Valley of Wild Horses Part 52

"What--fire?"

"The Yellow Mine burned. It must have caught--when we shot out the lamps ... d.i.c.k Hardman was burned, and a girl they took for you."

Suddenly Louise leaped up, ghastly pale.

"I remember now... Blink came to my room," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "I wouldn't let him in. Then you came... oh, I remember now. I let you in when all the time d.i.c.k Hardman was hiding in my closet."

"I knew you had him hidden," rejoined Pan.

"You meant to kill him! The yellow dog!... He came to me when I was sick in bed. He begged me to hide him. And I did.... Then you talked to me, as you're talking now ... Blink came with the whisky. Oh, I see it all now!"

"Sure. And Louie--what did I tell you about Hardman?" returned Pan, sure of his ground now and stern in his forcefulness.

"I don't remember."

"You told me Hardman said he'd marry you, and that some day when you were drunk you'd do it."

"Yes, he said that, and I might have agreed, but I don't remember telling you."

"Well, you did. And then I told you Hardman had forced my sweetheart, Lucy, to marry him."

"_What_? He did that?"

"Reckon he did. I got there too late. But I drove him off to get a gun. Then he hid there with you."

"So that was why?" she pondered, as if trying to penetrate the cloudiness of her mind. "Something comes like a horrible dream."

"Sure," he hurried on. "Let me get it over.... I told you he couldn't marry you when he already had a wife. You went crazy then. You betrayed Hardman.... He came rus.h.i.+ng out of the closet. Pretty nasty, he was, Louie ... well, I left him lying in the hall! I grabbed you--wrapped you in a blanket--and ran out. Blink was waiting. He shot out the lights in the saloon. We got away. The place burned up, with some girl they took for you--and Hardman--"

"My G.o.d! Burned alive?"

"No," replied Pan hoa.r.s.ely.

"Pan--you--you avenged me--and your Lucy--you?--" she whispered, clinging to him.

"Hus.h.!.+ Don't speak it! Don't ever _think_ it again," he said sternly.

"That's our secret. Rumor has it he fled from me to hide with you, and you were both burned up."

"But Lucy--your mother!" she cried.

"They know nothing except that you're my friend's wife--that you've been ill," he replied. "They're all kindness and sympathy. Dad never saw you, and Gus will keep his mouth shut. Play your part now, Louise.

You and Blink make up your past. Just a few simple statements....

Then bury the past forever."

"Oh--I'm slipping--slipping--" she whispered, bursting into tears.

"Help me--back to the wagon."

She walked a few rods with Pan's arm supporting her. Then she collapsed. He had to carry her to the wagon, where he deposited her, sobbing and limp behind the canvas curtains. Pan pitied her with all his heart, yet he was glad indeed she had broken down. It had been easier than he had antic.i.p.ated.

Then he espied Blinky coming in manifest concern.

"Pard," said Pan in his ear, "you've a pat hand. Play it for all you're worth."

The wagons rolled down the long winding open road.

For the shortest, fullest eight hours Pan had ever experienced he matched his wits against the wild horses that he and Gus had to drive.

It was a down grade and the wagons rolled thirty miles before Pan picked a camp site in the mouth of a little gra.s.sy canyon where the wild horses could be corralled. Jack rabbits, deer, coyotes ranged away from the noisy invasion of their solitude. It was wild country.

Marco was distant forty miles up the sweeping ridges--far behind--gone into the past.

As the wagons rolled one by one up to the camping place. Pan observed that Blinky, the last to arrive, had a companion on the driver's seat beside him. Pan waved a glad hand. It was Louise who waved in return.

Wind and sun had warmed the pallor out of her face.

Four days on the way to Siccane! The wild horses were no longer wild.

The travelers to the far country had become like one big family. They all had their tasks. Even Bobby sat on his father's knee and drove the team down the open road toward the homestead where he was to grow into a pioneer lad.

So far Pan had carried on his pretense of aloofness from Lucy, apparently blind to the wondering appeal in her eyes. Long ago he had forgiven her. Yet he waited, divining surely that some day or night when an opportune moment came, she would voice the question in her eyes. He thought he could hold out longer than she could.

That very evening when he went to fetch water she waylaid him, surprised him.

"Panhandle Smith, you are _killing_ me!" she said, with great eyes of accusation.

"How so?" he asked weakly.

"You know," she retorted. "And I won't stand it longer."

"What is it you won't stand?" teased Pan.

But suddenly Lucy broke down. "Don't. Don't keep it up," she cried desperately. "I know it was a terrible thing to do. But I told you why.... I _couldn't_ have gone away with him--after I'd seen you."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. I was mad enough to think you might--even care for him."

"Pan, I love only you. All my life it's been only you."

"Lucy!... Tomorrow we ride into Green River. Will you marry me there?"

"Yes--if you--love me," she whispered, going close to him.

Pan dropped both of the buckets, splas.h.i.+ng water everywhere.

Arizonaland!

It was not only a far country attained, but another, strange and beautiful. Siccane lay a white and green dot far over the purple sage.

The golden-walled mesas stood up, black fringed against the blue. In the bold notches burned the red of autumn foliage. Valleys spread between the tablelands. There was room for a hundred homesteads.

Pan's keen eye sighted only a few and they were farther on, green squares in the gray. Down toward Siccane cattle made tiny specks on the vast expanse. Square miles of bleached gra.s.s contended with the surrounding slopes of sage, sweeping with slow graceful rise up to the bases of the walls and mesas.

"Water! Gra.s.s! No fences!" exclaimed Pan's father, with a glad note of renewed youth.