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diff --git a/old/65894-0.txt b/old/65894-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 17beb03..0000000 --- a/old/65894-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2328 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beyond the Law, 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: Beyond the Law - -Author: Jackson Gregory - -Release Date: July 22, 2021 [eBook #65894] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THE LAW *** - - - -[Illustration: Beyond the Law] - - - - -BEYOND THE LAW - -By Jackson Gregory - - - - -CHAPTER I: WATSON HEARS HIS CALL - - -“Did you ever kill a man?” - -The question came quietly out of a long silence. The younger man looked -up quickly from the crackling camp-fire, his eyes searching his -partner’s grave face for an explanation of the strangely dull note in -his voice. - -“No, Johnny. I never killed a man. Why?” - -Johnny Watson made no answer for a little as he drew thoughtfully upon -his pipe. The little, drying mountain stream upon which they had camped -for the night went singing on its way under the stars. - -Neither of the two men so much as stirred until after the younger man -had almost forgotten the abrupt question, and was thinking upon the bed -he had made of willow branches, when Johnny Watson took the pipe from -between his lips, ran a brown hand across the grizzled stub of his -ragged mustache and continued in the same expressionless monotone: - -“I have. Three of ’em. One close to thirty years ago, Dick. A sailor, he -was; and a sailor of a sort I was, too, in those days. Down where the -South Seas is used to man-killing. I had a little money, a good deal for -a sailorman to have all at one time, sewed in a bit of canvas in my -shirt. Ben, he had been drunk and was mean and reckless, or I guess he -wouldn’t ’a’ done it— Ben was a decent man after his fashion. - -“He come up behind with a knife. I saw his shadow, and I give it to him -across the temple with a bit of scrap-iron laying on the little pier. He -died two days later. - -“One was twenty years gone now. They called him DeVine, and he was the -crookedest man that ever put on white man’s clothes. It began with -cards, and ended with him trying to do me on a mine. He knowed when I -had caught him, and pulled his gun first. He missed me about six inches, -and we wasn’t standing more than seven feet apart.... - -“And one was something more than eight years ago. He was no account. He -murdered old Tom Richards. Tom was a pardner of mine. Tom’s body wasn’t -cold yet when the man as murdered him went to plead his case with the -Great Judge.” - -Again the deep stillness of the mountains shut in about them. Young Dick -Farley stared curiously into his partner’s face, wondering. And since -the ways of the cities of the earth were not forgotten by him, the ways -of men, where judges and courts and written laws were not, were new to -him—he shivered slightly. - -For two years he and the man who was speaking quietly of the murderous -killing of men, and the killing of men in retribution, had lived -together in that close fraternity for which the West has coined the word -“pardnership” from a colder word; and never had he heard old Johnny -Watson talk as he did tonight. And still he waited for the man to go on, -knowing that there was some reason for this unasked confidence. - -“There’s some things a man can explain,” went on Watson. “There’s a -Lord’s sight more he can’t. When you’ve lived as long as I have, Dickie, -alone a big three-fourths of the time, maybe you’ll be like me and not -try to look under things for the _why_ so long’s you know the _what_. - -“I know now you and me are on the likeliest trail I ever put one foot -down in front of the other on. And I know it’s my last trail! It’s ‘So -long’ for you and me, pardner. And I’m going to know real soon what’s on -the other side of things.” - -Dick Farley sought a light rejoinder with which to meet an old miner’s -superstition, but he could find no words. So again there was silence -between them until Watson once more spoke: - -“I killed them three men in fair fight, Dickie, and with the right o’ -things on my side. And it ain’t ever once bothered me. And now the funny -part of it—I ain’t so much as thought of one of them men for a month. - -“You know we got too much to think about, you and me, with the trail -leading us straight to more gold—our gold—than would sink a battle-ship. -And today? Well, when the sun shines in my eyes, and I wake up slow, I’m -kinder dazed for a little while, and while I can’t get my bearings I’m -back in the South Sea country with Ben, the sailorman. Just as plain as -I’m seeing you now, Dick, I saw him. Twisted thumb and all—and I hadn’t -thought about that twisted thumb from that day over thirty years ago -until this very morning! And all day I’ve been walking first with Ben -and then with Flash DeVine, and then with Perry Parker, as did for poor -old Tom Richards.” - - * * * * * - -He broke off suddenly, sitting lurched forward, his eyes meditatively -upon the fire. Then he continued: - -“A man that didn’t know would think it was all nonsense. But most men -that live in the way-out places of the earth, and who’ve took men off, -fair and square—or with a knife from behind; it makes no -difference—would know what I know. I don’t know the _why_, pardner. And -I don’t care why. You’ll be looking for a new side-kick before Summer -dies.” - -Dick stirred uneasily. Again he sought for a light, bantering reply. But -the words did not come. A strange sense of fatality had crept slowly -over him. - -He tried to tell himself that he was listening to the expression of an -old miner’s superstition, that the thing was an absurdity. And while he -refused to give credence to a thing which he could not understand, he -had an odd sense that he and Johnny Watson were not alone. Unconsciously -he drew a bit closer to the fire and to the man who was “seeing things.” - -“And this here the likeliest trail I ever set foot down on,” said the -older man, with nothing but a vague regret in the even tones. “Just two -more days and we’re there—maybe together and maybe you finish the trail -alone, pardner. It’s a month ago I picked up that first big yellow lump. -The whole mountainside is rotten with gold! And then I come back and -picked you up like we’d said we would, you wearing your shoes out on -flinty rocks where a man wouldn’t find a color in seven lifetime. And -now we’re in two days of it, and——” - -He didn’t finish, breaking off with a long-drawn, deep breath. His pipe -had gone out and he leaned forward, picking up a blazing bit of dry pine -which he held to the blackened bowl. Dick Farley noticed that the -bronzed, lined face was very calm, the eyes somewhat wider opened than -usual, the fingers upon the fagot as steady as should be the fingers of -a man without nerves. - -“Johnny—” Farley was speaking at last, with an effort, keeping his tones -as steady as his partner’s—“you are right when you say that there are -some things which we can’t explain. But it’s up to us to explain what we -can, isn’t it? You haven’t thought of those men for a long time, and now -they flash up before you all of a sudden, and clear. Can’t it be that I -have happened to use some expression that Ben used, or that some sound -from the woods about us, or some smell or even an odd color in the -sunset——” - -“That’s like you, Dickie. Fight until you’re in the last ditch, and then -go on fighting!” Watson shook his head. “No, that ain’t the right -explanation this trip. I’ve seen them three men today. I’ve seen Flash -DeVine jerk up his head with a little funny sort of twist to the left -like he always used to, and I’ve seen the red spot by Parker’s ear. I’d -clean forgot them little things, Dick. No, pard’. There’s no use trying -to explain. I got to thinking about it this noon while you was staking -out the horses, and I made a little drawing you can use if I pass out -before we get to the place. It’s on a cigareet paper, and I poked it -inside old Shaggy’s saddle-blanket. And now, boy—” standing up, his -shoulders lifted and squared—“good night. If it happens I don’t see you -any more——” - -He put out his hand suddenly. Young Dick Farley gulped down a lump in -his throat as he gripped Johnny Watson’s fingers. For a moment they -stared into each other’s eyes—then Watson turned away abruptly and with -no other word went to his blankets. - - - - -CHAPTER II: FORWARD - - -It was Johnny Watson’s voice swearing at old Shaggy that awoke Dick -Farley in the early dawn. Farley stared upward through the still -tree-tops at the gray morning, his mind groping for the unpleasant -something of last night. And when he remembered he smiled, thinking how -he would chaff his partner about his night fears and his dead men. - -But when he caught a swift glimpse of the deep-set eyes under the shaggy -gray-sprinkled brows, the bantering remarks which were trooping to the -end of his tongue were left unuttered. In a blind sort of way he -realized that the thing which had come upon Johnny Watson yesterday had -not left him. Those eyes were looking out upon death calmly, -expectantly, a bit reluctantly, but not with fear and not with -rebellion. Farley said nothing as he turned away and went down into the -creek-bed to wash his hands and face. - -Over their breakfast of coffee, bacon and flapjacks the two men talked -lightly of this and that, with no mention of last night. When Watson had -finished he began speaking of the day’s work into the cañon. He told -briefly where they would leave the creek in three or four hours, where -they would find water for the noon camp, where more water and grass for -the evening camp. - -“Tonight—we ought to be there by six—we get over the ridge and into the -Devil’s Pocket country. There’s just one way to get out of that country, -Dick, and that’s the way we’re going in. If a man looks for a short cut, -if he goes skallyhooting east or west, north or south of the place where -our trail is going to cut into the basin there, he’s a goner. - -“If you leave this trail on the way back you’re going to run out of -water first thing, and your horse is going to break his leg, if it ain’t -his neck, the next thing; and then you die because you can’t pick up -another waterhole. I was in that country more’n a dozen years ago. There -was three of us. Me being lucky in them days, I got out. The others -didn’t. And I ain’t never been back until I took a whirl at it last -month.” - -The morning sun had not yet peeped down into the steep-walled ravine in -which their course lay when the two men led their pack-horses out of its -shadows, along the higher bank upon the right, and upon the little bench -land there. They moved swiftly, with long swinging strides, and as -Watson had said, within three or four hours they left the creek -entirely, moved eastward through a cut in the mountains which rose -steeply against them, and found what might once have been a trail. - -Conversation had died. Watson was in the lead, at times hidden from his -companion a hundred yards in advance. Then came the two horses. And in -the rear, his brain leaping from the talk of last night to Watson’s -accounts of the place where “the whole side of the mountain was rotten -with gold,” to wondering about this Devil’s Pocket, Dick Farley followed -silently. - -They camped a little at noon by a spring which Watson had marked upon -his map, and rested for a couple of hours. The older man, -unostentatiously and without effort at concealment, unlimbered the two -heavy revolvers at his belt and looked to them as a man does when he -expects he will use them. - -“The cards ain’t played yet, Dick,” he said. “And if it don’t come too -onexpected, we’re going to give ’em a run for their money, old timer.” - -During the silent hours of the afternoon Farley strove to keep