The unexpected dénouement between Marvin and Sheriff Blodgett brought consternation to those who had contrived toward his apprehension. Everett Hammond, in consultation with Thomas, would have taken the young man by force—for Hammond was a strapping six feet two or thereabouts, and Marvin was but a stripling in strength. But Thomas, cool and controlled, and always an advocate of keeping within the letter of the law, counseled him against any such hot-headed procedure, explaining that it might militate against them in a court where outside operators in land or mining stocks were not looked upon with any too friendly a spirit. Mrs. Jones and Millie, astounded and uncomfortable in a situation far afield from their uneventful lives, were too perplexed to speak, contenting themselves with staring at Marvin in unbridled disgust. Millie felt something of compassion for his predicament, but the thought that any one she knew should be accused of theft filled her with horror. Besides, it was he who was preventing her foster-father from signing the deed which would place them all in easy circumstances as against the difficulties of the present. Whatever of pity she had quickly disappeared. With one long look of disdain toward Marvin, she led Mrs. Jones up-stairs.
Blodgett, after his first surprise, was overcome with rage at the knowledge that a whippersnapper such as he considered Marvin should have placed him in such a ludicrous position. He, too, like Hammond, would have liked to have tried force, but he knew that Marvin stood well among the lumbermen in Washoe County and his attempt at re-election was too close at hand to permit of his taking any chances when those to gain by them were strangers without a voice in the politics of the section.
With a covert eye he watched Marvin, who stood a few feet from the line and smiled down at Bill, the latter grinning up at him, warming to the affectionate arm placed about his shoulder. As the two women went up the stairs, Marvin watched them, a half-shadow in his eyes as he caught Millie's disdainful glance. Giving Bill a good-by pat, Marvin, hat in hand, made a sweeping bow which took in Hammond, Thomas, and Blodgett.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he laughed ironically. Sidling with his back to the California desk, he reached the door, where he waved his hand at his astonished persecutors and slid out upon the veranda and down the steps, where he wandered off in the twilight.
Blodgett walked to the door and looked after him. "Guess I'll stick 'round a bit," he grumbled to Thomas, who had followed him to the door and was gazing after Marvin.
Hammond remained where he was, leaning up against the desk, watching Thomas and Blodgett with surly eyes. "You two are a nice pair of mollycoddles," he sneered, "letting him make a get-away like that. If either of you had any gumption you'd have knocked him over the line."
"Yes?" drawled the sheriff. "'N' be arrested for assault. My jurisdiction stops on this side of the line." He was silent, while he took a piece of tobacco from his pocket and cut off a bite. After a minute he grunted: "Humph! He'ain't gone yet. I'm goin' to stay here 'til to-morrow mornin'. By that time he'll be home, for he 'ain't got no place else to go. Then I'll nab him good 'n' quick."
All this time Bill had stood in the middle of the floor, listening to all that was said, saying never a word himself. Now he went slowly to one side of the room, took a chair that stood against the California wall and placed it in front of the table, close to the dividing line. Blodgett, thinking there was reason for his act, so deliberate was it, took a chair from its place near the Nevada wall and placed it parallel with Bill's, seating himself in it.
The two men contemplated each other in silence. Thomas and Hammond stood in short consultation, and then the latter went to his room on the California side of the hotel, Thomas sauntering to a rocking-chair on the veranda. He lighted a cigar and sat looking out over the lake, where the moon was rising over the rim of the bordering Sierras.
There was scrutiny in the eye with which Blodgett viewed Bill. There was distrust in the steady look which thrust itself between Bill's half-open lids and struck straight in the center of Blodgett's pupil. The latter opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again, as steps were heard on the veranda and Rodney Harper entered the lobby.
"Do you know where I can find John Marvin?" he asked of the two men whose backs he faced. Both immediately turned in their chairs, the sheriff alert for any news he might obtain of the habits and customs of the man he was pursuing. Bill, when he saw who it was, arose and slowly went toward him, holding out his hand.
"Oh! Hello, old chap! I got your telegram, also one from Marvin. Where is he?" Harper grasped Bill's hand and gave it a hearty shake, glancing anxiously about the lobby.
Bill ignored the last question, keeping a slanting eye on Blodgett. "Your wife's up-stairs," he whispered, with a nod toward the Nevada up-stairs hallway.
"Where?" Harper turned in the direction of Bill's nod.
"In Nevada," Bill drawled, with a slow grin.
Harper shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Bill, continuing with his subject, "What's the number of her room?"
"You'd better go slow." Bill thrust his hands in his pockets, assuming an air of counselor. "I told her I thought you'd be here."
"What did she say?" Harper was at the register and going quickly down the list. He came to his wife's name, letting his finger run across the page until he came to the number of her room; then he swept past Bill and had his foot on the first step when Bill stopped him.
"Ye'll spoil it all, if ye ain't careful." The old man drew the younger one's head close to his mouth, speaking in low tones.
"What makes you say that? In your telegram you made me believe everything was all right," Harper said, as he leaned against the newel-post.
"So 'twill be if you listen to some one that knows summat 'bout women. If you chase chickens they run like wild-fire 'n' ye can't catch 'em unless you get 'em in a corner. But if you holds out your hand with a little feed, by 'n' by they eat right out of it."
Harper laughed. "That's what you think, is it?"
"I know," Bill chuckled. "You oughter heard what she said to me." Bill loved to think that he knew something the other fellow would like to know. Even his sympathy with Harper and his desire to see all well between him and his wife could not contain him when it came to holding out in a matter of mere curiosity. "I was goin' to tell you, but I'd better not," he added, with a wise look. "'Twan't very encouragin'," he added.
Harper walked away from the stairway, his arm through Bill's. "Don't you think you'd better tell me?" There was real concern in Harper's voice and Bill knew it was the expression of the anxiety in his heart. Too, Bill knew that it required tact to approach Mrs. Harper in her present hysterical mood.
So he answered, with a brusk shake of his head, "Nope."
"Well, of all the damned-fool things!" Harper stood still, letting go of Bill's arm.
"I wouldn't call her that," Bill remonstrated, moving away from Harper with a quick look of astonishment.
"Who's calling her that?" Harper paced up and down, a scowl on his face. "I mean the whole situation. It's such a silly mistake. And yet she won't believe it."
"Same here." There was a warm sense of comradeship in the same sad cause in the air with which Bill made his last remark. It brought Harper to a standstill. With a smile he listened to the old man's explanation. "Folks don't believe nothin' I tell 'em. Women never do believe you when you tell 'em the truth, but tell 'em a lie 'n' they swallows it hook 'n' bait. Why don't you write her a letter? Ef she knows yer here 'n' ain't too anxious ye got a good chance."
"I believe I'll do that. It sounds like a good scheme. Give her a chance to think things over instead of running in on her all of a sudden. Have you got a room?" Harper went to the Nevada desk and took up the pen to register, but Bill interrupted him.
