The Ronan Pioneer

The Everlasting Whisper

CHAPTER XIV—Continued

She turned up the gorge, a tiny dark figure in an immense white wilderness.

The snow was crisp, crunching under foot. Sunny days had thawed, clear cold nights had frozen, and the crust had begun to form. Before she had gone a dozen feet she discovered this and its importance to her: where King's weight on the snowshoes, along a twice-traveled trail, had packed the snow and where now the sun and cold had done their work, there was a crust which upbore her slight weight. She could walk swiftly; there was to be no more floundering. She could run!

And run she did. When she had crested the first ridge and had started down the far side, it was like flying!

The crisp air cut her glowing cheeks; her blood leaped along her veins; she breathed deeply, a great uplifting elation bore her along. Love—God is love—smoothed the way before her; the stars ran with her, the great blazing stars to which again and again she lifted her eyes.

Despite the rags about her boots her feet were soon dangerously cold, but always there was the trail King had made, leading her on, where he had gone before, she followed.

Where he had made slow progress, seeking game and breaking trail, she went swiftly on the packed snow. So she came at last to the final ridge, whence, looking down into the canyon, she saw the end of her trail: hanging from a bent pine sapling was what she knew must be his bear. Down the steep slope she went, half sliding, half rolling. In the bed of the ravine she landed softly in the drift; here she rested, sitting in a nest of snow. And there came suddenly out of the silence a strange, quivering cry, bursting out upon her; a sobbing, throbbing scream.

"A woman!" cried Gloria, aghast.

A woman in an agony of terror, she thought.

Sudden terror leaped out upon her, striking like a knife into her heart.

Fear, banished all this time, surprised her and clutched at her throat and paralyzed her muscles. Blind panic gripped her. Then came the piercing scream again, and with it enlightenment, and Gloria sank back, seeming to melt into the snow about her. Yonder, just upon the next ridge where the moonlight carved in fine details the outline of a big bare boulder, stood the thing that had screamed.

Long-bodied and lithe, small-headed and merciless, steel-muscled and chisel-clawed, the big cat from snarling jaws sent forth its almost human call to cut across vast, still distances.

Moving with the stealthy caution which is its birthright, the big cat appeared fleetingly a score of feet lower on the steep slope. It was coming on.

Fascinated, Gloria sat like stone, with never a thought of the rifle lying across her knees.

The mountain lion leaped downward softly from stage to stage of the canyon side, paused under the pine, lifted its head, and sent forth again its hungry cry. All this time Gloria sat breathless; the fear-fascination still held her powerless. She watched the animal crouch and gather its strength and hurl its lean body upward. The lion fell back, the ripping claws having missed the meat by some two or three feet, and Gloria heard the low rumbling growl. Again it sprang; again it missed.

But in the end feline craft found the way, and the cat set its paws against the tree trunk and began to climb. Limbs broke under the two hundred pounds of weight; the bark was torn under slipping paws, but upward the sinuous body writhed.

Swiftly now it would come to King's kill.

King's! Gloria started; this was Mark's kill; he had stalked it, he had plowed many miles through deep snow to get it. To get it for her as well as for him. To keep the life in her—now, without it, King would die. And now the lion was going to take it. While she watched and did nothing!

"Oh, God help me!" She sprang to her feet, she jerked up her rifle and fired at the black bulk crawling upward in the pine. "It shall not have Mark's meat! It shall not!"

At the first shot the mountain lion dropped through crashing branches.

She had shot it—she had driven a bullet through its heart. God had heard her. That was her first wild thought. But in a flash she saw that it was on its feet again, and that with red mouth snarling it had swung about, facing her; she saw the cruel white teeth, wet and glistening.

Incoherently Gloria cried out, again sick and shaken with terror. In another moment she would have the lean powerful body leaping upon her. She fired again and again, taking no time for aim, as fast as she could work the lever and pull the trigger; she was trembling so that it was all that she could do to hold the gun at all. She prayed and called on Mark and fired, all at once.

