How the memories thronged of June--June--June!

"YOU DIDN'T GIVE HER A CHANCE."

That was what Budd said. Well, had he given her a chance? Why shouldn't he go to her and give her the chance now? He shook his shoulders at the thought and laughed with some bitterness. He hadn't the car-fare for half-way across the continent--and even if he had, he was a promising candidate for matrimony!--and again he shook his shoulders and settled his soul for his purpose. He would get his things together and leave those hills forever.

How lonely had been his trip--how lonely was the G.o.d-forsaken little town behind him! How lonely the road and hills and the little white clouds in the zenith straight above him--and how unspeakably lonely the green dome of the great Pine that shot into view from the north as he turned a clump of rhododendron with uplifted eyes. Not a breath of air moved. The green expanse about him swept upward like a wave--but unflecked, motionless, except for the big Pine which, that far away, looked like a bit of green spray, spouting on its very crest.

"Old man," he muttered, "you know--you know." And as to a brother he climbed toward it.

"No wonder they call you Lonesome," he said as he went upward into the bright stillness, and when he dropped into the dark stillness of shadow and forest gloom on the other side he said again:

"My G.o.d, no wonder they call you Lonesome."

And still the memories of June thronged--at the brook--at the river--and when he saw the smokeless chimney of the old cabin, he all but groaned aloud. But he turned away from it, unable to look again, and went down the river toward Uncle Billy's mill.

Old Hon threw her arms around him and kissed him.

"John," said Uncle Billy, "I've got three hundred dollars in a old yarn sock under one of them hearthstones and its yourn. Ole Hon says so too."

Hale choked.

"I want ye to go to June. Dave'll worry her down and git her if you don't go, and if he don't worry her down, he'll come back an' try to kill ye. I've always thought one of ye would have to die fer that gal, an' I want it to be Dave. You two have got to fight it out some day, and you mought as well meet him out thar as here. You didn't give that little gal a fair chance, John, an' I want you to go to June."

"No, I can't take your money, Uncle Billy--G.o.d bless you and old Hon--I'm going--I don't know where--and I'm going now."

x.x.xIII

Clouds were gathering as Hale rode up the river after telling old Hon and Uncle Billy good-by. He had meant not to go to the cabin in Lonesome Cove, but when he reached the forks of the road, he stopped his horse and sat in indecision with his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle and his eyes on the smokeless chimney. The memories tugging at his heart drew him irresistibly on, for it was the last time. At a slow walk he went noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron.

The creek was clear as crystal once more, but no geese cackled and no dog barked. The door of the spring-house gaped wide, the barn-door sagged on its hinges, the yard-fence swayed drunkenly, and the cabin was still as a gravestone. But the garden was alive, and he swung from his horse at the gate, and with his hands clasped behind his back walked slowly through it. June's garden! The garden he had planned and planted for June--that they had tended together and apart and that, thanks to the old miller's care, was the one thing, save the sky above, left in spirit unchanged. The periwinkles, pink and white, were almost gone. The flags were at half-mast and sinking fast. The annunciation lilies were bending their white foreheads to the near kiss of death, but the pinks were fragrant, the poppies were poised on slender stalks like brilliant b.u.t.terflies at rest, the hollyhocks shook soundless pink bells to the wind, roses as scarlet as June's lips bloomed everywhere and the richness of mid-summer was at hand.

Quietly Hale walked the paths, taking a last farewell of plant and flower, and only the sudden patter of raindrops made him lift his eyes to the angry sky. The storm was coming now in earnest and he had hardly time to lead his horse to the barn and dash to the porch when the very heavens, with a crash of thunder, broke loose. Sheet after sheet swept down the mountains like wind-driven clouds of mist thickening into water as they came. The shingles rattled as though with the heavy slapping of hands, the pines creaked and the sudden dusk outside made the cabin, when he pushed the door open, as dark as night. Kindling a fire, he lit his pipe and waited. The room was damp and musty, but the presence of June almost smothered him. Once he turned his face. June's door was ajar and the key was in the lock. He rose to go to it and look within and then dropped heavily back into his chair. He was anxious to get away now--to get to work. Several times he rose restlessly and looked out the window. Once he went outside and crept along the wall of the cabin to the east and the west, but there was no break of light in the murky sky and he went back to pipe and fire. By and by the wind died and the rain steadied into a dogged downpour. He knew what that meant--there would be no letting up now in the storm, and for another night he was a prisoner.

