_Chapter XIV_
At this, the most critical moment of her life, it would appearinevitable that Gloria must bend every mental faculty to grappling withthe vital issues. And yet, as she sat swallowed up in the big chair, fora space of time she was in a spell, caught up and whirled away fromthose about her; she forgot Gratton with the white, angry face; she hadno eyes for Mark King or for Summerling, Steve Jarrold or Jim Spalding.She was thinking of another day, two years ago, when she and her motherhad been alone in this room. They had been busied with the last touchesof furniture arrangement; they had discussed locations for chairs andhad argued over pictures. Both tired out with a day of effort, they hadcome near tears in a verbal battle over the best place for the solearticle remaining unplaced. Gloria wanted it in the hallway; Mrs. Gaynorpleaded for it over the mantel in the living-room. Finally it was Gloriawho cried with sudden laughter:
"Oh, what _difference_ does it make? We're getting silly over trifles.Have it your way, mamma."
Trifles! Gloria wondered if any other act of her life had had thetremendous import of that sudden yielding to her mother's wishes. If themirror had been placed anywhere else in the universe, even by a fewinches removed from its present abiding-place, would there be a _GloriaGaynor_ in all the world right now? Or would her chair hold quiteanother sort of person--Mrs. Gratton? If she had not lifted herdesperate eyes and seen Mark King reflected at the window, how would shehave answered that one final question the "judge" propounded? Would shehave said "Yes"? Or would it have been "No"? She did not know; she wouldnever know. She had been on the verge, dizzy with profitlessspeculation. And now, only the extent of one little word stood betweenher and an unthinkable condition. That a whole life should be steereddown one channel or another--oh, what immeasurably separatedchannels!--by one's breath in a single-syllabled word----
* * * * *
"You don't answer!" a voice was saying irritably.
She started. They were talking to her, they had been talking to her, andnow she realized that she had heard voices across a great distance, andby no means as clear to her consciousness as the remembered voice of hermother two years ago arguing for a mirror over the fireplace. She turnedher eyes on Gratton, since obviously it was he who insisted on ananswer. But King spoke for her.
"Look here, Gratton," he said bluntly, "as far as I can see there is noreason why Miss Gaynor should pay the least attention to youreffervescings if she doesn't care to. She is a free agent and under noobligations to you."
"I'll ask your opinion when I want it," snapped Gratton. "MissGloria----"
"You asked me something?" said Gloria. "Pardon me. I didn't hear."
Her aloof reply disconcerted him. Her attitude was spontaneous,unaffected, and hence unconsciously one of polite indifference. SuddenlyGratton, fume as he would, had become of not the least importance.
"You said that you would marry me. Not a dozen minutes ago."
"Did I?" she demanded coolly. "Are you quite sure I said that?"
"Look here, Miss Gloria." It was Jim Spalding, who had been ill at easeall along and now had the brains and perhaps the delicacy to understandthat this was no place for him. "If you don't need me after all, I'llgo."
"And the rest of us with you," said King. "If Miss Gaynor cares to talkthings over with Gratton----"
Gloria put out her hand impulsively, touching King's arm.
"_You_ stay. Please. Until--he goes."
King inclined his head gravely, not realizing that his body stiffenedunder her light touch.
"What about _me_?" demanded the "judge" sharply. "Am I needed or ain'tI?"
"I'd say not this evening," King's dry voice answered him. "Good-nightto you."
"That's a fine way to treat a man," cried Summerling truculently. "HereI ride all this way in the dark, and without stoppin' for so much assupper; here I ain't had a bite to eat since dinner-time, and it'sgood-night and get out! And that hundred dollars I was to get so fast,how about that? Think I'm the man to let folks trample on me and----"
"Maybe Jim will give you a hand-out at his cabin," King told him. "Asfor your money, get it out of Gratton if he promised it to you--or," headded with a flash of heat, "take it out of his hide, for all I care."
"Wait for me outside, Summerling," muttered Gratton. "_I_ haven't saidyou won't be needed, have I?"
"Just the same, I wouldn't mind takin' what's comin' to me now----"
"Man alive!" shouted Gratton, whirling on him. "Haven't I got enough onmy hands without you yelping at me?"
