Had Auntie Sue remained a few minutes longer on the porch, that evening, she might have seen an object drifting down the river, in the gentle current of The Bend.
Swinging easily around the curve above the clubhouse, it would not have been visible at first, because of the deep shadows of the reflected trees and mountains. But, presently, as it drifted on into the broader waters of The Bend, it emerged from the shadows into the open moonlit space, and then, to any one watching from the porch, the dark object, drawing nearer and nearer in the bright moonlight, would have soon shaped itself into a boat—an empty boat, the watcher would have said, that had broken from its moorings somewhere up the river;—and the watcher would have heard, through the still, night air, the dull, heavy roar of the mad waters at Elbow Rock.
Drifting thus, helpless in the grip of the main current, the little craft apparently was doomed to certain destruction. Gently, it would float on the easy surface of the quiet, moonlit Bend. In front of the house, it would move faster and faster. Where the river narrows, it would be caught as if by mighty hands hidden beneath the rushing flood, and dragged onward still faster and faster. About it, the racing waters would leap and boil in their furious, headlong career, shaking and tossing the helpless victim of their might with a vicious strength from which there would be no escape, until, in the climax of the river's madness, the object of its angry sport would be dashed against the cliff, and torn, and crushed, and hammered by the terrific weight of the rushing flood against that rocky anvil, into a battered and shapeless wreck.
The drifting boat drew nearer and nearer. It reached the point where the curve of the opposite bank draws in to form the narrow raceway of the rapids. It began to feel the stronger pull of those hidden hands that had carried it so easily down The Bend. And then—and then—the unguided, helpless craft responded to the gentle pressure of some swirl or crosscurrent in the main flow of the stream, and swung a little to one side. A few feet farther, and the new impulse became stronger. Yielding easily to the current that drew it so gently across the invisible dividing-line between safety and destruction, the boat swung in toward the shore. A minute more, and it had drifted into that encircling curve of the bank where the current of the eddy carried it around and around.
The boat seemed undecided. Would it hold to the harbor of safety into which it had been drawn by the friendly current? Would it swing out, again, into the main stream, and so to its own destruction?
Three times the bow, pointing out from the eddy, crossed the danger-line, and, for a moment, hung on the very edge. Three times, the invisible hands which held it drew it gently back to safety. And so, finally, the little craft, so helpless, so alone, amid the many currents of the great river, came to rest against the narrow shelf of land at the foot of the bank below Auntie Sue's garden.
The light in the window of Auntie Sue's room went out. The soft moonlight flooded mountain and valley and stream. The mad waters at Elbow Rock roared in their wild fury. Always, always,—irresistibly, inevitably, unceasingly,—the river poured its strength toward the sea.
Before the sun was high enough to look over Schoolhouse Hill, the next morning, Judy went into the garden to dig some potatoes.
Tom Warden's boys would come, some day before long, and dig them all, and put them away in the cellar for the winter. But there was no need to hurry the gathering of the full crop, so the boys would come when it was most convenient; and, in the meantime, Judy would continue to dig from day to day all that were needed for the kitchen in the little log house by the river. In spite of her poor crooked body, the mountain girl was strong and well used to hard work, so the light task was, for her, no hardship at all.
As one will when first coming out of doors in the morning, Judy paused a moment to look about. The sky, so clear and bright the evening before, was now a luminous gray. The mountains were lost in a ghostly world of fog, through which the river moved in stealthy silence,—a dull thing of mystery, with only here and there a touch of silvery light upon its clouded surface. The cottonwoods and willows, on the opposite shore, were mere dreams of trees,—gray, formless, and weird. The air was filled with the dank earth-smell. The heavy thundering roar of the never-ending war of the waters at Elbow Rock came louder and more menacing, but strangely unreal, as if the mist itself were filled with threatening sound.
But to Judy, the morning was only the beginning of another day;—she looked, but did not see. To her, the many ever-changing moods of Nature were without meaning. With her basket in hand, she went down to the lower end of the garden, where she had dug potatoes the time before, and where she had left the fork sticking upright in the ground.
A few minutes served to fill the basket; but, before starting back to the house, the mountain girl paused again to look out over the river. Perhaps it was some vague memory of Auntie Sue's talk, the night before, that prompted her; perhaps it was some instinct, indefinite and obscure;—whatever it was that influenced her, Judy left her basket, and went to the brink of the high bank above the eddy for a closer view of the water.
