Lahoma by John Breckinridge Ellis (page 4)

follow too soon.”

There were three stage-coaches drawn up at a short distance from the platform, and Lahoma went swiftly to the one bound for her part of the country. She was the first to enter; she was seated quietly in a corner when the two long seats that faced each other began filling up. The last to come were four men: one, tall, slender, red-faced and red-haired, two others of dark and lowering faces, who looked upon the former as their leader, and the last, Wilfred Compton, who had unobtrusively joined himself to this remnant of Red Kimball’s gang.

The stage, which was built after the manner of the old-fashioned omnibus, afforded no opportunity of moving to and fro in the selection of seats, hence, when Red Kimball discovered Lahoma’s identity–the exact moment of the discovery was marked by his violent start–she was safeguarded from his approach by her proximity to a very large woman flanked by a thin spinster. These were two sisters, going to the evening’s station where the coach would stop for supper, and Lahoma discussed with them their plans and hopes with bright cheerfulness and ready friendship.

Wilfred watched Red Kimball as he glared in that direction, and guessed his thoughts. Although Kimball knew Lahoma, he was not sure that she knew him; and though he was convinced at once that she was on a mission of warning, that might be true without her knowing that he had left Kansas City. Red Kimball was burning to find out if he were a stranger to her, but at the same time fearful of disclosing himself. He muttered to his companions hoarsely, careful that Wilfred, whom he regarded askance, should overhear nothing that he said.

The situation was such as could not very well continue during the days it would take the coach to reach Mangum but although Wilfred was conscious of the strain, he felt excitedly happy. Very little of his attention was given to Kimball, and a great deal to Lahoma. She was talking to the sisters about the baby of the one and the chickens of the other, offering advice on both subjects from the experience of a certain Mrs. Featherby whom she had known as a child.

“Mrs. Featherby was a very wonderful woman,” Lahoma announced with conviction, “and the first woman I ever knew. And when her baby was teething…” The very large lady listened with great attention.

“She told me this when I was a small girl,” Wilfred presently heard Lahoma saying. “And I treasured it in my mind. I stored myself with her experience about everything there is. It came to me, then, that if she moved away from Headquarters Mountain–that’s my mountain–maybe no other woman would ever come there to live; so I stored myself, because I was determined to learn the business of being a woman.”

The large woman gazed upon her admiringly. “I guess you learned, all right.”

They had not gone five miles before the large woman and her younger sister were in love with Lahoma–but it hadn’t taken Wilfred five miles. As he listened to her bright suggestions, and noted her living eyes, her impulsive gestures–for she could not talk without making little movements with her hands–and her flexible sympathetic voice, he saw her moving about a well-ordered household…. It was on his farm, of course; and the house was his,–and she was his Lahoma….

Red Kimball watched her with the same sidewise attention, but his face was brooding, his half-veiled eyes were red and threatening. What would happen in the nighttime as the stage pursued its lonely way across the bleak prairie? Since Red Kimball meant to appeal to the law in his revenge against Brick, there was no danger of his transgressing it openly. But in the darkness with two unscrupulous companions under his command, he would most probably execute some scheme to prevent Lahoma from reaching her destination.

The evening shadows were stretching far toward the east from the few trees that marked the dried bed of a stream, when the coach stopped among a collection of hovels and tents. As the horses were led away, the passengers dismounted, and both Wilfred and Red Kimball hurriedly drew close to Lahoma.

Lahoma, however, appeared unaware of their presence. The sisters had been met by the husband of the older, and as they gathered about the big wagon, Lahoma was urged to go home with them to supper.

“We’re only a little ways out,” she was told, “and we’ll sure get you back before the stage leaves–the victuals at the station ain’t fit to eat.”

A very little insistence induced Lahoma to comply, and both the young man and the former highwayman saw her go with disappointment. Kimball and his friends went into the “Dining Hall” to gulp down a hasty meal, and Wilfred entered with them. He remained only a moment, however, just long enough to purchase a number of sandwiches which he stored away, as if meaning to eat them in the coach.

As soon as he was in the single street with the door closed behind him, he darted toward the stage barn, and by means of a handsome deposit obtained two horses. Springing upon one, he rode rapidly from the settlement, leading the other, and in a short time, came in sight of a cabin, which, with its outhouses, was the only building in all the wide expanse. From its appearance he knew it to be the one described to Lahoma, and he galloped up to the door with the certainty of finding her within. The big wagon had been unhitched, and the horses were fastened to its wheels, eating from the bed.

The family was about to sit down to supper; the first to discover Wilfred as he flitted past the single window in the side of the cabin, was Lahoma. Before he could knock on the door, she had opened it.

“Oh, Wilfred!” she reproached him, “they’ll miss you and know you’ve come to consult with me about warning Brick.”

“Quick, Lahoma!” said Wilfred, as if she had not spoken, “you can ride a horse, I suppose?” He smiled, but his eyes were sparkling with impatience.

In a flash, Lahoma’s face was glowing with enthusiasm. She looked back into the room and cried, “Good-by!” Then Wilfred swung her to the back of the led horse. “We’ll beat ’em!” cried Lahoma, as he sprang upon his horse. “Fast as you please–I’ve never been left behind, yet!”

The young man noted with sudden relief that she was dressed for the hardships of the prairie. It came to him with a sense of wonder that he had not noticed that before, perhaps from never having seen her in fashionable attire. As they galloped from the cabin, from whose door looked astonished faces, Lahoma answered his thought–

“Up there,” she said, nodding her head toward the East, “I dressed for people–but out here, for wind and sand.”

Looking back, she saw the family running out of the cottage, waving handkerchiefs and bonnets as in the mad joy of congratulation.

“They think we’re running away together!” shouted Wilfred with exultation. The hurry of their flight, the certainty of pursuit, the prospect of dangers from man and nature, thrilled his blood, fixed his jaw, illumined his eye. All life seemed suddenly a flight across a level world whose cloud of yellow dust enveloped only himself and Lahoma. “They think we’re running away together. Look at them, Lahoma. How happy they are at the idea!”

“They don’t know there’s nobody to object, if we don’t,” returned Lahoma gaily, as she urged on her steed. “Come along, Wilfred,” she taunted, as his horse fell a neck behind hers, “what are you staying back THERE for? Tired? If we get into the trail before that coach starts, we’ll have to put on all speed.”

“Doing my best,” he called, “but I made a bad bargain when I got this beast. This is his best lick, and it doesn’t promise to last long. However, it was the only one left at the barn.”

Lahoma slightly checked her animal. “That’s a good thing, anyway–if there’s none left, those horrible men can’t follow.”

Wilfred did not answer. He was sure the stage would be driven in pursuit at breakneck speed, and from the breathing of his horse he feared it could not long endure the contest. To be sure, Red Kimball and his men had no lawful excuse to offer the stage-driver for an attempt to stop them; but three men who had once been desperate highwaymen might not look for lawful excuses on a dark night in a dreary desert. Besides, Kimball might, with some show of reason, argue that since he was bent on the legitimate object of having a writ served on Brick Willock, he would be justified in preventing Brick from being warned out of the country.

They galloped on in silence, Lahoma slightly holding back. Night rapidly drew on.

CHAPTER XX
TOGETHER

Before them, the trail, beaten and rutted, stretched interminably, losing itself in the darkness before it slipped over the rounded margin of the world. As darkness increased, the trail seemed to waver before their eyes like a gray scarf that the wind stirs on the ground. On either side of it, the nature of the country varied with strange abruptness, now an unbroken stretch of dead sage-brush showing like isolated tufts in a gigantic clothes-brush–suddenly, a wilderness of white sand shifting as the wind rose–again, broken rocks sown broadcast. Before final darkness came, the trail itself was varicolored, sometimes white with alkali, sometimes skirting low hills whose sides showed a deep blue, streaked with crimson.

But now all was black, sand, alkali, gypsum-beds, for the night had fallen.

In their wide detour they had endeavored to escape detection from the stage-station, but sheltered by no appreciable inequalities of land, and denied the refuge that even a small grove might have furnished, they had, as it were, been held up to view on the prairie; and though so far away, their horses had been as distinctly outlined as two ants scurrying across a white page.

Wilfred reflected. “If Kimball, when he came out of that restaurant, happened to look in this direction, he must have seen us; and the first inquiry at the barn would inform him who’re on the horses.’ But he said nothing until, from the rear, came the sound long-dreaded, telling, though far away, of bounding horses and groaning wheels.

“Lahoma!”

“Yes–I hear them.”

“My horse is about used up. We’ll have to side-trail, or they’ll ride us down.”

“I could go on,” Lahoma answered, as she drew bard on the bit, “but I wouldn’t like to leave you here by yourself.”

“You couldn’t travel that distance by yourself. And good as your horse is, it wouldn’t last. But thank you for thinking of me,” he added, smiling in the darkness, as he dismounted. “Let me lead your horse as well as my own.”

