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

on. They're behind us--or DeBar is hitting another trail into the north. There isn't no danger ahead right now, because we're gettin' into the biggest ranges between here an' the Yukon. If Quade and Rann are in the next valley they can't get over the mount'ins to get at us. Quade, with all his flesh, couldn't climb over that range to the west of us inside o' three days, if he could get over it at all. They're hikin' straight for the gold over another trail, or they're behind us, an' mebby both."
"How--both?" asked Aldous.
"Two parties," explained MacDonald, puffing hard at his pipe. "If there's an outfit behind us they were hid in the timber on the other side of the snow-ridge, and they're pretty close this minute. Culver Rann--or FitzHugh, as you call him--is hustling straight on with DeBar. Mebby Quade is with him, an' mebby he ain't. Anyway, there's a big chance of a bunch behind us with special instructions from Quade to cut our throats and keep Joanne."
That day Aldous had been turning a question over in his own mind. He asked it now.
"Mac, are you sure you can go to the valley of gold without DeBar?"
For a long half minute MacDonald looked at him, and then his voice rumbled in a low, exultant laugh in his beard.
"Johnny," he said, with a strange quiver in his voice, "I can go to it now straighter an' quicker than DeBar! I know why I never found it. DeBar helped me that much. The trail is mapped right out in my brain now, Johnny. Five years ago I was within ten miles of the cavern--an' didn't know it!"
"And we can get there ahead of them?"
"We could--if it wasn't for Joanne. We're makin' twenty miles a day. We could make thirty."
"If we could beat them to it!" exclaimed Aldous, clenching his hands. "If we only could, Donald--the rest would be easy!"
MacDonald laid a heavy hand on his knee.
"You remember what you told me, Johnny, that you'd play the game fair, and give 'em a first chance? You ain't figgerin' on that now, be you?"
"No, I'm with you now, Donald. It's----"
"Shoot on sight!"
"Yes."
Aldous rose from his seat as he spoke.
"You turn in, Mac," he said. "You're about bushed after the work you've done to-day. I'll keep first watch. I'll conceal myself fifty or sixty yards from camp, and if we have visitors before midnight the fun will all be mine."
He knew that MacDonald was asleep within fifteen minutes after he had stationed himself at his post. In spite of the fact that he had had almost no sleep the preceding night, he was more than usually wakeful. He was filled with a curious feeling that events were impending. Yet the hours passed, the moon flooded the valley again, the horses grazed without alarm, and nothing happened. He had planned not to awaken old Donald at midnight, but MacDonald roused himself, and came to take his place a little before twelve. From that hour until four Aldous slept like the dead. He was tremendously refreshed when he arose, to find that the candle was alight in Joanne's tepee, and that MacDonald had built a fire. He waited for Joanne, and went with her to the tiny creek near the camp, where both bathed their faces in the snow-cold water from the mountain tops. Joanne had slept soundly for eight hours, and she was as fresh and as happy as a bird. Her lameness was almost gone, and she was eager for the day's journey.
As they filed again up the valley that morning, with the early sun transfiguring the great snow-topped ranges about them into a paradise of colour and warmth, Aldous found himself mentally wondering if it were really possible that a serious danger menaced them. He did not tell MacDonald what was in his mind. He did not confess that he was about ready to believe that the man on the snow-ridge had been a hunter or a prospector returning to his camp in the other valley, and that the attack in Tete Jaune was the one and only effort Quade would make to secure possession of Joanne. While a few hours before he had almost expected an immediate attack, he was now becoming more and more convinced that Quade, to a large extent, had dropped out of the situation. He might be with Mortimer FitzHugh, and probably was--a dangerous and formidable enemy to be accounted for when the final settlement came.
But as an immediate menace to Joanne, Aldous was beginning to fear him less as the hours passed. Joanne, and the day itself, were sufficient to disarm him of his former apprehension. In places they could see for miles ahead and behind them. And Joanne, each time that he looked at her, was a greater joy to him. Constantly she was pointing out the wonders of the mountains to him and MacDonald. Each new rise or fall in the valley held fresh and delightful surprises for her; in the craggy peaks she pointed out castlements, and towers, and battlemented strongholds of ancient princes and kings. Her mind was a wild and beautiful riot of imagination, of wonder, and of happiness, and in spite of the grimness of the mission they were on even MacDonald found himself rejoicing in her spirit, and he laughed and talked with them as they rode into the North.
They were entering now into a hunter's paradise. For the first time Joanne saw white, moving dots far up on a mountain-side, which MacDonald told her were goats. In the afternoon they saw mountain sheep feeding on a slide half a mile away, and for ten breathless minutes Joanne watched them through the telescope. Twice caribou sped over the opens ahead of them. But it was not until the sun was settling toward the west again that Joanne saw what she had been vainly searching the sides of the mountains to find. MacDonald had stopped suddenly in the trail, motioning them to advance. When they rode up to him he pointed to a green slope two hundred yards ahead.
