“My dear Bancroft:—I think you’d better correct young Conrad’s curious notion that I had anything to do with José Gonzalez’s attack upon him, or with José’s going down there. If you don’t he might turn his suspicions in some other direction. Of course, there’s nothing in it but that greaser’s bad temper. But he thinks there is, and he’s just hot-headed enough to make it uncomfortable for anybody he happens to suspect. I didn’t send José to him and so, naturally, I can’t do anything about it, even if the fellow does get angry and act like the devil.“I’m sorry I can’t help you in your desire to retire from our Rio Grande valley land business. I’m tied up so that I’ve got no ready money with which to buy you out. Of course, if you are determined to get out, you might find a purchaser elsewhere. But as a friend I advise you not to sell. There’s going to be big money in it, and we can probably launch the enterprise within the next six months. You’ll make a great mistake if you quit. If you decide to stay in I’m willing for you to keep on as a silent partner, just as we have done so far.”
“My dear Bancroft:—I think you’d better correct young Conrad’s curious notion that I had anything to do with José Gonzalez’s attack upon him, or with José’s going down there. If you don’t he might turn his suspicions in some other direction. Of course, there’s nothing in it but that greaser’s bad temper. But he thinks there is, and he’s just hot-headed enough to make it uncomfortable for anybody he happens to suspect. I didn’t send José to him and so, naturally, I can’t do anything about it, even if the fellow does get angry and act like the devil.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you in your desire to retire from our Rio Grande valley land business. I’m tied up so that I’ve got no ready money with which to buy you out. Of course, if you are determined to get out, you might find a purchaser elsewhere. But as a friend I advise you not to sell. There’s going to be big money in it, and we can probably launch the enterprise within the next six months. You’ll make a great mistake if you quit. If you decide to stay in I’m willing for you to keep on as a silent partner, just as we have done so far.”
The banker scowled, swearing softly to himself as he read the first paragraph. “Didn’t send him, didn’t he,” he grumbled. “Then who did? I didn’t, that’s sure. He recommended the fellow as a good cowboy,and Conrad engaged him. I had nothing to do with it.” He was silent again as he studied the second part of the letter. A suspicion rose in his mind that Baxter was purposely making it difficult, almost impossible, for him to get out of the land scheme. What was his purpose in so doing? Did the Congressman wish to keep a hold on him to hamper, perhaps even to control, his movements? “I wonder,” Bancroft thought, “if Dell is afraid I’ll try to cut him out politically before he’s ready to step down. I’d like his place well enough if—but that’s something out of my reckoning for a long time yet, even if everything goes right.” The surmise that Baxter wished to have such a bridle upon him left him uneasy. Well, he would have to let this thing go on as it was. If he tried to sell to any one else knowledge of his connection with it might leak out and reach Lucy’s ears. He winced as he thought of her feeling toward Baxter because of this business. And the investment promised well; rich returns might be expected from it soon. Nobody knew of his part in it except Dell, and if he stayed in and kept quiet it was unlikely that anybody else would find it out. That might be the safer plan, after all.
Conrad came to the door, and after a few minutes’ talk Bancroft said to him, remembering Baxter’s injunction, “Well, Curt, I hope you won’t find that your crazy Mexican has been trying to kill off all your men.”
Curtis laughed. “Oh, José will be all right; and he’s the best cow-punch I’ve got on the ranch. Dell Baxter will attend to him.”
“That’s an absurd notion of yours that Baxter had anything to do with it,” replied Bancroft, the Congressman’s letter still in his mind. “You’re not reasonable about Dell. Why should he want you assassinated?”
“The only reason I can see is that I’ve been talking pretty plain about him. But if he doesn’t like the kind of things I say he’ll have to get used to it, or else reform.”
“Nonsense, Curt. And even if he does think you’re handling the Castleton money against—”
Curtis made a gesture of impatience. “I hope you don’t take any stock in that talk, Aleck. The Castletons don’t care a hang about this campaign, and Dell knows it. They’re not putting up a cent, or, if Ned is doing anything for his wife’s sake, he’s dealing with Johnny Martinez direct.”
Bancroft looked at him narrowly. “Is that right, Curt? Are you sure of it?”
“As sure as I am of anything,” the cattleman responded with emphasis. “They’ve never mentioned the subject to me.”
After Conrad had gone the banker walked the floor in anxious thought. What, then, did that five-hundred-dollar check mean that Curtis had given to Jenkins? Perhaps he was holding the young man off, saying he was not yet sure of Delafield’s identity and needed money to carry on his investigation, intending to give up his secret if he should find that he could bleed Bancroft no longer. That would be like Jenkins, he decided. As soon as he could get away he would go to Las Vegas and see if the fellow could be cowed by the knowledge that had come to him so opportunely. As for Conrad, it would be better to wait until he could learn whether those checks would produce the effect desired.
In front of the court-house the ranchman met Tillinghurst and Little Jack Wilder. The Sheriff had a subpœna commanding him to appear as a witness for the State in the Melgares trial, set for June. Curtis remarked, as they talked of the case: “I reckon you’ll have Pendleton as a witness; he’ll want totake in the whole thing. Have you seen anything of him? He promised to meet me here. He’s going back with me; says he wants to take in a round-up and see a steer on the prod. I sure reckon I’ll have my hands full if I keep the boys from taking him in.”
“Let ’em run him, Curt, let ’em run him,” said the Sheriff. “He’s good-natured, and he’ll soon strike their gait. He was never outside of New England before, and he’s tryin’ mighty hard to be tougher than anybody else on the border. He’s been in town three weeks, and he calls everybody by their first names, from Judge Banks down to my Mexican stable-boy. He writes down all the slang he hears every day, sits up nights to study it, and the next day slings it around as free and easy as an old-timer. Is that him comin’ yonder? Say, Curt, he’ll stampede every cow-brute you’ve got on the range!”
Pendleton, short, stout, and large of girth, had dressed himself for roughing it according to his own idea of custom and comfort. He wore a Mexican straw sombrero tied down over his ears with a red bandanna, a red flannel shirt, a long linen coat, huge spurs, and sheepskinchaparejos.
“Oh, where did you get that coat?” thethree men sang out as he came within hearing distance. Pendleton caught the tails in his finger tips and danced some sidewise steps.
“Ain’t she a beaut?” he shouted. “I found it in a store down in Dobytown.”
“Say, Pendy,” called the Sheriff, “if you go pervadin’ and pesterin’ around among Curt’s steers in those duds I’ll have to send Jack down there to arrest you for breach of the peace.”
“All right, Tilly! I’m here for my health, but I’m takin’ in on the side everything that comes my way!”
Conrad found a letter at the ranch addressed to José Gonzalez, in his care, and grinned with satisfaction as he recognized Baxter’s handwriting. “He’s buffaloed all right and is calling off his man,” he thought as he opened with eager curiosity a missive from Baxter for himself:
“My dear young friend:—I assure you that you are barking up the wrong tree when you try to connect me with any attack the Mexican, José Gonzalez, may have made upon you. In fact, it is so much up the wrong tree that I feel pretty sure there isn’t any tree there at all! His assault was probably the result of sudden anger. The man has worked for me a good deal,and I know that such is his character. I have some influence with him, and I shall write him at once and give him a lecture on the necessity of controlling his temper. I have had occasion to do this several times in the past, not without effect. I shall tell him that you are a man of your word, and a crack shot, and that if he doesn’t keep cool he’s likely to die with his boots on. Nobody could blame you, my dear Mr. Conrad, if you should shoot him under such a necessity of self-defence. I take it ill, however, that you should connect me with this greaser’s outrageous temper and crazy actions. I assure you again that you are entirely mistaken in your assumption, which, permit me to say, is what might very well be called gratuitous.“I congratulate Johnny Martinez upon having the support of a gentleman so energetic, influential, and enthusiastic as yourself, and I remain,“Yours very cordially,“Dellmey Baxter.”
