The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Short Cut, by Jackson Gregory,
Illustrated by Frank Tenney Johnson
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Title: The Short Cut
Author: Jackson Gregory
Release Date: July 31, 2006 [eBook #18950]
Language: English
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THE SHORT CUT
by
JACKSON GREGORY
Author of "Under Handicap," "The Outlaw"
With Illustrations by Frank Tenney Johnson
[Frontispiece: Surely the rider was just what the owner of the voice,
half laughing, half crooning, tenderly lilting, must be.]
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1916
Copyright, 1916
by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
TO
"MOTHER" McGLASHAN
AND
GENERAL C. F. McGLASHAN
CONTENTS
I THE TRAGEDY
II THE SHADOW
III SUSPICION
IV THE WHITE HUNTRESS
V THE HOME COMING OF RED RECKLESS
VI THE PROMISE OF LITTLE SAXON
VII THE GLADNESS THAT SINGS
VIII "BLUFF, AND THE GAMBLER WINS!"
IX THE CONTEMPT OF SLEDGE HUME
X SHANDON'S GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
XI WANDA'S DISCOVERY
XII THE TALES OF MR. WILLIE DART
XIII SLEDGE HUME MAKES A CALL AND LAYS A WAGER
XIV IN WANDA'S CAVE
XV WILLIE DART PICKS A LOCK
XVI AND SOLVES A FASCINATING MYSTERY
XVII "WHERE'S THAT TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND?"
XVIII THE TRUTH
XIX SHANDON TAKES HIS STAND
XX HUME PLAYS A TRUMP
XXI THE SHORT CUT
XXII THE FUGITIVE
XXIII HELGA STRAWN PLAYS THE GAME
XXIV UNDER THE SURFACE
XXV RED RECKLESS ON LITTLE SAXON
XXVI THE LAUGHTER OF HELGA STRAWN
XXVII HUME RIDES THE ONE OPEN TRAIL
XXVIII "IT IS HOME!"
ILLUSTRATIONS
Surely the rider was just what the owner of the voice, half laughing,
half crooning, tenderly lilting, must be.
"I want just to smoke and watch you and listen while you talk."
She made herself as comfortable as she could, drew her camera from its
case, and waited a patient quarter of an hour.
"I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted. "Stop, Red, or I
shoot this time!"
THE SHORT CUT
CHAPTER I
THE TRAGEDY
Here was a small stream of water, bright, clear and cool, running its
merry way among the tall pines, hurrying to the dense shade of the
lower valley. The grass on its banks stood tall, lush and faintly
odorous, fresh with the newly come springtime, delicately scented with
the thickly strewn field flowers. The sunlight lay bright and warm
over all; the sky was blue with a depth of colour intensified by the
few great white clouds drifting lazily across it.
No moving thing within all the wide rolling landscape save the
sun-flecked water, the softly stirring grass and rustling forests, the
almost motionless white clouds. For two miles the hills billowed away
gently to the northward, where at last they were swept up into the
thickly timbered, crag-crested mountains. For twice two miles toward
the west one might guess the course of the stream before here, too, the
mountains shut in, leaving only Echo Cañon's narrow gap for the cool
water to slip through. To the south and to the east ridges and hollows
and mountains, and beyond a few fast melting patches of last winter's
snow clinging to the lofty summits, looking like fragments broken away
from the big white clouds and resting for a moment on the line where
land and sky met.
The stillness was too perfect to remain long unbroken. From a trail
leading down into the valley from the east a shepherd dog, running
eagerly, broke through the waving grass, paused a second looking back
expectantly, sniffed and ran on. Then a sound from over the ridge
through the trees, the sound of singing, a young voice lilting
wordlessly in enraptured gladness that life was so bright this morning.
And presently a horse, a dark bay saddle pony moving as lazily as the
clouds above, brought its rider down to the stream.
Surely the rider was just what the owner of the voice, half laughing,
half crooning, tenderly lilting, must be. It seemed that only since
the dawn of today had she become a woman having been a child until the
dusk of yesterday. The wide grey eyes, looking out upon a gentle
aspect of life, were inclined to be merry and musing at the same time,
soft with maidenhood's day dreaming, tender with pleasant thoughts. A
child of the outdoors, her skin sun-tinged to a warm golden brown, her
hair sunburnt where it slipped out of the shadow of her big hat, her
lips red with young health, her slender body in its easy, confident
carriage showing how the muscles under the soft skin were strong and
capable.
At her saddle horn, in its case, was a camera; snapped to her belt and
resting against her left hip, a pair of field glasses.
The horse played at drinking, pretending a thirst which it did not
feel, and began to paw the clear water into muddiness. The dog ran on,
turned again, barked an invitation to its mistress to join in the
search for adventures, and plunged into the tall grass.
The girl's song died away, her lips stilled by the hush of the coming
noonday. For a moment she was very silent, so motionless that she
seemed scarcely to breathe.
"Life is good here," she mused, her eyes wandering across the valley to
the wall of the mountains shutting out the world of cities. "It is
like the air, sweet and clean and wholesome! Life!" she whispered, as
though in reality she had been born just this dawn to the awe of it,
the wonder of it, "I love Life!"
She breathed deeply, her breast rising high to the warm, scented air
drawn slowly through parted lips as though she would drink of the rare
wine of the springtime.
The dog had found something in the deep grass which sent it scampering
back across the water and almost under the horse's legs, snarling.
"What is it, Shep?" laughed the girl. "What have you found that is so
dreadful?"
But Shep was not to be laughed out of his growls and whines. Presently
he ran back toward the place where he had made his headlong crossing,
stopped abruptly, broke into a quick series of short, sharp barks, and
again turning fled to the horse and rider as though for protection,
whining his fear.
"Is it really something, Shep?" asked the girl, puzzled a little. She
leaned forward in the saddle, patting her mare's warm neck. "I think
he's just an old humbug as usual, Gypsy," she smiled indulgently. "But
shall we go over and see?"
Gypsy splashed noisily across the stream, the dog still growling and
slinking close to the horse's heels. The girl saw where Shep had
parted the grass with his inquisitive nose, leaving a plain trail. And
not ten steps from the edge of the water she came upon the thing that
Shep had found.
The mare's nostrils suddenly quivered; she trembled a moment, and then
with a snort of fear whirled and plunged back toward the creek. But
the girl had seen. The colour ran out of her face, the musing peace
fled from her eyes and a swift horror leaped out upon her. In one
flash the soft calm of the morning had become a mockery, its promise a
lie. Here, into the wonder of Life, Death had come.
She had had but an uncertain glance at the thing lying huddled in the
tall grass, but her instinct like Shep's and Gypsy's understood. And
for a blind, terror-stricken moment, she felt that she must yield as
they yielded to the fear within her, to the primitive urge to flee from
Death; that she could not draw near the spot where a man had died,
where even now the body lay cold in the sunshine.
Her hands were shaking pitifully when at last she tied Gypsy to the
lower limb of an oak beside the creek. As she went slowly back along
the little trail the dog had made she told herself that the man was not
dead, that he was sick or hurt . . . and though she had never looked
upon Death before this morning when it seemed to her that she had
looked upon Life for the first time, she knew what that grotesque
horror meant, she knew why the man lay, as he did, face down and still.
At last she stood over the body, her swift eyes informing her reluctant
consciousness of a host of details. She saw that the grass around was
beaten down in a rude circle, heard the whining of the dog at her
heels, noticed that the man lay on his right side, his head twisted so
that his cheek touched his shoulder, the face hidden, one arm crumpled
under him, one outflung and grasping a handful of up-rooted grass with
set rigid fingers.
A sickness, a faintness, and with it an almost uncontrollable desire to
run madly from this place, this thing, swept over her. But she drew
closer, kneeling quickly, and put her warm hand upon the hand that
clutched the wisp of grass so rigidly. It was cold, so cold that she
drew back suddenly, shuddering.
Not even now did she know who the man was. It had not yet entered her
mind that she could know him. She rose to her feet, and walking softly
as though her footfall in the grass might waken some one sleeping, she
moved about the still figure, to the other side, so that she might see
the face. Then she cried out softly, piteously, and Shep ceased his
whining and came to her around the body, rubbing against her skirts.
"Arthur!" She came closer, knelt again and put her hands gently upon
the short-cropped, curling hair. "Oh, Arthur! Is it you?" Only now
did she know how this man with the young, frank face had died. Now she
saw blood smeared on the white forehead, a bullet wound torn in the
temple. She sprang to her feet, staring with wide eyes at the little
hole through which the man's soul had fled. She turned hastily toward
her horse, came back, placed her straw hat tenderly over the short
curling hair, and ran to Gypsy.
She was vaguely conscious that her brain was acting as it had never
acted before, that her excited nerves were filling her mind with a mass
of sensations and fragmentary thoughts strangely clearcut and definite.
Like some wonderfully constructed camera her faculties, in an instant
no longer than the time required for the clicking of the shutter,
photographed a hawk circling high up in the sky, a waving branch, with
no less truth and vividness than the body sprawling there in the grass.
Emotions, scents, sounds, objects blended into a strange mental
snap-shot, no one detail less clear than another.
Jerking the mare's tie rope free from the oak, she flung herself into
the saddle, and turned back toward the trail that led across the creek
and over the ridge. But Shep had found something else in the grass
half a dozen steps beyond the dead man, something that he sniffed at
and nosed and that excited him. Making a little detour, she rode back
to the spot where the dog, barking now, was waiting for her.
As she leaned forward looking down upon this second thing the shepherd
dog had found, she clutched suddenly at the horn of her saddle as
though all her strength had dribbled out of her, and she were going to
fall. The keen nostrils of the animal had led him to this object with
its sinister connection with the tragedy and he had pawed at it,
dragging it toward him and free of the green tangle into which it had
fallen or been flung.
It was a revolver, thirty-eight calibre, unlike the weapons one might
expect to find here in the range country or about the sawmills further
back . . . and the girl recognised it. The deadly viciousness of the
firearm was disguised by the pearl grip and silver chasings until it
had seemed a toy. But here was Arthur Shandon dead, with a bullet in
his brain, and here almost at his side was a revolver she knew so well.
. . .
She covered her face with her hands and shook like one of the pine
needles above her head caught in a quick breath of air. Shep looked up
at her with his sharp, eager bark and then the gladness of discovery in
his eyes changed suddenly into wistful wonder. Gypsy, with tossing
head and jingling bridle, turned toward the crossing, quickening her
stride, ready to break into a trot.
At last the girl jerked her hands away from a face that was white and
miserable, and with angry spur and rein brought the mare back to the
spot where the revolver lay. Slipping down, she hesitated a moment,
glancing swiftly about as though afraid some one might see her, even
with a look that was almost suspicious at the quiet body of Arthur
Shandon, and stooping suddenly swept up the thing that had been a toy
yesterday and was so hideously tragic to-day. It was with a great
effort of her will that she compelled her fingers to touch it, forced
them to close upon it and take it up. Then with a little cry into
which loathing and dread merged, she cast it from her, flinging it far
down stream so that it fell into a black pool below a tiny, frothing
waterfall.
"I can't believe it. I won't believe it!" she murmured in a voice that
shook even as her hands were shaking. "It is too terrible!"
No longer could she look at the huddled form in the grass, the young,
frank face that was so still and white and cold in the sunshine.
Throwing herself into the saddle, she swung Gypsy's head about toward
the trail, as though she were fleeing from a fearful pursuing menace.
Shep, who had run, barking, to retrieve his lost discovery from the
black pool under the waterfall, snapped his disappointment from the
bank and then splashed through the creek after his mistress.
Two hundred yards the girl raced along the up-trail, her mare running,
her dog struggling hard to keep up. Then with a new, sudden fear she
jerked her pony to a standstill.
"I . . . I can't leave it there," her white lips were whispering.
"They will find it, and then . . . Oh, my God!"
And now her brain had ceased to act like a strangely magical camera;
now sights and sounds and faint odours about her were all unnoticed.
Her eyes, wide and staring at the winding trail before her, did not see
the broad trees or the flower sprinkled grass or the blossoming
manzanita bushes. They gazed through these things which they did not
see, and instead saw what might lie in the future, what fate the grim
gods of destiny might mete out . . . to one man . . . if the revolver
below the waterfall were found!
Her hesitation was brief; the horror of what might lurk in the future
was greater than the horror of what lay back there behind her. Again
she urged her puzzled horse back to the stream, flinging herself down
just at the edge of the pool. Far down at the bottom upon the white
sand, wedged between two white stones, the revolver lay plainly
visible. The noonday sun rested upon the deep water here and its
secret was no secret at all. She was glad that she had come back.
Snatching up the dead limb of a shrub lying close at hand, with little
difficulty or waste of time, she dragged the weapon toward her until
she could thrust her arm, elbow deep into the water, and secure it.
She shuddered as when she had first forced her hand to touch it. But
with quick, steady fingers she dried it against her skirt and thrust it
into the only place where she could be sure of safety, where its voice
would be silenced to all except her own heart, deep into the bosom of
her waist. And again she was on Gypsy's back, again fleeing along the
up-trail.
As she rode, as the rush of air whipped in her face and the leaping
body of the mare under her gave her muscles something to do, the blood
flamed again into her cheeks; courage rushed back into a heart that was
naturally unafraid.
"I have not been loyal," she whispered over and over to herself
accusingly. "I have not been a true friend. I have suspected and I
know, oh, I know so well, that it can't be! He wouldn't do a thing
like that, he couldn't!"
She topped the ridge, sped on for half a mile upon its crest, racing
straight toward the east, dropped down into another valley ten times
bigger than the one she had just quitted, and still following the trail
headed southward again. Here there were fewer trees, a sprinkling of
pine and fir, and wider open spaces. Another stream, even smaller than
Echo Creek, watered the valley. She rode through a small herd of
saddle horses that flashed away before her swift approach, their manes
and tails flying, and scarcely realised that she had disturbed them.
Off to her left, at the upper end of the valley where were a number of
grazing cattle, she thought she could distinguish the figures of a
couple of her father's cowboys riding herd. But she did not turn to
them.
Gypsy, warming to the race, carried her mistress valiantly the half a
dozen miles from the ridge she had crossed to the knoll crowned with
great boled, sky seeking cedars where her father's ranch house stood.
Half a mile away the girl made out the wide verandahs, the long flight
of steps, the hammock where she had read and dozed last night, yes, and
dreamed the tender, half wistful, yet rose tinted dreams of maidenhood.
She saw, too, the stables at the base of the knoll, to the northward,
where one of the boys, Charlie or Jim, was harnessing the greys,
preparatory to hitching them to the big wagon. The thought flashed
through her mind that he counted upon going out for a load of wood, and
that he would be called upon first to bring in another burden that he
would never forget.
Her eyes went back to the house. There was some one sitting in a
rocker in the shade near the front door. It was her mother. This news
would be a bitter, bitter shock to the tender-hearted woman who had
called Arthur Shandon one of her "boys."
The girl drew nearer, with no tightening of reins upon Gypsy's headlong
speed. Another glimpse through the cedars showed her that there was
some one with her mother, a man, broad and heavy shouldered. He
turned, hearing the pound of the flying hoofs through the still air as
she came on. It was her father. She could see the massive, calm face,
the white hair and white square beard.
She was barely five hundred yards from the foot of the knoll when she
saw that her father and mother were not alone. The third figure had
been concealed from her until now by the great post standing at the top
of the steps. But now the man sitting there rose to his feet and
turned to look in the direction her parents were looking. A sudden
choking came into the girl's throat, a quick rush of tears into her dry
eyes. She drew her reins tight, bringing her pony down into a trot,
then to a walk. She could not rush on like this, carrying a message of
grief and terror; must she hasten so eagerly to speak the word that was
going to make life so different to this man?
"Oh, how can I tell him?" she was moaning. "The gladdest, gayest,
happiest boy of a man that ever lived! Will he ever be glad again?"
Her mother had waved to her, her father was smiling, proud of her as he
always was when he saw how she rode. And the other man who had leaped
to his feet was running down the steps, coming to meet her, coming to
meet the news she brought.
CHAPTER II
THE SHADOW
The girl drooped her head a little, while Gypsy walked very slowly.
Then she looked up again, swiftly, saw that the man was coming on to
meet her, saw the great, tall, gaunt form, marked the free swinging
carriage which she had noted so many times before, noticed the way he
carried his head, well back, saw the sunlight splashing like fire in
the red, red hair that in some fashion seemed to proclaim red blood and
recklessness. A young man he was with mighty hands and iron body, with
life leaping high in his laughing eyes, a man who might have been some
pagan god of youth and joy and heedlessness.
His big boots brought him on swiftly until he came to her horse and she
stopped, her eyes dropping before his. He twined his fingers in
Gypsy's mane and looked up into her face, he laughing softly.
"So you've ridden back to us, at last." His voice was in tune with the
rest of him, suggesting the wildness and recklessness that were part of
the man's nature. He ran on, half bantering, half softly wondering at
the loveliness of her. "Are you pagan nymph or Christian maiden,
Wanda?" he asked a little seriously, as nearly serious, one might have
said, as it was this man's nature to be.
She raised her lowered eyes, looking at him searchingly. Then he saw
the tears that at last were spilling over, the face from which the
colour was going again, the traces of horror of that thing which lay
far back there under the pines.
"Wanda!" he cried sharply. "You . . . There's something the matter!
I've been running on like an inspired idiot and . . . What is it,
Wanda?"
"Oh," she said desperately, "it is terrible! I can't . . ." She
choked over her words. But they were burning the soul within her, and
she ran on hastily. "I found him back there by Echo Creek crossing.
He . . . he is dead."
"Dead?" repeated the man. "Dead? Who, Wanda?"
"Arthur!" she whispered.
"Arthur, dead?" he muttered, his voice oddly low and quiet. "Arthur,
dead? I don't understand."
"He is dead," she said again heavily. "Some one shot him."
She broke off and began to sob. He looked first at her, then along the
trail she had ridden, and finally, taking his hand from her horse's
mane he turned abruptly and strode off toward the house. He mounted
the steps swiftly, passed her father and mother without a word in
answer to the questioning faces they turned toward him, entered the
door and returned almost immediately, carrying his hat in his hand. As
he came down the steps, he put on his hat and bent his head a little so
that she could not see his face. He passed her without a sign and went
down to the stable. Then she rode up to the house and slipped from her
saddle at the foot of the steps. Her father and mother hurried to meet
her.
"It is Arthur. It is Wayne's brother," cried Wanda brokenly from her
mother's arms. "He is dead!"
She told them briefly, hurriedly. Her father, his eyes strangely hard
and inscrutable swore softly and turning without a word to either of
the women went back to the house as Wayne had done, got his hat and
hurried to the stable. His voice, hard and expressionless like his
eyes, floated up to them as he gave his brief orders to Jim to drive
straight back to the spot Wanda had described. The girl saw him enter
the stable and in a little while come out, riding a saddled horse.
Already Wayne Shandon had ridden off along the trail, travelling with a
fury of speed that took no heed of the miles ahead of him.
Mother and daughter turned and went slowly up the steps, their arms
about each other, their cheeks wet.
"Who killed him, mamma?" whispered the girl, her moist eyes lifted.
"Who could have killed him?"
The silent tale that a pearl handled revolver had told her was a lie, a
hideous lie. She did not believe it, she was never going to believe
it. For an instant there had been a horrible suspicion in her breast,
then her loyalty had risen and crushed it and killed it and cast it
out. But now she sought some new explanation to take its place, sought
it with intense eagerness.
"Who killed him?" Mother's and daughter's eyes met furtively for a
quick second. And then the mother's answer was no answer at all, but a
broken, tremulous prayer: "Dear God, may they never know who did this
thing!"
They did not look at each other again as they crossed the length of the
veranda, on the north exposure of the great square house and turned
into the spacious living room.
"I am going to my room, mamma," said the girl faintly. "I want to be
alone just a little."
She knew that her mother was watching her as she passed through the
living room and out through the double doors to the veranda at the
east. But she did not turn. She did not ask what her mother had
meant, she did not wish to know. She wanted just now more than
anything in the world, to be alone in her own room, to take from her
bosom the thing which she felt every one would know she had there, to
hide it where it would be safe.
To the east of the house in a little sheltered hollow her father,
twenty years ago, had planted an orchard. She could see the white and
delicate pink of the blossoms, could catch the hint of perfume that a
little frolicking breeze brought to her.
She heard voices out there and saw two men coming toward the house.
There came to her ears, too, the sound of cool, contemptuous laughter.
She knew who it was insolently jeering at the other, knew before she
saw them that it was the big, splendidly big fellow, as tall as Red
Reckless and heavier, who was known to her only as "Sledge" Hume. She
had heard her father say last night that both Hume and Arthur Shandon
were coming to-day upon some matter of business in which the three men
were interested.
"You're a little fool, anyway, Conway," the deep voice said with that
frank impudence which was a part of Hume.
Garth Conway, not a small man by two inches or fifty pounds, although
he appeared so beside his companion, made a reply which Wanda did not
hear in full, but which reached her sufficiently to tell her that the
two men were talking about some trifling matter of range management and
that his theory had provoked Sledge Hume's blunt comment. The two men
came on, Hume striding a couple of paces in front of Conway, until they
caught sight of her. Conway lifted his hat, his sullen eyes
brightening. Hume, staring at her with the keen eye of appraisal, did
not trouble himself to touch his hat and gave her no greeting beyond
one of his curt nods.
"They have not heard," Wanda thought with a little thrill of pity for
Garth Conway who was so soon to learn of the death of the man who had
been more like a brother than cousin to him. "Mamma will tell them."
She hurried down the veranda to her room which was at the far end, at
the southeast corner of the house. But she paused at the door as she
heard her mother's voice, shaken and tearful, and the reply that one of
the men made.
It was Garth Conway. As though the utterance were drawn from him by
the shock of the surprise, jerked from him involuntarily, he cried:
"Dead? Murdered? My God! And he and Wayne quarrelled. . . ."
"Go on!" It was Sledge Hume's heavy, colourless voice. "Just because
two men quarrel it doesn't mean that one kills the other, does it?"
"Garth!" cried Mrs. Leland. "You mustn't . . ."
"I didn't say that," cried Conway. "I didn't mean . . ."
Wanda waited to hear no more. She hurried into her room, to stand
there trembling behind the closed door, her face as white as that other
face she had looked upon earlier in the day.
"He didn't do it!" she whispered. "He didn't. I know he didn't."
But the thing which she carried in her bosom seemed to be demanding
rudely: "Must you shut your eyes to believe with your heart?" And if
other eyes than her own saw it?
There was her closet, the open door showing the party dresses she had
brought back from school. She shook her head. Her room was so plainly
furnished with just a little dressing table, her bed, a chair, a stand
with some wild flowers on it, a smaller table with half a dozen books
scattered about. Then her eyes rested on the big trunk which had not
yet been carried down into the basement.
Running to it she flung up the lid and jerked out the tray. The bottom
was half filled with odds and ends, stockings, slippers, linen. She
took the revolver from her bosom, dropped it to the bottom of the
trunk, covered it hastily with loose clothing, replaced the tray and
closed the lid. But she could not feel that her secret was safe until
she had found the key on her dressing table. The lock was troublesome,
it was always troublesome. She was down on her knees, had just heard
the little click which told her that the lock was fast, and was trying
to work the key out again when the door opened softly and her mother
came in.
For a moment the two women, motionless, looked at each other fixedly.
Then Wanda rose slowly to her feet, a little red flush colouring her
brow, a fear which she knew absurd and yet which she could not crush
down, rising into her fluttering breast. Then Mrs. Leland closed the
door behind her, and stood with her back to it.
"Will you tell me about it, Wanda, dear?"
Her voice was troubled; her frank eyes, so like her daughter's, were at
once sad and anxious.
"It is too horrible, mamma." Wanda closed her eyes tightly for a
moment, trying to shut out the picture which burned so in her brain.
Every little detail stood out in her memory clear cut and vivid, the
grass trampled into a rude circle, the hand that clung in death to what
it had last grasped in life, the grotesquely crumpled, huddled body.
"Tell me about it, Wanda." Her mother was looking into the frankly
distressed face, curiously. Wanda had again the uneasy idea that her
mother was wondering about the trunk which she had just locked, and
again a quick fear leaped up within her that she might guess the secret
it concealed.
"How did you happen to find him?"
"Shep was with me, running ahead. Shep found him."
"And some one had killed him?"
Wanda nodded, her lips tight pressed together, her hands twisting about
each other in her lap. For a moment there was silence in the little
room.
"Wanda, look at me, dear."
Her eyes turned, wondering, from the window and the orchard beyond, and
went swiftly to her mother. The words were very clearly a command now.
The voice was lowered a little but had grown more insistent. And it
seemed to her that Mrs. Leland's eyes had in them now something more
than sadness and anxiety, that they were suspicious. Again Wanda felt
the hot blood in her temples.
"What is it, mamma?"
"Who killed Arthur? Do you know?"
"Mamma!" she cried, startled. "Why do you ask that? What do you mean?"
"I want to know, dear. Do you know who killed him?"
"No." It was plain that she was troubled, it was equally as plain that
she spoke truthfully. "What makes you think . . . Why do you ask
that?"
"I thought," replied Mrs. Leland, a little uneasily, "that you might
have seen something, found something. . . ."
"No, no!" cried the girl impulsively. "I know what you mean. I have
no vaguest idea who could have done it!"
The older woman came across the room and sat down at her daughter's
side, putting her arm about the slender form.
"Wanda, dear," she said softly. "I am going to tell you something
which you don't know yet. Wayne quarrelled with Arthur last night!"
The girl's body stiffened convulsively. She wanted to spring up and
run out of the house to some hiding place in the old orchard and be
alone. But she answered, her eyes clear and truthful.
"I'm sorry. Oh, so sorry! Poor Wayne. That will make it so much
harder for him."
"Yes. It is going to make it hard for him, Wanda. Harder than you
have imagined." She paused as if considering the advisability of what
she had started to say, and then ended simply, hopelessly, "They are
going to think that Wayne shot him!"
"They mustn't!" cried Wanda hotly. "They haven't the right. It would
be thinking a lie, a wicked, hideous lie!"
Mrs. Leland shook her head sadly.
"Wanda," she went on quietly, "the first thing Garth said when I told
him was that Wayne had quarrelled with Arthur last night. I don't mind
so much what Garth says and does, but . . . I think that Martin is
going to suspect Wayne of this, if he doesn't already suspect him."
"But, surely father isn't so unjust, just because he doesn't like Wayne
. . ."
"If it were nothing more than just not liking him! Your father isn't
capable of a feeling that is merely negative about people, child. He
hated the boys' father; Wayne I think he hates as bitterly."
"But why, mamma? Surely there is no reason . . ."
"Men, strong men like your father, don't always wait for reasons,
Wanda," said Mrs. Leland gently. "He has never forgotten that had
circumstances been a very, very little different I might have married
the other Wayne Shandon. When we were married and the other Wayne
Shandon bought land so close to us your father was the angriest man I
ever saw. That was before your time, dear. He rode across the valley
the next day; he has never told me what happened but his face was still
white when he came home. There are only a few things which can stir
Martin into a passion like that."
"But, surely, mamma . . ."
"When the other Wayne Shandon married and the boys were born it made no
difference with Martin. When the other Wayne Shandon died and his wife
died and the boys were left the hatred in your father's breast did not
die with them. He transferred it to Arthur and the Wayne you know.
Toward Wayne especially it has grown strong and bitter."
"But why to him more than to Arthur?"
"Because, my dear, Wayne is his father over and over again! Because he
has the same red hair and the same eyes with the same way of laughing.
Because his voice is the same, his carriage is the same, his mad,
reckless heart the same. Because everytime that Martin sees the Wayne
Shandon that you know he sees the old Wayne Shandon I knew . . . and he
hated."
"But it can't be that if a man hates another, and he dies, the man will
go on hating his son just for being his son! Father is not so unjust
as that, mamma! He will not suspect Wayne of murder, of murdering his
own brother, just because of his father!"
Mrs. Leland's hands were interlocked tensely. "There are other
reasons, there will be other things remembered about the boy which will
make suspicion so easy."
"I know what you mean," the girl cried, breathing deeply. "He is
reckless, he is wild, I know. He gambles, he has quarrels with many
men. He does things that we would not do, but then we are women! He
does things that father would not do, but then father is not young any
longer! He is wild because his nature is inherited from his father;
it's in his blood, he's young and he has grown up with the far out
places. But he is not bad! He is not the kind of man to do a thing
like this. What do men call him, men who know him and what he is?
They don't call him Coward, they don't call him Cheat, they don't call
him mean or dishonest or ungenerous! They call him Reckless, Red
Reckless, and they love him! Oh, mamma, can't you see that it is
impossible . . ."
Mrs. Leland rose to her feet, her face grown suddenly pinched and white.
"I don't know," she said with a sigh.
"You believe it too!" cried the girl. "You think that Wayne Shandon
killed his own brother!"
A delicate flush stained her mother's cheeks.
"Wanda, child, you mustn't say that," she almost whispered. "I don't
believe it. I won't believe it. And if I did . . . Wanda, I'd
remember the man his father was, the gentleman, the true-hearted
gentleman, and I should say that I did not believe."
Then, turning quickly so that her wondering daughter could not see the
eyes that were blurred with a mist of tears, she left the room.
When she had gone Wanda snatched up the trunk key from her table and
thrust it quickly into her bosom. Then she sat down again on the edge
of her bed and stared out toward the orchard where the sunlight lay
bright and warm upon the apple blossoms . . . and saw only the quiet
body by Echo Creek, that and the face of the man people called Red
Reckless.
CHAPTER III
SUSPICION
Why had her mother come to her in such a way? Why had she been so
quick to see what people would say? Did she believe that Wayne Shandon
had killed Arthur; was she afraid that Wanda might have found something
that would incriminate him; and did she want to warn her of what the
inevitable result of such a disclosure would be?
And she had found something! She had known from the first sight of it,
half hidden by Shep's eager pays, that it was Wayne Shandon's. He had
shown it to her only last week.
"I am going to teach you to shoot as I shoot," he had laughed, bringing
the revolver out of his pocket. "Then I am going to give it to you.
And then you are going to make me a pretty bow and give me a pretty
smile and say, 'Thank you, Red,' as you did when I chastised your first
suitor! Remember, Wanda?"
"Only I don't call you 'Red' any more," she had laughed back at him.
"We're grown up now, you know, and Wayne is much more dignified
and . . . and respectful."
"And you can handle your own suitors now," he had retorted. "More
artistically and with equal finality!"
Only a week ago out there in the orchard where now the sunlight lay in
golden splashes over the fruit trees, she and Red Reckless had bantered
each other as they strolled toward the house where Arthur was sitting
on the veranda with her mother, watching them. It was a sparkling
morning like to-day's, and they had spoken of the old school days
before Mr. Shandon sent his two sons to the East to school, of the time
when she was eight and he was fifteen and he had "licked" a boy whom
she did not like but who was stubborn in vowing that the little girl
should eat a red cheeked apple he had brought her. A week ago, and now
Arthur Shandon was dead and men were ready to believe that Wayne
Shandon had killed him.
She sat very still, while her mind wandered in many directions. The
old days rose up vividly bringing back the young faces of Arthur and
Wayne and Garth Conway,--they had all played Prisoner's Base and
Anti-over at the little white school house down in the valley. She
remembered the day when a letter came from Mr. Shandon summoning Arthur
and Wayne and Garth to the East, and how merry the boys had been over
it. She missed them dreadfully after they went away until vacation
came and her own father had taken her with him on a tour of inspection
to his four other ranches, up and down the State. For three years she
did not see the three boys, their letters had ceased, and she was well
on the way to forget her playfellows. And then, when she was twelve
and Wayne Shandon nineteen, he had come back.
He had run away. He had quarrelled with his father, and Arthur had
tried to show him that he was unreasonable. Then the boy's hot temper
had flashed out at his brother and finally at Garth Conway who had long
been accustomed to thinking as Arthur Shandon thought. So the youth,
in whom love of adventure and hatred of restraint were already marked
characteristics, had sold his books, the saddle pony which his father's
generosity had given him, his guns and fishing tackle, in fact
everything which he might sell even to his spare clothing, had caught a
night train and come West again.
Wanda's mother had tried to reason with the boy when he came to them,
laughing at the trick he had played his father, full of mockery of the
hidebound ways of cities, and had wanted to send him back to Mr.
Shandon. She had cried a little over him and kissed him and talked
gently with him as was her motherly way. But Wanda's father berated
him severely and sternly and Wayne flushed and bit his lip and then
went away from them as he had gone away from the East.
More years, happy years for Wanda Leland, sped by and she did not see
the boy. Both Arthur and Garth came in the long summer vacations to
Mr. Shandon's range and were frequent visitors at the Echo Creek place.
Word came now and then of Wayne Shandon, sometimes by infrequent and
unsatisfactory short letters from him, more often in elaborately
embroidered rumour from men making long trips across the country. He
had gone to work for a cattle outfit, taking a dollar a day and doing
an ordinary cowboy's work. Even before he was twenty-one, men called
him Red Reckless. He had learned to gamble, and to gamble for big
stakes. He played poker; he took his chance with the "bank"; but he
loved the dice. They were quicker; a man could "make or break" at one
throw. It was his way to hazard everything on a throw, to laugh if he
won, to laugh if he lost.
Rumour said that he had been shot by a notorious gambler, Dash Dulac;
and had come near dying; that he had shot another man up at Spanish Dry
Diggings where he had rushed with a frantic flood of men on news of a
golden strike; that he had been sucked away with another flux of gold
seekers to the Yukon country where he had lived lawlessly with his
lawless companions; that he had drifted back to the lumber camps of the
mountains; that at last he had returned to the cattle country.
Wanda had gone away to school in the East, spending only her summers
upon the Echo Creek ranch. She had seen very little of Wayne Shandon.
When Mr. Shandon died, leaving his wide reaching cattle range to his
elder son, Arthur had come promptly to take charge of the Bar L-M
Outfit, and Garth Conway had come with him as foreman and general
manager under him. Arthur, whose affection for his stormy souled
brother had lasted strong through the years, had at last prevailed upon
Wayne to "come home" and to go to work for him. That had been a year
ago.
A light knock at her door brought back her wandering thoughts to
to-day, to Arthur Shandon, to the suspicion which was so quickly
lifting its venomous head. She rose from the bed, pushed back the hair
which had fallen unnoticed into confusion about her cheeks, and said
softly,
"Come in, mamma."
"We were just going to have lunch when you came, Wanda," her mother
said quietly. "You must come and have a cup of tea."
"Mamma! I can't."
"But you can!" Her mother smiled a little at her and patted the
restless hand she took in her own. "You had a very early breakfast and
you must have a cup of tea."
Together they went back to the dining room.
"Where are Garth and Mr. Hume?" asked Wanda.
"They have gone . . . with the others, dear," Mrs. Leland told her.
The two women sat down in silence. Wanda forced herself to drink half
of her tea and pushed the cup away from her. She got swiftly to her
feet and leaving the room, went out upon the north veranda, where she
saw Julia, the cook, standing at the window, her red hands upon her
broad hips, her eyes even redder than her hands. On the window sill
were half a dozen fresh, hot pies which Julia had made for "the
boys" . . .
Wanda bit her lips and her eyes went whither her mother's had gone,
down the trail along which the men had ridden to the creek.
It seemed a very long time before she saw them. The wagon, with Jim
driving slowly and carefully, climbed over a ridge and wound its way
down into the valley. Her father, Garth, and Sledge Hume, were riding
behind it, abreast and close together. Wayne Shandon farther back was
riding alone, his head down, his hat drawn low over his brows.
At last she could see the faces shaded by the wide brimmed hats. They
were strangely alike in their hard, set expression, the gravity which
told little. These were not, any of them, men given to wearing their
deeper emotions on their sleeves. Her eyes ran to Wayne Shandon's face
first. It was white, the mouth was sterner than she had ever thought
Red Reckless' laughing mouth could be, the eyes were hard and
inscrutable.
From him she looked anxiously at her father, then at Sledge Hume, then
at Garth Conway. And these faces, stern like Wayne's, sent a little
shiver of fear through her.
Her mother went out to meet the wagon, crying quietly. Wanda felt the
tears rush with a hotness like fire into her own eyes, and then she
turned and hurrying out of sight of the slow procession ran down to the
orchard. She was lying there, face down, sobbing like a child, when
she felt a shadow over her, heard a man's spurs jingle, and knew who it
was that had come out to her.
She looked up at him, wondering.
"Wanda," he said very quietly, his voice strangely steady, "it was good
of you to give him your hat. If I were dead and you did a thing like
that for me I think I should come back to life to kiss your dear hands."
This was so like him! Oh, just the thing Red Reckless would do! The
little thoughtful act of hers had stirred him more deeply than most men
are moved even by big things; and the impulse had come to him to go
straight to her and thank her. And he was a man who obeyed impulses.
The other men had entered the house for their lunch. It seemed
horrible to her that people should be able to eat at a time like this.
Wayne Shandon spoke to her again.
"Your father is going to let Jim go with me," he said. "We are going
to El Toyon. Then I am going to take him back East."
"East!" she exclaimed,
"Yes. I have a fancy he'd like to be buried close to dad."
"You are coming back soon?"
"Immediately. Within ten days, I think. Good-bye, Wanda."
"Wait a minute," she hesitated. "I want to think."
She had not meant to tell him so soon, in the first shock of the death,
about what she had found. But he was going away, and he ought to know,
it was his right to know.
"Will you wait here for me a moment, Wayne?" she asked looking
pitifully up into the face of the man whose grave eyes were fixed upon
her. "Until I run to the house and get something?"
She was glad then that the other men were able to eat, and that her
mother and Julia were waiting on them. Hastening back to her room, she
took the revolver from its hiding place in her trunk, slipped it into
her blouse and ran back to the orchard.
"Wayne," she whispered coming close to him, suspicious of every little
sound in the orchard, fearful of an approaching footstep. "I found
something near Arthur. I did not tell any one. As you are going away
I had better tell you."
She held out the revolver. The sunlight fell on it, glinting brightly
from the polished silver. Wayne Shandon stared at it frowning, as
though he could not or would not believe his eyes. Slowly a deeper
pallor crept into his white face. Then a terrible look which the girl
could not read came into his eyes.
"Good God!" he whispered hoarsely. "You found that near him?"
Suddenly he put his hand out and took it. His fingers touched hers.
They were as cold as ice.
"Wanda," he said, his voice frightening her, it was so hard and
unfamiliar, "you were good to give it to me."
That was all. She felt vaguely that his mind was groping for other
words which it could not find. He slipped the revolver into his
pocket, turned and left her.
From the orchard she watched him ride away. Jim was driving the two
big greys, while Shandon followed close behind the wagon, sitting very
straight in the saddle, his face telling her nothing. . . . She sank
back upon the grass under the apple tree and lay still, staring up at
the patches of blue seen through the green and white of the branches
and blossoms.
When at last she went back to the house she heard her father's voice
lifted angrily. He was talking to her mother and the name flung
furiously from his lips was the name of Wayne Shandon.
"Hush, Martin," protested Mrs. Leland. "You mustn't . . ."
Martin Leland, his face red, his mouth working wordlessly, swept up his
hat and went away to the corrals by the stable. Wanda saw his eyes as
he brushed by her and she shivered, drawing away from him.
Garth Conway had already gone, riding the half dozen miles to the Bar
L-M to carry word of the death of its owner, and to assume entire
charge there until Wayne should return. Sledge Hume was loitering down
by the stable.
The day passed, strangely silent. No reference was made in the Leland
household to the tragedy which had stirred each member of it so deeply,
so differently. Throughout the long afternoon Martin Leland remained
among his cattle and horses, often flaring into anger at trifles. Mrs.
Leland was in her room, alone, suffering as she might have suffered had
Arthur and Wayne been the sons nature had denied to her. Wanda
wandered restlessly back and forth, from the house to the stable, about
the yard, where the pigeons whirled and circled and cooed.
The days which followed were like this one, silent, tense, expectant.
It was as though each one of these people was waiting for something,
all but breathless. MacKelvey, a heavy set, quick eyed man, the county
sheriff, came one day and talked long with Martin Leland. The two sat
for an hour on the corral fence below the stable. After that MacKelvey
went away and the waiting, the tense expectancy was more marked than
before.
The tenth day came and went its laughing, blue way. Wayne Shandon did
not come with it, but Garth Conway rode over that evening. He had had
no word from Wayne, although he was expecting him hourly. Two weeks
passed, and still no word from Wayne. One by one, slowly, heavily the
days went by.
Then at last Garth Conway rode again to the Leland ranch house and
brought tidings of Wayne. He had tired of New York, but he was not yet
coming West. Instead he was sailing for Europe, and would probably go
down into Africa for some hunting.
"Where does he get the money?" demanded Martin Leland sharply.
Garth's short laugh was rather full answer. But he elaborated it into
words:
"I am to rush a forced sale of cattle," he said, lifting his shoulders.
"He wants two thousand dollars in a hurry. God knows what for. He is
going to fritter his property away just as he fritters away everything!"
Leland sprang up from his chair, his two fists clenched and lifted high
above his head, his eyes blazing.
"Martin! Martin!" cried Mrs. Leland.
He dropped his hands to his sides and turned away, the words on his
tongue checked.
"Dear God," Wanda prayed within her soul. "Let him be a man. Let him
come back soon. Before every one believes he did that thing,
before . . . they send for him!"
CHAPTER IV
THE WHITE HUNTRESS
Two months, filled with the clean breath of outdoors, had softened the
memory of that stark tragedy upon which Wanda had come at the edge of
Echo Creek. Not forgotten, never to be wiped clean from the memory,
still the keen horror was dulled, the harsh details blurred, the whole
dreadful picture softened under the web which the spider of time weaves
over an old canvas.
Again life was glad and good and golden. Again youth was eager and
hopeful and merry. The death which had come and changed the world had
gone, leaving the world as it has always been.
Wanda and Gypsy and Shep saw much of one another. They were all very
happy, perhaps because they were very busy. Full of enthusiasm that
was at once gay and serious Wanda had thrown herself into her "Work"
immediately upon returning home in the early springtime. Before the
tragic event which for the time had driven her life out of its groove
she had already won for herself the title, bestowed merrily by Wayne
Shandon, of the "White Huntress." Her "work," to which she gave up so
many hours of each day, was purposeful, steadily pursued, and brought
her a vast pleasure. The game she hunted was the squirrel tossing his
grey body through the branches of pine and cedar, the quail calling
from the hillsides, the cottontail scampering through the underbrush,
the yellowhammer, the woodpecker, the wide winged butterflies sailing
through the orchard and across the meadow lands. The weapon with which
she hunted was a camera which she carried in its black case slung over
her shoulder or hanging from the horn of Gypsy's saddle.
Reared since babyhood in a land where men and women were few and where
the wild things of the forests were many and unafraid, she had long ago
come to look upon the little, bright eyed woodland folk as her
playmates. Many of her childhood sorrows and joys were linked with
their fates. Her first great grief had occurred when she was ten years
old and Jule, her brown bear cub,--named after the cook to whom he bore
in the child's eyes a marked resemblance, a slight and necessary
variation in the termination of the name taking care of the matter of a
difference in sex,--came to an untimely end through the instinctive and
merciless conduct of Shep's grandparents. The house was filled with
chipmunks who frightened Julia, to whom they were "jest rats, drat
'em," and who raided the kitchen systematically. A trained grey
squirrel barked from the trees above the house, and pet rabbits were
numerous and unprofitable about the vegetable garden. At the age when
little girls in the cities were dressing and undressing their dolls,
Wanda was taming a palpitating heart in some little fury [Transcriber's
note: furry?] breast or leaning breathlessly, like a small mother bird
herself, over a nest in the grass watching eagerly for the tender bills
to peck and chip their way out into the wonderful world.
It was but natural therefore that after her childhood had gone and she
had outgrown her passion for numberless pets overrunning the house just
as her sisters in the cities had outgrown their pleasure in dressing
and undressing dolls, she should become the "White Huntress." She
loved more than ever the wildness of the forest lands, and the ways of
the woodland things were wonderful and mysterious to her. And now,
from a new angle, they were her study.
There were days when she rode far out from the ranch house, her lunch
at her saddle strings, to be gone until dusk or after the stars came
out. She would leave Gypsy tethered where the grass was deep and rich,
command Shep to lie down and see that nobody ran away with her outfit,
and then tramp off alone, carrying her camera. She knew how to climb
up into the tree and to screen herself behind the foliage, so that she
might watch the mother bird and her ways, and find out when she should
expect the joyous miracle of new life.
When the eggs were hatched Wanda was ready. Days before she had chosen
the exact spot on the particular limb where she would place her camera.
She had clothed herself as the springtime clothed the forests. A soft
blouse of green, short skirt and stockings of green, little cap of
green and green moccasins. She crouched upon the broad limb of a cedar
or clung more hazardously to the branch of a pine, the tone colour of
her costume making no discord with the dusky sheen of the waving
branches, and watched and waited. So, when "hunting" was good she had
a picture of the mother bird perched upon the edge of the nest in which
the eggs lay, a picture of the nest with the little, new birds obeying
the first command of nature, a picture of the parents feeding them the
first worm or berry or rebellious bug, a picture of the trial flight
when soft young bodies essayed independence on unskilful wings.
At first the girl had been merely an amateur in the early, sweet sense
of the word. Then one day she saw a couple of pages in an illustrated
magazine devoted to such photographs as these she was playing with.
They were better than hers, since the man who had taken them was a
trained artist as well as a lover of the wild; and they had been at
once a disappointment and an inspiration to her. Then, upon another
day, her father who made little comment upon her pastime, handed her a
box from the express office in which she found a camera with a lens
that would do its part if she learned to do hers. And that was when
she threw herself so enthusiastically into her "work."
"I am going to have a page of pictures in that same magazine," was her
way of thanking him. "And mine are going to be better!"
She flushed a little at his smile, but when she had gone away and was
alone with her new possession and a world of possibilities, her chin
was very firm.
She had her own studio in the attice above the dining room, developed
plates and films there, and descended the ladder into the hallway
flushed with triumph or vexed with disappointment as her efforts proved
to be good or bad. The mistakes had been many at first; they were few
now.
She became a student of the "Home Life of the Wild Things." They all
interested her, they all posed for her, squirrel and bird and
butterfly. Inevitably she began to specialise, but her specialisation
was not in one species but rather in one process, in the dawning and
budding life of the young in the real "home life" before the new
fledgling or tiny furred body left the nest for an independent life and
a future nest of its own. The wild mates at work upon the house which
instinct prompted was to be of use soon, the construction of a swinging
pocket hung high up by an oriole, this was a part of the home life,
just as essential a part of it as the covering of the eggs, the feeding
of the young.
Before the year had swelled and blossomed into full mid-summer she had
a pupil. It was her mother. Mother and daughter had always been more
to each other than the terms commonly imply, very nearly all that they
should connote. They had been friends. Here where the solitudes were
mighty and vast, where long miles and hard trails lay between homes and
where women were few, they had had but themselves to turn to when need
or desire came for the company of their own sex. Mrs. Leland had
remained young, in part because hers was a happy, sunny nature, in part
because she had had the fires of youth replenished from the
superabundant glow of girlhood in her daughter.
But now that the summer came with monotony and silence, now that Arthur
Shandon came no more, that Wayne seemed to have forgotten the range
country, that Garth Conway was busy every day with the entire
management of a heavily stocked cattle outfit, there were long, quiet
days at the Echo Creek.
"Wanda," Mrs. Leland said one day, a little wistfully. "Can't I come
with you and take a peep first hand into the homes of your wild
friends? I'll be very still, I'll stay with Shep and Gypsy if you want
me to."
Wanda, at once contrite and happy, was filled with apologies and
explanations. She had had no thought that her mother would find an
interest in her "play." But if she would come, if she would like to
come, oh, she would show her the most wonderful discovery. . . .
So mother and daughter rode out together that day with lunch and
camera, and that night worked together in Wanda's attic studio over a
highly satisfactory film. The older woman's interest became as steady,
as enthusiastic in a deeply thoughtful way, as Wanda's. She learned to
love each day's adventure as warmly as did her daughter, she came to
have the same tender joy in the unexpected discovery of some new phase
of the home life of the wild.
"In all of your hunting you are missing something, my White Huntress,"
she said one day. "Something which I have discovered!"
Wanda smiled brightly at her over the top of a new picture, pleased
with her mother's interest no less than with the print in her hands.
"What is it, mamma?"
"I am not going to tell you yet. But to-morrow when we go out for the
oriole's nest, I am going to take your old kodak!"
As they rode the five or six miles to the spot where they were to do
the morning's "hunting" Wanda wondered what it was she had missed that
her mother had noticed. But she promptly forgot about it when she
climbed the great pine which, for her mother's purpose, was so happily
situated close to a cliff. She noted with a bright nod of approval as
she edged far out upon a horizontal limb that her mother had made her
own way up to the cliff top. Long she waited that morning, patient and
happy and still, her camera set in front of her, before she got the
exposure she wanted. And she did not hear the other click of the other
machine, did not know that her mother had been as patient and as
contented waiting to get the picture she wanted of Wanda as Wanda had
been in snapping the bird and the nest and the young, hungry mouths at
the threshold.
That afternoon they developed and printed, each her own pictures. And
when Mrs. Leland had finished she showed Wanda what she had done.
There was the picture of Wanda, far out upon the great limb, eager and
watchful, her camera ready, the oriole's nest swinging before her, the
mother bird just dropping down to it. And below and beyond were the
ground, looking immeasurably distant, the fir and pine branches, the
forest of trees.
"You see, Wanda, what you have overlooked?" Mrs. Leland's eyes were
unusually bright. "You have dozens of pictures that are wonderful,
pictures that you strove for for weeks, months at a time! One looks at
your picture and sees that it is wonderful, but does not understand how
wonderful. You cling to a branch or a tree trunk or the side of a
cliff, fifty or a hundred and fifty feet of space below you, and take
your picture. People look at the picture and do not see that the
wonderful thing, the interesting thing, is how you got it!"
"But . . ." began Wanda.
"But," Mrs. Leland laughed happily, "just listen to me a moment, miss.
You are going on with your pictures and I am going to follow you very
humbly and take other pictures to show how you get them. We'll send
both sets to your magazines and you'll see if mine aren't snapped up
just as quick as yours!"
So the relationship of mother and daughter which had grown into that of
a warm, intimate friendship now developed into closer, more intimate
companionship. Together they found bright, brimming days that
otherwise might have been dull and empty.
Wanda came to realise that a woman who is forty may be, in all
essentials, as young as a girl of twenty, and that the added score of
years while it brings truer insight and perhaps a steadier heart does
not quench ardour or deaden the emotions.
"Mamma," she said one day, looking up brightly from the development of
a film from her mother's kodak, "you are just a girl yourself!"
And Mrs. Leland was just girl enough to flush, and youthful enough to
laugh as musically as her daughter.
Thus, as the days went by and they were frequently alone together,
Martin Leland being often away on the business upon which he and Arthur
Shandon had entered with Sledge Hume, the two women were not lonely.
Mrs. Leland accompanied Wanda everywhere to take pictures showing the
girl climbing for a lofty bird nest, clinging to the cliffs at the
upper end of the valley, crouching hidden among the bushes waiting for
a rabbit to hop into the picture, even on the deer "hunt" they had
already begun.
So the late summer slipped by more swiftly in its smooth channel than
ever, the leaves in the orchard yellowed with the fall, the light green
tips upon the fir branches turned dark green, the cattle were driven
down to the lower valleys along the creeks, and the first snows of
winter dimmed the shortening days.
With the passing of the summer, Garth Conway came again to be a
frequent visitor at the Echo Creek ranch house. Since the letter from
Wayne Shandon in New York he had had but one communication from the man
who now owned the Bar L-M. It had been characteristically short,
written in London.
