“What do you intend doing with that paper,” Rip asked Westy on their way to Lola’s the next day; “steal it?”
“Of course not! Does a scout steal?”
“No—not a real one!”
“Well, then, what made you ask me a thing like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. On the level though, Wes, what have you up your sleeve?”
“My arm.”
“Yes, I know, but what else?”
“Little boys shouldn’t ask questions.”
“Aw, I won’t tell,” he pleaded.
“All right—if you want to know, I’m just going to pay the Mitchells a nice friendly call when we get in Santa Fe, that’s all!”
“I see,” said Rip. “You’re too deep for me.”
They returned from the Redmond cottage early in the evening. Walking back by way of the brook, each one seemed listening to all the familiar sounds for the last time.
Lola had insisted upon them staying longer, but they had much packing to do in order to leave early enough in the morning.
“We’ll miss this little old bunch of chatter,” Billy remarked about the brook.
“We’ll miss it all,” Mr. Wilde said, “except when it rains.”
“What’d you think of Old Scout to-day, Westy?” Mr. Wilde inquired.
“I liked him fine, but he didn’t stay long enough for me to get acquainted with him. Didn’t care much about the would-be’s, though.”
“No, who could? They seemed even to be dissatisfied with themselves!”
“Yes,” Westy said, “I heard them quarreling. I stepped on three lighted cigarettes while they were there. There’d be no forests at all if the would-be’s came here very often.”
“There’s logic in that,” Rip replied.
“You sound like Pee-wee Harris,” Westy said.
Two hours later Westy awakened in the dark cabin. The breathing of the rest sounded mechanical as he listened. He could hear the brook so plain in the silence. It was tireless, he thought, day and night flowing on and on, summer and winter. It made him feel tired to think of it.
Something pungent seemed to strike his nostrils like that of burning wood.
“Now, what could that be, I wonder?” he mused. “Must be some embers in the fireplace.”
He got out of his bunk and tip-toed to the fireplace. It was stone cold. He went to the door and opened it softly. The acrid odor was not to be mistaken. He went in and got his clothes on.
A few minutes later as Westy sprinted along the trail he saw the dark heavens ahead of him outlined in a dull red glow, and through the trees he could distinguish little red sparks shooting into the air.
The wind was blowing southwest—straight in the direction of the cottage! He ran on. With each few steps he could see the glow in the sky getting brighter and gradually the sparks lengthened into flames and the flames lengthened into shafts of red fire, leaping into the air like whirling dervishes.
Westy fairly leaped ahead, too, wondering if Lola and her grandmother were aware of it. He hadn’t any time to go back and arouse the rest—he had to go on! They must need help or theywouldbe needing it very soon.
At last he struck the trail down to the cottage, but stopped as he viewed the strange freak of fate before him.
The fire was confined to only one side of the trail and the side nearest the ravine. That, of course, was fortunate, because it would go no further in that direction.
But a sprightly breeze was blowing southwest, and as it blew through the flaming area it sounded like the light treading of many phantom feet. And it was sweeping—how far had it gone? He rushed forward and all along the way the fire was still ahead of him to the right.
Westy’s throat was beginning to feel as scorched as the ground looked where the fire had passed on. His eyes were stinging, but he didn’t care, for looking up suddenly, he saw that the fire was now on the very edge of the Redmond clearing.
His ears were pounding against his head from running and the roar of the burning trees was deafening, but above it all he heard a girl’s cry.
Westy’s heart was wrung with pity when he saw the cottage! The whole side facing the arbor was one sheet of flame and the arbor now existed only in memory.
The two lone occupants were standing on the other side of the brook surrounded by a few possessions they had been able to save. Lola cried when she saw Westy.
“Did you get everything out? Are you hurt, either of you?” He reached them breathless.
“No, not hurt.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks. “But, Westy,” she sobbed, “we forgot the one thing that means most to us now!”
“What’s that?” he cried.
“An ebony case,” Mrs. Redmond cried, for Lola was too overcome with emotion to talk. “It contains papers identifying us as kin of John Redmond. Oh, dear,” the woman cried, “we haven’t much chance without it!”
