Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: "He tried to shoot once more, into the very face of the oncoming brute."--FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 245._] THE HEART OF THUNDER MOUNTAIN By EDFRID A. BINGHAM With Frontispiece in Colors By ANTON OTTO FISHER A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by Arrangements with Little, Brown & Company Copyright, 1916, By Edfrid A. Bingham. All rights reserved Published, March, 1916 Reprinted, March, 1916 (twice) July, 1916; August, 1916 April, 1917 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Forbidden Pasture 1 II The Road to Paradise 15 III Seth Huntington's Opportunity 26 IV The Highest Bidder 37 V "He Shall Tell Me!" 50 VI The Story of the Scar 60 VII The Way of a Maid With a Man 71 VIII The End of Her Stratagem 86 IX Hearts Insurgent 99 X Strictly Confidential 112 XI Avalanche 121 XII Sunnysides 133 XIII Hillyer's Dilemma 144 XIV Coals of Fire 155 XV The Valley of the Shadow 166 XVI Questions and Answers 176 XVII Interlude 186 XVIII The Challenge of the Brute 193 XIX Smythe's Last Budget 202 XX "The Trail Held True" 215 XXI In the Hollow of the Storm 228 XXII The Narrow Passage 238 XXIII The Miracle 252 XXIV Haig's Argument 264 XXV Diana 278 XXVI The Snow 288 XXVII The Voice in the Hurricane 302 XXVIII The Man Who Did Not Forget 316 XXIX Ghosts 330 XXX The Lamp Relighted 344 XXXI Sangre De Cristo 359 THE HEART OF THUNDER MOUNTAIN CHAPTER I THE FORBIDDEN PASTURE She sat hunched up in the middle of the silent pasture, where the tall, thin grass ran ripening before the breeze in waves the hue of burnished bronze. Her cow pony grazed greedily a few yards away, lifting his head now and then to gaze inquiringly at her, and then returning to his gluttony with a satisfied snort, commendatory of this long rest. The girl had removed her small sombrero to adjust the masses of tawny hair that had become disordered in her morning ride; and the breeze now played with it, and the sun sought out its glints of gold. She was fair, of a curiously rich complexion with soft golden tints beneath the skin, as if the rusty gold in her hair was just the outcropping of what ran in solution in her veins. And there was a certain air about her that contrasted strangely with the scene upon which she now gazed intently, with her head bent forward, and her hands clasped round her upthrust knees. It was a little valley she had come upon by chance, snugly tucked away among the hills. Below the bronze-colored slope there were lush meadows of a brilliant green, and a shallow, swift stream that flashed over black bowlders and white sand; beyond the meadows lay more shining pastures rising to pale-green aspen groves and then to dark-green pines; and above all these the foothills climbed swiftly to the mountains, and the mountains more swiftly to the sky. There were faint blue mists in the foothills, fainter violet shadows on the distant fields, an icy whiteness on the peaks; and in the sky no more than two small puffs of cloud like eiderdown adrift in the depths of blue. What at first had seemed an utter silence laid upon that summer landscape had now become, as she looked and listened, a silence full of sound; of that indefinable humming undertone of nature maturing in the sun; of insects busy at their harvest; of birds in the distance calling; of grasses rustling in the breeze; of pines on the long ridge droning like an organ in the Recessional. Yes, it was very beautiful, she thought. And sweet. And peaceful. She had come a long way--halfway across the great continent--to find that peace. But why should there be a touch of sadness in all that beauty? And why should there be need to search for her handkerchief to press against her eyes? For the first time since she had come to Paradise Park she felt a little lonely, a little doubtful about the wisdom of her brave revolt. She sank back at last, and lay curled up in the grass with her head pillowed on one bent arm. There, to her half-closed eyes, the grass seemed like a fairy forest, soon peopled by her fancy, the fancy of a girl who still retained the quick imagination of a child. An Indian paintbrush flamed at her with barbaric passion; nodding harebells tinkled purple melodies; and a Mariposa lily with a violet eye seemed like a knight in white armor, bowing himself into her outstretched hand. Her eyelids drooped more and more. The music of the pines and the murmur of the pasture blended in a faint and fading lullaby.... * * * * * Tuesday's shrill neigh awakened her. She sat up shivering, for the warm air was underlaid with cold; and quivering, for the alarm had fallen pat upon the climax of her dream. She rubbed her eyes, a little blinded by the sunlight, and saw that Tuesday stood with head high and nostrils distended, gazing past her toward the upper end of the pasture. She was not surprised, being yet under the spell of her dream-fairyland, to see a horseman galloping straight toward her. If not the white knight, then--For some seconds she stared, awakening slowly; and smiled at length at her childish fancy. It was only a cowboy, doubtless, riding upon his own prosaic business. And yet--She became gradually aware of something unusual, something disquieting in the manner of the man's approach. The horse was leaping under the spurs; the rider sat upright and alert in the saddle; and suddenly, as she watched him, the man's hand went to his hip, and there was a gleam of metal in the sun. She was not afraid. Seth Huntington had assured her there was nothing to be feared in Paradise Park. But for all that, it was not without uneasiness that she hastily arranged the meager folds of her divided skirt, and passed her hands quickly over the still disordered masses of her hair. And then