The little man beamed. "Is that so, Annabel? Then I'm mighty glad Weatherbee followed that stampede. Nobody else would have seen my hand sticking up through the snow and stopped to dig me out. Unless—" he added thoughtfully, "it was Hollis Tisdale. Yes, likely Hollis would. He was the only man in Alaska fit to be Dave's running mate."
"Do you mean that surveyor?" she asked.
Banks nodded.
"I thought so," she said with satisfaction. "Dad taught me to size people up on sight. He could tell the first minute he saw a man's face whether he was good for a bill of groceries or not; and I knew that surveyor was straight. I bet he knew you was in Seattle when he got me to write. But I wish I could have a look at the other one. He must be—great."
Banks nodded again. "He was," he answered huskily. "He was. But he's made his last trip. I wasn't three hundred miles off, but I never thought of Dave Weatherbee's needing help; it took Tisdale, clear off in Nome, over a thousand miles, to sense something was wrong. But he started to mush it, alone with his huskies, to the Iditarod and on to the Aurora, Dave's mine. You don't know anything about that winter trail, Annabel. It means from twenty to fifty below, with the wind swooping out of every canyon, cross-cutting like knives, and not the sign of a road-house in days, in weeks sometimes. But he made it,"—Banks' voice reached high pitch—"He beat the records, my, yes."
"And something was wrong?" asked Annabel, breaking the pause.
Banks nodded again. "You remember that sheepman down in Oregon they brought in from the range. The one that ripped up his comforter that night at the hotel and set the wool in little rolls around the floor; thought he was tending sheep? Well, that's what was happening. And Hollis was two days late. Dave had started for the coast; not the regular way to Fairbanks and out by stage to Valdez, but a new route through the Alaska Range to strike the Susitna and on to Seward. And he had fresh dogs. He was through Rainy Pass when Tisdale began to catch up."
"He did catch up?" Annabel questioned again hurriedly.
Banks nodded once more. He drew his hand away and rose from his seat on the chair arm. His eyes were shining like blue glacier ice. "It was in a blizzard; the same as the day I lost my fingers—only—Hollis—he was too late." He turned and walked unsteadily to the door and stood looking out. "I wasn't three hundred miles from the Aurora," he added. "I could have been in time. I can't ever forget that."
Annabel rose and stood watching him, with the emotion playing in her face. "Johnny!" she exclaimed at last. "Oh, Johnny!" She went over and put her arm protectively around his shoulders. "I know just how you feel; but you didn't drive him to it. You were just busy and interested in your work. You'd have gone in a minute, left everything, if you had known."
"That's it; I ought to have known. I ought to have kept track of Dave; run over once in a while to say hullo. I'd have likely seen it was coming on, then, in time. When Tisdale found him, he'd been setting out little pieces of spruce, like an orchard in the snow. You see," he added after a moment, "Dave always expected to come back here when he struck it rich and start a fruit ranch. He was the man who owned this pocket."
A sudden understanding shone in Annabel's face. "And that's why you got an option on it; you want to carry out his scheme. I'll help you, Johnny, I'll do my level best."
Banks turned and looked at her. "That's all I want, Annabel. I was a little afraid you'd be sick of the place. But, my, we can go right ahead and set a crew of men to grubbing out the sage on both sections to once. Folks might have said, seeing you take up with a undersized, froze-up fellow like me, you was marrying me for my money; but they can't, no, ma'am, not when they see the valuable claim you are developing in your own right."
Annabel laughed. "I guess you're entitled to your turn making fun of me.But have you got money, Johnny? I never thought of that."
"Likely not. But the Annabel sure brought me luck; that name worked better than a rabbit's foot. Here's a little bunch of nuggets I saved out of the first clean-up." He paused to take a small new poke from an inner pocket and, untying the string, poured the contents in her hand. "I thought likely you'd want 'em made up in a necklace with a few diamonds or mebbe emeralds mixed in."
She stood looking at the shining rough pieces of gold in her palm, while a certain pride rose through the wonder in her face. "My gracious!" she exclaimed, and a spark of her lost youth revived. "My gracious. And you named your mine after me. I bet it was on account of that billy and the ewes."
"Likely," the little man beamed. "But more than likely it was because that strike was a sure thing, and you was behind it, Annabel. My, yes, you was responsible I ever got to Alaska; let alone stuck it out. Sure as a grubstake, you gave me my start. Now come take a look at this outfit I brought."
He held the poke open while she poured the nuggets back. "I like them plain," she said, "but I never saw any made up. I leave it to you."
"Then I make it emeralds to match the Green, and mebbe a few sparklers thrown in." He laughed gayly and, taking her arm, drew her back across the room to the open trunk; when she was seated again in the armchair, he knelt to remove the first layer of tissue packing. She took the precaution to spread one smooth sheet of it on her lap and, leaning forward, saw him uncover the plume, the entire hat. "Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed tremulously, as he lifted it awkwardly to her eager hands, "ain't it splendid? I didn't know they were making them like this. I never saw such roses; why, they look alive and ready to smell; and ain't they pretty fixed this way under the brim?" She paused, turning the masterpiece slowly, like a connoisseur. "I bet I could have worn it when I was in Oregon. It would have been my style. Do you suppose"—she glanced at Banks timidly—"I'd dare to try it if my hair was done real nice, and I had on a better dress?"
"My, yes." Banks laughed again excitedly, and with growing confidence opened the next compartment to display the chiffon gown. "Wait till you get this on. You'll be a sight. You always was in pink." He paused to take the hat and, wheeling, placed it on the old dresser, and so made room for the frock on her lap. "Now, ain't that soft and peachy and—and rich?"
But Annabel was silent. She lifted her eyes from the gown to Johnny, and they were full of mist. Then her lip quivered, and a drop splashed down on the delicate fabric. "My gracious!" she cried in consternation and, rising, held the gown off at arm's-length. "Do you suppose it's going to spot?"
And Banks' laugh piped once more. "I guess it can stand a little salt water," he replied. "But if it can't, we can get a duplicate. And now you just take your time and pick out what you want to wear. I am going up the bench to look around and find Dave's springs. It'll likely take me an hour or so, and you can be ready to start soon's I get back."
"Start?" she repeated. "Was you counting on going somewhere?"
"My, yes. I was counting on taking you a little spin down to Wenatchee the first thing, and having a chicken dinner to the hotel. Then, soon's we get a license and hunt up a sky man, we are going to run down to Oregon and have a look at the old Corners."
"I never rode in an automobile," she said, glowing, "but I think I'd like it fine."
"I bet you will. I bet, coming home, you'll be running the machine yourself half the time."
