CHAPTER VIII
IN HARTE'S CABIN
There was a rough board table, oilcloth-covered, in front of thefireplace. There were coffee, bread and butter, crisp slices of bacon, adish of steaming tinned corn. There were two plates with knife and forkat the side, two cups, two chairs drawn up to the table.
"You see," she said, gaily and lightly enough, "you _have_ kept mewaiting."
He glanced swiftly at her as she stood by the fireplace, and away. Forthough twilight in the wooded country had crept out upon them he couldsee the look in her eyes, the set of the red lipped mouth. And he knewdownright fear when he saw it, though it be fear bravely masked.
"Let's eat," he answered, having many things in his mind, but no othersingle thing to say to her just yet.
She flashed him a quick look and sat down. Thornton dragged back theother chair, flung his hat to the bunk in the corner of the room, anddisposed his long legs uncomfortably under the small table. Inwardly hewas devoutly cursing Dave Wendell for allowing anybody at his place tochoose this particular time to get sick and the Hartes for going to theassistance of a ten-mile distant neighbour.
He watched the girl's quick fingers busy with the blackened coffee pot,realized at one and the same time that she had no ring upon a particularfinger and that it was idiotic for him to so much as look for it, neverallowed his glance to wander higher than her hands and attacked hisbread and butter as though its immediate consumption were the mostimportant thing in all the world. And she, when she felt that he was notwatching her, when his silence was almost a tangible thing, looked athim with quick furtiveness. The something in her expression which hadspoken of terror began to give place to the look of amusement whichtwitched at her lips and flickered up in the soft grey of her eyes. Andsince still he gave no sign of breaking the silence which had fallenover them, she said at last:
"Didn't you know all the time who I was?"
Then he looked up at her inquiringly. And when he saw that she wassmiling, a little of his sudden restraint fled from him and his eyessmiled back gently a little and reassuringly into hers.
"All the time?" he asked. "Meaning when?"
"Back there. On the trail," she told him.
"Well," he admitted slowly, "I guess I was pretty sure. Of course Icouldn't be dead certain. It might have been anybody's tracks ... thatis," he corrected with a quick broadening of the smile, "anybody with afoot the right size to fit into a boot like that."
"Like what?" she asked in turn.
"Like the one that made the tracks by the creek where you came into themain trail, where you stopped to drink."
"You saw that?"
"If I hadn't seen it how was I to guess that it was you ahead of me?" hedemanded. And when she frowned a little and did not answer for a momenthe gave his attention to the black coffee which she had poured for him."You sure know how to make coffee _right_," he complimented her with avast show of sincerity. "This is the best I ever tasted."
"I'm glad you like it," she retorted as the frown fled before a hint oflaughter. "I found it already made in the pot and just warmed it over!"
"Oh," said Thornton. And then with much gravity of tone but withtwinkling eyes, "Come to think of it it isn't the _taste_ of it that aman notices; it's the being just hot enough. I never had any coffeebetter warmed-up than this."
"Thank you." She stirred the sugar in her own cup of muddy lookingbeverage and without glancing up at him this time, went on, "You meanthat you didn't know who I was when you saw me?"
"At the bank in Dry Town?"
"Of course not. Back there on the trail."
"I didn't see you," he told her.
Now she flashed another quick upward glance at him as though seeking fora reason lying back of his words.
"I saw you" she said steadily. "Twice. First from the top of a hillhalf a dozen miles back when you got down to look at your horse's foot.Did he pick up a stone?"
His eyes opened in surprise.
"I didn't get off to look at my horse's foot. And he didn't pick upanything."
"The second time," she continued, "was just when you had come to thelast stream. I thought that you were going to turn off into the canon. Isaw that your horse was limping."
He shook his head. She must have seen that other fellow whose tracksThornton had for so long seen following the tracks of her pony.
"What made you think you recognized me?" he asked.
"I didn't think. I knew."
"Then ... how did you know?"
The surprise showing in her frankly lifted brows was very plain now.
"You were hardly five hundred yards away," she retorted. "And," with aquick, sweeping survey of him, "you are not a man to be readily mistakeneven at that distance, you know."
"Meaning the inches of me? The up-and-down six feet four of me?" Heshook his head. "I'm the only man in this neck of the woods built on thebean pole style."
"Meaning," she returned steadily, "your size and form; meaning theunusually wide hat you wear; meaning your blue shirt and greyneck-handkerchief ... grey handkerchiefs aren't so common, are they?...meaning your tall sorrel horse that limped, and your bridle with the redtassel swinging from the headstall! Now," a little sharply, a littleanxiously, he thought, "you are not going to tell me that I wasmistaken, are you?"
She saw that his surprise, growing into sheer amazement as she ran on,was a wonderfully simulated thing if it were not real.
"You made a mistake," he said coolly. "I saw in the trail that there wasanother man following you. If I had known his get-up was so close tomine, I'd have done a little fast riding to take a peep at him. Heturned off at the last creek, as you thought."
"You saw him?" she asked quickly.
