The Everlasting Whisper

  _Chapter XXVII_

  Gloria awoke with a start. She had not heard King go, yet she knew thatshe was alone in the cave. Alone! She sat up, clutching her blanketsabout her. Objects all around her were plunged into darkness, but wherethe canvas let in the morning she saw a patch of drear, chill light.Full morning. Then by now Mark King was far away.

  Oh, the pitiless loneliness of the world as she sat there in the gloomof the cavern, her heart as cheerless as the drear light creeping in, ascold as the dead charred sticks where last night's fire had burnt itselfout. And, oh, the terrible, merciless silence about her. She sat plungedinto a despondency beyond the bourne of tears, a slim, white-bodied,gaunt-eyed girl crushed, beaten by a relentless destiny, lost to theworld, shut in between two terrors--the black unknown of the deepercavern, the white menace of a waste wilderness. And far more than pinchof cold or bite of hunger was her utter solitude unbearable.

  She sprang up and built a fire. Less for the warmth, though she was coldto the bone, than for the sense of companionship. The homely flames werelike flames in remembered fireplaces; their voices were as the voices ofthose other fires; their light, though showing only cold rock walls andrude camp equipment, was the closest thing she had to companionship. Shecame close to the fire and for a long time would not move from it.

  She went to the wall King had built, moving the canvas aside just enoughto look out, and stood there a long time. A dead hush lay over theworld. There was no wind; the snow in great unbroken, feathery crystalsfell softly, thick in the sky, dropping ceaselessly and soundlessly. Itclung to the limbs of trees, making of each branch a thick white arm,stilling the pine-needles, binding them together in the sheath whichforbade them to shiver and rustle. It lay in sludgy messes in the poolsof the stream and curled over the edges of the steep banks and coatedthe boulders; it lay its white command for silence upon the racingwater. A world dead-white and dead-still. That unbroken silence whichexists nowhere else as it does in the wastes of snow and which lies uponthe soul like a positive inhibition against the slightest human-madesound. No wind to stir a dry twig; no dry twig but was manacled andmuffled; no dead leaves to rustle, since all dead leaves lay deeper thandeath under the snow. Gloria's sensation as she stood as still as thewilderness all about her and stared out across the ridges was that ofone who had suddenly and without warning gone stone-deaf. The stillnesswas so absolute that it seemed to crush the soul within her. She wentback hastily to her fire, glad to hear the crackle of the flames,grateful to have the emptiness made somewhat less the yawning void bythe small sound of a bit of wood rolling apart on the rock floor.

  She was hungry, but she had no heart for cooking. She ate little scrapsof cold food left over from last night; she nibbled at a last bit of theslab chocolate; she filled a pot with snow gathered at the cave mouthand set it on the coals to get water to drink. And again, having nothingelse to do and urged restlessly to some form of activity, she hurriedback to the canvas flap and watched the falling snow, hearkening to thestillness. For in the spell of the snow country one is forced to theattitude of one who listens and who hears the great hush, and who, likethe enchanted world about it, heeds and obeys, and when he moves goeswith quiet footfalls.

  Endlessly long were the minutes. Hours were eternities. She stood by therock wall until she was chilled; as noiselessly as a creeping shadow shewent back to her fire and shivered before it and warmed herself, turningher head quickly to peer into the dark of the hidden tunnel, turningagain as quickly to glance toward her rude door, her heart leaping atevery crackle of her fire; she thawed some of the cold out of her andwent to look out again. A hundred times she made the brief journey.

  From being lightning-swift, thought became a laborious, drugged process;her excited mind had harboured throngs of vivid visions; she had known aperiod of over-active mental stimulation; she had seen, as in the actualflesh, Mark King ploughing through the snow, going over ridges, pushingon and on and on. Always further away, driving on through limitlessdistances. She had seen him fall, his body crashing down a sheerprecipice; she had seen him lying, his face turned up, the snowflakesfalling, falling, falling, covering it.... She had seen him going onagain; she had seen him breaking his way to the open, getting back amongother men, falling exhausted, but calling upon them to go back to her.She had seen men hurrying; dog-sleds harnessed; packs of provisions; menon snow-shoes. She had seen them coming toward her across the miles.Some one else was coming, too. It was big Swen Brodie, his facehorrible. There was a rabble at his back. It was a race between thesemen and those other men. She had felt that Brodie was putting out aterrible hand toward her; she had seen other men leap upon him, dragginghim back.... King had returned; King and Brodie were struggling.... Thenagain she saw King, fighting his way through the snow, going for help.She had tried to reason; he could be only a few miles away....

