The Highgrader
by William MacLeod Raine · English · Gutenberg #22583 · 405,736 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Highgrader
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Illustrator: D. C. Hutchison
Release date: September 12, 2007 [eBook #22583]
Most recently updated: February 1, 2009
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22583
Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHGRADER ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: KILMENY'S ALERT EYES SWEPT AGAIN AND AGAIN THE TRAIL
LEADING UP THE GULCH. HE DID NOT INTEND TO BE CAUGHT NAPPING BY THE
OFFICERS. Frontispiece (p. 67)]
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THE HIGHGRADER
BY
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
Author of "Wyoming," "Ridgway of Montana," "Bucky O'Connor," "A Texas
Ranger," "Mavericks," "Brand Blotters," "Crooked Trails and Straight,"
"The Vision Splendid," "The Pirate of Panama," "A Daughter of the Dons,"
Etc.
Illustrations By
D. C. HUTCHISON
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
Publishers New York
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Copyright, 1915, by
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
The Highgrader
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Campers 11
II. Mr. Verinder Complains 18
III. Night Fishing 28
IV. Fugitives From Justice 44
V. "I'm Here, Neighbor" 56
VI. Lord Farquhar Gives Moya A Hint 71
VII. Moya's Highwayman 84
VIII. The Bad Penny Again 102
IX. "An Out and Out Rotter" 113
X. Old Friends 123
XI. A Blizzard 141
XII. Out of the Storm a Man 157
XIII. Shot To the Core With Sunlight 170
XIV. "Prove It!... Prove It!" 180
XV. A Highgrader--In Principle 189
XVI. One Maid--Two Men 201
XVII. A Warning 218
XVIII. Two Ambushes 237
XIX. Mr. Verinder Is Treated To A Surprise 243
XX. Colter Takes A Hand 250
XXI. Spirit Rapping? 264
XXII. The Acid Test 274
XXIII. Captain Kilmeny Retires 284
XXIV. Two In A Bucket 291
XXV. Homing Hearts 309
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Kilmeny's alert eyes swept again and again the trail
leading up the gulch. He did not intend to be caught
napping by the officers _Frontispiece_ 67
"He's hooked pretty fast. Take your time about getting
him into your net. These big fellows are likely to squirm
away" 33
They rode through a world shot to the core with sunlight.
The snow sparkled and gleamed with it 177
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THE HIGHGRADER
PRELUDE
A young idealist, _ætat_ four, was selling stars to put in the sky. She
had cut them with her own scissors out of red tissue paper, so that she
was able to give a guarantee.
"But you'll have to get the ladder out of our bedroom to put 'em up
wiv," she told purchasers honestly.
The child was a wild dark creature, slim and elfish, with a queer little
smile that flashed sudden as an April sun.
It was evening, on the promenade deck of an ocean liner. The sea was
like glass and the swell hardly perceptible. Land was in sight, a vague
uneven line rising mist-like on the horizon. Before morning the
_Victorian_ would be running up the St. Lawrence. Even for the most
squeamish the discomforts of the voyage lay behind. A pleasant good
fellowship was in the air. In some it took the form of an idle
contentment, a vague regret that ties newly formed must so soon be
broken. In others it found an expression more buoyant. Merry voices of
shuffleboard players drifted forward. Young couples paced the deck and
leaned over the rail to watch the phosphorescent glow. The open windows
of the smoking-room gave forth the tinkle of glasses and the low rattle
of chips. All sounds blended into a mellow harmony.
"What's your price on a whole constellation with a lovers' moon thrown
in?" inquired a young man lounging in a deck chair.
The vendor of stars looked at him in her direct serious fashion. "I fink
I tan't sell you all 'at, but I'll make you a moon to go wiv the
stars--not a weally twuly one, jus' a make-believe moon," she added in a
whisper.
An irritated voice made itself heard. "Steward, have you seen that child
anywhere? The naughty little brat has run away again--and I left her
only a minute."
The dealer in celestial supplies came to earth.
"I'm goin' to be smacked," she announced with grave conviction.
An unvoiced conspiracy formed itself instantly in her behalf. A lady in
a steamer chair gathered the child under the shelter of her rug. An
eight-year-old youngster knotted his fists valiantly. The young man who
had priced a constellation considered the chances of a cutting-out
expedition.
"She should have been in bed long ago. I just stepped out to speak to
our room steward and when I came back she was gone," the annoyed
governess was explaining.
Discovery was imminent. The victim prepared herself for the worst.
"I don't care," she protested to her protector. "It's ever so nicer to
stay up, an' if it wasn't runnin' away it would be somefing else."
At this bit of philosophy the lounger chuckled, rose swiftly, and
intercepted the dragon.
"When do I get that walk you promised me, Miss Lupton? What's the matter
with right now?"
The governess was surprised, since it was the first she had heard of any
walk. Flattered she was, but still faithful to duty.
"I'm looking for Moya. She knows she must always go to her room after
tea and stay there. The naughty child ran away."
"She's all right. I saw her snuggled under a rug with Mrs. Curtis not
two minutes ago. Just a turn or two in this lovely night."
Drawn by the magnet of his manhood, Moya slipped into the chair beside
the eight-year-old.
"I'd kick her darned shins if she spanked me," boasted he of the eight
years.
Moya admired his courage tremendously. Her dark eyes followed the
retreating figure of her governess. "I'm 'fraid."
"Hm! Bet I wouldn't be. Course, you're only a girl."
His companion pleaded guilty with a sigh and slipped her hand into his
beneath the steamer rug.
"It's howwid to be a dirl," she confided.
"Bet I wouldn't be one."
"You talk so funny."
"Don't either. I'm a Namerican. Tha's how we all talk."
"I'm Irish. Mith Lupton says 'at's why I'm so naughty," the sinner
confessed complacently.
Confidences were exchanged. Moya explained that she was a norphan and
had nobody but a man called Guardy, and he was not her very own. She
lived in Sussex and had a Shetland pony. Mith Lupton was horrid and was
always smacking her. When she said her prayers she always said in soft
to herself, "But pleathe, God, don't bless Mith Lupton." They were
taking a sea voyage for Moya's health, and she had been seasick just the
teentiest weentiest bit. Jack on his part could proudly affirm that he
had not missed a meal. He lived in Colorado on a ranch with his father,
who had just taken him to England and Ireland to visit his folks. He
didn't like England one little bit, and he had told his cousin Ned so
and they had had a fight. As he was proceeding to tell details Miss
Lupton returned from her stroll.
She brought Moya to her feet with a jerk. "My goodness! Who will you
pick up next? Now walk along to your room, missie."
"Yes, Mith Lupton."
"Haven't I told you not to talk to strangers?"
"He isn't stwanger. He's Jack," announced Moya stanchly.
"I'll teach you to run away as soon as my back is turned. You should
have been in bed an hour ago."
"I tan't unbutton myself."
"A likely reason. Move along, now."
Having been remiss in her duty, Miss Lupton was salving her conscience
by being extra severe now. She hurried her charge away.
Suddenly Moya stopped. "Pleathe, my han'erchif."
"Have you lost it? Where is it?"
"I had it in the chair."
"Then run back and get it."
Moya's thin white legs flashed along the deck. Like a small hurricane
she descended upon the boy. Her arms went around his neck and for an
instant he was smothered in her embrace, dark ringlets flying about his
fair head.
"Dood-night, Jack."
A kiss fell helter-skelter on his cheek and she was gone, tugging a
little handkerchief from her pocket as she ran.
The boy did not see her again. Before she was up he and his father left
the boat at Quebec. Jack wondered whether she had been smacked, after
all. Once or twice during the day he thought of her, but the excitement
of new sights effaced from his mind the first romance his life had
known.
But for nearly a week Moya added a codicil silently to her prayer. "And,
God, pleathe bless Jack."
CHAPTER I
THE CAMPERS
Inside the cabin a man was baking biscuits and singing joyously, "It's a
Long, Long Way to Tipperary." Outside, another whistled softly to
himself while he arranged his fishing tackle. From his book he had
selected three flies and was attaching them to the leader. Nearest the
rod he put a royal coachman, next to it a blue quill, and at the end a
ginger quill.
The cook, having put his biscuits in the oven, filled the doorway. He
was a big, strong-set man, with a face of leather. Rolled-up sleeves
showed knotted brown arms white to the wrists with flour. His eyes were
hard and steady, but from the corners of them innumerable little
wrinkles fell away and crinkled at times to mirth.
"First call to dinner in the dining-car," he boomed out in a heavy bass.
Two men lounging under a cottonwood beside the river showed signs of
life. One of them was scarcely more than a boy, perhaps twenty, a
pleasant amiable youth with a weak chin and eyes that held no steel.
His companion was nearer forty than thirty, a hard-faced citizen who
chewed tobacco and said little.
"Where you going to fish to-night, Crumbs?" the cook asked of the man
busy with the tackle.
"Think I'll try up the river, Colter--start in above the Narrows and
work down, mebbe. Where you going?"
"Me for the Meadows. I'm after the big fellows. Going to hang the Indian
sign on them with a silver doctor and a Jock Scott. The kid here got his
three-pounder on a Jock Scott."
The man who had been called Crumbs put his rod against the side of the
house and washed his hands in a tin pan resting on a stump. He was a
slender young fellow with lean, muscular shoulders and the bloom of many
desert suns on his cheeks and neck.
"Going to try a Jock Scott myself after it gets dark."
The boy who had come up from the river's bank grinned. "Now I've shown
you lads how to do it you'll all be catching whales."
"Once is a happenstance, twice makes a habit. Do it again, Curly, and
we'll hail you king of the river," Colter promised, bringing to the
table around which they were seating themselves a frying pan full of
trout done to a crisp brown. "Get the coffee, Mosby. There's beer in the
icebox, kid."
They ate in their shirtsleeves, camp fashion, on an oil cloth scarred
with the marks left by many hot dishes. They brought to dinner the
appetites of outdoors men who had whipped for hours a turbid stream
under an August sun. Their talk was strong and crisp, after the fashion
of the mining West. It could not be printed without editing, yet in that
atmosphere it was without offense. There is a time for all things, even
for the elemental talk of frontiersmen on a holiday.
Dinner finished, the fishermen lolled on the grass and smoked.
A man cantered out of the patch of woods above and drew up at the cabin,
disposing himself for leisurely gossip.
"Evening, gentlemen. Heard the latest?" He drew a match across his chaps
and lit the cigarette he had rolled.
"We'll know after you've told us what it is," Colter suggested.
"The Gunnison country ce'tainly is being honored, boys. A party of
effete Britishers are staying at the Lodge. Got in last night. I seen
them when they got off the train--me lud and me lady, three young ladies
that grade up A1, a Johnnie boy with an eyeglass, and another lad who
looks like one man from the ground up. Also, and moreover, there's a
cook, a hawss wrangler, a hired girl to button the ladies up the back,
and a valley chap to say 'Yes, sir, coming, sir,' to the dude."
"You got it all down like a book, Steve," grinned Curly.
"Any names?" asked Colter.
"Names to burn," returned the native. "A whole herd of names, honest to
God. Most any of 'em has five or six, the way the Denver _Post_ tells
it. Me, I can't keep mind of so many fancy brands. I'll give you the A B
C of it. The old parties are Lord James and Lady Jim Farquhar, leastways
I heard one of the young ladies call her Lady Jim. The dude has Verinder
burnt on about eight trunks, s'elp me. Then there's a Miss Dwight and a
Miss Joyce Seldon--and, oh, yes! a Captain Kilmeny, and an Honorable
Miss Kilmeny, by ginger."
Colter flashed a quick look at Crumbs. A change had come over that young
man's face. His blue eyes had grown hard and frosty.
"It's a plumb waste of money to take a newspaper when you're around,
Steve," drawled Colter, in amiable derision. "Happen to notice the color
of the ladies' eyes?"
The garrulous cowpuncher was on the spot once more. "Sure, I did,
leastways one of them. I want to tell you lads that Miss Joyce Seldon is
the prettiest skirt that ever hit this neck of the woods--and her eyes,
say, they're like pansies, soft and deep and kinder velvety."
The fishermen shouted. Their mirth was hearty and uncontained.
"Go to it, Steve. Tell us some more," they demanded joyously.
Crumbs, generally the leader in all the camp fun, had not joined in the
laughter. He had been drawing on his waders and buckling on his creel.
Now he slipped the loop of the landing net over his head.
"We want a full bill of particulars, Steve. You go back and size up the
eyes of the lady lord and the other female Britishers," ordered Curly
gayly.
"Go yore own self, kid. I ain't roundin' up trouble for no babe just out
of the cradle," retorted the grinning rider. "What's yore hurry,
Crumbs?"
The young man addressed had started away but now turned. "No hurry, I
reckon, but I'm going fishing."
Steve chuckled. "You're headed in a bee line for Old Man Trouble. The
Johnnie boy up at the Lodge is plumb sore on this outfit. Seems that you
lads raised ructions last night and broken his sweet slumbers. He's got
the kick of a government mule coming. Why can't you wild Injuns behave
proper?"
"We only gave Curly a chapping because he let the flapjacks burn,"
returned Crumbs with a smile. "You see, he's come of age most, Curly
has. He'd ought to be responsible now, but he ain't. So we gave him what
was coming to him."
"Well, you explain that to Mr. Verinder if he sees you. He's sure on his
hind laigs about it."
"I expect he'll get over it in time," Crumbs said dryly. "Well, so-long,
boys. Good fishing to-night."
"Same to you," they called after him.
"Some man, Crumbs," commented Steve.
"He'll stand the acid," agreed Colter briefly.
"What's his last name? I ain't heard you lads call him anything but
Crumbs. I reckon that's a nickname."
Curly answered the question of the cowpuncher. "His name 's
Kilmeny--Jack Kilmeny. His folks used to live across the water. Maybe
this Honorable Miss Kilmeny and her brother are some kin of his."
"You don't say!"
"Course I don't know about that. His dad came over here when he was a
wild young colt. Got into some trouble at home, the way I heard it.
Bought a ranch out here and married. His family was high moguls in
England--or, maybe, it was Ireland. Anyhow, they didn't like Mrs.
Kilmeny from the Bar Double C ranch. Ain't that the way of it, Colter?"
The impassive gaze of the older man came back from the rushing river.
"You know so much about it, Curly, I'll not butt in with any more
misinformation," he answered with obvious sarcasm.
Curly flushed. "I'd ought to know. Jack's father and mine were friends,
so's he and me."
"How come you to call him Crumbs?"
"That's a joke, Steve. Jack's no ordinary rip-roaring, hell-raisin'
miner. He knows what's what. That's why we call him Crumbs--because he's
fine bred. Pun, see. Fine bred--crumbs. Get it?"
"Sure I get it, kid. I ain't no Englishman. You don't need a two-by-four
to pound a josh into my cocoanut," the rider remonstrated.
CHAPTER II
MR. VERINDER COMPLAINS
Jack Kilmeny followed the pathway which wound through the woods along
the bank of the river. Occasionally he pushed through a thick growth of
young willows or ducked beneath the top strand of a neglected wire
fence.
Beyond the trees lay a clearing. At the back of this, facing the river,
was a large fishing lodge built of logs and finished artistically in
rustic style. It was a two-story building spread over a good deal of
ground space. A wide porch ran round the front and both sides. Upon the
porch were a man in an armchair and a girl seated on the top step with
her head against the corner post.
A voice hailed Kilmeny. "I say, my man."
The fisherman turned, discovered that he was the party addressed, and
waited.
"Come here, you!" The man in the armchair had taken the cigar from his
mouth and was beckoning to him.
"Meaning me?" inquired Kilmeny.
"Of course I mean you. Who else could I mean?"
The fisherman drew near. In his eyes sparkled a light that belied his
acquiescence.
"Do you belong to the party camped below?" inquired he of the rocking
chair, one eyeglass fixed in the complacent face.
The guilty man confessed.
"Then I want to know what the deuce you meant by kicking up such an
infernal row last night. I couldn't sleep a wink for hours--not for
hours, dash it. It's an outrage--a beastly outrage. What!"
The man with the monocle was smug with the self-satisfaction of his
tribe. His thin hair was parted in the middle and a faint straw-colored
mustache decorated his upper lip. Altogether, he might measure five feet
five in his boots. The miner looked at him gravely. No faintest hint of
humor came into the sea-blue eyes. They took in the dapper Britisher as
if he had been a natural history specimen.
"So kindly tell them not to do it again," Dobyans Verinder ordered in
conclusion.
"If you please, sir," added the young woman quietly.
Kilmeny's steady gaze passed for the first time to her. He saw a slight
dark girl with amazingly live eyes and a lift to the piquant chin that
was arresting. His hat came off promptly.
"We didn't know anybody was at the Lodge," he explained.
"You wouldn't, of course," she nodded, and by way of explanation: "Lady
Farquhar is rather nervous. Of course we don't want to interfere with
your fun, but----"
"There will be no more fireworks at night. One of the boys had a
birthday and we were ventilating our enthusiasm. If we had known----"
"Kindly make sure it doesn't happen again, my good fellow," cut in
Verinder.
Kilmeny looked at him, then back at the girl. The dapper little man had
been weighed and found wanting. Henceforth, Verinder was not on the map.
"Did you think we were wild Utes broke loose from the reservation? I
reckon we were some noisy. When the boys get to going good they don't
quite know when to stop."
The eyes of the young woman sparkled. The fisherman thought he had never
seen a face more vivid. Such charm as it held was too irregular for
beauty, but the spirit that broke through interested by reason of its
hint of freedom. She might be a caged bird, but her wings beat for the
open spaces.
"Were they going good last night?" she mocked prettily.
"Not real good, ma'am. You see, we had no town to shoot up, so we just
punctured the scenery. If we had known you were here----"
"You would have come and shot us up," she charged gayly.
Kilmeny laughed. "You're a good one, neighbor. But you don't need to
worry." He let his eyes admire her lazily. "Young ladies are too seldom
in this neck of the woods for the boys to hurt any. Give them a chance
and they would be real good to you, ma'am."
His audacity delighted Moya Dwight. "Do you think they would?"
"In our own barbaric way, of course."
"Do you ever scalp people?" she asked with innocent impudence.
"It's a young country," he explained genially.
"It has that reputation."
"You've been reading stories about us," he charged. "Now we'll be on our
good behavior just to show you."
"Thank you--if it isn't too hard."
"They're good boys, though they do forget it sometimes."
"I'm glad they do. They wouldn't interest me if they were too good.
What's the use of coming to Colorado if it is going to be as civilized
as England?"
Verinder, properly scandalized at this free give and take with a
haphazard savage of the wilds, interrupted in the interest of
propriety. "I'll not detain you any longer, my man. You may get at your
fishing."
The Westerner paid not the least attention to him. "My gracious, ma'am,
we think we're a heap more civilized than England. We ain't got any
militant suffragettes in this country--at least, I've never met up with
any."
"They're a sign of civilization," the young woman laughed. "They prove
we're still alive, even if we are asleep."
"We've got you beat there, then. All the women vote here. What's the
matter with you staying and running for governor?"
"Could I--really?" she beamed.
"Really and truly. Trouble with us is that we're so civilized we bend
over backward with it. You're going to find us mighty tame. The
melodramatic romance of the West is mostly in storybooks. What there was
of it has gone out with the cowpuncher."
"What's a cowpuncher?"
"He rides the range after cattle."
"Oh--a cowboy. But aren't there any cowboys?"
"They're getting seldom. The barb wire fence has put them out of
business. Mostly they're working for the moving picture companies now,"
he smiled.
Mr. Verinder prefaced with a formal little cough a second attempt to
drive away this very assured native. "As I was saying, Miss Dwight, I
wouldn't mind going into Parliament, you know, if it weren't for the
bally labor members. I'm rather strong on speaking--that sort of thing,
you know. Used to be a dab at it. But I couldn't stand the bounders that
get in nowadays. Really, I couldn't."
"And I had so counted on the cowboys. I'm going to be disappointed, I
think," Miss Dwight said to the Westerner quietly.
Verinder had sense enough to know that he was being punished. He had
tried to put the Westerner out of the picture and found himself
eliminated instead. An angry flush rose to his cheeks.
"That's the mistake you all make," Kilmeny told her. "The true romance
of the West isn't in its clothes and its trappings."
"Where is it?" she asked.
"In its spirit--in the hope and the courage born of the wide plains and
the clean hills--in its big democracy and its freedom from convention.
The West is a condition of mind."
Miss Dwight was surprised. She had not expected a philosophy of this
nature from her chance barbarian. He had the hands of a working man,
brown and sinewy but untorn; yet there was the mark of distinction in
the lean head set so royally on splendid shoulders. His body, spare of
flesh and narrow of flank, had the lithe grace of a panther. She had
seen before that look of competence, of easy self-reliance. Some of the
men of her class had it--Ned Kilmeny, for instance. But Ned was an
officer in a fighting regiment which had seen much service. Where had
this tanned fisherman won the manner that inheres only in a leader of
men?
"And how long does it take to belong to your West?" asked the young
woman, with the inflection of derision.
But her mockery was a fraud. In both voice and face was a vivid
eagerness not to be missed.
"Time hasn't a thing to do with it. Men live all their lives here and
are never Westerners. Others are of us in a day. I think you would
qualify early."
She knew that she ought to snub his excursion into the personal, but she
was by nature unconventional.
"How do you know?" she demanded quickly.
"That's just a guess of mine," he smiled.
A musical voice called from within the house. "Have you seen my
_Graphic_, Moya?"
