The Hunted Woman

At last Joanne realized that the explosion was not to come, that Blackton and his men were working to save them. And now, as she listened with him, her breath began to come in sobbing excitement between her lips—for there was no mistaking that sound, that steady beat-beat-beat that came from beyond the cavern wall and seemed to set strange tremors stirring in the air about their ears. For a few moments they stood stunned and silent, as if not yet quite fully comprehending that they had come from out of the pit of death, and that men were fighting for their rescue. They asked themselves no questions—why the "coyote" had not been fired? how those outside knew they were in the cavern. And, as they listened, there came to them a voice. It was faint, so faint that it seemed to whisper to them through miles and miles of space—yet they knew that it was a voice!

"Some one is shouting," spoke Aldous tensely. "Joanne, my darling, stand around the face of the wall so flying rock will not strike you and I will answer with my pistol!"

When he had placed her in safety from split lead and rock chips, he drew his automatic and fired it close up against the choked tunnel. He fired five times, steadily, counting three between each shot, and then he placed his ear to the mass of stone and earth and listened. Joanne slipped to him like a shadow. Her hand sought his, and they held their breaths. They no longer heard sounds—nothing but the crumbling and falling of dust and pebbles where the bullets had struck, and their own heart-beats. The picks and rock-hammers had ceased.

Tighter and tighter grew the clasp of Joanne's fingers, and a terrible thought flashed into John's brain. Perhaps a, rock from the slide had cut a wire, and they had found the wire—had repaired it! Was that thought in Joanne's mind, too? Her finger-nails pricked his flesh. He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tense and gray. And then her eyes shot open—wide and staring. They heard, faintly though it came to them—once, twice, three times, four, five—the firing of a gun!

John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips.

"Five times!" he said. "It is an answer. There is no longer doubt."

He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer.

Where those picks and rock-hammers fell a score of men were working like fiends: Blackton, his arms stripped to the shoulders; Gregg, sweating and urging the men; and among them—lifting and tearing at the rock like a madman—old Donald MacDonald, his shirt open, his great hands bleeding, his hair and beard tossing about him in the wind. Behind them, her hands clasped to her breast—crying out to them to hurry, hurry—stood Peggy Blackton. The strength of five men was in every pair of arms. Huge boulders were rolled back. Men pawed earth and shale with their naked hands. Rock-hammers fell with blows that would have cracked the heart of a granite obelisk. Half an hour—three quarters—and Blackton came back to where Peggy was standing, his face black and grimed, his arms red-seared where the edges of the rocks had caught them, his eyes shining.

"We're almost there, Peggy," he panted. "Another five minutes and——"

A shout interrupted him. A cloud of dust rolled out of the mouth of the tunnel, and into that dust rushed half a dozen men led by old Donald. Before the dust had settled they began to reappear, and with a shrill scream Peggy Blackton darted forward and flung her arms about the gold-shrouded figure of Joanne, swaying and laughing and sobbing in the sunshine. And old Donald, clasping his great arms about Aldous, cried brokenly:

"Oh, Johnny, Johnny—something told me to foller ye—an' I was just in time—just in time to see you go into the coyote!"

"God bless you, Mac!" said Aldous, and then Paul Blackton was wringing his hands; and one after another the others shook his hand, but Peggy Blackton was crying like a baby as she hugged Joanne in her arms.

"MacDonald came just in time," explained Blackton a moment later; and he tried to speak steadily, and tried to smile. "Ten minutes more, and——"

He was white.

"Now that it has turned out like this I thank God that it happened, Paul," said Aldous, for the engineer's ears alone. "We thought we were facing death, and so—I told her. And in there, on our knees, we pledged ourselves man and wife. I want the minister—as quick as you can get him, Blackton. Don't say anything to Joanne, but bring him to the house right away, will you?"

"Within half an hour," replied Blackton. "There comes Tony with the buckboard. We'll hustle up to the house and I'll have the preacher there in a jiffy."

