Kitabı oku: «The Cattle-Baron's Daughter», sayfa 11

“No,” said Hetty faintly. “If the wrong people got it, it would turn out the Sheriff and make an outcry everywhere. That is what I was told, though I don’t know what it was about.”

“Still, you know it would be safe with Mr. Grant.”

“Yes,” said Hetty. “Larry never did anything mean in his life. But you don’t understand, Flo. He didn’t know it was there, and it might have dropped out on the prairie, while, even if he found it, how is he going to get it back to me? The boys would fire on him if he came here.”

Flora Schuyler looked frightened. “You will have to tell your father, Hetty.”

Hetty trembled a little. “It is going to be the hardest thing I ever did. He is just dreadful in his quietness when he is angry – and I would have to tell him I had been meeting Larry and sending him dollars. You know what he would fancy.”

It was evident that Hetty was very much afraid of her father, and as clear to Miss Schuyler that the latter would have some cause for unpleasant suspicions. Then, the girl turned to her companion appealingly.

“Flo,” she said, “tell me what to do. The thing frightens me.”

Miss Schuyler slipped an arm about her. “Wait,” she said. “Your father will not be here until noon to-morrow, and that letter is in the hands of a very honest man. I think you can trust him to get it back to you.”

“But he couldn’t send anybody without giving me away, and he knows it might cost him his liberty to come here,” said Hetty.

“I scarcely fancy that would stop him.”

Hetty turned, and looked at her friend curiously. “Flo, I wonder how it would have suited if Larry had been fond of you.”

Miss Schuyler did not wince; but the smile that was on her lips was absent from her eyes. “You once told me I should have him. Are you quite sure you would like to hand him over now?”

Hetty did not answer the question; instead, she blushed furiously. “We are talking nonsense – and I don’t know how I can face my father to-morrow,” she said.

It was at least an hour later, and the cow-boy below had ceased his pacing, when Hetty, who felt no inclination for sleep, fancied she heard a tapping at the window. She sprang suddenly upright, and saw apprehension in Miss Schuyler’s face. The cow-boys were some distance away, and a little verandah ran round that side of the house just below the window. Flora Schuyler had sufficient courage; but it was not of the kind which appears to advantage in the face of bodily peril, and the colour faded in her cheeks. It was quite certain now that somebody was tapping at or trying to open the window.

“Shake yourself together, Flo,” said Hetty, in a hoarse whisper. “When I tell you, turn the lamp down and open the door. I am going to see who is there.”

The next moment she had opened a drawer of the bureau, while as she stepped forward with something glinting in her hand, Flora Schuyler, who heard a whispered word, turned the lamp right out in her confusion, and, because she dared not stand still, crept after her companion. With a swift motion, Hetty drew the window-curtains back, and Miss Schuyler gasped. The stars were shining outside, and the dark figure of a man was silhouetted against the blue clearness of the night.

“Come back,” she cried. “Oh, he’s coming in. Hetty, I must scream.”

Hetty’s fingers closed upon her arm with a cruel grip. “Stop,” she said. “If you do, they’ll shoot him. Don’t be a fool, Flo.”

It was too dark to see clearly, but Flora Schuyler realized with a painful fluttering of her heart and a great relief whose the white face outside the window must be.

XVI
LARRY SOLVES THE DIFFICULTY

For the space of several seconds the girls stood staring at the figure outside the window. Then, the man turned sharply, and Hetty gasped as she heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow below. There was a little of it on the verandah, and the stars shone brilliantly.

“Catch hold of the frame here, Flo,” she said breathlessly. “Now, push with all your might.”

Miss Schuyler did as she was bidden. The double sashes moved with a sharp creaking, and while she shivered as the arctic cold struck through her, Hetty stretched out an arm and drew the man in. Then with a tremendous effort she shut the window and pulled the curtains together. There was darkness in the room now, and one of the cow-boys called out below.

“Hear anything, Jake?”

