Albert M. Treynor

“ Dexter smiled gratefully, his eyes following her movements as she bent over the fire and picked up a lighted brand. But as he watched her come back to him, a glowing ember in her hand, something all at once seemed to go wrong with his eyesight. The girl, the firelight, the ragged line of the thickets, all became hazy and unreal, fading before him. He tried to hold his head erect, but the effort was too great. His eyelids closed like leaden weights, the pipe dropped from his mouth, blackness flooded upon him, and he toppled with a sigh and fell forward upon his face. ”

“ He never before had been called upon to deal with an armed and desperate woman, and there came over him suddenly a strange feeling of inefficiency as he realized that, no matter who she was or what she had done or might do, he could not make himself draw the trigger of his gun. Masculine pride, the honor of the mounted, every deep-rooted instinct—heritage of a warrior race and breed—cried out against such an unnatural encounter. He would have to take this woman alive and unharmed, or else she must go free, and leave him dead with his two prisoners in the cabin among the spruces. ”

“ Automatically, as a man acting in a daze, Dexter shifted his light upward. The higher bunk was still occupied by the man without a name. He was lying on his side, still and lifeless, his manacled arms dangling limply over the edge of the bunk. His feet were securely tied to the end post, and so, like Mudgett, he had met his fate while helplessly fettered, tethered like a sheep for slaughter, without a chance of fighting back. ”

“ Hitching his pack higher on his shoulders, he left the brook and struck off through the woods.
Anxious to reach his destination before the storm descended, he set himself a pace that might have killed a man unused to wilderness travel. Head bent forward, body relaxed at the hips, feet balancing on a straight line, as a moccasined Indian walks, he swung forward with a long, flexible stride, dodging under branches, weaving back and forth among windfalls and thickets, leaping over down-trunks, moving onward without halt or hesitation, like a shadow gliding through the white mazes of the forest. ”

“ And day and night the corporal kept his untiring vigil, and fought the powers of fate for his comrade's life.
The days grew shorter and shorter, and November's cold gripped the earth tighter and tighter, like locking fetters of steel. And still the spark smoldered in the stricken man's body. There came a night at last when Dexter, stooping to force a spoonful of broth between his patient's teeth, was suddenly aware that the sunken eyes had opened to look at him with a feeble light of intelligence. ”

“ Dexter realized that within a few more days the mountain passes would be accessible to travel.
What had become of the colonel, he could not imagine. Perhaps the old man had fallen somewhere along the route; perhaps he was still alive, hidden in some wilderness fastness, waiting until he was strong enough to take the trail again. Dead or alive, however, he had already issued his command; and the law of the mounted permits no deviation from the stern line of duty, even for the sake of a comrade. It might take months to find a lost man in that vast, trackless forest. ”

“ Had Mudgett or his companion sent the word that summoned Constable Graves into the woods? Such a supposition was improbable. If the constable's murderer had betrayed any one to the police, why had he himself shot the policeman? Dexter sighed as he realized that his speculations were leading nowhere. Until he knew a great deal more than he knew now, he was groping vainly, without one enlightening clew to suggest the meaning of this strange and dark affair. It was wiser to leave off theorizing, and go after the woman. ”

“ By the accumulated signs along the way the policeman knew that she traveled without a light, groping her path as best she might. Frequently she had stumbled over some unseen obstruction and now and then walked blindly into a tree trunk or windfall. And in the denser thickets spatterings of snow told how invisible branches had swished back in her face.
Dexter continued to use his pocket lamp, and he had eyes for everything. By the promptness with which she had recovered from each misstep, he gathered that she was an agile, quick-witted woman, probably young. ”

“ The stranger was short in stature and slight in build, a clean-shaven, dark-visaged man, who, even in his heavy, ill-fitting suit of Mackinaws, bore himself with an air of distinction and grace. There was something adequate and self-possessed in his easy stride, and Dexter guessed instinctively that he was the only one of the four who would have dared to creep to the brink of a snow cornice and set off an avalanche. The corporal was certain that the stranger was the man with whom he must hold the final reckoning. But it was Crill who first reached the bottom of the mountain slope. ”

“ Dexter had halted for a moment to listen. But the cry was not repeated. A faint glow of distant fire still shimmered before him, seeping through the woods like twilight, mottling the coverts with strange, ghostly shadows. His straining senses caught no sound or stir of life. He was starting forward again, but as he bent to pass under a drooping bough, some alert faculty within him prompted him with sharp warning to look behind. ”

“ The eerie plaint of the owl came wavering from the darkness, but the empty, ghostly note seemed only a part of the great hush that brooded over the wilderness. The last man left on earth could not feel a sense of lonesomeness more poignant than Dexter felt at that moment, as he stood before the doorway of death, vainly waiting for some sound or movement to break the stillness about him. ”

“ Dexter searched about him with wide bewildered eyes. A deep, lifeless hush brooded once more over the forest, and he saw nothing anywhere but the still shadows of trees. His woodsman's instinct assured him that no human being lurked within hailing distance. Yet he could not doubt the testimony of his own senses. He had heard the thin, far call; a muffled, impalpable voice, that was the voice of Alison Rayne.
As he waited with bated breath, the murmur of sound again flickered through space—microscopic syllables of speech, apparently sent from nowhere. "Cabin—lower pass—help!" ”

