CHAPTER XVII

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*THE MAN WHO BUNGLED*

Early in the autumn Samantha and young Thornton were married. The teacher, in a letter to her sister, said it was a charming wedding. She told how the schoolhouse was converted into a bower for the occasion; how all the settlement was there, displaying heirlooms of finery, but nothing equalled Laramie's vest of blue and crimson satin brocade, which he wore over a new woolen shirt, and with an extra polish of the cowskin shoes. And she told how, when the old minister, imported from Olympia for the ceremony, stood waiting on the platform under a canopy of fern, and she, herself, commenced a bit of Mendelssohn's march on Eben's violin, the bridal couple in the doorway made a picture to remember; how Samantha was delightful in a crisp white muslin, and when she hung back shyly, Mill grasped her arm and dragged her up the aisle. How his face was red--possibly his stiff collar was a size too small--and his eyes flashed defiance, like a pirate convoying a risky prize. She told also how, when the ordeal was safely through, and Samantha rode the sorrel to her new home, Thornton walking at her side, all the district followed for the housewarming. But though she described minutely this cabin, and the improvements and values of the claim, of that other section almost adjoining, where lived their nearest neighbor, she still had nothing to say.

And it was an early autumn morning, a few days after the wedding, that the bars of the lower meadow fence were found down, and Mother Girard again discovered that one of the Jerseys, straying or driven out under cover of the timber, had been milked. The impressions were still fresh on the dew and the teacher joined Mose in search of the trespasser. This time the track skirted the jungle, and, rounding the slope, entered the canyon, where they met a beaten path leading from the upper end of Stratton's quarter-section. The river was bridged there by a fallen tree, below which it widened into a ford, and this new trail wound up the precipitous side of the gorge, some distance beyond the cliff that was capped by the leaning tower. The footprints took that direction.

Suddenly they both stopped and stood looking up at the stronghold. Then they turned to each other. A line of smoke, rising behind the tower, marked a camp-fire.

"But," she said at last, "if he wants milk he must ask me for it." And she started bravely up the side of the canyon.

Mose pressed after her closely. Finally he said, "It ees bes' you let me go firs', Mees. He ees have one good gun, for sure."

She swung around. "Isn't it Slocum?"

Mose shook his head. "No, Slocum doan' come roun' dis ranch some more. Monjee, he's too mooch 'fraid to stop roun' here. But Pete Smith, he doan' care, so long he ain' see Mill."

"Pete Smith." She paused, shivering a little, then she laughed. "It's funny, Mose, how creepy just his name makes me feel. I--I guess I will let you go first--if you aren't afraid. But wait, what makes you think it is Pete Smith?"

"For dat las' night, when A'm come back wid dose trout I catch down stream, I see heem by Mo'sieur's plas. Sacre, but he ees going fin' he ees lose some blankets, an' flour an' sugar, 'bout ev'ryt'ing, when he comes home."

"You mean Pete had broken into the lodge. Oh, you should have gone directly for Mill Thornton. But you tried to stop him, Mose? You at least warned him that you surely would get word to Mr. Stratton?"

Again Mose shook his head. "You mus' on'stan' it ees bes' I let Pete 'lone. He doan' want me talk to heem dare. Monjee, no. It ees lak I doan' see heem. Nawitka, I come straight 'way home."

He moved his rifle into the curve of his arm, and pushed by Alice, leading on up the bluff, through labyrinths of hazel and alder, up short sections of gullies. Just under the summit he stopped. "I doan' lak lose dis fine new gun," he said softly, and began to fondle the stock. "She's mooch more fine dan dat good gun of Pete Smith's. Nawitka, Mees, mebbe he ees watch us come 'cross de gorge. Mebbe he ees goin' have one drop on us. Den it ees bes' I leave dis gran' gun here; you think so, ya-as?

"Perhaps, Mose. I hadn't thought of--that. It seemed safe to have it along. He's the most hideous man. But he can't help that. And if he is on--guard--well, leave the gun, Mose. Of course he wouldn't harm us. He wouldn't dare."

Mose stood the rifle carefully in a hollow trunk, and moved on cautiously. She kept very close to him up to the top of the bluff, and there she laid her hand on his arm. "I'm frightened, Mose," she whispered. "I'm frightened."

He looked at her gravely. "Mebbe you doan' care so mooch 'bout dat milk now," he said.

She pulled herself straight. "It isn't the loss of the milk, Mose; you should understand that. It's the principle. He can't take anything of mine. It's wrong. Besides, if I let this go, unnoticed, we might wake up any morning to find greater things missing. We might even find Colonel gone."

She lifted her head higher and moved forward with new resolve. Mose kept pace with her, and presently they halted, screened by a mesh of young hemlock boughs, and looked out into the boulder-strewn open behind the tower.

