The Clue of the Screaming Woman

Part Three

Roberta Coe, her mind in a turmoil, followed a tributary of the main stream, walking along a game trail, hardly conscious of where she was going or of her surroundings, wanting only to get entirely away from everyone.

She could keep silent, protect her secret and retain her position in her circle of friends, or she could tell what she knew, help save an innocent man — and bring the security of her life, with all of its pleasant associations, tumbling down in ruins. After all, the sheriff had not specifically asked her to identify those photographs.

It was not an easy decision.

Yet she knew in advance what her answer was to be. She had sought the vast, rugged majesty of the mountains, the winding trail along the talkative stream, to give her strength.

If she had been going to take refuge in weakness, she would have been in camp with her companions, a highball glass in her hand, talking, joking, using the quick-witted repartee of her set to shield her mind from the pressure of her conscience.

But she needed strength, needed it desperately. Frank Ames had managed to get spiritual solace from these mountains. If she could only let some of their sublime indifference to the minor vicissitudes of life flow into her own soul.

Then it would be easy. Now it was—

Suddenly Roberta sensed something wrong with a patch of deep shadow to the left of the trail. There was the semblance of solidity about that shadow, and then, even as her eyes tried to interpret what she saw, the figure that was almost hidden in the shadow moved.

Roberta screamed.

Bill Eldon, who had been sitting motionless, squatting on his heels cowboy-fashion, straightened himself with sinewy ease. “Now, don’t be frightened, ma’am,” he said. “I just wanted to talk with you.”

“You— You— How did you — find me here?”

“Now, take it easy,” Bill Eldon said, his eyes smiling. “I just thought you and I should have a little talk.”

“But how did you know where I was — where you could find me — where I was going to be? Why, even I didn’t know where I was going.”

Eldon said, “Figure it out, ma’am. This game trail follows the stream. The stream follows the canyon, and the canyon winds around. When I cut your tracks back there in the trail, I knew I only had to walk up over that saddle and come down here to gain half a mile on you. Now, suppose you sit down on that rock there and we just get sociable-like for a little while.”

“I’m sorry, sheriff, but I don’t feel like—”

“You’ve got to tell me what frightened you yesterday,” the sheriff insisted, kindly but doggedly.

“But I wasn’t frightened.”

Bill Eldon settled back on his heels once more. Apparently he was completely at ease, thoroughly relaxed.

With the peculiar feeling that she was doing something entirely against her own volition, Roberta sat down.

Bill Eldon said, “Lots of people make a mistake about the mountains. When they’re out in the wilds with no one around they feel they’re hidden. They’re wrong. Wherever they go, they leave tracks.”

Roberta Coe said nothing.

When Bill Eldon saw she was not going to speak, he went on. “Now, you take that trail yesterday, for instance. It carried tracks just like a printed page. I came along that trail and saw where you’d been running. I saw where Frank Ames had put down his fishing rod and his creel and hurried after you. The way I figure it, you must have screamed and run past the hole where he was fishing just about the time he had a big one on.

“By getting up on the bank, looking down in the pool, I could see the submerged branches of that dead tree. Sure enough, on one of those branches was part of a leader, just wrapped around the snag, and a hook was on the end of the leader. Because I was curious, I took off my clothes, worked my way down into the water and got that fly out. Gosh, it was cold.”

The sheriff reached in his pocket, took out a little fly book, opened it, and showed a section of leader and a Royal Coachman fly.

“Same kind Frank Ames uses,” he said. “You can see a little piece of the fish’s lip still stuck on the hook. The way I figure it, Ames hadn’t hooked him too solid, but he had him hooked well enough to land, but as soon as the fish got in that submerged tangle of branches and wrapped the line around a branch, he only had to give one jerk to tear the hook loose. Now, Ames wouldn’t have let that fish get over in the submerged branches unless something had distracted his attention. That something must have been something he heard, because his eyes were busy looking at the water.”

Abruptly Bill Eldon turned to look at her. “What made you scream?”

She pressed white knuckles against her lips. “I’m going to tell you,” she said.