his -partner always in sight, hurrying up the lagging horses, keeping them at -Watson’s heels. And, although he still told himself that he did not and -would not believe in this senseless superstition, he carried all day a -forty-five-caliber Colt. - - * * * * * - -All day they drove steadily into the mountains. For ahead of them was -the thing which had called to them across the miles of wilderness, -which, since the world was young, had drawn men into hardship, exile and -often enough to death—soft, yellow, crumbling gold! And it was almost -eight, and dark in the narrow pass, when Watson called out and Farley -pushed by the horses to his side and looked on the site for their -camp—“the last camp this side the strike.” - -It was a spring which bubbled out clear and cold upon a little flat -hardly bigger than the barroom at the Eagle Hotel. And oddly, there was -no creek flowing from it to mark its whereabouts. For the water ran a -scant ten feet westward and sank into a great fissure in the rock. - -“We’ll eat first,” said Watson when the two men had drunk. “The moon’ll -be up pretty quick. Then I’ll show you something—what the Devil’s Pocket -country looks like.” - -The day had died slowly. It did not grow dark, for with the rising -evening breeze the full moon climbed up through a tangle of fir-tops and -barren peaks, its strong white light driving all but the most valiant -stars from the sky. Watson knocked the dead ashes out of his pipe and -got to his feet. - -“Come ahead, Dick. We’ll take a look at where we’re going. Where a good -many men have been—and not many come back.” - -They climbed from the trail along a spine of rock to a black spire, -rising clear of the scanty brush. To the very top of the sloping rock -they worked their cautious way until their two gaunt bodies stood -outlined against the sky. Here they found footing, and here Watson stood -with arm flung out, pointing. Dick Farley was not unused to the thousand -moods of the mountain places, and yet as his eyes ran along the pointing -arm, and beyond it eagerly, he muttered his startled admiration. - -The moon, full, round and yellow, had floated clear of the distant -ridges and hung in rich splendor above a long, narrow, twisting valley, -the Devil’s Pocket. Trees, hills, peaks and ravines stood out in the -soft light, black and without detail. The floor of the winding valley -took upon itself many shifting shades, a dark silver-gray here where -there was a strip of sandy soil, a more somber splotch there where the -willows followed a thin thread of a stream. - -“There she is!” Watson exclaimed. “That thread of willows marks the only -creek in the valley. It runs from a big spring like ours here, and the -lake drinks it up. They call the lake ‘The Last Drink.’ We’ll walk -fifteen minutes before we get to it. We hit the southeast shore just -about where you see that little bay with the cliffs coming down close. -There’s a trail along the base of them cliffs; we follow that worse’n -six miles fu’ther. And when we’re there, Dickie boy, we’re right on top -of the biggest goldmine——” - -His voice broke off sharply, and he turned his back to it all. Dick -heard him move back down to the trail. With his eyes filled with the -panorama below him Dick’s thoughts drew back from the trail and the ore -at the end of it and followed the man who had found the thing, the -precious thing which they had so long sought, and who had turned back -for his partner that he, too, might have his share. - -And again he told himself that his fears of last night, which had been -growing all day, were groundless, senseless—that Johnny Watson could not -be in danger of death. - - - - -CHAPTER III: FARLEY MAKES A VOW - - -Before he climbed down the way Watson had gone, Dick Farley again turned -his eyes along the trail which was to lead him tomorrow to the Cup of -Gold. His wandering fancies built a golden dream future. Then he turned -back and climbed slowly down to the trail. - -The fire was dying upon the little rocky ledge where he had built it an -hour ago. Beyond the camp-fire, where he had flung his blanket at the -base of the cliff, Johnny Watson was already lying. Farley swept up his -own blanket from the ground and, stepping around the fire, flung it down -close to Watson’s. - -“I don’t believe in your premonitions, pardner,” he said with a little -laugh. “But if they get one of us they’ll have to take two. Here’s where -I pitch my tent.” - -Johnny Watson made no answer. He was already asleep. Johnny never wasted -time in wakefulness when he had turned in. - -Farley straightened out his blankets, jerked off his heavy boots and -socks and lay down, his elbow close to Watson’s. And so he went to -sleep. - -Something awoke him; it might have been the moon, shining full in his -face. He rolled over upon his side, shifted his wide-brimmed hat to -shield his face from the light, and still he did not go back to sleep. -He felt restless, uneasy—inexplicably uneasy. Those confounded things -Johnny had said last night wouldn’t leave him. There was no sound; not a -ripple upon the surface of the night’s silence save the murmur and -trickle of the water. He should be able to hear the horses—the chain on -old Shaggy’s halter. - -He sat up. Doing so, he put his right hand on the ground beside him, -beside Johnny Watson. He felt something damp, spongy, and sticky. He -lifted his hand, staring at it in the moonlight. There was a dark stain. -He put it to his nostrils. - -“Good God!” he cried aloud. “Johnny! Johnny!” - -And then when Johnny Watson did not answer, he did not need to look. He -knew Johnny Watson was dead—dead at the side of his partner who had -slept! - -The young man staggered to his feet and stared wildly around. Each rock -and tree and bush stood out clearly in the moonlight with its shadow -flung out very dark and very distinct. His revolver was rigid in the -tense steel of his grip. There was nothing, there was no one. And yet, -while he slept, some one had crept upon his partner. - -He turned to where Watson lay. And suddenly, as he saw how the man was -lying, the way an arm lay at his side, the other arm flung out, the -truth came upon him; and without looking at the wound he knew that death -had not come upon Watson while the two men lay side by side. - -It had come while Farley stood alone upon the top of the cliff staring -out into Devil’s Pocket, dreaming! For as Watson lay now, so had he lain -when Farley came down to him. He had been dead when his partner called -to him, saying they would sleep side by side! - -“While I was up on the rock,” Farley muttered dully, “they got him.” - -He stooped low over the prostrate body and gently, tenderly, he moved it -so that it lay face-up. The moonlight showed well how Johnny Watson’s -death had found him. At the side of his bared neck was a cut such as a -broad-bladed knife would make, a great gash, two inches long. Just one -blow had been struck, just one such blow needed. - -Farley got slowly to his feet and for a little stood looking down into -the dead man’s face. And the face of the man who looked into the dead -eyes was as oddly quiet and calm. - -“They got you, Johnny,” Farley was saying in a voice void of expression, -“with me in calling distance— Oh, Johnny!” - -For a moment he stood, his face sunk into his two brown hands. And then -suddenly he whirled about, his head lifted, his arm dung out, shaken -with a frenzy of rage. - -“My pardner—you’ve murdered my pardner!” he shouted. “And I’m going to -find you out! I’m going to kill you!” - -Then he suddenly calmed as he realized that he was alone in the -mountains, a week’s travel from the nearest mining-camp, alone with his -dead partner. He moved back from the ledge and into the shadow, where he -sat down upon a broken boulder. All at once a thing which he had -forgotten swept back over him—the horses! He had missed the noise of -their crunching, he had failed to hear the jingle of old Shaggy’s -tie-chain! - -He sprang to his feet and ran down into the little clearing where they -had tied the two pack-animals. They were gone, both gone. He stumbled -over one of the pack-saddles with its load. There had been no time to -take that. But the other, old Shaggy’s saddle, was missing. - -Slowly he made his way back to the little ledge where Johnny Watson lay. -Again he sat down upon the bit of boulder, and lighting his pipe pulled -at it steadily, staring down into the quiet cañon. He could not follow -tracks until morning. - - * * * * * - -With the first glint of the new day he buried Johnny Watson. - -For a moment Dick stood hat in hand, looking at the little mound of -earth which he had made and piled high with stones. And then he turned -and, walking swiftly, strode back to the spot where the horses had been -staked. - -There was no difficulty in picking up the trail. Upon that rugged, rocky -mountainside the murderer, if he had taken the two horses with him, must -have moved eastward and into the Devil’s Pocket, or in a direction -leading southwesterly over the trail which Farley and Watson had come -yesterday. He could not have scaled the cliffs above, he could have made -no progress through the dense brush of the deep-cut ravine below. - -For a moment Farley hesitated between going forward toward the little -mountain valley and turning back. Then the thought came to him that he -could hope to learn what he sought to know by going forward, quicker -than by swinging back toward the southwest. For if the two horses had -gone eastward, it would be easier to pick up their trail than upon the -path which they had cut up yesterday. If there should be any fresh -tracks leading into the Devil’s Pocket, that would settle it. And not -ten minutes later, having followed the stony trail until it dipped a -little into a bit of soft soil in a hollow, he found the tracks—fresh -tracks made by two shod horses. - -Then he went back to last night’s camp, made himself a small pack of -bacon and coffee and flour; and taking no useless thing, no blanket even -to interfere with the free swing of his body, he turned east and struck -out swiftly. - -He followed the trail for a mile, saw how it wound in and out, climbing -and dipping, worming slowly toward the pocket. And then, when he had -been assured that the two horses were ahead of him, he left the trail -and fought his way due east, up the face of a steep bank and to the -crest of the bleak mountains. He remembered Watson had told him that -following the trail they would have to go a good fifteen miles to travel -ten, and now he sought a short-cut to head off the man he followed. He -knew that he would pick up the trail again in the valley. - -Hour after hour he trudged on, his face whipped by tangled brambles in -the cañons, his hands torn by the crags over which he continued to climb -toward the top of the ridge. - -At last, about the middle of the forenoon, he came to the top of the -narrow divide. From an outjutting crag he looked down into the valley -before him, seeing again the winding course of the creek, the little -lake, the steep mountain walls and gorges. Here he stopped long enough -to choose the way he must go to make the best time. And then with one -long look back toward the slope where the lone cedar flung its twisted -branches over his partner, he turned again eastward and plunged down -into the steep cañon, down into the Devil’s Pocket. - - - - -CHAPTER IV: FARLEY TAKES A TUMBLE - - -ON THE floor of the Devil’s Pocket Dick Farley came upon the trail again -as he had foreseen. Where it ran from the ridges across the creek he -found tracks. He drank first and then studied them. And slowly there -came a frown into his eyes, and then a look of pain. - -For there were the tracks of one horse, and of a man’s boot-heels in the -soft wet soil—tracks a month old, the tracks which Johnny Watson had -left when he drew out of the valley to find his