"And so will I," cried Eve, her eyes suddenly lighting with hope.

"Will you come, boy? You'll save Jim, who never did you anything but good. Will you come?"

But there was no answer.

"Say, laddie," Peter went on, his eyes straining with fear, "they're moving now. Can you hear them? That's the men who're taking Jim out to kill him--and when they've killed him they'll kill you, because I shall tell them 'bout you. Will you help us save Jim--Jim who was always good to you, or will you let them kill him--an' then you?

Hark, they're crossing toward us now. Soon, and they'll be gone, and then it'll be too late. They'll then have to come back for you, and--you won't be able to get that gold I promised you."

Eve sat breathlessly watching. Peter's steady persistence was something to marvel at. She wanted to shriek out and seize the suffering cripple, and shake what little life there yet remained out of him. The suspense was dreadful. She looked for a sign of the lightening of that cloud of horror and suffering on the boy's face.

She looked for that sign of yielding they both hoped and prayed for.

But Peter went on, and it seemed to the woman he must win out.

"Come, speak up, laddie," he said gently. "Play the man. They shan't hurt you, I swear it. Ther's all that gold waiting. You've seen it on the reef in the cutting, right here in Barnriff. It's yours when you've done this thing, but you won't be here to get it if you don't.

Will you come?"

"They won't--won't hang me?" the boy whispered, in dreadful fear.

The death party were quite near now. Peter heard them. He felt that they were nearly across the market-place. He glanced out of the window. Yes, there they were. Jim was sitting in the buckboard beside Doc Crombie. The rest of the crowd were in the saddle.

"I swear it, laddie," he cried in a fear.

"An'--an'--you got that gold?" The boy's face was suddenly contorted with fierce bodily pain.

"Yes, yes, and it's yours when we come back."

Another glance showed the hanging party on the outskirts of the village. They were pa.s.sing slowly. Peter knew they would travel faster when the last house was pa.s.sed. Eve saw them, too, and her hands writhed in silent agony as they clasped each other in her lap. She turned again to stare helplessly at Elia. She must leave him to Peter.

Instinctively she knew that one word from her might spoil all.

"Wher' are they now?" asked the boy, his ghastly face cold as marble after his seizure of pain.

"They're gettin' out of the village. We'll be too late in a minute."

Then of a sudden the boy cried out. His voice was shrill with a desperate fear, but there was a note of determination in it.

"I'll tell 'em--I'll tell 'em. Come on, I ken walk. But it's only for Jim, an'--an' I don't want that gold." And for the first time in her life Eve saw the boy's eyes flood with tears, which promptly streamed down his ghastly cheeks.

Peter's eyes glowed. There was just time, he believed. But he was thinking of the boy. At last--at last. It was for Jim Elia was doing it. For Jim, and not for the gold. He had delved and delved until at last he had struck the real color, where the soil had long been given up as barren.

"Come, laddie." He stepped up to the boy with a great kindness, and, stretching out his herculean arms, he lifted him bodily from the bed.

"You can't walk, you're too ill. I'll jest carry you."

And he bore him out of the house.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

IN THE SHADOW OF THE GALLOWS TREE

The creak of a saddle; the shuffling and rustle of horses moving at a walk through the long prairie gra.s.s; the sudden jolt of a wheel as it dropped from a tufty wad to the barren sand intersecting the clumps of gra.s.s of which the prairie is largely made up; the half-hearted neigh of a horse, as though it were striving to break from under the spell of gloomy depression which seemed to weigh heavily upon the very atmosphere; these were the only sounds which broke the gray stillness of dawn.

No one seemed to have words to offer. No one seemed to have sufficient lightness even to smoke a morning pipe. There were few amongst those riding out from Barnriff who would not far sooner have remained in their beds, amidst the easy dreams of healthy, tired nature, now that the last moments of a man's life were at hand. There were few, now that the heat and excitement of accusation were past, but would far rather have had the easy thought that they had been on the other side of the ballot. But this was mere human sentimentality at the thought of the pa.s.sing of one man's life. This thing was necessary, necessary for example and precept. A man had slain another. He was guilty; he must die. The argument was as old as the world.