As they went to the wagon, Aldous looked about for MacDonald. He had disappeared. Requesting Gregg to hunt him up and send him to the bungalow, he climbed into the back seat, with Joanne between him and Peggy. Her little hand lay in his. Her fingers clung to him. But her hair hid her face, and on the other side of her Peggy Blackton was laughing and talking and crying by turns.

As they entered the bungalow, Aldous whispered to Joanne:

"Will you please go right to your room, dear? I want to say something to you—alone."

When she went up the stair, Peggy caught a signal from her husband. Aldous remained with them. In two minutes he told the bewildered and finally delighted Peggy what was going to happen, and as Blackton hustled out for the minister's house he followed Joanne. She had fastened her door behind her. He knocked. Slowly she opened it.

"John——"

"I have told them, dear," he whispered happily. "They understand. And, Joanne, Paul Blackton will be back in ten minutes—with the minister. Are you glad?"

She had opened the door wide, and he was heading out his arms to her again. For a moment she did not move, but stood there trembling a little, and deeper and sweeter grew the colour in her face, and tenderer the look in her eyes.

"I must brush my hair," she answered, as though she could think of no other words. "I—I must dress."

Laughing joyously, he went to her and gathered the soft masses of her hair in his hands, and piled it up in a glorious disarray about her face and head, holding it there, and still laughing into her eyes.

"Joanne, you are mine!"

"Unless I have been dreaming—I am, John Aldous!"

"Forever and forever."

"Yes, forever—and ever."

"And because I want the whole world to know, we are going to be married by a minister."

She was silent.

"And as my wife to be," he went on, his voice trembling with his happiness, "you must obey me!"

"I think that I shall, John."

"Then you will not brush your hair, and you will not change your dress, and you will not wash the dust from your face and that sweet little beauty-spot from the tip of your nose," he commanded, and now he drew her head close to him, so that he whispered, half in her hair: "Joanne, my darling, I want you wholly as you came to me there, when we thought we were going to die. It was there you promised to become my wife, and I want you as you were then—when the minister comes."

"John, I think I hear some one coming up the front steps!"

They listened. The door opened. They heard voices—Blackton's voice, Peggy's voice, and another voice—a man's voice.

Blackton's voice came up to them very distinctly.

"Mighty lucky, Peggy," he said. "Caught Mr. Wollaver just as he was passing the house. Where's——"

"Sh-h-hh!" came Peggy Blackton's sibilant whisper.

Joanne's hands had crept to John's face.

"I think," she said, "that it is the minister, John."

Her warm lips were near, and he kissed them.

"Come, Joanne. We will go down."

Hand in hand they went down the stair; and when the minister saw Joanne, covered in the tangle and glory of her hair; and when he saw John Aldous, with half-naked arms and blackened face; and when, with these things, he saw the wonderful joy shining in their eyes, he stood like one struck dumb at sight of a miracle descending out of the skies. For never had Joanne looked more beautiful than in this hour, and never had man looked more like entering into paradise than John Aldous.

Short and to the point was the little mountain minister's service, and when he had done he shook hands with them, and again he stared at them as they went back up the stair, still hand in hand. At her door they stopped. There were no words to speak now, as her heart lay against his heart, and her lips against his lips. And then, after those moments, she drew a little back, and there came suddenly that sweet, quivering, joyous play of her lips as she said:

"And now, my husband, may I dress my hair?"

"My hair," he corrected, and let her go from his arms.

Her door closed behind her. A little dizzily he turned to his room. His hand was on the knob when he heard her speak his name. She had reopened her door, and stood with something in her hand, which she was holding toward him. He went back, and she gave him a photograph.

"John, you will destroy this," she whispered. "It is his photograph—Mortimer FitzHugh's. I brought it to show to people, that it might help me in my search. Please—destroy it!"

He returned to his room and placed the photograph on his table. It was wrapped in thin paper, and suddenly there came upon him a most compelling desire to see what Mortimer FitzHugh had looked like in life. Joanne would not care. Perhaps it would be best for him to know.

He tore off the paper. And as he looked at the picture the hot blood in his veins ran cold. He stared—stared as if some wild and maddening joke was being played upon his faculties. A cry rose to his lips and broke in a gasping breath, and about him the floor, the world itself, seemed slipping away from under his feet.