he was fairly upon her, reining up with a jerk that brought the sweating pony back upon its haunches. There was an angry glitter in the man's dark eyes, his face was black with passion, and the bright object she had seen flashing in his hand was the twin brother of Huntington's six-shooter. He was roughly, even meanly, dressed. His coarse blue flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the throat; his soiled brown corduroy trousers were thrust unevenly into dusty and wrinkled boot tops; his old, gray hat was slouched over one side of his forehead, shading his eyes. But the face beneath that faded and disreputable hat, as Marion saw with a slight thrill of curiosity, belonged to no ranch hand or cow-puncher. Whoever he might be, and whatever he might be doing there scowling at her, she felt at once that he was as foreign as herself to that neighborhood. But there was no time at that moment to analyze her feeling, to formulate her thought. And her next impression, following very swiftly, was one of vague antagonism. She felt that she was going to hate him. "What new trick is this?" he demanded angrily, when he had looked from the girl to her pony, and at her again, with unconcealed suspicion. For a moment she was undecided whether to answer him sharply or to rebuke his incivility with silence. "I don't know!" she replied at last, by way of compromise between her two impulses, with a half-playful emphasis on the "I," accompanied by a very solemn, shaking of the head and a very innocent widening of the eyes. There was a pause while he searched her face with a distrustful scrutiny. "You're not just the person I was looking for," he said finally, with a touch of irony. "How fortunate!" she replied, in a tone that was like a mocking echo of his own. Her eyes met his unflinchingly, a little impudently, telling him nothing; then they slowly fell, and rested on the revolver in his hand. With a shrug he thrust the weapon into its holster. "Thank you!" she said sweetly. "You really won't need it." He jerked his head impatiently. "How did you get in here?" he demanded, quite as roughly as before. There was no reason in the world why she should not have answered him simply and directly; but she did not. She was exasperated, not so much by his words as by his manner, and not so much by his manner even as by something provocative in the man himself. He was rude, but it was not his rudeness that most annoyed her. She scarcely knew what it was,--perhaps a certain indifference, a certain cold contempt that she detected underlying all his anger, a certain icy and impenetrable reserve that, for all his hot words, and for all his lowering looks, she resented most as being in some way personal to her. And instantly the minx in her rose up for mischief. "By aeroplane, of course!" she said tartly. It was a silly speech, and she regretted it almost before it had left her lips. A faint flush came into the enemy's face. "Spoken like a woman!" he retorted. "Always tragic over little things and flippant over big ones." That brought the color up into her face. But she was not subdued; for the cat in woman also has nine lives--at least. "There's my horse," she said, with a toss of her head. "You saw him." "True! But cow ponies don't easily jump four-wire fences." "Why should they when the fences are down?" "Good! We arrive by the devious ways that women love. Perhaps you'll give me the answer now that you should have given in the first place. _How did you get in here?_" She bit her lip, reflected a moment, and attempted a flank movement. "My name is Marion Gaylord." "I knew that." "But you have never seen me before!" "No. But that's one of Huntington's horses, and Miss Gaylord is a guest at his house. You see, I am more courteous than you after all. I answer your questions." "Perhaps I'll answer yours when I know what right you have to ask them." A light began to dawn upon him. "Do you mean--you don't know where you are?" "No." He gave her a long, searching look before he spoke again. "My name is Philip Haig," he said, leaning forward with a curious smile. The result was all that he could have wished for. Until that moment she had remained seated, firm in her determination not to be disturbed by him. But now she rose slowly to her feet, her face reddening, her lips parted, a frightened look in her eyes. The shoe was on the other foot, with a vengeance. He saw all this, and without compunction, seized his advantage. With a grim smile he threw the reins over the pony's head, swung himself out of the saddle, and stepped toward her. As he came on he removed his dilapidated hat with a gesture that made her forget it was dilapidated,--a mocking, insolent gesture though it was. In spite of her embarrassment she let none of his features escape her quickening interest. She saw that he was tall, erect, alert; handsome in some strange and half-repellent way, with his pale dark face, rather long in contour, and with his black, curly hair matted on the broad forehead. But she almost recoiled when, on his drawing nearer, she saw for the first time--it had been hidden by the shadow of his slouched hat--an ugly scar that ran from the outer corner of his left eye down to the jawbone below the ear. It gave to one side of his face a singularly sinister expression that vanished when he turned and disclosed a profile that was not without nobility and charm. Then suddenly her mystification was complete. Their eyes met, not as before, but very near, so close had he come to her, still smiling. And instantly, instinctively, she lowered hers; for she felt as if she had been caught peering through a window at something she had no right to see. Yet the next instant she was looking again, half-guiltily, but irresistibly drawn. The eyes were