The Everlasting Whisper

  _Chapter XXII_

  And so, after all, he and Gloria were not alone in the mountains; thatother crowd was still to be reckoned with. King stood at the cave'smouth, frowning into the ever-thickening smother of the storm. Theirsmoke was gone again, beaten down, hidden behind the snow-curtain. Butthey were there, at no very great distance. Thus, then, they knewsomething. Just what? Here was the matter of his perplexity; did theyknow all that he did? Or had they merely such a hint as would lead themas close as this? Or had they followed his trail?

  He grew impatient with seeking to speculate. It struck him clearly andforcefully that he had but one thing to do: to trust that they did nothave such full information as had fallen into his hands and to see to itthat he gave them no help. Though they should come close, very close,still that which he had found might remain hidden from them. There layhis work; to do all that he could to hide Gus Ingle's gold. First hewould bring with him more than the two nuggets; all that he felt hecould manage to carry with the rest of his necessary load. Enough tohelp Ben Gaynor over a crisis; enough raw gold to slam down before someSan Francisco capitalist, together with a tale which would make any maneager to stake the owner to what loan he asked. With that he'd seek toget back to the open. He would get provisions, snow-shoes, a dog-team,if necessary, a couple of trusted men to come with him; he would be backhere within the week. But first, before he went, he would strive to makeas sure as a man could that Brodie's crowd did not find the goldenhoard.

  He went a second time far back into the darkness of the further cave,carrying a smoking torch as before, vanishing from Gloria's eyes. Shewas alone; nothing stood between her and the cave's mouth; she was freeto go! He must have thought of that. He was giving her her chance. Shehad but to snatch up the few things she meant to take with her, to goout, to find her way down the cliffs----She shuddered. She was afraid!Did he know that, too? Had he thought of that? She moved back and forthrestlessly; at one instant she was sure that she would go, only to becertain of nothing before another second passed. How soon would hereturn? Would he hurry after her, would he bring her back forcibly?...She went where she could look out; the column of smoke had disappeared;the wind tore at her in mighty gusts. She hesitated and time passed.

  How long he was gone she did not know. She only knew that she had donenothing when at length he returned. There was a look of grimsatisfaction on his face; whatever he had gone to do he had done in amanner to please him. She noted that his coat was off; that in it, as ina bag, he carried something heavy.

  "This goes with us wherever we go," he announced triumphantly. "It's abig breathing spell for Ben Gaynor." He dumped it out; there were otherlumps like the two he had brought back the first time. She wondereddully if that grimy stuff were gold! She watched him while he emptied aprovision-bag and thereafter dropped into it the stuff he had brought inhis coat. On top of it went the articles of food.

  "If you can whip up enough endurance for the work ahead of us," heannounced impersonally, "we stand a good chance of getting out of this.Otherwise, we stand a whole lot better show of being caught here andfreezing and starving to death."

  Gloria shook visibly. Nervousness and fear and the cold were combinedand merciless. Her look sped from King's face to what she could see ofthe snow-storm.

  "But we'll wait," she asked in utter, weary meekness, "until thishorrible storm is over?"

  "One never knows about a storm like this," he told her. "It may blowitself out soon and it may keep on for a long time. Now, it's beginningto pile up in the drifts, to hide the trails, to make going harder everyminute. As it is we'll have our work cut out for us; if this keeps upall afternoon and all night ..." He shrugged.

  "You mean that then we couldn't get out at all?" she asked sharply.

  He looked down on her thoughtfully. "I don't know," he replied slowly,"whether you could make it then or not. I am more or less used to thissort of thing and you are not. I figure that we ought to take no morelong shots than we have to. If we start right now and have any luck wecan make several miles before night and camp in some of the thicktimber. We'd be as well off there as we are here and just that muchnearer the outside. If the weather allowed us to travel at all we couldbe back at your father's place in four or five days at the longest.And," he added significantly, "we have food to last us just about thatlong."