The next instant, with the quick movement of an untamed creature of her native mountain forests, the girl sprang back, and crouched close to the ground to hide from something she had seen at the foot of the bank. Every movement of her twisted body expressed amazement and fear. Her eyes were wild and excited. She looked carefully about, as if for dangers that might be hidden in the fog. Once, she opened her mouth as if to call. Half-rising, she started as if to run to the house. But, presently, curiosity apparently overruled her fear, and, throwing herself flat on the ground she wormed her way back to the brink of the river-bank. Cautiously, without making a sound, she peered through the tall grass and weeds that fringed the rim above the eddy.
The boat, which some kindly impulse of the river had drawn so gently aside from the stronger current that would have carried it down the rapids to the certain destruction waiting at Elbow Rock, still rested with its bow grounded on the shore, against which the eddying water had pushed it. But the thing that had so startled Judy was a man who was lying, apparently unconscious, on the wet and muddy bottom-boards of the little craft.
Breathlessly, the girl, looking down from the top of the bank, watched for some movement; but the dirty huddled heap of wretched humanity was so still that she could not guess whether it was living or dead. Fearfully, she noted that there were no oars in the boat, nor gun, nor fishing-tackle of any sort. The man's hat was missing. His clothing was muddy and disarranged. His position was such that she could not see the face.
Drawing back, Judy looked cautiously about; then, picking up a heavy clod of dirt from the ploughed edge of the garden, and crouching again at the brink of the bank, ready for instant flight, she threw the clod into the water near the boat. The still form in the boat made no movement following the splash. Selecting a smaller clod, the girl threw the bit of dirt into the stern of the boat itself, where it broke in fragments. And, at this, the figure moved slightly.
“Hit's alive, all right,” commented Judy to herself, with a grin of satisfaction, at the result of her investigation. “But hit's sure time he was a-gittin' up.”
Carefully selecting a still smaller bit of dirt, she deliberately tossed it at the figure itself. Her aim was true, and the clod struck the man on the shoulder, with the result that he stirred uneasily, and, muttering something which Judy could not hear, half-turned on his back so that the girl saw the haggard, unshaven face. She saw, too, that, in one hand, the man clutched an empty whisky bottle.
At sight of the bottle, the mountain girl rose to her feet with an understanding laugh. “Hell!” she said aloud; “drunk,—that's all—dead drunk. I'll sure fetch him out of hit.” And then, grinning with malicious delight, she proceeded to pelt the man in the boat with clods of dirt until he scrambled to a sitting posture, and looked up in bewildered confusion.
“If you please,” he said, in a hoarse voice, to the sallow, old-young face that grinned down at him from the top of the bank, “which one of the Devil's imps are you?”
As she looked into that upturned face, Judy's grin vanished. “I sure 'lowed as how you-all was dead,” she explained.
“Well,” returned the man in the boat, wearily, “I can assure you that it's not in the least my fault if I disappoint you. I feel as bad about it as you do. However, I don't think I am so much alive that it makes any material difference.” He lifted the whisky bottle, and studied it thoughtfully.
“You-all come dad burned near not bein' ary bit alive,” returned the girl.
“Yes?” said the man, inquiringly.
“Yep; you sure did come mighty nigh hit. If your old John-boat had a-carried you-all on down ter Elbow Rock, 'stead of bein' ketched in the eddy here, you-all would sure 'nough been a-talkin' to the Devil by now.”
The man, looking out over the river into the fog, muttered to himself, “I can't even make a success of dying, it seems.”
Again, he regarded the empty bottle in his hand with studied interest. Then, tossing the bottle into the river, he looked up, once more, to the girl on the bank above.
“Listen, sister!” he said, nervously. “Is there any place around here where I can buy a drink? I need something rather badly. Where am I, anyway?”
“You-all are at Auntie Sue's place,” said Judy; “an' there sure ain't no chance for you-all ter git ary licker here. Where'd you-all come from, anyhow? How'd you-all git here 'thout no oars ner paddle ner nothin'? Where was you-all aimin' ter go?”
“Your questions, my good girl, are immaterial and irrelevant,” returned the man in the boat. “The all-important matter before us for consideration is,—how can I get a drink? I MUST have a drink, I tell you!” He held up his hands, and they were shaking as if with palsy. “And I must have it damned quick!”
“You-all sure do talk some powerful big words,” said Judy, with critical interest. “You-all sure must be some eddecated. Auntie Sue, now, she talks—”
The man interrupted her: “Who is 'Auntie Sue'?”
“I don't know,” Judy returned; “she's just Auntie Sue—that's all I know. She sure is—”
Again the man interrupted: “I think it would be well for me to interview this worthy aunt of yours.” And then, while he raised himself, unsteadily, to his feet, he continued, in a muttering undertone: “You don't seem to appreciate the situation. If I don't get some sort of liquor soon, things are bound to happen.”
