“Like a flash José’s arm swung back, ... and Curtis sprang lightly aside as the knife struck deep into the tree”“Like a flash José’s arm swung back, ... and Curtis sprang lightly aside as the knife struck deep into the tree”
Homer Conrad, sitting beside Lucy, his attention fixed upon some small damage to her fan which he was trying to repair, did not see what was going on until a sudden stiffening of her attitude and a sharp, indrawn breath made him look up. She was leaning forward, with face white and eyes staring andhands clenched against her breast. He followed her gaze and saw the knife flash from José’s hand. His heart went sick and he sat powerless to move as his eyes marked the long blade, dark against the sunshine, but with little sparkles on its edge, through what seemed an interminable flight.
Then Curtis sprang lightly aside as the knife struck deep into the tree at the level of his throat, pulled the weapon out, waved it at Gonzalez, and called out triumphantly, “Try again, José; and be quicker next time!”
Ned Castleton sprang forward, with Turner close behind, and grasped his arm. “Are you crazy, Curt?” he exclaimed. “This is fool’s play! We don’t want any more of it!”
“There’s no danger,” Conrad replied jauntily. “I knew I could jump quicker than he could throw, and I wanted to prove it to him. There’s not a bit of danger; I can do it every time. But if you don’t like it we’ll have something else. Hello, kid!” he said as Homer rushed up and seized his arm; the young man’s face was pale and tears stood in his eyes. “You’ve no reason to be frightened,” Curtis went on easily. “All I had to do was to watch his eyes. If there had been any real danger I wouldn’t have tried it.”
Lucy Bancroft sat quite still for a few moments, her eyes on the ground, but presently she started toward the house, contriving to pass Conrad when there was no one beside him. She touched his arm and he wheeled toward her as if he had felt an electric shock. “It was a most foolish thing to do,” she said in a low voice, “but—you are the bravest man I ever saw,” and hastened on without giving him time to reply.
At night there were fireworks and dancing. After the knife-throwing episode Curtis tried again and again to have speech with Lucy, but whenever he came near she seemed not to see him, and was so interested in conversation with her admirer of the moment that he could find no opportunity. Homer attended her like her own shadow. The hours hurried past, and still, piqued and wilful, she postponed making the opportunity for her revelation.
Conrad was master of the fireworks; while he was busy setting off sky-rockets and mines Lucy and Homer called to him that they were going to the top of the hill beyond the alfalfa field to see how the display looked from there. It was the very walk Curtis had intended to ask her to take with him, and heglanced after them, keenly disappointed. But he said to himself that as soon as he could get the fireworks out of the way there would be nothing to demand his attention for the rest of the evening, and then he could surely get a little time with her.
Half an hour later he saw her, through a glare of red fire, setting off fire-crackers with his brother and Pendleton. Dan Tillinghurst had just joined them, and she turned to him with a laughing threat, a lighted cracker in her hand. He called to Pendleton, whose pockets were bulging with packs of the crackers, to see fair play and give him weapons of defence. The cool night wind was tossing her brown curls, her bright face was full of animation, and the red light enveloped her in a rosy sheen. He looked at her, his face aglow with admiration, then turned back to the sky-rockets. As he stooped over the box he heard a scream in a girlish voice, followed by the stern command, “Sit down! Sit down!” in Dan Tillinghurst’s heavy tones. Springing up, he saw a white heap sinking to the ground amid leaping tongues of flame and the three men stripping off their coats and beating the fire. He rushed forward, taking off his coat as he ran,and in a moment they had whipped the flames down to a ring of charred muslin and flickering sparks. A dozen others had hurried to the spot, but it was Curtis’s outstretched hand that Lucy took as he bent anxiously over her, his arm upon which she leaned as she staggered to her feet. She went at once into the house with Miss Dent, and did not reappear that evening. When Louise returned she explained that Lucy had gone to bed, but that, except for the nervous shock, she had suffered no harm.
Curtis Conrad went on sending off sky-rockets and Roman candles in the amaze of a new knowledge. That moment of Lucy’s peril, brief as it was, had revealed to him the love that, unconsciously to himself, had been bourgeoning in his heart throughout the Spring. So absorbed had he been in his own grim purpose that he had not realized the meaning of his liking for Lucy and his enjoyment of her society. But in the light of the flames by which he had seen her circled her dearness had flashed upon him its real significance. When she leaned upon him as she arose, it had demanded all his self-control to keep from taking her in his arms. His nerves were thrilling yet with the slightpressure of her body upon his arm as she regained her footing. So sudden and forceful was the rush of his emotion that it swept him from his accustomed moorings, and filled heart and mind to the exclusion of every other idea. Lucy—Lucy—Lucy—he said her name over and over in his innermost thought, even while he danced with Mrs. Turner, strolled with Miss Whittaker to the hilltop,—as he had wished to do with Lucy,—talked with Martinez, or listened to Judge Harlan’s stories. The thought of her was constantly with him, enveloped in a wonderful tenderness; his memory was incessantly recalling images of her as she looked leaning against this tree, seated beside that table, walking across the road. He hovered around Miss Dent until she, to escape from his attention and his solicitude about Lucy, which intensified the aversion and resentment she already felt, retired to the house early in the evening.
But, when all the merrymakers had gone to bed and quiet had settled upon the ranch, Conrad began to feel a violent wrenching of his heart. When he stretched himself upon the roof of the house and gazed into the silvery violet sky his lifelong purpose reasserted itself. For so many years it had been hishabit, as he composed himself for sleep, to think over his plans for the pursuit of Delafield and feed his heart with the desire for revenge that he quickly felt its tyranny. For a moment all emotion ceased and his mind stood back, aghast at itself, bewildered. Then the old idea took possession again, and he said to himself, almost with anger, “What business have I to fall in love?” To think of Lucy in connection with his own dark and bloody aims was repellent, and his thoughts turned away in quick reaction. Then came the remembrance of Homer’s devotion to her and of how welcome, apparently, had been his attentions. So, for that time at least, Lucy and love were turned out of his heart and his last waking thoughts were of his plan to go to Albuquerque and Santa Fe within a few days, there to run down the clews that promised most.
