"On my account? What more account mine than yours?"
"Well, you see, Harris, no doubt, has your letter stowed away somewhere, and it would make bad evidence for you. I don't think it mentions me at all. Besides, I know a way through a pass in these mountains, and if it doesn't turn out right—why, I'm glad I know the way. You see, I've nothing to lose, and, nobody to worry over me. But it's different with you, Hiram. You have a wife and a fine farm down in Manitoba, and it would be inconvenient for you to slip away without notice. So I say that on your account we mustn't let it fail."
"You didn't say nothin' about that before, I notice," said Riles.
"You mustn't expect me to do your private thinking as well as that of the firm," Gardiner retorted. "You had the facts—why didn't you patch them together for yourself? You're in a mess now if things don't go right. But, as I said, I'm going to stick with you and see that they do go right."
They rode along in silence in the gathering darkness. Had they been able to read each other's minds they would have been astonished at the coincidence of thought. Gardiner was planning to make away with the money when he got out of the building. Why should he divide with Riles—Riles, who would only hoard it up, and who had plenty of money already? Not at all. Riles might sue him for his share, if he wanted to—and could find him, to serve notice! On the other hand, Riles' slow wits had quickened to the point of perceiving that there lay before him a chance of making twenty thousand dollars instead of ten thousand, if he only had the nerve to strike at the strategic moment. When he got the Harrises out of the shack, by hook or crook he would leave them and follow Gardiner. He was much more than Gardiner's match in strength and he had little fear of the revolver, provided he could take his adversary unawares. If the worst came to the worst, and he could not give the Harrises the slip, he would take them with him, and they would all come upon Gardiner red-handed with the loot. Then he would explain to Harris how he had discovered Gardiner's plot and frustrated it…The idea grew upon Riles, and he rode along in a frame of mind bordering upon cheerfulness.
It was now quite dark, and the horses picked their steps carefully along the hillside trails. At last Gardiner drew up and pointed to a heavy clump of trees. A faint glimmer of light shone through it.
"That's the shack," he whispered. "They have a lantern there. We better get off the road and tether our horses in this coulee. Don't go too close; their horses may call to ours, and they will come out to meet us."
They turned down a narrow ravine with scarce room to walk single file between the branching trees. The stream was almost dry, and the horses' hoofs clanked alarmingly along the bed of the creek. They tied them where the woods closed all about them, and there seemed no chance of discovery.
"Quietly, now," said Gardiner, as they stole toward the old building. "Things seem to be working out as we planned, but we must make sure of every detail, so that we can change the attack if necessary."
The two men stole up the rough road leading to the hut. Riles felt his heart thumping, and his lungs seemed half choked for air, but Gardiner lost none of his composure, and would have lit a cigarette had he not feared the light would betray them. The glow of the lantern came from the building, shining in a long, fading wedge from the sashless window, but seemed strangely obscure about the door. As they approached this mystery was revealed; a blanket was seen to hang over the doorway.
"That's a good sign," whispered Gardiner. "One, or both of them, are sleeping. That's why they feel the cold. If they had stayed awake they would have built a fire and perhaps walked about outside. This mountain air gets a man that isn't used to it. I'll bet you could go to sleep yourself this minute, Riles, if you weren't so scared."
"I ain't scared, damn you," said Riles, though the words trembled in his teeth. "If it comes to a show-down we'll see who's scared."
"That's good," said Gardiner. "That's the way to talk. If you just keep that up for a few minutes it'll all be over."
They paused for a moment to listen. The night was moonless and starry, except where a bank of clouds came drifting up from the south-west. A moist breeze, smelling of soft, mountain snow, gently stirred the trees about them. But from the shanty no sound could be discerned. They approached nearer, and still nearer.
"Now, you go to the door, and I'll take the window," Gardiner ordered. "Shove the blanket aside a little and size up the situation before you speak. We must make sure they're there, and there alone."
Gardiner waited until he saw Riles fumbling carefully with the blanket that hung in the doorway. Then he darted quickly to the window.
While Allan sat in the little cabin he gradually became oppressed with a sense of great loneliness. From time to time he looked at the face of his sleeping father, and suddenly the knowledge struck him like a knife that it was the face of an old man. He had never thought of him as an old man before, but as he lay on the rough floor, sleeping soundly after his long drive, there was something in the form that told of advancing years, and Allan could see plainly the deepening furrows in his strong, still handsome face. As he looked a vast tenderness mingled with his loneliness; he would have stooped and caressed him had he not feared to disturb his slumbers. Allan's love for his father was that of man to man rather than son to parent; it was the only deep passion of his young life, and it ran with a fulness that could not be checked. Of his mother he thought with kindliness, tinged with regret that all had not of late been quite as it should be in their domestic circle; toward his sister he felt a vague longing and uneasiness, and a new feeling which had taken root that afternoon that perhaps after all she was right in seeking to live her life as she would; but it was to his father that his great emotion turned. He looked upon the sleeping man now, with the wealth of a lifetime's labour at his side, and the bond of trust and confidence between them seemed so tight it brought the moisture to his eyes. He thought of the past years; of their labour on the farm together—hard labour, but always relieved by their comradeship and mutual ambitions. A hundred half-forgotten incidents came to mind, in all of which his father was companion and chum rather than parent and corrector. And after all, hadn't it been worth while? Had not they, in their way, really given expression to their lives as best they could in the black, earth-smelling furrows, in the scent of tallowy, straw-aromaed steam from their engine, or the wet night-perfume of ripening wheat? How those old smells beat up from the mysterious chambers of memory and intoxicated his nostrils with fondness and a great sense of having, in some few hallowed moments, dove-tailed his own career into the greater purpose of creation! Allan did not analyze these thoughts and memories, or try to fit them into words, but they brought to him a consciousness of having lived—of having known some experiences that were not altogether material and temporal.
And then his memory carried him still furthe back—back to the days when he was a little child, and in the mirror of the darkness he could see his own small figure trudging in the track of the plough and hanging to the rein-ends that dropped from the knot on his father's ample back. Back to the old sod shanty, with its sweet smell of comfort when the snow beat against the little window and the wind roared in the rattling stove-pipe, and his mother sat by the fire and plied her flying needles. What wonderful times they were, and what wonderful dreams in the little, thoughtful child-mind just catching the first glimmerings of life! Could it be this old cabin, these rotting logs, this earthy floor, that were stirring memory cells asleep for twenty years? He would not allow his mind to be drawn into speculation—the thing was the remembrance, now, when it was offered him. Old lullabies stole into his brain; a deep peace compassed him, and consciousness faded thinner and thinner into the sea of the infinite…
Allan sat up in a sudden, cold chill of terror. Had he been asleep? What cold breath of dread had crossed his path? He was no coward; the sense of fear was almost unknown lo him, but now it enveloped him, stifled him, set his teeth chattering and his limbs quaking. He had heard nothing, seen nothing. The gun was in his hands as it had lain when last he remembered it; his father slept by his side, and near the wall lay the precious satchel. And yet he shook in absolute, unreasoning, unfounded terror. His eyes wandered from the lantern to the door—to the blanket hanging limply in the door; and there they stared and stayed as though held in the spell of a serpent. Subconsciously, certainly without any direction of will of his own, he raised the shot-gun to his shoulder and kept it trained on the sagging blanket…The blanket seemed to move! It swayed at first as though a light breeze had touched it, and yet not as though a breeze had touched it. The impulse seemed too far up—about the height of a man's shoulder. The blood had gone from Allan's face; he was as one in a trance, obeying some iron law outside the realm of the will and the reason. He cocked his gun and tightened his finger on the trigger, and watched…And then, so plain that it must have been real, he saw stealthy fingers feeling their way about the blanket.
