The Rustler of Wind River Part 37

"Will he die?" she whispered.

"Yes; you are to have your heartless way at last. He will die, and his blood will be on this house, never to be washed away!"

"Why didn't you come back when we called you--both of you?" Nola drew near, reaching out an appealing hand. Frances shrank from her, to bend quickly over Macdonald when he groaned and moved his head.

"Put out that light--it's in his eyes!" she said.

Nola blew out the candle and came glimmering into the room in her soft white gown.

"Don't blame me, Frances, don't blame any of us. Mother and I wanted to save you both, we tried to stop the men, and we could have held them back if it hadn't been for Chance. Chance got three of them to go, the others--"

"They paid for that!" said Frances, a little lift of triumph in her voice.

"Yes, but they--"

"Chance didn't do it, I tell you! If he says he did it he lies! It was--somebody else."

"The soldiers?"

"No, not the soldiers."

"I thought maybe--I saw one of them on guard in front of the house as we came in."

"He's guarding me, I'm under arrest, I tell you. The soldiers have nothing to do with him."

Nola stood looking down at Macdonald, who was deathly white in the weak light of the low, shaded lamp. With a little timid outreaching, a little starting and drawing back, she touched his forehead, where a thick lock of his s.h.a.ggy hair fell over it, like a sheaf of ripe wheat burst from its band.

"Oh, it breaks my heart to see him dying--it--breaks--my--heart!" she sobbed.

"You struck him! You're not--you're not fit to touch him--take your hand away!"

Frances pushed her hand away roughly. Nola drew back, drenched with a sudden torrent of penitential tears.

"I know it, I know it!" she confessed in bitterness, "I knew it when he took me away from those people in the mountains and brought me home. He carried me in his arms when I was tired, and sang to me as we rode along there in the lonesome night! He sang to me, just like I was a little child, so I wouldn't be afraid--afraid--of him!"

"Oh, and you struck him, you struck him like a dog!"

"I've suffered more for that than I hurt him, Frances--it's been like fire in my heart!"

"I pray to G.o.d it will burn up your wicked pride!"

"We believed him, mother and I believed him, in spite of what Chance said. Oh, if you'd only come back then, Frances, this thing wouldn't have happened!"

"I can't see what good that would have done," said Frances, wearily; "there are others who don't believe him. They'd have got him some time, just like they got him--in a coward's underhanded way, never giving him a chance for his life."

"We went to Meander this morning thinking we'd catch father there before he left. We wanted to tell him about Mr. Macdonald, and get him to drop this feud. If we could have seen him I know he'd have done what we asked, for he's got the n.o.blest heart in the world!"

Whatever Frances felt on the n.o.ble nature of Saul Chadron she held unexpressed. She did not feel that it fell to her duty to tell Nola whose hand had struck Macdonald down, although she believed that the cattleman's daughter deserved whatever pain and humiliation the revelation might bring. For it was as plain as if Nola had confessed it in words that she had much more than a friendly feeling of grat.i.tude for the foeman of her family.

Her heart was as unstable as mercury, it seemed. Frances despised her for her fickleness, scorned her for the mean face of friendship over the treachery of her soul. Not that she regretted Major King. Nola was free to take him and make the most of him. But she was not to come in as a wedge to rive her from this man.

Let her pay her debt of grat.i.tude in something else than love. Living or dead, Alan Macdonald was not for Nola Chadron. Her penance and her tears, her meanings and sobs and her broken heart, even that, if it should come, could not pay for the humiliation and the pain which that house had brought upon him.

"When did it happen?" asked Nola, the gust of her weeping past.

"This morning, early."

"Who did it--how did it happen? You got away from Chance--you said it wasn't Chance."

"We got away from that gang yesterday; this happened this morning, miles from that place."

"Who was it? Why don't you tell me, Frances?"

They were standing at Macdonald's side. A little spurt of flame among the ends of wood in the chimney threw a sudden illumination over them, and played like water over a stone upon Macdonald's face, then sank again, as if it had been plunged in ashes. Frances remained silent, her vindictiveness, her hardness of heart, against this vacillating girl dying away as the flame had died. It was not her desire to hurt her with that story of treachery and cowardice which must leave its stain upon her name for many a year.

"The name of the man who shot him is a curse and a blight on this land, a mockery of every holy human thought. I'll not speak it."

Nola stared at her, horror speaking from her eyes. "He must be a monster!"

"He is the lowest of the accursed--a coward!" Frances said.

Nola shuddered, standing silently by the couch a little while. Then: "But I want to help you, Frances, if you'll let me."

"There's nothing that you can do. I'm waiting for Mrs. Mathews and the doctor from the agency."

"You can go up and rest until they come, Frances, you look so tired and pale. I'll watch by him--you can tell me what to do, and I'll call you when they come."

"No; I'll stay until--I'll stay here."

"Oh, please go, Frances; you're nearly dead on your feet."

"Why do you want me to leave him?" Frances asked, in a flash of jealous suspicion. She turned to Nola, as if to search out her hidden intention.

"You were asleep in your chair when I came in, Frances," Nola chided her, gently.

Again they stood in silence, looking down upon the wounded man.

Frances was resentful of Nola's interest in him, of her presence in the room. She was on the point of asking her to leave when Nola spoke.

"If he hadn't been so proud, if he'd only stooped to explain things to us, to talk to us, even, this could have been avoided, Frances."

"What could he have said?" Frances asked, wondering, indeed, what explanation could have lessened his offense in Saul Chadron's eyes.

"If I had known him, I would have understood," Nola replied, vaguely, in soft low voice, as if communing with herself.

"You! Well, perhaps--perhaps even you would have understood."

"Look--he moved!"

"Sh-h-h! your talking disturbs him, Nola. Go to bed--you can't help me any here."