A week had passed at Eagle's Court—a week of mingled clouds and sunshine by day, of rain over the green plateau and snow on the mountain by night. Each morning had brought its fresh greenness to the winter-girt domain, and a fresh coat of dazzling white to the barrier that separated its dwellers from the world beyond. There was little change in the encompassing wall of their prison; if anything, the snowy circle round them seemed to have drawn its lines nearer day by day. The immediate result of this restricted limit had been to confine the range of cattle to the meadows nearer the house, and at a safe distance from the fringe of wilderness now invaded by the prowling tread of predatory animals.
Nevertheless, the two figures lounging on the slope at sunset gave very little indication of any serious quality in the situation. Indeed, so far as appearances were concerned, Kate, who was returning from an afternoon stroll with Falkner, exhibited, with feminine inconsistency, a decided return to the world of fashion and conventionality apparently just as she was effectually excluded from it. She had not only discarded her white dress as a concession to the practical evidence of the surrounding winter, but she had also brought out a feather hat and sable muff which had once graced a fashionable suburb of Boston. Even Falkner had exchanged his slouch hat and picturesque serape for a beaver overcoat and fur cap of Hale's which had been pressed upon him by Kate, under the excuse of the exigencies of the season. Within a stone's throw of the thicket, turbulent with the savage forces of nature, they walked with the abstraction of people hearing only their own voices; in the face of the solemn peaks clothed with white austerity they talked gravely of dress.
“I don't mean to say,” said Kate demurely, “that you're to give up the serape entirely; you can wear it on rainy nights and when you ride over here from your friend's house to spend the evening—for the sake of old times,” she added, with an unconscious air of referring to an already antiquated friendship; “but you must admit it's a little too gorgeous and theatrical for the sunlight of day and the public highway.”
“But why should that make it wrong, if the experience of a people has shown it to be a garment best fitted for their wants and requirements?” said Falkner argumentatively.
“But you are not one of those people,” said Kate, “and that makes all the difference. You look differently and act differently, so that there is something irreconcilable between your clothes and you that makes you look odd.”
“And to look odd, according to your civilized prejudices, is to be wrong,” said Falkner bitterly.
“It is to seem different from what one really is—which IS wrong. Now, you are a mining superintendent, you tell me. Then you don't want to look like a Spanish brigand, as you do in that serape. I am sure if you had ridden up to a stage-coach while I was in it, I'd have handed you my watch and purse without a word. There! you are not offended?” she added, with a laugh, which did not, however, conceal a certain earnestness. “I suppose I ought to have said I would have given it gladly to such a romantic figure, and perhaps have got out and danced a saraband or bolero with you—if that is the thing to do nowadays. Well!” she said, after a dangerous pause, “consider that I've said it.”
He had been walking a little before her, with his face turned towards the distant mountain. Suddenly he stopped and faced her. “You would have given enough of your time to the highwayman, Miss Scott, as would have enabled you to identify him for the police—and no more. Like your brother, you would have been willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the laws of civilization and good order.”
If a denial to this assertion could have been expressed without the use of speech, it was certainly transparent in the face and eyes of the young girl at that moment. If Falkner had been less self-conscious he would have seen it plainly. But Kate only buried her face in her lifted muff, slightly raised her pretty shoulders, and, dropping her tremulous eyelids, walked on. “It seems a pity,” she said, after a pause, “that we cannot preserve our own miserable existence without taking something from others—sometimes even a life!” He started. “And it's horrid to have to remind you that you have yet to kill something for the invalid's supper,” she continued. “I saw a hare in the field yonder.”
“You mean that jackass rabbit?” he said, abstractedly.
“What you please. It's a pity you didn't take your gun instead of your rifle.”
“I brought the rifle for protection.”
“And a shot gun is only aggressive, I suppose?”
Falkner looked at her for a moment, and then, as the hare suddenly started across the open a hundred yards away, brought the rifle to his shoulder. A long interval—as it seemed to Kate—elapsed; the animal appeared to be already safely out of range, when the rifle suddenly cracked; the hare bounded in the air like a ball, and dropped motionless. The girl looked at the marksman in undisguised admiration. “Is it quite dead?” she said timidly.
“It never knew what struck it.”
“It certainly looks less brutal than shooting it with a shot gun, as John does, and then not killing it outright,” said Kate. “I hate what is called sport and sportsmen, but a rifle seems—”
“What?” said Falkner.
“More—gentlemanly.”
She had raised her pretty head in the air, and, with her hand shading her eyes, was looking around the clear ether, and said meditatively, “I wonder—no matter.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“It is something,” said Falkner, with an amused smile, reloading his rifle.
“Well, you once promised me an eagle's feather for my hat. Isn't that thing an eagle?”
“I am afraid it's only a hawk.”
“Well, that will do. Shoot that!”
Her eyes were sparkling. Falkner withdrew his own with a slight smile, and raised his rifle with provoking deliberation.
“Are you quite sure it's what you want?” he asked demurely.
“Yes—quick!”
Nevertheless, it was some minutes before the rifle cracked again. The wheeling bird suddenly struck the wind with its wings aslant, and then fell like a plummet at a distance which showed the difficulty of the feat. Falkner started from her side before the bird reached the ground. He returned to her after a lapse of a few moments, bearing a trailing wing in his hand. “You shall make your choice,” he said gayly.
“Are you sure it was killed outright?”
“Head shot off,” said Falkner briefly.
“And besides, the fall would have killed it,” said Kate conclusively. “It's lovely. I suppose they call you a very good shot?”
“They—who?”
“Oh! the people you know—your friends, and their sisters.”
“George shoots better than I do, and has had more experience. I've seen him do that with a pistol. Of course not such a long shot, but a more difficult one.”