For the picture he held in his hand was the picture of Culver Rann!

For a minute, perhaps longer, John Aldous stood staring at the photograph which he held in his hand. It was the picture of Culver Rann—not once did he question that fact, and not once did the thought flash upon him that this might be only an unusual and startling resemblance. It was assuredly Culver Rann! The picture dropped from his hand to the table, and he went toward the door. His first impulse was to go to Joanne. But when he reached the door he locked it, and dropped into a chair, facing the mirror in his dresser.

The reflection of his own face was a shock to him. If he was pale, the dust and grime of his fight in the cavern concealed his pallor. But the face that stared at him from out of the glass was haggard, wildly and almost grotesquely haggard, and he turned from it with a grim laugh, and set his jaws hard. He returned to the table, and bit by bit tore the photograph into thin shreds, and then piled the shreds on his ash-tray and burned them. He opened a window to let out the smoke and smell of charring paper, and the fresh, cool air of early evening struck his face. He could look off through the fading sunshine of the valley and see the mountain where Coyote Number Twenty-eight was to have done its work, and as he looked he gripped the window-sill so fiercely that the nails of his fingers were bent and broken against the wood. And in his brain the same words kept repeating themselves over and over again. Mortimer FitzHugh was not dead. He was alive. He was Culver Rann. And Joanne—Joanne was not his wife; she was still the wife of Mortimer FitzHugh—of Culver Rann!

He turned again to the mirror, and there was another look in his face. It was grim, terribly grim—and smiling. There was no excitement, nothing of the passion and half-madness with which he had faced Quade and Rann the night before. He laughed softly, and his nails dug as harshly into the palms of his hands as they had dug into the sills of the window.

"You poor, drivelling, cowardly fool!" he said to his reflection. "And you dare to say—you dare to think that she is not your wife?"

As if in reply to his words there came a knock at the door, and from the hall Blackton called:

"Here's MacDonald, Aldous. He wants to see you."

Aldous opened the door and the old hunter entered.

"If I ain't interruptin' you, Johnny——"

"You're the one man in the world I want to see, Mac. No, I'll take that back; there's one other I want to see worse than you—Culver Rann."

The strange look in his face made old Donald stare.

"Sit down," he said, drawing two chairs close to the table. "There's something to talk about. It was a terribly close shave, wasn't it?"

"An awful close shave, Johnny. As close a shave as ever was."

Still, as if not quite understanding what he saw, old Donald was staring into John's face.

"I'm glad it happened," said Aldous, and his voice became softer. "She loves me, Mac. It all came out when we were in there, and thought we were going to die. Not ten minutes ago the minister was here, and he made us man and wife."

Words of gladness that sprang to the old man's lips were stopped by that strange, cold, tense look in the face of John Aldous.

"And in the last five minutes," continued Aldous, as quietly as before, "I have learned that Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband, is not dead. Is it very remarkable that you do not find me happy, Mac? If you had come a few minutes ago——"

"Oh, my God! Johnny! Johnny!"

MacDonald had pitched forward over the table, and now he bowed his great shaggy head in his hands, and his gaunt shoulders shook as his voice came brokenly through his beard.

"I did it, Johnny; I did it for you an' her! When I knew what it would mean for her—I couldn't, Johnny, I couldn't tell her the truth, 'cause I knew she loved you, an' you loved her, an' it would break her heart. I thought it would be best, an' you'd go away together, an' nobody would ever know, an' you'd be happy. I didn't lie. I didn't say anything. But Johnny—Johnny, there weren't no bones in the grave!"

"My God!" breathed Aldous.

"There were just some clothes," went on MacDonald huskily, "an' the watch an' the ring were on top. Johnny, there weren't nobody ever buried there, an' I'm to blame—I'm to blame."

"And you did that for us," cried Aldous, and suddenly he reached over and gripped old Donald's hands. "It wasn't a mistake, Mac. I thank God you kept silent. If you had told her that the grave was empty, that it was a fraud, I don't know what would have happened. And now—she is mine! If she had seen Culver Rann, if she had discovered that this scoundrel, this blackmailer and murderer, was Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband——"

"Johnny! John Aldous!"

