Part 2

The prospect of Lorn getting wounded, maybe killed, killed by her own rifle, killed because she’d defied him and gone away alone, frightened Sylvia as nothing in her life before had ever done. Watching, she saw Behrdal suddenly start, ship the paddle, seize the rifle. From the east shore, from behind the cover of a cypress whose branches swept the water, a canoe had glided out, a canoe with a straight stern figure in it, driving it with powerful strokes, his rifle muzzle sticking up above the gunwale. It was skirling directly out athwart the current, out into midstream, to block their path. The last vestige of Slith Behrdal’s pretense dropped away from him. His eyes were fixed on that canoe. There was fear in them, a craven fear that made him jerky in the manner of a cornered animal. And there was a vengeful light in them, too--a murderous glare at the officer who had hunted him for months and flung out the wilderness dragnet for him, and now blocked his path to safety.

As Behrdal cocked the rifle, Sylvia rose up, wild with fright, nearly tipping over the frail canoe, and pleaded: “Don’t! Don’t shoot! You mustn’t hurt _him_. I’ll tell him to keep away--” Behrdal swung the gun back behind his shoulder, like a heavy club against her, menacing her; and he snarled: “Get down! Damn you, get down there! You make one move, you just try to help him to take me, you damn’ little softie, and I’ll-- I aint aiming to get taken!” Shrinking back from him in quivering panic, Sylvia helplessly watched him lift the rifle--_her_ rifle--and level it, and draw a bead on that canoe. In that instant Lorn’s voice, sharp and clear, came ringing across the water, repeating the formula of arrest: “Halt! In the King’s name, I warn you against resisting!” * * * * * Behrdal shot at him.

In her terror for Lorn, unmindful of the bullet that screamed past her head, Sylvia turned, looked. Again and again and again, till the magazine was empty, Behrdal shot at her husband. The bullets, kicking up tiny spurts of white, hit all around Lorn. Two of them, striking almost at the wind-water line of Lorn’s canoe, ricocheted and tore through his fragile craft. She saw Lorn lean forward, stuffing a blanket corner into one of those spouting holes. But he did not shoot. He had recognized _her_; though a bullet at any moment might kill him, he would never jeopardize her life. Cool and steady, he was driving his canoe on, on out into midstream, to block the path.

She cried out: “Lorn! Lorn! Shoot at him!” Behrdal swung his reloaded rifle upon her. Had she not been his protection, he would have killed her. “Shut up!” He seized the paddle, drove the canoe frantically on with powerful grunting strokes, till less than two hundred yards of water lay between the two crafts. Dropping the paddle, whipping up his rifle, he poured a stream of bullets at Lorn’s canoe. One, ricocheting, tore a gaping hole through the wind-water line. Another knocked Lorn’s paddle out of his grasp. And then that fatal bullet!

In her terrified anguish, she did not clearly see what happened, but Lorn’s canoe suddenly caved in, as though the middle thwart had been splintered, and the craft, collapsing, plunged him into the water, boatless, his rifle gone. [Illustration: Then that fatal bullet! Lorn’s canoe suddenly caved in and plunged him into the water, his rifle gone.] He reappeared, treaded water, then started swimming strongly--not back to the safety of the shore, which likely he could have reached; but on out into midstream, toward a flat granite rock that reared above the water. With belt-gun in his teeth, he headed for that boulder in a last magnificent effort to make his arrest and save his wife from this man. [Illustration: Behrdal shot twice at him--at a helpless man swimming. Checking himself, he watched Lorn climb out.] Behrdal shot twice at him--at a helpless man swimming--but his bullets missed. Checking himself, he watched Lorn reach the rock and climb out. His nervous jerky fear slowly ebbed now. As his narrowed eyes studied the boulder, an expression of gloating sureness twisted his mouth. He knew, and Sylvia knew, what chance a man with a belt-gun stood against a long-range rifle.

