As Kitty stepped from the cab she was trembling violently.
"Don't you be frightened, li'l' pardner. You've come home. There won't anybody hurt you here."
The soft drawl of Clay's voice carried inexpressible comfort. So too did the pressure of his strong hand on her arm. She knew not only that he was a man to trust, but that so far as could be he would take her troubles on his broad shoulders. Tears brimmed over her soft eyes.
The Arizonan ran her up to his floor in the automatic elevator.
"I've got a friend from home stayin' with me. He's the best-hearted fellow you ever saw. You'll sure like him," he told her without stress as he fitted his key to the lock.
He felt her shrink beneath his coat, but it was too late to draw back now. In another moment Lindsay was introducing her casually to the embarrassed and astonished joint proprietor of the apartment.
The Runt was coatless and in his stockinged-feet. He had been playing a doleful ditty on a mouth-organ. Caught so unexpectedly, he blushed a beautiful brick red to his neck.
Johnnie ducked his head and scraped the carpet with his foot in an attempt at a bow. "Glad to meet up with you-all, Miss. Hope you're feelin' tol'able."
Clay slipped the coat from her shoulders and saw that the girl was wet to the skin.
"Heat some water, Johnnie, and make a good stiff toddy. Miss Kitty has been out in the rain."
He lit the gas-log and from his bedroom brought towels, a bathrobe, pajamas, a sweater, and woolen slippers. On a lounge before the fire he dumped the clothes he had gathered. He drew up the easiest armchair in the room.
"I'm goin' to the kitchen to jack up Johnnie so he won't lay down on his job," he told her cheerily. "You take yore time and get into these dry clothes. We'll not disturb you till you knock. After that we'll feed you some chuck. You want to brag on Johnnie's cookin'. He thinks he's it when it comes to monkeyin' 'round a stove."
When her timid knock came her host brought in a steaming cup. "You drink this. It'll warm you good."
"What is it?" she asked shyly.
"Medicine," he smiled. "Doctor's orders."
While she sipped the toddy Johnnie brought from the kitchen a tray upon which were tea, fried potatoes, ham, eggs, and buttered toast.
The girl ate ravenously. It was an easy guess that she had not before tasted food that day.
Clay kept up a flow of talk, mostly about Johnnie's culinary triumphs.Meanwhile he made up a bed on the couch.
Once she looked up at him, her throat swollen with emotion. "You're good."
"Sho! We been needin' a li'l' sister to brace up our manners for us. It's lucky for us I found you. Now I expect you're tired and sleepy. We fixed up yore bed in here because it's warmer. You'll be able to make out with it all right. The springs are good." Clay left her with a cheerful smile. "Turn out the light before you go to bed, Miss Colorado. Sleep tight. And don't you worry. You're back with old home folks again now, you know."
They heard her moving about for a time. Presently came silence. Tired out from tramping the streets with out food and drowsy from the toddy she had taken, Kitty fell into deep sleep undisturbed by troubled dreams.
The cattleman knew he had found her in the nick of time. She had told him that she had no money, no room in which to sleep, no prospect of work. Everything she had except the clothes on her back had been pawned to buy food and lodgings. But she was young and resilient. When she got back home to the country where she belonged, time would obliterate from her mind the experiences of which she had been the victim.
It was past midday when Kitty woke. She heard a tuneless voice in the kitchen lifted up in a doleful song:
"There's hard times on old Bitter CreekThat never can be beat.It was root hog or dieUnder every wagon sheet.We cleared up all the Indians,Drank all the alkali,And it's whack the cattle on, boys—Root hog or die."
Kitty found her clothes dry. After she dressed she opened the door that led to the kitchen. Johnnie was near the end of another stanza of his sad song:
"Oh, I'm goin' homeBull-whackin' for to spurn;I ain't got a nickel,And I don't give a dern.'T is when I meet a pretty girl,You bet I will or try,I'll make her my little wife—Root hog—"
He broke off embarrassed. "Did I wake you-all, ma'am, with my fool singin'? I'm right sorry if I did."
"You didn't." Kitty, clinging shyly to the side of the doorway, tried to gain confidence from his unease. "I was already awake. Is it a range song you were singing?"
"Yes'm. Cattle range, not kitchen range."
A wan little smile greeted his joke. The effect on Johnnie himself was more pronounced. It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the situation. He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery of it tickled his self-esteem.
"'Course we didn't really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali. Tha's jes' in the song, as you might say." He began to bustle about in preparation for her breakfast.
"Please don't trouble. I'll eat what you've got cooked," she begged.
"It's no trouble, ma'am. If the's a thing on earth I enjoy doin' it's sure cookin'. Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?"
"Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green."
"You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin.
"On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook."
"Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me."
"Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table in the other room," she said.
The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she belonged and was not a guest of an hour.
While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one. Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had told him to do before he left.
"You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say."
"I—I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "MaybeI can go away this afternoon."
"No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway too."
"I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I know how to cook—and the place does need cleaning."
"Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister, jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to the landlord if you'll gimme the word."
"I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend.
"Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New York open to find you."
"Did he?"
Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the nightClay broke into three houses in answer to her advertisement.
"I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been—"
"It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He knocked me hell-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore because Clay had fixed his clock proper."
"So you've fought on account of me too. I'm sorry." There was a little break in her voice. "I s'pose you hate me for—for bein' the way I am. I know I hate myself." She choked on the food she was eating.