partner. - -Back and forth Farley moved, stepping slowly by the side of the path, -searching long and carefully for the fresh signs to tell him that two -horses had passed here during the night or in the early morning. He did -not find them. But a moment later, at the very edge of the stream, close -to the spot where he had just flung himself down to drink, he found that -another man had lain there drinking. He saw the prints of the heavy -boots, saw that they had come from the west; that the man had crossed -the stream here, stepping over the mere thread of water, and had pushed -on toward the northern end of the valley. And the horses? - -Dick had no doubt this was the man he sought. For some reason he had -left the horses in the hills, hidden in some steep-walled cañon. - -Again Farley pushed on, following the trail, seeing now and again the -outline of the heavy boots where the soil was moist or dusty. In a -little he ceased to look for the tracks, excepting at long intervals, -for they led straight ahead, keeping to the path through the wiry grass, -straight toward the lake. At noon he stopped to eat and smoke his pipe. -And then again he pushed on. - -He was tired now, but he gave no respite to the muscles which had been -greatly taxed after a night of wakefulness. - -Finally, a little after noon, he came to the lake shore, where the trail -ran close to the water’s edge, and at the base of the cliffs which rose -a perpendicular twenty feet here, fifty feet there. And when he had -drunk of the clear, cold water and had turned from looking out across -the mile of dimpling crystal, mountain fringed, he made a discovery, a -discovery which came very close to costing him his life. - -Rising straight up through the clear air above the cliffs at his side -was a thin wisp of smoke, such as climbs upward from a little camp-fire. -His heart beat quickly at sight of it. It was back from the cliffs maybe -a quarter of a mile, he judged. There must be a sort of tableland up -there. There he would find the man he had followed. He saw that the -tracks had come to the lake here ahead of him; that they continued -northward along the shore. But again he left them, again to make a short -cut, and began working his way up along the cliff-side. Clinging with -his fingers to seams and crevices, driving the toes of his boots into -the cracks which they could find, he drew painfully, slowly toward the -top. - -He was already so close to the edge above that he could almost reach it -with a hand thrust up as far as he could reach, with fifteen feet -between him and the ground below. He was straining every muscle, his -face tight-pressed to the rocks, reaching up for the rough hand-hold -which just defied him, when he was startled by a sound coming clearly to -him from below—the unmistakable sound of the dip of a paddle. - -He saw the trap he had blundered into. As he was, he could not turn, -could not draw a gun from his belt. There he was, clinging to the face -of the cliff, a mark to be seen from across the lake, with no hope of -being overseen by the man who in a moment would drive a canoe around the -rocky point a few yards away, who could shoot him in the back as easily -as lift a finger. - -Again he strained upward, and at last he succeeded in grasping the rock -which protruded from the edge above, and drew himself up. Then he heard -a cry from below, a cry as of warning; the rock came away in his hand, -he clutched wildly to save himself, then plunged headlong, twisting as -he fell. As his body had struck he felt a swift-driven pain through his -head, and lost consciousness in a black nothingness. - -Luckily for him the fall had been broken for he had twisted his body so -that a part of his solid weight struck upon his shoulder. For life was -still in him, and came back little by little. He tried dizzily to lift -his head and could not. But he could turn a little to the side so that -he could see the lake. There was the canoe, its paddle floating in the -water. And coming toward him.... - -It was all so vague; he was so dizzy, the blackness wavered so like a -misty veil in front of his eyes! For a little he would not believe that -his mind was clear yet, that he was not wandering. For coming toward him -was a girl; a girl clad in rough, coarse cloth, made into a short skirt -and sleeveless blouse; a girl whose long braided hair was scarcely a -deeper, richer brown than her bronzed cheeks, as brown as an Indian -maid, but with great, fearless gray eyes. She came swiftly to his side -and dropped down upon her knees, flinging back the thick braid which had -brushed across his breast. - -“I tried to call, to tell you!” she was saying, her low-toned voice -coming to him clearly through the singing in his ears. “Are you very -badly hurt?” - -He didn’t answer at once, but stared up at the fresh, girlish beauty of -her, frowning to clear the mist from his eyes, telling himself that it -was impossible. - -She leaned closer and put her quick light hands upon his head. He felt a -little shudder run through them. And then, before he could speak, she -sprang up, ran to the lake and came back to him with water in her two -hands. She bathed the cut, washed the blood away and, ripping a strip of -cloth from the hem of her skirt, tied it about his head in a rude -bandage. - -“I thought—” he began, groping for words. - -“Yes, yes!” she broke in. “You could not know how crumbling, how -treacherous to the climber those rocks are up there. I tried to warn -you. Are you very much hurt?” - -“No, I don’t think so,” he answered, still frowning. And then, -“You—where did you come from?” - -She laughed, sitting back from him—her hands clasped about her two -knees, her chin tip-tilted, a glimpse of her round throat telling that -the bronze and copper of her coloring were not racial, that the slender -body was of wonderful white and pink. - -“No, you’re not badly hurt. Or you wouldn’t be wondering about other -folks!” - -With an effort of will he drew his eyes away from her and turned them -out across the lake. He had come to find a man, the man who had killed -his partner; and instead, this was what he had found. This Naiad of a -creature who was no shy backwoods lass, tongue-tied and blushing, but -who looked at him with clear, amused eyes. - -Was Johnny Watson wrong about this Devil’s Pocket, after all? He had -said that few men ever came into it; that they never came back; that -they never lived here. Then how came this sparkling, radiant woodland -maid here? Where had she come from now in her light canoe? Where was she -going? Were there others? - -Slowly his eyes came back to her. - -“I didn’t know any one lived here. I thought——” - -“Then what brought you here?” she asked. - -“I came looking for—some one.” - -And then, realizing that this statement contradicted the one he had just -made, he said by way of explanation: - -“I meant that I did not know that womenfolk ever penetrated so far into -the wilderness. Miners, I know, lone prospectors, get into all corners -of the earth.” - -“And womenfolk?” she challenged him. “Are there then any places where -men have led that their womenfolk have not followed them?” - -He again tried to sit up, but sudden blackness swept upon him and he -fell back. The gleam of amusement went as swiftly from her eyes, which -were once more deeply womanly, intensely feminine and soft. Her cool -hand was upon his forehead, pushing back the tangled hair, smoothing it; -and her voice, cooing, tender, came to him like a whisper out of a -dream: - -“You are hurt, badly hurt! Don’t try to move. Just rest; be very still.” - -Once more she sprang up and ran to the lake shore to bring water in his -hat. She wet his forehead, readjusted the bandage and let a little -trickle of water run upon his wrists. In a moment he opened his eyes to -look up at her, forcing a smile to meet her anxious gaze. - -“Can you tell me,” she said softly, “where you are hurt? You can’t -move?” - -“I’ll try again in a minute. It’s my whole side, the right side.” He -glanced down toward his hand. “I think the wrist is broken. I got it -caught under me as I fell. I can’t move it.” - -“It is swollen already,” she told him after a brief inspection. “Poor -fellow, how it must hurt!” - -Then as professionally as a trained nurse might have done it she moved -her hand down along his side. - -“Where does it hurt most?” she queried, her eyes upon his. “The -shoulder, isn’t it?” - -“Yes. Just a bad bruise, I think.” - -“I hope so. Now, do you think that after a while, when you have rested a -little, you can manage to walk? Just a few feet?” - -“Yes. But where’ll I walk to?” - -“Just to the boat. And I’ll take you the rest of the way.” - -“And the rest of the way?” he asked curiously. - -“You are a mighty inquisitive creature for a patient!” she smiled. -“Where do you suppose? Home, of course!” - - - - -CHAPTER V: THE GIRL FROM THE LAKE - - -Dick rested for a long time. Then leaning upon the girl’s firm shoulder, -he got to his feet and moved slowly with her to the boat. When he had -sunk in a huddled heap in the narrow craft, his pulses beating wildly, -his head whirling, he began to realize he had a great deal besides a -scalp wound and a broken wrist to reckon with. - -With a swift flash of a glance at his white lips and the little drops -upon his forehead, the girl stepped into the boat, took up the paddle -and pushed out into the lake. And under her strong hands the canoe shot -through the water, headed for the north end of the lake and for a little -cove, cliff-bound. - -Dick half slept as the canoe sped on and on. Finally he roused as they -rounded a rocky point, flashed by a little green cove into which a -narrow spray of water fell from the cliffs above, skirted a dense pine -grove, and turned suddenly into a second tiny bay, sandy-beached. The -canoe, its slender nose thrust into the pebbles and white sand, held -there, swaying gently. Before Farley could move, the girl was out, -standing in the shallow water, her left hand steadying the boat while -her right reached out to help him. - -“If you feel strong enough, it’s only a little way, and you will rest -better.” - -Ashamed of his weakness in the face of her confident young strength, he -got to his feet. Already it was a harder thing for him to stand than it -had been ten minutes ago. His right shoulder, side and arm were utterly -useless. His leg, when he put a little of his weight upon it, pained him -so that with his lip caught sharply between his teeth it cost him much -to keep back a cry of agony. - -But in the end, leaning upon her, her arm tight about him, he got into -the water and to the strip of sand. Looking anxiously for some sort of -camp, he saw ahead only a thick grove of pine and fir like the one they -had passed, and the sheer cliffs beyond. - -“I think,” she was saying to him, “that if you rest again you will only -be the stiffer, sorer for it. Can you manage to walk a little further?” - -He nodded. And now he staggered on with his guide and into the trees. -And when at last she stopped he again looked up, expecting to see the -camp. Instead, he saw that they had brought up at the edge of the level -strip with the cliff-wall in front of them. - -“We’re going up there,” she answered the puzzled look in his eyes. “It -isn’t as hard as it looks. Can you go a little further?” - -He nodded again painfully. So again they moved on, ten feet along the -cliffs, and came, unexpectedly for him, upon a great, gently slanting -cut in the rocks, into which bits of stone had been flung so as to make -rude, rough steps. It was harder now, slower; for he had to lift his -left foot each time, while she helped relieve the weight upon the other, -and wearily pull himself up. Ten minutes dragged by before they had -climbed the twenty feet. - -Upon the top was a plateau perhaps a mile long, broken with trees and -boulders, five hundred yards