CHAPTER IV.INEZ.
Mrs. Prescott had spent the winter in Southern California, and some time in April was registered at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, with her daughter and maid. As her meals were served in her private parlor and she seldom stopped in the public reception room, she saw none of the guests of the house, except a few New Yorkers who were stopping there. Fanny, on the contrary, saw everybody, and flitted through the hotel like a sunbeam, with a pleasant word for those she knew and a smile for those she did not know. Her mother sometimes tried to restrain her from being so free with people, telling her that since she had heard of the circumstances of her birth she had developed a most plebeian taste.
“If I have ittastesgood,” Fanny would answer, laughingly, “and I am a great deal happier in liking people and having them like me than I was when I felt that the world was made for me and only a select few had a right to share it with me.”
She was very happy and enjoyed everything thoroughly. Time was passing and only a few months remained before her return to Roy, who wrote her nearly every day. In his last letter he told her he had been to Ridgefield.
“I was in Worcester,” he wrote, “and I took the electric, for I wanted to see Uncle Zach again. He is a case, isn’t he? He had the rheumatism and can scarcely walk. Poor old man! He cried when he spoke of the days when our parents were there making love to each other. He was quite poetic in his lamentations. ‘Nomore matin’ of birds, here,’ he said. ‘They’ve all flew off to the Tremont House, leavin’ me nothin’ but somedumEnglish sparrers.’ He talked a great deal of your father and a boy Jeff. Said he didn’t believe he was dead, and he should be perfectly happy if he were with him again, turnin’ summersaults! That would be funny, as Jeff, if living, must be over thirty. Of course I visited your property, which, if possible, looks more dilapidated than when we were there last November. It has quite a fascination for me, and I really mean, with your permission, and your mother’s, to build a cottage there, where we can spend a few weeks every summer.
“When do you go to the Yosemite? Do you know I have a queer feeling about that trip and am half inclined to take it with you. I have just seen a chap who two years ago last summer was waylaid by robbers. He says it’s not an uncommon thing for the stage to be stopped. His experience was a bad one. Two ladies fainted from sheer fright and one of them was robbed while unconscious. A strange feature of this robbery was that the watch taken from the fainting woman and which had her name engraved upon it was sent to her by mail to the hotel where she was stopping. Most of the money taken was also returned to the owners who could least afford to lose it. A queer thing for marauders to do, and shows that they are habitues of the neighborhood and have facilities for learning the names and position of those whom they plunder. I hope you will not meet with an adventure of this kind.”
On the morning when Fanny received this letter she was sitting by the window of one of the parlors in the hotel, reading it a second time, and feeling a little nervous with regard to the stage robberies of which she had heard something in San Francisco. A Firemen’s Parade waspassing, with all the paraphernalia of bands and hose carts and boys and a crowd generally, but she paid no attention to it until a clear, musical voice, with a slight accent, said to her, “Pretty, isn’t it, Miss Prescott; and isn’t father grand in his new suit? That’s he,—the tall man who bowed to me when I kissed my hand to him. He is foreman of one of the companies.”
Surprised at being so familiarly addressed by a stranger, Fanny looked up and saw standing by the next window a young girl whom she had seen several times in the halls and corridors and wondered who she was. She was tall and well proportioned. Her features were regular, her eyes dark and lustrous and veiled under very long lashes and surmounted by heavy brows which made them seem darker than they were. Her complexion was a rich olive, telling of a southern sun which must have warmed the blood of one or both of her parents. There was nothing impertinent in her manner. It was simply friendly, and Fanny, who was longing for some young person to speak to, answered pleasantly, “How did you know my name?”
“Oh, everybody knows that,” the girl replied, “and if they didn’t they have only to look on the register. I saw you the day you came and have watched you ever since when I had a chance and I wanted to speak to you so badly. I don’t know why, only I did. It seemed to me I should like you, and I know so few young girls. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken to you, but you don’t mind, do you?”
She was so frank and unsophisticated and her face was so pretty and pleasant that Fanny had no thought of being offended. She had been told by her mother never to talk with strangers and especially to the class to which this girl belonged. But Fanny usually talked to whomshe pleased and as she attracted this strange girl so the girl attracted and fascinated her.
“Sit down, please, and tell me your name, inasmuch as you know mine,” she said.
The girl sat down and folded her hands just as Fanny had a trick of folding hers. There was this difference, however,—the girl’s hands were large and brown,—helpful hands, used to toil,—while Fanny’s were soft and white and dimpled like a baby’s. The girl was not at all averse to talking of herself and said, “I am Inez Rayborne. My father is an American. My mother was half Mexican, half Spanish,—with a little Gypsy blood in her. She used to call me Gypsy because I love the mountains and rocks and woods so much. Father married her near Santa Barbara, and her name wasAnita. Isn’t that a pretty name?”
Fanny said it was, and Inez went on: “She was a little bit of a body whom father could take up and set on his shoulder. He is big and tall, and I am big, too. I wish I was small like mother and you. Mother is dead, and I have been so lonely since she died.”
Her eyes filled with tears which hung on her lashes as she continued: “Our home is in the Yosemite, not far from Inspiration Point, and perched on the hillside above the stage road, with a lovely view of the valley and the mountains. We call it Prospect Cottage and in winter we shut it up and come to the city. Before mother died we went sometimes to Santa Barbara, sometimes to Los Angeles. Now we come here and I help the housekeeper in part payment for my board. Father helps round the hotel, and Tom, too, when he is here.”
“Who is Tom?” Fanny asked, and Inez replied, “Oh, he is Tom and has lived with us since I can remember, and is like a son to father. In the summer, when thehotels in the valley are full of visitors, they sometimes go on trails as guides with the people. Again they are off on some business, seeing to exchange of property, which keeps them away for days. Then I am so lonesome and afraid, too, if there is a robbery on the road. I have a splendid dog, Nero, to take care of me. He is young, but very large. He is here with us. Maybe you have noticed him lying in the office or the hall.”
Fanny had seen a big dog around the hotel and had patted his head, for she was fond of dogs, but she was more interested now in what Inez said of a robbery.
“Do you mean stage robberies, and are they of frequent occurrence?” she asked.
“Sometimes, and sometimes not,” was Inez’s answer. “There was a dreadful one just before mother died, and I think the fright killed her. She had heart trouble and was here to-day, gone to-morrow. We were alone, and when the stage passed in the afternoon a neighbor who was on it came and told us how dreadful it was, with two ladies fainting and children crying and the highwaymen taking the watch of the woman who lay like one dead. He sent it back to her at the hotel, and the money to the others. Wasn’t that queer?”
Fanny was thinking of what Roy had written her and exclaimed, “I have heard of that.”
