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“Ah!”
The gun lay against a stone, its muzzle upward, at a distance of about forty feet, beyond and somewhat to the left of Trixy. It would take some crawling; and that would hurt. But when he had fixed the gun’s position in his mind, so that he might not miss it, he set his teeth together, and started.
No great distance, after all, is forty feet. That is to say, no great distance after you’ve covered it. And the pain did not matter now. He lay on the ground again, flattened out, panting and gazing up at the blue sky. The sweat stood in big cold drops on his face; and he trembled as if stricken with ague. He could not shoot in that condition; he must rest, and wait. But the thirst was torture now.
After a time, he turned himself half around in order to face Trixy, and rested his right elbow on the ground, with the gun up in the air.
“Good-by, Trixy!” he said softly.
But wait! How many shots left? He examined the revolver. Two! For an instant he was stricken again with dread. Then his left hand felt for the belt at his waist; and he laughed nervously. What a state he was in! There were cartridges to burn!
The gun came slowly down to an aim, then waved in his hand as he pulled the trigger.
“Hell!” he muttered.
He tried again, pulling himself together, and gritting his teeth. The second report rang out, and echoed high among the rocks. The mare’s head fell, her body quivered, one hind foot kicked out; and she was gone.
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Oh, yes! He could hit good horses! But not Sunnysides.
He ejected the exploded cartridges, and filled the chambers with fresh ones; then lay back and rested again, the gun still clutched in his hand. And why did he wait? To get strength, for one thing. He wanted to sit up to do it, since he could not stand. And then––there was another trouble. Four times before he had tried to do it, and something had happened,––something different and utterly unexpected each time had checked him. It had not so much mattered then, because he could afford to wait. But now––
He drew upon the last of his reserves of strength, and sat up––too suddenly. An excruciating pain shot through his injured leg, and radiated like flame through every nerve and tissue of his body. The revolver, half lifted, fell from his fingers. Swaying, he groped for it, clutched it again, and frantically raised it to his head. And when he felt the hard muzzle just above his ear, he pulled the trigger. And so the third report went ringing through the quiet valley, and Philip Haig sank backward on the greensward, and lay still.
252CHAPTER XXIIITHE MIRACLE
Between two storms, the peace that lay upon the seared and battered head of Thunder Mountain, like the peace that comes to a sufferer between paroxysms of pain, was of a kind unknown to lower levels. In all the range of natural phenomena, in all the gamut of sensation, there is nothing else at once so beautiful, inspiring, and appalling as utter silence; and nothing else so rare. To the sea, the desert, and the peak it is given in few and perfect hours; but neither to the desert nor to the sea is it given in such transcendency as to the peak. And on no peak could silence ever have seemed so like a miracle as on the flat top of Thunder Mountain between two storms.
It were hazardous to say how far Marion was conscious of the beautiful, inspiring, and appalling nature of that silence. She was too deeply intent upon her purpose to be conscious of much besides the material difficulties in her path. She knew that on the gray-black surface of the mountain nothing stirred; that the winds were still; that no murmur of forest or ripple of water or soft pulsation of a living world was there. It was a dead place, dead these many ages; and all its associations in her mind were those of death and the living terror of death. But she was not afraid. True, she was beset by fears, but they only hovered over her,253brushing her face with their black wings. True also, her eyes roved wide, as if at any instant something unknown and dreadful would come upon her out of that blue sky, from behind the next rock barrier, or up from the mountain’s ugly heart itself. But these were superficial fears, and in her heart she was not afraid.
From the moment that she emerged upon the first terrace, where Haig had stood some hours before, she knew that she would not go back until (and unless) she found him. That had been her purpose from the beginning, from the time she ran down the hill above Huntington’s, with Smythe following in alarm; but it had been hidden from her until, in the exaltation that ensued upon the finding of the ashes of Haig’s fire, she drove her pony up the last ascent, and knew that if the mountain had claimed Philip it must claim her too.
But this thought was, in a sense, as superficial as her fears; for in her soul there lived a perfect faith. Through all her grief and jealousy and anger and despair she had never entirely lost the pure light of her star. She never doubted deeply that her love would triumph, even when reason told her that it had already failed; and the very words with which she had consented to leave the Park by the last stage were hollow, though they contained a prayer. She had prayed for a miracle; and the miracle had happened. Why should she be afraid?
