattering teeth, Jane revealed the reason for Bozzam’s and Paisley’s interest in the desert.