A dispirited creature made its way down to the Setons’ house that same evening. Big Brother Bill felt there was not one single clear thought in his troubled head, at least, not one worth thinking. He was weighted down by a hazy conception of the position of things, in a manner that came near to destroying the very root of his optimism.
One or two things settled upon his mind much in the manner of mental vampires. He knew that Charlie was threatened, and he knew that Charlie knew it, and made no attempt to protect himself. He knew that Charlie was also scared—frightened out of all control of himself in a manner that was absurdly contradictory. He knew that he was now at the saloon for the purpose of drowning his hopeless feelings in the maddening spirit O’Brien dispensed. He knew that his own baggage had at last arrived from Heaven only knew where, and he wished it hadn’t, for it left him feeling even more burdened than ever with the responsibilities of the pestilential valley. He knew that he was beginning to hate the police, and Fyles, almost as much as Charlie did. He knew that if prevailing conditions weren’t careful he wouldlose his temper with them, and make things hot for somebody or something. But, more than all else, he knew that Helen Seton was more than worth all the worry and anxiety he was enduring.
In consequence of all this he arrayed himself in a light tweed suit, a clean, boiled shirt and collar, a tie, that might well have startled the natives of his home city, and a panama hat which he felt was necessary to improve the tropical appearance of his burnt and perspiring features, and hastened to Helen’s presence for comfort and support.
The girl had been waiting for him. She looked the picture of diaphanous coolness in the shade of the house, lounging in an old wicker chair, with its fellow, empty, drawn up beside her. There were no feminine eyes to witness her little schemes, and Bill?—why, Bill was delighted beyond words that she was there, also the empty chair, also, that, as he believed, while she was wholly unconscious of the fact, the girl’s attitude and costume were the most innocently pleasing things he had ever beheld with his two big, blue, appreciative eyes.
He promptly told her so.
“Say, Hel,” he cried, “you don’t mind me calling you ‘Hel,’ do you?—you see, everything delightful seems to be associated with ‘Hell’ nowadays. If you could see yourself and the dandy picture you make you’d kind of understand how I feel just about now.”
The girl smiled her delight.
“Maybe I do understand,” she said. “You see, I don’t always sit around in this sort of fancy frock. Then, no girl of sense musses herself into an awkward pose when six foot odd of manhood’s getting around her way. No, no Big Brother Bill. That chair didn’t get there by itself. Two carefully manicured hands put it there, after their owner had satisfied herself that her mirror hadn’t made a mistake, and that she was looking quite her most attractive. You see, you’d promised to come to see me this evening, and—well, I’m woman enough to be very pleased. That’s all.”
Bill’s sun-scorched face deepened its ruddy hue with youthful delight.
“Say, you did all this for—for me?”
Helen laughed.
“Why, yes, and told you the various details to be appreciated, because I was scared to death you wouldn’t get them right.”
Bill sat himself down, and set the chair creaking as he turned it about facing her. He held out his hands.
“I haven’t seen the manicuring racket right, yet,” he laughed.
Helen stretched out her two hands toward him for inspection. He promptly seized them in his, and pretended to examine them.
“The prettiest, softest, jolliest——”
But the girl snatched them away.
“That’s not inspection. That’s——”
“Sure it’s not,” retorted Bill easily. “It’s true.”
“And absurd.”
“What—the truth?”
Bill’s blue eyes were widely inquiring.
“Sometimes.”
The smile died out of the man’s eyes, and his big face became doleful.
“Yes, I s’pose it is.”
Helen set up.
“What’s gone wrong—now? What truth is—absurd?” she demanded.
The man shrugged.
“Oh, everything. Say, have you ever heard of a disease of the—the brain called ‘partly hatched’?”
The girl’s eyes twinkled.
“I don’t kind of remember it.”
“No, I don’t s’pose you do. I don’t think anybody ever has it but me. I’ve got it bad. This valley’s given it me, and—and if it isn’t careful it’s going to get fatal.”
Helen looked around at him in pretended sympathy.
“What’s the symptoms? Nothing outward? I mean that tie—that’s not a symptom, is it?”
Bill shook his head. He was smiling, but beneath his smile there was a certain seriousness.
“No. There’s no outward signs—yet. I got it through thinking too—too young. You see, I’ve done so much thinking in the last week. If it had been spread over, say six months, the hatching might have got fixed right. But it’sbeen too quick, and things have got addled. You see, if a hen turned on too much pressure of heat her eggs would get fried—or addled. That’s how my brain is. It’s addled.”
Helen nodded with a great show of seriousness which the twitching corners of her pretty mouth belied.
“I always thought you’d got a trouble back of your—head. But you’d best tell me. You see, I don’t get enough pressure of thinking to hatch anything. Maybe between us we can fix your mental eggs right.”
Bill’s big eyes lit with relief and hope.
“That’s bright of you. You surely are the cutest girl ever. You must have got a heap of brain to spare.”
Helen could no longer restrain her laughter.
“It’s mostly all—spare. Now, then, tell me all your troubles.”
The great creature at her side looked doubtful and puzzled.
“I don’t know just where to begin. There’s such a heap, and I’ve worried thinking about it, till—till——”
Helen sat up and propped her chin in her hands with her elbows on her knees.
“When you don’t know where to begin just start with the first thought in your head, and—and—ramble.”
Bill brightened up.
“Sure that’s best?”
“Sure.”
The man sighed in relief.
“That’s made a heap of difference,” he cried. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, removed his panama and mopped his forehead. He gave a big gulp in the midst of the process, and spoke as though he were defying an enemy. “Will you marry me?” he demanded, and sat up glaring at her, with his hat and handkerchief poised in either hand.
The girl gave him a quick look. Then she flung herself back in her chair and laughed.
“We—we are talking of troubles,” she protested.
Bill replaced his hat, and restored his handkerchief to its pocket.
“Troubles? Troubles? Isn’t that trouble enough to start with? It’s—it’s the root of it all,” he declared. “I’m—I’mjust crazy about you. And every time I try to think about Charlie and the police, and—and the scallywags of the valley, I—I find you mixed up with it all, and get so tangled up that I don’t know where I am, or—or why. Say, have you ever been crazy about anybody? Some feller, for instance? It’s the worst worrying muddle ever happened. First you’re pleased—then you cuss them. Then you sort of sit dreaming all sorts of fool things that haven’t any sense at all. Then you want to make rhymes and things about eyes, and flowers, and moons, and feet, and laces and bits. You feel all over that everything else has got no sense to it, and is just so much waste of time thinking about it. You sort of feel that all men are fools but yourself, and other females aren’t women, but just images. You sort of get the notion the world’s on a pivot, and that pivot’s just yourself, and if you weren’t there there’d be a bust up, and most everything would get chasing glory, and you don’t care a darn, anyway, if they did. Say, when you get clean crazy about anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they’re worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can’t see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and—and everything. And you wouldn’t have things different, or stop making such a fool of yourself, no—not if hell froze over. Will—will you marry me?”
