HUNTED TO THE VERGE.
On the morning of the day after Edith Van Payne had made her escape
from War Hawk, the purlieus of Crooked Cañon were enlivened with a
rather more than ordinary number of denizens. Not only Edith and Blaze
coming through it, and Winkle and Pompey on the west side, but on the
east bank were camped Endicott and his followers. As may be supposed,
Endicott himself, though a fair shot and possessed of considerable
experience, was not as yet a finished ranger. Any deficiencies in this
respect were fully supplied by the attainments of Lariat Dan, the pilot
of the party, and his able assistants, Mike Motler and Grizzly Dave. As
these men were honest, as times go, they were hardly to be considered
trustworthy, and therefore were not admitted into Captain Endicott's
confidence. This troubled him very little. He intended to make blind
tools of them so long as it was possible. When he could do that no
longer--why, they had roughed it on the border long enough to have the
gilding pretty well knocked off of the corners of their honesty; and
he had but little doubt of being able, if need came, to bend them to
his wishes.
In place of Endicott and his followers, perhaps we should say Endicott
and his follower. He and Eben Rothven were, at the present time, by
themselves, though the other three were almost if not quite within
supporting distance. The two, this morning, were holding a council
of war. They were ready enough to cast themselves into a desperate
adventure, provided they could see, with reasonable clearness, the
probable result. Just now, as the future appeared somewhat beclouded,
they thought it best to consider a bit. While Dave and his two
lieutenants were risking their scalps in Straight Cañon, Endicott and
Rothven were discussing whether it was likely to prove a profitable
business to venture their own in the same direction.
Rothven of course was opposed to the venture. Perhaps in the beginning,
seeing Edith Van Payne carried off before his very face, some little
enthusiasm had been kindled in his heart. He was not all bad, and
there were some traces of chivalry in his composition. However, this
enthusiasm had time to die out; and, having other plans of his own,
there is but very little doubt that he would have been very willing to
leave the captive to her fate.
In the way of this a difficulty had arisen. Even had Endicott been in
a frame of mind to listen to reason, something seemed to tell him that
there might be some trouble in calling the other men off the pursuit.
They were very good specimens of border ruffians; but, having once been
laid on the trail, their blood got up. Not being of the calculating,
scheming class, it even amused Endicott to see from day to day how
earnest they grew.
The two men walked away from their camp in the heat of their
discussion. They forgot their prudence. If there had been a hostile
red-skin near, he might have stalked up and shot them both.
A little time having elapsed, as might be expected they got to be
cooler, and both having yielded a little, they talked in a more guarded
manner. Perhaps it was well for them they did so. Perhaps, on the
contrary, it would have been better if they had given some clear and
unmistakable manifestation of their presence.
Having become more reasonable, and having expressed their opinions to
each other, they separated. At least Endicott remained standing while
Rothven went back a few paces.
Standing by himself, with his rifle by his side, and looking into the
cañon before him, Endicott was revolving many thoughts in his mind;
yet was not so abstracted as to fail to note the conformation of the
ground in front of him. The banks of Crooked Cañon, generally almost
perpendicular, were here practicable. He did not think it would be
much trouble for one to descend into the ravine, or for one to come
up. There was a ledge running down in a regular inclined plane of what
seemed to be a rather gradual slope. In reality, this slope was more
practicable than it looked. Having noticed this natural roadway, he
caught himself wondering why it was there; whether it was ever used;
and, if so, by whom and for what purpose. As he wondered he endeavored
to cast his glance up the cañon. Then he heard a noise in that
direction. What a strange coincidence it was that he should be there!
He saw as in a picture part of that which we have detailed in the last
chapter.
Then came before him the woman whose abduction had drawn him into this
mountain fastness. He saw, as she went streaming by, Harry Winkle start
out from among the shrubbery and trees beneath and opposite to him to
make a frantic grasp at her rein; he saw, too, the unsuccessfulness of
the attempt, with Miss Van Payne's horse sweeping on, leaving Winkle
standing right before him.
