It was after nine the next morning when Stamford's eyes opened on a world that seemed out of focus. He examined his watch incredulously; the dink of breakfast dishes and the rumble of lowered voices convinced him that it was wrong, and he dressed without hurry.
As he opened the door, the Professor, Isabel and Mrs. Aikens were rising from the table. The sitting-room clock told him that his watch was right after all.
"These prairie nights seem too much for all of us," said Isabel, in answer to his puzzled look.
"Except our host," corrected her brother. "He's been gone an hour."
"Itdoesaffect strangers that way," said Mary Aikens, without looking up from the table she was rearranging for Stamford's breakfast.
"It wasn't that with me," explained Stamford. "I didn't sleep well."
"The drive was too much for you," suggested Mrs. Aikens.
"Perhaps Mr. Stamford had too successful a day in town," laughed Isabel, watching him.
"Yes, it was successful," he replied, looking straight at her.
"Perhaps they're serving stronger stuff than they did a couple of weeks ago," hazarded the Professor. "By a chronometer that never deceives, you've been in bed for the circle of the clock. My limit is eight hours. Simple mathematical progression in comparative physical proportions would grant to Imp here the whole twenty-four hours, and a mosquito would overlap on the week after next and still be the creditor of time. But, lord knows, they never sleep. In the meantime some gently dead but brutally fossilised Trachodon is kept waiting beyond his preconceptions of Doomsday for the resurrective hand of the Smithsonian Institute."
Stamford yawned frankly.
"Really, Professor, I'm not quite up to that so early in the morning."
"Some day," said Isabel, "Amos will have had his say. And the world will be so still then."
"And so will science, and brilliant conversation——"
"Even our hostess is laughing at you," said Stamford.
"Me?" Mary Aikens was colouring. "I—I like this new life about the ranch. I wish I could keep you all—always."
Isabel leaned over and patted her hand, and a tear was behind the smile. Stamford, uncomfortable at the display of emotion, changed the subject.
"And so you've been exposing your sister to that ford while I was away?"
"My dear fellow," replied the Professor, "when did you come to the conclusion that Isabel was here for someone else's amusement than mine? Of course, Mrs. Aikens, if she can be of real service to you here——"
The door had opened.
"Don't worry about Mary," Cockney broke in harshly. "Since Stamford and theJournallet us down in the matter of help, we're getting accustomed to doing our work ourselves. At any rate we haven't fallen to depending on our guests. Mary, where's the large pair of wire-cutters?"
His wife loaded herself with dirty dishes and started for the kitchen. The Professor leaped to her assistance.
"I wouldn't disturb myself so much if I were you," said Cockney in an even tone, so full of meaning that the Professor turned aside through the stair door without a word.
"We'll have to go now." Isabel started to follow her brother. "The ford's perfectly safe, Mr. Stamford," she threw over her shoulder. "Anyway I can swim."
"What can't you do? But you'd drown trying to save that blundering brother of yours."
"But he's a perfectly nice brother, don't you think?"
"No," he snapped. "I don't. I wanted you to come for a ride."
"Thank you," she called back from the stair door. "My next engagement's with Dakota, I believe."
When the buckboard had disappeared round the lower end of the corrals on the way to the ford, Stamford, more than a little uncertain of the wisdom of it, made for the stables in search of some light on the previous night's scene. But no one was about, and he saddled Hobbles and rode for an hour.
As he turned back, a solitary mess-wagon came into sight far along the eastern trail. Stamford's thoughts flew back to the cattle shipping at Dunmore Junction, when the same mess-wagon, at Dakota's command, drifted away into the lonesome northern prairie, leaving a half-dozen of its companions rattling off down the trail for a night in Medicine Hat.
Stamford found himself wondering now, as he had then. He swung Hobbles off to the south, and when the wagon had turned down the slope to the ranch stables, he rode slowly back to the crest of the slope. The wagon had just pulled up before the bunk-house.
The driver was lifting several rifles from the wagon to carry them inside, the other cowboys, who had returned while he was riding, looking on. Stamford's eyes gleamed with a sudden revelation.
That lonesome mess-wagon of the H-Lazy Z on the day of the double tragedy had concealed the rifles the Police could not find. Its puzzling departure—Dakota's objection to feeding Mary Aikens at the ranch mess-wagon—it was all clear now.
Down the slope he could see Dakota, Bean and several strange members of the outfit watching him. Whereupon he promptly fell off, scrambled into the saddle again, and rode in clinging to the horn.
"You're shore conside'ble of a horseman," chaffed Dakota. "If I was you I'd patent that style and sell it to a circus. Barnum's got clowns not half so funny."
"We're always funniest when we don't suspect it," returned Stamford. "I hope nobody will tell you the truth about yourself, Dakota; it would spoil things for the spectators."
Dakota forced the frown from his face with a smile. For some reason he preferred to be friendly.
"You and me should mate up. We could put on a show for the ranch folks some night. But you seem to be having fun without it. We can hear you out here. Say, that Bulkeley gal shore can sing some, eh?"
Stamford resented words and tone.
"It happens that she never sings."
"Then it's the only thing she don't do. You don't mean to tell me it's the missus?"
"Mrs. Aikens has done all the singing you've heard."
"Holy Smoke!" Dakota turned to his companions. "Think of that. It's more'n a year since she's opened that piano. 'Member when she came first, boys? Wasn't them fine concerts she gave us? Then she stopped. Say, d'ye think, Mr. Stamford, they'd mind if I drop around some night and just sit quiet-like where I can hear and see? Us punchers don't get much chance with music, 'cept what we make ourselves."
"I'm not the one to ask, Dakota. But I don't imagine——"
"By Samson! I'll take the chance. I don't think I look so awful raw in them angoras, eh? They cost me a handful of bucks in the days when I was a gayer spark than I have time to be these days. It's about time I got something back for my money."
And so that night, after the singing commenced, Dakota sidled humbly to the open door and stood outside the screen waiting to be invited in. Mary Aikens called to him.
"It sounds purty fine out there," he apologised. "It's a heap sight nicer close."
He carried a chair to the corner of the room, clutching his Stetson nervously. When Stamford thought of him again he discovered him deep in conversation with Isabel Bulkeley, a wide grin on his face. Stamford liked it so little that he looked no more until Dakota rose to leave.
The next day, after his morning ride on Hobbles, Stamford had a lunch put up for him and set out for the river to test the fishing. A few goldeyes fell to his rod in the first half-hour, and after that he grew sleepy and leaned against a rock. Across the river the cliff towered raggedly above him, its strata a confusing repetition of lines that merged into monotonous chaos. Great clefts, gorges and inclines cut the face of it into a less inaccessible wall than it looked at a distance. He became interested. He dropped his pole and sauntered up the bank.
