The Barrier, Rex Beach [top books to read TXT] 📗

profession, your family, your future?"

"Don't let's talk about it, Necia; I've got you, and—"

"Please answer me," she urged. "I thought I understood, but I'm afraid I don't. I thought it was my being a breed that stood in the way—"

"There's nothing in the way—"

"—that I wasn't good enough. I knew I could overcome that; I knew I could make myself grow to your level, but I didn't think my blood would fetter you and make this difference. I suppose I am putting it awkwardly, because I'm not sure that I quite understand it myself yet. Things seem different now, somehow, than they did before."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the soldier. "If they don't bother me, Necia, why should you worry?"

"Would you really have to give up your family—your sister? Would those people you are so proud of and who are so proud of you—would they cut you off?"

"There is no question of cutting off. I have no inheritance coming; I don't want any. I don't want anything except you, dear."

"Won't you tell me?" she persisted. "You see, I am dull at these things."

"Well, what if they do?" he conceded. "You more than make it up to me—you outweigh a thousand families."

"And would your marriage to a—a—to me destroy your army career?"

"Well, it will really be much easier for both of us if I resign from the Service," he finally admitted. "In fact, I've decided to do so at once."

"No, no! You mustn't do that. To-night you think I am worth the price, but a day will come—"

He leaned forward and caught her hands in his.

"—Meade, I can't let you do it."

"I'd like to see you help yourself," he said, banteringly.

"I can and I will. You must not marry me, Meade—it's not right—it can't be." She suddenly realized what this renunciation would mean, and began to shiver. To think of losing him now, after he had come to her freely—it would be very hard! But to her, too, there had come the revelation that love means sacrifice, and she knew now that she loved her soldier too well to let her shadow darken his bright future, too well to ruin him.

"It will be over before you know it," she heard him saying, in a lame attempt at levity. "Father Barnum is an expert, and the operation won't occupy him ten minutes."

"Meade, you must listen to me now," she said, so earnestly that it sobered him. "Do you think a girl could be happy if she knew a good man had spoiled his life for her? I would rather die now than let you do such a thing. I couldn't bear to see myself a drag on you. Oh, I know it would be wonderful, this happiness of ours, for a time, and then—" She was finding it more and more difficult to continue. "A prisoner grows to hate the chains that bind him; when that day came for you, I should hate myself. No, no! Believe me, it can't be. You're not of my people, and I'm not of yours."

At that moment they heard the voices of the trader and his squaw outside, approaching the house. The girl's breath caught in her throat, she flung herself recklessly upon her lover's breast and threw her arms around his neck in an agony of farewell.

"Meade! Meade! my soldier!" she sobbed, "kiss me good-bye for the last time!"

"No," he said roughly.

But she dragged his face down to her burning lips.

"Now you must go," she said, tearing herself away, "and, for my sake, don't see me again."

"I will! I will! I'll ask your father for you to-night."

"No, no! Don't; please don't! Wait till—till to-morrow—till I say the word! Promise me! On your love, promise!"

Her eyes held such a painful entreaty that he nodded acquiescence as the door opened and her father and Alluna entered.

CHAPTER XIII STARK TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

The old man greeted the Lieutenant affably, but as his glance fell on his daughter he stopped stock-still on the threshold.

"I told you never to wear that dress again," he said, in a dry, harsh voice.

The girl made no answer, for her heart was breaking, but turned and went into her room. Burrell had an irresistible desire to tell Gale that he wanted his daughter for his wife; it would be an unwonted pleasure to startle this iron-gray old man and the shawled and shambling mummy of red, with the unwinking eyes that always reminded him of two ox-heart cherries; but he had given Necia his promise. So he descended to the exchange of ordinary topics, and inquired for news of the creek.

"Necia's ground is getting better every hour," the trader said. "Yesterday they found a sixty-dollar pan."

"Have you struck pay on yours?"

"No; Poleon and I seem to hold bad hands. Some of his laymen are quitting work. They've cross-cut in half a dozen places and can't find a color."

"But surely they haven't fully prospected his claims yet; there must be plenty of room for a pay-streak somewhere, mustn't there?"

"It looks like he had drawn three blanks," said Gale, "although we can't tell for sure. They're breaking most as bad for me, too; but I've got a new hunch, and I'm running up a dreen to catch bed-rock along the left rim. I've got twenty men at work, and I'll know before long. You heard about Runnion, of course?"

"Yes; the usual story—the bad men get the good mines, and the good ones get the hungry spots. Well, I might have been one of the unfortunates if I had staked for myself; but I hardly think so, I'm pretty lucky." He laughingly bade them good-night, content with himself and at peace with the world.

Gale went to Necia's door and called her, but when she appeared he was unprepared for the tragic face with which she greeted him.

"Daughter," he said, "don't feel bad over what I said; I didn't mean to be cross with you, but—I don't like that dress."

"Were you cross with me, daddy?" she said, dully. "I didn't hear. What did you say?"

He looked at her in amazement. "Necia, little girl, what is the trouble?"

She was staring past him, and her fingers were fumbling helplessly with the lace of her gown, but she began to show signs of collapse.

