Northwest! Part 31

"No!" said Jimmy with some embarra.s.sment. "You're kind, of course, but you ought to see---- If you start me off, I expect I can find my way."

Margaret turned and fronted him. The blood came to her skin and her look was strained.

"You can't find the way and I can't go back. The police know I'm not at the ranch, and if I start for home, I'll meet them in the valley. But we mustn't talk. We must get off."

Jimmy leaned against the table and frowned. Although his heart beat, he hesitated. He knew Margaret's pluck and he loved her, but she must not pay for her rash generosity. One must think for the girl one loved.

"Suppose the police do know you warned me? It's awkward, but perhaps that's all. Anyhow, I'll go down and meet them. Since I expect I shot warden Douglas, I must bear the consequences."

"Oh, but you are obstinate!" Margaret exclaimed and used Stannard's argument. "It looks as if one of your party meant to shoot Douglas and the police have not caught the man. They must catch somebody and they'll try to fix the shooting on you. To join the chain-gang would be horrible."

"The thing has not much charm," Jimmy agreed and was rather surprised by his coolness, but he was cool. "I don't know much about the police code, but I rather think they'd stop at----"

He heard a noise and Margaret turned.

"I put up the rails," she said in a sharp voice.

Jimmy went to the window and saw a mounted policeman pull down the slip-rails at the fence and ride through the gap. Then he heard a quick step and looked round. Margaret had got his rifle. The b.u.t.t was at her shoulder and the barrel rested against the doorpost. Jimmy saw her face in profile; her mouth was set tight, her glance was fixed and hard. He jumped for the door, but struck a chair and the collision stopped him.

The rifle jerked and a little smoke floated about the girl.

When Jimmy reached the door he saw the policeman's horse stumble. The trooper leaned back, tried to pull his foot from the stirrup, and fell with the animal. Jimmy thought it rolled on him, but after a few moments he crawled away from its hoofs. The horse was quiet and the man got up.

His movements were awkward and he looked dully at the house.

Margaret pushed Jimmy back and put the rifle to her shoulder. A sharp report rolled across the clearing, twigs fell from a quivering pine branch, and the trooper vanished in the woods. Jimmy's hands shook, but his relief was keen.

"I expect his rifle's in the bucket under the horse and the horse is dead," Margaret remarked. "I was forced to shoot."

"Ah!" said Jimmy hoa.r.s.ely. "I thought you had hit the man!"

Margaret's pose was stiff, as if she braced herself, but she smiled.

"He knows I shoot straight. Until his partner comes and helps him get his rifle, he'll stop in the woods."

"But perhaps the other's not far off."

"He's at the ranch," said Margaret "He'd stop to see if you were about and try to find out something from father. Father would keep him as long as possible----" She stopped and turning her head resumed: "But the first fellow knows a woman shot his horse. When I put up the rifle, he was riding for the door."

"I expect that is so," said Jimmy. "After all, you must go to your cousin's. Let's start!"

Margaret said nothing. When Jimmy brought her horse she got up and he ran by her stirrup. For a time she went up the valley, and then turning back obliquely through thin timber, pushed up a steep hill. Near the top she stopped and Jimmy got his breath and looked down across the trees.

Dusk was falling and all was very quiet. Gloom had invaded the clearing, but he saw a small dark object he knew was the policeman's horse. A thin plume of smoke went up from his house; his fire was burning, and he wondered when it would burn again. For a few moments he was moved by a strange melancholy, and then his heart beat.

"I hate to go away. If you were not with me, I think I'd stay and risk it all," he said. "I was happy at the ranch; in fact, I soon began to see I hadn't known real happiness before. At the beginning I was puzzled, but now I can account for it. You were at Kelshope----"

"Not long since you didn't want me to go with you," Margaret remarked.

"Oh, well," said Jimmy with some awkwardness, "you hadn't yet shot the policeman's horse."

Margaret said nothing and he seized the bridle, pulled 'round the cayuse, and forced her to look down.

"Will you marry me at the Mission, Margaret?"

