He nodded. "Leastways I heard he was. Last night----"

Gloria did not wait for more. She turned and ran back to the building

she had quitted only a moment ago, bursting into the front room,

demanding earnestly and in words that came with a rush:

"Is my father here? Is he hurt?"

"Your father? Hurt----Say, you ain't Ben Gaynor's daughter, are you?"

"Yes, yes. And papa----"

"They had a doctor over from Placerville last night. He's coming back

again this morning some time."

"Take me to papa. Quick!" said Gloria imperiously. "You should have told

me the minute I came."

"But I didn't know----"

"Quick!" repeated Gloria.

He showed her to the room, only three doors beyond her own. He moved to

open the door but Gloria's hand was first to the knob; she opened and

went in, closing the door softly. She was trembling, frightened,

dreading, oppressed by fear of what might be. Though both windows were

open the shades were drawn, the light was dim. She made out a man's form

on the bed; there was a white bandage about his head. He stirred and

turned half over.

"Papa!" cried Gloria, her voice catching.

She ran to him and went down on her knees at his bedside, her two hands

finding his upon the coverlet, clasping them tight. He looked at her in

wonderment; Gloria misread the look in his eyes and for a terrible

moment thought that he was dying.

"Gloria!" he said in amazement. "Here----"

"Oh, papa!"

To Ben Gaynor this unannounced coming of his daughter partook of the

nature of an apparition and of a miracle. At first he would not believe

his senses, fearing that he had just gone off his head. Then it was that

the look in his eyes frightened her. But the hands gripping his were

flesh-and-blood hands, and, besides, Ben Gaynor was a very

matter-of-fact man, little given to prolonged fanciful ideas, even after

a night of pain and mental distress.

"By the Lord, we'll nail their hides to our barn door yet!" were his

first words of greeting. He hitched himself up against his pillows.

"What in the world happened?" Gloria asked after a sigh of relief.

"How you happened to be here gets me," said Gaynor. "It's like magic.

You didn't hear down in San Francisco that I was hurt, did you?"

"No. I--I just happened to be here. You see, papa----"

"That'll come later," he broke in. "You're here; that's all that counts.

You're going to do something for me."

Anything, thought Gloria. And she was glad that he did not seek just now

the explanation of her presence here; of course she would tell him

everything--later. But she was still confused--"Mrs. Gratton "! Did she,

down in the depths of her frivolous girl-heart, want to be that? Had she

glimpsed, when she so gaily left San Francisco last night, that this

escapade was something more than a mere "lark"?

"You are not dangerously hurt, papa?"

"Bless you, no! Not now, that you're here. Though I believe it would

have near killed me if I'd been put out of the running altogether. I got

a crack on the head that sickened me; but the tough old skull held out

against it. And I got an arm broken and a rib cracked----"

Gloria, aghast, was once more in fear for him. But he cried impatiently:

"Don't you worry about me. I'll be on my feet in a week. Now, listen:

I've got to talk fast before somebody comes in. The doctor is apt to be

here any minute, and he's a stiff-necked tyrant. You know the trail

through the mountains to our place; you rode it twice with King."

"Yes."

"I want you to ride it again to-day. You can get a horse at the stable.

Don't let any one know where you are going. I want you to take a message

to King. And it's got to get to him and into nobody's hands but his.

Understand that, Gloria?"

Gloria did not answer promptly; she wanted to demur. She was tired; she

was afraid of the mountains; she did not want to see Mark King. But she

saw a terrible earnestness in her father's eyes and that while he

awaited her answer quick fever spots glowed in his cheeks. She squeezed

his hands and replied:

"Of course, papa. I'll do whatever you want."

"God bless you for that," he muttered. "This is sober, serious

business, Gloria; you are the only one here I could trust. King will be

at the house; at least I hope he will. I sent him word several days ago

that--that something was in the wind, and to meet me there. And, Gloria,

I want you to promise, by all that's good and holy, that you won't let a

word or a sign or a hint slip to anybody else. Not to a soul on earth.

Will you, Gloria?"

"Yes." She looked at him curiously; she had never known her father to be

so tensely in earnest.

"Then," he said, "go turn the key in the lock. And hurry. Before any one

comes."

She locked the door and returned to him.

"Feel under my pillow. Got it?"

She felt the cold barrel of a revolver and started back; never had she

known her father to carry arms. Then, gingerly, she sought again. She

found a small parcel and drew it out. It was a flattish affair and

rectangular, the size and shape of an octavo volume--a flat box, if not

a book. It was wrapped in a bit of soiled cloth.

"Quick," he commanded nervously. "Out of sight with it. Stick it into

your blouse, if you can; tuck it away under your arm; it won't show so

much there."

Catching something of his suppressed excitement, she obeyed.

"I managed a little note to Mark," he said when she had buttoned the

loose shirt again and he had sunk back, white and exhausted, among his

pillows. "I stuck it inside the cloth. Lord, if I was only on my feet!

But you'll do it for me, my girl? With never a hint to any one?"

Gloria stooped and kissed him on the forehead.

"I promise, papa," she said assuringly.

"Unlock the door again, then. There's somebody coming. Sit down over

there, across the room. And leave as soon as you can. We'll let them

think you're going to the log house for--for----"

She was quicker at inventions.

"Doctor Rowell, our family physician, is at Lake Tahoe. I am going to

find him. We would telephone, but he is camped out----"

"Pretty late for camping. Oh, that'll do----"

Gloria sat in her chair across the room, looking innocently the part of

a daughter in a sick-room, when the door opened and the Placerville

doctor came in. A moment later she slipped out.

* * * * *

She went out into the sunshine. Down the road she saw Gratton. He came

quickly to meet her. She saw that he was eyeing her keenly, and her

thought was that he was wondering if by chance she had seen the hotel

register.

"I don't know just what to do," said Gratton. "My business is going to

hold me here longer than I had thought. I--I promised to go back with

you this afternoon. Would it be all right if I got a man to drive you

back? I am terribly sorry, Gloria, but----"

"Business is business!" She laughed a trifle nervously. Then her

inspiration: "I know! I can go to our mountain home; I'll phone mamma,

and she will come up. We'll spend a few days, and----"

For an instant his eyes fairly blazed; they were bright with triumph.

"Just the thing! I'll go for the horses. I'll ride over with you and get

right back here."

"But----"

But already, excusing himself hurriedly, Gratton was off for the horses.

_Chapter XII_

It was mid-afternoon when Gloria and Gratton came to the log house in

the woods. Jim Spalding, coming to take their horses away to the stable,

though a man of no wild flights of imagination and given to minding his

own business, was plainly curious.

"We rode on ahead, Jim," Gloria told him, and Jim detected no false

note in her gaiety. "Mamma is coming."

Spalding gave them a key and they went to the house. It was Gloria who

unlocked the door; Gratton, his white face looking more than ever

bloodless, saw her hand tremble. She hurried in, excused herself, and

ran upstairs. She knew that the time had come when she would have to

listen to what Gratton was going to say; she knew what the burden of his

plea would be--she knew everything, she thought wildly, except what her

answer would be.

She heard Gratton stirring restlessly downstairs. He walked up and down,

snapping his fingers incessantly, a habit which in the man bespoke

nervousness. He sat at the piano and the keys jangled under his touch;

he got up and walked again. He was waiting for her to come down; he was

shaping in mind the words which would greet her before she had come

fairly to the bottom of the stairs.

Gloria turned into her own room, locking the door behind her. She looked

at herself in her glass; she was pale, her eyes looked unnaturally big

and brilliant. She bit her lips and turned away. From her blouse she

brought out the parcel her father had entrusted to her, slipping it

under her mattress, smoothing the counterpane when she had done. Then,

with but one clear thought in the world, that of getting into immediate

touch with her mother, she went to the telephone.

On this floor, in a cosy little room opening upon the upstairs

sun-porch, was an extension telephone, installed for the convenience of

Gloria and her mother. Gloria went tiptoeing to it rather than go down

where Gratton was. She rang the necessary bell for the operator in

Truckee and put in her long-distance call in low tones which demanded a

repetition before the operator got it right. Then she sat with the

instrument in her hand, waiting. Once she heard Gratton's step close to

the stairs and jumped to her feet, thinking that he was coming up. But

he passed by and the house grew silent again.

She wondered when Mark King would come! This

afternoon--to-night--to-morrow? Spalding had said nothing; she had not

mentioned King to Spalding, since she had not mentioned him to Gratton

during the long ride----

Her telephone bell rang. After the irritating way of telephones, she was

put presently into communication with Mrs. Gaynor.

"Gloria! Gloria! Is that you?" Her mother's voice sounded strange in

Gloria's ears--shaken with emotion.

"Yes, mamma. I----"

"What has happened, child? Tell me, quick! I am nearly dead with worry.

Are you all right?"

"Of course, mamma. I----"

"But _where_ are you? Where were you all night? Are you sure everything

is all right?"