So she was not surprised when the Twin Sisters welcomed her without so much as a gentle puff of wind upon her cheek; when the Devil’s Chair, though she held her breath at sight of what lay below, was scarce more difficult than the ridge in Paradise Park; and254when the central waste, where the storm had leaped on Haig, held no evil in store for her. The only obstacles encountered were those presented by the trail itself; and these, as Smythe had told her, though by no means trivial, were not insurmountable to one with a clear eye and steady nerves. It was never the trail itself that was deadly; it was the wind that would blow her into a chasm, the mist that would decoy her from the path, and the storm that would beat her down among the stones. But there was no wind, no mist, no storm; and if that was not a miracle––
Several times, to be sure, she missed the trail: once in the second field of loose stones, before she had become accustomed to the signs; once on a wide floor of solid rock, where Tuesday slipped and fell, and she rose a little stunned, and in a brief confusion; and once, the most alarming of all, when she was for half an hour lost in that granite wilderness that to Haig had suggested a cemetery of the gods. But faith sustained her, and her purpose stood in the stead of courage that might have faltered and even failed. The one moment when something like despair struck at her heart was that when she found the bruised and dirty saddle cast aside by the runaway, and thought at first that it was Philip’s; and the one moment of real terror was that in which, on the summit of the last ridge, she looked back and saw that dark gray vapors were surging up out of the chasm below the Devil’s Chair.
It chanced that in following the trail from the sharp turn on the last rock floor to the brink of the cliff (the last pyramid stands some fifty yards back from it), Marion arrived at about the same distance to the left255of the drop-off as Haig had brought up at the right of it. From this point even less of the meadow was visible than Haig had seen at the first view, and the mass of fallen and tumbled granite appeared even more formidable. Her immediate sensation was of tragic despair, as the evidence of her eyes for one instant overwhelmed her faith. But where was Philip? And Sunnysides?
Then a suspicion flashed into her mind. Perhaps she had missed the trail,––the real trail. She could not have been mistaken in the signs; there was the last pyramid in plain view still from where she stood. But it was not unlikely that there was another trail from the sharp turn where she had been confused for a moment, another exit made necessary by the disruption of the cliff. She paused uncertainly, looking now at the great heap of stone below her,––a thousand feet of jagged rock and sliding sand,––and now back at the toilsome way she had come. And then her eyes were caught by something that held her spellbound with horror. Up to the rocky skyline from beyond the barrier she had lately crossed there swept a tumbling mist, as gray-black as the rock itself; and an instant after she felt a stinging blow of wind on her cheek, and heard a low whisper in the air around her.
She was roused by a sound that brought her up rigid and alert in the saddle. What was that? A faint report, as of a gun––from somewhere. She listened, turning her head slowly and cautiously, and holding her breath. A long time, it seemed to her, she listened; and heard only that warning whisper of the wind across the flat. But there! Another! It came up faintly256from below, expiring at the very edge of the precipice. She peered guardedly down into the chasm, and saw nothing but the vast pile of débris, and a bit of green meadow over against the edge of the black forest. But it was a gun! She began now to examine the edge of the cliff. To her left it fell sheer away hundreds of feet to the lower masses of fallen stone; and there was no trail on that side. Dismounting, she led her horse slowly along the brink at her right; and so came at length to the spot where the trail dropped to the first incline. It seemed incredible; but then, even as the word framed itself in her mind, her heart bounded up into her throat. There––there––under her eyes were hoofprints, the print of steel shoes in the sand; and they went down, down, down. And, as if to remove the last of doubt and hesitancy, there came wavering up from below a third thin report, a little more distinct than the others, and undeniable.
She lifted her face toward the sky, and pressed her hands upon her breast.
“God help us! God help us––both!” she murmured.
Then she remounted Tuesday, and forced him over the edge of the cliff.
Haig lay on his back, his head against the stone by which he had recovered the coveted revolver. A handkerchief dyed red and blackened with powder stains lay against one cheek. His right hand still clutched the revolver.
He did not move, and she thought him dead. Then, through the blackness that enveloped her, she dully257and slowly comprehended that his eyes were closed, not staring up at her. She knelt swiftly, and pressed her head to his breast; and then leaped to her feet with a wild outcry.
