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diff --git a/old/65833-0.txt b/old/65833-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb666a1..0000000 --- a/old/65833-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3948 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fire Flower, by Jackson Gregory - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Fire Flower - -Author: Jackson Gregory - -Release Date: July 13, 2021 [eBook #65833] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark. This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Pulp Magazine - Project. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRE FLOWER *** - -[Illustration: The Fire Flower] - - - -THE FIRE FLOWER - - -by Jackson Gregory - -Author of “The Short Cut,” “Wolf Breed,” “The Outlaw,” etc. - -Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the March 3, 1917 issue of -the _All-Story Weekly_ magazine published by the Frank T. Munsey -Company. - - -CHAPTER I: SOLITUDE. - -Sheldon had plunged on into this new country rather recklessly, being in -reckless mood. Now, five days northward of Belle Fortune, he knew that -he had somewhere taken the wrong trail. - -The knowledge came upon him gradually. There was the suspicion before -ten o’clock that morning, when the stream he followed seemed to him to -be running a little too much to the northwest. But he had pushed on, -watchful of every step, seeking a blazed tree or the monument of a stone -set upon a rock. - -When he made camp at noon he was still undecided, inclined to believe -that the wise thing would be to turn back. But he did not turn back. He -was his own man now; all time was before him; the gigantic wilderness -about him was grateful. At night, when he had yanked his small pack down -from his horse’s saddle, suspicion had grown into certainty. He smoked -his good-night pipe in deep content. - -If you could run a line straight from Belle Fortune to Ruminoff -Shanty—and you’d want both tunnel and aeroplane to do the job -nicely!—your line would measure exactly two hundred and forty miles. It -would cut almost in halves the Sasnokee-keewan, the country into which -few men come, let entirely alone by the Indians who with simple emphasis -term it “Bad Country.” - -Men have found gold on Gold River, where the Russian camp of Ruminoff -Shanty made history half a century ago; they have taken out the pay-dirt -at Belle Fortune. Between the two points they have made many trails -during fifty years, trails which invariably turn to east or west of the -Sasnokee-keewan. For here is a land of fierce, iron-boweled mountains, -of tangled brush which grows thick and defies the traveler, of long -reaches, of lava-rock and granite, of mad, white, raging winters. - -“Leave it alone,” men say down in Belle Fortune and up in Ruminoff. -“It’s No-Luck Land. Many a poor devil’s gone in that never came out. And -never a man brought a show of color out of it.” - -Since Belle Fortune had dropped one day behind him, it had all been new -country to Sheldon. Although summer was on its way, there had been few -men before him since the winter had torn out the trails. Here and there, -upon the north slopes and in the shaded cañons, patches and mounds of -snow were thawing slowly. - -More than once had he come to a forking of the ways, but he had pushed -on without hesitating, content to be driving ever deeper into the -wilderness. He planned vaguely on reaching French Meadows by way of the -upper waters of the Little Smoky, climbing the ridge whence rumor had it -you could see fifteen small lakes at once. But what mattered it, French -Meadows or the very heart of the Sasnokee-keewan? - -A man who took life as it came, was John Sheldon; who lived joyously, -heedlessly, often enough recklessly. When other men grumbled he had been -known to laugh. While these last lean, hard years had toughened both -physical and mental fiber, they had not hardened his heart. And yet, a -short five days ago, he had had murder in his heart. - -He had just made his “pile”; he, with Charlie Ward, who, Sheldon had -thought, was straight. And straight the poor devil would have been had -it not been that he was weak and there was a woman. He wanted her; she -wanted his money. It’s an old story. - -Sheldon for once was roused from his careless, good-natured acceptance -of what the day might bring. He had befriended Ward, and Ward had robbed -him. In the first flare of wrath he took up the man’s trail. He followed -the two for ten days, coming up with them then at Belle Fortune. - -There had been ten days of riot, wine and cards and roulette-wheel, for -Charlie Ward and the woman. Sheldon, getting word here and there, had -had little hope of recovering his money. But he did not expect what he -did find. Charlie was dying—had shot himself in a fit of remorseful -despondency. The woman was staring at him, grief-stricken, stunned, -utterly human after all. - -She had loved him, it seemed; that was the strange part of it. The few -gold pieces which were left she hurled at Sheldon as he stood in the -door, cursing him. He turned, heard Charlie’s gasps through the chink of -the coins, went out, tossed his revolver into the road, bought a pack -outfit, shouldered a rifle, and left Belle Fortune “for a hunting trip,” -as he explained it to himself. He had never got a bear in his life and— - -And there is nothing in all the world like the deepest solitude of the -woods to take out of a man’s heart the bitterness of revenge. Sheldon -was a little ashamed of himself. He wanted to forget gold and the -seeking thereof. And therefore, perhaps, his fate took it upon herself -to hide a certain forking of the trails under a patch of snow so that he -turned away from French Meadows and into the Sasnokee-keewan. - -Now he was lost. Lost merely in so far as he did not know where he was; -not that he need worry about being able to retrace his steps. He had -provisions, ammunition, fishing tackle, bedding; was in a corner of the -world where men did not frequently come, and could stay here the whole -summer if he saw fit. He had been hunting gold all the years of his -life, it seemed to him. What had it brought him? What good had it done -him? Never was man in better mood to be lost than was John Sheldon as he -knocked out his pipe, rolled into his blankets, and went to sleep. - -Now, the sixth day out he watched his way warily. If he were not already -in the Sasnokee-keewan, he should to-day, or by to-morrow noon at the -latest, come to the first of the Nine Lakes. He had studied the stars -last night; he had watched the sun to-day. It was guesswork at best, -since he had had no thought to prick his way by map. - -Night came again, and he looked from a ridge down upon other ridges, -some bare and granite-topped, some timbered, with here and there a tall -peak looking out across the broken miles, with no hint of Lake Nopong. -He made his way down a long slope in the thickening dusk, seeking a -grassy spot to tether his packhorse. That night the animal crunched -sunflower leaves and the tenderer shoots of the mountain bushes. With -the dawn Sheldon again pushed on, seeking better pasture. - -Late that afternoon he came into a delightfully green meadow, where a -raging creek grew suddenly gentle and wandered through crisp herbage and -little white flowers. There was a confusion of deer-tracks where a -narrow trail slipped through the alders of the creek banks. Upon the rim -of the meadow was a great log freshly torn into bits, as though by the -great paws of a bear. - -Under a tall, isolated cedar about whose base there was dry ground, -Sheldon removed the canvas-rolled pack and the pack-saddle, turning his -horse into an alder-surrounded arm of the meadow where the grass was -thickest and tallest. While the sun was still high he cut the branches -which he would throw his blankets upon, fried his bacon and potatoes, -boiled his coffee, and ate heartily. - -Then he sat upon the log at which the bear had torn, saw the tracks and -nodded over them, noting that they were only a few days old—smoked his -pipe, and out of the fulness of content watched his hungry horse ripping -away at the lush grass. - -“Take your time, Buck, old boy,” he said gently. “We’ll stay right here -until you get a bellyful. We don’t have to move on until snow flies, if -we don’t want to. I think that this is one of the spots of the world -we’ve been looking for a long time. I’d lay a man a bet, two to one and -he names the stakes, that there’s not another human being in three days’ -walk.” - -And a very little after sunset, with the same thought soothing him, he -went to sleep. - - -CHAPTER II. BONES. - -The seventh day out Sheldon began in practical manner by shaving. His -beard was beginning to turn in and itch. And, even upon trips like this, -he had yet to understand why a fellow shouldn’t include in his pack the -razor, brush, and soap, which, altogether, occupied no more space than a -pocket tin of tobacco. - -He was up and about in the full glory of the morning, before the last -star had gone. A grub from a fallen log went onto a hook, into the -creek, and down a trout’s eager throat, and the trout itself was brown -in the pan almost as the coffee began to bubble over. Thirty minutes -after he had waked, he was leading the full-stomached Buck northward -along the stream’s grassy banks. - -The world seemed a good place to live in this morning, clean and sweet, -blown through with the scents of green growing things. The ravine -widened before him; the timber was big boled with grassy, open spaces; -though there was no sign of a trail other than the tracks left by wild -things coming to feed and water, he swung on briskly. - -“If I really am in the Sasnokee-keewan,” he told himself early in the -day, “Then men have maligned it, or else I have stumbled into a corner -of it they have missed somehow. It strikes me as the nearest thing -imaginable to the earthly paradise.” - -He had turned out to the right, following the open, coming close under a -line of cliffs which stood up, sheer and formidable, along the edge of -the meadow. And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he came upon the first -sign he had had for three days that a man had ever been before him in -these endless woods. Upon the rocky ground at the foot of the cliffs was -a man’s skeleton. - -Sheldon stopped and stared. The thing shocked him. It seemed -inconceivable that a man could have died here, miserably as this poor -fellow had done, alone, crying out aloud to the solitudes which answered -him softly with gently stirring branches and murmuring water. Sheldon’s -mood, one of serene, ineffable peace, had had so strong a grasp upon him -that this sign of tragedy and death was hard to grasp. - -He stood long, staring down at the heap of bones. They were tumbled this -way and that. He shuddered. And yet he stood there, fascinated, -wondering, letting his suddenly awakened, overstimulated imagination -have its way. - -There came the query: “What killed him?” - -Sheldon looked up at the cliffs. The man might have fallen. But the -skull was intact; there had been no fracture there. Nor—Sheldon forgot -his previous revulsion of feeling in his strong curiosity—nor was there -a broken bone of arm or leg to indicate a fall. The bones were large; it -had been a big man, six feet or over, and heavy. No; in spite of the -position of the disordered skeleton, death had not come that way. - -For half an hour Sheldon lingered here, restrained a little by the -thoughts rising naturally to the occasion, seeking to read the riddle -set before him. There were no rattlesnakes here, no poisonous insects at -these altitudes. The man had not fallen. To come here at all he must -have been one who knew the mountains; then he had not starved, for the -streams were filled with trout, and he would know the way to trap small -game enough to keep life in him. And what man ever came so deep into the -wild without a rifle? - -It seemed to Sheldon that there was only one answer. The man must have -got caught here in an early snowstorm; he must have lost his head; -instead of going calmly about preparing shelter and laying up provisions -for the winter, he must have raced on madly, getting more hopelessly -lost at every bewildered step—and then the end had come, hideously. - -At last Sheldon moved on, pondering the thoughts which centered about -the white pile of bones which once, perhaps four or five or six years -ago, had been a man. How the poor devil must have cursed the nights that -blotted the world out, the winds which shrieked of snow, the mountains -which rose like walls about a convict. - -“What became of his gun?” cried Sheldon suddenly, speaking aloud. “The -buckle from his belt, the metal things in his pockets, knife, coins, -cartridges? The things which prowling animals can’t eat! They don’t -carry such things off!” - -He came back, walking swiftly. There was little grass so close to the -cliffs; nothing but bare, rocky ground and a few bits of dry wood, two -or three old cones dropped from a pine; nothing to hide the articles -which Sheldon sought. But, although he made assurance doubly sure by -searching carefully for more than an hour, back and forth along the -cliffs, out among the trees, he found nothing. Not so much as the sole -of a boot. - -“And that,” muttered Sheldon, taking up Buck’s lead rope, “if a man -asked me, is infernally strange.” - -As he went on he strove frowningly for an explanation and found none. -The man had not been alone? He had had a companion? This companion had -taken his rifle, his knife and watch, or whatever might have been in his -pockets, and had gone on. Possibly. But, then, why had he not taken the -time to bury the body? And how was it that there was not a single shred -of clothing? - -“Coyotes may be so everlastingly hungry up here that they eat a man’s -boots, soles, nails and all!” grunted Sheldon. “Only—I am not the kind -of a tenderfoot to believe that particular brand of fairy tale. There’s -not even a button!” - -It is the way of the human intellect to contend with locks upon doors -which shut on secrets. The mind, given half of the story, demands the -remainder. John Sheldon, as he trudged on, grew half angry with himself -because he could not answer the questions which insisted upon having -answers. But before noon he had almost forgotten the scattered bones -under the cliffs, the matter thrust to one rim of his thoughts which -must now be given over almost entirely to finding trail. - -For no longer was there meadow-land under foot. The strip of fairly -level, grassy land was gone abruptly; beyond lay boulder-strewn slopes, -fringed with dense brush, all but impassable to the packhorse. - -Often the man must leave the animal while he went ahead seeking a way; -often must the two of them turn back for some unexpected fall of cliff, -all unseen until they were close to the edge, compelling them to retrace -their steps perhaps a hundred yards, or five hundred, and many a time -did Sheldon begin to think that the way was shut to the plucky brute -that labored on under his pack. - -But always he found a way on, a way down. And always, being a man used -to the woods, did he keep in mind that the time might come when he’d -have to turn back for good. If he could in time win on through, come out -at the north end of the Sasnokee-keewan, then he would have had a trip -which left nothing to be desired. - -If, on the other hand, there came cliffs across the trail which Buck -could not make his way down, around which they could not go—why, then, -it was as well to have the way open this way. For Sheldon had no thought -to desert the horse, without which just now he’d make far better time. - -It was the hardest day he had had. That means that half a dozen times -between dawn and dark the man hesitated, on the verge of turning back. -Alone, he could have gone on, and with twice the speed; leading Buck, he -wondered many a time if he could push on another mile without rewarding -his horse with a broken leg. And yet, being a man who disliked turning -back, and having to do with a horse that put all of his faith in his -master unquestioningly, he put another ten miles between him and Belle -Fortune that long, hard day. - -In the afternoon he was forced to leave the creek which was rapidly -growing into a river which shot shouting down through a rocky gorge, -narrow and steep-sided. As the stream began turning off to the west, -Sheldon climbed out of its cañon, made a wide détour to avoid a string -of bare peaks lifting against the northern sky-line, and made a slow and -difficult way over the ridge. In a sort of saddle he left his panting -horse, while he clambered to a spire of rock lifted a score of feet -above the pass. - -He could look back from here and see the stream he had left. Here and -there he caught a glimpse of the water, slipping away between the trees -or flashing over a boulder as it sped down toward the gorge. He was glad -that he had turned aside as soon as he had done; there would have been -no getting out of that chasm unless a man came back here, and he had -lost enough time as it was. - -He turned his eyes toward the north. A true wilderness, if God ever made -one to defy the taming hand of man—a wilderness of mountains, an endless -stretch of bare ridges and snow-capped peaks, a maze of steep-sided -gorges like the one he had just quitted, a stern, all but trackless -labyrinth in which a man, if he were not a fool, must keep his wits -about him. - -“Gods knows,” meditated Sheldon, his spirit touched with that awe which -comes to a man who stands alone as he stood, looking down upon the world -where the Deity has builded in fierce, untrammeled majesty, “a man is a -little thing in a place like this. I suppose, if I were wise, I would -turn tail and get out while I can.” - -And again he pushed on, northward. There was little feed here for Buck; -both horse and man wanted water. Though they had left the creek but two -hours ago, the dry air and summer sun had stirred in them the thirst -which sleeps so little out on the trail. - -Sheldon knew that they had but to make their way down into another -ravine to find water. In these mountains, especially at this early -season, there was no need for one to suffer from thirst. From his -vantage-point, his eyes sweeping back and forth among the peaks and -ridges, he picked out the way he should go for the rest of the day, the -general direction for to-morrow. And then, Buck’s lead-rope again in his -hand, he turned down, gradually seeking the headwaters of the next -stream, hoping for one of the tiny meadows like the one in which he had -camped last night. - -It was four o’clock when he started downward. It was nearly dark when he -came to water. It was such country as he had never seen before. He fully -expected to start back to-morrow. He had seen no game all day; he didn’t -believe that either deer or bear came here. What the deuce would they -come for? They had more brains than a man. Besides, two or three times -Buck had fallen; the next thing would be a broken leg, and no excuse for -it. - -But, nevertheless, he must find pasturage for the night. The horse had -had nothing but the tenderer twigs of young bushes all day, with now and -then a handful of sunflower leaves. The dark had fallen; the moon was up -before Sheldon found what he sought. And he admitted that he was in luck -to find it at all. - -The rocky slope, broken into little falls of cliff, had ended abruptly. -There was an open space, timbered only by a few water-loving trees, the -red willow and alder, and tall grass. Sheldon yanked off pack and pack -saddle, tethered his horse, and went to drink. - -The beauty of the brook—it was scarcely more here near the source—with -the moonlight upon it, impressed him, tired as he was. There was a sandy -bed, gravel strewn, unusual here, where the thing to be expected was the -water-worn rocks. The current ran placidly, widening out to a -willow-fringed pool. The grass stood six inches tall everywhere, -straight, untrampled. - -Sheldon threw himself down to drink. What he had thought the dead white -limb of a tree, lying close to the water’s edge, was a bone. He found -another. Then the skull, half buried in mud and grass. It was the -skeleton of a man. The second in one day’s travel! And, though Sheldon -looked that night and again the next morning, there was nothing to hint -at the cause of this man’s death. Nor was there a gun, an ax, a pocket -knife or watch or strip of boot leather—nothing but the bones which the -seasons had whitened, here and there discolored by the soil into which -they had sunk. - -When a man is as hungry and tired as Sheldon was that night, he does not -squander time in fruitless fancies. He made a rude meal swiftly, rolled -into his blankets, and went to sleep. But he had muttered as he rolled -over to keep the moonlight out of his eyes: - -“We’re not going back yet, Buck, old horse. If other men got this far, -we can go a little farther.” - -And, though he was too tired to lie awake and think, he could not shut -out of his dreams the fancies bred of the two discoveries. The stories -which men told of the Sasnokee-keewan, the superstition-twisted tales of -the Indians, came and went through his brain, distorted into a hundred -guises. This was No-Luck Land—the land