The Everlasting Whisper

  _Chapter XVI_

  King was astir long before dawn. He got the fire going in the kitchenand started breakfast, seeking to be very silent and succeeding inmaking the usual clatter of a male among pots and pans. Whilst waterheated and bacon sizzled, he rummaged through the store-room at the rearof the house, gathering what he meant to put into his pack for the fouror five days' trip. As he returned from the last journey to thestore-room, his arms full of camp accessories, including canvas and campblankets, he confronted Gloria, fully dressed. He dropped his arm-loadand filled his eyes with her. Any shadow left overnight in his heart wassent scurrying before his new joyousness. Gloria had come down to himwhile he deemed her fast asleep!

  "Gloria!" he cried.

  A more radiantly lovely Gloria he had never looked upon. She had sleptand rested; she had bathed and groomed and set herself in order. She wasdressed after a fashion to bewilder a mere man in the only utterlyravishing outing costume Mark King had ever seen. He felt insanelyinclined to pick up her little boots, one after the other, and go downon his knees and kiss them; her hat was a flopsy turban, from under thebrim of which the most adorable of golden-brown curls half escaped tothrow kiss-shadows on her rosy cheeks. And Gloria's eyes!

  This time there was no door between them, nor even the memory of adoor. He gathered her up into his arms so that her boot-heels swungclear of the floor.

  "Do you know ... do you guess ... have you the faintest suspicion how Ilove you?"

  "The--the coffee!" gasped Gloria. "It's boiling over!"

  He laughed joyously at that, and finally, when he had set her down,Gloria, bright and flushed, laughed too.

  "Burning bacon last night, boiling coffee this morning!" he chuckled.And then, there in the kitchen, they sat down to breakfast. "It's sweetof you," he told her softly, "to get up and come down and see me off."

  "Oh," said Gloria, "I am going with you."

  Not once had King dared think of a thing like that. He had thought thatat best he would be with her again in four or five days. But that sheshould go with him into the mountains on this quest of his? He sat andpondered and stared at her.

  "Don't you want me?" asked Gloria. "Aren't you glad, Mark?"

  She was serenely prepared for objections, should they be forthcoming.For it was not on any spur of the moment, but after long deliberation,that she had decided that she would go with him. She wanted no scandalin the papers; she meant that there should be none. If it were rumouredthat she had gone out of town with Gratton; if Gratton wanted to be uglyand feed rumour; then on top of that if she appeared within reach of areporter without a husband, there would be talk. If it were answeredthat she was married to Mark King, there would be the question: "Andwhere, my dear, is this Mark King?" Those girl friends in San Franciscowho had met him at her birthday-party would be fairly squirming withexcited curiosity to know _everything_. Among themselves they would makeinsinuations about the Bear Tamer or the Animal Trainer, as Gloria knewthat they would variously and mirthfully designate him. They would findit unusual that King had married her one day and had gone off the nextwithout her. They would hazard endless unpleasant explanations; theywould get their heads together; they would make an astonishing patchworkof scraps of distorted rumour and bits of wild speculation.... Fromupstairs last night she had heard fragmentary outbursts from the"judge." "Irregular; no licence." Now Gloria meant to kill the snakeoutright, not to allow the scotched reptile to writhe free. She wasmarried; she was going with her husband into the wilderness on the mostromantic of all honeymoons. The papers were free to make much of that.

  "Of course I want you," said King slowly. "Glad? Glad that you want tocome with me? Can't you see that I am the gladdest man on earth?But----"

  "I have already written a message I wanted to send to a girl friend inSan Francisco...." It was to Miss Mildred Carter, who was engaged to bemarried to Bob Dwight of the _Chronicle_.... "I was going to have itphoned in to her. It tells her I'm--married. To you, Mark. And thatwe're off on the most wonderful trip together into the heart of the wildcountry."

  "God bless you," he said heartily. But Gloria, glancing at him swiftly,saw that his eyes were clouded with perplexity.

  "Of course," she said, "if you don't want a girl along----"

  "Gloria!"

  "Well, then? It's settled? I'm to go?"

  "Only I'm afraid it isn't the sort of a trip for a girl. It's hardgoing, and--Oh, it's a cursed shame I can't put it off."

  "You said last night that you weren't afraid of anything Brodie and hismen could do? That they didn't even know where to go? That they'd neverknow where to find you?"

