CHAPTER I.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4193, 24 November 1883, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHAPTER I.

Tite sun was going down on the Carquinez woods. Tho few shafts of sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable depths or splintered their ineffectual lances on tho enormous trunks of the rod-woods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull red of their cast-off bark, which matted the eoholess aisles, still seemed to hold a faint glow of tho dying day. But even this soon passed. Light and colour fled upward. The dark interlaced trcetops that had all day made an impenetrable shade broke into fire hero and there; their lost spires glittored, tided, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come from the outer world, but seemed born of tho wood itself, slowly tilled and possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange breath that filled those mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture; a dry fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their burkstrown floor; the aisles might have been tombs ; the fallen trees, enormous mummies; tho silence, tho solitude of a forgotten past. And yet this silouco w.'is presently broken by a incurring sound like breathing interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps. It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful organization, whoso progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a fragment of one of the Fallen monsters had become animate. At times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshaponly, as tho phantom of a nightman). Now it was a square object moving sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible foot ; then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of tho trees and rocoiling again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and unsteady, striking tho trees on either hand. Tho frequent Occurrence of the movement suggested the liguves of some weird rhythmic donco to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it" either became motionless or faded away.

Thorn «"U9 tlio frightened noighiug of a hor.se, thosudden jingling of spurs, ft shout and outcry, and tho" swift upparition of three dancing torches in ono of tlio dark aisles ; but so intonso was tlio obscurity Unit thoy shod no light on surrounding object.'), and scorned to ndvnncoof thoir own volition without liumnn guidance, until they disappeared suddenly behind tho interposing bulk of ono of tlio largest trees. Beyond its eighty tuft of ciicumforenco tho light could not reach, ami tho gloom remained inscrutable. But tho voioerf mid jingling spurs wuro heard distinctly. "BlftKt the miiro ! She's shiod off that cun-cd trail nimin."

"Yenin'l lust it agin, bevyii!" growled

"That's jUt what 1 hoy. And those blasted pirio knots don't give light an inch beyond Vm. I'd if 1 dont think they mako this cursed liolo blacker."

Tlioru was a Inugli— a woman's laugh— hysterical, bittei1, sarcastic, exasperating. Tlio second spcakor, without heeding it, wont on,

" Whai in thunder ukeert the horses? did you've or hear anything?" " Nothin' Tho wood i» like a graveyard." Tho woman's voico again broke into a hoaree, fonttuiptuoHS laugh. The man roBumcd angrily:

"Ifyou know anything, why don't you say so," instead of cackling like a squaw there? i'Yaps you reckon you ken ibid tho trail too."

"Tnko this ropo off my waist,'' paid the woman's voice, " untie my hands, let me down, and I'll findit." She spoke quickly ami with v Spanish accent. It waa tho men's turn to laugh. " And give you a show to snatch that nix-shooter and blow a bolo through mo as you did to the Sheriff of Calaveras, eh? Not if this Court understands itself," said the first speaker dryly. "Go to tho dovil then," slio said curtly, "Not before a lady," responded tho other. There was another laugh from tho men, the apura jingled again, the fchroo torches reappeared from behind the tree, and then passed away in tho dark nos?. For -i time mlcnco and immutability possessed tho wooils; tho great tnmks loomed upward, thoir fallen brothers stretched their slow length into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the shape reappeared in tho aisle, and recoramencod its mystic dance. l Jio?ent!y it waa lost in the shadow of tho largest tree, and to tho sound of breathing succeeded a grating and scratching of bark. Suddenly, as if riven by lightning, a flash broke from tho centro of tho trunk, lit up the woods, and a sharp report rang through it. After a pause the jingling of spurs and tho dancing of torches WOfO revived from the distance. "Hollo!" No reply. " Who fired.that shot?" ""■ But there was no reply. A slight veil of mnoko passed away to the right, there was the spice "f gunpowder in the air, but nothing more. The torches came forward again, but this time it; could bo seen they wore hold in the hands of two men and a woman. Tho woman's hands wore tied at tho wrist to the horse-hair reins of her mule, while a riata, passed around her waist and under tho mule's girth, was hold by one of tho men, who were both armed with rifles and revolvers. Their frightened horses curveted, and it was with difficulty they could bo mado to advance.