wide. The fringe of trees and ragged cliffs -upon the side toward the lake hid the tableland completely from that -direction. And, set between two gnarled cedars, at the very edge of a -dense bit of the forest where it ran out from the sea of verdure like a -cape, was a low, rambling log cabin, a thin spiral of smoke winding up -from its stone chimney. Here was “home.” - -The cabin had all the signs of age, discolored by many Winters, a vine a -dozen years old climbing over it. And Johnny Watson, who had known the -Devil’s Pocket for a quarter of a century, had said that no man ever -lived here! - -But Dick Farley was in little mood for speculation. He stumbled on, -conscious only of the dizzy nausea which drove even the pain of his hurt -side into a dim, faraway background. After an endless groping through a -thickening fog he knew that they had stepped from the sunlight into the -shade; felt rough boards under his boots; felt that two arms, not just -one, were tight around his body; knew with a grateful, long-drawn -sobbing breath that he was lying upon blankets. - -It was dusk in the cabin—twilight fragrant with the spicy odors dropping -down from the grove—when he found himself at first groping for reality -in a confused chaos of emotions and then gradually coming to full -understanding. It was a great, low-walled room, a rectangle of light -marking the door, two squares showing him the windows and a deep-mouthed -fireplace crackling with a newly lighted fire. - -Across the room from his bunk were a heavy little table and rough chair. -His eyes went slowly to the floor—over the squared saplings which went -to make it, across a bearskin, and to another door, smaller, lower than -the other, leading into another room. He tried to lift himself upon his -elbow, and fell back stabbed by the sharp pain in his shoulder. And then -he turned his head quickly toward the narrow door. Then he had heard a -step. - -She came swiftly to him, looking down at him with her great eyes filled -with concern. When she saw the look in his she smiled, and sitting down -upon the edge of his bed put her hand upon his forehead. - -“You are better,” her rich voice was saying in a matter-of-fact way. -“You’re not so feverish, and you know where you are, don’t you?” - -“Yes. Much better.” He called up a twisted smile to meet hers. And then, -“I have been an awful nuisance.” - -“You mustn’t say such things——” - -But he insisted, looking steadily at her. - -“If you hadn’t happened along—if you hadn’t found me then, or soon—do -you know what would have happened to me? If I hadn’t died from my fail -and exposure, I’d have died pretty soon from starvation. Do you know -that?” - -“I know,” she retorted with great mock severity, “that this is my case; -you’re my patient, and I’m the doctor and the nurse. And that you’re -talking, while I believe the proper thing for people who are sick is to -lie still. Also, you’re not going to die of starvation now. When I heard -you stir, I was just making some soup for you. For—I’m the cook, too!” - -When she had come back with a smoking bowl of broth, she set the thing -down upon the floor for a moment while she insisted on propping him up -with pillows. She shook her head at him when he opened his lips to -protest, and thrust a spoonful of the soup between them by way of -further silencing him. - -“Good?” she demanded, when she had set the empty bowl down on the floor. -“And now, do you know I am afraid that I have about reached the end of -my medical knowledge! I’ve forbidden you to talk, and I’ve fed you some -broth. What next?” - -“There’ll be nothing next. I’m going to be all right soon.” - -“Of course you are! But we must do something for your poor, hurt side. I -have some liniment——” - -“Just the thing,” he assured her. “I’ll give myself a good rubbing——” - -“You are very stupid,” she frowned at him. “You will do nothing of the -sort. I haven’t dismissed my case yet, have I, Mr. Man?” - -“You’re discharged, Miss Girl!” he grinned up at her. “And my other name -is Farley—Dick Farley.” - -“I won’t be discharged that way, and my name is Virginia Dalton, and you -lie right still, Dick Farley!” she laughed at him. - -And when she came back she made him lie upon his left side while she -slit his shirt from the shoulder down and bathed the bruised muscles -with the stinging oil. The wrist, swollen and ugly, she bandaged with -soft white cloth. When she had finished she sat back, flushed but -triumphant, and nodded at him approvingly. - -With the fire roaring in the deep fireplace, for cheeriness rather than -from the need of warmth, with a couple of misshapen, homemade candles -upon the mantelpiece, her chair drawn up facing the bunk upon which her -guest and patient lay—at her request he was smoking his pipe and -enjoying it—Virginia Dalton at last satisfied the man’s curiosity as -well as she could. - -She and her father lived here together, had lived here for fifteen -years. He had brought her, a baby of four, into this wilderness with -him, had built the cabin, had made this home. Of the world outside she -knew little more than she had known when her father brought her -here—perhaps less; as even the child’s images of men and women and -cities, and the things thereof, had been lost in the years. The father -had taught her, had brought with them a few books, had been always very -dear to her. She did not know why he lived here, away from his kind. He -had once, long ago, told her that his health demanded it. Of late they -had not mentioned the matter. - -“But,” she ended, with a flush of eagerness lighting her face, “it’s -nearly over! We’re going to leave soon; go back to the world where -people are. Dear old Daddy came in just this afternoon, a little while -before I went down to the lake, and I could see right away that -something had happened. He didn’t say what it was—he doesn’t say much at -any time; but he told me that he was going out again and might be gone -all night; but that when he came back I could get ready to go! Isn’t it -glorious?” - -But Dick, to whom there had come a sudden fear, made no answer, frowning -as he lay back staring up at the rough rafters. - - - - -CHAPTER VI: VIRGINIA GETS A LETTER - - -The night dragged by, bringing little sleep to Dick Farley, and Virginia -Dalton’s father did not return. It was the longest night Dick had ever -known. Hour after hour he sat propped up against the wall, the pillows -behind him, and smoked, staring out through the open door at the shadows -the moon made. They were deep black shadows, and his spirit was caught -in them, strangely troubled. But at last, when the tardy day was -breaking, the spark in his pipe-bowl died and he slipped down in his -pillows and slept. - -When he awoke, the sun was flinging its light through the tree-tops into -the cabin. Nature’s was a soft mood this morning—smiling, fragrant, -audible with many low, harmonious woodland notes. And through the weave -of still music, rising suddenly, clearly, sweetly, a girl’s voice -floated in to him in an old song. He watched the open door expectantly. - -In a little while she came in, her voice hushed, walking tiptoe not to -wake him, a rod in one hand, a string of lake-trout swinging from the -other. Her smile was as gloriously a radiant thing as the morning itself -when her eyes met his expectant ones. - -“Good morning!” she greeted him, coming to his bedside. “Awake at last, -are you? I was afraid I should have to breakfast alone.” - -“Good morning,” he answered, his eyes filled with the rosy beauty of her -glorious youth. “You have been fishing already!” - -“I have been down to the lake—for my morning plunge primarily, to tell -the truth. And in the second place for something for my sick man to eat. -Hungry?” - -As she went to set the rod in its place in the corner he looked after -her approvingly. Her hair hung as yesterday in two long braids, one -flung over her shoulder. Her brown arms were bare from the shoulder. - -“Yes,” he answered her, “I think I am hungry. While you are starting -breakfast I think I’ll get up——” - -“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she retorted positively. “I’ll put a -table close to your bunk, and we’ll eat here. After breakfast, when the -sun is a little higher and it’s good and warm, maybe I’ll let you try to -get up.” - -As she moved toward the kitchen with her string of fish, he called after -her: - -“Your father? He hasn’t come in yet?” - -“No. But we’ll look for him before long. Dear old Daddy has dreadfully -irregular habits!” - -Then he heard her clattering with pots and pans, heard her singing -broken snatches of songs; and soon the aroma of coffee and the sizzling -of the trout told him that breakfast was ready. She came in then, -removed the objects from the table across the room—he saw with a little -surprise that they were several books carelessly scattered—pushed the -table to his side, dragged her own chair up to it, and brought in the -fish and coffee and biscuits with tin cups, tin plates, heavy iron -knives, forks and spoons. - -“There is no sugar, no butter, no cream,” she laughed at him. “But you -won’t mind, will you?” - -While they ate she told him more of herself; how she fished, or used the -rifle to bring down a squirrel from a pine, or to get a deer, sometimes; -how from her lookout, a peak a mile behind the cabin, she mused over the -pale, shifting shades of daybreak or the vivid splashes of color in the -west before the dusk came; how she let her eyes go far out to the -furthermost rim of the vague, distant mountains and dreamed of the other -side—the land of men and women, of cities where the cañons were streets, -and the peaks many-storied buildings. She was not lonely because no one -had taught her the word, because she had known no existence but this. -She did not know unrest, because she had not lived in cities. - -“But sometimes,” with a sudden wistfulness, “there is something here -which talks; and I can’t quite understand it!” She pressed her two hands -tightly upon her breast. “When I have everything here, how can there be -anything lacking? When the world is so big, how can it seem so little? -When the day is so filled with good things, how can it seem so empty? -When I am so happy, how can I be, all of a sudden, so sad? When I am -laughing, why do I want to cry——?” - -He told her, too, of his own life; of the schools he had gone to; of his -work in cities of the East; of the command to go West for his health as -her father had done; of the fever of gold. But he said no word of his -partner—he could not speak of that, yet. Nor did he mention the Cup of -Gold, saying merely that he had pushed into these mountains, into her -valley, prospecting. - -“But you said,” she reminded him frankly, “that you were looking for -some one?” - -“Yes,” he admitted, turning from her clear eyes to the door. “I will -tell you about that some other time.” - - * * * * * - -He questioned her about her father; and she, glad to find other ears -than the inattentive ones of her woodland friends, spoke unreservedly. - -He was a wonderful man, this James Dalton, this “dear old Daddy.” A -wonderful man to look at: big, mighty of his hands, handsome, a -full-bearded giant. With a great tender heart, too, forgetful at all -times of self, striving only for his daughter’s good and happiness, -doing all of the thousand and one little things to please her, to make -life run smoothly and brightly for her. - -He had filled the long hours with instruction, had taught her to read -and write, had read to her from the few books which had come with them -into their exile. He had drawn pictures of busy cities with their -factories and hotels, their churches and stores, and he had promised her -that one day he would take her with him to see these marvelous things -with her own eyes. - -“And now,” she ended, her eyes luminous with the dreamings of a golden -fairyland