Langford of the Three Bars Part 21

He smiled. If Louise could have seen that smile, or the almost dewy softness which stole into his eyes-the eyes that were too keen for everyday living! That he loved her was the one thing in life worth while. Then why rail at fate? If he had not chosen as he had, he should never have known Louise. He must have gone through life without that dear, exquisite, solemn sense of her-in his arms-those arms to which it had been given to draw her back from a cruel death. That fulfilment was his for all time. How sweet she was! He seemed to feel again the soft pressure of her clinging arms,-remembering how his lips had brushed her fair hair. If it had been Langford, now, who was guilty of so ridiculous a sentimentalism-the bold, impetuous, young ranchman-he smiled at himself whimsically. Then he pulled himself together. He did not think the jury could believe the story Jesse Black would trump up, no matter how plausible it was made to sound. He felt more like himself,-in better condition to meet those few but staunch friends of his from whom he had so summarily run away,-stronger to meet-Louise. Man-like, now that he was himself again, he must know the time. He struck a match.

"Why, Lena, old girl, we've been taking our time, haven't we? They are likely through supper, but maybe I can wheedle a doughnut out of the cook."

The match burned out. Not until he had tossed it away did it come to him that they were no longer on the main trail.

"Now, that's funny, old girl," he scolded. "What made you be so unreasonable? Well, we started with our noses westward, so you must have wandered into the old Lazy S branch trail. Though, to be sure, it has been such a deuce of a while since we travelled it that I wonder at you, Lena. Well, we'll just jog back. What's the matter now, silly?"

His mare had s.h.i.+ed. He turned her nose resolutely, domineeringly, back toward the spot objected to.

"I can't see what you're scared at, but we'll just investigate and show you how foolish a thing is feminine squeamishness."

A shadowy form arose out of the darkness. It approached.

"Is that you, d.i.c.k?"

Gordon was not a superst.i.tious man, yet he felt suddenly cold to the crown of his head. It was not so dark as it might have been. There would have been a moon had it not been cloudy. Dimly, he realized that the man had arisen from the ruins of what must have been the old Williston homestead. The outlines of the stone stoop were vaguely visible in the half light. The solitary figure had been crouched there, brooding.

"I'm flesh and blood, d.i.c.k, never fear," said the man in a mournful voice. "I'm hungry enough to vouch for that. You needn't be afraid. I'm anything but a spirit."

"Williston!" The astonished word burst from Gordon's lips. "Williston!

Is it really you?"

"None other, my dear Gordon! Sorry I startled you. I saw your light and heard your voice speaking to your horse, and as you were the very man I was on the point of seeking, I just naturally came forward, forgetting that my friends would very likely look upon me in the light of a ghost."

"Williston! My dear fellow!" repeated Gordon again. "It is too good to be true," he cried, leaping from his mare and extending both hands cordially. "Shake, old man! My, the feel of you is-bully. You are flesh and blood all right. You always did have a good, honest shake for a fellow. I don't know, though. Seems to me you have been kind o' running to skin and bones since I last saw you. Grip's good, but bony. You're thinner than ever, aren't you?"

All this time he was shaking Williston's hands heartily. He never thought of asking him where he had been. For weary months he had longed for this man to come back. He had come back. That was enough for the present. He had always felt genuinely friendly toward the unfortunate scholar and his daughter.

"That's natural, isn't it? Besides, they forgot my rations sometimes."

"Who, Williston?" asked Gordon, the real significance of the man's return taking quick hold of him.

"I think you know, Gordon," said the older man, quietly. "It is a long story. I was coming to you. I will tell you everything. Shall I begin now?"

"Are you in any danger of pursuit?" asked Gordon, suddenly bethinking himself.

"I think not. I killed my jailer, the half-breed, Nightbird."

"You did well. So did Mary."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you know that Mary shot and killed one of the desperadoes that night? At least, we have every reason to think it was Mary. By the way, you have not asked after her."

The man's head drooped. He did not answer for a long time. When he raised his head, his face, though showing indistinctly, was hard and drawn. He spoke with little emotion as a man who had sounded the gamut of despair and was now far spent.

"What was the use? I saw her fall, Gordon. She stood with me to the end.

She was a brave little girl. She never once faltered. d.i.c.k," he said, his voice changing suddenly, and laying hot, feverish hands on the young man's shoulders, "we'll hang them-you and I-we'll hang them every one,-the devils who look like men, but who strike at women. We'll hang them, I say-you and I. I've got the evidence."