Helen’s humor suddenly burst the bonds of all restraint. She sat there laughing until she nearly choked.
Bill waited with a patience that seemed inexhaustible. Then, as the girl’s mirth began to lessen, he put his question again with dogged persistence.
“Will you marry me?”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Of all the——”
“Will you marry me?” the man persisted, his great face flushing.
Helen abruptly sobered. The masterful tone somehow sent a delighted thrill through her nerves.
She nodded.
“Of course I will. I—intended to from the first moment I saw your big, funny face with Stanley——”
“You mean that, Hel? You really—meant to marry me? You did?”
The man’s happy excitement was something not easily to be forgotten. He sprang from his chair, reached out his powerful hands, caught the girl about the waist, and picked her up in his arms as he might have picked up a child. His great bear-like hug was a monstrous thing to endure, but Helen was more than willing to endure it, as also his kisses, which he rained upon her happy, laughing face.
But the girl’s sense of the fitness of things soon came to her rescue. The ridiculousness, the undignified figure she must appear, held in her great lover’s arms, set her struggling to free herself, and, in a few moments, he set her once more upon her feet, and stood laughing down into her blushing face.
“Say,” he cried, with a great laugh, “I don’t care a cuss if my brains never hatch out. You’re going to be my wife. You, the girl I’m crazy to death about. Fyles and all the rest can go hang. Gee!”
Helen looked up at him. Then she smoothed out her ruffled frock, and patted her hair into its place.
“Well,” she cried, with a happy laugh, “I’ve heard some queer proposals from the boys of this valley when they were drunk, but for a sober, educated man, I think you’ve made the funniest proposal that any one ever listened to. Oh, Bill, Bill, you’ve done a foolish thing. I’m a shameless man-hunter. I came out west to find a husband, and I’ve found one. I wanted to marry you all along. I meant to marry you.”
Bill’s laugh rang out in a great guffaw.
“Bully!” he cried. “What’s the use of marrying a girl who doesn’t want to marry you?”
“But she ought to pretend—at first.”
“Not on your life. No pretense for me, Hel. Give me the girl who’s honest enough to love me, and let me know it.”
“Bill! How—dare you? How dare you say I loved you and told you so? I’ve—I’ve a good mind not to marry——Say, Bill, you are a—joke. Now, sit right down, and tell me all about those—those other things worrying you.”
In a moment a shadow crossed the man’s cheerful face. But he obediently resumed his seat, and somehow, when Helen sat down, their chairs were as close together as their manufacturer had made possible.
“It’s Charlie—Charlie, and the police,” said Bill, in a despondent tone. “And Kate, too. I don’t know. Say, Hel, what’s—what’s going to happen? Fyles is hot after Charlie. Charlie don’t care a curse. But there’s something scaring him that bad he’s nearly crazy. Then there’s Kate. He saw Kate talking to Fyles, and he got madder than—hell. And now he’s gone off to O’Brien’s, and it don’t even take any thinking to guess what for. I tell you he’s so queer I can’t do a thing with him. I’m not smart enough. I could just break him in my two hands if I took hold of him to keep him home and out of trouble, but what’s the use? He’s crazy about Kate, he’s crazy about drink, he’s crazy about everything, but keeping clear of the law. That’s what I came to tell you about—that, and to fix up about getting married.”
The man’s words left a momentary dilemma in the girl’s mind. For a moment she was at a loss how to answer him. It seemed impossible to accept seriously his tale of anxiety and worry, and yet——. The same tale from any other would have seemed different. But coming from Bill, and just when she was so full of an almost childish happiness at the thought that this great creature loved her, and wanted to marry her, it took her some moments to reduce herself to a condition of judicial calm, sufficient to obtain the full significance of his anxious complaint.
When at last she spoke her eyes were serious, so serious that Bill wondered at it. He had never seen them like that before.
“It’s dreadful,” she said in a low tone. “Dreadful.”
Bill jumped at the word.
“Dreadful? My God, it’s awful when you think he’s my brother, and—and Kate’s your sister. I can’t see ahead. I can’t see where things are—are drifting. That’s the devil of it. I wish to goodness they’d given me less beef and more brain,” he finished up helplessly.
Helen displayed no inclination to laugh. Somehow now that this simple man was here, now that the responsibilityof him had devolved upon her, a delightful feeling of gentle motherliness toward him rose up in her heart, and made her yearn to help him. It was becoming quite easy to take him seriously.
“P’r’aps it’s a good thing you’ve got all that—beef. P’r’aps it’s for the best, you’re so—so strong, and so ready to help. You can’t see ahead. Neither can I. Maybe no one can, but—Fyles. Suppose you and I were standing at the foot of a cliff—a big, high cliff, very dangerous, very dreadful, and some one we both loved was climbing its face, and we saw them reach a point where it looked impossible to go on, or turn back. What could we do? I’ll tell you. We could remain standing there looking on, praying to Providence that they might get through, and holding ourselves ready to bear a hand when opportunity offered, and, failing that, do our utmost tobreak their fall.”
Bill’s appreciation suddenly illuminated his ingenuous face.
“Say,” he cried admiringly. “You’ve hit it. Sure, we can’t climb up and help. It would mean disaster to both, with no one left to help. Say, I’m glad I’m big and strong. That’s it, we’ll stand—by. You’ll think, and I’ll do what you tell me. By Jing! That’s made everything different. We’ll stand by, and break their fall. I could never have thought of that—I couldn’t, sure.”
It was Helen’s turn to display enthusiasm. It was an enthusiasm inspired by her lover’s acceptance of her suggestion.
“But we’re not going to just watch and watch and do nothing. We must keep on Fyles’s trail. We must keep close behind Charlie, and when we see the fall coming on we must be ready to thrust out a hand. You never know, we may beat the whole game in spite of Charlie. We may be able to save him in spite of himself. No harm must come to Kate through him. I can’t see where it can come, except—that he is mad about her, and she is mad about—some one else.”
“Fyles?” Bill hazarded.
Helen looked around at him in amused admiration. She nodded.
“You’re getting too clever for me. You will be thinking for us both soon.”
Bill denied the accusation enthusiastically.
“Never,” he exclaimed. And after that he drifted into a lover’s rhapsody of his own inferiority and unworthiness.
