“Do you know what he did?” said the girl with a sudden transport of enthusiasm. “He took that locket and brought it to me. But he wanted it for himself. I was like a foolish girl. He talked like a knight of the old days. I wanted to try him out. So I told him he could keep the locket if he would capture Dunkin and turn him over to the law. And he did it!” She laughed with excitement at the thought. “He captured Dunkin alive and brought him to a jail. Then one of his friends, Pete Reeve, tried to rescue Dunkin and did it - but got caught himself. Charlie Hunter didn’t know of it until he came back here to tell me he had captured Dunkin as I asked him to do. But when I told him what had happened he turned on me and told me he scorned me. He talked to me as no man ever talked to me. He showed me how wickedly vain and foolish I had been. Three men were in peril of their lives because I had asked him to do a thing in which I had no real interest, nothing but a whim. When he knew Pete Reeve was in jail he swore he would get him out or die in the effort. And that’s how he left me. He’ll never see me again, dad. But he did what he said he would do. He went down to the jail - he smashed the wall of it - he took his friend away and was outlawed for it.”
She threw out her hands in a gesture of what was both appeal and triumph.
“And when I know a man like that, how can you ask me to love such a fellow as Hal Dunbar?”
Her father bit his lip. It was even worse than he had dared to suspect.
“Love is one thing and marriage is another,” he said. “You got your children to think about when you marry. How could you take care of children if you married a wild man like Hunter?”
“If I love him, everything else will take care of itself.”
“Bosh!” roared Jack Hood.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I’ve reasoned enough with you,” said her father. “Now comes the time to tell you what you’ll do. You’ll marry Hal Dunbar, girl, if I have to drag you to it.”
She looked at him with a sort of fierce contempt that changed slowly to wonder and then to fear.
“Do you think for a minute, dad, that even if you would do such a horrible thing, Hal Dunbar would accept such a marriage? Hasn’t he the pride of his family?”
“He’s got pride enough, but he’s in lovebad. And he’ll do anything to get you. Understand? Look here, Mary. I’m fond of you, but I’m fond of the work I’ve given my life to. That work has been to make you the lady of the Dunbar ranch, and you’re going to be that whether you want to or not. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” she said faintly. “But you don’t understand, dad. There aren’t such things as forced marriages these days.”
“Aren’t there?” he said sneeringly, red with his anger. He went to the door. “I’m not asking you for any promises, Mary. Treat me square, and I’ll be the easiest father you ever seen. Cross me, and I’ll raise more rumpus in a minute than you ever seen in a year. Understand? Now think this over till morning. That’s plenty of time. Take every angle of it and give it a look. It’s worth taking your time about.”
And so he was gone.
It was a very unnecessary touch, but he could not resist it. As he closed the door behind him, he turned the key in the lock and removed it.
But the moment she heard the sound, the lips of Mary Hood curled. She had been badly frightened before; she was badly frightened now, remembering many brutal ways in which he had treated her mother; but when she heard that turning of the lock which proclaimed her a forced prisoner, she revolted. It was just a little too much.
She went, naturally, to the window. To climb down would be the simplest thing in the world. There was a drop of ten feet to the ground from the first row of windows, but that would be nothing to her. The main problem was where would she go once she was on the ground? Easy enough to get there, but where flee once she had escaped?
The influence of Hal Dunbar spread over the mountains very, very far, and every soul in the ranges knew that she was expected to become the wife of the rich rancher. No matter in which direction she rode, she would be quickly taken at the first house where she stopped for food or shelter and returned to the ranch.
Still she could not believe that the whole affair was more than a hoax to break her spirit. She refused to take anything seriously until evening, when there was a tap at the door to warn her, and then the rattle of a key in the lock. Presently, without requesting permission to enter, the door swung open and the old Chinese cook appeared.
Now, the ancient Chinaman had been the pet and the object of the girl’s teasing all her life, and her face brightened when she saw him. But the old fellow placed a tray of food - at least they were not going to try to starve heron a chair and backed out the door, keeping an immobile expression. She went after him, calling out in anger, but he stepped quickly into the hall, and the door closed in her face.
The grating of the lock had a new meaning to her now. It declared very definitely that her father had meant what he said. They were going to try force. And if the old Chinaman whom she had teased and petted all her life could be turned against her so easily, what trust could she put in any man on the ranch?
There was only one place she could go, and that was to Charlie Hunter, big and fearless and trustworthy to the end, she knew. Somewhere in the northern mountains he lurked. How she could find a way to him when the posse which was hunting for Bull Hunter and Pete Reeve had failed, was another mystery, but the attempt must be made. Otherwise - there was the marriage with Hal Dunbar. She had looked forward to it all her life without repulsion, but now that it was inevitable it became a horror.
Chapter XXV
Flight
The long hours wore away, and the noises of life in the house were at last hushed. She waited still longer, hooding her lamp so that not a ray of light could reach either the window or the door. Then she began her preparations.
They were comparatively simple. She put on a riding skirt and packed some changes of clothes in a small bundle. Then she strapped the light .32 revolver with its cartridge belt around her waist and put the big, flaring sombrero on her head. She caught a glimpse of herself in the half-darkened mirror, and the sight of the slender body and the pale face with wide, frightened eyes, disturbed her. She was surely a small force to be pitted against the brain of Jack Hood and the power of Hal Dunbar!
Yet she went on, with only the terror now that some one might come before she was out of the room.
She opened the window with infinite pains lest there should be a squeak of wood against wood, or a rattle of the sash. But there was no sound, and now she leaned out the window.
What had seemed so simple during the daylight now became a desperate thing indeed. The dark ground seemed a perilous distance below her, and what if her foot should slip as she climbed down toward the sill of the first window from which she was to drop? She slipped one leg over the sill and listened again.
The wind was full of whispers like light laughter. Yet she went on, though fear made the grip of her hands weak and kept her foot slipping from its hold as she climbed. She reached the broad molding above the window of the first story. She dropped perilously toward the lower sill and then lost her balance and toppled back.
The scream that jumped into her throat swelled to aching, yet she kept it back. It was a short fall, but to the girl, as she shot through the air, it seemed that death must come at the end of it. Then her feet struck deep in the garden mold, and she toppled on her back. She lay a minute with the breath knocked out of her, slowly gasping to recover, and then picked herself up with care.