153CHAPTER XIION MUSIC MOUNTAIN
De Spain, when he climbed into Sassoon’s saddle, was losing sight and consciousness. He knew he could no longer defend himself, and was so faint that only the determination of putting distance between him and any pursuers held him to the horse after he spurred away. With the instinct of the hunted, he fumbled with his right hand for his means of defense, and was relieved to find his revolver, after his panicky dash for safety, safe in its place. He put his hand to his belt for fresh cartridges. The belt was gone.
The discovery sent a shock through his failing faculties. He could not recollect why he had no belt. Believing his senses tricked him, he felt again and again for it before he would believe it was not buckled somewhere about him. But it was gone, and he stuck back in his waistband his useless revolver. One hope remained––flight, and he spurred his horse cruelly.
Blood running continually into his eyes from the wound in his head made him think his eyes were gone, and direction was a thing quite beyond154his power to compass. He made little effort to guide, and his infuriated horse flew along as if winged.
A warm, sticky feeling in his right boot warned him, when he tried to make some mental inventory of his condition, of at least one other wound. But he found he could inventory nothing, recollect next to nothing, and all that he wanted to do was to escape. More than once he tried to look behind, and he dashed his hand across his red forehead. He could not see twenty feet ahead or behind. Even when he hurriedly wiped the cloud from his eyes his vision seemed to have failed, and he could only cling to his horse to put the miles as fast as possible between himself and more of the Morgans.
A perceptible weakness presently forced him to realize he must look to his wounded foot. This he did without slackening speed. The sight of it and the feeling inside his torn and blood-soaked boot was not reassuring, but he rode on, sparing neither his horse nor his exhaustion. It was only when spells of dizziness, recurring with frequency, warned him he could not keep the saddle much longer, that he attempted to dismount to stanch the drip of blood from his stirrup.
Before he slackened speed he tried to look behind155to reconnoitre. With relief he perceived his sight to be a trifle better, and in scanning the horizon he could discover no pursuers. Choosing a secluded spot, he dismounted, cut open his boot, and found that a bullet, passing downward, had torn an artery under the arch of the foot. Making a rude tourniquet, he succeeded in checking pretty well the spurting flow that was sapping his strength. After he had adjusted the bandage he stood up and looked at it. Then he drew his revolver again and broke it. He found five empty shells in the chambers and threw them away. The last cartridge had not been fired. He could not even figure out how he had happened to have six cartridges in the cylinder, for he rarely loaded more than five. Indeed, it was his fixed habit––to avoid accidents––never to carry a cartridge under the hammer of his gun––yet now there had been one. Without trying to explain the circumstance, he took fresh stock of his chances and began to wonder whether he might yet escape and live.
He climbed again into the saddle, and, riding to a ridge, looked carefully over the desert. It was with an effort that he could steady himself, and the extent of his weakness surprised him. What further perplexed him as he crossed a long divide, got another good view and saw no pursuit156threatening in any direction, was to identify the country he was in. The only landmark anywhere in sight that he could recognize was Music Mountain. This now lay to the northwest, and he knew he must be a long way from any country he was familiar with. But there was no gainsaying, even in his confused condition, Music Mountain. After looking at it a long time he headed with some hesitation cautiously toward it, with intent to intercept the first trail to the northeast. This would take him toward Sleepy Cat.
As his eyes continued to sweep the horizon he noted that the sun was down and it was growing dark. This brought a relief and a difficulty. It left him less in fear of molestation, but made it harder for him to reach a known trail. The horse, in spite of the long, hard ride seemed fresh yet, and de Spain, with one cartridge would still have laughed at his difficulties had he not realized, with uneasiness, that his head was becoming very light. Recurring intervals of giddiness foreshadowed a new danger in his uncharted ride. It became again a problem for him to keep his seat in the saddle. He was aware at intervals that he was steadying himself like a drunken man. His efforts to guide the horse only bewildered the beast, and the two travelled on maudlin curves and doubled back on their track157until de Spain decided that his sole chance of reaching any known trail was to let go and give the horse his head.
A starless night fell across the desert. With danger of pursuit practically ended, and only a chance encounter to fear, de Spain tried to help himself by walking the horse and resting his bleeding foot in front of the pommel, letting the pony pick his way as he chose. A period of unconsciousness, a blank in de Spain’s mind, soon followed the slowing up. He came to himself as he was lurching out of the saddle. Pulling himself together, he put the wet foot in the stirrup again and clung to the pommel with his hands. How long he rode in this way, or how far, he never knew. He was roused to consciousness by the unaccustomed sound of running water underneath his horse’s feet.
