“Some day, if we’re lucky, there always
comes a woman to make the world worth living in, Stampede,”
he said.
“There does,” replied Stampede.
He looked steadily at Alan.
“And I take it you love Mary Standish,”
he added, “and that you’d fight for her
if you had to.”
“I would,” said Alan.
“Then it’s time you were traveling,”
advised Stampede significantly. “I’ve
been twelve hours on the trail without a rest.
She told me to move fast, and I’ve moved.
I mean Mary Standish. She said it was almost a
matter of life and death that I find you in a hurry.
I wanted to stay, but she wouldn’t let me.
It’s you she wants. Rossland is at
the range.”
“Rossland!”
“Yes, Rossland. And it’s my guess
John Graham isn’t far away. I smell happenings,
Alan. We’d better hurry.”
Stampede had started with one of the two saddle-deer
left at the range, but to ride deer-back successfully
and with any degree of speed and specific direction
was an accomplishment which he had neglected, and
within the first half-dozen miles he had abandoned
the adventure to continue his journey on foot.
As Tatpan had no saddle-deer in his herd, and the
swiftest messenger would require many hours in which
to reach Amuk Toolik, Alan set out for his range within
half an hour after his arrival at Tatpan’s camp.
Stampede, declaring himself a new man after his brief
rest and the meal which followed it, would not listen
to Alan’s advice that he follow later, when
he was more refreshed.
A fierce and reminiscent gleam smoldered in the little
gun-fighter’s eyes as he watched Alan during
the first half-hour leg of their race through the
foothills to the tundras. Alan did not observe
it, or the grimness that had settled in the face behind
him. His own mind was undergoing an upheaval
of conjecture and wild questioning. That Rossland
had discovered Mary Standish was not dead was the least
astonishing factor in the new development. The
information might easily have reached him through
Sandy McCormick or his wife Ellen. The astonishing
thing was that he had in some mysterious way picked
up the trail of her flight a thousand miles northward,
and the still more amazing fact that he had dared
to follow her and reveal himself openly at his range.
His heart pumped hard, for he knew Rossland must be
directly under Graham’s orders.
Then came the resolution to take Stampede into his
confidence and to reveal all that had happened on
the day of his departure for the mountains. He
proceeded to do this without equivocation or hesitancy,
for there now pressed upon him a grim anticipation
of impending events ahead of them.
Stampede betrayed no astonishment at the other’s
disclosures. The smoldering fire remained in
his eyes, the immobility of his face unchanged.
Only when Alan repeated, in his own words, Mary Standish’s
confession of love at Nawadlook’s door did the
fighting lines soften about his comrade’s eyes
and mouth.