Never had Gloria known her extremely clear-headed mother to be so wildly

disturbed, so nervously incoherent.

"I have told you I am all right. I am up in the mountains, at our log

house. Didn't Mr. Gratton tell you----?"

"Mr. Gratton?" Mrs. Gaynor was only more mystified. "He has told me

nothing; I haven't seen him. I tried to phone him--oh, I have phoned

everybody we know!--and he is out of town, and----"

But Gloria, panic-stricken by something her mother had said, cried:

"You have phoned _everybody!_ Oh, mamma! What--_what_ do you mean?"

"When you didn't come in last night--I have been crazy with worry! I

thought you might be spending the night with one of your friends; I

thought that maybe something had happened and it was being kept from me.

I rang up Georgia Stark and Mildred Carter and the Farrilees--and even

the emergency hospitals. I thought----"

The rest was only a meaningless buzzing in Gloria's ears; she sat

speechless herself, bereft of all reason for a dull moment, then

harbouring quick, clear thoughts, as swift, as vivid as lightning, and

in the end as blinding by their very quality of blazing light. _The

newspapers!_

Still, dominated subconsciously by the thought which had brought her to

the telephone, Gloria managed before the connection was broken to beg

her mother to come immediately to her at the log house; to tell every

one that Gloria was with her father. Her mother promised; began asking

questions, and Gloria said a bleak "good-bye" and hung up.

_The newspapers_. She sat there staring into space and seeing the San

Francisco _Chronicle_ and _Examiner_, hawked by newsboys, on stands,

thrust under doors, going like spreading snowflakes of a big storm into

post-offices, to racing trains, all over the land. Her mother had

telephoned the emergency hospitals! Gloria could have wept in rage,

screamed, thrown herself down and given over to paroxysms of weeping.

But she only sat on, her face whiter and whiter, looking into emptiness

and seeing headlines that towered as high as immense black cliffs. Her

mother had telephoned Mildred Carter, that hateful, hateful,

thrice-hateful Mildred Carter; had confessed that Gloria had gone out

with Mr. Gratton; was gone all night, no one knew where; Mildred Carter

who was as good as married to Bob Dwight of the _Chronicle_! And the

emergency hospitals--Gloria with never a tear coming in her hour of

greatest distress sat rocking back and forth on her chair, crying: "Oh,

I wish I were dead!"

As one hears noises through a dream, long powerless to connect them

logically with familiar happenings, so now did Gloria absently hearken

to Gratton calling from the foot of the stairs. She jumped up only when

she heard him start to mount them. Then, galvanized, she sprang to her

feet, cried to him, "I'll be down in just a second," and ran to her

room. She stood again looking at herself in her glass.

"Gloria Gaynor," she heard her own pale lips say, "you have gotten

yourself into a nasty, nasty mess." The lips began to tremble; then,

with a great struggle for will-power, they steadied. "And," said Gloria

in a cold, harsh little voice, "it's up to you, and no one else, to get

out the best you can this time."

She bathed her face and hands; she rubbed her cheeks with a towel,

determined to bring some vestige of colour back; she took down her hair.

Only then, so distrait to-day was Gloria, did she think of changing from

her boyish suit into a house dress. Her eyes, which had harboured only

bewilderment and terror, now grew speculative. She brought from her

closet half a dozen dresses; chose a certain pink one without analysing

the reasons of her selection, found silk stockings and pumps, and

dressed from top to toe. She would have to have it out with Gratton, one

way or the other--she began to know which way it would be. But always a

girl should be at her best. Also, she decided, by the time that she was

becomingly gowned and her hair arranged tastefully, it was as well to

let Gratton wait for her a while; waiting always, to some extent,

brought to the one cooling his heels a sense of disadvantage. In short,

Gloria had gone through the most panicky of her moments and was getting

a grip on herself again. When, after Gratton had waited and fumed for

upward of an hour, she went downstairs she looked cool and pretty, and

quite unembarrassed. He flashed a look at her that was eloquent of

nervous excitement.

"I want to explain everything to you, Gloria----"

"It will take a good deal of explaining, won't it, Mr. Gratton?"

They went into the living-room and Gloria sat in a big chair while he

stood before her, his fingers tapping and tapping at his cigarette-case.

"You listened-in while I talked with mamma, didn't you?" she said

carelessly.

"No!" said Gratton, but so promptly that she knew he lied.

"Well?" she said indifferently. "Suppose we have the explanations now? I

am sure that they will prove interesting."

"I am afraid," he began, talking swiftly, "that I have been instrumental

in placing you in a false position. Last night I told you I had

telephoned to your mother. I did try; they reported the line out of

order. What could I do? I didn't want to alarm you. It was only a lark;

I meant innocently, you know that, don't you, Gloria?"

"Did you?" she said, and managed to keep her lips smiling.

"It is only since coming here that I have realized how things will look;

what people will think--and say, curse them. Our being out so long

together; my buying clothing for you----"

"Our being registered as Mr. and Mrs. Gratton----"

His eyes burned, his lips clamped tight.

"Forgive me, Gloria! It was the mad impulse of a moment. I thought as we

went in that it would look strange--a young, unmarried couple; that if I

put down man and wife no one would think anything at all. And we'd be

gone in a few hours; and probably you'd never go back there; and no one

would know who you were."

"I see." Gloria's tone, devoid of expression, gave no clue to her racing

thoughts. "You did that for my sake!"

"Yes," he said eagerly. "As I would do anything on earth for your sake.

You know that, Gloria; you know, and have known for a long

time--always--that I love you. I was going to ask you soon to--to marry

me, Gloria. And now, now you will marry me, won't you?"

"Yes." But Gloria did not say it aloud; not yet. She merely made it

perfectly clear to Miss Gloria Gaynor that she was going to marry

Gratton, and that there was to be no further question of it. And, oh,

God! at this fateful moment, how she hated him! How she loathed and

detested him! While a week ago--yesterday--she had wondered, dreamily,

if she were in love with him! But that was when he was in the city, at

home in his own wilderness. But now! She was in a trap. This man had

made it, cunningly using in his work all that he knew of Gloria Gaynor.

There was no way out, save through the gate of matrimony. And--in her

heart she laughed at him--through that other wider gate beyond, the

gate of divorce. She would accept his name; the name of Gratton stood

high in San Francisco. Then she would tell him how she loathed him; she

would laugh at him, for physically she had no fear of him. And he would

never have her for his own, despite all of his money and his position

and his hideous trickery. Gratton, with all of his shrewdness, had not

taken into consideration one thing: how in the city, on his native

heath, he attracted Gloria; how in the woods he impressed her, in his

unbecoming outdoor togs, as contemptible.

"You know how I love you," he was repeating. And he was sincere; she saw

that in his eyes, in the unaccustomed colour in his face. He loved her

as such an unclean animal could love. Oh, how he sickened her! "Will you

marry me, Gloria? Will you forgive me for having, however

unintentionally, placed you in a wrong light? Will you give me the right

to protect you, to defend your good name? Oh, Gloria----"

Strange that the man had never revolted her as he did now! She wanted to

get up and run from him. Meantime she was telling herself, almost

calmly: "Yes, you'll marry him. The little beast!" She did get to her

feet; he followed her into the hall.

"Let me be alone for a little while," she said quietly. She went to the

stairway. "I am going upstairs; wait here for me----"

"You will come to me? You will marry me?"

"I--think--so. Don't!" she cried sharply as he moved to come to her.

"Wait----"

He swallowed nervously. "I--I hoped you would. And I saw how terribly

the events of the last few hours might be misconstrued. So, Gloria,

daring to hope, I sent word for a justice of the peace. He will be here

this afternoon or this evening----"

"Justice of the peace!" Gloria's nerves jangled loose in her

irrepressible laughter.

"We'll have a priest later, of course," he ran on hurriedly. "But I

couldn't arrange for one so soon."

Gloria went slowly upstairs, walking backward, looking down on him with

unfathomable eyes.

"Tell me, Gloria. I'll promise not to come near you until you say I

may. Is it _yes_?"

"Yes," said Gloria, and was gone in a flash, turning, running up and out

of sight.

He stood looking after her, tapping and tapping at his cigarette-case.

_Chapter XIII_

To Gloria the sluggish moments were fraught with despondency or

pulsating terror. All arrangements were made; she was powerless, in a

trap; a justice was coming; she was going to marry Gratton. She lay on

her bed with her door bolted and wept bitterly, moaning over and over:

"Oh, I wish I were dead!" She heard Gratton stirring restlessly

downstairs. She herself grew restless; she sprang up, tiptoed to her

door, and slipped out as silent as a shadow. She went into the little

room where the telephone was and through it to the sun-porch. For a long

time she stood looking out across the mountains, her hand pressed to

lips which trembled. She thought of her mother who, coming as fast as

she could, no doubt by automobile, since she would not have the patience

for trains, would not arrive before to-morrow morning. A night

here--alone, worse than alone----

But great as was the emotional tension, lusty and now wearied youth must

be served. She had danced and ridden all through the night; she had not

had over an hour or so of broken sleep; she had been going all day. She

dropped to sleep on the swing-couch on the porch. It was so very silent

all about her; the shadows were creeping, creeping among the pines.