“You have!” Inez rejoined. “Well, the papers were full of it, and people were determined to catch the men, if possible. Mother was very nervous over it, but I never thought of her dying. We always said our prayers together, and that night she prayed that the men might be caught and the wicked work stopped. She seemed the same when she kissed me good night, but when I went into her room in the morning she could not speak. Father had come home late and was caring for her, rubbingher hands and arms, which had in them no power to move. ‘Was it the fright of the robbery?’ I said to father, who nodded, while she tried to speak and her eyes followed him in such a beseeching way. ‘Do you want to tell us something?’ I said. She nodded and made a motion to write. I brought her pencil and paper, but her nerveless hands could not hold the pencil and she died looking up at father so pitifully. He was so tender and kind to her, and cried over her like a baby, and himself put her in the coffin. It was such a little coffin I didn’t realize till I saw it how small she was. We buried her on the hill back of our house where the light from our windows can shine upon her grave when we are there in the summer. In the winter it must be awful with the snow piled so high and all of us gone. Father was almost crazy for a while and walked the floor and sat by her grave and wouldn’t eat. He staid home the rest of the season and Tom staid, too, most of the time. There were no more stages robbed that summer, and not many last summer; three or four at the most, and it so happens that I am always alone with Nero. Of course no harm can come to me but I feel nervous just the same.”
Inez was talking very earnestly and rapidly, and her language was so good that Fanny felt sure she must have had better advantages than were to be had among the mountains and asked her at last where she was educated.
“I am not educated as you are,” Inez replied. “I was at school in Stockton two years and have been to school winters in Santa Barbara and here. The rest I learned from father and mother. She had been in a convent and taught me Spanish;—that was her language. She spoke English brokenly, but so prettily. Tom brings me booksto read and I know all about the east where father is to take me some day when we are able to stop at first-class hotels as guests. I am afraid, though, it will be a long time before we go. Father’s business is not always very good.”
“What did you say it was?” Fanny asked, and Inez replied, “Exchange of property. I don’t know what that means, exactly, and when I asked Tom he said I hadn’t brain enough to understand it, if he explained. He likes to tease me.”
There was beginning to dawn upon Fanny a suspicion of the relation in which Tom stood to Inez, but she made no comment, and Inez continued: “I wish you knew father, he is so handsome for a man nearly fifty, and so kind to everybody. They worship him in the Yosemite and depend upon him a great deal. When a stage has been robbed he always gives his services to find the robbers. They have caught one or two who are in prison now, but they can get no clew to the men who have been such a terror to the neighborhood.”
“Oh,” Fanny gasped, “you frighten me so. Mother and I are going to the Yosemite in June and I should die if the stage I was in was stopped.”
“I shouldn’t,” Inez replied. “I have been on the road with father a good many times and nothing happened, but if there did I shouldn’t be afraid. I’d fly at the robber and try to kill him. Father laughs when I talk that way and says there is murder in my Gypsy blood. Perhaps there is. Any way I would not hesitate to kill a man who was robbing a coach. I’d shoot him like a dog.”
Her mood had changed as she talked. The softness had left her eyes which blazed and flashed defiantly, andshe took a turn or two across the room as if she were in fancy battling with some desperado.
“Don’t look so fierce. You scare me,” Fanny said, when Inez came back and resumed her chair.
“Do I? I cannot tell you how I feel when I think of the bandits who make our beautiful valley a dread to tourists who visit it. But they may not be there at all this summer. Don’t worry about them. Leave your valuables here, especially your diamonds, if you have any. Then, if you are held up you have not so much to lose. If I knew when you were coming I believe I’d meet you in Milton, where you take the stage, or have father do it. He isn’t afraid. He goes home to-morrow or next day. Tom has already gone. I go in two or three weeks. You must come to our cottage. It is lovely.”
Inez’s face was a very changeable one, now grave and serious and sad, then sunny and sweet, with a smile which changed its whole expression. Like most communicative people she was very inquisitive, and having told all there was to tell about herself she asked Fanny about herself, her home in New York, and how old she was. “I am seventeen,” she said.
“And I am twenty. I thought you older,” Fanny replied, in some surprise.
“So does every one, because I am so tall and big, like my father. Where isyourfather?” Inez asked.
“He is dead,” Fanny replied, thinking of both Mark Hilton and Judge Prescott.
“Oh, I am so sorry for you; but you have a mother, and mine is lying among the hills,” Inez said, beginning to talk again of her home and her hope that Fanny would visit her when she came to the valley. “Youmust,” she continued. “I want you to see our cottage and mother’s grave, and father and Nero and everything.If you will let me see your mother I will ask her for you. People nearly always do what I wish them to.”
Fanny could not promise for her mother. To her Inez was a frank, simple-hearted girl, a little too forward, perhaps, but this came of her surrounding circumstances and not from any innate ill-breeding. Mrs. Prescott would probably think differently.
“Mother is something of an invalid and does not usually see strangers, but I will tell her of you,” Fanny said, and as a maid just then came to say lunch was ready she bade her good morning and left the parlor.
The acquaintance thus begun ripened into intimacy as the days went by, and the two girls saw each other often. Mistress and maid, a casual observer might have thought them, they were so unlike; the one, slight and fair as a lily and clad in garments of the latest style, with every mark of culture and refinement; the other, tall and strongly built, with a freedom of manner which betokened a child of the mountains rather than of the city, and a face singular in its beauty, and eyes wonderful in their varying expression, from a softness under their veiled lids, amounting almost to sleepiness, to gleams of passion which told of a strong nature which, when aroused, was equal to acts of daring from which Fanny in her timidity would have shrunk appalled. Inez took Fanny on frequent walks through the city which she knew so well and where so many seemed to know her. At first Mrs. Prescott objected to her daughter’s intimacy with one who, in her estimation, was little more than a peasant girl. But Fanny was not to be shaken from her allegiance, and after some inquiries of the housekeeper with regard to Inez Mrs. Prescott ceased to object to Fanny’s being so much with her.
“But don’t bring her in here. Why should I see her?” she said, when Fanny asked that Inez might be presented.
“Because I want you know her, and see if you can tell what makes me feel so when I am with her.”
“Bring her, then,” Mrs. Prescott said, one day, “but don’t let her stay long. My head aches and I am tired.”
That afternoon Fanny went out with her maid on an errand, saying to Inez as she left the hotel, “When I come back I am going to take you to mother.”
For a while Inez waited patiently, watching for Fanny’s return. To call upon Mrs. Prescott was a great event in her life and something of which to tell her father and Tom when she got home. In the housekeeper’s room and from the servants and some of the guests whom she knew, she had heard a great deal of Mrs. Prescott, who was said to be fabulously wealthy, and had such costly diamonds and wore such pretty negligées in the morning and such beautiful dresses to dinner, although there was no one but her daughter at table with her. Occasionally she had caught a glimpse of the lady on the rare occasions when she went to drive, but she was always so closely veiled that it was impossible to tell how she looked. Now, however, Inez was to see her, and she grew very impatient at Fanny’s protracted absence.
“Maybe she has come and I didn’t know it. I mean to go up and see,” she thought, as the clock struck four and there was no sign of Fanny.