Johnnie, much distressed, put down the coffee-pot and fluttered near."Don't you take on, ma'am. I wisht I could tell you how pleased we-allare to he'p you. I hope you'll stay with us right along. I sure do.You'd be right welcome," he concluded bashfully.
"I've got no place to go, except back home—and I've got no folks there but a second cousin. She doesn't want me. I don't know what to do. If I had a woman friend—some one to tell me what was best—"
Johnnie slapped his hand on his knee, struck by a sudden inspiration. "Say! Y'betcha, by jollies, I've got 'er—the very one! You're damn—you're sure whistlin'. We got a lady friend, Clay and me, the finest little pilgrim in New York. She's sure there when the gong strikes. You'd love her. I'll fix it for you—right away. I got to go to her house this afternoon an' do some chores. I'll bet she comes right over to see you."
Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the past weeks.
"Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said.
"No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He passed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these days. He thinks a lot of her."
"Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher. "Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my bein' here."
"Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she likes you fine."
When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie could bank on without fail it was his little boss.
It was not until Johnnie had laid the case before Miss Whitford and restated it under the impression that she could not have understood that his confidence ebbed. Even then he felt that he must have bungled it in the telling and began to marshal his facts a third time. He had expected an eager interest, a quick enthusiasm. Instead, he found in his young mistress a spirit beyond his understanding. Her manner had a touch of cool disdain, almost of contempt, while she listened to his tale. This was not at all in the picture he had planned.
She asked no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell met with chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear to her that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drink for her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones. Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtruded unduly from his friend's story. Even the Runt felt this. He began to perceive himself a helpless medium of wrong impressions. When he tried to explain he made matters worse.
"I suppose you know that when the manager of your apartment house finds out she's there he'll send her packing." So Beatrice summed up when she spoke at last.
"No, ma'am, I reckon not. You see we done told him she is Clay's sister jes' got in from the West," the puncher explained.
"Oh, I see." The girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted a trifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don't think I care to have anything to do with your arrangements."
"She's an awful pretty cute little thing," the puncher added, hoping to modify her judgment.
"Indeed!"
Beatrice turned and walked swiftly into the house. A pulse of anger was beating in her soft throat. She felt a sense of outrage. To Clay Lindsay she had given herself generously in spirit. She had risked something in introducing him to her friends. They might have laughed at him for his slight social lapses. They might have rejected him for his lack of background. They had done neither. He was so genuinely a man that he had won his way instantly. In this City of Bluff, as O. Henry dubs New York, his simplicity had rung true as steel. Still, she had taken a chance and felt she deserved some recognition of it on his part. This he had never given. He had based their friendship on equality simply. She liked it in him, though her vanity had resented it a little. But this was different. She was still young enough, still so little a woman of the world, that she set a rigid standard which she expected her friends to meet. She had believed in Clay, and now he was failing her.
Pacing up and down her room, little fists clenched, her soul in passionate turmoil, Beatrice went over it all again as she had done through a sleepless night. She had given him so much, and he had seemed to give her even more. Hours filled with a keen-edged delight jumped to her memory, hours that had carried her away from the falseness of social fribble to clean, wind-swept, open spaces of the mind. And after this—after he had tacitly recognized her claim on him—he had insulted her before her friends by deserting his guests to go off with this hussy he had been spending weeks to search for.
Now his little henchman had the imbecility to ask her help while this girl was living at Clay Lindsay's apartment, passing herself off as his sister, and proposing to stay there ostensibly as the housekeeper. She felt degraded, humiliated, she told herself. Not for a moment did she admit, perhaps she did not know, that an insane jealousy was flooding her being, that her indignation was based on personal as well as moral grounds.
Something primitive stirred in her—a flare of feminine ferocity. She felt hot to the touch, an active volcano ready for eruption. If only she could get a chance to strike back in a way that would hurt, to wound him as deeply as he had her!
Pat to her desire came the opportunity. Clay's card was brought in to her by Jenkins.
"Tell Mr. Lindsay I'll see him in a few minutes," she told the man.
The few minutes stretched to a long quarter of an hour before she descended. To the outward eye at least Miss Whitford looked a woman of the world, sheathed in a plate armor of conventionality. As soon as his eyes fell on her Clay knew that this pale, slim girl in the close-fitting gown was a stranger to him. Her eyes, star-bright and burning like live coals, warned him that the friend whose youth had run out so eagerly to meet his was hidden deep in her to-day.
"I reckon I owe you and Mr. Whitford an apology," he said. "No need to tell you how I happened to leave last night. I expect you know."
"I know why you left—yes."
"I'd like to explain it to you so you'll understand."
"Why take the trouble? I think I understand." She spoke in an even, schooled voice that set him at a distance.
"Still, I want you to know how I feel."
"Is that important? I see what you do. That is enough. Your friendMr. Green has carefully brought me the details I didn't know."
Clay flushed. Her clear voice carried an edge of scorn. "You mustn't judge by appearances. I know you wouldn't be unfair. I had to take her home and look after her."
"I don't quite see why—unless, of course, you wanted to," the girl answered, tapping the arm of her chair with impatient finger-tips, eyes on the clock. "But of course it isn't necessary I should see."
Her cavalier treatment of him did not affect the gentle imperturbability of the Westerner.
"Because I'm a white man, because she's a little girl who came from my country and can't hold her own here, because she was sick and chilled and starving. Do you see now?"