" Ho ! stranger, what are you shooting at ?"

The woman laughed and shruggcJ her shouldors. "Look yonder at tho roots of the tree. You'ro a smart man for a Sheriff, ain't you?" The man uttored an exclamation and spurred his horse forward, but the animal reared in terror. He then sprang to the ground and approached tho tree. The shape lay there, a scarcely distinguishable bulk.

"A grizzly, by the living Jingo! Shot through tht! heart." It was true. Tho strange shape, lit up by tho flaring torches, seemed more vague, unearthly, and awkward in its dying throes, yot tho small shut eyes, the feoblo nose, the ponderous shoulders, and halfliuman foot armed with powerful claws wore-unmistakable. The men turned by a common impulse and poered into the remote recesses of tho wood again. "Hi, mister! come and pick up your game. Hallo there!"

The challenge fell unheeded on the empty woods. " And yet," said ho whom tlio woman had called the Sheriff, "ho can't bo far off. It was a close shot, and tho boar hez dropped in his tracks. Why, wot's this sticking in his claws ?"

The two men bent over the animal. " Why, it's sugar, brown sugar—look !" There was no mistake. The huge beast's fore paws and muzzlo were streaked with the ur.romantio household provision, and heightened the absurd contrast of its incongruous members. The woman, apparently indifferent, had taken that opportunity to partly free one of her wrists. "If we hadn't been cavorting round this yor spot for the last half hour I'd swear there was a shanty not a hundred yards away," said the Sheriff. The other man, without replying, remounted his horse instantly. "If there is, and it's inhabited by a gontleman that kin make centre shots like that in the dark, and don't care to explain how, 1 reckon I won't disturb him." Tho Sheriff was ap])arently of the same opinion, for ho followed his companion's example, and once more led tho way. The spurs tinkled, tho torches danced, and the cavalcade slowly re-entered tho gloom. Tn another moment it had disappeared. The wood sank again into repose, this timo disturbed by neither shape nor sound. What lower forms of life might have kept close to its roots were hidden in the ferns or passed with deadened tread over the barkstrewn floor. Toward morning a coolness like dew fell from above, with here and there a drooping twig or nut, or the crepitaut awakening and stretching out of crumped and weary brandies. Later, a dull, lurid dawn, not unlike tho last evening's sunset, filled tho aisles. This faded again, and a clear grey light, in which every object stood out in sharp distinctness, to'jk its place. Morning was waiting in ail its brilliant, youthful colouring, but only entered as tho matured and sobered day.

Seen in that stronger light, the monstrous tree near which dead bear lay revealed its ago in its denuded and scarred trunk, and showed in its base a deep cavity a foot or two from tho ground, partly hidden by hanging strips, of bark which had fallen across it. Suddenly one of these strips was pushed aside, and a young man leaped lightly down. But for tho ride he carried and some modern peculiarities of dross, ho was of a grace so ulitisiial and unconventional that ho might have passed for a faun who was quitting his ancestral home. Ho stopped to tho side of the bear with a light, elastic movement that was as unlike customary progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary types of humanity. Even as ho leaned upon his rifle, looking Vlown at the prostrate animal, he unconsciously foil into mi attitude that in any other mortal would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque and unstudied relaxation of perfect symmetry.

" Hallo, mister !"

Ho raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that ho did not otherwise change his attitude. Stepping from behind tho tree, the woman of the preceding night stood boforo him. Her hands were froo except forn thong of the riata, which was still knotted around ono wrist, tho ond of tho thong having been torn or burned away. Her eyos woro bloodshot, and her hair hung over her shoulders in ono long black braid. "I reckoned all alon^ it was you who shot the bear," she said; "at least some ono hidin' yor," and she indicated tho hollow tree with her hand., "It wasn't no chance shot." Observing that the young man, either from misconception or indifference, did not seem to comprehend lier, she added,

"Wo came by here, last night, a minute after you fired."