Kate did not reply, but her face showed a conviction that as an artistic and gentlemanly performance it was probably inferior to the one she had witnessed. Falkner, who had picked up the hare also, again took his place by her side, as they turned towards the house.
“Do you remember the day you came, when we were walking here, you pointed out that rock on the mountain where the poor animals had taken refuge from the snow?” said Kate suddenly.
“Yes,” answered Falkner; “they seem to have diminished. I am afraid you were right; they have either eaten each other or escaped. Let us hope the latter.”
“I looked at them with a glass every day,” said Kate, “and they've got down to only four. There's a bear and that shabby, over-grown cat you call a California lion, and a wolf, and a creature like a fox or a squirrel.”
“It's a pity they're not all of a kind,” said Falkner.
“Why?”
“There'd be nothing to keep them from being comfortable together.”
“On the contrary, I should think it would be simply awful to be shut up entirely with one's own kind.”
“Then you believe it is possible for them, with their different natures and habits, to be happy together?” said Falkner, with sudden earnestness.
“I believe,” said Kate hurriedly, “that the bear and the lion find the fox and the wolf very amusing, and that the fox and the wolf—”
“Well?” said Falkner, stopping short.
“Well, the fox and the wolf will carry away a much better opinion of the lion and bear than they had before.”
They had reached the house by this time, and for some occult reason Kate did not immediately enter the parlor, where she had left her sister and the invalid, who had already been promoted to a sofa and a cushion by the window, but proceeded directly to her own room. As a manoeuvre to avoid meeting Mrs. Hale, it was scarcely necessary, for that lady was already in advance of her on the staircase, as if she had left the parlor for a moment before they entered the house. Falkner, too, would have preferred the company of his own thoughts, but Lee, apparently the only unpreoccupied, all-pervading, and boyishly alert spirit in the party, hailed him from within, and obliged him to present himself on the threshold of the parlor with the hare and hawk's wing he was still carrying. Eying the latter with affected concern, Lee said gravely: “Of course, I CAN eat it, Ned, and I dare say it's the best part of the fowl, and the hare isn't more than enough for the women, but I had no idea we were so reduced. Three hours and a half gunning, and only one hare and a hawk's wing. It's terrible.”
Perceiving that his friend was alone, Falkner dropped his burden in the hall and strode rapidly to his side. “Look here, George, we must, I must leave this place at once. It's no use talking; I can stand this sort of thing no longer.”
“Nor can I, with the door open. Shut it, and say what you want quick, before Mrs. Hale comes back. Have you found a trail?”
“No, no; that's not what I mean.”
“Well, it strikes me it ought to be, if you expect to get away. Have you proposed to Beacon Street, and she thinks it rather premature on a week's acquaintance?”
“No; but—”
“But you WILL, you mean? DON'T, just yet.”
“But I cannot live this perpetual lie.”
“That depends. I don't know HOW you're lying when I'm not with you. If you're walking round with that girl, singing hymns and talking of your class in Sunday-school, or if you're insinuating that you're a millionaire, and think of buying the place for a summer hotel, I should say you'd better quit that kind of lying. But, on the other hand, I don't see the necessity of your dancing round here with a shot gun, and yelling for Harkins's blood, or counting that package of greenbacks in the lap of Miss Scott, to be truthful. It seems to me there ought to be something between the two.”
“But, George, don't you think—you are on such good terms with Mrs. Hale and her mother—that you might tell them the whole story? That is, tell it in your own way; they will hear anything from you, and believe it.”
“Thank you; but suppose I don't believe in lying, either?”
“You know what I mean! You have a way, d—n it, of making everything seem like a matter of course, and the most natural thing going.”
“Well, suppose I did. Are you prepared for the worst?”
Falkner was silent for a moment, and then replied, “Yes, anything would be better than this suspense.”
“I don't agree with you. Then you would be willing to have them forgive us?”
“I don't understand you.”
“I mean that their forgiveness would be the worst thing that could happen. Look here, Ned. Stop a moment; listen at that door. Mrs. Hale has the tread of an angel, with the pervading capacity of a cat. Now listen! I don't pretend to be in love with anybody here, but if I were I should hardly take advantage of a woman's helplessness and solitude with a sensational story about myself. It's not giving her a fair show. You know she won't turn you out of the house.”
“No,” said Falkner, reddening; “but I should expect to go at once, and that would be my only excuse for telling her.”
“Go! where? In your preoccupation with that girl you haven't even found the trail by which Manuel escaped. Do you intend to camp outside the house, and make eyes at her when she comes to the window?”
“Because you think nothing of flirting with Mrs. Hale,” said Falkner bitterly, “you care little—”
“My dear Ned,” said Lee, “the fact that Mrs. Hale has a husband, and knows that she can't marry me, puts us on equal terms. Nothing that she could learn about me hereafter would make a flirtation with me any less wrong than it would be now, or make her seem more a victim. Can you say the same of yourself and that Puritan girl?”
“But you did not advise me to keep aloof from her; on the contrary, you—”
“I thought you might make the best of the situation, and pay her some attention, BECAUSE you could not go any further.”
“You thought I was utterly heartless and selfish, like—”
“Ned!”
Falkner walked rapidly to the fireplace, and returned.
“Forgive me, George—I'm a fool—and an ungrateful one.”
Lee did not reply at once, although he took and retained the hand Falkner had impulsively extended. “Promise me,” he said slowly, after a pause, “that you will say nothing yet to either of these women. I ask it for your own sake, and this girl's, not for mine. If, on the contrary, you are tempted to do so from any Quixotic idea of honor, remember that you will only precipitate something that will oblige you, from that same sense of honor, to separate from the girl forever.”
“I don't understand.”