He attempted to step from the boat to the shore; but the instability of the light, flat-bottomed skiff, together with his own unsteady weakness, combined to land him half in the water and half on the muddy bank where he struggled helplessly, and, in his weakened condition, would have slipped wholly into the river had not Judy rushed down the rude steps to his assistance.
With a strength surprising in one of her apparent weakness, the mountain girl caught the stranger under his shoulders and literally dragged him from the water. When she had further helped him to his feet, Judy surveyed the wretched object of her beneficence with amused and curious interest.
The man, with his unkempt hair, unshaven, haggard face, bloodshot eyes, and slovenly dishevelled dress, had appeared repulsive enough while in the boat; but, now, as he stood dripping with water and covered with mud, there was a touch of the ridiculous in his appearance that brought a grin to the unlovely face of his rescuer, and caused her to exclaim with unnecessary frankness: “I'll be dad burned if you-all ain't a thing ter look at, mister!”
As the poor creature, who was shaking as if with the ague, regarded the twisted form, the wry neck, and the sallow, old-young face of the girl, who was laughing at him, a gleam of sardonic humor flashed in his bloodshot eyes. “Thanks,” he said, huskily; “you are something of a vision yourself, aren't you?”
The laughter went from Judy's face as she caught the meaning of the cruel words. “I ain't never laid no claim ter bein' a beauty,” she retorted in her shrill, drawling monotone. “But, I kin tell you-all one thing, mister: Hit was God-A'mighty Hisself an' my drunken pap what made me ter look like I do. While you,—damn you!—you-all just naturally made yourself what you be.”
At the mountain girl's illiterate words, so pregnant with meaning, a remarkable change came over the face and manner of the man. His voice, even, for the moment, lost its huskiness, and vibrated with sincere feeling as he steadied himself; and, bowing with courteous deference, said: “I beg your pardon, miss. That was unkind. You really should have left me to the river.”
“You-all would a-drownded, sure, if I had,” she retorted, somewhat mollified by the effect of her observation.
“Which,” he returned, “would have been so beautifully right and fitting that it evidently could not be.” And with this cynical remark, his momentary bearing of self-respect was gone.
“Are you-all a-meanin' ter say that you-all was a-wantin' ter drown?”
“Something like that,” he returned. And then, with a hint of ugliness in his voice and eyes, he rasped: “But, look here, girl! do you think I'm going to stand like this all day indulging in idle conversation with you? Where is this aunt of yours? Can't you see that I've got to have a drink?”
He started uncertainly toward the steps that led to the top of the bank, and Judy, holding him by his arm, helped him to climb the steep way. A part of the ascent he made on hands and knees. Several times he would have fallen except for the girl's support. But, at last, they gained the top, and stood in the garden.
“That there is the house,” said Judy, pointing. “But I don't reckon as how you-all kin git ary licker there.”
The wretched man made no reply; but, with Judy still supporting him, stumbled forward across the rows of vegetables.
The two had nearly reached the steps at the end of the porch when Auntie Sue came from the house to see why Judy did not return with the potatoes. The dear old lady paused a moment, startled at the presence of the unprepossessing stranger in her garden. Then, with an exclamation of pity, she hurried to meet them.
The man, whose gaze as he shambled along was fixed on the ground, did not notice Auntie Sue until, feeling Judy stop, he also paused, and raising his head looked full at the beautiful old lady.
“Why, Judy!” cried Auntie Sue, her low, sweet voice filled with gentle concern. “What in the world has happened?”
With an expression of questioning bewilderment and rebuke on his haggard face, the man also turned to the mountain girl beside him.
“I found him in er John-boat what done come ashore last night, down there in the eddy,” Judy explained to Auntie Sue. To the man, she said: “This here is Auntie Sue, mister; but, I don't reckon as how she's got ary licker for you.”
“'Liquor'?” questioned Auntie Sue. “What in the world do you mean, child?” Then quickly to the stranger;—“My dear man, you are wringing wet. You must have been in the river. Come, come right in, and let us do something for you.” As she spoke, she went toward him with outstretched hands.
But the wretched creature shrank back from her, as if in fear;—his whole body shaking with emotion; his fluttering hands raised in a gesture of imploring protest;—while the eyes that looked up at the saintly countenance of the old gentlewoman were the eyes of a soul sunken in the deepest hell of shame and humiliation.
Shocked with pitying horror, Auntie Sue paused.
The man's haggard, unshaven face twitched and worked with the pain of his suffering. He bit his lips and fingered his quivering chin in a vain effort at self-control; and then, as he looked up at her, the sunken, bloodshot eyes filled with tears that the tormented spirit had no power to check.
And Auntie Sue turned her face away.