"Just the same----"
"Jim," called King above the incoherent mouthings, "slip your armthrough Summerling's and lead him off with you. Feed him if you feellike it, and let him stick around for a word with Gratton if he wants.And you, Steve Jarrold, Ben Gaynor isn't here, but just the same you cantake it from me that neither you nor any other of Swen Brodie's hangdogsis wanted in Ben Gaynor's house. Out you go."
Jarrold's eyes slanted off to Gratton. Then, seeing himself ignored andforgotten, he shrugged his shoulders, pulled on his hat, and went out.Behind him, arm in arm, one smiling widely and the other pulling backand still sputtering, went Jim and the "judge."
To all this Gloria had given scant attention. The spell no longer layover her; she was keenly awake to the demands of the present; she wasthinking, thinking, thinking! It seemed that she had walked onquicksands; that a hand had drawn her up and placed her where she wasnow, with solid ground underfoot; but that still all about her werequicksands. What temporary sense of security was hers was due to MarkKing, to his presence. As long as he stood there, where she could putout a hand and touch him, she could rest calmly, assured of safety. Butwhen he went, there remained Gratton and his venom. Quicksands all abouther in which she would be floundering at this moment but for MarkKing----
* * * * *
Her heart was beating normally again, the pallor left her face, whichbecame delicately flushed. Her eyes, large and humid, a sweet grey andonce more almost childlike--eyes to remind a man that here, after all,was no woman of the world, but only a young girl--rose to King's and methis long and searchingly. Yet there was that in their expression thatmade him understand that she was not looking at him, the physical man,so much as through him. For the first time in her pampered life the dayhad come when she was face to face with vital issues; when there was nomamma and no papa to turn to; when there were no shoulders other thanher own to feel the weight of events. She must do her own thinking, cometo her own decisions. Here was no time for a misstep. The one great stepshe had already taken; she had cried "No!" That step could bereconsidered, retraced; she looked at Gratton's face and saw that. Butnow she would not do that; she could not. In the city, seeing the twomen together, she had turned to Gratton. Now, here in her father's loghouse in the mountains, she wondered that she could have done so. Didmen change colour like chameleons, shifted from one environment toanother? Or was it she who had been unstable, she who was the chameleon?A queer sensation which had been hers before, and which she was to knowmore than once in days to follow, mastered her. It seemed that withinher, coexistent and for ever in conflict, there were two Glorias: a girlwho was very young, spoiled, vain, and selfish; a girl who was older,who looked above and beyond the confines of her own self, who waswarmhearted and impulsive, and could be generous. There was the Gloriawho was the product of her mother's teaching and pampering; there wasthat other Gloria who was the true daughter of a pioneer stock, a girllinked to the city through tradition, bound to the outdoors throughinstinct. There was the Gloria who was ashamed of Mark King at a formalgathering in her own home; there was the Gloria who was thrilled to thedepths of her being as in the forest-lands she knew a breathless momentin the arms of Mark King.
Well, here were considerations to linger over on an idle day. Now,without seeking for hidden springs, there were on the surface certainplain facts. No matter what she had felt toward Gratton before, shedetested him now; no matter what
he might have appeared in SanFrancisco, here in his unaccustomed garb he looked to her puny, shallow,and contemptible. He was, as she had told him, a beast. He had betrayedher confidence; he had taken advantage of her headlong youth; he haddisplayed to her view the vileness within him. He loved her, did he? Somuch the better. It lay within her power, then, to repay him, if only inpart, for what he had made her suffer.
* * * * *
"I repeat, Miss Gloria," Gratton was saying, a stubborn look in hiseyes, "that you promised to marry me. You have had a hard day, Irealize; there has been much to unnerve you. I erred in haste, perhaps;I should have waited until you had a night's rest. But you know why Idid not wait. It was for your sake."
Gloria heard him through with a hard little smile.
"Nothing is further from my intention, Mr. Gratton," she told him icily,"than to marry you. Now or ever. Please let us consider the matterclosed once and for all."