“I’ve known that, ever since I — ever since I left Frank Ames. I was just walking to... well, the mountains seem to do so much for him — I wish I could feel about them the way he does. Sometimes I think I’m beginning to.

“I was just out of college,” she continued, “a naive little heiress. This man was working for Harvey Dowling. He was both a secretary and general assistant. His name was Howard Maben. He was fascinating, dashing. Women simply went wild over him. And I fell in love with him.”

“What happened?”

“We were secretly married.”

“Why the secrecy?”

“It was his idea. We ran away across the state line to Yuma, Arizona. Howard said he had to keep it secret.”

“Did you know Harvey Dowling then?”

“Yes. Harvey, and Martha, his wife. It was her death that caused the scandal.”

“What scandal?”

She said, “I don’t know if I can explain Howard to you so you’ll understand him. He’s a dashing, high-pressure type of man who was a great favorite with women. He loved to sell things, himself included. I mean by that he liked to make a sale of his personality. I don’t think there’s any question but what he’d get tired of home life within the first thirty days.

“Well, anyway, I guess — it’s something I don’t like to talk about, but... well, I guess Howard had been— Well, Martha Dowling was attractive. She was an older woman. Harvey was always busy at the office, terribly intent on the deals he was putting across, and— Well, they fooled H. W. and they fooled me.

“Apparently Howard started going with Martha Dowling. They were very discreet about it, pretty cunning, as a matter of fact. They’d never go except when Harvey Dowling was out of town, and... well, I guess they stayed at motor courts. It was a mess.”

“Go ahead,” Bill Eldon said.

“Harvey Dowling was on a two weeks’ trip. He was in Chicago, and Howard made certain he was in Chicago, because he’d talked with him that morning on long-distance telephone. Then he and Martha went out. They looked over some property that Harvey Dowling wanted a report on, and then... well, they went to an auto camp. They didn’t like to be seen in restaurants. Howard had brought a little camp kit of dishes and cooking utensils, one of those outfits that folds up to fit into a suitcase.”

“Go ahead.”

“Martha Dowling got sick, some form of an acute gastroenteric disturbance. Well, naturally, they didn’t want to call a doctor until after she got home. She died in Howard’s car on the road home. Of course, Howard tried to fix up a story, but the police began to investigate and put two and two together. Harvey was called from Chicago by his wife’s death and talked with the servants and... well, you can see what happened.”

“What did happen?”

“Howard knew the jig was up. It seems he’d been left in charge of Dowling’s business. He was already short in his accounts. So he embezzled everything he could get his hands on and skipped out.

“Dowling left no stone unturned to get him. He spent thousands of dollars. The police finally caught Howard and sent him to prison. No one knows that I was married to him. I was able to get the marriage annulled. I was able to prove fraud, and... well, of course, I’d been married in Arizona, so I went there and I had a friendly judge and a good lawyer and — there you are. There’s the skeleton in my closet.”

“I still don’t know what made you scream,” the sheriff said.

“I saw Howard. You see, his sentence has expired. He’s out.”

“Now, then,” Bill Eldon remarked, “we’re getting somewhere. Where was he when you saw him?”

“In the deep shadows of a clump of pines, well off the trail. I saw just his head and shoulders. He turned. Then he whistled.”

“Whistled?”

“That’s right. Howard had a peculiar shrill whistle we used to have as a signal when he wanted me to know he was near the house where I stayed. I’d let him in by the side door. It was a peculiar whistle that set my teeth on edge. It affected me just like the sound of someone scraping his nails along rough cloth. I hated it. I asked him to use some other signal, but he only laughed and said someone else might imitate any other call, but that whistle was distinctively his. It was harsh, strident, metallic. When he whistled yesterday, I felt positively sick at my stomach — and then I turned and ran just as fast as I could go.”

“You aren’t mistaken?”

“In that whistle? Never!”

“See his face?”

“Not clearly. The man was standing in the deep shadows. It was Howard. He had a rifle.”

“Who else knows Howard Maben — that is, in your party?”

