CHAPTER IX
For the first time in her life Teresa lost her presence of mind in anemergency. She could only sit staring at the helpless man, scarcelyconscious of his condition, her mind filled with a sudden propheticintuition of the significance of his last words. In the light ofthat new revelation she looked into his pale, haggard face for someresemblance to Low, but in vain. Yet her swift feminine instinct met theobjection. "It's the mother's blood that would show," she murmured, "notthis man's."
Recovering herself, she began to chafe his hands and temples, andmoistened his lips with the spirit. When his respiration returned with afaint color to his cheeks, she pressed his hands eagerly and leaned overhim.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Of what?" he whispered faintly.
"That Low is really your son?"
"Who said so?" he asked, opening his round eyes upon her.
"You did yourself, a moment ago," she said quickly. "Don't youremember?"
"Did I?"
"You did. Is it not so?"
He smiled faintly. "I reckon."
She held her breath in expectation. But only the ludicrousness of thediscovery seemed paramount to his weakened faculties. "Isn't it justabout the ridiculousest thing all round?" he said, with a feeblechuckle. "First YOU nearly kill me before you know I am Low's father;then I'm just spoilin' to kill him before I know he's my son; then thatgod-forsaken fool Jack Brace mistakes you for Nellie and Nellie for you.Ain't it just the biggest thing for the boys to get hold of? But we mustkeep it dark until after I marry Nellie, don't you see? Then we'll havea good time all round, and I'll stand the drinks. Think of it, Teresha!You don' no me, I do' no you, nobody knowsh anybody elsh. I try killLo'. Lo' wants kill Nellie. No thath no ri--'" but the potent liquor,overtaking his exhausted senses, thickened, impeded, and at last stoppedhis speech. His head slipped to her shoulder, and he became once moreunconscious.
Teresa breathed again. In that brief moment she had abandoned herself toa wild inspiration of hope which she could scarcely define. Not that itwas entirely a wild inspiration; she tried to reason calmly. What if sherevealed the truth to him? What if she told the wretched man before herthat she had deceived him; that she had overheard his conversation withBrace; that she had stolen Brace's horse to bring Low warning; that,failing to find Low in his accustomed haunts, or at the campfire, shehad left a note for him pinned to the herbarium, imploring him to flywith his companion from the danger that was coming; and that, remainingon watch, she had seen them both--Brace and Dunn--approaching, and hadprepared to meet them at the cabin? Would this miserable andmaddened man understand her self-abnegation? Would he forgive Low andNellie?--she did not ask for herself. Or would the revelation turn hisbrain, if it did not kill him outright? She looked at the sunken orbitsof his eyes and hectic on his cheek, and shuddered.
Why was this added to the agony she already suffered? She had beenwilling to stand between them with her life, her liberty, and even--thehot blood dyed her cheek at the thought--with the added shame of beingthought the cast-off mistress of that man's son. Yet all this she hadtaken upon herself in expiation of something--she knew not clearly what;no, for nothing--only for HIM. And yet this very situation offeredher that gleam of hope which had thrilled her; a hope so wild in itsimprobability, so degrading in its possibility, that at first she knewnot whether despair was not preferable to its shame. And yet was itunreasonable? She was no longer passionate; she would be calm and thinkit out fairly.
She would go to Low at once. She would find him somewhere--and even ifwith that girl, what mattered?--and she would tell him all. When he knewthat the life and death of his father lay in the scale, would he let hisbrief, foolish passion for Nellie stand in the way? Even if he were notinfluenced by filial affection or mere compassion, would his pride lethim stoop to a rivalry with the man who had deserted his youth? Couldhe take Dunn's promised bride, who must have coquetted with him to havebrought him to this miserable plight? Was this like the calm, proudyoung god she knew? Yet she had an uneasy instinct that calm, proudyoung gods and goddesses did things like this, and felt the weakness ofher reasoning flush her own conscious cheek.
"Teresa!"
She started. Dunn was awake, and was gazing at her curiously.
"I was reckoning it was the only square thing for Low to stop thispromiscuous picnicking here and marry you out and out."
"Marry me!" said Teresa in a voice that, with all her efforts, she couldnot make cynical.
"Yes," he repeated, "after I've married Nellie; tote you down toSan Angeles, and there take my name like a man, and give it to you.Nobody'll ask after TERESA, sure--you bet your life. And if they do,and he can't stop their jaw, just you call on the old man. It's mightyqueer, ain't it, Teresa, to think of your being my daughter-in-law?"
It seemed here as if he was about to lapse again into unconsciousnessover the purely ludicrous aspect of the subject, but he haply recoveredhis seriousness. "He'll have as much money from me as he wants to gointo business with. What's his line of business, Teresa?" asked thisprospective father-in-law, in a large, liberal way.
"He is a botanist!" said Teresa, with a sudden childish animation thatseemed to keep up the grim humor of the paternal suggestion; "and oh,he is too poor to buy books! I sent for one or two for him myself, theother day--" she hesitated--"it was all the money I had, but it wasn'tenough for him to go on with his studies."
Dunn looked at her sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks, and becamethoughtful. "Curson must have been a d--d fool," he said finally.
Teresa remained silent. She was beginning to be impatient and uneasy,fearing some mischance that might delay her dreaded, yet longed-formeeting with Low. Yet she could not leave this sick and exhausted man,HIS FATHER, now bound to her by more than mere humanity.
