Kitabı oku: «The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIX
The Arrest

Three days later Billy Webster was arrested.

Ralph Marshall was spending the afternoon at Sunrise camp when the officers arrived. With them came the man with whom he had once held a conversation concerning Billy – evidently the man who had thrown suspicion upon him.

It was about three o’clock and by chance the entire Camp Fire party was at home.

Billy, in his favorite fashion, was lying out in the sunshine on an Indian blanket, while his mother sat on one side of him, sewing, and Vera Lageloff on the other, reading to them both. They had built themselves a second camp fire in order to be a little apart from the rest of the group and not disturb any one by their reading.

For Mrs. Burton was half reclining in a big chair outside her tent, looking over a collection of manuscripts of new plays which had recently been sent to her by her husband. One of them he had chosen to appear in the next season, but he wished her opinion before finally deciding upon it.

As usual, Peggy Webster was close beside her aunt, but, in order not to interrupt, Peggy was engaged in weaving an Indian basket of sweet smelling prairie grasses. Ellen Deal was not far away but, although she held a book in her hand, she was not reading.

The day before, she had returned from her voluntary work of caring for the two invalids. But she did not yet seem to feel entirely at home in her former surroundings and, although she had endeavored to conceal the fact, Mrs. Burton and Peggy had both observed it.

The other girls were engaged in various occupations and Dan was having a nap.

Fortunately Ralph Marshall and Sally Ashton had walked a few yards along the path which led into Sunrise camp. They were first to observe the police and the man who accompanied them, before any member of the camp fire realized their errand.

Ralph had an immediate premonition of their intention, although he failed to appreciate its full seriousness.

The man whom he had seen before spoke first.

“We’ve come to arrest the kid,” he announced. “No wonder you were interested to hear all I had to say about him. I was green. I didn’t get on to the fact that you knew him. But, then, I was a long way from guessing he was mixed up with this bunch of railroad strikers.”

Apparently the man did not intend being impertinent, but was merely stating the case as he recognized it.

Nevertheless Ralph felt both angry and impotent.

“How do you know ‘the kid,’ as you call him, had anything to do with the strikers,” he inquired. “And if he did, what is that to you?”

The man shook his head.

“Nothing, maybe, except that we want to find out just how deep he was in the trouble. There were some rails torn up out of the track last night a few miles from here and a freight train went over. Lucky it was a freight, but the engineer was pretty badly hurt. We’ve got a straight tip that two or three of the strikers did the work. And we have been hearing that this boy, who is staying out here in a camp with a lot of relations and girls, has been loafing around with these same men, getting news for them and watching what was going on in places they couldn’t show themselves.”

“Nonsense,” Ralph returned. He was thinking quickly.

“Will you give me the chance to go and tell the boy’s people what you have come for?” he asked. “You see his mother is with him now and there is no telling what effect your appearance on such an errand will have on her.”

The older of the two police officers nodded, with an expression of relief. Evidently he had no taste for the task ahead of him.

This afternoon Sunrise camp looked like an idyl. The tents stood in white outline against the dark background of pine trees. In the central space before the tents a big camp fire was burning and seated about it were three or four girls in their Camp Fire costumes.

The two other groups were not for away.

Ralph went directly to Mrs. Burton. He was sorry that Peggy Webster was so near that she would be obliged to overhear him, but he dared not delay.

Under the circumstances it was well that he had given a detailed account to Mrs. Burton of his discovery of Billy and exactly what he had overheard him saying.

Billy was not aware of this fact because his aunt had never mentioned it to him. Ralph had not had any conversation with him since their return to camp together a few evenings before.

Since then, so far as any one knew, Billy had not been away for an hour.

So, in a measure Mrs. Burton was prepared for the disagreeable news Ralph brought her. In any case she was usually at her best in real difficulties; it was the smaller ones that found her unprepared.

Now she turned at once to Peggy.

“Come, dear, we must explain to your mother,” she remarked quietly, “don’t be frightened. Billy has done nothing wrong, though he may be compelled to prove the fact.”

Sally had dropped behind before Ralph delivered his message, but he accompanied the two women across the few yards of ground that separated them from Mrs. Webster.

It was curious, but none of them thought of Billy’s being particularly frightened, and yet he was a delicate, high-strung boy, not yet sixteen.

Billy was not frightened. As soon as he understood what his aunt was saying to his mother, he got up and came over to her.

“Don’t be worried, dearest,” he whispered patting her shoulder softly. “I haven’t done anything wrong – I give you my word of honor – not even anything wrong as you and father look at it. Of course, you’ll think I have been pretty headstrong and foolish and have gotten myself into a scrape. But I didn’t see it that way. I thought I could persuade the men to keep out of trouble. Well, I didn’t succeed, but I did not know I had not until now. The men promised me to be sensible.”

