The Highgrader Part 21

"Your friend was the thief."

"He took the money, but he's no thief--not in his heart. In England only a criminal would do such a thing, but it's different here. A hold-up may be a decent fellow gone wrong through drink and bad company. That's how it was this time. My friend is a range rider. His heart is as open and clean as the plains. But he's young yet--just turned twenty--and he's easily led. This thing was sprung on him by an older man with whom he had been drinking. Before they were sober he and Mosby had taken the money."

"I am sorry," the girl said, almost under her breath.

There was still some hint of the child in the nave n.o.bility of her youth. Joyce Seldon would have had no doubts about what to think of this alien society where an honest man could be a thief and his friend stand ready to excuse him. Moya found it fresh and stimulating.

He explained more fully. "Colter by chance got a line on what the kid and Mosby were planning to pull off. Knowing I had some influence with Curly, he came straight to me. That was just after the finals in the riding."

"I remember seeing him with you. We all thought you should have come up for a few words with us."

"I intended to, but there wasn't any time. We hurried out to find Curly.

Well, we were too late. Our horses were gone by the time we had reached the corral where we were stabling, but those of the other boys were waiting in the stalls already saddled. We guessed the hold-up would be close to the bank, because the treasurer of the a.s.sociation might take any one of three streets to drive in from the fair grounds. That's where we went wrong. The boys were just drunk enough not to remember this.

Well, while we were looking for our friends so as to stop this crazy play they were going to pull off, Colter and I met the president of the bank. We had known him in the mining country and he held us there talking. While we were still there news comes of the robbery."

"And then?"

"We struck straight back to the corral. Our horses were there. The boys had ridden back, swapped them for their own, and hit the trail. Mosby's idea had been to throw suspicion on us for an hour or two until they could make their getaway. We rode back to the crowd, learned the particulars, and followed the boys. My thought was that if we could get the money from them we might make terms with the a.s.sociation."

"That's why you were in a hurry when you pa.s.sed us."

"That's why."

"And of course the sheriff thought you were running away from him."

"He couldn't think anything else, could he?"

"How blind I was--how lacking in faith! And all the time I knew in my heart you couldn't have done it," she reproached herself.

His masterful eyes fastened on her. "Did your friends know it? Did Miss Joyce think I couldn't have done it?"

"You'll have to ask her what she thought. I didn't hear Joyce give an opinion."

"Is she going to marry that fellow Verinder?"

"I don't know."

"He'll ask her, won't he?"

She smiled at his blunt question a little wanly. "You'll have to ask Mr. Verinder that. I'm not in his confidence."

"You're quibbling. You know well enough."

"I think he will."

"Will she take him?"

"It's hard to tell what Joyce will do. I'd rather not discuss the subject, please. Tell me, did you find your friends?"

"We ran them down in the hills at last. I knew pretty well about where they would be and one morning I dropped in on them. We talked it all over and I put it up to them that if they would turn the loot over to me I'd try to call off the officers. Curly was sick and ashamed of the whole business and was willing to do whatever I thought best. Mosby had different notions, but I persuaded him to see the light. They told me where they had hidden the money in the river. I was on my way back to get it when I found little Bess Landor lost in the hills. Gill nabbed me as I took her to the ranch."

"And after you were taken back to Gunnison--Did you break prison?"

"I proved an alibi--one the sheriff couldn't get away from. We had gilt-edged proof we weren't near the scene of the robbery. The president of the bank had been talking to us about ten minutes when the treasurer of the a.s.sociation drove up at a gallop to say he had just been robbed."

"So they freed you."

"I made a proposition to the district attorney and the directors of the a.s.sociation--that if I got the money back all prosecutions would be dropped. They agreed. I came back for the money and found it gone."

"If you had only told me that then."

"I had no time. My first thought was to tell my cousin the truth, but I was afraid to take a chance on him. The only way to save Curly was to take back the money myself. I couldn't be sure that Captain Kilmeny would believe my story. So I played it safe and helped myself."

"You must think a lot of your friend to go so far for him."

"His mother turned him over to me to make a man of him, and if she hadn't I owed it to his father's son."

Her eyes poured upon him their warm approving light. "Yes, you would have to help him, no matter what it cost."

He protested against heroics with a face crinkled to humor. "It wasn't costing me a cent."

"It might have cost you a great deal. Suppose that Captain Kilmeny had picked up his gun. You couldn't have shot him."

"I'd have told him who I was and why I must have the money. No, Miss Dwight, I don't fit the specifications of a hero."

Moya's lips curved to the sweet little derisive twist that was a smile in embryo. "I know about you, sir."

Kilmeny took his eyes from her to let them rest upon a man and a woman walking the river trail below. The man bowed and the Westerner answered the greeting by lifting his hat. When he looked back at his companion he was smiling impishly. For the two by the river bank were Lord and Lady Farquhar.

"Caught! You naughty little baggage! I wonder whether you'll be smacked this time."

Her eyes met his in a quick surprise that was on the verge of hauteur.

"Sir."

"Yes, I think you'll be smacked. You know you've been told time and again not to take up with strange boys--and Americans, at that. Mith Lupton warned you on the _Victorian_--and Lady Farquhar has warned you aplenty."

Her lips parted to speak, but no sound came from them. She was on the verge of a discovery, and he knew it.

"Hope you won't mind the smacking much. Besides, it would be somefing else if it wasn't this," he continued, mimicking a childish lisp he had never forgotten.

"Miss Lupton!"

A fugitive memory flashed across her mind. What she saw was this: a gla.s.sy sea after sunset, the cheerful life on the deck of an ocean liner, a little girl playing at--at--why, at selling stars of her own manufacture. The picture began to take form. A boy came into it, and vaguely other figures. She recalled impending punishment, intervention, two children snuggled beneath a steamer rug, and last the impulsive kiss of a little girl determined to exact the last morsel of joy before retribution fell.

"Are you that boy?" she asked, eyes wide open and burning.

"It's harder to believe you're that long-legged little fairy in white socks."