"You d.a.m.ned, white-livered hypocrite--I"m liable to kill you!" cried Shefford. "I watched you and Glen Naspa that day up on the mountain.
I saw you embrace her. I saw that she loved you. Tell THAT, you liar!
That"ll be enough."
The face of the missionary turned purple as Shefford forced his head back over the rail.
"I"ll kill you, man," repeated Shefford, piercingly. "Do you want to go to your G.o.d unprepared? Say you made love to Glen Naspa--tell that you persuaded her to leave her home. Quick!"
Willetts raised a shaking hand and then Shefford relaxed the paralyzing grip and let his head come forward. The half-strangled man gasped out a few incoherent words that his livid, guilty face made unnecessary.
Shefford gave him a shove and he fell into the dust at the feet of the Navajo.
"Gentlemen, I leave him to Nas Ta Bega," said Shefford, with a strange change from pa.s.sion to calmness.
Late that night, when the roystering visitors had gone or were deep in drunken slumber, a melancholy and strange procession filed out of Stonebridge. Joe Lake and his armed comrades were escorting the Mormon women back to the hidden valley. They were mounted on burros and mustangs, and in all that dark and somber line there was only one figure which shone white under the pale moon.
At the starting, until that white-clad figure had appeared, Shefford"s heart had seemed to be in his throat; and thereafter its beat was m.u.f.fled and painful in his breast. Yet there was some sad sweetness in the knowledge that he could see her now, be near her, watch over her.
By and by the overcast clouds drifted and the moon shone bright. The night was still; the great dark mountain loomed to the stars; the numberless waves of rounded rock that must be crossed and circled lay deep in shadow. There was only a steady pattering of light hoofs.
Shefford"s place was near the end of the line, and he kept well back, riding close to one woman and then another. No word was spoken. These sealed wives rode where their mounts were led or driven, as blind in their hoods as veiled Arab women in palanquins. And their heads drooped wearily and their shoulders bent, as if under a burden. It took an hour of steady riding to reach the ascent to the plateau, and here, with the beginning of rough and smooth and shadowed trail, the work of the escort began. The line lengthened out and each man kept to the several women a.s.signed to him. Shefford had three, and one of them was the girl he loved. She rode as if the world and time and life were naught to her.
As soon as he dared trust his voice and his control he meant to let her know the man whom perhaps she had not forgotten was there with her, a friend. Six months! It had been a lifetime to him. Surely eternity to her! Had she forgotten? He felt like a coward who had basely deserted her. Oh--had he only known!
She rode a burro that was slow, continually blocking the pa.s.sage for those behind, and eventually it became lame. Thus the other women forged ahead. Shefford dismounted and stopped her burro. It was a moment before she noted the halt, and twice in that time Shefford tried to speak and failed. What poignant pain, regret, love made his utterance fail!
"Ride my horse," he finally said, and his voice was not like his own.
Obediently and wearily she dismounted from the burro and got up on Nack-yal. The stirrups were long for her and he had to change them. His fingers were all thumbs as he fumbled with the buckles.
Suddenly he became aware that there had been a subtle change in her. He knew it without looking up and he seemed to be unable to go on with his task. If his life had depended upon keeping his head lowered he could not have done it. The listlessness of her drooping form was no longer manifest. The peak of the dark hood pointed toward him. He knew then that she was gazing at him.
Never so long as he lived would that moment be forgotten! They were alone. The others had gotten so far ahead that no sound came back. The stillness was so deep it could be felt. The moon shone with white, cold radiance and the shining slopes of smooth stone waved away, crossed by shadows of pinyons.
Then she leaned a little toward him. One swift hand flew up to tear the black hood back so that she could see. In its place flashed her white face. And her eyes were like the night.
"YOU!" she whispered.
His blood came leaping to sting neck and cheek and temple. What dared he interpret from that single word? Could any other word have meant so much?
"No--one--else," he replied, unsteadily.
Her white hand flashed again to him, and he met it with his own. He felt himself standing cold and motionless in the moonlight. He saw her, wonderful, with the deep, shadowy eyes, and a silver sheen on her hair.
And as he looked she released her hand and lifted it, with the other, to her hood. He saw the shiny hair darken and disappear--and then the lovely face with its sad eyes and tragic lips.
He drew Nack-yal"s bridle forward, and led him up the moonlit trail.