A young woman stood in the doorway, a golden-white beauty with soft
smiling eyes that showed a little surprise at sight of the fisherman. A
faint murmur of apology for the interruption escaped her lips.
Kilmeny could not keep his eyes from her. What a superb young creature
she was, what perfection in the animal grace of the long lines of the
soft rounded body! Her movements had a light buoyancy that was charming.
And where under heaven could a man hope to see anything lovelier than
this pale face with its crown of burnished hair so lustrous and
abundant?
Miss Dwight turned to her friend. "I haven't seen the _Graphic_, Joyce,
dear."
"Isn't it in the billiard room? Thought I saw it there. I'll look,"
Verinder volunteered.
"Good of you," Miss Joyce nodded, her eyes on the stranger who had
turned to leave.
Kilmeny was going because he knew that he might easily outwear his
welcome. He had punished Verinder, and that was enough. The miner had
met too many like him not to know that the man belonged to the family of
common or garden snob. No doubt he rolled in wealth made by his father.
The fellow had studied carefully the shibboleths of the society with
which he wished to be intimate and was probably letter-perfect. None the
less, he was a bounder, a rank outsider tolerated only for his money. He
might do for the husband of some penniless society girl, but he would
never in the world be accepted by her as a friend or an equal. The
thought of him stirred the gorge of the fisherman. Very likely the man
might capture for a wife the slim dark girl with the quick eyes, or
even her friend, Joyce, choicest flower in a garden of maidens. Nowadays
money would do anything socially.
"Cheekiest beggar I ever saw," fumed Verinder. "Don't see why you let
the fellow stay, Miss Dwight."
The girl's scornful eyes came round to meet his. She had never before
known how cordially she disliked him.
"Don't you?"
She rose and walked quickly into the house.
Verinder bit his mustache angrily. He had been cherishing a fiction that
he was in love with Miss Dwight and more than once he had smarted
beneath the lash of her contempt.
Joyce sank gracefully into the easiest chair and flashed a dazzling
smile at him. "Has Moya been _very_ unkind, Mr. Verinder?"
He had joined the party a few days before at Chicago and this was the
first sign of interest Miss Seldon had shown in him. Verinder was
grateful.
"Dashed if I understand Miss Dwight at all. She blows hot and cold," he
confided in a burst of frankness.
"That's just her way. We all have our moods, don't we? I mean we poor
women. Don't all the poets credit us with inconstancy?" The least
ripple of amusement at her sex swelled in her throat and died away.
"Oh, by Jove, if that's all! I say, do you have moods too, Miss Joyce?"
Her long thick lashes fluttered down to the cheeks. Was she embarrassed
at his question? He felt a sudden lift of the heart, an access of
newborn confidence. Dobyans Verinder had never dared to lift his hopes
as high as the famous beauty Joyce Seldon. Now for the first time his
vanity stirred. Somehow--quite unexpectedly to him--the bars between
them were down. Was it possible that she had taken a fancy to him? His
imagination soared.
For a moment her deep pansy eyes rested in his. He felt a sudden
intoxication of the senses. Almost with a swagger he drew up a chair and
seated himself beside her. Already he was the conquering male in
headlong pursuit. Nor was he disturbed by the least suspicion of having
been filled with the sensations and the impulses that she had contrived.
Miss Seldon had that morning incidentally overheard Lady Farquhar tell
her husband that Dobyans Verinder's fortune must be nearer two million
pounds than one million. It was the first intimation she had been given
that he was such a tremendous catch.
CHAPTER III
NIGHT FISHING
Jack Kilmeny crossed the river by the rope ferry and followed the trail
that ran up. He took the water above the Narrows, about a mile and a
half from camp. The mosquitoes were pretty bad near the willows along
the shore, but as he got out farther they annoyed him less and with the
coming of darkness they ceased to trouble.
The fish were feeding and he had a few strikes. Half a dozen eight and
nine-inch trout went into his creel, but though he was fishing along the
edge of the deep water, the big fellows would not be tempted. His watch
showed a quarter to ten by the moon when at last he hooked one worth
while.
He was now down by the riffles not far from the Lodge. A long cast
brought him what fishermen along the Gunnison call a bump. Quietly he
dropped his fly in exactly the same spot. There was a tug, a flash of
white above the water, and, like an arrow, the trout was off. The reel
whirred as the line unwound. Kilmeny knew by the pressure that he had
hooked a good one and he played it carefully, keeping the line taut but
not allowing too much strain on it. After a short sharp fight he drew
the fish close enough to net the struggler. Of the Lochleven variety, he
judged the weight of the trout to be about two pounds.
He would have liked to try another cast, but it was ten o'clock, the
limit set by law. He waded ashore, resolved to fish the riffles again
to-morrow.
Next day brought Kilmeny the office of camp cook, which was taken in
turn by each of the men. Only two meals a day were eaten in camp, so
that he had several hours of leisure after the breakfast things were
cleared away. In a desultory fashion he did an hour or two of fishing,
though his mind was occupied with other things.
The arrival of the party at the Lodge brought back to him vividly some
chapters of his life that had long been buried. His father, Archibald
Kilmeny, had married the daughter of a small cattleman some years after
he had come to Colorado. Though she had died while he was still a child,
Jack still held warmly in his heart some vivid memories of the
passionate uncurbed woman who had been his mother.
She had been a belle in the cow country, charming in her way, beautiful
to the day of her death, but without education or restraint. Her husband
had made the mistake of taking her back to Ireland on a visit to his
people. The result had been unfortunate. She was unconquerably
provincial, entirely democratic, as uncultured as her native columbine.
Moreover, her temper was of the whirlwind variety. The staid life of the
old country, with its well-ordered distinctions of class and rutted
conventions, did not suit her at all. At traditions which she could not
understand the young wife scoffed openly. Before she left, veiled
dislike became almost open war. The visit had never been repeated, nor,
indeed, had she ever been invited again. This she had bitterly resented
and she had instilled into Jack the antagonism she herself felt. When he
was eight years old Jack's father had insisted on taking him back to
meet his relatives. Immediately upon his return the youngster's mother
had set about undermining any fondness he might have felt for his
British kindred. Three years later she had died.
She had been a doting mother, with fierce gusts of passionate adoration
for her boy. Jack remembered these after he forgot her less amiable
qualities. He had grown up with an unreasonable feeling of dislike
toward those of his father's family who had failed to get along with
her. Some instinct of loyalty which he could hardly define set him
unconsciously in antagonism to his cousins at the Lodge. He had decided
not to make himself known to them. In a few days their paths would
diverge again for all time.
Dusk found him again in the river just above the riffles. He fished down
the stream slowly, shortening his line as darkness settled over the
hills. His luck was rather worse than usual. The trout were nosing the
flies rather than striking with any appetite.
He was nearly opposite the Lodge when he noticed a fisherman in front of
him. Working steadily forward, Kilmeny found himself gaining on the
other. In order not to pass too near he struck out into the deeper water
toward the center of the river. When almost opposite the other he heard
a splash not twenty feet away, followed by the whirr of the reel as the
trout made for the deep water. From the shadows where his unknown
companion was obscured came the click of the line being wound up. There
was a flash of silver in the moonlight, and again the rapid whirl of the
reel.
"You've hooked a whale, neighbor," Kilmeny called across.
The voice that came back to him across the water was eager and glad.
Jack would have known its throb of youthful zest among a thousand. "Must
I let him have all the line he wants?"
Kilmeny waded toward her as he gave counsel. "Don't make it too easy for
him, but don't jerk. Keep his nose up if you can."
The humming of the reel and the steady click-click-click of the winding
alternated. The trout fought gamely and strongly, but the young woman
stuck to her work and would not give him any rest. Jack watched her
carefully. He saw that she was tiring, but he did not offer any help,
for he knew that she was a sportsman. She would want to win alone or not
at all.
Yet he moved closer. The water was up to her hips, and no river in the
Rockies has a swifter current than the Gunnison. The bottom too is
covered with smooth slippery stones and bowlders, so that a misstep
might send her plunging down. Deprived of the use of her landing pole,
she could make less resistance to the tug of the stream, and the four or
five pounds of dynamic energy at the end of her line would give her all
she could do to take care of for the next few minutes. Her pole was
braced against her body, which made reeling difficult. The man beside
her observed that except for a tendency to raise the pole too much she
was playing her trout like a veteran.
The thing that he had anticipated happened. Her foot slipped from its
insecure rock hold and she stumbled. His arm was round her waist in an
instant.
"Steady! Take your time."
"Thanks. I'm all right now."
His right arm still girdled her slight figure. It met with his approval
that she had not cried out or dropped her pole, but he would not take
the chance of an accident.
[Illustration: "HE'S HOOKED PRETTY FAST. TAKE YOUR TIME ABOUT GETTING
HIM INTO YOUR NET. THESE BIG FELLOWS ARE LIKELY TO SQUIRM AWAY." (p. 33)]
The trout was tiring. Inch by inch she brought him nearer. Sometimes he
would dart away again, but each dash for liberty was shorter and weaker
than the last.
Presently she panted, "My landing net."
It was caught in the creel. Kilmeny unfastened the net and brought it
round where it would be ready for instant use.
"Tell me what I must do now."
"He's hooked pretty fast. Take your time about getting him into your
net, and be careful then. These big fellows are likely to squirm away."
It was a ticklish moment when she let go of the rod with her left hand
to slip the net under the trout, but she negotiated it in safety.
"Isn't he a whopper?" she cried in delight. "He won't go into the creel
at all."
"Then let me have him. The glory is yours. I'll be your gillie to carry
the game bag."
He got his fingers through its gill before he took the hook from the
mouth of the fish. Carrying the trout in one hand and his pole in the
other, he waded slowly through the swift water to the shore.
The girl's vibrant voice came to him as she splashed at his heels toward
the bank. "He's such a ripping good one. I'm so pleased. How much do you
think he will weigh?"
The young man took the catch far enough back from the river, so that
they could examine him in safety.
"My guess is six pounds. He's the biggest taken this year so far. I
congratulate you, Miss Dwight."
"I would never have got him if you hadn't been there to help me with
advice. But I really did it all myself, didn't I? If you had touched the
rod before I had him netted I'd never have forgiven you," she confessed,
eyes glowing with the joy of her achievement.
"It's no joke to land one of these big fellows. I saw you were tired.
But it's the sporting thing to play your own fish."
Her dark eyes flashed a questioning glance at him. She had been brought
up in a society where class lines were closely drawn, but her experience
gave her no data for judging this young man's social standing. Casual
inquiries of old Ballard, the caretaker at the Lodge, had brought her
the information that the party of fishermen were miners from the hills.
This one went by the name of Crumbs and sometimes Jack. What puzzled
Miss Dwight was the difficulty of reconciling him with himself.
Sometimes he used the speech and the slow drawl of the plainsman, and
again he spoke with the correctness of one who has known good society.
In spite of his careless garb he had the look of class. The well-shaped,
lightly poised head, the level blue eyes of a man unafraid, the grace
with which he carried himself, all denied that he was an uncouth rustic.
A young woman of impulse, she yielded to an audacious one now. "I'm glad
you let me do the sporting thing, Mr.--Crumbs."
His gentle laughter welled out. "Where did you get that?"
"Isn't it your name?" she asked, with a lift of the dark eyebrows.
He hesitated, barely an instant. Of course she knew perfectly well that
it was not his name. But it suited him not to give one more definite.
"I reckon it's a name good enough to bring me to dinner by," he drawled,
smiling.
He was back again in the Western idiom and manner. She wondered why. The
change had come when she had spoken his name. A certain wariness had
settled over his face like a mask. She could see that he was purposely
taking refuge in the class distinctions that presumably separated them.
Yet she could have sworn that nothing had been farther from his mind
during the exciting ten minutes in the water while voice and presence
and arm had steadied her for the battle.
They walked together up the slope to the big house. A fishing costume is
not a thing of grace, but the one this girl wore could not eclipse the
elastic suppleness of the slender figure or the joy in life that
animated the vivid face with the black curls straying from beneath the
jaunty cap. The long hip waders she wore so briskly gave her the look of
a modern Rosalind. To deny her beauty was easy, but in the soft sifted
moonlight showered down through the trees it was impossible for
Kilmeny's eyes to refuse her an admission of charm. There was a hint of
pleasant adventure in the dusky eyes of this clean-limbed young nymph, a
plastic energy in the provoking dainty face, that stung his reluctant
admiration. She had the gift for comradeship, and with it a freedom of
mind unusual in one of her class.
She ran up the steps of the Lodge lightly and thanked him with a
pleasant "Good-night." As he turned away Kilmeny came face to face with
another fisherman returning from the sport of the night. The man
opposite him was rather short and thickset. In his eyes was a look of
kind shrewd wisdom. Red-faced and white-bearded, he was unmistakably an
Englishman of the upper class.
Miss Dwight introduced him as Lord Farquhar, and the men shook hands.
"Guess what I've got," demanded the young woman, her hands behind her.
"Heaven only knows. It might be anything from the measles to a new
lover," smiled Farquhar.
She flashed upon him the fish that had been hidden behind her waders.
"By Jove! Catch him yourself?"
She nodded, her eyes shining.
Farquhar, very much a sportsman, wanted to know all about it, after
which he insisted on weighing the trout. Jack was dragged into the Lodge
to join in this function, and presently found himself meeting Lady
Farquhar, a pleasant plump lady who did not at all conform to the usual
stage conception of her part. Her smile was warm for this supple
blue-eyed engaging Westerner, but the latter did not need to be told
that behind her friendliness the instinct of the chaperone was alert.
The one swift glance she had thrown at Miss Dwight told him as much.
Into the room drifted presently Miss Seldon, a late novel in her hand.
In contrast with her sheathed loveliness Miss Dwight looked like a young
girl. There was something very sweet and appealing in Moya's slim
indefinite figure of youth, with its suggestion of developing lines, but
most men ceased to look at her when Joyce swam within the orbit of their
vision.
Joyce Seldon was frankly a beauty in every line and feature. Her
exquisite coloring, the soft amber hair so extravagant in quantity, the
long lashes which shaded deep lovely eyes, satisfied the senses no less
than the supple rounded young body which was carried with such light
grace. Kilmeny was not very impressionable, but in her presence the
world seemed somehow shot through with a new radiance. She laid upon
him the spell of women.
Presently Dobyans Verinder dropped in with an empty creel and opened
wide supercilious eyes at sight of Jack. He was followed presently by
Captain Kilmeny and his sister, the latter a pretty Irish girl, quick of
tongue, quicker of eye, and ready for anything from flirting to fishing.
From the talk, Jack gathered that Lord Farquhar and Miss Dwight had bet
their catch would outweigh that of the other three, Farquhar and she to
fish opposite the Lodge and the others half a mile below. The minority
party had won easily, thanks to the big trout and Verinder's obstinacy
in sticking to the flies he had used in England with success. There is a
type of Englishman that goes through life using the flies he was brought
up on and trying to make them fit all places and times. Any divergence
is a form of treason. Neither Farquhar nor Kilmeny happened to be of
that kind. They besieged the American with questions and soon had a
pretty fair idea of fishing on the Gunnison.
"I should think you would ask me. I thought I was the one that catches
the big fish," suggested Miss Dwight, who had just returned from having
changed into more conventional attire.
"Make a habit of it, my dear, and we will," Lord Farquhar assured her.
"Once is enough, Moya. I can't afford a pair of gloves every evening,"
India Kilmeny protested.
"By Jove, leave some of the big ones for us, Miss Dwight," implored the
captain. He was a spare wiry man, with the long clean build one expects
to see in soldiers. Long residence in India had darkened his skin to an
almost coffee brown, except for a wintry apple red where the high cheek
bones seemed about to push through.
Supper, to which Lady Farquhar had insisted that the American stay, was
being served informally in the living-room. Verinder helped himself to a
sandwich, ogling Moya the while with his eyeglass.
"I say, you know, I believe in you, Miss Dwight," he asserted.
That young woman did not know why she resented more than usual his
wheedling attentions. Lady Jim had invited the millionaire to join their
party, as the girl very well knew, in order to give her charges a chance
at him. Not that Lady Farquhar liked the man. She knew him quite well
for an ill-bred little snob at heart. But he would pass muster in a
crowd, and none of the young women of the party could afford to sniff at
two millions sterling. It was entirely probable that Joyce, with her
beauty and her clear vision of the need of money in the scheme of
things, would marry as well as if she had a mother to look out for her.
But Lady Jim felt it her duty to plan for India and Moya. She was more
anxious about Miss Dwight than the other Irish girl, for Moya was likely
to bolt the traces. Her friendships with men were usually among
ineligibles. Verinder had shown a decided drift in her direction, but
the girl had not encouraged him in the least. If she had been possessed
of an independent fortune she could not have been more airily
indifferent to his advances.
Since Captain Kilmeny had joined the party in Denver the plans of Lady
Farquhar had been modified. The soldier had taken an early opportunity
to tell her that he meant to ask Moya Dwight to marry him. He had been
in love with her for years and had asked her just before his regiment
left for India the last time. The captain was not rich, but he had
enough. It happened too that he was a clean honest gentleman who had
made a reputation for efficiency and gallantry in the army. If he was
not brilliant, he was at least thorough. Lady Farquhar was quite willing
to back his suit so far as she could.
"He's our kind, Ned Kilmeny is," she had told her husband. "I gave Moya
her chance with Verinder but I should have been disappointed in her if
she had taken him. If she will only fall in love with Ned I'll forgive
her all the queer things she is always doing."
Farquhar had chuckled. "It's an odds-on chance she'll not fancy him,
Di."
"For Heaven's sake, why not?" his wife had asked impatiently. "Does she
expect to marry an emperor?"
"I don't know what she expects. The subject of matrimony is not
all-important to Moya yet. But some day it will be--and then may I be
there to see!"
"You're so ridiculously wrapped up in her," Lady Jim accused with a
smile. "Why do you expect her love affair to be so interesting? For my
part, I think Ned quite good enough for her."
"Oh, he's good enough. That isn't quite the point, is it? Moya wants to
be stormed, to be swept from her feet into the arms of the man she is
ready to love. A sort of a Lochinvar business--full of thrills and great
moments. Ned can't give her those."
"No, I suppose not. Pity she can't be sensible."
"There are enough of us sensible, Di. We can spare her a few years yet
for romance. When she grows sensible she'll have to give up something
she can't afford to lose."
His wife looked at him and smiled fondly. "You haven't quite lost it
yourself, Jim."
It was true enough that Lord Farquhar retained an interest in life that
was refreshing. This evening his eyes gleamed while the Westerner told
of the frontier day program to be held at the little town of Gunnison
next day.
"You and your friends are miners, I understand. You'll not take part,
then?" he asked.
"I used to punch cows. My name is entered for the riding. The boys want
me to take a turn."
India Kilmeny sat up straight. "Let's go. We can ride up in the morning.
It will be jolly. All in favor of going eat another sandwich."
"It will be pretty woolly--quite different from anything you have seen,"
the miner suggested.
"Thought we came here to fish," Verinder interposed. "Great bore looking
at amateur shows--and it's a long ride."
"Move we go. What say, Lady Farquhar?" put in Captain Kilmeny.
"Do let's go," Moya begged.
"I don't see why we shouldn't," Lady Farquhar smiled. "But I'm like Mr.
Verinder about riding. If he'll drive me up the rest of you can go on
horseback."
"Delighted, 'm sure."
Verinder came to time outwardly civil but inwardly fuming. What the
deuce did Lady Farquhar mean? Captain Kilmeny would have five hours
clear with Miss Dwight and Miss Seldon during the ride back and forth.
Ever since the soldier had joined the party things had been going badly.
"If we're going it's time you girls were in bed. You've had a hard day
and to-morrow will be another," Lady Jim pronounced.
The Westerner rose to go.
"Night's young yet. Stop and sit in with us to a game of poker. What!"
Farquhar invited.
"My pocketbook is at the camp," the American demurred.
"I'll be your banker," his host volunteered.
The ladies said good-night and departed. Chairs were drawn to the card
table, chips sold, and hands dealt. The light of morning was breaking
before Kilmeny made his way back to camp. He had in his pockets one
hundred seventy three dollars, most of which had recently been the
property of Dobyans Verinder.
An early start for Gunnison had been agreed upon by the fishermen at the
camp. To go to bed now was hardly worth while. Jack took a towel from
the willow bush upon which it was hanging, went down to the river,
stripped, and from a rock ten feet above a deep pool dived straight as
an arrow into the black water. The swirl of the current swept him into
the shallower stream below. He waded ashore, beautiful in his supple
slimness as an Apollo, climbed the rock a second time, and again knew
the delightful shock of a dive into icy water fresh from the mountain
snows.
Ten minutes later he wakened the camp by rattling the stove lids.
"Oh, you sluggards! Time to hit the floor," he shouted.
CHAPTER IV
FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE
At the Lodge too an early breakfast was held, though it was five hours
later than the one at the camp. The whole party was down by nine-thirty
and was on the road within the hour. The morning was such a one as only
the Rockies can produce. The wine of it ran through the blood warm and
stimulating. A blue sky flecked with light mackerel clouds stretched
from the fine edge of the mountains to the ragged line of hills that cut
off the view on the other side.
The horses were keen for the road and the pace was brisk. It was not
until half the distance had been covered that Joyce, who was riding
beside the captain, found opportunity for conversation.
"You sat up late, didn't you?"
"Early," the soldier laughed.
"How did the savage behave himself?"
