“Everything,” she said frankly.
“But you’re kind of fond of somebody else, most like?”
“Yes.”
“What sort is he?”
“An outlaw.”
The three stared at her, each with parted lips.
“How come?” said Sam softly.
Mary’s voice rose a little. “Because a friend of his was in jail, and he went and broke into that jail and brought his friend out.”
There was a gasp - of relief perhaps - from the three.
“He ain’t any gun fighter, then?”
“No, he’s as gentle as a child!”
“But he busts into jails, eh?” said Sam smilingly. “Well, that sounds kind of queer, but they ain’t any use judging a man till you’ve seen him, and it’s better to wait till you’ve watched him work. But you’ve talked pretty straight to me, Mary Hood.”
“Because I think you can help me and will help me,” said the girl.
“Maybe,” he said, nodding. “To get to this man you’re bound for?”
“Yes. Perhaps you know him. A very big man, Charlie Hunter”
“Never heard tell of him.”
“And a very little man called Pete Reeve.”
“Pete Reeve!” cried Sam. “Him?” His face darkened, but finally he drove his angry memories away.
“You do know him?”
“Sure I know him,” said Sam gloomily. “Him and me has tangled, and he got all the luck of the draw that day. Some time maybe” He paused abruptly. “But this ain’t helping you. You turn in and sleep the sleep of your life now, and when the morning comes I’ll point out the way to you. I come on the trail of Pete Reeve yesterday.”
Mary Hood was sitting up, smiling with happiness. All her worries were on the verge of being solved, it seemed, by this veteran of the wilderness.
“How could you tell that it was his trail when you crossed it?”
“By the way his noon fire was built. Fires is made as many different way as clothes. Some likes ‘em small and heaped to a point, and some likes ‘em wide, and some lays ‘em to windward of rocks, and some is just as happy when they can get a place in the lee of a hill. Well, I come on Pete Reeve’s fire and knowed it as well as I know his face. Not having none too much good will for Pete - you see I talk as straight to you as you talk to me, Mary Hood - I took the trail on Reeve for a while and seen that he had a big man on a big hoss with him. I just done those things because it was like dropping in on Reeve and having a chat with him without the trouble of talking, reading his trail like that. And I seen the way he was pointing his course before I turned back and took my own way. I think I can point him out to you within a mile of where he’ll be in the morning.”
Chapter XXVIII
Old Arrowhead
She slept that night as she had never slept before. With the sense of danger gone, the happy end of the trial made her relax in body and mind. When she wakened the sun was already in the tree tops, and the men had been up long since. Nancy came out from among the trees to whinny a soft inquiry after the well-being of her mistress.
Breakfast was a liberal feast, and then Sam took her out from the clump of trees and pointed out her way. She had stolen close up on the Tompson Mountains during her ride of the night before. Sam pointed out one bald-headed monster of a peak high above the rest.
“They were aimed for Old Arrowhead Mountain,” he said. “Which it’s a hard trail and a long trail, but hardest of all and longest of all for another gent to follow. I dunno what’s a better way of bothering a sheriff and a posse than to take the trail up Old Arrowhead. But I’ll tell you how you’ll most like get to Pete Reeve and the man you want. Old Arrowhead is split right in two with a gully about twenty feet wide and a thousand deep, pretty near. Them twenty feet is crossed with a bridge, and they’s only one bridge. The way to it is right up to the top of that shoulder. You aim a straight line for it and ride out your hoss an’ they’s a good chance that you’ll get to ‘em before they cross, unless it come that they make a pretty early start. Of course they may not be laying for Old Arrowhead at all. I can’t read their minds, but yesterday afternoon late it sure looked that was what they was heading for.”
He said good-by to her and brushed away her thanks.
In half an hour the little mare was commencing the ascent of Old Arrowhead. It was distinct in the range. It was bigger and more barren, a great crag of granite, so to speak, thrust in the midst of beautiful, forest-bearing summits. It was hard footing for a man and very bad footing indeed for a horse. Even the mountain sheep, those incomparable climbers, were not very frequent visitors in the regions where Old Arrowhead soared above timber line, a bare, black mountain whose stones were polished by the storms.
The girl kept Nancy true to her work, however, for now the sun was rolling higher and higher in the sky, and unless Reeve and Charlie Hunter wanted a ride in the heat of the day, they would start from their camp at once - if indeed they had ridden this way at all.
Now that she felt she was close to them she began to wonder more and more how she could face them with her story. Above all, Bull Hunter might be changed from the simple, lovable fellow she had known; the taint of the lawless life he had been forced to lead might be in him, for all she knew. There were a thousand possibilities and each one of them was gloomier than the other.
But there was no sign of smoke above her, which made her more and more certain that Sam Dugan had been wrong, and the two had not ridden this way at all. For the very reason that she doubted, she pressed Nancy the more until the brave little mare was stumbling and sweating in her labor up the steep slope.
As the girl worked up the slope in this manner the first news of Charlie Hunter came down to her. It was nothing she saw, but a great voice that boomed and rolled and thundered above her. It was so great a voice that when she shouted joyously in answer, her voice was picked up and washed away in the torrent of sound.
The singing grew greater rapidly, as she drew closer. Finally she could make out that the sound was double. A thin, weak, straining voice ran like a rough thread in the huge singing of Bull Hunter. The girl smiled to herself as she hurried on.
She came on a picture that turned her smile to laughter. The camp fire was smoldering without smoke to the windward of two big rocks; the breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and the two companions sat together with their shoulders braced against boulders and sang a wild ballad to begin the day.
Mary Hood paused to marvel at the carelessness with which these two hunted men exposed themselves. In the first place, they had allowed her to come right up to them, unseen; in the second place they were not even close to their horses, which roamed about nibbling the grass fifty yards away - one a small cow pony and the other a black giant close to seventeen hands tall and muscled in proportion. Diablo was a fresh marvel to Mary Hood each time she saw the horse.
A moment later, as she swung out of her saddle, the eye of Pete Reeve discovered her. His mouth froze over the next sound, and with staring eyes of wonder he continued for another instant to beat the measure. Then he came to his feet with a shout.
“Mary Hood!” he called, running to her. “Mary Hood!”
She let him take both her hands, but her eyes were for the giant who had come to his feet with almost as much speed as his companion. There, on the side of the mountain, with only the empty blue sky to frame him, he seemed mightier of limb than ever. Then he came slowly, very slowly, toward her, his eyes never shifting.
“Mary,” he kept saying, “how have you come, and why have you come?”
“Heavens, man,” cried Pete Reeve, stamping in his anger and disgust, “when your lady rides about a thousand miles through a wilderness to see you, are you going to start in by asking questions? If you want to say good morning, go take her in your arms. Am I right, Mary Hood?”