IX
THE DANGER LINE
Themorning after the shooting-up of the village by Fult and his friends, Billy Lee, when he came up to milk the pieded heifer, brought the welcome news to the women that nobody had been killed, or even hurt, but Polly Ainslee's old sow. "The boys allus shoots mostly in the air, and if folks lays on the floor there hain't no danger," he said. "I hain't never afeared myself; but Lethie—hit's a sight how hit skeers her."
The children who came up later to Sunday School corroborated his statements. "Gee-oh! hit was like old times," they said.
Darcy Kent also spoke of it. "Of course I knowed just what hit was," he said to them, "and if it had been anybody else, I'd have come down the creek and settled 'em; but having give my word to you about the truce, I couldn't, for hit would have brought on the war again at hits worst."
"Yes, you did the only wise thing," they agreed.
He gazed frowningly down the valley. "Fallons is outlaws," he said, "and allus was, and allus will be, long as one of 'em lives. The only way is to hunt 'em down like dogs; which my family, being sheriffs for many a year, and defenders and upholders of the law, has tried hard to do."
He turned away with Annette, the cooking teacher, his tawny hair and handsome yellow eyes making an attractive contrast to her silky black hair and blue eyes.
"Oh, don't ever try to do anything to them again," she said with a shudder, as they went down the spur; "whatever Fult does, let him alone. I couldn't have stood it last night if I had thought you were there."
He flushed. "If I ever did give up the war entirely," he said in a low voice, "hit would be for your sake—because you wanted me to live."
"I do, I do," she replied. "Youmustlive—for me!"
"You are sure of yourself now?"
"Yes, I found out last night, when I was so frightened for fear you might be down there. Remember, you have me to think of now," she said.
All that day the women, with the exception of Annette, were profoundly depressed. Though it was only the first week in August, and they had planned to stay until September, they felt that it would be just as well to pack up and leave at once. They almost wished they had not come; for their affections were now entwined and rooted in a community for which they could do nothing.
A larger crowd than usual climbed the hill to the vesper service that evening, many of the olderpeople, as well as the young. Uncle Ephraim was one.
"I allowed you would be out of heart, atter last night," he said, "and limped up along to holp up your sperrits. Hit hain't right ever to expect too much of human natur', which is a pore, puny, failable contraption at best. Them boys has sp'ilt the summer for us; but I allow by now they feel as bad as anybody about hit. And ricollect, the worst hain't happened—the war hain't started again. I was afeared you might take a notion to leave; but I feel to counsel you to have patience, and stay on with us, and trust in the Lord."
The vesper service was a sad affair—nobody could put much spirit into the singing, or reading, or prayers. Then, suddenly, Uncle Ephraim, in his quavering old voice, raised the words of the ancient hymn, "How firm a foundation," to the quaint but impressive mountain tune; and then depression seemed to flee away, courage and faith to return; real fervor was poured into the song.
As the words of the last verse rolled out over the hills, all unseen to the worshipers a small group of men came down the spur from the ridge top, and stood in the thick shade until the people had all started down the slope. The women, gathered at Pulpit Rock, were about to follow, when the group advanced in a body and stood before them, and they saw with amazement Fult and his friends.
"Women," he said, and in the dusk his eyes looked very large and dark against the pallor of his face, "I allow the sight of us won't be a welcome one to you no more; but anyhow we come, soon as we was fully at ourselves, and knowed what had happened, to tell you how we feel over last night.
"When you found us working at the still, we was doing just like I told you, getting out timber of a day, but also, of a night, stilling us some liquor to take to Virginny and sell there; not one of us hadn't broke our word to you about drinking and disturbing the peace, nor never aimed to. But though you had no cause, women, you said a hard word to me as you was leaving, when, not liking to see lone women wander by theirselves of a night, I axed if one of us couldn't see you home. You said no, you felt safer alone.
"Women, that word pierced my heart like a pizened arrow, and rankled till hit put me plumb beyond myself, and in a pure franzy. Long as you trusted me, I couldn't disapp'int you; but when you didn't, nothing never mattered—I never cared no more what I done. When I got down off the rock, I drank me a pint of strong liquor; and t'other boys, seeing me, and hearing what you had said, done the same. Before long, we was crazy as lunatics, and I don't ricollect nothing more; but I heared from Billy Lee, when he brung our dinnerdown to us, that we had rid in and shot up the town again.