"No, but it doesn't matter. I'm not the keeper of your conscience, Mr.Lindsay," she countered, with hard lightness.
"You're judging me just the same."
Her eyes attacked him. "Am I?"
"Yes." The level gaze of the man met hers calmly. "What have I done that you don't like?"
She lost some of her debonair insolence that expressed itself in indifference.
"I'd ask that if I were you," she cried scornfully. "Can you tell me that this—friend of yours—is a good girl?"
"I think so. She's been up against it. Whatever she may have done she's been forced to do."
"Excuses," she murmured.
"If you'd ever known what it was to be starving—"
Her smoldering anger broke into a flame. "Good of you to compare me with her! That's the last straw!"
"I'm not comparing you. I'm merely saying that you can't judge her.How could you, when your life has been so different?"
"Thank Heaven for that."
"If you'd let me bring her here to see you—"
"No, thanks."
"You're unjust."
"You think so?"
"And unkind. That's not like the little friend I've come to—like so much."
"You're kind enough for two, Mr. Lindsay. She really doesn't need another friend so long as she has you," she retorted with a flash of contemptuous eyes. "In New York we're not used to being so kind to people of her sort."
Clay lifted a hand. "Stop right there, Miss Beatrice. You don't want to say anything you'll be sorry for."
"I'll say this," she cut back. "The men I know wouldn't invite a woman to their rooms at midnight and pass her off as their sister—and then expect people to know her. They would be kinder to themselves—and to their own reputations."
She was striking out savagely, relentlessly, in spite of the better judgment that whispered restraint. She wanted desperately to hurt him, as he had hurt her, even though she had to behave badly to do it.
"Will you tell me what else there was to do? Where could I have taken her at that time of night? Are reputable hotels open at midnight to lone women, wet and ragged, who come without baggage either alone or escorted by a man?"
"I'm not telling you what you ought to have done, Mr. Lindsay," she answered with a touch of hauteur. "But since you ask me—why couldn't you have given her money and let her find a place for herself?"
"Because that wouldn't have saved her."
"Oh, wouldn't it?" she retorted dryly.
He walked over to the fireplace and put an elbow on the corner of the mantel. The blood leaped in the veins of the girl as she looked at him, a man strong as tested steel, quiet and forceful, carrying his splendid body with the sinuous grace that comes only from perfectly synchronized muscles. At that moment she hated him because she could not put him in the wrong.
"Lemme tell you a story, Miss Beatrice," he said presently. "Mebbe it'll show you what I mean. I was runnin' cattle in the Galiuros five years ago and I got caught in a storm 'way up in the hills. When it rains in my part of Arizona, which ain't often, it sure does come down in sheets. The clay below the rubble on the slopes got slick as ice. My hawss, a young one, slipped and fell on me, clawed back to its feet, and bolted. Well, there I was with my laig busted, forty miles from even a whistlin' post in the desert, gettin' wetter and colder every blessed minute. Heaps of times in my life I've felt more comfortable than I did right then. I was hogtied to that shale ledge with my broken ankle, as you might say. And the weather and my game laig and things generally kept gettin' no better right along hour after hour.
"There wasn't a chance in a million that anybody would hear, but I kept firin' off my forty-five on the off hope. And just before night a girl on apintocame down the side of that uncurried hill round a bend and got me. She took me to a cabin hidden in the bottom of a cañon and looked after me four days. Her father, a prospector, had gone into Tucson for supplies and we were alone there. She fed me, nursed me, and waited on me. We divided a one-room twelve-by-sixteen cabin. Understand, we were four days alone together before her dad came back, and all the time the sky was lettin' down a terrible lot of water. When her father showed up he grinned and said, 'Lucky for you Myrtle heard that six-gun of yore's pop!' He never thought one evil thing about either of us. He just accepted the situation as necessary. Now the question is, what ought she to have done? Left me to die on that hillside?"
"Of course not. That's different," protested Beatrice indignantly.
"I don't see it. What she did was more embarrassing for her than what I did for Kitty. At least it would have been mightily so if she hadn't used her good hawss sense and forgot that she was a lone young female and I was a man. That's what I did the other night. Just because there are seven or eight million human beings here the obligation to look out for Kitty was no less."
"New York isn't Arizona."
"You bet it ain't. We don't sit roostin' on a fence when folks need our help out there. We go to it."
"You can't do that sort of thing here. People talk."
"Sure, and hens cackle. Let 'em!"
"There are some things men don't understand," she told him with an acid little smile of superiority. "When a girl cries a little they think she's heartbroken. Very likely she's laughing at them up her sleeve. This girl's making a fool of you, if you want the straight truth."
"I don't think so."
His voice was so quietly confident it nettled her.
"I suppose, then, you think I'm ungenerous," she charged.
The deep-set gray-blue eyes looked at her steadily. There was a wise little smile in them.
"Is that what you think?" she charged.
"I think you'll be sorry when you think it over."
She was annoyed at her inability to shake him, at the steadfastness with which he held to his point of view.
"You're trying to put me in the wrong," she flamed. "Well, I won't have it. That's all. You may take your choice, Mr. Lindsay. Either send that girl away—give her up—have nothing to do with her, or—"
"Or—?"
"Or please don't come here to see me any more."
He waited, his eyes steadily on her. "Do you sure enough mean that,Miss Beatrice?"
Her heart sank. She knew she had gone too far, but she was too imperious to draw back now.
"Yes, that's just what I mean."
