"I understand," he murmured. "You may say anything you like. If I can help you—that will be enough for me—now."
Mary Aikens and Professor Bulkeley, left to themselves, with cookie in the kitchen fussing over the dinner, looked out to the sunlit silences where the other two had gone, and responded to their appeal. They saw the two lovers sauntering down toward the river, and they chose the trail up the slope. Slowly they climbed the grade, saying nothing. From the cook-house door Imp thrust his nose, sniffed with half-shut eyes into the drooping sun, and decided that one of his half-formed barks befitted the occasion. Then, satisfied that he had done all that could be expected of him, he trotted back and lay on one of Dakota's feet.
The foreman was sneering through the doorway.
"The big boob! He's shore on the wrong trail there, and some sweet day the boss'll lay hands on him and—piff!" He made a movement of tossing something away.
"An' the biggest boob on earth wouldn't have no chance to earn it," growled Bean. "Not with the missus." When Dakota laughed in his nasty way, Bean fired angrily: "An' that little editor'll piff you"—he imitated Dakota's gesture of a moment before—"if you go gettin' funny with the other gal. Anyone can see where your eyes is."
He laughed and strolled outside to avoid the explosion.
Up the trail, over the crest of the slope, the two passed out of sight. She plucked a handful of grass from the centre ridge of the trail between them and began thoughtfully to tear it to pieces. He moved at her side, his great hands gripped behind him, his eyes on the rut at his feet.
"Don't you think they're getting fond of each other?" he said after a long time.
A smile of loving sympathy made her face so beautiful that he looked sharply away and pointed to the vivid colourings of the sunset. She followed his pointing finger absent-mindedly.
"It would be one of the few flawless matches," she said, in a low voice.
"They are all flawless—at first," he returned. "Only some last a shorter time. That's part of life's misery, the legacy of original sin—perhaps the worst.... Some pause to weigh to the merest trifles—and lose their chance. Some ... some don't pause enough. The secret of happy marriage, I'm convinced, Mrs. Aikens, is a complete knowledge of the essentials of each other's lives before the ceremony."
One handful of grass had been pulled to pieces, and she seized another nervously.
"Few of us pause for that," she murmured.
"The agony of it!" His hands were clasping and unclasping behind his back, almost as were his sister's on the other trail. "And ordinarily there is no way out. Divorce doesn't settle it. The most righteous divorce laws cannot supplant conscience—and conscience speaks only in the one Book of all the world.... But this isn't becoming to such a night," he broke in, with sudden eagerness. "Look at that sunset. Only in the West do you find that unbroken spectacle, such clearness of air, such a wonderful sweep of colour. What is it about the Western air that makes a man——"
He paused abruptly, breathing heavily. She looked at him in quick fear.
"—that makes a man feel ten years younger," he went on, with an absurd change of tone. "I think I could grow frisky out here."
Across her face passed a grateful smile of relief and understanding that she did not know she made so plain.
"It's the essence of the West. It makes or mars a man. It does the same, only more swiftly, with the consumptives they send to us from the East. Some it cures—some it kills.... Some it kills when it seems most certainly to be curing them.... That's the West; it does that with everyone—one never knows."
He broke in on her dreamy reflections in a lighter vein:
"Just the same it's the young man's country, don't you think?"
"It's a great blessing—or a great curse.... What was Jim before he came here?"
It startled him; he had no reply ready.
"I fear Jim and I do not fulfil your estimate of the foundation for a happy married life. I never knew his past—I don't now. I never knew his people—he never speaks of them. I took Jim—for himself—a handsome, manly, honest, good-natured——"
The man at her side coughed, and she turned to him with a wan smile.
"I know," she said wearily. "You think I shouldn't talk of my husband to others ... but in all our married life I've never before had anyone to talkanythingwith.... Jim and I—Jim and I——"
"What I'm thinking, Mrs. Aikens," he interrupted gravely, "is that I'm the last one to whom you should speak of him."
She kept her eyes ahead of them on the dim line of the sand buttes, and they walked on in silence.
Suddenly a cry burst from her lips.
"I must speak, I must. My very heart is eating away with the strain of silence. I'll go crazy with the worry of it. It's about him—Jim. He's different—these days. At first—— Don't think there's any chance of Jim and me not—not sticking to each other. I've fought that out with myself already. He's changed, but I know what hecanbe—what he was once ... what he won't let himself be now. Why? I don't know. Something—something is crowding between us—crowding harder and harder every day, I see him so little now, and——"
The big man squared his shoulders and lifted his head.
"Mary Aikens, I'd do anything—pretty nearly anything to help you. You know that. But I can't help you in this. Please, please, don't ask me—don't say another word about him—not tome. It doesn't seem heartless, does it? It's as far from that as—as black from white. You've a heavier burden to carry than anyone I know ... and I don't know yet how it can be relieved. But itwillbe, itwillbe. I've that much faith in Providence. I shouldn't have said—that about marriage. Had you known—did you know all about him, you would at least bear one less trouble than you do, I'm sure of that. If I were you I wouldn't bother about that—not now. You're his wife. You should know whether he loved you once or not. And"—he ran his hand across his forehead—"as an onlooker with eyes, I can tell you that he loves you more than he ever did. Is that enough.... I believe—at this moment—he loves you better—better than you do him."
She gasped, and her hands tightened convulsively over the grass she carried.
"I still love him," she said deliberately.... "I think I do. What my love lacks is thrust there by—by the wall he is slowly building between us. I think he loved me, yes, but—it probably sounds foolish—I don't feel that he wants me to love him—not too much. He—sometimes seems to toss me aside—you've seen it. And Jim's not naturally brutal."
The Professor spoke with careless deliberation:
"His past is much easier to unravel than his present. You're most anxious about the latter. I can see it—I see it every day. You've undertaken a lonesome task—it's the way a wife has to, but it's as apt to mislead as enlighten. I don't believe that—that the wall is unscalable—or at least the mortar's thin....
"And now," he started again lightly, "let's enjoy that sunset. I have only a few more of them ahead, unless the winter holds off longer than usual. I'm not so bound up in my poking about not to be sorry when I think of having to give all this up."
They had been retracing their steps for some time, at his wordless guiding, and were close to the ridge before the drop to the valley.
"Never," he told her, "no, never, speak to me again of your husband. It won't lighten your burden and it only increases mine. Jim Aikens may be maligned by circumstances beyond his control, and we from the fringes are so apt to misunderstand. When I can help you I'll give the signal. Till then—but there he is now—down in front of the house—waiting for us."
Cockney was standing on the gravel walk, every line grim and accusing. His great legs were apart, his arms were folded across his chest, and he was staring at them under his eyebrows in that thoughtful, disapproving way of his. They could read the angry tossing of his mind far away. Mary Aikens laughed nervously. The Professor bit his lip. But before they came within speaking distance, Cockney wheeled away and disappeared into the house. When they reached the sitting-room they could hear his heavy striding in the bedroom beyond. His wife trembled, started for the kitchen, then changed her mind and passed into the bedroom to him.