A throb of hate and mad passion quivered through him from crown to
heel. Hate, passion, fear! In the twinkling of an eye his rifle was at
his shoulder; one glance along its brown tube and the finger on the
trigger did its work. When Charles Endicott and Harry Winkle at last
stood face to face, Endicott fired the first shot.
Something within seemed to tell him that shot was going home just as
he meant it to go; so that, when Winkle threw up his hands and pitched
forward upon his face, he was not at all surprised. A stumbling-block
and a cause of fear were out of his path. Martin had warned him of this
man, and, acting on that warning, he thought he had put him beyond
mischief and the power of working it.
He had no time for reflection though. Winkle might lie there a prey for
the vultures and coyotes, since Edith Van Payne had passed.
Like lightning his thoughts drove through his brain. Could she gain the
mastery over her frantic steed in time to prevent his plunging into
certain death? That was the query. Could he aid her? That came next. He
knew if she kept straight on it would be certain death. One last long
and sharp curve and she came to the end where her choice of ways was a
broken, rugged, rocky descent that lay upon one side, the entrance to
it almost undiscoverable, and a sheer precipice.
This he thought as he ran.
As the reader has seen, he was a man of both thought and deed, and very
often the deed came first; so he was rushing on his errand before some
men would have gotten over the first flush of surprise at the woman's
appearance. What he had to do was to stop her; _then_ it would be time
enough to query how she escaped.
Rothven heard the report of the rifle; when he looked around he saw his
comrade dashing past him at full speed. He did not know whether or no
there was danger, and Endicott vouchsafed him no explanation. When he
had waited in terrible suspense for a few moments, he crept cautiously
to the spot where he had left his co-conspirator standing, and peering
anxiously around him, at length saw Bill Blaze coming down the cañon.
The spirit of darkness, who, they say, loves his own, must have loaned
Endicott wings, and guided his footsteps, too, perhaps. Through brake
and brush he dashed, and over rocks and down declivities; and when
Edith at last was able, just at the very line of deadly danger, to
draw rein, and, quivering and breathless, slip from her saddle, there
appeared at her side, as if by magic, with a hand on her bridle-rein
and a mocking sneer on his lips, the face and form of the last man she
desired to see--Charles Endicott.
Breathless as he was, it took some little time for him to be in
speaking condition, and while he was recovering his breath she was
recovering her consciousness and courage. The very moment she saw him
she argued illy from his presence. To be sure, Bill Blaze was in the
vicinity; but she could scarcely give a guess at how near, and when she
last caught sight of him he had such a work before him that it might
well finish him. The corpse of more than one hunter has lain side by
side with the body of a dead grizzly.
"Well, friend Edith, we have met again, as I prophesied we would, and I
think that now you are fated to hear my story to the end. I have ridden
fast and far for a chance to tell my tale, and I doubt if you will be
so cruel as not to hear what I would say to you."
She looked at him with a glance of superb scorn.
"Not as fast or as far as I have ridden," she said. "But if you were
not in the same field as the fox during the race, I suppose you
think you are at least in at the death. Perhaps you are. You might,
perchance, claim my dead body--it is certain you shall never have lot
or parcel of my living soul."
"Oh, how brave we are! It reminds me of the grand old times when we
were both heroes. You think you hate me, do you? Perhaps you do. I
know I have done you deadly wrong; but that wrong I am most anxious to
right. Your judgment is clear beyond that of average mortals, and I but
ask you to exercise it in this case. I am sure that you will, if you
treat me fairly, acknowledge that, in all that past, on which you now
profess to scorn to look, I acted in a manly, noble way, and as best I
could for your best interests. Won't you give me that credit?"