His fingers worked nervously at his sides. Gloria chose the moment tolift her eyes again fleetingly to King's. She wanted Gratton to see, shewanted to hurt him all that she could. She looked back to see him wince.Nor did his quick contraction of the brows result from her glance alone;he had seen the look lying unhidden in King's eyes. Mark King hadto-night, for the first time, swept barriers aside and looked straightinto his own heart and known that all of the love that was in him togive had been given to Gloria Gaynor; he had come from Jim's cabin tolook on her for the last time; he was giving her up. And then, when hehad turned away rather than hear her murmur "Yes," she had cried outringingly: "No!" The sod had not fallen upon a beloved face; death hadnot entered the door; life was not extinguished--where there was lifeinvariably there was hope--he had given Gloria up, yes; but she had comeback from beyond the frontier, she had come calling to him. He wascertain of nothing just now beyond the tremendous, all-excluding factthat, wise or fool, he loved her. He wanted her with a want that isgreater than hunger or thirst, or love of man for man or of man for lifeitself. Much of this lay shining in his eyes for Gratton to read--or forGloria.
"I am no boy to be thrown aside like an old glove," cried Gratton,beside himself, shaken with jealous fury. "You have promised; you haveloved me; in your heart you love me now. Shall I stand back for a girl'snervous whim? I tell you, you shall marry me."
Gloria's laughter, cool and insolent, maddened him. He clenched hishands and was swept away by his passion to gusty vehemence:
"Think before you laugh! What if, instead of doing the gentlemanlything, I refused to marry you? Alone with me all this time; all lastnight; a clerk to swear I bought clothing for you; a register to showwhere we engaged a room as man and wife; the San Francisco papersalready bandying your name about, already nosing after scandal. You've_got_ to marry me; there is nothing else for you to do!"
Gloria flushed hotly. But only in anger this time. King mystified,looking from one to the other, turned at last to Gloria and muttered:
"For God's sake let me throw him out of the door!"
"I think it might be best first," she answered quietly, "if Mr. Grattonremained long enough to understand that this is the last time I shallever speak to him or listen to a word from him. He has tried to get meinto a nasty situation; he will do all that he can to promote scandal.But I want him to know that he will, in the end of it all, have myfather to reckon with--and my friends." Again she looked swiftly at Kingand again Gratton writhed at the look. "Papa will not be here to-night;he is hurt and in Coloma, and I'll give you his message soon. But----"
"You saw your father! In Coloma!" It was a gasp of astonishment fromGratton. "You said nothing. You brought a message to King here?"
"And you escorted me and never guessed!" Gloria taunted him. "Really itseems too bad, after all of your week-end trips to Coloma, after all ofyour conferences with the estimable Mr. Swen Brodie!"
His prominent eyes bulged, written large with consternation. For amoment he stood the picture of uncertainty, plucking at his lip.
"Gloria," he said shortly, "despite all you have said I shall see youagain. To-morrow, when we have both rested, I'll come to you. Now, ifyou will pardon me, I'll have a word with King. Strictly business, youmay be sure, King," he concluded sarcastically.
"There's to be no business between you and me," King told him promptly.
"But there is. If you've got two grains of common sense. Look you, LoonyHoneycutt is dead at last. His secret is no longer his secret. SwenBrodie knows something--a whole lot----"
"It strikes me," frowned King, "that you know more of this than I gaveyou credit for. Where do you come in?"
"I know--nearly all that it is necessary to know!" His eyes flashedtriumphantly. "Think I'm the man to let the crowd of you lift a fortuneright under my nose? Here is my proposition, and you'll thank your starsthat I make it: We are not friends, you and I, but that is no reasonthat we cannot be business associates until this trick is turned. Youand I enter into a pact right now, purely business, you understand." Hewas speaking more and more rapidly in the grip of a new emotion."Whatever we find we divide, fifty-fifty;----"
King's sudden laughter, no pleasant sound in Gratton's ears, checked therush of words. To accept Gratton as a partner--on a fifty-fifty split ofthe spoils! Was the man crazy?
"I have been working with Brodie," shouted Gratton. "If I go on with himnow, with him and the men with him, six or eight of them taking what hegives them either in money or in curses and orders--if, I say, I chipin with him against you, what will the inevitable end be, I ask you?Look at the odds----"
"The inevitable end," said King sternly, "will be that they'll pick yourbones and kick you out."