“Where is it?” Westy cried. “Quick!”
“You can’t get it—it’s probably gone now! It was right in the top bedroom dresser drawer—the first one. I don’t know how I came to miss it. Look!”
True, the place was a veritable inferno, but Westy rolled over in the brook and soaked himself from head to foot and started into the cottage, in spite of their protestations.
How he ever managed to keep his feet on the little rickety stairway he didn’t know. It was seething with the heat.
The little upper floor was ablaze, and part of the floors had already fallen, so Westy had to step warily. He didn’t need any light; fortunately the flames were torch enough.
The flames were licking about the foot of the dresser as he opened the drawer and found what he was after. Grasping the case, he put it inside of his blouse and rushed for the stairway again. But it was no more than a lot of burning spindles now and the lower floor with its quaint old pioneer furniture was a helpless victim to the malevolent flames.
He ran to the window over the front door and climbed out and down on the ivy-covered trellis now so dry that it crackled as his hands clung to its support. As he jumped to the ground he faced the little white door that had blown shut.
The little door, Westy thought, that had opened and shut to three generations of Redmonds. A door that had felt the trample of little feet over its threshold and stood open to let the sunshine into all their lives and shut itself against the tempests.
It didn’t seem just, Westy thought, to shut in those memories; all the hopes and fears that the years had brought and left behind. It wouldn’t be fair to give up the spirit of all that love, faith and loyalty to the merciless destroyer. So he opened the door.
The two homeless creatures grasped Westy’s hands in their gratitude and he noticed that the worst of their grief was now passed. They seemed to be resigned and watched their beloved little home gradually reduced to a heap of burning embers, as the fire died out on the edge of the brook.
Westy felt a drop of rain on his forehead, then another, and as it started to patter steadily on the dry leaves they arose from the ground.
Why couldn’t that have happened before? he thought. Fate always worked things backwards, and he spoke his thoughts to Lola.
“No, not backwards,” she said gravely, “but for the best.”
Wonderful people, he told himself. Take life, death and laughter just as it comes.
As they walked into the darkness toward the shack, Westy saw them turn—a look on their faces as they viewed the desolate scene that perplexed him. It seemed to be a look of relief, as though they had been freed of the bonds that bound them to the past.
Joining him again, he heard Lola sigh wearily and wondered if it were sleepiness or a sigh of doubt as to the future.
They met Rip, his uncle and Billy before they were half way. As he told them later, they’d make a fine lot of applicants for volunteer firemen, sleeping as sound as that.
“Well, how did we know?” Rip asked; “you never let us know!”
Westy explained to them that time had been at a premium and so that part of the matter was dropped.
It seemed to them all that the greatest sympathy they could give to the unfortunate girl and her grandmother was silence.
Mr. Wilde suggested that nothing more be said until morning, and they could make more plans then. They gave up the shack to the women and put up their tents outside. It was almost dawn when they settled down for a few winks.
When they awoke the sun was flooding their tents with a warm yellow light. As Westy and Rip were dressing Mr. Wilde came in.
“We’ve got to leave here to-day, kids,” he said, “much as I hate to, but I was thinking we could leave all our camping stuff. These people will need it and all the food we have. We won’t need it again anyway in Santa Fe.”
“But what are they going to do?” Westy asked. “I could tell last night they’re about down to brass tacks.”
“That’s what I came in to tell you,” he continued. “I’m going to see to it that they get a supply of food, but in the meantime a little investigating is going to be done. Lola’s just promised to give me those identification papers when we go. May not even have to use them, but it’s best to have them in case they’re needed. She told me all that Old Scout had said about it was true.”
Westy was keyed up to a high pitch of interest now.
“Now,” Mr. Wilde said seriously and at the same time wriggled the cigar over to the other side of his mouth, “you, Westy, have your little part to play in this, and if you fail I think some legal steps can be taken.”
“Oh, boy, that’s my middle name!” Westy was enthusiastic. “Where does my part come in?”
“Just this: Lola told me that Paul Mitchell the third has a son just about your age.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with me?”
“Nothing, only that he’s a Boy Scout!”
