"The better to see you by, my dear!" was Quinnion's word of greeting.
Judith made no answer. She drew a little farther back into the
shadows, a little closer to the things she had hidden among the
fir-branches.
"Ho," sneered Quinnion, his mood from the first plain enough to read in
the glimpses of his face and in the added harshness of his voice.
"Timid little fawn, huh? By God, a man would say from the bluff you
put up that it was all a dream about findin' you an' the han'some Lee
in the cabin together! Stan' off all you damn please; I've come to
tame you, you little beauty of the big innocent eyes!"
Not drunk; no, Quinnion was never drunk. But, as he came a step
closer, the heavy air of the cave grew heavier with the whiskey he
carried, whiskey enough to stimulate the evil within him, not to quench
it.
"Stand back!" cried Judith, with a sharp intake of breath. "I want to
talk with you, Chris Quinnion."
"So you know who I am, do you? Well, much good it'll do you."
"I know who you are and what you are," she told him defiantly, suddenly
sick of her long hours of playing baby, knowing at the moment less fear
than hatred and loathing. "Listen to me: Bayne Trevors has come out in
the open at last; he has made his big play and is going to lose out on
it. Your one chance now is to let me go and to go yourself. Go fast
and far, Chris Quinnion. For when the law knows the sort Bayne Trevors
is and how you have worked hand and glove with him, it will know just
how much his word was worth when he swore you were with him when father
was killed! Coward and cur and murderer!"
Quinnion laughed at her.
"Little pussy-cat," he jeered. "You've got claws, have you? And you
spit and growl, do you? Want me to let you go back to that swaggering
lover of yours, do you? Back to Lee----"
"That's enough, Quinnion," she said sharply.
"Is it?" He laughed at her again, and again came on toward her, the
red-rimmed evil of his eyes driving quick fear at last into her.
"Enough? Why, curse you and curse him, I haven't begun yet! When I'm
through with you I'll go fast enough. And he can have you then an'
damn welcome to him!"
"Stop!" cried Judith.
His laughter did not reach her ears now, but as he kicked the fire at
his foot and the flames leaped up and showed his face, she read the
laughter in his soul; read it through the gleaming eyes, the twisted
mouth which showed the teeth at one side in a horrible leer. His long
arms thrust out before him, he came on.
"Oh, my God!" cried Judith. "My God!"
Then suddenly she was silent. She thought that she had known the
uttermost of fear and now for the first time did she fully know what
terror was. His strength was many times her strength, his brutality
was unbounded, she was alone with him. There was no one to call to,
not even Ruth, the mad woman.
She was shaking now, shaking so that she could barely stand. Quinnion
came on, his long arms out. . . .
She felt the strength die out of her body, grew for a moment blind and
dizzy and sick. She tried again to call out to him, to plead with him.
But her voice stuck in her throat.
He was gloating over her, a look strangely like Mad Ruth's in his eyes.
Good God! He was like Mad Ruth; the same eyes, the same long, powerful
arms, the same look of cunning! In a flash there came to her a
suspicion which was near certainty: this man was blood of Mad Ruth's
blood, bone of her bone; her son, and, like her, tainted with madness.
He shot out a long arm, his hand barely brushing her shoulder. She
shrank back. He stood, content to pause a moment, to gloat further
over her.
"You little beauty," he said, panting. "You little white and pink and
brown beauty!"
Judith had shuddered when he touched her. But a strange thing had
happened to her. His touch had angered her so that she almost forgot
to be afraid, angered her so that the loathing was gone in white hot
hatred, giving her back her old strength.
Now, though he had the brutal force of a strong man, Quinnion did not
have the swiftness of movement of an alert, desperate girl. Before he
could grasp her motive she leaped toward him and toward the bed of
boughs, found the ragged stone, and lifting it high above her head
flung it full into his face. The man staggered back, crying out in
throaty harshness, a cry of blind rage. But he did not fall, did not
pause more than a brief instant.
A little dazed, with blood in his eyes, he lunged toward her. She had
found the club now and struck with all her might, again beating into
his face and again and again. He sought to grapple with her and she
beat him back. She saw his hand go to his hip and heard him curse her,
and she leaped in on him and, panting with the blow, struck again. He
flung up his arm. She struck once more. Taking the blow full across
the face, Quinnion reeled back, stumbled at an uneven spot in the rock
floor, balanced, almost falling. . . .
Only a moment he held thus. But there was a chance to pass him in the
narrow way, and she took her chance, her heart beating wildly. And as
she shot by she struck again.
She heard him after her, shouting curses, stumbling a little, coming
on. The door was open, thank God, the door was open! She shot
through. If she could but take time to close it! But there was no
time for that; he was almost at her heels. And outside was the ledge
and the dizzy climb down.
If she slipped, if she fell, well, it would just be a clean death and
nothing more. Quinnion was but a few steps behind her. He had not
fired. Had he perhaps dropped his gun back there in the darkness? Or
was he so sure of taking her, alive and struggling, into his arms in
another moment?
She was on the ledge. It was dark, pitch-dark.