  But at last a tired brain refused to create more of these swiftpictures. She stared out and did not think. She merely felt the weightof the silence, the weight of utter loneliness. With dragging feet shereturned to her fire and looked into the coals, and from them to thefurther dark, and from it back to the pale light about her canvas. Shesank into a condition of lethargy. The silence had worked a sort ofhypnosis in her. Briefly, in her wide-opened eyes there was no light ofinterest. Vaguely, as though she had no great personal concern in thematter, she wondered how long it would be before one left alone herewould go mad. And would the mad one shout shrieking defiance at thesilence?--or go about on tip-toe, finger laid across his lips?

  The morning wore on. At one moment she was plunged into a deep, chaoticabyss that was neither unconsciousness nor reverie, and yet whichstrangely partook of both. A moment later she was vaguely aware of adifference; it was as though a presence, though what sort she could nottell, had approached, were near her, all about her. That instant ofuncertainty was brief, gone in a flash. She turned and a little glad crybroke from her lips. A streak of sunshine lay across the rocks at thecave's mouth.

  It was like the visit of an angel. More than that, like the face of abeloved friend. She ran to her canvas and looked out. There was a riftin the sombre roofing of clouds; she saw a strip of clean blue skythrough which a splendid sun shone. And yet the snow was falling on allhands, snow bright with a new shining whiteness. She watched that littlestrip of heaven's blue eagerly and anxiously; was it widening? Or werethe clouds crowding over it again?

  But though this seemed the one consideration of importance in all theworld for her just now, in another instant it was swept from her mind,forgotten. Far below her, down in the gorge, she saw something moving!And that something, ploughing laboriously through depths and drifts ofloose fluffy snow, was a man. Now her thoughts raced again. It was King.He was coming back to her.... No; it was not King; it was Swen Brodie!She began to tremble violently. She had barely strength to draw back, topull the canvas closer to the rocks, to strive to hide. If Brodie camenow, if Brodie found her here, alone----That fear which is in allfemale hearts, that boundless terror of the one creature who is hergreatest protector, her vilest enemy, more dreaded than a wild beast,gripped her and shook her and swiftly beat the strength out of her. But,fascinated, she clung to the rocks and watched.

  The man struggling weakly against the pitiless wilderness, wallowing inthe snow, seemed to make his way along the gorge inch by inch. Hecarried something on his back, something white under the falling snowwhich whitened his hat and labouring shoulders. A sack with something init, something to which he clung tenaciously. How he floundered andbattled against the high-heaped white stuff about him which held himback, which mounted about his legs, up to his waist; at times, when hefloundered he was all but lost in it. He lay still like a dead man; hestruggled, and began crawling on again. He stopped and looked about him--how her heart pounded then! He was looking for something, seekingsomething! Her!

  She was so certain it must be Brodie. Yet she remained motionless,powerless to move though she remembered King's word of the hiding-placewhere she woul
d be safe; she peered out, fascinated.

  In time the man came closer and the first suspicion entered her mindthat, after all, it might not be Brodie. He stopped; he was exhausted;he pulled off his hat and ran his hand across his face. Then, stillbareheaded, he looked up. It was Gratton!

  Gratton alone; Gratton looking back over his shoulder more often than hequested far ahead; Gratton in a mad attempt to make haste where hastewas impossible. Now his every gesture bespoke a frantic haste. He wasescaping from something. Then, what? He had left the other men; he wasrunning away from them. She knew it as well as if he had screamed itinto her ears. A sudden spurt of pity for him entered her heart; heseemed so beaten and bewildered and frantic and terrified; who, betterthan she, could sympathize with one in Gratton's predicament? She lookedfar down the gorge; she could see, like a bluish crooked shadow, thetrail which he had made after him. No one else in sight! Then she forgoteverything saving that she and Gratton were alone, that they had beenfriends, that they were bound in a common fate. She leaned as far out asshe could; he was just below now; she called to him.