of a curious color,--smoky black, or dark gray-blue, or somber purple,--liquid and deep like a woman's, but with a steady, dull glow in their depths that was unlike anything she had ever seen or imagined. What was it that burned there? Suffering? Hunger? Evil? Sorrow? Shame? It gave her something to think about for many a day and night. Meanwhile-- "I see you have heard of me," he said mockingly. She had no reply. She was realizing slowly that she had trespassed, that she had perhaps seriously compromised her cousin, and, most humiliating of all, that she had assumed quite the wrong attitude toward the man. "You really didn't know you were on my land?" he demanded, with a little less offensiveness in his tone. "No," she answered weakly. "And Huntington didn't send you here?" "No." "I believe you, of course. But it's rather queer. How did you happen--if you don't mind--" She did not mind in the least--was eager, indeed, to explain her presence there. "I'm just learning to ride," she began impulsively. "This was my first venture off the valley road, and I--" "And you came straight to me!" he exclaimed, chuckling. At that a strange thing happened. He had meant only that she, the guest and cousin of Seth Huntington, his bitter foe, had blundered straight into the camp of the enemy; and that was a rare joke on Huntington. But she was a girl; her little adventure was already rosy with romance; and the effect of his careless speech was as if he had looked into her heart, and read aloud for her something she had not known was there. To his surprise and wonder the girl's fair face turned red to the roots of her tawny hair, and a look of helpless confusion came into the clear, blue eyes that until now, for all her embarrassment, had frankly met his own. She looked suddenly away from him. "You make me ashamed," she said at length, stealing a look at him. "If you know anything about my difficulty with Huntington," he began, "you'll understand that--" "I do. I do understand!" she interrupted eagerly. "I don't know much about it--the trouble. They haven't told me. I've only overheard some talk--and I didn't ask. I rode down the valley this morning trying to do it like a cowboy. And there was a branch road--and then the break in the fence--and before I knew it I'd fallen asleep. That's all--except--" She shot a half-mischievous glance at him "--you spoiled a very beautiful dream." But this was all lost upon him. His face was clouding again. "Where is it--the break in the fence?" Chagrined at the failure of her bit of coquetry, she merely pointed in the direction whence she had come. "Thank you!" he said. "At last!" With that he went swiftly to his pony, mounted, and started to ride away. But suddenly he reined up again, whirled his horse savagely around, and faced Marion with the sunlight full upon the scarred side of his face, now ugly with menace. "If that fence has been cut," he said, in a hard and level tone, "it's been cut by Huntington or his men. You tell him for me, please--and you'll be doing _him_ a favor not to forget it--tell him that he's a fool to anger me. I've been very patient in this business, but I don't claim patience as one of my virtues. Do you hear? Tell him he's a fool to anger me!" She watched him gallop to the gap in the barb-wire fence; she watched him dismount to examine the severed wires; she watched him leap on his horse again, and ride furiously down the road until he was lost to view below the dip in the slope toward the valley. And still for some minutes she stood staring at the place where he had disappeared. Then, left alone with her pent-up emotions, she no longer resisted them. Tears of vexation started in her eyes; chagrin, resentment, anger swept over her in turn. She dug the heel of one small boot into the unoffending soil--his soil--and thrust her clenched hands down at her side. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" she cried, over and over again, striding forward and back across some yards of pasture, trampling lilies and harebells under her heedless feet, turning her flaming face at intervals toward the spot in the smiling landscape that had last held the figure of Philip Haig. The shame of it! She had never--never--never been treated so outrageously. It was unendurable--and she had endured it! She flung herself down on the ground and wept. * * * * * Marion was now facing life alone. Her nearest remaining relative was her cousin, Claire Huntington. Her mother--a Southern girl who might have stepped out of a panel by Fragonard, so fine and soft and Old-World-like was her beauty--had died when she was still a child. Her father, Doctor Gaylord, was the antithesis of the sprite-like creature he had married,--a big, athletic, outdoor sort of man, with truly violent red hair and beard, whose favorite expression about himself had been that a very capable pirate had been sacrificed to make a tolerable physician. But he had prospered in his profession; and then had died with amazing suddenness, leaving his estate in an almost hopeless mess. Robert Hillyer had tackled the problem,--Robert, the alert, the busy, the supremely confident, the typical money-getter of the money-worshipping metropolis. He had long been deeply in love with Marion, but he had not made great headway in his suit, despite the advantage of Doctor Gaylord's approval. Now, having saved enough out of the estate (for so he said, though he never told Marion the details of that miracle) to provide her with an income barely sufficient to keep her in comfort but not in the luxury to which she had been accustomed, he plainly expected his reward. And this was to Marion an intolerable situation. She did not love Robert. She liked him, admired him, trusted him; no more. Knowing her father's wishes, she