“John!” said the girl, staring and bewildered.
“In the name of pity, John, in the name of all
the goodness you have showed me, don’t do it.”
He laughed wildly. “I am about to lose
the one thing on earth I have ever cared for, and
still I can smile. I am about to die by my own
hand, and still I can smile. For the last time,
will you stand up like your old brave self?”
“Mercy!” she cried. “In Heaven’s
name—”
“Then have it as you are!” he said, and
she saw the sun flash on the steel, and he raised
the gun.
She closed her eyes—waited—heard
the distant drumming of hoofs on the turf of the hillside.
Then she caught the report of a gun.
But it was strangely far away, that sound. She
thought at first that the bullet must have numbed,
as it struck her. Presently a shooting pain would
pass through her body—then death.
Opening her bewildered eyes she beheld John Mark staggering,
the automatic lying on the ground, his hands clutching
at his breast. Then glancing to one side she
saw the form of Ronicky Doone riding as fast as spur
would urge his horse, the long Colt balanced in his
hand. That, then, was the shot she had heard—a
long-range chance shot when he saw what was happening
on top of the hill.
So swift was Doone’s coming that, by the time
she had reached her feet again, he was beside her,
and they leaned over John Mark together. As they
did so Mark’s eyes opened, then they closed again,
as if with pain. When he looked again his sight
was clear.
“As I expected,” he said dryly, “I
see your faces together—both together,
and actually wasting sympathy on me? Tush, tush!
So rich in happiness that you can waste time on me?”
“John,” said the girl on her knees and
weeping beside him, “you know that I have always
cared for you, but as a brother, John, and not—”
“Really,” he said calmly, “you are
wasting emotion. I am not going to die, and I
wish you would put a bandage around me and send for
some of the men at the house to carry me up there.
That bullet of yours—by Harry, a very pretty
snap shot—just raked across my breast, as
far as I can make out. Perhaps it broke a bone
or two, but that’s all. Yes, I am to have
the pleasure of living.”
His smile was ghastly thing, and, growing suddenly
weak, as if for the first time in his life he allowed
his indomitable spirit to relax, his head fell to
one side, and he lay in a limp faint.
Hope Deferred
Time in six months brought the year to the early spring,
that time when even the mountain desert forgets its
sternness for a month or two. Six months had
not made Bill Gregg rich from his mine, but it had
convinced him, on the contrary, that a man with a
wife must have a sure income, even if it be a small
one.
He squatted on a small piece of land, gathered a little
herd, and, having thrown up a four-room shack, he
and Caroline lived as happily as king and queen.
Not that domains were very large, but, from their hut
on the hill, they could look over a fine sweep of
country, which did not all belong to them, to be sure,
but which they constantly promised themselves should
one day be theirs.