  He stopped dead in his tracks; he jerked his head up and stared wildly;his mouth dropped open, and in the shock of the moment speech was deniedhim. She called again.

  "You!" Had not the silence been so complete his gasping voice would havefailed to reach her; as it was she barely heard it. "You, Gloria? Here?My God--have I gone mad?"

  The man's villainy of so few days ago appeared now, in the biassed lightof circumstance, a pardonable, a forgettable offence. He had loved her;he had wanted to marry her; he had, with that in mind, tricked her. Hehad taken advantage of the universal admission that in love as in warall things were fair. The ugliness of what he had done was chiefly uglybecause it had lain against a background of commonplace and convention;here, at the time when no considerations existed save the eternal andvital ones, all of Gratton's futile trickery was as though it had neverbeen. She was calling to him again, urging him to clamber up the cliff,bidding him hurry before he was seen.

  "How came you here?" was all that he could find words for. "You! And_here_!"

  She would tell him everything! But he must not tarry down there. He mustmake haste----

  Her words cleared his bewilderment away; he glanced again over hisshoulder. The gorge was empty of other human presence. He looked back upat her. And then, before her eager eyes, he slumped down where he stood,lying in the snow.

  "I can't." She heard his voice as across a distance ten times that whichseparated them. In it was bleak despair. "I've gone through hellalready. I am--nearly dead. I couldn't climb up there. I----Oh, my God,why did I ever come into this inferno!"

  She begged, she urged. But he only turned a white face up to her and laywhere he had fallen, his body shaking visibly, what with the strain hehad put upon it and the emotions which only his own soul knew.

  "But it is so easy," she cried to him, forgetful of her now terror atmounting up here. "I have done it. Twice. I will show you just whichway, where to set your feet."

  "I can't," he said miserably. "It was all I could do to get this far.I--I think I am dying----"

  Again and again she pleaded with him. But he had either reached thelimit of his physical endurance or, shaken and unnerved, he had not thecourage to attempt the steep climb. He lay still; his eyes were shut,and to Gloria, too, came the swift fear that the man might be dying.

  "I am coming to you!" she called.

  She began making the hazardous descent. She did not take time to askherself if she could make it; she knew only that she must. She set footon the narrow, sloping ledge outside, brushing off the snow with herboot, clinging with her hands to a splinter of granite, feeling her waycautiously, careful to move inch by inch along the way down which shehad gone twice with Mark King. Her fingers, already cold when shestarted, went numb; they were at all times either in pits and pockets ofsnow or gripping the rough stone that was ice-cold. Painfully butsteadily she climbed down and down. She strove not to look down; she hadno eyes for Gratton, who now sat upright, his jaw still sagging, andmarvelled at her. A dozen times he was prepared to see her slip andfall.

  After a weary time she came to the base of the cliffs. Gratton was not adozen paces from her. He looked to her like a sick man, gaunt,hollow-eyed; unkempt, unshaven, as she had never seen him before, he waslike some caricature of the immaculate Gratton of San Francisco. He didnot move but looked at her in a strange, bewildered fashion. Plainly hehad had no knowledge of her being here; he could not explain herpresence; he was every whit as dumbfounded as he would have been had shedropped down upon him out of the sky. Seeing that he made no attempt tomove, she started to come to him. She was standing upon a rock; shestepped off into the snow, and in a flash had sunk to her breast. A crybroke from her as thus, for the first time in her life, she learnedwhat it was to seek to force a way through deep, loose-drifted snow.Feather-light in its individual flakes, in mass it made hasteimpossible; to push on six inches through it was labour; to come a dozenpaces to Gratton was hard work. She floundered as she had seen himflounder; she threw herself forward as he had done, and, sinking withevery effort, at last reached his side.

  "It's you--Gloria Gaynor!" he muttered. "But I don't understand."

  "I came with Mark King. The storm caught us. Just as it caught you. Butyou must come with me; if you lie here you will be chilled; you willfreeze. Later we can tell each other everything."

  He shook his head. "I can't," he groaned. "I am more dead than alive, Itell you. I have been living through days and nights of hell; hellpopulated by raging demons. I have been since before dawn getting here."He cast a bleak look up along the cliffs and shuddered. "I'd rather liehere and die than attempt it."

