Beulah woke from a sleep of exhaustion to a world into which the morning light was just beginning to sift. The cold had penetrated to her bones. She was stiff and cramped and sore from the pressure of the rock bed against her tender young flesh. For nearly two days she had been without food or drink. The urge of life in her was at low tide.
But the traditions among which she had been brought up made pluck a paramount virtue. She pushed from her the desire to weep in self-pity over her lot. Though her throat was raw and swollen, she called at regular intervals during the morning hours while the sun climbed into view of her ten-foot beat. Even when it rode the heavens a red-hot cannon ball directly above her, the hoarse and lonely cry of the girl echoed back from the hillside every few minutes. There were times when she wanted to throw herself down and give up to despair, but she knew there would be opportunity for that when she could no longer fight for her life. The shadow was beginning to climb the eastern wall of the pit before Beaudry's shout reached her ears faintly. Her first thought was that she must already be delirious. Not till she saw him at the edge of the prospect hole was she sure that her rescuer was a reality.
At the first sight of her Roy wanted to trumpet to high heaven the joy that flooded his heart. He had found her—alive. After the torment of the night and the worry of the day he had come straight to her in his wandering, and he had reached her in time.
But when he saw her condition pity welled up in him. Dark hollows had etched themselves into her cheeks. Tears swam in her eyes. Her lips trembled weakly from emotion. She leaned against the side of the pit to support her on account of the sudden faintness that engulfed her senses. He knelt and stretched his hands toward her, but the pit was too deep.
"You'll have to get a pole or a rope," she told him quietly.
Beaudry found the dead trunk of a young sapling and drew the girl up hand over hand. On the brink she stumbled and he caught her in his arms to save her from falling back into the prospect hole.
For a moment she lay close to him, heart beating against heart. Then, with a little sobbing sigh, she relaxed and began to weep. Her tears tugged at his sympathy, but none the less the pulses pounded in his veins. He held her tight, with a kind of savage tenderness, while his body throbbed with the joy of her. She had come to him with the same sure instinct that brings a child to its mother's arms. All her pride and disdain and suspicion had melted like summer mists in her need of the love and comfort he could give her.
"It's all right now. You're safe. Nothing can hurt you," he promised.
"I know, but you don't know—what—what—" She broke off, shuddering.
Still with his arm about her, he led Beulah to his horse. Here he made her sit down while he gave her water and food. Bit by bit she told him the story of her experience. He suffered poignantly with her, but he could not be grateful enough that the finger-tip of destiny had pointed him to her prison. He thanked his rather vague gods that it had been his footsteps rather than those of another man that had wandered here to save her.
What surprised and wholly delighted him was the feminine quality of her. He had thought of her before as a wild young creature full of pride and scorn and anger, but with a fine barbaric loyalty that might yet redeem her from her faults. He had never met a young woman so hard, so self-reliant. She had asked no odds because of her sex. Now all this harshness had melted. No strange child could have been more shy and gentle. She had put herself into his hands and seemed to trust him utterly. His casual opinions were accepted by her as if they had been judgments of Solomon.
Roy spread his blankets and put the saddle-bags down for a pillow.
"We're not going to stay here to-night, are we?" she asked, surprised.
He smiled. "No, you're going to lie down and sleep for an hour. When you wake, supper will be ready. You're all in now, but with a little rest you will be fit to travel."
"You won't go away while I sleep," she said.
"Do you think it likely? No, you can't get rid of me that easy. I'm a regular adhesive plaster for sticking."
"I don't want to get rid of you," she answered naïvely. "I'd be afraid without you. Will you promise to stay close all the time I sleep?"
"Yes."
"I know I won't sleep, but if you want me to try—"
"I do."
She snuggled down into the blankets and was asleep in five minutes.
Beaudry watched her with hungry eyes. What was the use of denying to himself that he loved her? If he had not known it before, the past half-hour had made it clear to him. With those wan shadows below her long eye-lashes and that charming manner of shy dependence upon him, she was infinitely more attractive to him than she had ever been before.
Beulah Rutherford was not the kind of girl he had thought of as a sweetheart in his daydreams. His fancies had hovered hazily about some imaginary college girl, one skilled in the finesse of the rules that society teaches young women in self-defense. Instead, he had fallen in love with a girl who could not play the social game at all. She was almost the only one he had known who never used any perfume; yet her atmosphere was fragrant as one of the young pines in her own mountain park. The young school-teacher was vital, passionate, and—he suspected—fiercely tender. For her lover there would be rare gifts in her eyes, wonderful largesse in her smile. The man who could qualify as her husband must be clean and four-square and game from the soles of his feet up—such a man as Dave Dingwell, except that the cattleman was ten years too old for her.