“No,” said Lahoma, “if leading is to be done, I’ll do my part.” She leaped lightly to the ground and seized her bridle. Side by side they slowly ventured from the trail into the invisible country on the left. They found themselves treading short dead mesquit that did not greatly obstruct their progress.

“Keep going,” Wilfred said, when she paused for breath. “It wouldn’t do for our horses to whinny, for those fellows would hear them if it was thundering. Give me your hand.”

“Here it is,” Lahoma felt about in the darkness. “My! but I’m glad I’ve got you, Wilfred! Oh, how they are dashing along! Listen how the man is lashing his whip over those four horses. Wish we could see ’em–must be grand, tearing along at that rate!”

The stage was rapidly coming up abreast of them, and Wilfred felt her grasp tighten. There was a flash of lights, a glimpse of the driver’s face as of creased leather as he raised his whip above his head–then noise and cloud of dust passed on and the lights became trailing sparks that in a minute or two the wind seemed to blow out.

“My poor Brick!” Lahoma wailed. “Do you think he’ll take good enough care of himself from what I wrote in my letters? But no, he doesn’t think Red Kimball is coming yet, for I didn’t know it till after I’d written. He’s with Bill now, waiting for another letter. Or for a telegram.”

“No, no, Lahoma,” Wilfred tried to sooth her. “He has been hiding for days. Why should he come out just at the wrong time? You wrote that you’d not send any more messages. Brick will be on the lookout for Kimball. He is sure to be watching out for him.”

“I know Brick,” Lahoma protested, seemingly all at once overcome by the fatigues of her journey and the hopelessness of the situation. “I was afraid he wouldn’t agree to hide at all; and just as soon as you came away, and there wasn’t any more prospects of letters, he’d get lonesome, and tire of staying away from home. He’s in that cove this minute, and he’ll be there when Red Kimball takes the sheriff after him.” Her voice quivered with distress.

“Don’t be afraid, Lahoma,” urged Wilfred, slipping his arm protectingly about her. “Don’t grieve–I’m sure Brick is in a safe place.”

“Well, I’M not in danger,” said Lahoma, with-drawing from his involuntary embrace. “Don’t take ME for Brick! Maybe you’re right–but no, I’m sure he wouldn’t be willing to stay out in the mountains week after week–and during these cold nights! For it is cold, right now. We must hurry on, Wilfred.”

“There’s one comfort,” said Wilfred, as they retraced their way toward the trail. “Mr. Gledware won’t appear as a witness against Brick. We’ll get him cleared, easy enough.”

“But Mr. Gledware WILL appear against him, and he’ll swear anything that Red Kimball wants.”

“I thought he agreed to do that only on condition that a certain pin–“

“YES! But Red Kimball brought him that pin just before I left!”

“Brought him the pin that the Indian had?”

“Yes, the pearl and onyx pin. And Mr. Gledware seemed to consider it so important that I know Red Feather would never have given it up while he had life.”

“Then…?”

Lahoma shuddered. “YES! You see, NOW, what a fiend Red Kimball is. And you know, NOW, what a hold he has over Mr. Gledware,–can make him testify in such a way as to ruin my poor Brick. If Brick knew this, he’d understand how important it is to flee for his life and never, never let himself be taken. But he thinks nobody could get the better of Red Feather. You see, if he just dreamed what has happened, he’d KNOW Mr. Gledware can convict him.”

“We must reach Brick Willock before Red Kimball gets his warrant!” exclaimed Wilfred desperately.

“Yes, we must, we must!” Lahoma was growing slightly hysterical. “I won’t mind any hardship, any danger–but what are we to do? You won’t let me ride on alone–and you wouldn’t be willing to leave me here and take the good horse yourself.”

“You’re quite right about that!” returned the young man promptly. “We can only mount again, and go as fast as my miserable beast can travel, hoping for some chance to come our way. We have the advantage of not being in the stage where Kimball could keep an eye on us.”

“I ought to be more thankful for that than I am,” Lahoma sighed. They mounted, but as they rode forward, Wilfred’s horse lagged more and more.

“It’s slow sailing,” Wilfred remarked, “but it will give us a chance to talk. By the way, do you feel ready for supper?” From his overcoat pocket he drew forth the sandwiches.

It seemed to Lahoma to show an unfeeling heart to experience hunger at such a time, and to find the ham sandwiches good; but it was none the less true that they were good, and the mustard with which the ham was plastered added a tang of hope and returned a defiant answer to the cold inquiry of the north wind.

After they had eaten and the remaining sandwiches had been carefully stowed away in Wilfred’s capacious pocket, they pressed forward with renewed energy on the part of all save Wilfred’s horse. By dint of constant urging it was kept going faster than a walk though it was obsessed by a consuming desire to lie down. In order to keep Lahoma’s mind from dwelling on their difficulties and on Brick’s peril, the young man maintained conversation at high pressure, ably seconded by his companion who was anxious to show herself undaunted.

Wilfred chose as the topic to engage Lahoma’s mind, the future of Oklahoma Territory. The theme filled him with enthusiasm such as no long-settled commonwealth is able to inspire, and though Lahoma considered herself a Texan, she was able to enter into his spirit from having always lived at the margin of the new country. Wilfred dwelt on the day when Oklahoma would no longer be represented in congress by a delegate without the right to vote, but would take its place as a state whose constitution should be something new and inspiring in the history of civil documents.

Wilfred meant to have a part in the framing of that constitution and as he outlined some of his theories of government, Lahoma listened with quick sympathy and appreciation. A new feeling for him, something like admiration, something like pride, stirred within her. Here was a man who meant to do things, things eminently worth a man’s time and strength; and yet, for all his high purposes, there was no look, no tone, to indicate that he held himself at a higher valuation than those for whom he meant to labor. As in time of stress the strongest man is given the heaviest burden, so he seemed to take to himself a leading part in the future of his country that all who dwelt within its borders might find it a freer, a richer, a better country because of him.

“You’ll call me ambitious,” said Wilfred, glowing. “Well, I am. You’ll accuse me of wanting power. So I do!”

Her eyes flashed. “And I’m ambitious for you!” she cried. “Go ahead and get power. Take the earth! Don’t stop till you reach the sea–that’s the spirit of the West. But how did you ever think of these things?”

“During my long winters on my quarter-section, nobody in sight–just the prairie and me. Nothing else to think about except the country that’s new-born. So I studied out a good many things, just thinking about Oklahoma and–and–“

Lahoma said softly, “I KNEW there was SOMETHING ELSE you thought about.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Wilfred, thrilled. “Yes–there WAS something else!”

“A little girl, I guess,” murmured Lahoma gently, with a touch of compassion in her tone.

“You’ve guessed it, Lahoma–yes, the dearest little girl in the world.”

“I wish she could have cared for you–THAT way–like your voice sounds,” murmured Lahoma.

“Maybe she can,” Wilfred’s voice grew firmer. “Yes–she MUST!”

“Have you found a gold-mine?”

“What are you talking about, Lahoma? What has a gold-mine to do with it?”

“Because nothing else goes,” returned Lahoma decisively. “You might get single statehood for Oklahoma, and write the constitution yourself, and be elected governor–but you’d look just the same to Annabel, unless you had a gold-mine.”

Wilfred gave a jerk at his bridle. “Who’s talking about Annabel?” he cried rather sharply. He had forgotten that there was an Annabel.

“Everybody is,” returned Lahoma, somewhat sharply on her own account, “everybody is, or ought to be!”

“_I_ am not,” retorted Wilfred, springing to the ground just in time–for his horse, on being checked, had promptly lain down.

“Then that’s what you get!” remarked Lahoma severely, staring down at the dark blur on the trail which her imagination correctly interpreted as the horse stretched out on its side.

CHAPTER XXI
THE NORTHER

The wind increased in fury. Fortunately it was at their back. Wilfred pressed forward on foot, leading Lahoma’s horse; and, partly on account of their unequal position, partly because of awkward reserve, no more was said for a long time. She bent forward to shelter her face from the stinging blast while he trod firmly and methodically on and on, braced slightly backward against the wind, which was like a hand pushing him forward.

The voice of the wind filled the night. It whistled and shrieked in minor keys, dying away at brief intervals to come again with a rush and roar. It penetrated him to the bone, for he had compelled her to wrap herself in his overcoat, and when the first stinging grains of fiercely driven sleet pelted his cheek, he smothered a cry of dismay over her exposed situation.

It could not be far past midnight. The prospect of a snow-storm in the bleak lands of the Kiowa appalled him, but even while facing that possibility his mind was busy with Lahoma’s attitude toward himself. Evidently it had never occurred to her that Annabel had vanished from his fancy years ago; now that she knew, she was displeased–most unreasonably so, he thought. Lahoma did not approve of Annabel–why should she want him to remain passively under her yoke? Unconsciously his form stiffened in protest as he trudged forward. The wind, so far from showing signs of abatement, slightly increased, no longer with intervals of pause. The sleet changed rapidly first to snow, then to rain–then hail, snow and rain alternated, or descended simultaneously, always driven with cruel force by the relentless wind.

