The Heart of Thunder Mountain

“I judge from your manner,” said Hillyer at length, when he had controlled himself, “that you dislike her being there as much as I do. But as I am all in the dark, I’ll be greatly obliged to you if you will answer my question. Who is Philip Haig?”

“That’s what I’d like to know!” blurted out Huntington.

Hillyer made a gesture of impatience.

“But he’s your neighbor,” he said curtly.

“And that’s about all I know of him,” Huntington replied, “except that we ought to have run him out of the Park long ago, and will do it yet, so help me God!”

“Why?” asked Hillyer shortly.

Then, as clearly as he could in his rage, Seth gave Hillyer a brief account of the events of the four years that Haig had been in the Park,–an account that satisfied Hillyer as little as it had satisfied Marion. He had meant, in the beginning, to ask how Marion had come to know Haig, and if they had been much together; but he now surmised that Huntington and his wife were as ignorant as himself of that acquaintanceship, or friendship, or whatever it was that could have made possible the astounding emotions he had seen on Marion’s face. Hillyer’s situation was difficult. If Marion had a secret he must guard it for her, whatever it might cost him. Yet now he needed help, and no one could help him but Huntington and his wife. And at the first words on the subject, Huntington had (more in the tone of his speech than the matter) shown him that little help could be expected in that quarter. Last of all, and not to be forgotten, he was the Huntingtons’ guest.

“How bad’s he hurt?” asked Huntington.

Hillyer shook his head dubiously.

“It’s impossible to say just yet. Doctor Norris fears that the pancreas is ruptured. In that case–” He shrugged his shoulders. “At any rate, the pancreas and the stomach are temporarily paralyzed by the blow of the saddle horn–the horse seems to have gone over backward on him. If he gets over the shock there’s still the danger of inflammation. There ought to be ice packs. Cold water will have to do. They must be changed every minute. Doctor Norris told me–” He paused to look intently at Claire–“Doctor Norris told me that nothing but the most careful nursing can save him.”

“Let the Chinaman do it!” Huntington blurted out.

Hillyer shook his head.

“No. Norris says he will not trust him. You see, Haig’s pleading for water must be denied. He can command the Chinaman, and that–Besides, all this is not to the point. Marion has made up her mind, and I assure you–Please get the things she asks for, Mrs. Huntington.”

“You don’t mean you’re going to take them!” shouted Huntington.

“Certainly. She’s asked for them.”

“And you’re going to let her stay there–with him?”

Hillyer smiled. Having abandoned all hope of assistance from Huntington, he was thinking of other measures, and was scarcely as attentive as he might have been to the increasing truculence of his host.

“What would you do?” he asked quietly.

“I’d bring her away!”

“Would you care to go and try it?”

This was a keener thrust than Hillyer had any intention of delivering, provoked though he was by Huntington’s behavior; for Seth had not included in his narrative any reference to the affair at the post-office, or to Haig’s visit to his house. Huntington’s face became purple; and if he had been apoplectic in disposition he would surely have suffered a seizure in that moment of choking rage.

“I’ll go there right enough!” he bellowed. “I’ll go, when I get ready. I’ll go when he’s able to stand up and take what’s coming to him. As for her–you can take her things, and her trunks too, while you’re about it.”

Hillyer gazed at him dumbfounded for just a breath of time. Then his own face flamed.

“Quite right, Mr. Huntington!” he said, taking a step toward him. “I haven’t seen much of Haig, but from what I’ve seen of you, I think his house can be no worse place for Miss Gaylord than yours. What’s more, you’re an–” He caught himself, whirled on his heel, and addressed Claire. “May I ask you, please, to pack Marion’s trunks. I’ll attend to mine.”

Claire had stood quite silent, with her blue eyes opening wider and wider, for the moment helpless, but trusting more to Hillyer’s resources of diplomacy than to her husband’s self-control. Now her face crimsoned with mortification, and she stood up with all the inches of her five foot two.

“You’ll do no such thing!” she cried, and one little heel came down on the floor with a jolt. “The idea! The very idea! Oh!”

For a moment she stood poised, like a butterfly in a rage, if one can imagine it; then she tripped straight to Huntington, clasped the lapels of his coat, and drew herself up on tiptoes, trying to meet his eyes.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she cried.

“No, I’m not!” he growled.

