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Show Ji i ' i i I 1 ! Vlhf l B david i w ANDERSON j Blhuie Mooim j lA Tale of the Flat woods en,. V Bobbft-Merrill Company V ' I I V! CHAPTER IX. 12 Once to Every Man. For some distance clown tlie branch tin; 'oarlhunter followed the night prowler. Within sound of the waterfall water-fall lie followed him, and then turned hack toward the cabin of the three gables, lie had come Into the path unci was passing the pool when the light went out In the windows. He was sorry for that. lie hnd hoped to have speech with the girl. Tomorrow would be too late. Tomorrow the law would be. on his trail and a pair of eyes mure terrible than the law. Leaving the path, he stepped out upon the flat rock that Jutted from the hank Into the pool. Once he glanced at the cabin; then sprang to the hank and went on up the path. It was far the hardest thing he had ever tried to do in his life to go round to that east window. It was partly open. Ills breast was pounding; his ears humming. lie forced himself up to the window and brought his lips close to the snsh. "Wild Ilose!" ITe heard her start, and spring up In bed. Then nil was breathless still. "Wild Hose!" The bed creaked. He heard her soft feet moving about over the floor. A mullled shadow came toward the window a shadow and a whisper: "1'earlhunter !" He reached his hand Inside. A white nrm and slender fingers came out of the gloom and found his palm. The shadow on the outside and the shadow on the Inside, drew closer, the one searching what that word would be. The man swallowed hard. "I sold the Blue Moon to Louie Solomon today to-day five thousand dollars." He felt a thrill In the girl's fingers. "This afternoon Louie Solomon was murdered, and the pearl stolen." , She shuddered, took her hand out of his and fumbled the loose garment about her shoulders, but made no an swer. Her miud was unconsciously prepared for terrible things. "They accused me of the crime!" The girl gasped. Her hands fluttered flut-tered lovnrd her throat. "You !" "Me," he answered, strained and slow. "I've come to tell you, myself, because because you trusted me. The mob had the rope around my throat. Cut the sheriff got me away, and put me in jail. I broke out, and came to tell you. I couldn't bear for you to think " She stood perfectly still Inside the window. He mistook her silence. He laid his hand on the window ledge and tried to drive his eyes through the gloom to her face. "Please believe me !" he pleaded. He couldn't have pleaded harder had he faced judge and jury, instead of merely mere-ly a ragged girl of the Flatwoods. "I didn't kill Louie Solom.on. I didn't take the Rlue Moon " The white arms reached out toward him. "No ! No ! I do believe you !" Her face had come close to the window. win-dow. He could see her eyes like star spots In the dark big with startle-ment, startle-ment, for they had caught sight of his tattered blouse; the dried blood on him, and clotted in his hair. With a cry. her hands went to his face. "Why. your head is bleeding! And your face !" "Scratches! Nothing but scratches !" he hastily reassured in tones that caution cau-tion held low; pained at her distress; pleased, too; his eyes alight. "But this one on your head ! It's a cut deep and still bleeding." Her voice was steadier. "You must let me bind up this one." He glanced toward Fallen Rock. "We da'sn't risk a light," he said. "For your sake we da'sn't. The night has eyes. And they'll comb these woods tomorrow." She shrank hack into the room. He drew half a step nearer, laid his arm on the ledge and stood fumbling the casement, lost in thought. "And yet I've that to do that must have light," he mused, more to himself him-self than to her, raising his head after a time and glancing toward the dim outline inside the window. "Is there a blind on your window that would tide a candle?" "Why yes " she answered, puzzled puz-zled and slow. It was a long time before he spoke again. Had the light served, she might have seen In his eyes the struggle he was going through. He rubbed his drawn lips together to loosen them. "Will you trust me In your room?" The girt started. Her hands clutched each other. She knew it was not to have his wounds dressed that he asked. Short as her acquaintance with him had been, she knew It was not that. It was no light reason that had driven him to ask such a privilege. privi-lege. It gripped her. shook her, hut strangely enough did not frighten her. "i'U trust you." Not often in a man's life does he bear such gracious words. Nature Is not lavish of such gifts. The shoulders shoul-ders of the rearllnmter lifted. The droop left his head. "May I come now? The night is go-log. go-log. The moon will be up in another two Uuurs " "Yes I" She stood farther back in the gloom, lie slipped lightly In over the sill. "Please draw the blind before you light the candle," he directed. He saw her arm reach up along the casement. The blind came down, within touching distance of each other they stood in pitch darkness: a man and a woman alone wrapped in the silent secrecy of the deep woods. lie heard her quick breath. His heart beat up into his throat. Her garments gar-ments brushed against him. He heard her slippered feet feeling their way across the floor. There came the guarded scrape of a match. A sputtering, tardy flame was laid to the wick of a candle on a small stand In the corner under a mirror. mir-ror. The wick caught; smoldered; "Forgive Me That I Come Before You Like This." flared to full strength. The wonder of her hair and throat and arms sprang out of the night. She laid the burnt match upon the candlestick and turned. A gasp broke from her at the