"He went the distance well. We all contributed to the neat little roll
he carried away." Kilmeny smiled as he spoke. He was thinking of
Verinder, who had made a set against the miner and had tried to drive
him out by the size of his raises. The result had been unfortunate for
the millionaire.
"He has a good deal of assurance, hasn't he?" she asked lightly.
The captain hesitated. "Do you think that's quite the word? He fitted in
easily--wasn't shy or awkward--that sort of thing, you know--but he
wasn't obtrusive at all. Farquhar likes him."
"He's rather interesting," Joyce admitted.
She thought of him as a handsome untamed young barbarian, but it was
impossible for her to deny a certain amount of regard for any virile man
who admired her. The Westerner had not let his eyes rest often upon her,
but the subtle instinct of her sex had told her that he was very much
taken with her. Since Joyce Seldon was the center and circumference
about which most of her thoughts revolved, it followed that the young
man had chosen the sure way to her favor.
Moya Dwight too found that the young fisherman flitted in and out of her
mind a good deal. He had told her, with that sardonic smile, that he was
a workingman. Indeed, there had been something almost defiant in the way
he had said it, as if he would not for a moment accept their hospitality
on false pretenses. But, surely, he was worlds apart from any laborer
she had ever seen. Last evening he had been as much at his ease as Lord
Farquhar himself. A little uncertainty about the use of the spoons and
forks had not disturbed him at all. In spite of the soft vocal elisions
of the West, his speech had a dignity that suggested breeding. It was
quite likely he was not a gentleman, according to the code in which she
had been brought up, but it was equally sure there burned in him that
dynamic spark of self-respect which is at the base of all good manners.
The little town of Gunnison rioted with life. Born and brought up as she
had been in the iron caste of modern super-civilization, Moya found the
barbaric color of the occasion very appealing. As she looked down on the
arena from the box her party occupied, the heart of the girl throbbed
with the pure joy of it all. She loved this West, with its picturesque
chap-clad brown-faced riders. They were a hard-bitten lot, burned to a
brick red by the untempered sun of the Rockies. Cheerful sons of mirth
they were, carrying their years with a boyish exuberance that was
delightful.
Most of the competitors for the bucking broncho championship had been
eliminated before the arrival of the party from the Lodge. Among the
three who had reached the finals was their guest of the previous
evening.
"Jack Kilmeny will ride Teddy Roosevelt," blared the megaphone man.
The English officer turned to Farquhar. "Didn't quite catch the name.
Sounded like my own."
"That's what I thought," contributed his sister. A moment later, she
added: "Why, it's Mr. Crumbs."
That young man sauntered forward lazily, dragging his saddle by its
horn. He saddled the trembling animal warily, then swung lightly to the
seat. The broncho stood for an instant motionless, then humped itself
from the earth, an incarnate demon of action. As a pitcher, a weaver, a
sunfisher, this roan had no equal. Its ill-shaped nose and wicked red
eyes were enough to give one bad dreams. But the lean-flanked young
miner appeared clamped to the saddle. Lithe and sinuous as a panther, he
rode with a perfect ease that was captivating. Teddy tried all its
tricks. It went up into the air and came down with all four legs stiff
as iron posts. It shot forward in a series of quick sharp bucks. It
flung itself against the wall of the arena to crush the leg of this
rider who held the saddle with such perfect poise. But Jack Kilmeny was
equal to the occasion and more. When the brute went over backward, in a
somersault, he was out of the saddle and in again before the vicious
outlaw had staggered to its feet. Even the frontier West had never seen
a more daring and magnificent piece of horsemanship.
Captain Kilmeny clapped his hands enthusiastically. "Bravo! Well done!"
He turned to Moya, who sat beside him. "Finest bit of rough-riding I
ever saw. Not one man in a million could have done it."
"It's all in getting the hang of the thing, you know," drawled Verinder
complacently.
Moya, who was leaning forward with her dark eyes fixed on the two superb
animals fighting for mastery in the arena, thought both comments
characteristic. The captain was a sportsman and a gentleman, the
millionaire was neither.
India whispered in the ear of Moya. "He's as broadminded as a crab, just
about."
The reference was of course to Verinder. "I think we ought to be fair,
even to a crab, dear," Miss Dwight answered dryly.
The battle between the outlaw broncho and its rider was over. The
confidence of Teddy Roosevelt as well as its strength had been shaken.
The bucks of the pony were easy to foresee. Presently they ceased. The
horse stood with drooping head, foam dripping from its mouth, flanks
flecked with sweat stains.
Kilmeny swung from the saddle, and at the same time Colter stepped into
the arena. He drew Jack aside and whispered in his ear. India, watching
the rough-rider through field glasses, saw the face of the young man
grow grim and hard. Without the delay of a moment he pushed through the
crowd that gathered to congratulate him and walked out of the grounds
with Colter.
The other two riders who had reached the finals were both experts in the
saddle. One of them, however, had been traveling with a Wild West show
and was too soft to hold his own against the bit of incarnate deviltry
he was astride. To save himself he had to clutch at the horn of the
saddle.
"He's pulling leather," shouted one of the judges, and the man was waved
aside.
The third cowpuncher made a good showing, but his horse lacked the
energy and spirit of Teddy Roosevelt. The unanimous decision of the
judges was in favor of Kilmeny. But when they sought for him to award
the prize the new champion was nowhere to be found.
Moya Dwight felt with genuine disappointment that the man's courtesy had
failed. She and her friends had applauded his exploits liberally. The
least he could have done would have been to have made a short call at
their box. Instead, he had ignored them. She resolved to bear herself
more coldly if they met again.
The early shadows of sunset were stretching down the rough mountain
sides by the time the visitors from the Lodge reached the river cañon on
their homeward way. Soon after this the champion rider and his friend
Colter passed them on a stretch of narrow road cut in the steep wall of
the gulch. The leathery face of the latter took them in impassively as
he gave them a little nod of recognition, but the younger man reined in
for a few words. He accepted their congratulations with a quiet "Glad
you enjoyed it," but it was plain that he was in a hurry. In his eyes
there was a certain hard wariness that seemed hardly to fit the
occasion. Moya could not avoid the impression that he was anxious about
something. As soon as he well could he put spurs to his horse and
cantered after his companion.
"I don't like your savage as well as I thought I was going to. If he
can't be pleasanter than that you may keep him yourself, Moya," Joyce
announced with a smile.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later that the sound of hard riding
reached them from the rear. Five dusty, hard-bitten men, all armed with
rifles and revolvers, drew level with them. The leader threw a crisp
question at Lord Farquhar.
"Two riders pass you lately?"
"Yes."
"One on a big sorrel and the other on a roan with white stockings on the
front feet?"
"Yes."
"Say anything?"
"The younger one stopped for a few words. He is a Mr. Crumbs, camped on
the river just below us."
The lank man with the rifle across his saddle bow laughed grimly. "Yes,
he is--not. His name is Kilmeny--Jack Kilmeny. I'm the sheriff of
Gunnison County--and I want him bad."
"Did you say Kilmeny?" asked the captain sharply.
"That's what I said--the man that won the broncho busting contest
to-day."
To Moya, looking around upon the little group of armed men, there was a
menacing tenseness in their manner. Her mind was groping for an
explanation, but she understood this much--that the law was reaching out
for the devil-may-care youth who had so interested her.
"What do you want with him? What has he done?" she cried quickly.
"He and his friend held up the gatekeeper of the fair association and
got away with three thousand dollars."
"Held up! Do you mean robbed?"
"That's what I mean--vamoosed with the whole proceeds of the show. How
long since they passed?"
"Between a quarter and half an hour," answered Farquhar.
The sheriff nodded. "All ready, boys."
The clattering hoofs disappeared in a cloud of dust down the road.
The rough places of life had been padded for all these young women.
Never before had they come so close to its raw, ugly seams. The shadow
of the law, the sacredness of caste, had always guarded them.
India turned upon her brother big dilated eyes. "He said Kilmeny. Who
can the man be?"
"I don't know." He was silent a moment in frowning thought, struck by an
unwelcome idea. "You remember Uncle Archie. He had a son named Jack who
lives somewhere in Colorado. D'ye remember he came home when you were a
little kiddie? Stopped at granddad's."
The girl nodded. "He fought you once, didn't he?"
The captain nodded. The doubt began to grow into certainty. "Thought I
had seen his face before. He's our cousin Jack. That's who he is."
"And now he's a highwayman. By Jove, he doesn't look it," contributed
Farquhar.
"I don't believe it. Such nonsense!" flamed Moya.
"Fancy! A real live highwayman to supper with us," Joyce reminded them
with sparkling eyes.
"I'm sure he isn't. There must be a mistake."
"He was troubled about something, Moya," Lord Farquhar suggested. "He
and his friend were riding fast and plainly in a hurry."
"Didn't he stop to talk?"
"He had to do that to avoid suspicion. I could see his mind wasn't on
what he was saying. The man was anxious."
"I thought you liked him," Moya charged scornfully.
Her guardian smiled. "I did, but that isn't evidence that will acquit
him in court of being a road agent."
"He's India's cousin--maybe. How could he be a criminal? Shall we have
to cut her and Captain Kilmeny now?" Miss Dwight demanded hotly.
The captain laughed, but there was no mirth in his laughter. "You're a
stanch friend, Miss Dwight. By Jove, I hope you're right about him."
Deep in her heart Moya was not at all sure. What did she know of him?
And why should she care what he was? The man was a stranger to her.
Forty-eight hours ago she had never seen him. Why was it that every good
looking vagabond with a dash of the devil in him drew on her sympathies?
She recalled now that he had hesitated when she had mentioned his name,
no doubt making up his mind to let her think him other than he was. The
sheriff must know what he was talking about when he said the man was an
outlaw. But the appearance of him pleaded potently. Surely those clear
unflinching eyes were not the homes of villainy. Nor could she find it
possible to think his gallant grace of bearing the possession of a
miscreant.
Before the day was out her faith in him had sunk to zero. Captain
Kilmeny returned from the camp of the miners with the news that it was
deserted except for two of the deputies who had stayed to guard it
against the possible return of the robbers. He brought with him the
detailed story of the hold-up.
Two masked men on horseback had robbed the treasurer of the Gunnison
County Fair association as he was driving to the bank to deposit the
receipts of the day. The men had not been recognized, but the
description of the horses corresponded closely to those ridden by
Kilmeny and Colter. It was recalled that these two men had disappeared
as soon as the bucking broncho contest was over, not half an hour before
the robbery. This would allow them just time to return to the corral on
the outskirts of the town, where they had left their mounts, and to
saddle so as to meet the treasurer on his way to the bank. It happened
that the corral was deserted at the time, the boy in charge having left
to see the finals of the contest. Cumulative evidence of guilt lay in
the disappearance from the fishing camp not only of the two men
suspected, but also of their companions, Curly and Mosby.
"Think he really did it, Ned?" India asked her brother.
"Can't say, sis. Looks like it," he answered gloomily.
Of the party at the Lodge only one member was pleased at the turn events
had taken. Verinder's manner was as openly triumphant as he dared allow
it to become. It cried offensively, "I told you so!"
CHAPTER V
"I'M HERE, NEIGHBOR"
Moya still rode afternoons with her friends, fished occasionally, and
took her regular hand at bridge. But it was unaccountably true that her
zest in these amusements was gone. She could give no satisfactory reason
for it, but she felt as if something had passed out of her life forever.
It was as if the bubbling youth in her were quenched. The outstanding
note of her had been the eagerness with which she had run out to meet
new experiences. Now she found herself shrinking from them. Whenever she
could the girl was glad to slip away by herself. To the charge that she
was in love with this young vagabond she would have given a prompt
denial. Nevertheless, Lady Farquhar recognized the symptoms as
dangerous.
On the fifth day after the Gunnison trip the young people at the Lodge
made a party to fish Sunbeam Creek. They followed the stream far into
the hills, riding along the trail which bordered it. Kilmeny and
Verinder carried lunch baskets, for they were to make a day of it and
return only in time for a late dinner.
Moya made her brave pretense of gayety. With alacrity she responded to
Verinder's challenge of a bet on the relative sizes of their catches.
But as soon as the rest were out of sight she sat down in a shady spot
and fell to musing.
How long she sat there, a sun-dappled nymph upon whom gleams of light
filtered through the leaves of the aspens, she had not the least idea.
The voice of a grizzled rider startled her from her dreams. Her lifted
eyes took in the grim look of the man, garnished with weapons ready to
his hands.
"Mornin', miss," he nodded amiably.
"Good-morning." And swift on the heels of it, "You are a deputy sheriff,
are you not?"
"Rung the bell, ma'am. You belong to the English outfit, I reckon."
She smiled. "I suppose so, though I don't know what an outfit is."
"I mean to Lord What's-his-name's party."
"Yes, I think I do. I'm rather sure of it."
"Funny about some members of your crowd having the same name as the man
we're looking for."
"Mr. Kilmeny, you mean?"
"Jack Kilmeny! Yes, ma'am."
"He introduced himself to us, but I don't think the name he went by was
Kilmeny. I was told it was Crumbs."
"That's just a joke. His friends call him that because his people are
'way up in G. Fine bred--crumbs. Get the idea?"
"I think so."
"Came from the old country, his father did--son of some big gun over
there. Likely he's some kin to your friends."
He put the last observation as a question, with a sharp glance from
under his heavy gray eyebrows. Moya chose to regard it as a statement.
"Are you still searching for him?" she asked.
"You bet we are. The sheriff's got a notion he's up in these hills
somewheres. A man answering his description was seen by some rancher.
But if you ask _me_, I'd say he was busy losing himself 'way off in
Routt County, clear off the map. He used to punch cows up there and he
knows all kinds of holes to hide in. It don't stand to reason he'd still
be fooling around here. He's bridle-wise and saddle-broke--knows every
turn of the road."
"Yes," Moya assented listlessly.
"He had his getaway all planned before ever he came down here. That's a
cinch. The fishing was all a bluff. The four of them had the hold-up
arranged weeks ago. They've gone into a hole and drawn it in after
them."
"Don't you think there's a chance he didn't do it?" she asked in a
forlorn way.
"Not a chance. Jack Kilmeny and Colter pulled off the play. What the
others had to do with it I don't know."
The deputy passed to the fishing in his conversation, hoped she would
have luck, stroked his white goatee, and presently departed.
The man had scarcely disappeared around a bend in the gulch before a
sound startled her. Moya turned quickly, to see a man drop down the face
of a large rock to the ground. Even before he turned she recognized that
pantherine grace and her heart lost a beat.
He came straight toward her, with the smile in his blue eyes that
claimed comradeship as a matter of course.
"You--here," she gasped.
"I'm here, neighbor. Where ought I to be--in Routt County losing
myself?"
Her little hand was lost in his big brown fist, her gaze locked in his.
"You heard him?"
"Couldn't help it. I was working down through that grove of pines to the
river when I saw him."
"He may come back." Her quick glance went up the gulch into which the
deputy had disappeared.
"I reckon not. Let's sit down and talk."
Her first thought had been of his danger, but she remembered something
else now. "No, I think not, Mr. Kilmeny."
The deep eyes that met his steadily had in them the rapier flash. He
smiled.
"Because I am a miscreant, I reckon," he drawled.
"You say it, not I."
"Now you're dodging, neighbor. You think it."
"If so, do I think more than the truth?"
A ripple of sardonic laughter stirred in him. "I see you have me
convicted and in the penitentiary already."
"Your actions convict you."
"So _you_ think. Isn't it just possible you don't understand them?"
There was the faintest hint of derision in his polite inquiry.
A light flashed in her dusky eyes, a shining hope newborn in her eager
heart. "Are you telling me that you are innocent?"
"You've been thinking me guilty, then," he countered swiftly.
"What else could I think?"
"You might have waited to hear the defense."
"If you had stayed to make one, but you ran away."
"How do you know I did?"
"You were gone when the officers reached your camp."
His smile was grim and his voice defiant. "There was a man up in the
hills I wanted to see in a hurry."
By the look in her eyes it was as if he had struck her. With fine
contempt her answer came. "Was there another man up there in the rocks
just now that you had to see until the deputy left?"
"Anyhow, there was a young woman down by the banks of Sunbeam I wanted
to see after he was gone," the fugitive claimed boldly.
A faint angry flush glowed delicately beneath the olive of her cheeks.
"Evasions--nothing but evasions."
She turned away, sick at heart. He had treated with flippancy the chance
she had given him. Would an innocent man have done that?
Swift as an arrow his hand shot out, caught her shoulder, and held her
firmly. The eyes that lifted to his flamed with proud resentment.
"I'm not going to let you go like this. Don't think it."
"Sir."
"You'll do me justice first." His hand dropped from her shoulder, but
the masterful look of him stayed her steps. "You'll tell me what
evidence you've got against me."
Again an insurgent hope warmed her heart. Wild he might be, but surely
no criminal--if there was any truth in faces.
What she had heard against him she told. "The robbers were riding
horses like yours. You left the fair grounds early. You and your friend
were seen going into the corral where you had stabled the animals. This
was less than half an hour before the robbery. When you passed us on the
road you were anxious about something. You looked back two or three
times. Both you and Mr. Colter showed you were in a hurry. Then you ran
away before the sheriff reached your camp. Does an innocent man do
that?" She put her question as an accusation, but in the voice was a
little tremble that asked to be refuted.
"Sometimes he does. Now listen to me. The horses ridden by the robbers
were Colter's and mine. We certainly were worried about the time we met
you. And we did break camp in a hurry so as to miss the sheriff. Does
this prove me guilty?"
She brushed away the soft waves of dark hair that had fallen over her
forehead in little escaping tendrils. The fearless level eyes of the
outdoors West were looking straight at her.
"I don't know. Does it?"
"We'll say this evidence had piled up against Captain Kilmeny instead of
against me. Would you have believed him guilty?"
"No. He couldn't have done it."
"On the same evidence you would acquit him and condemn me. Is that
fair?"
"I have known him for years--his standards, his ways of thinking. All
his life he has schooled himself to run a straight course."
"Whereas I----" He waited, the sardonic frosty smile on his lean strong
face.
Moya knew that the flutter of her pulses was telling tales in the pink
of her cheeks. "I don't know you."
"I'm only a workingman, and an American at that--so it follows that I
must be a criminal," he answered with a touch of bitterness.
"No--no! But you're--different. There's something untamed about you. I
don't quite know how to put it--as if you had been brought up without
restraints, as if you didn't care much for law."
"Why should I? Law is a weapon to bolster up the rich and keep down the
poor," he flung back with an acid smile. "But there's law and law. Even
in our class we have our standards, such as they are."
"Now it's you that isn't fair," she told him quietly. "You know I meant
nothing like that. The point is that I don't know what your standards
are. Law doesn't mean so much to people here. Your blood runs freer,
less evenly than ours. You don't let the conventions hamper you."
"The convention of honesty, for instance. Thanks, Miss Dwight."
"I didn't want to believe it, but----"
The penitence in her vivid face pleaded for her. He could not refuse the
outstretched hand of this slender lance-straight girl whose sweet
vitality was at once so delicate and so gallant. Reluctantly his palm
met hers.
"You're quite sure now that I didn't do it?"
"Quite sure."
"Even though I've been brought up badly?"
"Oh, I didn't say badly--really. You know I didn't."
"And though I'm wild and lawless?"
"Aren't you?" she flashed back with a smile that took from the words any
sting they might otherwise have had.
Mirth overflowed in his eyes, from which now many little creases
radiated. "You're a good one, neighbor. But, since you will have it, I
am. I reckon my standards even of honesty wouldn't square with yours. I
live in a rough mining camp where questions have two sides. It's up to
me to play the game the way the other fellow plays it. But we'll not go
into that now."
Strong, clear-eyed and masterful, she knew him a man among ten thousand.
He might be capable of great sin, but what he did would be done with his
eyes wide open and not from innate weakness. Her heart sang jubilantly.
How could she ever have dreamed this crime of him? Her trust was now a
thing above any evidence.
"And you'll sit down with me now if I ask you, neighbor," he laughed.
She did not wait to be asked, but sat down, tailor fashion, and looked
expectantly up with a humorous little twist of the eyebrows. Flakes of
dappled sunlight played on her through the moving leaves and accented
the youthful bloom of her.
With a sigh of content he stretched himself on the sun-warmed loam. His
glance swept up the gulch, a sword cleft in the hills, passed over the
grove of young pines through which he had recently descended, and came
back to the slim Irish girl sitting erectly on the turf.
"It's sometimes a mighty good world, neighbor," he said.
"I'm thinking that myself," she admitted, laughter welling softly out of
her.
The sun lit the tips of the pines, so that they looked like burnished
lances in battle array, poured its beams over the scarred hillside, and
bathed the little valley in effulgent glory.
"You can always find it somewhere," he said with deep content, leaning
on an elbow indolently.
She asked for no antecedent to his pronoun. What he meant was not
ambiguous to her.
"If one knows where to look for it," she added softly.
"That's the trouble. We get so busy with our little everyday troubles
that we forget to look. But the joy of life is always there if we'll
forget our grouch and see it."
"Yes--if having eyes we see."
"I'm comforted a heap to know that you believe in me--even if I'm not
Captain Kilmeny," he assured her with his slow rippling laugh.
Had he been looking at her he would have seen the telltale color tide
her cheeks. "If that is a comfort you are welcome to it. I might have
known the idea of connecting you with such a thing was folly."
He glanced whimsically at her. "Don't be too sure of me, neighbor. I'm
likely to disappoint you. What one person thinks is right another knows
is wrong. You'd have to make a heap of allowances for me if I were your
friend."