Her husband! What was he thinking about? Roy brought his bolting thoughts up with a round turn. There could be no question of marriage between her father's daughter and his father's son. Hal Rutherford had put that out of doubt on the day when he had ridden to the Elephant Corral to murder Sheriff Beaudry. No decent man could marry the daughter of the man who had killed his father in cold blood. Out of such a wedding could come only sorrow and tragedy.
And if this were not bar enough between them, there was another. Beulah Rutherford could never marry a man who was a physical coward. It was a dear joy to his soul that she had broken down and wept and clung to him. But this was the sex privilege of even a brave woman. A man had to face danger with a nerve of tested iron, and that was a thing he could never do.
Roy was stretched on the moss face down, his chin resting on the two cupped palms of his hands. Suddenly he sat up, every nerve tense and alert. Silently he got to his feet and stole down into the aspen grove. With great caution he worked his way into the grove and peered through to the hillside beyond. A man was standing by the edge of the prospect hole. He was looking down into it. Young Beaudry recognized the heavy, slouch figure at the first glance.
Not for an instant did he hesitate about what he meant to do. The hour had come when he and Dan Meldrum must have an accounting. From its holster he drew his revolver and crept forward toward the bad man. His eyes were cold and hard as chilled steel. He moved with the long, soft stride of a panther crouched for the kill. Not till the whole thing was over did he remember that for once the ghost of fear had been driven from his soul. He thought only of the wrongs of Beulah Rutherford, the girl who had fallen asleep in the absolute trust that he would guard her from all danger. This scoundrel had given her two days of living hell. Roy swore to pay the fellow in full.
Meldrum turned. He recognized Beaudry with a snarl of rage and terror. Except one of the Rutherfords there was no man on earth he less wanted to meet. The forty-four in his hand jerked up convulsively. The miscreant was in two minds whether to let fly or wait.
Roy did not even falter in his stride. He did not raise the weapon in his loosely hanging hand. His eyes bored as steadily as gimlets into the craven heart of the outlaw.
Meldrum, in a panic, warned him back. His nerve was gone. For two days he had been drinking hard, but the liquor had given out at midnight. He needed a bracer badly. This was no time for him to go through with a finish fight against such a man as Beaudry.
"Keep yore distance and tell me what you want," the ex-convict repeated hoarsely. "If you don't, I'll gun you sure."
The young cattleman stopped about five yards from him. He knew exactly what terms he meant to give the enemy.
"Put your gun up," he ordered sharply.
"Who's with you?"
"Never mind who is with me. I can play this hand alone. Put up that gun and then we'll talk."
That suited Meldrum. If it was a question of explanations, perhaps he could whine his way out of this. What he had been afraid of was immediate battle. One cannot talk bullets aside.
Slowly he pushed his revolver into its holster, but the hand of the man rested still on the butt.
"I came back to help Miss Rutherford out of this prospect hole," he whimperingly complained. "When onc't I got sober, I done recalled that she was here. So I hit the trail back."
Meldrum spoke the exact truth. When the liquor was out of him, he became frightened at what he had done. He had visions of New Mexico hunting him down like a wild dog. At last, unable to stand it any longer, he had come back to free her.
"That's good. Saves me the trouble of looking for you. I'm going to give you a choice. You and I can settle this thing with guns right here and now. That's one way out for you. I'll kill you where you stand."
"W—what's the other way?" stammered the outlaw.
"The other way is for you to jump into that prospect hole. I'll ride away and leave you there to starve."
"Goddlemighty! You wouldn't do that," Meldrum wheedled. "I didn't go for to hurt Miss Rutherford any. Didn't I tell you I was drunk?"
"Dead or alive, you're going into that prospect hole. Make up your mind to that."
The bad man moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. He stole one furtive glance around. Could he gun this man and make his getaway?
"Are any of the Rutherfords back of that clump of aspens?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Yes."
"Do … do they know I'm here?"
"Not yet."
Tiny beads of sweat stood out on the blotched face of the rustler. He was trapped. Even if he fired through the leather holster and killed Beaudry, there would be no escape for him on his tired horse.
"Gimme a chanc't," he pleaded desperately. "Honest to God, I'll clear out of the country for good. I'll quit belling around and live decent. I'll—"
"You'll go into the pit."
Meldrum knew as he looked into that white, set face that he had come to his day of judgment. But he mumbled a last appeal.
"I'm an old man, Mr. Beaudry. I ain't got many years—"
"Have you made your choice?" cut in Roy coldly.
"I'd do anything you say—go anywhere—give my Bible oath never to come back."