Reward came suddenly. Through a fissure in the cliff, that seemed to open into a wider cleft further back, he caught a glimpse of a familiar grey dress. He was thankful then for the idea that had struck him on his visit to town—that he might find use for his pocket field-glasses.
Isabel Bulkeley was seated on a ledge, her back against a straight wall, her hands folded idly in her lap. Evidently she was dreaming, though slight movements of her feet showed she was not asleep. The tools lay beside her, and, though Stamford watched for almost an hour, she did not use them. Of the Professor he saw nothing. He returned thoughtfully to his fishing, cast his line, and almost immediately hooked a big pickerel. Thereafter he forgot for a time the very existence of the Bulkeleys.
On his way to the ranch-house Imp darted from the cook-house and fell in at his heels.
"At any rate," he said to his hostess, "I've earned my feed to-day. Four gold-eyes, one real pickerel—and Imp."
"For the fish, thanks!" laughed Mary Aikens. "But for Imp I fear we can lay the credit to Dakota's absence more than to your attractions. We're alone again on the ranch, and even Imp, the traitor, finds the ranch house preferable to a deserted cook-house. No," she scolded down at Imp, "I'm not prepared to receive you into my heart on such short notice." She turned suddenly to her husband. "Where have Dakota and the others gone this time?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me. My ignorance of ranching is notorious. Ah—by the way, it's good we have friends with us. I'm going away myself for a few days. I want to see how the Circle-Arrow dogies are standing the gaff. They've been on the ranges for two months now. Next summer I'm thinking of improving the strain from the east.... You'll be all right with such brave companions as the Professor—and Stamford."
A forced smile was scarcely wrinkling his face. Mary Aikens made no reply, but whistled to Imp and went out to frolic on the little patch of dry grass she had once fondly hoped to be able to call a lawn.
Dinner over, Cockney rode away to the east. They stood in the doorway and watched Pink Eye race up the slope and sink out of sight over the ridge.
"A wonderful man on a wonderful horse!" Isabel Bulkeley voiced the thoughts of them all.
"And yet you've seen me on Hobbles!" chided Stamford.
"That's why." The Professor ducked beyond reach.
"Pink Eye is as vicious on occasion as he is powerful," said Mary. "Cockney doesn't ride him much, but when he does I know there's a hard trip ahead."
That evening a strange silence brooded over the valley; even the coyotes failed to greet the falling darkness. The Professor played a little, but his fingers were lifeless, and, after a few bars, he closed the piano and pulled his chair before the door to stare into the night. The women were busy with needlework; Stamford smoked and thought.
Cockney's repeated absences, always coinciding with those of Dakota and the others, puzzled him. His instincts refused still to link the big rancher with the subterranean work in which Stamford suspected the cowboys were engaged, but—— Stamford closed his lips tight; he was there to prove Cockney's innocence in the teeth of suspicion.
When he went to his room. Imp shivered in at his heels and curled up on the foot of the bed. Once during the night Stamford was awakened by the dog's muffled bark, and against the window he could see the ears pointing stiffly out into the night. Far away a big pack of coyotes yelped, and, half-asleep, Stamford followed their rapid passage along the crest of the cliff across the river. Yelps and barks and howls burst out in a score of places over the prairie. Stamford reached down to rub Imp's ears and sank to sleep.
It was three days before Cockney returned. They were at the dinner table when they saw him ride up to the stables, unsaddle, rub Pink Eye down with straw, and lead him away to the lower corral.
"Any of the boys back yet?" he asked, as he joined them.
When they told him only the cookie was about the place:
"Better keep quiet about where I've been. Dakota's sensitive on the dogie question. Every year we fight about it. He considers dogies the blight of the West—that they lack more in stamina and size than they make up in quality of beef. My idea is to improve the quality, not only the bulk."
Stamford was watching him narrowly. That he was weary and hungry was evident, and about his talk was an abstraction that belied the seriousness of his subject.
"You have a few more ideas about ranching than you care to show," he said.
Cockney served himself a third helping of pork and beans and said nothing.
"Large men always wear masks," observed Isabel.
"And small men are as transparent as water, I suppose," complained Stamford indignantly.
Cockney was playing with his knife. "Perhaps Stamford knows he couldn't deceive if he tried. My personal experience of small men is they're seldom up to what they wish to appear. For instance, Stamford is physically broken. Would anyone suspect it? He seems to enjoy the aimless life out here, yet in town he works twelve hours a day with gusto. There's nothing to do about the Red Deer but loaf, yet he's never indolent. I don't try to understand them."
He had resumed his eating, but Stamford was uncomfortably conscious of more than banter in his words. Isabel spoke quickly:
"Anyone can see that Mr. Stamford's job is to sleep—and doze—and sleep again."
"In order not to give offence——"
"You wouldn't willingly give offence," she broke in, with a laugh so indulgent that to accept her words seriously would have been impertinence.
"I wish you'd teach Mary how to say that," said Cockney.
"Perhaps," suggested the Professor merrily, "she knows you better than Isabel does Mr. Stamford."
"Too often guessing is mistaken for knowing," said Cockney, looking at his wife.
Dakota and Bean returned early the next morning, the others following in the afternoon. The Professor greeted them with unaffected pleasure as he returned from his day's work; and after dinner he made his way to the cook-house. Imp was already installed at the foreman's feet. Cockney lit a cigarette and wandered off toward the corrals, and Mary called for Matana and went for a wild ride, leaving Stamford and Isabel to keep the ranch-house. But Dakota drifted across from the cook-house, whereupon Stamford was quite certain that henceforth they were bitter enemies.
Indeed, Dakota developed such an annoying habit of spending the evenings at the ranch-house that Stamford's hatred of him assumed enormous proportions. The cowboy took to daily shaving, and even Stamford was forced to admit hitherto unsuspected traces of an elemental comeliness. When Isabel also seemed conscious of it, he cursed beneath his breath with a small man's jealousy.
Dakota responded to the poorly veiled dislike in the safety of the cook-house, whither Stamford repaired at every opportunity for the purposes of his quest.
"You don't seem to like me, Dakota," smiled Stamford. He knew the memories it recalled.
"I always did hate dwarfs," snorted Dakota.
"You see," said Stamford, with mock humility, "there was so much good left after you were created that it wouldn't have been fair to put it up in big bundles. I must have been turned out just after you were patched together."
Dakota was not soothed by the loud guffaw from his companions.
"Some day," he warned, "I'll get you where we can talk it over real friendly-like. Let me invite you over to Montana, where the shooting's good."
"Thanks! I'm safer here."
"You're dead right there, youngster," agreed Dakota vehemently.