  "Yes. And I meant it. But----"

  He wanted her with him; she wanted to come. Further, it pained him tothink that those first glorious days should be spent with the mountainsbetween them. He was tempted, sorely tempted. Gloria knew; she smiledat him across the table; she tempted him further. ...Was there reallyany danger, would there be danger to her? If he thought so, that therewas the faintest likelihood of harm to her, he would say no, no matterwhat the yearning in his heart. But if they made a quick dash in andout; two days each way, not over one day at Gus Ingle's caves? If theywent on horseback nearly all the way, and travelled light? He carried arifle nowadays, and he rather believed he might carry it ten yearswithout ever firing a shot at any man of their hulking crowd. They couldgo in one way, come out another. They had at least a full day's headstart of any possible followers. No, in his heart he did not believethat there would be any danger to Gloria. Further, the thought struckhim that she would not be altogether safe here; there was venom inGratton, God only knew how virulent. And there was sinister significancein the fact that Gratton was hand in glove now with Swen Brodie. Then,too, Gratton knew from Gloria's own lips that she had brought themessage from her father in Coloma; hence Gratton might suspect, andBrodie after him, that Gloria was in possession of old Loony Honeycutt'ssecret. Instead of seeming hazardous to take Gloria with him, it beganto appear that his new responsibility of guarding her from all harm hadbegun already, and that he could best protect her from any possible evilby having her always with him. He could not allow her to go to herparents in Coloma; he thought of that, but that was Brodie's hangout,and Ben was in no condition to send for her. Nor was it advisable forher to go alone to San Francisco; her mother was not there, and Grattonmight be looked on to follow her....So with himself communed Mark King,never a man overly given to caution, but seeking now to measure chances,to set them in the scales over against the desire of his heart. Afanciful thought insisted on being heard: had Gus Ingle's treasurehidden itself all these years, awaiting the time when he and Gloriatogether came to it? Their wedding gift! How much more precious thenthan mere gold!

  "We'd travel light," he said thoughtfully, and Gloria knew that she hadwon. "We'd go in quick, out quick. It's getting late in the year," headded with a smile, "and we'd have to hurry, Brodie or no Brodie. I'veno notion for a prolonged honeymoon snow-bound in those mountains."

  Her eyes danced.

  "Wouldn't that be fun!"

  His smile quickened. Her childish ignorance of what such an adventurewould mean was in keeping with her vast inexperience with matters of theoutdoors; she had merely begun, in his company, to glimpse the truemeanings of the solitudes. She would learn further--with him. And a warmglow of pleasure came with the thought that Gloria wanted to go.

  * * * * *

  The pearl-grey dawn was flowering into a still pink morning when theylocked the door behind them and stepped out into the crisp, sweetfreshness of the autumn air. He had made two small packs, provisionsrolled into the bedding and the whole wrapped in pieces of canvas; heestimated they would be gone five days, and then, making due allowancefor any reasonable delay, provisioned for ten. When he saw that Gloriahad noted how for the first time on a woodland jaunt with her he carrieda very businesslike-looking rifle, he explained laughingly that if theydeveloped abnormal appetites there were both deer and bear to be
had.She was much interested in everything, and looked out to the mountainseagerly when King had swung her up to her saddle on Blackie, the tall,sober-faced horse, where she sat with a roll of blankets at her back andwith the horn before her decorated with a miscellany of campequipment--a frying-pan, a short-handled axe in its sheath, an overcoatdone into a compact bundle. Here was another moment when thoughts weretoo slow processes to emphasize themselves; she was swayed by emotionsprovoked by the moment. Where were the trunks and suitcases andhat-boxes to accompany the young bride? In their stead, a coat tied intoa tight bundle and a frying-pan before her. King looked at her andmarvelled; her cheeks were roses, her eyes were Gloria's own, wonderfuland big and deep beyond fathoming. From his own saddle on the buckskinhe nodded his approval of her.

  "You are not afraid that I can't take care of you, are you, Gloria?" heasked.

  And Gloria laughed gaily, answering:

  "My dear Mr. Man, I am not the least little bit afraid of anything inall the world this morning!"

  So with the glorious day brightening all about them they turned awayfrom the log house and into the trail which straightway King dubbed"Adventure Trail." And as they went he sang out joyously:

  "The Lord knows what we'll find, dear heart, and the deuce knows what we'll do. But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, And Life runs large on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new."