It was pitch dark everywhere. The horse after the hard experience of the evening was drinking a welcome draft. De Spain had no conception of where he could be, but the stream told him he had somehow reached the range, though Music Mountain itself had been swallowed up in the night. A sudden and uncontrollable thirst seized the wounded man. He could hear the water falling over the stones and climbed slowly and painfully out of the saddle to the ground. With158the lines in his left hand he crawled toward the water and, lying flat on the ground beside the horse, put his head down to drink. The horse, meantime, satisfied, lifted his head with a gulp, rinsed his mouth, and pulled backward. The lines slipped from de Spain’s hand. Alarmed, the weakened man scrambled after them. The horse, startled, shied, and before his rider could get to his feet scampered off in a trot. While de Spain listened in consternation, the escaped horse, falling into an easy stride, galloped away into the night.
Stunned by this new misfortune, and listening gloomily to the retreating hoof-beats, de Spain pondered the situation in which the disaster left him. It was the worst possible blow that could have fallen, but fallen it had, and he turned with such philosophy as he could to complete the drink of water that had probably cost him his life. At least, cold water never tasted sweeter, never was so grateful to his parched tongue, and since the price of the draft might be measured by life itself, he drank extravagantly, stopping at times to rest and, after breathing deeply, to drink again.
When he had slaked a seemingly unquenchable craving, he dashed the running water, first with one hand and then the other, over his face.159He tried feebly to wash away some of the alkali that had crusted over the wound in the front of his head and was stinging and burning in it. There was now nothing to do but to secrete himself until daylight and wait till help should reach him––it was manifestly impossible for him to seek it.
Meantime, the little stream beside him offered first aid. He tried it with his foot and found it slight and shallow, albeit with a rocky bed that made wading in his condition difficult. But he felt so much better he was able to attempt this, and, keeping near to one side of the current, he began to follow it slowly up-stream. The ascent was at times precipitous, which pleased him, though it depleted his new strength. It was easy in this way to hide his trail, and the higher and faster the stream took him into the mountains the safer he would be from any Calabasas pursuers. When he had regained a little strength and oriented himself, he could quickly get down into the hills.
Animated by these thoughts, he held his way up-stream, hoping at every step to reach the gorge from which the flow issued. He would have known this by the sound of the falling water, but, weakening soon, he found he must abandon hope of getting up to it. However, by resting160and scrambling up the rocks, he kept on longer than he would have believed possible. Encountering at length, as he struggled upward, a ledge and a clump of bushes, he crawled weakly on hands and knees into it, too spent to struggle farther, stretched himself on the flattened brambles and sank into a heavy sleep.
He woke in broad daylight. Consciousness returned slowly and he raised himself with pain from his rough couch. His wounds were stiff, and he lay for a long time on his back looking up at the sky. At length he dragged himself to an open space near where he had slept and looked about. He appeared to be near the foot of a mountain quite strange to him, and in rather an exposed place. The shelter that had served him for the night proved worthless in daylight and, following his strongly developed instinct of self-preservation, de Spain started once more up the rocky path of the stream. He clambered a hundred feet above where he had slept before he found a hiding-place. It was at the foot of a tiny waterfall where the brook, striking a ledge of granite, had patiently hollowed out a shallow pool. Beside this a great mass of frost-bitten rock had fallen, and one of the bowlders lay tilted in such a way as to roof in a sort of cave, the entrance161to which was not higher than a man’s knee. De Spain crawled into this refuge. He conceived that from this high, open ledge he could show a small signal-fire at night, and if it were answered by his enemies he had a semblance of a retreat under the fallen rock, a hunting-knife, and one lone cartridge to protect himself with. A mountain-lion might have to be reckoned with; and if a pursuer should follow him under the rock his only chance would lie in getting hold, after a fight, of the man’s loaded revolver or ammunition-belt. Such a hope involved a great deal of confidence, but de Spain was an optimist––most railroad men are.
The outlook was, in truth, not altogether cheerful––some would have called it, for a wounded man, desperate––but it had some slight consolations and de Spain was not given to long-range forebodings. The rising sun shone in a glory of clearness, and the cool night air rolling up the mountain was grateful and refreshing. Lying flat on the rock, he stretched his head forward and drank deeply of the ice-cold pool beside which he lay. The violent exertion of reaching the height had started the ruptured artery anew, and his first work was crudely to cleanse the wound and attempt to rebandage it. He was hungry, but for this there was only one alleviation––sleep––and,162carefully effacing all traces of his presence on the ledge, he crawled into his rock retreat and fell again into a heavy slumber.
