The Man of the Forest Part 66

The girl drew her slight form up haughtily. Through her spreading tresses her eyes gleamed unnaturally upon the outlaw leader. But she deigned not to reply.

"Hey thar--you Rayner girl!" added Anson, lamely. "What's ailin' you?"

"My lord! did you address me?" she asked, loftily.

Shady Jones got over his consternation and evidently extracted some humor from the situation, as his dark face began to break its strain.

"Aww!" breathed Anson, heavily.

"Ophelia awaits your command, my lord. I've been gathering flowers,"

she said, sweetly, holding up her empty hands as if they contained a bouquet.

Shady Jones exploded in convulsed laughter. But his merriment was not shared. And suddenly it brought disaster upon him. The girl flew at him.

"Why do you croak, you toad? I will have you whipped and put in irons, you scullion!" she cried, pa.s.sionately.

Shady underwent a remarkable change, and stumbled in his backward retreat. Then she snapped her fingers in Moze's face.

"You black devil! Get hence! Avaunt!"

Anson plucked up courage enough to touch her.

"Aww! Now, Ophelyar--"

Probably he meant to try to humor her, but she screamed, and he jumped back as if she might burn him. She screamed shrilly, in wild, staccato notes.

"You! You!" she pointed her finger at the outlaw leader. "You brute to women! You ran off from your wife!"

Anson turned plum-color and then slowly white. The girl must have sent a random shot home.

"And now the devil's turned you into a snake. A long, scaly snake with green eyes! Uugh! You'll crawl on your belly soon--when my cowboy finds you. And he'll tramp you in the dust."

She floated away from them and began to whirl gracefully, arms spread and hair flying; and then, apparently oblivious of the staring men, she broke into a low, sweet song. Next she danced around a pine, then danced into her little green inclosure. From which presently she sent out the most doleful moans.

"Aww! What a shame!" burst out Anson. "Thet fine, healthy, nervy kid!

Clean gone! Daffy! Crazy 'n a bedbug!"

"Sh.o.r.e it's a shame," protested Wilson. "But it's wuss for us. Lord! if we was hoodooed before, what will we be now? Didn't I tell you, Snake Anson? You was warned. Ask Shady an' Moze--they see what's up."

"No luck 'll ever come our way ag'in," predicted Shady, mournfully.

"It beats me, boss, it beats me," muttered Moze.

"A crazy woman on my hands! If thet ain't the last straw!" broke out Anson, tragically, as he turned away. Ignorant, superst.i.tious, worked upon by things as they seemed, the outlaw imagined himself at last beset by malign forces. When he flung himself down upon one of the packs his big red-haired hands shook. Shady and Moze resembled two other men at the end of their ropes.

Wilson's tense face twitched, and he averted it, as apparently he fought off a paroxysm of some nature. Just then Anson swore a thundering oath.

"Crazy or not, I'll git gold out of thet kid!" he roared.

"But, man, talk sense. Are you gittin' daffy, too? I declare this outfit's been eatin' loco. You can't git gold fer her!" said Wilson, deliberately.

"Why can't I?"

"'Cause we're tracked. We can't make no d.i.c.kers. Why, in another day or so we'll be dodgin' lead."

"Tracked! Whar 'd you git thet idee? As soon as this?" queried Anson, lifting his head like a striking snake. His men, likewise, betrayed sudden interest.

"Sh.o.r.e it's no idee. I 'ain't seen any one. But I feel it in my senses.

I hear somebody comin'--a step on our trail--all the time--night in particular. Reckon there's a big posse after us."

"Wal, if I see or hear anythin' I'll knock the girl on the head an'

we'll dig out of hyar," replied Anson, sullenly.

Wilson executed a swift forward motion, violent and pa.s.sionate, so utterly unlike what might have been looked for from him, that the three outlaws gaped.

"Then you'll sh.o.r.e hev to knock Jim Wilson on the haid first," he said, in voice as strange as his action.

"Jim! You wouldn't go back on me!" implored Anson, with uplifted hands, in a dignity of pathos.

"I'm losin' my haid, too, an' you sh.o.r.e might as well knock it in, an'

you'll hev to before I'll stand you murderin' thet pore little gurl you've drove crazy."

"Jim, I was only mad," replied Anson. "Fer thet matter, I'm growin'

daffy myself. Aw! we all need a good stiff drink of whisky."

So he tried to throw off gloom and apprehension, but he failed. His comrades did not rally to his help. Wilson walked away, nodding his head.

"Boss, let Jim alone," whispered Shady. "It's orful the way you buck ag'in' him--when you seen he's stirred up. Jim's true blue. But you gotta be careful."

Moze corroborated this statement by gloomy nods.

When the card-playing was resumed, Anson did not join the game, and both Moze and Shady evinced little of that whole-hearted obsession which usually attended their gambling. Anson lay at length, his head in a saddle, scowling at the little shelter where the captive girl kept herself out of sight. At times a faint song or laugh, very unnatural, was wafted across the s.p.a.ce. Wilson plodded at the cooking and apparently heard no sounds. Presently he called the men to eat, which office they surlily and silently performed, as if it was a favor bestowed upon the cook.

"Snake, hadn't I ought to take a bite of grub over to the gurl?" asked Wilson.

"Do you hev to ask me thet?" snapped Anson. "She's gotta be fed, if we hev to stuff it down her throat."

"Wal, I ain't stuck on the job," replied Wilson. "But I'll tackle it, seein' you-all got cold feet."

With plate and cup be reluctantly approached the little lean-to, and, kneeling, he put his head inside. The girl, quick-eyed and alert, had evidently seen him coming. At any rate, she greeted him with a cautious smile.

"Jim, was I pretty good?" she whispered.

"Miss, you was sh.o.r.e the finest aktress I ever seen," he responded, in a low voice. "But you dam near overdid it. I'm goin' to tell Anson you're sick now--poisoned or somethin' awful. Then we'll wait till night. Dale sh.o.r.e will help us out."

"Oh, I'm on fire to get away," she exclaimed. "Jim Wilson, I'll never forget you as long as I live!"

He seemed greatly embarra.s.sed.