At length the continued silence of the girl made him turn. Perhaps she had slipped away. His heart was chilled at the thought; turning, he sighed with relief to find her still there.
Without a word he went back and rekindled the fire, placed new venison steaks over it, and broiled them with silent care. Not a sound from Jig, not a sound from the cowpuncher, while the meat hissed, blackened, and at length was done to a turn. He laid portions of it on broad, white, clean chips which he had already prepared, and served her. Still in silence she ate. Shame held Sinclair. He dared not look at her, and he was glad when the fire lost some of its brightness.
Now and then he looked with wonder across the mountains. All his life they had been faces to him, and the wind had been a voice. Now all this was nothing but dead stuff. There was no purpose in the march of the mountains except that they led to the place where Jig sat.
He twisted together a cup of bark and brought her water from the spring. She thanked him with words that he did not hear, he was so intent in watching her face, as the firelight played on it. Now that he held the clue, everything was as plain as day. New light played on the past.
Turning away, he put new fuel on the fire, and when he looked to her again, she had unbelted the revolver and was putting it away, as if she realized that this would not help her if she were in danger.
When at length she spoke it was the same voice, and yet how new! The quality in it made Sinclair sit a little straighter.
"You have a right to know everything that I can tell you. Do you wish to hear?"
For another moment he smoked in solemn silence. He found that he was wishing for the story not so much because of its strangeness, but because he wanted that voice to run on indefinitely. Yet he weighed the question pro and con.
"Here's the point, Jig," he said at last. "I got a good deal to make up to you. In the first place I pretty near let you get strung up for a killing I done myself. Then I been treating you pretty hard, take it all in all. You got a story, and I don't deny that I'd like to hear it; but it don't seem a story that you're fond of telling, and I ain't got no right to ask for it. All I ask to know is one thing: When you stood there under that cotton wood tree, with a rope around your neck, did you know that all you had to do was to tell us that you was a woman to get off free?"
"Of course."
"And you'd sooner have hung than tell us?"
"Yes."
Sinclair sighed. "Maybe I've said this before, but I got to say it ag'in: Jig, you plumb beat me!" He brushed his hand across his forehead. "S'pose it'd been done! S'pose I had let 'em go ahead and string you up! They'd have been a terrible bad time ahead for them seven men. We'd all have been grabbed and lynched. A woman!"
He put the word off by itself. Then he was surprised to hear her laughing softly. Now that he knew, it was all woman, that voice.
"It wasn't really courage, Riley. After you'd said half a dozen words I knew you were square, and that you knew I was innocent. So I didn't worry very much--except just after you'd sentenced me to hang!"
"Don't go back to that! I sure been a plumb fool. But why would you have gone ahead and let that hanging happen?"
"Because I had rather die than be known, except to you."
"You leave me out."
"I'd trust you to the end of everything, Riley."
"I b'lieve you would, Jig--I honest believe you would! Heaven knows why."
"Because."
"That ain't a reason."
"A very good woman's reason. For one thing you've let me come along when you know that I'm a weight, and you're in danger. But you don't know what it means if I go back. You can't know. I know it's wrong and cowardly for me to stay and imperil you, but I am a coward, and I'm afraid to go back!"
"Hush up," murmured Sinclair. "Hush up, girl. Is they anybody asking you to go back? But you don't really figure on hanging out here with me in the mountains, me having most of the gents in these parts out looking for my scalp?"
"If you think I won't be such an encumbrance that I'll greatly endanger you, Riley."
"H'm," muttered Sinclair. "I'll take that chance, but they's another thing."
"Well?"
"It ain't exactly nacheral and reasonable for a girl to go around in the mountains with a man."
She fired up at that, sitting straight, with the fire flaring suddenly in her face through the change of position.
"I've told you that I trust you, Riley. What do I care about the opinion of the world? Haven't they hounded me? Oh, I despise them!"
"H'm," said the cowpuncher again.
