“I know something about Landy Fargo,” Hugh answered quietly. “He’s not the man I let sit by my fire. And the sooner you get away I think the better it will be.”
Fargo glared, and there ensued a half-second of strained silence, of curious immobility on the part of them both. The fire blazed beside them, the shadows leaped and danced, far away the moon gleamed on the white peaks of the Rockies. The whole forest world was wrapped in impenetrable silence. Fargo snarled, then started to turn.
And at that instant each of them forgot—for a little while—each other’s presence. They stood wholly silent, scarcely breathing,—listening as men listen when life itself is at stake. From far away in the still forest—in the direction that Alice had gone—both of them heard the faint, savage bay of the hounds.
No human being, at that distance, could mistake the cry. The pack was hunting. It was running its game. And from the wild excitement and exultation of the clamoring voices, it was plain that the trail was hot, that the hounds were almost upon their prey.
Hugh suddenly turned his eyes to Fargo, trying to interpret the strange, exultant look in his brutal face. His own eyes narrowed. Then he started,—a strange convulsive jerk that no man had ever seen in him before. It was an instinctive recoil at a great dread and horror that suddenly swept over him. There had been no time for thought. It was as if a voice had spoken, instantly and clear, and had told him the real character of that wild hunt in the darkness.
For he had heard, infinitely dim but sharp as a needle prick through almost a mile of silent forest, the explosion of Alice’s pistol. Some great danger was upon her and her little flock; even now, perhaps, she was fighting for her life. It was a moment of crisis not alone for her but for him: the time in which his metal would be tried in the fire. He knew, surely as if a voice had told him, that there were no seconds to waste.
“No,” he said clearly, “I believe you’d better stay here. I’ll take your horse.”
There was no time to catch and saddle Alice’s animal, feeding at the edge of the meadow. There was no tone of request in the words. He had simply given an order: with his very life he would see that it was obeyed.
“You will, will you?” Fargo howled. “We’ll see about that——”
Hugh reached for the reins, and it seemed to him that Fargo’s hand was fumbling at his hip. That in itself didn’t matter. Hugh only knew that he wanted the horse and that nothing must stand in the way. Fargo was shouting, his dark mouth was open. And Hugh lashed out with his fist, aiming straight for the savage lips.