The Hunted Woman, James Oliver Curwood [13 inch ebook reader .TXT] 📗

mad. To have killed Rann or Quade in self-defence, or in open fight, would have been playing the game with a shadow of mountain law behind it. But he had invaded Rann's home. Had he killed them he would have had but little more excuse than a house-breaker or a suspicious husband might have had. Tete Jaune would not countenance cold-blooded shooting, even of criminals. He should have taken old Donald's advice and waited until they were in the mountains. An unpleasant chill ran through him as he thought of the narrowness of his double escape.
To his surprise, John Aldous found MacDonald awake when he arrived at the camp in the thickly timbered coulee. He was preparing a midnight cup of coffee over a fire that was burning cheerfully between two big rocks. Purposely Aldous stepped out into the full illumination of it. The old hunter looked up. For a moment he stared into the blood-smeared face of his friend; then he sprang to his feet, and caught him by the arm.
"Yes, I got it," nodded Aldous cheerfully. "I went out for it, Mac, and I got it! Get out your emergency kit, will you? I rather fancy I need a little patching up."
MacDonald uttered not a word. From the balsam lean-to he brought out a small rubber bag and a towel. Into a canvas wash-basin he then turned a half pail of cold water, and Aldous got on his knees beside this. Not once did the old mountaineer speak while he was washing the blood from Aldous' face and hands. There was a shallow two-inch cut in his forehead, two deeper ones in his right cheek, and a gouge in his chin. There were a dozen cuts on his hands, none of them serious. Before he had finished MacDonald had used two thirds of a roll of court-plaster.
Then he spoke.
"You can soak them off in the morning," he said. "If you don't, the lady'll think yo're a red Indian on the warpath. Now, yo' fool, what have yo' gone an' done?"
Aldous told him what had happened, and before MacDonald could utter an expression of his feelings he admitted that he was an inexcusable idiot and that nothing MacDonald might say could drive that fact deeper home.
"If I'd come out after hearing what they had to say, we could have got DeBar at the end of a gun and settled the whole business," he finished. "As it is, we're in a mess."
MacDonald stretched his gaunt gray frame before the fire. He picked up his long rifle, and fingered the lock.
"You figger they'll get away with DeBar?"
"Yes, to-night."
MacDonald threw open the breech of his single-loader and drew out a cartridge as long as his finger. Replacing it, he snapped the breech shut.
"Don't know as I'm pertic'lar sad over what's happened," he said, with a curious look at Aldous. "We might have got out of this without what you call strenu'us trouble. Now--it's _fight!_ It's goin' to be a matter of guns an' bullets, Johnny--back in the mountains. You figger Rann an' the snake of a half-breed'll get the start of us. Let 'em have a start! They've got two hundred miles to go, an' two hundred miles to come back. Only--they won't come back!"
Under his shaggy brows the old hunter's eyes gleamed as he looked at Aldous.
"To-morrow we'll go to the grave," he added. "Yo're cur'ous to know what's goin' to happen when we find that grave, Johnny. So am I. I hope----"
"What do you hope?"
MacDonald shook his great gray head in the dying firelight.
"Let's go to bed, Johnny," he rumbled softly in his beard. "It's gettin' late."


CHAPTER XIV
To sleep after the excitement through which he had passed, and with to-morrow's uncertainties ahead of him, seemed to Aldous a physical impossibility. Yet he slept, and soundly. It was MacDonald who roused him three hours later. They prepared a quick breakfast over a small fire, and Aldous heated water in which he soaked his face until the strips of court-plaster peeled off. The scratches were lividly evident, but, inasmuch as he had a choice of but two evils, he preferred that Joanne should see these instead of the abominable disfigurement of court-plaster strips.
Old Donald took one look at him through half-closed eyes.
"You look as though you'd come out of a tussle with a grizzly," he grinned. "Want some fresh court-plaster?"
"And look as though I'd come out of a circus--no!" retorted Aldous. "I'm invited to breakfast at the Blacktons', Mac. How the devil am I going to get out of it?"
"Tell 'em you're sick," chuckled the old hunter, who saw something funny in the appearance of Aldous' face. "Good Lord, how I'd liked to have seen you come through that window--in daylight!"
Aldous led off in the direction of the trail. MacDonald followed close behind him. It was dark--that almost ebon-black hour that precedes summer dawn in the northern mountains. The moon had long ago disappeared in the west. When a few minutes later they paused in the little opening on the trail Aldous could just make out the shadowy form of the old mountaineer.
"I lost my gun when I jumped through the window, Mac," he explained. "There's another thirty-eight automatic in my kit at the corral. Bring that, and the .303 with the gold-bead sight--and plenty of ammunition. You'd better take that forty-four hip-cannon of yours along, as well as your rifle. Wish I could civilize you, Mac, so you'd carry one of the Savage automatics instead of that old brain-storm of fifty years ago!"
MacDonald gave a grunt of disgust that was like the whoof of a bear.
"It's done business all that time," he growled good humouredly. "An' it ain't ever made me jump through any window as I remember of, Johnny!"
