When Carson left the cabin he followed the winding trail that led to
the valley below. The road to Saguache showed the hoofprints of a
prospector's outfit, and the marks of a sleigh leading to Del Norte.
The glare of the sun on the reflected snow was blinding and he drew
his hat down over his eyes. He was thinking of his worthless life
since leaving college. Once he had builded lofty hopes of future
doings in the world, but he had allowed himself to drift; his ship of
fate had gone wherever the strongest tide wind carried. He saw now
that he might have marked out some honorable career and piloted his
course toward it. Others of his class in college were in a fair way to
make their mark in the world. Why was it not so with him? It was born
in him, as it had been in his father, to choose the wild life of the
frontier in preference to holding the presidency of a bank in Atlanta.
He felt that the world in its wildest freedom was his for his
pleasure. The cords of restraint which society demanded were to him
the fetters of a tyrant ruler, and so, as Sampson broke the green
withes which bound him, Carson broke the laws of society--nay
civilization, and married a squaw according to the ceremony of her
people. He repented the act to some extent, and then cast his cares
aside, with the comforting knowledge that the world was too busy a
place for people to give themselves much concern over his affairs.
Long ago he realized that if he threw himself into the swirl of
humanity and allowed himself to become a part of its motives and its
emotions, that it would require a herculean effort to attain a
position where he could look over the heads of other men. That
position, he argued, was not worth the life-long effort required.
Withal, he could not bring himself to quite understand why he had
married Mary Greenwater, unless that she possessed some occult power
and gained control over forces of his nature which he did not
understand. True, there was but little or no obligation to the
ceremony. It held good in the Cherokee Indian nation, that government
within a government. Outside that limited space of ground it was null
and void. He was a free man under the laws of his own government. Yet
that act, of his own creation, somehow seemed to stand over him like a
Frankenstein with an uplifted axe.
The snow was deep, and as he plodded along with these thoughts running
through his mind, he heard a cry. Glancing backwards he saw a horse
drawing a sleigh, plunging madly down the road. The reins were held by
a woman, frantically urging the horse forward. Some distance behind
four huge mountain lions were in hot pursuit, their heavy bodies
crouching and springing forward many feet at a leap. Carson took in
the situation at a glance and, raising his hand as a signal to the
girl in the sleigh to rein in, he sprang into the vehicle as she
passed. The momentary pause had given the beasts a chance to gain,
when, drawing his revolver, he fired at the foremost and sent it
rolling in the snow. Another shot and a second lion paused with a
mighty roar. At this the other two turned and fled in the opposite
direction.
Carson now took the reins and stopped the horse. The animal was
trembling with fright, while the girl was calm but pale.
"Rather a close shave, eh, Sis?"
"Truly," she replied, "how fortunate you were here. I was driving
to Del Norte when I met the lions. They were gamboling in the
snow like kittens. When I turned Bess, they pursued. I want the
one you have just killed, I want to have him mounted to remember
today,--and--and--you."
"By all means, Miss, you shall have it, but where are you going now?"
"Back to Saguache after this fright. Poor Old Bess could not have
stood the race much farther. See how she trembles. I am the niece of
Mr. Amos. My name is Annie Amos. I have friends in Del Norte, whom I
intended to visit. I shall wait now until I have an escort."
"Ah--my name is Carson--Jack Carson. I was going to Saguache to see
Mr. Amos, the assayer, to have him test a jug handle,--er, that is, to
have the jug handle test him. I don't mean that; I mean our mine is
named the Jug Handle, I will get it right after awhile, and I want him
to make a test of the ore."
"Confound it," he thought as he turned the horse, "I haven't the sense
of a jackrabbit to make a break like that."
One of the lions lay pawing the snow in its death struggle and as
Carson came near, it reared itself as if to make one last leap. Its
eyes gleamed in savage yellow, foam fell in flecks from its mouth,
while a tiny stream of crimson stained the snow. Carson's weapon spit
fire and the creature rolled over motionless. He dragged the carcass
to the end of the sleigh and, lifting it upon the edge of the box,
made it fast.