saw the way marked straight before her; for Robert already had wealth, and could and would give her all the material things she desired. Time and again she was on the point of yielding, but something checked her, held her back, as if a voice had whispered in her ear, and strong arms had seized her. She grew restless, discontented, melancholy. And suddenly, on a moment's inspiration, the strangest impulse she had ever known, she had revolted and fled from the scene of her unhappiness, telling Robert (by letter) only that she must have time to think, and that for six months he must leave her to herself. She had fled to Claire, that cousin on her father's side, who some years before, to the wonder and chagrin of many Gaylords east and west,--to all except the Viking physician, who had rejoiced in her spirit,--had eloped with a cowboy, since turned successful cattleman, whom she had met at the Denver Carnival. Ten days now had Marion been in Paradise Park, rejoicing in her freedom, rejoicing in the half-wild life, rejoicing in the tonic air and the tonic beauty of this Rocky Mountain valley, shut in, isolated, and so aptly named. And only to-day had there come any emotions that disturbed her peace. * * * * * When she looked up again her eyes were sharply arrested by a scene that seemed curiously to picture her own mood. Far up at the head of the valley a cloud that was scarcely heavier than a mist came stealing out of a gulch to take its shining way along the range of mountains. Dropping in its flight a shower as light as a bridal veil, it sped glistening across the face of mountain after mountain, softening the stark grays and reds, while above it the peaks gleamed white. On and on it came until at last it arrived at the mouth of a deep, dark gorge in the side of a mountain that, in its strange and forbidding aspect, differed notably from all the others in the majestic range. There it paused as if arrested by some stern command, hung for a moment in palpable agitation, and was swiftly swallowed up in the gorge. And again she had a vague and uneasy feeling, as she had when first she saw it, that Thunder Mountain,--but she could not fit that feeling into thought, could find no words to frame it. Yet she was fascinated. It was half-hidden now in surging, black storm-clouds, while all the sharp and snow-clad peaks around it glittered in the sun. Even in those rare moments when it was freed from clouds and mists it stood alone in its peculiar grandeur. Unlike all the others it wore no diadem of snow. Some terrible convulsion of nature, some cataclysm at its birth or in the fiery days of its youth, had left it bald-headed, ugly, and deformed. But for that catastrophe it would have been far loftier than any of its fellows; and even now the hunchback towered among them, its flat head level with their pointed peaks, the most conspicuous figure in the imposing pageant raised against the western sky. And its deformity was not the whole of its misfortune. It bore the brunt of every tempest that broke upon that massive barrier of mountains. Its granite head was the very breeding-place of storms. The peaks around it had their days of calm, but Thunder Mountain never. An hour or two perhaps--no more. It knew no peace. The elements were, and are now, and forever will be quarreling upon its worn and battered head; lightning and rain and snow and wind are forever hammering and beating it turn by turn. It is the Quasimodo and the Lear and the Gray Friar of mountains, all in one. And if, on some still and perfect day, its tonsured head emerges from the clouds, the watcher in the Park has but to turn his head a moment, and look again, and lo! it wears its gray cowl as before, and stoops growling and grumbling under its endless punishment. Suddenly, as Marion looked, the silence was rudely shattered. Roll on roll of thunder swept across the valley, crashed against the hills, rebounded from wall to wall of mountains, until all the Park was filled with the sullen bellowing. And then, amid all the tumult, Marion heard something more,--a voice that mingled with the voice of the mountain, and thrilled her while it filled her with a singular disquietude. She had dismissed Haig from her thoughts. She was sure of that. And yet through all the uproar, and in the tense silence that ensued, she heard his taunting voice: "And you came straight to me!" CHAPTER II THE ROAD TO PARADISE The gap in the fence remained exactly as it had been when it invited her to adventure. But now she halted there, dismounted, and picked up the end of a wire that lay trailing on the ground. With new-found interest she examined the fracture, and stared at it in wonder. Dropping it, and kneeling excitedly in the grass, she searched another, and still another wire, and with the same result. Even to her unpractised eye the facts were plain: the four wires had not been broken; they had been cleanly cut, and very recently, as shown by the absence of rust on the severed ends. By whom? And why? Seth Huntington, Haig had said. Impossible! Absurd! True, she had heard Seth denouncing him; Claire also; and without knowing the cause of the feud, or caring, she had learned that Huntington and Haig were bitterly at odds about something,--cattle, she thought, or was it land? But that Seth could have stooped to the low trick implied in these cut wires! And yet-- She looked down the half-made road by which Haig had disappeared. It was quite empty now, save for Tuesday and herself. Nor was there sight of man or beast in all the valley. Haig's cattle, like Seth's and the other ranchmen's, were grazing in the summer pastures, no doubt in little shut-in valleys far up among the pines yonder, where the violet mists were deepening. She mounted her horse again, and rode