The Highgrader Part 18

He had found her dumb and stricken with many hours of brooding over his guilt. At least he left her quick with questionings. She divined again the hint of a mystery. Something deeper than reason told her that the unraveling of it would prove him no villain.

One immediate duty alone confronted her. She must confess to Lady Farquhar that she had met and talked with him again. It was likely that she would be well scolded, but it was characteristic of her that she preferred to walk straight to punishment and get it over with. No doubt she had been too free with this engaging scamp. The rules of her set prescribed a straight and narrow road in which she must walk. The open fields beyond the hedges might blossom with flowers, but there could be no dalliance in them for her. She was to know only such people as had the pa.s.sword, only those trimmed and trained till there was no individuality left in them. From birth she had been a rebel, but an impotent one. Each revolt had ended in submission to the silken chains of her environment. Fret as she might, none the less she was as much a caged creature as Lady Jim's canary.

CHAPTER IX

"AN OUT AND OUT ROTTER"

Jack strode through the young alders to his horse, swung to the saddle without touching the stirrups, and was off instantly at a canter. He rode fast, evidently with a direct driving purpose to reach a particular destination. The trail was a rough and rocky one, but he took it recklessly. His surefooted broncho scrambled catlike up steep inclines and slid in clouds of dust down breakneck hillsides of loose rubble. In and out he wound, across gulches and over pa.s.ses, following always as nearly a bee line as was possible.

An hour of rapid travel brought him to the Gunnison road. He swung to the ground and examined the dusty roadbed. Apparently he was satisfied, for he took his sweat-stained horse back into the brush and tied it to a cottonwood. From its case beside the saddle he drew a rifle. He retraced his own steps and selected carefully a place among the thick bushes by the roadside. With his pocketknife he cut eye-holes in the bandanna handkerchief that had been round his neck and tied it over his face in such a way as to conceal his features entirely. Then he carefully emptied from the rifle all the cartridges it contained and dropped them into his pocket.

These preparations made, he sat down and waited. There came to him very soon the rumble of wheels. Presently a one-horse trap appeared at a curve of the road. Captain Kilmeny was the driver.

Jack rose noiselessly and thrust the barrel of his rifle through the bushes. He was within six feet of the road and he waited until his cousin was almost abreast of him.

"Throw up your hands!"

The captain knew in an instant what he was up against. A masked man with a rifle in his hands could mean only one thing. Ned Kilmeny was no fool.

He knew when to fight and when to surrender. His hands went into the air.

"Kick that rifle into the road--with your foot, not with your hands."

The Englishman did as he was told.

"What do you want?" he demanded, looking sharply at the masked bandit.

"I want that satchel beside you. Drop it out."

Again the officer obeyed orders. He asked no questions and made no comment.

"There's room to turn here by backing. Hit the grit for the Lodge."

After he had faced about, Ned Kilmeny had one word to say before leaving.

"I know who you are, and there's just one name for your kind--you're an out and out rotter."

"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races, captain," answered the masked man promptly.

Ned Kilmeny, as he drove back to the Lodge, was sick at heart. He came of a family of clean, honest gentlemen. Most of them had been soldiers.

Occasionally one had gone to the devil as this young cousin of his had done. But there was something in this whole affair so contemptible that it hurt his pride. The theft itself was not the worst thing. The miner had traded on their faith in him. He had lied to them, had made a mock of their friendly offers to help him. Even the elements of decency seemed to be lacking in him.

India and Moya were on the veranda when the captain drove up. One glance at his grim face told them something had gone wrong.

"I've been held up," he said simply.

"Held up!"

"Robbed--with a rifle within reach of my hand all the time."

"But--how?" gasped India.

Moya, white to the lips, said nothing. A premonition of the truth clutched icily at her heart.

"A masked man stopped me just as I swung round a bend about three miles from Gunnison. He ordered me to throw out the satchel with the money. I did as I was told."

"He had you covered with a weapon?" asked India.

"With a rifle--yes."

"Did you--recognize him?" Moya's throat was dry, so that her question came almost in a whisper.

The captain's eyes met hers steadily. "He stayed in the bushes, so that I didn't see his body well. He was masked."

"But you know who it was. Tell me."

Ned Kilmeny was morally certain of the ident.i.ty of the robber. He could all but swear to the voice, and surely there were not two men in the county with such a free and gallant poise of the head.

"I couldn't take oath to the man."

"It was your cousin." Moya was pale to the lips.

The officer hesitated. "I'm not prepared to say who the man was."

The pulse in her throat beat fast. Her hand was clutching the arm of a chair so tightly that the knuckles stood out white and bloodless.

"You know better. It was Jack Kilmeny," she charged.

"I could tell you only my opinion," he insisted.

"And I know all about it." Moya came to time with her confession promptly, in the fearless fas.h.i.+on characteristic of her. "It was I that sent him to you. It was I that betrayed you to him."

India set her lips to a soundless whistle. Her brother could not keep out of his brown face the amazement he felt.

"I don't wonder you look like that," Moya nodded, gulping down her distress. "You can't think any worse of me than I do of myself."

"Nonsense! If you told him you had a reason. What was it?" India asked, a little sharply.

"No reason that justifies me. He took me by surprise. He had come to get the stolen money and I told him we were returning it to the Fair a.s.sociation. He guessed the rest. Almost at once he left. I saw him take the canon road for Gunnison."

"You weren't to blame at all," the captain a.s.sured her, adding with a rueful smile: "He didn't take you any more by surprise than he did me. I hadn't time to reach for the rifle."

India's Irish eyes glowed with contemptuous indignation. She used the same expression that Ned had. "He must be an out and out rotter. To think he'd rob Ned after what he offered to do for him. I'm through with him."

Her brother said nothing, but in his heart he agreed. There was nothing to be done for a fellow whose sense of decency was as far gone as that.