Tuesday stood a few yards away, with tail outstretched and nostrils distended, gazing affrightedly at the body of Trixy lying in her wretched heap. Marion ran to the saddle, and tore at the thongs that held her bundle; jerked it loose, and bore it quickly to Haig’s side; and in a few seconds had placed the mouth of her whisky flask between Haig’s lips, and let a little of the liquid trickle down his throat. But there was no response, and she stood up again, looking for water. The brook that had seemed so far away from Haig was at no distance for her flying feet; and she was back on the run with her sombrero filled. Dashing the water into Philip’s face, she was off again for more. With this she bathed his face and neck and wrists; and then set herself to slapping the palms of his hands with her own.
Still there was no response. But when she pressed her head to his breast once more she was assured that she had not been mistaken; his heart was beating feebly––but beating. A second time she put the whisky flask to his lips; and returned to the limp hands, rubbing them, slapping them until her own burned and ached.
Hours it seemed, and ages flowing away into eternity. The sky was darkening, and from the top of Thunder Mountain came a muffled roar that was echoed back and forth across the valley. She looked up at the towering cliff, and trembled. And then, with the last258fading reverberation, there came another sound that brought her leaning down close to Philip’s face. Was it a sigh, or only––
“Philip! Philip! Philip!” she called, softly at first, then in a cry that rang across the meadow.
At last a quiver went through the limp figure; the eyes were opened, only to be quickly closed again, as if the light had hurt them. She called to him again, in pleading accents. The eyelids fluttered, and he looked up into the face of the girl bending over him. It was a puzzled, uncomprehending look. And thereupon his lips moved.
“Yes, Philip! What is it?”
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“It’s Marion!” she cried. “Don’t you know me?”
“But––where?”
“I don’t know. Thunder Mountain.”
“Yes, I know that!” he said, with a note of impatience. “Sunnysides and––all that. But––you?”
“I followed, and found you.”
A weak smile flickered on his lips. She saw that he did not believe her.
“Look! Look!” she cried. “It’s Marion. And yonder––is Tuesday.”
He moved his head a little, and stared at the pony still standing fascinated and terrified by the stillness of poor Trixy.
“It’s––impossible!” he muttered. “You couldn’t––”
He made an effort to look up at the cliff down, which he had come.
“But it’s quite true, Philip. I’m here.”
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But she saw that he was still groping in the dark. He lifted his right hand, and touched his head, while the expression of perplexity grew rather than lessened on his face. She saw that there was not only a gash in the left temple, but a furrow on the right side of his head, a swollen red streak where the hair had been burned away. And the black stains on the handkerchief, and the revolver clutched in his hand.
“Philip!” she said softly, reproachfully.
“I don’t understand!” he reiterated, and closed his eyes.
She studied him, and the place where he lay, and the dead pony; the two wounds in his head, the bloody handkerchief––And it was only partly clear to her. He had fallen, and been hurt; but Philip, as she knew him, would have made nothing of that cut on his temple. Why, then, had he abandoned the pursuit, and tried to kill himself?
A groan escaped him.
“What is it, Philip?” she asked.
“You’re hurting me!” he answered, opening his eyes again.
“Hurting you?” she exclaimed. “No! Where?”
“My leg’s broken.”
With a sharp cry she moved away from him, and saw that in her eagerness she had pressed against his right leg. For just a moment she was so concerned with the pain she had caused him that she did not realize the full significance of his answer. Then it came to her with a shock. She looked slowly around her: at the black forest on three sides of the little meadow; at the cliff on the other; at the terrible trail down which she260had come, she scarce knew how; and at the storm clouds on Thunder Mountain.
He saw the thought in her face.
“You see, it’s no use!” he said. “With a broken leg.”
She met his eyes with a clear and steady gaze; and smiled. And that look he could not read.
“Now, then, Philip!” she said at length, rising quietly to her feet. “I’ll go to work.”
“To work?” he repeated.
“Of course!” she replied, with brave lightness. “There’s a lot to do. First, there’s your leg.”
“Yes, it’s broken,” he answered sardonically.
“We’ll mend it. And the cut on your head needs to be dressed. And I’m dreadfully hungry, and––”
She stopped, and the smile fled from her face, and the strength ran from her limbs.
“I told you. It’s no use,” said Haig.
But she had one resource of courage of which he was unaware: her faith.
“Well,” she answered stoutly, “I’ve enough in my bundle for one meal anyhow. After that––who knows?”
