McClure's Magazine/Volume 29/Number 3/Her That Danced

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

 

"HER THAT DANCED"

BY

MRS. WILSON WOODROW
AUTHOR OF "SOMEPIN NICE FOR CELIA," "THE WAGES OF SALVATION," ETC.

ILLUSTRATION BY F. WALTER TAYLOR

AWOMAN stood with her elbows on the post of a white paling gate, gazing out at the mountains darkly defined against the gold of the sunset sky. Behind her was a little garden flaring with scarlet geraniums and yellow zinnias, and a cottage brave and flaunting in fresh paint. In Zenith, a mining village of straggling, unpainted cabins, and yards adorned with tin cans, broken crockery, and stray bits of wire, the neat vividness of house and garden presented a pictorial and artificial effect, toy-like in its setting of austere and gloomy mountains; but if the little dwelling seemed the expression of a primitive and childlike imagination, the woman who leaned upon the gate was real.

She had been standing quite still for a long time, her gaze fixed on the mountains, her face held in the cup of her hands, a long, narrow, white face with dark eyes and arched brows, which gave her a wistful and rather startled expression; but her hair added a touch of incongruity to her whole appearance, an exotic hint of some marked dissonance and inharmony of character. Densely black at the roots and about the nape of the neck, the mass twisted around her head was a strange burnt umber, with broad strands as yellow as com running through it; evidently colored by a natural process, bleached by burning suns.

She did not even turn her head as Mrs. Nitschkan paused beside the gate, a basket of brook trout over her arm.

"Hello, Mis' O'Brien," called that hardy gipsy jovially as she drew near. "Vou always a-lookin' at the mountains. Are you tryin' to see what's on the other side?"

"Was you ever down, in the desert, Mis' Nitschkan?" asked the woman, with apparent irrelevance.

"Lived down there once."

"An' me." Mrs. O'Brien spoke in a soft, lazy voice. "I don't like the mountains. I always feel as if they was goin' to fall on me an' smother me. An' you get to the top of them where you think you kin breathe, an' there's ranges and ranges beyond. I—I—want places where there ain't nothin' to shut you in, where you kin breathe free."

Mrs. Nitschkan shook her head. "The mountains fer mine," she said emphatically. "Look at the fishin' an' the huntin'! Nice cool streams to wade in an' fish; nice cool woods to hunt in, an' you never know when you're a-comin' round a corner an' meet a bear; or a deer. It's sure the woods fer mine. I—" she paused and peered curiously into the other woman's face. "What's that mark on your forehead, Pearl? You must 'a' got an awful whack some way."

The woman turned her vague, passionate, veiled gaze from the distant peaks with the last, red glow of the sun on their shining summits, and became suddenly alive to the mundane. "Oh, that." She ran her fingers across her brow and laughed. Her slightly crooked mouth broke into dimples, and there was a cool deviltry in the sidelong glance she threw Mrs. Nitschkan. "Why, Shock give me that three or four days ago."

The mountain woman surveyed her for a moment in silence and with a tolerant and dispassionate curiosity. "Why can't you leave the boys alone. Pearl?" she asked finally. "There ain't none of 'em here nor anywheres else that's worth standin' a lickin' fer."

"You bet," agreed Mrs. O'Brien indifferently, but with perfect acquiescence. "But say, Mis' Nitschkan, I wasn't doin' a thing. Just standin' here at the gate, talkin' to Bob Flick, when Shock come down the road. Well, I wisht you'd 'a' seen him!" The reminiscent coquetry of her smile brightened her weary eyes. "That French-Irish face of his'n was blacker'n a cloud, an' his eyes was a-blazin' fire. We had it hot an' heavy about all night. Shock, you know him! He can't bear to see another man so much as look at me."

"Then what you always a-teasin' him fer, Pearl?" asked Mrs. Nitschkan, with indubitable reason and practicality.

"I d' know," with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "I always been used to the boys. They know, an' I know, that I wouldn't look at one of 'em now. But Shock, the big fool, he don't know nothin'; an' Lord, but he's jealous!"