sight of him tattered, .hatless; bruised and bloody. "Forgive me that I come before yon like this," he stammered. An impulsive step brought her to his side. "Forgive me !" she repeated, her voice still a-quiver; her face pity-tendered. "You must let me dress your hurts." He shaded the candle with his body while she raised the curtain over the door and slipped out to the kitchen. She was back before he could have believed it, carrying a basin of cold water and some strips of muslin, all of which she had managed to get together to-gether in the deep dark. Drawing a chair near the candle, she made him sit down a quite obvious obvi-ous necessity, if she was to reach his head. But she didn't stop with washing wash-ing the clots out of his hair and binding bind-ing up the scalp wound. The cuts and bruises on his face and chest came in for their share. When her ministrations ministra-tions were over he was another man. All unsuspecting, the girl did other things for him that night besides washing his wounds. Nothing can so refine a man as the ministry of a good woman's hands. It tver leaves him quite as it found him. He can never again be quite the same. His life out he will be a grain the finer for It. So great is the grace of nature that no man is denied thi touch. Once to every man it comes to recreate ; to make him new; to call him up to his higher self. It came that night to the Pearlhunter, The girl seemed to lose all fear of him ; to forget that he was in her bedroom bed-room in the secret night: She even smiled a contented smile of satisfaction satisfac-tion as he rose and stretched himself. He fumbled in his tattered blouse and drew forth the draft. "Have you a pen and ink?" he asked, his voice, his manner, again the voice and manner of the alert, keen woodsman. woods-man. Wondering, she opened the drawer of the small stand under the mirror and placed pen and ink before him. He picked up the pen, awkwardly a fish spear, an oar. or a six-gun fitted his hand better dipped it in the ink ; laid the draft upon the stand ; squared himself; and after no small pains succeeded suc-ceeded in writing the word "Pearlhunter" "Pearlhunt-er" across the back. It w-as quite evidently evi-dently a relief when the unaccustomed task was over. He laid the pen down as if glad to be quit of it and handed the draft to the girl. "It means that I have five thousand dollars in the bank." he said, "and anybody any-body that takes this draft there with tny" he hesitated "name across the back can get the money. The hMi!;cr sahl so." Her face showed how little she gu'Vsed what Lis words were leading up to. It was some time before he went on. "I'm askin' you to keep it." he said. "And if anything should happen to me. I'm askiu' you to keep the money, mon-ey, too." The girl caught his tattered sleeve. "No : No !" she said. "Don't say that !" He looked down at the hand on his sleeve; picked it up; held it an instant in-stant ; suffered her to take it away. "I know who killed Louie Solomon," he said slowly. "I know who has the Blue Moon absolute knowledge, but no proof. He'll be on my trail tomorrow tomor-row ; and his eyes are the most dangerous danger-ous eyes in the Flatwoods. He'd ask nothing better than a chance to kill me. And I am any man's game now." It is marvelous how a woman's Intuition In-tuition will drive at the very heart of a matter that puzzles men. She saw at a flash what had escaped the wits of the whole village. "You mean the the timber buyer,"' she said. "I mean the timber buyer," he answered, an-swered, with a quick look at her. "His eyes see everything. You must destroy these bloody rags, and you must rake the yard in the morning. Rake the east yard first, and then the west. I'm not aiming to leave any tracks, but it's so dark I can't make sure." He was talking rapidly. "I'm not expectin' to leave the Flatwoods, and you, unless un-less they crowd me hard ; not till I've run him down and found my proof.' But the odds are against me. If anything any-thing should happen, I want you to have this money. And the minute you hear they've got me, you must go straight to the sheriff. Don't risk the woods another hour. Put yourself under un-der his protection, and tell him why; have the money transferred to you; and send for that surgeon." The tears beat their way up Into the girl's eyes in spite of her, and ran down her cheeks. Her head bent low. It was the one thing he knew not how to face. His hard life hadn't taught him that. The tears hurt him. What had caused them? Maybe It was just a woman's way. Maybe he had done wrong to come to her with his cuts and blood and danger. She raised her face after a time. He drew a long breath ; dropped his hand to, his side; stared in astonishment. She was smiling smiling through the tears and the dimples were back. The ways of woman utterly beyond him. and past finding out ! She smoothed the draft out in her hands and was looking at him over it. "I wonder if I ought to take it." she mused to herself, as much as to him. He took the paper out of her hands, folded it and with a masterful air thrust it under a fold of the loose garment gar-ment across her bosom. "I haven't a soul in the world to leave it to but you." His slow eyes left her face and stared hard at the basin of red water. Stepping over to the stand, he stooped and snuffed the candle. The huge shadow of him filled the room. Turning Turn-ing away, after he had the candle again at full flame, his eyes came back to the thoughtful face of his companion. compan-ion. "That revolver. I saw yesterday on the mantel is it loaded?" "I think so." She looked up in curious half surprise, sur-prise, as if tlie question had brought er thoughts