"Couldn't you manage," she said gently, "to lean on me a fewsteps further, until I could bring you to a cooler spot and nearerassistance?"
He nodded. She lifted him almost like a child to his feet. A spasm ofpain passed over his face. "How far is it?" he asked.
"Not more than ten minutes," she replied.
"I can make a spurt for that time," he said coolly, and began to walkslowly but steadily on. Only his face, which was white and set, and theconvulsive grip of his hand on her arm betrayed the effort. At theend of ten minutes she stopped. They stood before the splintered,lightning-scarred shaft in the opening of the woods, where Low had builther first camp-fire. She carefully picked up the herbarium, but herquick eye had already detected in the distance, before she had allowedDunn to enter the opening with her, that her note was gone. Low had beenthere before them; he had been warned, as his absence from the cabinshowed; he would not return there. They were free from interruption--butwhere had he gone?
The sick man drew a long breath of relief as she seated him in theclover-grown hollow where she had slept the second night of her stay."It's cooler than those cursed woods," he said. "I suppose it's becauseit's a little like a grave. What are you going to do now?" he added, asshe brought a cup of water and placed it at his side.
"I am going to leave you here for a little while," she said cheerfully,but with a pale face and nervous hands. "I'm going to leave you while Iseek Low."
The sick man raised his head. "I'm good for a spurt, Teresa, like thatI've just got through, but I don't think I'm up to a family party.Couldn't you issue cards later on?"
"You don't understand," she said. "I'm going to get Low to send some oneof your friends to you here. I don't think he'll begrudge leaving HER amoment for that," she added to herself bitterly.
"What's that you're saying?" he queried, with the nervous quickness ofan invalid.
"Nothing--but that I'm going now." She turned her face aside to hide hermoistened eyes. "Wish me good luck, won't you?" she asked, half sadly,half pettishly.
"Come here!"
She came and bent over him. He suddenly raised his hands, and, drawingher face down to his own, kissed her forehead.
"
Give that to HIM," he whispered, "from ME."
She turned and fled, happily for her sentiment, not hearing the feeblelaugh that followed, as Dunn, in sheer imbecility, again referred tothe extravagant ludicrousness of the situation. "It is about the biggestthing in the way of a sell all round," he repeated, lying on his back,confidentially to the speck of smoke-obscured sky above him. He picturedhimself repeating it, not to Nellie--her severe propriety might at lastoverlook the fact, but would not tolerate the joke--but to her father!It would be one of those characteristic Californian jokes Father Wynnwould admire.
To his exhaustion fever presently succeeded, and he began to growrestless. The heat too seemed to invade his retreat, and from time totime the little patch of blue sky was totally obscured by clouds ofsmoke. He amused himself with watching a lizard who was investigating afolded piece of paper, whose elasticity gave the little creature livelyapprehensions of its vitality. At last he could stand the stillness ofhis retreat and his supine position no longer, and rolled himself out ofthe bed of leaves that Teresa had so carefully prepared for him. He roseto his feet stiff and sore, and, supporting himself by the nearest tree,moved a few steps from the dead ashes of the camp-fire. The movementfrightened the lizard, who abandoned the paper and fled. With asatirical recollection of Brace and his "ridiculous" discovery throughthe medium of this animal, he stooped and picked up the paper. "Like asnot," he said to himself, with grim irony, "these yer lizards are in thediscovery business. P'r'aps this may lead to another mystery," and hebegan to unfold the paper with a smile. But the smile ceased as his eyesuddenly caught his own name.
A dozen lines were written in pencil on what seemed to be a blank leaforiginally torn from some book. He trembled so that he was obliged tosit down to read these words:--
"When you get this keep away from the woods. Dunn and another man arein deadly pursuit of you and your companion. I overheard their plan tosurprise you in our cabin. DON'T GO THERE, and I will delay them and putthem off the scent. Don't mind me. God bless you, and if you never seeme again think sometimes of
"TERESA."
His trembling ceased; he did not start, but rose in an abstracted way,and made a few deliberate steps in the direction Teresa had gone. Eventhen he was so confused that he was obliged to refer to the paper again,but with so little effect that he could only repeat the last words,"think sometimes of Teresa." He was conscious that this was not all; hehad a full conviction of being deceived, and knew that he held theproof in his hand, but he could not formulate it beyond that sentence."Teresa"--yes, he would think of her. She would explain it. And here shewas returning.
In that brief interval her face and manner had again changed. Her facewas pale and quite breathless. She cast a swift glance at Dunn and thepaper he mechanically held out, walked up to him, and tore it from hishand.
"Well," she said hoarsely, "what are you going to do about it?"
He attempted to speak, but his voice failed him. Even then he wasconscious that if he had spoken he would have only repeated, "thinksometimes of Teresa." He looked longingly but helplessly at the spotwhere she had thrown the paper, as if it had contained his unutteredwords.
"Yes," she went on to herself, as if he was a mute, indifferentspectator--"yes, they're gone. That ends it all. The game's played out.Well!" suddenly turning upon him, "now you know it all. Your Nellie WAShere with him, and is with him now. Do you hear? Make the most of it;you've lost them--but here I am."
"Yes," he said eagerly--"yes, Teresa."
