They followed the trail down into the cañon. As the ponies slowly picked
their footing on the steep narrow path, he asked:
“Why do they call it Mantrap Gulch?”
“It got its name before my time in the days when outlaws hid here. A
hunted man came to Lost Cañon, a murderer wanted by the law for more
crimes than one. He was well treated by the settlers. They gave him
shelter and work. He was safe, and he knew it. But he tried to make his
peace with the law outside by breaking the law of the valley. He
knew that two men were lying hid in a pocket gulch, opening from the
valley--men who were wanted for train robbery. He wrote to the company
offering to betray these men if they would pay him the reward and see
that he was not punished for his crimes.
“It seems he was suspected. His letter was opened, and the exits from
the valley were both guarded. Knowing he was discovered, he tried to
slip out by the river way. He failed, sneaked through the settlement at
night, and slipped into the cañon here. At this end of it he found armed
men on guard. He ran back and found the entrance closed. He was in a
trap. He tried to climb one of the walls. Do you see that point where
the rock juts out?”
“About five hundred feet up? Yes.”
“He managed to climb that high. Nobody ever knows how he did it, but
when morning broke there he was, like a fly on a wall. His hunters came
and saw him. I suppose he could hear them laughing as their voices came
echoing up to him. They shot above him, below him, on either side of
him. He knew they were playing with him, and that they would finish him
when they got ready. He must have been half crazy with fear. Anyhow, he
lost his hold and fell. He was dead before they reached him. From that
day this has been called Mantrap Gulch.”
The ranger looked up at the frowning walls which shut out the sunlight.
His imagination pictured the drama--the hunted man's wild flight up the
gulch; his dreadful discovery that it was closed; his desperate attempt
to climb by moonlight the impossible cliff, and the tragedy that
overtook him.
The girl spoke again softly, almost as if she were in the presence of
that far-off Nemesis. “I suppose he deserved it. It's an awful thing to
be a traitor; to sell the people who have befriended you. We can't put
ourselves in his place and know why he did it. All we can say is that
we're glad--glad that we have never known men who do such things. Do you
think people always felt a sort of shrinking when they were near him, or
did he seem just like other men?”
Glancing at the man who rode beside her, she cried out at the stricken
look on his face. “It's your heart again. You're worn out with
anxiety and privations. I should have remembered and come slower,” she
reproached herself.
“I'm all right--now. It passes in a moment,” he said hoarsely.
But she had already slipped from the saddle and was at his bridle rein.
“No--no. You must get down. We have plenty of time. We'll rest here till
you are better.”
There was nothing for it but to obey. He dismounted, feeling himself a
humbug and a scoundrel. He sat down on a mossy rock, his back against
another, while she trailed the reins and joined him.
“You are better now, aren't you?” she asked, as she seated herself on an
adjacent bowlder.
Gruffly he answered: “I'm all right.”
She thought she understood. Men do not like to be coddled. She began to
talk cheerfully of the first thing that came into her head. He made the
necessary monosyllabic responses when her speech put it up to him, but
she saw that his mind was brooding over something else. Once she saw his
gaze go up to the point on the cliff reached by the fugitive.
But it was not until they were again in the saddle that he spoke.
“Yes, he got what was coming to him. He had no right to complain.”
“That's what my father says. I don't deny the justice of it, but
whenever I think of it, I feel sorry for him.”
“Why?”
Despite the quietness of the monosyllable, she divined an eager interest
back of his question.
“He must have suffered so. He wasn't a brave man, they say. And he was
one against many. They didn't hunt him. They just closed the trap and
let him wear himself out trying to get through. Think of that awful week
of hunger and exposure in the hills before the end!”
“It must have been pretty bad, especially if he wasn't a game man. But
he had no legitimate kick coming. He took his chance and lost. It was up
to him to pay.”
“His name was David Burke. When he was a little boy I suppose his mother
used to call him Davy. He wasn't bad then; just a little boy to be
cuddled and petted. Perhaps he was married. Perhaps he had a sweetheart
waiting for him outside, and praying for him. And they snuffed his life
out as if he had been a rattlesnake.”
“Because he was a miscreant and it was best he shouldn't live. Yes, they
did right. I would have helped do it in their place.”
“My father did,” she sighed.
They did not speak again until they had passed from between the chill
walls to the warm sunshine of the valley beyond. Among the rocks above
the trail, she glimpsed some early anemones blossoming bravely.
She drew up with a little cry of pleasure. “They're the first I have
seen. I must have them.”
Fraser swung from the saddle, but he was not quick enough. She reached
them before he did, and after they had gathered them she insisted upon
sitting down again.
He had his suspicions, and voiced them. “I believe you got me off just
to make me sit down.”
She laughed with deep delight. “I didn't, but since we are here we
shall.” And she ended debate by sitting down tailor-fashion, and
beginning to arrange her little bouquet.
A meadow lark, troubadour of spring, trilled joyously somewhere in the
pines above. The man looked up, then down at the vivid creature busy
with her flowers at his feet. There was kinship between the two. She,
too, was athrob with the joy note of spring.
“You're to sit down,” she ordered, without looking up from the sheaf of
anemone blossoms she was arranging.
He sank down beside her, aware vaguely of something new and poignant in
his life.