The Golden Woman

"You?" she cried, and her lean figure seemed to crouch as though about to spring.

The man returned her stare without flinching. His eyes still wore their curious smile.

"Yes," he said. "It is I."

The woman's lips moved. She swallowed as though her throat had suddenly become parched.

"Moreton Bucklaw," she murmured. "And--and after all these years."

The man nodded. Then several moments passed without a word.

Finally it was the man who spoke. His manner was calm, so calm that no one could have guessed a single detail of what lay between these two, or the significance of their strange meeting.

"You've hit a bad trail," he said. "There's a big drop back there. These steps go on up to my home. The old fort. They're an old short cut to this valley. Guess your man'll need to unhitch his horses and turn the cart round. He can't get it round else. Then, if you go back past the shoulder of the hill, you'll see an old track, sharp to your right. That leads into the trail that'll take you right on down to the farm where little Joan lives." He moved toward the steps. "I'll tell your man," he said.

He mounted the steps with the ease of familiarity, his great muscles making the effort appear ridiculously easy. A little way up he paused, and looked down at her.

"Guess I shall see you again?" he said, with the same curious smile in his steady eyes.

And the woman's reply came sharply up the hillside to him. It came with all the pent-up hatred of years, concentrated into one sentence. The hard eyes were alight with a cold fury, which, now, in her advancing years, when the freshness and beauty that had once been hers could no longer soften them, was not without its effect upon the man.

"Yes. You will see me again, Moreton Bucklaw."

And the man continued the ascent with a feeling as though he had listened to the pronouncement of his death sentence.