lynette, running like one blind out into the dark silent forest land, her own soul storm-tossed, stopped with sudden abruptness, staring about her, striving to see what lay before her, about her. free! as free as the wind, to roam where she listed. and alone! alone with the wilderness for the first moment since she had fled the menace yelping at her heels in big pine. alone.
and walled about by the wildest and most impenetrably blackly dark solitudes. she had but the one impulse; to flee from this man whose fellows termed him a wolf; but the one clear thought, that she must hasten in search of the very man from whom originally she had fled, jim taggart. for, since bruce standing had not been killed by that shot fired in her room at the gallup house, she, like babe deveril, was no longer threatened with the most serious charge of murder. let taggart place her under arrest; let him take her back into the region of towns and stages and lamp-lit homes; let him accuse her. suddenly it seemed to her, wearied with endless exertion and privation and nervous tension, that there could be no peace greater than that of being taken back and placed in custody in big pine!
now she had to guide her but a general, a very vague, sense of direction. it was so absolutely dark! there were stars, but they seemed little sparks of cold distant light, blurred and almost lost beyond the tops of the pines. standing had led her after him, on his way to his lower cabin, down the gentle slope. yes; she knew the general direction. and the distance? she had little impression of the distance between these two aloof
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lairs of timber-wolf; half a mile or two miles, she did not know. she would go on and on, seeking a way among the trees; on and on and on, stumbling in the dark. then, after a while, she would call; call and call again, praying that taggart and the others were lurking somewhere within ear-shot; that they would hear and come to her ... and place her under arrest! and she wondered, as she had done so many a time to-day, where was babe deveril? was he near? would he, by any chance, hear her? would he, too, come to her? and, then, what?
she began hastening on; to be farther from him, though that meant to come at every step nearer jim taggart and young gallup and that other man with the hawk face. she could not be absolutely certain that the direction she set her course by would ever lead her to the lower cabin; but on one point she was assured: at every step she was getting farther from wolf-man and wolf-dog. what a brute, what a beast he was! and yet ... and yet.... there swept across her, like a clean, cold wind out of the north, a sudden appreciation of those finer qualities of manhood which his nature and his fate had allowed to dwell on in that anomaly, bruce standing. his absolute honesty, itself like a north wind, was not to be gainsaid even by his bitterest enemy; his courage, in any woman's eyes, was invested with sheer nobility. how he had befriended poor little mexicali joe; how, to-night for the second time, though handicapped by his wound, he had gone to joe's relief; how he, one against three, had had his way, like a lion among curs. wolf or lion?... and, finally, she abode wonderingly on that queer, distorted chivalry which resided in the heart of him, his brutally chivalrous way with her. for, no matter how harsh and bitter his tongue had been and no matter how hard his eye, he
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had not harmed her; when his hands had been like steel upon hers, commanding her while he jeered at her, they had not once so much as bruised her soft skin. in no way had he harmed her while it had been at his command, had he desired, to harm her in all ways.... she thought of being alone with any man like taggart or gallup or that hawk-faced hanger-on of theirs ... and shuddered. even babe deveril; he had looked at her last night, insinuating.... she remembered how bruce standing, rushing down upon them, had thrown his own rifle away to grapple with deveril, man to man and no odds stolen; she would never forget the picture of him with his axe, attacking the jail and defying the law.... her mind raced, her thoughts switched into a new groove: how he had set her free just now and tossed her the revolver....
and then came the most vivid picture of all, the latest one, that of bruce standing glaring at her just before she ran out of the cabin. a second time she came to a sudden stop. he had looked like a man dying! too proud, with that vainglorious pride of his, to have her, a girl, watch him, a man, die. too unyieldingly proud and defiant to have her, a weakling, look on while he, the strongest man she had ever glimpsed, yielded in anything, if even to death itself. what a man he was! a man wrong-minded, maybe; a man who overrode others and bore them down; a man who set up his own standards, such as they were, and battled for them wholeheartedly. even in the matter of high-handed robbery ... he had robbed babe deveril of three thousand dollars, and yet voluntarily, when he was ready to make restitution and not before, he had returned the full amount, estimating in his own way that he had merely borrowed it! there was the man disclosed; one who made his own laws, and yet who abode by them as
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loyally and as unswervingly as a true priest may abide by god's....