"I demand to know what word Gaynor sent----"
"Will you have him go, Mark?" said Gloria. "He--sickens me."
King, unleashed by her words, took a quick step forward.
"Gratton," he said, "you'd better go."
Gratton, rising to fresh fury, shouted at him:
"And leave you and her here? Alone? All night----"
King bore down upon him and struck him across the mouth, hurling himback so that Gratton tripped and fell. Gloria rose and stood watching,terrified and yet fascinated. She saw Gratton crawl to his feet; hishand went out to the table to draw himself up; it found one of the heavybronze book-ends; the fingers gripped it so that the tendons stood outlike cords. She could see the faces of both men, Gratton's twitching andvindictive, King's immobile, looking at once calm and terribly stern. Ifthere were two Glorias within her, one of them fled now; the otherwatched with quick bright eyes and gloried in the man who had come ather hour of direst need; one vanished, afraid, the other felt a littlethrill go singing through her blood. And though that bronze block, wereit hurled at King's head, might have been the death of him, she was notonce in doubt as to the end of this conflict. There before her eyes aman contended with a manikin.
"Drop that, Gratton! Do you hear me? Drop it, I say!"
He even drew closer while he spoke. In his voice was assurance that hewould be obeyed; in his look was the promise of death or near-death, tobe meted out swiftly and relentlessly for disobedience. Gratton, like aman in a daze, hesitated. King's hand shot out swiftly, gripping hiswrist. There was a sudden jerk and the bit of bronze crashed to thefloor.
"You'll go now!"
"Yes, I'll go. But----"
"On your way, then!"
"But----"
"Shut up!" A tremor not to be repressed shook King's voice. "And gobefore I----Just go!"
Gratton caught up his hat, stood for a moment plucking at his lip andstaring at Gloria, and then turned and went out. Strangely, only nowthat he had gone, did Gloria shiver and look after him fearfully. Theman here had seemed so futile and yet she had seen that last look, sofilled with malevolence that in his wake the room seemed steeped inmenace. King must have had somewhat the same sort of an impression; hewent to the door and called out loudly:
"Jim! Oh, Jim."
Jim's voice answered from the cabi
n:
"Comin', Mark."
"Gratton's outside. I've told him to clear out. Give him about twominutes, and if he's still here throw a gun on him and run him off theplace."
"Oh, I'm going fast enough." From somewhere off in the dark it wasGratton's voice calling back hatefully. "And don't you forget it, MarkKing, I am going where an offer like mine to you will be accepted. We'llbe there before you yet, a dozen men that won't lay down before you! Andyou can tell that girl in there, with my compliments, she'll be on herknees to me before she's a day older." He lifted his voice so thatGloria, shivering in the silent house, must hear every word. "You cantell her, too, that if I didn't telephone to her mother from Oakland, Idid call up two of the San Francisco newspaper offices! Tell her towatch for the papers. And when they get wind of the nice littlesituation to-night, Gloria here all night----"
King had held the door open only to see if Gratton was going to hishorse. Now, however, he slammed it suddenly and went back to Gloria.After all, Jim could be depended on to see to Gratton and to do his jobthoroughly and with joy in the doing. There was still the message to behad from Ben Gaynor, who, it seemed, lay hurt somewhere in Coloma.
But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Gloria, and for the momentall thoughts of Gaynor or a message fled from his mind. Again she was aspale as death; she caught at the back of the chair which had served herthus before; she lifted to King eyes sick with terror.
"I haven't got the straight of things very well," King said to her,speaking very gently. For in his heart he was thinking: "Poor littlekid! She's only a kid of a girl and she's pretty near thebreaking-point, from the look of things, and small wonder." But aloud hecontinued: "Only one thing seems clear. You are tired half to death andworried the other half. I wouldn't let myself think of that snakeGratton or his poison drippings. Things will work out all right." Hemanaged a smile of a sort, the first smile to-night, and added: "Theyalways do, you know."