"Jealous! Catsfoot!" replied Mrs. Nitschkan with sturdy scorn. "I'd like to see any man kick an' cuff me about as he pleases, that's what I'd like to see; an' you always a-yellin' about bein' free."

There were tiny flickers of fire in Mrs. O'Brien's eyes. The slow, heavy crimson crept up under her dark skin, and her thin, curving mouth became suddenly pointed and animal. The upper lip curled slightly on either side and showed two white, pointed teeth like a wolf's.

"You think you're smart, don't you, Sadie Nitschkan?" in a coarse, muffled scream. "You think you know a thing or two, don't you? Well, let me tell you, once an' fer all, that you don't. You think I'd stay with any man I didn't want to? Why, all hell couldn't hold me. Ask some of the boys that knew me down in the desert. They'd laugh in your face. They know I'd knife him without countin' one, two, three. Oh, you—you tramp woman. You know a lot about huntin' and fishin', but you know a mighty little about women—you ain't never been one."

"Now, Pearl, there ain't no occasion to spit like a cat," returned Mrs. Nitschkan, unmoved by these taunts. "An' if you give me much more sass, I'll jerk you over the fence an' throw you out into the road. Oh!" with a scornful laugh, "I ain't a mite afeard of that knife they say you always keep down in your stockin'."

But Mrs. O'Brien's tempest of anger had fallen to calm as quickly as it had flamed. Without further notice of her companion, she had again dropped her face into the cup of her hands and was gazing idly out at the rapidly blurring outlines of the hills.

"Bob Flick's a-stayin' at our house," advanced Mrs. Nitschkan presently, in a casual and friendly tone. "I suppose he told you he was up here fer a week or two to deal faro bank. He was a-talkin' last night to Jack an' me, an' he jus' couldn't get over seein' you here thisaway. 'Lord!' he says, over an' over again, 'it do beat everything to see the Black Pearl livin' up here so plain. Why,' he says, 'I shouldn't wonder if she's even forgot to cross her feet—her that's danced in every town in the Southwest.'"

Pearl laughed, "I guess I ain't forgot," lazily. Then her whole expression changed. The listlessness vanished from her face. "There comes Shock," she said.

Down the mountain road came Jacques O'Brien, with his dinner pail over his arm. The lithe elegance of the Latin races was in his carriage; but the gray eyes of his Irish father shone in his weak, emotional, beautiful face.

"Oh," muttered Mrs. Nitschkan, with a hurried glance at him, "I'd best be movin' on.

"Wait a minute," said the Pearl in a rapid whisper, "I want to see Bob Flick. You tell him I'll be walkin' up the south trail of Excelsior Mountain to-morrow afternoon."

Appalled by her daring, Mrs. Nitschkan glanced apprehensively at O'Brien, almost at her elbow, and then hastened on; but after a few paces, she turned, like Lot's wife, to look back.

The Pearl, her arm through her husband's, was sauntering up the narrow path which led from the gate to the cottage. It was only when she walked that she showed to the full her exquisite and undulating grace. "I just been waterin' the flowers. Shock, while I was waitin' fer you." Her lazy, colorless voice was full of animation. "Don't they look great?" She stooped, and, breaking off a scarlet geranium, thrust it in her hair.

"You bet," replied the man, with just the trace of an accent; but his eyes were not upon the garden, but upon the flower in her hair.

"It jus' seems like I can't get enough reds and yellows," complained Mrs. O'Brien, "but I tell you what, Shock, this garden rests my eyes a whole lot, after lookin' out at those old mountains with snow on their tops. Ugh!" she shivered.

Jacques laughed. "What else you been doing, Pearl, beside watering the garden?"

"I finished my new dress,"—she stepped back from him that he might the better observe her handiwork. She had fashioned some cheap pink material, so that it fell, as soft as crêpe, into wonderful, long lines about her slender height. "Do you like it, Shock?" She tilted her head sideways and looked up at him with her crooked, heart-shattering smile.

