The Hunted Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

CHAPTER XI

As John Aldous stood hidden in the darkness, listening for the sound of a footstep, Joanne's words still rang in his ears. "I believe he is out there—waiting for you," she had said; and, chuckling softly in the gloom, he told himself that nothing would give him more satisfaction than an immediate and material proof of her fear. In the present moment he felt a keen desire to confront Quade face to face out there in the lantern-glow, and settle with the mottled beast once for all. The fact that Quade had seen Joanne as the guest of the Blacktons hardened him in his determination. Quade could no longer be in possible error regarding her. He knew that she had friends, and that she was not of the kind who could be made or induced to play his game and Culver Rann's. If he followed her after this——

Aldous gritted his teeth and stared up and down the black trail. Five minutes passed and he heard nothing that sounded like a footstep, and he saw no moving shadow in the gloom. Slowly he continued along the road until he came to where a narrow pack-trail swung north and east through the thick spruce and balsam in the direction of Loon Lake. Remembering MacDonald's warning, he kept his pistol in his hand. The moon was just beginning to rise over the shoulder of a mountain, and after a little it lighted up the more open spaces ahead of him. Now and then he paused, and turned to listen. As he progressed with slowness and caution, his mind worked swiftly. He knew that Donald MacDonald was the last man in the world to write such a message as he had sent him through Blackton unless there had been a tremendous reason for it. But why, he asked himself again and again, should Culver Rann want to kill him? Rann knew nothing of Joanne. He had not seen her. And surely Quade had not had time to formulate a plot with his partner before MacDonald wrote his warning. Besides, an attempt had been made to assassinate the old mountaineer! MacDonald had not warned him against Quade. He had told him to guard himself against Rann. And what reason could this Culver Rann have for doing him injury? The more he thought of it the more puzzled he became. And then, in a flash, the possible solution of it all came to him.

Had Culver Rann discovered the secret mission on which he and the old mountaineer were going into the North? Had he learned of the gold—where it was to be found? And was their assassination the first step in a plot to secure possession of the treasure?

The blood in Aldous' veins ran faster. He gripped his pistol harder. More closely he looked into the moonlit gloom of the trail ahead of him. He believed that he had guessed the meaning of MacDonald's warning. It was the gold! More than once thought of the yellow treasure far up in the North had thrilled him, but never as it thrilled him now. Was the old tragedy of it to be lived over again? Was it again to play its part in a terrible drama of men's lives, as it had played it more than forty years ago? The gold! The gold that for nearly half a century had lain with the bones of its dead, alone with its terrible secret, alone until Donald MacDonald had found it again! He had not told Joanne the story of it, the appalling and almost unbelievable tragedy of it. He had meant to do so. But they had talked of other things. He had meant to tell her that it was not the gold itself that was luring him far to the north—that it was not the gold alone that was taking Donald MacDonald back to it.

And now, as he stood for a moment listening to the low sweep of the wind in the spruce-tops, it seemed to him that the night was filled with whispering voices of that long-ago—and he shivered, and held his breath. A cloud had drifted under the moon. For a few moments it was pitch dark. The fingers of his hand dug into the rough bark of a spruce. He did not move. It was then that he heard something above the caressing rustle of the wind in the spruce-tops.

It came to him faintly, from full half a mile deeper in the black forest that reached down to the bank of the Frazer. It was the night call of an owl—one of the big gray owls that turned white as the snow in winter. Mentally he counted the notes in the call. One, two, three, four—and a flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated faintly back to him through the forest. Continuing to hold his pistol, he went on, this time more swiftly.

MacDonald did not signal again. The moon was climbing rapidly into the sky, and with each passing minute the night was becoming lighter. He had gone half a mile when he stopped again and signalled softly. MacDonald's voice answered, so near that for an instant the automatic flashed in the moonlight. Aldous stepped out where the trail had widened into a small open spot. Half a dozen paces from him, in the bright flood of the moon, stood Donald MacDonald.

The night, the moon-glow, the tense attitude of his waiting added to the weirdness of the picture which the old wanderer of the mountains made as Aldous faced him. MacDonald was tall; some trick of the night made him appear almost unhumanly tall as he stood in the centre of that tiny moonlit amphitheatre. His head was bowed a little, and his shoulders drooped a little, for he was old. A thick, shaggy beard fell in a silvery sheen over his breast. His hair, gray as the underwing of the owl whose note he forged, straggled in uncut disarray from under the drooping rim of a battered and weatherworn hat. His coat was of buckskin, and it was short at the sleeves—four inches too short; and the legs of his trousers were cut off between the knees and the ankles, giving him a still greater appearance of height.