They had left Lamy and were climbing steadily upward. Westy was looking out of the train window at the uninhabited miles of land, relieved by the juniper, piñon and scrub dotting the landscape.
“Here’s hoping the city of Santa Fe is one of promise,” Mr. Wilde remarked. “I haven’t really thought out any special line of attack as yet.”
“Well, I think you can leave that part to me,” Westy said with a tone of finality. “I’ve planned it all out.”
“I’m glad to hear it. What is your first step? That’s all you need tell me.”
“To ask the clerk at the hotel where the Mitchells live and how to get there.”
“That sounds good. No beating around the bush for you, eh? Go straight for the mark—that’s good sense. I’ll give you time enough. We have to beat it in a week or so. You ought to find out what’s what in that space of time, eh?”
“Sure. Easy!”
They were in the station and could hear the enthusiastic cries of the hackmen and busmen and taxi drivers. Certainly a conglomeration, Westy thought as they stepped into a Ford taxi and were whisked to their hotel.
“This bird must have had his training on Forty-second Street,” Billy said, as the taxi driver perilously piloted his car through a street so narrow that two people could have shaken hands across the street without leaving the sidewalk.
At the hotel they all registered before Westy, and when it came his turn he looked up at the clerk, an amiable-looking chap, and smiled broadly.
No one ever could resist the warmth of Westy’s smile and this clerk was certainly more than susceptible. He smiled back.
“Came quite a distance to Santa Fe?” he said cordially. “Staying long?”
“No, only a week,” Westy answered.
“Well, you can see a lot in that time,” he said, “if you’re observing.”
“Oh, I’m observant, all right,” Westy remarked casually. “I’m a Boy Scout!”
“Oh, are you?” He seemed interested.
“Sure. We always like to meet scouts when we go to other cities. Do you happen to know any?”
Mr. Wilde, seeing that Westy was started on the right track, motioned Billy and Rip to go on up with him to their rooms.
“No, I don’t know any,” the clerk said, leaning over the counter, “but I know of them. There’s a mighty rich family here that’s always donating to them. The son is in it, I think. See it in the papers often. They’re multi-millionaires and live near the outskirts of the city. Snobs, though, I hear!”
“Huh,” Westy said. “Know their name?”
“Mitchell.”
Westy entered the room, a broad grin on his face. “I see you’ve hit it!” Mr. Wilde said.
“Harder than that,” he said and got into his scout suit.
“What,” said Rip, “so quick?”
“Sure. A scout has got to get on the job while the getting is good.”
“Atta boy!” Billy remarked.
When he was all ready and went to the door he turned back as Mr. Wilde spoke.
“We’re going to take some shots of the Plaza here, Westy! It used to be the western terminus of the Old Trail. If you don’t find us here when you get back take a stroll on down.”
A few minutes later Westy was hurrying through quiet, narrow, unpaved streets, lined on each side with one-story adobes.
Some Santa Feans strolling leisurely along in the mid-afternoon sun stopped to turn and look after Westy’s slim figure, so gorgeously arrayed in complete scout attire.
Westy was unconscious of any stares, however. He walked on indifferent to the picturesque Tesuque Indian with his black hair bound with its scarlet bandeau and brilliantly colored blanket.
The cries of the newspaper boys with their English and Spanish papers he left behind as he entered the residential district, where one could see at first glance that the adobes here were much larger and more pretentious.
Inquiring the way of a very Spanish-looking gentleman, Westy felt quite grown up as that honorable Don greeted him with a “Buenos dias, señor!”
He walked away after he had been given the information, but had only gone a few feet when the Don called him back. He nodded ahead in the direction of a boy about Westy’s age who was standing in conversation with an older boy.
“That is the young Señor Mitchell just ahead,” the man told him.
Westy thanked him and the man walked on and disappeared in one of the picturesque adobes.
The young Señor Mitchell bid his companion adieu also and they went in opposite directions, so Westy hurried after him.
As he got near him he walked slow on purpose and passed in front of him leisurely. He could feel the close scrutiny that young Mitchell gave him as he passed.
“Hello, Scout!”
Westy turned and smiled.
“Hello!”
“Stranger?”