“Somebody shutting a door in the house there,” said another man, and Hetty, passing between the curtains, could see two figures move across the snow, and the little scintillation from something that was carried by one of them, and she realized that they had very narrowly averted a tragedy.

“Flo,” she said, with a little quiver in her voice, “light the lamp quick. If they see the room dark they might come up.”

Miss Schuyler was unusually clumsy, but at last the light sprang up, and showed Larry standing just inside the curtain with the dust of snow on his fur coat and cap. His face looked a little less bronzed than usual, but he showed no other sign of discomposure. Hetty was very pale as she stood in front of him with the pistol still in her hand. She dropped it on a chair with a shiver, and broke into a little strained laugh.

“You are quite sure they didn’t see you, Larry? You took a terrible risk just now.”

Grant smiled, more with his lips than his eyes. “Yes,” he said, “I guess I did. I taught you to shoot as well as most men, Hetty.”

Hetty gasped again and sank limply into the nearest chair. “What brought you here?” she said. “Still, you can’t get away now. Sit down, Larry.”

Grant sat down with a bow to Miss Schuyler, and fumbled in the pocket of his big fur coat. “I came to give you something you sent me by mistake,” he said. “I would not have come this way if I could have helped it, but I saw there was a man with a rifle every here and there as I crept up through the bluff, and it was quite a while before I could swing myself up by a pillar on to the verandah. You have been anxious about this, Hetty?”

He laid a packet on the table, and Hetty’s eyes shone as she took it up.

“Couldn’t you have given it to somebody to bring me? It would have been ever so much safer,” she said.

“No,” said the man simply, “I don’t think I could.”

Hetty understood him, and so did Miss Schuyler, while the meaning of the glance her companion cast at her was equally plain. Miss Torrance’s face was still pallid, but there was pride in her eyes.

“I wonder if you guessed what was in that letter, Mr. Grant?” Flora Schuyler asked.

Larry smiled. “I think I have a notion.”

“Of course!” said Hetty impulsively. “We knew you had, and that was why we felt certain you would try to bring it back to me.”

“If it could have been managed in a different fashion it would have pleased me better,” Grant said, with a little impatient gesture. “I am sorry I frightened you, Hetty.”

The colour crept back into Hetty’s cheeks. “I was frightened, but only just a little at first,” she said. “It was when I saw who it was and heard the boys below, that I grew really anxious.”

She did not look at the man as she spoke; but it was evident to Miss Schuyler that he understood the significance of the avowal.

“Then,” he said, “I must try to get away again more quietly.”

“You can’t,” said Hetty. “Not until the man by the store goes away. You have taken too many chances already. You have driven a long way in the cold. Take off that big coat, and Flo will make you some coffee.”

Grant, turning, drew the curtains aside a moment, and let them fall back again. Then, he took off the big coat and sat down with a little smile of contentment beside the glowing stove on which Miss Schuyler was placing a kettle.

“Well,” he said, “I am afraid you will have to put up with my company until that fellow goes away; and I need not tell you that this is very nice for me. One hasn’t much time to feel it, but it’s dreadfully lonely at Fremont now and then.”

Hetty nodded sympathetically, for she had seen the great desolate room at Fremont where Grant and Breckenridge passed the bitter nights alone. The man’s half-audible sigh was also very expressive, for after his grim life he found the brightness and daintiness of the little room very pleasant. It was sparely furnished; but there was taste in everything, and in contrast with Fremont its curtains, rugs, and pictures seemed luxurious. Without were bitter frost and darkness, peril, and self-denial; within, warmth and refinement, and the companionship of two cultured women who were very gracious to him. He also knew that he had shut himself out from the enjoyment of their society of his own will, that he had but to make terms with Torrance, and all that one side of his nature longed for might be restored to him.

Larry was as free from sensuality as he was from asceticism; but there were times when the bleak discomfort at Fremont palled upon him, as did the loneliness and half-cooked food. His overtaxed body revolted now and then from further exposure to Arctic cold and the deprivation of needed sleep, while his heart grew sick with anxiety and the distrust of those he was toiling for. He was not a fanatic, and had very slight sympathy with the iconoclast, for he had an innate respect for the law, and vague aspirations after an ampler life made harmonious by refinement, as well as a half-comprehending reverence for all that was best in art and music. There are many Americans like him, and when such a man turns reformer he has usually a hard row, indeed, to hoe.