He could edge up closer, could stand off beyond belt-gun range and pour a magazine of bullets into his enemy. Lorn was caught, doomed; he and she too were at Behrdal’s mercy now. * * * * * For perhaps half a minute Behrdal held the canoe where it was, stroking a little against the current, studying the rock where Lorn knelt on one knee, waiting. Beneath his breath he snarled: “That yellow-striped devil won’t hound me any more! Nor he won’t get back home to tell where I faded to, or boss any more hunts after me!” He dipped paddle to drive the canoe within deadly rifle-range of the rock. Sylvia’s glance went to her little belt-ax loosely tied in the pack within arm’s reach of her. She started to lean forward, to seize it and hurl it with all her strength at that brutal face. Her movement caught Behrdal’s eyes; he whipped back the paddle, swung at her; and the thin blade struck her across the arm she flung up to protect herself. He grabbed the belt-ax and thrust it safely beneath his leg. “Didn’t quite, did you?

Pretty cocky now, ain’t you? You’ll tame down. You and me--while them men of his are kiting around wondering what happened to him--we’ll be looking up a nice place back in there to den up in.” * * * * * In the horror that swept over her, Sylvia had a livid memory of Behrdal bolting her food with an animal’s hunger, of his hunger for human company, of his overbearing, lordly-male attitude, of Lorn’s significant hint that this man had been alone in the bush for many long months. He taunted her, as he drove the canoe on toward the rock: “You’re the softest one I ever met up with. Swallowed everything I told you! Come along peaceful-like, you did--no trouble at all. And you thought I was going to set you off, after catching you out here like that, no one knowing what happened to you. You, by God, thought I’d let you go! _And you wanted to help me escape!_” He laughed throatily. “You sure need a husband--sweet little coonie like you--or need _somebody_ to look after you--letting a fellow string you along like I did!” He laughed again; and in that horrid laugh Sylvia seemed to be hearing Lorn’s warning, and caught a glimpse of all his long years of hunting men, all his hard-earned knowledge of criminal nature, all his bitterly learned experience and beliefs.

A moment later Behrdal was ignoring her, as a helpless and inferior creature to be noticed or scorned at his fancy. The rock was within good rifle-range; but Lorn had crouched down lower, to offer the smallest possible target to that sharp-speaking gun. Estimating distance, Behrdal shoved the canoe on closer, closer, till at the deadly range of a hundred yards he shipped the paddle and rose up, and lifting his rifle, deliberately took aim. As she watched that rifle come up, Sylvia grasped the gunwale with both hands, and her body tensed for a swift desperate attempt to save Lorn’s life. A minute ago she had thought to leap forward and struggle with Behrdal and try to wrest the rifle away from him, but she knew he could shoot her before she reached him. There was one other way. Too swiftly for Behrdal to lower the rifle and shoot at her, she flung herself over the gunwale of the canoe, still gripping the edge of it, dragging the gunwale down by the force of her plunge. She saw Behrdal stagger, lose his footing and topple backwards.

As the water closed over her, she felt the canoe suddenly lightened, and knew he had fallen bodily out of it. With a plop that drummed in her ears, the craft overturned, twisting loose her grip on it, plunging her down and down. For a few moments that seemed endless she struggled in the dark cold depths, fighting upward to the light. When she broke up out, dashing the water from her eyes, tossing the shock of her hair from her forehead, she glimpsed the upturned canoe a dozen yards downstream; and looking again, she saw Behrdal clinging to its prow, clawing frantically for a hold on its keel. From his frenzied struggles that repeatedly pushed the craft under water, she realized that the man could not swim, and would weaken and sink and drown in this swift icy current. But that sight did not move her; there was no mercy in her heart now. Turning toward the boulder, she peered through the twilight for sight of Lorn. The rock was bare; he no longer crouched on it.

She called to him tremulously; then she saw him, swimming down-current toward her, with long clean strokes. He bore down upon her, stopped a couple of yards away; and with his eyes on Behrdal’s weakening struggle, he demanded sharply of her: “Can you get ashore by yourself?” “Y-yes, but Lorn--but what are you--” “If you’re certain you can, then get on out!” “But Lorn! Why don’t you let him _drown_?” In a flaming pitiless anger against Slith Behrdal, she cried: “He tried to kill you! He was going to take me--me with him! Let him drown!” * * * * * Lorn did not even answer, but went on past her. As she started for the west bank, swimming easily at a diagonal down the current, she looked back and saw him overhaul the drifting canoe, and saw the swift finale of it all. Behrdal, a drowning man in a blind crazed frenzy, clutched at Lorn and would have pinioned his arms and dragged him down. But Lorn held him off at arm’s-length, and smashing the butt of his revolver against the man’s temple, knocked him limp.