It was a grateful relief to an oppressive dinner when Dakota presented himself at the door. A fire was burning in the sitting-room stove, for the evenings were sometimes frosty now, and the cowboy sank modestly into a chair in the corner beside it. Isabel, in an effort to break the embarrassing silence, seated herself near him.
"I hope you're finding all you came for," said Dakota pleasantly.
"Thank you, Dakota. My brother considers the summer well spent indeed. He still has hopes of a more complete skeleton, but we can't remain much longer, can we?"
Dakota scoffed.
"There ain't likely to be snow before November. Sometimes we have a storm in September—mostly, I guess—but it goes as quick as it comes. We're often out riding with the herds into November. It ain't just the weather you'd want to be handling rock in, but you should oughta see October here. It's got creation beat a mile. Don't you go till October. Besides," he added naïvely, "we got some hard work for the next few weeks, and we can't be home much."
"What indefatigable people you cowboys are!" exclaimed the Professor. "Sometimes there seems nothing to do, and then it's night and day for weeks."
"You're right there, Professor," Dakota agreed in a loud voice. "To make a ranch pay like the H-Lazy Z is real hard work—though Mr. Aikens there don't seem to think so. And there ain't many pays like the H-Lazy Z, I tell you."
"What's that you said, Dakota?" asked Cockney, coming out of his silence. "Going away for a few weeks?"
"Yes, and taking the outfit. The fall clean-up. We'll make the round o' the ranges and fix things up a bit. The Indians say we're in for a breezer of a winter. There's that Big Bone Slough we got to fence on the north side—where we lost all them cattle two winters ago. I was saying to the visitors they needn't go for another month anyway—till we're through all that. It's shore been a different place this summer. The Dude was saying that he never got such joy from slicking up and changing his shirt every week."
He grinned with them. It was a long speech to make in public, and he was proud of it. The Professor bowed with a low sweep.
"I'm bowing for Mr. Stamford, too," he chuckled. "I can do it bigger than he can. We appreciate, Mr. Fraley, the many courtesies we have received from our fellow-countrymen. But, no, that couldn't include the little editor; he's only a local product. He doesn't know what it is to thrill to the stripes of Old Glory. We'll always remember you. We hope you'll have equal cause to remember us."
"That's all right, Professor," Dakota replied, with an expansive sweep of his hand. "We're shore pleased punchers."
And having delivered himself with credit to himself and his friends, he backed out, bowing, his angora chaps ruffling in the wind as he opened the door.
His companions greeted him at the bunk-house with eager grins.
"Did she give yer a scented hanky to wear nex' yore heart, ole hoss?" enquired General confidentially.
"Or a kiss on the forehead an' promise to be a sister to yo?" put in Alkali sympathetically.
"Oh, you fellers ain't familiar with the symptoms," said Muck. "Dakota's planned ter 'lope, an' he ain't got his checks cashed."
"G—! I wish I had," muttered Dakota, with sudden fervour. "I'll shore be devilish glad when we get this bunch offen our hands and the equiv in our jeans. I got a spooky feeling about the whole biz. It's a big bunch to get down across the railway and over fifty miles more to the border. And it'll be a deuced sight bigger when the next lot's run in.... But we got to do it. That S-Bar-I outfit'll give us a run for our money. But that's all to the hunky. Got your shooting irons o.k., boys?"
He shifted his eyes slowly to Bean Slade's thin body outstretched on a bunk, his hands beneath his head.
"Bean's funking," he sneered.
Bean lifted an angry head. "Bean Slade's got himself in this thing with both feet, you son-of-a-gun, an' he'll stick.... Just the same, the old H-Lazy-Z outfit's goin' to bust up this winter. This li'l boy's strikin' back fer civilisation—whatever that means."
Imp, resting against Dakota's foot, raised his sharp ears and grunted. In a couple of bounds Dakota had the door open. Professor Bulkeley stood outside, blinking and smiling through his spectacles.
"I'm so glad you haven't retired, friends," he chattered. "I couldn't let you go without a record of the pleasant associations with my estimable and cheery countrymen of the H-Lazy Z. Will you do me the honour of inscribing your names in this little book? My sister and I will look at it for many a year in remembrance of you when we're far away."
He stumbled over the step, a notebook in one hand, fountain pen in the other. Dakota laughed harshly.
"Here, trot up, you low-born Yanks, and scrawl your nom-de's for the everlasting records of the li'l country God made without desecrating it with Mounted Police. Let's make it our second papers o' repatriation. Hurrah for Old Glory—and Professor Bulkeley and his charming and beautiful sister!"
The Professor pompously cleared his throat.
"On behalf of myself and my sister, on behalf of the country we love and respect, I thank you. Ever enthroned in our hearts will be——"
"Ya-as," yawned Alkali, "so they say. Le's take the rest for granted. Sounds like Decoration Day—an' sort o' makes me lonesome. An' I don't cry pretty."
"Don't mind Alkali," apologised Bean Slade. "He allus did get maudlin easy. There's my scribble—Albert Shaw, better—or worse—known as Bean Slade ... so my mother won't rekernise me when I get mine in the way I'm shure to get it. Fust time I've wrote it fer eight years.... Last fer the rest o' my nacherl days, so help me!"
He tossed the book across the table. The Professor picked it up with a beaming smile and bowed himself out.
"Ta-ta!" Bean called after him.
"The sneaking old geezer!" growled Dakota, when the heavy steps had faded into the darkness. "If it ud been anyone else there'd 'a' been shooting, I tell you—that Stamford peanut, for instance. I don't like the look of his ratty eyes. He's just the kind o' unlikely chap ud be working for the Police—if he had a foot more on him. Now turn in, boys. To-morrow's the last round-up for the big vamoose to God's country—and then gold enough to drown ourselves. Bean, hang on for another year or two, and I'll be damnified if I don't flit with you. It's a bit too creepy for me off here at the edge of nowhere."
Morton Stamford may not have been a sick man when he arrived at the H-Lazy Z ranch; he was at least a stronger man at the end of his month's stay. His riding he continued only as practice, always with the thought that he might require it. But he walked more, diving out of sight daily into the chaos of the river banks, there to piece together his clues and plan new attacks on the problem he was working into shape for presentation to the Mounted Police.
Also he now and then caught sight of Isabel Bulkeley on the other cliff, and that in itself was reward enough.
As the days passed he felt a new thrill in his veins, a virility that clamoured for physical exertion, and his walks extended further and further along the river, a lunch strapped over his shoulders.