Because of all that had gone on in his mind and heart as he lay on the roof that night Conrad’s manner toward Lucy the next morning was graver and more restrained than usual. He was keenly alive to the magic of her presence, but for that he rebuked himself and went near her no oftener than he could help. Lucy tried in vain to find an opportunity forprivate speech with him. And so the time came for their departure and the fateful words had not been said. “Well,” she consoled herself, “he will come to see us in Golden before long, and I will tell him then.”
As they drove away the house was filled with the bustle of leave-taking. The guests who had come by rail were being driven to the station at White Rock to catch the forenoon train. Others were leaving by horse or carriage for Golden or Randall. As the dust from the last of the departing vehicles rose in thin gray stains against the vivid blue of the sky Ned Castleton called to his wife from the shade of the tree beside the gate. She had been saying good-bye to the Bancrofts and had stopped in the sun beside the adobe wall to play with a horned toad that Gonzalez had caught for her.
“Fanny,” he said, “I know I haven’t got horns, but if you’ll come here in the shade I’ll prove that I can be just as interesting as that toad.”
She came, holding the weird little creature on her palm. “Look at him, Ned! Isn’t he cunning? He’s the dearest thing I ever saw—except you.”
“Oh, thanks; it’s kind of you not to putme in the same class. As a reward I’ll tell you some news. Your little scheme for balking Lena’s designs on Conrad has succeeded perfectly. Turner has just told me that she has suddenly decided she wants to go to Santa Barbara at once, and they’re leaving this afternoon. I told him to go ahead, and I’d stay here a few days longer and finish things up with Curt.”
“That’s just splendid, Ned! We’ll have some lovely rides, won’t we? And it will be such a rest not to have to keep an eye on Lena. I felt sure last night that she was going to give up the game and pretend she hadn’t been playing, because she suddenly lost all interest in the cattle business.”
“Of course you know, Francisquita, that you have been behaving shamelessly; but I’ll forgive you, because you’ve saved our model superintendent for us.”
“Ned, you know very well that I didn’t do a thing but just help Mr. Conrad make it pleasant for all the people—except, perhaps, Lena. I’m afraid she’d have had a better time if I hadn’t been here. But I’ve been thinking this morning, Ned, that maybe it wasn’t necessary for me to help quite as hard as I did. What do you think about it?”
“I think I don’t know what you’re talking about. As the cowboys say, you’ve flung gravel along the road a little too fast for my gait.”
“Ned, you’re the blindest thing! What could I mean except that Mr. Conrad didn’t need to be distracted from Lena, especially as her methods are so broad?”
“Well, go on, dear. We’ll get there after a while.”
“Go on! Why, Ned, that’s all! Isn’t that enough? Why should a man want more than one pretty girl to protect him from the designs of a lady who—well—who wants to shave him? You never needed anybody but me.”
“True, Fanny! But you always were equal to an army in yourself, and now you are equal to two—which is only another way of saying that you grow more fascinating every day. And now I think you might be gracious enough to tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Why, Ned, I’m afraid Miss Bancroft didn’t enjoy it any more than Lena. I wasn’t quite sure of it until this morning; but I really think, Ned, that Lena would have been left out in the cold just the same if I hadn’t—hadn’t helped Mr. Conrad entertain the people quite so much.”
Castleton laughed. “Oh, I begin to see! You are feeling the pangs of remorse because you’ve been putting snags in the course of true love. But you needn’t worry, dear. Curt isn’t the sort of man, if he cares anything about her, to let a little thing like that make any difference.”
“But he’ll be too busy with you to go over to Golden and see her again for a long time, won’t he?”
“Oh, we can get through this week, I think.”
“Good! Then we can leave on Saturday, and on Sunday he can gallop over to Golden, and by that time she’ll want awfully to see him and she’ll be very sorry she flirted so outrageously with Don Homer. And next Fall we’ll send them a wedding present, and they’ll come to see us on their wedding journey,—she’s a dear, sweet girl, Ned, and I like her,—and I’ll explain to her why I—why I helped Mr. Conrad make things pleasant at the barbecue, and we’ll have a jolly laugh over it. There he is now, Ned! Do go right along and begin your work, so we’ll be sure to leave on Saturday.”
When Conrad bade the Castletons good-bye at the railway station at the end of the week, Francisquita said to him:
“When you see that pretty Miss Bancroft again—” here she gave him a significant glance and then demurely lowered her eyes—“please tell her that I hope to see her again, and that if she ever comes to San Francisco she must let me know—you can give her our address. We’d be delighted, Ned and I, to help her have a good time. She’s a dear, lovely girl and I’d really like to know her better.”
Curtis drove home, declaring to himself that Mrs. Ned was one of the most charming women he knew. He would ride over to Golden to-morrow afternoon and deliver her message. He lingered fondly over the image of Lucy’s slender figure standing at the top of her veranda steps and smiling upon him a gay and gracious welcome, and a strong desire rose in his heart to know just how glad she really would be to see him. But the recollection of his plans for the ensuing week came crashing through his pleasant thoughts like a runaway horse through a flower garden. For a moment the purpose that held his life in thrall seemed strangelyunworthy. But presently he jammed his hat down on his head and, with compressed lips, said savagely to himself:
“No; the Delafield affair is my first love, and I’ll stay with it.” As he thought over his plans and hopes for the immediate future his heart grew hot again with the old indignation over all that ruin and struggle, and the old purpose regained its accustomed vigor.
After a little, nevertheless, he decided that he would ride over to the Bancrofts’ the next day and deliver Mrs. Castleton’s message. It would do no harm for him to see Lucy occasionally, in the friendly way in which they had always met.
That evening, while they sat and smoked on the little porch, Curtis Conrad told Homer of his lifelong quest. It was the younger man’s first knowledge of the motive that had been so potent in his brother’s life. He listened in silence while his pipe went out, and sat quite still after the other ceased. “Well, Curt,” he said at last, with a little tremor in his voice, “this yarn of yours knocks me silly. I can’t say I’m pleased with it, at least at first view. It doesn’t seem sensible.”
