What the storekeeper told Pete was true enough, but such a man as that could know nothing of the deep inside of things, and the heart of such a strange woman as Indian Mary was hidden from him and all like him. It was hidden from herself, even when she knew she was maimed and disfigured, for still in spite of her bitterness and grief she yearned to go back to him who had hurt her and made her very dreadful to see. She had given herself to him once for all, and her heart was steadfast to the man he seemed to be when he took her to his house. Even then she had known his history, and had not been ignorant of his cruelty to a little dead woman who lay with an unborn child in the cemetery at the back of Kamloops town. When they first met he was grieving, as even such as Ned must, for the deed that made him lonely, and he was doing his poor best to keep away from drink. In those days he was a handsome man, taller and finer looking than his brother, and he captured Mary's heart. She was taken, as women can be taken, by seeing a strong man grieving, and she believed that he was more unfortunate than evil. For ten years she had hoped against hope, and now knowing that it was almost hopeless, was yet faithful rather to the dead man within him than to the wretch that he was.
"I must go back to him," she said. She could do no other.
And yet when he came to the hospital, and asked for her, she fell into a deadly tremble of sickness and would not see him. He had made her hideous, for though white linen hid her face, she could see beneath it, and knew. The man would hate what he had done, and hate her to whom he had done it. He went away mournfully, and for once went out of Kamloops quite sober, carrying no liquor. But before he went he was spoken to by the same sergeant of police whom Pete had feared after he had destroyed the cattle, and Ned was sick of heart to be so spoken to.
"It's lucky for you the gal didn't die, Quin," said the sergeant. "We'd ha' hung you high for it. She allows you didn't do it, but we know better. Run straight and keep sober, or we'll have you yet. You're a disgrace to a civilized community, a disgrace to a civilized country, Sir, that's what you are, you damned cayoot!"
Ned Quin had to take that and chew on it. And once, as he knew, he had been a man. He cried as he rode back to his ranche. He met old acquaintances who would not know him, and when he got back home to find it lonelier than his worst imagination, he feared to face it. Even the corrals were empty. The cattle that he had loved were dead: the cañon stank with them. One solitary cow lowed near the shack: Mary's horse was on the hill behind it with horses that belonged to Missouri Simpson, one of those who that day had met him on the road without the salutation that any stranger would get in a hospitable and kindly land.
He "hung it out" for days without drinking. He worked all he could: he rode over to the Nikola and rounded up a few head of steers that hadn't been handy when Pete drove the rest to death. He mended the broken fences of his corrals: he cleaned up the cold, neglected house. He cleaned up Mary's blood, and shivered as he scraped the earthen floor of the signs that were so nearly those of murder and of death.
He suffered agonies at night-time and still struggled, perhaps in his last fight against alcohol.
And when he had been alone a week Mary came back. She could not help coming: her heart was a mother's, seeing that she had no children, and the poor thing she loved was her child. She was lonely without him. Perhaps he would be kind now, perhaps he would forgive her for being so hideous. For one side of her face was still beautiful: both her sorrowful eyes were lovely. She left the hospital, and never entered a house in town. She went out at night lest they should see her, and faced the hill-road, as it wound up the hills at the back of the town, in a starry darkness. Her strength was not much, but she had enduring Indian blood in her veins, that blood that helps poor squaws to carry loads their lordly men will not touch: that blood that helps them to suffer uncomplaining: that blood which, in their male children, helps to endure, if need be, the dreadful torture of the hostile fire and stake. She went swiftly through the night, and long before dawn came over the last hill in the trail which led to the desolate ranche where her steadfast heart lay. Under the stars and a faint fine glow that was the dawn, she saw the little shack, and then her heart and limbs failed her. She sat down and cried softly for her sad life and her tortured love, and her lost beauty under the shroud of white linen over her right cheek and jaw. Would he be kind to her, or would he hide his eyes and drive her from him? She knew nothing but that her sad heart needed him, even him, rather than any kind and gentle man that lived. She rose up trembling but set forward on the trail, and at last came to the house. A little chill breeze blew down from the hills, and a cloud hid the faint rose of dawn, so that it was full night as she crossed the threshold. For Ned, sleeping uneasily and afraid of the very house, had set the door open. She stayed and heard him move in the bed. She reached out her empty arms, but not to any God. She reached them to her wretched child, her man. And then Ned woke.
"What's that?" he cried aloud. He saw a dark figure against the lucid night beyond the door.
"What's that?" he cried again. His voice shook.