The thunder roared without intermission. It rose and fell, that was all. From a truculent piano it leapt to a titanic crescendo only to find relief again in a fierce growling dissatisfaction. It seemed less of an elemental war than a physical attack upon a shuddering earth. The electric fires rifting the darkness of this out-world night were beyond compare in their terror. The radiance of sunlight might well have been less than the blaze of a rush candle before the staggering brilliancy. It was wild, wild and fearsome. It was vicious and utterly terrifying.
Below the quaking earth was in little better case. Only was the scene here in closer touch with human understanding. Here the terror was of earth, here disaster was of human making. Here the rack of heart was in destruction by wanton fire. Shrieking, hissing, crackling, only insignificant by comparison with the war of the greater elements, flames licked up and devoured with ravening appetites the tinder-like structures of Joan’s farm.
The girl was standing in the open. A confined enough open space almost completely surrounded by fire. Before her were the blazing farm buildings, behind her was the raging furnace that once had been her home. And on one side of her the flames commingled so as to be impassable. Her head was bowed and her eyes were closed, her hands were pressed tight over her ears in a vain attemptto shut out cognizance of the terror that reigned about and above her. She stood thus despairing. She was afraid, terribly afraid.
Beside her was her aunt, that strange creature whose brain had always risen superior to the sufferings of the human body. Now she was crushed to earth in mute submission to the powers which overwhelmed her. She lay huddled upon the ground utterly lost to all consciousness. Terror had mercifully saved her from a contemplation of those things which had inspired it.
These two were alone. The other woman had gone, fled at the first coming of that dreaded fiend—fire. And those others, those wretched, besotted creatures whose mischief had brought about this wanton destruction, they too had fled. But their flight was in answer to the wrathful voice of the heavens which they feared and dreaded above all things in the wild world to which they belonged.
Alone, helpless, almost nerveless, Joan waited that end which she felt could not long be delayed. She did not know, she could not understand. On every hand was a threat so terrible that in her weakness she believed that life could not long last. The din in the heavens, the torturing heat so fierce and painful. The glare of light which penetrated even her closed eyelids, the choking gasps of smoke-laden, scorching air with which she struggled. Death itself must come, nor could it be far from her now.
The wind rushed madly down from the hilltops. It swept over forest and plain, it howled through canyon and crevasse in its eager haste to reach the centre of the battle of elements. It pounced upon the blinding smoke-cloud and swept it from its path and plunged to the heart of the conflagration with a shriek and roar of cruel delight.One breath, like the breath of a tornado, and its boisterous lungs had sent its mischief broadcast in the flash of an eye. With a howl of delight it tore out the blazing roof of the house, and, lifting it bodily, hurled it like a molten meteor against the dark walls of the adjacent pine forest.
Joan saw nothing of this, she understood nothing. She was blind and deaf to every added terror. All she felt, all she understood was storm, storm, always storm. Her poor weary brain was reeling, her heart was faint with terror. She was alive, she was conscious, but she might well have been neither in the paralysis that held her. It meant no more that that avalanche of fire, hurled amidst the resinous woods, had suddenly brought into existence the greatest earthly terror that could visit the mountain world; it meant no more to her that an added roar of wind could create a greater peril; it meant no more to her that, in a moment, the whole world about her would be in a blaze so that the burning sacrifice should be complete. Nothing could possibly mean more to her, for she was at the limit of human endurance.
But other eyes, other brains were alive to all these things, eyes and minds trained by a knowledge which only that mountain world could teach. To them the significance was all absorbing. To them this new terror was a thousandfold more appalling than all other storm and tempest. With the forest afire there was safety for neither human nor beast. With that forest afire flight was well-nigh impossible. With that forest afire to save any living creature would be well-nigh a miracle, and miracles had no place in their thoughts.
Yet those eyes, so watchful, remained unchanged.Those straining brains only strained the harder. Those eager hearts knew no flinching from their purpose, and if they quailed it was merely at the natural dread for those whom they were seeking to succor.
Even in face of the added peril their purpose remained. The heavens might roar their thunders, the lightnings might blind their staring eyes, the howling gale might strew their path with every obstruction, nothing could change them, nothing could stop them but death itself.
So with horses a-lather they swept along. Their blood-stained spurs told their tale of invincible determination. These two men no longer sat in their saddles, they were leaning far out of them over their racing horses’ necks, urging them and easing them by every trick in a horseman’s understanding. They were making a trail which soon they knew would be a path of fire. They knew that with every stride of the stalwart creatures under them they were possibly cutting off the last hope of a retreat to safety. They knew, none better, that once amidst that furnace which lay directly ahead it was something worse than an even chance of life.
Buck wiped the dripping sweat out of his eyes that he might get a clearer view. The blaze of lightning was of no use to him. It only helped to make obscure that which the earthly fires were struggling to reveal. The Padre’s horse was abreast of his saddle. The sturdy brute was leaving Cæsar to make the pace while she doggedly pursued.
“We’ll make it yet!” shouted Buck, over his shoulder, amidst the roar of thunder.
The Padre made no attempt at response. He deemed it useless.
Buck slashed Cæsar’s flanks with ruthless force.
The blazing farm was just ahead, as was also the roaring fire of the forest. It was the latter on which both men were concentrating their attention. For the moment its path lay eastward, away to the right of the trail. But this they knew was merely the howling force of the wind. With a shift of direction by half a point and the gale would drive it straight down the trail they were on.
The trail bent away to the left. And as they swung past the turn Buck again shouted.
“Now for it!”
He dashed his spurs again at the flanks of his horse, and the great beast stretched out for a final burst across the bridge over the narrow creek.
Joan swayed where she stood. She stumbled and fell; and the fall went on, and on, and on. It seemed to her that she was rushing down through endless space toward terrors beyond all believing. It seemed to her that a terrific wind was beating on her, and driving her downward toward a fiercely storm-swept ocean, whose black, hideous waves were ever reaching up to engulf her.
She cried out. She knew she cried out, and she knew she cried out in vain. Some one, it seemed to her, was far, far up above her, watching, seeking to aid her, but powerless to respond to her heart-broken cries. Still she called, and she knew she must go on calling, till the dark seas below drowned the voice in her throat.
Now shadows arose about her, mocking, cruel shadows. They were definite figures, but she could not give them definite form in her mind. She reached out toward them, clutching vainly at fluttering shapes, but ever missing them in her headlong career. She sped on, buffeted and hurtling, and torn; on, on, making that hideous journey through space.
