The Perils of Pauline Part 29

Outside he knelt beside her, chafing her hands, when she wakened. He had turned her so that she did not see the towering glare of the flames as the old Grigsby house furnished burnt penance for its crimes.

Pauline raised her arms and touched tenderly his bleeding brow. He lifted her into the car that Ba.s.sett and the driver had patched up.

"Home, James," said Ba.s.sett, with a tired grin, "but stop at a telephone somewhere and let me tell my boss that I've got a piece for the paper."

CHAPTER XIII

DOUBLE CROSS RANCH

"I tell you, Harry, I can't endure it. I couldn't face anyone I know.

I want to run away--far, far away, where n.o.body ever heard of balloons or automobiles, or me."

"Polly, you aren't afraid of a little talk, are you? Everyone is saying how brave you were, and, here, when the danger's over, I find you a flimsy little coward!"

She picked up one of a pile of newspapers that lay on the stand beside her, and thrust it before Harry's eyes with a manner at once questioning and rebuking. He read the head lines:

SOCIETY GIRL CARRIED OFF IN BALLOON

Miss Pauline Marvin Has Remarkable Experience After Accident on Palisades.

Harry laughed and patted her hand rea.s.suringly. "Oh, but that's only one of them," wailed Pauline. "Look at this one:

PAULINE MARVIN LOST IN THE SKY

"Can any woman live after that," she cried.

"Why, it's no crime to be lost in a balloon," said Harry. "See, they tell it just as it was--they make you a real heroine."

"A man might live it down, dear, but a woman, never! To be 'lost in the sky' is altogether too giddy. Margaret!" she called.

The maid stepped quickly forward.

"You may pack my things, Margaret, and be sure to put in some warm winter ones. Is the snow on mountains cold like real snow, or is it like the frosting on cake?" she inquired, turning again to Harry.

"What are you up to this time?" he demanded.

"Montana first," she proclaimed with a melodramatic flourish. "And if I am followed by my fame or by my relatives--I shall go on--to the end of the world."

Harry had long ago abandoned the idea of laughing at her whims. Even the most fantastic of her projects was serious to her.

He merely looked at her in mute suspense awaiting the fall of the blow.

"You needn't begin to see trouble-yet," she laughed. "But I am going, Harry. I'm going to accept Mary Haines's invitation and visit her and her nice, queer husband on their ranch. You remember Mrs. Haines, that dear Western girl that we met on the steamer when she was on her honeymoon?"

"Well, it's pretty tough just at this time," objected Harry. "Business is bothersome, and I ought to be here; but if you insist . . . "

"Oh, you're not coming with me," stated Pauline, cheerily. "In the first place you are not invited, and in the second place you are not needed in the least. Now get me a telegraph blank."

He came back with the desired paper and a fountain pen and she scribbled:

Mrs. Mary Haines, Rockvale, Montana. Care Double Cross Ranch.

Arrive Thursday at 8 a.m. Will explain haste when see you.,

Pauline Marvin."

"Run down and 'phone that to the telegraph office," she told Harry.

"And now for the packing, Margaret." She thrust a tiny foot in a pink slipper over the edge of the bed.

"But you are ill, Miss Marvin," protested the nurse with a first faint a.s.sertion of authority.

"That's so," said Polly. "How can we get around that? Oh, yes; it's time for your airing, dear--and when you come back I shall be well and packed."

"Plenty of air," suggested Harry sarcastically from the doorway, "if it takes you as long to pack as it does to put on your hat."

Pauline flung him a laughing grimace and he strode off to the library.

As he was repeating the brief message to the telegraph office he did not hear the light footfalls that ceased at the library door, nor could he see the drawn, gray face of Owen who heard the message spoken over the telephone, and was pa.s.sing up the stairs with his slow, dignified tread when Harry came into the hall.

"Good morning, Mr. Harry. I see you are quite yourself again.

Yesterday was a terrible day."

"You do look done up," retorted Harry, curtly, as he picked up his hat.

Owen's step was not slow or dignified after the door shut upon Harry.

He sprang up the last stairs and into his own room.

Here on a small writing desk was another telephone. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up nervously and gave the call number of the place where he had held his first conference with Hicks.

He held a brief conversation over the wire, snapped down the receiver, sprang to a wardrobe for his hat and stick and hurried from the house.

The dullness that a sleepless night had left in his eyes had disappeared. The fear that had shaken him ever since the uncanny reappearance of Harry and Pauline was dissipated, or at least concealed by a new hope--a new plan of destruction.

He knew only that Pauline was going away and that she must be followed --no matter whither her whims might lead.

Hicks was seated in a corner of the rendezvous drinking whiskey and water. He was plainly in a black mood.

"You got a pretty fat roll yesterday, Hicks. But," Owen drew out his wallet, "here is a little. Get yourself ready to make a trip tomorrow. I'll let you know the time and the train."

Hicks looked covetously at the bills, but he demurred: "You mean we're after them two again!"

"Hicks, we must be after them because one of them will soon be after us."

"Where they goin' now?"

"Rockvale, Montana. That is, the girl's going. What I haven't found out yet is whether Harry goes, too. If he stays here, I'll stay, and you'll go West."