She stopped, stared at him; then taking him by the hand led him like achild back to his couch. "Well," she said, in half-savage explanation,"I told you the truth when I said the girl wasn't at the cabin lastnight, and that I didn't know her. What are you glowerin' at? No! Ihaven't lied to you, I swear to God, except in one thing. Did you knowwhat that was? To save him I took upon me a shame I don't deserve. I letyou think I was his mistress. You think so now, don't you? Well, beforeGod to-day--and He may take me when He likes--I'm no more to him than asister! I reckon your Nellie can't say as much."
She turned away, and with the quick, impatient stride of some cagedanimal made the narrow circuit of the opening, stopping a momentmechanically before the sick man, and again, without looking at him,continuing her monotonous round. The heat had become excessive, butshe held her shawl with both hands drawn tightly over her shoulders.Suddenly a wood-duck darted out of the covert blindly into the opening,struck against the blasted trunk, fell half stunned near her feet, andthen, recovering, fluttered away. She had scarcely completed anothercircuit before the irruption was followed by a whirring bevy of quail, aflight of jays, and a sudden tumult of wings swept through the wood likea tornado. She turned inquiringly to Dunn, who had risen to his feet,but the next moment she caught convulsively at his wrist; a wolf hadjust dashed through the underbrush not a dozen yards away, and on eitherside of them they could hear the scamper and rustle of hurrying feetlike the outburst of a summer shower. A cold wind arose from theopposite direction, as if to contest this wild exodus, but it wasfollowed by a blast of sickening heat. Teresa sank at Dunn's feet in anagony of terror.
"Don't let them touch me!" she gasped; "keep them off! Tell me, forGod's sake, what has happened!"
He laid his hand firmly on her arm, and lifted her in his turn toher feet like a child. In that supreme moment of physical danger, hisstrength, reason, and manhood returned in their plenitude of power. Hepointed coolly to the trail she had quitted, and said,
"The Carquinez Woods are on fire!"
CHAPTER X
The nest of the tuneful Burnhams, although in the suburbs of IndianSpring, was not in ordinary weather and seasons hidden from the longingeyes of the youth of that settlement. That night, however, it was veiledin the smoke that encompassed the great highway leading to Excelsior.It is presumed that the Burnham brood had long since folded theirwings, for there was no sign of life nor movement in the house as arapidly-driven horse and buggy pulled up before it. Fortunately, thepaternal Burnham was an early bird, in the habit of picking up the firststirring mining worm, and a resounding knock brought him half dressedto the street door. He was startled at seeing Father Wynn before him, atrifle flushed and abstracted.
"Ah ha! up betimes, I see, and ready. No sluggards here--ha, ha!" hesaid heartily, slamming the door behind him, and by a series of pokes inthe ribs genially backing his host into his own sitting-room. "I'm up,too, and am here to see Nellie. She's here, eh--of course?" he added,darting a quick look at Burnham.
But Mr. Burnham was one of those large, liberal Western husbands whoclassified his household under the general title of "woman folk," forthe integers of which he was not responsible. He hesitated, and thenpropounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--
"You don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"
There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctantthroats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degreesof grievance and mental distress which indicate too early rousedyoung womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeitaccompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just beendiscovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.
"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterousgeniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes tospare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one herebut myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiringBrother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering onthe staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a generalclassic suggestion, slipped into the parlor. At the same moment herfather shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and withthe other seized her wrist.
"Where were you yesterday?" he asked.
Nellie looked at him, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Here."
"You were in
the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there indisguise; you've met him there before. He is your clandestine lover; youhave taken pledges of affection from him; you have--"
"Stop!" she said.
He stopped.
"Did he tell you this?" she asked, with an expression of disdain.
"No; I overheard it. Dunn and Brace were at the house waiting for you.When the coach did not bring you, I went to the office to inquire. As Ileft our door I thought I saw somebody listening at the parlor windows.It was only a drunken Mexican muleteer leaning against the house; butif HE heard nothing, I did. Nellie, I heard Brace tell Dunn that he hadtracked you in your disguise to the woods--do you hear? that when youpretended to be here with the girls you were with Low--alone; that youwear a ring that Low got of a trader here; that there was a cabin in thewoods--"
"Stop!" she repeated.
Wynn again paused.
"And what did YOU do?" she asked.
"I heard they were starting down there to surprise you and him together,and I harnessed up and got ahead of them in my buggy."
"And found me here," she said, looking full into his eyes.
He understood her and returned the look. He recognized the fullimportance of the culminating fact conveyed in her words, and wasobliged to content himself with its logical and worldly significance. Itwas too late now to take her to task for mere filial disobedience; theymust become allies.
"Yes," he said hurriedly; "but if you value your reputation, if you wishto silence both these men, answer me fully."
"Go on," she said.
"Did you go to the cabin in the woods yesterday?"
"No."
"Did you ever go there with Low?"
"No; I do not know even where it is."
Wynn felt that she was telling the truth. Nellie knew it; but as shewould have been equally satisfied with an equally efficacious falsehood,her face remained unchanged.
"And when did he leave you?"
"At nine o'clock, here. He went to the hotel."
"He saved his life, then, for Dunn is on his way to the woods to killhim."
The jeopardy of her lover did not seem to affect the young girl withalarm, although her eyes betrayed some interest.
