OBITUARYWe regret to record the death of our esteemed fellow citizen William Thornton, due to an accident which occurred Thursday night while on his way home after an evening spent down town. It appears that Mr. Thornton must have strayed from the path in the darkness of the gulch and fallen down a deserted prospect hole. His head struck the rocks below and death was probably instantaneous. His body was discovered there next morning by Jim Simpkins who works a claim near by.Thornton was one of the first settlers at Austin and has lived here ever since. He was an eccentric character and had become an institution of the town. His brother Willis Thornton, the well-known prospector called Singlefoot Bill, died last June, it will be recalled.
OBITUARY
We regret to record the death of our esteemed fellow citizen William Thornton, due to an accident which occurred Thursday night while on his way home after an evening spent down town. It appears that Mr. Thornton must have strayed from the path in the darkness of the gulch and fallen down a deserted prospect hole. His head struck the rocks below and death was probably instantaneous. His body was discovered there next morning by Jim Simpkins who works a claim near by.
Thornton was one of the first settlers at Austin and has lived here ever since. He was an eccentric character and had become an institution of the town. His brother Willis Thornton, the well-known prospector called Singlefoot Bill, died last June, it will be recalled.
Hugh read the last sentence a second and a third time.
“His brother Willis Thornton, the well-known prospector called Singlefoot Bill, died last June . . .”
Either the reporter was in error or Hugh had stumbled on a fact of prime importance, one that knocked the props out from under the whole Dodson case. For if Singlefoot Bill was Willis and not William, and if he had died in June and not in August, then he could not have relinquished his claim to the Dodsons on July 29th of the same year. The claimants must either have bought from “Chug” Thornton instead of Singlefoot, or else the paper was a forgery pure and simple. One phrase of the document stuck in Hugh’s memory. The conveyor of the property had been referred to as “William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill.” But surely “Chug” Thornton, before signing so important a paper, would have corrected an error so flagrant as a reference to himself as Singlefoot Bill. The fact that this mistake in identity had been allowed to stand pointed to forgery. Probably the Dodsons had learned the date of William Thornton’s death, had never heard of his brother, and had jumped to the conclusion, just as Browning and Hugh had done, that he was the old prospector who had worked Bald Knob.
All of which reasoning was based on the hypothesis that the story he had just read was true as to facts. Hugh proceeded to run it down. He looked over the June files of the paper and found the obit of Willis Thornton. At least three times in the story he was referred to as Singlefoot. It even mentioned the fact that he had prospected for years at Piodie.
From the newspaper office Hugh went to the undertaker. That gentleman was drowning his sorrows at the Mammoth, but he was one of that class of drinkers whose mind is clear only when he has had a few drinks.
“Don’t remember which was Willis and which William,” he told Hugh, “but I know I buried Singlefoot in June and Chug in August. Whyn’t you go out to the graveyard an’ look up the tombstones?”
“That’s good advice. I’ll take it.”
Hugh wandered through the bleak graveyard perched on the side of a hill across which the wind always seemed to sweep. He found the graves of the brothers, and above each a clapboard upon which had been lettered their names, cognomens, and the dates of their deaths. These, too, confirmed what he had learned from the paper and from the undertaker.
When Browning found out what Hugh had discovered he thumped the table in his room with an excited fist.
“We’ve got ’em right. We’ll spring our surprise on Dodson, trap him out of his own mouth, and throw the case out of court before it ever goes to a jury,” he cried.
CHAPTER XL
Butafter full discussion, the Bald Knob mine owners decided to let the case go to the jury. They wanted to put the Dodsons on record in order to make stronger a criminal action against them later.
The evidence of the plaintiffs consisted of testimony to the effect that Singlefoot Bill had worked the claims, that he had a patent, and that he had sold the properties to the Dodsons. The contract of sale itself was offered in evidence. Both Robert and Ralph Dodson gave supplementary evidence as to the conditions under which the contract was made. Their story was clear, concise, and apparently unshaken. The only fact which had apparently not been clearly established was that Thornton had ever patented the claims. The records did not show the patent, but it was urged that the papers had been destroyed in the big fire. Oral testimony was introduced to substantiate this contention.