It was this repose that proved his undoing. He woke to consciousness so weak he could scarcely lift his head. It was still day. A consuming thirst assailed him, but he lacked the strength to crawl out of his cave, and, looking toward his bandaged foot, he was shocked at the sight of how it had bled while he slept. When he could rally from his discouragement he rewound the bandages and told himself what a fool he had been to drag his foot up the rocks before the wound had had any chance to heal. He resolved, despite his thirst, to lie still all day and give the artery absolute quiet. It required only a little stoicism; the stake was life.
Toward afternoon his restlessness increased, but he clung to his resolve to lie still. By evening he was burning with thirst, and when morning came after a feverish night, with his head on fire and his mouth crusted dry, he concluded rightly that one or both of his wounds had become infected.
De Spain understood what it meant. He looked regretfully at the injured foot. Swollen out of shape and angry-looking, the mere appearance would have told him, had the confirmation163been needed, that his situation was becoming critical. This did not so much disconcert him as it surprised him and spurred him mentally to the necessity of new measures. He lay a long time thinking. Against the infection he could do little. But the one aid at his hand was abundance of cold water to drink and bathe his wound in, and to this he resolved now to drag himself. To crawl across the space that separated him from the pool required all the strength he could summon. The sun was already well up and its rays shot like spectrum arrows through the spray of the dainty cataract, which spurted in a jewelled sheet over a rocky ledge twenty feet above and poured noisily down from the broad pool along jagged bowlders below.
Crawling, choking with thirst, slowly forward, he reached the water, and, reclining on his side and one elbow, he was about to lean down to drink when he suddenly felt, with some kind of an instinctive shock, that he was no longer alone on the ledge. He had no interest in analyzing the conviction; he did not even question it. Not a sound had reached his ears. Only a moment before he had looked carefully all around. But the field of his vision was closely circumscribed by the walls about him. It was easy for an invader to come on his retreat unawares––at164all events, somebody, he was almost sure, stood behind him. The silence meant an enemy. The first thing to expect was a bullet. It would probably be aimed at the back of his head. At least he knew this was the spot to aim for to kill a man instantly and painlessly––yet he shrank from that anticipated crash.
And it was this thought that cost the defenseless man at the moment the most pain––that feeling, in advance, of the blow of the bullet that should snuff out his life. Defense was out of the question; he was as helpless as a baby. An impulse in his fingers to clutch his revolver he restrained at once––it could only hasten his death. He wondered, as the seconds passed, why his executioner hesitated to shoot, but he could not rid himself of the mental horror of being shot in the base of the brain. Anywhere else he would have almost welcomed a bullet; anywhere else it might have given him one chance for life through rolling over after he was struck in an attempt to kill his assailant.
His thoughts, working in flashes of lightning, suggested every possible trick of escape, and as rapidly rejected each. There was nothing for it but to play the part, to take the blow with no more than a quiver when it came. He had once seen a man shot in just that way. Braced to165such a determination, de Spain bent slowly downward, and, with eyes staring into the water for a reflection that might afford a glimpse of his enemy, he began to drink. A splash above his head frightened him almost to death. It was a water ousel dashing into the foaming cataract and out again, and the spray falling from the sudden bath wrecked the mirror of the pool. De Spain nearly choked. Each mouthful of water was a struggle. The sense of impending death had robbed even the life-giving drafts of their tonic; each instant carried its acute sensation of being the last. At length, his nerves weakened by hunger and exposure, revolted under the strain. Suppose it should be, after all, a fantasy of his fever that pictured so vividly an enemy behind. With an effort that cost more mental torture than he ever had known, he drew back on his elbow from the pool, steadied himself, turned his head to face his executioner, and confronted Nan Morgan.
166CHAPTER XIIIPARLEY
She stood beside the rock from which the ledge was reached from below, and as if she had just stepped up into sight. Her rifle was so held in both hands that it could be fired from her hip, and at such close quarters with deadly accuracy. As she stood with startled eyes fixed on his haggard face, her slender neck and poised head were very familiar to de Spain.
And her expression, while it reflected her horrified alarm, did not conceal her anger and aversion at the sight of him. Unaware of the forbidding spectacle he presented, de Spain, swept by a brainstorm at the appearance of this Morgan––the only one of all the Morgans he had not fancied covering him and waiting to deliver his death-warrant––felt a fury sweep over him at the thought of being shot by a woman. The wild idea that she meant to kill him, which in a rational moment would never have entered his mind, now in his delirium completely obsessed him. Working, as it were, mechanically, even the instinct of self-defense asserted itself against167her. But enough of reason remained in his disordered senses to tell him that self-defense was out of the question. Whatever she meant to do, he could no more fire at this girl, even had he a chance––and he realized he was at her mercy––than he could at his sister; and he lay with his eyes bent on hers, trying to read her purpose.