Going up to Mrs. Prescott’s rooms she stole softly to the door, which was partly open. Fanny was not there, but she heard a sound as of some one in pain. Mrs. Prescott had complained of a headache all day and after Fanny and her maid went out it grew so much worse that she dropped the shades and lay down upon the couch,hoping to sleep. But the pain which was of a neuralgic nature increased so fast that she at last uttered the moan which Inez heard. Her first impulse was to go in at once; then, knowing this was not the thing to do, she knocked twice and receiving no answer ventured in. Mrs. Prescott, who was lying with her eyes closed, did not know she was there until she said, “Are you sick, and can I do anything for you?”
The voice was singularly sweet, with a tone in it which brought to Mrs. Prescott’s mind vague memories of woods and hills and sunshine on a river and pond where the white lilies grew and where in her giddiness and pain she seemed for a moment to be sailing away into the shadow of the willows which drooped over the water. Just where the woods and hills and river were was not clear to her, and the picture passed as soon as it came. Looking up she saw a young girl standing by her couch, plainly attired in a gingham dress and white apron, with a fancy silk handkerchief knotted around her neck.
“One of the chambermaids,” she thought and answered “There’s nothing you can do unless you rub my head. It aches very hard. Are you on this floor?”
Inez looked a little puzzled and replied, “On this floor? No; I room with the housekeeper. I am Inez,—Miss Prescott’s friend.”
“Oh!” and Mrs. Prescott’s eyes opened wide and a slight frown contracted her brow at what she thought an undue familiarity.
But something in Inez’s face disarmed her and brought back the picture of the woods and hills and river, with herself younger and happier than she was now. Before she could reply, Inez continued: “I used to rub mother’s head when it ached and she said it helped her. Fathersays I have a great deal of magnetism in my hands. I take it from him. Let me try.”
She knelt on the floor as she talked and began to manipulate Mrs. Prescott’s temples, which thrilled at once to the touch of her fingers.
“You are doing me good,” Mrs. Prescott said, lying very still while Inez smoothed her hair and rubbed her forehead and talked in her low, musical voice of her dead mother and what she used to do for her.
Mrs. Prescott listened until she had a pretty accurate knowledge ofAnitaand her grave among the hills and the cottage among the rocks and Inez’s handsome father. Then, as the pain in her head grew less, there came over her a feeling of restfulness and quiet. Inez’s voice was like the murmur of a brook she had heard somewhere. The leafy woods and hills and river were all blended together. Inez’s face, like something she had seen before, looked at her through the mist which was stealing over her senses and when Fanny came in she found her mother sleeping quietly, with Inez sitting by her and fanning her. After that Mrs. Prescott made no objection to her daughter’s intimacy with Inez.
“Yes, she is very nice, with something charming in her voice and manner. It is her Spanish blood, I think,” she said to Fanny, “but, of course, she is wholly untrained and knows nothing of the world. You could not have her for an associate in New York, but here it does not matter. Mrs. Ward, the housekeeper, tells me she is perfectly correct in her morals, and her father is highly respectable,—rather superior to his class which accounts for some things in Inez. I do not know that I shall object to your spending a day or so with her when we are in the Yosemite. I shall try and secure the services ofher father as guide, if I go on any of the trails. They say he is exceptionally good.”
This was said a few days after Inez had left for her mountain home and Fanny was expressing a wish to visit her. The trip was planned for the middle of June, and Fanny, who had become greatly attached to Inez, was looking forward to meeting her again with nearly as much pleasure as to the Yosemite itself.
The Yosemite stage which left the Milton station on the afternoon of June 15, 18—, was full of passengers, all eagerly discussing an attempt made the day before to rob the coach between China Camp and Priest’s. A tall, powerfully built fellow had sprung out from behind a clump of trees as the stage was slowly ascending a long hill, and ordered the frightened inmates to hold up their hands. This they did at once, with no thought of resistance, and he was about to relieve them of whatever valuables they had on their persons, when a young man who was sitting on the box with the driver, sprang to the ground and confronting the ruffian with a revolver compelled him to retreat and sent after him a shot or two, which, however, went wide of the mark. Mr. Hardy, the hero of the exploit, was well known in Stockton and the country generally and was among the passengers that afternoon. Naturally he was plied with questions with regard to the incident and asked how he dared attack the desperado.
“I don’t know myself how I dared,” he replied. “It was so sudden that at first I whispered to the driver, ‘Go on; lick the horses, go on!’ He was shaking like a leaf,—teeth actually chattered. Then it came to me what muffs we were to sit there quietly and be robbed, and without another thought I sprang at the man, almost landing on his head. Of the rest I remember nothing until my hands were being shaken and women were crying and thanking me as their deliverer. I only wish my shot had brought him down. It was Long John, no doubt, and his companion is pretty sure to turn up soon. I’d like to meet him.”
He did not seem at all averse to talking, and the passengers listened breathlessly, conscious of a feeling of security as long as he was with them. Among those who seemed the most interested and anxious was Fanny Prescott, who sat on the same seat with the hero, and had grown very pale as his story progressed.
“Oh, mother,” she said at last, “what if that dreadful man should attack us! What should we do? I wish we had left our diamonds in San Francisco. I don’t believe, though, he could find them. They are—”
A touch on the elbow from her mother kept her from finishing a remark which elicited a smile from her companions. For a moment Mr. Hardy looked at her and then said, “If your diamonds are very valuable it would have been wise to have left them in safe keeping, but I do not anticipate any danger on this trip. The attempt of yesterday is too recent to be repeated so soon. The whole neighborhood is looking for the robbers, who are probably hiding in the woods.”
For the rest of the afternoon the conversation was of the men who were the terror of the road between Milton and the valley. The older of the two was said to be tall,the other short, and as they had been heard to address each other as John and Dick, they were usually spoken of as Long John and Little Dick, and so daring and sudden were their movements and so seldom did they fail to execute their purpose that the mention of their names was sufficient to fill the stoutest heart with fear. Of the two Dick was the one most dreaded. He was so rapid in his movements, sometimes seeming to spring from the ground, again to drop from the trees and leap in the air like an athlete and doing his work so swiftly that the people scarcely knew what was happening until it was over and he was leaving them. Two or three times efforts had been made to rob the express box, but either the robbers were in too great a hurry, or the box had baffled their efforts, for the attempt had been abandoned and the attention of the bandits given to the passengers. No bodily injury had ever been done to any one, and in a few instances when some woman or old man had complained that all they had was taken from them, their purses had been tossed back to them by Dick, who would lift his hat gracefully and with a bound leave as quickly and mysteriously as he came. Long John was more deliberate, but stronger, and that Mr. Hardy single handed had put him to flight seemed incredible, and he was lionized and made much of, and the wish expressed by the passengers that he should go on to the valley, as with him they felt secure. At Chinese Camp, where they were to pass the night, he left them, with the assurance that, judging from the past they had nothing to fear from the marauders.