“Mr. Dowling is the only one; but that girl, Sylvia — I think she went back to dig up some of the old newspaper files. She’s made remarks about Mrs. Dowling’s death... well, questions. You understand, it’s a subject that’s taboo in Dowling’s crowd.”

“How was your ex-husband dressed when you saw him?”

“I only had a quick glimpse. I couldn’t say.”

“Wearing a hat?”

“Yes, a big Western hat.”

“Now, then, try and get this one right,” the sheriff said. “Had he been shaved lately?”

“Heavens, I couldn’t tell that. He was in the shadows, but he could see me plainly and that’s why he whistled for me to come to him.”

“I’m wondering whether he’d been sort of hanging around for a while, watching your camp, or whether he just came in yesterday. I’d certainly like to know if he was shaved.”

“I really couldn’t see.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone about this?”

“No.”

“Now, how much did Dowling know about you and Maben?”

“He knew that we were going together. I guess that’s one of the reasons Harvey Dowling didn’t suspect his wife. It was a nasty mess... well, you know how Dowling would feel. We’ve never talked much about it.”

“I know,” Bill Eldon said, his eyes looking off into space, “but there’s still something I don’t get about it.”

She said, “All right, I suppose I’ve been a sneak. I suppose I’m living a lie; but I didn’t want anyone to know about my marriage.”

“On account of Dick Nottingham?”

Her eyes snapped around in startled appraisal. “How did you—?”

“Sort of guessed from what I saw the other day. Having a little trouble?”

“You mean Sylvia?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you guessed that too.”

“How do you feel about Sylvia?”

“I’d like to cut her heart out. Not that I care about Dick any more. He’s shown what a conceited boor he is. I’d like to have him at my feet just long enough to walk on him, though.”

“Just to show Sylvia?”

“And to show Dick. Sylvia doesn’t care about Dick. She’s a love pirate, one of the girls who have to satisfy their ego by stealing some man. And I’m... well, I’m living a lie. I wish now I’d played my cards differently, but I can’t do it now. I’ve made my choice. To tell anyone now would make me out a miserable little liar. I don’t want to be ’exposed,’ particularly with Sylvia to rub it in, and I think Sylvia suspects.”

“Never told Nottingham anything about this?”

“Nothing. Should I have done so?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Eldon answered.

The defiance melted from her face. “I was afraid you were going to be self-righteous,” she said.

Bill Eldon said nothing.

“The marriage was annulled,” she said. “I’m living for the future. Suppose Dick Nottingham and I had married? Suppose I had told him? He’d have been magnanimous about it and all of that, but the thing would have been buried in his mind. Sometime, four or five years later, when I burned the biscuits or was slow in getting dressed to go to a bridge party, he’d flare up with some nasty remark about the grass widow of a jailbird. He’d be sorry the next day, but it would leave a scar.”

She paused. “I suppose I’ll have to repeat this to that deputy district attorney?”

“I don’t think so,” Eldon said. “He’d do a little talking and the first thing you know, you’d be reading all about yourself in the newspapers. What is now just a plain murder would suddenly get a sex angle, and the big city papers would send reporters up to get pictures of you and write up a bunch of tripe. You’d have your past ‘exposed.’ You’d better go right ahead just the way you’re doing.”

“You mean you’re going to keep my secret?”

“I’m going to let you keep it.”

She remained silent.

The sheriff pulled an envelope from his pocket, took out the pictures he had removed from inside the lining of the coat of the murdered man.

“These pictures are of Howard — the man you married?”

She barely glanced at them, nodded.

“You recognized them when I first found them?”

“Yes, and that’s my hand on his shoulder. That ring is a signet ring my father gave me.”

“Any idea what this detective was doing with those pictures?”

“Howard’s sentence expired about two months ago. He’s after Dowling — or me. And the detective somehow got on Howard’s trail. And Howard, with all that fiendish cunning of his... well, he got the detective.”

The sheriff got to his feet, moving with a smooth ease. “Well, I’ve got work to do.”