and he had looked like a man dying. she turned her head. the door of his cabin was still wide open, as she had left it; light, though failing, still gushed out. she told herself that it was only a natural curiosity, surely her sex's most irrefutable prerogative, that made her turn and look. she caught no sight of him; he was not striding up and down. and he had not come outside for his fallen rifle....
her breast rose and fell to a deep sigh. of relief, perhaps; perhaps for another emotion. still she remained where she was, pondering. which way lay the path to the other cabin, where taggart and gallup and the other man were? and what was bruce standing doing? he had named her "liar!" he did not believe when she had cried out passionately: "i did not shoot you!" darting considerations, flashing through her consciousness. the one question was: "was bruce standing mortally wounded?" shot in the back a second time; he had as much as told her that.
babe deveril was what the world names a ladies' man. bruce standing was a man's man. and the strange part of it is that the feminine soul is drawn to the man's man inevitably more urgently than to the ladies' man....
and all the while lynette was saying to herself: "he is a brute and a beast and yet ... he has not harmed me once and he has set me free and there is some good in him and ... and he may be dying! alone."
she had turned her head to look back; now, hesitatingly, her whole body turned. slowly, silently, she retraced her steps. she came closer and closer to the hidden cabin; the light outlining the open door grew fainter, dimmer as the fire died down; she heard no sound; she
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caught no glimpse of a man within. she drew still closer; she heard the strange whining of his dog. even thor she could not see until, lingering at every step, she came close to the door. then she saw both, the man on his back, his lax hand on the floor; the dog whining, distressed, licking the hand one instant and then looking wistfully into the master's face. a face bloodlessly white, save for one smear of blood, where a hand had sought to wipe his eyes clear of a gathering film.
hesitating no longer, she stepped across the threshold. thor looked at her and broke into a new whining, a note of sudden joyousness in it. standing did not hear and did not know that she had returned; his eyes were shut and there was the pulse as of distant seas in his ears. she hurried to the fireplace and tossed into it the last of the wood he had gathered; then she came swiftly to where he lay. her heart was beating wildly....
she saw that his jaw was set, hard and stubborn. she stood, uncertain, troubled, half regretful that she had come back, hence half of a mind to go hurriedly. but she did not stir for a long time, and then only to come the last step closer. his eyes flew open; he looked up at her. and, as the fire she had freshly piled blazed higher, she saw a sudden flash of his eyes ... whether the reflection of the fire or the flash of the spirit within him, she could not tell.
"i thought you'd gone," he said. he sat up; it was a struggle for him to do so, yet here was a man who made of all his life a struggle and who thought nothing of a trifling victory over either nature itself or his fellow man.
"you have been cruel...."
he mocked her with his haggard eyes.
"that," she ran on swiftly, "is what you expected me to say to you, bruce standing, that you have been
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cruel! and, what i came back to say is: 'you have been good to me!'"
she had not meant to say anything of the kind. but when she looked into his eyes, when she saw the clear-as-crystal soul of him, a soul as simple as a child's and ... yes!... as clean; and when she remembered how she had ridden all day long while he had walked, and how he had steadfastly refused to so much as harm a hair of her head, the words gushed forth.
he eyed her queerly; suspicion in his look and confusion. she could have laughed out aloud suddenly, since her whole emotional being was aquiver; for he, timber-wolf, like his own wolf-dog, thor, distrusted her and regarded her with fierce eyes and yet ... and yet....
"your wound has not been dressed since morning," she said quietly. "and now you've got yourself another wound. i am going to help you with them."
his slave.... he had commanded her once to help him with his wound.... but his slave no longer, since he himself had set her free! yet here she was, saying that she stood ready to help him care for his wounds. more, already she was getting warm water, and his old piece of castile soap ... she was rolling up her sleeves....
he glared at her through a mist. he could be sure of nothing, since it seemed to him that she was half smiling! a tender, wistful sort of smile ... as if she had it in her heart to forget injuries done, to forgive him who had done them, and to succor him now that there was little of man-strength left in his body.... curse her! what right had she to forgive, to look at a man that way? he had asked nothing from her, save that she leave him....
he stirred uneasily. had she smiled? in this
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uncertain light one could be certain of nothing; the flickering of the wood fire, casting quick-racing little shadows, breaking into their play with sudden warm, rosy gleamings, made it impossible for him to know if she had smiled, or if that semblance of a smile were but the effect of shifting lights. he held himself rigid, his back to the wall now, his right hand clinched on his knee.