"Then Dunn has gone to the woods?" she said thoughtfully.
"He has," replied Wynn.
"Is that all?" she asked.
"I want to know what you are going to do?"
"I WAS going back to bed."
"This is no time for trifling, girl."
"I should think not," she said, with a yawn; "it's too early, or toolate."
Wynn grasped her wrist more tightly. "Hear me! Put whatever face youlike on this affair, you are compromised--and compromised with a man youcan't marry."
"I don't know that I ever wanted to marry Low, if you mean him," shesaid quietly.
"And Dunn wouldn't marry you now."
"I'm not so sure of that, either."
"Nellie," said Wynn excitedly, "do you want to drive me mad? Have younothing to say--nothing to suggest?"
"Oh, you want me to help you, do you! Why didn't you say that first?Well, go and bring Dunn here."
"Are you mad? The man has gone already in pursuit of your lover,believing you with him."
"Then he will the more readily come and talk with me without him. Willyou take the invitation--yes or no?"
"Yes, but--"
"Enough. On your way there you will stop at the hotel and give Low aletter from me."
"Nellie!"
"You shall read it, of course," she said scornfully, "for it will beyour text for the conversation you will have with him. Will you pleasetake your hand from the lock and open the door?"
Wynn mechanically opened the door. The young girl flew up-stairs. In avery few moments she returned with two notes: one contained a few linesof formal invitation to Dunn; the other read as follows:
"DEAR MR. DORMAN,--My father will tell you how deeply I regret that ourrecent botanical excursions in the Carquinez Woods have been a source ofserious misapprehensions to those who had a claim to my consideration,and that I shall be obliged to discontinue them for the future. Atthe same time he wishes me to express my gratitude for your valuableinstruction and assistance in that pleasing study, even thoughapproaching events may compel me to relinquish it for other duties.May I beg you to accept the inclosed ring as a slight recognition of myobligations to you?
"Your grateful pupil,
"NELLIE WYNN."
When he had finished reading the letter, she handed him a ring, whichhe took mechanically. He raised his eyes to hers with perfectly genuineadmiration. "You're a good girl, Nellie," he said, and, in a momentof parental forgetfulness, unconsciously advanced his lips towards hercheek. But she drew back in time to recall him to a sense of that humanweakness.
"I suppose I'll have time for a nap yet," she said, as a gentle hint toher embarrassed parent. He nodded and turned towards the door.
"If I were you," she continued, repressing a yawn, "I'd manage to beseen on good terms with Low at the hotel; so perhaps you need not givethe letter to him until the last thing. Good-by."
The sitting-room door opened and closed behind her as she slippedup-stairs, and her father, without the formality of leave-taking,quietly let himself out by the front door.
When he drove into the high road again, however, an overlookedpossibility threatened for a moment to indefinitely postpone his amiableintentions regarding Low. The hotel was at the further end of thesettlement towards the Carquinez Woods, and as Wynn had nearly reachedit he was recalled to himself by the sounds of hoofs and wheels rapidlyapproaching from the direction of the Excelsior turnpike. Wynn made nodoubt it was the sheriff and Brace. To avoid recognition at that moment,he whipped up his horse, intending to keep the lead until he could turninto the first cross-road. But the coming travelers had the fleetesthorse, and finding it impossible to distance them he drove close to theditch, pulling up suddenly as the strange vehicle was abreast of him,and forcing them to pass him at full speed, with the result alreadychronicled. When they had vanished in the darkness, Mr. Wynn, with aheart overflowing with Christian thankfulness and universal benevolence,wheeled round, and drove back to the hotel he had already passed. Topull up at the veranda with a stentorian shout, to thump loudly at thedeserted bar, to hilariously beat the panels of the landlord's door,and commit a jocose assault and battery upon that half-dresssed andhalf-awakened man, was eminently characteristic of Wynn, and part of hisamiable plans that morning.
"Something to wash this wood smoke from my throat, Brother Carter, andabout as much again to prop open your eyes," he said, dragging Carterbefore the bar, "and glasses round for as many of the boys as are upand stirring after a hard-working Christian's rest. How goes the honestpublican's trade, and who have we here?"
"Thar's Judge Robinson and two lawyers from Sacramento, Dick Curson overfrom Yolo," said Carter, "and that ar young Injin yarb doctor from theCarquinez Woods. I reckon he's jist up--I noticed a light under his dooras I passed."
"He's my man for a friendly chat before breakfast," said Wynn. "Youneedn't come up. I'll find the way. I don't want a light; I reckon myeyes ain't as bright nor as young as his, but they'll see almost as farin the dark--he! he!" And, nodding to Brother Carter, he strodealong the passage, and with no other introduction than a playful andpreliminary "Boo!" burst into one of the rooms. Low, who by the lightof a single candle was bending over the plates of a large quarto, merelyraised his eyes and looked at the intruder. The young man's naturalimperturbability, always exasperating to Wynn, seemed accented thatmorning by contrast with his own over-acted animation.
"Ah ha!--wasting the midnight oil instead of imbibing the morning dews,"said Father Wynn archly, illustrating his metaphor with a movement ofhis hand to his lips. "What have we here?"
"An anonymous gift," replied Low simply, recognizing the father ofNellie by rising from his chair. "It's a volume I've longed to possess,but never could afford to buy. I cannot imagine
who sent it to me."