"I was mighty sorry to hear hit, women,—all of us was,—and mighty glad to hear nobody wasn't killed but Polly Ainslee's old sow.
"So we come in to-night to tell you how we feel about hit, and to ax you not to let hit put you in the notion to leave. If you allow you'd ruther not stay here with us boys around,—which I wouldn't blame you much atter what we done last night,—I come to tell you we'll all light out immediate for Virginny, with our liquor, and not come back till you've gone. Or, if you feel to put your trust in us one more time, and give us a chance to right ourselves, we'll pour out every bit and grain of that whiskey, and not make nor drink nary 'nother drap long as you stay here.
"And to show you we mean what we say, women, I have brung along with me, and, if you say so, am now aiming to turn over to you to keep while you stay, something we can't make no liquor without, something we set a sight of store by; for"—lifting from the ground at his feet a shining coil of copper pipe, and passing caressing hands over it—"hit's the finest worm in Knott County, and the onliest one I got."
There was not the slightest hesitation on the part of the women. Amy put out her arms for the worm. Virginia spoke eagerly: "Certainly we'lltrust you again; and for my part I deeply regret the words I spoke to you last night, and apologize for them. Forgive me, and I'll never fail to trust your word again. And we'll take the best care of the worm, and I'll tell the people how things are, and everything will be all right."
So things began to flow peacefully again on Troublesome, and the women entered upon the last three weeks of their stay. Every day Amy and Virginia walked or rode up different creeks or branches, visiting the homes, visiting also the district schools, few and far between, within which, too often, teacher and boys spat tobacco juice over the filthy floors, and the pupils, with their only textbook—a blue-back speller—in hand, wandered from one rude bench to another, talking or studying aloud, or even fighting, at will.
Every day, too, the nurse brought hope and healing to the sick, especially to the typhoid cases that had recently started in the village. And every day Isabel, Annette, and the kindergartner, after their regular duties were over, worked busily upon plans for the closing entertainment on the hill, to which the county should be invited. Besides songs, Isabel had in mind various tableaux from old ballads and folk-tales, which should fill hungry eyes with pretty colors and sights, and bring before the actual vision scenes long familiar to the imagination.She had already written home for pieces of velvet and silk and cheesecloth of many colors, and also for a very beautiful dress she had recently worn as bridesmaid, and which was now designed for special use in connection with Lethie.
After his reinstatement in the good graces of the women, Fult seemed somewhat chastened, walked softly, obeyed their slightest wish, and made himself unobtrusively useful. To Lethie, when she was on the hill, he was kind, though abstracted; to Isabel his conduct was in every way so perfect that she almost forgot the day of the funeral occasion. But for the fact that a slight veil of melancholy appeared always to envelop him, he would have seemed the same as before.
So laid at rest were her fears, so full of other things the busy days, that when, one afternoon, not ten days before they were leaving, he came up the hill soon after dinner, banjo in hand, saying he had a new ballad to teach her if she wished to learn it, she went unhesitatingly to the spur-top with him, and sat on a bench beneath a spreading beech. He took his seat on the ground before her and began the plaintive ballad. It was a long-drawn-out, doleful, but beautiful one about misplaced love, with the oft-recurring refrain:—
If I had known, before I courted,That love was such a sorrowful thing,I'd have locked my heart in a box of golden,And pinned it down with a silver pin.
As he sang, he lifted dark, mournful eyes to hers; and toward the end, she was amazed to see them brimmed with tears. Tears in Fult's eyes seemed to her the strangest sight she had ever looked upon.
"You see hit hain't no use," he said, very gently, dashing away the tears before they could overflow. "To pleasure you, I try not to show what I feel; but hit hurts, hurts me, all the time."
Isabel said, as lightly as she could, "You just imagine it hurts; you'll forget before I'm out of sight."