She awoke with a start. It was quite dark; the first stars burned with

steadily growing brilliancy. Some one was standing above her, looking

down at her. She could see only the vague outline----

"Gloria----"

A little cry of fear broke from her.

"Gloria," pleaded Gratton. "Don't you know I wouldn't----?"

"I'll be down in a minute," she told him, drawing as far away as she

could, speaking with nervous haste. "Go down, please. Wait for me."

"The justice is downstairs," he said, his own voice agitated despite his

effort for mastery. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, yes! In a minute I'll be down. Go. Please go."

He hesitated; she could have screamed at him. But presently he began

withdrawing. Slowly, hideously slowly----

"When you are ready. And--he has a long ride back, Gloria. We should not

keep him waiting."

She watched until he had gone. Then she crouched, staring with wide,

unseeing eyes into the outside dark. The man would go right away; she

would not have even him to mitigate the horrible condition of aloneness

with Gratton.

"I won't marry him!" she cried out. "I won't. I hate him. He is a beast,

and--I won't!"

There was, after all, nothing to force her. Nothing--save that she had

been away all this time with Gratton, that he had bought clothing for

her, that he had registered himself and wife. _And the newspapers_! She

heard a door slam and sprang up; if the justice went away now without

marrying them! She _would_ marry him; why, if he had been of a notion to

demur she would have made him marry her!

"I can't think clearly. I wonder if I am insane?" She went with heavy,

leaden steps back to her room. A pale, weary face looked at her from her

glass. She began arranging her hair. Her fingers, with wills of their

own, refused to obey her own command laid upon them. She sought wildly

to delay, delay to the last fragment of the last second before yielding

to the inevitable; she wanted to loiter over her hair, and her fingers

raced. She could hear voices downstairs. Gratton's voice, low and

urgent; a thin, querulous voice; she shuddered. That would be the

justice. Another voice, a man's and strange to her. He said nothing,

but twice she heard him laugh, a laugh that jarred upon her nerves. She

guessed who he would be; the man Gratton had sent to bring the justice.

"Gloria!" Gratton was calling from the foot of the steps.

The voice that answered for her was clear and steady and, downstairs,

must have sounded untroubled:

"I'm coming. Just a minute."

* * * * *

Two hours ago, while Gloria had been watching the shadows creeping among

the pines, Mark King had arrived. He had come down the ridge from the

rear and thus to the outbuilding by the stable which housed the

caretaker, old Jim Spalding.

"Hello, Mark," Jim had said, a trifle startled by King's sudden

appearance. "Here you come again, like a Injun out'n the woods."

Jim was smoking his pipe on his bench. King paused, saying:

"Hello, Jim. Has Ben showed up yet?"

"No, he ain't showed, Mark. Expectin' him?"

"Yes. Who's in the house, then?"

"Why, some of 'em come on ahead. Ben's girl, for one, and that city guy,

Gratton, for another. She didn't say anything about Ben comin'; she did

say, though, the missis would be along pretty soon."

Gloria and Gratton here? King frowned. He had had ample time during the

long weeks since the twelfth of August to decide that he had nothing to

say to Gloria Gaynor. And now she was here--with Gratton. He turned into

Jim's quarters. He had no desire--or at least so he told himself very

emphatically--to see either one of them.

"I've hit the trail hard to-day, Jim," he said as Jim followed him and

King closed the door. "And I'm dead tired and as hungry as a bear. What

shape's the cupboard in?"

"Fine," returned Spalding hospitably. "You know me, Mark."

So it happened that while Gloria fought her losing battle all alone,

Mark King sat at Spalding's table, not a hundred yards away, and made a

silent meal of coffee and bread of Jim's crude baking, and a dubious,

warmed-over stew. Thereafter King threw himself down on Jim's bunk and

the two smoked their pipes. With nothing in particular to be said,

virtually nothing was said.

"Needn't tell anybody I'm here, Jim." King was knocking the ashes out of

his pipe. "I haven't any business with the folks in there. But keep your

eye peeled for Ben, will you? The minute he comes I want to see him."

"Maybe," suggested Spalding, "his girl brought word?"

"No. Ben is in Coloma. Gratton and Miss Gaynor and Mrs. Gaynor would

have come up from the city, you know. That means they would have come

through Placerville or Truckee."

"Guess so," agreed Spalding. "That's right. I'll set outside where I can

watch for Ben. Goin' to take a snooze?"

"Yes."

And after lying ten minutes staring up at the ceiling above him King

went to sleep.

"Must of been goin' some to-day," meditated the man who was once more on

his bench outside the door. "King looks tuckered."

He sat through the thickening shadows watching the stars come trooping

into the darkening sky, hearkening to the night breeze among the trees,

and the thin singing noises of insects. An hour or so later he heard

horses. "That would be Ben, now," was his first thought. His second was

that it might be some one else, and that there was no sense waking a

tired man for nothing. So he went down toward the house. He saw two men

dismount and tie their horses; he saw the door open and Gratton come

out. The horsemen went up to the porch. Neither was Ben Gaynor. One, as

he passed in through the light-filled doorway, was a little grey man

whom Jim had never seen before; the other man, it happened, he knew.

Rather well by sight and reputation, a good-for-nothin' scalawag, as

Jim catalogued him, name of Steve Jarrold. The door closed after them

and Jim went back to his bench.

* * * * *

In the house they were waiting for Gloria. The little grey man whom they

called "judge," and who had a way of clearing his throat before and

after the most trifling remark, went up and down with his hands under

his coat-tails, peering near-sightedly at pictures and books and

wall-paper.

"Quite a tidy little place Ben Gaynor's got here," he said

patronizingly. "Quite a tidy little place."

Gratton paced back and forth, whirling always abreast of the stairs,

looking up expectantly. Steve Jarrold, the man whom Gloria had heard

laugh, never budged from the spot where he had landed when entering the

living-room; his wide, spraddled legs seemed rooted through the big feet

into the floor. Big-framed and bony, with startlingly black restless

eyes and a three or four days' growth of wiry beard no less lustrously

black, he was ragged, unkempt, and unthinkably dirty. His eyes roved all

about the room; they came back to Gratton, sped up the steps, came back

to Gratton with a leer in them, and all the while he turned and turned

his black dusty hat like a man doing a job he was being paid for.

At last, since no delay holds back for ever the rolling of the great

wheels of time, Gloria came. Slowly she descended the stairs, one hand

at her breast, one gripping the banister. Her pallor was so great that

her lips, though pale also, looked unnaturally red in contrast. They

were just a little apart; she seemed to breathe with difficulty. Her

eyes, glancing wildly about the room and at the men to be seen in the

hallway, were the eyes of one in a trap, seeking frantically for escape,

knowing that there was no escape. Her brain, like one's in a fever, was

quick to impressions, alive with broken fragments of thought like so

many flashes of vari-coloured light. She noted trifles; she saw a

painting over Gratton's head--a seascape her father had given her for

her fourteenth birthday. She saw three pairs of eyes staring at her,

men's eyes, to her the eyes of wild animals; she read as clearly as if

their messages had been in large, printed letters what lay in the mind

of each: in the little grey man's, the judge's, speculation; in Steve

Jarrold's, the jeers of a man of Jarrold's type at such a moment when

they fall upon the bride; in Gratton's, quickened desire of her and

triumphant cunning.

"My dear," said Gratton, coming forward as though to meet her and then

pausing abruptly and holding back, "this is Judge--Judge Summerling. He

will--perform the ceremony, you know. And this is Mr. Jarrold. He

brought the judge and will be a witness."

Gloria from the last step regarded the three men as a prisoner might

have looked upon jailers coming to drag her to execution. Her lips moved

but no sound issued. "Judge" Summerling bowed stiffly and cleared his

throat. Steve Jarrold's hat ceased revolving an instant, then fairly

spun as though to make up for lost time.

Suddenly Gloria began to laugh hysterically, uncontrollably. Gratton

whipped back and stared at her; Summerling and Jarrold were mystified.

She looked so little like laughter! And, as both had cause to regard the

situation, there was so little call for laughter. But they could have no

clue to Gloria's thoughts. Her wedding! With that insignificant little

grey man in his cheap wrinkled clothes to officiate; with that unshaven,

leering, dirty man to witness! Holy matrimony! Gloria Gaynor's wedding!

She was near madness with the hideous, cruel travesty of such weddings

as are dear to the hearts of San Francisco "society" girls.

The "judge" was clearing his throat again. She looked at him curiously,

with the odd sensation that while Gloria Gaynor was asleep, drugged into

a deep stupor, there was within her another Gloria who took a keen

interest in the smallest happenings.

