"Seven miles more, Peanut!"

It was the only way to reach the Springs or Circle Cross. During the dry season, there was no water in the bed of the creek, as the Hot Springs Creek seeped into the ground a short distance from the ranch house, and the little stream was usually only two or three feet wide and a few inches deep. Owing to the immense watershed of the canon, a rain of short duration often made crossing impossible. The banks of the creek rose fifteen feet, or more, perpendicularly from constant floods, and often these banks were over-running.

This knowledge was the basis of Limber's hope as well as his anxiety. If he could cross the creek before the flood, that very thing might prove an obstacle to the posse, and give Glendon a chance to get a good start.

If the flood was ahead of him, the cowboy knew he would have to wait and lose any opportunity of seeing Glendon first. Then the other men would be there with him.

He listened intently. As the sound he feared--a smothered roar--reached his ears, he leaned forward in his saddle, and Peanut started with a snort at the unusual touch of the sharp spurs.

It was a race for life now. Limber knew he must reach the one spot in the canon where his pony could scramble up the sheer embankment to the upper road before the flood could catch them. Stumbling, panting, the pony tore over the rocks and fallen trees that had been washed down in previous floods, and crashed among dead limbs in the darkness. Peanut fell heavily to his knees, but struggled up instantly, while Limber spurred and called, "Yip! Yip! Yip! Peanut! Go on, you rascal!"

The pony's ears were flattened back. He knew the danger, now. The noise of approaching water grew louder. Watching for the next flash of lightning, Limber's eyes measured the distance between himself and the point where the road struck sharply up the steep incline that led to safety. With the same glance, he saw the wall of seething water tumbling close to the crossing. Could they reach it in time?

The sounds became a deafening roar, and Peanut flagged. Limber leaned over his shoulder and spoke to him, and at the sound of the loved voice, the little pony made another effort. With a convulsive leap he reached the slope of the road and scrambled wildly to safety, then stopped with low drooping head and quivering limbs. Limber jumped from the saddle and went to the pony's head, putting his arm over the rain-soaked neck, the cowboy stroked the mane and forelock. They could rest now. No living thing could cross that canon until the storm ceased and the flood subsided.

As the lightning flashed, Limber watched the flood sweep below, carrying great cottonwood trees like straws, and over-turning immense boulders as if they were marbles.

Man and pony had ridden against Death that night, and Peanut had won the race.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Katherine was looking out the window at the storm-swept canon. Juan had ridden to the San Pedro that morning. He figured that he might work up a trade of two unbroken colts for a gentle workhorse. Then when he was compelled to make a trip to town with the team, Katherine could use her own pony, Fox, to care for the cattle on the range.

As the fury of the storm increased, she closed the heavy shutters to protect the gla.s.s windows from the branches that were broken and flung violently against the little house. The storm on the outside seemed emblematic of her life. Yet she remembered that it would pa.s.s and the sun creep gently into the places where the bruised things had been beaten down, and by degrees the beauty would be restored.

Lighting the lamp, she seated herself at the table and drew a letter toward her. In the stress of events following her husband's illness and Paddy's subsequent murder, the publication of her verses had pa.s.sed from her memory. Many months had elapsed before Katherine happened to pick up the magazine in which her poem was printed. Like a seed that had lain dormant, waiting the proper season to germinate, rose an impulse to tell the thoughts that surged within her. In this mood she had written a story of the little ranch in the lonely canon, and the things that made life for the woman living there with the old Mexican, the dog and the mountains.

Hesitatingly, she had sent the story to a magazine; it had been accepted and the editor had written a pleasant note to her, asking for more of her work. The letter opened a world of possibilities. Not that she dreamed of leaping into fame and fortune as a writer; but because it gave her empty life an object. In grasping at a straw, she had found a friendly hand that dragged her from the black waves of despair and pointed a beacon light, encouraging her to struggle on. The way was no longer lonely; it was peopled by unknown friends with whom she could share thoughts which had been suppressed for years.

The legacy received from her aunt would amply provide for Donnie's education until he was able to a.s.sist himself; she could remain on the ranch with old Juan, caring for the remnant of the Circle Cross herd, which would furnish what they needed, with the help of the garden-patch, chickens and a cow. If she could sell a few stories, Donnie could spend his summer vacations with her.

"Ten years," she thought, ashamed of the knowledge that it meant peace unspeakable. "Ten years--and then?"

Forcing the thought from her, she took the second letter from its envelope. It was from Glendon's father, reiterating his offer to take the boy and educate him. The tone of the letter was the same as the first one he had written his son about Donnie. It was a grim, hard letter. Katherine, reading between the lines, felt no resentment; she realized the old man's keen disappointment in his only son, and her heart cried out in sympathy.

So she wrote, thanking her husband's father explaining courteously about the legacy providing for the boy's education, and stating that she would remain at the ranch until such time as her husband returned to it.

