The Strength of the Pines Part 26

She was trained to mountain ways, and instantly she regained a perfect mastery of herself. Her arms went about and seized his shoulders.

"Stagger," she whispered quickly. "Pretend to fall. It's the one chance to save you."

He dispelled the mists in his own brain and obeyed her. He swayed, and her arms went about him. Then he fell forward.

Her strong arms encircled his waist and with all her magnificent young strength she dragged him to the door. It was noticeable, however--to all eyes except Bruce's--that she kept her own body as much as she could between him and the ambush. In an instant they were in the darkened room. Bruce stood up, once more wholly master of himself.

"You're not hurt bad?" she asked quickly.

"No. Just a deep scratch in the arm muscle near the shoulder. Bullet just must have grazed me. But it's bleeding pretty bad."

"Then there's no time to be lost." Her hands in her eagerness went again to his shoulder. "Don't you see--he'll be here in a minute. We'll steal out the back door and try to ride down to the courts before they can overtake us--"

In one instant he had grasped the idea; and he laughed softly in the gloom. "I know. I'll s.n.a.t.c.h two blankets and the food. You get the horse."

She sprang out the kitchen door and he hurried into the bedrooms. He s.n.a.t.c.hed two of the warmest blankets from the beds and hurled them over his shoulder. He hooked the camp ax on his belt, then hastened into the little kitchen. He took up the little sack containing a few pounds of jerked venison, spilled out a few pieces for Elmira, and carried it--with a few pounds of flour--out to meet Linda. The horse still stood saddled, and with deft hands they tied on their supplies and fastened the blankets in a long roll in front of the saddle.

"Get on," she whispered. "I'll get up behind you."

She spoke in the utter darkness; he felt her breath against his cheek.

Then the lightning came dimly and showed him her face.

"No, Linda," he replied quietly. "You are going alone--"

She cut him off with a despairing cry. "Oh, please, Bruce--I won't. I'll stay here then--"

"Don't you see?" he demanded. "You can make it out without me. I'm wounded and bleeding, and can't tell how long I can keep up. We've only got one horse, and without me to weigh him down you can get down to the courts--"

"And leave you here to be murdered? Oh, don't waste the precious seconds any more. I won't go without you. I mean it. If you stay here, I do too.

Believe me if you ever believed anything."

Once more the lightning revealed her face, and on it was the determination of a zealot. He knew that she spoke the truth. He climbed with some difficulty into the saddle. A moment more and she swung up behind him.

The entire operation had taken an astonishingly short period of time.

Bruce had worked like mad, wholly disregarding his injured arm. The rain had already changed to snow, and the wet flakes beat in his face, but he did not heed them. Just beyond, Simon with ready rifle was creeping toward the house.

"Which way?" Bruce asked.

"The out-trail--around the mountain," she whispered. "Simon will overtake us on the other--he's got a magnificent horse. On the mountain trail we'll have a better chance to keep out of his sight."

She spoke hurriedly, yet conveyed her message with entire clearness.

They knew what they had to face, these two. Simon and whoever of the clan was with him would lose no time in springing in pursuit. They each had a strong horse, they knew the trails, they carried long-range rifles and would open fire at the first glimpse of the fugitives. Bruce was wounded; slight as the injury was it would seriously handicap them in such a test as this. Their one chance was to keep to the remote trails, to lurk unseen in the thickets, and try to break through to safety. And they knew that only by the doubtful mercy of the forest G.o.ds could they ever succeed.

She took the reins and pulled out of the trail, then encircled a heavy wall of brush. She didn't wish to take the risk of Simon seeing their forms in the dimming lightning and opening fire so soon. Then she turned back into the trail and headed into the storm.

Simon had clear enough memory of the rifle fire that Linda had opened upon the clan to wish to approach the house with care. It would be wholly typical of the girl to lay her lover on his bed, then go back to the window to wait for a sight of his a.s.sa.s.sin. She could look straight along a rifle barrel! A few moments were lost as Young Bill and himself encircled the thickets, keeping out of the gleam of the smoldering tree.

Its light was almost gone; it hissed and glowed in the wet snow.

They crept up from the shadow, and holding their rifles ready, opened the door. They were somewhat surprised to find it unlocked. The truth was it had been left thus by design; Linda did not wish them to encircle the house to the rear door and discover Bruce and herself in the act of departure. The room was in darkness, and the two intruders rather expected to find Bruce's body on the threshold.

These were mountain men; and they had been in rifle duels before. They had the sure instincts of the beasts of prey in the hills without, and among other things they knew it wasn't wise to stand long in an open doorway with the firelight of the ruined pine behind them. They slipped quickly into the darkness.