“Enough!” said he, with a quick return of his old reckless gayety. “Shoot-Off-His-Mouth—the Beardless Boy Chief of the Sierras—has spoken! Let the Pale Face with the black moustache ponder and beware how he talks hereafter to the Rippling Cochituate Water! Go!”
Nevertheless, as soon as the door had closed upon Falkner, Lee's smile vanished. With his colorless face turned to the fading light at the window, the hollows in his temples and the lines in the corners of his eyes seemed to have grown more profound. He remained motionless and absorbed in thought so deep that the light rustle of a skirt, that would at other times have thrilled his sensitive ear, passed unheeded. At last, throwing off his reverie with the full and unrestrained sigh of a man who believes himself alone, he was startled by the soft laugh of Mrs. Hale, who had entered the room unperceived.
“Dear me! How portentous! Really, I almost feel as if I were interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh since I have been in California. I thought you never had any Past out here?”
Fortunately his face was between her and the light, and the unmistakable expression of annoyance and impatience which was passed over it was spared her. There was, however, still enough dissonance in his manner to affect her quick feminine sense, and when she drew nearer to him it was with a certain maiden-like timidity.
“You are not worse, Mr. Lee, I hope? You have not over-exerted yourself?”
“There's little chance of that with one leg—if not in the grave at least mummified with bandages,” he replied, with a bitterness new to him.
“Shall I loosen them? Perhaps they are too tight. There is nothing so irritating to one as the sensation of being tightly bound.”
The light touch of her hand upon the rug that covered his knees, the thoughtful tenderness of the blue-veined lids, and the delicate atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a perfume cleared his face of its shadow and brought back the reckless fire into his blue eyes.
“I suppose I'm intolerant of all bonds,” he said, looking at her intently, “in others as well as myself!”
Whether or not she detected any double meaning in his words, she was obliged to accept the challenge of his direct gaze, and, raising her eyes to his, drew back a little from him with a slight increase of color. “I was afraid you had heard bad news just now.”
“What would you call bad news?” asked Lee, clasping his hands behind his head, and leaning back on the sofa, but without withdrawing his eyes from her face.
“Oh, any news that would interrupt your convalescence, or break up our little family party,” said Mrs. Hale. “You have been getting on so well that really it would seem cruel to have anything interfere with our life of forgetting and being forgotten. But,” she added with apprehensive quickness, “has anything happened? Is there really any news from—from, the trails? Yesterday Mr. Falkner said the snow had recommenced in the pass. Has he seen anything, noticed anything different?”
She looked so very pretty, with the rare, genuine, and youthful excitement that transfigured her wearied and wearying regularity of feature, that Lee contented himself with drinking in her prettiness as he would have inhaled the perfume of some flower.
“Why do you look at me so, Mr. Lee?” she asked, with a slight smile. “I believe something HAS happened. Mr. Falkner HAS brought you some intelligence.”
“He has certainly found out something I did not foresee.”
“And that troubles you?”
“It does.”
“Is it a secret?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose you will tell it to me at dinner,” she said, with a little tone of relief.
“I am afraid, if I tell it at all, I must tell it now,” he said, glancing at the door.
“You must do as you think best,” she said coldly, “as it seems to be a secret, after all.” She hesitated. “Kate is dressing, and will not be down for some time.”
“So much the better. For I'm afraid that Ned has made a poor return to your hospitality by falling in love with her.”
“Impossible! He has known her for scarcely a week.”
“I am afraid we won't agree as to the length of time necessary to appreciate and love a woman. I think it can be done in seven days and four hours, the exact time we have been here.”
“Yes; but as Kate was not in when you arrived, and did not come until later, you must take off at least one hour,” said Mrs. Hale gayly.
“Ned can. I shall not abate a second.”
“But are you not mistaken in his feelings?” she continued hurriedly. “He certainly has not said anything to her.”
“That is his last hold on honor and reason. And to preserve that little intact he wants to run away at once.”
“But that would be very silly.”
“Do you think so?” he said, looking at her fixedly.
“Why not?” she asked in her turn, but rather faintly.
“I'll tell you why,” he said, lowering his voice with a certain intensity of passion unlike his usual boyish lightheartedness. “Think of a man whose life has been one of alternate hardness and aggression, of savage disappointment and equally savage successes, who has known no other relaxation than dissipation and extravagance; a man to whom the idea of the domestic hearth and family ties only meant weakness, effeminacy, or—worse; who had looked for loyalty and devotion only in the man who battled for him at his right hand in danger, or shared his privations and sufferings. Think of such a man, and imagine that an accident has suddenly placed him in an atmosphere of purity, gentleness, and peace, surrounded him by the refinements of a higher life than he had ever known, and that he found himself as in a dream, on terms of equality with a pure woman who had never known any other life, and yet would understand and pity his. Imagine his loving her! Imagine that the first effect of that love was to show him his own inferiority and the immeasurable gulf that lay between his life and hers! Would he not fly rather than brave the disgrace of her awakening to the truth? Would he not fly rather than accept even the pity that might tempt her to a sacrifice?”
“But—is Mr. Falkner all that?”
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you!” said he demurely. “But that's the way a man in love feels.”
“Really! Mr. Falkner should get you to plead his cause with Kate,” said Mrs. Hale with a faint laugh.
“I need all my persuasive powers in that way for myself,” said Lee boldly.
Mrs. Hale rose. “I think I hear Kate coming,” she said. Nevertheless, she did not move away. “It IS Kate coming,” she added hurriedly, stooping to pick up her work-basket, which had slipped with Lee's hand from her own.
It was Kate, who at once flew to her sister's assistance, Lee deploring from the sofa his own utter inability to aid her. “It's all my fault, too,” he said to Kate, but looking at Mrs. Hale. “It seems I have a faculty of upsetting existing arrangements without the power of improving them, or even putting them back in their places. What shall I do? I am willing to hold any number of skeins or rewind any quantity of spools. I am even willing to forgive Ned for spending the whole day with you, and only bringing me the wing of a hawk for supper.”
