CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
GOLD OF REPENTANCE, SUNLIGHT OF LOVE AND A MAN GONE MAD
Marion was up at the foot of the last grilling climb, the steepacclivity where manzanita shrubs locked arms and laughed at theclimber. Fearful of a sprained ankle like Kate's, she had watchedcarefully where she set down her feet and had not considered that itwould be wise to choose just as carefully the route she should followto gain the top; so long as she was climbing in that general directionshe felt no uneasiness, because Taylor Rock topped it all, and she wasbound to come out somewhere close to the point at which she wasaiming.
But the wall of manzanita stopped her before she had penetrated a rodinto it. One solid mass blanketed with snow it looked to be when shestepped carefully upon a rock and surveyed the slope. She had bornetoo far to the right, away from the staggering rush of wind. She hatedto turn now and face the storm while she made her way around to theline of timber, but she had no choice. So she retreated from themanzanita and fought her way around it--finding it farther than shehad dreamed; finding, too, that the storm was a desperate thing, ifone had to face it for long in the open.
She made the timber, and stood leaning against the sheltered side of adark-trunked spruce whose branches were thick and wide-spread enoughto shield her. The physical labor of fighting her way thus far, andthe high altitude to which she had attained, made her pant like arunner just after the race. She held her muff to her face again forthe sense of warmth and well-being its soft fur gave to her cheeks.Certainly, no one else would be fool enough to come out on such a day,she thought. And what a surprise to Jack, seeing her come puffing intohis cave! She had not been there since the snow fell, just beforeThanksgiving. Now it was nearly Christmas--a month of solitarygrandeur Jack had endured.
She glanced up at the tossing boughs above her; felt the great treetrunk quiver when a fresh blast swept the top; looked out at the mistywhiteness of the storm, clouded with swaying pine branches. What aworld it was! But she was not afraid of it; somehow she felt its big,rough friendliness even now. It did not occur to her that themountains could work her ill, though she reminded herself thatstanding still was not the best way to keep warm on such a day.
She started up again, ignorantly keeping among the trees, that amountaineer would have shunned. But straightway she stopped and lookedaround her puzzled. Surely she had not come down this way when sheskirted the manzanita. She remembered coming in among the trees fromthe right. She turned and went that way, saw her filling footprints inthe snow, and plodded back. There were tracks coming down the hill,and she had not made them. They must surely be Jack's.
With the new wisdom of having tramped nearly every day through snow,she studied these new tracks and her own where she had come to thespruce tree. These other tracks, she decided, had been madelately--she must have missed by minutes seeing him pass before her.Perhaps she could overtake him. So she faced the wind and ran gaspingdown the slope, following the tracks. She nearly caught Mike unaware,but she did not know it. She hurried unsuspectingly past the treewhere he was hiding, his rifle held ready to fire if she looked hisway. He was hesitating, mumbling there with his finger on the triggerwhen she went out of sight around a bush, still following where thetracks led. Mike stepped out from behind the tree and came bowleggingafter her, walking with that peculiar, flat-footed gait of themountain trained man.
Luck was with her. Jack had gone down a gully rim, thinking to crossit farther on, ran into rocks and a precipitous bank, and was comingback upon his trail. He met Marion face to face. She gave a cry thathad in it both tears and laughter, and stood looking at him big-eyedover her muff.
"Well, forevermore! I thought I never would catch you! I was going tothe cave--" Something in Jack's scrutinizing, unfriendly eyes stoppedher.
"Sorry, but I'm not at home," he said. There was more than a sulkymood in his tone. Marion was long since accustomed to the boyishgruffness with which Jack strove to hide heartaches. This wasdifferent. It froze her superficial cheerfulness to a panickyconviction that Jack had in some manner discovered her betrayal ofhim; or else he had taken alarm at Hank's prowling.
"What's the matter, Jack? Did you find out about--anybody knowingyou're here? Are you beating it, now?"