She met his glance and hers was proud. "I think not, Jimmy. You are a white man and mean to take the proper line. But I will not marry you because I stopped the trooper."

Jimmy threw back his head and she liked his frank, scornful laugh. "Now, you're altogether ridiculous! Your stopping the fellow does not account for my wanting to marry you. Soon after I got to work at the ranch I knew I loved you, but I went to the mountains with Stannard and the trouble began. So long as the police were hunting for me I dared not urge you."

"But now you urge me? It looks as if your scruples had vanished!"

Jimmy let go the bridle and bent his head. "I suppose it does look like that. All the same, I love you."

Margaret leaned down and touched him gently. "You keep your rules, and your rules are good. Perhaps it's strange, but I think a woman will break conventions where a man will not. Still, you see, I'm proud----"

"You are very hard," Jimmy rejoined. "Yet you ran some risk to warn me.

I know your pluck, but if you had not loved me, I think you'd have stayed at Kelshope."

"We'll let it go," said Margaret in a quiet voice. "There's another thing; ranching is a game for you, but it's my proper work. Yours is at the cotton mill. You're rich and your wife must be clever and cultivated."

"I haven't known a girl with talents, grace and beauty like yours,"

Jimmy declared. "Then I'm not rich yet, the police are on my track, and I may soon be a prisoner----" He looked up and added in a dreary voice: "I admit it's not much of an argument for your marrying me."

Margaret smiled "Perhaps you were not logical, but we'll talk about it again, when we get to Green Lake. You mustn't talk now. I don't know if the trooper would stop long at the ranch, and we must cross the hill before the moon is up."

She started her horse and they pushed on. An hour afterwards the moon rose from behind a broken range, and silver light touched the stiff dark pines. The high peaks sparkled; a glacier glimmered in the rocks, and the mists curling up from the valley were faintly luminous. Jimmy smelt sweet resinous smells and heard a distant river throb. The landscape was strangely beautiful, but its beauty was austere. All was keen, and cold, and bracing, and Jimmy, walking by Margaret's bridle, thought her charm was the charm of the stern and quiet North.

XXIV

JIMMY RESIGNS HIMSELF

The morning was calm and Jimmy, walking by Margaret's horse, turned his head. Faint, sweet notes stole across the rocks and he knew the distant chime of cow-bells. As a rule, the elfin music moved him. Where the cow-bells rang, cornfields and orchards advanced up the valleys and man drove back the forest, but Jimmy's satisfaction was blunted. For two days Margaret and he had pushed through the quiet woods. In the cold evenings they had talked by the snapping fire, but now the romantic journey was near its end.

After a few minutes Margaret stopped the horse. In front, dark pines rolled up the hill and the long rows of ragged tops looked like the waves of an advancing tide that broke against the rocks. Across the valley, the sun touched the snow, and at the bottom of a broken slope a lake sparkled. Jimmy saw its surface rippled, for a Chinook wind blew and the frost was gone. Near the end of the lake a plume of smoke streaked the trees.

"Green Lake ranch!" said Margaret.

For a few moments Jimmy was quiet. When they reached the valley he thought the strange charm he had felt in the mountains would vanish; it was too fine and elusive for him to recapture. Until they started for Green Lake, he had not known Margaret. Cleverer than himself at woodcraft, she had a man's strength and pluck. She did not grumble; she was frank and not embarra.s.sed. Yet a womanly gentleness marked her, and she did not think for herself. Although her touch was light, Jimmy had felt her control and took the line she meant him to take. In the meantime they were not lovers, but partners in romantic adventure.

"For your sake, I'm glad we'll soon reach your cousin's house," he said.

"I don't know if I'm glad for mine."

Margaret smiled but gently shook her head. "You must play up, Jimmy!"

"I have played up. Perhaps it's strange, but in the woods to be content because we were pals was not hard. Now we'll soon reach your cousin's, I'm not content, and one is forced to think----"

"For a time you must think about beating the police; that's all," said Margaret firmly.