  Once more Gloria was urging and pleading. But in the end she gave overhopelessly, seeing that Gratton would not budge. And it was so clear toher that he would perish if he lay here.

  "There's a hole in the cliffs just yonder," Gratton said drearily. "Godknows what wild beasts may be in it. But I was going to crawl in therewhen you called."

  Then Gloria saw for the first time the opening to that cave which in GusIngle's Bible had been set down as Caive number one. It was almostdirectly under King's cave, at the base of the cliffs. The snow cameclose to concealing it entirely; as it was, just a ragged black holeshowed a couple of feet above the snow-line.

  "Come, then," she said. "Let's see if it's big enough for a shelter. Itmay do as well as the other."

  Gratton heaved himself up with a groan. Gloria did not wait for him, butbegan the tedious breaking of a path the few feet to the hole, tooearnest in the endeavour even to note how Gratton came along behindwithout suggesting that it was the man's place to break trail. ThusGloria came first to the lower cave. She hesitated and listened, herfancies stimulated by his suggestion of storm-driven animals, and soughtto peer into the dark. She could see nothing; she heard nothing. Nothingsave Gratton's hard breathing close behind her. She got a grip uponherself and made a step forward, paused, extended her arms to grope fora wall, and made another step. There was still no sound; she breathedmore freely, assuring herself that save for herself the cavern wasempty. She stumbled over a rock, stopped again and called to Gratton.Only now was he entering.

  "Light a match," she commanded.

  "My hands are dead with cold," he muttered. "I don't know if I have amatch. Wait a minute."

  He began a slow search. Finally she knew that he had found a match; sheheard it scratch against a rock. Then she heard Gratton curse nervously;the match had broken and his knuckles had scraped along the rock.

  The second match he gave to her. She struck it carefully, cupped thetiny flame with her hands, and strove to see what lay about her. Thelittle light gave but poor assistance to her straining eyes; but she didsee that there was a litter of dead limbs about her feet. She begangathering up some of the smaller branches, groping for others as hermatch burned out. Again Gratton searched his pockets; he found morematches and some scraps of paper. It was Glor
ia's hands which startedthe fire and placed the bits of dry wood upon it. The flames crackled;the wood caught like tinder; the flickering light retrieved much of thecavern about them from the utter dark.

  "Here I stay," said Gratton. He dropped down and began warming hisshaking hands. A more abjectly miserable specimen of humanity Gloria hadnever looked upon. He was jaded, spiritless, cowed.

  But he was a human being, and she was no longer alone! Across the emptydesolation he had come to her, one who had lived as she had lived, whoknew another world than this, who could understand what she sufferedbecause he, too, suffered. There came a space of time, all too brief,during which her heart sang within her. She was lifted from despair to arealm bright with hope. King had gone for succour; she had a companionto share with her the dread hours of waiting. She began a swiftplanning; she caught up a burning brand as she had seen Mark King do,and holding it high made a quick survey, going timidly step by stepfurther from the entrance, deeper into the cavern. It was much like theone so high above, of what shape she could hardly guess, so many werethe hollows in floor, roof, and walls, so many were the tunnel-like armsreaching further than she dared go. Gratton could not, or would not,climb to the higher cave; then why should they not make this theirshelter? She would have to climb the cliffs again; but she would have todo that in any case. Once up there it would be so simple a matter totoss down blankets and food and cooking utensils; a half-hour would seeher camp moved from one cave to the other. Eager and excited, she beganto tell Gratton what she meant to do.

  "Wait a while," he urged her. "I am terribly shaken, Gloria. I havelived through experiences which a week ago I would have thoughtunbearable." He shuddered; she saw that when he said he was "terriblyshaken" he had not exaggerated. And in the glare of his eyes she readthat, utterly unnerved, he dreaded to be left alone even while she wentup the cliffs. "I would say that a man would have died--or gonemad--with the strain that I have lived through."

  "I know," she said gently. "I can guess. But when you get good andwarm--and rest--I will make you a hot cup of coffee----"

  "I have this. It's better than coffee for me now." He untied the mouthof the bag with shaking fingers, groped through its contents, and atlast brought out a flask nearly full of an amber liquid. "It's thestuff Brodie's crowd makes," he explained, unstoppering the flask."They've got more of it than food with them, curse their bestial hearts.Stuff which, way back in ancient history, ... which means a week ago!...I'd no more have thought of drinking than I'd drink poison. But it hassaved the life in me."

