The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 19

"Yes, please, if Mr. Smythe will only keep still. I know I can never hit anything if he talks."

"I'm mum!" he answered.

The first shot went wild. So, indeed, the second and third.

"There! What did I tell you?" cried Marion petulantly.

"But I didn't say a word!" protested Smythe.

"What were you thinking, then?"

"What a charming Diana--"

"Don't think any more, please!"

"But I can't stop thinking!"

"In that case you'd better talk. You certainly talk enough without thinking."

"Bull's-eye!" he cried joyously. "Now try again!"

"I suppose I must learn not to be bothered."

She pressed her lips together, and steadied herself resolutely. She would show him! The next shot cut a furrow in the bark of the pine; the second struck within two inches of the target; and the third pinked the edge of the paper itself.

"That will do for this time," she said, in some elation, as she handed the gun to Huntington.

"To-morrow you'll do better," he a.s.sured her. "And then we'll try it at longer range."

He began to pick up the cartridge boxes and his own rifle.

"You're not riding to-day?" said Smythe.

"How did you guess it?" she demanded, laughing.

"Oh, a truce! A truce!" he pleaded. "I mean, if you are not going for a ride, will you walk up the hill there?"

He pointed toward the pines.

"Why?"

"To please me," he answered.

But she caught a look in his eyes that decided her.

"Certainly, if you are so easily pleased."

"Oh, I'm a very Lazarus at the table of life!" he retorted gaily.

"Every crumb comforts me."

She laughed, and stepped away with him among the rocks, while Huntington, still swearing at Smythe for a meddling fool, strode down the hill.

Marion surmised that Smythe had something to say to her. Had he heard already? Had the news of yesterday's comedy, that was so near a tragedy, already spread far and wide over the Park? But that was scarcely possible, since Haig's men would be silent, and Seth had kept Williams too busy all day for gossip.

They climbed the rocky slope without more words, clambering over bowlders and fallen tree trunks, until they reached the summit of the hill, and flung themselves down, hot and panting, on a great flat rock that commanded a sweeping view of the Park. At one side more hills rose, small mountains in themselves, thickly wooded, with white peaks towering behind. On the other, the valley of the Bright.w.a.ter lay green and bronze in the sun, with the white stream curling and curving among the meadows. Far across the valley, beyond the ridge that divided the Park in unequal halves--that fateful ridge!--the western range of mountains glittered, dazzling white.

Marion's eyes at once sought out Thunder Mountain. What would it say to her to-day? Storm! Its top was half-hidden in a gray-black swirl of clouds, though the sun was bright on the snow-clad peaks around it.

"What do you see?" asked Smythe, as soon as his lungs would consent to speech.

"My mountain," she answered, without turning her head.

"Which is that?"

"Thunder Mountain."

"Umph! You're welcome to it!"

She was silent.

"Why your mountain?" he asked presently.

"I don't know."

"But there must be a reason--or something."

"That's just it--something. It's hideous, but it fascinates me. I can't help thinking that--"

"That what?"

"I don't know."

They laughed together.

"It's got a bad reputation," said Smythe.

"Perhaps that's the reason."

Then she was embarra.s.sed, thinking unexpectedly of another bad reputation in the Park.

"Perhaps," he answered, smiling at the back of her head, where the tawny hair curved up adorably from the soft, white neck.

"Tell me about it!" she said at length.

"It's a death trap."

"You mean--men have gone up there?"

"Oh, yes!"