For a little, they stood so. Then, as Auntie Sue faced him again, the stranger, with a supreme effort of his will, gained a momentary control of his shattered nerves. Drawing himself erect and standing steady and tall before her, he raised a hand to his uncovered head as if to remove his hat. When his hand found no hat to remove, he smiled as if at some jest at his own expense.
“I am so sorry, madam,” he said,—and his voice was musically clear and cultured. “Please pardon me for disturbing you? I did not know. This young woman should have explained. You see, when she spoke of 'Auntie Sue,' I assumed, of course,—I mean,—I expected to find a native woman who would—” He paused, smiling again, as if to assure her that he fully appreciated the humor of his ridiculous predicament.
“But, my dear sir,” cried Auntie Sue, eagerly, “there is nothing to pardon. Please do come into the house and let us help you.”
But the stranger drew back, shaking his head sadly. “You do not understand, madam. It is not that my clothes are unpresentable,—it is I, myself, who am unfit to stand in your presence, much less to enter your house. I thank you, but I must go.”
He was turning away, when Auntie Sue reached his side and placed her gentle old hand lightly on his arm.
“Please, won't you come in, sir? I shall never forgive myself if I let you go like this.”
The man's voice was hoarse and shaking, now, as he answered: “For God's sake, madam, don't touch me! Let me go! You must! I—I—am not myself! You might not be safe with me! Ask her—she knows!” He turned to Judy.
“He's done said hit, ma'm,” said Judy, in answer to Auntie Sue's questioning look. “My pap, he was that way when he done smashed me up agin the wall, when I was nothin' but a baby, an' hit made me grow up all crooked an' ugly like what I be now.”
With one shamed glance at Auntie Sue, the wretched fellow looked down at the ground. His head drooped forward. His shoulders sagged. His whole body seemed to shrink. Turning sadly away, he again started back toward the river.
“Stop!” Auntie Sue's voice rang out imperiously.
The man halted.
“Look at me,” she commanded.
Slowly, he raised his eyes. The gentle old teacher spoke with fine spirit, now, but kindly still: “This is sheer nonsense, my boy. You wouldn't hurt me. Why, you couldn't! Of course, you are not yourself; but, do you think that I do not know a gentleman when I meet one? Come—” She held out her hand.
A moment he stood, gazing at her in wondering awe. Then his far-overtaxed strength failed;—his abused nerves refused to bear more,—and he sank,—a pitiful, cowering heap at her feet. Hiding his face in his shaking hands, he sobbed like a child.
Those two women managed, somehow, to get the almost helpless stranger into the house, where Auntie Sue, after providing him with nightclothes, left by one of her guests, by tactful entreaty and judicial commands, persuaded him to go to bed.
Then followed several days and nights of weary watching. There were times when the man lay with closed eyes, so weak and exhausted that he seemed to be drifting out from these earthly shores on the deep waters of that wide and unknown sea into which all the streams of life finally flow. But, always, Auntie Sue miraculously held him back. There were other times when, by all the rules of the game, he should have worn a strait-jacket;—when his delirium filled the room with all manner of horrid creatures from the pit; when leering devils and loathsome serpents and gibbering apes tormented him until his unnatural strength was the strength of a fiend, and his tortured nerves shrieked in agony. But Auntie Sue perversely ignored the rules of the game. And never did the man, even in his most terrible moments, fail to recognize in the midst of the hellish crew of his diseased imagination the silvery-haired old teacher as the angel of his salvation. Her gentle voice had always power to soothe and calm him. He obeyed her implicitly, and, like a frightened child, holding fast to her hand would beg piteously for her to protect and save him.
But no word of the man's low-muttered, broken sentences, nor of his wildest ravings, ever gave Auntie Sue a clue to his identity. She searched his clothes, but there was not a thing to give her even his name.
And, yet, that first day, when Judy would have gone to neighbor Tom's for help, Auntie Sue said “No.” She even positively forbade the girl to mention the stranger's presence in the house, should she chance to talk with passing neighbors. “The river brought him to us, Judy, dear,” she said. “We must save him. No one shall know his shame, to humiliate and wound his pride and drag him down after he is himself again. Until he has recovered and is once more the man I believe him to be, no one must see him or know that he is here; and no one must ever know how he came to us.”
And late, one evening, when Judy was fast asleep, and the man was lying very still after a period of feverish tossing and muttering, the dear old gentlewoman crept quietly out of the house into the night. She was gone some time, and when she returned again to the stranger's bedside she was breathless and trembling as from some unusual exertion. And the following afternoon, when Judy came to her with the announcement that the boat which had brought the man to them was no longer in the eddy below the garden, Auntie Sue said, simply, that she was glad it was gone, and cautioned the girl, again, that the stranger's presence in the house must not be made known to any one.