“That was all my folly, Mr. Lee,” said Kate, with swift mendacity; “he was all the time looking after something for you, when I begged him to shoot a bird to get a feather for my hat. And that wing is SO pretty.”
“It is a pity that mere beauty is not edible,” said Lee, gravely, “and that if the worst comes to the worst here you would probably prefer me to Ned and his moustachios, merely because I've been tied by the leg to this sofa and slowly fattened like a Strasbourg goose.”
Nevertheless, his badinage failed somehow to amuse Kate, and she presently excused herself to rejoin her sister, who had already slipped from the room. For the first time during their enforced seclusion a sense of restraint and uneasiness affected Mrs. Hale, her sister, and Falkner at dinner. The latter addressed himself to Mrs. Scott, almost entirely. Mrs. Hale was fain to bestow an exceptional and marked tenderness on her little daughter Minnie, who, however, by some occult childish instinct, insisted upon sharing it with Lee—her great friend—to Mrs. Hale's uneasy consciousness. Nor was Lee slow to profit by the child's suggestion, but responded with certain vicarious caresses that increased the mother's embarrassment. That evening they retired early, but in the intervals of a restless night Kate was aware, from the sound of voices in the opposite room, that the friends were equally wakeful.
A morning of bright sunshine and soft warm air did not, however, bring any change to their new and constrained relations. It only seemed to offer a reason for Falkner to leave the house very early for his daily rounds, and gave Lee that occasion for unaided exercise with an extempore crutch on the veranda which allowed Mrs. Hale to pursue her manifold duties without the necessity of keeping him company. Kate also, as if to avoid an accidental meeting with Falkner, had remained at home with her sister. With one exception, they did not make their guests the subject of their usual playful comments, nor, after the fashion of their sex, quote their ideas and opinions. That exception was made by Mrs. Hale.
“You have had no difference with Mr. Falkner?” she said carelessly.
“No,” said Kate quickly. “Why?”
“I only thought he seemed rather put out at dinner last night, and you didn't propose to go and meet him to-day.”
“He must be bored with my company at times, I dare say,” said Kate, with an indifference quite inconsistent with her rising color. “I shouldn't wonder if he was a little vexed with Mr. Lee's chaffing him about his sport yesterday, and probably intends to go further to-day, and bring home larger game. I think Mr. Lee very amusing always, but I sometimes fancy he lacks feeling.”
“Feeling! You don't know him, Kate,” said Mrs. Hale quickly. She stopped herself, but with a half-smiling recollection in her dropped eyelids.
“Well, he doesn't look very amiable now, stamping up and down the veranda. Perhaps you'd better go and soothe him.”
“I'm really SO busy just now,” said Mrs. Hale, with sudden and inconsequent energy; “things have got dreadfully behind in the last week. You had better go, Kate, and make him sit down, or he'll be overdoing it. These men never know any medium—in anything.”
Contrary to Kate's expectation, Falkner returned earlier than usual, and, taking the invalid's arm, supported him in a more ambitious walk along the terrace before the house. They were apparently absorbed in conversation, but the two women who observed them from the window could not help noticing the almost feminine tenderness of Falkner's manner towards his wounded friend, and the thoughtful tenderness of his ministering care.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Hale, following them with softly appreciative eyes, “if women are capable of as disinterested friendship as men? I never saw anything like the devotion of these two creatures. Look! if Mr. Falkner hasn't got his arm round Mr. Lee's waist, and Lee, with his own arm over Falkner's neck, is looking up in his eyes. I declare, Kate, it almost seems an indiscretion to look at them.”
Kate, however, to Mrs. Hale's indignation, threw her pretty head back and sniffed the air contemptuously. “I really don't see anything but some absurd sentimentalism of their own, or some mannish wickedness they're concocting by themselves. I am by no means certain, Josephine, that Lee's influence over that young man is the best thing for him.”
“On the contrary! Lee's influence seems the only thing that checks his waywardness,” said Mrs. Hale quickly. “I'm sure, if anyone makes sacrifices, it is Lee; I shouldn't wonder that even now he is making some concession to Falkner, and all those caressing ways of your friend are for a purpose. They're not much different from us, dear.”
“Well, I wouldn't stand there and let them see me looking at them as if I couldn't bear them out of my sight for a moment,” said Kate, whisking herself out of the room. “They're conceited enough, Heaven knows, already.”
That evening, at dinner, however, the two men exhibited no trace of the restraint or uneasiness of the previous day. If they were less impulsive and exuberant, they were still frank and interested, and if the term could be used in connection with men apparently trained to neither self-control nor repose, there was a certain gentle dignity in their manner which for the time had the effect of lifting them a little above the social level of their entertainers. For even with all their predisposition to the strangers, Kate and Mrs. Hale had always retained a conscious attitude of gentle condescension and superiority towards them—an attitude not inconsistent with a stronger feeling, nor altogether unprovocative of it; yet this evening they found themselves impressed with something more than an equality in the men who had amused and interested them, and they were perhaps a little more critical and doubtful of their own power. Mrs. Hale's little girl, who had appreciated only the seriousness of the situation, had made her own application of it. “Are you dow'in' away from aunt Kate and mamma?” she asked, in an interval of silence.
“How else can I get you the red snow we saw at sunset, the other day, on the peak yonder?” said Lee gayly. “I'll have to get up some morning very early, and catch it when it comes at sunrise.”
“What is this wonderful snow, Minnie, that you are tormenting Mr. Lee for?” asked Mrs. Hale.
“Oh! it's a fairy snow that he told me all about; it only comes when the sun comes up and goes down, and if you catch ever so little of it in your hand it makes all you fink you want come true! Wouldn't that be nice?” But to the child's astonishment her little circle of auditors, even while assenting, sighed.