Ralph Dodson was the last witness for the plaintiffs. He was a good witness, quiet, very certain of his facts, smilingly sure of the issue. Plainly he had impressed the jury of farmers who were trying the case. They knew nothing of the history of the ground in dispute, and were ready to accept what they heard on itsprima faciemerits.
In cross-examination Browning asked a brisk and careless question. “You bought direct from this prospector Singlefoot Bill, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes.”
“Not from any of his heirs or assigns or creditors?”
“No. The contract shows that I bought from William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill, the man who originally located and worked the claims.”
“Let me see. The date was——?”
“July 29th, 1867.”
“Quite sure that was the day on which you bought from this Singlefoot Bill?”
“Yes. The contract shows that.” Dodson spoke with contemptuous impatience.
“As I understand it, your title rests on the fact that you bought from William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill, on July 29th, 1867.”
“Yes, and on the fact that we have since continued to hold the property without selling it.”
“Bought from Singlefoot Bill himself, in person?”
“Yes. I’ve said so already twice.”
“You were there when he signed the contract, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes.”
“Did he read it before signing?”
“Yes.”
“Casually or carefully?”
“Very carefully. I remember how long he was reading it.”
“You think he understood it all—knew exactly what he was doing?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“That is all.”
Dodson was surprised. He had expected a savage gruelling, a fierce attack on every point of his testimony. Instead of which the opposing lawyer had asked a few harmless questions and waved him aside.
Fifteen minutes later Ralph Dodson’s face had faded to an ashen gray. Browning had proved by competent witnesses, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Singlefoot Bill was named Willis Thornton and not William Thornton, and that he was buried just six weeks before the date upon which it was claimed he had signed the contract.
The lawyer was now introducing evidence to prove that Singlefoot Bill had admitted three weeks before his death, before several witnesses, that he thought he would drop work on Bald Knob without patenting any of his prospects. Ralph was not listening to it. His face was a sneering mask, but inside he was a cauldron of seething emotion. What a fool he had been, yet how natural had been his folly. He had made sure of the date of William Thornton’s death and had obtained a specimen of his signature. This William was a prospector. He answered accurately the description of Singlefoot Bill. Who under Heaven could have guessed there was another Thornton to rise up from the dead and confront him with his guilt?
He knew the Bald Knob cases were lost. That was the least of a train of evils he had let loose on himself. For the first time he had been exposed to the public gaze as a crook. He had put himself within reach of the law. If his hired witnesses deserted him he might even go to the penitentiary.
But the emotion which predominated in him was not fear. It was hatred. As the trial progressed he saw clearly that Hugh McClintock had been the rock upon which his plans had shipwrecked, just as he had been the cause that had brought defeat to him when he ran for office and when he wooed Victoria Lowell. The fellow was for ever in his way. He blocked his vision so that he could find no pleasure in life. With all the bitterness of a vain man whose hopes and ambitions have been thwarted, he hated the man who had fought him to a standstill.
His hatred grew. For after the McClintocks and their friends had won the Bald Knob cases Ralph Dodson found his place in Nevada less secure. The big men at Virginia and Carson, so he chose to think, at least, were a bit less cordial to him. They could forgive shady work if it were not exposed, but if it failed they had no sympathy for it. He had made many enemies, and now they rallied round the McClintocks. He and his brother were indicted for forgery and for conspiracy to defraud by uttering a forgery. The Katie Brackett was pinching out. It began to look as though the firm had over-extended itself financially. His bitterness centred on one man, the one he chose to think responsible for the accumulation of trouble that was heaping upon him.
His brother came to him and whispered in his ear. They were in the office of the Katie Brackett at the time. The yellow-dotted eyes dodged furtively about the room. They rested on a map of the Piodie mines, on a calendar, on the waste-paper basket, on a broken pane in the window, anywhere but in the eyes of the man to whom he was mouthing a proposal.