"Isn't that what friendship is for--to make allowances?"
"You've found that out already, have you?"
The long-lashed lids fell to her cheeks in self-defense. Not for worlds
would she have had him guess the swift message ready to leap out toward
him. He seemed to be drawing her soul to his unconsciously. Tingling in
every nerve, athrob with an emotion new and inexplicable, she drew a
long slow breath and turned her head away. A hot shame ran like
quicksilver through her veins. She whipped herself with her own scorn.
Was she the kind of girl that gave her love to a man who did not want
it?
His next words brought to her the shock she needed, the effect of a
plunge into icy water on a warm day.
"What about your friends--what about Miss Seldon--did she believe me
guilty too?" He could not quite keep the self-consciousness out of his
voice.
"Hadn't you better ask her that?" she suggested.
In spite of his interest in their talk, Kilmeny's alert eyes had swept
again and again the trail leading up the gulch. He did not intend to be
caught napping by the officers. Now he rose and offered her a hand up.
"Your friends are coming."
Swiftly Moya came to earth from her emotions. In another moment she was
standing beside the fugitive, her gaze on the advancing group. Captain
Kilmeny was in the lead and was the first to recognize her companion. If
he was surprised, his voice failed to show it.
"No, no, Verinder. I had him hooked all right," he was saying. "Dashed
poor generalship lost him. He went into the rushes like a shot. I
persuaded him out--had him in the open water. Looked to me like a two to
one shot, hang it. Mr. Trout develops a bad break to the off and heads
under a big log. Instead of moving down the bank I'm ass enough to reel
from where I hooked him. Leader snaps, and Mr. Trout has the laugh on
me."
To the sound of that high cheerful voice Moya roused at once. The rapt
expression died from her face.
"How many?" called India, holding up her string.
"I haven't been fishing," Moya answered; then gave herself away. "It
surely isn't time for luncheon already."
She took a step toward her friends, so that for the first time Jack
Kilmeny stood plainly revealed. India's pretty piquant face set to a
red-lipped soundless whistle. Joyce stared in frank amusement. Verinder,
rutted in caste and respectability as only a social climber dubious of
his position can be, ejaculated a "God bless my soul!" and collapsed
beyond further articulation. Captain Kilmeny nodded to the Westerner
without embarrassment.
"Mornin', Mr. Crumbs."
"Good-morning. But you have the name wrong, sir."
"Beg pardon." The captain's eyebrows lifted in inquiry.
"Kilmeny," the American corrected.
Nonchalantly the captain came to time. "Same name as ours. Wonder if by
any chance we're of the same family. Happen to be any relation of
Archibald Kilmeny, who died in Colorado fifteen years ago?"
Jack looked at him quietly. "A son."
"Makes us cousins. He was my father's brother."
The Westerner nodded coolly, not in the least impressed. "Yes."
It would have been easy to read hostility in his bearing, but India
sailed past her brother with hand extended. "Glad to meet you, Cousin
Jack. 'Member me? Last time you saw me I was a squalling five-year-old."
The American warmed a trifle. "I remember you, all right. Never saw a
kid before so fond of currant jam."
"Still am. You've improved in your personal appearance. Last time I saw
your eye it had been beautifully blacked, kindness of Ned."
"Fortune of war. My lip was swollen for a week," her brother laughed as
he extended his hand.
"Ned got caned for fighting with a guest. Served him jolly well right,"
Miss Kilmeny said.
Joyce sailed forward into the picture gracefully. Her radiant beauty
took the Westerner's breath.
"You'll stay with us for luncheon," she said with soft animation. "For,
of course, this is an occasion. Long-lost cousins do not meet every
day."
Verinder, making speechless sounds of protest at this indiscretion, grew
very red in the face. Would he have to sit down to eat with a criminal
at large?
Jack hesitated scarcely a second. He could not take his gaze from this
superb young creature, whose every motion charmed, whose deep eyes
glowed with such a divine warmth of molten gold.
"Thanks awf'lly, but I really can't stay."
He bowed to one and another, turned upon Joyce that look of dumb worship
she had seen on the faces of many men, and swung off into the pines, as
elastic-heeled, confident, and competent a youth as any of them had seen
in many a day.
India's eyes danced. She was Irish enough to enjoy a situation so
unusual. "Snubbed, Joyce, by a highwayman," she laughed.
But Joyce merely smiled. She knew what she knew.
"If you ask me, he's got the deuce of a cheek, you know," Verinder
fumed.
Miss Kilmeny pounced instantly upon him. "Referring to our cousin, Mr.
Verinder?" she demanded sweetly.
"But--er--you said yourself----"
"That was all in the family," she informed him promptly.
Joyce came to the assistance of Verinder with one confidential glance of
her incredibly deep eyes of velvet. "Of course he's cheeky. How could he
be India's cousin and not be that?" she asked with a rippling little
laugh. "Come and help me spread the tablecloth, Mr. Verinder."
Deeply grateful, the millionaire flew to assist.
CHAPTER VI
LORD FARQUHAR GIVES MOYA A HINT
Verinder's man, Biggs, who had been a fascinated spectator of the Wild
West sports at Gunnison, was describing them to Fisher, maid to Lady
Farquhar and general buttoner-up-the-back to the entire feminine
contingent of the party.
"What do you mean when you say a horse bucks?" she wanted to know.
"'E throws down 'is 'ead and 'e throws up 'is 'eels and you cawn't
remain," he explained, without entire originality.
"Fancy now!"
"Consequence is the rider lands himpromptu on _terra firma_, so to
hexpress it."
"Dear me. But doesn't it make him dusty, Mr. Biggs?"
"A bit."
"Couldn't Captain Kilmeny ride one of the bronchos?"
"I've 'eard that the captain is a crack rider, none better in the harmy,
Miss Fisher. 'E could ride the blawsted brute if it wouldn't 'ide its
bloomin' 'ead between its legs."
Moya, patrolling the willow walk in front of the Lodge, took this in
with a chuckle.
It was a still night, save only for the rushing waters of the river. The
lamps of the sky had all been lit and were gleaming coldly millions of
miles away. The shadowed moonlight in the trees offered a stage set to
lowered lights.
The thoughts of the girl had drifted to speculation about the
transplanted countryman of hers whose personality had come to interest
her so greatly. He had challenged her trust in him and she had responded
with a pledge. He had not explained a single one of the suspicious
circumstances against him. He had not taken her into his confidence, nor
had he in so many words declared his innocence. She was glad he had told
her nothing, had demanded her faith as a matter of course. It was part
of her pride in him that she could believe without evidence. All the
world would know he was not guilty after he had shown his proofs. It
would be no test of friendship to stand by him then.
A step sounded on the gravel behind her and an arm opened to let her
hand slip round the elbow.
"May I stroll out this dance with you, Miss Dwight?" Lord Farquhar asked
formally, dropping into step with her.
Moya and her guardian were kindred spirits. They never needed to
explain themselves to each other. Both knew how to make-believe.
"If you're not afraid of a scandal at being alone with me so far from a
chaperone," the girl answered lightly.
He burlesqued a sigh. "I'm only afraid there won't be any. It's the
penalty of age, my dear. I can claim all sorts of privileges without
making Verinder jealous."
"Oh, Verinder," she scoffed.
"Should I have said Kilmeny?" he asked.
"I'll tell you a secret, guardy," whispered Moya gayly. "You're a
hundred years younger than either of them."
"I wish my glass told me so."
"Fiddlesticks! Youth is in the heart. Mr. Verinder has never been young
and Captain Kilmeny has forgotten how to be."
"I fancy Ned would be willing to learn how again if he had the proper
teacher."
She gave his arm a little squeeze. "You dear old matchmaker."
"Heaven forbid! I'm merely inquiring, my dear."
"Oh, I see--your _in-loco-parentis_ duty."
"Exactly. So it isn't going to be Ned?"
She looked across the turbid moonlit river before she answered. "I don't
think so."
"Nor Verinder?"
"Goodness, no!" A little ripple of laughter flowed from her lips before
she added: "He's changed his mind. It's Joyce he wants now."
Farquhar selected a cigar from the case. "Hm! Sure you didn't change it
for him?"
A dimple flashed into her cheeks. "I may have helped a little, but not
half as much as Joyce."
"That young woman is a born flirt," Lord Farquhar announced, his beard
and the lower part of his face in the sudden glow of the lighted match.
"Upon my word, I saw her making eyes at your highwayman the night we had
him here."
There was a moment's silence before she answered. "Anybody could see
that he was interested in her."
"It doesn't matter to me who interests him, but I can't have any of my
wards being romantic over a Dick Turpin," he replied lightly.
She was standing in the shadow, so that he could not see the dye sweep
into her cheeks.
"I'm afraid he is going to disappoint you. He's not a highwayman at
all."
"Did he tell you so?"
"No. But I know it."
"Looks to me as if he might make a good one. The fellow is cool as a
cucumber and afraid of nothing on two legs or four."
"You forget he is India's cousin."
"No, I'm remembering that. His father had a devil of a temper and his
mother was as wild as an unbroken colt when I met her."
"They weren't thieves, were they?" she flashed.
He gave her his frank smile. "You like this young man, Moya?"
"Yes. Why shouldn't I?"
"Why not--if you don't like him too well?"
"So that's why you came out here--sent by Lady Farquhar to scold me--and
I thought you had come because you like to be with me."
"One reason doesn't preclude the other."
"I've known for several days she had it on her mind--ever since we saw
Mr. Kilmeny on Sunbeam Creek."
"Come; let us reason together," he invited cheerfully. "We'll sit on the
end of the wharf and dangle our legs while your guardian finishes his
cigar and does his duty by you."
They compromised on a wire-woven seat under a cottonwood. Across the
river two fishermen could be seen working down stream close to the
opposite shore. The two were Verinder and Captain Kilmeny, though at
that distance they were not recognizable.
Lord Farquhar seemed in no hurry to begin, nor did Moya attempt to
hasten him. His cigar glowed and ashed and glowed again before he spoke.
"Odd how things work out, my dear. There across the river are two men
who would like to marry you. Both are good matches. One is by way of
being a bit of a bounder perhaps, but the other is as fine a fellow as
any girl could look for--not brilliant, but no fool either, and as
steady as a clock."
A breath of wind lifted the edge of her white skirt. She followed the
woman's instinct to tuck it safely under her before making demure
answer. "Captain Kilmeny is his own certificate of merit. Any praise is
surplusage."
He shrugged. "That's the perversity of it. You see all his merits and
they don't touch you."
With a vivacious little turn that was wholly charming she turned merrily
upon him. "Are you by any chance proposing for him, Lord Farquhar?"
"Hasn't he proposed for himself?" her guardian asked bluntly.
"I believe he has."
"And you--didn't see it?"
"I couldn't."
"Sorry." He looked at the tip of his cigar and brushed away the ash.
"Because he's a no end good sort."
"You don't know that any better than I do. Don't think I can't see all
the advantages of it. I do. I want to say 'Yes,' but--well, I can't.
That's all."
"On account of the other man?" he questioned gently.
"I haven't mentioned any other man," she cried, her face in a flame.
"No, I mentioned him. Devilish impudent of me, if you want to take it
that way, Moya. But, then, as you've said, I'm _in loco_. Got to grub
around and find out how you feel."
"Lady Jim has been poking you up and telling you it's your duty," she
told him in derision.
"I daresay. I'm a lazy beggar. Always shirking when I can."
"Lady Jim isn't lazy."
"Di does her duty even when it isn't pleasant. Pity more of us don't."
"Meaning that it is my unpleasant duty to marry Mr. Verinder's money?"
"Hang Verinder and his money. I'm no end glad you can't stand him. Fact
is, we didn't quite know how bad he was when we asked him to join us."
"What then?"
"Well, sure your money isn't on the wrong horse, Moya? Mind, I don't say
it is. I ask."
"If you mean Mr. Kilmeny, there hasn't been a word between us you
couldn't have heard yourself," the girl told him stiffly.
"If my memory serves it didn't use to be so much a matter of words. What
about your feelings? Di fancies----"
"Of course she does. She's always fancying. That's the business of a
chaperone. It's perfectly absurd," Moya flung back hotly.
"Glad you see it that way. It wouldn't do, of course."
She looked directly at him, a challenge in her stormy eyes. "The whole
thing is ridiculous. The man hasn't given me a second thought. If you're
going to warn anyone, it ought to be Joyce."
Lord Farquhar looked straight at her. "Joyce has her eyes wide open. She
can look out for herself."
"And I can't?"
"No, you can't--not when your feelings are involved. You're too
impulsive, too generous."
"It's all a storm in a teacup. I've only met him three times to talk
with. He's been friendly--no more. But if he and I wanted to--not that
there's the ghost of a chance of it, but if we did--I don't see why it
wouldn't do."
"Any number of reasons why it wouldn't. Marriage nowadays isn't entirely
a matter of sentiment. You're an Englishwoman. He's an American, and
will be to the end of the chapter."
"I'm not English; I'm Irish--and the Irish make the best Americans," she
told him sturdily.
Farquhar ignored her protest. "His ways of thinking are foreign to
yours, so are his habits of life. You're a delightful rebel, my dear,
but you've got to come to heel in the end. All girls do. It's a rule of
the game, and you'll have to accept it. No matter how captivating your
highwayman may be--and upon my word I admire him tremendously--he is not
your kind. He makes his own laws, and yours are made for you."
"You're making one for me now, aren't you?" she demanded rebelliously.
"Let's not put it so strong as that. I'm trying to persuade you to
something of which you are fully persuaded already."
"I'm not--not in the least. It's absurd to talk about it because the man
hasn't the least idea of making love to me. But suppose he wanted to.
Why shouldn't I listen to him? You tell me he doesn't have the same
little conventions as we do. Thank heaven he hasn't. His mind is free.
If that condemns him----"
She broke off from sheer passionate inadequacy to express herself.
"Those conventions are a part of your life, little girl. Can you imagine
yourself sitting opposite him at breakfast for the rest of your natural
days?"
"You mean because he is a workingman, I suppose."
"If you like. You would miss all the things to which you were used. Love
in a cottage isn't practicable for young women brought up as you have
been."
"Then I've been brought up wrong. If I were fond enough of the man--but
that's absurd. We're discussing an impossible case. I'll just say this,
though. I've never met a man who would be as little likely to bore one."
"Does his cousin bore you?"
"No. Captain Kilmeny is interesting in his way too, but----"
"Well?"
"His thoughts are all well regulated ones. He keeps to the proper beaten
track." She flung up a hand impatiently. "Oh, I know he's perfect. I've
never been allowed to forget that. He's too perfect. He would let me do
anything I wanted to do. I would want a husband--if I ever have one--who
would be strong enough to make me want to do whatever he said."
Farquhar smiled as he flung his cigar into the river. "That works out
better in theory than in practice, my dear. It's the little things that
count in married life. What we need is a love well under control and
friction eliminated."
"That's not what I want. Give me my great moments, even if I have to pay
for them."
He understood perfectly her eager desire for the best life has to offer.
What he was proposing for her was a tame second best. But it was safe,
and the first rule of the modern marriage mart is to play the game safe.
Yet he had a boyish errant impulse to tell her to cut loose and win
happiness if she could. What restrained him, in addition to what he
owed Lady Jim in the matter, was his doubt as to this young man's
character.
"There would be another thing to consider. Kilmeny is under a cloud--a
pretty serious one. All the evidence connects him with this robbery.
Grant that you believe him innocent. Still, a nice girl can't let her
name be connected with that of a man suspected of a crime."
"I'm sure he isn't guilty. I don't care what the evidence is."
"'Fraid that's sentiment. It has a bad look for him."
"Do we desert our friends when things have a bad look for them?"
"Hm! Friends!"
"I used that word," she told him stanchly.
"But you've only talked with the man three times," he answered with a
gleam of friendly malice in his eyes.
"I've talked with Mr. Verinder forty times and I'm less his friend after
each talk," she returned with energy.
"Well, I daresay I've exaggerated the whole matter, my dear. I was just
to give you a hint--no more."
"You've done it, then."
"Strikes me that I've done my duty in the matter."
"You have--admirably," she scoffed.
"It's up to Di now--if you should take a fancy for entertaining your
highwayman again while you're fishing."
"It's not likely that I'll ever see him again."
"I daresay not." He rose and looked across the rushing water. "There's
just one thing I stick out for. Regardless of your interest in him--no
matter what might happen--you wouldn't let things get on another footing
until he has proved his innocence--absolutely and beyond question."
"Isn't that rather an unnecessary condition? I'm not in the habit of
throwing myself at the heads of strangers who are merely casually polite
to me."
He took in her sweet supple slimness, the fine throat line beneath the
piquant lifted chin which mocked his caution, the little imps of
raillery that flashed from the dark live eyes. In spite of a passionate
craving for the adventure of life she had a good deal of reticence and
an abundant self-respect. He felt that he had said more than enough
already.
"Quite right, my dear. I withdraw my condition."
"It's one I would insist upon myself--if there were any likelihood of
any need of it--which there isn't."
An easy-going man, he did not cross bridges till he came to them. His
wife had persuaded him that Moya needed a talking to, but he was glad
to be through with it.
"Hang the scamp, anyhow!" he laughed. "Maybe he'll break his neck on one
of those outlaw bronchos he's so fond of riding. Maybe they'll put him
safely away in prison, where there is neither marrying nor giving in
marriage. Maybe, as you say, he'll have the bad taste to prefer Joyce to
my little Irish wild rose, in which case he'll be put in his place at
the proper time."
"It's even possible," she added with a murmur of half-embarrassed
laughter, "that if he honored one with an offer--which it has never
entered his head to do--one might regretfully decline with thanks."
"Amen! In the meantime God lead your grace by the hand, as old Bacon
says." He brought his heels together, bowed over her fingers, and kissed
them with exaggerated old-fashioned gallantry.
"Who's being romantic now?" she wanted to know gayly.
CHAPTER VII
MOYA'S HIGHWAYMAN
Dinner at the Lodge was just finished. It was the one hour of the day
when anything like formality obtained. Each one dropped into breakfast
when he or she pleased. Luncheon rarely found them together. But Lady
Jim insisted that dinner should be a civilized function. Unless there
was to be night fishing the whole party usually adjourned from the
dining-room to the river-front porch, where such members of it as
desired might smoke the postprandial cigar or cigarette. To-night nobody
cared to get out rod and line. In an hour or so they would return to the
living-room for bridge.
Voices drifted up the trail and presently riders came into sight. They
halted among the trees, where one dismounted and came forward, his
trailing spurs jingling as he walked.
He bowed to his audience in general, and again and more particularly to
Lady Farquhar.
"Evening, ma'am. My name's Gill--sheriff of this county. I hate to
trouble you, but my men haven't had a bite to eat since early this
mo'ning. Think we could get a snack here? We'll not get to Gunnison till
most eleven."
Lady Farquhar rose. "I'll have the cook make something for you. How
many?"
"Six. Much obliged. Just anything that's handy."
Sheriff Gill beckoned to the men in the trees, who tied their horses and
presently came forward. All but one of them were heavily armed. That one
walked between a 30-30 and a 32 special carbine. It was observable that
the men with the rifles did not lift their eyes from him.
Moya felt her heart flutter like that of a caged bird. The blood ebbed
from her lips and she swayed in her seat. The prisoner was Jack Kilmeny.
Farquhar, sitting beside the girl, let his hand fall upon hers with a
comforting little pressure.
"Steady!" his voice murmured so that she alone heard.
Yet his own pulse stirred with the sheer melodrama of the scene. For as
the man came forward it chanced that the luminous moonbeams haloed like
a spotlight the blond head and splendid shoulders of the prisoner. Never
in his gusty lifetime had he looked more the vagabond enthroned. He was
coatless, and the strong muscles sloped beautifully from the brown
throat. A sardonic smile was on the devil-may-care face, and those who
saw that smile labeled it impudent, debonair, or whimsical, as fancy
pleased.
"By Jove, the fellow's a natural-born aristocrat," thought Farquhar, the
most democratic of men.
Jack Kilmeny nodded with cool equality toward Farquhar and the captain,
ignored Verinder, and smiled genially at India. For Moya his look had a
special meaning. It charged her with the duty of faith in him. Somehow
too it poured courage into her sinking heart.
"Afraid an engagement at Gunnison with Sheriff Gill won't let me stop
for any poker to-night," he told his host.
Farquhar was on the spot to meet him in the same spirit. "Verinder will
be glad of that. I fancy my pocketbook too will be fatter to-morrow
morning."
Biggs appeared to take the newly arrived party in charge. As they
started to follow him the prisoner came face to face with Joyce, who was
just coming out of the house. She looked at the young miner and at the
rifles, and her eyes dilated. Under the lowered lights of evening she
seemed to swim in a tide of beauty rich and mellow. The young man caught
his breath at the sheer pagan loveliness of her.
"What is it?" she asked in a low, sweet, tremulous voice.
His assurance fled. The bravado was sponged from his face instantly. He
stared at her in silence from fascinated eyes until he moved forward at
the spur of an insistent arm at his elbow.
India wondered how Lady Jim would dispose of the party. Jack Kilmeny
might be a criminal, but he happened to be their cousin. It would hardly
do to send him to the servants' quarters to eat. And where he ate the
sheriff and his posse would likewise have to dine.
The young woman need not have concerned herself. Lady Farquhar knew
enough of the West and its ways not to make a mistake. Such food as
could be prepared at short notice was served in the dining-room.
Having washed the dust of travel from himself, the sheriff returned to
the porch to apologize once more for having made so much trouble.