Yet life is very precious. It is so precious that these men could not rid themselves of the haunting ghost of self-consciousness. They placed themselves in the position of the condemned, and at once depression wrapped them in its pall, and, shrinking within themselves, all buoyancy left them. A man had to die, and each man felt he was instrumental in wresting from him that which of all the world must be most prized. And in many the thought was painful.

The gray world looked grayer for their mission. The daylight seemed to grow far more slowly than was its wont. Where was the ruddy splendor of the day's awakening, where the glory of dawning hope? Lost, lost.

For the minds of these men could not grasp that which lay beyond the object of their journey.

The long-drawn howl of the prairie scavenger broke the stillness. It was answered by its kind. It was a fitting chorus for the situation.

But ears were deaf to such things, for they were too closely in harmony with the doings of the moment. The gray owls fluttered by, weary with their night's vigil, but with appet.i.tes amply satisfied after the long chase, seeking their daylight repose in spa.r.s.e and distant woodland hidings. But there were no eyes for them. Eyes were on the distant bluff to the exclusion of all else.

Six men rode ahead of the buckboard. Smallbones was on the lead. It was his place, and he triumphantly held it. His was the office. Jim Thorpe had reached the end of the one-way trail. And it was his to speed him on--beyond. The rope hung coiled over the horn of his saddle. It was a good rope, a strong, well-seasoned rope. He had seen to that, for he had selected it himself from a number of others. The men with him were those who would act under his orders, men whose senses were quite deadened to the finer emotions of life.

Those behind the buckboard were there to witness the administration of the sentence pa.s.sed upon the prisoner by his fellow townsmen.

Doc Crombie drove the buckboard. And he watched the condemned man beside him out of the tail of his eye. Jim's att.i.tude gave him relief, but it made him feel regret.

They had pa.s.sed the limits of the village when his prisoner suddenly pointed with his bound hands at a pile of soil rising amidst the level of the prairie gra.s.s.

"Peter Blunt's cutting," he said, with curious interest. "He's tracked the gold ledge from the head waters down to here." His tone was half musing. It almost seemed as though he had no concern with the object of their journey.

"Peter's crazy on that gold," said the doctor. "He guesses too much."

Jim shook his head. And for some moments there was silence. Finally his answer came with a smile of understanding.

"He's not crazy. You fellers are all wrong. Peter's got the gold all right."

"He's welcome, sure."

The doctor had no sympathy with any gold find at that moment, and presently he looked round at his prisoner. The man's indifference almost staggered him. He chewed his wad of tobacco viciously. At that moment he hated himself, he hated Jim, he hated everybody--but most of all he hated Smallbones.

After a while he spoke, and though his manner was sharp he meant kindly--

"You ain't told what, I'm guessin', you could tell, Jim," he said.

Then he added significantly, "We've nigh a mile to go."

But Jim was gazing out at the great arc of rosy light growing in the eastern sky, and the doctor stirred impatiently. At last the condemned man turned to him with a grave smile--

"Guess there's nothing so beautiful in nature as a perfect summer dawn," he said. "It makes a man feel strong, and--good. I'm glad it's dawn," he added, with a sigh.

The doctor spat out his tobacco, and his lean hands clenched tight on the reins.

"Maybe it makes you fool-headed, too."

"Maybe it does," Jim agreed, thoughtfully. "Maybe it's good to be fool-headed once in a while. The fool's generally a happy man." Then his eyes looked away in the direction of Peter's cutting. "And happiness, like Peter's gold, takes a heap of finding," he continued a moment later. "Guess the wiser you are the harder things. .h.i.t you. And as you grow older it's so easy to be wise, and so hard to be fool-headed. That bluff we're riding to. Maybe it's foolish me riding to it. That's what you're thinking--because you're wise. It makes me glad I'm fool-headed."