"I don't know what you mean." Jack still eyed her with thatdisconcerting, measuring look that seemed to accuse without makingclear just what the specific accusation might be. "How do youmean--beating it?"
"I mean--oh, Jack, I did an awful thing, and I came up to tell you.And Hank Brown knows something, I'm sure, and that worries me, too. Icame out to see if I could meet you, the other day, while Doug stayedwith Kate. And I ran right onto Hank Brown, and he began asking aboutyou right away, Jack, and hinting things and talking about tracks. Heshowed me where you had waited behind the tree, and where we stood andtalked, and he guessed about my bringing cigarettes, even. He's thefoxiest thing--he just worked it all out and kept grinning somean--but I fooled him, though. I made him think it was Fred that hadbeen out hunting, and that I met him, and the package had candy in it.I had to kid him away from the subject of you--and then the big rubegot so fresh--I had the awfullest time you ever saw, Jack, gettingaway from the fool.
"But the point I'm getting at is that he suspects something. He saidyou hadn't been near Quincy, and there must be some reason. He saidyou didn't have any mine located, because you hadn't filed any claim,or anything. But that isn't the worst--"
"I don't care what Hank thinks." Jack pulled the collar of his coatcloser to his ears, because of the seeking wind and snow. "Get underthe cedar, while I tell you. I was going without seeing you, because Isaw you and Hank together and I didn't like the looks of it. I wassore as a goat, Marion, and that's the truth. But it's like this: I'mgoing back home. I can't stand it any longer--I don't mean the wayI've been living, though that ain't any soft graft either. But it'smother, I'm thinking of. I never gave her a square deal, Marion.
"I--you know how I have felt about her, but that's all wrong. She'sbeen all right--she's a brick. I'm the one that's given the raw deal.I've been a selfish, overbearing, good-for-nothing ass ever since Icould walk, and if she wasn't a saint she'd have kicked me out longago. Why, I sneaked off and left a lie on her dresser, and never gaveher a chance to get the thing straight, or anything. I tell you,Marion, if I was in her place, and had a measly cub of a son like I'vebeen, I'd drown him in a tub, or something. Honest to John, I wouldn'thave a brat like that on the place! How she's managed to put up withme all these years is more than I can figure; it gets my goat to lookback at the kinda mark I've been--strutting around, spending money Inever earned, and never thanking her--feeling abused, by thunder,because she didn't--oh, it's hell! I can't talk about it. I'm goingback and see her, and tell her where I stand. She'll kick me out ifshe's got any sense, but that'll be all right. I'll see her, and thenI'm going to the chief of police and straighten out that banditstuff. I'm going to tell just how the play came up--just a josh, itwas. I'll tell 'em--it'll be bad enough, at that, but maybe it'll dosome good--make other kids think twice before they get to actingsmart-alecky.
"So you run along home, Marion, and maybe some day--if they don't sendme up for life, or anything like that--maybe I'll have the nerve totell yuh--" A dark flush showed on his cheek-bones, that were gauntfrom worry and hard living. He moved uneasily, tugging at the collarof his sweater.
"You've got your nerve now, Jack Corey, if you want to know what Ithink," Marion retorted indignantly. "Why, you're going up against anawfully critical time! And do you think for a minute, you big sillykid, that I'll let you go alone? I--I never did--ah--respect you asmuch as I do right now. I--well, I'm going right along with you. I'mgoing to see that chief of police myself, and I'm going to see yourmother. And if they don't give you a square deal, I'm going to tellthem a few things! I--"
"You can't go. Don't be a fool, sweetheart. You mustn't let on thatyou've thrown in with me at all, and helped me, and all that. Iappreciate it--but my friendship ain't going to be any hel
p to--"
"Jack Corey, I could shake you! The very idea of you talking that waymakes me wild! I am going. You can't stop me from riding on the train,can you? And you can't stop me from seeing the chief--"
"I'd look nice, letting your name get mixed up with mine! Sweetheart,have some sense!" Jack may not have known what name he had twicecalled her, but Marion's eyes lighted with blue flames.