  He put the bottle to his lips and swallowed three or four times. He satafterward making a wry face, his full eyes blinking. But gradually afaint bit of colour made his pasty cheeks something less dead-white, andthe powerful raw corn whiskey injected into his blood a littlereassurance.

  "Let me rest a bit and get warm?" he asked of her. "I--I'd rather youdidn't leave me just yet, Gloria."

  Knowing so well what it was to have raw, quivering nerves, she tried tosmile at him, and saying as lightly as she could, "Why, of course;there's no hurry," began to gather what bits of wood lay about, pilingthem on the fire. Thus she noted where, evidently long ago, there hadbeen another fire kindled against the wall of rock; some one else hadcamped here, perhaps during summer-time, and this explained the fuelwood so conveniently placed.

  Meanwhile Gratton took a second pull at his flask, set it carefullyaside and stood up, swinging his arms to get the blood running, beatinghis hands against his thighs, stamping gingerly. He began looking at hercuriously. Presently he said: "Do you think we are ever going to get outof this alive?"

  "Yes." Her voice rang with assurance. "Mark King has gone for help. Allwe have to do is wait for a few days."

  His pale brows flew up.

  "King? He has gone? He has left you alone here?"

  Again she said: "Yes." Gratton began plucking at his lip, striding upand down now. It became obvious to her that there had been nothing wrongwithin him beyond what his frantic terror had done to him. Perhaps, leftalone, he would have died out there in the snow; now, having alreadyleaned on her, having her company and the hope she held out, he began tolook his old self.

  "Now I'll go for the things in the other cave," she suggested. And as anafterthought: "Now that you are feeling better, perhaps you will go upwith me and help?"

  "Why," he said, "why--of course. Yes, we'll both go."

  For in his new mood, warmed by the fire and the raw whiskey, and,further, having seen that she had done the thing with no mishap, he waswilling to do what before he could not do.

  "Come," he said. "Let's hurry."

  Along the paths they had already made it was a much easier matter tomake the return trip. At the cliffs Gratton allowed Gloria to go ahead,since she knew the way up and he did not. He followed her closely, andat first with little difficulty or hesitation. The higher they climbed,however, the slower he went; once he hesitated so long that she began tobelieve that dizziness had overcome him and that he was coming nofurther. But at length she came to the ledge and the wall King had made,and Gratton, looking up and seeing her above him, began climbing again.

  Gloria held aside the canvas flap; he followed her into the cave. Herfire, though low, still burned. For the sake of more light she put onmore dry wood from the great heap King had left for her. She began tolook about, planning swiftly just how easiest to move the few belongingswhich must go with her. She could pile odds and ends into a blanket; shecould remake the canvas roll as King had done so often; she and Grattoncould drag the bundles to the front of the cave and push them over, downthe cliffs.

  "First, we'll get things together, all in a heap," she said aloud.

  He came forward and stood warming his nervous hands at her fire, hiseyes everywhere at once. He marked the shipshape air of the cavern, theparcels which were to-night's supper and to-morrow's three poor littlemeals, each set carefully apart from the others on the rock shelf. Hesaw how the firewood was piled in its place, not scattered; how Gloria'sbed and King's looked almost comfortable because of the fir-boughs; howthe clean pots and pans were in their places. Then he turned his fulleyes like searchlights upon the girl.

  "And you," he said, marvelling, "_you_ actually came with a man likeKing into a place like this!"

  "I was a fool," cried Gloria. "A pitiful little fool. Oh!"

  Had she been thinking less of Gloria and more of this other man withwhom she was now to cope she must have marked a certain swift change inhis attitude. It became less furtive, more assured. His eyes left her torove again, lingered with the two couches, and returned to her.

  "You found King wasn't your kind," he announced. "You have quarrelled!"

  "From the very beginning," she replied quickly. "He is unthinkable. Iwould have left him long ago, only ..."

  "Only there was no place to go," Gratton finished it for her. "And now,"he continued slowly, studying her, "you are willing to come with me."

  "Yes," she told him unhesitatingly.

  "But," he offered musingly, "you refused me once and turned to him."