"Yes," he caught her hands and drew her toward him. "Are you glad to see me, Pearl?"

"Air I glad to see you? Air I glad to see you? No. Understand, once and fer all, no."

They laughed, and he pulled her sun-burned head to his breast and kissed the purple bruise on her brow.

"Crazy!" She still laughed, and dragged at his hand. "Come on in an' eat your supper."

"Crazy's the word," philosophized Mrs. Nitschkan, shaking her head doubtfully as she walked on. "Seems to me like the Pearl's possessed. She sure acts like she's wild about Shock, an' yet she's a-sendin' word to Bob Flick to meet her to-morrow afternoon. That's what comes of bein' a hussy."

That Mrs. Nitschkan, in spite of her views, delivered the message, was evidenced by the fact that the following afternoon Bob Flick might have been seen slowly climbing the south trail of Excelsior Mountain. At last, after keen glances to the right and left, he paused, and, drawing a large handkerchief of checkered silk from his pocket, slowly wiped his brow. He was a tall fellow, with the pale, impassive face of the professional gambler. There were tense lines about his mouth; and the deep crow's-feet about his eyes betokened that he had long lived in the lands of vivid sunlight.

For a moment his absent gaze swept the magnificent panorama of purple range melting into purple range, beneath him; and then he glanced indecisively up into the blue-green shadows of the slopes above.

"Hello, Bob, why don't you come and sit down in my parlor?" said the soft, sliding voice he remembered so well, and he wheeled quickly to meet the laughing eyes of the Black Pearl. She was sitting on a huge, flat rock in the soft gloom of a row of encircling pine-trees, whose tall, dark tops pointed upward like Gothic spires in the deep blue sky. "You looked as if you thought you'd have to climb clear to the top of the mountain before you found me," she chuckled. "Here, don't stand there staring. Come on in an' sit down here beside me an' tell me the news. How's Jim Hurd; an' was it true he got shot over the cards? An' Frank Applewaite? Did he honest run off with a Greaser girl, like one of the boys told me? Oh, I'm hungry for the news. Have they"—with wistful coquetry—"have they plumb forgot me yet, Bob?"

"I should say not," with emphasis. "But it does seem funny to me to see you like this, Pearl, with jus' that plain, gold ring on your finger. Why, I was a-talkin' to a jeweler down in Tucson the other day, an' he says: 'I wonder if I could get the Black Pearl's necklace. She's got the finest matched string of emeralds I ever see.'"

"Well, he'll never get 'em," with smiling, indifferent finality.

"What did you do with 'em, Pearl?" asked Flick curiously, "Sell 'em?"

"Sell 'em? No. I give 'em to Father Gonzales the night before he married Shock an' me. I guess he's hung 'em round the neck of the Virgin, or maybe he's keepin' the poor in luxury on 'em yet. Lord! Can't you hear those old Mission bells, kind o' cracked and sweet and far-a-way? They always sounded like time and eternity to me. Oh, Bob, there ain't nothin' like the desert, is there?" She looked out at the mountains, as if from glistening peaks and pine-grown slopes she strove to create for herself the image of those monotonous and sultry wastes she loved. "I can't get used to havin' the mountains so close. I feel all the time like they was a-crowdin' an' a-pushin' on me. I want to be where I kin breathe."

The gambler laughed outright. "Well, you ain't so much changed, after all," he said, and some new, almost exultant note rang in his voice. "Same old cry. Jim Hurd was a-speakin' to me only a little while back of the old days, an' he says: 'Can't you see the Pearl a-flingin' up her arms an' sayin', "I want to be free?" I wonder what ailed that girl?' he said. 'She was always a-goin' on about wantin' to be free. Why, how,' he says, 'could any one be freer 'an her? When she got tired of one place, she was off to the next. Her pockets was always full of money, an' her fingers blazin' with colored stones. If that ain't bein' free,' he said, 'I'd like to know what is?'"