"I am leaving the destiny of the cows In your competent hands," Wayne
wrote. "I am legally giving you a power of attorney. This authorises
you to run the outfit as you judge best. Make what sales you want to
to pay the boys and yourself. Bank the money or re-invest for
improvements and more cattle. The Lord knows when I'll come back . . .
provided the Devil has told Him."
And then, in a postscript, hastily scribbled he had added,
"I have made my will . . . Imagine me making a will! . . . and if I
don't come back at all the outfit is yours. Love to the Lelands."
And then, as a second afterthought, he had scrawled at the top of the
note.
"A joke on you in case I shouldn't come back, Garth! I want you to
sell some cows and send me another two thousand. But I promise not to
do it again."
Garth told his news in the living room where the family had been
listening to the music of Wanda's lilting young voice with her mother's
piano accompaniment when he came in. Mrs. Leland's smiling face grew
clouded and distressed and her eyes turned involuntarily to her
husband. Martin Leland sprang to his feet in sudden wrath.
"Hell's bells!" he shouted angrily. "Two sacrifice sales in less than
a year! Four thousand dollars! And what has he done with it? Got
drunk, chucked it away across race courses and card tables . . . Would
to God I had done what it was my duty to do, that . . ."
"Martin!" cried Mrs. Leland. "Martin, dear!"
He stopped abruptly and sank back into his chair. For a little while
there was silence, heavy and painful. Wanda's eyes grew misty. Not
once since that day in the spring had she been disloyal to Red
Reckless, whom she had known in his boyhood, who had fought her early
battles for her, who had been the plumed knight of her early girlhood.
She told herself now that he had not come back because he could not
bear to return yet to the place where he and his brother had spent so
many happy days together, that if he was living wildly now, scurrying
up and down the world and flinging away his inheritance, it was because
he had felt his brother's loss far more than he had let them know, that
he was going his pace swiftly to forget what lay behind. And again
there rose in her heart the mute prayer that he might come back and be
a man and show them all that they had not judged him fairly.
Garth glanced swiftly at the faces of these three people who had heard
his news with such varied emotions, and went on to break the silence
none of them had noticed.
"Matters are going rather well on the range," he said quietly. "I sold
a hundred head at an average of ninety-seven dollars last week and was
able to bank the entire nine thousand, seven hundred. Maybe," with a
quick smile, "it will be just as well if he doesn't come back in a
hurry."
"Oh," cried Wanda impulsively. "That is ungenerous of you! After
Wayne says that he is leaving everything to you in his will, too!"
"I don't mean to be ungenerous or yet ungrateful," replied Garth a bit
stiffly, flushing under the girl's reproachful eyes. "I only
meant . . ."
"Wanda," said her father sharply, "you should be ashamed of yourself!
Garth has not been ungenerous and you have. And he is right. It would
be the best thing for Wayne himself as well as for the range if he
doesn't come back for a long time. Garth is working hard for the
interests of both. And if any one should be grateful to the man who is
running his range for him it is that young spendthrift. You are not
thinking, Wanda."
The girl bit her lip and turned away. And she did not make the apology
her father expected. Dimly it seemed to her that they were all over
ready, over eager to condemn the man whose one crime had been mere
heedlessness, who was surely hurting no one but himself, but who
offended their ideas in refusing to take life seriously and bear the
common burden of responsibility.
"After all," said Mrs. Leland a little hurriedly, "Wayne is only a boy.
Oh, he's a man in years, of course, but then some people are fortunate
enough to carry their youth with them a long time before it drops off.
And," with a smile, "he says he won't do it again!"
Martin Leland smoked his two pipefuls of strong tobacco and then
departed to attend to some correspondence. Mrs. Leland soon slipped
away to her book and easy chair and cushions in a corner. Until ten
o'clock Wanda and Garth bent together over a big scrap book containing
the latest additions to the home life of the wild.
Soon afterward even Garth Conway's visits to the Leland home stopped.
November came with many dark days and an occasional flurry of snow.
The ground might at any time now be covered, the passes choked with the
soft drifts, the valleys hidden. The cattle must be moved down the
mountains to the foothills where each year they wintered. The Bar L-M
buildings were closed, the heavy wooden shutters put up, the corrals
deserted until thaw time. Conway with his men and cattle would not
come again until springtime came with them.
And over the Echo Creek ranch the silence of the summer passed into the
deeper silence of winter. Leland's cattle and men had gone already to
his winter range; there was no one at home excepting Mrs. Leland,
Wanda, Julia, and Jim who remained to do what little work there was to
be done during the term of "hibernating." Martin's interests were too
big for him to stay here had he desired to do so; his family would not
see him again for the two months or so during which he remained outside.
It was not the first year that the Echo Creek house was not shuttered
and closed for the winter. Mrs. Leland had sometimes gone with her
husband to spend the storm swept months of the year either at one of
his other ranches or in the city, and sometimes she had stayed here.
This winter she had no particular desire to leave her comfortable home
for the makeshift of a San Francisco hotel and Wanda was eager to stay.
"You'll be cooped up within ten days like shipwrecks on a raft," Martin
Leland said when he managed to make a trip back to the ranch in
December. "We're in for a hard winter. I wouldn't be surprised if I
couldn't get in again or you get out before well on into February or
March."
He had made a flying trip between storms, hastening from El Toyon to
White Rock over the mail route, coming in from White Rock through the
still open pass through the mountains. His one object in coming had
been to try to induce his women folk to leave Echo Creek. And the same
day, seeing the threat of bad weather, he went out again, on skis and
alone.
There were busy days for all four who remained at the ranch house in
making preparations for idle, comfortable days to follow. Jim brought
vast quantities of wood from the basement, piling it high in the corner
of the living room where it would be convenient for feeding the deep
throated fireplace whose rocks would stay warm all night, hot all day,
for many weeks. From the yard he brought more wood, piling it in the
basement until there were only narrow passageways between the slabs and
logs and the finer split stove wood. Julia superintended the placing
of her kitchen supplies, secreted those little delicacies which she
would require at Christmas time, arranged her canned goods and
perpetually fussed and rearranged in her storeroom. Meanwhile Mrs.
Leland and Wanda were everywhere at once, overseeing the moving of
beds, the shifting of furniture, the making cosy of the home against
the siege. And then, howling and shrieking, with deep voice shouting
across the pine forests, the winter came in earnest.
Martin Leland had read the signs aright; it was to be a hard winter.
There came a wind storm that lasted without cessation for three days;
the branches of the cedars about the house tossed like long arms
grappling with an unseen foe; here and there a dead limb was wrenched
from a tree trunk and hurled far out to be buried in the snow which
began to fall in small, hard flakes almost congealed to hail. Then,
the three days gone, the wind died down suddenly, the flakes grew
larger, softer, the snow clung tenaciously to the trees and fences and
eaves of house and stable. Jim in arctic shoes and mittens, his ears
lost under the flaps of his cap, having sighed and bestirred himself
from his snug comfort by Julia's stove, got his shovel and went up on
the housetop.
While the bleak, chill days rushed by Wanda prepared happily for the
fine weather which would come, when the sun reflected back from many
feet of fluffy snow would warm the air, when in the high, dry altitudes
the sparkling, Christmassy world would become a rarely beautiful thing,
when she could leave the house and penetrate deep into a solitude which
was as different from the solitude of the summer forestland as day is
from night. She brought down from the attic her own favourite pair of
skis and saw that they were fit. The long slender bits of pine, light
and graceful with their running grooves glistening, their turned up
ends like Turks' slippers, she stood on end in the living room while
she gave them a new coat of white shellac. Her snowshoe pole she
tested, making sure that it had sustained no injury during its long
banishment to the dark places of the attic, and that it could be
trusted in the work she would call upon it to do. She gathered the
winter out-door things which she had not used for two years, the white
sweater that clung close to her slim, pliant body; the white tasseled
hat, mitts, leggins, white bloomers. And then, when a blue and white,
laughing day came, and the air was clear and warm, the branches of the
trees sagging under their diamond pricked festoons of snow, she left
the house, now in truth the White Huntress.
Camera and field glasses went with her; for lunch a bit of jerked beef
and a piece of hard chocolate. For to-day she began her winter work.
Again she was hunting. The forests as she slipped through them were
very still and seemed void of all the life that had swarmed here until
the snows came. But she would see snow birds, she might find a coyote
or a big snow-shoe rabbit. She would take pictures, too, such wintry
pictures as she had never seen, the world locked in the embrace of
winter, glistening icicles as big as her body, cliffs thrown into
strange, grotesque shapes, fields of untracked white with perhaps the
sweep of a stream seeming ink black against the dazzling white
background.
And she thrilled to the crunch of thin crust underfoot which
yesterday's thaw and last night's freeze had formed, the whip of the
dry air in her face, the exhilaration of the long, swift dash as she
glided from the crest of some ridge, a silent, graceful creature, into
the hollow beyond. Her body bent a little forward, her snow-shoe pole
horizontal as a tight rope walker holds his balancing rod, the white
world slid away beneath her, little sinks or humps in the apparent
smoothness of the snow demanding the sudden leap which shot the blood
tingling through the eager body. For the light skis with their three
coats of shellac carried her down the steeper slopes with the wild
speed of a bird skimming the winter whitened earth.
This first day she took an old favourite way which led her up a gradual
slope straight southward until at last she paused, breathing deeply,
upon the crest. Far behind her she could see the smoke of the ranch
house rising from a clump of cedars; straight ahead the black line of
the river. And now, balancing a moment, gripping her pole firmly,
settling her feet securely in the ski-straps, she shot downward, taking
the steep dip which would lead after a little into a long curve and so
bring her flashing through the trees down to the river three miles away.
Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks glowing, her body warm with the
sun's heat and the leaping blood within her, when she straightened up
and touching the end of her pole lightly against the snow came to a
stop near the river. It was swollen and black, a mighty, shouting
thing, the only thing about her whose voice had not been stilled by the
snow.
Her eyes turning found close at hand the first tracks she had seen this
morning, fresh tracks of a big rabbit.
"I must have frightened him," she thought. "He's gone on upstream."
She turned upstream as the rabbit had done, noiselessly following his
trail. And, turned eastward by a rabbit's track, she followed
unconsciously, unsuspectingly, the imperious bidding of her fate. Her
own life, the lives of two men would have been widely different had
Wanda Leland turned westward instead of eastward this morning.
Already she was a mile above the bridge across which the road ran to
the Bar L-M. From where she was a stranger might not suppose that man
or horse could find a place to cross in many times that distance; for
here the river banks were steep cliffs, never lower than ten feet,
rising often abruptly to thirty. Between them the water raged,
thundering over falls, leaping into deep pools where the sucking eddies
were never still.
And as she moved on upstream, further yet from the bridge, the rocky
banks grew steeper, drew nearer to each other, until suddenly the
plunging river was lost to her, its thunder muffled. Wanda could see a
thick mat of snow from a great, flat topped rock on the far side
curving downward, inward, as if from the eaves of a house, the long
icicles like sharp teeth set in a monster's gaping jaw.
Close along the edge of the cliffs the course of the fleeing rabbit
led, while Wanda's skis left their parallel smooth tracks in a straight
line a score of feet back from the steep bank. She slipped silently
through a clump of firs, peered around the branches bent down by the
heavy snow, and saw the snow-shoe rabbit where he had stopped for a
moment. He was a big fellow, the biggest she had ever seen, crouching
low, his round eyes bright and suspicious, as he trusted to his colour
to protect him. She brought her camera swiftly out of its case.
"There's a chance to get him, after all," she thought eagerly. "It
won't be much of a picture perhaps . . . just a white blur against a
white background . . ."
The camera clicked just as the rabbit leaped forward; she thought she
had caught him against the dark background of a fir from which much of
the snow had fallen. Then, just in front of the frightened animal a
little branch of a small pine, suddenly released of its weight of snow,
whipped up; a new terror came into the creature's panic stricken
breast; he stopped sharply, swerved, lost his head as one of his rattle
brained species is likely to do, ran directly toward the girl, swerved
again and running straight toward the river, essayed the impossible and
met destruction. He leaped far out across the water, attempting a jump
that none of his kind could have made safely, and fell short. The
furry body described a great valiant arc, shot upward for one flashing
second, dropped out of sight.
"Oh, I am so sorry," cried the girl contritely. "You poor little
thing."
The woodland tragedy moved her strangely, for she felt that, innocently
enough, she had caused it. She moved closer to see if by a happy
chance the rabbit had landed upon a rocky shelf far down, hoping that
after all she might in some way set him free.
Moving slowly, her camera again in its case, her pole touching the
snow, she approached until she could look down. Only the steep wall on
the far side, sinking straight and black into the swollen torrent, only
a little speck of white far down which might have been a struggling
body or a fleck of foam.
"The poor little thing," she said again. "He saw that the far bank is
lower than this one, and he was too frightened to guess the distance."
Musing, she thought that her skis were merely settling a little deeper
through the crust when she felt a slight sinking underneath. Then,
suddenly, she was aware that her skis were dipping downward, that she
was slipping. She tried hastily to draw back, she felt that she was
still slipping, that the polished surfaces of the skis were answering
the call of gravity, that she was being drawn closer, closer in spite
of her efforts . . .
She made a wild, frantic attempt to draw back, a quick terror gripping
her. The shouting river was calling to her, something was pulling at
her body steadily as a magnet pulls at a steel, the world was slipping
away under her, she was going the way the rabbit had gone . . .
Then she threw her body backward, twisting as best she could with the
skis clinging to her feet, clutching with her hands at anything her
fingers might touch. She heard a splash, knew that the overhang of
snow had dropped into the river, knew that one ski was hanging over the
brink. And then the hand that had gripped at the smooth snow sank down
and clutched the top of a small, hidden pine, she drew herself up and
back and in a moment, white, shaking she lay still, not daring to look
down.
CHAPTER V
THE HOME COMING OF RED RECKLESS
Winter went its white way, the spring brought a thawing sun,
innumerable muddy torrents and an occasional visitor, the robins and
blue birds began to troop back to the mountains. Martin Leland was at
home, his sturdier steers were in the valleys, Conway came back to the
Bar L-M and often visited the Lelands. Sledge Hume rode up from the
Dry Lands, fifty miles down the slope of the mountains and was often in
consultation with Martin and with Garth Conway.
Warm weather battled against the rear guard of winter, only patches of
soiled snow remained upon the north side of the ridges, in the narrow
cañons and upon the lofty summits of the peaks standing up about the
valleys. The early flowers dotted the valleys, more cattle were moved
in, and the season developed rapidly. Conway came frequently to talk
with Martin, to remain for supper, to chat with Wanda and her mother.
And then one day, unheralded, unlooked for, Red Reckless came home.
It was the supper hour, just after dark. Father, mother and daughter
were at the table, when there came a quick step upon the veranda, and
the joy which the gay springtime had put into Wanda's heart brimmed up
and spilled over.
"It's Garth," said Martin Leland lightly. "I expected he'd ride over
to-night."
"_It's Wayne_!" cried Wanda, already upon her feet.
"Wayne!" snapped her father, his face suddenly stern. "What are you
talking about?"
"I know his step. It is Wayne!"
Wanda had already run to the door, and flung it wide open. It was very
dark outside. The tall form of a man loomed strangely large, dimly
outlined against the black curtain of the night.
"Welcome home, Wanderer!" Wanda cried gaily.
Wayne Shandon came in, his big boots dusty with his ride, his red hair
catching fire from the light in the room, his eyes laughing, his lips
laughing, his voice laughing when he greeted Wanda with two eager
hands. He was the same Wayne Shandon who had ridden away a year ago,
the same Red Reckless he had ever been.
Mrs. Leland's startled surprise vanished swiftly before her joy in
seeing him. But Martin Leland's face went black, his eyes burned
ominously, it was as though he had been gripped with a choking,
speechless wrath.
"Wayne!" cried Mrs. Leland. "Where in the world have you come from?"
"From a place they call Hell's Annex, seven hundred miles inland from
the South African Coast," he laughed lightly. "My arrival timed just
to the minute for supper!"
He dropped Wanda's hands with a parting squeeze which was frankly
unhidden, strode over to Mrs. Leland whom he kissed resoundingly, and
put out a big, strong hand to Martin Leland.
For just a fraction of a second the two women knew that Leland was
hesitating, for an instant they waited fearfully, for what he might do.
Then he took the hand proffered him, his lips twitched into a hard,
forced smile and he said rather colourlessly,
"Well, Wayne, you've come home at last, have you?"
Wayne's answer was a laugh. He seemed filled with laughter to-night.
Evidently he had noticed nothing strange in Leland's greeting; he was
in the gayest of his gay moods. He had no opportunity to answer
Leland's words, for Julia, who had forgotten her usual slow, ponderous
method of travel bounced into the room like a wonderfully animated ball
at the sound of his voice, and he actually swept the two hundred pounds
of her off of her feet as he gathered the big woman up into his arms
and kissed her. Then Julia dabbed at her eyes and fled to her kitchen,
her emotions finding outlet in an instantaneous desire to make him a
pie, Wanda laid a plate for him and supper went on.
Chiefly because of Wanda's eager questions and Wayne Shandon's laughing
willingness to tell about his adventures, the abstraction on the part
of Martin Leland and the growing anxiety in Mrs. Leland's eyes went
unnoticed. Wayne was immoderately hungry as he first frankly confided
and then demonstrated, but he found opportunity between mouthfuls to
draw, in his sketchy way, the series of pictures which made up the year
of his wanderings. He had travelled from New York to London, he had
whizzed through Paris and dipped into Baden, he had been seasick on a
Mediterranean which wasn't blue, he had barked his shins on a pyramid,
he had been swindled out of a ridiculously large sum of money by a
little scientist in green spectacles who was out on a mummy digging
expedition, and he had gone into the interior after big game. He had
managed to take in a Derby and to pick a winner, he had made Monte
Carlo recognise that he had come,--although he did not go into detail
as to the manner of his departure,--and he had brought home a present
for everybody. The skin he had taken from a lion somewhere in some
remote jungle to sprawl, rug fashion in Wanda's room, where it created
no little havoc in the furniture arrangement and finally caused the
dressing table to be shifted to a corner to make place for the
enormous, gaping head with the fierce eyes; an Indian shawl for Mrs.
Leland, selected evidently for size and brilliance of pattern, very
nearly large enough to carpet the dining room and of an astonishing
combination of dark greens and riotous reds and royal purples; an
ornate scarf pin for Martin Leland who had as much use for a scarf pin
as a Mohammedan for a Bible; an exquisite set of chessmen for Garth
purchased with a quick eye to the subtle art which had gone into their
carving and with a fine disregard for the fact that Garth had existed
for thirty odd years without learning that the curveting progress of a
knight is in any way different from the ecclesiastical slant of a
bishop, completed the assortment of presents.
Garth himself came in as they were pushing back their chairs from the
table, throwing open the door with a merry, "Hello, folks," on his
lips. Then as he caught sight of Wayne who had leaped up and swung
about he stared, suddenly speechless, his mouth dropping open.
"Well, Garth, old boy," cried Wayne heartily. "Aren't you glad to see
me?"
Garth came forward then swiftly, his hand out-stretched. But his eyes
were still startled rather than glad, and they passed his cousin
turning, full of question, to Martin Leland.
"Of course I'm glad," he said, his voice a little uncertain. And then,
laughing, "You just surprised me out of my senses. Why didn't you
write that you were coming?"
"Because I'd rather travel three thousand miles to tell you about it
than write a letter. I'm amazingly glad to see you. How's everything?
How is the range making out?"
"Fine," Garth answered quickly. "You have come to stay? You will be
running the outfit yourself now?"
"Business to-morrow," retorted Wayne lightly. "It is after sundown and
business should be asleep."
"And does it wake at sunup?" Garth returned with an attempt at Wayne's
bantering mood, although a little suspicion of venom lay under the
words.
"I had a Mexican friend once," grinned Wayne by way of answer, "who was
the wisest man I ever saw. He used to say, 'The day is made to rest,
the night to sleep!' We will give our attention to Mañana when Mañana
comes. Wanda!" he cried suddenly in the old impulsive way, "will you
play something for me?"
Wayne and Wanda went to the piano. Mrs. Leland watched them, her face
a little troubled, a little wistful. Garth and Martin Leland, after
one swift exchange of glances, rose and went to the rancher's room
where they remained for a long time. When at last they returned to the
living room Leland glanced curiously at Wayne. He was sitting with
Wanda upon the sofa under the big wall lamp, examining her pictures.
Garth approached the sofa abruptly.
"We'd better be hitting the trail, Wayne, hadn't we?" he asked. "It's
nearly ten o'clock and you remember it's six miles to bed."
Reluctantly Wayne Shandon said his good nights, calling in to Julia
that he was going to expect a pie the next time he came, which would be
to-morrow if Garth would let him, and the two men went out to their
horses. Wanda, bright and happy, waved to the departing horsemen from
the door and came back into the room to drop naturally into the silence
which had fallen over her mother and father.
Long that night Wanda stared out through the darkness which lay about
the orchard with no thought of sleep. She had the feeling that no one
in the house was asleep yet, not even Julia whom she could hear now and
then moving as softly as physical conditions permitted in her room.
That her father and mother were awake, she knew from the drone of their
voices coming to her indistinctly.
The spirit of restless anxiety falling upon a household is a thing to
be felt through stick and stone and mortar. There had been no such
spirit here to-night until Red Reckless had come home. He had not
brought it with him, he had brought only his sheer madness of exuberant
life, and yet he had left this other thing behind him. Wanda wondered
what thoughts, what fears or evil premonitions troubled those other
unsleeping brains.
Her own thoughts fled back a year and clung fearfully about the
revolver with the pearl grip. She knew that the murder of his brother
still remained a mystery and that people do not like mysteries to go
long without solution. MacKelvey was sheriff, it was his duty, and it
was his habit, to bring some man to book for every crime committed in
the county. It was quite possible that the sheriff had been playing a
waiting game throughout the year, and that he was waiting for this man
to come back as he must do soon or late.
Meanwhile the man who was so vividly in Wanda's thoughts rode through
the silent night with his cousin, drinking deep of the peace of the
starlit night, finding an old familiar music in the hammering of his
horse's hoofs on the grassy hills. Silent himself while thinking of
other days and other rides, he did not notice how silent Garth was.
They topped the rocky ridge which stood as boundary line between the
two ranges, and swerved westward taking the long curve to the Crossing,
welcomed back to the home outfit by the great booming voice of the
distant river. Another mile and the river itself, flashing, turbulent
molten silver, swollen with the wet winter in the mountains, swept
shouting past them.
They turned upward along the river and raced wordlessly the greater
part of the remaining half mile to the Bar L-M corrals. When they drew
rein in the wide clearing in which stood range house, bunk house,
stables and corrals, there was no spark of light about. They unsaddled
swiftly, turned their horses loose with a resounding slap to send them
out toward the little enclosed pasture, and went up to the range house.
At the door of the men's quarters Wayne stopped.
"I think I'll drop in and say hello to the boys," he remarked, already
at the door.
"Are you crazy?" cried Garth. "They've been asleep two hours, man.
And they've got a big day's work ahead of them to-morrow."
"Oh, shut up, Garth," laughed Wayne good naturedly. "Don't you ever
think of anything but work? Come ahead, and watch me bring 'em to
life!"
He flung open the door and entered, Garth following in stony silence.
It was dark within the long, narrow room, although the starlight
gleamed feebly through the dirty window panes. Wayne found the lantern
upon the nail where it had hung when he was a boy, lighted it, and
turned the wick low so that there was only a wan light in the bunk
house.
"Where's Big Bill's bunk?" he whispered to Garth.
Chuckling softly he drew near the bunk which Garth indicated against
the wall at the far end of the room. He leaned forward, stooping low,
peering into the shadows. Big Bill was fast asleep, his great, deep
lungs expelling his breath regularly and mightily, his head with its
touseled ink black hair half hidden by the hairy arm flung up over it.
Wayne tiptoed away from the bunk, moved two chairs further back against
the other wall, and still chuckling with vastly amused anticipation,
again approached Big Bill's bedside.
He put out his hands slowly, gently, until they slipped into Big Bill's
arm pits. Then, his laughter suddenly booming out he bunched his
muscles and a black haired giant of a man in shirt and underdrawers was
jerked floundering out of his bunk to the middle of the room.
Big Bill's mighty roar of mingled astonishment and anger brought a
dozen cowboys leaping out of their bunks. In the dimly lighted room
their blinking eyes made out the forms of two men struggling, one in
his night dress, the other in hat and boots. One was Big Bill, for his
roar was an unmistakable as the roar of summer thunder. But the other?
"I've been hungering to get my hands on you for a year!" came the
laughing voice of the man in hat and boots. "You said that you could
roll me, Bill. Now go to it!"
He lifted the mighty body of the struggling, half wakened cowboy clean
off the floor, carried him across the room and slammed him down in a
chair.
"It's Red Reckless!" cried a voice from the group of stupefied men.
"He's come home!"
"You ol' son-of-a-gun!" bellowed Big Bill, half in the surly anger
which is the natural right of a man rudely awakened, half in tremulous
joy. "Wait ontil I git my eyes open good an' I'll roll you like you
was dough an' I'm makin' biscuits out'n you!"
Evidently he had his eyes "open good" before he had done talking. He
was upon his feet, the big, swaying body oddly like a clumsy black
bear's, his big hands lifted in front of him. And then he threw
himself forward, close to two hundred and fifty pounds of brawn and
bone hurled like a boulder from a catapult. Some one had turned up the
lantern wick. The black head and the red head from which the hat had
dropped came together, there was the thud of two strong bodies meeting
with an impact that brought a little coughing grunt from each, and Red
Reckless had done what any man must do before such a thunderbolt. He
was flung backward, went down, and the two big bodies struck hard upon
the bare floor. And above the crash of the falling bodies there were
two other sounds, Big Bill's grunt, and the laughter of Red Reckless.
They were down, and Big Bill was topmost. But by the laws of the game
a man must be forced back until his two shoulders touch the floor
before he is beaten. Wayne Shandon's left shoulder was still two
inches from the floor.
"You would wake a man up," grumbled Big Bill with that fierceness of
tone which spoke a moment of rare delight.
"I'm going to show you something, Bill," gasped Wayne, half choked with
the breath driven out of his lungs by the great bulk on top of him and
by the laughter within his soul which had not been driven out.
"Something I learned from a Jap about three feet high. It cost me a
hundred dollars and a broken collar bone. I'll let you off easier,
Bill."
The light was none too good, perhaps the boys were not yet wide awake.
They didn't know how the trick was done, and it wasn't at all clear to
Big Bill.
Wayne seemed to grow very limp beneath his hard hands and watchful
eyes. Ready for trickery Big Bill, while he bore down hard on the left
shoulder, and wrenched and twisted at the corded neck, expected
anything. He had considerably less respect for a Jap than for a horse,
looking upon the race as mimicking apes and not men at all, and he had
no wish to be bested by a Jap trick. Yet Big Bill didn't understand.
Somehow Wayne Shandon slipping out of Bill's grasp like an eel through
its native mud, had run an arm under his left arm pit, around his neck,
over his right shoulder. Wayne's left hand leaped to Big Bill's right
wrist. Bill felt that his neck was breaking, that his right arm was
broken. And then he knew that Wayne was upon his knees, that his own
two hundred and fifty pounds of big battling body were lifted high from
the floor, that he was jerked sideways and slammed down. And then the
boys were laughing and Wayne stood over him, laughing too, and he knew
that his two big shoulder blades had struck the floor together.
"It's a damn' Jap trick," he muttered, more than half angry now,
flinging himself to his feet. "White man's fightin' I c'n lick every
inch of you from red hair to toe nails."
But Red Reckless was laughing and shaking hands all round and Big Bill
found no one to listen to the explanations he made. One after another
the owner of the outfit greeted warmly the men who were working for
him. Then he swung about, and went back to Big Bill.
"Shake, Bill," he cried. "It was rather a mean trick to do you up
to-night but I couldn't wait until morning. I'll give you another
chance when you like."
Big Bill grinned and his hard brown hand shut tight about Wayne's.
"There'll be lots of chances," he said shortly, his voice fierce, his
black eyes very gentle. "You've come to stay, ain't you, Red?"
A look of vast disgust stole over Garth Conway's face.
"It's Bill and Red as if they're all dogs in one kennel," he muttered.
"It isn't hard to forecast what's going to happen to a range with a
boss like that!"
He waited a little restlessly for Wayne to finish the conversation into
which he had entered with the crowd of cowboys who seemed to have
forgotten that they had a day's work before them. But Wayne Shandon,
too, seemed to have forgotten. He was half sitting on the table, one
leg swinging, his quick hands rolling a cigarette from the "makings"
proffered by Tony Harris, his laughing eyes filled with the joy of home
coming, his tongue already busied with the answering of many rapid fire
questions. No, he hadn't seen all of the world; it was bigger than
they'd think. But he had played "gentleman's poker" with club dudes in
London, he had hunted with niggers and potted many strange things from
an alligator to a cow elephant, he had seen the pyramids--
While Garth lingered at the door, the other men, crowding closer to the
man at the table, grew into a charmed circle about him, a picturesque
congregation in their underclothes of grey and white and washed out
pinks and blues. Within five minutes after the defeat of Big Bill
every man of them was either making or smoking a cigarette with all
thought of their tumbled bunks forgotten. There were many demands for
first hand information concerning wild niggers and pyramids and the
ways of the jungle; there were many exclamations testifying in mild
profanity to startled wonderment. At last Garth, turning away, called
out,
"I say, Wayne, you mustn't forget it's getting late. There's a big
day's work for the boys to-morrow."
"This is my home coming celebration, Garth," Wayne laughed back at him.
"Hang the work, man. We'll have a half holiday to-morrow if the whole
outfit goes to pot."
Anything further Garth had to remark he said angrily to himself as he
strode away to the range house. And Wayne, with no further
interruption, explained how the games ran at Monte Carlo. Finally,
since there was nothing in the world he had learned to love as he loved
horses, he came to speak of the Derby.
"The greatest race in the world," he cried, slapping his thigh
enthusiastically. "Just because it's the straightest and the stakes
are right and the horses are as beautiful as women and as swift as
lightning!"
One o'clock came and they were talking horses and racing, the men now
upon common ground, their eyes bright with the tale retold of the
Kings' race. And before it was two Red Reckless was standing erect
upon his two feet, his eyes brighter than the rest, his voice leaping
out eagerly as he cried:
CHAPTER VI
THE PROMISE OF LITTLE SAXON
Rose-bud, the unlovely Chinese cook, made the dawn hideous in the range
house with his pots and pans and rattling stove lids. To him appeared
Red Reckless, touseled and sleepy eyed looking to the astonished
oriental's vision like an avenging demon, threatening to choke him to
death with his own pigtail and to roast him crisp and brown him in his
own oven if he didn't conduct himself with less noise in his pastime of
breakfast getting.
"Gollee!" Rose-bud found his tongue as Wayne disappeared into his
bedroom. "Led, him come back some more. Led, him boss now!" He stood
grinning in slant eyed cunning at the closed door. "Garth him all same
go bye-bye now, maybeso?" He pondered the question, with his evil
featured head cocked to one side. Then his grin became more profoundly
Chinese, more radiantly joyful. "All same hell pop all time now."
And he went about his preparations for breakfast in strange, complacent
silence, making his coffee twice as strong as he had made it for a
year, the way Red Reckless liked it.
Garth Conway breakfasted alone. A glance out toward the bunk house
against the fringe of trees at the far side of the clearing showed him
that there was no smoke there, that the men were not about. A little
angry spot glowing on each cheek he stepped out upon the porch as
though to bring these slumbering men to a swift awakening. But he
turned instead and came back into the dining room.
"You Chink fool," he flung at Rose-bud when his cup of coffee was set
in front of him. "I don't drink ink for breakfast. What's the matter
with you?"
Rose-bud wrapped his body in his long arms and his face in its childish
smile, lifted his vague hints of eyebrows archly and nodded toward
Wayne's room.
"Led, him come back," he said with unutterable sweetness. "Him like
coffee all same black as hell. Him boss now? Too bad. You damn fine
boss, Mis' Garth."
And he shuffled back to the stove leaving Garth scowling angrily after
him.
Garth breakfasted in morose silence, disregarding the many joyful
glances which Rose-bud directed upon him. Afterward he took out his
pipe and stuffed it full with an impatient finger. The hesitation
which had marked him last night seemed to grow with the slow hours of
the idle morning. He had long been absolute, unquestioned dictator of
the destiny of the Bar L-M, and he had grown naturally into the way of
regarding it half with the eye of its permanent master. It had not
only been his entirely so far as management was concerned for more than
twelve months, but there had been always the possibility that it would
be his to have and to hold, to do with as he thought best, if Wayne
should not come back. But Wayne had come back. The coffee was
eloquent of the fact; the slothfulness of the bunk house shouted it in
his ears. He felt a sense of irritation, of injustice.
"The men will sleep until noon," he growled savagely. "Good heavens,
is he crazy? Must he come back and chuck the whole thing to the dogs?"
There was nothing to do but smoke and wait for the next absurdity of a
man who had played ducks and drakes with everything he had ever had,
who was too big a fool to see--or care, which was it?--what was going
to happen when he had run to the end of his rope.
Wayne, rosy from head to foot from his rough bath towel, tingling with
the leaping life within him, showing no signs of the all but sleepless
night, came out to breakfast before Garth had finished his pipe. He
caught Rose-bud by the two shoulders, drove him back against the wall
and held him there while he spoke to him.
"I've a notion to jam you through into the other room, you yellow
heathen," he informed the cook whose smile was just a trifle uncertain.
"If the coffee is good I'll let you off."
Rose-bud's smile became radiant immediately. He poured out the black
beverage with the air of a magician conjuring a stream of gold from the
old coffee pot, and evinced as great a pleasure in watching Wayne
dispose of his breakfast as Wayne himself manifested in the act. Garth
came back into the room while his cousin was eating.
"Well, Wayne," he said. "What's the bill of fare for the day?"
Shandon nodded, swallowed and bade Garth a cheery "Good morning."
"To-day?" he repeated after his cousin. "I'm just going to get a live
horse between my legs and ride! Big Bill tells me that no man has
thrown a leg over Lightfoot's back since I left, and that she's just
full of hell and mustard and aching for a scamper. Bill knows where
she is; he's going with me to help round her up and then . . ."
"Well?" questioned Garth drily. "You're going to work on her to-day?"
Shandon laughed.
"Who said anything about work? You're growing to be an awful
sobersides, old fellow. Here I haven't been back twenty-four hours and
you're already suggesting that I shove my neck into the yoke. Now, you
ought to know better than that."
Garth drew deeply at his pipe, his lips tight about the stem.
"You haven't changed much, Wayne," he said presently.
"Who wants to change?" Shandon retorted lightly. "One would think I'd
been away ten years and it was time for grey hairs and long hours of
sitting still in the sun." He favoured his cousin with a merry,
searching glance and added, "You haven't changed much yourself that I
can see."
For no apparent reason Conway flushed slightly and then frowned.
"I had a good hard day's work cut out for the boys," he said casually.
"You're finding plenty to keep them busy, I'll bet," grinned Shandon.
"Yes," carelessly. "We're a bit short handed just now and there is
always a lot to do. I've let a man go here and there when he was just
eating his head off for us. A half day lost means that much more hard
work to be made up."
"Get them busy then, will you, Garth? It's decent of you to save all
you could for me, but hang it, don't mind putting on a new man when we
need him. The boys have had enough sleep by now and I've sort of
slipped out of the routine of the work. Will you go ahead and run the
outfit for me until I get back into it? It would be a big favour to
me."
Conway swung about toward the door eagerly, and so swiftly that Shandon
did not see the light that sprang up in his eyes.
"Glad to," he called back as he went out. "Take your time about
getting back into the traces, Wayne."
"Good old Garth," Shandon muttered with deep satisfaction. And then he
turned his attention again to the biscuits and bacon.
Garth went immediately to the bunk house. He found the men all asleep;
he left them all wide awake.
"Tony," he cried sharply, "come alive there and get the boys some
breakfast. You men know that Mr. Shandon is back, don't you? Do you
want him to think that this is the way we've been attending to his
business for him while he was gone? Bill, get a couple of horses
saddled while Harris is getting breakfast for you, and as soon as you
eat report at the house with them. You are to help find Lightfoot."
The boys scrambled out of their bunks, and Tony Harris in picturesque
night raiment was thrusting paper and kindling into his stove before
Garth had gone ten steps from the door he had slammed behind him. Did
they want Wayne Shandon to think that they had neglected his interests
in his absence? Not by a jug full, growled Big Bill. And he wasn't
the kind to think it in the first place or to care in the second, he
grunted as he jerked on his overalls and shoved his big feet into his
shoes. Mister Shandon! Huh!
But they took their cue from Conway's sharp words and did not wait for
breakfast to get ready for the day's work. Big Bill was the first in
the corral but the others came trooping after him, roping their horses,
saddling and bringing them to the bunk house door to be mounted swiftly
as soon as the morning meal could be finished. And, as usual little
Andy Jennings saddled an extra horse, a graceful, cat-footed mare,
cream coloured, with white mane and tail, for Garth Conway.
There were few words spoken in the bunk house as the men made their
hurried meal. Steve Dunham demanded to be told if Red was going to let
Conway "run things" for him, or if he was going to be his own foreman
as his brother had been before him. More than one man lifted his
shoulders at the question. And since there was no answer to be given
yet, since that was the one thing they were all thinking about, it was
almost a wordless meal.
In a little while Garth Conway was back at the bunk house and swung up
into the saddle, his perfect animal, his own graceful form, his
somewhat picturesque costume, riding breeches, puttees, wide soft hat
and gauntlets making a bit of pleasant colour against the
commonplaceness of the ranch yard. He waited impatiently a few minutes
until the men came out and then rode away toward the lower end of the
valley ordering them curtly to follow him. It was Garth's way; they
didn't know what the day's work was to be, although they might come
close to guessing, until he chose to tell them. Big Bill alone
remained behind, making his way with two horses to the house, where
Wayne came down the steps to meet him.
"Hello, Bill," Wayne greeted him lightly. "Feeling sore this morning?"
"Hello, Red," Big Bill retorted with what was meant to be a scowl but
which twisted itself in spite of him into a widening grin. "Not sore
outside, seein' as I fell easy. Jus' kinda sore inside thinkin' you'd
go an' play a low down Jap trick on a man. But nex' time . . ."
He shook his head in mock sorrow thinking of the thing that was going
to happen to the merry eyed man from whom he took his pay.
Red laughed, strapped on the spurs clinking at the saddle horn, vaulted
from the steps to his horse's back and bending suddenly forward shot
ahead of Big Bill, and sped toward the upper end of the valley where
the unused horses were grazing. The cowboy, racing behind him, watched
him with shrewd eyes and a grunted comment that he hadn't forgotten how
to ride.
When the horses had "run off" their early morning restlessness the two
men drew them down to a swinging walk and riding side by side found
much to talk about. Shandon asked about this, that and the other
horse, giving each its name as if they were men he spoke of, and Big
Bill reported promptly and in full detail. Brown Babe had been sick
during the winter; a cold running on until it was touch and go if she'd
go down with the pneumonia. Doc Trip had taken a hand though, Bill
himself having ridden thirty miles to fetch the cowboy who had a rude
skill as a veterinary and no little reputation with it, and Brown Babe
had pulled through as good as a two year old. Her colt out of Saxon?
Say there was a bit of horse flesh for you! Close to three year old
now and never a rope on him. Little Saxon they called him. Little?
Big Bill laughed softly. The name had stuck since he had been a colt.
He was bigger than his dad already, although not so heavy, of course,
and he had more speed right now than his mother ever thought of having.
If they ever did put on a race--Endymion, Little Saxon's full brother?
Big Bill shook his head and spat thoughtfully. Sold six months ago.
"Sold?" cried Shandon sharply. "Who sold him?"
"Conway, of course. He's the only man as has sold any Bar L-M stock."
Shandon started to speak, then closed his lips tightly. Big Bill
looked at him quickly, then drew his eyes away and let them rest upon
his horse's bobbing ears.
"Of course Garth couldn't know that I didn't want any of the horses,
the best horses, sold," Shandon said quietly after a moment. "I wrote
to him to use his own judgment in all things, to sell and buy as he
thought best. It isn't his fault but-- Hang it, I'm just a little
sorry I didn't think to tell him. Who bought Endymion, Bill?"
"Sledge Hume," answered Big Bill. "He was crazy stuck on the colt the
firs' time he ever laid eyes on him. I guess Conway held him up for a
pretty stiff price too. He sure had the chance."
"So Hume bought Endymion," said Shandon thoughtfully. And he seemed
less pleased than before. "Oh, well, we'll see what we can do with
Little Saxon."
"Little Saxon's a better horse any day in the week," cried Big Bill
loyally. "He ain't got the stren'th yet, of course, an' he ain't got
the savvy as comes with trainin'. But he's got the speed an' he's got
the spirit. Lord, Red, you've got a horse there! Wait ontil you see
him runnin' with the herd. He don't eat dust off nobody's heels."
Shandon's eyes brightened. He had seen possibilities in the two year
old before he went away, when the colt belonged to Arthur, and it was
good to know that Little Saxon had fulfilled the promise of youth. And
he saw too, a morning's work ahead of him, such work as the leaping
spirit of Red Reckless loved. A wild scamper across the upper end of
the narrow valley, skirting the lake perhaps; a headlong race after a
horse born of Brown Babe and the high spirited stallion Saxon; the
swinging of a rope in a hand that had not known the feel of one for a
year; and the final conquest that would come when at last that rope
settled about the defiant neck.
"For we'll get Lightfoot first, Bill," he said eagerly. "Little
Saxon'll have to go some when I've got Lady Lightfoot under me. And
then we'll take the three year old in and begin breaking him."
Big Bill chuckled joyously. And as Garth had said before him he
muttered that Wayne Shandon hadn't changed much.
As they rode the valley widened for a little before them, the steep
wall of cliffs and crags drawing back upon the right, lifting their
crests ever higher, topped by few scattering pines, firs and tamaracks.
Here and there a giant cedar flourished in isolated majesty, lifting
its delicately formed cones a hundred and fifty feet above its ancient,
gnarled roots. The valley itself was for the most part clear of timber
and scrub. The herds had not yet come up here this year, and would not
come until the lower end had been thoroughly fed off. For here there
would be grazing land in abundance until the winter came and all herds
must be moved to the pastures far down the mountains where the snow
fall was never more than a few thawing inches.
Conversation between the two men died down as they pushed deeper into
the solitudes. When they had ridden a couple of miles, the valley
narrowed again, the timber line crept in closer at every yard, the
mountains drew in abruptly and rose more precipitously in sheer,
frowning, dominant majesty, the river shot hissing down its rocky
course, a wild thing plunging madly toward freedom and an open world.
So with few words, each man's thoughts wandering as chance and the
river and mountains directed them, Shandon and Big Bill rode slowly.
That trail brought them at last down close to the edge of the stream as
the banks on either hand drew closer together until finally the water
choked and fumed and thundered through a narrow pass. Here they must
turn away from its course, climbing a steep shoulder of the mountain,
making a difficult way along a seldom used trail, until they came to
the crest of the ridge which shot down from the right. Another fifty
yards, almost level going, a steep descent and suddenly the fury of the
river was but a faint rumbling in their ears, the stillness of the
mountains crept down on them and they were at the margin of Laughter
Lake.
With a sigh long, deep, lung filling, Wayne Shandon curbed his horse to
a standstill. Big Bill turned his head away and a little hurriedly
sought for his "makings." For Big Bill had a memory, as so many sons
of the frontier places have, a memory that filed and kept record of
little things as well as of what the world calls big things. He
remembered the day when Wayne Shandon had last ridden here, just the
day before Arthur was killed. Wayne and Arthur had come here together;
Arthur with some business reason, of course; equally of course Wayne in
a mere spirit of idling. The younger brother had ridden along to try
out a new rifle he had bought--
"Come on, Bill. Let's find the horses."
Wayne leaned forward suddenly in the saddle, loosened his reins and
touched his horse's sides with his spurred heels. And so they raced
along the side of the lake as they had raced from the range house, Red
Reckless sitting straight in the saddle, his head lifted, his broad hat
pushed far back, his tall, powerful body swaying gracefully, easily
with his horse's stride.
They found Lady Lightfoot with a herd of half wild animals in a little
hollow beyond the head of the lake. A great snorting and stamping, a
flinging aloft of proud heads upon arching necks, the flurry of manes
and tails, black, red, white, all confused in a rush of colour, the
hammering thud of unshod hoofs on soft grassy soil and the herd had
followed Lady Lightfoot's lead in wild flight toward the far end of the
tiny valley. A wonderful creature was Lady Lightfoot, trim and slender
and graceful as a maiden, her coat a little rough from her year in the
woods, her silken mane snarled, but her spirit showing in the toss of
her head, the cock of her ears, the flare of her nostrils, the fire of
her eyes.
"Watch!" yelled Big Bill as he and Shandon thundered along after them,
their ropes already in their hands, nooses widening. "See who takes
her lead away from her!"
It was half a mile to the far end of the little valley where the almost
sheer pitch of the mountains would bring the fleeing animals to a stop.
And before they had gone a hundred yards Wayne Shandon's eyes had
discovered Little Saxon.
The colt had been almost the last of the two score horses when their
startled flight began; already he was seeking the place that was
rightfully his, already he had passed half of the herd and running like
some great greyhound, was eating up the distance which lay between his
outstretched nose and Lady Lightfoot's flickering hoofs. A horse to be
seen in a flash by a knowing eye even in a herd many times bigger than
this one. A king of a horse, standing a hand taller than the tallest
of his companions, with great flowing muscles moving liquidly, with
iron lungs under a vast iron chest, with a neck every fine line of
which revealed the racing thoroughbred, with tireless strength in the
tensing shoulders and hips, with speed in the delicately formed,
slender legs; running easily, every leaping stride hurling his great
body in advance of some one of the other horses, his floating mane and
tail spun silk that flashed in the sun like shimmering gold, his
flashing hoofs like a deer's for dainty grace, his coat a deep, rich,
red bay.
"Watch him run!" shouted Big Bill. "Watch him run!"
Two lengths behind Lady Lightfoot, a length . . . and then Little Saxon
had slipped by, flashed by, passed like a gleam of summer sunlight, and
the mare snapped viciously at the lean, clean body that brushed against
her own, robbing her of her place. Big Bill laughed joyously.
"Jealous as a cat, huh, Red? See that?"
"And no man has ever ridden him," muttered Shandon. "Only one man is
ever going to ride you, Little Saxon."
But that day they did not take Little Saxon with them back to the home
corrals; it would be many a day yet before Little Saxon's training
began, before his proud spirit compromised with steel and leather and a
master's hand.
With half the distance to the far end of the little valley passed,
Little Saxon was a length ahead of Lady Lightfoot, his quivering
nostrils scenting danger behind, free range and freedom ahead. Thus
Little Saxon first, Lady Lightfoot jealously guarding and keeping her
place as second in the headlong flight, a slim barrelled sorrel close
at the Lady's heels, the rest of the horses following in a close packed
body, the fleeing animals came to the natural bulwark which the
mountains lifted before them. Their ropes swinging in ever widening
loops, hissing swifter and swifter until in broadening circles they
sang shrilly, Wayne Shandon and Big Bill swept on after them.
"Lightfoot first!" cried Shandon sharply. "It's too rocky, Bill--"
The ground was too broken to chance putting a rope over the defiant
neck of the three year old who had never known what it was to have hemp
touch his lithe body. With Lady Lightfoot it was different. She would
leap aside, she would throw her head one way or the other as she saw
the lasso leave the hand of her would-be captor; but once it touched
her she would stop stone still, too wise, too experienced to struggle
against the inevitable.
At last the fleeing horses stopped, whirled and with up-pricked ears
and flashing eyes waited and watched. Lady Lightfoot's angry snort
trumpeted her fear and defiance; she moved not so much as a muscle
except of her eyes which swept swiftly back and forth from Big Bill to
Shandon, from Shandon to Big Bill. Then, as almost at the same instant
two ropes sped their hissing way toward her she leaped forward, swerved
aside, dropped her head a little--and then, instead of breaking into a
wild flight, she bunched her four feet and slid to a trembling
standstill before either rope had tightened about a steel saddle horn.
"Wise ol' lady," chuckled Big Bill as he and Shandon rode closer to the
mare coiling their ropes. "Ain't forgot who's who, have you, Lady?"
The other horses saw their chance and took it. Little Saxon in the
lead from the first terrified leap, they shot by Lady Lightfoot,
swerved widely about Shandon, and were off and away down the valley.
"Let 'em go," cried Shandon. "We'll follow in a minute and drive them
on down to the corrals."
He swung down from his saddle and went up to Lady Lightfoot's high
lifted head, a head that rose higher in the air as he drew near.
Laying a gentle hand on the quivering nose, he rubbed it softly,
speaking to the animal in a tone that coaxed and soothed and assured.
He talked to her as a man talks who loves a horse, understands it--as
he might talk to a human being. And Big Bill, watching, nodded and
grunted approval as he saw Shandon slip the hard bit between the strong
teeth, and at last swing up into the saddle and turn a high spirited
but well trained and obedient mare down the valley after the runaways.
Fifteen minutes later they caught up with the stragglers of Little
Saxon's followers. And it was then that Little Saxon snorted his last
defiance at pursuit and achieved his freedom.
The animals had been driven again into a woodland _cul de sac_. Here
there was a wide reaching plot of grassy, unbroken soil, and here the
two men counted upon teaching the three year old his first lesson of
the supremacy of man. As they drew nearer their ropes were again
ready, trailing at their sides. Again the horses drew close together,
bunched in a mass of watchful distrust. Little Saxon alone held
slightly apart, his great head lifted high, scenting mischief. He saw
the ropes before they were lifted, and at the first whirl of hemp into
the hated loop he knew instinctively that it was he whom they
threatened.
"We've got him," grunted Big Bill, confident too soon of easy victory.
Behind the herd rose the cliffs, in front the men came on and at the
side was a deep gorge, so steep sided that a horse would not think of
going down into it, washed wide by the spring torrents. It never
entered Big Bill's head nor Wayne Shandon's nor the heads of the
terrified companions of Little Saxon that there was a way in that
direction open for flight. But Little Saxon saw his enemies coming
threateningly nearer and he took his chance. He drew back until his
golden tail swept the granite cliffs; he paused there a brief second,
with flashing eyes, measuring chance and distance; he gathered his
great muscles as he had never gathered them before; his vast chest
swelled to a mighty sigh; and then, before Wayne Shandon or Big Bill
had guessed the plan that had risen in his brain he had wagered his
life against his liberty.
"Back, Bill!" shouted Shandon warningly, throwing Lady Lightfoot back
on her haunches, swinging her away from the plunging three year old.
"He's going to jump!"
"God!" yelled Big Bill, as he too jerked his horse back. "He'll break
his neck!"
They saw the big horse running, already as a blur of speed before he
had done the thirty yards to the rock walled gorge, saw the glinting
light from floating mane and tail, heard the thunder of his pounding
hoofs, and then--
Then Little Saxon put into his gliding muscles all of the thoroughbred
spirit that was in his blood, and taking recklessly his one chance he
hurled his great body forward, leaping splendidly. For an instant as
that rebellious, beautiful body was suspended in mid air, high above
certain death, neither man breathed. Then, with the sharp sound of
hard hoofs striking hard rock, Little Saxon landed easily and safely
upon the far side, and his silken mane, flowing tail and red bay hide
shining with a metallic gleam in the sunlight, he had passed on,
through the trees, into an open trail, around a bend and out of sight.
Big Bill rode close up to the gorge.
"I wouldn't jump a horse acrost that for a million dollars!" he said,
wondering at what he had seen.
