In the depth of gloom even the wild folk--usually keeping so close a
watch on those that move on the shadowed trails--did not see Linda and
Bruce ride past. The darkness is usually their time of dominance, but
to-night most of them had yielded to the storm and the snow. They
hovered in their coverts. What movement there was among them was mostly
toward the foothills; for the message had gone forth over the wilderness
that the cold had come to stay. The little gnawing folk, emerging for
another night's work at filling their larders with food, crept down into
the scarcely less impenetrable darkness of their underground burrows.
Even the bears, whose furry coats were impervious to any ordinary cold,
felt the beginnings of the cold-trance creeping over them. They were
remembering the security and warmth of their last winter's dens, and
they began to long for them again.
The horse walked slowly, head close to the ground. The girl made no
effort to guide him. The lightning had all but ceased; and in an instant
it had become apparent that only by trusting to the animal's instinct
could the trail be kept at all; almost at once all sense of direction
was lost to them. The snow and the darkness obscured the outline of the
ridges against the sky; the trail was wholly invisible beneath them.
After the first hundred yards, they had no way of knowing that the horse
was actually on the trail. While animals in the light of day cannot see
nearly so far or interpret nearly so clearly as human beings, they
usually seem to make their way much better at night. Many a frontiersman
has been saved from death by realization of this fact; and, bewildered
by the ridges, has permitted his dog to lead him into camp. But nature
has never devised a creature that can see in the utter darkness, and the
gloom that enfolded them now seemed simply unfathomable. Bruce found it
increasingly hard to believe that the horse's eyes could make out any
kind of dim pathway in the pine needles. The feeling grew on him and on
Linda as well that they were lost and aimlessly wandering in the storm.
Of all the sensations that the wilderness can afford, there are few more
dreadful to the spirit than this. It is never pleasant to lose one's
bearings,--and in the night and the cold and miles from any friendly
habitation it is particularly hard to bear. Bruce felt the age-old
menace of the wilderness as never before. It always seemed to be
crouching, waiting to take a man at a disadvantage; and like the gods
that first make mad those whom they would destroy, it doesn't quite play
fair. He understood now certain wilderness tragedies of which he had
heard: how tenderfeet--lost among the ridges--had broken into a wild run
that had ended nowhere except in exhaustion and death.
Bruce himself felt a wild desire to lash his horse into a gallop, but
he forced it back with all his powers of will. His calmer, saner self
explained that folly with entire clearness. It would mean panic for the
horse, and then a quick and certain death either at the foot of a
precipice or from a blow from a low-hanging limb. The horse seemed to be
feeling its way, rather than seeing.
They were strange, lonely figures in the darkness; and for a long time
they rode almost in silence. Then Bruce felt the girl's breath as she
whispered.
"Bruce," she said. "Let's be brave and look this matter in the face. Do
you think we've got a chance?"
He rode a long time before he answered. He groped desperately for a word
that might bring her cheer, but it was hard to find. The cold seemed to
deepen about them, the remorseless snow beat into his face.
"Linda," he replied, "it is one of the mercies of this world for men
always to think that they've got a chance. Maybe it's only a cruelty in
our case."
"I think I ought to tell you something else. I haven't the least way of
knowing whether we are on the right trail."
"I knew that long ago. Whether we are on any trail at all."
"I've just been thinking. I don't know how many forks it has. We might
have already got on a wrong one. Perhaps the horse is turned about and
is heading back home--toward Simon's stables."
She spoke dully, and he thrust his arm back to her. "Linda, try to be
brave," he urged. "We can only take a chance."
The horse plodded a few more steps. "Brave! To think that it is _you_
that has to encourage _me_--instead of my trying to keep up your
spirits. I will try to be brave, Bruce. And if we don't live through the
night, my last remembrance will be of your bravery--how you, injured and
weak from loss of blood, still remembered to give a cheery word to me."
"I'm not badly injured," he told her gently. "And there are certain
things that have come clear to me lately. One of them is that except for
you--throwing your own precious body between--I wouldn't be here at
all."