"Those rings wasn't half so pretty nor so bright as the beetles that crawled out in the sand when you turned over a stone." The veil of moodiness had again fallen over her eyes.

For a long time they sat in silence. Flick coughed once or twice; but she seemed to have forgotten his presence, until, finally, with an air of apology, he made bold to break in upon her reverie.

"It's sure nice seein' you again, Pearl."

"It sure is," she replied dreamily.

"It ain't the last time, is it?" with sudden anxiety.

"Sakes, no!" rousing herself. "But, my land! Look how low that sun's gettin'! Let's see. You're at the Nitschkan's, ain't you?"

"Yes," his eyes on her face.

"All right, I'll tell Sadie when you can call again. I'll put it to her this way, 'Tell Bob to call on me to-morrow,' I'll say careless; an' you kin understand that means this here parlor, not my own parlor, you bet," with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes, "'less you want every bone in your body broke."

During the next few weeks Mr. Flick was a more or less frequent caller on Mrs. O'Brien in her parlor among the pines; and not being an especially discerning person, he failed to notice that her interest in him continued to be singularly desultory and impersonal. It was enough that she would meet and talk with him; but it was not possible for him to suspect that her conversations with him had become to her the gate by which she could escape the high, crowding mountains and wander again in the remote and shadowy wastes of the desert. That her manner toward him was one of unchanged and careless indifference, and that her light coquetry was inherent and habitual, did not trouble him. She had always been that way since he had known her.

One afternoon they had been sitting gazing down into the valley shimmering in sun-hazes below, silent for the time; the Pearl's mind busy, as usual, with the mirage of her fancy. Suddenly she drew her breath in sharply. "A person could breathe down there," she cried. "Say, wasn't that air good? It just seemed to put fresh life into you."

Flick looked at her curiously. "Pearl, where was you born and raised?"

She glanced up quickly, "Oh, I d' know," evasively. "I been about a good deal, most everywhere, i never could stand cities long, though. But it seems to me that I been lookin' fer it. Bob, forever; that somethin', I don't know what, that I always, always been a-dreamin' of an' longin' fer."

"I don't ketch what you're harpin' on," he said patiently. "I don't see how anybody could be more free than you was. 'Course, if you would go and get married—"

"I wasn't never free," she said passionately. "There ain't nothin' free that's hobbled, even if the hobble's round your heart and don't show."

"The mountains do seem to kind o' hedge you in," said the man, adopting what he supposed to be her point of view, "an' it sure don't seem right fer you to be caged up here. You"—he looked at her half fearfully and slightly moistened his lips—"I'm a-goin' down the trail in a few days; come on and go with me."

She shook her head. "I can't go junketing round with you, Bob, you're a-forgettin' Shock."

"Oh, I ain't a-forgettin' Shock," he answered coolly. "If you go with me, Pearl, him and me'll probably have it out sometime; but that ain't worryin' me none. Pearl, I ain't never forgot the first time I saw you. It was in the back room at Chickasaw Pete's, an' you was a-shakin' dice with two or three of the boys, an' I joined the game. I never admired no one in my life like I admired you then, for I knew you wasn't shakin' 'em square; but you done it so slick that I couldn't tell how you managed it, an' you walked out in about twenty minutes with the best part of our money. You remember, Pearl?"

"Oh, I remember"; the mysterious veil of reverie had fallen over her sulky eyes.

"An' the next time I seen you, you was dancin'. You had them emeralds twisted round your neck. Have you forgot how to dance?"

"No, I ain't forgot." She stirred her feet restlessly. "Oh, I ain't forgot." There was a moment of silence. "Bob, I always could talk to you, some way. I wonder why. With the other boys it was laugh an' carry on; but I always could sit down and talk sober an' serious to you. You never made a fool' of yourself about me."

The man's face had grown gray. He attempted to speak once or twice before the words came. At last he laughed, one brief, harsh note.

