THE HUNTED WOMAN (Western Thriller). James Oliver Curwood

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СКАЧАТЬ of the "angel" stared. Like the bearded man and his companion, she, too, understood, and an embarrassed flush added to the colour of the rouge on her cheeks. The eyes that looked across at her were blue—deep, quiet, beautiful. The lifted veil had disclosed to her a face that she could not associate with the Horde. The lips smiled at her—the wonderful eyes softened with a look of understanding, and then the veil was lowered again. The flush in the girl's cheek died out, and she smiled back.

      "You are going to Tête Jaune?" she asked.

      "Yes. May I sit with you for a few minutes? I want to ask questions—so many!"

      The hollow-cheeked girl made room for her at her side.

      "You are new?"

      "Quite new—to this."

      The words, and the manner in which they were spoken, made the other glance quickly at her companion.

      "It is a strange place to go—Tête Jaune," she said. "It is a terrible place for a woman."

      "And yet you are going?"

      "I have friends there. Have you?"

      "No."

      The girl stared at her in amazement. Her voice and her eyes were bolder now.

      "And without friends you are going—there?" she cried. "You have no husband—no brother——"

      "What place is this?" interrupted the other, raising her veil so that she could look steadily into the other's face. "Would you mind telling me?"

      "It is Miette," replied the girl, the flush reddening her cheeks again. "There's one of the big camps of the railroad builders down on the Flats. You can see it through the window. That river is the Athabasca."

      "Will the train stop here very long?"

      The Little Angel shrugged her thin shoulders despairingly.

      "Long enough to get me into The Cache mighty late to-night," she complained. "We won't move for two hours."

      "I'd be so glad if you could tell me where I can go for a bath and something to eat. I'm not very hungry—but I'm terribly dusty. I want to change some clothes, too. Is there a hotel here?"

      Her companion found the question very funny. She had a giggling fit before she answered.

      "You're sure new," she explained. "We don't have hotels up here. We have bed-houses, chuck-tents, and bunk-shacks. You ask for Bill's Shack down there on the Flats. It's pretty good. They'll give you a room, plenty of water, and a looking-glass—an' charge you a dollar. I'd go with you, but I'm expecting a friend a little later, and if I move I may lose him. Anybody will tell you where Bill's place is. It's a red an' white striped tent—and it's respectable."

      The stranger girl thanked her, and turned for her bag. As she left the car, the Little Angel's eyes followed her with a malicious gleam that gave them the strange glow of candles in a sepulchral cavern. The colours which she unfurled to all seeking eyes were not secret, and yet she was filled with an inward antagonism that this stranger with the wonderful blue eyes had dared to see them and recognize them. She stared after the retreating form—a tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure that filled her with envy and a dull sort of hatred. She did not hear a step behind her. A hand fell familiarly on her shoulder, and a coarse voice laughed something in her ear that made her jump up with an artificial little shriek of pleasure. The man nodded toward the end of the now empty car.

      "Who's your new friend?" he asked.

      "She's no friend of mine," snapped the girl. "She's another one of them Dolly Dimples come out to save the world. She's that innocent she wonders why Tête Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!"

      She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized the opportunity to look out of the window.

      The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face. Then she stepped lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the mountains. She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned wonderingly, for a moment forgetful. It was the first time she had left the train since entering the mountains, and she understood now why some one in the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshine Pool. Where-ever she looked the mountains fronted her, with their splendid green slopes reaching up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or gleaming summits of snow. Into this "pool"—this pocket in the mountains—the sun descended in a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in him.

      The train had stopped at the edge of the big fill overlooking the Flats. It was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to make history—a combination of freight, passenger, and "cattle." It had averaged eight miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel. The "cattle" had already surged from their stifling and foul-smelling cars in a noisy inundation of curiously mixed humanity. They were of a dozen different nationalities, and as the girl looked at them it was not with revulsion or scorn but with a sudden quickening of heartbeat and a little laugh that had in it something both of wonder and of pride. This was the Horde, that crude, monstrous thing of primitive strength and passions that was overturning mountains in its fight to link the new Grand Trunk Pacific with the seaport on the Pacific. In that Horde, gathered in little groups, shifting, sweeping slowly toward her and past her, she saw something as omnipotent as the mountains themselves. They could not know defeat. She sensed it without ever having seen them before. For her the Horde now had a heart and a soul. These were the builders of empire—the man-beasts who made it possible for Civilization to creep warily and without peril into new places and new worlds. With a curious shock she thought of the half-dozen lonely little wooden crosses she had seen through the car window at odd places along the line of rail.

      And now she sought her way toward the Flats. To do this she had to climb over a track that was waiting for ballast. A car shunted past her, and on its side she saw the big, warning red placards—Dynamite. That one word seemed to breathe to her the spirit of the wonderful energy that was expending itself all about her. From farther on in the mountains came the deep, sullen detonations of the "little black giant" that had been rumbling past her in the car. It came again and again, like the thunderous voice of the mountains themselves calling out in protest and defiance. And each time she felt a curious thrill under her feet and the palpitant touch of something that was like a gentle breath in her ears. She found another track on her way, and other cars slipped past her crunchingly. Beyond this second track she came to a beaten road that led down into the Flats, and she began to descend.

      Tents shone through the trees on the bottom. The rattle of the cars grew more distant, and she heard the hum and laughter of voices and the jargon of a phonograph. At the bottom of the slope she stepped aside to allow a team and wagon to pass. The wagon was loaded with boxes that rattled and crashed about as the wheels bumped over stones and roots. The driver of the team did not look at her. He was holding back with his whole weight; his eyes bulged a little; he was sweating, in his face was a comedy of expression that made the girl smile in spite of herself. Then she saw one of the bobbing boxes and the smile froze into a look of horror. On it was painted that ominous word—DYNAMITE!

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