whose gates were to be thrown open to her, “now we are going -to see it all, very soon.” - -She fell suddenly silent, looking beyond the far horizon where her -fancies led her. - -“It is worth being raised like this,” Farley was thinking, “just to be -able to walk out into the other life—the life filled with the things man -has done. To wander through it a little—and then to come back, to stay.” - -When all of the chill of the mountain morning had gone, drunk up by the -warm, thirsty sun, she allowed her sick man to get up. Farley found that -his wrist was more swollen, more painful than it had been last night, -but began to hope that there were no bones broken in it, that he had -sprained it badly and that in a few days it would mend itself. His right -side was very nearly useless to him, the shoulder, lower ribs and leg -being sore and stiff; but with a cane which she cut for him from a -sapling in the grove he was able to hobble around slowly. - -He realized, as he worked his way unsteadily to the door, that it would -be many days before he could take up the trail which he had vowed over -his dead partner’s body to follow until he found its end. - -The morning passed, and they had lunch together out under the trees at -the edge of the grove. Still Dalton had not come in. But the girl seemed -in no way surprised, saying lightly that her father often was gone a day -or so without warning, that perhaps he had found and was following the -tracks of a bear. - -“I am going for my mail,” she told him, laughing at his wonder. “Do you -feel strong enough to come with me?” - -“Mail?” he demanded incredulously. - -“Yes! There may be a letter from Daddy. The post-office is over yonder, -across the lake. If you think that you can walk down to the canoe, we -can paddle over.” - -With the help of his cane, with the aid of her hand when they came to -the rude steps in the cliff side, he finally reached the edge of the -lake where they had left the canoe yesterday. Leaving him here for a -little, she disappeared into the trees and came back presently, carrying -the light boat upon her shoulders. - -Helping him to get into it, she pushed out from the shore, jumped in and -paddled out into the water, heading straight for the western side a -half-mile away. Upon a little beach there, sandy and strewn with white -pebbles she grounded the canoe; and with a word to him to wait while she -asked for her letter, hurried to a big rock, flat-topped, set back a -little from the water’s edge. - -Turning so that he could see what she did, she tossed toward him five -pebbles which she had picked up from the rock. And then she came back to -him. - -“No letter?” he asked. - -“Didn’t you see it?” she laughed into his puzzled face. “Of course there -was! Daddy has gone over yonder,” pointing to the ridge of hills -sweeping upward into the westward mountains. “How do I know? Those -pebbles were in a row, pointing east and west, with the biggest one at -this end, the littlest, our ‘pointer,’ at the west end. And since there -were five pebbles, he means to be gone about five days. No, he didn’t -add a postscript saying what he was going for. We need sugar, and we -need ammunition. Also—” with a little glance, purely feminine, at her -skirt—“I shall want a new dress!” - -“But,” suggested Farley, “there is no town, no camp near enough for him -to get those things and be back in five days?” - -“He is generally gone longer,” she admitted as she got back into the -canoe and pushed off. “But it doesn’t matter what he went for, does it? -You’ll have to put up with my sole company for the five days.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII: AFTER FIVE DAYS - - -The days passed swiftly and pleasantly for them—too pleasantly, Dick -Farley told himself with something of bitterness. For what right had he -to live from day to day in this quiet haven, lured out of himself, out -of his black lonesomeness for his partner with that partner not a week -dead? - -It was true that his bruised side must have kept him in a forced -inactivity, that he must have waited even as he was waiting. But he -should have spent day and night with his thoughts of “squaring things -for poor old Johnny,” not in wandering through the woods with a girl. - -He told himself, as he lay unsleeping in the quiet night, that he should -go; that he should go now that he could drag himself away from her; that -he had no right to stay longer. Yet, where should he go? To pick up the -trail which he had followed to the margin of the lake, and to follow -it—where? - -Would it bring him, after miles of winding, back to the cabin perched -upon the tableland? Would he find at the end of that trail James Dalton, -her father? Where was Dalton now? Why had he gone away so suddenly? Why -had he said to her the other day, the day before Johnny was killed, that -at last they could go back into the world which so long ago he had left -behind him? Had he killed Johnny Watson? If not he, who then? - -If Dalton had killed Watson, then Farley must kill Dalton. There was no -other way; there could be no other way. He must kill the father of the -girl who had brought him here and cared for him, who had saved him from -dying alone and miserable—must kill her “dear old Daddy,” whom she loved -so much, who had always been so good to her, who was all that she had in -the world. - -And to stay here made matters worse. To linger on in the home of the man -whom, perhaps, he was to kill; to listen to the ingenuous, happy voice -of the daughter; to grow to see how wonderful a thing Nature had built -of this child of the wildwood; to feel that day by day they were being -drawn closer together, that they were crossing a frontier which in a -little they could not retrace—— - -“If her father is the man who did it, have I the right to take her -father from her?” he muttered. And again, “Has the man who killed Johnny -Watson a right to live?” - -So those five days were short days, fleeing so swiftly for man and maid, -filled with sunshine and the girl’s soft laughter and the vague promise -of life. And the nights were long nights for the man; crowded with ugly -images, torn with doubts, beset with threats of the future, thronged -with questions to which he could find no answer. Now there was nothing -to do but to wait. - -But there was no waiting, no staying, into the path into which their -feet were wandering, Dick Farley’s and Virginia Dalton’s. It was the -old, old story of a man and a maid. And with the first great throb of -understanding in the man’s heart there came, too, a contraction and a -pain, and he tore himself abruptly from the girl’s presence and went to -stand frowning toward the mountains into which Dalton had gone. And her -eyes, following him, were filled with a tender light which was new to -them, her lips parted in a half-smile, her breast rising and falling -rapidly. For into her heart, too, had come the throb, but not the pain -of the knowledge he had. - -It was the sixth day. They had been together so much; had talked of self -and of the other so frankly; had been so lost to the world and drawn -close to each other in the solitude of the still mountains; had come to -find a new peace and contentment as they were silent together watching -the coming of the dawn, the passing of the day, the slow voyages of the -moon through clouds and stars; had been so all-sufficient each to each -that the short five days seemed like long, bursting years when they -looked back upon them. It was only natural that the thing which was -happening with them should happen. - -Now, upon the morning of the sixth day, the day which was to bring -Dalton home, their talk had died down suddenly. Farley had fallen into -an abrupt silence, his eyes refusing to come back to hers. And in a -little the girl’s mood followed his, and with a faint trouble in her -eyes she moved about the cabin, as silent as he. The forenoon passed; -they lunched, with now and then a fitful burst of conversation which -ended wretchedly, forced and unnatural, and the afternoon wore on. It -was nearly dusk when James Dalton came home. - -He was a very big man, tall, heavy, broad of shoulder, and very dark; -with sharp black eyes under bushy brows, black hair and beard shot with -gray. He came upon them from the lake, walking swiftly, his rifle caught -up under his arm. The girl was sitting upon the doorstep, Farley upon a -rock a few feet away. Dalton’s eyes went quickly from the young man to -his daughter, very keen, with a glint of surprise in them. - -“Daddy!” the girl cried, running to meet him, throwing her two arms -about his neck. “So you have finally got tired of roving and have come -back, have you?” - -He ran an arm about her, and then, with no reply to her bantering, -demanded quietly— - -“Who is that?” - -Farley was on his feet now, missing nothing that the big man said, no -gesture he made. - -“My name is Farley,” he returned for himself. “A miner. I came into this -country prospecting. Had a bad fall, and your daughter took care of me.” - -“Prospecting?” Dalton laughed unpleasantly. “Don’t you know, young man, -that this country, every foot of it, has been gone over and over during -the last twenty years, and nothing ever found? Prospecting!” He strode -by Farley towards the cabin, muttering, “So they come right under our -nose and prospect!” - - * * * * * - -As he went, Farley’s eager eyes saw the hunting-knife which swung -unscabbarded from his belt—a knife more than usually broad-bladed; and -his heart sank. Little as he liked the looks of this man, he had prayed -that he prove to be innocent of Johnny Watson’s blood. At the door -Dalton stopped and swung about, looking steadily, deep into Farley’s -eyes. - -“When did you get here?” he asked shortly. “How long have you been -here?” - -“I came five days ago—the day you left.” - -“Where did you come from?” - -“From the coast. Then from Three Sisters and the Yellow Queen country, -where I’ve been prospecting.” - -“What brought you in here? Don’t you know that this country has been -combed over a hundred times—that there is nothing here?” - -“I believed,” Farley retorted quietly, “that there was gold in these -mountains. Since my fall I have not had a chance to get about. So I -haven’t learned yet that there isn’t.” - -Virginia Dalton had stepped a little from her father’s side, and now -stood with troubled face looking from one man to the other. There was an -atmosphere of distrust, almost of open hostility, and she could not -understand. - -Dalton turned slowly from Farley to the girl. As he moved the iron -rigidity left his face, the cold glint passed from his eyes. It was -wonderful how the man’s whole expression softened. - -“Come here, Virginia,” he said gently. “I want to talk with you a -little. Mr. Farley,” with grave courtesy, “will pardon us?” - -Farley bowed. Dalton, with his arm about his daughter, entered the -cabin, closing the door behind them, leaving the younger man alone with -his doubts, his suspicions, his fears. Their voices came to him, -confused, indistinct. He supposed that the father was asking all about -this intruder in their quiet Eden; whence he had come, what she knew of -him and his purposes. - -Finally the door opened and Dalton stood on the threshold looking -steadily out at Farley. - -“I trust that you will overlook my rather scant courtesy in greeting a -guest, Mr. Farley.” The tone was open, frank, pleasant. “I am afraid -that living a sort of exile in the wilderness so many years has made me -forget the social usages. Will you come in for a pipe? We can talk -things over.” - -“I think,” Farley replied, his eyes running past the broad form so -nearly filling the doorway to the form of the slender girl standing -within the room, “that I have already allowed myself to become a -nuisance. - -“Miss Dalton has been very kind to me. But for her, I imagine, I should -never have come so easily out of my accident. Now I am able to be about -again, and I think that I’ll take up the thing which brought me here. I -have some work to do. But—” the two men’s eyes meeting again, each -studying the other—“I shall see you again before I leave the valley for -good. And”—with slow significance—“I shall tell you all about what -brought me here before I go next time.” - -He lifted his hat to the girl, said a brief word of thanks and of -good-by, and limped away toward the lake. And his heart was very bitter -as he went, and there was little hope in him. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII: FARLEY FOLLOWS THE TRAIL - - -Out of the few scanty details which seemed to him to have any bearing -upon the thing he sought to know, Dick Farley strove to piece together a -chain of evidence which his brain could accept as pointing to the guilt -or to the innocence of James Dalton. As he drew slowly away from the -cabin and toward the cliffs which fell away to the lake, he arranged in -mind these things in a sort of logical order: - -1. There must have been some strong motive for the killing of his -partner. If Dalton’s knife driven by Dalton’s powerful hand had caused -Johnny Watson’s death, what motive could have moved Dalton to the act? - -This point he considered a long time. It was possible that these two men -had known each other years before; that they had been enemies; that -revenge had steeled the murderer’s arm. But it did not seem probable. -There was something a great deal more likely. - -Could it not be that Dalton, although he denied the presence of gold in -the valley, had stumbled upon the same streak which Johnny had found a -month ago—the Cup of Gold? That he had discovered Johnny’s tracks, had -foreseen that he would return with pack-horses, and had killed him -rather than that an outsider should come into his valley and steal “his” -gold? But why, then, had he not killed Johnny’s partner as well? - -2. The crime had been committed with a knife, unusually broad-bladed. -Dalton wore such a knife. - -3. Something had made Dalton tell his daughter upon the day of the -murder that they were going to leave the Devil’s Pocket and go back into -the world. What was it? Did it have any bearing on the case? If not, it -was one of those odd coincidences which occur sometimes, and Farley did -not believe very much in coincidences. - -4. The man who had committed the crime had stolen the two horses, and -had hidden them somewhere in the mountains to the southwest of the -valley. Dalton had gone away into these same mountains and had been gone -five days. Why had he gone? He had not had time to reach any of the -settlements; he had brought back no sugar, no cloth. - -5. Dalton had lived many years in a seclusion which was very like -hiding. He looked the part of a man who had never had a sick day in his -life. He was not here because the doctors had sent him. He was a man of -culture, a man who had traveled and seen much of the world. He loved his -daughter. Why, then, had he suffered this long exile? Why had he made -her endure it? - -These matters rose above other considerations in Farley’s mind. And in -the end he saw no way of arriving at any kind of certainty until he had -gone back to pick up the old trail; until he had found the horses; until -he had seen if Dalton’s tracks led to them and back from them to the -cabin. - -He stopped for a moment at the top of the cliffs and turned to look back -at the cabin. He saw the girl standing there alone, her eyes following -him; saw her hand go up swiftly as he turned to wave to her; remembered -what she had done for him; saw again the clean heart and budding woman’s -soul which she had not thought of hiding, had not known how to hide from -him. Lifting his hat to her, he hurried down the cliffs and out of -sight. - -“It would kill her,” he muttered. And then, his eyes grown suddenly hard -as he tried to shut her out of his mind: “Never mind, Johnny, old -pardner. It’s all in the cards, and we’ll play it out. If he did it, -he’ll pay for it!” - -But when night came to him in the edge of the mountains and he sat -brooding over his camp-fire he could not drive her out of his wandering -thoughts. He saw justice on one hand, and loyalty to one’s partner; and -on the other he saw the face of a girl who was going to be happy, or -broken upon her first great sorrow—and it would be his act to decide her -life for her. He bowed his head in his two hands, caught powerless in -the irony of fate. - -For a week Dick Farley sought, almost without rest to body and brain, to -work out the puzzle which had been set before him. He had gone almost -back to where he had buried Johnny Watson before he found the trail of -the two stolen horses. This he had followed away from the valley through -narrow cañons, over rocky passes, for two days. - -As he had known from his partner’s words, there was little water here. -He thought more than once that he would be driven back to replenish the -bottle he had carried with him. But the man who had driven the horses -here had known the country; and following the trail, turning with it -north or south of its general course, Farley found enough water in small -springs and slender streams to keep the life in him and make his -progress possible. - -Fortunately the country was filled with small game, the quail, hare, -grouse and squirrels having more curiosity than fear, coming close -enough for him to kill with his revolvers what he required for food. - -He came at last upon the two horses in a small, steep-walled valley set -like a cup in the mountains. Here there was much rich, dry grass, and a -narrow stream wandering through it. With little trouble he found the -pack-saddle where it had been thrown into a clump of manzanitas. -Remembering for the first time the map which Johnny had told him was -hidden in a saddle-blanket, he found it readily. With a swift, cursory -glance at it he put it into his pocket. - -“To get the horses where they were left in the main trail,” he muttered -to himself, “to bring them here, then to go back to the lake would take -a man just about five days—the time that Dalton was gone.” - -It was another point, a further link in the chain; but, like the other -links, it was not strong enough to bear the burden of certainty. He must -find other tracks—the tracks the man had made when he left the horses -here. He must follow them. If they led straight back over the hills to -the lake, he would know. And he had little doubt that he would find -them, and that they would carry him once more to the Dalton cabin. - - * * * * * - -And now came the slowest, the hardest of his work. To follow the trail -left by two horses was comparatively simple. To track a man over these -mountains, across hard ground and dry gully, was another matter. - -It was certain that the man Dalton, or a possible other, had not gone -back over the same trail. It was devious, turning aside for steep cañons -which a horse could not climb but which a man could, full of many twists -and turns. A man on foot would take a shorter way. And until he knew -beyond a doubt that that man had been Virginia Dalton’s father, he could -not tell whether to look upon the eastern edge of the tiny valley for -it, upon the western, northern or southern. But believing more and more -that the trail would lead toward the east, he looked where he thought to -find it. - -And in an hour after finding the horses he picked up the other trail—the -tracks made by the man who had brought them here. He saw the deep print -of a boot-heel in the moist soil along the creek, found another track a -few feet farther on, then another—all leading toward the east—toward -Devil’s Pocket. - -A glance at the encircling hills showed him where the tracks must lead, -where there was a little nature-made pass, leading over their crests -which a man might follow; and he pushed ahead in that direction, -positive that he would find the tracks there if there were any loose -soil to keep them. He saw readily that he must leave the horses where -they were for the present. - -It took him another hour to climb up to the gap in the hills. The -darkness was coming on, but there was light enough for him to see that -the same heavy boots which had left their imprint in the soft dirt by -the creek had passed here. He had done a long day’s work; his side was -paining him again, the night was very near. So he built his fire here -and made his bed of fir-boughs. - -In the first light of the dawn he breakfasted and moved on once more -toward Devil’s Pocket. Everywhere underfoot was a thick mat of -pine-needles, upon which a man’s foot would leave no sign. But the -natural pass in which he had camped led straight on and into a cañon -upon the other side of the little ridge; and where the soil had sifted -down from the cañon sides to lie here and there among the rocks strewing -the bottom of the ravine was the imprint of the heavy boots again. Only -infrequently stopping to assure himself that he was not going wrong, he -made what haste he could back toward the lake. And he had gone perhaps -five miles before he came upon a discovery which caused him to stop, -frowning, wondering. - -He was in a small clearing, sandy-floored. The tracks were here, still -leading east. But no longer was there the single trail. Here, plainly -outlined, were the prints left by two men. They were side by side, alike -fresh, a very few days old. - -Farley had just come down a long rocky slope into the clearing, and did -not know where the second man’s path had met the first. There was little -use in going back, in trying to find out. He sat down, filled his pipe -and tried to make out the meaning of this new complication. Who was this -second man? Where had he come from? Where was he going? Had he been with -Dalton, or had he been trailing Dalton, or had Dalton been following -him? - -In the end he could not see that the new tracks made any great -difference. If the trail he was following led on to the lake, to -Dalton’s cabin, the thing was clear enough. - -Down the long slope of the mountainside from the clearing, into the -rocky bed of the ravine, the only logical way for a man to follow, and -out into a miniature valley below, he continued without looking for the -tracks which he knew the hard, broken ground would not show had he -looked. - -It was two miles before he again found the boot-tracks in a bit of soft -soil. And here again had one man, only one man, passed. The other, the -second, had evidently turned aside across the rock-strewn side of the -mountain—had gone on his way, prospecting. - - - - -CHAPTER IX: FARLEY FINDS HIS MAN - - -It was very quiet in Dalton’s cabin. Were it not for the figures which -the flickering firelight found out uncertainly, casting their grotesque -wavering shadows upon the floor and wall, one would have said that there -was no living thing there. - -Dalton sat hunched forward in his chair—his elbows on his knees, his big -hands knotted together, his eyes on the coals scattered across the stone -hearth. Near the door, standing erect, his eyes upon the still figure, -his whole attitude that of a man waiting, was Dick Farley. Now and then -he turned his head a little and looked sharply over his shoulder into -the darkness outside as if he feared interruption. - -“So,” said Dalton after a long silence, no part of his body moving save -his lips, his voice without expression. “So you’re his pardner. I was -afraid so, all along.” - -“Yes.” Farley’s answer was as quietly expressionless. “I was his -pardner.” - -Dalton stirred in his chair. Farley’s body lost none of its rigid -motionlessness, but his hand, the right one, dropped quickly to his hip. -Dalton had reached for his pipe, filled it and lighted it with a coal -which he picked up in his fingers. Farley’s hand remained upon the grip -of his revolver. - -“I’m sorry, mighty