The Hunted Woman Part 7

"Only partly," continued Aldous, his face white and set. "It is necessary that you should know more than you have guessed, for your own protection.

If you were like most other women I would not tell you the truth, but would try to s.h.i.+eld you from it. As it is you should know. There is only one other man in the Rocky Mountains more dangerous than Bill Quade. He is Culver Rann, up at Tete Jaune. They are partners--partners in crime, in sin, in everything that is bad and that brings them gold. Their influence among the rougher elements along the line of rail is complete. They are so strongly entrenched that they have put contractors out of business because they would not submit to blackmail. The few harmless police we have following the steel have been unable to touch them. They have cleaned up hundreds of thousands, chiefly in three things--blackmail, whisky, and women. Quade is the viler of the two. He is like a horrible beast. Culver Rann makes me think of a sleek and s.h.i.+ning serpent. But it is this man Quade----"

He found it almost impossible to go on with Joanne's blue eyes gazing so steadily into his.

"--whom we have made our enemy," she finished for him.

"Yes--and more than that," he said, partly turning his head away. "You cannot go on to Tete Jaune alone, Joanne. You must go nowhere alone. If you do----"

"What will happen?"

"I don't know. Perhaps nothing would happen. But you cannot go alone. I am going to take you back to Mrs. Otto now. And to-morrow I shall go on to Tete Jaune with you. It is fortunate that I have a place up there to which I can take you, and where you will be safe."

As they were preparing to go, Joanne glanced ruefully at the table.

"I am ashamed to leave the dishes in that mess," she said.

He laughed, and tucked her hand under his arm as they went through the door. When they had pa.s.sed through the little clearing, and the darkness of the spruce and balsam walls shut them in, he took her hand.

"It is dark and you may stumble," he apologized. "This isn't much like the sh.e.l.l plaza in front of the Cape Verde, is it?"

"No. Did you pick up any of the little red bloodsh.e.l.ls? I did, and they made me s.h.i.+ver. There were strange stories a.s.sociated with them."

He knew that she was staring ahead into the blank wall of gloom as she spoke, and that it was not thought of the bloodsh.e.l.ls, but of Quade, that made her fingers close more tightly about his own. His right hand was gripping the b.u.t.t of his automatic. Every nerve in him was on the alert, yet she could detect nothing of caution or preparedness in his careless voice.

"The bloodstones didn't trouble me," he answered. "I can't remember anything that upset me more than the snakes. I am a terrible coward when it comes to anything that crawls without feet. I will run from a snake no longer than your little finger--in fact, I'm just as scared of a little gra.s.s snake as I am of a python. It's the _thing_, and not its size, that horrifies me. Once I jumped out of a boat into ten feet of water because my companion caught an eel on his line, and persisted in the argument that it was a fish. Thank Heaven we don't have snakes up here. I've seen only three or four in all my experience in the Northland."

She laughed softly in spite of the uneasy thrill the night held for her.

"It is hard for me to imagine you being afraid," she said. "And yet if you were afraid I know it would be of just some little thing like that. My father was one of the bravest men in the world, and a hundred times I have seen him show horror at sight of a spider. If you were afraid of snakes, why did you go up the Gampola, in Ceylon?"

"I didn't know the snakes were there," he chuckled. "I hadn't dreamed there were a half so many snakes in the whole world as there were along that confounded river. I slept sitting up, dressed in rubber wading boots that came to my waist, and wore thick leather gloves. I got out of the country at the earliest possible moment."

When they entered the edge of the Miette clearing and saw the glow of lights ahead of them, Aldous caught the sudden upturn of his companion's face, laughing at him in the starlight.

"Kind, thoughtful John Aldous!" she whispered, as if to herself. "How nice of you it was to talk of such pleasant things while we were coming through that black, dreadful swamp--with a Bill Quade waiting for us on the side!"

A low ripple of laughter broke from her lips, and he stopped dead in his tracks, forgetting to put the automatic back in his pocket. At sight of it the amus.e.m.e.nt died in her face. She caught his arm, and one of her hands seized the cold steel of the pistol.

"Would he--_dare?_" she demanded.

"You can't tell," replied Aldous, putting the gun in his pocket. "And that was a creepy sort of conversation to load you down with, wasn't it, Ladygray? I imagine you'll catch me in all sorts of blunders like that." He pointed ahead. "There's Mrs. Otto now. She's looking this way and wondering with all her big heart if you ought not to be at home and in bed."

The door of the Otto home was wide open, and silhouetted in the flood of light was the good-natured Scotchwoman. Aldous gave the whistling signal which she and her menfolk always recognized, and hurried on with Joanne.

Before they had quite reached the tent-house, Joanne put a detaining hand on his arm.

"I don't want you to go back to the cabin to-night," she said. "The face at the window--was terrible. I am afraid. I don't want you to be there alone."

Her words sent a warm glow through him.

"Nothing will happen," he a.s.sured her. "Quade will not come back."

"I don't want you to return to the cabin," she persisted. "Is there no other place where you can stay?"