The red snow was there plain enough the next morning before the valley was warm with light, and while Minnie, her mother, and aunt Kate were still peacefully sleeping. And Mr. Lee had kept his word, and was evidently seeking it, for he and Falkner were already urging their horses through the pass, with their faces towards and lit up by its glow.
Kate was stirring early, but not as early as her sister, who met her on the threshold of her room. Her face was quite pale, and she held a letter in her hand. “What does this mean, Kate?”
“What is the matter?” asked Kate, her own color fading from her cheek.
“They are gone—with their horses. Left before day, and left this.”
She handed Kate an open letter. The girl took it hurriedly, and read—
“When you get this we shall be no more; perhaps not even as much. Ned found the trail yesterday, and we are taking the first advantage of it before day. We dared not trust ourselves to say 'Good-by!' last evening; we were too cowardly to face you this morning; we must go as we came, without warning, but not without regret. We leave a package and a letter for your husband. It is not only our poor return for your gentleness and hospitality, but, since it was accidentally the means of giving us the pleasure of your society, we beg you to keep it in safety until his return. We kiss your mother's hands. Ned wants to say something more, but time presses, and I only allow him to send his love to Minnie, and to tell her that he is trying to find the red snow.
“GEORGE LEE.”
“But he is not fit to travel,” said Mrs. Hale. “And the trail—it may not be passable.”
“It was passable the day before yesterday,” said Kate drearily, “for I discovered it, and went as far as the buck-eyes.”
“Then it was you who told them about it,” said Mrs. Hale reproachfully.
“No,” said Kate indignantly. “Of course I didn't.” She stopped, and, reading the significance of her speech in the glistening eyes of her sister, she blushed. Josephine kissed her, and said—
“It WAS treating us like children, Kate, but we must make them pay for it hereafter. For that package and letter to John means something, and we shall probably see them before long. I wonder what the letter is about, and what is in the package?”
“Probably one of Mr. Lee's jokes. He is quite capable of turning the whole thing into ridicule. I dare say he considers his visit here a prolonged jest.”
“With his poor leg, Kate? You are as unfair to him as you were to Falkner when they first came.”
Kate, however, kept her dark eyebrows knitted in a piquant frown.
“To think of his intimating WHAT he would allow Falkner to say! And yet you believe he has no evil influence over the young man.”
Mrs. Hale laughed. “Where are you going so fast, Kate?” she called mischievously, as the young lady flounced out of the room.
“Where? Why, to tidy John's room. He may be coming at any moment now. Or do you want to do it yourself?”
“No, no,” returned Mrs. Hale hurriedly; “you do it. I'll look in a little later on.”
She turned away with a sigh. The sun was shining brilliantly outside. Through the half-open blinds its long shafts seemed to be searching the house for the lost guests, and making the hollow shell appear doubly empty. What a contrast to the dear dark days of mysterious seclusion and delicious security, lit by Lee's laughter and the sparkling hearth, which had passed so quickly! The forgotten outer world seemed to have returned to the house through those open windows and awakened its dwellers from a dream.
The morning seemed interminable, and it was past noon, while they were deep in a sympathetic conference with Mrs. Scott, who had drawn a pathetic word-picture of the two friends perishing in the snow-drift, without flannels, brandy, smelling-salts, or jelly, which they had forgotten, when they were startled by the loud barking of “Spot” on the lawn before the house. The women looked hurriedly at each other.
“They have returned,” said Mrs. Hale.
Kate ran to the window. A horseman was approaching the house. A single glance showed her that it was neither Falkner, Lee, nor Hale, but a stranger.
“Perhaps he brings some news of them,” said Mrs. Scott quickly. So complete had been their preoccupation with the loss of their guests that they could not yet conceive of anything that did not pertain to it.
The stranger, who was at once ushered into the parlor, was evidently disconcerted by the presence of the three women.
“I reckoned to see John Hale yer,” he began, awkwardly.
A slight look of disappointment passed over their faces. “He has not yet returned,” said Mrs. Hale briefly.
“Sho! I wanter know. He's hed time to do it, I reckon,” said the stranger.
“I suppose he hasn't been able to get over from the Summit,” returned Mrs. Hale. “The trail is closed.”
“It ain't now, for I kem over it this mornin' myself.”
“You didn't—meet—anyone?” asked Mrs. Hale timidly, with a glance at the others.
“No.”
A long silence ensued. The unfortunate visitor plainly perceived an evident abatement of interest in himself, yet he still struggled politely to say something. “Then I reckon you know what kept Hale away?” he said dubiously.
“Oh, certainly—the stage robbery.”
“I wish I'd known that,” said the stranger reflectively, “for I ez good ez rode over jist to tell it to ye. Ye see John Hale, he sent a note to ye 'splainin' matters by a gentleman; but the road agents tackled that man, and left him for dead in the road.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hale impatiently.
“Luckily he didn't die, but kem to, and managed to crawl inter the brush, whar I found him when I was lookin' for stock, and brought him to my house—”
“YOU found him? YOUR house?” interrupted Mrs. Hale.
“Inter MY house,” continued the man doggedly. “I'm Thompson of Thompson's Pass over yon; mebbe it ain't much of a house; but I brought him thar. Well, ez he couldn't find the note that Hale had guv him, and like ez not the road agents had gone through him and got it, ez soon ez the weather let up I made a break over yer to tell ye.”
“You say Mr. Lee came to your house,” repeated Mrs. Hale, “and is there now?”
