LURKING BEASTS
The moment that he had helped haul the climber to safety Gowan had
ridden away with the horses to the camp. He now came jogging back with
the tent and all else that they had not been carrying with them in
their skirting of the canyon edge. He unloaded the packs and hastened
to pitch the tent.
As he was finishing, Isobel called to him sharply. "What are you doing
there, Kid? That can wait. Come here."
"Yes, Miss Chuckie," he replied with ready obedience. But when he came
down the slope to the little group, his mouth was like a thin gash
across his lean jaws. He stared coldly at Ashton between narrowed
lids. "Want me to help tote him up by the fire?" he asked.
"No!" she replied. "It is Tom! He is down there--his leg broken--and
no food! You must go down to him."
"Go down?" queried the puncher. "What good would that do? I couldn't
help him with that climb. He weighs a good two hundred."
"You can take food down to him and let him know that help is coming.
You must!"
Gowan looked sullenly at the unconscious man. "Sorry, Miss Chuckie.
It's no go. I ain't a mountain sheep."
"But _he_ came up!"
"That's different. It's a sight easier going up cliffs than climbing
down. No, you'll have to excuse me, Miss Chuckie."
The girl flamed with indignant anger. "You coward! You saw him come
up, after all that time down in those fearful depths--after fighting
his way all those miles along the terrible river--yet you dare not go
down! You coward! you quitter!"
The puncher's face turned a sickly yellow, and he seemed to shrink in
on himself. His voice sank to a husky whisper: "You can say that, Miss
Chuckie! Any man say it, he'd be dead before now. If you want to know,
I've got a mighty good reason for not wanting to go down. It ain't
that I'm afraid. You can bank on that. It's something else. I'll go
quick enough--but it's got to be on one condition. You've got to
promise to marry me."
"_Marry you?_"
"Yes. You know how I've felt towards you all these years. Promise to
marry me, and I'll go to hell and back for you. I'll do anything for
you. I'll save him!"
"You cur! You'd force me to bargain myself to you!" she cried, fairly
beside herself with righteous fury. "I thought you a man! You cur--you
cowardly cur!"
Gowan turned from her and walked rapidly away along the canyon edge,
his head hunched between his shoulders, his hands downstretched at his
thighs, the fingers crooked convulsively.
"Oh!" gasped Genevieve. "You've driven him away! Call him back! We
need him! He must go for help!"
The words shocked the girl out of her rash anger. Her flushed face
whitened with fear. "Kid!" she screamed. "Come back, Kid! You must go
to the ranch--bring the men!"
The cry of appeal should have brought him back to her on the run. It
pierced high above the booming reverberations of the canyon. Yet he
paid no heed. He neither halted nor paused nor even looked back. If
anything, he hurried away faster than before.
"Kid! dear Kid! forgive me! Come back and help us!" shrieked the
girl.
He kept on down along the canyon rim, his chin sunk on his breast, his
downstretched hands bent like claws. She ran a little way after him;
only to flutter back again, wringing her hands, distracted. "What
shall we do? what shall we do?"
"Be quiet, dear--be quiet!" urged Genevieve. "You've driven him away.
We must do the best we can. You must go yourself. I can stay and
watch--"
"No, no!" cried Isobel. "The way he looked at Lafe!--I dare not go! He
may come back--and I not here!"
She knelt to place her trembling hand on Ashton's forehead.
Genevieve looked at the setting sun. "There is no time to lose," she
said. "Saddle my horse while I nurse Baby. I cannot take him with me
down the mountain, in the dark."
"Genevieve! You dare go--at night?"
"Someone must bring help, else Tom--all alone down in that dreadful
chasm--!"
"But you may lose the way! I will go!"
"No, no, you must stay, Belle. I saw his eyes. He may come back. I
could not protect Lafayette, but you--There is no other way. I must
leave Baby, and go."
Wondering at the courage of the young mother, Isobel ran to saddle the
oldest of the picketed horses. He was the slowest of them all, but he
was surefooted and steady and very wise. When she brought him down the
ridge, Genevieve placed the newly fed baby in her arms and went with
the glasses to peer down the sheer precipices. There in the blackness
so far beneath her the glowing fire illuminated an outstretched form.
