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

you do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're not hungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing a mouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?"
"And I--I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places at the table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat, Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those people until I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering----"
"If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm as hungry as a bear!"
And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she sat opposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. He told her so when the meal was finished, and they were following the Blacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefully drilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for in spite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait a while, he pulled out his watch, and said:
"It isn't at all surprising if you people have forgotten that to-morrow is Sunday. Peggy and I always do some Saturday-night shopping, and if you don't mind, we'll leave you to care for the house while we go to town. We won't be gone more than an hour."
A few minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Aldous led Joanne to a divan, and sat down beside her.
"I couldn't have arranged it better myself, dear," he exclaimed. "I have been wondering how I could have you alone for a few minutes, and tell you what is on my mind before I see MacDonald again to-night. I'm afraid you will be displeased with me, Joanne. I hardly know how to begin. But--I've got to."
A moment's uneasiness came into her eyes as she saw how seriously he was speaking.
"You don't mean, John--there's more about Quade--and Culver Rann?"
"No, no--nothing like that," he laughed, as though amused at the absurdity of her question. "Old Donald tells me they have skipped the country, Joanne. It's not that. It's you I'm thinking of, and what you may think of me a minute from now. Joanne, I've given my word to old Donald. He has lived in my promise. I've got to keep that promise--I must go into the North with him."
She had drawn one of his hands into her lap and was fondling it with her own soft palm and fingers.
"Of course, you must, John. I love old Donald."
"And I must go--soon," he added.
"It is only fair to him that you should," she agreed.
"He--he is determined we shall go in the morning," he finished, keeping his eyes from her.
For a moment Joanne did not answer. Her fingers interweaved with his, her warm little palm stroked the rough back of his hand. Then she said, very softly:
"And why do you think that will displease me, John, dear? I will be ready!"
"You!"
Her eyes were on him, full, and dark, and glowing, and in them were both love and laughter.
"You dear silly John!" she laughed. "Why don't you come right out and tell me to stay at home, instead of--of--'beating 'round the bush'--as Peggy Blackton says? Only you don't know what a terrible little person you've got, John. You really don't. So you needn't say any more. We'll start in the morning--and I am going with you!"
In a flash John Aldous saw his whole scheme shaking on its foundation.
"It's impossible--utterly impossible!" he gasped.
"And why utterly?" she asked, bending her head so that her soft hair touched his face and lips. "John, have you already forgotten what we said in that terrible cavern--what we told ourselves we would have done if we had lived? We were going adventuring, weren't we? And we are not dead--but alive. And this will be a glorious trip! Why, John, don't you see, don't you understand? It will be our honeymoon trip!"
"It will be a long, rough journey," he argued. "It will be hard--hard for a woman."
With a little laugh, Joanne sprang up and stood before him in a glow of light, tall, and slim, and splendid, and there was a sparkle of beautiful defiance and a little of triumph in her eyes as she looked down on him.
"And it will be dangerous, too? You are going to tell me that?"
"Yes, it will be dangerous."
She came to him and rumpled up his hair, and turned his face up so that she could look into his eyes.
"Is it worse than fever, and famine, and deep swamps, and crawling jungles?" she asked. "Are we going to encounter worse things than beasts, and poisonous serpents, and murderous savages--even hunger and thirst, John? For many years we dared those together--my father and I. Are these great, big, beautiful mountains more treacherous than those Ceylon jungles from which you ran away--even you, John? Are they more terrible to live in than the Great African Desert? Are your bears worse than tigers, your wolves more terrible than lions? And if, through years and years, I faced those things with my father, do you suppose that I want to be left behind now, and by my husband?"
So sweet and wonderful was the sound of that name as it came softly from her lips, that in his joy he forgot the part he was playing, and drew her close down in his arms, and in that moment all that remained of the scheme he had built for keeping her behind crumbled in ruin about him.
Yet in a last effort he persisted.
"Old Donald wants to travel fast--very fast, Joanne. I owe a great deal to him. Even you I owe to him--for he saved us from the 'coyote.'"
"I am going, John."
"If we went alone we would be able to return very soon."
"I am going."