Eastward the south bank often fell to an uninteresting flatness, lined still by the grass-covered trails of the buffalo herds of comparatively recent years. Westward it was different. There the prairie level dropped to the river in one great leap, confining the current sometimes between high cliffs, sometimes with steep rocky wall on one side and an almost inaccessible valley on the other to the foot of the opposite cliff. It was a canyon of varying tightness, but always a canyon, the water dashing down here and there with frothy roar, everywhere with a force and depth that defied fording. The glamour of its fury appealed more and more as he tramped further up-stream.
Hundreds of miles still to the west, in the foothills of the Rockies, the main branch was a glacier torrent that rolled onward through uninhabited wilds until it cut the Calgary-Edmonton line of homesteaders at the village of Red Deer. Thereafter it dived once more into the unknown, never once touching the haunts of men until it reached the H-Lazy Z.
Stamford used to sit overlooking the torrent, picturing that long trail in the wilderness, where thousands of years ago great animals had been covered by the earth's convulsions. His uncontrolled imagination knit fantastic stories about them, and the fettered life of the little man longed to break into the heart of it and listen to its tale before soulless man tamed it.
One day he found himself far above any point he had reached before. He had clung to the top of the cliff, stopping only here and there to peer over the precipice to the water's edge, and his progress had been faster than he realised. Amid scenes new and vastly interesting he munched his lunch. Below him the face of the cliff was rent by huge fissures and lined with ledges, and the river valley spread and narrowed in infinite variety. Across the river the hitherto unbroken height showed signs of relenting, and great dips almost approached the nature of valleys.
Uncertain how far he had come, he was about to turn back, when a sudden noise sent him crouching to the upper rocks. It was the barking of huge dogs. At the first note he recognised them. He wondered if they had seen him, and he peered carefully out. The dogs were on the other side of the river, higher up.
He began to creep toward them, the condition of the cliffs favouring him. Gradually he sank lower and lower toward the river. He did not dare look out. With an instinctive anxiety he did not stop to analyse, he felt that other eyes were there; also he dreaded some unthrilling explanation for the thing that was thrilling him.
When at last the clamour told him that he had come far enough, he raised his head to an opening in the rocks and looked.
Across from him, partially hidden by a line of slender crags at the river edge, was a beautiful valley, a low-lying patch of verdant meadow as different from the dead wastes above as a garden from a wilderness. Almost half a mile long by four hundred yards deep, it was backed by a straight wall of cliff, broken only by two ledges. Several tiny waterfalls tumbled from the face of the cliff, splashing to the upper ledge, where they joined and widened for the plunge to the meadow below.
In that deserted country the Red Deer had scooped out for its own amusement a veritable oasis, and enclosed it with unscalable walls.
That was Stamford's fleeting idea. But several flaws chased the romantic thought away. The valley was neither reserved for the amusement of the river, nor was it inaccessible.
A herd of cattle was browsing in the succulent grass. To the east the cliff sloped away behind the obtruding crags. There undoubtedly was the entrance. And with his field-glasses Stamford picked out on the lower ledge a rude shack that, to the bare eye, merged in the general greyness of the background.
Nothing else of life could he find, though the valley was only a few hundred yards from him. Then where were the dogs? And where were dogs must be humans.
Suddenly the barking broke out afresh, and two great dogs burst from behind a concealing rock, their noses pointing upward to the slope at the eastern end of the valley. Stamford swept his glasses all about, but for a time saw nothing to focus the clamour.
Then, climbing along the higher levels beyond the reach of the dogs, came into view the big form of Cockney Aikens.
In and out among the rocks Cockney moved, now visible, now hidden from view, examining every rock, every foothold; climbing downward, the dogs seeming to tear themselves to pieces to get at him. He lifted himself to the top of a rock and stood looking across the valley at the cattle, ignoring the canine protest. Then, as if startled, he leaped out of sight and did not reappear. The barks rumbled away to grunts and growls, and presently the dogs returned to the lower level.
Stamford was still watching with fascination their slinking muscular movements, when one of them raised his head to the top of the cliff and growled, and in a moment both were filling the valley with their disturbing din.
The field-glasses were turned on the top of the cliff. A man's head came slowly in sight and peered over. Then a long rope dropped away, and, hand over hand, the man descended rapidly to the upper ledge—sixty feet of descent without a pause.
So absorbed was the watcher in the remarkable grace and muscle of the descent, that he did not at first recognise this second visitor to the valley. When he did he rubbed his eyes, directed his glasses again, and gasped.
Professor Bulkeley!
The big man walked fearlessly along the narrow ledge, a hundred feet above the valley, disappeared from Stamford's sight, and after a time came into view again on the lower ledge. The dogs bounded up rude steps cut in the rock before the shack, welcoming him with waving tails and whimpering barks. He stooped to rub their ears, then at a word they quieted and fell in at his heels as he dropped to the valley. A second command sent them to their stomachs, while the Professor advanced slowly toward the cattle. The nearer ones raised their heads from the long grass and examined him suspiciously, but he stood still, and they returned to their feeding. Slowly the Professor moved round the herd, eyeing them from every angle. After a time he came down to the water's edge and looked up and down the river, intently examining the opposite cliff.
Stamford lay motionless, only his eyes showing.
Whistling to the dogs, the Professor went off to the eastern side of the valley and began to pick his way upward, peering about him as Cockney had done. On the very rock where Cockney had stood he paused a long time, looking across the valley and all about at his back. Below, the dogs watched him with clumsily wagging tails. When next he came into sight it was on the ledge beside the shack. This he skirted back and forward but did not enter. Then, with a farewell pat to the dogs, he disappeared the way he had come and came out on the upper ledge.
Hand over hand he went up the rope almost as rapidly as he had descended a half-hour before, and a few seconds later two lolling dogs and a herd of feeding cattle were the only life in the valley.
Stamford lay where he was for a long time. He had no hope of seeing more that day, but he did not wish to be seen. The dogs lay on the lower edge, their heads outstretched on their paws. Below them contented steers sank their noses into such grass as they had never before eaten, and drank from sparkling streams that were nectar to their alkali-parched throats. A heavy-footed farmer might have issued from the unsightly shack and whistled lazily to the dogs to fetch the cows for milking.
Stamford smiled at the fancy.
Thoughtfully he retraced his steps under cover of the jagged cliff for almost a mile, where he emerged on the prairie and made swiftly for home.
He was late for dinner, but they were holding it for him. Cockney had not returned.
"Deep down in my innards," protested the Professor, with mock displeasure, "I've an irresistible impulse to be nasty. I'd like to think it righteous indignation—but it may be only hunger. At any rate, here goes: Anyone who can delay a meal in this boarding-house should have his rates raised. He insults the fare—as well as the f-a-i-r." He bowed to their hostess.
"I nearly lost myself," apologised Stamford. "Deep down in my innards is only hunger; and I'm not going to make it an excuse for mushy compliments. I'll leave contrition until I've satisfied my hunger."
"Indigestion is the most likely result," laughed the Professor.
