The Man from the Bitter Roots Part 26

"It did look as though he wanted to give that impression."

Bruce was absurdly pleased to find himself alone with her, but Helen's eyes did not soften and her voice was distant as she said, moving toward the nearest parlor:

"If you have anything to say to me, please be brief. I must be going."

"I want to know what Sprudell has told you that you should look at me almost as if you hated me?"

"How else would I look at the man who murdered my brother in cold-blood."

He stared at her blankly in an astonishment too genuine to be feigned.

"I murdered your brother in cold-blood! You _are_ Slim's sister, then?"

"I'm Frederic Naudain's sister, if that's what you mean--his half-sister."

The light of understanding grew slowly on Bruce's face. The revelation made many things plain. The difference in the name accounted for his inability to trace her. It was easy enough now to account for Sprudell's violent opposition to their meeting.

"He told you that it was a premeditated murder?"

Watching him closely Helen saw that his tanned skin changed color.

She nodded.

"Why, I came East on purpose to find you!" he exclaimed. "To make amends--"

"Amends!" she interrupted, and the cold scorn in her voice made the perspiration start out on his forehead.

"Yes, amends," he reiterated. "I was to blame in a way, but not entirely. Don't be any harder on me than you can help; it's not any easy thing to talk about to--his sister."

She did not make it easier, but sat waiting in silence while he hesitated. He was wondering how he could tell her so she would understand, how not to shock her with the grewsome details of the story.

Through the wide archway with its draperies of gold thread and royal purple velvet a procession of bare-shouldered, exquisitely dressed women was pa.s.sing and Bruce became suddenly conscious of the music of the distant orchestra, of the faint odor of flowers and perfume, of everything about him that stood for culture and civilization. How at the antipodes was the picture he was seeing! For the moment it seemed as though that lonely, primitive life on the river must be only a memory of some previous existence. Then the unforgettable scene in the cabin came back vividly and he almost shuddered, for he felt again the warm gush over his hand and saw plainly the snarling madman striking, kicking, while he fought to save him. He had meant to tell her delicately and instead he blurted it out brutally.

"I made him mad and he went crazy. He came at me with the axe and I threw him over my shoulder. He fell on the blade and cut an artery. Slim bled to death on the floor of the cabin."

"Ugh--how horrible!" Bruce imagined she shrank from him. "But why did you quarrel--what started it?"

Bruce hesitated; it sounded so petty--so ridiculous. He thought of the two old partners he had known who had three b.l.o.o.d.y fights over the most desirable place to hang a haunch of venison. "Salt," he finally forced himself to answer.

"Sprudell told me that and I could not believe it."

She looked at him incredulously.

"We were down to a handful, and I fed it to a band of mountain-sheep that came to the cabin. I had no business to do it."

"You said that he went crazy--do you mean actually?"

"Actually--a maniac--raving."

"Then why do you blame yourself so much?"

"Because I should have pulled out when I saw how things were going. We had quarrelled before over trifles and I knew he would be furious. You can't blame me more than I blame myself, Miss Dunbar. I suppose you think they should hang me?" There was a pleading note in the question and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead while he waited for her answer.

She did not reply immediately but when she finally looked him squarely in the eyes and said quietly: "No, because I believe you," Bruce thought his heart turned over with relief and joy.

"What you have told me shows merely that he had not changed--that my hopes for him were quite without foundation. Even as a child he had a disposition--a temper, that was little short of diabolical. We have all been the victims of it. I should not want to see another. He disgraced and ruined us financially. Now," Helen said rising, "you must go back to your friends. I'll take a taxicab home--"

"Please let me go with you. They can wait for me--or something," he added vaguely. The thought of losing sight of her frightened him.

She shook her head.

"No--no; I won't listen to it." She gave him her hand: "I must thank you for sending back my letter and picture."

"Sprudell gave them to you!"

"Yes, and the money."

"Money?"

"Why, yes." She looked at him inquiringly.

Just in time Bruce caught and stopped a grin that was appearing at the thought that Sprudell had had to "dig up" the money he had returned to him out of his own pocket.

"That's so," he agreed. "I had forgotten. But Miss Dunbar," eagerly. "I must see you on business. Your brother left property that _may_ be valuable."

"Property? Mr. Sprudell did not mention it."

"I suppose it slipped his mind," Bruce answered drily. "You'll give me your address and let me come to-morrow?"

"Will you mind coming early--at nine in the morning?"

"Mind! I'll be sitting on the steps at sunrise if you say so," Bruce answered heartily.

How young she looked--how like the little girl of the picture when she laughed! Bruce looked at his watch as he returned to his party to see how many hours it would be before nine in the morning.

The shabbiness of the hotel where Helen lived surprised him. It was worse than his own. She had looked so exceptionally well-dressed the previous evening he had supposed that what she called ruin was comparative affluence, for Bruce had not yet learned that clothes are unsafe standards by which to judge the resources of city folks, just as on the plains and in the mountains faded overalls and a ragged s.h.i.+rt are equally untrustworthy guides to a man's financial rating. And the musty odor that met him in the gloomy hallway--he felt how she must loathe it.

He had wondered at the early hour she'd set but when Helen came down she quickly explained.

"I must leave here at half past and if you have not finished what you have to say I thought you might walk with me to the office."

"The office?" It shocked him that she should have to go to an _office_, that she had hours, that anybody should have a claim upon her time by paying for it.

Quizzically:

"Did you think I was an heiress!"

"Last night you looked as though you might be." His tone told her of his admiration.