back from afar. "May I see it?" "Why yes " He shaded the candle again while she lifted the curtain over the door; paused a moment to listen to the heavy breathing of the sleeper in the west room ; crossed to the mantel over the fireplace and brought him the revolver. re-volver. Several minutes the man spared to its Inspection : testing the action of the hammer, cylinder revolution and trigger pull ; replacing the somewhat corroded caps on the tubes with new anes ; even packing fresh grains of powder into the tubes where he thought necessary. "Do you know how It use it?" he asked, looking up from his inspection: "I've shot lots of squirrels with it, sometimes clear in the treetops," she answered. "And once I killed a hawk that pestered the chickens." A grin puckered his eyes for a moment, mo-ment, then his brows lowered. Another An-other question, a hard one, had to be asked, that set him raking over his slim stock of words for ways to ask it. "Do girls I mean h.fve you got any place about you your dress to carry car-ry it?" She was looking at him, her eyes frank and wide eyes that had no need to narrow. "I haven't," she answ ered ; "but I can make one." "I advise you to." He laid the revolver on the stand and turned back to her. The time had come to go. and they both knew it. For a while they stood silent. Once his hand reached toward her, but he drew it back. "Will you be ready to raise the blind when I blow out the candle?" he said at last. She went to the window and the next moment the mom was in dark- Tan llu'tei-ing spots of white in the ghiom rolled up the blind, found the strings that held It and whipped them into a knot. Then the girl stepped back. The man crawled through the window with extreme care not to scar the ground outside. It is past all knowing how her hands happened to get into his. lie bent his head and laid his face upon them; suffered them to slip out of his fingers at last ; and turned away. He was gone on the Instant gone as a shadow goes never knowing that for long and long the dull window framed a white face listening for some sound of him to come back out of the night. The woodcraft of the Pearlhunter was profound. It was about all life had taught him, but It had taught him that. With the logical precision of a schoolmaster passing from one step of a problem to another, it led him straight to the trail of the man he had been following a short time before which, of course, took him in the direction di-rection of Fallen Rock. The man he followed had doubtless gone back to the village by this time. This prob-1 ability he had already estimated and set down in his reckoning at its proper value. But he had another purpose pur-pose in turning his steps toward Fallen Fall-en Rock. He was deliberately going back to the cabin. With every caution to leave no trail, he picked his way through the woods to the edge of the bluffs, stole over and down toward the cabin. The first glance at the black bulk of it. squatted squat-ted in the deep gloom under the upstanding up-standing rocks, brought him to instant in-stant pause. There was aiight within. with-in. He crouched down In the bushes to consider what this unexpected circumstance cir-cumstance meant before venturing another an-other step. No sound came from the cabin. The night was Intensely still. Not an oar stirred the river. The waterfall alone fretted the silence. The Pearlhunter flattened himself in the weeds and bushes and foot by foot worked his way until he was able at last to bring his face level with the tiny opening. With his eye close, the chink afforded a tolerably clear view of the interior of the cabin. He barely restrained a cry at what he saw. Stooped over the small, hair-covered trunk, his hat off, stood the Red Mask. He had pried open the lid and had laid the contents of the trunk out with seeming care in rather neat heaps upon the floor. In his hand he held ;he picture of the Iron-Gray-Woman. The PearUiunter's gorge rose at seeing see-ing his mother's picture in such hands, and his breast burned to dash Into the cabin and settle his score with the sacrilegious wretch once and for all. But it was not his to do as he pleased that night. His activities for the moment mo-ment were limited to keeping his eye fast to the chink. The man by the trunk straightened, carried the picture to the candle and stood looking long upon it. He laid it to his lips, again and again, as if he would drink up the beautiful face from the card. He pressed the picture to his bosom ; held it again to the chndle and whispered to it in tones that did not carry to the ear of the amazed listener. He strode up and down the room;. and there was on his face a look that no man had probably ever seen there before, and probably would never see again. After long moments he roused himself, him-self, unbuttoned his vest, and put the picture carefully away in an inner pocket. The watcher outside the wall winced ; his lips drew together in a tense line. But there was much to be seen just then. The man inside had risen, crossed the floor, put the things back in the trunk, closed the lid and picked up his hat. Next moment the ! Stood Looking Long Upon It. candle was blown out. The Pearlhunter Pearlhunt-er barely had time to creep into the fringe of weeds when the cabin door opened and softly closed. With a brisk step that indicated he had flung off the spell of the past, the notorious renegade walked around the west end of the cabin, past the spring, and straight to the tiny pool under the waterfall, where the Peaiihunter. who bad stolen along the north wall of the cabin had his second astounding surprise sur-prise since coming down the bluff. . (TO BE CONTINUED.) |