sorry,” Dalton went on, without looking up. And then, -“Is there anything else you want to say?” - -“I guess I’ve said about all. I came into this country with Johnny—my -pardner. We were looking for gold. We were interfering with no man. -Johnny is dead, murdered. It wasn’t even a fair fight. Who did it? I -haven’t jumped at conclusions. I probably would if it hadn’t been for—” -he hesitated a fraction of a second, during which for the first time -Dalton glanced up swiftly at him—“for Miss Dalton. I wanted to be sure. -I tracked you from one end of the trail to the other, to the cabin here. -I think it’s pretty clear. So I came here to accuse you of his murder.” - -It was the first time he had spoken so clearly. But the two men had -understood each other without this putting a name to a deed. - -“I don’t like that word, Farley,” Dalton cut in, his voice as -expressionless as before, his form as still. “You call him Johnny? Well, -men’s names change often enough out in this country for us not to -quibble. I suppose he’s carried a good many names since I saw him last.” - -“You knew him? A long time ago?” - -“Yes. I hadn’t seen him for over fifteen years, until——” - -He didn’t finish. Instead, he said after a moment: - -“And being his pardner, you are going to try to square things for him; -to be judge and jury and hangman; to kill the man who killed him? Well, -every man is his own court out here, where we are so far beyond the law. -And when a man is dead it is up to his pardner. That is the way you feel -about it?” - -“Yes,” Dalton laughed mirthlessly. “We are beyond the law here—we are -not beyond the reach of justice. Justice—or revenge? It is hard to see -one for the other, sometimes! You want to kill me, then?” - -“There is no use talking that way, Dalton,” Farley frowned. “You have -lived here too long; you know too well what is the result of the thing -which you have done—you don’t deny it?” - -“Will it make any difference what I say?” - -“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” - -“You are going to try to kill me,” Dalton continued. “That won’t help -your dead friend much, but you’ll do it just the same. I have no desire -to be killed by you or by any other man. But soon there is going to be -another dead man here—you or I? And Virginia! I wonder what she is going -to do. That complicates matters, but it doesn’t in any great degree -alter them, does it? She’ll be back from the lake pretty soon. We’d -better get this over with, unless you’ll listen to a proposition I’m -going to make?” - -“What is it?” - -“That you let me tell you a story. Then that you give over your thoughts -of revenge—or justice—for tonight; and that tomorrow or the next day, as -soon as I can get things in shape for the girl so that if I am killed -she will have a chance with the world, we go out into the woods -somewhere and—finish it.” - -“It can wait,” Farley replied, “until tomorrow.” - -Dalton inclined his head gravely. - -“Thank you. Now, if you will listen to my story. Won’t you sit down?” -Farley dropped to the chair at his side. “I had trouble in Richmond, -where our home was. I killed a man. Why, doesn’t matter to you. -Unfortunately for me, I killed that man in the presence of another who -saw the thing done. That other man was your pardner. He hated me as -cordially as I hated him. In any court in the world he would have sworn -that it was cold-blooded murder, and his word would have hanged me. - -“He would have lied when he said it, but he would have sworn it just the -same. As it was, I had to run for it. Virginia was a little baby, six -months old. Her mother—” his voice growing very hard—“was not strong. -She died. I wasn’t with her. I was being hounded from one place to the -other; and the man who hounded me when the whole thing would have been -dropped, the man who was the real murderer of my wife, was the man who -made it necessary for me to run before what men call justice. I did go -back and get the baby. Then we came here. - -“Again and again, as the years rolled around, I got word from the world; -each time to hear that what the world had forgotten was not forgotten by -the man who was not satisfied in my exile, my loss of all the things -which counted. He was still looking for me, he still would stop only -when he saw me given over into the hangman’s hands. A few days ago I -found that he had penetrated into this wilderness. His prospector’s -outfit did not mislead me. He was looking for me. I was glad of it. I -told Virginia that soon we were going back into the world from which we -had hidden so many long years. I killed him.” - -“You murdered him,” replied Farley coldly. “If you had given him a -chance——” - -“How do you know I murdered him? How do you know I didn’t give him a -chance?” - -“The hole in his throat—death came upon him suddenly, unexpectedly. He -may have been asleep, even.” - -“Talking about it doesn’t help.” Dalton spoke like a man bored with a -worn-out topic. “You are going to wait until tomorrow for your—justice? -I have some letters I want to write for Virginia to carry with her; I -have some instructions to leave her; I have a good deal to do. For, -somehow—” he looked up with a strange smile upon the tightened lips—“I -imagine that you are going to come out of this alive, and I’m going to -come out of it—dead! You’ll wait until tomorrow?” - -“I’ll wait.” - -Farley got to his feet. Dalton rose with him. - -“You’ll sleep here tonight?” - -“No. I’ll sleep outside—not far away,” meaningly. - -“Oh, I won’t run away,” laughed Dalton. “Good night!” - -Farley made no answer as he backed to the door and stepped swiftly -outside. He closed the door behind him, and strode rapidly away into the -darkness. Of no mind to sleep, he built a little fire of dead twigs and -pine-cones, and sitting upon a fallen log stared into the flames -moodily. - - * * * * * - -He had sat there, motionless, for five minutes when something impelled -him to look up. Standing a few feet from him, just without the circle of -his firelight, was Virginia Dalton. He rose quickly, took a step forward -and stopped. He did not at once speak, waiting for her. - -“So you have come back?” she said gently. “I have missed you.” - -“Yes, I have come back.” - -“And you found what you wanted to find?” - -“I found what I was looking for. I don’t know that I wanted to find just -that,” he ended bitterly. - -She came slowly toward him until she stood in the firelight, so near -that he could have put out his hand and touched her. He saw the brown -arms reflecting the wavering fire, the dark braids, the full, round -throat, her eyes even, deep and earnest. And something he glimpsed in -their quiet depths sent a quick pain to his heart. - -“Yes,” she answered as if he had spoken. “I heard. I listened outside. I -heard every word.” She broke off, only her hands clasping each other -tightly showing him that the calmness of her still figure was forced -over a tumult within. “And so,” she barely whispered after a little, -“you have come back to kill dear old Daddy!” - -He moved back, away from her, back from the quiet misery in her eyes, -making no answer. And she came with him, step by step until he had -stopped, and put her hand upon his arm. - -“You have come back,” she repeated in the same lifeless tone, so -different from the glad note which he had so often thrill through her -voice, “to kill Daddy. Is that it?” - -“You heard,” he muttered heavily. - -“Yes. He killed your pardner.” She shivered and the hand upon his arm -grew very tense. “So you want to kill him. Will that do any good? It -will make me very miserable. It will take my father away from me—all I -have. And will it do your pardner any good?” - -“Why did you come?” he cried out fiercely. “You don’t understand.” - -“Don’t I understand?” She smiled at him—a wistful, wan little smile -which hurt him more than if she had cried out aloud. “I understand this -much: that in all the world I have but Daddy, and that he has been -always so good to me, and that you want to take him away from me! - -“I understand that you want to kill him because he killed your pardner, -and that it won’t do any good for you to kill him; it won’t bring your -pardner back to life, it won’t make him rest any easier. I understand -that these things are not for men to do, but for God. God sees better -than we can see, and clearer and deeper down into our hearts. And He -would not do what you are going to do. He would not take my Daddy away -from me.” - -When he made no answer, finding no answer to make, she stood silent a -little, letting her head sink forward despairingly. And then, again -lifting her eyes to his, her lips, her chin quivering as she strove to -make her faltering voice firm: - -“Don’t you see that you will make it seem almost as if I had killed him, -myself? For if I had not brought you to the cabin you would never have -found it, maybe. If I had not thought you were a friend and brought you -there, maybe you would not have lived! Don’t you see? - -“Don’t you see?” Again, groaning aloud he had drawn back from her, and -she had come to his side once more, had again lain her hand softly upon -his arm. “And don’t you see something else? We were growing to be such -friends, you and I, Dick Farley. Didn’t I read right the things which -you did not say that day you went away, the things which were in your -heart? Didn’t you see the things in my heart, too? Didn’t you see?” - -He felt her hand tremble pitifully, saw the anguish written upon her -young face. - -“We were going to be good friends—oh, such good friends! And now”—with a -dry sob as she put her face in her two hands and shook from head to foot -with the storm in her bosom—“and now you want to end it all, and to kill -him!” - -For a blind moment he fought hard with the thing which she had thought -was friendship. And then, seeing her swaying there, seeing her mute -misery, he put out his arms and drew her close to him. - -“Friends!” he cried, his voice harsh in her ears, like the voice of a -man in anger. “Friends! Can’t you see that I love you—love you as a man -can not love his friends—as he can love only the one woman in all the -world!” - -She lifted her face quickly to his, and through the tears glistening -upon her cheeks he could see a new look, a look of gladness and of hope. - -“Oh!” she whispered, drawing closer in the embrace of his arms. “I am -glad! And you won’t hurt him now; you can’t!” - -For a little he held her to him, tightly pressed, as if defying the -world to take her away from him. And then slowly his arms loosened and -dropped to his side. For again he had seen Johnny Watson’s face staring -up at him through the faint light of the dawn; again he realized that -because she was Dalton’s daughter, Dalton was none the less his -partner’s murderer. - -“What is it?” she asked softly. “Isn’t it all right now?” - -“It is all wrong, Virginia, dear,” he said bitterly. “And this only -makes it more and more wrong. Don’t ask me anything more. Only go back -to your father and let me think things over. I—” his voice was hard and -steady—“I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t think that I am -going to kill him. Will you kiss me good night, dear?” - -He watched her as she went slowly through the night, watched her as for -a moment she stood in the dim rectangle of light made by the open door, -and then had only the darkness and the shooting flames of his camp-fire -about him. - -“Johnny!” he muttered when at last there was but a dead pile of ashes -where his fire had been. “If I don’t kill him—if he kills me instead—it -will be all right, won’t it, Johnny?” - - - - -CHAPTER X: JUSTICE - - -The day had come, and Dick Farley was firm and calm in his -determination. But the thing which the day was to bring need not come -yet. There was no call for haste, while there was an urge deep down in -his soul to spend this day alone. He turned his