"I'm sorry. You're leavin' me no option. I'm not a yellow dog.Sometimes I'm 'most a man. I'm goin' to do what I think is right."
"Of course," she responded lightly. "If our ideas of what that is differ—"
"They do."
"It's because we've been brought up differently, I suppose." She achieved a stifled little yawn behind her hand.
"You've said it." He gave it to her straight from the shoulder. "All yore life you've been pampered. When you wanted a thing all you had to do was to reach out a hand for it. Folks were born to wait on you, by yore way of it. You're a spoiled kid. You keep these manicured lah-de-dah New York lads steppin'. Good enough. Be as high-heeled as you're a mind to. I'll step some too for you—when you smile at me right. But it's time to serve notice that in my country folks grow man-size. You ask me to climb up the side of a house to pick you a bit of ivy from under the eaves, and I reckon I'll take a whirl at it. But you ask me to turn my back on a friend, and I've got to say, 'Nothin' doin'.' And if you was just a few years younger I'd advise yore pa to put you in yore room and feed you bread and water for askin' it."
The angry color poured into her cheeks. She clenched her hands till the nails bit her palms. "I think you're the most hateful man I ever met," she cried passionately.
His easy smile taunted her. "Oh, no, you don't. You just think you think it. Now, I'm goin' to light a shuck. I'll be sayin' good-bye, Miss Beatrice, until you send for me."
"And that will be never," she flung at him.
He rose, bowed, and walked out of the room.
The street door closed behind him. Beatrice bit her lip to keep from breaking down before she reached her room.
Clarendon Bromfield got the shock of his life that evening. Beatrice proposed to him. It was at the Roberson dinner-dance, in the Palm Room, within sight but not within hearing of a dozen other guests.
She camouflaged what she was doing with occasional smiles and ripples of laughter intended to deceive the others present, but her heart was pounding sixty miles an hour.
Bromfield was not easily disconcerted. He prided himself on his aplomb. It was hard to get behind his cynical, decorous smile, the mask of a suave and worldly-wise Pharisee of the twentieth century. But for once he was amazed. The orchestra was playing a lively fox trot and he thought that perhaps he had not caught her meaning.
"I beg your pardon."
Miss Whitford laced her fingers round her knee and repeated. It was as though rose leaves had brushed the ivory of her cheeks and left a lovely stain there. Her eyes were hard and brilliant as diamonds.
"I was wondering when you are going to ask me again to marry you."
Since she had given a good deal of feminine diplomacy to the task of keeping him at a reasonable distance, Bromfield was naturally surprised.
"That's certainly a leading question," he parried, "What are you up to,Bee? Are you spoofing me?"
"I'm proposing to you," she explained, with a flirt of her hand and an engaging smile toward a man and a girl who had just come into the Palm Room. "I don't suppose I do it very well because I haven't had your experience. But I'm doing the best I can."
The New Yorker was a supple diplomatist. If Beatrice had chosen this place and hour to become engaged to him, he had no objection in the world. The endearments that usually marked such an event could wait. But he was not quite sure of his ground.
His lids narrowed a trifle. "Do you mean that you've changed your mind?"
"Have you?" she asked quickly with a sidelong slant of eyes at him.
"Do I act as though I had?"
"You don't help a fellow out much, Clary," she complained with a laugh not born of mirth. "I'll never propose to you again."
"I'm still very much at your service, Bee."
"Does that mean you still think you want me?"
"I don't think. I know it."
"Quite sure?"
"Quite sure."
"Then you're on," she told him with a little nod. "Thank you, kind sir."
Bromfield drew a deep breath. "By Jove, you're a good little sport,Bee. I think I'll get up and give three ringing cheers."
"I'd like to see you do that," she mocked.
"Of course you know I'm the happiest man in the world," he said with well-ordered composure.
"You're not exactly what I'd call a rapturous lover, Clary. But I'm not either for that matter, so I dare say we'll hit it off very well."
"I'm a good deal harder hit than I've ever let on, dear girl. And I'm going to make you very happy. That's a promise."
Nevertheless he watched her warily behind a manner of graceful eagerness. There had been a suggestion almost of bitterness in her voice. A suspicious little thought was filtering through the back of his mind. "What the deuce has got into the girl? Has she been quarreling with that bounder from Arizona?"
"I'm glad of that. I'll try to make you a good wife, even if—" She let the sentence die out unfinished.
Beneath her fan their hands met for a moment.
"May I tell everybody how happy I am?"
"If you like," she agreed.
"A short engagement," he ventured.
"Yes," she nodded. "And take me away for a while. I'm tired of NewYork, I think."
"I'll take you to a place where the paths are primrose-strewn and where nightingales sing," he promised rashly.
She smiled incredulously, a wise old little smile that had no right on her young face.
The report of the engagement spread at once. Bromfield took care of that. It ran like wildfire upstairs and down in the Whitford establishment. Naturally Johnnie, who was neither one of the servants nor a member of the family, was the last to hear of it. One day the word was carried to him, and a few hours later he read the confirmation of it on the hand of his young mistress.
The Runt had the clairvoyance of love. He knew that Clay was not now happy, though the cattleman gave no visible sign of it except a certain quiet withdrawal into himself. He ate as well as usual. His talk was cheerful. He joked the puncher and made Kitty feel at home by teasing her. In the evenings he shooed out the pair of them to a moving-picture show and once or twice went along. But he had a habit of falling into reflection, his deep-set eyes fixed on some object he could not see. Johnnie worried about him.