Curtis laughed good-naturedly. “Very likely, Homer; I didn’t expect it to appeal forcibly to a sensible, practical chap like you. I haven’t told you before because there was no use bothering your young head with it when the round-up seemed so far away; but I’m mighty near the end of the trail now, and you’ve come to a man’s age and ways of thinking; so I thought it best to tell you.There’s a possibility, of course, that I’ll get the worst of it when the mix-up does come; and in that case I’d like you to know what it was all about. But I’m not considering that sort of chance as likely to happen.”
“But what do you expect to gain by it, Curt, and why do you want to kill the man?”
Curtis slowly lighted a fresh cigar. “Well, Homer, if you don’t see why, it’s no use for me to explain.”
“I know there’s a big difference between us temperamentally; but I don’t believe that would keep me from appreciating your motive if it had any basis in right or expediency. Good God, Curt, look at the thing sensibly! Suppose you kill the man when you find him. What earthly good will that do you? You’d probably hang for it, or go to the penitentiary for years. And it seems to me the chance is all the other way. Whoever the man is, he must know you’re after him; and you’ll find him ready and loaded. If you’re not killed you’re likely to be badly wounded—perhaps lose an eye or a leg—and what can you gain by it? Bless me if I can see any use or sense or right in the whole business.”
Curtis Conrad rose and walked slowly andwith bent head the length of the porch and back, his hand resting for an instant on his brother’s shoulder as he passed. He stood regarding abstractedly the lightning that was playing among some low-lying clouds above the Hatchet Mountains, far to the southwest. “One night, soon after father and mother died,” he began, in a tone so low that Homer could barely catch his words, “I lay awake almost all night, thinking. You were a little shaver barely out of kilts, the girls were young things with their dresses half way to their knees, and I was only fifteen. I had taken you into bed with me because I was afraid you’d wake up in the night and feel lonesome—and, perhaps, because I didn’t want to feel quite so lonesome myself. I made plans for hours about how we could get along and the things I meant to do. You tossed in your sleep, and threw one of your hands against mine. My fingers closed over it, and you gripped one of them fast. Somehow, that grip went to my heart, and I promised myself and you that I would do all I could to make up to you the loss we had suffered. I thought of what father had planned for me; and I knew that I should have to give all that up. As I thought of the manwho had robbed us of everything—money, opportunity, father and mother—I trembled with anger.
“I had never used an oath until that night. But I sat on the side of my bed, when I couldn’t lie still any longer, and clenched my fists and cursed him, mildly at first and under my breath, then aloud and in the reddest language I could think of. As I damned his soul to the hottest corner of hell it seemed to me that he ought to be made to suffer in this life, too, and I said aloud, ‘I would like to kill you!’ The words sounded so plain that they frightened me. But I said them over again, and the next moment the thought leaped up, ‘And I will, too, if I live!’ That was how the idea was born in my mind. It struck root and grew, and I’ve held to it ever since.”
Homer nodded. “Yes; I can understand how you would hold to a thing you’d made up your mind to do; I’d hold on just the same way. We’ve both got the bull-dog grip; it’s one of the Conrad characteristics. But even a bull-dog can let go when he knows he shouldn’t hold on any longer.”
Curtis smiled grimly. “Not always; sometimes you have to pry his jaws loose.Nevertheless, I could let go if I wanted to. But I don’t want to, and I don’t propose to. The thing has become part of my life, of me, of my very blood.”
“Have you been working at it all this time, Curt?”
“Oh, of course I couldn’t do much while I was a boy except to think and brood over it. But during that time I learned all I could about Delafield, his schemes, and his personality. I read every newspaper I could lay hold of that had anything in it about him; I’ve got them all yet. But I didn’t do much in the way of actually chasing him down until after the girls were married ten years ago. After that I earned and saved more money, and was free to go about as I wanted. Since then I’ve spent all the time and money I could spare in hunting him.
“I had a schoolmate named Littleton who became a detective when he grew up. We were good friends, and when he happened to find out that I was nosing around in my own way he offered to help me. I was to pay him what I could, and he would put in time on this when he had nothing else to do. Between us we tracked Delafield all over the West andinto Canada, back and forth, and under nearly a dozen different names. I don’t think he got as much money out of his Boston smash as he was charged with taking, but he got a good lot; and he’s since made and lost two or three good-sized fortunes. Most of the time he has been a mining expert, and has owned and dealt in mines; the fact that he’s stuck pretty close to that business has made it easier to follow him. Once, in Arizona, we lost the trail completely. It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed him; for a while we thought he must be dead. Later we discovered his tracks in Utah, under a new name. Since then there have been several gaps of that sort; but we’ve always managed to light on him again after a while.
“My last knowledge of him is that he is living somewhere in this Territory, a well-to-do and respected citizen, prominent in politics, and a supporter of Dellmey Baxter for Congress. The rest of it will be easy; there’ll be a quick chase and an early show-down before there’s time for another deal. I’ve got my eye on two men, both of whom fit that description. They live up North, and I’m going up to Albuquerque and Santa Fe next week to look up their records. If it’s eitherone of them, Delafield will meet his deserts before he’s many days older.”
Silence fell upon them. Curtis leaned against a pillar of the porch and watched the clouds rising higher over the mountains. “It looks as if the rainy season is about to begin at last,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. Homer rose and stood with a hand on his shoulder. They looked so much alike in the moonlight that at a little distance it would have been difficult to say which was the younger and which the elder brother.
“I don’t need to tell you, Curt,” he said in a tone rich with earnest feeling, “how grateful I am for all you’ve done for me, nor how well I know at what cost to yourself you’ve done it. You’ve been father and mother and brother and best friend to me all in one. If I ever do anything worth while the credit will be yours quite as much as mine. You know I’m not ungrateful or unappreciative, don’t you, Curt? I can understand how this thing has come to obsess you, since you’ve explained how it took root in your mind before your ethical ideas were settled. But I can’t sympathize with you in this search after vengeance, and I can’t approve of what you are planning to do. Itseems to me you ought to be able to see things straight by this time and shake off your obsession. If you want to find the man and hand him over to the proper authorities—that’s all right; I’d help you in that myself; it’s right that he should be punished and made to give up what he has to his creditors. But to take revenge into your own hands, Curt, and to take it at the cost of everything desirable for yourself—why, the thing is so mad that it bewilders me to think it’s you that’s doing it. I wish I could persuade you to give it up.”