"when i am in need of your help ... you who shot me...."
she came to him unafraid; she set down the can of warm water on the floor; she began unbuttoning the neck of his shirt. he threw up his hand, the right, hard-clinched, as though he would strike her in the face; but he let the hand fall back to his side. she heard a great sigh.
"i told you once," she said quietly, "that i did not shoot you. and i am no more liar than you are, bruce standing."
he cursed himself for a fool; he was tired and weak and dizzy; his mind was the abode of confusions; he no longer knew what was fact and what illusion. one thing alone he did know, a marvellous thing; there was in her low voice the ring of utter honesty when she said: "i did not shoot you!" ... liars; all her sex, waging their weak wars from ambush, holding their place in the world through seduction and deceit, all were liars. and yet she troubled him, and with that voice and those eyes she bred uncertainty on top of uncertainty in his uncertain soul. her steady fingers were unbuttoning his collar....
"then why," he muttered, jeering and challenging, "did you run as you did after the shot? and how, since you and i were alone in the room...."
"the window was open! under it was the table, my pistol where i had dropped it on the table. you turned
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your back; i was going to jump out the window and run because for the moment i was afraid! but some one, some man, was there; i saw his hand; it caught up the pistol. it was he who shot you in the back! and when he dropped the pistol back to the table...."
again he demanded fiercely:
"but you ran ... why? and with the gun in your hand! why? why, girl, if you are not lying to me?"
"haven't i told you?" suddenly she was aflame with passionate vehemence. "i was frightened; ready to run; keyed up to run! there came that shot, and you were hit; i thought you were killed! it flashed over me that i would be suspected and all evidence would point to me and i would be convicted of murder! cowardly murder!... one does not think at such a time; there is only the rush of instinct and impulse. i was all ready to run; i had no time to think...."
"but you had the revolver in your hand as you went through the window!"
"impulse and instinct, i tell you!" she cried. "instinct to flee; and to snatch at the first weapon for protection, even though it was the weapon that had just shot you! i was a fool, maybe; and maybe by acting as i did i saved my own life!"
he was looking up into her face queerly; she saw the savage gathering of his brows; with all his might he strove for clear vision and clear thought. with a new, terrible keenness, he fixed his eyes upon her; then he said deliberately: "liar!"
he saw the flash of her eyes, the angry set of her mouth; her hands were clinched now, and for a moment it was he who believed that he was to be struck full across the face. and thereupon his own eyes brightened; this girl did not speak like a liar; she did not carry
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herself like one; she had yet to show the first streak of yellow which is in the warp and woof of lying souls.
but lynette curbed her quick temper and said only:
"you have no right to call me that; my word is as good as your word, bruce standing. had i shot you i should not have waited for you to turn your back. one thing i did do for which i was sorry even while i did it, and ashamed; i laughed at you even while i sympathized with your anger against a man who, to be little and mean, could have your horse killed. and it was not at you that i laughed, after all ... there come times when i can't help laughing, though there is nothing to laugh at ... it was the shock, i think ... the incongruousness, to hear you...."
she ended there, sparing him any further reference to his lisping of which he was so desperately ashamed; once more she began working at his collar.... and again there came into the blue eyes of bruce standing a flash as of blue fire, though he hid it from her; and a sudden great, utterly mysterious gladness blossomed magically. for, though he did not understand and though he would never rest until he did understand, yet already he began to believe that this girl with the fearless look spoke the truth! and this, because of the ring of her voice and the tip of her head, erect on its white throat, and the flash of her own eyes, as though the spirit of man and maid had struck fire, one from the other.
"if you'll help me ..." said lynette. "if you can sit a little bit forward?... your shirt will have to be torn or cut; i can't get to your shoulder otherwise...."
he put up his right hand; as he jerked vigorously there was the sound of tearing and ripping; he thrust the cloth down from the left side and laid bare his great chest and the powerfully muscled left shoulder and upper arm. lynette shuddered; he had lost so much blood!
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and against the smooth perfect whiteness of his healthy skin the blood was so emphasized. she found the new wound....
"shot in the back ... twice shot in the back," she said, and again she shivered. "and you don't know who shot you either time?"