"Do they?" she asked listlessly. And she, too, forced a smile, so wanand bleak that it came close to putting a dash of tears into King'seyes.
"For one thing," he said brusquely, "I'll bet you haven't had a bite toeat since you got here; have you?" She shook her head; she hadn'tthought of such a thing as eating. When had she eaten last? Not sinceshe and Gratton, motoring up from San Francisco, had stopped at thewayside lunch-counter? Perhaps that was why this giddy faintnesstroubled her, why the blood drummed in her ears.
"You'll sit right down," commanded King. "Or lie down is better. In twoshakes I'll have something ready for you."
"You are so good to me." That came straight from Gloria's heart; hereyes shone with a gratitude which struck him as far beyond proportion tothe small deed of the moment. "I'll go upstairs a moment; papa'smessage----"
"It can wait ten minutes."
"Let me get it now. I--I will lie down in my room until you call me, ifyou want me to."
"That's good." He watched her go slowly upstairs and then hastened tothe kitchen. He got a wood fire going in the range, scouted for coffee,found a glass jar of bacon, a tin of milk, all kinds of canned goods.And meantime, though occupied with much speculation concerning all thathad happened to-night and must have happened before and might happen inthe future, he never for an instant entirely forgot Gloria and howpitifully borne down she looked. Gratton had tricked her some way, hadcoerced her, had come close to breaking her utterly. And yet herindomitable spirit had in the end triumphed over Gratton's scheming;King would never forget how her voice had rung out in that fearless "No!No and no and no!"
"Just a little kid of a girl." And he had looked to her for the sanityof mature age. A mere girl, sheltered always by father and mother,spoiled to the _n_th degree, given no opportunity to develop her owncharacter, to grow up to life's responsibilities. Her mother had noteven told her of her grandparents, being ashamed of them, making Gloriaashamed. Grandparents of whom any one might be justly proud; folk ofintegrity, of stamina, of fearless hardihood, men and women of thatglorious type that builds empires. And Gloria, King sensed, was likethem. Deep within her, under the layers of artificiality which hermother had striven so indefatigably and lovingly to lay on, she was likethem. He remembered his two days with her alone in the mountains andsought to forget the fragment of one evening in the city. "Here she washer real self; there she had been what her mother had made her over."
* * * * *
Gloria, with lagging steps, had gone to her room. Now she lay on herbed, her hands pressed tight upon her closed eyes, her will set againstheeding the throbbing in her temples as she strove to think clearly.Gratton's words rang in her ears. They plunged her into panic. Forscores of "friends" and hundreds of acquaintances she would furnish atopic of talk. Girls who were jealous of her would get into a warmflurry of excitement; Gloria could picture a dozen of them sitting attheir telephones, calling up this, that, and the other Mabel andErnestine, saying: "Oh, did you hear about Gloria Gaynor? Isn't it_terrible_! What _could_ she have been thinking of? I knew she was----"and so forth and so on, "ringing interminable changes." Youth, thoughdeclared by the thoughtless to be a period of heedlessness, takes toheart far more seriously than does Age all happenings which touch itsown interests. Pure tragedy is Youth's own realm. It feels acutely, itsimaginings are fearful, it magnifies and distorts beyond all reason. HadGloria been above thirty instead of under twenty this moment would havebeen far, far less deeply immersed in the gloom of despair. She suffereddry-eyed.
But Youth, condition of wedded extremes, while it holds tragedy to itsbleeding heart, cannot entirely fail in time to listen to the voice ofhope. Gloria clung passionately to the one straw offered her: Mark Kinghad come; he had saved her, if only for the moment. If there werefurther salvation, it lay in Mark King. And so she came presently to athought that made her sit bolt upright, that set her heart racing, thatbrought a new look into her eyes. Just now it had seemed so clear thatonly one thing could save her from clacking diatribes, from tortureunder the tongues of Ernestines and Mabels and daily newspapers--marriage with Gratton. But Gratton was gone and Mark King was here! Ifshe married King! The "judge" was still here. King was her father'sfriend; between men like them there was nothing which would be deniedwhen friendship asked. What if she went to King, saying to himstraightforwardly: "Thus and such is my predicament. For my sake--forthe sake of papa's daughter and hence for papa's sake no less--will yougo through the form of marrying me? I shall be no burden; it will makeno difference in your life. For to-morrow I will go back to SanFrancisco and you need never see me again. You can let me have adivorce; you will have lost nothing; I shall have been saved everything.Will you many me, Mark King?"