Thus, for a while, the more serious cares were set aside for that brief lover’s paradise when two people find their focus filled to overflowing with that precious Self, which we are told always to deny. Fortunately human nature does not readily yield to such behests, and so life is not robbed of its mainspring, and the whole machinery of human nature is not reduced to a chaotic bundle of useless wheels.
For all Helen’s boasted scheming, for all Bill’s lack of brilliancy, these two were just a pair of simple creatures, loyal and honest, and deeply in love. So they dallied as all true lovers must dally with those first precious moments which a Divine Providence permits to flow in full tide but once in a lifetime.
Charlie Bryant was standing at the bar of O’Brien’s saloon. One hand rested on the edge of the counter as though to steady himself. His eyes were bloodshot, a strange pallor left his features ghastly, and the combination imparted a subtle appearance of terror which the shrewd saloonkeeper interpreted in his own fashion as he unfolded his information, and its deductions.
The bar was quite empty otherwise, and the opportunity had been too good for O’Brien to miss.
“Say, I was mighty glad to get them kegs the other night safely. But I’m takin’ no more chances. It’ll see me through for awhile,” he said, as he refilled Charlie’s glass at his own expense. “There’s a big play coming right now, and, if you’ll take advice, you’ll lie low—desprit low.”
“You mean Fyles—as usual,” said Charlie thickly. Then he added as an afterthought: “To hell with Fyles, and all his damned red-coats.”
O’Brien’s quick eyes surveyed his half-drunken customer with a shrewd, contemptuous speculation.
“That sounds like bluff. Hot air never yet beat the p’lice. It needs a darnation clear head, and big acts, to best Fyles. A half-soused bluff ain’t worth hell room.”
Charlie appeared to take no umbrage. His bloodshot eyes were still fixed upon O’Brien’s hard face as he raised his glass with a shaking hand and drained it.
“I don’t need to bluff with no one around worth bluffing,” he said, setting the empty glass down on the counter.
O’Brien’s response was to fold his arms aggressively, and lean forward upon the counter, peering into the delicate, pale face before him.
“See here,” he cried, “a fellow mostly bluffs when he’s scared, or he’s in a corner—like a rat. See? Now it’s to my interest to see Fyles beat clean out of Rocky Springs. It’s that set me gassin’. Get me? So just keep easy, and take what I got to hand out. I’m wise to the game. It’s my business to keep wise. Those two crooks of yours, Pete and Nick, were in this morning, and I heard ’em talkin’. Then I got ’em yarning to me. They’ve got every move Fyles is making dead right. They’re smartish guys, and I feel they’re too smart for you by a sight. If things go their way you’re safe. If there’s a chance of trouble for them you’re up against it.”
Charlie licked his dry lips as the saloonkeeper paused. Then he replaced the sodden end of his cigarette between them. But he remained silent.
“I’ve warned you of them boys before,” O’Brien went on. “But that’s by the way. Now, see here, Fyles has got your play. The boys know that, and in turn have got his play. Fyles knows that to-morrow night you’re running in a big cargo of liquor. The only thing he don’t know is where you cache it. Anyways, he’s got a big force of boys around, and Rocky Springs’ll have a complete chain of patrols around it, to-morrow night. Each man’s got a signal, and when that signal’s given it means he’s located the cargo. Then the others’ll crowd in, and your gang’s to be overwhelmed. Get it? You’ll all be taken—red-handed. I’m guessin’ you know all this all right, all right, and I’m only telling it so you can get the rest clear. How you and your boys get these things I’m not guessing. It’s smart. But here’s the bad stuff. It’s my way to watch folks and draw ’em when I want to get wise. I drew them boys. They’re reckonin’ things are getting hot for ’emselves. They’re scared. They’re reckonin’ the game’s played out, and ain’t worth hell room, with Fyles smelling around. Those boys’ll put you away to Fyles, if they see the pinch coming. And that’s where my interests come in. They’ll put you away sure as death.”
If O’Brien were looking for the effect of his solemn warning he was disappointed. Charlie’s expression remained unchanged. The ghastly white of his features suggested fear, but it was not added to by so much as a flicker of an eyelid.
“That all?” he asked, with a deliberate pause between the words to obtain clear diction.
O’Brien shrugged, but his eyes snapped angrily at this lack of appreciation.
“Ain’t it enough? Say,” his manner had become almost threatening, “I’m not doing things for hoss-play. The folks around can build any old church to ease their souls and make a show. Rocky Springs ain’t the end of all things for me. I’m out after the stuff. I’ll soothe my soul with dollars. That’s why I’m around telling you, because your game’s the thing that’s to give ’em to me. When your game’s played I hit the trail, but as long as you make good Rocky Springs is for me. If you can’t handle your proposition right then I quit you.”
Charlie suddenly shifted his position, and leaned his body against the counter. The saloonkeeper looked for that sign which was to re-establish his confidence. It was not forthcoming. For a moment the half-drunken man leaned his head upon one hand, and his face was turned from the other behind the bar.
O’Brien became impatient.
“Wal?” he demanded.
His persistence was rewarded at last. But it was rewarded with a shock which left him startled beyond retort.
Charlie suddenly brought a clenched fist down upon the counter with a force that set the glasses ringing.
“Fyles!” he cried fiercely, “Fyles! It’s always Fyles! God’s truth, am I never to hear, or see, the last of him? Say, you know. You think you know. But you don’t. Damn you, you don’t!”
Before the astonished saloonkeeper could recover himself and formulate the angry retort which rose to his lips, Charlie staggered out of the place.
It was growing dark. Away in the west a pale stream of light was fading smoothly out, absorbed by the velvet softness of the summer night. There was no moon, but the starlit vault shone dazzlingly upon the shadowed valley. Already among the trees the yellow oil lamps were shining within the half-hidden houses.
From within a dense clump of trees, high up the northern slope of the valley, a man’s slight figure made its way. His movements were slow, deliberate, even furtive. For some moments he stood peering out at a point below where a woman’s figure was rapidly making its way up the steep trail toward the old Meeting House.
The man’s eyes were straining in the darkness for the outline of the woman’s figure was indistinct, only just discernible in the starlight. She came on, and he could distinctly hear her voice humming an old, familiar air. She evidently had no thought of the possibility that her movements could be of any interest to anybody but herself.
She reached the Meeting House and paused. Then the watching man heard the rattle of a key in the lock. The humming had ceased. The next moment there was the sound of a turning handle, and a tight-fitting door being thrust open. The woman’s figure had disappeared within the building.
The man left the sheltering bush and moved out on to the trail. He passed one thin hand across his brow, as though to clear the thoughts behind of their last murkiness after a drunken slumber. He stretched himself wearily as though stiff from his unyielding bed of sun-baked earth. Then he moved down the trail toward the Meeting House, selecting the scorched grass at the side of it to muffle the sound of his footsteps.