"Come on over here," Bill nodded to the California desk, following his own gesture to a place back of the counter. "We always got plenty of room on this side."
"Where's the bar?"
At this question put by Harper, Bill's head struck an interesting and inquisitive attitude. "Down to the saloon," he said.
But he was doomed to disappointment. "Never mind, then," was Harper's disheartening reply.
Bill's interest slackened, but was quickly revived as Harper, in the middle of scribbling a note to his wife, looked up long enough to add, "I've got a flask in my bag."
It did not take Bill long to get from behind the desk. That bag was a friend. He had promised Marvin that he would not spend his pension, and Mrs. Jones had carefully removed the flask from its corner in the Nevada desk. "I'll show you right up," he exclaimed, making an undue and unaccustomed haste toward the stairs, bag in hand.
At the top of the stairs he stood, waiting for Harper to seal the envelop.
Harper came up the stairs, two at a time, and handed the letter to Bill, offering to take the bag from Bill as he did so. But Bill shook his hand loose. "I'd better take the bag to the room for you first. Ye must be pretty tired." There was a hidden implication in the monotone in which the last speech was delivered.
Rodney Harper was too possessed of his own affairs to feel it, and with an impatient gesture he stooped to take his bag from Bill, pleading, "Please, old man, won't you deliver the letter?"
But Bill, attuned to a rare occasion, had quickly evaded Harper's outstretched hand and was down the hallway with the bag. He opened the door of Harper's room and went in first, depositing the bag on the floor. Then he went up to the frowning guest, caught hold of his arm, and whispered:
"Marvin's here, but I didn't want them folks down-stairs to know it. They come to git him fer cuttin' down your timber, but he jumped over the California line. He'll be back by 'n' by, I'm thinkin'."
Harper was interested in the news and asked Bill to let him know when Marvin was about again, but he was not interested enough to make him forget what was his present paramount concern. He gave a desperate glance toward the letter in Bill's hand.
But Bill had no intention of leaving until his own possessive intention was fulfilled. He backed away from the bed where he had placed the bag, slowly retreating until he came to the door, which Harper had left open for Bill's exit. When he reached the sill he grasped the knob with one hand, half closing it, while he stood in front of it on the inside. The anxiety in Harper's contracted brow met the slow grin that wrinkled about Bill's eyes and mouth. A question started from Harper's tongue.
Bill forestalled it. "I'm sorry," he said, slowly and gently, but with a wise twinkle in his blue eyes, "thet there ain't no bar. Mother she doesn't like drink." He paused a moment to see what effect his words were having. As he saw his intention was slowly penetrating through Harper's absorption in his own affairs, Bill made his final coup. "She lifted my flask from the desk, or I could be askin' you to have a swig."
Harper threw back his head and laughed. "So that's it!" he exclaimed, hurriedly opening his bag and extracting the flask. "Well, I tell you what I'll do. If you'll beat it in quick time with that note I'll treat you to the whole darned flask."
Bill needed no second bidding. With flask secure in his back pocket he lost no time in descending the California stairs and mounting the flight to the Nevada half of the hotel and leaving the letter with Mrs. Harper. On the way back to the lobby he slightly diminished the contents of the flask.
He entered the lobby with a smile whose target was the whole world and threw himself whole-heartedly into the pleasure of tormenting Blodgett. He knew that Blodgett was furious at the manner of Marvin's escape as much as at the fact itself. So he dropped into the chair next to the sheriff, drawling, "You goin' over to Truckee to get a California warrant?"
Blodgett gave Bill a mean look, sneering, as he sniffed at the air, "Say, you're collecting something, ain't you?"
"I didn't get nothin' from you," Bill answered, shortly. Which answer was not without its point, Blodgett's reputation as one of the closest men in Washoe County not being unknown to Bill.
"Don't get sore. I wished I was in your place," said Blodgett, as he fidgeted about in his chair and looked through the doorway.
Thomas, who had been on the veranda all this time, came indoors just as Blodgett finished his remark.
Bill caught it quickly, his smile flashing into a gleam of humor toward Thomas.
"In my place?" asked Bill, with a twinkle. With a nod toward Thomas, he added, "You're like that other fellow."
Thomas flushed, but ignored the innuendo. Taking a paper from his pocket, he looked through it. At the California desk he stopped to sign his name at the end of it. Then he called to Bill, "Did you tell your wife we were waiting for her?"
"No, I didn't. I've been up visiting my friend Harper. He's a big millionaire. Havin' trouble with his wife. Patched it up. Told him to write her a note 'n' I brought it to her. He gimme this fer the idea." Bill produced the flask from his pocket and extended it toward Blodgett, but when it was half-way on its journey he jerked it back, just as Mrs. Harper emerged from between the portières of the Nevada upper hallway.
Clad in a fluffy, silken négligée, she tiptoed half-way down the stairs before she saw Thomas, who had left the desk and was standing in the doorway with his face toward the moonlit lake. She gave a smothered cry and was about to turn back. Bill held up a warning finger toward Blodgett, who quickly obeyed the injunction to look straight ahead.
Arising from his seat, the old man made a friendly motion toward the frightened little creature on the stairs and she came down to where he stood in the middle of the floor, casting bewildered glances to right and left and trembling as he whispered in her ear:
"He's in Number Four. Hurry now, before any one catches on."
"Do they all know he's my husband?" she flittered as she sped lightly up the California stairs.
"I won't say nothin' about it." Bill could not resist a wink, which met with a toss of Mrs. Harper's pretty head as she glided between the portières toward her husband's room.
Bill went back to his chair again. Everett Hammond came into the room from the porch outside. Laying his hat on the California desk, he went around behind the counter and turned the pages of the register.
Bill did not sit down, but wandered over to the desk where Hammond stood and gazed at him through half-open eyes. "Oh, you runnin' the place now?" he questioned.
Hammond did not answer him at once, but kept on running over the names on the list. But there was a compelling force in the mild gaze of the old man which made Hammond stop to reckon with him. "Yes," he said, bruskly, while he frowned at Bill. "I've just settled everything with your wife. All that's needed now is for you to sign that deed."
There was no answer forthcoming from Bill. Instead, he slowly took the flask from his pocket and held it in front of him. "I'll take a drink with you," he said, with a slow smile.
Hammond did not glance up, but answered, with a half-smile, "I'm sorry, but I, haven't got anything."
"I have," said Bill, shuffling toward him with the flask.
Blodgett twisted about in his chair and called, "You look and act as if you'd had enough."
Bill left the desk and seated himself beside Blodgett again. "I don't want it for myself," he said, putting the spurned flask back in his pocket; "it's just for social—ability. I don't drink."
"Don't tell me that," scoffed the sheriff. "You're a booze-fighter."