For once Ralph did not want to meet his gaze. He listened sullenly. “I’ll not have a thing to do with it—not a thing,” he said at last. “It’s too dangerous. We’ve got too many men already who can ruin us by talking. Better drop it.”
“I’m not askin’ you to mix up in it. But I’ll tell you the truth. I’m scairt of that fellow. He’ll send us to the pen sure as he’s alive. I’ll fix his clock. You keep out of it.”
“I don’t want to hear a word about it. Not a word. Understand. I’ve forgotten what you told me. You’d better forget it, too.”
“Hmp! Mebbe you wantta go to serve time. I don’t. With that fellow outa the way we’d be all right. You don’t have to know a thing about it. I got a way to fix things. Sure have.”
“Well, don’t come to me about it. I’ll not listen to a word.”
Robert Dodson showed his bad teeth in an evil grin. He understood that he had been told to go ahead and play his own hand.
CHAPTER XLI
Tommiethe red-headed stayed after school to bring in kindling and a supply of piñon wood for the big drum stove in the centre of the room. Ever since his teacher had whipped him he had been her eager and willing slave. His eye was always alert to anticipate the needs of the slim, vital young woman he adored.
So wholly was his heart hers that Vicky was more touched than amused. He was a forlorn little orphan, sometimes underfed, she suspected, and she mothered him in such ways as she found possible. Perhaps she favoured him ever so little in the assignment of school privileges dear to children, such as letting him pass the water more often than she did others.
“I got kindlin’ an’ wood ’n everythin’, teacher. What’ll I do now?” he asked.
Vicky, working over next day’s lessons at the desk, smiled her thanks. “That’s all, Tommie. You’re a great help. Run along home now.”
“Must I?” he pleaded. “Can’t I go home when you go?”
“No, Tommie. I’ve a lot of work to do yet. And you know you promised to clean up the yard for Mrs. Fenway.”
Under pretense of seeing whether her pencil needed sharpening, Tommie sidled up to the desk close to his teacher. She knew what he wanted. If she had kissed him his masculine vanity would have been wounded, but the lonely child in him craved affection. Her arm slipped round his shoulder and she gave him a quick hug, scolding him a little at the same time because his coat was torn.
Tommie grinned and ran out of the building. A moment later she heard his carefree whoop outside.
It happened that the boy was at that particular stage of life when his imagination revelled in make-believes. It was impossible for him to walk home sedately along the path. He told himself he was Kit Carson, and he hunted Indians as he dodged through the sage toward town.
The young scout’s heart gave a little jump of fear. For in the clump of junipers to which his stealthy steps had brought him two men lay stretched on the ground. One of them carried a rifle.
“I got it fixed,” the other was saying, almost in a murmur. “Sent him a note from that li’l tiger cat the schoolmarm for him to come an’ walk home with her. He’ll be along sure.”
Tommie recognized the man as Robert Dodson, the biggest figure in the camp’s life.
“You’ll protect me, Dodson? You’ll not go back on me?”
“Sure we’ll protect you—me’n Ralph both—to a finish.”
“If you don’t, by God, I’ll peach on you sure.”
“Sho! It’s plumb safe. You do the job, then light out. No danger a-tall.”
“All right. You c’n run along. I’ll git him sure as he passes along that path,” the man with the rifle promised.
“Don’t you make any mistake. Get him right. No need to take any chances.”
“I never missed at this distance in my life. He’s my meat.”
“Soon as you’re sure of him light out an’ come down Coyote Gulch. I got an alibi all ready for you.”
Tommie, face ashen, his knees buckling under him, crept back on all fours out of the junipers. As soon as he had reached the open sage the fear in him mastered discretion. He ran wildly, his heart pumping furiously. Fortunately, he was by that time too far away to attract the attention of the two men.
Into the schoolroom he burst and flung himself on Vicky. One glance at his face told her that he was very frightened.
“What is it, Tommie?” she asked, her arms about his shaking body.
He gasped out his news. She went white to the lips. It seemed to her for a moment that her heart stopped beating. It must be Hugh McClintock they were ambushing. She guessed they were luring him to his death by means of a forged note from her.