August was hastening to its end. Stamford, in a panic, began to realise how little he had accomplished. He was oppressed with the depth of his inexperience, and at moments considered seriously the wisdom of handing over to the Police all the information he had collected and getting back to his paper. Though, the longer he remained, the more he was impressed with the mysterious undercurrent at the H-Lazy Z, he had arrived no nearer the solution of the murder of Corporal Faircloth. His tentative ventures to direct the conversation to informative channels, whether with the cowboys or with Cockney, were blocked by sullen silences or suspicious glances; and it spurred him on in his most discouraged moments, though it told him nothing of value. He knew he was in the right place, but he was growing less confident that he was the right man.
One day, having wandered far up the bank of the river with fishing tackle in hand but a keener intentness on the opposite cliffs where he knew Isabel Bulkeley was working with her brother, he saw, far to the south-west, a galloping Policeman. He mentioned it at the dinner table. Cockney bit off an oath in time and expended his fury on his meat. Professor Bulkeley did not seem to hear, expressing a regret that he had been denied an opportunity of meeting "these fearless and sparkling guardians of the law."
Cockney gave an audible sneer.
"You don't admire them, Mr. Aikens?"
"I hate them," Cockney exploded. "If I saw them driven into a corral and shot out of hand——"
"Jim, dear," Mary broke in gently.
His anger directed itself against her. "Yes, you've been swallowing the dope, like everyone else. You women! You can't resist the glamour of them. But, for Heaven's sake, keep it from me in my own house! I won't have it!"
He was almost shouting at the last, the very unreasonableness of his outburst increasing his anger. Mary sat cowering a little before it, and Professor Bulkeley rose abruptly and disappeared upstairs. Cockney's eyes followed him in a sudden silence, then he, too, got up and stumbled out.
Mary Aikens, returning in the early darkness that night from a mad gallop on the prairie, brought with her a bundle of papers handed her by a rider from the Double Bar-O. From copies of theJournalStamford learned that the cattle-thieving was becoming bolder. Evidently Smith was doing good work on the paper, and the advertising was holding its own.
He went across to the cook-house, the Professor strolling in later. The Dude was induced to bring out his guitar, and accompany himself to one of the sentimental ditties of the Montana saloons, the Professor proving himself possessed of a remarkable ear for songs new to Stamford and not in the tenor of Smithsonian Institute circles. There were several mouth-organs among the outfit, and Bean Slade's high tenor was a not unpleasing addition to the part-singing. The Professor was so exuberantly delighted with the entertainment that he went to the door and whistled across to the ranch-house for his sister.
She came immediately, laughing her way into the group with the subtle touch of companionship that always breathed from her. Stamford immediately retired into his shell, resenting her frank friendliness with these rough fellows, resenting their half-shy acceptance of it, resenting more intensely Dakota's assumption that he represented the things she liked about them. Isabel looked at him under her brows two or three times, with a sly smile about her lips that did not add to his good humour. And presently, when she and Dakota were talking and laughing together, while the others went on with the desultory entertainment, Stamford rose to leave.
"Oh, Mr. Stamford," she called. "Don't leave the tenderfeet unprotected. We're going in a minute. I was almost forgetting Mrs. Aikens."
She smiled on Dakota and the others, and Dakota bowed low, hand on heart. In his enthusiasm he shook hands with the Bulkeleys, omitting Stamford. Bean's shy but inevitable "Ta-ta" was quite as full of gratitude, and Imp barked a farewell that, by his snuggling wriggles against Dakota's legs, was meant to say: "I appreciate the friendship of the ranch-house, but it mustn't presume to interfere with myreallove."
"What fine fellows those chaps could be!" muttered the Professor, on the way to the ranch-house.
"They're that now," replied Stamford,—"except Dakota."
Stamford climbed into bed with a feeling of discomfort. He always knew beforehand when he would not sleep. Even as a youngster the aftermath of indigestible luxuries, nightmare, was heralded before he closed his eyes by a feeling of oppression. To-night he longed for Imp's watchful ears at the foot of his bed. Outside, the world was dominated by the hideous yelping of the coyotes. To Stamford they were a symbol of Red Deer mysteries: though hundreds of them by day lurked within the horizon, they were seldom visible; at night, when only their eyes could see, they filled the darkness with raucous clamour.
For a long time he struggled in vain to sleep, and at last put on his dressing-gown and seated himself before the window. The mosquitoes had retreated before the cool nights, though the sun still brought them to life in clouds by day. He removed the screen and leaned from the window. Beyond the shadow of the house the prairie was yellow now with a brilliant moonlight.
A distant sound of disjointed conversation drew his eyes to the bunk-house. A light still burned there.
Urged by sudden recklessness, he hastily donned part of his clothing and climbed outside.
He found the prairie in another of its moods. To-night the moon blazed a spirit that ridiculed the proportions of darkness and day. It seemed inconceivable that the slightest movement could pass unnoticed in such brilliance, but this that he looked on was a new world of silent majesty. There were the old landmarks, but they were altered in size and distance and relative location. So plainly did the cliff across the river stand out that it seemed within a stone's throw, yet any attempt to decipher the familiar strata, the recesses and projections, was defeated by a bewilderingly new mass of shadows and high-lights. The ranch buildings were crowding closer, and the lazy movements of the horses in the corrals came sharp as pistol shots.
Stamford stood for minutes, gripped in the clutch of the prairie by moonlight. His mind refused to turn from the scene; he was restless, unsatisfied, undecided. The light was still there in the bunk-house, and at intervals he could hear the sound of voices.
Bringing himself back to realities by sheer force of will, he moved round to the front of the house, clinging to the shadows. Where they ended he paused a moment to fix in his memory the concealing depressions that stretched further up the slope toward the stables, and then struck swiftly through the moonlight.
He was conscious of an ill-defined desire to conceal his movements from the ranch-house as well as from the bunk-house for which he was making, and he sank to the first cover with a sigh of relief. After a careful inspection in both directions through the long grass he began to crawl forward.
Nearer and nearer he approached the bunk-house, though on a higher level, without having once exposed himself—he was confident of that. The voices grew audible, certain excited words coming to him, then phrases. A wordy quarrel was in progress, from which Bean Slade's high-pitched voice projected itself frequently.
Stamford moved nearer, crept over several rolls to a hollow before the bunk-house, and lay down to listen.
"Yah!" he heard General sneer. "You'd 'a' let him go,youwould, and got a bellyful o' lead fer yore trouble, you would."
"There was other ways o' gettin' out of it," protested Bean shrilly, "besides doin' fer him. It was damn brutal murder, I call it."
"Just 'cosyoucain't sleep, Bean," jawed Alkali, "don't mean yo need to growl the rest of us awake everlastingly."