" Oil, that was you kicked up such arow, was it?" said the young man, with a shade of interest.

" 1 reckon," said the woman, nodding her head, " and them that was with me."

" And who are they ?" "Sheriff Dunn, of Yolo, and his deputy." " And where are they now ?" " The deputy—in h—II, I reckon ; I don't know about tho SherilF."

" 1 see," aaid tho young man, quietly, "audyou?" " I —got away," she said, savagely. But she was taken with a sudden nervous shiver, which she at once repressed by tightly dragging her shawl over her shoulder.? and olbows, and folding her arms defiantly.

" And you're going?" "To follow the deputy, nviybc," she said gloomily. " But come, I say, ain't you going to treat ? It's cursed cold here." '• Wait a moment," The young man was looking at her with his arched brows slightly knit, and a half smile of curiosity.

" Ain't you Teresa f" She was prepared for thequcstion, but evidently was not certain whether she should reply defiantly or confidently. After an exhaustive scrutiny of his face, she chose tho latter and said, "You can bet your lifo on it, Johnny."

" I don't bet, and my namo isn't Johnny. Then you're tho woman who stabbed Dick Curaon over at Lagrango's!" She became defiant ugain. "That's me, all tho time. What aro you going to do about it ?"

"Nothing. And you usod to dnnco at AlhambraV

} She whisked the shawl from her shoulders, hold it up liko a scarf, and mado one or two stops of tho sembi-ouacua. Thoro was not tho least gaiety, recklessness, or spontaneity in tho action ; it was simply mechanical bravado. It was so infoctive oven upon her own feelings that her arms presently dropped to har sido and she coughed omhiirrassedly, "Where's that whiskey, pardner?" she asked.

Tho young man turned towai'd the trco ho had just quitted, and without further words assisted her to mount to the cavity. It was an irregular-shaped vaulted chamber, pierced fifty feet nuovo by a shaft or cylindrical opening in tho decayed trunk, which was blackened by smoko as if it had served the purposo of a chimney. In one corner lay a bearskin and a blanket; at tho side were two alcoves or indentations, one of which was evidently used as a table and tho other as a cupboard. In another hollow, near the entrance, lay a few small sacks of flour, coffee, and sugar, tho sticky contents of the latter still strewing the floor. From this storehouse the young man drew a wicker ilask of whisky and handed it, with a tin cuj) of water, to the woman. She waved the cup aside, placed tho flask to her lips, and drank the undiluted spirit. Yet oven tins was evidently bravado, for the water started to her eyes, and she could not restrain tho paroxysm of coughing that followed. "I reckon that's the kind that kills at forty rods," she said, with a hysterical laugh. "Butl say, pardner, you look as if you wero fixed hero to stay," and she started ostentatiously around the chamber. But she had already taken in its minutest details even to observing that the hanging strips of bark could be disposed so as to completely hide the entrance.

"Well, yes," he replied; "it wouldn't be very easy to pull up tho stakes and move the shanty further on." Seeing that either from indifference or caution ne had not accepted her moauing, she looked at him fixedly and said : " What is your little game ?"

"Eh?" " What are you hiding for—here, in this tree '!"

" But I'm not hiding." "Then why didn't you come out when they hailed you last night ?"

" Because I didn't care to."

Teresa whistled incredulously. "All right—then if you're not hiding, I'm going to." As ho did not reply, sho went on : "If lean keep out of sight for a couple of weeks, this thing will blow over here, and I can got across into Yolo. I could get a fair show there, where the boys know me. Just now the trails aro all watched, but no ono would think of lookin' here."

'' Then how did you come to think of it J" lie asked carelessly.