"No, I ain't," Bill answered, quickly.
Then seeing a chance for romance, he added, "I'm an Indian-fighter."
"Is that so?" Blodgett drew out his answer in an accent that spoke of disbelief.
"You bet it's so. Did you ever know Buffalo Bill?" Bill leaned forward so he could see what impression he was making upon the sheriff.
Out of the corner of his eyes Blodgett was watching Bill. "Yes, I knew him well," said the sheriff, gruffly.
Bill leaned closer to Blodgett and looked squarely into his eyes, which showed the same doubt as his own. "I learned him all he knew about killing Indians. Did he ever tell you about the duel I fought with Settin' Bull?"
"Settin' Bull?" The sheriff sat up straight and let his glance travel the length of Bill's body and back again to the old man's eyes, which were not quivering a lash.
"He was standin' when I shot him," grinned Bill. "I never took advantage of nobody, not even an Indian."
The sheriff relaxed contemptuously into his chair again. "You've got a bee in your bonnet, 'ain't you?"
"What do you know 'bout bees?" Bill started to roll a cigarette.
"Not much. Do you?" was Blodgett's reply as he looked straight ahead.
Bill slowly rolled the weed, put it in his mouth, and chewed on the end of it. Then he made slow answer, halting between sentences, his eyes slanting toward Blodgett to gather the effect of his words:
"I know all about 'em. I used to be in the bee business. Drove a swarm of bees across the plains in the dead of winter once. And never lost a bee. Got stung twice."
The sheriff jumped to his feet and directed a scornful glance Bill's way as he straightened his coat about his shoulders, twisted his belt, and started for the door, taking his chair and putting it in its place against the wall on his way. "I got enough. I'm going outside."
Hammond, who had been busy going over the register all this while, now came from behind the desk and walked toward Bill. "Now look here, Mr. Jones—"
"Won't do no good fer you to talk," Bill interrupted him, but did not even glance up, remaining seated in the middle of the lobby. "I ain't goin' to sign nothin'—understand that," he said, not ungently.
Hammond planted himself squarely in front of Bill, setting his doubled fists on his hips. "Well, if you don't," he snarled in a loud voice, "you'll find yourself without a home. You understand that—if you're not too drunk." He delivered the last remark with a sneer that was almost a bark.
"Do you think I'm drunk?" Bill went close to Hammond, his head thrown back the better to look into his opponent's shifting eyes.
But Hammond made him no answer, for just then Mrs. Jones, dressed in an evening gown of the latest cut, appeared on the stairs leading from the California side and walked self-consciously down on the arm of Thomas.
At first Bill did not recognize her. He thought it was some one of the boarders, who often wore evening dress for dinner. He hurried toward the Nevada desk, asking, as his eyes began at Mrs. Jones's feet incased in shining silver slippers and wandered slowly up the folds of handsome yellow brocade to the wide expanse of bare neck and shoulder, "Do you want your key?"
Mrs. Jones blushed, and the tears sprang to her eyes, as she wrapped the lace scarf flung over her shoulders closer across her bosom. Turning toward Bill, she did not answer him, but took up the pen and pointed to the paper which Hammond had placed on the desk, ready for them both to sign.
By this time Bill's glance had reached her face. For a moment he stared in astonishment. Then he gave a gasp and stood back, his arms limp at his sides. "Mother, 'tain't you?" he gasped.
"Yes, it's me," Mrs. Jones replied, angrily, as she gulped to keep back the tears which were forcing themselves to the surface, part in timidity and part in rage at her spouse, who she thought was making fun of her.
Bill straightened himself and, with a droll nod of his head, replied to Hammond, "You're right, I'm drunk."
Thomas stifled the smile that rose to his lips in spite of himself. He was standing on the other side of Mrs. Jones. Now he came around and stood in front of Bill. "Don't you approve, Lightnin'?" he asked, pleasantly. "She's dressed in the height of fashion."
"Looks higher 'n that to me," Bill drawled, as his eyes twinkled at the eight inches of bare ankle between Mrs. Jones's skirt edge and her silver pumps.
Mrs. Jones, with an insulted toss of her head, dropped the pen with which she had signed the paper and hurried across the lobby to the dining-room door. She was crying, but Bill did not see her tears. His eyes were still fastened upon her ankles. "The mosquitoes 'll give you hell in that this summer," he called out as she slammed the door behind her.
Thomas shrugged his shoulders and smiled indulgently. He had made up his mind to leave matters entirely in Hammond's hands now; so he went up the California stairs, calling out to Bill, "You'll get yourself disliked around here, if you don't look out."
"So'll you," Bill called back as he shambled to the same stairway.
But he got no farther than the first step. Hammond laid a detaining hand on his arm, pulling him around in front of him. "See here, Jones," he said, harshly, "I've taken over the management of this place and I don't propose to stand any more nonsense from you, and unless you do as your wife tells you to, sign this deed, I'll kick you out."
Bill pulled himself loose from Hammond and stood facing him, a defiant grin antagonizing Hammond to greater fury. "No, you won't!" Bill laughed, never flinching in the half-open eyes with which he held Hammond's eyes.
"What's the reason I won't?" Hammond asked, making a threatening move.
Still Bill remained unmoved. "'Cause you talk too much about it."
Hammond stood and looked in fury at Bill. But he knew that any harsh treatment on his part might spoil the whole game, which he now felt to be near an end, which meant victory for his plans, so he smothered his desire to lay hands on the old man, and with sudden impulse, born of a desire to end the discussion, he hurried up-stairs to his room, calling back, "You'll see whether I will or not."
When Bill was once more alone he meandered slowly to the Nevada desk and leaned against it, looking abstractedly toward the veranda. Outside, the moon was shining in long shafts of silver light through the branches of the tall cedars. Beyond the lake lay, itself a moon of silver on the floor of the valley. He could hear the hoot of a hundred billy owls. Unthinkingly he went to the door and stood there, sniffing at the fragrance of the pines. Then he went back to the desk again.
As Mrs. Jones had closed the dining-room door behind her, he had seen that she was crying. Her tears had acted like a knife on his obstinacy. If there was one method of bringing Bill to a realization of his shortcomings, it was the knowledge that he had brought his wife to tears. No matter what the occasion, through the years of his many omissions, he had never failed to awaken to a sense of duty at the slightest hint of a sob on her part. And now remorse was gnawing heavily at his heart. He knew that she was sorely tried by his laziness. He knew that ever since she had come from the city she had longed for some of the luxuries which she had tasted for the first and only time in those few brief days when Thomas had given her a bit of every woman's paradise. And as he looked out he wondered in his slow, but none the less logical, way what it mattered, after all, if the place did go, just so long as mother was happy. To be sure, the place was worth much more than Hammond was willing to pay them. But it was enough for their humble needs. From the door beyond he could hear the sound of her sobs. He went half-way across the room. "Yes," he reasoned with himself, "after all, the property is hers. I gave her my part of it to do as she pleased with." And a sudden resolve to do her will possessed him.
