The wind was blowing towards the stranger, so that he was nearly upon
her when Teresa first took the alarm. He was a man over six feet in
height, strongly built, with a slight tendency to a roundness of bulk
which suggested reserved rather than impeded energy. His thick beard
and mustache were closely cropped around a small and handsome mouth that
lisped except when he was excited, but always kept fellowship with his
blue eyes in a perpetual smile of half-cynical good-humor. His dress was
superior to that of the locality; his general expression that of a
man of the world, albeit a world of San Francisco, Sacramento, and
Murderer’s Bar. He advanced towards her with a laugh and an outstretched
hand.
“YOU here!” she gasped, drawing back.
Apparently neither surprised nor mortified at this reception, he
answered frankly, “Yeth. You didn’t expect me, I know. But Doloreth
showed me the letter you wrote her, and--well--here I am, ready to help
you, with two men and a thpare horthe waiting outside the woodth on the
blind trail.”
“You--YOU--here?” she only repeated.
Curson shrugged his shoulders. “Yeth. Of courth you never expected
to thee me again, and leatht of all HERE. I’ll admit that; I’ll thay
I wouldn’t if I’d been in your plathe. I’ll go further, and thay you
didn’t want to thee me again--anywhere. But it all cometh to the thame
thing; here I am. I read the letter you wrote Doloreth. I read how you
were hiding here, under Dunn’th very nothe, with his whole pothe out,
cavorting round and barkin’ up the wrong tree. I made up my mind to
come down here with a few nathty friends of mine and cut you out under
Dunn’th nothe, and run you over into Yuba--that’th all.”
“How dared she show you my letter--YOU of all men? How dared she ask
YOUR help?” continued Teresa, fiercely.
“But she didn’t athk my help,” he responded coolly. “D--d if I don’t
think she jutht calculated I’d be glad to know you were being hunted
down and thtarving, that I might put Dunn on your track.”
“You lie!” said Teresa, furiously; “she was my friend. A better friend
than those who professed--more,” she added, with a contemptuous drawing
away of her skirt as if she feared Curson’s contamination.
“All right. Thettle that with her when you go back,” continued Curson
philosophically. “We can talk of that on the way. The thing now ith to
get up and get out of thethe woods. Come!”
Teresa’s only reply was a gesture of scorn.
“I know all that,” continued Curson half soothingly, “but they’re
waiting.”
“Let them wait. I shall not go.”
“What will you do?”
“Stay here--till the wolves eat me.”
“Teresa, listen. D--- it all--Teresa--Tita! see here,” he said with
sudden energy. “I swear to God it’s all right. I’m willing to let
by-gones be by-gones and take a new deal. You shall come back as if
nothing had happened, and take your old place as before. I don’t mind
doing the square thing, all round. If that’s what you mean, if that’s
all that stands in the way, why, look upon the thing as settled. There,
Tita, old girl, come.”
Careless or oblivious of her stony silence and starting eyes, he
attempted to take her hand. But she disengaged herself with a quick
movement, drew back, and suddenly crouched like a wild animal about to
spring. Curson folded his arms as she leaped to her feet; the little
dagger she had drawn from her garter flashed menacingly in the air, but
she stopped.
The man before her remained erect, impassive, and silent; the great
trees around and beyond her remained erect, impassive, and silent; there
was no sound in the dim aisles but the quick panting of her mad passion,
no movement in the calm, motionless shadow but the trembling of her
uplifted steel. Her arm bent and slowly sank, her fingers relaxed, the
knife fell from her hand.
“That’th quite enough for a thow,” he said, with a return to his former
cynical ease and a perceptible tone of relief in his voice. “It’th the
thame old Theretha. Well, then, if you won’t go with me, go without me;
take the led horthe and cut away. Dick Athley and Petereth will follow
you over the county line. If you want thome money, there it ith.” He
took a buckskin purse from his pocket. “If you won’t take it from me”--he
hesitated as she made no reply--“Athley’th flush and ready to lend you
thome.”
She had not seemed to hear him, but had stooped in some embarrassment,
picked up the knife and hastily hid it, then with averted face and
nervous fingers was beginning to tear strips of loose bark from the
nearest trunk.
