Gregg threw in a query. “Howisthe old man?”
“He’s all right; that is to say, he’s dead. Died last night.”
The sheriff looked at Simpson meaningly. “Well, I reckon that settles his score, judge. Even if he was implicated, he’s out of it now.”
“He couldn’t have been implicated,” declared the ranger, “for he was with me at the time the murder was committed. I left him high on the mountain in the Basque herder’s camp. I can prove an alibi for him. Furthermore, he had no motive for such work.”
“What did Dunn tell you?” demanded the sheriff. “What names did he give you?”
“Wait a moment,” replied Cavanagh, who felt himself to be on his own territory, and not to be hurried. “There’s a reward offered for the arrest of these men, is there not?”
“There is,” replied the attorney.
“Well, before I make my statement I’d like to request that my share of the reward, if there is any coming to me, shall be paid over to the widow of the man who gave me the information. Poor chap, he sacrificed himself for the good of the State, and his family should be spared all the suffering possible.”
“Quite right, Mr. Cavanagh. You may consider that request granted. Now for the facts.”
“Before going into that, Mr. Attorney, I’d like to speak to you alone.”
“Very well, sir,” replied the attorney. Then waving his hand toward the others, he said: “Boys, just ride off a little piece, will you?”
When they were alone, Cavanagh remarked: “I don’t think it wise to give these names to the wind, for if we do, there will be more fugitives.”
“I see your point,” Simpson agreed.
Thereupon, rapidly and concisely, the ranger reported what Dunn had said, and the attorney listened thoughtfully without speaking to the end; then he added: “That tallies with what we have got from Ballard.”
“Was Ballard in it?” asked Cavanagh.
“Yes, we forced a confession from him.”
“If he was in it, it was merely for the pay. He represented some one else.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because he was crazy to return to the show with which he used to perform, and desperately in need of money. Have you thought that Gregg might have had a hand in this affair? Dunn said he had, although he was not present at any of the meetings.”
This seemed to surprise the attorney very much. “But he’s a sheepman!” he exclaimed.
“I know he is; but he’s also a silent partner in the Triangle cattle outfit, and is making us a lot of trouble. And, besides, he had it in for these dagoes, as he calls them, because they were sheeping territory which he wanted himself.”
“I don’t think he’s any too good for it,” responded Simpson, “but I doubt if he had any hand in the killing; he’s too cunning and too cowardly. But I’ll keep in mind what you have said, and if he is involved in any degree, he’ll have to go down the road with the others—his money can’t save him.”
As they came back to the party Cavanagh thought he detected in Gregg’s eyes a shifting light that was not there before, but he made no further attempt to impress his opinion upon the attorney or the sheriff. He only said: “Well, now, gentlemen, I must go on over the divide. I have an appointment with the doctor over there; also with a bed and a warmer suit of clothes than I have on. If I can be of any service to you when I am out of quarantine, I hope you will call upon me.”
“It is possible that we may need you in order to locate some of the men whose names you have given me.”
“Very good,” replied Cavanagh. “If they come upon the forest anywhere, the Supervisor and I will find them for you.”
So they parted, and Cavanagh and his guard resumed their slow journey across the range.
CONCLUSION
In her career as the wife of a Western rancher, Eleanor Redfield had been called upon to entertain many strange guests, and she made no very determined objection when her husband telephoned that he was bringing Lize as well as Lee Virginia to stay at Elk Lodge for a few days. The revelation of the true relation between the two women had (as Lize put it) made a “whole lot of difference” to Mrs. Redfield. It naturally cleared the daughter of some part of her handicap, and it had also made the mother’s attitude less objectionable.
Furthermore, the loyalty of Eliza to Ross, her bravery in defending him from attack, and the love and courage which enabled her to rise from a sick-bed and go to the mountains, ready and insistent on taking his place as nurse—all these were not the traits of a commonplace personality. “I begin to think I’ve been unjust to Mrs. Wetherford,” she admitted to her husband.
She had seen Lize but once, and that was in the distorting atmosphere of the restaurant, and she remembered her only as a lumpy, scowling, loud-voiced creature with blowsy hair and a watchful eye. She was profoundly surprised, therefore, when Lee Virginia introduced a quiet-spoken, rather sad-faced elderly woman as her mother.
“I’m glad to see you, Mrs. Wetherford,” Eleanor said, with the courtesy which was instinctive with her.
“I’m mightily obliged for the chance to come,” replied Lize. “I told Reddy—I mean the Supervisor—that you didn’t want no old-timer like me, but he said ‘Come along,’ and Lee she fixed me out, and here I am.” She uttered this with a touch of her well-known self-depreciation, but she was by no interpretation sordid or common.
She did, indeed, show Lee’s care, and her manner, while manifestly formed upon Lee’s instructions, was never ludicrous. She was frankly curious about the house and its pretty things, and swore softly in her surprise and pleasure. “Think of an old cow-boss like me living up to these jimmy-cracks!” As they went to their room together, she made a confession: “The thing that scares me worst iseating. I’ve et at the Alma times enough, but to handle a fork here with El’nor Redfield lookin’ on! Great peter! ain’t there some way of takin’ my meals out in the barn? I wouldn’t mind you and Ross and Reddy—it’s the missis.”
Ross had not yet arrived at the cabin, but Redfield had warned Lee not to expect him till after dark. “He probably slept late, and, besides, there are always delays on the trail. But don’t worry. Swenson will ride to the top of the divide with him, and if it seems necessary will come all the way.”
This feeling of anxiety helped to steady Lize, and she got through the meal very well. She was unwontedly silent, and a little sad as well as constrained. She couldsee that Lee fitted in with these surroundings, that she was at home with shining silver and dainty dishes, and she said to herself: “I could have been something like her if I’d had any sort o’ raisin’, but it’s too late now. But oh, Lord! wouldn’t Ed like to see her now!”