Curtis shook his head emphatically. “You needn’t waste your breath, Homer. I rather hoped you’d understand better how I feel about it, and see the whole affair a little more as it looks to me. But you’re different; and if you can’t, you can’t, and that’s all there is about it. But it’s useless to try to persuade me to give up my plans. A thing that you’ve thought about and dreamt about and planned and worked for through fifteen years gets to be part of your very blood, my boy, and it’s not so easily cast aside.”
“Well,” said Homer, “you are you; and if you’ve got to do this thing I suppose it can’t be helped.” He paused, thinkingintently. “But when you go North next week—if one of those men proves to be Delafield—you won’t—at once—” He stumbled over his words, unable to put his brother’s purpose into plain speech.
Curtis took up his meaning. “No; not immediately. I’ve got to come home again first.”
“Then you’ll be back here before you do anything? That’s sure, is it, Curt?” asked Homer, relief in his voice.
“Yes; sure. I’ve got some important business that I promised the Castletons I’d attend to the week after, and I’ll take no chances till I get that fixed up for them.”
The next morning there was a promise of rain in the air and the sky. A dome of pale, bright gray, resting on murky supports of cloud, had taken the place of the usual heaven of vivid blue. But the wind, blowing warm and strong from the west, bore little moisture upon its wings, and the air was laden with an electric tingle that stretched and jarred unaccustomed nerves.
Hank Peters and José Gonzalez were working in the corral when Curtis Conrad came across from the door of his room to give them some directions. Presently he asked if theyor any of the boys had seen anything lately of the gray wolf that had skulked about the neighborhood earlier in the season. Nosey Ike, they said, had seen it only the day before in the second draw on the road toward Golden.
“He did?” exclaimed Curtis. “I’m going to Golden to-day, and perhaps I can get a crack at it. I’ll be home by six o’clock, Peters, and I want to talk with you to-night about some work at Adobe Springs to-morrow. But to-day’s Sunday, boys, and we’ve come finally where we can stop and take breath once a week. You fellows can do anything you like to-day.”
Peters thought he’d sleep all day, for he hadn’t caught up since the barbecue; but José wanted to visit a Mexican family who had a little ranch beside a spring on the road to Golden.
“All right,” said the superintendent. “Take whichever one of the ponies you want, but be sure to get back to-night.”
“Curt,” said Homer when they sat down to breakfast, “if you’re not going to use Brown Betty to-day, would you mind if I rode her over to Golden? Or wouldn’t you like to go with me? I’m going to call at theBancrofts’ to see if Miss Bancroft has recovered from the shock she had the other night.”
Curtis hesitated a moment as he poured their coffee, his own plan rising before him invitingly. But he remembered how pleased the two young people had seemed to be with each other and recalled his own resolution: “Let the lad have a fair field,” he thought.
“Brown Betty? Certainly, Homer,” was his reply. “I’ll see that she’s ready for you. I can’t go because I must ride down to Adobe Springs to see about some work the boys must do there to-morrow. Give my regards to the Bancrofts. By the way, Mrs. Ned Castleton gave me a message for Miss Bancroft that I’ll let you deliver.”
As Homer mounted for his journey he cast an anxious glance at the wet-looking clouds against which rose the purple-blue, statuesque masses of the Mogollon Mountains, and asked, “Is it going to rain?”
“It will sure rain in the mountains,” replied his brother, “if it isn’t pouring down by the bucketful there already. There may be a shower in Golden, but the creek will get on the rampage anyway, and maybe carry away some of the bridges. We shan’t getany here right away, but it’s coming, thank God! I tell you, Homer, it’s been a cruel thing to see the cattle dying like flies on account of the drouth. For a while last Spring I thought of throwing up this job, I hated so to see the suffering of the poor brutes.”
For a while all the man in Curtis Conrad clamored in revolt as he galloped southward across the silent, empty plain and thought of Lucy smiling a welcome from her veranda steps—and not upon him. His love called imperiously, demanding that he make trial of its strength. Should he give up the girl he loved without an effort, even though his rival be his brother? The primeval man in him was quick with the desire to take her in his arms and bear her away from all the world. But it was not long until he was saying grimly to himself, “What have I to do with love-making and winning a wife? The Delafield affair is my business, and I’d better stick to it.”
He pondered over the conversation with his brother on the previous evening, feeling more keenly Homer’s condemnation of his purpose. He remembered that every one with whom he had spoken about the matter had sought to dissuade him. Bancroft disapproved, andhad begged him many times to desist. Miss Dent called it unworthy of him. Now his brother, upon whose sympathy he had counted, condemned both his feeling and his intention. Nevertheless, he was surely right. It was easy for them to talk, for they had not suffered from the man’s crimes, they had not struggled as he had, and they had not spent years in the effort to find Delafield and cast his sins in his face. But still, his cherished purpose had lost a little of its savor. He thought of his journey northward, which he so ardently hoped would consummate his years of effort and desire, and there was not quite the usual pleasure in his mental forecast. He put the thought of Lucy behind him and went over once more that early struggle and the birth of his purpose, brought more vividly to mind by the talk with Homer, and soon the old ideas and intentions recovered their accustomed sway. By the time he galloped homeward in the late afternoon his indignation was once more hot and seething and his mind full of zest for his approaching journey.
He found Homer in the corral unsaddling Brown Betty and humming a college tune. “Say, Curt, I think I’ll go huntingto-morrow,” said the young man as they walked across to the house. “I want to see if I can’t get a shot at that gray wolf you’ve been telling me about. As I was coming home your Mexican cowboy had sighted it not far from the road, in that valley beyond the hill yonder, and was just about to shoot when I had the bad luck to come along and scare the thing away.”