"You! _you!_ Give credit to _you_! Why, you abominable, loathsome spawn
of the slum and the prison--it was not the way that I was injured,
but the _thing_ that injured me! When I think of _that_, I quiver and
glow white from crown to toe. Is it a wonder that I went wild when I
realized it? Leave me, leave me before I die of rage!"
She flamed up like a mad tigress. Her eyes flashed on him with a
baleful light, and her white, regular teeth shut with an angry click.
Only a weapon at hand and she would have shot him dead; only strength,
and she would have torn him limb from limb.
And he? He stood and looked her in the eyes without flinching. Only his
face was deathly white for a moment, and then there rose a something in
his throat that seemed to be choking him as he smothered his anger.
"You want it to be without the gloves, do you? So be it. Here! See
here! These hands of mine are tender enough for a backwoodsman, are
they not? Yet see where they are half-eaten off at the wrists. Ha! ha!
you don't see it--why, they are dropping off from the burning touch of
the cursed gyves. Right round there is where they clung. No mark there?
Well, there ought to be, for I've worn the fetters. Yes, there's the
hand of a jail-bird with the prison smutch on it; and he offers it to
you. You don't accept, do you?"
She shrunk away from him with a gesture of horror, yet her eyes were
fixed upon his face as though by fascination, while he continued:
"Did you never hear of a martyr to justice? Do you know nothing of the
cry, 'Hang _some one_ to quiet the public nerves?' Do you know how a
name can be murdered, and that, for such a murder, there can be no
retributive justice? I loved you once, and I love you now; you loved me
once, and you shall love me again. The ex-convict is at your feet; but
he woos you in the teeth of danger; he does not forget that. There is
little time to be lost in idle play. We have had all the romance years
ago; we come now to the stern reality."
She burst out: "I did not love you then, I will not love you now. I
have passed beyond the regions of romance, and learned what I would
that I had known then. You can not drive me and you dare not kill me."
"Dare I not? Kill! kill! Do you think no killing has even been done?
Didn't you hear the ring of my rifle but a moment ago? Force rules the
world--and _here_ I am power! Along Back Load Trace there were weapons
ready to come at your call, but here the tables are turned. Within
beck are three sturdy ruffians and--a _preacher_. Not a namby-pamby,
white-neckerchiefed nothing, but a man of nerve that can be relied on;
yet his handiwork will last in spite of pride or prejudice. Strange to
find a blacksmith here--but reserve to the winds!--you shall have a
chance to test his workmanship, and see how you like his welding."
As he stepped forward she shrunk back with a hunted look in her eyes.
At bay at last! His words fell like the stroke of a knife. And to her
there was a terrible suggestiveness in them. At whom had his rifle been
aimed a moment ago? She did not doubt him--she feared him. And the fear
of her fear was overpowering. Still, she sought to keep a solid front.
She would fight gamely to the last.
"Hands off me, sir; you have shown your hand too soon. I am to be
wooed, perhaps, but cold as you find me, I like not your love-making.
Satan himself would look like an angel of light by your side."
"We are growing nice," he said, with a mocking sneer. "A woman who
lives by herself with the angelic trappers of Back Load Trace may well
know in what guise the angel of darkness is likely to come. Mine you
are, and as mine I claim you."
The moral strength of Edith Van Payne gave way, and left behind a
horrible terror. She saw no way of escape but one, and, with a sudden
spring, she sought to fling herself upon the animal that had borne her
so gallantly from her captors the night before. She sought to do this,
but was unsuccessful. A bound, and Endicott was by her side, and had
caught her round the waist with a grasp of iron.
"Ho, there, Eben!" he shouted, and she heard footsteps beyond, in the
direction in which he had pointed. With a mad fury she caught Endicott
by the throat; she writhed from his grasp; she struck him with her
clenched hand. Then as, despising her blows as though they were but
strokes of a feather, he dashed at her, she gave one wild, piercing and
despairing shriek, and, with the rapidity of light, leaped from the
brink of the precipice.
And as she leaped the report of three rifles echoed her scream.