Farquhar diverted him from his regrets by asking him how they had made
the capture.
"I ain't claiming much credit for getting him," Gill admitted. "This
here was the way of it. A kid had been lost from Lander's ranch--strayed
away in the hills, y'understand. She was gone for forty-eight hours, and
everybody in the district was on the hunt for her. Up there the
mountains are full of pockets. Looked like they weren't going to git
her. Soon it would be too late, even if they did find her. Besides,
there are a heap of mountain lions up in that country. I tell you her
folks were plumb worried."
Moya, listening to every word as she leaned forward, spoke vividly. "And
Mr. Kilmeny found her."
The sheriff's surprised eyes turned to her. "That's right, ma'am. He
did. I dunno how you guessed it, but you've rung the bell. He found her
and brought her down to the ranch. It just happened we had drapped in
there ten minutes before. So we gathered him in handy as the pocket in
your shirt. Before he could move we had the crawl on him."
The sheriff retired to the dining-room, whence came presently snatches
of cheerful talk between the prisoner and his captors. In their company
Jack Kilmeny was frankly a Western frontiersman.
"You passed close to me Wednesday night at the fork of Rainbow above the
J K ranch. I was lying on a ledge close to the trail. You discussed
whether to try Deer Creek or follow Rainbow to its headwaters," the
miner said.
"That was sure one on us. Hadn't been for the kid, I don't reckon we
ever would have took you," a deputy confessed.
"What beats me is why you weren't a hundred miles away in Routt County
over in yore old stamping ground," another submitted.
"I had my reasons. I wasn't looking to be caught anyhow. Now you've got
me you want to watch me close," the prisoner advised.
"We're watching you. Don't make any mistake about that and try any fool
break," Gill answered, quite undisturbed.
"He's the coolest hand I ever heard," Farquhar said to the party on the
porch. "If I were a highwayman I'd like to have him for a partner."
"He's not a highwayman, I tell you," corrected Moya.
"I hope he isn't, but I'm afraid he is," India confided in a whisper.
"For whatever else he is, Jack Kilmeny is a man."
"Very much so," the captain nodded, between troubled puffs of his pipe.
"And I'm going to stand by him," announced his sister with a determined
toss of her pretty head.
Moya slipped an arm quickly around her waist. She was more grateful for
this support than she could say. It meant that India at least had
definitely accepted the American as a relative with the obligation that
implied. Both girls waited for Ned Kilmeny to declare himself, for,
after all, he was the head of the family. He smoked in silence for a
minute, considering the facts in his stolid deliberate fashion.
The excitement of the girl he loved showed itself in the dusky eyes
sparkling beneath the soft mass of blue-black hair, in the glow of
underlying blood that swept into her cheeks. She hoped--oh, how she
hoped!--that the officer would stand by his cousin. In her heart she
knew that if he did not--no matter how right his choice might be in
principle--she never would like him so well again. He was a man who
carried in his face and in his bearing the note of fineness, of personal
distinction, but if he were to prove a formalist at heart, if he were
going to stickle for an assurance of his kinsman's innocence before he
came to the prisoner's aid, Moya would have no further use for him.
When the sheriff presently came out Captain Kilmeny asked him if he
might have a word with the prisoner.
"Sure. Anything you want to say to him."
The English officer drew his cousin aside and with some embarrassment
tendered to his cousin the use of his purse in the event it might be
needed for the defense.
Jack looked at him steadily with hard unflinching eyes. "Why are you
offering this, captain?"
"I don't quite take you."
"I mean, what's your reason? Don't like it to get out that you have a
cousin in the pen, is that it? Anxious to avoid a family scandal?" he
asked, almost with a sneer.
The captain flushed, but before he could answer India flamed out. "You
might have the decency to be ashamed of that, Jack Kilmeny."
Her cousin looked at the girl gravely, then back at her lean,
clean-faced brother. "I am. Beg your pardon, captain. As for your offer,
I would accept it if there were any need. But there isn't. The charges
against me will fall flat."
"Deuced glad to hear it. Miss Dwight has just been telling us it would
be all right."
India looked straight at Jack out of the steel-blue eyes that were so
like his own. "I wasn't so sure of it myself, but Moya was. Nothing
could shake her. She's a good friend."
"I had it sized up about that way," the miner replied. "But I've a
notion Miss Kilmeny will stand the acid too. Anyhow, I'm much obliged to
her."
The prisoner shook hands with both of his cousins, lifted a
broad-brimmed gray felt hat from the rack, and delivered himself to the
sheriff.
"All right, Gill."
India gave a little exclamation and moved toward the hatrack. Her hand
fell upon a second hat, similar in appearance to the first, but much
more worn and dust-stained. She opened her lips to speak and closed them
without saying a word. For her eyes had met those of Moya and read there
a warning.
Jack Kilmeny nodded a brisk farewell to Farquhar, smiled at Miss Dwight,
and moved with his guards to the clump of trees where the horses had
been left. His eyes had looked for Joyce, but she was not at that moment
in sight.
The last faint beat of the retreating hoofs died away. An awkward
constraint settled upon the party left at the Lodge. It was impossible
to discuss the situation openly, yet it was embarrassing to ignore the
subject in the thoughts of all. After a decent interval they began to
drop away, one by one, from the group. India followed Moya, and found
that young woman in her room.
"What are you hiding?" Miss Kilmeny asked quickly.
Moya produced from her hatbox a gray sombrero and put it on the table.
"I didn't know it was you--thought it might be Lady Jim," she explained.
"Why wasn't I to tell Jack Kilmeny that he had taken Ned's hat by
mistake?" India wanted to know.
"Because it wasn't by mistake."
"Not by mistake! What would he want with another man's hat?"
"I'm not sure about that. Perhaps he _didn't want his own_. You see, I
had started myself to tell him about the mistake, but his eyes asked me
plain as words not to speak."
"But why--why?" India frowned at the hat, her active brain busy. "It
would be absurd for him to want Ned's hat. He must have had some reason,
though."
"Don't they search prisoners before they lock them up?" Moya asked
abruptly.
India shook her head. "I don't know. Do they?"
"Of course they do." Moya's eyes began to shine. "Now suppose there is
something about that hat he didn't want them to see."
"How do you mean?" India picked up the hat and turned it round slowly.
"It's worn and a bit disreputable, but he wouldn't care for that."
Moya found a pair of scissors in her work basket. With these she ripped
off the outer ribbon. This told her nothing. Next she examined the
inside. Under the sweat pad was a folded slip of paper. She waved it in
excitement.
"What did I tell you?"
"But--if he is innocent--what could there be he wanted to hide?"
"I don't know." Moya unfolded the paper enough to see that there was
writing in it. "Do you think we ought to read this?"
"I don't know," India repeated in her turn. "Perhaps it may be a message
to you."
Moya's face lighted. "Of course that's it. He wanted to tell us
something when the rest were not there, so he used this method."
Three cramped lines were penciled on the torn fragment of paper.
At wharf above camp.
Twelve steps below big rock.
In gunny sack three yards from shore.
Two pairs of puzzled eyes looked into each other.
"What can it mean?" India asked.
"I don't know, unless----"
"Unless what?"
"Can it be a direction for finding something?"
"But what? And why should it be hidden in his hat? Besides, he would
have no chance to put it in there after he was captured."
"Then perhaps it isn't a message to me at all."
"That's what we must find out. 'At wharf above camp.' That probably
means his fishing camp."
"What are you going to do, India?"
"I'm going to get Ned to help me find that gunny sack."
Moya found herself trembling. She did not know why. It was not doubt of
her reckless friend, but none the less she was in a panic.
"Do you think we'd better?"
Miss Kilmeny looked at her in surprise. In general nobody came to
decision more quickly than Moya.
"Of course. How else can we tell whether it is something he wants us to
do for him?"
"When shall we look?"
"The sooner the better--to-night," answered the other girl immediately.
"The wharf above the camp. It's not a quarter of an hour from here. I'll
not sleep till I know what he means."
"Lady Jim," Moya reminded her.
"She needn't know. She can't object if we take Ned and go fishing for an
hour."
Moya consulted her watch. "They'll be gathering for bridge pretty soon.
Let's go now. We can be back in time for supper."
"Get into your fishing togs. I'll get Ned and we'll meet you on the west
porch in a quarter of an hour."
Within the appointed time the three slipped away down the river bank
trail as silently as conspirators. The captain was rather inclined to
pooh-pooh the whole thing, but he was not at all sorry to share an
adventure that brought him into a closer relationship with Moya Dwight.
"Must be this wharf," India said presently, as a bulky shadow loomed out
of the darkness.
"Shouldn't wonder. Here's a big rock just below it. Didn't the paper say
something about a rock?" asked the captain.
"Twelve steps below big rock, it says."
The soldier paced off the distance. "What now?"
"Three yards from the shore," called his sister. "There should be a
gunny sack, whatever that is."
"Afraid he's spoofing us," Kilmeny said with a laugh as he moved out in
his waders against the current. "Here I am. What's the next direction?"
India giggled. She was Irish enough to get the humorous side of things
and could not help being frivolous even when she was greatly interested.
"Now you look over your left shoulder at the moon and wish."
Her brother's high voice cut in. "I say. My foot's kicking something.
Wait a jiff."
He braced his feet, dived suddenly down with one arm till his face
touched the water, and grappled with his fingers for a hold on something
lying between two rocks at the bottom. When he straightened again it was
with an effort. He did not attempt to raise his burden from the stream,
but waded ashore with it. Using both hands, he dragged his find to land.
"It's a sack," India cried excitedly.
The captain's eyes met those of Moya. His face was grave, but she was
white to the lips. Both of them felt sure of what they would find in the
sack.
"Open it," she told him tensely.
With his pocketknife Kilmeny cut the string that tied the sack. He drew
out a heavy valise so full that it gaped. Silver and gold coins, as well
as bills, filled it to the mouth. They had found the money stolen from
the treasurer of the Gunnison County Fair association.
All three of them were sick at heart. Jack Kilmeny then was guilty,
after all. The message in the hat had not been intended for them, but
had been merely a note of identification of the spot. He had taken the
captain's hat merely because he did not want the officers to find the
directions under the sweat pad. He had in essence lied to Moya and to
the cousins who had offered to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in
his trouble.
To Moya the next hour was a nightmare. They returned to the Lodge and
slipped into the house by way of a French window opening upon the
deserted north porch. Kilmeny hid the sack of treasure in his trunk and
divested himself of his fishing clothes. Presently he joined Moya and
his sister on the front porch, where shortly they were discovered by
Verinder in search of a fourth at bridge.
India, knowing how greatly her friend was shaken, volunteered to fill
the table and maneuvered Verinder back into the living-room with her.
The millionaire had vaguely the sense of a conspiracy against him and
resented it, even though of late he had been veering from Moya to Joyce
in his attentions.
Captain Kilmeny, left alone with the girl of his dreams, wisely said
nothing. He was himself indignant, his family pride stung to the quick.
His cousin was not only a thief but a liar. Born of a race of soldiers,
with the traditions of family and of the army back of him for
generations, the latter offense was the greater of the two. He
understood something of how Miss Dwight felt. She had let herself become
greatly interested in this vagabond cousin of his. Openly she had
championed his cause. Now her feelings were wounded, her pride hurt, and
her anger ablaze. The fellow's offense against her had been flagrant.
So far the captain had guessed correctly. Moya writhed like a bruised
woodland creature. Her friendship had been abused. She had been as
credulous as a simple country wench, while he no doubt had been laughing
up his sleeve at her all the time. No longer had she any doubt as to his
guilt. She visualized the hurried run for safety to camp, the swift
disposal of the treasure in the river because of the close pursuit. When
she lived over again that scene on Sunbeam the girl flogged her soul
like a penitent. As one grinds defiantly on an ulcerated tooth, so she
crushed her pride and dragged it in the dust.
But the wound was deeper even than this. To give herself in friendship
impulsively was her temperament, though not many were judged worthy of
such giving. This blue-eyed scamp had won her as no man ever had before.
She had seen him through a glamour. Now his character stood stripped in
its meanness. Her sweet trust was crushed. In the reaction that was upon
her she craved rest and safety. No longer had she any confidence in her
own judgment. Against the advice of her friends she had been wayward and
headstrong, so sure that she knew best.
Kilmeny, sitting beside her in the deep shadows cast by the wild
cucumber vines, became aware that she was weeping silently. His heart
bled for her. He had known her always buoyant, gallant as Galahad,
vibrant of joy to the finger tips.
"I say, don't," he pleaded. It was impossible for him to voice
adequately his feelings. Greatly daring, he let an arm rest across the
shoulders that were being racked by suppressed _pianissimo_ sobs.
"You mustn't, you know. I can't stand it." And, again, "Please don't."
She gulped down the lump in her throat and turned upon him filmy eyes,
the lashes of which were tangled with tears. This fine strong soldier
represented the haven of rest toward which she was being driven. Had she
never met his American cousin she knew that she would probably have
accepted him in the end. The swift impulse swept her to anchor her craft
for life in a safe harbor. She had tried rebellion, and that had left
her spent and beaten. What she wanted now was safety, a rest from the
turmoil of emotion.
"Do you still ... want me?" she asked lifelessly.
He could not on the instant take her meaning. Then, "Want you!" he
cried in a low voice no words could have expressed fully. "Want you? Oh,
my dear!"
"You know I don't love you ... not in one way," she told him naïvely.
"Lady Jim says that will come. I don't know. Perhaps you won't want to
take the risk."
She could see the desire of her leap to his honest eyes. "By God, I'll
take my chance," he cried.
"You'll give me all the time I want--not push me too hard?"
"You shall set your own time."
Her dusky head was leaning wearily against the back of a wicker porch
chair. From sheer fatigue her eyes fluttered shut. Her lover could see
the round bird-like throat swell as she swallowed the lump that had
gathered. Pity for her and love of her rose in him like a flood. He
would have given anything to wrap her in his arms and fight away her
troubles. But he knew it would be months before he could win the right
to do this.
"Would you mind if ... if we didn't tell the others just yet?"
"It shall be as you say, Moya, dear."
She nodded languid thanks. "You're good. I ... I think I'll go to bed.
I'm so tired."
He kissed the tips of her fingers and she vanished round the corner of
the house.
Kilmeny sat down again and looked for long across the moonlit river.
His sweetheart had promised to marry him, but in how strange a fashion.
He was to be her husband some day, but he was not yet her lover by a
good deal. His imagination fitted another man to that rôle, and there
rose before him the strong brown face of his cousin with its mocking
eyes and devil-may-care smile.
His promised wife! He had despaired of winning her, and she had crept to
him as a hurt child does to its mother. There was no exultation in his
heart. Poor child! How sad and tired her eyes had been.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BAD PENNY AGAIN
Verinder strolled down to the river bank, where Joyce was fishing from
the shore in a tentative fashion.
"I say, Miss Seldon, aren't you breaking the Sabbath?" he asked from the
bank above, smiling down upon her with an attempt at archness.
She flashed at him over her shoulder a smile that had all the allure of
lovely youth. "I'm only bending it. I haven't caught a single fish."
"Bending it! Oh, I say, that's rather rippin', you know."
She nodded her golden head. "Thanks."
"Casting is a horrid bore. You should be a fisher of men," he told her
fatuously.
"If I could be sure I wouldn't catch one. But if I happened to, what
would I do with him?"
"Do with him! Why, it depends on who you catch. If he's undersize unhook
him gently and throw him back into the river. What!"
The gay smile, flashed sideways at him, was a challenge. "But it isn't
always so easy to unhook them, I'm told."
"Not if one doesn't want to."
"You're telling me that I'm a flirt, aren't you?" she said suspiciously.
"I can't tell you anything along that line you don't know already."
"I've a good mind to get angry," she flung back, laughing.
"Don't do that. If it would help I can tell you a lot of nice things I
think about you. My word, yes!"
Joyce shot one swift glance at him and saw that he was on the verge of
waxing sentimental. That would never do. It was on the cards that she
might have to marry Dobyans Verinder but she did not want him making
love to her.
"Please don't take the trouble. It's really a matter of no moment."
The young woman made another cast.
"To you."
"I was thinking about me."
"You usually are, aren't you?"
She looked up with surprised amusement. Resentment had made him bold.
This was the first spark of spirit she had shaken out of him and she had
made him the victim of many moods.
"But I don't blame you for thinking about the most interesting person
you know. I think about you a lot myself. You're really rippin', you
know."
Joyce groaned in spirit. He did that sort of thing as gracefully as a
bear danced. To create a diversion she whipped back her line for a cast
so that the flies snapped close to his ear.
"I say, be a bit careful," Verinder suggested.
"Oh, did I hook you?" she asked carelessly.
"I've been on your line for weeks."
"You'd better whisper it. Moya might hear," she advised roguishly.
Verinder flushed. The transfer of his attentions was still a sore
subject with him. He hoped it would be generally understood that he had
given up Miss Dwight of his own choice. He did not want it to get out
that he had been jilted.
"The whole world is welcome to hear it. I'd advertise it in the _Times_
if it would do any good."
"I believe you are impudent," laughed the beauty.
"I know I'm imprudent."
"Oh!" She carefully dropped her leader in the riffles. "There's no law
keeping you in this neighborhood, you know. Try India for a change."
"There's nothing to keep the trout on the line--except the hook."
Her smile told of lazy but amiable derision. "It's a great pity about
you."
"Awf'ly glad you feel so. Some poet chap said that pity is akin to
love."
"I think it would do you good to take a long walk, Mr. Verinder."
"With Miss Seldon?" he wanted to know cautiously.
"Alone," she told him severely. "It would be a rest."
"A rest for me--or for you?"
The dimples flashed into her soft cheeks again. "For both of us,
perhaps."
"Thanks. It's rather jolly here." He put his hands in his trousers
pockets and leaned against a tree.
"Hope you'll enjoy it. I'm going to find Moya." Miss Seldon reeled up,
put her rod against the tree, and sauntered off with the lissom grace
that was hers.
Verinder woke up. "Let me come too. On second thoughts I find I do need
a walk."
She looked back at him saucily over her shoulder. "You may come if you
won't talk until you're spoken to."
"Done, by Jove!"
They followed the trail a stone's throw in silence.
"Miss Dwight's always going off by herself. Seems to me she's a bit off
her feed," Verinder suggested.
Joyce was amused. For a man who wanted it understood that only one girl
in the world mattered to him he still appeared to take a good deal of
interest in Moya.
"Seems dreamy and--er--depressed. What!" he continued.
"Perhaps she is in love," Joyce let herself suggest wickedly.
"I've thought of that, but 'pon my word! I can't think of a man."
"Why not Mr. Verinder?"
His eyeglass ogled her to make sure he was not being made game of, but
the lovely face was very innocent.
"Can't be," he demurred with conventional denial.
"Captain Kilmeny, then."
"Hardly. I don't think he's quite her style of man."
"Perhaps with his cousin, the highwayman."
"Good heavens, no!"
She took on a look of horrified suspicion. "You don't think--surely it
couldn't be--Oh, I do hope it isn't Lord Farquhar."
He stared at her through his monocle with his mouth open, then
discovered that he had been sold as the laughter rippled into her face.
"Oh, I say! Jolly good one, that. Lord Farquhar, by Jove!" Yet his
laughter rang flat. It always made him angry to find that they were
"spoofing" him. He didn't like to be "got" in the beastly traps these
girls were always laying for him.
"There's Moya now--and there's a man with her," Joyce announced.
"By Gad, it's the highwayman!" Verinder gasped.
It was, though strictly speaking Jack Kilmeny was not yet with her,
since she was still unaware of his presence. Moya was sitting on a mossy
rock with a magazine in her hand, but she was not reading. By the look
of her she was daydreaming, perhaps of the man who was moving
noiselessly toward her over the bowlders.
Before she heard him he was close upon her. She looked around, and with
a little cry got to her feet and stared at him, her hand on her fast
beating heart.
Joyce waited to see no more.
"No business of ours," she announced to Verinder, and, without regard to
his curiosity or her own, turned heel and marshaled him from the field.
"You!" Moya cried.
Kilmeny bowed. "The bad penny turned up again, Miss Dwight."
Scorn of him flashed in her dark eyes. She stood straight and rigid, but
in spite of herself she breathed fast.
"You've forgotten your promise. You've lost faith again," he charged.
His impudence stirred contemptuous anger. "I know you now, sir," she
told him with fine contempt.
"And you promised to believe in me." He said it quietly, with just a
touch of bitterness in the reproach of his wistful voice.
The first hint of startled doubt came into her eyes. It was as if he had
breathed into a marble statue the pulse of life. He had known her vivid
as a thrush in song, a dainty creature of fire and dew. She stood now
poised as it were on the edge of hope.
"How could I believe when I found your guilt on you? What right have you
to ask it?"
"So you found the paper in the hat, did you?"
"Yes."
"Certain about my guilt this time, are you?"
He said it almost with a sneer, but nothing could crush the resurgent
glow in her heart. Against the perilous and emotional climax which was
growing on her she set her will in vain. Why was it that the mere
presence of this man called to her so potently and shook her confidence
in his guilt?
"We found the money," she explained, thinking to confound him.
"I guessed that. It was gone when I went to look for it this morning.
I've come for it now."
His assurance amazed her. "Come for it!" she repeated. "It isn't here."
"No, I didn't expect to find it in your purse. But it is at the Lodge."
"No."
"Where, then?"
"I shan't tell you. The money will be returned to those from whom it was
stolen."