He was, indeed, so abashed by this outbreak that he merely stole a glance at her face and then studied the fire again.
"Does this gent Cartwright tie up with your story?"
All the fire left her. "Yes," she whispered.
He felt that she was searching his face, as if suddenly in doubt of him.
"Will you let me tell you--everything?"
"Shoot ahead."
"Some parts will be hard to believe."
"Lady, they won't be nothing as hard to believe as what I've seen you do with my own eyes."
Then she began to tell her story, and she found a vast comfort in seeing the ugly, stern face of Sinclair lighted by the burning end of his cigarette. He never looked at her, but always fixed his stare on the sea of blackness which was the lower valley.
"All the trouble began with a theory. My father felt that the thing for a girl was to be educated in the East and marry in the West. He was full of maxims, you see. 'They turn out knowledge in cities; they turn out men in mountains,' was one of his maxims. He thought and argued and lived along those lines. So as soon as I was half grown--oh, I was a wild tomboy!"
"Eh?" cut in Sinclair.
"I could really do the things then that you'd like to have a woman do," she said. "I could ride anything, swim like a fish in snow water, climb, run, and do anything a boy could do. I suppose that's the sort of a woman you admire?"
"Me!" exclaimed Riley with violence. "It ain't so, Jig. I been revising my ideas on women lately. Besides, I never give 'em much thought before."
He said all this without glancing at her, so that she was able to indulge in a smile before she went on.
"Just at that point, when I was about to become a true daughter of the West, Dad snapped me off to school in the East, and then for years and years there was no West at all for me except a little trip here and there in vacation time. The rest of it was just study and play, all in the East. I still liked the West--in theory, you know."
"H'm," muttered Riley.
"And then, I think it was a year ago, I had a letter from Dad with important news in it. He had just come back from a hunting trip with a young fellow who he thought represented everything fine in the West. He was big, good-looking, steady, had a large estate. Dad set his mind on having me marry him, and he told me so in the letter. Of course I was upset at the idea of marrying a man I did not know, but Dad always had a very controlling way with him. I had lost any habit of thinking for myself in important matters.
"Besides, there was a consolation. Dad sent the picture of his man along with his letter. The picture was in profile, and it showed me a fine-looking fellow, with a glorious carriage, a high head, and oceans of strength and manliness.
"I really fell in love with that picture. To begin with, I thought that it was destiny for me, and that I had to love that man whether I wished to or not. I admitted that picture into my inmost life, dreamed about it, kept it near me in my room.
"And just about that time came news that my father was seriously ill, and then that he had died, and that his last wish was for me to come West at once and marry my chosen husband.
"Of course I came at once. I was too sick and sad for Dad to think much about my own future, and when I stepped off the train I met the first shock. My husband to be was waiting for me. He was enough like the picture for me to recognize him, and that was all. He was tall and strong enough and manly enough. But in full face I thought he was narrow between the eyes. And--"
"It was Cartwright!"
"Yes, yes. How did you guess that?"
"I dunno," said Sinclair softly, "but when that gent rode off today, something told me that I was going to tangle with him later on. Go on!"
"He was very kind to me. After the first moment of disappointment--you see, I had been dreaming about him for a good many weeks--I grew to like him and accept him again. He did all that he could to make the trip home agreeable. He didn't press himself on me. He did nothing to make me feel that he understood Dad's wishes about our marriage and expected me to live up to them.
"After the funeral it was the same way. He came to see me only now and then. He was courteous and attentive, and he seemed to be fond of me."
"A fox," snarled Sinclair, growing more and more excited, as this narrative continued. "That's the way with one of them kind. They play a game. Never out in the open. Waiting till they win, and then acting the devil. Go on!"
"Perhaps you're right. His visits became more and more frequent. Finally he asked me to marry him. That brought the truth of my position home to me, and I found all at once that, though I had rather liked him as a friend, I had to quake at the idea of him as a husband."
Sinclair snapped his cigarette into the coals of the fire and set his jaw. She liked him in his anger.