  Gloria sprang up hastily. "Quick," she cried. "Let's hurry."

  King nodded and began his preparations. Into the squares of canvas herolled everything they were to take with them, and he took no singlearticle which he judged was not absolutely necessary. One smallfrying-pan and one light aluminium pot, with single knife, fork, andspoon, constituted all in the way of cooking utensils. With jealous eyehe judged the weight, bulk, and worth of every other article, whether itbe a tin of fruit or a slab of bacon. Those delicacies, which his lovefor Gloria had prompted him to bring with them, he now placed at oneside, to be left behind. Bacon, to the last small scrap and fat-linedrind, coffee, to the once-boiled dregs in the coffee-pot, he packedcarefully. Then, his roll made and drawn tight, he took up the discardedarticles and hid them under some loose dirt in a remote, black corner ofthe cave. Ten minutes later he had gotten first his pack, then Gloria,safely down the cliffs, and they started. Head down, silent, like twogrotesque automatons, they trudged on. They crossed on the fallen cedar,they climbed out of the gorge on the far side, they fought their way on.

  Several times King turned. But she soon saw it was not to look at her;his glance passed down the long canon toward the spot where they hadseen the smudge of smoke. She had come near forgetting that other menwere near; she had no interest in them now. King had brought her here;King must take her safely back to the world which she had forsaken sostupidly. The obligation was plainly his; the power seemed his no less.

  As Gloria fought her way along she was upborne at every step by theexpectation of coming presently to their horse, of being placed in thesaddle, and of having nothing to do from then on but hold to the pommeland have King lead her on to an ultimate safety. The progress would belong and the way little less than an adventure in hell to her; but atleast hers would have become a slightly more passive part and she wouldbe moving on toward the luxury of four walls and a maid and warmcomforts. So when they came to the spot where King had tethered hishorse, and there was no horse there, Gloria looked her blank, stupefiedbewilderment, and then simply collapsed. She dropped down in the snow,her face in her hands, too weary and heartbroken to sob aloud. Kingstared about him with an almost equal consternation.

  Leaving Gloria where she lay inert in the snow, King put down rifle andpack and hurried down into the hollow where he had tethered his horse.Five minutes of reading the signs in the snow told him the story. He hadbeen right; his venture from the beginning had been loaded to the guardswith bad luck. There was the end of the broken tie-rope; there thetracks showing the way Buck had gone, in full, headlong flight. The ropewas stout and would have broken only were the animal terrified. Iffrightened, then there had been something to cause fright. Again, sincethe horse fled straight down the slope, that something startling itwould have been at some point directly above. King turned and mounted tothe ridge top again. Here were other tracks, all but obliterated by thesnow which had fallen since they were made. A bear had come up over theridge; had frightened the horse into breaking its tether and running.And the equally startled bear had turned tail and raced off the otherway. Both animals were probably a dozen miles off by now; the bear,perhaps, twice that distance.

  King came back slowly and sat down on his pack. From Gloria's dejectedfigure he looked to his watch, from his watch again to the four pointsof the compass. His lips tightened. The afternoon was passing and thedark would come early.

  "Are you up to crowding ahead on foot?" he called to Gloria. "If youhave the nerve we can really make better time that way, anyhow, from nowon. Can you do it?"

  At first she did not try to answer. But when he shouted to her again,his voice hard with anger, she moaned
miserably:

  "I am sick; I am dying, I think. I can't go on."

  King grunted disgustedly.

  He let Gloria lie where she was until she had rested. Then he went toher and put his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet. She waslimp and pale, her eyes shut, her lashes looking unusually black againstthe pallor of her pinched cheeks.

  "We'll go back to the cave for the night, after all," he told herquietly. "It's the inevitable, and that's one thing there's no sensebucking against. Stand up!"

  But the slight figure in its boyish garb drooped against him; Gloria'shead moved the slightest bit in sidewise negation; her pale lips stirredsoundlessly.