“What do you do up there at nights?” asked Hetty.

Larry laughed. “Sometimes Breckenridge and I sit talking by the stove, and now and then we quarrel. Breckenridge has taste, and generally smooths one the right way; but there are times when I feel like throwing things at him. Then we sit quite still for hours together listening to the wind moaning, until one of the boys comes in to tell me we are wanted, and it is a relief to drive until morning with the frost at fifty below. It is very different from the old days when I was here and at Allonby’s two or three nights every week.”

“It must have been hard to give up what you did,” said Hetty, with a diffidence that was unusual in her. “Oh, I know you did it willingly, but you must have found it was very different from what you expected. I mean that the men you wanted to smooth the way for had their notions too, and meant to do a good deal that could never please you. Suppose you found they didn’t want to go along quietly, making this country better, but only to trample down whatever was there already?”

Flora Schuyler looked up. “I think you will have to face that question, Mr. Grant,” she said. “A good many men of your kind have had to do it before you. Isn’t a faulty ruler better than wild disorder?”

“Yes,” said Hetty eagerly. “That is just what I mean. If you saw they wanted anarchy, Larry, you would come back to us? We should be glad to have you!”

The man turned his eyes away, and Flora Schuyler saw his hands quiver.

“No,” he said. “I and the rest would have to teach them what was good for them, and if it was needful try to hold them in. Whatever they did, we who brought them here would have to stand in with them.”

Hetty accepted the decision in his tone, and sighed. “Well,” she said, “we will forget it; and Flo has the coffee ready. That is yours, Larry, and here’s a box of crackers. Now, we’ll try to think of pleasant things. It’s like our old-time picnics. Doesn’t it remind you of the big bluff – only we had a black kettle then, and you made the fire of sticks? There was the day you shot the willow grouse. It isn’t really so very long ago!”

“It seems years,” said the man, wistfully. “So much has happened since.”

“Well,” said Hetty, “I can remember all of it still – the pale blue sky behind the bluff, with the little curl of grey smoke floating up against it. You sat by the fire, Larry, roasting the grouse, and talking about what could be done with the prairie. It was all white in the sunshine, and empty as far as one could see, but you told me it would be a great red wheat-field by and by. I laughed at you for dreaming things that couldn’t be, but we were very happy that day.”

Grant’s face was very sad for a moment, but he turned to Miss Schuyler with a little smile. “Hetty is leaving you out,” he said.

“I wasn’t there, you see,” Miss Schuyler said quickly. “Those days belong to you and Hetty.”

Hetty glanced at her sharply, and fancied there was a slightly strained expression in the smiling face, but the next moment Miss Schuyler laughed.

“What are you thinking, Flo?” said Hetty.

“It was scarcely worth mentioning. I was wondering how it was that the only times we have crossed the bridge we met Mr. Grant.”

“That’s quite simple,” said Larry. “Each time it was on Wednesday, and I generally drive round to see if I am wanted anywhere that day. They have had to do almost without provisions at the homesteads in the hollow lately. Your dollars will be very welcome, Hetty.”

Hetty blushed for no especial reason, except that when Grant mentioned Wednesday she felt that Flora Schuyler’s eyes were upon her. Then, a voice rose up below.

“Hello! All quiet, Jake?”

There were footsteps in the snow outside, and when the sentry answered, the words just reached those who listened in the room.

“I had a kind of notion I saw something moving in the bluff, but I couldn’t be quite sure,” he said. “There was a door or window banged up there on the verandah a while ago, but that must have been done by one of the women in the house.”

Grant rose and drew back the curtain, when, after a patter of footsteps, the voices commenced again.

“Somebody has come in straight from the bluff,” said one of the men. “You can see where he has been, but I’m blamed if I can figure where he went to unless it was up the post into the verandah, and he couldn’t have done that without Miss Torrance hearing him. I’ll stop right here, any way, and I wish my two hours were up.”