"I sent him away—I—gave him up, when he wanted me—wanted me—Oh, daddy! he wants to marry me—and I sent him away."

Alluna uttered a short, satisfied exclamation, and, looking at Gale meaningly, said:

"It is good. It is good. He is a stranger."

But the man disregarded her interruption.

"He asked you to marry him in—in—in spite of who you are and what I am?"

"Yes; he is ready to give up his ambition, his army, his future, his family, everything, for me—to sacrifice it all; and so, of course, I couldn't let him." She spoke simply, as if her father would surely understand and approve her action, while in her voice was a note of inevitable resignation. "You see, I never understood what my blood would mean to him until to-night. I've been selfish and thoughtless, I guess. I just wanted him, and wanted him to take me; but now that he is mine, I love him more than I thought. He is so dear to me that I can't drag him down—I can't—I can't!" She went to the open door and stood leaning against the casing, facing the cool outer darkness, her face hidden from them, her form sagging wearily, as if the struggle had sapped her whole strength.

Alluna crept to the trader and looked up at him eagerly, whispering:

"This will end in a little while, John. She is young. She can go back to the Mission to-morrow. She will soon forget."

"Forget! Do you think she can forget?"

"Any woman can forget. Only men remember."

"It is the red blood in you—lying. You know you lie."

"It is to save your life," she said.

"I know; but it's no use." To Necia he said; "You needn't worry, little daughter." But her ears were deaf. "You needn't give him up, I say—this will end all right."

Seeing that she gave no sign of heeding, he stepped closer, and swung her about till she faced him.

"Can't you trust me this one time? You always have before, Necia. I say he'll marry you, and it will all come out right."

She raised her hopeless eyes and strove gamely to meet his, then, failing, broke away, and turned back to the door. "I knew you couldn't understand. I—I—oh, God, I love him so!" With a cry like that of a wounded animal she fled out into the night, where she could give vent to her anguish unseen; for she had never wept before her father, but always crept away and hid herself until her grief was spent. Gale would have started after her, but Alluna dragged him back fiercely.

"No, no! It means your life, John. Let the secret die, and she will forget. She is so young. Time will cure her—time cures everything. Don't tell her—don't tell any one—and, above all, don't tell that soldier! He would not believe, nor would she. Even I have doubted!"

"You?"

"Yes, John. And if I don't believe, what is a stranger to say? No man knowing you would believe the tale—without proof. Suppose she doubted—have you ever thought of that? Would you not rather have her die still loving you than live and disbelieve?"

"Yes, yes! Of course, I—I've thought of that, but—Woman, you're worse than a rattlesnake!"

"Even if he knew, he might not marry her. You at least are clean, and that other man was a devil. A brave man's life is too great a price to pay for a grief that will die in a year." Alluna was speaking swiftly in her own language, her body tense, her face ablaze, and no man seeing her could ever again have called her people stolid.

"You think time will cure a love like that?" he said.

"Yes, yes!"

"That's all you know about it. Time may act that way perhaps in cities and such places, but out in the hills it is different. When you've got the breath of the forest in you, I say it is different. Time—why, I've lived fifteen years in the open with a living memory. Every night I've dreamed it over, every day I've lived it through; in every camp-fire I see a face, and every wind from the south brings a voice to me. Every stormy night a girl with eyes like Necia's calls to me, and I have to follow. Every patch of moonlight shows her smiling at me, just beyond, just in the shadow's edge. Love! Time! Why, Alluna, love is the only thing in the world that never dies, and time only makes it the more enduring."

He took up the white slouch hat he had thrown down when he came in, and stepped to the door.

"Where are you going?" inquired the squaw, fearfully.

"To the barracks to give myself up!"

She flung herself at him with a great cry, and seized him about the waist.

"You never loved me, John, but I have been a good woman to you, although I knew you were always thinking of her—and had no thought of me. I have loved this girl because you loved her. I have hated your enemies because you hated them, and now I remember while you forget."

"Forget! What do you mean?"

"Stark!"

The man paused. "I did almost forget him—and after fifteen years!"

"Let us kill him to-night; then we will go to the soldier together, side by side—I am your woman. Necia will look after the little ones."

Gale stared at her, and as he gazed the red pigment underneath her skin, the straight-hanging, mane-like hair, the gaudy shawl she never went without, the shapeless, skin-shod feet, the slovenly, ill-fitting garb of a mis-cast woman vanished, and he saw her as she was on a day long past, a slim, shy, silent creature, with great, watchful, trusting eyes and a soul unspoiled. No woman had ever been so loyal, so uncomplaining. He had robbed her of her people and her gods. He had shifted hither and yon at the call of his uncertain fortune, or at a sign of that lurking fear that always dogged him, and she had never left his side, never questioned, never doubted, but always served him like a slave, without asking for a part in that other love, without sharing in the caresses he had consecrated to a woman she had never seen.

"By Heaven! You're game, Alluna, but there's a limit even to what I can take from you," he said, at last. "I don't ever seem to have noticed it before, but there is. No! I've got to do this thing alone to-night, all of it, for you have no place in it, and I can't let the little