The evening of the day the Runt heard of the engagement he told his friend about it while Kitty was in the kitchen.
"Miss Beatrice she's wearing a new ring," he said by way of breaking the news gently.
Clay turned his head slowly and looked at Johnnie. He waited without speaking.
"I heerd it to-day from one of the help. Then I seen it on her finger," the little man went on reluctantly.
"Bromfield?" asked Clay.
"Yep. That's the story."
"The ring was on the left hand?"
"Yep."
Clay made no comment. His friend knew enough to say no more to him. Presently the cattleman went out. It was in the small hours of the morning when he returned. He had been tramping the streets to get the fever out of his blood.
But Johnnie discussed with Kitty at length this new development, just as he had discussed with her the fact that Clay no longer went to see the Whitfords. Kitty made a shrewd guess at the cause of division. She had already long since drawn from the cowpuncher the story of how Miss Beatrice had rejected his proposal that she take an interest in her.
"They must 'a' quarreled—likely about me being here. I'm sorry you told her."
"I don't reckon that's it." Johnnie scratched his head to facilitate the process of thinking. He wanted to remain loyal to all of his three friends. "Miss Beatrice she's got too good judgment for that."
"I ought to go away. I'm only bringing Mr. Lindsay trouble. If he just could hear from his friends in Arizona about that place he's trying to get me, I'd go right off."
He looked at her wistfully. The bow-legged range-rider was in no hurry to have her go. She was the first girl who had ever looked twice at him, the first one he had ever taken out or talked nonsense with or been ordered about by in the possessive fashion used by the modern young woman. Hence he was head over heels in love.
Kitty had begun to bloom again. Her cheeks were taking on their old rounded contour and occasionally dimples of delight flashed into them. She was a young person who lived in the present. Already the marks of her six-weeks misery among the submerged derelicts of the city was beginning to be wiped from her mind like the memory of a bad dream from which she had awakened. Love was a craving of her happy, sensuous nature.
She wanted to live in the sun, among smiles and laughter. She was like a kitten in her desire to be petted, made much of, and admired. Almost anybody who liked her could win a place in her affection.
Johnnie's case was not so hopeless as he imagined it.
Over their good-night smoke Clay gave a warning. "Keep yore eyes open,Johnnie. I was trailed to the house to-day by one of the fellows withDurand the night I called on him. It spells trouble. I reckon the'Paches are going to leave the reservation again."
"Do you allow that skunk is aimin' to bushwhack you?"
"He's got some such notion. It's a cinch he ain't through with me yet."
"Say, Clay, ain't you gettin' homesick for the whinin' of a rawhide? Wha's the matter with us hittin' the dust for good old Tucson? I'd sure like to chase cowtails again."
"You can go, Johnnie. I'm not ready yet—quite. And when I go it won't be because of any rattlesnake in the grass."
"Whadyou mean I can go?" demanded his friend indignantly. "I don't aim to go and leave you here alone."
"Perhaps I'll be along, too, after a little. I'm about fed up on NewYork."
"Well, I'll stick around till you come. If this Jerry Durand's trying to get you I'll be right there followin' yore dust, old scout."
"There's more than one way to skin a cat. Mebbe the fellow means to strike at me through you or Kitty. I've a mind to put you both on a train for the B-in-a-Box Ranch."
"You can put the li'l' girl on a train. You can't put me on none less'n you go too," answered his shadow stoutly.
"Then see you don't get drawn into any quarrels while you and Kitty are away from the house. Stick to the lighted streets. I think I'll speak to her about not lettin' any strange man talk to her."
"She wouldn't talk to no strange man. She ain't that kind," snortedJohnnie.
"Keep yore shirt on," advised Clay, smiling. "What I mean is that she mustn't let herself believe the first story some one pulls on her. I think she had better not go out unless one of us is with her."
"Suits me."
"I thought that might suit you. Well, stick to main-traveled roads and don't take any chances. If you get into trouble, yell bloody murderpoco pronto."
"And don't you take any, old-timer. That goes double. I'm the cautious guy in this outfit, not you."
Within twenty-four hours Clay heard some one pounding wildly on the outer door of the apartment and the voice of the cautious guy imploring haste.
"Lemme in, Clay. Hurry! Hurry!" he shouted.
Lindsay was at the door in four strides, but he did not need to see the stricken woe of his friend's face to guess what had occurred. For Johnnie and Kitty had started together to see a picture play two hours earlier.
"They done took Kitty—in an auto," he gasped. "Right before my eyes.Claimed a lady had fainted."
"Who took her?"
"I dunno. Some men. Turned the trick slick, me never liftin' a hand.Ain't I a heluva man?"
"Hold yore hawsses, son. Don't get excited. Begin at the beginnin' and tell me all about it," Clay told him quietly.
Already he was kicking off his house slippers and was reaching for his shoes.
"We was comin' home an' I took Kitty into that Red Star drug-store for to get her some ice cream. Well, right after that I heerd a man say how the lady had fainted—"
"What lady?"
"The lady in the machine."
"Were you in the drug-store?"
"No. We'd jes' come out when this here automobile drew up an' a man jumped out hollerin' the lady had fainted and would I bring a glass o' water from the drugstore. 'Course I got a jump on me and Kitty she moved up closeter to the car to he'p if she could. When I got back to the walk with the water the man was hoppin' into the car. It was already movin'. He' slammed the door shut and it went up the street like greased lightnin'."