“My dear young friend:—I assure you that you are barking up the wrong tree when you try to connect me with any attack the Mexican, José Gonzalez, may have made upon you. In fact, it is so much up the wrong tree that I feel pretty sure there isn’t any tree there at all! His assault was probably the result of sudden anger. The man has worked for me a good deal,and I know that such is his character. I have some influence with him, and I shall write him at once and give him a lecture on the necessity of controlling his temper. I have had occasion to do this several times in the past, not without effect. I shall tell him that you are a man of your word, and a crack shot, and that if he doesn’t keep cool he’s likely to die with his boots on. Nobody could blame you, my dear Mr. Conrad, if you should shoot him under such a necessity of self-defence. I take it ill, however, that you should connect me with this greaser’s outrageous temper and crazy actions. I assure you again that you are entirely mistaken in your assumption, which, permit me to say, is what might very well be called gratuitous.
“I congratulate Johnny Martinez upon having the support of a gentleman so energetic, influential, and enthusiastic as yourself, and I remain,
“Yours very cordially,“Dellmey Baxter.”
Conrad laughed aloud over the letter, exclaiming as he finished it, “He’s a slick one, he is!”
Another letter bore the imprint of Tremper & Townsend, and contained a check for five hundred dollars and a brief note saying that their client, Sumner L. Delafield, wished them to send him this money as a second instalment of the amount due his father’s estate,and to add that like sums would follow in rapid succession. Conrad scowled and gnawed his moustache as he read the letter the second time. He was considering whether he had any right to accept the money and continue his quest of vengeance. Delafield evidently meant to buy him off with it and, if he accepted, did he not tacitly accept that condition?
“I’ll send it back to him,” was his first thought, as he reached for a pen. But another idea stayed his hand. The former check he had divided between his brother and sisters, and, as they knew nothing of his scheme of revenge, this also ought to go to them. But Delafield must know upon what terms he accepted the money. With a grim look on his face he wrote to the Boston attorneys:
“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a second check for five hundred dollars from your client, Sumner L. Delafield. I am reasonably grateful that an unexpected sense of remorse has led him to loose his purse-strings, even at this late day, and on behalf of my brother and sisters will ask you to send him their thanks. As for myself, you may tell him that I hope the sending of the money has eased his conscience, for it will procure him no other benefit. Every cent of money he sees fit to send me I shall turn over to my father’s otherchildren, while I shall find entire satisfaction in following out my revenge. What that is he doubtless knows, for the sending of these checks convinces me that he is moved, not by the honest wish to do what he can toward righting a dastardly wrong, but by the desire to save his own skin. Please tell him, from me, that he cannot buy immunity from my purpose, even though he should send me the whole of the debt three times over.”
“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a second check for five hundred dollars from your client, Sumner L. Delafield. I am reasonably grateful that an unexpected sense of remorse has led him to loose his purse-strings, even at this late day, and on behalf of my brother and sisters will ask you to send him their thanks. As for myself, you may tell him that I hope the sending of the money has eased his conscience, for it will procure him no other benefit. Every cent of money he sees fit to send me I shall turn over to my father’s otherchildren, while I shall find entire satisfaction in following out my revenge. What that is he doubtless knows, for the sending of these checks convinces me that he is moved, not by the honest wish to do what he can toward righting a dastardly wrong, but by the desire to save his own skin. Please tell him, from me, that he cannot buy immunity from my purpose, even though he should send me the whole of the debt three times over.”
Pendleton, bouncing in his saddle as they galloped southward, bent admiring glances upon the erect figure of his companion, whose seat was as steady as if horse and rider had been welded together. “Say, Curt,” he finally called out, “how do you do it? I’d give my bad lung if I could ride like you.”
Conrad gave him some instruction, and Pendleton turned all his attention toward learning how to bring his body into rhythmic accord with the movements of his horse. The cattleman, pounding along in silence, thought with satisfaction of the progress his search for Delafield was making and planned how he should carry it on after the round-up, when he would have more leisure. He would make a list of the men in New Mexico rich and prominent enough to come under suspicion, investigate their records, one by one, and so by elimination discover the person he wanted. Then would come the meeting!
His thoughts full of the climax of his search, he rode on in a sort of exaltation, unconsciously humming a song he and Lucy Bancroft had been practising. Presently, through the silence, the sound entered his conscious hearing, and took his thoughts back to the pleasant hour he and she had spent over it. But a vague uneasiness stirred his feelings as the image of Lucy floated past the background of that grisly, dominating purpose. The thought of her persisted; as it clung there, along the edge of his absorption, it brought a sharp and curious suggestion of the maimed bird he had carried in his bosom. He was suddenly conscious of discomfort, as if he had hurt some helpless thing, when his reverie was broken by a series of wild yells from his companion. Pendleton had been lagging behind, but he now came dashing forward, giving vent to his delight because he had so far mastered the art of riding that he no longer bounced all over the horse’s back nor fell forward and seized its mane at each change of gait.
A spring welled alluringly from a dimple in the hillside. Pendleton dismounted, saying he was thirsty. “Don’t drink from that spring, Pendy,” Conrad admonishedhim. “It’s alkali, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“It looks all right, and it’s cool,” said the tenderfoot, dipping his hand in the water. “My throat’s as hot and dry as that road. What harm will it do?”
“Well, pretty soon you’ll think you’re chewing cotton; and it may make you sick, though this spring isn’t strong enough of alkali to do you much harm.”
“I’ll risk it,” Pendleton declared, scooping up some water in his hat-brim. “It’s wet when it goes down, anyway. And I reckon I might as well take in an alkali spring, too, while I’ve got the chance. Everything goes!” An hour later he galloped alongside of Conrad, working his jaws and licking his lips. “Say, Curt,” he mumbled, “I know a fellow back home who’d give a thousand dollars for such a thirst as I’ve got!”
It was midnight when they passed Rock Springs, where the superintendent had left his outfit. Two hours later, when Brown Betty put out her nose and neighed, an answering whinny came back from beyond the next hill. “That’s only Five Cottonwoods,” thought Curtis. “It can’t be they’ve got no farther than that!” They gained the top ofthe hill and below them, in the light of the waning moon, they saw the white top of the chuck-wagon, the dark patch of sleeping cattle patrolled by a single horseman, and the figures of the men sprawled on the ground around the dying coals of their evening fire.
“Here we are, Pendy!” said Curtis. “I thought they would have got farther than this, and that we’d have at least two hours more of travel. Now we’ll have time for a little sleep before you begin busting those broncs.”