When the mountain girl protested, saying, “You-all ain't got no call ter be a-wearin' yourself ter the bone a-takin' care of such as him,” Auntie Sue answered, “Hush, Judy! How do you know what the poor boy really is?”
To which Judy retorted: “He's just triflin' an' ornery an' no 'count, that's what he is, or he sure wouldn't been a-floatin' 'round in that there old John-boat 'thout ary gun, or fishin' lines, or hat even, ter say nothin' of that there whisky bottle bein' plumb empty.”
Auntie Sue made no reply to the mountain girl's harsh summing-up of the damning evidence against the stranger, but left her and went softly to the bedside of their guest.
It was perhaps an hour later that Judy, quietly entering the room, happened upon a scene that caused her to stand as if rooted to the spot in open-mouthed amazement.
The man was sleeping, and the silvery-haired old maiden-lady, seated on the side of the bed, was bending over the unconscious stranger and gently stroking his tumbled, red-brown hair, even as a mother might lovingly caress her sleeping child. And then, as Judy watched, breathless with wonder, the proud old gentlewoman, bending closer over that still form on the bed, touched her lips—soft as a rose-petal—to the stranger's brow.
When she arose and saw Judy standing there, Auntie Sue's delicate old cheeks flushed with color, and her eyes were shining. With a gesture, she commanded the girl to silence, and the two tiptoed from the room. When they were outside, and Auntie Sue had cautiously closed the door, she faced the speechless Judy with a deliciously defiant air that could not wholly hide her lovely confusion.
“I—I—was thinking, Judy, how he—how he—might have been—my son.”
“Your 'son'!” ejaculated the girl. “Why, ma'm, you-all ain't never even been married, as I've ever hearn tell, have you?”
Auntie Sue drew her thin shoulders proudly erect, and, lifting her fine old face, answered the challenging question with splendid spirit: “No, I have never been married; but I might have been; and if I had, I suppose I could have had a son, couldn't I?”
The vanquished Judy retreated to the kitchen, where, in safety, she sank into a chair, convulsed with laughter, which she instinctively muffled in her apron.
Then came the day when the man, weak and worn with his struggle, looked up at his gentle old nurse with the light of sanity in his deep blue eyes. Very tired eyes they were, and filled with painful memories,—filled, too, with worshipping gratitude and wonder.
She smiled down at him with delighted triumph, and drawing a chair close beside the bed, seated herself and placed her soft hand on his where it lay on the coverlid.
“You are much better, this morning,” she said cheerily. “You will soon be all right, now.” And as she looked into the eyes that regarded hers so questioningly, there was in her face and manner no hint of doubt, or pretense, or reproach;—only confidence and love.
He spoke slowly, as if feeling for words: “I have been in Hell; and you—you have brought me out. Why did you do it?”
“Because you are mine,” she answered, with her low chuckling laugh. It was so good to have him able to talk to her rationally after those long hours of fighting.
“Because I am yours?” he repeated, puzzling over her words.
“Yes,” she returned, with a hint of determined proprietorship in her voice; “because you belong to me. You see, that eddy where your boat landed is my property, and so anything that drifts down the river and lodges there belongs to me. Whatever the river brings to me, is mine. The river brought you, and so—” She finished with another laugh,—a laugh that was filled with tender mother-yearning.
The blue eyes smiled back at her for a moment; then she saw them darken with painful memories.
“Oh, yes; the river,” he said. “I wanted the river to do something for me, and—and it did something quite different from what I wanted.”
“Of course,” she returned, eagerly, “the river is always like that. It always does the thing you don't expect it to do. Just like life itself. Don't you see? It begins somewhere away off at some little spring, and just keeps going and going and going; and thousands and thousands of other springs, scattered all over the country, start streams and creeks and branches that run into it, and make it bigger and bigger, as it winds and curves and twists along, until it finally reaches the great sea, where its waters are united with all the waters from all the rivers in all the world. And in all of its many, many miles, from that first tiny spring to the sea, there are not two feet of it exactly alike. In all the centuries of its being, there are never two hours alike. An infinite variety of days and nights—an infinite variety of skies and light and clouds and daybreaks and sunsets—an infinite number and variety of currents and shoals and deep places and quiet spots and dangerous rapids and eddies—and, along its banks, an endless change of hills and mountains and flats and forests and meadows and farms and cities—and—” She paused, breathless. And then, when he did not speak, but only watched her, she continued: “Don't you see? Of course, the river never could be what you expect, any more than life could be exactly what you want and dream it will be.”