Wynn was for a moment startled by the thought that this recipient ofvaluable gifts might have influential friends. But a glance at the bareroom, which looked like a camp, and the strange, unconventional garb ofits occupant, restored his former convictions. There might be a promiseof intelligence, but scarcely of prosperity, in the figure before him.
"Ah! We must not forget that we are watched over in the night season,"he said, laying his hand on Low's shoulder, with an illustration ofcelestial guardianship that would have been impious but for its palpablegrotesqueness. "No, sir, we know not what a day may bring forth."
Unfortunately, Low's practical mind did not go beyond a mere humaninterpretation. It was enough, however, to put a new light in his eyeand a faint color in his cheek.
"Could it have been Miss Nellie?" he asked, with half-boyish hesitation.
Mr. Wynn was too much of a Christian not to bow before what appeared tohim the purely providential interposition of this suggestion. Seizingit and Low at the same moment, he playfully forced him down again in hischair.
"Ah, you rascal!" he said, with infinite archness; "that's your game,is it? You want to trap poor Father Wynn. You want to make him say 'No.'You want to tempt him to commit himself. No, sir!--never, sir!--no, no!"
Firmly convinced that the present was Nellie's, and that her father onlygood-humoredly guessed it, the young man's simple, truthful nature wasembarrassed. He longed to express his gratitude, but feared to betraythe young girl's trust. The Reverend Mr. Wynn speedily relieved hismind.
"No," he continued, bestriding a chair, and familiarly confronting Lowover its back. "No, sir--no! And you want me to say 'No,' don't you,regarding the little walks of Nellie and a certain young man in theCarquinez Woods?--ha, ha! You'd like me to say that I knew nothingof the botanizings, and the herb collectings, and the picknickingsthere--he, he!--you sly dog! Perhaps you'd like to tempt Father Wynnfurther, and make him swear he knows nothing of his daughter disguisingherself in a duster and meeting another young man--isn't it anotheryoung man?--all alone, eh? Perhaps you want poor old Father Wynn to sayNo. No, sir, nothing of the kind ever occurred. Ah, you young rascal!"
Slightly troubled, in spite of Wynn's hearty manner, Low, with his usualdirectness, however, said, "I do not want anyone to deny that I haveseen Miss Nellie."
"Certainly, certainly," said Wynn, abandoning his method, considerablydisconcerted by Low's simplicity, and a certain natural reserve thatshook off his familiarity. "Certainly it's a noble thing to be able toput your hand on your heart and say to the world, 'Come on, all of you!Observe me; I have nothing to conceal. I walk with Miss Wynn in thewoods as her instructor--her teacher, in fact. We cull a flower here andthere; we pluck an herb fresh from the hands of the Creator. We look, soto speak, from Nature to Nature's God.' Yes, my young friend, we shouldbe the first to repel the foul calumny that could misinterpret our mostinnocent actions."
"Calumny?" repeated Low, starting to his feet. "What calumny?"
"My friend, my noble young friend, I recognize your indignation. I knowyour worth. When I said to Nellie, my only child, my perhaps too simpleoffspring--a mere wildflower like yourself--when I said to her, 'Go,my child, walk in the woods with this young man, hand in hand. Let himinstruct you from the humblest roots, for he has trodden in the ways ofthe Almighty. Gather wisdom from his lips, and knowledge from his simplewoodman's craft. Make, in fact, a collection not only of herbs, but ofmoral axioms and experience'--I knew I could trust you, and, trustingyou, my young friend, I felt I could trust the world. Perhaps I wasweak, foolish. But I thought only of her welfare. I even recall how thatto preserve the purity of her garments, I bade her don a simple duster;that, to secure her from the trifling companionship of others, Ibade her keep her own counsel, and seek you at seasons known but toyourselves."
"But . . . did Nellie . . . understand you?" interrupted Low hastily.
"I see you read her simple nature. Understand me? No, not at first!Her maidenly instinct--perhaps her duty to another--took the alarm. Iremember her words. 'But what will Dunn say?' she asked. 'Will he not bejealous?'"
"Dunn! jealous! I don't understand," said Low, fixing his eyes on Wynn.
"That's just what I said to Nellie. 'Jealous!' I said. 'What, Dunn,your affianced husband, jealous of a mere friend--a teacher, a guide, aphilosopher. It is impossible.' Well, sir, she was right. He is jealous.And, more than that, he has imparted his jealousy to others! In otherwords, he has made a scandal!"
Low's eyes flashed. "Where is your daughter now?" he said sternly.
"At present in bed, suffering from a nervous attack brought on by theseunjust suspicions. She appreciates your anxiety, and, knowing that youcould not see her, told me to give you this." He handed Low the ring andthe letter.
The climax had been forced, and, it must be confessed, was by no meansthe one Mr. Wynn had fully arranged in his own inner consciousness.He had intended to take an ostentatious leave of Low in the bar-room,deliver the letter with archness, and escape before a possibleexplosion. He consequently backed towards the door for an emergency.But he was again at fault. That unaffected stoical fortitude in acutesuffering, which was the one remaining pride and glory of Low's race,was yet to be revealed to Wynn's civilized eyes.