But he was, or at least was dimly conscious of his egregious misbehavior; for he looked neither at Hillyer nor his wife, and was red now where he had been purple.

“But you are, though!” She turned her face toward Hillyer, without loosing her hold on Seth’s coat. “Don’t you mind him, Mr. Hillyer! He’s just a big bear. And Haig has been a trial to us. Marion’s my guest, and–” She looked up into Seth’s beard again–“If you think you’re going to send her away like this–”

She stopped short, as on a sudden thought, and then, with a giggle, buried her face in his flannel shirt. And the next thing, as unexpected as her blue-eyed rage, she dropped her hands from his coat, stooped to catch up the hem of her skirt between thumb and forefinger of each hand, and began to pirouette around the room.

“Oh, ho!” she exclaimed, laughing triumphantly, her little body swaying as she tripped, with low curtsies to Seth and Hillyer, who for the moment forget their animosity in wonder at this feminine diversion. “Beautiful! Gorgeous! Oh, splendid!”

She stopped, at length, in front of Seth, dropped to one knee, bowed till her golden head almost touched the floor, and rose again to stand with her hands on her hips, her arms akimbo, her face flushed with excitement.

“Seth Huntington!” she cried ecstatically. “Do you know what we’re going to do?”

He merely stared.

“We’re going to heap coals of fire on his head.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Huntington uneasily.

“Marion’s going to nurse Haig. There’s no way any of us can stop her. She’s our cousin and guest, and we’ve got to show it. If they want to talk, we’ll give them something to talk about. I’ll go and nurse Haig too!”

Dead silence.

“Ah!” cried Hillyer.

“You’ll not!” roared Huntington.

“Watch me!” retorted Claire, turning swiftly, and running toward her bedroom. But halfway there she stopped. “No, don’t watch me! You just go and look after the cattle. Leave this Mr. Haig to us, and he’ll be the best friend you ever had before Marion and I get through with him.”

Hillyer, recovering from his amazement, stepped smiling to where she stood, and reached both his hands to her.

“Mrs. Huntington,” he said warmly. “You’re a peach!”

She laughed gaily, and put both her tiny hands in his, for just an instant.

This was the last straw. Seth snorted like a baited animal, whirled around, bolted from the house, and ran blindly to the barn.

“Saddle Nigger!” he yelled to Williams, who obeyed with stumbling alacrity, while Huntington strode up and down before the door.

From the window of the ranch house Claire and Hillyer, silent, watched him until he had flung himself into the saddle, dug the spurs into the flanks of his favorite and now astonished black horse, and disappeared up the hill.

“Where’s he going?” asked Hillyer, suspicious that Huntington meant mischief.

Claire drew back from the window with a sigh of relief.

“He’s going to–” She laughed softly, but with just a little tremor in her voice–“He’s going to–look after the cattle.”

Hillyer saw that her blue eyes were moist.

“He’s the best man in the world, and–I love him,” she said, looking at Hillyer with a soft appeal. “You believe that, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do, Mrs. Huntington,” Hillyer answered heartily.

“Then you must forgive him; he has such a temper!”

“I’m sorry we had any misunderstanding,” Hillyer was able to say sincerely. “I’ll talk it over with him–later.”

“Please!” urged Claire.

“But I must go now. Those things for Marion, please.”

“I’ll have them ready in a minute. And I’ve only to slip on another dress, and–”

“But you don’t mean–You’re not going?”

“Of course I am!” she answered, with a look of surprise.

“I think you’d better not,” he said quietly.

“But why?”

“Now think a minute, Mrs. Huntington. Your husband objects to your going. It will not only anger him more, but it will hurt him. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.

Her coals of fire had kindled her imagination. Such a romantic idea! There would be such talk, such a sensation!

“It would be another matter if there were anything you could do,” Hillyer went on. “But there isn’t. And I know very well that Marion would send you back if you did go.”

That was true enough, on reflection; but it was a disappointment!

“But Marion! There alone!” she said, making her last stand.

“I shall be there,” replied Hillyer. “The Chinaman’s going to fix a bed for me. I’ll look after Marion.”

So she yielded, and was glad of it when she had time to think it over. She gave Hillyer the bundle for Marion, and watched him go, waving a good-by from the veranda. Then she hastened to the kitchen to make apple dumplings for supper. If there was one thing that could always be counted on to soothe Seth it was apple dumplings.

