The Heart of Thunder Mountain.

by Edfrid A. Bingham.

CHAPTER I

THE FORBIDDEN PASTURE

She sat hunched up in the middle of the silent pasture, where the tall, thin gra.s.s ran ripening before the breeze in waves the hue of burnished bronze. Her cow pony grazed greedily a few yards away, lifting his head now and then to gaze inquiringly at her, and then returning to his gluttony with a satisfied snort, commendatory of this long rest. The girl had removed her small sombrero to adjust the ma.s.ses of tawny hair that had become disordered in her morning ride; and the breeze now played with it, and the sun sought out its glints of gold. She was fair, of a curiously rich complexion with soft golden tints beneath the skin, as if the rusty gold in her hair was just the outcropping of what ran in solution in her veins. And there was a certain air about her that contrasted strangely with the scene upon which she now gazed intently, with her head bent forward, and her hands clasped round her upthrust knees.

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 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; and in the sky no more than two small puffs of cloud like eiderdown adrift in the depths of blue. What at first had seemed an utter silence laid upon that summer landscape had now become, as she looked and listened, a silence full of sound; of that indefinable humming undertone of nature maturing in the sun; of insects busy at their harvest; of birds in the distance calling; of gra.s.ses rustling in the breeze; of pines on the long ridge droning like an organ in the Recessional.

Yes, it was very beautiful, she thought. And sweet. And peaceful. She had come a long way--halfway across the great continent--to find that peace. But why should there be a touch of sadness in all that beauty?

And why should there be need to search for her handkerchief to press against her eyes? For the first time since she had come to Paradise Park she felt a little lonely, a little doubtful about the wisdom of her brave revolt.

She sank back at last, and lay curled up in the gra.s.s with her head pillowed on one bent arm. There, to her half-closed eyes, the gra.s.s seemed like a fairy forest, soon peopled by her fancy, the fancy of a girl who still retained the quick imagination of a child. An Indian paintbrush flamed at her with barbaric pa.s.sion; nodding harebells tinkled purple melodies; and a Mariposa lily with a violet eye seemed like a knight in white armor, bowing himself into her outstretched hand. Her eyelids drooped more and more. The music of the pines and the murmur of the pasture blended in a faint and fading lullaby....

Tuesday's shrill neigh awakened her. She sat up shivering, for the warm air was underlaid with cold; and quivering, for the alarm had fallen pat upon the climax of her dream. She rubbed her eyes, a little blinded by the sunlight, and saw that Tuesday stood with head high and nostrils distended, gazing past her toward the upper end of the pasture. She was not surprised, being yet under the spell of her dream-fairyland, to see a horseman galloping straight toward her. If not the white knight, then--For some seconds she stared, awakening slowly; and smiled at length at her childish fancy. It was only a cowboy, doubtless, riding upon his own prosaic business. And yet--She became gradually aware of something unusual, something disquieting in the manner of the man's approach. The horse was leaping under the spurs; the rider sat upright and alert in the saddle; and suddenly, as she watched him, the man's hand went to his hip, and there was a gleam of metal in the sun.

She was not afraid. Seth Huntington had a.s.sured her there was nothing to be feared in Paradise Park. But for all that, it was not without uneasiness that she hastily arranged the meager folds of her divided skirt, and pa.s.sed her hands quickly over the still disordered ma.s.ses of her hair. And then he was fairly upon her, reining up with a jerk that brought the sweating pony back upon its haunches.

There was an angry glitter in the man's dark eyes, his face was black with pa.s.sion, and the bright object she had seen flashing in his hand was the twin brother of Huntington's six-shooter. He was roughly, even meanly, dressed. His coa.r.s.e blue flannel shirt was unb.u.t.toned at the throat; his soiled brown corduroy trousers were thrust unevenly into dusty and wrinkled boot tops; his old, gray hat was slouched over one side of his forehead, shading his eyes. But the face beneath that faded and disreputable hat, as Marion saw with a slight thrill of curiosity, belonged to no ranch hand or cow-puncher. Whoever he might be, and whatever he might be doing there scowling at her, she felt at once that he was as foreign as herself to that neighborhood. But there was no time at that moment to a.n.a.lyze her feeling, to formulate her thought. And her next impression, following very swiftly, was one of vague antagonism. She felt that she was going to hate him.

