Miss Dividends Part 38

"Very well," he whispers, "sit down. To-day, fearing to alarm you, I did not tell you all I knew in regard to your father; but it is necessary now that you understand everything about Kruger, the Mormon bishop."

"Why, he's two hundred miles away."

"In a few minutes he will be here."

"Oh, mercy!" The girl leans against her lover, and he can feel her heart throb and pulse with apprehension. His arm goes round her waist, and seems to give her confidence, as he tells her the whole story of her father's blood atonement, from which he saved him. And she gasps: "You are not deceiving me--my father is not dead?"

"He's as safe as you are!"

"Thank G.o.d!"

"Perhaps safer!" Then he tells her of the revelation Buck Powers has made him this night.

"Ah!" Erma cries; "Kruger is coming to force me to give up that Utah Central stock."

"For more!"

"What more?"

"To force you to be his seventh wife."

But she says very quietly: "There is no fear of that. I can always die at the last."

"I know you can _die_; but for my sake you must _live_!" cries Lawrence.

Then he says grimly: "If there's any dying to-night, Kruger does it!"

"Ah! that may mean your life. For my sake you must live! I've--I've only been happy for a day." And her tender arms go around him, as she sobs over him, calling him her darling, her betrothed, her future husband, and many other wild terms of endearment she might not use, did she not feel this night might take him from her.

A moment after she cries: "He is not here yet--let us fly!"

"Fly, where?" asks Lawrence. "Through those snow-drifts, over those uninhabited plains? In half an hour we should be overtaken. If not, by morning we should be dead."

"Then, how will you save me?"

"All I know is that I will save you! But to do it, you must follow my instructions. Twelve men I shall not resist openly--except at the last.

Give me your receipt from Wells, Fargo, for that stock."

She steps into the stateroom, and a moment after hands it to him.

"Now," he says, "listen to me! Each word I utter is important. When Kruger comes, you must be in your stateroom, asleep. Nothing must betray to him that you expect or fear his coming! Nothing must inform him that you know of his crime against your father; and, above all, nothing must suggest to him that I am on your train. Our one great hope is, that he does not know I'm here, and may be--just a little careless! Remember, you have nothing to fear as long as I live!"

But Buck Powers breaks in on them at this moment, and mutters: "Cap, Kruger's here! He's talkin' with the men over there!"

"On which side of the cars? Can he see me if I leave them this way?"

"No!"

"You're going?" says the girl. And putting her arms round his neck, nestles to him, and murmurs: "Remember, your life is my life!"

And so he leaves her, and steps cautiously out, and crouching in shadow of the cars, and looking over the white plateaus of drifted snow, he thinks:

"Fly, where? Fight--how? Impossible!" Then of a sudden the snow disappears, and he remembers a hot spring day in '64, in Arkansas, when he and his Iowa boys did what was deemed impossible in war--artillery holding woodland and brush copse against infantry. He sees his cannoneers--boys with fresh young faces and fair hair, just from Western prairies and green fields--fall and die, as the musketry flashes all about them, and singing bullets bring death to them, but still stand and scourge that undergrowth and timber shelter with grape and case shot, till the gray infantry slowly draws back; until the Yankee lumberman has built up a dam like those that float timber down Maine rivers, and so saved the Federal fleet, and thus saved the Federal army.

He mutters: "I did the impossible then for my country; I can do the impossible now FOR MY LOVE."

And from that moment Harry Lawrence has the one great quality that makes success possible in all desperate undertakings--confidence!

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LAST OF THE DANITES.

Even as he looks, hope comes, for he sees the glow of one of the locomotives on the Y, and knows that its fires are still banked--it has a little steam; and he remembers, the line is clear of trains to Green River.

Then he whispers suddenly to Buck, who says: "I understand!" and goes cautiously away, while Lawrence struggles through the snow-drifts to the helping locomotive, the one nearest the switch that leads to the main track running to the East.

The engineer, who is a careful man, and has a pride in his machine, is still with his engine, and Harry is delighted to see he is the one whose heart Erma has won by kindness to his child.

"I was rubbing her up a little, Cap," he says. "I want to be sure she's all ready for to-morrow's work."

"Is she ready for _to-night's_ work?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," answers Lawrence, who has looked the man over, and concludes it is better to lie to him than to argue with him, "that there are road agents on the train."

For a moment the man looks at him in unbelief, then there is a little noise and commotion about the sleepers, and he cries: "My G.o.d! my child!"

"Your child is safe. Buck is bringing her over!" says Harry, pointing at the figure of the boy, half leading, half carrying the little girl through the snow. "Any way," he goes on, "they would have done nothing to her; it's the other one they want, the heiress!"

"What! that beautiful girl that kept my little one from starving? We must save her!" cries the engineer, getting hold of his own darling from Buck, who has come up.

"We will!" whispers Lawrence. "Those road agents will only trouble her and Wells, Fargo & Co.'s express. The express must take care of itself--we'll take care of the girl!"

"But how?"

"By running her down to safety on your locomotive!"

"Great goodness! I never thought of that!" replies the man of the throttle-valve.

A moment after, he says: "I haven't got coal to reach further than Granger."

"That'll do! Get up steam as fast as you can, but don't let anybody see you're at work on your locomotive."

With these words, Lawrence goes into consultation with the engineer and Mr. Powers as to the details of the transaction.