At last Lahoma shouted, “It’s a regular norther! How’re you getting along, Wilfred?”

Despite their discomfort, his heart leaped at this unexpected note of comradeship. Had she already forgiven him for not loving Annabel? “Oh, Lahoma!” he cried with sudden tenderness, “what will become of you?”

She returned gravely, “What will become of Brick? Northers are bad, but not so bad as some men–Red Kimball, for instance.” A terrific blast shook the half-frozen overcoat about her shoulders as if to snatch it away. “Don’t you wish the Indians built their villages closer to the trail? Ugh! Hadn’t we better burrow a storm-cellar in the sand? I feel awfully high up in the air.”

“Poor Lahoma!”

“Believe I’ll walk with you, Wilfred; I’m turning to a lady-icicle.”

“Do! I know it would warm you up–a little.” His teeth showed an inclination to chatter. “Come–I’ll help you down. Can you find my arm?”

At that moment the horse gave a violent lunge, then came to a standstill, quivering and snorting with fright. Wilfred’s groping arm found the saddle empty.

“I didn’t have to climb down,” announced her uncertain voice from a distance. It came seemingly from the level of the plain.

“You’ve fallen–you are hurt!” he exclaimed, but he could not go to her because the horse refused to budge from the spot and he dared not loosen his hold.

“Well, I’m a little warmer, anyway!” Her voice approached slowly. “That was quick exercise; I didn’t know I was going to do it till I was down. Lit on my feet, anyhow. Why don’t you come to meet me?”

“This miserable beast won’t move a foot. Come and hold him, Lahoma, while I examine in front, to find out what’s scared him.”

“All right. Where are you? Can you find my hand?”

“Can’t I!” retorted Wilfred, clasping it in a tight grasp.

“Gracious, how wet we are!” she panted, “and blown about. And frozen.”

“And scolded,” he added plaintively.

“But, Wilfred, it never entered my mind that l was the little girl. Would I have brought up the subject if I’d known the truth? I never would. That’s why I felt you took advantage … a man ought to bring up that subject himself even if I AM a girl out West and–“

“But Lahoma–“

“And not another word do I want you to say about it. EVER. At least, tonight. PLEASE, Wilfred! So I can think about it. I’ll hold the horse–you go on and find out what’s the matter.

“Besides, you said–you KNOW you said, when we were strolling–that–that I didn’t understand such matters. And that you’d tell me when it was TIME….”

“It’s time now, Lahoma, time for you to be somebody’s sweetheart–and you said–you KNOW you said, when we were strolling–that I’d fill the bill for you.”

“But I brought up the subject myself, and I mean to close it, right short off, for it’s a man’s subject. Oh, how trembly this horse is!”

“But, Lahoma!”

“Well, what is it?”

“I just wanted to say your name.” He started away. “It sounds good to me.”

“Yes, it stands for Oklahoma.”

“It stands for much more than that!” he called.

“Yes,” she persisted in misunderstanding him, “something big and grand.”

“Not so big,” he cried, now at some distance, but what there’s room for more than Brick and Bill in the cove!”

If she answered, the wind drowned her words. With extended arms he groped along the trail with exceeding caution. Suddenly his foot touched an object which on examination proved to be a human body, a gaping wound in its breast.

“Found anything?” called Lahoma, her voice shivering.

He rose quickly and almost stumbled over another object. It was a second body, stiffened in death.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he called, his voice grave and steady. After a brief pause he added–“I’ve found one of the horses–it’s dead.”

“Oh, oh!” she exclaimed. “They’ve driven it to death.”

Wilfred had found a bullet hole behind its ear, but he said nothing.

Suddenly the horse held by Lahoma gave a plunge, broke away and went galloping back over the trail they had traversed, pursued by Lahoma’s cry of dismay. “I couldn’t hold him,” she gasped. “He lifted me clear off the ground….”

Wilfred was also dismayed, but he preserved an accent of calm as he felt his way toward her, uttering encouragement for which their condition offered no foundation. But his forced cheerfulness suddenly changed to real congratulation when his extended hand struck against an upright wheel.

“Lahoma, here’s the stage-coach. It’s standing just as we saw it last, except for the horses.”

“The stage-coach!” she marveled, coming toward him. “Oh, Wilfred, I see now what’s happened. One of the horses dropped dead, and Red Kimball and his men jumped on the other three…. But I wonder what became of the driver?”

“Get inside!” he ordered. “Thank God, we’ve found SOMETHING that we can get inside of. That’ll shelter us till morning, anyway, and then we can determine what’s to be done.”

Once in the coach, they were safe from the wind which howled above and around them, rattling the small windows and making the springs creak. There was no help for the discomfort of soaking garments, but Wilfred lighted a reserve lantern and placed it in a corner, while thick leather cushions and stage-blankets offered some prospect of rest.

As no plans could be formed until morning revealed their real plight, they agreed that all conversation should be foregone in order to recuperate from the hardships of the day for the trials of tomorrow. Lahoma soon fell asleep after her exhausting journey of a day and half a night since leaving the train at Chickasha.

For hours Wilfred sat opposite, staring at her worn face, pathetic in its youthful roundness from which the bloom had vanished, wondering at her grace, beauty, helplessness and perfect faith in him. That faith revealed in every line of the form lying along the seat, and spoke from the unconscious face from which the brown hair was outspread to dry.

How oddly her voice had sounded, how strange had been its accent when she said, “It never entered my mind that _I_ was the little girl!” Had she been sorry for the thought to come? Did she think less of him because he had not remained true to Annabel? Would it not have been far better to wait until reaching their destination before hinting of love? Even while perplexed over these problems, and while charmed by that appealing face with the softly parted lips, by the figure that stirred in the rhythm of slumber, other thoughts, other objects weighed upon him–the two dead men, the dead horse just outside. One of those men might be Red Kimball; other bodies might lie there which he had failed to discover. Had the stage been attacked by Indians, or by white desperadoes who found shelter in the Kiowa country? In either case, might not the enemy be hovering about the trail, possibly waiting to descend on the coach?

Armed and watchful, Wilfred waited through the hours. When no longer able to bear the uncertainty, he crept from the stage with the lantern, and examined the recent scene of a furious struggle. There were only two slain–the driver and one of Red Kimball’s companions. Either Kimball and his other comrade had escaped, or had been captured. If any of the attacking party had fallen, the bodies had been borne away. Blood-stains indicated that more than two had been shot. From that ghastly sight it was a relief to find himself once more enclosed by the coach walls with Lahoma so peacefully sleeping.

Once he fell into a doze from which he was startled by the impression that soft noises, not of wind or rain, were creeping over the earth. He sat erect with the confused fancy that wolves were slinking among the wheels, were glaring up at the windows, were dragging away the corpses. The sudden movement of his hand as it grasped his pistol awoke Lahoma.

She opened her eyes wide, but did not lift her cheek from the arm that lay along the cushion. “There you are,” she said, “just as I was dreaming.”

He pretended not to be uneasy, but his ears strained to catch the meaning of those mysterious movements of the night. Her voice cut across the vague murmur of the open plain:

“You only came once!”

Although her eyes were wide, she was apparently but half-awake; not a muscle moved as she looked into his face. “I thought,” she murmured, “it was on account of Annabel.”

“I went away because I loved you,” he answered softly. “I promised Brick I’d go if I felt myself caring–and nobody could help caring for you. That’s why I left the country. Just as soon as we laughed together–it happened. That’s why I didn’t come again.”

“Yes,” sighed Lahoma, as if it was not so hard to understand, now.

“And that’s why I’ve come back,” he added. “Because I’ve kept on loving you.”

“Yes,” she sighed again. She closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Perhaps it was a sort of knowing sleep that lost most of the world but clung tenaciously to a few ideas. The noises of the night died away. Presently he heard her murmur as a little smile crept about the parted lips, “The cove’s pretty big … there’s more room than I thought.”

When she was wide awake, daylight had slipped through the windows. “Oh, Wilfred!” she exclaimed, sitting suddenly erect, and putting her hands to her head mechanically. “Is–are we all right?”

“All right,” said the young man cheerily. “There’s a good deal of snow on the ground but it was blown off the trail for the most part. Some friends have provided us with the means of going forward.”

“But I don’t understand.’

“We’ll finish the sandwiches, and melt some snow for water, and then mount. Look–see those two Indian ponies fastened to the tongue of the stage? They’ll carry us to the next station like the wind.”

She stared from the window, bewildered.

“I don’t know any more about them than you,” he answered her thoughts. “But there they are and here we are.” He said nothing about the bodies evidently carried away by those who had brought the ponies. “It’s all a mystery–a mystery of the plains. I haven’t unraveled the very first thread of–it. What’s the use? The western way is to take what comes, isn’t it, whether northers or ponies? There’s a much bigger mystery than all that filling my mind.”

“What is that?”

“You.”