“Will you give me a drink of water, please?”
She stooped quickly for her hat, the only vessel she had.
“Look in the roll on my saddle,” he said. “Murray put some things there.”
She glanced around uncertainly; then understood. The saddle was on Trixy still. But Trixy was dead, and she did not like the idea of touching her. She hesitated just the length of time required for an unpleasant261smile to twist Haig’s lips. She saw it, and her face flamed with shame. A fine start she was making! And it was only a dead horse! She walked resolutely to the prostrate body, hurriedly untied the roll of blankets, and returned running.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” she cried, as she unrolled the bundle. “A cup! A pan! And bacon and bread! And matches.”
“Murray,” said Haig.
“Yes, I know. Mrs. Murray told me, but I’d forgotten.”
She ran to the stream, and brought him a cupful of water; and another; and while he drank the second, she picked up his revolver, and carried it to a stone fully as far away as it had been when he crawled for it. He was on the point of calling her back, but thought better of it; to have done that would only have confirmed her suspicions.
“Now then, sir!” she began. “Your leg.”
“What about it?”
“We’ve got to set it.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Why is it absurd?”
“You can’t do it, in the first place.”
“But I can. I’ve seen my father do it.”
“It won’t heal––in the fix we’re in.”
“We’ll do our best,” she rejoined bravely.
“Listen!” he said, with some sternness. “If it should knit, which I doubt, it will take six weeks or two months before I can use it. Do you know what will happen before two months––before one month––before two weeks, even?”
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She only looked at him questioningly.
“Snow!” he said shortly.
She could find no answer, unless it were an answer that she dared not give him––yet.
“Well, then!” he said, with an air of finality. “You can’t start to-night, of course. It’s too late, and there’s a storm going up there besides. But to-morrow morning––” He looked up at the cliff and frowned. “Perhaps Tuesday can make it. If he balks, you’ve got to do it on foot. The mountain let you pass once. Maybe it will spare you again. Maybe! God knows! But it’s your only chance. I’m done for, and can’t help you. It’s sure death for you to stay here. It’s sure death to try the trail into the Black Lake country. You have just one chance. You’ve got to take it to-morrow morning. And God help you for being such a fool!”
She heard him through, and smiled; and he noted, for his own information, that this smile of hers was getting on his nerves. What did she mean by it? There was something very superior about it, though very gentle and indulgent; and a thing or two she had said to him before flashed back into his mind. Was she trying to mother him? The thought made him angry.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Of course I’ll not go!” she said simply.
“You will go!” he retorted wrathfully.
She knelt quickly at his side, and took one of his hands between both her own.
“Philip!” she said gently. “I know that––perhaps––it’s a foolish question to ask. You mustn’t call me silly. But––do you believe in miracles?”
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“Miracles be damned!” he blurted out. “I’ll see––”
She put her hand over his mouth.
“Listen, Philip!” she went on. “I prayed for a miracle, and it has happened. Perhaps there’ll be another; who knows? We’ll wait and see. If nothing happens, why––Do you think I’m afraid?”
He made no answer, and she needed none.
264CHAPTER XXIVHAIG’S ARGUMENT
When she had unsaddled Tuesday, and left him grazing near the “camp,” Marion set out with Murray’s hatchet and knife to cut splints for Haig’s broken leg. Haig watched her run across the meadow, leap the brook, and hurry on to a grove of quaking aspens at the edge of the forest. Then he lay back to consider the logic of the situation, with the following result, which appeared to him unanswerable:
First. The girl yonder had already saved his life once, and was doing her best, though against impossible odds, to save it again. Her motive was one that need not be dwelt upon in this fatal crisis. The fact remained that for him she was facing certain death, and he must do all in his power to save her. That was the starting point from which all reckonings must be made.
Second. His own case was hopeless. Long before he should be able to move from where he lay, the valley would be buried in snow to half the height of those pines yonder. If she remained with him her case would be hopeless too. Death would be inevitable for both of them: death from starvation, from exposure, from cold. They had neither food, nor proper clothing, nor shelter of any kind. The hardiest mountaineer would not dream, of attempting to pass eight265or nine months of winter in a place like that, even with his two arms and two legs free. He, with his broken leg, and she, a woman, would not survive an eighth or a ninth of that period.