Then Allan fired.
In an instant he was wide awake, and wondering terribly what had happened. The explosion blew out the lantern, and the building was in utter darkness. His father was clambering to his feet with "Allan, what is it? What is it, Allan?" The blanket had been torn from its hangings as by a heavy weight, and something was writhing in it in the doorway. Allan sprang up and would have rushed upon it, but in the darkness he collided with another man. His fingers found his adversary's arm and ran up it to his throat, but before they could fasten in a fatal grip there was another flash of light, and a hot pang stabbed him in the breast. There was a strange gurgling in his lungs, a choking in his throat, a spinning dizziness in his head, as he staggered over the mass in the doorway and fell into the night.
Gardiner had reached the window just in time to see Allan's gun trained on the doorway. For an instant he stood dumfounded; there was something uncanny in the sight of the young man sitting there in silent, absolute readiness for the attack. He drew back to warn Riles, but he was too late. At that moment the gun spoke; there was the sound of a heavy body falling, and stifled noises bore ample evidence of the accuracy of Allan's aim. But even in that moment of uncertainty Gardiner had not lost thought of their purpose, and his quick eye took in the sleeping form of John Harris and the location of the leather bag beside the wall. Without an instant's hesitation he vaulted through the window and, revolver in hand, began to steal his way softly toward the treasure.
He had not taken three steps when Allan plunged full force into him. He staggered with the shock, but recovered himself only to find the young farmer's strong fingers clutching for his throat. It had been no part of Gardiner's plan that there should be bloodshed in the carrying out of the robbery, but he was a man of quick decision, who accepted conditions as he found them… A slight pressure on the trigger, and Allan fell, coughing, through the door.
Gardiner retained his sense of location, and slipped silently to the wall. Harris was rushing about the rotten floor in the darkness, crying, "What is it, Allan? For God's sake, what has happened? Are you shot?" and for his own noise he could not hear Gardiner's stealthy movements. Gardiner's hand fell on a log of the wall, and his keen fingers traced their way along it. Five steps, he judged, and the bag would be at his feet. At the fifth step his toe touched an object on the floor; he leaned over and raised the booty in his hand.
By this time his eyes had responded to the intense darkness, and he could discern a square of greyer gloom where the window admitted the night. He moved rapidly and silently toward it, but almost with the last step his foot slipped through a broken spot on the floor, and he staggered and fell. The revolver was thrown from his grasp, but he was able to pitch the bag through the window as he crashed to the floor.
The sound arrested Harris, and before Gardiner could extricate himself the farmer was upon him. At first he seemed to think it was Allan, and felt about in the darkness without attempting to defend himself. This gave Gardiner an opportunity; he was able to clasp his arms about Harris's shins, and, with a quick turn of the body, cast his adversary headlong to the floor. At the same moment he freed himself from his entanglement and made another dash for the window.
But Harris, still numbed from his heavy sleep, now realized that some kind of tragedy had occurred, and guessed enough to believe that Allan was a victim. From his prostrate position, with one powerful leg he interrupted Gardiner's flight, and the next moment the two men were rolling on the floor in each other's arms. Harris was much the stronger man of the two, but Gardiner was active and had some skill in wrestling. Besides, Harris had been taken wholly by surprise, and had no idea who his antagonist was, while Gardiner had full knowledge of all the circumstances, and the struggle was less uneven than might have been supposed. Inwardly cursing the luck that had thrown the revolver from his hand, Gardiner sought in the darkness for his adversary's throat, nose, or eyes. Harris, seizing the younger man by the waist, lifted him bodily from the floor and crashed him down again upon it, but the next instant Gardiner had one of his hands in both of his, and, bringing his knee down with great force on Harris's elbow, compelled him, at the risk of a broken arm, to turn face downwards on the floor. Gardiner again wrenched violently to break free, but Harris's grip was too much for him, so with the quickness and fury of a tiger he threw himself upon the farmer's back and wrapped his free arm about his throat. With his air partially cut off Harris released the grip of his other hand, and Gardiner instantly took advantage of this move to bring both arms to bear on Harris's throat. Things began to go badly with the farmer; face downwards on the floor, he was unable to shake his adversary off, and was losing strength rapidly with his choking. Gardiner no longer sought an opportunity to break away; his blood was up and he was in the fight to the finish, ruled at last by his heart instead of his head. Had he been content merely to retain his present advantage, unconsciousness would soon have overcome his victim, but he tried to improve his grip, and the attempt proved disastrous. His thumb, seeking better vantage, fell into Harris's gasping mouth. Harris was no more depraved than most of mankind, but when fighting for life, and choking to death in the hands of an unknown enemy, he was ready to seize any advantage, and with a great effort he brought his jaws together upon the intruder.
With a yell of pain Gardiner sprang to his feet, jerking the farmer into a half-sitting posture as he did so, and Harris, with a great gasp for air, relinquished his sudden and unexpected advantage. But Gardiner's head was again in command; he rushed through the door, half falling over the obstruction as he went, and in an instant was lost in the gloom of the night.
For some minutes Harris lay on the floor, recovering his breath. As the oxygen welled back into his lungs he began to realize that, save for his choking, he was unhurt. With returning strength his thought reverted to Allan, and, calling the boy's name, he sprang to his feet. The first thing was to get a light. He found matches in his pocket, struck one, and peered eagerly into the gloom as its flickering flame beat back the darkness. A blanket, rolled and stained, lay in the doorway, and within it was a figure that might once have been a man. Harris's heart almost stopped at the sight: "Allan," he gasped, "my boy, Allan!" He tiptoed across the crumbling floor toward it, holding the match before him. A man's boot and part of a trouser leg protruded from the mass. He held the match downward, leaning over them. They were not Allan's.
"Thank God," he murmured, swelling with a great hope, "thank God for that."
He struck another match and found the lantern. When he had lighted it he surveyed the little building, and saw Allan's gun lying at the end farthest from the door. Not until that moment did he think of the money. Allan had been uppermost in his mind, and when he thought of Allan money was no consideration. But now a great wave of understanding rushed in upon him. Yes, the bag was gone. They had been attacked by robbers. Knowledge of their expedition had in some way got to evil ears, and while he slept Allan had been set upon. The boy had emptied his gun—the huddled mass in the doorway told that tale plainly enough—but other robbers had seized the cash and Allan had pursued them empty-handed. They had fired at him as he rushed from the building—that was the flash he saw a few seconds after the first loud report. He was not quite clear as to his own share in the fight, but he saw the general plan of it plainly enough. He began to wonder what had happened to Gardiner and Riles. Had they been shot down as they wound through the woods? This was evidently the work of a gang prepared to stop at nothing. Harris never for a moment suspected his old neighbour of treachery. He was himself a hard, grasping, money-seeking man, but he had a code of honour none the less, and within its limitations none was more honourable than he. To have done what Riles had done would have been quite impossible for John Harris, and because it was impossible for him its possibility for Riles never suggested itself.