* * * * *
"Gloria!" King was calling. "Will you come down now? Everything'sready."
"Coming," answered Gloria. "Right away."
She glanced in her glass as she went out; the colour which had playedhide-and-seek all day was again tinting her cheeks a delicate rose. Whatwere fatigue and hunger when hope attended them?
But it happened that Gloria's impulse, which was at least honest andfrank, was for a little held in abeyance, and thus it came about thatshe lost the opportunity to appear before Mark King at a critical momentas being straight-dealing, direct, and outspoken. She thanked him withher eyes for the lunch he had set forth for her; she gave him a quicklittle smile as he waited on her. He poured the coffee, gave her milkand sugar, brought the hot things from the stove. And all of the timethere was in his eyes a look which he had no suspicion was there, thelook of a man's adoration.
"He will do whatever I ask him to do," something sang within her.
"Won't you sit down with me, Mark?" she smiled at him.
And there, while one Gloria had determined to indulge in plain talk, theother Gloria came forward obliquely, demanding the place which hadalways been hers when it was a case of man and girl together. The smilewas the smile of a coquette; it intoxicated; it made a man's heart beathard;
it brought him in close to her and thrust the world back. Shecould not have helped the smile or its message.
"I have eaten," he said a trifle harshly, she thought.
"You are so good to me." She stirred her coffee and he saw only thelashes and their black shadows on her cheeks. Then she said brightly:"This is our third little picnic together, isn't it?"
"Then you haven't forgotten? The others?" The words said themselves forhim. The human comedy had begun, or the comedy begun long ago wasresumed smoothly in its third act, King unconsciously answering to hiscue. After that it was neither Gloria nor himself who played the part ofstage-director; that time-honoured responsibility was back in the handsof the oldest of all stage-managers. The wind that drives autumn leavesscurrying, the sun that awakens spring buds were no more resistless orinevitable forces than the one now voicing its dictates.
"It would be--unmaidenly to ask him to marry you," whispered that otherself within her. Oh, if she could only guess which was the _real self_,which the pretender! "And there is no need. Look at his eyes!"
King saw lying on the table the package done up in an old cloth whichshe had brought. Further, he knew that he had seen it before and wherehe had seen it. He knew that at last he had old Loony Honeycutt's secretwhere he could put out his hand to it, with none to gainsay him. He knewthat with it was a message from his old friend Ben; that Ben, himself,lay at this moment in Coloma hurt. And yet his eyes clung to the eyes ofGloria and all of these things were swept aside in his mind. He saw thatwhen her eyes came to a meeting with his the flush in her cheeks grewhotter. He tried to remember how he had come away from her in SanFrancisco; how he had given her up for all time. But that memoryblurred; in its place he stood with her on a boulder in a creek, holdingher in his arms; he stood with her on a mountain top, with the worldlost below them. He sought to get a grip on himself; here and now was notime to talk to her of love. She was alone; it was his one job right nowto take Ben's place, to protect her and efface his own madness. But washe mad? And was now no time, after all? She was alone, yes; but if someday she would marry him, was not now the time? What would he not givefor the right to stop the nasty mouth of Gratton once and for all.
Fragmentary thoughts, by no means logically aligned. They came and wentwith other thoughts between, pro and con. But thoughts do not alwayssway destiny. In the crisis often enough there is no time for so slow aprocess as thinking; instinct leaps. Instinct compels. All of thethought in the world will not draw a steel needle to a bit of wood; allof the thought in the world will not hold back the same needle from amagnet. There are urges which must be obeyed, the urge of spinningworlds to circling suns, the urge of man to maid.
"Gloria!" he said huskily. "Gloria!"
"Yes, Mark?" she said quietly, trying to speak very calmly and as thoughshe did not know, oh, so well, all that tumult that lay behind hiscalling her name. But despite her determination she was agitated; themoment had come; there was no stopping it. And did she want it? What didshe want? What, exactly, did she feel?