They stretched themselves on the ground and almost instantly fell asleep. But it was not long before Conrad, rousing suddenly, sprang to his feet, realizing even before he was fairly awake that the cattle were stampeding. From down the hill came a thundering, rushing sound, the noise of hundreds of hoofs pounding the ground. He called his foreman, seized his saddle, and rushed to the bunch of tethered cow-ponies, Peters, Texas Bill, Red Jack, and José Gonzalez close behind. As they dashed after the flying herd Curtis could see in the dim light the figure of the cowboy who had been patrolling the sleeping cattle. He was following the stampede at what his employer thought a leisurely pace.
“Who was riding herd?” he yelled to Peters, who replied, “Andy Miller.”
“Is he trying to drive them farther away?” Conrad muttered angrily, pressing home his spur.
The cattle tore wildly down the hill, but at its foot their leaders turned up the course of the dry shallow valley instead of pressing up the other side. The men saw the movement, and by cutting across the hillside gained rapidly upon the fleeing animals. As they passed Andy Miller, Curtis shouted to him that he might return to the camp, as they should not need him. The draw soon began to grow deeper and narrower, and the dense mass of cattle was forced to lessen its pace. Conrad remembered that farther on the valley came to an abrupt end against a steep rise. If the brutes stayed in it a little longer they would not be able to get out, and when they came to the end of this blind alley of the hills they would have to stop. So he and his companions galloped easily along beside the shadowy stream of moving backs with its spray of tossing horns that filled the draw, and presently found the leaders, their heads to the bluff, chewing their cuds as quietly as if they had never been frightened in all their lives.
As they rode back to camp behind the staidly moving herd, Conrad asked Peters if he knew what caused the stampede. The foreman did not know, he had been sound asleep when it began. But he went on to tell an excited tale of mysterious accidents that had followed close upon one another ever since the morning of the superintendent’s departure. Only the edge of the sand-storm through which he had ridden touched them, though it had kept them in camp all day. Nevertheless, there had been two stampedes, and they had had much trouble getting the brutes together again. Every day since there had been at least one stampede of the herd. He and the others had been kept busy gathering in the flying cattle. This was why they had got no farther than Five Cottonwoods. It seemed as if the devil himself had taken possession of every cow-brute on the range; never in all his years as a cow-puncher had he had such a time.
“Don’t you know what starts them?”
“That’s the mischief of it. Nobody ever knows. The darned critters just get up and hike. Some of the boys are gettin’ skeery about it, and they’re likely to pull their freight if it keeps up. They’re tellin’ ghost storiesnow after supper, and Andy Miller has been reelin’ off the whoppin’est yarns ever you heard. Between the ghost stories and the way the cow-brutes act the boys are gettin’ plumb fidgety, and I’m mighty glad you’ve got back.”
“How does Andy get on with the work? Does hesabe?”
“Yes; he’s first rate; the best we’ve got, except José. But Andy does have main bad luck with the cow-brutes. This makes four times they’ve stampeded under him.”
Promise of day was flushing the eastern sky and faintly warming the gray semi-darkness when Pendleton’s eyes flew open, to instant conviction of illness. From head to foot he ached with weariness, and he felt wretchedly sick. For a moment he kept quiet, feeling that it would be more comfortable to lie still and die than to try to move. But presently he thought, “I’ll never live to die of consumption if I don’t get up quick and find my whiskey!”
He scrambled to his feet and looked around. Not nearly so many men were stretched on the ground as he had expected to see, and his friend was not in sight. He looked for his saddle-bags, where he kept his flask.Conrad had taken them from the horse when they unsaddled, and Pendleton had not noticed what he did with them. He could not find the bags, everybody left in camp was sound asleep, and Curtis had disappeared. Wrapped in his blanket he was wandering around forlornly, squirming with pain, when he saw some one moving in the group of horses farther down the hill. He started in that direction and saw the man stoop beside Conrad’s mare, Brown Betty.
“Hello, pard! Where’s Curt?” Pendleton called loudly. The man straightened up quickly, and put away a knife. He looked at the curious figure coming toward him, and burst into a loud guffaw. “Gee whillikens, stranger! where’d you drop from?” he shouted back.
Pendleton explained, and asked the other to help him find his saddle-bags. They were discovered in the chuck-wagon, and the invalid offered his flask, with a cordial admonition to “drink hearty, pard.” The cowboy responded literally, and made several other visits to the saddle-bags before breakfast. By that time he was good-naturedly obstreperous, and had the camp in an uproar with his horse-play and noisy pranks. Conrad askedPeters where Andy got his whiskey. The foreman did not know, and said that this was the first time he had shown any signs of drink. The superintendent went to Pendleton.
“Has Andy Miller been taking a pull at your flask?”
“The cow-punch that’s feeling so happy? Sure, Curt. He helped me find my saddle-bags, and I thought I’d be sociable with him. I told him to drink hearty; and by thunder, Curt! you ought to have seen him. He sure had a worse thirst on him than I had yesterday.”
“I’ll have to ask you not to do it again with any of them. And you’d better let me put your flask in a locked box I have in the chuck-wagon, if you don’t carry it in your pocket, or you may not have any left by night.”
Gonzalez came up with a question, and Conrad remembered the letter he had for him. The Mexican took it with an unconcerned face, and went off behind the chuck-wagon. “I don’t need to see the inside of it,” thought Curtis; “but I’d like to all the same. Well, he’ll be all right now, and I’m glad of it, for I’d hate to have to kill as good a roper as he is.”
A few minutes later José strolled toward the cook’s fire, twisting the letter in his fingers. He was about to thrust it into the coals when Andy Miller jumped at him with a yell, and caught his hand. “Here, boys; José’s got a love letter! Let’s read it!” he shouted. Gonzalez resisted; Miller bore him down; and they rolled, struggling, over the ground. José’s dark face was pale with anger and his teeth were set as he gripped the bit of paper in one fist and pummelled Andy’s face with the other. Miller tried to shield himself from the blows with his arms, while he bent his energies to getting possession of the letter.
“You’re fightin’, Andy; don’t fergit to punch!” yelled Nosey Ike from the group of cowboys looking on. Miller was the stronger of the two, and almost had the Mexican in his power when Conrad came beside them, saying, “If you want the letter burned, José, give it to me.”
Gonzalez cast at him one doubtful, desperate look, and threw the twisted paper toward him. The superintendent thrust it in the fire, and he and Peters separated the two men. Gonzalez flashed at him a look of gratitude and walked away without a word.
“Andy,” said Conrad, “you’re making toomuch trouble this morning. If you want to work with this outfit you’ve got to keep straight. If you don’t want to do that you can pull your freight right now.”
The man turned away sullenly. “I’m not ready to pull my freight yet,” he muttered. The other cowboys were saddling their ponies and making ready to begin the day’s work. The bunched cattle, with the red rays of the morning sun warm upon their backs, were quietly grazing a little way down the hillside. Andy Miller started toward his horse, but turned and ran rapidly at the cattle. No one noticed what he was doing until, in a moment more, he was jumping, yelling, and swinging his hat at the edge of the herd. Snorting with sudden surprise and fright, the beasts were away again as though fiends were at their tails. Conrad rushed for his horse, but Peters, already mounted, yelled that they would not need him; and the foreman, with half a dozen others, dashed after the stampede.