“I wish you were going with us. I feel so safe with you,” Fanny said to him when she stood for a moment alone with him in the narrow, dimly lighted hall.
She was standing directly under the hanging lamp, which showed her face pale with anxiety and fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, in a tone such as he would use to soothe a frightened child. “I know the habits of the wretches, and would almost stake my life against their molesting you on the trip to the valley. There may be more danger when you leave it. Better take the other road to Clarke’s. It is safer and pleasanter, and, one word of caution, don’t talk about your diamonds and where you keep them. You came near telling in the coach.”
“I know I did,” Fanny replied, “but I will remember in the future and I thank you so much for your advice. Good bye.”
She saw he was anxious to leave her and offered him her hand, which looked very small and white as it lay in his broad palm. For an instant his fingers closed over it with something like a slight pressure and his face was a study, as if two sets of feelings were contending in his mind with an equal chance for the mastery.
Dropping her hand he said, “Are your diamonds very valuable?”
“Yes,” Fanny answered quickly. “They are worth thousands of dollars and are sewed up in the ribbon bows of my hat. I don’t believe they would think of looking there. Do you?”
He laughed a hearty, ringing laugh, and when Fanny looked inquiringly at him he said, “I beg your pardon. I couldn’t help it. I thought you were not to tell where your diamonds were, and you have toldme! But, never mind, you are safe. Good bye. I think we may meet again.”
He bowed and left the hotel, while Fanny joined her mother in the small room allotted them. There had been a long discussion between them as to the disposition ofthe diamonds during their absence from San Francisco. Remembering what Inez had said Fanny wished to put them in a safe deposit company’s vault while her mother insisted upon taking them with her. She didn’t know about San Francisco. If it were New York it would be different, and she wanted them with her. She was one of those nervous women who feel that nothing is safe unless they can see it. Her baggage was always taken to the hotel and to her room, if she was only to pass the night. She knew then where it was, and the diamonds must go with her to the Yosemite. She had left most of them in New York at Tiffany’s, and only had with her a small cluster pin, her rings and Fanny’s, and her large pear-shaped ear-rings,—the heirlooms which Mark Hilton had taken with him when he left Ridgefield and which were to be Fanny’s on her wedding day. After devising various places of concealment, Fanny finally decided to sew the diamonds in the knots of heavy ribbon on her hat, where their safety could be ascertained at any moment. This done, Mrs. Prescott felt quite secure and listened composedly to all that was said of the robbers. She had only brought money enough for the trip, and unknown to any one a part of that was twisted up in her back hair. She had nothing to lose or fear, and she slept soundly in her small quarters at Chinese Camp. Fanny, on the contrary, could not sleep and sat by the open window looking out into the night starting at every sound and wishing Mr. Hardy had not left them. She was not superstitious, but felt oppressed with a feeling of impending danger and wished many times that she was safely back in San Francisco.
At a very early hour in the morning the stage started, for there was many a mile of rocks and hills between the Camp and the valley, and the sleepy passengers shiveringin the cool morning air took their seats, wondering what would befall them before the day was over. Nor were they in any degree reassured when, as they were ascending a long hill the driver suddenly stopped and announced to them, “This is where they had the hold-up and that the clump of trees the robber was behind.”
Involuntarily Fanny’s hand went up to her hat while the passengers shrank into their seats as if to escape a danger. Then, remembering there was none they looked curiously at the spot and two or three alighted and walked around the trees trying to conjecture just where the brigand stood before he made his appearance at the horses’ heads.
“If it had been the little one instead of the big one he wouldn’t have been drove off so easy. I tell you Dick is a terror. Why, they say he can jump straight up and land in the coach, or the box, either. Must have been a circus rider,” the driver said, while every passenger breathed a prayer to be delivered from the terrible Dick.
As long as they were in the open country they felt safe, but the moment they came near to ledges and woods they fancied a robber behind every tree and rock and were glad when as night was closing in they began to descend into the valley under the shadow of old Capitan and into a region of fertility and civilization. As soon as Mrs. Prescott was settled in her small room, which had once been a bathroom, and in which she declared she could neither breathe nor sleep, she made inquiries for Mr. Rayborne, the guide, as she wished to secure his services for herself and daughter whenever they went on trails:
“That is, if he is really as good as I heard he was in San Francisco,” she said to the landlord, who replied, “There’s none better in the valley. No, nor so good either. Yousee he’s a gentleman, and people like that, but I doubt if he is home. He has not been round the hotel for a week. His cottage is two or three miles from here. I’ll send and inquire.”
“And please,” Fanny began, “will your messenger take a note for me to Miss Rayborne. Do you know her?”
“Know Inez! I rather think we do,” the landlord replied. “Everybody knows Inez; the wild rose of the valley, we call her. I knew her mother, too,—a pretty little woman,—went off like a flash. Heart trouble they said. The whole neighborhood turned out to her funeral, visitors and all. The hill was black with ’em. John,—that is Mr. Rayborne,—has never been quite the same man since.”
He was inclined to be very talkative, but Fanny was in a hurry to write to Inez and finally left him in the middle of a sentence. When the messenger returned he brought a note for her from Inez, who wrote: “I am delighted to know you are in the valley, and sorry father is not here to guide you on the trails. Perhaps he will come before you leave. I am so lonely with only Nero for company. I thought of you when that robbery occurred and was glad you were not on the road. I have something to tell you about it when I see you. Father came home that night, but Tom has not been here since. I expect him in a few days. Write me when to come for you. Inez.”
Mrs. Prescott was a good deal disappointed that she could not have Mr. Rayborne for a guide, and because she could not she did not go on a single trail. As she cared little for scenery and there were but few people at the hotel of what she called her set she was ready to leave at any time.
“Not till I have made my visit to Inez,” Fanny said,and after they had been at the hotel a week it was arranged that she should spend a day with her friend and be taken up the next morning by the stage which was to pass the cottage and leave the valley by way of Inspiration Point.
It was one of the loveliest of all the summer days in the Yosemite when Inez drove up to the hotel in a buggy which had seen a good deal of service and was not like anything Fanny had ever ridden in. But she did not care. She was delighted to see Inez, who appeared at her best on her native heath and received the warm greetings of those who knew her with the grace and dignity of a young queen. Mrs. Prescott was invited to accompany Fanny, but declined, and the two girls set off alone for Prospect Cottage. Inez was very happy.
“I am so glad to have this little bit of you,” she said, giving a squeeze to Fanny’s hand and then dropping it again. “And we will have such a good time to-day all by ourselves. I haven’t much to do. I was up at four o’clock to get my work done, baking and all, and have made a lot of things I think you will like. One is huckleberry pie.”
Fanny had never seen one, but was sure she should like it, and anything else Inez chose to give her.
“It won’t be like the hotel, nor your New York home,” Inez said, “I do everything myself and oh, isn’t it lovelyhere among the mountains with this pure air which makes me feel so strong as if I should live forever.”
