When Linda returned home the events of the night partook even of a
greater mystery. The front door was open, and she found plenty of
evidence that Bruce had returned from his journey. In the center of the
room lay his pack, a rifle slanting across it.
At first she did not notice the gun in particular. She supposed it was
Bruce's weapon and that he had come in, dropped his luggage, and was at
present somewhere in the house. It was true that one chair was upset,
but except for an instant's start she gave no thought to it. She thought
that he would probably go to the kitchen first for a bite to eat. He was
not in this room, however, nor had the lamp been lighted.
Her next idea was that Bruce, tired out, had gone to bed. She went back
softly to the front room, intending not to disturb him. Once more she
noticed the upset chair. The longer she regarded it, the more of a
puzzle it became. She moved over toward the pack and looked casually at
the rifle. In an instant more it was in her hands.
She saw at once that it was not Bruce's gun. The action, make, and
caliber were different. She was not a rifle-woman, and the little
shooting she had done had been with a pistol; but even a layman could
tell this much. Besides, it had certain peculiar notches on the stock
that the gun Elmira had furnished Bruce did not have.
She stood a moment in thought. The problem offered no ray of light. She
considered what Bruce's first action would have been, on returning to
the house to find her absent. Possibly he had gone in search of her. She
turned and went to the door of his bedroom.
She knocked on it softly. "Are you there, Bruce?" she called.
No answer returned to her. The rooms, in fact, were deeply silent. She
tried the door and found it unlocked. The room had not been occupied.
Thoroughly alarmed, she went back into the front room and tried to
decipher the mystery of the strange weapon. She couldn't conceive of any
possibility whereby Bruce would exchange his father's trusted gun for
this. Possibly it was an extra weapon that he had procured on his
journey. And since no possible gain would come of her going out into the
forests to seek him, she sat down to wait for his return. She knew that
if she did start out he might easily return in her absence and be
further alarmed.
The moments dragged by and her apprehension grew. She took the rifle in
her hands and, slipping the lever part way back, looked to see if there
were a cartridge in the barrel. She saw a glitter of brass, and it gave
her a measure of assurance. She had a pistol in her own room--a weapon
that Elmira had procured, years before, from a passing sportsman--and
for a moment she considered getting it also. She understood its action
better and would probably be more efficient with it if the need arose,
but for certain never-to-be-forgotten reasons she wished to keep this
weapon until the moment of utmost need.
Her whole stock of pistol cartridges consisted of six--completely
filling the magazine of the pistol. Closely watched by the Turners, she
had been unable to procure more. Many a dreadful night these six little
cylinders of brass had been a tremendous consolation to her. They had
been her sole defense, and she knew that in the final emergency she
could use them to deadly effect.
Linda was a girl who had always looked her situations in the face. She
was not one to flinch from the truth and with false optimism disbelieve
it. She had the courage of many generations of frontiersmen and
woodsmen, and she had their vision too. She knew these mountain realms;
better still she understood the dark passions of Simon and his
followers, and this little half-pound of steel and wood with its brass
shells might mean, in the dreadful last moment of despair, deliverance
from them. It might mean escape for herself when all other ways were cut
off. In this wild land, far from the reaches of law and without allies
except for a decrepit old woman, the pistol and its deadly loads had
been her greatest solace.
But she relied on the rifle now. And sitting in the shadow, she kept
watch over the moonlit ridge.
The hours passed, and the clouds were starting up from the horizon when
she thought she saw Bruce returning. A tall form came swinging toward
her, over the little trail that led between the tree trunks. She peered
intently. And in one instant more she knew that the approaching figure
was not Bruce, but the man she most feared of anyone on earth, Simon
Turner.
She knew him by his great form, his swinging stride. Her thoughts came
clear and true. It was obvious that his was no mission of stealth. He
was coming boldly, freely, not furtively; and he must have known that he
presented a perfect rifle target from the windows. Nevertheless, it is
well to be prepared for emergencies. If life in the mountains teaches
anything, it teaches that. She took the rifle and laid it behind a
little desk, out of sight. Then she went to the door.
"I want to come in, Linda," Simon told her.
"I told you long ago you couldn't come to this house," Linda answered
through the panels. "I want you to go away."
Simon laughed softly. "You'd better let me in. I've brought word of the
child you took to raise. You know who I mean."
Yes, Linda knew. "Do you mean Bruce?" she asked. "I let Dave in to-night
on the same pretext. Don't expect me to be caught twice by the same
lie."