"Maybe I didn't, Pearl. They was enough of 'em makin' fools of themselves about you, God knows! An' I see right from the start that you didn't give a darn for any of 'em; but I was always a fool about you in my heart. They's always plenty of men to go crazy about you, Pearl, to lie an' steal and kill each other fer you, an' make damned fools of theirselves generally. There's a plenty that likes to show off thataway; but there's only two or three in all your life that'll ever really bve you, an' one of 'em's me."

He turned to meet her faintly astonished, cynical gaze. "It's true, it's God's truth," he said doggedly, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket with a trembling hand and passing it over his brow and his ashen face. "Oh, I always wanted you. Yes, I'd 'a' stole an' lied an' fought fer you, too. You drove me as stark, starin' crazy as the rest of 'em; but that weren't all. There was somethin' in you, Pearl, that kind o' made me dream, an' that's stayed with me; an' it don't let me think much about myself. It's about you. An' now, I feel it's thisaway. You ain't jus' quite yourself. You're a-feelin' the need of a little change. See? Well, you come down the trail with me of a Thursday."

It was several minutes before she answered, "I couldn't. Bob," and she added gently, "You've kind of surprised me. I didn't know you felt that way fer me, an' I'm awful sorry, honest I am; but I couldn't go."

"Maybe I ain't made it plain to you," he pleaded. "Maybe you didn't understand. I mean it thisaway," in laborious explanation. "I ain't a-tryin' to take you away fer myself. It's because I see you ain't happy that I'm a-askin' you to go. All I'm a-askin' is to kind of look after you an' see that you're comfortable. You kin think of me as a kind of human dog. You'll let me set around when it don't bother you none; an' when you get tired of me, you can kick Fido out, and it'll be back to the kennel fer his. That's all I'm a-askin', Pearl."

She drew in her breath and looked at him strangely, with something new in her glance, something he had never seen there before. "God, Bob! But you're a good fellow!" she said in an awed voice. "I didn't suppose there was any of your kind on the earth; but you don't understand."

"I kin learn," he said humbly. "Try me an' see if I can't."

She smiled at him, her heart-shattering, cynical smile. "I don't see how you're a-goin' to learn somethin' that I don't understand myself," she answered, "an' that's me. There's so many of a person," resentfully, "so terrible many of a person. There's somethin' in me that's tired, somethin' that's played the game for a thousand years an' knows there ain't nothin' in it; an' there's somethin' in me that's got to live, and that somethin' says, 'Everything comes to you so easy, reach out an' enjoy it'; an' maybe that's the reason it don't never seem of no account. 'Cause it always comes so easy."

The pine-needles fell about them. New arrows of sunlight pierced the soft gloom, and for a time they sat in the silence of the hills, the Pearl's wistful eyes searching the past.

"You was a-talkin' about my jewels awhile back. Bob," she began suddenly. "Well, the night before I was married I give 'em all to Father Gonzales. It was in that dark little chapel with just a candle or so burning before the shrines; an' it was so quiet and so still, an' smelled faint of incense. An' you kind o' felt things, things you hadn't never known. Well, I give him my emeralds, an' I says: 'Make some poor souls happy with what you can get for these, Padre.' Then he handed out a line of talk that sounded mighty good to me. He says, 'This deed that you done, my daughter, redeems your soul. Live clean an' happy from now on,' he says, 'an' forget the past.' Oh, but his words felt warm to my heart! 'That's what I want, Padre,' I says, 'that's what I want.' I stripped the rings off my fingers, an' I piled 'em up in his hands; an' I cried. Bob, Lord! how the tears run down my face, an' I don't know when I'd ever cried before! Well, he took and laid the rings on the altar, an' he said, 'These offerings an' your tears washes your soul white. Go in peace, my daughter, an' sin no more.' An' I believed him." There was despair in her voice. "But it was a lie, all a lie, jus' like everything else. I can't find no happiness. There's too many of me; an' yet I know there's somethin', somethin' that I've missed, an' I don't know how nor where to find it. You all always laughed at me 'cause I didn't know how to tell it, I jus' called it beein' free."