The young man took the letter, and read it without changing a muscle,folded the ring in it, and dropped it into his haversack. Then he pickedup his blanket, threw it over his shoulder, took his trusty rifle in hishand, and turned towards Wynn as if coldly surprised that he was stillstanding there.
"Are you--are you--going?" stammered Wynn.
"Are you NOT?" replied Low dryly, leaning on his rifle for a moment asif waiting for Wynn to precede him. The preacher looked at him a moment,mumbled something, and then shambled feebly and ineffectively down thestaircase before Low, with a painful suggestion to the ordinary observerof being occasionally urged thereto by the moccasin of the young manbehind him.
On reaching the lower hall, however, he endeavored to create a diversionin his favor by dashing into the bar-room and clapping the occupants onthe back with indiscriminate playfulness. But here again he seemed to bedisappointed. To his great discomfiture, a large man not only returnedhis salutation with powerful levity, but with equal playfulness seizedhim in his arms, and after an ingenious simulation of depositing himin the horse-trough set him down in affected amazement. "Bleth't ifI didn't think from the weight of your hand it wath my old friend,Thacramento Bill," said Curson apologetically, with a wink at thebystanders. "That'th the way Bill alwayth uthed to tackle hith friendth,till he wath one day bounthed by a prithe-fighter in Frithco, whom hehad mithtaken for a mithionary." As Mr. Curson's reputation was of aquality that made any form of apology from him instantly acceptable,the amused spectators made way for him as, recognizing Low, who was justleaving the hotel, he turned coolly from them and walked towards him.
"Halloo!" he said, extending his hand. "You're the man I'm waiting for.Did you get a book from the exthpreth offithe latht night?"
"I did. Why?"
"It'th all right. Ath I'm rethponthible for it, I only wanted to know."
"Did YOU send it?" asked Low, quickly fixing his eyes on his face.
"Well, not exactly ME. But it'th not worth making a mythtery of it.Teretha gave me a commithion to buy it and thend it to you anonymouthly.That'th a woman'th nonthenth, for how could thee get a retheipt for it?"
"Then it was HER present," said Low gloomily.
"Of courthe. It wathn't mine, my boy. I'd have thent you a Tharp'thrifle in plathe of that muthle loader you carry, or thomethingthenthible. But, I thay! what'th up? You look ath if you had beenrunning all night."
Low grasped his hand. "Thank you," he said hurriedly; "but it's nothing.Only I must be back to the woods early. Good-by."
But Curson retained Low's hand in his own powerful grip.
"I'll go with you a bit further," he said. "In fact, I've got thomethingto thay to you; only don't be in thuch a hurry; the wood
th can wait tillyou get there." Quietly compelling Low to alter his own characteristicIndian stride to keep pace with his, he went on: "I don't mind thayingI rather cottoned to you from the time you acted like a white man--nooffenthe--to Teretha. She thayth you were left when a child lyinground, jutht ath promithcuouthly ath she wath; and if I can do anythingtowardth putting you on the trail of your people, I'll do it. I knowthome of the voyageurth who traded with the Cherokeeth, and yourfather wath one-wathn't he?" He glanced at Low's utterly abstracted andimmobile face. "I thay, you don't theem to take a hand in thith game,pardner. What'th the row? Ith anything wrong over there?" and he pointedto the Carquinez Woods, which were just looming out of the morninghorizon in the distance.
Low stopped. The last words of his companion seemed to recall him tohimself. He raised his eyes automatically to the woods and started.
"There IS something wrong over there," he said breathlessly. "Look!"
"I thee nothing," said Curson, beginning to doubt Low's sanity; "nothingmore than I thaw an hour ago."
"Look again. Don't you see that smoke rising straight up? It isn't blownover there from the Divide; it's new smoke! The fire is in the woods!"
"I reckon that'th so," muttered Curson, shading his eyes with his hand."But, hullo! wait a minute! We'll get hortheth. I say!" he shouted,forgetting his lisp in his excitement--"stop!" But Low had alreadylowered his head and darted forward like an arrow.
In a few moments he had left not only his companion but the laststraggling houses of the outskirts far behind him, and had struck out ina long, swinging trot for the disused "cut-off." Already he fancied heheard the note of clamor in Indian Spring, and thought he distinguishedthe sound of hurrying hoofs on the great highway. But the sunken trailhid it from his view. From the column of smoke now plainly visiblein the growing morning light he tried to locate the scene of theconflagration. It was evidently not a fire advancing regularly from theouter skirt of the wood, communicated to it from the Divide; it was alocal outburst near its centre. It was not in the direction of his cabinin the tree. There was no immediate danger to Teresa, unless fear droveher beyond the confines of the wood into the hands of those who mightrecognize her. The screaming of jays and ravens above his head quickenedhis speed, as it heralded the rapid advance of the flames; and theunexpected apparition of a bounding body, flattened and flying overthe yellow plain, told him that even the secure retreat of themountain wild-cat had been invaded. A sudden recollection of Teresa'suncontrollable terror that first night smote him with remorse andredoubled his efforts. Alone in the track of these frantic andbewildered beasts, to what madness might she not be driven!
The sharp crack of a rifle from the high road turned his coursemomentarily in that direction. The smoke was curling lazily over theheads of the party of men in the road, while the huge hulk of a grizzlywas disappearing in the distance. A battue of the escaping animals hadcommenced! In the bitterness of his heart he caught at the horriblesuggestion, and resolved to save her from them or die with her there.