“Not much,” said the man grimly; “and I never said LEE was thar. I mean that Bilson waz shot by Lee and kem—”
“Certainly, Josephine!” said Kate, suddenly stepping between her sister and Thompson, and turning upon her a white face and eyes of silencing significance; “certainly—don't you remember?—that's the story we got from the Chinaman, you know, only muddled. Go on sir,” she continued, turning to Thompson calmly; “you say that the man who brought the note from my brother was shot by Lee?”
“And another fellow they call Falkner. Yes, that's about the size of it.”
“Thank you; it's nearly the same story that we heard. But you have had a long ride, Mr. Thompson; let me offer you a glass of whiskey in the dining-room. This way, please.”
The door closed upon them none too soon. For Mrs. Hale already felt the room whirling around her, and sank back into her chair with a hysterical laugh. Old Mrs. Scott did not move from her seat, but, with her eyes fixed on the door, impatiently waited Kate's return. Neither spoke, but each felt that the young, untried girl was equal to the emergency, and would get at the truth.
The sound of Thompson's feet in the hall and the closing of the front door was followed by Kate's reappearance. Her face was still pale, but calm.
“Well?” said the two women in a breath.
“Well,” returned Kate slowly; “Mr. Lee and Mr. Falkner were undoubtedly the two men who took the paper from John's messenger and brought it here.”
“You are sure?” said Mrs. Scott.
“There can be no mistake, mother.”
“THEN,” said Mrs. Scott, with triumphant feminine logic, “I don't want anything more to satisfy me that they are PERFECTLY INNOCENT!”
More convincing than the most perfect masculine deduction, this single expression of their common nature sent a thrill of sympathy and understanding through each. They cried for a few moments on each other's shoulders. “To think,” said Mrs. Scott, “what that poor boy must have suffered to have been obliged to do—that to—to—Bilson—isn't that the creature's name? I suppose we ought to send over there and inquire after him, with some chicken and jelly, Kate. It's only common humanity, and we must be just, my dear; for even if he shot Mr. Lee and provoked the poor boy to shoot him, he may have thought it his duty. And then, it will avert suspicions.”
“To think,” murmured Mrs. Hale, “what they must have gone through while they were here—momentarily expecting John to come, and yet keeping up such a light heart.”
“I believe, if they had stayed any longer, they would have told us everything,” said Mrs. Scott.
Both the younger women were silent. Kate was thinking of Falkner's significant speech as they neared the house on their last walk; Josephine was recalling the remorseful picture drawn by Lee, which she knew was his own portrait. Suddenly she started.
“But John will be here soon; what are we to tell him? And then that package and that letter.”
“Don't be in a hurry to tell him anything at present, my child,” said Mrs. Scott gently. “It is unfortunate this Mr. Thompson called here, but we are not obliged to understand what he says now about John's message, or to connect our visitors with his story. I'm sure, Kate, I should have treated them exactly as we did if they had come without any message from John; so I do not know why we should lay any stress on that, or even speak of it. The simple fact is that we have opened our house to two strangers in distress. Your husband,” continued Mr. Hale's mother-in-law, “does not require to know more. As to the letter and package, we will keep that for further consideration. It cannot be of much importance, or they would have spoken of it before; it is probably some trifling present as a return for your hospitality. I should use no INDECOROUS haste in having it opened.”
The two women kissed Mrs. Scott with a feeling of relief, and fell back into the monotony of their household duties. It is to be feared, however, that the absence of their outlawed guests was nearly as dangerous as their presence in the opportunity it afforded for uninterrupted and imaginative reflection. Both Kate and Josephine were at first shocked and wounded by the discovery of the real character of the two men with whom they had associated so familiarly, but it was no disparagement to their sense of propriety to say that the shock did not last long, and was accompanied with the fascination of danger. This was succeeded by a consciousness of the delicate flattery implied in their indirect influence over the men who had undoubtedly risked their lives for the sake of remaining with them. The best woman is not above being touched by the effect of her power over the worst man, and Kate at first allowed herself to think of Falkner in that light. But if in her later reflections he suffered as a heroic experience to be forgotten, he gained something as an actual man to be remembered. Now that the proposed rides from “his friend's house” were a part of the illusion, would he ever dare to visit them again? Would she dare to see him? She held her breath with a sudden pain of parting that was new to her; she tried to think of something else, to pick up the scattered threads of her life before that eventful day. But in vain; that one week had filled the place with implacable memories, or more terrible, as it seemed to her and her sister, they had both lost their feeble, alien hold upon Eagle's Court in the sudden presence of the real genii of these solitudes, and henceforth they alone would be the strangers there. They scarcely dared to confess it to each other, but this return to the dazzling sunlight and cloudless skies of the past appeared to them to be the one unreal experience; they had never known the true wild flavor of their home, except in that week of delicious isolation. Without breathing it aloud, they longed for some vague denoument to this experience that should take them from Eagle's Court forever.
It was noon the next day when the little household beheld the last shred of their illusion vanish like the melting snow in the strong sunlight of John Hale's return. He was accompanied by Colonel Clinch and Rawlins, two strangers to the women. Was it fancy, or the avenging spirit of their absent companions? but HE too looked a stranger, and as the little cavalcade wound its way up the slope he appeared to sit his horse and wear his hat with a certain slouch and absence of his usual restraint that strangely shocked them. Even the old half-condescending, half-punctilious gallantry of his greeting of his wife and family was changed, as he introduced his companions with a mingling of familiarity and shyness that was new to him. Did Mrs. Hale regret it, or feel a sense of relief in the absence of his usual seignorial formality? She only knew that she was grateful for the presence of the strangers, which for the moment postponed a matrimonial confidence from which she shrank.
“Proud to know you,” said Colonel Clinch, with a sudden outbreak of the antique gallantry of some remote Huguenot ancestor. “My friend, Judge Hale, must be a regular Roman citizen to leave such a family and such a house at the call of public duty. Eh, Rawlins?”