Her despairing thoughts flashed at lightning speed through her whirling brain. Faster they came, faster and faster, till she had no time to recognize, no power to hold them. She could see them, yes, she could literally seethem sweep by, vanishing like shadows in that black space of terror.
Then came a sudden accession of sharp stabbing pain. It seemed to tick through her body as might a clock, and each stab came as with the sway of the pendulum, and with a regularity that was exquisite torture. The stabs of pain came quicker, the pendulum was working faster. Faster and faster it swung, and so the torture was ever increasing. Now the pain was in her head, her eyes, her ears, her brain. The agony was excruciating. Her head was bursting. She cried louder and louder, and, with every cry, the pain increased until she felt she was going mad. Then suddenly the pendulum stopped swinging and her cries and her agony ceased, and all was still, silent and dark.
It might have been a moment, or it might have been ages. Suddenly this wonderful peace was disturbed. It was as though she had just awakened from a deep refreshing sleep in some strange, unfamiliar world. The darkness remained, but it was the darkness of peace. The beating wind had gone, and she only heard it sighing afar off. She was calling again, but no longer in despair. She was calling to that some one far above her with the certain knowledge that she would be answered. The darkness was passing, too. Yes, and she was no longer falling, but soaring up, up, winging her way above, without effort, without pain.
The savage waves were receding, their voices had died to a low murmur, like the voice of a still, summer sea on a low foreshore. Now, too, between every cry she waited for that answer which she knew must be forthcoming. It was some man’s voice she was awaiting,some man, whose name ever eluded her searching brain. She strained to hear till the pulses of her ear-drums throbbed, for she knew when she heard the voice she would recognize the speaker.
Hark, there it was, far, far away. Yes, she could hear it, but how far she must have fallen. There it was again. It was louder, and—nearer. Again and again it came. It was quite plain. It was a voice that set her brain and heart afire with longing. It was a voice she loved more than all the world. Hark! What was that it said? Yes, there it was again.
“Pore little gal, pore little Joan.”
Now she knew, and a flood of thankfulness welled up in her heart. A great love thrilled through her veins, and tears flooded her eyes, tears of thankfulness and joy. Tears for herself, for him, for all the world. It was Buck’s voice full of pity and a tender love.
In a moment she was awake. She knew she was awake to a sort of dazed consciousness, because instantly her brain was flooded with all the horror of memory. Memory of the storm, the fire, of the devastation of her home.
For long minutes she had no understanding of anything else. She was consumed by the tortures of that memory. Yes, it was still storming, she could hear the howling of the wind, the roar of thunder, and the hiss and crackling of fire. Where was she? Ah, she knew. She was outside, with the fire before and behind her. And her aunt was at her side. She reached out a hand to reassure herself, and touched something soft and warm. But what was that? Surely it was Buck’s voice again?
“Thank God, little gal, I tho’t you was sure dead.”
In desperate haste she struggled to rise to her feet, but everything seemed to rock and sway under her. And then, as Buck spoke again, she abandoned her efforts.
“Quiet, little gal, lie you still, or I can’t hold you. You’re dead safe fer the moment. I’ve got you. We’re tryin’ to git out o’ this hell, Cæsar an’ me. An’ Cæsar’s sure doin’ his best. Don’t you worrit. The Padre’s behind, an’ he’s got your auntie safe.”
Joan’s mind had suddenly become quite clear. There was no longer any doubt in it. Now she understood where she was. Buck had come to save her. She was in his arms, on Cæsar’s back—and she knew she would be saved.
With an effort she opened her eyes and found herself looking into the dark face of the man she loved, and a great sigh of contentment escaped her. She closed them again, but it was only to open them almost immediately. Again she remembered, and looked about her.
Everywhere was the lurid glow of fire, and she became aware of intense heat. Above her head was the roar of tempest, and the vivid, hellish light of the storm. Buck had called it “hell.”
“The whole world seems to be afire,” she said suddenly.
Buck looked down into her pale face.
“Well nigh,” he said. Then he added, “Yes, it’s afire, sure. It’s afire that bad the Almighty alone guesses if we’ll git out.”
But his doubt inspired no apprehension. Somehow Joan’s confidence was the effect of his strong supporting arm.
She stirred again in his arms. But it was very gently.
“Buck,” she said, “let me sit up. It will ease you—and help poor Cæsar. I’m—I’m not afraid now.”
Buck gave a deep-throated laugh. He felt he wanted to laugh, now he was sure that Joan was alive.
“You don’t need. Say, you don’t weigh nuthin’. An’ Cæsar, why, Cæsar’s mighty proud I’m lettin’ him carry you.”
But the girl had her way, and, in a moment, was sitting up with one arm about the man’s broad shoulders. It brought her face near to his, and Buck bent his head toward her, and kissed the wonderful ripe lips so temptingly adjacent.
For a moment Joan abandoned herself to the joy of that kiss. Then the rhythmic sway of Cæsar’s body under her reminded her that there were other things. She wanted to ask Buck how they had known and come to her help. She wanted to ask a dozen woman’s questions. But she refrained. Buck had spoken of “hell,” and she gazed about her seeking the reason of his doubt.
In a few minutes she was aware of it all. In a few minutes she realized that he had well named the country through which they were riding. In a few minutes she knew that it was a race for life, and that their hope was in the great heart of Cæsar.
Far as the eye could see in that ruddy light, tortured and distorted by the flashes of storm above, was an ocean of fire spread out. The crowning billows of smoke, like titanic foam-crests, rolled away upward and onward before them. They, too, were ruddy-tinted by the reflection from below. They crowded in every direction. They swept along abreast of them, they rose up behind them, and the distance was lost in their choking midst. Thescorching air was laden to suffocation by the odors of burning resin. She knew they were on a trail, a narrow, confined trail, which was lined by unburnt woods. And the marvel of it filled her.
“These woods are untouched,” she said.
Again Buck laughed. It was a grim laugh which had no mirth, but yet was it dashed by a wonderful recklessness.
“So far,” he said. Then he added, with a quick look up at the belching smoke, “If they weren’t I don’t guess we’d be here now. Say, it’s God’s mercy sure this trail heads from the farm southeast. Further on it swings away at a fork. One trail goes due east, an’ the other sou’west. One of ’em’s sure cut by the fire. An’ the other—wal, it’s a gamble with luck.”
“It’s the only way out?” The girl’s eyes were wide with her question and the knowledge of the meaning of a reply in the affirmative.
“That’s so.”
“We’re like—rats in a trap.”
A sharp oath escaped the man’s lips.
“We ain’t beat yet,” he cried fiercely.
The reply was the heart of the man speaking. Joan understood it. And from it she understood more. She understood the actual peril in the midst of which they were.