“Who in the world are you?” he asked, wonderingly. “And what in the world are you doing here in the backwoods?”
Smiling at his puzzled expression, she answered: “I am Auntie Sue. I am LIVING here in the backwoods.”
“But, your real name? Won't you tell me your name? I must know how to address you.”
“Oh, my name is Susan E. Wakefield—MISS Wakefield, if you please. I shall be seventy-one years old the eighteenth day of next November. And you must call me 'Auntie Sue,'—just as every one else does.”
“Wakefield—Wakefield—where have I seen that name?” He wrinkled his brow in an effort to remember. “Wakefield—I feel sure that I have heard it, somewhere.”
“It is not unlikely,” she returned, lightly. “It is not at all an uncommon name. And now that I am properly introduced, don't you think—?”
He hesitated a moment, then said, deliberately, “My name is Brian Kent.”
“That is an Irish name,” she said quickly; “and that is why your hair is so nearly red and your eyes so blue.”
“Yes,” he returned, “from my mother. And please don't ask me more now, for I can't lie to you, and I won't tell you the truth.” And she saw, again, the dark shadows of painful memories come into the blue eyes.
Bending over the bed, she laid her soft hand on his brow, and pushed back his heavy hair; and her sweet old voice was very low and gentle as she said: “My dear boy, I shall never ask you more. The river brought you to me, and you are mine. You must not even think of anything else, just now. When you are stronger, and are ready, we will talk of your future; but of your past, you—”
A loud knock sounded at the door of the living room.
“There is someone at the door,” she said hastily. “I must go. Lie still, and go to sleep like a good boy; won't you?”
Swiftly, she leaned over, and, before he realized, he felt her lips touch his forehead. Then she was gone, and Brian Kent's Irish eyes were filled with tears. Turning to the wall, he hid his face in the pillow.
As Auntie Sue was closing the door of her guest's room carefully behind her, Judy came from the kitchen in great excitement, and the knocking at the front door of the house was repeated.
“Hit's the Sheriff, ma'm,” whispered Judy. “I was just a-comin' ter tell you. I seed 'em from the kitchen-winder. He's got two other men with him. Their hosses is tied ter the fence in front. What in hell will we do, now? They are after him in there, sure 's death!”
Auntie Sue's face was white, and her lips trembled,—but only for a moment.
“Go back into the kitchen, Judy, and stay there,” she commanded, in a whisper; and went to open the front door as calmly as if nothing unusual had happened.
Sheriff Knox was a big man, with a bluff, kindly manner, and a voice that made nothing of closed doors. He returned Auntie Sue's greeting heartily, and, with one of his companions,—a quiet, business-looking gentleman,—accepted her cordial invitation to come in. The third man of the party remained near the saddle-horses at the gate.
“Well, Auntie Sue,” said the Sheriff, settling his ponderous bulk in one of the old lady's rocking-chairs, which certainly was not built to carry such a weight, “how are you? I haven't seen you in a coon's age. I'll swear, though, you ain't a minute older than you was when you first begun teachin' the little Elbow Rock school up there on the hill, are you?”
“I don't know, Sheriff,” Auntie Sue returned, with a nervous little laugh. “I sometimes think that I am a few days older. I have watched a good many sunsets since then, you know.”
The big officer's laughter almost shook the log walls of the house. To his quiet companion, who had taken a chair near the window, he said: “I'll have to tell you, Ross, that Auntie Sue owns every sunset in these Ozark Mountains. What was it you paid for them?” He turned again to their smiling hostess. “Oh, yes; fifty cents an acre for the land and fourteen dollars and a half for the sunsets. You'll have to be blamed careful not to trespass on the sunsets in this neighborhood, Ross.” Again, his hearty laugh roared out, while his chair threatened to collapse with the quaking of his massive body.
The gentleman seated at the window laughed quietly, in sympathy.
“You'll be all right, though, Ross,” the Sheriff continued, “as long as you're with me. Auntie Sue and me have been friends for about twenty year, now. I always stop to see her whenever I'm passing through the Elbow Rock neighborhood, if I ain't in too big a hurry. Stayed with her a week, once, five years ago, when we was after that Lewis gang. She knows I'd jail any man on earth that would even touch one of her sunsets.”
Then, as if the jesting allusion to his office reminded him of his professional duties, he added: “I plumb forgot, Auntie Sue, this gentleman is Mr. Ross. He is one of William J. Burns's crack detectives. Don't be scared, though, he ain't after you.”
Auntie Sue, while joining in the laughter, and acknowledging the introduction, regarded the business-looking gentleman by the window with intense interest.