Then they stopped and listened. The room was deeply silent. They couldn't hear the sound that both of them had so confidently expected,--the faint breathing of a dying man. Simon struck a match. The room was quite deserted.

"What's up?" Bill demanded.

Simon turned toward him with a scowl, and the match flickered and burned out in his fingers. "Keep your rifle ready. He may be hiding somewhere--still able to shoot."

They stole to the door of Linda's room and listened. Then they threw it wide.

One of their foes was in this room--an implacable foe whose eyes were glittering and strange in the matchlight. But it was neither Bruce nor Linda. It was old Elmira, cold and sinister as a rattler in its lair.

Simon cursed her and hurried on.

At that instant both men began to move swiftly. Holding his rifle like a club, Simon swung through into, Bruce's room, lighted another match, then darted into the kitchen. In the dim matchlight the truth went home to him.

He turned, eyes glittering. "They've gone--on Dave's horse," he said.

"Thank G.o.d they've only got one horse between 'em and can't go fast. You ride like h.e.l.l up the trail toward the store--they might have gone that way. Keep close watch and shoot when you can make 'em out."

"You mean--" Bill's eyes widened.

"Mean! I mean do as I say. Shoot by sound, if you can't see them, and don't lose another second or I'll shoot you too. Aim for the man if a chance offers--but shoot, anyway. Don't stop hunting till you find them--they'll duck off in the brush sure. If they get through, everything is lost. I'll take the trail around the mountain."

They raced to their horses, untied them, and mounted swiftly. The darkness swallowed them at once.

x.x.xI

In the depth of gloom even the wild folk--usually keeping so close a watch on those that move on the shadowed trails--did not see Linda and Bruce ride past. The darkness is usually their time of dominance, but to-night most of them had yielded to the storm and the snow. They hovered in their coverts. What movement there was among them was mostly toward the foothills; for the message had gone forth over the wilderness that the cold had come to stay. The little gnawing folk, emerging for another night's work at filling their larders with food, crept down into the scarcely less impenetrable darkness of their underground burrows.

Even the bears, whose furry coats were impervious to any ordinary cold, felt the beginnings of the cold-trance creeping over them. They were remembering the security and warmth of their last winter's dens, and they began to long for them again.

The horse walked slowly, head close to the ground. The girl made no effort to guide him. The lightning had all but ceased; and in an instant it had become apparent that only by trusting to the animal's instinct could the trail be kept at all; almost at once all sense of direction was lost to them. The snow and the darkness obscured the outline of the ridges against the sky; the trail was wholly invisible beneath them.

After the first hundred yards, they had no way of knowing that the horse was actually on the trail. While animals in the light of day cannot see nearly so far or interpret nearly so clearly as human beings, they usually seem to make their way much better at night. Many a frontiersman has been saved from death by realization of this fact; and, bewildered by the ridges, has permitted his dog to lead him into camp. But nature has never devised a creature that can see in the utter darkness, and the gloom that enfolded them now seemed simply unfathomable. Bruce found it increasingly hard to believe that the horse's eyes could make out any kind of dim pathway in the pine needles. The feeling grew on him and on Linda as well that they were lost and aimlessly wandering in the storm.

Of all the sensations that the wilderness can afford, there are few more dreadful to the spirit than this. It is never pleasant to lose one's bearings,--and in the night and the cold and miles from any friendly habitation it is particularly hard to bear. Bruce felt the age-old menace of the wilderness as never before. It always seemed to be crouching, waiting to take a man at a disadvantage; and like the G.o.ds that first make mad those whom they would destroy, it doesn't quite play fair. He understood now certain wilderness tragedies of which he had heard: how tenderfeet--lost among the ridges--had broken into a wild run that had ended nowhere except in exhaustion and death.

Bruce himself felt a wild desire to lash his horse into a gallop, but he forced it back with all his powers of will. His calmer, saner self explained that folly with entire clearness. It would mean panic for the horse, and then a quick and certain death either at the foot of a precipice or from a blow from a low-hanging limb. The horse seemed to be feeling its way, rather than seeing.

They were strange, lonely figures in the darkness; and for a long time they rode almost in silence. Then Bruce felt the girl's breath as she whispered.

"Bruce," she said. "Let's be brave and look this matter in the face. Do you think we've got a chance?"

He rode a long time before he answered. He groped desperately for a word that might bring her cheer, but it was hard to find. The cold seemed to deepen about them, the remorseless snow beat into his face.

"Linda," he replied, "it is one of the mercies of this world for men always to think that they've got a chance. Maybe it's only a cruelty in our case."