She bent over the sandwich with heightened color. “Poor Brick!” she murmured as if to divert his thoughts. But his sympathy just then was not for Brick.

“Lahoma, you said that this is a subject a man should bring up.”

She looked at him brightly, still flushing. “Well?”

“I’m bringing it up, Lahoma.”

“But we must be planning to save Brick from arrest.”

“I’m hoping we’ll get home in time–note that I say HOME, Lahoma. I refer to the cove. I’m hoping we’ll reach home in time to forestall Red Kimball. We’ve lost a great deal of time, but Brick doubtless is safely hiding. And when we get to the journey’s end–Lahoma, do you know what naturally comes at the journey’s end?”

“A marriage.”

“I thought that was what you meant.”

“Will you marry me at the journey’s end?”

Lahoma turned very red and laid down the sandwich. Then she laughed. Then she started up. “Let’s get on the ponies!” she cried.

CHAPTER XXII
JOURNEY’S END

The snow, that morning, lay in drifts from five to eight inches across the trail, and to the height of several feet up against those rock walls raising, as on vast artificial tables, the higher stretches of the Kiowa country. But by noon the plain was scarcely streaked with white and when the sun set there was nothing to suggest that a snowflake had ever fallen in that sand-strewn world. The interminable reaches, broken only by the level uplands marked from the plain by their perpendicular walls, and the Wichita Mountains, as faint and unsubstantial to the eye as curved images of smoke against the sky–these dreary monotonies and remotenesses naturally oppress the traveler with a sense of his insignificance. The vast silences, too, of brooding, treeless wastes, sun-baked river-beds, shadowless brown squares standing for miles at a brief height above the shadowless brown floor of the plain–silences amidst which only the wind finds a voice–these, too, insist drearily on the nothingness of man.

But Wilfred and Lahoma were not thus affected. The somethingness of man had never to them been so thrillingly evident. They saw and heard that which was not, except for those having eyes and ears to apprehend–roses in the sand, bird-song in the desert. And when the rude cabins and hasty tents of the last stage-station in Greer County showed dark and white against the horizon of a spring-like morning, Wilfred cried exultantly:

“The end of the journey!”

And Lahoma, suddenly showing in her cheeks all the roses that had opened in her dreams, repeated gaily, yet a little brokenly:

“The end of the journey!”

The end of the journey meant a wedding. The plains blossom with endless flower-gardens and the mountains sing together when the end of the journey means a wedding.

Leaving Lahoma at the small new hotel from whose boards the sun began boiling out resin as soon as it was well aloft, Wilfred hurried after a fresh horse to carry him at once to the cove, ten miles away. Warning must be given to Brick Willock first of all. Lahoma even had a wild hope that Brick might devise some means whereby he could attend the wedding without danger of arrest, but to Wilfred this seemed impossible.

He had gone but a few steps from the hotel when he came face to face with the sheriff of Greer County. Cutting short his old friend’s outburst of pleasure:

“Look here, Mizzoo,” said Wilfred, drawing him aside from the curious throng on the sidewalk, “have you got a warrant against Brick Willock?”

Mizzoo tapped his breast. “Here!”, he said; “know where he is?”

Wilfred sighed with relief: “At any rate, YOU don’t!” he cried.

“No–‘rat him! Where’re you going, Bill?”

“I want a horse…”

“No use riding over to the cove,” remarked his friend, with a grin. “That is, unless you want to call on some friends of mine–deputies; they’re living in the dugout, just laying for Brick to show himself.”

“But, MIZZOO!” expostulated Wilfred, “why are you taking so much trouble against my best friend? The warrant ought to be enough; and if you can’t get a chance to serve it on him, that’s not your fault. Your deputies haven’t any right in that cove, and I’m going to smoke ’em out.”

Mizzoo chewed, with a deprecatory shake of his head. “See here, old tap,” he murmured, “don’t you say nothing about being Brick Willock’s friend. The whole country is roused against him. Heard of them three bodies?”

Wilfred explained that he had just come to town.

“Well, good lord, then, the pleasure I’m going to have in telling you something you don’t know, and something that’s full of meat! Let’s go wheres we can sit down–this ain’t no standing news.” The lank red-faced sheriff started across the street without looking to see if he were followed.

He did not stop till he was in his room at the hotel. “Now,” he said, locking the door, “sit down. Yes, you BET. I got a warrant against Brick Willock! It was sworn out by a fellow named Jeremiah Kimball–you know him as ‘Red.’ The form’s regular, charges weighty. Brick Willock was once a member of Red Kimball’s gang; he’s the only one that didn’t come in to get his amnesty. See? Well, he killed Red’s brother–shot ‘im. Gledware’s coming on to witness to it. Willock will claim he done the deed to save Gledware’s life–his and his little gal’s. But Gledware will show it was otherwise. Red told me all about it. Brick’s a murderer, and worst of all, he’s a murderer without an amnesty–that’s the only difference between him and Red. Well, old tap, I took my oath to do my duty. You know what that signifies.”

“But there’s no truth in all this rot. Brick HAD to shoot Kansas Kimball–“

“Well, let him show that in court. My business is to take him alive. That ain’t all, that’s just the preface. Listen! If you’ll believe me, the stage that Red and his pards was in–coming here to swear out the warrant, they was–that there stage was set on by this friend of yours–yes, Brick has gathered together some of his old pards and is a highwayman–why, he shot one of Red’s witnesses, and he shot the driver!”

“I know something about that holdup,” cried Wilfred scornfully. “It must have been done by Indians.”

“Red SAW Brick amongst the gang. He RECOGNIZED him. Well, Red and his other pard gets on horses they cuts loose, and comes like lightning, and gets here, and tells the story–and maybe you think this community ain’t a-rearing and a-charging and a-sniffing for blood! There’d he more excitement against Brick Willock if there was more community, but such as they is, is concentrated.”

“Mizzoo, listen to reason. Don’t you understand that Red wants revenge, and has misrepresented this Indian attack to tally with his other lies?”

“I wouldn’t say nothing against Red, old tap. It ain’t gentlemanly to call dead folk liars.”

“Dead folk!” echoed Wilfred, starting up.

“I KNOWED you didn’t understand that Red’s off the trail forever,” Mizzoo rejoined gently. “I knowed you wouldn’t be accusing him so rancid, had you been posted on his funeral.”

Wilfred felt a great relief, then a great wonder.

“He’s dead. I don’t say he’s better off, I don’t know; but I guess the world is. I don’t like to censure them that’s departed. Brick Willock is still with us, and him the county can’t say enough against. His life wouldn’t be worth two bits if anybody laid eyes on ‘im. Consider his high-handed doings. Wasn’t it enough in the past to kill Red’s brother, but what he must needs collect his pals, stop the stage-coach, shoot two men trying to get Red, and one of ’em the innocent driver? You say, yes. But hold on, that ain’t all he done. No, sir. The very next day after Red swore out that warrant–and it was yesterday, if you ask ME–what is saw, when we men of Mangum comes out of our doors? Three corpses lying on the sidewalk, side by side. You say, what corpses? Wait. I’m coming to that. One was that driver; one was the pard that got shot with the driver. The other was Red Kimball his own self.”

“I knew the bodies had been carried away from the trail,” exclaimed Wilfred in perplexity. He related his discoveries of the stormy night.

“But you didn’t know they had been brung to town all this distance to be laid beside Red. You didn’t know Red had been stabbed so he could be added, too. You didn’t know the three of them had been left on the street to rile up every man with blood in his veins. Why, Wilfred, it’s an insult to the whole state of Texas, Such high-handed doings ain’t to be bore. If Brick Willock don’t want to be tried in court, is that an excuse for killing off all that might witness against him? It might of been ONCE. But we’re determined to have a county of law-abiding citizens. Such free living has got to be nipped in the bud, or we’ll have another No- Man’s Land. We’re determined to live under the laws. This is civilization. The cattle business is dead, land is getting tied up by title-deeds, the deer’s gone, and there’s nothing left but civilization. And I am the–er–as sheriff of Greer County I am a–I am the angel of civilization, you may say.”

Mizzoo started up, too excited to notice Wilfred’s suddenly distorted face. It was no time to display a sense of the ludicrous; the young man hotly burst into passionate argument and reasonable hypothesis.”

“We’ve got civilization,” Mizzoo declared doggedly, “and we aim to hold on to her, you bet! There’s going to be no such doings as three corpses stretched out on the sidewalk for breakfast, not while I’m at the helm. How’d that look, if wrote up for the New York papers? That ain’t all–remember that ghost I used to worry my life out over, trying to meet up with on the trail? Him, or her or it, that haunted every step of the way from Abilene to the Gulf of Mexico? It’s a flitting, that ghost is! Well, I don’t claim that no ghost is in my jurisdiction. Brick’s flesh and blood, there’s bone to him. As my aunt (Miss Sue of Missouri) used to say, ‘he’s some MAN.'”