"i have my own idea about both," he said curtly. and had nothing to add.
with the warm water and soap she cleansed the fresh wound and then the older one. then, with gentle fingers, she did as he bade her with billy winch's salve, applying it generously.
when the thing was done they looked at each other strangely; man and maid in the wild-wood, with much lying between them, with each asking swift unanswerable questions, with the night in the solitudes advancing.
"it's a strange thing that you came back," said standing.
"where better had i to go?"
"i told you that taggart and his friends were down there. you might have found them."
she turned from him abruptly and went back to the fireplace; he could see only the curve of her cheek and a curl and her shoulder.
"i have no greater liking for sheriff taggart than you have," she said.
he wanted to see her face, but she was stubborn in refusing to turn. he said curiously:
"your friend, baby devil, ought to be overhauling them before long! if you think he decided to come this way?"
she did not answer. he began to grow angry with her for that; for refusing to reply when he spoke; for refusing to discuss babe deveril. but he kept a shut mouth, though with the effort his jaws bulged. he
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began feeling in his pocket for pipe and tobacco; he felt the need of it....
he would have sworn that she had not looked and could not have seen, but when he struggled over the difficulty of doing everything with one hand she whirled and came forward impulsively and finished the task for him, packing the tobacco into the black bowl of his pipe and handing him a lighted splinter from the fire.
he muttered something; she had gone back to her place at the fire and did not know whether his muttering was of thanks or curses; her attitude would have seemed to imply that either would find her indifferent. he smoked slowly; the strong tobacco, sharp and acrid, did him good; a man of steady nerve, he had come to a point where his nerves needed steadying; just now he wanted silence and his pipe and time to grope for certain readjustments. sweeping in all his ways was bruce standing; in building up, tearing down, building up again; and always with him was the sheerest joy in building up.... and lynette, for the first time in many hours, experienced a moment of bright happiness.
he knocked out the ashes of his pipe, rapping the black bowl sharply against his boot heel. heavily he got to his feet. from the bunk he dragged a blanket tossing it on the floor in a corner by the fireplace. obviously he was intending it for his bed....
"you must lie on the bunk," she cried impulsively. "you are worse hurt than you seem to know. in any case, i give you my word i'll not use it!"
"why should i care what you do, girl?" he demanded, staring at her fiercely. "the bunk is there; take it or leave it."
defiantly she snatched up a second blanket and folded it into the opposite corner, sitting down on it with her feet tucked under her, beginning swiftly to rebraid her
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loose hair. he turned from her to lie down. but since he had chosen the corner which he had, and since because of his wounds he was forced to lie on his right side, he faced toward her. she appeared not to notice him, having brooding eyes only for the fire; and yet she had had her clear view of his haggard face. thor came to lie close to his master's feet.
there were three blankets. lynette, only asking herself curiously what explosion of wrath she might bring upon herself, rose and went for the third, and, without saying anything, spread it over standing. he looked at her amazed. but he did not speak. instead, after the briefest of hesitations, he floundered to his feet, set one boot heel upon the edge of the blanket while in his good hand he gripped a corner; with one sudden effort he ripped the blanket fairly in two. he tramped across the small room and dropped half by her side; he went back to his own corner and lay down, dragging the other fragment up over his shoulders, like a shawl....
lynette was tired almost to the end of endurance; further, this night had been no less a tax upon her than had the other nights. now, suddenly, she burst into that inimitable laughter of hers, sounding as light and gay and mirthful as the laugh of a delighted child....
"behold! the acme of politeness!" she cried merrily. "a perfectly good bunk and the two travellers going to sleep on the floor!"
he stared at her unsmilingly for a long time.
"i haven't thanked you, girl, for what you've done for me to-night. i am not without gratitude, but i'm no man for pretty speeches, i am afraid. at any rate here's this: i came hunting a cowardly sneak of a she-cat and i found a true sport. and i think i'm done with making war on you!... unless...."
"unless ... what?" asked lynette.
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but he was lying back now, his eyes closed. he did not appear to have heard. she, too, lay down with a little weary sigh. her last thoughts were three; they mingled and grew confused as all thoughts faded. but before they blurred they were these: bruce standing had dropped his rifle outside and had not gone out for it; babe deveril had not returned for her, but no doubt was still seeking her; and bruce standing was done making war on her, unless....