"Is it possible they didn't tell you?" cried Gordon, aghast at the amazing cruelty of it.

"Tell me anything? Not they. She was such a good girl, d.i.c.k. There never was a better. She never complained. She never got her screens, poor girl. I wish she could have had her screens before they murdered her.

Where did you lay her, d.i.c.k?"

"Mr. Williston," said d.i.c.k, taking firm hold of the man's burning hands and speaking with soothing calmness, "forgive me for not telling you at once. I thought you knew. I never dreamed that you might have been thinking all the while that Mary was dead. She is alive and well and with friends. She only fainted that night. Come, brace up! Why, man alive, aren't you glad? Well, then, don't go to pieces like a child.

Come, brace up, I tell you!"

"You-you-wouldn't lie to me, would you, d.i.c.k?"

"As G.o.d is my witness, Mary is alive and in Kemah this minute-unless an earthquake has swallowed the hotel during my absence. I saw her less than two hours ago."

"Give me a minute, my dear fellow, will you? I-I-"

He walked blindly away a few steps and sat down once more on the ruins of his homestead. Gordon waited. The man sat still-his head buried in his hands. Gordon approached, leading his mare, and sat down beside him.

"Now tell me," he said, with simple directness.

An hour later, the two men separated at the door of the Whites' claim shanty.

"Lie low here until I send for you," was Gordon's parting word.

CHAPTER XVIII

FIRE!

The wind arose along toward midnight-the wind that many a hardened inhabitant would have foretold hours before had he been master of his time and thoughts. As a rule, no signal service was needed in the cow country. Men who practically lived in the open had a natural right to claim some close acquaintance with the portents of approaching changes.

But it would have been well had some storm flag waved over the little town that day. For the wind that came slipping up in the night, first in little sighing whiffs and skirmishes, gradually growing more impatient, more domineering, more utterly contemptuous, haughty, and hungry, sweeping down from its northwest camping grounds, carried a deadly menace in its yet warm breath to the helpless and unprotected cattle huddled together in startled terror or already beginning their migration by intuition, running with the wind.

It rattled loose window-casings in the hotel, so that people turned uneasily in their beds. It sent strange creatures of the imagination to prowl about. Cowmen thought of the depleted herds when the riders should come in off the free ranges in the Spring should that moaning wind mean a real northwester.

Louise was awakened by a sudden shriek of wind that swept through the slight aperture left by the raised window and sent something cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. She lay for a moment drowsily wondering what had fallen. Was it anything that could be broken? She heard the steady push of the wind against the frail frame building, and knew she ought to compel herself sufficiently to be aroused to close the window. But she was very sleepy.

The crash had not awakened Mary. She was breathing quietly and deeply.

But she would be amenable to a touch-just a light one-and she did not mind doing things. How mean, though, to administer it in such a cause.

She could not do it. The dilapidated green blind was flapping dismally.

What time was it? Maybe it was nearly morning, and then the wind would probably go down. That would save her from getting up. She snuggled under the covers and prepared to slip deliciously off into slumber again.

But she couldn't go to sleep after all. A haunting suspicion preyed on her waking faculties that the crash might have been the water pitcher.

She had been asleep and could not gauge the shock of the fall. It had seemed terrific, but what awakens one from sleep is always abnormal to one's startled and unremembering consciousness. Still, it might have been the pitcher. She cherished no fond delusion as to the impenetrability of the warped cottonwood flooring. Water might even then be trickling through to the room below. She found herself wondering where the bed stood, and that thought brought her sitting up in a hurry only to remember that she was over the musty sitting room with its impossible carpet. She would be glad to see it soaked-it might put a little color into it, temporarily at least, and lay the dust of ages.

But, sitting up, she felt herself enveloped in a gale of wind that played over the bed, and so wisely concluded that if she wished to see this court through without the risk of grippe or pneumonia complications, she had better close that window. So she slipped cautiously out of bed, nervously apprehensive of plunging her feet into a pool of water. It had not been the pitcher after all. Even after the window was closed, there seemed to be much air in the room. The blind still flapped, though at longer intervals. If it really turned cold, how were they to live in that barn-like room, she and Mary? She thought of the campers out on the flat and s.h.i.+vered. She looked out of the window musingly a moment. It was dark. She wondered if Gordon had come home. Of course he was home. It must be nearly morning. Her feet were getting cold, so she crept back into bed. The next thing of which she was conscious, Mary was shaking her excitedly.

"What is it?" she asked, sleepily.

"Louise! There's a fire somewhere! Listen!"