"This affair ain't any more regular than it ought to be," he was saying.

"Now, just the matter of the licence----"

Gratton jerked about and glared at him. The "judge" broke off with a

vehement clearing of his throat. In a moment he spoke again.

"Seein' as both parties _want_ to get married," he said hastily, "and as

circumstances is what they is--keepin' in mind how circumstances does

alter cases--well then--are you ready?"

That "Are you ready?" seemed to explode like a pistol shot in Gloria's

ears. Something within her shrieked: "No, no, no!" Gratton had said a

quiet "Yes," and was looking at her. She heard herself saying faintly:

"Yes."

Gratton put out his hand as though to help her down the last step. She

made a little gesture, motioning him back. He bit at his lip and obeyed,

though with a quick flash of the eyes. Gloria looked down at the step.

About six inches high, and yet--and yet where she stood was as high as

heaven, down there as deep as hell. She seemed powerless to achieve that

last step. But Gratton was stirring restlessly; he would put out his

hand again to help her. She shuddered and moved quickly. Now she stood

on the same level as Gratton and the others; the physical fact was

sinister as though symbolical of the psychical.

The "judge" began to grow vastly businesslike. He must have the full

names correctly, ages, birthplaces. Gratton answered for himself and for

Gloria, who stood now with her hand on the back of a chair just within

the living-room door. Across the room was the fireplace; over it an

ornamental mirror. She wondered dully what she looked like; the "bride"!

But from where she stood she could see only the reflection of the window

across the room, the strip of curtain at the side stirring softly in the

evening breeze. That breeze came down through the pines; it wandered

free; why couldn't she, Gloria, be like that? She thought poignantly of

her few days among the pines with Mark King. Oh, the remembered glory of

it, the clean, sweet freedom of it.

"Now, folks, if you're ready. Stand side by side--"

"Oh!" cried Gloria.

"Eh? What's that?" demanded the "judge."

She tried to smile.

"I--I think----" She saw Steve Jarrold leering. "The witness," she said

wildly. "There is only one, and----"

"It's usual to have two, anyhow," admitted the "judge." "But, being as

things _is_ a bit irregular and everything, why we'll make one do."

"There's Jim," said Gloria. She did not look toward Gratton, but he

understood that she addressed him. "Jim Spalding. I'd feel better if

some one I knew--if you'd get Jim to come, please."

She knew that she did not care whether Jim Spalding came or did not

come; that she was fighting for delay and could not help snatching at

any straw, though she knew that in the end she would go down,

overwhelmed by circumstance. Circumstance and--Gratton. Gratton also

knew and frowned.

"Gloria," he said smoothly, "that isn't necessary, is it?"

"Yes, it is!" she flared out at him hotly. "Go, get him."

"It will take only a minute," Gratton said over his shoulder as he went.

He would see to it that it took no great amount of time. Spalding on his

bench saw Gratton running toward him.

"You're wanted in the house a minute, Spalding," he said curtly. "Step

lively, will you?"

Spalding, not given to stepping lively at other men's commands, was slow

in answering, and then spoke drawlingly:

"Wanted, am I? Well, that's interestin'. By who? I'm wonderin'."

"Miss Gloria. She wants you right away."

"That's different," said old Jim, getting to his feet.

Gratton turned and hastened back to the house, Jim quickening his own

pace as he sensed something out of the ordinary. The house door stood

open as Gratton had left it, and the two entered hastily. Jim looked

from face to face with keen, shrewd eyes, ignored Jarrold, who said a

mirthful "Evenin', Jim," and turned to Gloria for explanation.

"Miss Gloria wanted----" began Gratton. But Jim Spalding lifted a big

hand as though to ward off the words.

"I'm here, miss," he said when Gloria's white face only stared at him."

You ain't sick, are you?"

"No, Jim, I--I am going to be married, and----"

"Married!" Jim looked incredulous and then puzzled as again his eyes

went swiftly from one to the other of the three men's faces.

"Yes, Jim. And I want you to be a witness."

Jim flushed up and shifted uneasily. He had never been at a wedding; he

did not know what a "witness" had to do. And to witness the wedding of

Miss Gloria, who had never appeared to come down to earth long enough to

know that there was such a man as Jim Spalding on the same sphere with

her----He managed an uneasy "Yes'm," and backed off toward the door.

"Now, if you folks is ready," began the "judge" again.

"Right now?" muttered Jim. "You're gettin' married right now?"

"Yes," said Gloria wearily. And to Summerling: "I am ready."

"But I ain't!" cried Spalding. He got to the door and started down the

hall. "Wait a minute, will you?"

Gratton hurried after him, his face hot with rage, while Steve Jarrold

guffawed loudly and then, under Gloria's startled look, dropped his

eyes.

"Come back here, Spalding," commanded Gratton angrily. "Whatever you've

got to do can wait a minute----"

"_You_ wait," growled Jim. "I'll be back quick enough."

* * * * *

Mark King was awakened by old Jim rushing into the room, lighting a lamp

hastily, and making a deal of clatter. He sat up, demanding:

"Has Ben come?"

Jim began chuckling. After all, a wedding was a wedding, and therefore

a matter well worth a man's allowing himself to get a bit excited. From

a cupboard he began dragging forth his one and only serviceable suit of

clothes, dingy black, shiny affairs, but Jim's "best." He kicked off his

breeches, drew on the black trousers, and caught up the coat.

"No, Ben ain't back," he grinned at King. "Guess he'll be surprised when

he does come. His girl's gettin' herself married. To that city guy,

Gratton. Right now in the house!"

"What!" King had heard well enough, but that "What!" broke from him

explosively.

"An' me, I'm a witness," said old Jim. "Steve Jarrold's another. They

got the preacher there an' everything." He paused a moment and

reflected, with puckered brows. "What do you think of her marryin' that

swab, now? Think Ben's goin' to be pleased? Kind of surprising ain't it,

Mark?"

King managed a laugh which escaped critical notice only because old Jim

was only half listening.

"Oh, it's been open and shut all along that she'd marry Gratton," he

said, keeping his head down as he drew a match across the floor as

though to like a pipe whose bowl was empty. "If it suits his womenfolk,

I guess Ben will stand for it."

By now Jim had drawn his coat on and was back at the door.

"Better come along, Mark," he invited. "You don't see a weddin' every

day. Comin'?"

"No, thanks," said King. He broke his match between nervous fingers. He

raised his head to watch Jim go.

"Lord, Mark," said Spalding, holding on his heel a moment. "You must of

made one all-mighty day of it! You sure do look tuckered!"

King rose and went to the door and stood looking after the swiftly

departing figure. He saw the house, the windows bright with lights,

light streaming out through the door to the porch. There was Gloria.

Just there. And he had slept, and Gloria was marrying. And here was the

end of it--the end of everything, it dawned on him. He, who had never

looked twice on a woman, had looked thrice on her and again. He, the

one-woman man, had found the one woman--and had lost her. He looked out

toward the house and through its thick log walls saw Gloria; Gloria as

she had come down the stairs to him that first day, floating down like a

pink thistledown, putting her two hands into his, looking up into his

eyes with eyes which he would never forget; he saw her in the woods,

riding with him; by the spring waiting eagerly for the little

water-ouzel, she so like a bird herself; crossing a stream on

boulders--she had slipped; he had caught her into his arms--close. Her

hair had blown across his face. He stood with her on the highest crest

of a ridge; the world lay below them, they were alone in the blue

heavens. And he loved her. He groaned and ran his hand across his eyes

as though to wipe the pictures out--pictures which would never pass

away.

Gloria was marrying. Gratton. Now. He looked up into the sky bright with

stars; its great message to him was "Emptiness." The world was empty,

life was empty. There was nothing. Simply because Gloria had come, had

laughed into his eyes, and had gone on. She was like the springtime

which came dancing into the mountains which softened them and brightened

them--and laughed and passed on and away. She would be laughing

now--into Gratton's eyes.

He would never see her again after to-night. Other men had loved and

their loves had crumbled to ashes, blown away by the winds of time. But

to-night he _would_ see her. The last time. While still she was Gloria

Gaynor and not Gratton's wife----

He started and hurried toward the house. They were waiting for Jim and

Jim had hurried. He came to the porch and, with never a board to creak

under his careful tread, he made his way silently around to the

living-room side of the house. There was a window there; the shade was

not drawn; the curtains were blowing back and forth. He drew close and

stood, watching. He would look at Gloria one last time, turning away

just before the preacher said the last words; it was like looking for

the last time on a beloved face before the sod fell----

He saw her. Her back was turned to him; her head was down. He watched

her fingers moving nervously at her sides and his brow contracted with a

sudden access of pain. Those fingers had touched his and he had thrilled

to the soft, warm contact; he loved them better than he loved life. And

soon they would find their way into Gratton's.

