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Show The Trey O' Hearts A Noveliied Vormion of ths Motion Picture Drama of K : w Produced by the Univ.rl FiloTco? ' Nam By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE 1 AUt"TU FoHun. HunUr," "TU BrauBowt,""TU Black Bo," He PlatrtJ with PI.otogr.phl from the flctm Pr0(Illclj0, Copyright, 1944. by Leal. JowpaVancl SYNOPSIS. The 1 of Hearts la the "death-slpn" employed em-ployed y Seneca Trine in the private war of vengeance which, through the agency of his daughter Judith, he wines nualnst Alan Law, son of the man, now dead, who was Innocently responsible for the accident acci-dent which rendered Trine a helpless crlp- Jle. Alan loves and is loved by Rose, udlth's twin and double. Judith vows to compass ids death, but under dramatic circumstances Alan saves her life and so, unwllllncly, wins her love. Thereafter Judith is by turns animated by the new love, the old hatred, and Jealousy of her ilster. In escaping her persecution, Alan and Rose and their friend Barcus take refuge in the Painted Hllla a ransre of arid mountains bordering the Arizona deserts. Judith, while pursuing, suffers a change of heart and warns them in time to avert an attempt upon their lives. In return for this she is seized by an outlaw accomplice and bound helpless to the back of a horse. Alan shoots the accomplice accom-plice and the horse runs away, following ft ptitott mountain trail. CHAPTER XL. The Man In the Shadow. Two hundred feet, If one, HopI Jim fell from the lip of the cliff. Then suddenly, sud-denly, the thing that had been Hopi Jim Slade was checked in its headlong descent by the outstanding trunk of a tree, over which it remained, doubled up, limp, horrible . . . The miniature landslide that had been caused by his fall went on, settling gradually as the slope became be-came less sheer. Only part of it, a double handful of pebbles, gained the bottom of the canyon. Its muffled impact on the ground round his feet roused the man who bad compassed the bandit's death from the pose he had unconsciously assumed as-sumed on the instant of firing. He stepped back, and snatched up ft case containing binoculars. Not before the glasses were adjusted to his vision did he find time to respond re-spond absently to the alarmed and insistent in-sistent inquiries of his two companions, compan-ions, a man of his own age and a girl of some years less, who had been wakened from their sleep by the report re-port of the rifle. Now the latter plucked his sleeve, momentarily deflecting the glasses from the object which they were following fol-lowing so sedulously as it moved along the heights; a wildly running horse with a woman bound helpless upon its back, both sharply in silhouette sil-houette against the burning blue. "AlanT' the girl demanded, "what Is it? Why did you fire? Why won't Xou answer me? What is it?" "Judith," Alan replied tersely, again Dieting up with the glasses the run-sway run-sway horse that fled so madly along tie perilous and narrow track of the tail trail. The name was echoed from two Ihroats as Alan swung sharply and thrust the glasses into the hand3 of the girl. "jHdith," he affirmed with a look of poignant solicitude. "She's roped to the back of that crazy broncho helpless! help-less! See for yourself; one falsa step suppose a stone turns beneath its hoof she'll be killed!" While the girl focused her glasses upon that speck that flew against the Iky Alan turned to the two horses 1 f Moistened nil Parcned Lips and Throat. hobbled near ty and seizing a saddle torew it over the back of one. At this the other man turned to his Ide and dropping a detaining hand spon his arm itsked: "What are jou going to do?" Alan shook the hand off and went n with his sfilf-appointed task. "Go after Mir, Tom, of course," he "Plied. "Whtvt else? That animal is tazy, I tell yCJu " "Even so," Tom Barcus argued, "you un"t climb that hillside on horseback nd if you could, you'd be too late to atch up, mu"!h less prevent an ac-ldent ac-ldent " "I know It. But suppose it doesn't 'all . . . You know what's beyond these hills rUserts! And the girl is helpless, I tell you, bound hand and 'oot. Think of her being carried that way all day, perhaps face up to this brutal sun! She'll go mad if something some-thing isn't done " "You've gone mad yourself already," r. Barcus contended darkly. "What's t to you if she does? Suppose you do ucceed In rescuing her: what then? V 8on aj 8ho jet on her pinfl ftWU try to st.ck a knife into you like as not. What's she been chasing you for all over this land of the brave and home of the free, but to take your fool life. And