"Perhaps I'd better call Rutherford."
The bad man made a trembling clutch toward him. "Don't you, Mr. Beaudry. I'll—I'll go into the pit," he sobbed.
"Get in, then."
"I know you wouldn't leave me there to starve. That would be an awful thing to do," the killer begged.
"You're finding that out late. It didn't worry you when Dave Dingwell was being starved."
"I hadn't a thing to do with that—not a thing, Mr. Beaudry. Hal Rutherford, he give the order and it was up to me to go through. Honest, that was the way of it."
"And you could starve a girl who needed your help. That was all right, of course."
"Mr. Beaudry, I—I was only learning her a lesson—just kinder playing, y' understand. Why, I've knowed Miss Beulah ever since she was a little bit of a trick. I wouldn't do her a meanness. It ain't reasonable, now, is it?"
The man fawned on Roy. His hands were shaking with fear. If it would have done any good, he would have fallen on his knees and wept. The sight of him made Roy sick. Was this the wayhelooked when the yellow streak was showing?
"Jump into that pit," he ordered in disgust. "That is, unless you'd rather I would call Rutherford."
Meldrum shambled to the edge, sat down, turned, and slid into the prospect hole.
"I know it's only yore little joke, Mr. Beaudry," he whined. "Mebbe I ain't jest been neighborly with you-all, but what I say is let bygones be bygones. I'm right sorry. I'll go down with you to Battle Butte and tell the boys I done wrong."
"No, you'll stay here."
Beaudry turned away. The muffled scream of the bad man followed him as far as the aspens.
Roy worked his way through the aspens and returned to the place where he had left Beulah. She was still sleeping soundly and did not stir at his approach. Quietly he built a fire and heated water for coffee. From his saddlebags he took sandwiches wrapped in a newspaper. Beside the girl he put his canteen, a pocket comb, a piece of soap, and the bandanna he wore around his neck. Then, reluctantly, he awakened her.
"Supper will be served in just five minutes," he announced with a smile.
She glanced at the scant toilet facilities and nodded her head decisively. "Thank you, kind sir. I'll be on hand."
The young woman rose, glanced in the direction of the aspens, gathered up the supplies, and fled to the grove. The eyes of Beaudry followed her flight. The hour of sleep had been enough to restore her resilience. She moved with the strong lightness that always reminded him of wild woodland creatures.
In spite of her promise Beulah was away beyond the time limit. Beaudry became a little uneasy. It was not possible, of course, that Meldrum could have escaped from the pit. And yet—
He called to her. "Is every little thing all right, neighbor?"
"All right," she answered.
A moment later she emerged from the aspens and came toward the camp. She was panting a little, as if she had been running.
"Quite a hill," he commented.
She gave him a quick glance. There was in it shy curiosity, but her dark eyes held, too, an emotion more profound.
"Yes," she said. "It makes one breathe fast."
Miss Rutherford had improved her time. The disorderly locks had been hairpinned into place. From her face all traces of the dried tears were washed. Pit clay no longer stained the riding-skirt.
Sandwiches and coffee made their meal, but neither of them had ever more enjoyed eating. Beulah was still ravenously hungry, though she restrained her appetite decorously.
"I forgot to tell you that I am lost," he explained. "Unless you can guide me out of this labyrinth of hills, we'll starve to death."
"I can take you straight to the park."
"But we're not going to the park. Everybody is out looking for you. We are to follow Del Oro down to the flats. The trouble is that I've lost Del Oro," he grinned.
"It is just over the hill."
After refreshments he brought up his pinto horse and helped her to the saddle. She achieved the mount very respectably. With a confidential little laugh she took him into the secret of her success.
"I've been practicing with dad. He has to help me up every time I go riding."
They crossed to Del Oro in the dusk and followed the trail by the creek in the moonlight. In the starlight night her dusky beauty set his pulses throbbing. The sweet look of her dark-lashed eyes stirred strange chaos in him. They talked little, for she, too, felt a delicious emotion singing in the currents of her blood. When their shy eyes met, it was with a queer little thrill as if they had kissed each other.
It was late when they reached the flats. There was no sign of Charlton's party.
"The flats run for miles each way. We might wander all night and not find them," Beulah mentioned.
"Then we'll camp right here and look for them in the morning," decided Roy promptly.
Together they built a camp-fire. Roy returned from picketing the horse to find her sitting on a blanket in the dancing light of the flickering flames. Her happy, flushed face was like the promise of a summer day at dawn.
In that immensity of space, with night's million candles far above them and the great hills at their backs, the walls that were between them seemed to vanish.
Their talk was intimate and natural. It had the note of comradeship, took for granted sympathy and understanding.