"Enough," said Aldous, and in the gloom he gripped the other's hand. "You'll be there, Mac--in front of the Blacktons'--just as it's growing light?"
"That means in three quarters of an hour, Johnny. I'll be there. Three saddle-horses and a pack."
Where the trail divided they separated. Aldous went directly to the Blacktons'. As he had expected, the bungalow was alight. In the kitchen he saw Tom, the Oriental cook, busy preparing breakfast. Blackton himself, comfortably dressed in duck trousers and a smoking-jacket, and puffing on a pipe, opened the front door for him. The pipe almost fell from his mouth when he saw his friend's excoriated face.
"What in the name of Heaven!" he gasped.
"An accident," explained Aldous, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders. "Blackton, I want you to do me another good turn. Tell the ladies anything you can think of--something reasonable. The truth is, I went through a window--a window with plenty of glass in it. Now how the deuce can I explain going through a window like a gentleman?"
With folded arms, Blackton inspected him thoughtfully for a moment.
"You can't," he said. "But I don't think you went through a window. I believe you fell over a cliff and were caught in an armful of wait-a-bit bushes. They're devilish those wait-a-bits!"
They shook hands.
"I'm ready to blow up with curiosity again," said Blackton. "But I'll play your game, Aldous."
A few minutes later Joanne and Peggy Blackton joined them. He saw again the quick flush of pleasure in Joanne's lovely face when she entered the room. It changed instantly when she saw the livid cuts in his skin. She came to him quickly, and gave him her hand. Her lips trembled, but she did not speak. Blackton accepted this as the psychological moment.
"What do you think of a man who'll wander off a trail, tumble over a ledge, and get mixed up in a bunch of wait-a-bit like _that?_" he demanded, laughing as though he thought it a mighty good joke on Aldous. "Wait-a-bit thorns are worse than razors, Miss Gray," he elucidated further. "They're--they're perfectly devilish, you know!"
"Indeed they _are_," emphasized Peggy Blackton, whom her husband had given a quick look and a quicker nudge, "They're dreadful!"
Looking straight into Joanne's eyes, Aldous guessed that she did not believe, and scarcely heard, the Blacktons.
"I had a presentiment something was going to happen," she said, smiling at him. "I'm glad it was no worse than that."
She withdrew her hand, and turned to Peggy Blackton. To John's delight she had arranged her wonderful shining hair in a braid that rippled in a thick, sinuous rope of brown and gold below her hips. Peggy Blackton had in some way found a riding outfit for her slender figure, a typical mountain outfit, with short divided skirt, loose blouse, and leggings. She had never looked more beautiful to him. Her night's rest had restored the colour to her soft cheeks and curved lips; and in her eyes, when she looked at him again, there was a strange, glowing light that thrilled him. During the next half-hour he almost forgot his telltale disfigurements. At breakfast Paul and Peggy Blackton were beautifully oblivious of them. Once or twice he saw in Joanne's clear eyes a look which made him suspect that she had guessed very near to the truth.
MacDonald was prompt to the minute. Gray day, with its bars of golden tint, was just creeping over the shoulders of the eastern mountains when he rode up to the Blacktons'. The old hunter was standing close to the horse which Joanne was to ride when Aldous brought her out. Joanne gave him her hand, and for a moment MacDonald bowed his shaggy head over it. Five minutes later they were trailing up the rough wagon-road, MacDonald in the lead, and Joanne and Aldous behind, with the single pack horse between.
For several miles this wagon-trail reached back through the thick timber that filled the bottom between the two ranges of mountains. They had travelled but a short distance when Joanne drew her horse close in beside Aldous.
"I want to know what happened last night," she said. "Will you tell me?"
Aldous met her eyes frankly. He had made up his mind that she would believe only the truth, and he had decided to tell her at least a part of that. He would lay his whole misadventure to the gold. Leaning over the pommel of his saddle he recounted the occurrences of the night before, beginning with his search for Quade and the half-breed, and his experience with the woman who rode the bear. He left out nothing--except all mention of herself. He described the events lightly, not omitting those parts which appealed to him as being very near to comedy.
In spite of his effort to rob the affair of its serious aspect his recital had a decided effect upon Joanne. For some time after he had finished one of her small gloved hands clutched tightly at the pommel of her saddle; her breath came more quickly; the colour had ebbed from her cheeks, and she looked straight ahead, keeping her eyes from meeting his. He began to believe that in some way she was convinced he had not told her the whole truth, and was possibly displeased, when she again turned her face to him. It was tense and white. In it was the fear which, for a few minutes, she had tried to keep from him.
"They would have killed you?" she breathed.
"Perhaps they would only have given me a good scare," said Aldous. "But I didn't have time to wait and find out. I was very anxious to see MacDonald again. So I went through the window!"
"No, they would have killed you," said Joanne. "Perhaps I did wrong, Mr. Aldous, but I confided--a little--in Peggy Blackton last night. She seemed like a sister. I love her. And I wanted to confide in some one--a woman, like her. It wasn't