now you want to sacrifice yourself to her, out of sheer, downright down-right foolishness in the head! I suppose sup-pose you'll like me to call it chivalry: I'll tell you what I call It lunacy!" "Don't be an ase!" Alan responded temperately, gathering the reins together to-gether and Instinctively lifting a foot to the stirrup. "Who warned us yesterday yes-terday in time to prevent our being crushed by that rock? Judith! Why was she separated from Marrophat and the others alone up there when that beast sneaked up behind her O, I saw him I saw it all and grabbed her and roped her to that bronco if it wasn't because she had broken with them for good and all and started to fight on our side?" "You're raving," Barcus commented in a hopeless tone. He looked to the girl. "Rose Miss Trine reason with this madman " Dropping the glasses, the girl came swiftly and confidently to her lover's side, lifting her lips to his. "Go, sweetheart!" she told him. "Save her if you can!" "Did you dream for an instant Rose would see her own sister carried to her death if anything could be done to avert it no matter what we may have suffered at Judith's hands?" With an indignant grunt, but considerate con-siderate none the less, Mr. Barcus caught up the glasses and turned his back. . . . "Go on!" he grumbled, pretending to ignore the tnd Alan offered him from the saddle. "I've got no patience with you ... But go!" he insisted, of a sudden seizing the hand and pressing it fervently. "And God go with you, my friend!" Then hoofbeats drumming on the hard-packed earth of the canyon trail struck a hundred echoes from its rugged, rocky walls. Mr. Barcus showed Rose Trine a face almost ludicrous with its anguished an-guished smile that was Intended to seem reassuring. "Let's look sharp and followhlm as 'quick as may be," he urged. "Lightning "Light-ning will never strike us so long a3 we stick to Mr. Law of the charmed life but I don't mind telling you, once out of his company, I'm just naturally afraid of the dark!" CHAPTER XLI. The Trail of Flying Hoof-Prlnt. In the still air of that young day the chill of - night . lingered stubbornly and would until the shadow of the eastern rampart . had crept slowly down the canyon's western wall, telescoped tele-scoped upon itself and vanished, letting let-ting in the sun to make the place a pit of torment and of burning. Refreshed from rest and exhilarated by this grateful coolness, his horse responded willingly to the first light touch of Alan's spur. In a twinkling the overnight camp dropped from view behind the rounded shoulder of a hill side, mesquite-cloaked. Then from its first spirited flight the horse settled down to steady going, go-ing, lengthened its stride, and ran for leagues with the long, apparently effortless ef-fortless and tireless lope of the plains-bred plains-bred broncho, ventre-a-terre. Alan's departure from camp had anticipated an-ticipated by a round quarter-hour the appearance on the upper trail of friends of the slain bandit, to the number of four or five, who had both discovered and recovered his body, called his death murder and pledged themselves to its avengement laying responsibility for the putative crime at the door of the man and woman to be seen in the canyon, immediately below the scene of Hopi Jim's fall. Between the moment when discovery discov-ery of the men on the ridge trail interrupted in-terrupted their simple and hurried breakfast and that which found Rose and Barcus mounted on the back of their own horse and making the best of their way down the canyon in pursuit pur-suit of Alan, but little time had elapsed. And even with its double burden, their horse made better time upon the broad lower level than those who followed the ridge trail. By mid morning morn-ing when they approached the foothill's foot-hill's that ran down to the desert, the pursuit was more than a mile in the rear and shut off to boot by a monolithic mono-lithic hill, while Alan was many a wearv mile in advance. He' sat upon his horse, just then, at standstill upon the summit of a rounded round-ed knoll, the Painted hills lifting up behind him, the desert before unfolding unfold-ing like a map but like a map all blurred. , Was Judith out there, somewhere, lost defenseless, forlorn, impotent to lift 'a hand to shield her face from the blast of that savage sun? No rest for ATan till he knew . . . Descending the knoll he reined his lagging mount back into the trail, folding fol-ding its winding course through the Sills and round, the base of that monolithic mountain toward the juno-on juno-on with the ridge trail, mi es way. " It approached the hour