His weariness seemed to have entirely passed now, and all his attention was fixed upon the rough exterior of the old building, which had passed through such strange vicissitudes to finally become the house of worship it now was. With its old, heavy-plastered walls, and its long, reed-thatched roof,so heavy and vastly thick, it was a curiosity; the survival of days when men and beasts met upon a common arena and played out the game of life and death, each as it suited him, with none but the victor in the game to say him nay.
The man felt something of the influence of the place now as he drew near. Nor could he help feeling that the game that went on about it now had changed little enough in its purpose. The rules may have received modification, but the spirit was still the same. Men were still struggling for victory over some one else, and beneath the veneer of a growing civilization, passions, just as untamed, raged and worked their will upon their ill-starred possessors.
Reaching the building, he moved cautiously around the walls till he came to a window. It was closed, and a curtain was drawn across it. He passed on till he came to another window. It was partially open, and, though the curtain was drawn across it, the opening had disarranged the curtain, and a beam of light shone through.
He pressed his face toward the opening so that his mouth was at its level. Then he spoke softly, in a voice that was little more than a whisper——
“Kate!” he called. “Kate! It is I—Charlie. I’ve—I’ve been waiting for you, and want to speak to you.”
For answer there was a sound of hurrying footsteps across the floor of the room. The next moment the curtain was pulled aside. Kate stood at the other side of the window in the dim lamplight. Her handsome eyes were startled and full of inquiry, and her rounded bosom rose and fell quickly. When she saw the pale face peering in at her a gentle smile crept into her eyes.
“You scared the life out of me,” she said calmly. Then, with a quick look into his bloodshot eyes, she went on: “Why did you wait for me—here?”
Charlie lowered his eyes. “I—guessed you’d be along some time this evening. I wanted to speak to you—alone.”
Kate studied him for a moment. His averted, almost shifty, eyes seemed to hold her attention. She was thinking rapidly.
Presently his eyes came back to her face; a deep passion was shining in them.
“Can I come around to the door?”
There was just the smallest hesitation before Kate replied.
“Yes, if you must see me here.”
Charlie waited for no more. The door was on the other side of the building, overlooking the village below. He hurried thither, and when he thrust it open the place was in darkness.
Kate’s voice greeted him promptly. “The draught has blown the lamp out. Have you a match?”
Charlie closed the door behind him, and produced and struck a match. The lamp flared up and Kate replaced the glass chimney. Then she moved over to the wall and placed the lamp in its bracket.
It was a curious interior. In their unevenness the white kalsomined walls displayed their primitive workmanship. The windows were small, framed, and set deep in the ponderous walls. They looked almost like the arrow slits in a mediæval fortress. The long, pitched roof was supported, and collared, by heavy, untrimmed logs, which, at some time, had formed the floor-supports of a sort of loft. This had been done away with since, for the purpose of giving air to the suppliants at a prayer meeting below.
At the far end of the room were two reading desks and a sort of communion table. While in one corner, behind one of the reading desks, was a cheap-looking harmonium. Here and there, upon the rough walls, were nailed cardboard streamers, conveying, amid a wealth of illumination, sundry appropriate texts of a non-committal religious flavor, and down the narrow body of the building were stretched rows of hard-seated, hard-backed benches for the accommodation of the congregation.
One swift glance sufficed for Charlie, and his eyes came back to the woman’s smiling face. Her good looks were undoubted, but to him they were of an almost celestial order. There was no creature in the whole wide world to compare with her.
His eyes devoured every detail of her expression, of her personality, with the hungry greed of a soul-starved man. It was almost an impossibility for him to seize upon and hold the thoughts that so swiftly poured through his brain. So the moments passed and Kate found her patience ebbing.
“Well?” she demanded, her smile slowly fading.
The man breathed a sigh, and swallowed as with a dry throat. The spell of her charm had been broken.
“I had to come,” he cried, with a nervous rush. “I had to find you. I had to speak to you—to tell you.”
The woman’s eyes, so steadily fixed upon his face, were wearing an almost hard look.
“Was it necessary to stimulate your nerve to come, and—speak to me? Charlie, Charlie,” Kate went on more gently, her fine eyes softening, “when is this all to cease? Why must you drink? It seems so hopeless. Oh, man, where is your backbone, your grit. You tell me you long to be free of your curse, yet you plunge headlong the moment you are disturbed.”
Her moment of passionate remonstrance passed and a subtle coolness superseded it, as the scarlet flushed into the man’s pale cheeks.
“Tell it me all,” she went on, “tell me what it is you had to see me about. Remember, to-morrow is Sunday, and this place must be put in order for meeting. As it is, I am late. I was kept.”
The flush of shame died out of the man’s face, and his eyes became questioning. But his manner was almost humble.
“I know,” he said. “I knew I had no right to disturb you—now. I knew you would resent it. But I had to see you—while I had the chance. To-morrow it might be too late.”
“Too late?”
The woman’s question came with a sharp, rising inflection.
“Oh, Kate, Kate, won’t you understand what has brought me? Can’t you understand all that I feel now that the shadow of the law is so threatening here in this valley? All the time I’m thinking of you; thinking of all you mean in my life; thinking of the love which would make it a happiness to lay down my life for you, the love which to me is the whole, whole world.”
He ceased speaking with a curious abruptness. It was as though there were much more to be said, but he feared to give it expression.
Kate seized upon his pause to remonstrate.
“Hush, Charlie,” she cried almost vehemently, “you mustn’t tell me all this. You mustn’t. I am not worthy of such a love from any man. Besides,” she went on, with asigh, “it is all so useless. I have no love to return you. You know that. You have known it so long. Our friendship has been precious to me. It will always be precious. I feel, somehow, that you belong to me, are part of me, but not in the way you would have it. Oh, Charlie, the one thought in my mind, the one desire in my heart, is for your welfare. I desire that more than I could ever desire the love of any man. You love me, and yet by every act of yours that jeopardizes that welfare you stab me to the heart as surely as you add another nail to the coffin of your moral and physical well-being. You come here to tell me of these things, straight from one of your mad debauches, the signs of which are even now in your eyes, and in your shaking, nervous hands. Oh, Charlie, why must it all be? What madness is it with which you are possessed?”
The man looked into her big eyes, so full of strength and courage. The yellow lamplight left them shining darkly. He sought in them something that always seemed to baffle. Something he knew was there, but which ever eluded him. And the while he cried out in bitterness at her challenge.
“What does it matter—these things?” he said hoarsely. “What does it matter what I am if—I can’t be anything to you?”
Then his bitterness was redoubled, and an almost savage light shone in his usually gentle eyes.
