CHAPTER XLVI

THE END OF A CROOKED TRAIL

In the grim faces of the Utes Houck read his doom. He had not the least doubt of it. His trail ended here.

The terror in his heart rose less out of the fact itself than the circumstances which surrounded it. The gray dawn, the grim, copper-colored faces, the unknown torment waiting for him, stimulated his imagination. He could have faced his own kind, the cattlemen of the Rio Blanco, without this clutching horror that gripped him. They would have done what they thought necessary, but without any unnecessary cruelty.

What the Utes would do he did not know. They would make sure of their vengeance, but they would not be merciful about it.

He repressed a shudder and showed his yellow teeth in a grin of defiance.

"I reckon you're right glad to see me," he jeered.

Still they said nothing, only looked at their captive with an aspect that daunted him.

"Not dumb, are you? Speak up, some of you," Houck snarled, fighting down the panic within him.

A wrinkled old Ute spoke quietly. "Man-with-loud-tongue die. He kill Indian--give him no chance. Indians kill him now."

Houck nodded his head. "Sure I killed him. He'd stolen my horse, hadn't he?"

The old fellow touched his chest. "Black Arrow my son. You kill him. He take your horse mebbe. You take Ute horse." He pointed to the pinto. "Ute kill Man-with-loud-tongue."

"Black Arrow reached for his gun. I had to shoot. It was an even break."

Houck's voice pleaded in spite of his resolution not to weaken.

The spokesman for the Indians still showed an impassive face, but his voice was scornful. "Is Man-with-loud-tongue a yellow coyote? Does he carry the heart of a squaw? Will he cry like a pappoose?"

Houck's salient jaw jutted out. The man was a mass of vanity. Moreover, he was game. "Who told you I was yellow? Where did you get that? I ain't scared of all the damned Utes that ever came outa hell."

And to prove it--perhaps, too, by way of bolstering up his courage--he cursed the redskins with a string of blistering oaths till he was out of breath.

The captive needed no explanation of the situation. He knew that the soldiers had failed to round up and drive back to the reservation a band of the Utes that had split from the main body and taken to the hills. By some unlucky chance or evil fate he had come straight from Bear Cat to their night camp.

The Utes left Houck pegged out to the ground while they sat at a little distance and held a pow-wow. The outlaw knew they were deciding his fate.

He knew them better than to expect anything less than death. What shook his nerve was the uncertainty as to the form it would take. Like all frontiersmen, he had heard horrible stories of Apache torture. In general the Utes did not do much of that sort of thing. But they had a special grudge against him. What he had done to one of them had been at least a contributory cause of the outbreak that had resulted so disastrously for them. He would have to pay the debt he owed. But how? He sweated blood while the Indians squatted before the fire and came to a decision.

The council did not last long. When it broke up Houck braced his will to face what he must. It would not be long now. Soon he would know the worst.

Two of the braves went up the hill toward the cavvy. The rest came back to their captive.

They stood beside him in silence. Houck scowled up at them, still defiant.

"Well?" he demanded.

The Utes said nothing. They stood there stolid. Their victim read in that voiceless condemnation an awful menace.

"Onload it," he jeered. "I'm no squaw. Shoot it at me. Jake Houck ain't scared."

Still they waited, the father of Black Arrow with folded arms, a sultry fire burning in his dark eyes.

The two men who had gone to the cavvy returned. They were leading a horse with a rope around its neck. Houck recognized the animal with a thrill of superstitious terror. It was the one about the possession of which he had shot Black Arrow.

The old chief spoke again. "Man-with-loud-tongue claim this horse. Utes give it him. Horse his. Man-with-loud-tongue satisfied then maybe."

"What are you aimin' to do, you red devils?" Houck shouted.

Already he guessed vaguely at the truth. Men were arranging a kind of harness of rope and rawhide on the animal.

Others stooped to drag the captive forward. He set his teeth to keep back the shriek of terror that rose to his throat.

He knew now what form the vengeance of the savages was to take.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE KINGDOM OF JOY

A prince of the Kingdom of Joy rode the Piceance trail on a morning glad with the song of birds and the rippling of brooks. Knee to knee with him rode his princess, slim and straight, the pink in her soft smooth cheeks, a shy and eager light in the velvet-dark eyes. They were starting together on the long, long trail, and the poor young things could vision it only as strewn with sunbathed columbines and goldenrods.

The princess was a bride, had been one for all of twelve hours. It was her present conviction that she lived in a world wonderful, and that the most amazingly radiant thing in it was what had happened to her and Bob Dillon. She pitied everybody else in the universe. They were so blind!

They looked, but they did not see what was so clear to eyes from which the veil had been stripped. They went about their humdrum way without emotion. Their hearts did not sing exultant paeans that throbbed out of them like joy-notes from a meadow-lark's throat. Only those who had come happily to love's fruition understood the meaning of life. June was not only happy; she was this morning wise, heiress of that sure wisdom which comes only to the young when they discover just why they have been born into the world.

How many joys there were for those attuned to receive them! Her fingers laced with Bob's, and from the contact a warm, ecstatic glow flooded both their bodies. She looked at his clean brown face, with its line of golden down above where the razor had traveled, with its tousled, reddish hair falling into the smiling eyes, and a queer little lump surged into the girl's throat. Her husband! This boy was the mate heaven had sent her to repay for years of unhappiness.

"My wife!" It was all still so new and unbelievable that Bob's voice shook a little.

"Are you sorry?" she asked.

Her shy smile teased. She did not ask because she needed information, but because she could not hear too often the answer.

"You know whether I am. Oh, June girl, I didn't know it would be like this," he cried.

"Nor I, Bob."

Their lithe bodies leaned from the saddles. They held each other close while their lips met.

They were on their way to Pete Tolliver's to tell him the great news.

Soon now the old cabin and its outbuildings would break into view. They had only to climb Twelve-Mile Hill.

Out of a draw to the right a horse moved. Through the brush something dragged behind it.

"What's that?" asked June.

"Don't know. Looks kinda queer. It's got some sort of harness on."