The days passed swiftly and pleasantly for them—too pleasantly, Dick
Farley told himself with something of bitterness. For what right had he
to live from day to day in this quiet haven, lured out of himself, out
of his black lonesomeness for his partner with that partner not a week
dead?
It was true that his bruised side must have kept him in a forced
inactivity, that he must have waited even as he was waiting. But he
should have spent day and night with his thoughts of “squaring things
for poor old Johnny,” not in wandering through the woods with a girl.
He told himself, as he lay unsleeping in the quiet night, that he should
go; that he should go now that he could drag himself away from her; that
he had no right to stay longer. Yet, where should he go? To pick up the
trail which he had followed to the margin of the lake, and to follow
it—where?
Would it bring him, after miles of winding, back to the cabin perched
upon the tableland? Would he find at the end of that trail James Dalton,
her father? Where was Dalton now? Why had he gone away so suddenly? Why
had he said to her the other day, the day before Johnny was killed, that
at last they could go back into the world which so long ago he had left
behind him? Had he killed Johnny Watson? If not he, who then?
If Dalton had killed Watson, then Farley must kill Dalton. There was no
other way; there could be no other way. He must kill the father of the
girl who had brought him here and cared for him, who had saved him from
dying alone and miserable—must kill her “dear old Daddy,” whom she loved
so much, who had always been so good to her, who was all that she had in
the world.
And to stay here made matters worse. To linger on in the home of the man
whom, perhaps, he was to kill; to listen to the ingenuous, happy voice
of the daughter; to grow to see how wonderful a thing Nature had built
of this child of the wildwood; to feel that day by day they were being
drawn closer together, that they were crossing a frontier which in a
little they could not retrace——
“If her father is the man who did it, have I the right to take her
father from her?” he muttered. And again, “Has the man who killed Johnny
Watson a right to live?”
So those five days were short days, fleeing so swiftly for man and maid,
filled with sunshine and the girl’s soft laughter and the vague promise
of life. And the nights were long nights for the man; crowded with ugly
images, torn with doubts, beset with threats of the future, thronged
with questions to which he could find no answer. Now there was nothing
to do but to wait.
But there was no waiting, no staying, into the path into which their
feet were wandering, Dick Farley’s and Virginia Dalton’s. It was the
old, old story of a man and a maid. And with the first great throb of
understanding in the man’s heart there came, too, a contraction and a
pain, and he tore himself abruptly from the girl’s presence and went to
stand frowning toward the mountains into which Dalton had gone. And her
eyes, following him, were filled with a tender light which was new to
them, her lips parted in a half-smile, her breast rising and falling
rapidly. For into her heart, too, had come the throb, but not the pain
of the knowledge he had.
It was the sixth day. They had been together so much; had talked of self
and of the other so frankly; had been so lost to the world and drawn
close to each other in the solitude of the still mountains; had come to
find a new peace and contentment as they were silent together watching
the coming of the dawn, the passing of the day, the slow voyages of the
moon through clouds and stars; had been so all-sufficient each to each
that the short five days seemed like long, bursting years when they
looked back upon them. It was only natural that the thing which was
happening with them should happen.
Now, upon the morning of the sixth day, the day which was to bring
Dalton home, their talk had died down suddenly. Farley had fallen into
an abrupt silence, his eyes refusing to come back to hers. And in a
little the girl’s mood followed his, and with a faint trouble in her
eyes she moved about the cabin, as silent as he. The forenoon passed;
they lunched, with now and then a fitful burst of conversation which
ended wretchedly, forced and unnatural, and the afternoon wore on. It
was nearly dusk when James Dalton came home.
He was a very big man, tall, heavy, broad of shoulder, and very dark;
with sharp black eyes under bushy brows, black hair and beard shot with
gray. He came upon them from the lake, walking swiftly, his rifle caught
up under his arm. The girl was sitting upon the doorstep, Farley upon a
rock a few feet away. Dalton’s eyes went quickly from the young man to
his daughter, very keen, with a glint of surprise in them.
“Daddy!” the girl cried, running to meet him, throwing her two arms
about his neck. “So you have finally got tired of roving and have come
back, have you?”
He ran an arm about her, and then, with no reply to her bantering,
demanded quietly—
“Who is that?”
Farley was on his feet now, missing nothing that the big man said, no
gesture he made.
“My name is Farley,” he returned for himself. “A miner. I came into this
country prospecting. Had a bad fall, and your daughter took care of me.”
“Prospecting?” Dalton laughed unpleasantly. “Don’t you know, young man,
that this country, every foot of it, has been gone over and over during
the last twenty years, and nothing ever found? Prospecting!” He strode
by Farley towards the cabin, muttering, “So they come right under our
nose and prospect!”
* * * * *
As he went, Farley’s eager eyes saw the hunting-knife which swung
unscabbarded from his belt—a knife more than usually broad-bladed; and
his heart sank. Little as he liked the looks of this man, he had prayed
that he prove to be innocent of Johnny Watson’s blood. At the door
Dalton stopped and swung about, looking steadily, deep into Farley’s
eyes.
“When did you get here?” he asked shortly. “How long have you been
here?”
“I came five days ago—the day you left.”
“Where did you come from?”
“From the coast. Then from Three Sisters and the Yellow Queen country,
where I’ve been prospecting.”
“What brought you in here? Don’t you know that this country has been
combed over a hundred times—that there is nothing here?”
“I believed,” Farley retorted quietly, “that there was gold in these
mountains. Since my fall I have not had a chance to get about. So I
haven’t learned yet that there isn’t.”
Virginia Dalton had stepped a little from her father’s side, and now
stood with troubled face looking from one man to the other. There was an
atmosphere of distrust, almost of open hostility, and she could not
understand.
Dalton turned slowly from Farley to the girl. As he moved the iron
rigidity left his face, the cold glint passed from his eyes. It was
wonderful how the man’s whole expression softened.
“Come here, Virginia,” he said gently. “I want to talk with you a
little. Mr. Farley,” with grave courtesy, “will pardon us?”
Farley bowed. Dalton, with his arm about his daughter, entered the
cabin, closing the door behind them, leaving the younger man alone with
his doubts, his suspicions, his fears. Their voices came to him,
confused, indistinct. He supposed that the father was asking all about
this intruder in their quiet Eden; whence he had come, what she knew of
him and his purposes.
Finally the door opened and Dalton stood on the threshold looking
steadily out at Farley.
“I trust that you will overlook my rather scant courtesy in greeting a
guest, Mr. Farley.” The tone was open, frank, pleasant. “I am afraid
that living a sort of exile in the wilderness so many years has made me
forget the social usages. Will you come in for a pipe? We can talk
things over.”
“I think,” Farley replied, his eyes running past the broad form so
nearly filling the doorway to the form of the slender girl standing
within the room, “that I have already allowed myself to become a
nuisance.
“Miss Dalton has been very kind to me. But for her, I imagine, I should
never have come so easily out of my accident. Now I am able to be about
again, and I think that I’ll take up the thing which brought me here. I
have some work to do. But—” the two men’s eyes meeting again, each
studying the other—“I shall see you again before I leave the valley for
good. And”—with slow significance—“I shall tell you all about what
brought me here before I go next time.”
He lifted his hat to the girl, said a brief word of thanks and of
good-by, and limped away toward the lake. And his heart was very bitter
as he went, and there was little hope in him.