And Wayne Shandon, his eyes very bright, his face a little flushed,
cried eagerly,
"A mere horse, no. But Little Saxon isn't that! He's more clean
spirit than horse flesh!"
Big Bill did not answer. Perhaps he had not heard. He was thinking:
"When he does break Little Saxon--that wild devil of a man on that wild
devil of a horse-- What a pair of them!"
CHAPTER VII
THE GLADNESS THAT SINGS
"Well?" laughingly. "Don't you know me?"
Wayne Shandon, riding idly down a lane through the pines, had come
close before he saw her sitting with her back to a tree, her camera and
empty lunch basket lying beside her. He had left Big Bill and had come
on alone, passing around the head of the lake and following the trail
which Little Saxon's flying hoofs had made in the fresh sod. Now, as
with a quick hand upon Lady Lightfoot's reins he came to a stop, he
very promptly forgot all about Little Saxon.
The girl, leaving Gypsy tethered beyond a grove of firs, had found upon
the skirt of a densely wooded slope a spot that was like a corner of a
woodland fairyland, dim and dusky and sweet scented. The noontide was
warm with the rippling sunlight above, a down-filtering ray touched her
bare head and dropped flecks of gold in her braided hair.
Shandon, motionless for a little, did not speak nor did his expression
change except that it grew more frankly filled with admiration, with
sheer wonder at her loveliness.
"Really," she bantered, still laughingly, not to be confused by her old
playfellow's look. "I'm neither ghost, goblin nor evil spirit, nor
anything worse than just a girl, you know!"
"Are you . . . just a girl?" He raised his hand slowly, lifting his
hat. But not yet did he smile back into her smiling eyes. She had
never seen him so grave. "I don't know. You are not the same girl I
used to know."
"Why, Wayne," she retorted merrily. "It's only a year. You weren't
expecting wrinkles already, were you?"
The steadiness of his gaze made her wonder. His eyes clung to hers for
a long moment, left them to travel swiftly up and down the sweet young
body that was no longer the body of "just a girl," noted how
wonderfully the promise of girlhood had been fulfilled in budding
womanhood, came back to her hair and throat and smiling mouth, rested
again upon her eyes.
"You are not the same Wanda I used to know," he insisted soberly,
shaking his head at her. "Not the Wanda I used to play with at school,
to hunt birds' nests with, to steal apples for, to fight other boys
for. Who are you, you wonderful thing?"
"The same Wanda," she told him merrily. "And, if you please, not a
_thing_ at all."
"Do you remember," he went on quietly, still gently serious, "the day
when I whipped little Willie Thorp for you?"
"Yes," she answered lightly, yet not remembering all that he
remembered. "Of course. You--"
"You came and put both little fat, warm, sun-burned arms round me and
kissed me then, Wanda. Would you kiss me now?"
"You should have said that last night," she dimpled up at him. She
thought she knew him too well to take him seriously when he dropped
into one of his bantering moods, just trying perhaps to see if he could
drive a little flush of confusion into her cheeks. "I was so glad to
see you, I might have forgotten I had grown up. That we have grown
up," she said.
"I wish I had," he said abruptly, flinging his head up with the old
gesture she remembered so well. "Wanda, you are the most wonderful
girl-woman in the world! What has happened to you? What have you done
to yourself? What have you done to your eyes? Do you know, Miss Wanda
Leland--are you a little witch and do you do it on purpose?--that those
two eyes of yours can make madness in a man's soul?"
"Flatterer!" she countered brightly. "Have you been a whole year
making pretty speeches, and must you keep it up now because you've got
into the habit and since the pretty ladles of your travels are not here
and I am? Aren't you a little bit ashamed of yourself? Aren't you
afraid that you will create havoc by putting a lot of foolish ideas
into a country girl's head?"
He laughed at last, becoming suddenly the same old Red Reckless that he
had always been, and swung down lightly from the saddle. Dropping Lady
Lightfoot's reins to the ground he came to where Wanda sat and having
stood over her a moment looking down into the clear eyes which were
turned frankly up to him he made himself comfortable at her feet,
stretching luxuriously in the warm grass.
"It's great to be back, Wanda," he said musingly, with a deep sigh of
content. "You are going to squander a little of your precious time on
me, aren't you? I've been deucedly energetic all morning; now I'm just
brimful of sunshine and laziness. So lazy that I want just to smoke
and watch you and listen while you talk. You will have a whole lot to
tell me about all the things you've been doing while I was away."
[Illustration: "I want just to smoke and watch you and listen while you
talk."]
She gathered her knees into her clasped hands and smiled down upon the
flaming red hair. Before he made his cigarette she found herself
answering his questions, telling about her life during his absence.
As she talked she saw his face only now and then when he turned a
little to laugh up at her over some trifle that amused him. The story
of this year of her life as she told it was a simple, homely little
tale, a quiet pastoral of happy content. It had to do largely with
herself and her work, with her failures and successes. But she
mentioned both Garth and Sledge Hume.
"Hume?" said Shandon, looking up quickly, this time with no laughter in
his eyes. "Have you seen much of that man, Wanda?"
"A good deal. He and father and Garth seem to have some kind of
business together. Why?"
"Because I don't like him," he told her emphatically. "I don't like to
have you know a man like that."
She did not mention Hume again. She admitted frankly that she herself
disliked the man although she had tried to think well of him because he
was a friend of her father. Running on with the account of her winter
adventures, and laughing at the memory of an incident that had been
serious enough at the time, she told him how she had imperilled her
life in heedless pursuit of the snow-shoe rabbit. Her mood, gay for
the moment, was the sort to make light of things which had merely cast
a shadow and gone; it was as though from the very presence of Wayne she
had accepted his theory of life, the ability to live keenly, richly in
the present, to be oblivious with sealed eyes to the future, careless
with deaf ears to the mutterings of the past. She was talking freely,
spontaneously, laughing from the very joy of life and the morning and
another joy which she did not analyse, looking down at the sunlight
caught flaring in his hair. And he, vastly contented, listened and
laughed with her.
Then, in the midst of the recital of her last winter's mishap which she
strove to make as unimportant as she now considered it, she looked down
at Wayne Shandon and suddenly broke off in the middle of a word. He
had dropped his cigarette, the hand that she could see had shut tight
into a whitened fist, the colour of a second ago had seeped out of his
bronzed cheek. As she stopped, wondering, he sprang to his feet and
towered over her.
"Wanda!" he cried, and his voice was as unfamiliar in her ears as the
view of his drawn face in her eyes.
"Wayne!" she said curiously, staring at him, startled and a little
afraid of she knew not what. "Wayne! What is it?"
"What is it?" Shandon's voice had dropped lower, was so hoarse that it
did not seem Wayne Shandon's voice at all. "It is just this--"
He broke off as sharply as she had done and moving swiftly as though
driven by some great compelling force which dominated him he stooped
and swept her up into his arms. She felt the tightening muscles as he
drew her close, closer to him; felt a little tremor running through his
whole body; heard the beating of his heart; was drawn nearer to him
than she had ever been drawn to a man in her life; realised for the
first time in a flutter of many sweeping emotions how superbly big and
powerful the man was, how almost god-like in the beauty of his muscular
manhood . . . and then she knew nothing but the wonderful fact that he
had kissed her full upon her quivering red mouth.
"My God, Wanda, how I love you!" he exclaimed with sudden wild,
unleashed vehemence. "Do you hear me?" He was holding her a little
away from him, his arms still shaking about her shoulders, his voice
frightening her with the vibrant fierceness that had leaped into it,
the love in his eyes glowing like fire. "I love you so that I'd go
through Hell to have you, to have you for mine, all mine! So that I
might fight a man for daring to look at you, that I might kill a man
for harming you! Wanda, girl, I tell you that I love you! Do you
understand? Do you know what that means? What love means? When a man
loves a woman as I do?"
Always a man of impulse, a man who through years of habit had grown to
act swiftly in little things and big things alike, Wayne Shandon flung
into impassioned words the emotions which swept through his soul and
brain. The sight of Wanda Leland, grown into the sweet, pure beauty of
early womanhood, had stirred him to the depths. Her casual mention of
other men, Garth, and Sledge Hume, had displeased him so vaguely that
he had not fully understood or cared why. And then the light allusion
to the danger of death in which she had stood had been the spark in the
powder train of his love, his words exploded from the seething
consciousness newly awakened, fires long smouldering unsuspected in his
heart burst forth in a mighty conflagration of emotion.
Throughout his whole being there was a strange, new, throbbing
buoyancy, the gladness that sings, the joy that sparkles. The elixir
of life had been set suddenly before him. He did not taste and put it
away as some men do; he did not sip sparingly and temperately; but he
drank deeply and swiftly so that the wine of love tingled through his
blood, made his brain reel and his heart grow hot. It intoxicated his
soul and his senses with a rare, glorious intoxication.
He tossed his head back, holding her still a little further from him,
and looked into her eyes. His own had changed now, changed utterly in
their eloquent speech. They had been fierce, now they grew wonderfully
tender. They had been clear and bright and eager; and now they were
misty. The first flame of love had leaped through his blood; now an
infinite yearning, as gentle as tears, rose from his heart. Love had
clamoured, now love was whispering. Love had been insistent; now it
pleaded. It had been masterful; now it knelt.
"You love me--_like that_?"
The tumult in the man's soul had awakened conflicting emotions under
the troubled, tremulous breasts. She looked at him with wide, clear
eyes, wondering. A miracle, the old, eternal, primal miracle, had
entered her life. She had looked down, laughingly, on a careless boy;
she had been gripped mightily in the arms of a being new to her, a man
who loved. From the clear blue of her life's sky there had leaped out
a flash of lightning that filled the universe with its light and heat.
They had been two gay loitering children; now she saw the man shaken in
the gust of his passion.
"You love me--_like that_?"
"God forgive me, yes!"
His voice was steady now but low, scarcely louder than her awed
whisper. He dropped his arms, letting them fall lingeringly, and
stooping a little, touched her forehead with his lips.
"And," he said with a reverence which stirred her more than his rude
embrace had done, "I love you like this, dear."
More often than not the story of one's life is a smooth running tale,
the day's page turning gently, going on with the unfinished sentence of
yesterday, the end of each little chapter guessed before it has been
read. But there are times when the leaves no longer turn slowly but
are caught in a sudden gust that sends them fluttering like dead leaves
in a September gale; when life no longer loiters, but leaps when the
unseen end of the chapter is a mystery, when the letters on the page
are shining gold or fiery red.
Such a time had come into Wanda Leland's life. In one swift moment she
had risen to a pinnacle, she had looked down upon the level lowlands
from the heights. The monotony of the commonplace receded and was
lost; the aspect of life upon which she looked was wonderful and new.
There had been a change within her. She was no longer the Wanda Leland
she had been a moment ago, the Wanda Leland she had been throughout the
years of her life. Nor would she ever be exactly that same Wanda
Leland again.
Revelation had been lightning, two-tongued. It showed her herself; it
explained, it touched with light, it made distinct the shadowy things
that had long lain in her breast. And it showed her Wayne Shandon as
she had never seen him.
For years they had been playfellows, frank, almost boyish, both of
them. Now her heart was beating wildly from the very touch of him.
Had she always loved him? Had he always loved her? Was this
wonderful, new thing, love, without beginning as it surely was without
end?
She looked wonderingly into his eyes. Her own, like his, were clear,
bright one moment, starry with a dimness as of unshed tears the next.
Tenderness, like a mist, filled them.
"I love you, Wayne," she said, her voice low, trembling just a little,
but clear. "I want you all mine as you want me. So that if you went
up to Heaven or down to Hell I could go with you."
"Wanda!" he said. "_Wanda_."
She smiled a little at him and put out her two hands.
CHAPTER VIII
"A GAME OF BLUFF AND THE GAMBLER WINS!"
The spirit of unrest which Wanda had felt vaguely the night before did
not depart with the passing of the darkness. Something was wrong,
radically wrong at the Echo Creek ranch house. Since the unexpected
home coming of Red Reckless there had been a subtle difference, a
ruffling of the waters which usually ran so placidly at the country
home, a darkening and disturbation of the surface which hinted at
hidden whirlpools and cross currents.
It was from the master of the household that the day took its colour.
In his own room last night he had been restless, sleepless until very
late. Mrs. Leland had heard him walking up and down, had heard the
noise of his pipe against his tobacco jar many times after the hour
when Martin was in the habit of having his last smoke. In the morning
he was up and dressed before Julia had built her fire. All day he was
strangely pre-occupied and silent. He seemed scarcely to notice Wanda
when she came into the dining room to give him his good morning kiss.
That was unlike him. Both women noticed it.
After breakfast he did not go out. Instead he went immediately to his
study, telling Julia sharply that she need not come in to sweep this
morning as he was going to be busy. It was one of the few times he had
spoken at all that morning, but not the first time he had spoken
irritably. Mrs. Leland's eyes, following him were troubled.
In his private room he sat long at his big oaken table, his brows drawn
thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed in deep speculation. The tenseness of
the man's still figure, the gleam of the darkening eyes, the obvious
moody abstraction told that some vital question had come to him for its
answer, that he was fighting it out sternly, that the issue was one of
those great issues of life which come soon or late and which must be
decided, yes or no, upon the battle ground of a man's soul.
Three months ago he had done a thing from which, at first, his finer
manhood had drawn back rebelliously. But--he had done it. There had
been a struggle then between the two nicely balanced qualities which go
to make up a human personality. The nice balance had been disturbed by
clever generalship rather than by open battle. Specious reasoning,
aided and abetted by the temptation of a rare opportunity, further
reinforced by an emotion which was more or less selfish even while it
masked itself as a public and private duty, had routed the sterner
sense of justice of which the man was, not without reason, proud. He
had in the end taken the step; being done it had since then been
dismissed to a shadowy corner of his mind by his own strength of
character; when he had thought of it had only grown stronger in his
belief that he had done rightly. And now a man whom he had never
expected to see again had come home; the question closed three months
ago was still an open question.
A grave, strong minded man, calm by nature, after sixty years of the
life of the mountains and forests, he thought to decide each action
upon its own merit or demerit and to see that quality clearly, keeping
his vision free of emotional mists. With such a man right and wrong
are two distinct entities, sharply separate, with no debateable land.
An action may not partake of each; it must stand forth black or white.
A motive may not be enshrouded in uncertainty; it must be right or it
must be wrong.
He questioned himself sternly to-day, frowningly concentrating his mind
upon each point as he struggled with it. The time had come now when
the decision he made must be one of absolute finality.
"What I am doing is a grave thing," he told himself over and over. "An
unscrupulous man would do it in a flash; a weak man might be afraid of
it. I must be neither unscrupulous nor cowardly; I must be just. And
is not justice with me? Would I not be punishing the guilty, would I
not be in a position to reward Garth Conway for a life of faithful
service, would I not be justified in protecting my own interests, the
interests of my wife and daughter?"
Already, unconsciously, he was seeking to discover for his groping mind
the arguments which would acquit him in his own judgment and justify
him.
"I hate him," he muttered, "God knows I hate him. But is that the
reason I am striking at him? I should be wrong if for purely personal
motives I sought to wreck vengeance upon him. But he is guilty, as
guilty as hell! It would not be vengeance, it would be retribution. I
should but be taking into my hands the work which God had set at my
fingers' ends."
His problem instead of clarifying became complicated with involved
motives. He told himself grimly that the thing which he had begun was
just, merely just. If the courts of law did what he was doing and
stopped with it men's voices would cry out against a retribution gone
blind and decrepit, maudlin with mercy.
He went once to his safe in the corner, took out a document and stood
looking at it thoughtfully for a long time. Finally he replaced it.
"I can ruin him, I can break him utterly," he said slowly. "I can
wrest from him the thing which he took brutally with bloody hands.
Because I am to profit where he loses must I hold back? The law may
never reach him. Is it right then that he should go unpunished? The
fortune which one day I shall leave to Wanda will be either swelled or
diminished as I decide. Have I the right to draw back now?"
The day dragged on, the conflict within the man's soul continued.
Until noon he was in his study. At the dinner table he was silent,
morose, and ate little. He made no comment upon Wanda's absence;
perhaps he did not notice it. Mrs. Leland, understanding readily that
Wayne Shandon's return had its bearing upon her husband's heavy mood,
found little to say. She could only hope wistfully that for a little
Wayne would come to the house seldom, that Martin would grow used to
having him in the neighbourhood, and that in the end he would content
himself with ignoring the man whom she knew he disliked, distrusted and
suspected. She thought that she understood fully what she grasped only
in part.
In the afternoon again, Leland withdrew to his private room, again the
battle between motives and desires raged hotly. It so happened that
Wayne Shandon, appearing at a critical moment, brought about a decision.
Leland was standing before his window, his smouldering eyes frowning at
the meadow down which Spring had come, scattering buttercups to mark
her passing. He had not noticed the glossy chalices brimming with
sunlight; the springtime had had no softening effect upon his absorbed
and troubled mood. But presently the sight of two figures riding side
by side down through the pasture whipped a new look into his eyes.
He watched them sharply as they rode toward the house. Their gay
voices came to him lifted into soft laughter; their light merriment, so
in tune with the springtime, fell jarringly on Leland's ears.
"The fellow has the insolence of Satan," he muttered angrily.
For a moment he lost sight of them as they passed behind the stable.
Then, walking, Wanda's face lifted in rosy happiness, Wayne's like a
boy's, eager and glad, they came on to the house. Leland stood stone
still at the window; Wanda, catching sight of him, threw him a kiss.
Wayne, with a brief word to Wanda left her under the cedars in the yard
and came swiftly to the study, the light buoyancy of his step
bespeaking the exhilaration that danced through his blood. He swept
off his hat, put out his hand eagerly as he came into the room, his
eyes filled with the brightness of a supreme happiness.
"I am glad that I found you in," he began impetuously. "I don't know
how I could have waited . . . What's the matter, Mr. Leland?"
For Martin Leland, directing at him a piercing glance whose meaning was
unmistakable, did not unclasp the hands behind his back.
"You had something to say to me," Leland reminded him briefly. "What
is it?"
Shandon met his stare with silent surprise. Then, forcing himself to
speak quietly, as though the insult of Leland's attitude had been
unnoticed, he said:
"I wanted to tell you that I love Wanda, that some day I hope to make
her my wife."
"What!" shouted Leland incredulously. "You--_you_ want to marry my
daughter! _You_!"
"Yes," said Wayne steadily. "I."
Martin's scornful laugh, forced and hard, drove the happiness from
Shandon's eyes and a quick hot flush into his cheeks.
"I knew that you didn't like me," he said sharply. "But I didn't
know--"
"That I have no feeling but utter loathing for you," Leland cut in
coldly. "That I'd kill you like a dog before I'd allow you to disgrace
my name, to wreck my daughter's life. Are you crazy or drunk?"
"I don't understand you," replied Shandon bluntly.
"Then I'll explain so that you will have no difficulty in
understanding." Leland's voice, lifted a little, was hard and bitter.
"I don't desire the continuance of your acquaintance. I don't want
ever to see you again if it can be helped. I don't want you to come to
my home, to speak to my wife or my daughter. I don't want your
presence sullying the air they breathe. I don't want to have any
dealings whatever with you. Have I explained?" he concluded with
cutting sharpness.
"Everything and nothing!" Shandon returned, the flush seeping out of
his face, leaving it grey. "What has happened? Why do you say such
things to me? Good God, man, what have I done?"
For a moment Martin Leland made no reply; nor did his steady gaze waver
from the eyes now as stern as his own which looked straight back at him.
"I don't care to discuss the thing with you, Shandon. You know as well
as I do why I say them. When you pretend not to know you are at once a
liar and a hypocrite."
"I am not a trouble seeker, Mr. Leland." Shandon's voice had grown
husky as he strove with the anger within him. "But I think you know
that you are the first man who has talked to me like that and got away
with it. If I did not know that you are a fair minded man, and that
there has been some hideous mistake somewhere, I'd not listen to those
words even from you. Tell me what you mean."
A contemptuous smile broke the rigid line of Leland's set lips.
"Your theatrical ranting won't get you anywhere with me, Shandon. It
is the thing to be expected. I am the master of my own house and it is
quite enough when I say that your presence is not wanted here. If you
want more you can supply it yourself. Idler, spendthrift, gambler,
brawler, I have until now tolerated you. But there are some things
that no man can tolerate. You have said that I am fair minded; the
more reason I should wish to be rid of you."
"But," cried Shandon hotly, "the man accused has a right to know--"
"I am not accusing you," interrupted Martin coldly. "I do nothing but
tell you that you are not the kind of man I want my womenfolk to
associate with, not the kind I want to associate with, and that I want
this to be the last time you set foot on my property. If you are not
absolutely without pride of any sort you will not make it necessary for
me to have you put off the ranch!"
"And you won't tell me--"
"So far as I am concerned the conversation is closed. And," drily,
"the door is open."
The anger in Wayne Shandon's heart, unchecked at last, blazed in his
eyes.
"I'll go now," he said shortly. "I have no wish to enter a man's house
where I am not welcome. But what I have said I have meant. I shall
see Wanda when I can, and when she will come to me as she will some
day, I shall marry her."
"You are a fool as well as a scoundrel," shouted Leland as he saw the
other turn toward the door. "Wanda, when she marries, will marry a
gentleman, and not a cur and a coward!"
"Those are hard names, Mr. Leland!"
"Not so hard as another which belongs to you," came the vibrant
rejoinder. "If you dare speak to her again--"
"As I most certainly shall," coolly.
"By God!" cried the old man, his clenched fist raised. "You leave my
girl alone or--"
Caught in a sudden gust of rage such as had not half a dozen times in
his lifetime touched his blood, he strode to his table, snatched open
the drawer and whipped out a revolver.
"Go!" he shouted, his face a fiery red. "Go now, without another word,
or I'll shoot you."
Wayne Shandon's head was flung up with the old gesture, his eyes grew
steely and steady, and his answer was a cool contemptuous laugh.
"You have called me a coward," he said. "You called me a liar." He
came back into the room and sat down upon the edge of the table, not
three feet from Martin Leland. "Now, prove me the coward--or yourself
the liar!"
It was a challenge of sheer reckless impudence, the tempting of a man
whose reason was blind drunk with rage. He looked coolly into Leland's
eyes ignoring the deadly weapon in Leland's hand.
"I am going to roll a cigarette," he said quietly. "I'll stay just
that long."
The fingers which brought out tobacco and papers were unhurried. He
opened the muslin bag, poured the tobacco into the trough of his paper,
and his hands were steady. His eyes left Leland's a moment to make
sure that he was not spilling any of the brown particles; he lifted
them again as he sealed his finished cigarette with the tip of his
tongue. He swept a match along his thigh; then he went out, closing
the door softly, leaving a thin wisp of smoke trailing behind him.
Leland, alone in the study, put his hand to his forehead. It came away
wet with sweat.
"A game of bluff and the gambler wins!" he muttered fiercely. "And
now--God curse me if I spare him!"
His buoyant stride carried Red Reckless swiftly down into the yard
where he had left Wanda. She looked up eagerly as he came swinging on.
Then suddenly her heart stood still, chilled with the quick fear of her
premonition. The smile which Shandon summoned was at once a brave
attempt and a pitiful failure.
"What is it, Wayne?" asked Wanda quickly.
"Your father has forbidden me the ranch," he told her bitterly. "I
don't know exactly why. It came out of a clear sky so far as I am
concerned. He does not want me to come here again; he does not want
you to see me at all, anywhere."
"Wayne!"
"He called me an idler, a spendthrift, a gambler and a brawler," he
went on swiftly. "As I suppose I have been.--There has never been
anything to make me care--until to-day! You won't let what he says
make any difference, Wanda?"
She came closer to him, her eyes brilliant.
"I don't have to answer that question, Wayne," she whispered.
He took her into his arms and kissed the mouth turned up to him, and so
left her. She watched him go down to the stable, watched the tall,
upright form until Lady Lightfoot carried him out of sight through the
pines. Then, her head as erect as her lover's had been, she went
slowly to the house.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONTEMPT OF SLEDGE HUME
The window shades in the study were half drawn so that in the late
afternoon the room was shadowy. From the fireplace crackling flames
cast wavering gleams across the polished oaken table top and the heavy
mission furniture. Leland had not stirred from the chair into which he
had sunk after Wayne Shandon's going. Shandon had been gone an hour;
he had met Garth Conway at the bridge and now Garth was with Leland.
There was no longer in the old man's eye or bearing a hint of the
battle which he had fought all day. He had gone through the hours of
his inner struggle and as it had ended three months ago so had it ended
to-day. He knew that he would not open his mind to consider the
question again. His full piercing eyes were stern and determined.
Purposefully he had set his feet into the path he meant to follow
without swerving. In a moment of hesitation and uncertainty the
supreme argument had come to him; if for no other reason, he must ruin
Shandon to save his own daughter from her folly.
"Garth," he said quietly, his deep voice retaining no trace of the
emotion which had wracked him only an hour ago, "I am very glad that
you have come. I have been expecting you all day."
"I met Wayne," Garth said hastily, watching Leland anxiously. "He was
riding like the very devil. I never saw his face look as it did as he
shot by me. He had been over here?"
"Yes. I had a plain talk with him. I made it clear to him that he was
not again to set foot on my land."
"You didn't tell him--"
"I told him nothing! The man deserves no consideration at my hands.
It is not my affair to tell him." He paused a moment, bending his gaze
thoughtfully upon Conway's troubled face. "You have had time to think.
What are you going to do?"
Garth opened his lips to speak, hesitated and closed them without a
word. The air of uneasiness which he had brought with him into the
room grew more marked. He shifted a little in his chair. Leland,
watching him steadily, waited for him to speak.
"I don't know what to do," Conway blurted out finally. "You were so
sure all the time he'd never come back.--Now if I don't tell him all
about the mortgage and foreclosure there's chance on top of chance
he'll find it out himself before the nine months drag by. And then--"
He flashed a startled glance up at Leland's calm face. "He'd kill me!
What can I do?"
"You can keep your mouth shut," answered Martin tersely. "You still
have his power of attorney, haven't you?"
Garth nodded, his head down again, his fingers nervously busy with his
lip.
"Conway," Leland continued with quiet emphasis, his keen glance
watching for the effect of his words, "in sheer justice you have ten
times more right to be owner of the Bar L-M than that mad fool has.
You have slaved for over a year to make it what it is while he has been
squandering money you had to scrape to send him. Even while Arthur was
alive you were the actual manager. And now all that you have to do is
keep still and you can have the place for a very small fragment of what
it is worth. God knows I wouldn't put foot on it. There is nothing
that the law can touch you for; we have seen to that. Nor will you be
doing a dishonourable thing. It is sheer justice, Garth, that you and
I will be meting out to him."
Conway's cheeks flushed a little, his eyes brightened at the thought of
being some day the owner of the Bar L-M.
"But there's the chance--" he began.
"You are playing for big stakes," Leland reminded him crisply. "Of
course there is a chance. But you exaggerate it. Play the game
through and you will be a rich man before the year is out."
Before Conway could speak there came the clamorous barking of dogs in
the yard and the noise of a horse's shod hoofs. In a moment there was
a heavy booted stride up the steps and along the porch, followed by a
loud rap at the study door. At Leland's nod Garth sprang to his feet
and went quickly to the door, flinging it open.
For a second Sledge Hume's great frame filled the doorway as he paused,
looking in sharply, drawing at his gauntlets. Then, brushing by
Conway, he entered and stood with his back to the fireplace, still
drawing off his gauntlets, his hat still low over his brows.
"Well?" he asked bluntly.
Just the short word, uttered as a command. There would be no wasting
of words before they came straight to business. There was about the
man, emanating apparently from his physical body something oddly like a
materialised aura, bespeaking an aggressive character, a strong,
dominant personality. Conway, alone with Leland, was a school boy in
the presence of his master. Hume, ignoring Garth, challenged that
superiority which Conway's weaker nature acknowledged unconsciously.
The look of his eye, the very carriage of his handsome head, invited
opposition, questioned an authority other than his own. A big, strong
man physically his manner gave the impression that he was a big, strong
man intellectually.
Old Martin did not at once speak but sat very still save for the
restless fingers upon the table top. It was Conway who, after a brief
hesitation, answered.
"We're going to stand pat--"
"I wasn't talking to you, Conway," said Hume coolly. "As far as I am
concerned you aren't even a fifth wheel in this thing and you ought to
know it. I want to know what Leland has got to say."
Garth coloured angrily but made no reply as he turned questioning eyes
to the older man.
"Very well, Mr. Hume," said Leland quietly. "Do you care to sit down
while we thresh things out?"
"No, I'll stand. Go ahead."
"To begin with, Wayne Shandon is back."
"I know he is back," spat out Hume. "That's why I'm here. What are
you going to do now?"
"We are going ahead just as though he weren't here."
"You think that you can put the thing across?"
"Why not?"
"Just because," Hume shot back at him, "it doesn't seem likely that
with the whole country knowing about the foreclosure of the mortgage
somebody isn't going to do some talking."
Leland shook his head.
"Let me sum up the case for you," he said. "Arthur Shandon, the day
before his death, mortgaged the Bar L-M to me for twenty-five thousand.
When time for foreclosure came three months ago Wayne Shandon would
have been notified if he had been here. As it was the notice went to
his legal representative, Garth Conway. Conway allowed the Bar L-M to
go under the hammer and at the sheriff's sale Conway himself bought it
in--"
"For you," interjected Hume.
"Yes, for me. But who knows that? People who paid any attention to
the transaction came to understand that it had been because of Wayne
Shandon's known shiftlessness that the property was allowed to be sold,
they knew that Conway was his agent, and that Conway bought it in.
There is not a man living who knows anything about the matter who does
not believe that Conway bought at Shandon's orders and with Shandon's
money; and that the Bar L-M is Shandon's now and was never in any real
danger from me. Is it likely then, that any man who believes this is,
after this length of time, even going to think to mention the matter to
Shandon?"
"You've got the chance to get by with it," said Hume slowly. "And it's
a damned good chance."
"We all know the sort Shandon is," continued Leland. "I shall be
surprised if he doesn't tire of the life here in six weeks, put through
a sale of cattle, take the money and go again. With him away our
chance becomes a certainty. In any case, I am going ahead with our
work. I have had Garth look into the title of the Dry Lands and he
finds that it is perfect."
"Yes. The land is mine and is clear."
"All we need now is the water and we are going to have that in another
nine months when I shall have a clear deed to the Bar L-M. Garth and
myself have gone ahead as I told you that we would, taking options on
every acre we could get in Dry Valley. Before many days we shall
virtually control the whole of the valley, just the three of us.
Between us Garth and I have expended upwards of fifty thousand dollars
in the last five weeks in options and out-right purchases."
"Let me see the papers," said Hume shortly.
Leland went to the safe and taking out a number of papers, handed them
to Hume.
"All right as far as it goes," Hume said when at length he had finished
his careful examination of the documents and had tossed them to the
table. "You haven't got the Norfolk place nor the Ettinger place.
What's the matter? They are more important to us than all the rest put
together. Did they smell a rat?"
"I don't know. I am confident of closing with Norfolk in a few days,
although I may have to pay him five dollars an acre more than I offered
any one else. Ettinger is holding out for seventy-five thousand
dollars, cash."
"Then he does smell a rat!" Hume's fist came crashing down upon the
mantelpiece. "By God, somebody's been talking too much!"
"Mr. Hume," Leland reminded him sternly, "may I call to your attention
the fact that nobody knows a thing about this matter excepting
yourself, Garth and me? I haven't so much as told my wife--"
"You?" cried Hume hotly. "Who said that you had? You've got brains
enough to hold your tongue. That's why I came to you in the first
place. But Conway here--"
He swung suddenly upon Garth, his eyes flaming, his face distorted with
wrath. Before either of the two men had guessed his purpose he strode
swiftly across the room, and gripping Conway's shoulders with his two
big hands jerked him to his feet.
"Conway," he snarled, his face close to the others, his eyes burning,
his breath hot in Garth's blanched face, "you queer this deal with your
infernal gab and I'll--"
He broke off sharply, flinging Conway backward from him so that the
smaller man's body crashed against the wall.
"Hume!" cried Leland angrily. "I'll have no quarrelling in my house.
If you can't act--"
"I haven't come here to-day for a love feast," sneered Hume, already
forgetting Conway as he whirled upon Martin. "What I've got to say
I'll say my way whether you and your cursed white rat like it or not.
I say that somebody has been talking too damned much! That place of
Ettinger's as it is, without the water, isn't worth twenty-five
thousand. He'd have sold it for that a month ago and glad of the
chance to unload. Now he holds out for seventy-five thousand! What's
the answer? You've dragged Conway into this thing; I haven't. I
wanted no man in it but you and Arthur Shandon and myself. You because
you had the money, Arthur Shandon because he had the lake and the
river. I didn't want Conway. He's your pet, not mine. Now, muzzle
him if you can."
Garth's angry retort, the first word he had said since Hume sprang
unexpectedly upon him, was lost in the low rumble of Martin Leland's
heavy voice.
"You've said what you wanted to say, Mr. Hume. We've heard it. We
understand each other. I can vouch for Conway's discretion. If you
are as careful yourself we are all right. I'll attend to both Ettinger
and Norfolk. I shall also see that at the end of the nine months the
Bar L-M is mine and that we have the water for Dry Valley."
Hume laughed. Without again looking toward Conway he stooped, picked
up the gauntlets he had let fall, and turned to the door.
"You are nobody's fool, Leland," he said patronisingly. "You are
taking a chance in freezing Red Shandon out but the law can't go after
you. And you stand to win a wad of money."
"Mr. Hume," interposed Leland sternly. "I am not taking over the Bar
L-M because there happens to be money in it. I am simply using the
weapon of retribution which God has seen fit to put into my hands--"
"Oh, rot!" grunted Hume sneeringly. "Don't come trying to square your
conscience with me. I say, go to it, if you can get across with it."
He jerked the door open and then stopped suddenly his hand still on the
knob.
"If you do slip up," he said bluntly, "if Red Shandon does hear about
it and gets busy, let me know. If he starts making trouble I can put
him where he'll be out of the way!"
The door closed loudly behind him.
CHAPTER X
SHANDON'S GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
Wayne Shandon had grown more silent, more thoughtful than men had ever
known him. The two things which had come to him, one as unheralded as
the other, the gladness of a deep love, the bitterness which grew out
of Martin Leland's words, he kept to himself. He rode far and alone,
seeing very little of the men of the Bar L-M or of Garth, to whom he
still left the routine of the range, and who made the most of small
pretexts to keep up of Wayne's way. Shandon wanted time to think
coolly and deliberately for the first time in his life; he wanted time
to look inward as well as at what lay without, to cast up the balance
of what sums of good and bad were in his soul.
Until now he had been quite content with life as he found it. It had
afforded him infinite pleasure, it bubbled up sparklingly from the
fountain of contented youth, there had been no need for him to seek to
change its flashing current. Moreover, he had never had an incentive
to bestir himself. But that incentive had come now, a two-pronged
goad; he was compelled to look to himself, to his own positive effort,
for what came next.
Vaguely, at first, he realised that a man if he be a man, has certain
responsibilities. He saw clearly, now that he considered life
seriously, that a man might err in dalliance and idleness just as he
had erred; and he saw too that a man might, like Sledge Hume, go to the
other extreme. A man might grow soft muscled literally and
figuratively in slothful carelessness, or he might grow hard until he
became a machine. He felt dimly that he ought to be doing something
like other men. He wanted his life to live freely as he knew how,
largely as he sought to learn how. And he wanted Wanda.
At first he was like a sea-worthy ship, in a calm with no definite port
in sight. But, in due course, from the one vital fact of his love for
Wanda other facts materialised. To begin with he thought with
diminishing bitterness of old Martin Leland. The man was old, and he
loved his daughter. Rumours of a wild life fly incredibly high and far
and fast. Such rumours of Red Reckless's doings had come to Leland's
ears, and perhaps it was natural enough that Leland believed them.
Shandon had always known his neighbour as a hard man but a just. He
made up his mind not to quarrel with him, but instead to so change the
tenor of his life that Martin Leland would notice and would approve.
If in taking Wanda to her new home he closed her old one to her he
would be hurting her.
He saw clearly, there being little foolish conceit in the man's makeup,
that he was not worthy. And he understood, though vaguely at first,
that it must be his one object now to become as worthy as any man could
be of her. And when the fifth day came and Ruf Ettinger rode to the
Bar L-M with excitement dancing in his eyes and his tongue clacking,
Shandon thought that he saw a beginning.
Ruf Ettinger, a little dried up man of forty-five, was crabbed, cranky,
sour and mean. He had the eyes, nose and brain of a fox, while perhaps
the rest of him, heart and soul, came close to being just plain hog.
He was stingy and suspicious, and people were no more in the habit of
speaking well of him than they were of riding out of their way to stop
at his place. He was the kind of man that makes his wife and children
live in a miserable, two roomed shanty, while he builds a big, warm,
expensive barn for his hay and horses. The only time he was ever
credited with a human emotion was when his favourite dog died; he cried
over it and then got drunk, careless of cost.
Shandon was surprised when he saw Ettinger ride up. He was more
surprised at Ettinger's manner when he insisted on Shandon saddling and
riding with him where there "wouldn't be no chance of bein' overheard."
Once clear of the house and outbuildings and in the valley where his
shrewd little eyes made sure that no other ears than Shandon's would
overhear, Ettinger plunged eagerly into his errand.
In brief it was this: Ettinger owned five hundred acres of valley land,
down in Dry Valley, some thirty miles from the Bar L-M bunk house.
Shandon knew the place well. Ettinger had, also, some money in the
bank. How much it was not his cautious way to say until he was obliged
to. How much would Shandon say his ranch was worth? Shandon did not
know, but hazarded the guess that it might bring twenty-five dollars an
acre. He did not consider it worth more because it was good grazing
land only for part of the year, and like the rest of the valley there
was scant water on it through the summer. Twelve thousand five hundred
dollars?
Ettinger cackled; he could sell it to-morrow for seventy-five thousand!
Shandon began to feel the first dim stirrings of interest. Ettinger's
excitement was too genuine not to awaken certain glimmerings of
interest. Water, that was the thing! Now, if there were water, plenty
of water, in Dry Valley; if a man could flood his land from brimming
ditches then what would happen? The soil was deep and rich; it had
been slipping down from the mountains for centuries; it had never been
worn out by farming. Twenty-five dollars an acre? What were the other
California valley lands worth where there was the same soil, no better
climate and water galore? Napa Valley, Santa Clara Valley, Sacramento
Valley? A hundred dollars an acre was dirt cheap; a man thought
nothing of paying for a small ranch five hundred dollars an acre!
That was true enough, and Shandon knew it. But there was that
tremendous IF.
"It's all right, Ettinger. All but the water! And since the water is
the whole thing, and I don't see where you're going to get it--"
"Wait a minute!" cried Ettinger, his eager hand clutching at Shandon's
arm. "I tell you I'd a sold that ranch for twenty-five dollars an acre
six months ago an' been damn' glad to git out at that. An' right now I
could sell for a hundred an' fifty the acre! An' I'm damned if I do
it! My nose smells somethin' when a man wants that place that bad, an'
I git busy follerin' the smell. If I ever sell at less than two
hundred dollars I'm gone crazy."
His excitement growing as the vision of much gold became clearer, he
ran on with hasty explanations. He had five hundred acres; Norfolk had
close to a thousand and he had made Norfolk begin to think for the
first time in his life. He himself had a little money in the bank and
Norfolk had some. There were other men, little ranchers, whom they
could whip into line. _And Wayne Shandon had the water!_
Shandon looked at him in amazement, thinking at first that the man was
a little mad. But Ettinger's shrewd eyes were sane enough.
"We go right up to your lake," he cried shrilly. "We git busy with
some engineers an' pick an' shovel men. We blow the side of a hill all
to hell an' what happens? The water just comes a bulgin' down into Dry
Creek, an' all we got to do down in the valley, twenty, thirty miles
away, is dig ditches an' watch our land turn into a gold mine!"
In a flash Shandon saw the utter simplicity of the whole scheme.
Whereas now the river from Laughter Lake shot down the mountains
through its rocky gorge, watering his own land and running through
little narrow, rocky valleys to the lower slopes, it might here near
the head be deflected so that it sped at first through the cañon of the
upper Dry Creek, and following a natural course be brought with little
expense to Dry Valley. Ettinger's proposition was no fanciful dream;
it was hard, unvarnished fact. And, as so often happens when a man
sees a radiant possibility, he wondered that he had not seen it for
himself long ago.
Here was the golden opportunity his soul, in a mist, had yearned for!
He shot out his hand gripping Ruf Ettinger's until the little man
squirmed. But even the pain of nearly crushed fingers did not drive
the grin from Ettinger's face.
"You're on," he cried exultantly. "Shandon, we'll frame a deal that'll
make millionaires out of us."
"And man's work!" was the thought stirring Shandon's heart and
brightening his eyes.
They rode on, as Ettinger had planned from the beginning, and covered
the two miles to Laughter Lake in a few minutes. They rode up the
shoulder of the ridge to the level of the lake; and there Ruf
Ettinger's eager finger pointed out where the work was to be done.
It was work which Nature might have planned when the mountains were
carved, the lake set in its deep bowl. Fifteen feet from this end of
the lake the water swept into a narrow channel, a ridge running down
from each side. Here was the spot to deflect the waters before they
sped on down over the steep fall. Upon the south side there was a
jagged cut in the saw-toothed cliff line. Even now the lowest part of
that cut, when once the free soil was scooped out, was not ten feet
above the level of the water.
"I rode up here purt' near a week ago," said Ettinger. "I looked this
over an' rode back all the way down Dry Creek. It's dead easy,
Shandon."
Already Ettinger visualised the cut deepened and widened here with
flood gates to control the current. He spurred his horse up the bank
as far as he could force the animal, then got down and scrambled on,
gesticulating and talking swiftly. Shandon followed him. In a little
they came to a point from which they could look back upon the lake, and
forward to the windings of the cañon through which Dry Creek ran in
winter and spring.
"It can be done," muttered Shandon slowly. "It can be done, Ettinger.
I don't know what it will cost, five thousand or ten or twenty; but I
do know that those lands down in Dry Valley are going to jump over the
moon."
Ettinger made little clucking sounds with his mouth, his way of
expressing joy unbounded.
"An' you don't see it all yet," he chuckled. "Lord, I've been layin'
awake nights figgerin' on it. We'll bond everything that's loose in
the valley. I've got Norfolk settin' tight and we'll round up a lot of
the little fellers. It's sort of late, maybe, but them other fellers
ain't got everything sewed up by a jugful."
"What other fellows?" asked Shandon, mystified.
Then Ettinger, in his rare good humour loosened his tongue until it
poured out everything there was in his seething brain. He told of the
scheme of Martin Leland and Sledge Hume, for Garth Conway had dropped
an incautious word and the shrewd brain of Ettinger had worked out the
puzzle. He told how the three men were trying to do this very thing,
how they had planned on getting the water themselves, how Martin Leland
had tied up thousands in options and purchases, how Ettinger had been
one too many for them and had beat them to Shandon. He chuckled over
everything, but most of all over the fact that Martin Leland had tried
to buy him out. Old Leland was the keenest business man in the county,
was he? Well, Ettinger had fooled him! Ettinger had blinded him with
a promise to sell next week for seventy-five thousand. By that time,
when Leland came to him--
"What's all this?" frowned Shandon. "You say that Leland, Conway and
Hume are already at work, planning to put water from the Bar L-M into
Dry Valley?"
"Already?" cried Ettinger. "They been clawin' at the job over a year
now. The Lord knows what makes 'em so slow; think nobody else in the
world can see straight, or shy on the money end, maybe. Anyhow they've
gone to it tooth and toe nail; they've sunk thousands into it,
thousands I tell you! An' now, you an' me, Shandon, can make the bunch
of 'em eat out of our hands! They can't do nothin' without your water;
that's where we got 'em."
Wayne Shandon's eyes grew bright with a vision, the muscles of his jaw
hardened. In sober truth his opportunity had come to him. Hume, a man
he hated, Leland, a man who had called him laggard, spendthrift,
scoundrel, had put many thousands of dollars into a project which he
could smash into pieces. Ettinger had said it: the two of them could
make Leland and Hume eat out of their hands! They could get Norfolk
and the little fellows; they could tear out the side of the ridge,
release what waters they chose, make their ditches, and by improving
only their own property make Leland's and Hume's holdings worth
nothing. Leland had started it; Leland's unreasonable censure had been
a challenge. Here was his answer!
It was business, straight business. Had Leland and Hume been his
friends it would have been different. But they deserved no
consideration from him. It was his water; he had the right to dispose
of it as he saw fit. He would be treating Leland as fairly as he had
been treated. Why had they not come to him in the first place? Why
had they not offered him the opportunity to get in on the ground floor
with them? He would have given them the water then, glad to see
Wanda's father prospering. But they were holding out, they were
waiting for something, they had made sure of his consent to let them
have what they wanted. Why? When they had everything cornered they
would offer him a small sum, they would believe him fool enough to leap
at it, mouth open, like a fish. Even Garth Conway, his own cousin, had
not told him! What consideration did Conway deserve?
"By Heaven!" cried Shandon.
And then he fell suddenly silent.
"We got to git busy in a hurry, Shandon," Ettinger ran on swiftly.
"When old Sure-Thing Leland comes to me to close the deal I want to
laugh at him."
Slowly the light died out of Shandon's eyes. Was this, after all, the
opportunity for which he had yearned? He grew uncertain, a little
troubled. An opportunity for what? For becoming worthy of Wanda, for
being a man, square and just, a man who must make a new name for
himself, a name which would never bring discredit to her when she
became Wanda Shandon? In trying to ruin Sledge Hume for the sordid
motives of hatred and gain, in trying to strike back at Wanda's father
in vengeful bitterness, would he be doing a thing of which later he
would be proud to have her know? Was he proving his manhood by
accepting for his first business partner a man like Ettinger, who
laughed over his feat of tricking another man by a lie? Was he not
seeking to blind himself to the right and the wrong of it? This was
the sort of thing that Sledge Hume would do; should Wayne Shandon do
it? Was his first venture after the priceless gift of Wanda's love to
him, to be a thing like this? Had this been the opportunity he had
yearned for, to grasp gold full handed, to wreak vengeance, to
retaliate against unfair treatment by striking back treacherously?
Martin Leland had been unjust, yes. But had there not been strong
human reasons for that injustice? Had not his own wild living been
cause enough? Was he, from the sharp words of an old man who was
jealous in his love for his daughter, to draw an excuse to strike at
his own cousin and Wanda's father?
"Ettinger," he said quietly. "I can't do it. You had better keep your
promise to Leland."
Ettinger's jaw dropped, his brows puckered in astonishment.
"What's the matter with you?" he demanded sharply. "Can't you see the
play? We got the chance to git the water on the land and make them
fellers pay for it or sell to us at our own figger, ain't we? Why,
it's as good as gold, man! If you don't see enough in it as it stands
you are in a place where you can hold 'em up for a bonus to boot."
Shandon turned away, Ettinger's point of view suddenly disgusting him.
His golden opportunity had crumbled into dust and ashes. And although
the little man by his side waxed voluble in alternating rage and
supplication, Wayne Shandon's final word was a positive,
"No!"
CHAPTER XI
WANDA'S DISCOVERY
A supreme happiness had filled Wanda Leland's heart for a few golden
hours, so thoroughly permeating every fibre of her emotional being that
when sorrow came afterward it could not entirely drive out the
whispering gladness.
Never had the forest land seemed so big, so vast and still as during
the slow days which followed. She went to it for the comfort she could
not bring herself to ask of her mother just yet, and it mothered her,
crooned and whispered and sang to her. Through the dew filled mornings
she wandered silently; rarely did she return to the house until the sun
was low in the west. Never had this world she loved seemed so vitally
close to her, so big in a new sense, so eloquently an expression of the
divine eternal. Her heart swelled and the talk of the pine tops
entered it.
They were sad, glad days. Gladness sang in her heart when in the
sun-flooded mornings she rode out alone, and perhaps her devious way
brought her to the spot where Red Reckless had swept her up into his
arms for the first time, when his kiss had brought love into full
blossom in her breast. Sadness brought its shadow and listlessness
when day after day passed and she did not see him again, when the eager
hope of the morning that he too would ride to that spot to meet her
died down in the afternoon's invariable disappointment. Gladness when
she thought of him, just of him; sadness when she thought of her
father's stern face.
Red Reckless had made no attempt to see her, or to communicate with
her. Even while she sought to find excuses for him, that hurt her more
than her loyalty would let her whisper to herself. He would come soon.
He would know where to find her, know that her woman's heart was taking
her to the spot where that heart had really become a woman's. He was
thinking of her now as she thought of him. Her heart heard his heart
talking to it across the forests and streams.
A woman's heart trusted him, but a maiden's pride permitted no question
when Garth rode over as he did twice during the following week. When
Garth remarked casually that his cousin was the same old chap he'd
always been, and that he seemed to have nothing in his rollicking brain
more serious than the breaking of a wild devil of a colt and a horse
race which he had set his heart upon, Wanda bent her head a little over
her book and gave no other sign of having heard the statement elicited
by her mother's question. But the news hurt, too, just a little.
There was a quick sting that came and was gone as her love for him
surged up again, and it was the same sort of sting, only stronger, that
she had felt as a little girl when she thought of him as happy in his
boyish pursuits with any one but her. It did not matter now whether it
was Little Saxon or Big Bill. She told herself in her own little room
that she was a jealous cat. But--
"Oh, dear God, how I love you, Wayne!"
Then, when the days passed and she did not hear from him, there came
for the first time a quick fear which was the first ally of that twinge
of jealousy. The fifth day came, the day on which he was riding to
Laughter Lake with Ruf Ettinger, and she could not know that his every
thought was of her. She only felt that, had she been the man, she
would not have stayed away. And there came the question and the fear,
"Does he love me as I love him?"
The old, lovers' question ever since Aucassin and Nicolette; the matter
for long debate and reiterated argument: "It may not be that thou
shouldst love me even as I love thee!" She found herself blushing
hotly as she rode alone through the forest at the thought that she was
again going to meet him, and that he did not come to meet her. She
felt suddenly ashamed and angry both with him and with herself. Was
she, to him, like a ripe apple that had dropped into his hand at the
touch? Did he think other--?
Her face crimson she reined the startled Gypsy around with a savage
jerk, turned her back squarely upon the Bar L-M, and without a look
behind her rode swiftly in the opposite direction. She rode for an
hour, not turning once, although many a time her heart fluttered wildly
and then grew painfully still at some slight noise which to her
yearning ears sounded like the thud of a horse's hoofs behind her.
To-day she crossed the narrow valley toward the cliffs rising like a
wall upon the far side of Echo Creek. Stubbornly she shut her mind
from its daily wanderings; her camera, that she had not used for a
week, was going to work for her to-day. The birds that had come
trooping back from wintering in the south--robins and blue birds, blue
jays and woodpeckers, larks and yellow hammers--made merry din in the
morning air. Shep, running on ahead as usual, disturbed half a dozen
grouse from the underbrush in a little cañon, and the muffled roll of
their whirring wings threw Shep into brief consternation and prolonged
subsequent joy. She saw the bob and flash of a rabbit's tail, noticed
again and again the lean, muscular body of a tree squirrel, heard upon
a wooded slope the snapping and crashing of brush that told of the
leaping flight of a deer. The woods were alive with animal folk, her
"friends" called to her from every tree and tiny valley, they peeped
out at her from burrows and hollow trees.
"We are going to quit being a little fool," she told Gypsy with
tremulous emphasis. "And we are going to get a real picture to-day."
