Her hand was firm as she signed her name, and folding the paper, she tied it to a stone which she placed in the empty sack that had contained the lunch. The stone would attract attention when the sack was untied.

Securing the sack to her side-saddle, she removed the halter-ropes from the ponies' necks; then slipping both bridles, she tied them to Donnie's saddle. If the horses did not go home at once, or should there be no one at the Circle Cross for a couple of days, she knew the animals could graze and water and would not suffer. They had left Tatters in the stables with water and food. She wished now that she had taken the dog back to its former master. It would miss them.

Heading the horses toward the Hot Springs trail, she slashed Fox across the flank with her whip. The animal gave a snort of surprise then dashed toward home, while Pet stumbled and tugged behind him down the narrow trail. She watched them disappear around the curve; but later she heard the tumbling of small rocks and knew her message was on its way to Glendon.

Walking to the edge of the Box she looked down unflinchingly. There was plenty time. When everything was dark and quiet, it would be easy to take the sleeping child in her arms; then neither man nor law could take him from her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Doctor Powell, lured by Chappo's description of the cave on Jackson trail, had reached the place an hour after Katherine and Donnie had started for the Box. It was while examining the designs on the various bits of pottery that he found fragments of broken geodes, and eagerly continued his search, which was rewarded with several specimens that were unbroken.

Powell, who was deeply interested in geology, knew there were few places where the curious white crystals were found, and his delight was augmented when he discovered two of them in which the water could be distinctly heard; moisture which had fallen on hot lava that had hardened too quickly to allow evaporation.

He was engaged in wrapping these rare specimens in his handkerchief, when he heard his horse whinny, and as he moved to the entrance of the cave, noticed Fox and Pet picking their way down the steep trail. He saw the saddles and that the ponies were tied together, so concluded the horses had broken away and were homeward bound, leaving Katherine and Donnie afoot higher up on the trail.

Powell waited until the ponies stood beside his horse. Then he moved quietly and secured them with his tie-rope, and mounted his horse to lead the strays up the trail. He had no thought of any danger to Katherine or Donnie, until a turn in the trail revealed the top of the climb and a woman standing perilously near the edge of the cliff. He dared not call out, for fear of startling her and precipitating a tragedy; but he dropped the rope of the two horses and urged his own forward.

Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead and his teeth bit into his lower lip. The horse puffed and stumbled, for the big Spanish spurs slashed its sides without mercy. Fox and Pet scrambled behind, the tie-ropes dragging on the ground.

He reached the summit and closed his eyes, fearing he was too late. With a throb of relief he saw Katherine still poised at the edge of the Box, while bits of decomposed earth crumbled unnoticed beneath her feet. He realized her danger. Chappo had spoken of the treacherous shale overhanging the Box.

So engrossed was the woman that she did not hear him slip from his horse and hasten noiselessly to her side; but, when his hand grasped her arm, gently, yet firmly, she turned in shrinking fear that changed to piteous appeal when she saw it was Powell, not Glendon, who stood beside her.

The man read the tragedy in her eyes. Slowly he drew her from the danger point, speaking quietly as he did so.

"This place is not safe, Mrs. Glendon. A moment's dizziness might seize anyone." The earth at the edge was crumbling as he spoke, a chunk of it crashed down into the canon below, and Powell drew her further back.

"That shale is rotten and liable to slide without an instant's warning.

I was in an Indian cave when I saw the ponies had gotten away from you and Donnie."

She knew he was giving her a chance to evade explanations, but the woman had reached a point where she scorned further subterfuge. When one faces Eternity all else shrivels to insignificance. "I was not dizzy," she replied in a dull monotone. Then turning on him pa.s.sionately, she cried, "Why did you come? Do you know Donnie is going away from me? In three days more my boy will be taken out of my life and given to strangers who care nothing for him? Why should we go on struggling? I am tired of it all!"

In a flash he understood her purpose, and knew the horses had not escaped accidentally.

"And you thought that you could keep him with you--down there?" Powell asked in a voice unsteady with emotion.

She looked at him defiantly. "Yes, you may call it a crime; but I am willing to bear the punishment if there is another world--if there is another world! It is a worse crime to take a child from its mother and give it to the father--no matter how unworthy he may be! I have borne everything for the boy's sake; I could go on--bearing everything the rest of my life--if I could only keep my boy!"

Her voice dropped. Powell saw that her hands and limbs were shaken with tremors. "I love him enough to give him up with a smile, if I could know that it was for his good. My only happiness lies in knowing I have done the best I could for him."

He silently waited the reaction that must come. Her hands covered her face; then a terrible sob shook her body. It was not the sharp cry of remorse; but the terrible soul-rending cry of a heart that is near to breaking, and the man beside her ached to take her in his arms and comfort her as he would a child.

"Tell me about it," he said at last, and she raised her tear-stained face.

Without reservation, she told the story of the long, bitter struggle to reform her husband; the hope that the child would bring compensation and finally the letter and her husband's decision which had driven her to desperation.

"Yet, when it came to the point, you never would have been cowardly enough to take your life and Donnie's," he a.s.serted.