She knew what was in his heart! His soul exulted as the certainty rushedupon him. She knew what he was going to say; words were needless betweenthem. And the colour merely deepened in her cheeks while she hid hereyes from him.
He came to her swiftly. She rose as swiftly to her feet. He saw that atremor shook her. He saw that she did not draw back from him; her eyesat last lifted to meet his own. They baffled him; he could not readtheir meaning. But they shone on him softly; they were the eyes of herwhom he loved. Like magnet and steel they were swept together. He hadher in his arms; he felt against his breast the wild flutter of herheart, against his face the soft brushing of her hair. He felt her bodytense but unresisting in his arms; suddenly she relaxed, her head wasagainst his breast. Gloria in his arms--Gloria's sweet face hidden fromhim against his rough shirt----
"Gloria!" he cried again. "Gloria!"
"The--the bacon!" gasped Gloria. "It's burning----"
She freed herself, and while he let her go he stood watching her withthe new look in his eyes. Scarlet-faced she flashed her look at him fromacross the table. Then she fled to the stove and retrieved the burningbacon as though here were the one matter of transcendent importance.King began to laugh, his laughter as joyous as a boy's.
"Gloria----"
"That's five times you've said 'Gloria,'" she informed him hurriedly."And----Please, Mark," as he moved toward her. "And you haven't readpapa's letter yet. And--and I'm dying to know what is in that funnypackage. Aren't you?"
"If I'm dying at all," he told her gravely, though he found a smile toanswer her own--and two very serious smiles they were--"it is of quiteanother complaint. And this time----"
"But _please_, Mark! I am here all alone--with you--and----"
"I know. I haven't forgotten. But, Gloria----"
They both started to a sudden sound outside, a scuffling on the porch.Involuntarily Gloria, prone to nervous alarm in her overwroughtcondition, moved hastily back toward him from whom just now she hadescaped. They glanced toward the sound; they saw at the window thepuckered and perplexed face of the "judge"; they were just in time tosee a big hand grasp him by the shoulder and yank him out of sight. Theyheard Summerling expostulate; they heard Jim Spalding's far from gentlevoice cursing him.
King understood, at least in part, what must lie under Gloria's look ofdistress. Surely circumstance had placed her in an equivocal positionto-night. Summerling was the type to blab; he was in no charitable frameof mind; he had found her alone here with men, had come to marry her toone man, and now had seen her in the arms of another. There was but oneanswer, even to Mark King.
"Some time you are going to marry me, Gloria," he said gravely. "Why notnow?"
"It sounds like--like an advertisement, Mark," she laughed somewhatwildly.
"Poor little kid," he muttered, seeing how she trembled. "But, Gloria,why not? Some time you are going to give yourself to me, aren't you,dear? While this man is still here, won't you let him marry us? It willgive me the right to shut that fool Gratton's mouth for him and----Oh,Gloria, my dear, my dear----"
She stood staring at him with wide eyes. He pleaded with her.
"Will you, Gloria?"
And then from lips which did not smile he heard the very faint but nolonger evasive "Yes."
"Now, Gloria?"
"Yes, Mark. If you are sure that you want me." She spoke humbly; at theinstant she was humble. "But," she added hastily, "still you haven'tread poor papa's letter. He was very anxious. Let me go a minute, Mark.I am going upstairs. I--I want to phone to mamma first. And while I amgone you can read papa's letter, and--and----" Her face was hot withblushes.
"And arrange with the judge," he said, his own voice uncertain. "Yes,Gloria."
She ran by him then. He heard her going upstairs, he heard a doorclosing after her. Then like a man who treads on air he went to thewindow and threw it up and called:
"Jim! Tell the judge not to go. I have business with him. I want him andyou here in ten minutes."
And then when Jim's voice had answered him he thought to take up theparcel on the table--largely because Gloria had asked him! A hurriedletter from Ben and the parcel from Honeycutt's. Something here forwhich he had been seeking, working, for years, remembered now onlybecause Gloria had made the request that they be not forgotten.