She stood guarded, but motionless with surprise. De Spain turned himself slowly and, sitting up, waited for her to speak. There was little to hope for, he thought, in her expression. And all of his duplicity seemed to desert him before her cold resolution. The tricks he would have tried, at bay before a man, he felt no inclination to attempt. He read in her set face only abhorrence and condemnation, and felt in no way moved to argue her verdict. “I suppose,” he said, at length, not trying to disguise his bitter resentment of her presence, “you’ve come to finish me.”
His shirt stained and tattered for bandages, his hair matted in blood on his forehead, his eyes inflamed and sunken, his lips crusted and swollen, the birthmark fastened vividly on his cheek made him a desperate sight. Regarding him steadily, Nan, as bewildered as if she had suddenly come on a great wounded beast of prey still dangerous, made no response to his words. The two stared168at each other defiantly and for another moment in silence. “If you are going to kill me,” he continued, looking into her eyes without any thought of appeal, “do it quick.”
Something in his long, unyielding gaze impelled her to break the spell of it. “What are you doing here?” she demanded with anger, curbing her voice to control her excitement as best she could.
De Spain, still looking at her, answered only after a pause. “Hiding,” he said harshly.
“Hiding to kill other men!” Nan’s accusation as she clutched her rifle was almost explosive.
He regarded her coolly, and with the interval he had had for thinking, his wits were clearing. “Do I look like a man hunting for a fight? Or,” he added, since she made no answer, “like a man hunting for a quiet spot to die in? How,” he went on slowly, delirium giving place to indignation, “can you say I’m hiding here to kill other men? That’s what your people tell you, is it?”
“I know you are a murderer.”
In spite of his weakness he flushed. “No,” he exclaimed sharply, “I’m not a murderer. If you think it”––he pointed contemptuously to her side––“you have your rifle––use it!”
“My rifle is to defend myself with. I am not a public executioner,” she answered scornfully.
“You need no rifle to defend yourself from169me––though I am a murderer. And if you’re not a public executioner, leave me––I’m dying fast enough.”
“You came here to hide to kill somebody!” she exclaimed, as if the thought were a sudden explanation.
“What do you mean by ‘here’? I might better ask why you came here,” he retorted. “I don’t know where I am. Do I look as if I came here by choice?” He paused. “Listen,” he said, quite master of himself, “I’ll tell you why I came. I shall never get away alive, anyway––you can have the truth if you want it. I got off my horse in the night to get a drink. He bolted. I couldn’t walk. I climbed up here to hide till my wounds heal. Now, I’ve told you the truth. Where am I?”
The grip of her hands on the rifle might have relaxed somewhat, but she saw his deadly revolver in its accustomed place and did not mean to surrender her command of him. Nor would she tell him where he was. She parried his questions. He could get no information of any sort out of her. Yet he saw that something more than his mere presence detained and perplexed her. Her prompt condemnation of him rankled in his mind, and the strain of facing her suspicion wore on him. “I won’t ask you anything more,” he said170at length. “You do right to give me no information. It might help me save my life. I can’t talk any longer. You know you think I’ve no right to live––that’s what you think, isn’t it? Why don’t you shoot?” She only stared at him. “Why don’t you answer?” he demanded recklessly.
Nan summoned her resolution. “I know you tried to kill my cousin,” she said hotly, after he had taunted her once more. “And I don’t know you won’t try it again as soon as you are able. And I am going to think what to do before I tell you anything or do anything.”
“You know I tried to kill your cousin! You know nothing of the kind. Your cousin tried to kill me. He’s a bully and a coward, a man that doesn’t know what fair fighting means. Tell him that for me.”
“You are safe in abusing him when he’s not here.”
“Send him to me! This is no place for a woman that calls me what you call me––send your cousin and all his friends!” His voice shook with anger. “Tell him I’m wounded; tell him I’ve had nothing to eat since I fought him before. And if he’s still afraid”––de Spain drew and broke his revolver almost like a flash. In that incredibly quick instant she realized he might have threatened171her life before she could move a muscle––“tell your fine cousin I’ve got one cartridge left––just one!” So saying, he held in one hand the loaded cartridge and in the other the empty revolver.
“You think little of bloodshed, I know,” she returned unpleasantly.
“I think a whole lot,” he drawled in painful retort, “of fair fighting.”
“And I’m a woman––you do well to taunt me with that.”
