The Forfeit (12 page)

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The black earth sped under the horses' hoofs. The stars shone like dew on the velvet pall of night. Bud led, as he always led in the things practical which belonged to his life.

He needed no thought for guidance on that night journey. Unerring instinct served him across those wide plains. Spruce Crossing might have possessed a beacon light, so straight, so unerring was the lead he offered those behind him.

Now, perhaps, more than ever, all his great skill was put forth. For he had listened to the complete, if halting, story of the man's wife, and shared with her the conviction of treachery. For the time, at least, all consideration for the woman was thrust aside. He offered no words of blame. His concern was simply the succor of his friend.

Nan was ready to follow him whithersoever he led. She was ready to obey his lightest command, for she understood his skill. She had no thought for anything but the man she loved. No possibilities of mischance, no threat to herself could find place in her thought. For her Jeff's well-being was her single concern.

Elvine rode beside her, step for step. She had told her story as they rode. After that silence between them prevailed. It was a silence fraught with an emotion too deep for any words. A fierce jealousy mingled with her passionate longing. Her world was empty of all but two figures. The man she loved, and the girl who had confessed her love with all the strength of a great, simple courage.

Whatever the night might bring forth, whatever tragedy might be in store, she scarcely had thought for anything but her own almost mad resolve. This girl, this child of the plains, should obtain no advantage. She was prepared to yield all for the succor of the husband who had scorned her-even to life itself.

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The eyes of the night were there alone to see. It was as well. There are moments in men's lives when it is best that it should be so. Passions are not always sane. They are not always human.

So it was with Jeffrey Masters. The change in him had been rapid. It was almost magical. Always one who lacked something of the softer human qualities, he yet must have been counted a man of balance. If sympathy, sentiment, were never his strong points, he was by no means lacking in loyalty, kindliness, rightness of purpose. All his life, achievement, achievement under the strictest canons of honesty, or moral scruple, had been the motive urging him. He had seen neither to the right nor to the left of these things.

Then had come the woman into his life and the lighting of those natural fires which belong to all human life. He yielded to them, and the suddenness of it all seemed to sweep away every cooler method which had always governed him. There had been no thought, no calculation in his yielding, such as might have been expected. He was the victim of his own temperament. His powerful restraint had been suddenly relaxed. And, for the time, he had been completely overwhelmed by the intensity of his passion.

But this passion for the woman who had so suddenly entered his life was merely the opening of vials of emotion hitherto held sealed. It was no radical transformation. All that had been his before still remained, buried perhaps for the moment under the avalanche of feeling, but nevertheless still occupying its place. These things could not be swept away. They could not be destroyed. They would remain when the passionate fires had completely burned themselves out.

But the unlooked-for had happened. These fires had not been permitted to burn themselves out. They had been extinguished, deluged out of existence when the idol of his worship was flung headlong from its pedestal by the complete revolt of his moral being. His prejudices, his instincts, matured through years of effort, were the stronger part of him, and the conflict was decided before it began. The shock of discovery had brought a terrible reaction. His love was killed under the blow. And though for a while the sense of overwhelming disaster had been crushing, the measure of that disaster was taken swiftly. It left him disillusioned, it left him harder, colder. But it left him sane.

These things were not all, however. On this night he had approached far nearer the hell which only a woman can create for a man than his first discovery had borne him. The irony of it was perfect. Out of her great love for him, solely in his interest, in a great desire to shield him from a danger she saw threatening him, she had contrived to convince him that she had been as ready to sacrifice him, his interests, the interests of his friends, as she had been to accept the price offered for the blood of his twin brother.

So the eyes of the night looked down upon the haunting figure of a man who knew neither mercy, nor pity, nor hope. The world of human happiness had closed its doors upon him, and his whole spirit and body demanded a fierce retaliation.

That was the mood which looked out of his coldly shining eyes. That was the mood which drove the horse under him at a headlong gait, and left his spurs blood-stained upon his heels. That was the mood that left him caring nothing for any danger that might lurk under cover of the starlit dark of night. The fierceness of his temper demanded outlet. Bodily outlet. Active conflict. Anything, so that a burning lust for hurt should be satisfied. He cared nothing at all for himself. No bodily suffering could compare with the anguish of mind he had passed through, was still passing through. And so he rode headlong till the youth accompanying him was hard put to it to keep pace with him.