She was very enthusiastic and Fanny, who also felt the invigorating effects of the atmosphere, entered into her enthusiasm and enjoyed everything, from the wild flowers they stopped to gather, to the musical brook, which went singing along in its rocky bed beside the carriage road.
“This is our house,” Inez said at last, pointing to a cottage in a niche of the hills behind some trees which partially hid it from the highway which was below it at a little distance.
An immense dog came out to meet them, frisking about the buggy and barking his welcome.
“That’s Nero. You saw him at the hotel,” Inez said. “I leave him at home to watch the house when I go away. Good Nero, down, down,” she continued, as she alighted from the buggy and the dog sprang upon her, trying to lick her face.
“Please go right in; the door is open. I leave it so, with Nero. I must unharness my pony. I’m my own chore boy as well as maid,” she said to Fanny, who went into the cottage, followed by Nero, who, stretching himself upon the floor, whacked his big tail approvingly, as Fanny looked curiously around the room.
It was a model of neatness and order and showed many touches of a woman’s dainty hand and, what surprised her a little, had in it some articles of furniture more expensive than she expected to find among the mountains. The wide door opened upon a piazza which commanded a magnificent view of the mountains and the valley below. A honeysuckle was trained upon the rustic pillars and a bowl of roses and ferns was standing upon a round table near which were two or three chairs.This was evidently the living place of the family and Fanny sat down in one of the chairs to wait for Inez who soon came in flushed and bright and eager to talk.
“Yes, we sit here a great deal,” she said, in answer to a question from Fanny. “Father likes a piazza; it reminds him of his youth, he says, but he looks so sorry when I ask him about his youth that I don’t often do it, and I know very little of his boyhood. I asked him once if I had any relatives. ‘No’ he said, so short that I have never referred to them again. You must have a great many.”
“Very few,” Fanny said, and Inez continued: “Has your father been dead long?”
There was a moment’s hesitancy before Fanny replied: “Judge Prescott, who died last year, was my step-father, whose name I took when mother married him. She was a Miss Tracy, and my own father was Mr. Mark Hilton. He died in the mines of Montana when I was a baby. I do not remember him.”
“I am so sorry for you,” Inez said. “I wish you could remember him a little. You must resemble him, as you do not look like your mother.”
Fanny drew a long breath, and, with a thought of ’Tina, answered, “I am like one of my grandmothers.”
Slight as was her knowledge of the world Inez’s womanly instinct told her that Fanny did not care to discuss her family and she changed the conversation.
“I am going to get dinner now,” she said. “Would you like to see me? I don’t suppose you ever did a stroke of work in your life?”
“I never have,—more’s the pity,” Fanny said, as she followed Inez to the kitchen and watched her with the greatest interest, offering to help her.
“Not now,” Inez said. “You may wipe the disheswhen dinner is over, and then we can have more time to visit.”
Fanny wiped the dishes after the dinner, in which the huckleberry pie had a conspicuous place, and left its marks on her mouth and teeth. When the work was done there was a ramble among the hills, a visit to Anita’s grave, which was covered with flowers and then, as the afternoon began to wane, the two girls sat down upon the piazza and watched the shadows deepening in the valley and the colors changing on the mountains from rosy tints to violet hues, while the sound of the waterfalls in the distance became more distinct as night drew on.
“Isn’t the world beautiful?” Inez said, “and isn’t it a joy to live. And yet I have a presentiment that I shall die young, like mother. She had heart trouble, you know, and I inherit it from her. A great shock of joy or pain might kill me. Then what would father do,—and Tom.”
This was the first time she had mentioned Tom, and after a moment Fanny said affirmatively: “You love Tom?” and into Inez’s eyes there came a bright, happy look as she replied, “I don’t mind telling you that I am going to marry him sometime when he gets a little more ahead and can leave his present business. It was settled last winter. He is a good deal older than I am, but looks younger than he is and I look older. Strangers take me for twenty at least. I have always known Tom and always loved him, I think. I have sometimes fancied that father was not quite pleased. He has never said anything except that Tom was too old for me and that I ought to see more of the world before marrying. Tom is my world. There is a pretty house in Stockton which he is going to buy, when he is able, where we can live in the winter, but we shall come back here in the summer.”
“What is his other name? I’ve never heard. You have always called him Tom,” Fanny said, and Inez replied, “Why, Tom Hardy. Funny you didn’t know, and he is the one who kept Long John from robbing the coach the other day. That is what I was going to tell you. I am so proud of him. The papers are full of his praises. Father says there is not another man in the valley who would dare attack that giant of a fellow. Tom hasn’t been home since, and I’m dying to see him. I have felt nervous every time I have thought of the risk he ran. What if he had been shot!”
Inez’s cheek grew pale as she thought of the danger her lover had escaped, and before she could say any more Fanny exclaimed, “Is that Mr. HardyyourTom? I know him. He was on the coach with us from Milton to Chinese camp and told us all about it. I’m glad he is your Tom.”
Inez’s confidence with regard to Tom reminded Fanny of Roy, and in a few minutes Inez had heard all about him and the wedding which was to take place during the holidays.
“I am so glad for you. It is nice to be engaged,” Inez said; “Mr. Mason is of course very different from Tom, but I am satisfied with him, and I do hope he will come to-night and father, too. I think they will. I am keeping supper back a little in case they do, as they are always hungry. What is it, Nero?” she added, as the dog sprang up in a listening attitude, and then darted off through the brush towards the highway. “I believe he heard them. Yes, he did,” Inez cried, as a peculiar whistle, loud and clear, sounded in the direction Nero had taken. “That is Tom! He always whistles to let me know he is coming. I hope father is with him. There they are! Hallo, father!Hallo, Tom!” and she was off like the wind to meet the two men coming up the steep path from the road.
One was tall and walked as if he were tired, with his head a little bent. The other was short and slight and walked with a quick, springing step, as if he never knew what fatigue was. He was dressed differently from what he had been in the stage and there was a jaunty air about him generally, but Fanny would have had no trouble in recognizing him as the hero of the hold-up. Inez threw her arms around her father’s neck, kissing him many times; then, with a glance backward to see if Fanny were looking on she put up her lips for Tom to kiss, and holding a hand of each of the men came toward the house, swinging her arms and theirs back and forth like some happy child, while Nero bounded in front and barked his approval.
“Father, this is Miss Prescott, my friend I have told you so much about. She is spending the day with me,” she said, as Fanny came forward to meet them.
“My daughter’s friend is very welcome,” Mr. Rayborne replied, his voice so pleasant and the expression of his face so kind that Fanny was both surprised and fascinated.