Waving aside Mizzoo’s ghost, Wilfred elaborated his theory of an Indian attack, described Brick’s peaceable disposition, his gentleness to Lahoma–then dwelt on the friendship between himself and Brick, and the relations between himself and Brick’s ward.

“It all comes to this,” Mizzoo declared: “if you could make me think Willock a harmless lamb and as innocent, it wouldn’t change conditions. This neighborhood calls for his life and’d take it if in reach; and my warrant calls for his arrest. All I can promise is to get him, if possible, behind the bars before the mob gets him in a rope. As my aunt, whom I have oft-times quoted my aunt (Miss Sue of Missouri, a woman of elegant sense)–‘that’s the word,’ she used to say, ‘with the bark on it!'”

Wilfred permitted himself the pleasure of taunting Mizzoo with the very evident truth that before Willock was hanged or imprisoned, he must first be caught.

Mizzoo grinned good-naturedly. “Yap. Well, we’ve got a clew locked up in jail right now that could tell us something, I judge, and will tell us something before set free; its name is Bill Atkins. He’s a wise old coon, but as sour as a boiled owl,–nothing as yet to be negotiated with him than if he was a bobcat catched in a trap. We’re hoping time’ll mellow him–time and the prospect of being took out and swung from the nearest limb–speaking literary, not by nature, as you know trees is as scarce about here as Brick Willock himself.”

Wilfred insisted on an immediate visit to Bill. “Brick declared he wouldn’t tell Bill his hiding-place,” he said, “for he didn’t want to get him into trouble. He’ll tell me if he knows anything–and if he doesn’t, it’s an outrage to shut him up, old as he is, and as rheumatic as he’s old.”

On the way to the rudely improvised prison, Mizzoo defended himself. “He wasn’t too old and rheumatic to fight like a wildcat–why, he had to be lifted up bodily and carried into his cell. Not a word can we get out of him, or a bite of grub into him. I believe that old codger’s just too obstinate to die!”

When they reached the prison door, the crowd gathered about them, eager for news, watching Mizzoo unfasten the door as if he were unlocking the secret to Willock’s whereabouts. There were loud imprecations on the head of the murderer, and fierce prophecies as to what would happen to Bill if he preserved his incriminating silence. It seemed but a moment before hurrying forms from many directions packed themselves into a mass before the jail.

The cells were in the basement. The only entrance to the building was by means of a flight of six steps leading to an unroofed platform before the door of the story proper. Mizzoo and Wilfred, standing on this platform, were lifted above the heads of perhaps a hundred men who watched eagerly the dangling bunch of keys. Mizzoo had stationed three deputies at the foot of the steps to keep back the mob, for if the excited men once rushed into the jail nothing could check their course. The deputies, tall broad-shouldered fellows, pushed back the threatening tide, always with good-natured protests,–words half bantering, half appealing, repulsive thrusts of the arms, rough but inflicting no hurt. So peaceful a minute before had been the Square, it was difficult to comprehend the sudden spirit of danger.

Mizzoo whispered to Wilfred, “We’d better get in as quick as possible.”

The words were lost in the increasing roar of voices. He spoke again:

“When I swing open the door, that bunch will try to make a run for it. You jump inside and I’ll be after you like a shot…. We’ll lock ourselves in–“

“Hey, Mizzoo!” shouted a voice from the crowd, “bring out that old cuss. Drag him to the platform, we want to hear what he’s got to say.

“Say, Mr. Sheriff! Tell him if he won’t come to us, we’ll go to him. We’ve got to know where Brick Willock’s hiding, and that’s all about it.”

“Sure!” growled a third. “What kind of a town is this, anyway? A refuge for highwaymen and murderers?”

A struggle took place at the foot of the stairs, not so good-naturedly as heretofore. A reasoning voice was heard: “Just let me say a word to the boys.”

“Yes!” called others, “let’s hear HIM!”

There was a surging forward, and a man was lifted literally over the heads of the three deputies; he reached the platform breathless, disheveled, but triumphant. It was the survivor of Red Kimball’s band.

Mizzoo, mistaking his coming for a general rush, had hastily relocked the door, and he and Wilfred defended themselves with drawn revolvers.

“I ain’t up here to do no harm,” called the ex-highwayman. “I ain’t got the spirit for warfare. My chief is killed, my pards is dead. Even that innocent stage-driver what knew nothing of us, is killed in the attack that Brick Willock made on us in the dark and behind our backs. How’re you going to grow when the whole world knows you ain’t nothing but a den of snakes? You may claim it’s all Brick Willock. I say if he’s bigger than the town, if he murders and stabs and you can’t help it, then the town ain’t as good as him. My life’s in danger. I don’t know if I’ll draw another breath. What kind of a reputation is that for you to send abroad? There’s a man in this jail can tell you where Willock’s hiding. Good day!”

The speaker was down the steps in two leaps, and the deputies drew aside to let him pass out. Civic pride, above all, civic ambition, had been touched to the quick. A hoarse roar followed the speech, and cries for Bill grew frantic. Mizzoo, afraid to unlock the door, stared at Wilfred in perplexity.

“I told you they had civilization on the brain,” he muttered. “The old times are past. I daresn’t make a move toward that lock.”

“Drop the keys behind you–I’ll get ’em,” Wilfred murmured. “Step a little forward. Say something to ’em.”

“Ain’t got nothing to say,” growled Mizzoo, glaring at the mob. “These boys are in the right of it, that’s how I feel–cuss that obstinate old bobcat! it’s his own fault if they string him up.”

“Here they come!” Wilfred exclaimed.

“Steady now, old Mizzoo–we’ve whipped packs of wolves before today–coyotes crazy with hunger–big gray loafers in the rocks–eh, Mizzoo?” He shouted to the deputies who had been pushed against the railing: “Give it to ’em, boys!”

But the deputies did not fire, and the mob, though chafing with mad impatience, did not advance. It was a single figure that swept up the steps, unobstructed, aided, indeed, by the mass of packed men in the street–a figure slight and erect, tingling with the necessity of action to which every vein and muscle responded, tingling so vitally, so electrically, that the crowd also tingled, not understanding, but none the less thrilled.

“Lahoma!” Wilfred was at her side. “You here!”

“Yes, I’m here,” she returned breathlessly, her face flaming with excitement. “I’m going to talk to these people–let me have that–” She took the revolver from his unresisting hand, uncocked it, and slipped it into her bosom. Then she faced the mob and held up her empty hand.

CHAPTER XXIII
FACING THE MOB

It was the first time Lahoma had ever faced an audience larger than that composed of Brick and Bill and Willock, for in the city she had been content to play an unobtrusive part, listening to others, commenting inwardly. Speech was now but a mode of action, and in her effort to turn the sentiment of the mob, she sought not for words but emotions. Bill’s life was at stake. What could she say to make them Bill’s friends? After her uplifted hand had brought tense silence, she stood at a loss, her eyes big with the appeal her tongue refused to utter.

The mob was awed by that light in her eyes, by the crimson in her cheeks, by her beauty, freshness and grace. They would not proceed to violence while she stood there facing them. Her power she recognized, but she understood it was that of physical presence. When she was gone, her influence would depart. They knew Brick and Bill had sheltered her from her tenderest years, they admired her fidelity. Whatever she might say to try to move their hearts would come from a sense of gratitude and would be received in tolerant silence. The more guilty the highwayman, the more commendable her loyalty. But it would not change their purpose; as if waiting for a storm to pass, they stood stolid and close-mouthed, slightly bent forward, unresisting, but unmoved.

“I’m a western girl,” Lahoma said at last, “and ever since Brick Willock gave me a home when I had none, I’ve lived right over yonder at the foot of the mountains. I was there when the cattlemen came, before the Indians had given up this country; and I was here when the first settlers moved in, and when the soldiers drove them out. I was living in the cove with Brick Willock when people came up from Texas and planted miles and miles of wheat; and I used to play with the rusty plows and machinery they left scattered about–after the three years’ drought had starved them back to their homes. Then Old Man Walker came to Red River, sent his cowboys to drive us out of the cove, and your sheriff led the bunch. And it was Brick and myself that stood them off with our guns, our backs to the wall and our powder dry, and we never saw Mizzoo in our cove again. So you see, I ought to be able to talk to western men in a way they can appreciate, and if there’s anybody here that’s not a western man–he couldn’t understand our style, anyhow–he’d better go where he’s needed, for out West you need only western men–like Brick Willock, for instance.”

