Edfrid A. Bingham

“ Poor Robert! thought Marion. She imagined what Philip would have done if he had wanted her as Robert did. Would any deal, any prospect of millions, have kept him away from her? So she reasoned, forgetting entirely the other side of the case. Haig, if she could have asked him, would have told her: yes, that’s all very well, but the man would have to get those thousands or other thousands afterwards, just the same; a woman wants to have her cake and eat it too; and so much the worse for the man if he cannot dance attendance on her and make money for her at the same time! ”

“ There was a cold gush of air from up the valley. Far in the north were purple patches on the flats, and violet shadows in the foothills. But the dunes were all vermilion, and I can’t tell you what hue of red lay spread out deep and vivid on the Sangre de Cristo peaks,––a living, passionate, terrible blood-red. I’m not very devout, but I tell you candidly that I reined up my horse, took off my hat, and sat there gazing, with the queerest feelings, and saying, like the old Spaniards, ‘Sangre de Cristo! ”

“ In an instant he was up; in another, or the same instant, he was off, with his head down, and belly to earth, with the speed of a race-horse and the frenzy of a wild thing set free.
Haig was only slightly stunned by the fall. He heard, though he did not see, the escape of Sunnysides; and for one black moment all in the present was blotted out. But that was only the dizziness, and the reeling pain in his head; and there was the sky filled with gray-black, contending clouds; and Pete was leaning over him.
“Hurt?” asked the Indian. ”

“ There was a muffled report, the fumes stung their eyes and nostrils, and for a moment both lay still. Then Marion felt a movement under her, and guessed that Haig was fumbling with the revolver. An indescribable energy seized her, something tigerish in its fury, and beyond her own proper powers, so that she flung him over on his back as if he had been a child in strength and size. With both hands she gripped the wrist below the clutched revolver, and while she held it away from his body she drew her own body over his, and threw herself on his extended arm, between his hand and his breast. ”

“ Sometimes they slept under overhanging rocks with a fire blazing at their feet, but more often the night was spent in burrows dug in the snow. Their supply of venison ran out, and a day was lost while Pete hunted and killed a deer, and cooked strips of its flesh, to be seasoned with the very last of their salt and pepper, and kept in his knapsack. But even Marion did not lose courage or once falter, though many times her heart was in her mouth and a cold sweat on her forehead as they passed some formidable and terrifying obstacle. ”

“ Her hair was almost exactly the color of the outlaw’s dull yellow mane, but finer, of course, and softer; and her complexion––he wondered that he had not noticed it before––had a peculiar richness and brilliancy that seemed to reflect the luster of Sunnysides’ golden hide. They stood there entrancing his artist-eye with their perfect harmony of line and color; and the last thin rays of the setting sun bathed horse and girl in a golden light––an atmosphere in which they glowed like one of Titian’s mellowed canvases.
“Don’t move, please!” he exclaimed.
But Marion did not hear, or did not heed. ”

“ At her feet were forests in solid masses of green, now darkening in the twilight. And beyond, far, far beyond, the Park they had left lay bright under the sun’s after-glow, with a background of range on range of mountains in their violet haze. On the shelf was forage for the horses; near at hand were moss and balsam for their beds; and at a little distance a rivulet, ice-cold, had shady pools where small trout awaited capture. And the air was like dry wine on the lips, with a tang of resin in the nostrils; and the woods sang a song that even Marion could not resist. ”

“ She was strong, for a woman; she had lived all her life much out of doors; and she had entered upon this ordeal in perfect health. But her willingness outsped her powers; and when the snow had spared her by driving her into the cave, she fairly staggered and groped and leaned against the wall, and knew that if she should now collapse she would never rise again. But even in that climax of her suffering, when for a moment she dared not move, in fear of toppling over on the floor, and could not keep back her sobs, there was an answer ready when Haig called to her across the cave. ”

“ And in the very midst of it stood the outlaw in his familiar attitude, with one forefoot slightly raised, his head high, his nostrils distended, his dark eyes filled with fire. There had never been anything so bright and beautiful. His golden hide gleamed with planetary splendor, like the mythical 237 horses of the sun. This was The Horse, the golden epiphany of the brute, the answer to all of Haig’s fears and resolutions. And in the very hour of his exit––
Rage rose again within him. Instinctively, for he was scarce capable of thought, he tried to reach his revolver. ”

“ At length, on a bright and glittering day, when it seemed the storms had finally abandoned their enmity, they climbed slowly up the long slopes to Simpson’s Pass, and stood at noon high above a wide and wonderful world of snow, with white mountains succeeding one another, range on range, as far as their eyes could reach before them and behind. And that afternoon, as they toiled around the shoulder of Big Bear Mountain, they stopped and gazed,––Marion with tears streaming down her cheeks, and Haig with his hands clenched tightly at his sides. ”