Dakota broke in imperatively:
"If you fellows don't shut your heads there's going to be trouble. Here you been on that ole song, Bean, for the last hour. What's the good? It can't be helped now. Somebody had to shoot—not to say it was meant to plug him for keeps. Now shut up both of you. We got enough excitement ahead for a month or so without worrying about a measly bullet or two."
Stamford hugged the ground, scarcely breathing. Once more Dakota had blocked him. Another minute and he would have heard something of moment, he was certain, though what it was he did not stop to consider until, in obedience to Dakota's orders, the quarrel ceased. He was not sure then that it was a case of any personal interest to him. Someone had once shot someone. All he knew was that Bean resented it, and that General was its strongest defender, whether as the shooter or not was uncertain.
He knew of only three deaths by shooting since he arrived: Corporal Faircloth, Kid Loveridge, and Billy Windover. Corporal Faircloth's death was not involved, since there could have been no danger of a bullet had he been spared. Kid Loveridge? It was almost as difficult to imagine that it concerned him, since he was one of the outfit and its most popular member. Of Billy Windover's death he knew too little, and was too little interested to follow the connection.
The light went out; silence reigned in the bunk-house. But Stamford lay there, forgetting where he was, riveting the conversation to his memory for future reference.
A sharp, muffled bark from the bunk-house roused him. He raised his head cautiously and peered through the grass. That was the precise warning the dog had given twice from the foot of his bed. What had disturbed it this time?
The door of the bunk-house opened and Dakota came stealthily but swiftly out, clad only in his shirt. In his hand was a rifle.
His first glance was toward the ranch-house, but all the time he was moving rapidly to the corner of the bunk-house, the rifle half-poised. Imp was there ahead of him, ears cocked, looking off down the valley toward the corrals. Stamford sank into the grass.
A burst of flame startled him, and then the crack of the rifle. It, too, was pointing down the slope toward the corrals. Stamford forgot caution and raised himself to look. But he could see nothing save the melting moonlight that never fulfilled its promise of exposing details.
Dakota returned to the bunk-house even more quickly than he had come. A few excited whispers followed, and then silence once more. Stamford began to work his way back to the ranch-house, suddenly aware of how shivery he was.
He had but started, his eyes searching the line of retreat, when he saw Cockney, fully dressed, appear from the shadows of the house, pass into the moonlight-bathed side where his bedroom window was, and climb through. Stamford hurried on. But before he reached the point where he must cross the open, Cockney reappeared and slunk into the shadows. An instant later Mary Aikens, in a dressing-gown, clambered through the bedroom window and crept timidly along the moonlit wall. At the corner she cautiously peered round after her husband.
Stamford could see Cockney outlined against the moonlit prairie beyond. He was standing with his face turned to the ranch buildings, as motionless as the other shadows. After a moment or two, with sudden decision he wheeled about and began to retrace his steps in long strides.
Mary Aikens turned and ran for the window, but she was too late, unless——
Stamford stood upright and spoke:
"Did you hear it, too, Cockney—the shot?"
Cockney stopped in his tracks, hand on hip. And his wife disappeared over the window-sill. Stamford stepped across the moonlight to the shadow of the house.
"Stamford"—Cockney's voice was full of menace, though it was quiet and low—"you'd better not butt in."
"I'm sure——" Stamford recognised the futility of talk. "I heard the shot and——"
"I've warned you," said Cockney, and entered the house by the front door.
Stamford stumbled thoughtfully on to his bedroom window. He was throwing one leg over the sill when Isabel Bulkeley spoke suddenly from over his head.
"I was wrong, Mr. Stamford."
He was as much startled by her presence there as by anything else that had happened that night, and he did not reply until he was safe in his room.
"You—you frightened me, Miss Bulkeley," he gasped, leaning out to see her.
Her low laugh made him himself again.
"Howcouldyou be wrong?"
"You certainly do more than sleep—and doze—and sleep again. Here you're strolling out when everyone else is asleep."
"It's very lonely," he hinted.
He felt that she was laughing in the silence that followed.
"There are more reasonable hours for a moonlight promenade than ten minutes to one in the morning—even insuchmoonlight."
"Any hour of the moonlight will suit me," he said,—"if I'm not alone. What wakened you?"
"When two men stand outside one's window quarrelling, a light sleeper is apt to waken."
"Didn't you hear the rifle-shot?"
"Sh-sh!" she whispered. "I think I hear Amos. If he wakens he'll not sleep for the rest of the night. And he must have his eight hours. Good-night, Mr. Stamford!"
The little man cursed the petty weaknesses of the big brother.
"Miss Bulkeley! Miss Bulkeley!"
But her window lowered, and he could hear her move away.
With throbbing heart, unaccountably happy, he threw off his clothes and crawled between the sheets. The clandestine good-night echoed sweetly in his ears. He could die like that—— But that was getting maudlin. He pulled up an extra covering and settled to sleep.
As in a dream he seemed to hear, far to the west, the thud of a horse's hoofs.
Sleep trifled with him—beckoned him on, only to elude him maddeningly. He spoke sternly to himself in language favoured by the cowboys. The fact was that he was frightened, and he knew it. A sense of impending events held his body tense and his ears strained. Reasoning with himself that it was only the result of the night's rapid sequence of mysterious incidents did not calm him.
For minutes he strained away to the west after those strange hoof beats, only to relax, disgusted at himself for yielding to the imaginings of his tingling nerves.
From the direction of the bunk-house he imagined he could hear at intervals Imp's muffled bark—and then the gripping silences of the most silent places in the world.
After a long time the coyotes gave tongue again in their long, shuddering yaps. Strange how reassuring they were that night—that hideous yelping that always before made him shiver! Stamford sank into a sense of momentary security. He slept.
He wakened to find himself seated upright in bed, trembling, straining with eyes and ears. Something terrible was happening outside. Yet there was not a sound. In a flash he knew. His sensitised ears were still echoing with the comforting yelps of the coyotes, but at the moment it was as silent as if not another force but himself existed in all the world. He knew that he had wakened at the moment when a great hand seemed to have gripped a thousand wild throats to silence. A hundred times before he had heard the same uncanny burst of silence. But now——
On his elbow he rested, scarcely breathing.
Outside—in the house—even down in the corrals where several restless bronchos always hitherto in these startling moments of peace had spoken audibly of life, was a breathlessness as strained as his own. The world was waiting—waiting.
Suddenly into the hush burst a solitary howl, a shattering roar that seemed to mass all the wild things of the prairie behind one tremendous throat.
Stamford's blood ran tingling to his scalp. Every muscle was tense against the inclination to shut the awful thing from his ears. And as the howl pulsed through the listening night, a second joined it. Taking a deep breath, Stamford bounded from the bed.
He knew that cry. It was the night-baying of huge dogs gone wild on the trail, of such dogs as he had never seen. Shivering before the window, he listened. They were running swiftly across the prairie above the house, drawing nearer and nearer, their clamour shutting everything else from Stamford's mind. What were they doing there? Where were they making for?