  "Haven't I told you I was a fool? I didn't know then quite what menwere ... some men."

  She was not measuring every word now. She meant simply that she wasdetermined to have done with Mark King, holding bitterly that she hatedhim; that she would go to any one to be definitely through with King.Yet he had time to weigh her words and draw from each one his ownsignificance.

  His eyes followed her as she gathered up her few personal and intimatepossessions, comb, brush, little silken things of pale pink and blue. Afaint colour seeped into the usually colourless lips at which hisdead-white teeth were suddenly gnawing. When she saw the look in hiseyes, she stared at him wonderingly.

  "What is it?" she asked, her voice puzzled.

  "What is what?" Gratton laughed, but the look was still there. His eyesdid not laugh.

  "What makes you look like that? What are you thinking?"

  Now it was he who was vaguely puzzled. Then he shrugg
ed.

  "I was just thinking how superb you are," he replied, not entirelyuntruthfully. For his ulterior thought had been reared upon the vitalfact of her triumphant beauty.

  The compliment was too much like hundreds she had received in her lifeto alarm her. Rather, it pleased; what word of praise had she heardduring these latter days?

  His voice sounded queerly, as though his breath came with difficulty.Maybe it did, since he was no outdoors man, and to him the climb up therocks and the brief journey along the mountain flank was a painfullabour. Certain it was that the faint flush was still in the sallowcheeks. Suddenly he lifted his hands, putting them out toward her. Shesaw again the strange look in his eyes.

  "Gloria!" he said hoarsely, "you are wonderful! And you have come tome!"

  Gloria met his rather too ardent admiration with that cool little laughwhich had been her weapon in other days. She was not afraid of Gratton.To-day she had led and he had followed. She had commanded and he hadobeyed. Here was a pleasant change from King's masterfulness, and shefully intended to hold Gratton well in hand.

  "I came to you," she said frankly, "because I was a woman in distressand had no alternative. That there has ever been any unpleasantnessbetween us does not alter that fact. You understand me, don't you?"

  He hardly heard her. To his mind the situation was clearness itself.Gloria had come alone into the forest with Mark King. She had been withhim all these days and nights. But she and King had quarrelled; tired ofeach other already, perhaps. Gratton did not care what the reason was;he was gloatingly satisfied with the outcome. He had always coveted her;it took much to stir his pale blood, and only the superb beauty ofGloria Gaynor had ever fully done so. King had stolen her away, but shehad left him and had come straight to Gratton!

  He came a step closer and the firelight showed how the muscles of histhroat were working. Gloria's eyes widened. But not yet did she fullyunderstand and not yet did she fear.

  "Mr. Gratton," she began.

  "Gloria!" he cried out. "Gloria!"

  His hands, suddenly flung out, were upon her. She tore them away,wrenched herself free from him, and started back. As she did so herlittle silken bundle dropped at her feet. Gratton caught it up andburied his face in it. Now as he looked up at her his eyes and all thatshe could see of his face were stamped with that which lay in his heart.

  "Oh!" she cried, shrinking not so much from him as from the thing sheread so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do notmisinterpret ... my being here at all, my being with Mr. King...."

  "No," cried Gratton wildly. "I misinterpret nothing. You came alone withhim into the mountains. What chance is there for two interpretationsthere? You gave yourself to him; you saw your mistake; you hated him.You have come to me. I have always loved you; I want you."

  Her cheeks flamed red with hot anger. There was a flutter in her heart,a wild tremor in her blood. She drew back from him. He followed, hisarms out. She was amazed, for the moment shocked into consternation. Andyet she knew no such terror as had been hers when King had advanced onher, rope in hand. Her new contempt of Gratton was too high for that.Now she marked the small stature, little taller, little stronger, thanher own; the pale face, the narrow chest, the slender body.

  "You know what I mean, what I want," he was muttering. "That sweetyoung-thing innocence is all right in its place but that place is nothere alone in the mountains with a man."

  "Man!" she burst out scathingly. "You, _a man_! Why, you wretched littlebeast!"

  But Gratton, his brain reeling with hot fancy, came on.

  "You were afraid of King. You said that he made you do what he wanted.What about me? You are going to do what I tell you. I ...By God, I willmake you! Beast, you call me? No more beast than any other man. I havewanted you all these years. You have wanted me, or you would not havebeen so glad to see me. Only a few days ago you were ready to marry me!And now ..."

