CHAPTER XI -- THE SOUTHERNER TAKES A RISK
The convict shambled forward through the tunnel till he came to a driftwhich ran into it at a right angle.
"Which way now?" he demanded.
"I don't know."
"Don't know," he screamed. "Didn't you just come along here? Do you wantme to get lost again in this hell-hole?"
The stricken fear leaped into his face. He had forgotten her danger,forgotten everything but the craven terror that engulfed him. Looking athim, she was struck for the first time with the thought that he might beon the verge of madness.
His cry still rang through the tunnel when Margaret saw a gleam ofdistant light. She pointed it out to Struve, who wheeled and fastenedhis eyes upon it. Slowly the faint yellow candle-rays wavered towardthem. A man was approaching through the gloom, a large man whom shepresently recognized as Dunke. A quick gasp from the one beside hershowed that he too knew the man. He took a dozen running steps forward,so that in his haste the candle flickered out.
"That you, Miss Margaret?" the mine-owner called.
Neither she nor Struve answered. The latter had stopped and was waitingtensely his enemy's approach. When he was within a few yards of theother Dunke raised his candle and peered into the blackness ahead ofhim.
"What's the matter? Isn't it you, Miss Peggy?"
"No, it ain't. It's your old pal, Nick Struve. Ain't you glad to seehim, Joe?"
Dunke looked him over without a word. His thin lips set and his gazegrew wall-eyed. The candle passed from right to left hand.
Struve laughed evilly. "No, I'm not going to pay you that way--not yet;nor you ain't going to rid yourself of me either. Want to know why, Mr.Millionaire Dunke, what used to be my old pal? Want to know why it ain'tgoing to do you any good to drop that right hand any closeter to yourhip pocket?"
Still Dunke said nothing, but the candle-glow that lit his face showedan ugly expression.
"Don't you whip that gun out, Joe Dunke. Don't you! 'Cause why? If youdo you're a goner."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I kept the letter you wrote me seven years ago, and haveput it where it will do you no good if anything happens to me. That'swhy you won't draw that gun, Joe Dunke. If you do it will send youto Yuma. Millionaire you may be, but that won't keep you from wearingstripes."
Struve's voice rang exultantly. From the look in the face of his oldcomrade in crime who had prospered at his expense, as he chose to think,he saw that for the time being he had got the whip-hand.
There was a long silence before Dunke asked hoarsely:
"What do you want?"
"I want you to hide me. I want you to get me out of this country. I wantyou to divvy up with me. Didn't we grub-stake you with the haul from theOverland? Don't we go share and share alike, the two of us that's left?Ain't that fair and square? You wouldn't want to do less than right byan old pal, cap, you that are so respectable and proper now. You ain'tforgot the man that lay in the ditch with you the night we held up theflyer, the man that rode beside you when you shot--"
"For God's sake don't rake up forgotten scrapes. We were all youngtogether then. I'll do what's right by you, but you got to keep yourmouth shut and let me manage this."
"The way you managed it before when you let me rot at Yuma seven years,"jeered Struve.
"I couldn't help it. They were on my trail and I had to lie low. I tellyou I'll pull you through if you do as I say."
"And I tell you I don't believe a word you say. You double-crossed mebefore and you will again if you get a chance. I'll not let you out ofmy sight."
"Don't be a fool, Nick. How can I help you if I can't move around tomake the arrangements for running you across the line?"
"And what guarantee have I got you ain't making arrangements to have mescragged? Think I'm forgetting Saturday night?"
The girl in the blackness without the candle-shine moved slightly.
"What's that?" asked Dunke, startled.
"What's what?"
"That noise. Some one moved."
Dunke's revolver came swiftly from his pocket.
"I reckon it must a-been the girl."
"What girl? Miss Kinney?"
Dunke's hard eyes fastened on the other like steel augers.
Margaret came forward and took wraithlike shape.
"I want you to take me to Mrs. Collins, Mr. Dunke," she said.
The steel probes shifted from Struve to her.
"What did you hear, Miss Kinney? This man is a storehouse of lies. I lethim run on to see how far he would go."
Struve's harsh laugh filled the tunnel.
"Take me to Mrs. Collins," she reiterated wearily.
"Not till I know what you heard," answered Dunke doggedly.
"I heard everything," she avowed boldly. "The whole wretched, miserabletruth."