There was nothing more to be said. Buck’s whole attention was upon the billows of smoke and the lurid reflections thereon. The thunders above them, the blinding lightnings, left him undisturbed. The wind, the smoke and the fire were his only concern now. Already, ahead, he could see in the vague light where the trail gave to the left. Beyond that was the fork.
Joan gave no thought to these things. She had no right understanding of how best they could be served. She was studying the face of the man, the dark, brave face that was now her whole world. She was aware of the horseman behind, with his burden, she was aware of the horrors surrounding them, but the face of the man held her, held her without a qualm of fear—now. If death lay before them she was in his arms.
Buck’s thoughts were far enough from death. He had snatched the woman he loved from its very jaws, and he had no idea of yielding. There was no comfort for him in the thought of their dying together. Living, yes. Life was more sweet to him just then than ever it had been before. And he meant that they two should live on, and on.
They passed the bend and the forking trail loomed up amidst the shadows. The crisis had come. And as they reached the vital spot Buck took hold of the horse and reined him up. In a moment the Padre was at his side with his inanimate burden.
Joan stared at the still form of her relative while the men talked.
“It’s got us beat to the eastward,” said Buck, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Yes. The fire’s right across the trail. It’s impassable.”
The Padre’s eyes were troubled. The eastward trail led to the open plains.
“We must make the other,” Buck said sharply, gathering up his reins.
“Yes. That means——”
“Devil’s Hill, if the fire ain’t ahead of us.”
“And if it is?” Curiously enough the Padre, even, seemed to seek guidance from Buck.
“It sure will be if we waste time—talkin’.”
Cæsar leapt at his bit in response to the sharp stroke of the spur.
Now Buck had no thought for anything but the swift traveling fire on his left. It was the pace of his horse against the pace at which the gale was driving this furnace. It was the great heart of his horse against endurance. Would it stand the test with its double burden? If they could reach that bald, black hill, there was safety and rest. If not—but they must reach it. They must reach it if it was the last service he ever claimed from his faithful servant. For once in his life the mystery of the hill afforded Buck hope and comfort. For once it was a goal to be yearned for, and he could think of no greater delight than to rest upon its black summit far from the reach of the hungry flames, that now, like an invading army, were seeking by every means to envelop him.
Could they make it?
A hundred thoughts and sensations were passing through the man’s body and mind. He was sub-consciously estimating Cæsar’s power by the gait at which he was traveling. He was guessing at the rate of the racing fire. He was calculating the direction of the wind to an absurd fraction. He was observing without interest the racing of a strangely assorted commingling of forest creatures down the trail, seeking safety in flight from the speeding fire. He cared nothing for them. He had no feelings of pity for anything or any one but Joan. Every hope in his heart, every atom of power in his body, every thought was for her well-being and ultimate safety. Oh, for the rain; oh, for such a rain as he had seen that time before.
But the storming heavens were dry-eyed and merciless.That freakish phenomenon of a raging thunder-storm without the usual deluge of rain was abroad with all its deadly danger. It was extraordinary. It was so extraordinary that Buck was utterly at a loss. Why, why? And his impatient questioning remained without answer. There had been every indication of rain and yet none had come——What was that?
Cæsar suddenly seemed to sway drunkenly. He shook his head in the manner of a horse irritated, and alarm set his ears flat back in his head, and he stretched his neck, and, of his own accord, increased his pace. Buck saw nothing to cause this sudden disturbance other than that which had been with them all the time, and yet his horse’s alarm was very evident.
A moment later occurred something still more unusual. Cæsar stumbled. He did not fall. It was a mere false step, and, as he recovered, Buck felt the poor beast trembling under him. Was it the end of his endurance? No. The horse was traveling even faster than before, and he found it necessary to check the faithful creature, an attention that quickly aroused its opposition.
Buck’s puzzled eyes lifted from his horse to the rapidly nearing fire. It must be that Cæsar must have realized its proximity, and, in his effort to outstrip it, had brought about his own floundering. So he no longer checked the willing creature, and the race went on at the very limit of the horse’s pace. Then, in a moment, again came that absurd reeling and uncertainty. And Buck’s added puzzlement found expression in words, while his eyes watched closely for some definite cause.
“Ther’s suthin’ amiss with Cæsar,” he said, with an unconcern of manner which his words belied.
“What do you mean?” Joan’s eyes lifted to his in sudden alarm. Then she added, “I seemed to notice something.”
“Seems like he’s—drunk.” Buck laughed.
“Perhaps—the earth’s shaking. I shouldn’t wonder, with this—this storm.”
“Shaking?”
Buck echoed her word, but his mind had suddenly seized upon it with a different thought from hers. If the earth were shaking, it would not be with the storm above. His eyes peered ahead. Devil’s Hill lay less than a mile away, and that was where he reckoned the fire would strike the trail. Devil’s Hill. A sudden uncomfortable repulsion at the thought of its barren dome took hold of him. For some subtle reason it no longer became the haven to be yearned for that it had been. Rather was it a resting-place to be sought only in extremity—if the earth were shaking.
His attention now became divided between the fire and Cæsar. The horse was evidently laboring. He was moving without his accustomed freedom of gait, and yet he did not seem to be tiring.
Half the distance to the foot of the hill had been covered. The fire was nearing rapidly, so near indeed was it that the air was alive with a perfect hail of glowing sparks, swept ahead of it by the terrific wind. The scorching air was becoming unendurable, and the mental strain made the trail seem endless, and their efforts almost hopeless. Buck looked down at the girl’s patient face.
“It’s hot—hot as hell,” he said with another meaningless laugh.
The girl read through his words and the laugh—readthrough them to the thought behind them, and promptly protested.
“Don’t worry for me. I can stand—anything now.”
The added squeeze of her arm upon his shoulders set Buck’s teeth gritting.
Suddenly he reined Cæsar in.
“I must know ’bout that—shakin’,” he said.
For a second the horse stood with heaving body. It was only a moment, but in that moment he spread out his feet as though to save himself from falling. Then in answer to the spur he sped on.
“It’s the earth, sure,” cried Buck. And had there been another escape he would have turned from the barren hill now rising amidst the banking smoke-clouds ahead of him.
“Earthquake!” said the girl.
“Yes.”