Andy Miller was coming slowly back, now and then stopping to smite his thigh and laugh. Curtis walked out to meet him. “Andy,” he said, “I reckon I don’t need you any longer. You can take your time this morning. Here’s your money.”
The cowboy looked up, grinning, and thrust the bills in his pocket. Then, as quickly and lightly as a cat, he sprang upon the superintendent and pulled him down. Conrad, taken completely by surprise, with his left arm in a sling and at something less than his best of strength, for a moment could do nothing but struggle in the other’s grasp. Miller was holding him, face downward, across one advanced leg, when Pendleton, still wrapped in his blanket, bustled up to see what was happening. With upraised hand, Miller yelled:
“Now, then, you’ll get it back, every darn’ spank, an’ more too! Jenkins ain’t big enough to spank you himself, but I can do it for him!” His hand descended, but into an enveloping blanket suddenly thrown over him from behind, muffling head, body, and arms.
“I’ve got him, Curt! Get up, quick, and we’ll do him up!” shouted the tenderfoot as he twisted the blanket around Andy’s struggling figure.
Conrad wrenched himself free and sprang up, his face white. “Let him up, Pendy,” he said, drawing his revolver. The other unwound the blanket, and Miller scrambledout, blinking and cursing. “You make tracks out of this camp as fast as you can go,” said Curtis, “and don’t let me catch you within gunshot of this outfit again! Clear out, this minute, damn you!”
Miller walked away in silence toward his staked horse, the two men following him part way down the hill.
“He’d better clear out before the boys get back, if he wants to keep a sound neck,” said Conrad, his revolver in hand and his eyes on the retreating cowboy. “I understand it all now. And it was a lucky thing, Pendy, that you gave him that whiskey this morning; it got him just drunk enough to show his hand. If it hadn’t been for that I might not have caught on till he’d done the Lord knows how much mischief. It’s just like that damned skunk, Jenkins, to go at it in this sneaking, underhand way. He’s not through with me yet!”
They watched while Miller saddled his horse, hung his rope at the saddle-horn, and mounted. Then they turned back toward the camp, but presently, at a whinny from Brown Betty, Curtis faced about. Miller had ridden to where she was standing, a little apart from the other horses, had leaped to the ground,and was making toward her hind-quarters. His body was in profile, and as he stretched out his arm Conrad saw the flash of sunlight upon a knife blade. Instantly his arm swung upward, and there was an answering flash from the muzzle of his revolver. The report boomed across the valley, and Andy’s right arm dropped. He rushed toward them, yelling foul names, but halted when he saw the pistol levelled at his breast.
“No more tricks, Andy,” called the superintendent, “or it’ll be through your heart next time. Git, right now!”
From up the valley came the shouts of the men. They had turned the cattle and were hurrying them back to camp. Miller cast one quick glance in their direction, and leaped to his saddle. He made a wide detour, the tail of his eye on Conrad’s gun, and galloped away on the road over which the outfit had come. The others trooped up where Curtis and Pendleton, at the top of the hill, were watching his lessening figure.
“Boys,” said the ranchman, “that’s the chap that’s been stampeding the cattle!” Peters swore a mouth-filling oath and smote his thigh. “He was just on the point of ham-stringing Brown Betty,” Curtis went on,his eyes blazing, “and I put a bullet through his arm barely in time to prevent it.”
A light broke upon Pendleton. “Darn my skin, if that wasn’t the trick the critter was up to this morning, when he saw me and stopped!”
“Let’s go after him, boys!” shouted Peters. The group of riders shot forward, like racers starting at the word, and thundered down the road after the culprit. Conrad looked after them grimly, his eyes flashing blue fire, and Pendleton, wrapped in his blanket again, danced about and yelled, “Go it, boys, go it! I wish I was with you!”
For an hour they chased him. He, knowing what his fate would be if he fell into their hands, put spurs to his horse until he brought out its utmost speed. Having so much the start he kept well in the lead, and finally they gave it up and returned to camp.
With his left arm still in a sling and his shoulder bandaged, Conrad kept at the head of the round-up, which went on without further accident. He was too busy to think of the pain, except at night, when it often kept him awake. At such times his mind was sure to busy itself, sooner or later, with the trailing of Delafield, reaching out in everydirection for some clew to guide his next step. By some trick of subconscious mental action, thoughts of Lucy Bancroft began to intrude upon his mind when it was thus engaged. It pleased him well enough to think of Lucy at other times, of her bright, piquant face, of the positive opinions she was in the habit of pronouncing with that independent little toss of her curly head, and of her dimpling smiles. But it annoyed him that the thought of her should come into conflict with his one absorbing idea. And, just because he had been consciously disturbed by it twice or thrice, association of ideas brought back the image more and more frequently. Once, when he had been vainly wooing sleep for an hour, he caught himself wondering what Lucy would say about the Delafield affair. He muttered an angry oath at himself, and with a mighty effort put both subjects out of his mind. It was not until they reached Pelham, the railway station whence the cattle were to be shipped, that his shoulder became free enough from pain for him to sink into sleep as soon as he lay down; and thereafter his mind forbore its irritating trick.
During all that time, although Conrad did not believe he had anything to fear fromJosé Gonzalez, he never left his revolver out of easy reach, and never turned his back upon the Mexican. But Gonzalez kept on his way as calmly and apparently as unconsciously as if he had had no part in that episode beside the pool at Rock Springs. Near the end of the shipping Curtis asked him if he would like steady work at the ranch.
The Mexican gave a little astonished start and cast at the superintendent a glance of suspicion. Conrad frowned and his eyes flashed. Then he grinned good-naturedly, showing his strong white teeth under his sunburned moustache. “That’s all right, José. I’m not that sort. As long as you behave yourself I’m your friend. If you don’t, I’ve told you what will happen. You’ve struck my gait in the cow business, and I want to keep you. If you want to stay you can understand right now that you run no risks, unless you make ’em yourself.”
Gonzalez threw at him a keen glance. “You know I have nothing against you, Don Curtis,” he began, hesitating a moment before he went on; “I like to work for you very well, señor, and I will stay.”
Alexander Bancroft read Conrad’s defiant letter, duly forwarded by his Boston attorneys, with a nearer approach to desperation than he had known in years. He had hoped so much from that money; and it had been thrown away! The man was inflexible, and to attempt to turn him from his deadly purpose by peaceful means would be a waste of time. And time was precious, for, now that he and his detective knew so much, one clew that they might discover any day would throw the door wide open. He must be foiled before he had time to make another move. Bancroft laid on his desk the letter he had been reading, feeling to the bottom of his heart that he would be justified in taking any course that would halt the feet of his pursuer.
A clerk came to ask his presence in the outer room, and he went out hastily, intending to return at once. But a man with businessin which both were interested awaited him, and after a moment’s conversation they went to find a third who was concerned in the same matter.
They had only just gone when Lucy came in and asked for her father. She looked sweet and dainty in a white gown with a wide white hat tied under her chin, her curls clustering around a face all aglow with warm browns and rich reds. The clerk who pressed forward with pleased alacrity to answer her question was one of her ardent admirers. Mr. Bancroft had just gone out, probably for only a few minutes; wouldn’t she wait? It was of no consequence, she said; she only wished to see if he had any mail for her. But she looked disappointed, and the clerk suggested that as he had left his office door unlocked she might go in and wait. She saw a pile of unopened letters on her father’s desk and glanced through it, finding two for Miss Dent and one for herself. “I’ll just sit here and read mine,” she thought, “and maybe daddy will be back by that time.”