Never did bullets fly wider of the mark, but never did the roar of exploding shells do better service. The lion, though ravenous, was not yet starved to the degree to whip it to the supreme desperation of attacking a human being and defying a rifle; it whirled and went flashing across the snow.

Gloria gasped, stared after its wild flight a paralyzed moment and then ran to the tree where the bear hung.

Filled with horror at the thought that

By Jackson Gregory

Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons (WNU Service)

at any second the lean body might come flashing back upon her.

She began climbing the young pine; she fought wildly to get up into its branches; she was handicapped by the rifle which she clung to desperately.

She got the gun in a crotch above her head; she pulled herself upward; she slipped and tore the skin of hands and arms; but hastening frantically she climbed up and up. She got the rifle into her hands again, nearly dropped it, thrust it above her, jammed it into a fork of a limb and kept on climbing.

At last she was where she could reach out and touch the swinging carcass.

With King's keen-edged butcher knife she hacked and cut at the frozen meat, panting with every effort.

At last there was the thud of the falling meat; below her it lay on the snow crust.

In wild haste she snatched her rifle; holding it in one hand, afraid to let it slip out of her grasp for a moment, casting a last fearful look in the direction whither the lion had gone, she began slipping down. And in another moment, with the precious burden caught up with the gun in her arms, she was running back up the ridge, her feet in King's trail.

The home trail!

She was cold to the bone; her teeth chattered, her body quaked. Yet she kept on.

And so, in the fullness of time, after long frightful, hellish hours, she came to the last terror of the night.

A Great, Uplifting Elation Bore Her Along.

The new day was bright on the mountain tops when she felt at first a dull sort of surprise and then a sudden, stimulating gladness, noting the familiar look of the ridge ahead.

Yonder the cave would be.

The cave and King, success and rest.

She straightened up a little, brushing her hand across her straining eyes, making sure that she was right.

She heard the insistent scream behind her, but now she did not heed it, for in front of her, stock-still in the trail, was a man.

It was Benny.

Suddenly all emotions were upgathered into searing anger.

Her thought was: "He will take the meat from me! The meat I have brought for Mark."

She grew rigid in her tracks.

She jerked up her rifle in front of her; her tired eyes hardened.

Then she noted that Benny had not seen her.

He was stooping.

She saw that he had a small pack on his back; food, no doubt. On the ground by him was a second pack, something in a crash sack; Benny was struggling to lift it to his shoulders.

It must be very heavy.

Gloria drew back hastily, glancing about her, found the only hiding place offered, and slipped behind the big rock.

Presently Benny came on.

She heard him from a distance; he was talking to himself excitedly, jabbering broken fragments of sentences, twice breaking into his hideous dry cackle of laughter.

She shivered; his utterances sounded mad.

And mad they were.

He was talking about "gold," and he chuckled.

He mentioned names. Brodie's and Jarrold's and Gratton's and another name, and he chuckled again. Gloria peered cautiously from the shelter of a rock.

He was very near her now, struggling with the smaller pack and his rifle and the heavy bundle in his sack.

She thought that he was going to pass without seeing her.

But just as he passed abreast of her hiding place something prompted Benny to jerk up his head.

He saw her and stopped suddenly; she saw his eyes.

And she knew on the instant that if the man were not stark mad, at least he was not entirely sane.

She lifted her rifle, cold all over; if he came another step nearer she would shoot.

"It's mine!" Benny shrieked at her.

"Mine, I tell you!"

He broke into a run, passing her, leaving the trail, floundering down the ridge the shortest way.

His rifle encumbered him; she saw it fall into the snow while Benny, clutching his gunny-sack in both arms, stumbled on.

He fell; he rose, shrieking curses. She watched, fascinated. The pack on his back slipped around in front of him; Benny tore at it and cursed it and hurled it from him. Still hugging his gold he was gone, far down the steep slope. Gloria shuddered and stepped back into her own trail. She could hear Benny cursing faintly. Like an echo came another cry across the ridges; the cry of a starving cat.

