from the other side of the cleft a red flame leaped up hissing into the night. Myra started and looked breathlessly out into the darkness.
“It’s only Jim Hamilton—the chap who has the shanty opposite,” the Englishman explained. “He’s on the borders of a wood, you see, and he’s afraid of bears. He burns pine boughs there, every night he’s alone!”
Another tongue of flame leaped up, and now they could hear the crackling of the burning branches. Another and another followed. Myra leaned forward, holding her breath, and fascinated for a moment by the curious sight. Even the man whose arm was round her supple waist was interested. The whole air was full of that fitful yet brilliant light casting a vivid glow upon the undergrowth and down into the precipice hung with tiny fir-trees, and throwing back strange lurid shadows upon the red-trunked trees and the dense blackness of the wood. Mr. James Hamilton himself, who was alternately feeding and raking the fire he had kindled, bathed in the rich scarlet glow became almost a picturesque object. Suddenly, as though conscious of being observed, he stood upright and turned towards them, leaning on his shovel, and slightly shading his eyes with his hand.
A great tongue of red fire scattered a thousand sparks, and leaped up into the black night. For a moment every line and furrow in the man’s evil face stood revealed. The disclosure was startling, almost sinister. Even the Englishman, who had sat opposite to the man for months, shuddered and turned away. For a few seconds he forgot his companion. Then a stifled cry from his side, and an added weight upon his arms, reminded him of her with alarm. He caught her up in his arms and bore her to the bed. Her face was white and her eyes were closed. She had fainted.
And across the gorge, bathed in a stream of red fire, Mr. James Hamilton stood there like a carved figure, with a light more brilliant than the flaming pine boughs had ever cast, blazing in his eyes, and a fire more fierce than that which had made white ashes of the dry wood, burning in his evil heart. Then he dropped his hand and burst into a hoarse ringing laugh, a laugh which echoed up the gorge and down the valley, and came even to the ears of the men sitting in Dan Cooper’s store. One cursed the jackals, and another spoke of wolves. But the laugh was the laugh of Mr. James Hamilton.
V. A HATEFUL FIGURE FROM A HATEFUL PAST
It was morning. As yet the sun had gained no strength, and though the air above was clear and bright with the promise of a glorious day, a mantle of hazy white mists floated in the valley, and hung over the tree-tops. Mr. James Hamilton, after throwing a careful glance around, slipped out from his cabin, scrambled down the gorge and up the opposite side, and walked softly along the garden path which led to the shanty.
The Englishman had gone to the river—he had watched him go. Only his visitor was there. As he approached within a few yards of the shanty, Myra, who had just risen, came to the door to watch the sun strike the tops of the distant Sierras. Instead, she looked into the dark, evil face of Mr. James Hamilton.
She started back with a little low cry. The colour faded from her cheeks and the glad light from her eyes. A sudden faintness came over her. Sun and sky, wooded gorge and rolling plain, commenced to dance before her eyes. She felt herself growing sick and numbed with horror. Last night she had persuaded herself that it was a delusion. The shadows and the dim light had made her fanciful. But here in the clear morning’s sunshine, where every object possessed even an added vividness, there could be no possibility of any mistake. The man whom it had been the one fervent prayer of her life that she might never see again, was face to face with her alone in these mountain solitudes.
And he had not changed—not a whit. There was the same cold, ugly smile, the same fiendish appreciation of the loathing which he aroused in her. He took off his battered cap, and made her a mock obeisance.
“You—here!” she gasped. She felt that she must say something. The silence was intolerable. It was beginning to stifle her.
“You’ve hit it!” he remarked. “Did you think I was a ghost? Feel! I’m flesh and blood! Come and feel, I say!”
He held out his arms with a gesture of coarse invitation. She shrank away with a little cry which dropped into a moan—almost of physical pain.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t dare to touch me! What do you want?”
Mr. Hamilton appeared hurt. His manner and his tone implied that he had expected a different reception.
“What do I want? Come, I like that! You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve come to this God-forsaken hole of a place after some one else, eh? When I saw you last night, I thought at first of coming right over and claiming you. It’s me you came for, I reckon. Ain’t it, eh?”
Her eyes flashed fire upon him.
“Come after you!” she repeated, her bosom heaving with pent-up emotion. “Oh, my God! I would sooner walk into my grave. To look at you—and remember, is torture! What do you come here for? How dare you come into my sight!”
He laughed; a low, sneering laugh that had little of merriment in it.
“So it is the Englishman, is it? Now listen here, my sweetheart, and don’t ruffle your pretty feathers. If we were in San Francisco, or any place where there was a choice of society, you could take up with whom you liked and be d—d to you; but out here it’s different! You’re mine, and I mean to have you! Do you hear? This blasted hole has given me the blues. I’m lonely, d—d lonely, and ‘pon my word, you’re a devilish handsome woman, you know! It won’t be for long. I shall soon be as tired of you as I was before, and then you can come back to your Englishman! No nonsense, you little fool! You belong to me, body and soul, and I’m going to have you!”
She had not been able to attempt any escape, had any been possible. The man’s very presence seemed to have bereft her of all strength. She stood there fascinated with the deep unspeakable horror of it, trembling from head to foot, and miserably conscious of her own impotence. Before she could recover herself his arms closed suddenly around her, and his hot breath scorched her check as he stooped down and lifted her bodily into his arms. She gave one despairing shriek, and then a cry of joy. There was a slow, deliberate footstep outside, and a tall form stood upon the threshold. Mr. Hamilton dropped his burden, and turned round with a fierce oath.
It was Pete Morrison who was lounging there, lank and nonchalant, with a pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets.
“Hello! What’s the shindy!” he inquired good-naturedly.
“It’s no affair of yours,” answered Mr. Hamilton, with savage emphasis. “Stand aside and let us pass, Pete Morrison. I’m not the man to be trifled with, and I’ll stand to my word to-day. Out of my path, or I’ll let daylight into you, sure as hell!”
Pete Morrison stood a little on one side, and blew a volume of tobacco smoke from his mouth.
“Where’s the hurry?” he inquired. “I ain’t standing in your way. You may go as fast as you like, but I kinder think you’d better leave the boy,” he added mildly.
“The boy’s mine. Clear the way, I tell you!”
His hand stole down towards his belt. Quick as lightning Pete Morrison’s hand flashed out towards him.
“Hands up, Jim.”
Mr. Hamilton obeyed the