But as he reached the middle of the lobby he heard some one on tiptoe behind him. He turned to see Marvin, crouched down by the desk, so that any one coming from up-stairs could not see him.
"'Sh!" Bill put up a warning hand. "Blodgett's outside there some place."
"He's snoring in his buggy," Marvin whispered back, with a half-smile. "Bill," he added, quickly, "I've been outside and I've heard every word they've been saying to you. I haven't time to tell you all I want to just now. Promise me again that you won't sign that deed until you've talked further with me about it."
Bill hesitated. "Well, mother wants to awful bad," he answered, slowly.
From the dining-room voices could be heard. "Ye'd better get out," said Bill.
"Not until you promise," persisted Marvin.
Bill wavered an instant. He wanted mother to be happy, and yet, another day did not make so much difference—especially when Marvin was in danger. The door in back of him swung open. Leaning quickly down to Marvin, as the latter crept toward the outer door, he whispered: "All right. I promise."
Mrs. Jones walked into the room with a swagger, half of indignation, half of sorrow. She was still wiping the tears from her eyes. The deed and the pen were in her hand.
Bill went to her, placing an affectionate hand on her bare arm. "Mother, ain't you cold?" He could not resist another tilt at her unusual costume.
"No." She stamped her foot at him, withdrawing her arm from his hand. "I'm hot all over at you, insulting me before those gentlemen." Hurrying to the California desk, she buried her head on her crossed arms and began to cry. "Makin' fun of me," she sobbed, "because I try to look presentable for once in my life."
Following her to the desk, Bill patted her gently on the back. "It's gettin' late, mother," he coaxed. "You're tired and you've been working hard. You're all tuckered out. Now you go up-stairs and put on some clothes and go to bed."
Mrs. Jones shook him from her and went to the other desk, where she stood facing him, her face red and swollen from her tears. "Oh!" she wrung her hands as she looked at him with blazing eyes. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself with the gentlemen here to buy the place and you around the office drinking liquor."
"No, I ain't." Bill answered her outburst mildly, backing away from her lest she should discover the flask in his back pocket.
He was too late. Her eye, accustomed to just such investigations, had detected the lines of the flask as it protruded from his back pocket. Taking hold of him, she put her hand in his pocket and produced the flask, holding it, half empty, to the light.
"That belongs to Mr. Harper," was Bill's ready excuse, given in the monotone which invariably masked a world of guilt. Seeing the doubt in his wife's eye, he added, "You can go up-stairs and ask him, if you don't believe it."
Mrs. Jones did not reply to his last remark. Instead of which she went back to the California desk, where she set down the flask, taking up the deed and holding it out to him. "Now, Bill," she said, in a coaxing voice, "I want you to put your name to this paper." She smiled kindly upon him for the first time in many hours.
Bill wavered before her smile. It was difficult for him to withstand it, especially as he knew how sorely he had tried her. But a promise was a promise with Bill, and his one pride was that he had kept intact through all the years of his digressions this one principle—he never broke his word. He had told Marvin he would not sign the deed without consulting him further, so he turned his eyes from his wife's face and answered, in a low voice, "I can't, mother."
"What's the reason you can't?" Mrs. Jones planted herself in front of him, determined that he should not evade her this time.
"Because I promised my lawyer I wouldn't," he answered, his head turned away from her.
Mrs. Jones took him by the arm and swung him into line with her gaze. "Now see here, Bill," she snapped, "I've been working my fingers to the bone and I'm entitled to a rest and you sha'n't stop my having it. Mr. Thomas is going to take Millie and me to the city to live. If you sign that you can come with us. If you don't you've got to look out for yourself for a while."
Bill had not paid much heed to Hammond's threat delivered a few minutes back. But now something in his wife's tone brought it, recurrent, to his mind. He wondered if, after all, there was some truth behind it.
Pausing to gather his points together, Bill nodded toward the stairs. "Mother, that fellow, Hammond, said he'd throw me out. Do you want me to get out? Is that what you mean?"
It was not what Mrs. Jones had meant at all. But the events of the day had strained her nerves to breaking-point. Since daylight Thomas and Hammond had been after her to force Bill to do as she wished him to. To their suggestions that she teach him a lesson by leaving him for a while she had turned a deaf ear. But now they came surging back and, in answer to her call for a method of persuasion, clamored for recognition. Before she had time to stifle them they had their way. "I mean just that, Bill." There was silence as she thrust the words from her mouth. Bill stood still, gazing steadily at her.
She lowered her lids.
Then he came closer and looked up under her eyes, in the hope that he would find a relenting gleam there. But she turned away from him.
"All right, mother—I'll go."
Without another word he turned and walked toward the door. Mrs. Jones took a quick step forward, then paused. "Where'll you go?" she asked, half in surprise, half in defiance, for she had not believed that he would accept her challenge.
"Oh, 'most anywhere," he said, gaily, forcing a whistle, though his lips quivered. "I'll be all right, mother."
His wife stepped forward again, extending a staying hand, but her resentment had her in its grip. Her hand fell back to her side.
"Well," she called out to him as suddenly she turned from him and hurried up the stairs, "I mean every word I've said! It's one thing or the other! Either you make up your mind to sign this," and she tapped the paper in her hand, "or I'm through with you!" Without a backward glance—fearing, perhaps, that she might weaken—she disappeared along the upper hallway.
Bill took his hand from the door and came slowly back into the room. He strolled to the California desk, pushed back his old hat, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully. Of a sudden his absent eyes lighted on the flask resting on the desk, where Mrs. Jones had put it down. Bill stroked his stubbled chin and gazed at the flask. It seemed to suggest an idea to him. Satisfying himself that there was no one around at the moment, he strolled to the door, poked his head out, and gave a peculiar whistle; then he walked back to the desk and leaned against it, waiting.
In a few minutes Zeb's unkempt visage silently framed itself in the softly opened door. Lightnin' jerked his head as a sign to enter. Stealthily, with many a wary glance to right and left, his disreputable partner of the past eased himself across the lobby and stood before Bill, childlike, trustful inquiry in his eyes.
"What's the idee, Lightnin'?" he rumbled, puffing at the frayed remains of a cigar.
With a gesture of calm triumph Bill pointed to the flask on the desk.
"I said I had it, Zeb," he remarked, in the tone one uses when confronting and confounding a skeptic with ocular proof, "an' there it is!"
"Why, so it be!" said Zeb, reaching out for the prize.
But Lightnin' stopped him. "Hold on a minute, partner. The evidence ain't to be absorbed just yet. In fact, brother, we better keep it intact for future use, 'cause you're goin' on a long journey, Zeb. You an' me is goin' to hit the trail again, old-timer!"
