CHAPTER XVIII
"WIN"
Alice opened her eyes to see Endicott bending over her. "It is time topull out," said the man tersely.
The girl threw off the blanket and stared into the whirl of opaquedust. "The storm is still raging," she murmured. "Oh, Winthrop, doyou know that I dreamed it was all over--that we were riding betweenhigh, cool mountains beside a flashing stream. And trout were leapingin the rapids, and I got off and drank and drank of the clear, coldwater, and, why, do you know, I feel actually refreshed! The horribleburning thirst has gone. That proves the control mind has overmatter--if we could just concentrate and think hard enough, I don'tbelieve we would ever need to be thirsty, or hungry, or tired, or cold,do you?"
The man smiled grimly, and shook his head: "No. If we could think hard_enough_ to accomplish a thing, why, manifestly that thing would beaccomplished. Great word--enough--the trouble is, when you use it, younever say anything."
Alice laughed: "You're making fun of me. I don't care, you know what Imean, anyway. Why, what's the matter with that horse?"
"He died--got weaker and weaker, and at last he just rolled over dead.And that is why we have to hurry and make a try for the water-hole,before the others play out."
Endicott noticed that the Texan was nowhere in sight. He pressed hislips firmly: "It's better that way, I guess," he thought.
"But, that's your horse! And where are the others--Tex, and Bat, andthe pack-horse?"
"They pulled out to hunt for the water-hole--each in a differentdirection. You and I are to keep together and drift with the wind aswe have been doing."
"And they gave us the best of it," she breathed. Endicott winced, andthe girl noticed. She laid her hand gently upon his arm. "No,Winthrop, I didn't mean that. There was a time, perhaps, when I mighthave thought--but, that was before I knew you. I have learned a lot inthe past few days, Winthrop--enough to know that no matter whathappens, you have played a man's part--with the rest of them. Come,I'm ready."
Endicott tied the scarf about her face and assisted her to mount, then,throwing her bridle reins over the horn of his saddle as the Texan haddone, he headed down the coulee. For three hours the horses driftedwith the storm, following along coulees, crossing low ridges, and longlevel stretches where the sweep of the wind seemed at times as thoughit would tear them from the saddles. Endicott's horse stumbledfrequently, and each time the recovery seemed more and more of aneffort. Then suddenly the wind died--ceased to blow as abruptly as ithad started. The man could scarcely believe his senses as he listenedin vain for the roar of it--the steady, sullen roar, that had rung inhis ears, it seemed, since the beginning of time. Thick dust filledthe air but when he turned his face toward the west no sand particlesstung his skin. Through a rift he caught sight of a low butte--a buttethat was not nearby. Alice tore the scarf from her face. "It hasstopped!" she cried, excitedly. "The storm is over!"
"Thank God!" breathed Endicott, "the dust is beginning to settle." Hedismounted and swung the girl to the ground. "We may as well wait hereas anywhere until the air clears sufficiently for us to get ourbearings. We certainly must have passed the water-hole, and we wouldonly be going farther and farther away if we pushed on."
The dust settled rapidly. Splashes of sunshine showed here and thereupon the basin and ridge, and it grew lighter. The atmosphere took onthe appearance of a thin grey fog that momentarily grew thinner.Endicott walked to the top of a low mound and gazed eagerly about him.Distant objects were beginning to appear--bare rock-ridges, andlow-lying hills, and deep coulees. In vain the man's eyes followed theridges for one that terminated in a huge broken rock, with its nearbysoda hill. No such ridge appeared, and no high, round hill. Suddenlyhis gaze became rivetted upon the southern horizon. What was thatstretching away, long, and dark, and winding? Surely--surely itwas--trees! Again and again he tried to focus his gaze upon that longdark line, but always his lids drew over his stinging eyeballs, andwith a half-sobbed curse, he dashed the water from his eyes. At lasthe saw it--the green of distant timber. "The Missouri--fivemiles--maybe more. Oh God, if the horses hold out!" Running,stumbling, he made his way to the girl's side. "It's the river!" hecried. "The Missouri!"