“You bet,” said Rawlins, looking from Kate to her sister in undisguised admiration.
“And I suppose the duty could not have been a very pleasant one,” said Mrs. Hale, timidly, without looking at her husband.
“Gad, madam, that's just it,” said the gallant Colonel, seating himself with a comfortable air, and an easy, though by no means disrespectful, familiarity. “We went into this fight a little more than a week ago. The only scrimmage we've had has been with the detectives that were on the robbers' track. Ha! ha! The best people we've met have been the friends of the men we were huntin', and we've generally come to the conclusion to vote the other ticket! Ez Judge Hale and me agreed ez we came along, the two men ez we'd most like to see just now and shake hands with are George Lee and Ned Falkner.”
“The two leaders of the party who robbed the coach,” explained Mr. Hale, with a slight return of his usual precision of statement.
The three women looked at each other with a blaze of thanksgiving in their grateful eyes. Without comprehending all that Colonel Clinch had said, they understood enough to know that their late guests were safe from the pursuit of that party, and that their own conduct was spared criticism. I hardly dare write it, but they instantly assumed the appearance of aggrieved martyrs, and felt as if they were!
“Yes, ladies!” continued the Colonel, inspired by the bright eyes fixed upon him. “We haven't taken the road ourselves yet, but—pohn honor—we wouldn't mind doing it in a case like this.” Then with the fluent, but somewhat exaggerated, phraseology of a man trained to “stump” speaking, he gave an account of the robbery and his own connection with it. He spoke of the swindling and treachery which had undoubtedly provoked Falkner to obtain restitution of his property by an overt act of violence under the leadership of Lee. He added that he had learned since at Wild Cat Station that Harkins had fled the country, that a suit had been commenced by the Excelsior Ditch Company, and that all available property of Harkins had been seized by the sheriff.
“Of course it can't be proved yet, but there's no doubt in my mind that Lee, who is an old friend of Ned Falkner's, got up that job to help him, and that Ned's off with the money by this time—and I'm right glad of it. I can't say ez we've done much towards it, except to keep tumbling in the way of that detective party of Stanner's, and so throw them off the trail—ha, ha! The Judge here, I reckon, has had his share of fun, for while he was at Hennicker's trying to get some facts from Hennicker's pretty daughter, Stanner tried to get up some sort of vigilance committee of the stage passengers to burn down Hennicker's ranch out of spite, but the Judge here stepped in and stopped that.”
“It was really a high-handed proceeding, Josephine, but I managed to check it,” said Hale, meeting somewhat consciously the first direct look his wife had cast upon him, and falling back for support on his old manner. “In its way, I think it was worse than the robbery by Lee and Falkner, for it was done in the name of law and order; while, as far as I can judge from the facts, the affair that we were following up was simply a rude and irregular restitution of property that had been morally stolen.”
“I have no doubt you did quite right, though I don't understand it,” said Mrs. Hale languidly; “but I trust these gentlemen will stay to luncheon, and in the meantime excuse us for running away, as we are short of servants, and Manuel seems to have followed the example of the head of the house and left us, in pursuit of somebody or something.”
When the three women had gained the vantage-ground of the drawing-room, Kate said, earnestly, “As it's all right, hadn't we better tell him now?”
“Decidedly not, child,” said Mrs. Scott, imperatively. “Do you suppose they are in a hurry to tell us THEIR whole story? Who are those Hennicker people? and they were there a week ago!”
“And did you notice John's hat when he came in, and the vulgar familiarity of calling him 'Judge'?” said Mrs. Hale.
“Well, certainly anything like the familiarity of this man Clinch I never saw,” said Kate. “Contrast his manner with Mr. Falkner's.”
At luncheon the three suffering martyrs finally succeeded in reducing Hale and his two friends to an attitude of vague apology. But their triumph was short-lived. At the end of the meal they were startled by the trampling of hoofs without, followed by loud knocking. In another moment the door was opened, and Mr. Stanner strode into the room. Hale rose with a look of indignation.
“I thought, as Mr. Stanner understood that I had no desire for his company elsewhere, he would hardly venture to intrude upon me in my house, and certainly not after—”
“Ef you're alluding to the Vigilantes shakin' you and Zeenie up at Hennicker's, you can't make ME responsible for that. I'm here now on business—you understand—reg'lar business. Ef you want to see the papers yer ken. I suppose you know what a warrant is?”
“I know what YOU are,” said Hale hotly; “and if you don't leave my house—”
“Steady, boys,” interrupted Stanner, as his five henchmen filed into the hall. “There's no backin' down here, Colonel Clinch, unless you and Hale kalkilate to back down the State of Californy! The matter stands like this. There's a half-breed Mexican, called Manuel, arrested over at the Summit, who swears he saw George Lee and Edward Falkner in this house the night after the robbery. He says that they were makin' themselves at home here, as if they were among friends, and considerin' the kind of help we've had from Mr. John Hale, it looks ez if it might be true.”
“It's an infamous lie!” said Hale.
“It may be true, John,” said Mrs. Scott, suddenly stepping in front of her pale-cheeked daughters. “A wounded man was brought here out of the storm by his friend, who claimed the shelter of your roof. As your mother I should have been unworthy to stay beneath it and have denied that shelter or withheld it until I knew his name and what he was. He stayed here until he could be removed. He left a letter for you. It will probably tell you if he was the man this person is seeking.”
“Thank you, mother,” said Hale, lifting her hand to his lips quietly; “and perhaps you will kindly tell these gentlemen that, as your son does not care to know who or what the stranger was, there is no necessity for opening the letter, or keeping Mr. Stanner a moment longer.”
“But you will oblige ME, John, by opening it before these gentlemen,” said Mrs. Hale recovering her voice and color. “Please to follow me,” she said preceding them to the staircase.