Third. The chances of rescue. There would be no search for him, he reflected with a grim smile. But for Marion, undoubtedly. To-morrow morning, Marion not having returned, Murray would start out to find her. There was not one chance in a thousand that, at this season, there would be such another day as the one now ending, and ending in storm. But suppose that Murray should make his way across the summit, and find them. Murray could do nothing for a man with a broken leg at the bottom of a gulch with a cliff on one side and miles on miles of mountain forest on the other sides. As for Marion, if she would not go at his, Haig’s, command, she would certainly pay little heed to Murray. So Murray would accomplish nothing. However, it would not come to that. Murray would be driven back by the winds. He would ride down to the Park and give the alarm. Search parties would be formed, and they would assail the mountain. But fifty men would be no stronger than one man on Thunder Mountain. It was just possible that some of them might force their way across the flat between storms. But every day that possibility, such as it was, would grow less. It would be madness for the girl to wait. She had crossed the mountain once; she knew the way; and if the winds should permit rescuers to come to her they would permit her to go to them. It was her only chance, however desperate; to remain where she was meant certain death.
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Fourth. She would not, it was quite clear, stir from his side as long as he was alive. Therefore he must do quickly what he had tried to do before.
The idea was so familiar to him by now that it required no contemplation. He raised his head, and looked toward the stone where his revolver lay; and then toward the aspen grove where Marion labored. His gaze rested on her for some minutes. It was too late for her to start to-night, even if there were no storm on the mountain. And if he did it now she would face a night of solitude and terror, perhaps would not live through it. He would wait till morning; and when she should have gone for wood, or water––
She came back presently with an armload of small limbs she had hacked from the youngest trees. Her left hand bled where she had awkwardly struck it with the hatchet; and there were tears in her eyes, which she tried to conceal from him. He was sorry for her––and angry. It was not his fault; he had done all he could, even to brutality.
“Did you tell Huntington, or his wife, what you were going to do?” was his first speech.
“No. But I sent Mr. Smythe––he rode with me as far as Norton’s––I sent him back with a message that I was going to stop the night at Murray’s.”
“And the Murrays? What did you tell them?”
“That I’d be back before night. But why do you ask?”
“I’m thinking that Smythe is a fool, and Murray is a blockhead.”
“They did all they could to stop me,” she answered quietly.
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She had begun to strip the bark and twigs from the green limbs; and he watched her crude efforts for a moment.
“I think I might manage that part of it,” he said at length. “You must build a fire.”
She started to obey him, but stopped short, and looked at him in sudden fear and suspicion.
“No, you can trust me with the knife,” he said. “I promise.”
She handed the limbs and the knife to him; and he saw that her hands trembled.
“You’ll find plenty of dead wood at the edge of the forest,” he said. “Don’t venture far among the trees.”
The shadows were deepening along the other side of the meadow, and he watched her a little anxiously while she made half a dozen trips for dry limbs and small chunks of half-rotted logs. And now she felt a curious thrill as she began to employ the knowledge she had gained on her camping expedition. She had never dreamed that it would be so useful to her! And she found new courage in thinking, while she worked, how all her life she had been undergoing preparation, training, education for this hour. She wished that she might run to Philip and tell him all this––and of her faith! But he would not understand her.
Soon a fine fire was crackling on the grass, against one of the largest stones that had fallen from the cliff. Then she brought a small package from her bundle, and made a cup of hot chocolate for Haig and another for herself. This, with a small slice of bread for each of them, made their supper for that day; for such268provisions as they possessed must be treasured scrupulously.
Haig had by this time finished trimming the aspen sticks; and by the fading light of day and the red light of the fire they set to work to mend the broken leg. Between them they knew something of surgery: she by recollecting all that she had seen in her father’s office, where she had more than once helped Doctor Gaylord with his needles and bandages; he by recalling experiences on battlefields, in lumber camps, and in various rough places of the world. She brought his blankets, and helped him to move until he lay flat on them, with his head propped against a stone. Then the leg was stripped, and the ordeal began.
It was not the pain so much as the uselessness of it that exasperated Haig; and he was tempted to drive her away from him, and have no more of it. But this, he realized, would only have caused more arguments, and tears, and protestations, and perhaps the revelation of his purpose. So he endured it to satisfy and divert her.
Luckily the fracture was a simple one; and with strips of linen for which Marion sacrificed some of her scanty supply of clothing, and the thin sticks of tough aspen wood, the leg was bound straight and firm.