Donald MacDonald's voice came now like the deep growling roar of a she-bear, and as he cried the other's name he sprang to his feet, and his eyes gleamed in their deep sockets like raging fires.

"Johnny!"

Aldous rose, and he was smiling. He nodded.

"That's it," he said. "Mortimer FitzHugh is Culver Rann!"

"An'—an' you know this?"

"Absolutely. Joanne gave me Mortimer FitzHugh's photograph to destroy. I am sorry that I burned it before you saw it. But there is no doubt. Mortimer FitzHugh and Culver Rann are the same man."

Slowly the old mountaineer turned to the door. Aldous was ahead of him, and stood with his hand on the knob.

"I don't want you to go yet, Mac."

"I—I'll see you a little later," said Donald clumsily.

"Donald!"

"Johnny!"

For a full half minute they looked steadily into each other's eyes.

"Only a week, Johnny," pleaded Donald. "I'll be back in a week."

"You mean that you will kill him?"

"He'll never come back. I swear it, Johnny!"

As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back to the chair.

"That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer. I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hired assassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day—very soon—I will tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life, and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald. And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great game, Mac—and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because Joanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love.

"Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me. Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatest desire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall give him the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance, and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have an advantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that the sun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should step in, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands—why, then you may deal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than One against One."

"It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon, Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the woman are with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. There are five of 'em—five men."

"And we are two," smiled Aldous. "So there is an advantage on their side, isn't there, Mac? And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn't it?"

"Johnny, we're good for the five!" cried old Donald in a low, eager voice. "If we start now——"

"Can you have everything ready by morning?"

"The outfit's waiting. It's ready now, Johnny."

"Then we'll leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not let Joanne know. She must suspect nothing—absolutely nothing."

"Nothing," repeated MacDonald as he went to the door.

There he paused and, hesitating for a moment, leaned close to Aldous, and said in a low voice:

"Johnny, I've been wondering why the grave were empty. I've been wondering why there weren't somebody's bones there just t' give it the look it should 'a' had an' why the clothes were laid out so nicely with the watch an' the ring on top!"

With that he was gone, and Aldous closed and relocked the door.

He was amazed at his own composure as he washed himself and proceeded to dress for supper. What had happened had stunned him at first, had even terrified him for a few appalling moments. Now he was superbly self-possessed. He asked himself questions and answered them with a promptness which left no room for doubt in his mind as to what his actions should be. One fact he accepted as absolute: Joanne belonged to him. She was his wife. He regarded her as that, even though Mortimer FitzHugh was alive. In the eyes of both God and man FitzHugh no longer had a claim upon her. This man, who was known as Culver Rann, was worse than Quade, a scoundrel of the first water, a procurer, a blackmailer, even a murderer—though he had thus far succeeded in evading the rather loose and poorly working tentacles of mountain law.

Not for an instant did he think of Joanne as Culver Rann's wife. She was his wife. It was merely a technicality of the law—a technicality that Joanne might break with her little finger—that had risen now between them and happiness. And it was this that he knew was the mountain in his path, for he was certain that Joanne would not break that last link of bondage. She would know, with Mortimer FitzHugh alive, that the pledge between them in the "coyote," and the marriage ceremony in the room below, meant nothing. Legally, she was no more to him now than she was yesterday, or the day before. And she would leave him, even if it destroyed her, heart and soul. He was sure of that. For years she had suffered her heart to be ground out of her because of the "bit of madness" that was in her, because of that earlier tragedy in her life—and her promise, her pledge to her father, her God, and herself. Without arguing a possible change in her because of her love for him, John Aldous accepted these things. He believed that if he told Joanne the truth he would lose her.