Nothing more was said. The air scorched their flesh, and Joan was fearful lest the falling sparks should fire her clothing. With every passing moment Cæsar was nearing their forbidding goal. The fire was so adjacent that the roar and crackle of it shrieked in their ears, and through the trees shone the hideous gleam of flame. It was neck and neck, and their hope lay beneath them. Buck raked the creature’s flanks again with his spurs, and the gallant beast responded. On, on they sped at a gait that Buck knew well could not last for long. But with every stride the hill was coming nearer, and it almost seemed as if Cæsar understood their necessity, and his own. Once Joan looked back. That sturdy horse of the Padre was doggedly pursuing. Step for step he hugged his stable companion’s trail, but he was far, far behind.
“The Padre,” cried Joan. “They are a long way back.”
“God help him!” cried Buck, through clenched teeth. “I can’t. To wait fer him sure means riskin’ you.”
“But——” Joan broke off and turned her face up to the canopy of smoke driving across them. “Rain!” she cried, with a wild thrill of hope. “Rain—and in a deluge.”
In a moment the very heavens seemed to be emptying their reservoirs. It came, not in drops, but in streams that smote the earth, the fire, themselves with an almost crushing force. In less than half a minute they were drenched to the skin, and the water was pouring in streams from their extremities.
“We’ve won out,” cried Buck, with a great laugh.
“Thank God,” cried Joan, as she turned her scorched face up to receive the grateful water.
Buck eased the laboring Cæsar.
“That fire won’t travel now, an’—ther’s the hill,” the man nodded.
They had steadied to a rapid gallop. The hill, as Buck indicated, was just ahead. Joan’s anxious eyes looked for the beginning of the slope. Yes, it was there. Less than two hundred yards ahead.
The air filled with steam as the angry fire strove to battle with its arch-enemy. But the rain was as merciless in its onslaught as had been the storm, and the fire itself. The latter had been given full scope to work its mischief, and now it was being called to its account. Heavier and heavier the deluge fell, and the miracle of its irresistible power was in the rapid fading of the ruddy glow in the smoke-laden atmosphere. The fire was beaten from the outset and its retreat before the opposing element was like a panic flight.
In five minutes Cæsar was clawing his way up over the boulder-strewn slopes of the hill, and Joan knew that, for the time at least, they were safe. She knew, too, if the rain held for a couple of hours, the blazing woods would be left a cold waste of charred wreckage.
But the rain did not hold. It lasted something less than a quarter of an hour. It was like a merciful act of Providence that came at the one moment when it could serve the fugitives. The chances had been all against them. Buck had known it. The fire must have met them at the foot of the hill and so barred their ultimate escape. The Padre behind had been inevitably doomed.
Two hours later two men and a girl gazed out from the plateau of Devil’s Hill. The whole earth it seemed was a raging sea of fire. Once more the forests were ablaze in every direction. The blistering tongues of fire had licked up the heavy rain, and were again roaring destruction over the land.
Far as the eye could reach the lurid pall of smoke was spread out, rolling upward and onward, borne upon the bosom of the gale. In its midst, and through it, the merciless flames leapt up and up. The booming of falling timbers, and the roar of the flames smote painfully upon the hearts of the watchers. It was a spectacle to crush every earthly hope. It was a sight so painful as to drive the mind of man distracted. In all their lives these people had never imagined such a terror. In all their lives they could never witness such again.
They stood there silent and awed. They stood there with eyes straining and ear-drums throbbing with the din of the battle. Their horses were roaming at will and the still form of Aunt Mercy was at their feet. There was no shelter. There was no hope. Only they knew that where they stood was safety, at least, from the fire below.
Presently Joan knelt at her aunt’s side and studied her ashen features in the ruddy light. The woman’s unconsciousness had remained through all that journey. Or was she dead? Joan could not make up her mind.
Once, as she knelt, she reeled and nearly fell across that still body. And when, recovering herself, she looked up at the men she saw that they were braced, with feet apart, supporting each other. Then, in the roar of the storm she heard Buck’s voice shouting in the Padre’s ear.
“Guess—ther’s more to come yet,” he said with a profound significance.
She saw the Padre’s nod, and she wondered at the fresh danger he saw ahead.
Buck turned and looked out over the desolate plateau with troubled eyes. She followed his gaze. Strangely she had little fear, even with that trouble in her lover’s eyes.
The plateau was desperately gloomy. It was hot, too, up there, terribly hot. But Joan had no thought for that except that she associated it with the hot wind blowing up from below. Her observation was narrowed to a complete dependence on Buck. He was her hope, her only hope.
Suddenly she saw him reel. Then, in a moment, she saw that both men were down on hands and knees, and, almost at the instant, she, herself, was hurled flat upon the ground beside the body of her aunt.
The earth was rocking, and now she understood more fully her lover’s trouble. Her courage slowly began to ebb. She fought against it, but slowly a terror of that dreadful hill crept up in her heart, and she longed to flee anywhere from it—anywhere but down into that caldron of fire below. But the thought was impossible. Death was on every hand beyond that hill, and the hill itself was—quaking.
Now Buck was speaking again.
“We’ll have to git som’ere from here,” he said.
The Padre answered him—
“Where?”
It was an admission of the elder man’s weakness. Buck must guide. The girl’s eyes remained upon her lover’s face; she was awaiting his reply. She understood, had always known it, that all human help for her must come from him.
Her suspense was almost breathless.
“There’s shelter by the lake,” Buck said, after a long pause. “We can get to leeward of the rock, an’—it’s near the head of that path droppin’ to the creek. The creek seems better than anywher’ else—after this.”
His manner was decided, but his words offered poor enough comfort.
The Padre agreed, and, at once, they moved across to Joan. For the moment the earth was still again. Its convulsive shudder had passed. Joan struggled to her feet, but her increasing terror left her clinging to the man she loved. The Padre silently gathered Mercy into his arms, and the journey across the plateau began.
But as they moved away the subterranean forces attacked again. Again came that awful rocking, and shaking, which left them struggling for a foothold. Twice they were driven to their knees, only to stagger on as the convulsions lessened. It was a nightmare of nervous tension. Every step of the journey was fraught with danger, and every moment it seemed as though the hill must fall beneath them to a crumbling wreckage.
With heart-sick apprehension Joan watched the growing form of the great rock, which formed the source of the lake, as it loomed out of the smoke-laden dusk. It was so high, so sheer. What if it fell, wrecked with thosedreadful earth quakings? But her terror found no voice, no protest. She would not add to the burden of these men. The rock passed behind them, and her relief was intense as the shadow was swallowed up again in the gloom. Then a further relief came to her as the edge of the plateau was reached, and the Padre set his burden down at the head of the narrow path which suggested a possible escape to the creek below.
She threw herself beside her aunt, and heard Buck speaking again to his friend.
“Stop right here with the women,” he said. “I’m goin’ around that lake—seems to me we need to get a peek at it.”