Harris had not yet fully realized the loss of his money. It was overshadowed by the more tragic events of which one evidence lay before him. His anxiety for Allan loomed larger in his mind, although he had little doubt the boy would take proper care of himself, and, even if unarmed, would come back with the money and perhaps with a prisoner. The fact that Allan had not taken his gun was reassuring; if there had been any great danger he would not have left it behind. But he must get out now and aid in the search.
As he reached this decision his eye caught a gleam of something shining on the floor. He walked to it and found a revolver, fully loaded except for one chamber, which had been discharged. "This is evidence," said he—"important evidence." Harris had all the Old Ontario contempt for this kind of weapon, and knew comparatively little about it, but he concluded from its appearance that it was almost new. As he examined it his eye fell on the initials, "J. T.," cut in the grip.
"J. T.," he said to himself. "J. T. Those initials seem familiar. I'll just leave this thing where I found it, until the police see it."
Replacing the weapon on the floor, he stole out of the cabin, avoiding the silent obstruction in the doorway. Outside he stood for a moment undecided. The circle of light from his lantern might beacon Allan back to the shanty, but it would also prove a signal to the robbers, if they were still in the vicinity. The night was now very dark, clouds having obscured the stars, and an occasional big drop of rain spat about him. The roar of water came up from the valleys, but above or through that roar suddenly he fancied he heard a sound from the bushes near at hand. He held his breath and listened intently. He half wished he had brought the revolver with him. Yes, there it was again—a human sound, beyond question, half groan, half gurgle. He turned in the direction from which it came and stole quietly forward. Half-a-dozen yards from the building the light revealed, first a shadow, and then a figure lying on the ground. With some trepidation Harris approached. The man's arms had been extended when he fell, and his coat was thrown over his head. Harris stooped and drew it down over the shoulders exposing the face.
It was Allan.
The first shock of the revelation almost stopped the heart of the old farmer, and he sat back as one dazed, unable to accept the testimony of his own eyes. Then came a panic of uncertainty, and he fell upon the boy, groping wildly for his heart, and at last pressing upon it in an agony of fear…Yes, the beat was there, faint and uneven, but unmistakable. With a sudden surge of returning hope he brought his ear down to the open mouth, fringed with light red foam, and could hear the air labouring in the ravaged lungs. Then came that human sound, half gurgle, half groan; but to Harris, in the reaction from his first paralyzing fear, it was as very music from heaven. His boy still lived, and still should live.
Tenderly he turned the body to a more comfortable position, laying his folded coat beneath the head for a pillow. He loosened the shirt about the neck, and far down the heaving chest saw the sodden red that marked his wound. Rain fell in scattered drops, and he brought another blanket from the cabin, caring little now for the silent form in the doorway in the sudden shadow of his greater tragedy. He spread the blanket over the wounded boy, and sat down by his side, caressing his temples with his big fingers, and wondering what to do next.
As he sat the helplessness of his position grew upon him. He was deep in the foothills, many miles, as far as he knew, from the home of any settler. In daylight he could, no doubt, find his way back to town, but daylight might be too late. He did not know whether Allan was dying on his hands at that moment. Certainly to attempt to move him in the buggy would be dangerous in the extreme.
And as he sat he thought of the missing money, the fruit of his life's labour, snatched from him in a moment in the darkness. The loss did not hurt him as deeply as he might have thought; he was numbed by the greater blow that hung over him. If Allan would only live!…The boy had been his constant companion since babyhood. All his hopes, all his ambitions, which had found their expression in his years of feverish toil, had been wrapped about Allan. He had no one else…His better self revolted at that thought. "You have a wife and daughter," it said, "ready to share your life as soon as you are ready to share theirs." He forced his mind from that phase of his position, but it reverted to it again and again. He could not wander in memory up the path of his boy's life without meeting his boy's mother. And all the pain and unhappiness of the later years—how it cut like an evil bank of fog across the once bright course of their career! But he had suffered for their sakes, holding fast to his own course because he knew it to be best…Best? And it had brought him to this?…The question would not down. Rather than relax an iota from his own purposes he had broken up his family; he had crushed them under the wheels of his inflexible will, and now that same will had driven his son to destruction and himself to ruin.
It is not easy for a man who has laid out a career and followed it with all the energy of a virile nature, recasting his gods from time to time to conform with the evolution of his ideals, but recasting always in the mould of his own will rather than any vessel of creed or persuasion—it is not easy for such a man to stop at fifty and say, "I was wrong." It requires a break in his process of evolution, a shock sufficiently powerful to pulverize his gods before his face, to drive home the truth that they were not gods at all but merely idols of his own creation. In Harris's later life two idols had grown up to the exclusion of all others; they were the wealth which he had builded with his hands and the boy Allan about whom he wrapped all the affection of his nature; and they had crumbled to dust even while he worshipped.
He found a flask thrown from some camper's pack, and filled it with water at the mountain stream that rushed by a few rods below the cabin. He placed the liquid to the boy's lips and fancied that some drops found entrance. He had staunched the wound as best he could with fragments torn from the lining of his coat, and he sat down again to watch. Until morning he could do nothing more. Then some camper, lumberman, or surveyor might happen along the road. If not, he would have to move Allan at all risks.
It took time for him to realize the utterness with which his plans had collapsed. As the night wore on he was able to weigh his disaster in a more balanced mind, but its magnitude grew in the weighing. From prosperous ambition he had been swept in an hour to penniless ruin. His destruction was almost complete. The old farm, the scene of his labours—his and Mary's—was gone. If Allan should die there remained nothing more.
Suddenly he fancied he heard the sound of horses' hoofs in the clay road along the hillside, now softened with the light rain. The sound ceased as suddenly as it began, and it occurred to him that it might be one of the robbers returning. The lantern was burning low, but as a precaution he now turned it quite out. There were some cartridges in Allan's pocket; he felt for them and decided to bring the gun out of the cabin. But before he could put this decision into effect he observed the form of a man moving silently but briskly toward the cabin. He held his breath and remained obscured in the bushes. Dimly he discerned the form stop at the door and peer into the darkness.