His determination not to tell her, to keep from her the secret of the grave and the fact that Mortimer FitzHugh was alive, grew stronger in him with each breath that he drew. He believed that it was the right thing to do, that it was the honourable and the only thing to do. Now that the first shock was over, he did not feel that he had lost Joanne, or that there was a very great danger of losing her. For a moment it occurred to him that he might turn the law upon Culver Rann, and in the same breath he laughed at this absurdity. The law could not help him. He alone could work out his own and Joanne's salvation. And what was to happen must happen very soon—up in the mountains. When it was all over, and he returned, he would tell Joanne.

His heart beat more quickly as he finished dressing. In a few minutes more he would be with Joanne, and in spite of what had happened, and what might happen, he was happy. Yesterday he had dreamed. To-day was reality—and it was a glorious reality. Joanne belonged to him. She loved him. She was his wife, and when he went to her it was with the feeling that only a serpent lay in the path of their paradise—a serpent which he would crush with as little compunction as that serpent would have destroyed her. Utterly and remorselessly his mind was made up.

The Blacktons' supper hour was five-thirty, and he was a quarter of an hour late when he tapped at Joanne's door. He felt the warmth of a strange and delightful embarrassment flushing his face as the door opened, and she stood before him. In her face, too, was a telltale riot of colour which the deep tan partly concealed in his own.

"I—I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked.

"You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse than a woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!"

"Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne——"

"You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now! You mustn't kiss me again—until after supper——"

"Only once," he pleaded.

"If you will promise—just once——"

A moment later she gasped:

"Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as I live!"

They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy over some growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forced and incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that had happened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldous saw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keep themselves out of sight—and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could stand it no longer, and grinned broadly.

"For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'll explode!"

The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two men were shaking hands.

"We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just like you do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're not hungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing a mouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?"

"And I—I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places at the table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat, Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those people until I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering——"

"If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm as hungry as a bear!"

And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she sat opposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. He told her so when the meal was finished, and they were following the Blacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefully drilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for in spite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait a while, he pulled out his watch, and said:

"It isn't at all surprising if you people have forgotten that to-morrow is Sunday. Peggy and I always do some Saturday-night shopping, and if you don't mind, we'll leave you to care for the house while we go to town. We won't be gone more than an hour."

A few minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Aldous led Joanne to a divan, and sat down beside her.

"I couldn't have arranged it better myself, dear," he exclaimed. "I have been wondering how I could have you alone for a few minutes, and tell you what is on my mind before I see MacDonald again to-night. I'm afraid you will be displeased with me, Joanne. I hardly know how to begin. But—I've got to."

A moment's uneasiness came into her eyes as she saw how seriously he was speaking.

"You don't mean, John—there's more about Quade—and Culver Rann?"

"No, no—nothing like that," he laughed, as though amused at the absurdity of her question. "Old Donald tells me they have skipped the country, Joanne. It's not that. It's you I'm thinking of, and what you may think of me a minute from now. Joanne, I've given my word to old Donald. He has lived in my promise. I've got to keep that promise—I must go into the North with him."

She had drawn one of his hands into her lap and was fondling it with her own soft palm and fingers.

"Of course, you must, John. I love old Donald."

"And I must go—soon," he added.

"It is only fair to him that you should," she agreed.

"He—he is determined we shall go in the morning," he finished, keeping his eyes from her.

For a moment Joanne did not answer. Her fingers interweaved with his, her warm little palm stroked the rough back of his hand. Then she said, very softly:

"And why do you think that will displease me, John, dear? I will be ready!"

"You!"

Her eyes were on him, full, and dark, and glowing, and in them were both love and laughter.

"You dear silly John!" she laughed. "Why don't you come right out and tell me to stay at home, instead of—of—'beating 'round the bush'—as Peggy Blackton says? Only you don't know what a terrible little person you've got, John. You really don't. So you needn't say any more. We'll start in the morning—and I am going with you!"

In a flash John Aldous saw his whole scheme shaking on its foundation.

"It's impossible—utterly impossible!" he gasped.

"And why utterly?" she asked, bending her head so that her soft hair touched his face and lips. "John, have you already forgotten what we said in that terrible cavern—what we told ourselves we would have done if we had lived? We were going adventuring, weren't we? And we are not dead—but alive. And this will be a glorious trip! Why, John, don't you see, don't you understand? It will be our honeymoon trip!"

