In the moment of stillness between them, when their
hearts seemed to have stopped beating that they might
not lose the faintest whispering of the twilight,
a sound came to Alan, and he knew it was the toe of
a boot striking against stone. Not a foot in
his tribe would have made that sound; none but Stampede
Smith’s or his own.
“Were they many?” he asked.
“I could not see. The sun was darkening.
But five or six were running—”
“Behind us?”
“Yes.”
“And they saw us?”
“I think so. It was but a moment, and they
were a part of the dusk.”
He found her hand and held it closely. Her fingers
clung to his, and he could hear her quick breathing
as he unbuttoned the flap of his automatic holster.
“You think they have come?” she
whispered, and a cold dread was in her voice.
“Possibly. My people would not appear from
that direction. You are not afraid?”
“No, no, I am not afraid.”
“Yet you are trembling.”
“It is this strange gloom, Alan.”
Never had the arctic twilight gone more completely.
Not half a dozen times had he seen the phenomenon
in all his years on the tundras, where thunder-storm
and the putting out of the summer sun until twilight
thickens into the gloom of near-night is an occurrence
so rare that it is more awesome than the weirdest
play of the northern lights. It seemed to him
now that what was happening was a miracle, the play
of a mighty hand opening their way to salvation.
An inky wall was shutting out the world where the
glow of the midnight sun should have been. It
was spreading quickly; shadows became part of the
gloom, and this gloom crept in, thickening, drawing
nearer, until the tundra was a weird chaos, neither
night nor twilight, challenging vision until eyes
strained futilely to penetrate its mystery.
And as it gathered about them, enveloping them in
their own narrowing circle of vision, Alan was thinking
quickly. It had taken him only a moment to accept
the significance of the running figures his companion
had seen. Graham’s men were near, had seen
them, and were getting between them and the range.
Possibly it was a scouting party, and if there were
no more than five or six, the number which Mary had
counted, he was quite sure of the situation.
But there might be a dozen or fifty of them.
It was possible Graham and Rossland were advancing
upon the range with their entire force. He had
at no time tried to analyze just what this force might
be, except to assure himself that with the overwhelming
influence behind him, both political and financial,
and fired by a passion for Mary Standish that had
revealed itself as little short of madness, Graham
would hesitate at no convention of law or humanity
to achieve his end. Probably he was playing the
game so that he would be shielded by the technicalities
of the law, if it came to a tragic end. His gunmen
would undoubtedly be impelled to a certain extent
by an idea of authority. For Graham was an injured
husband “rescuing” his wife, while he—Alan
Holt—was the woman’s abductor and
paramour, and a fit subject to be shot upon sight!