"I saw his tracks. And," he added with deep thoughtfulness as he staredpast her into the smouldering fire in the fireplace, "I'd sure like toknow who he is."
Again, as she watched him, an expression of uneasiness crept into hereyes; then as he turned back to her she looked down quickly.
"Is it far to the Wendell place?" she asked abruptly. "Where the sickwoman is?"
"Ten miles. Off to the north."
"Not on our trail?" anxiously.
"You're going on, further?"
"Yes. To ..." she hesitated, and then concluded hurriedly, "To Hill'sCorners."
He sat silent for a moment, his strong brown fingers playing with hisknife and fork. And his eyes were merely stern when he spoke quietly.
"So you're going to Dead Man's Alley, are you?"
"I said that I was going to Hill's Corners!"
"And folks who know that quiet little city," he informed her, "have gotinto the habit of calling it by the name of its principal street.... Iwonder if you've ever been there?"
"No. Why?"
"I wonder if you know anything about the place?"
"What I've heard. What Mr. Templeton tried to tell me."
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "I don't know that I blame him for tryingto turn you into another trail. He must have told you," and he waswatching her very keenly, "that the stage runs there from Dry Town?"
"Yes. But I chose to ride on horseback. Is there anything strange inthat?"
"Oh, no!" he said briefly. "Just a nice little ride!"
"I have ridden long trails before."
Again for a little while she watched him with intent, eager eyes; he wassilent, frowning into his own cup of coffee.
"Dead Man's Alley," he volunteered abruptly, "is the worst little badtown I ever saw. And I've camped in two or three that a man wouldn'tcall just exactly healthy on the dark of the moon. I guess Mr.Templeton must have told you, but unless it's happened in the lastmonth, there isn't a man in that town who has his wife or daughtersthere. If I were you," and he lifted his cup to his lips as a sign thathe had said his say, "I'd rope my cow pony and hit the home trail forDry Town!"
"Thank you," she said as quietly as he had spoken. "But really Mr.Templeton gave me enough advice to last me a year, I think. I hav
e madeup my mind to go on to ... to Dead Man's Alley, as you call it."
"Well," he grinned back at her as though the discussion had been of nomoment and now was quite satisfactorily ended, "I ought to be glad,oughtn't I? Since my trail runs that way, and since the Poison Holeranch is only twenty miles out from the Corners. Maybe you'll let meride over and see you?"
"Of course. I'll be glad to have you. That is," and her smile came back,a very teasing smile, too, "if you'll care to call at the house whereI'm going to stop? I'm going to stay with my uncle."
"The chances are that I don't know him. I don't know half a dozen folksin the town. What's his name?"
"His name," she told him demurely, "is Henry Pollard. I think you knowhim."
He flushed a little as she had hoped that he would. He remembered. Heknew that he had spoken this morning at the bank of Henry Pollard fromwhom he was buying his outfit, knew that he must have called him, as healways did when he spoke of him, "Rattlesnake" Pollard. And HenryPollard was her uncle!
"I didn't know," he said slowly and a little lamely, "that he was youruncle. But," he added cheerfully, his assurance coming back to him, "youcan't help that, you know. I don't blame you for it. Yes, I'll ride overfrom the ranch. It's good of you to let me."
They finished the meal in a rather thoughtful silence. Thornton made acigarette and went to the door to look for the upclimbing moon; the girlcarried her chair to the fireplace and sat down, her hands in her lap,her eyes staring into the coals.
The man was asking himself stubbornly why this girl, this type of girl,dainty, frank-eyed, clean-hearted as he felt instinctively that she was,was making this trip to that dirty town which straddled the state borderline like an evil, venomous toad and sneered in its ugly defiant fashionat the peace officers of two states. He was trying to see what thereason could be that carried her through this little-travelled countryto the house of such a man as not only Buck Thornton but every one inthis end of the cattle country knew Henry Pollard to be; trying aboveall to seek the reason for her making the trip on horse back, alone,over a wild trail, when the stage for Hill's Corners had left Dry Townso little after her and must reach its journey's end well ahead of her.
And she, over and over, was asking herself why this man whom she was socertain she had seen twice that day upon the trail behind her, deniedthat he had been the man who got down to look at his horse's foot, wholater had ridden a limping mount aside into the canon. For she felt verysure that she had not been mistaken and, therefore, that he was lying toher. She frowned and glanced over her shoulder. She was a little afraidof a man who could look at her out of clear eyes as he had looked, andlie to her as she was so confident he had lied. She knew nothing of himsave that this morning he had come to her assistance at a moment ofgreat peril and that he was suspected by some of a certain robbery andassault....
"Are you very tired?"
She started. He had turned at last and came back to where she sat.
"No, I am not tired. Why do you ask?"
"There'll be a moon soon. We can let the horses rest a bit.... I haveridden mine pretty hard the last few days ... and then after moon-up wecan ride on. There's another shack where a man and his wife live just alittle off the trail and about seven miles further on. It'll be betterthan trying to make Wendell's place."