The feeling that they had lost the trail grew upon them. More than once
the stirrup struck the bark of a tree and often the thickets gave way
beneath them. Once they halted to adjust the blankets on the saddle, and
they listened for any sounds that might indicate that Simon was
overtaking them. But all they heard was the soft rustle of the leaves
under the wind-blown snow.
"Linda," he asked suddenly. "Does it seem to you to be awfully cold?"
She waited a long time before she spoke. This was not the hour to make
quick answers. On any decision might rest their success or failure.
"I believe I can stand it--awhile longer," she answered at last.
"But I don't think we'd better try to. It's getting cold. Every hour
it's colder, and I seem to be getting weaker. It isn't a real wound,
Linda--but it seems to have knocked some of my vitality out of me, and
I'm dreadfully in need of rest. I think we'd better try to make a camp."
"And go on by morning light?"
"Yes."
"But Simon might overtake us then."
"We must stay out of sight of the trail. But somehow--I can't help but
hope he won't try to follow us on such a night as this."
He drew up the horse, and they sat in the beat of the snow. "Don't make
any mistake about that, Bruce," she told him. "Remember, that unless he
overtakes us before we come into the protection of the courts, his whole
fight is lost. It doesn't alone mean loss of the estate--for which he
would risk his life just as he has a dozen times. It means defeat--a
thing that would come hard to Simon. Besides, he's got a fire within him
that will keep him warm."
"You mean--hatred?"
"Hatred. Nothing else."
"But in spite of it we must make camp. We'll get off the trail--if we're
still on it--and try to slip through to-morrow. You see what's going to
happen if we keep on going this way?"
"I know that I feel a queer dread--and hopelessness--"
"And that dread and hopelessness are just as much danger signals as the
sound of Simon's horse behind us. It means that the cold and the snow
and the fear are getting the better of us. Linda, it's a race with
death. Don't misunderstand me or disbelieve me. It isn't Simon alone
now. It's the cold and the snow and the fear. The thing to do is to make
camp, keep as warm as we can in our blankets, and push on in the
morning. It's two full days' ride, going fast, the best we can go--and
God knows what will happen before the end."
"Then turn off the trail, Bruce," the girl told him.
"I don't know that we're even on the trail."
"Turn off, anyway. As long as we stay together--it doesn't matter."
She spoke very quietly. Then he felt a strange thing. A warmth which
even that growing, terrible cold could not transcend swept over him. For
her arms had crept out under his arms and encircled his great breast,
then pressed with all her gentle strength.
No word of encouragement, no cheery expression of hope could have meant
so much. Not defeat, not even the long darkness of death itself could
appall him now. All that he had given and suffered and endured, all the
mighty effort that he had made had in an instant been shown in its true
light, a thing worth while, a sacrifice atoned for and redeemed.
They headed off into the thickets, blindly, letting the horse choose the
way. They felt him turn to avoid some object in his path--evidently a
fallen tree--and they mounted a slight ridge or rise. Then they felt the
wet touch of fir branches against their cheeks.
Bruce stopped the horse and both dismounted. Both of them knew that
under the drooping limbs of the tree they would find, at least until the
snows deepened, comparative shelter from the storm. Here, rolled in
their blankets, they might pass the remainder of the night hours.
Bruce tied the horse, and the girl unrolled the blankets. But she did
not lay them together to make a rude bed,--and the dictates of
conventionality had nothing whatever to do with it. If one jot more
warmth could have been achieved by it, these two would have lain side by
side through the night hours between the same blankets. She knew,
however, that more warmth could be achieved if each of them took a
blanket and rolled up in it; thus they would get two thicknesses instead
of one and no openings to admit the freezing air. When this was done
they lay side by side, economizing the last atom of warmth.
The night hours were dreary and long. The rain beat into the limbs above
them, and sometimes it sifted through. At the first gray of dawn Bruce
opened his eyes.