into which few men came; the land -from which those few did not return. What got them? What killed them? - -Out of a vision of some great, hideous, ghoulish being which robbed the -dead, even to stripping the bodies of their clothing, Sheldon woke with -a start. The moon shone full in his eyes. Something had wakened him. He -heard it moving there, softly. He sat up, grasping his rifle. It was -very still again suddenly. He could not locate the sound. Maybe it had -been Buck, browsing. No; Buck was tethered beyond the alders, out of -sight. No sound came from there; the horse no doubt was dozing. - -He even got up, vaguely uneasy. He had awakened with the decidedly -uncomfortable feeling that something was above him, staring down into -his face. That, on top of the sort of dream which had been with him all -night, bred in him a stubborn curiosity to know what the something was. - -He went quietly and cautiously back and forth; to where Buck stood, -hidden beyond the trees, dozing, as he had anticipated, across the -brook. He lifted his shoulders distastefully as he stepped by the little -pile of bones. - -There was nothing. It might have been a cat, even a night bird breaking -a twig in the nearest pine. Sheldon went back to his bed. But he was -wide awake now. He lighted his pipe and for an hour sat up, smoking, his -blanket about his shoulders. - -He experienced a strange emotion—something defying analysis—that he -could catalogue only uncertainly as loneliness. It was not fear—not -strong enough for that. He wanted company; it was with a frown that he -checked himself from going to bring his horse close in to his camp. That -would have been childish. - -He moved a little, sitting so that his back was against the tree. - - -CHAPTER III. FOOTPRINTS AND MONUMENTS. - -It had been in the small hours of the night that Sheldon woke. The fire -he had replenished before turning in was a mere bed of coals. He threw a -log across it, and at last dozed. Again he was up and about with the -first streaks of dawn. The sky was pearl-pink when he threw the diamond -hitch and was ready to take up the trail again. - -And now, calm-thoughted with the light of day, he hesitated. Should he -go on? Or should he turn back? - -As though for an answer, he went to the crossing where the scattered -bones lay close to the water. And the answer to his question came to -him, presenting him a fresh riddle. If he had stared wonderingly when he -came upon the skull at the cliffs back yonder, now did he stare -stupefied. There came a vague, misty fear that he was growing fanciful, -that he was seeing things which did not exist. He got down on his knees, -his face not two feet from the track in the sandy margin of the creek. - -Something had passed there last night; the track was very fresh. -Whatever it was that had wakened him had crossed here. And what was it? -He sought to be certain; he must be conservative. The track was -imperfect; the lapping of the water broke down the little ridges of sand -the passing foot had pushed up; the imprint would be gone entirely in a -few hours. And there was no other here, for the grass came close down to -the water. - -He looked quickly across the stream. There there was a little strip of -wet soil. The water boiling unheeded about his boots, he strode across. -Despite the man’s quiet nerves, his heart was beating like mad. For he -saw that there was a track here, fresh, made last night. And another. -Now he did not need to go down on his knees. The imprints were clearly -outlined, as definite as though drawn upon a sheet of paper. - -And they were the tracks of a bare, human foot. - -If it had been the big track of a big man, Sheldon’s heart would not -have hammered so. But it was the track that might have marked the -passing here of a boy of ten or twelve—or of a girl! - -“A child or a woman came last night and looked at me as I slept,” -muttered the man wonderingly. “Here, God knows how many miles from -anywhere! Barefooted, prowling around in the middle of the night! Good -God! The cursed thing is uncanny!” - -As he had felt it before, but now more overwhelmingly, was his soul -oppressed with the bigness of the solitude about him. He was a pygmy who -had blundered into a giant’s land. He was as a little boy in the -inscrutable presence of majesty and mystery. For a little it seemed to -him that in the still, white dawn he stood hemmed about by the -supernatural. - -Why should there be two white piles of unburied human bones here in a -day’s travel? Why should there be a fresh track in the wet soil made by -a little naked foot in the night? Why should every bit of metallic -substance disappear from the presence of those dead men? Why should his -visitor of last night peer down at him and then slip away, with no word? - -He frowned. Unconsciously he was connecting the bleached skeleton and -the fresh track. The man had been dead perhaps half a dozen years; the -track had not been there so many hours. He was growing fanciful with a -vengeance. - -It was with an effort of will that he cleared his mind of the wild tales -which he had heard told of the Sasnokee-keewan. For a little he sought -to believe that he had been so hopelessly confused in his sense of -direction that he had made a great curve and had come back to some one -of the outposts of civilization; that even now he was separated only by -a ridge, or by a bend in the cañon, from a lumber-camp or mining -settlement. But he knew otherwise. One doesn’t find bleaching human -bones lying disinterred upon the edge of a village. - -He sought to follow the tracks across the bed of the cañon and could -not. They here were lost in the grass, which was not tall enough to bow -to the light passing. But a hundred yards farther down the creek he came -upon them again, fresh tracks of little bare feet, clearly outlined in a -muddy crossing. The imprint of the heel was faint; the toes had sunk -deep. - -“Running,” grunted Sheldon. “And going like the very devil, too, I’ll -bet.” - -He went back for Buck. - -“We’re going on, old horse,” he informed his animal. “The Lord knows -what we’re getting into. But if a kid of a boy can make it, I guess we -can.” - -For he preferred to think of it as a boy. That a barefoot woman should -be running about here in the heart of the mountains, peering down at a -man sleeping, scampering away as he woke—“prowling around,” as he put -it—well, it was simpler to think of a half-grown boy doing it. - -“Or a man stunted in his growth,” he thought for the first time. - -And the thought remained with him. One could conceive of a man who had -never got his full growth physically, who was stunted mentally as well, -a half-crazed, half-wild being, who fled here, who subsisted in a state -little short of savagery, who crept through the moonlit forests subtly -stirred by the weird moon-madness, who hunted like the other wild -things. - -“Who slipped up behind a man and drove a knife into his back! Who even -made way with the clothing, everything, leaving the bones to whiten -through summer and winter as other animals of prey left the creatures -they had killed!” - -Big were the forests, limitless, seeming as vast as infinity itself, -resting heavy and still upon a man’s soul. The feeling of last night, -the loneliness, the sort of unnamed dread came back upon John Sheldon. -He shook it off with an impatient imprecation. But all day it hovered -about him. Again he was glad of his horse’s companionship. - -Not a nervous man, still he was not without imagination. He began to be -oppressed with the stillness of the wilderness. As he pushed on -downstream, watchful for other tracks, he came into a valley which -widened until it was perhaps a mile across, carpeted with grass, -timbered with the biggest trees he had seen since leaving Belle Fortune, -their boles five and six and seven feet through, every one a monument of -majesty, planted centuries before some long-forgotten ancestor of John -Sheldon learned of a land named America. - -There were wide, open spaces. One looking through the giant trunks -seemed always looking down the long, dimly lit aisle of the chief temple -of the gods of the world. Power, and venerable age—and silence! A -silence so eternal that it seemed veritably tangible and indomitable. - -A man wanted at once to call out, to shatter the heavy stillness which -bore upon his soul, and felt his lips grown mute. The creek gurgled, -here and there a cone fell or there was the twitter of a bird; these -sounds passed through the silence, accentuated it, were a part of it, a -foil to it, but in no way disturbed the ancient reign of silence. - -Through this world, which might have come at dawn from the hand of its -Maker, Sheldon pushed on swiftly, his brain alive with a hundred -questions and fancies. Where there was loose, soft dirt, where there was -a likely crossing, he looked for tracks. And as hour after hour passed -he found nothing to indicate that he was not, as he had imagined until -this morning, alone in this part of the Sasnokee-keewan. - -And yet he thought that last night’s visitor was ahead of him. True, a -half-demented, supercunning wild man might have hidden behind any of -those big tree-trunks, might even now be watching him with feverishly -bright eyes. Sheldon must chance that; he could not seek behind every -tree in this forest of countless thousands. But he could feel pretty -well assured that the creature he sought had not fled to east or to west -any considerable distance. For on either hand, seen here and there -through the trees, the sides of the cañon rose to steep cliffs where a -man would have to toil for hours to make his way half-way up. - -Noon came. Again Sheldon was in a swiftly narrowing gorge. No longer was -the world silent about him. The roar and thunder of water shouting and -echoing through the rocky defile nearly deafened him. Suddenly his path -seemed shut off in front. It was impossible to get a horse over the -ridge here on either hand; impossible to ford the torrent where many a -treacherous hole hid under boiling water. He lunched and rested here, -wondering if he must turn back. - -While Buck browsed, Sheldon sought the way out. He turned to his right, -climbing the flank of the mountain. A man could go up readily enough at -this spot, clambering from one rock to another. The boulders were not -unlike easily imagined steps placed by the giant deity of the wild. But -it took no second look to be sure that never was the horse foaled that -could follow its master here. - -Tempting the man there rose from the ridge a tall, bare, and barren peak -from which he could hope to have an extended sweep of world about him. -He thought that he could come to it within an hour. And if he were to -retrace his steps a little, seeking an escape from the _cul de sac_ into -which the stream had led him, it was well to have a look at the country -now from some such peak. - -He had done this before, perhaps half a dozen times, always selecting -carefully the peak which promised the widest expanse of view with the -least brush to struggle through. But never had he had the unlimited -panorama which rewarded him now. At last he was at the top, after not -one but two hours’ hard climb; and he felt that, in sober truth, he had -found the top of the world, that he had surmounted it, that he was less -in its realm than in that of the wide, blue sky. - -Far below the thunder of the stream he had just left was lost, smothered -in the walls of its own cañon, stifled among the forests. Here there -mounted only the whisper from the imperceptibly stirring millions of -branches, not unlike the vague murmur in a sea shell. The peak itself -might have been the altar of the god of silence. - -East, west, south, whence he had come, Sheldon saw ridge on ridge, peak -after peak, No-Luck Land running away until, with other ridges and -peaks, it melted into the sky-line. - -Looking north, and almost at his feet, the mountainside fell away -precipitously. He estimated that he was at an altitude not less than -eleven thousand feet. There was snow here, plenty of it, thawing so -slowly that not nearly all of it would be gone when the winter came -again. - -Below him, in the tumbled boulders, were pockets of snow, with bare -spaces, and the hardy mountain flowers in the shallow soil. Down he -looked and down, until it seemed as though the steep-sided mountains -fell away many thousands of dizzy feet. And there below was the wide -valley, all one edge of it meadow-land, all the other edge given over to -a mighty forest, and at the jagged line lying between wood and field a -little lake, calm and blue, with white rocks along the farther rim. - -On all sides of the valley lay the sheer mountains, shutting it in so -that a man might look down and see the beauties beneath him and yet -hesitate to descend, thinking of the difficulties of getting both in and -out. - -Sheldon had not forgotten the imprint of the bare foot. Nor was he ready -to give up the search he had begun, there being no little stubbornness -in the man’s nature. - -But he stared long down into the valley before him, thinking of the -solitude to be found there; the game to be hunted if a man sought game; -thinking that some time he would make his way down yonder, joying in the -thought that his foot would be the first for years, perhaps generations -or even centuries, to travel there. No, however, he would turn back to -where Buck waited; seek the pass that must lead out, and learn, if it -was fated that he should know, who had made the tracks at the crossing. - -His eyes, sweeping now across the field of tumbled rocks which topped -the ridge at the base of his peak, were arrested by a flat piece of -granite resting on top of a boulder which rose conspicuously above its -neighbors. - -_A monument!_ - -Here, where only a second ago he had told himself that perhaps no other -human foot than his own had come! The old sign of a man-made trail, the -sign to be read from afar, to last on into eternity. For the shrieking -winds of winter and the racing snows do not budge the flat rock laid -carefully upon flat-topped stone. - -Was he tricking himself? Had nature, in some one of her mad moods, done -this trick? He strode over to it swiftly, sliding down the side of the -slope up which he had clambered, making his way by leaps and bounds from -rock to rock. - -The monument was man-made. - -Nature doesn’t go out of her way, as some man had done, to get a block -of granite, carry it a hundred yards _up-hill_, and place it upon a rock -of another kind and shade where it can be the more conspicuous. - -One monument calls for another in a trackless field of stone. In a -moment, farther along the ridge, he found the second monument. He -hurried to it. Yonder, lower on the slope, was the third; a hundred -yards farther on, the fourth! - -He got the trend of the trail now, for it curved only a bit, and then -ran straight, straight toward the eastern rim of the valley lying far -below him. And the other way, the trail ran back toward the cañon from -which he had climbed. A trail here, in the very innermost heart of the -Sasnokee-keewan, where men said there were no trails! - -Eagerly he turned back toward the cañon. Monument after monument he -found, leading cunningly between giant boulders, under cliffs, down a -little, upward a little, down again, slowly, gradually seeking the lower -altitude. Again and again Sheldon lost the way, which had but rock set -on rock to indicate it; but always, going back, he picked it up again. - -There were a dozen monuments to show the way before he came down into -the meadow a mile above the spot where he had left Buck. And here also, -at the base of the slope fully two hundred yards from the willows of the -creek, he found a fresh, green willow-rod. It had been dropped here not -more than a few hours ago, for the white wood where the bark had been -torn away was not dried out. A bit of the bark itself he could tie into -a knot without breaking it. And the stick had been cut with a sharp -knife, the smooth end showing how one stroke had cut evenly through the -half-inch branch. - -“My wild man came this way,” was Sheldon’s eager thought. “He knew the -trail over the mountain, and has gone on ahead. And that knife of his—” - -He shuddered in spite of himself, and again cursed himself for getting -what he called “nerves.” But he thought that it was a fair bet that same -knife had been driven into the backs of at least two men. - -He went back for his horse, walking swiftly. Three hours had slipped -away since noon. But he told himself that he was not “burning daylight.” -He had found a way over the mountain, a way he believed his horse could -go with him. And if luck was good, he’d camp to-night in the valley down -into which he had looked from the peak. - -And somewhere, far ahead of him, perhaps not a thousand feet away, -watching him from behind some tree or rock, was his “wild man!” He was -beginning to be certain that it was a man, a little fellow, dwarfed in -body and mind and soul, and yet— - -And yet the track might have been that of a boy of ten, or of a woman. -Right then he swore that he was going to find out whose track that was -before he turned his back on the Sasnokee-keewan. - -“I’d never be able to get it out of my head if I lived to be a thousand -years old if I didn’t get a look at the thing,” he assured himself. -“Thank God it’s early in the season.” - -When he stopped to rest, he already had the habit of keeping his back to -a tree. - - -CHAPTER IV. THE CHASE. - -Again Sheldon traveled on until after nightfall and moonrise. Even the -long twilight of these latitudes had faded when finally, following the -monuments of an old, old trail, he came down into the valley which he -had overlooked from the peak. - -Horse and man were alike tired and hungry. They found a small stream, -and in the first grove where there was sufficient grass, Sheldon made -his camp for the night. And the fact that he was tired was not the only -reason, not even the chief reason perhaps, that he did not build his -customary camp-fire. - -He ate a couple of cold potatoes, a handful of dried venison, a raw -onion, and was content. He even decided that he’d manage without a fire -in the morning. The smoke of his fire last night had, no doubt, told of -his coming; he meant now to see his wild man before the wild man saw -him. So he put it to himself as he tethered Buck in the heart of the -grove and made his own bed. And he slept, as a man must sleep so often -out on the trail, “with one eye open.” - -Through the night he dozed, waking many times. He must have slept -soundly just before morning. With the dawn he woke again and did not go -to sleep. The uneasy sense was with him, as it had been before that -something had wakened him. He sat up, listening. - -Only silence and the twitterings of the birds awaking with him. And -still a sound echoing in his ears which he could not believe had been -only the unreal murmur in a dream. He drew on his boots and slipped out -of his blankets. He was wide awake and with no wish to go to sleep -again. Turning toward the creek, he stopped suddenly. - -There was a sound, far off, faint, only dimly audible. A sound which was -at once like the call of some wild thing, some forest creature in -distress, and yet like the cry of no animal Sheldon had ever heard. He -strained his ears to hear. It was gone, sinking into the silence. And -yet he had heard and his blood was tingling. - -He snatched up his rifle and ran downstream, dodging behind trees as he -went, pausing now and then to peer through the early light, hurrying on -again. - -“This time, if it _is_ you, Mr. Wild Man,” he muttered, “I’ll be the one -who does the creeping up on you.” - -Two hundred yards he went, hearing nothing. Then again it came, a faint, -sobbing cry which, as before, stirred his blood strangely. It was so -human, and yet not human, he thought. Less than human, more than -human—which? Inarticulate, wordless, a bubbling cry of fear, or of -physical suffering? The call was gone, sinking as it had sunk before, -and again he ran on, his pulses bounding. - -With sudden abruptness, before he was aware of it, he had shot out of -the timbered land and upon the edge of the little blue lake he had -looked down upon yesterday afternoon. Not a hundred paces from him the -breeze-stirred ripples of the lake were lapping upon the sandy shore. - -Here was one of those white rocks he had marked at the lake’s side. And -here upon the rock, arms tossed out toward the sun, which even as he -paused breathless shot a first glimmer above the tree-tops, was “his -wild man.” - -Clad only in the shaggy skin of a brown bear, which was caught over one -shoulder, under the other, stitched at the sides with thongs; arms bare, -legs, feet bare, the body a burnished copper, the hair long and blown -about the shoulders, was a—girl! - -He gasped as he saw, still uncertain. A dead limb cracked under his -feet, and quick as a deer starts when he hears a man’s step she whirled -about, fronting him. He saw her face clearly, and the arm lifted raising -his rifle fell lax at his side. For surely she was young, and unless the -light lied she was beautiful. - -About her forehead, caught into her hair, were strange, red flowers -unknown to him. Her arms were round and brown and unthinkably graceful -in their swift movements. She was as alert as any wild thing he had ever -seen, and had in every gesture that inimitable, swift grace which -belongs by birthright to the denizens of the woodlands. - -Only an instant did they confront each other thus, the man stricken with -a wonder which was half incredulity; the girl still under the shock of -surprise. And then, with a little cry, unmistakably of fear, she had -leaped from the rock, landed lightly upon the grassy sod, and was -running along the lake-shore, her hair floating behind her, flowers -dropping from it as she ran. - -And John Sheldon, the instant of uncertainty passed, was running -mightily after her, shouting. - -Not until long, long afterward did the affair strike him as having in it -certain of the elements of comedy. Now, God knows, it was all sober -seriousness. He shouted to her in English, crying, “Stop; I won’t hurt -you!” He shouted in an Indian dialect of which scraps came to him at his -need. And then, breathless, he gave over calling. - -She had turned her face a little, and he was near enough to hazard the -guess that she was frightened, and that at every shout of his the fear -of him but leaped the higher in the throbbing breast under the bearskin. -So he just settled down to good, hard running; he, John Sheldon, who, in -all the days of his life, had never so much as run after a girl, even -figuratively speaking. - -Even above the surge of a score of other emotions this one stood up in -his heart—he counted himself as good a man as other men, and this girl -was running away from him as an antelope runs away from a plodding -plow-horse. - -He saw her clear a fallen log, leaping lightly, and when he came to it -he marveled at its size, and as he leaped feared for a second that he -was not going to make it. Already she had gained on him; she was still -gaining. She looked over her shoulder again; he fancied that the -startled terror had gone, that she was less afraid, being confident that -she was the fleeter. - -“And yet, deuce take it,” he grunted in a sort of anger, “I can’t shoot -her!” - -The little bare, brown feet seemed to him to have wings, so light and -fleet were they, so smoothly and with such amazing speed did they carry -her on. Seeing that she would infallibly distance him and slip away from -him into the woods where he could never hope to come upon her again, he -lifted his voice once more, shouting. And then he cursed himself for a -fool. For at the first sound of his voice, booming out loudly, she ran -but the faster. - -Then suddenly Sheldon thought that he saw his chance. Yonder, a few -hundred yards ahead of her, was a wide clearing, and in it he saw that a -long arm of the lake was flung far out to the right. She would have to -turn there; he did not wait, but turned out now, hoping to cut her off -before she could come around the head of the arm of the lake, which, no -doubt, in her excitement, she had forgotten. - -Straight on she ran. He saw her flash through a little clump of shrubs -close to the water’s edge; saw that she was going straight on, and then -guessed her purpose. She was not going to turn out. She had disappeared -behind the trees. He thought that he had seen her leap far out, just a -glint of sun on the bronze of her outflung arms. - -Still he pounded on, turning to the right, certain that he could come to -the far side before she could swim it. But the arm of the lake extended -farther than he had anticipated; already she was far out, swimming as he -had seen no man swim in all his life, and he knew that the race was -hers. Panting, he stopped and watched; saw the flashing arms, the dark -head with the hair floating behind her. - -“It’s a wonder that bearskin doesn’t drown her!” was his thought. - -And then, coming close to where she had disappeared behind the bushes, -he saw the bearskin lying at the edge of the lake, the water lapping it. -And John Sheldon, who seldom swore; never when the occasion did not -demand it, said simply: - -“Well, I’ll be damned. I most certainly will be damned.” - -He picked the thing up and looked out across the lake. Just in time to -catch the glint of the sun upon a pair of bronze arms thrown high up as -though in triumph as his “quarry,” speeding through the screen of -willows, disappeared again. - -“The little devil!” he muttered, a little in rage, a great deal in -admiration. - -Carrying the trailing bearskin, still warm from the touch of her body, -he turned again to the right, trudging on stubbornly along the arm of -the lake. There was no particular reason why he should carry the -bearskin. But on he went with it, a trophy of the chase. And in his -heart was as stubborn a determination as had ever grown up in that -stubborn stronghold. He’d find her, he’d get the explanation of this -madness, if it was the last thing in the world he ever did. - -And then suddenly, lacking neither imagination nor chivalric delicacy, -he felt his face growing red with embarrassment. The situation seemed to -him to be presenting its difficulties. - - -CHAPTER V. THE TOMB OF DREAMS. - -Sheldon gave over asking himself unanswerable questions and hurried on -around the end of the lake and into the forest beyond where the lithe -racing figure had shot through the shadows like a shimmering gleam of -light. - -He found her trail and followed it easily, for it ran in a straight line -and through a meadow where the grass stood tall and had broken before -her. - -Only infrequently did it swerve to right or left to avoid one of the big -trees in her path. As Sheldon went on he saw many a field flower or tuft -of grass which she had bent in her passing straighten up; it seemed to -him almost that they were sentient little creatures seeking to tell him -“She went this way!” - -He was fully prepared to follow the track of her wild flight across -miles if need be, his one hope being that she continued in a meadow like -this which held the sign of her going. He was no longer running at the -top speed with which the chase had begun, nor was he walking as he had -been for a moment while she swam. His gait had settled down into a -steady, hammering pace which he could keep up for an hour, his one hope -being now to win with his greater endurance. - -For the most part his eyes kept to the ground that he might not lose the -trail and much precious time finding it again. Only now and then would -he glance up, to right or left, to make certain that she had not turned -out at last to double back or seek shelter in the mountain slopes. - -And as he came plunging with accelerated speed down a gentle incline, -swinging about a grove of young firs which stood with outflung branches -interlacing so that they made a dense dark wall, his eyes were upon the -ground, watchful for her trail. - -For a second he lost it; then, without checking his speed he found it, -turning again, a very little, this time to the left to avoid a second -thickly massed group of young firs. - -He ran around this, swerved again a very little as he came up out of the -hollow and to a flat open space, saw the track leading straight across -the level sward, entered a larger grove of firs, lost the trail for a -dozen steps, ran on, shot out of the grove and—came to a dead halt, -staring in utter amazement. - -If at that moment he had been asked who in all the wide world was the -simon-pure king of fools, he would have answered in unqualified -vehemence, “John Sheldon!” - -With a bearskin which he must admit he had acquired rather in defiance -of convention, in one hand, with a rifle in the other, his hat back -yonder somewhere under the limb which had knocked it off, looking he was -sure such a fool as never a man looked before, he was standing with both -feet planted squarely in the middle of the main street of a town! - -He had more than a suspicion that in some mysterious way he had gotten -very drunk without knowing it. He was by no means positive that he was -not a raving maniac. If he had been obliged to tell his name at that -bewildering second it is a toss whether he would have said “King -Sheldon,” or “John Fool.” - -His mind was a blank to all emotions and sensations save the one that -reddened his face. If a man had ever foretold that he would some day see -a girl out in the woods, upon a lake shore where no doubt she was going -to take a bath; that he would first scare her half out of her wits and -then wildly pursue her for a quarter of a mile, shouting God knows what -madness at her; that he’d grab up the morning robe which she’d worn and -come waving it after as he ran; that he’d rush on so blindly that he -didn’t know what he was doing until he was right square in the middle of -a town—well, it would be mild to say that he would have dubbed that man -an incurable idiot. - -And yet in front of him stood a house, builded compactly of logs and -rudely squared timbers, that might have stood there half of a century. -To the right stood a house. To the left a house. Straight ahead ran a -narrow street, houses upon the right, houses upon the left. In that -blindly groping moment he felt that he had never seen so many houses all -at once in all the days of his life. And yet he was no stranger to San -Francisco or Vancouver nor yet New York! - -He hardly knew what to expect first: A great shout of laughter as men -and women saw him, or a shot from a double-barreled shotgun. - -“If she’s got a father or a brother and he doesn’t shoot me,” he -muttered, “he’s no man.” - -But there came neither shout of laughter nor shot of gun. As the first -wave of stupefaction surged over him and passed, leaving him a little -more clear-thoughted, there came the inclination to draw back swiftly -into the trees before he was seen. - -But he stood stone still. For at last it was evident that there was no -one to see. There was the town, unmistakably a typical, rude mining -camp. But it was still, deserted, a veritable city of desolation. - -Nowhere did a rock chimney send up its smoke to stain the clear sky; the -street was empty, grown up with grass and weeds and even young trees; no -child’s voice in laughter or man or woman’s voice calling; no dog’s bark -to vibrate through the stillness which was absolute; no sound of ax on -wood or of hammer or of horses’ hoofs; no stirring object upon the steps -which were rotting away, nor at door or window. - -No sign of life, though he turned this way and that, searching. -Everywhere the wilderness was pushing in again where once man had come, -vanquishing it. Before him was the most drearily desolate scene that had -ever stood out before his eyes. In some strange way it was unutterably, -indescribably sad. - -He came on again, slowly. Obeying an impulse which he did not -consciously recognize, he stepped softly as a man does in a death -chamber. His soul was oppressed, his spirit drooped suddenly as the -atmosphere of the abandoned camp fell upon it. - -By daylight, gloom haunted the tenantless buildings; by night, here -would be melancholia’s own demesne. Nowhere else in the world does one -find that terrible sadness which spreads its somber wings in the abode -of man long given over to the wild to be a lair for its soft-footed -children. - -More questions demanding answers and all unanswerable. He sought to -throw off the influence which had fallen upon him and went on more -swiftly, seeking the girl who had fled here. Had she stopped in one of -these ruined houses? Was one of them “home” to her? Who lived here with -her? And why? Were they, like himself, chance comers, newly arrived? Or -did they, like the log houses, belong to this land; were they like -everything of man here, being drawn back into the mighty arms of the -wild? - -This part of the world, the fastnesses stretching from Belle Fortune to -Ruminoff Shanty on the Gold River, was what he and his fellows glibly -called “new country.” What country on the earth is new? What nook or -corner has not once known the foot of man and his conquering hand? And, -given time, what bit of the world has not in the end hurled its -conqueror out, trodden down his monuments, made dust of his labors, and -crowned his hearths in creeping vines and forgetfulness, wresting it all -back from him? - -The thoughts which came to him had their own way in a mind which was -half given to the search resumed. Questions came involuntarily; he did -not pause or seek to answer them. Hurriedly he went up and down, turning -out for fallen timbers, circling tangled growths. - -At every open door and window he looked in eagerly, noting less the -sagging panels and broken shutters than the dark interiors. Many roofs -had fallen, many walls were down, many buildings were but rectangular -heaps of ruins grown over grass. But other houses, builded solidly of -great logs, with sturdy steep roofs, stood defiantly. - -“There was a time when hundreds of men lived here,” he thought as he -hastened on. “Men and women, maybe, and perhaps children! Why did they -go like this? Even a town may die like a man, even its name be forgotten -in a generation or two.” - -Pushing through a rear yard long ago so reclaimed by the wilderness that -he must fight his way through brush shoulder high, he came out suddenly -upon a path. It ran, broad and straight, toward the lake. There, upon a -little knoll, until now hidden from him by the trees, was the largest -building of the village, the one in a state of the best preservation. -The path ran to the door. On either side of the doorstep, cleared of -weeds, was a space in which grew tall red flowers. He stopped a moment, -his heart beating fast. - -The door was closed, the windows were covered with heavy shutters. He -came on again, walking warily, his eyes everywhere at once. What should -a man expect here in the dead city of the Sasnokee-keewan? A rifle ball -as readily as anything else. And yet he came on steadily, his own rifle -ready. - -At last he stood not ten steps from the closed door, wondering. Some one -lived here; so much was certain. The well-worn path told it eloquently. -Then, too, there were signs of digging about the little flower garden. A -woman’s work—hers. And she, herself, was she in there now? - -“I might go up to the door and knock,” he muttered. “The regular way -when you want to know if any one is at home! But I have precious little -desire to become pile of bleached bones number three.” - -He lifted his voice and called. A startled squirrel that had been -watching him curiously vanished with a sudden whisk of tail, and a big -woodpecker upon a distant falling wall cocked a pair of bright eyes at -him impertinently. Sheldon waited, turned this way and that, called -again. Then again, louder. - -“Devil take it,” he grunted in sudden irritation. “There’s got to be an -end of this tomfoolery. If I have to do with crazy folk I might as well -know it now as any time.” - -He went up the two steps to the door and rapped sharply. Still there -came no answer. He rapped again and then put his hand to the latch. The -door was fastened from within. - -“Who’s in there?” he called. “Can’t you answer me?” - -His voice died away into silence; the woodpecker went back to his -carpentering. A hush lay over the world about him. - -He called again, explained that his intentions were friendly, argued -with the silence, pleaded and then lost his temper. - -“Open!” he shouted, “or by the Lord I’ll beat your old door off its -hinges!” - -Then, for the first time, he thought that he heard a sound from within, -the gentle fall of a foot as some one moved. His head turned a little, -listening eagerly, he heard no other sound. - -Lifting his rifle, he drove the butt hard against the door. It creaked, -rattled, and held. He struck again, harder. - -His rifle was swung back for the third blow when a voice answered him, -the voice of a girl, clear but troubled, uncertain, thrilling him -strangely with the note in it he had heard this morning when he awoke, -suggesting as it did the wild. - -“Wait,” said the voice. “Wait—a—little—while.” - -To describe the voice, to put a name to the subtle quality of it which -made it different from any other voice Sheldon had ever heard was as -impossible as to describe the perfume of a violet to one who has no -olfactory nerve. - -But in one respect her speech was definitely distinctive, in that each -word came separately, enunciated slowly, spoken with the vaguest hint of -an effort, as though her tongue were not used to shaping itself to words -at all. - -“All right,” answered Sheldon. “That’s fair. How long do you want me to -wait?” - -“Just—little—bit,” came the clear answer, the little pauses seeming to -indicate that she was seeking always for the right word. -“Not—damn—long.” - -“Oh!” said Sheldon. - -“Go over by that house that is all broken,” continued the voice. “Then I -will open the door.” There came a pause, then the words uttered with -great impressiveness: “Do what I say almighty quick or I’ll cut your -white liver out!” - -Sheldon obeyed, wondering more than ever. As he went he dropped the -bearskin close to the door. - -“I’m putting your—your dress where you can reach out and get it,” he -said as he went. - -There was no answer. - - -CHAPTER VI. KING MIDAS AND NAPOLEON. - -As directed, Sheldon went back down the knoll until he stood near a -tumble-down shanty there, some fifty or sixty feet from the sturdy log -house, from which he did not remove his eyes. As he went the door opened -a very little, just enough for a pair of alert and vigilant eyes to -watch him. - -When he stopped he was prepared to see a round, brown arm slip out to -retrieve the fallen bearskin. But instead the door opened quickly, there -stepped out what at first glance seemed to be a boy clad in man’s -trousers, boots, and terribly torn and patched blue shirt. But her hair -lay in two loosely plaited braids across her shoulders, and hardly the -second glance was needed to assure him that here was no boy, but she who -had fled before him. - -In coming out the door had opened just far enough for her to pass out, -then had been closed so quickly that he had had no glimpse of the -cabin’s interior. She stood still, a hand upon the latch behind her, -facing him. - -Sheldon raised his hand to lift his hat, remembered and said quietly: - -“Good morning.” - -“Good morning,” she repeated after him. - -He was near enough to guess something of what lay in her eyes. Certainly -a strange sort of curiosity underlay her penetrating gaze which seemed -in all frankness to search deeply for all that a long look could tell -her. - -And, it seemed to him, under this look lay another that hinted to him -that she’d whirl, jerk the door open, and disappear in a flash if he so -much as took a step forward. So he moved back another pace or two, to -reassure her, leaning against a fragment of wall. - -If she regarded him with fixed intentness, no less did the man stare at -her. There was every sign of hasty dressing; she must have drawn on the -first garments falling to her hurrying hands. The boots were -unquestionably many sizes too large; trousers and shirt were monstrously -ill-fitting. And, even so, the amazing thing was that she was most -undeniably pretty. And, burned as she was from the sun, she was not an -Indian. Her hair was a sunkissed brown; her eyes, he fancied, were gray. - -“I am sorry,” said Sheldon after a considerable silence, “that I -frightened you just now.” - -Her gaze did not waver, lost nothing of its steady, searching -intentness. He could see no change of expression upon her slightly -parted lips. She offered no remark to his, but stood waiting. - -“I think,” he went on in a little, putting all of the friendliness he -could manage into his voice, “that I was at first startled as much as -you. I’d hardly expected to stumble upon a girl here, you know!” - -If she did know she didn’t take the trouble to tell him that she did. -There was something positively disconcerting in the scrutiny to which -she so openly subjected him. - -“You see,” he continued his monologue stoutly, determined to overlook -any little idiosyncrasies, “it was a surprise to me to see your tracks, -in the first place. And then to come upon you like that—and to find this -old settlement here— Why, I had always thought that no man had ever so -much as builded him a dugout in the Sasnokee-keewan.” - -He stopped suddenly. It struck him as ridiculous: this was he babbling -on while she stood there looking at him like that. Certainly he had -given her ample opportunity to say something. Yet she seemed to have not -the slightest intention of opening her mouth. Still she watched him as -one might watch some new, strange animal. - -“What’s the matter?” he demanded sharply, her attitude beginning to -irritate him. “Can’t you talk?” - -“Yes.” Just the monosyllable, clearly enunciated. She had answered his -question; he hoped she would go on. But she made no offer to do so. - -“Well,” cried the man, “why don’t you? You’re not keeping still because -we haven’t been introduced, are you? Good Lord, why do you look at me -like I was part of a side show? Didn’t you ever see a man before? I’m -not trying to flirt with you! Say something!” - -His nerves had been tense, and at best his temper was likely to flare -out now and then. He wished for a second that she was a few years -younger so that he could take her across his knee. - -“Flirt?” she repeated after him, lifting her brows. She