The Strength of the Pines Part 25

Dimly he felt the girl's hand grasping at his arm. Her fingers pressed until he felt pain. His eyes lowered to hers. The sight of that pa.s.sion-drawn face--recalling in an instant the scene beside the camp fire his first night at Trail's End--called him to himself. "Shoot, you fool!" she stormed at him. "The tree's lighted up the whole countryside, and you can't miss. Shoot them before they run away."

He glanced quickly out. The clan that had drawn within sixty yards of the house at the time the lightning struck had been thrown into confusion. Their horses had been knocked down by the force of the bolt and were fleeing, riderless, away. The men followed them, shouting, plainly revealed in the light from the burning tree. The great torch beside the house had completely turned the tables. And Linda spoke true; they offered the best of targets.

Again the girl's eyes were lurid slits between the lids. Her lips were drawn, and her breathing was strange. He looked at her calmly.

"No, Linda. I can't--"

"You can't," she cried. "You coward--you traitor! Kill--kill--kill them while there's time."

She saw the resolve in his face, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed the rifle from his hands. She hurled it to her shoulder and three times fired blindly toward the retreating Turners.

At that instant Bruce seemed to come to life. His thoughts had been clear ever since the tree had been struck; his vision was straighter and more far-reaching than ever in his life before, but now his muscles wakened too. He sprang toward the girl and s.n.a.t.c.hed the rifle from her hand. She fought for it, and he held her with a strong arm.

"Wait--wait, Linda," he said gently. "You've wasted three cartridges now. There are only two left. And we may need them some other time."

He held her from him with his arm; and it was as if his strength flowed into her. Her blazing eyes sought his, and for a long second their wills battled. And then a deep wonder seemed to come over her.

"What is it?" she breathed. "What have you found out?"

She spoke in a strange and distant voice. Slowly the fire died in her eyes, the drawn features relaxed, her hands fell at her side. He drew her away from he lighted doorway, out of the range of any of the Turners that should turn to answer the rifle fire. The wind roared over the house and swept by in clamoring fury, the electric storm dimmed and lessened as it journeyed on.

These two knew that if death spared them in all the long pa.s.sage of their years, they could never forget that moment. The girl watched him breathlessly, oblivious to all things else. He seemed wholly unaware of her now. There was something aloof, impa.s.sive, infinitely calm about him, and a great, far-reaching understanding was in his eyes. Her own eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Linda, there's something come to me--and I don't know that I can make you understand. I can only call it strength--a new strength and a greater strength than I ever had before. It's something that the pine--that great tree that we just saw split open--has been trying to tell me for a long time. Oh, can't you see, Linda? There it stood, hundreds of years--so great, so tall, so wise--in a moment broken like a reed. It takes away my arrogance, Linda. It makes me see myself as I really am. And that means--_power_."

His eyes blazed, and he caught her hands in his.

"It was a symbol, Linda, not only of the wilderness, but of powers higher and greater than the wilderness. Powers that can look down, and not be swept away by pa.s.sion, and not try to tear to pieces those who in their folly harm them. There's no room for such things as vengeance in this new strength. There's no room for murder, and malice, and hatred, and bloodshed."

Linda understood. She knew that this new-found strength did not mean renunciation of her cause. It did not mean that he would give over his attempt to reinstate her as the owner of her father's estates. It only meant that the impulse of personal vengeance was dead within him. He knew now--the same as ever--that the duty of the men that dwell upon the earth is to do their allotted tasks, and without hatred and without pa.s.sion to overcome the difficulties that stand in the way. She realized that if one of the Turners should leap through the door and attack her, Bruce would kill him without mercy or regret. She knew that he would make every effort to bring the offenders to the law. But the ability to shoot a fleeing enemy in the back, because of wrongs done long ago, was past.

Bruce's vision had come to him. He knew that if vengeance had been the creed of the powers that ruled the world, the sphere would have been destroyed with fire long since. To stand firm and straight and unflinching; not to judge, not to condemn, not to resent; this was true strength. He began to see the whole race of men as so many leaves, buffeted by the winds of chance and circ.u.mstance; and was it for the oak leaf that the wind carried swift and high to hold in scorn the shrub leaf that the storm had already hurled to the dust?

"I know," the girl said, her thoughts wandering afar. "Perhaps the name for it all is--tolerance."

"Perhaps," he nodded. "And possibly it is only--wors.h.i.+p!"

The Turners had gone. The dimming lightning revealed the entire attacking party half a mile distant and out of rifle range on the ridge; and Bruce and Linda stole together out into the storm. The green foliage of the tree had already burned away, but some of the upper branches still glowed against the dark sky. A fallen branch smoldered on the ground, hissing in the rain, and it lighted their way.

Awed and mystified, Bruce halted before the ruin of the great tree. He had almost forgotten the stress of the moment just pa.s.sed. It did not even occur to him that some of his enemies, unseen before, might still be lurking in the shadow, watching for a chance to harm. They stood a moment in silence. Then Bruce uttered one little gasp and stretched his arm into the hollow that the cleft in the trunk had revealed.