And then, towing him, swimming one-handed, he too headed for the west bank of the Packhorse. When she reached shoal water and her feet touched, Sylvia stopped and waited, to help Lorn with his burden, to help him retrieve the canoe and paddle. But she dreaded to face him, to speak to him. That steely hardness in his voice--he knew she had disobeyed his orders. And that was not all, not the half of her guilt. Today she had been traitress to him, disloyal to all he stood for--had wanted Behrdal to escape. * * * * * Overhead the two o’clock moon, riding through a gossamer mist of clouds, silvered the clear cold waters of the Packhorse and dripped its molten fire from Lorn’s wet paddle-blade. A stiff chilly wind, pouring down the valley, had set the waves lap-lapping against the shores, and was crooning in autumnal tones through the great pines and cedars. With the current sweeping them along, with Lorn’s rhythmic tireless paddle-strokes hastening them, they had passed the portage where Behrdal that morning had lunged out of the windfall upon Sylvia.

A dozen easy downstream miles stretched on to Bighorn. Bound hand and foot, Slith Behrdal lay in the prow of the canoe, a huddled and spiritless heap, his arms over his face, being carried back to the justice he for years had escaped. He was Lorn’s prisoner; Lorn was taking him in. More than once in the long silent hours since this return began, Sylvia had reflected on that stern unswerving quality in Lorn Hastings which had impelled him to save this man when she herself--she with the humane theories and sympathetic attitude!--had wanted to let him drown. What had Lorn once told her about her theories and wisps of smoke? * * * * * For the last half-hour she had been looking up at him, studying his face in the moonlight; but scarcely once had he glanced down at her, and then he had not smiled. In abject silent misery she had inched nearer and nearer him, till her head brushed his knees. He had not noticed her. When she thought of him swimming through the water with a belt-gun in his teeth, she realized that in such a man forgiveness came not lightly.

Across the moon a flock of migrant cranes flapped slowly southward, a weird and macabre procession down the night sky--token of a summer dying and a winter to come. From high above timberline the mournful cry of a wolf floated down, unwordably lonely and sad. As though the sound had its echo in Sylvia’s heart, as though the silence had broken her heart, she stirred and rose a little, and crept nearer and nearer, till that head of golden-reddish hair which had tossed so defiantly at Lorn Hastings, lay now in his lap, beaten, miserable, begging forgiveness. The rhythmic paddle missed a stroke, a single stroke; then it dipped again, took up its relentless tempo again. The tears came blindingly into Sylvia’s eyes; she was shaken with silent sobbing, but she fought it down. As though Lorn had felt her sobbing, that relentless tempo slackened; it missed a stroke, two strokes.... As she raised her head, as she started to creep back, it stopped altogether! Dimly through her tears Sylvia saw him looking down at her.

He seemed to be bending lower. “Sylvia!”--a whisper, his whisper, above her. His hand was on her wet cheek, his hand caressing her hair. “You got us into that fix, girl, _but you got us out!_” The tears, that came more blindingly than ever, kept her from seeing his face.... It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be that he’d forgiven her. “If you want to admit you were a bit wrong in our--our arguments, I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll never remind you of today.” Her heart ceased beating as she saw him bending lower still, and felt him lifting her lips to his for a moment that blotted out all this endless night of unbearable misery. Then the rhythmic strokes again. Behrdal the criminal a huddled heap in the prow, the sleepy sounds of this mountain wilderness, above her, between her and the star-sprinkled heavens, a beloved face that smiled now with that former one-ness between them--her head still lying upon his lap, on and on and on, homeward under the moonlight. [Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the September, 1930 issue of _Redbook_ magazine.]