"Was it a closed car?"
"Uh-huh."
"Can you describe it?"
"Why, I dunno—"
"Was it black, brown, white?"
"Kinda roan-colored, looked like."
"Get the number?"
"No, I—I plumb forgot to look."
Clay realized that Johnnie's powers of observation were not to be trusted.
"Sure the car wasn't tan-colored?" he asked to test him.
"It might 'a' been tan, come to think of it."
"You're right certain Kitty was in it?"
"I heerd her holler from inside. She called my name. I run after the car, but I couldn't catch it."
Clay slipped a revolver under his belt. He slid into a street coat. Then he got police headquarters on the wire and notified the office of what had taken place. He knew that the word would be flashed in all directions and that a cordon would be stretched across the city to intercept any suspicious car. Over the telephone the desk man at headquarters fired questions at him, most of which he was unable to answer. He promised fuller particulars as soon as possible.
It had come on to rain and beneath the street lights the asphalt shone like a river. The storm had driven most people indoors, but as the Westerner drew near the drugstore Clay saw with relief a taxicab draw up outside. Its driver, crouched in his seat behind the waterproof apron as far back as possible from the rain, promptly accepted Lindsay as a fare.
"Back in a minute," Clay told him, and passed into the drug-store.
The abduction was still being discussed. There was a disagreement as to whether the girl had stepped voluntarily into the car or been lifted in by the man outside. This struck the cattleman as unimportant. He pushed home questions as to identification. One of the men in the drug-store had caught a flash of the car number. He was sure the first four figures were 3967. The fifth he did not remember. The car was dark blue and it looked like a taxi. This information Clay got the owner of the car to forward to the police.
He did not wait to give it personally, but joined Johnnie in the cab. The address he gave to the driver with the waterproof hat pulled down over his head was that of a certain place of amusement known as Heath's Palace of Wonders. A young woman he wanted to consult was wont to sit behind a window there at the receipt of customs.
"It's worth a fiver extra if you make good time," Lindsay told the driver.
"You're on, boss," answered the man gruffly.
Johnnie, in a fever of anxiety, had trotted along beside his chief to the drug-store in silence. Now, as they rushed across the city, he put a timid question with a touch of bluff bravado he did not feel.
"We'll get her back sure, don't you reckon?"
"We'll do our best. Don't you worry. That won't buy us anything."
"No—no, I ain't a-worryin' none, but—Clay, I'd hate a heap for any harm to come to that li'l' girl." His voice quavered.
"Sho! We're right on their heels, Johnnie. So are the cops. We'll make a gather and get Kitty back all right."
Miss Annie Millikan's pert smile beamed through the window at Clay when he stepped up.
"Hello, Mr. Flat-Worker," she sang out. "How many?"
"I'm not going in to see the show to-night. I want to talk with you if you can get some one to take yore place here."
"Say, whatta you think I am—one o' these here Fift' Avenoo society dames? I'm earnin' my hot dogs and coffee right at this window. . . . Did you say two, lady?" She shoved two tickets through the window in exchange for dimes.
Clay explained that his business was serious. "I've got to see you alone—now," he added.
"If you gotta you gotta." The girl called an usher, who found a second usher to take her place.
Annie walked down the street a few steps beside Clay. The little puncher followed them dejectedly. His confidence had gone down to chill zero.
"What's the big idea in callin' me from me job in the rush hours?" asked Miss Millikan. "And who's this gumshoe guy from the bush league tailin' us? Breeze on and wise Annie if this here business is so important."
Clay told his story.
"Some of Jerry's strong-arm work," she commented.
"Must be. Can you help me?"
Annie looked straight at him, a humorous little quirk to her mouth."Say, what're you askin' me to do—t'row down my steady?"
Which remark carries us back a few days to one sunny afternoon after Clay's midnight call when he had dropped round to see Miss Annie. They had walked over to Gramercy Park and sat down on a bench as they talked. Most men and all women trusted Clay. He had in him some quality of unspoken sympathy that drew confidences. Before she knew it Annie found herself telling him the story of her life.
Her father had been a riveter in a shipyard and had been killed while she was a baby. Later her mother had married unhappily a man who followed the night paths of the criminal underworld. Afterward he had done time at Sing Sing. Through him Annie had been brought for years into contact with the miserable types that make an illicit living by preying upon the unsuspecting in big cities. Always in the little Irish girl there had been a yearning for things clean and decent, but it is almost impossible for the poor in a great city to escape from the environment that presses upon them.
She was pretty, and inevitably she had lovers. One of these was "Slim" Jim Collins, a confidential follower of Jerry Durand. He was a crook, and she knew it. But some quality in him—his good looks, perhaps, or his gameness—fascinated her in spite of herself. She avoided him, even while she found herself pleased to go to Coney with an escort so well dressed and so glibly confident. Another of her admirers was a policeman, Tim Muldoon by name, the same one that had rescued Clay from the savagery of Durand outside the Sea Siren. Tim she liked. But for all his Irish ardor he was wary. He had never asked her to marry him. She thought she knew the reason. He did not want for a wife a woman who had been "Slim" Jim's girl. And Annie—because she was Irish too and perverse—held her head high and went with Collins openly before the eyes of the pained and jealous patrolman.
Clay had come to Annie Millikan now because of what she had told him about "Slim" Jim. This man was one of Durand's stand-bys. If there was any underground work to be done it was an odds-on chance that he would be in charge of it.