shook her head. -“What must I say?” - -The suspicion came upon him that she was secretly enjoying herself at -his expense, and he said quickly: - -“I should think you could find a number of things to say here where a -stranger doesn’t come every day. You might even ask me inside and strain -no sense of convention. You might offer me a cup of coffee and nobody -would accuse you of being forward! You might tell me where I am and what -town this is—or was. You might tell me something about the rest of your -party, where they are, and when I can have a talk with some one who is -willing to talk.” - -For a moment she seemed to be pondering what he had said. Then, as -bidden, she answered, speaking slowly, taking up point by point: - -“You cannot come inside. I would lock the door. I would shoot you with a -big gun I have in there. It is like yours, but bigger. Coffee?” She -shook her head as she had before. “I don’t know what that is. This town -is Johnny’s Luck. I have no one else for you to talk to. You must go -away.” - -Sheldon stared at her incredulously. The short laugh with which he meant -to answer her was a bit forced, unconvincing in his own ears. The girl -watched him with the same keen, speculative eyes. - -“You don’t mean for me to believe that you are here all alone?” he -demanded. - -She hesitated. Then she answered in her own words of a moment ago: - -“I have no one else for you to talk to.” - -“That’s pure nonsense, you know,” he retorted bluntly. She made no -reply. - -“I got off my trail and blundered into this place,” he went on -presently. “I’m going on out presently. I’m not going to trouble you or -any of your people.” - -“That is nice,” was the first remark voluntarily given. Sheldon flushed. - -“Just the same,” he said a little sternly, “I’m not going out like a -blind fool without finding out a thing or two. If you’re up to some kind -of a lark it strikes me that it’s run on about long enough. There’s -precious little use in your pretending to be the only one in here.” - -By now he knew better than to expect her to speak except in reply to a -direct question, and so continued: - -“Will you tell me who you are?” - -“I am Paula.” - -“Paula?” he said. “Paula _what_?” - -“Just Paula,” quietly. - -“But your other name?” - -“I have just one name. I am Paula.” - -For the life of him he did not know what to make of her. There was the -possibility that she was playing with him. In that case she played her -part amazingly well! There was the possibility that she spoke in actual -as well as in seeming sincerity. - -“Who is your father?” he asked abruptly. - -And at her answer, calmly, quietly spoken, he was startled into the -suspicion of the third possibility—madness. - -For she had answered gravely: - -“He is a king. His name is Midas.” - -From under gathered brows his eyes probed at her like knives. Was she -hoaxing him, or was she mad? Unless she was crazed why did she so -cleverly seek to appear so? What maid stands out before a man, stranger -though he be, and poses to him in the light of an insane woman? If she -were not mad, then why was she striving to make him believe her so? Then -why? - -He had come to her for answers, and he but got new questions that were, -as yet, unanswerable. When he spoke again it was thoughtfully. - -“Why do you tell me your father is King Midas?” he asked. - -“Because you said to me, ‘Who is your father?’” - -“And you just naturally and truthfully tell me he is a king! What’s the -use of this nonsense?” - -She made no reply. There was a little silence before he spoke. There -came to him clearly the sound as of some heavy object falling upon bare -floor within the cabin. - -“There is some one else in there!” he exclaimed impatiently. “Who is it? -Why don’t they come out and answer me sensibly if you won’t?” - -Positively now there was a quick look of alarm upon her face. For a -second he thought that she was going to whisk back into the house. And -then she cried hurriedly: - -“He is in there—yes. The king! And Napoleon is there and Richard and -Johnny Lee. Shall I throw open the door for them to put out their guns -and shoot you?” - -“Great Heavens!” gasped Sheldon. And to her, wonderingly, “Why should -they shoot me? What harm am I doing any one?” - -“I know!” Her voice, until now so quiet, suddenly rang out passionately. -“You come from the world outside, from over there!” she threw out her -arm widely toward the south. “You come over the mountains from the world -outside where all men are bad! Where they fight like beasts for what we -have here, where they steal and kill and cheat and lie and snatch from -one another like hungry coyotes and wolves! You come here to steal and -kill. I know! Haven’t others come before you, bad men creeping in from -the outside?” - -A strange sort of shiver ran through Sheldon’s blood. But, with quick -inspiration, he asked her: - -“And what has happened to them?” - -“They died!” was the unhesitating answer. “As you, too, will die and -quick if you do not go out and leave us. I should have killed you last -night while you slept. But you startled me; I had never seen a man like -you. The others had beards; you had no hair upon your face and for a -little I thought you were a woman, another like me, and I was glad. And -then you woke—and I ran. I should have killed you—” - -She broke off panting, her breast rising and falling tumultuously. Her -eyes were bright and hard, her tanned cheeks flushed. - -“She’d drive a knife into a man sleeping and never turn a hair!” was -Sheldon’s silent comment. - -“I tell you to go!” she flung at him again. “Before I have you killed -like the others. What do you want here? What is here that belongs to -you? You are looking for gold. I know! That is what the others wanted. -Do you want to die as they died?” - -“Listen to me!” interrupted the man sharply. “I didn’t come here to hurt -you. I didn’t come for gold. I came because I lost the trail.” - -“Liar!” she cried out at him. - -Silenced, he could but stand and stare at her. And slowly all sense of -anger at her words died out of him and into his heart welled a great -pity. For no longer did he wonder if she but played a part or was mad. - -Again, through the brief silence, there came to him faintly the sound of -something stirring within the cabin. He listened eagerly, hoping to -guess what it was moving beyond the door she guarded so jealously. But -the sound had come and gone and it was very still again. - -Was there one person in there? Or were there two? Or more? Man or woman? -Surely there was some one, surely there could not be two mad people -here! Then why did the one in there hold back, letting her dispute -entrance to the stranger? Why was there not another face to show at a -crack of the door or at a window? - -Questions, questions, and questions! And no one to answer them but a mad -girl who said that she was Paula, daughter of King Midas! No; not even -Paula to answer. For suddenly she had jerked the door open, slipped -inside, and Sheldon heard the sound as of a heavy bar dropping into -wooden sockets. - -He was quite alone in the empty street of a town that had lived and died -and been forgotten. And never in all his life had he been more uncertain -what next to do. - - -CHAPTER VII. THE COMPANY PAULA KEPT. - -Less for the breakfast without which he had left camp than realizing the -wisdom to caching his blankets and provisions, Sheldon’s first step was -back toward the spot where Buck grazed. - -If those within the old cabin meant to seek to escape talking with him -they would not stir forth immediately but would peer forth many times, -cautiously, to make certain that in reality he was not watching from -shelter of the grove. He could dispose of his pack, eat hastily and be -again in front of the cabin within less than an hour. - -He drew back swiftly, made sure with a glance over his shoulder that the -door had remained shut, the shutters of the windows undisturbed, slipped -through the fir grove and then broke into a trot, headed up the meadow. - -Selecting some tinned goods hurriedly, he rolled everything else, -blankets and all, in his canvas, found a hiding place which suited him -in a tiny, rocky gorge, piled rocks on top of the cache, and returned -for his horse. Buck he led deeper into the forest that lay upon the -eastern rim of the valley and left there where there was pasture and -water, hobbling him for fear of the long tie rope getting tangled about -the bushes which grew under the trees. - -When the pack-saddle had been tossed into a clump of these bushes he -felt reasonably sure that his outfit was safe for the short time he -expected to be away from it. Then, eating as he went, he turned back to -the town which Paula, the daughter of Midas, called Johnny’s Luck. - -As he came again into the abandoned street he examined each ruined cabin -as he passed it, stopping for all that still stood, making his way to -the door through more than one weed-grown yard, slipping in at door or -window where the buildings were still upon the rim of being habitable. - -Nor were his puzzles lessened at the signs everywhere that men, when -they had given over these dwellings, had gone in wild haste. They had -not taken fittings and furnishings with them, at least nothing -cumbersome had gone out. - -He could picture the exit from the homes that had been almost a frenzied -rushing out of doors flung rudely open and left to gape stupidly after -their departing masters. Yes, and mistresses. For it was written in -dusty signs that women, too, had walked here and had fled as though from -some dread menace. - -But to a man knowing the vivid tales of the western country as Sheldon -knew them here was a mystery which must soon grow clear as the memory of -half-forgotten stories came back to him. - -He saw rude chairs and tables standing idly under dust of many, many -years’ accumulation; chairs which had been pushed back violently as men -sprang to their feet, some overturned and left to sprawl awkwardly -until, as time ran by, they fell apart and in due time came to -disintegrate as all other things physical crumble in the world. - -He saw pictures tacked to walls, knew that they had been cheap colored -prints or newspaper illustrations; thick earthenware dishes and utensils -of iron and tin upon more than one stone hearth, invariably the homes of -spiders; cupboards where food had lain and rotted, discoloring the -unpainted wood; a thousand little homely articles which in the ordinary -course of house vacating would have been packed and taken away. - -Johnny’s Luck had been a mining town; for no other conceivable reason -would men have made a town here at all as long ago as Johnny’s Luck gave -every evidence of having been builded. And its life had been that of -many another village of the far-out land in the days of the early mining -madness. - -Rumor of gold, strong rumor of gold, had brought many men and some few -women, most of the latter what the world calls bad, some few perhaps -what God calls good, to answer the call and the lure. - -They had been so sure that they had builded not mere shanties, but solid -homes of logs; they had remained here for many months—and then, no -doubt, the bottom had fallen out of Johnny’s Luck. The vein had pinched -out; the gold was gone. - -And then, so did Sheldon reconstruct the past from the dust-covered ruin -about him, word had come to Johnny’s Luck of another strike out yonder -somewhere, beyond the next ridge, perhaps; perhaps a hundred miles away. -That word had come into camp mysteriously as word of gold always -travels; men had whispered it to their “pardners” and in its own fashion -the word had spread. - -There had been that first attempt at stealing away by stealth as some -few hoped to be miles from camp before every one knew. Others had seen; -men in that day attributed but the one motive to hasty, stealthy -departure. - -The stealing away had turned into a mad rush. Some one, a nervous man or -an excitable woman, had cried out the magic word, “Gold!” And then homes -had been deserted with a speed which was like frenzy; a few precious -belongings had been snatched up; chairs and even tables overturned, and -down the long street of Johnny’s Luck they had gone, fighting for the -place at the fore, the whole camp. And, for some reason, they had never -come back. Perhaps they had come to learn that Johnny’s Luck was -unlucky. - -It was simple enough after all, he told himself as he came at length to -the base of the knoll upon which stood the cabin into which the girl had -gone. Like everything else in the world, simple enough when once one -understood. - -Up and down the Pacific coast, from tidewater some mountainous hundreds -of miles inland, how many towns had grown up like Johnny’s Luck, almost -in a night, only to be given over to the wild again, deserted and -forgotten in another night. There are many, some still lifting vertical -walls, some mere mounds of grass-grown earth where one may dig and find -a child’s tin cup or a broken whisky bottle. - -Simple enough when one understood, he pondered, staring at the closed -door. But what explanation lay just here; this girl could not have been -born when Johnny’s Luck flourished; whence had she come, and why? - -It was broad morning, the sun rising clear above the last of the trees -so that its light fell upon the two beds of red flowers. On the doorstep -lay the bearskin as he had left it. From the rock and dirt chimney smoke -rose. Coming closer to the house he heard now and then a sound of one -walking within. He fancied that he heard a voice, hardly more than a -whisper. - -His purpose taken, he stood watching, waiting. If he had to stay here -until some one came out, if he were forced to linger here all day, camp -here to-night, he was not going away until the last question was -answered. - -“I’d be a brute to go off and leave her alone here,” he told himself -stubbornly. “Or, perhaps, worse than alone. The poor little devil won’t -know how to take care of herself; God knows what she’s up against as it -is. Anyway, here I stay!” - -The windows remained shuttered; the door stood unopened; the smoke from -the chimney grew a faint gray line against the sky and was gone; it was -death-still in the house. An hour passed and Sheldon, striding back and -forth, on the watch for a possible attempt to slip away through a door -which he had found at the rear, grew impatient. - -Another hour, and never a sound. Such watching and waiting, with nothing -discovered to reward his patience, was the death of what little patience -was a part of John Sheldon’s makeup. - -“I’ve waited long enough,” he muttered. - -He strode straight between the beds of red flowers, up the three steps -made of logs, and rapped at the door. The sounds died away, as all -sounds seemed to do here, swallowed by the silence, echoless, as though -killed by thick walls. So he knocked again, calling out: - -“I’ve no habit of prying into other peoples’s business, but I am not -used to being treated like a leper, either. Open the door or I shall -batter it down.” - -Hurried whispers within, then silence. He waited for a moment. Then -swinging back his rifle he drove the butt mightily against the door, -close to the latch. There was a little cry then, Paula’s voice he was -sure, a cry of pure fear. - -“Poor little thing,” he thought. “She thinks I’m going to kill her!” - -But he struck again and the thick panel of the door, dry and old, -cracked. Again, and Paula’s voice again, this time calling: - -“Wait! Wait and I will come!” - -“No,” he answered in flat stubbornness. “I’ll not wait. I am coming -inside. Open the door.” - -“You cannot! You must not! What is it that you want here? What have we -that you would take away from us? Go back into the world outside. Go -quick—before we kill you!” - -He laughed savagely. - -“You are not going to kill me. And we’ve talked nonsense long enough. I -tell you I am not going to hurt you. Who is in there with you? Why -doesn’t he talk?” - -Whispers, quick, sharp, agitated. But no answer. Sheldon waited, grew -suddenly angry and struck with all his might. The door cracked again; -two long cracks showed running up and down. But the bar within held and -the cracks gave no glimpse of the room’s interior. He struck once more. - -“Wait!” Paula’s voice again, strangely quiet. “I am coming.” - -He stepped back a little, standing just at the side of the door, his -rifle clubbed and lifted. There was so little telling what next to -expect here in a land which seemed to him a land of madness. He heard -her at the door. - -She was taking down the bar. He was sure of it. But why was she so long -about it? And it seemed to him that in the simple process she made an -unnecessary amount of noise. And she kept talking, rapidly now, her -voice raised, her utterances almost incoherent as though she labored -under some tremendous excitement: - -“Don’t you see I am opening the door? But you must step back, down the -steps. I’ll hear you going. I am afraid. You might reach out and seize -me. Just a minute now, only a minute. I don’t hear you though. You must -go down the steps. Then I will come out; then you can come in. I am -hurrying—hurrying as fast as I can.” - -It only whetted his suspicion. What was going on just ten feet from him, -beyond that wall? There was no loophole through which an out-thrust gun -barrel could menace him, he had seen to that. And, if a gun was thrust -out as the door opened, he could strike first; he was ready. But if he -went back down the steps— - -Suddenly he knew. He heard a little scraping sound which, low as it was, -rose above the sound of Paula’s young voice. It was at that other door -at the back. Some one was there, opening it cautiously. The forest came -down close to the house at the back. - -He leaped down the steps and ran around the side of the house, of no -mind to have them give him the slip this way. - -“Hurry!” Paula had heard him, had guessed his purpose as he theirs, and -was screaming, “Hurry! He is coming!” - -The rear door, little used perhaps, had caught. But as Sheldon raced -around the corner of the cabin the door was flung violently open and an -astonishingly, wildly uncouth figure shot out, making strange, horrible -sounds in his throat as he ran. - -It was a man, so tall and gaunt that it seemed rather the caricature of -a man. Clad in shirt and trousers, the flying feet were bare. The head -was bare, and from it the hair, long and snow white, floated out behind -him. The beard, long and unkempt, was as white as the hair of his head. - -His eyes—Sheldon saw them looking for one brief moment straight into his -own—were the burning, brilliant eyes of a madman. Had there been doubt -in the case of the girl there was room for no doubt here. The man was -only too clearly a maniac. - -Just the one look into the terrible eyes was given to Sheldon. The man -ran as Paula had run this morning, but with a greater, more frantic -speed. Crying out strange, broken fragments of words he dashed into the -trees. And Sheldon stopped. - -Paula was still in the house. With little chance to overtake the man, -with no wish to have them both escape him, Sheldon whirled and running -with all the speed in him, came to the open door. It slammed in his -face; Paula, too, had just reached it. But not yet had she had time to -make it fast. He threw his weight against it; he could hear her panting -and crying out in terror. The door flew open. He was in the house. - -But now she was running to the other door. The bar there was still in -its place. Her hands lost no time now, but whipped it out, dropped it -clattering to the bare floor, jerked the door open. - -She was on the steps, outside when Sheldon’s arms closed about her. She -screamed and tore at his arms as he swept her off of her feet. He -marveled at the strength in her; he felt the muscles of her body against -his and they were like iron. But he held her. - -She struck at his face, beating at him with hard little fists. But he -held her. And at that she had in her all the fierceness of a mountain -cat. She was pantherine in her rage that flashed at him from her eyes, -in the supple strength of her body, in all the fierceness which he had -whipped to the surface. - -Though she struggled, he brought her back into the cabin. He even -managed to slam the door and, while he held her and she beat at him, to -drop the bar back into place. He carried her across the room to a -tumbled bunk there and threw her down upon it, standing between her and -the rear door, still open. - -Suddenly she was quite still. She lay there, her breast shaking to the -rage and fear that shone in her eyes. She did not seek to move, but lay -breathing deeply, watching him. - -From somewhere far out in the woods there floated to them a strange cry -billowing weirdly through the stillness. - -Sheldon stepped across the room and picked up his rifle. - - -CHAPTER VIII. JOHN SHELDON—MAGICIAN. - -She stirred a very little; then lay still again. Pantherine! The word -described her as no other word could do. Even in the little movement -there was the litheness and grace that is so characteristic of the -monster wild cats. Her eyes moved swiftly with every slightest move on -his part. - -She was like an animal a man has trapped, watching him narrowly, -understanding something of his purpose, groping to read it all. When her -eyes left him at all it was to travel in a flash to the door, to come -back as swiftly. He still stood in the way. He was almost over her, so -that he could be upon her before she was fairly on her feet. - -Now the wild rise and fall of her breasts had lessened a little. She -breathed more regularly, with now and then a long, lung-filling sigh. -She lay with one arm flung above her head, the other at her side. He saw -the red marks of his hands upon her wrists and frowned. - -He had been as gentle as he could. But only unmerciful strength, not -gentleness, could have quieted her. He thought how different she was -from any girl in that outside world of which she spoke as a land of -wickedness. - -He, too, kept his eyes upon her, her and the open door. But he glanced -about the room. The interior of the cabin was just what he could have -imagined it to be. A few rough chairs, a table, some dishes, a fireplace -with a littered hearth, a partition across the room with a bunk on each -side. - -He found that he was breathing as quickly as she was. His forehead was -wet. As he looked down at her, resting, she seemed merely a slender, -sun-browned slip of a girl. He marveled at the strength in that trim -little body. - -“I am sorry if I hurt you,” he said quietly when a few moments had -passed in silence. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you -ever. Won’t you believe me?” - -She made no answer, but continued to stare at him, a hint of a frown -gathering her brows, her eyes dark with distrust. From the depths of his -heart he pitied her. Would it not be better if he turned now and went -out of the house, leaving her? If he went his way back over the -mountains and into the “outside world,” carrying not even the tale to -tell of her? Mad, born of a mad father, what hope lay in life for her? - -“Little Paula,” he said gently, soothingly, as he might have spoken to a -very little girl, “I am sorry for you. Very sorry, little Paula. I want -to be your friend. Can’t you believe me?” - -Troubled eyes, eyes filled with distrust and fear and emotions which -blended and were too vague for him to grasp, answered him silently. He -moved a step; her eyes, full of eagerness, turned to the open door. - -“No,” he said steadily. “You can’t go yet. Pretty soon I am going to let -you go; you and your father. And I will go away and not even tell that -you are here. He is your father, isn’t he?” - -“Yes,” she said dully. - -“All I want now,” went on Sheldon, his voice as gentle as he could make -it, “is for you to rest and stay with me until your father comes back.” - -“He will never come back while you are here,” she said listlessly. -“Never.” - -“He’ll be away a deuced long, long time then,” he assured her grimly. -“I’ll stay all year if I have to. What makes you think he won’t come -back if I am here?” - -“I know,” she answered decidedly. - -She stopped there. He questioned her still further, but she was -defiantly silent, so he drew a chair up and sat down, his rifle across -his knees. She watched him curiously, losing not so much as his -slightest gesture. - -Perplexed, he brought out his pipe, scarcely conscious that he did so. -It was his way to smoke at times of uncertainty when he sought to find a -way out. He swept a match across his thigh, set it to the bowl of his -pipe, drew at it deeply, and sent out a great cloud of smoke. - -“You are a devil!” she screamed. “A devil!” - -She had leaped to her feet, seeking to stoop under his arms as he sprang -in front of her, wildly endeavoring to escape through the open door. But -he caught her and carried her back to the bunk. She fought as she had -fought before, striking at him, scratching, even trying to sink her -teeth into his forearm. - -“I’m not the one who is the devil!” he panted as at last he had thrust -her back and stood over her again. - -His pipe had fallen to the floor. He saw that her eyes were upon it now -instead of on him. And the look in them was one of pure terror. She was -afraid of a man’s pipe! - -Suddenly he understood and his abrupt laughter, startling her, whipped -her piercing look back to him. She drew away from him, crouching against -the wall, ready to strike if he drew closer or to leap again toward the -liberty he denied her. And Sheldon, even while he pitied her, laughed. -He could not help it. - -But in a little, heartily ashamed of himself, and yet grinning over his -words, be said to her: - -“You poor little thing, that isn’t any infernal apparatus! It’s just a -pipe and the stuff in it isn’t brimstone, but merely Virginia tobacco. -Everybody smokes outside—that is, pretty nearly all the men do,” he -added hastily. “But I shouldn’t have smoked without asking your consent, -in the first place, and I shouldn’t inflict that old pipe on any one if -he did consent. But, honestly, Paula, there’s nothing satanic about it.” - -“Liar!” she flung at him in scornful disbelief. - -He picked up the pipe, knocked out the fire, and stuffed it back into -his pocket. - -“Look here,” he said quietly, his good-natured grin still in evidence at -the corners of his mouth and in his eyes; “you’ve just made up your mind -to hate me and call me names. It isn’t fair. Give me a chance, why don’t -you? I’m not half as bad as you’re trying to make me out.” - -She looked her disbelief, offering no remark. She made no pretenses: she -hated him, held him in high scorn, would have struck him down had she -been able, would dodge out of the door and slip away into the forest if -he gave her the chance. - -But, sane or mad, there was one characteristic which she had in common -with all other human beings. Even through her fear and distrust of him, -always had her curiosity looked out nakedly. He sought to take advantage -of this to make her listen to him, then to draw her out a little. So, -speaking slowly and quietly, he began to tell her of his trip in, of -having lost his trail, of many trifling incidents of the journey. - -Then he spoke of Belle Fortune, of men and women there, of the sort of -lives they led. And of the world beyond Belle Fortune, the world -“outside.” Of Seattle and San Francisco, of the ships and ferryboats, of -stores and theaters, of public gatherings, dances, picnics; of how women -dressed and how men gambled—a thousand little colored bits of life with -which he wished to interest her. - -“Men are not bad out there,” he assured her. “Some are, of course; but -most of them are not. They help one another often enough; they are -friends and pardners, and a pretty good sort.” - -He talked with her thusly for an hour. Through it she sat very still, -her back against the wall, her knees drawn up between her clasped hands, -her eyes steady upon his. What emotions, if any, he stirred in her -breast, he could not guess. Her expression altered very little—never to -show what she thought of him. - -He felt rather hopeless, ready to give over in despair, when out of her -calm and apparently unconcerned, uninterested quiet came the first -swift, unexpected question. He was speaking carelessly of some friends -in Vancouver with whom he had visited—the Grahams, who had the bulliest -little team of twins you ever saw—” - -“Tell me about them!” she interrupted eagerly. - -Sheldon, in his surprise at hearing her speak at all, lost the thread of -his story. - -“The Grahams?” he asked. “Why, they—” - -“No, the babies,” she said. “I have never seen a baby. Just little baby -bears and squirrels.” - -She stopped as abruptly as she had begun, her lips tight shut. But -Sheldon had gropingly understood a wee bit of what lay in the girl’s -heart, and hurried to answer, pretending not to see her return to her -stubborn taciturnity. - -“Well,” he told her, pleased so that his good-humored smile came back -into his eyes, “they’re just the cutest little pair of rascals you ever -saw. Bill and Bet, they call ’em. Just two years when I saw them last; -walking around, you know, and looking on at life as though they knew all -about it. And up to ’most anything. They are something like young bears, -come to think about it! Just about as awkward, falling over everything. -And roly-poly, fat as butterballs. Why, would you believe it—” - -And so forth. Before he got through he made a fairly creditable story of -it, combining in the Graham twins all the baby tricks he had ever seen, -heard, or read of. He affected not to be watching her all the time, but -none the less saw that there was at last a little sparkle of interest in -her eyes. - -“Poor little starved heart,” he thought. “Mad as she is, she is still -woman enough to suffer for the want of little children about her.” - -When he had done with the twins there was a long silence in the cabin. -He had pretty well talked himself out, in the first place. And in the -second, he wanted time to think. He couldn’t sit here and babble on this -way indefinitely. Soon or late he must seek actively, rather than thus -passively, for the solution to his problem. - -Leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, he smiled -at her pleasantly. And he fancied that she was puzzled by him, that -almost she was ready to wonder if all men were in truth the creatures of -evil she so evidently had thought them. Was she almost ready to believe -in him a little bit? - -“Swallow some more fire,” said Paula suddenly. - -“Eh?” muttered Sheldon. - -“Yes,” she told him. “I won’t run this time.” - -His lips twitching, he drew out his pipe and again lighted it. He saw -that she was tremendously interested. The scratching of the match made -her draw back as though from a threatened blow, but she caught herself -and did not move again. He drew in a great mouthful of smoke and sent it -out ceilingward. She watched that, too, interestedly. - -“You see,” he informed her with a semblance of gravity as deep as her -own, “I don’t swallow the fire. I just take in the smoke and send it out -again.” - -“Why do you do it?” she wanted to know. “Is it some sort of magic?” - -“Bless you, no!” he chuckled. “It’s just for fun; a kind of habit, you -know. A man smokes just as you’d eat ice-cream or candy, or something -that was fun to eat. Just as— By glory!” He caught himself up. “I’ll bet -you don’t know what candy is! Do you?” - -She shook her head. - -“Those little fire-sticks.” She kept him to the subject which now held -her interest. “They are magic, though.” - -He tossed a match to her. - -“Light it,” he said. “You can do it. You poor little kid!” - -But she drew away from it, shaking her head violently. And, taking a -chance that he read her character in one particular, he called her -“Coward!” - -She flashed a look at him that was full of angry defiance, and reaching -out quickly took up the match. He saw that her hand shook. But her -determination did not. She scratched the match upon the wall, held it -while it burned. And her eyes, while the embers fell to her lap, were -dancing with excitement. - -“Another!” she cried, like a child, in evident forgetfulness of her -hostility. “Another!” - -She lighted them one after the other. Over the second she laughed -delightedly. It was the first time he had heard her laugh. He laughed -with her, as delighted as she. She struck a full dozen before he stopped -her, saying that matches were gold-precious on the trail and must be -hoarded. - -“Then let me swallow smoke!” she commanded. - -The vision of this splendid young girl-animal smoking his black old pipe -tickled his sense of humor, and it was difficult for him to explain -seriously what in most likelihood would be the result to her. - -“You’ve missed a lot of fun, little Paula,” he told her through the -cloud of smoke, which seemed of far greater interest to her than were -his words. “If you’ve actually lived here all your life, as I’m -beginning to believe you have. Never saw a man smoke; never tasted -ice-cream or candy; never saw a two-year-old baby toddling around from -one mishap to another; never saw a street-car, or a boat, or a man who -had had a shave! By golly,” growing enthusiastic over it, “never ate a -strawberry shortcake or had a cup of coffee! Whew!” - -He put his hand into his pocket. He had seized his lunch from his pack -hurriedly and at random. In his haste he had thought to pick out a can -of beans and one of corn. He had eaten the beans, and had found that he -had not brought the corn, but the one tin of peaches which he had -brought with him from Belle Fortune. - -Such things as peaches were luxuries; but Sheldon had known aforetime -the hunger for sweets which will come to a man when he’s deep in the -woods. He opened his knife, and under Paula’s bright eyes cut out a -great circle in the tin top. He speared a half of a golden-yellow peach, -and tasted it to reassure her. Then he gave her the can. - -“Taste that,” he offered. - -Paula tasted, a bit anxiously, taking out the peach with her -finger-tips. There came into her expression something of utter surprise, -then delight little short of ecstasy. And then—he marveled how daintily -such an act could be performed—she licked the sirup from her fingers. - -“Good?” he chuckled. - -Paula smiled at him. - -Smiled! The red lips parted prettily; the white teeth showed for a -flashing instant. The smile warmed him, went dancing through his blood. -It was a quick smile, quickly gone. The white teeth were busy with the -second peach. - -“They were nice,” said Paula. She had finished, and turned to him with a -great sigh of satisfaction. Sheldon’s peaches were gone. - -“I’ve got a slab of sweetened chocolate in my pack,” he told her, trying -not to look surprised at the empty tin. “I’ll bring it to you. It’s like -candy.” - -“You are nice, too,” said Paula. “Are all bad men nice?” - -Again Sheldon plunged into a long argument meant to convince her that he -wasn’t a bad man at all. He rather overdid it, in fact, so that had -Paula believed all he told her, she must have thought him an angel. But -Paula didn’t believe. - -“You tell me too many lies,” she said quietly when he had done. - -He protested and went over the ground again. But in one thing he was -greatly pleased; at last she talked with him. He felt that at least some -little gain had been made. And he hoped that, in spite of her words, she -held him in less horror than she had at first. - -Once more he sought to draw her out, to get her to talk of herself, of -her life, of her father. - -“Have you really lived here all your life?” he asked casually. - -“Yes,” she answered. - -“And you know absolutely nothing of the world outside?” - -“I know that all men there are bad. That they kill and steal and lie.” - -“How do you know this?” - -“My father has told me.” - -“What does he know about it?” - -“He knows everything. He is very wise. And once he lived there. Men were -so wicked that he left them and came away to live here. He brought me -with him. Once,” she informed him gravely, “I was a little baby like the -twins. I grew up big, you know.” - -“Not so dreadfully big,” he protested. “And you live here year in and -year out?” - -She nodded. - -“But the winters? There must be a deuced lot of snow. How do you -manage?” - -“There is not too damn much snow in here,” she informed him. “The -mountains all around are so high they stop much of it.” - -“Young ladies in the world outside,” he remarked soberly, though with a -twinkle in his eyes, “don’t say ‘damn.’” - -“Don’t they?” asked Paula. “Why?” - -“They call it a bad word,” he explained. “Maybe it is you, in here, who -are bad—” - -“Papa says damn,” she insisted. “He is not bad. He is good.” - -“We’ll let it go, then. Don’t other men ever come here?” - -“Not many. They never come to Johnny’s Luck.” - -“Why?” - -“Papa kills them.” - -“Good Lord!” The coolness of her statement, the careless tone, shocked -him. - -“We see their camp-fire smoke sometimes a long way off.” - -“That’s the way you came upon me first, on the other side of the -mountain?” - -She nodded. - -“How was it, then, you came out, and not your amiable father? You -don’t—don’t do the work sometimes, do you?” - -“No. I don’t like to kill things.” - -“And your father rather enjoys it?” - -“N-no.” She hesitated. “But he must. For they are bad, and would hurt us -and take away—” - -“Take away what?” demanded Sheldon sharply. - -But she shut her lips tight, and the suspicion came back into her eyes. - -“Oh, well,” he said hastily, “it doesn’t matter. Only you can rest -assured that I didn’t come to take anything away. Unless,” lightly, -though with deep earnestness under the tone, “you will let me take you -and your father back with me?” - -The look of suspicion changed to sudden terror. - -“No, no!” she cried. “We won’t go—” - -“You’d see other women, and they’d be good to you,” he went on gently. -“You’d see their babies, and you’d love them. You’d have girls of your -own age to talk with. You’ve got to believe me, Paula. The world isn’t -filled with wicked people. That’s all a mistake.” - -He thought that she wanted to believe him. She looked for one brief -instant hungry to believe. He pressed the point. But in the end she -shook her head. - -“Papa has told me,” she said when he had done. “Papa knows.” - -The picture of that gaunt, wild-eyed, terribly uncouth man with brain on -fire with madness was very clear in his mind. And how she trusted in -him, how she believed in his wisdom. To Sheldon, here was the most -piteous case of his experience. He wondered if the whole affair would -end in his taking the girl in his arms by sheer brute strength and so -carrying her out of this cursed place. Or, after all, would it be -better, better for her, if he went away and left them? - -“I don’t know what to do!” he muttered, speaking his thought. - -A little sound at the door startled him. He turned swiftly, his hands -tightening about his rifle. - -A squirrel squatted on its haunches on the doorstep, its bright, round -eyes fixed on him in unwinking steadiness. With quick flirt of bushy -tail a second squirrel appeared from without. He leaped by his brother, -landed fairly inside, saw Sheldon, and turned, chattering, and went -scampering out. From the yard he, too, looked in curiously. There came -the third, drawing near cautiously until he, too, sat up on the -doorstep. - -Paula called to them softly, so softly that Sheldon, at her side, barely -heard the call. It came from low in her throat, and was strangely -musical and soothing. She called again. The squirrels pricked up their -ears. - -At the third call one of them came through the doorway, hesitated, made -a great circle around Sheldon so that the bushy tail brushed the wall, -and with a quick little jump was on the bunk and under the girl’s arm. -His brothers, emboldened, followed him. From Paula’s protecting arms -they looked out at Sheldon with a suspicion not unlike that which had -been so much in her own eyes. - -The girl cuddled them, cooing to them, making those strange, soft sounds -deep in her throat. She looked up at Sheldon with the second of her -quick smiles. “They are Napoleon and Richard and Johnny Lee!” she told -him brightly. “They are my little friends. Kiss me, Napoleon!” - -And Napoleon obeyed. - - -CHAPTER IX. “BEARS ARE SMARTER.” - -It was high noon. Sheldon needed no glance at his watch to tell him -that. He was hungry. - -He went to the door, which had remained open all morning—left so in hope -of the return of the mad man—and closed it. Paula’s eyes followed him -intently. He made the door fast by putting its bar across it. A bit of -wood from a pile of faggots by the fireplace he forced down tight -between the bar and the door, jamming it so that if the girl sought to -jerk it loose it would take time. He treated the bar of the front door -similarly. - -The clip of cartridges he slipped out of his rifle, dropping it into his -pocket. He had thrown no cartridge into the barrel. Then he put the gun -down, turned again toward Paula, and said smilingly: - -“Turn about is fair play. I gave you a can of peaches; suppose that you -treat me to the lunch?” - -An instant ago she had been teasing Napoleon and showing no hint of -distress. Suddenly now her lips were quivering; for the first time he -saw the tears start into her eyes. - -“Won’t you go away?” she asked pleadingly. “Please, please go away!” - -“Why,” he said in astonishment, “what is the matter? Don’t you want to -give me something to eat?” - -“Oh,” she cried, even her voice shaking, “I’ll give you anything if -you’ll only go away! You are bad, bad to keep me here like this; to -drive papa away—” - -“I didn’t drive him away. I don’t want him away. I am waiting for him to -come back. That’s all I am waiting for!” - -“But he won’t! While you are here he won’t come back. And, out there, he -will die.” - -“Die!” muttered Sheldon. “What’s the matter with him?” - -Slowly the tears welled up and spilled over, running unchecked down her -cheeks. Sheldon, little used to women, shifted uneasily, not knowing -what to do, feeling that he should do something. Napoleon, wiser in -matters of this sort, made his way to her shoulder and rubbed his soft -body sympathetically against her cheek. - -“Open the door,” begged Paula. “Be good to me and open the door. Let me -go to him.” - -“You would not know where to find him,” he protested. - -“Oh, yes, I would! I would go to him, running.” - -“He is sick?” he asked. - -Other tears followed the first, unnoticed by the girl. Sheldon thought -of the Graham twins: they