A day or so before she had heard with scant attention and no subsequent
interest something which in the old careless, love free days sooner
would have sent her riding this way in haste. One of her father's men,
Charley or Jim, had found a dead cow under the cliffs and had seen
signs of bear. He had returned to the spot later and had killed the
animal, a she bear, and had seen one of her cubs making its swift,
awkward way into the brush. Recollecting the story, and because to-day
she yearned feverishly for something to do, Wanda turned Gypsy toward
the cliffs, thinking how she should like, if her fortune were very
great, to be able to show Wayne Shandon when he did come to her, the
picture of a bear cub playing in the woods.
"I've had so much fun hunting for him!" she would say then. And Wayne
would never know how unmaidenly she had been.
Before she had come within a thousand yards of the place where the
carcass of the cow was lying she slipped from the saddle and picketed
Gypsy. Her lunch she left tied to the saddle strings; camera and field
glasses went with her.
Already, in the fast advancing summertime, she had donned her hunting
costume. The soft green of blouse and short skirt, of cap and
stockings, blended with the many tints of green of the copses and
groves and meadows through which she went swiftly and silently. She
slipped from tree to tree, making no more sound than the chipmunk
scampering almost from under her feet. Her eyes brightened, the colour
warmed in her cheek, her heart grew eager. For, sure enough, fortune
was good to her; there were two little bear cubs, round and fat and
playful, rumpling each other where they rolled in the sunlight in a
small grassy open space.
They were a hundred yards away when she saw them, too far for a
picture; but as soon as her eyes fell upon them she vowed that she must
have a picture. There was little breeze this morning in the quiet
woods, but that little blew from where she stood straight toward the
spot where the cubs were frollicking. She must circle, come out down
yonder behind a pile of rocks, slip behind the great cedar right at the
base of the cliffs, and edge on from there on her hands and knees.
But she paused a moment, fascinated, watching them. They were sitting
up, their small brown heads shaking from side to side, their sharp eyes
watching each other, their little red tongues lolling. They were such
baby things, their awkward bodies so like the little bodies of babies
just taking the first faltering step, that she wanted to rush at them
and pick them up and hug them.
There was the angry snarl of a rifle, sudden and sharp and evil, and
one of the little brown bears made an inarticulate whining moan and its
playful spirit ran out in red to dye the grass. Its brother fell over
backwards in its fright; there came a second shot, the whining of a
bullet glancing from a rock, and the cub plunged into the brush. She
saw it a moment, lost it, saw it once more running as only the
frightened wild things can run as it sped down into a little hollow
which hid it from the hunter and thus saved its life, and then she
discerned it climbing wildly, clawing its terrified way up the great
cedar against the cliffs. When no third shot came she knew that the
hunter had not seen it and then, with an angry fire in her eyes, she
turned to learn who he might be. Approaching her from the edge of the
grove, a complacent smile upon his face, his rifle under his arm, was
Sledge Hume.
"Oh!" she cried when he had come close, thinking that he must have seen
her. "Why did you do that? It was like murder!"
He stopped dead in his tracks, and then swung toward her. He was so
close that she saw a quick, startled look leap up in his eyes.
"Murder?" he said sharply. "What do you mean?"
He had not lifted his hat, it was not Sledge Hume's way to trouble
himself with the small civilities. He came on again until he stood
quite close to her, staring coolly into her flushed face.
"They were playing just like babies!" she cried breathlessly. "Why did
you kill it?"
He laughed.
"Hardly for its skin, since I suppose it isn't worth much," he answered
carelessly. "Hardly for its meat as I'm not going to trouble with it.
Why, I suppose just for fun then. Because," his tone and eyes touched
with a hint of contempt for what to him was a woman's squemishness,
"because I wanted to."
Her eyes flashed her growing anger back at him.
"It was so unnecessary," she said bitterly. "They were playing so
prettily and happily."
"I watched them for ten minutes before I shot," he said. "Their play
was interesting, I'll admit. But they were bears, just the same.
They'd grow up some day and I wonder if they'd take mercy then on a
pretty little baby calf if they came upon it playing? Your father'd
thank me, my tender hearted Miss."
She bit her lip and turned away from him. He watched her a moment,
then called,
"Are you riding back to the house? My horse is right back there and
I'll ride with you."
"No," she answered quietly. "I'm not going back just yet."
She walked on to where the dead cub lay--stood looking down on it a
moment and then moved on. Hume watched her while he filled his pipe
and lighted it, and went in turn to look at his game. He turned the
little beast over with his foot, noted with satisfaction the hole which
the bullet had torn through the soft body, and then strolled toward his
horse. Wanda saw him ride away in the direction of her home, smoking
his pipe.
"All men like to hunt, to kill things," she mused. "Are they as cruel
about it as he is? Would Wayne have watched the little things playing
for ten minutes and then, when he tired of it, shot them in the midst
of their play?"
Not until Sledge Hume had topped a gentle rise and dropped down and out
of sight upon the farther side, did the girl turn quickly to the great
cedar up which she had seen the escaping cub scramble. She was certain
that he had not come down. When at first she did not see him she
circled the tree slowly, expecting from each new angle to catch a
glimpse of the roly-poly brown body. And when, after fifteen minutes
peering upward through the widely flung, horizontal branches, she saw
him, a swift inspiration came to her; her quarry had not escaped her
yet.
The tree, one of the giants of her father's ranch that she knew very
well, thrust its crest upward so close to the cliffs that many of the
branches had been bent this way and that, flattening against the
granite. The lowest limb, twenty feet above the girl's head, was as
thick as many a tall tree hereabouts, and was like a giant's arm, bent
at the elbow, thrusting the rocks back. She could make her way up this
far, working along a ragged fissure in the cliff; thence she could edge
out upon the broad limb until she came to the trunk itself. And once
there, to Wanda in her hunting costume and with her knowledge of tree
climbing, the rest of the way, from limb to limb, might be difficult
but would certainly not be impossible or fraught with unaccustomed
danger.
The cub had climbed until coming to a limb which like the lowest one
scraped against the rock not half a dozen feet from the tapering trunk,
he had crept out on it and was lying upon a ledge of rock. Wanda hoped
that here was the opportunity of a lifetime. She would climb as high
as that limb, and find the cub's flight shut off by the sheer wall
rising perpendicularly behind him. Then she would make him pose for
her, whether he liked it or not.
Flushed and panting the girl made her way upward until finally she
caught with both hands the big lower limb. Field glasses and camera in
their cases strapped to her belt in no way interfered with the free
play of her muscles. She tested the branch a moment, smiled at herself
for hesitating to trust her light weight to a thing which would have
carried tons, gripped a firmer hold and swung free of the rocks. Here
would have been a picture for her mother had she come with her this
morning; the lithe graceful body swinging twenty feet high in air, only
hard slab and broken boulder beneath her. Then she drew herself up as
a boy does "chinning himself," threw a heel over the limb, and in a
flash lay breathing deeply and triumphantly, the most difficult step of
her climb achieved.
Slowly, steadily she made her way upward. In the main it was simple
enough for Wanda for it was the sort of thing she did over and over
week in and week out. Once, already fifty feet from the ground, she
did something that would have been simple enough under other
circumstances and yet which put a quick flutter in her heart. It was
something which would have made the heart grow still in the breast of
Wayne Shandon had he seen, which would have brought a paralysing fear
for her to a man who loved life for the gamble in it and who took his
chances recklessly.
She was perched fearlessly upon a sturdy horizontal limb, her body
tight pressed against the trunk, her hands gripping at the roughened
bark, steadying her as she balanced. A quick glance upward showed her
a bare stretch of bole with the nearest limb on her side of the tree
just barely beyond her reach. Slowly she straightened, lengthening her
pliant body the imperceptible fraction of an inch, gradually thrusting
her two arms up high above her head, still with her hands steadying her
as they clung to the bark, her moccasined feet curving to the limb on
which she stood. And now she could just touch with the tips of her
fingers the broad branch above.
Then she did the thing which would have been simple enough had she
stood on the ground instead of balancing high in air; she measured the
few inches in distance, she drew her fingers lingeringly from the bark,
holding them still above her head, she tautened the muscles of her
splendid young body to the work they were called upon to do, bent her
knees little by little, and then fearless still but agitated, she
leaped upward, and grasped the elusive branch.
For a moment she swung there, secure now and confident, and then, as
she had gained the first step in her climb so now she made this one. A
slow tensing of biceps, a drawing up of the pendulous body, the quick
flash of a heel thrown over the limb, and she lay upon it, laughing
softly. It was good and glorious to be young, to have a body that
obeyed one's will, to have a steady heart.
Presently she began once more to clamber upward, her way comparatively
easy now. Thus at last she came to the branch upon which, as on a
bridge, the little brown bear had crossed to the ledge of rock. And
together there came to her a distinct disappointment and a pleasurable
surprise.
Again the cub had slipped away from her; perhaps by now he was half a
mile away and tumbling his awkward and terrified way among the crags.
From below the ledge had seemed to be four or five feet wide; now she
saw that it was nearer ten. The conformation of the rocks, beetling
above it, had led her to imagine that a straight wall of cliff rose
abruptly just at the back of the ledge. In reality they overhung the
rudely level space like out-jutting eaves over the sun-deck that might
have been carved to his taste by some old cliff dweller in front of his
solitary retreat. For there was a cavern here under the frowning brow
of granite, different from the many caves of which the girl knew in the
rugged mountains only in that it was so roomy and at the same time so
secret a place.
Before she left her resting place, she saw the way the cub had gone.
Leading upward from the extreme end of the ledge, at the right, there
was a deep seam or crevice in the granite, almost filled and choked
with fallen rocky debris from above, but affording a trail that even a
man might travel to the top of the cliffs another fifty feet above.
There was a quantity of fine sandy soil at the lower end of the narrow
cut and on the edge of the ledge, and her trained eyes had slight
difficulty in seeing the signs of little bruin's headlong flight. As
he scurried upward he had left the marks of his toes in long
unmistakable scratches.
"I wonder," thought the girl with a little thrill at what her fancy
pictured for her, "if any of the rest of the family are at home?"
The mother bear had been killed; one cub was dead; the second had fled
to the cliff tops. Here, where bears were growing scarcer every year,
there was little danger of her meeting the _pater familias_. And yet--
"If I should meet a bear in there," she laughed to herself, "I wonder
who'd be scared most?"
She made herself as comfortable as she could, drew her camera from its
case, focused it upon the yawning, black mouth of the cavern and waited
a patient quarter of an hour, noiseless and listening and ready. For
she was familiar enough with the California brown bear to know that he
will not attack when the way of retreat is clear; that while, after he
gets into a fight he extracts a great deal of delight from it, still if
given his choice he would rather run and keep on moving until he had
covered anywhere from ten to sixty miles.
[Illustration: She made herself as comfortable as she could, drew her
camera from its case, and waited a patient quarter of an hour.]
When nothing but silence answered her, she leaned out on the limb and
tossed her hat into the mouth of the cave. After it she threw some big
pieces of bark, making them land well inside with no little noise. As
there was still no sound she waited no longer.
The branch out upon which she edged her slow way was both sturdy in
itself and made doubly safe by the fact that it lay across the ledge,
reaching with its tips to the rock wall at the side of the natural
door. In a moment she had scrambled across, had leaped to her feet and
was peering into the vast, shadowy interior.
There are few of us for whom a cave does not have a rare attraction, an
appeal little short of fascinating, that has in it something of romance
perhaps, certainly something of mystery and a dim, vague stirring of
primitive and vital feelings, a shadowy harking back to the early life
history of mankind. To Wanda Leland, in so many essentials a child of
the wild, such a cavern as this was a bit of wonderland. Her swift
running, pioneer blood tingled; her heart gladdened with a glow of
discovery and exploration. Perhaps cave men had dwelt here, secure and
watchful, in the forgotten ages; the idea thrilled. Certainly no man
of her own time or her father's knew of the place: that thought made
the spot her own, and intensified her eager delight in finding it. It
had, to her sensitive, imaginative nature, an aura that she felt had
clung to it always. It was a bit of the wild, the retreat of the wild
things, sternly expressive of a savage grandeur.
Her sensations a strange composite of many dim, intangible,
inexpressible emotions, Wanda tiptoed to the opening, paused listening,
took two or three quick steps and was inside the cave. For a moment
she fully expected to see the sight she dreaded, a pair of gleaming
points of light blazing at her menacingly. And for a little she saw
nothing but shadowy, unreal shapes. Her heart leaped wildly as the
startling fancy came to her that these were the phantoms of the long
dead time when men had lived here, ghosts of the older race.
Then she laughed softly again, once more accused herself of being
"stupid," and began her explorations. Little by little as she grew
accustomed to the scant light here she made out dim bits of detail.
First she realised that her first conjecture had been quite right, and
that this was the biggest cave by far that she had ever seen. She
moved forward half a dozen steps, walking warily for fear of a fall and
found that the light from the entrance died into deep darkness before
it could search out the sides of the great cliff room. Then she went
back out upon the ledge and gathered from the debris choked fissure an
armful of broken bits of dry wood, twigs and needles from the cedar.
In the pocket of her blouse were the matches which she always carried
with her on her trips and in a moment a crackling flame near the cave
door shot its wavering light deep into the dark interior. Then again
she hurried in, eager to see what lay before her.
Nowhere was the rock roof lower than ten feet save where far back it
slanted toward the floor. The floor itself sloped so gently toward the
back that it seemed quite level. She judged at first glimpse, as the
firelight drew from the gloom a glinting granite surface here and
there, that the chamber was twenty feet wide, that it reached back into
the cliffs some fifty feet. She moved back toward what seemed the rear
wall, found the floor pitching steeply ahead of her, noticed a rush of
fresh air stirring her hair and paused suddenly, listening. A low
sound that at first she could neither locate nor analyse, came faintly
to her as from a great distance.
With her hand on the rock wall she moved forward again slowly and
cautiously. Still the floor pitched steeply as she went on, still the
rush of air was in her face and with it the low rumble, growing more
distinct. It was like nothing so much as rolling thunder, very far
off, or the half heard beat of the ocean on a distant, rock bound
coast. Again abruptly the way under foot grew almost level, she was on
a plane some six feet lower than the ledge outside, and as she took
another step forward, passing round a great slab of granite that jutted
out in her way, she came upon an unexpected glint of light and a sight,
seen dimly, that made her cry out in startled surprise.
From far above, from some indefinite, hidden opening; the light from
the big outdoors filtered down upon her. There was a brooding dusk
here made vibrant with the clamouring voice that was no longer like
distant thunder but resolved itself into the echoing fall of water.
Water that came from the darkness above, that flashed a few feet
through the dim light, that leaped out and plunged into the darkness
again, shouting and thundering as it dropped into a yawning ink black
void rimmed with granite boulders. She crept closer, her ears filled
with the din, her eyes bright with the strange, weird, almost unearthly
beauty of the place. She crept so close, gripping one of the boulders
with tightening fingers, that she could peer downward into the chasm
that swallowed the water. It was only a small stream, such as is born
in the High Sierra of melting snows, but its dizzy fall, its mad
leaping, the echoes that were never still, caused a murmurous sound
that swelled and lessened fitfully but was never still.
She found a loose stone and pushed it over the edge, leaning forward
swiftly to listen, seeking to trust to her ears since her eyes could
tell her nothing of the depth that lay below. She heard the stone
strike, clatter against the rocky sides, strike again and again, the
sound growing fainter until at last it was lost altogether in the noise
of the water.
She stood up, drew back and looked across the chasm which lay like a
gash upon the rocky floor. She judged it to be fifteen feet wide,
maybe wider; upon the far side and perhaps fifty feet further back,
there was a splotch of light indicating a way out there into the open
day. But the bottomless abyss shut off all passage to the other side,
its echoes growling threateningly as though they were what they seemed
to the girl's quickened fancies, the restless mutterings of giant
things imprisoned in the deepest bowels of the earth.
"If I ever wanted to run away from all the world," she mused
fantastically, "I'd come here!"
And then, suddenly shuddering, she went back hurriedly to the open.
CHAPTER XII
THE TALES OF MR. WILLIE DART
Being a girl very much in love, her lover had been already as long out
of her thoughts as he could ever be, and now he came back into them and
became the centre of them.
She sat down just outside the doorway of the cave, hat, gauntlets,
glasses and camera at her side, her knees clasped in her hands and
stared away through the cedar's intricate, rustling needles and across
the tops of the forest sweeping away from the cliffs across the verdant
miles, and day dreamed. This newly found cave was her own, absolutely
her own. No other man or woman in the world knew of it. She would
come here again, always careful that no chance eye saw her; she would
bring little things to make of it a lady's bower set above the leafy
world. There would come, in due season, cushions which she would work
secretly in her bedroom at home and which she would fill here with
fragrant pine needles and sweet scented herbs; there would be a book or
two; little, unused things would disappear from Julia's kitchen, a tea
pot, a bit of coffee, knives, forks and spoons; and some day when the
full summer had brought the sunshine that would dissipate the shadows
of these last days Wayne Shandon would come here, would stand under the
cliffs looking up wonderingly; would climb her magic ladder and dine
with her.
As she sat, leaning back against the rocks, daydreaming as Youth cannot
help doing, her eyes wandered far across her father's ranch. She found
the view new to her. Yonder nothing but the fresh green of the tops
fir and pine had thrust upward in the spring; beneath them, seen only
now and then as it frisked out of shadow and glinted in sunlight, Echo
Creek; beyond the creek--
She sat up straight, suddenly picking up her field glasses. Yes,
beyond all this she saw the knoll upon which her father's house stood,
even the building itself through its clump of cedars. But her glasses,
raised higher sweeping back and forth, had found the river, and
travelling on picked up the Bar L-M buildings and corrals!-- Next time
she would bring the larger glasses, and leave them here, hidden in the
cave.
For a long time she gazed across the river, her heart beating quickly
with the hope that she might see, somewhere in the wide view, the man
who was in her heart. Finally, with a sigh, she lowered her glasses,
letting them follow Echo Creek speeding down the long slope of her
father's valley. And, doing so, it happened that there came into the
disc of her vision a man whom she knew she had never seen before. For
a few minutes she watched him riding up the valley, idly amused at the
awkward manner of his progress. When his horse walked he clung
tenaciously to the saddle horn; when the animal trotted he gave her the
impression that at any step he was going to fall off. At last, when
she had lost sight of him among the trees, and her interest lagged, she
made her way down from the cliff, went back to Gypsy and turned her
horse's head toward home.
The man whom she had watched clinging to his horse's back so
desperately was not only a new-comer to the Sierra and a stranger, but
a poor sort of person to be alone where there is a dearth of paved
sidewalks and streets with names and numbers. He had lost himself many
times since leaving El Toyon the day before, and now, with the main
valley road as plain before him as a man could wish a road to be, he
forsook it and came on blindly along a second road that the Echo Creek
wagons had travelled last week for wood. And Wanda, riding down to the
creek, met him when he had reached a state of perspiring despair.
"Say!" he called shrilly when, barely in earshot, he caught his first
view of her. "Say, wait a minute, won't you?"
Wanda, smiling a little at the evident distress which gave her her
first impression of the man, came on to meet him. She stopped Gypsy
with a swift, gentle touch upon the reins, while he yanked his sweating
horse about by pulling manfully at both reins held one in each hand.
"Say," was his next word of greeting, "ain't this the doggondest,
peskiest wild man's land you ever shot a glimmer of your eye at? Gee,
ain't it fierce, lady?"
Wanda's smile brightened in spite of her. He shook his head and pursed
his underlip and mopped his reeking face.
"I'm just in a cold sweat all over," he confided ruefully. "What with
the rubbing of this saddle on the outside,--an old pirate with eyes
like a young sheep and whiskers like Santa Claus robbed me of twenty
bucks for it back yonder in that jay town,--and my bones inside trying
to poke through the skin, I'm just peeled like a seal whose skin some
flash dame is wearing for a coat. Say," with a groan as he shifted a
little in the saddle which he blamed for his woes, "you don't live so
awful far from here, do you?"
"No," she smiled. "Just across the valley."
"Nix on that!" he cried sharply, as if in sudden alarm. "They been
talking that way to me ever since I got lost the eighty-second time.
'Down to a cross road,' they'd say, lying as would shame a second story
man caught with the goods. 'Then turn to your right and go straight
ahead and it's just a little piece.' I ain't ever hurt you, lady, and
I wouldn't, not for a hundred dollars. But I'm awful sore being told
it's just over yonder. How far is it, measured in something civilised,
like blocks?"
He was the most anxiously earnest little man Wanda had ever seen, and
the most dejectedly miserable. Still vastly amused she began to feel a
little sorry for him. He was such a veritable babe in the wood for
helplessness.
"Really, it isn't far," she assured him. "Just a trifle over three
miles."
"Lord," he groaned, staring at her reproachfully. "The way you folks
talk about distance out here makes my flesh creep. But, say, is that
the nearest place?"
"Yes."
"Then can I go home with you, Miss? And will you scare up something
for me to eat? I'm so starved I'd eat egg shells."
He was such a harmless looking, innocent, pitiable creature with his
plaintive voice and childish eyes that her amusement turned to pity.
"If you are very hungry and tired," she suggested gently, "you can
lunch with me now. I always bring something along to eat."
His eyes brightened and a smile set quick dimples in the round face.
He released his bridle reins promptly, put his two hands on the horn of
the saddle--Wanda noticed that they were hands like a girl's, soft and
white with beautiful, tapering fingers and rosy nails--got a stiff leg
over the cantle, wriggled over on his stomach and as his horse moved a
little he fell off. For a moment he remained sitting.
"Birds was made to fly and fishes to swim," he remarked impersonally
and philosophically. "Me, I'm going to walk after this. I ain't ever
going to split myself in two over a horse again."
"You'll have to ride to the house."
"You don't know me, Miss. I'm Mr. Willie Dart, and when I make up my
mind like I done just now it's final. I'll walk those three miles on
foot, and when I can't walk no further I'll crawl, and when I can't
crawl I'll lay down and die. But I'm through being a cowboy."
Thereupon he arose rheumatically, carefully dusted his gay checkered
suit, gave much attention to the crease in his jaunty little hat,
adjusted his bright blue tie, daintily tapped his cuffs back into his
coat sleeves and bestowed a beaming, cherubic smile upon Wanda.
"Let's eat," he suggested.
She dismounted and spread out her luncheon upon the paper in which it
had been wrapped, kneeling down on a grassy plot near the creek. Mr.
Dart hovered over her in frank eagerness, giving vent to various
chuckling sounds bespeaking deep satisfaction as he saw that there was
cold chicken and ham, cheese and buttered bread. Then they ate, Wanda
sparingly, pretending to have little appetite, Mr. Dart swiftly and
joyously and noisily. And, with his mouth crammed full and his cheeks
puffed out gopher-wise, he talked. He demanded her name and her
father's business; he wanted to know what she was doing so far from
home and if she wasn't afraid; he ascertained that buffaloes were
extinct in this part of the West if they had ever been here which was
to be doubted; he thrilled and drew closer to the girl upon learning
that a bear had been shot near this spot; and, abruptly, he asked if
she knew a guy named Shandon?
"Wayne Shandon?" she asked curiously.
"That's him. Red Head for sure, ain't he?"
She admitted that he was, hesitated a moment at his next question, and
then answered it by saying that Mr. Shandon was a friend of her family.
"Good kid, ain't he?" he went on, a little flushed from his eating.
"Friend of mine, too. We're great chums, me and Red. Ain't he ever
told you about me, Willie Dart?"
"I don't think so. You have known him long?"
He poked into his mouth the last quarter of the sandwich in his left
hand, secured a bit of cheese with his right, and answered:
"Long? Say, Wanda, I've known that boy since he was a kid! Me and him
worked together and slept together and et together up in the Klondike
all year back in ninety-six."
"Ninety-six?" she frowned. "Mr. Shandon wasn't in the Klondike in
ninety-six! He was right here."
"Oh," admitted Mr. Dart easily, "I ain't sure it was ninety-six. Might
have been ninety-seven. Funny he ain't ever told you about me. Never
mentioned, did he, how we got into a snow drift one time and had to eat
our dogs and I got him out final?"
"No," she said, wondering a little what sort of being he would prove to
be if one came to know him. He did not look as though he had ever
lived the rough life he mentioned so glibly; certainly his hands were
not the hands of a frontiersman.
"Maybe it's because I made him promise not to talk about it," he went
on carelessly. "The papers was full of it up there and I got kinda
sore being made so much of. He's grateful though. But he hadn't ought
to be. He more than squared the deal six months ago when we run up
against one another in New York. It was this way:"
And asking no encouragement he plunged eagerly into his tale. It
devolved from the first word that Red was sure a corker, a guy you
could tie to until snowballs foregathered in a clime in which,
according to popular fancy, they are an extreme rarity. He was on the
dead level, he was at once a game kid and a red hot sport. Red had
seen the name of his friend in a society sheet and had looked him up at
the Astoria. Mr. Dart had been naturally overjoyed to renew
acquaintance with an old pal. And as it happened Red was to step in
between him and certain death.
Mr. Dart had been going it a bit and had got into a foreign set. He
mentioned casually a couple of French dukes and a German prince with
fat, puffy eyes. There were others of them. They had played cards
together at one time and another and it seemed a general truth that
foreigners were bad losers. Besides, one of the French dukes, a shiny
man like a waiter in a cheap cafe, had a very lovely wife. Mr. Dart
esteemed her with a snow white friendship. But the French Duke was
jealous.
Mr. Dart's fine, white fingers gracefully annexed a piece of buttered
bread and the tale went on. They had decoyed him to a dreary downtown
haunt. They were all there, all armed with revolvers. In a moment it
would be all night with Mr. Willie Dart. Enter Red, the game kid. A
scene of thrilling unreality in which the game kid temporarily disabled
or permanently crippled every man of the would-be assassins. Mr. Dart
finished the tale and his bit of bread together, offering the
thoughtful, concluding remark, that so much powder smoke in the close
room had made him cough.
"You seem to be on very intimate terms with the foreign nobility,"
Wanda replied quietly, though she kept her dancing eyes away from him.
Willie Dart lifted his shoulders.
"Them rummies don't qualify for finals, when you come to know 'em,
Wanda. Honest, they don't. I never got the mit of one of 'em in my
fist it didn't feel like a dead fish. There ain't a one. Say! Didn't
Red ever tell you about Helga?"
"Helga?" She shook her head. "Who is Helga?"
"The only decent piece of nobility I ever sat across the table from,"
enthusiastically. He had produced a pack of Little Soldier cigarettes
and lighted one before resuming. "She's Roosian, is Helga; a Roosian
Princess. Funny Red never told you about her. Gee, he's just like an
oyster, that kid, ain't he? Here's the straight dope on that business;
I know because I was along."
It seemed that Mr. Dart and Red had been two of a fashionable yachting
party that had gone frisking down under the Palisades and out into the
open sea. The Princess Helga, a sure enough stunner, take it from Mr.
Dart, had the men all dippy from the crack of the gun to the break of
the tape. He admitted with a sigh which absorbed a great deal of his
cigarette smoke, which after an eloquent pause made pale exit through
his nostrils, that he hadn't got over her effect on him yet.
Well, they were out beyond Sandy Hook, and the wind was blowing and the
white foam flying and the yacht beating it down the coast like the mill
tails of--like anything, you know. Suddenly there was a scream and the
Princess Helga was overboard. The yacht passed her about a half mile
before anybody thought about turning it around, they were all that
excited. But Red, say he didn't lose his head two seconds, not him.
Say, he was overboard like a shot, and he had gone down under the water
and had come up with the Princess Helga in his arms. After that--
Well, Mr. Dart rather guessed, with another sigh and subsequent
expulsion of cigarette smoke, that it was a pretty hard case. The
Princess Helga hadn't looked at another man since.
Wanda having conceded merrily that Mr. Dart's tales were intensely
interesting and marked by the ring of truth, was further informed
concerning the private affairs of Mr. Dart himself. He had taken the
notion to come out and see his old friend; his one reason in the world
for being here lay in that determination.
"I'm surprising him," he admitted complacently. "Red'll be clean
tickled to death to see me. Most likely we'll go into business out
here together. I'm looking for an invest--"
Suddenly he let out a wild scream, scrambled to his feet, and fled
behind Wanda, his ruddy cheeks suddenly paling.
"My God!" he chattered. "Look at that thing!"
Wanda looked and saw what since a child she had called a
"Snake-lizard," a very frightened snake-lizard at that, which with tail
aloft was scampering wildly from near Dart's place at luncheon into the
nearby thicket. Her own sudden fright that had been aroused by Dart's
headlong dash and piercing yell gave way to a peal of laughter.
"Look here, Wanda," he said sharply. "On the level, that thing ain't
deadly, is it? I been setting on it for half an hour, I know. It
might have been biting me all the time, I'm so numb I wouldn't have
felt it."
She assured him, chokingly, that there was no cause for alarm. Dart
rubbed himself and brightened. But his face fell again as she went on
to inform him that the creatures were so numerous that in his walk home
he might encounter a dozen.
So it was that Mr. Willie Dart changed his mind and decided to ride the
three miles across the valley.
CHAPTER XIII
SLEDGE HUME MAKES A CALL AND LAYS A WAGER
"Now, my erstwhile Noble Benefactor, brighten up and look happy. I've
got some red, white and blue news for you. I like you first rate, I'm
strong for the grub and I guess I can stand for the country being stood
on edge. I've come to stay!"
The door had been flung open and Mr. Willie Dart came gaily into Wayne
Shandon's bed room carrying a big book in his hands, trailing a long
wisp of fragrant smoke from one of his host's cigars behind him.
Shandon looked at him with a sober, thoughtful frown, and seemed in no
way hilariously impressed with Mr. Dart's glad tidings.
Already the latter had been at the Bar L-M several days. During this
time Shandon had not seen Wanda; he had come close to blows with Ruf
Ettinger; he had been variously and grievously annoyed by Mr. Dart;
certain other matters had gone wrong; and altogether he was in no
pleasant mood.
"Look here, Dart," he replied savagely, kicking off his boot so hard
that it struck against the far wall of the room, and continuing his
undressing with a fierceness that brought a momentary speculative
squint into Mr. Dart's innocent eyes. "What's your game, anyhow?"
"Game?" Willie Dart put a great deal of reproach into his tone. "Nix
on that, Red, old sport. When a man travels three thousand miles in a
damned stuffy car and then on top of that rides a horse like I did
clean over the backbone of the universe, just through gratitude to his
Noble Ben--"
"Oh, damn the gratitude," cried Shandon. "I'm tired of hearing of it.
I most heartily wish that I'd let matters take their own course."
"Now," resumed Dart, again smilingly, having softly closed the door and
made himself comfortable in a chair, "what's the use of pals getting
off wrong with one another? You slipped up and got your tongue twisted
when you said what's my game. What you'd ought to have said was what
noble purpose is kicking around in my manly boosum. You don't seem to
put any faith in me, Red."
Shandon's short laugh prefixed his short answer.
"Do you wonder I don't?"
Then Mr. Dart chuckled.
"Come right down to it, Red, I don't! But you wrong me. Gratitude, my
Noble--"
"Call me that once more and I'll heave you through the window," snapped
Shandon. "If you've got anything to say, say it. I'm going to bed."
"Don't mind me," Dart hastened to say. "It won't bother me at all.
What I was going to say was this: Here I've come all the way from New
York--"
"No doubt because you were run out!"
"Just through a sense of gratitude. What can I do to show that
gratitude has been the only worry to keep my appetite down to capacity?
I've been here a week, ain't I? Well, the first thing after I got
rested up which has been about four days now, I begun thinking about
that. And it come to me like this: Old Red's got troubles; he needs a
friend that would live in a temperance town just to help him. Here's a
place for Willie Dart to fit in and do some good!"
Shandon groaned.
"If you start in--"
"I've started already," beamed Dart. "I ain't had much time for fine
work, yet, and I don't know the play quite as well as I might, but I've
been planting little seeds of kindness promiscuous."
"What do you mean?" frowned Shandon.
"Now don't go to getting excited. I'm going to tell you, ain't I?
First place, the day I got into these forests primeval, I run across a
fairy that could be Mrs. Willie Dart in a minute if I wasn't sworn to
single harness by my dad on his dying bed down in Argentine."
"Last time he died it was in Nova Scotia," remarked Shandon drily. "Go
ahead."
"As I was saying she was fine and foxy," resumed Dart pleasantly. "We
made up a little lunch and went out for a picnic, just her and me.
Soon as we got to feeling like old friends and I found out she knew
you, I said, 'Look here, Wanda--"
"What!" cried Shandon, bolt upright.
Mr. Willie Dart blew a playful puff of smoke at him and picked up the
tale:
"I said, 'Look here, Wanda--'"
"Wanda who?" sharply.
"Leland, of course. Wanda Leland. Got it now? How am I ever going to
get anything said if you keep butting in like that, Red? I said, 'Look
here--'"
"You look here!" muttered Shandon. "I don't like to hear you talk
about her at all. If you've got to do it, call her Miss Leland.
Understand?"
"Aw, rats, Red. What's the use of that kind of talk between friends?
She don't care."
"Well, I do. And I mean it."
"Oh, all right. Well, anyway, we was setting on a log together and we
got to talking like fellers and girls do, you know. Good God, Red,
quit your glaring at me like you was an old tomcat screwing yourself up
to jump a mouse. I never kissed her even, I swear I didn't. I found
out she knew you and I begun right then being a real friend. Say, Red,
if you could have heard the fairy tales I dropped into that fair
maiden's pearly ear!"
His dimples twinkled and danced and deepened upon his round face.
Shandon, staring at him fearfully, demanded to be told what the fairy
tales had consisted of. Willie Dart eagerly complied.
"I set right in watering your stock, old scout. I told her you were a
hero and a guy a man could trust a gold watch to that didn't have any
marks on it to prove who it belonged to. I begun by informing her how
you came to my rescue when a hard fate had me on the embers of despair."
"You told her that?" in amazement.
"Oh, don't get alarmed. I set forth the account in such a way that
while your part was not lessened my own was not exactly--"
"In other words you twisted it entirely out of shape," laughed the
other. "You forgot to say that a detective nabbed you while you were
picking my pocket and that I--"
Willie Dart raised a soft white hand.
"I showed her how you saved my bacon," he said easily. "What's the
difference how you done it? Then, when I got through that and I could
see she was thinking what a grand man you are and she never noticed it
before, I slipped a card off a fresh deck and related your adventures
with the Roosian princess."
The dimples that had fled as his host mentioned a certain word which
Mr. Willie Dart did not like to hear now came back. Shandon stared at
him wonderingly.
"What in the devil are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the Roosian princess," chuckled Dart. "I told Wanda
all about her, what a nifty dame she is, you know, and how you saved
her life and how she put her arms around your neck and cried and--"
"Good Lord," groaned Shandon. "I could wring your neck, Dart. What in
the world made you lie to her like that?"
"This here is a prime cigar, Red. Better send for a fresh box, this
one is drying up. Now, I'm going to tell you something: My mother was
a fortune teller and maybe that's why it is, but anyway I can dope up
what people are thinking lots of times. I hadn't any more than said
Red Shandon to her than I got wise to that little girl's trouble. Say,
Red, she's just naturally stuck on you! It's a fact! Now, when a
woman's stuck on a guy, what's the way to make her go clean nuts over
him? What's the answer? Why, just tell her about the other woman like
I told Wanda about Princess Helga."
"Helga?" cried Shandon in sheer wonder. "What Helga?"
"The Roosian princess," beamed Willie Dart.
"Dart," very sternly. "You lie to me now and I'll wire the police of
New York that you are here. I ought to do it anyway; I would have done
it when you came if I hadn't been a fool and you hadn't filled me up
with your lies until I was sorry for you. Why did you say Helga?
Where did you learn that name? What Helga do you know?"
Dart hesitated briefly, his childlike eyes smiling frankly, the shrewd
side of his strange brain very busy.
"When you took me up to your room that day in New York and threw some
grub into me," he replied at last with apparent carelessness, "and left
me for a minute, why I just sort of looked things over. There was a
letter with Helga signed to it. The name's awful funny, ain't it? She
is Roosian, ain't she?"
"What do you know about her?"
"Just that she was much obliged to you for the information you promised
to send her about something or other. It ain't anything to send you up
the river for, Red."
"What did you tell Miss Leland?"
"Miss Leland? Oh, Wanda, you mean." Mr. Dart repeated the tale he had
told Wanda with the many fanciful embellishments which it seemed
necessary for him to give to any story that he found it necessary to
repeat.
"I sure enough boosted your game, Red. Say, kid, it worked for fair.
You ought to have--"
Even after the threats which Wayne Shandon made to him that night
Willie Dart stayed on. Shandon declared he would drive him off the
place with a buggy whip, and Willie Dart said that he'd come back if he
was chased away. Shandon mentioned the police of New York, and Dart
asked him reproachfully if he delighted in wounding him in his most
sensitive part; wanted to know if his Noble Benefactor was the sort to
drive a man back into the mire he had just emerged from, to thwart all
effort to lead a pure, sweet, rural existence. Finally Shandon
contented himself by forbidding Dart to meddle in the future with
anything not in any way a part of his own business; and nourished the
secret hope that a few weeks of the humdrum of mountain life would tire
this sparrow of the city gutters. Whereupon, when alone with his big
book and a fresh cigar, Willie Dart soliloquised as follows:
"He's up against a good many things, poor old Red is. He's as bad in
love with Wanda as she is with him. Her old man is soured on Red and
is making the toboggan slide all bumpy. Then there's some sort of
trouble with Ettinger. There's a deal on somewhere I ain't wise to,
and Red ain't in on it. Wanda's old man is in on it, so's the Weak
Sister, meaning Garth, so's a gent name of Sledgehammer Hume. I guess
time's ripe for little Willie Dart to mix in and see what's what. He's
a square kid, is Red, and I'm going to help him put his affairs in
order."
And then making himself comfortable as he pondered in the biggest chair
in the well furnished living room, he sighed, twisted his cigar a
moment thoughtfully, sighed again, put his feet on the table and turned
to the pages of the big book. His fancy was caught by numerous and
attractive illustrations in a volume dealing with the mythology of the
ancients, and he was soon convinced that he was acquiring a scholarly
knowledge of the history of the old Greeks and Romans.
Wayne Shandon was distinctly surprised the next morning as he entered
the corral to encounter Sledge Hume sitting a sweating horse and
evidently in wait for him.
"You were looking for me?" he asked shortly. The last time he had
spoken to Hume was to quarrel with him, and to be drawn into hot words
with Arthur because of him. He made no pretence at making his tone
more than coldly civil.
"Yes," returned the other as bluntly. "I rode over from old man
Leland's on business."
Shandon frowned. His quick thought was that Martin, unwilling to
communicate personally with him, had sent this envoy. With this idea
in mind he said,
"If Mr. Leland has any business with me--"
Hume laughed his short, insolent laugh.
"I didn't say I came on his business," he said.
"I just stayed over there last night and came on this morning, early,
to catch you before you left the house. It's my own business, Shandon.
I'm not in the habit of taking other men's worries on my shoulders."
"What is it?"
"Just this!" coolly. "Whenever I hear of any money lying around loose
it's as good as mine unless some other fellow beats me to it. You must
have done a whole lot of talking; anyway word has gone all over the
country, clean down to my place and beyond, that you're putting on a
horse race. How about it?"
"I don't see just where you come in?"
"You will in a minute if you care to. I hear the race is to be pulled
off the first thing in the spring, as soon as the snow's gone? How
about it?"
"Correct."
"You're going to ride, of course?"
"I am."
"Little Saxon?"
"Yes."
Hume eased himself in the saddle and looked down at Shandon keenly. A
little sneeringly he demanded,
"What are you going to make it? A little penny ante game?"
Shandon stared at him curiously. Hume laughed again under his gaze and
said arrogantly, after the born manner of the man,
"If you'll make the stakes worth a man's time I'll make you hunt your
hole, Shandon."
A little flush crept up into Shandon's cheeks and his eyes hardened.
It would be so easy to quarrel again with this man; the very sight of
him, supremely egotistical and contemptuous, stirred a natural dislike
into something very close to positive hatred. But these days he was
making it his business to hold himself in check, he was turning his
back against the old headlong ways, and he said quietly,
"Make your proposition. I see you've got one to make."
"I'll ride you any race you like, anywhere you like and at any time;
provided it's a gentleman's game and not penny ante."
"Done," answered Shandon promptly. Had he refused it would have been
the first time in his life he had refused a wager offered as this one
was. "Name the sum and if it's anything I can raise I'm satisfied.
And," his eyes steely, "_I'll_ name the sort of race!"
"Some one said that you were going to start things with a purse of five
hundred," remarked Hume. "I don't do business on that scale. I'll lay
you an even thousand."
"I'm pretty close up right now," was Shandon's answer. "I've spent a
good bit lately and I don't want to sacrifice any more cattle. But--"
"Oh, well," laughed Hume, "it doesn't make any difference. I thought
that you might have a little sporting blood, you know. You must have
done a lot of talking, Shandon."
"--but," Shandon went on, his voice raised to cut into the other's
jibe, "I can sell a few cows if necessary. And while I'm doing it it
is just as easy to raise five thousand as one."
"Oho!" cried Hume. "Little Saxon is proving up, eh?"
"Little Saxon can beat his brother Endymion any day in the week in the
sort of race we're going to run. It's going to be ten miles, across
country, across the damndest country you ever saw, Sledge Hume! It's
going to be a distance race and an endurance race. And since it's
going to be here in the West it's going to be Western. I don't care if
you run or don't run and I don't care if it is for five cents or for
five thousand dollars."
There crept into Sledge Hume's cold eyes a look of such shrewdness that
Shandon was struck by it then, and remembered it long afterward.
"When I go into a deal," was Hume's swift answer, "it's because there's
something in it. You put up your five thousand if you're so cocksure,
and put it up now and I'll cover it! With one thoroughly understood
provision, Shandon. The man who comes in first at the end of that ten
miles, be it you or me, gets the money. There's going to be no chance
to get cold feet and pull out. If you don't ride at all, if you get
scared and decide to get sick or break a leg to save five thousand, I
ride alone and get it just the same. Remember I didn't ride over this
morning for love of racing or for love of anything else; I saw a chance
for some money, easy money."
"Draw up an agreement to that effect," answered Shandon, a darkening of
his eyes showing that Hume's taunt had stung. "I'll sign it. Find a
trustworthy man to hold stakes and I'll put up my five thousand within
ten days after you put yours up. Is that satisfactory?"
Hume answered that it was, and named two or three men in El Toyon as
possible stake holders. When he mentioned Charlie Granger, proprietor
of the El Toyon hotel, Shandon said curtly,
"Charlie's all right. He's square."
So the matter was decided as coolly, and apparently with as much
indifference, as if it had been a matter of no particular importance.
Hume made no pretence of desiring to continue a conversation that would
be a mere waste of time and words now that his business was done, and
swinging his horse about raked it with his spurs and galloped back
toward the Echo Creek. Wayne Shandon, suddenly a little thoughtful,
turned and went to the stable. Little Saxon jerked up his head and
looked at his master with glaring, untamed eyes.
"We've got to get busy, Little Saxon," he said, looking with critical
eyes at the lithe, powerful, rebellious body.
"Say, Red! Ain't you on to his game?" Shandon had not noticed that
Willie Dart was anywhere near, but was hardly surprised when the little
man popped up, wild eyed and excited. "Once you get your cash down
he's going to put you out of the running! That guy'd put ground glass
in a baby's milk bottle for the price of a beer. Gee, Red. You sure
enough do need a keeper!"
Which position Willie Dart was already seeking manfully to fill.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WANDA'S CAVE
Willie Dart's sunny nature seemed to grow ever brighter as the days
wore on. Once or twice he sighed at Wayne Shandon's failure to respond
to his levities; and when he felt particularly unappreciated he carried
his dimpling personality to the bunk house where he was hailed with
delight. When a flask that had come in with Long Steve, who had made a
brief trip to the outer world, disappeared before that joyous gentleman
had consumed half of the potent contents, and when later the empty
flask was found in the covers of Emmet's bunk, Willie Dart looked on
with sorrowful, innocent eyes while Steve and Emmet resorted to
physical argument. When a game of crib was being played while half a
dozen men looked on, and a portion of the deck vanished, only to turn
up ten minutes later in the hip pocket of Tony Harris, who had not once
been near the table and was most thoroughly mystified, no one thought
of blaming the cheerful Mr. Dart. It was only when he offered
privately to collect for Big Bill a debt of six bits long owing to him
from Dave Platt that the real gift of those wonderful hands of his
began to be at all apparent.
Then, too, the method of his progress over the range was another source
of unfailing delight and unbounded admiration. He had ridden a horse
to the Bar L-M, but no man of them ever saw his little legs astride a
horse again. He found, back of the blacksmith shop, the wreck of an
old cart which years ago had been used for breaking colts; he
improvised shafts and seat; he discovered the encouraging fact that Old
Bots, a shambling derelict who had lost an eye when Wayne Shandon was
quite young, was gentle and trustworthy. After that, wherever he went
abroad, and he travelled all over the countryside, he rode in the cart,
steering Old Bots this way and that with much shouting, prodding and
jerking of reins. And he drove where perhaps no man had ever driven
before. His smiling confidence in Old Bots, in his rattling, creaking
old cart, in his own ability as a driver were all characteristic of his
joyous optimism.
In the meantime Wayne Shandon had at last seen Wanda. His reasons for
making no effort to see her immediately after his heated interview with
Martin Leland were clear in his own mind; he expected to find that they
had been equally as clear to her, and that she would have understood.
But the Wanda he found one riotously brilliant morning was rather cool,
distant, unapproachable.
He had ridden up on the cliffs which towered at the upper end of the
Echo Creek ranch, from which he could look down the valley and see her
when she left the house, as he felt confident that she would. He saw
her when it was not yet nine o'clock. She was riding out across the
valley toward the cliffs opposite at the north end of the valley,
toward the cave she had found there. Shandon marked the course she was
taking, swung his horse across a ridge and hastened to the meeting with
her. He came upon her as she dismounted near the big cedar against the
rocks.
"Wanda!" he called softly.
She turned toward him, her face paler, he thought, than it should be.
He slipped from the saddle and came swiftly toward her, his eyes
shining, his arms out. Then she raised her hand, stopping him.
"Good morning, Wayne," she said quietly.
"Wanda," he cried, a little perplexed. "What is it? Aren't you glad
to see me?"
She smiled, put down the parcel she had been carrying, and perched upon
a big broken boulder forcing her eyes to look merrily into his. And
what she read in his look sent a quick, glad flutter into her heart.
But she did not let him know it.
"Glad to see you?" she replied gaily. "Why, of course I am. But,"
teasingly, a little cruelly, "aren't you the least bit afraid?"
"Afraid of what?" he asked blankly.
"Of papa!" she retorted, her dimples playing because she meant to look
as though she was quite a heart whole maiden, and because the very ring
of his earnest voice swept away all the uncertainty that had come to
her during these last days of waiting. "You are on his land, you know."
"Surely you don't imagine--" he began.
She laughed lightly.
"My dear Wayne, how should I know?"
"I don't understand you, Wanda," he said a little stiffly. "After what
happened the other day--"
In spite of her a little glowing colour ran up into her cheeks.
"Goodness," she exclaimed, persisting in the part she had vowed many
times a day she would play for him, "haven't you forgotten that?
Really, after you'd had time to think about it didn't you have to
laugh? Weren't we a couple of precious kidlets?"
For a moment he stared at her as though dazed. This was a Wanda he had
never seen before; he did not know what to make of her. And then
suddenly he put his head back, the gladness that had sung in his heart
when first he rode to meet her surged back and he laughed the great,
deep, happy laugh the girl knew so well.
"You little witch!" he cried gaily, as gaily as Wanda had spoken at
first and more genuinely so. "You've just set out to plague me. And
I'll show you how I treat little girls who tease!"
Without more ado he came close to the rock upon which she sat looking
down at him with demure eyes, swept her off into his arms and kissed
her before he put her down.
"Now, Wanda Witch," he said softly, his eyes laughing into hers. "Are
you sorry? And do you love me so hard it almost hurts?"
"So," she said when at last he released her, not certain in her heart
that she had held out quite long enough, "that is the way you treat
little girls who tease, is it? All little girls who tease? The
'Roosian' princess, for instance?"
"The _what_?" he demanded, having for the moment forgotten Dart's wild
tale.
"Helga," she told him quite as seriously as she could, rearranging her
disturbed hair and meanwhile looking up at him with eyes that were
beginning to defy her and smile.
As he remembered, as he thought of the things Dart had told her to
"boost his game" he became for one of the rare times in his life just a
trifle embarrassed. She must think him a fool for letting that little
cur yap all kind of nonsense into her ears, or the ears of any one who
would listen. He flushed under her teasing eyes.
"I'm going to wring Willie Dart's little neck the first thing when I
get home," he said. "Look here, Wanda--"
"Oho!" Her brows lifted and she looked at him speculatively. "So
there really is a Helga, is there?"
But he was laughing again, again threatening to kiss her adorable red
mouth if she did not behave and tell him all about herself.
"If you had really wanted to know couldn't you have ridden over
sooner?" she asked.
Then he told her why he had stayed away, how he had wanted to see her
every day, how he had thought that she would understand.
"Your father forbade me the ranch," he reminded her. "At first I
thought that it would be impossible for me to bring myself to set foot
upon property belonging to him. I thought of sending word to you by
Garth, by Dart even, asking you to meet me somewhere, anywhere that I
would not be trespassing. And, dear, even before I would ask you to
meet me, if you still cared!" with mock seriousness, "I wanted time to
fight things out with myself, a few days in which to see if there was
not some way out better than this one. I hoped, even, that your father
would change his mind, that he would be fair with me as it is his way
to be. And then at last, when I could not wait any longer, I came.
And now, my Wanda Witch, I am going to stay until you come and put both
arms around my neck and admit that you love me so hard that you've been
perfectly miserable since you saw me!"
"And Helga?" she insisted lightly but with just a hint of curiosity.
"If you go on that way much more," he assured her, "I'll say, 'Damn
Helga!' Tell me about yourself."
There was much to tell and it came at last as they sat together under
the cedar, oblivious of the world about them, careless of what might
lie in the future for them. There was the story of her rides, the
murder of a bear cub, the meeting with Willie Dart, and--
"And, first of all," she cried triumphantly, "the discovery of a
wonderful secret."
She refused to tell him what it was until he obeyed her bidding. She
sent him scouting to see that no human eye could spy upon them, and
then she sent him climbing the cedar.
"What's this?" he rebelled. "At least tell me whether I'm supposed to
gather an armful of clouds or wait until dark and bring down some
stars."
"Go straight up until I tell you to stop," she laughed. "And be sure
you don't fall."
"Would you care very much, Wanda?" he asked loverlike and foolishly.
"I should," she informed him, her eyes twinkling. "For I shall be
climbing right under you."
"Oh, I know, then. We're going to heaven."
And up he went. Laughing, calling back and forward like two children,
their hearts gay and surcharged with something sweeter than mere
gaiety, they made their way steadily, he always above, she just below
him and carrying the parcel done up in a newspaper.
"You might at least let me carry our baggage upon our journey," he
offered more than once. But she insisted that this too was a part of
the secret.
At last he came to the limb that lay out across the ledge of rock and
would have kept on climbing, he was so busy looking down at the rosy
face that was looking up at him. But she commanded him to use his eyes
for something else than just to make love with, and he understood.
"You mean to say you've been up here before? That you've gone out
across that sort of a bridge?" he exclaimed in amazement. "Aren't you
afraid of anything in the world, Wanda?"
"Yes," she answered. "Yes, to both questions. I'm inclined to be
afraid of spiders; I think that I'd be afraid of an alligator. And now
the secret!"
"A cave," he cried. "Way up here! How in the world did you happen to
find it?"
When he had crossed first and given his hand to her she came swiftly to
his side, thanked him with a nod and set him to work.
"This is my own private estate," she told him. "No one enters my
portals until he has been invited. You are not invited yet. In that
seam in the rock you will find plenty of wood and dry cones. If you'll
put them at the doorway I'll let you know when you can come in. And,
Wayne--"
"Yes?"