Roberta Coe moved impulsively forward, said, “I don’t suppose you’d have any way of knowing that you’re a dear!” and kissed him.

“Oh,” she said in dismay, “I’ve ruined your face! Here, let me get that off.”

She took a handkerchief from her pocket. The sheriff grinned as she removed the lipstick. “Good idea,” he said. “That young deputy district attorney would think I’d been bribed. Hell, you can’t tell, maybe I have!”

Bill Eldon reined his horse to a stop, swung his left leg over the horse’s neck and sat with it crooked around the saddle horn.

“How are things coming?” he asked.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Leonard Keating said, “it’s an open-and-shut case. I’m ready to go back any time you’re ready to pick up the prisoner.”

Eldon said, “I want to look around the country a little bit before I start back. Got to check up on some of the homesteaders up here.”

“What are we going to do with Ames?” Keating demanded. “Let him run away?”

“He won’t get away.”

Keating said indignantly, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, he isn’t my responsibility.”

“That’s right,” Eldon said. “He’s mine.”

John Olney, the ranger, looked at the sheriff questioningly.

“Now then,” Bill Eldon went on, “we, all of us, have our responsibilities. Now, Keating, here, has got to prosecute the man.”

“There’s plenty of evidence to get a conviction of first-degree murder,” Keating said.

“And,” Bill Eldon went on, “part of the evidence you’re going to present to the jury is the evidence of those two cigarette stubs. That’s right, eh?”

“Those cigarette stubs are the most damning piece of evidence in the whole case. They show premeditation.”

“Nicely preserved, aren’t they?”

“They’re sufficiently preserved so I can identify them to a jury and get a jury to notice their distinctive peculiarities.”

“All right,” Eldon said cheerfully, and then added, “Of course, that murder was committed either during the rainstorm or just before the rainstorm. The evidence shows that.”

“Of course it does,” Keating said. “That cloth tobacco sack which was left on the ground had been soaked with rain. The tobacco had been moistened enough so that the stain from it oozed out into the cloth.”

“Sure did,” the sheriff said. “Now then, young man, when you get up in front of a jury with this ironclad, open-and-shut case of yours, maybe some smart lawyer on the other side is going to ask you how it happened that the tobacco got all wet, while those cigarette ends made out of delicate rice paper are just as dry and perfectly formed as the minute the smoker took them out of his mouth.”

The sheriff watched the expression on the deputy district attorney’s face. Then his lips twisted in a grin. “Well, now, son,” he said, “I’ve got a little riding to do. How about it, John? Think you got a little free time on your hands?”

“Sure,” the ranger said.

“What?” the deputy district attorney exclaimed. “Do you mean—?”

“Sure,” the sheriff said. “Don’t worry, buddy. Ames is my prisoner. I’m responsible for him. You just think out the answer to that question about the cigarette ends, because somebody’s going to ask it of you when you get in court.”

“There’s no reason why the murderer couldn’t have returned to the scene of the crime.”

“Sure, sure,” Eldon said soothingly. “Then he rolled cigarettes out of soggy, wet tobacco, and smoked ’em right down to the end. But somehow, I reckon, you’ve got to do better than that, young fellow.”

Bill Eldon nodded to the ranger. “Come on, John, you can do more good riding with me than—”

“But this is an outrage!” Keating stormed. “I protest against it. This man, Ames, was arrested for murder!”

“Who arrested him?” the sheriff asked.

“If you want to put it that way, I did,” Keating said. “As a deputy district attorney and as a private citizen, I have a right to take this man in custody for first-degree murder.”

“Go ahead and take him in custody then,” the sheriff grinned. “Then he’ll be your responsibility. Come on, John, let’s go riding.”

The sheriff swung his leg back over the horse’s neck and straightened himself in the saddle.

“You’ll have to answer for this,” Leonard Keating said, his voice quivering with rage.

“That’s right,” Eldon assured him cheerfully, “I expect to,” and rode off.

Bill Eldon and the ranger found a live lead at the second cabin at which they stopped.

