"No! No!" the girl was saying. "I don't want to have anything to do with you. Go away and let me alone or I'll tell my uncle."
"Haw! Haw!" The man's laugh was loud but mirthless. "Yore uncle and me is too close connected in a business way for him to rile me! I'm tellin' you, this ain't no place for you and you better let me take you away to whar there's people and towns and the like."
"I don't trust you," she answered sullenly.
"Aw, now don't you? Come on—admit you done come down here just to meet me!"
"That's a lie!" the girl cried, stung. "You know I just went for a stroll; I didn't know you were here."
"These mountains ain't no place for a 'stroll.' "
"My uncle won't let me have a horse and ride, unless he's with me. He's afraid I'll run away."
"And wouldn't you?"
"I don't know. I haven't anywhere to go. But I'd about as soon die as stay here much longer."
"Then let me take you away! I'll marry you, if you say so. They's many a gal would jump to take Mark Edwards up on that deal."
"Oh, let me alone! I don't want to marry you, I don't want to go away with you, I don't even want to look at you! If you really want to make a hit with me, go somewhere and shoot yourself!"
Edwards' brow darkened.
"Oh ho, so I ain't good enough for you, my fine lady. Reckon I'll just take a kiss anyhow."
His grimed hands shot and closed on her shoulders. Instantly she clenched a small fist and struck him in the mouth, so that blood trickled from his lips. The blow roused all the slumbering demon in the man.
"Yore a spit-fire," he grunted. "But I 'low I'll tame you."
He pinioned her arms, cursed soulfully as she kicked him on the shins, and crushed her slim form to him. His unshaven lips were seeking hers when Steve impulsively went into action.
He bounded from his covert, gripped the man's shoulder with steely fingers and swung him around, smashing him in the face with his left hand as he did so. Edwards gaped in astonishment, then roared and rushed in blindly, fingers spread to gouge and tear. Steve was not inclined to clinch rough-and- tumble fashion. He dropped his right fist nearly to his ankle and then brought it up in a long sweeping arc that stopped at Edwards's chin. That worthy's head went back as if it were hinged and his body, following the motion, crashed to the leaf-covered earth. He lay as if in slumber, his limbs tossed about in a careless and nonchalant manner. Steve caressed his sore knuckles and glanced at the girl.
"Is—is—is he dead?" she gasped, wide eyed.
"Naw, miss, I'm afraid he ain't," Steve answered regretfully. "He's just listenin' to the cuckoo birds. Shall I tie him up?"
"What for?" she asked reasonably enough. "No, let's go before he comes to."
And she started away hurriedly. Steve got his horse and followed her, overtaking her within a few rods. He walked beside her, leading his steed, his eyes admiringly taking in the proud, erect carriage of her slim figure, and the faint delicate rose-leaf tint of her complection.
"I hope you won't think I'm intrudin' where I got no business," said the Texan apologetically. "But I'm a seein' you to wherever you're goin'. That bird might follow you or you might meet another one like him."
"Thank you," she answered in a rather subdued voice. "You were very kind to help me, Mr. Harmer."
"How'd you know my name?"
"You told my uncle who you were yesterday, don't you remember?"
"Seems like I recollect, now," replied Steve, experiencing a foolish warm thrill that she should remember his name. "But I don't recall you saying what your name was."
"My name is Joan Farrel. I'm staying here with my uncle, Mr. Murken, the man with whom you saw me yesterday."
"And was it him," asked Steve bluntly, "that shot a hole in my hat?"
Her eyes widened; a frightened look was evident in her face.
"No! No!" she whispered. "It couldn't have been him! He and I rode right up on to the cabin after we passed you. I heard the shot but I had no idea anyone was shooting at you."
Steve laughed, rather ashamed of having mentioned it to the girl.
"Aw, it wasn't nothin'. Likely somebody done it for a joke. But right after you-all went on, somebody cracked down on me from the trees up the trail a ways and plumb ruint my hat."
"It must have been Edwards," she said in a frightened voice. "We met him coming down the trail on foot after we'd gotten out of sight of you, and Uncle stopped and said something to him I couldn't hear, before we went on."
"And who is Edwards?"
"He's connected with my uncle's business in some way; I don't know just how. He and a man named Allison camp up there close to our cabin."
"What is your uncle's business?" asked Steve with cool assumption.
She did not seem offended at the question.
"I don't know. He never tells me anything. I'm afraid of him and he don't love me."
Her face was shadowed as if by worry or secret fear. Something was haunting her, Steve thought. Nothing more was said until they had reached the base of the cliffs. Steve glanced up, awed. The great walls hung threateningly over them, starkly and somberly. To his eye the cliffs seemed unstable, ready to crash down upon the forest below at the slightest jar. Great boulders jutted out, half embedded in the clay. The brow of the cliff, fringed with trees, hung out over the concave walls.
From where he stood Steve could see a deep gorge, cut far into the face of the precipice and leading steeply upward. He caught his breath. He had never imagined such a natural stairway. The incline was so precipitous that it seemed it would tax the most sure-footed horse. Boulders rested along the trail that led through it, as if hovering there temporarily, and the high walls on each side darkened the way, looming like a sinister threat.
"My gosh!" said he sincerely. "Do you have to go up that gulch every time you leave your cabin?"
"Yes—or else climb the slopes back of the plateau and make a wide circle, leaving the plateau to the north and coming down the southern ridges. We always go this way. I'm used to climbing it now."
"Must have took a long time for the water to wash that out," said Steve. "I'm new to this mountain country, but it looks to me like if somebody stubbed their toe on a rock, it would start a landslide that would bring the whole thing right down in that canyon."
"I think of that, too," she answered with a slight shudder. "I thank you for what you've done for me. But you mustn't go any further. My uncle is always furious if anyone comes into these mountains."
"What about Edwards?"
"I'll tell my uncle and he'll make him leave me alone." She started to go, then hesitated.
"Listen," said Steve, his heart beating wildly, "I'd like to know you better—will—will you meet me tomorrow somewhere?"
"Yes!" she spoke low and swiftly, then turned and ran lightly up the slope. Steve stood, looking after her, hat in hand.
* * * * *
NIGHT had fallen as Steve Harmer rode back to the ranch of Hard Luck Harper.
"Clouds in the west and a-lookin' like rain,
"And my blamed old slicker's in the wagon again!"
he declaimed to the dark blue bowl of the star-flecked sky.
The crisp sharp scent of cedar was in the air and the wind fanned his cheek. He felt his soul grow and expand in the silence and the majesty of the night.
"Woke up one mornin' on the Chisholm Trail—
"Rope in my hand and a cow by the tail!"
He drew rein at the cabin stoop and hailed his host hilariously. Old Hard Luck stood in the door and the starlight glinted on the steel in his hand.
"Huh," grunted he suspiciously. "You done finally come back, ain't you? I'd 'bout decided you done met up with Gila Murken and was layin' in a draw somewheres with a thirty-thirty slug through yore innards. Come in and git yore hoofs under the table—I done cooked a couple of steers in hopes of stayin' yore appetite a little."