At reference to the well-known incident of Mizzoo’s attempt to drive Willock from the cove, there was a sudden wave of laughter, none the less hearty because Mizzoo’s face had flushed and his mouth had opened sheepishly. But at the recurrence of Willock’s name, the crowd grew serious. They felt the justice of her claim that out West only western men were needed; they excused her for thinking Brick a model type; but let any one else hold him up before them as a model!…

Lahoma’s manner changed; it grew deeper and more forceful:

“Men, I want to talk to you about this case–will you be the jury? Consider what kind of man swore out that warrant against Brick–the leader of a band of highwaymen! And who’s his chief witness? You don’t know Mr. Gledware. I do. You’ve heard he’s a rich and influential citizen in the East. That’s true. But I’m going to tell you something to show what he IS–and what Brick Willock is; just one thing; that’s all I’ll say about the character of either. As to Red Kimball, you don’t have to be told. I’m not going to talk about the general features of the case–as to whether Brick was ever a highwayman or not; as to whether he killed Red’s brother to save me and my stepfather, or did it in cold blood; as to whether he held up the stage or not. These things you’ve discussed; you’ve formed opinions about them. I want to tell you something you haven’t heard. Will you listen?”

At first no one spoke. Then from the crowd came a measured impartial voice: “We got lots of time.”

She was not discouraged by the intimation in the tone that all her speaking was in vain. Several in the crowd looked reproachfully at him who had responded, feeling that Lahoma deserved more consideration; but in the main, the men nodded grim approval. They had plenty of time–but at the end of it, Bill would either tell all he knew, or….

Lahoma plunged into the midst of her narrative:

“One evening Brick came on a deserted mover’s wagon; he’d traveled all day with nothing to eat or drink, and he got into the wagon to escape the blistering sun. In there, he found a dead woman, stretched on her pallet. He had a great curiosity to see her face, so he began lifting the cloth that covered her. He saw a pearl and onyx pin at her throat. It looked like one his mother used to wear. So he dropped the cloth and never looked at her face. She had died the evening before, and he knew she wouldn’t have wanted any one to see her THEN. And he dug a grave in the sand, though she was nothing to him, and buried her–never seeing her face–and covered the spot with a great pyramid of stones, and prayed for her little girl–I was her little girl–the Indians had carried me away. You’ll say that was a little thing; that anybody would have buried the poor helpless body. Maybe so. But about not looking at her face–well, I don’t know; it WAS a little thing, of course, but somehow it just seems to show that Brick Willock wasn’t little–had something great in his soul, you know. Seems to show that he couldn’t have been a common murderer. It’s something you’ll have to feel for yourselves, nobody could explain it so you’d see, if you don’t understand already.”

The men stared at her, somewhat bewildered, saying nothing. In some breasts, a sense of something delicate, not to be defined, was stirred.

“One day,” Lahoma resumed, “Brick saw a white man with some Indians standing near that grave. He couldn’t imagine what they meant to do, so he hid, thinking them after him. Years afterward Red Feather explained why they came that evening to the pile of stones. The white man was Mr. Gledware. After Red Kimball’s gang captured the wagon-train, Mr. Gledware escaped, married Red Feather’s daughter and lived with the Indians; he’d married immediately, to save his life, and the tribe suspected he meant to leave Indian Territory at the first chance. Mr. Gledware, great coward, was terrified night and day lest the suspicions of the Indians might finally cost him his life.

“It wasn’t ten days after the massacre of the emigrants till he decided to give a proof of good faith. Too great a coward to try to get away and. caring too much for his wife’s rich lands to want to leave, he told about the pearl and onyx pin–he said he wanted to give it to Red Flower. A pretty good Indian, Red Feather was–true friend of mine; HE wouldn’t rob graves! But he said he’d take Mr. Gledware to the place, and if he got that pin, they’d all know he meant to live amongst them forever. THAT’S why the band was standing there when Brick Willock looked from the mountain-top. Mr. Gledware dug up the body, after the Indians had rolled away the stones–the body of his wife–my mother–the body whose face Brick Willock wouldn’t look at, in its helplessness of death. Mr. Gledware is the principal witness against Brick. If you don’t feel what kind of man he is from what I’ve said, nobody could explain it to you.”

From several of the intent listeners burst involuntary denunciations of Gledware, while on the faces of others showed a momentary gleam of horror.

Red Kimball’s confederate spoke loudly, harshly: “But who killed Red Kimball and his pard and the stage-driver, if it wasn’t Brick Willock?”

“I think it was Red Feather’s band. I’m witness to the fact that Kimball agreed to bring Mr. Gledware the pearl and onyx pin on condition that Mr. Gledware appear against Brick. After Mr. Gledware deserted Red Flower, or rather after her death, Red Feather carried that pin about him; Mr. Gledware knew he’d never give it up alive. He was always afraid the Indian would find him–and at last he did find him. But Red Kimball got the pin–could that mean anything except that Kimball discovered the Indian’s hiding-place and killed him? But for that, I’d think it Red Feather who attacked the stage and killed Red Kimball. As it is, I believe it must have been his friends.”

“Now you’ve said something!” cried Mizzoo. “Boys, don’t you think it’s a reasonable explanation?”

Some of them did, evidently, for the grim resolution on their faces softened; others, however, were unconvinced.

A stern voice was raised: “Let Brick Willock come do his own explaining. Bill Atkins knows where he’s hiding out–and we got to know. We’ve started in to be a law-abiding county, and that there warrant against Willock has got the right of way.”

“You’ve no warrant against Bill,” cried Wilfred, stepping to the edge of the platform, “therefore you’ve violated the law in locking him up.”

“That’s so,” exclaimed Red Kimball’s former comrade. “Well, turn ‘im loose, that’s what we ask–LET him go–open the jail door!”

“He’s locked up for his own safety,” shouted Mizzoo. “You fellows agree to leave him alone, and I’ll turn him out quick enough. You talk about the law–what you want to do to Bill ain’t overly lawful, I take it.”

“If he gives up his secret we ain’t going to handle him rough,” was the quick retort.

Lahoma found that the softening influence she had exerted was already fast dissipating. They bore with her merely because of her youth and sex. She cried out desperately.

“Is there nothing I can say to move your hearts? Has my story of that pearl and onyx pin been lost on you? Couldn’t you understand, after all? Are you western men, and yet unable to feel the worth of a western man like Brick?… How he clothed me and sheltered me when the man who should have supported the child left in his care neglected her…. How he taught me and was always tender and gentle–never a cross word–a man like THAT…. And you think he could kill! I don’t know whether Bill was told his hiding-place or not. But if _I_ knew it, do you think I’d tell? And if Bill betrayed him,–but Bill wouldn’t do it. Thank God, I’ve been raised with real MEN, men that know how to stand by each other and be true to the death. You want Bill to turn traitor. I say, what kind of men are YOU?”

She turned to Wilfred, blinded by hot tears. “Oh, say something to them!” she gasped, clinging to his arm.

“Go on,” murmured Wilfred. “I couldn’t reach em, and you made a point, that time. Go on–don’t give ’em a chance to think.”

“But I can’t–I’ve said all I had to say–“

“Don’t stop, dear, for God’s sake–the case is desperate! You’ll have to do it–for Bill.”

“And that isn’t all,” Lahoma called in a broken pathetic voice, as she turned her pale face upon the curious crowd. “That isn’t all. You know Brick and Bill have been all I had–all in this world… You know they couldn’t have been sweeter to me if they’d been the nearest of kin–they were more like women than men, somehow, when they spoke to me and sat with me in the dugout–and I guess I know a little about a mother’s love because I’ve always had Brick and Bill. But one day somebody else came to the cove and–and this somebody else, well–he–this somebody else wants to marry me– today. This was the end of our journey,” she went on blindly, “and–and it is our wedding-day. I thought there must be SOME way to get Brick to the wedding, but you see how it is. And–and we’ll have to marry without him. But Bill’s here–in that jail–because he wouldn’t betray his friend. And I couldn’t marry without either Brick or Bill, could I?”

She took her quivering hand from Wilfred’s sturdy arm, and moving to the top of the steps, held out her trembling arms appealingly:

“MEN!– Give me Bill!”

The crowd was with her, now. No doubt of that. All fierceness gone, tears here and there, broad grins to hide deep emotion, open admiration, touched with tenderness, in the eyes that took in her shy flower-like beauty.

“You shall have Bill!” shouted the spokesman of the crowd. And other voices cried, “Give her Bill! Give her Bill!”

“Bring him out!” continued the spokesman in stentorian tones. “We’ll not ask him a question. Fellows, clear a path for ’em.”

A broad lane was formed through the throng of smiling men whom the sudden, unexpected light of love had softened magically.

While Mizzoo hastened to Bill’s cell, some one exclaimed, “Invite us, too. Make it a town wedding!”

And another started the shout, “Hurrah for Lahoma!”

Lahoma, who had taken refuge behind Wilfred’s protection, wept and laughed in a rosy glow of triumphant joy.

Mizzoo presently reappeared, leaving the door wide open. He walked to the stairs, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deep-cut with appreciation of the situation. “Fellows,” he called, “he says you carried him in there, and dinged if you won’t have to carry him out, for not a step will he take!”

At this unexpected development, a burst of laughter swelled into a roar. After that mighty merriment, Bill was as safe as a babe. Twenty volunteers pressed forward to carry the wedding-guest from his cell. And when the old man slowly but proudly followed Wilfred and Lahoma to the hotel where certain preparations were to be made –particularly as touching Bill’s personal appearance–the town of Mangum began gathering at the newly-erected church whither they had been invited.