He looked at her with hard, narrowed eyes. "It will be returned, will
it? When?"
"To-day. Within a few hours."
"Who is going to return it?"
Moya had it on the tip of her tongue to tell, but pulled up in time. "I
think we'll not go into that."
The American looked at his watch. The hands showed the hour to be 2:30.
If the money was to be returned that day someone must already be on the
way with it. He had seen his cousin, Captain Kilmeny, take the Gunnison
road in a trap not half an hour earlier.
"So the captain is taking it back to-day?" he mused aloud, wary eyes on
Moya's face.
A startled expression leaped to her countenance. She had told more than
she had intended. "I didn't say so."
"I say so."
Beneath his steady gaze her lashes fell. He nodded, sure that he had
guessed correctly.
"I intended to have a talk with you and straighten out some things," he
went on. "But I find I haven't time now. We'll postpone it till
to-morrow. I'll meet you here at ten o'clock in the morning."
"No," she told him.
The wave of hope had ebbed in her. Given the opportunity to explain the
evidence against him, he had cared more to find out what they were doing
with the stolen money. He had no time to save his good name.
"Ten in the morning. Remember. It's important. I want to see you alone.
If I'm not on time wait for me."
That was his last word. He bowed, turned away almost at a run, and was
lost in the small willows. Presently she heard the sound of a galloping
horse. A minute later she caught a glimpse of it disappearing up Red
Rock cañon. He was following the cutoff trail that led to Gunnison.
She wondered what was taking him away so abruptly. He had meant to stop,
then had changed his mind. He had told her calmly she must meet him here
to-morrow, and if he were late for the appointment she must wait. His
impudence was enough to stagger belief. She would show him about that.
If he wanted to see her he must come to the Lodge and face Lady Jim.
Even then she would not see him. Why should she, since he was what he
was?
Ah, but that was the crux of the whole matter! To look at him was to
feel that whatever his faults they were not despicable ones. He was
alive, so very much alive, and the look of him was that which an honest
man should have. Had he proved his innocence and been released? Or had
he broken prison, an alternative of which he was quite capable? And,
guilty or innocent, what could be the explanation of his extraordinary
demand that she should turn over to him the stolen money?
He had found her dumb and stricken with many hours of brooding over his
guilt. At least he left her quick with questionings. She divined again
the hint of a mystery. Something deeper than reason told her that the
unraveling of it would prove him no villain.
One immediate duty alone confronted her. She must confess to Lady
Farquhar that she had met and talked with him again. It was likely that
she would be well scolded, but it was characteristic of her that she
preferred to walk straight to punishment and get it over with. No doubt
she had been too free with this engaging scamp. The rules of her set
prescribed a straight and narrow road in which she must walk. The open
fields beyond the hedges might blossom with flowers, but there could be
no dalliance in them for her. She was to know only such people as had
the password, only those trimmed and trained till there was no
individuality left in them. From birth she had been a rebel, but an
impotent one. Each revolt had ended in submission to the silken chains
of her environment. Fret as she might, none the less she was as much a
caged creature as Lady Jim's canary.
CHAPTER IX
"AN OUT AND OUT ROTTER"
Jack strode through the young alders to his horse, swung to the saddle
without touching the stirrups, and was off instantly at a canter. He
rode fast, evidently with a direct driving purpose to reach a particular
destination. The trail was a rough and rocky one, but he took it
recklessly. His surefooted broncho scrambled catlike up steep inclines
and slid in clouds of dust down breakneck hillsides of loose rubble. In
and out he wound, across gulches and over passes, following always as
nearly a bee line as was possible.
An hour of rapid travel brought him to the Gunnison road. He swung to
the ground and examined the dusty roadbed. Apparently he was satisfied,
for he took his sweat-stained horse back into the brush and tied it to a
cottonwood. From its case beside the saddle he drew a rifle. He retraced
his own steps and selected carefully a place among the thick bushes by
the roadside. With his pocketknife he cut eye-holes in the bandanna
handkerchief that had been round his neck and tied it over his face in
such a way as to conceal his features entirely. Then he carefully
emptied from the rifle all the cartridges it contained and dropped them
into his pocket.
These preparations made, he sat down and waited. There came to him very
soon the rumble of wheels. Presently a one-horse trap appeared at a
curve of the road. Captain Kilmeny was the driver.
Jack rose noiselessly and thrust the barrel of his rifle through the
bushes. He was within six feet of the road and he waited until his
cousin was almost abreast of him.
"Throw up your hands!"
The captain knew in an instant what he was up against. A masked man with
a rifle in his hands could mean only one thing. Ned Kilmeny was no fool.
He knew when to fight and when to surrender. His hands went into the
air.
"Kick that rifle into the road--with your foot, not with your hands."
The Englishman did as he was told.
"What do you want?" he demanded, looking sharply at the masked bandit.
"I want that satchel beside you. Drop it out."
Again the officer obeyed orders. He asked no questions and made no
comment.
"There's room to turn here by backing. Hit the grit for the Lodge."
After he had faced about, Ned Kilmeny had one word to say before
leaving.
"I know who you are, and there's just one name for your kind--you're an
out and out rotter."
"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races, captain," answered
the masked man promptly.
Ned Kilmeny, as he drove back to the Lodge, was sick at heart. He came
of a family of clean, honest gentlemen. Most of them had been soldiers.
Occasionally one had gone to the devil as this young cousin of his had
done. But there was something in this whole affair so contemptible that
it hurt his pride. The theft itself was not the worst thing. The miner
had traded on their faith in him. He had lied to them, had made a mock
of their friendly offers to help him. Even the elements of decency
seemed to be lacking in him.
India and Moya were on the veranda when the captain drove up. One glance
at his grim face told them something had gone wrong.
"I've been held up," he said simply.
"Held up!"
"Robbed--with a rifle within reach of my hand all the time."
"But--how?" gasped India.
Moya, white to the lips, said nothing. A premonition of the truth
clutched icily at her heart.
"A masked man stopped me just as I swung round a bend about three miles
from Gunnison. He ordered me to throw out the satchel with the money. I
did as I was told."
"He had you covered with a weapon?" asked India.
"With a rifle--yes."
"Did you--recognize him?" Moya's throat was dry, so that her question
came almost in a whisper.
The captain's eyes met hers steadily. "He stayed in the bushes, so that
I didn't see his body well. He was masked."
"But you know who it was. Tell me."
Ned Kilmeny was morally certain of the identity of the robber. He could
all but swear to the voice, and surely there were not two men in the
county with such a free and gallant poise of the head.
"I couldn't take oath to the man."
"It was your cousin." Moya was pale to the lips.
The officer hesitated. "I'm not prepared to say who the man was."
The pulse in her throat beat fast. Her hand was clutching the arm of a
chair so tightly that the knuckles stood out white and bloodless.
"You know better. It was Jack Kilmeny," she charged.
"I could tell you only my opinion," he insisted.
"And I know all about it." Moya came to time with her confession
promptly, in the fearless fashion characteristic of her. "It was I that
sent him to you. It was I that betrayed you to him."
India set her lips to a soundless whistle. Her brother could not keep
out of his brown face the amazement he felt.
"I don't wonder you look like that," Moya nodded, gulping down her
distress. "You can't think any worse of me than I do of myself."
"Nonsense! If you told him you had a reason. What was it?" India asked,
a little sharply.
"No reason that justifies me. He took me by surprise. He had come to get
the stolen money and I told him we were returning it to the Fair
association. He guessed the rest. Almost at once he left. I saw him take
the cañon road for Gunnison."
"You weren't to blame at all," the captain assured her, adding with a
rueful smile: "He didn't take you any more by surprise than he did me. I
hadn't time to reach for the rifle."
India's Irish eyes glowed with contemptuous indignation. She used the
same expression that Ned had. "He must be an out and out rotter. To
think he'd rob Ned after what he offered to do for him. I'm through with
him."
Her brother said nothing, but in his heart he agreed. There was nothing
to be done for a fellow whose sense of decency was as far gone as that.
Moya too kept silence. Her heart was seething with scorn for this
handsome scamp who had put this outrage upon them all. It was bad enough
to be a thief, but to this he had added deception, falsehood, and gross
ingratitude. Nor did the girl's contempt spare herself. Neither warning
nor advice--and Lady Jim had been prodigal of both--had availed to open
her eyes about the Westerner. She had been as foolish over him as a
schoolgirl in the matter of a matinée idol. That she would have to lash
herself for her folly through many sleepless hours of the night was a
certainty.
Meanwhile she went through the part required of her. At dinner she
tossed the conversational ball back and forth as deftly as usual, and
afterward she played her accustomed game of bridge. Fortunately, Kilmeny
was her partner. Sometimes when her thoughts wandered the game suffered,
but the captain covered her mistakes without comment. She could almost
have loved him for the gentle consideration he showed. Why must she
needs be so willful? Why couldn't she have given her heart to this
gallant gentleman instead of to the reckless young scoundrel whom she
hardly knew?
Before the party broke up a ride was arranged for next morning to the
Devil's Slide, a great slab of rock some miles away. The young people
were to have an early breakfast and get started before the sun was hot.
For this reason the sitting at auction was short.
But though Moya reached her room before midnight, it was not until day
was beginning to break that she fell into a troubled sleep. She tossed
through the long hours and lived over every scene that had passed
between her and Jack Kilmeny. It was at an end. She would never see him
again. She would ride with the others to the Devil's Slide and he would
come to the appointment he had made to find her not there. He would go
away, and next day she would leave with the rest of her party for the
Big Bend mining country, where Verinder and Lord Farquhar were heavily
interested in some large gold producers. That chapter of her life would
be closed. She told herself that it was best so. Her love for a man of
this stamp could bring no happiness to her. Moreover, she had taken an
irretrievable step in betrothing herself to Captain Kilmeny. Over and
over again she went over the arguments that marshaled themselves so
strongly in favor of the loyal lover who had waited years to win her.
Some day she would be glad of the course she had chosen. She persuaded
herself of this while she sobbed softly into the hot pillows.
When Fisher wakened her to dress in time for the early breakfast Moya
felt very reluctant to join the others. She would have to laugh and talk
and make merry, and all the time she would be miserably unhappy. It
would be impossible for her to stand Verinder to-day without screaming.
A sheer physical lassitude weighted her limbs. In the end she went back
to bed and sent for India.
"I'm not feeling fit, dear. Would you mind if I beg off?" she asked with
a wan smile.
Her friend took in keenly the big deep-pupiled eyes ringed with
weariness. "I don't believe you've slept a wink, Moya. Of course you
needn't go. Shall I stay with you? I don't really care about going. I'm
about fed up with Dobyans Verinder."
But Moya would not hear of this. She protested so much that India saw it
would be a greater kindness to leave her alone.
"You must try to sleep again, dear." India moved about, darkening the
windows and shaking up the pillows.
"Yes, I will. I'm all right, you know."
Left to herself, Moya tried to sleep. It was no use. She was wide awake,
beyond hope of another nap. No sooner had the voices of the riders died
in the distance than she was dressing feverishly. She told herself that
she would go outdoors somewhere with a book and rest. Otherwise Lady
Farquhar would be asking questions.
Fisher brought her some fruit, a cup of coffee, and a roll. Moya drank
the coffee and ate the fruit, after which she went out into the crisp
Colorado sunlight. By her watch it was now 9:50.
She made an elaborate pretense with herself of hesitating which way to
go. Her thoughts, her eyes, and at last her footsteps turned toward the
grove where yesterday Jack Kilmeny had surprised her. But she was too
used to being honest with herself to keep up the farce. Stopping on the
trail, she brought herself to time.
"You're going to meet that outlaw, Moya Dwight. You said you wouldn't,
but you are going. That's why you got out of that ride. No use fibbing
to yourself. You've no more will power than a moth buzzing around a
candle flame."
So she put it to herself, frankly and contemptuously. But no matter how
she scorned herself for it there was not in her the strength to turn her
back on her temptation. She had always prided herself on knowing her own
mind and following it, but the longing in her to hear this man's
justification was more potent than pride. Slowly her reluctant steps
moved toward the grove.
Long slants of morning sunlight filtered through the leaves of the
cottonwoods so that her figure was flaked with a shifting checkerboard
of shadow and shine. She sauntered forward, looking neither to the right
nor the left, expecting every instant to hear his cheery impudent
greeting.
It did not come. She stole sidelong looks here and there through the
dappled woods. They were empty of life save for the chipmunk sitting on
its hind legs and watching her light approach. A breeze swept across
the river, caught her filmy skirts, and blew them about her ankles. She
frowned, brushing down the wind-swept draperies with that instinct for
modesty all women share. Shy and supple, elastic-heeled, in that
diaphanous half light her slim long body might have been taken for that
of a wood nymph had there been eyes to follow her through the umbrageous
glade.
Of human eyes there were none. She reached her flat rock and sank upon
its moss ungreeted. Her disappointment was keen, even though reason had
told her he dared not show himself here after adding a second crime to
the first, and this time against her friend, the man who had offered to
stand by him in his trouble. An instinct deeper than logic--some sure
understanding of the man's reckless courage--had made her feel certain
that he would be on the spot.
Mingled with her disappointment was a sharp sense of shame. He had told
her to come here and wait for him, as if she had been a country
milk-maid--and here she was meekly waiting. Could degradation take her
lower than this, that she should slip out alone to keep an assignation
with a thief and a liar who had not taken the trouble to come? At any
rate, she was spared one humiliation. He would never know she had gone
to meet him.
CHAPTER X
OLD FRIENDS
Into the depths of her scorching self-contempt came his blithe
"Good-morning, neighbor."
Her heart leaped, but before she looked around Moya made sure no tales
could be read in her face. Her eyes met his with quiet scorn.
"I was wondering if you would dare come." The young woman's voice came
cool and aloof as the splash of a mountain rivulet.
"Why shouldn't I come, since I wanted to?"
"You can ask me that--now."
Her manner told him that judgment had been passed, but it did not shake
the cheerful good humor of the man.
"I reckon I can."
"Of course you can. I might have known you could. You will probably have
the effrontery to deny that you are the man who robbed Captain Kilmeny."
"Did he say I was the man?" There was amusement and a touch of interest
in his voice.
"He didn't deny it. I knew it must be you. I told him everything--how
you found out from me that he was going to Gunnison with the money and
hurried away to rob him of it. Because you are his cousin he wouldn't
accuse you. But I did. I do now. You stole the money a second time." Her
words were low, but in them was an extraordinary vehemence, the
tenseness of repressed feeling.
"So he wouldn't accuse me, nor yet wouldn't deny that I was the man.
Well, I'll not deny it either, since you're so sure."
"You are wise, sir. You can't delude me a second time. Your denial would
count for nothing. And now I think there is nothing more to be said."
She had risen and was about to turn away. A gesture of his hand stopped
her.
"If you were so sure about me why didn't you have the officers here to
arrest me?"
"Because--because you are a relative of my friends."
"That was the only reason, was it?"
"What other reason could there be?" she asked, a flash of warning in her
eyes.
"There might be this reason--that at the bottom of your heart you know I
didn't do it."
"Can you tell me you didn't hold up Captain Kilmeny? Dare you tell me
that?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders. "No, I held him up."
"And robbed him."
"If you like to put it that way. I had to do it."
"Had to rob your friend, the man who had offered to stand by you. Oh, I
don't want to hear any of your excuses."
"Yes, you do," he told her quietly. "What's more, you are going to hear
them--and right now. You're entitled to an explanation, and it's my
right to make you listen."
"Can you talk away facts? You robbed your cousin when he was trying to
be your friend. That may mean nothing to you. It means a great deal to
me," she cried passionately.
"Sho! An opera bouffe hold-up. I'll make it right with him when I see
Captain Kilmeny."
"You admit you took the money?"
"Sure I took it. Had to have it in my business. If you'll sit down again
and listen, neighbor, I'll tell you the whole story."
The amused assurance in his manner stirred resentment.
"No."
"Yes."
The clash of battle was in the meeting of their eyes. She had courage,
just as he had, but she was fighting against her own desire.
"I have listened too often already," she protested.
"It hasn't hurt you any, has it?"
"Lady Farquhar thinks it has." The words slipped out before she could
stop them, but as their import came home to her the girl's face flamed.
"I mean that--that----"
"I know what you mean," he told her easily, a smile in his shrewd eyes.
"You're a young woman--and I'm an ineligible man. So Lady Farquhar
thinks we oughtn't to meet. That's all bosh. I'm not intending to make
love to you, even though I think you're a mighty nice girl. But say I
was. What then? Your friends can't shut you up in a glass cage if you're
going to keep on growing. Life was made to be lived."
"Yes.... Yes.... That's what I think," she cried eagerly. "But it isn't
arranged for girls that way--not if they belong to the class I do. We're
shut in--chaperoned from everything that's natural. You don't know how I
hate it."
"Of course you do. You're a live wire. That's why you're going to sit
down and listen to me."
She looked him straight between the eyes. "But I don't think morality is
only a convention, Mr. Kilmeny. 'Thou shalt not steal,' for instance."
"Depends what you steal. If you take from a man what doesn't belong to
him you're doing the community a service. But we won't go into that now,
though I'll just say this. What is right for me wouldn't be for Captain
Kilmeny. As I told you before, our standards are different."
"Yes, you explained that to me just after you--while you were hiding
from the officers after the first robbery," she assented dryly.
He looked at her and laughed. "You're prosecuting attorney and judge and
jury all in one, aren't you?"
She held her little head uncompromisingly erect. Not again was she going
to let her sympathy for him warp her judgment.
"I'm ready to hear what you have to say, Mr. Kilmeny."
"Not guilty, ma'am."
His jaunty insouciance struck a spark from her. "That is what you told
us before, and within half an hour we found out that you knew where the
booty was hidden. Before that discrepancy was cleared up you convinced
us of your innocence by stealing the money a second time."
"What did I do with it?" he asked.
"How should I know?"
From his pocket he drew a note book. Between two of its leaves was a
slip of paper which he handed to Moya. It was a receipt in full from the
treasurer of the Gunnison County Fair association to John Kilmeny for
the sum previously taken from him by parties unknown.
The girl looked at him with shining eyes. "You repented and took the
money back?"
"No. I didn't repent, but I took it back."
"Why?"
"That's a long tale. It's tied up with the story of my life--goes back
thirty-one years, before I was born, in fact. Want to hear it?"
"Yes."
"My father was a young man when he came to this country. The West wasn't
very civilized then. My father was fearless and outspoken. This made him
enemies among the gang of cattle thieves operating in the country where
his ranch lay. He lost calves. One day he caught a brand blotter at
work. The fellow refused to surrender. There was a fight, and my father
killed him."
"Oh!" cried the girl softly in fascinated horror.
"Such things had to be in those days. Any man that was a man had
sometimes to fight or else go to the wall."
"I can see that. I wasn't blaming your father. Only ... it must have
been horrible to have to do."
"The fellow thieves of the man swore vengeance. One night they caught
the chief--that's what I used to call my father--caught him alone in a
gambling hell in the cow town where the stockmen came to buy provisions.
My father had gone there by appointment to meet a man--lured to his
death by a forged note. He knew he had probably come to the end of the
passage as soon as he had stepped into the place. His one chance was to
turn and run. He wouldn't do that."
"I love him for it," the girl cried impetuously.
"The story goes that he looked them over contemptuously, the whole half
dozen of them, and laughed in a slow irritating way that must have got
under their hides."
Moya, looking at the son, could believe easily this story of the father.
"Go on," she nodded tensely.
"The quarrel came, as of course it would. Just before the guns flashed a
stranger rose from a corner and told the rustlers they would have to
count him in the scrap, that he wouldn't stand for a six to one row."
"Wasn't that fine? I suppose he was a friend of your father he had
helped some time."
"No. He had never seen him before. But he happened to be a man."
The eyes of the girl were shining. For the moment she was almost
beautiful. A flame seemed to run over her dusky face, the glow of her
generous heart finding expression externally. It was a part of her charm
that her delight in life bubbled out in little spasms of laughter, in
impetuous movements wholly unpremeditated.
"I'm glad there are such men," she cried softly.
"The story of that fight is a classic to-day in the hills. When it ended
two of the rustlers were dead, two badly wounded, and the others
galloping away for their lives. The chief and his unknown friend were
lying on the floor shot to pieces."
"But they lived--surely they didn't die?"
"Yes, they lived and became close friends. A few years later they were
partners. Both of them are dead now. Sam Lundy--that was the name of my
father's rescuer--left two children, a boy and a girl. We call the boy
Curly. He was down at the camp fishing with me."
She saw the truth then--knew in a flash that the man beside her had run
the risk of prison to save his friend. And her heart went out to him in
such a rush of feeling that she had to turn her face away.
"You paid back the debt to the son that your father owed his. Oh, I'm
glad--so glad."
"Guessed it, have you?"
"Your friend was the thief."
"He took the money, but he's no thief--not in his heart. In England only
a criminal would do such a thing, but it's different here. A hold-up may
be a decent fellow gone wrong through drink and bad company. That's how
it was this time. My friend is a range rider. His heart is as open and
clean as the plains. But he's young yet--just turned twenty--and he's
easily led. This thing was sprung on him by an older man with whom he
had been drinking. Before they were sober he and Mosby had taken the
money."
"I am sorry," the girl said, almost under her breath.
There was still some hint of the child in the naïve nobility of her
youth. Joyce Seldon would have had no doubts about what to think of this
alien society where an honest man could be a thief and his friend stand
ready to excuse him. Moya found it fresh and stimulating.
