The Eye of Dread

“I’m like a drowning man pulling you under with me. Your tears drown me. I would not have entered the house if I had not seen you crying. Never cry again for me, Betty, never.”

“I will cry. I tell you I will cry. I will. I don’t believe you are a murderer.”

“You must believe it. I am.”

“I loved Peter Junior and you loved him. You did not mean to do it.”

“I did it.”

“If you did it, it is as if I did it, too. We both killed him–and I am a murderer, too. It was because of me you did it, and if you give yourself up to be hung, I will give myself up. Poor Peter–Oh, Richard–I don’t believe he fell over.” For a long moment she sobbed thus. “Where are you going, Richard?” she asked, lifting her head.

“I don’t know, Betty. I may be taken and can go nowhere.”

“Yes, you must go–quick–quick–now. Some one may come and find you here.”

“No one will find me. Cain was a wanderer over the face of the earth.”

“Will you let me know where you are, after you are gone?”

“No, Betty. You must never think of me, nor let me darken your life.”

“Then must I live all the rest of the years without even knowing where you are?”

“Yes, love. Put me out of your life from now on, and it will be enough for me that you loved me once.”

“I will help you atone, Richard. I will try to be brave–and help Peter’s mother to bear it. I will love her for Peter and for you.”

“God’s blessing on you forever, Betty.” He was gone, striding away in the darkness, and Betty, with trembling steps, entered the house.

Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her bedside, and only saying: “God, help Richard, help him,” over and over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.

From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a detective at work to find the guilty man–whom he would bring back to vengeance.

Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature of Peter’s disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the change in Betty.

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER XIV

OUT OF THE DESERT

“Good horse. Good horse. Good boy. Goldbug–go it! I know you’re dying, but so am I. Keep it up a little while longer–Good boy.”

The young man encouraged his horse, while half asleep from utter weariness and faint with hunger and thirst. The poor beast scrambled over the rocks up a steep trail that seemed to have been long unused, or indeed it might be no trail at all, but only a channel worn by fierce, narrow torrents during the rainy season, now sun-baked and dry.

The fall rains were late this year, and the yellow plains below furnished neither food nor drink for either man or beast. The herds of buffalo had long since wandered to fresher spaces nearer the river beds. The young man’s flask was empty, and it was twenty-seven hours since either he or his horse had tasted anything. Now they had reached the mountains he hoped to find water and game if he could only hold out a little longer. Up and still up the lean horse scrambled with nose to earth and quivering flanks, and the young man, leaning forward and clinging to his seat as he reeled like one drunken, still murmured words of encouragement. “Good boy–Goldbug, go it. Good horse, keep it up.”

All at once the way opened out on a jutting crest and made a sharp turn to the right, and the horse paused on the verge so suddenly that his rider lost his hold and fell headlong over into a scrub oak that caught him and held him suspended in its tough and twisted branches above a chasm so deep that the buzzards sailed on widespread wings round and round in the blue air beneath him.

He lay there still and white as death, mercifully unconscious, while an eagle with a wild scream circled about and perched on a lightning-blasted tree far above and looked down on him.

For a moment the yellow horse swayed weakly on the brink, then feeling himself relieved of his burden, he stiffened himself to a last great effort and held on along the path which turned abruptly away from the edge of the cliff and broadened out among low bushes and stunted trees. Here again the horse paused and stretched his neck and bit off the tips of the dry twigs near him, then turned his head and whinnied to call his master, and pricked his ears to listen; but he only heard the scream of the eagle overhead, and again he walked on, guided by an instinct as mysterious and unerring as the call of conscience to a human soul.

Good old beast! He had not much farther to go. Soon there was a sound of water in the air–a continuous roar, muffled and deep. The path wound upward, then descended gradually until it led him to an open, grassy space, bordered by green trees. Again he turned his head and gave his intelligent call. Why did not his master respond? Why did he linger behind when here was grass and water–surely water, for the smell of it was fresh and sweet. But it was well he called, for his friendly nicker fell on human ears.

A man of stalwart frame, well built and spare, hairy and grizzled, but ruddy with health, sat in a cabin hidden among the trees not forty paces away, and prepared his meal of roasting quail suspended over the fire in his chimney and potatoes baking in the ashes.

He lifted his head with a jerk, and swung the quail away from the heat, leaving it still suspended, and taking his rifle from its pegs stood for a moment in his door listening. For months he had not heard the sound of a human voice, nor the nicker of any horse other than his own. He called a word of greeting, “Hello, stranger!” but receiving no response he ventured farther from his door.