He hurried away then, laughing his shrillest key, and Annabel laid the pink chiffon back in the tray to follow him to the door. She stood smiling, though the mist alternately gathered and cleared in her eyes, watching him up the vale and waiting to see him reappear on the front of the bench. But he found her ready when he returned; and the hat was becoming beyond her hopes. It brought back in a measure the old brightness that was half a challenge in her air, so that, to the mining man, she seemed to have gone back, almost, those lost years. Still, his satisfaction was tempered, and instantly she understood the cause. "The roses seemed enough pink today," she said tactfully, "till I wear off some of this tan. But I like this tan cloth awful well, don't you? It's a nice color for out-of-doors and won't show the dust. And doesn't it fit perfectly splendid? And look at these shoes. I don't see how you remembered my size. You've thought of everything. There's even an automobile veil. A lady that came out here with Mr. Tisdale had one about the same shade. But you'll have to help me put it on so I won't spoil this plume."
She pushed the pongee coat, which was carefully folded across the back of a chair, a little aside and, seating herself before the mirror, reached to take the scarf and exposed a folded paper on the dresser. "I found that envelope pinned inside the hat," she said still diplomatically, though a touch of humor shaded her lips. "There's a ten dollar piece in it and two and a half in silver. Probably it's your change."
But Banks turned the envelope and read pencilled across the front: "There isn't any duplicate, but thanks just the same."
After that little wedding journey down in Oregon, Banks returned to Seattle to engage a crew for the first step to reclamation; combining pleasure with business, he brought Annabel and registered at the New Washington Hotel. And here Daniels, detailed to learn something in regard to the Iditarod strike where, it was rumored, the Morgansteins were negotiating for the miner's valuable holdings, finally traced him.
"Sure we have a Banks of Alaska with us," the clerk responded, smiling, and turned the page to show thePressrepresentative the strained, left-handed signature. "He's a sawed-off specimen with a face like a peachstone; but he said if he put down his regular name, the boys likely would miss his trail."
"Mrs. Annabel Green Banks Hesperides Vale," read Jimmie.
"Lucky Banks Iditarod and Hesperides Vale.
"This looks like my man, sure; but who is Mrs. Green-Banks? His wife or mother?"
"Bride," the clerk replied laconically. "It's a sort of overdue honeymoon. But she's rather smart looking; fine eyes and tall enough to make up for him. They're a pair."
"I see. Kernel and peach. But Hesperides Vale," Daniels went on thoughtfully. "Why, that's in the new fruit belt over near Wenatchee, my old stamping-ground."
The clerk nodded. "She owns some orchard lands over there and to hear him talk, you'd think she had the money; Until it comes to ordering; then the Queen of Sheba isn't in it. 'I guess we can stand the best room in the house,' he says. And when I showed them the blue suite and told them Tarquina, the prima donna opening at the Metropolitan to-night, had the companion suite in rose, it's: 'Do you think you can put up with this blue, Annabel?' But there comes the cameo now. No, the other way, from the street."
Jimmie met the prospector midway across the lobby. "Mr. Banks?" he began genially. "I am the lucky one this time; I came in purposely to see you. I am Daniels, representing theSeattle Press. My paper is particular about the Alaska news, and I came straight to headquarters to find out about the Iditarod camp."
Banks kept on to the desk, and Jimmie turned to walk with him. The clerk was ready with his key. "Mrs. Banks hasn't come in yet," he said, smiling.
"She's likely been kept up at Sedgewick-Wilson's. I introduced her to a friend of mine there. I had to chase around to find a contractor that could ship his own scrapers and shovels across the range, and I thought the time would go quicker, for her, picking out clothes. But," he added, turning to the reporter, "we may as well sit down and wait for her here in the lobby."
"I understand," began Daniels, opening his notebook on the arm of his chair, "that your placer in the Iditarod country has panned out a clear one hundred thousand dollars."
"Ninety-five thousand, two hundred and twenty-six," corrected the mining man, "with the last clean-up to hear from."
Jimmie set these figures down, then asked: "Is the rumor true that theMorgansteins are considering an offer from you?"
"No, sir," piped the little man. "They made me an offer. I gave 'em an option on my bunch of claims for a hundred and fifty thousand. Their engineer has gone in to look the property over. If they buy, they'll likely send a dredger through by spring and work a big bunch of men."
There was a silent moment while Jimmie recorded these facts, then: "And I understand you are interested in fruit lands east of the mountains," he said. "It often happens that way. Men make their pile up there in the frozen north and come back here to Washington to invest it."
"Likely," replied Banks shortly. "Likely. But it's my wife that owns the property in the fruit belt. And it's a mighty promising layout; it's up to me to stay with it till she gets her improvements in. Afterwards—now I want you to get this in correct. Last time things got mixed; the young fellow wrote me down Bangs. And I've read things in the newspaper lately about Hollis Tisdale that I know for a fact ain't so."
"Hollis Tisdale?" Jimmie suspended his pencil. "So you know the Sphynx of the Yukon, do you?"
"That's it. That's the name that blame newspaper called him. Sphynx nothing. Hollis Tisdale is the best known man in Alaska and the best liked. If the Government had had the sense to put him at the head of the Alaska business, there'd been something doing, my, yes."
The reporter finished his period. "Don't let this interview bother you," he said. "It's going into my paper straight, Mr. Banks, and in your own words."
While he spoke, his vigilant glance rested lightly on one of the several guests scattered about the lobby. He was a grave and thoughtful man and had seemed deeply engrossed in a magazine, but he had changed his seat for a chair within speaking distance, and Jimmie had not seen him turn a page.
"What I was going to say, then," resumed Banks, "was that afterwards, when the orchards are in shape, I am going back to Alaska and take a bunch of those abandoned claims, where the miners have quit turning up the earth, and just seed 'em to oats and blue stem. Either would do mighty well. The sun shines hot long summer days, and the ground keeps moist from the melting snow on the mountains. I've seen little patches of grain up there and hay ripening and standing high as my shoulder. But what they need most in the interior is stock farms, horses and beeves, and I am going to take in a fine bunch of both; they'll do fine; winter right along with the caribou and reindeer."
"Well, that's a new idea to me," exclaimed Daniels. "Alaska to me has always stood for blizzards, snow, glaciers, impregnable mountains, bleak and barren plains like the steppes of Russia, and privation, privation of the worst kind."
