The Everlasting Whisper Part 45

"Mark! Oh, Mark--thank G.o.d!"

He looked at her strangely. There was a puzzled, bewildered expression in his eyes. He strove to move and again looked at her with that strange bewilderment. She saw his lips move--he wanted to say something, to ask something and, deserted now by all of that magnificent strength on which he had always leaned, was as weak as a baby.

"Don't try to talk, Mark," she cried softly. "Please; not yet. You are better; everything is all right."

She gave his hand a last squeeze and hurried back to the fire; his eyes, still shadow-filled, followed her curiously. She came back to him with cup and spoon. This he could understand; he opened his lips for the spoon, he accepted what she gave him and when she had finished lay looking up at her wonderingly.

"You mustn't talk, Mark," she commanded him gently as, again, she knelt by him. "You are getting so much stronger! I'll tell you everything. It was last night; you have been unconscious ever since. None of the other men have been near; I haven't even seen one of them."

She saw his eyes clear.

"Mark," she whispered, "we are safe here because--because you are so wonderful! You were like a G.o.d--the bravest, n.o.blest, best man in, all the world! You came in time; you saved me, Mark; they had not put hand upon me. And I am well and strong now; I am going to take care of you; you must just lie still and get well--_Oh, Mark_----"

His eyes closed again; he seemed very faint, very weary. Hushed, she sat tense, her eyes never moving from his face. After a long time he opened his eyes again; he tried again to speak; when the words did not come he managed a strange, shadowy smile with his bloodless lips and in another moment had sunk again into that heavy sleep that was so like death.

When next, two hours later, she again brought his broth, he stirred at her touch and awoke. This time his eyes cleared swiftly; he remembered the other awakening and her words. He looked at her long and searchingly and she understood what lay back of that look; he was wondering how she managed, how she endured to care for them both, how without his active aid she withstood hardship. And this time she smiled at him.

"I have been dining sumptuously on bear steaks," she told him lightly.

"And I have slept and kept warm. There has been no one near. And the days are fine again. It was clear last night; the sun has been shining all day. Now, when you've had your own lunch, I'll tell you anything you want to know. Only you must not try to talk yet, Mark; not until to-morrow. I want you strong and well again, you know; it's lonesome without you."

She gave him, for the first time, a whole cup of broth, glorying in the certainty that already he was stronger. But even yet his weakness was so great that, before she had spoken a dozen sentences, he was asleep again. Clearly, even to Gloria, if but a little more blood had ebbed out of the wounded side, he would never have awakened; clearly to Gloria, triumphant, it had been she who had held him back from death.

She, Gloria King, alone, had fought the great grim battle; hers was the victory. For at last she knew with her brain, as all along she had known in her heart, that it was to be victory.

So the hours pa.s.sed. For the most part King slept, lapsing into the deep stupor of a drugged man. But at times he stirred restlessly; with slowly returning strength his wounds pained him; in his sleep he muttered; Gloria, watching him, winced as she saw his brow contract and saw how he tried to shift his body as though to pull away from something that hurt him.

King was awake. Awakening, he tried to move. His utter weakness, like a great weight bearing down upon him, held him powerless. But his mind, slowly freeing itself from the shadows of sleep, was suddenly very clear. He could turn his head a little. It was late afternoon; outside the sun was still shining, for a patch of light lay at the side of the canvas flap. At first he did not see Gloria; but his eyes quested until at last they found her. She lay by the fire, her head upon her arm, sleeping. The little huddled body looked weary beyond expression.

For a long time his haggard eyes remained with her. She lay on the rocks, without a blanket. His hand moved weakly; there were blankets under him, blankets covering him; his feet were wrapped in a blanket. He remembered that a long, long time ago she had said to him: "It was last night." All this long, long time he had had all the blankets.... He looked again at Gloria, at the fire; he saw wood piled near by. For many minutes he puzzled the matter; in the end it was obvious, even to a man as sick as King, that she must have gone for wood. Perhaps more than once. He closed his eyes and lay very still. He knew now that he had been desperately hurt; that, wounded, his fight with Brodie had brought him very near a weakness from blood loss that was pale twin to death.

