The Perils of Pauline Part 35

Hicks."

Five days after the disappearance of Pauline, the express stopped again at Rockvale station. As Harry swung from the rear step to the dingy platform, there were many curious eyes to observe his arrival, but the watchers were mostly women and children. The men of Rockvale were still out on the long hunt for Pauline.

Harry hurried first to the station telephone. Sikes had got Mrs.

Haines on the wire as soon as the smoke of the express had been sighted ten miles away. But all she could tell Harry was that there was nothing to tell. His lips were set in a hard line as he hung up the receiver. He asked a few hasty questions of Sikes, hurried across to the little hotel, paid for a room and hired a horse. Blankets and provisions strapped behind, he was out and away up the road to the mountains within an hour.

And while he urged his st.u.r.dy little mount to better speed on his uncharted journey, Pauline, not twenty miles away, was preparing for the last journey she might ever make.

The blow had fallen. Her royal place, her immortal power had vanished.

The Indians had permitted one postponement of the day of battle. She had said that the Spirits had spoken to her and warned against bloodshed upon that day. It should be the second day thereafter the Spirits had said. The Indians were disappointed, but they bowed to the edict.

The morrow pa.s.sed quietly, but on the next day--the fifth of her royal captivity--she was summoned from her house by the a.s.sembled chiefs in battle paint and feathers. She tried to whisper through the doorway that the Spirits had forbidden again, but Red Snake answered:

"You are greater than all other Spirits; you will lead us today!"

"Tell them," said Pauline to the interpreter, "that the White Queen does not lead today!"

Red Snake, his face black with anger, after haranguing the chiefs, turned to Pauline:

"Daughter of the Earth--twice our warriors have been ready for battle and you would not lead them. Today you must go before the Oracle and prove your immortality. The Oracle will tell."

The warriors departed; only the little interpreter remained.

"What does it mean?" cried Pauline.

"It is the race with the Great Death Stone," he answered, and his own voice trembled. "But," he whispered, "I will ride. I will try to find help. Wait."

He slipped under the back of the teepee. Unseen by the excited Indians, he made his way to the line of ponies, with lariats and rifles swung from their saddles. He picked one and, mounting, rode slowly out of the village, speaking here and there to the braves he met.

Pauline, left alone, fell upon her knees and prayed.

Harry met Haines and two of his posse on the road to the mountains.

They were on their way back to a general rendezvous ordered by the Sheriff, but Harry continued on his way up the mountain.

Mile after mile the little mustang put behind him while the sun was still high. On the slope of a hill they came to a crossroads, and Harry, riding almost blindly, reined to the right.

The pony swerved wildly to the left.

Instinctively Harry gave the frightened horse its head.

A half mile farther on the animal stopped and sniffed the wind. At the same instant Harry heard a feeble shout from the road. A weirdly garbed little half breed lay on the ground holding the bridle of the horse that had thrown him.

"Ankle gone," he explained. "Riding for help, I help was. You ride now. White girl--they're killing her up there now."

"White girl? Where? Talk fast, man."

"Two miles over the mountain and down to the valley straight ahead.

You go to the bottom of the valley, not to the top--not where the Indians are. Climb tree; take my rope; it's the only chance now."

Harry caught the coiled lariat from the other's saddle and rode as he had never ridden before. All was vague in his mind, except that Pauline was near, was in peril, and he must reach her.

How, by road and trail, he ever reached the Valley of the Death Stone Harry never knew. Perhaps chance, perhaps some invisible courier guided him to the lonely spot. After long, hard riding he was attracted by the low rumble of many voices lifted in a sort of chant.

Following the voices, he came to the foot of a steep cliff side where a long trench, partly of natural formation, partly hewn from the stone, made a chute or runway from mountain top to valley.

At the upper end of the runway a motley band of Indians were engaged in some weird worship. Harry started his horse up the steep in the shelter of the woods. When he came to a spot where a huge tree limb crossed the runway, he remembered the little half breed's words, "Climb the tree; it is the only chance."

Almost at the same instant from the midst of the Indian group emerged two giant braves carrying a white woman between them. They placed her in the runway. Her golden hair, unbound, floated on the wind.

Harry choked back a cry, threw aside his rifle, caught the lariat, and, swinging up the tree, crawled swiftly out on the overhanging limb.

Concealed by the foliage he waited.

A rifle cracked, and, for the first time, he saw that at the top of the runway, behind Pauline, the stood a mighty boulder, almost perfectly round, the diameter of which--about five feet--fitted the trench so well that it could roll in it like a ball in a bowling gutter.

None even among the Indians knew how many times the Stone of Death had rolled and been dragged back again to the top of the cliff. The stains upon it were unnumbered. Up on its surface was written in blood the doom of the false prophets and pretending immortals. None had ever won in the race with the Death Stone.

The crack of the rifle was the signal for a group of red men to press behind the stone to free it on its fearful course. It was also the signal for Pauline to run. Her hair streamed wildly in the wind as she sped, like a frightened deer, down the deadly path.

The rifle sounded again and the Indians heaved the stone into the trench.

It rumbled as it came on. It gained upon the fleeing girl. They had planned to prolong the torture by giving her a hopeless lead.

Dancing, gesticulating, shouting, the Indians watched the race. Only one watcher was silent and motionless. Hidden by the leaves he braced himself upon the tree limb. For the first moments after the rock was released he had turned sick and dizzy. Now, as they came near--the thing relentless but inanimate pursuing the thing helpless, beautiful and most precious to him of all things in the world, not the quiver of a muscle hindered the desperate task that he had set himself.

A moment later he was sobbing like a child as he half dragged, half carried Pauline to his waiting horse. By the magic of luck, by the mystery of a protecting Fate, the lariat noose had fallen about her shoulders. To the amazed and terrified Indians up the cliff she had soared suddenly, spirit-like, out of the trench and vanished in the foliage of the tree, while the boulder thundered on, cheated of its prey.

But swiftly out of the woods upon the open plain below appeared a rider with a woman clasped before him on the saddle.

The baffled Indians scurried for their horses. They reached the valley. They gained upon the burdened horseman and his tired horse.

They fired as they rode, the bullets spitting venomously in the dust around Harry and Pauline.

The pony stumbled. Harry jerked it up and it struggled bravely on, but the cries behind sounded louder.

The bullets. .h.i.t nearer.

Suddenly the firing increased. There were more cries. And Harry, reining the pony saw, galloping over the ridge to the westward, the full posse of Hal Haines. They fired as they came. They cut between him and the Indians. He stopped the pony and lifted Pauline to the ground.

"My precious one, G.o.d bless you and forgive us all," sobbed Mrs. Haines as Polly was caught in her mothering embrace. "And you--you had to come all the way from New York to save her," she added, turning to Harry.

"Don't say anything about it, Mrs. Haines," he said in a stage whisper. "I came out here to rest and avoid publicity."

CHAPTER XVI