She had not expected a guide to appear just as he did, and she let her hand rest in his a moment, while she looked into his eyes, which held her with their peculiar expression. When she first met Inez she had experienced a feeling as of looking at herself in a different guise, and the sensation returned to her in the presence of Inez’s father. Over him, too, there came a strange feeling of interest as he looked at her. She was not at all like Inez. She belonged to an entirely different world, of which he was once a part, years and years ago, it seemed, but which came back to him very vividly with Fanny Prescott standingbeside him. He was always gentlemanly, but he seemed to gain a new access of dignity, which both Tom and Inez noticed, as with a few more words of greeting and a bow he left her and walked into the house. It was Tom’s turn now, and Fanny did not wait to be introduced to him.
“I know you already,” she said, “and I am so glad to see you again here, with——”
She glanced at Inez, who blushed and said, “She means here with me. I’ve told her about us. You don’t care!”
“Of course not; why should I?” Tom said, throwing his arm around her.
Disengaging herself from him, Inez said she must see about their supper and left him alone with Fanny. He was very friendly and talkative; asked when she came to the cottage and how she liked the valley and when she expected to leave. Then with a few commonplace remarks he, too, left her and she saw no more of him or Mr. Rayborne until supper was announced. When that was over they all repaired to the piazza, which a full moon was flooding with light. Nothing had as yet been said of Tom’s exploit in Fanny’s presence, but when alone with him in the kitchen Inez had caught his hand and said to him, “You don’t know how proud I was when I heard of your bravery. How did you dare do it? They say it was Long John,—almost twice your size. Wer’n’t you frightened?”
“A little, at first,” Tom replied, releasing himself from her and going out to a bench near the kitchen door where Mr. Rayborne was sitting and where he, too, sat down and began to talk in a low tone.
“He is so modest he does not wish to hear about the hold-up,” Inez thought, and was rather surprised when, after they were seated upon the piazza, Tom said toFanny, “What of your diamonds? Are they still in the bows of ribbon in your hat?”
“Yes,” Fanny answered, “and I have sewed them in more securely, so I know they cannot drop out, and I don’t believe anyone would think to look for them there. Do you?”
“Hardly,” Tom said. “It’s a unique hiding place; and you leave us to-morrow?”
“Yes,” Fanny answered, “but not in the Milton coach. We are going to Clark’s to stop a few days and visit the big trees. You don’t suppose those dreadful robbers will waylay us on the route, do you? Long John, and little Dick! I shudder when I hear them mentioned. I wish you were going with us.”
“Can’t you go?” Inez asked, as the conversation progressed and Fanny became more and more nervous.
“I would willingly,” Tom replied, “if I had not an engagement, and besides I might not be of any use a second time. My hands would probably go up with the rest and stay up.”
“Nonsense, Tom! You know better. You would tear at them like mad. I wish you’d go. Your engagement will keep.”
“I’m afraid not, and thousands of dollars are involved in it,” Tom replied.
“Oh-h! So much money?” Inez gasped, thinking of the pretty house in Stockton, which Tom would soon be able to buy, if he were getting rich so fast.
“I do not think Miss Prescott need to feel any alarm,” Tom continued. “The road to Clark’s is perfectly safe. There are not as many rocks and trees to hide behind, and then the country is being thoroughly scoured to find the marauders. There is a larger sum offered for their arrest than ever before.”
“I hope they will be caught and hung,” Inez said energetically. “Some people think they live right around us, and know every foot of ground. I never told you, did I, that Mrs. Smithson said one of them was seen in the woods back of our cottage last summer. You and father were gone, and I was awfully scared. Do you believe they live here in the valley? Just think of talking with them and not knowing it!”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had seen them hundreds of times,” Tom said laughingly, while Mr. Rayborne arose and went into the house saying it was getting chilly and he was tired.
He had taken but little part in the conversation beyond assuring Fanny that she had nothing to fear. The most of the time he had sat apart from the young people, with a look on his face which troubled Inez, who wondered why he was so silent.
“Are you ill, father dear?” she said, following him to the kitchen and putting her hand on his head.
“No, daughter,” he answered; “there’s nothing the matter;—a little tired, that’s all. Go back to your friend.”
“Isn’t she lovely?” Inez asked, still smoothing his hair. “I wish you could see her mother, she is so grand and handsome and proud looking. She wanted you for a guide, and because she could not have you she didn’t go on a single trail. She had heard you were a gentleman and preferred you to some of the rough guides in the valley. I wish you had been here.”
Mr. Rayborne was not particularly interested in Mrs. Prescott. He was more anxious for Inez to leave him and was glad when, with a goodnight kiss, she went back to the piazza and he was alone with his thoughts. He could not account for the feeling which had come upon him, bringing memories of people and events which hadbut little in common with what he was now. Through the open door came a breath of wind laden with the perfume of flowers from Anita’s grave, and as he inhaled it he thought of the dead leaves of a rose he had gathered long ago and been foolish enough to keep through all the years of change which had come and gone since he hid them away in the first stage of his youthful passion. Leaving the house he went to Anita’s grave and standing there alone with the dark woods in the background and the moonlight falling around him he talked, sometimes to himself and sometimes to the dead at his feet.
“Little Anita,” he whispered, “I wish I were lying beside you with all the past blotted out. And there is more of that past than you ever suspected. I loved you, Anita, and when your dying eyes looked at me I knew what they said and swore I would do your bidding. But a stronger will than mine has controlled me until now when I am trying to break the bands of steel. What is there in that girl’s face and voice and gestures which makes me struggle to be free. Is there a God, and would he help me if I were to ask him? I used to pray in the old church, miles and miles and miles away across a continent, but I fear it was only a form. God wouldn’t have let me fall so far if he ever had my hand in his. If I were to stretch it out now would he take it and help me?”
He put it out as if appealing to someone for aid; then dropped it hopelessly and said, “No, I’ve sinned too deeply for that. If I am helped at all I must do it myself, and I swear it here by Anita’s grave that not a hair of that girl’s head shall be harmed if I can prevent it, and I think I can. It says somewhere, ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you,’ but I guess the one who said it didn’t know Tom Hardy!”
It was late when he re-entered the house. Inez andFanny had gone to their room and were asleep, but Tom still sat on the piazza, with his feet on the railing and his hands clasped behind his head.
“I knew he’d wait for me,” Mr. Rayborne said, “but I’ve sworn, and I’ll keep my vow, so help me God.”
He did not know that he had prayed and that God was helping him as he went to that midnight interview with Tom Hardy. There was an earnest discussion carried on in low tones lest the sleeping girls should be wakened. Then the discussion became more spirited, and angry words passed on Mr. Rayborne’s side. Tom always kept his temper, but was in deadly earnest and nothing could move him. He had no sentimental feelings, he said, with regard to a white faced, blue eyed girl, whom neither of them had either seen or heard of before, and did not propose to let a fortune slip through his fingers on her account. He had made inquiries and there had seldom been a richer party leaving the valley than was to leave on the morrow. If Mr. Rayborne did not choose to join him he would go alone.
“And if you do,” Mr. Rayborne replied, “by the old Harry I’ll circumvent you if I can, and if I can’t and you succeed I’ll give both of us up to justice and end this accursed life into which I allowed you to lead me.”
