When Day Dawned
Upon the flat top of Red Dirt Hill, Howard and Helen drove their
stakes. Thereafter they made a little fire in the shelter of a tumble
of boulders and camped throughout the night under the blazing desert
stars. Were they right? Were they wrong? They did not know. In the
darkness they could make out little of the face of the earth about
them. Alan thought himself certain of one thing: that only near here
could it be likely that Longstreet should have broken off fragments of
stone with so plain a marking of red dirt on them. Helen merely knew
that her father had more than once climbed up here, though she had
laughed at him for seeking gold upon the exalted heights. To know
anything beyond this meagre and unsatisfying data, they must await the
dawn.
The hours passed and Sanchia Murray did not come. Before now, they
estimated, she could have hurried here even though she came on foot;
before now, had she thought of it and had the patience, she might have
found Longstreet's horse. Yet she did not come. The fact made their
uncertainty the greater. They had ample opportunity to ask themselves
a hundred times if they had done the foolish thing in racing off here.
Should they have held by Sanchia?
Toward morning it grew chill and they came closer together over their
little brush fire. They spoke in lowered voices, and not always of
Helen's father and of his gold. At times they spoke of themselves.
To-morrow Helen might be mistress of a bonanza; to-morrow she might be,
as she was to-night, a girl but briefly removed from pennilessness. As
the stars waxed and began at last to wane and the sky brightened, as
the still thin air grew colder at the first promises of another day,
they discussed the matter quietly. And it seemed that this was not the
only consideration in the world, nor yet even the chiefest. But----
'I can't come to you like a beggar-girl,' she whispered.
'If I lost everything I had--and I could not lose everything since I
would go on loving you--would that make any difference, Helen?'
She hesitated. 'You know,' she said quietly at last.
So, when the pallid sky gave way to the rosy tints of the new day, they
knew everything, being richly wise in the wisdom of youth. Even it was
granted them to see the red earth about them and to know that Alan's
surmise had led them aright. Just yonder in a little hollow to which
the shadows clung longest, were the marks left by Longstreet's pick;
there was a tiny pit in which he had toiled exposing a vein of rock
from which he had chipped his samples; near the spot his location stake
and notice. Promptly they removed their own stakes, taking claims on
both sides of his.
'We were right!' called Alan triumphantly. 'But how about Sanchia? He
told her and-----'
'Look!' Helen caught his arm and pointed.
Upon a neighbouring hill, by air-line not over half a mile from their
own, but almost twice that distance by the trail one must follow down
and up the rugged slopes, were two figures. Clearly limned against the
sky, they were like black outlines against a pink curtain.
'That is Sanchia!' Helen was positive. 'There is a man with her.
It---- Do you think----'
He did not know why she should think what he knew she did think; what
he himself was thinking. It was altogether too far to distinguish one
man from another. It might even be Longstreet himself. But he knew
that she feared it was Jim Courtot, to whom naturally Sanchia would
turn at a moment like this; and never from the first did he doubt that
it was Courtot.
'It's some one of Sanchia's crowd,' he said with high assumption of
carelessness. 'But here is what I can't understand! Your father told
Sanchia; she has raced off and staked; and as sure as fate, they are on
the wrong hill! Sanchia wouldn't make a blunder like that!'
Helen was frowning meditatively. She understood what Howard had in
mind, and she, too, was perplexed.
'Do you know,' she cried suddenly, 'I think we have failed to do papa
justice!'
'What do you mean?'
'He never said outright that he had told her; he merely let us think
that he had. He never once said positively that he had faith in
Sanchia; he just said, over and over, that one accused should be given
a chance to prove his innocence! Now, supposing that he had led
Sanchia to think that his mine was over yonder on that other hill? He
would be risking nothing; and at the same time he would be giving her
that chance. No,' and it was a very thoughtful Helen who spoke, 'I
don't know that we have ever done dear old pops justice.'
