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

have shone when she stood that day before the Hosts.
"And this man, the half-breed, has sold himself--for a woman?" she said, looking straight ahead at the bent shoulders of old MacDonald.
"Yes, for a woman. Do you ask me why I go now? Why I shall fight, if fighting there must be?"
She turned to him. Her face was a blaze of glory.
"No, no, no!" she cried. "Oh, John Aldous! if I were only a man, that I might go with you and stand with you two in that Holy Sepulchre--the Cavern----If I were a man, I'd go--and, yes, I would fight!"
And Donald MacDonald, looking back, saw the two clasping hands across the trail. A moment later he turned his horse from the broad road into a narrow trail that led over the range.


CHAPTER XV
From the hour in which she had listened to the story of old MacDonald a change seemed to have come over Joanne. It was as if she had risen out of herself, out of whatever fear or grief she might have possessed in her own heart. John Aldous knew that there was some deep significance in her visit to the grave under the Saw Tooth Mountain, and that from the beginning she had been fighting under a tremendous mental and physical strain. He had expected this day would be a terrible day for her; he had seen her efforts to strengthen herself for the approaching crisis that morning. He believed that as they drew nearer to their journey's end her suspense and uneasiness, the fear which she was trying to keep from him, would, in spite of her, become more and more evident. For these reasons the change which he saw in her was not only delightfully unexpected but deeply puzzling. She seemed to be under the influence of some new and absorbing excitement. Her cheeks were flushed. There was a different poise to her head; in her voice, too, there was a note which he had not noticed before.
It struck him, all at once, that this was a new Joanne--a Joanne who, at least for a brief spell, had broken the bondage of oppression and fear that had fettered her. In the narrow trail up the mountain he rode behind her, and in this he found a pleasure even greater than when he rode at her side. Only when her face was turned from him did he dare surrender himself at all to the emotions which had transformed his soul. From behind he could look at her, and worship without fear of discovery. Every movement of her slender, graceful body gave him a new and exquisite thrill; every dancing light and every darkening shadow in her shimmering hair added to the joy that no fear or apprehension could overwhelm within him now. Only in those wonderful moments, when her presence was so near, and yet her eyes did not see him, could he submerge himself completely in the thought of what she had become to him and of what she meant to him.
During the first hour of their climb over the break that led into the valley beyond they had but little opportunity for conversation. The trail was an abandoned Indian path, narrow, and in places extremely steep. Twice Aldous helped Joanne from her horse that she might travel afoot over places which he considered dangerous. When he assisted her in the saddle again, after a stiff ascent of a hundred yards, she was panting from her exertion, and he felt the sweet thrill of her breath in his face. For a space his happiness obliterated all thoughts of other things. It was MacDonald who brought them back.
They had reached the summit of the break, and through his long brass telescope the old mountaineer was scanning the valley out of which they had come. Under them lay Tete Jaune, gleaming in the morning sun, and it dawned suddenly upon Aldous that this was the spot from which MacDonald had spied upon his enemies. He looked at Joanne. She was breathing quickly as she looked upon the wonder of the scene below them. Suddenly she turned, and encountered his eyes.
"They might--follow?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"No danger of that," he assured her.
MacDonald had dismounted, and now he lay crouched behind a rock, with his telescope resting over the top of it. He had leaned his long rifle against the boulder; his huge forty-four, a relic of the old Indian days, hung at his hip. Joanne saw these omens of preparedness, and her eyes shifted again to Aldous. His .303 swung from his saddle. At his waist was the heavy automatic. She smiled. In her eyes was understanding, and something like a challenge. She did not question him again, but under her gaze Aldous flushed.
A moment later MacDonald closed his telescope and without a word mounted his horse. Where the descent into the second valley began he paused again. To the north through the haze of the morning sun gleamed the snow-capped peaks of the Saw Tooth Range. Apparently not more than an hour's ride distant rose a huge red sandstone giant which seemed to shut in the end of the valley MacDonald stretched forth a long arm in its direction.
"What we're seekin' is behind that mountain," he said. "It's ten miles from here." He turned to the girl. "Are you gettin' lame, Mis' Joanne?"
Aldous saw her lips tighten.
"No. Let us go on, please."