"Because I knew that bear hadnt gone far for that sugar; because I knew he hadn't stole it from a cache —it was too fresh, and we'd have seen tho torn-up earth ; because we had passed no camp, and bocauso I know there was no shanty here. And besides," she added in a low voice, '' maybe I was huntin' a hole myself to die in, and spotted it by instinct." There was something in this suggestion'of a hunted animal that, unlike anything she hod previously said or suggested, was not exaggerated, and caused tho young man to look at her again. She was standing under the chimney-liko opening, and the light from above illuminated her head and shoulders. Tho pupils of her oyes had lost their feverish prominence, and wore slightly suffused and softened as she gazed abstractedly before her. The only vestige of her previous excitement was in her lefthand fingers, which were incessantly twisting and turning a diamond ring upon her right hand, but without imparting the least animation to her rigid attitude. Suddenly, as if conscious of his scrutiny, she stoppod aside out of tho revealing light, and by.a swift feminine instinct raised her hand to her head as if to adjust her straggling hair. It was only for a moment, however, for, as if aware of tho weakness, she struggled to resume her aggressive pose.

" Well," she said. Speak up. Am I goin' to stop hero, or have I got to get up and get ?"

"You can stay," said the young man, quietly ; "but as I've got my provisions and ammunition here, and haven't any other place to go to just now, 1 suppose we'll have to share it together."

Sho glanced at him under her eyelids,, and a half-bitter, half-contemptuous smile passed across her face. "All right, old man," she paid, holding outlier hand, it's a go. We'll start in housekeeping at once if you like."

" I'll havo to come hore once or twice a day," ho said, quite composedly, "to look af tor my things and get something to eat; but I'll bo away most of the time, and what witli camping out under the trees every night, I reckon my share won't incommode you."

She opened her black eyes upon him at this originnl proposition. Then she looked down at her torn dress. "I suppose this stylo of thing ain't very fancy, is it?" she said w itli a forced laugh. " I think I know whero to beg or borrow a chango for you, if you can't get any," he replied simply. She stared at him again. " Are you a family man ?" "No." Sho was silent for a moment. "Well," she said, "you can toll your girl I'm not particnlnr about ita being the latest fashion." Thorn was a light Hush on his forehead as he turned toward the littlo cupboard, but no tremor in his voice as ho went on. " You'll iind tea and coffee here, and, if you're bored, there's a book or two. You read, don't you—l mean English ?" She nodded, but cast a look of undisguised contempt upon the two worn, coverless hovolh ho held out to her. "You haven't got last week's ' Sacramento Union,' have you ? I hear they have my case all in ; only them lying reporters made it out against me all tho time." " I don't see the papers," he replied, curtly. " They say there's a picture of me in the 'Police Gazette,' taken in the act," and she laughed. He looked a littlo abstracted, and turned as if to go. " I think you'll do well to well to rest a while just now, and keep as close hid as possible until afternoon. The trail is a mile away at tho nearest point, but some one might miss it and stray over here. You're quite safo if you're careful, and stand by tho tree. You can build a fire here," he stopped under tho chimney-like opening, " without its being noticed. Even the smoke is lost and cannot be .seen so high." Tho light from above was falling on his head and shoulders ns it had on hers. She looked at him intently.

" You travel a good deal on your figuro, pardncr, don't you ?" sho said, with a certain admiration that was quito soxlessin its quality ; " but I don't see how you pick up a living by it in the Carquincz woods. So you'ro going, are you ? \ou might bo more sociable. Good-by."

"Good by !" If c leapod f rom tho opening.

" I say, purdnor !" He turned, a littlo impatiently. She had knolt down at tho ontranee so as to be noaier his level, and was holding out her hand. Ho did not notice it, and sho quiotly withdrew it.

" If anybody dropped in and asked for you, what nnmo will they Bay ?" He smiled. " Don't wait to hear." "But suppose I wanted to sing out for you, what will I call you?" Ho hesitated. " Call me—Lo." " Lo, tho poor Indian ?"* "Exactly." It suddenly occurred to the woman Teresa that in tho young man's height, supple yot erect carriage, colour, and singular gravity of demoanour, there was arefined aboriginal suggestion. Ho did not look like any Indian she had ovor seen, but rathor as a youthful chief might have looked. Thero was a further suggestion in his fringed buckskin shirt and mocassins, but before she could utter tho half-sarcastic comment that rose to her lips, he had glided noiselessly away, even as an Indian might have done.