The hammering of the horses' hoofs upon the sun-baked earth was a fitting accompaniment to his mood. The sigh of the night breezes through the trees was no less desolate than his heart. Nor was the darkness one whit more dark than the stream of thought which flowed through his hot brain.

Not one word did he exchange with the man behind him. In truth the youth who had brought the summons had no part in the thing that was happening, at least not in Jeffrey Masters' mind. There was no one besides himself in this. There was just himself and his goal-whatever that might bring forth-with a wild, almost insane desire to act fiercely and without mercy should opportunity offer.

The land rose and fell, from hill to valley, from valley to hill. The way lay through avenues of bluff-lined grass, or across hollows of virgin pasture. Trickling mountain streams barred the way, only to be passed without a thought of their depth, or the dangers of their treacherous, sodden banks. The mountain barrier ahead, looming darkly forbidding in the starlight, with its mazing hollows and woodland crowns, was incapable of inspiration at the moment. There are moments when Nature's profoundest awe is powerless to affect the mind of man. These were such moments. The whole mind of Jeffrey Masters was absorbed till there was no room for any influence which did not arise out of the burden of his bitterness.

But if he were indifferent to his surroundings, the man riding hard behind him moved with eyes and ears fully alert. That which he was seeking would have been impossible to tell. Nevertheless every shadow seemed to possess interest, every night sound to possess some quality worth remarking. Not for an instant, after the hills had been entered, did his vigilance relax.

Spruce Crossing lay deep in the hills, a clearing to the south of the junction of converging mountain streams. It was a mere cattle station, neither better nor worse than several others lying on the outskirts of the Obar territory. Yet it was important that it headed a valley running north and south amongst the hills, where the grass was sweet, and rich, and fattening, one of those surprise natural pastures which the hills love to yield occasionally to those who seek out their wealth.

A glimmer of light, like some distant star fallen to earth from its velvet setting above, marked the station, house. It was visible at a great distance down the flat stretch of the valley. The ranchman's horse was headed directly for it, and the animal moved readily, eagerly now, nor were the spurs needed to urge him further. The instinct of its journey's end was sufficient to encourage its flagging spirits.

The distant light grew brighter. It took on the rectangular form of a window opening in a log-built hut.

Jeffrey Masters had fixed his gaze upon it, and so the shadowy scene about him passed all unnoticed. He saw nothing of the darker objects lying on the ground adjacent to his way. The slumbering kine which bore his brand remained all unheeded. He had no thought for them. His course took him over a track which passed down a land between two fenced pastures. These, too, were stocked with fattening steers, or with the brood cows and their attendant calves. At another time, under other conditions, these things would have held for him an absorbing interest. Now they concerned him not at all.

The dark pastures gave place to a number of corrals, also lost in the summer night. A dog barked. Then, in a moment, its sharp yelps became silent, and the stillness became once more unbroken except for the hard pounding hoofs of the two horsemen approaching.

A few moments later these sounds ceased as the dark outline of the station house itself took shape.

For a few seconds Jeff gazed at the window opening where the light from within was still shining. A sound had caught and held his attention. It came from within the hut, and there was no mistaking it. It was the sound inspired by physical suffering, and the voice that uttered it was a man's. He sprang out of the saddle and turned to hand his horse to the man who had accompanied him. But he found himself standing alone.

With a shrug of the shoulders he left his horse and turned at once to the hut. Just for an instant he hesitated once more. It was his thought to look in through the window. The hesitation passed. The next moment he passed along the lateral log walls to the far end of the building where he knew the door to be situated.

The door was closed. He placed his hand on the heavy wooden latch. A second passed. He glanced over his shoulder. It had occurred to him to wonder at the sudden going of the youth who had accompanied him.

But there was neither sight nor sound of the vanished youth. He raised the latch and swung the door open.

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