Banks nodded grimly. "That's because the first of us got caught by winter unprepared. Why, men freeze to death every blizzard right here in the States; sometimes it's in Dakota; sometimes old New York, with railroads lacing back and forth close as shoestrings. And imagine that big, unsettled Alaska interior without a single railroad and only one wagon-road; men most of the time breaking their own trails. Not a town or a house sometimes in hundreds of miles to shelter 'em, if a storm happens to break. But you talk with any Swede miner from up there. He'll tell you they could make a new Sweden out of Alaska. Let us use the timber for building and fuel; let a man that's got the money to do it start a lumber-mill or mine the coal. Give us the same land and mineral laws you have here in the States, and homeseekers would flock in thick as birds in springtime."
The stranger closed his magazine. "Pardon me," he said, taking advantage of the pause, "but do you mean that Conservation is all that is keeping home-seekers out of Alaska?"
Banks nodded this time with a kind of fierceness; his eyes scintillated a white heat, but he suppressed the imminent explosion and began with forced mildness, "My, yes. But you imagine a man trying to locate with ninety-five per cent. of the country reserved. First you've got to consider the Coast Range. The great wall of China's nothing but a line of ninepins to the Chugach and St. Elias wall. The Almighty builds strong, and he set that wall to hold the Pacific Ocean back. Imagine peaks piled miles high and cemented together with glaciers; the Malispina alone has eighty miles of water front; and there's the Nanatuk, Columbia, Muir; but the Government ain't found names for more'n half of 'em yet, nor a quarter of the mountains. Now imagine a man getting his family over that divide, driving his little bunch of cattle through, packing an outfit to keep 'em going the first year or so. Suppose he's even able to take along a portable house; what's he going to do about fuel? Is he going to trek back hundreds of miles to the seaport, like the Government expects, to pack in coal? Australian maybe, or Japan low grade, but more likely it's Pennsylvania sold on the dock for as high as seventeen dollars a ton. Yes, sir, and with Alaska coal, the best kind and enough to supply the United States for six hundred years, scattered all around, cropping right out of the ground. Think of him camped alongside a whole forest of spruce, where he can't cut a stick."
The little man's voice had reached high pitch; he rose and took a short, swift turn across the floor. The stranger was silent; apparently he was weighing this astonishing information. But Daniels broke the pause.
"The Government ought to hurry those investigations," he said. "Foster, the mining engineer, told me never but one coal patent had been allowed in all Alaska, and that's on the coast. He has put thousands into coal land and can't get title or his money back. The company he is interested with has had to stop development, because, pending investigation, no man can mine coal until his patent is secured. It looks like the country is strangled in red tape."
"It is," cried Banks. "And one President's so busy building a railroad for the Filipinos, and rushing supplies to the Panama Canal he goes out of office and clear forgets he's left Alaska temporarily tied up; and the next one has his hands so full fixing the tariff and running down the trusts he can't look the question up. And if he could, Congress is working overtime, appropriating the treasury money home in the States. There's so many Government buildings to put up and harbors and rivers to dredge, it can't even afford to give us a few lights and charts, and ships keep on feeling their way and going to destruction on the Alaska coast. Alaska is side-tracked. She's been left standing so long she's going to rust."
"If some of our senators could listen to you," said the stranger, with a swift and vanishing smile, "their eyes would be opened. But that is the trouble; Alaska has had no voice. It is true each congressman has been so burdened with the wants of his own State that session after session has closed before the Alaska bills were reached. We have been accustomed to look on Alaska as a bleak and forbidding country, with a floating population of adventurers and lawless men, who go there with the intention to stay only long enough to reap a mineral harvest. If she had other great resources and such citizens as you, why were you not in Washington to exploit her?"
Lucky Banks shook his head. "Up to this year," he said and smiled grimly, "I couldn't have made the trip without beating my way, and I guess if I went to some of those senators now and escaped being put down for an ex-convict, they'd say I was engineering a trust. They'd turn another key on Alaska to keep me out."
He wheeled to tramp down the lobby, then stopped. Annabel had entered. Annabel arrayed in a new, imported tailored suit of excellent cloth, in a shade of Copenhagen blue, and a chic hat of blue beaver trimmed with paradise. Instantly the mining man's indignation cooled. He put aside Alaska's wrongs and hurried, beaming, to meet his wife. "Why, you bought blue," he said with pleased surprise. "And you can wear it, my, yes, about as well as pink."
Annabel smiled with the little ironical curl of the lip that showed plainly her good sense held her steady, on the crest of that high wave whereon it had been fortune's freak to raise her. "Lucile showed me a place, on the next floor of the store, where I could get the tan taken off my face while I was waiting for alterations to my suit. They did it with a sort of cold cream and hot water. There's just a streak left around my neck, and I can cover that with the necklace." She paused then added with a gentle conciliation creeping through her confidential tone: "I am going to wear the pink chiffon to-night to hear Tarquina. Lucile says it's all right for a box party, opening night. I like her real well. I asked her to go with us, and she's coming early, in time for dinner, at seven."
"I thought you'd make a team," replied Banks, delighted. "And I'm glad you asked her, my, yes. It would have been lonesome sitting by ourselves 'mongst the empty chairs."
They were walking towards the elevator, and Daniels, who had learned from the clerk that the important looking stranger who had seemed so interested in Banks' information, was the head of the new coal commission, going north for investigation, stopped the prospector to say good-by.
"I want to thank you for that interview, Mr. Banks," he said frankly. "I've learned more about Alaska from you in fifteen minutes than I had put together in five years."
"You are welcome, so's you get it in straight. But,"—and the little man drew himself proudly erect,—"I want to make you acquainted with Mrs. Banks, Mr. Daniels."
"I am awfully glad to meet you, Mrs. Banks," said Jimmie cordially, offering his hand. "I understand you are from Hesperides Vale, and I grew up over there in the Columbia desert. It's almost like seeing friends from home."
"Likely," Banks began, but his glance moved from the reporter to his wife and he repeated less certainly, "likely we could get him to take one of those chairs off our hands."
Annabel's humor rose to her eyes. "He's hired a box for Carmen to-night; they were out of seats in the divans, and it worries him because our party is so small."
"I'd be delighted, only,"—Jimmie paused, flushing and looking intently inside his hat—"the fact is, I am going to take the Society Editor on my paper. We have miserable seats, the first row in the orchestra was the best they could do for us, and she has to write up the gowns. She's an awfully nice girl, and she has a little trick of keeping her copy out of sight, so the people in the house never would catch on; would you think me very bold,"—and with this he looked up directly at Annabel—"if I asked you to give that place in your box to her?"
He was graciously assured it would make Mr. Banks "easy" if they both joined the party, and Annabel suggested that he bring the Society Editor to dinner, "so as to get acquainted" before the opera. All of which was speedily arranged by telephone. Miss Atkins accepted with pleasure.