"But what could I do? All of the last part of Dad's life had been pointed toward this one thing. I felt that he would come out of his grave and haunt me. I asked for one more day to think it over. He told me to take a month or a year, as I pleased, and that made me ashamed. I told him on the spot that I would marry him, but that I didn't love him."
"I'll tell you what he answered--curse him!" exclaimed Sinclair.
"What?"
"Through the years that was comin', he'd teach you to love him."
"That was exactly what he said in those very words! How did you guess that?"
"I'll tell you I got a sort of a second sight for the ways of a snake, or an ornery hoss, or a sneak of a man. Go on!"
"I think you have. At any rate, after I had told him I'd marry him, he pressed me to set the date as early as possible, and I agreed. There was only a ten-day interval.
"Those ten days were filled. I kept myself busy so that I wouldn't have a chance to think about the future, though of course I didn't really know how I dreaded it. I talked to the only girl who was near enough to me to be called a friend.
"'Find a man you can respect. That's the main thing,' she always said. 'You'll learn to love him later on.'
"It was a great comfort to me. I kept thinking back to that advice all the time."
"They's nothing worse than a talky woman," declared Sinclair hotly. "Go on!"
"Then, all at once, the day came. I'll never forget how I wakened that morning and looked out at the sun. I had a queer feeling that even the sunshine would never seem the same after that day. It was like going to a death."
"So you went to this gent and told him just how you felt, and he let your promise slide?"
"No."
Sinclair groaned.
"I couldn't go to him. I didn't dare. I don't imagine that I ever thought of such a thing. Then there were crowds of people around all day, giving me good wishes. And all the time I felt like death.
"Somehow I got to the church. Everything was hazy to me, and my heart was thundering all the time. In the church there was a blur of faces. All at once the blur cleared. I saw Jude Cartwright, and I knew I couldn't marry him!"
"Brave girl!" cried Sinclair, his relief coming out in almost a shout. "You stopped there at the last minute?"
"Ah, if I had! No, I didn't stop. I went on to the altar and met him there, and--"
"You weren't married to him?"
"I was!"
"Go on," Sinclair said huskily.
"The end of it came somehow. I found a flood of people calling to me and pressing around me, and all the time I was thinking of nothing but the new ring on my finger and the weight--the horrible weight of it!
"We went back to my father's house. I managed to get away from all the merrymaking and go to my room. The minute the door closed behind me and shut away their voices and singing into the distance, I felt that I had saved one last minute of freedom. I went to the window and looked out at the mountains. The stars were coming out.
"All at once my knees gave way, and I began to weep on the window sill. I heard voices coming, and I knew that I mustn't let them see me with the tears running down my face. But the tears wouldn't stop coming.
"I ran to the door and locked it. Then someone tried to open the door, and I heard the voice of my Aunt Jane calling. I gathered all my nerve and made my voice steady. I told her that I couldn't let anyone in, that I was preparing a surprise for them.
"'Are you happy, dear?' asked Aunt Jane.
"I made myself laugh. 'So happy!' I called back to her.
"Then they went away. But as soon as they were gone I knew that I could never go out and meet them. Partly because I had no surprise for them, partly because I didn't want them to see the tear stains and my red eyes. Somehow little silly things were as big and as important as the main thing--that I could never be the real wife of Jude Cartwright. Can you understand?"
"Jig, once when I had a deer under my trigger I let him go because he had a funny-shaped horn. Sure, it's the little things that run a gent's life. Go on!"
"I knew that I had to escape. But how could I escape in a place where everybody knew me? First I thought of changing my clothes. Then another thing--man's clothes! The moment that idea came, I was sure it was the thing. I opened the door very softly. There was no one upstairs just then. I ran into my cousin's room--he's a youngster of fifteen--and snatched the first boots and clothes that I could find and rushed back to my own room.