Joan understood something of what he feared. She remembered the weirdness of that suspended lake, and thought with a shudder of the dreadful earth quakings. So she watched him go with heart well-nigh breaking.
Buck moved cautiously away into the gloom. He knew the lake shore well. The evident volcanic origin of it might well answer many questions and doubts in his mind. Its rugged shore offered almost painful difficulties with the, now, incessant quakings below. But he struggled on till he came to the eminence he sought. Here he took up a position, lying on his stomach so that he had a wide view of the surface of the wind-swept water.
He remained for a long while watching, watching, and striving to digest the signs he beheld. They were many, and alarming. But their full meaning was difficult to his untutored mind.
Here it was that the Padre ultimately found him. He had been gone so long that the elder man’s uneasiness for his safety had sent him in search.
“What d’you make of it, Buck?” he demanded, as he came up, his apprehensions finding no place in his manner.
Buck displayed no surprise. He did not even turn his head.
“The fires are hotting. The water’s nigh boiling. There’s goin’ to be a mighty bust-up.”
The Padre looked out across the water.
“There’s fire around us, fire above us, and now—fire under us. We’ve got to choose which we’re going to face, Buck—quick.”
The Padre’s voice was steady. His feelings were under perfect control.
Buck laughed grimly.
“Ther’s fire we know, an’ fire we don’t. Guess we best take the fire we know.”
They continued to gaze out across the lake in silence after that. Then the Padre spoke again.
“What about the horses?” he asked.
The question seemed to trouble Buck, for he suddenly caught his breath. But, in a moment, his answer came with decision.
“Guess they must take their chances,” he said. “Same as we have to. I hate to leave him, but Cæsar’s got sense.”
“Yes.”
The Padre’s eyes were fixed upon one spot on the surface of the water. It was quite plain, even in that light, that a seething turmoil was going on just beneath it. He pointed at the place, but went on talking of the other things in his mind.
“Say, you best take this pocketbook. We may get separated before the night’s out. It’s half the farm money. You see—ther’s no telling,” he ended up vaguely.
For one instant Buck removed his eyes from the surface of the lake to glance at the snow-white head of his friend. Then he reached out and took the pocketbook.
“Maybe Joan’ll need it, anyway,” he said, and thrust it in his pocket. “We must——Say, git busy! Look!”
Buck’s quick eyes had suddenly caught sight of a fresh disturbance in the water. Of a sudden the whole surface of the lake seemed to be rising in a great commotion. And as he finished speaking two terrific detonations roared up from somewhere directly beneath them.
In an instant both men were on their feet and racing in headlong flight for the point where they had left the women.
“Get Joan!” shouted the Padre from behind. He was less swift of foot than Buck. “Get Joan! I’ll see to the other.”
Buck reached the girl’s side. She had heard the explosions of the underworld and stood shaking with terror.
“We’re up agin it, Joan,” he cried. And before the panic-stricken girl could reply she was in his strong young arms speeding for the downward path, which was their only hope.
“But the Padre! Aunt Mercy!” cried Joan, in a sudden recollection.
“They’re comin’ behind. He’ll see to her——God in heaven!”
A deafening roar, a hundred times greater than the first explosions, came from directly beneath the man’s feet. The air was full of it. To the fugitives it was as if the whole world had suddenly been riven asunder. For one flashing moment it seemed to Buck that he had been struck with fearful force from somewhere behind him, andas the blow fell he was hurled headlong down the precipitous path.
A confused, painful sense of cruel buffeting left him only half-conscious. There was a roar in his ears like the bombardment of unearthly artillery. It filled his brain to the exclusion of all else, while he hugged the girl close in his arms with some instinct of saving her, and shielding her from the cruel blows with his own body.
Beyond that he had practically no sensation. Beyond that he had no realization whatever. They were falling, falling, and every limb in his body seemed to find the obstructions with deadly certainty. How far, how long they were falling, whither the awful journey was carrying them, these things passed from him utterly.
Then, abruptly, all sensation ceased. The limit of endurance had been reached. For him, at least, the battle for life seemed ended. The greater forces might contest in bitter rage. Element might war with element, till the whole face of the world was changed; for Providence, in a belated mercy, had suspended animation, and spared these two poor atoms of humanity a further witness of a conflict of forces beyond their finite understanding.
“Buck! Buck!”
Faint and small, the cry was lost in the wilderness of silence. It died out, a heart-broken moan of despair, fading to nothingness in the still, desolate world.
Then came another sound. It was the crash of a falling tree. It was louder, but it, too, could scarcely break the stillness, so silent was the world, so desolate was it in the absence of all life.
Day had broken. The sky was brilliant with swift-speeding clouds of fleecy white. The great sun had lifted well above the horizon, and already its warming rays were thirstily drinking from a sodden, rain-drenched earth.
The perfect calm of a summer morning reigned. Up above, high up, where it was quite lost to the desolation below, a great wind was still speeding on the fleecy storm-clouds, brushing them from its path and replacing them with the frothing scud of a glorious day. But the air had not yet regained its wonted freshness. The reek of charred timber was everywhere. It poisoned the air, and held memory whence it would willingly escape.
“Oh, Buck, speak to me! Open your eyes! Oh, my love, my dear, dear love!”
The cry had grown in pitch. It was the cry of a woman whose whole soul is yearning for the love which had been ruthlessly torn from her bosom.
Again it died away in a sob of anguish, and all was still again. Not a sound broke the appalling quiet. Not a leaf rustled, for the world seemed shorn of all foliage. Not a sound came from the insect world, for even the smallest, the most minute of such life seemed to have fled, or been destroyed. There was neither the flutter of a wing, nor the voice of the prowling carnivora, for even the winged denizens of the mountains and the haunting scavengers had fled in terror from such a wilderness of desolation.
“Buck, oh, my Buck! Speak, speak! He’s dead! Oh, my God, he’s dead!”
Louder the voice came, and now in its wail was a note of hysteria. Fear had made harsh the velvet woman’s tones. Fear, and a rising resentment against the cruel sentence that had been passed upon her.
She crouched down, rocking herself amidst a low scrub upon which the dead leaves still hung where the fires had scorched them. But the fire had not actually passed over them. A wide spread of barren rock intervened between the now skeleton woods and where the girl sat huddled.
In front of her lay the figure of a man, disheveled and bleeding, and scarcely recognizable for the staunch youth who had yielded himself to the buffets of life that the woman he loved might be spared.