“Well, what do you thay?”
“I don’t want any money, and I shall stay here.” She hesitated, looked
around her, and then added, with an effort, “I suppose you meant well.
Be it so! Let by-gones be by-gones. You said just now, ‘It’s the same
old Teresa.’ So she is, and seeing she’s the same she’s better here than
anywhere else.”
There was enough bitterness in her tone to call for Curson’s
half-perfunctory sympathy.
“That be d--d,” he responded quickly. “Jutht thay you’ll come, Tita,
and--”
She stopped his half-spoken sentence with a negative gesture. “You don’t
understand. I shall stay here.”
“But even if they don’t theek you here, you can’t live here forever. The
friend that you wrote about who wath tho good to you, you know, can’t
keep you here alwayth; and are you thure you can alwayth trutht her?”
“It isn’t a woman; it’s a man.” She stopped short, and colored to the
line of her forehead. “Who said it was a woman?” she continued fiercely,
as if to cover her confusion with a burst of gratuitous anger. “Is that
another of your lies?”
Curson’s lips, which for a moment had completely lost their smile, were
now drawn together in a prolonged whistle. He gazed curiously at her
gown, at her hat, at the bow of bright ribbon that tied her black hair,
and said, “Ah!”
“A poor man who has kept my secret,” she went on hurriedly--“a man as
friendless and lonely as myself. Yes,” disregarding Curson’s cynical
smile, “a man who has shared everything--”
“Naturally,” suggested Curson.
“And turned himself out of his only shelter to give me a roof and
covering,” she continued mechanically, struggling with the new and
horrible fancy that his words awakened.
“And thlept every night at Indian Thpring to save your reputation,” said
Curson. “Of courthe.”
Teresa turned very white. Curson was prepared for an outburst of
fury--perhaps even another attack. But the crushed and beaten woman only
gazed at him with frightened and imploring eyes. “For God’s sake, Dick,
don’t say that!”
The amiable cynic was staggered. His good-humor and a certain chivalrous
instinct he could not repress got the better of him. He shrugged his
shoulders. “What I thay, and what you DO, Teretha, needn’t make us
quarrel. I’ve no claim on you--I know it. Only--” a vivid sense of the
ridiculous, powerful in men of his stamp, completed her victory--“only
don’t thay anything about my coming down here to cut you out from
the--the--THE SHERIFF.” He gave utterance to a short but unaffected
laugh, made a slight grimace, and turned to go.
Teresa did not join in his mirth. Awkward as it would have been if he
had taken a severer view of the subject, she was mortified even amidst
her fears and embarrassment at his levity. Just as she had become
convinced that his jealousy had made her over-conscious, his apparent
good-humored indifference gave that over-consciousness a guilty
significance. Yet this was lost in her sudden alarm as her companion,
looking up, uttered an exclamation, and placed his hand upon his
revolver. With a sinking conviction that the climax had come, Teresa
turned her eyes. From the dim aisles beyond, Low was approaching. The
catastrophe seemed complete.
She had barely time to utter an imploring whisper: “In the name of God,
not a word to him.” But a change had already come over her companion. It
was no longer a parley with a foolish woman; he had to deal with a man
like himself. As Low’s dark face and picturesque figure came nearer, Mr.
Curson’s proposed method of dealing with him was made audible.
“Ith it a mulatto or a Thircuth, or both?” he asked, with affected
anxiety.
Low’s Indian phlegm was impervious to such assault. He turned to Teresa,
without apparently noticing her companion. “I turned back,” he said
quietly, “as soon as I knew there were strangers here; I thought you
might need me.” She noticed for the first time that, in addition to his
rifle, he carried a revolver and hunting knife in his belt.
“Yeth,” returned Curson, with an ineffectual attempt to imitate Low’s
phlegm; “but ath I didn’t happen to be a sthranger to this lady, perhaps
it wathn’t nethethary, particularly ath I had two friends--”
“Waiting at the edge of the wood with a led horse,” interrupted Low,
without addressing him, but apparently continuing his explanation to
Teresa. But she turned to Low with feverish anxiety.