back upon the cabin and -went, walking rapidly, down to the quiet shore of the lake. - -Until now he had scarcely more than glanced at Johnny Watson’s map. The -Cup of Gold had seemed the small thing which gold is always when come -the great, vital issues of life. But now it was different; now he could -see a reason in going on over Johnny’s trail, in finding the hillside -that was “rotten with gold.” This was something which must be done -before he looked into Dalton’s eyes again—for the last time. - -A long, curving line along one side of the brown cigarette paper was -marked in painfully small letters, “East Shore.” A dotted line marked -“Trail” ran along this. “High Cliffs” indicated the spot where Farley -had attempted to climb up to the plateau, where he had fallen. The -dotted line ran on by this, close to the lake shore, and was marked “2 -mile.” Then there was a little triangle with the words “Big White Rock.” -Here the dotted line swerved at right angles—to the east—“200 paces.” -Here was the word, “Cañon.” That was all upon one side of the paper. -Upon the other, written lightly was: - -“Enter mouth cañon. Go straight about five hundred yards. Climb dead -pine-tree leaning against east bank. Straight up to top of ridge. Follow -ledge to cliff. Look along bottom of cliff.” And that was all. - -Farley put the paper again in his pocket and turned north along the lake -shore. He had perhaps two miles and a half, maybe three miles, to go, -and he was growing anxious to see this mine which his partner had -discovered. - -It was a simple matter to follow the trail, a natural path at the lake’s -edge, kept open by the deer and other woodland animals that came down to -drink or browse upon the long grass here. And before he had covered more -than half of the two miles he saw the “big white rock” which Johnny had -marked for him, close to the water, rising straight up from the level -floor of the valley. - -Here, with a glance at his map to make sure that he was right, he turned -eastward, counting his steps. He had stepped off one hundred and -twenty-five when he stopped, frowning. For nowhere were the mountains -far from the lake, and already he had entered a cañon. And Johnny’s map -had said two hundred paces. - -“Johnny wouldn’t make a mistake like that,” he told himself. - -And, again counting, he moved on and into the cañon until he had counted -another seventy-five paces. Then he understood. - -Here, cut into the wall of this cañon, was a second, a narrower, -steeper-walled ravine, evidently the one Johnny had had in mind when he -said, “Enter mouth of cañon.” The general trend of this one was north -and south. He pushed on into it, estimating roughly the five hundred -yards. - -And then, with a little quickening of the pulses, he saw the dead -pine-tree. It had fallen, and now, with its roots half torn out of the -rocky soil, lay sprawled against the eastern bank of the cañon at an -angle of about forty-five degrees. The banks here were so steep, rising -fifty feet above him, that a man would have had a hard time climbing -them. But the fallen tree was at once a pointer to the Cup of Gold and a -ladder to reach it. - -Up on the top of the bank he found the ridge, and working his way slowly -along that he came to the long line of cliffs which standing above made -the side of the mountain look like a giant’s stairway. And now, his -heart beating with the exertion of the struggle upward and with the -eagerness of quickened anticipation which comes to the miner at a time -like this, no matter what face the day wears, he stopped and let his -eyes rove along the bottom of the cliff. - -And in a moment he saw what he looked for, and hurried forward. There -were the marks of a pick in the crumbling bank, and there—— - -“Poor Johnny!” he muttered. “Poor old Johnny! To feel his pick sink into -this, to have it in his hands—and never to really work the greatest mine -this country ever saw!” - -For here, showing so that a novice must have seen and known and -understood the glittering promise of it, was a great vein of gold laid -bare against the bottom of the cliff-side, where last year’s snows had -set the rocks free above; where the side of the cliff had fallen outward -disclosing the thing which the mountains had hidden so well and so long. - -It was as rich as any pocket the miner had ever seen—richer. And it was -not a pocket at all, but a wide, deep vein which ran back into the -mountainside; which would make not one man, but hundreds of men, rich, -would give them riotous days and wild nights, would bring to the -realization of dreams long dreamed. And Johnny Watson, the man who had -found this, who had turned back with but a handful of the precious stuff -that he might bring his partner with him, was dead and would never take -out a nugget. - -“All in the cards, Johnny,” he mused bitterly. “And the cards are -running wrong for you and me.” - -He sat upon a boulder, his eyes brooding over the yellow promise, his -heart heavy with the love for a lost partner and the newer love for a -woman who was to be lost as soon as he had found her. The shadows drew -back from him, the sun found him out; and still he sat staring at the -thing which promised and mocked. - -At last, with the short laugh of a tired man, he got to his feet, stood -for a little looking at the smooth cuts a pick had made in the rocky -bank, and then, with no further spoken word, with no look behind him, -moved slowly away and went back along the ridge, down the pine-tree and -to the lakeside. - -There he sat down upon the big white rock, and with the stub of a -lead-pencil wrote a letter upon the bit of oiled paper in which his pipe -tobacco was wrapped. - -Virginia, dear, if I am never to see you again—and who knows how a day -like this is going to end?—this is to say good-by for me. I think that -you knew how much I love you before I told you last night. So I do not -need to tell you again. I didn’t think that love came this way, so -swiftly. I am glad, more glad than you can ever understand, that it has -come. You will go back to the world. I want you to be very happy. I am -enclosing a little present, a farewell gift. I want it to help make you -happy, dear. Good-by. - Dick Farley - - * * * * * - -And folding the paper, he put into it Johnny Watson’s map. Then he went -back along the lakeside and to the cliffs below the cabin, to wait for -James Dalton. - -He thought that it must be about ten o’clock when at last Dalton came, -walking swiftly from the cabin. Farley got to his feet and waited. -Neither man spoke until Dalton came within a dozen paces of him and -stopped. Then Farley said quietly— - -“Ready?” - -“Yes.” - -The man’s face showed no emotion, there was none in his steady voice. - -“Your revolver is of a smaller caliber than mine,” Farley went on in a -slow, matter-of-fact tone. “You can have one of my forty-fives, if you -want it.” - -Dalton looked at him curiously. - -“Thanks. I don’t want it.” And then after a short silence in which the -two men eyed each other steadily: “There is no other way?” - -“No. There can be no other way. I kill you or—you kill me.” - -“Then,” Dalton answered, as if he had expected this, “if I don’t come -through it you will find a couple of letters in my pocket. Give them to -Virginia.” - -“I have written a note, too,” Farley said by way of reply. “It is for -her.” - -With slow, steady fingers he drew a revolver from his holster. For the -instant he lost sight of the man in front of him as his eyes went upward -along the cliffs and his thoughts ran ahead of them to the cabin and the -girl there. The world was unnaturally silent, the pines about them like -carvings in jade, without a tremor, the sunlight falling softly about -them. The moment was strangely lacking the thrill of excited nerves he -had anticipated. - -That he and this man were standing so close together, that each held a -revolver in his hand, that death was very near, and the world and life -and love drawing very far away, did not impress him as he would have -said that such a thing would impress him. The whole thing was too big, -meant too much, for him to grasp it. - -“Virginia may come,” Dalton’s deep-toned voice startled him. “We had -better—hurry.” - -“Yes,” he answered. “We had better hurry.” - -So they stood facing each other, a gun in each right hand, the muzzles -downward. There was not twenty feet between them. - -“We shoot together?” Dalton was asking him. - -“Yes. And the signal?” - -“Count three. That will do as well as any way. Will you count?” - -Farley nodded. And his voice, quiet, low, steady, with regular pauses -between the words, said: - -“One—two—three!” - -The two shots rang out together, like one. And the two men, their faces -gone white and tense drawn, stood looking at each other through the -slowly lifting smoke. For as he fired, Farley had thrown the muzzle of -his gun downward so that the ball plowed through the sand at the feet of -Virginia Dalton’s father, and Dalton’s bullet had winged its way high -overhead, seeking the far shore of the lake. - -“—— you!” cried Farley shrilly, a red flood of blood in his face as he -understood. “Why did you do that? Do you want to be killed, man?” - -The man who could have killed him had spared him, the man who had -murdered Johnny Watson had stood up courting death and had made no -attempt to save himself. And the knowledge only maddened the man who had -chosen to die himself at the hand of the man he could not kill—no, not -even to “square things” for a dead partner. - -“I have killed two men in fair fight in my life,” Dalton told him -sternly, his own face flushed hotly. “I am not going to kill a third. -And I do not choose to be made to look like a fool French dude in a -polite duel! Are you going to kill me?” - -Farley laughed evilly. - -“In fair fight!” he mocked. “To cut the throat out of a man before he -had seen you, to sneak up on him in the dark—and you call that fair -fight!” - -“I gave him his chance! And he took it—not being a fool!” - -“A chance!” scoffed Farley, the rising anger within him making him for -the second forget that this was her father, his gun raised. “To drive -your —— knife through a man’s throat—to come at him in the dark——” - -“I used no knife, and I came upon him in broad daylight. And I shot the -throat out of him, after I got this!” - -He threw back his shirt collar and showed a raw wound at the base of his -neck. And Dick Farley, suddenly seeing the light of a great hope, -dropped his revolver into the sand as he clutched Dalton’s arm. - -“Don’t lie to me,” he said in a harsh whisper. For he had remembered -those other tracks he had found, and his whole body was shaking with -what it might mean to him. “Where did you find him?” - -Dalton looked at him curiously, as if upon a madman. - -“Over yonder.” His arm swung about until his outstretched forefinger -pointed toward the west—not the south. “Where he had left two horses in -a little hollow. I followed him back——” - -“Was he a little man, and stocky?” Farley was crying hoarsely. -“Blue-eyed, a little blond mustache——?” - -“He was a man six feet in his stockings,” Dalton retorted, staring. -“Black-haired and blacker-hearted. If he was your pardner——” - -“He wasn’t my pardner. Don’t you see, man?” It came with sudden -conviction, with a great gasp of relieved nerves. “You—you came upon the -man who killed Johnny! You killed Johnny Watson’s murderer!” - -And as Dalton stared after him, like a man stunned, Dick Farley was -running across the sandy beach and toward the cliffs. For he had seen -the slender figure of a girl coming slowly through the trees, and he had -a wonderful message of life and hope and love for her. - -THE END - - -[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October, 1915 issue of -the _All-Story Weekly_ magazine published by the Frank T. 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