"Look at the horses!" she exclaimed. "They see it, too!" The animalsstood with ears cocked forward, and dirt-caked nostrils distended,gazing into the south. Endicott sprang to his slicker, and producingthe flask, saturated his handkerchief with the thick red liquid. Hetried to sponge out the mouths and noses of the horses but they drewback, trembling and snorting in terror.
"Why, it's blood!" cried the girl, her eyes dilated with horror. "Fromthe horse that died," explained Endicott, as he tossed the rag to theground.
"But, the water--surely there was water in the flask last night!"Then, of a sudden, she understood. "You--you fed it to me in mysleep," she faltered. "You were afraid I would refuse, and that was mydream!"
"Mind over matter," reminded Endicott, with a distortion of hisbleeding lips that passed for a grin. Again he fumbled in his slickerand withdrew the untouched can of tomatoes. He cut its cover as he hadseen Tex do and extended it to the girl. "Drink some of this, and ifthe horses hold out we will reach the river in a couple of hours."
"I believe it's growing a little cooler since that awful wind wentdown," she said, as she passed the can back to Endicott. "Let's pushon, the horses seem to know there is water ahead. Oh, I hope they canmake it!"
"We can go on a-foot if they can't," reassured the man. "It is notfar."
The horses pushed on with renewed life. They stumbled weakly, but thehopeless, lack-lustre look was gone from their eyes and at frequentintervals they stretched their quivering nostrils toward the long greenline in the distance. So slow was their laboured pace that at the endof a half-hour Endicott dismounted and walked, hobbling clumsily overthe hot rocks and through ankle-deep drifts of dust in his high-heeledboots. A buzzard rose from the coulee ahead with silent flapping ofwings, to be joined a moment later by two more of his evil ilk, and thethree wheeled in wide circles above the spot from which they had beenfrightened. A bend in the coulee revealed a stagnant poison spring. Adead horse lay beside it with his head buried to the ears in the slimywater. Alice glanced at the broken chain of the hobbles that stillencircled the horse's feet.
"It's the pack-horse!" she cried. "They have only one horse betweenthem!"
"Yes, he got away in the night." Endicott nodded. "Bat is huntingwater, and Tex is waiting." He carried water in his hat and dashed itover the heads of the horses, and sponged out their mouths and noses asTex and Bat had done. The drooping animals revived wonderfully underthe treatment and, with the long green line of scrub timber now plainlyin sight, evinced an eagerness for the trail that, since the departurefrom Antelope Butte, had been entirely wanting. As the man assistedthe girl to mount, he saw that she was crying.
"They'll come out, all right," he assured her. "As soon as we hit theriver and I can get a fresh horse, I'm going back."
"Going back!"
"Going back, of course--with water. You do not expect me to leavethem?"
"No, I don't expect you to leave them! Oh, Winthrop, I--" her voicechoked up and the sentence was never finished.
"Buck up, little girl, an hour will put us at the river," he swung intothe saddle and headed southward, glad of a respite from the galling,scalding torture of walking in high-heeled boots.
Had Endicott combed Montana throughout its length and breadth he couldhave found no more evil, disreputable character than Long Bill Kearney.Despised by honest citizens and the renegades of the bad lands, alike,he nevertheless served these latter by furnishing them whiskey andsupplies at exorbitant prices. Also, he bootlegged systematically tothe Port Belknap Indians, which fact, while a matter of commonknowledge, the Government had never been able to prove. So Long Bill,making a living ostensibly by maintaining a flat-boat ferry and a fewhead of mangy cattle, continued to ply his despicable trade. Eve
npassing cowboys avoided him and Long Bill was left pretty much to hisown evil devices.
It was the cabin of this scum of the outland that Endicott and Aliceapproached after pushing up the river for a mile or more from the pointwhere they had reached it by means of a deep coulee that woundtortuously through the breaks. Long Bill stood in his doorway and eyedthe pair sullenly as they drew rein and climbed stiffly from thesaddles. Alice glanced with disgust into the sallow face with itsunkempt, straggling beard, and involuntarily recoiled as her eyes metthe leer with which he regarded her as Endicott addressed him:
"We've been fighting the dust storm for two days, and we've got to havegrub and some real water, quick."
The man regarded him with slow insolence: "The hell ye hev," hedrawled; "Timber City's only seven mile, ef ye was acrost the river. Ihain't runnin' no hotel, an' grub-liners hain't welcome."
"God, man! You don't mean----"
"I mean, ef ye got five dollars on ye I'll ferry ye acrost to where yec'n ride to Timber City ef them old skates'll carry ye there, an' ef yehain't got the five, ye c'n swim acrost, or shove on up the river, orgo back where ye come from."
Endicott took one swift step forward, his right fist shot into theman's stomach, and as he doubled forward with a grunt of pain,Endicott's left crashed against the point of his jaw with a force thatsent him spinning like a top as he crumpled to the hard-trodden earthof the door-yard.
"Good!" cried Alice. "It was beautifully done. He didn't even have achance to shoot," she pointed to the two 45's that hung, one at eitherhip.
"I guess we'll just relieve him of those," said Endicott, and, jerkingthe revolvers from their holsters, walked to his saddle and uncoiledthe rope. Alice lent eager assistance, and a few moments later theinhospitable one lay trussed hand and foot. "Now, we'll go in and findsomething to eat," said Endicott, as he made fast the final hitch.
The cabin was well stocked with provisions and, to the surprise of thetwo, was reasonably clean. While Alice busied herself in the cabin,Endicott unsaddled the horses and turned them into a small field wherethe vegetation grew rank and high and green beside a series ofirrigation ditches. Passing the horse corral he saw that three or foursaddle-horses dozed in the shade of its pole fence, and continued on tothe river bank where he inspected minutely the ferry.
"I guess we can manage to cross the river," he told Alice, when hereturned to the cabin; "I will breathe easier when I see you safe inTimber City, wherever that is. I am coming back after Tex. But firstI must see you safe."
The girl crossed to his side and as the man glanced into her face hesaw that her eyes were shining with a new light--a light he had dreamedcould shine from those eyes, but never dared hope to see. "No, Win,"she answered softly, and despite the mighty pounding of his heart theman realized it was the first time she had used that name. "You arenot going back alone. I am going too." Endicott made a gesture ofprotest but she gave no heed. "From now on my place is with you. Oh,Win, can't you see! I--I guess I have always loved you--only I didn'tknow It. I wanted romance--wanted a red-blood man--a man who could dothings, and----"
"Oh, if I could come to you clean-handed!" he interrupted,passionately; "if I could offer you a hand unstained by the blood of afellow creature!"
She laid a hand gently upon his shoulder and looked straight into hiseyes: "Don't, Win," she said; "don't always hark back to _that_. Letus forget."
"I wish to God I could forget!" he answered, bitterly. "I know the actwas justified. I believe it was unavoidable. But--it is my NewEngland conscience, I suppose."
Alice smiled: "Don't let your conscience bother you, because it is aNew England conscience. They call you 'the pilgrim' out here. It isthe name they called your early Massachusetts forebears--and if historyis to be credited, they never allowed their consciences to stand in theway of taking human life."
"But, they thought they were right."
"And you _know_ you were right!"
"I know--I know! It isn't the ethics--only the fact."
"Don't brood over it. Don't think of it, dear. Or, if you must, thinkof it only as a grim duty performed--a duty that proved, as nothingelse could have proved, that you are every inch a man."
Endicott drew her close against his pounding heart. "It proved thatthe waters of the Erie Canal, if given the chance, can dash as madlyunrestrained as can the waters of the Grand Canyon."
She pressed her fingers to his lips: "Don't make fun of me. I was afool."
"I'm not making fun--I didn't know it myself, until--" the sentence wasdrowned in a series of yells and curses and vile epithets that broughtboth to the door to stare down at the trussed-up one who writhed on theground in a very paroxysm of rage.
"Conscience hurting you, or is it your jaw?" asked Endicott, as hegrinned into the rage-distorted features.