How fast he ran, or the time it took him to reach the woods, has neverbeen known. Their outlines were already hidden when he entered them.To a sense less keen, a courage less desperate, and a purpose lessunaltered than Low's, the wood would have been impenetrable. The centralfire was still confined to the lofty tree tops, but the downward rush ofwind from time to time drove the smoke into the aisles in blinding andsuffocating volumes. To simulate the creeping animals, and fall to theground on hands and knees, feel his way through the underbrush whenthe smoke was densest, or take advantage of its momentary lifting, andwithout uncertainty, mistake, or hesitation glide from tree to tree inone undeviating course, was possible only to an experienced woodsman. Tokeep his reason and insight so clear as to be able in the midst of thisbewildering confusion to shape that course so as to intersect the wildand unknown tract of an inexperienced, frightened wanderer belonged toLow, and Low alone. He was making his way against the wind towardsthe fire. He had reasoned that she was either in comparative safety towindward of it, or he should meet her being driven towards him by it,or find her succumbed and fainting at its feet. To do this he mustpenetrate the burning belt, and then pass under the blazing dome. Hewas already upon it; he could see the falling fire dropping like rain orblown like gorgeous blossoms of the conflagration across his path. Thespace was lit up brilliantly. The vast shafts of dull copper cast noshadow below, but there was no sign nor token of any human being. For amoment the young man was at fault. It was true this hidden heart of theforest bore no undergrowth; the cool matted carpet of the aisles seemedto quench the glowing fragments as they fell. Escape might be difficult,but not impossible, yet every moment was precious. He leaned against atree, and sent his voice like a clarion before him: "Teresa!" There wasno reply. He called again. A faint cry at his back from the trail he hadjust traversed made him turn. Only a few paces behind him, blinded andstaggering, but following like a beaten and wounded animal, Teresa,halted, knelt, clasped her hands, and dumbly held them out before her."Teresa!" he cried again, and sprang to her side.
She caught him by the knees, and lifted her face imploringly to his.
"Say that again!" she cried, passionately. "Tell me it was Teresa youcalled, and no other! You have come back for me! You would not let medie here alone!"
He lifted her tenderly in his arms, and cast a rapid glance aroundhim. It might have been his fancy, but there seemed a dull glow in thedirection he had come.
"You do not speak!" she said. "Tell me! You did not come here to seekher?"
"Whom?" he said quickly.
"Nellie!"
With a sharp cry he let her slip to the ground. All the pent-upagony, rage, and mortification of the last hour broke from him in thatinarticulate outburst. Then, catching her hands again, he dragged her tohis level.
"Hear me!" he cried, disregarding the whirling smoke and the fierybaptism that sprinkled them--"hear me! If you value your life, if youvalue your soul, and if you do not want me to cast you to the beastslike Jezebel of old, never--never take that accursed name again uponyour lips. Seek her--HER? Yes! Seek her to tie her like a witch'sdaughter of hell to that blazing tree!" He stopped. "Forgive me," hesaid in a changed voice. "I'm mad, and forgetting myself and you. Come."
Without noticing the expression of half-savage delight that had passedacross her face, he lifted her in his arms.
"Which way are you going?" she asked, passing her hands vaguely acrosshis breast, as if to reassure herself of his identity.
"To our camp by the scarred tree," he replied.
"Not there, not there," she said, hurriedly. "I was driven from therejust now. I thought the fire began there until I came here."
Then it was as he feared. Obeying the same mysterious law that hadlaunched this fatal fire like a thunderbolt from the burning mountaincrest five miles away into the heart of the Carquinez Woods, it hadagain leaped a mile beyond, and was hemming them between two narrowinglines of fire. But Low was not daunted. Retracing his steps throughthe blinding smoke, he strode off at right angles to the trail near thepoint where he had entered the wood. It was the spot where he had firstlifted Nellie in his arms to carry her to the hidden spring. If anyrecollection of it crossed his mind at that moment, it was only shown inhis redoubled energy. He did not glide through the thick underbrush, ason that day, but seemed to take a savage pleasure in breaking through itwith sheer brute force. Once Teresa insisted upon relieving him ofthe burden of her weight, but after a few steps she staggered blindlyagainst him, and would fain have recourse once more to his strong arms.And so, alternately staggering, bending, crouching, or bounding andcrashing on, but always in one direction, they burst through the jealousrampart, and came upon the sylvan haunt of the hidden spring. Thegreat angle of the half-fallen tree acted as a harrier to the wind anddrifting smoke, and the cool spring sparkled and bubbled in the almosttranslucent air. He laid her down beside the water, and bathed herface and hands. As he did so his quick eye caught sight of a woman'shandker
chief lying at the foot of the disrupted root. Dropping Teresa'shand, he walked towards it, and with the toe of his moccasin gave it onevigorous kick into the ooze at the overflow of the spring. He turned toTeresa, but she evidently had not noticed the act.
"Where are you?" she asked, with a smile.
Something in her movement struck him! He came towards her, and bendingdown looked into her face. "Teresa! Good God!--look at me! What hashappened?"
She raised her eyes to his. There was a slight film across them; thelids were blackened; the beautiful lashes gone forever!