“I’m that stiff I can scarcely move,” said the man relieved, and there was silence in the room, until Hetty turned to the others in dismay.

“He is going to stay there two hours, and he would see us the moment we opened the window,” she said.

Grant quickly put on his big fur coat, and unnoticed, he fancied, slipped one hand down on something that was girded on the belt beneath it.

“I must get away at once – through the house,” he said.

Hetty had, however, seen the swift motion of his hand.

“There’s a man with a rifle in the hall,” she said, shudderingly. “Flo, can’t you think of something?”

Flora Schuyler looked at them quietly. “I fancy it would not be very difficult for Mr. Grant to get away, but the trouble is that nobody must know he has been near the place. That is the one thing your father could not forgive, Hetty.”

Hetty turned her head a little, but Grant nodded. “Had it been otherwise I should have gone an hour ago,” he said.

“Well,” said Flora Schuyler, with a curious look in her face, “while I fancy we can get you away unnoticed, if anybody did see you, it needn’t appear quite certain that it was any affair with Hetty that brought you.”

“No?” said Hetty, very sharply. “What do you mean, Flo?”

Miss Schuyler smiled a little and looked Grant in the eyes. “What would appear base treachery in Hetty’s case would be less astonishing in me. Mr. Grant, you must not run risks again to talk to me, but since you have done it I must see you through. You are sure there is only one cow-boy in the hall, Hetty?”

Hetty turned and looked at them. Flora Schuyler was smiling bravely, the man standing still with grave astonishment in his eyes.

“No,” she said, with quick incisiveness, “I can’t let you, Flo.”

“I don’t think I asked your permission,” said Miss Schuyler. “Could you explain this to your father, Hetty? I believe he would not be angry with me. Adventurous gallantry is, I understand, quite approved of on the prairie. Call your maid. Mr. Grant, will you come with me?”

For several seconds Hetty stood silent, recognizing that what Torrance might smile at in his guest would appear almost a crime in his daughter, but still horribly unwilling. Then, as Flora Schuyler, with a half-impatient gesture, signed to Grant, she touched a little gong, and a few moments later her maid met them in the corridor. The girl stopped suddenly, gasping a little as she stared at Grant, until Hetty grasped her arm, nipping it cruelly.

“If you scream or do anything silly you will be ever so sorry,” she said. “Go down into the hall and talk to Jo. Keep him where the stove is, with his back to the door.”

“But how am I to do it?” the girl asked.

“Take him something to eat,” Miss Schuyler said impatiently. “Any way, it should not be hard to fool him – I have seen him looking at you. Now, I wonder if that grey dress of mine would fit you – I have scarcely had it on, but it’s a little too tight for me.”

The girl’s eyes glistened, she moved swiftly down the corridor, Flora Schuyler laughed, and Grant looked away.

“Larry,” said Hetty, “it isn’t just what one would like – but I am afraid it is necessary.”

Five minutes later Hetty moved across the hall, making a little noise, so that the cow-boy, who stood near the other end of it, with the maid close by him, should notice her. She softly opened the outer door, and then came back and signed to Grant and Flora Schuyler, who stood waiting in the corridor.

“No,” he said, and the lamplight showed a darker hue than the bronze of frost and sun in his face. “Miss Schuyler, I have never felt quite so mean before, and you will leave the rest to me.”

“It seems to me,” she said coolly, “that what you feel does not count for much. Just now you have to do what is best for everybody. Stoop as low as you can.”

She stretched out her hand with a little imperious gesture, and laid it on his arm, drawing herself up to her full height as she stood between him and the light. They moved forward together, and Hetty closed her hand as she watched them pass into the hall. The end was dim and shadowy, for the one big lamp that was lighted stood some distance away by the stove, where the man on watch was talking to the maid. Hetty realized that the girl was playing her part well as she saw her make a swift step backwards, and heard the man’s low laugh.