And yet he was alive and warm; he had had broth and blankets and the fire had been kept blazing. He managed to slip a hand inside his shirt; before his fingers found it he knew that the bandage was there. Gloria had done all this ... Gloria, whom he had struck ...

Ever since that blow, the one act of his life which he would have given so much to have undone, he had been ashamed. He had rejoiced in his battle with the men who had threatened Gloria with worse than death, rejoiced that in some way he might make reparation. But now, beginning to understand all that Gloria had done for him, how great were the sacrifices she had made for him, lying unconscious of all she did, it seemed to him that the thing that he had done was a very small thing set in the scales against her own acts. He wanted to get up and go to her; to put his blankets about her; to play the man's part and protect and shelter. But he could not so much as raise his voice to call her to him.... Ever since that blow, upbraiding himself, he had said: "She was only a little, terrified girl and you were a brute to her." And now he thought wonderingly: "After that, she has worked for you, has nursed you, has saved the worthless life in you when she should have let you die." Again his eyes flew open; now they clung to her with a strange look in them, born of many emotions.

Gloria, as though she felt his eyes upon her, stirred, rose, pushed the hair back from her eyes and came quickly to him. And as she came, she smiled. She went down on her knees beside him and took his hand in her two and held it tight. She had never seen in his eyes a look like the one now burning in them. She could not understand its mute message, but she spoke softly:

"Everything is all right, Mark. And you are better every time you wake."

His lips strove to frame words. She bent close to them and heard his wondering whisper:

"Every--thing--all right?"

"Yes, thank G.o.d," she whispered back to him. "Everything in all the wide, wide world!"

No, he could not understand that. She saw perplexity in his eyes now.

But she did not mean to let him talk yet and it was time for broth again. But again he was whispering:

"Blankets--yours----"

"Yes, Mark. After you have had your nourishment. When I need them."

But when he had taken his cup of hot broth he slipped off to sleep again and Gloria, smiling a tender smile, sat by her fire watching him as a mother watches a sick baby who, the doctor has just told her, will live.

_Chapter x.x.xII_

That night Gloria, listening now to King's breathing, now to the crackling of her fire, grew restless, restless. Again and again she went to look out into the quiet moonlight night, across the glittering expanses of pure white glistening snow. It was the restlessness of one who had taken a giant determination; who but awaited impatiently for the time to do what she was bent upon doing. In her heart was still that new-born gladness; in her bosom there was still something singing like the liquid voice of a bird. It had sung for the first time when first she had ministered to King, when she had understood what love's service was, when she had gone down the cliffs for firewood, when, because of her tireless nursing, she had been rewarded by his opening eyes; as the hours wore on it had grown into a chant triumphant. She, Gloria, had lived to do something that was n.o.ble and unselfish and brave; she, Gloria, had been unafraid and unswerving; she had saved a man's life.

And that life was Mark King's! She had made amends; she had set her feet unfalteringly in a new trail; throughout her being she was aglow with the consciousness of one who had gladly done love's labour.

Now she waited only for the hour when again King must have his broth.

She gave it to him, smiled at him, commanded him to go back to sleep, promising to talk with him in the morning. And then, when again he breathed with the quiet regularity of one sleeping, she went eagerly about her task.

Now, at her hour of need, she was buoyed up by a great and wonderful confidence that she could not fail. Thus far she had accomplished each duty as it had stood before her, and from successes achieved grew the new faith that in to-night's task, perhaps the supreme and final labour, she would succeed again. They must have more meat; to-morrow or the next day, at latest, for the steaks which she had eaten and the strong broths to maintain and rebuild strength in. King had cut deeply into their supply. And she knew Mark King well enough to be very certain that, the moment he could summon strength enough to command his tottering body to stand on two legs, he would go. Now, while he was still too weak to observe greatly what went on about him and while he slept most of the time, it was for her to be before him. Fortunately--and were not all omens bright with hope?--it had not snowed since King made his kill; she could follow in the trail he had made and it would lead her unerringly to the spot where he had left the rest of the meat. She had everything ready, rifle, small packet of food, knife, even matches and strips torn from the sack for her feet. Down in the gorge, clutching her rifle, she stood looking, listening. Always the thought of Benny and the other man was on the rim of her consciousness, and fear is a basic and elemental emotion. But, though the moon set forth all details in clear relief against the snow, there was no man in sight, and, in the intense determination possessing her, she throttled down all fear-thoughts. She clung with a deep fervour to the thoughts that she and Mark King had put disaster behind them, that ahead lay hope and happiness, that G.o.d was with her and about her, and that all danger was gone. Down the canon she saw the broken, uneven snow where Brodie and his men had left their tracks, irregular trails up which Gratton had come, down which Benny and the Italian had fled. Upward along the gorge was one deep, straight path, wide and hard packed, the track of Mark King's crude snow-shoes.