“That’s so--he is an old friend--” she gave a quick, imploring glance at
Curson--“an old friend who came to help me away--he is very kind,” she
stammered, turning alternately from the one to the other; “but I told
him there was no hurry--at least to-day--that you--were--very good--too,
and would hide me a little longer, until your plan--you know YOUR plan,”
she added, with a look of beseeching significance to Low--“could be
tried.” And then, with a helpless conviction that her excuses, motives,
and emotions were equally and perfectly transparent to both men, she
stopped in a tremble.
“Perhapth it ‘th jutht ath well, then, that the gentleman came thtraight
here, and didn’t tackle my two friendth when he pathed them,” observed
Curson, half sarcastically.
“I have not passed your friends, nor have I been near them,” said Low,
looking at him for the first time, with the same exasperating calm, “or
perhaps I should not be HERE or they THERE. I knew that one man entered
the wood a few moments ago, and that two men and four horses remained
outside.”
“That’s true,” said Teresa to Curson excitedly--“that’s true. He knows
all. He can see without looking, hear without listening. He--he--” she
stammered, colored, and stopped.
The two men had faced each other. Curson, after his first good-natured
impulse, had retained no wish to regain Teresa, whom he felt he no
longer loved, and yet who, for that very reason perhaps, had awakened
his chivalrous instincts. Low, equally on his side, was altogether
unconscious of any feeling which might grow into a passion, and prevent
him from letting her go with another if for her own safety. They were
both men of a certain taste and refinement. Yet, in spite of all this,
some vague instinct of the baser male animal remained with them, and
they were moved to a mutually aggressive attitude in the presence of the
female.
One word more, and the opening chapter of a sylvan Iliad might have
begun. But this modern Helen saw it coming, and arrested it with an
inspiration of feminine genius. Without being observed, she disengaged
her knife from her bosom and let it fall as if by accident. It struck
the ground with the point of its keen blade, bounded and rolled between
them. The two men started and looked at each other with a foolish air.
Curson laughed.
“I reckon she can take care of herthelf,” he said, extending his hand to
Low. “I’m off. But if I’m wanted SHE’LL know where to find me.” Low took
the proffered hand, but neither of the two men looked at Teresa. The
reserve of antagonism once broken, a few words of caution, advice, and
encouragement passed between them, in apparent obliviousness of her
presence or her personal responsibility. As Curson at last nodded
a farewell to her, Low insisted upon accompanying him as far as the
horses, and in another moment she was again alone.
She had saved a quarrel between them at the sacrifice of herself, for
her vanity was still keen enough to feel that this exhibition of her
old weakness had degraded her in their eyes, and, worse, had lost the
respect her late restraint had won from Low. They had treated her like a
child or a crazy woman, perhaps even now were exchanging criticisms
upon her--perhaps pitying her! Yet she had prevented a quarrel, a fight;
possibly the death of either one or the other of these men who despised
her, for none better knew than she the trivial beginning and desperate
end of these encounters. Would they--would Low ever realize it, and
forgive her? Her small, dark hands went up to her eyes and she sank
upon the ground. She looked through tear-veiled lashes upon the mute and
giant witnesses of her deceit and passion, and tried to draw, from their
immovable calm, strength and consolation as before. But even they seemed
to stand apart, reserved and forbidding.
When Low returned she hoped to gather from his eyes and manner what
had passed between him and her former lover. But beyond a mere gentle
abstraction at times he retained his usual calm. She was at last forced
to allude to it herself with simulated recklessness.
“I suppose I didn’t get a very good character from my last place?” she
said, with a laugh.
“I don’t understand you,” he replied, in evident sincerity.
She bit her lip and was silent. But as they were returning home, she
said gently, “I hope you were not angry with me for the lie I told
when I spoke of ‘your plan.’ I could not give the real reason for
not returning with--with--that man. But it’s not all a lie. I have a
plan--if you haven’t. When you are ready to go to Sacramento to take
your place, dress me as an Indian boy, paint my face, and let me go with
you. You can leave me--there--you know.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” he responded gravely. “We will see.”
On the next day, and the next, the rencontre seemed to be forgotten.
The herbarium was already filled with rare specimens. Teresa had even
overcome her feminine repugnance to “bugs” and creeping things so far
as to assist in his entomological collection. He had drawn from a sacred
cache in the hollow of a tree the few worn text-books from which he had
studied.