But Joan only saw the radiant young face she loved, the slim, graceful figure so full of life and strength. He was hers. And—and death had snatched him from her. Death had claimed him, when all that she could ever long for seemed to be within her grasp. Death, ruthless, fierce, hateful death had crushed out that life in its cruellest, most merciless fashion.
She saw nothing of the ruin which lay about her. She had no thought of anything else, she had no thought of those others. All she knew was that her Buck, her brave Buck, lay before her—dead.
The girl suddenly turned her despairing eyes to the white heavens, their deep blue depths turned to a wonderful violet of emotion. Her wealth of golden hair hung loose about her shoulders, trailing about her on the sodden earth, where it had fallen in the midst of the disaster that had come upon her. Her rounded young figure was bent like the figure of an aged woman, and the drawn lines of anguish on her beautiful face gave her an age she did not possess.
“Oh, he is not dead!” she cried, in a vain appeal. “Tell me he is not dead!” she cried, to the limitless space beyond the clouds. “He is all I have, all I have in the world. Oh, God, have mercy upon me! Have mercy!”
Her only reply was the stillness. The stillness as of death. She raised her hands to her face. There were no tears. She was beyond that poor comfort. Dry, hard sobs racked her body, and drove the rising fever to her poor brain.
For long moments she remained thus.
Then, after a while, her sobs ceased and she became quite still. She dropped her hands inertly from her face, and let them lie in her lap, nerveless, helpless, while she gazed upon the well-loved features, so pale under the grime and tanning of the skin.
She sat quite still for many minutes. It almost seemed as if the power of reason had at last left her, so colorless was her look, so unchanging was her vacant expression. But at last she stirred. And with her movement a strangelight grew in her eyes. It was a look bordering upon the insane, yet it was full of resolve, a desperate resolve. Her lips were tightly compressed, and she breathed hard.
She made no sound. There were no further lamentations. Slowly she reached out one hand toward the beloved body. Nor was the movement a caress. It passed across the tattered garments, through which the painfully contused flesh peered hideously out at her. It moved with definite purpose toward one of the gaping holsters upon the man’s waist-belt. Her hand came to a pause over the protruding butt of a revolver. Just for a moment there was hesitation. Then it dropped upon it and her fingers clasped the weapon firmly. She withdrew it, and in a moment it rested in her lap.
She gazed down upon it with straining, hopeless eyes. It was as if she were struggling to nerve herself for that one last act of cowardice which the despairing find so hard to resist. Then, with a deep-drawn sigh, she raised the weapon with its muzzle ominously pointing at her bosom.
Again came a pause.
Then she closed her eyes, as though fearing to witness the passing of the daylight from her life, and her forefinger moved to embrace the trigger. It reached its object, and its pressure tightened.
But as it tightened, and the trigger even moved, she felt the warm grip of a hand close over hers, and the pistol was turned from its direction with a wrench.
Her startled eyes abruptly opened, and her grip upon the weapon relaxed, while a cry broke from her ashen lips. She had left the gun in Buck’s hand, and his dark eyes were gazing into hers from his bed amongst the crushed branches of the bush amidst which he was lying.
For long moments she stared at him almost without understanding. Then, slowly, the color returned to her cheeks and lips, and great tears of joy welled up into her loving eyes.
“Buck,” she murmured, as the heavy tears slowly rolled down her cheeks, and her bosom heaved with unspeakable joy. “My—my Buck.”
For answer the man’s eyes smiled. Her heaven had opened at last.
The golden sun was high in the heavens. Its splendor was pouring down upon a gently steaming earth. But all its joyous light, all its perfect beneficence could not undo one particle of the havoc the long dark hours of night had wrought.
High up on a shattered eminence, where a sea of tumbled rock marked the face of Devil’s Hill, where the great hot lake had been held suspended, Joan and Buck gazed out upon the battle-ground of nature’s forces.
Presently the girl’s eyes came back to the face of her lover. She could not long keep them from the face, which, such a few hours ago, she had believed she would never behold again in life. She felt as though he were one returned to her from the grave, and feared lest she should wake to find his returning only a dream.
He was a strange figure. The tattered remains of his clothing were scarcely enough to cover his nakedness, and Joan, with loving, unskilled hands, had lavered and dressed his wounds with portions of her own undergarments and the waters of the creek, whither, earlier, she had laboriously supported his enfeebled body. But Providence had spared him an added mercy besides bringing him back to life. It seemed a sheer miracle that his bones had been left whole. His flesh was torn, his whole body was terribly bruised and lacerated, butthat worst of all disasters in life had been spared him, and he was left with the painful use of every limb.
But the thought of this miracle left the man untouched. Only did Joan remember, and offer up her thankfulness. The man was of the wild, he was young, life was with him, life with all its joys and sorrows, all its shadowy possibilities, so he recked nothing of what he had escaped. That was his way.
While Joan’s devoted eyes watched the steady light in his, staring out so intently at the wreck of world before him, no word passed her lips. It was as though he were the lord of their fate and she waited his commands.
But for long Buck had no thought for their personal concerns. He forgot even the pains which racked his torn body, he forgot even the regrets which the destruction he now beheld had first inspired him with. He was marveling, he was awed at the thought of those dread elements, those titanic forces he had witnessed at play.
There lay the hideous skeleton picked bare to the bones. Every semblance of the beauty lines, which, in the earth’s mature completion, it had worn, had vanished, and only mouldering remains were left. How had it happened? What terrible, or sublime purpose, had been achieved during that night of terror? He could not think.
His eyes dropped to that which lay immediately before him. He was gazing into chaotic depths of torn black rock amidst which a great cascade of water poured out from the bowels of the earth and flowed on to join the waters of Yellow Creek. It was the site where had hung the suspended lake. Half the great hill had been torn away by some terrible subterranean upheaval, whichseemed to have solely occurred on that side where the lake had been, and where the hill had confronted the distant camp. Gone were the workings of the miners. Gone was that great bed of auriferous soil. And in their places lay an ocean of rock, so vast, so torn, that the power which had hurled it broadcast was inconceivable to his staggered mind.
For a while he contemplated the scene with thoughts struggling and emotions stirring. Then with a sigh he looked out beyond. The valley of the creek, that little narrow strip of open grass-land, bordered by pine forests all its length, was gone, too. The creek was now a wide-spread expanse of flowing water, which had swept from its path the last vestige of the handiwork of those people who had lived upon the banks of the original stream.
There was not a sign of a house or log hut to be seen anywhere. Gone, gone, swept away like the buildings of children’s toy bricks.