"I'll never forget," declared Fult, in a low voice; "hit wouldn't be possible. Allus I'll keep you in my mind, and carry your picture in my heart; long as I live hit'll be the same, even though I don't never see you or hear of you ever again. You are going far away from me, where I won't never hear your sweet voice no more, or look upon your face with delight. But even if the old salt sea was to roll forever between us, my feelings for you would still be the same; I couldn't never change."
This new mood of his, sad, earnest, gentle, undemanding, worked upon Isabel's sympathies; the thought of being hopelessly loved by such a beautiful being smote her romantic soul.
"I wish I had never come," she said, "if my coming meant even a little suffering for you."
"Oh, no," he replied, with a martyr's look, "I'd rather suffer torments as not to have loved you;the pain of hit is better than any other pleasure. And as long as you stay where I can get a look at you now and then, I can stand hit all right; but now you are fixing to go away where I won't never, never see you no more, hit appears to be more than I can face."
Then, suddenly, as a distressed child might have done, he bowed his head on his hands, and his body shook with sobs.
It was a beautiful head, of noble shape, with glossy, blue-black hair. Isabel's heart was torn as she gazed upon his grief. For an instant she forgot everything but his suffering.
"Don't take it this way," she begged, and there were tears now in her own eyes. "I never dreamed you cared really, and it distresses me to death."
Fult made no reply save to give her a long look; then he sat, head bowed in hands, body shaken with slow sobs, for some minutes. At last, lifting mournful eyes to hers, he asked, gently, hopelessly:—
"If you and me had met away off somewheres in some far and distant land, where there wasn't no Lethie or nothing to come between us, do you allow then you could maybe have loved me the same as I love you?"
Isabel replied, in a voice she tried to make calm: "Almost any girl would find it an easy thing to fall in love with you."
"Not 'almost any girl,' but you," he persisted, gently.
"I—I don't know about it," answered Isabel; "I never thought that far along. You see, therewerethings between us,—Lethie and other things besides,—and that was enough for me, as I told you the day of the funeral meeting. And it's not any use to discuss the matter now. We must be going back down the hill."
"Must be going back down the hill," Fult repeated, sadly. He rose to his feet.
"Good-bye," he said in a low voice, still gazing with deep sadness into her eyes.
"Good-bye," she said, with a catch in her voice, putting forth her hand; "I hope we shall always be friends."
Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips and kissed it, slowly, reverently, as one might kiss the hands of the beloved dead. No knight of old—not Sir Philip Sidney himself—could have done the thing more perfectly. Isabel was much moved. Two large tears rolled down from her eyes and splashed on his wrist.
Then, as she turned away, he suddenly seized her hand again with both of his own, and covered it with kisses, but this time they were wild, hungry, passionate.
Isabel broke from him and ran down the hill; but in the instant of her flight he saw in her face thethings he had hoped and planned to see—not only pity and pain, but also very real fear of herself.
After this the days flew; with rehearsals for the entertainment, work on costumes and the like, every waking moment of Isabel's time was occupied; and, though Fult was on hand most of the time, helping in every possible way, he did not again make the least effort to see her alone, or refer in any way to their conversation on the hill.
It was the custom of Isabel, Annette, and the kindergarten teacher, every night after the rehearsals, to go down to the kitchen tent and get something to eat before retiring. Thursday night of the last week Isabel, coming out of the door as the three were about to leave after eating, had an impression of a head vanishing round the tent corner. The shadows of the trees were too dark, however, for her to be at all certain, and, putting it down to weariness and nerves, she dismissed the matter from her mind.
Then came the last busy Saturday; the entertainment was to be on the following Monday, and the women were to start out of the mountains on Tuesday. Amy and Virginia had ridden nearly thirty miles that day, visiting homes on a distant creek, and, coming in about dark, had gone immediately to their tent and to bed. Isabel sharedthis tent with them, but it was much later before she could get to bed: rehearsals, all sorts of last things, were to be attended to. At last it was over, and she, Annette, and the kindergartner, as was their custom, went down after the departing guests to the kitchen tent. They set the lantern on the kitchen table, and ate by its light. Then Isabel, being unusually tired, dropped down on the bench just outside the door to rest, while the other two put away the food and dishes.