What could she do? She must move quickly and surely. There were two ways to town from the schoolhouse, one by the cut, the other over the hill. The assassin was lying close to the point where these paths met. She could not watch both and reach Hugh in time to save him.
Vicky did not know where Hugh was nor how to find him with a warning. Five minutes loss of time in finding him might be fatal. She thought of Ralph Dodson. Was he implicated in this? Even so, she knew he would cry back if he knew the plot was discovered. He was always at his office at this time of day, and that office was at this edge of town. If she could get word to him . . .
“Listen, Tommie,” she cried. “You know Mr. Dodson’s office—Mr. Ralph Dodson. Go to him quick as you can and tell him to come to me—right away—at the cave-in where he rescued Johnny. Tell him he must come at once—that I need him now. Understand?”
Tommie nodded. Already she was leaving the building with him.
“You go by the cut, and if you see Hugh McClintock tell him what you’ve told me and that he’s to stay in town, she explained.
“Yes’m,” Tommie said. “I’ll ’member.”
“Don’t tell Mr. Dodson anything except that I want him just as soon as he can get to me.”
“No’m, I won’t.” His heart beat fast with excitement, but he crushed back the fear that mounted in him.
They separated. Tommie hurried along through the cut and Vicky climbed the hill to the summit. She knew that the man lying in the junipers could see her. If she had known exactly where he was, she would have gone straight to him and forced him to give up his plan by remaining at his side. But in the thick underbrush she knew there would be small chance of finding him.
At the brow of the hill she stopped and swept the path with her eyes. Nobody was coming toward her along it from town. Her heart was in a tumult of alarm. If Hugh came by the cut and Tommie failed to meet him or to impress him sufficiently of the danger, he would walk straight into the ambush prepared for him.
She was torn by conflicting impulses. One was to hurry down the hill to town with the hope of finding Hugh before he started. Another was to retrace her steps toward the junction of paths and wait for him there. Perhaps if the bushwhacker saw her there he would not dare to risk a shot. But she rejected this as a vain hope. He could fire in perfect security from the brush and slip away in the gathering dusk without any likelihood of detection.
It was not in her nature to wait in patience while Hugh might be hurrying into peril. She turned and walked swiftly back along the path she had just climbed. The shadow of dusk was falling. Objects at a distance began to appear shadowy, to take on indistinctness of outline. The panic in her grew with the passing minutes. A pulse in her parched throat beat fast. Sobs born of sheer terror choked her as she stumbled forward.
She stopped, close to the tunnel where the little boy had been entombed. With all her senses keyed she listened. No sound came to her tortured brain, but waves of ether seemed to roll across the flat and beat upon her ears. She waited, horrible endless minutes of agonized distress. In a small voice she cried out to the man in the chaparral that she was watching him, that if he fired she would be a witness against him. But her hoarse voice scarce carried a dozen yards.
From out of the junipers a rifle cracked. She ran down the path blindly, in an agony of fright. Before she had taken three steps the rifle sounded again. A scream filled the dusk, a scream of fear and pain and protest.
The lurching figure of a man moved out of the gloom toward the running girl. It stumbled and went down.
With a sob of woe Vicky flung herself down upon the prostrate body. “Hugh!” she cried, and the word carried all her love, fears, dreads, and terrors.
No sound came from the still form her arms embraced.
CHAPTER XLII
Bald Knobhummed with activities. The Ground Hog was taking out quantities of rich ore. On Vicky’s claim the leasers had struck a vein which might or might not develop into a paying proposition. A dozen other shafts were going down and from the side of the hill a tunnel was progressing at a right angle toward the Ground Hog drift.
The fame of the new discovery had spread over the state and from all directions prospectors were stampeding to the diggings. A steady stream of wagons wound up and down the hill. They brought to the camp flour, bacon, whisky, coal oil, dynamite, canned goods, clothing, lumber, chickens, honey, hay, and the thousand other staples needed by the young camp. Stores at Piodie set up branch establishments in tents and flimsy shacks. Other merchants came in from Eureka and Virginia. Freight outfits moved bag and baggage to Bald Knob, wagons loaded to the side boards with supplies. Gamblers and women of loose reputation joined the rush, keen to help reap the harvest always ripe in a young live mining camp.