slowly up the hill. But just where the road entered the woods at the summit of the ridge she stopped once more, and turned for a last look at her lost valley. Her gaze swept it lovingly from where, at her left, the long ridge shut off the view, to where, far at her right, the valley narrowed into a pine-screened gulch; and back again almost to the spot where the road dipped and disappeared. There her eyes were suddenly caught by something she had not seen before,--a thin spiral of blue smoke that mounted slowly until it was struck and dissipated by the breeze from across the ridge. Haig's ranchhouse, surely, nestling below the hill! The house would be visible, doubtless, from the place where Haig had vanished from her sight. What would it be like? she wondered. The next instant she had pulled her pony half-around toward the valley. But Tuesday turned his head, and looked at her; and she felt the blood rushing into her face. "Go on, Tuesday!" she cried, jerking him back into the road. "What are you doing?" She rode on into the pines, embarrassed beyond all belief. In a few minutes she had emerged again from the woods, descended the hill, and regained the main-traveled road along the Brightwater. Still she rode slowly, forgetting that she had learned at last to ride like a cowboy. She was reluctant to return to Huntington's, reluctant to relate her experiences as she had always related them until to-day. Haig had sent a warning to Huntington. It was her duty to deliver it. But how could she tell just so much and no more? There would be questions. She would be cross-examined, kindly enough but relentlessly. And in some strange way this meeting had become a private matter; Haig's warning was inextricably mixed with other things that did not concern Huntington. Just what these were, and why they were so very private, she could not quite explain to herself; and for the moment she did not try. They were things to be thought about later, when she could think more clearly. She knew only that she should never be able to endure either the banter or the disapproval of Huntington. What did Claire see in him anyhow,--the soft and sensitive Claire, with her blue eyes and her pretty face always upturned so trustfully to him? For the first time she realized that she had distrusted Seth from the beginning. In the midst of these confused and disconcerting thoughts, she became aware that she was no longer alone in the highway. Slowly as she rode, she was steadily overtaking a group of horsemen that appeared to be in difficulties. At intervals there was a commotion in the group, and clouds of dust from time to time concealed it from her sight. She reined up Tuesday, and hesitated, having had her fill of adventure for one day. Then, as the men seemed to be quite oblivious to her presence, and deeply absorbed in their own affair, curiosity drew her onward; and all her scruples were forgotten when she had ridden near enough to see the cause of the disturbance. Three men on cow ponies were leading, driving, and avoiding a fourth horse, which was not a cow pony by any possible extension of the word. This horse, which wore neither saddle nor bridle, but only a rope around his neck, maintained an almost uninterrupted struggle with his guards. At the first near glimpse she caught of him through the dust, Marion uttered an exclamation of surprise and admiration. He was larger than the ponies ridden by the men, larger than any cow pony, yet not a big horse measured by any standard with which she was familiar. His lines were like those of a thoroughbred, and in his movements, for all his fury, there was a lightness, a daintiness, an eloquence that suggested nothing so much as the airy grace of a young girl skipping and dancing across a playground. But it was his color especially that drew the cry from Marion's lips. This was pale yellow, not the cream color of the familiar buckskin breed, but something golden; of a brilliant luster like gold leaf, but softer; rather like cloth-of-gold, with a living, quivering sheen. All the horse's body was of this uniform, strange tint, but his mane and tail were a dull, tawny yellow deepening at the extremities into the hue of rusty gold. Though his hide was streaked with the sweat of his rebellion, and caked in places with the dust of the long road he had come, and welted by the whips of his tormentors, the color and the gloss shone out as undimmed as his proud spirit was undaunted by the hard knocks of his captivity. The three men clearly were hard pressed. Their faces were coated thick with dust; their eyes were red-rimmed, bulging, and bloodshot; their movements were heavy with fatigue. Scarcely a sound escaped their lips as they watched for every fresh manoeuver of their prisoner, and fought doggedly to gain a yard or two along the road. In the silence and intensity of the struggle there was something savage, elemental, and incomparable, heightened by the extraordinary beauty of the animal and the uncouth appearance of the men. Between them, the captive and his captors, Marion's sympathy was about equally divided. At every gallant sally made by the horse her heart leaped, and she hoped instinctively that he would go free. But then, the next instant, she was thrilled by the bold and shrewd counter-play of the cow-punchers that blocked the horse's strategy. Marion had scarcely comprehended all this, and imperfectly, when a terrifying thing occurred. The golden horse seemed to have paused and gathered all his forces for an effort that should make his best previous performance look like the silly antics of a colt. Suddenly, and without any warning manoeuver, he charged the full length of his rope straight at the man who held it coiled in his hand, with the end looped around the horn of