Goldbug was eagerly grazing–too eagerly for his own good. The man recognized the signs of starvation and led him to a tree, where he brought him a little water in his own great tin dipper. Then he relieved him of saddle and bridle and left him tied while he hastily stowed a few hard-tack and a flask of whisky in his pocket, and taking a lasso over his arm, started up the trail on his own horse.

“Some poor guy has lost his way and gone over the cliff,” he muttered.

The young man still lay as he had fallen, but now his eyes were open and staring at the sky. Had he not been too weak to move he would have gone down; as it was, he waited, not knowing if he were dead or in a dream, seeing only the blue above him, and hearing only the scream of the eagle.

“Lie still. Don’t ye move. Don’t ye stir a hair. I’ll get ye. Still now–still.”

The big man’s voice came to him as out of a great chasm, scarcely heard for the roaring in his head, although he was quite near. His arms hung down and one leg swung free, but his body rested easily balanced in the branches. Presently he felt something fall lightly across his chest, slip down to his hand, and then crawl slowly up his arm to the shoulder, where it tightened and gripped. A vague hope awoke in him.

“Now, wait. I’ll get ye; don’t move. I’ll have a noose around ye’r leg next,–so.” The voice had grown clearer, and seemed nearer, but the young man could make no response with his parched throat.

“Now if I hurt ye a bit, try to stand it.” The man carried the long loop of his lasso around the cliff and wound it securely around another scrub oak, and then began slowly and steadily to pull, until the young man moaned with pain,–to cry out was impossible.

“I’ll have ye in a minute–I’ll have ye–there! Catch at my hand. Poor boy, poor boy, ye can’t. Hold on–just a little more–there!” Strong arms reached for him. Strong hands gripped his clothing and lifted him from the terrible chasm’s edge.

“He’s more dead than alive,” said the big man, as he strove to pour a little whisky between the stranger’s set teeth. “Well, I’ll pack him home and do for him there.”

He lifted his weight easily, and placing him on his horse, led the animal to the cabin where he laid him in his own bunk. There, with cool water, and whisky carefully administered, the big man restored him enough to know that he was conscious.

“There now, you’ll come out of this all right. You’ve got a good body and a good head, young man,–lie by a little and I’ll give ye some broth.”

The man took a small stone jar from a shelf and putting in a little water, took the half-cooked quail from the fire, and putting it in the jar set it on the coals among the ashes, and covered it. From time to time he lifted the cover and stirred it about, sprinkling in a little corn meal, and when the steam began to rise with savory odor, he did not wait for it to be wholly done, but taking a very little of the broth in a tin cup, he cooled it and fed it to his patient drop by drop until the young man’s eyes looked gratefully into his.

Then, while the young man dozed, he returned to his own uneaten meal, and dined on dried venison and roasted potatoes and salt. The big man was a good housekeeper. He washed his few utensils and swept the hearth with a broom worn almost to the handle. Then he removed the jar containing the quail and broth from the embers, and set it aside in reserve for his guest. Whenever the young man stirred he fed him again with the broth, until at last he seemed to sleep naturally.

Seeing his patient quietly sleeping, the big man went out to the starving horse and gave him another taste of water, and allowed him to graze a few minutes, then tied him again, and returned to the cabin. He stood for a while looking down at the pallid face of the sleeping stranger, then he lighted his pipe and busied himself about the cabin, returning from time to time to study the young man’s countenance. His pipe went out. He lighted it again and then sat down with his back to the stranger and smoked and gazed in the embers.

The expression of his face was peculiarly gentle as he gazed. Perhaps the thought of having rescued a human being worked on his spirit kindly, or what not, but something brought him a vision of a pale face with soft, dark hair waving back from the temples, and large gray eyes looking up into his. It came and was gone, and came again, even as he summoned it, and he smoked on. One watching him might have thought that it was his custom to smoke and gaze and dream thus.

At last he became aware that the stranger was trying to speak to him in husky whispers. He turned quickly.

“Feeling more fit, are you? Well, take another sup of broth. Can’t let you eat anything solid for a bit, but you can have all of the broth now if you want it.”

As he stooped over him the young man’s fingers caught at his shirt sleeve and pulled him down to listen to his whispered words.

“Pull me out of this–quickly–quickly–there’s a–party–down the–mountain–dying of thirst. Is this Higgins’ Camp? I–I–tried to get there for–for help.” He panted and could say no more.

The big man whistled softly. “Thought you’d get to Higgins’ Camp? You’re sixty miles out of the way–or more,–twice that, way you’ve come. You took the wrong trail and you’ve gone forty miles one way when you should have gone as far on the other. I did it myself once, and never undid it.”