There was no doubt in the mind of Harris as to the evil intent of the visitor. He had come on horseback near the building, and had then dismounted and stole up to it on foot. That, in itself was sufficiently incriminating. One who was riding through the mountains on a legitimate errand, and who knew nothing of the night's affray, would take no such precautions. Unarmed as he was, Harris resolved that the robber, probably the murderer of his son, should not on any account escape him. With the blanket which he had brought to cover Allan was a bag in which they had carried oats for their horses; this he found in the darkness, and stole after his victim. He overtook him standing at the door, in apparent hesitancy whether to enter the building. Without an instant's warning Harris threw the bag about his head, and with a quick twist of his powerful wrist had his prisoner securely gagged. Throwing him violently to the ground, he tied the sack in a hard knot, and, despite all struggles, dragged him back to where Allan lay. Here he relighted the lantern, and, cutting part of the blanket into strips with his pocket-knife, securely tied his captive hand and foot. At first the prisoner tried to talk, but he could not speak intelligibly through the closely-drawn sack, and presently he gave up and lay in silence in the wet grass. And again the leaden night wore on, broken only by occasional gurglings in the throat of Allan, or futile struggles by the prisoner. Harris felt little curiosity concerning the identity of the man in gags before him, or the victim of Allan's gun in the doorway. They were absolute strangers to him, and he even feared that if he should look into the face of the one that still lived his anger over the assault upon Allan would burst all bounds and he would kill his victim on the spot. He was slowly forced to the conclusion that Riles and Gardiner had also met with foul play, and that no help was now to be expected from that quarter. The light rain had drifted past, and bright stars gleamed through great rents in the shattered clouds. The gibbous moon, too, looked down, and its cold light intensified the shadows. The night grew colder, and Harris spread his own outer garments upon his son, and at last lay down with Allan in his arms that he might communicate heat from his body to the struggling frame so sorely robbed of blood. And even in his distress and his terrific fear for Allan there came some reminiscence of old delight at the feel of the boy's limbs against his, and fleet-footed memory ran back again to the childhood of Allan. But on its way it met the childhood of Beulah, and conjured up the mother-face leaning in tenderness over the sick-beds of infancy. And John Harris buried his face in the heaving chest of his child and wept in his grief and loneliness.
Just as the first bars of grey in the eastern sky proclaimed approaching dawn, the sound of horse's hoofs came distinctly up the valley. Harris drew himself into a sitting posture, and listened. Allan was still breathing, and apparently with less effort than earlier in the night. The sound of the horse came nearer and nearer. At last it was in the road just below, and a moment later would have passed by had not Harris called out. His voice sounded strange and distant in his own ears, and cost him an unwonted effort.
Sergeant Grey instantly swung his horse from the road and, dismounting, proceeded in the direction of the voice.
Harris told his story with such coherence as he could. He and his son had come up into the hills to arrange for the purchase of a property which they had become interested in through a third party, Gardiner. They carried with them a large sum of money as proof of the sincerity of their intentions. At this little cabin they were to be joined by Gardiner and by another, named Riles, who also was taking an interest in the property. As they waited in the cabin, and as he, Harris, slept after his long drive, they were suddenly set upon by outlaws. Allan shot one down—the body still lay in the doorway—but was himself badly wounded, and had not spoken since. Harris had encountered another, but after a severe fight the robber had escaped. The little black bag in which the money was carried was gone with all its contents. Although he had waited all night in great anxiety, Gardiner and Riles had failed to appear, and it could only be supposed that they too had met with foul play. But some hours after the assault one of the party had returned, dismounted from his horse at some distance, and stolen softly up to the shanty. Harris had followed him, and, taking him by surprise, had been able to make him prisoner.
Sergeant Grey looked from Harris to Allan, and then to the prisoner, who seemed to lie in a semi-conscious condition amid his bonds and gags.
"You were foolish to come into the hills with so much money alone," he said. "I would have been at your service for the asking, and this would not have happened. But now that it has happened, the first thing is to provide for the wounded man, and the next is to place this suspect in custody. And you will need some toning up yourself after your night's experience. Then we will have a full investigation. I know a rancher's house a few miles down the valley where you and your son will have the best attention."
The mounted policeman made a brief examination of Allan, as best he could in the grey dawn, for the lantern now had no oil. "He has not bled very much," he said, "He has a strong frame and ought to have a fighting chance. I will just have a look at the scene of the crime, and then we will move him."
He made a hurried survey of the cabin, merely satisfying himself that the man in the doorway was quite dead, and then, with Harris's assistance, quickly found the horses and harnessed them to the buggy. He also found another horse near the roadway, saddled and bridled. "We will make the prisoner ride his own horse," he said, "while you take your son in the buggy."
They placed the wounded and still unconscious Allan in the buggy as gently as they could, and then Grey gave his attention to the prisoner. Having searched his clothing for weapons, he cut away the bonds that securely held his arms and feet, and released the sack from his half-choked throat. The man writhed and gasped for fresh air, and the policeman drew the sack away and revealed the face of Jim Travers.
Beulah Harris raised her arms above her head and drank in the fresh mountain air that flooded through the open window. A smoky red, with brighter shafts of yellow behind, streamed up from the eastern sky and sent a glow of burnt-orange colour through her bedroom. The girl stretched her spread fingers to the limit of their reach, and with extended toes sought the iron bars at the foot of the bed, filling her lungs with the fresh foothill ozone. Then she dropped her hands, palm upward, with the backs of her finger-tips resting on her eyes, and felt that it was good to be alive.
They had been great times—wonderful times—these weeks spent in the freedom and harmony of the Arthurses' household. Mr. and Mrs. Arthurs—Uncle Fred and Aunt Lilian, as she now called them—had opened their hearts and their home to Beulah from the first. Indeed, the girl was often conscious of their gaze upon her, and at times she would look up quickly and surprise a strange, wistful look of yearning in their eyes—a look that they tried very hard to hide from her. They wanted to leave her free to live her own life—to shape her career, for a time at least, wholly in accordance with her impulses.
And such a life as she had lived! Arthurs had at once placed a horse at her disposal, and with a fierce delight at the leap she was taking through conventions she swung her right leg over the saddle and sat to place like any man. Although born and raised on a farm, horseback riding was to her something of a novelty, and the assumption of the masculine position was a positive epoch in her career. How the people of Plainville would have been scandalized if they could have witnessed her shocking familiarity with a horse! She thought of an English girl who had been cut by the good society of Plainville because she dared to ride like a biped instead of a mermaid. And she laughed in a wild exultant freedom, while the wind whipped her hair about her shoulders, and she felt her mount firm beneath her as they cantered across the brown foothills.
Such hills they were! In her native plains they would have been mountains of themselves, wonders of Nature to point out to strangers and to hold in a kind of awe across the country-side, but here they were foothills, mere fragments dropped from the trowel of the Builder as He reared the majestic Rockies behind. And though she often in the early morning, or at sunset, or when the moon was full and white, feasted her eyes and her soul on the cold splendour of the mighty range, it was to the warm brown foothills, with their stubbling of little trees and their solemn warts of grey-green rock, that her heart turned with something of human affection. At first Uncle Fred, or Aunt Lilian, or, a little later, one of the two cowboys rode with her on her expeditions, but her prairie sense of direction quickly adapted itself to her new surroundings, and she soon learned to keep a keen eye for the precipitous cut-banks that drop sheer from a level plain and lie as unsuspected in the saffron sunlight as a coyote among the ripened willows. There were quicksands, too—spots where the water sprang from the hillside in a crystal stream and in a few yards soaked into the kneady earth as in a sponge—but all these places were fenced; even in Alberta, where cattle grow like rabbits on the range, the paving of sink-holes with beef steers is an expensive expedient. So Beulah quickly got her foothill sense, and in a week was riding, care-free and exultant, across the ranges as her heart listed or her horse preferred.