Curtis looked up with quick interest. “José? What was he doing? Did he shoot?”
“He jumped from his hiding-place just as I came along, so suddenly that the mare shied and nearly threw me. He was just ready to shoot—he said the beast was only a little way down the draw—and saw me barely in time to throw up his revolver and send it off at the sky. By that time, of course, the wolf was out of sight. I’m going back there at daybreak to-morrow to see if I can get a crack at it.”
Just then Gonzalez came riding into the corral, and Curtis moved his chair to the doorway, in front of his brother. “All right, Homer, I wish you would,” he said; “it would be just a tenderfoot’s luck, you know, if you should get it.” He was rolling a cigarette,but keeping one eye on José, who was caring for his horse. “Was there much rain in Golden to-day?” he asked.
“Yes; quite a storm, with lots of fireworks; I never saw such lightning or heard such thunder in my life. There must have been a flood farther up in the mountains, for the creek came down that ravine fairly booming, just as you said it would. It swept away one of the bridges and washed out parts of the foundations of two or three houses. But it soon went down again.”
“Was the bank building injured?” Curtis asked, still following with narrowed eyes the movements of Gonzalez. “It’s in a dangerous spot if a really bad flood ever does come down that valley.”
“The First National? That’s Bancroft’s bank, isn’t it? Yes; it lost some bricks out of the foundation, and the ground was washed away a little. Nothing of consequence.”
“Well, that has happened several times already; some of these days it will happen once too often. Long ago, I’m told, the street and sidewalk had to be moved to the other side of the houses for a block or two along there. You remember the creek elbows toward the bank. If a great mass of waterever comes down that canyon it will rush straight against the side of the building—and the lives of whoever happens to be inside won’t be worth two switches of a cow’s tail.”
“I talked with Mr. Bancroft about that possibility to-day,” said Homer, “and he doesn’t think the situation is dangerous.”
“Yes; nobody in Golden believes there’s any danger. And they may be right. They say there isn’t as much rain now as there used to be, and that cloud-bursts of any consequence are as rare as six-legged calves. It will all depend on the weather.”
The next morning José Gonzalez was hitching up to drive the men to Adobe Springs when Conrad walked up, leaned carelessly against the wheel, and looked him in the eye. The Mexican returned the gaze unflinchingly but respectfully. “José,” said Curtis in a low tone, “you made a mistake about that wolf last night, didn’t you? It wasn’t the wolf you thought it was when you made ready to shoot, was it?”
An amused gleam lighted for an instant José’s sombre eyes. “It might have been as you say, Don Curtis,” he answered cautiously.
“I don’t want any might-have-beens; I want to know if you are making war on mybrother as well as on me. It’s all right about me, but I won’t have anything of the sort where he’s concerned. I want the truth, José. Is anything of the kind going to happen again?”
Gonzalez looked at Conrad squarely as he earnestly replied: “It was a mistake, Don Curtis; I swear to you it was a mistake. Your brother looks much like you, it was your mare, and you had said you would be back from Golden about that hour. I saw it was Don Homer barely in time. After this I shall be more careful.”
Conrad grinned at the closing sentence, and the Mexican scarcely repressed an answering smile. “Well, I am going away to-day,” said Curtis, “to be gone for several days. So it won’t be necessary for you to make any mistakes while I’m gone.”
José looked up in quick alarm. “You are not going to Don Dellmey?” he exclaimed. “He is not the one who wishes your death!”
“What do you say, José?” the other demanded, starting forward eagerly.
“I swear to you by the Mother of God, Don Curtis,” said the Mexican, with voice intense and manner most earnest, “that it is not Señor Baxter who desires your death.”
“Are you speaking the truth, José?”
“I will swear it on the crucifix, Don Curtis!”
Conrad gazed at him steadfastly, and the conviction entered his mind that Gonzalez was speaking the truth. A look of puzzled wonder overspread his face. “In the name of God, then, who is it?” he said, half aloud. The Mexican shrugged a shoulder and turned away.
“Who can it be?” the manager repeated, to himself, but still loud enough for the other to hear. “It must be Delafield!” he exclaimed. José’s ear caught the words, and he listened as his employer went on: “He knows I’m after him, and he’s trying to kill me first. If I could only make thiscoyotegreaser tell me who hispatronis, I’d know who Delafield is. I’d like to choke it out of you, you son of perdition!” He looked so fiercely at Gonzalez that the Mexican took a threatening step forward.
“You needn’t worry,” Conrad exclaimed contemptuously. “I know you wouldn’t tell, even if I choked the life out of you trying to make you peach. It’s yourpatronI’m after.” José stooped to hitch the traces, and Curtis broke out impulsively: “I say, José, whatmakes you do this sort of thing? You’re as square as they make ’em in most things; why do you go into this damned rattlesnake business?”
Gonzalez looked up with a confiding smile.
“Thepatronwishes it; and why not? If I kill a man he gets me off if he can, and then that is all right. If he can’t, I pay for it in prison—and that is fair.”
“Huh!” grunted the superintendent as he walked away. “So you think you are going to pay for me that way, do you? Well, I guess not!”
The same train that carried Conrad northward to Santa Fe carried also a brief and hurried letter to Dellmey Baxter which José Gonzalez had found time to write before he and the rest started for Adobe Springs, mailing it as they passed White Rock station.
“You will see Señor Conrad in Santa Fe,” the Congressman read in his office the next morning, “but you need not be anxious. I have sworn to him that it is not you who desires his death, and he believes me. I heard him speak to himself, and he said it must be Delafeel who wishes him dead. He said he would like to choke out of me who mypatronis, for then he would know who Delafeel is.Don Curtis is a very brave man. I like him much.”