A commotion in the bunk-house brought his eyes in that direction. A pair of figures, trailing saddles, flashed out and ran to the corrals. And even in their haste their movements were furtive. As they galloped madly up the slope toward the oncoming dogs, Stamford heard Dakota Fraley curse under his breath. The hoofs of the horses struck the prairie at first with only the hiss of dead grass, and then the thud-thud of distant galloping.
The dogs were coming fast from the upper side of the house. Stamford braced his trembling legs, climbed through the window, and ran to the back of the house where he could see the slope upward to the prairie. Yard by yard he could follow their advance. Almost as vividly he pictured the rushing of Dakota and his companion to meet them. Half the world then for Hobbles beneath him!
Across the broken howls cut Dakota's bellow, and silence fell like a blow. A few seconds later came two sharp yelps of pain, and then nothing more.
Stamford still stood in the cold night air, one hand pressed against the wall of the house. It was that hand warned him of movement within the house. With a vivid memory of Cockney's warning only an hour before, he darted back for his window.
As he turned the corner a flicker of movement passed between him and the lighted prairie beyond; but it was too quick to place. Dragging his fingers along the wall as he ran, his hand struck something that gave before him. Without stopping, he glanced upward.
A rope ladder was hanging from Professor Bulkeley's window.
A crunch on the gravel walk before the house sent Stamford on, scarcely pausing to think. Throwing himself over the window-sill, he straightened up within his room and waited in panting excitement.
Fear crowded him in—threatened to stifle him. Someone was out there before the house—his ears told him that. But a more thrilling sense warned him that someone was in his room—that if he but reached out his hand he would touch a living body.
"Sh-sh!" The low hiss from beside him dissipated every element of personal fear. "It's Bulkeley!"
Stamford gasped. Most prominent in the medley of feelings gripping him was a desire to laugh hysterically. It was so like the big innocent fellow to present himself like that, as if they were meeting in a game of hide-and-seek—nothing more.
"I'm f-frightened," came the stammering whisper again, as the Professor's huge hand fell on Stamford's arm.
The steps before the house moved lightly round to the window.
"Are you awake, Mr. Stamford?"
Close to the house, just beyond range of the window, Mary Aikens was standing, terrified, pleading for companionship and comfort. The Professor's grip tightened so convulsively that Stamford almost cried out.
She must have heard the movement.
"What is it, Mr. Stamford, oh, what is it?"
Stamford wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her like a big brother.
"It's only dogs, Mrs. Aikens—somebody's dogs on a coyote or antelope trail."
He was trying to reassure her with his tone even more than with his words.
"But it was so terrible—so threatening!"
"It's the way of dogs at night. They're apt to revert to type at an hour like this." The Professor's grip relaxed. "To tell the truth, I'm far more thrilled than I sound. It reminds me of sheep-hunting dogs back East."
A low sob broke from her. At the same instant the Professor hissed a warning.
"But there are no dogs on the Red Deer," she sobbed, "none like that."
"The night magnifies them. But where's your husband?"
"He went out—long ago——"
A gruff voice from the corner of the house stopped her with a gasp.
"Mary, when you've finished your midnight conversation with a man through his bedroom window, we'll go to bed."
"Oh, Jim! I was frightened. I couldn't stay in there alone." A double terror was in her voice now.
Stamford ground his teeth in his impotence. Cockney's big bulk loomed before the window.
"Go to bed," he ordered. "I've something to say to this fellow—right now."
She moved quickly before the moonlit square of the window and threw her arms about the big man. Cockney made no resistance.
"Don't, Jim, please. Come to bed. Can't you see that I——"
The Professor's lips were close to Stamford's ear.
"For God's sake get him away; he'll murder us."
Stamford stepped to the window.
"Cockney," he said, "whatever you think of me is no reason for forgetting yourself. I'll be here in the morning."
The big rancher turned his head to look down on the small figure of his pleading wife, took her arm without a word, and started away. Stamford stood listening as they crossed the sitting-room and closed their bedroom door behind them.
"Now," he demanded, turning on the Professor, "perhaps you'll explain at leastoneof the night's mysteries. A little light might help."
He was fumbling about the dresser for the matches.
"No, no, please!" pleaded the Professor. "There might be others around. I'll go back to my room in the dark."
"First of all you'll explain why you're here."
In the darkness his five-feet-four was not dwarfed by the extra foot or so of the Professor, and the smaller man was in his own room and had himself under better control.
"I'm afraid you'll—you'll laugh at me, Mr. Stamford. I have my—ah—little fancies. We all have. I suppose I'm more sensitive to ridicule."
"There's a good deal more of you to be sensitive," Stamford sneered.
"Perhaps that's it. Would it be—ah—too much to beg of you not to insist? You don't suspect me of intentions on your purse, I suppose. As a matter of fact"—he giggled in a silly way—"I was on my way to the furthest corner under your bed when you came in."
"Considering the fact that I found you in my room in the dark when you are supposed to be in bed," persisted Stamford, "you'll agree that not insisting is little likely to dismiss the affair."
The Professor cleared his throat gently.
"I throw myself on your mercy, Mr. Stamford. I don't believe you'll betray me. When a lad of eight my home was burnt down. My little dog, Tony, and a pet kitten went with it. It was terrible to me. The fear of fire has clung to me ever since. At home I always sleep downstairs. When I travel I carry a rope ladder. If you look you will see it dangling now from my window."
"Yes," said Stamford drily, "I did notice it."
"I know it's disgustingly foolish, but—ah—I was practising on it. I've done it once or twice before since we came. And then those awful dogs—or were they wolves?—completely unnerved me. I must have lost my head. You see, I've always with me such valuable papers on my work, the destruction of which would be a loss to the whole nation——"
"It doesn't happen to bemynation," Stamford broke in coldly.
"Mr. Stamford, can I trust you?"
"That depends."
"I was going to crave that you'd take the responsibility of looking after my notes—in this room." He laughed apologetically, "In case of fire they could be saved here."
Stamford had a sudden idea.
"And your sister—does she share your fears and—and practise on the rope ladder?"
"Never, never! Fear is a matter of mind, and to Isabel is not that peculiar delicacy of mind that——"
A slight scraping sound against the side of the house stopped him. There was a dull thud on the ground, and Isabel Bulkeley came swiftly before the window.
"Mr. Stamford, I can't find my brother." She was almost as agitated as Mary Aikens had been a few minutes before. "He's not in his room——"
"Here I am, Isabel."
The Professor stepped quickly to the window and touched her on the arm. She laughed, with a tinge of hysteria none would have connected with her. Then the chaperone came uppermost.