Into this she stepped, thinking even at the time how even Mark King's trail was characteristic of him and different from that of the other men; it looked purposeful and confident and, like the man himself, driving straight on. There was a sense of comfort in treading where he had trodden before her.

The world slept, but its quiet breathing she seemed to hear as the air drew through the pines. She turned up the gorge, a tiny dark figure in an immense white wilderness. The stars shone and she loved them; they were like bright companionable candles. The moon shed its soft l.u.s.tre and she loved it; it thrust shadows back and drove out the dark. The night was all quiet splendour and peace and serenity. The snow was crisp, crunching underfoot; sunny days had thawed, clear, cold nights had frozen, and the crust had begun to form. Before she had gone a dozen feet she discovered this and its importance to her; where King's weight on the snow-shoes, along a twice-travelled trail, had packed the snow and where now the sun and cold had done their work, there was a crust which upbore her slight weight; she could walk swiftly; there was to be no more floundering. She could run!

And run she did, when she had crested the first ridge and had started down the far side. It was like flying! The crisp air cut her glowing cheeks; her blood leaped along her veins; she breathed deeply, a great, uplifting elation bore her along. Love--G.o.d is love--smoothed the way before her; the stars ran with her, the great blazing stars to which again and again she lifted her eyes. They spoke to her; they came close to her; when she stopped, resting, they were all about her, bending down, and she was lifted up among them. Fervour and the ecstasy of the hour in which was doing to the uttermost, forgetful of pettiness and selfishness and cowardice--she prayed mutely that she was done with them for ever, that never again would she be such a woman as Gratton had been a man--made her over into a radiant, glorious Gloria. The night stamped itself upon her for all time; out of the night she drew, as one draws air into his lungs, a new faith that was akin to the man's whom she served. For one cannot be alone with the stars and be unmoved by them; they are serene with eternity, refulgent with the perfect beauty of a perfect creation, eloquent to the heart of man and woman of true values.

Under the fields of their vast.i.tude, confronted by their infinity, Gloria, like thousands before, understood that man in fevered times is p.r.o.ne to turn to false G.o.ds. Gus Ingle's gold--her own gold, one day--was a thing to smile at. Or, at best, not a thing to expend wildly for gowns and gowns and shoes and stockings and limousines; to-night Gloria felt that she had had her fill of vanities like those, that she was done with them; that if, for every moan and agony and slow death and thought of envy Gus Ingle's gold had brought into the world, she could create a smile here and a hope fulfilled there and a glow yonder, she would ask nothing else of the yellow dirt. For dirt or rock or dross it was, and that was as clear as starlight. If her hand but lay in the hand of Mark King, what did gold matter? Or dresses--or what people thought or said of her or him? A strange little smile touched her lips.

"I love you," she whispered, as though Mark were with her--as in her soul he was.

Had there not been a great, glowing love in her heart she would have been afraid. But there was no room for fear. Had she not felt that he was with her and that G.o.d was with her she must have felt an unutterable, dreary loneliness; but she was upborne at every step and gloried in every exertion.

And exertion, until she came close to the limits of endurance, was to be hers that white night; hers the knowledge of supreme endeavour. On and on she went across the immense glistening smooth fields through which the trail ahead was the only scar, through groves of black pines whispering, whispering, whispering, down into shadow-filled canons, out into the open again, up and down and on and on, a tiny dot upon the endless wastes. Fatigue came upon her suddenly, when she had forgotten to save her strength and had gone over-fast. She rested, lying on her back, her eyes closed. She opened her eyes, she saw the stars, she rose and went on. She had gone miles; how many she could not guess. Always, after for a little while she had dropped down wearily, she rose again and went on; she learned that, though beaten down, one might rise again.

