The Lookout Man Part 16

I've been thinking that I'd invent a ranch or something to visit.

Murphy says there's one on Taylor Creek, but the people have gone down below for the winter; and it's close enough so Kate could walk over and find out for herself."

She began to pull bits of bark off the tree trunk and throw them aimlessly at a snow-mounded rock. "It's fierce, living in a little pen of a place like that, where you can't make a move without somebody wanting to know why," she burst out savagely. "I can't write a letter or read a book or put an extra pin in my hat, but Kate knows all about it. She thinks I'm an awful liar. And I'm beginning to actually hate her. And she was the very best friend I had in the world when we came up here. Five thousand dollars' worth of timber can't pay for what we're going through, down there!"

"You cut it out," said Jack, reaching for another cigarette. "My part of it, I mean. It's that that's raising the deuce with you two, so you just cut me out of it. I'll make out all right." As an afterthought he added indifferently, "I killed a bear the other day. I was going to bring you down a chunk. It isn't half bad; change from deer meat and rabbits and grouse, anyway."

Marion shook her head. "There it is again. I couldn't take it home without lying about where I got it. And Kate would catch me up on it--she takes a perfectly fiendish delight in cornering me in a lie, lately." She brightened a little. "I'll tell you, Jack. We'll go up to the cave and cook some there. Kate can't," she told him grimly, "tell what I've been eating, thank goodness, once it's swallowed!"

"It's too hard hiking up there through the snow," Jack hastily objected. "Better not tackle it. Tell you what I can do though. I'll whittle off a couple of steaks and bring them down tomorrow, and we'll hunt a safe place to cook them. Have a barbecue," he grinned somberly.

"Oh, all right--if I can give Kate the slip. Did you skin him?"

reverting with some animation to the slaying of the bear. "It must have been keen."

"It was keen--till I got the hide off the bear and onto my bed."

"You don't sound as if it was a bit thrilling." She looked at him dubiously. "How did it happen? You act as if you had killed a chipmunk, and I want to be excited! Did the bear come at you?"

"Nothing like that. I came at the bear. I just hunted around till I found a bear that had gone byelow, and I killed him and borrowed his hide. It was a mean trick on him--but I was cold."

"Oh, with all those blankets?"

Jack grinned with a sour kind of amus.e.m.e.nt at her tone, but his reply was an oblique answer to her question.

"Remember that nice air-hole in the top where the wind whistled in and made a kind of tune? You ought to spend a night up there now listening to it."

Marion threw a piece of bark spitefully at a stump beyond the snow mound. "But you have a fire," she said argumentatively. "And you have all kinds of reading, and plenty to eat."

"Am I kicking?"

"Well, you sound as if you'd like to. You simply don't know how lucky you are. You ought to be shut up in that little cabin with Kate and the professor."

"Lead me to 'em," Jack suggested with suspicious cheerfulness.

"Don't be silly. Are there lots of bears up there, Jack?"

"Maybe, but I haven't happened to see any, except two or three that ran into the brush soon as they got a whiff of me. And this one I hunted out of a hole under a big tree root. It's a lie about them wintering in caves. They'd freeze to death."

"You--you aren't really uncomfortable, are you, Jack?"

"Oh, no." Jack gave the "no" what Kate would have called a sliding inflection deeply surcharged with irony.

"Well, but why don't you keep the fire going? The smoke doesn't show at all, scarcely. And if you're going to tramp all over the mountains and let everybody see you, it doesn't matter a bit."

Jack lit his third cigarette. "What's going on in the world, anyway?

Any news from--down South?"

"Well, the papers don't say much. There's been an awful storm that simply ruined the beaches, they say. Fred has gone down--something about your case, I think. And then he wanted to see the men who are in on this timber scheme. They aren't coming through with the a.s.sessment money the way they promised, and Fred and Doug and Kate had to dig up more than their share to pay for the work. I didn't because I didn't have anything to give--and Kate has been hinting things about that, too."

"I wish you'd take--"

"Now, don't you dare finish that sentence! When I came up here with them they agreed to do my a.s.sessment work and take it out of the money we get when we sell, and they're to get interest on all of it.

Kate proposed it herself, because she wanted me up here with her. Let them keep the agreement. Fred isn't complaining--Fred's just dandy about everything. It's only--"

"Well, I guess I'll be getting back. It's a tough climb up to my hangout." Jack's interest in the conversation waned abruptly with the mention of Fred. "Can't you signal about ten o'clock tomorrow, if you're coming out? Then I'll bring down some bear meat."

