Natalie looked at Garth as much as to say that she had accomplished what she came for.

The look was not lost on Mabyn. He sprang up. "I'll do just what you want!" he said hurriedly. "I'll start for Prince George at once--to-day--this minute! G.o.d knows there's nothing to keep me here! You have a spare horse, I suppose. I've nothing but that galled cayuse and another as bad!" He uttered his cracked laugh in a tone that was intended to be ingratiating. "That's the advantage of poverty! I've no preparations to make; so lead on!"

Natalie paused irresolutely. This was a contingency she had not foreseen.

She shuddered at the possibilities it opened up. In her perplexity she looked again at Garth.

"We will leave you a horse," said he curtly. "And your pa.s.sage out from the lake Settlement will be arranged for."

"And what money you need," added Natalie in a low tone, and blushing painfully.

But Mabyn's feelings were not hurt. "I can go with you just as well," he bl.u.s.tered.

Natalie looked at Garth once more.

"You may follow us as soon as you choose," said Garth coolly. "We do not desire your company on the way."

For the first time Mabyn appeared to recognize Garth's presence on the scene. He turned a baleful eye on him; and his lips curled back over his gums. "Who are _you_?" he snarled, adding an oath.

"That is neither here nor there," said Garth. "I speak for Miss Bland."

"Mrs. Mabyn, you mean," sneered the other, thinking to crush him with the information.

"She does not use that name," returned Garth imperturbably.

Mabyn turned furiously to Natalie. "Who is this man?" he cried, his cracked voice sliding into falsetto; "this sleek young sprig that rides alone with you through the country! I demand to know! I have a right to know!"

"I admit no right!" Natalie said firmly.

Mabyn, beside himself with jealous rage, no longer knew what he said.

"You won't explain!" he cried. "You _can't_ explain! Here's a nasty situation for a married woman!"

Garth's self-control, stretched on the rack through all this scene, suddenly snapped in twain. Temper with Garth took the form of laughter; mocking, dangerous laughter, that issued startlingly from his grave lips.

He laughed now. "You scoundrel!" he said in cool, incisive tones--though he was not a whit less blinded by pa.s.sion than Mabyn himself--"after the kind of life you've been leading up here, have you still the a.s.surance to lay a claim upon _her_! And to cast a reflection on _her_ good name!

Have you no mirror to see what you are? Go in the lake, then, and see the vile record written on your face!"

Mabyn was staggered. Garth's terrible scorn penetrated the last wrappings of the warmly nurtured ego within. He shot a startled glance at Garth; and from Garth to the hut and behind, as if wondering how much he knew.

Garth was not through with him. He slipped his stirrups, preparatory to leaping off his horse. Natalie trembled at the quiet man's new aspect.

"Garth!" she entreated urgently.

The sound of her voice recalled him to himself. Settling back in his saddle, he abruptly turned his horse, and went off a little way, struggling to regain his self-command.

Mabyn, misunderstanding, was vastly lifted up by this word of Natalie's, and the writhing ego within hastened to repair the horrid breach Garth had made. He approached her, hidden by her horse from Garth.

"Oh, Natalie!" he gabbled whiningly; "don't listen to him. He's a low cur! But he can't make trouble between you and me! Send him away!

Natalie, I seem to have acted badly; but I can explain everything!

Circ.u.mstances were all against me! In my heart I've never swerved from you! I dream of you every night in my lonesomeness! Wherever I look I see your face before my eyes!"

It was the old trick of pa.s.sionate speech; Natalie remembered the very words of old; but the man--she averted her head from the hideous spectacle. She was afraid to move or cry out, sure that Garth in his present mind would kill him if he heard.

Mabyn, conceiving nothing of the sublime irony of the figure he made, continued to plead. "Natalie, don't turn away from me! You took me for better or worse, remember! You found me at a disadvantage to-day; I don't look like this ordinarily. And you can make whatever you like of me! Remember the old days at home! I am the same man--Bert--your Bert!

Look--he can't see us--I kneel to you as I did then!"