“Oh, God, I know I can never be anything to you but a sort of puling weakling, who must be nursed, and petted, and cared for. I know,” he went on, his words coming with a rush in the height of his protesting passion, “if your thoughts, your secret thoughts and feelings, were put into words, I know what they would say of me, must say of me. Do I need to tell you? No, I think not. Look at me. It is sufficient.”
He paused, his great dark eyes alight as Kate had never seen them before. Then he went on, and his tone had become subdued, and its rich note thrilled with the depths of passion stirring him.
“But for all that I am a man, Kate. For all my weakness I have strength to feel, to love, to fight. I have all that, besides, which goes to make a man, just as surely as has the man, Fyles, whom you love. I know, Kate. Denial would be useless, and in denying, you would be untrue to yourself.Fyles is the man for you, and no one knows it better than I. Fyles! The irony of it. The man who represents the law is the man who stands between me and all I desire on earth. I have seen it. I have watched. Nothing that concerns your life escapes me. How could it, when my whole thought is for you—you? But the agony of mind I suffer is no less. I cannot help it, Kate. The knowledge and sight of things drives me nearly crazy, and I suffer the tortures of hell. But even so, if your happiness lies at Fyles’s side, then—I would have it so. If I were sure—sure that this happiness were awaiting you. Is it, Kate? Think. Think of it in—every aspect. Is it? Happiness with this—Fyles?”
It was some moments before Kate made any reply. Her eyes were fixed upon the old Communion Table, so shadowy in the single lamplight. She was asking herself many questions; almost as many as he could have asked her. She had permitted herself to drift on the tide of her feelings. Whither? She knew she was beyond her depth. Her life was in the hands of a Providence which would inevitably work its will. All she knew was that she loved. She had known it from the first. She loved, and rejoiced that it was so. Again, there were moments when she feared as cordially. She knew the work that lay before this lover of hers. She knew in what direction it pointed. And in obedience to her thoughts her eyes came back to the drunkard’s eager face.
“You—you came to tell me—all this?” she said, in a low tone. “You came to assure yourself of my—happiness?” Then she shook her head. “Tell me the rest.”
It was Charlie’s turn to hesitate now. The demand had robbed him of the small enough confidence he possessed.
But Kate was waiting and he had no power to deny her anything.
“I came to tell you of—things, while I still have the chance. To-morrow? Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth?”
A keen, hard light suddenly flashed into the woman’s eyes.
“What of—to-morrow?” she demanded sharply, while she studied the man’s pale features, with their boyish good looks.
For answer Charlie reached out and caught one of her hands in both of his. She strove to release it, but he clung to it despairingly.
“No, no, Kate. Don’t take it away,” he cried passionately. “It is for the last—the very last time. Tell me, dear, is—is there no hope for me? None? Kate, I love you so. I do—dear. I will give up everything for you, dear, everything. I can do it. I will do it. I swear it, if—only you’ll love me. Tell me. Is there——?”
Kate shook her head, and the man dropped her hand with a gesture of utter hopelessness.
“My love is given, Charlie. Believe me, I have not given it. It—it is simply gone from me.”
Kate sighed. Then her mood changed again. That sharp alert look came into her eyes once more.
“Tell me—of to-morrow,” she urged him.
The second demand had a pronounced effect upon Charlie. The air of the suppliant fell from him, even the signs of his recent debauch seemed to give way before a startling alertness of mentality. In his curious way he seemed suddenly to have become the man of action, full of a keenness of perception and shrewdness which might well have carried an added conviction to Stanley Fyles, had he witnessed the display.
“Listen,” he said, with a thrill of excitement. “Maybe it’s not necessary to tell you. Maybe it’s stale news. Anyway, to-morrow is to be the day of Fyles’s coup.” He paused, watching for the effect of his words.
Just for an instant the woman’s eyes flashed, but whether in fear, or merely excited interest, it would have been impossible to say.
“Go on,” she said.
“To-morrow the village is to be surrounded by a chain of police patrols. Every entry will be closely watched for the incoming cargo of whisky. Fyles reckons to get me red-handed.”
“You?”
Kate’s eyes flashed again.
“Sure. That’s how he reckons.”
They looked into each other’s eyes steadily. Charlie’s were lit by a curious baffling irony.
It was finally Charlie who spoke.
“Fyles’s plans are not likely to disconcert—anybody. There is no fear of legitimate capture. It is treachery—that is to be feared.”
Kate started.
“Treachery?”
The man nodded. And the woman gave a sharp exclamation of disgust.
“Treachery! I hate it. I despise it. I—I could kill a traitor. You—fear treachery?”
“I have been warned of it. That’s all,” he said, in a hard biting voice. “It is because of this I’ve come to you to-night. Who can tell the outcome of to-morrow if there’s treachery? So I came to you to make my—last appeal.” In a moment his passion was blazing forth again. “Say the word, dear. Forget this man. Give me one little grain of hope. We can leave this place, and all the treachery in the world doesn’t matter. We can leave that, and everything else, behind us—forever.”
Kate shook her head. It almost seemed as though his pleading had passed her by.
“It can’t be,” she said, almost coldly. “It’s too late.”
“Too late?”
The woman nodded, but her thoughts seemed far away.
“Tell me,” she said, after a pause, while she avoided the man’s despairing eyes, “where does the treachery—lie?”
The man turned away. His slim shoulders lifted with seeming indifference.
“Pete Clancy and Nick Devereux—your two boys. But I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.”
Suddenly Kate moved toward him. The coldness had passed out of her manner. Her eyes had softened, and a smile, a tender smile, shone in their depths. She held out her two hands.
“Charlie, boy,” she said, “you needn’t fear for treachery for to-morrow. Leave Pete and Nick to me. I can deal with them. I promise you Fyles will gain nothing in the game he’s playing, through them. Now, you must go. Give up all thought of me. We cannot help things. We can never be anything to each other, more than we are now, so why endure the pain and misery of a hope than can never be fulfilled. As long as I live I shall pray for your welfare. So long as I can I shall strive for it. It is for you to be strong. You must set your heart upon living down this old past, and—forgettingme. I am not worth the love you give me. Indeed—indeed I am not.”
But her outstretched hands were ignored. Charlie made a slight, impatient movement, and turned toward the door. Finally he looked back, and, for a moment, his gaze encountered the appeal in Kate’s eyes. Then he passed on swiftly as though he could not endure the sight of all that which he knew to be slipping from beyond his reach.
One hand reached the door handle, then he hunched his shoulders obstinately.
“I give up nothing, Kate. Nothing,” he said doggedly. “I love you, and I shall go on loving you to—the end.”
