Part 49

"Or if you don't get to him first," she said, with nervous insistence.

He turned to her with a hard look; then, as he met her soft, fearless, beautiful eyes, his own grew gentle.

"It takes a lot of doing. Yet I'll do it for you, Laura," he said. "But it's hard on the Pioneers."

Once more her humor flashed, and it seemed to him that "getting religion" was not so depressing after all--wouldn't be, anyhow, when this nasty job was over.

"The Pioneers will get over it, Tim," she rejoined. "They've swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven's gate will have to be pretty wide to let in a real Pioneer," she added. "He takes up so much room--ah, Timothy Denton!" she added, with an outburst of whimsical merriment.

"It hasn't spoiled you--being converted--has it?" he said, and gave a quick little laugh, which somehow did more for his ancient cause with her than all he had ever said or done. Then he stepped outside and swung into his saddle.

* * * * *

It had been a hard and anxious ride, but Tim had won, and was keeping his promise. The night had fallen before he got to the mountains, which he and the Pioneers had seen the Faith Healer enter. They had had four miles' start of Tim, and had ridden fiercely, and they entered the gulch into which the refugee had disappeared still two miles ahead.

The invincibles had seen Tim coming, but they had determined to make a sure thing of it, and would themselves do what was necessary with the impostor, and take no chances. So they pressed their horses, and he saw them swallowed by the trees as darkness gathered. Changing his course, he entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any Pioneer of Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. But night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till morning. There was comfort in this--the others must also wait, and the refugee could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or perish, since he had left behind his sheep and his cow.

It fell out better than Tim hoped. The Pioneers were as good hunters as was he, their instinct was as sure, their scouts and trackers were many, and he was but one. They found the Faith Healer by a little stream, eating bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander, drinking from a horn--relic of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried him, formally if perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged for his life. Then they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round his waist, fastened him to a tree, and were about to complete his punishment when Tim Denton burst upon them.

Whether the rage Tim showed was all real or not; whether his accusations of bad faith came from so deeply wounded a spirit as he would have them believe, he was not likely to tell; but he claimed the prisoner as his own, and declined to say what he meant to do. When, however, they saw the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he begged not to be left alone with Tim--for they had not meant death, and Ingles thought he read death in Tim's ferocious eyes--they laughed cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honor of Jansen and the Pioneers.

As they disappeared, the last thing they saw was Tim with his back to them, his hands on his hips, and a knife clasped in his fingers.

"He'll lift his scalp and make a monk of him," chuckled the oldest and hardest of them.

"Dat Tim will cut his heart out, I t'ink--bagosh!" said Nicolle Terasse, and took a drink of white whiskey.

For a long time Tim stood looking at the other, until no sound came from the woods whither the Pioneers had gone. Then at last, slowly and with no roughness, as the terror-stricken impostor shrank and withered, he cut the cords.

"Dress yourself," he said, shortly, and sat down beside the stream, and washed his face and hands as though to cleanse them from contamination. He appeared to take no notice of the other, though his ears keenly noted every movement.

The impostor dressed nervously, yet slowly; he scarce comprehended anything, except that he was not in immediate danger. When he had finished, he stood looking at Tim, who was still seated on a log plunged in meditation.

It seemed hours before Tim turned round, and now his face was quiet, if set and determined. He walked slowly over, and stood looking at his victim for some time without speaking. The other's eyes dropped, and a grayness stole over his features. This steely calm was even more frightening than the ferocity which had previously been in his captor's face. At length the tense silence was broken:

"Wasn't the old game good enough? Was it played out? Why did you take to this? Why did you do it, Scranton?"

The voice quavered a little in reply: "I don't know. Something sort of pushed me into it."

"How did you come to start it?"

There was a long silence, then the husky reply came:

"I got a sickener last time--"

"Yes, I remember, at Waywing."

"I got into the desert, and had hard times--awful for a while. I hadn't enough to eat, and I didn't know whether I'd die by hunger or fever or Indians--or snakes."

"Oh, you were seeing snakes!" said Tim, grimly.

"Not the kind you mean; I hadn't anything to drink--"

"No, you never did drink, I remember--just was crooked, and slopped over women. Well, about the snakes?"