She readjusted the slips of hanging bark with feminine ingenuity, dispersinc them ko as to completely hide tho entrance. Yet this did not darken the chamber, which seemed to draw a purer and more vigorous light through tho soaring shaft that pierced the roof than that which came from tho dim woodland aisles below. Nevertheless, she shivered, and, drawing her shawl closely around her, began to collect some half-burnt fragments of wood in the chimney to make a fire. Cut tho preoccupation of her thoughts rendoVed this a tedious process, as she would from time to time stop in the middle of an action, and fall into an attitude of rapt abstraction, with far-off eyes and rigid mouth. When she had at last succeeded in kindling a fire and raising a film" of pale blue smoko that seemed to fada and dissipate entirely before it reached the top of the chimney shaft, she crouched beside it, fixed her eyes on the darkest corner of tho cavern, and became motionless. What did she see through that shadow ?

* Tho first word of Popo's familiar apostrophe is humorously used in tho far West as a distlnguising title for the Indian.

Nothing at first but a confused medley of figures and incidents of the preceding night; things to be put away and forgotten —things that would not have happened but for another thing—the thing before whic°h everything faded ! A ball-room, the sounds of music, the one man she had cared for insulting her with the flaunting ostentation of his unfaithfulness; herself despised, put aside, laughed at, or worse, jilted. And then the moment of delirium, when the light danced; the one wild act ;that lifted her—the despised ono— above them all, made her the supreme figure, to be glanced at by frightened women, stared at by half-startled, halfadmiring men ! " Yes," she laughed ; but, struok By the sound of her own voice, moved twice round the cavern nervously, and then dropped again into her old position.

As they carried him away he had laughed at her—like a hound that he was ; he who had praised her for her spirit, and incited her revenge against others; he who had taught her to strike when she was insulted; and it was only fit ho should reap what he had sown. She was what he, what other men, had made her. And what was she now ? What had she been once ?

She tried to recall her childhood. The man and woman who might have been her father and mother; who fought and wrangled over her precocious little life; abused or caressed her as she sided with either, and then left her with a circus troupe, where she first tasted the power of her courage, her beauty, and her recklessness. She remembered tlio.se flashes of triumph that left a fever in her veins—a fever that when it failed must be stimulated by dissipation ; by anything, by everything that would keep her name a wonder in men's mouths, an envious fear to women. She recalled her transfer to the strolling players ; her cheap pleasures, and cheaper rivalries and hatred—but always Teresa ! the daring Teresa ! the reckless Teresa ! audacious as a woman, invincible as a boy ; dancing, flirting, fencing, shooting, swearing, drinking, smoking, fighting Teresa ! "Oh, yes ; she had been loved, perhaps—who knows ? —but always feared. Why should she change now? Ha, he should see."

She had lashed herßelf in a frenzy, as was her wont, with gestures, ejaculations, oaths, adjurations, and jiassionate apostrophes, but with this strange and unexpected result. Heretofore she had always been sustained and kept up by an audience of some kind or quality, if only perhaps an humble companion; there had always been some one she could fascinate or horrify, and she could read her power mirrowed in their eyes. Even the half-ab-stracted indifference of her strange host had been something. But she was alone now. Her words fell on apathetic solitude; she was acting te viewless space. She rushed to the opening, dashed the hanging bark aside, and leaped to the ground. She ran forward wildly a few stepa and stopped. " Hallo !" she cried. " Look, 'tis I, Teresa I" The profound silence remained unbroken. Her shrillest tones were lost in an echoless space, even aa the emoke of her fire had faded into pure ether. She stretched out her clenched fists as if to defy the pillared austerities of the vaults around her.