One morning, just as the first grey of dawn mottled the darkness of her chamber, Beulah heard her door open, and through the uncertain light she discerned Arthurs gently entering with a rifle in his hand. She sat up, alert, but not afraid; the tingling health in her veins left no place for fear and suffered no foolishness on the part of her nervous system.
"What is it, Uncle Fred?" she whispered.
"H-s-h," he cautioned. "You know we have been losing calves with the timber wolves? Well, there are two of the murderers just across from the corral. I thought you might want to see them."
In an instant her feet were on the floor, and, hand in hand, she and Arthurs stole to the window. At first her eyes could distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by following Arthurs' index finger she at last located two gaunt, shaggy creatures a little way up the hillside beyond the corral, and a couple of hundred yards from the house.
"However did you know they were there?" she whispered. "You must have cat's eyes. I could hardly see them when you pointed them out."
"Not cat's eyes, Beulah," he answered. "Just rancher's eyes. I heard the horses snorting, and I fancied there were visitors. Now, will you take first shot?"
"Oh, that would be a shame. They would get away, and besides, I might kill a horse."
"Well, won't press it this time," said Arthurs, "because I have a little personal score to settle with these fellows. I guess I have about five hundred dollars invested in each of them."
The wolves were moving leisurely about on the hillside, showing no disposition to run away, but apparently afraid to approach closer to the ranch buildings. Arthurs leaned his rifle across the window sill and took steady aim, while the girl held her breath with excitement. Then there was a quick flash, that shut the scene momentarily from their eyes; the next moment they saw one of the wolves leap into the air and fall, a sprawling mass, upon the ground, while the other darted with the speed of a greyhound toward the neighbouring bushes. Arthurs followed him with a bullet, but even so fine a marksman could have found him only by chance in that uncertain light.
"Well, I guess there's a widow in Wolfville this morning," said Arthurs, as he leisurely threw the discharged cartridge from the barrel. "My apologies, Miss Beulah, for this somewhat unconventional call and the interruption of your beauty sleep."
But Beulah was standing, wrapped in admiration. "Oh, Uncle Fred," she exclaimed. "You're just wonderful. If I could only shoot like that!"
"It's all a matter of training," he told her. "Of course, you must have good eyes and steady nerves, but you have those already. The rifle is yours whenever you want it, and all the ammunition you can carry. There's just one stipulation—for the first week shoot only at foothills, and, remember, aim low."
So Beulah became a rifle enthusiast, and it astonished her how rapidly she improved in marksmanship. With a little instruction from Arthurs and the cowboys in the matter of sighting and holding her weapon, she developed quickly from a stage of dangerous uncertainty in her gunnery to one of almost expert accuracy. Then she made of the rifle a companion on her horseback excursions, to the destruction of gophers, rabbits, and even a badger and a coyote. It was a brave day when she rode into the corral with a coyote strung across her saddle.
The river near by teemed with trout, and the girl soon caught the fascination of the angler. Mrs. Arthurs had a pair of high rubber boots, which she used when she herself went whipping the blue water, and, anchored in these as far out as she dared go into the gravel-bottomed stream, the girl laced the cold current back and forth. And the wild exultation of her first bite! The fish darted up and down stream, pulling out line faster than she could reel it in, and Beulah, in her excitement, waded deeper into the stream as she followed the quivering line. But mountain streams are treacherous; one step too far plunged her into twenty feet of water, and the next moment she was spinning round and round in the current. She had learned to swim a few strokes in the creek on her father's farm, and her meagre skill now stood her in good stead, for she was able to keep afloat until the current threw her against a gravel bar that jutted into the river. She dragged herself ashore, very wet, and of a sudden, very frightened, and sat down on the warm stones. It was here that she recorded another resolution; she would learn to swim—not a feeble stroke or two, but to be master of this river which had so nearly mastered her. "I will do it," she said. "I will swim it across and back, if it takes till December, and—bur-r-r-rh—it's cold enough now." Then it occurred to her that there was no better time to start than the present. She looked out a place where the current was not too strong, and where there were no treacherous rock-splits in the bottom, spread her wet clothing to dry in the sun, and for an hour fought the cold current at its own game.
It is not recorded how it came about, but Arthurs passed the word among the ranch hands that a certain stretch of river bank was sacred from all intrusion.
But it was in the life of the home, even more than in the joyous freedom of the out-of-doors, that Beulah found her great delight. The Arthurs, she knew, were wealthy—many times richer than her father, who passed as a wealthy man among the farmers of Plainville. But with the Arthurs wealth was merely an incident—a pleasant but by no means essential by-product of their lives. They lived simply, but well; they worked honestly, but did not slave; and in all their living and working they shed a kindliness and courtesy that communicated itself to all with whom they came in contact. The cowboys, Beulah soon discovered, were as unlike the cowboys of fiction and of her imagination as a Manitoba steer is unlike his Alberta brother; they did not carry revolvers, nor swagger in high boots, nor rip the air with their profanity; and their table manners reminded her of George and Harry Grant, and the Grants were outstanding examples of right living in the Plainville district. And Mrs. Arthurs, gentle and kind in all her doings, and yet firm and strong and calm, she was—such a woman, Beulah told herself, as her own mother might have been, had her soul not been crushed under a load of unceasing labour. But, most of all, it was to Fred Arthurs that the heart of the young girl turned. Whether he sat over his desk at his letters, or dispensed hospitality at his table (for all who passed up or down the valley, as a matter of course, stopped for a meal at the Arthurses), or cantered across the foothills, or shouted behind his lagging herds (such shouting as it was, fit to split the canyons!}, or played ball with the boys in the evening, or discussed theology with the travelling missionary, or philosophy with his book-worm neighbour from across the river, or read poetry with his wife on the Sunday afternoons, or sang with his great voice in the mellow, yellow eventide, or—most of all—when he looked at Beulah with his fine eyes, and she caught the mirrored reflection of the hunger in his soul, she felt that here was a man who had lived his life to the uttermost and would go on living it through all eternity. She only half guessed what his thoughts toward her were—she did not know that Fred and Lilian Arthurs had at last agreed that they could do better than leave their wealth to charity, and that a new will was soon to be drawn—but to her he seemed pure gold, and a gentleman to his last gesture. And she vowed one night that if ever she met a single man like Fred Arthurs she would marry him although all the canons and conventions of Christendom stood between them.