That was Mark King's way; it would be her way. Despite the rags about her boots her feet were soon dangerously cold. She pa.s.sed into the embrace of a forest of black trees casting blacker shadows. Their branches seemed motionless, but they sang to her with hushed voices. And always there was the trail King had made, leading her on; where he had gone before, she followed.

Where he had made slow progress, seeking game and breaking trail, she went swiftly on the packed snow. So, in the full splendour of the moon, she came at last to the final ridge, whence, looking down into the canon, she saw the end of her trail: hanging from a bent pine sapling was what she knew must be his bear. Down the steep slope she went, half sliding, half rolling. In the bed of the ravine she landed softly in the drift; here she rested, sitting in a nest of snow. And before she had stirred to begin the last short span of her journey, there came suddenly out of the silence a strange, quivering cry, bursting out upon her; a sobbing, throbbing scream.

"A woman!" cried Gloria, aghast.

A woman in an agony of terror, she thought. Or a lost soul, the wandering spirit of the dead, or G.o.d knew what impossible thing. Sudden terror leaped out upon her, striking like a knife into her heart. Fear, banished all this time, surprised her and clutched at her throat and paralysed her muscles. Blind panic gripped her. Then came the piercing scream again, and with it enlightenment, and Gloria sank back, seeming to melt into the snow about her. Yonder, just upon the next ridge where the moonlight carved in fine details the outline of a big bare boulder, stood the thing that had screamed; in this light its great body was weirdly magnified, so that the entire length of seven or eight feet appeared to Gloria's frightened eyes twice that. Long-bodied and lithe, small-headed and merciless, steel-muscled and chisel-clawed, the big cat in silhouette twitched its restless tail back and forth nervously, and from snarling jaws sent forth its almost human call to cut across vast, still distances.

Gloria drew back and back where she crouched, her body pressed into the snow-bank, in a panicky desire to hide. The big cat had smelled the meat, she guessed swiftly. When it leaped upward, seeking to s.n.a.t.c.h down the swinging weight, or clambered up the pine, then she must spring up and run, run as she had never run in her life, away from this terrible, murderous thing, back to King. Unconscious of cold and wet, she cowered and waited, scarce breathing. She saw how the big beast put up its head and sniffed; did it in reality smell the meat? Or had it sensed her presence?

For what seemed a very long time the gaunt-bodied animal stood as still as the rock beneath it; then, silent and swift, it turned and, like a cat at home leaping down from a table, dropped into the shadows at the base of the rock, and was lost to Gloria's sight in a little hollow. She waited, her eyes staring.

Again, all of a sudden, she saw it. Moving with the stealthy caution which is its birthright, it appeared fleetingly a score of feet lower on the steep slope, the body and its shadow, a twin for stealthy silence, gone in a flash, reappearing once more still lower on the slope and just beyond the pine sapling. It was coming on. Fascinated, Gloria sat like stone, with never a thought of the rifle lying across her knees.

The mountain-lion leaped downward softly from stage to stage of the canon-side, paused under the pine, lifted its head, and sent forth again its hunger-cry. All this time Gloria sat breathless; the fear-fascination still held her powerless. She watched the animal crouch and gather its strength and hurl its lean body upward. The lion fell back, the ripping claws having missed the meat by some two or three feet, and Gloria heard the low, rumbling growl. Again it sprang; again it missed. And then, for a weary time of silence it sat still, its head back, its eyes on the desired meal. In the moonlight Gloria saw the glistening saliva from the half-parted jaws.

But in the end feline craft found the way, and the cat set its paws against the tree trunk, and began to climb. Limbs broke under the two hundred pounds of weight; the bark was torn under slipping paws, but upward the sinuous body writhed. Swiftly now it would come to King's kill.

King's! Gloria started; this was Mark's kill: he had stalked it, he had ploughed many miles through deep snow to get it. To get it for her as well as for him. To keep the life in her--now, without it, King would die. And now the lion was going to take it, while she watched and did nothing!

"Oh, G.o.d, help me!" She sprang to her feet, she jerked up her rifle and fired at the black bulk crawling upward in the pine. "It shall not have Mark's meat! It shall not!"