And down he went on his knees, stretching out his arms to her.

There was an odd, slight sound behind him. They both looked--and froze in the att.i.tude of looking. Garth from his station, seeing the new look of horror overspread Natalie's face, spurred to join her.

There, clinging to the corner of the cabin for support, stood the figure of a woman. Her brown skin was blanched to a livid yellow; and her eyes were the eyes of one dead from a shock. She swayed forward from the waist as if her backbone could no longer support her. At her feet a tin pail emptied wild cherries on the ground.

Mabyn scrambled to his feet, shamed, chagrined, furious. "What do you want around here?" he cried brutally--even now seeking to outface her.

The piteous, stricken girl moistened her lips; and essayed more than once to speak, before any words came. "'Erbe't, who is this woman?" she said quite simply at last.

"What is that to you?" he bl.u.s.tered roughly, thinking to beat her down; perhaps to kill her outright with cruelty. "This is my wife!"

"Oh, no! no!" whispered Natalie, sick with the sight of so much misery.

It is doubtful if the girl heard her. She tottered forward; and seized and clung to Mabyn's arm. Her breast was heaved on hard, quick pants like a wounded animal's; and her eyes were as frantic, and as inhuman.

"'Erbe't, who am I?" she breathed.

Mabyn, seeing that Natalie heard and understood, beside himself, and reckless with rage, flung out his arm, throwing her heavily to the ground. "You! d.a.m.n you!" he cried. "You're just my----"

Natalie, with a low cry of horror, instinctively clapped her heels to her horse's ribs, and set off down the hill. Garth wheeled after her.

"Oh, stay--stay and help her!" she gasped.

"You come first!" said Garth grimly.

Mabyn, as Natalie turned, sprang after her; and running desperately, managed to cling to her stirrup. Casting off the last vestiges of manliness he wept and prayed her to wait for him. Her horse, Caspar, kicked out wildly, and struck him off. He lay on the ground sobbing and cursing; striving to drag himself along with clawing hands.

Just before they gained the watercourse, Garth looked over his shoulder; and his heart leapt into his throat. The brown woman was reaching for Mabyn's rifle. He shouted a warning; and desperately strove to throw his horse behind Natalie. But it was too late. Hard upon his voice, the shot rang. A strange, low cry broke from Natalie; and she reeled in her saddle. Garth, spurring ahead, grasped Caspar's bridle, and caught her from falling. A pang, far more dreadful than the hurt of a bullet, smote his own breast.

XVI

NATALIE WOUNDED

The frightened horses struggled over the watercourse, and gained the trees before Garth, hampered as he was, succeeded in drawing their heads together, and stopping them. Slipping out of the saddle without loosening his grasp of Natalie, he lifted her off, ever careful to shield her from possible further shots with his own body. He remembered Mabyn's was a single-shot weapon; and he counted on the time it would take the Indian woman to obtain ammunition, and reload. Quickly and tenderly laying Natalie on the ground under shelter of a stump, he unslung his own rifle. But as he dropped to his knee, and raised it, he saw the woman on the edge of the cut-bank swing the stock of her gun around her head, and send the weapon spinning out over the water.

Meanwhile Mabyn was running up the hill toward her with significant action. No immediate further danger threatened. Garth put the pair out of his mind, and bent over Natalie. What happened to the woman at Mabyn's hands was a matter of indifference to him now.

Natalie's left arm hung useless; and a soaking crimson stain spread broadly on her sleeve between elbow and shoulder. Her face had gone chalky white, her eyes were half closed, and her teeth were set painfully in her blue nether lip. To see his sparkling, vivid Natalie brought so low, was a sight to open all the doors of Garth's brain to madness. His heart swelled suffocatingly with rage and grief, but there was no time for that, when every faculty he possessed must be concentrated on saving her; and forcing it back, he picked her up again with infinite tenderness. His first and instinctive thought was to return and seize the hut; so that he might at least have a roof to cover her. He suspected the other two were now without arms; but even if they had a weapon, he had a better one; was a sure shot; and was on his guard.