“I think,” she said, slowly,—and the sweetness of her low, cultured voice was very marked in contrast to the Sheriff's thundering tones,—“I think, sir, that this is the first time in my life that I ever saw a real detective. I have read about them, of course.”
Mr. Ross was captivated by the charm of this beautiful old gentlewoman, who regarded him with such child-like interest, and who spoke with such sweet frankness and dignity. Smilingly, he returned:
“I fear, madam, that you would find me very disappointing. No one that I ever knew in my profession could hope to live up to the reputation given us by the story-books. No secret service man living can remotely approximate the deeds performed by the detectives of fiction. We are very, very human, I can assure you.”
“I am sure that you, at least, must be very kind,” returned Auntie Sue, gently. And the cheeks of the experienced officer flushed like the cheeks of a schoolboy.
“Mr. Ross, Auntie Sue,” said the Sheriff, “is, as I was telling you, one of William J. Burns's big men.”
Auntie Sue gave her attention to her big friend: “Yes?”
The Sheriff continued: “Now, the Burns people, you see, protect the banks all over the country.”
“Yes?” came, again, in a tone so low and gentle that the monosyllable was scarcely heard.
The officer's loud voice went on: “And Mr. Ross, here, works most of his time on these bank cases. Just now, he is trailing a fellow that got away with a lot of money from the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, of Chicago, about a month ago;—that is, the man disappeared about a month ago. He had been stealing along from the bank for about a year,—worked, for them, you see.”
“The Empire Consolidated Savings Bank!” Auntie Sue spoke the words in a voice that was little more than a whisper. It was to the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank that she had sent the money which she had received from her brother in Buenos Aires; and Homer T. Ward, the president of that bank, was one of her old pupils. Why, her stranger guest, in the other room there, was that very moment wearing one of the bank president's nightshirts.
“And do you”—Auntie Sue addressed the detective—“do you know the man's name, Mr. Ross?”
“Oh, yes,” returned the officer, “his name is Brian Kent.”
Some source of strength, deep-hidden in her gentle nature, enabled Auntie Sue to control her emotions, though her voice broke a little as she slowly repeated the man's name, “Brian Kent. And do I understand, sir, that you have traced the man to this—neighborhood?”
The detective was too skilled not to notice Auntie Sue's manner and the break in her voice; but he never dreamed that this old gentlewoman's agitation was caused by a deeper interest than a quite natural fear that a dangerous criminal might be lurking in the immediate vicinity.
“Not exactly, Mrs.—ah—”
“Miss Wakefield,”—she supplied her name with a smile.
With a courteous bow, the detective continued: “We do not know for sure that the man is in this neighborhood, Miss Wakefield. There is really no cause for you to be alarmed. Even if he should call at your house, here, you need not be frightened, for I assure you the man is not at all a dangerous character.”
“I am glad,” said Auntie Sue; and she laughed a little with a relief more genuine than her callers knew.
Detective Ross continued as if anxious to finish his unpleasant duty: “It is too bad for us to be disturbing you with this business, Miss Wakefield, and I hope you will forgive us; but, the case is like this: We traced our man to the little town of Borden, some forty miles up the river from here. He disappeared from the hotel one night, leaving his suit-case and, apparently, everything he had with him, and not a soul that we can find has seen him since. Of course, everybody says 'suicide.' He had been drinking heavily and acting rather queer the two or three days he was at the hotel,—it seems. But I am not willing, yet, to accept the suicide idea as final, because it would be too easy for him to give things that appearance in order to throw us off; and I can't get away from the fact that a John-boat that was tied to the bank near the hotel managed to break loose and drift off down the river that same night. Working on my theory, we are following down the river, trying to get trace of either the boat or the man. So far, we haven't heard of either, which rather strengthens me in my belief that the boat and the man went away together. He is probably traveling nights, and lying up under the willows in daylight. But he will be compelled to show himself somewhere, soon, in order to get something to eat, for he couldn't have taken much with him, trying, as he was, to create the impression that he had committed suicide. You have a wonderful view of the river here, Miss Wakefield.”
“Yes, sir; it is beautiful from the porch.”
“You spend a good deal of time on the porch, do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you would be quite likely to notice any boat passing, wouldn't you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Could you see a boat at night,—in the moonlight, I mean?”
“I could if it were well out in the middle of the stream, away from the shadow of the trees, along the bank.”
“Have you seen any boats pass lately, Miss Wakefield?”
“No, sir; I haven't seen a boat on the river for a month, at least.”
“Dead certain about it, are you, Auntie Sue?” asked the Sheriff.
“Yes, sir; I am very sure,” she returned. “Judy and I were talking about it yesterday.”
“Who is Judy?” asked the detective.