"I might go down and console Stevens, and borrow a couple of his horse blankets for a bed if that will please you."

"It will," she cried quickly. "If you don't return to the cabin you may go on to Tete Jaune with me to-morrow. Is it a bargain?"

"It is!" he accepted eagerly. "I don't like to be chased out, but I'll promise not to sleep in the cabin to-night."

Mrs. Otto was advancing to meet them. At the door he bade them good-night, and walked on in the direction of the lighted avenue of tents and shacks under the trees. He caught a last look in Joanne's eyes of anxiety and fear. Glancing back out of the darkness that swallowed him up, he saw her pause for a moment in the lighted doorway, and look in his direction. His heart beat faster. Joyously he laughed under his breath. It was strangely new and pleasing to have some one thinking of him in that way.

He had not intended to go openly into the lighted avenue. From the moment he had plunged out into the night after Quade, his fighting blood was roused. He had subdued it while with Joanne, but his determination to find Quade and have a settlement with him had grown no less. He told himself that he was one of the few men along the line whom it would be difficult for Quade to harm in other than a physical way. He had no business that could be destroyed by the other's underground methods, and he had no job to lose. Until he had seen Joanne enter the scoundrel's red-and-white striped tent he had never hated a man as he now hated Quade. He had loathed him before, and had evaded him because the sight of him was unpleasant; now he wanted to grip his fingers around his thick red throat. He had meant to come up behind Quade's tent, but changed his mind and walked into the lighted trail between the two rows of tents and shacks, his hands thrust carelessly into his trousers pockets. The night carnival of the railroad builders was on. Coa.r.s.e laughter, s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, the click of pool b.a.l.l.s and the c.h.i.n.k of gla.s.ses mingled with the thrumming of three or four musical instruments along the lighted way. The phonograph in Quade's place was going incessantly. Half a dozen times Aldous paused to greet men whom he knew. He noted that there was nothing new or different in their manner toward him. If they had heard of his trouble with Quade, he was certain they would have spoken of it, or at least would have betrayed some sign.

For several minutes he stopped to talk with MacVeigh, a young Scotch surveyor. MacVeigh hated Quade, but he made no mention of him. Purposely he pa.s.sed Quade's tent and walked to the end of the street, nodding and looking closely at those whom he knew. It was becoming more and more evident to him that Quade and his pals were keeping the affair of the afternoon as quiet as possible. Stevens had heard of it. He wondered how.

Aldous retraced his steps. As though nothing had happened, he entered Quade's place. There were a dozen men inside, and among them he recognized three who had been there that afternoon. He nodded to them. Slim Barker was in Quade's place behind the counter. Barker was Quade's right-hand man at Miette, and there was a glitter in his rat-like eyes as Aldous leaned over the gla.s.s case at one end of the counter and asked for cigars. He fumbled a bit as he picked out half a dollar's worth from the box. His eyes met Slim's.

"Where is Quade?" he asked casually.

Barker shrugged his shoulders.

"Busy to-night," he answered shortly. "Want to see him?"

"No, not particularly. Only--I don't want him to hold a grudge."

Barker replaced the box in the case and turned away. After lighting a cigar Aldous went out. He was sure that Quade had not returned from the river.

Was he lying in wait for him near the cabin? The thought sent a sudden thrill through him. In the same breath it was gone. With half a dozen men ready to do his work, Aldous knew that Quade would not redden his own hands or place himself in any conspicuous risk. During the next hour he visited the places where Quade was most frequently seen. He had made up his mind to walk over to the engineers' camp, when a small figure darted after him out of the gloom of the trees.

It was Stevens' boy.

"Dad wants to see you down at the camp," he whispered excitedly. "He says right away--an' for no one to see you. He said not to let any one see me.

I've been waiting for you to come out in the dark."

"Skip back and tell him I'll come," replied Aldous quickly. "Be sure you mind what he says--and don't let any one see you!"

The boy disappeared like a rabbit. Aldous looked back, and ahead, and then dived into the darkness after him.

A quarter of an hour later he came out on the river close to Stevens' camp.

A little nearer he saw Stevens squatted close to a smouldering fire about which he was drying some clothes. The boy was huddled in a disconsolate heap near him. Aldous called softly, and Stevens slowly rose and stretched himself. The packer advanced to where he had screened himself behind a clump of bush. His first look at the other a.s.sured him that he was right in using caution. The moon had risen, and the light of it fell in the packer's face. It was a dead, stonelike gray. His cheeks seemed thinner than when Aldous had seen him a few hours before and there was despair in the droop of his shoulders. His eyes were what startled Aldous. They were like coals of fire, and s.h.i.+fted swiftly from point to point in the bush. For a moment they stood silent.

"Sit down," Stevens said then. "Get out of the moonlight. I've got something to tell you."

They crouched behind the bush.

"You know what happened," Stevens said, in a low voice. "I lost my outfit."

"Yes, I saw what happened, Stevens."

The packer hesitated for a moment. One of his big hands reached out and gripped John Aldous by the arm.