“Sure. Martin, Bridgeboro, N. J.”
“Go on! Mitchell—I go to Crestwood.”
“N. J.?”
“Betcha.”
“What luck!” said Westy. “Crestwood Boys’ School isn’t far from my house.”
“I’m hardly ever home,” said Mitchell.
Westy could tell it by his New Jersey accent. It was true his manner was a trifle snobbish, but Westy rather liked him.
“What you doing in town, Martin?”
He told him and they walked on through the streets. They exchanged views on scout matters and after a while they came to a curio shop and Westy stopped a minute to look in the show window. Navajo blankets and silver jewelry, Pueblo pottery and moccasins and all the other little fascinating things one sees in the Santa Fe shops. He remarked about the skill of the Indians in making those things.
“Yes, they are!” Mitchell agreed. “Still, none of my family have ever had much use for Indians and yet we’ve lived with them around us all our lives.”
Getting warmer, Westy thought.
“How’s that, Mitchell?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Guess they don’t know themselves.”
They reached the hotel and Westy invited him up to his room. He accepted. He seemed to want to hear all about the adventures Rip and he had had with the members of Educational Films.
Westy related to him about the hold-up and how he and Rip had kept it so quiet. In the middle of his recital he jumped up out of the chair in which he was sitting and whipped out his watch.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Martin. ’S almost dinner time and Dad’s a terrible fusser when we’re late. Come up to the house to-morrow afternoon and let’s hear the rest.” He shook hands with Westy and was gone.
The next afternoon Westy was on the job and admitted into the Mitchell home by a Mexican butler with an expressionless face.
Young Mitchell came forward to meet him and greeted him cordially, leading Westy out into a spacious plazita and introduced him to his father and mother. They actually seemed to unbend from their assumed mental stiffness as he smiled in his naive way.
Westy was the kind of a boy that made people act natural. He had that genuineness of spirit and character that forced them to drop the artificialities and smile at the realities.
Indeed, the Mitchells were so taken with Westy’s boyish charm and ruggedness that they insisted on his staying to dinner.
After the dinner hour was over and they sat out in the plazita again, Westy watched the setting sun throwing its rose-colored shadows through the trees and hollyhocks along the yonder wall.
It was a quaint, charming place, this Santa Fe, with its Spanish atmosphere and alluring traditions. It all made him think of two lonely people in a little mountain shack who had put their entire trust in a boy.
He was wondering if they, too, were thinking and watching the sunset shadows against the mountain walls while they stood amongst the charred embers that had been their home. He was startled out of his reveries by Mr. Mitchell’s voice.
“I hear you’ve had some thrilling experiences in the mountains, Westy! Tell us about them!”
Westy thought a moment and wondered if the occasion was propitious. He hadn’t much time! Nothing like getting it over with, he reasoned, as Mrs. Mitchell laid down the book she was reading to listen to him.
He told them of their strange meeting with Lola and the charming little ivy-covered cottage with its flower garden and related her story of Lone Star with its touch of sweet romance. He was careful not to divulge the names of either young men in the story whom the Indian Princess had aided.
And he went on to tell of those two lonely creatures who were living in poverty now, a lady approaching old age and a girl who had all the charming quaintness of the old world.
He didn’t omit a detail even down to old Mitchell’s prejudice, having kept them from having what was rightfully theirs.
Their own terrible ordeal in the forest Westy told him, but skimming it over lightly and laying more stress on the plight of Lola and her grandmother.
When he came to the part in this real-life narrative of the cottage burning and all their homely possessions going, Westy actually saw a tear fall on Mrs. Mitchell’s cheek.
“They have been shamefully treated,” Mr. Mitchell finally said. “Who are these people?”
“Their name is Redmond,” Westy answered, and waited to see the effect it had. But he was disappointed, for the name meant nothing to them.
“Who did you say the man was who so misused the confidence of the first John Redmond?”
“It’s quite coincidental,” Westy said, feeling his way over thin ice, “but it is said his descendants also live in Santa Fe.”
“And his name?”
“Paul Mitchell!”
“Or course,” Westy said, pretending he didn’t see them start, “there’s other Mitchells here!”