of noon be-fore be-fore he sied the polat where tte. two trails joined and struck out across the desert. And here he discovered what he thought indisputable indication indica-tion that the fright of Judith's horse had persisted. Abandoning immediately all notion of returning through the hills by the ridge-trail, he turned and swung away at the best pace he could spur from his broncho, delivering himself into the pitiless .'embrace of Hjfet implacable implaca-ble wilderness of sun and Band. At long intervals he would check the broncho and, reeling in his Baddle, endeavor to sweep the desert with his binoculars. And toward the middle of the afternoon after-noon he fancied that something rewarded, re-warded, one such effort; something for an instant swam athwart the field of the glasses: something that seemed to move like a weary horse with a human figure bound to its back. But now the phenomena were discernible dis-cernible which, had he been more desert des-ert wise, would have made him pause and think before he ventured farther from those hills, already beyond reach as they were. His first appreciated warning came when the surface of the desert seemed to lift and shake like the top of a canvas tent in a gale. At the same -r 'fete- i illMllS "Rose Miss Trine Reason With the Madman " time a mighty gust of wind swept athwart the waste, hot as a furnace-. furnace-. blast. In a trice dust enveloped man and horse, a stifling cloud of superheated super-heated partiWes that stung the flesh like a myriad needles. And then darkness dark-ness fell, the twilight of hades, a copper-colored pall. Nothing remained visible beyond arm's length. Blinded, half suffocated, unspeakably unspeak-ably dismayed and bewildered, the broncho swung round, back to the blast, and refused to budge another inch. Himself more than half-dazed, but still hounded by his nightmare vision of Judith, Alan dismounted to escape being torn bodily from tthe saddle by that hellish sand-blast,, and seizing the bridle sought to draw the horse on with him. He wasted his strength in that endeavor: en-deavor: the animal balked, planted Its hoofs deep in the sand, stiffened its legs and resisted with the stubbornness stub-bornness of a rock; then, of a suddeo, jerked his head smartly, snapped the DriQie irum ui giasp auu anuj, scudding before the storm. Pursuit was out of the question: indeed, the bridle was barely torn from his hand before Alan lost sight of the broncho. For a moment he stood rooted in consternation as in a bog with an arm upthrown across his face. Then the thought of Judith recurred. re-curred. . . . Head bended and shoulders rounded, he began to forge a way into the teeth of the sandstorm. How long he fought on, pitting his strength against the elements, cannot be reckoned. In the end he stumbled blindly down a slight decline and was abruptly conscious that he had in some way found shelter from the full force of the wind. . 1 He staggered on another yard or two, breathing more freely, and blundered blun-dered into a rough-ribbed wall of rock some sporadic outcrop, he understood, under-stood, whose bulk stood between him and the storm. He thought to rest for a time, until the storm had spent Its greatest strength; but as he laid his shoulder gratefully against the rock and scrubbed the dust from his smarting eyes he saw what he at first conceived to be t hallucination: Judith Trine standing within a yar('. r.i him, alive, strong, free. He stared incredulously, saw her recognize him, open her mouth to utter a wondering cry that was Inaudible, Inaudi-ble, and come quickly nearer. "Alan! You came for me! You followed fol-lowed me. through all this!" He threw off her hand with a bitter laugh that was like the croaking of a raven as it issued from his bone-dry tnroatand In momentary possession of hysteric madness, reeled away from tho woman and the shelter of the rock and delivered himself anew to the mercy of the dust-storm. CHAPTER XLII. Open Mutiny. Though she had been schooled to hold the very name of Lw in loathing un speakable and to think of Alan as a mortal enemy and as one whose death alone could properly requite thfe Ci"uel injury that had been done her father; and though the man himself had laughed to scorn her first involuntary confession of that love for him which now consumed her being with its insatiable in-satiable fires, she swallowed her chagrin and followed him with the solicitude of one whose love can recognize recog-nize no wrong in its object. Through all the remainder of that day of terror she was never far from his side. -. With the meekness of the strong, she made herself his shadow. And