He showed her the picture of his mother. By the fire glow she studied it intently. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
"She's so lovely and so sweet—and she had to go away and leave her little baby when she was so young. I don't wonder you worship her. I would, too."
Roy did not try to thank her in words. He choked up in his throat and nodded.
"You can see how fine and dainty she was," the girl went on. "I'd rather be like that than anything else in the world—and, of course, I never can be."
"I don't know what you mean," he protested warmly. "You're as fine as they grow."
She smiled, a little wistfully. "Nice of you to say so, but I know better. I'm not a lady. I'm just a harum-scarum, tempery girl that grew up in the hills. If I didn't know it, that wouldn't matter. But I do know it, and so like a little idiot I pity myself because I'm not like nice girls."
"Thank Heaven, you're not!" he cried. "I've never met a girl fit to hold a candle to you. Why, you're the freest, bravest, sweetest thing that ever lived."
The hot blood burned slowly into her cheek under its dusky coloring. His words were music to her, and yet they did not satisfy.
"You're wrapping it up nicely, but we both know that I'm a vixen when I get angry," she said quietly. "We used to have an old Indian woman work for us. When I was just a wee bit of a thing she called me Little Cactus Tongue."
"That's nothing. The boys were probably always teasing you and you defended yourself. In a way the life you have led has made you hard. But it is just a surface hardness nature has provided as a protection to you."
"Since it is there, I don't see that it helps much to decide why it is a part of me," she returned with a wan little smile.
"But it does," he insisted. "It matters a lot. The point is that it isn't you at all. Some day you'll slough it the way a butterfly does its shell."
"When?" she wanted to know incredulously.
He did not look at her while he blurted out his answer. "When you are happily married to a man you love who loves you."
"Oh! I'm afraid that will be never." She tried to say it lightly, but her face glowed from the heat of an inward fire.
"There's a deep truth in the story of the princess who slept the years away until the prince came along and touched her lips with his. Don't you think lots of people are hampered by their environment? All they need is escape." He suggested this with a shy diffidence.
"Oh, we all make that excuse for ourselves," she answered with a touch of impatient scorn. "I'm all the time doing it. I say if things were different I would be a nice, sweet-tempered, gentle girl and not fly out like that Katherine in Shakespeare's play. But I know all the time it isn't true. We have to conquer ourselves. There is no city of refuge from our own temperaments."
He felt sure there was a way out from her fretted life for this deep-breasted, supple daughter of the hills if she could only find it. She had breathed an atmosphere that made for suspicion and harshness. All her years she had been forced to fight to save herself from shame. But Roy, as he looked at her, imaged another picture of Beulah Rutherford. Little children clung to her knees and called her "Mother." She bent over them tenderly, her face irradiated with love. A man whose features would not come clear strode toward her and the eyes she lifted to his were pools of light.
Beaudry drew a deep breath and looked away from her into the fire. "I wish time would solve my problem as surely as it will yours," he said.
She looked at him eagerly, lips parted, but she would not in words invite his confession.
The young man shaded his eyes with his hand as if to screen them from the fire, but she noticed that the back of his hand hid them from her, too. He found a difficulty in beginning. When at last he spoke, his voice was rough with feeling.
"Of course, you'll despise me—you of all people. How could you help it?"
Her body leaned toward him ever so slightly. Love lit her face like a soft light.
"Shall I? How do you know?"
"It cuts so deep—goes to the bottom of things. If a fellow is wild or even bad, he may redeem himself. But you can't make a man out of a yellow cur. The stuff isn't there." The words came out jerkily as if with some physical difficulty.
"If you mean about coming up to the park, I know about that," she said gently. "Mr. Dingwell told father. I think it was splendid of you."
"No, that isn't it. I knew I was right in coming and that some day you would understand." He dropped the hand from his face and looked straight at her. "Dave didn't tell your father that I had to be flogged into going, did he? He didn't tell him that I tried to dodge out of it with excuses."
"Of course, you weren't anxious to throw up your own affairs and run into danger for a man you had never met. Why should you be wild for the chance. But you went."
"Oh, I went. I had to go. Ryan put it up to me so that there was no escape," was his dogged, almost defiant, answer.
"I know better," the girl corrected quickly. "You put it up to yourself. You're that way."
"Am I?" He flashed a questioning look at her. "Then, since you know that, perhaps you know, too, what—what I'm trying to tell you."
"Perhaps I do," she whispered softly to the fire.
There was panic in his eyes. "—That … that I—"
"—That you are sensitive and have a good deal of imagination," the girl concluded gently.