cried that way some time, only more noisily. -They kept their eyes open wide and looked at you, and the tears came -until you wondered where they all came from. - -“Two times,” she said, her voice trembling, “I have thought he was -dead!” She shuddered. “I have seen dead things. Oh, it is terrible! This -morning I thought he was dead! He did not answer when I talked with him. -And he lay still; I could not feel him breathe. I ran out. I was -frightened. I cried out aloud. You heard me and ran to kill me, and I -ran here. And he was not dead! Oh, I was glad! But if you do not let me -go to him now—he will die—I know he will die. And I will be all -alone—and it gets so still sometimes that I can’t breathe. Please let me -go! Please be good to me!” - -She came to him hurriedly. Napoleon sprang down and chattered in a -corner. She caught up Sheldon’s hand and held it, her eyes lifted to his -pleadingly. - -“Don’t be bad to me,” she murmured over and over. “Be good to me, and -let me go to him.” - -When Bill and Bet came to him this way he knew what to do with them. He -picked them up, an arm about each one, and carried them about -adventuring until their mama expostulated. And, surreptitiously now and -then when no one was looking, he kissed their red, little, moist mouths. - -“Please,” said Paula. “I shall not call you bad any more. I shall say -you are good and love you. Please.” - -“Hang it!” muttered John Sheldon. - -“Please!” said Paula. - -“You see—” - -“Please!” said Paula. She laid her wet cheek against his hand. “Please!” - -“Now look here, young lady,” he told her, flattering himself that he had -achieved a remarkable dignity, and looking more awkward than John -Sheldon had ever looked before; “I’ll compromise with you. You say you -know where he is? All right. Sit down and we’ll eat, you and I. You will -then show me the way, and we’ll go and find him and bring him back here. -I haven’t hurt you, have I? I won’t hurt him. No,” as her lips shaped to -another “please,” “I’m not going to let you go alone. We go together—or -we stay right here. Which is it?” - -Paula frowned. Then she wiped away the tears. Whether some deep feminine -instinct had told her that they had almost served their purpose but were -useless now will, perhaps, never be known. She went across the room to a -rude cupboard, and brought from it a blackened pot containing a meat -stew. Sheldon was hungry enough to dispense with the stew being warmed -up. Merely to make conversation to divert her thoughts from her father’s -danger, he said carelessly: - -“You must have trouble getting your meat? You can’t have much -ammunition.” He tasted the stew, and found it, although salt was -noticeably wanted, savory and palatable. “What sort of meat is it?” he -asked. - -“Snakes!” said Paula. - -Sheldon had swallowed just before putting the last question. Paula was -given the joy of seeing his tanned cheeks pale a little. A look of -horror came into his eyes. Then he caught an expression of lively malice -in hers, malice and mirth commingled. - -“Snakes and lizards,” said Paula. “We catch ’em in holes—” - -“You little devil!” muttered the man under his breath. And to show her -that he knew now that she was making fun of him, he went back to his -stew. “Just the same, Miss Paula,” he told her threateningly, “if we -ever do get to the outside I’ll take you to dinner some time, and I’ll -order oysters and shrimps for you. And crab and lobster, by glory! I -wonder what you’ll say at that?” - -Paula didn’t know, didn’t have any opinion on the subject. - -“They are fishes,” she hazarded the opinion with an uncertain show at -certainty. “We eat fishes, too.” - -He ate his scanty meal, insisting upon her coming to sit across the -table from him. She watched him, but refused to eat. Plainly she was -still deeply distressed. Her eyes were never still, going from him to -the door, to the rifle on the floor by him, to the door again. But she -made no further attempt at escape. - -Meanwhile he took this opportunity to examine the cabin more carefully -than he had done so far. A broken bottle stood in a corner, serving as a -vase for a handful of field flowers. Upon the walls were a number of -pictures gleaned years ago from newspapers—one a view of the business -section of a city, one a seascape, one a lady in a ball dress of about -1860 or 1870, one a couple of kittens. - -Upon the wall on Paula’s side of the partition was a bulge, which was -evidently the young woman’s wardrobe, covered over with a blanket hung -from pegs. An ax with a crude handle lay on the floor. A long, heavy box -served both as receptacle for odds and ends, and, covered with a plank, -as a bench. - -“Now,” said Sheldon, “shall we go and find your father?” - -Paula did not hesitate, nor did she again seek to dissuade him from his -purpose. - -“Yes,” she said. - -He went to the rear door and opened it. - -“You must understand,” he told her, standing in the way so that she -could not pass him, his rifle in his right hand, his left extended to -her, “that I am not going to take any chances of losing you too. You can -run faster than I can, and I don’t want you to prove it again. You must -give me your hand.” - -For an instant she drew away from him, the old distrustful look coming -back. - -“I would like to kill _you!_” she said in a way which made him believe -that she meant what she said. Then she came to him and slipped her hand -into his. - -So they went out into the sunlight, side by side, Sheldon’s hand -gripping Paula’s tightly. - -“Which way?” he asked. - -“This way.” She nodded toward the forest closing in about them at the -east. That way the madman had gone. She seemed to feel no uncertainty, -but walked on briskly, holding as far away from him as she could manage -so that her arm stretched out almost horizontally from her shoulder. - -So they went on for a hundred yards or so, through the great trees that -stood like living columns all about them. Every nerve tense, Sheldon -sought to watch her, trusting her as little as she him, and at the same -time keep a lookout for her father. - -One thing he had missed from the cabin which he had expected to find -there. If the madman had killed those wanderers who incurred his kingly -displeasure by venturing into his realm, then he must have taken their -guns with their other belongings. - -There had been no rifle leaning against the wall, no pistol to be seen. -What had become of them? Certainly no adventuring prospector had ever -come in here without, at the least, his side-arms. It was quite possible -that the madman kept them secreted somewhere in the forest; that he had -run for a rifle; that even now he was crouching behind a clump of -bushes, his burning eyes peering over the sights. - -At every little sound Sheldon turned this way or that sharply. There was -so little calculating what a madman would do! But he must take his -chances if he did not mean to turn tail and run out of the whole affair. -And he told himself that it had been perhaps a matter of years since a -stranger had brought fresh ammunition here; that the madman would have -long ago exhausted his supply hunting. - -They went in silence. Paula’s eyes showed a great preoccupation; Sheldon -had little enough mind for talk. As the forest grew denser about them, -and the undergrowth thickened, they came into a narrow path, well -trodden. Now Paula, despite her evident distaste, was forced to walk -close at his side, sometimes slipping a little behind him. He judged -that they had gone a full mile before they came to a distinct forking of -the trails. - -“We go this way,” said Paula, indicating the trail leading off toward -the right. - -They turned as she directed. Sheldon felt a tremor run through the -girl’s arm and looked at her inquiringly. But the emotion, however -inspired, had passed. She came on, her hand lying relaxed in his, -walking close at his side, passive. - -Presently she said: - -“We must watch for him now. We are near the place.” - -On either hand were many small trees, here and there a fallen log, -everywhere small shrubs which he did not recognize, thick with bright -red berries. He watched Paula, watched even more for the madman. They -came into a cleared space as wide as an ordinary room. - -“Look yonder!” cried the girl sharply. - -She had thrown up her left hand, pointing across his breast. He looked -swiftly. - -In an instant she was no longer passive. With all of that supple -strength which he knew to lie in that beautiful body of hers, she had -thrown herself against him, pushing at him. His weight was greater, so -much greater than hers, that though taken unaware he was barely budged -two paces. - -But that was ample for the purpose of Paula. He heard a sharp crackling -of dead branches and leaves, the ground gave way under his feet, and -crashing through a flimsy covering of slender limbs and twigs he plunged -downward, falling sheer. - -He threw out his arm to save himself, his rifle was flung several feet -away, Paula had jerked free, and with the breath jolted out of his body, -he lay upon his back in a pit ten feet deep struggling to free himself -of the branches which he had brought with him in his fall. - -At last he stood up. He had strained an ankle in striking, he did not -know for the moment whether or not he had broken his left arm. His hands -and face were scratched, his body was sore, his face grew red to a -towering rage. - -Standing at the brink of the pit, stooping a little to look down at him, -was Paula. He had never seen a look of greater, gladder triumph upon a -human face. - -“You are not very smart,” said Paula contemptuously, “to get caught in a -trap like that. Bears are smarter!” - -John Sheldon, for the first time on record, swore violently in the -presence of a young woman. She did not appear in the least shocked; -perhaps she was accustomed to occasional outbursts from her father. -Rather, she looked delighted. In fact, she clapped her hands, and there -came down to him, to swell his rage, her tinkling laughter. - -“When I get out of this I’m going to spank you,” he growled, meaning -every word of it. “Good and hard, too! Don’t you know you might have -broken my neck?” - -“You are not coming out,” dimpled Paula. “If you are very good I will -feed you every day and bring you water.” - -Sheldon answered her with an angry silence. There is no wrath like that -which has in it something of self accusation; he might have expected -something like this. Turning his back on her he sought the way out of -the bear pit. Forthwith his anger, like a tube of quicksilver carried -out into the hot sun, mounted to new heights while he did not. - -The trap was cunningly made, must have required weeks in the excavation. -At the bottom it was some ten feet wide; at the opening above his head -perhaps not over eight feet. Thus its walls sloped in at the top, and he -promptly saw the futility of trying to scramble out. He would have to -use his sheath-knife; hack hand holds and dig places out for his feet, -and at that he saw that he would have his work cut out for him. - -And his rifle lay on the ground above! A sudden, disquieting vision was -vividly outlined in his imagination. Suppose that the madman came now! -He could stand above, and if he had nothing but stones to hurl down— The -vision ended with a shudder as Sheldon remembered two bleached piles of -bones. - -Crouching, he leaped upward, seizing the pit’s edge. The soil crumbled, -gave way. He slipped back. He heard Paula’s laughter, coolly taunting. -He crouched, leaped again, furious as he found no hand hold. To try -again would but be to make a fool of himself. - -Among the broken branches about him he sought one strong enough to bear -his weight. He stood it upright against the wall of the pit. With his -knife in one hand driven into the bank, the other hand gripping the -leaning branch, he sought to climb out. And then, from across the pit, -at his back, Paula called sharply: - -“Stop! I am going to shoot!” - -He slipped back and turned toward her. She was on her knees, his rifle -in her hands, the barrel looking unnaturally large as it described -nervously erratic arcs and ellipses. But Paula’s eyes, looking very -determined, threatened him along the sights. - -With a feeling of devout thankfulness he remembered that he had taken -out the clip of cartridges at the cabin. Then, with sudden sinking -heart, he remembered also that before he opened the door to come out he -had again slipped the clip in. - -What he could not remember, to save him, was whether or not he had -thrown a cartridge into the barrel! - -“I’ve got one chance out of a thousand, and a cursed slim chance it is!” -he told himself grimly. “She can’t miss me at this range if she tries!” - -Here lay his one chance: _If_ he had not thrown a cartridge into the -barrel, and _if_ the girl knew nothing of an automatic rifle, he might -have time to get out yet before she discovered how to operate it. - -These two “ifs” struck him at that moment as the tallest pair of ifs he -had ever met. - -He racked his brains for the answer to that one question: “Did I throw a -load into the barrel?” One moment he was certain that he remembered -doing so; the next he was as certain that he had not. He was very -uncomfortable. - -“I’ve got to shoot you!” Paula was crying. “I don’t want to, oh! I don’t -want to shoot you. But you would kill us. You would kill papa and—_I’m -going to shoot!_” - -“For God’s sake shoot and get it over with, then!” muttered Sheldon. He -didn’t think that he was a coward, but he knew that he was white as a -ghost. And he didn’t even know that the gun was loaded! - -The gun barrel wavered uncertainly. The girl’s finger was on the trigger -that a very slight pressure would set off and it made him faint to see -how that finger was shaking! Paula had one eye shut tight; the other -peered wildly along the sights. One instant she was aiming at his -stomach, the next at his knees. - -Paula shut both eyes and pulled the trigger. After a century-long second -in which there was no discharge, Sheldon laughed loudly if somewhat -shakily. And, seeing his one chance now about to bring him his safety, -he lost no more time in inactivity, but began again with knife and dead -branch to try to make his way out. - -Paula sprang to her feet, her cheeks that had been pale growing suddenly -flushed, and with the gun at her shoulder, pulled again and again at the -trigger. Sheldon managed to get half-way out, lifted his hand to grasp -the brink—and slipped back again. - -Then the girl, crying out angrily, threw down the gun, whirled, and -disappeared in a flash. Sheldon struggled manfully to work his way out -of his pit before she should be lost to him entirely in the woods. But -when at last he was out, and had caught up his rifle, the still woods -about him hid her, giving no sign which way she had gone. - - -CHAPTER X. THE GOLDEN GIANT. - -In the wilderness which is the Sasnokee-keewan a man seeking to escape a -pursuer need not have the slightest difficulty. This fact Sheldon was -forced to admit immediately. - -There were trackless forests where a fugitive could laugh at a score of -hunters, rocky slopes over which he could run, leaving no sign of his -passing, thickets in which he might lie in safety while a man who was -looking for him went by so close that one might easily toss a stone to -the other. - -But for an hour Sheldon sought for Paula and her father, hoping that -through some fortunate chance he might stumble upon them. He returned to -the forking of the trails where the girl had directed him to the right. -Now he took the other path, leading toward the northeast. But in a -little while it branched and branched again, and there were no tracks in -the grassy soil to help him. - -He followed one trail after another, always coming back when there had -been nothing to persuade him that he was not perhaps setting his back -toward those he sought. And in the end he gave over his quest as -hopeless and retraced his steps to Johnny’s Luck. - -The back door was wide open as he had left it. He stepped inside, moving -cautiously, realizing that one or both of them might have returned here -before him. But there was no sign that either had done so. The other -door was shut, the bar across it. The cabin’s interior had been in no -way disturbed since he had been there last. - -It seemed that there was nothing that he could do now. To be sure he -might rifle their few belongings in an endeavor to learn who they were, -so that if he was forced to go back alone to the “world outside,” he -could see to give word of them to any relatives they might have. But he -disliked the job; certainly he would resort to no such action until it -had become evident that it was the only thing to do. He went out, closed -the door after him, and turned his back upon Johnny’s Luck. For, while -he had the opportunity, it would be well to look to Buck and to his -pack. - -His horse he found browsing leisurely in the grove where he had left -him. The pack in the gulch had not been disturbed. Sheldon went to it -for a fresh tin of tobacco; made into a little bundle enough food for a -couple of meals, and with a thoughtful smile he slipped his one slab of -chocolate into his pocket. Then, having moved Buck a little deeper into -the grove, he turned again toward Johnny’s Luck. Soon or late the madman -or the girl would come back to their cabin. While his patience lasted -Sheldon would wait there for them. - -This time, when he came again into the cabin, where still there was no -sign that its owners had been there since he had left it, he closed the -back door and flung the front one wide open. For if the madman and the -girl came back, Sheldon preferred to have them come this way, so that he -could see them in the clearing that had once been a street of Johnny’s -Luck. Then, with nothing else to do, he strode back and forth in the -rough room and smoked his pipe and stared about him. - -So it was that at last one of the pictures upon the wall caught and held -his attention. It was an old line-cut from a newspaper, held in place by -little pegs through the corners. The man pictured might have been fifty -or he might have been thirty; the artist had achieved a sketch of which -neither he nor his subject need be proud. The thing which interested -Sheldon was the printed legend under the drawing: - -Charles Francis Hamilton, Professor of Entomology in Brownell -University, Author of “The Lepidoptera of the Canadian Rocky Mountains,” -“A Monogram upon the Basilarchia Arthemis,” etc. - -In ten lines was an article “of interest to the scientific world,” -announcing that Professor Hamilton, representing the interests of the -newly endowed College of Entomology, an institution whose aims “are the -pervestigation into the rarer varieties of the lepidoptera flying in the -North American altitudes over 7,000 feet,” was preparing for an -expedition into the less known regions of the Canadian northwest. - -Here was matter of interest to John Sheldon. That such a clipping should -be found upon the wall of a log cabin in the Sasnokee-keewan in itself -set him musing. But as he stood looking at it other thoughts, more -closely connected with the matter in his mind, suggested themselves. -Perhaps the madman had also been a scientist, an entomologist, hence a -man of education. That would explain how it came about that Paula spoke -an English which was not that of a rough miner. - -But another chance discovery brought Sheldon closer to the truth. The -cupboard door was open. In plain sight upon a low shelf was a thick -volume. Sheldon took it up. It was an abstrusely technical treatise upon -butterflies by Charles Francis Hamilton, Ph.D., and was dedicated: - -TO MY DEAR WIFE PAULA - -“Good Lord!” muttered Sheldon. - -To be sure there might have been no end of explanations beside the one -which presented itself to him first. But here was a tenable theory, one -to which he clung rather more eagerly than he as yet understood. - -The madman was no other than Charles Francis Hamilton, entomologist of -note about 1860. Not only had the man not always been mad, but at one -time had a brilliant mind. He had come into the unknown parts of the -great Northwest, so much of which is still unknown to-day, even though -men have made roads through it. And there he had lost his sanity. - -One could conceive of some terrible illness which had broken the man and -twisted his brain hideously, or of an accident from which merely the -physical part of him had recuperated, or of some terrible experience -such as is no stranger in the wilderness, hardship on top of hardship, -starvation, perhaps, when a man is lost and bewildered, some shock which -would unseat the reason. - -Somewhere he had found Paula. It might be as she herself said, that he -was her father; that he had brought her, a little girl, into the mining -country. Or it was quite as conceivable that he had “acquired” some -little motherless, fatherless waif, no blood kin to him, and had reared -her as his own daughter, naming her “Paula.” In any case, it was made -clear why she did not use the speech of the illiterate. - -And it was equally obvious that the girl might be sane. - -“Of course she is!” said Sheldon, disgusted with himself for his -perfectly natural suspicions. “What girl raised in a place like this all -her life by