Meanwhile it was indeed a black day for Huntington. Fate was against him. Tearing himself, mangled in spirit, out of one trap, he rode blindly into another. Far up in the hills, riding savagely, he knew not where, nor cared, vowing dark vengeance on Haig, his attention was drawn at last by the weird and ominous bellowing of cattle. Following the sound, he came to a little hollow where a hundred or more cattle were gathered, like the rapt spectators in an amphitheater, around two bulls engaged in mortal combat. One, as Seth quickly saw, was a red Hereford, his best thoroughbred; the other, a black Angus, and even more valuable, was Haig’s. The red bull, bleeding from many wounds, was plainly being worsted in the encounter. With a roar of rage, Huntington drew his revolver, urged his unwilling horse down into the arena where the turf was torn up for many yards around the combatants, circled about until he could take sure aim, and emptied every chamber of the gun into the head and neck of the Angus. The bull sank to the ground, head first, in a lumbering mass that kicked once or twice, shivered, and lay still.

But the Hereford, red-eyed with blood and fury, turned on Huntington, and drove him, barely escaping being gored, into the thick timber. In a place of safety Huntington jerked his horse around, and sat limp in the saddle, staring down at the scene of his final humiliation.

“That’s it! That’s it!” he bellowed. “Even my own bull turns on me. Haw! Haw!” His hollow, hoarse, and unmirthful laughter echoed among the pines. “Great joke! Haig will like that. And the rest of them. Hell!”

But Haig! And the Angus! Well, there’d got to be a show-down anyhow pretty soon. He dismounted, and seated himself on a fallen tree trunk, and gave himself up to reflections upon which it is only the most obvious kindness and discretion to draw the curtain.

CHAPTER XV

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

The days dragged by under the burdens of doubt and torture, and out of the Valley of the Shadow came Philip Haig, with some new and disquieting thoughts to occupy him in his convalescence. Toiling up out of the darkness, where foul fiends seemed to have torn and mangled his body with their fiery claws, his fingers were still warm from the pressure of a soft, guiding hand; there was a haunting memory of kisses on his forehead, of a cheek laid close to his; and he could still hear the gentle but commanding voice that told him to be patient–to be still–that life was coming back to him.

Life! As if he cared for life! Had he not spent years on years in seeking what just now had been in his very grasp, only to be withdrawn by two caressing hands? And Doctor Morris, on the day of his final visit, had left him no possibility of misunderstanding.

“Miss Gaylord has saved your life,” he said. “I could do little. It was her nursing that pulled you through.”

He wanted much to tell the doctor just how much value he placed on that life. But to what purpose? Doctors lived in their own peculiar atmosphere of conceit and self-deception, crowing like a hen over a new-laid egg whenever they chanced to bring back a soul to the miseries from which it had struggled to escape. It would be a waste of words, for Norris would never understand. Would Marion? Cold terror seized him at the thought of the coming, the inevitable scene with her. She, he realized vaguely, was different from–from all the others he had ever seen and looked down upon from his safe heights of cynical hatred and contempt. She was not selfish or mercenary–not consciously selfish or mercenary. And she was not vile. But she was all the more dangerous because her heart was pure. She was too high-bred, too fine, to demand payment of his debt; but her very reticence and delicacy, he foresaw, would make his repudiation of that debt–that factitious debt–more difficult. Twice or thrice, as he struggled with his problem, he was conscious of a curious, disturbing thrill. She loved him. There had been a time, long, long ago–But now he was a man; he had learned his lesson; and he knew that the chains would be no less hateful because they were made of gold.

There came a day when he sat, wrapped in blankets, in an armchair near the window, where he could see the grass waving in the sunlight on the slope above the cottage, and the pines bending in the breeze high up the hill. Marion, near him, her hands folded in her lap, looked sometimes out of the window but more often at him, though his eyes avoided hers. She was scarcely less pale than he, and very tired and worn. Despite Hillyer’s protestations she had slept little in the ten days of Philip’s peril; for she would trust no one but herself to do with iron determination exactly what the doctor had commanded. Philip’s pitiable pleading for water in his semi-delirium her love alone was strong enough to resist. But this was the last day of her watch over him. In an hour she must go. She had frankly asked Robert to let her have this last afternoon alone with Philip; and had promised him that he should then have the answer to every question that he had loyally put aside for her.

They sat a long time silent, while the shadow of the cottage lengthened on the grass.

“It wasn’t worth it, Miss Gaylord,” Haig said at length.

“I–I don’t understand,” she faltered.

“Doctor Norris tells me that you saved my life.”

“I’m glad if he thinks I helped a little,” she answered, trying to smile.

“He left me no room for doubt. Very plain-spoken is Doctor Norris.”

“I’m afraid he exaggerated,” she protested gently.

“No.”

“But Jim–”

“Jim’s all right in his way, but he couldn’t have done it.”

“I am paid,” she said simply.

“Paid?”

“Yes. Knowing that you live.”

“No. You think you mean that, perhaps, but you don’t.”

“I don’t mean what?” she asked in surprise.

“You don’t mean that you are paid.”

She turned away, and looked out the window, her heart throbbing.

“I must tell you something, Miss Gaylord,” he went on resolutely. “I’m not grateful.”

“Not grateful?”

“I mean, I’m not glad to owe my life to you.”

“But I haven’t asked–”

“No. Not directly.” He hesitated a moment. “It’s like this: If a man had saved my life, I could pay him. There would be a clasp of the hand, and a look from man to man. Or I should save his life in turn, or do him some service. Or–there are other ways. There’s Pete’s way and Jim’s way–of paying. But I can’t pay you in any of the ways I could pay a man. And I can’t pay in the only way a woman knows.”

“Don’t,” she cried. “Don’t, please!”

She was right, he thought. He was doing it brutally. He must try another method. There followed a long silence, while he tried to frame a speech that would tell her, and would not hurt too much; for now, strangely, he found himself reluctant to give her pain, even to put himself in a false light before her–to be misunderstood. At last he leaned toward her–forced her to meet his gaze.

“Could you–if you had ever loved one man with all your heart and soul–held him as dear to you as life–dearer than life itself–without whom life would be impossible–could you ever love another?”

For all her anguish she was able to detect the trap that he had set for her. “Yes” would cheapen the quality and deny the finality of her love for him; “no” would be an acceptance of the doom and tragedy she saw shadowing his eyes. She did not answer.

“You see, you dare not answer that,” he went on. “I suppose I ought to tell you the story. But I won’t. It’s long, and not a pretty story at all. But this much I will tell you. I gave one woman all I had to give. She threw it away–and laughed at me. I have nothing more.”

She took it very bravely and very quietly, as it seemed to him. He felt a certain admiration. There was good blood in the girl. Her father must have been worth knowing. His thoughts would have taken a different direction–would have been nothing so complacent if he had known just what she was thinking. His speech, terrifying at first, had actually renewed a hope that had fallen very low. She did not believe a word of what he had said, that is, of his having nothing more to give. Whenever did woman believe any such thing as that, no matter how solemnly, on what stoutest oaths, with what tragic air a man has told it to her? Love is not love that doubts its own compelling power. And Marion, gazing fondly at Philip now, felt somewhat as a mother feels who smilingly indulges some childhood tragedy of her boy, knowing that it will pass as the cloud upon an April sky. If this was the worst he had to say to her–

But it was not the worst. Philip felt an intense relief to see her accept the situation with such unexpected calm. He admired her consciously now,–for her intelligence. He began to think that he might almost take her hand, and thank her, as he would thank a man for doing him a service, however mistakenly. But something held him back from that folly. He wondered a little at her silence, and it was by way of breaking it before it should become embarrassing that he searched for something safe and commonplace to say to her.

“It was my own fault, you know, that I was injured.”

“Why your own fault?”

“I was in a bad humor. I lost my self-control. And I got what I deserved.”

He thought she would ask him why he had been in a bad humor, and he purposed to say that he was raging in discontent, longing for the white road again. It would be safe enough now, no doubt, to tell her in this fashion that if ever she should come to the Park again she would not find him there. But his words had suggested something entirely different to her mind.

“What are you going to do with him?” she asked, in sudden vague anxiety.

“Do with him?”

“Yes–Sunnysides? I wish you’d please sell him.”

“Sell him? Sell Sunnysides?” His voice betrayed his astonishment.

“Yes.”