"No, I'll not feed my vanity with pleasant lies to-night." He gave a little gesture of self-scorn as he rose to throw some dry sticks on the fire. "What I mean and what you mean is that—that I'm an arrant coward." Roy gulped the last words out as if they burned his throat.
"I don't mean that at all," she flamed. "How can you say such a thing about yourself when everybody knows that you're the bravest man in Washington County?"
"No—no. I'm a born trembler." From where he stood beyond the fire he looked across at her with dumb anguish in his eyes. "You say yourself you've noticed it. Probably everybody that knows me has."
"I didn't say that." Her dark eyes challenged his very steadily. "What I said was that you have too much imagination to rush into danger recklessly. You picture it all out vividly beforehand and it worries you. Isn't that the way of it?"
He nodded, ashamed.
"But when the time comes, nobody could be braver than you," she went on. "You've been tried out a dozen times in the last three months. You have always made good."
"Made good! If you only knew!" he answered bitterly.
"Knew what? I saw you down at Hart's when Dan Meldrum ordered you to kneel and beg. But you gamed it out, though you knew he meant to kill you."
He flushed beneath the tan. "I was too paralyzed to move. That's the simple truth."
"Were you too paralyzed to move down at the arcade of the Silver Dollar?" she flashed at him.
"It was the drink in me. I wasn't used to it and it went to my head."
"Had you been drinking that time at the depot?" she asked with a touch of friendly irony.
"That wasn't courage. If it would have saved me, I would have run like a rabbit. But there was no chance. The only hope I had was to throw a fear into him. But all the time I was sick with terror."
She rose and walked round the camp-fire to him. Her eyes were shining with a warm light of admiration. Both hands went out to him impulsively.
"My friend, that is the only kind of courage really worth having. That kind you earn. It is yours because it is born of the spirit. You have fought for it against the weakness of the flesh and the timidity of your own soul. Some men are born without sense or imagination. They don't know enough to be afraid. But the man who tramples down a great fear wins his courage by earning it." She laughed a little, to make light of her own enthusiasm. "Oh, I know I'm preaching like a little prig. But it's the truth, just the same."
At the touch of her fingers his pulses throbbed. But once more he tried to make her understand.
"No, I've had luck all the way through. Do you remember that night at the cabin—before we went up the cañon?"
"Yes."
"Some one shot at me as I ran into the cabin. I was so frightened that I piled all the furniture against the door and hid in the cellar. It was always that way with me. I used to jump if anybody rode up unexpectedly at the ranch. Every little thing set my nerves fluttering."
"But it isn't so now."
"No, not so much."
"That's what I'm telling you," she triumphed. "You came out here from a soft life in town. But you've grown tough because you set your teeth to go through no matter what the cost. I wish I could show you how much I … admire you. Dad feels that way, too. So does Ned."
"But I don't deserve it. That's what humiliates me."
"Don't you?" She poured out her passionate protest. "Do you think I don't know what happened back there at the prospect hole? Do you think I don't know that you put Dan Meldrum down in the pit—and him with a gun in his hand? Was it a coward that did that?"
"So you knew that all the time," he cried.
"I heard him calling you—and I went close. Yes, I knew it. But you would never have told me because it might seem like bragging."
"It was easy enough. I wasn't thinking of myself, but of you. He saw I meant business and he wilted."
"You were thinking about me—and you forgot to be afraid," the girl exulted.
"Yes, that was it." A wave of happiness broke over his heart as the sunlight does across a valley at dawn. "I'm always thinking of you. Day and night you fill my thoughts, hillgirl. When I'm riding the range—whatever I do—you're with me all the time."
"Yes."
Her lips were slightly parted, eyes eager and hungry. The heart of the girl drank in his words as the thirsty roots of a rosebush do water. She took a long deep breath and began to tremble.
"I think of you as the daughter of the sun and the wind. Some day you will be the mother of heroes, the wife of a man—"
"Yes," she prompted again, and the face lifted to his was flushed with innocent passion.
The shy invitation of her dark-lashed eyes was not to be denied. He flung away discretion and snatched her into his arms. An inarticulate little sound welled up from her throat, and with a gesture wholly savage and feminine her firm arms crept about his neck and fastened there.
They spoke at first only in that lovers' Esperanto which is made up of fond kisses and low murmurs and soft caresses. From these Beulah was the first to emerge.
"Would you marry a girl off the range?" she whispered. "Would you dare take her home to your people?"
"I haven't any people. There are none of them left but me."
"To your friends, then?"
"My friends will be proud as punch. They'll wonder how I ever hypnotized you into caring for me."
"But I'm only a hillgirl," she protested. "Are you sure you won't be ashamed of me, dear?"