“I did not taunt you with it. You are hatefully unjust,” he protested sullenly.
“You’ve asked me to go––I’m going. How much of what you tell me is true, I don’t know. But I can believe my own eyes, and I believe you are not in condition to do much injury, even if you came here with that intention. You will certainly lose your life if you move from your hiding-place.”
She started away. He leaned toward her. “Stop,” he said peremptorily, raising himself with a wrenching effort. Something in the stern eye held her. His extended hand pointed toward her as arbitrarily as if, instead of lying helpless at her feet, he could command her to his bidding. “I want to ask you a question. I’ve told you the truth. I have just one cartridge. If you are172going to send your cousin and his men here, it’s only fair I should know it now––isn’t it?”
Her face was hard in spite of the weakness he struggled to conceal. It annoyed her to think he had surmised she was revolving in her mind what to do. He was demanding an answer she had not yet given to herself.
“My cousin is wounded,” she said, pausing. And then with indecision: “If you stay here quietly you are not likely to be molested.”
She stepped down from the ledge as noiselessly as she had come. Shaken by the discovery she had so unexpectedly made, Nan retreated almost precipitately from the spot. And the question of what to do worried her as much as it worried de Spain. The whole range had been shaken by the Calabasas fight. Even in a country where appeal to arms was common, where men were ready to snuff out a life for a word, or kill for a mess of pottage––to settle for the least grave offense a dispute with a shot––the story of the surprising, unequal, and fatal encounter of the Calabasas men with de Spain, and of his complete disappearance after withstanding almost unheard-of odds, was more than a three days’ wonder; nothing else was talked of for weeks. Even the men in Morgan’s Gap, supposed to be past masters of the game played in the closed room at Calabasas,173had been stunned by the issue of the few minutes with Jeffries’s new man.
Nan, who had heard but one side of the story, pictured the aggressor from the tale of the two who lived to tell of the horribly sharp action with him. Morning, noon, and night she had heard nothing but the fight at Calabasas discussed by the men that rode in and out of the Gap––and in connection with it, de Spain’s unexplained flight and disappearance. Those that knew the real story of the conspiracy to kill him did not talk much, after the disastrous outcome, of that part of the affair. But Nan’s common sense whispered to her, whatever might be said about de Spain’s starting the fight, that one man locked in a room with four enemies, all dangerous in an affray, was not likely to begin a fight unless forced to––none, at least, but a madman would do so. She had heard stories, too, of de Spain’s drinking and quarrelling, but none that told them had ever seen him under the influence of drink or had had a quarrel with him except Gale and Sassoon––and these two were extremely quarrelsome.
Unhappy and irresolute, Nan, when she got home, was glad of an excuse to ride to Calabasas for a packet of dressings coming by stage from Sleepy Cat for Gale, who lay wounded at Satt174Morgan’s; and, eating a hasty luncheon, she ordered her horse and set out.
Should she tell her Uncle Duke of finding de Spain? Whenever she decided that she must, something in the recollection of de Spain’s condition unsettled her resolution. Tales enough of his bloodthirstiness, his merciless efficiency, his ever-ready craft and consummate duplicity were familiar to her––most of them made so within the last three days––for no one in her circle any longer professed to underrate the demonstrated resourcefulness of the man.
Yet only a few of these stories appealed to Nan’s innate convictions of truth and justice. She lived among men who were, for the most part, not truthful or dependable even in small things––how could they be relied on to tell the truth about de Spain’s motives and conduct? As to his deadly skill with arms, no stories were needed to confirm this, even though she herself had once overcome him in a contest. The evidence of this mastery had now a fatal pre-eminence among the tragedies of the Spanish Sinks. Where he lay he could, if he meditated revenge on her people, murder any of them, almost at will. To spare his life imperilled to this extent theirs––but surely he lay not far from death by exhaustion. Weighed against all she had ever listened175to concerning his deceit was the evidence of her own sight. She had seen men desperately ill, and men desperately stricken. This man was either both or she could never again believe her senses. And if he was not helped soon he would die.
But who was to help him? Certainly none of his friends could know where he was hidden or of his plight––no help could come from them unless she told them. If she told them they would try to reach him. That would mean an appalling––an unthinkable––fight. If she told her uncle, could she keep him from killing de Spain? She believed not. He might promise to let him go. But she knew her uncle’s ferocious resentment, and how easy it would be for him to give her fine words and, in spite of them, for de Spain to be found dead some morning where he lay––there were plenty of men available for jobs such as that.
All came back to one terrifying alternative: Should she help this wretched man herself? And if he lived, would he repay her by shooting some one of her own kin?