"And some of the mountains--it is impossible for a woman to climb them!"
"Then I will let you carry me up them, John. You are so strong----"
He groaned hopelessly.
"Joanne, won't you stay with the Blacktons, to please me?"
"No. I don't care to please you."
Her fingers were stroking his cheek.
"John?"
"Yes."
"Father taught me to shoot, and as we get better acquainted on our honeymoon trip I'll tell you about some of my hunting adventures. I don't like to shoot wild things, because I love them too well. But I can shoot. And I want a gun!"
"Great Scott!"
"Not a toy--but a real gun," she continued. "A gun like yours. And then, if by any chance we should have trouble--with Culver Rann----"
She felt him start, and her hands pressed harder against his face.
"Now I know," she whispered. "I guessed it all along. You told me that Culver Rann and the others were after the gold. They've gone--and their going isn't quite 'skipping the country' as you meant me to understand it, John Aldous! So please let's not argue any more. If we do we may quarrel, and that would be terrible. I'm going. And I will be ready in the morning. And I want a gun. And I want you to be nice to me, and I want it to be our honeymoon--even if it is going to be exciting!"
And with that she put her lips to his, and his last argument was gone.
Two hours later, when he went to the coulee, he was like one who had come out of a strange and disturbing and altogether glorious dream. He had told Joanne and the Blacktons that it was necessary for him to be with MacDonald that night. Joanne's good-night kiss was still warm on his lips, the loving touch of her hands still trembled on his face, and the sweet perfume of her hair was in his nostrils. He was drunk with the immeasurable happiness that had come to him, every fibre in him was aquiver with it--and yet, possessed of his great joy, he was conscious of a fear; a fear that was new and growing, and which made him glad when he came at last to the little fire in the coulee.
He did not tell MacDonald the cause of this fear at first. He told the story of Mortimer FitzHugh and Joanne, leaving no part of it unbared, until he could see Donald MacDonald's great gaunt hands clenching in the firelight, and his cavernous eyes flaming darkly through the gloom. Then he told what had happened when the Blacktons went to town, and when he had finished, and rose despairingly beside the fire, Donald rose, too, and his voice boomed in a sort of ecstasy.
"My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that, Johnny--she would!"
"But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? What can I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac--she isn't my wife--not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense of being a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herself my wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't. Think what it would mean!"
Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray old mountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on his shoulders.
"Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man, Johnny?"
"Good heaven, Donald. You mean----"
Their eyes met steadily.
"If you are, Johnny," went on MacDonald in a low voice, "I'd take her with me. An' if you ain't, I'd leave these mount'ins to-night an' never look in her sweet face again as long as I lived."
"You'd take her along?" demanded Aldous eagerly.
"I would. I've been thinkin' it over to-night. An' something seemed to tell me we mustn't dare leave her here alone. There's just two things to do, Johnny. You've got to stay with her an' let me go on alone or--you've got to take her."
Slowly Aldous shook his head. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten.
"If I could make myself believe that she would not be safe here--I would take her," he said. "But I can't quite make up my mind to that, Mac. She will be in good hands with the Blacktons. I will warn Paul. Joanne is determined to go, and I know she will think it pretty indecent to be told emphatically that she can't go. But I've got to do it. I can't see----"
A break in the stillness of the night stopped him with the suddenness of a bullet in his brain. It was a scream--a woman's scream, and there followed it shriek after shriek, until the black forest trembled with the fear and agony of the cries, and John Aldous stood as if suddenly stripped of the power to move or act. Donald MacDonald roused him to life. With a roar in his beard, he sprang forth into the darkness. And Aldous followed, a hot sweat of fear in his blood where a moment before had been only a chill of wonder and horror. For in Donald's savage beastlike cry he had caught Joanne's name, and an answering cry broke from his own lips as he followed the great gaunt form that was tearing with the madness of a wounded bear ahead of him through the night.


CHAPTER XXII
Not until they had rushed up out of the coulee and had reached the pathlike trail did the screaming cease. For barely an instant MacDonald paused, and then ran on with a speed that taxed Aldous to keep up. When they came to the little open amphitheatre in the forest MacDonald