she was now the stronger, for she had had more than an hour's rest beside the waterhole, which he had missed on the way of that rocky windbreak. Sooner or later his strength must fail him and he would need her; till then she was content to bide her hour. It befell presently in startling fash-Ion; fash-Ion; she was not a yard behind him when he vanished abruptly. But the next moment Judith herself was trembling on the crumbling brink of an arroyo of depth and width indeterminable in-determinable in the obscurity of the duststorm. Down this, evidently, Alan had fallen in his dizzy blindness. She found him insensible, lying with an arm bent under him in a pose frightfully suggestive of dislocation. Yet when she turned him on his back and released the arm, he made no sign to indicate that the movement had caused him the slightest pain. There was a slight cut upon his brow, a bruise about his left temple. She tore linen from her bosom, beneath be-neath her coarse flannel shirt, and with sparing aid from the canteen, washed the cut clean and bandaged it. Then, seeing that the storm held with fury unabated, she rose, recon-noitered recon-noitered and returned to exert all her strength and drag the unconscious man across the dry bed of that ancient water-course and under the lee of its farther bank. There, sitting, she pillowed his head upon her lap, and bending over him made her body an additional shelter shel-ter to him from the swirling clouds of dust. And for hours on end Judith nursed him there, scarce daring to move save to minister to his needs, bathing v,;., v, i . . parched lips and throat. In the course of the first hour she was once startled by the spectral vision vis-ion through the driving sheets of dust of a horse that plodded up the arroyo, bearing two riders on its back. Weary with the weight of its double burden, it went slowly and passed so near to Judith that she was able to recognize the features of her sister and Tom Barcus. Be sure she made never a sign to catch their attention. Within the next succeeding hour the coppery light lost something of its hot brillance, took on a darker shade, and then one darker still. Twilight Twi-light stole athwart the desert, turning its heat to chill, its light to violet. Growing more intense, the cold eventually roused the sleeping man. And hardly had his eyes unclosed and looked up into the eyes of Judith bending over him than he started up and out of her embrace, got unsteadily unstead-ily upon his feet and after a moment of pause, watching her rise in turn, strode away or, rather, staggered with the gesture ul exorcism. Uncomplaining, hugging her newborn new-born humility to her with the ecstasy of the anchorite his horse-hair shirt, Judith followed him patiently, at a little distance. Not far from where he had rested there was a break in the overhanging wall of the arroyo. Through this he scrambled painfully, reaching the level of the desert only after cruel effort, the unheeded woman at his heels. A brief pause there afforded both time to regain their breath and survey the desert for signs of assistance: it offered none, other than what they might accomplish through their own exertions. For leagues in any quarter it stretched without a break other thr.n the black cleft of the arroyo, gleaming a bleached and deathly white in the moonshine like the face of a frozen world. With tacit consent both turned that way, Alan leading, Judith his pertinacious pertina-cious shadow, with never a word or sign between them to prove that either was aware of the other's company. Bnt this was a state of affairs that could not long endure. Judith had the price to pay for her own trials, suffering suf-fering and privation: the strain began to tell sorely upon her. She reeled slightly as she walked, weaving a winding trail across and across the straighter line of footprints that marked Alan's course through the ordered or-dered pattern of the powdered sagebrush. sage-brush. And of a sudden she collapsed. Instinct alone made Alan glance over-shoulder: for she had made no sound whatever. Js He turned and came directly back to her, knelt beside her, lifted her head, pillowed It gently on his arm and plied her In turn with the dregs of the canteen. With a sigh, a Btlfled moan and a -little shiver, she revived. He helped her gently to regain her feet, passed an arm round her. In this fashion they struggled on In strange, dumb companlonsftlp of misery mis-ery and wonder. Thus an hour passed; and for all their desperate struggles neither could see that the light on the mountainside was a yard the nearer. Behind them other lights appeared, two