"I see you a little now, I think," she said, with a smile, passing herhands vaguely over his face. "It must have happened when he fainted, andI had to drag him through the blazing brush; both my hands were full,and I could not cover my eyes."
"Drag whom?" said Low, quickly.
"Why, Dunn."
"Dunn! He here?" said Low, hoarsely.
"Yes; didn't you read the note I left on the herbarium? Didn't you cometo the camp-fire?" she asked hurriedly, clasping his hands. "Tell mequickly!"
"No!"
"Then you were not there--then you didn't leave me to die?"
"No! I swear it, Teresa!" the stoicism that had upheld his own agonybreaking down before her strong emotion.
"Thank God!" She threw her arms around him, and hid her aching eyes inhis troubled breast.
"Tell me all, Teresa," he whispered in her listening ear. "Don't move;stay there, and tell me all."
With her face buried in his bosom, as if speaking to his heart alone,she told him part, but not all. With her eyes filled with tears, but asmile on her lips, radiant with new-found happiness, she told him howshe had overheard the plans of Dunn and Brace, how she had stolen theirconveyance to warn him in time. But here she stopped, dreading to saya word that would shatter the hope she was building upon his suddenrevulsion of feeling for Nellie. She could not bring herself to repeattheir interview--that would come later, when they were safe and out ofdanger; now not even the secret of his birth must come between them withits distraction, to mar their perfect communion. She faltered that Dunnhad fainted from weakness, and that she had dragged him out of danger."He will never interfere with us--I mean," she said softly, "with MEagain. I can promise you that as well as if he had sworn it."
"Let him pass, now," said Low; "that will come later on," he added,unconsciously repeating her thought in a tone that made her heart sick."But tell me, Teresa, why did you go to Excelsior?"
She buried her head still deeper, as if to hide it. He felt her brokenheart beat against his own; he was conscious of a depth of feeling herrival had never awakened in him. The possibility of Teresa loving himhad never occurred to his simple nature. He bent his head and kissedher. She was frightened, and unloosed her clinging arms; but he retainedher hand, and said, "We will leave this accursed place, and you shallgo with me as you said you would; nor need you ever leave me, unless youwish it."
She could hear the beating of her own heart through his words; shelonged to look at the eyes and lips that told her this, and read themeaning his voice alone could not entirely convey. For the first timeshe felt the loss of her sight. She did not know that it was, in thismoment of happiness, the last blessing vouchsafed to her miserable life.
A few moments of silence followed, broken only by the distant rumor ofthe conflagration and the crash of falling boughs.
"It may be an hour yet," he whispered, "before the fire has swept a pathfor us to the road below. We are safe here, unless some sudden currentshould draw the fire down upon us. You are not frightened?" She pressedhis hand; she was thinking of the pale face of Dunn, lying in thesecure retreat she had purchased for him at such a sacrifice. Yetthe possibility of danger to him now for a moment marred her presenthappiness and security. "You think the fire will not go north of whereyou found me?" she asked softly.
"I think not," he said, "but I will reconnoitre. Stay where you are."
They pressed hands, and parted. He leaped upon the slanting trunk andascended it rapidly. She waited in mute expectation.
There was a sudden movement of the root on which she sat, a deafeningcrash, and she was thrown forward on her face.
The vast bulk of the leaning tree, dislodged from its aerial support bythe gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumblingof the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and,falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in itsresistless momentum, a broad opening to the underbrush.
With a cry to Low, Teresa staggered to her feet. There was an intervalof hideous silence, but no reply. She called again. There was a suddendeepening roar, the blast of a fiery furnace swept through the opening,a thousand luminous points around her burst into fire, and in an instantshe was lost in a whirlwind of smoke and flame! From the onset of itsfury to its culmination twenty minutes did not elapse; but in thatinterval a radius of two hundred yards around the hidden spring wasswept of life and light and motion.
For the rest of that day and part of the night a pall of smoke hungabove the scene of desolation. It lifted only towards the morning, whenthe moon, rising high, picked out in black and silver the shrunken andsilent columns of those roofless vaults, shorn of base and capital. Itflickered on the still, overflowing pool of the hidden spring, andshone upon the white face of Low, who, with a rootlet of the fallen treeholding him down like an arm across his breast, seemed to be sleepingpeacefully in the sleeping water.
* * * * *
Contemporaneous history touched him as briefly, but not as gently. "Itis now definitely ascertained," said "The Slumgullion Mirror," "thatSheriff Dunn met his fate in the Carquinez Woods in the performanceof his duty; that fearless man having received information ofthe concealment of a band of horse thieves in their recesses. Thedesperadoes are presumed to have escaped, as the only remains found arethose of two wretched tramps, one of whom is said to have been a digger,who supported himself upon roots and herbs, and the other a degradedhalf-white woman. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the fireoriginated through their carelessness, although Father Wynn of the FirstBaptist Church, in his powerful discourse of last Sunday, pointed at thewarning and lesson of such catastrophes. It may not be out of placehere to say that the rumors regarding an engagement between the pastor'saccomplished daughter and the late lamented sheriff are utterly withoutfoundation, as it has been an on dit for some time in all well-informedcircles that the indefatigable Mr. Brace, of Wells, Fargo and Co.'sExpress, will shortly lead the lady to the hymeneal altar."
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