“No.” Mr. Mitchell looked grave. “Not that I know of! My grandfather was Paul Mitchell.”
“Did you say that these people heard about a sealed envelope in the family having been willed to my son?” Mrs. Mitchell was now aroused also.
“Yes, that’s the way I heard it. They saw it in the Santa Fe paper, I think.”
“You are right, Westy,” the older man said. “That envelope is in this house now. In my safe and worth a fortune—— Is it possible to wire Miss and Mrs. Redmond?”
“Yes. It would take two days to reach them, though.”
“That would be all right. It would give us all time. I’ll wire them enough to get here with and meantime I’ll see my attorney. There’s a part of the Mitchell fortune that we’ve never been allowed to touch. Always have been in the dark about it, but can see the light through it now. When my grandfather willed the sealed envelope to my son we had an idea it contained instructions of how to dispose of the forbidden part. I’ll find out if my grandsire had a codicil to the will which would make my son’s share forfeitable should the envelope be prematurely opened.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Mitchell said, “whatever wrong has been done must be righted and I guess it looks as though Fate has chosen Westy.” She had risen simultaneously with him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Come for dinner Sunday and bring your friends,” she said.
They all shook hands and as Westy started to leave he saw the Mexican butler move from behind a tree and fairly glide into the house. He called goodnight and young Mitchell walked out with him.
“It’ll be great having you to dinner on Sunday. You can be there when your friends come; it’ll surprise them. G’night!”
“Good-night!”
Westy felt that he had earned a night’s repose when he got in his room. Rip was already in bed and Billy and Mr. Wilde were draped in graceless attitudes about the various chairs. They had the look of having been waiting for news, so he told them as he undressed.
“You’re some little fixer, Wes!” Mr. Wilde complimented him. “Are they nice people?”
“Oh, sure,” he answered, “after they thaw out. They invited all of you dubs up for dinner Sunday.”
“Is that a nice way to speak to Papa Wilde, Westy?”
“No, it’s not considered nice, but it’s more human.”
“You’re a sketch! No, we won’t butt in on this Mitchell affair at all—not even Rip! It’s going to be your party. We’ll have a chance to say good-by to Lola and Mrs. Redmond before they go, I guess. Anyhow, we’re only too tickled that everything looks rosy!”
“Yes, he never questioned their story at all.”
“Then there’s no cause to worry, do you think?”
“No, only about getting to bed,” Billy said between yawns.
Billy could always break up the party.
Saturday afternoon young Mitchell burst in upon Westy with the news that Lola and Mrs. Redmond had wired back. They were coming on the Sunday evening train.
“Everything’s set now, Martin,” he said excitedly. “Dad says the attorney O. K.’d opening the envelope and made an appointment to have him bring your friends to his office Monday morning.”
“That sounds good,” Westy said. “I’m glad for their sake.”
“Get up to the house early to-morrow—I’ll show you some of my things.”
The next day Westy met young Mitchell before he got halfway to their home. He was coming along at breakneck speed on a motorcycle and stopped short right by him.
“Hallo!” he greeted. “Some stunt, eh, Martin? I don’t ride this tin can very often except when I have too much surplus energy. Then I try stunts.”
“You mean you try to break your neck. I’d like to have that tin can just the same,” Westy said enviously.
“Want to hop on? I’ll show your some peachy tricks before we go home.”
Westy got on and watched him steer with a steady hand.
“See that car ahead?” he asked Westy.
“Yeh. What about it?”
“Well, just watch me cut in front of it and swerve out on the road again.”
“Yes, I’ll watch you all right. I better watch myself. It’d be just my luck to fall off. I’m no whiner though—go to it!”
Young Mitchell needed no further inducements. He got up in back of the big sedan and with a roar and lurch he speeded ahead and cut in front of the car, and before Westy knew it they were back on the road again with the sedan stalled back in the distance.
He laughed, but all Westy could do was smile—he didn’t feel that it was a laughing matter.
“Want to see me do it again?”
“I couldn’t say no if I tried,” Westy said resignedly.
“Watch me closely then and you can learn!”