"Dave? Where is Dave?" The fact was that the whereabouts of his brother
had suddenly become considerable of a mystery to Simon. All the way
from the pasture where he had left his clan he had been having black
pictures of Dave. He had thought about him and Linda out in the darkness
together, and his heart had seemed to smolder and burn with jealousy in
his breast. It had been a great relief to him to find her in the house.
"I wonder--where he is by now," Linda answered in a strange voice. "No
one in this world can answer that question, Simon. Tell me what you
want."
She opened the door. She couldn't bear to show fear of this man. And she
knew that an appearance of courage, at least, was the wisest course.
"No matter about him now. I want to talk to you on business. If I had
meant rough measures, I wouldn't have come alone."
"No," Linda scorned. "You would have brought your whole murdering band
with you. The Turners believe in overwhelming numbers."
The words stung him but he smiled grimly into her face. "I've come in
peace, Linda," he said, more gently. "I've come to give you a last
chance to make friends."
He walked past her into the room. He straightened the chair that had
been upset, smiling strangely the while, and sat down in it.
"Then tell me what you have to tell me," she said. "I'm in a hurry to go
to bed--and this really isn't the hour for calls."
He looked a long time into her face. She found it hard to hold her own
gaze. Many things could be doubted about this man, but his power and
his courage were not among them. The smile died from his lips, the
lines deepened on his face. She realized as never before the tempestuous
passions and unfathomable intensity of his nature.
"We've never been good friends," Simon went on slowly.
"We never could be," the girl answered. "We've stood for different
things."
"At first my efforts to make friends were just--to win you over to our
side. It didn't work--all it did was to waken other desires in
me--desires that perhaps have come to mean more than the possession of
the lands. You know what they are. You've always known--that any time
you wished--you could come and rule my house."
She nodded. She knew that she had won, against her will, the strange,
somber love of this mighty man. She had known it for months.
"As my wife--don't make any mistake about that. Linda, I'm a stern, hard
man. I've never known how to woo. I don't know that I want to know how,
the way it is done by weaker men. It has never been my way to ask for
what I wanted. But sometimes it seems to me that if I'd been a little
more gentle--not so masterful and so relentless--that I'd won you long
ago."
Linda looked up bravely into his face. "No, Simon. You could have
never--never won me! Oh, can't you see--even in this awful place a woman
wants something more than just brute strength and determination. Every
woman prays to find strength in the man she loves--but it isn't the
kind that you have, the kind that makes your men grovel before you, and
makes me tremble when I'm talking to you. It's a big, calm
strength--and I can't tell you what it is. It's something the pines
have, maybe--strength not to yield to the passions, but to restrain, not
to be afraid of, but to cling to--to stand upright and honorable and
manly, and make a woman strong just to see it in the man she loves."
He listened gravely. Her cheeks blazed. It was a strange scene--the
silent room, the implacable foes, the breathless suspense, the prophecy
and inspiration in her tones.
"Perhaps I should have been more gentle," he admitted. "I might have
forgotten--for a little while--this surging, irresistible impulse in my
muscles--and tried just to woo you, gently and humbly. But it's too late
now. I'm not a fool. I can't expect you to begin at the beginning. I can
only go on in my own way--my hard, remorseless, ruthless way.
"It isn't every man who is brave enough to see what he wants and knock
away all obstacles to get it," he went on. "Put that bravery to my
credit. To pay no attention to methods, only to look forward to the
result. That has been my creed. It is my creed now. Many less brave men
would fear your hatred--but I don't fear it as long as I possess what I
go after and a hope that I can get you over it. Many of my own brothers
hate me, but yet I don't care as long as they do my will. No matter how
much you scorn it, this bravery has always got me what I wanted, and it
will get me what I want now."
The high color died in her face. She wondered if the final emergency had
come at last.
"I've come to make a bargain. You can take it or you can refuse. On one
side is the end of all this conflict, to be my wife, to have what you
want--bought by the rich return from my thousands of acres. And I love
you, Linda. You know that."
The man spoke the truth. His terrible, dark love was all over him--in
his glowing eyes, in his drawn, deeply-lined face.
"In time, when you come around to my way of thinking, you'll love me. If
you refuse--this last time--I've got to take other ways. On that side is
defeat for you--as sure as day. The time is almost up when the title to
those lands is secure. Bruce is in our hands--"