The most important and the busiest man in the new camp was Hugh McClintock. He was a third owner of the Ground Hog and he had claims of his own in addition. He managed the teaming and contracting business of himself and his brother, now with temporary headquarters at Budd & Byers corral. Moreover, he was looked on as unofficial father of the camp. To him came drifters out of work, men who proposed the incorporation of a town in the saddle of the dromedary-backed hill, solicitors for contributions to an emergency hospital, and scores of others who had troubles or difficulties they wanted to unload.
On the afternoon of a sunny day came to him also a barefoot Negro boy with a note. The note read:
Are you awf’lly busy, Hugh? I want to see you. Meet me at the schoolhouse at five-thirty to-day. Be sure and come. It is very important.Vicky Lowell.
Are you awf’lly busy, Hugh? I want to see you. Meet me at the schoolhouse at five-thirty to-day. Be sure and come. It is very important.
Vicky Lowell.
If Vicky said it was important for him to meet her, he knew she was not overstressing it. That young woman was impulsive and sometimes imperious, but it was not in her character to call a busy man from his work without a valid reason. It was her custom to stay at the schoolhouse and prepare the lessons for next day so that she might have the evenings free to read or to go out with friends. Twice he had gone out to the schoolhouse and walked home with her in order to talk over some difficulty that had arisen in regard to the leasing of her claim. But he had gone of his own volition and not at her request.
There were moments during the afternoon, while he was talking over business matters with the people who poured into his office, when his pulses quickened delightfully, when he was aware of an undertug of excitement coursing through his blood. Was it possible that Vicky sent for him because—because she cared for him?
He rejected this, too, as out of character, as a kind of treason to her. She was proud and held her self-respect in high esteem. Even if she cared for him she would let him travel the whole road to her. Her lover must come out into the open and ask for all he hoped to gain.
There had been hours of late when Hugh’s heart had been lifted with hope, hours when their spirits had met in the mountain tops and they had rejoiced in the exploration of each other’s minds. The mentality of girls was aterra incognitato him. He had lived among men from his youth. Never before had he met a soul so radiant, so quick with life, so noble in texture, as hers, he told himself. The glamour of her personality coloured all his thoughts of her. The lift of her throat as she would turn the beautifully poised little head, the dark flash of her eyes so mobile in expression, the soft glow of colour in her clear complexion, even the intellectual quality of her immature thinking, went to his head like strong wine.
He was in love, with all the clean strength of his nature—and he rejoiced in his love and let it flood his life. It permeated all his actions and thoughts, quickened his vitality. Because he had gone so far in life sufficient to himself the experience was wonderful and amazing to him. His imagination halted at the threshold of his house of dreams. He dared not let it take free rein. He would tell himself humbly that this golden girl was not for him, and next moment he was planning how he might see her soon and what he would say to her.
He was detained a few moments by a business detail that had to be settled with a foreman, and after that a committee of citizens met in his office to decide about the organization of a fire department for the camp. He was on edge to be gone, but he could not very well walk out from a meeting he himself had called. When at last he got away he knew that he was nearly fifteen minutes late for his appointment with Vicky.
Knowing that he would be rushed for time, he had ordered a saddle horse to be in waiting outside the office. He cantered down the road, pretending not to hear the shout of an old prospector who wanted to discuss a lease with him. To-morrow would do well enough for Tim Murphy, anyhow. The important business of his life just now was to get to Miss Vicky Lowell as soon as his horse could cover the intervening miles.
He travelled fast. It was only a few minutes later when he rode down Turkey Creek Avenue at a gallop. He did not stop the horse in town, but passed through it to the suburb at the farther edge of which the school had been built.
Carelessly, without any special interest, he saw a man entering the cut two hundred yards in front of him. He glanced at his watch. The time was 5:49. He would be more than twenty minutes late for his appointment with Vicky.