Tom laughed and replied, “I have no fear of that. You like your good name and your liberty too well to be willing to spend the rest of your days behind prison walls, an object of greater contempt because you have stood so high in the community, trusted and respected by everyone; and then there is Inez. Would you voluntarily ruin her life with a knowledge of her father’s shame?”
Tom knew what cords to touch to make the man like clay in his hands. For once, however, he had gone too far. The white faced, blue eyed girl, as Tom designatedFanny, was completing the work which Mr. Rayborne had for some time been agitating. She was Inez’s friend. She had been his guest. She trusted him, and she should not be harmed. But how to hinder it was a question which he revolved over and over again in his mind as, after leaving Tom, he sat by his window, suffering all the horrors of remorse, and once burying his face in his hands he cried, “God help me. He heard the thief on the cross; maybe he will hear me who am worse than that thief.”
The early morning was breaking in the east and on the mountains there was a glow of sunrise. Tom was up and Inez, too, busy with breakfast as the stage for Clark’s passed at a comparatively early hour. Mr. Rayborne had not been in bed at all and looked white and tired as he went out to the bench where he made his ablutions. Tom was there, trying to force down a feeling which was warning him of danger. Still he had no idea of giving up his enterprise. It had been planned for days in every particular, and he would not abandon it now. He would rather have Mr. Rayborne with him, if he could, although he was getting a little clumsy and sometimes handicapped his more agile companion with his deliberation. If he would not go, then Tom would go alone,—he was resolved on that,—and said so to Mr. Rayborne when they met by the rude washstand.
He had no fear of being circumvented by his colleague, and bidding him good-bye, kissed Inez, who came to the door just as his conversation with her father ended, and went down the hill whistling “The girl I left behind me,” while Mr. Rayborne looked after him with a feeling of pain and apprehension.
“I have sown the wind and am reaping the whirlwind, and I wish I were dead,” he thought. Then he repeated a name which only the winds heard. “What wouldhesay, and he trusted me so fully. I am glad he don’t know. It would kill him. Nobody knows, but God and Tom. I am glad God knows; it seems as if he would show me some way to stop it.”
Just then Inez came to tell him that breakfast was ready, and bathing his hot face and eyes again in the cold water which trickled in a little stream down from the hills, he put on as cheerful a face as possible and went in to meet Fanny just coming downstairs with something in her smile which made him think again of the withered rose leaves and a summer he would have given much to recall.
“Where is Mr. Hardy?” Fanny asked, as she missed him from the breakfast table.
“He was obliged to go away very early on account of that appointment he told us about. He left a good-bye for you and bade me tell you he might perhaps meet you on the road,” Inez said.
“Oh, I hope he will. I grow more and more nervous about the journey,” Fanny replied, glancing at Mr. Rayborne, who was silent and preoccupied.
His head ached, he said, and finishing his coffee he left the table and the girls were alone.
“He is not himself this morning. He never is when he has one of his hard headaches, and this I guess is worse than usual,” Inez said apologetically. “Tom wanted him to go with him, and I think they had some words about it, for just before he left I heard Tom say ‘I believe you are a coward.’ Queer for father and Tom to quarrel.”
Fanny did not reply except to lament that Tom’s engagement must keep him from going with her.
“Perhaps father will go,” Inez suggested, and going out to the bench where he sat with his head down she said, “Can’t you go with Miss Prescott as far as Clark’s? The ride will do you good.”
Inez could not see how white he grew as he answered, “Igo!I,—and meet Tom on the road?”
She did not know what he meant, and looked at him in wonder. Suddenly starting and brightening up he exclaimed, “It has come to me at last.Youshall go to Clark’s and return on the late stage. If there is not room for you inside you can go on the box with the driver. That’s the best place for you. Keep your eyes out everywhere, and if a bandit attacks you, don’t throw up your hands, but scream in your natural voice.”
Inez could not understand why he was giving her so many directions. She only knew she was delighted to go.
“I cannot be of use like Tom, if anything happened,” she said to Fanny, “but father has told me what to do, and I’m not afraid.”
She hurried through her morning’s work, her father’s dinner was planned, and she was ready some time before the stage was seen in the distance a quarter of a mile away. Mr. Rayborne went with the girls to the road and waited until it drew up. Every inside seat was taken except the one reserved for Fanny. Mrs. Prescott who always looked out for herself, had appropriated a corner seat in the rear of the stage, where she could lean back against the cushion. She had a headache, as usual, and with her veil over her face she looked up enough to greet her daughter, who said, “Inez is going to Clark’s with us. There is not room for her inside, and I am going outside with her.”
Immediately a young man arose and offered his seatto Inez, whose father said in a low tone, “Stick to the box.”
“And I shall stick, too,” Fanny said. “The view is much finer outside, and Inez can tell me the places.”
The two girls were soon seated and the driver was about to start when with a roar Nero came down the hill, jumping at the horses’ heads and then at Inez.
“Here, Nero, here,” Mr. Rayborne called while Inez pleaded for him to go.
“I can bring him back to-night, and he never has a chance to go anywhere,” she said, but her father was firm and the dog followed him rather reluctantly to the house and disappeared in the direction of his kennel, which Tom had built for him.
“Nero is the last one to be there if anything happens. He is so affectionate and demonstrative and sure to mix in the melee that recognition would be inevitable, and I would spare Inez that, if possible,” Mr. Rayborne thought, as he sat down in his silent room, which had never seemed so lonely before. Nor had the past ever crowded upon him so thickly as it did now, filling him with remorse as real as it was bitter. Every leaf in his life was turned with its dark record from which he recoiled with horror. Away back in another world it seemed to him there were bright spots and he saw himself, looked up to and respected and happy, leading what looked to him an ideal life compared to what he was leading now.
“Oh, for those days. Oh, to be young again and innocent,” he said aloud, and his voice sounded so strange that he half started from his chair and looked around to see where it came from. “I don’t like being alone,” he said. “Nero is better than no company. I’ll call him.”
He went to the rear door, and called two or three times, “Nero! Nero!” then whistled, with the same result. Neroneither answered, nor came. He had gone to his kennel and lain down at first, then, as no one was about, he struck off into the woods, looking back occasionally to see if he were watched. Once in the woods and out of sight of the house he started rapidly in the direction of the road, keeping out of it until he saw the stage in the distance. Then he took the road, and in a few minutes was barking his delight at the horses and at Inez on the box. He had often tried to follow his master and Tom, of whom he was very fond, but had always been ordered back. Now, he had succeeded in eluding them, and was out for a holiday, which he enjoyed hugely, sometimes keeping near the stage and again making a detour into the woods and disappearing altogether for a time. When he did not return to the cottage Mr. Rayborne knew where he had gone. There might no harm come of it, and perhaps the dog’s presence would do good, he thought, and as the hours crept on he waited in feverish impatience for the news which he knew would travel fast if there were any news to travel.