XII. THE REVELATION
The following afternoon cowboys and horse-wranglers, keen-eyed as Indians for tracks and trails, began to arrive in the quiet valley to which the Mormon women had been returned.
Under every cedar clump there were hobbled horses, packs, and rolled bedding in tarpaulins. Shefford and Joe Lake had pitched camp in the old site near the spring. The other men of Joe"s escort went to the homes of the women; and that afternoon, as the curious visitors began to arrive, these homes became barred and dark and quiet, as if they had been closed and deserted for the winter. Not a woman showed herself.
Shefford and Joe, by reason of the location of their camp and their alertness, met all the new-comers. The ride from Stonebridge was a long and hard one, calculated to wear off the effects of the whisky imbibed by the adventure-seekers. This fact alone saved the situation.
Nevertheless, Joe expected trouble. Most of the visitors were decent, good-natured fellows, merely curious, and simple enough to believe that this really was what the Mormons had claimed--a village of free women.
But there were those among them who were coa.r.s.e, evil-minded, and dangerous.
By supper-time there were two dozen or more of these men in the valley, camped along the west wall. Fires were lighted, smoke curled up over the cedars, gay songs disturbed the usual serenity of the place. Later in the early twilight the curious visitors, by twos and threes, walked about the village, peering at the dark cabins and jesting among themselves. Joe had informed Shefford that all the women had been put in a limited number of cabins, so that they could be protected. So far as Shefford saw or heard there was no unpleasant incident in the village; however, as the sauntering visitors returned toward their camps they loitered at the spring, and here developments threatened.
In spite of the fact that the majority of these cowboys and their comrades were decent-minded and beginning to see the real relation of things, they were not disposed to be civil to Shefford. They were certainly not Mormons. And his position, apparently as a Gentile, among these Mormons was one open to criticism. They might have been jealous, too; at any rate, remarks were pa.s.sed in his hearing, meant for his ears, that made it exceedingly trying for him not to resent. Moreover, Joe Lake"s increasing impatience rendered the situation more difficult.
Shefford welcomed the arrival of Nas Ta Bega. The Indian listened to the loud talk of several loungers round the camp-fire; and thereafter he was like Shefford"s shadow, silent, somber, watchful.
Nevertheless, it did not happen to be one of the friendly and sarcastic cowboys that precipitated the crisis. A horse-wrangler named Hurley, a man of bad repute, as much outlaw as anything, took up the bantering.
"Say, Shefford, what in the h.e.l.l"s your job here, anyway?" he queried as he kicked a cedar branch into the camp-fire. The brightening blaze showed him swarthy, unshaven, a large-featured, ugly man.
"I"ve been doing odd jobs for Withers," replied Shefford. "Expect to drive pack-trains in here for a while."
"You must stand strong with these Mormons. Must be a Mormon yerself?"
"No," replied Shefford, briefly.
"Wal, I"m stuck on your job. Do you need a packer? I can throw a diamond-hitch better "n any feller in this country."
"I don"t need help."
"Mebbe you"ll take me over to see the ladies," he went on, with a coa.r.s.e laugh.
Shefford did not show that he had heard. Hurley waited, leering as looked from the keen listeners to Shefford.
"Want to have them all yerself, eh?" he jeered.
Shefford struck him--sent him tumbling heavily, like a log. Hurley, cursing as he half rose, jerked his gun out. Nas Ta Bega, swift as light, kicked the gun out of his hand. And Joe Lake picked it up.
Deliberately the Mormon c.o.c.ked the weapon and stood over Hurley.
"Get up!" he ordered, and Shefford heard the ruthless Mormon in him then.
Hurley rose slowly. Then Joe prodded him in the middle with the c.o.c.ked gun. Shefford startled, expected the gun to go off. So did the others, especially Hurley, who shrank in panic from the dark Mormon.
"Rustle!" said Joe, and gave the man a harder prod. a.s.suredly the gun did not have a hair-trigger.
"Joe, mebbe it"s loaded!" protested one of the cowboys.
Hurley shrank back, and turned to hurry away, with Joe close after him.
They disappeared in the darkness. A constrained silence was maintained around the camp-fire for a while. Presently some of the men walked off and others began to converse. Everybody heard the sound of hoofs pa.s.sing down the trail. The patter ceased, and in a few moments Lake returned.