She would have pushed past him, but he caught her arm.
"Let me go!"
"I tell you it's all a mistake. I can explain it. Give me time."
"I won't listen, I want never to see either of you again. What haveI ever done that I should be mixed up with such men?" she cried, withbitter despair.
"Don't go off half-cocked. 'Course I'll take you to Mrs. Collins if youlike. But you got to listen to what I say."
Another candle glimmered dimly in the tunnel and came toward them. Itpresently stopped, and a voice rolled along the vault.
"Hello, there!"
Margaret would have known that voice anywhere among a thousand. Now itcame to her sweet as water after a drought. She slipped past Dunke andran stumbling through the darkness to its source.
"Mr. Neill! Mr. Neill!"
The pitiful note in her voice, which he recognized instantly, stirredhim to the core. Astonished that she should be in the mine and introuble, he dashed forward, and his candle went out in the rush. Gropingin the darkness her hands encountered his. His arms closed roundher, and in her need of protection that brushed aside conventions andnon-essentials, the need that had spoken in her cry of relief, in herhurried flight to him, she lay panting and trembling in his arms. Heheld her tight, as one who would keep his own against the world.
"How did you get here--what has happened?" he demanded.
Hurriedly she explained.
"Oh, take me away, take me away!" she concluded, nestling to him with nothought now of seeking to disguise her helpless dependence upon him,of hiding from herself the realization that he was the man into whosekeeping destiny had ordained that she was to give her heart.
"All right, honey. You're sure all safe now," he said tenderly, and inthe blackness his lips sought and met hers in a kiss that sealed theunderstanding their souls had reached.
At the sound of Neill's voice Dunke had extinguished the candle andvanished in the darkness with Struve, the latter holding him by the armin a despairing grip. Neill shouted again and again, as he relighted hiscandle, but there came no answer to his calls.
"We had better make for the shaft," he said.
They set out on the long walk to the opening that led up to the lightand the pure air. For a while they walked on in silence. At last he tookher hand and guided her fingers across the seam on his wrist.
"It don't seem only four days since you did that, honey," he murmured.
"Did I do that?" Her voice was full of self-reproach, and before hecould stop her she lifted his hand and kissed the welt.
"Don't, sweet. I deserved what I got and more. I'm ready with thatapology you didn't want then, Peggy."
"But I don't want it now, either. I won't have it. Didn't I tell youI wouldn't? Besides," she added, with a little leap of laughter in hervoice, "why should you ask pardon for kissing the girl you were meantto--to----"
He finished it for her.
"To marry, Peggy. I didn't know it then, but I knew it before you saidgood-by with your whip."
"And I didn't know it till next morning," she said.
"Did you know it then, when you were so mean to me?"
&
nbsp; "That was why I was so mean to you. I had to punish myself and youbecause I--liked you so well."
She buried her face shyly in his coat to cover this confession.
It seemed easy for both of them to laugh over nothing in the exuberanceof their common happiness. His joy pealed now delightedly.
"I can't believe it--that four days ago you wasn't on the earth for me.Seems like you always belonged; seems like I always enjoyed your sassyways."
"That's just the way I feel about you. It's really scandalous that inless than a week--just a little more than half a week--we should beengaged. We are engaged, aren't we?"
"Very much."
"Well, then--it sounds improper, but it isn't the least bit. It's right.Isn't it?"
"It ce'tainly is."
"But you know I've always thought that people who got engaged so soonare the same kind of people that correspond through matrimonial papers.I didn't suppose it would ever happen to me."
"Some right strange things happen while a person is alive, Peggy."
"And I don't really know anything at all about you except that you sayyour name is Larry Neill. Maybe you are married already."
She paused, startled at the impossible thought.
"It must have happened before I can remember, then," he laughed.
"Or engaged. Very likely you have been engaged a dozen times. Southernpeople do, they say."
"Then I'm an exception."
"And me--you don't know anything about me."
"A fellow has to take some risk or quit living," he told her gaily.
"When you think of my temper doesn't it make you afraid?"
"The samples I've had were surely right exhilarating," he conceded. "I'mexpecting enough difference of opinion to keep life interesting."
"Well, then, if you won't be warned you'll just have to take me and riskit."
And she slipped her arm into his and held up her lips for the kissawaiting her.