"If you are going to Saguache to see my uncle, I fear you will be
disappointed as he left this morning for an absence of several days."
"That does not matter as I have other business anyway. Most any time
will do, as I am in town quite often. We would better not drive so
fast. Your horse is in a foam."
Carson was fast becoming interested in the girl at his side. Her calm
poise, after the exciting adventures with the mountain lions,
surprised him. Other women would have been hysterical, but here by his
side sat a girl not yet out of her teens, as calm and collected as a
veteran soldier after the battle. And Amos, the man he was going to
see and intended to kill if he proved to be the villain he suspected
him to be, was her uncle.
The white billows rose rank on rank on the distant mountains, while
the snow of the valley shrunk visibly away, leaving the grey rocks
naked and protuberant.
The newly-made acquaintances chatted gaily as the horse jogged along.
"I was thinking of your remark awhile ago," said Carson, "that you
would go to Del Norte tomorrow if you had an escort, and as I have
some time to idle away it would give me pleasure to drive you over."
"It would give me equal pleasure to have you do so," she replied with
admirable frankness, "that is, if you are going there anyway."
"I may need to purchase some new implements with which to work the
Aberdeen--I mean the Jug Handle mine," he explained. "I have heard of
a new drill they are working over there and it may be just the thing
for the formation we are now in."
"I see," said the girl, as a mischievous smile flitted about her lips,
"and I am very glad you will accompany me. I shall make you acquainted
with some of my very dear friends."
Carson was forgetting his millions in the mine and letting his mind
wander to the expected joys of entertaining and being entertained by
people of real worth once more. He felt returning pride, and then the
thought of the Frankenstein with the uplifted axe made him groan
inwardly. But pshaw! she did not know--never would know, and what
people do not know will not hurt them, he reasoned.
He felt an increasing admiration for the girl beside him. They were
alone in the wide expanse of valley and had known each other only an
hour, yet this girl was willing to trust to his honor and manhood. And
be it said for Carson, as it may be said for thousands of other men on
the American frontier, he would have yielded his life rather than
betray that sacred trust. Instances like this are common in the West.
As they drove down the main street of Saguache, the passers looked
curiously at the pair in the sleigh and at the dead lion strapped
behind. When they stopped in front of the postoffice, a crowd gathered
around the sleigh. A supple figure edged through the crowd and
addressed the girl:
"Kill it all by yourself, Annie?"
The familiarity with which he spoke nettled the girl, and she turned
her head without answering. The supple figure felt the rebuff and all
the more because others noticed it. He stood his ground, however,
until Carson returned and when he saw his face he quickly drew out of
sight.
"Tomorrow at seven," said Carson, as he bade her good-bye at her
house.
Carson went to his hotel with a lighter heart than he had had for
months. He lit a cigar and sat by the window, then felt for something
in his pocket, and threw it in the wood-box. "There are other jug
handles," he said to himself.
He walked the streets aimlessly until supper. He retired early and
tried to sleep, but his thoughts ran wild on the events of the day. He
could think of no one except Annie. It was still early in the night,
when he arose from a restless bed and went out on the streets. Lights
blazed from the Lone Tree saloon, and as he entered he saw a crowd
about the faro table. The sudden exclamations of many voices told
that some one was winning heavily. He pressed forward through the
crowd and saw the form of a woman. When she partially turned her face,
he felt his heart give a great throb, and he fled into the street.
The remainder of the night he walked through the crunching snow, while
the silent stars seemed to gaze with tearful eyes upon him in this,
the greatest misery he had ever known. He walked several miles out of
town to avoid meeting anyone he knew and then presented himself at the
Amos residence.
"I believe it is seven o'clock, Miss Annie," he said, when she
answered his call.
"Yes, and I am ready," was the cheerful answer.