Flora Schuyler and Grant were not far from the door now, the girl walking close to her companion. In another moment they would have passed out of sight into the shadow, but while Hetty felt her fingers trembling, the man on watch, perhaps hearing their footsteps, turned round.

“Hallo!” he said. “It seems kind of cold. What can Miss Schuyler want with opening the door? Is that Miss Torrance behind her?”

He moved forward a pace, apparently not looking where he was going, but towards the door, and might have moved further, but that the maid swiftly stretched out one foot, and a chair with the tray laid on it went over with a crash.

“Now there’s going to be trouble. See what you’ve done,” she said.

The man stopped, staring at the wreck upon the floor.

“Well,” he said, “I’m blamed if I touched the thing. What made it fall over, any way?”

“Pick them up,” the girl said sharply. “You don’t want to make trouble for me!”

He stooped, and Hetty gasped with relief as she saw him carefully scraping some dainty from the floor, for just then one of the two figures slipped away from the other, and there was a sound that might have been made by a softly closing door. The cow-boy looked up quickly, and saw Miss Torrance and Miss Schuyler standing close together, then stood up as they came towards him. Hetty paused and surveyed the overturned crockery, and then, though her heart was throbbing painfully, gave the man a glance of ironical inquiry. He looked at the maid as if for inspiration, but she stood meekly still, the picture of bashful confusion.

“I’m quite sorry, Miss Torrance,” he said. “The concerned thing went over.”

Hetty laughed. “Well,” she said, “it’s a very cold night, and Lou can get you some more supper. She is, however, not to stay here a minute after she has given it you.”

She went out with Miss Schuyler, and the two stood very silent by a window in the corridor. One of them fancied she saw a shadowy object slip round the corner of a barn, but could not be sure, and for five very long minutes they stared at the faintly shining snow. Nothing moved upon it, and save for the maid’s voice in the hall, the great building was very still. Hetty touched Miss Schuyler’s arm.

“He has got away,” she said. “Come back with me. I don’t feel like standing up any longer.”

They sat down limply when they returned to the little room, and though Miss Schuyler did not meet her companion’s gaze, there was something that did not seem to please the latter in her face.

“Flo,” she said, “one could almost fancy you felt it as much as I did. It was awfully nice of you.”

Miss Schuyler smiled, though there was a tension in her voice. “Of course I felt it,” she said. “Hetty, I’d watch that maid of yours. She’s too clever.”

Hetty said nothing for a moment, then, suddenly crossing the room, she stooped down and kissed Miss Schuyler.

“I have never met any one who would do as much for me as you would, Flo,” she said. “I don’t think there is anything that could come between us.”

There was silence for another moment, and during it Miss Schuyler looked steadily into Hetty’s eyes. “No,” she said, “although you do not seem quite sure, I don’t think there is.”

It was early the next morning when Christopher Allonby arrived at the Range. He smiled as he glanced at the packet Hetty handed him.

“I have never seen your father anything but precise,” he said.

“Has anything led you to fancy that he has changed?” asked Hetty.

Allonby laughed as he held out the packet. “The envelope is all creased and crumpled. It might have been carried round for ever so long in somebody’s pocket. Now, I know you don’t smoke, Hetty.”

“There is no reason why I should not, but, as it happens, I don’t,” said Miss Torrance.

“Then, the packet has a most curious, cigar-like smell,” said Allonby, smiling. “Now, I don’t think Mr. Torrance carries loose cigars and letters about with him together. I wonder what deduction one could make from this.”

Hetty glanced at Miss Schuyler. “You could never make the right one, Chris,” she said.

Allonby said nothing further and went out with the letter; a day or two later he handed it to the Sheriff.

“I guess you know what’s inside it?” said the latter.

“Yes,” said the lad. “I want to see you count them now.”

The Sheriff glanced at him sharply, took out a roll of bills and flicked them over.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s quite right; but one piece of what I have to do is going to be difficult.”

“Which?” said Allonby.

“Well,” said the Sheriff, “I guess you know. I mean the getting hold of Larry.”