第36章

"Yes!Why,Lord love ye,Sadie!t'other side o'the mill it drops down straight to the valley;nobody comes yer that way but poor low-down emigrants.And it's miles round to come by the valley from the summit.""You didn't hear your friend Chivers say that the sheriff was out with his posse to-night hunting them?""No.Did you?"

"I think I heard something of that kind at Skinner's,but it may have been only a warning to me,traveling alone.""Thet's so,"said Collinson,with a tender solicitude,"but none o'these yer road-agents would have teched a woman.And this yer Chivers ain't the man to insult one,either.""No,"she said,with a return of her hysteric laugh.But it was overlooked by Collinson,who was taking his gun from beside the tree where he had placed it,"Where are you going?"she said suddenly.

"I reckon them fellers ought to be warned o'what you heard.I'll be back in a minit.""And you're going to leave me now--when--when we've only just met after these years,"she said,with a faint attempt at a smile,which,however,did not reach the cold glitter of her eyes.

"Just for a little,honey.Besides,don't you see,I've got to get excused;for we'll have to go off to Skinner's or somewhere,Sadie,for we can't stay in thar along o'them.""So you and your wife are turned out of your home to please Chivers,"she said,still smiling.

"That's whar you slip up,Sadie,"said Collinson,with a troubled face;"for he's that kind of a man thet if I jest as much as hinted you was here,he'd turn 'em all out o'the house for a lady.

Thet's why I don't propose to let on anything about you till to-morrow."

"To-morrow will do,"she said,still smiling,but with a singular abstraction in her face."Pray don't disturb them now.You say there is another sentinel beyond.He is enough to warn them of any approach from the trail.I'm tired and ill--very ill!Sit by me here,Seth,and wait!We can wait here together--we have waited so long,Seth,--and the end has come now."She suddenly lapsed against the tree,and slipped in a sitting posture to the ground.Collinson cast himself at her side,and put his arm round her.

"Wot's gone o'ye,Sade?You're cold and sick.Listen.Your hoss is just over thar feedin'.I'll put you back on him,run in and tell 'em I'm off,and be with ye in a jiffy,and take ye back to Skinner's.""Wait,"she said softly."Wait."

"Or to the Silver Hollow--it's not so far."

She had caught his hands again,her rigid face close to his,"What hollow?--speak!"she said breathlessly.

"The hollow whar a friend o'mine struck silver.He'll take yur in."Her head sank against his shoulder."Let me stay here,"she answered,"and wait."He supported her tenderly,feeling the gentle brushing of her hair against his cheek as in the old days.He was content to wait,holding her thus.They were very silent;her eyes half closed,as if in exhaustion,yet with the strange suggestion of listening in the vacant pupils.

"Ye ain't hearin'anythin',deary?"he said,with a troubled face.

"No;but everything is so deathly still,"she said in a frightened whisper.

It certainly was very still.A singular hush seemed to have slid over the landscape;there was no longer any sound from the mill;there was an ominous rest in the woodland,so perfect that the tiny rustle of an uneasy wing in the tree above them had made them start;even the moonlight seemed to hang suspended in the air.

"It's like the lull before the storm,"she said with her strange laugh.

But the non-imaginative Collinson was more practical."It's mighty like that earthquake weather before the big shake thet dried up the river and stopped the mill.That was just the time I got the news o'your bein'dead with yellow fever.Lord!honey,I allus allowed to myself thet suthin'was happenin'to ye then."She did not reply;but he,holding her figure closer to him,felt it trembling with a nervous expectation.Suddenly she threw him off,and rose to her feet with a cry."There!"she screamed frantically,"they've come!they've come!"A rabbit had run out into the moonlight before them,a gray fox had dashed from the thicket into the wood,but nothing else.

"Who's come?"said Collinson,staring at her.

"The sheriff and his posse!They're surrounding them now.Don't you hear?"she gasped.

There was a strange rattling in the direction of the mill,a dull rumble,with wild shouts and outcries,and the trampling of feet on its wooden platform.Collinson staggered to his feet;but at the same moment he was thrown violently against his wife,and they both clung helplessly to the tree,with their eyes turned toward the ledge.There was a dense cloud of dust and haze hanging over it.

She uttered another cry,and ran swiftly towards the rocky grade.

Collinson ran quickly after her,but as she reached the grade he suddenly shouted,with an awful revelation in his voice,"Come back!Stop,Sadie,for God's sake!"But it was too late.She had already disappeared;and as he reached the rock on which Chivers had leaped,he felt it give way beneath him.

But there was no sound,only a rush of wind from the valley below.

Everything lapsed again into its awful stillness.As the cloud lifted from where the mill had stood,the moon shone only upon empty space.There was a singular murmuring and whispering from the woods beyond that increased in sound,and an hour later the dry bed of the old mill-stream was filled with a rushing river.