"Git them hosses outa that alfalfy! You ---- ---- ---- ---- ----!I'll hev th' law on ye! I'll shoot ye! I'll drag yer guts out!" Sogreat was the man's fury that a thin white foam flecked hishate-distorted lips, and his voice rose to a high-pitched whine.Endicott glanced toward the two horses that stood, belly-deep, in thelush vegetation.
"They like it," he said, calmly. "It's the first feed they have had intwo days." The man's little pig eyes glared red, and his voice chokedin an inarticulate snarl.
Alice turned away in disgust. "Let him alone," she said, "and we willhave dinner. I'm simply famished. Nothing ever looked so good to mein the world as that ham and potatoes and corn and peas." During thecourse of the meal, Endicott tried to dissuade the girl from herpurpose of accompanying him on his search for Tex and the half-breed.But she would have it no other way, and finally, perforce, he consented.
Leaving her to pack up some food, Endicott filled the water-bag thathung on the wall and, proceeding to the corral, saddled three of thehorses. Through the open window of the cabin he could see the girlbusily engaged in transferring provisions to a sack. He watched her asshe passed and repassed the window intent upon her task. Never had sheseemed so lovable, so unutterably desirable--and she loved him! Withher own lips she had told him of her love, and with her own lips hadplaced the seal of love upon his own. Happiness, like no happiness hehad ever known should be his. And yet--hovering over him like apall--black, ominous, depressing--was the thing that momentarilythreatened to descend and engulf him, to destroy this new-foundhappiness, haunt him with its diabolical presence, and crush hislife--and hers.
With an effort he roused himself--squared himself there in the corralfor the final battle with himself. "It is now or never," he grittedthrough clenched teeth. "Now, and alone. She won't face the situationsquarely. It is woman's way, calmy to ignore the issue, to push itaside as the ill of a future day."
She had said that he was right, and ethically, he knew that he wasright--but the fact of the deed remained. His hand had sped a soul toits God.
Why?
To save the woman he loved. No jury on earth would hold him guilty.He would surrender himself and stand trial. Then came the memory ofwhat Tex had told him of the machinations of local politics. He had nowish to contribute his life as campaign material for a county election.The other course was to run--to remain, as he now was, a fugitive, ifnot from justice, at least from the hand of the law. This course wouldmean that both must live always within the menace of theshadow--unless, to save her from this life of haunting fear, herenounced her.
His eyes sought the forbidding sweep of the bad lands, strayed to thesluggish waters of the Missouri, and beyond, where the black buttes ofthe Judith Range reared their massive shapes in the distance. Suddenlya mighty urge welled up within him. He would not renounce her! Shewas his! This was life--the life that, to him, had been as a sealedbook--the fighting life of the boundless open places. It was thecoward's part to run. He had played a man's part, and he wouldcontinue to play a man's part to the end. He would fight. Wouldidentify himself with this West--become part of it. Never would hereturn to the life of the
city, which would be to a life of fear. Theworld should know that he was right. If local politics sought to crushhim--to use him as a puppet for their puny machinations, he would smashtheir crude machine and rebuild the politics of this new land uponprinciples as clean and rugged as the land itself. It should be hiswork!
With the light of a new determination in his eyes, he caught up thebridle-reins of the horses and pushed open the gate of the corral. Ashe led the animals out he was once more greeted with a volley of oathsand curses: "Put them back! Ye hoss-thief! I'll have ye hung! Them'smine, I tell ye!"
"You'll get them back," assured Endicott. "I am only borrowing them togo and hunt for a couple of friends of mine back there in the badlands."
"Back in the bad lands! What do ye know about the bad lands? Ye'llgit lost, an' then what'll happen to me? I'll die like a coyote in atrap! I'll starve here where no one comes along fer it's sometimes aweek--mebbe two!"
"It will be a long time between meals if anything should happen to us,but it will do you good to lie here and think it over. We'll be backsometime." Endicott made the sack of provisions fast to the saddle ofthe lead-horse, and assisted Alice to mount.
"I'll kill ye fer this!" wailed the man; "I'll--I'll--" but the tworode away with the futile threats ringing in their ears.