The Trail Horde, Charles Alden Seltzer [read out loud books .txt] 📗

lips tight-pressed. She was puzzled, incredulous.

Then, with their glances locked, she laughed, jeeringly.

"I really don't know how to classify you!" she said, scornfully. "Am I ugly?"

He smiled grimly. "Far from it," he answered, frankly. "I think," he added, his gaze still holding hers, "that mere physical beauty doesn't intrigue my interest. There must be something back of it."

"Character, I suppose," she mocked; "nobility, virtue?"

"I think you have said it," he smiled. "At least I haven't the slightest desire to like you."

"School teachers are more in your line, I suppose," she jibed.

There was a wanton light in her eyes. The change that had come over her was startling; and Lawler found himself watching her, trying to associate this new side of her character with that she had shown before she had betrayed her real character; she represented a type that had always been repulsive to him. And, until now, she had fooled him. He had wasted his politeness, his gentleness, his consideration, and his delicacy. He understood, now, why she had seemed to laugh at him when he had endeavored to provide a certain measure of privacy for her; he knew how she felt at this moment, when she must realize that she had betrayed herself.

Any further talk between them would be profitless, and so Lawler did not answer her question. He stood, looking at the north window, which was a little to one side of her; while she sat staring past him, her lips straight and hard.

At last she looked up. "What an odd courtship!"

His gaze dropped, met hers, and he smiled.

"Yes—odd," he returned, dryly.

"But I suppose," she said, in a tone equally dry; "that you will make up for it, after we are married. You will learn to like me."

"Yes; after we are married," he smiled, ironically.

"That will be as soon as we can get to town, I presume," she went on, watching him with brazen directness. "You see," she explained; "I have been here with you for about two weeks, you know, and my friends will ask embarrassing questions. You are so honorable that you cannot refuse to protect my reputation."

"I am sorry, of course, Miss Wharton. But you should have considered your reputation before you decided to come here."

"You mean that you won't marry me?" she demanded. She got up and walked toward him, halting within a pace of him and standing stiffly before him.

"You have perception, after all, it seems," he said, gravely. "But you don't understand human nature. No man—or woman—in this section will see anything wrong in your staying in this cabin with me during the storm. They will accept it as being the most natural thing in the world. It was a simple act of humanness for me to take you in, and it entails no offer of marriage. Perhaps it has been done, and will be done again, where there is an inclination to marry. It has been done in books, and in certain sections of the world where narrow-minded people are the manufacturers of public sentiment. The mere fact that I happened to save your life does not obligate me to marry you, Miss Wharton. And I do not feel like playing the martyr."

For an instant it seemed that Della would become hysterical. But when she looked into Lawler's eyes and realized that mere acting would not deceive him, she sneered.

"I might have known you wouldn't be man enough to protect me!"

Lawler smiled, but did not answer. And after an instant, during which Della surveyed him with scorn unspeakable, she strode stiffly to a chair in a far corner of the room and dropped into it.

Lawler had been little affected. He pitied her because of her perverted moral sense, which sought an honorable marriage from a wild, immoral impulse. He pitied her because she was what she was—a wanton who was determined by scheme and wile to gain her ends. And he shrewdly suspected that she was not so much concerned for her reputation as she was eager to achieve what she had determined upon. Defeat to her kind is intolerable.

"Gary Warden will never marry me if he discovers that I have been here," declared Della from the corner.

"You said you did not love Warden, Miss Wharton," Lawler reminded her. "You wouldn't marry a man you merely liked, would you?"

"We have been engaged for a year. Certainly, I shall marry him. Why not? But he won't have me, now!"

"Does Warden love you, Miss Wharton?"

"That doesn't concern you!" she snapped.

"No—not in the least. But if Warden loves you, and I went to him and explained that your being here was accidental——"

"Bah!" she sneered; "you're a fool, Lawler! Do you expect Gary Warden would swallow that! You don't know him!"

"Well," said Lawler, gently; "he need not know. If you are afraid to face public opinion, to show by your actions that you have nothing to be ashamed of, I'll take you to the Circle L, just as soon as we can get through. We'll time ourselves to get there at night. No one need know, and you can tell Warden that you were caught in the storm and drifted to the Circle L, where you stayed with my mother. I can come back here and no one will ever know the difference."

"I don't want to see your mother!" she sneered. "I'd be afraid she would be something like you! Ugh! I hate you!"

"There is only one other way," smiled Lawler. "I know Keller, the owner of the Willets Hotel, very intimately. I can take you there, at night—after the storm breaks. No one need know. You can say you were at the hotel all the time. And Keller will support your word."

"I presume I shall have to go to Willets—since I have to lie!" she said, wrathfully.