They stood, silent, watching the growing day and the two motionless
figures upon the other hill. Those figures, as the day brightened,
began to move about; plainly they were searching quite as Alan and
Helen had searched just now. They were making assurance doubly sure,
or seeking to do so. They disappeared briefly. Again they stood, side
by side, in relief against the sky.
'That is Jim Courtot, I know it.' Helen's hands were tight-pressed
against her breast in which a sudden tumult was stirring. All of
yesterday's premonition swept back over her. 'You two will meet this
time. And then----'
'Listen, Helen. I no longer want to meet Jim Courtot. I would be
content to let him pass by me and go on his own way now. But if he
does come this way, if at last we must meet---- Well, my dear,' he
sought to make his smile utterly reassuring, 'I have met Jim Courtot
before.'
But her sudden fear, after the way of fear when there is an unfounded
dread at the bottom of it, gripped her as it had never done before; she
felt a terrified certainty that if the two men met it would be Alan who
died. She began to tremble.
Far down in the hollow lying between Red Dirt Hill and the eminence
whereon stood Sanchia and Courtot, they saw a man riding. He came into
a clearing; had they not from the beginning suspected who it must be
they would have known Longstreet from that distance, from his
characteristic carriage in the saddle. No man ever rode like James
Edward Longstreet. And Courtot and Sanchia had seen him.
He jogged along placidly. They could fancy him smiling contentedly.
Helen and Howard watched him; he was coming toward them. They glanced
swiftly across the ravine; there the two figures stood close together,
evidently conversing earnestly. The sun was not yet up. Longstreet
rode into a thickness of shadow and disappeared. In five minutes he
came into sight again. Courtot and Sanchia had not stirred. But now,
as though galvanized, they moved. Courtot leaped from his boulder and
began hurrying down into the cañon, seeking to come up with the man on
the horse. Sanchia followed. Even at the distance, however, she
seemed slack-footed, like one who, having played out the game, knows
that it is defeat.
'Papa is coming this way!--Jim Courtot is following him--in ten minutes
more----'
She did not finish. Howard put his arms about her and felt her body
shaking.
'You do love me,' he whispered.
She jerked away from him. A new look was in her eyes.
'Alan Howard,' she said steadily, 'I love you. With my whole heart and
soul! But our love can never come to anything unless you love me just
exactly as I love you!'
'Don't you know----'
'You do not know what it has meant to me, your shooting those two men
in papa's quarrel. But they lived and I have tried to forget it all.
If they had died, then what?' Her eyes widened. 'If you and Courtot
meet, what will happen? If he kills you, there is an end. If--if you
kill him, there is an end! Call it what you please, if it is not
murder, it is a man killing a man. And it is horrible!'
Mystified, he stared at her.
'What can I do?' he muttered. 'You would not have me run from him,
Helen? You do not want me to turn coward like that?'
'If you kill him,' she told him, her face dead-white, 'I will never
marry you. I will go away to-morrow. If you would promise me not to
shoot him, I would marry you this minute.'
He looked down into the ravine trail. Longstreet was appreciably
nearer. So was Courtot. Behind Sanchia lagged spiritlessly, seeming
of a mind to stop and turn back. He looked at Helen; she had had no
sleep, she was unstrung, nervous, distraught. He gnawed at his lip and
looked again toward Courtot.
'If you love me!' pleaded Helen wildly.
'I love you,' he said grimly. 'That is all that counts.'
He waited until she looked away from him. Then silently he drew his
gun from its holster; the thing was madness, but just now there was no
sanity in the universe. He could not run; he must not kill Courtot.
He dropped the gun behind him and with the heel of his boot thrust it
away from him so that it fell into a fissure in the rock. He turned
again to watch Courtot coming on.
The eerie light of uncertainty which is neither day nor night lay
across the hills. It was utterly silent. Then, the rattle of stones
below; horse and rider were so close that they could see Longstreet's
upturned face. Courtot was close behind him; Courtot looked up and
they could see his face.