"There's yo'r grizzly, Joanne," he said.
A huge, tawny beast was ambling slowly along the crest of the slope, and at sight of him Joanne gave a little cry of excitement.
"He's hunting for gophers," explained MacDonald.
"That's why he don't seem in a hurry. He don't see us because a b'ar's eyes are near-sighted, but he could smell us half a mile away if the wind was right."
He was unslinging his long rifle as he spoke. Joanne was near enough to catch his arm.
"Don't shoot--please don't shoot!" she begged. "I've seen lions, and I've seen tigers--and they're treacherous and I don't like them. But there's something about bears that I love, like dogs. And the lion isn't a king among beasts compared with him. Please don't shoot!"
"I ain't a-goin' to," chuckled old Donald. "I'm just getting ready to give 'im the proper sort of a handshake if he should happen to come this way, Joanne. You know a grizzly ain't pertic'lar afraid of anything on earth as I know of, an' they're worse 'n a dynamite explosion when they come head-on. There--he's goin' over the slope!"
"Got our wind," said Aldous.
They went on, a colour in Joanne's face like the vivid sunset. They camped two hours before dusk, and MacDonald figured they had made better than twenty miles that day. The same precautions were observed in guarding the camp as the night before, and the long hours of vigil were equally uneventful. The next day added still more to Aldous' peace of mind regarding possible attack from Quade, and on the night of this day, their fourth in the mountains, he spoke his mind to MacDonald.
For a few moments afterward the old hunter smoked quietly at his pipe. Then he said:
"I don't know but you're right, Johnny. If they were behind us they'd most likely have tried something before this. But it ain't in the law of the mount'ins to be careless. We've got to watch."
"I agree with you there, Mac," replied Aldous. "We cannot afford to lose our caution for a minute. But I'm feeling a deuced sight better over the situation just the same. If we can only get there ahead of them!"
"If Quade is in the bunch we've got a chance of beating them," said MacDonald thoughtfully. "He's heavy, Johnny--that sort of heaviness that don't stand up well in the mount'ins; whisky-flesh, I call it. Culver Rann don't weigh much more'n half as much, but he's like iron. Quade may be a drag. An' Joanne, Lord bless her!--she's facing the music like an' 'ero, Johnny!"
"And the journey is almost half over."
"This is the fourth day. I figger we can make it in ten at most, mebby nine," said old Donald. "You see we're in that part of the Rockies where there's real mount'ins, an' the ranges ain't broke up much. We've got fairly good travel to the end."
On this night Aldous slept from eight until twelve. The next, their fifth, his watch was from midnight until morning. As the sixth and the seventh days and nights passed uneventfully the belief that there were no enemies behind them became a certainty. Yet neither Aldous nor MacDonald relaxed their vigilance.
The eighth day dawned, and now a new excitement took possession of Donald MacDonald. Joanne and Aldous saw his efforts to suppress it, but it did not escape their eyes. They were nearing the tragic scenes of long ago, and old Donald was about to reap the reward of a search that had gone faithfully and untiringly through the winters and summers of forty years. He spoke seldom that day. There were strange lights in his eyes. And once his voice was husky and strained when he said to Aldous:
"I guess we'll make it to-morrow, Johnny--jus' about as the sun's going down."
They camped early, and Aldous rolled himself in his blanket when Joanne extinguished the candle in her tent. He found that he could not sleep, and he relieved MacDonald at eleven o'clock.
"Get all the rest you can, Mac," he urged. "There may be doings to-morrow--at about sundown."
There was but little moonlight now, but the stars were clear. He lighted his pipe, and with his rifle in the crook of his arm he walked slowly up and down over a hundred-yard stretch of the narrow plain in which they had camped. That night they had built their fire beside a fallen log, which was now a glowing mass without flame. Finally he sat down with his back to a rock fifty paces from Joanne's tepee. It was a splendid night. The air was cool and sweet. He leaned back until his head rested against the rock, and there fell upon him the fatal temptation to close his eyes and snatch a few minutes of the slumber which had not come to him during the early hours of the night. He was in a doze, oblivious to movement and the softer sounds of the night, when a cry pierced the struggling consciousness of his brain like the sting of a dart. In an instant he was on his feet.
In the red glow of the log stood Joanne in her long white night robe. She seemed to be swaying when he first saw her. Her hands were clutched at her bosom, and she was staring--staring out into the night beyond the burning log, and in her face was a look of terror. He sprang toward her, and out of the gloom beyond her rushed Donald MacDonald. With a cry she turned to Aldous and flung herself shivering and half-sobbing into his arms. Gray-faced, his eyes burning like the smouldering coals in the fire, Donald