She had hardly sat down when she felt something thrown and tightened over her mouth, and, attempting to cry out, realized that she was gagged and unable to utter a sound. The next instant she was lifted by a pair of strong arms and borne swiftly away. The next, Fult's voice spoke low in her ear: "Hit is me—don't take no fear." Then, as she fought and struggled desperately: "I wouldn't fight if I was you; hit will only mean I'll have to tie your hands and feet." When she struggled and fought all the more violently, he set her down, swiftly knotted a leather strap about her wrists, and, as she made a wild pass to run, stooped and fastened another around her ankles. "Hit's too bad," he said, calmly, "to have to tie you up this way; I hate to do it, but hit's the only way. I allowed you'd fight, and was ready for hit. Soon as them women go up the hill, we'll mount the nag and start for Hazard."
The whole thing had happened with great swiftness and in complete silence. The two other women were now going up the hill with the lantern; not thirty feet from them, Isabel heard Annette say, "She was so tired, she has gone on up ahead of us to bed," and was unable to move or make a sound.
Fult waited until they were safely inside their tent. Then he said, exultantly, to Isabel: "Did you actually think for one minute I'd ever let you go away and not marry me? That I wasn't no more of a man than to fold my hands and give you up? You never knowed me, if you did—I don't allow nothing to stand between me and my desire. All the time I aimed to have you; all the time, knowing you'd never go of your free will, on account of Lethie, I planned to take you same as the Elf Knight took Lady Isabel, or Earl Brand, or them other men of old, took their true loves; and ever sence that day on the hill, when I made you show you liked me a little, I've been just watching my chance. Three nights I've laid wait here by the kitchen tent. And now I've got you, we'll ride to Hazard and get our license, and be married by sun-up."
Again Isabel struggled and fought with desperation, bound as she was. Fult held her in a grip of iron. "Fight on till you tire," he laughed. "I'm able to stand hit. Hit may scare you and hurtyour feelings a little grain to be took off like this, but hit's the onliest way for your happiness and mine, and some day you'll thank me."
When she was exhausted, he picked her up again, saying, "I've got to carry you down now a piece to where the nag is," and strode swiftly down to where, by the light of a moon almost hidden by clouds, they could see his mare tied to a bush.
Leaping into the saddle, and sitting far back himself, he pulled Isabel up, gagged and bound, placing her before him as one would hold a child. "I hain't taking no chances on letting you set behind," he said; "you might throw yourself off and get bad hurt."
The mare picked her way slowly at first down the steep hollow, till they came out behind the courthouse. Then Fult put spur to her, and she sprang ahead like a flash, past the courthouse, across the street, down the dark lane between Madison Lee's store and the schoolhouse, and into the creek. The only light they saw in the village was a dim one in Lethie's window.
Along the creek they went plunging, past the back yards of the village on one side, and Uncle Ephraim's steep slopes on the other. When they came to the end of the town, Fult turned the mare into the road again alongside the creek, and slowed the pace. "We got the night before us to make the twenty mile," he said; "we'll get there long beforethe county clerk is up, anyhow; no use to kill the mare."
And Isabel? First there had been in her mind fear—hideous, panic, choking fear; and when that was somewhat abated, she was held for a long time as in a nightmare, every faculty paralyzed by the shock of the situation in which she found herself. The thing that was being done was unthinkable, impossible; yet it was happening, and she was powerless as a baby to prevent it.
Then she began making desperate efforts to gather her wits together, to grasp the situation and in some way deal with it.
She saw that Fult must have taken her emotion that day on the hill for a sign she loved him; and indeed, for a moment, sympathy and pity had led her pretty near the danger-line. Always her romantic temperament had drawn her into difficulties; but none that could be compared with this. Never before had she come across a man who dared to deal with matters in Fult's masterful and high-handed fashion. And she could not blame him—what he was doing he believed to be for her happiness quite as much as his own, and he was merely carrying it out in the simple and time-honored fashion of the old ballads he was always singing. Had the consequences not been so dreadful all round, his daring might have appealed to her.