Not once did he move his eyes from her. She did not turn toward him, but

as the "judge" began talking she lifted her head and King saw her

throat, her cheek. How pale she was----

Though her head was up, her slim body drooped. Like a little wildwood

flower wilting. So she remained for what seemed a very long time. Then

suddenly he saw her body stiffen; her hands flew to her breast. The

"judge," hurrying along, had asked:

"And do you take this man to be your wedded husband?"

King did not want to hear the answer; he turned to go. But hear now he

must, for though until now responses had been low-voiced, hardly above a

murmur, he heard Gloria crying:

"_No! No and no and no_!"

King stopped like a man paralysed. Had he gone mad? Then his pulses

leaped and hammered. Gloria had cried "_No_!" A tremor shook him; he

could no longer see her, but he stood where he was, his senses keyed to

hear a falling pin within.

"He is a beast and I hate him!" cried Gloria wildly. "He tried to trick

me and trap me. He tried to make me marry him But I won't! I won't! I'd

rather die."

Her voice died chokingly away, and for five seconds it was deathly

still. Still King did not move. He heard Gratton's exclamation,

Gratton's hurried step. The man was excited, was expostulating. Other

voices; the other men had drawn aside, amazed, leaving Gratton a clear

field with his unwilling bride.

"Have you gone mad, Gloria?" King could hear the words now. "Think what

you are saying----"

"I have thought. I hate you. Go away. Let me go."

Gratton's pale eyes must be ablaze with wrath now; his tone told that.

"There's no way out for you. You've got to marry me. I----"

"Take your hand off----"

Her voice broke into a scream.

"You're hurting me----"

And now Mark King moved at last. Before the last word had done vibrating

through the still room he was through the window, taking the shortest

way. Gratton's hand was on Gloria's shoulder; King threw it off, hurling

the man backward across the room. Gloria turned to him----

"Mark!" she cried. "Oh, Mark King!"

He put his arms about her, thinking that she was going to fall. For an

instant he held her tight; he felt her heart beating as though it would

burst through her bosom.

"You won't let him----?"

He moved with her to a chair, placed her in it, and turned toward

Gratton, a look like a naked knife in his eyes.

"By jings!" muttered old Jim under his breath. "By jings!"

_Chapter XIV_

At this, the most critical moment of her life, it would appear

inevitable that Gloria must bend every mental faculty to grappling with

the vital issues. And yet, as she sat swallowed up in the big chair, for

a space of time she was in a spell, caught up and whirled away from

those about her; she forgot Gratton with the white, angry face; she had

no eyes for Mark King or for Summerling, Steve Jarrold or Jim Spalding.

She was thinking of another day, two years ago, when she and her mother

had been alone in this room. They had been busied with the last touches

of furniture arrangement; they had discussed locations for chairs and

had argued over pictures. Both tired out with a day of effort, they had

come near tears in a verbal battle over the best place for the sole

article remaining unplaced. Gloria wanted it in the hallway; Mrs. Gaynor

pleaded for it over the mantel in the living-room. Finally it was Gloria

who cried with sudden laughter:

"Oh, what _difference_ does it make? We're getting silly over trifles.

Have it your way, mamma."

Trifles! Gloria wondered if any other act of her life had had the

tremendous import of that sudden yielding to her mother's wishes. If the

mirror had been placed anywhere else in the universe, even by a few

inches removed from its present abiding-place, would there be a _Gloria

Gaynor_ in all the world right now? Or would her chair hold quite

another sort of person--Mrs. Gratton? If she had not lifted her

desperate eyes and seen Mark King reflected at the window, how would she

have answered that one final question the "judge" propounded? Would she

have said "Yes"? Or would it have been "No"? She did not know; she would

never know. She had been on the verge, dizzy with profitless

speculation. And now, only the extent of one little word stood between

her and an unthinkable condition. That a whole life should be steered

down one channel or another--oh, what immeasurably separated

channels!--by one's breath in a single-syllabled word----

* * * * *

"You don't answer!" a voice was saying irritably.

She started. They were talking to her, they had been talking to her, and

now she realized that she had heard voices across a great distance, and

by no means as clear to her consciousness as the remembered voice of her

mother two years ago arguing for a mirror over the fireplace. She turned

her eyes on Gratton, since obviously it was he who insisted on an

answer. But King spoke for her.

"Look here, Gratton," he said bluntly, "as far as I can see there is no

reason why Miss Gaynor should pay the least attention to your

effervescings if she doesn't care to. She is a free agent and under no

obligations to you."

"I'll ask your opinion when I want it," snapped Gratton. "Miss

Gloria----"

"You asked me something?" said Gloria. "Pardon me. I didn't hear."

Her aloof reply disconcerted him. Her attitude was spontaneous,

unaffected, and hence unconsciously one of polite indifference. Suddenly

Gratton, fume as he would, had become of not the least importance.

"You said that you would marry me. Not a dozen minutes ago."

"Did I?" she demanded coolly. "Are you quite sure I said that?"

"Look here, Miss Gloria." It was Jim Spalding, who had been ill at ease

all along and now had the brains and perhaps the delicacy to understand

that this was no place for him. "If you don't need me after all, I'll

go."

"And the rest of us with you," said King. "If Miss Gaynor cares to talk

things over with Gratton----"

Gloria put out her hand impulsively, touching King's arm.

"_You_ stay. Please. Until--he goes."

King inclined his head gravely, not realizing that his body stiffened

under her light touch.

"What about _me_?" demanded the "judge" sharply. "Am I needed or ain't

I?"

"I'd say not this evening," King's dry voice answered him. "Good-night

to you."

"That's a fine way to treat a man," cried Summerling truculently. "Here

I ride all this way in the dark, and without stoppin' for so much as

supper; here I ain't had a bite to eat since dinner-time, and it's

good-night and get out! And that hundred dollars I was to get so fast,

how about that? Think I'm the man to let folks trample on me and----"

"Maybe Jim will give you a hand-out at his cabin," King told him. "As

for your money, get it out of Gratton if he promised it to you--or," he

added with a flash of heat, "take it out of his hide, for all I care."

"Wait for me outside, Summerling," muttered Gratton. "_I_ haven't said

you won't be needed, have I?"

"Just the same, I wouldn't mind takin' what's comin' to me now----"

"Man alive!" shouted Gratton, whirling on him. "Haven't I got enough on

my hands without you yelping at me?"

"Just the same----"

"Jim," called King above the incoherent mouthings, "slip your arm

through Summerling's and lead him off with you. Feed him if you feel

like it, and let him stick around for a word with Gratton if he wants.

And you, Steve Jarrold, Ben Gaynor isn't here, but just the same you can

take it from me that neither you nor any other of Swen Brodie's hangdogs

is wanted in Ben Gaynor's house. Out you go."

Jarrold's eyes slanted off to Gratton. Then, seeing himself ignored and

forgotten, he shrugged his shoulders, pulled on his hat, and went out.

Behind him, arm in arm, one smiling widely and the other pulling back

and still sputtering, went Jim and the "judge."

To all this Gloria had given scant attention. The spell no longer lay

over her; she was keenly awake to the demands of the present; she was

thinking, thinking, thinking! It seemed that she had walked on

quicksands; that a hand had drawn her up and placed her where she was

now, with solid ground underfoot; but that still all about her were

quicksands. What temporary sense of security was hers was due to Mark

King, to his presence. As long as he stood there, where she could put

out a hand and touch him, she could rest calmly, assured of safety. But

when he went, there remained Gratton and his venom. Quicksands all about

her in which she would be floundering at this moment but for Mark

King----

* * * * *

Her heart was beating normally again, the pallor left her face, which

became delicately flushed. Her eyes, large and humid, a sweet grey and

once more almost childlike--eyes to remind a man that here, after all,

was no woman of the world, but only a young girl--rose to King's and met

his long and searchingly. Yet there was that in their expression that

made him understand that she was not looking at him, the physical man,

so much as through him. For the first time in her pampered life the day

had come when she was face to face with vital issues; when there was no

mamma and no papa to turn to; when there were no shoulders other than

her own to feel the weight of events. She must do her own thinking, come

to her own decisions. Here was no time for a misstep. The one great step

she had already taken; she had cried "No!" That step could be

reconsidered, retraced; she looked at Gratton's face and saw that. But

now she would not do that; she could not. In the city, seeing the two

men together, she had turned to Gratton. Now, here in her father's log

house in the mountains, she wondered that she could have done so. Did

men change colour like chameleons, shifted from one environment to

another? Or was it she who had been unstable, she who was the chameleon?