“ Marion knew nothing of this fiery ordeal through which Haig came. Even in the fiercest and most maddening moment of his agony, when honor and pride and self-respect were being reduced to ashes, he did not fail to realize that to cry out, to rave or curse or denunciate, would only be to add something cowardly and contemptible to the sum of his disgrace. He did not even cast a stealthy glance toward his revolver, where it lay in a niche in the cavern wall, though Marion was out in the snow somewhere, and could not have stopped him if he had crawled to seize it. ”

“ In the dusk the horse glowed like a living jewel that holds the light when the sun has gone. Night fell, and the golden hide became a shimmer in the dark, as the outlaw moved restlessly to and fro in his prison. Then, of a sudden, with the unexpectedness and unreason of a dog’s wolf-howl at the rising moon, there rose from the gloom of the corral a shrill, wild neigh that shattered the peaceful silence of the night.
Haig left the fence, and walked swiftly to the barn.
“Farrish!” he said shortly. “We’ll break Sunnysides to-morrow. Tell Pete and Curly not to ride away in the morning. ”

“ The days dragged by under the burdens of doubt and torture, and out of the Valley of the Shadow came Philip Haig, with some new and disquieting thoughts to occupy him in his convalescence. Toiling up out of the darkness, where foul fiends seemed to have torn and mangled his body with their fiery claws, his fingers were still warm from the pressure of a soft, guiding hand; there was a haunting memory of kisses on his forehead, of a cheek laid close to his; and he could still hear the gentle but commanding voice that told him to be patient––to be still––that life was coming back to him.
Life! ”

“ For a moment she was on the very point of panic; the forest seemed to be closing in on her with sudden malignity; and the terror of Thunder Mountain held her in its cold grip. But desperation called up her courage. She walked Tuesday in an ever-widening circle around the spot where she had lost the trail, with her heart almost still, and her eyes straining at every tree as it came within her vision. Where? Where? Would there be no more blazes, no more broken limbs, no more prints of hoofs on the mossy earth? Had she left the trail farther back than she had thought? ”

“ There, in some past age, an avalanche of titanic proportions had carried away part of the mountain itself; and they camped now on the top of the débris, long since concealed by a dense forest growth, as if nature had employed her utmost arts to hide the wound. Marion could not but yield a little to emotions of delight and wonder. On that high platform she stood above a marvelous mountain world, below another mountain world as marvelous. Behind her Avalanche reared sheer and sharp and white against the sky. On either side were snow-clad peaks. ”

“ There was a savage struggle still, the man affirming his right to die, and the woman denying it. But the issue could not be long in doubt; for Haig’s strength was at the ebb, while Marion’s flowed in from earth and air and sky, from the future and from the past. And she wore him down at last, until the revolver dropped from his grasp, his eyelids closed, his limbs relaxed, and he lay still. Waiting a moment for certainty, she cautiously loosened one of her hands from his wrist, and grabbed the revolver, and flung it with all her might. ”

“ But in the middle of the night she was awakened by a storm that swept high over the ranch house, scarcely touching it in its sheltered hollow, but shrieking and wailing among the rocks and pines. She sat up in her bed to listen! Thunder Mountain! Before her eyes there rose, out of the dark of the cabin, a vision of Philip prone among the rocks of that terrible summit, struck down by the wind, or felled by a thunderbolt, drenched with rain, and perishing of cold. There came, above the howling of the wind, a deafening crash of thunder that rolled away in sullen bellowing. ”

“ Too feeble to ask questions, she only smiled, and took obediently the remainder of the potion that Pete poured from his flask and heated in the tin-cup among the embers. On her wakening again it was seen that the fever was broken. But life in her was only a tiny flame, at times the merest spark that every gust of wind through the cavern threatened to extinguish. Hour after hour Haig and the Indian watched it, the one in such anguish as the repentant murderer suffers as he kneels over the poor victim of his rage, the other in stolid resignation, seeing that perhaps he had come too late. ”

“ All these supplies Pete had saved untouched, living himself on game shot on the long journey. For nearly five weeks he had struggled against unbelievable hardships, fighting like primitive man against the fiercest enmity of nature; had searched the whole Black Lake country; and that day, slowly following the direction of the trail up through the narrowing gulch among the tree tops, the smell of smoke was brought to his nostrils on the wind, and he traced it along the foot of the cliff.
“But did you really expect to find us alive?” asked Haig. ”

“ Its granite head was the very breeding-place of storms. The peaks around it had their days of calm, but Thunder Mountain never. An hour or two perhaps––no more. It knew no peace. The elements were, and are now, and forever will be quarreling upon its worn and battered head; lightning and rain and snow and wind are forever hammering and beating it turn by turn. It is the Quasimodo and the Lear and the Gray Friar of mountains, all in one. ”

“ It was a little valley she had come upon by chance, snugly tucked away among the hills. Below the bronze-colored slope there were lush meadows of a brilliant 2 green, and a shallow, swift stream that flashed over black bowlders and white sand; beyond the meadows lay more shining pastures rising to pale-green aspen groves and then to dark-green pines; and above all these the foothills climbed swiftly to the mountains, and the mountains more swiftly to the sky. There were faint blue mists in the foothills, fainter violet shadows on the distant fields, an icy whiteness on the peaks ”