She was staring fixedly at the sombre red mass of the mountain. Her eyes did not take in the magnificent sweep of the valley below. They saw nothing of the snow-capped peaks beyond. There was something wild and unnatural in their steady gaze. Aldous dropped behind her as they began the gradual descent from the crest of the break and his own heart began to beat more apprehensively; the old question flashed back upon him, and he felt again the oppression that once before had held him in its grip. His eyes did not leave Joanne. And always she was staring at the mountain behind which lay the thing they were seeking! It was not Joanne herself that set his blood throbbing. Her face had not paled. Its colour was like the hectic flush of a fever. Her eyes alone betrayed her; their strange intensity--the almost painful steadiness with which they hung to the distant mountain, and a dread of what was to come seized upon him. Again he found himself asking himself questions which he could not answer. Why had Joanne not confided more fully in him? What was the deeper significance of this visit to the grave, and of her mission in the mountains?
Down the narrow Indian trail they passed into the thick spruce timber. Half an hour later they came out into the grassy creek bottom of the valley. During that time Joanne did not look behind her, and John Aldous did not speak. MacDonald turned north, and the sandstone mountain was straight ahead of them. It was not like the other mountains. There was something sinister and sullen about it. It was ugly and broken. No vegetation grew upon it, and through the haze of sunlight its barren sides and battlemented crags gleamed a dark and humid red after the morning mists, as if freshly stained with blood. Aldous guessed its effect upon Joanne, and he determined to put an end to it. Again he rode up close beside her.
"I want you to get better acquainted with old Donald," he said. "We're sort of leaving him out in the cold, Ladygray. Do you mind if I tell him to come back and ride with you for a while?"
"I've been wanting to talk with him," she replied. "If you don't mind----"
"I don't," he broke in quickly. "You'll love old Donald, Ladygray. And, if you can, I'd like to have you tell him all that you know about--Jane. Let him know that I told you."
She nodded. Her lips trembled in a smile.
"I will," she said.
A moment later Aldous was telling MacDonald that Joanne wanted him. The old mountaineer stared. He drew his pipe from his mouth, beat out its half-burned contents, and thrust it into its accustomed pocket.
"She wants to see me?" he asked. "God bless her soul--what for?"
"Because she thinks you're lonesome up here alone, Mac. And look here"--Aldous leaned over to MacDonald--"her nerves are ready to snap. I know it. There's a mighty good reason why I can't relieve the strain she is under. But you can. She's thinking every minute of that mountain up there and the grave behind it. You go back, and talk. Tell her about the first time you ever came up through these valleys--you and Jane. Will you, Mac? Will you tell her that?"
MacDonald did not reply, but he dropped behind. Aldous took up the lead. A few minutes later he looked back, and laughed softly under his breath. Joanne and the old hunter were riding side by side in the creek bottom, and Joanne was talking. He looked at his watch. He did not look at it again until the first gaunt, red shoulder of the sandstone mountain began to loom over them. An hour had passed since he left Joanne. Ahead of him, perhaps a mile distant, was the cragged spur beyond which--according to the sketch Keller had drawn for him at the engineers' camp--was the rough canyon leading back to the basin on the far side of the mountain. He had almost reached this when MacDonald rode up.
"You go back, Johnny," he said, a singular softness in his hollow voice. "We're a'most there."
He cast his eyes over the western peaks, where dark clouds were shouldering their way up in the face of the sun, and added:
"There's rain in that. I'll trot on ahead with Pinto and have a tent ready when you come. I reckon it can't be more'n a mile up the canyon."
"And the grave, Mac?"
"Is right close to where I'll pitch the tent," said MacDonald, swinging suddenly behind the pack-horse Pinto, and urging him into a trot. "Don't waste any time, Johnny."
Aldous rode back to Joanne.
"It looks like rain," he explained. "These Pacific showers come up quickly this side of the Divide, and they drench you in a jiffy. Donald is going on ahead to put up a tent."
By the time they reached the mouth of the canyon MacDonald was out of sight. A little creek that was a swollen torrent in spring time trickled out of the gorge. Its channel was choked with a chaotic confusion of sandstone rock and broken slate, and up through this Aldous carefully picked his way, followed closely by Joanne. The sky continued to darken above them, until at last the sun died out, and a thick and almost palpable gloom began to envelop them. Low thunder rolled through the mountains in sullen, rumbling echoes. He looked back at Joanne, and was amazed to see her eyes shining, and a smile on her lips as she nodded at him.
"It makes me think of Henrik Hudson and his ten-pin players," she called softly. "And ahead of us--is Rip Van Winkle!"
The first big drops were beginning to fall when they came to an open place. The gorge swung to the right; on their left the rocks gave place to a rolling meadow of buffalo grass, and Aldous knew they had reached the basin. A hundred yards up the slope was a fringe of timber, and as he looked he saw smoke rising out of this. The sound of MacDonald's axe came to them. He turned to Joanne, and he saw that she understood. They were at their journey's end. Perhaps her fingers gripped her rein a little more tightly. Perhaps it was imagination that made him think