"It will be a long, rough journey," he argued. "It will be hard—hard for a woman."

With a little laugh, Joanne sprang up and stood before him in a glow of light, tall, and slim, and splendid, and there was a sparkle of beautiful defiance and a little of triumph in her eyes as she looked down on him.

"And it will be dangerous, too? You are going to tell me that?"

"Yes, it will be dangerous."

She came to him and rumpled up his hair, and turned his face up so that she could look into his eyes.

"Is it worse than fever, and famine, and deep swamps, and crawling jungles?" she asked. "Are we going to encounter worse things than beasts, and poisonous serpents, and murderous savages—even hunger and thirst, John? For many years we dared those together—my father and I. Are these great, big, beautiful mountains more treacherous than those Ceylon jungles from which you ran away—even you, John? Are they more terrible to live in than the Great African Desert? Are your bears worse than tigers, your wolves more terrible than lions? And if, through years and years, I faced those things with my father, do you suppose that I want to be left behind now, and by my husband?"

So sweet and wonderful was the sound of that name as it came softly from her lips, that in his joy he forgot the part he was playing, and drew her close down in his arms, and in that moment all that remained of the scheme he had built for keeping her behind crumbled in ruin about him.

Yet in a last effort he persisted.

"Old Donald wants to travel fast—very fast, Joanne. I owe a great deal to him. Even you I owe to him—for he saved us from the 'coyote.'"

"I am going, John."

"If we went alone we would be able to return very soon."

"I am going."

"And some of the mountains—it is impossible for a woman to climb them!"

"Then I will let you carry me up them, John. You are so strong——"

He groaned hopelessly.

"Joanne, won't you stay with the Blacktons, to please me?"

"No. I don't care to please you."

Her fingers were stroking his cheek.

"John?"

"Yes."

"Father taught me to shoot, and as we get better acquainted on our honeymoon trip I'll tell you about some of my hunting adventures. I don't like to shoot wild things, because I love them too well. But I can shoot. And I want a gun!"

"Great Scott!"

"Not a toy—but a real gun," she continued. "A gun like yours. And then, if by any chance we should have trouble—with Culver Rann——"

She felt him start, and her hands pressed harder against his face.

"Now I know," she whispered. "I guessed it all along. You told me that Culver Rann and the others were after the gold. They've gone—and their going isn't quite 'skipping the country' as you meant me to understand it, John Aldous! So please let's not argue any more. If we do we may quarrel, and that would be terrible. I'm going. And I will be ready in the morning. And I want a gun. And I want you to be nice to me, and I want it to be our honeymoon—even if it is going to be exciting!"

And with that she put her lips to his, and his last argument was gone.

Two hours later, when he went to the coulee, he was like one who had come out of a strange and disturbing and altogether glorious dream. He had told Joanne and the Blacktons that it was necessary for him to be with MacDonald that night. Joanne's good-night kiss was still warm on his lips, the loving touch of her hands still trembled on his face, and the sweet perfume of her hair was in his nostrils. He was drunk with the immeasurable happiness that had come to him, every fibre in him was aquiver with it—and yet, possessed of his great joy, he was conscious of a fear; a fear that was new and growing, and which made him glad when he came at last to the little fire in the coulee.

He did not tell MacDonald the cause of this fear at first. He told the story of Mortimer FitzHugh and Joanne, leaving no part of it unbared, until he could see Donald MacDonald's great gaunt hands clenching in the firelight, and his cavernous eyes flaming darkly through the gloom. Then he told what had happened when the Blacktons went to town, and when he had finished, and rose despairingly beside the fire, Donald rose, too, and his voice boomed in a sort of ecstasy.

"My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that, Johnny—she would!"

"But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? What can I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac—she isn't my wife—not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense of being a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herself my wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't. Think what it would mean!"

Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray old mountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on his shoulders.

"Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man, Johnny?"

"Good heaven, Donald. You mean——"

Their eyes met steadily.