"Yes," said Lawler incisively; "it takes courage to be truthful, Miss Wharton. But if a person always tells the truth——"

"Shut up!" she said savagely; "you make me sick!" She glared malignantly at him. "Ugh, I positively loathe you! I must have been crazy when I thought I saw something in you!" She paused for an instant to get her breath, and then she resumed, vindictively:

"I hope they arrest you for killing those two men—Link and Givens. I hope they hang you. And they will hang you, because you can't prove you acted in self-defense. You'll be sorry you didn't marry me when you realize that I might have saved you by telling the truth about the fight!"

"Well," he said; "you can't testify without admitting you were here, you know."

"And I will never tell!" she declared; "I will never admit it!" she added, exultingly. "You'll change your mind about marrying me—you'll have to, to save your neck!"

Lawler shook his head negatively.

"You wouldn't marry me to save your life?" asked the girl, incredulously.

"Not to save my life, Miss Wharton."

"Well," she said slowly; "you're a damned fool!"

Lawler smiled and turned away. He heard Della moving about in the cabin, but he did not look around.

But later, after there had been a deep silence for a time, he ventured a backward glance. During the day he had kept the dividing blanket rolled up out of the way, fastening it with two loops that he had suspended from the ceiling. The blanket was now down—it was the first time Della had touched it.

Lawler smiled, pulled a chair over near the fireplace, rolled a cigarette, and puffed slowly at it, reflecting that life in the cabin would now be more monotonous than ever.

Della did not get out of her bunk during the day. She ate nothing, nor did she reply to Lawler when he invited her to partake of the food he had prepared.

Late that afternoon Lawler noted a glow of light coming through the north window. He went to the door, opened it and looked out. The snow had ceased and the wind had gone down. Far over in the west a cold sun, hanging its rim on a mountain peak, bathed the world with a shimmering, glittering, blinding light.

Lawler went outside and shielding his eyes with his hands, peered out over the gleaming waste. He noted that the snow had drifted much, but that there were ridges where no snow had settled, as well as vast sections of plain where the wind had swept the snow clear. There would be no difficulty in reaching Willets, for the wind that was coming over the plains now was mild—almost warm.

He went inside, told Della, and began to make preparations for the ride. And later that night, moving swiftly northward, under straggling clouds that obscured the moon, the two journeyed—Della swathed in clothing that assured her of warmth, and still preserving a sullen silence; Lawler riding ahead, breaking trail.

CHAPTER XXIV DELLA'S HANDKERCHIEF

Dawn was just breaking when Lawler dropped from Red King at the windbreak near the line cabin. He put the big horse in the dugout, closed the dugout door and entered the cabin. Then he breathed a sigh of relief.

There were still some glowing embers in the fireplace, and he soon had a roaring fire, in front of which he stood for a while, meditating.

He had got Della Wharton into the Willets Hotel without, he felt certain, attracting attention. For when they had ridden into town—taking the back way in order to avoid any sleepless citizens that might be about—it was past midnight. Lawler had timed himself to reach town at about that hour, knowing that with the exception of a brothel or two, Willets would be dark.

He had been fortunate. At his first knock on the rear door of the hotel, Keller had appeared; and Keller had instantly grasped the situation—though he plainly told Della that she was "goin' to a whole lot of unnecessary trouble." "Why, good Lord, ma'am, I reckon you had a right to hole up with Lawler! Nobody'd be blamin' you. They's a dozen men in this town that would make a colander out of anybody that'd hint things about a deal like that. Lawsy, ma'am, folks has got sense, ain't they? But if you doubt 'em, I reckon we can take care of you."

Lawler prepared and ate breakfast. It had been a tiresome ride, and after eating, knowing that there was no occasion for haste in his return to the Circle L—except that his mother would wonder over his whereabouts—he stretched out in one of the lower bunks—the one he had occupied during Della's stay in the cabin.

He had not barred the door; and when, some hours later he awoke, he saw half a dozen men in the cabin. They were standing near the door, watching him. Foremost among them was Gary Warden.

Lawler swung around in the bunk and sat on its edge, facing the men. They were Two Diamond men, for he recognized some of them.

Lawler got to his feet. He saw no friendliness in the faces of the men; and Warden was pale, scowling.

But Lawler smiled. "Looking for something, boys?" he said.

"We're looking for two men and a woman, Lawler. Have you seen anything of them?"

"I've seen two men, Warden; but no woman."

Warden's eyes quickened. Some color surged into his face.

"How long have you been here, Lawler?"

"Since the day the storm broke. Davies and Harris went to town for a spree, and I've been substituting for them."

He felt a savage amusement over Warden's attempt to conceal his disappointment. He could see that the man was consumed with curiosity over the outcome of the fence cutting, though he dared not voice it.

"Lawler," said Warden; "we've lost two men—Link and Givens; and Della Wharton—who was staying at the Two Diamond."

"I've seen no woman, Warden. But I've seen Link and Givens. You'll find them out by the windbreak. I had to kill them."

Lawler saw the men behind Warden grow rigid; Warden's face grew ghastly.

Lawler's smile had gone. He was coldly alert, watching the men behind Lawler, aware that his news was a shock to them; divining they would not hesitate to do violence if an