a madman wouldn’t be a trifle—different?” - -And with renewed interest and impatience he awaited their return. -Meanwhile he turned the pages of the book slowly. Here and there he came -upon a slip of paper, yellow with the years, upon which were notes set -down neatly and in a small, legible hand. For the most part these notes -consisted of Latin names and abbreviations which meant nothing to John -Sheldon. Against each annotation there stood a date. These dates went -back as far as 1868; some were as recent as 1913. - -“Get an alienist and an entomologist together over this thing,” thought -Sheldon, “and they could figure to the day when Hamilton went mad!” - -For distinctly the more recent notes were in the same hand but not -inspired by the same brain as the earlier ones. In the latter there was -the cold precision of the scientist; in the others the burning -enthusiasm of a madman. - -A note in the body of the text awoke in Sheldon this train of thought. -Under the heading _Papilioninae_ (The Swallow Tail Butterflies) there -was written in lead pencil: - -To-day I have discovered IT! Immortal itself, it shall make me immortal! -Alt. 10,000 ft. Aug. 11, ’95. - -Sheldon turned a couple of pages. Here were further notes under a new -heading, Sub-family _Parnassiinae._ The words were: - -I was misled by the osmateria in the larva. IT is a Parnassian. And the -fools think there are only four upon the continent! I have found the -Fifth. But I was right about its immortality. Measurement: about nine -feet from tip to tip. It is found xxxxx. Its food is xxxxx. Ho! This is -my secret! Alt., xxxxx. Date, xxxxx. - -F. C. H. - -Sheldon shook his head and sighed. To him the penciled words were -strangely pathetic. So plainly was there to be seen the working of the -scientific brain which sought to tabulate important facts in connection -with the new Parnassian, so evident the insane cunning which compromised -by putting down a string of crosses to baffle him who might come upon -these notes. - -“There is but the one in the world and I have found it!” was a footnote. -And then, scattered through the volume were such penciled jottings as: - -I have named it. It is _Parnassius Aureus Giganticus_. The wings are of -gold! - -_Giganticus_ flies at sunrise and at sunset. - -I have set my trap at Alt. xxxxx. This time I shall get him! - -Only one in the world! But it will oviposit in nineteen days! I shall -raise another one. There is but one egg. - -A new peak for my trap. The Alt. is wrong. - -The only Parnassius in the world whose wings are not white, but of gold; -whose hind-wing tail prolongations are like Papilio. This is the Golden -Emperor of Space, the Monarch of the Infinite, Master of Eternity and -Immortality! For its diet is that elixir, rising mistlike from xxxxx! -Oh! I must not write it down! Not even little Paula must guess this. - -Flight of incredible speed. I have estimated to-day that my Golden Giant -travels at the rate of 1 mi. in 12 sec. _id est_, 300 mi. per hour! He -might sail around the world and other eyes than mine never see him. This -is why he has remained throughout the centuries for me to discover. —F. -C. H. - -Another fool from the world outside has tried to steal my secret from -me. I killed him. - -I am Midas, King of Gold; he is Parnassius Aureus Giganticus, Great -Golden Monarch of Space. We are Immortals. - -Sheldon stared out through the open door, his gaze going over the dead, -forgotten town, and to the little lake lying languid in the sunshine. -For the instant he forgot Charles Francis Hamilton and his thoughts were -all for Paula. - -A girl reared in the solitude, taught the weird, wild fancies of a -madman, accepting insanity for infallible wisdom! How should a man deal -with such as she must be? If Midas died—then what? - -“Would she go with me back to the world?” he wondered. “Or is the rest -of her life to be that of a wild, hunted thing? Even if I can find her, -which is extremely doubtful, can I convince her that the strongest -beliefs of her whole life are wrong?” - -In truth he found that his perplexities were but growing. But with his -jaw set he vowed to himself that if he did find her he’d take her out -with him if he had to bind her with a rope, like the wild thing she was. -Suddenly there came to him through the stillness a long-drawn cry of -pure terror. It came from far off, back of the cabin toward the -mountainside. - -Rifle in hand Sheldon ran out of the house and plunged into the forest. - - -CHAPTER XI. THE GOLDEN EMPEROR’S FLIGHT. - -The hope which stood high in John Sheldon’s breast was short lived. -There was that one cry, undoubtedly Paula’s, then only the silence -broken by Sheldon’s crashing through the bushes. Now and then when he -stopped to listen he heard only his own heavy breathing. - -But he pushed on, deeper into the woods. Her voice had floated to him -clearly; she could not be very far away, and he knew the general -direction. But when he came at last to the foot of the mountain where -there were long lines of low cliffs he had found nothing. And, although -he did not give up as the hours passed and the sun turned toward the -west, his search went unrewarded. - -He went back and forth along the base of the cliffs, fearing that she -had fallen, that that scream had been whipped from her as she plunged -over a precipice. He breathed more easily when he could be assured that -this was not the case. After a while he even called out to her, crying -“Paula! Where are you? I won’t hurt you.” But there was no answer. - -Why had she cried out like that? One suspicion came early and naturally. -Perhaps to draw him away from the cabin so that she or the madman could -slip back to it. He had retraced his steps when the thought came to him, -running. But as before there was no sign that another than himself had -recently visited the house. - -Late in the afternoon great black thunder clouds began to gather upon -the mountain tops. They billowed up with the wind-driven swiftness of a -summer storm, piling higher and higher until the sky was blotted out. - -A peal of thunder, another—deep rumbles reverberating threateningly. A -drop of rain splashed against his hand. He could hear the big drops -pelting through the leaves of the trees; scattering drops kicked up -little puffs of dust in dry, bare spaces. A forked tongue of lightning -thrust into the bowels of the thick massed clouds seemed to rip them -open. The rain came down in a mighty downpour. The rumble of the thunder -was like the ominous growl of ten thousand hungering beasts. - -The lightning stabbed again and again, the skies bellowed mightily, the -forest shivered and moaned like a frightened thing under the hissing -impact of the sudden wind. The dry ground drank the water thirstily, but -even so, little rivulets and pools began to form everywhere. The rain, -like a thick veil blown about by the wind, hid the mountains or gave -brief views of them. For fifteen minutes the storm filled sky and forest -noisily. Then it passed after the way of summer showers, and Sheldon -came out from the makeshift shelter of a densely foliaged tree. - -He was a mile or more from Johnny’s Luck. The storm over, he turned back -on his trail again, determined to gain the cabin before the daylight was -gone, to wait there again for those for whom it was futile to search. -Then the second time, unexpectedly, he heard Paula’s voice calling. - -“Where are you?” it cried. “Oh, where are you?” - -He stepped out of the trail, slipping behind a giant pine. She could not -be a hundred yards away; he thought that she was coming on toward him, -that she was running. - -The world was filled with a strange light from the lowering sun shining -through the wet air, a light which shone warmly like gold, which seemed -to throb and quiver and thrill as it lay over the forest. It gave to -grass and tree a new, vivid green, a yellow flower looked like a burning -flame. Out of a fringe of trees into a wide open space Paula came. - -She came on, running with her own inimitable, graceful swiftness, until -she was not a score of paces from him. Here she stopped abruptly, -looking this way and that eagerly, listening. Sheldon, his heart -hammering from his own eagerness, stood still. If she came a little -nearer— - -“Where are you?” she called again. “Man from the world outside, where -are you?” - -Sheldon stared in amazement. She was calling him, she was seeking him, -running to him! - -Before he could answer, her quick eyes had found him out. With a strange -look in them which he could not fathom, she ran to him. She was in the -grip of some emotion so strong that she was no longer afraid of him, so -that she laid her hand for the fraction of a second upon his arm as she -cried brokenly: - -“Come! Come quickly!” - -“What is it?” he demanded, wondering. “What do you want? What is the -matter?” - -“You must help him,” she answered swiftly. “He says to bring you. But -you must hurry. Run!” - -Again she had touched him, was tugging at his sleeve. He looked at her -curiously, even suspiciously, not unmindful of the bear-pit of this -morning. But her eyes were wide with alarm not inspired by him, alarm -too sincere to be mistrusted. Since all things are possible, it might be -that the madman had sent her to lure Sheldon into some further danger. -But there was only one way to know. - -“Go on,” he said crisply. “I’m with you.” - -She turned then and sped back the way she had come, Sheldon running at -her heels, she turning her head now and then, accommodating her pace to -his. This way and that they wove their way through the forest. In a -little they were again under the cliffs standing upon the eastern rim of -the valley. In the open now, he carried his rifle in two hands, ready. - -But here at least was no trap set for him. Paula, running on ahead of -him, now suddenly had dropped to her knees, and for the first time -Sheldon saw the prone body of the madman. The girl had taken his head -into her lap and was bending over him; the gaunt, hollow, burning eyes -blazed full at Sheldon. And they were filled with malice, with lurking -cunning, with suspicion, and unutterable hatred. But the man made no -effort to rise. Sheldon came on until he stood over him. - -“He fell from the cliffs?” he asked, looking down for a second into the -eyes of Paula which, filled with anguish, were turned up to him. - -She sought to answer, but her voice broke; she choked up and could only -shake her head. He looked away from her to the head resting in her lap. -There was reason enough for the dread in Paula’s breast; the man was -dying! - -“Tell me,” said Sheldon softly, “can I do anything for you? Is there any -way I can help you?” - -The burning eyes narrowed. The old man lifted a shaking hand and pushed -the tangled beard away from his lips. - -“Curse you!” he panted. “Why are you here?” - -“Why, father!” cried Paula. “You told me to bring him!” - -“Him?” It was a mutter, deep in the throat, labored and harsh. “You were -to get a doctor, girl! This man is a thief, like the others. He comes to -steal our fortune from us.” - -Both bewilderment and terror stared out of the girl’s eyes. Her hand on -the old man’s brow drew the matted hair back, smoothed and smoothed the -hot skin. - -Fully realizing the futility of seeking to reason with unreason, -nevertheless Sheldon said gently: “I didn’t come to steal anything. I -was just loafing through the country, got lost, and came here.” - -“Liar!” scoffed the other. “I know what you want. But you can’t have it; -it is my secret!” - -“But, Father,” pleaded Paula, her lips trembling, “why did you send me -for him if he—” - -“Mr. Hamilton,” began Sheldon. - -The old man frowned. - -“Hamilton?” he muttered. “Who is Hamilton? Where is Hamilton?” - -“You are,” said Sheldon stoutly. “Don’t you remember? Charles Francis -Hamilton, professor of entomology in Brownell University?” - -“Brownell University?” There came a thoughtful pause. “Yes; of course. I -am Charles Francis Hamilton, Ph.D., M.D., professor of entomology. Who -said that I wasn’t?” - -“Then, Dr. Hamilton, you ought to be able to tell by looking at me,” and -Sheldon grinned reassuringly, “that I am no scientist! I don’t know the -difference between a bug and an insect; I swear I don’t! I’m just a -mining engineer out of a job and down on the rocks.” - -“Then,” querulously, “you didn’t come looking for—” - -“For the _Parnassius Aureus Giganticus_?” smiled Sheldon. “No. And -though you may not believe it, I don’t come looking for gold either!” - -His words had a strange, unlooked-for effect. He had hoped that they -might a little dispel suspicion. Instead, the madman jerked away from -Paula’s hands, sought to spring to his feet, and achieved a position -half-kneeling, half-squatting, his whole body shaken, a wild fury in his -eyes. - -“My _Parnassius_!” he shrieked. “My _Parnassius_! He comes to steal it -away from me; it and my immortality with it! Curse him and curse him and -curse him! He knows; he has stolen my secret. He says ‘_Parnassius -Aureus Giganticus_’! He knows its name, the name I have given it. He -says ‘Gold!’ He knows that the _Parnassius_ is to be found only where -the mother lode of the world is bared! That there is a little invisible -mist, a vapory elixir, which rises from gold in the sun, and that my -_Parnassius_ lives upon it, drinks it in, and that that is why it is -immortal! He knows; curse him, he knows, he knows!” - -He was raging, wildly; his words came in a tumbled fury of sound like -the fall of waters down a rocky cliff; his body grew tense to the last -muscle, and then shook again as with an ague. Paula, upon her feet now, -her hands clasped in a mute agony of suspense, turned frightened eyes -from him to Sheldon. - -Slowly the wreck that was Charles Francis Hamilton, one time man of -scientific note, straightened up; the tall, gaunt form, swaying -dangerously, stood erect. A terribly attenuated arm was flung up, then -the forearm drawn across the brow as though with the motion which pushed -back the streaming white hair he would clear the burning brain too. - -Then, just as Sheldon was prepared for a mad attack of the pitifully -broken figure, the pale lips parted to a cry such as he had never in all -his life heard. It was a cry of pure triumph; the voice was wonderfully -clear now and went ringing through the silence like a bell’s tinkling -notes. The eyes, too, were clear, bright as before, but now triumphant, -like the voice, untroubled, filled with the sheer ecstasy of perfect -gladness. - -“Look!” cried the madman. “It is the Golden Emperor of Infinity! Look! -He is coming—to _me_!” - -Erect, he no longer swayed. The long right arm thrown out, pointed -toward the western sky and was rigid, unshaken. For the moment the -figure was dominant, masterful; the gesture demanded and received -obedience. In his final moment, Charles Francis Hamilton stood clothed -in conscious power, unshaken in a great faith—triumphant. There was no -other word for him then. - -“Look!” cried the madman. - -But was he mad? - -For both Paula and John Sheldon turned and looked—and saw what the old -man saw. There in the strange, weird light in the west, clear against -the sky, were a great pair of wings flashing like pure beaten gold, as a -graceful, speeding body described a long, sweeping curve, seemed for a -moment to be dropping below the mountain-tops, then rose, climbing -higher and higher. - -Higher and higher—until it was gone, until, as the wide wings trembled -in the vault of the clearing heavens, John Sheldon saw that they were no -longer beaten gold, but just the feathered wings of a great eagle, -metamorphosed for an instant by a trick of sun. - -But it was gone. Gone with it the soul of a madman. Without a cry, his -old lips forming into a smile indescribably sweet, his eyes still bright -with victory, he stooped, stooped farther, his legs weakened under him, -he settled down, rested a moment, fell backward. His Golden Emperor of -the Infinite had borne away upon its golden wings the soul which craved -and now won—immortality! - - * * * * * - -“He is dead!” said Paula lifelessly. “He is dead!” - -More moved than he had thought to be, Sheldon knelt by the quiet body. -The fretful pulse was still, the tired heart was at rest, the -fever-ridden brain slept. - -“Yes,” he said quietly as, kneeling, he removed his hat and looked up -pityingly into Paula’s set face. “He is dead. Poor little Paula!” - -She stared at him with her eyes widening in eloquent expression of the -new emotions in her breast. She stood very still, her hands clasped as -they had been when the old man rose to his feet. Her brown fingers were -slowly going white from their own steady pressure. Sheldon could only -wonder gropingly what this tragedy would mean to her. Other girls had -lost fathers before now; but when had a girl lost every one she knew in -the world as Paula had lost now? - -There was nothing for Sheldon to say, so he remained a little kneeling, -his head bowed in spontaneous reverence, waiting for the burst of tears -from her which would slacken the tense nerves. But it did not come. -Presently Paula drew nearer, knelt like Sheldon, put her two warm hands -upon the cold forehead. Sheldon saw a shiver run through her. She drew -back with a sharp cry. - -“Dead!” she whispered. “Dead!” - -“Poor little Paula,” he said again in his heart. Aloud he said nothing. - -After a while he got to his feet and went away from her, dabbing at his -own eyes as he went, grumbling under his breath. He wanted to take her -into his arms—as he did the twins, Bill and Bet—to hold her close and -let her cry, and pat her shoulder and say, “There, there!” There was -much of kindness and gentleness and sympathy under the rough outside -shell of John Sheldon, and it went out unstintedly to a slip of a girl -who was alone as no other girl in all the world. - -When he came back she was sitting very still, her hand patting softly -one of the cold, lifeless hands. She looked up curiously, speaking in a -quiet whisper: - -“He will never wake up?” - -“Not in this world,” answered Sheldon gently. “But maybe the soul of him -is already awake in another world.” - -“Where the Golden Butterfly went?” whispered Paula. - -“You saw it?” - -“Yes. With beautiful wings all of gold. Father knew it was like that. -Has his soul gone away with it? Up and up and beyond the clouds and -through the sky and to the other world?” - -And John Sheldon answered simply, saying: - -“Yes, my dear.” - -Paula was very still again, her eyes thoughtful. - -“What will we do with—him?” she asked after a long silence, the first -hint of tears in her eyes. - -Then he told her, explaining as he would to Bill and Bet, as one talks -with a credulous child, hiding those things upon which man is so prone -to look as horrible, showing as best he knew that there is beauty in -death. He spoke softly, very gently with her, and her eyes, lifted to -him, might have been those of little Bet. - -“You will get flowers for him,” he said at the end. “Hundreds and -hundreds of flowers. You will put them all about him; we will make him a -pretty, soft bed of them; we will cover him with them. And every year, -in the spring, other flowers will grow here and blossom and drop their -leaves on his place. And—and, little Paula, maybe he will be watching -you and smiling at you and happy—” - -It spite of him his voice grew hoarse. Paula sat now with her face -hidden in her crossed arms. He could see a tear splash to her knee. - - * * * * * - -When the sun rose after the long night it shone upon a great mound of -field flowers hiding a lesser mound of newly turned earth, and upon a -golden-brown maiden lying face down in the grass, sobbing—and upon a new -John Sheldon. - -For into his life had come one of those responsibilities which make men -over and, together with the responsibility, a tumult of emotions born no -longer ago than the dewdrops which the morning had hung upon the grass. - - -CHAPTER XII. GOLDEN EMPEROR’S BAIT. - -During that tragic day Sheldon never lost sight of the bewildered -girl—she seemed just breathless and stunned rather than -grief-stricken—for more than half an hour at a time. He watched over her -while seeming to be busy rifle cleaning or fishing for a trout for -luncheon. Now and then he spoke, just a little homely word of no -importance other than the assurance to her that she was not utterly -alone. Not once did she return an answer or offer a remark. - -In the late afternoon she brought great armfuls of fresh flowers, -heaping them upon the wilted ones. As night came on she stood looking -wistfully at them for a long time. Then she turned and, walking swiftly, -went back to Johnny’s Luck. John Sheldon went with her. - -They had their supper together, sitting opposite each other at the crude -table. Paula ate little, nibbling absent-mindedly at the slab of -chocolate, pushing the fish aside untasted, drinking the water set -before her. Sheldon made coffee, and she watched him curiously as he -drank the black beverage; but she did not taste it. - -“Look here, Paula,” he said when the silence had lasted on until after -he had got his pipe going, “We’ve got some big questions ahead of us to -answer, and we can’t begin too soon now. After all, death comes to us -all, soon or late; it came to your father’s father and mother; it has -come to mine; it will come to you and me some day. While we live we’ve -got to be doing something. You’ve got to decide what you are going to -do. I am going out of here in a few days, and you can’t stay here all -alone.” - -“I can,” she answered steadily. “I will.” - -“Come now,” he objected, speaking lightly; “that’s all wrong, you know. -It can’t be done. Why in the world should a young girl like you want to -live all alone here in the wilderness? Before, when your father was with -you, it was different. Now what is there to stay for?” - -“I shall stay,” said Paula gravely, “until some day the big golden -butterfly comes and takes me away, too.” - -“How would you live?” he asked curiously. - -“As I have always lived. We have the traps father and I made. I could -make others. I know how to catch fish. I know many plants with leaves -and roots good to eat when you cook them in water.” - -“But what would you _do_ all the time?” - -“Why,” said Paula simply, “I would wait.” - -“Wait?” - -“Yes. For the big butterfly.” - -Then Sheldon set himself manfully to his task. He sought to reawaken the -interest which she had shown when he spoke of the world outside; he -spoke of the thousand things she could see and do; he told her of other -men and women; of how they dressed, of how they spent their lives, of -their aims and ambitions, of their numerous joys; of aeroplanes and -submarines; of telephones and talking machines; of music and theaters -and churches. But Paula only shook her head, saying quietly: - -“I shall stay here.” - -“And never see any children?” asked Sheldon. “Little babies like Bill -and Bet; little roly-poly rascals with dirty faces and bright eyes and -fat, chubby hands? You’ll miss all that?” - -“I’ll stay here,” said Paula. “This is my home.” - -And no further answer did he get that night. - -As her weary body, which had known so little rest during the last two -days, began to droop in her chair, Sheldon left her, going to spend the -night out in the open in front of the cabin. Paula closed the door after -him, saying listlessly, “good night,” in response to his. - -“You are not afraid of me any longer, are you, Paula?” he asked as he -left her. - -“No,” she answered. “I am not afraid of you now. You have been good to -me.” - -When, in the morning, he came to the cabin the door stood open. When he -called there was no answer. When he went in the cabin was empty. - -Even then he did not believe that she had again fled from him. He went -hurriedly through the woods until he came to the heaped-up mound of -flowers, fearing a little, hoping more that he was going to find her -here. But, though he looked for her everywhere, he did not find her; -though he lifted his voice, calling loudly, she did not answer. - -It was a weary, empty day. At one moment he cursed himself for not -having guarded against her flight; at the next he told himself that he -could not always be watching her, and that there was no reason why he -should have suspected that she was going to slip away now. When some -little sound came to him through the still forest he looked up quickly, -expecting to see her coming to him. When she did not come he wondered if -he would ever see this wonderfully dainty, half-wild maid again. - -All day long he did not give over seeking her, calling her. He grew to -hate the sound of his own voice bringing its own echo alone for answer. -He began to realize what her going meant; he began to see that he wanted -not only to take her with him back into his own world, but that he -wanted to give up that life to showing her the world he had told her -about. He wanted Paula. - -He tramped up and down until he covered many a mile that day. He -ransacked his pack for any little articles of food which might be new to -her, and they remained upon the cabin table untouched. - -Noon came, and afternoon and evening, and without Paula he was lonely, -he who had come far from the beaten trails to be alone! - -In the early night he builded a fire in the cabin’s fireplace for the -light and companionship of it, and sat staring into the flames and -smoking his pipe, and all the time listening eagerly. A dozen times he -thought that he heard her light footfall. But she did not come. - -He got up and went to the door, standing long looking out into the quiet -night, star-filled. The moon was not yet up. The night was so still, so -filled with solitude, that he felt a sudden wonder that a girl, even a -girl like Paula, could be far out in it, alone. - -Where was she? Lying face down in the thick of the woods, crushed with -the loneliness which had touched even him? Or sitting somewhere in the -starlight, her lovely face upturned, her deep eyes seeking to read the -eternal riddles of the stars and the night, her soul grasping at vague -thoughts, her mind struggling pitifully with the problems of life and -death? - -All night he sat before the fire, dozing now and then, but for the most -part listening, waiting. When morning came he made a hurried breakfast, -and, his plan for the day formed during the hours of darkness, left the -cabin. - -He had come to the conclusion that there must be some hiding-place, some -shelter other than the cabin, which Paula and her father had used. To -that place, no doubt, the madman had fled when he had sought to avoid -Sheldon; thither, perhaps, Paula had gone last night. - -It might be another cabin, far out; it might be a cave in the cliffs. -Sheldon inclined to the latter belief. At any rate, he told himself -determinedly that he would find this retreat, and that in it he would -discover those belongings of the men Hamilton had killed, their knives -and rifles, their boots, perhaps. And he hoped to find Paula. - -He went straightway to the cliffs near which Dr. Hamilton had died. They -stretched a mile or more to both north and south. Sheldon admitted to -himself at the beginning that he had his work cut out ahead of him; -thorough search here for the mouth of a possible cave might consume -weeks. But all the time in the world was his. He set about his task -methodically. - -All day he climbed in and out among the boulders and spires of rock. At -night he had found nothing. He returned to the cabin and, throwing -himself upon the bunk which had once been Dr. Hamilton’s, slept soundly. - -In the morning he went out again, beginning his search where yesterday’s -had ended. That day passed like the other, ended as it had done. In the -forenoon he killed a young buck that had come down to the creek to -drink, skinned it, and hung the meat upon the limb of a tree to dry, -building a smudge under it. - -“If I have to stay here until snow flies,” muttered Sheldon, “well, -then, I’ll stay!” - -A week passed. During it he had had no sign that Paula existed—no hint -of the theoretical “hiding-place” which he sought. But each day he spent -long hours in the quest, striving from the first glow of dawn to the -coming of dusk. He had searched out every spot of the cliffs to the -south, climbing high up, looking everywhere. Now, in the same systematic -way, he turned toward the north. And upon the second day of the second -week he came upon part of that which he sought—that and something else. - -Upon a broad ledge a score of feet from the ground, hard to climb up to, -grew a dense clump of bushes. Only because it was his plan to look -everywhere did he go up there at all. On the ledge he saw at once what, -from below, had been masked by the bushes. - -There was a great hole into the cliff-side through which a man might -walk standing erect. Beyond, where dim dusk brooded at midday, was the -cave. A glance, as he went in, showed that it was part nature’s work and -part man-made. At his feet lay a shovel with fairly fresh dirt adhering -to it. Beyond was a pick. Other picks and shovels, several of them, lay -at one side of the long chamber. - -“Paula!” he called softly. “Are you here?” - -But Paula was not there. As he moved on deeper into the cavern he saw -that no one was there. There were two tumbled piles of blankets, one on -each side. Against the wall by one of them were five rifles, all of old -patterns, not one an automatic. He picked them up, one after the other. -None was loaded; there were no unfired cartridges with them. - -Several sharpened stakes had been driven into the walls which Sheldon -found to be of clay almost rock-hard. From these pegs hung cured skins -of both deer and bear, wildcat skins, the pelts of other animals. From -one was suspended a gay little array of old, old-fashioned gowns like -those in pictures of our grandmothers. Sheldon sighed, touched them -lingeringly, and called again, “Paula!” - -He passed on down the length of the cavern, which had been driven thirty -or forty feet into the mountainside. At the far end a pick was sticking -into the wall. Near the pick was a bag made of deerskin. He struck it -with his foot. It was heavy, seemed filled with small stones. Wondering, -he turned the contents out upon the floor. - -And, at the sight disclosed there to him in the dim interior of this -gloomy place, the soul of John Sheldon, mining engineer, adventurer into -the far-out places, thrilled within him. - -The bag was half-filled with gold nuggets. - -“Bait for a madman’s trap!” he said aloud, huskily. “To catch the Golden -Emperor of Space!” - -He went down on his knees, the gold caught up into his hands, his eyes -bright with the old, forgotten, but never dying, fever. He ran back to -the cave’s opening, carrying his hands full, staring at the yellow -crumbling particles, light-stricken. He had never seen such gold; he had -never believed gold existed like this. - -He whirled and hastened back into the cavern, going to the bag which -still lay on the floor. The pick, still in its place, caught his eye. He -jerked it out, breaking away a dozen handfuls of the hard clay. He -struck the clay with his boot-heel, breaking it apart. And from the -fragments which he carried to the light there shone up at him the dull -yellow of gold. - -The old, old fever rode him hard, having taken him thus unaware, leaping -out upon him from the dark of the unexpected. His hands shook with it. -He had found gold before; he had known the wild fires it sets in a man’s -brain. But never had he found gold like this, never had he known so -seething a tumult. - -“All men look for the mother lode!” he whispered. “Why shouldn’t it be -waiting somewhere for the man who can find it? Why shouldn’t this be -it?” - -He had forgotten Paula. A man forgets everything when he finds gold, -much gold, pure, yellow virgin gold. Often enough he ceases for the -moment to be a man, and is like a wild beast hungering, tearing at -bloody meat. - -He went here and there eager and breathless, driving the pick into the -time-hardened clay, taking with shaking hands the earth he dug out, -muttering to himself as he found again and again that there was in it -the glint and gleam of gold. - -“There is nowhere in the world a man so rich as I!” he whispered. And -then he thought of Paula. - -He went out upon the ledge outside, and sat down in the sunshine and -lighted his pipe. This gold was not John Sheldon’s unless John Sheldon -were utterly contemptible. It was Paula’s. Her birthright. Was he the -man to rob a woman? The man to cheat a girl? A girl like Paula? He shook -his head. - -“I was drunk on the cursed stuff!” he said half-angrily. - -But if Paula did not come back? If, look as he might, days came and -went, the summer passed, and Paula did not come back and he could not -find her? - -Then a curious fact presented itself to John Sheldon. It was this: If he -were confronted with a choice in the matter, if he had to lose the -wealth untold lying at his finger-tips or lose forever the golden-brown -maiden—why, he could snap his fingers at the gold! - -“Something has come over me!” he grunted at the thought. - -He had never been more right in his life. In his own words, something -had come over him. - - -CHAPTER XIII. CONSUMMATION. - -A month passed, and John Sheldon, who might have taken the gold and left -the girl, let the gold lie and sought Paula. - -They were lonely days, and more than once he went to his horse for -companionship. The provisions which he had brought in with him had -dwindled away to nothing. His coffee was gone; he drank water for -breakfast. His bacon was but a haunting memory. Beans and onions and -potatoes were with the snows of yesteryear. - -He missed them, but could manage upon venison and trout. But, especially -after meals and before he turned in at night, when he looked into the -black and empty bowl of his pipe, he shook his head and sighed. - -Verily, a mighty thing is a man’s love for a woman! For, even when his -tobacco was a thing of the past, John Sheldon, a man who loved his -smoke, stayed on and contented himself with sunflower leaves! - -He had once said, “I’ll stay if I have to wait until snow flies!” Now he -said, “I’ll find her if I have to stick on the job all winter.” - -There were days when he roamed for miles into the mountains; nights when -he slept far out, as Paula was perhaps sleeping. Again, there were times -when he slept in the cabin or at the mouth of the cavern, on the ledge. - -Many a time, at dusk, he climbed to some peak to look down over the -valley and distant ridges, hoping to see somewhere the blaze of her -fire. Day after day he sought some other cave, some other distant cabin -where, perhaps, she was hiding; where it might be that supplies had been -cached against such a time as this. But the month went and another was -well on the way, and his search was fruitless. - -There came a soft night, throbbing with star radiance, glowing with the -promise of a full moon, just rising beyond the eastern ridge, when -Sheldon, tired and spiritless, came back into Johnny’s Luck from a long -tramp to the north. - -As he trudged back along the trail he had come to know so well he told -himself that he was all kinds of a fool; that if he were not he’d put -all the gold upon Buck’s back that a horse could stagger under, take -upon his own shoulders all that he could carry, and go back to Belle -Fortune and the world beyond. - -But he knew that he would not go; that he would remain there until he -found Paula or knew that she was dead. Lately he had come to fear that -one of the innumerable possible accidents had befallen her. - -Head down, weary and hopeless, he made his slow way toward the cabin. He -was within a score of paces from the house when he stopped with a sharp -exclamation, standing staring. - -She was there. She had heard him, was before him to the door, had come -out into the night to meet him. The man stood looking at her in -bewilderment. For here was no Paula whom he knew; no brown maiden of the -bearskin; no boyish slip in miner’s boots and clothes. - -Oddly, the memory of something he had seen years ago and many miles from -here, came into his mind vividly. He had once found one of those strange -plants called the fire-flower which flourish in bleak desolation, -companionless; a wonderful creation with burning, blood-red heart, which -upon the barren sweep of lava-beds is at once a living triumph and a -mystery of loveliness. - -This girl, here alone in the land of abandoned ruins and lonely, -desolate isolation, was like that. - -The Fire Flower! - -Paula came on, taking short little steps which alone made her some new -Paula. He looked down and saw a pair of incredibly small slippers, -seeming brand new, flashing in the moonlight. He looked up and saw Paula -smiling! - -“I have come back to you,” said Paula, “because you are good and I love -you. Are you glad?” - -She had come back to him like a great lady out of an old love-story. Her -hair was in little, old-fashioned curls; her neck and throat gleamed at -him modestly from the laces and ribbons which bewildered him; upon her -brown fingers were dainty mitts of 1870, and the gown itself, it was an -elaborate and astounding ballgown, all wide hoops and flounces, so that -she seemed to him to be riding out to him upon a monster puff-ball. That -her costume should, to the last detail, be like that of the lady of the -picture, she carried in her hand a fan. - -Paula with a fan! Paula in hoop-skirts! - -“You are not glad?” cried Paula, her lips, which had been curved to her -laughter, suddenly trembling. - -“Glad!” cried John Sheldon. “Glad!” - -And, a hundred things clamoring for expression, that was all that he -said. Paula put her head to one side, like a bird, and looked at him. He -looked at her, her curls, her sleeves, her ribbons, her fan— - -Then Paula, gifted with understanding, laughed. - -“Are you afraid of me now?” she asked softly. - -“Before God—yes!” muttered Sheldon huskily. - -“Kiss me!” said Paula. - -She put up her red mouth temptingly, her eyes teasing and gay. And -Sheldon hesitated no longer and was afraid no longer, but took her into -his arms, hoop-skirts and flounces and ribbons and laces and all, and -held her tight, tight. - -“Oh!” laughed Paula. “You are like a bear. You hurt, and you will ruin -my dress. I have saved it always—always and always—for—” - -“For what, Paula, dear?” he asked. - -“For to-night—for you!” she answered, her voice an awed whisper like his -own. - -“But you didn’t know—” - -“Oh, I always knew! Some time you would come, a man tall like poor -father, and strong—and young—and beautiful! I would dream of it -sometimes and it would make me shiver, like cold. Like you make me -shiver now!” - -“Oh, my dear, my dear,” said Sheldon. “And I have been afraid you would -never come back; I have walked mile after mile looking for you.” - -“I know!” nodded Paula brightly. “I watched you every day.” - -“What!” he cried. - -“Oh, yes. I will show you to-morrow where I hid. It is up there in the -rocks; another cave like the one you found—but you could never find this -one unless I showed you, it is so cunningly hid. And every day I watched -you. And one day I saw you go into the forest and come back with a -strange, terrible beast bigger than a black bear following you, and I -was afraid and screamed. I thought that it would eat you and—” - -“Beast?” asked Sheldon. - -“Yes. But you had caught it and tied a rope around its neck and were its -master. Oh, I was glad I was so far away you didn’t hear me. And proud -that you were so strong a man, so brave a man to capture a big beast, -bigger than a bear—” - -“Buck! It was my horse, child! And you don’t even know what a horse is?” - -“No,” answered Paula, wondering. “Do they bite?” - -“This one you shall ride—” - -“I won’t!” cried Paula. “I’ll run away!” - -Laughing, they turned together to the cabin, where he soon had a -splendid fire going. - -“Why did you wait all these days before coming back?” he asked her. - -“Because,” she told him, “I was afraid at first. But I saw you were -good; you did not hurt things just to be bad; when you passed close -enough to me I could see that your face was kind.” - -“Go on,” grinned Sheldon. “Don’t stop there!” - -“And,” she ended happily, “I wanted to see what you would do. Whether -you would go on looking for me a long time, or whether you would forget -me and go away.” - -“And if I had gone?” - -“Then,” said Paula simply, “I should have gone high up on the cliffs and -thrown myself down. It would not have been much fun to live if you had -gone away.” - -“And now,” he asked her soberly, “are you afraid to go back with me, -Paula? Back into the world outside?” - -Paula crept closer up to him, putting her hand into his. - -“Yes,” she said. “I am afraid.” - -“But,” insisted Sheldon, “you must see, Paula—” - -“I am afraid,” she repeated, and as he turned toward her he saw that her -eyes, lifted to his, were shining softly with utter trust. “I am afraid, -but I will go with you and be glad.” - -“God bless you!” he whispered. - -“Tell me something,” she said presently. “Something I have not asked -you, but have wanted to know.” - -“Yes, Paula. What is it?” - -He wondered just how far back in his life history that question was -going to search. She made herself comfortable in his arms. Then she -asked her question: - -“Have you a name, too?” - -“What!” he replied, taken aback. “Don’t you even know my name?” - -“No,” sighed Paula, the sigh bespeaking a vast and somewhat sleepy -content. “What is it?” - -“It is John Sheldon,” he told her. - -“Then—some day—I will be Paula John Sheldon?” - -“Just as soon,” cried John Sheldon, “as you and I can get to the nearest -priest on the Little Smoky! And we start in the morning!” - - * * * * * - -“Aha, _mes enfan’s_,” said the Father Dufresnil to the two other old men -with whom he chummed at the settlement on the Little Smoky. (It was ten -days later.) “The worl’ is fonny! To me to-day there comes out of the -woods a man, such a man, tall an’ big an’ his face like a boy, glad! An’ -with him a lady—oh, _mes enfan’s_, a lady of beauty, with eyes which -dance like the eyes of him! An’ this lady, she is dress’ like the -gran’-mother of ol’ Thibault there—in a ball gown! An’ I, when I marry -them! Oh, there was not to doubt the love in their four eyes! But see -what that big man put in my han’!” - -He dropped it to the oilcloth of the table. - -It was a real golden nugget. - -(The end.) - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRE FLOWER *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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