The long ride to Calabasas went fast as the debate swept on, and the vivid shock of her strange experience recurred to her imagination.
She drew up before the big barn. Jim McAlpin176was coming out to go to supper. Nan asked for her package and wanted to start directly back again. McAlpin refused absolutely to hear of it. He looked at her horse and professed to be shocked. He told her she had ridden hard, urged her to dismount, and sent her pony in to be rubbed, assuring Nan heartily there was not a man, outside the hostlers, within ten miles. While her horse was cared for, McAlpin asked, in his harmless Scotch way, about Gale.
Concerning Gale, Nan was non-committal. But she listened with interest, more or less veiled, to whatever running comment McAlpin had to offer concerning the Calabasas fight. “And I was sorry to see Gale mixed up in it,” he concluded, in his effort to draw Nan out, “sorry. And sorrier to think of Henry de Spain getting killed that way. Why, I knowed Henry de Spain when he was a baby in arms.” He put out his hand cannily. “I worked for his father before he was born.” His listener remained obdurate. There was nothing for it except further probing, to which, however, Jim felt abundantly equal. “Some say,” he suggested, looking significantly toward the door of the barn, and significantly away again, “that Henry went down there to pick a fight with the boys. But,” he asserted cryptically, “I happen to knowthatwasn’t so.”
177
“Then what did he go down there for?” demanded Nan indignantly, but not warily.
McAlpin, the situation now in hand, took his time to it. He leaned forward in a manner calculated to invite confidence without giving offense. “Miss Nan,” said he simply, “I worked for your Uncle Duke for five years––you know that.” Nan had, at least, heard it fifty times. “I think a good deal of him––I think a good deal of you, so does the missus, so does little Loretta––she’s always asking about you, the child is––and I hear and see a good deal here that other people don’t get next to––they can’t. Now Henry de Spain was here, with me, sitting right there where you are sitting, Miss Nan, in that chair,” declared McAlpin with an unanswerable finger, “not fifteen minutes before that fight began, he was there. I told you he never went down there to fight. Do you want the proof? I’ll tell you––I wouldn’t want anybody else to know––will you keep it?”
Nan seemed indifferent. “Girls are not supposed to keep secrets,” she said obstinately.
Her narrator was not to be balked. He pointed to the coat-rack on the wall in front of them both. “There is Henry de Spain’s coat. He hung it there just before he went down to the inn. Under it, if you look, you’ll find his belt of cartridges. Don’t take my word––look for yourself.”
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Giving this information time to sink in, McAlpin continued. Nan’s eyes had turned, despite her indifference, to the coat; but she was thinking more intently about the belt which McAlpin asserted hung under it. “You want to know what he did go down to the hotel for that afternoon? I happen to know that, too,” averred McAlpin, sitting down, but respectfully, on the edge of the chair. “First I want to say this: I worked for your Uncle Duke five years.”
He paused to give Nan a chance to dispute the statement if she so desired. Then taking her despairing silence as an indorsement of his position in giving her a confidence, he went on: “Henry de Spain is dead,” he said quietly. She eyed him without so much as winking. “I wouldn’t tell it if he wasn’t. Some of the boys don’t believe he is. I’m not a pessimist––not a bit––but I’m telling you it’s a physical impossibility for a man to take the fire of four revolvers in the hands of four men like those four men, at arm’s length, and live. Henry de Spain is the cleverest man with a gun that ever rode the Spanish Sinks, but limits is limits; the boy’s dead. And he was always talking about you. It’s God’s truth, and since he’s dead it harms no one to tell it to you, though I’d never breathe it to another. He was fairly gone on you. Now179that’s the fair truth: the man was gone on you. I knowed it, where others didn’t know it. I was the only one he could always ask about whether you’d been here, and when; and when you might be expected coming again––and all such things like that.
“You don’t have to knock me down, Miss Nan, to put me wise about a man’s being keen on a girl. I’m a married man,” declared McAlpin with modest pride. “He thought all the time he was fooling me, and keeping covered. Why, I laughed to myself at his tricks to get information without letting on! Now, that afternoon he came in here kind of moody. It was an anniversary for him, and a hard one––the day his father was shot from ambush––a good many years ago, but nary one of us had forgot it. Then he happened to see your pony––this same pony you’re riding to-day––a-standing back there in the box-stall. He asked me whose it was; and he asked me about you, and, by jinx! the way he perked up when I told him you were coming in on the stage that afternoon! When he heard you’d been sick, he was for going down to the hotel to get a cup of coffee––for you!” McAlpin, like any good story-teller, was already on his feet again. “He did it,” he exclaimed, “and you know whathegot when he stepped into the barroom.”180He took hold of de Spain’s coat and held it aside to enter his exhibit. “There,” he concluded, “is his cartridge-belt, hanging there yet. The boy is dead––why shouldn’t I tell you?”