"Amos Bulkeley, you come right to bed! Don't you know you never could stand the night air? You'll catch your death of cold. Is it any wonder, Mr. Stamford, that I lose patience with him sometimes? No, not a word, Amos! You march!"
And Amos marched as he was told, his long, awkward legs struggling through the window with ludicrous contortions. Stamford, watching with a smile in which was amusement and contempt, saw him carefully place his feet in the ladder rungs, test the ropes, and begin to climb ponderously upward.
He could not resist the opportunity. Isabel was holding the ladder for her brother to ascend.
"Miss Bulkeley, I'm so glad you came to me for help. This is the second time I've seen you to-night. It's been a lovely night. If ever I can——"
"Thank you," she whispered back. "I'll remember."
"Isabel, Isabel!" The Professor was leaning through his window. "Come right along now. I'll hold the ladder. Don't be a bit afraid, dear. Nothing can happen. Just close your eyes and climb."
Stamford snarled up at the cooing voice.
Long before the guests appeared at the breakfast table next morning Cockney was away on Pink Eye; so that there was nothing to fear from him. A singular and confusing reticence was on them. Several times the Professor cleared his throat as if he would speak of the things they were avoiding, but he thought better of it each time and continued his meal in silence.
Imp was there, slinking close to Mary's skirts wherever she went, cowering, every bit of his chirpy impudence gone. His mistress reached down and rubbed his ears.
"He leaped through my window this morning and ran under the bed. He would scarcely come out. If you'll tell me how I can keep you, little fellow, I'm willing to try. It's home in a storm, isn't it? Dakota doesn't wear, does he?"
Imp waggled a lifeless tail and relapsed into obscurity.
A heavy knock startled them, and Dakota walked in.
"Mr. Aikens here?"
"He went away early, Dakota—perhaps across to the Double Bar-O. I know he was intending to see Mr. Gerard soon on business."
Dakota's eyes were roving about the room. Imp tried to slink to the other side of the concealing skirts, and Dakota's face lit up. He reached over and prodded the terrier with a forefinger.
"Scared o' the wolves, little shaver, eh? I don't wonder. We don't hear 'em often up here."
"Were they wolves?" asked Stamford, eager to believe mere dogs had not so shattered his nerves.
"Come down from the north, I guess," explained Dakota.
"But how could they cross the river?" queried the Professor. "They must have a better ford than I use."
"Hm-m! Perhaps they drifted up from the Cypress Hills, or across from the west. Maybe they smelt the little shaver here. If they ever got after him they'd shore peel the bark offen him. I'll be warning the boys to keep a look-out on the calves. I wouldn't like to meet the beggars on the prairie without a horse, no, not even with an arsenal on me. They're dangerous devils."
"Isabel!" The Professor was looking anxiously at his sister. "I guess we'd better hasten our task. This isn't safe for you. Wolves! Gr-r-r! It sounds uncivilised."
Dakota shook his head gravely and left. Imp tagged humbly at his heels.
"Of course," the Professor grinned, "if there are only the two we heard last night, I might be able to satisfy them myself. A couple of hundred pounds ought to hold them for one meal. At any rate, I'd make a point of lying so heavy on their innards that you'd have a chance to escape, Isabel."
He looked out through the window to the ranch buildings. Dakota had picked up Imp and was hurrying along with the little terrier tucked under his arm.
"I think, Isabel, we'll try this side of the river to-day. That Monodonious skull can wait another day. It's managed to stick it long enough to forgive another twenty-four hours, don't you think? I'll get the horses."
He lumbered off along the path to the stables, calling as he passed the cook-house for a good Samaritan to lend him a hand in deciding which end of the harness went first on Gee-Gee. Bean Slade beat the Dude and General to it, while the Professor watched proceedings as if it were a new experience.
"Some day," he declared, "I'm going to invent a harness that can be grafted on a horse for a few generations until it's handed down as part of his natural equipment, like teeth and eyes. I've a warm spot for tenderfeet—even tenderfeet of ten centuries hence. If I lived that long I'd never forget my troubles with Gee-Gee.... Hello, Dakota! Teaching Imp to ride?"
Dakota was in the saddle, with Imp still under his arm.
"Naw! I'm taking him for his morning constitooshunal. He's changed his doctor, and this one prescribes lots of exercise. What Imp needs is muscle; he's got gall enough for a Great Dane."
The cowboys grinned, and Dakota chirruped to his horse and moved away.
"Why don't you train him to hunt wolves?" suggested the Professor.
Dakota threw him a quick glance over his shoulder.
"By Samson, Prof., you've a head! Alkali 'n' me'll perceed to take your advice—Alkali 'n' me 'n' the dread avenger o' the Red Deer, Imp. Wolfies, we're on your trail."
"If you'd wait a few minutes," said the Professor, all excitement, "I'd like to join you. To be able to tell my colleagues at the Institute that I, the old-bone man, had hunted wolves—that would be pride, indeed."
Dakota merely waved a refusal and trotted away.
But the Professor picked up his sister at the ranch-house and bumped away to the south-west over the prairie in the direction Dakota had taken, Isabel hanging to the low arm of the seat with both hands.
Far out they descried Dakota and Alkali riding in circles. Imp was running about with his nose to the ground. The Professor shouted and stood up in the buckboard to wave his arms. But long before he was close enough to speak, Imp yelped and struck off to the north-west as fast as his little legs would carry him, Dakota and Alkali spurring behind.
The Professor waved in vain for them to wait, then turned the horses' heads to the north-east and his day's work.
Meanwhile Stamford, left to his own resources for the day, collected his fishing tackle and made for the river. He was not a fisherman, but such fishing as the Red Deer afforded gave him excuse for getting away where he could tell himself without restraint what a fool he had been to undertake his hopeless task.
In the shadow of a low cliff he baited his hook and tossed it into the water. A gold-eye took it at once, and for a time he played with it absent-mindedly, finally drawing it out, removing it from the hook, and tossing it back. Several more he treated in the same way, and at last cast in his hook without troubling to bait it. The sun crept higher and beat unmercifully on the bare rock, and he rolled a stone on the end of the pole and stretched himself in the shade.
"Don't seem ter be enj'yin' the fishin'," gibed a high-pitched voice from the rocks above, "or else yer too blame cosy."
Stamford raised his head lazily and surveyed Bean Slade's unkempt figure perched on a ledge over his head.
"Any fish that takes that hook's a born fool," he sighed. "I don't want 'em any more than they want me. Come on down, Bean. It's far more fun to lie about and talk."
Bean climbed down and picked up the rod.
"Yu don't know no more about fishin', boss, then yu do about—about lots o' things yu'd like to know. Gi' me that bait. See that smooth spot out there? That's deep water. Watch yer Uncle Ned."
