The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 16

"That you, Marion?" he called out, peering into the darkness. Then, almost instantly: "Somebody with you, Marion?"

Haig answered for her.

"Good evening, Cousin Seth!" he called out cheerily. "I just dropped in to ask about your health."

For perhaps as long as it took him to catch his arrested breath, Huntington stood motionless. Then, with an oath, he bounded back into the room, and disappeared, as Marion dully realized, in the direction of his room, where his revolver hung on a rack. She felt the form beside her straighten out like a loosed spring; and the next instant she was borne swiftly forward into the light, into the house, into the scene she had pictured, the scene she herself had prepared. The arm that supported her was quickly withdrawn, and she was left standing at one side of the door, while Haig leaped away from her, and stood waiting at the other.

Even as this was done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In the kitchen doorway was Claire--a stricken thing in blue and gold--clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole att.i.tude matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with arms folded, disdaining Huntington's weapon. But not the slightest motion of his enemy--perhaps not even the thought before it--could have escaped him. Marion knew him; and she felt as certain as if it had already happened that if Seth lifted his revolver by so much as another inch he would be stretched out on the floor there as he had been on the ground at Paradise.

All this she saw in an interval as brief as that between two clicks of the shutter of her kodak. Then the clock on the mantel began to strike. It was a friendly clock, with a musical, soft note. But now its stroke crashed upon the silence like a tolling bell. It seemed to have its part in that halted scene, as if all waited on its last solemn count. If she could only move, think, speak, before it finished!

The next thing she knew she was in the middle of the room, directly between the two men, and speaking.

"Wait, Seth!" she heard herself saying. "I did it. I brought him here to--to make peace with you."

She ended on the clock's last note; and silence fell again.

Huntington's jaw dropped; amazement was printed on his face, and incredulity. Marion walked quietly up to him, took the revolver from his hand, and left him standing in the doorway, his arms hanging loose at his side. She crossed the room to Haig, slowly, somewhat gropingly like a somnambulist, with a half-smiling, strange expression fixed on her chalk-white face. She stretched out her left hand to him, her right still clasping Seth's six-shooter. There was something magnetic, curiously compelling in her manner; for she said nothing, made no sound. Haig stared at her, the odious smile fading from his lips; his arms slowly fell apart, one hand in the direction of the revolver at his hip; and for a moment it seemed that he too would yield to her. But suddenly he threw back his head, and laughed.

"By Jupiter!" he cried. "I didn't think it was in you. You almost got me too. Good night--all!"

On that he turned on his heel, and vanished into the night. Marion heard him laughing still as his boots crunched on the gravel; heard his voice in brief and sharp command at the stable; heard the beat of the sorrels' hoofs on the road, and the fragment of a song wafted back to her,--something rollicking and insolent, in a foreign tongue. She stood listening until the sounds had died away in the night, and silence enveloped her. Then, just as Huntington leaped forward with a bellow of rage,--too late, as ever,--and Claire, with a shriek, rushed to throw herself between him and the door, Marion's head drooped forward, her knees gave way, and she fell senseless on the floor.

Huntington's big revolver, slipping from her nerveless fingers as she fell, struck the Navajo rug with a m.u.f.fled thump, bounced and rolled over, and settled down harmlessly on a patch of barbaric red.

CHAPTER IX

HEARTS INSURGENT

Seth recovered his revolver, and lunged toward the door. But Claire was before him. She flung herself upon him, clutching the lapels of his coat.

"Seth! Seth!" she shrieked. "What are you doing?"

"I'll follow him!" he roared. "I'll follow him! I'll end the whole thing! I'll finish it, I tell you!"

"No! No!" she wailed; and clung to him frantically.

He was beside himself, almost incoherent, for the moment quite irresponsible. It is very likely that, but for Claire, he would have mounted a horse and pursued Haig to his ranch, with such consequences as anybody except himself could easily have foreseen. But he was not so far gone in frenzy as to hurt Claire, as he must have done in tearing himself loose from her. He stood a moment in tragic helplessness, grinding his teeth, and hurling muttered imprecations out into the night that covered Philip Haig. Then he looked down at the golden head pressed against his breast, and felt the frail body quivering; and some sense of what he was doing, or was about to do, reached his brain through the fumes of rage. There was yet a long struggle; for he was too ponderous for quick decisions, and at the same time too outright for successful equivocation. Defeat was always a staggering blow to him, since he had no art to mask it. And now, lacking the sagacity to swallow his mortification and to bide his time, he could only suffer, rending himself in lieu of another on whom to pour his fury.

In the midst of this futile pa.s.sion his roving eyes fell on Marion. She lay where she had fallen, in a dead faint, limp on the red-and-yellow rug. Seth stared at her a full minute, while an indefinable suspicion grew in the back of his brain. She had said, "I've brought him here to make peace with you." And Haig himself had given the lie to that speech! What did it all mean? By G.o.d, he would find out!

"Come, Claire!" he said. "Attend to Marion!" And he began to loosen her fingers from his coat.

But she only clutched it the tighter.

"You'll go!" she cried.

"No! Not to-night!"

"You promise?"

"Yes! Yes!" he growled.

She looked steadily up at him, questioning, fearful, until he bent down and kissed her.

"There!" he said, roughly and yet not ungently. "Now go to Marion!"

They picked her up, and laid her on the couch at one side of the big room; and Claire unb.u.t.toned her dress at the throat, and bathed her face and neck with cold water, while Seth rubbed and slapped her hands.

Her first impulse, on opening her eyes and seeing Claire and Seth leaning over her, was to raise her head, and look toward the door. She saw only a patch of darkness, empty and still. Then she remembered how she had heard his mocking voice fade away in the night; and her eyes returned to Seth and Claire. Their faces told her what to expect: and she knew that they were right in demanding, as they would demand, the fullest explanation.

"Water, please!" she murmured, moistening her dry lips with her tongue.

She sat up, slowly emptied the gla.s.s that Claire placed in her trembling hand, then b.u.t.toned her collar over her bare throat, and began to pin up the locks of hair that had fallen about her face and neck. Her hands, she thought, were very thin and white. She had never fainted before, and was still a little frightened and surprised.

"What does it all mean, Marion?" demanded Huntington.

"Wait, Seth, can't you?" warned Claire. Then to Marion: "There's no hurry, dear. When you feel better."

But her eyes denied her words. There was indeed no way out of it.

Marion must speak, and without delay.

"I'm cold," she said, shivering.

"Of course!" cried Claire. "Come to the fire. And Seth! Close the door, please!"

Huntington strode to the door, and slammed it shut. Then he returned to the chimney piece, and watched Marion as she leaned toward the blaze. He could barely restrain himself, waiting for her to begin.

"I've been a silly fool, I suppose," she said presently, sitting erect again, and facing her cousins courageously. "It was all my fault. You mustn't blame him."

An impatient exclamation by Huntington drew a warning glance from Claire.

"Tell us just what happened, dear!" she urged gently.

"I don't exactly know--I can't just understand how it happened,"

Marion began. "I had an accident--in the road. My foot was hurt--my ankle was twisted--or I thought it was--and I was frightened."

"An accident?" said Claire.

"I was off my pony--the cinches were loose--and--when I tried to mount again--I slipped--somehow--and fell. He was just in time to help me, and--"

"Where was that?" asked Huntington.

"Just below his place. He was coming back--"