"Yes, she was crazy in love with me but--"
With diabolic malice Armstrong left the sentence uncompleted. The inference he meant should be drawn from his reticence was obvious.
"I took it from her dead body," gritted out Newbold.
"She was beside herself with love for me, an old affair, you know," said Armstrong more explicitly, thinking to use a spear with a double barb to pierce the woman"s and the man"s heart alike. That he defamed the dead was of no moment then. "She wanted to leave you," he ran on glibly, "she wanted me to take her back and--"
"Untrue," burst forth from Enid Maitland"s lips. "A slanderous, dastardly, cowardly untruth."
But the men paid no attention to her in their excitement, perhaps they did not even hear her. Newbold thrust his pistol violently forward.
"Would you murder me as you murdered the woman?" gibed Armstrong in bitter taunt.
Then Enid Maitland found it in her heart to urge Newbold to kill him where he stood, but she had no time if she could have carried out her design, for Newbold flung the weapon from him and the next moment the two men leaped upon each other, straining, struggling, clawing, battling like savage beasts, each seeking to clasp his fingers around the throat of the other and then twist and crush until life was gone.
Saying nothing, fighting in a grim silence that was terrible, they reeled crashing about the little room. No two men on earth could have been better matched, yet Newbold had a slight advantage in height and strength, as he had also the advantage in simple life and splendid condition. Armstrong"s hate and fierce temper counterbalanced these at first and with arms locked and legs twined, with teeth clenched and eyes blinded and pulses throbbing and hearts beating, they strove together.
The woman shrank back against the wall and stared frightened. She feared for her lover, she feared for herself. Strange primitive feelings throbbed in her veins. It was an old situation, when two male animals fought for supremacy and the ownership of a female, whose destiny was entirely removed from her own hands.
Armstrong had shown himself in his true colors at last. She would have nothing to hope from him if he were the victor and she even wondered in terror what might happen to her if the man she loved triumphed after the pa.s.sions aroused in such a battle. She grew sick and giddy, her bosom rose and fell, her breath came fast as she followed the panting, struggling, clinging, grinding figures about the room.
At first there had been no advantage to either, but now after five minutes--or was it hours?--of fierce fighting, the strength and superior condition of her lover began to tell. He was forcing the other backward.
Slowly, inch by inch, foot by foot, step by step, he mastered him. The two intertwining figures were broadside to her now, she could see their faces inflamed by the l.u.s.t of the battle, engorged, blood red with hate and fury. There was a look of exultation in one and the shadow of approaching disaster in the other. But the consciousness that he was being mastered ever so little only increased Armstrong"s determination and he fought back with the frenzy, the strength of a maddened gorilla, and again for a s.p.a.ce the issue was in doubt. But not for long.
The table, a heavy, c.u.mbersome, four-legged affair, solid almost as a rock, stood in the way. Newbold at last backed Armstrong up against it and by superhuman effort bent him over it, held him with one arm and using the table as a support, wrenched his left hand free, and sunk his fingers around the other"s throat. It was all up with Armstrong. It was only a question of time now.
[Ill.u.s.tration: It was all up with Armstrong]
"Now," Newbold guttered out hoa.r.s.ely, "you slandered the dead woman I married, and you insulted the living one I love. Take back what you said before you die."
"I forgive him," cried Enid Maitland. "Oh, don"t kill him before my eyes."
Armstrong was past speech. The inveteracy of his hatred could be seen even in his fast glazing eyes, the indomitableness of his purpose yet spoke in the negative shake of his head. He could die, but he would die in his hate and in his purpose.
Enid ran to the two, she grappled Newbold"s arm with both her own and strove with all her might to tear it away from the other"s throat. Her lover paid no more attention to her than if a summer breeze had touched him. Armstrong grew black in the face, his limbs relaxed, another second or two and it would have been over with him.
Once more the door was thrown open, through it two snow covered men entered. One swift glance told them all, one of them at least had expected it. On the one side Kirkby, on the other Maitland, tore Newbold away from his prey just in time to save Armstrong"s life. Indeed the latter was so far gone that he fell from the table to the floor unconscious, choking, almost dying. It was Enid Maitland who received his head in her arms and helped bring him back to life while the panting Newbold stood staring dully at the woman he loved and the man he hated on the floor at his feet.
CHAPTER XXV
THE BECOMING END
"Why did you interfere?" when at last he got his breath again, asked Newbold of Maitland who still held him firmly although restraint was now unnecessary, the heat and fire of his pa.s.sion being somewhat gone out of him. "I meant to kill him."
"He"d oughter die sure nuff," drawled old Kirkby, rising from where he had been kneeling by Armstrong"s side, "but I don"t know"s how you"re bound to be his executioner. He"s all right now, Miss Enid," said the old man. "Here"--he took a pillow from the bunk and slipped it under his head and then extending his hands he lifted the excited almost distraught woman to her feet--"tain"t fittin" for you to tend on him."
"Oh," exclaimed Enid, her limbs trembling, the blood flowing away from her heart, her face deathly white, fighting against the faintness that came with the reaction, while old Kirkby supported and encouraged her.
"I thank G.o.d you came. I don"t know what would have happened if you had not."
"Has this man mistreated you?" asked Robert Maitland, suddenly tightening his grip upon his hard breathing but unresisting pa.s.sive prisoner.
"No, no," answered his niece. "He has been everything that a man should be."
"And Armstrong?" continued her uncle.
"No, not even he."
"I came in time, thank G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Newbold.
By this time Armstrong had recovered consciousness. To his other causes for hatred were now added chagrin, mortification, shame. He had been overcome. He would have been a dead man and by Newbold"s hands if the others had not interfered. He almost wished they had let his enemy alone. Well, he had lost everything but a chance for revenge on them all.
"She has been alone here with this man in this cabin for a month," he said thickly. "I was willing to take her in spite of that, but--"
"He made that d.a.m.ned suggestion before," cried Newbold, his rage returning. "I don"t know who you are--"
"My name is Robert Maitland, and I am this girl"s uncle."
"Well, if you were her father, I could only swear--"
"It isn"t necessary to swear anything," answered Maitland serenely. "I know this child. And I believe I"m beginning to find out this man."
"Thank you, Uncle Robert," said Enid gratefully, coming nearer to him as she spoke. "No man could have done more for me than Mr. Newbold has, and no one could have been more considerate of me. As for you," she turned on, Armstrong, who now slowly got to his feet, "your insinuations against me are on a par with your charges against the dead woman, beneath contempt."
"What did he say about her?" asked Old Kirkby.
"You know my story?" asked Newbold.
"Yes."
"He said that my wife had been unfaithful to me--with him--and that he had refused to take her back."
"And it was true," snarled Armstrong.
It was all Maitland could do to check Newbold"s rush, but in the end it was old Kirkby who most effectively interposed.
"That"s a d.a.m.ned lie," he said quietly with his usual drawling voice.
"You can say so," laughed Armstrong, "but that doesn"t alter the facts."
"An" I can prove it," answered the old man triumphantly.
It was coming, the secret that she had tried to conceal was about to be revealed, thought Enid. She made a movement toward the old man. She opened her mouth to bid him be silent and then stopped. It would be useless she knew. The determination was no longer hers. The direction of affairs had been withdrawn from her. After all it was better that the unloving wife should be proved faithful, even if her husband"s cherished memory of her love for him had to be destroyed thereby. Helpless she listened knowing full well what the old frontiersman"s next word would be.
"Prove it!" mocked Armstrong. "How?"