“ In spite of darkness and the denseness of the timber, she still kept up her rapid pace. It seemed to her pursuer that she was in panic-stricken flight. Surely she must tire very soon. But her circling path led Dexter on and on through the dismal forest and still there was no evidence of lagging on the trail. He was beginning to marvel at the story of brave endurance that he read in the trail of the little footprints. The fugitive might not be versed in woodcraft, but nevertheless she seemed to have the pluck and physical stamina of a seasoned voyageur. ”

“ And if there were a cabin along the route, he could not miss it. He did not linger even to pack his traveling equipment, but started forward as fast as darkness and difficult ground permitted.
The mountain slope tumbled downward at a sharp slant, and he pushed blindly on through obscurity, feeling his way among the trees, crashing recklessly through briary patches, stumbling and sometimes falling over unseen obstacles in his path. How he traversed that length of dangerous hillside, without broken bones, he could not have said. ”

“ The fissure was like an open chute gouged down the side of the cliff, and just wide enough to admit his body. To crawl up that narrow draw with a carbine strapped to his back, however, was out of the question. His teeth clicked suddenly together. He had forgotten about the rifle. It was an impossible encumbrance if he expected to reach the girl. But the only way to get rid of the weapon was to unfasten the sling and let it drop: a sacrifice almost suicidal to a man on winter police patrol. ”

“ Details impressed themselves instantaneously: walls of peeled logs; tiny, four-paned windows; bare puncheon floor; a disorderly grouping of ax-hewn furniture; a smoldering fire in a clay-daubed fireplace; the pent-in odors of camp stew and wood smoke and steaming garments. A man with a shaggy beard knelt by the fire stirring a cooking pot. He whirled at the rush of cold air from the doorway, and then his stirring spoon rattled on the hearth as he stumbled to his feet.
Corporal Dexter had counted on the chance of there being more than one person in the cabin. ”

“ The tracks led for a distance through the thick timber, and then slanted down to the brook and continued northward along the unobstructed course of the stream. The killer walked with a free, unhurried stride, without pausing anywhere by the way to listen or glance behind. Particles of feathery snow still held loosely around the edges of the prints, and Corporal Dexter knew that the maker of the tracks was traveling not more than twenty minutes ahead of him. ”

“ But the line of tracks ended here, and he knew that Constable Graves' murderer was inside the cabin.
Between two men who had not yet seen each other, the door of spruce slabs held shut like the closed book of doom. Once it was opened, the warrant of death for one or the other must be read. If Corporal Dexter crossed the threshold, he would walk forth again to escort a manacled prisoner to the hangman's gibbet at Fort Dauntless; or else he would not walk forth again. It was the custom of the mounted to play for all or nothing, and ask no odds of fortune. ”

“ As he looked up in mute questioning the notion struck him that the man had gone suddenly insane. Stark apparently read the thought in his mind.
"No!" said Stark, tense and hoarse, his affected urbanity of a moment before lost in a demoniacal scowl. "I'm not crazy. You're Corporal David Dexter—and you're the one I've wanted. If you don't know why, I won't give you the satisfaction of being told. Think back—maybe you'll remember!" His lips drew back from his white teeth, and his laugh echoed hideously. "You'll have time to do plenty of thinking before you finish." ”

“ MAN AND WOMAN
A voyageur in the best physical trim would have found it fatiguing to travel along the rough mountain slopes, breaking a path over fallen snow crust, wallowing through deep, soggy drifts. Before he had traveled a mile of his journey, Dexter found himself growing short of breath, slipping and floundering more than a trained mountaineer should. ”

“ He gazed long and searchingly, and somehow all sense of doubting left him. "I do!" he declared suddenly, in a straining voice. "I've got to. What else can I do? It's impossible not to believe the truth when you see it. I believe in you."
"Oh!" she said with a full-drawn sigh, and Dexter saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes as her lashes slowly closed. "That's all I wanted," she breathed.
"Alison!" he cried. He swayed towards her, impelled by an overwhelming desire to touch her, to feel her nearness, to draw her into the comforting circle of his arm. "Alison!" ”

“ He folded the newspaper clipping, and, without realizing what he was doing, thrust it into the pocket of his own tunic. Then, with heavy steps, he moved back to the mouth of the cave to look out into the gathering twilight. The temperature was falling rapidly, and the wind had risen to a gale. Driving gusts of snow obscured the landscape. He gazed through a seething haze towards the mountain slopes above, and shivered as though with a sudden chill. Somewhere off there were Alison and Crill, and the men who had shot Devreaux: wandering through the snow in search of shelter. ”

“ His hand left his holster, and he fixed her with a stony gaze. "You're right," he said. "We're not like your people up there who crawl and slink and pot their victims from behind. Go! Go find your friends." He smiled contemptuously, and his words fell with the sharpness of whip strokes. "Tell 'em Corporal Dexter's still alive, and advise 'em when they see him again to shoot on sight, to kill. There's no truce after this. I'm more than ever set on getting them—and you too, Alison!" He pointed with his thumb towards the mountain slope, hidden behind the welter of snow. ”