It was a good road and a pleasant road and Fanny and Inez enjoyed themselves immensely. There was a halt at Inspiration Point for the grand view and a last look at the beautiful valley. Then the stage lumbered on slowly for it was full and the horses not the fleetest in the world. It had been cloudy for an hour or so, and after a time rain began to fall in a soft, misty shower. This rousedMrs. Prescott, who said Fanny must come inside, while the young man who had at first offered his seat to Inez insisted again that she should take it, while he went outside. The exchange was made and the young girls were riding side by side with their backs to the horses and Inez next to the wheels. The shower lasted but a few minutes before the sun came out so brightly that Inez, whose eyes were not strong, tied over her hat a thick, blue veil which concealed her face entirely. There was no thought of fear among the passengers. The road to Clark’s was considered safe and more than half the distance had been gone over. Mrs. Prescott was asleep in her corner; Fanny and Inez were chatting together as girls will chatter; Nero, tired of jumping at the horses and Inez, was off in the woods chasing a rabbit, and the driver had ceased to be on the watch for any trouble.
“We are gettin’ through all safe,” he said to his companion beside him. “It’s about time for them rascals to show up again, and I didn’t know what might happen.” They were nearing a sharp turn with a ledge of rocks beside it and he was gathering up the reins the better to manage his horses round the curve, when suddenly the word “Halt!” rang out on the air, and a man wearing a mask came from some quarter no one could tell where, he moved so rapidly and with so much assurance. Stepping to the horses’ heads he stopped them and pointing a revolver at the driver, bade him make no effort to go on.
“Little Dick!” was whispered among the terrified passengers, who never thought of disobeying his command, “Hands up, every one of you!”
They all went up, except those of Inez, close to whom the bandit was standing. At the sound of his voice she started violently, and clutched at the veil upon her hat trying to tear it off.
“I am very sorry, my good people, to disturb you, and I assure you none of you will be harmed, nor shall I detain you long if you at once give up whatever valuables you may have on you persons,—money, watches and jewelry. Perhaps I’d better search you myself, as it is not convenient for you to use your hands while you are holding them up. Step out quietly and it will soon be over. These two young ladies first, please. Shall I help you?”
He bowed toward Inez and Fanny, extending one hand to them and with the other covering them with his revolver. Fanny was paralyzed with fear, and half sliding from her seat, tried to hide behind Inez, to whom she said, “Oh, what shall we do?”
Inez made no reply. She had succeeded in tearing the veil from her face, which was white as a corpse, while in her eyes was a look of horror, but not of fear. Turning toward the man inviting her so politely to descend she gave a shriek more appalling than the word “Halt!” had been, and bounding from the stage in front of him, struck his arm so heavy a blow with her fist that his revolver was thrown at a little distance from him and lay upon the ground. Both started for it, but Inez reached it first. Snatching it up she looked steadily into his eyes, which the mask did not conceal.
“Go,” she said, “or I will shoot you like a dog. I always said I would kill any one I found doing this dirty work, and I have foundyou!” Then, to the passengers, who, in their fright, were still holding up their hands, she continued: “Drop your hands! Cowards! to fear this one man! You see I am not afraid of him.”
The man stood as if turned into stone, until she said to him again, “Go, I tell you, before I fire, or Nero sees you. He is here.”
This last was spoken so low that only the brigand heard it, looking round quickly and then back at Inez. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were blazing, and her white teeth showed between her parted lips as she advanced toward him like some enraged animal, with the revolver aimed at his head. It seemed as if he wanted to speak, but she gave him no chance, and at her second imperative “Go,” and mention of the dog, he went, not very rapidly at first, but walking like one whose strength had left him.
At this point Nero, who had given up his rabbit, came panting back, surprised, if dogs can be surprised, at what he saw. The passengers had all alighted and were surrounding Inez with warm encomiums for her bravery, Nero seemed to know she was the central figure in the group and gave her a loud, approving bark, which was heard by the bandit, who half turned his head and then quickened his steps to a run. But Nero, who had caught sight of him, was after him with yelps and cries and barks, which the passengers thought meant mischief. Inez knew better, and fierce as was her anger she would, if possible, prevent a recognition which would involve so much.
“Nero,” she tried to call, but her tongue refused to move, and she could only give a low cry of alarm as the dog bounded upon the back of the man, with such force that he was thrown down and his mask fell off.
In a moment he was on his feet, keeping his back to the passengers and beating Nero off, while Inez, who had found her voice, called to him peremptorily to come back, saying to those around her, “We do not wish to see him torn to pieces before our eyes.”
Very unwillingly Nero obeyed and came back just as the bandit disappeared among the trees. Up to this timeInez had stood rigid like one in catalepsy,—the revolver in her hand and her eyes strained to their utmost as she watched the receding figure. Her heart was beating wildly in her throat. There was the roaring sound of “Halt!” in her ears, shutting out every other sound so that she scarcely heard the words of commendation from those around her.
“Inez,” Fanny said, “don’t look so terribly! It is over now. He has gone. Sit down, before you faint.”
“Yes, that is best,” Inez gasped, while many hands were stretched out to keep her from falling, as her eyes closed and her body began to sway.
They put her down upon the grass and Fanny took her head in her lap, while every bag in the coach, which had a restorative in it, was opened, and its contents brought out. Brandy, whisky, camphor, cologne, bay rum, lavender water, witch hazel and hartshorn were tried by turns with no effect. She still lay in a death like faint and they could see the rapid beating of her heart as it rose and fell irregularly.
“Loosen her dress,” some one suggested. They loosened it and she breathed easier, but did not recover and her face was growing purple when the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard and Tom Hardy came leisurely galloping round the curve in the road on the bay mare Inez had driven the previous day.
“What is this? Another hold up?” he said, dismounting quickly and joining the excited group, each one of which began to narrate the particulars in his and her own way.
To those nearest to her Fanny said in a low tone, “He is her lover, and the man who saved the other coach as she has saved us.”
It scarcely took an instant for this to become knownto all, and Tom was at once nearly as much an object of interest as Inez, and a way was made for him to go to her.
“Why, it is Inez! How came she here?” he asked in a perfectly steady voice, but his face was white and his hands shook as he knelt by the still unconscious girl, calling her name and rubbing her cold face.
At the sound of his voice she opened her eyes and looked at him with an expression of loathing and despair.
“Oh, Tom, Tom,” she cried, and the anguish in her voice haunted Tom to his dying day.
“I am here, Inez,” he said, very tenderly. “What can I do for you?”
She made no reply, but looked up at Fanny as if asking what she knew or suspected. Fanny suspected nothing, and her tears fell fast and hot upon Inez’s face, which she kissed again and again until a faint color came back to it; the heart beats were less rapid, and she tried to get up. Every one was ready to help her, Tom with the rest, but she motioned them all aside, and standing erect said with an effort to smile, “I have made quite a scene. My strength gave out at last. I am all right now. What became of my hat?”