A little gust of wind came through the open window, blowing a sheet of paper from the desk to the floor. Her eye caught the signature as she picked it up. “Curtis Conrad!”she read. “Oh, how like him his writing looks!” she exclaimed, a wave of color surging into her cheeks. “Why, it seems as if I just knew it would be like this! How easy it is to read!” She was looking at the letter, her attention absorbed in the fact that it had come from Conrad’s own hand, when Delafield’s name stood out from the other words.
“Delafield! Sumner L. Delafield! I remember that name. It’s the name of the man that ruined his father—why, it’s a receipt for that money! How does daddy happen to have it?” Her eyes ran eagerly along the lines. “It’s just like him! I’m glad he wouldn’t take the money! What a horrid, wicked man that Delafield must be! I wonder how daddy happens to have this letter, when it was written to Tremper & Townsend, in Boston!” Her glance fell on the torn envelope bearing the imprint of the Boston firm, addressed to her father, and thence to their letter beside it. With mind intent upon the bewildering problem her eyes rushed over the brief missive:
“As you requested, we deposited your check for five hundred dollars to our account, and forwarded our check for the same amount to Mr. Curtis Conrad. We enclose his letter in receipt, which he evidently wishes sent on to you.”
“As you requested, we deposited your check for five hundred dollars to our account, and forwarded our check for the same amount to Mr. Curtis Conrad. We enclose his letter in receipt, which he evidently wishes sent on to you.”
Lucy dropped the sheet of paper and sprang to her feet, her mind awhirl with protest. No, no! this could not be meant for her father—he was not Delafield—it was impossible! But—something clutched at her throat, and her head swam. She must go home; she must think out the puzzle. Sudden unwillingness to meet her father seized her. He must not know she had been there, that she had seen anything. She was not yet thinking coherently, only feeling that she had thoughtlessly surprised some secret, which had sprung out at her like a jack-in-the-box, and that she must give no sign of having seen its face.
She sped homeward, her brain in a turmoil, and it was not until she had shut herself in her room that she began to think clearly. A troop of recollections, disjointed, half-forgotten bits and ends of things swarmed upon her. The shock had roused her mind to unusual activity, and little things long past, forgotten for years, again came vividly into her memory.
So suddenly that it made her catch her breath there flashed upon her the recollection of how once, when she was a tiny child, some one had halted beside her mother and herself in a citystreet and exclaimed “Mrs. Delafield!” Her mother had hurried on without noticing the salutation, and had satisfied her curiosity afterward by explaining that the person was a stranger who had mistaken her for somebody else. But Lucy had thought the name a pretty one and used it in her play, pretending that she had a little playmate so called. Their wanderings during her childhood came back to her, when they had gone often from one place to another, at first in Canada, afterward always in the West. Much of the time she and her mother were alone, but her father came occasionally to spend with them a few days or weeks. Her devotion to him dated from those early years, when she thought so much about him during his long absences, wished so ardently for his return, and enjoyed his visits with unalloyed delight.
With new significance came the recollection of the beginning for them of the name of Bancroft. While she was still a little girl her mother had told her their name would no longer be Brown, but Bancroft, because they had been allowed to change it. She had liked the new name much better, had accepted it with the unquestioning acquiescence ofchildhood, and the old name had soon become but a dim memory.
Like a blow at her heart, because of the conviction it brought, the remembrance rushed upon her of an occasion not long after the change of name. She had wakened in the night and, drowsily floating in and out of sleep, had heard snatches of talk between her parents. Something regarding danger to her father had won her attention. He had replied that it would be quite safe, because only when he visited them would he be known as Bancroft, and that henceforth he would probably be able to spend more time with them. Her mother had feared and questioned, but he had reassured her and insisted that Lucy must be kept more steadily in school and that both mother and daughter must have a settled home. She could not remember all that he said, but meaningful scraps came back which had impressed her because they were concerned with that vague peril which her mother seemed to fear. He had said something about there being “no danger now,” “nobody would recognize him,” “everybody had forgotten it by this time”; finally, her childish anxiety assured that he was not really in jeopardy, she had sunk back happily intosleep and thought little more about it. After that she and her mother lived part of the time in Denver and part in San Francisco, and her father was with them more than before.
Every recollection that emerged from that dubious past strengthened the fear that had gripped her heart with the reading of the letters. One by one she was forced to give up the suppositions with which she tried to account for her father’s possession of those letters. With all her strength she fought against the one evident conclusion. But at last the conviction fell upon her with chill certainty that they were on her father’s desk because they were meant for him, and that he was the Sumner L. Delafield of that long past, disgraceful affair.
With hands clenched against her heart, which was aching with the soreness of bruised flesh, she whispered, “To take the money of all those people, and ruin them; and it killed some—oh, daddy, daddy, it was you who did it!” All the world had suddenly become one great, enveloping pain that wrung her heart anew with every recurring realization that her adored father had been so wicked—to her mind so abominably wicked. It was significant of her youth and inexperience, andalso of her moral quality, that she did not attempt to palliate or excuse his offence. He was guilty of wrongdoing, as Dellmey Baxter was guilty, but in a far worse measure, and the fact that he was her father would never temper her condemnation of his sin. In the midst of her anguish she grew conscious that her feeling toward him had changed, and knew that the life had gone out of her old honoring, adoring love. It was as if half her heart had been violently torn away. For the first time sobs shook her, as she moaned, “Daddy, daddy, I loved you so!” Forlorn and anguished, her longing turned back to the dead mother with imperious need of sympathy, understanding, and companionship.
Then came the thought that her mother had known this dreadful truth, and yet had stanchly held by him and shared its consequences. The sense of duty arose within her, trembling, apprehensive, but insistent. It seemed almost as if her mother had bequeathed this secret to her keeping that she might the better fill her place beside him with daughterly solicitude. The idea crystallized into whispered words as she tossed back her head and dried her eyes, “My mother stood by him, and so shall I!”
He must never even suspect that she knew this horrible thing; she felt instinctively that it would cut him to the heart to learn that she had discovered his secret. For a moment she broke down again and moaned, “Why did I go into his office this morning! I wish I hadn’t, I wish I hadn’t! And then I wouldn’t have had to know!” She quickly put aside this useless repining, to face the grim, painful fact once more. No; he must never guess that she knew he was other than he seemed, and he must never feel any change in her manner toward him. She must hide the secret deep, deep down in her heart, and she must keep their mutual life as it had always been. And there was Dearie—but she must know nothing of it; oh, no, never in the world must Dearie learn the least thing about this trouble!
Lucy felt very much alone, quite shut off, in her poignant need, from every one who might give her help, advice, or sympathy. As she sat there, encompassed by her loneliness and pain, her thoughts turned half unconsciously toward Curtis Conrad with instinctive longing for his protecting care and strength. Then she remembered. With a sharp flash that made her wince it came backto her that he meant to have revenge on Delafield; that she had heard him say he was on the man’s trail, and would track him down and kill him! For a moment it staggered her, with a fierce new pain that struck through the keen ache in her breast, making her catch her breath in a gasping sob. But all her heart rose in quick denial. A faint smile held her trembling lip for an instant as she thought:
“Oh, no; he wouldn’t! He wouldn’t hurt daddy; and he wouldn’t kill anybody! I know he wouldn’t!”
