Part 46

"Then do what I tell you," snarled Mabyn.

"'Erbe't!" she pleaded rapidly and urgently. "Let them go! What have they got to do with us? To-morrow I go to him. I tell him how to mak' her well. The man will give me a horse and things. An' you and I will ride to the Rice River people. They are my people. They will give me a gun. We will be so ver' happy, and not think of this man and this woman any more!"

"You can go, and be damned to you!" said Mabyn sullenly. "I stay on my own place!"

Garth understood then, that she drew very close to the man, lavish in the expression of her sad love and timid caresses, in a desperate effort to move him. He could not hear it all; but his cheeks burned to be the intruder on such an exposure of a woman's soul--a white soul, he thought, whatever the colour of her skin.

Mabyn was utterly insensible to it all. In the end he became impatient, and flung her away from him with an oath. She fell to the ground with a soft thud; and for a while there was no other sound, but the dreadful, low catch of her breath, as she sought to strangle her sobs.

"'Erbe't, if you no love me I die," she breathed.

"Rid me of this man and I'll love you fast enough!" said Mabyn eagerly. His breath came thick and stertorous. "Ah! Let me once grind my heel in the smooth, sneering face of him! and you shall do what you like with me!" Rage robbed him of speech; he made mere brutish sounds in his throat.

By and by he managed to control himself; and his voice resumed its crafty, wheedling tone. "Only do what I tell you, my Rina, and you shall know what it is to be loved by a white man. I shall have no thought all day, but of you! Up to now you have done all the loving; I will repay it twice over! You shall be loved as no red woman was ever loved before!"

"'Erbe't! 'Erbe't! Don't mak' me do it!" she whispered terror-stricken.

Garth could stand no more. Springing to his feet, he strode forward, grasping the barrel of his rifle to use it for a club. Shooting was too merciful for such a creature.

"You damned scoundrel!" he cried.

Mabyn fell back against the wall with a gasping cry of fright. Quick as Garth was, Rina was quicker. Before he could reach the man, she scrambled over the ground, and clutched him by the knees.

"Let him be!" she screamed. "I kill you!"

Garth struggled vainly to free himself. Finally bending over and seizing her shoulders, he thrust her away. But the blow he again aimed at Mabyn never descended; for with incredible swiftness Rina gained her feet, and darted down hill.

"I kill her!" she shrilled.

A sickening fear gripped Garth's heart, instantly obliterating all thought of Mabyn. He dashed after Rina, nerved to a desperate fleetness. She knew the ground better than he; and hampered, moreover, by the weight of his gun, he despaired of overtaking the moccasined savage. But at the watercourse the strange creature stopped dead; and waited for him to come up.

"Go back to your white woman!" she cried stormily. "If you 'urt him, I pull her bandage off, and beat her arm till she die of pain!"

XVIII

MABYN MAROONED

When Natalie awoke, it was a gray and haggard Garth she saw through the raised flaps of her tent. His arms, folded on his knees, bore up his chin; and he stared before him, still pursuing the narrow round of his troublous thoughts. He was the gainer for his excursion, by valuable information--but he was no nearer the solution of it all.

Natalie partly raised herself on her good arm. "My poor Garth!" she said softly. "How very tired you are!"

His weary eyes lighted up. "I'm all right," he cried. "And how are you?"

"Splendid!" she said, matching his tone--while her face was drawn with pain. "Come in," she added softly.

He sat a little diffidently on the ground beside her; Natalie's room--though its walls were of canvas--was a sacred place to him when she was in it.

"Look at me!" she commanded.

He turned his grave, smiling eyes down on her. In spite of difficulties, dangers and weariness, he had to smile when he looked at her; he loved her so! His eyes were full of it.

Natalie's eyes fell; her hand crept into his. "You may tell me to-day," she whispered.

He understood. "Oh, my Natalie!" he murmured deeply. "I love you! It breaks my heart to see you suffer!"