  "What?" asked King.

  "I can't," came her whisper.

  He judged that here was no time for foolishness, but rather the time foreach one to do his part if the two of them lived to make all of this anunpleasant memory.

  "You've got to," he informed her crisply. "I can't carry you and thepack and rifle and everything, can I? I am going back; the rest is up toyou. Do you want to lie here and die to-night?"

  "I don't care," said Gloria listlessly.

  He looked at her curiously. As he drew his hands away she slipped downand lay as she had lain before. He turned away, took up his pack andgun, set his back square upon her, and trudged off toward the onlyshelter that was theirs. Along the ridge, buffeted by the wind, halfblind with the flurries of stinging hail with which that wind lashed himas with countless bits of broken glass, he did not turn to look behindhim; not until he had gone fully half of the way to the cave. Then hedid turn. He could not see her following as he had pictured her. Hedropped his burden and went back to her. She lay as he had left her, herface whiter than he had ever seen it, her eyes shut, certain small blueveins making a delicate tracery across the lids.

  He had meant to storm at her, to stir her into activity by the lashingsof his rage. But instead he stooped and gathered her up into his armsand carried her through the storm, shielding her body all that he could.And as he stooped and as he moved off he was growling deep down in histhroat like a disgruntled old bear. When it came to clambering down andthen up the cliffs Gloria obeyed his commands listlessly and as in adream, lending the certain small aid that was necessary. Even so, theclimb was hard and slow, and more than ever before filled with danger.But in the end it was done; again they were in Gus Ingle's cave. Kingbuilt a fire, left Gloria lying by it, and went back for his pack. Whenhe returned she had not moved. He made a bed for her, placed her on itso that her feet were toward the fire, and covered her with his ownblanket. Then he boiled some coffee and made her drink it. She obeyedagain, neither thanked him nor upbraided him, and drooped back upon herhard bed and shut her eyes. Here was a new Gloria, a Gloria who did notcare whether she lived or died. With a quickening alarm in his eyes hestood by the smoky fire, staring at her. Uninured to hardship, herdelicate body was already beaten; with still further hardship to comemight she not--die? And what would Mark King say to Ben Gaynor, even ifhe brought back much raw red gold, if it had cost the life of BenGaynor's daughter?

  She did not stir when he came to her and knelt and put his hand againsther cheek. He was shocked to learn how cold she was. Lightly he set hisfingers against her softly pulsing throat; it was cold, like ice.Plainly she was chilled through. As he began unlacing her boots acuriously bitter thought came to him. She was his; the marriage servicehad given her to him with her own willingness; his wife. And now he wasdoing for her the first intimate little thing. He drew off her boots andstockings and found that her feet were terribly cold. He wrapped them ina hot blanket and hastened to set a pot of water on the coals. While thewater warmed he knelt and chafed her feet between his palms, afraid fora moment that they were frozen. Finally, while he bathed them insteaming water, the dead white began to give place to a faint pinkness,like a blush, and again he put the blanket about them.

  She had not moved. When a second time he laid his hand against herthroat the cold of it alarmed him. He hesitated a moment; then, theurgent need being more than evident, he began swiftly to undo her outergarments. The boyish shirt he unbuttoned and managed to remove; it waswet through, and stiff with frost. He noted her under-garments, silkenand foolish little things, with amazement; she had known no better thanto wear such nonsensical affairs on a trip like this! Good God, what_did_ she know? But he did not pause in his labours until he had slippedoff the wet clothing. Then he wrapped her in another warm blanket andplaced her on her bed, her feet still to the blaze. All of the time shehad seemed, and probably was, hardly conscious. Now only she opened hereyes.

  "I can't have you playing the fool and getting pneumonia," he growled ather. "We've got our hands full as it is. Don't you know enough to ..."

  But she was not listening. She stirred slightly, eased herself into anew position, cuddled her face against a bare arm, sighed, and went tosleep.