She almost feared to meet her household; it seemed as if this awful knowledge which had come to her must be writ large upon her countenance. Would it be possible to take up the daily life again as if nothing had happened? A chasm so horrible had riven it, since the morning, that surely it could never be the same again. But when she finally summoned her resolution and went down to take up her daily duties, she found it not so hard as she had feared. That benign routine of daily, commonplace life, with its hourly demands upon thought and feeling and attention, which has saved so many hearts from breaking, met her at the very door of herroom. She quickly learned to lean upon it, even to multiply its demands. At the outset it gave her the strength and courage to pass through her ordeal steadfastly; and after the first day it was not so hard. She began to feel pity for her father and a new tenderness as she thought of the years through which he had lived, knowing who he was and what he had done, and dreading always to be found out. But all her pity, tenderness, affection, and the old habit of lovingness that she was resolute to sustain were not always sufficient to overcome the revulsion that sometimes seized her.
One of these moments of revolt came to her as they lingered over the breakfast table a few days after her discovery. She made an excuse to attend to something in the kitchen, and hastily left the room. Her father had told them at the table that he was going to Las Vegas that morning. He waited, expecting her to return and go with him to the gate, and wave a last good-bye as he looked back on his way down the hill. She did not reappear, and at last he told Miss Dent that he would have to go or lose his train. Louise watched him from the window with yearning eyes that would not lift themselvesfrom his figure until it disappeared from her view.
As he waited at the station Lucy rushed breathlessly to his side. “I was so afraid I should be too late!” she panted as she slipped her hand through his arm, “I ran all the way down the hill.”
She clung so affectionately to him and looked up into his face with an appeal so wistful that he was touched, thinking only that she was sorrowing over his going away. It was the first time he had been separated from her since she had come to make her home with him. The conductor called, “All aboard!” and he kissed her tenderly, saying, “I’ll be back day after to-morrow, little daughter.”
She went home with that “little daughter” ringing in her ears and her heart. It brought back a wealth of memories of those childish, happy, longed-for times when her father came, so glad to see his “little daughter” that the days were not long enough to hold all the pleasures he wished to give her. It filled her breast with tenderness and a sort of yearning affection, more maternal than filial in quality, and made more ardent her desire to stand by him with perfect loyalty. But the old,joyous love that had been rooted deep in admiration, esteem, and honor no longer stirred within her. She knew that it would never fill her life again with its warmth and gladness, and that now and again she would have to struggle with that same aversion which had sent her that morning to hide herself in her room against his accustomed affectionate farewell. Nevertheless, she was pleased that a returning tide of tenderness, which was almost remorse, had swept over her in time for her to join him at the station.
Lucy’s breathless rush to overtake him and the appealing tenderness of her manner during their moment together were sweet thoughts in Bancroft’s mind as the train bore him northward. Dear little daughter! she grew dearer every day, and so did his pride and happiness in her. He longed to give her all the pleasures that his money could buy, just as he used to fill his pockets for her delight when she was a little girl. Once past these threatening dangers, they should have good times together. All his business enterprises were promising well; it would not be long before money would be plenty. Then, with clear sailing ahead and no ominous clouds, he could ask Louise to marry him.
They would have to give up Lucy some time, but not for many a day. She was the sort of girl that is always attractive to men—why, half the young fellows in Golden were already dancing devoted attendance!—but she was very young; he and Louise still had many years in which to enjoy her, to travel with her and show her the world. Once past these threatening dangers, how fair was the world beyond! He would vanquish them yet, by whatever means might come to his hand! Each day’s anxiety for the present and its longing for the fair future made his heart more desperate and reckless. He was hopeful that this coming interview with Rutherford Jenkins would make things easier for him in that quarter. Money would always keep Jenkins quiet, but to give up money to a blackmailer was like pouring it down a rat hole; if he kept it up the process was sure to cripple him in time.
Jenkins received him with smiling cordiality. “I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Delafield—oh, I beg your pardon!—Mr. Bancroft. I always think of you as—ah, by the other name—and I sometimes forget in speaking.”
“You’d better not forget again,” Bancroft interposed. “And, speaking of forgetting,there is a little matter concerning you that I’m willing to let drop out of my memory. You know, of course, about the case of José Maria Melgares. Doubtless you know, also, how Melgares happened to steal Curtis Conrad’s horse; and you could tell to a cent—to a jury, if necessary—how much money was given to Melgares in the rear of the Blue Front saloon to induce him to undertake the theft. I take it, however, that you would not care to have it brought into court, as a conviction on a charge of conspiracy would be sure to follow. I have all the evidence in my possession—quite enough to convict. I got it from Melgares’ wife in the first place, and I have since secured his affidavit. But I have stopped her mouth, and his, and nobody else knows anything about it. I am quite willing to forget it myself if you will show equal courtesy concerning—certain other matters.”
Jenkins grinned and licked his lips. “Really, my dear Mr. Delafield—excuse me—my dear Mr. Bancroft—I don’t know what you are driving at! I suppose you mean that Melgares has been saying that I hired him to steal Conrad’s horse. The thing is as false as it is absurd. If it were to come into courtI should deny it absolutely, exactly as I do now. And the word of Rutherford Jenkins would stand for considerably more with a jury than that of a Mexican horse-thief.”
“You are probably the only man in the Territory, Mr. Jenkins, who holds that opinion. Unless you take a more reasonable view of the matter I shall feel it my duty to see the district attorney as soon as I get home.”
“See him, and be damned!” Jenkins broke out. “If you do, Curtis Conrad shall know before the week is out that you are Sumner L. Delafield.”
Bancroft’s eyes fell, but his reply came quickly enough: “Well, and what is that to me?”
“I guess you know what it will mean to you,” Jenkins answered with a sneer. He did not know himself what it would mean to the banker, but he felt sure that it would answer quite as well to make pretence of knowledge. He watched his antagonist furtively in the momentary silence that followed.
“You don’t seem to understand the full significance of the attitude you are taking,” Bancroft presently went on. “Of course, I do not wish, just now, to have Conrad, or any one else, know all the events of my pastlife. I have been living an honorable life in this Territory, and you can very well comprehend that I do not wish my reputation and business success smashed—by you or anybody else. That is the only reason why I was willing to enter into an understanding with you. But my affairs are getting in such shape that I can soon snap my fingers at you or any one who tries to disclose my identity. At best, you’ll be able to get little more out of me, and I am amazed that you should be willing to risk this trial, with its certain disgrace, conviction, and sentence to the penitentiary, for the sake of the few hundred dollars of—blackmail—let us call it by its right name—that you may be able to extort from me.”
“I am quite willing to take whatever risk there is,” Jenkins interposed, “especially as my counsel could readily bring out the fact that you had tried to—blackmail—let us call it by its right name—to blackmail me before you gave the information. Do as you please about going to the district attorney; I don’t care a damn whether you do or not. But, if you do, you’ll have to settle with Curt Conrad before the week is out!”