What of those who had dwelt where the water now flowed? Had they, too, gone on the rushing tide? He wondered. Where had been their escape? Maybe they had had time. And yet, somehow it seemed doubtful. The skeleton forests stretched out on every hand to a great distance. They backed where the camp had stood. They rose up beyond the northern limits. To the west of the water it was the same. Had he not witnessed the furnace upon that side? And here, here to the south would they have faced this terrible barrier belching out its torrential waters, perhaps amidst fire and smoke?
He did not know. He could not think. They were gone as everything else that indicated life was gone,and—they two were left alone in a wilderness of stricken earth.
He sighed again as he thought of the gracious woods which the long centuries had built up. All Nature’s wonderful labors, the patient efforts of ages, wiped out in a few moments of her own freakish mood. It was heart-breaking to one who had always loved the wild hills where the all-powerful Dame’s whimsies had so long run riot.
Then as he stared out upon the steaming horizon where hills greater and greater rose up confronting him and narrowed the limits of his vision, he saw where the dividing line ran. He remembered suddenly that even in her destructions Nature had still controlled. The floods of the heavens must have been abruptly poured out at some time during the night, or the fire would still be raging on, searching out fresh fuel beyond those hills, traveling on on and on through the limitless forests which lay to the north, and south, and west.
The memory gave him fresh hope. It told him that the world was still outside waiting to welcome them to its hostels. And so he turned at last to the patient woman at his side.
“It seems so a’mighty queer, little Joan,” he said gently. “It seems so a’mighty queer I can’t rightly get the hang of things. Yesterday—yesterday—why, yesterday all this,” he waved an arm to indicate the broken world about him, “was as God made it, an’ now ther’s jest ruin—blank ruin that’ll take all your life, and mine, an’ dozens who’re comin’ after us to—to build up agin. Yesterday this camp was full of busy folk chasin’ a livin’ from the products Nature had set here. Now she’s wiped’em out. Why? Yesterday a good man was threatened by man’s law, an’ it looked as if that law was to suck us all into its web an’ make criminals of us. Now he’s gone an’ the law’ll be chased back to hunt around for its prey in places with less danger to ’em. It’s all queer—mighty queer. An’ it’s queerer still to think of you an’ me sittin’ here puzzlin’ out these things.”
“Yes.”
Joan nodded without removing her eyes from the face she loved so well. Then after a pause she went on—
“You think—he’s dead?”
Buck was some time before he answered her. His grave eyes were fixed on a spot across the water, where a break in the charred remains of the forest revealed a sky-line of green grass.
“How else?” he said, at last. “He was behind me with your aunt. He was on the hill. You’ve scoured what remains of the plateau. Wal, he ain’t there, an’ he didn’t come down the path wher’ we come. We ain’t see ’em anyways. Yep,” he went on, with a sigh, “guess the Padre’s dead, an’ one o’ them rocks down ther’ is markin’ his grave. Seems queer. He went with her. She was the woman he had loved. They’ve gone together, even though she just—hated him. He was a good man an’—he’d got grit. He was the best man in the world an’—an’ my big friend.”
His voice was husky with emotion, and something like a sob came with his last word, and Joan’s eyes filled with tears of sympathy and regret.
“Tell me,” he went on, after a pause. “I ain’t got it right. The fall knocked you plumb out. An’ then?”
His eyes were still on the distant break of the trees.
“I don’t know what happened,” Joan said wearily, spreading out her drenched skirt to the now blazing sun. “I know I woke up quite suddenly, feeling so cold that even my teeth were chattering. The rain was falling like—like hailstones. It was dark, so dark, and I was terribly afraid. I called to you, but got no answer, and—and I thought I was alone. It was terrible. The thunder had ceased, and the lightning was no longer playing. There was no longer any forest fire, or—or earthquakings. All was still and black, and the rain—oh, it was dreadful. I sat where I was, calling you at intervals. I sat on, and on, and on, till I thought the dark would never go, that day would never break again, and I began to think that all the world had come to an end, and I, alone, was left. Then at last the rain stopped, and I saw that day was breaking. But it was not until broad daylight that I knew where I was. And then—and then I saw you lying close at my feet. Oh, Buck, don’t let me think of it any more. Don’t remind me of it. It was awful. I believed you were dead—dead. And it seemed to me that my heart died, too. It was so dreadful that I think I—I was mad. And then—you saved me—again.”
Buck raised a stiff arm and gently drew her toward him with a wonderfully protecting movement. The girl yielded herself to him, and he kissed her sweet upturned lips.
“No, little Joan, gal. Don’t you think of it. We got other things to think of—a whole heap.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the girl eagerly. “We’ve got life—together.”
Buck nodded with a grave smile.
“An’ we must sure keep it.”
He released her and struggled to his feet, where he stood supporting himself by clinging to a projection of rock.
“What do you mean, Buck? What are you going to do?” Joan demanded anxiously, springing to her feet and shaking out her drenched skirt.
“Do? Why, look yonder. Ther’ across the water. Ther’ wher’ them burnt-up woods break. See that patch o’ grass on the sky-line? Look close, an’ you’ll see two—somethings standin’ right ther’. Wal, we got to git near enough that way so Cæsar can hear my whistle.”
“Cæsar? Is—is that Cæsar? Why—how——?”
Buck nodded his head.
“Maybe I’m guessin’. I ain’t sayin’. But—wal, you can’t be sure this ways off. Y’ see, Cæsar has a heap o’ sense, an’ his saddle-bags are loaded down with a heap o’ good food. An’ you’re needin’ that—same as me.”
The rightness of Buck’s conjecture was proved before evening, but not without long and painful effort. Joan was utterly weary, and the man was reduced to such weakness and disability as, in all his life, he had never known.
But they faced their task with the knowledge that with every moment of delay in procuring food their chances of escape from that land of ruin were lessening. With food, and, consequently, with Buck’s horse, safety would be practically assured. They would then, too, be able to prosecute a search for the man they both had learned to love so well.
With nightfall their hopes were realized, but only at a terrible cost to the man. So great had become his weakness and suffering that it was Joan who was forced to make provision for the night.
Both horses were grazing together with an unconcern that was truly equine. Nor, when reviewed, was their escape the miracle it appeared. At the height of the storm they had been left on the farthest confines of the plateau of Devil’s Hill, where no fire would reach them, and at a considerable distance from the lake. Their native terror of fire would have held them there in a state bordering on paralysis. In all probability no power on earth could have induced them to stir from the spot where they had been left, until the drenching rain had blotted out the furnace raging below. This had been Buck’s thought. Then, perhaps, laboring under a fear of the quakings caused by the subterranean fires of the hill, andtheir hungry stomachs crying out for food, they had left the dreaded hill in quest of the pastures they craved.
