Part 19

"Well, it's about took away my appetite," he said. "I feel a kind of sinking." He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its contents into a tin cup, and drank it off.

"No, I suppose you couldn't take a man down to Bindon," she said, as she saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with food, and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her bedroom hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her visitor rose slowly from the bed.

He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture.

"I can't tell you anything yet," she said.

"Who was it come?" he asked.

"My uncle--I'm going to tell him."

"The men after me may git here any minute," he urged, anxiously.

"They'd not be coming into my room," she answered, flushing slightly.

"Can't you hide me down by the river till we start?" he asked, his eyes eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down the river; but she gave no sign.

"I've got to see if he'll take you first?" she answered.

"He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I've heard. He'd never git to Bindon."

She did not reply directly to his words. "I'll come back and tell you. There's a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find you," she said, and left the room.

As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the other room. His face was petrified with amazement.

"Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I heard a man's voice. Is it because o' him that you bin talkin' about no weddin' to-morrow? Is it one o' the others come back, puttin' you off Jake again?"

Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a chair.

"You eat, and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom," she said, and, seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who must go to Bindon.

When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without speaking, then he said, slowly: "I heard something 'bout trouble down at Bindon yisterday from a Hudson's Bay man goin' North, but I didn't take it in. You've got a lot o' sense, Jinny, an' if you think he's tellin' the truth, why, it goes; but it's as big a mixup as a lariat in a steer's horns. You've got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I wouldn't hand an Eskimo over, if I'd taken him in my home once; we're mountain people. A man ought to be hung for horse-stealin', but this was different. He was doing it to save a man's life, an' that man at Bindon was good to his little gal, an' she's dead."

He moved his head from side to side with the air of a sentimental philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a small, shrewd, culpable way--had he not evaded the law for thirty years with his whiskey-still?

"I know how he felt," he continued. "When Betsy died--we was only four years married--I could have crawled into a knot-hole an' died there. You got to save him, Jinny, but"--he came suddenly to his feet--"he ain't safe here. They might come any minute, if they've got back on his trail. I'll take him up the gorge. You know where."

"You sit still, Uncle Tom," she rejoined. "Leave him where he is a minute. There's things must be settled first. They ain't going to look for him in my bedroom, be they?"

The old man chuckled. "I'd like to see 'em at it. You got a temper, Jinny; and you got a pistol, too, eh?" He chuckled again. "As good a shot as any in the mountains. I can see you darin' 'em to come on. But what if Jake come, and he found a man in your bedroom"--he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes--"why, Jinny--"

He stopped short, for there was anger in her face. "I don't want to hear any more of that. I do what I want to do," she snapped out.

"Well, well, you always done what you wanted; but we got to git him up the hills, till it's sure they're out o' the mountains and gone back. It'll be days, mebbe."

"Uncle Tom, you've took too much to drink," she answered. "You don't remember he's got to be at Bindon by to-morrow noon. He's got to save his friend by then."

"Pshaw! Who's going to take him down the river to-night? You're goin' to be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It'll never come back, nor him neither!"

"You've been down with me," she responded, suggestively. "And you went down once by yourself."

He shook his head. "I ain't been so well this summer. My sight ain't what it was. I can't stand the racket as I once could. 'Pears to me I'm gettin' old. No, I couldn't take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen minute."

She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of its color. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow fell upon her. "You wouldn't want a man to die, if you could save him, Uncle Tom--blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; and perhaps he's got them that love him--and the world so beautiful."