Hugh rode into the cut. Halfway through it he pulled up his horse abruptly. The crack of a rifle had stopped him automatically. He swung from the saddle and eased the revolver in its scabbard. The sound of another shot echoed in the cut. A scream shrilled through the dusk.
He tied the horse to a sapling with a slip knot and stepped forward. He guessed that murder had been done. The shriek that still rang in his brain had come from a man in mortal agony. Warily as a panther he moved, for he knew the murderer had a rifle, and against a rifle at a hundred yards a forty-five is as effective as a popgun.
Hugh edged round the corner of the bend beyond the cut. Instantly caution vanished. In the gathering gloom a woman was flying down the road toward him. She flung herself down to gather up in her arms a figure lying sprawled across the path. McClintock broke into a run. Even in the growing darkness he had recognized that light and lissom form.
“Vicky!” he cried as he reached her.
A face bloodless to the lips looked up pitifully at him. In the eyes he read amazement, incredulity, doubt. Then, quite without warning, the girl quietly toppled over in a dead faint.
CHAPTER XLIII
Vickyfloated back to consciousness and a world that for a moment did not relate itself to her previous experience. Hugh McClintock’s arms were round her, his anxious face looking into hers. The touch of the night wind was in the air, and apparently she was lying on the ground.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You fainted,” he explained.
“Oh!” she said vaguely. Then her eyes fell upon the still body stretched beside her. Her memory picked up lost threads again and she shuddered. “I—I thought—it was you.” She clung to him, her arms round him, as though she had not yet fully escaped from the horror that had held her.
“Thought it was me?” he said, and there was not such a thing as grammar in the world just then. “Why should you think that?”
“They meant to—to—kill you. One of my little boys heard them.” She began to sob softly into his coat.
Hugh’s arms tightened about her. His body glowed with a soft warm happiness. He had never known Vicky before unstrung and helpless. It was golden luck for him that he should be the man to whom she clung.
“How could they know I’d be here?” he asked gently.
“Didn’t you get a note? Bob Dodson wrote it.”
“A decoy, to bring me here?”
“Yes. They pretended it was from me.”
She disengaged herself from his arms. The instinct of sex defence against even the favoured lover was reasserting itself.
Hugh tried to put the bits of the puzzle together. His eyes fell upon the dead body at his feet. “Then—this man—they must have shot him in place of me.”
“Yes,” her dry throat gasped out.
McClintock stooped to feel the heart. It did not beat. He turned the body for a look at the face. Then, “God!” he cried.
The face that stared up at him with sightless eyes was the face of Ralph Dodson.
Vicky wailed in distress. “Oh, Hugh! I did it. I killed him! I brought him here.”
“How? What do you mean?”
She caught her hands together in a gesture of despair. “I sent Tommie for him—told him to come. I wanted him to save you.”
Hugh looked down at the face of the man who had hated him so bitterly. His face muscles twitched. He was greatly touched.
“He died in my place—to save me,” he said gently.
“No. I didn’t tell him what I wanted him for—only that I wanted him right away. And he came—and——” She broke down utterly. Innocently she had been the cause of the death of a man who loved her. Without thought she had lured him into the ambush his own brother had prepared for his enemy.
The arms that went round her were those of Old Dog Tray and not those of her lover. Hugh comforted her as best he could.
“You’re not to blame—not in the least. The men who contrived my murder are guilty of his death. You called on him for help. That’s all. He had lots of sand. Even if he had known what would happen to him he would have come to you. That’s the way game men are. They go through. If he were here and could speak to you he wouldn’t blame you—not a bit of it. He’d say it was just the luck of the day.”
“Yes, but—but——”
His voice went on, cheerful, even, matter of fact. The very sound of it banished despair. Her sobs diminished.
He led her to his horse.
“What—what’ll we do with—him?” she asked.
“I’ll arrange that when I get to town,” he told her.
Hugh made a foot rest of his hand and Vicky climbed to the saddle. He walked along the path beside her.
Once his hand went up comfortingly to find and press hers in the darkness.
She whispered, in a small voice she could not make quite steady, “You’re so good to me.”
He did not answer. What could he say, except that if it would help her he would cheerfully let red Indians torture him? And that somehow did not seem an appropriate reply.