"Certain sure. I'm a very sensible chap at bottom, and I know when I have the best there is."
"Ah, you think that now because—"
"Because of my golden luck in winning the most wonderful girl I ever met." In the fling of the fire glow he made a discovery and kissed it. "I didn't know before that you had dimples."
"There are lots of things you don't know about me. Some of them you won't like. But if you love me, perhaps you'll forgive them, and then—because I love you—maybe I'll grow out of them. I feel to-night as if anything were possible. The most wonderful thing that ever happened to me has come into my life."
"My heart is saying that, too, sweetheart."
"I love to hear you say that I'm—nice," she confided. "Because, you know, lots of people don't think so. The best people in Battle Butte won't have anything to do with me. I'm one of the Rutherford gang."
The light was full on his face, so that she saw the dawning horror in his eyes.
"What is it? What are you thinking?" she cried.
He gave a little groan and his hands fell slackly from her. "I'd forgotten." The words came in a whisper, as if he spoke to himself rather than to her.
"Forgotten what?" she echoed; and like a flash added: "That I'm a Rutherford. Is that what you mean?"
"That you are the daughter of Hal Rutherford and that I'm the son of John Beaudry."
"You mean that you would be ashamed to marry a Rutherford," she said, her face white in the fire glow.
"No." He brushed her challenge aside and went straight to what was in his mind. "I'm thinking of what happened seventeen years ago," he answered miserably.
"What did happen that could come between you and me to-night?"
"Have you forgotten, too?" He turned to the fire with a deep breath that was half a sob.
"What is it? Tell me," she demanded.
"Your father killed mine at Battle Butte."
A shiver ran through her lithe, straight body. "No … No! Say it isn't true, Roy."
"It's true. I was there … Didn't they ever tell you about it?"
"I've heard about the fight when Sheriff Beaudry was killed. Jess Tighe had his spine injured in it. But I never knew that dad … You're sure of it?" she flung at him.
"Yes. He led the attackers. I suppose he thought of it as a feud. My father had killed one of his people in a gun fight."
She, too, looked into the fire. It was a long time before she spoke, and then in a small, lifeless voice. "I suppose you … hate me."
"Hate you!" His voice shook with agitation. "That would make everything easy. But—there is no other woman in the world for me but you."
Almost savagely she turned toward him. "Do you mean that?"
"I never mean anything so much."
"Then what does it matter about our fathers? We have our own lives to live. If we've found happiness we've a right to it. What happened seventeen years ago can't touch us—not unless we let it."
White-lipped, drear-eyed, Roy faced her hopelessly. "I never thought of it before, but it is true what the Bible says about the sins of the fathers. How can I shake hands in friendship with the man who killed mine? Would it be loyal or decent to go into his family and make him my father by marrying his daughter?"
Beulah stood close to him, her eyes burning into his. She was ready to fight for her love to a finish. "Do you think I'm going to give you up now … now … just when we've found out how much we care … because of any reason under heaven outside ourselves?By God, no! That's a solemn oath, Roy Beaudry. I'll not let you go."
He did not argue with her. Instead, he began to tell her of his father and his mother. As well as he could remember it he related to her the story of that last ride he had taken with John Beaudry. The girl found herself visioning the pathetic tenderness of the father singing the "li'l'-ole-hawss" song under the stars of their night camp. There flashed to her a picture of him making his stand in the stable against the flood of enemies pouring toward him.
When Roy had finished, she spoke softly. "I'm glad you told me. I know now the kind of man your father was. He loved you more than his own life. He was brave and generous and kind. Do you think he would have nursed a grudge for seventeen years? Do you think he would have asked you to give up your happiness to carry on a feud that ought never to have been?"
"No, but—"
"You are going to marry me, not Hal Rutherford. He is a good man now, however wild he may have been once. But you needn't believe that just because I say so. Wait and see. Be to him just as much or as little as you like. He'll understand, and so shall I. My people are proud. They won't ask more of you than you care to give. All they'll ask is that you love me—and that's all I ask, dear."
"All you ask now, but later you will be unhappy because there is a gulf between your father and me. You will try to hide it, but I'll know."
"I'll have to take my chance of that," she told him. "I don't suppose that life even with the man you love is all happiness. But it is what I want. It's what I'm not going to let your scruples rob me of."
She spoke with a low-voiced, passionate intensity. The hillgirl was fighting to hold her lover as a creature of the woods does to protect its young. So long as she was sure that he loved her, nothing on earth should come between them. For the moment she was absorbed by the primitive idea that he belonged to her and she to him. All the vital young strength in her rose to repel separation.