It was not yet dark when they came out on the veranda to meet the doctor, who had come to meet Ross, and Lee’s anxiety led her to say: “Can’t we go up to the cabin and wait for him there?”
“I was about to propose that,” replied Redfield. “Shall we walk?”
Lee was instant in her desire to be off, but Lize said: “I never was much on foot and now I’m hoof-bound. You go along, and I’ll sit on the porch here and watch.”
So Lee, the doctor, and Redfield went off together across the meadow toward the little cabin which had been built for the workmen while putting in the dam. It was hardly a mile away, and yet it stood at the mouth of a mighty gorge, out of which the water sprang white with speed.
But Lee had no mind for the scenery, though her eyes were lifted to the meadow’s wall, down which the ranger was expected to ride. It looked frightfully steep, and whenever she thought of him descending that trail, worn and perhaps ill, her heart ached with anxiety. But Redfield rambled on comfortably, explaining the situation to the doctor, who, being a most unimaginative person, appeared to take it all as a matter of course.
At the cabin itself Lee transferred her interest to the supper which had been prepared for the ranger, and shewent about the room trying to make it a little more comfortable for him. It was a bare little place, hardly more than a camp (as was proper), and she devoutly prayed that he was not to be sick therein, for it stood in a cold and gloomy place, close under the shadow of a great wall of rock.
As it grew dark she lighted a lamp and placed it outside the window in order that its light might catch the ranger’s eye, and this indeed it did, for almost instantly a pistol-shot echoed from the hillside, far above, signalling his approach.
“There he is!” she exclaimed, in swift rebound to ecstasy. “Hear him shout?”
His voice could indeed be heard, though faintly, and so they waited while the darkness deepened and the voice of the stream rose like an exhalation, increasing in violence as the night fell.
At last they could hear the sound of his horse’s feet upon the rocks, and with girlish impulse Lee raised a musical cry—an invitation as well as a joyous signal.
To this the ranger made vocal answer, and they could soon see him moving athwart the hillsides, zigzagging in the trailer’s fashion, dropping down with incredible swiftness. He was alone, and leading his horse, but his celerity of movement and the tones of his voice denoted confidence and health.
The doctor laughed as he said: “I don’t think a very sick man could come down a mountain like that.”
“Oh, he isn’t sick yet,” said Redfield. “What we are afraid of is a possible development.”
The ranger, as he came rushing down the final slope, found his knees weakened as much by excitement as by weariness. To hear Lee’s clear voice down there, to know that she was waiting for him, was to feel himself the luckiest of men. Escaping contagion and being on his way to a larger position were as nothing compared to the lure of that girlish halloo. He saw the lamp shine afar, but he could not distinguish the girl’s form till he emerged from the clump of pine-trees which hid the bottom of the trail. Then they all shouted together, and Redfield, turning to Lee, warningly said:
“Now, my dear girl, you and I must not interfere with the doctor. We will start back to the house at once.”
“Not yet—not till we’ve seen him and talked with him,” she pleaded.
“I don’t think there’s a particle of danger,” said the doctor, “but perhaps you’d better not wait.”
Cavanagh came up with shining eyes and heavy breath. “I made it—but oh, I’m tired! I never was tired like this before in my life.” He looked at her as he spoke. “But I’m feeling fine.”
“This is Doctor French, Ross.”
“How are you doctor? I’m not shaking hands these days.”
“Well see about that,” replied the physician.
“I met the sheriff on the way, Mr. Supervisor, and I gave him the story Dunn told me, and I made a request that the reward for the information be paid to Dunn’s widow.”
“I’ll see to that,” responded Redfield. “And now we’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the doctor.”
“I made some coffee for you, and you’ll find some supper under a napkin on the table,” explained Lee.
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry it isn’t better. It’s only cold chicken and sandwiches—”
“Only cold chicken!” he laughed. “My chief anxiety is lest it should not prove a whole chicken. I’m hungry as a coyote!”
“Well, now, good-night,” said Redfield. “Doctor, you’ll report as you go by?”
“Yes; expect me in half an hour or so.”
And so Lee walked away with Redfield, almost entirely relieved of her care. “He can’t be ill, can he?” she asked.
“I don’t see how he can. His life has made him as clean and strong as an oak-tree on a windy slope. He is all right, and very happy. Your being there to meet him was very sweet to him, I could see that. If it should turn out that you should be the one to keep him here and in the Forest Service I shall be very grateful to you.”
She did not reply to this, but walked along in silence by his side, feeling very small, very humble, but very content.
Lize was on the veranda. “Did he get through?”
“He’s all right so far,” returned Redfield, cheerily. “We left the doctor about to fly at him. We’ll have a report soon.”
They had hardly finished telling of how the ranger had descended the hill when the doctor arrived. “He hasn’t a trace of it,” was his report. “All he needs issleep. I cut him off from his entire over-the-range outfit, and there’s no reason why he should not come down to breakfast with you in the morning.”
Mrs. Redfield thanked the doctor as fervently as if he had conferred a personal favor upon her, and the girl echoed her grateful words.
“Oh, that’s all right,” the doctor replied, in true Western fashion; “I’ll do as much more for you any time.” And he rode away, leaving at least one person too happy to sleep.
The same person was on the veranda next morning when Cavanagh, dressed in the Supervisor’s best suit of gray cassimere, came striding across the lawn—too impatient of the winding drive to follow it. As he came, his face glowing with recovered health, Lee thought him the god of the morning, and went to meet him unashamed, and he took her to his arms and kissed her quite as he had promised himself to do.
“Now Iknowthat I am delivered!” he exclaimed, and together they entered upon the building of a home in the New West.
THE END
THE END