The Sheriff answered, “Just a girl that lives with Auntie Sue.”
And Auntie Sue added: “I know Judy has seen no boats passing, because, as I say, we were talking about it.”
“I see,” said the detective. “And may I ask, Miss Wakefield, if any one—any stranger, I mean—has called at the house lately, or if you have seen any one in the vicinity?”
The gentle old lady hesitated.
The officers thought she was searching her memory to be sure before she answered.
Then Auntie Sue said, deliberately: “No, sir; we have not seen a stranger in this vicinity for several weeks. The last one was a mule-buyer, who stopped to ask if he was on the right road to Tom Warden's; and that must have been fully six weeks ago.”
The detective looked at Sheriff Knox.
“Well,” said the big officer, “I reckon we might as well push along.”
The two men arose.
“Oh, but surely you will stay for dinner,” said Auntie Sue, while her dear heart was faint with fear lest they accept, and thus bring about who could say what disastrous consequences through their meeting with Judy.
“Not this time, Auntie Sue,” returned the Sheriff. “Mr. Ross is anxious to get on down the river as fast as he can. He's got men on watch at White's Crossing, and if our man ain't passed there, or if we don't strike his trail somewhere before we get there, we will jump back on the railroad, and get some boy to bring the horses through later.”
“I see,” returned Auntie Sue. And to the detective she added, smiling: “I am sure it must be very difficult for any one to escape you, Mr. Ross. I have read such wonderful things about Mr. Burns and the work of his organization; and now that I have met you,—a real live detective,—I shall be very careful, indeed, about what I do in the future. I shouldn't want to have you on my track, I assure you.”
The two men laughed heartily, and the detective, as he extended his hand in farewell, returned: “I count it a great privilege to have met you, Miss Wakefield; and if you will promise to do one thing for me, I'll agree to be very lenient with you if I am ever assigned to a case in which you are to be brought to justice.”
“I promise,” returned the old lady, quickly. “I really wouldn't dare to refuse under the circumstances, would I? What do you want me to do, Mr. Ross?”
“If this man Brian Kent should happen to appear in this vicinity, will you get a message as quickly as possible, at any cost, to Sheriff Knox?”
“Why, of course,” agreed Auntie Sue. “But you have not yet told me what the man looks like, Mr. Ross.”
“He is really a fine looking chap,” the detective answered. “Thirty years old—fully six feet tall—rather slender, but well built—weighs about one hundred fifty—a splendid head—smooth shaven—reddish hair—dark blue eyes—and a high, broad forehead. He is of Irish extraction—is cultured—very courteous in his manner and speech—dresses well—and knows a lot about books and authors and such things.”
“I would surely know him from that description,” said Auntie Sue, thinking of the wretched creature who had fallen, sobbing, at her feet so short a time before. “But, you do not make him seem like a criminal at all. It is strange that a man such as you describe should be a fugitive from the law, is it not?”
“We come in contact with many strange things in our business, Miss Wakefield,” the Burns operative answered—a little sadly, Auntie Sue thought. “Life itself is so strange and complex, though you in your quiet retreat, here, can scarcely find it so.”
“Indeed, I find life very wonderful, Mr. Ross, even here in my little house by the river,” she answered, slowly.
Sheriff Knox held out a newspaper to Auntie Sue: “Just happened to remember that I had it in my pocket,” he said. “It gives a pretty full account of this fellow Kent's case. You will notice there is a big reward offered for his capture. If you can catch him for us, you'll make enough money to keep you mighty nigh all the rest of your life.” And the officer's great laugh boomed out at the thought of the old school-teacher as a thief-catcher.
“By the way, Sheriff,” said Auntie Sue, as they were finally saying good-bye at the door, “you didn't happen to ask at Thompsonville for my mail, did you, as you came through?” Her voice was trembling, now, with eagerness and anxiety.
“I'm plumb sorry, Auntie Sue, but I didn't. You see, we were so busy on this job, I clean forgot about stopping here; and, besides, we might have caught our man before we got this far, you see.”
“Of course,” returned Auntie Sue, “I should have thought of that; but I have been rather anxious about an important letter that seems to have been delayed. Some of the neighbors will probably be going to the office to-day, though. Good-bye! You know you are always welcome, Sheriff; and you, too, Mr. Ross, if you should ever happen to be in this part of the country again.”
“A wonderful old woman, Ross,” commented Sheriff Knox as they were riding away. And the quiet, business-looking detective, whose life had been spent in combating crime and deception, answered, as he waved farewell to Auntie Sue, who watched them from the door of the little log house by the river, “A very wonderful woman, indeed,—the loveliest old lady I have ever met,—and the most remarkable.”