But with Lethie broken in heart and life by the treachery of the two she loved and trusted; with her parents stricken and horrified when this bolt from out the blue should fall upon them; with the community hating her forever as the destroyer of Lethie's happiness; with the reproach that would be brought upon the whole summer's work of the women through this mad act—for of course no one would ever believe that she had been taken against her will; with the misery that was sure to result for Fult as well as for herself, since she did not love him and was not at all fitted for the life he could give her; the whole affair was fraught with terrible danger and calamity, and something must be done at once,—before it was forever too late,—to prevent its further carrying out.
But what to do? How, bound mouth, hands and feet as she was, to make her feeling known to Fult, to turn him from his wild purpose, and persuade him to take her back before the night was yet over, and the news of their going had become known? He would never give over his purpose if she was unable to speak until they reached the next county-seat and the clerk's office in the morning, and the escapade had become public property. His pride would not permit that. Whatever was to be done must be done at once, for they were traveling at a swift pace, and the time must be past midnight.
Desperately she cast about in her mind for aplan; still more desperately she realized that she had none—was all at sea. She was not used to getting herself out of her difficulties—it was Thomas Vance who always did that. She had always, since babyhood, taken her troubles to him; and always he knew a way out for her. She felt confident that, if he were only at hand, he could help her out of this. She even had a feeling that, if she could call to him, he would hear her, two hundred miles away, and save her.
Suddenly she had a perfectly overwhelming longing for Thomas, he was such an old stand-by—the one thing she knew she could always count upon, though, of course, he laughed at her a good deal; ever since she grew up he had been content to play the part of elder brother, to hear all about her love-affairs and problems, and give her advice and counsel: pretty magnanimous of him if he really cared for her himself as he professed to do. Of course she had never thought of being in love with him; she had known him too long and well. Love, she had believed, would be something strange, unimagined, unknown, and its object some hero, all fire, romance, and beauty, who would one day drop from the skies and claim her. Well, here was the unimagined, the unknown, the romantic, with a vengeance,—a perfect cyclone of it,—and in the very midst of it, swept on by its relentless power, she was sighing, longing, desperately praying forjust one moment of the accustomed, the ordinary, the known and tried—in short, for Thomas. She would have given her life for just one reassuring tone of his voice, one touch of his hand on her arm, one glance from his humorous, dependable brown eyes, even if they were laughing at her.
Suddenly the need of him became so poignant, so desperate, that she began to call upon him, to cry out for him, just as if her voice could really carry through those two hundred miles of space; the want became a delirium, a frenzy, the muffled cries more wild and sharp; violently, without restraint, she shook and sobbed in Fult's arms.
Her storm of distress finally brought Fult to a halt.
"I allow the straps are hurting you," he said; "or maybe you are cramped. I reckon there's time for us to walk a piece; I'll take the strap off your feet and we'll walk a while, if you say so."
She nodded vehement acquiescence.
He dropped her gently from the mare's back, got off himself, and unfastened the strap from her ankles. Together they walked along the road, he leading the mare with one hand and steadying Isabel with the other. The moon, though not bright, gave light enough for them to see by, except in some denser shadows of the trees.
The relief of having her feet free was immense. Struggling with a mighty effort for self-control,she ceased sobbing, and after a while motioned for him to take off the gag.
At first he seemed unwilling, then said: "Hit couldn't hurt none, though; there hain't a human being in two or three mile to hear you if you was to holler. And I reckon I'm able to stand what you have to say to me about Lethie. Of course, I know you'll have a plenty."
With difficulty he untied the gag, and Isabel drew great, gasping breaths of air into her lungs.
"I allow your wrists had better stay tied," he said. "They don't hurt you much, do they?"
"No," replied Isabel.
She walked on beside him, submitting meekly to his guiding hand on her arm, and not uttering one word of reproach. Her silence continued—became so prolonged and unnatural that Fult began to be troubled. He would rather have heard upbraidings.
"Hain't you got a word to say to me?" he asked at last. "Not a word for the man that loves you better than life, and has broke through everything to get you?"
She did not answer at once. Then she said, faintly: "Yes, I have things to say, but my mind doesn't seem to work very well; I seem to need time."
Fult laughed low. "Take all you want," he said. "I aim to give you everything you ever call for, and never to cross you noway."