It was late when Kate returned to her home. The house was in darkness, and the moon brought it out in silvery, frigid relief. Thrusting the front door open, she paused for a moment upon the threshold. She might have been listening; she might merely have been thinking. Finally she sat down and removed her shoes and gently tip-toed to her sister’s room.
Helen’s door was ajar, and she pushed it open and looked in. The moonlight was shining across her sister’s fair features, and the mass of loose fair hair which framed them. She was sound asleep in that wonderful dreamless land of rest, far from the turbulent little world in which her waking hours were spent.
Kate as softly withdrew. Now she made her way back to the familiar kitchen parlor, and, in the dark, took up her position at the open window. Her whole attention was centered upon the ranch house of Charlie Bryant across the valley, which stood out in the moonlight almost as clearly as in daylight. A light was shining in one of its windows.
She sat there waiting with infinite patience, and at last the light was extinguished. Then she rose, and, going to her bureau, picked up a pair of night glasses. She leveled these at the distant house and continued her watch.
Her vigil, however, did not last long. In a few minutes she distinctly beheld a figure move out on to the veranda. Its identity, at that distance, she was left to conjecture. But she saw it leave the veranda and make its way round to the barn. A few minutes later, again, it reappeared, this time mounted upon a horse.
She sighed. It was a sigh of impatience, it was also a sigh of resignation. Then she rose from her seat, and returned her night glasses to the bureau. Again she looked out of the window, but this time she remained standing. Nor were her eyes turned upon the distant ranch house. Her whole attitude was one of deep pensiveness.
At last, however, she stirred, and, quite suddenly, her movements became quick and decided. It almost seemed as though she had finally reached a definite resolve.
She passed out of the room, and then out of the house through the back way. The little barn was within a hundred yards of the house. She was still in the shadow of the house when she became aware of figures moving just outside the barn. In a moment she recognized them. They were her two hired men in the act of riding away on their horses.
She let them get well away. Then she drew the door close after her and crossed over to the barn.
The door was open and she went in. Passing the two empty stalls where the men’s horses were kept, she went on to another, where her own horse, hearing her approach, set its collar chains rattling and greeted her with a suppressed whinny.
It was the work of but a few minutes to saddle him and bring him out into the moonlight. Then she mounted him and rode off in the wake of those who had gone on before.
The peace of Sunday evening merged into the calm of night. Service was long since over in the old Meeting House. The traveling parson had come and gone. He had done his duty. He had read the service to the lounging, unkempt congregation, he had prayed over them, he had preached at them. He had done all these things because it was his duty to do so, but he had done them without the least hope of improving the morals of his unworthy flock, or of penetrating one single fraction through their crime-stained armor of self-satisfaction. Rocky Springs was one of the shadowedcorners upon his tour, into which, he felt, it was beyond his power to impart light.
There were those in the valley who viewed the Sabbath calm with a derisive smile. There were those who sat upon their little verandas and smoked, and talked in hushed voices, lest listening ears might catch the ominous purport of their words. There were others who went to their beds with a shrug of pretended indifference, feeling glad that for once, at least, their homes were a haven of safety for themselves.
Rocky Springs as a whole knew that something was afoot—some play in which some one was to be worsted, in which, maybe, a life or two would be lost. Anyway, the players were LawversusOutlaw, and those who were not actually concerned with the game felt glad that they still had another night under their own roofs.
It was truly extraordinary how unspoken news spread. It was extraordinary the scent of battle, the scent of a struggle against the law, that was possessed by this people. Everybody seemed to know that to-night something like history was to be made in the annals of the crime of the valley.
So the peace of the valley was almost remarkable. An undoubted air of studied indifference prevailed, but surely it was carefully studied.
Neither Fyles nor any of his police had been seen the whole day. None of them had attended divine service. It was almost as if they had entirely vanished from the precincts of the valley.
So the sun sank, and the ruddy clouds rose up from the west like the fiery splash of the molten contents of the cauldron into which the great ball of fire had plunged. They rose up, and then dispersed, vanishing into thin air, and making way for the soft sheen of a myriad stars, and leaving clear a perfect night for the great summer moon to illuminate.
Two by two a large number of horsemen rode out of the valley of Leaping Creek. Once away from the starting point, their movements, their figures became elusive and shadowy. They passed out from among the trees, on to the wide plains above, and each couple split up, taking theirindividual ways with a certainty which displayed their perfect prairie craft.
Far out into the night they rode, each with clear instructions filling his mind, each with the certainty that one or more of their number must be brought face to face with a crisis before morning, which would need all their nerve and wit to bring to a successful issue.
The moon rose up, a great golden globe, slowly changing to a cold silvery light as it mounted the starlit vault. Then came a change. Instead of leaving a starry track behind it, a bank of cloud followed hard upon its heels, threatening to overtake it and hide its splendor behind a pall of summer storm.
Stanley Fyles watched with satisfaction the signs of the night.
A solitary horseman sat leaning forward upon the horn of his saddle, his eyes searching, searching, with aching intensity, that dim, shadowed skyline now almost lost against its backing of cloud. He was half-hidden in the shadow of a small bluff of spruce, with the depths of the valley hard behind him.
Not only were his eyes searching with an almost unblinking watchfulness, but his ears, too, were busy with that intense, nerve-racking straining which leaves them ever ready to carry the phantom sounds of imagination to the impatient brain above.
It was a long, intense vigil, and a hundred times the waiting man saw movements and heard sounds which set him ready to give the final signal which was to complete the carefully laid plans of his chief. But, in each case, he was spared the false alarm to which tricks of imagination so nearly drove him.
Midnight came and passed. The sky grew more threatening. The man’s eyes were upon that distant, southern upland which marked the skyline. Something seemed to be moving in the hazy distance, but as yet there was no sound accompanying the movement.
Was there not? Hark, what was that?
The man sighed. It was the rustle of the trees about him, stirred by a gentle rising breeze. But was it? Hark! Thatsounded like a footfall. But a footfall was not wanted. It was the sound of wheels for which his ears were straining. Ah, that was surely the wind. And—yes—listen. A rumble. It might be the wheels at last, or was it thunder? He sat up. The strain was hard to bear. It was thunder. And his eyes, for a moment, left the horizon for the clouds above. He regretted the absence of the moon. It left his work doubly difficult. He wondered——
But his wonder ceased, and he fell like a stone out of the saddle. He struggled fiercely, but his arms were held to his sides immovable. He had a vague recollection of a swift whirring sound, but that was all. Then he found himself struggling furiously on the ground with his horse vanished.
Inspector Fyles was thinking of many things. His post was at a point overlooking the Fort Alberton trail, which wound its way in the wide trough of two great, still waves of prairieland directly in front of him. Nothing could pass that way and remain unobserved, excepting under cover of the storm which seemed to be gathering.