Roy, yearning to take into his arms this dusky, brown-cheeked sweetheart of his, became aware that he did not want her to let his arguments persuade her. The fierce, tender egoism of her love filled him with exultant pride.
He snatched her to him and held her tight while his lips found her hot cheeks, her eager eyes, her more than willing mouth.
Beulah was too perfect of body, too sound of health, not to revel in such a dawn as swept across the flats next morning. The sun caressed her throat, her bare head, the uplifted face. As the tender light of daybreak was in the hills, so there was a lilt in her heart that found expression in her voice, her buoyant footsteps, and the shine of her eyes. She had slept soundly in Beaudry's blankets while he had lain down in his slicker on the other side of the fire. Already she was quite herself again. The hours of agony in the pit were obliterated. Life was a wholly joyous and beautiful adventure.
She turned back to the camp where Roy was making coffee.
"Am I not to do any of the work?"
At the sound of that deep, sweet voice with its hint of a drawl the young man looked up and smiled. "Not a bit. All you have to do is to drink my coffee and say I'm the best cook you know."
After they had drunk the coffee and finished the sandwiches, Roy saddled.
"They're probably over to the left. Don't you think so?" Beaudry suggested.
"Yes."
There drifted to them the sound of two shots fired in rapid succession.
Roy fired twice in answer. They moved in the direction of the shooting. Again the breeze brought revolver shots. This time there were three of them.
Beaudry bad an odd feeling that this was a call for help from somebody in difficulties. He quickened their pace. The nature of the ground, a good deal of which was deep sand, made fast travel impossible.
"Look!" Beulah pointed forward and to the right.
At the same moment there came a shout. "Help! I'm in the quicksands."
They made out the figure of a man buried to his waist in the dry wash of a creek. A horse stood on the farther bank of the wash. Roy deflected toward the man, Beulah at his heels.
"He must be caught in Dead Man's Sink," the girl explained. "I've never seen it, but I know it is somewhere near here. All my life I've heard of it. Two Norwegians were caught here five years ago. Before help reached them, they were lost."
"Get me a rope—quick," the man in the sand called.
"Why, it's Brad," cried Beulah.
"Yep. Saw the smoke of yore fire and got caught trying to reach you. Can't make it alone. Thought I sure was a goner. You'll have to hurry."
Already Roy was taking the riata from its place below the saddle-horn. From the edge of the wash he made a cast toward the man in the quicksands. The loop fell short.
"You'll have to get into the bed of the stream," suggested Beulah.
Beaudry moved across the sand a few steps and tried again. The distance was still too great.
Already he was beginning to bog down. The soles of his shoes disappeared in the treacherous sand. When he moved it seemed to him that some monster was sucking at him from below. As he dragged his feet from the sand the sunken tracks filled with mud. He felt the quiver of the river-bed trembling at his weight.
Roy turned to Beulah, the old familiar cold chill traveling up his spine to the roots of his hair. "It won't bear me up. I'm going down," he quavered.
"Let me go, then. I'm lighter," she said eagerly.
She made the proposal in all good faith, with no thought of reflecting on his courage, but it stung her lover like a slap in the face.
"Hurry with that rope!" Charlton sang across. "I'm sinking fast."
"Is there any way for Miss Rutherford to get over to your horse?" asked Roy quickly.
"She can cross the wash two hundred yards below here. It's perfectly safe."
As Roy plunged forward, he gave Beulah orders without turning his head. "You hear, dear. Run down and get across. But go over very carefully. If you come to a bad place, go back at once. When you get over tie Charlton's rope to his saddle-horn and throw him the looped end. The horse will drag him out."
The young woman was off on the run before he had half finished.
Once more Roy coiled and threw the rope. Charlton caught the loop, slipped it over his head, and tightened it under his arms.
"All right. Pull!" he ordered.
Beaudry had no footing to brace himself. Already he was ankle-deep in the quicksand. It flashed across his mind that he could not fight his own way out without abandoning Charlton. For one panicky moment he was mad to get back to solid ground himself. The next he was tugging with all the strength of his arms at the rope.
"Keep on the job!" encouraged Charlton. "You're pulling my body over a little so that the weight is on new sand. If Beulah gets here in time, I'll make it."
Roy pulled till his muscles ached. His own feet were sliding slowly from under him. The water-bubbles that oozed out of the sand were now almost at his high boot-tops. It was too late to think of retreat. He must go through whether he wanted to or not.
He cast one look down the dry river-bed. Beulah was just picking her way across. She might get over in time to save Charlton, but before they made it back across to him, he would be lost.