"Were you really lost?" asked Isabel anxiously. "You know how dangerous——"
"Isabel Bulkeley"—the Professor was shaking a stern finger at her—"I refuse to share your anxiety with Mr. Stamford."
"Having made such a failure of mothering you," she retorted, flushing, "I'm inclined to transfer my anxiety."
"I wasn't really lost," Stamford assured her, "for I stuck to the river-bank. But I've been further than I ever was before—many miles to the west."
He regarded the Professor significantly as he said it.
"I, too, went far afield," returned the Professor mysteriously. "And I found promising signs. But before I say more I want to be certain; it's disappointing to hope too much. It's very interesting up there, isn't it?"
"It is—very," Stamford replied into his soup-spoon.
All evening the Professor was plainly trying to get a word alone with him, but Stamford had no wish to be questioned, and he gave no opportunity.
Next morning Stamford started off the instant breakfast was over, but he did not go further than the cook-house. He found it deserted, the outfit having departed the day before on what promised to be a three or four days' expedition. Stamford poked about the cook-house and bunk-house with a vague idea of coming on clues left carelessly exposed. In the midst of it the Professor walked in on him.
"Oh, I thought you were gone for the day," said the Professor, "and I hoped our friends of the funny names might be back."
"I'm going now," Stamford returned shortly, and walked away, though the Professor called to him.
From among the rocks on the river-bank he saw the buckboard pass around the corrals and make for the ford. He followed.
Somewhere that herd of cattle in the little valley had crossed the river, and he was determined to discover where. He had rather definite ideas about them that led him to expect no information from the ford.
In that he quickly proved himself right. He had seen, even from where he lay on the opposite cliff, that most of the cattle had been in the valley a long time; that was evident from their plumpness and undisturbed feeding. The more recent arrivals were betrayed by their rougher coats and leaner bodies, and by a wilder fling of the head when the Professor approached them. There had been no rain on the Red Deer in two months; their tracks, were there any, would show plainly enough in the mud approaches to the ford.
But there was nothing there save the hoof-marks of the Professor's team and a few dim old hollows that must have been there from the spring.
He considered the possibility of a ford further east, but one near enough to be of use to the valley he would have heard of.
Carefully examining the shore as he went, he turned back to the west. Now and then he stopped to scrutinise the face of the opposite cliff for marks of a slope on that side.
Not far from the end of the lowest corral he raised himself on a rounded rock to look about him. Across the river was unbroken wall. On this side was a stretch of tumbled erosions that cut off his view from the ground. As he let himself down again his foot slipped and he fell, feet first, between two rocks. He was surprised to hear the crunch of leather, and, looking where his feet had gone, he saw a saddle carefully hidden, and beneath it a bridle. More surprising, it was not a stock saddle but an English pattern of the softest, lightest kind, ridiculously small and compact—so small that a man's coat would almost hide it.
He thrust it back and went hastily on. His eyes flitted instinctively to the ranch-house, and just then the cook came from the kitchen and emptied a pot. Stamford ducked, though a score of heads would pass unnoticed in that jumble of rock at such a distance.
Keeping to the river-bed, he moved up-stream and presently the cliffs beside him rose to the level of their mates on the other side. But there was always room for him to advance. At places the walls narrowed, the current rushing between with indescribable fury, and widening below in eddying sullenness that was almost as terrifying. That it did not always chafe its barriers in vain was shown by the tumbled confusion everywhere.
In a few places deep crevices ran down from the prairie, and these Stamford examined carefully. But there was no sign of a ford. Equally alive was he to movement on the opposite cliff. By lunch-time his clothes were showing marks of his tireless clambering.
Below him—during the last half-hour he had been rising on the face of the cliff—a comfortable ledge invited, and he climbed down and unslung his lunch. As he ate he realised how easy had been his descent. Out before him extended a level floor of rock up-stream; behind, a steep incline ran upward, disappearing around a bulge in the rocky face. Stamford knew cattle would not follow such a steep ledge at such a height. Below, the water ran smooth, but tiny whirlpools covered its surface; the current beneath was swift and treacherous.
He ate absent-mindedly, puzzled by the clear ledge ahead, while elsewhere was such a chaos of fallen boulders. With the last mouthful he retraced his steps, searching for some branching path to the prairie above. He found it in a draw that left at right angles the one he had followed down—an easy, grass-floored ascent. Tangling and twisting, he reached the prairie.
In its depths were unmistakable evidences of cattle.
He returned to the lower level and followed it to its end. Gently it fell to the level of the river; abruptly it ended in a wide platform of rock that extended in under the cliff for fifty feet or more. On all sides but the way he had come was towering rock only a bird could pass.
Nonplussed, irritated by the dashing of his hopes, he poked about. The bare rock all round could conceal nothing, and ten yards ahead was the certain end. Yet at his feet were the marks of cattle. He moved nearer the end of the platform and leaned against a pinnacle that projected from the water. As he turned helplessly to the opposite side of the river, the solution lay before his eyes, the one thing he had never suspected.
A heavy raft lay tight against the pinnacle on which he leaned, protected from the rush of water above by another jutting rock.
He approached it with incredulity. Quiet as the stream looked superficially just there, he knew no motive power applicable at such a place would breast that current. And clearly it was too deep and swift to pole. In vain he examined the overhanging cliffs for wire.
At the very end of the ledge he caught sight of an end of cable wound round a rock. Through his field-glasses he traced its exit across the river. But still the method of passage was obscure, for the cable stretched beneath the torrent, as did the wire that connected it with the raft. Studying then the angle of the raft to the current, he realised that the same principle prevailed here as propelled the ferry across the South Saskatchewan at Medicine Hat.
It was surprisingly simple, yet he had nowhere else seen it in practice. A wire extended from either end of the raft to the cross-river cable, the shortening of the front one of which, together with the extension of the rear one, forced the current itself, urging against the angled side of the raft, to be the propelling power.
A burden lifted from Stamford's mind. Here was the crossing of the herds to the hidden valley.... Here, too, was the means by which the dogs—somehow unknown to Dakota and his comrades—were brought from the valley and turned loose on the prairie on that memorable night.
He caught himself whistling, until he realised that no part of his discovery assisted him to the solution of his own problem.
A feeling of discomfort had been increasing for some time, and he decided that he was under observation. Clambering nonchalantly to his feet, he retired to the cover of the pinnacle that concealed the raft from below, and seated himself behind it. After a time his curiosity overcame him. Turning on his knees he slowly advanced his head to look across the river.
As his eyes came over the edge of the bank he saw an end of wire protruding from a small pile of rock close to the water's edge. It extended out into the river and disappeared. He knew by its position that it was intended to be concealed even from those who commonly used the raft. The action of the current had worked the end from its covering of stones. He drew back without touching it.
At the end of an hour he decided to brave the eyes he knew were still on the watch.
Again he was late for dinner, but from a distance he saw the Professor and his sister drive rapidly up to the ranch-house. They, too, were late.