When the four friends–for Mizzoo joined them–drove up to the church door in the only carriage available, Bill descended stiffly, his eyes gleaming fiercely from under snowy locks, as if daring any one to ask him a question about Brick. But nobody did.

CHAPTER XXIV
MINE ENEMY

The general suspicion that Bill Atkins knew more about Brick Willock than he had revealed, was not without foundation; though the extent of his knowledge was more limited than the town supposed. Bill had carried to his friend–hidden in the crevice in the mountain-top–the news of Red Kimball’s death; since then, they had not seen each other.

Skulking along wooded gullies by day, creeping down into the cove at night, Willock had unconsciously reverted to the habits of thought and action belonging to the time of his outlawry. He was again, in spirit, a highwayman, though his hostility was directed only against those seeking to bring him to justice. The softening influence of the years spent with Lahoma was no longer apparent in his shifting bloodshot eyes, his crouching shoulders, his furtive hand ever ready to snatch the weapon from concealment. This sinister aspect of wildness, intensified by straggling whiskers and uncombed locks, gave to his giant form a kinship to the huge grotesquely shaped rocks among which he had made his den.

He heard of Red Kimball’s death with bitter disappointment. He had hoped to encounter his former chief, to grapple with him, to hurl him, perhaps, from the precipice overlooking Bill’s former home. If in his fall, Kimball, with arms wound about his waist, had dragged him down to the same death, what matter? Though his enemy was now no more, the sheriff held the warrant for his arrest–as if the dead man could still strike a mortal blow. The sheriff might be overcome–he was but a man. That piece of paper calling for his arrest–an arrest that would mean, at best, years in. the penitentiary–had behind it the whole state of Texas.

To Willock’s feverish imagination, the warrant became personified; a mysterious force, not to be destroyed by material means; it was not only paper, but spirit. And it had come between him and Lahoma, it had shut him off from the possibility of a peaceful old age. The cove was no longer home but a hiding-place.

He did not question the justice of this sequel to his earlier life. No doubt deeds of long ago, never punished, demanded a sacrifice. He hated the agents of this justice not so much because they threatened his liberty, his life, as because they stepped in between himself and Lahoma. Always a man of expedients, he now sought some way of frustrating justice, and naturally his plans took the color of violence. Denied the savage joy of killing Red Kimball–and he would have killed him with as little compunction as if he had been a wolf–his thoughts turned toward Gledware.

Gledware was the only witness of the deed for which the warrant demanded his arrest. Willock wished many of his other deeds had been prompted by impulses as generous as those which had led to Kansas Kimball’s death. Perhaps it was the irony of justice that he should be threatened by the one act of bloodshed which had saved Lahoma’s life. If he must be hanged or imprisoned because he had not, like the rest of the band, given himself up for official pardon, it was as well to suffer from one deed as from another. But it would be better still, as in the past, to escape all consequences. Without Gledware, they could prove nothing.

Would Gledware testify, now that Red Kimball, who had bought his testimony with the death of the Indian, no longer lived to exact payment? Willock felt sure he would. In the first place, Gledware had placed himself on record as a witness, hence could hardly retreat; in the second place, he would doubtless be anxious to rid himself of the danger of ever meeting Willock, whom his conscience must have caused him to hate with the hatred of the man who wrongs his benefactor.

Willock transferred all his rage against the dead enemy to the living. He reminded himself how Gledware had caused the death of Red Feather, not in the heat of fury or in blind terror, but in coldblooded bargaining. He meditated on Gledware’s attitude toward Lahoma; he thought nothing good of him, he magnified the evil. That scene at the grave of his wife–and Red Feather’s account of how he had dug up the body for a mere pin of pearl and onyx…. Ought such a creature to live to condemn him, to bring sorrow on the stepdaughter he had basely refused to acknowledge?

To wait for the coming of the witness would be to lose an opportunity that might never recur. Willock would go to him. In doing so, he would not only take Gledware by surprise, but would leave the only neighborhood in which search would be made for himself. Thus it came about that while the environs of the cove were being minutely examined, Brick, riding his fastest pony, was on the way to Kansas City.

He reached Kansas City without unusual incident, where he was accepted naturally, as a product of the West. Had his appearance been twice as uncouth, twice as wild, it would have accorded all the better with western superstitions that prevailed in this city, fast forgetting that it had been a western outpost. At the hotel, whose situation he knew from Lahoma’s letters, he learned that Gledware was neither there, nor at his home in the country. The country-house was closed up and, in fact, there was a rumor that it was sold, or was about to be sold. One of the porters happened to know that Gledware had gone for a week’s diversion down in the Ozarks. There were a lake, a club-house, a dancing-hall, as yet unopened. The season was too early for the usual crowd at Ozark Lodge, but the warm wave that nearly always came at this time of year, had prompted a sudden outing party which might last no longer than the warm wave.

Willock took the first train south and rode with the car window up–the outside breath was the breath of balmy summer though the trees stood bleak and leafless against the sky. Two days ago, snow had fallen–but the birds did not remember it. Seven hours brought him to a lonely wagon-trail called Ozark Lodge because after winding among hills several miles it at last reached the clubhouse of that name overlooking the lake. He left the train in the dusk of evening, and walked briskly away, the only moving figure in the wilderness.

His pace did not slacken till a gleam as of fallen sky cupped in night-fringe warned him that the club-house must be near. A turn of a hill brought it into view, the windows not yet aglow. Nearer at hand was the boat-house, seemingly deserted. But as Willock, now grown wary, crept forward among the post-oaks and blackjacks, well screened from observation by chinkapin masses of gray interlocked network, he discovered two figures near the platform edging the lake. Neither was the one he sought; but from their being there–they were Edgerton Compton and Annabel,–he knew Gledware could not be far away.

“No,” Annabel was saying decisively, and yet with an accent of regret, “No, Edgerton, I can’t.”

“But our last boat-ride,” he urged. “Don’t refuse me the last ride–a ride to think about all my life. I’m going away tomorrow at noon, as I promised. But early in the morning–“

“I have promised HIM,” she said with lingering sadness in her voice. “So I must go with him. He has already engaged the boatman. He’ll be here at seven, waiting for me. So you see–“

“Annabel, I shall be here at seven, also!” he exclaimed impetuously.

“But why? I must go with him, Edgerton. You see that.”

“Then I shall row alone.”

“Why would you add to my unhappiness?” she pleaded.

“I shall be here at seven,” he returned grimly; “while you and he take your morning boat-ride, I shall row alone.”

She turned from him with a sigh, and he followed her dejectedly up the path toward the club-house.

She had lost some of the fresh beauty which she had brought to the cove, and her step was no longer elastic; but this Willock did not notice. He gave little heed to their tones, their gestures, their looks in which love sought a thin disguise wherein it might show itself unnamed. He had seized on the vital fact that in the morning, Annabel and Gledware would push off from the boat-house steps, presumably alone; and it would be early morning. Perhaps Gledware would come first to the boat-house, there to wait for Annabel. In that case, he would not ride with Annabel. The lake was deep–deep as Willock’s hate.

Willock passed the night in the woods, sometimes walking against time among the hills, sometimes seated on the ground, brooding. The night was without breath, without coolness. Occasionally he climbed a rounded elevation from which the clubhouse was discernible. No lights twinkled among the barren trees. All in that wilderness seemed asleep save himself. The myriad insects that sing through the spring and summer months had not yet found their voices; there was no trill of frogs, not even the hooting of an owl,–no sound but his own breathing.

At break of dawn he crept into the boat-house like a shadow, barefooted, bareheaded–the club-house was not yet awake. He looked about the barnlike room for a hiding-place. Walls, floor, ceiling were bare. Near the door opening on the lake was a rustic bench, impossible as a refuge. Only in one corner, where empty boxes and a disused skiff formed a barricade, could he hope for concealment. He glided thither, and on the floor between the dusty wall of broad boards and the jumbled partition, he found a man stretched on his back.

At first, he thought he had surprised a sleeper, but as the figure did not move, he decided it must be a corpse. He would have fled but for his need of this corner. He bent down–the man was bound hand and foot. In the mouth, a gag was fastened. Neck and ankles were tied to spikes in the wall.

Willock swiftly surveyed the lake and the sloping hill leading down from the club-house. Nobody was near. As he stared at the landscape, the front door of the club-house opened. He darted hack to the corner. “Pardner,” he said, “I got to ask your hospitality for a spell, and if you move so as to attract attention, I got to fix you better. I didn’t do this here, pardner, but you shore look like some of my handiwork in days past and gone. I’ll share this corner with you for a while, and if you don’t give me away to them that’s coming, I promise to set you free. That’s fair, I guess. ‘A man ain’t all bad,’ says Brick, ‘as unties the knots that other men has tied,’ says he. Just lay still and comfortable, and we’ll see what’s coming.”