"I'm askin' you to stand by a poor girl that's in trouble," he said in answer to her question.
"You've soitainly got a nerve with you. I'll say you have. You want me to throw the hooks into Jim for a goil I never set me peepers on. I wisht I had your crust."
"You wouldn't let Durand spoil her life if you could stop it."
"Wouldn't I? Hmp! Soft-soap stuff. Well, what's my cue? Where do I come in on this rescue-the-be-eutiful heroine act?"
"When did you see 'Slim' Jim last?"
"I might 'a' seen him this afternoon an' I might not," she said cautiously, looking at him from under a broad hat-brim.
"When?"
"I didn't see him after I got behind that 'How Many?' sign. If I seen him must 'a' been before two."
"Did he give you any hint of what was in the air?"
"Say, what's the lay-out? Are you framin' Jim for up the river?"
"I'm tryin' to save Kitty."
"Because she's your goil. Where do I come in at? What's there in it for me to go rappin' me friend?" demanded Annie sharply.
"She's not my girl," explained Clay. Then, with that sure instinct that sometimes guided him, he added, "The young lady I—I'm in love with has just become engaged to another man."
Miss Millikan looked at him, frankly incredulous. "For the love o'Mike, where's her eyes? Don't she know a real man when she sees one?I'll say she don't."
"I'm standin' by Kitty because she's shy of friends. Any man would do that, wouldn't he? I came to you for help because—oh, because I know you're white clear through."
A flush beat into Annie's cheeks. She went off swiftly at a tangent. "Wouldn't it give a fellow a jar? This guy Jim Collins slips it to me confidential that he's off the crooked stuff. Nothin' doin' a-tall in gorilla work. He kids me that he's quit goin' out on the spud and porch-climbin' don't look good to him no more. A four-room flat, a little wifie, an' the straight road for 'Slim' Jim. I fall for it, though I'd orta be hep to men. An' he dates me up to-night for the chauffeurs' ball."
"But you didn't go?"
"No; he sidesteps it this aft with a fairy tale about drivin' a rich old dame out to Yonkers. All the time he' was figurin' on pinchin' this goil for Jerry. He's a rotten crook."
"Why don't you break with him, Annie? You're too good for that sort of thing. He'll spoil your life if you don't."
"Listens fine," the girl retorted bitterly. "I take Jim like some folks do booze or dope. He's a habit."
"Tim's worth a dozen of him."
"Sure he is, but Tim's got a notion I'm not on the level. I dunno as he needs to pull that stuff on me. I'm not strong for a harness bull anyhow." She laughed, a little off the key.
"What color is 'Slim' Jim's car?"
"A dirty blue. Why?"
"That was the car."
Annie lifted her hands in a little gesture of despair. "I'm dead sick of this game. What's there in it? I live straight and eat in a beanery. No lobster palaces in mine. Look at me cheap duds. And Tim gives me the over like I was a street cat. What sort of a chance did I ever have, with toughs and gunmen for me friends?"
"You've got yore chance now, Annie. Tim will hop off that fence he's on and light a-runnin' straight for you if he thinks you've ditched 'Slim' Jim."
She shook her head slowly. "No, I'll not t'row Jim down. I'm through with him. He lied to me right while he knew this was all framed up. But I wouldn't snitch on him, even if he'd told me anything. And he didn't peep about what he was up to."
"Forget Jim while you're thinkin' about this. You don't owe Jerry Durand anything, anyhow. Where would he have Kitty taken? You can give a guess."
She had made her decision before she spoke. "Gimme paper and a pencil."
On Clay's notebook she scrawled hurriedly an address.
"Jim'd croak me if he knew I'd given this," she said, looking straight at the cattleman.
"He'll never know—and I'll never forget it, Annie."
Clay left her and turned to the driver. From the slip of paper in his hand he read aloud an address. "Another five if you break the speed limit," he said.
As Clay slammed the door shut and the car moved forward he had an impression of something gone wrong, of a cog in his plans slipped somewhere. For Annie, standing in the rain under a sputtering misty street light, showed a face stricken with fear.
Her dilated eyes were fixed on the driver of the taxi-cab.
The cab whirled round the corner and speeded down a side street that stretched as far as they could see silent and deserted in the storm.
The rain, falling faster now, beat gustily in a slant against the left window of the cab. It was pouring in rivulets along the gutter beside the curb. Some sixth sense of safety—one that comes to many men who live in the outdoors on the untamed frontier—warned Clay that all was not well. He had felt that bell of instinct ring in him once at Juarez when he had taken a place at a table to play poker with a bad-man who had a grudge at him. Again it had sounded when he was about to sit down on a rock close to a crevice where a rattler lay coiled.
The machine had swung to the right and was facing from the wind instead of into it. Clay was not very well acquainted with New York, but he did know this was not the direction in which he wanted to go.
He beat with his knuckles on the front of the cab to attract the attention of the driver. In the swishing rain, and close to the throb of the engine, the chauffeur either did not or would not hear.
Lindsay opened the door and swung out on the running-board. "We're goin' wrong. Stop the car!" he ordered.
The man at the wheel did not turn. He speeded up.
His fare wasted no time in remonstrances. A moment, and the chauffeur threw on the brake sharply. His reason was a good one. The blue nose of a revolver was jammed hard against his ribs. He had looked round once to find out what it was prodding him. That was enough to convince him he had better stop.