He wanted to scream aloud to her his urgent need, to beg her, for Heaven's sake, to hurry. The futility of it he knew. She was already running with the knowledge to wing her feet that a man's life hung in the balance. Besides, Charlton was not shrieking his fears out. He was calling cheerful words of hope across the quaking morass of sand that separated them. There was no use in making a gibbering idiot of one's self. Beaudry clenched his jaws tight on the cries that rose like a thermometer of terror in his throat.
With every ounce of strength that was in him he fought, meanwhile, for the life of the man at the other end of the rope. Before Beulah reached Charlton, Roy was in deeper than his knees. He shut his eyes and pulled like a machine. It seemed an eternity before Charlton called to him to let go the rope.
A new phase of his danger seared like a flame across the brain of Beaudry. He had dragged himself from a perpendicular position. As soon as he let loose of the rope he would begin to sink forward. This would reduce materially the time before his face would sink into the sand.
Why not hang on and let the horse drag him out, too? He had as much right to live as Charlton. Was there any law of justice that forced him to throw away the rope that was his only hope?
But he knew the tough little cowpony could not drag two heavy men from the quicksands at the same time. If he held tight, Charlton, too, would be sacrificed. His fingers opened.
Roy watched the struggle on the opposite side of the wash. Charlton was in almost to his arm-pits. The horse braced its feet and pulled. Beulah, astride the saddle, urged it to the task again and again. At first by imperceptible gains, then inch by inch, the man was dragged from the mire that fought with a thousand clinging tentacles for its prey.
Not till Charlton was safe on the bank did Beulah realize the peril of Beaudry. One glance across the river showed her that he was sliding face downward to a shifting grave. With an anguished little cry she released the rope from Charlton's body, flung herself to the saddle again, and dashed down the bank of the creek.
Roy lost count of time. His face was sliding down toward the sand. Soon his mouth and nostrils would be stopped. He believed that it was a question of minutes with him.
Came the swift pounding of hoofs and Beulah's clear, ringing voice.
"Hold your hands straight out, Roy."
His back was toward her, so that he did not see what she meant to do. But he obeyed blindly. With a wrench first one hand and then the other came free from the sand and wavered into the air heavily. A rope sang, dropped over his arms and head, tightened with a jerk around his waist.
Two monsters seemed to be trying to tear him in two. A savage wrench of pain went through him jaggedly. At short intervals this was repeated.
In spite of the suction of the muddy sand he felt its clutch giving way. It loosened a little here, a little there. His body began to move. After a long tug he came out at last with a rush. But he left his high cowpuncher's boots behind. They remained buried out of sight in the sand. He had literally been dragged out of them.
Roy felt himself pulled shoreward. From across the quicksands came Charlton's whoop of triumph. Presently Beulah was stooping over him with tender little cries of woe and joy.
He looked at her with a wan, tired smile. "I didn't think you'd make it in time." In a moment he added: "I was horribly afraid. God, it was awful!"
"Of course. Who wouldn't have been?" She dismissed his confession as of no importance. "But it's all over now. I want to hug you tight to make sure you're here, boy."
"There's no law against it," he said with feeble humor.
"No, but—" With a queer little laugh she glanced across the river toward her former lover. "I don't think I had better."
Charlton joined them a few minutes later. He went straight to Roy and offered his hand.
"The feud stuff is off, Mr. Beaudry. Beulah will tell you that I started in to make you trouble. Well, there's nothing doing in that line. I can't fight the man who saved my life at the risk of his own."
"Oh, well!" Roy blushed. "I just threw you a rope."
"You bogged down some," Charlton returned dryly. "I've known men who would have thought several times before throwing that rope from where you did. They would have hated to lose their boots."
Beulah's eyes shone. "Oh, Brad, I'm so glad. I do want you two to be friends."
"Do you?" As he looked at her, the eyes of the young hillman softened. He guessed pretty accurately the state of her feelings. Beaudry had won and he had lost. Well, he was going to be a good loser this time. "What you want goes with me this time, Boots. The way you yanked me out of the sinks was painful, but thorough. I'll be a friend to Mr. Beaudry if he is of the same opinion as you. And I'll dance at his wedding when it comes off."
She cried out at that, but Charlton noticed that she made no denial. Neither did Roy. He confined his remarks to the previous question, and said that he would be very glad of Charlton's friendship.
"Good enough. Then I reckon we better light out for camp with the glad news that Beulah has been found. You can tell me all about it on the way," the hillman suggested.
Beulah dropped from her horse ten minutes later into the arms of Ned Rutherford. Quite unexpectedly to himself, that young man found himself filled with emotion. He caught his sister in his arms and held her as if he never intended to let the sobbing girl go. His own voice was not at all steady.
"Boots—Boots … Honey-bug … Where you-all been?" he asked, choking up suddenly.