CHAPTER XLIV
Robert Dodson,appalled at the horrible thing he had done, fled with his accomplice during the night. They reached Reno, were hidden on the outskirts of the town by a friend, and crossed the Sierras furtively to California. Here the trail was lost. Nobody was very anxious to find it, for Dodson carried with him his own punishment.
Years later a man from Virginia City met in a San Francisco dive a drunken wreck who reminded him of the fugitive. He called him by name, but the man shrank from him, slid to the door, and disappeared into the night. This was the last time Dodson was ever recognized. A rumour floated to Nevada that he died of yellow fever soon after this in Mexico, but no proof of this was ever given out.
The Dodson fortune collapsed with the death of Ralph. The firm had over-extended its operations and a tight money market closed it out. If Ralph had lived he might have been able to weather the storm, but without his guiding hand the Dodson properties became liabilities instead of assets. A sheriff’s sale of the mines paid creditors almost in full.
The death of Ralph was the nine-days talk of the town. From the evidence of red-headed Tommie it was clear that he had directly or indirectly approved of the plan to make away with Hugh McClintock. Most Christians felt it to be a judgment of Providence that he had stepped into the trap prepared for his enemy. The pagans of the community voted it a neat piece of luck for Hugh and buried Dodson complacently and without regrets.
Hugh had been summoned by business out of town the morning after the tragedy and did not return for nearly a week. He called on Vicky the evening of the same day.
Both of them were ill at ease and self-conscious. Vicky felt that she ought to be mistress of the situation, but she could not get out of her mind the memory of how she had clung to this man and sobbed in his arms.
The conventional parlour, with its plush album, its shell ornaments, and its enlarged photographs of Jim Budd and his wife, stifled all Hugh’s natural impulses. He had never learned how to make small talk.
“Whew! It’s hot here. Let’s take a walk,” he blurted out at last.
“I want to borrow a book from Mrs. Sinclair. We might walk up there,” Vicky said.
As Vicky moved up Turkey Creek Avenue beside this strong and self-contained man she marvelled at herself for ever having thought him the Old Dog Tray type. The lights from the saloons and gambling houses flashed on a face that had stirred her imagination. He never posed or played to the gallery. He never boasted. He never made the heroic gesture. Yet she knew him for one among ten thousand, first among all the men she had met. He was clean and simple and direct, yet it had come about that he held in his keeping the romance of her life. He was the prince in shining armour she had dreamed about from her childhood.
They walked up the street toward the suburbs of the town. As they passed the Sacramento Storage Warehouse the girl, eager to keep up a desultory conversation, nodded at the alley.
“Mr. Budd told me that was where the man Dutch shot at you one night,” she said.
“Yes. He waited for me as I passed. Missed three shots.”
She shuddered. Even now she did not like to think of the dangers through which he had come to her in safety.
“All past,” he said cheerfully. “Strange, when you come to think of it. All our enemies, Scot’s and mine, dead or driven out. Yet from first to last all we ever did was to defend ourselves.”
They came to the end of the road, as he had done on that other night to which she had referred. They looked up into the stars and the clean wonder of the night took hold of them. The blatant crudeness of Piodie, its mad scramble for gold and for the pleasures of the senses, faded for this hour at least from their lives. The world had vanished and left them alone—one man and one woman.
When at last he spoke it was quite simply and without any introduction to what was in his mind.
“There’s never been any woman but you in my life. Even when you were a li’l trick and I bought that first doll for you—even then I was getting ready to love you and didn’t know it.”
“I’ve got that doll yet. It’s thedearestdoll,” she said softly, the adjective flashing out as words were wont to do in her childhood.
He smiled. “And the black doll—have you that?”
“Yes, I have that, too. I just loved the boy that sent it to me.”
“Do you love the man he’s grown into, Vicky?”
“Yes.” She said it bravely, without any pretense of doubt. She was proud of her love. The truth was too fine to cloud with any feminine sinuosities.
He drew a deep long breath of joy. His dreams had come true.
With the stars as witnesses they plighted troth to each other.