  His arms groped for her. Gloria swept up a dead pine limb that lay bythe fire and swung it in both hands and struck him full across the face.He reeled back and stood, half in the shadow, his shoulders to the rockwall, his hands to his face.

  "You beast!" she panted. "You cowardly, contemptible beast."

  From the way in which he brought his hand down and looked at it and laidit back upon his lips she knew that his mouth was bleeding. And she readin the gesture and in the man's whole cringing attitude that the dangerof any physical violence from him was past and done with. In the grip ofhis passion, ugly as it was, he had risen somewhat from his essentialweakness; in the moment he had at least thought of himself as aconqueror. Now he was again what he always really was at heart, acontemptible coward.

  An absolutely new sense of elation sang through Gloria's blood. She wasfully mistress of the situation, and had found within her an unguessedstrength. Physically superb at all times because nature had richlygifted her, now she was magnificent.

  "Mr. Gratton," she said swiftly, "you have made a mistake. Mr. King hasnever offered me violence of that sort. Remember that, though we arealone, and in the mountains, I am the same Gloria Gaynor that you haveknown. And be sure that you treat me as such."

  He nursed his battered lips and stared at her. The blow had dazed him.Slowly, as his mind cleared, there dawned in it the realization that he_had_ made a mistake. The stick was still in her hands; a shiver ranthrough him. His desire went out of him.

  "I wish to God I had never seen you," he groaned.

  She had meant from the first to take the upper hand. Now she was almostglad that this had happened. For now she was very sure of herself;Gratton had merely been bold like other young men who had sought topresume; he had been cruder simply because the situation seemed to hismind to offer the opportunity; now a blow from her had accomplished thework of a haughty look in drawing-room encounters with those other youngmen. She dropped the stick and wiped her hands.

  "We have other things to think of," she said. She might have been ayoung queen who had punished a subject and now from her exalted placecondescended to consider that the indignity offered her royal person hadnever occurred. She began dragging the blankets from her bed, tumblingthem to the floor. "Take these," she commanded.

  "I was a fool for ever leaving San Francisco," he muttered bitterly."You let me think that you cared for me, and now you treat me like adog. I spent time and money trying to be the one to find gold in theseinfernal mountains, and I find nothing but storm and starvation. I don'tbelieve there ever was gold here."

  _Gold!_ He stopped at his own words, his eyes flying wide open. Duringthese later hours, fleeing from Brodie's men, stumbling upon Gloria,swirled away by mad longings, he had not thought of gold. But here wasKing's camp; straight here had King come after Gloria had brought himher father's message and old Honeycutt's secret. Then the gold was here!The cupidity which in the man never slept long was awake on the instant.He began looking about him eagerly. King was gone? Then not for men tobring help to Gloria but to aid him in carrying off the gold. Havingbrought Gloria here so that she could not tell others what she knew, heleft her here with the same purpose; so Gratton would have done! Kingwould have hidden it here; at least some of it. He began questingfeverishly, shuffling about in the shadows while Gloria, busy with herplans for moving, wondered at him. He was striking matches, running backand forth; she could hear his mutterings. And presently, when Gloria hadcalled and he had not heard, he came upon the bag which King had meantto take out with him that day the horse was lost. He hovered over it; hestruck other matches, he came hastening back dragging it after him.

  He went down on his knees by the sack, got a heavy lump in his hands,rubbed at it, held it closer to the firelight, rubbed again moreexcitedly, and finally sat back, staring up at her with new flames ofanother sort leaping in his eyes.

  "It's next thing to solid gold!" he gasped. "There arethousands--thousands----Millions!"

  She looked at him and marvelled. In his shallow soul no emotion livedlong; greed of gold now obliterated the lit
tle ripples that anothergreed had fleetingly made. How had she thought well of him down in thecity? How had she so much as tolerated him? On the instant it struck herthat there was small justice in Gratton reaping any reward, having donenothing to earn it. "We have the things to move. Come; hurry."

  "Why should we move, after all?" he demanded sharply. "Now that I havegot up here, why not stay? There's wood here; everything is fixed upafter a fashion. King would know where to send for us, and--and thosecursed dogs of Brodie's would never think of looking up here, even ifchance did lead them along the gorge."