He explained more fully. "Colter by chance got a line on what the kid
and Mosby were planning to pull off. Knowing I had some influence with
Curly, he came straight to me. That was just after the finals in the
riding."
"I remember seeing him with you. We all thought you should have come up
for a few words with us."
"I intended to, but there wasn't any time. We hurried out to find Curly.
Well, we were too late. Our horses were gone by the time we had reached
the corral where we were stabling, but those of the other boys were
waiting in the stalls already saddled. We guessed the hold-up would be
close to the bank, because the treasurer of the association might take
any one of three streets to drive in from the fair grounds. That's where
we went wrong. The boys were just drunk enough not to remember this.
Well, while we were looking for our friends so as to stop this crazy
play they were going to pull off, Colter and I met the president of the
bank. We had known him in the mining country and he held us there
talking. While we were still there news comes of the robbery."
"And then?"
"We struck straight back to the corral. Our horses were there. The boys
had ridden back, swapped them for their own, and hit the trail. Mosby's
idea had been to throw suspicion on us for an hour or two until they
could make their getaway. We rode back to the crowd, learned the
particulars, and followed the boys. My thought was that if we could get
the money from them we might make terms with the association."
"That's why you were in a hurry when you passed us."
"That's why."
"And of course the sheriff thought you were running away from him."
"He couldn't think anything else, could he?"
"How blind I was--how lacking in faith! And all the time I knew in my
heart you couldn't have done it," she reproached herself.
His masterful eyes fastened on her. "Did your friends know it? Did Miss
Joyce think I couldn't have done it?"
"You'll have to ask her what she thought. I didn't hear Joyce give an
opinion."
"Is she going to marry that fellow Verinder?"
"I don't know."
"He'll ask her, won't he?"
She smiled at his blunt question a little wanly. "You'll have to ask
Mr. Verinder that. I'm not in his confidence."
"You're quibbling. You know well enough."
"I think he will."
"Will she take him?"
"It's hard to tell what Joyce will do. I'd rather not discuss the
subject, please. Tell me, did you find your friends?"
"We ran them down in the hills at last. I knew pretty well about where
they would be and one morning I dropped in on them. We talked it all
over and I put it up to them that if they would turn the loot over to me
I'd try to call off the officers. Curly was sick and ashamed of the
whole business and was willing to do whatever I thought best. Mosby had
different notions, but I persuaded him to see the light. They told me
where they had hidden the money in the river. I was on my way back to
get it when I found little Bess Landor lost in the hills. Gill nabbed me
as I took her to the ranch."
"And after you were taken back to Gunnison--Did you break prison?"
"I proved an alibi--one the sheriff couldn't get away from. We had
gilt-edged proof we weren't near the scene of the robbery. The president
of the bank had been talking to us about ten minutes when the treasurer
of the association drove up at a gallop to say he had just been
robbed."
"So they freed you."
"I made a proposition to the district attorney and the directors of the
association--that if I got the money back all prosecutions would be
dropped. They agreed. I came back for the money and found it gone."
"If you had only told me that then."
"I had no time. My first thought was to tell my cousin the truth, but I
was afraid to take a chance on him. The only way to save Curly was to
take back the money myself. I couldn't be sure that Captain Kilmeny
would believe my story. So I played it safe and helped myself."
"You must think a lot of your friend to go so far for him."
"His mother turned him over to me to make a man of him, and if she
hadn't I owed it to his father's son."
Her eyes poured upon him their warm approving light. "Yes, you would
have to help him, no matter what it cost."
He protested against heroics with a face crinkled to humor. "It wasn't
costing me a cent."
"It might have cost you a great deal. Suppose that Captain Kilmeny had
picked up his gun. You couldn't have shot him."
"I'd have told him who I was and why I must have the money. No, Miss
Dwight, I don't fit the specifications of a hero."
Moya's lips curved to the sweet little derisive twist that was a smile
in embryo. "I know about you, sir."
Kilmeny took his eyes from her to let them rest upon a man and a woman
walking the river trail below. The man bowed and the Westerner answered
the greeting by lifting his hat. When he looked back at his companion he
was smiling impishly. For the two by the river bank were Lord and Lady
Farquhar.
"Caught! You naughty little baggage! I wonder whether you'll be smacked
this time."
Her eyes met his in a quick surprise that was on the verge of hauteur.
"Sir."
"Yes, I think you'll be smacked. You know you've been told time and
again not to take up with strange boys--and Americans, at that. Mith
Lupton warned you on the _Victorian_--and Lady Farquhar has warned you
aplenty."
Her lips parted to speak, but no sound came from them. She was on the
verge of a discovery, and he knew it.
"Hope you won't mind the smacking much. Besides, it would be somefing
else if it wasn't this," he continued, mimicking a childish lisp he had
never forgotten.
"Miss Lupton!"
A fugitive memory flashed across her mind. What she saw was this: a
glassy sea after sunset, the cheerful life on the deck of an ocean
liner, a little girl playing at--at--why, at selling stars of her own
manufacture. The picture began to take form. A boy came into it, and
vaguely other figures. She recalled impending punishment, intervention,
two children snuggled beneath a steamer rug, and last the impulsive kiss
of a little girl determined to exact the last morsel of joy before
retribution fell.
"Are you that boy?" she asked, eyes wide open and burning.
"It's harder to believe you're that long-legged little fairy in white
socks."
"So you knew me ... all the time ... and I didn't know you at all."
Her voice trembled. The look she flung toward him was shy and diffident.
She had loved him then. She loved him now. Somehow he was infinitely
nearer to her than he had been.
"Yes, I knew you. I've always known you. That's because you're a dream
friend of mine. In the daytime I've had other things to think about, but
at night you're a great pal of mine."
"You mean ... before ... we met again?"
"That's what I mean."
The pink surged into her cheeks. "I've dreamed about you too," she
confessed with an adorable shyness. "How strange it is--to meet again
after all these years."
"Not strange to me. Somehow I expected to meet you. Wasn't that in your
dreams too--that some day we should meet again?"
"I was always meeting you. But--why didn't I know you?"
"I'll confess that I wouldn't have known you if it hadn't been for your
name."
"You think I've changed, then?"
"No, you haven't changed. You've only grown up. You're still a little
rebel. Sometimes you still think it's howwid to be a dirl."
"Only when they won't let me do things," she smiled. "And you really
remember even my lisp."
"You have a faint hint of it yet sometimes when you are excited."
"I'm excited now--tremendously." She laughed to belie her words, but the
note of agitation was not to be concealed. Her mouth was strangely dry
and her heart had a queer uncertain beat. "Why shouldn't I be--with my
baby days popping out at me like this when I thought they were dead and
buried? It's ... it's the strangest thing...."
His blood too responded to a quickened beat. He could not understand the
reason for it. Since he had no intention of being sentimental he was
distinctly annoyed at himself. If it had been Joyce Seldon now--well,
that would have been another tale.
Over the brow of a hillock appeared Lord and Lady Farquhar walking
toward them. One glance told Moya that her chaperone had made up her
mind to drive Jack Kilmeny from the field. The girl ran forward quickly.
"We've just found out the oddest thing, Lady Farquhar. Mr. Kilmeny and I
are old friends. We met when we were children," she cried quickly.
Lady Jim looked at her husband. He cleared his throat in some
embarrassment.
"Mornin', Mr. Kilmeny. If you have time I'd like to have you look over
some ore samples sent from our mine."
The American smiled. He understood perfectly. "I've got all the time
there is."
Moya intervened again. "First let me tell you the news. Mr. Kilmeny has
been freed of all suspicion in connection with the robbery. The money
has been returned and the whole thing dropped."
Farquhar's face cleared. "Glad to hear it." He emphasized his words, by
adding a moment later: "By Jove, I _am_ glad. Congratulations, Mr.
Kilmeny."
His wife added hers, but there was a note of reserve in her manner.
Plainly she was not fully satisfied.
Eagerly Moya turned to the young man. "May I tell all about it?"
He hesitated, then nodded shortly. "If you like."
Her voice vibrant with sympathy, Moya told the story in her ardent way.
Kilmeny said nothing, but the corners of his mouth suggested amusement.
Something of humorous derision in his blue eyes told Farquhar that the
Coloradoan did not take the girl's admiration as his due. Rather, he
seemed to regard it merely as an evidence of her young enthusiasm.
Lord Farquhar shook hands frankly with Kilmeny. "We've done you an
injustice. If I had a son I would want him to have played the part you
did under the same circumstances."
His wife backed him up loyally but with misgivings. The character of
this young man might be cleared but that did not make him any more
eligible. Her smile had in it some suggestion of the reserve of the
chaperone.
"I'm glad to know the truth, Mr. Kilmeny. It does you credit. Your
cousins won't be back to lunch but if you can stay----"
"I can't, Lady Farquhar. Thanks just the same. I've got to ride up into
the hills to let the boys know it's all right. We'll be leaving
to-morrow to go back to work."
"We go to-morrow too. I suppose this will be good-by, then." Lady
Farquhar offered her hand.
Kilmeny turned last to Moya. "Good-by, neighbor."
Her eyes did not shrink as the small hand was buried for an instant in
his brown palm, but the youth in her face was quenched.
"Good-by," she repeated in a colorless voice.
"Sorry I wasn't able to say good-by to my cousins and Miss Seldon. I
understand you're all going up to the mines. Tell Captain Kilmeny I'll
try to see him at Goldbanks and make all proper apologies for my bad
manners yesterday."
Moya's face lit up. "Do you live at Goldbanks?"
"Sometimes."
He bowed and turned away.
The girl was left wondering. There had been a note of reservation in his
manner when she had spoken of Goldbanks. Was there after all some
mystery about him or his occupation, something he did not want them to
know? Her interest was incredibly aroused.
CHAPTER XI
A BLIZZARD
Moya found in Goldbanks much to interest her. Its helter-skelter streets
following the line of least resistance, its slapdash buildings, the
scarred hillsides dotted with red shaft-houses beneath which straggled
slate-colored dumps like long beards, were all indigenous to a life the
manner of which she could only guess. Judged by her Bret Harte, the
place ought to be picturesque. Perhaps it was, but Moya was given little
chance to find out. At least it was interesting. Even from an outside
point of view she could see that existence was reduced to the elemental.
Men fought for gold against danger and privation and toil. No doubt if
she could have seen their hearts they fought too for love.
Miss Seldon was frankly bored by the crude rawness of the place. One
phase of it alone interested her. Of all this turbid activity Dobyans
Verinder was the chief profiter. Other capitalists had an interest in
the camp. Lord Farquhar held stock in the Mollie Gibson and Moya's small
inheritance was invested mostly in the mine. The Kilmenys owned shares
in two or three paying companies. But Verinder was far and away the
largest single owner. His holdings were scattered all over the camp. In
the Mollie Gibson and the Never Quit, the two biggest properties at
Goldbanks, he held a controlling vote.
It was impossible for Joyce to put her nose out of the hotel without
being confronted with the wealth of her suitor. This made a tremendous
appeal to the imagination of the young woman. All these thousands of men
were toiling to make him richer. If Verinder could have known it, the
environment was a potent ally for him. In London he was a social
climber, in spite of his gold; here he was a sole autocrat of the camp.
As the weeks passed he began to look more possible. His wealth would
give an amplitude, a spaciousness that would make the relationship
tolerable. As a man of moderate means he would not have done at all, but
every added million would help to reduce the intimacy of the marital
tie. To a certain extent she would go her way and he his. Meanwhile, she
kept him guessing. Sometimes her smiles brought him on the run. Again he
was made to understand that it would be better to keep his distance.
The days grew shorter and the mornings colder. As the weeks passed the
approach of winter began to push autumn back. Once or twice there was an
inch of snow in the night that melted within a few hours. The Farquhar
party began to talk of getting back to London, but there was an
impending consolidation of properties that held the men at Goldbanks.
For a month it had been understood that they would be leaving in a few
days now, but the deal on hand was of such importance that it was felt
best to stay until it was effected.
One afternoon Moya and Joyce rode out from the cañon where the ugly
little town lay huddled and followed the road down into the foothills.
It was a day of sunshine, but back of the mountains hung a cloud that
had been pushing slowly forward. In it the peaks were already lost. The
great hills looked as if the knife of a Titan had sheered off their
summits.
The young women came to a bit of level and cantered across the mesa in a
race. They had left the road to find wild flowers for Lady Jim.
Joyce, in a flush of physical well-being, drew up from the gallop and
called back in gay derision to her friend.
"Oh, you slow-pokes! We win. Don't we, Two Step?" And she patted the
neck of her pony with a little gloved hand.
Moya halted beside the dainty beauty and laughed slowly, showing in two
even rows the tips of small strong teeth.
"Of course you win. You're always off with a hurrah before one knows
what's on. Nobody else has a chance."
The victor flashed a saucy glance at her. "I like to win. It's more
fun."
"Yes, it's more fun, but----"
"But what?"
"I was thinking that it's no fun for the loser."
"That's his lookout," came the swift retort. "Nobody makes him play."
Moya did not answer. She was thinking how Joyce charged the batteries of
men's emotions by the slow look of her deep eyes, by the languorous turn
of her head, by the enthralment of her grace.
"I wouldn't have your conscience for worlds, Moya. I don't want to be so
dreadfully proper until I'm old and ugly," Joyce continued, pouting.
"Lady Jim is always complaining because I'm not proper enough," laughed
Moya. "She's forever holding you up to me as an example."
"So I am. Of course I flirt. I always shall. But I'll not come a
cropper. I'll never let my flirtations interfere with business. Lady Jim
knows that."
Moya looked straight at her. "Were you ever in love in your life?"
Her friend laughed to cover a faint blush. "What an _enfant terrible_
you are, my dear! Of course I've been--hundreds of times."
"No, but--really?"
"If you mean the way they are in novels, a desperate
follow-to-the-end-of-the-world, love-in-a-cottage kind--no. My emotions
are quite under control, thank you. What is it you're driving at?"
"I just wondered. Look how cloudy the sky is getting. It's going to
storm. We'd better be going home."
"Let's get our flowers first."
They wandered among the hills, searching for the gorgeous blossoms of
fall. Not for half an hour did they remount.
"Which way for home?" Joyce asked briskly, smoothing her skirt.
Moya looked around before she answered. "I don't know. Must be over that
way, don't you think?"
Joyce answered with a laugh, using a bit of American slang she had heard
the day before. "Search me! Wouldn't it be jolly if we were lost?"
"How dark the sky is getting. I believe a flake of snow fell on my
hand."
"Yes. There's one on my face. The road must be just around this hill."
"I daresay you're right. These hills are like peas in a pod. I can't
tell one from another."
They rode around the base of the hill into a little valley formed by
other hills. No sign of the road appeared.
"We're lost, Moya, They'll have to send out search parties for us.
We'll get in the dreadful Sunday papers again," Joyce laughed.
An anxious little frown showed on Moya's forehead. She was not
frightened, but she was beginning to get worried. A rising wind and a
falling temperature were not good omens. Moreover, one of those swift
changes common to the Rockies had come over the country. Out of a leaden
sky snow was falling fast. Banked clouds were driving the wintry
sunshine toward the horizon. It would soon be night, and if the signs
were true a bitter one of storm.
"It's getting cold. We must find the road and hurry home," Joyce said.
"Yes." Moya's voice was cheerful, but her heart had sunk. An icy hand
seemed to have clutched it and tightened. She had heard the dreadful
things that happened during Rocky Mountain blizzards. They must find the
road. They _must_ find it.
She set herself searching for it, conscious all the time that they might
be going in the wrong direction. For this unfeatured roll of hills
offered no guide, no landmark that stood out from the surrounding
country.
Moya covered her anxiety with laughter and small jokes, but there came a
time when these did not avail, when Joyce faced the truth too--that they
were lost in the desert, two helpless girls, with night upon them and a
storm driving up. Somewhere, not many miles from them, lay Goldbanks.
There were safety, snug electric-lighted rooms with great fires blazing
from open chimneys, a thousand men who would gladly have gone into the
night to look for them. But all of these might as well be a hundred
leagues away, since they did not know the way home.
The big deep eyes of Joyce shone with fear. Never before in her
sheltered life had she been brought close to Nature in one of her
terrible moods.
From her soft round throat sobbing words leaped. "We're lost, Moya.
We're going to die."
"Nonsense. Don't be a goosie," her downright friend answered sharply.
"But--what shall we do?"
Scudding clouds had leaped across the sky and wiped out the last narrow
line of sunlight along the eastern horizon. Every minute it was getting
colder. The wind had a bitter sting to it.
"We must find the trail," Moya replied.
"And if we don't?"
"But we shall," the Irish girl assured with a finality that lacked
conviction. "You wait here. Don't move from the spot. I'm going to ride
round you at a little distance. There must be a trail here somewhere."
Moya gave her pony the quirt and cantered off. Swiftly she circled, but
before she had completed the circumference the snow, now falling
heavily, had covered the ground and obliterated any path there might be.
With a heavy heart she started to return to her friend.
Owing both to the lie of the ground and the increasing density she could
not see Joyce. Thrice she called before a faint answer reached her ears.
Moya rode toward the voice, stopping now and again to call and wait for
a reply. Her horizon was now just beyond the nose of her pony, so that
it was not until they were only a few yards apart that she saw Two Step
and its rider. Both broncho and girl were sheeted with snow.
"Oh, I thought you were gone. I thought you were never coming," Joyce
reproached in a wail of despair. "Did you find the road?"
"No, but I've thought of something. They say horses will find their own
way home if you let them. Loosen the reins, dear."
Moya spoke with a business-like cheerfulness meant to deceive her
friend. She knew it must be her part to lead. Joyce was as soft and
about as competent as a kitten to face a crisis like this. She was a
creature all curves and dimples, sparkling with the sunshine of life
like the wavelets of a glassy sea. But there was in her an instinctive
shrinking from all pain and harshness. When her little world refused to
smile, as very rarely it did for her, she shut her eyes, stopped her
ears, and pouted. Against the implacable condition that confronted them
now she could only whimper her despair.
They waited with loose reins for the ponies to move. The storm beat upon
them, confining their vision to a space within reach of their
outstretched arms. Only the frightened wails of Joyce and the comforting
words of her friend could be heard in the shriek of the wind. The
ponies, feeling themselves free, stirred restlessly. Moya clucked to her
roan and patted his neck encouragingly.
"Good old Billy. Take us home, old fellow," she urged.
Presently the horse began to move, aimlessly at first, but soon with a
steadiness that suggested purpose. Moya unloosed with her chill fingers
the rope coiled to her saddle, and threw one end to her friend.
"Tie it tight to the saddle horn, Joyce--with a double knot," she
ordered. "And keep your hand on it to see that it doesn't come undone."
"I can't tie it. My hands are frozen ... I'm freezing to death."
Moya made fast one end of the rope and then slipped from the saddle. The
other end she tied securely to the saddle horn of her friend. She
stripped from her hands the heavy riding gauntlets she wore and gave
them to Joyce.
"Pull these on and your hands will be warmer. Don't give up. Sit tight
and buck up. If you do we'll be all right."
"But I can't.... It's awful.... How far do we have to go?"
"We'll soon hit the road. Then we can go faster."
Moya swung to her saddle again stiffly, and Billy took up the march in
the driving storm, which was growing every minute more fierce and
bitter. The girl did not dare give way to her own terror, for she felt
if she should become panic-stricken all would be lost. She tried to
remember how long people could live in a blizzard. Had she not read of
some men who had been out two days in one and yet reached safety?
The icy blast bit into her, searched through to her bones and sapped her
strength. More than once she drew up the rope with her icy hands to make
sure that Joyce was still in the saddle. She found her there blue from
exposure, almost helpless, but still faintly responsive to the call of
life.
The horses moved faster, with more certainty, so that Moya felt they had
struck a familiar trail. But in her heart she doubted whether either of
the riders would come to shelter alive. The ponies traveled upward into
the hills.
Joyce, lying forward helpless across the saddle horn, slid gently to the
ground. Her friend stopped. What could she do? Once she had descended,
it would be impossible to get back into the saddle.
Searching the hillside, the girl's glance was arrested by a light. She
could not at first believe her good fortune. From the saddle she slipped
to the ground in a huddle, stiffly found her feet again, and began to
clamber up the stiff incline. Presently she made out a hut. Stumblingly,
she staggered up till she reached the door and fell heavily against it,
clutching at the latch so that it gave to her hand and sent her lurching
into the room. Her knees doubled under her and she sank at the feet of
one of two men who sat beside a table playing cards.
The man leaped up as if he had seen a ghost. "Goddlemighty, it's a
woman!"
"My friend ... she's outside ... at the foot of the hill ... save her,"
the girl's white lips framed.
They slipped on mackinaw coats and disappeared into the white swirling
night. Moya crouched beside the red-hot stove, and life slowly tingled
through her frozen veins, filling her with sharp pain. To keep back the
groans she had to set her teeth. It seemed to her that she had never
endured such agony.
After a time the men returned, carrying Joyce between them. They put her
on the bed at the far corner of the room, and one of the men poured from
a bottle on the table some whisky. This they forced between her
unconscious lips. With a shivering sigh she came back to her
surroundings.
Moya moved across to the group by the bed.
"I'll take care of her if you'll look after the horses," she told the
men.
One of them answered roughly. "The horses will have to rough it. This
ain't any night for humans to be hunting horses."
"They can't be far," Moya pleaded.
Grudgingly the second man spoke. "Guess we better get them, Dave. They
were down where we found the girl. We can stable them in the tunnel."
