A VOICE IN THE NIGHT
Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled
earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing
in her ears and following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.
There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if
a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is
whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the
saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would
come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing
of herself.
Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the
side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head
and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over
a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and
forced her to draw rein.
Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from
the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with
Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she could
stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body.
Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she
knew she must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her.
Why had this scourge of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it to
track down Pierre?
It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running
water, a sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the
left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing
between, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and
tethered the horses.
By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make
herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly.
It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that
burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and that
was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together over
the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair.
That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between
them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget
a single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered,
remembering how she had fairly flung herself into his arms.
On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not that
she was cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night,
was a friend incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long
when the tall bay, Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched
his tail, and then whinnied.
She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, far
away, an answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierre
le Rouge vanished from her mind, for she remembered the man who had
followed her up the valley of the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming now
out of the night; perhaps she would even see him.
And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows
in a man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint
smoke like a cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the
smoke, and next the engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails
which grows at length to a thunder.
All the while his heart beats faster and faster and rocks with the sway
of the approaching engine; so the heart of Mary Brown beat, though she
could not see, but only felt the coming of the stranger.
The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing
uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay,
and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the
tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they
feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe--some vast
and preternatural change--some forest fire which came galloping faster
than even their fleet limbs could carry them.
Yet all beyond the pale of her campfire's light was silence, utter and
complete silence. It seemed as if a veritable muscular energy went
into the intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except
a faint whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her.
But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased
their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of
shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new
presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away the
sound of the street below.
It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether
unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and the great
blue eyes abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the
eyes of the two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly
fainted and a blackness came across her mind when a voice sounded
directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated voice: "Look this way. I
am here, in front of the fire."
She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward that
sound.
She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her and
that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself the exclamation
escaped her.--"McGurk!"
The voice spoke again: "Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely."
"What are you?"
"Your friend."
"Is it you who followed me up the valley?"
"Yes."
"Come into the light. I must see you." A faint laughter reached her
from the dark.
"I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have
come to you before."
"But I feel--I feel almost, as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh
and blood."
"It is better for you to feel that way about it," said the voice
solemnly, "than to know me."
"At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared for me."
"You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me."
"No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick
Wilbur?"
"That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and
caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and let
him go."
"But he didn't come back to me?"
"No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him without
giving him a chance to speak, girl, but I'd seen him with you and I was
curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and let Wilbur
go. I came back and looked at you and found you asleep."
She grew cold at the thought of him leaning over her.
"I watched you a long time, and I suppose I'll remember you always as I
saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of the lashes
against your cheek--almost as beautiful as you are now as you stand
over there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but I
decided to take care of you--for a while."
"And now?"
"I have come to say farewell to you."
"Let me see you once before you go."
"No! You see, I fear you even more than you fear me."
"Then I'll follow you."
"It would be useless--utterly useless. There are ways of becoming
invisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Have
you left the cabin to search for Pierre le Rouge in another place?"
"No. I do not search for him."
There was an instant of pause. Then the voice said sharply: "Did
Wilbur lie to me?"
"No. I started up the valley to find him."
"But you've given him up?"
"I hate him--I hate him as much as I loathe myself for ever
condescending to follow him."
She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur; "I am
free, then, to hunt him down!"
"Why?"
"Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stood
beside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold in
your sleep. It was a weak thing for me to do, but since I saw you,
Mary, I am not as strong as I once was."
"Now you go back on his trail? It is death for Pierre?"
"You say you hate him?"
"Ah, but as deeply as that?" she questioned herself.
"It may not be death for Pierre. I have ridden the ranges many years
and met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six years
ago I met him first and then he wounded me--the first time any man has
touched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in my
life, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, but
now I am at his heels. Six are gone; he will be the last to go."
"What are you?" she cried. "Some bloodhound reincarnated?"
He said: "That is the mildest name I have ever been called."