"DEAD OR DISGRACED?"
John sped away between the high sagebrush and willows which skirted the
stream running along west from camp. At one place he found himself on
the bank and saw that the ditch ran far below in a small gully.
He could hear nothing, nor could he see any signs of human habitation.
He turned his steps in another direction and hurried onward in his
zigzag course, straining his eyes in the fading moonlight of the
evening for sight of a habitation.
All at once he heard a distant or smothered cry. He stopped at once,
and as he could hear nothing further, he fancied that he must have been
mistaken, or that it was the screech of a far-away mountain lion. He
turned again in his tracks, and by some instinct ran back to the hidden
stream which flowed along down in the deep gully. That scream again!
and he was sure it was a woman's voice. He flew now in the direction
from which it had come. The moon was down, and he could see nothing
but shadows and gloom, accustomed as he was to piercing these mountain
nights with his keen, far-sighted eyes.
Again and again that scream, and this time he saw, not many rods
distant from him, a door flung open, for it threw a stream of light
across the brush between him and the cabin. He ran on and on, jumping
over the brush occasionally and panting harder as his bounds drew him
nearer the source of those piercing screams. A man's curses and three
successive shots rang out upon the air, mingled with screams, then a
hideous laugh in a harsh voice that was still a woman's, and John could
just see a flying figure bound out from the door and disappear in the
depths of the shadows of the gully.
"You she-devil!" yelled a man, as he dashed away after the figure
flying away in the darkness.
John hesitated a moment whether to follow the two who had run away, or
to make straight for the cabin; he chose the latter, and with hasty
bounds, he was soon at the door with his eyes fixed upon a figure
stretched upon the floor.
It was Ellen! A moment, and he was beside her, trying to stanch the
pistol shot wound in her gaping neck, and calling softly under his
breath for her to open her eyes.
He did not hear the heavy steps behind him, but he turned to meet the
black, blazing eyes of Louisiana Liz, peeping in the door behind him,
her smoking pistol still in her hand, and then he heard the woman howl
with wicked laughter:
"You sought your flown bird too late, for the huntsman found her heart
and the keen arrow of hate found her throat almost as soon. Ha, ha, ha!"
John's blood curdled in his veins, and he held the dying girl closer to
him as he bent his head over her.
Ellie opened her eyes as she felt John's presence, and whispered
painfully, "Tell Aunt Clara to forgive me; I am so sorry. I
am--so--sorry--"
John never knew how he allowed that sweet life to flicker out, for he
felt as if he could arise and grapple with Death himself and conquer
the grim destroyer of all this beauty and youth.
"Well, my long-bearded friend," gasped a hoarse voice behind him; "you
seem to have served your sweetheart a pretty ghastly trick."
John laid the body of his dead upon the earthen floor of the hut, and
with a spring he was upon his adversary. But the soldier, who was too
quick for him, dodged the blow, and ran out of the door. John followed,
and ran this way and that, but the darkness and the unfamiliarity of
the place rendered it impossible for him to find the villain who had
thus dared to imply that he himself had been guilty of this awful deed.
In a moment, John knew how impossible it would be for him to prove
anything. From the few words of so good a friend as Colonel Saxey he
knew that it would only provoke hostilities and perhaps plunge the
whole Territory into war and rob the leaders of their lives, if he
added another crime to the one already committed.
His hands twitched and his throat ached as he entered that dreadful
hut, for he felt that he would be justified in the eyes of God and
man in taking the lives of such vile reprobates as were this soldier
Sherwood and his octoroon paramour. Yet his first duty was to take the
body of this unhappy girl home for decent burial, and then he might
well leave the question of revenge to God and the future.
No one saw or molested him as he made his hasty preparation to carry
the body away. He slowly and painfully made his way to the straggling
village north of where he stood. He stepped more softly as he neared
the village, for he had no mind to awaken the inmates of the huts
around him. He had wrapped the body up in a quilt, and now he laid it
carefully down just outside the window of the dwelling, whence shone
the light that proved to him that his friends were awaiting him.
He stood a moment, to collect his strength a little before he met
anyone; then he knocked softly. Aunt Clara came to the door, and asked
as soon as she saw him, "Have you found her?"
John bowed his head; he could not speak.
"Is she dead or disgraced?" Aunt Clara never knew why she asked such a
question, but it broke the calm of the man before her, and he leaned
upon his arm against the doorpost, unable to control his voice. His
body was quivering with a man's rare and awful sobs; they shook him as
a heavy wind shakes the mighty canyon pines.
Aunt Clara stood gazing at him with glazed eyes of anguish. She could
not speak, as Diantha followed her and asked:
"What is it, John; what have you found? Can't you speak? Where is
Ellen? Why don't you tell us? Why don't you bring her here?"
"Dead or disgraced?" quivered Aunt Clara's lips, as she looked
imploringly up into John's averted eyes.
John straightened himself, and answered with a shiver: "Both!" And poor
Aunt Clara fainted at his feet.