his saddle. At the final bound, he reared as if to fall upon the cowboy and mangle him with his forefeet. But instead of finishing this attack, he whirled on his hind legs with incredible swiftness; and before the man could gather up the slack of the rope, or brace himself for the shock, the wild horse dashed across the road with all the strength and fury there was in him. Marion screamed, and closed her eyes. There were dreadful sounds of falling bodies, of bodies dragged on the ground, with grunts and groans and smothered cries. Then silence. When she dared to look she could see at first only a welter of men and horses half-hidden by the dust. Near her lay the gold horse with his head twisted backward by the taut rope, which choked him until his eyes bulged, and foam dripped from his lips. The man who had held the lariat lay half under his fallen pony, whose efforts to rise were checked by the tightened rope still tied to the saddlebow. The two other men were on their feet, one clutching the straightened halter, the second deftly slipping a lariat around the prisoner's pawing hind legs. It was all over in a minute. The taut rope was cut near the saddle of the fallen pony, which then scrambled to its feet; the leader rose, shook himself, and proceeded phlegmatically to adjust the turned saddle, and to climb stiffly into it; the leading-rope was passed to him again, the second lariat was loosed from the outlaw's feet, permitting him to rise; the other men remounted; and the procession moved on again in silence, scarcely a word having been spoken from the time the horse made his mad charge for liberty. And now he seemed to have had enough of the conflict, for he stepped forward obediently and, Marion fancied, as demurely as a child that has finished a naughty tantrum. Then at last there was speech. One of the men had dropped back a few paces to be in the rear of the prisoner. He sat heavily in the saddle, leaning forward as if he would fall on the pony's neck. But his eyes never left the golden horse, and when he spoke it was not to the girl, who had ridden close up to his side, but to himself, in a kind of hoarse and guttural soliloquy. "But he ain't done. He's foolin'," the man said again and again, as if he had started the words and could not stop them. "He ain't done. He's foolin'." Marion looked at him curiously. He was the typical cow-puncher, in blue flannel shirt and leather chaps, with the inevitable revolver hanging loosely at his hip, and a long quirt suspended from his right wrist. The dust on his face was stained with blood that had flowed from a raw bruise on his temple, and Marion now noticed that his left arm hung limp at his side. "You're hurt!" she said softly. The man turned, and stared at her blankly, and she saw that his face was distorted into a set expression of pain. "Arm busted," he said, after a moment, as if surprised by her question; and then renewed his watch. "How did it happen?" she asked. "Throwed me." "You don't mean you tried to ride him!" "Jerked me. Th' man ain't born't c'n ride 'im." "You were leading him?" "No, just thought I was," he said grimly. "He drug me." "When was that?" "This morning--about seven miles back." "Where did he come from?" "San Luis." "Where is that, please?" "Over yander," he answered, nodding toward the western mountains. Marion stared. "You haven't brought him over the mountains!" "'Round by Pinto Pass, an' up through the canyon." "I've never seen a horse like that before," she said, after a brief silence. "Nor anybody else has," he replied, with a note of pride. "But he's no cow pony--surely." "You ain't never heard o' Sunnysides?" "No." He looked at her curiously. "Of course not," he said apologetically. "You're f'm the city. East, maybe?" "Yes, I'm from New York." "Then it's natch'ral. Everybody in these parts has heard o' Sunnysides, though it's not many that's seen him." "Please tell me about him." The man's eyes brightened a little. "He's got some strange blood in him," he began. "Nobody knows what it is, but th' ain't another one o' that color, nor his devil spirit, in the whole bunch. The rest of 'em's just ordinary wild horses runnin' up an' down the sandhills of the San Luis. There's people't say he's a ghost horse. Fact! An' they say't he'll never stay caught. I don't know. It's certain't he's been caught three times,--not countin' the times cow-punchers an' others has thought they'd caught him, but hadn't. The first time he was caught actual he broke out o' the strongest corral in the San Luis--at night--an' nobody sees hide nor hair of 'im--not so much as a flicker o' yellow in the moonlight. An' back he was, headin' the herd again. "Nex' time Thad Brinker ropes him. Thad's the topnotch cow-puncher between the Black Hills an' the Rio Grande, an' he comes all the way f'm Dakoty when he hears the yarn about Sunnysides. Thad gits fourteen men to help him round up the bunch, an' then he ropes the gold feller after a fight that's talked about yit in the San Luis. He ropes him. An' then what does Brinker do?" He looked at Marion as if he dared her to make as many guesses as she wished. She shook her head. "You ain't the only one that'd never hit it," he went on with satisfaction. "Thad ropes him, an' while they lay there restin', Sunnysides all tied up so he can't move, an' Brinker rubbin' some bumps he'd come by in the fracas, just then the red comes up onto Sangre de Cristo. Brinker sees it--Ever seen the sunset color on Sangre de Cristo? No? That's a pity, Miss. Indeed, that's a pity. But you're f'm Noo York, you said." He paused again, and Marion began to realize the full degree of her provinciality and ignorance. She was from New York. What a pity! "Well," said the cowboy, as if resolved to do the best he could in the