Having sealed the letter, she sat idly listening to the storm, when a knock on the door startled her. She thought there was no one in the neighbourhood except herself and old Chappo at the Hot Springs ranch, and she wondered what could have brought him out in such a night. A second knock sounded before she opened the door, holding it with difficulty against the wind, her eyes blinded by the darkness of the night, and the rain beating across the threshold.

"Is that you, Chappo?" she called above the noise of the storm.

"Katherine!"

Her eyes became tragic and her face white as Powell entered the room.

"You?" she whispered doubtingly and yet with a little thrill of gladness in her voice.

He grasped her cold hands, looking eagerly into her face.

"You poor child!" Only three words, but they seemed to cover her with warmth and protection. Then she remembered, and drawing her hands from his, sank trembling into a chair, while Powell stood by her side. A great happiness illumined his face, for he had caught the look in her eyes and had heard the note in her voice.

"I tried to stay away," he said at last. "I thought I could blot you out of my life, but I could not. I was in New York when Limber's letter reached me, telling about the hold-up, trial and conviction. I took the first train home. If the letter had been a day later, I should have been on my way to Europe. You will never know what it meant, picturing you alone here with this new trouble to bear."

"Don't!" pleaded Katherine. "Do you realize what has happened?"

"I know that the law has taken it course justly," replied Powell.

"Glendon's conviction is sufficient to justify your appeal for a divorce. No further sacrifice is necessary on your part. Surely you will not hesitate, now?"

"He has no one else," she answered slowly, "Therefore my obligation is the heavier."

"No obligation is due a man like him. He has heaped indignity and suffering on you and Donnie. You cannot point one redeeming trait in his character."

"He is my husband. Only death can cancel that obligation."

"He is a curse to humanity," Powell's voice vibrated with emotion. "Even should you remain here until he serves his time, it will a mean a more hideous life after he returns. Either Donnie will succ.u.mb to his father's influence, and you will have two brutes to cope with, or the boy will hate his father, and someday Glendon will kill Donnie or Donnie will kill his father. You have no right to force such a situation on the boy, to face such a future for yourself."

Katherine stood before him, her hands tightly locked together to control the trembling, she did not answer, but the look in her eyes told that she realized the truth of his words. Powell was overcome with compunction and tenderness. His hands were laid gently on hers.

"Please forgive me," he begged. "It maddens me to see you in such trouble and know I am powerless to help you. The only gift I crave of life is the privilege to serve and protect you and Donnie."

She lifted her eyes to the hands that were reaching out to her, then her gaze rested on his face.

"Can you understand," she said, "how a hungry beggar feels outside in the storm and cold, looking into a warm room where a banquet of rich food and wine is spread before his eyes? I am starving for a crumb of your love; yet I must turn away hungry."

He started toward her with a cry of joy, but she moved farther from him.

"Do you think I would have told you, if I had not believed I had the strength to turn away?" she asked in a dull voice. "It is my atonement.

I tried so hard to be true to him, in spite of everything; but at night you came to me in my dreams, and I lived in another world, till dawn brought me back here again. Oh, why does G.o.d let us make such terrible mistakes when He knows we have only one little life to live? I am tired--so tired of struggling!"

Powell knew that it was her moment of weakness, and the temptation was strong upon him to urge her; but he also knew that no happiness would be lasting unless she came to him without a shadow of the past falling across their lives.

"You are right, Katherine," he said, gravely. "I shall not worry you any more. All I ask is that you will remember I am waiting, to help you when you need me." He lifted her hand to his lips and then she watched him pa.s.s out into the storm.

CHAPTER FORTY

The wind beat the windows and screamed like a living thing in maniacal rage; it struck the door and whipped the trees, tearing away branches and throwing them down the canon. One crash barely died in the distant rumble when another crash succeeded. A cloud-burst added to the wildness of the scene.

The flashes that lit the huge cliffs about the Circle Cross, revealed a rain-sodden figure mounted on an exhausted, stumbling horse back of the little ranch-house. The horse picked its way uncertainly until it reached the shelter of the stable shed. Glendon slipped stiffly from its back and opening the door, led the animal into an empty stall. The horse stumbled and Glendon gave it a vicious kick as he cursed it.

Fox stopped munching his hay to poke an inquisitive nose across at the stranger, while Glendon started to unbuckle the saddle-bags. As he lifted them, he saw a saddled horse in the stall on the opposite side of Fox. Cursing his luck, the man tossed the saddle-bags back on the horse he had ridden, and adjusted them hastily. Then he reached up behind the hay at the end of the stable and extracted a bottle of whiskey which he had put there just before his arrest. After taking a couple of copious drinks, he thrust the bottle into his coat pocket and mounted the horse whose stiffened movements told that it was badly foundered. Glendon dug his heels into the heaving sides, and the animal with low hanging head, stumbled wearily through the trees directly back of the house.