A queer sensation which had been hers before, and which she was to know

more than once in days to follow, mastered her. It seemed that within

her, coexistent and for ever in conflict, there were two Glorias: a girl

who was very young, spoiled, vain, and selfish; a girl who was older,

who looked above and beyond the confines of her own self, who was

warmhearted and impulsive, and could be generous. There was the Gloria

who was the product of her mother's teaching and pampering; there was

that other Gloria who was the true daughter of a pioneer stock, a girl

linked to the city through tradition, bound to the outdoors through

instinct. There was the Gloria who was ashamed of Mark King at a formal

gathering in her own home; there was the Gloria who was thrilled to the

depths of her being as in the forest-lands she knew a breathless moment

in the arms of Mark King.

Well, here were considerations to linger over on an idle day. Now,

without seeking for hidden springs, there were on the surface certain

plain facts. No matter what she had felt toward Gratton before, she

detested him now; no matter what he might have appeared in San

Francisco, here in his unaccustomed garb he looked to her puny, shallow,

and contemptible. He was, as she had told him, a beast. He had betrayed

her confidence; he had taken advantage of her headlong youth; he had

displayed to her view the vileness within him. He loved her, did he? So

much the better. It lay within her power, then, to repay him, if only in

part, for what he had made her suffer.

* * * * *

"I repeat, Miss Gloria," Gratton was saying, a stubborn look in his

eyes, "that you promised to marry me. You have had a hard day, I

realize; there has been much to unnerve you. I erred in haste, perhaps;

I should have waited until you had a night's rest. But you know why I

did not wait. It was for your sake."

Gloria heard him through with a hard little smile.

"Nothing is further from my intention, Mr. Gratton," she told him icily,

"than to marry you. Now or ever. Please let us consider the matter

closed once and for all."

His fingers worked nervously at his sides. Gloria chose the moment to

lift her eyes again fleetingly to King's. She wanted Gratton to see, she

wanted to hurt him all that she could. She looked back to see him wince.

Nor did his quick contraction of the brows result from her glance alone;

he had seen the look lying unhidden in King's eyes. Mark King had

to-night, for the first time, swept barriers aside and looked straight

into his own heart and known that all of the love that was in him to

give had been given to Gloria Gaynor; he had come from Jim's cabin to

look on her for the last time; he was giving her up. And then, when he

had turned away rather than hear her murmur "Yes," she had cried out

ringingly: "No!" The sod had not fallen upon a beloved face; death had

not entered the door; life was not extinguished--where there was life

invariably there was hope--he had given Gloria up, yes; but she had come

back from beyond the frontier, she had come calling to him. He was

certain of nothing just now beyond the tremendous, all-excluding fact

that, wise or fool, he loved her. He wanted her with a want that is

greater than hunger or thirst, or love of man for man or of man for life

itself. Much of this lay shining in his eyes for Gratton to read--or for

Gloria.

"I am no boy to be thrown aside like an old glove," cried Gratton,

beside himself, shaken with jealous fury. "You have promised; you have

loved me; in your heart you love me now. Shall I stand back for a girl's

nervous whim? I tell you, you shall marry me."

Gloria's laughter, cool and insolent, maddened him. He clenched his

hands and was swept away by his passion to gusty vehemence:

"Think before you laugh! What if, instead of doing the gentlemanly

thing, I refused to marry you? Alone with me all this time; all last

night; a clerk to swear I bought clothing for you; a register to show

where we engaged a room as man and wife; the San Francisco papers

already bandying your name about, already nosing after scandal. You've

_got_ to marry me; there is nothing else for you to do!"

Gloria flushed hotly. But only in anger this time. King mystified,

looking from one to the other, turned at last to Gloria and muttered:

"For God's sake let me throw him out of the door!"

"I think it might be best first," she answered quietly, "if Mr. Gratton

remained long enough to understand that this is the last time I shall

ever speak to him or listen to a word from him. He has tried to get me

into a nasty situation; he will do all that he can to promote scandal.

But I want him to know that he will, in the end of it all, have my

father to reckon with--and my friends." Again she looked swiftly at King

and again Gratton writhed at the look. "Papa will not be here to-night;

he is hurt and in Coloma, and I'll give you his message soon. But----"

"You saw your father! In Coloma!" It was a gasp of astonishment from

Gratton. "You said nothing. You brought a message to King here?"

"And you escorted me and never guessed!" Gloria taunted him. "Really it

seems too bad, after all of your week-end trips to Coloma, after all of

your conferences with the estimable Mr. Swen Brodie!"

His prominent eyes bulged, written large with consternation. For a

moment he stood the picture of uncertainty, plucking at his lip.

"Gloria," he said shortly, "despite all you have said I shall see you

again. To-morrow, when we have both rested, I'll come to you. Now, if

you will pardon me, I'll have a word with King. Strictly business, you

may be sure, King," he concluded sarcastically.

"There's to be no business between you and me," King told him promptly.

"But there is. If you've got two grains of common sense. Look you, Loony

Honeycutt is dead at last. His secret is no longer his secret. Swen

Brodie knows something--a whole lot----"

"It strikes me," frowned King, "that you know more of this than I gave

you credit for. Where do you come in?"

"I know--nearly all that it is necessary to know!" His eyes flashed

triumphantly. "Think I'm the man to let the crowd of you lift a fortune

right under my nose? Here is my proposition, and you'll thank your stars

that I make it: We are not friends, you and I, but that is no reason

that we cannot be business associates until this trick is turned. You

and I enter into a pact right now, purely business, you understand." He

was speaking more and more rapidly in the grip of a new emotion.

"Whatever we find we divide, fifty-fifty;----"

King's sudden laughter, no pleasant sound in Gratton's ears, checked the

rush of words. To accept Gratton as a partner--on a fifty-fifty split of

the spoils! Was the man crazy?

"I have been working with Brodie," shouted Gratton. "If I go on with him

now, with him and the men with him, six or eight of them taking what he

gives them either in money or in curses and orders--if, I say, I chip

in with him against you, what will the inevitable end be, I ask you?

Look at the odds----"

"The inevitable end," said King sternly, "will be that they'll pick your

bones and kick you out."

"I demand to know what word Gaynor sent----"

"Will you have him go, Mark?" said Gloria. "He--sickens me."

King, unleashed by her words, took a quick step forward.

"Gratton," he said, "you'd better go."

Gratton, rising to fresh fury, shouted at him:

"And leave you and her here? Alone? All night----"

King bore down upon him and struck him across the mouth, hurling him

back so that Gratton tripped and fell. Gloria rose and stood watching,

terrified and yet fascinated. She saw Gratton crawl to his feet; his

hand went out to the table to draw himself up; it found one of the heavy

bronze book-ends; the fingers gripped it so that the tendons stood out

like cords. She could see the faces of both men, Gratton's twitching and

vindictive, King's immobile, looking at once calm and terribly stern. If

there were two Glorias within her, one of them fled now; the other

watched with quick bright eyes and gloried in the man who had come at

her hour of direst need; one vanished, afraid, the other felt a little

thrill go singing through her blood. And though that bronze block, were

it hurled at King's head, might have been the death of him, she was not

once in doubt as to the end of this conflict. There before her eyes a

man contended with a manikin.

"Drop that, Gratton! Do you hear me? Drop it, I say!"

He even drew closer while he spoke. In his voice was assurance that he

would be obeyed; in his look was the promise of death or near-death, to

be meted out swiftly and relentlessly for disobedience. Gratton, like a

man in a daze, hesitated. King's hand shot out swiftly, gripping his

wrist. There was a sudden jerk and the bit of bronze crashed to the

floor.

"You'll go now!"

"Yes, I'll go. But----"

"On your way, then!"

"But----"

"Shut up!" A tremor not to be repressed shook King's voice. "And go

before I----Just go!"

Gratton caught up his hat, stood for a moment plucking at his lip and

staring at Gloria, and then turned and went out. Strangely, only now

that he had gone, did Gloria shiver and look after him fearfully. The

man here had seemed so futile and yet she had seen that last look, so

filled with malevolence that in his wake the room seemed steeped in

menace. King must have had somewhat the same sort of an impression; he

went to the door and called out loudly:

"Jim! Oh, Jim."

Jim's voice answered from the cabin:

"Comin', Mark."

"Gratton's outside. I've told him to clear out. Give him about two

minutes, and if he's still here throw a gun on him and run him off the

place."

"Oh, I'm going fast enough." From somewhere off in the dark it was

Gratton's voice calling back hatefully. "And don't you forget it, Mark

King, I am going where an offer like mine to you will be accepted. We'll

be there before you yet, a dozen men that won't lay down before you! And

you can tell that girl in there, with my compliments, she'll be on her

knees to me before she's a day older." He lifted his voice so that

Gloria, shivering in the silent house, must hear every word. "You can

tell her, too, that if I didn't telephone to her mother from Oakland, I

did call up two of the San Francisco newspaper offices! Tell her to

watch for the papers. And when they get wind of the nice little

situation to-night, Gloria here all night----"

King had held the door open only to see if Gratton was going to his

horse. Now, however, he slammed it suddenly and went back to Gloria.