For quite a distance they walked on, through dim patches of shadow and brighter spots of moonlight. Finally, as with a great effort, she spoke.
"You—you believed I was in love with you that day on the hill when we had our last talk, and I ran away from you?"
Fult laughed a low, joyous laugh. "Hit looked that way—like you were afeared you might be."
"Iwasafraid—for a moment," she said. "I was all wrought up and troubled about you, and not quite myself."
"I knowed you never meant to show hit, never would unless you was compelled to some way; that was why I laid my plans tomakeyou show hit—I felt like I ought to, before I took you off."
"You laid your plans to make me show it? How so?" she asked, in astonishment. "I fear I don't understand."
He laughed easily. "Oh, nothing; just by working on your feelings a little grain."
"Working on my feelings? When?"
"That last day on the hill."
"When you sang to me, and showed such sorrow at giving me up?"
"Yes," he said.
"Do you mean to say you were not really sad or suffering that day—that you put it all on, just to see the effect on me?"
"How could I be sad and suffering," he asked,"when I never for one minute aimed to be parted from you, or to give you up? I had my plans fixed even then to take you." He laughed delightedly. "But I allowed I'd just see how things really was with you, before I finally did."
Isabel stopped where she stood, in blank amazement.
"Do you mean to tell me it was just play-acting—all that moving scene?"
"All's fair in love and war," laughed Fult; "hit wasn't play-acting about the way I loved you; but the rest I reckon was."
Her voice took on a new and stern note as she continued: "In other words, you deliberately deceived me and worked on my sympathy and got my feelings wrought up? Those tears you shed were crocodile tears, those heart-broken words and looks were all just a piece of fine acting?"
"I allowed myself hit was pretty well done," replied Fult, in a self-congratulatory tone.
"And you were entirely satisfied with the result of it?" Her voice now took on an edge.
"I was, too." Again he laughed the low, triumphant laugh.
"You were quite satisfied I loved you? It didn't occur to you that a moment of excitement and distress was not a reliable time to judge a person by?"
"What I saw was enough for me," he said. "Iknowed if you loved me even a little, I could learn you to love me better and better."
"But suppose," said Isabel,—and her voice was hard and cold,—"suppose that you should be mistaken. Suppose I could never learn to love a man who deliberately deceives me, and then gloats over it. Suppose I did not love you in the first place and, after that, never could?"
Anger mounted in Fult's voice as he replied: "But I done hit all for you!"
"No, you didn't, you did it for your own sake, to gratify your vanity, I suppose. The very fact you could do it shows you cared nothing for me. Real love doesn't deceive and play-act. And I'm glad I found out what you had done, because I had believed that you really were suffering, and it is a great relief to me to know that you were not, and that in reality you care nothing more for me than I do for you."
"But Idolove you," cried Fult, furiously; "and you love me, too; youhaveto, when you're going to be my wife by sun-up!"
"Maybe I'm going to be your wife by sun-up,—maybe I can't help myself,—but if I am, it will be with anything but love in my heart."
Fult stopped in his tracks. "I won't hear you say that!" he cried, threateningly.
"I not only do not love you, but I do love another man," continued Isabel, standing straightand unabashed before him. "I found it out to-night—it all came over me like a flood when I believed I had lost him forever."
"Hit's a lie!" he exclaimed, savagely.
"It's the truth," she said, tensely. "It's someone I have known always; he lived on the next place to ours, we grew up together, he is as much a part of my life as breathing; but because I knew him so well, and believed love to be something strange, unknown, romantic, I didn't realize it was love I felt for him. I found it out to-night on this ride, when I wanted him above all things in the universe. He's not so picturesque or handsome as you are; but he's good, he's unselfish, he's true—he'd die rather than deceive anybody, or treat a girl as you have been willing to treat Lethie. And he'smine. And it was the thought of him, even more than of her, that broke my heart to-night."
Seizing Isabel by the shoulders, Fult shook her with such violence that all her joints seemed loosened. "Hush!" he commanded. "Don't drive me too far; I don't want to kill you!"
"I'm not at all afraid that you will," she replied. "That wouldn't mend matters."
"No other man shall ever have you!" he said between his teeth. His hand moved toward his pistol pocket.