"If you are, Johnny," went on MacDonald in a low voice, "I'd take her with me. An' if you ain't, I'd leave these mount'ins to-night an' never look in her sweet face again as long as I lived."

"You'd take her along?" demanded Aldous eagerly.

"I would. I've been thinkin' it over to-night. An' something seemed to tell me we mustn't dare leave her here alone. There's just two things to do, Johnny. You've got to stay with her an' let me go on alone or—you've got to take her."

Slowly Aldous shook his head. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten.

"If I could make myself believe that she would not be safe here—I would take her," he said. "But I can't quite make up my mind to that, Mac. She will be in good hands with the Blacktons. I will warn Paul. Joanne is determined to go, and I know she will think it pretty indecent to be told emphatically that she can't go. But I've got to do it. I can't see——"

A break in the stillness of the night stopped him with the suddenness of a bullet in his brain. It was a scream—a woman's scream, and there followed it shriek after shriek, until the black forest trembled with the fear and agony of the cries, and John Aldous stood as if suddenly stripped of the power to move or act. Donald MacDonald roused him to life. With a roar in his beard, he sprang forth into the darkness. And Aldous followed, a hot sweat of fear in his blood where a moment before had been only a chill of wonder and horror. For in Donald's savage beastlike cry he had caught Joanne's name, and an answering cry broke from his own lips as he followed the great gaunt form that was tearing with the madness of a wounded bear ahead of him through the night.

Not until they had rushed up out of the coulee and had reached the pathlike trail did the screaming cease. For barely an instant MacDonald paused, and then ran on with a speed that taxed Aldous to keep up. When they came to the little open amphitheatre in the forest MacDonald halted again. Their hearts were thumping like hammers, and the old mountaineer's voice came husky and choking when he spoke.

"It wasn't far—from here!" he panted.

Scarcely had he uttered the words when he sped on again. Three minutes later they came to where the trail crossed the edge of a small rock-cluttered meadow, and with a sudden spurt Aldous darted ahead of MacDonald into this opening, where he saw two figures in the moonlight. Half a dozen feet from them he stopped with a cry of horror. They were Paul and Peggy Blackton! Peggy was dishevelled and sobbing, and was frantically clutching at her husband. It was Paul Blackton who dragged the cry from his lips. The contractor was swaying. He was hatless; his face was covered with blood, and his eyes were only half open, as if he were fighting to pull himself back into consciousness after a terrible blow. Peggy's hair was down, her dress was torn at the throat, and she was panting so that for a moment she could not speak.

"They've got—Joanne!" she cried then. "They went—there!"

She pointed, and Aldous ran where she pointed—into the timber on the far side of the little meadow. MacDonald caught his arm as they ran.

"You go straight in," he commanded. "I'll swing—to right—toward river——"

For two minutes after that Aldous tore straight ahead. Then for barely a moment he stopped. He had not paused to question Peggy Blackton. His own fears told him who Joanne's abductors were. They were men working under instructions from Quade. And they could not be far away, for scarcely ten minutes had passed since the first scream. He listened, and held his breath so that the terrific beating of his heart would not drown the sound of crackling brush. All at once the blood in him was frozen by a fierce yell. It was MacDonald, a couple of hundred yards to his right, and after that yell came the bellowing shout of his name.

"Johnny! Johnny! Oh, Johnny!"

He dashed in MacDonald's direction, and a few moments later heard the crashing of bodies in the undergrowth. Fifty seconds more and he was in the arena. MacDonald was fighting three men in a space over which the spruce-tops grew thinly. The moon shone upon them as they swayed in a struggling mass, and as Aldous sprang to the combat one of the three reeled backward and fell as if struck by a battering-ram. In that same moment MacDonald went down, and Aldous struck a terrific blow with the butt of his heavy Savage. He missed, and the momentum of his blow carried him over MacDonald. He tripped and fell. By the time he had regained his, feet the two men had disappeared into the thick shadows of the spruce forest. Aldous whirled toward the third man, whom he had seen fall. He, too, had disappeared. A little lamely old Donald brought himself to his feet. He was smiling.

"Now, what do 'ee think, Johnny?"