After all, Jim could be depended on to see to Gratton and to do his job

thoroughly and with joy in the doing. There was still the message to be

had from Ben Gaynor, who, it seemed, lay hurt somewhere in Coloma.

But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Gloria, and for the moment

all thoughts of Gaynor or a message fled from his mind. Again she was as

pale as death; she caught at the back of the chair which had served her

thus before; she lifted to King eyes sick with terror.

"I haven't got the straight of things very well," King said to her,

speaking very gently. For in his heart he was thinking: "Poor little

kid! She's only a kid of a girl and she's pretty near the

breaking-point, from the look of things, and small wonder." But aloud he

continued: "Only one thing seems clear. You are tired half to death and

worried the other half. I wouldn't let myself think of that snake

Gratton or his poison drippings. Things will work out all right." He

managed a smile of a sort, the first smile to-night, and added: "They

always do, you know."

"Do they?" she asked listlessly. And she, too, forced a smile, so wan

and bleak that it came close to putting a dash of tears into King's

eyes.

"For one thing," he said brusquely, "I'll bet you haven't had a bite to

eat since you got here; have you?" She shook her head; she hadn't

thought of such a thing as eating. When had she eaten last? Not since

she and Gratton, motoring up from San Francisco, had stopped at the

wayside lunch-counter? Perhaps that was why this giddy faintness

troubled her, why the blood drummed in her ears.

"You'll sit right down," commanded King. "Or lie down is better. In two

shakes I'll have something ready for you."

"You are so good to me." That came straight from Gloria's heart; her

eyes shone with a gratitude which struck him as far beyond proportion to

the small deed of the moment. "I'll go upstairs a moment; papa's

message----"

"It can wait ten minutes."

"Let me get it now. I--I will lie down in my room until you call me, if

you want me to."

"That's good." He watched her go slowly upstairs and then hastened to

the kitchen. He got a wood fire going in the range, scouted for coffee,

found a glass jar of bacon, a tin of milk, all kinds of canned goods.

And meantime, though occupied with much speculation concerning all that

had happened to-night and must have happened before and might happen in

the future, he never for an instant entirely forgot Gloria and how

pitifully borne down she looked. Gratton had tricked her some way, had

coerced her, had come close to breaking her utterly. And yet her

indomitable spirit had in the end triumphed over Gratton's scheming;

King would never forget how her voice had rung out in that fearless "No!

No and no and no!"

"Just a little kid of a girl." And he had looked to her for the sanity

of mature age. A mere girl, sheltered always by father and mother,

spoiled to the _n_th degree, given no opportunity to develop her own

character, to grow up to life's responsibilities. Her mother had not

even told her of her grandparents, being ashamed of them, making Gloria

ashamed. Grandparents of whom any one might be justly proud; folk of

integrity, of stamina, of fearless hardihood, men and women of that

glorious type that builds empires. And Gloria, King sensed, was like

them. Deep within her, under the layers of artificiality which her

mother had striven so indefatigably and lovingly to lay on, she was like

them. He remembered his two days with her alone in the mountains and

sought to forget the fragment of one evening in the city. "Here she was

her real self; there she had been what her mother had made her over."

* * * * *

Gloria, with lagging steps, had gone to her room. Now she lay on her

bed, her hands pressed tight upon her closed eyes, her will set against

heeding the throbbing in her temples as she strove to think clearly.

Gratton's words rang in her ears. They plunged her into panic. For

scores of "friends" and hundreds of acquaintances she would furnish a

topic of talk. Girls who were jealous of her would get into a warm

flurry of excitement; Gloria could picture a dozen of them sitting at

their telephones, calling up this, that, and the other Mabel and

Ernestine, saying: "Oh, did you hear about Gloria Gaynor? Isn't it

_terrible_! What _could_ she have been thinking of? I knew she was----"

and so forth and so on, "ringing interminable changes." Youth, though

declared by the thoughtless to be a period of heedlessness, takes to

heart far more seriously than does Age all happenings which touch its

own interests. Pure tragedy is Youth's own realm. It feels acutely, its

imaginings are fearful, it magnifies and distorts beyond all reason. Had

Gloria been above thirty instead of under twenty this moment would have

been far, far less deeply immersed in the gloom of despair. She suffered

dry-eyed.

But Youth, condition of wedded extremes, while it holds tragedy to its

bleeding heart, cannot entirely fail in time to listen to the voice of

hope. Gloria clung passionately to the one straw offered her: Mark King

had come; he had saved her, if only for the moment. If there were

further salvation, it lay in Mark King. And so she came presently to a

thought that made her sit bolt upright, that set her heart racing, that

brought a new look into her eyes. Just now it had seemed so clear that

only one thing could save her from clacking diatribes, from torture

under the tongues of Ernestines and Mabels and daily newspapers--

marriage with Gratton. But Gratton was gone and Mark King was here! If

she married King! The "judge" was still here. King was her father's

friend; between men like them there was nothing which would be denied

when friendship asked. What if she went to King, saying to him

straightforwardly: "Thus and such is my predicament. For my sake--for

the sake of papa's daughter and hence for papa's sake no less--will you

go through the form of marrying me? I shall be no burden; it will make

no difference in your life. For to-morrow I will go back to San

Francisco and you need never see me again. You can let me have a

divorce; you will have lost nothing; I shall have been saved everything.

Will you many me, Mark King?"

* * * * *

"Gloria!" King was calling. "Will you come down now? Everything's

ready."

"Coming," answered Gloria. "Right away."

She glanced in her glass as she went out; the colour which had played

hide-and-seek all day was again tinting her cheeks a delicate rose. What

were fatigue and hunger when hope attended them?

But it happened that Gloria's impulse, which was at least honest and

frank, was for a little held in abeyance, and thus it came about that

she lost the opportunity to appear before Mark King at a critical moment

as being straight-dealing, direct, and outspoken. She thanked him with

her eyes for the lunch he had set forth for her; she gave him a quick

little smile as he waited on her. He poured the coffee, gave her milk

and sugar, brought the hot things from the stove. And all of the time

there was in his eyes a look which he had no suspicion was there, the

look of a man's adoration.

"He will do whatever I ask him to do," something sang within her.

"Won't you sit down with me, Mark?" she smiled at him.

And there, while one Gloria had determined to indulge in plain talk, the

other Gloria came forward obliquely, demanding the place which had

always been hers when it was a case of man and girl together. The smile

was the smile of a coquette; it intoxicated; it made a man's heart beat

hard; it brought him in close to her and thrust the world back. She

could not have helped the smile or its message.

"I have eaten," he said a trifle harshly, she thought.

"You are so good to me." She stirred her coffee and he saw only the

lashes and their black shadows on her cheeks. Then she said brightly:

"This is our third little picnic together, isn't it?"

"Then you haven't forgotten? The others?" The words said themselves for

him. The human comedy had begun, or the comedy begun long ago was

resumed smoothly in its third act, King unconsciously answering to his

cue. After that it was neither Gloria nor himself who played the part of

stage-director; that time-honoured responsibility was back in the hands

of the oldest of all stage-managers. The wind that drives autumn leaves

scurrying, the sun that awakens spring buds were no more resistless or

inevitable forces than the one now voicing its dictates.

"It would be--unmaidenly to ask him to marry you," whispered that other

self within her. Oh, if she could only guess which was the _real self_,

which the pretender! "And there is no need. Look at his eyes!"

King saw lying on the table the package done up in an old cloth which

she had brought. Further, he knew that he had seen it before and where

he had seen it. He knew that at last he had old Loony Honeycutt's secret

where he could put out his hand to it, with none to gainsay him. He knew

that with it was a message from his old friend Ben; that Ben, himself,

lay at this moment in Coloma hurt. And yet his eyes clung to the eyes of

Gloria and all of these things were swept aside in his mind. He saw that

when her eyes came to a meeting with his the flush in her cheeks grew

hotter. He tried to remember how he had come away from her in San

Francisco; how he had given her up for all time. But that memory

blurred; in its place he stood with her on a boulder in a creek, holding

her in his arms; he stood with her on a mountain top, with the world

lost below them. He sought to get a grip on himself; here and now was no

time to talk to her of love. She was alone; it was his one job right now

to take Ben's place, to protect her and efface his own madness. But was

he mad? And was now no time, after all? She was alone, yes; but if some

day she would marry him, was not now the time? What would he not give

for the right to stop the nasty mouth of Gratton once and for all.

Fragmentary thoughts, by no means logically aligned. They came and went

with other thoughts between, pro and con. But thoughts do not always

sway destiny. In the crisis often enough there is no time for so slow a

process as thinking; instinct leaps. Instinct compels. All of the

thought in the world will not draw a steel needle to a bit of wood; all

of the thought in the world will not hold back the same needle from a

magnet. There are urges which must be obeyed, the urge of spinning

worlds to circling suns, the urge of man to maid.

"Gloria!" he said huskily. "Gloria!"

