The Hunted Woman

f women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life-the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his gre

f the host, the admiration of the few. His own personal veneer of antagonism against woman was purely artificial, and yet only a few had guessed it. He had built it up about him as a sort of protec

t was not her beauty alone that had affected him. He had trained himself to look at a beautiful woman as he might have looked at a beautiful flower, confident that if he went beyond the mere admiration of it he would find on

d, his lips wore a quizzical smile, for he was honest enough to give Joanne Gray credit for her triumph. She had awakened a new kind of interest in him-only a passing interest, to be sure-but a new kind for all that. The fact amused him. In a large way he was a h

hat his friends, the women, would say when they read his new book.

the phonograph in Quade's place, but that of a rival dealer in soft drinks at the end of

atery pouches of sin and dissipation, there was a vengeful and beastlike glare. He was surrounded by his friends. One of them was taking a wet cloth from his head. There were a dozen in the canvas-walled room, all with their back

pretty hard,

l Quade stared, his mouth open. He st

ou!" he cri

to move toward the stranger. Their hands

ething to say to you-and Bill. Then eat me alive if you wa

others had stopped, waiting. The quiet and insol

visual demonstration of what you're up against, and warn you to bait no traps for a certain young woman whom you've lately seen. She's going on to Tête Jaune. And I know how your partner plays his game up there. I'm not particularly anxi

ing lips, his slim hands, or his careless posture as he leaned in the door. They were looking strai

ng what you're going to do. You won't fight fair-because you never have. You've already decided that some morning I'll turn up missin

an empty hand tow

d n

ow, a metallic click, and the startled group were stari

ld gun-fighting days when the best man was quickest. From now on, especially at night, I shall carry this littl

vered from their ast

owerful enemies, and all because of an unknown woman whom he had never seen until half an hour before. It was this that disturbed his equanimity-the woman of it, and the knowledge that his interference had been unsolicited and probably unnecessary. And now that he had gone this far he found it not easy to recover his balance. Who was this Joanne Gray? he asked himself. She was not ordinary-like the hundred other women who had

g at this point. Across the river rose the steep embankments that shut in Buffalo Prairie, and still beyond that the mountains, thick with timber rising billow on billow until trees looked like twigs, with gray rock and glistening snow shouldering the clouds above the last purple line. The cabin in which he had lived and worked for many weeks faced the river and the distant Saw Tooth Range, and was partly hidden in a clump of jack-pi

esh tobacco. Then he leaned back, lighted it, and laughed. More and more as the minutes passed he permitted himself to think of the strange young woman whose beauty and personality had literally projected themselves into his workshop. He marvelled at the crudity of the questions whi

purity of her eyes, the freshness of her lips, and the slender girlishness of her figure, might have made him say twenty, but

d tender. With a brace of young broilers in mind for supper, he left the cabin and followed the narrow foot-trail up the river. He hunted for half an hour before he stirred a covey of birds. Two of these he shot. Concealing his meat and his gun near the trail he continued toward the ford half a

e to the river's edge, twisting one of his

up. "You never can tell what it's going to do

It's a foot higher than yesterd

l bill as big as Geikie staring you in the face?" argued Stevens, who had been si

t," repeat

ll on the trail. They don't expect to pay for this delay, and that outfit back in the bush is costing me thirty dollars a day. We can get the dunnage and ourselves o

be a few ho

For a few moments he looked at the muddy flood

n hour ago," he said. "Hear y

" said

and spat into the wate

she stood there looking about I didn't dare go up an' give it to her. If it had been worth anything I'd screwed up my courage. But it wa

nee. There was no writing on it, but it was crowded thick with figures, as if the maker of the numerals had been doing some problem in mathematics. The chief thing

figgering," said Stevens. "Notice that figger there!" He point

nd fifty thousan

t looked like the Englishwomen he had met. He f

yed him s

eft for the Maligne Lake country," he said. "You'd better

ha

kid was behind the tent an' he heard Quade and Slim Barker talking. So far as I can find from the kid, Quade has gone nutty over her. He's ravin'. He told Slim that he'd give

dous, clutching the other's a

hat the k

as playing about his mouth again. A few men had lear

e young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has a tremendous amount of nerv

unched his

inking about. It's you. I'

olice of his threat?" asked Aldous, looking acro

as the packer

his long legs an

me, I'm going to cross that cussed river

ve joined the half-dozen men he saw lounging restfully a distance beyond the grazing ponies. But Stevens had made him acutely aware of a new

ne of Quade's favourite methods of retaliation. He had heard this. He also knew that Q

eorge. He had once seen Culver Rann, a quiet, keen-eyed, immaculately groomed man of forty-the cleverest scoundrel that had ever drifted into the Canadian west. He had been told that Rann was really the brain of the combination, and that the two had picked up a quarter of a million in various ways. But it was Quade with who

ant ring in his voice. "I haven't had any real excitement for so long

shouts from up the river. From his position he could see the stream a hundred yards below the ford. Stevens had driven in his horses. He could s

what a fool

motionless in their last tremendous fight, were left farther and farther behind. Then came the break. A mare and her yearling colt had gone in with the bunch. Aldous saw the colt, with its small head and shoulders high out of the water, sweep down like a chip with the current. A cold chill ran through him as he heard the whinneying scream of the mother-a war

n from a huge catapault. The last animal had disappeared when chance turned his eyes upstream and close in to shore. Here flowed a steady current free of rock, and down this-head and shoulders still high out of the water-came the colt! What miracle had saved the little fellow thus far Aldous did not stop to ask. Fifty yards below it would meet the fate of the others. Half that distance in the direction of the maelstrom below was the dead trunk of a fallen spruce overhanging the water for fifteen or twenty feet. In a flash Aldous was racing tow

oice that he would have recognized amo

!" it said. "If I were a man I

ace at her throat. Her lips were colourless, and her bosom rose and fell swiftly. He kne