Baxter chuckled over the closing sentences as he tore the letter into bits. Poking them musingly with a fat forefinger he thought: “It’s a sure bet that hispatronjust now is Aleck Bancroft; and that makes it look as if Aleck might be this mysterious Delafeel—I’ll have to find out who Delafeel is and what he’s done some time or other; then I sure reckon I’ll have a cinch on Aleck that will keep him from trying to step into my shoes as long as I want him to keep out.” He looked out of his window into the little tree-filled plaza, cool and green in the morning sunlight, and saw Curtis Conrad walking across it from the hotel on the other side. He took a six-shooter from his pocket, made sure of its cartridges, and replaced it. From a drawer in his desk he took another, examined its chambers, and laid it on his desk, under an open newspaper. A moment later he was rising from his chair with outstretched hand and beaming smile.
“Why, how do you do, Mr. Conrad! I’m sure glad to see you. How did you leave things down in old Silverside? That was a high old time we had at the barbecue, wasn’tit? Have the Castletons gone yet? A fine figure of a woman is Mrs. Turner Castleton! And I tell you right now it was a great shave she gave me!” The Honorable Dellmey Baxter rubbed his cheek, and chuckled. But his right hand rested on his desk, close beside the newspaper which he had apparently just thrown down.
“Mr. Baxter,” said Conrad, ignoring the stream of questions and remarks, “some weeks ago I wrote you, saying frankly that I believed you responsible for attempts against my life, made by a Mexican who had come from you to me. I find myself mistaken, and I have come to apologize to you for my suspicions.”
“That’s all right, Curt, that’s all right!” Baxter broke in, relief apparent in his countenance. “I’ll admit I felt hurt by your insinuations, but as long as you’ve found out you were wrong and are willing to do me the justice of saying so, it’s not worth speaking of again.”
“Understand,” Curtis went on, “that I’m not taking back or apologizing for anything else I’ve said about you, and I’m still shouting for Johnny Martinez for Congress.”
“Johnny is to be congratulated for havingyour support,” Baxter rejoined genially; “I wish I could get it away from him. Has that measly greaser made any more attempts on your life, my dear Conrad? You’re too good a citizen for the Territory to lose in that way.”
Curtis smiled carelessly. “I don’t think my life is in any danger. No damned greaser will get the chance to stick me in the back when I’ve got both eyes shut and one foot tucked up in my feathers, if I’m onto his game. I don’t care anything about José; it’s hispatronI’m after.”
“Hispatron!” exclaimed Baxter in apparent surprise. “You don’t mean to say that José’s got apatronin that business!” His visitor nodded and the Congressman went on: “You don’t say so! I didn’t suppose you had an enemy in the Territory. This is interesting! We must get at the bottom of this, Mr. Conrad, for we can’t afford to lose you. Have you any idea who’s behind the greaser?”
Curtis considered a moment. He might get some information from Baxter that would help him; it would do no harm to speak cautiously. “Yes, and no, Mr. Baxter. I know who he used to be, but I don’t knowwho he is now. His name used to be Delafield, back in the States.”
“Delafield—Delafield,” mused Baxter. He had got the conversation where he wanted it. “I don’t remember having heard that name in New Mexico.”
“That hasn’t been his name for a good many years. Don’t you remember the Delafield affair in Boston, some fifteen years ago—Sumner L. Delafield, who made a big spread in the financial world, defaulted, and ran away?”
“Why, of course!” The Congressman brought his fat fist down on the table with a thump. “The Delafield affair! Yes; I remember it, and how Delafield slid out and covered up his tracks completely. And you say he’s living in New Mexico now?”
“Yes; he’s a rich, prominent, and respected citizen of New Mexico. But I haven’t discovered which one of ’em, and he doesn’t want me to find out. My father lost all he had in the smash.”
They talked a little longer, and Curtis learned enough about the history of the two men he had in mind to be satisfied that neither of them was the one he sought.
After Conrad went away, Baxter leanedback and folded his hands across his waist-coat, his left eyelid drooping and his face beaming with smiles. “Now,” he thought, “I’ve got Aleck Bancroft exactly where he can do me the most good!”
As July sped on Homer Conrad’s visits to Golden grew more and more frequent. When Curtis returned from his northern journey, still ignorant of Delafield’s identity, Homer was greatly relieved, and tried once more to dissuade his brother. “Anyway, Curt,” he urged, “don’t do anything more about it now. Let it rest a while, and think about it more coolly and carefully; you’ll see how foolish it is if you do that.” As Curtis did not mention the subject again, he concluded that his advice had been taken and that there was no reason for immediate anxiety. His mind at rest on that score, he devoted himself more than ever to Lucy Bancroft. He talked of her so much to his brother that Curtis soon saw how complete was his absorption. “I guess they’re hitting it off together all right,” he concluded.
Curtis Conrad tried to accustom himself to the idea of Lucy as his brother’s wife. Itcost him many a painful twinge, and once the rebellious thought came into his mind, “If it hadn’t been for the Delafield affair I might—” But a little shock, as if he had fallen away from some ideal or been guilty of an irreverence, stopped the notion. Now and then, too, he had misgivings as to what Lucy would think of him if she knew. He shrank from the feeling that her condemnation would be as unsparing as his brother’s, with more of horror and disgust. For the first time he began to think about what might lie beyond that longed-for meeting with Delafield. One day, musing upon Homer and Lucy, he had a sudden vision of himself as a commiserated kinsman, and smiled grimly as he reflected, “It might be a good thing for them if I got my quietus in the scrimmage.”
These signs of a change slowly going on within him sometimes came as a flash of feeling, while again the thoughts induced held him for hours. The emotion that had so powerfully rushed over him when he first realized his love for Lucy had jarred his grip upon his purpose; and afterward intimate daily association with his brother and knowledge of the young man’s severe disapproval united to move him now and then from his old pointof view and to give him brief visitations of more wholesome feeling. If his love for Lucy, so suddenly realized, had met with no check, it alone might have been enough in time to turn him from his plans. A man of his temperament cannot be fired by two enthusiasms at the same time. He must give himself wholly to his absorbing desire. Since at the core Conrad’s nature was sound and sweet, it is likely that after a little his love would have overmastered his desire for revenge. But Lucy’s flirtation with his brother, induced by pique and disappointment at his constant association with Mrs. Ned Castleton, and Homer’s prompt infatuation had led him to believe that the two younger people were in love with each other. Consequently he did his best to restrain his own feelings, and so limited their check upon the older sentiment. Francisquita little knew, or would ever guess, what grave consequences were flowing from her innocent effort to keep her sister-in-law within bounds. But for that the outcome of the Delafield affair would have been “another story.”