Carl Raymond, a tall, drawling, tobacco-chewing trapper in his late fifties, came to the door of his cabin as soon as his barking dog had advised him of the approaching horsemen.

His eye was cold, appraising and uncordial.

“So, you folks are working together now,” he said scornfully. “I haven’t any venison hanging up, and I have less than half the limit of fish. As far as I’m concerned—”

Bill Eldon interrupted. “Now, Carl, I’ve never asked any man who lives in the mountains where he got his meat. You know that.”

Raymond swung his eyes to the ranger. “You ain’t riding alone,” he said to the sheriff.

“This is other business,” the sheriff said. “The ranger is with me. I’m not with him.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“A man’s been murdered down here, five or six miles over on the Middle Fork.”

Raymond twisted the wad of tobacco with his tongue, glanced once more at both men, then expectorated between tightly clenched lips. “What do you want?”

“A little assistance. Thought maybe you might have crossed some tracks of a man I might be looking for.”

“The mountains are full of tracks these days,” Raymond said bitterly. “You can’t get a hundred yards from your cabin without running across dude tracks.”

“These would be the tracks of someone that was living in the mountains, playing a lone hand,” the sheriff said.

“Can’t help you a bit,” Raymond told him. “Sorry.”

The sheriff said, “I’m interested in any unusually big fires, particularly any double fires.”

Raymond started to shake his head, then paused. “How’s that?”

The sheriff repeated his statement.

Raymond hesitated, seemed about to say something, then became silent.

At the end of several seconds Olney glanced questioningly at the sheriff, and Eldon motioned him to silence.

Raymond silently chewed his tobacco. At length he moved out from the long shadows of the pines, pointed toward a saddle in the hills to the west. “There’s a little game trail, works up that draw,” he said, “and goes right through that saddle. Fifty yards on the other side it comes to a little flat against a rocky ledge. There was a double fire built there last night.”

“Know who did it?”

“Nope. I just saw the ashes of the fire this morning.”

“What time?” asked the sheriff.

“A little after daylight.”

“Carl,” the sheriff said, “I think that’s the break we’ve been looking for. You’ve really been a help.”

“Don’t mention it,” Raymond said, turned on his heel, whistled to his dog, and strode into his cabin.

“Come on,” Bill Eldon said to Olney. “I think we’ve got something!”

“I don’t get it,” Olney said. “What’s the idea of the double fire?”

Eldon swung his horse into a rapid walk. “It rained last night. The ground was wet. A man who was camping out without blankets would build a big, long fire. The ground underneath the fire would get hot and be completely dry. Then when the rain let up and it turned cold, the man only needed to rake the coals of that fire into two piles, chop some fir boughs, and put them on the hot ground. In that way he’d have dry, warm ground underneath him, sending heat up through the fir boughs, and the piles of embers on each side would keep his sides warm. Then about daylight, when he got up, he could throw the fir boughs on the embers and bum them up. He’d put out the fire, after he’d cooked breakfast, by pouring water from the stream on the coals.”

“A man sleeping out without blankets,” Olney said musingly. “There’s just a chance,” he added, “that you know something I don’t.”

Bill Eldon grinned. “There’s just a chance,” he admitted, “that I do.”

Roberta Coe found Frank Ames in his cabin, pouring flour and water into the crusted crock in which he kept his sour dough. The door was ajar and from the outer twilight the illumination of the gasoline lantern seemed incandescent in its brilliance.

“Hello,” she called, “may I come in? I heard you were released on your own recognizance.”

“The sheriff,” Ames said, “has some sense. Come on in. Are you alone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“But you can’t be going around these trails at night. It’ll be dark before you can possibly get back, even if you start right now.”

“I brought a flashlight with me, and I’m not starting back right now. I just got here!”

“But, gosh, I—”

She crossed the floor of the cabin, to sit on one of the homemade stools, her elbows propped on the rustic table. “Know something?” she asked.

“What?”

“I told the sheriff about screaming and about how you came after me and all that. I realized I’d have to tell him sooner or later, but... well, thanks for protecting me — for covering up.”