"Yes, Mark?" she said quietly, trying to speak very calmly and as though

she did not know, oh, so well, all that tumult that lay behind his

calling her name. But despite her determination she was agitated; the

moment had come; there was no stopping it. And did she want it? What did

she want? What, exactly, did she feel?

She knew what was in his heart! His soul exulted as the certainty rushed

upon him. She knew what he was going to say; words were needless between

them. And the colour merely deepened in her cheeks while she hid her

eyes from him.

He came to her swiftly. She rose as swiftly to her feet. He saw that a

tremor shook her. He saw that she did not draw back from him; her eyes

at last lifted to meet his own. They baffled him; he could not read

their meaning. But they shone on him softly; they were the eyes of her

whom he loved. Like magnet and steel they were swept together. He had

her in his arms; he felt against his breast the wild flutter of her

heart, against his face the soft brushing of her hair. He felt her body

tense but unresisting in his arms; suddenly she relaxed, her head was

against his breast. Gloria in his arms--Gloria's sweet face hidden from

him against his rough shirt----

"Gloria!" he cried again. "Gloria!"

"The--the bacon!" gasped Gloria. "It's burning----"

She freed herself, and while he let her go he stood watching her with

the new look in his eyes. Scarlet-faced she flashed her look at him from

across the table. Then she fled to the stove and retrieved the burning

bacon as though here were the one matter of transcendent importance.

King began to laugh, his laughter as joyous as a boy's.

"Gloria----"

"That's five times you've said 'Gloria,'" she informed him hurriedly.

"And----Please, Mark," as he moved toward her. "And you haven't read

papa's letter yet. And--and I'm dying to know what is in that funny

package. Aren't you?"

"If I'm dying at all," he told her gravely, though he found a smile to

answer her own--and two very serious smiles they were--"it is of quite

another complaint. And this time----"

"But _please_, Mark! I am here all alone--with you--and----"

"I know. I haven't forgotten. But, Gloria----"

They both started to a sudden sound outside, a scuffling on the porch.

Involuntarily Gloria, prone to nervous alarm in her overwrought

condition, moved hastily back toward him from whom just now she had

escaped. They glanced toward the sound; they saw at the window the

puckered and perplexed face of the "judge"; they were just in time to

see a big hand grasp him by the shoulder and yank him out of sight. They

heard Summerling expostulate; they heard Jim Spalding's far from gentle

voice cursing him.

King understood, at least in part, what must lie under Gloria's look of

distress. Surely circumstance had placed her in an equivocal position

to-night. Summerling was the type to blab; he was in no charitable frame

of mind; he had found her alone here with men, had come to marry her to

one man, and now had seen her in the arms of another. There was but one

answer, even to Mark King.

"Some time you are going to marry me, Gloria," he said gravely. "Why not

now?"

"It sounds like--like an advertisement, Mark," she laughed somewhat

wildly.

"Poor little kid," he muttered, seeing how she trembled. "But, Gloria,

why not? Some time you are going to give yourself to me, aren't you,

dear? While this man is still here, won't you let him marry us? It will

give me the right to shut that fool Gratton's mouth for him and----Oh,

Gloria, my dear, my dear----"

She stood staring at him with wide eyes. He pleaded with her.

"Will you, Gloria?"

And then from lips which did not smile he heard the very faint but no

longer evasive "Yes."

"Now, Gloria?"

"Yes, Mark. If you are sure that you want me." She spoke humbly; at the

instant she was humble. "But," she added hastily, "still you haven't

read poor papa's letter. He was very anxious. Let me go a minute, Mark.

I am going upstairs. I--I want to phone to mamma first. And while I am

gone you can read papa's letter, and--and----" Her face was hot with

blushes.

"And arrange with the judge," he said, his own voice uncertain. "Yes,

Gloria."

She ran by him then. He heard her going upstairs, he heard a door

closing after her. Then like a man who treads on air he went to the

window and threw it up and called:

"Jim! Tell the judge not to go. I have business with him. I want him and

you here in ten minutes."

And then when Jim's voice had answered him he thought to take up the

parcel on the table--largely because Gloria had asked him! A hurried

letter from Ben and the parcel from Honeycutt's. Something here for

which he had been seeking, working, for years, remembered now only

because Gloria had made the request that they be not forgotten.

* * * * *

To withdraw his racing thoughts from Gloria and her golden promise, to

bend them to a letter--this was in the beginning an effort. But Ben's

words caught him when he had read the first line. He had opened the

packet, ripping off the old encasement of cloth. There was a book, a

Bible that looked to be centuries old, battered, the covers gone;

Gaynor's letter was slipped into it:

"DEAR MARK:

"Honeycutt's dead. I've got his secret. But Brodie came

near doing me in. Honeycutt, dying, sent for me. I got

there just in time. He gave me the Bible; it was the

"parson's" and then Gus Ingle's. As I was going out of

the cabin Brodie and two of his gang swooped down on me.

In the dark I pitched the Bible clear and they did not

see; it was just that near! They came close to killing

me; when I came to I found they'd been through my

pockets. I don't know how much Brodie knows. I do know

he is working with Gratton, the dirty crook. I think you

can beat them to it, hands down. And, for God's sake,

Mark, and for my sake if not for your own, don't let the

grass grow! I am on the edge of absolute bankruptcy;

laid up this way I don't see a chance unless you find

what we've been after so long _and find it quick_. Will

you start without any delay? As soon as you get this

phone to Charlie Marsh at Coloma. Leave word for me. And

let that word be that nothing on earth will stop you!

Then I won't go crazy here with worry. And watch out for

Gratton as well as Brodie.

"BEN."

A bit of the old interest swept back over King as he read; the old

excitement raced through his blood. He dropped Ben's note into the stove

and eagerly took up the old Bible. There on the blank pages, written in

a crabbed hand long ago, at times letters blurred out but always a trace

left where the unaccustomed scribe had borne down hard in his painful

labourings, was the "secret" at last--Gus Ingle's message come to him

across the dead years:

"Good god I never see such gold nor no man neither and

when he come in to camp you could reed in his look he

had found it because no man could have looked at that

Mother load and not look like Jimmy. And big Brodie

grabbed him by the throat and shook him and nearly

killed him until Jimmy told. And I guess there was

enough there for everybody in all the world. We went

down the gorge to the narrow place over on the big

seedar that had broke off and that was how we come to

the First Caive, and then we come to Caive number thre

and two. And good god have mercy on my soul when Ime

dead but I got the thought right then if it was only all

mine--we worked all seven until we dropped that day and

night and early in the morning and the storm was coming

but we stayed. And for two weeks maybe thre we lost

track of time until this grate big pile of gold was dug

that I am setting right on top of right now how can a

man eat gold when he is dying of hunger and burn it when

he is freezing. And it was big Brodie killed pore Manny

I seen him and the next day or maybe it was two days

Dago was gone and never come back was it Manny's goast

got him and drug him down the cliffs screaming horrible

and in the gorge--anyway that was Two. and I am all that

is left and I am going--I tride to get out and the Big

storm drov me back and all I can see is Jimmy Kelp and

the parson if I had not of killed them they would killed

me sure and big Brodie's gone he is crazy and cant never

make it back across the mountains in this storm, and

Baldy Winch he took a big nugget and went off, and he

stoled what handful of grub there was. And now I can

look down in the gorge and see the water all white and

snow and ice sickles and I am afraide to get lost in the

caives and if I write all this in the bible that was

preacher Elsons and tie it up safe in oilcloath and

canvas and make a bote out of a chunk of wood and throw

it in the river maybe it will get to one of the camps

down there and a good man will find it and Ile give him

half. You come up the old trail past where the thre

Eytalians had their camp last year and over the big

mountain strate ahead and about another seven miles

strate on and then there is the pass with the big black

rocks on one side and streaks of white granite on the

other and down into the gorge and strate up four or five

miles where the old seedar broke off and fell acrost. My

god here goes.

"GUS INGLE."

To any man who knew the Sierra hereabouts less intimately than did Mark

King, Gus Ingle's message would have brought only stupefaction. But to

King now, as to Ben Gaynor before him, the "secret" lay bare. Old names

held on; the three Italians had given a name to what was now known as

Italy Gulch. The caves were on a certain fork of the American River

then, and King had approximately the distances and direction.

"What is more," he thought triumphantly, "I know where two caves are in

there. But where the devil is 'Caive thre'?"

* * * * *

Here he started up and thrust the old Bible into his shirt. There were

steps on the porch. Jim and the "judge" were coming----

_Chapter XV_

"It strikes me," said Summerling sarcastically, "that there's mighty

funny goings-on here to-night. I show up to marry one man to a girl and

nex' thing I know I peek in a winder and see----"

"Never mind that," cut in King hastily. "You are going to marry her

after all. Only to another man."

"Meanin' you, Mark?" demanded Jim. On his honest old face was a look of

utter bewilderment; for the life of him he couldn't decide whether he or

every one else had gone crazy.