The Rustler of Wind River. George W. Ogden
Читать онлайн книгу.
It gave me these minutes with you, it was worth—”
“You must go! Where’s your horse?”
“Down by the river in the willows. I can get to him, all right.”
“They may come any minute, they—”
“No, they’re dancing yet. I expected they’d find me out; they know me too well. I’ll get a start of them, before they even know I’m gone.”
“They may be waiting farther on—why don’t you go—go! There—listen!
“They’re saddling,” he whispered, as low sounds of haste came from the barnyard corral.
52
“Go—quick!” she urged, flinging his plaid across his arm.
“I’m going—in one moment more. Miss Landcraft, I’ll ride away from you tonight perhaps never to see you again, and if I speak impetuously before I leave you, forgive me before you hear the words—they’ll not hurt you—I don’t believe they’ll shame you.”
“Don’t say anything more, Mr. Macdonald—even this delay may cost your life!”
“They’ll kill me if they can; they’ve tried it more than once. I never know when I ride away whether I’ll ever return. It isn’t a new experience, just a little graver than usual—only that. I came here tonight because I—I came to—in the hope—” he stammered, putting out his hands as if supplicating her to understand, his plaid falling to the ground.
“Go!” she whispered, her hand on his arm in appeal, standing near him, dangerously near.
“I’ve got a right to love you—I’ve got a right!” he said, the torrent of his passion leaping all curbing obstacles of delicacy, confusion, fear. He flung the words from him in wild vehemence, as if they eased a pang.
“No—no, you have no right! you—”
“I’ll leave you in a minute, Frances, without the expectation of ever seeing you again—only with the hope. It’s mine to love you, mine to have you if I come through this night. If you’re pledged to another man it can’t be because you love him, and I’ll 53 tear the right away from him—if I come through this night!”
He spoke rapidly, bending so near that his breath moved the hair on her temple. She stood with arms half lifted, her hands clenched, her breath laboring in her bosom. She did not know that love—she had not known that love—could spring up that way, and rage like a flame before a wind.
“If you’re pledged to another man, then I’ll defy him, man to man—I do defy him, I challenge him!”
As he spoke he stooped, suddenly, like a wind-bent flame, clasped her, kissed her, held her enfolded in his arms one moment against his breast. He released her then, and stepped back, standing tall and silent, as if he waited for her blast of scorn. It did not come. She was standing with hands pressed to her face, as if to cover some shame or sorrow, or ease the throbbing of a soul-deep pain.
The sound of men and horses came from the corral. He stood, waiting for judgment.
“Go now,” she said, in a sad, small voice.
“Give me a token to carry away, to tell me I have not broken my golden hope,” he said.
“No, I’ll give you nothing!” she declared, with the sharpness of one wronged, and helpless of redress. “You have taken too much—you have taken—”
“What?” he asked, as if he exulted in what he heard, his blood singing in his ears.
“Oh, go—go!” she moaned, stripping off one long white glove and throwing it to him.
54
He caught it, and pressed it to his lips; then snatching off his bonnet, hid it there, and bent among the shrubbery and was gone, as swiftly and silently as a wolf. Frances flew to the house and up the stairs to her room. There she threw up the window and sat panting in it, straining, listening, for sounds from the river road.
From below the voices of the revelers came, and the laughter over the secrets half-guessed before masks were snatched away around the banquet table. There was a dash of galloping hoofs from the corral, the clatter of the closing gate. The sound grew dimmer, was lost, in the sand of the hoof-cut trail.
After a little, a shot! two! a silence; three! and one as if in reply. Frances slipped to her knees beside the open window, a sob as bitter as the pang of death rising from her breast. She prayed that Alan Macdonald might ride fast, and that the vindictive hands of his enemies might be unsteady that night by the gray riverside.
55
CHAPTER V
IF HE WAS A GENTLEMAN
“Don’t you think we’d better drop it now, Frances, and be good?”
Major King reined his horse near hers as he spoke, and laid his hand on the pommel of her saddle as if he expected to meet other fingers there.
“You puzzle me, Major King,” she returned, not willing to understand.
They were bringing up the rear of the tired procession which was returning to the post from the ball. Already the east was quickening. The stars near the horizon were growing pale; the morning wind was moving, with a warmth in it from the low places, like a tide toward the mountains.
“Oh, I mean this play acting of estrangement,” said he, impatiently. “Let’s forget it—it doesn’t carry naturally with either you or me.”
“Why, Major King!” Her voice was lively with mild surprise; she was looking at him as if for verification of his words. Then, slowly: “I hadn’t thought of any estrangement, I hadn’t intended to bring you to task for one flirtatious night. Be sure, sir, if it has given you pleasure, it has brought me no pain.”
“You began it,” said he, petulantly. It is almost 56 unbelievable how boyishly silly a full-grown man can be.
“I began it, Major King? It’s too early in the morning for a joke!”
“You were wilful and contrary; you would speak to the fellow that day.”
“Oh!” deprecatingly.
“Never mind it, though. Wilfulness doesn’t become either of us, Frances. I’ve tried my turn at it tonight, and it has left me cold.”
“Poor man!” said she, in low voice, like a sigh. Perhaps it was not all for Major King; perhaps not all assumed.
“Let’s not quarrel, Frances.”
“Not now, I’m too tired for a real good one. Leave it for tomorrow.”
He rode on in silence, not sure, maybe, how much of it she meant. Covertly she looked at him now and then, thinking better of him for his ingenuous confession of failure to warm himself at little Nola Chadron’s heart-flame. She extended her hand.
“Forgive me, Major King,” she said, very softly, not far removed, indeed, from tenderness.
For a little while Major King left his horse to keep the road its own way, his cavalry hands quite regardless of manuals, regulations, and military airs. Both of them were enfolding her one. He might have held it until they reached the post, but that she drew it away.
There were some qualms of uneasiness in her breast 57 that hour, some upbraidings of conscience for treason to Major King, of whom she had been girlishly fond, girlishly proud, womanly selfish. That quick, wild scene in the garden was not to be put away for all those arraignments of her honest heart, although it seemed impossible, recalled there in the thin hours of that long and eventful