“You didn’t need to tell them. They’ve got no case against me, anyway.”

She felt that his tone lacked the assurance it should have.

“I told them anyway. What are you making?”

“Sour-dough biscuit.”

“Smells — terrible.”

“Tastes fine,” he said, grinning. “A man must eat even if the State is trying to hang him.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.”

“It is, as far as that deputy district attorney is concerned.”

“I hate him!” she said. “He’s intolerant, officious and egotistical. But... well, I wanted you to know I’d told the sheriff and there’s no reason why you should try to... to cover up for me any more.”

“How much did you tell him?”

“Everything.”

For a moment his look was quizzical.

“You don’t seem to show much curiosity,” she said.

“Out here we don’t show curiosity about other people’s business.”

She said rather gaily, “I think I’m going to stay to supper — if I’m invited.”

“You’d better get back to your folks,” he said. “They’ll be worried about you.”

“Oh, no they won’t. I explained to them that I’m going to be out late. I told them I was conferring with the sheriff.”

“Look here,” he said, “you can’t do things like that.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because, for one thing, I’m here alone — and for another thing, you can’t wander around the mountains at night.”

“Are you going to invite me to supper?”

“No.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll stay anyway. What else are we going to have besides sour-dough biscuit?”

Watching her slip off her jacket and roll up her sleeves, he surrendered with a grin. “We’re going to have some jerked venison, stewed up with onions and canned tomatoes. You wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to cook it, so go over there and sit down and watch.”

Two hours later, when they had eaten and the dishes had been cleaned up and when they had talked themselves into a better understanding, Roberta Coe announced that she was starting back down the trail. She knew, of course, that Ames would go with her.

“Do you have a flashlight,” she asked, “so that you can see the trail when you come back?”

“I don’t need a flashlight.”

He walked over to the wall, took down the .30-.30 rifle, pushed shells into the magazine.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Oh,” he said, “sometimes we see deer, and fresh meat is—”

She laughed and said, “It’s illegal to shoot after sundown. The deer season is closed, and the hills are simply crawling with game wardens and deputy sheriffs. You must think I’m terribly dumb. However, I’m glad you have the rifle. Come on.”

They left the cabin, to stand for a moment in the bracing night air, before starting down the trail.

“You’re not locking the door?” she asked.

“No need to lock the barn door after the horse has been stolen.”

“Somehow I wish you would. You might — have a visitor.”

“I think I’d be glad to see him,” he said, swinging the rifle slightly so that it glinted in the moonlight.

“Do you want me to lead the way with the flashlight or to come behind?”

“I’ll go ahead,” he said, “and please don’t use the flashlight.”

“But we’ll need it.”

“No we won’t. There’s a moon that will give us plenty of light for more than an hour. It’s better to adjust your eyes to the darkness, rather than continually flashing a light on and off.”

He started off down the trail, walking with his long, easy stride.

The moon, not yet quite half full, was in the west, close to Venus, which shone as a shining beacon. It was calm and still, and the night noises seemed magnified. The purling of the stream became the sound of a rushing cascade.

The day had been warm, but now in the silence of the night the air had taken on the chill that comes from the high places, a windless, penetrating chill which makes for appreciation of the soft warmth of down-filled sleeping bags. The moon-cast shadows of the silhouetted pine trees lay across the trail like tangible barriers, and the silent, brooding strangeness of the mountains dwarfed Roberta Coe’s consciousness until her personality seemed to her disturbed mind to be as puny as her light footfalls on the everlasting granite.

There was a solemn strangeness about the occasion which she wished to perpetuate, something that she knew she would want to remember as long as she lived; so when they were a few hundred yards from camp, she said, “Frank, I’m tired. Can’t we rest a little while? You don’t realize what a space-devouring stride you have.”

“Your camp’s only around that spur,” he said. “They’ll be worrying about you and—”

“Oh, bother!” she said. “Let them worry. I want to rest.”

There was the trunk of a fallen pine by the side of the trail, and she seated herself on it. He came back to stand uncomfortably at her side, then, propping the gun against the log, seated himself beside her.