"What new trick is this?" he demanded angrily, when he had looked from the girl to her pony, and at her again, with unconcealed suspicion.

For a moment she was undecided whether to answer him sharply or to rebuke his incivility with silence.

"I don't know!" she replied at last, by way of compromise between her two impulses, with a half-playful emphasis on the "I," accompanied by a very solemn, shaking of the head and a very innocent widening of the eyes.

There was a pause while he searched her face with a distrustful scrutiny.

"You're not just the person I was looking for," he said finally, with a touch of irony.

"How fortunate!" she replied, in a tone that was like a mocking echo of his own.

Her eyes met his unflinchingly, a little impudently, telling him nothing; then they slowly fell, and rested on the revolver in his hand. With a shrug he thrust the weapon into its holster.

"Thank you!" she said sweetly. "You really won't need it."

He jerked his head impatiently.

"How did you get in here?" he demanded, quite as roughly as before.

There was no reason in the world why she should not have answered him simply and directly; but she did not. She was exasperated, not so much by his words as by his manner, and not so much by his manner even as by something provocative in the man himself. He was rude, but it was not his rudeness that most annoyed her. She scarcely knew what it was,--perhaps a certain indifference, a certain cold contempt that she detected underlying all his anger, a certain icy and impenetrable reserve that, for all his hot words, and for all his lowering looks, she resented most as being in some way personal to her. And instantly the minx in her rose up for mischief.

"By aeroplane, of course!" she said tartly.

It was a silly speech, and she regretted it almost before it had left her lips.

A faint flush came into the enemy's face.

"Spoken like a woman!" he retorted. "Always tragic over little things and flippant over big ones."

That brought the color up into her face. But she was not subdued; for the cat in woman also has nine lives--at least.

"There's my horse," she said, with a toss of her head. "You saw him."

"True! But cow ponies don't easily jump four-wire fences."

"Why should they when the fences are down?"

"Good! We arrive by the devious ways that women love. Perhaps you'll give me the answer now that you should have given in the first place.

_How did you get in here?_"

She bit her lip, reflected a moment, and attempted a flank movement.

"My name is Marion g.a.y.l.o.r.d."

"I knew that."

"But you have never seen me before!"

"No. But that's one of Huntington's horses, and Miss g.a.y.l.o.r.d is a guest at his house. You see, I am more courteous than you after all. I answer your questions."

"Perhaps I'll answer yours when I know what right you have to ask them."

A light began to dawn upon him.

"Do you mean--you don't know where you are?"

"No."

He gave her a long, searching look before he spoke again.

"My name is Philip Haig," he said, leaning forward with a curious smile.

The result was all that he could have wished for. Until that moment she had remained seated, firm in her determination not to be disturbed by him. But now she rose slowly to her feet, her face reddening, her lips parted, a frightened look in her eyes. The shoe was on the other foot, with a vengeance.

He saw all this, and without compunction, seized his advantage.

With a grim smile he threw the reins over the pony's head, swung himself out of the saddle, and stepped toward her. As he came on he removed his dilapidated hat with a gesture that made her forget it was dilapidated,--a mocking, insolent gesture though it was. In spite of her embarra.s.sment she let none of his features escape her quickening interest. She saw that he was tall, erect, alert; handsome in some strange and half-repellent way, with his pale dark face, rather long in contour, and with his black, curly hair matted on the broad forehead. But she almost recoiled when, on his drawing nearer, she saw for the first time--it had been hidden by the shadow of his slouched hat--an ugly scar that ran from the outer corner of his left eye down to the jawbone below the ear. It gave to one side of his face a singularly sinister expression that vanished when he turned and disclosed a profile that was not without n.o.bility and charm.

Then suddenly her mystification was complete. Their eyes met, not as before, but very near, so close had he come to her, still smiling. And instantly, instinctively, she lowered hers; for she felt as if she had been caught peering through a window at something she had no right to see. Yet the next instant she was looking again, half-guiltily, but irresistibly drawn. The eyes were of a curious color,--smoky black, or dark gray-blue, or somber purple,--liquid and deep like a woman's, but with a steady, dull glow in their depths that was unlike anything she had ever seen or imagined. What was it that burned there?

Suffering? Hunger? Evil? Sorrow? Shame? It gave her something to think about for many a day and night. Meanwhile--

"I see you have heard of me," he said mockingly.