Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 25

She had endeavored ineffectually to check Latisan's outburst, understanding fully the interlocking perils involved in the promulgation to Crowley that the drive master was going back to his work. It had become her own personal, vital affair, this thing! She was far from admitting even then that love was urging her to the promise she had made so precipitately. The wild spirit of sacrifice had surged in her.

She was able to pay--to redeem! It was all for the sake of the family!

But this love-cracked idiot, babbling his triumph, had thrown wide the gate of caution--had exposed all to the enemy; she feared Crowley in his surly, new mood!

Poor Ward turned to her a radiant, humid stare of devotion; she responded by flas.h.i.+ng fury at him from her eyes. Her cheeks were crimson. "Haven't you any wit in you?" she raged, holding her tones in leash with effort, her convulsed face close to his amazed countenance.

"It was to put you right----" he stammered.

"It has made everything all wrong!"

Men had come into the room. She hurried away from the dumfounded lover.

While she went about her work, sedulously keeping her gaze from Latisan, she heard the men jocosely canva.s.sing the matter. They called to the drive master, giving him clumsy congratulation. There were timber cruisers who were going into the north country; they declared with hilarity that they would spread the news. They ate and went stamping away, news bureaus afoot.

She marched to the pathetic incarnation of doubt and dolor after a time; he was lingering at table in a condition that was near to stupefaction.

"Why aren't you on your way?" she demanded, with ireful impatience.

"You'll have to tell me what the matter is with you!"

"I'll tell you nothing--not now! But you have something to tell Mr.

Flagg, haven't you?"

"You're right! I'll go and tell him that I'm starting for the drive. If I have to smash the hinges off the door of Tophet I'll put our logs----"

"That's it!" she cried, eagerly. "Our logs! We'll call them our logs.

Don't mind because I seemed strange a little while ago. You'll understand, some day. But now hurry! Hurry!" She forced herself to smile. She was eagerly in earnest, almost hysterical. She spoke his name, though with effort. "Remember, Ward! Our logs! Bring them through!"

He leaped out of his chair. The other breakfasters were gone. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

Immediately after Latisan had left on his way to a.s.sure Echford Flagg, the girl was reminded of her putative Vose-Mern affiliations. Crowley lounged back into the room, taking advantage of the fact that she was alone. "Put me wise as to why you're playing this shot with the reverse English."

"Hands off, Crowley! You're only a watchdog, paid to guard me."

"I don't propose to have our folks double-crossed. You have started that drive boss back onto his job, and you and he announce an engagement this morning! You're cagy or crazy! I won't have anything put over! If you're straight, come through to me and I'll back you. Otherwise----" He tossed his hands in an eloquent gesture.

"I'll wire to have you pulled down to the city."

"I have done some wiring ahead of you. It's up to our folks to find out what's the big idea."

"Crowley, won't you leave it all to me?" she pleaded, fighting to the last ditch for her secret and for time. "Can't you see that I'm placing a double-crosser in the enemy's camp?"

He looked at her hard and long and his lips curled into a sardonic grin.

"You're a good one. I'll admit that. But you can't stand there and give me the straight eye and make me believe you have made over Latisan to that extent. I've got him sized. It can't be done!"

Crowley was right--she could not meet his sophisticated gaze.

"What do you expect me to do?" she asked, lamely.

"Keep him off the drive. If he starts to leave this village to-day I'm going to grab in."

She knew Crowley's obstinacy in his single-track methods. There was no telling what he would undertake nor what damage might be wrought by his interference. She tried to force from him his intentions; he paid no heed to her appeals or her threats.

She was fighting for her own with all the wit and power that were in her; she was standing in the path by which the enemies must advance, resolved to battle as long as her strength might last, serving as best she could to distract attention from the main fight to herself, willing to sacrifice herself utterly.

Crowley walked with a bit of a swagger from the room, lighted a cigarette in the office, puttered for a few moments with some old newspapers on a table, and then went out of doors and strolled along the road in the direction of the big house on the hill. She observed his course from a side window. She felt the impulse to run after him and beat her fists against that broad and stubborn back.

She saw Latisan come striding down from the Flagg mansion, determination in his manner.

The two men met. They halted.

Her apprehension became agony, but she did not dare to interfere between them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Crowley, standing in front of Latisan, twisted his countenance into an expression of deprecatory, appealing remorse.

"I have taken the liberty of apologizing to the young lady, sir! Now that I know how matters stand, I want to beg your pardon very humbly. I haven't meant anything wrong, but a man of my style gets cheeky without realizing it."

Latisan had come off well in his interview with Echford Flagg. The old man seemed to be in a chastened mood. When he had been informed of the part the girl was playing, the master had admitted that the right kind of a woman can influence a man to his own good.

Therefore, when the drive master strode down the hill, the radiance of his expansive joy had cleared out all the shadows. He was willing to meet a penitent halfway. He put out his hand frankly. Crowley held to the hand for a moment and put his other palm upon Latisan's shoulder.

"Congratulations! I know my place, now that it has become a man-to-man matter between us. But before--well, I'll tell you, Mr. Latisan, I had met Miss Jones in New York in a sort of a business way and I was probably a little fresh in trying to keep up the acquaintance."

Latisan had extricated his hand, intending to hurry on about his affairs. But here was a person who seemed to be in a way to tell him something more definite about one who was baffling his wild anxiety to fathom her real ident.i.ty. However, Latisan did not dare to ask questions. His own pride and the spirit of protecting her reasons for reticence, if she had any, fettered his tongue; he was ashamed to admit to this man, whom he had so recently hated, that the real character of a fiancee was a closed book.

"Honestly, she ought to have told you that she knew me," complained Crowley. "It would have saved all that trouble between you and me." He rubbed his ear reminiscently. "But perhaps she did," he pursued, affecting to misinterpret the hardness which had come into Latisan's face. "But how she could say anything against me, as far as she and I are concerned, I can't understand."

"She has not mentioned you to me," returned Latisan, curtly.

"That's queer, too," said Crowley, wrinkling his brow, his demeanor adding to the young man's conviction that the whole situation was decidedly queer. Once more the smoldering embers were showing red flames! "Mr. Latisan, get me right, now! I don't propose to discuss the young lady, seeing what she is to you. But perhaps you'll allow me to refer back to what you said to me, personally, in the tavern a little while ago. We can make that our own business, can't we?"

Crowley accepted a stiff nod as his answer and went on. "You told me that you are going back to the drive because the young lady has insisted on your doing so. That right?"

"It is. But I fail to see how you can make it any part of your business and mine."

"It happens to belong in my business." He put his hand to his breast pocket as if to rea.s.sure himself. He proceeded with more confidence.

"Are you afraid of the truth, Mr. Latisan--scared to meet it face to face in a showdown?"

"I'm in the habit of going after the truth, no matter where it hides itself."

"Then I guess you'd better come along with me. I've got to the point where I've got to have the truth, too, or else fetch up in a crazy house."

Crowley's determination was set definitely on his mind's single track.

If a man had an urgent reason for doing a certain thing and the compelling reason were removed, he might naturally be expected to do something else, Crowley figured.