Under the brake the back wheels skidded and brought up against the curb. Clay, hanging on by one hand, was flung hard to the sidewalk. The cab teetered, regained its equilibrium, gathered impetus with a snort, and leaped forward again.
As the cattleman clambered to his feet he caught one full view of the chauffeur's triumphant, vindictive face. He had seen it before, at a reception especially arranged for him by Jerry Durand one memorable night. It belonged to the more talkative of the two gunmen he had surprised at the pretended poker game. He knew, too, without being told that this man and "Slim" Jim Collins were one and the same. The memory of Annie's stricken face carried this conviction home to him.
The Arizonan picked up his revolver in time to see the car sweep around the next corner and laughed ruefully at his own discomfiture. He pushed a hand through the crisp, reddish waves of his hair.
"I don't reckon I'll ride in that taxi any farther. Johnnie will have to settle the bill. Hope he plays his hand better than I did," he said aloud.
The rain pelted down as he moved toward the brighter lighted street that intersected the one where he had been dropped. The lights of a saloon caught his eye at the corner. He went in, got police headquarters on the wire, and learned that a car answering the description of the one used by his abductor had been headed into Central Park by officers and that the downtown exits were being watched.
He drew what comfort he could from that fact.
Presently he picked up another taxi. He hesitated whether to go to the address Annie had given him or to join the chase uptown. Reluctantly, he decided to visit the house. His personal inclination was for the hunt rather than for inactive waiting, but he sacrificed any immediate chance of adventure for the sake of covering the possible rendezvous of the gang.
Clay paid his driver and looked at the house numbers as he moved up the street he wanted. He was in that part of the city from which business years ago marched up-town. Sometime in decades past people of means had lived behind these brownstone fronts. Many of the residences were used to keep lodgers in. Others were employed for less reputable purposes.
His overcoat buttoned to his neck, Clay walked without hesitation up the steps of the one numbered 243. He rang the bell and waited, his right hand on the pocket of his overcoat.
The door opened cautiously a few inches and a pair of close-set eyes in a wrinkled face gimleted Clay.
"Whadya want?"
"The old man sent me with a message," answered the Arizonan promptly.
"Spill it."
"Are you alone?"
"Youknowit."
"Got everything ready for the girl?"
"Say, who the hell are youse?"
"One of Slim's friends. Listen, we got the kid—picked her up at a drug-store."
"I don' know watcher fairy tale's about. If you gotta message come through with it."
Clay put his foot against the door to prevent it from being closed and drew his hand from the overcoat pocket. In the hand nestled a blue-nosed persuader.
Unless the eyes peering into the night were bad barometers of their owner's inner state, he was in a panic of fear.
"Love o' Gawd, d-don't shoot!" he chattered. "I ain't nobody but the caretaker."
He backed slowly away, followed by Lindsay. The barrel of the thirty-eight held his eyes fascinated. By the light of his flash Clay discovered the man to be a chalk-faced little inconsequent.
"Say, don't point that at me," the old fellow implored.
"Are you alone?"
"I told you I was."
"Is Jerry comin' himself with the others?"
"They don't none of them tell me nothin'. I'm nobody. I'm only Joey."
"Unload what you know. Quick. I'm in a hurry."
The man began a rambling, whining tale.
The Arizonan interrupted with questions, crisp and incisive. He learned that a room had been prepared on the second floor for a woman. Slim had made the arrangements. Joe had heard Durand's name mentioned, but knew nothing of the plans.
"I'll look the house over. Move along in front of me and don't make any mistakes. This six-gun is liable to permeate yore anatomy with lead."
The cattleman examined the first floor with an especial view to the exits. He might have to leave in a hurry. If so, he wanted to know where he was going. The plan of the second story was another point he featured as he passed swiftly from room to room. From the laundry in the basement he had brought up a coil of clothes-line. With this he tied Joe hand and foot. After gagging him, he left the man locked in a small rear room and took the key with him.
Clay knew that he was in a precarious situation. If Durand returned with Kitty and captured him here he was lost. The man would make no more mistakes. Certainly he would leave no evidence against him except that of his own tools. The intruder would probably not be killed openly. He would either simply disappear or he would be murdered with witnesses framed to show self-defense. The cattleman was as much outside the law as the criminals were. He had no legal business in this house. But one thing was fixed in his mind. He would be no inactive victim. If they got him at all it would be only after a fighting finish.
To Clay, standing at the head of the stairs, came a sound that stiffened him to a tense wariness. A key was being turned in the lock of the street door below. He moved back into the deeper shadows as the door swung open.
Two men entered. One of them cursed softly as he stumbled against a chair in the dark hall.
"Where's that rat Joe?" he demanded in a subdued voice.
Then came a click of the lock. The sound of the street rain ceased. Clay knew that the door had been closed and that he was shut in with two desperate criminals.
What have they done with Kitty? Why was she not with them? He asked himself that question even as he slipped back into a room that opened to the left.
He groped his way through the darkness, for he dared not flash his light to guide him. His fingers found the edge of a desk. Round that he circled toward a closet he remembered having noted. Already the men were tramping up the stairs. They were, he could tell, in a vile humor. From this he later augured hopefully that their plans had not worked out smoothly, but just now more imperative business called him.
His arm brushed the closet door. Next moment he was inside and had closed it softly behind him.
And none too soon. For into the room came the gunmen almost on his heels.