"No one knows of this place except we two. Keep behind the cedar,
won't you, so that if any one should be about you won't be seen?"
Wayne gathered great armfuls of wood, piled cones conveniently, and in
the meantime got no single glimpse of the interior of the cavern. For
Wanda had slipped within, had drawn over the wide opening the screen of
branches her own hands had made against the occasion, and was
completely hidden by that and the curtain which reinforced it against a
ray of light. He could hear her singing softly, happily as she went
back and forth. At last her voice came to him, calling merrily.
"You may come in, Mr. Shandon. Don't bring the wood with you yet; just
come to look and admire."
He thrust aside the screen, stepped through and his short exclamation
amply repaid her for the many hours of preparation.
A dozen tall candles burned here and there, set into niches in the
rough walls, gummed in their own grease to knobs of stone, their
pointed flames standing still like fairy spear blades menacing the
shadows which still clung to the lofty ceiling. Giving added light was
a blazing fire of pine cones at the far side of the cave, near the
mouth of the passage leading to the cleft where the water shot down.
Strewn across the whole floor, masking its rough surface, were pine
needles which, while they made a thick mat underfoot, filled the cave
with their resinous tang. And there was another odour, agreeable,
homelike. Shandon looked again at the fire; set on each side of a bed
of coals were two flat stones, perched on the stones a battered,
blackened old coffee pot.
"I called you a witch, didn't I, Wanda?"
"You might at least have called me a Fairy," she retorted, her eyes
bright with the joy of a day-dream come true.
"Did you conjure this out of a broken eggshell with a wand? Is this
how you got your name, Wanda?"
She took him on a tour of exploration, pointing out each little thing
which she had already seen alone, which, when she had seen it had
promised her a day like to-day when she could show it to him. They
went down the sloping passageway and stood for a little while silently
before the chasm with its din of falling waters. They speculated upon
what might lie upon the farther side if a man could cross. They came
back to the fire and Wayne was shown how the air drew through the cave
so that the passageway at the back gave exit to the smoke. They had
just a peep, for Wanda would allow him no more now, into a hidden
recess not five steps from her fireplace where there were mysterious
packages hinting that they might be bacon and butter and sugar and
coffee. And then they came back to the screened entrance and stepped
outside. Wanda held up her field glasses to him.
"Look out that way," she ordered him. "No, Goosy. Not at the trunk of
the tree. Between those two branches yonder. What do you see?"
He adjusted the glasses while she watched his face. And he found the
clearing about the Bar L-M headquarters, the buildings themselves set
upon the knoll.
"It's wonderful," he cried. "Why, we could signal--"
"Wait a minute," she interrupted brightly. "This isn't your discovery,
not a bit of it. It's all mine and I'm jealous of it. And I've
thought it all out. Now, if you'll come inside we'll have a cup of
coffee and a sandwich which you'll eat politely just as though you were
hungry."
"I'm starved!"
"And I'll tell you _my_ invention. First, though, while I serve
luncheon you can be the hired man and bring in all your wood. I'm
perfectly willing to be cook but I refuse to get my wood any longer."
When he had completed his task he came to her. She had poured two tin
cups of coffee, sweetened and cooled with condensed milk, and upon a
clean piece of bark served her sandwiches. And they sat on the floor
upon heaped-up pine needles and she told him her plan.
There was an old spy glass at the Bar L-M, wasn't there? All right.
Then his first duty when he got back home would be to spend a patient
time locating with it her cedar and the cliffs back of it. To-morrow
morning, early, she would be here--no, no. Not in the cave nor even
upon the ledge outside; they must guard so carefully against their
secret being lost; but upon the big boulder at the top of the cliff.
She would have her field glasses. He could step out upon the front
porch at the Bar L-M, and if any of the boys were about he could
pretend to be looking idly at a herd of cows somewhere, or at a hawk or
at anything but at her. They could see each other quite distinctly.
"If it wasn't so far we could talk on our fingers!"
"Do I have to remind you again that this is my discovery, my invention?"
She tried so charmingly to be severe, and failed so delightfully that
he assured her he was going to put down his coffee cup and come over
and kiss her. But when she threatened that if he misbehaved she would
not stir out of the house again for a week he sighed and finished his
coffee and listened obediently.
"Suppose," she went on, "that you stood very still on your porch, both
hands holding your spyglass? That would mean one thing. Suppose you
leaned lazily against the door post? That would mean another. If you
came down the steps, if you took off your hat, if you put on your hat,
if you sat down on the bench, if you turned your back to me, if you
lifted both arms above your head as if you were yawning and stretching,
if you stooped to pick up something, if you stooped once, walked five
steps and stooped again--don't you see that even with your whole outfit
looking on we can say 'Good morning,' and 'Good night,' and anything
else we choose to say? Isn't it splendid?"
For an hour they worked on what Wayne termed the Wanda-code. She had a
pencil and tiny memorandum book and they made duplicate copies of their
code of signals as they worked them out. Thus:
_1. Standing straight, both hands up--I love you, dear, with my whole
heart. (That was Wayne's contribution to the code, and he insisted
that it be number one in the book.)_
_2. Leaning against a tree or post--I must see you immediately._
_3. Removing hat--Be careful. We are being watched._
_4. Turning back--Something has happened to prevent our meeting to-day._
_5. Stooping once--That's all. Good bye._
And so on until there were no less than two dozen signals each with its
meaning, each to carry across the miles a lover's message.
They agreed upon the exact time when every day their love would laugh
at the miles separating them; an early hour when they had waited just
long enough to give Wanda time to ride hither and the Bar L-M men time
to have gone about the day's work. And if Wayne were not upon his
porch then Wanda was to understand that he was already riding to meet
her.
"But your mother," he said. "Doesn't she often go with you?"
"Not when I want to be alone," Wanda smiled back at him. "Mamma knows,
Wayne."
"You have told her? Your father told her?"
"It isn't something that papa talks about, dear. I told. And, Wayne--"
Suddenly they ceased to be children playing and became very serious.
For while the love brimming their young hearts had been like a fountain
from which laughter bubbled up, still its song had not deafened their
ears to the murmur of life about them. There were things to be told
each other, questions to ask and answer, their own future to look
soberly in the face.
Day after day Shandon had looked for word from Martin Leland, had
counted on receiving from him an offer for the water to be employed in
bringing fertility to Dry Valley. He told her of Ruf Ettinger and his
counter scheme, how close he had come to being drawn into it; he
wondered if something had happened to cause Leland and Hume to give up
their proposition.
No, whatever this proposition was they had not given it up, Wanda was
sure of that. Her father was away much of the time; she knew that he
had been often in Dry Valley, that he had had some sort of dealings
with Ruf Ettinger. She had heard him say to her mother last night that
the man was a hog, that when offered an unheard of price for his land
he had held out for something still better, and that Leland had broken
off negotiations with him entirely. Yes, it must be the same
proposition about which Ettinger had gone to Shandon. Strange that
Garth had not told him anything. She knew that Garth regularly met her
father and Sledge Hume; she knew that whatever the business was that
had drawn Leland and Hume together had drawn Conway into it also.
That matter finally disposed of, left with the unsatisfactory
conclusion that Garth had his own reasons for remaining silent, and
that Shandon would soon hear from Leland, Wanda broached the other
subject which had all along been the one cloud upon her happiness.
Driven to the rim of her mind by her gayer moods it was still there,
sinister and black upon the horizon.
"I should have told you the other day," she said slowly, "the day when
we found so much else to talk of. You will understand why papa has
refused to let you come to the house."
"What is it, Wanda?" he asked eagerly, hoping there would be a direct
charge so that he might vindicate himself.
"Have you no idea, Wayne?" a little curiously. "Have you never had a
suspicion of the reason that makes papa hate you so?"
"He disliked my father--"
"It is not that. Maybe that makes him the more ready to suspect you--"
And then she blurted it out, a little defiantly, laying her hand softly
upon his arm. "He thinks, he has thought all along, that you killed
Arthur!"
He stared at her gravely, the shock of such a charge too great to be
appreciated to its fullest extent in a moment.
"He thinks that I killed Arthur?" he repeated incredulously. And then,
bitterly, "My God, Wanda. This is too horrible."
"Listen, Wayne. We must talk this over calmly and see what is to be
done. You see papa has disliked you because he hated your father. Oh,
it's unjust but it's so human! He has believed all the hard things men
have said of you and they have said many. He knows that the day before
Arthur was killed you and he quarrelled. Then you went away, you were
gone a year and he didn't think that you would ever come back. You
came back, you made me love you. Believing as he did, papa did the
natural thing when he refused to let you come again."
"He had no right to believe it," he cried angrily. "I shall tell him
so. I shall make him tell me of a single thread of the wildest
circumstantial evidence to point to this hideous thing!"
"It will do no good," she said simply. "Nothing in the world can be
done unless--oh, I have thought so much about this, Wayne--unless the
real murderer can be found. Surely if you offered rewards, if you
hired detectives, if you talked with MacKelvey--"
"Wanda," he interrupted, his voice at once stern and troubled. "Do you
remember when you gave me the revolver that morning? I didn't explain
to you, even you. I couldn't. If I went away and stayed so long, if I
didn't remain here doing the thing you suggest, offering rewards,
hiring detectives to hunt his murderer down, couldn't you guess why?
You found the revolver that killed him."
"Wayne!"
"And the day Arthur and I rode into El Toyon I gave the thing to him.
It was his own then. He shot himself. God knows why. I should have
spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But
I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that
Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that
there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down.
I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it
for Arthur's sake."
He broke off sharply, moved strongly by his own words that conjured up
something he had striven manfully to shut out of his mind, strongly
moving the girl who heard him. She watched him with piteous, sad eyes
while he strode up and down, back and forth in the candle lighted cave.
Suddenly he stopped, exclaiming bitterly,
"Your father thinks this of me. Who else? Does half the countryside
believe me a murderer? Does Garth believe it? Does Hume? Does your
mother?"
"I don't know what Garth and Sledge Hume think," she answered. "I do
know about mamma. Wayne, even she was afraid at first, even mamma.
But she knows you too well, dear. She says that you are the other
Wayne Shandon, over and over; that you may have been a spendthrift and
a brawler,--forgive me,--dear, but that you have always been an honest
and manly man. She knows that we love each other, Wayne. She knows
that I have expected to see you. Isn't that enough?"
"Next to you, Wanda, she is the sweetest woman in the world." He took
the girl's hands in his and stood looking down at her gravely. "And
you, you have never been afraid? You recognised the revolver, you
brought it to me. Are you very sure--"
"Kiss me, Wayne," she said for answer.
And yet, when they parted lingeringly, the little cloud was still upon
the horizon, the uneasy feeling of uncertainty upon them. If, at this
late hour, he went to the sheriff and told the truth, what would be the
result? Would it sound like the truth to MacKelvey? To Martin Leland?
CHAPTER XV
WILLIE DART PICKS A LOCK
The summer sped by like one long golden day under its rare blue sky;
yet always upon the horizon was that single black cloud. Not until
summer had gone its bright way and winter had come, locked the mountain
passes and departed again, was the way to be made clear.
If Wayne Shandon could have had the opportunity to act at once when
Wanda told him the reason of her father's open enmity he would have
gone immediately in his headlong way to MacKelvey. He would have told
the sheriff his own version of the tragedy; he would have recounted the
finding of the revolver by Wanda, her giving it to him, his certainty
that Arthur had taken his own life. But having promised Wanda to do
nothing rashly, without again talking with her, having pondered deeply
as he rode back to the Bar L-M and during the days which followed, he
came to see sanely that for his own sake and for the sake of the girl
he loved it would be better if he held his peace until time and thought
brought clear vision.
He was already suspected by Martin Leland, perhaps by MacKelvey
himself, perhaps by many men among whom he came and went. Would the
story he had to tell lessen suspicion in any single breast? Would it
not rather give the sheriff just such a bit of evidence as he had long
been seeking?
Much alike in one great essential Wayne Shandon and Wanda Leland had
hearts that were tuned to happiness. To such people it is easier to be
gay than sad; the trouble, stern as it was, that had entered their
lives so early was less than the brightness which dissipated all other
troubles but that one. Good fortune had disclosed to them a meeting
place as high as the waving treetops where no one's curious eye would
penetrate; they could converse across the miles almost as people may
call across a street; they could be together two or three times a week
without their world knowing. These things gave wings to the summer.
They were busy days, clad in action, crowned with dreamings. Wanda's
cave became a dainty bower for a fair lady. Across the cliffs, by
tortuous trail, it was a scant five miles to the little mountain town
of White Rock. Many a dim morning before the shadows lifted to the
rising sun the trail had echoed to the clanging hoofs of Shandon's
horse as he rode down and back, bringing a surprise for Wanda. A
packhorse had brought in supplies, bought in Shandon's own reckless
way, which when piled high against the rock walls made Wanda gasp and
ask him if he thought that she was going to take in boarders. There
were camp stools, there were rugs. A tiny sheetiron camp stove came
one day, and when Wanda put her rosy face through the screen that Wayne
had substituted for her old one, her nostrils were assailed by the
odours of boiling coffee, frying bacon, sizzling apples and burning
bread.
There were strings of onions, and potatoes popping out of their bag
before the summer died; a side of bacon swung against a ham where Wayne
had driven a dead branch into a crevice in the rocks; there was a table
he had constructed rudely but securely; there were books on it; there
were candles burning everywhere.
"Because," he had laughed at her surprise, "winter will come one of
these days, and do you think that I'm not going to see you until it's
gone again? Oh, I suppose I'll have to be down at the lower pastures
with the stock, but I'll get up here now and again. Then when a fine
day comes and you want a long ski ride, you'll know where to come,
won't you, Wanda? Where a hot luncheon will be waiting for you? And,
who knows," he whispered, "maybe we'll spend our honeymoon here
sometime!"
Shandon at first had thought of going to Garth Conway, of asking him
frankly what the deal was in which he and Sledge Hume and Mr. Leland
were interested, and if they were counting upon needing the Bar L-M
water as Ruf Ettinger had told him they were. But in this matter also
had he altered his first quick decision. He had always liked Conway,
at least, without thinking a great deal about it he supposed he had,
for the very simple reason that they were cousins and had, in a way,
grown up together. But on the other hand they were men essentially
unlike, in no respect congenial. They had never been confidential;
were they the only two men in the world it is doubtful if one would
have carried his personal thoughts and emotions to the other. That
little reserve which had always existed, scarcely noted by Wayne
Shandon, was suddenly a wall between them. This was Conway's business;
if he chose to keep it his secret from his cousin, Wayne Shandon was
not the man to ask him to talk about it.
Moreover, perhaps even more important now than that consideration,
there was another. Leland and Hume had at least been upon the point of
going into this matter just before Arthur's death, and they had taken
Arthur into their confidence. Perhaps he was to have been one of their
corporation when one was formed. Now that Wayne owned the Bar L-M and
the water, the logical thing for them to do was to come to him. They
had brought Garth into the circle of their endeavour; they had ignored
Shandon. A little hurt at the obvious significance of this Shandon
shrugged his shoulders and resolved that when the first word was spoken
it would not be by himself.
And soon he came close to forgetting it. The incentive to bestir
himself had at last come into his life and he was not loitering.
Little by little, through long talks with Garth, with Big Bill and
other men of his outfit, he came to have a grasp upon the work which
should have been his a year before, and an interest in it. Only now
for the first time did he take the trouble to learn the real meaning of
resources and liabilities; to estimate profit and loss; to speculate
upon success in the business which he found rather larger than he had
suspected. He called a round-up to learn to the head how many steers
and cows and calves carried the Bar L-M brand. He brought a quick look
of surprise that was close to suspicion into Garth's eyes by asking
casually just what sums had been taken in during the last year by sales
of beef, how the money had been reinvested, if there was a surplus in
the bank. He went into the matter of the wages of all of the men, and
learned that Garth himself was drawing the same salary he had drawn
under Arthur.
"Oh, I'm not thinking that you're holding out on me," he laughed at
Garth's expression. "I've just begun thinking that it's about time I'm
doing part of my own work. So everything you got out of the sales last
year you slapped back into the business, buying more cattle?"
"I sent you four thousand, you remember," Garth reminded him.
"You don't quite get me, Garth. What's left of that four thousand
wouldn't buy a sack of tobacco. We haven't banked any cash, have we?"
Even now Garth hesitated, Garth's way. Then he answered.
"Arthur left fifteen hundred in the bank. I haven't touched that, of
course. If you haven't--"
"I didn't know it was there," laughed Wayne. "When I pulled out and
gave you my power of attorney I let everything slide off my shoulders
on to yours. Is that all?"
"I banked pretty heavily from sales," Garth went on. "Under my own
name, as it saved trouble and I didn't know when you'd show up. I drew
out again, for the men's wages, for a few improvements and running
expenses, for the other cattle I bought. I've got the vouchers, if you
want to see them."
"I don't want to see them."
"There is still something left," Garth said, his voice careless, his
eyes glancing up at Shandon and down again. "It's still in my name.
About four thousand."
"Good boy," cried Wayne. "That's going to save me some trouble. Will
you give me a check for it, Garth?"
"It's yours," Garth replied, going to look for pass book and check
book. But when he returned he could not refrain from asking, "What are
you going to do with it, Wayne?"
"Double it!" laughed Shandon. "Bet it on a horse race, my boy! But
look here," seriously. "I want only five thousand. Counting the other
fifteen hundred there's something over that. You've been working like
a dog for a year, drawing just foreman's wages while you've been taking
the owner's responsibilities. I'm going to shove the other five
hundred down your throat as the rest of the unpaid wages due you, or a
bonus or whatever you like to call it."
And as Garth's momentary stupefaction was followed by what threatened
to be very profuse thanks, Shandon fled to the stable and Little Saxon.
Already word of the race to be run in the springtime, in June when the
snows would be gone, had travelled up and down the country. Sledge
Hume's money was in the hands of Charlie Granger at El Toyon, and the
order signed by him to turn over the five thousand dollars to the man
who came in first, himself or Wayne Shandon, containing the clause
which he had insisted upon, making it clear that if only one man
entered the race he was to take the money.
Five thousand dollars wagered on a single race; Red Reckless and Sledge
Hume riding; Endymion, who had already shown those who knew him that
for beauty and speed and endurance he was the peer of his aristocratic,
thoroughbred sire and dam; Little Saxon, whom men knew yet only as a
wild hearted colt being tamed by a man who knew horses and who was
willing to lay five thousand on him against his brother; the course a
ten mile sweep of mountain and valley, of broken trail and grassy
meadow, leading from the high lands to the east of Bar L-M and Echo
Creek, ending at the Bar L-M corrals; this one event was enough to draw
the attention of men up and down the cattle country, in the mining
towns and lumber camps. Word of it went everywhere; letters came to
Wayne Shandon from other men who had horses, who suggested this, that
and the other race, who sought to find men to cover their bets.
It would be an all day meet; the Bar L-M outfit would entertain
generously; there would be barbecued beef; every one was welcome; big
wagons would be busy a week beforehand bringing in enough food for a
small army. Any man had the opportunity of entering his own horse with
these provisos: this was to be a Western race in all essentials; the
horse must be Western, born and bred, the man who owned it must ride
his own horse. There would be no professional jockeys; there would be
no bookmakers.
News of the race, before the winter had come, more than six months
before the day set in June, had gone over the crest of the Sierra and
appeared in the papers at Reno. It had flashed across telegraph wires
to Sacramento; had been talk for a day in many a place where sporting
men foregather in San Francisco. Men who had never heard of them
before came to know of Sledge Hume and Wayne Shandon, of Endymion and
Little Saxon. And still Little Saxon was but a half broken colt.
"It's all right," grunted Willie Dart to himself, kicking his heels
from the top of the corral and watching his Noble Benefactor risking
his life in the company of a great, belligerent red-bay horse. "It's
all right, seeing I'm here. Suppose I wasn't, suppose I was still
dodging cops on Broadway, then what? Then Sledgehammer Hume would put
some death-on-rats in Hell Fire's hay, or pick Red off with a shot gun,
and who cops onto the five thou? A man don't have to have a fortune
teller for a mother to get wised up to that."
Little by little the proud spirited horse learned his lesson. He came
to see that his destiny lay in the hands of the man who came out to him
daily. He gave over trying to beat the man to death with his flying
heels; he no longer sought to tear at him with bared teeth; he
recognised that it was as futile to seek to hurl the man from his back
as to break the strong cinch which held the saddle; that he might run
until he killed himself, but that he could not run away from the man
who rode him and laughed. He learned that in this world that had been
so utterly free for him there was one single being who was his master
in all things, whom he must obey. And, when obedience came, pleasure
in that obedience followed, and trust and faith and love.
That year winter came in as it had not come to these mountains for
twenty-seven years, early, unheralded and hard. The cattle and horses
had not yet been moved down to the lower ranges when one day, in
mid-afternoon, the air thickened, bursting black clouds drove up from
the southwest, the forests rocked moaning and shuddering under the
smashing impact of the sudden storm, the sun was lost in a darkness
that grew impenetrable toward the time of dusk, and the skies opened to
a downpour of rain. For upwards of an hour the great drops drove
unceasingly into the dry ground while giant daggers of lightning
stabbed at the earth that seemed to bellow its torment in reverberating
roars. Then the slanting rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, the
wind went howling through the forests and was gone, and in the
stillness which ushered in the true night the snow began.
All night it snowed, steadily, without cease. The morning dawned wanly
on a white world; distant peaks and ridges were blotted out in the
grey, snow filled air. Men who were careless yesterday became to-day
filled with an activity which was swift and tireless. In candlelight
and lamplight they dressed hurriedly and made speedy breakfasts. This
storm might be nothing but a warning of winter; it might be the first
day of a snowfall that would continue for two weeks. In any event it
was high time to have the cattle on the run to the lower valleys.
"Two days of this," grunted Big Bill as he kicked his way viciously
through the snow already over ankle deep on the way to the stable, "an'
the passes'll be so choked up we can't whoop the cow brutes through
'em. An' me, I ain't hankerin' after totin' a bawlin' calf under each
arm, nuther."
All day long, upon the Bar L-M and the Echo Creek, men were riding deep
into the sheltered ravines, bringing out the stock, heading the
stragglers westward down the valleys, gathering the different herds
into one on each ranch to crowd them out of the belt of hard winter.
Many men rode many miles that day, changing their horses at noon,
making a hasty meal when they could, riding again.
Always before this year the herds of the Bar L-M had been pushed across
the bridge or made to swim the river where it was wide and shallow, and
driven across a corner of the Echo Creek ranch by the most direct route
out. But this year Wayne Shandon briefly gave new orders, telling his
men to keep on the Bar L-M property as long as they could, then to
throw the herds across the ridge to the south and along a harder,
longer trail to the county road ten miles further west. He offered no
explanation, his men asked none. It was but another indication to them
of the thing which was already no secret, that there was some sort of
serious trouble between Wayne Shandon and Martin Leland.
Wayne and Garth intended to stay that night at the range house, being
the last two men to leave, after attending to the countless little
things which must be done about a ranch before it is abandoned to the
winter and solitude. They planned to follow the rest of the Bar L-M
outfit in the morning.
Even Martin Leland who usually moved his stock early had been caught
unprepared. The fine weather preceding the storm had tricked him; he
had not planned the drive until two weeks yet. He, too, having worked
with his men all day, having ridden the first half dozen miles with
them, came back to spend the night at his home.
That afternoon, while the men of both ranges were doing two days' work
in one, Willie Dart called upon Wanda. Mr. Dart made it a part of his
business in life to be on good terms with every one. He ignored the
contemptuous grunts of Wanda's father, and in speaking of him referred
to him as, "My old pal, Mart." Martin tolerated him, Mrs. Leland was
amused by him, Wanda welcomed him as coming from Wayne's home, as
always a possible bearer of tidings from Wayne himself. And such he
was to-day.
For there had been no time for signalling, the snow had veiled the
cliffs across the miles, and Wayne must send word of his sudden
necessary change of plans. So he entrusted a note to Mr. Dart, having
first sealed it in its envelope and informed the carrier that if he
pried into it the police in New York would learn by telegraph of the
present whereabouts of Mr. Dart.
Wanda and Dart were alone in the big living room while Mrs. Leland was
busied with Julia in making preparations within the house for the siege
of winter. As she left the room Mr. Dart winked slyly at Wanda, tapped
his breast pocket, winked the other eye and assumed the air of a man
bearing secret and very mysterious messages. In due time he brought
out the letter, the flap of the envelope showing so little sign of
having been tampered with that it was not to be expected that the eager
girl would note it. Mr. Dart afterwards admitted that he prided
himself upon the appearance of that envelope, all things, including
inclement weather, considered--and presented it with a whispered,
"Red wouldn't trust anybody with it but me. Say, he's some kid, ain't
he, Wanda?"
Beaming on her like a cherub in checked suit and brilliant necktie, he
approached a little nearer and whispered again,
"Me, I'll just mosey out on the porch while you flash your eyes over
Red's handwrite. Delicacy's my other name, times like this."
Still beaming he winked again, still winking let himself silently out
of the front door.
Considering that all Wayne Shandon had to write a letter about was to
tell Wanda that he was hurrying out with the herds to-morrow, that when
during the next few weeks he could get back he would signal with smoke
from the cliffs above her cave, it must have taken him a long time to
say it. Considering how little she had to read Wanda must have been
very deliberate in reading Wayne's scrawl. At any rate, long before
she had finished, Mr. Willie Dart had gone silently down the porch,
peered in the kitchen window at Mrs. Leland and Julia, continued on to
the door of Martin's study and let himself in. The door had been
locked, at that, when Dart's beautiful fingers first touched it, and
they had done what Mr. Dart himself termed "plying his profession."
"I ain't had a chance like this since I was three," Mr. Dart told
himself contentedly. "Honest, I ain't. Now, if these nice old country
gents think they can put over something with my old pal Red, and me not
know just how they're figuring on the skinning party, they better wise
up."
He closed the door silently, and any sound he made might have been that
of a pin dropped on a thick carpet. He surveyed the room with eyes
that missed nothing.
"I knew it," he smiled, as though at the sight of an old friend as he
found the safe in the far corner of the room. "I heard your door shut
the other day, old party, when I was chumming with Wanda and you and
the rest of the combination was talking war talk. Not to waste time
we'll begin with you."
It was an old safe, an old, old make and style, and Mr. Dart sighed and
shook his head a little disappointedly as he knelt, brought out of his
pockets a set of bright, new tools and set to work.
"Any time," he mused when the door swung open, "that they put a pal of
mine out of the running they better get up-to-date."
CHAPTER XVI
AND SOLVES A FASCINATING MYSTERY
Riding furiously with the fury of the storm as though swept onward with
it, looking the very spirit of the wintry season that is made of black
nights and cold, bright days, a woman was hastening upon a jaded horse
toward the Echo Creek ranch house from the direction of El Toyon and
the railroad. She rode well, sitting straight in the heavy saddle, and
she rode hard. When the horse stumbled or floundered in the loose snow
she jerked angrily at the reins and cut sharply with her riding whip.
She entered the yard and rode up to the porch while Wanda was still
deep in Wayne's letter, while Dart was forming his lips to a soft,
silent whistle over a document which had passed from a drawer of the
safe into his caressing white fingers. The woman dismounted quickly
but a little stiffly as though from cold or fatigue, and fastening her
horse's reins with numb, gloved fingers hastened up the steps to the
living room door. She rapped loudly and Wanda, thinking that this was
but a further evidence of the fact that one of Mr. Dart's names was
Delicacy, called out, "Come in."
It was with a little start of surprise that Wanda saw her. A young
woman, twenty-five perhaps, of that rare sort of personality that
asserts itself in a flash. Exquisitely cloaked and furred, clad from
tiny boots to cap in black, her hair black, her eyes large and luminous
and black. Furs and cloak failed to hide the erect gracefulness of the
slender form, the poise of which as well as the carriage of the head
indicated an imperious disposition. The woman was undeniably
beautiful, her loveliness the delicately featured, perfectly chiselled
beauty that is called classic. The fur cap upon the small head was
snow encrusted and sat upon her cold beauty like a coronet; under it
the escaping tendrils of jet black hair were fashioned by the cold into
a glistening mesh of silver threads.
"This is the Leland place, isn't it?" was her abrupt greeting.
"Yes," Wanda replied, not yet quite recovered from the surprise of the
sudden vision.
"You are Wanda Leland, I suppose?" the cool, deep-throated voice went
on as the black eyes flashed critically from the girl's face to her
house dress, her pumps, the letter in her hands, her face again.
"Yes," Wanda repeated quietly. She disliked the little air this woman
had about her, the subtle hint of patronage and superiority, but her
natural wish to be hospitable to a stranger driven hither by the storm
made her seek to ignore this first impression.
"I'm Claire Hazleton. I've just ridden in from El Toyon. My horse is
done up, I'm afraid, or I shouldn't have troubled you."
Wanda's quick, ready smile flashed out at this and she came forward,
putting out her hand.
"I'm glad that you did come," she said cordially. "You must be tired
to death and simply frozen. If you'll come up to the fire and take off
your things I'll make some tea or coffee."
Claire Hazleton's slim gloved hand accepted Wanda's, touching it
lightly.
"You are too kind," she began formally. "If it wouldn't be too much
bother--"
"Nonsense," laughed Wanda. "If you'll make yourself cozy at the fire
I'll be back in a moment."
Hurrying out, Wanda had a glimpse of Willie Dart standing on the porch,
his hands in his pockets, his big innocent eyes beaming approvingly at
the snow and the sky and the world in general. As she went on her way
to the kitchen, Mr. Dart, having in turn looked approvingly at her,
shifted his gaze to the panting saddle horse standing with drooping
head at the steps, and then, putting his hands under his coat tails, he
returned to the living room. Claire Hazleton had just removed her
outer wraps and was warming her hands at the fire. Mr. Dart, noticing
the cluster of rings on her fingers, flapped his coat tails up and down
and closed the door behind him with his elbow.
"Say," he began pleasantly, "it's fierce outside, ain't it? Talk about
a slush party. Ain't this a ring tailed dandy?"
She turned upon him slowly and bestowed upon him a long stare, frankly
curious. Then she laughed.
"It certainly is a ring tailed dandy," she admitted musically. "You
aren't Mr. Leland, are you?"
Dart laughed too, his amusement apparently as genuine as hers, and
entirely unabashed by the unconcealed appraisal of her glance at him.
"You're joshing," he retorted, coming closer so that while he could
look at her he could turn his coat tails to the fire. "There's as much
difference between me and my old pal Mart as there is between you and a
picture of a little country girl picking buttercups."
"You don't think I look the part?" she smiled.
"You?" He favoured her with the full measure of his supreme impudence
as he looked her over. "You're just built to play the queen's part in
a tragedy show on Broadway. After the first night there'd be just one
theatre doing business."
She frowned quickly, her eyes darkening as they had when she struck
with her whip at her tired horse. Then she shrugged her shoulders and
laughed again.
"You're very flattering," she said in a way which made Dart look at her
sharply and which for a very brief time left him a little uncertain.
"Me?" he said. "You wrong me, lady. Honest you do. I'm sired by a
gentleman who was a Baptist minister and who instilled in his only son
if you lie once you'll do it some more and then you'll get caught.
Say, seeing Wanda ain't here to do the knockdown stunt, I'm Dart, Mr.
Willie Dart, to command."
He bobbed her a bow, accompanied the ceremony with a little flap of the
coat tails, and all the while did not shift his round, inquisitive eyes
from her face.
"Being acquainted now," he went on when a little pause assured him that
she was not going to respond with an exchange of names, "just make
yourself to home, won't you? I'll duck in and tell Wanda you're here.
And," merely as an afterthought, "what name will I say, lady?"
"Don't bother," she replied coolly. "She knows I'm here."
"Does she? She hasn't been expecting you, has she?"
"No." Miss Hazleton's interest in the little man had evidently died a
sudden death, and her one concern now seemed to get herself warm and
dry.
"She's one great little kid, Wanda is, ain't she?" he ran on, totally
unaffected by the significance of the young woman's back whose graceful
curves were not lost to his admiring eyes.
"If you say so she must be," came the calm answer. "I never saw her
before to-day."
"And you don't know old Mart?" She did not know Wanda, he surmised,
she had wondered if he were Leland, then it must be Mrs. Leland she had
come to see. "Say," he continued, "maybe Wanda couldn't find Mamma
Leland! I'll just slip in and break the news. Gee, won't she be
tickled to see you, you coming unexpected like this?"
"Really, Mr. Dart," she told him crisply, "you needn't take the
trouble. Mrs. Leland wouldn't be the least bit glad to see me as she
doesn't know me. And if you haven't discovered the fact already I
might as well tell you that I am eminently capable of managing my own
affairs."
Mr. Dart's silent whistle came very near being audible. But he
answered in a voice which was meant to assure her that his sensitive
nature had not been hurt and that his admiration had merely been
stimulated.
"That's me," he said brightly. "Give me the dame every time that makes
her own play and don't yell, 'Help' if she sticks a pin in her finger.
Them doll-babies some guys go dippy over don't qualify for the finals
with me."
But Mr. Dart was puzzled. She had ridden here through this storm, she
had come all the way from El Toyon, for he had not been inattentive
while he had been just outside the door before Wanda left the room, and
she did not know a single person on the ranch. The very reason for her
presence here was a challenge to Dart's peculiar temperament.
"Tell you what I'll do," he resumed, "I'll take that skate of yours
down to the barn and throw some hay into him. He looks like it would
do him good in case the shock don't undermine his system."
He made his hesitant way toward the door, his pride a little wounded at
being defeated in the initial skirmish, his confident optimism looking
forward eagerly to a more skilful attack. And then a word from Miss
Hazleton brought him back to the charge.
"Don't trouble to take the saddle off," she said without turning. "I
shall be riding on as soon as I have my tea."
Riding on? Where? The very course she had come pointed at one place.
"It's quite a ways to Red's," he said quickly. "You better take it
easy and rest up a bit."
"Red's?" she condescended to ask.
"Sure. Shandon's, you know. You're headed for the Bar L-M, ain't you?
Say, I'm going back that way myself pretty soon. Suppose you come
along with me? I got a cart. It ain't much to look at but anyhow it
beats pounding saddle leather. We can lead your skate, if you want to."
And rather to Dart's surprise she answered promptly,
"Thank you. That will be better. But in any case don't unsaddle. And
when you come in will you bring the little bag strapped behind the
saddle?"
Wanda returned then, bringing the tea and a hastily prepared lunch.
Dart winked at her as he went out. He led the shivering horse at a
trot to the barn.
"Now," he grunted in a mournful tone that spoke of disappointment and
hinted at disgust, "wouldn't you think, to look at her, that dame had
more stuff in her head than to do a trick like that?"
For the little black bag was locked and the key was gone, and the lock
was a thing to make Mr. Dart sigh and shake his head as he had done
over Martin's safe.
"I'll get so used to turning baby tricks," he mused, "I won't be able
to do a real man's work. Well, it can't be helped when a man's putting
in time in a place like this. Now, Lady Clamshell, we'll take a peep
and see if your baggage--"
The bag was open, its contents rifled by slim, white fingers that
seemed, each one, endowed with a brain of its own. In an incredibly
short time various negligible feminine articles had been examined and
replaced very carefully and exactly, a handkerchief without so much as
a laundry mark, a silver vanity set with no monogram, and then came the
reward to Mr. Dart's curiosity. It was a card case half filled with
calling cards.
Mr. Dart did a thing he had rarely done in his life. He swore. He
said:
"Well, I'll be damned!"
And being alone, speaking confidentially to himself, he may have meant
it. He looked as though he did.
"You are very kind, Miss Leland," the new-comer was saying quietly. "I
should like to accept your hospitality further. It has been a pleasure
to meet you, I am sure. But you will infer from my being abroad at all
at a time like this that my errand is urgent. I must be going
immediately."
Mr. Dart came in at this juncture, his expression void of all emotion
except a deep, unhidden admiration which embraced the two women, both
of whom he felt honoured in including in the list of his friends.
"Miss Hazleton," began Wanda, "I didn't introduce you to Mr. Dart."
"He did," replied the other briefly.
"Sure," supplemented Dart. He handed the black bag to its owner and
asked casually, "You're strong for hitting the pike right away?"
"If you are ready."
"Right-o, Miss Hazleton," he answered, pronouncing the name as though
he enjoyed the sound of it. "I came over on some hurry-up business,"
with a sly look at Wanda that brought a little flush to her cheeks,
"and I didn't unhook. Old Bots is pawing the earth and snorting his
eagerness to help out. Say the word and we're off."
Involuntarily Wanda showed her surprise at the arrangement. It was the
first word she had had of their way lying together.
"The lady's going over to the Bar L-M," Dart remarked as he observed
Wanda's look. "She's a friend of Red's."
"Oh," said Wanda.
She strove immediately to act and speak as though there were nothing
unusual in the situation. Miss Hazleton put on her coat and furs again
without volunteering further information, while Dart hurried away for
his own cart and her horse. Wanda accompanied them to the porch, saw
them seated and starting and then returned to the house with a little
hurt feeling in her heart which she knew was foolish but which she
could not drive out. If Claire Hazleton and Wayne Shandon were upon
such intimate terms that she made this trip to see him, it was a little
strange that Wayne had never so much as mentioned her name to her.
"Wait a minute," cried Dart, jerking his horse up short before they had
gone fifty yards from the house. "I forgot my gloves."
He shoved the reins into his companion's hands, jumped down and running
back burst in bright faced and eager upon Wanda, startling her with the
sudden unexpectedness of his return. With his finger upon his lips,
his air surcharged with mystery, he came close to her.
"Have you wised up?" he whispered. "Got next to who the mysterious
fairy is?"
"She's Miss Claire Hazleton," said Wanda a little stiffly and a bit
puzzled.
"Rats!" grunted Mr. Dart putting much eloquence Into the monosyllable.
"That's a bum monniker out of a French love story. It's the Roosian
princess. It's Helga, that's who it is!"
He slipped a little engraved calling card into her hand, winked into
her amazed eyes, drew a pair of gloves out of his hip pocket, crumpled
them in his hand and hastened back to the cart.
Wanda stared a moment at the card. Then she flung it from her and with
blazing eyes watched the flames in the fireplace lick at it.
CHAPTER XVII
"WHERE'S THAT TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND? WHAT'S THE ANSWER?"
The little clock in Wayne Shandon's room maintained stoutly in the face
of the gathering gloom outside, in defiance of the lighted lamp upon
the table, that it was still an hour before sunset. The snow was still
falling steadily, thickly, swept here and there into shifting mounds,
choking the mountain passes, robing trees and fence posts and
buildings, each feathery flake adhering where it struck softly as
though it had been a gummed wafer.
"Garth and I will have to get out to-morrow," Shandon muttered, drawing
off his heavy coat and tossing it to the chair across the room, "or
we'll have to beat it out on snowshoes--I wonder what's keeping Dart?"
There came a rap at the front door and Shandon, supposing that already
his question was answered, called, "Come in."
"You never can tell what that little devil will do next," he grunted.
"Snoop into a man's private business every time he gets the chance and
then stand outside knocking at the door in a day like this. _Come in_."
Then, when the knocking came again, louder, insistent and imperative,
he realised that there was the bare possibility that the thumb latch
had caught and, crossing the room he jerked the door open.
"Is this Mr. Shandon?"
The cool, confident voice though a woman's was not Wanda's, and Shandon
realised that he had been a fool to let his heart leap as it had when
his eyes made out through the murkiness that it was a woman.
"Yes," he answered, wondering.
"May I come in?" she asked a little impatiently. "I have come a long
way to see you."
Wondering more than ever he threw the door wide open, showed her the
way into the living room and lighted a lamp. There was no fire in the
room but she went quite naturally to the fireplace. He glanced at her
sharply, knew that he had never seen her before for he would have
remembered her, understood that she was a woman of the cities, and said,
"Are you very cold? Just a minute and I'll have a fire going. I came
in only a moment before I heard your knock."
She did not speak until he had gathered an armful of wood from the box
at the side of the fireplace and had flung it upon the blaze that a
match had started from a bit of paper and some pitch pine. Nor did she
seem in haste to speak even then when he stood across the hearth
looking at her. But not for a second had her approving eyes left him;
no opportunity had they lost to watch the man's face intently.
"Where did you come from in all this storm?" he asked curiously.
"Remotely, from New York. Immediately from El Toyen."
"Lord!" he ejaculated. "You must be dead. I'll get you something hot,
some coffee. We haven't any tea, I'm afraid."
She laughed coolly, evidently quite at home with him.
"If a man came in, frozen stiff, would you offer him a cup of tea?"
"What do you mean?" He had started toward the kitchen, and stopped.
"I mean brandy, if you've got any. It would do me a lot of good.
Wanda Leland just poured some tea down me and I didn't want to shock
her."
Wayne stood frowning at her a moment, a question on his lips. Then he
went to the kitchen and got a bottle and a glass. She had drawn a
chair close up to the fire when he returned and was leaning back in it
luxuriously, her feet thrust out to the blaze.
"Thanks," she said, taking the glass he handed her. "I am drinking to
our better acquaintance."
She set the glass down upon the arm of her chair, half emptied, and
smiled up at him.
"I want a good long talk if you can spare the time. Can you?"
"Of course," he said briefly.
"It is my particular desire that no one but yourself hears what I have
to say."
"No one is here except Garth and myself. And Garth hasn't come in from
the corrals yet."
"Excellent." Her black eyes flashed from him to the various rude
appointments of the room, flashed back to him. "I am Helga Strawn,"
she said abruptly.
He repeated the name after her in surprise:
"Helga Strawn?"
"Yes. Perhaps you guess right away what has brought me West, to you
first of all?"
"No," he said. "I don't think that I do."
"Then I'll tell you. That's what I am here for. Don't begin to think
that I saw a picture of you somewhere and fell in love with it."
The finely chiselled lips, too faultlessly perfect at any time to be
warmly womanly, were suddenly hard. Her eyes had become brilliant,
twin spots of colour came into her cheeks.
"At least you remember my name?"
"Helga Strawn? Yes, I remember it. You learned from a mutual
acquaintance that I was in New York some time ago. You wrote me then.
You are a cousin of Sledge Hume."
"Not exactly a cousin," she corrected him. "I am not so proud of the
relationship as to wish to make it closer than it is. But that does
not matter. You remember also why I wrote you?"
"Yes. You said that yourself and Hume had inherited equal interests in
the Dry Lands. That through letters Hume had persuaded you to sell
your interest to him. After you had sold you began to think that he
had japped you. You wanted to know from me what the property was
actually worth."
"I am glad that you remember. You answered my letter. You told me
that you had always considered the land hardly worth paying taxes on."
"Yes."
"If I asked you now, that same question, what would you say?"
He hesitated. The Dry Lands were no whit more valuable to-day than
they had been last year. But if the scheme Hume was engineering went
through it would be a different matter.
"You have already sold your interest, given the deed, haven't you, Miss
Strawn? What difference does it make?" he asked bluntly.
"What if I have?" she countered coolly. "I am not the sort of woman,
Mr. Shandon, to sit with my hands in my lap when a man has done a piece
of sharp business with me. I needed the money and like a fool I sold
to Hume. And now I know as well as I know anything that he didn't pay
me a tenth of what the property was worth. Yes, I have given the deed.
You think that I am a fool again to come clear across the continent
upon a matter that went out of my hands a year ago!" She laughed, her
laugh reminding him unpleasantly of the man of whom they were talking.
"You see, you don't know me yet."
"I don't see just how I can be of service to you," he suggested.
"I'll try to be explicit. I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr.
Hume and yet I think that I could write a very correct character sketch
of the gentleman. Egotism and selfishness, two things in most men,
just one in Sledge Hume! He is shrewd and hard and his god is gold.
Am I right?"
"Hume is hardly an intimate acquaintance of mine."
She laughed softly, twisting the brandy glass slowly in her white
fingers.
"I know enough of the Hume blood," she said presently, "to make a close
guess at the man's character. We are not related, even distantly, for
nothing, Mr. Shandon. My mother was a Hume," she added coolly, her
manner again reminding the man strangely of Hume himself. "You see, he
chose the wrong woman when he cheated me. It's going to be diamond cut
diamond now."
Shandon looked at the girl curiously, falling to see what mad hope she
could have of regaining rights that were deeded away a year ago,
falling as well to find a reason for her coming all these miles to make
a confidant of him.
"I usually go about things in my own way," she said after one of her
brief pauses. "What I have to say I'll say as it comes to me. In case
your cousin Garth returns before I have done you can send him away upon
any pretext you choose. Tell him we want to talk privately; that will
do as well as anything. Smoke, if you want to," as she saw his eyes go
to the mantelpiece where an old black pipe lay. "Maybe it will make
you patient during my harangue."
Wayne got his pipe and, lighting it, sat upon the edge of the table
looking down at her through the smoke.
"Six months ago," she went on, "I realised that Hume had underpaid me.
Why?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I knew his breed. If he offers a
dollar for a thing it's worth ten. I made investigations through an
agent who came up to Dry Valley from San Francisco. He turned in his
bill on time and that was about all. He was an ordinary man and
consequently a fool. But, blind as a bat himself, he showed me a
little light that set me thinking. A few days ago I came out myself."
She snapped her fingers. "It didn't take me that long to get to the
bottom of the whole thing."
"What thing?"
"The scheme Hume is promoting on the quiet to put water on the Dry
Lands. The water is to come from your river. Are you in on the deal
too?"
Her question was as sudden as a sword thrust.
"No," he answered.
"Have they made you an offer for the water right?"
"No."
"That's funny." She frowned thoughtfully at him a moment, saying in a
barely audible tone as though she were thinking aloud, "You don't look
as though you were lying. Well, you expect an offer, don't you?"
"Yes."
"And when it comes, coming from Hume, you realise that he'll offer a
very small fraction of what it is worth to him?"
"I suppose so. That's business."
"And, above all things in the world, Sledge Hume is a business man!
Well, I won't ask what you'd do when the offer came, as you'd say that
it was none of my affair. I've seen Ruf Ettinger and learned all he
knows."
He did not answer; he had suddenly resolved to see the drift of Helga
Strawn's thoughts before he did a great deal of talking.
"I have learned," came another of her abrupt thrusts, "that you and
Hume are about as friendly as a cat and a dog."
He merely looked at her enquiringly, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe.
She smiled, turned from him back to the fire, settling a little more
comfortably in her chair.
"Hume is a crook." She said it calmly, dispassionately, positively.
"It is in his blood. He couldn't help it if he tried. He isn't the
kind to try. The deal he put over with me may have been nothing but
clever business. On the other hand, considering that I was a relative,
considering that there was going to be plenty of boodle for everybody,
some people might say that there was an element of dishonesty in it.
But what I am getting at is that the man in unscrupulous. Now, he's in
the biggest business deal of his life. Chances in that sort of thing
for crooked work are many. Ergo, Mr. Shandon, it's a fair bet that
starting with a crooked deal he has gone on playing a crooked game. Do
you begin to see why I'm here?"
"Blackmail?" he said bluntly.
"Yes," she said coolly. "There's no use quarrelling over a name."
"If you imagine that I know anything about the man's private history--"
"You've quarrelled openly with him. Everybody knows about it. What
was the reason for your quarrel?"
"Really, Miss Strawn---"
"Why can't you talk to me as if I were a man?" she flared out at him,
the sudden heat from a woman who had been ice a moment ago taking him
by surprise. "I'm not dragging my sex into this like a buckler to hide
behind. Why can't you say it's none of my damned business, if you feel
that way about it?"
"I shouldn't put it quite so strong," he replied. "If you will go on
and show me how I can be of any service to you, anything in my line--"
"Consequently excluding blackmail!" she laughed, her mood like ice
again. "When you quarrelled with Hume a year ago you called him a
crook, didn't you?"
"Your investigations seem to have been made very painstakingly," he
countered.
"For one of your reputation you are surprisingly noncommittal," she
said. "Will you tell me this: So far as you know is there a woman in
Sledge Hume's life?"
"So far as I know there is not. He doesn't impress me as the sort of
man to lose either his heart or his head over a woman."
"That sort of man," she replied swiftly, "very often surprises people
who think that they understand human nature, and don't! Now I come to
one of my reasons in coming to see you. I saw you one day at the Grand
Central Station with a friend of mine, a Mr. Maddox. I was uncertain
whether he had pointed me out to you or not, told you who I was. Did
he?"
"No. I should have remembered."
"Thank you. That's the first pretty thing you've said! Well, no harm
is done in making sure. I'm making sure of every little point as I go
along, Mr. Shandon. I didn't want there to be a possibility of any one
here knowing who I am. It is my own business and I hope that I am not
asking overmuch if I request you not to tell any one that I am Helga
Strawn."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"If you don't want Hume to know you I most certainly shall not seek to
find or take advantage of an opportunity to tell him."
"Thank you again. Now, for the other part of my business with you.
You are in a position to stand pat and by just doing nothing smash
Sledge Hume's little game all to flinders. He's counted on you, he's
made sure in some way I don't know. But I am going to know before
long. And I'm going to get Sledge Hume just where I want him! How?
Wait and see. I'm going to get back the property he cheated me out of.
How? I don't know and I don't care. And then--"
She rose swiftly, her eyes blazing, her head lifted triumphantly as
though already she had met the success she had set out to find.
"And then, Wayne Shandon, you and I and Ruf Ettinger can take into our
hands the thing that Sledge Hume has already half created for us!
There is a fortune in it for every one of us."
"I've told Ruf Ettinger already--" he began.
The door opened suddenly and Mr. Dart came into the room.
"Say, Red," he began with an important air, "I want to see you a
minute, private. Hazel will excuse us, won't you?" with a rare smile
and an abbreviated bow after Mr. Dart's best manner.
"Hazel?" frowned Shandon.
"Sure," grinned Dart. "We got chummy as twins riding over, didn't we?
Come on, Red. This here is urgent."
"It will have to wait, Dart. Miss--"
"Hazleton," prompted Helga.
"Sure," put in Dart. "Her uncle used to know my aunt in Poughkeepsie.
Come on, Red."
"Dart," cried Shandon, "you get out! We are busy."
Dart went slowly back to the door, to the surprise of Shandon who knew
so well the little man's tenacity.
"Oh, well," he said mournfully from across the room. "Only Wanda
said--"
"You will excuse me a moment?" Wayne asked hurriedly. Dart, already
outside was grinning broadly.
"What is it?" queried Shandon.
"Whatever it is it'll keep until we get where we can talk," was the
dogged answer. "There's nobody in the bunk house. Come on."
He hastened down the steps, Wayne following him. Only when they were
in the bunk house, the door closed, the lamp lighted, did Dart speak.
"First thing," he said abruptly, "Hazel's name begins with an H, but
she spells it Helga!"
"You little weasel! Well, what about it? And what about Miss Leland?"
"Wanda's part will keep. Gee, Red, she's some swell dame, that
Egyptian skirt, take it from me! She's got Macbeth's frau of the fairy
tale faded to a finish, ain't she?"
"Look here, Dart . . ."
"It's cold weather," interrupted Dart. "Keep your undershirt on, Red.
When your brother Archie mortgaged the Bar L-M . . ."
"What fool's nonsense are you talking, Dart?" demanded Shandon.
"Arthur never mortgaged--"
"Uhuh. I thought you didn't know about it. Now I'm here to tell you
something you ought to know. I guess the Weak Sister forgot to tell
you about it. Archie mortgaged the Bar L-M, he socked a plaster worth
twenty-five thousand dollars on it, _the day before somebody put him
out_. Get that?"
Wayne stared at him wonderingly. Suddenly he shot out his two hands
and gripped Dart's shoulders, jerking the little man toward him
threateningly.
"What's your game, you little crook? You lie to me and I'll come so
close to killing you we'll both be sorry."