Conrad returned from Santa Fe much disappointed by the failure of the clews that had promised so much. He debated whether itwould be worth while to try to compel Gonzalez to disclose the name of his employer should the Mexican attack him again. He was doubtful of the success of such a plan, for he believed José as likely to give up his life as his secret. Nevertheless, he decided it would be worth trying. For several weeks after his return it chanced that whenever he went from home it was with Peters or some of the men, while there was always somebody about the corral and the house. He knew Gonzalez was watching him constantly, awaiting the moment when they should be alone. Toward the end of July he made up his mind to provide the opportunity and bring matters to a focus.
On the day he reached this decision his brother returned from Golden looking dejected. “They’ve quarrelled,” was Curtis’s inward comment. He said nothing, nor did Homer mention Lucy’s name, contrary to his custom of talking much about her after a day in her society. He was also less talkative than usual upon other subjects. During the evening, while Curtis read, Homer sat by the open door and smoked in gloomy silence, listening to the pouring rain and the rolling and echoing thunder. He was wondering,half in lover’s anger and half in lover’s downheartedness, why Lucy had been so unreasonable that day, and why she had acted as if she did not care whether he came or stayed away. Well, he would not trouble her with his company again very soon. He and Pendleton had been talking about a camping and hunting trip in the Mogollon Mountains, and he would see if they couldn’t get up the party and go at once.
The next morning a sky of pure, deep, brilliant blue shone over a freshening, greening plain. Homer rose from the breakfast table and walked out into the corral, throwing back his shoulders and breathing deeply of the dry, cool, exhilarating air. It seemed a different world from that of yesterday. There was no hurry about the camping trip, after all. “I think I’ll ride over to Golden,” he said to his brother, “and see if that storm last night did much damage. It looked black in the mountains when I was coming home in the afternoon, and a bad flood may have come down the ravine.”
Curtis smiled quizzically. A certain eager masterfulness in the young man’s air brought to his mind conviction of the real purport of his brother’s errand, and he felt no doubt ofits result. “A good idea,” he assented. “It was a bad storm and may have done a lot of harm. But I’ll have to use Brown Betty myself to-day. You can have your pick of the others.”
He stood by and called out, “Good luck, old fellow!” as Homer mounted his horse, and laughed and swung his sombrero as the other turned away a blushing face. Curtis gazed after him, a swift vision filling his mind of the look that countenance would wear when he returned to tell him proudly that he had won Lucy’s promise to be his wife. “And by that time I’m going to know who Delafield is,” he thought, his lips compressed, as he turned quickly into the corral.
“José,” he called, “I want you to go to Adobe Springs this morning and see if any of the cattle are mired in the overflow from the storm last night. Then deepen the outlet so the water will all be carried away. You’d better start at once. I’ll come after you in about half an hour and show you about digging out the outlet.”
As Gonzalez mounted his horse at the corral gate he looked back and saw Conrad standing beside his mare, making her hunt through his pockets for sugar. “A brave man is DonCurtis,” his thoughts ran. “He is so brave it does not seem right that he must die. But—” and he shrugged his shoulders with the air of one who says, “What would you?”
When José was well out of sight Conrad started after him, at first at a slower pace than usual. His mind was not upon the expected encounter, with its doubtful issue, nor upon the information, so long and ardently desired, that he hoped to extort from the Mexican. A month previous he would have been intent on that one thing, his thoughts absorbed in it, and his heart on fire with anticipation. Now he dwelt upon the idea of marriage between Lucy and Homer. “The lad’s a better man than I,” he was thinking. “There’s more in him, and ten years from now I shan’t be able to stack up alongside of him and make any showing at all—even if I’m not in prison or hanged by the neck until dead long before.”
He bared his brow, curiously white above the rest of his sunburned face, to the south wind. His lips tightened and his eyes glowed as he looked out over the gray road stretching before him, while his inward vision flashed down the grim and lonely path that led into the future. It was the way he had chosen,the one he had travelled with eager feet for fifteen years, and he must follow it to the end. A few miles farther on that gray track, perhaps just beyond that next hill, the longed-for knowledge was awaiting him. He would force it from Gonzalez, and then—Delafield! The thought fired his heart once more and his eyes blazed with the old indignation as his mind went back to the grief and loss of his early years, to that lonely night of hate and anger when his deadly purpose was born. He touched Brown Betty with his spur, quickening her pace to a smart gallop as he searched the road and plain with ardent eyes. His heart was bounding forward with anticipation, the savor of longed-for vengeance once more strong in his throat. In front of him lay a wide, shallow valley, with steep, storm-torn rims and brows shaggy with mesquite.
“I reckon, Betty B.,” he said aloud, “it’s about time to be looking for José, and this draw seems a likely sort of place for him.”
He drew his revolver, glanced at its chambers, held it across the pommel in his right hand, and made sure of the handful of cartridges he had put in his pocket on leaving home. Brown Betty cantered across the bottom of the valley and, as she climbed the steepbank on the other side, lifted her head and neighed. From somewhere in the distance came an answering whinny. “It’s one of our horses,” thought Conrad.
At the hilltop he carefully searched the plain; a little way down the road, beside a clump of bushes, he saw a riderless horse. He chuckled. “José’s sure hiding out around there somewhere,” was his instant conviction. His head was high, his eyes flashing, and his face set in hard lines as he started the mare forward at a brisk trot. His gaze travelled toward the other horse, studying every bunch of mesquite and questioning every clump of amole and yucca that grew between.