So he went to his saddle-pockets and pulled out a cake of chocolate, a can of potted ham and some crackers, munched his supper, went to bed, and lay there with sleepless eyes, while the lights and shadows from the wind-swayed fire flicked about him. After a while his body dozed but his racked brain went seething on in an endless march of fantastic dreams in which June was the central figure always, until of a sudden young Dave leaped into the centre of the stage in the dream-tragedy forming in his brain. They were meeting face to face at last--and the place was the big Pine. Dave's pistol flashed and his own stuck in the holster as he tried to draw. There was a crashing report and he sprang upright in bed--but it was a crash of thunder that wakened him and that in that swift instant perhaps had caused his dream. The wind had come again and was driving the rain like soft bullets against the wall of the cabin next which he lay. He got up, threw another stick of wood on the fire and sat before the leaping blaze, curiously disturbed but not by the dream.

Somehow he was again in doubt--was he going to stick it out in the mountains after all, and if he should, was not the reason, deep down in his soul, the foolish hope that June would come back again. No, he thought, searching himself fiercely, that was not the reason. He honestly did not know what his duty to her was--what even was his inmost wish, and almost with a groan he paced the floor to and fro. Meantime the storm raged. A tree crashed on the mountainside and the lightning that smote it winked into the cabin so like a mocking, malignant eye that he stopped in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped outside as though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his soul went into the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose beginning and end were in eternity. The very mountain tops were rimmed with zigzag fire, which shot upward, splitting a sky that was as black as a nether world, and under it the great trees swayed like willows under rolling clouds of gray rain. One fiery streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and seemed to dart straight down upon its proud, tossing crest. For a moment the beat of the watcher's heart and the flight of his soul stopped still. A thunderous crash came slowly to his waiting ears, another flash came, and Hale stumbled, with a sob, back into the cabin. G.o.d's finger was pointing the way now--the big Pine was no more.

x.x.xIV

The big Pine was gone. He had seen it first, one morning at daybreak, when the valley on the other side was a sea of mist that threw soft, clinging spray to the very mountain tops--for even above the mists, that morning, its mighty head arose, sole visible proof that the earth still slept beneath. He had seen it at noon--but little less majestic, among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pa.s.s under the moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the pa.s.sing burst of spring, had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow--a changeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. It had been the beacon that led him into Lonesome Cove--the beacon that led June into the outer world. From it her flying feet had carried her into his life--past it, the same feet had carried her out again. It had been their trysting place--had kept their secrets like a faithful friend and had stood to him as the changeless symbol of their love. It had stood a mute but sympathetic witness of his hopes, his despairs and the struggles that lay between them. In dark hours it had been a silent comforter, and in the last year it had almost come to symbolize his better self as to that self he came slowly back. And in the darkest hour it was the last friend to whom he had meant to say good-by. Now it was gone. Always he had lifted his eyes to it every morning when he rose, but now, next morning, he hung back consciously as one might shrink from looking at the face of a dead friend, and when at last he raised his head to look upward to it, an impenetrable shroud of mist lay between them--and he was glad.

And still he could not leave. The little creek was a lashing yellow torrent, and his horse, heavily laden as he must be, could hardly swim with his weight, too, across so swift a stream. But mountain streams were like June's temper--up quickly and quickly down--so it was noon before he plunged into the tide with his saddle-pockets over one shoulder and his heavy transit under one arm. Even then his snorting horse had to swim a few yards, and he reached the other bank soaked to his waist line. But the warm sun came out just as he entered the woods, and as he climbed, the mists broke about him and scudded upward like white sails before a driving wind. Once he looked back from a "fire-scald" in the woods at the lonely cabin in the cove, but it gave him so keen a pain that he would not look again. The trail was slippery and several times he had to stop to let his horse rest and to slow the beating of his own heart. But the sunlight leaped gladly from wet leaf to wet leaf until the trees looked decked out for unseen fairies, and the birds sang as though there was nothing on earth but joy for all its creatures, and the blue sky smiled above as though it had never bred a lightning flash or a storm. Hale dreaded the last spur before the little Gap was visible, but he hurried up the steep, and when he lifted his apprehensive eyes, the gladness of the earth was as nothing to the sudden joy in his own heart. The big Pine stood majestic, still unscathed, as full of divinity and hope to him as a rainbow in an eastern sky. Hale dropped his reins, lifted one hand to his dizzy head, let his transit to the ground, and started for it on a run. Across the path lay a great oak with a white wound running the length of its mighty body, from crest to shattered trunk, and over it he leaped, and like a child caught his old friend in both arms. After all, he was not alone.