Flick turned on her with a sudden passion. "An' you won't never find it as long as you stay with Shock O'Brien. They tell me—" he clinched his hands on his knees, and the dark purple crept up slowly under his skin—"they tell me that he ain't no scruples against knockin' you round as he feels like. I'd——"

She sprang to her feet, livid with fury. "They say, they say—" She broke into a torrent of oaths. "Yes, Bob Flick," growing calmer, "it's true. He's hit me, an' he's hit me more'n once. But why? 'Cause he was jealous."

"I don't see what difference that makes," he muttered.

"You don't? I s'pose not," with infinite scorn; "but any woman would. Why, he loves me so much that it drives him plumb off his head to see another man look at me. An' when he gets that way, he ain't no idea what he does. An' he ain't never raised a bruise on me, not once, that he ain't cried like a baby an' broke his heart over it when he come to himself. Maybe you think, Bob Flick, 'cause I kind of like to talk over old times with you, that I'd go off with you an' leave him. Why, I'd see you dead in the ditch first. Maybe you think, 'cause I kind of hate the mountains and the flat, old life here, that I'm tired of Shock. Well, you got another good, long guess comin'."

She swept by him, drawing her skirts contemptuously from his shoe, and started down the trail. Then her mood changed, she turned and smiled cajolingly at him, and ran back to stretch out a conciliatory hand.

"Don't pay no 'tention to me, Bob. You're one of the best ever, an' I know you mean kind, no matter how I take on. But, my lord! I got to run. Shock'll be home, an' no supper fer him. So long."

She hastened down the hill, the cheap pink gown falling in long folds of beauty about her Diana-like grace, the last rays of the sun brightening her sunburned hair—and never a thought for the man who sat motionless watching her.

As she almost ran along the mountain road, she met Mrs. Nitschkan, who, with a flea-bitten dog at her heels, and carrying some samples of ore tied up in a handkerchief, was returning from a prospecting expedition. Elated by success and in high spirits, the mountain woman grasped the Pearl by the arm and held her fast.

"Let me go, let me go," cried Mrs. O'Brien, laughing and struggling. "Shock wants his supper. You—you prize-fighter, I'll throw a pail of scalding water over you the next time you come to my house." With a quick movement she slipped out of the other woman's grasp, and flew on, throwing back laughing mockeries over her shoulder.

"You're too gay, Pearl," called her baffled captor. "You're fey, that's what's the matter with you. You'll be cryin' before morning."

The idea of her jesting words containing a prophecy never occurred to that particularly practical and unimaginative woman, and yet they rose in her mind late the next afternoon when she happened to be passing the O'Brien cottage. Involuntarily, she paused at the gate, struck by something indescribably neglected and forlorn in the air of the whole place. The flowers drooped dustily in the garden; the door, usually so hospitably open, was barred, the blinds were drawn before the closed windows. Mrs. Nitschkan considered a moment or two, and then, curiosity getting the better of her, she unlatched the little white gate and walked up the path with its glaring, scentless border of scarlet geraniums and yellow zinnias. She knocked loudly once or twice, and then, failing to elicit an answer, forced an entrance at the kitchen door. Here a sight met her eyes which caused her to raise her hands with a loud "Gosh A'mighty!" The room was in appalling disorder. A cloth had been half dragged from the table scattered with food, while the floor was covered with pots, pans, and broken dishes. After one rapid and comprehensive glance, Mrs. Nitschkan made her way to an inner room. There she stood on the threshold peering about her until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Then she dimly discerned a black, huddled shape on the bed, and her gaze was caught and held by the smoldering, sullen fires of two dark eyes.

"Pearl?" she asked uncertainly.

The woman on the bed did not answer, only gazed at her in silence.

"Pearl, air you sick?"

No answer.

Mrs. Nitschkan threw the windows wide, and then bent over her friend.

"Now, Pearl, you speak up. What's the matter? Air you sick?"