Bancroft arose, perceiving acutely that theonly course left for him was to make a strong bluff and retreat. “Very well,” he said, with an indifference he was far from feeling, “do as you like about that. Only don’t delude yourself by supposing that Curt Conrad’s knowing about that old affair will mean any more to me than anybody else’s knowledge. When you think this proposal of mine over carefully I’m sure you’ll change your mind, and I shall expect to hear from you to that effect.”
As the Spring days passed, in unbroken procession of rosy dawns, cloudless and glowing noons, and gorgeous sunsets, Louise Dent’s resentment against Curtis Conrad grew keen and bitter. She saw the lines of worry appearing in Bancroft’s face, and surprised now and then in his eyes an anxious abstraction; and in her heart she stormed against the man she supposed to be the sole cause of it all. Dreading his next visit lest she might betray her feeling, she longed to drive him from the house, when he should come, with burning, shaming words. But Bancroft, who knew as much of his intention as she did, was on terms of cordial friendship with him, and she must take her cue from her friend and host.
Toward Bancroft himself her heart grew more tenderly solicitous as her womanly instincts divined his feeling toward her. A thousand unconscious touches of tone andmanner had already revealed his love, and she surmised that he would not speak because of the imminence of this sore danger. She longed to give him her open sympathy, to counsel with him, to lock hands with him so that they might face the trouble together. Yet she was stopped from word or action by the necessity of seeming to know nothing. The fact of Bancroft’s identity had been disclosed to her by his wife, her dear and intimate friend, who, at point of death, had told her, under solemn promise of secrecy, the whole story, that she might the better shield Lucy should disclosure ever threaten. Now, her heart melting with pity, love, and sympathy for her friend, and burning with angry resentment against his foe, she must perforce sit in apparent ignorance of it all, be calm and cheerful toward Bancroft, and smile pleased welcome upon Conrad. That hidden volcano in her breast, whose possibility Lucy and Curtis had half seriously discussed, had become a reality, and the concealment of it demanded all her self-control.
The only relief she dared give herself was occasional disapproval of the young cattleman in her talks with Lucy. Louise was surprised and puzzled by the varying moodsin which the girl received these criticisms. Sometimes she kept silence or quickly changed the subject. Rarely she tossed her head and joined in the condemnation with an angry sparkle of the eye. Or, again, with flushing cheek, she defended him from Miss Dent’s aspersions. Louise decided, with a fond smile, that her vagaries of mood were due to pique at the lack of more constant attentions from Conrad. For the young woman, to her father’s and Miss Dent’s loving amusement, was proving herself adept in the art of queening it over a court of masculine admirers. What with walks over themesa, rides and picnics up the canyon, music of evenings, and Sunday afternoon calls, Lucy was leading a gay life, and Louise, as her chaperon, a busy one. Being a normal, buoyant-hearted girl, Lucy enjoyed the gayety and the attention and admiration showered upon her in such copious measure for their own sake, and she was glad of them also because, together with her household cares, they kept her too well occupied for sad thoughts.
So the days passed until mid-June was at hand and the time come for the trial of José Maria Melgares. Curtis Conrad was in Golden as one of the principal witnesses for theprosecution—his first visit to the town since the Spring round-up. Lucy, glancing frequently down the street, was trying to interest herself in Miss Dent’s conversation as they sat together on the veranda. They spoke of the trial, and Lucy said she had seen Mr. Conrad on his way to the court-house when she went down town to market.
“I’ve been disappointed in Mr. Conrad,” said Louise; “I don’t understand how he can talk so recklessly about people needing to be killed. To me it is very repellent. You know how he speaks about Mr. Baxter.”
Lucy’s head went up. “But Mr. Baxter is a very bad man!” she exclaimed. “He has been responsible for a great deal of suffering. Just think of Melgares and his poor wife! But for Mr. Baxter they might still be living happily on their little ranch. And he’s done many other things just as wicked and unjust. Oh, he’s a very bad man, and I can’t blame Mr. Conrad for feeling that way about him.” She broke off, flushing to her brows, then went on more quietly: “But I don’t think, Dearie, that Mr. Conrad means half he says when he talks that way; it’s just his way of feeling how brave he is.”
“If he does not mean it, he should notspeak so recklessly of serious matters,” Louise responded with decision. “He must have a cruel nature, or he would not harbor such ideas.”
Lucy leaned forward, her face aglow. “Indeed, no, Dearie! Mr. Conrad isn’t cruel; he’s really very tender-hearted—just think of the way he carried that wounded bird all the way to Golden to have its leg fixed. And one day when we were walking on themesa, he was so distressed because he accidentally stepped on a little horned toad. It’s unjust to call him cruel, Dearie!”
Her glance darted down the street again, and she saw Curtis nearing her gate. His quick, energetic stride and eager face were like a trumpet call to her youth and her womanhood. Forgetting all but the fact of his presence, she felt her heart leap to meet him with joyful welcome. But instantly came remembrance and reaction, and she greeted him with unusual gravity of manner.
Conrad wanted them at the ranch for the Fourth of July. “We are to have a big barbecue andbaile,” he said. “Both the Castletons are coming this year to look things over, and I wrote Ned that if Mrs. Ned wascoming with him perhaps it would amuse her if we did something of the sort. The idea seemed to just strike his gait, and he wrote back at once to go ahead and whoop it up for all I’m worth. Mrs. Ned and Mrs. Turner are both coming, and I’m asking a lot of people from all over the Territory. I want you two ladies and Mr. Bancroft to be sure to come out the day before the Fourth and stay at least until the day after, and as much longer as you find convenient. My brother Homer is coming on next week for the rest of the Summer, and he’ll be there too.”
Lucy was delighted, clapped her hands, and declared it would be great fun—of course they would go. Repugnant to the idea but knowing that only one course was seemly, Miss Dent gave smiling acquiescence. As they talked, Curtis telling them of the great wealth of the Castleton brothers, the rivalry of the two ladies, the dash and beauty and vogue of Mrs. Turner, and the Spanish ancestry of Mrs. Ned, Lucy’s eyes continually sought his face. Her spirits began to rise, and soon they were gayly tilting at each other after their usual custom, she all smiles and dimples and animation, and he beaming withadmiration. They went to the conservatory to see the tanager and presently brought it back with them, telling Miss Dent that they were going to set it free. Lucy stood beside him as they watched it soar away through the sunlight, a flash of silvery pink flame, and it seemed to her that their mutual interest in the little creature had made a bond between them and given her an understanding of his character deeper and truer than any one else could have.
Conrad went down the hill, whistling softly a merry little tune, his thoughts dwelling tenderly upon Lucy. He wished her to enjoy the barbecue andbaileeven more than she expected—it was to be her first experience of that sort—and he began to plan little details that might add to her pleasure. So absorbed was he and so pleasant his thoughts that for a time he quite forgot the Delafield affair. But it came to mind again when Bancroft asked him, as they talked together at the door of the bank, if he had had any more trouble with José Gonzalez.
“Oh, no; José’s all right. He’s the best cowboy I’ve got and as docile as a yearling. He’s agreed to stay right on at the ranch with me. I’m glad to have such a smart,competent fellow to leave under Peters, for after the Fourth I expect to be away a good deal. I’ll have some time for myself then and I’m going into this hunt after Delafield for all I’m worth; I don’t think it will take me long to run him down now.”