His eye caught the motion of branches in a tall, spreading thicket of mesquite a hundred yards away, not far from the road. They swayed against the wind for a moment, trembled back and forth, and then bent before the breeze like their fellows. The growth was dense, but behind it he could distinguish the outlines of a darker mass, and an instant later he saw a tiny flash of light reflected from some small, bright object. “That must be the sun on his gun-sight,” said Curtis, “and I reckon it’s time to prepare for war.”
Dismounting, he threw the mare’s bridle over her neck. “No; she’ll follow me,” he thought, “and she doesn’t need to mix up in the Delafield affair.”
His eye still on the suspicious clump of bushes, Conrad fastened the mare to an outreaching mesquite limb at the roadside. “This is a better place for you, Brown Betty, nice old girl,” he said, reaching back to pat her neck as she nickered after him.
His pistol in his hand and his vision holding the dark object behind the feathery green plumes of the mesquite, he went on briskly until he had covered half the distance between them. Then he saw the object move cautiously a little to one side, where the leaves were not so thick. Plainly visible now were the straw sombrero, the dusky face below it, the outline of the body, and the revolver held steadily between the branches.
Half a dozen strides more, and he fixed his eyes upon those of Gonzalez, dark and brilliant, gleaming through the scant, fern-like foliage like two coals of brown fire. Conrad’s six-shooter pointed straight between them as he walked slowly toward the bush. He knew that José’s was levelled at his breast. Revolver cocked and finger at trigger he cameon, his eyes holding those of the Mexican. José’s pistol hand he disregarded, trusting to his perception of the change, the instant’s flash of decision, that would light Gonzalez’s face when he pulled the trigger. He knew that, should he stumble or miss his footing and so give advantage, or should any hesitation show in face or eye, that second would the Mexican’s bullet fly for his heart.
It was Curtis’s intention not to hurt José unless the need became imperative. Therefore he did not fire, but came silently on, and Gonzalez stood, silent and still, behind the sheltering bush, each with pistol cocked and held at steady aim, the gaze of each holding insistently that of the other. It was a silent duel of eyes, of wills behind the eyes, of purposes behind the wills, and of temperament behind the purposes.
“Will he never shoot?” Conrad asked himself once and again as he approached.
“A brave man! A brave man!” was José’s thought as he watched that steady advance, secure in his own advantage.
Curtis came on with resolute step—fifteen yards, a dozen yards, ten yards. Barely a score of feet separated the muzzles of the two revolvers, and still the blue eyes and thebrown stared into each other with dauntless challenge.
“Why doesn’t he shoot?” thought José. “A brave, bold man! It is a pity to kill him.”
“A moment more, and I’ll have him!” exulted Conrad. Fifteen feet, twelve feet, ten feet—still the space between them lessened, and still the silence was unbroken and their guns at unchanging aim.
Another step, and Curtis saw José’s eyes waver; another, and heard him draw a little, gasping breath. He saw irresolution flash across the Mexican’s face, saw his finger leave the trigger, his right arm tremble, and drop to his side.
Conrad felt cold sweat break out over his body and there was a loud buzzing in his ears. Yet neither in face nor eyes was there a sign that he had seen any change. With his gaze still fixed on the other’s downcast lids, he moved sidewise around the bush, and stood beside Gonzalez.
“Give me your gun, butt first,” he commanded in a low, tense voice. José raised his eyes to meet the muzzle of the gun looking blankly between his brows.
“You can take it if you like, Don Curtis,”he said unsteadily. “I am not going to shoot you. Here it is.”
“Now,” said Curtis, pointing both guns at José’s head, “tell me the name of the man who hired you to kill me.”
The Mexican started in surprise. He shrugged his shoulders, looked at the guns again, shuffled his feet uneasily. “Don Curtis, how can I?” he exclaimed in a reproachful tone. “You should not ask that question. It is not fair.”
“Neither was it fair for you to try to stick me in the back before I was onto your game. So we’re even now, as you told me once before. You’ve got to tell! I don’t want to kill you, José; but, by God! I will, if you don’t give up that man’s name. I’ll give you one minute to think it over; and if you don’t speak out then, I’ll blow your head off.”
Gonzalez sent one searching glance into Conrad’s set face, and dropped sullen eyes to the ground. He knew there was only one thing to do if he wished to live. For half the minute he stared downward, then looked blankly up at Curtis. “Fifteen seconds more,” said the stern voice. His face worked, his lips opened and closed again. Then he seemed to gather himself together for the unwillingeffort, and the words fairly rushed from his mouth:
“It is your friend, Señor Bancroft.”
“What!” exclaimed Curtis, in a voice that had sunk back into his throat.
Gonzalez repeated his words. Conrad leaned forward, white with anger, and thrust the two revolvers close to the other’s face. “José,” he said slowly, in hard, sharp tones, “a little while ago a man told me that. I shook him as if he’d been a dog and told him that he lied. I ask you once more, the last time, who is it?”
Gonzalez threw back his head, crossed his arms, and looked his antagonist angrily in the eye. “I am not a liar, Don Curtis,” he said proudly. “I may kill sometimes, if mypatronwishes. But I do not lie.” He placed the muzzle of one of the pistols against his heart. “I have told you the truth, Señor Conrad,” he went on. “I swear to you, by the Mother of God, that I could not say different if you pulled that trigger now.”
Conrad trembled and his white face went suddenly crimson. “It is hard to believe,” he said; but he lowered the pistols. “I know you are not a liar, José, and you seem to be speaking the truth. You understand, don’tyou,” he added in a tone almost apologetic, “that it is hard for me to believe what you say?”
“It is the truth, señor.”
Curtis put his own pistol away, and looked thoughtfully at the other. “José,” he said, “I shall have to think about this thing. In the meantime I’m going to keep your gun.”
“As you like, Don Curtis,” replied Gonzalez, indifferently. “I shall do nothing more. To-morrow I shall ask for my time.”
Conrad eyed him keenly. “Well, then, here’s your gun. Go on to Adobe Springs and do the work, as I told you. To-morrow morning, if you want it, you can have your time.”
José took the gun, turned the cylinder, and one by one dropped the bullets to the ground.
“It is ended, Don Curtis,” he said. Mounting his horse, he galloped down the road.