"I don't know," she faltered. "A swimmer who struggles against the tide reaches a moment when further efforts are impossible. I have struggled, prayed and fought until I am tired of it all. I want to stop thinking, stop fearing the future--and sleep. It is sometimes easier to die than to keep on living. Life is too hard, too bitter, too hopeless! You can't understand."

"But I do understand!" replied Powell earnestly. "Sometimes one reaches a stone wall where there is no way around, no way over it, yet, if we have the courage to hold on, the wall topples when we least expect it.

What seems impossible today may be accomplished tomorrow. I am up against the hardest wall in my life, but I shall not give up. In the quest of the Grail there must be no faltering. We all see the vision once in life."

He laid his hands on hers, compelling her to look into his eyes. "I have heard a soldier whose bravery was beyond question, say that the impulse to seek a place of safety during a battle is almost overpowering. Many men have been unable to resist the temptation; and the pity is that often one deserts his colours just when victory is at hand. You are brave enough to face the bullets. Don't you know the man who deserts, influences many others to drop their colours too? Carry your colours bravely, comrade, that I may have the courage to go on with my fight--won't you?"

She turned impulsively and laid her two hands in his close grasp that imparted new courage. "I was a coward," she said, "but I promise I'll not give up again! You can't realize how much you have helped me! I will prove my grat.i.tude by not running from the bullets."

The doctor smiled at her. "That's right," he said heartily; "but you overrate what I have done. You would have won the battle by yourself."

He turned then, to see Donnie looking at them from sleep-heavy eyes.

"h.e.l.lo, Rip Van Winkle," called the doctor.

With a cry of delight the child leaped up and running to Powell, threw his arms about the man's neck. "Oh, you did come after all!" he cried triumphantly. Then Katherine and Powell understood how the child missed the man.

The boy's unrestrained gladness relieved the tension between his mother and the doctor. Finally Powell rose.

"Do you know, I forgot that Chappo fixed a lunch for me? Let's see what it is, Donnie. I'm getting hungry."

Katherine watched them make their way over the rough ground, the child's hand held by the man. The mingled voices happy with laughter, floated back to her from where the ponies were tied. There might be an occasional gleam of sunshine in life, if only the child were not taken from her, she thought hopefully. Then she saw them returning, carrying various articles which the doctor had extricated from his big saddle bags, and now deposited on the ground at her feet.

"Chappo knows I am a confirmed coffee-fiend," confessed Powell. "You gather some sticks, Donnie, and we'll pretend your mother is a captive queen whom we have rescued from the cannibals. I'm Crusoe and you're Friday."

"Friday was black," objected Donnie.

"Well, that was an island. This is a mountain, so you can be a white Friday here, you see."

When the fire crackled and the large cup which Chappo had provided for boiling coffee, sang merrily, the remnants of Katherine's lunch were added to what the Doctor had, so a plentiful meal was spread.

"The trail is rather bad," suggested Powell as they finished the impromptu feast, "so we had better start before it grows late."

He tightened the cinches of the three saddles and adjusted the bridles while Katherine and Donnie picked up the cups and spoons. She was replacing a few articles in a sack hanging on her saddle when she felt the rock and remembered the note she had written to her husband. Untying the sack, she tore the paper into fragments that were caught by the light evening breeze and tossed over the edge of the Box. She watched them, then with a smile turned to Powell, who waited to lift her to her pony's back. Donnie, already on his pony, followed his mother as Fox picked his way down the trail behind Powell's horse.

Six miles away the Rim Rock rose over two thousand feet or more, the ma.s.sive, jagged sides reflecting a riotous confusion of colours from the setting sun, until its vivid beauty merged into a soft blue-grey, like the plumage on the breast of a wild dove.

Sometimes the boy and Powell talked together as they rode down the trail, or the mother joined in the conversation, but all the time she was conscious of a new strength, a sense of comradeship that she had never before known in her entire life. Her heart was lighter than it had been for many years when she, Powell and Donnie reached the gate of the Circle Cross. To her surprise, Glendon slouched on the porch.

It was only Thursday and Glendon had said he would be absent until Sunday night. She wondered what it meant.

Her eyes turned to the child and fear gripped her heart until it seemed as if she were suffocating. But Powell's words came back to her, "Carry your colours bravely, comrade"--She determined not to meet trouble prematurely. After all, there probably was a very natural explanation of the sudden return. Juan was coming up from the barn, carrying a pail of fresh milk. It was the usual routine of the ranch. She put her fears aside.

Powell opening the gate for Katherine and Donnie to ride through, raised his hat courteously and spoke to Glendon. It was the best way to aid Glendon's wife. The other man looked at him between half-closed eyes that were a studied insult, and made no reply. Neither did he make any effort to a.s.sist his wife.

The doctor helped her from her horse, then lifted Donnie to the ground, paying no heed to Glendon's att.i.tude. With a few words to the woman and boy, Powell rode through the gate toward Hot Springs. His blood boiled, and it required all his will-power to avoid turning back and mauling Glendon as he deserved; but, he realized it would not help the woman.

Juan, having disposed of the milk-pail, hastened to lead the ponies to the stable. Knowing that Glendon was in one of his most surly moods, Katherine moved slowly up the steps of the porch, trying to choke back her terrible dread. "Carry your colours," she heard.