"Gosh! You mean it, Lightnin'?" Zeb showed almost human delight and anticipation. "But for why? You had a row with your old woman?"
"Nope," Bill replied. "Can't call it that, exactly. You needn't worry them brains o' yours about why we're goin', Zeb. It's just that I got a notion to teach some people 'round here a lesson, an'—an' maybe I can bring poor mother to her senses," he added, gently.
"When we goin'?" Zeb questioned, his eyes on the flask.
"Right away—this here minute, in fact," said Bill.
Zeb looked at him dazedly. "Just as we is? Where 're we hittin' fer?"
"I ain't telling that just yet," said Bill, slowly. "Where we are goin' is a secret."
"Oh," Zeb answered, with a nod of wisdom. "I—see. You ain't tellin' 'em you be goin'—not even your old woman, eh?"
"Them brains o' yours is pickin' up a bit, ain't they, Zeb?" Bill commented, with encouraging approval. "Well, you hit it, all right! Nope, we ain't tellin' nobody. We're goin' to kinder disappear completely for a pretty good space. Mother ain't to be able to locate me a-tall. There's some others as 'll likely find out, but I ain't worryin' about them—they want to get rid o' me, an' they ain't likely to exhaust themselves any tryin' to find me. I got a object, Zeb. It ain't none o' your business what that object is—by which I merely mean to say, old-timer, that you wouldn't have no particular interest in it. Come on—let's get out now, afore they begins to gather 'round me again!"
Picking up the flask and sliding it into his coat pocket, Lightnin' walked away toward the door. Nodding wisely, Zeb followed, eyes hopefully on the pleasant bulge in his old partner's coat.
"Well!" Millie, appearing with a tray of late supper to take up-stairs to one of the guests' rooms along about ten o'clock that evening, almost ran into Marvin, who had returned to the hotel in the hope of seeing Bill and giving him the full reason for his not being a party to the sale of the place. The lights in the lobby were turned low and he had managed to evade the sheriff, who was sitting in his buck-board outside, waiting for Lemuel Townsend, who was to return to Reno with him.
Millie's exclamation, because of her surprise in seeing Marvin again, escaped her in pleasant tones, but her memory asserted itself and the smile rapidly faded from her face and she gave a haughty toss of her head, saying, as he stepped in front of her when she started for the stairs, "Will you please let me pass?"
But Marvin had wanted to see her quite as much as he did Bill, the impression she had given him of her liking for Thomas having cut deeper than the events of the earlier part of the day had given him time to realize. Ignoring her request, he removed his hat and said, as he searched her eyes for some play of the old light that had often gladdened his heart in the days when they were together in Thomas's office in San Francisco, "I suppose you are surprised to find me here still?"
Millie swayed toward the Nevada desk, depositing her tray upon it. She faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was not to answer him. She could not understand his interference in the matter of the deed. Neither did she believe one word he had uttered against Hammond and Thomas. On the contrary, Thomas's apparent interest in her and her mother and his constant flattery and attentions had attained their end. She believed in him implicitly and therefore had given credence to every word he had said against Marvin. Nevertheless, the charge that he was not honest could not quite overcome the quickening of her interest which had manifested itself lately in a heart that ran far ahead of itself at his approach.
After a silence in which she stared at him steadily, his eyes answering hers with an unflinching candor mixed with a vague wistfulness, she answered him. "I don't think anything you could do would surprise me, after all that has happened to-day and all that I've been told about you."
"Millie!" Marvin awkwardly rolled his hat in his hands, while his speech faltered. "I've been waiting around here now for two hours in the hope that I could explain to you why I wanted to stop that sale. And I cannot bear to have you believe that I am a thief and—"
Millie was touched by his attitude. Her hand left her hip and started toward his arm in friendly contact. But again returned the whole picture of the afternoon's events and she coolly turned from him and went to take up her tray again.
"Will you please let me pass?" she asked a second time, as he tried to prevail upon her by taking the tray from her and setting it down again. "I wish to have nothing to say to you. I do not believe your excuses. Mr. Thomas is the best friend I have in the world. I won't listen to a word against him, and I am sure he is too fine a gentleman to say anything about any one unless he were sure that it was true." As she came to the last words she swallowed to keep back the tears, for although they were uttered in perfect faith, her words burned into her own heart with as much bitterness as they were directed toward Marvin.
He was too filled with his mission and too sure that Millie's interest in him was gone to notice the catch in her voice or to attribute it to any sense of affection for him, had he noticed it. He took her hands in his and shook them gently in an endeavor to get her to look into his eyes again. "Millie, please listen to me! I know what I'm talking about when I say that Mrs. Jones is being cheated and robbed—"
She broke away from him, and stood glaring at him, as she stamped her foot. "Don't you dare to say another word about Raymond Thomas to me! Anyway, it is none of your business if he is cheating us!"
"Millie, Millie." Marvin's voice was full of pleading as he persisted, going close to her again and shaking his head sadly. "Why do you allow yourself to be taken in this way? Don't you know that the only reason I am concerned is because I care—Oh, well." He turned away with a sigh and went over to the Nevada desk and took up the tray. "I won't say any more. Will you let me carry the tray up-stairs for you? I'll go then, and you won't be bothered with me any more."
The glare in her eyes melted and she made a gesture as if she would call him to her side again. But she could not forget so easily, and she said, without turning to look at him, in tones less sharp, "Why didn't you tell me before that you suspected him?"
"How could I? You told me how much you thought of Raymond Thomas. I hadn't realized that before—" He put the tray down and came to her side once more.
"Do you mean to say," Millie was again angered, "that I told you I loved Mr. Thomas?"
"That's what I understood," Marvin replied.
The two stood there, Millie glancing at him in contempt, while his whole heart went out to her from his eyes.
He was the first to break the silence. Almost touching her hand with his, he said, softly, "You mean you don't love him?"
Millie snatched her hand away and went back to the desk. "You're always wrong! I told you he was my best friend and he is. I never said I loved him."
If Marvin had not been attracted by the arabesque of the faded rose-garlanded rug at that moment, he would have found some solace in the lowered lids and half-smile which Millie vouchsafed him. But he did not see it. Slowly he followed her back to the desk, this time standing aside as she made her way toward the stairs. "Well, say it now—I mean"—he hesitated, embarrassed, then went on—"I mean—say you don't care for him. And then if you'll only give me time I'll find out what their game is."
Millie stood at the newel-post, steadying the tray against it. Looking down at him, the hard gleam returned to her eyes as she replied, emphatically: "Oh, I don't want you to find out anything about it! I know you're mistaken and you're not going to prevent mother's selling the place, because it's already sold. As soon as daddy's name is signed to it we get the money."