" Come and take me if you dare I" The challenge was unheeded. It' she had thrown herself violently against the nearest tree trunk, she could not have been stricken more breathless than ehe was by the compact, embattled solitude that encompassed her. The hopelessness of impressing these cold and passive vaults with her solnsh passion filled ncr with a vague fear. In her rage of the previous night ehe had not seen the wood in its profound immobility. Left alone with the majesty of those enormous columns, she trembled and turned faint. The silence of the hollow tree she had just quitted seemed to her less awful than the crushing presence of these muto and monstrous witnesses of her weakness. Like a wounded quail with lowered crest and trailing wing she crept back to her hiding-place.

Even then the influence of the wood waa still upon her. She picked up the novel she had contemptuously thrown aside, only to let it fall again in utter weariness. For a moment her .feminine curiosity was excited by tho discovery of an. old book, in whose blank leaves were pressed a variety of flowera and woodland grasses. As she could not conceivo that these had been kept for any but a sentimental purpose, she was disappointed to find that underneath each was a sentence in an unknown tongue, that even to her untutored eye did not appear to be the language of passion. Finally, she re-arranged tho couch of skins and blankets, and, imparting to it in three clever shakes an entirely different character, lay down to pursue her rereries. But nature asserted herself, and ere she knew it she was asleep. So intenso and prolonged had been her previous excitement that, the tension once relievod, she passed' into o slumber of exhaustion so deep that she seemed scarce to breathe. High noon succeeded morning, the central shaft received a single ray of upper sunlight, the afternoon came and went, the shadows gathered below, tho sunset fires began to eat their way through the groined roof, and she still slept. She slept even when the bark hangings of the chamber were put aside and the young man ro-ontered.

He laid down a bundle he was carrying, and softly approached the sleeper. Fora moment ho was startledfromhis indifference, she lay so still and motionless. But this was not all that struck him; the face before him was no longer tho passionate, haggard visage that confronted him that morning; the feverish air, the burning colour, tho strained muscles of mouth and brow, .md the staring eyes were goue —wiped away, perhaps, by tho tears that still toft their traces on cheek and dark eyelash. It was the face of a handsome womwi of thirty, with even a suggestion of softness in the contour of the cheek and arching of her upper lip, no longer rigidly drawn down in anger, but relaxed by sleep on her white teeth.

With the lithe soft tread that was habitual to him, the young man moved about, examining the condition of the little chamber, and its stock of provisions and necessaries, and withdrew presently, to reappear as noiselessly with a tin bucket of water. This done, he replenished the little pile of fuel with an armful of bark and pine cones, cast an approving glance about him, which included the sleeper, and silently doparted. It was night when she awoke. She was surrounded by n profound darkness, oxcept where the shufl-like openiug made a nebulous mist in the corner of her wooden cavern. Providentially she struggled back to consciousness slowly, so that the solitude and silence came upon her gradually with a growing realisation of the events of the past twenty-four hours, but without a shock. She was alone here, but safe still, and every hour added to her chances of ultimate escape. She remembered to have seen a candle among the articles on the shelf, and she began to grope her way toward the matches. Suddenly she stopped. What was that panting ? Was it her own breathing, quickened with a sudden nameless terror, or was there

