She shook her head. She was almost past speaking. She braced herself with her hand on the table again, her whole body trembling. "No," she said at last, "no. Please go; don't say any more. It must be separation—nothing less—as long as we two live!"
CHAPTER XXIV
"A MAN OF STRAW"
Smith, having slower horses and the bulk of the outfit, started for the Pass at daybreak, with the understanding that Stratton would overtake him at the crossing of the Nisqually; and it was hardly two hours later that the thoroughbred forded the Des Chutes above the lodge, and, followed by a pack-animal, made a sharp ascent to the rock tower, where his master halted to load the remainder of the cache.
The forest fires that had been the salvation of the Phantom, had proved a disadvantage on the road from Seattle. The two horsemen had been forced to make wide détours around blazing timber; sometimes the trail was lost in the charred ruins of burned out tracts, and arriving at the ranch where Stratton had expected to pick up pack-animals, they found the buildings completely wiped away, and all signs of humanity and life gone. But Smith annulled these delays by starting a red trail backward from the Nisqually plains through the untouched woods they had travelled; cutting off any chance of pursuit for several days.
Stratton had been further handicapped by the pain in his head, which the heat and glare brought on with increasing violence. There were moments when riding became impossible, and he threw himself from the saddle, prone on the earth, to wait for harder paroxysms to pass. But as they approached the headwaters, they came into the shade of clean, unbroken timber; the smoke decreased to scarcely more than a haze, and, while Smith pressed Laramie to forage for the necessary pack-horses, Stratton was able to allow himself twenty-four hours of absolute rest, induced by a few drops of the mixture he had learned to use in the solitude of his lodge, and this put him on his feet again.
Still he made slow progress down the rough path from the tower that morning, and even when he struck the main trail he halted repeatedly, like a man of two minds. Finally he wheeled and, encumbered by the pack-horse, which led indifferently, paced back, and turned into a by-way that brought him into the school branch. He held Sir Donald at a walk and studied the ground, until, though he noticed Mose's footprints in a moist place, he was satisfied the black had not yet passed. Presently he stopped, listening. The track, there, doubled a trunk of great girth; a hollow cedar stump, roofed like an arbor by the branches of young alders, which also screened a break in the inner wall, like a curtain before a door.
The sound became a brisk and steady lope. To this man, who had waited for it often, who was accustomed to read the individuality of horses as a psychologist studies men, it was unmistakable. He backed the pack-animal into the salal, and held the thoroughbred in, while Colonel, falling to a gentle pace, rounded the curve and came to a playful standstill.
"Good morning." Alice's glance moved from Stratton to the laden pack-horse. "But it looks like good-by," she said.
"Yes, I turned back to say it. I missed seeing you at the homestead, yesterday, and I am starting on another trading and hunting trip. I should find elk now, in the mountains, and I hope to bring you the horns of a goat."