Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LUCK. er. Very different was this wild mountain. girl from the armored earl who put kings up and pulled them down again at pleasure, but her heart swelled as great as the heart of famous Warwick; he gave up a kingdom, and she gave up her love. When she drew back the horse followed her a pace, but she raised a silent hand in the night and halted him; a moment later she was lost among the boulders. It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders cut off the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make little, cautious détours be- fore she found it again, but she kept steadily at her work. Once she stopped, her blood running cold, for she thought that she heard a faint voice blown up the cafion on the wind: “ McGurk!” For half a minute she stood frozen, lis- tening, but the sound was not repeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came at last in view of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were a few trees, growing in the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small spring of clear water. Many a time she had made a cup of her hands and drunk here. Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes of shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with the flare of the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and knees and, parting the dense under- brush, began the last stealthy approach. CHAPTER XXXVI. A VOICE IN THE NIGHT. UP the same course which Jacqueline fol- lowed, Mary Brown had fled earlier that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing in her ears and follow- ing her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame. There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if a man laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is whipped on by scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the saddle. She had not progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would come later, but now all her heart had room for was a consuming loathing of herself. Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the side of the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high- tossed head and a burst of whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over a loose rock that almost flung Mary over the pom- mel of the saddle and forced her to draw rein. Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from the trip of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with Jacqueline, so that she began to look about for a place where she could stop for even an hour or so and rest her aching body. It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running water, a sound: dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the left and found the little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing be- tween, fed by the water of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and tethered the horses. By this time she had seca enough of camping out to know how to make herself fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly. It was something to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that burning sense of shame. One picture it could not obliterate, and that was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre le Rouge laughing together over the love affair with the silly girl of the yellow hair. That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between them? He had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget a single scruple of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered, remembering how she had fairly flung her- self into his arms. On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not that she was cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night, was a friend incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long when the tall bay, Wilbur’s horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched his tail, and then whinnied. She started to her feet, stirred by a thou- sand fears, and heard, far away, an answer- ing neigh. At once all thought of shame Gomichbooks 809 : aly '. Sh a tate VU Le Pe rate, 6 ~a