"Really," the Professor chided, trying to induce a frown to gather on his placid forehead, "your continued indignity in the matter of eats is a subject for solemn consideration."
"I am at a disadvantage," returned Stamford. "I have no team to hustle me and my discoveries home at night. With Gee-Gee and his fellow a good driver could, I am sure, cover from five miles up the other side of the river, and cross the ford, in the time it would take me to walk it on this side. With an exceptional driver I'd lose miserably."
"Some day," proposed the Professor genially, "we'll try it. I'm growing quite conceited over my mastery of the incorrigible Gee-Gee. I won't always be so busy as I am now."
"If that day delays, you'll never be able to get to town the mountain of button material collecting at the back door."
"Always," returned the Professor gravely, "I'm looking for something bigger. That discovery I hinted at last night—— You wait, you cold-blooded editor. We palæontologists may be denied some thrills, but at least when we make mistakes there's no libel action. If I could be assured that in the wonderful national museum for which I have the honour to collect there would stand through the ages a monument to the memory of one, Amos Bulkeley—— It doesn't mould readily to Latin, does it?"
Stamford sighed wearily.
The Professor stooped to look beneath the blind.
"Your husband!" he announced across the table.
Presently Cockney jerked Pink Eye to his haunches before the door.
"Anything left to eat?" he called. "I'm starving."
"When Mr. Stamford has his fourth helping there won't be," replied the Professor. "He's a past master at keeping others talking while he eats."
"Stamford, take Pink Eye to the corral," ordered Cockney. "The bottom corral, you know. He's too tired to be breezy."
"Here! Let me tackle him." The Professor was advancing in a circle on Pink Eye, as if with a vague idea of securing a strangle hold before the broncho could put up a defence. "If I could end the summer with the thought that I'd handled a real devil of a broncho, my pride would sustain me for a whole winter. Even Gee-Gee seems to have lost all ambition."
"Don't you bother," Cockney growled. "I'll take him myself."
Stamford came forward valiantly.
"Don't be afraid of him," cautioned Cockney, removing the saddle. "If he cuts up, let him go; he won't go far. Here's the key to the gate. I think you'll find it swing easily enough. We'll have real hinges and a new gate before another season. Be sure and lock up."
The Professor watched Stamford gingerly lead the jaded horse away.
"I haven't the heart to let him go alone," he decided, and set off running. "If we don't come back," he shouted over his shoulder, "you'll find me gathering up what's left of Mr. Stamford."
Stamford, turning at sound of the Professor's heavy feet, saw Cockney standing before the ranch-house, watching them in that speculative way of his.
Pink Eye was honoured with a corral all to himself, an unusually strong one of six-foot fences, with a network of wire stapled about it. The gate, a clumsy affair of cotton-wood logs, hinged to the post by heavy loops of iron, was fastened at its other side by a chain passing through a huge staple in the gate and padlocked around the fence post. This post was sunk in the ground close to the main post of the fence, apparently added to fill an over-wide breach left by a makeshift gate.
The Professor took the key and pulled the gate open for Pink Eye to scamper through.
"Humph!" he growled. "The key seems a bit superfluous, with that contraption to move before Pink Eye could get out."
He closed the padlock and started back for the ranch-house.
"You're sure you locked it?"
Stamford, remembering Cockney's last words, turned back. To his surprise the loop had not caught, though the Professor had turned the key in the lock. The latter, apologetic, returned and corrected the mistake.
"They'd have thought we were too frightened to do the job right," he remarked, with a sheepish grin. "Just the same, it's a tiresome rite to go through for one lone broncho that wouldn't go far if he got away."
"Oh," Cockney exclaimed, several minutes after they were back in the sitting-room, "the key!"
The Professor fumbled through his pocket and produced it.
"Pink Eye must look on his corral," he observed, "as the equine equivalent of a jail. Is he in the habit of spending his evenings at the corner saloon, or——"
"It's a habit I have of wishing to reserve my own things for myself," said Cockney shortly.
"There are worse foibles," was the Professor's sweet reply. He gave the embarrassed laugh that usually preceded a confession. "One of mine is ever so much less respectable. I'm simply scared to a panic at thought of fire—fire anywhere—here at the ranch-house—wherever I spend the night. I know how foolish it is, but my instincts are stronger than my intelligence. I must have been a wolf a few lives back. At home I always sleep downstairs on that account."
"Unless both Stamford and ourselves give up our downstairs rooms I don't see how we can satisfy you at the H-Lazy Z," said Cockney.
"Of course I'd have to be near him," put in Isabel hastily. "So it's quite impossible. Please don't think of indulging his foolishness any more."
"At any rate," said Stamford stubbornly, thinking of the limitations imposed on his uncertain night investigations by an upper room, "I'm not going to give up my room until my host orders it."
"Your host," said Cockney emphatically "is going to do no such thing."
Stamford tossed about when he should have been sleeping, worried by a thousand questions, a thousand disturbing suspicions. And through them all ran the thread of his love for Isabel Bulkeley. He could hear her moving about her room, and long after they should have been asleep, the voices of brother and sister came to him in gentle murmur. Added to this was the evidence of a similar wakefulness in the Aikens' bedroom.
Imp came to his door and whined, and Stamford let him in, glad of his companionship. Thereafter, with the watchful little terrier curled on his feet, he found it easier to drift away.
He was awakened by Imp. In the outline of the window Stamford saw the dog's ears erect, and a slight sniffing sound told of some disturbing scent. Stamford hurried to the window.
The night was sharp and clear. He shivered, partly with excitement, partly with chill. Something moved in the moonlight down the slope toward the corrals, but it was gone so quickly that he was uncertain of his eyes. The moon was low and dull, with a thin mist before it that prophesied the coming of winter. He watched until his teeth were chattering, then, with a pat to Imp's warm body, he returned gratefully to the warm sheets and settled to sleep.
He was wakened again by Imp leaping to the floor to sniff beneath the door. Out in the sitting-room someone was moving, but there was nothing furtive about it.
Then Stamford became conscious of a strange rumble like distant thunder. But it was no noise of the elements.
Mary and Cockney were whispering outside his door in excited tones. Someone rapped.
"Don't be alarmed, Stamford." Cockney pushed open the door, speaking in a low voice. "It's cattle on the run—a stampede.... But it's a small bunch. They'll get them under control. The boys are riding now ... like mad! ... Listen! ... Ah! They have them bunched! ... They'll stop by getting in each other's way! Not badly frightened, I guess.... I wonder where they broke from."
A moment longer he stood listening to the waning sound.
"If you'd throw something on and come out to the sitting-room I'd be grateful. I'm going out. Mary's frightened.... I hope—I hope we're not making our guests too uncomfortable."
"I'll be there in three minutes," Stamford promised, groping for his clothes. "We'd better tell the Bulkeleys; they'll wonder what it is."
"Never mind the Bulkeleys," returned Cockney sharply.