By the time Mitchells had dinner early Sunday evening Westy had become quite adept in cutting motor cars with a motorcycle.
At dinner the conversation was about the expected arrivals that evening.
The Mexican butler, gliding in and out from the kitchen to the dining-room, seemed to be aware of everything that was needed, yet Westy couldn’t see that he looked at anything. He just seemed to look ahead all the time, his little beady eyes perfectly expressionless. A little man he was, with swarthy skin and shiny black hair. A perfect butler, no doubt, but Westy didn’t like him.
“Baptiste!” Mr. Mitchell addressed him as he was bending over the server on the opposite side of the room.
“Yees, sir!” His English was broken and he turned from what he was doing.
“Order the big car,” Mr. Mitchell said; “we are going down to the station to meet some guests!”
“Yees, sir!” Baptiste answered as he turned to finish his duties at the server.
“Well, that’s that,” Mr. Mitchell was saying. “We’ll get the envelope out of the tin box in the safe to-morrow and give those people what’s coming to them!”
At that juncture the butler glanced at Mr. Mitchell and left the room.
“Say, Dad, I was telling Westy it’d be good fun to have him wait here until we get back and surprise his friends. It’ll be more friendly when they come in to see him, don’t you think?”
“Certainly!” Mrs. Mitchell said.
“Go up in the library while we’re gone and read what you like. You can roam all over the house if you want to,” Mr. Mitchell added.
Young Mitchell took him up in the library and showed him what was most interesting, so five minutes after they had all left for the station Westy was comfortably ensconced in a big library chair. It was so big it completely hid him from view and he browsed to his heart’s content.
The big house was silent; the kitchen noises had stopped and he could hear the two servants padding up the back stairway to their rooms. A little later he heard them go down again—a door closed somewhere in the back and the sounds of two pair of feet stepping along the gravel driveway reminded him that Sunday night was the servants’ night.
A clock chimed the quarter of the hour and then the house lapsed into silence again.
It seemed to Westy that he must have been reading for hours, so intent was he on his book. But he wasn’t reading long at that, for the clock chimed the half hour, and he heard the padding of two pairs of shoes coming up the broad stairway.
He listened as they stopped at the open doorway of the library. The one leading must have stopped abruptly, as its follower shuffled his feet on the polished floor he stopped so suddenly.
“There ees not much time,” the first voice said, right in the room with Westy.
It was Baptiste; he knew the voice and was thankful the big chair was hiding him.
“The safe,” Baptiste went on talking, “ees right here!”
He heard hurried movements and low mutterings, probably in their frenzy to open the safe. Then an exclamation as if it finally yielded.
“Ah,” Baptiste exclaimed. “That’s why I look at Meester Mitchell open the safe. Now I open it, see?”
“The leetle tin box,” the other Mexican exclaimed; “it’s locked!”
Then he heard the heavy safe door swing shut and the sound of footsteps toward the hall.
“We weel open it at my house then!”
They went out of the room and, as they padded down the stairs, Westy jumped up quietly and followed. As he got to the head of the stairs the other Mexican went on out, while Baptiste was extinguishing the lights, leaving only a dim night light burning in the hall.
As Westy got halfway down the stairs Baptiste went out also, so he hurried out after him quietly and hid behind some shrubbery in the driveway. The other Mexican was leaning over a rickety-looking Ford touring car and he put the precious tin box in the back seat, while Baptiste climbed in behind the wheel.
Westy’s mind was working fast. The Mexican got in the front seat also and as Baptiste turned on his tail light the scout’s heart leaped with joy as he saw young Mitchell’s motorcycle parked back in the driveway.
With the usual trembling of tin the Ford drove out into the roadway headed for the outskirts of the city. Before it had gone a block and a half, however, Westy was out of the driveway on the motorcycle and like a shot went after them.
Whether it was a guilty conscience or not, something prompted Baptiste to step on his gas and go the limit.
“Well, I’ll go the limit, too,” Westy said, “whether it’s my motorcycle or not.”
As he passed the corner on one wheel he saw a policeman standing talking to some people in another Ford and Westy shouted for them to follow.