Bancroft hesitated a moment, then, laying his hand on Conrad’s arm he spoke earnestly: “For God’s sake, Curt, give up this fool notion of yours. If you don’t, you’ll never get through alive. No sane man is going to let you get the drop on him, as you seem to think you can. He’s undoubtedly watching you right along, ready to put an end to the business as soon as he thinks you’re really dangerous. Let him pay you if he will; but stop this foolishness.”
Conrad laughed heartily and slapped Bancroft’s shoulder. “Why, Aleck,” said he, “the most satisfaction I’ve ever had comes out of knowing that I’m so hot on his tracks that I’ve got him buffaloed. Give it up? Not much! I’m going to lope down that trail at a two-minute gait, and Sumner L. Delafield is mighty soon going to wish he’d never been born.”
Bancroft turned half away, with a tighteningof his lips under his brown moustache. “Very well. I’ll not trouble you with any more advice on the subject. But when you meet with disaster, as you undoubtedly will, you must remember that you’ve got nobody but yourself to blame. How’s the trial going?” he asked abruptly.
“Pretty fast; the case will go to the jury to-morrow. It won’t take them more than ten minutes to reach a verdict. You ought to come in and hear Judge Banks’s charge, Aleck. Dan tells me it’s sure to be interesting. He says you never can tell whether Banks will deliver an original poem or make up his charge out of quotations from Shakespeare.”
As the banker went up the hill to his home he remembered that he had heard Rutherford Jenkins was in town. To-morrow he must see the man and try again to induce him to consider the dangers of an indictment for conspiracy. At any rate, he would hold that affidavit of Melgares’ up his sleeve, and the time might come when it would be efficacious, even should Jenkins still scoff at it now. Conrad—he had given Conrad another warning, as plain as day, and if the man would rush on recklessly he must take the consequences.José Gonzalez was still at Socorro Springs—an accident could happen—and there was no time to lose!
Lucy saw her father coming when he was a block away and, instead of running to the gate to meet him, pretended not to have noticed him, and hastened into the house. Louise Dent remained on the veranda, pushing forward a lounging chair for him as he mounted the steps. She saw that he looked paler and more haggard than usual, and she longed to put her arms about him, as a mother might around a suffering child, and charm away his trouble and wretchedness. In her maiden life the innate mother-longing had found little appeasement; and so, when this youthful love came into her enriched and mellowed heart of middle life, it gathered into itself the repressed yearning of her nature, and the maternal side of it was strong and fierce. She neither condoned nor belittled the sins of the man she loved. For his wrongdoing and the suffering he had caused she felt sorrow, pity, remorse—remorse almost as keen as if she herself had been the guilty one. But her love enfolded him in spite of his sins, and even included them. For she told herself that if he had not been guilty she might never haveknown him, their paths might never have crossed.
In gentle, unobtrusive ways she ministered to his comfort; then, sitting beside him, her calm brow and steady eyes giving no sign of the tumult in her heart, she talked with sympathy and interest, gradually leading his thoughts away from the present into happy plans for the future. With keen satisfaction she saw the weary, desperate look fade from his face and eyes, giving place to one of comfort and content, and the assurance that she had made him forget his troubles, even for a little while, filled her heart with pleasure.
Lucy, sitting in her room, heard the murmur of their voices through her open windows. Her high spirits of the hour before were gone, and she sat dejected, her face mournful, and her head hanging like a flower broken on its stem. Presently she slipped down to the conservatory, took the pot of cactus Conrad had given her, ran across the back-yard, and threw it over the fence. Then she joined her father and Louise, seating herself on the arm of his chair and throwing her arm around his neck as she asked with loving concern about his welfare, told him he had not been looking well of late, and that hewas working too hard and ought to have a rest. But that evening, after dinner, she rushed across the yard and out of the gate, and gathered up the cactus pot in her arms as if it were some small animal she had hurt. She returned it to its place in the conservatory, pressing her hands around it until its spines brought little drops of blood.
“I can’t help it!” she exclaimed in a vehement whisper. “I have to like him, and I shan’t try any more not to! He wouldn’t hurt daddy, I know he wouldn’t—because—because he wouldn’t—and because—he loves me!” A tiny smile curved her lips as she touched the plant caressingly and presently her whisper went on: “If I could only tell daddy that he needn’t be afraid or worried! Oh, I wish I could! But he mustn’t guess I know.” Her lips ceased moving and she stared unseeingly at the cactus, as her thought slowly took shape: “It’s worrying daddy awfully, and I mustn’t let it go on any longer. I’ll tell Mr. Conrad who Delafield is and he’ll stop right then—I know he will. He’ll despise us afterward—oh, he won’t love me after that!—but—poor daddy! he won’t be worried any more.”
Bancroft and Miss Dent were alike convinced that his pursuer would be ruthless in the fulfilment of revenge. Arguing from their knowledge of men, their experience of the world, and their observation of his character, each had come to the fixed conclusion that no softening of heart or staying of hand could be expected from him when he knew the truth. Lucy, having neither knowledge of men nor experience of the world to guide her, had not reasoned about the matter at all. She had jumped at once to her conclusion, as soon as she knew her father’s identity, that he had nothing to fear from Curtis. Her decision was partly due to her own temperament, which she instinctively felt to be somewhat akin to Conrad’s, and partly to her knowledge of a side of his character of which Louise knew little and her father still less. It was further strengthened by her intuition that he loved her—something the young man himself had not yet realized. Other than this belief in his love she could have offered no reason for her assurance that he would give over his purpose as soon as he learned to whose door his quest was leading him. But neither her father nor Louise, had it been possible for them to argue with her, could have shaken her conviction.
The next day Bancroft, Conrad, and Pendleton went together to the court-house to see the closing scenes of the Melgares trial. The leading men of the town were there, as well as the usual hangers-on of a court-room, and a few women, both Mexican and American, sat in a little railed space at one side. Every seat was filled, and a standing line of late comers fringed the walls. Across the room Bancroft saw Rutherford Jenkins. The crowd was disappointed by the judge’s charge to the jury, which was brief, simple, and confined to bare statements of law and fact. So it sat still and waited after the jury had filed out, feeling sure that the deliberation would not be long, and that something interesting might be expected afterward from the judge; for he had the reputation of doing and saying whimsical things. He was a bookish man, who studied his law volumes much, but for relaxation turned often to romance and poetry. He had a knack for making jingles himself, and his pronouncements from the bench, whether he was charging a jury, calling for order, sentencing a prisoner, or making peace between warring attorneys, were as likely as not to be in rhyme of his own improvisation or in aptly applied quotations from the words of the mighty.
The jury came back presently with a verdict of murder in the first degree. Judge Banks asked the prisoner if he knew of any reason why the court should not sustain the finding of the jury. Melgares said nothing, and Dellmey Baxter, his counsel, who had made the best fight for the Mexican that he could, shook his head; he had given his services, and cared to take no further trouble. All that now stood between the prisoner and the gallows was a little space of time. The judge looked out of the window into the trembling green depths of the cottonwoods beside the court-house, and for a moment there was silence in the room. He was a slight man, with dreamy blue eyes, and a square, fine face, framed by side-whiskers, short and thin. It was quite like him to be trying to realize, in that brief moment, just how it would seem to have the gallows looming in one’s path so short a way ahead.