Stamford could hear him pounding off to the stables. In what seemed seconds he was galloping back below the house, making for the west.
Opposite Stamford's window the horse dropped suddenly back on its haunches. Stamford peered out. Somewhere to the west came the swift gallop of approaching horses.
But Cockney's eyes were fixed on the side of the house. Stamford saw them rise to the Professor's window and drop again, while the broncho pawed impatiently. With a bend of the hand Cockney turned the horse to the house, where it drew up for a brief moment, then, under digging spur, dashed to meet the oncoming riders.
Stamford leaned out and saw the rope ladder dangling from the Professor's window.
Before Cockney had gone a dozen paces the ladder began to move rapidly upward. In the dim light Stamford imagined a small hand reached out and drew it over the sill.
Thirty yards away Stamford and the approaching horses met.
"Who's had Pink Eye out?" demanded Dakota's angry voice.
There was a perceptible pause.
"I don't like your tone, Dakota," said Cockney icily. "When you want information, there's only one way to get it."
"I found him out there on the prairie," Dakota blustered.
Cockney rode round the horse Dakota was leading.
"I didn't know he was out. But first you'd better answer my questions. Where did the cattle stampede from, and how did they happen to be away off there?"
"What difference does that make? But if you want to know"—Dakota was plainly sparring for time—"it was a bit of the Lost Dog Coulee bunch. They ran a long way before we got 'em stopped. Just a small bunch. What's more serious is Pink Eye out there."
"Who's saddle's this?" Cockney was leaning over Pink Eye's back.
Dakota laughed in a nasty way. "Thought maybe you'd know. It's an English saddle. Ever see it before?"
"By gad! That's curious! It's a racing saddle of the lightest kind."
"I found the cinch unbuckled," said Dakota. "We were a bit too quick for the fellow that had him. But we couldn't find him." He cursed..
Cockney rode up to Stamford's window.
"You there, Stamford? Did you lock Pink Eye in the corral last night?"
"Certain of it. Both the Professor and I tried the padlock afterwards."
Dakota spoke impatiently:
"Anyone out of the house now?"
"One moment, Dakota," snapped Cockney. "I'll do the questioning. I can answer that one myself. Everyone is in.... I think I'd like to take a look at that corral," he said suspiciously. "Come along, Stamford; you can tell us if things are as you left them. Tell Mary it's all right, will you?"
Stamford spoke to Mary Aikens on his way out. She was sitting in the dark sitting-room, and he imagined she was sobbing. He ran after Cockney and Dakota, and arrived at the corral in time to hear Dakota exclaim:
"Holy cripes!"
Stamford ran forward.
The gate was wide open, but the padlock was still locked. The ponderous mass of logs must have been lifted until the chain would pass over the top of the post to which it was fastened.
"Holy cripes!" Dakota exploded again, when he had examined padlock and post.
He stooped and put his muscle to the heavy gate, but he could scarcely lift its weight from the loops that acted as hinges.
Cockney smiled in a superior way and pushed him away. With a great heave he managed to raise the gate from the ground, but he dared not remove a hand to throw the chain over the post. With a muffled oath he let it drop, and the upper loop snapped, letting the gate sag on the lower hinge.
"That's two men's work," Dakota exclaimed.
"Three—at least," corrected Cockney thoughtfully, "two to lift the gate, the third to remove the chain."
Dakota looked fearfully about in the dim moonlight.
"Then—then there's a gang about!" he whispered.
"Come back to the house," said Cockney. "It's worth looking into."
Beneath Professor Bulkeley's window he stopped and called his name. Mary Aikens came timidly from the house, a lonely little figure bathed in the moonlight.
"What is it, Jim?"
He turned on her roughly.
"Go inside. This at least is no concern of yours."
She obeyed without a murmur, her feet dragging forlornly over the frosty grass.
"Professor! Professor!" Cockney's voice grew louder and more peremptory with each call.
Isabel Bulkeley's head appeared in her window.
"Did you want my brother, Mr. Aikens?"
"I'm not calling him at this hour of the night for vocal exercise," replied Cockney.
"He's such a sound sleeper——"
"Then you'd better waken him."
"Is anything the matter? I'll go and call him."
They heard her bedroom door open, then a knock on her brother's, and the turning of the knob.
"Amos! Amos! Don't be frightened. It's only Isabel."
The bed creaked with sudden violence.
"Uh! What—what's the matter?" sputtered the terrified voice of the Professor. "Is it fire?"
His great feet pounded to the floor and across the room to his bureau.
"Here—here! Isabel! Take these—and these—and these. I'll—oh, where's that—that——"
"Amos! Amos, dear!" She was laughing a little now. "It's not—fire. Listen! It's—not—fire."
"Not—fire? Not—— Then what's the reason——"
"Mr. Aikens wants to speak to you—out the window. Put your slippers on first—and this gown."
"Eh—Mr. Aikens? Why—why, what's the matter?"
The window opened wider and a night-capped head was thrust out, only to be withdrawn immediately.
"Isabel—Isabel!" he whispered, in a tone that carried as far as if he had shouted it. "Where's the ladder? I'm sure I left it out as usual. It's—gone."
She spoke from dose beside him at the window, laughing:
"I drew it in, you silly! I didn't want the whole world to see how foolish you are." She put her head from the window and called laughingly down: "We always have trouble with him like this, wakening him out of his usual hours. He'll be sane in a moment."
The Professor's head appeared again, this time minus the night-cap.
"Say, is this a serenade? On behalf of myself and my sister, and the great Republic we represent—— Oh, that you, Mr. Stamford? Where's your banjo? Isabel's window is the one over yours. Fancy you making a mistake like that!"
Even Dakota was laughing. Stamford failed to see the joke.
"It's all right, Professor," Cockney assured him. "We only wanted to make certain no one was alarmed. There was a slight disturbance in a herd of cattle. You can go back to bed."
"Thank you, Mr. Aikens. I won't leave that ladder out again. I wouldn't put it past those New York museum people to have spies on my track. They haven't in their whole collection such a——"
He sneezed, repeated it, doubled in volume and noise. The men beneath the window laughed openly.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Aikens, will you come round to my door. I never could stand the night air. Could I, Isabel?"
The next morning Stamford was again disappointed: the cowpunchers had not returned. He walked on from the cook-house to Pink Eye's corral, to see by daylight what had seemed so incredible in the light of the moon. On the way back he saw the Bulkeleys driving to the north-west; they were not crossing the river that day.
Carrying a lunch, he set off for the river skirting far out on the prairie that he might reach the canyon unseen far above where the Professor was working. Arrived at last in the cover of the upper cliffs, he hurried on.
The hidden valley interested him. There he knew, lay the solution of some of the ranch mysteries. The stampede of the night before was significant, for the H-Lazy Z herds never ranged there. The cattle, he decided, were on their way to the raft and the hidden valley.