But she found a handhold, threw herself flat down and thrust her feet
out over the edge, less afraid of what lay below than what came on
behind her. She was gripping the ledge now with her hands, already
torn and bleeding, her feet swinging, touching sheer rock wall,
slipping, seeking a foothold. Quinnion was just there, above her. She
must move her hands so that he could not reach her. It seemed an
eternity that she hung there, seeking a place somewhere to set her feet.
She found it, another, lesser ledge which she had almost missed, and
knew that this way she had clambered upward with Bayne Trevors. If she
could only find another step and another before Quinnion came upon her!
She held her club in her teeth; she must not let that go.
Quinnion was over the ledge, following her. She heard his heavy
breathing, heard him cursing her again. She was going so slowly, so
slowly, and Quinnion would know the way better than she. Quinnion
would make better time in the dark.
She moved along this lower ledge. At each instant she wondered if it
were to be her last, if she were going to fall, if a swift drop through
the darkness would be the end of life.
Suddenly there was scarce room in the girl's breast for hatred of Chris
Quinnion, so filled was it with the love of life. She wanted to see
the sun come up again, she wanted the sweet breath of the dawn in her
nostrils, the beauty of a sun-lit world in her eyes. She thought of
Bud Lee.
Clinging to the rocks, hanging on desperately, taking a score of
desperate chances momentarily, she made her way on and down. She found
scant handhold and, almost falling, dropped her club, heard it strike,
strike again. Black as the night was, its gloom was less than that of
the cavern to which Judith had grown accustomed; little by little she
began to make out the broken surface of the cliffs. The chasm below
was a pool of ink; above were the little stars; in the eastern sky, low
down, was a promise of the rising moon.
The surge of quickening hope came into her heart. Had she hurt
Quinnion more than she had guessed? For, slowly as she made her
hazardous way down, it seemed to her that Quinnion came even more
slowly. Could she but once get down into the gorge below, could she
slip along the course of the racing stream, she might run and the sound
of her steps would be lost even to her own ears in the sound of the
water; the sight of her flying body would be lost to Quinnion's eyes.
Then she heard him laughing above her. Laughing, with a snarl and a
curse in his laugh, and something of malicious triumph. Was he so
certain of her then?
"Ruth!" called Quinnion. "Oh, Ruth! The girl's gettin' away. Goin'
down the rocks. Head her off at the bottom."
Judith had found, because her fate was good to her, the long slanting
crack in the wall of rock up which she had come that day with Bayne
Trevors. There was still danger of a fall, but the danger was less now
than it had been ten seconds ago. She could move more swiftly now and
confidence had begun to com to her that she could elude Quinnion. But
now, suddenly, she heard Mad Ruth's voice screaming a shrill answer to
Quinnion's shout; knew that Ruth had been in her cabin across the gorge
and was running to intercept her at the foot of the cliffs.
Well, still there was a race to be run and the odds not entirely
uneven. Ruth must descend the other side of the cañon, get down into
the gorge, make the crossing, which, so far as Judith knew, might be
farther up or farther down stream, come to the cliffs below Judith
before Judith herself made her way down.
Again Judith took what risks the night and the rocks offered her and
thanked God in her soul that it was given her to take a chance in the
open, to use her own muscles in her own fight, not to lie longer,
playing the part of a do-nothing. Now and then, across the void, there
floated to her a little moaning cry from the mad woman's lips. Now and
then she heard a curse from Quinnion above; often from above her, from
below her own feet, from across the chasm, dropping stones, falling
almost sheer, told of haste and death which might come from an unlucky
step.
Fast as Judith went now, having a fair sort of cliff trail under her,
Mad Ruth went faster. The gorge measured a scant fifty feet between
them and the girl's alert senses told her that already Ruth was on a
level with her. Ruth was winning in the desperate race. She knew her
way down so perfectly, her heart was so filled with madness, that
danger was nothing to her.
Down and down climbed Judith, caution wedded to haste, as she told
herself that she had a chance yet, that that chance must not be tossed
away in a fall, though it were but a few feet. She must have no
sprained ankle if she meant to see the sun rise to-morrow.
The flush had brightened in the sky where the moon was so near the
ridge. The moon, too, had joined in the race; with one quick glance
toward it, Judith again discarded caution for haste. She must get down
into the floor of the cañon before the moonlight did; she must be
running before its radiance showed her out to Quinnion and Ruth.
Her hands were cut and bleeding, her heart was beating wildly, already
her body was sore and bruised. But these things she did not know. She
only knew that Quinnion was still coming on above her, and coming more
swiftly now, quite as swiftly as she herself moved, since his feet,
too, were in the better trail; that Mad Ruth had completed the descent
across the chasm and by now must be crossing the stream upon some
fallen log or rude bridge; that one minute more, or perhaps two, would
decide her fate.
She could see the stream, glinting palely in the starlight. It seemed
very near; its thunder filled her ears. Down she went and down, down
until at last she was not ten feet above its surface, with a strip of
gently sloping bank just under her. She stooped, took firm hold upon a
knob of boulder, prepared to swing down and drop to the bottom. And,
as she stooped, she heard a little whining moan just under her and
straightened up, tense and terrified. Mad Ruth was there before her.
Mad Ruth was waiting.