He whirled the rod back and forward, and the hook shot out to the centre of the deeper water. Almost immediately the line tugged, jerked, loosened, and went taut again. Stamford leaped to his feet and grabbed the pole.
"Hang to it, Bean! There, we'll get it! Whoop! Gee, ain't he a fighter?"
Bean yielded up the rod with twinkling eyes.
"Fer a tenderfoot who don't fish, yu can work up what looks mighty like a taste fer it."
He hung precariously over the water and scooped unsuccessfully at a shining back that showed for a moment.
"Let 'er run, dang yu! Let 'er run. Yu got to get 'er to shallow water."
After a struggle, in which Stamford objected to assistance, but was unable to complete the catch himself, Bean stepped into shallow water and clutched the sturgeon. Stamford looked down on it with blazing eyes.
"Mister Stamford," grinned Bean, "if yu wasn't born a fisherman, yer shure goin' ter die one."
"Bean," said Stamford, "I'll crave your kind assistance to the extent of baiting that hook again. Then—no more. I'll bring the next fellow in myself or die in the attempt."
Stamford went back to the hole. Nothing happened. He waited several minutes, yawned, frowned, and leaned back against the rock.
"That one," he declared, pointing to the still wriggling fish, "had this whole darn river to itself. My line says so." He yawned again. "Bean," suddenly, "you're my friend, aren't you?"
The cowboy studied him curiously. "I reckon I ain't got no spite again yu—none of us chaps at the cook-house have."
"Not including Dakota, of course."
Bean ruminated over that. "Mebbe yer right."
"I don't believe, Bean Slade, that you're happy with that gang."
Bean got up and started away.
"Ta-ta!" he called. "This ain't my pumpin' day."
Stamford cursed his impetuosity.
"All right," he laughed. "You've a brain of your own—and I've seen no evidences of a loose tongue in you. I was going to tell you something—perhaps—that was all."
Bean kicked over some loose stones and wandered back. Plainly he did not want to go.
And just then a fish took the bait. Stamford jumped forward, missed his footing, and tumbled helplessly into the rushing current.
At the same instant a scream broke down the river from the cliffs higher up.
Bean bounded to an overhanging rock, braced his feet in a crevice and leaned far over. Stamford came up almost beneath his hand, gasping, already half drowned, surrendering to the icy torrent that started in distant glaciers. He could not swim a stroke. Bean's bony fingers closed over his hair, stayed his progress, and the other hand moved down to his arm.
"Here, yu noodle!" he shouted. "Yu got to help yerself, or I'll let yu go. This ain't no time to faint. Grab my shoulders. Now work yer way up my body. Yu'll find bones thar to catch hold of. Now—all together!"
Stamford lay panting on the rock. Bean, perspiration bursting from every pore, leaned weakly on his elbow beside him.
"Whew!" he puffed.
That was all, but his limbs were shaking, and the perspiration trickled down his neck and dampened his loose neckerchief. A great gush of affection passed between the two men, though neither spoke. Stamford extended his hand and laid it on Bean's, and the cowboy looked away and drew a coloured bandana with his free hand and rubbed it round his neck.
Presently he sat up and stared up the river.
"Huh!" he grunted. "Yu shure don't take a bath of'en, do yu?"
"Not that way—never again!" replied Stamford fervently.
"Thought not."
"Why?"
"'Cos there's such a funny noise when yu strike the water."
Stamford flushed. "Did I scream?"
"If 'twas you," grinned Bean, "yu shure can throw yer voice high and far."
Stamford followed his eyes up the river cliff, and flushed again, this time for a different reason.
"Pshaw, Bean! You were excited."
"Then there was two of us, I reckon."
"I'm sure I must have screamed," said Stamford. "I was never so scared in my life." But his heart sang with the knowledge that Isabel Bulkeley, somewhere in the cliffs above, had feared for him.
"All right, have it yer own way. Only if I was you I wouldn't believe myself." He drew several long breaths and looked shyly at the man he had rescued. "God, if I hadn't been here!"
"Bean, I——" The surge of Stamford's gratitude was choking him.
"Billy Windover saved me once like—like that," said Bean, his eyes fixed on the foaming water.
"Billy Windover? Wasn't that the cowboy who was shot down near the Cypress Hills a couple of months ago?"
Bean nodded. "Billy an' me was chums—the best chums in the world, I guess, pretty near. Me and him was raised together—down in Indiany. Our farms was close together, an' Billy an' me played Injun an' pirate an' stage robber together when we was knee high to a grasshopper.... We grew up together.... We loved the same gal.... He licked me and won. We fought it out on the banks of a deep stream that cut through both farms—in the woods—an' the licked one was to drown himself.... He pulled me out...."
He lifted himself higher and drew one hand angrily across his eyes.
"The gal she turned out bad ... and Billy went a bit wild.... I went with Billy. We broke out in Montany. Billy was a reckless cuss, an' he got in bad with the sheriffs and flitted over here. I came as soon's I got the chance.... And—and now he's—he's pulled out an' left me—alone."
"He was murdered, I understand," said Stamford.
Bean's face darkened, and his sunken eyes glared.
"Damned sight wuss 'n that! Shot down without a chance in the dark. Dirty cuss who did it's goin' to settle with me."
"If you ever find who it was."
"Why——" Bean's eyes peered out furtively beneath his shaggy brows, and he said no more.
Stamford led off on another tack; he had learned all that interested him there.
"There's Kid Loveridge, too. Someone shot him, and he was one of this very outfit."
"Huh!" growled Bean. "The Kid got what was comin' to him."
Stamford held himself under careful control.
"Then there's Corporal Faircloth."
Bean's lips closed, his face was inscrutable.
Presently he spoke.
"Yu thought a lot o' the Corporal?"
"He was my first and best friend in the West."
"An' yer mighty consarned to find out who shot him?"
Stamford did not reply immediately. He had a thought of throwing himself frankly on Bean's affection. It was certain that Bean could tell him what he wished to know—much more certain than that he would. But the three fruitless weeks of search on the H-Lazy Z called for desperate measures. He was debating it when Bean spoke again in an ominous tone.
"'Cos what yer doin' 's a mighty dangerous game."
"Dangerous? Do you know what I'm trying to do?"
"I'm just givin' yu a warnin', boss, that's all. It's like to end at the business end of a gun."
Stamford made a decision.
"The H-Lazy Z is crammed with mysteries. If you——"
"An' the less yu understand them the better fer yer skin. An' it shore ain't no business o' yours."
"It is my business that my best friend was murdered."
"Best leave that to the Police."
"But they're doing nothing."
"I guess ya don't know the Police," said Bean, rolling a cigarette.