The dinner was a complete success; so complete that the orchestra was concluding the overture when they arrived at the theater. A little flurry ran through the body of the house when Annabel appeared. Mrs. Feversham in the opposite box raised her lorgnette.
"I wonder who they are," she said. "Why, the girl in white looks like MissAtkins, who writes the society news, and there is your reporter, Daniels."
"Other man is Lucky Banks; stunning woman in pink must be his wife." Frederic, having settled in his chair and eased his lame knee, focussed his own glasses.
"George, Marcia," he exclaimed, "do you see that necklace? Nuggets, straight from the sluices of the Annabel, I bet. Nuggets strung with emeralds, and each as big as they grow. I suppose that chain is what you call barbarous, but I rather like it."
"It is fit for a queen," admitted Marcia. "One of those barbarian queens we read about. No ordinary woman could wear it, but it seems made for her throat." And she added, dropping her lorgnette to turn her calculating glance on her brother's face, "Every woman her price."
Frederic laughed shortly. The purplish flush deepened in his cheeks, and his eyes rested on Beatriz Weatherbee. She was seated in the front of the box with Elizabeth, and as she leaned forward a little, stirred by the passionate cry of the violins, her profile was turned to him.
"The price doesn't cut as much figure as you think," he said.
Then the curtain rose. Tarquina was a marvelous Carmen. The Society Editor, who had taken her notebook surreptitiously from a silk evening bag and, under cover of a chiffon scarf, commenced to record the names and gowns of important personages, got no farther than the party in the opposite box during the first act. But she made amends in the intermission. It was then a smile suddenly softened her firm mouth, and she introduced Annabel to her columns with this item.
"Noticeable among the out of town guests were Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Banks, who entertained a box party, following a charming dinner at the New Washington. Mrs. Banks, a recent bride, was handsomely gowned in pink chiffon over messaline, and wore a unique necklace of nuggets which were gathered from her husband's mine near Iditarod, Alaska. The gold pieces were linked lengthwise, alternating with single emeralds, and the pendant was formed of three slender nuggets, each terminating in a matched diamond and emerald."
While Geraldine wrote this, Frederic Morganstein made his way laboriously, with the aid of a crutch, around to the box. "How do do, Miss Atkins," he said. "Hello, Daniels! Well, Mr. Banks, how are you? Greatest Carmen ever sung in this theater, isn't it? Now, keep your seat. I find it easier to stand. Just came for a minute to be presented to—your wife."
His venture carried. The little man, rising, said with conscious pride: "Mrs. Banks, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Morganstein. He's the man that holds the option on the Annabel. And this is Miss Purdy, Mr. Morganstein; Miss Lucile Purdy of Sedgewick-Wilson's. I see you know the rest of the bunch."
"I guess it's up to me to apologize, Mrs. Banks," said Frederic, heavily humorous. "I wouldn't believe my sister, Mrs. Feversham, when she told me there were some smart women in those Alaska towns." He paused, laughing, while his glance moved from Annabel's ironical mouth to her superb shoulders and rested on the nugget chain; then he said: "From that interview of yours in tonight'sPress, Mr. Banks, there isn't much the country can't produce."
"Likely not," responded the little man quickly. "But my wife was an Oregon girl. We were engaged, my, yes, long before I saw Alaska. And lately she's been living around Hesperides Vale. She's got some fine orchard property over there, in her own right."
"Is that so?" Frederic's speculative look returned to Annabel's face. "Hesperides Vale. That's in the new reclamation country, east of the mountains, isn't it? I was intending to motor through that neighborhood when this accident stopped me and put an end to the trip. They are turning out some fine apples in that valley, I understand. But it's curtain time. Awfully glad I've met you; see you again. Lend me your shoulder, will you, Daniels—around to my box?"
While they were crossing the foyer, he said: "That enlargement came out fine; you must run up to my office, while it's there to-morrow, to see it. And that was a great write-up you gave Lucky Banks. It was yours, wasn't it? Thought so. Bought a hundred copies. Mrs. Feversham is going to take 'em east to distribute in Washington. Double blue-pencilled one, 'specially for the President."
Jimmie smiled, blushing. "That's more than I deserve, but I'm afraid, even if it reaches his hands, he won't take the time to read it."
"You leave that to Mrs. Feversham," replied Morganstein. "Saw that little scoop, too, about Tisdale. He's the closest oyster on record."
"The trouble was," said Jimmie wisely, "he started that Indian story and nobody thought to interrupt with more coal questions."
"You mean he told that yarn purposely to head us off?"
"That's the way it seemed to me afterwards. He spun it out, you know; it lasted to Bremerton, where I got off. But it was interesting; the best I ever heard, and I took it all down, word for word. It was little use, though. The chief gave one look at my bunch of copy and warned me, for the last time, the paper wasn't publishing any novels. What I had gone aboard theAquilafor was to write up her equipment and, incidentally, to pick up Hollis Tisdale's views on Alaska coal."
They had reached the entrance to the Morganstein box; the orchestra was playing again, the curtain began to rise on the second act, and Daniels hurried back to his place. But during the next intermission, an usher brought the young reporter a note. It was written concisely on a business card, but Jimmie read it through slowly a second time before he handed it to the Society Editor.
"Mrs. Feversham wants to see that story," so it ran. "Leave it at my office in the morning. She may take it east with her. Knows some magazine people who are going to feature Alaska and the Northwest."
After a thoughtful moment Miss Atkins returned the card to Jimmie. "Is it the Indian story?" she asked.
Daniels nodded, watching her face. His smouldering excitement was ready to flame. "They will read it for Mrs. Feversham,"—Geraldine's voice trembled slightly—"and they will take it. It's a magazine story. They ought to pay you handsomely. It's the best thing you ever wrote."
Marcia Feversham saw possibilities in that story. Indeed, writing Jimmie from Washington, she called it a little masterpiece. There was no doubt it would be accepted somewhere, though he must expect to see it cut down considerably, it was so long. Then, presumably to facilitate the placing of the manuscript, she herself went over it with exceeding care, revising with her pencil, eliminating whole paragraphs, and finally fixing the end short of several pages. In the copy which her husband's stenographer prepared, the original was reduced fully a third. After that it mellowed for an interval in Marcia's drawer.