The moon was sliding down toward the mountains now, and the stars were beginning to come out in unwinking splendor. She knew that she would be cold as soon as the warmth of the exercise left her blood, but knew also that Frank Ames was under a tension, experiencing a struggle with himself.

She moved slightly, her shoulder brushed against his, her hair touched his cheek, and the contact set off an emotional explosion. His arms were about her, his mouth strained to hers. She knew this was what she had been wanting for what had seemed ages.

She relaxed in the strength of his sinewy arms, her head tilting back so he could find her lips. Sudden pulses pounded in her temples. Then suddenly he had pushed her away, was saying contritely, “I’m sorry.”

She waited for breath and returning self-assurance. Glancing at him from under her eyelashes, she decided on the casual approach. She laughed and said, “Why be sorry? It’s a perfect night, and, after all, we’re human.” She hoped he wouldn’t notice the catch in her voice, a very unsophisticated catch which belied the casual manner she was trying to assume.

“You’re out of my set,” he said. “You’re... you’re as far above me as that star.”

“I wasn’t very far above you just then. I seemed to be — quite close.”

“You know what I mean. I’m a hillbilly, a piece of human flotsam cast up on the beach by the tides of war. Damn it, I don’t mean to be poetic about it and I’m not going to be apologetic. I’m—”

“You’re sweet,” she interrupted.

“You have everything; all the surroundings of wealth. You’re camped up here in the mountains with wranglers to wait on you. I’m a mountain man.”

“Well, good Lord,” she laughed, a catch in her throat, “you don’t need to plan marriage just because you kissed me.”

And in the constricted silence which followed, she knew that was exactly what he had been planning.

Suddenly, she turned and put her hand over his. “Frank,” she said, “I want to tell you something... something I want you to keep in confidence. Will you?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded strained.

She laughed. “I just finished promising the sheriff I’d never tell this to anyone.” And then, without further preliminaries, she told him about her marriage, about the scandal, the annulment of her marriage.

When she had finished, there was a long silence. Abruptly she felt a nervous reaction. The cold, still air of the mountains seemed unfriendly. She felt terribly alien, a hopelessly vulnerable morsel of humanity in a cold, granite world which gave no quarter to vulnerability.

“I’m glad you told me,” Frank Ames said simply, then jackknifed himself up from the log. “You’ll catch cold sitting here. Let’s move on.”

Angry and hurt, she fought back the tears until the lighted tents of her camp were visible.

“I’m all right now,” she said hastily. “Good-by — thanks for the dinner.”

She saw that he wanted to say something, but she was angry both at him and at herself, thoroughly resentful that she had confided in this man. She wanted to rush headlong into the haven of her lighted camp, escaping the glow of the campfire, but she knew he was watching, so she tried to walk with dignity, leaving him standing there, vaguely aware that there was something symbolic in the fact that she had left him just outside the circle of firelight.

She would have liked to reach her tent undiscovered, but she knew that the others were wondering about her. She heard Dick Nottingham’s voice saying, “Someone’s coming,” then Sylvia Jessup calling, “Is that you, Roberta?”

“In person,” she said, trying to make her voice sound gay.

“Well, you certainly took long enough. What happened?”

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” she said. “I’m headed for my sleeping bag. I’m chilled.”

Eleanor Dowling said, “I’ll bring you a hot toddy when you get in bed, honey.”

She knew they wanted to pump her, knew they wanted to ask questions about the sheriff, about her supposed conference. And she knew that she couldn’t face them — not then.

“Please don’t,” she said. “I’m all in. I have a beastly headache and I took two aspirin tablets coming down the trail. Let me sleep.”

She entered the tent, conscious as she did so of Frank Ames’ words about how she was waited on hand and foot. They had kept a fire going in the little sheet-metal stove. The tent was warm as toast. A lantern was furnishing mellow light. The down interior of her sleeping bag was inviting. Not only did she have an air mattress, but there was a cot as well.