“If we only knew!” said Marion at last, leaning back to contemplate her work.
“Knew what?” he asked between his teeth.
“If it’s right!”
Between pain and rage he could not answer her; and thinking that he was near to a collapse, she ran for water and bathed his face, and gave him a little of the269precious whisky that remained in her flask. After that he lay quiet, and she went to her preparations for the night.
The vale now lay in deep blackness, impenetrable walls of it beyond the red circle of firelight. The cliff made a dim, dark line against the blue-black sky; the forest on the other side a ragged tracery. The stars were few, and far. A low breeze murmured among the pines, and swept softly, but very cold, across the meadow. Marion began to feel the chill; and having wrapped Philip’s blanket tight around him, and spread over him the leather coat she had found in his bundle, she heaped more wood on the fire, and sat down before it, with her blankets around her, and her rifle at her side, to watch and wait.
She was very tired, but she dared not lie down to sleep. A long time she sat there, glancing now and then at Haig, where he lay very still, and oftener out into the blackness. But drowsiness gradually overcame her, and her head sank forward on her uplifted knees.
She was awakened by a terrifying cry that rang shivering across the valley. She started to her feet, and listened. It must have been a dream, she thought. No! There it was again––a cry that started low, like a child’s peevish wail, and ended in a piercing scream. She grabbed up her rifle, and stood peering into the darkness.
“Don’t be afraid!” said the voice of Haig from the edge of the firelight. “It’s only a bobcat. He’ll not come near the fire.”
“Thank you––Philip!” she answered. Then, with a nervous laugh: “It did frighten me, though!”
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She stood a moment, still listening. But the cry came no more.
“Aren’t you sleeping?” she asked softly.
“No.”
With trembling limbs, and eyes fixed on the darkness from whence had come the scream, she stepped cautiously to the pile of wood, and threw more limbs and bits of logs into the blaze. Then she seated herself again, resolved that she would not fall asleep. But presently she started to her feet in another panic at sight of a dark form moving in the blackness. But it was only Tuesday, coming nearer to the fire, as if he too had been alarmed by the wild beast’s cry. She settled down once more to her vigil, her rifle across her lap.
In spite of her resolution, her head sank to her knees again, and she was aroused at length by the cold. It bit through the blankets and clothing into the flesh of her limbs; sharp shivers ran up and down her back; and she was very miserable. Rising stiffly, she walked a while before the fire until she stumbled from weariness; then sat down again, and nodded, only to be waked by the frost gnawing at her flesh. Again and again she slept and woke in accentuated misery. But finally she saw, with unspeakable relief, that the stars were paling in their blue-black vault. She turned toward Thunder Mountain, and watched the dim line of the cliff sharpening against the whitening sky. Yet all was blackness in the gulch, and it seemed a long time before a soft gray light began to steal in upon the red light of the fire, and a new crispness came into the air. She waited until she could make out the forms of trees across the271valley, shrouded in thin morning mist, before she threw the last few sticks of wood on the dying fire, and crept to the side of Haig, where she lay down close beside him, with her blankets wrapped around her. There she fell into a heavy sleep, and did not waken until the sun, rising above Thunder Mountain, shone warm in her face.
For some seconds she lay luxuriating in the warmth that seemed incredible after that night of cold and terror. Then she moved softly, raised herself on one elbow, and looked at Philip. He slept. His face was haggard under his three days’ growth of beard. She leaned over him, and pressed her lips ever so lightly to his forehead. He did not stir.
Tuesday grazed a few yards away; the vale lay green and peaceful in the sunlight; and from the pine woods, where that hideous cry had lifted in the night, came now only the gentle murmur of the breeze in the massed foliage. By contrast with the chill horror of the night, the scene was positively exhilarating; and Marion rose to her work with hope throbbing through every vein, and courage singing along every nerve of her body.
First she fetched wood to renew the fire, now only a heap of smouldering embers. That done, she went to make her toilet in the brook, with the soap and towel she had stowed in her bundle for the shooting trip. Poor Seth! she thought, with a momentary pang; he would not get the deer he wanted, after all. And by this thought was set in motion a little current of regrets that filled her mind until it was diverted by the stream. She had intended only to wash her face and hands,272now grimy after her labors at the fire. But chance led her to a deep, still pool with a bottom of fine sand and a tiny shore of pebbles that seemed to have been designed for bathing. Temptation seized her, and on the very impulse, seeing that a clump of willows screened her from the camp, she eagerly undressed, and plunged into the water, uttering quick gasps at the cold contact, and short-clipped shrieks of pleasure.