At the close of November, it was announced that Stuart Foster, the junior defendant in the first "Conspiracy to defraud the Government" trial, was weather-bound in Alaska. This, taken in consideration with the serious illness of Tisdale, on whom the prosecution relied for technical testimony, resulted in setting the case for hearing the last week in the following March. It was at this time, while Hollis was lying unconscious and in delirium at a hospital, that his great wealth began to be exploited. Everywhere, when inquiries were made as to his health, fabulous statements followed about the Aurora. To mention the mine was like saying "Open Sesame!" Then, finally, it was whispered and repeated with conviction by people who "wouldn't have believed it of Hollis Tisdale" at the beginning, that he had defrauded the widow of his dead partner—who had made the discovery and paid for it with his life—of her share.
Then, at last, early in December, Jimmie's masterpiece was forwarded to a new magazine in New York.
"Dear Mr. Sampson;—" so Marcia wrote—
"Here is a story of Western life that I believe will be of interest to you. The incident actually occurred. The man who killed the Indian child, and who amused my brother's guests with the story while we were cruising lately on theAquila, was Hollis Tisdale of the Geographical Survey. He is probably the best known figure in Alaska, the owner of the fabulously rich Aurora mine. His partner, who made the discovery, paid for it with his life, and there is a rumor that his wife, who should have a half interest, is penniless.
"Mr. Tisdale will he a leading witness for the Government in the pending Alaska coal cases. Strange—is it not?—since a criminal is barred from testifying in a United States court.
"The last issue of your magazine was most attractive. Enclosed are lists of two thousand names and my check to cover that many sample copies of the number in which the story is published. March would be opportune. Of course, while I do not object to any use you may care to make of this information, I trust I shall be spared publicity.
"Very truly,
Frederic Morganstein did not wait until spring to open his villa. The furnishings were completed, even to the Kodiak and polar-bear rugs, in time to entertain a house-party at Christmas. Marcia, who came home for the event, arrived early enough to take charge of the final preparations, but the ideas that gave character to the lavish decorations were Beatriz Weatherbee's. She it was who suggested the chime of holly bells with tongues of red berries, hung by ropes of cedar from the vaulted roof directly over the stage; and saw the two great scarlet camellias that had been coaxed into full bloom specially for the capitalist placed at either end of the footlights, while potted poinsettias and small madrona trees, brought in from the bluffs above the grounds, finished the scheme with the effect of an old mission garden. Then there were a hundred more poinsettias disposed of, without crowding, on the landings and inside the railing of the gallery, with five hundred red carnations arranged with Oregon grape and fern in Indian baskets to cap the balustrade. To one looking up from the lower hall, they had the appearance of quaint jardinière.
There was not too much color. December, in the Puget Sound country, means the climax of the wet season when under the interminable curtain of the rain, dawn seems to touch hands with twilight. It was hardly four o'clock that Christmas eve when theAquilaarrived with the guests from Seattle, but the villa lights were on. A huge and resinous backlog, sending broad tongues of flame into the cavernous throat of the fireplace, gave to the illumination a ruddier, flickering glow. To Foster, who was the first to reach the veranda, Foster who had been so long accustomed to faring at Alaska road-houses, to making his own camp, on occasion, with a single helper in the frosty solitudes, that view through the French window must have seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights. Involuntarily he stopped, and suddenly the luxurious interior became a setting for one living figure. Elizabeth was there, arranging trifles on a Christmas tree; and Mrs. Feversham, seated at a piano, was playing a brilliant bolero; but the one woman he saw held the center of the stage. Her sparkling face was framed in a mantilla; a camellia, plucked from one of the flowering shrubs, was tucked in the lace above her ear, and she was dancing with castanets in the old mission garden.
The next moment Frederic passed him and threw open the door with his inevitable "Bravo!" And instantly the music ceased; Marcia started to her feet; the dancer pulled off her mantilla, and the flower dropped from her hair.
"Go on! Encore!" he laughed. "My, but you've got that cachucha down to a science; bred, though, I guess, in your little Spanish feet. You'd dance all the sense a man has out of his head."
"That's the reason none of us heard theAquilawhistle," said Marcia, coming forward. "Beatriz promised to dance to-night, in a marvelous yellow brocade that was her great-grandmother's, and we were rehearsing; but she looked so like a nun, masquerading, in that gray crepe de Chine, I almost forgot the accompaniment. Why, Mr. Foster! How delightful you were able to get home for Christmas."
"I am fortunate," he answered, smiling. "The ice caught me in the Yukon, but I mushed through to Fairbanks and came on to the coast by stage. I just made the steamer, and she docked alongside theAquilanot fifteen minutes before she sailed. Mr. Morganstein brought me along to hear my report."
"I guess we are all glad to have you home for Christmas," said Elizabeth.
She moved on with her sister to meet the other guests who were trooping into the hall, and Foster found himself taking Mrs. Weatherbee's hand. His own shook a little, and suddenly he was unable to say any of the friendly, solicitous things he had found it so easy to express to these other people, after his long absence; only his young eyes, searching her face for any traces of care or anxiety the season may have left, spoke eloquently. Afterwards, when the greetings were over, and the women trailed away to their rooms, he saw he had forgotten to give her a package which he had carried up from theAquila, and hurried to overtake her at the foot of the stairs.
"It was brought down by messenger from Vivian Court for you," he explained, "just as we were casting off, and I took charge of it. There is a letter, you see, which the clerk has tucked under the string."
The package was a florist's carton, wide and deep, with the name HollywoodGardens printed across the violet cover, but the letter was postmarkedWashington, D.C. "Violets!" she exclaimed softly, "'when violet time isgone.'"
Her whole lithe body seemed to emanate a subdued pleasure, and settling the box, unopened, in the curve of her arm, she started up the staircase. Foster, looking up, caught the glance she remembered to send from the gallery railing. Her smile was radiant.
She did not turn on the electric switch when she closed her door; the primrose walls reflected the light from the great plate-glass window, with the effect of candle glow. She put the box on a table near the casement and laid the letter aside to lift the lid. The perfume of violets rose in her face like liberated incense. The box was filled with them; bunches on bunches. She bent her cheek to feel the cool touch of them; inhaled their fragrance with deep, satisfying breaths. Presently she found the florist's envelope and in it Tisdale's card. And she read, written under the name in a round, plain woman's hand, "This is to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know I have not forgotten the project."
The sparkle went out of her face. After a moment she picked up the letter and compared the address with the writing on the card. It was the same and, seating herself by the window, she broke the seal. When she had read the first line under the superscription, she stopped to look at the signature. It was Katherine Purdy. She turned back and began again:
"My dear Mrs. Weatherbee:
"I am the night nurse on Mr. Tisdale's ward. He dictated the message on his card to me, and I learned your address through ordering the violets of the Seattle florist for him. It set me wondering whether he has ever let you know how desperate things were with him. He is the most unselfish man I ever saw, and the bravest that ever came on this floor. The evening he arrived the surgeons advised amputating his hand—it was a case of blood-poisoning—but he said, 'No, I am ready to take the risk; that right hand is more than half of me, my better half.' He could joke, even then. And when the infection spread to the arm, it was the same. After that it was too late to operate; just a question of endurance. And he could endure all right. My, but he was patient! I wish you could have seen him, as I did, lying here hour after hour, staring at the ceiling, asking for nothing, when every nerve in his body must have been on fire. But he won through. He is lying here still, weak and pale enough, but safe.