staring yellow eyes that peered up over The horizon, seemed to pause a time in search of the two, then leaped out directly toward them. Of this they were altogether Ignor ant; and when a deep, droning sound disturbed the desert silence. Ilka the purring of some gigantic cat, both ascribed as-cribed it to the drumming of their laboring pulses. The two lights were not a mile behind be-hind them when, silently, without a sign to warn the girl, Alan released her, took a step apart and dropped as if shot. Instantly she was kneeling by Mb side. But in the act of bending over him Bhe drew back and remained for several moments motionless, staring at those twin glaring eyes, sweeping down upon them with all the speed attainable by a six-cylinder touring car negotiating a trackless desert When Judith did move it was not to comfort Alan. On the contrary, her first act was to draw from her pocket a heavy, blunt-nosed revolver, break it at the breech and blow its barrel clear of dust. Her hand went next to the holster on Alan's hip. From this she extracted his Colt's .45, treating treat-ing it as she had the other. Then she crouched low above the man she loved, as if thinking perhaps to escape notice from the occupants of the motorcar. If that were her thought, it was bred of an idle hope. Alan had chosen to fall in the middle of a wide space so arid that not even sagebrush had ventured ven-tured to take root there. When the glare of the headlights fell upon them it was Inevitable that discovery should follow. The motor car stopped within twenty feet. Three men Jumped out and ran toward the pair, leaving two In the car the chauffeur and on who occupied a corner of the rear seat: an aged man with the face of a damned soul, doomed for a little time to live upon this earth in the certain knowl edge of his damnation. As this happened, Judith Trine leaped to her feet and stood over the body of Alan, a revolver poised in either hand. "Halt!" she ordered imperatively. "Hands up!" The three who had alighted obeyed without a moment's hesitation; her father's creatures, they knew the daughter's temper far too well to dream of opposing her will. In the six hands that were silhouetted sil-houetted against the headlights' radiance, radi-ance, three revolvers glimmered; but at her command all three dropped harmlpfislv to the earth. Then, sharply, "Stand back two paces!" she required. They humored her unanimously. Darting forward, she picked up and pocketed the three weapons, then with one of her own singled out the men she named. "Now, Marrophat and you, Hicks pick Mr. Law up and carry him Into the car. And treat him gently, mind! If one of you lifts a linger to harm him, that one shall answer to me." Still none ventured to dispute her. The two men designated, without a sign of disinclination, stepped forward. One lifted Alan Law by the shoulders; the other took the legs. Between them they bore him with every care toward the motor car. But now a second will manifested itself. The man in the rear seat lifted up a wirdly sonorous voice: "Stot!" he cried. "Stop this nonsense! non-sense! Drop that man! Judith, I command you -" "Be silent!" the girl cut In sharply. "I command here If it's necessary to tell you." There was a pause of astonishment. Then the old man broke out in exasperation exas-peration that threatened to wax Into fury: "Judith! What do you mean by this? Has it indeed come to this that my own daughter defies me to my face?" "Apparently!" she shot back, with a short laugh. "Judge for yourself!" "Have you forgotten your vow to me?" "No. But I take it back and cancel it: that Is my privilege, I believe. . . . Silence!" she stormed as he Btrove to gainsay her. "Silence do you hear? or it will be the worse for you ! " As well command the sea to still Its voice: her father raged like a madman mad-man that he was, for the time being divested of his habitual maBk of frigid heartleBsness. And seeing that there was no other way of quieting him, the girl turned to the third man. "Now Jimmy!" she Bald crisply. "Into that car and be quick about It and gag him!" "if you do," her fattier foamed, "II have your life " A flourish of her weapons gained instant obedience. She stepped up on the running board and shot a quick, searching glance at the face of ;he chauffeur. "Straight ahead, my man!" she said. 