* * * * *
To withdraw his racing thoughts from Gloria and her golden promise, tobend them to a letter--this was in the beginning an effort. But Ben'swords caught him when he had read the first line. He had opened thepacket, ripping off the old encasement of cloth. There was a book, aBible that looked to be centuries old, battered, the covers gone;Gaynor's letter was slipped into it:
"DEAR MARK:
"Honeycutt's dead. I've got his secret. But Brodie came near doing me in. Honeycutt, dying, sent for me. I got there just in time. He gave me the Bible; it was the "parson's" and then Gus Ingle's. As I was going out of the ca
bin Brodie and two of his gang swooped down on me. In the dark I pitched the Bible clear and they did not see; it was just that near! They came close to killing me; when I came to I found they'd been through my pockets. I don't know how much Brodie knows. I do know he is working with Gratton, the dirty crook. I think you can beat them to it, hands down. And, for God's sake, Mark, and for my sake if not for your own, don't let the grass grow! I am on the edge of absolute bankruptcy; laid up this way I don't see a chance unless you find what we've been after so long _and find it quick_. Will you start without any delay? As soon as you get this phone to Charlie Marsh at Coloma. Leave word for me. And let that word be that nothing on earth will stop you! Then I won't go crazy here with worry. And watch out for Gratton as well as Brodie.
"BEN."
A bit of the old interest swept back over King as he read; the oldexcitement raced through his blood. He dropped Ben's note into the stoveand eagerly took up the old Bible. There on the blank pages, written ina crabbed hand long ago, at times letters blurred out but always a traceleft where the unaccustomed scribe had borne down hard in his painfullabourings, was the "secret" at last--Gus Ingle's message come to himacross the dead years:
"Good god I never see such gold nor no man neither and when he come in to camp you could reed in his look he had found it because no man could have looked at that Mother load and not look like Jimmy. And big Brodie grabbed him by the throat and shook him and nearly killed him until Jimmy told. And I guess there was enough there for everybody in all the world. We went down the gorge to the narrow place over on the big seedar that had broke off and that was how we come to the First Caive, and then we come to Caive number thre and two. And good god have mercy on my soul when Ime dead but I got the thought right then if it was only all mine--we worked all seven until we dropped that day and night and early in the morning and the storm was coming but we stayed. And for two weeks maybe thre we lost track of time until this grate big pile of gold was dug that I am setting right on top of right now how can a man eat gold when he is dying of hunger and burn it when he is freezing. And it was big Brodie killed pore Manny I seen him and the next day or maybe it was two days Dago was gone and never come back was it Manny's goast got him and drug him down the cliffs screaming horrible and in the gorge--anyway that was Two. and I am all that is left and I am going--I tride to get out and the Big storm drov me back and all I can see is Jimmy Kelp and the parson if I had not of killed them they would killed me sure and big Brodie's gone he is crazy and cant never make it back across the mountains in this storm, and Baldy Winch he took a big nugget and went off, and he stoled what handful of grub there was. And now I can look down in the gorge and see the water all white and snow and ice sickles and I am afraide to get lost in the caives and if I write all this in the bible that was preacher Elsons and tie it up safe in oilcloath and canvas and make a bote out of a chunk of wood and throw it in the river maybe it will get to one of the camps down there and a good man will find it and Ile give him half. You come up the old trail past where the thre Eytalians had their camp last year and over the big mountain strate ahead and about another seven miles strate on and then there is the pass with the big black rocks on one side and streaks of white granite on the other and down into the gorge and strate up four or five miles where the old seedar broke off and fell acrost. My god here goes.
"GUS INGLE."
To any man who knew the Sierra hereabouts less intimately than did MarkKing, Gus Ingle's message would have brought only stupefaction. But toKing now, as to Ben Gaynor before him, the "secret" lay bare. Old namesheld on; the three Italians had given a name to what was now known asItaly Gulch. The caves were on a certain fork of the American Riverthen, and King had approximately the distances and direction.
"What is more," he thought triumphantly, "I know where two caves are inthere. But where the devil is 'Caive thre'?"
* * * * *
Here he started up and thrust the old Bible into his shirt. There weresteps on the porch. Jim and the "judge" were coming----