And so, behold a marvel! Three days ago, in the security and familiarity of the Park, where no hardships or perils threatened, and where she knew that Philip was safe in his cottage across the ridge, and that her own pink bedroom awaited her at night, so deep was she in dejection that nothing could have induced an outburst of mere physical enjoyment such as this. But now, while Philip lay on his blankets, a prisoner in that narrow vale, and death stood at her side uncovered and undisguised, her spirits rose as they had never risen since her confession, on Mount Avalanche, and if Haig had been listening he might have heard her low laughter across the meadow.
Had she yet failed to realize her situation? Or was it that tragedy had put on its comic mask, and laughed at death? The truth is simple. Her faith had triumphed over what seemed to be insuperable obstacles; and she was with Philip, for better or for worse. A miracle had been wrought; and miracles are not meaningless, or idle, or without purpose. It was a feeling perhaps unknown to man, who is merely a reasoning creature, much given to material consideration of natural causes and effects, and so compelled by his limitations to grope in outer darkness. And it was273not so much a feeling as an instinct, and not so much an instinct as a law, of which she was the involuntary instrument. Her purpose was so strong within her that there was no need of thought; and so she did not think.
Leaping to the pebbly bank, she rubbed herself swiftly with the towel, and felt the glow of health rushing through her body, all pink and gleaming in the sun. Then she dressed, and combed her hair; rinsed and wrung out the towel, and hung it on the willow-limbs to dry; and started back toward the camp in the highest spirits, and eager for service. And then, at twenty paces, she was stricken cold and rigid by the sight that met her unsuspecting eyes.
Haig had left his blankets, and was now dragging himself like a wounded animal along the earth. Already he had covered more than half the distance to the rock on which his revolver lay; and it seemed as if she would stand rooted there in helpless horror until he reached it. Then, with an incautious cry, she bounded forward. Haig heard her, and flung himself toward the stone with reckless determination. Where he had inches, Marion had yards to go; it was a race that might, in another age, have done credit to the ingenuity of a Roman emperor. If Philip was mad with pain and anger, Marion was frantic with fear and love. It seemed to her that the turf gripped her feet, that the wind in her face would strangle her, that her skirts were leaden sheets around her knees. And she barely resisted falling in a senseless heap when, at ten yards from the goal, she saw that she would be too late.
He beat her to the rock by merely a few seconds; but274he was fairly spent. His fingers bled where he had dug them into the sand; the sweat rolled down his face; and exhaustion bound him as with bands of iron. Yet he was able to reach for the gun, and clutch it; and with a final effort that seemed to tear the heart from his breast, he dragged the weapon under him, pressed the muzzle upward, pulled the trigger, at the very instant that Marion threw herself upon him.
There was a muffled report, the fumes stung their eyes and nostrils, and for a moment both lay still. Then Marion felt a movement under her, and guessed that Haig was fumbling with the revolver. An indescribable energy seized her, something tigerish in its fury, and beyond her own proper powers, so that she flung him over on his back as if he had been a child in strength and size. With both hands she gripped the wrist below the clutched revolver, and while she held it away from his body she drew her own body over his, and threw herself on his extended arm, between his hand and his breast.
There was a savage struggle still, the man affirming his right to die, and the woman denying it. But the issue could not be long in doubt; for Haig’s strength was at the ebb, while Marion’s flowed in from earth and air and sky, from the future and from the past. And she wore him down at last, until the revolver dropped from his grasp, his eyelids closed, his limbs relaxed, and he lay still. Waiting a moment for certainty, she cautiously loosened one of her hands from his wrist, and grabbed the revolver, and flung it with all her might. Then, seeing it land twenty feet away on the grass, she rolled away from him, and sat up panting,275hollow-eyed, disheveled, and trembling on the verge of a collapse.