They entered Mr. Hale's room, now restored to its original condition. On the table lay a letter and a small package. The eyes of Mr. Stanner, a little abashed by the attitude of the two women, fastened upon it and glistened.
Josephine handed her husband the letter. He opened it in breathless silence and read—
“JOHN HALE,
“We owe you no return for voluntarily making yourself a champion of justice and pursuing us, except it was to offer you a fair field and no favor. We didn't get that much from you, but accident brought us into your house and into your family, where we DID get it, and were fairly vanquished. To the victors belong the spoils. We leave the package of greenbacks which we took from Colonel Clinch in the Sierra coach, but which was first stolen by Harkins from forty-four shareholders of the Excelsior Ditch. We have no right to say what YOU should do with it, but if you aren't tired of following the same line of justice that induced you to run after US, you will try to restore it to its rightful owners.
“We leave you another trifle as an evidence that our intrusion into your affairs was not without some service to you, even if the service was as accidental as the intrusion. You will find a pair of boots in the corner of your closet. They were taken from the burglarious feet of Manuel, your peon, who, believing the three ladies were alone and at his mercy, entered your house with an accomplice at two o'clock on the morning of the 21st, and was kicked out by
“Your obedient servants,
“GEORGE LEE & EDWARD FALKNER”
Hale's voice and color changed on reading this last paragraph. He turned quickly towards his wife; Kate flew to the closet, where the muffled boots of Manuel confronted them. “We never knew it. I always suspected something that night,” said Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Scott in the same breath.
“That's all very well, and like George Lee's high falutin',” said Stanner, approaching the table, “but as long ez the greenbacks are here he can make what capital he likes outer Manuel. I'll trouble you to pass over that package.”
“Excuse me,” said Hale, “but I believe this is the package taken from Colonel Clinch. Is it not?” he added, appealing to the Colonel.
“It is,” said Clinch.
“Then take it,” said Hale, handing him the package. “The first restitution is to you, but I believe you will fulfil Lee's instructions as well as myself.”
“But,” said Stanner, furiously interposing, “I've a warrant to seize that wherever found, and I dare you to disobey the law.”
“Mr. Stanner,” said Clinch, slowly, “there are ladies present. If you insist upon having that package I must ask them to withdraw, and I'm afraid you'll find me better prepared to resist a SECOND robbery than I was the first. Your warrant, which was taken out by the Express Company, is supplanted by civil proceedings taken the day before yesterday against the property of the fugitive swindler Harkins! You should have consulted the sheriff before you came here.”
Stanner saw his mistake. But in the faces of his grinning followers he was obliged to keep up his bluster. “You shall hear from me again, sir,” he said, turning on his heel.
“I beg your pardon,” said Clinch grimly, “but do I understand that at last I am to have the honor—”
“You shall hear from the Company's lawyers, sir,” said Stanner turning red, and noisily leaving the room.
“And so, my dear ladies,” said Colonel Clinch, “you have spent a week with a highwayman. I say A highwayman, for it would be hard to call my young friend Falkner by that name for his first offence, committed under great provocation, and undoubtedly instigated by Lee, who was an old friend of his, and to whom he came, no doubt, in desperation.”
Kate stole a triumphant glance at her sister, who dropped her lids over her glistening eyes. “And this Mr. Lee,” she continued more gently, “is he really a highwayman?”
“George Lee,” said Clinch, settling himself back oratorically in his chair, “my dear young lady, IS a highwayman, but not of the common sort. He is a gentleman born, madam, comes from one of the oldest families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He never mixes himself up with anything but some of the biggest strikes, and he's an educated man. He is very popular with ladies and children; he was never known to do or say anything that could bring a blush to the cheek of beauty or a tear to the eye of innocence. I think I may say I'm sure you found him so.”
“I shall never believe him anything but a gentleman,” said Mrs. Scott, firmly.
“If he has a defect, it is perhaps a too reckless indulgence in draw poker,” said the Colonel, musingly; “not unbecoming a gentleman, understand me, Mrs. Scott, but perhaps too reckless for his own good. George played a grand game, a glittering game, but pardon me if I say an UNCERTAIN game. I've told him so; it's the only point on which we ever differed.”
“Then you know him?” said Mrs. Hale, lifting her soft eyes to the Colonel.
“I have that honor.”
“Did his appearance, Josephine,” broke in Hale, somewhat ostentatiously, “appear to—er—er—correspond with these qualities? You know what I mean.”
“He certainly seemed very simple and natural,” said Mrs. Hale, slightly drawing her pretty lips together. “He did not wear his trousers rolled up over his boots in the company of ladies, as you're doing now, nor did he make his first appearance in this house with such a hat as you wore this morning, or I should not have admitted him.”
There were a few moments of embarrassing silence.
“Do you intend to give that package to Mr. Falkner yourself, Colonel?” asked Mrs. Scott.
“I shall hand it over to the Excelsior Company,” said the Colonel, “but I shall inform Ned of what I have done.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Scott, “will you kindly take a message from us to him?”
“If you wish it.”
“You will be doing ME a great favor, Colonel,” said Hale, politely.
Whatever the message was, six months later it brought Edward Falkner, the reestablished superintendent of the Excelsior Ditch, to Eagle's Court. As he and Kate stood again on the plateau, looking towards the distant slopes once more green with verdure, Falkner said—
“Everything here looks as it did the first day I saw it, except your sister.”
“The place does not agree with her,” said Kate hurriedly. “That is why my brother thinks of leaving it before the winter sets in.”
“It seems so sad,” said Falkner, “for the last words poor George said to me, as he left to join his cousin's corps at Richmond, were: 'If I'm not killed, Ned, I hope some day to stand again beside Mrs. Hale, at the window in Eagle's Court, and watch you and Kate coming home!'”