And then, quite unexpected, it came upon her, and thrilled her frame from toe to temple. Jim Travers! It had been in the background of her mind for months, the centre of the subconscious processes which culminated in this revelation. Yes, Fred Arthurs at twenty-five must have been such a man as Jim Travers. Jim Travers at fifty would be such a man as Fred Arthurs. She was absolutely sure of it. Jim was living his own life, seeking out that which was worth while, culling the incidental from the essential, just as Fred Arthurs must have done. She remembered with sudden joy how Jim had held a little kindness to her of greater moment than the impatient engine in the plough-field; the scores of little labours he had undertaken, not as a sacrifice, but as a privilege—as his contribution to human happiness. She would marry Jim Travers. The strange part of it was her sudden certainty that she should marry him. She found herself enveloped in a flame of possession, a feeling that he was hers—hers now, this minute, and hers for ever. Beulah was a fatalist, although she had never analyzed her own beliefs enough to know it, but she knew that Destiny had linked her life with his and that Destiny would not be balked. Her mind had been feeling its way, through the darkness of months, to this sudden ecstasy, but now that she had reached it she felt that it could never, never fail her. Her sense of possession, of mergement, was complete; she felt that already their souls had mingled irrevocably and indistinguishably.
The arrival of her mother at the Arthurses' ranch had brought fresh joy to Beulah's life. She saw the colour coming back to the old face, the frame straightening up a little, the light rekindling in the eye, the spring returning to the instep. She had not thought that her mother, after twenty-five years of unprotesting submission, had still the nerve to place a limit on that submission, and the discovery had surprised and delighted her. True, Mary Harris let it be known that she was only on a visit, and in due course would return to her home; but Beulah knew the die had been cast, and things could never again be quite as they were. And Beulah told her secret, and her mother just kissed her and let a tear or two fall in her hair.
So this morning, as the girl stretched her young limbs, rounding with life and energy, and the burnt-orange glow of sunrise suffused the room and lit the pink tissues of her slender fingers, she rested in the deep peace which, ever since her revelation, had enveloped her about. For a minute she let her mind dwell on the picture she carried in her brain, until the association became too keen and threatened to overwhelm her from very tenderness; then she sprang from her bed, and, flipping the window-blind to the top, drank in the beauty of the valley through the open window. Her bedroom had windows both to the east and the west; and it was her custom to awaken early and feast on the glory as it surged up the valley, and then, turning, watch the long waves of light sink slowly down the white mountains. And this morning, when she thought the first beams must be gilding the highest peaks, she turned to the westward window and saw the light playing under a Chinook arch across a segment of sky so soft and near she could almost feel it with extended fingers. And then a sound caught her ear, and up the trail she saw two men on horseback, a mounted policeman and another, and behind them other men driving in a buggy.
By intuition Beulah knew that a mishap had occurred. The Arthurses' ranch was the first abode of real civilization on the way out from the mountains, and it was nothing unusual for a lumberman with a chopped foot, or a prospector caught in sliding rock, or a river-driver crushed between logs, or a hunter the victim of his own marksmanship, to come limping or riding down the trail to this haven of first aid. Quickly she drew on her simple clothing and hurried downstairs, but Arthurs was already at the door. The little party came into the yard, and the policeman rode up to the door. The other horseman sat with his back to the house; his hands were chained together in front of him.
"Good-morning, Sergeant Grey," said Arthurs. "You're early out."
The sergeant saluted. The salutation was intended for Arthurs, but at the moment the policeman's eye fell on Beulah, and even the discipline of the Force could not prevent a momentary turning of the head.
"I've a badly hurt man here," he said, "a man who will need your hospitality and care for some days. There was a shooting up the valley last night. His father is here, too, unhurt physically, but on the verge of collapse, if I am not mistaken."
"We will bring both of them in at once," said Arthurs. "Beulah, will you call Lilian, and your mother, too? They may be needed. But who is the third?" he continued, turning to Grey.
"A prisoner. It seems the older man overpowered him. Now let us get this poor fellow in."
The policeman beckoned and Harris drove the buggy up to the door. Arthurs glanced at him with a casual "Good-morning," but the next instant his eyes were riveted on the visitor. "John Harris!" he exclaimed, taking a great stride forward and extending his strong arm. "Man, John, I'm glad to see you, but not in these troubles."
Harris took his hand in a silent clasp, and there was a warmth in it that set his heart beating as it had not for years. "It's hard, Fred," he managed to say in a dry voice, "but it's good to have you by."
Arthurs bent over Allan, who was half sitting, half lying, in the buggy. His face was sapped and grey in the growing light. Tenderly the three men lifted him out. "Take him straight upstairs," said Arthurs. "It will save moving him again." Both spare-rooms in the house were occupied, but Arthurs led the way into Beulah's, and they laid the wounded boy on the white bed.
Arthurs heard Beulah in the hall. "Take off his clothes, Grey," he said, and turned to the doorway. "Where's your mother, Beulah?" he asked in a low voice, closing the bedroom door behind him.
"Dressing." The girl looked in his face, and drew back with a little cry. "What's the matter, Uncle Fred? What's wrong?"
"A friend of mine has been hurt, and an old friend of your mother's.She must not see him just now. You will arrange that?"
"Yes. But I must see him—I must help."
Beulah hurried to the room where her mother was rapidly dressing, "A man has been hurt, mother," she said, with suppressed excitement. "We need hot water. Will you start a fire in the range?"
Mary Harris mistook Beulah's emotion for natural sympathy over a suffering creature, and hurried to the kitchen. Mrs. Arthurs was whispering with her husband in the hall, but a moment later joined Mary at the range.
Then Beulah entered the room. The policeman was speaking to Arthurs. "I must go into town now with my prisoner," he was saying. "I will send out a doctor at once, and in the meantime I know you will do everything possible."
Beulah turned her eyes to the bed. A man was lying there, and an old man was sitting beside it. At the second glance she recognized him, but in an instant she had herself under control. She walked with a steady step to the bed and looked for a full minute in her brother's face. Then she looked at her father.
"What have you done to him?" she said.
He threw out his hand feebly. "You do well to ask me that," he said. "I take all the blame." He raised his face slowly until his eyes met hers. They were not the eyes she had known. They were the eyes of a man who had been crushed, who had been powdered between the wheels of Fate. The old masterful quality, the old indomitable will that stirred her anger and admiration were gone, and in their place were coals of sorrow and ashes of defeat. For a moment she held back; then, with arms outstretched, she fell upon her father's breast.
And then he felt his strength return. He drew her to him as all that remained in the world; crushed her to him; then, very gently, released her a little…He found his fingers threading her fine hair, as they had loved to do when she was a little child.
She sank to her knees beside him, and at last she looked up in his face. "Forgive me, my father," she whispered.
He kissed her forehead and struggled with his voice. "We all make mistakes, Beulah," he said. "I have made mine this twenty-five years, and there—there is the price!"
His words turned Beulah's thought to Allan, and the necessity for action brought her to her feet. "We must save him," she cried. "We must, and we will! Is the policeman gone? We must have the best doctors from Calgary." Looking about she found that Grey and Arthurs had left the room. They had slipped out to leave father and child alone with their emotion, but she found them at the front of the house.
She seized the policeman by the arm. "You must get us a doctor—the best doctor in the country," she pled. "We will spare nothing—"
"My guest, Miss Harris, Sergeant Grey," said Arthurs, and the policeman deftly converted her grasp into a handshake.
"Mr. Arthurs has told me the injured man is your brother. He shall want for nothing. And the sooner I go the sooner you will have help."