Nan rode home much more excited, more bewildered than when she had ridden over. What should she do? It was already pretty clear to her that de Spain had not ridden unarmed to where she found him to ambush any of the Morgans. He was not dead; but he was not far from it if McAlpin was right and if she could credit her own senses in looking at him. What ought she to do?
Other things McAlpin had said crowded her thoughts. Strangest shock of all that this man of all other men should profess to care for her. She had shown anger when McAlpin dared speak of it; at least, she thought she had. And she still did not know how, sufficiently, to resent the thought of such audacity on de Spain’s part; but recalling all she could of his words and actions, she was forced to confess to herself that McAlpin’s assertions were confirmed in them––and that what McAlpin had said interpreted de Spain’s unvarying attitude toward her. This was, to say the least, a further awkward complication for her feelings. She already had enough to confuse them.
181CHAPTER XIVNAN DRIFTS
Without going in to speak to Gale, whom Bull Page, his nurse, reported very cross but not hurt much, Nan left her packet for him and rode home. Her uncle Duke was in town. She had the house to herself, with only Bonita, the old Mexican serving-woman, and Nan ate her late supper alone.
The longer she pondered on de Spain and his dilemma––and her own––the more she worried. When she went to bed, up-stairs in her little gable room, she thought sleep––never hard for her to woo––would relieve her of her anxiety for at least the night. But she waited in vain for sleep. She was continually asking herself whether de Spain was really very badly hurt, or whether he might be only tricking her into thinking he was. Assailed by conflicting doubts, she tossed on her pillow till a resolve seized her to go up again to his hiding-place and see what she could see or hear––possibly, if one were on foot, she could uncover a plot.
She dressed resolutely, buckled a holster to182her side, and slipping a revolver––a new one that Gale had given her––into it for protection, she walked softly down-stairs and out of doors.
The night air was clear with a three-quarter moon well up in the sky. She took her way rapidly along the trail to the mountain, keeping as much as possible within the great shadows cast by the towering peaks. Not a sound met her acute listening as she pressed on––not a living thing seemed to move anywhere in the whole great Gap, except this slender-footed, keen-eyed girl, whose heart beat with apprehension of wiles, stratagems, and ambush concerning the venture she was making.
Breathing stealthily and keyed to a tense feeling of uncertainty and suspicion, Nan at length found herself below the ledge where de Spain was in hiding. She stopped and, with the craft of an Indian, stood perfectly still for a very long time before she began to climb up to where the enemy lay. Hearing no sound, she took courage and made the ascent. She reached without adventure the corner of the ledge where she had first seen him, and there, lying flat, listened again.
Hearing only the music of the little cascade, she swept the ledge as well as she could with her eyes, but it was now so far in shadow as to lie in impenetrable darkness. Hardly daring to breathe,183she crept and felt her way over it with her hands, discovering nothing until she had almost reached de Spain’s retreat at the farther side. Then her heart stopped in an agony of fear––underneath the overhanging wall she heard voices.
To attempt to escape was as dangerous as to lie still. Had she dared, she would have retreated at once the way she came. Since she dared not, she was compelled to hear what was said, and, indeed, was eager to hear. De Spain had confederates, then, and had tricked her, after all. Whatever his plot, she was resolved to know it, and instead of retreating she took her revolver in hand and drew herself nearer. When she had gained her new position the mutterings, which had been indistinct, became audible. It was not two voices she had heard, but one––de Spain, she judged, was talking in his sleep.
But a moment later this explanation failed to satisfy her. The mutterings were too constant and too disconnected to be mistaken for sleep-talking––it dawned on Nan that this must be delirium. She could hear de Spain throwing himself from side to side, and the near and far sounds, as if of two voices, were explained. It was possible now for her to tell herself she was mistress of the situation. She crept nearer.
He was babbling in the chill darkness about184ammunition, urging men to make haste, warning them of some one coming. He turned on the rock floor ceaselessly, sometimes toward her, sometimes from her, muttering of horses, water, passengers, wheels, wrecks. He made broken appeals to be chopped out, directed men where to use their axes. Nan listened to his ravings, overcome by the revelation of his condition. Once her uncle had lain sick of a fever and had been delirious; but that, her sole experience, was nothing to this. Once de Spain threw out a groping hand and, before she could escape, caught her skirt. Nan tried to pull away. His grip did not loosen. She took his hand in hers and, while he muttered meaningless words, forced his fingers open and drew away. His hand was dry and burning hot.