'You must go, now,' whispered Helen. 'You have promised me.'
'I am keeping my promise,' he said sternly. 'But I am not going to run
from him. You would hate me for being a coward, Helen.'
She looked at him, puzzled. Then she saw that the holster at his hip
was empty.
'Oh,' cried Helen wildly, 'not that! You must kill him, Alan. I was
mad with fear. I----'
Stopping the flow of her words there swept over her the paralyzing
certainty that it was useless to batter against fate; that a man's
destiny was not to be thrust aside by a woman's love. For out of the
silence there burst a sound which to her quivering nerves was fraught
with word of death; that sound which in countless human hearts presages
a death before the dawn--the long, lugubrious howling of a dog. It
seemed to her to burst out of the nothingness of the sky, to arise in
the void of an unseen ghostly world where spirit voices foretold the
onrush of destruction.
Jim Courtot was hurrying up the slope. They saw him stop dead in his
tracks. He, too, seemed turned to stone by the sound. It came again,
the terrible howling of a dog, nearer as though the creature sped
across the hills on the wings of the quickening morning wind. Sanchia
stopped and began to draw back. Longstreet came on unconcernedly.
A third time, and again nearer, came the strange baying. Courtot held
where he was, balancing briefly. Then they heard him cry out, his
voice strange and hoarse; he whirled about and began to run. He was
going down the trail now, running as a man runs only from his death,
stumbling, cursing, rising and plunging on.
'Look!' Howard's fingers had locked upon Helen's arm. 'It is Kish
Taka!'
She looked. Behind them, outlined against the sky, were a strange
pair. A great beast, head down, howling as it ran, that was bigger
than a desert wolf, and close behind it, gaunt body doubled, speeding
like an arrow, a naked man. They flashed across the open space and
sped down the steep slope of the ravine where, in the shadows, they
became mere ghost figures.
'It is Kish Taka!' said Howard a second time. 'And again Kish Taka has
saved my life.'
Dazed, the girl did not yet understand. She shivered and drew close to
her lover, stepping into his arms. He held her tight, and they turned
their fascinated eyes below. The speed of Jim Courtot in the grip of
his terror was great; but it looked like lingering leisure compared to
the speed of Kish Taka and his great hungering dog. And, now, behind
Kish Taka came a second dog, like the first; and behind it a second
man, like Kish Taka.
If Jim Courtot remembered his revolver, it must have been to know that
not long would that stand between him and the two rushing, slavering
beasts and the two avenging Indians behind him. His one hope was his
hidden cave with its small orifice and concealed exit. And Jim Courtot
must have realized how small was his chance of coming to it.
They saw him plunge on. The light slowly increased. They saw how the
dogs and men gained upon him. They lost sight of all down in the
ravine among the shadows. They saw Courtot again, still in the lead
but losing ground. They lost sight of him again. They heard a wild
scream, a gun fired, the howl of a dog. Another scream, tortured and
terrified. Then, in the passes of the hills, it was as still as death.
Longstreet, alone, had not seen all of this; the dogs had swept on, but
to him, deep in his own thoughts, they were but dogs barking as dogs
have a way of doing. Sanchia sat in a crumpled heap, her face in her
hands. Longstreet's face was smiling when he came to where his
daughter stood with her lover's arms tight about her.
'I gave that woman her chance, and she was not innocent,' he announced
equably. 'I wanted to make sure, but I had my doubts of her, my dear.
Do you know,' he went on brightly, as though he were but now making a
fresh discovery of tremendous importance to the world, 'I am inclined
to believe that she is entirely untrustworthy! I first began to
suspect her when she appeared to be in love with me!' He came closer
and patted Helen's hand; his kindly eyes, passing over the stakes of
his claim, were gentle as he peered reminiscently across the dead
departed years. 'Why, no woman ever did that except your mother, my
dear!'
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London