'Make for the nearest pass through those hills yonder, and don't delay unless you are anxious for trouble. Off you go!" The car began to move. She swept the three men in the desert a mocking bow. Jumped Into the body of the ca and slammed the door. They made no effort to plead thelt cause and secure passage even as fa? as the edge of the desert; doubtlesi they knew too well the futility of that, she thought, as she settled back in seat, chuckling with the memory of those three masks of dismay unmitl gated. It was not until five minutes laten when she straightened up from making Alan comforfable that she realized what had made them so content te abide by her will. Then she heard their voices lifted together in a long, shrill howl that was quickly answered by fainter yells from a distant quarter of the desert, then by pistols popping and flashing som two miles away, then by a growing rumble of galloping hoofs. The night glassfa in the car afforded her flashes of a body of several horsemen horse-men some six or seven, she judged making at top speed toward the spol where Marrophat, Hicks and Jimmy waited beside a beacon which they had built and lighted. Half a dozen sentences exchanged with the chauffeur advised her thai these were horsemen from the town of Mesa who had charged themselves with the duty of avenging the death of Hopi Jim Slade. A sardonic chuckle from within Trine's gag goaded the girl into a sul len fury. Exacting his utmost speed from ths chauffeur, undSr penalty cf her displeasure, dis-pleasure, she set herself to reviva Alan. With the aid of such stores of food and drink as the car carried, this wui quickly enough accomplished. Strangling with an overdose ol brandy too little diluted with water, Alan sat up, grasped the conditions in a flash, and gained further informa. tion as he devoured sandwiches and emptied a canteen. The mountain pass was now, he judged, a mile distant. The light on the hillside, according to the chauffeur, chauf-feur, was that of a prospector who had camped there temporarily. Thera was nothing, then, to be feared from that quarter, but solely from the real where the horsemen, having picked up Marrophat and his companions, had Instituted hot pursuit, and wers now strung out In a long, straggling line, three horses carrying double ths farthermost perhaps a mile and s half away one with a single rldei the nearest, well within three-quar faro rf a mfla Nobly mounted, this last came ot like the wind, gaining on. the motol car with every stride; for his hors was trained to such going, whereat the car at beBt could only labor hear lly In dust and sand. None the less, it had won o a point within a quarter of a mile from ths pass before the horseman got within what he esteemed the proper range, anl opened Are. He fired thrice. His first shot winged wide, his second by 111-chance ripped through a rear tire of the car, thui placing upon It an additional handt cap, while his third sought the zenith as his hands flew up and he dropped fmm tho nnrirllp drilled throueh thi body by Alan's only shot. A long-range pistol duel was In progress before the car had covered half the remaining distance to thi pass. By the time it entered this last, which proved to be a narrow ravlm with towering side of crumbly earth and shale and broken rock, the pup suit was not a hundred yards behind, while the firing was well-nigh contln. uous. Two hundred feet above the trail two men were working with desperati haate at some mysterious business though note noticed them. Only the chauffeur was aware of a woman running down the hillside al an angle, to Intercept the car several hundred yards from the mouth of tha pass. Ab it drew near the spot where sha paused, waving both hands frantically, the head of the pursuing party swept into the mouth of the ravine. At the same time the chauffeur noticed no-ticed that the two men on the hillside were following the woman pellmell, throwing themselves down the slope with gigantic leaps and bounds. And then a great explosion rent the peaceful hush of night that till then had been profaned by the pattering cracks of the revolver fusillade. As the roar of dynamite subsided, the entire side of the hill shifted and slid ponderously down, choking the ravine with debris to the depth of some thirty or forty feet, burying the leaders of the pursuit beyond rescue. Only a Instant later the motor car Jolted to a halt and Alan pulled himself him-self together to find that Rose and Barcus were standing beside the door and Jabbering joyful greetings, mixed with more or less incoherent explanations explana-tions of the manner In which they had come to seek Bhelter for the night in the prospector's Bhack and, roused by the noise of firing and recognizing ' Alan in the car by the aid of spyglasses, spy-glasses, had with the prospector's aid hit upon this Bcheme of shooting a landslide in between the pursuit aa4 Its devoted quarry. (TO CONTIXUUXl |