Smith was there. He was removing from the fire a trout which he had cooked on a long sharpened stick. He worked with a noiseless, gliding motion, and even when he seated himself on the flat rock, which became at once both chair and table, and fell hurriedly to eating his breakfast, he kept up a ceaseless pantomime; beating the earth softly with his foot, starting up, subsiding, shivering, looking behind him, listening, and like an animal long hunted, again starting.

Two horses stood near him accoutered for the trail. One, his own, brought from Laramie's meadow, where at intervals it was pastured, carried saddle-bags and a snug blanket roll at the crupper; the other was an indifferent pack-animal laden with camp supplies.

"He ees tek de long trail, for sure," whispered Mose. "Monjee, how ees it he ees leave Colonel?"

"If those are Mr. Stratton's things he's got to take them back," she said. "Come, we must make him."

Mose shook his head. "We doan' be able."

"We must." Then she squared her shoulders and walked forward with a clear "Good-morning."

Instantly the man was on his feet, and grasping the rifle which stood at hand, against the tower wall, he dropped to his knee behind the improvised table. The gun rested across the rock and he took sight carefully.

The girl came on into the open. "Don't be afraid of me," she said and steadied her voice, "I only want to talk to you."

He lifted his head and looked at her in astonishment. She came a few steps further, and Mose, silent, alert, stalked after her and stood waiting. "I came to speak to you about milking my cow," she said, and ruffled her brows. "You should have asked me."

At this Smith laughed and rising from his knee, seated himself again on the rock. But he held his gun in readiness.

"I suppose," she went on, "it seems--to you--a very small matter, compared with breaking into Mr. Stratton's house."

He laughed again, loudly, insolently.

She watched him with the rising storm in her eyes. She was no longer afraid. Clearly the man was unashamed; the spark of good that she had been taught to believe was latent in the breast of the lowest man, was lacking here. He must be the exception that proved the rule. "You've got to take these things back," she said at last, decisively, yet holding her voice in check; "now, at once."

Smith lifted his gun higher, scowling. "You go home," he said gruffly. "Mose, you go. Be quick 'bout it."

She remembered suddenly the day at school when Lem had admitted that men in the settlement sometimes struck women, but she did not move. Then she was conscious that Mose was walking back towards the wood. "Mose," she said, and turning, stamped her foot, "stay here."

He stopped and looked over his shoulder. "It ees bes' dat you come right 'way," he said. "Mebbe Mill T'ornton ees able to do somet'ing, you spik to heem."

The man laughed still more insolently. "You go," he repeated.

The next instant he sprang to his feet and faced the wood on the other side of the open. There was a brief interval filled with the sounds of bodies moving through low boughs, the snapping of twigs, the striking of hoofs on loose rock, then Stratton's smooth, deliberate voice said, "Well, Smith, I think I have a horse now that won't refuse his pack, and I have tested him at a ford."

Smith put down his gun and hurried to take the led animal, and Stratton rode on past the clump of scrub firs, where the waiting horses were hitched, and saw suddenly the girl by the tower. A great wave of color surged over his face and left it white. His big frame rocked slowly as though he gathered himself from a heavy and unexpected blow; then he sat motionless.

"Oh," she said, and hurried to meet him, "I'm so glad you came this way, instead of going straight through to the bridge. This man has looted your lodge. I was just trying to make him take back your things."

Stratton drew a great breath. He shook himself like a man throwing off a weight, and swung himself down from the saddle. "You were? Well, thank you, Miss Hunter, but he should have told you that I gave him the key." He paused and his eyes moved to Smith, who had gone to an aperture in the tower, and was lifting from it other supplies for the fresh pack-horse. "In fact," he added, "I have engaged Pete to go over the Pass with me, to cook and look after my outfit."

Her glance moved to Sir Donald's full leather saddlebags and snug blanket roll, and returned to his master. "You have engaged this man," she said slowly, "to go over the mountains with you?"

"Yes, I am starting on a long hunting and trading trip, through the Palouse and Big Bend country, and Smith knows the plains and the Indians. He will be invaluable to me in that uncertain wilderness. But I shall probably go down the Columbia, when I strike the railroad, and come back to the Sound from Portland, by way of the Northern Pacific."

"You are going a long hunting trip," she repeated, and met his look steadily. "You have engaged this man, this outlaw, for your camp cook and guide. You know you are helping him to elude the Government. Oh, how can you, an intelligent, educated American, be so indifferent to the laws? I don't understand you. I don't understand you."

She turned away.

"Wait, just a moment," he said. "Is the case so different from your own? You took this other half-breed Indian into your house; you gave him a new start; yet the rascal had stolen our horses; he had left us high up, nine thousand feet, on Mt. Rainier in the face of a storm. He did even worse."

"Hush," she said. Mose stood, waiting, a few yards off. His face was turned to the lower gorge and she looked at him with apprehension. "There is no comparison," she went on softly. "You know it. He was just a boy, untaught, his character unformed, and he believed he was right. There was plenty of good in him, ready to be brought out by any one who cared to take the trouble. I have proved that; he has repaid me a hundred times. But this fellow--this desperado--think of his record. Look in his face."