"I jumped into them, hardly knowing what I was doing. For they were beginning to call to me from downstairs. I opened the door and called back to them, and I heard Jude Cartwright answer in a big voice.
"I turned around and saw myself in the mirror in boy's clothes, with my face as white as a sheet, my eyes staring, my hair pouring down over my shoulders. I ran to the bureau and found a scissors. Then I hesitated a moment. You don't dream how hard it was to do. My hair was long, you see, below my waist. And I had always been proud of it.
"But I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and cut it off with great slashes, close to my head. Then I stood with all that mass of hair shining in my hand and a queer, light feeling in my head.
"But I felt that I was free. I clamped on my cousin's hat--how queer it felt with all that hair cut off! I bundled the hair into my pocket, because they mustn't dream what I had done. Then someone beat on the door.
"'Coming!' I called to them.
"I ran to the window. The house was built on a slope, and it was not a very long drop to the ground, I suppose. But to me it seemed neck-breaking, that distance. It was dark, and I climbed out and hung by my hands, but I couldn't find courage to let go. Then I tried to climb back, but there wasn't any strength in my arms.
"I cried out for help, but the singing downstairs must have muffled the sound. My fingers grew numb--they slipped on the sill--and then I fell.
"The fall stunned me, I guess, for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I saw the stars and knew that I was free. I started up then and struck straight across country. At first I didn't care where I went, so long as it was away, but when I got over the first hill I made up a plan. That was to go for the railroad and take a train. I did it.
"There was a long walk ahead of me before I reached the station, and with my cousin's big boots wobbling on my feet I was very tired when I reached it. There were some freight cars on the siding, and there was hay on the floor of one of them. I crawled into the open door and went to sleep.
"After a while I woke up with a great jarring and jolting and noise. I found the car pitch dark. The door was closed, and pretty soon, by the roar of the wheels under me and the swing of the floor of the car, I knew that an engine had picked up the empty cars.
"It was a terrible time for me. I had heard stories of tramps locked into cars and starving there before the door was opened. Before the morning shone through the cracks of the boards, I went through all the pain of a death from thirst. But before noon the train stopped, and the car was dropped at a siding. I climbed out when they opened the door.
"The man who saw me only laughed. I suppose he could have arrested me.
"'All right, kid, but you're hitting the road early in life, eh!'
"Those were the first words that were spoken to me as a man.
"I didn't know where I should go, but the train had taken me south, and that made me remember a town where my father had lived for a long time--Sour Creek. I started to get to this place.
"The hardest thing I had to do was the very first thing, and that was to take my ragged head of hair into a barber shop and get it trimmed. I was sure that the barber would know I was a girl, but he didn't suspect.
"'Been a long time in the wilds, youngster, eh?' was all he said.
"And then I knew that I was safe, because people here in the West are not suspicious. They let a stranger go with one look. By the time I reached Sour Creek I was nearly over being ashamed of my clothes. And then I found this place and work as a schoolteacher. I think you know the rest." She leaned close to Sinclair. "Was I wrong to leave him?"
Sinclair rubbed his chin. "You'd ought to have told him straight off," he said firmly. "But seeing you went through with the wedding--well, take it all in all, your leaving of him was about the rightest thing I ever heard of."
Quiet fell between them.
"But what am I going to do? And where is it all going to end?" a small voice inquired of Sinclair at last.
"Roll up in them blankets and go to sleep," he advised her curtly. "I'm figuring steady on this here thing, Jig."
Jig followed that advice. Sinclair had left the fire and was walking up and down from one end of the little plateau to the other, with a strong, long step. As for the girl, she felt that an incalculable burden had been shifted from her shoulders by the telling of this tale. That burden, she knew, must have fallen on another person, and it was not unpleasant to know that Riley Sinclair was the man.
Gradually the sense of strangeness faded. As she grew drowsy, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to be up here at the top of the world with a man she had; known two days. And, before she slept, the last thing of which she was conscious was the head of Sinclair in the broad sombrero, brushing to and fro across the stars.