"Listen to that now," sighed Dart. "When one pal tries to wise another
up--"
"Talk fast," said Shandon sternly. "What are you talking about?"
"Give me a chance to breathe and I'll spit it out. Your brother
mortgaged the outfit for twenty-five thousand. You never heard about
it. Some guy who was wise croaked him. Where's the twenty-five
thousand? What's the answer?"
"Good God!" muttered Shandon.
Dart, suddenly released, moved a little further away and smoothed his
coat collar.
"The mortgage was held by a man I used to call a pal," he volunteered
further. "I don't call him that any longer. I mean old Mart."
"Martin Leland! You mean to tell me that Martin Leland held a mortgage
over the Bar L-M for twenty-five thousand dollars and that I never
heard of it?"
"Yep," answered Dart lightly. "And three months ago he foreclosed.
Funny, ain't it?"
"It's impossible. It's one of your fool lies, Dart."
"When I tell a lie, Red, I don't tell that kind. The whole thing was
recorded nice and proper. All you got to do is go to the courthouse
and look it up. I'd go for you, only the jail's in the basement and
jails always give me a cold. Or, you can go ask the Weak Sister.
He'll know about it. You gave him your power of attorney, didn't you?
Oh, he'll know, all right."
The two men stared at each other fixedly, the eyes of one frowning and
penetrating, those of the other round and innocent.
"I believe you are telling the truth," said Shandon slowly. "I don't
see why you'd lie about a thing like this-- How do you know anything
about it?" he asked suddenly.
"How do I know Hazel's name is Helga?" smiled Dart. "There's tricks in
every trade, Red."
"If this thing is true--"
"Go talk to the Weak Sister," said Dart briefly.
Wayne swung about and without reply went swiftly down toward the
corrals. Suddenly he stopped and came back.
"You didn't tell me what Miss Leland said," he said shortly.
Dart laughed in great amusement.
"She didn't say anything. She's sore as a goat, though, Red. This
Helga business sort of got on her nerves."
Then Shandon went hurriedly toward the corrals.
"Me," mused Dart, on his way to entertain Miss Helga Strawn during what
might be a period of lonely waiting for her, "I'm almost
chicken-hearted enough to feel sorry for the Weak Sister!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRUTH
"Garth!"
There was a peculiar sternness in Wayne Shandon's voice that made his
cousin start in a way which, to Shandon's taut nerves, seemed instantly
a sign of guilt. Conway finished the work he was doing, snapped the
heavy padlock into the log chain, which fastened the double doors of
the small building where odds and ends were stored during the winter,
and came on through the snow, smiting his hands together to get the
chilled blood running.
"Hello, Wayne," he answered. "What's up?"
"That's what I want to know," briefly. "What do you know about a
mortgage on the Bar L-M?"
It was too dark for Shandon to see the other's face clearly. He
noticed that Garth hesitated just a second before answering.
"What do you mean?" Conway's voice sought to be confident and failed.
Shandon's fist snapped shut involuntarily. It was almost, he thought,
as if Garth had answered him directly.
"I mean just this: Did you know that the Bar L-M was mortgaged to
Martin Leland for twenty-five thousand dollars?"
Garth Conway would not have been himself but some very different man
had there not been a considerable pause before he replied.
"Yes," he said at last, a little doggedly. "I knew it."
"Arthur mortgaged it the day he was killed? Or the day before?"
"Yes."
"And the mortgage was foreclosed three months ago?"
"Yes."
"And you never told me about it! Why?"
"I should have done so, I suppose," Garth said nervously. "But--
Well, the first thing you hit out for the East. You weren't attending
to business then, Wayne. You wrote me to take charge of everything,
not to bother you with ranch affairs. You gave me a power of
attorney--"
"I've been back half a year," said Shandon shortly. "I've been
attending to business. Why haven't you told me?"
Conway drew back a quick step as though he feared from his cousin's
harsh voice that physical violence would follow.
"I didn't think of it," he said weakly, and at the same time with a
pitiful attempt at defiance.
"You lie!"
The words came distinctly enunciated, cold and hard, a little pause
separating the two syllables so that each cut like a stab.
"Look here, Wayne," Garth said stiffly, "if you, who have never done a
single thing seriously in your life want to get sore because I have
neglected a matter of no pressing importance--"
"Good Lord!" cried Wayne. "No pressing importance! You'd handle my
business for me, keep all knowledge of a foreclosure from me, until the
year of redemption had passed? You'd let Martin Leland close me out,
would you? You and Hume and Leland would take the water from the
river. Good God! I never thought this sort of thing of you or Leland!
You'd all get rich by smashing me, and then you, you two-faced little
cur, would buy the Bar L-M back from Leland for nothing, with money
you'd taken from Arthur and me! Why, you petit [Transcriber's note:
petty?] larceny sneak, I don't know why I am talking with you instead
of slapping your dirty face!"
"If you will talk reasonably--"
"Talk reasonably? You're damned right I will! Why did Arthur borrow
twenty-five thousand dollars to begin with? What went with it? Who
got it?"
"I don't know what he wanted it for," snapped Garth. "I don't know
what went with it. I suppose the man who murdered him robbed him, too."
"You don't mean he had a sum like that with him in cash?"
"Yes. He insisted upon it. I was with Leland when the money was
turned over."
"And you--_forgot_--to tell me that!"
Conway, though his lips moved, made no audible reply. Wayne stood
staring at him a moment, his face white with passion. Suddenly he
cried out in a voice shaking with fury as he lifted one hand high above
his head and brought it smashing down into his open palm.
"Get off of the place!" he shouted. "Sneak back to Leland; go whimper
about Sledge Hume's legs. Tell Leland that I said that you are a
damned scoundrel and that he's another! Tell him that I said that I am
going to make the whole thieving pack of you eat out of my hand before
I let up on you. And now, for God's sake, go!"
He whirled and went back to the house with long strides. He flung wide
the door, and as he came swiftly to the fireplace, his face still white
and hard, he thrust out his hand to Helga Strawn, grasping hers as
though it had been a man's.
"I'm with you," he said crisply. "I'll see Ruf Ettinger myself
to-morrow."
Her eyes which had been frowning during Dart's latest attempt to be
entertaining, grew suddenly brilliant, her cheeks flushed happily.
"Dart," Wayne, continued, turning to the little man who had begun
nodding his head approvingly when Wayne's shoulder had struck the door
and who was still nodding, "you've done me a good turn to-night. I'm
not ungrateful. But Miss--"
"Hazleton," prompted Dart.
"--will have to be going right away and I want to talk with her alone."
"Sure," agreed Dart. "I'll get my book and go down to the bunk house.
I'm reading a swell story about a guy named Jupiter and a skirt named--"
For the first and only time on record Willie Dart stopped his flow of
words because of the look he saw on a man's face. He went out
snatching his book from the table as he passed. On his way to the bunk
house he stopped long enough to shake his head and rub his chin.
"I'm giving odds, ten to one," he reflected, "that the Weak Sister
don't loaf around here all night counting snowflakes."
"Something has happened, Mr. Shandon," Helga said sharply.
Shandon laughed shortly and picked up his pipe.
"A great deal has happened," he told her. "I've been a fool and an
overgrown baby long enough. Let's get down to business. You can't
stay here all night."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"For want of a chaperon, I suppose? I'm not worried about what people
say or think, Mr. Shandon. And, besides, there's no place to go."
"You can't stay, any way," he answered a little roughly. "You can get
back to the Leland place. They'll keep you over night. Now, let's get
this thing straight. You hope to get back your property from Hume?"
Swiftly their roles had changed; he was dominant now, he asked his
question in a tone that demanded an answer and she gave the answer.
"Yes."
"How?"
"I can't tell you definitely. If you'll come to me in two weeks or a
month I can tell you. For one thing, Hume is a man, I am a woman."
"You are going to try to make him fall in love with you?"
"Other men have done it," she said indifferently.
"Other men are not Sledge Hume. But that is your end of it. I am
going to tie up Ruf Ettinger and any other stragglers I can get my
hands on. If you can get back the property we'll take you in. We'll
form a company, we'll pool our interests. We'll force these other
fellows to sell to us at our own figure, by the Lord! I've got the
water!"
"If I could force Sledge Hume to sell his inherited interest to me,"
she cried, "if I could make him sell to me as I sold to him, for a
wretched twenty-five thousand dollars--"
"What!" he broke in excitedly. "How much did Hume pay you?"
"Twenty-five thousand. Why?" curiously.
"_When_?"
"I remember the date exactly."
She told him. It was barely two weeks after the death of Arthur
Shandon.
Sudden suspicion in Wayne Shandon's brain had sprung full grown into
positive certainty.
"If you can't get your property back one way," was the last thing he
said, "I can get it for you in another. Helga Strawn, you had better
leave Sledge Hume to me."
CHAPTER XIX
SHANDON TAKES HIS STAND
Dart had been quite right concerning the actions of Garth Conway. It
hardly required a clairvoyant mother for any man who knew both Conway
and Wayne Shandon to predict the haste with which Conway saddled and
left the Bar L-M, nor the direction he went.
"Old Mart's going to sleep restless to-night," mused Dart, to whom the
adventures of a guy named Jupiter, and a skirt who shall be nameless,
no longer appealed. "Them haymakers don't know enough to walk crooked
and cover their tracks the same time. Now with Red on the war path,
and me shaping his play right along--"
He grew deeply thoughtful over the delightful possibilities unfolding
to his highly coloured imagination. There was going to be something
doing now that would put an edge to this dull life. With what was
equivalent to a lining up of forces and an open declaration of
hostilities, with Red on the one hand pitted against the trio whom Dart
called the Haymakers, with a murder mystery to untangle, a robbery to
solve, and--not to be forgotten--Little Saxon guarded through the
winter months so that a winning horserace could be run in the spring,
Mr. Dart looked forward happily to a very busy time. Then there was
the Dry Valley irrigation scheme of which his limited knowledge must be
enlarged immediately, in order that he might "scrape up a few beans and
get them down while the game was wide open." And there was Helga
Strawn.
"I wouldn't have missed this here," said Mr. Dart solemnly, nodding his
head at a picture in his book of a lady without arms or superfluous
clothing, "not for the boodle of a U. S. senator."
He went to the bunk house door in time to see Garth riding out of the
corral, his horse floundering awkwardly in the drifts that were
steadily piling higher. Dart spat contemptuously.
"A measly little cur," he declared softly. "Crooked just because he
ain't got the guts to go straight. Them's the worst kind. They get
scared stiff and shoot you when you come in late, thinking you're a
second-story artist, and then they're sorry. Chances are he's
repenting right now and wishing he was dead and by morning he'll be
doing the knife act some more."
While Dart meditated, planned and philosophised, Wayne Shandon prepared
a quick meal for Helga Strawn.
"I know you're done up already," he said, "but it can't be helped.
You've got to get back to the Echo Creek to-night, if for no other
reason because it may be the last chance you'll have to get out at all."
"You mean the snow?"
"Yes. A horse can carry you through to-night; to-morrow, if this keeps
up, the poor brute would have his work cut out to get through alone.
If you'll help yourself and see that your clothes are good and dry I'll
go out and get the horses ready."
"Horses? You are going with me?"
"No," he said emphatically. "I haven't been going to Mr. Leland's home
for a long time. After what I have learned to-night I suppose that
I'll never go there again. I am going to send Dart with you."
"What have you learned?" she asked quickly. "You mean what I have told
you?"
"No. It is something which I am afraid I can't talk about just yet,
Miss Strawn. Now, if you will excuse me a minute?"
He went down to the stable, saw that both Helga's horse and Old Bots
had a feeding of barley, and fed his own saddle animal.
"I'll have to fight my way out on webs tomorrow," he mused. "I can
lead you until we get across the ridge where the snow will be lighter."
Then he went to Dart in the bunk house.
"Dart," he called abruptly, "you'd better come up to the house and get
something to eat. Then you've got to get ready to ride."
"Ride?" demanded Dart, a little anxiously. "You mean me and Old Bots
and the chariot?"
"You can't make it," Shandon told him positively. "I don't know how
you managed to get back from the Echo Creek with the cart. You'll have
to go on horseback now, whether you like it or not."
"Where am I going, Chief?"
"To the Leland's. Miss Hazleton is going back and I want you to go
with her. You'd have to go in the morning anyway and it will be easier
if you go right away. And I want you to do something for me."
"Love's little messenger again?" grinned Dart. "Gee, Red, I'm turning
into a regular carrier pigeon."
"I am going to write a short note to Miss Leland," Shandon went on
quietly. "I want you to give it to her to-night. And I don't want
anybody to see you do it. Will you do that for me?"
"Did I ever turn a pal down?" reproachfully. "But, say, Red; I'm just
healed up good from my ride in here last summer. Can't I walk?"
Shandon laughed and the two men hurried together back to the house.
Helga, who was still eating, looked up at them with frank curiosity as
they came in. Her eyes rested longest upon Dart; her contempt for him
had passed or else she had resolved to hide it and appear friendly.
Through the brief meal he strove constantly to be entertaining, and his
little sallies which had formerly elicited nothing beyond her silent
contempt now provoked her ready laughter.
"It ain't a little jolt of brandy that made the difference, either,"
Dart informed himself thoughtfully in the midst of an enthusiastic
recital of the gallant way in which his pal, Red, had saved him from a
horrible death in some wonderful land whose geographical location he
failed to make perfectly clear. "She's wise I'm the gent with a noodle
full of things she's dying to know. Red ain't told her what I told
him. We're sure going to have an awful chummy time on our jingle bell
party back to old Mart's."
And he went on with his tale until Wayne returning from the kitchen
stopped him.
Shandon had written his note and gave it to Dart as the two men went
out to saddle the horses. Ten minutes later Helga Strawn and her guide
left the Bar L-M. During the long ride, although Dart seemed the most
ingenuous of creatures, Helga Strawn obtained no satisfactory report of
the news which he had brought and which had so obviously steeled
Shandon's will.
An hour before they came to the Echo Creek the snow ceased abruptly and
it began to rain.
When at last they reached the ranch house the girl was clinging wearily
to the horn of her saddle, drenched to the skin, her face pinched and
white and drawn from cold and the hardest day's physical work her
woman's body had ever buffeted through. When Dart glanced at her in
the lamplight of the living room he filed a swift mental note of the
fact that what Helga Strawn set out to do she was very likely to
accomplish. For her eyes, their brilliancy undimmed, their calculating
penetration unaltered, told of a fighting spirit which no bodily
fatigue could touch.
There had been only two lights burning in the house; one in Martin's
private room from which came the voices of Garth Conway and Leland
himself; one in Wanda's bedroom. But at Dart's knock both Wanda and
her mother hastened to receive them, replenished the fireplace until it
roared lustily in its deep throat, found warm, dry clothing and hot
drinks, and made them comfortable for the night. If Wanda were "sore"
as Dart had expressed it, she did not in any way give evidence of it.
"Them ginneys that go chasing off to climb the North Pole," was Dart's
cheery comment as he reappeared from a brief absence in the kitchen,
"ain't going to find me choking up the trail in front of 'em. This
here is good enough for me."
In the kitchen he had changed his own outer, soaked clothing for a suit
of Martin's which Mrs. Leland had given him, and now the general effect
of his appearance was that of a very small boy in a very large hat.
But he had not forgotten to transfer Wayne's note with the transfer of
garments. And when Wanda left the room presently for the sandwich Dart
had requested he followed her, his coat and trousers seeming to flow
about him and after him with a will of their own.
"Love and kisses from Red," he whispered, handing her the note.
And be it said to the credit of Mr. Willie Dart that, although he had
been perfectly aware that there was a steaming kettle of water on the
kitchen stove, his haste had been so great to deliver the message that
he had not taken time to avail himself of the opportunity.
That night Wanda went quietly about her preparation for to-morrow. Her
skis, gathering dust in the attic, were brought down, cleaned and given
the thin coat of shellac which, drying by morning, would put them in
shape. A glance outdoors showed her that it had stopped raining and
was clear and cold. There would be a good crust formed during the
night. Shandon's note, which she read more than once, ran:--
"Dear Wanda--Will you try to meet me at your cliff to-morrow? I have
something which I must tell you.
"WAYNE."
All night, waking or sleeping, Wanda was restless and worried. She had
guessed swiftly that the thing Wayne was going to tell her had
something to do with Helga Strawn; it might also have something to do
with Garth and Martin Leland. Garth had been strangely agitated when
he burst into the house. Then he and her father were closeted for a
long time in the study, their voices at times raised in what sounded
like anger, at times lowered almost to whispers. She knew that Martin
had gone out to the men's quarters, that Jim had saddled his horse and
ridden away upon some errand which must have been born of Garth's
coming. She felt that it all was in some way connected with Wayne
Shandon and she was a little afraid.
In the morning, as Wanda made her early breakfast alone, a glance
outside at the white world showed her that where there had been jagged
rocks and logs strewn upon the hillsides, now there were only smooth
mounds. Tree stumps and fences, their identity already lost, were
hooded things that in another two days would be completely covered and
hidden.
The girl buckled her arctics upon her warmly stockinged feet, drew her
hood down over her ears, strapped on her skis and slipped on her
mittens before she left the kitchen. From the back door which in
summer was three feet above ground she pushed her way out upon the
level snow. Then, through a white world of silence she moved quietly
through the clear, crisp morning.
She arrived early at the cliffs, but already Shandon, although he had
travelled further, was before her. For the last quarter of a mile she
had travelled in the deeper tracks, which his broader skis and heavier
weight had made. Already he had gone ahead of her up the great cedar,
as she saw by the branches from which he had scraped the snow. And
when she came to the top and peeped into the cave she saw him piling
wood upon the fire he had blazing to welcome her.
"God bless you," he said tenderly. "You came."
"Of course I came," she answered. "Now tell me, Wayne. What is it?"
First he made her draw off her sweater and arctics and take the stool
he placed at the fire for her.
"Wanda," he began, at last, "I've got something to tell you that's
going to be hard telling. I have hoped all along that things would
smooth themselves out for us, that in due time your father would come
to see that neither he nor any other man has the right to stand in the
way of our happiness. But now, dear, there is no hope of that.
Matters are bad enough now, God knows. And they are going to get
worse. Do you love me very much, Wanda?"
"You know that I do," she answered simply.
"So much that you could cleave to me through everything? Even when the
unpleasantness which already exists between your father and me grows
into positive, hard, open opposition? On my part as well as his?"
"Is it so bad as that, Wayne?" she asked, her eyes darkening a little.
"Yes," he answered bitterly. "It is worse than you know. You will
find it as hard to believe as I found it."
"Tell me." She looked up at him bravely enough, but he knew how this
thing hurt her, and how it was going to hurt her when he told
everything. Hastily, to have it over with, he repeated Dart's story
and told of the quarrel with Garth.
"I believe," he said slowly, "that Dart told me the truth throughout.
I don't know how he found it out, but in part I know he was right.
Arthur mortgaged the Bar L-M to your father for twenty-five thousand
dollars. You know how I went away then, how I authorised Garth to act
for me just as though he were the actual owner of the property. Dart
says that three months ago the mortgage was foreclosed. That was just
before I came home. I heard nothing of it. He swears that he saw the
sheriff's certificate of sale to your father. In California law due
notice must be served upon a man whose property is threatened with sale
to satisfy the holder of the mortgage. From the date of that sale
until a year later the original owner has what is termed a year of
redemption during which, at any time, upon his paying the amount of the
mortgage and all costs, he may regain his property. Do you follow me,
Wanda?"
"Yes. Go on, Wayne."
"Had I not been away, had I not furthermore given to Garth my power of
attorney, that first service of notice of foreclosure would have come
to me. It came to Garth instead; it had to come to him. By his simply
ignoring the matter, failing to appear in court or to be represented by
a lawyer when the matter was called, he allowed the Bar L-M to be sold
to pay the promissory note of twenty-five thousand given by Arthur to
your father. Your father bought in the property himself. It is now
his and not mine; it would become absolutely his, with clear title, if
I should allow this year of redemption to pass without paying off the
twenty-five thousand and costs. And that is certainly what would have
happened if I had not learned of the whole wretched deal, through Dart,
last night."
For a long time she did not answer. Even Wayne Shandon, who thought
that he knew how the girl loved and venerated her father, could not
guess how deeply this thing cut her. Presently, steadying her voice,
she said:
"You are absolutely sure of this, Wayne?"
"No. Not in every detail. But in enough to make me more than ready to
believe it, Wanda. Garth himself admitted the mortgage, and confessed
that he had known of it all along from the day it was made, and said he
knew that your father held it. Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't Mr.
Leland tell me? Why have they gone on with their plan of irrigation
without making me an offer for the water right without which their
whole plan falls to pieces?"
"There is only one thing to do, Wayne. You must come back with me. We
must go straight to papa and ask him."
"Wanda," he answered gently, "I have fought this out all night. I hope
that never in our lives will there come a time when you ask me to do a
thing that I cannot do. Will you try to see this from my point of
view? My first thought was to go to your father and to ask him for an
explanation, just as it is your first thought. But what good could it
do? In a few days now I shall go to the court house in El Toyon. If
there was a mortgage, as Dart swears and Garth himself admits, it will
be on record there. If notice of foreclosure were properly served, and
foreclosure were then made in default of my appearance, or because
Garth did not go or send a representative, if the sheriff's certificate
of sale was made, the whole transaction will have been placed on
record. _If_ all of this is true, Wanda, and I am very much afraid
that it is, then, girl of mine, is there any reason in the world why I
should go to Martin Leland with it?" His voice had hardened, and
though he did not know it, Wanda had noticed the change in tone.
"Can't you see," he went on deliberately, "that after the way I have
been treated I have the right to expect your father to come to me if
there is any explaining to do?"
"I can't believe it," she said faintly, though belief was already
strong within her. "Why should my father do a thing like that? Do you
know, Wayne, that you are accusing him of a very ugly thing?"
"Yes," he said, his tone suddenly gentle again. "I am sorry for you,
Wanda. But can't you see that if this is true there is only one thing
in the world for me to do?"
"But," and the question uppermost in her mind demanded repetition, "why
should my father so soil his hands."
"Aren't there many reasons? If he really believes that I killed
Arthur, if for lack of evidence or for some other reason he feels that
the law cannot touch me, wouldn't he come to tell himself--"
"Oh," she cried impetuously, "that would be mean and cowardly! For him
to tell himself that robbing you would be justifiable because he was
punishing a man he deemed guilty! It would be braver, more like a man,
to do it for the hot reason of hatred."
After the silence with which Wayne answered her it was Wanda who again
spoke.
"Wayne," she asked quietly, "is this all you have to tell me?"
"No. I want you to understand what I am going to do, what I must do,
if this is all true. It is what they have driven me to do, unless I
prove myself to be what your father thinks me, a weak willed, worthless
do-nothing. You don't want me to be that, Wanda?"
"No," she replied thoughtfully. "I want you to be a man."
"Then," he cried sharply, "there is man's work cut out for me! I have
twenty-five thousand dollars and more to raise in a very short time. I
have my reply to make to men who have used me as a fool! I have the
water that the Dry Valley needs. I can go on with the thing which they
have tried to do, I can whip them at their own game, playing mine open
with the cards on the table. I can refuse to be the toad under the
stone; I can make my fight to have my rights. Against opposition that
has been underhanded I can offer opposition that is a man's answer to a
challenge. It is they, not I, who began the trouble. Had Martin
Leland come to me and asked for a water right, I should have given it
to him freely as you know. Why, the woman who came to you last night--"
"Miss Hazleton?" she said very quietly, though the girl's heart was
beating hard as she waited for his answer.
"Helga Strawn," he answered bluntly. "Hume's cousin."
Her smile, a little wistful but with a quick flash of gladness,
surprised him. And he did not understand when she rose swiftly and
came to him and put her arms round his neck.
"I am afraid that I have been naughty, Wayne," she whispered. "No,
I'll tell you some other time. Tell me about her."
He told her Helga's vague plan, showed her the chance for him with
Ettinger, Norfolk and the stragglers lined up with him.
"I love you, Wanda," he said suddenly at the end. "So much that what
you want done is the thing that I must do. But you must see very
clearly that the time has come when I must play the man's part or the
weakling's."
"First you are going to be very sure? Sure that papa has done this?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then," she said, lifting her face to his, her eyes shining, "if you
find it true I want you to do the man's part, Wayne. You knew that I
would, didn't you, Wayne?"
"Yes," he whispered. "God bless you, yes."
"And, Wayne, dear--"
"Yes?"
"Do you think that Helga Strawn is very beautiful?"
Whereupon he laughed happily at her, and despite the cloud in their sky
which had grown suddenly bigger and blacker so that the shadow of it
lay across their lives, they were very gay together.
CHAPTER XX
HUME PLAYS A TRUMP
Before Wanda and Wayne had finished making merry over their little
luncheon in the cave, each striving bravely to look at the future
honestly and unafraid, to look upon the present contentedly, an event
had happened that was already shaping their lives in a way which they
could not foresee. Sledge Hume had come to the Echo Creek.
During the past night, shortly after the arrival of Garth Conway, Jim
had ridden from the range house to the nearest village, something less
than a dozen miles down the valley, with orders to telephone a message
to Hume. The message, a mystery in itself to Jim, had been clear
enough to the man to whom it was sent and had brought him hastening
across the fifty miles lying between his ranch in the Dry Lands and the
Echo Creek. In the darkness he had come on as far as he could, until
the snow stopped him. He had spent the night at a house twenty miles
from Leland's place and now, hours before he could reasonably have been
expected, he entered Martin's study unceremoniously.
"So there's hell to pay," he said shortly by way of greeting. "The red
headed fool has discovered something, has he?"
He flung off his coat and strode to the fireplace. Garth and Leland
were together, had been together all morning, planning what was to be
done. Hume stared at Leland frowningly and then slowly transferred his
regard to Conway.
"I suppose your brains have been leaking out of your mouth again," he
said contemptuously.
Garth, his agitation of last night having left him nervous and
irritable, retorted hotly.
"Gentlemen," said Leland gravely, "may I remind you that this is hardly
a time for personal recriminations? We are not here to quarrel with
one another. I sent you word immediately, Mr. Hume, not because I saw
any necessity for your coming here but that you might know what we have
to expect at the earliest possible moment. Garth and myself have been
talking it over--"
"Talking!" exploded Hume angrily. "Well, I didn't come to talk.
There's going to be something besides a puling string of words now."
"If you have a suggestion--"
"You bet I have! I've been expecting just this thing ever since you
began playing the game with Conway there as a stool pigeon. If we'd
have sent him on a trip to Paris and paid his expenses we'd have saved
trouble and money. Can I have a drink and something to eat? I'm half
starved."
"Certainly. But your suggestion--"
"Is already working. I'm going to make it so hot for Red Shandon that
he'll come to time the first show he gets. MacKelvey is on the jump
and not over an hour or two behind me. It's time for trumps now,
Leland."
Martin jerked his head up at MacKelvey's name and stared at Hume with
keen, hard eyes.
"You're making a bold play, Mr. Hume."
"Well?" challenged Hume. "Isn't it high time for it? We might have
bought the water from Shandon before and have been better off. You
wouldn't stand for it; you had to gobble everything for nothing. We
took the chance. It wasn't a bad gamble either, considering Shandon
was away the first year and is a fool to boot. But you've lost on it.
Now when you go to him and ask for the water he's going to laugh at
you. But lock him up, charged with murder, make him believe that we
can stretch his neck for him and he'll hang, or by God, he will come to
time. Now I want a drink and something to eat. You and Conway can
spend the day talking if you like; I've got a day's work cut out ahead
of me."
"You're going with MacKelvey?"
Hume laughed and threw back his coat, showing the deputy sheriff's star
under it.
"I had Mac swear me in six months ago," he answered. "Yes, I'm going
with him."
Martin Leland rose and preceded Hume to the door.
"I shall ask my wife to see that you have something to eat right away,"
he said quietly. "First, Mr. Hume, I want you to know that Garth has
not been doing any talking, as you have suspected."
Hume merely lifted his heavy shoulders.
"And," Leland added, a little more sharply, "I want you to know also
that there is a woman here, a Miss Hazleton, whom we don't know
anything about excepting that she went to Shandon's last night, and
after her talk with him he rushed out to Garth demanding to be told
about the mortgage. Just where she fits in I don't know. She might be
anything from a chorus girl to a Reno widow."
"Oho," cried Hume, his brows suddenly drawn blackly. "He's getting a
woman mixed up in his affairs, is he? That shows how much sense he
has. Where is she now?"
"Here. She has asked to go out with us tomorrow."
Hume made no answer but shoving his hands into his pockets strode after
Leland into the living room. He stopped at the door, a little startled
by the vision which confronted him as Helga Strawn turned quickly from
the window, where she had been frowning at the blinding glare of the
snow without, and faced him.
She wore the clothes in which she had gone through the storm, but a hot
iron had taken the wrinkles out and they fitted her superb figure
admirably. Hume did not notice the clothes, he saw only the woman.
She inclined her head just a little to her host, with no softening of
the cold features. Upon Hume she bestowed a casual glance that came
and went indifferently.
"Miss Hazleton," said Martin curtly, "this is Mr. Hume."
The eyes of the two men were keen upon her as the name was spoken. As
Martin had said they did not know where this woman fitted in; it was
their business to find out.
Again she bowed, very slightly. If she felt any flicker of interest,
of surprise, that Hume was here, she did not betray it.
"How do you do, Mr. Hume?" was what she said, as indifferently as
though in reality she had no interest in the man or knowledge of him.
Martin left the room and went to the kitchen in search of Mrs. Leland.
Hume came to the window where Helga was standing.
"So you are a friend of Red Shandon's, are you?" he said bluntly.
"Am I?" The lift of her brows asked him very plainly what he meant by
that and what business it was of his.
"Yes," he retorted a little warmly, perhaps for the mere reason that
her very carriage hinted at a will ready to cross swords with his, and
Sledge Hume was not a man to tolerate opposition in a woman. "You told
him that the mortgage had been foreclosed."
"Did I?" coolly.
"And, if you care to know," he went on roughly, "you have thereby piled
up a lot of trouble for your friend Shandon."
There was rare impudence in the laughter with which she answered him.
"I have a way of judging a man when I first see him," she said, her
smile now flashing her amusement at him. "I didn't think that you were
going to be as stupid as the rest."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," and she turned back to the window, "that what happens to
Shandon or any other man in the world is absolutely immaterial so far
as I am concerned. Please don't think that I'm a tender hearted little
thing who is going to cry if you slap another man's face."
"You mean that you are not a friend of Shandon?" cynically.
"Your way of opening a conversation with a woman you have just met is
charmingly unique! If you are trying to get something out of me you
are going the wrong way about it, aren't you? You have already let out
twice as much as I have!"
"Have I?"
"Yes. You have told me that there was a mortgage of which I knew
nothing; that it has been concealed from Shandon; that he has learned
about it; that it upsets your kettle of fish in some way; that you are
going to make things hot for him because of it. All that is a good
deal of information to give a stranger in less than a minute's time,
don't you think, Mr. Hume?"
He laughed and yet his eyes hardened and narrowed upon her.
"You are welcome to what I have told you," he retorted. "It will be
common talk in twenty-four hours."
She gave no sign of having heard. Her indifference vaguely irritated
him.
"Look here, Miss Hazleton," he said significantly. "I'll tell you
something else as long as I am pouring out my heart to you," a sneer
under the words. "Before I'm done with Shandon he won't have a boot
for his foot or a leg to walk on. And anybody who ties up with him is
going to get smashed the same way!"
"It is very kind of you to warn me beforehand," she laughed softly.
"The fact that I have no interest whatever in Mr. Shandon certainly
should not lessen my gratitude to you, should it?"
"You want me to believe that?"
"Really there is only one thing which I do want you to believe," she
said in return. "Just that it would be very strange if I should care
one way or the other what you think. Isn't it perfectly glorious the
way the sun strikes the snow?"
Helga Strawn's keen womanly perception had in no way misled her
concerning her relative's nature. A compelling, masterful disposition
like Sledge Hume's grows accustomed to having its way. She was coolly
treating him as it was his role to treat others; and he did not like
the change of roles. He realised that the conversation had come to an
end. At the same time he knew that if he turned and left her, his
usual way when all had been said, he would be taking his dismissal like
a schoolboy. And he knew that as she looked out over the snow she
would be smiling.
"I have heard," he went on stubbornly, "of a woman going to see
Ettinger and Norfolk. It was you. Now you come to see Shandon. Do
you think that I am fool enough to believe that you are not interested
in the same thing I am?"
"Ah!" she said, turning swiftly. "But I did not say that I was not
interested in the irrigation of Dry Valley. I am!"
"And," his old weapon, a sneer, coming back, "you are not interested in
Shandon?"
"Not that much." She snapped her white fingers and Hume saw the
sparkle of rings. "Shandon is a fool. So is Ettinger. I am not
interested in fools." She paused a moment, her brilliant eyes meeting
his. "Are you a fool like the rest, Sledge Hume?"
She puzzled him, this woman who should have been that weak, inefficient
thing which Hume's conceit pictured all of her sex. He began to be a
little more upon his guard in talking with her.
"No." He contented himself with the one word, only his eyes demanding
an explanation.
"I don't think much of your associates," she informed him.
"You mean Leland?"
"He is bad enough. Garth Conway is worse. They are poor sort of men
to swing a big deal."
"They are not swinging it," he said bluntly.
"You are?"
"Yes."
Again she paused, her tapering fingers drumming idly upon the glass
through which once more she was looking out upon the shining snow.
"I was coming to talk with you anyway in a day or so," she said after a
little. "I have fifty thousand dollars available. Can you use it?"
In spite of him he started. She spoke of the matter so coolly, so
indifferently. And there had never been the time yet when Sledge Hume
could not use fifty thousand dollars very readily.
"Go on," he said.
"I saw the other side first," she returned. "They have a bigger chance
than you. But there is not a man among them. If you know what you are
doing, if you know _how_ to do it, you will make and they will break.
I want to get in on the winning side. That's all."
"And if we can't make a place for you?"
"Then I'll make one for myself. I'll see the farmers again. I'll make
them organise instead of bickering. I'll swing the controlling vote
myself. If fifty thousand won't do it I'll put the rest in. And then
we'll buy you and your crowd out or we'll sell you water or you'll go
to pieces so badly that the sheriff will sell you out!"
Hume laughed. And yet he recognised swiftly that here was a woman to
reckon with, that a fresh element had entered the game he was playing.
"You have a wonderful amount of confidence," he said.
"In myself," she retorted meaningly.
"I think," he said thoughtfully, passing over her remark without
answer, "that I can make a place for you, if you've really got the
money."
"I think that you can," she assured him.
And so Helga Strawn played the first card in the game with her
relative, Sledge Hume.
The sheriff, armed with a warrant for the arrest of Wayne Shandon, and
accompanied by two deputies arrived at the Echo Creek a little before
noon. They had left their horses at the same ranch house where Hume
had stayed last night, coming on up the valley on snowshoes. They went
immediately to Martin's study, from there to the dining room, then back
to the study. Martin, Hume and Garth Conway remained with them, their
voices coming in a low drone to the three women in the other part of
the house. The nervousness and anxiety of both Mrs. Leland and Julia
did not escape the sharp eyes of Helga Strawn.
"Hume is beginning his dirty work," she mused. "A trumped up charge of
some kind to get Shandon out of the way for a while."
"I got your message," MacKelvey told Hume half angrily. "And I got
busy because it's my sworn duty, not because I hankered after the job.
Your man in El Toyon swore out the warrant as you said he would. But
it looks damn' funny to me that if you fellows believe that Shandon
killed his brother you had to wait until now to say so. And you can
take my word for it I'd have taken my time about getting here if I
hadn't known that Mr. Leland was with you in the matter."
A little after noon, the sheriff with his men left for the Bar L-M.
Garth assured them that Wayne could hardly get away before the late
afternoon or the following morning, for the reason that when he left
the ranch there had been a number of things yet to do before the place
was closed up for the winter. MacKelvey and one of the men with him
went on webs; Hume and the other man on skis.
A hundred yards from the house they came upon Willie Dart. He had
travelled thus far on a pair of skis which he had found in the attic,
had struggled manfully but hopelessly to manage the narrow strips of
wood which pigeon toed and tripped him or interfered with each other
behind him, refusing the parallelism to which Mr. Dart strove wildly to
restrain them. He had fallen when they reached him and was standing to
his waist in the snow, his face red, the perspiration trickling down
his cheeks.
"Oho!" laughed Hume loudly. "So you were on your way to warn him, were
you?"
"You big boob, you!" shrieked Dart. "Get down and I'll shove your face
in for you!"
So they left him to struggle his way back to the house, Hume's laughter
booming back above the shrill imprecations of the little man. There
were tears, genuine tears in Willie Dart's eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SHORT CUT
Wanda Leland, her lithe body bending gracefully and easily as she drove
her light skis over the glistening crust of the snow, shot down the
last long slope in a sort of ecstasy inspired by the exhiliration of
silent speed and the crisp brightness of the early afternoon. Stooping
forward a little she took the short leap across the three foot wide
gulch at the base of the knoll upon which the house stood, and laughed
aloud as she landed and with gathered impetus sped a score of feet up
the knoll itself.
She had left Wayne happy in the two things which mattered: He loved her
even as she loved him; he was a strong man and a true. There was still
sadness in her breast but it was but a sunspot in the great glory of
her happiness. But now suddenly, even while her lips curved redly to
her gay laughter, was the gladness to go out of her.
She saw Willie Dart upon the porch, saw him start towards her in an
eagerness little less than frantic. He fairly hurled himself from the
steps into the deep snow, floundered helplessly, and progressing by
hard fought inches came on to meet her. As her skis, running up hill,
came slowly to a stop she watched him with amused eyes. But when she
saw his face, twisted with despair, she grew suddenly afraid.
"They've gone to arrest Red!" he wailed. "The sheriff and Hume and two
other guys. Where is he?"
"He has gone back to the Bar L-M," she answered swiftly. "What do you
mean?"
"I mean them crooks have gone to arrest him for murder," he called to
her. "They left nearly an hour ago. It's a skin game of the worst
kind. They want him tied up so they can work some sneaking gag and rob
him of his land. Hume wants him where he can't ride a race in the
spring so he'll grab Red's five thousand. The money's already up. God
knows what else they've got up their dirty sleeves."
For one dizzy moment the girl grew faint with fear. And when that
moment passed she saw clearly that as matters stood Wayne Shandon had a
man's work ahead of him. Thrown into jail, charged with so serious a
crime as fratricide, with Hume, and perhaps her own father, doing
everything in the world that they could do to hamper him, he would be
carrying a handicap to break the back of a man's hope.
"They mustn't do this thing!" she cried passionately, the eyes that had
been tender a moment ago growing fierce. "Does my father know this?"
"Sure," grunted Dart disgustedly. "He's one of the combine."
"And they left an hour ago?"
"Seems like a million years. It must be awful close to an hour. Say,
Wanda, I tried, honest to God, I did--"
She did not hear. She had turned away from him and was staring at the
long billowing sweep of snow lying between her and those men who had
gone to arrest Wayne Shandon. She saw the broken imprints of the
Canadian snowshoes, the smooth tracks of the skis, and demanded sharply:
"Which men wore the webs?"
"Them tennis racket things? MacKelvey and one of his thieves."
He looked at her wonderingly. What difference did that make? But
Wanda took no time for explanations. She was thinking swiftly that
MacKelvey would be the man to make the arrest, that the others would
accommodate their gait to his, that upon a crust like this the Canadian
shoes could make no such speed as a pair of skis.
"Tell mamma, no one else, where I have gone," she cried.
And, swinging about, she took the side of the knoll in a long sweep,
shot down into a hollow, rose upon the far side, crossed the trail that
the four men had made, seemed to Mr. Dart's staring eyes to be
balancing a moment upon a line where snow and sky met and then was gone
from him, dropping out of sight into the wilderness of snow.
"She's some game little kid," he moaned, shaking his head and making a
slow retreat back to the house. "But with them cutthroats an hour
ahead of her, she ain't got a show. Poor old Red."
But Wanda's heart was beating steadily now, her muscles were obeying
the calm command of her will, and she was telling herself resolutely
that she did have a chance. MacKelvey and Hume and the others would
see no imperative need for a wild burst of speed; they would travel
swiftly but they would not know that she was moving more swiftly behind
them. Up and down hill they would go step by step while she, following
the way she knew so well, the trails she had followed winter after
winter, would find the long slopes down which she would shoot like a
flash of light. It was more than possible that they would take over
two hours in making the trip; she must make it in less than an hour.
"If I had only come home half an hour sooner," she cried as she fought
her oblique way up a ridge she must top, "I could have laughed at them.
God be with me and I'll laugh at them yet!"
She was going too fast; she came to the crest of the ridge panting, her
heart beating wildly, her body shaking. She sought to relax her
muscles as she took the long racing ride down upon the far side. She
went more slowly as she climbed the next ridge. She was thinking
coolly now, she saw the need both of speed and of a conservation of
energy. She felt no fatigue from the trip of the forenoon; she had
rested long at the cave with Wayne; and yet she knew that unless she
saved her strength she would be unfit for the last burst of speed at
the end.
She did not follow the track the four men had left. She knew these
woods too well to lose a precious yard now. Where they had turned here
and there to avoid thick clumps of firs the girl, looking far ahead,
economised strength and shortened distances.
"I _must_ get there first," she cried over and over again. "If these
men will do the sort of thing Wayne says that they have done, if they
will stop at nothing to gain their ends, what hope has he if they
arrest him and charge him with Arthur's murder? There will be
evidence, they will make evidence, and he will be in jail where he can
not help himself."
Once she heard a faint cracking sound under her feet and her heart
stopped. If a ski had broken now-- But it was only a dead brush, snow
covered, and one of the lifeless twigs had snapped. She became more
careful of the way, wary of being tricked by the blinding snow that
appeared level when there were mounds and hollows that might have
broken a ski had she been careless and unlucky. The sudden hideous
fancy leaped out upon her that the breaking of a ski now might mean the
death of a man, the only man in the world for her.
At last, from the crest of the highest ridge, the one from which each
year she took her favourite ride down to the river, she caught sight of
the little party that menaced Wayne Shandon's liberty. The men had
been making better time than she had let herself believe they would;
evidently MacKelvey wanted to get the thing over with, to get back to
the Echo Creek that night. Beyond them, straight ahead, was the bridge.
"I can't do it! I can't do it!" she cried aloud, her voice broken with
hopelessness.
Even as she hesitated, poising upon the top of the rise, one of the men
far ahead turned and saw her. It was Sledge Hume. She saw his quick
gesture; she almost fancied that she could hear his laugh. He would
know why she followed them. He would be mocking her. Oh, how she
hated the man then!
"They will leave one of the deputies at the bridge," she thought in
despair. "He won't let me across. Oh, God, if there were only another
crossing!"
_There was another crossing; a snowshoe rabbit had shown it to her_.
He had sought to leap it just to save the little flame of life in the
tiny furred breast. He had gone to his death valiantly, but he had
shown her the place, the short cut, the way that was full of menace and
yet that was possible.
Her face whitened; she hesitated just a fraction of a second,
balancing. Now the men were following the wide crescent of the curve
which would lead them to the bridge. There was another course lying
straight between the two tips of that crescent, and a great gap filled
with the thunder of raging water against crags that were like the
horrible teeth of a monster, broke the short cut in two.
Again Hume had turned; she noted even across the distance the
contemptuous carriage of his big body and she knew that he was
laughing. And again, as though it were already just before her, she
fancied that she saw the chasm of the river.
"It is Wayne's ruin, it maybe Wayne's death, if they take him now!"
It seemed to her that it had not been her voice, that whispered the
words. It seemed that they had come to her from the air, that some one
else had spoken them. And as, hesitating no longer, she stooped
forward and sped down the long slope, she swerved still further from
the track the four men had made, heading straight to the river above
them, opposite the Bar L-M ranch house, straight toward the only way
that was left her.
She had made up her mind. She was resolute now and yet she was
frightened. In a little while the roar of the river smote her ears and
it seemed at once to call to her and jeer at her. She fancied that it
was like Hume's voice, mocking her. She remembered just how the banks
fell straight down to the whirlpools; she remembered again the splash
of the falling snow when she had come so close to her death. The very
feeling that had gripped her then, like ice against the beatings of her
heart, gripped her now. She was as one in a nightmare, drawn on,
rushing on to the peril from which she shrank.
She lost sight of Hume and the rest as she left the straight, cleared
roadway and the trees came between her and them.
"They're all the same," Sledge Hume was laughing as he turned and
waited a moment for MacKelvey to come up with him. "I never saw a
woman yet who wasn't willing to tackle the impossible in a flash and
then go to pieces with hysterics in the middle of the job."
On, gathering speed with the flinging of each yard behind her, her
polished skis singing as they leaped downward, hardly seeming to touch
the brittle crust of snow underfoot, standing erect that she might see
far ahead and turn in time for a mound that spoke of a boulder, Wanda
was rushing on toward the river. Its shouting voices, like the voices
of many giant things In brutal laughter, swelled and thundered ever
more distinct, ever more jeering. It seemed to her that there were ten
thousand Sledge Humes taunting her, sneering at the blind recklessness
of a mere woman. She knew that the blood had crept out of her face and
that she was afraid. And she knew that there is one thing in the
world, God-created, that is greater, stronger than fear.
"I have leaped distances greater than that before," she told herself
stubbornly.
"With certain death dragging at you if you missed?" the rude laughter
of the river through its rocky way taunted her.
Her skis were running slowly again; she had come to the level land once
more. She must make a little turn to avoid the thick grove through
which she had gone slowly last year after the rabbit. She must turn
upstream a little too. There were ten minutes of driving one ski after
the other, then the steep climb of another ridge, the last ridge lying
between her and the river. She climbed it swiftly, stubbornly and
unhesitatingly.
"If Wayne were coming to me would he hesitate?" she asked herself
angrily. "Because I am not a man am I a coward? Shall I fail him the
first time in our lives that he has need of me? Is a woman like that a
fit thing to be a strong man's wife?"
At the top of this last climb she paused. She was not afraid now. The
colour had come back into her face, her blood was running steadily.
She might be going to her death. Was death then so great a thing? Was
it as great as her love?
"If I were afraid now," she told herself quietly, "I should know that I
do not love Wayne as other women have loved other men. Then I should
not deserve to live to love him weakly."
From here she could not see MacKelvey, Hume and the others. She knew
that by this time they would have crossed the bridge. Then she tried
not to think of them. Briefly she studied the steep sloping sweep of
the snow, trying to mark the way she must go. She found the spot the
rabbit had chosen, the narrowest place with the far bank three or four
feet lower than the near bank. Frowningly seeking the detail of a
sheet of glaring white which seemed without mound or hollow but which
she knew was full of uneven ridges and sinks, she made out at last such
a ridge lying parallel to the river's edge and close to it. A log had
fallen there; she remembered having seen it in the summer. With the
little hollow this side, with the short upward slope that would give
her a natural take-off, she would make it help her.
She would strike this low up-sloping mound in a moment when she swept
down upon it from the crest of the ridge upon which she now stood; she
would take the tiny dip in a fraction of a second too brief to have a
name; she would rise, leaping as she rose--
The supreme moment came.
She loosened the band about her waist, breathing deeply. She bent her
slender body this way and that, straightening up, stooping, twisting
from side to side. She felt that every individual muscle must be made
ready, keyed up to the work that was to be done in a flying moment.
She must be steady, she must be sure. Not a fibre of her being must
weaken or tremble or be uncertain.
"Dear God," she whispered, "make me strong and worthy and unafraid."
Then she lifted her hands a little, holding them out from her sides,
her fingers outstretched, her arms taking the place of the pole she had
tossed away. Her skis clung to the snow. She slipped the right foot
back and forth, making sure that it had gathered none of the feathery
stuff that lay just under the thin crust. When it ran smoothly she
tested the left ski. And then slowly she stooped forward, her hands
still out. She felt a little stir, knew that she was moving, just
barely moving. She stooped further forward now, quickly. The shifting
of her weight had its instantaneous effect. The slow, scarcely
perceptible moving was changed into a smooth glide that grew in a yard
to a swiftly accelerating speed. Then she straightened up, balancing
with taut muscles, rushing downward.
Now she was flying as a bird flies that skims the snow. Only the
little whine of the ski song over the crust, the flying particles from
before the upturned ends, a dust of diamonds, told that the speeding
body was not in reality defying gravity, scorning the earth beneath.
The pitch steepened before her, the skis rose and dipped over the
little uneven places, the air cut at her face, stung her eyes. Half
way down, when the skis struck a little mound from which she dared not
try to swerve, she in sober truth flew, not touching the crust again
for five or six feet. She landed easily, crouching a little, tensing
her already taut muscles, steadying herself, plunging onward at a speed
that was like an eagle's dip. And then another second, another and she
heard the whine of the air about her ears, saw the black gulf from
which the roar of the river boomed up at her and her skis rose to the
take-off she had chosen.
As never before in all her life did the girl's will call upon the
muscles of her body. Her hands far out now, like the still pinions of
some strange being of a strange white world, her lithe body as tense as
wire, she gathered her strength, felt her body rising as the skis
slipped up the short slope of the mound, knew that in one flying second
there lay both success and death. At the very instant, when, had she
let herself go, she would be slipping down to the water that was
grinding at the rocks, she leaped.
Higher and higher she rose in the air, carried onward, upward by the
impetus of her wild race and by the slight aid of her take-off had
given her. Higher yet and further out although it seemed to her still
heart that her body was hanging motionless, that it was the earth
leaping beneath her, flying backward, rushing away, hurling the chasm
of the river under her. She did not look down; it might have meant
death to look down. She kept her eyes fastened now upon the far bank,
the place where she sought to land, where she must throw herself
forward to avoid slipping back.
And yet she saw the black gulf under her. It was too black, too wide,
too full of shrieking menace for her not to see it even while she did
not look at it. She was hanging still in air, it was rushing at her,
there was an instant filled with eternity. And then, Wayne's name upon
her lips, she had described the great arc, she had struck six feet from
the treacherous margin on the far side, her skis were running smoothly
under her, at first swiftly, then slowly, and a glad cry of
thankfulness broke from her lips.
She had not even fallen, she did not have to hurl herself prone to
clutch at the snow with her fingers. She sped on, came slowly to a
standstill and then her heart leaping, her blood racing, her eyes
bright and wet she was over the ridge and speeding forward again, the
roar of the river lost to her ears, the form of a man bringing a horse
out of a snow surrounded barn in her eyes.
He cried out as he saw her racing across the snow to him, cried out in
wonder. He dropped his horse's rope and turned to meet her. She saw
that he was still on his skis, saw too that not a thousand yards beyond
the house four men were coming on swiftly.
"Wanda!"
"Wayne." She had come close enough to call now and lifted her voice
clearly. "MacKelvey and Hume and two more men are there, right there.
They are going to arrest you for Arthur's murder. They mean to keep
you shut up in jail until they ruin you. They will make evidence to
hang you. You must go, go quick."
He swung about quickly, caught sight of the four men who had seen Wanda
and who were lessening the distance by quick strides. His face
blackened to a great anger. Then he turned back to her and his face
flushed with a great happiness. For in the man as in the woman love
was stronger than fear or hatred.
"You golden hearted, wonderful woman!" he cried softly. He reached out
his arms as she swept by and gathered her into them. He kissed her
softly. And then, swiftly, he turned away.
"After a few days, come to the cave," he said eagerly. "If I let them
take me now it would mean more than my ruin, more than my death, Wanda.
They won't take me. When a man is arrested for Arthur's murder it is
going to be the right man."
And striking out mightily, steadily he left her, driving his straight
way toward the broken country of the upper end of the valley.
When they came to where she lay, Hume first, they found Wanda Leland
very still and white, motionless save for the little sobs shaking her.