It was her husband, lying flat on his back and gazing up at the
heights. Almost she could fancy that he saw her as she saw him.
But she did not linger. Time was too precious. She dropped him a kiss,
and ran to spring upon the waiting pony. She did not pause even to
kiss the big-eyed baby. The thirsty pony needed no urging to start at
a lively jog up the slope of the first ridge. As he topped the crest
and broke into a lope the sun dipped below the western edge of High
Mesa. A few seconds later horse and rider disappeared from Isobel's
anxious gaze down the far side of the ridge.
"Old Buck knows the trail," murmured the girl. "He knows he is headed
for the waterhole. Yet if--if he _should_ lose the trail!"
A spasm of fear sent her hand to the pistol hilt under the fold of her
skirt and twisted her head about. She glared along the canyon rim.
Gowan was still striding away from her. She watched him fixedly, her
hand clutched fast on the hilt of her pistol, until he disappeared
around a mass of rocks.
The whinnying of the horses after their companion at last drew her
attention. They had not been watered since the previous evening.
Cuddling close the frightened baby, the girl fetched a basin and one
of the water cans, to sponge out the dusty nostrils of the animals and
give each two or three swallows.
Then, when she had soothed the fretful child to sleep, she laid him in
a snug nest of blankets between a rock and a fallen tree, and went to
watch beside Ashton. He lay as she had left him, in a stupor of sleep
and exhaustion.
Gradually the twilight faded. Stars began to twinkle in the cloudless
sky. She watched and waited while the dusk deepened. When she could
barely see objects a few yards away, she stooped over the unconscious
man and, putting out all her supple young strength, half dragged, half
carried him up the slope to a hiding place that she had chosen, in
under an overhanging ledge. There she spread pine needles and blankets
on the soft mold and lifted him upon them, so that nothing hard should
press against his wounds.
The fire had burned low. It was a full hundred yards away from the
hiding place. She went to replenish it and take a hasty look down at
that outstretched form in the depths. But soon she stole back to the
sleeping man under the rock, going, as she had come, by a roundabout
way in the darkness.
Night settled down close and dense over the plateau. The girl crouched
beside the sleeper, her eyes peering out into the blackness, the drawn
pistol ready in her hand. She could see only a few feet in the dim
starlight. But her ears, accustomed to the dull monotone of the
booming canyon, heard every sound--the click of the horses' hoofs, even
the munching of the nearest one, the hoot of the owls that flitted
overhead, the distant yelps and wails of coyotes.
An hour passed, two hours--a third. She crept around to replenish the
fire. When she returned she heard the baby fretting. Swiftly she
groped her way to him and carried him to the hiding place, to quiet
his outcry. He sucked in a little of the beaten egg and cream that she
had ready for Ashton. It satisfied his hunger, and he fell asleep,
clasped against her soft warm bosom. She crouched down with him in her
lap, her right hand again clasped on the pistol hilt, ready for the
expected attack.
She waited as before, silent, motionless, every sense alert. Another
hour dragged by, and another. Midnight passed. Suddenly, on the ridge
slope above her, one of the horses snorted and plunged. She raised the
pistol. The horse became quiet. But something came gliding around the
rocks, a low form vaguely outlined in the darkness. It might have been
a creeping man. It turned towards the hiding place. The girl found
herself looking into a pair of glaring eyes. She thrust out the
pistol, with her forefinger pointing along the barrel. The darkness
was too deep for her to aim by the sights.
Before she could press the trigger, the beast bounded away, with a
snarl far deeper, far more ferocious than any coyote could have
uttered. The girl did not fire. The wolf had seen the glint of her
pistol barrel and had fled. He would not return. But she shuddered and
drew the sleeping baby close as she thought of what might have
happened had she left him alone in the nest between the rock and the
tree.
The precious, helpless child! He was of her own blood, the son of her
strong, splendid brother ... of her brother, lying down there in those
awful depths, helpless--in agony!...