Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 41

'He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all.'

"It's a fact we can't escape from that you and I are not free agents and we haven't been from the very moment we met at May's house. And the lines converge here; you've got to admit that!"

"But they lead away again in quite opposite directions. It is cruel of you to insist--"

"I insist that I love you! That's the only thing that matters!"

"Except," she corrected, "your cheerful a.s.sumption that I reciprocate the feeling, when--"

"Let me begin all over again," he interrupted hastily. "You must realize that all the odd happenings that followed our meeting in Was.h.i.+ngton have come out pretty well; only this little affair of ours--"

"You call it an affair! Calamity would be a better term for it."

This silenced him for some time. Tradition held that the trail they followed was an inheritance from Indian times; it was like an ineffaceable line drawn in the forest by the red men in a.s.sertion of their permanent t.i.tle to the soil.

As she walked before him, carrying her head high, his heart ached with love for her. It would be best perhaps not to urge her further; to wait until the camp closed and then see her in a different environment. It might be that his sister would arrange this for him, and he took courage from the thought.

"It has been in my mind for a day or two that May must be wondering what's become of me. I always write to her, you know; and she imagines me in the Rockies. There must be a stack of mail waiting for me at Banff; I must wire to have it forwarded."

"You needn't necessarily give up the trip--"

She turned her head to dodge an overhanging bough and he caught a glimpse of her face; she was crying; and new and world-shaking emotions were stirred in him by the sight of her tear-wet cheek.

"Do you know," he said, "when we talk about clearing up things I'd forgotten about that buried treasure. I think it would be a mistake for me to leave without exhausting all the possibilities of finding your grandfather's buried gold. I wonder if poor Carey knew any more about it than you do!"

"I'm sure he didn't. There are holes here and there in these woods that he dug in his search. He had an idea that it might be found in the ruins of grandfather's house, but that stood where I built the camp hall and I had the old cellar thoroughly explored. Why!" she exclaimed, stopping short and glancing about thoughtfully, "that's strange."

"We're lost, I hope!"

"Not lost; but there was a fork in the trail and I must have made the wrong turn. I don't remember that I ever saw that fallen tree before."

At some time, perhaps several years earlier, a storm had evidently centered its fury about the place where they stood, and a big hemlock crus.h.i.+ng in its fall several smaller trees lay p.r.o.ne across the trail.

"That old fellow must have made a mighty crash when he went down. I'm sure that I never came this way before."

"Here's an old scar," said Archie, "where some one must have blazed the tree years and years ago. It's the mark of an ax or hatchet. And look!

Three other big trees bear the same mark. They define a square and must have been made for some purpose!"

Discussion of the markings brought them immediately into accord. Isabel was perplexed to find herself in a spot she had never visited before though she had spent the previous summer on the land, planning the camp, and thought she knew every foot of it. She peered into the pit torn by the roots of the huge tree. The sunlight glinted brightly upon something that lay half hidden in the earth.

"Oh, how wonderful!" she cried and placed a gold piece in his hands.

They knelt together, tearing up the weeds and loosening the earth. It was Archie who quickly found a second coin, a ten-dollar gold piece stamped 1859. With a stick he dug into the hole and soon they had made a little heap of bright coins, laughing like children with each discovery.

A deeper probe resulted in the unearthing of a splintered cedar plank evidently torn from a chest that had contained the money.

"Of all the astonis.h.i.+ng things that ever happened this is the most utterly paralyzing!" exclaimed Archie jubilantly.

Using the board as a spade he scooped out a capful of coins--gold, American, English and French, which the Southerner had buried in the northern wilderness.

"It won't do to leave this place unprotected, and we must stop or we'll have more than we can carry. We must bring Putney back to help. It's my guess that there's a chest of money at the foot of each of these blazed trees."

"And pretty good hiding places, too, where the gold might have remained forever if--"

"If you hadn't been hating me so that you lost your way!"

They stood with the heap of gold between them, the bewilderment of discovery in their eyes.

"This is the end of the rainbow and the gold lies at our feet!" he said, and he took her hands, and the one still wearing the bandage he held very, very gently. "Love we know to be better than much fine gold; and wouldn't it be a pity for the finding of these coins to mark the very end, with nothing beyond! And life is so big and wonderful I want your help to make mine of some use--"

She looked at him long and searchingly, and her eyes were so grave, their questioning seemed so interminable, that he did not know until she spoke that her lips had trembled into a smile.