"Well, you sha'n't have that, Millie." Marvin swung his hat against the post without looking up at her. Through the window he traced the moonbeams as they filtered through the pines outside. Above the hoot of an owl the swish of the lake came in to them. They both stood there, gazing out to where so few weeks ago they had walked in the happiness of an unconscious awakening.
It was within Millie's heart to relax as she saw him sigh. From above just then came the sound of Mrs. Jones's voice. It brought back her concern for the tired woman above-stairs. With it returned her anger at Marvin. "You're trying to prevent this sale just to hurt Mr. Thomas in my eyes!" she snapped.
He turned and met her with the question, "Thomas told you that, didn't he?"
She nodded.
"Just the same, Millie," and here Marvin mounted the step and stood close to her as he looked squarely in her eyes, "I'll never let Bill sign that deed. Some day you'll thank me for it."
This was more than her patience could stand. In her anger she almost dropped the tray, but she managed to hold it taut against the balustrade as she frowned at him and stamped her foot.
"Thank you?" she asked, in no gentle voice. "I shall always hate and despise you for it. Always! I hope I shall never see you again, and if I do I shall never notice you—nor speak to you the longest day I live!" Exhausted with her temper, she turned to mount the stairs, when she looked out toward the veranda and saw a figure slowly and stealthily coming up the steps. She recognized it at once and shrieked out, just as the sheriff entered the door, "John, look out!"
But Marvin had been watching her, and the fear in her eyes as she saw Blodgett had been warning enough for him. He gave three quick skips to the other side of the lobby, making mock obeisance toward her, laughter in his voice because of her betrayal of her solicitude in spite of all that she had said.
"Thank you, Miss Buckley," he called as he went up the California stairs to the hall above, just as the sheriff had reached out for him, "thank you, Miss Buckley! I shall be grateful to you—always!"
Bill's disappearance brought quick changes to the little hotel at Calivada. His ready acceptance of Mrs. Jones's alternative was a complete surprise, and it was several days before she and Millie realized that he had taken her at her word. Even then they thought he had gone off on one of his temporary jaunts in the hills. When the days grew into a fortnight and he did not return they instituted a search among the near-by villages and mining-camps. Everett Hammond and Raymond Thomas were solicitous aids in the inquiry, not for the two women they were defrauding, nor because they felt any concern for Bill's welfare. Rather was their full attention turned toward securing a deed which the Pacific Railroad would consider law-proof. Had the property been entirely within the state of Nevada, Bill's signature would not have been imperative, but the California laws regarding the sale of property were evadable by numerous small technicalities, and shrewd counsel demanded that bona-fide deeds must appear as freewill transfers from both the husband and wife. It was for this reason that Bill's disappearance was a matter of deep satisfaction to both Hammond and Thomas. They had begun to despair of his putting his name to the deed. Now, should he not return within six months, they evolved a new scheme and one which would be law-proof if it could be carried through.
If Mrs. Jones could be persuaded into a divorce, and the decree obtained with full rights to the property, the deed would be legal without Bill's name. It was for this reason that Hammond and Thomas put themselves at Mrs. Jones's service and did everything in their power to discover Bill's whereabouts. It was several weeks before they traced him to Sacramento and from there to the veterans' home at Yountville. By this time Mrs. Jones was quite beside herself, for, in spite of Bill's shiftlessness, which was quite enough to wear away the patience of the average woman, she felt a deep affection for the generous-hearted, whimsical old creature and his companionship through fifteen years, and at a time when her father's death had left her desolate had relieved the monotony of a life which had had little else but hard work. Millie, too, missed her foster-father, whose frequent sallies kept humor alive when work and poverty pressed hard. In reverent and grateful memory she held the thought of his care for her when she had been left a waif by her own father's death. And so, together, Millie and Mrs. Jones pressed Thomas for news of Bill.
He knew that if they learned his whereabouts they would not rest until they had brought him home again. Mrs. Jones's persistent melancholy since Bill's departure told Thomas that in order to get Bill back, the deed itself would be abrogated by her, should that be one of his conditions of return. Therefore both he and Hammond determined that they would not let the two women know of Bill's whereabouts. Instead, they said they had traced him as far as Placerville, known to old-timers as the Hangtown of the gold days, and that from there he had taken the trail up over the Georgetown Divide, where he said he was going to find work in the mines. Search throughout the entire district, Hammond and Thomas informed her, had failed to locate him, and they assured her and Millie that inquiry should be kept up until he was found.
Winter came, bringing with it no news from Bill, and Mrs. Jones settled into a melancholy resignation wherein she seldom smiled and where she spent most of her time in the rocking-chair by the front window, gazing down the path up which Bill had usually zigzagged his recalcitrant way. Thomas was quick to recognize her symptoms and he resolved upon his master-stroke.
One day toward the end of March when a heavy storm had blown up from the lake and the entire forest was torn and twisted by a wind in high and angry mood, Mrs. Jones sat crying in front of the window, wondering where Bill was and beset with the fear that some place beyond the ridge in that vast ocean of mountain billows Bill might be homeless and cold and without food. A sudden gust shook the hillside, bringing down a grizzled pine that had stood close to the house. The crash of its falling resounded down the slope and Mrs. Jones, keyed to high pitch by her vigil of three months, was brought to a sudden burst of despair just as Thomas, who had come to Calivada to superintend the wiring of the house which was now to be put on modern basis, came down the stairs. It was his chance and he took it.
"Mrs. Jones!" There was a surcharge of pity in his voice as he glided across the room and stood over her chair, placing a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "I hate to see you upset. We've done everything in our power to find Mr. Jones and we will leave no stone unturned until we succeed. In the mean time you must think of yourself and Millie."
"It was thinking of myself and Millie that drove him out of his home." Mrs. Jones buried her head on her hand and leaned against the window-sill. The wind, with renewed shock, beat the sleet against the window-pane. "He may be out this minute wandering the hills with no place to go," she sobbed, "and he ain't young no more, neither.
"Of course, I thought all along," she went on, "that by selling the place I could take care of him in his old age, and now he ain't here and the place can't be sold."
"The place can be sold, Mrs. Jones, and you will then have enough money to institute a real search for Mr. Jones." Thomas's emphasis of the possibility of a sale without Bill's signature relaxed Mrs. Jones's mood and she sat up straight in her chair, lifting questioning eyes toward him.
"There is a way." He answered her unspoken inquiry with calm deliberation, while he scrutinized her for the least sign of encouragement or of antagonism as his plan unfolded. "It is a difficult way and one which you may balk at pursuing, but it will justify itself in the end."
"Oh, what is it, Mr. Thomas?" Mrs. Jones's brown eyes widened and hope returned to them as she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her gingham apron and folded her arms across her waist, rocking expectantly back and forth. "I'd do 'most anything if I thought it'd bring Bill back," she exclaimed, raising her voice to an enthusiastic pitch.