Looking back, he saw they had started and so he went on. He knew Baptiste couldn’t keep it up with the exception that he might slip into some dark road and lose him.
So he crawled up easy just as young Mitchell had showed him and got alongside of the Ford. He raised himself then, just in a half standing position and reached over in the back seat of the touring car.
The handle of the little tin box was upright and it was the will of Providence that this was so or Westy could never have grasped it with one hand.
Indeed, it all happened so quickly that neither Baptiste nor his companion realized what had happened.
With one hand grasping the tin box close to his breast and the other on the steering gear, Westy proved to Baptiste that he could do almost as good as young Mitchell when it came to stunts.
He slowed down again—and then rushed forward with a lurch and a roar, cutting in front of the ramshackle Ford.
But Westy forgot one thing that young Mitchell had taught him. He forgot that the feat required both hands on the steering gear, for as he cut in front of it he held more tightly to the tin box than he did to the motorcycle, and as it lurched it hit a deep rut in the road and threw him bodily—into the field beyond.
The policeman picked him up a few seconds later—unconscious—but against his breast the tin box was tightly clasped.
When Westy opened his eyes again he was in the Mitchell library—on the divan.
A doctor sat by him, Mr. Wilde and Rip and Billy—also the Mitchells. In the open doorway Lola and Mrs. Redmond stood smiling, then came forward.
“You’re tiptop now,” said the doctor, taking his case. “You must be made of rubber. Only stunned, that was all.”
“Where’s the Mexicans?” Westy asked.
“In the lock-up!” Mr. Wilde said.
“Hello, Lola!”
“Hello yourself, Westy! You have almost broken your neck for us this time, haven’t you?”
“That’s what he said he’d do!” piped up Rip, “if it would help you people!”
“Aw, forget it!” Westy was embarrassed with all these admirers looking on.
“I know I think you’re a fine boy,” said Mr. Mitchell, “and I want to thank you for exposing an untrustworthy servant.”
“Your courage was splendid,” Mrs. Mitchell added.
“Well, come on, kid.” Billy was attempting to lift Westy as if to carry him, but the scout frustrated his attempt and stood on his own feet. “All right”—Billy was not a bit balked—“as long as you can walk. But we must get to bed—it’s getting late!”
And as usual Billy busted up the party.
What thoughts crowded through Westy’s mind no one will ever know but himself as he stood with his friends once again on the observation platform—this time homeward-bound!
The Mitchells had bid him farewell and promised to visit him, especially young Mitchell, who said he’d be Johnny on the spot in Bridgeboro after he went back to school.
But Lola and Mrs. Redmond. It was different to bid them good-by with their eyes moist and smiling faces. They also promised to visit them.
They weren’t going back to the mountains again—not for a while. They were going to sup the joy out of the cup of Life. It was glorious to see them—their happiness and joy emanating from their very expressions.
Only a few days until the matter would be settled and they would have what belonged to them—never to want again!
The train moved out slowly and it seemed to them, standing on the moving train, that all humanity was calling farewell. Then as the distance widened between them the outline of their forms became blurred and faded from view.
The shadows of twilight had stolen upon them. It was the witching hour in the mountains—the time for rest, repose and meditation.
As Westy looked upward where the white peaks of the Sierra Sangre de Cristo leaned majestically against the heavens, he listened instinctively again for the murmur of the brook. What was it he heard instead?
The train slowed down as they took a curve and from afar in the distance came the sweet yet sad tinkle of the vesper bells.
“Must be that old Cathedral in Santa Fe we hear it from,” Mr. Wilde said; “the air is so clear it carries.”
A porter looked out of the door and nodded to Billy.
“Youah berth’s made up, sir!”
“Got to get to bed, brothers! Good-night!”
They answered and he disappeared in the car.
Westy fell in a reverie again, as the tinkle of the bells were lost in the noise of the speeding train.
“They’re beautiful, though,” he said dreamily, “those vesper bells!”
Mr. Wilde looked at him and then shook his head in perplexity.
“You’re a hard nut to crack, Westy!”
“There’s no need of trying to crack me at all.”
“Why?”
“I guess I was born that way!”
THE END
THE END