circumstances, "sometimes--maybe three or four times a year--it's weird. It's religious. The white peaks turn red as blood--that's why they're called Sangre de Cristo. It's Spanish for Blood of Christ. It makes you feel queer-like"--He paused a moment thoughtfully, watching the golden horse as it stepped quietly, lightly, with head high, just ahead of them. "The red comes onto Sangre de Cristo, an' Brinker sees it. He looks at the blood on the peaks, an' then at the gold horse lyin' there all torn an' dirty, an' this is what Brinker does, an' maybe he couldn't help it. He ups an' cuts the ropes, an' Sunnysides's off to his waitin' bunch, an' they all go snortin' down the valley." There was a touch of awe in the man's voice, and Marion felt a little of it too. She looked toward the serrated barrier of mountains, in the very middle of which stood old Thunder under his pall of cloud. Beyond lay San Luis--Sangre de Cristo--and what romance! Would she ever--Her eyes rested for a moment on the black pile that now, as always, fascinated and yet disturbed her. "And you?" she said at length, turning to the cowboy. "There wasn't no red sunset this time," the man answered, with a grim smile. "But we ain't slep' since," he added, with a return of weariness. "You caught him?" she asked admiringly. "Us three." "But what are you doing with him here?" "He's sold, if we c'n find the man't offered a thousand for him a year ago." "Who was he?" But she knew already. Some swift flash of intuition told her there was but one man in Paradise Park who-- "His name's Haig, an' he's--" "Philip Haig!" she murmured. "You know him?" "Yes--no. That is, I've heard of him." It was on her lips,--the explanation that the men had passed the branch road leading to Haig's ranch, that they were now riding away from it. But she hesitated. And why? She did not know then; but an hour later she would be reproaching herself bitterly for that moment's indecision. The words were almost spoken, but something checked them; and before she could make up her mind to follow her first natural impulse it was too late. The leader of the party turned in his saddle, and called to the man at Marion's side, who rode quickly forward and joined his companions. There was a conversation inaudible to her ears, and while she still pondered over her inexplicable hesitation the cowboys and the golden horse, followed by Marion, approached the group of squat, unpainted houses that bore without apology the name of Paradise. CHAPTER III SETH HUNTINGTON'S OPPORTUNITY It was Thursday, the one day of the week when Paradise needed no apologist. For on Thursdays the stage arrived from Tellurium, bringing the mail and, now and then, a passenger, and always a whiff of the outside world. No resident of Paradise Park would willingly have missed the arrival of the stage; and on this occasion fully two-thirds of the male population, with nine-tenths of the female, had already assembled. But the stage was not due for an hour or more. The women bargained and gossiped in Thompson's store; the men, most of them, were gathered around a stiff game of freeze-out in the Square Deal Saloon; and only the score or more of saddle horses hitched in front of the store, and the dozen or so of buckboards and road wagons parked in the rear of it, showed that Paradise was in its weekly state of mild and patient expectancy. So the three cow-punchers, the yellow horse, and Marion rode into Paradise without being seen or heard, and halted in front of the post-office. "Hal-lo! Hallo!" sang out the leader of the cowboys. And then, with the petulance of one that is "all in": "Is this a dam' graveyard?" A thin man in his shirt sleeves, with a whisky glass in one hand and a towel in the other, came to the door of the Square Deal Saloon. His pallid face had the look of settled weariness that is characteristic of keepers of such oases. Slavin had never, within the recollection of the oldest frequenter of his establishment, betrayed the slightest interest in anything. If there was a certain change in his expression as he looked out between narrowed eyelids into the garish sunlight it was one indicative of mild resentment at having been disturbed in his methodic occupation behind the bar. He saw with neither interest nor anticipation the three strangers, who ought to have had enough sense to dismount and walk in if they wanted anything. "Well," he began in a drawling and sarcastic tone, "what--" It probably would have been a cautious and covered insult to the presumed intelligence of the strangers, if he had finished the question. But it died away on his thin lips. His fishy, blue eyes had caught at last the gleam of Sunnysides, half in eclipse behind the dull-hued cow ponies. For a few seconds he stared, while his mouth stood open, and his features slowly responded to the first emotion he had felt in years. "Hell's bobcats!" he yelled. The glass slipped from his hand, and fell tinkling in pieces on the floor as he lunged out into the road. In the saloon there was a moment of tense silence as the men there slowly realized that a phenomenon had occurred. Slavin was excited! The silence was followed by a hubbub of raised voices and a racket of overturned chairs and the scrape and thud of boots on the sanded floor. At that instant a woman in a pink calico dress, drawn by Slavin's yell, came to the door of Thompson's, and promptly screeched. The poker game was never finished; Thompson's trade was ruined for the day; and the strange group in the roadway became the center of a jostling, uproarious crowd of men and women, who alternately bombarded the three cow-punchers with questions and stared at Sunnysides in silent wonder. But they were careful to maintain a respectful distance between themselves and the formidable captive, though he stood motionless amid all the uproar, like a golden statue of a horse, with his head raised proudly, his yellow-black eyes flashing defiance and suspicion, and his lustrous hide gleaming in the sun. Marion's enjoyment of this exciting scene was tinged with a vague uneasiness. She had watched the men come tumbling out of the Square Deal Saloon and the women swarming from Thompson's store, and had felt a curious relief at seeing neither Seth nor Claire among them. Though she could not have given any reason for her satisfaction, their absence, and Seth's especially, seemed to her a piece of rare good fortune. Haig's warning--"Tell him he's a fool to anger me!"