Mark King awakened to a sensation of piercing cold. He moved a little to draw his blankets closer about him and, as an awaking impression, found that his strength, even though slowly, was surely returning to him.

He turned his head, lifting it a trifle; already he had thought of Gloria, and now he sought her. He could not see her anywhere; no doubt she lay in the shadowy dark beyond the dying fire. He lay back, staring up into the gloom above him. It was thinning; day was coming or had come already. A day with sunshine! They could go out on the crust by the time that he was able to be about—

Gloria was not in the cave.

He sank back, sure of that. Then she had gone down again for wood. He frowned and lay staring upward again. Gloria bringing wood while he lay here like a log. He grew nervously restive at the thought; it was unthinkable that she should do work like that. Always he saw her as he had first seen her, a fragile-looking girl, a girl with sweet little hands as soft as rose petals. He must fight to get his strength back, to get on his feet again, to save her from such toil as was no woman's work in the world, certainly never the work for a girl like Gloria.

He heard a sound at the cave's mouth. Gloria was coming back. He found no words with which to greet her, but lay very still, waiting for her to come in.

She set her gun down; at first he wondered at that. Poor little Gloria, he thought; taking her rifle with her when she went down for wood, frightened and yet strong-hearted enough to go in spite of fear. She came on, not to him but to the smoldering coals.

She had turned toward him, but, no doubt, thought him still asleep. He watched her, still knowing that presently she would come, awaiting her coming. And again he was perplexed; he did not understand why Gloria walked like that. He had never seen her walk so before; she had always been so light of foot, so graceful—so like a fairy creature, scarcely touching the ground. Now her feet dragged; she groped uncertainly; she was like one gone suddenly dizzy.

She dropped down by the coals, her face in her hands. The light was bad; he could hardly see her now. He heard a sigh that ended in a sob. She rose, oh, so wearily.

He saw her sway as she walked; she was throwing wood on the fire. It caught; a flame flared out; other flames followed with their merry crackling and leaping lights.

And now he saw Gloria's face. It was drawn and haggard; it had been washed with tears; her eyes looked enormous and unnaturally bright.

He saw her hair; it was in wild disarray, a tumble of disorder. He saw that she had sacks wrapped about her lagging feet; that her clothes were torn, that her sleeves were ragged, that her arms were covered with long scratches! His first thought, making his body tense with anger, was that he had not come in time to save her from Brodie's hands.

What was Gloria doing? Struggling with something on her back. Something which was tied across her shoulders.

She got it free; it fell close to the fire, played over by the light of the flames.

He craned his neck and saw; it was a great chunk of bear meat—he could see bits of the hide still on it!

He could not understand. Not yet.

All that he could do was stare at her and wonder and grope confusedly for the explanation.

It was clear that something was wrong with Gloria; she dropped down by the fire, she slumped forward, she lay her face upon her crossed arms. He could see the frail body shaking—he could hear her sudden wild sobbing.

The truth came upon him at last, dawning slowly, slowly.

"Gloria!"

It was a gasp of more than amazement; consternation was in his heart.

"Gloria!"

She lifted her head and sat up. He saw her great wide-open eyes and the tears gushing from them. She fought to control herself, a sob in her throat.

She rose and came toward him in strange, wildly uncertain steps.

"My God," he cried hoarsely.

"You went for my bear! You did it."

She tried to smile at him, and into his own eyes there broke a sudden gush of tears.

"You wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Gloria!" he cried out. "There is no girl in all the world could have done that—there is no girl like you."

Her hand was questing his; he caught it and gripped it with all the strength in him; he hurt her, and at last, with the pain, her smile broke through.

"Gloria—"

"Mark!"

"Can you—not so soon, but some day—forgive me?"

She found only a faint whisper with which to answer him; her eyes were as hungry as his.

"Can you forgive, Mark?"

And now, when their eyes clung together as their hands were already clinging, each was marvelling that the other could forgive and love one who had erred so.

[THE END.]