something outside ? Her"klZP — —- etop beating while she lisS*^ was a panting outside—a nanK es! "t ' creased, multiplied, redoubled ■ now "»- the sounds of rustling, tearine p6"l with and occasionally a quick, im™«* U?chi»?y ■.: ■: She crept on her hands and W *"& opening and looked out. At first «?*■ **»■ seemed to be undulating befoZ: 6 P^i ■ the opposite tree. But s^N showed her the black and g^tiSpH* tossing backs of tumbling $<ZL b*$h*g, ' charging the carcass of tlie bear tt, l^> its roots, or contestina for th« *• ky «t gluttonous choked breath, sideloS,^' arched spines, and recurved tails 8 J? tels' the boldest had leaped uponabutt^o* root of her tree within a foot of the^°B The excitement, awe, and tenor 5W* undergone culminated in ono wild m*}** ingscrenm that seemed to r>ier™ dencold depths of the forest^Kop^9 her face, with her hands clamedott?!? eyes in an agony of fear. : "® Her scream was answered, after a 't»ii • by a sudden volley of firebands and& into the midst of the pantine orfi* 8 pack; a, foit smothered howls and , and a sudden dispersion of the c£s3j.. In another moment the young man S 6" ! blazing brand in either hand? leanS* the body of the bear. '^Wttpoa Teresa raised her head, uttered a':Wj,_cal cry, slid down the tree, flew wS?' hlß, sid.e. caught convulsively at his d£f and fell on her knees beside him. m **> [' Save me ! save me !" she easbed. ;» voice broken by terror. " Save \n? {?.,* those hideous creatures. No, no!" IT , plorcd, as he endeavoured to lift hettov v feet. "No-let me stay here clow'Eg you So," clutching the fringe (S ■ leather hunting-shirt, and dragging henSf ■ou her knees nearer him, "so-don't Z me, for God's sake !" - c "They are gone," he replied, garfnojll. curiously at her, as sho wound the fVW around her hand to strengthen herW : " they ro only a lot of cowardly CoyoteS ' wolves, that dare not attack anytßii t ¥!; lives and can move. *—^ 50M j The young woman responded wifl, „ nervous shudder. "Yes; that's tL» she whispered, in a broken voice-' "iv only the dead they want. Promise 'ml swear to me, if I'm caught or hung or XT you won't let me be left here to bolom «3 : ' -ah !my God ! what's that ?" tt"" ,;, She had thrown her arms around 1™ ; knees, completely pinioning him & S '■'■' frantic breast. Something lite a smueS disdain passed acmes hie face «« v answered: " It's nothing. They will 'i,* ■ return. Get up !" h y ™n<* Even in her terror she saw tbe^n™ in his face. " I know, I know !" sheS "I m f riffhtened—but I cannot bear it S longer. Hear me! Listen! Listen-4it don't move ! I didn't mean tokfllCnt«o n —no! I swear to God, no ! I didn't S to kill the sheriff-and I ffldn™ S : only bragging—do you hear? I Hei.l T lied—don't move. I swear to God IM ■. I've marle myself out worse thanlwu^r ' have. Only don't leave me nbw-^ad"if r die-and it's not far off; maybe^t^ away from here-and from them. Bir£r it! . wr " All right," said the young man, \rfflu scarcely concealed movement of irritation. "But get up now, and go back to tint cabin." ; , . "No; not there alone." tfeverlhelear • he quietly but firmly released himself. "I will stay here," he replied. "I would have been nearer to you, but! thought it better for your safety that my camp fire should be further off. But I can ■ build it here, and that will keep tie coyotes off." _" Let me stay with you—beside yon,"^ : said, imploringly. , f>, > She looked so broken, cruehed.'siid spiritless, so unlike the woman of thenwm;: ing—that, albeit with an ill, grape^ he tacitly consented, and turned awayio'bring ' his blankets. But in the next momattie ; was at his side, following him like a dog, silent and wistful, and even offering to carry : his burden. When lie had built the fcej for which sho had collected the pinfrooiies and broken branches near them, he sat down, folded his arms, and leiHcd&k against the tree in reserved andijdelibewfe silence. Humble and submissive,.she dM not attempt to break in upon a reverie sho could not help but feel had little kindlinftss: to herself. As the fire snapped and sparkled; she pillowed her head upon a root, andlay still to watch it. . It rose and fell, dying away at times to £■ mere lurid glow, and again, agitatedly:: some breath scarcely perceptible to thei^1 ... quickening into a roaring flame... TOii oi^y the embers remained, a dead silence r rilled the wood. Then the first breath of, morning moved the tangled canopy-abore, and a dozen tiny sprays and needles detached from the interlocked boughs wiDgetf their soft way noiselessly to the earth. ,A* few fell upon tho prostrate woman likfea^iitls- '■' benediction, and she slept. But eyenthen,., the young man, looking down, Bawthattlie slender fingers were still aimlessly\:tot rigidly twisted in the leather fringe of his hunting shirt.