He put his arm around her and then turned – not to his aunt or his sister, but to Vera.

“You’ll make mother understand the way I felt, won’t you? I didn’t confide in you because I didn’t want to get you into my difficulty.”

Then he saw the two police officers approaching, with the railroad detective.

Billy smiled at them, although his face was pretty white.

“You are making a mistake in this. I had a perfect right to give the strikers all the information I ever gave them. As for any trouble you have had along the road I knew nothing about it until this minute. And I doubt if you can prove the strikers were mixed up in it anyway. Still I know there is no use in my talking to you. I’ll have to tell my story to persons higher in authority. I’ll be ready to go along with you in a few moments.”

And in ten minutes Billy had gone with them, carrying a little bag packed with a few of his belongings.

He looked very slender and young as he walked away beside the heavy, older men. But his head was up and his shoulders squared.

If he had a lump in his throat and his body shook with nervousness, he never confessed the fact.

Instead, just before he was out of sight, he turned and waved his hand gallantly to the group of his Camp Fire friends.

Mrs. Webster had gone to her tent. But the girls and Mrs. Burton received his farewell in tears. Ralph Marshall felt that he would like to have relieved himself of his own emotion by using language which was not permitted at Sunrise camp.

Before he was to return to his hotel, however, in order to attend to some business for Mrs. Burton, in connection with Billy’s arrest, Peggy Webster came to him.

“I just wanted to thank you,” she said quietly.

But she held out her hand and, as Ralph took it, he felt the clasp had its old, warm friendliness.

CHAPTER XX
The Grand Canyon

“I would give a great deal to be going down into the Grand Canyon with you today, Miss Ellen.”

Ellen Deal looked closely at her companion.

“I don’t think you ought to wish for anything these days, because so much that is good has already come to you.”

She spoke seriously and was very much in earnest; nevertheless her companion laughed.

The young man and woman were standing together at the summit of a cliff. Thousands of feet below them lay the bottom of the Grand Canyon, through which the Colorado River runs for a distance of two hundred and seventeen miles, with a world of adamant and of radiant color lying between the surface of the earth and this part of its interior.

Near them were a dozen or more other persons getting ready for the descent into the canyon.

“You are perfectly right, as you are apt to be, Miss Ellen Deal,” Robert Clark returned. “Fate has been kind to me recently – kinder than I deserve. It is wonderful that Mrs. Burton’s husband is to put on my new play. I sent it to him before Marta and I had met any of her Camp Fire party. But I suppose she did bring me good luck in this as in another thing, because it was hearing that the famous Polly O’Neill Burton was in this neighborhood, which inspired me to offer my play to her husband.”

Ellen Deal nodded vigorously, the already bright color in her face growing brighter.

“Mrs. Burton says she likes your play immensely. She read the manuscript about two weeks ago. And, of course, I am sorry you can’t go down into the canyon with us. It is only my unfortunate way of expressing myself. What I really meant was that I am glad you are so much better and have had such good fortune with your writing. I don’t feel nearly so worried about you. We shall be going away from here after a little, but I feel sure now that you are going to get well.”

“And you won’t stay on with Marta and me when I have explained to you that I can now afford to pay you for the care you will give us? I know it isn’t much to offer, but I told you exactly what Mr. Burton had given me as an advance royalty on my play. Living simply, as we do out here, it ought to last some time. Besides, who knows what may happen, now my luck has turned? Queer, isn’t it, how bad fortune often brings good? If I had kept on at my newspaper job it might have been a good many years before I had the opportunity to write a play. Besides, through being ill, haven’t I come to knowing you.”

Ellen Deal blushed furiously and unbecomingly, as she already had too much color to make any more desirable. She was one of the persons who have not the faintest idea how to receive a compliment gracefully. A compliment made her even more curt and severe in her manner than usual. And Robert Clark had a Southerner’s graceful fashion of being complimentary to women in the most charming and apparently sincere way.

“I told you I would not stay with you at any price when you no longer need me. You were very much afraid of my offering you charity when I volunteered to nurse you until you were stronger. Now, that you do not require the services of a nurse, it seems you are offering charity to me. It is totally unnecessary. Mrs. Burton has asked me to continue to remain for a time longer with the Camp Fire party.”

Then, unexpectedly, Ellen Deal’s eyes filled with tears.

How utterly ungracious and unattractive her speech sounded! Nevertheless she greatly wished Mr. Clark and his sister to remember her with pleasure, when they were so soon to be separated and probably would not meet again.

But Robert Clark did not appear to be either angry or hurt.

Instead, he continued looking at the young woman beside him with a kind of grave tenderness.

“Has it never occurred to you, Ellen, that I may need and want you for other reasons; that I may wish to care for you more than I wish you to care for me? But I have no right to speak of this to you now – not until I am absolutely well.”