  Gloria, recalling King's warning, remembering Brodie's brute face, saidhastily:

  "Do you think there is any real danger that they will come this way?"

  "I hope not," he groaned. "They couldn't follow my trail if they triedto. You see, I left them last night, as early as I dared; I struck outin a straight line down the slope; then I made a turn off to the sideand along the ridge where there was but little snow. By now all thosetracks are wiped out, what with wind and new snow. There's nothing tolead them this way."

  "Then, if we go down quickly, if we get your bag of food and put out thefire down there, and come right back up, it won't be very long beforeour tracks will be gone. And we'll not budge from here until help comes.Come; let's hurry."

  "Coming," said Gratton. "Yes; we must hurry."

  She went ahead and began to clamber down the cliffs. Half-way down shewondered why he was not following. She found a place where she couldcling and look up. Thus she was just in time to see him, standing at themouth of the cave, clutching a heavy bag; he had been tying the mouth ofit. Now he cast it outward so that it fell, striking against thecliff-side, and then rolling and dropping to disappear at last in thesnow-bank below. And then he began, though hesitantly, to follow her.

  "That's one thing Mark King won't get," he announced with emphasis. Atlast he stood beside her in the snow. "No matter how the game breaks,whether he comes back or not, and no matter who gets away with the rest,that bagful is mine! There's a fortune in it, and it's mine." He begantossing double handfuls of loose snow into the hole which the bag ofgold had made. "When I get a chance," he muttered, "I'll move itsomewhere else."

  His avarice disgusted her. Just now the thought of gold sickened.

  "We are wasting time," she reminded him.

  He followed her again, casting a last look behind him, then looking upat the sky, grey everywhere except for a long patch of blue.

  "What we want is another three or four hours of steady snowing," he wassaying when they slipped into the mouth of the lower cave. "Enough tohide that and to cover up our paths."

  Gloria was already trying to put out the fire; if ill fortune shouldlead Brodie's crowd here, it would be just as well if they found nosmouldering sticks to tell them that the fugitives had been here soshort a time ago and could not be far off. She called to Gratton to helpher. He stamped out burning brands while she hastened back and forth,bringing handfuls of snow with which to extinguish the last glowingcoals. She worked vigorously and swiftly; he only half-heartedly, sincehis thoughts were elsewhere.

  "Maybe," he said thoughtfully, "I'd better bring that bag in here andhide it somewhere--far back in the dark."

  "No," she said. "Leave it where it is. We must hurry back to the othercave."

  But he grew stubborn over it. The storm might end at any time; the sunmight melt all this fluffy snow; the bag then would be for any one tosee. Heedless of her expostulations, he left her extinguishing the fireand went back for the gold. He was gone several minutes, digging afterit. She had finished her task when he reappeared, dragging the heavysack after him. He disappeared swiftly, going into the deeper dark ofthe further end of the cave; she heard him moving with shuffling feet.What a treacherous, thieving, petty animal he was----

  She started and whirled about. There was a new sound in the air, a lowmumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly,were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was toosoon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, andreturned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out the others; it was like alow-throated growl, ominous, sinister.

  Gloria whirled again, this time toward the dark into which Gratton hadgone. Blindly she hurried after him; she stumbled but kept on. She couldhear him at work, hiding his gold. At last she was at his side; sheclutched at his sleeve.

  "Listen!" she whispered. "They are outside. They have followed you!"

  She felt his arm stiffen as from head to foot he grew rigid. She heardhis breath whistling through his nostrils. She could hear the beating ofhis heart--or was it her own? The voices came nearer, rose higher.Gratton began to shake as with a terrible chill.

  "If they find me--oh, my God, if they find me--Benny killed a man hethought had the bacon--I had it all the time! My God, Gloria, if theyfind me----"

  "Sh!" she commanded. "Be still! Maybe they will go by----"

  The voices came nearer--passed on. Two or three men out there werespeaking at once; then all were silent. The silence lasted so long thatGloria began to breathe again. Surely, surely Brodie and his men hadgone----

  Then again came Brodie's deep, sinister voice:

  "Back this way, boys," he shouted. "He's gone in here. We've trapped thedirty white rat."

  Gloria and Gratton clung to each other, too terrified to move.