For some seconds there was no sound but their labored breathing; and not until Haig opened his eyes and looked at her, with a hunted, baffled, and still defiant expression in their somber depths, did Marion break down. Then suddenly, after a premonitory quivering of her chin, she buried her face in her hands, and wept without more effort at restraint, in utter abandonment to her agony. Haig watched, at first in anger, and then in some confusion of emotions. Once before he had looked upon her thus bowed and shaken; and now as then he felt a strange upheaval, and an unfathomable sensation that had no likeness to anything he had ever before experienced. He wanted very much to speak to her, but could not trust himself; and after all, what was there to be said?
It was she who rescued him from irresolution. She dropped her hands from her face, and cried out in a voice that was broken with sobbing: “Why, Philip, why did you do that?”
“Why?” he asked, in something like amazement.
“Yes.”
“I’ve already told you why.”
“But––no––you haven’t told me!”
“It was to save you––for one thing.”
“To save me?”
“I told you that your only chance is to go at once.”
“But I told you I wouldn’t go!”
“I know. That’s the reason.”
“But––don’t you know, Philip, that––don’t you276see that––if you killed yourself you’d––kill me too?”
There should have been no necessity for these words. Perhaps any other man in the world, certainly most men of far less intelligence and less acuteness of feeling, would have known long ago just what she meant. He knew, indeed, that this girl loved him; but he did not believe that she or any other woman was capable of the sacrifice implied in her answer.
“You mean that––you would have––” He hesitated.
“Yes.”
There ensued a silence that fell like a mist between them, through which neither knew the way. She saw that he had begun, by ever so little, to understand; and she feared to say more lest a wrong word should overtake a right one. As for Haig, his incredulity persisted notwithstanding the unquestionable sincerity of her speech. He did not doubt that she contemplated, in this moment of emotion, the complete and final sacrifice. But he was quite convinced that she would take a different view of the situation when the test should come. She did not yet appreciate, he argued, the peril of their position; she had not realized the hazard of her adventure or she never would have undertaken it; and undoubtedly she still thought there would be a way out for them. Under such a delusion it was easy for her, he concluded, to talk about dying with him. But she was tragically in error. His eyes lifted to the cliff. She should have been up there on her return hours ago. Now it was too late again; for the clouds were black and ugly on the summit, and a distant roaring came to277his ears; and he knew what was happening or in preparation in the middle of the flat. But he must find a way to send her up that trail at dawn the next day; and his gaze dropped to where the revolver lay just visible in the thin grass into which she had thrown it.
278CHAPTER XXVDIANA
Still no speech came to either of them. After a while Marion rose silently, and went about her work. First, however, she sought the revolver in the grass, and carried it, with her rifle, to the clump of willows by the brook, where both weapons were safely beyond the present limits of Philip’s powers. Then she returned to him with her towel, one end of it wetted and soaped.
“May I, please?” she asked, smiling down at him.
“If you wish,” he answered.
She knelt, and began to wash the grime from his face, to cleanse the wound on his head, and readjust the bandage. Then his hands, after another trip to the stream to rub out the soiled end of the towel; and she was still busy with one of them, when she started back with a cry. His coat had opened wider, and she saw that his shirt was stained with blood. She had forgotten the revolver-shot!
“It’s nothing,” said Haig. “Only a flesh wound, I think.”
“But why didn’t you tell me!” she cried, almost with anger in her alarm.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Let me see it, quick!” she commanded.
279
He looked at her a moment, then opened the front of his flannel shirt and of the undershirt, and disclosed a flesh wound where the bullet had cut a streak across his chest. Marion bent close, and touched it with her fingers.
“Oh!” she sighed at last, in deep relief.
Haig’s reply was a laugh of which the irony did not escape her.
“Philip!” she cried reproachfully.
“Well, isn’t it rather droll––and ludicrous, when you come to think of it? First, Sunnysides’ punch in my stomach. And now, with my head cut open by a stone, and a broken leg, and two bullet-wounds––I’ve still got a splendid appetite. I ought to be on exhibition somewhere!”
His sardonic humor hurt her worse than his anger; and she went quickly to the brook to cleanse the towel again. Returning presently, she washed the new wound, and bandaged it; then examined the splints on the broken leg to assure herself that, as nearly as she could determine, no serious damage had been done to it by his reckless crawl; and finally brought his blankets, and insisted on making a sort of bed for him. After that she cooked two slices of bacon, and on this, with a little bread, they made their first meal of the day. And this brought her to the next and most pressing problem.
“Will you help me think, Philip?” she asked, when they had eaten.
“About what?”
“Food.”
“What’s in the larder?”