She told herself he must die if he remained longer unaided, and there were unpleasant possibilities, if he died where he lay. Such a death, so close to her own home might, if it were ever known, throw suspicion on her uncle and arouse the deeper resentment of the wounded man’s friends. If the least of pity played a part in suggesting that her safest course was to help de Spain, Nan kept its promptings as much as she could in the penumbra of her thoughts. She did not want to pity or to help him, she convinced185herself; but she did not want his death laid to a Morgan plot––for none of his friends would ever believe de Spain had found his way alive and alone to where he lay.
All of this Nan was casting up in her mind as she walked home. She had already decided, but without realizing it, what to do, and was willing to assume that her mind was still open.
Toward daylight of the morning, de Spain dreamed he was not alone––that a figure moved silently in the faintness of the dawn––a figure he struggled to believe a reality, but one that tricked his wandering senses and left him, at the coming of another day, weaker, with failing courage, and alone.
But when he opened his eyes later, and with a clearer head, he found food and drink near. Unable to believe his sight, he fancied his wavering senses deceiving him, until he put out his hand and felt actually the substance of what he saw. He took up a bottle of milk incredulously, and sipped at it with the caution of a man not unused to periods of starvation. He broke eggs and swallowed them, at intervals, hungrily from the shell; and meat he cached, animal-like, in near-by crannies and, manlike, in his pockets.
He was determined, if she should come again, to intercept his visitor. For forty-eight hours186he tried cat-naps with an occasional sandwich to keep up his strength. Nan returned unseen, and disappeared despite his watchfulness. A new supply of food proved she had been near, but that it would be hard to time her coming.
When she did come, the third time, an innocent snare discovered her presence. It was just before day, and de Spain had so scattered small obstacles––handfuls of gravel and little chips of rock––that should she cross the ledge in the dark she could hardly escape rousing him.
The device betrayed her. “I’m awake,” announced de Spain at once from his retreat. When she stopped at the words he could not see her; she had flattened herself, standing, against a wall of the ledge. He waited patiently. “You give me no chance to thank you,” he went on after a pause. Nan, drawing nearer, put down a small parcel. “I don’t need any thanks,” she replied with calculated coolness. “I am hoping when you are well enough you will go away, quietly, in the night. That will be the only way you can thank me.”
“I shall be as glad to go as you can be to have me,” rejoined de Spain. “But that won’t be thanking you as I am going to. If you think you can save my life and refuse my thanks as I mean to express them––you are mistaken. I will187be perfectly honest. Lying out here isn’t just what I’d choose for comfort. But if by doing it I could see you once in two or three days–––”
“You won’t see me again.”
“No news could be worse. And if I can’t, I don’t know how I’m going to get out at all. I’ve no horse––you know that. I can’t stand on my foot yet; if you had a light you might see for yourself. I think I showed you my gun. If you could tell me where I am–––”
He halted on the implied question. Nan took ample time to reply.
“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know where you are?” she asked, and there was a touch of vexed incredulity in her tone.
De Spain seemed unmoved by her scepticism. “I can’t tell you anything else,” he said simply. “You couldn’t have any idea I crawled up here for the fun of it.”
“I’ve been trying to think,” she returned, and he perceived in the hardness of her voice how at bay she felt in giving him the least bit of information, “whether I ought to tell you anything at all–––”
“I couldn’t very decently take any unfair advantage after what you’ve done, could I?”
“Then––you are in Morgan’s Gap,” she said swiftly, as if she wanted it off her mind.
188
There was no movement of surprise, neither was there any answer. “I supposed, when I found you here, you knew that,” she added less resolutely; the darkness and silence were plainly a strain.
“I know you are telling the truth,” he responded at length. “But I can hardly believe it. That’s the reason, of course, youdidfind me. I rode a good many miles that night without knowing where I was or what I was doing. I certainly never figured on winding up here. How could I get in here without being stopped?”
“Everybody inside the Gap was outside hunting for you, I suppose.”
“There isn’t much use asking where I am, in the Gap. I never was inside but once. I shouldn’t know if you did tell me.”
“You are at the foot of Music Mountain, about a mile from where I live.”
“You must have thought I meant to raid your house. I didn’t. I was hit. I got mixed up in trying to get away. You want me out of here?”
“Very much.”
“No more than I want to get out. Perhaps by to-morrow I could walk a few miles. I should have to assassinate somebody to get some ammunition.”
“It wouldn’t be hard for you to do that, I presume.”