“They seem very precious,” she said, with a smile.
“Very,” he replied gravely. “There was one with plates that the ants ate
up, and it will be six months before I can afford to buy another.”
Teresa glanced hurriedly over his well-worn buckskin suit, at his calico
shirt with its pattern almost obliterated by countless washings, and
became thoughtful.
“I suppose you couldn’t buy one at Indian Spring?” she said innocently.
For once Low was startled out of his phlegm. “Indian Spring!” he
ejaculated; “perhaps not even in San Francisco. These came from the
States.”
“How did you get them?” persisted Teresa.
“I bought them for skins I got over the ridge.”
“I didn’t mean that--but no matter. Then you mean to sell that bearskin,
don’t you?” she added.
Low had, in fact, already sold it, the proceeds having been invested in
a gold ring for Miss Nellie, which she scrupulously did not wear except
in his presence. In his singular truthfulness he would have frankly
confessed it to Teresa, but the secret was not his own. He contented
himself with saying that he had disposed of it at Indian Spring.
Teresa started, and communicated unconsciously some of her nervousness
to her companion. They gazed in each other’s eyes with a troubled
expression.
“Do you think it was wise to sell that particular skin, which might be
identified?” she asked timidly.
Low knitted his arched brows, but felt a strange sense of relief.
“Perhaps not,” he said carelessly; “but it’s too late now to mend
matters.”
That afternoon she wrote several letters, and tore them up. One,
however, she retained, and handed it to Low to post at Indian Spring,
whither he was going. She called his attention to the superscription,
being the same as the previous letter, and added, with affected gayety,
“But if the answer isn’t as prompt, perhaps it will be pleasanter than
the last.” Her quick feminine eye noticed a little excitement in his
manner and a more studious attention to his dress. Only a few days
before she would not have allowed this to pass without some mischievous
allusion to his mysterious sweetheart; it troubled her greatly now to
find that she could not bring herself to this household pleasantry, and
that her lip trembled and her eye grew moist as he parted from her.
The afternoon passed slowly; he had said he might not return to supper
until late, nevertheless a strange restlessness took possession of
her as the day wore on. She put aside her work, the darning of his
stockings, and rambled aimlessly through the woods. She had wandered she
knew not how far, when she was suddenly seized with the same vague sense
of a foreign presence which she had felt before. Could it be Curson
again, with a word of warning? No! she knew it was not he; so subtle
had her sense become that she even fancied that she detected in the
invisible aura projected by the unknown no significance or relation to
herself or Low, and felt no fear. Nevertheless she deemed it wisest to
seek the protection of her sylvan bower, and hurried swiftly thither.
But not so quickly nor directly that she did not once or twice pause in
her flight to examine the new-comer from behind a friendly trunk. He was
a stranger--a young fellow with a brown mustache, wearing heavy Mexican
spurs in his riding-boots, whose tinkling he apparently did not care to
conceal. He had perceived her, and was evidently pursuing her, but
so awkwardly and timidly that she eluded him with ease. When she had
reached the security of the hollow tree and pulled the curtain of bark
before the narrow opening, with her eye to the interstices, she waited
his coming. He arrived breathlessly in the open space before the tree
where the bear once lay; the dazed, bewildered, and half-awed expression
of his face, as he glanced around him and through the openings of the
forest aisles, brought a faint smile to her saddened face. At last he
called in a half-embarrassed voice:--
“Miss Nellie!”
The smile faded from Teresa’s cheek. Who was “Miss Nellie?” She pressed
her ear to the opening. “Miss Wynn!” the voice again called, but was
lost in the echoless woods. Devoured with a new gratuitous curiosity, in
another moment Teresa felt she would have disclosed herself at any risk,
but the stranger rose and began to retrace his steps. Long after his
tinkling spurs were lost in the distance, Teresa remained like a statue,
staring at the place where he had stood. Then she suddenly turned like
a mad woman, glanced down at the gown she was wearing, tore it from
her back as if it had been a polluted garment, and stamped upon it in
a convulsion of rage. And then, with her beautiful bare arms clasped
together over her head, she threw herself upon her couch in a tempest of
tears.