Thomas brought an arm-chair from the center-table and sat down beside her. Clasping his hands, he leaned forward, "You can get a divorce, and—"
"Oh, I could never do that!" Mrs. Jones protested and stopped rocking as she lifted up her hands in horror. "He 'ain't never done anything; and besides—"
"That's not the question." Thomas was quick to interrupt her flow of excuses. "I know he has done nothing, Mrs. Jones. But as things stand at present you have neither Bill nor the money for the place. You can't give a clear title to the place while you are married to Mr. Jones unless it bears his signature. You have not the money to find him. A divorce will straighten all this out. You can sell the place for enough money to find Bill. You can remarry him and you will both have a comfortable old age."
"Oh!!!" Mrs. Jones drew the word out with a long inflection of surprise, and she shook her head in the wisdom of a new light. "I see what ye mean." After a moment's abstraction in which she pondered Thomas's suggestion, she continued, "Some way or 'nuther it don't seem straight by Bill."
"It's the only way I see to settle matters. But I sha'n't try to persuade you against your will, Mrs. Jones." Thomas brought to bear on the situation his finest modulations, both in voice and manner, as he sat nonchalantly in his chair, one knee cocked over the other and his foot swinging listlessly back and forth, portraying a personal indifference which Mrs. Jones's simple mind could not penetrate.
"It does seem a good way," she mused aloud, adding, in little spurts, "but I guess—maybe—Well—I think I'll talk it over with Millie."
Mrs. Jones did talk it over with Millie. Also, she had several prolonged interviews with Thomas on the subject, and three days later she put her name to the petition which asked for a divorce from Bill Jones without so much as giving the document a thorough reading. Whatever Thomas proposed was to her, by the very fact of its being his idea, a thing worthy to be done. Millie, being of the same turn of mind, aided her in accepting his decision. And it was only when the first publication of summons appeared in the Reno papers that her heart sank at the words which characterized Bill as a drunkard and a man who was cruel to his wife—lies which Thomas justified as necessary to strengthen the one truthful ground for the divorce—that of failure to provide. Even that Mrs. Jones felt was beside the truth, for although Bill had never exerted himself needlessly, he had performed the chores, gone after the mail, made beds, and, by his gift to her on their marriage day of his three hundred and twenty acres, which were far the better portion of the property, he had made some slight concession to his responsibilities. Bill's digressions had been those of omission rather than those of commission, and Mrs. Jones's misgivings were frequent during the three months that followed.
In the mean time, Thomas and Hammond were quick to inaugurate a new regime at the hotel. Mrs. Jones and Millie remained on in the capacity of guests, while a clerk and a housekeeper were brought from the city to take over the management. Modern improvements and equipment soon turned it into a hostelry that verged on the fashionable. With the early spring freshet augmenting the waterfall and the stream into a cataract whose potential horse-power did not escape Everett Hammond, he made a hurried trip from San Francisco with an official of the Pacific Railroad and succeeded in persuading the company to advance a comfortable sum of money for an option on the Jones property. Mrs. Jones and Millie, fretting under the suspense and without funds, were given a small amount to tide them over until the sale should be consummated, when they were to receive a large block of certificates in the Golden Gate Land Company.
All would have been well with Thomas, who saw life spreading before him in a panorama of ease and elegance, had it not been for two people—Lemuel Townsend and John Marvin. Lemuel Townsend had been placed by the November elections on the list of Superior Court judges, where he immediately came into his own as presiding judge in the majority of divorce cases in Reno. Thomas, unable to withstand the rôle of popular and irresistible Beau Brummell among the prospective divorcées at the hotel, had run against Townsend's displeasure two days before the election, when he had dared to play interloper in Lemuel Townsend's attentions to Mrs. Margaret Davis. With Townsend, it had been love at first sight. With Mrs. Davis it was something less, her only idea at that time being a quick snatch at freedom and a hurried trip back to Broadway, where she hoped to sign up for the summer circuit. Lem Townsend did well enough to pass the time, and it was her own diversion rather than any feeling for him which bade her accept his attentions. Thomas on frequent trips had scattered his flatteries between Millie and the various divorcées. Mrs. Davis came in for her full share and several times there had been clashes between the two men, Thomas invariably stepping aside, but only after verbal skirmishes with Townsend.
Marvin had not been seen in the neighborhood since a few days after Bill Jones had disappeared. He had returned to his cabin, after having established himself in an office in San Francisco with the intention of taking Bill back with him. During the days spent on the trails in search of the old man he had successfully evaded Sheriff Blodgett and had gone back to his office, where he had received a forwarded letter from Bill at the veterans' home at Yountville. He had taken one trip to the home with the purpose of persuading Bill to return with him to the city. But when he saw how comfortable Bill was there in the hillside country, surrounded by the old veterans who vied with one another in recounting their past prowess, he decided to let him alone until such time as he could effect a reconciliation between Bill and Mrs. Jones.
This, he trusted, would be at the termination of the case brought against him by the Pacific Railroad to recover the timber which he had sold to Rodney Harper previous to the sale of his timber-land to the Golden Gate Land Company by Mrs. Marvin. Then, too, he hoped the way would be made straight for him and Millie, although he had half lost hope under his realization of Thomas's superior eligibility.
These things, known to the latter, destroyed his composure and made the lapse between the filing of Mrs. Jones's divorce suit and the termination of its three months' summons by publication, required by law, a period of anxiety. He knew that if Marvin were vindicated before Mrs. Jones could secure her divorce his whole framework would collapse, as Millie and Mrs. Jones, straightforward as they were, would brook no hint of dishonesty on his part. Once discovered as unworthy of trust, their confidence in him would be broken and Marvin would be restored to full standing, not only in Millie's affections, but in Mrs. Jones's approval.
In the latter part of March he took a hurried trip to Reno, where, in conference with Blodgett, who had never been able to forgive Marvin's evasion of arrest, maneuvers to have the two suits tried at the same time sent him back to San Francisco rejoicing in the anticipation that his days of discomfort would soon be over and he could return to his own world again.
Mid-April came with its arabesquan days of sunlight and shadow and its fragile broidery of new leaf and timid blossom. It was as if its coming had stirred anew the life in Reno's divorce colony. All winter the courts had been dull, most of the men and women seeking divorces arriving in the early fall and biding their time of six months by hibernating through the long, cold season. But now there was a renewed activity in divorce circles. The court calendars were full and there was a steady stream of gaily clad applicants making their way in and out of the Washoe County court-house, going in with nervous, hasty, anxious tread and coming out with a gait which spoke of a new freedom and a smile that bespoke life as once again worth living.