Left to herself, Moya unlaced the shoes of Miss Seldon. Vigorously she
rubbed the feet and limbs till the circulation began to be restored.
Joyce cried and writhed with the pain, while the other young woman
massaged and cuddled her in turn. The worst of the suffering was past
before the men returned, stamping snow from their feet and shaking it
from their garments over the floor.
"A hell of a night to be out in," the one called Dave growled to his
fellow.
"Did you get the horses?" Moya asked timidly.
"They're in the tunnel." The ungracious answer was given without a
glance in her direction.
They were a black-a-vised, ill-favored pair, these miners upon whose
hospitality fate had thrown them. Foreigners of some sort they were,
Cornishmen, Moya guessed. But whatever their nationality they were
primeval savages untouched by the fourteen centuries of civilizing
influences since their forbears ravaged England. To the super-nervous
minds of these exhausted young women there was a suggestion of apes in
the huge musclebound shoulders and the great rough hands at the ends of
long gnarled arms. Small shifty black eyes, rimmed with red from drink,
suggested cunning, while the loose-lipped heavy mouths added more than a
hint of bestiality. It lent no comfort to the study of them that the
large whisky bottle was two-thirds empty.
They slouched back to their cards and their bottle. It had been bad
enough to find them sullen and inhospitable, but as the liquor
stimulated their unhealthy imaginations it was worse to feel the covert
looks stealing now and again toward them. Joyce, sleeping fitfully in
the arms of Moya, woke with a start to see them drinking together at the
table.
"I don't like them. I'm afraid of them," she whispered.
"We mustn't let them know it," Moya whispered in her ear.
For an hour she had been racked by fears, had faced unflinchingly their
low laughs and furtive glances.
Now one of the men spoke. "From Goldbanks?"
"Yes."
"You don't live there."
"No. We belong to the English party--Mr. Verinder's friends."
"Oh, Verinder's friends. And which of you is his particular friend?" The
sneer was unmistakable.
"We started out this afternoon for wild flowers and the storm caught
us," Moya hurried on.
"So you're Verinder's friends, are you? Well, we don't think a whole lot
of Mr. Verinder out here."
Moya knew now that the mention of Verinder's name had been a mistake.
The relations between the mine owners and the workmen in the camp were
strained, and as a foreign non-resident capitalist the English
millionaire was especially obnoxious. Moreover, his supercilious manners
had not helped to endear him since his arrival.
The man called Dave got to his feet with a reckless laugh. "No free
lodgings here for Mr. Verinder's friends. You'n got to pay for your
keep, my dears."
Miss Dwight looked at him with unflinching eyes which refused to
understand his meaning. "We'll pay whatever you ask and double the
amount after we reach camp."
"Don't want your dirty money. Gi' us a kiss, lass. That's fair pay. We
ain't above kissing Verinder's friends if he is a rotten slave driver."
Moya rose to her slender height, and the flash of courage blazed in her
eyes.
"Sit down," she ordered.
The man stopped in his tracks, amazed at the resolution of the slim tall
girl.
"Go on, Dave. Don't let her bluff you," his companion urged.
The miner laughed and moved forward.
"You coward, to take advantage of two girls driven to you by the storm.
I didn't think the man lived that would do it," panted Moya.
"You'n got a bit to learn, miss. Whad's the use of gettin' your Dutch
up. I ain't good enough for 'ee, like enough."
The girl held up a hand. "Listen!"
They could hear only the wild roar of the storm outside and the low sobs
of Joyce as she lay crouched on the bed.
"Well?" he growled. "I'm listenin'. What, then?"
"I'd rather go out into that white death than stay here with such
creatures as you are."
"Doan't be a fool, lass. Us'n won't hurt 'ee any," the second man
reassured roughly.
"You'll stay here where it's warm. But you'll remember that we're boss
in this shack. You'n came without being asked. I'm domned if you'll
ride your high horse over me."
"Go on, Dave. Tak' your kiss, man."
Then the miracle happened. The door opened, and out of the swirling
wind-tossed snow came a Man.
CHAPTER XII
OUT OF THE STORM A MAN
He stood blinking in the doorway, white-sheeted with snow from head to
heel. As his eyes became accustomed to the light they passed with
surprise from the men to the young women. A flash of recognition lit in
them, but he offered no word of greeting.
Plainly he had interrupted a scene of some sort. The leer on the flushed
face of Dave, the look of undaunted spirit in that of the girl facing
him, the sheer panic-stricken terror of her crouching companion, all
told him as much. Nor was it hard to guess the meaning of that dramatic
moment he had by chance chosen for his entrance. His alert eyes took in
every detail, asked questions but answered none, and in the end ignored
much.
"What are you doing here?" demanded one of the miners.
"Been out to the Jack Pot and was on my way back to town. Got caught in
the storm and struck for the nearest shelter. A bad night out,
Trefoyle." He closed the door, moved forward into the room, and threw
off his heavy overcoat.
Moya had recognized him from the first instant. Now Joyce too saw who he
was. She twisted lithely from the bed, slipped past Moya, past the
miners, and with the sob of a frightened child caught at his hand and
arm.
"Oh, Mr. Kilmeny, save us ... save us!"
Jack nodded reassuringly. "It's all right. Don't worry."
She clung to him, shivering back to self-control. This man's presence
spelled safety. In the high-laced boots of a mining man, he showed a
figure well-knit and graceful, springy with youth, but carrying the
poise of power. His clean-cut bronzed face backed the promise; so too
did the ease of his bearing.
Moya gave a deep sigh of relief and sat down on the edge of the bed,
grown suddenly faint. At last her burden was lifted to stronger
shoulders.
"You ain't wanted here, Jack Kilmeny," the standing miner said sourly.
He was undecided what to do, perplexed and angry at this unexpected
hindrance.
"Seems to be a difference of opinion about that, Peale," retorted the
newcomer lightly, kicking snow from the spurs and the heels of his
boots.
"Trefoyle and me own this cabin. You'll sing small, by Goad, or you'll
get out."
"You wouldn't put a dog out on a night like this, let alone a man. It
would be murder," Kilmeny answered mildly.
"There's horses in the tunnel. You can bed wi' them."
Jack glanced around, took in the whisky bottle and their red-rimmed
eyes. He nodded agreement.
"Right you are, boys. We three will move over to the tunnel and leave
the house to the women."
"You ain't got the say here, not by a domned sight, Jack Kilmeny.
This'll be the way of it. You'll git out. We'll stay. Understand?" Peale
ground out between set teeth.
Jack smiled, but his eyes were like steel. "Suppose we go over to the
shaft-house and talk it over, boys. We'll all understand it better
then."
Kilmeny still stood close to the red-hot stove. He was opening and
closing his fingers to take the stiffness of the frost out of them.
"By Goad, no! You go--we stay. See?"
The young man was now rubbing industriously the thumb and forefinger of
his right hand with the palm of his left.
"No, I don't see that, Peale. Doesn't sound reasonable to me. But I'll
talk it over with you both--in the shaft-house."
Jack's eyes were fastened steadily on Peale. The man was standing close
to a shelf in a corner of the cabin. The shelf was in the shadow, but
Kilmeny guessed what lay upon it. He was glad that though his legs were
still stiff and cold the fingers of his right hand had been massaged to
a supple warmth.
"You be warm now, lad. Clear out," warned the big Cornishman.
"Build 'ee a fire in the tunnel, mon," suggested Trefoyle.
"We'll all go or we'll all stay. Drop that, Peale."
The last words rang out in sharp command. Quicker than the eye could
follow Kilmeny's hand had brushed up past his hip and brought with it a
shining thirty-eight.
Taken by surprise, Peale stood stupidly, his hand still on the shelf.
His fingers had closed on a revolver, but they had found the barrel
instead of the butt.
"Step forward to the table, Peale--_with your hand empty_. That's right.
Now listen. These young women have got to sleep. They're fagged to
exhaustion. We three are going over to the shaft-house. Anything you've
got to say to me can be said there. Understand?"
The man stood in a stubborn sullen silence, but his partner spoke up.
"No guns along, Kilmeny, eh?"
"No. We'll leave them here."
"Good enough, eh, Peale?"
Trefoyle's small eyes glittered. Slyly he winked to his partner to
agree, then got a lantern, lit it clumsily, and shuffled out with Peale
at his heels.
Joyce clung to Jack's arm, bewitchingly helpless and dependent. A queer
thrill went through him at the touch of her soft finger tips.
"You won't leave us," she implored. "You wouldn't, would you?"
"Only for a little while. Bolt the door. Don't open it unless I give the
word." He stepped across to Moya and handed her his revolver. In a very
low voice he spoke to her. "Remember. You're not to open unless I tell
you to let me in. If they try to break the door shoot through it at them
waist high. _Shoot to kill._ Promise me that."
Her dark eyes met and searched his. The faintest quiver of the lip
showed that she knew what was before him. "I promise," she said in the
same low voice.
Moya bolted the door after him and sat down trembling by the table, the
revolver in her shaking hand. She knew he had gone to fight for them and
that he had left his weapon behind according to agreement. He was going
against odds just as his father had done before him in that memorable
fight years ago. If they beat him they would probably kill him. And what
chance had one slender man against two such giants. She shuddered.
"What are they going to do, Moya?" whispered Joyce.
Her friend looked at her steadily. "Didn't you hear? They said they
wanted to talk over the arrangements."
"Yes, but--didn't it seem to you----? Why did he give you that pistol?"
"Oh, just so that we wouldn't be afraid."
Hand in hand they sat. Their hearts beat like those of frightened
rabbits. The wail of the wind screaming outside seemed the cry of lost
souls. Was murder being done out there while they waited?
Kilmeny strode after the Cornishmen with the light-footed step of a
night nurse. Beside the huge miners he looked slight, but the flow of
his rippling muscles was smooth and hard as steel. He had been in many a
rough and tumble fray. The saying went in Goldbanks that he "had the
guts" and could whip his weight in wildcats. There was in him the
fighting edge, that stark courage which shakes the nerve of a man of
lesser mettle. He knew that to-night he needed it if ever he did. For
these men were strong as bears and had as little remorse.
Inside the shaft-house, his quick glance swept the dimly lighted room
and took in every detail.
Trefoyle put the lantern down on a shelf and turned to the man who had
interfered with them. "Is't a fight ye want, mon?"
Kilmeny knew the folly of attempting argument or appeal to their sense
of right. Straight to business he cut. "I'm not hunting one. But I
reckon this is up to me. I'll take you one at a time--unless you'd
rather try it two to one and make sure."
His sneer stung. Peale tore off his coat with an angry roar.
"By Goad, I'm good enough for you."
Head down like a bull, he rushed at his foe. Jack sidestepped and lashed
out at him as he shot past. Peale went down heavily, but scrambled
awkwardly to his feet and flung himself forward again. This time Kilmeny
met him fairly with a straight left, tilted back the shaggy head, and
crossed with the right to the point of the jaw.
As the fellow went to the floor the second time Jack was struck heavily
on the side of his face and knocked from his feet upon the body of the
Cornishman. Even as he fell Kilmeny knew that Trefoyle had broken faith.
He rolled over quickly, so that the latter, throwing himself heavily on
top of him, kneed his partner instead of Jack.
His great hands gripped the young man as he wriggled away. By sheer
strength they dragged him back. Kilmeny wrapped his legs around Trefoyle
to turn over. He heard a groan and guessed the reason. The muscular legs
clenched tighter the man above him, moved slowly up and down those of
his foe. With a cry of pain the Cornishman flung himself to one side and
tore loose. His trouser legs were ripped from thigh to calf and blood
streamed down the limb. The sharp rowels of Kilmeny's spurs had sunk
into the flesh and saved their owner.
Jack staggered to his feet half dazed. Peale was slowly rising, his
murderous eyes fixed on the young man. The instinct of self-preservation
sent the latter across the room to a pile of steel drills. As the two
men followed he stooped, caught up one of the heavy bars, and thrust
with a short-arm movement for Trefoyle's head. The man threw out his
hands and keeled over like a stuck pig.
Kilmeny threw away his drill and fought it out with Peale. They might
have been compared to a rapier and a two-handed broadsword. Jack was
more than a skilled boxer. He was a cool punishing fighter, one who
could give as well as take. Once Peale cornered him, bent evidently on
closing and crushing his ribs with a terrific bear hug. It would have
been worth a dozen lessons from a boxing master to see how the young man
fought him back with jabs and uppercuts long enough to duck under the
giant's arm to safety.
The wild swinging blows of the Cornishman landed heavily from time to
time, but his opponent's elbow or forearm often broke the force. The
lighter man was slippery as an eel, as hard to hit as a Corbett.
Meanwhile, he was cutting his foe to ribbons, slashing at him with swift
drives that carried the full force of one hundred seventy-five pounds,
sending home damaging blows to the body that played the mischief with
his wind. The big miner's face was a projection map with wheals for
mountains and with rivers represented by red trickles of blood.
Quartering round the room they came again to the drills. Peale, panting
and desperate, stooped for one of them. As he rose unsteadily Kilmeny
closed, threw him hard, and fell on top. Jack beat savagely the swollen
upturned face with short arm jolts until the fellow relaxed his hold
with a moan.
"Doan't 'ee kill me, mon. I've had enough," he grunted.
Kilmeny sprang to his feet, caught up the bar of steel, and poked the
prostrate man in the ribs with it.
"Get up," he ordered. "You're a pair of cowardly brutes. Can't be decent
to a couple of helpless women in your power. Can't play fair in a fight
with a man half the size of one of you. Get up, I say, and throw a
dipperful of water in Trefoyle's face. He's not dead by a long shot,
though he deserves to be."
Peale clambered to his feet in sulky submission and did as he was told.
Slowly Trefoyle's eyelids flickered open.
"What be wrong wi' un?" he asked, trying to sit up.
"You got what was coming to you. Is it enough, or do you want more?"
"Did 'ee hit me, lad. Fegs, it's enough. I give you best."
"Then get up. We'll go back to the house for blankets and fuel. You'll
sleep to-night with the horses in the tunnel."
The two girls shivering in the hot room heard the footsteps of the
returning men as they crunched the snow. Moya sat opposite the door,
white to the lips, her hand resting on the table and holding the
revolver. Joyce had sunk down on the bed and had covered her face with
her hands.
A cheerful voice called to them from outside.
"All right. Everything settled. Let us in, please."
Moya flew to the door and unbolted it. The Cornishmen came in first, and
after them Kilmeny. At sight of the ravages of war Joyce gave a little
cry of amazement. The big miners were covered with blood. They had the
cowed hangdog look of thoroughly beaten men. Jack's face too was a
sight, but he still walked springily.
He gave curt commands and the others obeyed him without a word. Almost
the first thing he did was to step to the table and fling the whisky
bottle through the door into the storm.
"We'll not need that," he said.
One of the miners gathered up their extra blankets while the other took
a load of firewood.
As soon as they had gone Joyce cried breathlessly, "You fought them."
Jack looked at her and his eyes softened. All men answered to the appeal
of her beauty. "We had a little argument. They couldn't see it my way.
But they're satisfied now."
Moya bit her lower lip. Her eyes were shining with tears. A queer
emotion welled up in her heart. But it was Joyce who put their thanks
into words.
"You saved us. You're the bravest man I ever saw," she cried.
A deeper color rose to the embarrassed face of the young man. "I expect
you didn't need any saving to speak of. The boys got too ambitious.
That's about all." He was thinking that she was the most beautiful
creature he had ever set eyes upon and thanking his lucky stars that he
had come along in the nick of time.
"You can _say_ that, Mr. Kilmeny, but we know," she answered softly.
"All right. Have it your own way, Miss Seldon," he returned with a
smile.
"You'll let us doctor your wounds, won't you?" Moya asked shyly.
He laughed like a boy. "You're making me ashamed. I haven't any wounds.
I ought to have washed the blood off before I came in, but I didn't
have a chance. All I need is a basin of water and a towel."
The girl ran to get them for him. He protested, laughing, but was none
the less pleased while they hovered about him.
"Such a dirty towel. Don't you suppose there's a clean one somewhere,"
Joyce said with a little _moue_ of disgust as she handed it to him.
He shook his head. "It's like the one in 'The Virginian'--been too
popular."
Moya gave him the scarf that had been around her head while she was
riding. "Take this. No.... I want you to use it ... please."
After he had dried his face Jack explained their disposition for the
night.
"We'll stay in the tunnel. You'll be alone here--and quite safe. No need
to be in the least nervous. Make yourselves comfortable till morning if
you can."
"And you--do you mean that you're going back ... to those men?" Moya
asked.
"They're quite tame--ready to eat out of my hand. Don't worry about me."
"But I don't want you to go. I'm afraid to be alone. Stay here with us,
Mr. Kilmeny. I don't care about sleeping," Joyce begged.
"There's nothing to be afraid of--and you need your sleep. I'll not be
far away. You couldn't be safer in Goldbanks. I'll be on guard all
night, you know," he reassured.
It escaped him for the moment that Joyce was thinking about her own
safety, while Moya was anxious about his, but later he was to remember
it.
He had not been gone ten minutes before Joyce was sound asleep. She
trusted him and she trusted Moya, and for her that was enough. All her
life she had relied on somebody else to bear the brunt of her troubles.
But the girl with the powdered freckles beneath the dusky eyes carried
her own burdens. She too had implicit confidence in the champion who had
come out of the storm to help them and had taken his life in hand to do
it. Her heart went out to him with all the passionate ardor of generous
youth. She had never met such a man, so strong, so masterful, and yet so
boyish.
Her brain was far too active for slumber. She sat before the stove and
went over the adventures of the past two hours. How strange that they
had met him again in this dramatic fashion. Perhaps he lived at
Goldbanks now and they would see more of him. She hoped so mightily,
even though there persisted in her mind a picture of his blue-gray eyes
paying homage to Joyce.
CHAPTER XIII
SHOT TO THE CORE WITH SUNLIGHT
The storm had blown itself out before morning. A white world sparkled
with flashes of sunlight when Moya opened the door of the cabin and
gazed out. Looking down into the peaceful valley below, it was hard to
believe that death had called to them so loudly only a few hours
earlier.
Kilmeny emerged from the shaft-house and called a cheerful good-morning
across to her.
"How did you sleep?" he shouted as he crunched across the snow toward
her.
"Not so very well. Joyce slept for both of us."
Their smiles met. They had been comrades in the determination to shield
her from whatever difficulties the situation might hold.
"I'm glad. Is she quite herself this morning? Last night she was very
tired and a good deal alarmed."
"Yes. After you came Joyce did not worry any more. She knew you would
see that everything came right."
The color crept into his bronzed face. "Did she say so?"
"Yes. But it was not what she said. I could tell."
"I'm glad I could do what I did."
The eyes that looked at him were luminous. Something sweet and mocking
glowed in them inscrutably. He knew her gallant soul approved him, and
his heart lifted with gladness. The beauty of her companion fascinated
him, but he divined in this Irish girl the fine thread of loyalty that
lifted her character out of the commonplace. Her slender, vivid
personality breathed a vigor of the spirit wholly engaging.
Joyce joined her friend in the doorway. With her cheeks still flushed
from sleep and her hair a little disheveled, she reminded Jack of a
beautiful crumpled rose leaf. Since her charm was less an expression of
an inner quality, she needed more than Moya the adventitious aids of
dress.
The young woman's smile came out warmly at sight of Kilmeny. It was her
custom always to appropriate the available man. Toward this bronzed
young fellow with the splendid throat sloping into muscular shoulders
she felt very kindly this morning. He had stood between her and trouble.
He was so patently an admirer of Joyce Seldon. And on his own merits the
virility and good looks of him drew her admiration. At sight of the
bruises on his face her heart beat a little fast with pleasurable
excitement. He had fought for her like a man. She did not care if he was
a workingman. His name was Kilmeny. He was a gentleman by birth, worth a
dozen Verinders.
"Mr. Kilmeny, how can we ever thank you?"
He looked at her and nodded gayly. "Forget it, Miss Seldon. I couldn't
have done less."
"Or more," she added softly, her lovely eyes in his.
No change showed in the lean brown face of the man, but his blood moved
faster. It was impossible to miss the appeal of sex that escaped at
every graceful movement of the soft sensuous body, that glowed from the
deep still eyes in an electric current flashing straight to his veins.
He would have loved to touch the soft flushed cheek, the crisp amber
hair clouding the convolutions of the little ears. His eyes were an
index of the man, bold and possessive and unwavering. They announced him
a dynamic American, one who walked the way of the strong and fought for
his share of the spoils. But when she looked at him they softened.
Something fine and tender transfigured the face and wiped out its
sardonic recklessness.
"The pressing question before the house is breakfast. There are bacon
and flour and coffee here. Shall I make a batch of biscuits and offer
you pot luck? Or do you prefer to wait till we can get to Goldbanks?"
"What do you think?" Moya asked.
"I think whatever you think. We'll not reach town much before noon. If
you can rough it for a meal I should advise trying out the new cook. It
really depends on how hungry you are."
"I'm hungry enough to eat my boots," the Irish girl announced promptly.
"So am I. Let's stay--if our hosts won't object," Joyce added.
"I'm quite sure they won't," Kilmeny replied dryly. "All right. A camp
breakfast it is."
"I'm going to help you," Moya told him.
"Of course. You'd better wash the dishes as soon as we get hot water.
They're probably pretty grimy."
He stepped into the cabin and took off his coat. Moya rolled up her
sleeves to the elbows of her plump dimpled arms. Miss Seldon hovered
about helplessly and wanted to know wha
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