"If you can forgive me," she said; and she laid her hands upon his shoulders, lightly as though by their touch she were investing him with her hope in life renewed and strengthened, and giving pledge that they would walk together thereafter to the end of their days.

During his convalescence the matter of the sixty thousand dollars taken from Seebrook at Cornford troubled the Governor greatly. While he had not personally profited by that transaction it was, he said, his nearest approach to actual larceny and he wished to make reparation, the more particularly as Eliphalet complained that the sale of his stock was frustrated by the mysterious subst.i.tution of Leary's stolen bills for the money in Seebrook's trunk. Whereupon Archie bought the stock from Eliphalet and sent it with ten thousand dollars in cash to Seebrook, enclosing in the packet he confided to Briggs for delivery a note explaining that the theft had been a mere bit of pleasantry for which the guilty person offered the sincerest apologies.

Before he left the North the Governor made generous provision for all who had shared his fortunes. Perky sold the _Arthur B. Grover_ to a dredging company in Chicago and the proceeds were divided among the crew. To each man's share the Governor made a substantial addition with the stipulation that the recipient should engage thereafter in some honorable calling. It may be said that in every instance of which the present chronicler has knowledge the man thus endowed invested wisely in a lawful business and so far has kept his promise.

When he closed the hotel Leary took Perky to his home further up the lake, and as Mrs. Leary was perfectly capable of managing the confectionery alone, the two old friends purchased a garage, where in the abundant leisure of the long northern winters they discuss the exploits of their lawless days and read the newspaper reports of the performances of their successors in the predatory arts, deploring, of course, the inept.i.tude of the new generation. The underground trail ceased to exist with the pa.s.sing of the Governor, and as you tour the Green Mountain State you may pause at Bill Walker's farm and enjoy a gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk on his veranda without fear of a raid by the constabulary.

Eliphalet Congdon is at peace with all the world, and wherever a chess tournament is forward he may be observed, sometimes an interested spectator, but not infrequently a partic.i.p.ant and a shrewd and dangerous adversary.

Sally Walker deserves and shall receive a final word. When Mrs. Graybill left Huddleston, happy and wholly at ease as to her brother's future, she took Sally with her, with every intention of adopting the girl and carrying her abroad for a protracted stay. As Pete Barney was killed late in the summer while attempting to escape from the Ohio penitentiary, Sally was quite free to enter upon a new life, and from all accounts she is realizing fully the expectations of her benefactress.

In the loveliest of Colorado's valleys you may, if you exercise your eyes intelligently, note three houses in the Spanish style, with roads that link them together as though publis.h.i.+ng the fact that the owners of the surrounding ranches are bound by the closest and dearest ties. As an adjunct of his residence Putney Congdon maintains a machine shop where he finds ample time for experiment. The Archibald Bennetts are learning all there is to know about fruit culture; and they are so happy that they are in danger of forgetting the existence of cities. Farthest of the three homes from the railroad, and where the hills begin, Philip and Ruth Van Doren chose their abode. And you may see them any day that you care to penetrate to their broad pastures, riding together, viewing with contemplative eyes the distant peaks or the cattle that are the Governor's delight, a link, he says, between the present and the olden times when the world was young. And often at night, when they are not with the Congdons or the Bennetts, they ride for hours in silence, so great is their happiness, so perfect their understanding, so deep their confidence in the stars.

Books by MEREDITH NICHOLSON

Lady Larkspur

"This is pure comedy carried on in high spirits and mingled with the charm of romance."--_Outlook_.

"There is a gracefulness to the dialogue and an artistic balance in the characterization that keep one reminded that this is an author who is also an artist down to the last word."--_Philadelphia Press_.

"Mr. Nicholson keeps us entertained and uncertain to the end."--_Boston Herald_.

The Madness of May

Ill.u.s.trated by Frederic Dorr Steele

"May to Mr. Nicholson is neither a person nor a month. It is a state of mind and an intoxication of spirit. The little tale is a gay and joyous fantasy that plays with the imagination like the wind through new-leafed trees."--_New York Sun_.

"No one who wishes to be charmed out of himself or herself for an hour or so should neglect to read the story."--_Philadelphia Ledger_.