"Maybe I seem impertinent, and I suppose I am young and foolish, but I don't care; I wouldn't be hard as nails, like some in this clinic, if it was to cost me my diploma. I came from the Pacific west—I am going back there as soon as I graduate—and a girl from there never can learn to bottle her feelings till she looks like a graven image. Besides, I know I am writing to a western woman. But I want to say right here he never made a confidant of me, never said one word, intentionally, about you, but there were nights when his temperature was running from a hundred and four degrees that he got to talking some. Most of the time he was going all over that terrible trip to find poor Mr. Weatherbee, and once, when he was hunting birds along some glacier, he kept hearing David singing and calling him. Again he was just having the best, quiet little visit with him. My, how he loved that man! And when it wasn't David, it was you. 'I know you couldn't marry a man like Morgan,' he said. 'You may think so, but you will not when the time comes.' And once it was, 'Beatrice, Beatrice, in spite of everything I can't help believing in you.' Then one night, his worst before the crisis, he seemed to be helping you through some awful danger, it was a storm I think, and there were wild beasts and mountains, and at last when it was all over, he said quietly: 'You do owe your life to me, but I shall never hold you to the debt; that would be too monstrous.' And a little later it was, 'Head high, hold fast, it will be a stiff fight, soldier. My dear, my dear, do you think I don't know how near you came to loving me?' I guess you know how he said that. There are certain tones in his voice that sink straight to the bottom of your heart; I couldn't keep from crying. And it seems to me that if you really knew how much he thought of you, and how sick he had been, and how he has wanted you, nothing could keep you from packing up and coming straight to Washington. I know I should. I could go anywhere, through Alaska or the Great Sahara, it wouldn't matter which, for a man, if there is one in this world, who could love me that well."
Beatriz Weatherbee folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. The action was mechanical, and she sat twisting it with a kind of silent emphasis, looking out into the thick atmosphere. A dash of hail struck the window; the plate glass grew opaque. Then, suddenly, she lifted her arms to the table and dropped her face; her body shook. It was as though she had come at last to her blank wall; the inevitable she had so persistently evaded was upon her; there was no escape.
Presently some one knocked. And instantly her intrepid spirit was up, on guard. She sat erect and pressed her handkerchief swiftly to her eyes. Then Marcia Feversham opened the door and, finding the button, flashed on the lights.
"Why, Beatriz," she exclaimed. "Are you here in the dark? You must have fallen asleep in your chair."
"And dreaming." She rose, shading her eyes from the sudden glare. "But it was a wretched dream, Marcia; I am glad you wakened me. Where is Elizabeth?"
"Making Frederic's cocktail. He needed a bracer to go through a business meeting with Stuart Foster; but she will be here directly. I thought, since we are to share your rooms, we had better dress early to be out of the way. And I sent Celeste in to the Hallidays; Elizabeth can do everything for me."
"Much better than Celeste," she agreed. "And while you are busy, I shall go for a bracing little walk."
"A walk?" echoed Marcia in astonishment. "Why, it's storming. Hear that!"
Another burst of hail struck the window. Mrs. Weatherbee turned, listening, and so avoiding Marcia's penetrating eyes, dropped her hand from her own. "I have my raincoat and cap," she said, "and a smart brush with the wind will clear my head of cobwebs."
With this she hurriedly smoothed the letter and laid it between the pages of a book; lifting the violets from the table, she carried them out of the steam-heated apartment to the coolness of the sleeping-porch. Mrs. Feversham followed to the inner room and stood watching her through the open door.
"Violets!" she exclaimed. "At Christmas! From wherever did they come?"
"From Hollywood Gardens," she responded almost eagerly. "Isn't it marvelous how they make the out-of-season flowers bloom? But this flurry of hail is the end of the storm, Marcia; the clouds are breaking, and it is light enough to see the path above the pergola. I shall have time to go as far as the observatory."
Before she finished speaking, she was back in the room and hurrying on her raincoat. Mrs. Feversham began to lay out various toilet accessories, but presently, when the gallery door closed behind Beatriz, she walked to the table near the plate-glass window and picked up the book. It was a morocco-bound edition of Omar'sRubaiyat, which she had often noticed at the apartment in Vivian Court, yet she studied the title deliberately, and also the frontispiece, before she turned to the pages that enclosed the letter. But it was natural that, holding both her brother's and Beatriz Weatherbee's interests so at heart, her scruples should be finally dispelled, and she laid the volume face down, to keep the place, while she read the night nurse's unclinical report. After that she went to the box of violets in the sleeping-porch and found Tisdale's message, and she had slipped the card carefully back and stood looking meditatively off through the open casement when her sister entered from the gallery. At the same time Mrs. Weatherbee appeared on the path above the pergola. But she had not escaped to the solitude she so evidently had desired, for Foster accompanied her. When they stopped to look down on the villa and the little cove where theAquilarocked at her moorings, Marcia waved her hand gaily, then turned to the brilliant room.
Elizabeth met her at the threshold. "What has sent Beatriz out in this weather?" she asked.
"Why, you see,"—Marcia answered with a little backward gesture to the figures on the slope,—"since this is Stuart Foster's first visit to the villa, he must be personally conducted through the park."
"She tried her best to discourage him. They were standing at the side entrance when I came through the dining-room. She warned him first impressions were everything and that it would be blowing a gale at the observatory; besides, if Frederic was waiting, she would not be responsible."
"But, 'come what will, what may'"—and meeting her sister's look, Marcia's eyes gathered brilliancy—"the man must have his hour."
"That is what he told her. He said the syndicate had had his time and brains, he might as well add his soul, for three months steady, and now he was entitled to his hour. I wonder—" Elizabeth's even voice wavered—"Do you think she will refuse him?"
"I haven't a doubt." And Marcia crossed to the dressing-table and began to remove the shell pins from her glossy black hair.
"She seemed so changed," pursued Elizabeth following. "So, well, anxious, depressed, and you know how gay she was at the time theAquilacame. And I happened to be near them when we started up-stairs. It was plain she was glad to see him. But he gave her a package that had been forwarded from Vivian Court. There was a letter; it may have been from Lucky Banks."