He patted Peter’s arched neck, and the well-mannered, amiable creature responded by champing its bit impatiently. Fyles smiled. He knew that Peter loved to be traveling far and fast.
He turned his eyes skywards. Perhaps it was not a storm. There were breaks here and there, and occasionally a star peeped out and twinkled mockingly at him. Still, he must hope for the best. A storm would favor his quarry, besides being——. Hark!
A shot rang out in the distance, away to the east. One—two! Wait. A third! There it was. To the east. They were coming on over the southern trail, and that was in McBain’s section!
He lifted his reins, and Peter promptly laid his swift heels to the ground. Three shots. Fyles hoped the fourth would not be fired until he was within striking distance of the spot.
Four horsemen were converging upon the bluff whence the shots had proceeded. Each of the four had heard the three shots fired, each was executing the tactical arrangement agreed upon, and each was waiting as he rode, laboring undera high nervous tension, for the fourth shot, which was to confirm the alarm and notify the definite discovery of the contraband.
It was withheld.
Fyles was the first to reach the bluff, but, almost at the same moment, McBain’s great horse drew up with a jolt. The inspector saw the approach of his subordinate while his eyes were still searching the skirts of the bluff for the patrol who had given the signal.
“He should be on the southeast side,” said McBain, and rode off in that direction. Fyles followed hard upon his heels.
They had gone less than two hundred yards when the officer saw the shadowy form of the Scot throw itself back in the saddle, and pull his great horse back upon its haunches. Fyles swept up on the swift-footed Peter. He, too, reined up with a jolt and leaped out of the saddle.
McBain was on his knees beside the prostrate form of the sentry. The man was bound hand and foot, and a heavy gag was secured in his widely forced open mouth.
At that moment two troopers dashed up. And the sounds of others foregathering could be plainly heard.
As Fyles regarded the prostrate man he realized that once more he had been defeated. He did not require to wait for the gag to be removed. He understood.
He leaped into the saddle, as McBain cut the gag from the man’s mouth. A sharp inquiry broke the silence.
“Say, did you fire that—alarm?” Fyles cried almost fiercely.
The man had struggled to a sitting posture, and began to explain.
“No, sir. I was dragged——”
“Never mind what happened. You didn’t give the alarm?”
“No, sir.”
“Quick, McBain!” Fyles almost shouted. “They’ve done us. Cut him loose, and follow me. They’re on the Fort Allerton trail—or my name’s not Fyles.”
Peter led the race for the Fort Allerton trail. The dark night clouds were breaking when they reached the spot where the inspector had originally stationed himself. They passedon, and a glimmer of moonlight peeped out at them as they reached the trail side.
Fyles and McBain leaped from their saddles and examined the sandy surface of it. Two of the troopers joined them.
At length the officer spoke, and his voice had lost something of its sharp tone of authority.
“They’ve beaten us, McBain,” he cried. “God’s curse on them, they’ve played us at our own game, and—beaten us. A wagon and team’s passed here less than five minutes ago. Look at the dust track they’ve left.”
Fyles stood up. Then he started, and an angry glitter shone in his gray eyes. A horseman was silently looking on at the group of dismounted men, deliberately watching their movements. In the heat of the hunt no one had heard his approach. He sat there looking on in absolute silence.
Fyles moved clear of his men and strode up to the horseman. He halted within a yard of him, while the rest of the party looked on in amazement. McBain was the only one to make any move. He followed hard on his chief’s heels.
Fyles looked up into the horseman’s face. The sky had cleared and the moon was shining once more. A sudden fury leaped to the officer’s brain, and, for a moment, all discretion was very nearly flung to the winds. By a great effort, however, he checked his mad impulse.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Bryant?” he demanded sharply.
Charlie Bryant leaned forward upon the horn of his saddle. His dark eyes were smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile.
“Why, wondering what you fellows are doing here,” he said calmly.
Fyles stared, and again his fury nearly got the better of him.
“That’s no answer to my question,” he snapped.
“Isn’t it?” A subtle change was in Charlie Bryant’s manner. His smile remained, but it was full of a burning dislike, and even insolence. “Guess it’s all you’ll get from a free citizen. I’ve as much right here looking on at the escapades of the police, as they have to—indulge in ’em.Guess I’ve had a mighty long day and need to get home. Say, I’m tired. So long.”
He urged his horse forward and passed on down the trail. And as he went a trooper followed him, with orders to track him till daylight.
The news which greeted early morning ears in Rocky Springs was of a quality calculated to upset the entire affairs of the day, and bring a perfect surfeit of grist to O’Brien’s insatiable mill. It even jeopardized the all-important church affairs. No one was inclined to work at all, let alone voluntarily work.
Then, too, there were the difficulties of gathering together a quorum of the Church Construction Committee, and Mrs. John Day, full of righteous indignation and outraged pride, as president, felt and declared that it was a scandal that the degraded doings of a parcel of low-down whisky-runners should be allowed to interfere with the noble cause which the hearts of the valley were set upon. But, being a woman of considerable energy, she by no means yielded to circumstances.
However, her difficulties were considerable. The percolation of the news of the police failure had reduced the male population to the condition of a joyful desire to celebrate in contraband drink. The female population became obsessed with a love of their own doorsteps, whence they could greet each other and exchange loud-voiced opinions with their neighbors, while their household “chores” awaited their later convenience. The children, too, were robbed of their delight in more familiar mischief, and turned their inventive faculties toward something newer and more in keeping with prevailing conditions and sentiments. Thus, a new game was swiftly arranged, and some brighter soul among them christened it the D. I. F. game. The initials were popularly believed to represent “Done is Fyles,” but the enlightened among the boys understood that they stood for “Damn IdjutFyles,” an interpretation quite in keeping with the general opinion of the people of the valley.
Certainly the atmosphere of the village that morning must have been intolerable to Inspector Fyles, had he permitted himself to dwell upon the indications, the derisive glances, the quiet laugh of men as he chanced to pass. But public opinion and feeling were things he had long since schooled himself to ignore. He was concerned with his superiors, and his superiors only. At all times they were more than sufficient to trouble with, and his whole anxiety was turned in their direction now, in view of his terrible failure of the night before.
Thus he was forced to witness the signs about him, and content himself with the knowledge that he had been bluffed, while he cast about in his troubled mind for a means of appeasing his superior’s official wrath.
The church committee was to assemble at Mrs. John Day’s house at ten o’clock, and the hour passed without a shadow of a quorum being formed. Kate Seton, the honorary secretary, was the only member, besides the president, who put in an appearance at the appointed hour.
So Mrs. Day thrust on her bonnet, and, with every artificial flower in its crown shaking with indignation, set out to “round-up” the members.