"Some things are better than sense--sweetheart," she said, with a shyboldness that startled her. The last word was spoken into thesnow-matted fur of her muff, but Jack heard it.
"You--oh, God! Marion, do you--care?" He reached out and caught her bythe shoulders. "You mustn't. I'm not fit for a girl like you. Maybesome day--"
"Some day doesn't mean anything at all. This part of today is whatcounts. I'm going with you. I--I feel as if I'd die if I didn't. Ifthey send you to jail, I'll make them send me too--if I have to rob aChinaman!" She laughed confusedly, hiding her face. "It's awful, but Isimply couldn't live without--without--"
"Me? Say, that's the way I've been feeling about you, ever since Lordknows how long. But I didn't suppose you'd ever--"
"Say, my feet are simply freezing!" Marion interrupted him."We'll have to start on. It would be terrible if we missed the train,Jack."
"You oughtn't to go. Honestly, I mean it. Unless we get married, itwould--"
"Why, of course we'll get married! Have I got to simply propose toyou? We'll have to change at Sacramento anyway--or we can change therejust as well as not--and we'll get married while we're waiting for thetrain south. I hope you didn't think for a minute that I'd--"
"It isn't fair to you." Jack moved out from under the sheltering cedarand led the way up the gully's rim, looking mechanically for an easycrossing. "I'm a selfish enough brute without letting you--"
Marion plucked at his sleeve and stopped him.
"Jack Corey, you tell me one thing. Don't you--want me to--marry you?Don't you care--?"
"Listen here, honey, I'll get sore in a minute if you go talking thatway!" He took her in his arms, all snow as she was, and kissed herwith boyish energy. "You know well enough that I'm crazy about you. Ofcourse I want you! But look at the fix I'm in: with just about ahundred dollars to my name--"
"I've got money in my muff to buy a license, if you'll pay thepreacher, Jack. We'll go fifty-fifty on the cost--"
"And a darned good chance of being sent up for that deal the boyspulled off--"
"Oh, well, I can wait till you get out again. Say, I just love youwith that little lump between your eyebrows when you scowl! Go on,Jack; I'm cold. My gracious, what a storm! It's getting worse, don'tyou think? When does that train go down, Jack? We'll have to be at thestation before dark, or we might get lost and miss the train, and thenwe would be in a fix! I wish to goodness I'd thought to put on my bluevelvet suit--but then, how was I going to know that I'd need it to getmarried in?"
Jack stopped on the very edge of the bank, and held back thesnow-laden branches for her to pass. "You're the limit for having yourown way," he grinned. "I can see who's going to be boss of the camp,all right. Come on--the sooner we get down into lower country, theless chance we'll have of freezing. We'll cross here, and get down inthat thick timber below. The wind won't catch us quite so hard, and ifa tree don't fall on us we'll work our way down to the trail. Give mea kiss. This is a toll gate, and you've got to pay--"
Standing so, with one arm flung straight out against the thick boughsof a young spruce, he made a fair target for Mike back there among thetrees. Mike was clean over the edge now of sanity. The two spies hadcome together--two against one, and searching for him to kill him, ashe firmly believed. When they had stood under the cedar he thoughtthat they were hiding there, waiting for him to walk into the trapthey had set. He would have shot them, but the branches were toothick. When they moved out along the gulch, Mike ran crouching after,his rifle cocked and ready for aim. You would have thought that theman was stalking a deer. When Jack stopped and turned, with his armflung back against the spruce, he seemed to be looking straight atMike.
Mike aimed carefully, for he was shaking with terror and the cold ofthose heights. The sharp pow-w of his rifle crashed through thewhispery roar of the pines, and the hills flung back muffled echoes.Marion screamed, saw Jack sag down beside the spruce, clutched at himwildly, hampered by her muff. Saw him go sliding down over the bank,into the gulch, screamed again and went sliding after him.
Afterwards she remembered a vague impression she had had, of hearingsome one go crashing away down the gully, breaking the bushes thatimpeded his flight.