--was still echoing at the back of her brain; her recent act of incomprehensible errancy still troubled and perplexed her; and try as she would, she was unable to suppress the feeling that she had become inextricably entangled in the feud between Haig and Huntington. She was not yet ready to face Huntington. Thank Heaven, he was not there! But at the very instant of her self-congratulation, and when she was just turning her attention again to the hubbub around the golden outlaw, her eye was suddenly caught, across the heads of the crowd, by a figure that caused her to stiffen in the saddle. "Seth!" she gasped. He came striding rapidly from the direction of the blacksmith's, the most distant of the group of buildings,--a large and heavy but well-built man, whose black, short-cropped beard and bushy, overhanging eyebrows gave him a somewhat truculent expression, which was heightened by his rough and domineering demeanor. He was better dressed, or more carefully at least, than any of the other men. He wore a coat and trousers of dark-brown corduroy, a light-gray flannel shirt with a flowing black tie, and a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. His belt, under the unbuttoned coat, was of elaborately stamped leather, with a pocket at one side from which a heavy, gold watch chain was looped to a silver ring, and with an ornate holster at the other where the black butt of a revolver was visible as he moved. He shouldered his way through the crowd in the heedless manner of most bulky men, who seldom realize how much space they take that properly belongs to others. At six feet from the golden horse he halted, and surveyed him with shining eyes. "Sunnysides, eh?" he said, turning toward the nearest of the strangers. "The's only one," replied the cow-puncher. "Who caught him this time?" "Us three. That's Jim Raley, with the busted arm. That other is Jud Smith, My name's Larkin. We belong to the X bar O outfit on Lost Soldier Creek." "Second outfit below Forty-Mile," said Huntington, familiarly. "Right!" "Sanders still foreman?" "Yes." "Then what are you doing with that horse up here?" The cow-puncher grinned. "I ketch your meanin'," he replied. "It's like this. Sanders chased Sunnysides three seasons, an' thought he'd roped him. But all he gits 's a cracked leg, an' not a yeller hair of the slippery beast. Then us three takes on the job--not presumin' to be better'n Sanders, but hopin' for luck. It comes our way, an' there you are. We offer him to Sanders--for a price, natch'rally--but he says he don't believe in ghosts, an' we c'n go to hell with him." "You must have missed the road. This is Paradise," said Huntington. The crowd roared its appreciation. "The' ain't much in names," observed Larkin testily. The crowd laughed again, though, of course, less heartily. "Well, Heaven or Hell," said Huntington, "is the horse for sale?" "He is--if he ain't sold already." "How's that?" "We're offered a price for him--if it still holds good. That's why we've come to Paradise--an' no other reason, believe me!" "How much?" "Thousand." There was a stir in the crowd. "That's some price for a bronco," said Huntington, with an assumed indifference. "It sure is--if you're talkin' about a _bronco_," retorted the cow-puncher. There was a brief silence, in which all eyes were turned again upon the golden horse, standing motionless but alert, as if keenly alive to all that passed. The common ponies around him stamped, and champed their bits, and moved restlessly in their places, but Sunnysides remained calm and observant, with all the dignity and contempt of a captive patrician in a crowd of yokels. Marion saw admiration and desire growing in Seth's eyes, and knew that her foreboding had not been without reason. "And who's paying a thousand dollars for him?" asked Huntington. "Haig's his name, Philip Haig," answered Larkin. "Know him?" If Larkin had been a little nettled by the levity of the Paradisians he now had his revenge, though much to his surprise, in the extraordinary effect produced by his simple announcement. The smiles faded from the faces assembled around him; significant glances were exchanged; and there followed a silence so deep that the murmur of the Brightwater could be heard quite clearly across the meadows. Then there was a rustling movement in the crowd, and every face, as if by a common impulse, or at a given signal, was turned toward Huntington. Marion was not sure of the feelings of the others, but there could be no mistake in what she read in Huntington's black countenance. She was not only frightened, but surprised and pained. For all his coarseness and crudity, she had until to-day believed him to be innately gentle, with only a rough and ungracious exterior. She had seen him always tender with Claire, whom undoubtedly he loved with all the best there was in him. But now she perceived the other side of his character, which she had indeed divined at first, but which she had firmly, on account
{'title': 'The Heart of Thunder Mountain by Edfrid A. Bingham', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}