THE END
There’s More to Follow!More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide reputation, in the Authors’ Alphabetical List which you will find on thereverse sideof the wrapper of this book. Look it over before you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to want—some, possibly, that you havealwayswanted.It is aselectedlist; every book in it has achieved a certain measure ofsuccess.The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted Standard of Value. It will pay you toLook on the Other Side of the Wrapper!In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a complete catalog
There’s More to Follow!
More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide reputation, in the Authors’ Alphabetical List which you will find on thereverse sideof the wrapper of this book. Look it over before you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to want—some, possibly, that you havealwayswanted.It is aselectedlist; every book in it has achieved a certain measure ofsuccess.The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted Standard of Value. It will pay you to
More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide reputation, in the Authors’ Alphabetical List which you will find on thereverse sideof the wrapper of this book. Look it over before you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to want—some, possibly, that you havealwayswanted.
It is aselectedlist; every book in it has achieved a certain measure ofsuccess.
The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted Standard of Value. It will pay you to
Look on the Other Side of the Wrapper!
In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a complete catalog
In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a complete catalog
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFEWILLIAM MacLEOD RAINEMay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s listBIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, THEBRAND BLOTTERSBUCKY O’CONNORCROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHTDAUGHTER OF THE DONS, ADESERT’S PRICE, THEFIGHTING EDGE, THEGUNSIGHT PASSHIGHGRADER, THEIRONHEARTMAN FOUR SQUARE, AMAN-SIZEMAVERICKSOH, YOU TEX!PIRATE OF PANAMA, THERIDGWAY OF MONTANAROADS OF DOUBTSHERIFF’S SON, THESTEVE YEAGERTANGLED TRAILSTEXAS RANGER, ATROUBLED WATERSVISION SPLENDID, THEWYOMINGYUKON TRAIL, THEGROSSET & DUNLAP,Publishers, NEW YORK
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFEWILLIAM MacLEOD RAINEMay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list
BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, THEBRAND BLOTTERSBUCKY O’CONNORCROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHTDAUGHTER OF THE DONS, ADESERT’S PRICE, THEFIGHTING EDGE, THEGUNSIGHT PASSHIGHGRADER, THEIRONHEARTMAN FOUR SQUARE, AMAN-SIZEMAVERICKSOH, YOU TEX!PIRATE OF PANAMA, THERIDGWAY OF MONTANAROADS OF DOUBTSHERIFF’S SON, THESTEVE YEAGERTANGLED TRAILSTEXAS RANGER, ATROUBLED WATERSVISION SPLENDID, THEWYOMINGYUKON TRAIL, THE
BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, THEBRAND BLOTTERSBUCKY O’CONNORCROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHTDAUGHTER OF THE DONS, ADESERT’S PRICE, THEFIGHTING EDGE, THEGUNSIGHT PASSHIGHGRADER, THEIRONHEARTMAN FOUR SQUARE, AMAN-SIZEMAVERICKSOH, YOU TEX!PIRATE OF PANAMA, THERIDGWAY OF MONTANAROADS OF DOUBTSHERIFF’S SON, THESTEVE YEAGERTANGLED TRAILSTEXAS RANGER, ATROUBLED WATERSVISION SPLENDID, THEWYOMINGYUKON TRAIL, THE
BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, THE
BRAND BLOTTERS
BUCKY O’CONNOR
CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT
DAUGHTER OF THE DONS, A
DESERT’S PRICE, THE
FIGHTING EDGE, THE
GUNSIGHT PASS
HIGHGRADER, THE
IRONHEART
MAN FOUR SQUARE, A
MAN-SIZE
MAVERICKS
OH, YOU TEX!
PIRATE OF PANAMA, THE
RIDGWAY OF MONTANA
ROADS OF DOUBT
SHERIFF’S SON, THE
STEVE YEAGER
TANGLED TRAILS
TEXAS RANGER, A
TROUBLED WATERS
VISION SPLENDID, THE
WYOMING
YUKON TRAIL, THE
GROSSET & DUNLAP,Publishers, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.