Hume's anger broke out into a wordy fury. He shook his fist at her
prostrate body and cursed. But he did not sneer. There was too deep a
wonder in his heart. He knew, they all knew, what it meant to have
done what she had done. And MacKelvey, a hard man robbed by her of his
prey, took off his hat and lifted her gently and said simply, and in
full reverence:
"By God!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE FUGITIVE
"You are no longer daughter of mine!" cried Martin Leland sternly in
the first heat of his anger. "You have turned against your own blood
like a traitress. You have forsaken your father to ally yourself with
a drunken brawler, a man so sunken in depravity that he has murdered
his own brother for mere money. You have shamed yourself and your
mother and me. You have bared your heart for the world to look at and
laugh at, that men may link your name and the name of a common fugitive
from justice. You would be held up to less shame had you merely
uncovered your body and gone out naked for men to jeer at!"
Wanda, lying white and lax upon the couch near the fireplace, suddenly
dropped her mother's hand and sprang to her feet, her body quivering
with a quick anger that leaped out to meet her father's.
"Papa!" Her head was thrown up in defiant pride, her vibrant voice,
her blazing eyes were as hard as his own. "I won't listen to such
things, not even from you. They are untrue. You say that Wayne ran
away because he is guilty and a coward. You know better than that! He
is not a fugitive from justice; he is forced by the things you have
done to become a fugitive from injustice and persecution. Oh, how can
you stand there and denounce him after you have set your hand against
him as you have? Or don't you think that I know how you and the rest
have sought to rob him and ruin him!"
"What!" stormed Leland. "Is the girl mad?"
"No, I am not mad," she flung back at him hotly, all facts and
considerations swept away before the rush of her furious indignation
except the one vital matter that she was fighting for a thing as dear
as her lover's life. "You can find no name too bad for him, just
because you hate him! You have always hated him just because he is his
father's son. You and his own cousin, two men whom he has trusted,
have tricked him and betrayed him. You have hidden from him all
knowledge of the mortgage you held upon the Bar L-M. Even now you are
trying to steal his ranch from him. Wayne has never done a thing so
vile as that in all his life. Oh! I am ashamed."
Her voice grew harsh in her throat; her face was no longer white, two
spots of anger burned in her cheeks. She broke off panting, her eyes
growing harder, brighter as they challenged his.
"Martin," cried Mrs. Leland, coming swiftly to the girl's side. "Be
careful."
"Careful!" shouted Leland, his face red with his fury. "When one of my
blood loses her last shred of decency, when she takes up with a low,
dissolute unprincipled Shandon? The worst of a bad lot. May God curse
him, may God curse her if she clings to him!"
"You have never spoken to me like this before," cried Wanda
passionately. "You will never do it again."
"Listen to me," thundered Leland, his heavier voice drowning the girl's
words. "If your father does a thing which your untrained, woman's
brain cannot rightly understand are you the one to judge and condemn
him? Because a lying Shandon has cast his cursed spell over your
romantic fancies are you to leap to these ridiculous conclusions? Am I
the man to do a dishonourable thing? Ask other men out in the world
where my dealings are an open book. Ask your mother. If, to you, who
have gone hungering for lies to a man amply competent to tell them to
you, it has seemed that I have done a mean thing for selfish purposes
is it your place to judge me? Listen, I tell you. I have known for a
year and a half that Wayne Shandon murdered his brother and robbed the
dead body. I have seen, although all men know this fact as well as I
do, that he has been trickster enough to cover his bloody tracks; that
it would be hard to convict him in court. I have seen that it lay
within my power, that it has become my duty, to punish him in another
way. Not a thing have I done that is not just, that the law courts
will not sanction. And yet, when I had wrested from him the thing his
red hands took with his brother's life, I should have punished him a
little as he deserves. Is a man like him deserving of any other
treatment?"
"How do you know all this?" she demanded, all that dormant fierceness
of the female heart Hashing from the depths to the surface. "Did you
see him kill Arthur?"
"Don't be a fool," he retorted.
"Or were you over ready to believe because you hated him, and because
the tool you would lay your hand to would not only punish him but
enrich you? And you call me traitress!"
For a moment Martin Leland, his face convulsed, his hands clenched, his
great body towering over her, looked as though he were going to strike
her down. Then, without a word, he left the room and returned swiftly
to the study where MacKelvey and Hume were waiting for him.
Wanda stood looking after him, her body stiff and erect, her face
lifted, her eyes unchanging. Her mother laid a quick hand upon the
girl's arm. Then, suddenly the tired body relaxed, the flaming spirit
softened, and Wanda, white and trembling, dropped sobbing upon the
couch.
"Wanda, Wanda," whispered her mother softly, kneeling and putting her
hands gently upon the shaking shoulders. "I am sorry. And yet, Wanda,
I am proud of what my daughter has done to-day."
The mother heart comforted. And even before the storm of sobs, shaken
from the girl by strained and jangling nerves, had ceased, Mrs. Leland
was trying to make excuses for her husband.
"He has just been blinded by hate," she said bravely. "Some day he
will see the light."
"Gee," commented Willie Dart, outside the door, resuming his pacing up
and down upon the front porch. "If Red turns that girl down I'll marry
her myself!"
Had Martin Leland's iron nature asked such a thing as sympathy it would
have received little satisfaction from the interview that night in his
study. MacKelvey's greeting to him was, "Martin, that girl of yours is
a wonder! There's not a man in the country would have tackled the
thing she did to-day."
"Pshaw," grunted Hume, his sneering manner having come back to him with
his growing displeasure. "It was simple enough for all of its
spectacular staging."
"Was it?" MacKelvey asked sharply. "I'll bet you five hundred dollars,
Mr. Hume, that you're not the man to do it!"
Hume lifted his shoulders for answer and kicked viciously at the
andirons on the hearth.
"So you let him get clean away?" demanded Martin, flinging himself into
his chair at the table and glowering at MacKelvey. "Why didn't you
follow him up?"
"Because I wasn't a fool. Wouldn't I cut a pretty picture slipping
around on a pair of sticks trying to catch up with the strongest ski
man in the county! He'd double up on me every mile. And with the
night coming on I'd stand a great chance finding him, wouldn't I?"
"What are you going to do about it then?"
MacKelvey spat thoughtfully at the fire.
"I'm going to nab him the first chance I get. And I'm not in the habit
of carrying a warrant around in my pocket until I wear it out, either."
"You are going out after him in the morning?"
MacKelvey again attacked the fire with more thoughtfulness, truer
precision than before.
"Nope. I'm going back to El Toyon while I can get out. There's about
ten feet more snow due in the next two weeks, Martin."
"So," cried Hume. "That's the way you serve a warrant, is it? You are
going to let the man get away if he wants to, and he has shown us
already how he feels about that! You are going to let him slip down to
Mexico or work up to the Canadian line."
"Easy, Mr. Hume," said MacKelvey slowly. "I've been sheriff in this
county for seventeen years. Name me the name of any man who's been
wanted and who hasn't been brought in. If I stuck here, running around
like a rabbit in the snow, Shandon would have the chance to get out, if
he wanted it. And I don't believe that he does want it. But if I'm
back in El Toyon to-morrow with the wires busy there won't be a hole in
the web for a blue bottle to buzz through. He can't eat snow, you
know. I'll put a man up here to see he don't slip back to the Bar L-M.
And I don't say I won't go myself or send Johnson and Crawford out in
the morning to try and pick up his tracks if it don't snow during the
night and cover them up."
But long before midnight it came on to snow again, so heavily that they
all knew that a fresh ski track would not have lasted an hour. Early
the next morning Leland, Garth Conway, Sledge Hume and MacKelvey with
his deputies went out of the valley upon skis or snow shoes. Helga
Strawn went with them, shrugging her shoulders at Leland's blunt
assurance that it would be a good ten miles of hard work before they
could expect to take to the horses waiting beyond the heavy snow line.
Mr. Dart did not go with them. He had settled that fact for himself
very positively before going to bed the night before.
"In the first place," he decided, "Red might need me to smuggle him
some grub or something and I got to be on hand. In the second place I
had enough trying to ride two slippery sticks yesterday. Split myself
in two for ten miles on a pair of devil's toboggans? Thanks awfully.
I'll stay here and split stovewood for Julia."
"Where's Dart?" demanded Leland when the men were pushing back their
chairs from the breakfast table.
Nobody knew. He had not been seen since last evening. Julia, hastily
returning from quest of him, brought back word that he was in bed and
that she was afraid that he was unwell. She had heard him groaning.
"The little fool is faking," cried Martin, ready this morning to fly
into a rage over trifles. "Does he think I'm going to have him
sticking around the place all winter?"
He flung himself from the table and went heavily up the stairs to
Dart's room in the attic.
"Come out of that," he said roughly, throwing the door open. "We are
going to start right away. You'd better get some breakfast in a hurry
if you want any."
"Breakfast?" moaned Dart weakly. "Good God, Mart. Don't say breakfast
to me or I'll die."
"What's the matter?" asked Martin roughly and suspiciously. "You
weren't sick last night."
He came closer to the huddled figure. Dart's hands were shaking, his
face was as white as a sheet.
"It came on sudden," he said faintly. "I--I've had it before. I--I
think I'm dying this time. Has Mamma Leland got a Bible?"
Suddenly, before Leland's astonished eyes, the little man began a
violent retching and vomiting. Leland went back down the stairs,
swearing, and sent Julia with word to Mrs. Leland that Dart was really
sick.
Dart got out of bed, his legs trembling under him, and crept to the
window, peering out cautiously. Only when he had seen the party leave
the house upon skis and webs did he go back to his bed, snatch a bit of
plug cut chewing tobacco out from under his pillow and hurl it
venemously into the snow.
"A man that will chew that stuff for fun," he groaned creeping back
into bed, "ain't safe to have around. Good God, I wonder if I am
dying? I might have took too much!"
* * * * * *
Thus it happened that almost at the very beginning of the hard winter
Wayne Shandon was a hunted man, forewarned that his hunters would spare
neither unsleeping vigilance nor expense to secure his arrest and
conviction. During the first night and the first day he never went far
from the Bar L-M range house. From behind a screen of timber less than
a quarter of a mile from his pursuers he had watched them turn back
towards the Echo Creek. The darkness was already dimming the landscape
but he could count the figures, five of them, with the horse Wanda had
insisted that MacKelvey bring out with them. As they went toward the
bridge he came down toward them, moving swiftly among the trees,
keeping well out of sight.
He knew he would be doing the thing upon which MacKelvey would not
count. Besides it was sheer madness to think of spending the night
without shelter of any kind and he did not dare go immediately to
Wanda's cave. Already he had come to think of that place, high above
the treetops and as safely hidden as if it were below the earth's
surface, as a place of refuge. If he went there now they would track
him to-morrow--unless it snowed. He must wait somewhere until the snow
came to wipe out the track he would leave behind him.
He entered the house by the back door, got his rifle and a belt of
cartridges, made into a compact pack such blankets, tobacco, coffee,
sugar, salt and condensed foods as he could carry. The cave was
already well stocked but he could not guess now how long he must lie
hidden there. He had no time to decide upon the course ahead of him
beyond the immediate future. He knew only that he must not let them
take him until he had done the work he would be unable to do from the
inside of a jail. He was preparing carefully for such needs as he
could foresee.
He slept that night in his own bed, waking at each little noise, ready
to spring up fully dressed and armed, prepared equally for defence or a
hasty retreat. Going to the window shortly after midnight he saw that
the snow was falling heavily. He made a hasty cold meal, then strapped
on his pack, took up his rifle and left the house. Now was the time to
go to the cave; the snow might cease by morning.
In the darkness he deemed it wiser to go down by the bridge than to
attempt the steeper passage beyond the head of the lake. They would
not be out in this sort of night watching for him; they would not know
where to expect him. And even if he came within twenty paces of a man
his swift, silent passage in the dark would be unnoticed.
To a man knowing the broken range country a whit less intimately than
Shandon knew it, the trip that night down to the bridge, across it,
across the Leland ranch and to the cliffs where the cave was would have
been a sheer impossibility. The storm, howling and snatching at him,
would have taken the heart out of a man less grimly determined than he
had grown to be. The snow, while it befriended him, covering his trail
in the rear, drove its shifting wall of opposition across his way in
front. The darkness tricked him and baffled him again and again. But
still, head down and dogged, he pushed on, certain always of his
general direction, confident of being under the cliffs in the first
faint glow of the new day.
It was an endless night, torturous with cold and uncertainty. But at
last, before the day broke, he made his heavy way up the great cedar,
climbing perilously with numbed hands. He knew that if his pursuers
came here now they would see where he had knocked the thick pads of
snow from the wide horizontal branches. But he knew, too, that before
they could arrive the steadily falling snow would have hidden the signs
he had left behind him. And at last, wearily, he threw himself down
before a crackling fire, and went to sleep.
For upwards of two weeks his life was like that of a rat in a cellar.
Silence, monotony, darkness, loneliness. Already the snowfall was as
great as that of most winters. He could guess that by this time the
fences about Wanda's home were hidden under a smooth covering that
thickened day by day, night after night. When he looked out from the
screen across his doorway he saw that the smaller trees were blotted
out and reckoned that upon the level floor of the valley the snow lay
ten feet deep. Now and again, when he went out in the early dawn or
the last glimmering light of dusk for wood or for a break in the
monotony that was horrible in itself to a man of his type, he saw how
the winter was piling higher and higher its white heaps along the
cliffs above. He spent hours on the cliffs, working his way slowly
upward along the seam in the rocks which he discovered led out above,
digging with his hands for dead branches to replenish his dwindling
stock of firewood. He must choose days for this when the snow so
thickened the air that a man within shouting distance could not have
seen him.
Two weeks, and Wanda did not come to him. Two weeks of inactivity, of
waiting, the hardest trial in the world for a man tingling with energy,
with his work calling to him through every moment of his waking hours.
He had planned that work, going over and over his plans, every step.
He knew just what he should do--when Wanda came.
He could not know why she did not come. He began to fear that she had
left the valley. Then, when he assured himself that she would not have
gone without a word he began to fear that she was ill; that the day
when she took the short cut had been too much for any woman's endurance.
But she was not ill, he was certain of that. During the two weeks
there were only two days when the air cleared enough for him to see the
Leland house. The first came when he had been in hiding three days;
the other two days later. Both times Wanda had come out upon the porch
where with the spy-glass in the cave he could see her plainly. She had
signalled him, using the first few signals of that code they had made
together so merrily. She lifted both hands up to her face and he knew
that her heart was repeating his words, "I love you, dear, with my
whole heart." She loitered on the porch in apparent carelessness, but
as eager as the man watching her, yearning for her, she had lifted her
hood lightly from her head, flashing the message across the miles: "Be
careful. We are being watched." She turned her back and stood for a
long time looking in at the open living room door: "Something has
happened to prevent our meeting to-day."
Several times during the two clear days she repeated her signals. But
for more than a week afterward he had no sight of her. He did not
know, he could only guess vaguely at the truth. One of MacKelvey's men
had come back to the Echo Creek, unexpected by Wanda and Mrs. Leland,
and while he was apparently concerned only in making frequent trips
toward the Bar L-M, Wanda had the uneasy feeling that she was never
long out of his sight.
But at length Wanda risked coming to him, choosing a time when the
danger was least. Johnson, the deputy sheriff, had said in the morning
that he was going to take a run over to the Bar L-M, to look things
over. It was by no means the first time he had said this, and the girl
felt that he had no particular reason to suspect her to-day. It was
still snowing, not too heavily for one to venture out, but steadily
enough to obliterate ski tracks entirely in less than an hour. Johnson
left the house, and a little later Wanda set forth, her preparations
swiftly made. Johnson was out of sight. She drove on swiftly to a
hilltop due east of the house from which she would be able to see him
before he came to the bridge.
She waited anxiously there until she saw him, pushing steadily onward.
One sharp glance at the way she had come showed her that unless Johnson
returned very much faster than he had gone out there would be no sign
to tell him where she had gone. And then, her eyes suddenly brighter
than they had been for many a day, she hastened on, still eastward, not
daring even now to turn directly toward the cliffs until she had passed
into the deeper forest.
It was like bringing new life to Wayne Shandon. He swept the girl up
hungrily into his arms, crying out softly as she came through the snow
blocked entrance to the cave. And she, when he brought a candle and
her eyes caught sight of his face, bearded and worn, must shut her lips
tight and fight hard to keep back the tears.
It was only a brief half hour allowed them, leaving them both happier
and sadder at the parting. But she had brought the few little things
she could smuggle out to him, had assured herself from a close
examination of his store that he was in no danger of freezing or
starving; and he had entrusted to her the carrying out of the work he
had hit upon.
"I have scribbled a letter in your little note book, dear. It is to
Brisbane, a lawyer in San Francisco. He is a friend of mine and I can
trust him. It tells him everything, about the mortgage and the
foreclosure, about the trouble I am in. He's the man to advise us now.
There's not a keener criminal lawyer in the State. I'm going to give
him my power of attorney. I'll take chances on slipping down to the
city, somehow, if it's necessary. Or I can get down into White Rock at
night, meet him there, and get back here before morning. The letter
tells him, too, that I am dead certain that Sledge Hume is the man the
law wants; it explains why, and authorises him to hire a detective
agency to run Hume down. Dear heart of mine, you are too brave to be
afraid for me now. You will get this letter out somehow? You will get
it to Brisbane for me? Once he is at work things are going to right
themselves. A man can't kill another and rob him of twenty-five
thousand dollars and not leave some sort of a trail behind him. Then
there is another message. I have not written it. Can you get word to
Big Bill to keep a close watch on Little Saxon? I'll ride him in the
spring."
"And you, Wayne? You can't stay here all winter!"
"I can, if there is anything to be gained by it. But we'll wait until
we hear from Brisbane. He'll find the evidence we want, dear. And
until then hadn't you rather think of me waiting here than lying in
jail?"
When she left him to take a devious way home the tears lay glistening
upon her cheek until the snow, beating in her face, washed them away.
CHAPTER XXIII
HELGA STRAWN PLAYS THE GAME
The winter which had begun unusually early, battled fiercely for eight
weeks in the mountain fastnesses, and went down in grumbling defeat
before an early spring. And, as the stern face of the Sierra was
hidden under the snow that robed the higher peaks in royal ermine and
drifted sixty feet in the deeper cañons, so was the vital thing in the
lives of Wayne Shandon and Wanda Leland covered by silence and secrecy.
Each day was tense and eager to them; to the world whose prying eyes
could not penetrate through the barricade of winter it was as though
those lives were stagnating.
Wanda delivered Wayne's letter safely and promptly to Brisbane, the San
Francisco lawyer. She took her mother into the secret, she told her
mother everything now, for the close companionship of last winter had
borne its fruit of warm sympathy, and the two women went out of the
valley, ostensibly to spend a few weeks shopping and visiting in San
Francisco. The letter never left the girl's person until, in a private
room, it was placed in the hands of Brisbane.
Brisbane's wise old eyes looked at her shrewdly from behind the mask of
his clean shaven face, the greatest poker face, men said, that had ever
gone its inscrutable way up and down the city of fogs and wet winds.
He had asked his few questions in an absent-minded sort of fashion
which disappointed and distressed the girl. He evinced not a whit more
interest than he would have done in watching a stranger stamp the mud
off his feet, or, for that matter, than he would have shown had the
roof broken into flames over his head. But he took the case.
Upon a storm filled night, as black as ebony, Brisbane met Wayne
Shandon in White Rock. A man lived there, whom Shandon could trust, an
old friend of his father, and at his house the meeting was held with
little difficulty or danger. In less than two hours Brisbane had put
himself in possession of all the facts which Shandon could give him
that bore upon the matter in hand. There was the germ of a case
against Hume he admitted, but it would have to grow considerably to be
worth anything to a jury. Yes, the crooked work in the foreclosure of
the mortgage would help a little; not much though. He would attend to
the mortgage, taking Shandon's note for the amount, and would see that
it was paid off immediately. As to advising Shandon as to the best
thing to do now, the lawyer smiled one of his rare, noncommittal smiles.
"By avoiding arrest in the first place," he said drily, "you put
yourself in wrong with any jury in the world. But you've done it
already. I can't see now that it makes much difference whether you go
and give yourself up or whether you keep on the dodge. If you prefer
this sort of thing to a nice warm jail, why suit yourself my boy!"
He would see further that the shrewdest detective in the City was fully
instructed and put on the case immediately. Finally he gave Shandon a
letter from Wanda in which she promised to return to the valley as soon
as possible, shook hands as warmly as his absent minded manner would
permit and went to bed.
Through the winter the various threads of men's destinies, golden and
black, gay and sombre, too fine for human eye to see, too strong for
human might to break, were being woven into the intricate pattern of
life and fate. Though miles lay between the many men whose lives were
unalterably mingled, though each man went selfishly or unselfishly
about his own pursuits, although each fashioned daily his life for the
day, still the mills of God were grinding, the looms were weaving, and
grist and kernel, warp and woof found their way from the individual
existences into the scheme of the whole.
Dart had left with Mrs. Leland and Wanda and made a straight line to
Big Bill and Little Saxon. He made it his own special business in life
to see that no knockout stuff was slipped into the horse's oats, that
no slippery gent got the show to put Little Saxon out of the game. He
even took the precaution to partition off a tiny room for himself in
the hay loft above Little Saxon's stall, where he spent the nights
dozing and snatching up the ancient shot gun down the muzzle of which
his enthusiastic fingers had rammed enough buck shot to explode the
piece and blow himself as well as any unhappy intruder into that land
from which there is no return.
Big Bill, acting foreman now, took upon himself the unremitting work of
making the racehorse fit. Nearly as good a man as Shandon with
animals, he continued through the winter the task that had been little
more than begun. The fact that the man who had first proposed the
races which were to be run off in the Spring, was a fugitive, accused
of a grave crime, had aroused much sensational talk and newspaper
babble, but it had increased rather than lessened interest and new
entries were being daily arranged. Big Bill assured those who cared to
ask that the race would be run, that Shandon would have come in and
been cleared of any charges against him long before June, and that
there would be no change in plans. And though he sometimes doubted the
statement he made so bluntly he let no single day pass without adding
to Little Saxon's education.
MacKelvey was taciturn. But he was not the man to give up a quest once
begun. He grew irritable under the sting of Sledge Hume's sneers and
Martin Leland's regular weekly enquiries; but he pushed his work
tirelessly. As is always the case when the law wants a fugitive there
were many conflicting and empty reports, that would have aided had they
been true but which only hampered since they were not. A report that
Wayne Shandon had been seen boarding a train in Reno was followed three
days later by two other rumours, one claiming that he was on a ranch
just out of San Jose, the other that he had been recognised ten days
ago in Los Angeles. Each report with the vaguest hint of truth in it
MacKelvey hunted down doggedly, and the wires into El Toyon from both
directions were kept busy. It was the opinion of many people that
Shandon had long ago made good his escape and had gone abroad; it was
held by many a mild mannered man or timid old maid that he was even now
the head of a lawless gang terrorising whatever near or distant city or
countryside the most lurid headlines came from; not a few people shook
their heads and prophesied that when the Spring thaw came the body of a
reckless, blood tainted monster would be found where it had been hurled
in desperation from a high cliff. The sheriff's own personal opinion,
known only to the sheriff, perhaps came as close to the truth as any
man's.
Of all the men and women who knew him, perhaps none evinced less
concern in Wayne Shandon's fate than Helga Strawn. She had something
else to do. Looking ahead far and carefully, doing nothing hastily,
planning and shaping her way, with Sledge Hume and her lost interest in
the Dry Lands always looming large in the foreground of her thoughts,
she was already supplying her quota of grist to the great invisible
mills. She bought, upon her own initiative, a small farm just on the
edge of Hume's land, investing ten thousand dollars in it, and came
there to live. She bought conservatively at twenty dollars an acre.
If the project, now involved in uncertainty, were perfected her land
would be worth from two to five times what she had paid for it. On the
other hand, if nothing came of the campaign for irrigation, it was
always worth twenty dollars. It was Helga Strawn's way to play safe.
She saw much of Sledge Hume. Or rather she allowed Sledge Hume to see
much of her. The same thing with a variation, and that variation
important in the woman's shrewd eyes. Hume had no means of knowing how
much money she possessed, but he did know that she had paid out ten
thousand dollars in cash. He knew also that she was a woman. In his
eyes, never clearsighted from the mote of conceit and the dust of
arrogant superiority, a woman was a fool. He needed money, he wanted
money, her money as well as another's. He had gone far already in the
project that would make him a rich man if it succeeded; he was going
further. If litigation now were to raise its long wall against him he
meant to surmount the wall or tunnel under it. He had gone too far to
stop; his money was invested; he wanted more money to invest with it.
While he made the woman his study she coolly dissected his character,
not satisfied with the composite, both patient and shrewd in her
analysis. While he sought to read her, handicapped by his prejudice,
she spelled the letters of the man's soul.
She came to see, after the first few days, that Hume's one working
theory of life was that of the survival of the fittest. Eminently fit
himself, capable physically in strong, clean body, mentally in cool,
calculating, single purposed brain, morally in a code of ethics which
resolved all considerations to his working theory of life, he looked
down upon other lives than his own from the passionless heights of a
supreme impudence. In most things he was unusually frank, bluntly
honest. Wanting no man to give him a place in the world which he felt
thoroughly competent to secure for himself, he curried favour nowhere,
fawned upon no one. Frankly satisfied with himself as he had made
himself, he had no desire, seeing no need, to pretend to be other than
he was. Egotism, approximating the absolute, made him careless, even
contemptuous, of the opinion of others. His mental attitude might
perhaps be likened to that of the colossally mad man of Europe, the
only man of whom he was ever known to speak in words of approval. "I
and God did this thing!" the Emperor had said. So Hume might have
said, "I and the rest of the world."
The free stride of his activities was not restricted by any form of
what he would have called squeamishness. The means were incidental,
intrinsically negligible; he justified them by the end for which he
strove. That end was unvarying. From this grew the man's power, such
as it was.
That end took him, in moments which otherwise would have been empty, to
Helga Strawn. She had made her little home cosy and comfortable, the
living room almost luxurious. She wore rare gowns, painstakingly
chosen; she kept him waiting when he called; she received him with
indifference. She seemed to grow as frank with him as he with her, and
often enough the frankness was genuine. She told him coolly at the
outset that she knew he would swindle her out of her money if he got
the chance and that he was not going to get the chance. She informed
him that she did not trust him but that that need make no difference in
their relations; if she became convinced that the project were safe she
would go into it as deeply as any one.
She treated Sledge Hume very much as he treated the rest of the world;
and she noted with keen relish that her treatment irritated him. She
already knew the man well enough to be sure that he would come again
the sooner, and more frequently, to force her by the very dominance of
his virile personality to see him as he saw himself, in a word as her
superior.
As only a very clever woman could have done she drew him out to talk
about himself, about his motives. She listened always in apparent cool
indifference, always in keen, hard interest under the surface she chose
to wear. She never forgot that she had sold to him for twenty-five
thousand dollars property for which she would not now accept twice that
amount and which he would not relinquish for such a sum. She never
forgot that, legally, she had no hope of regaining it. But there would
be a way, when she came to know the man utterly, when she came to feel
out every nerve of his moral being. She tried to make him talk freely
about himself by the one method which must remain infallible as long as
Sledge Hume was Sledge Hume, by cool criticism of him.
One day as they idled in her living room she told him abruptly that he
was the most selfish man she had ever known. Her smile, as near a
sneer as a smile may be and not become unlovely, the tapping of her
French slipper, did not cease during his rather lengthy rejoinder.
"Selfish?" he had answered roughly. "Of course I am. Who isn't? You
mean that I am the only man you know who isn't afraid to say so! All
creation is selfish; selfishness is the keynote of progress, of
evolution, of any sort of success. It begins with the lowest forms of
life where each single celled unit takes what it needs for its own
good; it is the thing which keeps life in the four footed world; it is
the highest concern of the priest who while he pretends to serve mere
man and a mythological Saviour never loses sight of his own reward at
the end of it. It is the basic principle underlying all religion; take
out of it the personal, selfish consideration, 'Be good and you can go
to Heaven! be bad and go to Hell!' and your whole religion falls to
pieces. Take selfishness out of the world and the world will stagnate
and rot."
"I have never heard you wax so eloquent in your own defence!"
"I am not defending myself, I am explaining. I am showing you the
difference between yourself and me. I see things as they are; you look
at them obliquely. You wouldn't admit it, but you are as selfish as I
am."
"The difference is that you are the more honest?"
"Both with myself and the world, yes."
"You pride yourself on your honesty?"
"I don't take the trouble to dissimulate."
"You have never done anything which you have kept hidden?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I have never found it necessary to make the world my father confessor."
"Do you wish me to regard you as what people call an honest man, Mr.
Hume? Aren't you telling me that to put money in your own pocket you
would do what people call a dishonourable act?"
"You are the only woman I have ever met who has any claim to brains,"
he answered, paying the compliment in his blunt, rough fashion. "Don't
you know me well enough to realise that I don't ask people to set my
standards for me? Don't you know a man, when you see him, big enough
to set his own standards?"
She came to see that the man was not without a rough hewn sort of
greatness, that in his way as he had said, he was a big man. He bred
in her strange, dual emotions. In the beginning she had felt for him
only the cold hatred of which the woman was thoroughly capable;
gradually and begrudgingly she began to feel an equally cold admiration
for the strength of the man. She told herself that that admiration was
utterly impersonal, that it arose from the fact that Hume was in
reality stronger than other men she knew, that it was possible for her
to acknowledge it because she did have brains, as he had said. It was
an admiration which, she judged coolly, need in no way lessen her
hatred for him, which rather would intensify it.
Throughout the winter she strove with single purpose to slip into the
man's confidence. Having recognised Hume's peculiar strength, having
sought his weaknesses, knowing that he was no man's or woman's fool,
she did not make a fool of herself by giving him an inkling of her
intentions. When she was most interested it was her role to appear
most indifferent; here was the one vulnerable point her searching
fingers had found in the shell of his egoism. Indifference piqued him.
It was as though she had gathered three armies and hurled them at him.
From the centre she attacked with indifference, striving to draw his
attention from other points. She massed two distinct flanking
movements stealthily. Upon one side she brought to bear upon a keen
brain a brain as keen; upon the other she calmly deployed the charm of
her regal beauty. The man had seemed a machine, emotionless. But
since he was human, since blood, Hume blood though it was, ran through
his veins, he must have emotions like other men. They might be hidden,
they might be of stunted, pale growth. In one case she would uncover
them, in another she would develop. Already she admired him as a
vital, compelling force. She would make him admire a similar force In
her; she would make him admire the physical perfection of her. She was
a woman, she was amply endowed with brain and instinct and beauty. And
she was far too shrewd to overlook a single weapon which lay at her
hand.
The eternal looms were weaving, the warp of her being, the woof of his
being were drawn into the intricate pattern of human destiny. Smiles
and tears, hopes and fears, emotions of which a man is unconscious,
ambitions and failures, achievements--all go into the invisible fabric.
Already Sledge Hume and Helga Strawn had come to find something to
admire in each other. The short sight of a clever man and a clever
woman could not discern what lay at the end. And the end was rushing
upon them with tremendous speed.
CHAPTER XXIV
UNDER THE SURFACE
Early in January there arrived in El Toyon a gentleman with a scrubbing
brush moustache, a pleasant, portly personality, a pair of twinkling
black eyes, a seemingly limitless amount of leisure, discriminating
taste for liquors and cigars, a fountain pen and a check book. The
name he wrote upon the hotel register was Edward Kinsell. He disabused
the mind of the proprietor, Charlie Granger, by assuring him that he
was not a drummer. In his genial way he was quite ready to tell all
about himself. He was an old bachelor, counting upon becoming the
husband of a great little woman just as soon as the courts had disposed
of the present incumbent. He had been rolling down the rocky trail at
a pretty swift gait in town, and his doctor had warned him that the
lady In question would have been set free and would no doubt have
chosen and elected another life partner before Mr. Kinsell found his
way to the church unless he took up the simple life.
So Mr. Kinsell, having availed himself for a week or two of Charlie
Granger's hospitality, found at last a vine twined cottage not too far
from the hotel kitchen and barroom, and leased it forthwith. He played
many games of poker, apparently possessed of a rare ability to play
good hands badly and poor hands well so that while he generally lost he
lost but little; he took up sleighing with great delight, usually
taking a small boy along with him to drive; he amused himself writing
daily letters or picture postcards to the great little woman; he became
a friend of all the dogs in town; he bought drinks for the village
vagabonds; altogether he disported himself harmlessly and pleasantly
quite as a portly old bachelor with a scrubbing brush moustache should
do while seeking rejuvenation and awaiting a decree. He was always
upon the verge of entering some local project which he never entered.
He made more friends in the six months of his stay--he left in
June,--than any other man in El Toyon had made in a year.
He dined with the preacher and talked infant psychology with the
teacher; he bet Charlie Granger ten dollars on a dog-fight over which
he waxed red faced and enthusiastic; he got himself catalogued by the
saloon loungers as a hot sport; he evinced a warm interest in the
country races to be run in the Spring. In that connection he learned
that Granger held stakes amounting to ten thousand dollars on a single
race that would never be run; he was informed that the money was
already as good as Sledge Hume's. He became interested in Hume and in
Red Reckless; he even went to the length of travelling into the Dry
Lands to get a squint at Endymion, and then sought out Big Bill and
studied Little Saxon's good points. Everything in the world seemed to
interest Edward Kinsell.
The winter slipped by and the herds went back to the mountain ranges.
The Lelands were again at the Echo Creek. Time and a natural strong
affection had cooled the heat of passion in father and daughter. Love
and consanguinity narrowed the breach which lay between them, although
the rupture, if it ever healed completely, would leave its scar. Each
nature came to make certain allowances for the other; their
intercourse, though not intimate, was amicable. Neither made any
reference before the other to Wayne Shandon. And, as naturally as this
condition arose, Wanda and her mother drew closer together.
Upon the Bar L-M Big Bill was competent, hard working foreman. He
still hoped for the impossible, he still obeyed orders and sought
tirelessly to make Little Saxon all that Shandon could have done.
Willie Dart, growing as time wore on hollow eyed from his nocturnal
vigils, slept in a hay loft with a shot gun perilously near his eager
right hand.
Shandon was yet in the mountains, his headquarters Wanda's cave. It
seemed at times to his impatient desires that Brisbane was doing
nothing; that just the evidence he himself had told the lawyer that
night in White Rock should have led long before now to the arrest of
Sledge Hume. But he refused to brood over it, telling himself doggedly
that if Brisbane were doing nothing there was nothing to be done. He
knew his man. And already Shandon had found an occupation which was to
keep him busy and far from unhappy day and night.
News of the outside world came to him in the few meetings with Wanda
which were bright highlights in his life. She dared not come too often
for MacKelvey himself or one of his deputies was a frequent and
unheralded guest at Leland's. But she came when she could, meeting him
below the cliffs, her camera serving as her reason for going into the
forests, bringing him books, little delicacies surreptitiously prepared
by her own hands, a newspaper now and then rescued from Julia's wood
box, prints of the pictures she had taken. Wanda still saw Dart
frequently, and from his gossiping lips brought word of what occurred
upon the Bar L-M. Garth Conway, she had not seen. Her father heard
from him by post, saw him now and then in the outside world; she did
not know what Conway was doing but imagined that he was keeping in
touch with Leland for the sake of the irrigation scheme which seemed a
still born failure.
Through Wanda and Dart a meeting between Shandon and Big Bill was
arranged. The two men met after dark near the head of Laughter Lake;
Shandon gave his detailed orders to his foreman, assuring him that
Brisbane was at work upon the case and that before long word would come
from him for the fugitive to give himself up; there would be a quick
preliminary hearing and he would be released. Shandon's optimism
glowed into warmer life with the warming of the spring sun. Little
Saxon must be kept in condition; arrangements must be made for the open
handed welcome and hospitality to be afforded the crowds that would
come up for the races in June. There would be much for Big Bill to
superintend: choice beeves must be brought up for the barbecue; a rude
platform must be constructed for the dance which was to conclude the
day of festivity. In every detail Big Bill took his orders gravely and
obeyed them to the letter.
In another matter Big Bill had long ago acted, having been informed in
the early winter of Shandon's wishes. Ettinger was told that sooner or
later the man whose property controlled the upper waters of the river
flowing from Laughter Lake would come back. When he did return he was
going to do just the thing Ettinger himself had suggested. Ettinger
was to hold out, and induce the others to hold out with him if he
could. And, since Leland was stubborn, since the whole matter was in
the air just now, Ettinger saw nothing better to do than accept the tip
which Big Bill gave him. A similar message went to Helga Strawn.
May came in, radiant and glowing, and men from many miles away visited
the Bar L-M to look over the course upon which the race meet was to be
held. MacKelvey spent weary days and nights driving his relentless
quest; Sledge Hume seemed sullenly idle; Helga Strawn coolly
Indifferent to the world about her; and still Wayne Shandon received no
encouraging word from Brisbane. May ran through half its allotted days
of thaw and bursting seeds; the day for the race was less than a month
away, and still Shandon clung to his solitudes, wondering, beginning to
doubt.
And then one day he had a visitor.
It was after sunset. He had been out all day, upon the higher table
land where he had set rudely constructed traps for rabbits. He had
returned in the early dusk, finding his way down the fissure from the
rocks above to his cave. And as he made his fire and began the
preparations for his evening meal, he heard a very discreet cough at
the entrance of the cave.
The cough was repeated, and then there entered the cavern a portly,
pleasant looking gentleman with a scrubbing brush moustache.
"Howdy-do, Mr. Shandon?" he said genially, removing his hat to mop his
moist forehead and then coming closer to extend his hand. "I was
passing and thought I'd drop in."
Shandon who had been squatting by the fire got to his feet and stared.
"Well?" he demanded sharply. He fully expected to hear other voices in
a moment, MacKelvey's voice, perhaps Sledge Hume's.
"My card," smiled the genial gentleman pleasantly. "One of my various
cards, rather." He extended it, adding, "I thought I'd run in and
bring you a handful of cigars. You must be in sad need of them, eh?"
The card explained that its owner was Mr. Edward Kinsell. The name
meant nothing to Shandon and he said so bluntly.
"To be sure," acknowledged Mr. Kinsell. He extended the other hand
with the cigars, took a stool by the fire, crossed his knees and added
drily, "I've been on the lay, though, for pretty close to six months.
Great chap, Brisbane, isn't he? By the way here is a note from him."
The note, dated several months earlier, simply stated that Edward
Kinsell could be depended upon to do all that any man could in the
matter of gathering up the evidence he was being paid by Shandon to
get. Shandon's eyes, suddenly bright, an eager note in his voice, he
shot out his hand warmly, and cried,
"You have found something?"
"My dear Mr. Shandon," smiled Kinsell, "I have found out so many things
that it's a wonder I don't have a continual headache. You'll pardon my
not having called upon you sooner? I have really been so busy--"
"You knew where to find me all the time?" incredulously.
Kinsell nodded and smiled approvingly as Wayne lighted a cigar.
"Of course. I always make it a point to be in a position to get into
close touch with my principal in case of urgent need."
"Then there is urgent need now?" eagerly. "You have got the deadwood
on Hume?"
"Not exactly. But I've got the old kettle boiling and she's due to
bubble over most any old time."
"For God's sake," cried Shandon, "tell me something. I didn't know
that you were at work even, I don't know a thing that has happened,
that is happening."
"And quite naturally you are interested? Just so." Kinsell very
carefully placed the finger tips of one hand against those of the
other, apparently giving his whole attention to the action. "Let me
see. Presently, in a few weeks at most, I'll be putting in a little
bill and you'll want to know what I've been doing to earn my money.
That's businesslike and proper. In most matters to be thorough, Mr.
Shandon, one must begin at the beginning. In my business it is
different; I have to begin in the middle and go back to a point before
the beginning. Having availed myself of Mr. Brisbane's knowledge of
the subject it became up to me to do one thing: find the man who,
before your brother's murder, was in a position to be benefitted by the
commission of the crime, or the man with a strong emotional reason for
committing it."
He paused, looking thoughtfully at the steep pitched roof his fingers
had constructed, shifted quick, measuring glance at Shandon and turned
his attention again to his fingers.
"There are three men," he resumed, "who occupy positions demanding
investigation. First, you. Your brother's heir, a man with a hot
temper, a man who had recently quarrelled with the murdered man; you
would benefit financially, you had the reputation of generally needing
money, you had the name of being a reckless, headlong sort of devil.
Second, Sledge Hume. A man as smooth running as a machine ordinarily,
cool headed, emotionless. But investigation shows that he had
knowledge of the fact that your brother was carrying on his person the
twenty-five thousand dollars; research also discloses there are times
when the man's nature changes, when he flies into a towering rage that
might well become violent; and finally, we have found that shortly
after the crime he paid the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars to
Helga Strawn for her interest in the Dry Lands. Third, there is Martin
Leland."
"Martin Leland!" cried Shandon.
Kinsell nodded thoughtfully.
"Martin Leland is the man who advanced the money," he said drily. "He
has shown himself in the matter of the mortgage and foreclosure a man
to be reckoned with. You see all three men mentioned were in positions
to have previous knowledge that your brother was in possession of that
sum of money; all three were in positions to menace his life for merely
sordid reasons; and, strangely enough, all three were men whose tempers
are such that in a moment of rage, in a hot quarrel, they might have
committed such a crime. Six months ago, Mr. Shandon, I think that it
would have gone very hard with you at a trial. The concensus of
opinion was pretty strong against you. Making a fugitive of yourself
made matters worse. But since then I think things have changed. There
are many men who, having learned of the deal Leland and Hume tried to
put over on you, have come to look upon them as crooks, and are willing
to suspect either of them of having killed Arthur Shandon."
"But Martin Leland suspected," muttered Shandon. "It seems--"
"Exactly," smiled Kinsell. "It seems rather like the finger of God,
doesn't it? Now we'll go on. I have learned that Sledge Hume bought
Helga Strawn's interest in the Dry Lands about two weeks after the
murder. At that time Hume had something like five thousand dollars in
the bank. I have had the record of the deed looked up. The deed is
noncommittal in the matter in which I was interested. Like so many
documents of its nature it says merely that in consideration of the sum
of ten dollars, the receipt of which is herein acknowledged, and so
forth, Helga Strawn deeded the property to Hume. That's common enough.
All right. Next, I find that Hume doesn't take the world into his
confidence ordinarily but that he has been free enough to tell a good
many people sneeringly that a woman is a fool and that he bought from a
woman for five thousand dollars. I find that the five thousand dollars
in his bank had been drawn out, a draft for that amount having been
sent to Helga Strawn, New York. That looked all right, didn't it? But
then you told Brisbane that Helga Strawn told you that Hume had paid
her twenty-five thousand. Eh?"
"Yes," Shandon returned. "Have you asked her?"
Kinsell laughed softly.
"I don't do business that way. Usually in this sort of a game if you
want to catch nice fat lies fish with question marks for hooks. She is
one of the cleverest women I ever knew, is Helga Strawn, almost as
clever as Jeanette Compton. Quite as clever, perhaps, but Jeanette has
the bulge on her in that she's got her eyes on Helga all the time that
Helga has her eyes on Hume."
"Who's Jeanette Compton?"
"She's Helga Strawn's new maid. The old one quit; bribed her myself.
You'll find the item in the bill later on. Also Jeanette Compton is
the finest little girl on our staff."
"And you're watching Helga Strawn too?"
"With both of Jeanette's bright little eyes, all the time. To go on:
we've found through our men in New York that fifteen days after the
death of your brother, Helga Strawn placed on deposit in her bank in
New York two drafts. One for five thousand dollars, one for twenty
thousand. We have found that after Sledge Hume had drawn his five
thousand here he was out of the country for two days. We have
questioned every bank, Wells Fargo office and post office within a
day's range of El Toyon. Last week I got what I wanted from a bank in
Reno. A man, evidently a mining man, claiming to be in town from a
strike in Tonopah, deposited twenty-five thousand dollars at the
Merchants' and Citizens' Bank. It was in cash. The depositor gave his
name as--what do you guess?"
Shandon looked at him blankly. Kinsell smiled and said abruptly,
"He gave his name as Wayne Shandon. How does that strike you? It all
happened while you were going East with your brother's body; I believe
that it occurred while your train was being held up a few minutes in
Reno."
Shandon's bewilderment seemed to please Kinsell. He chuckled softly,
and then, his face growing thoughtful again, he went on.
"You'll remember that the train is scheduled to stop for fifteen
minutes in Reno? Well, the man made his deposit, and ten minutes later
he came back, said that his plans had changed, that he was going to
take the train with a friend he had seen on board, and asked to have
his money back. It was given to him, at his request, in twenty-five
bank notes of the thousand dollar denomination. He signed for them,
writing your name, excusing an almost illegible signature by the need
of haste and by a finger tied up as though it were badly hurt. So much
for what the cashier of the Merchants' and Citizens' Bank of Reno knows
about it."
"It was Hume?"
"From evidence so far given it might have been Hume or you! All right.
The man with the big roll of bills went out with the train. He might
have gone on to New York; he might have dropped off at Sparks and taken
the next train back in half an hour. He might have got back to
Sacramento the next morning. We find the rather interesting fact that
in Sacramento a man, giving his name as Arnold Wentworth paid to Wells
Fargo and Company the sum of twenty thousand dollars in bills of a
thousand dollars each for an order payable to Helga Strawn in New York.
Now do you see where Helga Strawn comes in?"
Shandon, merely puzzled, shook his head at the bright eyes suddenly
turned upon him.
"Assuming," went on Kinsell, "that it was Hume and not yourself who
made that deposit at the Reno bank, don't you see that as things stand
he has piled up a pretty piece of evidence against you? You might have
done just that thing, deposited the money while the train waited,
became alarmed at something, and gone back for it. I wonder if a
cashier, after two years' time, would remember the features of a
stranger so that he could say whether it was you or Hume? All right.
Next, there's Helga Strawn. If she'd talk, if she'd tell us that she
had a draft of five thousand and a Wells Fargo order for twenty
thousand, that Hume had sent one and had explained that a friend would
send the other, we'd have Mr. Hume in a certain place that men don't
like to think of."
"Make her tell!" cried Shandon.
Kinsell arched his brows.
"She's out here for blackmail, isn't she? Let her understand what
conditions are, and what's a clever woman's clever play? She'd go to
Hume and say, 'Look here, Mr. Hume. I can crook my little finger and
swing you off into space at the end of a rope. Or I can keep still and
you can stand pat.' I fancy she'd do that. And she'd get her Dry
Lands back."
"She can't be as bad as that!"
"Can't she? Wait until you have a talk with Jeanette Compton."
"It all depends upon Helga Strawn, then? There is a deadlock until you
can get her to talk?"
"By no means. I'm just making a sort of unofficial report, you
understand. I wanted you to know that while some people suspect you
and some suspect Leland we are going ahead and getting the cards into
our own hands. And I wanted to ask you what you thought of that mining
proposition on the old McIntosh property? It's adjacent to yours,
isn't it? Just the other side of Laughter Lake?"
"The McIntosh property, yes. The ridge rising on the other side of the
lake is my boundary line. I hadn't heard of any mining being done
there."
"No? Well, it seems a mining concern has found something. At any rate
men are at work, a tunnel has been driven into the base of the ridge,
and--I wonder what would happen if a charge of dynamite went off in due
time and blew a hole right through, into the lake?"
"Good heaven!" cried Shandon angrily. "You mean that Hume and Leland
are actually trying to steal my water?"
"I don't think Leland is in on this," replied Kinsell quietly. "He
doesn't seem to me to be _quite_ the crook Hume is."
"But," muttered Shandon, "if they once tear the side of that mountain
out--"
"The milk will be spilt so badly that it cannot be put back into the
pan? And the mining company, a Chicago firm, I believe, at any rate a
crowd of men hired by a Chicago man, will claim that they were on their
territory all of the time; that not one of their men, but some man
hired by you, put in the charges that did the damage. It's a bold
play, but then when it's make or break with a man he hasn't much
picking and choosing to do."
"It won't take me long to get there," said Shandon grimly. "And I'm
getting tired of this thing."
"But, surely," smiled Kinsell, "you don't object to having Hume pay for
a part of the work you'll have to do soon or late, do you? Let him go
ahead. Just before they get ready to do the real damage, we'll slap a
little injunction on them."
"But how will we know?"
"That's all right. One of their foremen is drawing wages from you
right now. You'll find a lot of interesting things in the expense
account I put in, Mr. Shandon."
CHAPTER XXV
RED RECKLESS ON LITTLE SAXON
"I tell you, Hume, I don't like it. It's a piece of damned highway
robbery and I'm rotten sorry I ever got mixed up in it."
Charlie Granger, stake holder of ten thousand dollars, cut viciously at
the June grass with his riding quirt and snapped his words out bluntly
as he came striding up to Hume. The latter stood, booted and spurred,
among a group of men who had travelled across ten miles of broken
country to this, the stipulated starting place of the race in which
Hume and Shandon had months ago been the sole entries. Hume carelessly
good natured, indifferent as usual, openly gratified over a bit of
sharp work, merely laughed.
"You might as well hand over the money now, Charlie," he retorted
without turning, his steely eyes brightening as they rested upon his
mount, Endymion, who was fretting at the restraint imposed upon him by
the man at his head. "The agreement took care of just such a matter as
this; if only one man rides he gets the money."
Among the knot of men upon the little, pine fringed knoll, were Big
Bill, Dart, MacKelvey and half a dozen of the curious from El Toyon and
the mountain ranches. Hume's retort was taken in silence. But there
was not a man who smiled or who did not think as Granger had spoken.
Long ago, when it had first gone abroad that Wayne Shandon was
promoting these races, the one essential thing he had planned had been
thoroughly understood to be fair play, square dealing, straight racing.
These were fair minded men, and although there was more than one among
them who believed the fugitive guilty of the crime imputed to him,
there was none who did not see the rank injustice of what was going to
happen. The feature race of the day would be stolen. And they knew at
whose instigation it was that Wayne Shandon was not here to-day.
It was early afternoon and already a number of the events had been run
off before a clamorous, enthusiastic crowd of five hundred men and
women. The Bar L-M at the surly orders of Big Bill had been turned
into a place breathing welcome and revelry. Tents had been pitched
under the big pines, making a white city gay with bunting and flags
that would accommodate many visitors during the night; tables that had
been constructed out in the open staggered under the load of provisions
the wagons had brought from the nearest town; a platform for dancing
later was already the playground of laughing children and frisking dogs.
The shorter races had taken place upon the flats below the range house,
down toward the bridge. Under the glowing June sun, through the crisp
air, with blue sky above and green grass underfoot, the contesting
horses, each ridden by its owner, had shot by the brief lived village
of tents, thundered past the platform where the judges sat, cheered and
shrieked at by men and women. There had been races of half a mile, of
a mile, of two miles. And now, as the hour appointed drew close,
people began to forget that they had come to a race course, and to
remember that their entertainment, open handedly given, came from a man
who was a fugitive from justice and who was going to be robbed under
their eyes of five thousand dollars. That strange thing, public
sentiment, swerved abruptly. There were many men there that day who
shook their heads and spoke in low voices, mentioning Sledge Hume's
name.
"If Shandon could be tried by a jury picked from this crowd," meditated
Edward Kinsell, "he'd go scot free in ten minutes!"
What this small group of men had to do upon the knoll ten miles from
the Bar L-M was done perfunctorily and in gloom. Little by little, man
by man, they drew away from Hume, leaving him standing alone. They
looked at his horse, by long odds the finest animal they had seen this
day, and from Endymion they looked to his master. Now and then a quick
glance went to Big Bill. He said no word. His face was black with a
wrath that seemed to choke him.
The starter, Dick Venable of White Rock, looked at his watch and this
time did not return it to his pocket.