One friend would be with him till death, on that border-line between the world in which he was born and the world he had tried to make his own, and he could face now the old one again with a stouter heart. There it lay before him with its smoke and fire and noise and slumbering activities just awakening to life again. He lifted his clenched fist toward it:

"You got ME once," he muttered, "but this time I'll get YOU." He turned quickly and decisively--there would be no more delay. And he went back and climbed over the big oak that, instead of his friend, had fallen victim to the lightning's kindly whim and led his horse out into the underbrush. As he approached within ten yards of the path, a metallic note rang faintly on the still air the other side of the Pine and down the mountain. Something was coming up the path, so he swiftly knotted his bridle-reins around a sapling, stepped noiselessly into the path and noiselessly slipped past the big tree where he dropped to his knees, crawled forward and lay flat, peering over the cliff and down the winding trail. He had not long to wait. A riderless horse filled the opening in the covert of leaves that swallowed up the path. It was gray and he knew it as he knew the saddle as his old enemy's--Dave. Dave had kept his promise--he had come back. The dream was coming true, and they were to meet at last face to face. One of them was to strike a trail more lonesome than the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and that man would not be John Hale. One detail of the dream was going to be left out, he thought grimly, and very quietly he drew his pistol, c.o.c.ked it, sighted it on the opening--it was an easy shot--and waited. He would give that enemy no more chance than he would a mad dog--or would he? The horse stopped to browse. He waited so long that he began to suspect a trap.

He withdrew his head and looked about him on either side and behind--listening intently for the cracking of a twig or a footfall. He was about to push backward to avoid possible attack from the rear, when a shadow shot from the opening. His face paled and looked sick of a sudden, his clenched fingers relaxed about the handle of his pistol and he drew it back, still c.o.c.ked, turned on his knees, walked past the Pine, and by the fallen oak stood upright, waiting. He heard a low whistle calling to the horse below and a shudder ran through him. He heard the horse coming up the path, he clenched his pistol convulsively, and his eyes, lit by an unearthly fire and fixed on the edge of the bowlder around which they must come, burned an instant later on--June.

At the cry she gave, he flashed a hunted look right and left, stepped swiftly to one side and stared past her-still at the bowlder. She had dropped the reins and started toward him, but at the Pine she stopped short.

"Where is he?"

Her lips opened to answer, but no sound came. Hale pointed at the horse behind her.

"That's his. He sent me word. He left that horse in the valley, to ride over here, when he came back, to kill me. Are you with him?" For a moment she thought from his wild face that he had gone crazy and she stared silently. Then she seemed to understand, and with a moan she covered her face with her hands and sank weeping in a heap at the foot of the Pine.

The forgotten pistol dropped, full c.o.c.ked to the soft earth, and Hale with bewildered eyes went slowly to her.

"Don't cry,"--he said gently, starting to call her name. "Don't cry," he repeated, and he waited helplessly.

"He's dead. Dave was shot--out--West," she sobbed. "I told him I was coming back. He gave me his horse. Oh, how could you?"

"Why did you come back?" he asked, and she shrank as though he had struck her--but her sobs stopped and she rose to her feet.

"Wait," she said, and she turned from him to wipe her eyes with her handerchief. Then she faced him.

"When dad died, I learned everything. You made him swear never to tell me and he kept his word until he was on his death-bed. YOU did everything for me. It was YOUR money. YOU gave me back the old cabin in the Cove. It was always you, you, YOU, and there was never anybody else but you." She stopped for Hale's face was as though graven from stone.

"And you came back to tell me that?"

"Yes."

"You could have written that."

"Yes," she faltered, "but I had to tell you face to face."

"Is that all?"

Again the tears were in her eyes.

"No," she said tremulously.

"Then I'll say the rest for you. You wanted to come to tell me of the shame you felt when you knew," she nodded violently--"but you could have written that, too, and I could have written that you mustn't feel that way--that" he spoke slowly--"you mustn't rob me of the dearest happiness I ever knew in my whole life."

"I knew you would say that," she said like a submissive child. The sternness left his face and he was smiling now.

"And you wanted to say that the only return you could make was to come back and be my wife."

"Yes," she faltered again, "I did feel that--I did."

"You could have written that, too, but you thought you had to PROVE it by coming back yourself."

This time she nodded no a.s.sent and her eyes were streaming. He turned away--stretching out his arms to the woods.