“Oh, what a fool I was!” she said. “Why did I have to go baring my soul. The big ignoramus! He’s out of my world. He... he thinks I’m second-hand merchandise!”

Roberta Coe’s throat choked up with emotion. She sat on the edge of the cot there in her little tent, her head on her hands. Hot tears trickled between her fingers.

She realized with a pang how much that moment had meant to her, how much it had meant when Frank Ames’ arms were around her, straining, eager and strong.

Sylvia Jessup’s voice sounded startlingly close. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked. “Has something happened—”

Roberta looked up quickly, realizing now that the damage had been done, that the lantern was in such a position that her shadow was being thrown on the end of the tent. Sylvia, sitting by the campfire, had been able to see silhouetted dejection, to see the shadow of Roberta seated on the cot, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.

“No thanks, it’s all right,” Roberta said, jumping up and bustling about. “I just got a little over-tired coming down the trail. I think it’s the elevation.”

“You don’t want me—”

“No, thank you,” Roberta said with a tone of finality which meant that the conversation was terminated.

Roberta crossed over to the lantern, turned it out, and the tent was in warm darkness, save for little ruddy spots which glowed on the canvas where small holes in the wood stove gave shafts of red light from the glowing embers.

Sylvia hesitated a moment, then Roberta could hear her steps going back toward the campfire. Sylvia undoubtedly was bursting with curiosity. She realized that Roberta would hardly have walked back alone over the mountain trail at night, and Sylvia was a prying little sneak as far as Roberta was concerned.

But somehow that momentary interlude, that flare of feeling against Sylvia Jessup, made Roberta Coe reappraise herself and the situation.

She knew instinctively that Frank Ames would not be back. Perhaps his coolness had not been because he had learned of her prior marriage. Perhaps — it could have been that it had made no difference to him. His constrained attitude, his abrupt departure might have been merely the result of what he had said previously — that they were worlds apart.

The doubt, the reaction, left her with the most devastating loneliness she had ever experienced.

Almost without thinking, she put her coat back on, quickly glanced around the tent to see that she was leaving no telltale shadow, then she slipped to the flap and out into the night, detouring so that she kept the tent between her and the campfire until she had reached the circle of scrub pine which surrounded the camp.

Once or twice she stumbled in the shadows. There was no moonlight here in this little valley, and the light from the campfire served only to make the terrain more deceiving, but Roberta kept moving rapidly, heedless of the natural obstacles, stumbling over roots and little hummocks until she was able to skirt the sheltering rim of pines and come to the main trail.

The cold, crisp air of the mountain night seemed like a stimulus which enabled her to rush along the trail. In the starlight, the trail showed as a faint gray thread, and Roberta, feeling as weightless as some gliding creature of the woods, buoyed up by surging hope, moved rapidly along this faint thread.

But after a few minutes the strange exhilaration left her. All at once her body mechanism asserted itself, and her laboring lungs told her all too plainly that she needed air. The unaccustomed effort of running, the steady upgrade, the elevation, all contributed to a breathlessness which made the strength drain out of her legs.

She knew she couldn’t make it. Frank Ames had had too much of a headstart on her, and his own hurt pride would make for an emotional unrest which would demand some physical outlet. He would be swinging along up the trail, with his long legs devouring the space.

“Frank!” she called, and there was desperate pleading in her voice.

She had not brought her flashlight. The moon had now settled almost to the mountains. Only occasionally, where there was a break in the pines, was there a field of weak illumination over the trail.

She could hear steps ahead of her. She wanted to call out again, but her laboring lungs had barely enough air for breath. Her pounding heart threatened to push itself out of her chest.

“Frank!” she called with the very last bit of breath that she could muster. And then her laboring heart gave a wild surge as she saw motion in the shadow ahead.

But the figure that stepped out to meet her was not that of Frank Ames. A shrill, metallic whistle, harsh as the strum of an overtaxed taut wire, knifed her eardrums. Cold horror gripped her.

“No— No!” she half sobbed.

She turned, but there was no more strength left for flight. Her feet were like heavy rocks, the legs limber.

The figure moved swiftly.