Marcia was silent. She lifted her brush and swept it the length of her unbound hair.
"If it was," resumed Elizabeth, "if he has experimented far enough and wants to forfeit that bonus, I am going to buy that piece of Wenatchee desert myself. The Novelty mills will pay me enough for my tide lands."
"No, Elizabeth. You will hold on to your tide lands, every foot." Mrs. Feversham paused to watch her sister's eyes capitulate under the batteries of her own, then said: "But you need not worry; Frederic will probably take that option off Lucky Banks' hands. Now, please do my puffs; high, you know, so as to use the paradise aigrette."
Foster, too, had felt the change in Mrs. Weatherbee's mood since he left her at the foot of the staircase; the exhilaration that had been so spontaneous then, that had seemed to expand to take him in, was now so manifestly forced. And presently it came over him she was making conversation, saying all these neutral things about the villa and grounds to safeguard the one vital thing she feared to have him touch.
"Tell me about yourself," he interrupted at last. "You don't know how I've worried about you; how I've blamed myself all these slow months for leaving you as I did. Of course you understood the company decided to send me in to the Iditarod suddenly, with only a few hours' notice, and to reach the interior while the summer trails were passable I had to take the steamer sailing that day. I tried to find you, but you were out of town; so I wrote."
"I received the letter," she responded quickly. "I want to thank you for it; it was very pleasant indeed to feel the security of a friend in reserve. But you had written if there was anything you could do, or if, any time, I should need you to let you know, and there was no reason to. I saw I had allowed you to guess the state of my finances; they had been a little depressed, I confess, but soon after you sailed, I gave an option on that desert land east of the Cascades and was paid a bonus of three thousand dollars."
"Then Tisdale did take that property off your hands, after all. I tried to make myself believe he would; but his offer to buy hinged on the practicability of that irrigation project."
"I know. He found it was practicable to carry it out. But—I gave the option to Mr. Banks."
"Lucky Banks," questioned Foster incredulously, "of Iditarod? Why, he talked of a big farming scheme in Alaska."
"I do not know about that. But he had thought a great deal of David. They had been partners, it seems, in Alaska. Once, in a dreadful blizzard, he almost perished, and David rescued him. He knew about the project and offered to make the payment of three thousand dollars to hold the land until he found out whether the scheme was feasible. I needed the money very much. There was a debt it was imperative to close. So I accepted the bonus without waiting to let Mr. Tisdale know."
Foster's brows clouded. "Well, why shouldn't you? Tisdale has himself to blame, if he let his opportunity go."
There was a silent interval. They had reached the brow of the bluff and, coming into the teeth of the wind, she dipped her head and ran to gain the shelter of the pavilion. Then, while she gathered her breath, leaning a little on the parapet and looking off to the broad sweep of running sea, Foster said: "It was that debt that worried me up there in the wilderness. You had referred to it the evening after the theater, a week before I went away. You called it a debt of honor. You laughed at the time, but you warned me it was the hardest kind of debt because an obligation to a friend kept one continually paying interest in a hundred small ways. You said it was like selling yourself on a perpetual instalment plan. That wasn't the first time you had spoken of it, but you seemed to feel the pressure more that night and, afterwards, up there in the north, I got to thinking it over. I blamed myself for not finding out the truth. I was afraid the loan was Frederic Morganstein's." He paused and drew back a step with a quick uplift of his aggressive chin. "Was it?" he asked.
"Yes." She drew erect and turned from the parapet to meet his look. "My note came into his hands. But I see I must explain. It began in a yearly subscription to the Orthopedic hospital; the one, you know, for little deformed children. I was very interested when the movement started; I sang at concerts, danced sometimes you remember, to help along the fund. And I endowed a little bed. David always seemed just on the brink of riches in those days, his letters were full of brilliant predictions, but when the second annual payment fell due, I had to borrow of Elizabeth. She suggested it. She herself was interested deeper, financially, than I. All the people we knew, who ever gave to charity, were eager to help the Orthopedic; the ladies at the head were our personal friends; the best surgeons were giving their services and time. I hadn't the courage to have my subscription discontinued so soon, and I expected to cancel the debt when I heard again from David. But the next spring it was the same; I borrowed again from Elizabeth. After that, when she wanted to apply the sum to the hospital building fund, Mrs. Feversham advanced the money, and I gave my note. My bed, then, was given to a little, motherless boy. He had the dearest, most trusting smile and great, dark eyes; the kind that talk to you. And his father had deserted him. That seems incredible; that a man can leave his own child, crippled, ill, unprovided for; but it does happen, sometimes." She paused to steady her voice and looked off again from the parapet. "The surgeons were greatly interested in the case," she went on. "They were about to perform an unusual operation. All his future depended on it. So—I let my subscription run on; so much could happen in a year. The operation was a perfect success, and when the boy was ready to go, one of the Orthopedic women adopted him. He is the happiest, sturdiest little fellow now.
"At the end of the summer when the note fell due Mrs. Feversham did not care to renew it; she was going to Washington and wished to use the money in New York. The desert tract was all I had, and when Mr. Morganstein planned the motoring trip through the mountains and down to Portland, he offered to take a day to look the land over. He did not want to encumber himself with any more real estate, he said, but would advise me on its possibilities for the market. An accident to the car in Snoqualmie Pass obliged him to give up the excursion, and Marcia disposed of the note to him. She said it could make little difference to me since her brother was willing to let the obligation rest until I was ready to meet it. I do not blame her; there are some things Marcia Feversham and I do not see in the same light. It isn't so much through custom and breeding; it's the way we were created, bone and spirit." Her voice broke but she laid her hand on the parapet again with a controlling grasp and added evenly, "That is the reason when Mr. Banks came I was so ready to accept his offer."
"So, that was your debt of honor!" Foster began unsteadily; the words caught in his throat, and for an instant her face grew indistinct through the mist he could not keep back from his eyes. "You knew you were traveling on thin ice; the break-up was almost on you, yet you handicapped yourself with those foundlings. And you never told me. I could have taken over that subscription, I should have been glad of the chance, you must have known that, but you allowed me to believe it was a loan to cover personal expenses."
She met the reproach with a little fleeting smile. "There were times when those accounts pressed, I am going to admit that, in justice to Elizabeth. She always buoyed me through. I have known her intimately for years. We were at Mills Seminary together, and even then she was the most dependable, resourceful, generous girl in the school. I never should have had the courage to dispose of things—for money—but she offered to. Once it was the bracelet that had been my great-grandmother's; the serpent, you remember, with jewelled scales and fascinating ruby eyes. The Japanese consul bought it for his wife. And once it was that dagger the first American Don Silva wore. The design was Moorish, you know, with a crescent in the hilt of unique stones. The collector who wanted it promised to give me the opportunity to redeem it if ever he wished to part with it, and Elizabeth had the agreement written and signed."