She stood before him, calm, unflinching. "Youare too much of a man for such talk as that," she said. "Let's try to look at things sensibly and see what can be done. You deceived yourself, and me, into thinking you cared for me, when in reality you didn't—your play-acting proves that. And because you saw I admired the old ballad-heroes and their ways, you thought it would please me to have you copy after them. Well, it didn't—it shocked me almost to death instead, and made me feel how cruel you were willing to be toward Lethie, and how selfish to destroy all the influence of our summer's work in this way. The whole thing, you see, has been just a mistake. But it may not be too late to retrieve it. Nobody knows that I am not asleep in my tent to-night; nobody will know before morning. If it is possible for us to ride back there by daybreak, not a soul will ever know, and no real harm will be done. If, on the contrary, we do not get back by morning, there will be a great hue and cry, your absence as well as mine will be discovered, they will put two and two together, and as much harm will be done as if we had actually been married. If you can possibly get me there, don't you think you had better take me back to The Forks at once?"
Fult looked at her fiercely. "I never took a backtrack in my life," he said, chokingly.
"Do you want to marry me, knowing I love another man?"
"No, I wouldn't have you as a precious gift! But I aim to ride on—I don't know nor care where, so I never see you again. You get back the best way you can."
In another instant he had flung himself on the mare, and spurred her forward in great leaps.
Isabel was left entirely alone in the night, ten or eleven miles from The Forks. But, at least, she was free. She knew there was no possible chance of her reaching there before day; still, she would do her best. She turned and began to run along the road, and, when her breath was exhausted by this, to walk on as swiftly as possible.
Probably it was twenty minutes before she heard the beat of hoofs behind her, and then Fult's voice, saying, coldly: "I can't leave you this way; hit wouldn't be right. No use to have the talk about you, though, for my part, I don't care. Get on behind, and I'll try to get you back in time, though hit'll be a hard ride."
Taking off his coat, he spread it behind him, and rode up alongside a bank.
"I believed you'd think better of it," said Isabel.
Thankfully she jumped on, and grasped the hantle of the saddle. Thus had she ridden behind him the day he brought her up Troublesome into the village. Now they were to ride up Troublesome again, but in how different a manner!
With only the words, "Hold on, for hit's aiming to be the hardest ride you ever had," he turned the mare around, dashed the spurs into her side, and they were off, over rocks, roots, bowlders, up hill and down hill, through water above their stirrups—on, on, with never a pause or a break in the wild gallop.
But always Isabel managed to hang on, though sometimes by the skin of her teeth; and always in her heart hope was singing—they would get there in time after all: Lethie's happiness was not to be destroyed, the summer's work was not to be made a reproach instead of a benefit, she herself was free, free—for Thomas. Fervently she prayed; thankfully she heard Fult urge on the wearying mare.
Finally, as there was the first lightening of the sky in the east, they turned up Fult's hollow, past his house, which she had never seen before, and almost straight up the mountain in the rear, as far as the panting horse could take them. Then Fult spoke.
"You couldn't never get in by way of The Forks without somebody seeing you. But by taking to the ridge here, you can go along it and down the spur to the tents, without no danger."
He helped her down, turned the mare loose, and in silence they climbed to the high rocks and walked swiftly along the ridge—the same ridgewhere she and Amy and Virginia had discovered the still.
Dawn was rosy in the sky when they came out over the spur where the women's tents were, and stopped in the shelter of the trees.
"Go on by yourself now," said Fult; "there hain't nothing to hurt you. And I've got you here in time; I don't see nobody stirring."
Isabel turned to him, and held out her hand.
"Don't think I don't appreciate what you have done for me," she said. "I can never, never tell how grateful I am for your generosity. And I want to beg a favor of you. There are only two more days of our stay: be just the same you have been to us; don't let anyone see there is any change. You are a very important part of the entertainment on Monday, and if you are not there, it cannot go on. For everybody's sake, will you come?"
"I'll be there," he said, shortly. He turned and strode rapidly back along the ridge; and Isabel, slipping silently down the spur, entered the tent where Amy and Virginia were still sleeping, and crept into her cot without a sound.