"Where is she? Where is Joanne?" demanded Aldous.

"Twenty feet behind you, Johnny, gagged an' trussed up nice as a whistle! If they hadn't stopped to do that work you wouldn't ha' seen her ag'in, Johnny—s'elp me, God, you wouldn't! They was hikin' for the river. Once they had reached the Frazer, and a boat——"

He broke off to lead Aldous to a clump of dwarf spruce. Behind this, white and still in the moonlight, but with eyes wide open and filled with horror, lay Joanne. Hands and feet were bound, and a big handkerchief was tied over her mouth. Twenty seconds later Aldous held her shivering and sobbing and laughing hysterically by turns in his arms, while MacDonald's voice brought Paul and Peggy Blackton to them. Blackton had recovered from the blow that had dazed him. Over Joanne's head he stared at Aldous. And MacDonald was staring at Blackton. His eyes were burning a little darkly.

"It's all come out right," he said, "but it ain't a special nice time o' night to be taking a' evening walk in this locality with a couple o' ladies!"

Blackton was still staring at Aldous, with Peggy clutching his arm as if afraid of losing him.

It was Peggy who answered MacDonald.

"And it was a nice time of night for you to send a message asking us to bring Joanne down the trail!" she cried, her voice trembling.

"We——" began Aldous, when he saw a sudden warning movement on MacDonald's part, and stopped. "Let us take the ladies home," he said.

With Joanne clinging to him, he led the way. Behind them all MacDonald growled loudly:

"There's got t' be something done with these damned beasts of furriners. It's gettin' so no woman ain't safe at night!"

Twenty minutes later they reached the bungalow. Leaving Joanne and Peggy inside, now as busily excited as two phoebe birds, and after Joanne had insisted upon Aldous sleeping at the Blacktons' that night, the two men accompanied MacDonald a few steps on his way back to camp.

As soon as they were out of earshot Blackton began cursing softly under his breath.

"So you didn't send that damned note?" he asked. "You haven't said so, but I've guessed you didn't send it!"

"No, we didn't send a note."

"And you had a reason—you and MacDonald—for not wanting the girls to know the truth?"

"A mighty good reason," said Aldous. "I've got to thank MacDonald for closing my mouth at the right moment. I was about to give it away. And now, Blackton, I've got to confide in you. But before I do that I want your word that you will repeat nothing of what I say to another person—even your wife."

Blackton nodded.

"Go on," he said. "I've suspected a thing or two, Aldous. I'll give you my word. Go on."

As briefly as possible, and without going deeply into detail, Aldous told of Quade and his plot to secure possession of Joanne.

"And this is his work," he finished. "I've told you this, Paul, so that you won't worry about Peggy. You can see from to-night's events that they were not after her, but wanted Joanne. Joanne must not learn the truth. And your wife must not know. I am going to settle with Quade. Just how and where and when I'm going to settle with him I don't care to say now. But he's going to answer to me. And he's going to answer soon."

Blackton whistled softly.

"A boy brought the note," he said. "He stood in the dark when he handed it to me. And I didn't recognize any one of the three men who jumped out on us. I didn't have much of a chance to fight, but if there's any one on the face of the earth who has got it over Peggy when it comes to screaming, I'd like to know her name! Joanne didn't have time to make a sound. But they didn't touch Peggy until she began screaming, and then one of the men began choking her. They had about laid me out with a club, so I was helpless. Good God——"

He shuddered.

"They were river men," said MacDonald. "Probably some of Tomman's scow-men. They were making for the river."

A few minutes later, when Aldous was saying good-night to MacDonald, the old hunter said again, in a whisper:

"Now what do 'ee think, Johnny?"

"That you're right, Mac," replied Aldous in a low voice. "There is no longer a choice. Joanne must go with us. You will come early?"

"At dawn, Johnny."

He returned to the bungalow with Blackton, and until midnight the lights there burned brightly while the two men answered a thousand questions about the night's adventure, and Aldous told of his and Joanne's plans for the honeymoon trip into the North that was to begin the next day.

It was half-past twelve when be locked the door of his and sat down to think.