The well-stocked saddle-bags, which Buck’s forethought had filled for the long trail, now provided these lonely wanderers in the wilderness with the food they needed, the saddle-blankets and the saddles furnished their open-air couches, and the horses, well, the horses were there to afford them escape when the time came, and, in the meantime, could be left to recover from the effects of the storm and stress through which they, too, had passed.
With the following dawn Buck’s improvement was wonderful, and Joan awoke from a deep, night-long slumber, refreshed and hopeful. An overhauling of their supplies showed them sufficient food, used sparingly, to last a week. And with this knowledge Buck outlined their plans to the girl, who hung upon his every word.
“We can’t quit yet,” he said, when they had broken their fast.
The girl waited, watching his dark contemplative eyes as they looked across the water at the diminished hill.
“Nope,” he went on. “We owe him more’n that. We must chase around, an’—find him. We must——”
“Yes,” Joan broke in, her eyes full of eager acquiescence. “We must not leave him—to—to—the coyotes.” She shuddered.
“No. Guess I’ll git the horses.”
“You? Oh, Buck—let me. I am well and strong. It is my turn to do something now. Your work is surely finished.”
Her pleading eyes smiled up into his, but the man shook his head with that decision she had come to recognize and obey almost without question.
“Not on your life, little gal,” he said, in his kindly, resolute fashion, and Joan was left to take her woman’s place in their scheme of things.
But she shared in the search of the hill and the woods. She shared in the ceaseless hunt for three long, weary, heart-breaking days over a land of desolation and loneliness. She rode at Buck’s side hour after hour on the sturdy horse that had served the Padre so faithfully, till her body was healthily weary, and her eyes grew heavy with straining. But she welcomed the work. For, with the tender mother eye of the woman in her, she beheld that which gladdened her heart, and made the hardest work a mere labor of love. Each passing day, almost with each passing hour, she witnessed the returning vigor of the man she loved. His recuperative powers were marvelous, and she watched his bodily healing as though he were her own helpless offspring.
For the rest their search was hopeless. The battling forces of a storm-riven earth had claimed their toll to the last fraction, and with the cunning of the miser had secreted the levy. Not a trace was there of any human life but their own. The waters from the hill swept the little valley, and hugged to their bosom the secrets that lay beneath their surface. And the fall of rock held deeply buried all that which it had embraced in its rending. The farm was utterly destroyed, and with it had fallen victims every head of stock Joan had possessed. The old fur fort had yielded to the fire demon, where, for all the ages, it had resisted the havoc of storm. There was nothing left to mark the handiwork of man, nothing but the terrible destruction it had brought about.
Thus it was on the fourth morning, after breaking theirfast, and the horses had been saddled, Buck once more packed the saddle-bags and strapped them into their places behind the saddles. Joan watched him without question. She no longer had any question for that which he chose to ordain.
When all was ready he lifted her into her saddle, which she rode astride, in the manner of the prairie. She was conscious of his strength, now returned to its full capacity. She was nothing in his arms now, she might have been a child by the ease with which he lifted her. He looked to her horse’s bridle, he saw that she was comfortable. Then he vaulted into Cæsar’s saddle with all his old agility.
“Which way, Buck?” The girl spoke with the easy manner of one who has little concern, but her eyes belied her words. A strange thrill was storming in her bosom.
“Leeson Butte,” said Buck, a deep glow shining in his dark eyes.
Joan let her horse amble beside the measured, stately walk of Cæsar. Her reins hung loose, and her beautiful eyes were shining as they gazed out eagerly ahead. She was thrilling with a happiness that conflicted with a strange nervousness at the naming of their destination. She had no protest to offer, no question. It was as if the lord of her destiny had spoken, and it was her happiness and desire to obey.
They rode on, and their way lay amidst the charred skeleton of a wide, stately wood. The air was still faint with the reek of burning. There was no darkness here beyond the blackened tree trunks, for the brilliant summer sun lit up the glades, which, for ages, no sun’s rays had ever penetrated. The sense of ruin was passing from the minds of these children of the wilderness. Their focushad already adapted itself. Almost, even, their youthful eyes and hearts saw new beauties springing up about them. It was the work of that wonderful fount of hope, which dies so hardly in us all, and in youth never.
At length they left the mouldering skeletons behind them, and the gracious, waving, tawny grass of the plains opened out before their gladdened eyes. A light breeze tempered the glorious sunlight, and set ripples afloat upon the waving crests of the motionless rollers of a grassy ocean.
Buck drew his horse down to a walk beside the girl, and his look had lost its reflection of the sadness they were leaving behind. He had no desire now to look back. For all his life the memory of his “big friend” would remain, for the rest his way lay directly ahead, his life, and his—hope.
“It’s all wonderful—wonderful out here, little Joan,” he said, smiling tenderly down upon her sweet face from the superior height at which Cæsar carried him. “Seems like we’re goin’ to read pages of a—fresh book. Seems like the old book’s all mussed up, so we can’t learn its lessons ever again.”
Joan returned the warmth of his gaze. But she shook her head with an assumption of wisdom.
“It’s the same book, dear, only it’s a different chapter. You see the story always goes on. It must go on—to the end. Characters drop out. They die, or are—killed. Incidents happen, some pleasant, some—full of sadness. But that’s all part of the story, and must be. The story always goes on to the end. You see,” she added with a tender smile, “the hero’s still in the picture.”
“An’ the—gal-hero.”
Joan shook her head decidedly.
“There’s no heroine to this story,” she said. “You need courage to be a heroine, and I—I have none. Do you know, Buck,” she went on seriously, “when I look back on all that’s gone I realize how much my own silly weakness has caused the trouble. If I had only had the courage to laugh at my aunt’s prophecies, my aunt’s distorted pronouncements, all this trouble would have been saved. I should never have come to the farm. My aunt would never have found the Padre. Those men would never have fired those woods when they burnt my farm, and—and the gentle-hearted Padre would never have lost his life.”
It was Buck’s turn to shake his head.
“Wrong, wrong, little gal,” he said with a warmth of decision. “When you came to us—to me, an’ we saw your trouble, we jest set to work to clear a heap o’ cobwebs from your mind. That was up to us, because you were sure sufferin’, and you needed help. But all we said, all we told you not to believe, those things were sure marked out, an’ you, an’ all of us had to go thro’ with ’em. We can’t talk away the plans o’ Providence. You jest had to come to that farm. You jest had to do all the things you did. Maybe your auntie, in that queer way of hers, told you the truth, maybe she saw things us others didn’t jest see. Who can tell?”