He held out his thin, somewhat scholarly hand and Ellen Deal put her own capable, executive one into it. She did not understand all her companion’s speech implied, and yet she had a flooding sense of happiness.

“A happy day to you; I must go now and wish Mrs. Burton good luck. You are wonderfully kind to have included Marta in your excursion into the canyon. And I have enjoyed my ride with you this far. Good-bye.”

The Camp Fire party had this morning driven along a wonderful roadway which is built beside the brink of the canyon for a number of miles. They had finished an early luncheon at an odd road house imitating the Spanish style and furnished with Spanish furniture.

At the present moment Mrs. Burton was standing on the great porch of this hotel talking to several of the Grand Canyon guides and entirely surrounded by members of her Camp Fire party. The others were not far away, but outside in the hotel grounds.

Billy Webster was standing alongside his aunt looking perfectly well and cheerful. Two weeks had passed since his arrest, but three days only had been required for securing his release.

Mrs. Burton had, of course, immediately obtained the interest and the services of several influential men, who promised to get her nephew out of his difficulty as quickly as possible.

Then Billy’s own story had been perfectly straightforward. He did not deny his acquaintance with the strikers, but he did assert that his effort with them had been against their employing violence. There was, also, Ralph Marshall’s testimony that his story was true. Also, there was Billy’s youth and his family’s prominence to help him. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, the boy’s case was dismissed after three days although there was still the possibility that he might be called as a witness at the trial of the suspected men.

However, Billy had apparently borne his experience without much suffering in mind or body. He had not looked so well or animated, as he did today, since his arrival in Arizona. He had also managed to make peace with his family for his escapade, which was more important. However, Mrs. Burton insisted that he never be allowed to get very far out of her own or her sister’s sight while they were in Arizona, so they need have no further shocks through Billy’s proceedings.

The entire Camp Fire party, excepting Mrs. Webster and Marie, who had wisely remained at camp, was to descend on mule back down one of the Grand Canyon trails to a plateau above the Colorado River. The trail was one of the easiest, nevertheless it required thirty-six hours and they were therefore to spend the night at a camp midway down the incline.

Ralph Marshall, Terry Benton and Howard Brent also were members of the expedition and Robert Clark had taken the drive, but was not strong enough to go all the way down the trail.

There is an appalling grandeur and an almost indescribable beauty in a descent into the Grand Canyon. And the spectacle affects persons very differently, according to their temperaments. To some the gigantic awfulness of this huge and mysterious world of stone is more impressive than its beauty or its majesty. To others it appears as a divine monument of God, revealing the mystery of creation rather than inspiring terror.

But whatever the effect on the Camp Fire party of the scene about them, as they traveled slowly and carefully down the steep path, getting deeper and deeper into the center of the earth, they were more silent and self-absorbed than ever before. Even Sally Ashton and Gerry Williams forgot to chatter, or else were too much occupied with their efforts not to come to grief, as the riding was extremely difficult.

About sundown the rude little houses built on a rocky plateau which were to be their shelter for the night appeared as havens of refuge to each of the travelers.

As soon as they could dismount, everybody disappeared inside the houses to rest, leaving only Peggy Webster and Ralph Marshall outside in company with the guides who were looking after the mules. Peggy walked over to the edge of the cliff and stood there looking down, and Ralph waited a moment in order to be able to speak to her.

“I have never been able to forgive myself, Peggy, for clutching at you the afternoon I tumbled over one of these cliffs,” a voice said unexpectedly at the girl’s elbow. “I do many things I ought not, but I hate to think of adding cowardice to my weaknesses.”

Ralph Marshall’s face was so troubled that Peggy involuntarily slipped her arm inside his. Of course, one never forgets an unkindness; it is hardly possible, but she had in a measure forgiven Ralph for his once careless attitude toward her. Moreover, at present it made one feel safer and happier to have the touch of something human near one, while beholding so much of nature in an unfriendly mood.

“Don’t be absurd, Ralph; your reaching out was involuntary. Besides, you hardly touched me. Anyone would have done what you did without thinking. There was no time, and I would not have fallen as you hardly touched me, except that the ground also gave way under my feet.”

“You are a good sport, Peggy, but it scarcely needs me to tell you so.”

Peppy turned toward her companion with one of her clearest and most straightforward expressions.

“I like to hear you say so though, Ralph,” she answered.

Then, in order to change the young man’s train of thought, she stared at the great mountains of color up above them and then at the deeper one at their feet.

“Do you suppose life is as wonderful and as beautiful a journey, Ralph, as the climb through this canyon?”

Ralph returned her gaze steadily.

“I think it will be for you, Peggy, I wish I were as certain for myself. But we shall be reaching the end of the trail into the canyon tomorrow. May I wish we may be good friends to the end of a longer trail?”

Peggy had only time to answer, “yes,” when Mrs. Burton, coming to the door, called her into their little lodging for the night.