O’Brien was impossible. His trade was too overwhelming to be left in the hands of a mere bartender, but there was less excuse for Billy Unguin and Allan Dy, who were merely drinkers in the place. She possessed herself of their persons and marched them off, and gathered up two or three women friends of hers on the way home. Thus, by eleven o’clock, she had the door of her parlor closed upon a more or less efficient quorum.
Then she sat her bulk down with a sigh of enforced content. Her florid face was beaded with perspiration as a result of her efforts.
She turned autocratically to her secretary.
“We’ll dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting,” she declared half-defiantly. “We’ll take ’em as read and passed. This liquor business is driving us all to perdition, as well as wasting our time, which is more important in Rocky Springs. I’ve never seen the like of thisplace.” She glared directly at the two men. “And the men—well, say, I s’pose they are men, these fellows who stand around decorating that villain O’Brien’s saloon. If it was a christening, they’d drink; if it was a wedding, they’d drink; if it was a funeral, they’d drink; if they were going to stand before their Maker right away, they’d call for rye first.”
After which few opening remarks, given with all the scornful dignity of one who knows she holds the leading position among her sex in the village, she proceeded with the work in hand with a capacity for detail that quite worried the absent minds of the only two male members of the committee present.
Such was the general yearning for a termination of the meeting, so that its members might once more return to the gossip outside, that Mrs. John Day was permitted to carry all her plans in her scheme of salvation before her, with little or no discussion. And, in consequence, her good nature quickly reasserted itself, and she became more and more inclined to look leniently upon the defects of the majority of her committee.
The president disposed of several lesser complaints against the construction of the church to her own satisfaction. The list of them was an accumulation of opinions sent in by people who felt that it was due to the community, and themselves, particularly, that the elected committee were sufficiently harrassed by pin pricks, lest it became too high-handed and autocratic.
Mrs. Day’s methods of dealing with these was characteristic of her social rule in the village. She rose with a look of contemptuous defiance upon her fiery features. It was Helen who had once declared that Mrs. John always reminded her of one of those very red-combed old hens who never failed to cluck themselves very nearly into an apoplectic fit over a helpless worm, and demanded that all eyes should watch her marvelous display of prowess in its slaughter. A slip of paper had been thrust into her hands by the undisturbed honorary secretary.
“I guess I’m not going to worry you folks with debating these fool complaints sent in by some of the glory-seekers in this village,” she began with enthusiastic heat. “I’ve settled them all myself. I’ll read you the complaints and what I’vedone in each case. First, there’s a kick from Mrs. Morgan, upon the hill. She’s no account anyway, and hasn’t given a bean toward the church—yet. Guess I’ll have to see to that later. She says she saw two of the boys working on log hauling, sitting around in the shade of the church wall, after doing their work, swilling whisky out of the neck of a bottle, and guessed it wasn’t decent. I’ve written her asking her to send two boys to do the work in their place. Guess she hasn’t replied. Katherine L. Sherman, who guesses she’s related to the real Shermans, and has had twins twice in three years, writes: ‘When are we goin’ to arrange for a christening font?’ I handed her this. ‘When folks needing it see their way clear to unrolling their bank wads.’ Then there’s Mrs. Andy Carlton, who’s felt high-toned ever since she bought that second-hand top buggy from Mary Porson. She guesses we need a bell. I told her that if the people of Rocky Springs tried ringing their way to glory, it would be liable to alarm folks there. Best way would be to try and sneak in, and not shout they were coming. Then I heard from Mary Porson, herself. She wants to know who’s to keep the boys who’re drunk out of service, and wouldn’t it be better to hold Meeting on Monday, so’s the boys could get over the Saturday night souse in comfort. I told her she seemed to have a wrong idea of the folks of this village. I guessed if any feller got around to Meeting with liquor under his belt, there was liable to be a lynching right away. The boys wouldn’t stand for any ungentlemanly conduct at Meeting. Then there’s Mrs. Annerly-Jones. Having a hyphen to her name, she’s all for white surplices and organized singing. She figures to start up a full choir, and sing the solos herself. I hinted that the choir racket wasn’t to be despised, but solo work was liable to cause ill-feeling in the village by making folks think the singer was getting the start of them in the chase for glory. And, anyway, the old harmonium wasn’t a match for her voice. Then there’s a suggestion for cuspidors for each bench, and I must say, right here, I’m in favor of them. I’m not one to interfere with the disgusting ways of men. Men are just men, and can’t help it, anyway, and if they contract filthy habits, it’s not for woman to put ’em right. But she’s got the right to refuse having her skirts turned into floor swabs. I’ve fixedall these things right, so we don’t need to vote on ’em. But there’s one little matter that needs discussing right here and now, seeing that the folks are present who’ve brought it up.”
The president paused and glared at the two men through her big, steel-rimmed glasses, and Billy Unguin and Allan Dy found themselves uncomfortably interested in various parts of well-varnished appointments of the lady’s parlor.
Kate Seton eyed the two men with some amusement. She felt that the recent discussion, which took place in the new church itself, was liable to assume a different complexion here. Besides, she knew these two men, and felt it was best to have the suggestion of felling the old pine, as a ridge pole for the church, definitely negatived by the present meeting.
Mrs. John Day was always a difficult woman, of very strong opinions. Therefore it was not policy to suggest her course of action. So Kate had merely warned her that the suggestion had been made.
“It’s been said,” Mrs. Day went on, with an aggressive look in her hot eyes, “that the design of the building is all wrong. That the main body is too long, and that the ridge pole of the roof will have to be joined in several places. This means a great weakness that’ll have to be supported by central columns, which will obstruct the central gangway and the general view. I’d like Mr. Unguin and Mr. Dy to discuss the matter before the meeting.”
Thus challenged, Allan Dy sprang to his feet.
“It’s just as you say, ma’m,” he cried. “And I say right here that ridge pole should be in one piece. It’s bad. In a few years’ time we’ll surely have to rebuild that roof.”
He sat down with a jolt, and glared fiercely at his friend beside him.
Billy Unguin was on his feet in a moment.
“I want to say right here that my friend’s been sorting mail so long he’s got nervous. Furthermore, I’d add he don’t need to worry a thing. It’s my opinion the new church is an elegant proposition which reflects credit upon Rocky Springs, and our charming president more than anybody. And, if there’s any liberties taken with the science of architecture, the matter can be got over dead easy. If joining the ridge pole means weakening the structure, then don’t join it. That don’t beat us a little bit. With such a head as our presidenthas for the management of big affairs I’m sure she’ll see a way out of the trouble, ’specially when I draw her attention to the old pine, which is tall enough to cut two ridge poles out of it for our church.”