"Your prisoner seems docile enough," Arthurs remarked, as the policeman swung on to his horse.
"Rather a puzzler," said Grey. "Doesn't look the part, but was caught in the act, or next thing to it, and his revolver was found lying on the spot where the young man was shot. By the way, I had almost forgotten. One of the robbers was shot and killed. I had to leave his body, but I wish you would send a man up to stay about the place until I can get a coroner out here."
"Robbers, did you say?" demanded Beulah. "Then it was for robbery?"
"Yes, Miss Harris. It seems your father had a large sum of money on him. We have found no trace of it yet, but it is not likely that more than two were implicated, and as one was shot on the spot this other must know where the money is. We will bring it out of him in due time."
So saying he rode down to the gate, thanked the cowboy who had been keeping an eye on the prisoner, and the two started off at a smart trot down the trail.
Beulah returned to the house to minister to her brother, but Mrs.Arthurs stopped her on the stairs.
"Your mother knows," she said. "They are both in the room withAllan."
Her first impulse was to rush in and complete the family circle, but some fine sense restrained her. For distraction she plunged into the task of preparing breakfast.
At length they came down. Beulah saw them on the stairs, and knew that the gulf was bridged.
"Allan is better," her mother said, when she saw the girl. "He has asked for you." And the next minute Beulah was on her knees by the white bed, caressing the locks that would fall over the pale forehead.
"How did I get here, Beulah?" he whispered. "How did we all get here?What has happened?"
"You have been hurt, Allan," she said. "You have been badly hurt, but you are going to get well again. When you are stronger we will talk about it, but at present you must be still and rest."
"Lie still and rest," he repeated. "How good it is to lie still and rest!"
Later in the day the pain in his wound began to give much discomfort, but he was able to swallow some porridge with pure cream, and his breath came easily. His father stayed about the house, coming every little while to look in upon son and daughter, and as Allan's great constitution gave evidence of winning the fight a deep happiness came upon John Harris. He was able to sleep for a short time, and in the afternoon suggested a walk with his wife. Beulah saw that they were arm in arm as they disappeared in the trees by the river.
"I haven't told you all yet," Harris said to her. "I have done even worse than you suppose, but in some way it doesn't seem so bad to-day. Last night I was in Gethsemane."
It was strange to hear a word suggestive of religion from his lips. Harris had not renounced religion; he had merely been too busy for it. But this word showed that his mind had been travelling back over old tracks.
"And to-day we are in Olivet," she answered, tenderly. "What matters if—if everything's all right?"
"If only Allan—," he faltered.
"Allan will get well," she said. "When he could withstand the first shock he will get well. Of course he must have attention, but he is in the right place for that."
"The Arthurses are wonderful people," he ventured, after a pause."Mary, they have found something that we missed."
"But we have found it now John. We are going to take time to live.That is where we made our mistake."
There was another pause, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the rushing of the river.
"Beulah was right," he said, at last. "Beulah is a wonderful girl, and a beautiful."
"She will not be wanting to go back home with us," said the mother.
"So much the better. Mary, Mary, we have no home to go back to!"
She looked at him with a sudden puzzled, half-frightened expression."No home, John? No home? You don't mean that?"
He nodded and turned his face away. "I said I hadn't told you all," he managed at length…"I sold the farm."
She was sitting on a fallen log, very trim, and grey, and small, but she seemed suddenly to become smaller and greyer still.
"Sold the old farm," she repeated, mechanically.
"Yes, I sold the old farm," he said again, as if finding some delight in goading himself with the repetition. "I thought I saw a chance to make a lot of money if only I had some ready cash to turn in my hand, and I sold it. I thought I would be rich and then I would be happy. But they took the money last night. They found out about it some way, and took it, and nearly killed our boy. Mary, you worked hard all your life, and to-day you have nothing. I brought you to this."
She looked with unseeing eyes through the trees at the fast-running water. Her thoughts were with the old home, with the ideals they had cherished when they founded it, with the hardships and the sorrow, and the sickness and the pain, and the joy that had hallowed it as no other spot in all the universe—the place where their first love had nursed them in its tenderness, where they had sat hand in hand in the gathering dusk, drinking the ripple of the water and the whirr of the wild duck's wing; where she had gone down into the valley of the shadow and their little children had come into their arms. And it was gone. He had sold it. Without so much as by-your-leave from the partner of his labours and his life he had sold it and left them destitute.
She saw it all, and for the moment her heart shrank within her. But she saw, too, the futility of it all. She might have upbraided him; she might have returned in part the sorrows he had forced upon her, for he was wounded now and could not strike back. But she rose and stretched her arms toward him.
"You said I had nothing, John. You are wrong. I have you. I have everything!"
…"And it was to you, beloved, to you, a woman of such great soul, that I could do this thing…I should be utterly wretched…But I'm not." He spoke slowly and deliberately, as one having ample time, and with the diction of earlier years. "I should be scouring the valleys with a troop of men, hunting for our money. But I'm not. It seems such a puny thing, it's hardly worth the while—except for the happiness it might bring to you, and Beulah."…
They sat long in the sunshine of the warm autumn afternoon, living again through sweet, long-forgotten days, and already planning for their future. Harris would again exercise homestead right, and with Allan to take up land alongside they should have comfort and happiness. They would go back to the beginning; they would start over again; and this time they would not stray from the path.
When they returned to the house it was almost evening, and they found the doctor from town busy over Allan. "Would have killed nine men out of ten," he told Harris, quite frankly; "but this boy is the tenth. He's badly hurt, but he'll pull through, if we can arrest any infection. His constitution and his clean blood will save him."
Before the doctor left Arthurs inquired if the police had any further details of the crime. Harris appeared to have lost interest in everything except the members of his family.
"Quite a mystery," said the doctor. "I understand one of the robbers was shot, and I will go on up from here to make an examination, as coroner. To-morrow the police will bring out a jury, and a formal verdict will be returned. A systematic search will also be undertaken to recover the money, as I understand that you"—turning to Harris—"suffered a heavy financial loss in addition to the injury to your son. Of course, it is impossible to say how many took part in the affair, but it is not likely the outlaws numbered more than two, in which case they are both accounted for. The one captured had no money to speak of in his possession, but he may have cached it somewhere, and when he sees the rope before him it will be likely to make him talk. They seem to have a pretty straight case against him. Not only was he captured practically in the act, but they have another important clue. He owns up to his name frankly enough, and it seems the revolver found on the scene of the crime had his initials, 'J. T.'—Jim Travers, cut in the grip. In fact, he admits the revolver is—. What's wrong, Miss Harris? Are you ill?"
Beulah's breath had stopped at the mention of Travers' name, and she staggered to a chair. Harris, too, was overcome.
"We knew him down East," Beulah explained, when she had somewhat recovered her composure. "I could not have thought it possible!"
"I didn't think he would have carried it that far," said Harris, at length, speaking very slowly and sadly. "Jim, Jim, you've made a worse mistake than mine."
Mary learned of the disclosure in a few minutes, and followed Beulah upstairs.