As he approached the valley he could hear the dogs barking continuously but without excitement. He discovered that the valley was lively with cowboys, the members he knew best of the H-Lazy Z outfit. They were moving about the fringes of the herd, carefully avoiding a bunch that kept to itself in a far corner of the valley. From its ragged and wild appearance Stamford took it to be the addition of the night before. The others the cowboys drove on foot to the eastern end of the valley, where a temporary barricade crossed from cliff to cliff, forming a corral at the base of the only exit. Then three of them disappeared, coming into view again on their horses from behind concealing crags. At a word from Dakota the two dogs that had been all the time slinking close to his heels bounded up to the ledge beside the shack and lay down, their eyes still fixed on Dakota. The mounted cowboys gradually worked the new bunch toward the corral.
Evidently the cattle were being collected at the exit for immediate removal.
About the shack Bean Slade was acting as temporary cook. The others, when all the cattle were in the corral, grouped together, rolling cigarettes. Dakota seated himself on a rock and whistled to the dogs, which came madly bounding down the steps.
There was no suggestion of furtiveness. Stamford began to think he had come on one of the ordinary feeding grounds of the ranch herds.
To get a better view behind the crags, he crept farther up the stream and lower on the cliff—crept into the muzzle of a revolver. Behind the muzzle was Cockney Aikens' determined eye.
"So it's you, Stamford?" he sneered. "That investigative mind of yours is bound to get you into trouble sooner or later. I wonder it wasn't sooner. It strikes me you're acting strangely about the H-Lazy Z for a guest."
Stamford flushed, partly because he knew the charge to be true, though not in the way Cockney imagined. Almost as much for Cockney's sake as for his own had he undertaken to clear up the mystery of Corporal Faircloth's death;morefor Cockney's sake had he chosen the H-Lazy Z for his investigations. He bristled with indignation.
"If you're not as guilty as you make yourself appear——"
"A guest with a sense of decency would at least have consulted his host."
"And if you're guilty," Stamford continued, "I don't care a damn whether you resent it or not."
Cockney examined him with puzzled but admiring eyes.
"I wonder if you'd be so foolhardy if Dakota was at this end of the gun. I'm not going to shoot. I'm still your host."
"No, you're not, Cockney Aikens. From this moment I'm no longer your guest." He unstrapped the lunch and tossed it at Cockney's feet. "I suppose you'll let me get my suit-case?"
Cockney thoughtfully returned the gun to his belt.
"If you'll take the advice of one who knows at last all you don't understand, you'll keep so strictly out of this that you'll forget all you've heard and seen. You don't carry a gun—you wouldn't be dangerous if you did. Yet there's going to be shooting before this is cleared up ... and when there's shooting among men who handle guns like we do, there's apt to be blood.... This is the second time I've found it necessary to warn you. Next time will be too late."
He crept away to a lower level and left Stamford wondering what it was all about.
Across in the valley Dakota had gathered his companions about him, except Bean, who was still working about the shack. Evidently they were engrossed in a discussion of the utmost importance, for several were gesticulating, and Dakota was listening judicially. Now and then their eyes went furtively to the shack where Bean was. Through the open door Stamford could dimly see Bean watching them stealthily through the window. After a time Dakota broke from the group and climbed the steps to the shack.
In a few minutes he and Bean reappeared on the ledge, Dakota arguing violently, Bean sullen. Dakota started angrily down the steps, but Bean stood a moment on the ledge, looking thoughtfully across the river at the very spot where Stamford was lying. Then he, too, dropped to the valley.
Dakota was striding down toward the river. As he crossed one of the little streams that bubbled from the falls in the cliff he stopped abruptly and bent over the ground. An excited gesticulation brought his companions on the run, and together they stooped over Dakota's discovery. The Professor had crossed the streams there, Stamford remembered, and the ground would be soft. Hastily scattering, the cowboys searched the valley.
It was long before Alkali, poking about close to the river, came on a second track, and they clustered about it, gesticulating, excited, voluble. Stamford leaned far from his hiding-place in his excitement, and Muck Norsley, wheeling suddenly, examined the cliff all about him. But the distance was too great, the muddle of broken rock too confusing; and Stamford scarcely breathed during the scrutiny. When it was over he sank to cover, and perspiration broke out over him.
Dakota and his friends continued their search up the eastern slope from the valley, pausing now and then as if over further disturbing evidence. They climbed upward to the great rock on which Cockney and the Professor had stood, mounting from below by means of a rope. For a time they worked about its base, then it rolled back and the upward path was clear.
As the horses toiled up the steep ascent, Stamford noticed that a rifle hung from every saddle. When they had passed, the rock rolled back again, shutting in the valley, and only the cattle in the corral and the dogs remained.
Stamford commenced his rough trail back down the river, always keeping to cover. Only two definite ideas were in his mind: to escape notice, and to reach the Bulkeleys to borrow their team for the journey to the Double Bar-O. His work at the H-Lazy Z was ended—and it was a failure. Almost he could find it in him to regret that he had lost his temper with Cockney.
Mary Aikens, alone at the ranch-house, went about her morning work with fumbling hands and tired brain. The shadow of impending crisis was over her though she recognised only the thickening of a cloud of doubt, suspicion, and fear that had been closing in on her for more than a year. To her it was conviction enough of Jim's share in the mysteries she was struggling single handed to unravel, that he refused to take her into his confidence.
The last act of her morning duties was always a visit to the Bulkeleys' rooms. Isabel had refused to leave to her any of the care of their rooms, but Mary Aikens, as hostess, never omitted that morning visit to see that nothing was lacking for their comfort—perhaps, too, to dream a little over the wonderful thing that had happened that summer to the H-Lazy Z, the lonely ranch where never before in her time had another woman set foot. In Isabel's kindly eyes and sympathetic silences she read what one woman can tell another without the perils of speech. The Professor? There she always stopped short. The only indulgence she permitted her thoughts was that the Professor needed most a strong and understanding wife, indulgent—a little—but very firm at times. He was a spoiled child she longed to mother.
Softly she closed the stair door behind her and dropped on the seat before the piano. In the kitchen the cook was doing his morning cleaning with his usual noiselessness, only the patter of his slippered feet and the subdued rattle of dishes betraying his presence. In all the great north country were only the dim sounds from the kitchen, and her absent-minded fingers on the keyboard.
The great north country—the lonely ranch she had had so long to herself, where for months at a time she was cut off from every other human being save the cowboys, and a husband who was wilfully forcing her from his inner life—the silent stretches had that year taken on a different note. Even those forbidding cliffs, with their long, uneven lines, had become the hunting ground of scientists—very human scientists—a cemetery of bygone ages with an absorbing story to tell. Professor Bulkeley, big, childlike in his simplicity, frank in his likes and fears, with an instinctive strain of gallantry so pleasing to one accustomed to the stifled gentleness of the West and the proprietary affection of her English husband—would he ever come again? Would there be enough in that isolated land to lure him back another year?