His dreams had been troubled and strange, but the reality to which he
wakened gave him no sense of relief. The first knowledge that he had was
that the snow had continued to sift down throughout the night, that it
had already laid a white mantle over the wilderness, and the whirling
flakes still cut off all view of the familiar landmarks by which he
might get his bearings.
He had this knowledge before he was actually cognizant of the cold. And
then its first realization came to him in a strange heaviness and
dullness in his body, and an almost irresistible desire to sleep.
He fought a little battle, lying there under the snow-covered limbs of
the fir tree. Because it was one in which no blows were exchanged, no
shots fired, and no muscles called into action, it was no less a battle,
trying and stern. It was a fight waged in his own spirit, and it seemed
to rend him in twain.
The whole issue was clear in his mind at once. The cold had deepened in
these hours of dawn, and he was slowly, steadily freezing to death. Even
now the blood flowed less swiftly in his veins. Death itself, in the
moment, had lost all horror for him; rather it was a thing of peace, of
ease. All he had to do was to lie still. Just close his eyes,--and soft
shadows would drop over him.
They would drop over Linda too. She lay still beside him; perhaps they
had already fallen. The war he had waged so long and so relentlessly
would end in blissful calm. Outside there was only snow and cold and
wracking limbs and pain, only further conflict with tireless enemies,
only struggle to tear his agonized body to pieces; and the bitterness of
defeat in the end. He saw his chances plain as he lay beneath that gray
sky. Even now, perhaps, Simon was upon them. Only two little rifle
shells remained with which to combat him, and he doubted that his
wounded arm would hold the rifle steady. There were weary, innumerable
miles between them and any shelter, and only the terrible, trackless
forest lay between.
Why not lie still and let the curtains fall? This was an easy, tranquil
passing, and heaven alone knew what dreadful mode of egress would be his
if he rose to battle further. All the argument seemed on one side.
But high and bright above all this burned the indomitable flame of his
spirit. Even as the thoughts came to him it mounted higher, it propelled
its essence of strength through his veins, it brought new steel to his
muscles. To rise, to fight, to struggle on! Never to yield until the
Power above decreed! To stand firm, even as the pines themselves. The
dominant greatness that Linda had found in this man rose in him, and he
set his muscles like iron.
He struggled to rise. He shook off the mists of the frost in his brain.
He seemed to come to life. Quickly he knelt by Linda and shook her
shoulders in his hands. She opened her eyes.
"Get up, Linda," he said gently. "We have to go on."
She started to object, but a message in his eyes kept her from it. His
own spirit went into her. He helped her to her feet.
"Help me roll the blankets," he commanded, "and take out enough food for
breakfast. We can't stop to eat it here. I think we're in sight of the
main trail; whether we can find it--in the snow--I don't know." She
understood; usually the absence of vegetation on a well-worn trail makes
a shallow covering of snow appear more level and smooth and thus
possible to follow.
"I'm afraid the snow's already too deep," he continued, "but we can go
on in a general direction for a while at least--unless the snow gets
worse so I can't even guess the position of the sun. We must get farther
into the thickets before we stop to eat."
They were strange figures in the snow flurries as they went to work to
roll the blankets into a compact bundle. The food she had taken from
their stores for breakfast he thrust into the pocket of his coat; the
rest, with the blankets, she tied swiftly on the horse. They unfastened
the animal and for a moment she stood holding the reins while Bruce
crept back on the hillside to look for the trail.
The snow swept round them, and they felt the lowering menace of the
cold. And at that instant those dread spirits that rule the wilderness,
jealous then and jealous still of the intrusion of man, dealt them a
final, deadly blow.
Its weapon was just a sound--a loud crash in a distant thicket--and a
pungent message on the wind that their human senses were too blunt to
receive. Bruce saw the full dreadfulness of the blow and was powerless
to save. The horse suddenly snorted loudly, then reared up. He saw as in
a tragic, dream the girl struggle to hold him; he saw her pulled down
into the snow and the rein jerked from her hand. Then the animal
plunged, wheeled, and raced at top speed away into the snow flurries.
Some Terror that as yet they could not name had broken their control of
him and in an instant taken from them this one last hope of safety.