"Egzactly. An' that pretty wife of his disappeared a little later. Up there everybody's too busy to ask where other people go. Culver Rann an' Bill Quade know what happened to Stimson, an' they know what happened to Stimson's wife. You don't want to go to Tête Jaune. You don't want to let her go. I know what I'm talking about. Because——"
There fell a moment's silence. Aldous waited. Stevens spat again, and finished in a whisper:
"Quade went to Tête Jaune to-night. He went on a hand-car. He's got something he wants to tell Culver Rann that he don't dare telephone or telegraph. An' he wants to get that something to him ahead of to-morrow's train. Understand?"
CHAPTER VIII
John Aldous confessed to himself that he did not quite understand, in spite of the effort Stevens had made to impress upon him, the importance of not going to Tête Jaune. He was bewildered over a number of things, and felt that he needed to be alone for a time to clear his mind. He left Stevens, promising to return later to share a couple of blankets and a part of his tepee, for he was determined to keep his promise to Joanne, and not return to his own cabin, even though Quade had left Miette. He followed a moonlit trail along the river to an abandoned surveyors' camp, knowing that he would meet no one, and that in this direction he would have plenty of unbroken quiet in which to get some sort of order out of the chaotic tangle of events through which he had passed that day.
Aldous had employed a certain amount of caution, but until he had talked with Stevens he had not believed that Quade, in his twofold desire to avenge himself and possess Joanne, would go to the extraordinary ends predicted by the packer. His point of view was now entirely changed. He believed Stevens. He knew the man was not excitable. He was one of the coolest heads in the mountains. And he had abundant nerve. Thought of Stimson and Stimson's wife had sent the hot blood through Aldous like fire. Was Stevens right in that detail? And was Quade actually planning the same end for him and Joanne? Why had Quade stolen on ahead to Tête Jaune? Why had he not waited for to-morrow's train?
He found himself walking swiftly along the road, where he had intended to walk slowly—a hundred questions pounding through his brain. Suddenly a thought came to him that stopped him in the trail, his unseeing eyes staring down into the dark chasm of the river. After all, was it so strange that Quade would do these things? Into his own life Joanne had come like a wonderful dream-creature transformed into flesh and blood. He no longer tried to evade the fact that he could not think without thinking of Joanne. She had become a part of him. She had made him forget everything but her, and in a few hours had sent into the dust of ruin his cynicism and aloneness of a lifetime. If Joanne had come to him like this, making him forget his work, filling him more and more with the thrilling desire to fight for her, was it so very strange that a beast like Quade would fight—in another way?
He went on down the trail, his hands clenched tightly. After all, it was not fear of Quade or of what he might attempt that filled him with uneasiness. It was Joanne herself, her strange quest, its final outcome. With the thought that she was seeking for the man who was her husband, a leaden hand seemed gripping at his heart. He tried to shake it off, but it was like a sickness. To believe that she had been the wife of another man or that she could ever belong to any other man than himself seemed like shutting his eyes forever to the sun. And yet she had told him. She had belonged to another man; she might belong to him even now. She had come to find if he was alive—or dead.