that she really knew was what he had told her. He lived above the law. She knew him well enough to see that he was not a criminal because of hate for other men, or even because he loved the thrill of his night riding. He simply avoided that other world of men because it was a world where life was constrained by a thousand rules.
To her mind he was like a powerful and sinisterly beautiful beast of prey which hunts where it will through the forest, and when it is pressed in its haunts by man turns and strikes him down. She carried the animal metaphor still farther.
She saw it in his singular silence, which was not reticence, but the speechlessness of a man to whom words are of no use. She saw it most of all in the singularly fathomless eyes. They never mocked her. They were simply veils through which she could not look.
The face changes expression only because man lives among fellows, whom he wishes to read his emotions, his anger, his pleasure, his contempt. Therefore his features grow mobile.
Black Jim lived alone. When he was with men and wished to express an emotion he did not pause to express his will in anything save action. At first, when the endless chatter of La Belle Geraldine disturbed him of an evening, he simply rose and left the cabin to walk (through the woods. It was long before she understood why.
The clock which ticks out our lives in the cities of men had no place in his house. He rose in the morning early, because, like an animal again, he could not sleep after the light came. He felt no measuring of time by which to check and control his actions. He ate at any hour, now and then, once a day, often four times. Jerry fell into his habits through the strong force of a near example; the ticking of the clock no longer entered her consciousness, and in its place flowed the broad and tideless river of life.
VIII. THE SIGN OF THE BEAST
The deadline which Black Jim said he had drawn around his cabin certainly had its effect, for never after the first day did she see one of the bandits. Now and again she caught the sound of distant firing when they practiced with their guns. Three or four times she heard drunken singing through the night as they held high festival. Otherwise she knew naught of them or their actions, though her mind retained the grim gallery of their portraits. The day would surely be when Black Jim should fail to return from one of his expeditions, and then—
That day came. She waited till late at night, but he did not come. She could scarcely sleep, and when the morning came she sat in the cabin guessing at a thousand, horrors.
A voice took up a song in the distance, and then came closer and closer. Jerry stood up and felt for her revolver with a nervous hand. The voice rose clearer and clearer. She could make out the words:
“Julia, you are peculiar;
Julia, you are queer.”
Jerry dropped her hands on her hips and drew a long breath, partly of vexation and partly of relief.
“It’s Freddie,” she muttered.
“Truly, you are unruly,
As a wild Western steer.
Some day, when we marry,
Dear one, you and I;
Julia, you little mule, you,
I’m going to rule you,
Or die.”
The song ended as the singer approached the edge of the open space before Black Jim’s cabin. Jerry stepped through the door to see Montgomery standing in the shadow of the trees.
“Yea, Jerry!” he yelled. “Is the gunman around?”
“He’s not here,” she answered. “You don’t have to be afraid of anything, Freddie.”
“Oh, don’t I?” came the reply. “Didn’t he make this a deadline, La Belle? Suppose he should come back and find me on the other side of it? Not me, Jerry; I like life too well!”
“Where’ve you been?” said Jerry, approaching him—“and what in the world have you been doing, Freddie?”
For as she drew closer she found herself looking upon a Frederick Montgomery who, in voice alone, remained the man she had known. A vast stubble of black beard and whiskers, unshaven for full two weeks or more, obscured the fine outline of his features. His broad hat, pushed back from his forehead, allowed a mop of tangled hair to fall down almost to his eyes. Overalls, soiled and marred with wrinkles, a shirt torn savagely across the side, muddy boots, and the heavy revolver completed his equipment. Jerry was aghast!
“What’s the matter, Jerry?” asked Montgomery. “Some hit, this costume; eh? It isn’t make-up, kid. It’s the real thing.”
“And I suppose you’re the real thing under it?” said Jerry in deep disgust.
“Sure,” said he, easily. “Stack all your chips and put ‘em on me, kid. I’m the real stuff!”
“Why haven’t you been around?” asked Jerry sharply, and bitter anger took her breath, “You knew I was left here at the mercy of Black Jim. And you haven’t done a thing to help me! Why?”
“Why?” repeated the other, but not peculiarly embarrassed. “There’s a reason, kid. I’ve been too busy living.”
“Too busy getting dirty, you mean,” snorted La Belle Geraldine. “Go make yourself decent and then come back if you want to talk with me! But if you’ve got dirt in your mind, Freddie, water won’t help you.”
He growled deep in his throat and she stepped back a pace. She had never heard such an ominous sound from him before: now she scanned him more closely. It seemed to her that his eyes were sunken and shadowed significantly.
“Don’t try that line on me any more, Jerry,” he answered, “You could get by in the old days, but it won’t do up here.”
“Won’t it, deary?” asked Jerry, with a rather dangerous sweetness.
“Not a hope, kid,” answered he, “I’m through with all that stuff. Down in the States a jane could pull that line now and then and get by with it, but up here, it’s a man’s country, and it’s up to you to sidestep when anything in pants comes along.”
“As a man,” returned Jerry, yet for some reason she did not feel as brave as her words, “as a man, cutie, you come about as close to the real article as a makeup will let you. But I’m behind the scenes and it won’t quite do, Mr. Montgomery, it won’t quite do.”
He scowled but he softened his tone as he answered.
“Look here, Jerry,” he said, “I didn’t come here looking for a fight. Am I your friend or am I not?”
“Do you remember how you backed out of the room when Black Jim simply looked at you, Freddie?” she asked gently.
“Sure I do,” he growled, “but you can’t hold that up against me, Jerry. There isn’t a man of the bunch that would take a chance face