It was one morning just after the flux of spring divorces had begun that Sheriff Blodgett stood looking over the calendar in Judge Lemuel Townsend's court-room. He scowled as he read the words announcing that the first case was that of the Railroad Company versus John Marvin. He patted the warrant which still occupied the waiting list in his pocket. Placing a chair close to the court-room door, he waited for the crowd to begin to file in. He knew that he could not arrest a man in the court-room, but he intended to keep his eye on the corridor, and to that end had propped one of the doors open with a chair so that he could see clear to the swinging doors that led in from the street. If Marvin put in an appearance, he intended to arrest him at once. The thought gave him satisfaction and he sat twirling his long, drooping mustache with one hand and fondling the handcuffs in his coat pocket with the other. Revenge at last would play its part to-day, for, even if Marvin failed to appear and therefore balked him again, the railroad company would get judgment, anyway.
It was at this point in his reverie that Thomas entered the court-room, greeting the sheriff with a genial, "Oh, hello there, Blodgett! I guess our day's come."
With a patronizing pat on Blodgett's shoulder, Thomas passed and went to the clerk, where he procured a list of the day's cases. He, too, nodded in satisfaction, as he saw that the Pacific Railroad case, in which he was attorney, was to come up first. Running his finger down the line, he stopped at another close to the end, smiled again, and turned to the sheriff.
"The Marvin case is first," he observed.
The sheriff nodded and a frown slowly puckered his brow. He walked slowly up to Thomas, who stood at the clerk's desk just within the railing. He hesitated, clearing his throat, and found the courage to ask, with a slight timidity in his voice and manner, "You ain't a-goin' to bring up the old story of my serving the warrant at Calivada, are you?"
Thomas laughed. "No," he replied; "I don't think I'll have to go into that. But I will ask you about the time you went to Marvin's camp."
Blodgett heaved his shoulders in relief, and, with hands in his pockets, went back to his station at the door. "That's all right!" He exhaled a full breath once again.
Thomas turned the leaves of the calendar, looked ahead for a day or two, without noticing much that he saw, then turned the leaves back again to the day's list. He went to the court-room window and looked out upon the valley that ran from Reno up toward the foothills. He sniffed the keen, cool air that was blown up to him. He stood contemplating the rushing waters of the Truckee River below. After several minutes' thought he faced Blodgett again.
"I'm going to ask you what time you were at Marvin's camp, for I want to show he was taking down the timber," he announced.
"I didn't get out where the timber was," the sheriff replied.
"But you know he had a gang of lumbermen there?" In Thomas's tone and in the gleam on his cold, blue eyes the sheriff caught the message of persuasion.
"Oh, sure." He nodded with the air of a man who understood what was wanted of him.
"And they drove you off by force?"
Blodgett nodded again.
"And you remember the date?"
"I guess I won't fergit it." There was emphasis in Blodgett's answer and he arose impatiently from his chair and stood, his arms akimbo, peering down the corridor. "Do you think Marvin'll be here to-day?" This time he was interlocutor. "I got a notion he won't," he added, fathering his disappointment by admitting the possibility of frustration in the one desire that had held him ever since Marvin had foiled him by the technicality of the state boundary-line. He was bound, however, that there should be no opportunity for escape this time.
"I don't care whether he turns up or not," Thomas answered, going to the lawyers' table, opening his brief-case, and setting them out before him as he swung gracefully into a chair. "The case is a cinch," he emphasized, with a grin that found reflection in Blodgett's eyes.
With a warning to the clerk to keep an eye on things until he should return, Blodgett left the court-room and swaggered up the corridor, stopping at the door of the other rooms and taking a frowning survey of the occupants, hoping that Marvin had entered one of them by mistake. If John Marvin was in Reno he was not going to escape arrest this day. With this comforting conclusion in mind, he took up his stand just outside of the court-house door at the top of the steps.
In the mean time Everett Hammond, escorting Mrs. Jones and Millie Buckley, entered Judge Townsend's court-room and were greeted effusively by Thomas.
"Oh, good morning!" He bowed low over Mrs. Jones's hand, which he held in his. "I'm glad to see you." Staring at Millie, who looked very fetching in a trim blue serge tailor suit, he beamed. "How fine you look this morning; quite irresistible, I assure you!"
Millie blushed and looked with frightened glance from the judge's bench to the lawyers' table, and from there to the witness-stand and back toward the door, for all the world as if she were contemplating a rapid escape. She took a deep breath. "I don't feel irresistible," she said. "I feel just as if I wanted to cry and run away." She pouted at Thomas, with entreaty in her pretty eyes.
Thomas laughed, put his hand on her arm in deprecation, and shrugged her fears away. "Oh, the trial won't amount to anything, little lady. What do you say to that, Mrs. Jones?"
The older woman's brown eyes were staring straight ahead, as if she saw a real horror and was without power to controvert it. "All I can say," she replied, in a high-pitched, high-strung voice, "is that I'm here." She waited for a moment, casting furtive glances at Hammond and Thomas, who stood one on each side of her. Having found the courage to assert herself, she burst out, "And I wish I wasn't!"
"Now, now, Mrs. Jones!" There was banter in Hammond's voice, but there was concern in the wise direction of his eyes toward Thomas. "You're a mighty brave woman and I know you're going through with this, for it means that you'll be in a much better position to find your husband and look out for your old age after you get the money for the place."
Mrs. Jones made no response, but cast anxious eyes about the room, and she folded her hands in resignation across her ample waist-line.
"It's like going to the dentist. The worst part is making up your mind to it." Thomas leaned over Mrs. Jones and smiled his most engaging smile. He received no answer to it, so he turned to Millie, who stood at the other side of him.
Before he could speak, the girl rid herself of the question that had been ever present in her mind now for six months, and one which she had never failed to ask him every time she saw him or wrote to him.
"Have you heard anything of daddy?"
Thomas's smile disappeared. He left the little group of four in the middle of the space inside of the rails and sat down again at the table, annoyance in the slump with which he threw himself into his chair. "No, we haven't been able to locate him." He would have been sullen had he dared, but his game was too nearly played and he did not wish to foozle at the last, so he controlled his mood and forced a smile as he thought of a method of getting away from his client's importunity for awhile.
"It must be distasteful for you two women to remain in here any longer than possible," he said, rising from his chair again and pointing to a door at one side of the court-room. "Lennon," he called to the clerk, "my clients can wait in there, can't they?"
The clerk acquiescing, he and Hammond courteously escorted Mrs. Jones and Millie to the door and showed them into a small room which had been fitted up for hysterical women overcome with the proceeding in their cases, or for those who, like Mrs. Jones and Millie, wished to avoid the embarrassment of a long wait in the court-room.
As the two women went through the door, Thomas turned to Hammond and advised, in a low voice: "You better go, too, Hammond. Keep them cheered up."
With bad grace in his shrug and in his eyes, he followed Thomas's suggestion, first murmuring in his partner's ear: "I'll be damn glad when this day is over. All I've been doing this last week is to keep these darned women from backing out."