Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/112

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
110
THE LAW-BRINGERS

with them all you like," he said. "But don't you play with me. See? I won't have it."

The knowledge that these last months had given her controlled Jennifer. She reached her mittened hand to stroke his cheek.

"Harry, dear, don't you sometimes forget that I'm your wife?" she said.

Ducane's rough bear hug brought her close to his rough bear's heart.

"No, Jenny. No, my girl. I guess I never forget that. But I'm worried, Jenny. I'm worried. And I want you all the time. If you went back on me, by——"

She silenced his lips with her soft fingers.

"I will never go back on you, my husband," she said, and they drove on, unspeaking.

Ducane had her hand under the rug, clinging as a coward or a child might do. Jennifer looked straight out to where the white hill and the scattered forest grew plain to meet them. But she saw only a lean, tired, firm face, white under the wind-burn, and a brown hand that clenched strongly even in sleep.

When Dick returned to the bar he saw Grange's Andree feeding the young moose in the hotel yard. Her laugh called Dick's eyes to her. And then he stopped and stared. For it was Tempest who held the armful of branches from which Andree plucked her handfuls.

"What the devil——" he said. Then he laughed and went in. "For if Tempest sets out to make a saint out of that young sinner he'll have to take off his coat to it," he said.

Tempest was not trying to make a saint of Andree, because he did not guess at the need of it. Through the white light of his own nature he saw her; discovering in her beauties that were never there; gold that was only dross; strong-burning fires that other men knew for will-o'-the-wisp. But, because a man fashions his own heaven and hell, and his own beliefs from the texture of his own heart, Tempest was not like to find this out. For a man is never blinder than when he is quite sure that he sees.

After Ogilvie had gone, no man knew where, leaving his corner of Hotchkiss' shack empty, Hotchkiss had married