Stamford sat thinking. "Bean," he said suddenly, "I'm going to tell you something. The night we returned from Medicine Hat I got Hobbles out—never mind how—and rode back to where we'd seen Dakota."
He waited in vain for a burst of surprise. Bean merely nodded.
"They were branding or something. They almost caught me."
"Yer dead right there," agreed Bean.
In a flash Stamford understood. "But it couldn't have beenyoupushed me from Hobbles."
"Huh!" grunted Bean, taking a long draw at his cigarette.
"You were back at the bunk-house. I saw you there an hour or so later, when Dakota came in."
"Uh-huh! An' yu purty near gave the show away—if Dakota's ears was as good as mine.... Also Hobbles couldn't 'a' been out at the branding neither, 'cosshewas there in the stable then, too, eh?"
He chuckled, and coughed with the smoke.
"But I heard you tell Dakota no one had gone out—also I saw you start off right after your supper to join Dakota; you promised him to as we were driving in."
"Dear me! Did yu think yu wasn't intended to see an' hear all that? Ha! Ha!"
"But I don't understand."
"Shure yu don't! If yu did yu'd be back in town now.... An' I'm not goin' to tell yu, neither."
He got up, stretched, expectorated into the river, and sauntered away.
"Ta-ta!" he called back. "Take care o' yerself."
Stamford folded his fishing-rod, threw his lunch strap over his shoulder, and started back for the house, forgetting the big sturgeon lying in the sun. His clothes were almost dry already with the warm rocks and sun. He had his first useful clue, and it reassured him. His guiding thought now was that Bean Slade knew the murderer he was after—and if Bean Slade, then the rest of the H-Lazy Z outfit. But how much or how little was Cockney Aikens involved?
He was surprised to find the Bulkeleys already returned to the ranch-house, though dinner was a couple of hours away. It delighted him—and also blotted from his mind the success of his afternoon's work. What he recalled was the scream Bean claimed to have heard. He wanted to verify or disprove that. With a refreshed pride in himself he determined that hewould. He proposed a walk; the brilliance of the out-of-doors provided perpetual excuse in the West. Isabel's immediate reply was an anxious look at her brother and Mary.
"I'm not asking your brother," he said boldly.
"Amos and I have to work on his notes," she objected. "That's why we came in early."
"Tut, tut!" protested her brother recklessly. "I've changed my mind. The inspiration is lacking. It's not my day for work. I don't care a hang if the entire carcass of a crested Saurolophus is lost to the world by an afternoon's indolence. I'm—going—to be indolent! There! Whoopee! Hear the cry of independence."
He lifted a foot and kicked the top of the doorway with surprising ease.
"It sounds to me like revolution," said his sister with mock severity, yet with more than a little anxiety.
He picked her up and deposited her outside the door.
"Trot along now, or Mr. Stamford may never ask you again."
"Amos!"
He made a face at her from the doorway and turned his back.
That her annoyance was not assumed Stamford discovered to his embarrassment before they had gone six paces. Once she turned about, to see the laughing faces of the Professor and Mary Aikens regarding them from the doorway. For some minutes their progress was wordless. Stamford was puzzled by her reluctance to leave the ranch-house, for he was convinced that she wanted to come. He knew the wisdom of leaving her to break the silence, of assuming humility, whether he felt it or not.
But he was not prepared for what she did say.
"We shouldn't, Mr. Stamford, we shouldn't."
He heard only the implied partnership, and threw his shoulders back recklessly as he tramped on.
"I don't care what we shouldn't do. If it's naughty it's nice. That's how reckless I am."
Her smile was wan; some anxiety too deep to respond to his banter was there.
"I don't like you serious," she said, "but—but youmustbe now." There was such innocent candour in it that he knew he wanted only to help her. Always when he was feeling most strongly the thrill of her presence, she disarmed him by throwing herself on his mercy.
"I'm going to be serious with you some time, Miss Bulkeley," he said soberly.
She ignored the warning.
"It's about Amos."
"If Amos isn't big enough to leave alone, he never will be. Anyway, Mrs. Aikens will look after him till we've had our walk. Now I've got you to myself, I'm going to keep you till dinner-time."
She was laughing a little, but shaking her head, as if to reprove him for trying to turn her away from her troubles.
"We mustn't be selfish," she said slowly. "Amos is big ... but he's not big enough, I fear, to resist the—the most powerful thing in life."
The alarm with which he searched her face for a moment changed quickly to annoyance.
"It isn't possible to misunderstand you, Miss Bulkeley, but——"
She laid one hand on his arm, turning to him her troubled eyes. He stood still for fear she would remove it.
"Haven't you seen—haven't you suspected?"
"Miss Bulkeley, I can answer for our hostess. If you can say the same for your brother——"
"I can, I can," she murmured brokenly. "But love, you know——"
"I know that, love or no love, there never was a finer little woman than Mary Aikens. Has your brother betrayed to you that he is less of a gentleman?"
"I could trust Amos anywhere," she replied simply.
"Then why not here?"
Her hands were clasping and unclasping as they walked.
"This is so different. I know what love can do—how it can change things." She was stumbling over it, flushing as she spoke, but continuing brave!
"I hope you do," he breathed.
But the tears brimming in her eyes made him feel the brute for intruding his petty affairs just then.
"Would your brother stay if he knew he was exposing himself to a temptation he could not resist?" he demanded.
She considered the reply for a long time before she made it.
"We can't leave, Mr. Stamford. We have our work to do—it's not mere personal pleasure or satisfaction that forces Amos to continue until he's completed his investigations. It's his duty to stay to the end—he can't help himself."
He frowned. "Please don't make me believe you think digging up old bones a duty that ignores—what you fear. I hope you're not that kind of a girl—I won't believe it."
She turned her face squarely to his, and for several seconds they stood looking into each other's eyes. Her head was thrown back a little proudly and reprovingly, and every barrier of reserve was down. Once more the utter confidence in his manliness forced him to control himself.
"I knew it," he said humbly. "Only I don't understand.... There's this to say for your brother, that the husband of the woman you fear your brother is learning to love doesn't seem to be trying to hold her love. I don't understand Cockney Aikens. I believe he's white, but—but here we treat women differently."
"That's what started it, I think," she said sadly. "Amos pitied her—as you and I did.... And there are other things.... I can't tell you all—everything that worries me."
"Then it's your duty——" He was about to tell her that she should take her brother away, but he was not unselfish enough for that.
"I can't," she replied, as if he had finished the sentence. "He wouldn't come—he couldn't."
They had turned back and were approaching the ranch-house.
"May I—talk things over a little like this with you when I'm worried, Mr. Stamford?"
Even as his heart leaped, he recognised the subtle way she had armed herself against him by the petition. Never was he to permit himself to take advantage of her confidence. When he would say to her the thing which he now knew he would some day say, he must make his own opening.