Wolf Breed Part 20

She lay very still, making him no answer. He could not guess if she were suffering from physical injury or from the other hurt which is harder to bear. He could not guess if she were growing calm or if she were losing consciousness. He could only plead with her, his voice softer than Ernestine Dumont had ever heard the voice of David Drennen, begging her to let him do something for her.

With a sudden, swift movement, she turned about, sitting up, her arms about her knees, her head with its loosened hair thrown back. For the first time he saw her face clearly. There was dirt upon it as though she had fallen upon the trail, face down. There was a smear of blood across her mouth. There was a scratch upon her forehead, and a trickle of blood had run down across her soiled brow. He saw that, while she had sobbed, no tears had come to make their glistening furrows through the dust upon her cheeks. He thought that in his time he, too, had known such tearless agony.

"Your help!" She flung the words at him pa.s.sionately. "I'd die before I'd take your help, Dave Drennen. What do you care for me?"

"I'm sorry for you, Ernestine," he said gently.

She laughed at him bitterly, her body rocking back and forth.

"Why don't you go?" she cried hotly. "Go on to MacLeod's. Your little fool is waiting for you, I suppose," she sneered at him.

Dropping her head to her upgathered knees, her body rocking stormily, moaning a little, she broke off. Drennen rose to his feet.

"I'll go," he said. "Shall I send some one to you?"

When she didn't answer he turned away from her. He had done all that he could do. And, besides, he thought that the woman's physical injuries were superficial and that her distress was doubtless that of mere violent hysteria.

"Come back!" she called sharply.

He turned and again came to her side, standing over her, his hat in his hand, his face showing only the old pity for her. Once more she had flung up her head. In the eyes staring up at him was a hunger which even David Drennen could not misread.

"Tell me," she said after a little, her voice more quiet than it had been. "Do you love Ygerne Bellaire, Dave?"

"Yes," he answered quietly.

"You fool!" she cried at him. "Why is a man always blind to what another woman can see so plainly? Don't you know what she is?"

"Let's not talk of her, Ernestine," he said a little sharply.

"She's too holy for a woman like me to talk about, is she? She's a little cat, Dave Drennen! Can't you see that? Don't you know what she is after . . ."

"Ernestine!" he commanded harshly. "If I can help you, let me do it.

If I can't, I'll go. In either case we'll not talk of Miss Bellaire."

She looked at him curiously, studying him, seeming for an instant to have grown quiet in mind as in body.

"She doesn't love you," she said calmly. "Not as I love you, Dave. If she did . . . nothing would matter. She's got baby eyes and a baby face . . . and she runs with men like Sefton and Lemarc!"

"I tell you," he cried sternly, "I'll not listen to you talk of her.

If I can't help you . . ."

Her eyes shone hard upon his. Then her head dropped again and once more she was moaning as when he had first heard her, moaning and weeping, her body twisting. Again the man was all uncertainty.

"You would do anything for her!" she cried brokenly. "You would do nothing for me."

"I would do anything for you that you would let me and that I could do, Ernestine," he said gently.

"And," she went on, unheeding, "it is because of you that I am like this to-night!"

"Because of me?" wonderingly.

"Yes," with a fierce sob. "Because he knew I loved you. . . . I would not have shot you that night at Pere Marquette's if I hadn't loved you!

. . . Do you think a woman is made like a man? . . . George has done this! If he laid hands upon her, upon your holy lady I'm not to talk about . . ."

"Tell me about it," he commanded. "Has Kootanie George done this to you?"

"Dave!" Suddenly she had flung up her arms, staring at him strangely.

"Do you think I am dying? He hurt me here . . . and here . . . and here." Her hands fluttered about her body, touching her throat, her breast, her side. The hands, lowered a moment were again lifted, stretched upward toward him, her eyes pleading with him. Slowly she was sinking back; he thought that in truth the woman was dying or at the least losing consciousness.

"Can't you help me?" she moaned. "Won't you hold me . . . I am falling. . . ."

Upon his knees he slipped his arms about her. He felt a hard stiffening of the muscles of her body, then a slow relaxing. He was laying her back gently, when she shook her head.

"Hold me up," she whispered, the words faint though her lips were close to his ear. "I'd smother if I lay down. . . ."

So he held her for a long time, fearing for her, at loss for a thing to do. The flickering firelight showed his face troubled and solicitous, hers half smiling now as though she were content to suffer so long as he held her. Presently she put her head back a little further, her eyes meeting his.

"You are good, Dave," she whispered. "Good to me. I have not been good to you, have I? Would you be a little sorry for me if I died?"

"Don't talk that way, Ernestine," he besought her. "You are not going to die."

She put up one hand and pushed the hair back from his brow. He flinched a little at the intimacy of the touch but she did not seem to notice. She was smiling at him now, all hint of pain gone from her eyes for the moment.

"If you had loved me," she said gently, "we both would have been happy.

Now I'll never be happy, Dave, and you'll never be happy. She won't make you happy. She'll make a fool of you and then . . ."

Again she grew silent, her lids lowered. Drennen thought that she was sinking into a quiet sleep. He did not stir as the moments slipped by.

A stick on the old hearth snapping and falling drew to it Ernestine's eyes. Then they came again to Drennen. While she looked at him she seemed not to be seeing him or thinking of him. She seemed, rather, to be listening for some sound she expected to hear. Again she was very still, the firelight finding an odd smile upon her face. She had wiped much of the dust away and her pretty face, a little hard at most time, was softened by the half light. After a little she sighed. Then, swiftly, she slipped from Drennen's arms.

"I suppose you think I am a fool," she laughed strangely. "Well, I know that you are, Dave Drennen! Now, go away, will you? Or do I have to crawl away from here to get away from you? My G.o.d!" a sudden pa.s.sion again breaking through the ice of her tone, "I wish I had killed you the other night. Before . . . _she_ came!"

No other word did Drennen draw from her. She sat as she had sat a little while ago, her arms flung about her knees, her face hidden in her arms. And so, at last, he left her.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAW AND A MAN'S DESIRE

Drennan slept two hours that night. He awoke rested, refreshed, eager.

He did not need sleep. He was Youth's own, tireless, stimulated with the golden elixir.

Ygerne must not be before him at the trysting place; she must not wait for him a short instant. It was his place to be there to welcome her.

She would come with the early dawn; he must come earlier than the dawn itself.

When he came to the old fallen log the smile upon his lips, in his eyes, bespoke a deep, sweet tenderness. He had brought with him the two gifts for her. He put the box of candy in the gra.s.s, covering it, planning to have her search for it. He felt like a boy; she must join with him in a childplay. The pendant necklace, its pearls as pure and soft as tears, he placed upon the log itself, in a little hollow, covering it with a piece of bark. Then he found her note.

It was very short; he read it at a sweeping glance. His brain caught the words; his mind refused to grasp their meaning. And yet Ygerne had written clearly: