The Man of the Forest Part 63

After they had gone Burt took his rifle and strolled off into the forest. Then the girl appeared. Her hair was down, her face pale, with dark shadows. She asked for water to wash her face. Wilson pointed to the brook, and as she walked slowly toward it he took a comb and a clean scarf from his pack and carried them to her.

Upon her return to the camp-fire she looked very different with her hair arranged and the red stains in her cheeks.

"Miss, air you hungry?" asked Wilson.

"Yes, I am," she replied.

He helped her to portions of bread, venison and gravy, and a cup of coffee. Evidently she relished the meat, but she had to force down the rest.

"Where are they all?" she asked.

"Rustlin' the hosses."

Probably she divined that he did not want to talk, for the fleeting glance she gave him attested to a thought that his voice or demeanor had changed. Presently she sought a seat under the aspen-tree, out of the sun, and the smoke continually blowing in her face; and there she stayed, a forlorn little figure, for all the resolute lips and defiant eyes.

The Texan paced to and fro beside the camp-fire with bent head, and hands locked behind him. But for the swinging gun he would have resembled a lanky farmer, coatless and hatless, with his brown vest open, his trousers stuck in the top of the high boots.

And neither he nor the girl changed their positions relatively for a long time. At length, however, after peering into the woods, and listening, he remarked to the girl that he would be back in a moment, and then walked off around the spruces.

No sooner had he disappeared--in fact, so quickly after-ward that it presupposed design instead of accident--than Riggs came running from the opposite side of the glade. He ran straight to the girl, who sprang to her feet.

"I hid--two of the--horses," he panted, husky with excitement. "I'll take--two saddles. You grab some grub. We'll run for it."

"No," she cried, stepping back.

"But it's not safe--for us--here," he said, hurriedly, glancing all around. "I'll take you--home. I swear.... Not safe--I tell you--this gang's after me. Hurry!"

He laid hold of two saddles, one with each hand. The moment had reddened his face, brightened his eyes, made his action strong.

"I'm safer--here with this outlaw gang," she replied.

"You won't come!" His color began to lighten then, and his face to distort. He dropped his hold on the saddles.

"Harve Riggs, I'd rather become a toy and a rag for these ruffians than spend an hour alone with you," she flashed at him, in unquenchable hate.

"I'll drag you!"

He seized her, but could not hold her. Breaking away, she screamed.

"Help!"

That whitened his face, drove him to frenzy. Leaping forward, he struck her a hard blow across the mouth. It staggered her, and, tripping on a saddle, she fell. His hands flew to her throat, ready to choke her. But she lay still and held her tongue. Then he dragged her to her feet.

"Hurry now--grab that pack--an' follow me." Again Riggs laid hold of the two saddles. A desperate gleam, baleful and vainglorious, flashed over his face. He was living his one great adventure.

The girl's eyes dilated. They looked beyond him. Her lips opened.

"Scream again an' I'll kill you!" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely and swiftly. The very opening of her lips had terrified Riggs.

"Reckon one scream was enough," spoke a voice, slow, but without the drawl, easy and cool, yet incalculable in some terrible sense.

Riggs wheeled with inarticulate cry. Wilson stood a few paces off, with his gun half leveled, low down. His face seemed as usual, only his eyes held a quivering, light intensity, like boiling molten silver.

"Girl, what made thet blood on your mouth?"

"Riggs. .h.i.t me!" she whispered. Then at something she feared or saw or divined she shrank back, dropped on her knees, and crawled into the spruce shelter.

"Wal, Riggs, I'd invite you to draw if thet 'd be any use," said Wilson.

This speech was reflective, yet it hurried a little.

Riggs could not draw nor move nor speak. He seemed turned to stone, except his jaw, which slowly fell.

"Harve Riggs, gunman from down Missouri way," continued the voice of incalculable intent, "reckon you've looked into a heap of gun-barrels in your day. Sh.o.r.e! Wal, look in this heah one!"

Wilson deliberately leveled the gun on a line with Riggs's starting eyes.

"Wasn't you heard to brag in Turner's saloon--thet you could see lead comin'--an' dodge it? Sh.o.r.e you must be swift!... DODGE THIS HEAH BULLET!"

The gun spouted flame and boomed. One of Riggs's starting, popping eyes--the right one--went out, like a lamp. The other rolled horribly, then set in blank dead fixedness. Riggs swayed in slow motion until a lost balance felled him heavily, an inert ma.s.s.

Wilson bent over the prostrate form. Strange, violent contrast to the cool scorn of the preceding moment! Hissing, spitting, as if poisoned by pa.s.sion, he burst with the hate that his character had forbidden him to express on a living counterfeit. Wilson was shaken, as if by a palsy. He choked over pa.s.sionate, incoherent invective. It was cla.s.s hate first, then the hate of real manhood for a craven, then the hate of disgrace for a murder. No man so fair as a gun-fighter in the Western creed of an "even break"!

Wilson's terrible cataclysm of pa.s.sion pa.s.sed. Straightening up, he sheathed his weapon and began a slow pace before the fire. Not many moments afterward he jerked his head high and listened. Horses were softly thudding through the forest. Soon Anson rode into sight with his men and one of the strayed horses. It chanced, too, that young Burt appeared on the other side of the glade. He walked quickly, as one who antic.i.p.ated news.

Snake Anson as he dismounted espied the dead man.

"Jim--I thought I heard a shot."

The others exclaimed and leaped off their horses to view the prostrate form with that curiosity and strange fear common to all men confronted by sight of sudden death.

That emotion was only momentary.

"Shot his lamp out!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Moze.

"Wonder how Gunman Riggs liked thet plumb center peg!" exclaimed Shady Jones, with a hard laugh.

"Back of his head all gone!" gasped young Burt. Not improbably he had not seen a great many bullet-marked men.

"Jim!--the long-haired fool didn't try to draw on you!" exclaimed Snake Anson, astounded.

Wilson neither spoke nor ceased his pacing.

"What was it over?" added Anson, curiously.

"He hit the gurl," replied Wilson.

Then there were long-drawn exclamations all around, and glance met glance.