"It's two minutes of one," he said, his voice snapping out hard and
curt. "This race is scheduled to start at one o'clock. All ready, Mr.
Hume?"
"All ready," laughed Hume. He stepped to Endymion's head, jerked off
the halter and swung up into the saddle.
"All ready, Shandon?"
Again Hume laughed. Dick Venable waited a moment and snapped his watch
shut.
"My job's to start this race if there's one man here to run it," he
said. "Shandon isn't here. It isn't my job to express any opinions.
The first horse, ridden by either Sledge Hume or Wayne Shandon, to
cross that line as a start and to break the tape by the platform at the
Bar L-M wins the money. When I fire a gun you're off, Hume. Ready!"
The men began to turn away. Hume sat erect on his horse, coldly
indifferent to the opinion these men held of him. He moved so that he
held Endymion's restless head over the line marked by Venable's boot.
"All right, Charlie?" Venable asked of Granger.
"All right," grunted Granger. "And wrong as hell. Get it over with."
Venable raised his arm, his revolver high above his head. The
bystanders swung up to their horses' backs. Two miles away another
little group of men with field glasses were upon a ridge from which
they could see the start, from which they in turn could signal the word
to the crowd at the Bar L-M.
"Go!" said Venable listlessly.
There was a little puff of white smoke, the crack of a revolver, and
Hume, laughing again, struck in his spurs and rode swiftly down the
long slope. The men upon the ridge two miles off, as listless as
Venable had been, ran up a big white sheet to flutter from a dead pine.
This was the signal that the race was on, and that just one man was
riding.
Suddenly Willie Dart was galvanized into excited action. He ran to
Dick Venable, grasped him by the arm with both shaking hands, thrusting
up a red face, and whispered eagerly. Venable started, stared at him
and demanded sharply:
"_What's that_!"
But Dart had fled wildly to Jimmie Denbigh, the second starter and had
whispered the same words to him. Denbigh stared as Venable had done
and then with swift, long strides returned from his horse to Venable's
side, close to the starting line.
Big Bill had mounted and was riding away, his eyes on the ground,
refusing to follow the figure of a man he had come to hate most
thoroughly. MacKelvey had gone to his horse and was jerking loose its
tie rope. Dart was now close to MacKelvey's side.
Venable and Denbigh, conversing swiftly in undertones, looked blankly
at each other, then at Dart's noncommittal back.
"The biggest little liar," began Venable disgustedly--
Hume was already a quarter of a mile on his way, riding on at a rocking
gallop, a little eager, as was his way, to have the money waiting for
him in his possession. But suddenly he turned abruptly in his saddle.
There had come to him a great shout, the clamour of men's voices.
From the fringe of trees just back of the knoll, not a hundred yards
from where MacKelvey and Dart stood, a great red bay horse shot from
the thick shadows into the bright sunlight, floating mane and tall spun
silk that flashed out like shimmering gold. And the same sunlight
splashed like fire on the red, red hair of the man sitting straight in
the saddle come at this late hour to ride his race at his own meet.
"Good God, it's Red Reckless!" boomed a startled voice.
Little Saxon cleared the fallen log in his way and as men swung hastily
to their horses or drew back from before him he came on, running like a
great, gaunt greyhound. Many voices were lifted, shouting. MacKelvey
heard and understood. He shoved his foot into its stirrup and as he
leaped into the saddle his revolver jumped out into his hand.
"I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted. "Stop, Red, or I
shoot this time!"
[Illustration: "I call upon you to give yourself up!" he shouted.
"Stop, Red, or I shoot this time!"]
Dart held a trimmed branch in his hand and as MacKelvey called Dart
struck. The blow fell heavily upon the sheriff's wrist. MacKelvey
cursed, wheeled his horse and without heeding Dart shouted again to
Shandon.
Venable and Denbigh, forewarned by Dart's quick whispered words, had
their eyes upon Shandon. They ran to the line that marked the start
and stood, one at each end of it, their eyes bright, their hands
pointing so that Shandon's start should be fair. And Shandon, tossing
back his head as he rode, rushed down towards them, shot between them,
turned down the knoll after Hume.
The gun in MacKelvey's hand spat flame and lead. The bullet, aimed
high, hissed above Shandon's head.
"Stop!" cried the sheriff lustily, driving his spurs into his own
horse's sides and dashing across the line between Venable and Denbigh.
"By God, Red, I'll kill you!"
"Give him a chance, man!" bellowed Big Bill, his voice shaking, his
face red. "Look at that damned cur Hume."
Hume had seen and again had turned, was bending over his horse's neck,
using his spurs in the first start of his surprise. The men over
yonder had an inkling of what was happening and their glasses were
turned steadily upon the knoll.
Shandon without turning, laughed aloud, all the relief after months of
hiding breaking out into laughter that was utterly unlike the sound
that had come so short a time ago from Hume's contemptuous lips. It
was a great, boyish, carefree, reckless laugh that made men wonder.
"Next time, Mac," he shouted back. "Ten to one you can't catch me
before I beat Hume to it!"
Almost in his own words of many months ago Big Bill was muttering
softly,
"God! What a pair of them!"
More than a quarter of a mile away Sledge Hume, his jaws hard set, his
eyes burning ominously, was racing on, saving his horse a little now.
Down the knoll drove Red Shandon, rushing on his race with a handicap
in front and a revolver spitting its menace behind. Fifty yards after
him, his face as hard as Hume's, came MacKelvey, thundering along on
his big rawboned sorrel, the sheriff whom men already criticised for
not making an arrest.
Upon the ridge where the signal men were, the levelled glasses were
dropped as another square of white ran up the dead pine to carry its
word that the race was now a two man race. The fifty yards between
MacKelvey and Shandon lengthened as Shandon was forced to put Little
Saxon to his best. For MacKelvey was shooting as he rode and he was
not shooting for fun; there was no man in the county who wasted less
lead than its sheriff.
Suddenly the knoll was deserted. Even Willie Dart had scrambled to his
horse, even he was chasing along wildly, oblivious of the steep pitch,
of a more than likely fall. To Big Bill's voice had joined other
voices, shouting to MacKelvey to give the man a chance. But MacKelvey
did not listen.
They tried to push their horses between him and the man it was his
sworn duty to bring into court. But MacKelvey kept to the fore,
realising that they would try to do just this thing. He raised himself
in his stirrups and as his hand went up he fired for the third time.
The cry that burst out after the shot was full of anger, for every one
had seen Red Shandon suddenly crumple in his saddle. But Little Saxon,
running as he had never run before, toward the trees that were
thickening in front of him, swerved off to the left and was lost to the
eyes of the men sixty and seventy-five yards behind. There the
hammering of his hoofs came back to them from the hard ground of
another ridge.
"If you've killed him," grunted Big Bill into MacKelvey's ear as his
horse came abreast of the sheriff's, "you might as well make a clean-up
and get me, too."
But in a moment they again caught sight of Little Saxon through the
trees, and they saw that Wayne Shandon was still in the saddle, sitting
bolt upright, that he had shifted his reins to his right hand, that his
left arm was swinging grotesquely at his side.
"I got him," grunted MacKelvey.
Already, with close to ten miles ahead of him, with Hume still a
quarter of a mile to the fore, Wayne Shandon's face had turned white,
his shirt was slowly turning red. The bullet from the heavy calibre
revolver MacKelvey used had struck in the shoulder.
"He's swerved out of his course," was MacKelvey's next thought. "He is
losing ground right now. I'll cut him off before he can get to the
bridge."
In the moment that the impact of the bullet made Shandon crumple and
reel and clutch at his saddle horn, he went dizzy, almost blind with
the shock. In that moment Little Saxon feeling the reins drop upon his
neck, turned out to the left, striking for an open clearing. He should
have turned to the right as a thicket of chaparral lay in front now,
and there was no turning back. So, when Shandon's right hand shut down
tight upon the reins, gathering them up, there was but one thing to do,
turn still further to the left, skirt the thicket, try to turn to the
right again upon the further side. He was losing ground and he knew
it; but it was early in the race.
"They've handicapped us, Little Saxon," he said through set teeth.
"But we'll show them a race yet."
Ten miles of broken country, of hard riding, and the blood was hot on
the man's side and back while every leap of his horse shot him through
with pain. Ten miles and Endymion, Little Saxon's full brother, would
be half a mile ahead before the thicket was circled.
"After all Hume wins!" cursed Big Bill.
"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" Dart's tremulous voice was shrieking
from far in the rear. "That big boob--"
"There's ten miles of it, Little Saxon," Shandon was muttering over and
over. "And the race isn't run yet. You won't let Endymion beat you,
Little Saxon! You won't let Sledge Hume--"
He cut sharply through the outer edge of the thicket and Little Saxon's
lean body, leaping like a greyhound's, lifted and glinted over the
ragged bushes. He swung to the right again, and saw MacKelvey, Big
Bill riding at his side, cutting across a little hollow to intercept
him. And again, with no alternative, he turned his horse out of the
course, and kept on up the higher land to his left.
Now Hume was lost to him; MacKelvey and the others dropped out of
sight; and he was riding his race alone. He knew that Little Saxon
could stand up under all that a horse could endure; but he knew, too,
that no horse that was ever foaled could keep up such a mad pace for
ten miles, that the gallant brute's heart would burst with five miles
of it. He tightened his reins a little, forcing the horse against its
will to slacken speed.
Now he bent in the saddle, easing his body as well as he could, trying
not to feel the pain that grew steadily in his shoulder. The lower
branches of the trees through which he sped whipped at him and he did
not feel them. Far ahead he saw two squares of white fluttering high
against the blue of the sky, and he knew the message that they carried
across the miles. He thought of how he and Wanda had signalled, how
she would be at the Bar L-M with the rest, how she would understand
what those two signals meant. For he had not told her, he had told no
one but Dart who had brought Little Saxon to him last night, and who,
later, had told the starters at the last moment. Shandon had realised
that there would be danger in this mad act of his and that had she
known beforehand Wanda would have been frightened.
Again, a mile further on, he tried to swing back into the cleared
course that would bring him the shortest way to the bridge. Again he
saw that MacKelvey had anticipated this, and was coming close to
killing his own horse to cut him off. And, his eyes growing black, the
fear of the end of the race came upon him. Had he done this wild thing
for nothing then? Was it but to be proof to the men who called him
fool that fool he was? He bent his head and loosened his reins.
He knew that, far ahead of him, Sledge Hume was riding the easier way,
that he was working down from the more broken rangeland, that he was
steadily nearing the bridge in the straightest line. He knew that
MacKelvey had a rifle strapped to his saddle and that long before now
the rifle would be in MacKelvey's hands. He knew that at the end of
the race Wanda Leland, her heart beating madly for him, was waiting.
"Can't you do it, Little Saxon?" he whispered. "For her sake, can't
you do it?"
Mile after mile slipped away behind him, the course was half run, and
he had not come down into the road which led to the Bar L-M. He knew
that he was losing at every jump the great hearted horse made under
him; he knew that it was not Little Saxon's fault as he had never known
until now what speed and strength lay in that wonderful body. Who's
fault, then? Hume was beating him, Hume would be at the finish
laughing, waiting for him to come in--
"You've got to do it, Little Saxon," he cried softly, his voice
pleading. "Why, we can't let Hume--"
He broke off suddenly, his eyes filling with light. He had seen the
way--and it was Wanda who had shown it to him.
"Steady, Saxon," he said, his own voice steady, confident, determined.
"We'll do it, little horse. Let Hume beat us to the Bridge; _we'll
take the short cut_!"
From the Bar L-M grounds a faint cry went up as scores of lifted field
glasses made out the figure of one man riding strongly toward the
bridge. It was Hume, Hume alone, riding as Hume rode, well and erect.
There was the hammer of Endymion's hoofs as they rattled against the
heavy planking, and then--
"Look! Look! Oh, my God! Look!"
It was a woman's voice, a hysterical little woman from Reno, crying
out, terror-stricken. Her arm had shot out; her finger was pointing
toward the chasm of the river.
Then the shout that swept up about the Bar L-M was no longer faint.
The voices of women were drowned in the deep roar of men's shouts.
Wanda, her hands convulsively going to her breast, her face as white as
death, moved her lips, making no sound. But her soul spoke and prayed,
prayed to God not to let her mad lover do this mad thing. What was a
race, what was defeat!
Wayne Shandon, riding as straight as Hume now, his hair flashing its
red at them, his face strangely white,--some one cried that he was
afraid,--had come to the short cut. His eyes leaving the way in front
of him for a swift second saw the form of a girl standing out from the
crowd and failed to see the crowd that was watching him, for the
instant forgetful of Sledge Hume riding on his spurs, sweeping on
across the bridge that rocked under him. Then Shandon's eyes came back
to the black gulf where a white snowshoe rabbit had found death, which
a white maiden had leaped for his sake.
"We can do it, Little Saxon," he said gently. "We can do it for Wanda,
can't we? She'd hate to see us beaten by Hume. For Wanda, Little
Saxon. Now!"
The roar of the water smote upon Little Saxon's ears, the deep chasm
seemed a live and evil thing snapping at him. But he rushed on toward
it, he felt his master's hand, he heard his master talking to him, and
he had learned to love and trust his master. He swept on, down the
slope, gathering speed at each great bounding leap, racing as few have
seen a horse run, sensing the end of the race, sniffing victory with
quivering flaring nostrils. He felt the sudden slackening of his reins
as Shandon whispered, "Now!"; he knew that his master had put his life
into his horse's keeping; knew that he was loved and trusted in this
final moment even as he gave his own love and trust; and gathering the
great, iron muscles of his great iron body, he leaped.
He leaped, flinging his body recklessly. Upon his back Wayne Shandon,
sitting very still and tense and erect, his eyes upon the form of a
girl, his life in Little Saxon's keeping, had essayed the thing that no
one had expected even Red Reckless to do. The white froth of the water
flashed under them, the jagged rocks menaced, the boom of the river
deafened them. As he had leaped before, that first day when Shandon
and Big Bill had come upon him, Little Saxon leaped now. And as he
landed his hind feet sent a rattle of stones down into the hungering
gulf below.
There had been a silence as of death. Now there was a shout that
drowned the roar of the river robbed of its prey. Men yelled and threw
their arms up and yelled again.
On came Endymion carrying Sledge Hume who had at last understood and
who now was riding with bloody spurs and a quirt that cut in swift
vicious blows at his horse's sweating hide.
On came Little Saxon, snorting his defiance to his brother, Red
Reckless sitting straight in the saddle, his spurs clean.
Quick hands had run the taut string across the end of the course. Two
big horses carrying two big men shot across it. But the breast of one
had struck a dozen lengths ahead of the other, and through the echoing
babel the judge's voice was lost as he shouted:
"Wayne Shandon on Little Saxon wins!"
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAUGHTER OF HELGA STRAWN
"Will you tell your mistress," Sledge Hume commanded, "that I want to
speak with her immediately? Immediately, do you hear?"
The capable looking maid favoured him with swift, keen scrutiny,
noticed that Endymion, tied to the gate post, was sweating and dust
covered, saw that Hume was dusty from riding and that his eyes were
full of purpose, and went upon her errand. Hume stalked into the
living room where he had grown to be so much at home, and driving his
hands into his pockets stood frowning out of the window through which
the warm fragrant June air came in from the sunny fields.
With the determination in his eyes there was the unhidden, black anger
that had not been absent from them during the man's waking hours for a
week. The spirit under the hard shell of a cool indifference had been
touched, and was raw and quivering beneath the lashes his fate had
brought upon him. On the day of the races he had lost five thousand
dollars that he could ill afford to lose, and with it counted that he
had lost another five thousand which he had told himself had always
been as good as his. He had shown men that he was a bad loser, by
flying into an ungovernable rage that vented its fury upon Endymion
until savage voices cried to him to hold his quirt or he would be
jerked from the saddle. He had seen that the slow turning tables were
turning at last. He had seen Wayne Shandon, the man always in his way,
white and fainting from sheer loss of blood, turn smiling and give
himself up to the sheriff. He had seen Red Shandon the hero of a crowd
that went wild over him; had heard even MacKelvey's rough voice crying
bluntly, "There's a man for you!"
But anger and hatred, swelling venemously in his heart, had only
hardened him, making him the more determined. He did not doubt, he did
not fear. Not enough had happened to undermine the man's cold,
dominating strength, to alter the essential fact in his mind that he
was Hume and that people who strove against him were fools doomed to
defeat. But before he heard the silken rustle of Helga Strawn's
approach there was to come to him a new sign of the future that was
rushing down upon him.
As usual Helga kept him waiting. He tapped at the window with a hand
that he jerked impatiently from his pocket; he turned, thinking that he
heard her steps; he walked back and forth in the room. And thus it
happened that his eyes fell upon a large sheet of paper lying upon the
table, his own name typed in capitals across the top. His frowning
eyes read the few lines swiftly:
"Your tunnel is already one hundred and fifty-three feet upon Shandon
property. That is far enough."
There was no signature.
A child has an instinctive fear of the dark; the thing a man does not
understand brings from the obscurity of the unknown a certain, vague
dread. Who had written this thing? There was no answer. Why? No
answer. How did it come here, who could have known that Hume would see
it here? No answer. It was as though a warning, taking form from the
invisible air had fallen from the air before his startled eyes.
He swept up the paper, crumpling it in his fingers. He had not heard
Helga Strawn, did not know that she was in the room until she spoke
quietly.
"Is fate relenting? Or are you still playing the losing game?"
He swung upon her sharply. His eyes, glittering and hard, met hers
softly luminous. He had never seen the woman so radiantly, regally
beautiful, perhaps because he had never seen her so keenly alive as she
was to-day. Although his brain was riotous with other things he could
not fail to note the superb carriage, the rich gown daringly
fashionable, the warm whiteness of arms and throat, the finely
chiselled red lips that were unsmiling.
"The losing game?" he cried, coming swiftly toward her, stopping only
when his tall form towered over her. "By God, no! I have lost a trick
here, a trick there. A man counts upon that sort of thing. That
little shrimp Conway is scared of his life and is for pulling out. I'm
glad of it. He'll sell to me before he'll go to Shandon. Let Leland
pull out, too. We'll take him over. I'm going to win, I tell you,
Claire Hazleton! We're going to win, you and I. Win big!"
There was no change in her cool eyes. She swept by him, not turning
out an inch to pass, her skirts brushing him, and dropped idly into her
chair. He followed, and stood over her again.
"Shandon is going to be acquitted," she said. "You know that. He'll
be set free in ten days. Then what?"
"Then we'll take him in with us. We'll get the water and that's all we
want any way you put it. Inside six months we'll be subdividing and
getting our money back."
She laughed.
"So you think that Shandon will jump at the chance to go into any sort
of partnership with you?"
"We'll make him," crisply. "He has retained Brisbane, the biggest,
highest priced criminal lawyer this side the Rockies. He has cleared
up his mortgage but he's had to mortgage again to do it. He's in debt
up to his eyes. We'll make him a proposition that will show him the
way to clear himself. I tell you, Claire, he'll have to do it."
"You say _we_," she reminded him, lifting her white shoulders.
"And I mean you and I," he returned bluntly. "I've come here to do
some straight talking." There leaped up into his eyes a light she had
never seen there until now, a quick colour ran into his cheeks. "I
want you to marry me, Claire."
Perhaps the woman's pulse quickened. Certainly no change in her
expression, no quiver of a muscle, no deepened breathing told that a
supreme moment had come into her life, a moment she had long and
unceasingly striven for.
"Do you?" she asked indifferently. "Why?"
"Because," he cried, "you are like no other woman in all the world.
Because the things that I want are the things that you want. Because
we should be a man and a woman, mated, to take our places in the world
and hold them. Where there is man's work I can do it; where there is
woman's work you can do it. We are young; in ten years' time we can
rise to whatever we care to set our eyes upon. Why do I want you?
Just because in brain and in body you are the woman in the world fitted
to occupy the place that shall be my wife's."
"Other men have asked me to marry them," she said coolly. "I think
that all of them have said something about love."
"And I love you," he told her. "A man cannot come to care for a woman
without her knowing it. I don't come to you bleating about a breaking
heart, because you are no fool and I am no fool. If you were the kind
to care about a lot of sentimental rot you wouldn't be the woman you
are, you wouldn't be the woman I'd want. I'd be good to you. I'd give
you the power that a beautiful woman with a strong, rich husband can
come to have in San Francisco, in New York, in London if you like.
When I rise you'll rise with me. I'll have men know that my wife shall
have the place, above the heads of their wives, that she wants. And
I'll be proud of you!"
Then he got his answer as seldom a woman has answered a man. She
lifted her eyes to his, she put back her head with the tossing regal
gesture he knew so well, her lips parted slowly--and she laughed.
Laughed at him in a sudden mirth of leaping scorn, that was hard and
cruel, that mocked and sneered at him, that took supreme toll of the
supreme moment. Laughed as she saw the light quiver and die in his
eyes, as the colour faded from his cheeks and ran back red.
"Love me!" she cried scornfully. "You'd be proud of me! Why? When
you answered you forgot to tell the truth, Mr. Hume. Because you need
me, because you are beaten now and must come hiding a whimper under big
words, come to a woman who holds you so in the hollow of her hand that
she can break you so utterly that your own overweening conceit cannot
find the fragments with the microscope of a distorted vanity! Love me
as you'd love any other fine thing just because it was yours. Because
you'd use me, because you see that such a wife as I could be would be
but a stone for you to stand on to climb up a little higher. And you
think that of all men in the world I should choose a man like _you_ for
husband?"
She jeered openly at him, disdaining to see the red anger flaring in
his eyes. She remembered the reason that had brought her to him in the
beginning and a savage gladness in her rejoiced at finding the victory
all that she had yearned for. Her dominant blood was seething to the
surface. And it was Hume blood.
"Listen to me a minute," she cried sharply as he was about to speak.
"You've come for straight talk to-day, you say. Let us have it then.
You have gone your way boastfully, arrogantly, unscrupulously and it
has been the fool's way. You are playing the losing game and it isn't
even in you to lose like a man. You have stared at the glitter of gold
so long that you have gone blind looking at it. Your own infallibility
has loomed so large before you that you have lost your sanity. I say
listen to me!" her voice ringing with its command. "I am going to tell
you something. I am going to tell you why I came to you, why I
suffered you day after day to come to me. And what I came for I am
going to get. You are going to give it to me!"
She had sprung to her feet, twin spots of colour upon her white cheeks,
her eyes blazing.
"You told me that you had paid five thousand dollars to Helga Strawn
for her interest in the Dry Lands! Liar! You paid her twenty-five
thousand!"
"Well?" he snarled harshly. "What of it?"
"You laughed about it. You said that she was a fool like most women.
Like all women, was what you thought! And women were made just for you
to tread upon and sneer at. You did not know that I knew a great deal
more about Helga Strawn than you ever guessed!"
"You--know--Helga--Strawn!"
The words beat at her like stinging, separate blows. And now it had
come into his eyes, the thing that had never been there, the thing that
would never die out of the man's soul while life clung to him,--fear.
"I know you, to the last spot you think you've covered up," she ran on
swiftly. "So well that I know I am about to stir you into one of your
mad fits of rage. And I am not afraid to do it. You'd kill me if you
dared, but you won't dare. For after all I think that in your
braggadocio way you are a coward, Sledge Hume."
"You cat!" he flung at her with an attempt at his old manner.
"I have two men working out yonder," she said coolly. "If I called to
them--" She shrugged her shoulders. "I want to tell you all that you
are hungering to know even while you are afraid to hear it. Helga
Strawn got your check for five thousand dollars. She got, also, a
Wells Fargo order from Sacramento for twenty thousand. Sent by a
fictitious Arnold Wentworth. Ah!"
For he had cried out sharply, his face was dead white, his eyes were
filled with horror. His premonition had come.
"Who committed the crime you charged Wayne Shandon with?" she demanded
fearlessly. "Who killed Arthur Shandon and robbed him of twenty-five
thousand dollars? If Helga Strawn came into court and told all that
she knows do you realise what a jury would say about it?"
"The things you are saying are lies," he cried back at her, driving his
hands into his pockets that she might not see that they were shaking.
He stared after her in wonder as she went swiftly to the table and
unlocked a drawer. He wondered more as she snatched out a folded paper
and brought it to him.
"Sign that," she said curtly. "Get it witnessed before a notary and
send it to me and Helga Strawn will forget what she knows."
A glance showed him the significance of the document. It was a deed,
properly drawn, needing but his own signature to return to Helga Strawn
the lands he had bought from her.
"So," he sneered, "you are trying a little blackmail, are you? You are
a spy and Helga Strawn's agent, I suppose?"
Again she laughed at him.
"I attend to my own business, my dear cousin," her voice very like his.
"If you hadn't been a fool you'd have known that I was Helga Strawn six
months ago. Blackmail? Call it what you like. It is your one chance
to save your neck. I know that in one of your mad fits of anger you
killed Arthur Shandon. I know that you took his money. And I am not
the only one in the country who knows or suspects it. Your chance is
slim enough as it is, Mr. Hume. Don't make it worse."
Blow after blow until the man set his muscles like iron to keep his
body from shaking as his soul shook. This was the greatest shock of
all because it struck at the keynote of his nature, this knowledge that
a woman had tricked him, that she had played with him, that now she
held him as she said so bluntly, in the hollow of her hand.
"You traitress!" he cried hoarsely. "You miserable traitress!"
And Helga Strawn laughed.
"It will take you a couple of hours to ride into El Toyon," she said.
"That will give you time to think it over. If you decide to sign the
deed and send it to me to-night I'll do my part. If I don't get the
deed to-night I'll go into town in the morning for a talk with the
district attorney. I think I've got you where I want you, Mr. Hume."
The things which Hume said to her she accepted indifferently. She had
never known that a man could find such words to utter to a woman. When
she has listened long enough she turned and went out of the room, going
upstairs and standing by her window where she could see him as he went
out. As she saw him striding down the walk toward his horse, jamming
the deed into his pocket as he went, her eyes suddenly grew wet, and
she stamped her foot angrily.
"Of all men living I hate you most!" she cried passionately. And then,
softly, more softly than any one had ever heard her speak, "And you
come closer to being a man than any man I ever knew. I wonder--"
The fury within him demanding some sort of expression found it in the
swift stride that carried him blindly down the walk. He came almost at
a run to his horse. Endymion, mindful of the unprovoked blows and
tearing spurs of a week ago, distrustful, afraid, whirled, rearing and
plunging, and broke the reins that had been tossed over the post.
Hume, venting upon a trifle the wrath that seethed within him, shouted
angrily, cursing the horse that dashed by him.
The horse, seeing his way through the gate shut off, turned and dashed
around the house, seeking a break in the yard fence. Hume ran after
him, still cursing. The two men who were working in the yard lay down
their rakes and shovels and came up. The three of them cornered the
frightened brute. But when Hume, his hand outstretched for the
dangling, broken rein, came within half a dozen feet, Endymion,
snorting his fear, plunged by him, racing into another corner.
Again they closed about him, again he plunged through, mad with fear,
making the madness in Sledge Hume a speechless, raging fury. A third
time they tried, and as the big horse shot by Hume's temper mastered
him as it had mastered him once before.
"God damn you!" he shouted wildly. "Take that!"
As he shouted he jerked his revolver from his pocket and fired. Fired,
saw the big animal stagger and fired again.
He went to the stable for one of Helga's horses. His hands were
shaking as he saddled and got the bit into the animal's mouth. With no
look behind him he mounted, spurred out into the road and galloped off
toward El Toyon.
Helga Strawn from her window coolly ordered the two men to put the
wounded horse out of his misery and to drag him where she could not see
him, But her eyes did not tarry with them, did not leave the big bulk
of Sledge Hume until it had disappeared around a bend In the road.
Then she went to her mirror and stood looking at herself with large,
luminous eyes.
"I wonder," she whispered, "if he did love me, after all?"
She could never know. She knew that she could never know. And she
went and threw herself, face down, on her bed.
CHAPTER XXVII
HUME RIDES THE ONE OPEN TRAIL
Hard driven, conscious of a compelling force more dominant than the
strong will of a man, Sledge Hume rode the one trail open to him. It
was as though the deeds of his life were now grown tangible separate
squares of rock cemented into sheer walls rising about him, narrowing,
forcing him into the one way open.
He rode into El Toyon and signed the deed before a notary. He returned
it by a boy to Helga Strawn, and by the same messenger he sent back her
horse. From the stable he hired another animal, and with no friendly
word to man, woman or child, struck out for the Echo Creek. As he rode
by the court house he looked at it curiously. Wayne Shandon was there,
was spending his brief time in jail very much as an honoured guest. He
would come out in a few days and then--then MacKelvey would be looking
for another man--
Hume turned and rode back into town, going this time to the bank.
Explaining briefly that he expected to turn a big deal and would need
the ready cash, he drew out all but a few dollars of his emergency
fund. His lips were tight pressed, his eyes hard, as he rode by the
jail again and out into the county road. The sight of MacKelvey at an
open window talking with Brisbane and Edward Kinsell, made him frown
blackly. Little things had come to be full of significance.
It was nearly fifty miles to Martin Leland's. But Hume had ridden
early to Helga Strawn and now had a strong, fresh horse under him.
Looking at his watch, he saw that it was not yet half past nine. He
could make it by half past four or five, riding hard. And he was in
the mood for hard riding.
Very few times did he stop on the long way. Once he paused at a little
road house for a pound of cheese and some bread; once at a certain
crossing where a broad trail crossed Echo Creek. He sat here a moment,
motionless, staring out across the little valley lying warm under the
afternoon sun, his eyes running up and down along the course of the
stream.
Raking his spurs against his horse's sweat-dripping sides he rode on.
In half an hour he threw himself from the saddle at Leland's house.
He heard the sound of singing within, a girl's voice lilting
wordlessly, happily, bespeaking a heart that was brimming with the pure
joy of life and love. Striding to Leland's office he flung the door
open. In a moment, answering his impatient rap, Martin entered.
"I've come to talk business," Hume said, flinging himself into a chair.
"What's doing?"
"What do you mean, Mr. Hume?" Leland asked gravely.
"I want to know where you stand. Conway's strong for pulling out, eh?"
"I told you all that he wrote me."
"What have you done about it?"
"Nothing."
"You're going to buy him out?"
"No."
"Damn it!" cried Hume irritably. "Don't make me pump at you like a dry
well! You know what I'm driving at. If Shandon goes clear where are
you and I coming out?"
"Mr. Hume," returned the old man heavily, "I'm glad you came, for I was
coming to you. Shandon is going clear. I've talked with his lawyer,
I've talked with Kinsell--"
"What's Kinsell got to do with it?"
"Kinsell is a detective sent up here by Brisbane to work up the case.
Also, I have talked with Wayne Shandon." This came slowly, with an
evident effort, but it came calmly. "Shandon will go free because he
is not the man who killed Arthur Shandon."
"You're swapping horses, eh?" sneered Hume.
"Perhaps not exactly. But I have gone to him and told him that I had
allowed myself to think of him as a murderer for the illogical but none
the less potent reason that I hated his father. And I apologised to
him, having no other amends to make."
"Cut the sentimental drivel short," cut in Hume unpleasantly. "Have
you gone over to his side of the deal? Are you throwing me down and
tying up with him?"
"No." Leland threw out his hands in a wide gesture. "I am done with
the whole thing."
"And what happens to me! Here I am in up to my neck and you go and
chuck the thing. Do you think I'll stand for the double cross like
that?"
"Hume," cried Leland sharply, "I don't want to quarrel with you. I am
quitting because I am ashamed of the things I have already done. I
tried to blind myself by thinking that I was usurping the prerogative
of God, in telling myself that it was my duty to punish. Now I am
ashamed, I tell you. And not a second too soon can you understand and
the world know that you and I are in no way interested in each other.
I have learned since I saw you that you were going on with a matter
which I can have nothing to do with."
"What's that?"
"I refer to the way in which you are seeking to tunnel from the
McIntosh property into Shandon's, to take the water whether or no.
That may be in your mind a bold stroke of business. I can't
countenance that sort of thing."
"Ho! How you've taken the robe of righteousness upon your shoulders!
And after trying to steal Shandon's ranch from him on a mortgage!"
Martin made no reply. Not once during the conversation did his eyes
light with anger; not for a moment was the underlying shadow of sadness
gone from them. He was holding a strong rein upon himself. He was
judging himself now; he was passing judgment upon no other man.
Hume, glancing at him quickly, curiously, felt that he knew what Leland
was thinking. Then his mind came back abruptly to his own interests.
"So you don't know what Conway is going to do?"
"I have advised him to sell to Shandon and to give Shandon the time he
wants to make his payments."
"And you will sell to Shandon too?"
"I think not. My holdings are too heavy for him to swing. No, I am
going to give them away."
"Not to him!"
"No, not to him. He wouldn't accept them. To my daughter--for her
wedding present. And I pray God that they will bring her more
happiness than they have brought me."
Hume's big fist came smashing down upon the table.
"By God, you've got to buy me out! I'm ruined, ruined, I tell you, if
you and Conway drop me now."
"I'll do it." The calm words surprised Hume who had expected a blunt
refusal. "Upon one consideration. Namely that you sell to me at the
figure which you paid. I am willing to play fair and I think that that
is fair. It leaves you where you started. It leaves me where I
started except that I shall have been spending a good many thousands
for Wanda's wedding present."
Hume, his brows knitted, rose to his feet and strode back and forth in
the room, trying to look his problem squarely in the face. Failure
confronted him, and failure was more hideous to him than the shame,
dishonour, disgrace, which would accompany it. In a flash that left
his face drawn he saw himself as he had never seen himself before.
He went to the window looking out into the fields over which the
afternoon sun was dropping low. He wanted to think; and he did not
want Martin Leland to see his face. He heard Wanda singing happily.
Her voice was not like Helga's, and yet, tinkling through it he seemed
to hear Helga's cool laughter.
"I'm tired out," he said abruptly, coming back to Leland. "Let me have
a bed. We'll settle it in the morning."
Leland looked at him curiously. This was unlike Sledge Hume's usual
way. But, offering no remark he showed Hume his room.
It was far into the night before Hume's tired body found the rest of
deep sleep. It was long after sunrise when he awoke. It had been a
man's voice that jarred upon his ears even in sleep, that finally
brought him to his elbow with a start.
Slipping out of bed he stepped quickly to his window. There were three
horses in the yard, saddled, sweaty and dusty. MacKelvey's heavy voice
came to him again from Leland's study.
He dressed swiftly, his eyes glittering. Spinning the cylinder of his
revolver, he shoved it into his pocket and into another pocket thrust
the thick pad of bank notes which had been under his pillow during the
night. Then he went back to the window.
He could hear Julia in the kitchen. He could hear Leland's voice now,
now MacKelvey's, then another man's. Was it Johnson's?
"That cursed woman," he muttered bitterly. "She double crossed me
after all. God! I was a fool!"
He did not hesitate. Kinsell was a detective, who had been in
Shandon's hire for six months. A hundred little things that had been
trifles at the time came back to him now to whisper that Kinsell had
known a long time. And Helga had given them the rest of the evidence
they lacked. Helga, a woman, had tricked him, had deceived him, had
made him love her in the only way love was possible to this man, and
then had laughed at him and doublecrossed him.
Making no sound he slipped out of the window, and stooping low so that
from no other window could he be seen, he ran around to the back of the
house. A glance at the saddled horses in the yard showed him that
their legs were shaking, that they were done up from a hard ride. He
moved on, further from the house, dodging behind a tree, stopping to
listen, to peer out, hearing the maddening beat, beat, beat of his own
heart. He must have a horse and then as Wayne Shandon had done, he
could disappear into this wilderness of rocks and trees, hide for weeks
or months, and at last get out of the country. Flight lay before him;
his quickened senses told him what lay behind unless he fled now and
swiftly.
"MacKelvey's a fool at best," he grunted, snatching at a ray of hope.
"Once I get on a horse--"
He was taking a chance but he had to take chances. Making a short
circuit he ran at last, still stooping as he ran. He came safely to
the stable, selected a powerful looking horse, threw on the saddle with
hasty hands. The bit was troublesome, the horse, with head lifted
high, fought against it with big square teeth clenched. But at last
the job was done and Hume rode out at the side door, his spurs in his
hand, not taking time to buckle them on.
He began to think that his luck was with him now. He rode slowly at
first, afraid of the noise of his horse's hoofs. A quick glance behind
showed him the three horses in the yard, no man or woman in sight.
Which way? There was scant time for reflection. It was time for
inspiration, for the flash of instinct. He felt the pad of bank notes
safe in his pocket. He would ride straight to the Bar L-M, cross the
bridge, turn out from the range buildings, reach the upper end of the
valley. He would cross over the ridge to where his hirelings were
tunnelling. There was a man among them who was not afraid of the law,
a man who would help him, who would go to hell for the half of that
sheaf of paper.
He buckled on his spurs and drove them into his horse's sides.
In the study MacKelvey was saying:
"I dunno. We may have some trouble. Brisbane has gotten an injunction
all right, but that crowd of Hume's looks like a bad one. I have sent
two men on ahead to the Bar L-M. Been deputies of mine on more than
one hard job. By the way, talking of Hume, seen him lately?"
"Yes," Martin answered. "He's here now. In bed. He stayed last night
with me. Do you want to see him?"
"Nothing urgent. I wanted to ask him if he wants to sell Endymion.
Shandon wants to buy him back."
Hume, riding furiously, pushed on through the forest, keeping a course
parallel to the road, near enough to see any one who might be riding
there, far enough to conceal his horse and himself behind a grove or
ridge. So at last he came to a knoll from which he could look down
upon the bridge, not over a quarter of a mile away. There were two men
there, sitting their horses idly and yet seeming to the man's distorted
imagination to be watching every shadow flickering through the woods.
He jerked his horse to a quivering standstill.
He had recognised one of the horses, a great wire limbed pinto. It was
a horse familiar in El Toyon, one of MacKelvey's string.
"Damn him," snarled Hume, his eyes flashing like bright steel.
From behind a fringe of trees he watched the two deputies. They made
no move to go on. Ten minutes he waited, ten minutes of precious time.
Twice he felt that their eyes had found him out, twice he called
himself a fool. Five minutes more and then, from behind him, he heard
the pounding of hoofs.
"It's MacKelvey and the rest," he told himself angrily. "They've got
me like a trapped rat. Damn them. Damn that traitress!"
He dipped his spurs and shot down a knoll, hoping to be out of sight,
to wait until they had passed, then to double on his trail. But his
luck had deserted him. He did not know the woods here, he lost ground
in going about a rocky pile of earth, and MacKelvey caught sight of him.
"Hume!" came the big voice. "Hold on!"
"_Hold on_!"
It was as though the world, filled with shouting voices, was calling
behind him. Like an undertone through it the cool laughter of a woman.
He drove his spurs deeper, he swung his snorting beast about, he raised
his quirt striking mightily with it, and rushed on. Where? It did not
matter. Anywhere except toward the men in front, anywhere as long as
it was away from the men behind. He heard MacKelvey call again, more
loudly, he saw the sheriff wave his arm at him, and he rode on, his
head down now, careless of where he went so that the way led him
farther, farther from what lay behind.
Suddenly, booming in his ears, came the roar of the river. On, his
leaping horse carried him, stumbling, threatening to unseat its rider,
plunging on. The roar of the river grew louder; again there were ten
thousand voices shouting, clamouring, yelling at him. He topped a last
ridge here and looking down saw the black chasm of the river, the steep
banks.
"If I only had Endymion! God! If I only had Endymion."
He jerked savagely at his reins, stopping his horse. As he looked back
and saw that MacKelvey and Johnson and another man were riding toward
him. He glanced again at the deep chasm of the river. A quick shudder
swept through him and left him steady, whitefaced, cold.
"Hume!" shouted MacKelvey.
Then Hume's spurs drank blood again, once more his frightened horse was
leaping under him, plunging down toward the river. Louder and louder
yelled the many voices, mocking, jeering, calling, echoing away into
titanic laughter. And through it all, like the fine note of a violin
through the pulsing of an orchestra, sounded the cool music of a
woman's laughter.
"Curse her!" shrieked Hume. "Curse them all. A fool girl did this, a
fool Shandon did it--"
Like a missile from a giant's catapult he rushed down the steep slope;
MacKelvey, from the ridge watched him and wondered. He saw that the
man had shaken his reins loose, that his horse had almost reached the
verge of the chasm, that as the animal was ready to gather his great
muscles for the leap the reins had tightened a little, spasmodically,
as though the rider's nerve had failed him. And then that they
loosened again as though he had seen it was too late or had regained
his nerve.
The horse leaped far out, struck the opposite bank, seemed to hang
there a brief second, straining, balancing, and then with its rider
dropped backward.
The roar of the water boomed on like the clamouring of a world of
voices; through it ran a finer note like the cool laughter of a woman;
and upon Sledge Hume's white face, as he lay still upon a jagged stone
before the current swept him away, the little drops of spray were like
a woman's tears.
CHAPTER XXVIII
"IT IS HOME!"
To those who loved the sensational in and about El Toyon the trial of
Wayne Shandon was a disappointment. Never had the courthouse been more
crowded, never had the setting been more stimulating to their highly
coloured imaginations. Red Reckless, looking to their eyes
picturesquely pale from his confinement and the sheriff's bullet;
Brisbane with his poker table face and his reputation; Edward Kinsell,
whose smiling manner no longer concealed the glamour which clung about
so distinguished a detective; Martin Leland apparently older, less
stern, his eyes gentler; Mrs. Leland, confident and happy from her talk
with Shandon's attorney; Wanda, her eyes very bright, her cheeks
flushed, her heart yearning, hoping, praying and a little afraid; Helga
Strawn, now known by her own name, and linked by rumour with the man
who had paid the penalty for the crime of which he had accused Wayne
Shandon, her manner cool, aloof; even Willie Dart, whom everybody knew
and who in some strange way had come to be looked upon as a special
detective, imported a year ago by the counsel for the defence.
The district attorney's argument was cool, dispassionate, perfunctory.
He showed no interest in securing a conviction for the very simple
reason that he felt none. Brisbane was a further, deeper
disappointment. He failed to live up to the reputation that had
preceded him. He constantly studied his watch and a time-table during
the argument of the prosecution and when it was done audibly asked the
district attorney concerning the best train out of El Toyon. He said
what he had to say to the jury in less than half an hour. When charged
by the judge the jury filed out with grave faces only to file back in
five minutes smilingly.
"Not guilty, your honour!"
Since the principals had seemed to put little fervour into the occasion
the good people of El Toyon supplied the deficit. Amid great shouting
and cheering Wayne Shandon made his smiling, hand-shaking way down
through his friends, coming straight to the girl whose eyes were the
happiest eyes that he had ever seen, shining through a mist of tears.
There was no hesitation now as Martin Leland put out his hand.
"I wronged you, Shandon," he said simply. "And I think that I knew it
all the time. It hasn't made me happy. I hope that you will accept my
congratulations."
"Thank you," answered Shandon. And he locked Leland's hand heartily in
his own.
Mrs. Leland had her motherly greeting to make and said it happily. Nor
did she use unnecessary words. In a moment she had slipped her arm
through her husband's and was moving with him through the surging
crowd, leaving Wayne with Wanda.
"Say, Red!" Mr. Dart, struggling valiantly with the crush, red faced
and triumphant, was screaming up into Shandon's face. "Some business,
ain't it, pal? Shake! Shake, Wanda! Where's old Mart? Good old
scout after all, ain't he? I want to go squeeze his flipper; I want to
go squeeze everybody's flipper. I want to go get drunk. Honest I do,
Red!"
Big Bill shoved a great, hard hand by Dart's shoulder, gripping
Shandon's. He didn't say anything, but his tightening hand, his
flashing eyes were eloquent.
Only when they had passed out into the courthouse yard, Wanda and Wayne
side by side, and had been left behind by the hat-tossing, clamorous
crowd, hastening out into the street, did Wanda speak.
"I am so happy, Wayne," she whispered. "Doesn't it seem as though life
were just beginning all over this morning?"
"Like just beginning!" he answered softly, drawing her arm tight, tight
to his side. "With you, Wanda."
There came a bright morning with the sun just blinking genially above
the tree tops, with the warm glory of the full summer in the air, and
under Wanda's window a voice calling softly. She had been asleep; she
was not certain that she had not been dreaming--
But the call came again, still softly, still ringing with a note which
sent a flutter into her breast.
"Awake at last?" and Wayne was laughing happily. "Ten minutes to
dress, my sleepy miss, and meet me at the stable. I'm going to saddle
Gypsy."
She heard him hurry away, and for a little she lay still, smiling.
He caught her up into his arms, as she came down the path, kissed her,
told her not to ask questions and helped her into the saddle. He swung
up to Little Saxon's back and together they rode out into the forest
through the brightening morning.
"Wayne," she said when he had done nothing but look at her and drive
the colour higher and higher into her cheeks. "Where are we going?"
"Can't you guess?" he teased her.
They were riding toward the north, toward the cliffs standing up about
Echo Creek Valley, toward the cave.
"Wayne," she said again, a little sadly, "I was going to tell you the
other day, but you were in such a hurry-- You are not going to the
cave?"
"Why not?" he asked lightly.
"I can't go there any more," she answered quickly. "I had come to love
it so, it was so entirely ours, dear. And now, I saw it the last time
I rode that way, there's a sign on the cliffs, 'No Hunting Allowed.' I
asked papa. He has sold all that side of the valley, the cliffs and
the flats beyond to some man in the city."
Shandon laughed.
"What's the odds?" as lightly as before. "Come right down to it,
Wanda, the cave has served its purpose, hasn't it? And, if you'd been
shut up in it like a prison, I wonder if you'd have any sentiment for
it left? Let's make the horses run a bit. I feel like a gallop, don't
you?"
She bent forward in the saddle hurriedly, hiding her face from him.
How should a man care for the little things which mean so much to a
girl?
But still they rode toward the cliffs. The sign was there, a black and
white monstrosity which hurt her but which seemed merely to interest
Shandon. He insisted on riding closer. And when, too proud to show
him all that she felt, she came with him to the big cedar, he
dismounted and put out his hands to her.
"Let's go up," he said lightly. "Just for fun."
She refused, and he insisted. And at last they climbed up.
Wayne was upon the ledge of rock before her, his eyes filled with a
love that shone sparklingly, laughingly into her troubled ones. She
began to wonder--
She turned swiftly toward the entrance of the cave. There was a door
now made of great rough hewn slabs of wood. Wayne slipped his arm
about her and drew her close to it.
"Will you open it?" he whispered.
"Wayne!" wonderingly, seeking to understand.
He took her hand in his, laid it for a moment upon his lips, then put
her fingers against the great door.
"Open it, dear," he told her.
Slowly the heavy, wide portal swung back to her touch. Her heart
beating madly, she scarce knew why, her step at once eager and
hesitant, she stepped by him. And he, close behind her, laughed softly
at her little cry, the one moment amply repaying the man for six months
of labour.
Now she understood everything; now her heart stood still and then
throbbed with a wonderful joy. And she turned and threw her arms about
his neck, crying softly: "Wayne! It is home!"
For the darkness which she had expected in the cavern's deep interior
had fled before the softly brilliant light that bathed it rosily, that
came from she did not yet know where. She saw a deep throated
fireplace, built of big granite blocks, a monster log blazing and
roaring mightily in it, the flames leaping up the rock chimney, drawn
upward and back into the sloping passage where the draft of air had in
the old days carried away the smoke from her rude stove. And she
guessed who had made the fireplace, piling stone on stone.
She saw a table, rustic, heavy, with legs of twisted cedar branches,
with books upon it, with a vase made of a hollowed out, gnarled limb
and choked with its great armful of valley flowers. She saw a chair
that patient, loving hands had made from what the winter-locked forest
had provided, seat and back covered with deerskin cushions, a chair
that opened its arms to her as though, still keeping its identity as a
part of her woodland, it were welcoming her to a world where love's
heart beat close to nature's. She saw that the hard floor had
disappeared under freshly strewn pine needles and under the two big
bear skin rugs which sprawled mightily before the table and before the
fireplace. She saw another chair, Wayne's chair it was going to be,
because it was such a monster.
She could only gasp as her dancing eyes tried to see everything at
once--flowers everywhere, hiding the walls, breathing perfume from the
corners, drooping from the ceiling.
"But the light!" she cried, wonderingly. "It is like day."
Then at last she saw how everywhere in the high ceiling he had
chiselled out deep inverted bowls, and in each cup-like cavity nothing
in the world other than a glowing electric bulb was shining, flooding
the room with a soft glow.
"And you did all of this yourself? While you were alone here in the
winter?"
His eyes were like hers, his own face flushed with the happiness of the
hour.
"I didn't make the bulbs," he laughed. "It's taken me a week playing
electrician to get the wires up, the dynamo running back there under
the water fall. Do you like it?"
She did not answer. She had no time to answer, she was so busy trying
the two chairs, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, admiring the
fireplace, examining the reading lamp which hung over the table and
which he had constructed of wood, chosen for beauty of natural colour
and grain, the opaque sides shutting out the light which fell straight
down upon an open book.
Only now did she realise that the cave seemed smaller. There was a
partition running across it, a wide door standing ajar. He followed
her as she ran to it.
"My bedroom," he warned her. "I won't swear to its tidiness."
Here again was the soft glow of electric lights cunningly concealed
with nowhere a hint of the wires that ran in deeply chiseled grooves;
here was a wide couch, a bit of the woodland, as were the chairs and
table, the rough bark still upon the woodwork, cushions and coverlet of
bearskin; here a smaller table, a smaller chair.
"It's wonderful, you wonderful Wayne!" she cried delightedly.
But he had his arm about her again and was leading her toward the
fireplace, to it, through another door which opened to the passage
leading to the chasm where the water leaped down toward the bowels of
the earth. The door flung open, the passage filled with light and a
fresh surprise.
Across the chasm were logs as large as one man could handle, hewn so
that they lay close together, so that their upper surface made a level
floor. Wanda and Shandon crossed, hearing the water shouting under
them. And here, where Wanda had never been before, they came upon--
"The kitchen!" she cried. "A real kitchen!"
With a real stove, only that it was made of slabs and squares of
granite, a real kitchen table only that it was made from rough pine and
cedar, with the bark still on it; and very real dishes. Most of all
the real fragrance of coffee just boiling over. Wanda ran to retrieve
it and Wayne went on ahead of her. In a moment he called.
All new to her, the short climb upward along a flight of steps cut in
the rock, the little winding way up which she ran eagerly, the narrow
rock platform, the door against which he stood.
"First," he commanded gaily, "turn and look back."
She turned. Looking down she saw the kitchen; looking outward she saw
a great cut through the cliffs where they seemed to fall apart in a
steep sided ravine, and through this she looked out and down over her
forests.
"The view from My Lady's bedroom," he laughed. "And now My Lady's
bedroom, itself."
He threw open the door, standing aside to watch her pass.
A tiny rudely squared chamber, all in white. Countless warm, furry
pelts of the snowshoe rabbits he had trapped during the winter, made a
white carpet underfoot; a couch unlike the other in that this was
fashioned entirely of white pine, the smooth surfaces polished and
glistening under their many coats of shellac, a coverlet of countless
other white rabbit skins stitched together; a little dressing table of
glistening white pine, with a real mirror reflecting two flushed happy
faces, and on the floor a big white bearskin.
"And you did it all, every bit, yourself!"
That was the thought that flooded the caves for her with a light more
softly radiant than the glow of innumerable electric bulbs; the thought
which hid the little flaws in stone and woodwork and gave a gleam to
them that no mere shellac and white wood could have done.
They went back to the living room to stand, silent for a little, before
the fireplace. They watched the flames shoot upward through little
sprays and clusters of fiery sparks. Their hands crept together,
clinging close. Slowly their eyes came away from the fire and sought
each the other's. And she saw what he saw, a love that is eternal and
that understands.
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