"Oh, and I'll bring some cake and bread, if I can dodge Kate. I'll put up a lunch as if it were for me. Kate had good luck with her bread this time. I'll bring all I dare. And, Jack,--you aren't really uncomfortable up there, are you? Of course, I know it gets pretty cold, and maybe it's lonesome sometimes at night, but--you stayed alone all summer, so--"

"Oh, I'm all right. Don't you worry a minute about me. Run along home now, before you make Kate sore at you again. And don't forget to let me know if you're coming. I'll meet you right about here. So long, pardner." He stuffed the package of cigarettes into his coat pocket and plunged into the balsam thicket behind him as though he was eager to get away from her presence.

Marion felt it, and looked after him with hurt questioning in her eyes. "He's got his cigarettes--that's all he cares about," she told herself resentfully. "Well, if he thinks _I_ care--!"

She went slipping and stumbling down the steep wall of the gulch, crossed it and climbed the other side and came upon Kate, sitting in the snow and holding her right ankle in both hands and moaning pitiably.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PENITENCE, REAL AND UNREAL

Kate rocked back and forth, and tears of pain rolled down her cheeks.

She leaned her shoulder against a tree and moaned, with her eyes shut.

It frightened Marion to look at her. She went up and put her hand on Kate's shoulder with more real tenderness than she had felt for months.

"What's the matter, Kate? Did you hurt yourself? Is it your ankle?"

she asked insipidly.

"O-oh! Marion, you keep me nearly distracted! You must know I only want to guard you against--oh--gossip and trouble. You seem to look upon me as an enemy, lately--Oh!--And I only want to consider your best interests. Who is that man, Marion? I believe he is a criminal, and I'm going to send word to the sheriff. If he isn't, he is welcome at the cabin--you know it, Marion. You--you hurt me so, when you meet him out here in this sly way--just as if you couldn't trust me. And I have always been your friend." She stopped and began moaning again.

"Now, don't cry, dear! You're simply upset and nervous. Let me help you up, Kate. Is it your ankle?"

"Oh, it pains dreadfully--but the shock of seeing you meet that strange man out here and knowing that you will not trust me--"

"Why, forevermore! I do _trust you_, Kate. But you have been so different--you don't trust _me_, is the trouble. I'm not doing anything awful, only you won't see anything but the wrong side of everything I do. I'd tell you about the man, only--" Marion glanced guiltily across at the place where Jack had disappeared, "--it's his secret, and I can't."

Kate wept in that subdued, heartbroken way which is so demoralizing to the person who has caused the tears. Like a hurt child she rubbed her ankle and huddled there in the snow.

"We never used to have secrets," she mourned dismally. "This place has changed you so--oh, I am simply too miserable to care for anything any more. Go on, Marion--I'll get home somehow. I shouldn't have followed, but I was so hurt at your coldness and your lack of confidence! And I was sure you were deceiving me. I simply could not endure the suspense another day. You--you don't know what I have suffered! Go on--you'll get cold standing here. I'll come--after awhile. But I'd as soon be dead as go on in this way. Please go on!"

Kate may have been a bit hysterical; at any rate, she really believed herself utterly indifferent to her sprained ankle and the chance of freezing. She closed her eyes again and waved Marion away, and Marion immediately held her closer and patted her shoulder and kissed her remorsefully.

"Now, don't cry, dear--you'll have me crying in a minute. Be a good sport and see if you can't walk a little. I'll help you. And once you're back by the fire, and have your ankle all comfy, and a cup of hot chocolate, you'll feel heaps better. Hang tight to me, dear, and I'll help you up."

It was a long walk for a freshly sprained ankle, and the whiteness of Kate's face stamped deeper into Marion's conscience the guilty sense of being to blame for it all. She had started in by teasing Kate over little things, just because Kate was so inquisitive and so lacking in any sense of humor. She could see now that she had antagonized Kate where she should have humored her little whims. It wouldn't have done any harm, Marion reflected penitently, to have confided more in Kate.

She used to tell her everything, and Kate had always been so loyal and sympathetic.

Penitence of that sort may go to dangerous lengths of confession if it is not stopped in time. Nothing checked Marion's excited conscience. The ankle which she bared and bathed was so swollen and purple that any lurking suspicion of the reality of the hurt vanished, and Marion cried over it with sheer pity for the torture of that long walk. Kate's subdued sadness did the rest.