The light from the burning branch behind him had shown him a small, dark object that had evidently been inserted in the hollow tree trunk through some little aperture that had either since been closed up or they had never observed. It was a leathern wallet, and Bruce opened it under Linda's startled gaze. He drew out a single white paper.

He held it in the light, and his glance swept down its lines of faded ink. Then he looked up with brightening eyes.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The secret agreement between your father and mine," he told her simply.

"And we've won."

He watched her eyes brighten. It seemed to him that nothing life had ever offered had given him the same pleasure. It was a moment of triumph. But before half of its long seconds were gone, it became a moment of despair.

A rifle spoke from the coverts beyond,--one sharp, angry note that rose distinct and penetrating above the noise of the distant thunder. A little tongue of fire darted, like a snake's head, in the darkness. And the triumph on Bruce's face changed to a singular look of wonder.

x.x.x

To Simon, the night had seemingly ended in triumph after all. It had looked dark for a while. The bolt of lightning, setting fire to the pine, had deranged all of his plans. His men had been thrown from their horses, the blazing pine tree had left them exposed to fire from the house, and they had not yet caught their mounts and rallied. Young Bill and himself, however, had tied their horses before the lightning had struck and had lingered in the thickets in front of the house for just such a chance as had been given them.

He hadn't understood why Bruce had not opened fire on the fleeing Turners. He wondered if his enemy were out of ammunition. The tragedy of the Sentinel Pine had had no meaning for him; and he had held his rifle c.o.c.ked and ready for the instant that Bruce had shown himself.

Young Bill had heard his little exultant gasp when Linda and Bruce had come out into the firelight. Plainly they had kept track of all the attacking party that had been visible, and supposed that all their enemies had gone. He felt the movement of Simon's strong arms as he raised the rifle. Those arms were never steadier. In the darkness the younger man could not see his face, but his own fancy pictured it with entire clearness. The eyes were narrowed and red, the lines cut deep about the bloodhound lips, and mercy was as far from him as from the Killer who hunted on the distant ridge.

But Simon didn't fire at once. The two were coming steadily toward him, and the nearer they were the better his chance of success in the unsteady light. He sat as breathless, as wholly free from telltale motion as a puma who waits in ambush for an approaching deer. He meant to take careful aim. It was his big chance, and he intended to make the most of it.

The two had halted beside the ruined pine, but for a moment he held his fire. They stood rather close together; he wanted to wait until Bruce offered a clear target. And at that instant Bruce had drawn the leather wallet from the tree.

Curiosity alone stayed Simon's finger as Bruce had opened it. He saw the gleam of the white paper in the dim light; and then he understood.

Simon was a man of rigid, unwavering self-control; and his usual way was to look a long time between the sights before he fired. Yet the sight of that doc.u.ment--the missing Folger-Ross agreement on which had hung victory or defeat--sent a violent impulse through all his nervous system. For the first time in his memory his reflexes got away from him.

It had meant too much; and his finger pressed back involuntarily against the trigger. He hadn't taken his usual deliberate aim, although he had seen Brace's figure clearly between the sights the instant before he had fired. Simon was a rifle-man, bred in the bone, and he had no reason to think that the hasty aim meant a complete miss. He did realize, however, the difficulties of night shooting--a realization that all men who have lingered after dusk in the duck blind experience sooner or later--and he looked up over his sights to see the result of his shot. His self-control had completely returned to him; and he was perfectly cold about the whole matter.

From the first second he knew he hadn't completely missed. He raised his rifle to shoot again.

But Bruce's body was no longer revealed. Linda stood in the way. It looked as if she had deliberately thrown her own body as a s.h.i.+eld between.

Simon spoke then,--a single, terrible oath of hatred and jealousy. But in a second more he saw his triumph. Bruce swayed, reeled, and fell in Linda's arms, and he saw her half-drag him into the house.

He stood s.h.i.+vering, but not from the cold that the storm had brought.

"Come on," he ordered Young Bill. "I think we've downed him for good, but we've got to get that paper."

But Simon did not see all things clearly. He had little real knowledge of the little drama that had followed his shot from ambush.

Human nature is full of odd quirks and twists, and among other things, symptoms are misleading. There is an accepted way for men to act when they are struck with a rifle bullet. They are expected to reel, to throw their arms wide, and usually to cry out. The only trouble with these actions, as most men who have been in French battle-fields know very well, is that they do not usually happen in real life.

Bruce, with Linda's eyes upon him, took one rather long, troubled breath. And he did look somewhat puzzled. Then he looked down at his shoulder.

"I'm hit, Linda," he said in a quiet way. "I think just a scratch."

The tremendous shock of any kind of wound from a thirty-forty caliber bullet had not seemingly affected him outwardly at all. Linda's response was rather curious. Some hours were to pa.s.s before he completely understood. The truth was that the shock of that rifle bullet, ordinarily striking a blow of a half-ton, had cost him for the moment an ability to make any logical interpretation of events. The girl moved swiftly, yet without giving an impression of leaping, and stood very close and in front of him. In one lightning movement she had made of her own body a s.h.i.+eld for his, in case the a.s.sa.s.sin in the covert should shoot again.