"Like a true Morganstein. But I knew how much she thought of you. I used to remind myself, up there in the Iditarod wilderness, that you had her clear, practical sense and executive ability to rely on."
"That has been my one rare good-fortune; to have had Elizabeth. Not that I depreciate my other friends," and she gave Foster another fleeting smile. "There was Mrs. Brown who in the autumn, when I saw the necessity to give up my apartment at Vivian Court, asked me to stay in exchange for piano and dancing lessons. I had often taught her little girls for pleasure, they were so sweet and lovable, when they visited in my rooms. Still, afterwards, I learned the suggestion came from Elizabeth. Now you know everything," she added with determined gaiety. "And I have had my draught of ozone. We must hurry back, or they will wonder what has become of us."
She turned to the path, and the young engineer followed in silence. He did not know everything; deep in his heart the contradiction burned. Whatever may have caused her exhilaration at the time theAquilaarrived, it was not his return, and while her explanations satisfied him that she was in no immediate financial distress, he felt that her confidence covered unplumbed depths she did not wish him to sound.
They had reached the footbridge over the cascade when he said abruptly: "After all, I am glad Lucky Banks got ahead on the irrigation project. He will find it feasible, if any one can. He grew up on an Oregon farm, and what he hasn't learned about sluicing in Alaska isn't worth knowing. It leaves Hollis Tisdale no alternative."
She turned waiting, with inquiry in her eyes.
"I mean in regard to the Aurora. He hasn't the saving grace of an excuse, now, not to convey that last half interest back to you."
"I do not want a half interest in the Aurora mine." She drew herself very straight, swaying a little on the balls of her feet. "You must not suggest it. I should not accept it even through a United States court. It belongs to Mr. Tisdale. He furnished the funds that made my husband's prospecting trip possible. And all the gold in Alaska could not repay him for—what he did. Sometimes, when I think of him alone on that terrible trail, he stands out more than a man. Epics have been written on less; it was a friendship to be glorified in some great painting or bronze. But then he touched so lightly on his own part in the story; in the incense he burned to David he was obscured."
Foster stood watching her in surprise. The color that the wind had failed to whip back to her cheeks burned now, two brilliant spots; raindrops, or tears, hung trembling on her lashes, and through them flamed the blue fires of her eyes.
"So," he said slowly, "so, Tisdale did hunt you up, after all; and, of course, you had the whole hard story from him."
"I heard him tell it, yes, but he left out about the—wolves."
"Wolves?" repeated Foster incredulously. "There were no wolves. Why, to be overtaken by a pack, single-handed, on the trail, is the worst that can happen to a man."
She nodded. "Mr. Banks told me. He had talked with the miners who found him. It was terrible." A great shudder ran through her body; for a moment she pressed her fingers to her eyes, then she added with difficulty, almost in a whisper: "He was defending David."
"No, no! Great Scott! But see here,"—Foster laid his hand on her arm and drew her on down the path, "don't try to tell me any more. I understand. Banks shouldn't have told you. Come, remember Tisdale won through. He's safe."
After a silence, she said: "I doubt if you know how ill he has been."
"Tisdale? No, I hadn't heard."
"I only learned to-day; and he has been in a Washington hospital all these months. The surgeons advised amputating his hand," she went on with a tremulous breathlessness, "but he refused. He said he would take the risk; that right hand was more than half of him, his 'better half.'"
Involuntarily Foster smiled in recognition of that dominant note inTisdale. "But he never seemed more physically fit than on the night I leftSeattle," he expostulated. "And there isn't a man in Alaska whounderstands the dangers and the precautions of frostbite better thanHollis Tisdale does."
"It was not frost; it was a vicious horse," she answered. "It happened after you saw him, on that trip to Wenatchee, while he was leading the vixen over a break in the road. We were obliged to spend the night at a wretched way-house, and the hurt became infected."
Foster stopped. "You were obliged to spend the night?" he inquired.
"Yes. It happened in this way. Mr. Tisdale had taken the Milwaukee line over the mountains, intending to finish the trip on horseback, to see the country, and I, you remember, was motoring through Snoqualmie Pass with the Morgansteins. His train barely missed colliding with our car. Mr. Morganstein was injured, and the others took the westbound home with him, but I decided to board the eastbound and go on by stage to Wenatchee, to see my desert tract, and return by way of the Great Northern. I found the stage service discontinued, so Mr. Tisdale secured a team instead of a saddle-horse, and we drove across."
"I see." Foster smiled again. So Tisdale had capitulated on sight. "I see.You looked the tract over together, yet he hesitated with his offer."
She did not answer directly. They had reached the pergola, and she put out her hand groping, steadying herself through the shadows. "Mr. Tisdale believed at the beginning I was some one else," she said then. "I was so entirely different from his conception of David Weatherbee's wife. In the end he offered to finance the project if I would see it carried through. I refused."
"Of course you refused," responded Foster quickly. "It was preposterous of him to ask it of you. I can't understand it in Tisdale. He was always so broad, so fine, so head and shoulders above other men, so, well, chivalrous to women. But, meantime, while he hesitated, Banks came with his offer?"
"Yes. While he was desperately ill in that hospital. I—I don't know what he will think of me—when he hears—" she went on with little, steadying pauses. "It is difficult to explain. So much happened on that drive to the Wenatchee valley. In the end, during an electrical storm, he saved me from a falling tree. What he asked of me was so very little, the weight of a feather, against all I owe him. Still, a woman does not allow even such a man to finance her affairs; people never would have understood. Besides, how could I have hoped, in a lifetime, to pay the loan? It was the most barren, desolate place; a deep, dry gulf shut in by a wicked mountain—you can't imagine—and I told him I never could live there, make it my home." They were nearly through the pergola; involuntarily she stopped and, looking up at Foster, the light from a Japanese lantern illumined her small, troubled face. "But in spite of everything," she went on, "he believes differently. To-day his first message came from Washington to remind me he had not forgotten the project. How can I—when he is so ill— how can I let him know?"
Foster had had his hour; and, at this final moment, he sounded those hitherto unplumbed depths. "It will be all right," he said steadily; "wait until you see what Lucky Banks does. You can trust him not to stand in Tisdale's way. And don't think I underrate Hollis Tisdale. He is a man in a thousand. No one knows that better than I. And that's why I am going to hold him to his record."