She moved on with this, to join Mose, but her foot struck something that clinked against a stone, and she stopped to look down. Then she stooped and picked up the object, turning it curiously in her hands. It was a small tin receptacle, unlike anything she had ever seen before. There were some strange characters marked on it, presumably Chinese, and while she studied them she noticed that the can had sprung a little at the upper edge, and a sticky substance began to ooze into her palm. It emitted a sickish odor and she held the thing out to Stratton in sudden disgust. "What is it?" she asked. "Do you know? Did you drop it?"

Again he pulled himself together. He took the tin and hurled it over the cliff. Some distance down it struck a projecting ledge, and sent back, faintly, a clink. "I know what it is, yes," he said grimly. "The man who dropped it--bungled."

His glance moved again to Smith and the steel flashed in his eyes. But the outlaw had not heard. He was engrossed in a full canvas bag which he was adjusting to the pack saddle.

"Come, there is water here," Stratton went to the rock where Smith had breakfasted, and lifted a flask. "Hold out your hands."

She held them out, turning them under the stream he poured. "Rub them," he said; "it stains. Again, the odor clings. The stuff should never have touched your hands."

"What is it?" she repeated.

He was silent.

"What is it?" she persisted. "Can't you tell me?"

"Yes, yes, I can--if I must." He threw his head with a sudden reckless decision. "It stands for shame, ostracism, degradation, according to your code. The man who touches it takes his fate in his hands. It sticks, its slime covers him, sucks him down. Look in my face."

But at the look she gave him, that straight, searching look, which forever expected a best in him, the boldness went out of his face. A quiver swept it, as though he felt deep down the twist of a probe. "Once, up there below the Paradise," he said, "you promised your mercy. The time has come; I ask it--now."

"You mean it is"--but her voice failed. Her eyes widened with fear, and yet there rose in them an appeal. "You mean," she repeated, "you were going to--" But the word would not out; it died in her throat. Then, "Promise me you will not," she entreated. "Promise--no matter how desperate you may feel--you will always put the feeling down. I should blame myself; I should feel someway responsible. I couldn't help it. It would spoil my life."

He drew his hand slowly across his eyes and moved back, leaning on the tower wall. So she thought that. She believed that he had contemplated self-destruction, and in that crude, spectacular way. And of course she attributed his reason to her rejection of him. He could have laughed aloud at his escape. "I promise," he answered. "I promise. I will leave it to Nature. When the time comes she can provide a way."

"Thank you, I trust you." She gave him her hand. "Good-by."

She hesitated, glancing once more at the outlaw, but of him she had nothing further to say. Stratton stood watching her down the trail; when she disappeared he moved to the edge of the cliff and waited for a final glimpse of her, far below in the canyon.

At last he noticed that his guide was ready. "Ride on with the pack-horses," he said. "I will overtake you in time to make Nisqually ford. And the next time you find a leaking can, Smith, be careful where you throw it."

When the man was gone he sank down on a rock and dropped his face in his hands. Finally he lifted his head and sat for an interval looking down the gorge in the direction she had taken. "She is so bright and quick," he told himself, "and yet she could not see the truth. With all of her knowledge of smuggling, and opium and rings, she has never seen or had a description of the stuff. It is strange, strange--for I went all to pieces, there, for a minute. It must be, after all, because she is so ready to take a man on trust. She is so tremendously honest herself, she won't accept a man's own doubt of himself. But I--I--had a narrow escape. Strange, too, what a hold she has had on me from the start. I would have braved it out, lied to a man; I would have laughed it off with any other woman; but she lifted her eyes, probing for that everlasting best in me, and I babbled like a fool."

Presently he drew a letter from his pocket. It was an answer to the one he had written the Judge. It had miscarried at first, and he had travelled so much the last weeks, it had been forwarded and missed him repeatedly. He had received it that morning at the Station on the prairie below the Myers claim. He opened the sheet and re-read it slowly.

"WASHINGTON, D.C., July 20th, 18--.

"MY DEAR STRATTON:--In response to your letter I want to remind you that I knew your father, John Stratton, well. He was a strong and capable man and always a gentleman. I am certainly interested in the career of his son. I also satisfied myself somewhat as to your standing, before I came East, because it is my custom to know about my nephew Philip's friends. I learned nothing of a disparaging nature.

"But in regard to the initial point of your letter, I can only say that a release from a marriage engagement should depend altogether on the direct request of the lady.

"Very truly yours, "SILAS KINGSLEY."

Stratton held the letter a thoughtful interval, then he rose and went over and laid it on Smith's smouldering fire. He stood watching it break into flame and curl up like a brown, dead leaf. "But it will influence him," he said. "He can't help it; it will raise a question."

He turned to untie his fretting horse. "So, Donald, old fellow, there is light ahead; we are almost out of the woods. A little more dishonor," he set his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up, "and we can afford to make a fresh start."

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