She hummed as she played, her eyes staring vacantly at the wall before her.
When he uttered her name softly from the open door she did not hear him. But when he repeated it, stepping into the room, her face reddened hotly. She tried to drop her eyes from his but they refused her will; something strange about his appearance held there in spite of her. He was without his spectacles. Never before had she seen him thus. It was as if he had disrobed before her, so naked did he appear, for the depths of simplicity and dependence had gone with the horn rims. Even his shoulders seemed to have straightened.
He must have noticed the flush on her face. His lips moved as if he were speaking to himself. Then, fumblingly, he put on the spectacles.
"That's funny," he said lightly, but his face was pale. "I didn't know you had that bit of Chopin among your music. So many of the old masters suffer from the emotionless piano. Taming the ivory keys is an art so many dabble at that almost none of them know when they have mastered them—or care. In all of us our hearts are nearer our throats than our fingers. Please hum it again for me, will you?"
He was speaking rapidly, nervously, and she had time to force herself to a rational reply.
"To-night—maybe. I—I didn't know what I was playing; I didn't know I was humming at all. In reality I was only dreaming."
The recollection of her dreams revived the flush in her face, and she rose abruptly from the piano to hide her confusion. He took one quick step forward, but stopped himself with a sudden breath.
"Is your husband in? I'd like to see him."
"He hasn't returned yet."
He frowned with sudden impatience.
"I hoped—I thought he would surely be back this morning. I couldn't wait. I wanted to see him right away."
She came nearer to him and peered up into his face.
"Why do you want to see him? Tell me—please." Her little hands were gripped over her bosom. "Oh, don't tell me you, too, are mixed up in all these things. I hoped there was someone—someone I might talk to if things went worse. You stopped me once——"
"I'm afraid I can be of no use to you, Mrs. Aikens," he replied formally.
She shuddered and put her hands before her face, and he turned away quickly.
"I don't think you need worry," he told her in a low, lifeless voice. "Your husband is his own worst enemy. I believe God intended him to be a model in more than body ... but something went wrong—only temporarily, I believe. The jealous gods—the old very human Greek gods may have been less a myth than an allegory—touched his mind when it was most sensitive."
She moved over to the side-table and began to readjust the pile of papers. She was strangely moved by his defence of her husband.
"May I thank you, Professor Bulkeley, for Jim's sake?"
"I—I'd like you to," he stammered eagerly. "It's an instinct to do one's best for Jim Aikens—especially forme."
She realised then how near the danger line they had been, and how firmly he had steered them to safety. It seemed to give her the chance to place their relationship on the old innocent level, when compliments were no deeper than their wording.
"And what of Jim's wife—is she worthy of such a paragon, or——"
"Jim's wife," he repeated vaguely.
"Perhaps she's the evil influence you call a god."
He turned on her with dilated eyes.
"You knew—you—knew? My God! She knew!"
Her knees were trembling with a sudden overwhelming fear, but she stumbled over to the table beside him and stared into his reluctant eyes.
With a burst the outer door opened and Cockney entered. At sight of the two standing there so close, the man's eyes falling before hers, his great shoulders shook and his chin went out.
"Ah!" It was a breath rather than a word. "So this is what you do when I'm away? This is what guest number two does to requite our hospitality? Is this the way of palæontologists, or of Americans, or"—his voice went hard as steel—"of a sneaking cur who represents nothing but the vicious things that make beasts of men?"
A flame sprang to the Professor's eyes, but the horror in Mary's quelled it, and he only shrugged his shoulders.
"You do not answer," Cockney hissed. "You have at least the common sense to make no denial. There have been terrible things happen in lonely places out here, but nothing so bad as this, you dirty cad."
He faced his wife, his chest heaving and falling.
"Go to your room. I don't want witnesses."
But Mary Aikens had reached the limit of her subservience. She stood before him unfalteringly and glared back into his furious eyes.
"Very well!" He laughed recklessly. "Perhaps it's better so. Perhaps it'll do you good to see me twist the rotten life from him—with these fingers—these fingers."
He held before him his great hands, the fingers crooked like claws. His eyes seemed to protrude, and his teeth were bare like a beast's.
"She'll hear the screams from that big soft throat of yours, you hound, and your dying gasps. And I'll laugh—I'll laugh!"
He crouched, the crooked fingers thrust before him.
Professor Bulkeley had not moved since Cockney entered. Slowly now he removed his spectacles and laid them on the table.
"You'd better leave the room, Mrs. Aikens," he ordered quietly.
"She's not going for you if she wouldn't for me!" Cockney thundered. "If she does, I swear to God I'll kill her without mercy when I'm through with you."
There were to be no blows in the struggle, the Professor knew. He was to be choked to death with those claw-like fingers; the whistling of his tightening throat was to be the triumph of his mad foe. So be it; neither would he strike until he must.
As Cockney leaped the Professor neither struck nor retired. His body twisted far side ways and his right arm wound round Cockney's waist. And the big rancher, who had never yet met his equal, was lifted clear of the floor and flung back almost to the wall.
Mary Aikens gasped. She had thought of but one outcome to the uneven struggle. But the Professor was standing there as if nothing had happened, while Cockney, stumbling over a chair, saved himself from falling only by thrusting a long arm against the wall.
"Will you let me explain, Mr. Aikens? It would be better for both of us—for you as well as for me."
But Cockney was past reason. A flash of diabolical anticipation lit his face, making it only the more terrible.
"Ah! So you have muscle under those flabby clothes! So much the better. When I've killed you there'll be no remorse. It's man to man, muscle to muscle. We'll see who's the stronger."
He advanced with the deliberation of unflinchable purpose—slowly—slowly.
Mary Aikens stifled a scream to a moan.
The Professor met him half-way. One wrist in either hand he seized before Cockney could dodge. Cockney's right, clasped in the Professor's left, went up. The other the Professor wrenched downward, and the pain of it made Cockney's face twist. Thus, face to face they stood for seconds, muscle pressing against muscle, Cockney straining to tear his wrists from the bands of steel that gripped them. Their heads fell over each other's shoulders. For one moment of dizziness Mary Aikens thought her husband's bared teeth would sink into his opponent's back.
Slowly Cockney's left hand bent behind his back. He began to struggle with his whole body, wrenching, fighting. He read the Professor's purpose. It was body to body now. The Professor's left hand was having its way with Cockney's right. Cockney saw defeat, horrible defeat, staring him in the face. He let his left yield and concentrated on his right. And inch by inch the Professor's left fell back before it. Another inch and his grip would be broken.
Mary Aikens gasped.
The Professor heard it. His teeth bared like Cockney's, the lips drawn thin and bloodless. He, too, became the beast fighting for his life. His shoulders heaved a little, as if new vigour had entered them—and his left began to win back what it had lost. Up and up it moved, and straight above their shoulders the arms halted.