"You poor child!" she said, as she overtook her daughter.
"It's not me," she shot back. "It's Jim. He must be saved, some way.It's impossible to think—I won't think it, no matter what they say!Let them find what they like!…But he's in a hole, and we've got toget him out."
The mother shook her head with some recollection of the blindness of love. And yet her own heart refused to accept any idea of guilt on the part of Travers.
"I want to be alone, mother," said Beulah. "I want to be alone, to think. I'm going down by the river."
As she strode rapidly through the paths in the cotton-woods the girl gradually became conscious of one dominating impulse in her maze of emotions. She must see Jim. She must see him at once. She must see him alone. There were things to be said that needed—that admitted—no witness. She knew that. Arthurs or one of the men would willingly ride to town for her, or with her, but this was a task for her alone. They must know nothing until it was over.
Outwardly calm, but inwardly burning with, impatience, she returned to the house and went through the form of eating supper. Then she dallied through the evening, giving her attention to Allan until all the household, except her mother, had gone to bed.
"I will watch with Allan to-night," her mother said. "You need rest more than I do. Lie down in my room and try to get some sleep."
Her mother kissed her, and Beulah went to her room. But not to sleep. When silence filled all the house she slipped gently down the stairs, through the front yard, and into the corral. Fortunately her horse had been stabled. She harnessed him with some difficulty in the darkness, and threw herself into the saddle. For a hundred yards she walked him; then she drew him off the hard road on to the grass and loosed him into a trot. Half a mile from the house she was swinging at a hard gallop down the dark valley. The soft night wind pressed its caresses on her flushed cheek, but her heart beat fast with excitement and impatience, and she galloped the foaming horse to the limit of his speed. More than once even the sure-footed ranger almost fell over the treacherous badger-holes, but she had learned to ride like the saddle itself, and she merely tightened the rein and urged him faster.
Two hours of such violence were a safety-valve to her emotions, and both horse and rider were content to enter the little town at a walk. Here and there a coal-oil lamp shed its cube of yellow light through an unblinded window, but the streets were deserted and in utter darkness. She had now reached the point at which her general plan to see Travers must be worked out into detail, and she allowed the horse his time as she turned the matter over in her mind. She had no doubt that if she found Sergeant Grey he would permit an interview, but she shrank from making the request. She might do so as a last resort; but if possible she meant to seek out her lover—for so she thought of him—for herself. She knew that the jails in the smaller towns were crude affairs, where the prisoner was locked up and usually left without a guard. The first thing was to find the jail.
At a crossing her horse almost collided with a boy returning home from some late errand. "Oh, Mr. Boy," she said. "Come here, please, I want you to help me."
The boy approached hesitatingly, as though suspicious that some kind of trick were being played on him.
"Can you tell me," she said, in a low voice, "where the jail is? I'll give you a dollar if you do."
"There ain't no jail here, miss," he replied frankly, evidently satisfied that the question was bona fide. "There's a coop, but you wouldn't give a dime to see it. It's just a kind of a shed."
"That's just what I want to find," she continued, "and I'll give you a dollar to show me where it is."
"Easy pickin'," said the boy. "Steer your horse along this way."
He led her through the main part of the town, to where a one-storey building, somewhat apart, stood aloof in the darkness.
"Some coop, ain't it?" said her guide, with boyish irony. "My dad says that's what we git fer votin' against the Gover'ment. The fire truck's in the front end, an' there's a cell with bars behind. Do you want to see that, too?"
"Yes, that's what I want to see, but I can find it myself now, thank you."
"Say, miss, you better be kerful. They've got a murd'rer in there now—Oh, say"—with a sudden change in his voice—"maybe he's somethin' to you? They ain't proved nothin' against him yet."
"Yes, he's a good deal to me," she said.
"Brother?" he demanded, with disconcerting persistence.
"No."
If her eyes could have pierced the darkness she would have seen a broad smile of understanding spreading over his young face. But it was a sympathetic smile withal. "Then I guess this dollar stands for 'beat it'?" he remarked.
"You win," she said, falling into his slang. "Also, forget it."
"I gotchuh, miss," he said, trotting off. Then he called back through the darkness, "An' I hope he gits off."
"God bless him for that," she said to herself, as she dismounted and made her way to the back of the building. She saw the outline of a door, which was undoubtedly locked, and further down the same wall was a little square window, with bars on it. There appeared to be only one cell, so there was no problem of locating the right one.
She stole up along the wall, but the window was too high for her. Searching about the littered yard she found a square tin, such as the ranchers use to carry coal-oil. Mounting this she was able to bring her face to the bars. The window was open for ventilation, and she strained her ear, but at first could hear nothing for the tumultous beating of her own heart. But at length she seemed to catch the sound of regular breathing from within.
"Jim," she said, in a low voice, listening intently. But there was no response.
"Jim," she repeated, a little louder. She fancied she heard a stir, and the sound of breathing seemed to cease.
"Jim Travers!"
"Yes!" came a quick reply. "Yes! Who is it?"
"Come to the window, Jim."
In a moment she saw the outline of his face through the darkness.
"Beulah Harris," he demanded, in his quiet voice, "what are you doing here?"
A great happiness surged about her at the sound of his voice and the warmth of his breath against her face. "I might ask the same, Jim, but such questions are embarrassing. Anyway, I am on the right side of the wall."
She saw his teeth gleam in the darkness. What a wonderful soul he was!
"But you shouldn't have come like this," he protested, and his voice was serious enough. "You are compromising yourself."
"Not I," she answered. "These bars are more inflexible than the stiffest chaperone. And I just had to see you, Jim, at once. We've got to get you out of here."
"How's Allan?"
"Getting better."
"And your father? Pretty angry at me, I guess."
"No, Father isn't angry any more. He's just sorry."
"Times are changing, Beulah. But if he wound that sack around my neck in sorrow, I don't want him at it when he's cross."
She laughed a little, mirthful ripple. Then, with sudden seriousness, "But, Jim, we shouldn't be jesting. We've got to get you out of here."
"I'm not worrying, Beulah," he answered. "They seem to have the drop on me, but I know a few things they don't. Shall I tell you what I know?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because it would seem like arguing—like trying to prove you are innocent. And you don't need to prove anything to me. You understand? You don't need to prove anything to me."
She felt his eyes hot on her face through the darkness. "You don't need to prove anything to me," she repeated.
For a moment he held himself in restraint. The words were simple enough, but he knew what they meant. And this country girl, whom he had learned to like on her father's farm, had grown larger and larger in his scheme of things with the passing weeks. At first he had tried to dissuade himself, to think of it only as a passing fancy, and to remember that he was engaged in the serious business of earning enough money to build a shack on a homestead, and buy a team and a plough, and a cow and some bits of furniture. It would be a plain, simple life, but Beulah was accustomed—What had Beulah to do with it? He scolded himself for permitting her intrusion, and turned his mind to the mellow fields where he would follow the plough until the sun dipped into the Rockies, And then he would turn the horses loose for food and rest, and in the shack the jack-pine knots would be frying in the kitchen stove, and the little table would be set, and Beulah—