“But I haven’t ridden him yet.”

“You don’t mean–” Her voice failed.

“That I’m going to ride him? Just as soon as I get well.”

For some seconds she sat dazed. It was so utterly unexpected. The thought had not once occurred to her that he would try again what had all but cost him his life. It is at some such point as this that man’s and woman’s natures make one of their many departures from the parallel. To Haig the taming of Sunnysides now meant everything; to Marion it seemed a useless, a worse than useless risk, a wicked waste. What had been the worth, then, of all her labor of love, if it was to be thrown away? He would be killed the next time. And in the horror with which she foresaw that tragic end of all that she had planned and builded, her courage and confidence fell away from her, and left her weak and helpless. She uttered a thin, little cry, and slipped to the floor on her knees, clasping his emaciated hand that lay on an arm of the chair.

“No! No!” she cried frantically. “Please, Philip! Please promise me you won’t do that!”

Then she broke down completely, her head drooped, and she sank down in a heap, with her face between her hands.

Haig was stunned. He had blundered again. Fool, not to have let her go away from him in silence, in calm! He looked down at that crumpled figure, at the mass of tawny hair, with the red-gold lights in it, the enticing soft whiteness of her neck where the hair curved cleanly upward, the graceful slope of the shoulders that now shook with sobs. And something stirred in him, something deep, too deep to be reached and overpowered. It grew until it sang through all his being, a feeling such as he had never known before. She was fine and beautiful; she was a thing to be desired; and he had only to reach out, and take her for his own. Before he was aware of it, he had stretched out his hand until it almost touched her hair. Then from across the years a mocking voice rang out shrill and cold and cruel: “Now don’t you go mussing up my apartment, Pipo!”

He drew back his hand with a jerk, and clutched the chair; and sat bolt upright, while every nerve rang with the alarm.

Minutes passed. The sobs gradually subsided; the figure on the floor slowly ceased its convulsive movements; and again a deep silence enveloped the room. Out on the brown-green slope the sun’s rays were slanting low, the shadow of the cottage climbed the hill.

Well, Haig thought, he had bungled the business after all. That was what came of trying to do it nicely, with delicacy. Hard words were the kindest in the end, because the quickest understood.

She had not yet lifted her head when he turned to look at her again; and that made it easier.

“I can’t leave the ranch–just now,” he said slowly. “If I could, I would. So I think–I think you ought to go back home–to New York, I mean–at once.”

She did not answer. And it was only after another silence that she looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were still filled with tears, and there was a curious little puckering of her chin.

“You said you wished you could repay me,” she said. “Do you?”

“Yes,” he answered, wondering. “But I told you–”

“But there is a way!”

“Well?”

“Promise me you will not ride Sunnysides.”

He shook his head.

“No. I can’t promise that.”

“Why?”

“That’s one of the things you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“But it’s such a little thing!”

“If I gave you that, I should indeed have nothing left. You would have all.”

It was true that she could not in the least understand. But she knew she could not move him.

“Then promise me,” she pleaded, “that you’ll not try it until you are quite, quite well!”

“Oh. I promise you that!” he replied, with a grim smile.

“Thank you–Philip!”

Presently she arose, and looked down at him with a long, lingering gaze that seemed to be searching for something in his features.

“You’ll take just what Jim gives you?” she asked anxiously.

“Of course.”

“And not try to–boss him about the medicines and the food?”

“I promise to obey orders.”

“And you’ll be very careful?”

“Yes.”

She moved slowly toward the door. But halfway there she stopped, and turned to look at him again. How could she leave him now? She couldn’t! She couldn’t! He was gazing away from her, out through the window. Wasn’t he going to say a word to her–of farewell? She came back unsteadily, and stood behind his chair, her hands stretched out above his head. Then suddenly, impulsively, not touching him with her hands, she leaned down, and kissed his forehead.

“Good-by!” she said, her voice breaking.

“Good-by!” he answered gently, but without turning his head.

He heard the door opened and closed, very softly. After that he sat a long time in silence. Well, she was gone! It had been a trying afternoon, and he was glad to have it ended. And yet the room seemed to be extraordinarily empty, as it had never been before his illness. The stillness rather oppressed him. Damn it all, sickness did strange things to a man! Took a lot out of him! He straightened himself in his chair.