"I'm a-goin' to kill him. I'm a-goin' to kill him," whispered the woman on the bed. "He beat me last night, an' he wasn't jealous. He come home with all the devils in hell in his face. When I set him out his supper, he threw the vittles all over the place an' said it wasn't fit fer dogs to eat; an' then he beat me."

"Gosh A'mighty! An' you the best cook in the camp! He must 'a' been crazy drunk," exclaimed Mrs. Nitschkan indignantly.

"He wasn't drunk, an' he wasn't jealous. He wasn't jealous, an' he beat me, me." She raised herself with difficulty in the bed and lifted her stag-like head superbly.

"Air you hurt, Pearl?" anxiously.

"Am I hurt? Am I hurt? Oh, thataway. Yes, I guess so. Come to think of it, there ain't a inch on me that don't ache. I guess none of my bones is broke, though. But he'll get it." She half drew her hand from under the pillow, disclosing the sharp, keen edge of steel. "That's the medicine he's a-goin' to get. I'm a-goin' to knife him, sure."

"Now, Pearl," remonstrated Mrs. Nitschkan severely, "that ain't no way to talk. You're all right to get even with him, but you mustn't forget a thing or two. Us ladies here in Zenith has overlooked your past, 'cause you're a decent married woman now, with a ring on your finger, an' a certificate framed on the wall. Now you go to knifin' him, an' it'll be a disgrace to the whole camp. What I say, an' what I always say in such cases is, get even with him an' get even with him good; but for the Lord's sake, do it ladylike. Heave skillets an' stove lids at him all you're a mind to; but throw that knife away."

The Pearl looked at her a moment with sullen, contemptuous eyes. "Shut up," she commanded, "I'm tired of hearin' you talk."

"Here, here," admonished Mrs. Nitschkan. "Now, I'll hustle round an' make you a good, strong cup of coffee. There's nothing like it fer soul an' body. You'll feel better then. Then we'll get your clothes off, an' a nightgown on, an' we'll see where you're hurted."

"Where I'm hurted?" repeated the Pearl, her vague eyes more veiled, more tragically mysterious than ever. "I'm hurted so deep that you can't find it, Sadie Nitschkan."

"Aw, come now, we'll have you all right in a jiffy, an' Shock a-hangin' round cryin' over you an' beatin' his chest in that crazy French way of his'n. Now you lay still, an' I'll heat up some water."

She bustled about making a fire, preparing coffee and putting the place in order, when her attention was suddenly arrested by the sound of flying footsteps on the path outside. Then a thunderous knocking, and before she could reach the door, it was burst open, and a white-faced boy stuttered on the threshold, "Mis' O'Brien; Mis' O'Brien, Bob Flick's shot Shock up at Johnson's, and he wants you quick."

The Pearl had leaped to her feet, casting her knife from her, and before Sadie Nitschkan could reach her, she was flying up the mountain road.

A tiny crescent moon was swinging far up in the pale sky. On the platform before the saloon was a black group of men, who made way for the Pearl as she darted through them. The doctor was bending over Jacques, who lay in an open space where the air might reach him. The Pearl dropped beside him, her face to his for a moment, and then lifted him to her heart.

"Shock, Shock," she moaned.

"Pearl," he whispered, his accent more marked than ever, "it wasn't the vittles. I heard straight that Flick was after you, an' I was jealous mad. I tried to get him first; but he pulled his gun too quick for me."

"Oh, Shock. I never cared for nobody really but you."

A faint reflection of his charming smile flickered over his face. "I know it," he said. "You—you always talked about being free, Pearl. I guess you're free at last." He smiled again, and then lay heavily on her heart.

For a moment, while she held him closely to her breast, her eyes showed some ecstatic illumination, as if she had followed him to the vast and illimitable spaces her spirit craved. Then the shackles of that desolate semblance of reality which she knew as life fell about her again.

"Free!" she cried in the voice of one who faces the terrible nemesis of a granted desire. "Free!" her anguished eyes challenged the grave group of men about her. "There ain't no such damned word fer a woman that kin love."

 

Illustration: "FOR A LONG TIME THEY SAT IN SILENCE"