Presently there were footsteps in the path, and to Willock’s intense disappointment, Gledware and Annabel came in together. They were in the midst of a conversation and at the first few words, he found it related to Lahoma. The boatman who had promised to bring the skiff for them at seven–it developed that Gledware had no intention of doing the rowing–had not yet come. They sat down on the rustic bench, their voices distinctly audible in all parts of the small building.

“Her closest living relative,” Gledware said, “is a great-aunt, living in Boston. As soon as I found out who she was–I’d always supposed her living among Indians, and that it would be impossible to find her–but as soon as I learned the truth, without saying anything to HER, I wrote to her great-aunt. I’ve never been in a position to take care of Lahoma–I felt that I ought to place her with her own family. I got an answer–about what you would expect. They’d give her a home–I told them what a respectable girl she is–fairly creditable appearance–intelligent enough… But they couldn’t stand those people she lives with–criminals, you know, Annabel, highwaymen–murderers! Imagine Brick Willock in a Boston drawing-room… But you couldn’t.”

“No,” Annabel agreed. “Poor Lahoma! And I know she’d never give him up.”

“That’s it–she’s immovable. She’d insist on taking him along. But he belongs to another age–a different country. He couldn’t understand. He thinks when you’ve anything against a man, the proper move is to kill ‘im. He’s just like an Indian–a wild beast. Wouldn’t know what we meant if we talked about civilization. His religion is the knife. Well–you see; if he were out of the way, Lahoma would have her chance.”

“But couldn’t he be arrested?”

“That’s my only hope. If he were hanged, or locked up for a certain number of years, Lahoma’d go East. But as long as he’s at large, she’ll wait for him to turn up. She’ll stay right there in the cove till she dies of old age, if he’s free to visit her at odd moments. It’s her idea of fidelity, and it’s true that he did take her in when she needed somebody. There’s a move on foot now, to arrest him for an old crime–a murder. I witnessed the deed–I’ll testify, if called on. Lahoma will hate me for that–but it’ll be the greatest favor I could possibly do her. She knows I mean to appear against him, and she thinks me a brute. But if I can convict Willock, it’ll place Lahoma in a family of wealth and refinement–“

He broke off with, “Wonder why that old deaf boatman doesn’t come?” He walked impatiently to the head of the steps and stared out over the lake. “Somebody out there now,” he exclaimed. “Oh,–it’s Edgerton, rowing about!”

He returned to the bench, but did not sit down. “Annabel,” he said abruptly, “you promised me to name the day, this morning.”

“Yes,” she responded very faintly.

“And I am sure, dear,” he added in a deep resonant voice, “that in time you will come to care for me as I care for you now–you, the only woman I have ever loved. I understand about Edgerton, but you see, you couldn’t marry him–in fact, he couldn’t marry anybody for years; he has nothing…. And these earlier attachments that we think the biggest things in our lives–well, they just dwindle, Annabel, they dwindle as we get the true perspective. I know your happiness depends upon me, and it rejoices me to know it. I can give you all you want–all you can dream of–and I’m man-of-the-world enough to understand that happiness depends just on that–getting what you want.”

Annabel started up abruptly. “I think I heard the boat scraping outside.”

“Yes, he’s there. Come, dear, and before the ride is ended you must name the day–“

“DON’T!” she exclaimed sharply. “He–“

“He’s as deaf as a post, my dear,” Gledware murmured gently. “That’s why I selected him. I knew we’d want to talk–I knew you’d name the day.”

He helped her down the rattling boards.

Brick Willock rose softly and stole toward the opening, his eyes filled with a strange light. They no longer glared with the blood-lust of a wild beast, but showed gloomy and perplexed; the words spoken concerning himself had sunk deep.

The boatman sat with his back to Gledware and Annabel. He wore a long dingy coat of light gray and a huge battered straw hat, whose wide brim hid his hair and almost eclipsed his face. Willock, careful not to show himself, stared at the skiff as it shot out from the landing, his brow wrinkled in anxious thought. He felt strange and dizzy, and at first fancied it was because of the resolution that had taken possession of him–the resolution to return to Greer County and give himself up. This purpose, as unreasoning as his plan to kill Gledware, grew as fixed in his mind as half an hour before his other plan had been.

To go voluntarily to the sheriff, unresistingly to hold out his wrists for the handcuffs–that would indeed mark a new era in his life. “A wild Indian wouldn’t do that,” he mused, “nor a wild beast. I guess I understand, after all. And if that’s the way to make Lahoma happy….”

No wonder he felt queer; but his light-headedness did not rise, as a matter of fact, entirely from subjective storm-threatenings. There was something about that boatman–now, when he tilted up his head slightly, and the hat failed to conceal–was it possible?…

“My God!” whispered Willock; “it’s Red Feather!”

And Gledware, with eyes only for Annabel, finding nothing beyond her but a long gray coat, a big straw hat and two rowing arms–did not suspect the truth!

In a flash, Willock comprehended all. The Indian had dropped the pin in Kimball’s path, and Kimball, finding it, had carried it to Gledware as if Red Feather were dead. The Indian had led his braves against the stage-coach–Kimball had fallen under his knife. Yonder man in the corner, bound and gagged, was doubtless the old deaf boatman engaged by Gledware. Red Feather had taken his place that he might row Gledware far out on the lake….

But Annabel was in the boat. If the Indian…

Far away toward the east, Edgerton Compton was rowing, not near enough to intervene in case the Indian attempted violence, but better able than himself to lend assistance if the boat were overturned. Willock could, in truth, do nothing, except shout a warning, and this he forebore lest it hasten the impending catastrophe. He remained, therefore, half-hidden, crouching at the doorway, his eyes glued to the rapidly gliding boat, with its three figures clear-cut against the first faint sun-glow.

CHAPTER XXV
GLEDWARE’S POSSESSIONS

Red Feather’s mind was not constituted to entertain more than one leading thought at a time. Ever since the desertion and death of his daughter, revenge had been his dominant passion. It was in order to find Gledware that he had haunted the trail during the years of lahoma’s youth, always hoping to discover him in the new country–gliding behind herds of cattle, listening to scraps of talks among the cattlemen, earning from Mizzoo the uneasy designation, “the ghost.”

Thanks to the reading aloud of Lahoma’s letter, he had learned of Gledware’s presence in the city which he had known years before as Westport Landing. He went thither unbewildered by its marvelous changes, undistracted by its tumultuous flood of life–for his mind was full of his mission; he could see only the blood following the blade of his knife, heard nothing but a groan, a death-rattle.

Gledware’s presence in the boat this morning had been made possible only by the interposition of Lahoma; but for the Indian’s deep-seated affection for her whom he regarded as a child, the man now smiling into Annabel’s pale face would long ago have found his final resting-place. It was due to the Indian’s singleness of thought that Lahoma’s plan had struck him as good. Gledware, stripped of all his possessions, slinking as a beggar from door to door, no roof, no bed, but sky and earth –that is what Red Feather had meant.

He had believed Gledware glad of the respite. That he should accept the alternative seemed reasonable. There was a choice only between death and poverty–and Gledware wished to live so desperately–so basely! The chief cared little for life; still, he would unhesitatingly have preferred the most meager existence to a knife in his heart; how much more, then, this craven white man. But the plan had failed because Gledware did not believe death was the other alternative. Never in the remotest way had it occurred to the avenger that Gledware could be spared should he prove false to his oath. Red Feather was less a man with passions than a cold relentless fate. This fate would surely overcome the helpless wretch, should he cling to his riches.

As Red Feather skimmed the water with long sweeps of his oars, never looking back, the voices of his passengers came to his ears without meaning. He was thinking of the last few days and how this morning’s ride was their fitting sequel. The early sunbeams were full on him as he tilted back his head, but they showed no emotion on his face, hard-set and dully red in the clear radiance.

Crouching near the summer-house at Gledware’s place, he had overheard Red Kimball boast to bring Gledware the pearl and onyx pin. Then had shot through his darkened mind the suspicion that Gledware meant to escape the one condition on which his life was to be spared. With simple cunning he had left the pin where the outlaw must find it; his own death would be taken for granted–what then?

What then? This ride in the boat. Gledware had made his choice; he had clung to his possessions–and now Death held the oars. He was scarcely past middle age. He might have lived so long, he who so loved to live! But no, he had chosen to be rich–and to die.

When Red Feather brought his mind back to the present, Gledware was describing to Annabel a ranch in California for which he had traded the house near Independence. He would take her far away; he would build a house thus and thus–room so; terraces here; marble pillars….

Annabel listened gravely, silently, her face all the paler for the sunlight flashing over it, for the mimic sun on the waves glancing up into her pensive eyes. Somehow, the sunshine, the ripple of the water, seemed to form no part of her life, belonged rather, to Edgerton Compton rowing in solitude against the sky. Those naked trees, bare brown hills and ledges of huge stones seemed her world- boundaries, kin to her, claiming her– But there was California … and the splendid house to be built….

The Indian was listening now, but as he heard projected details glowingly presented, no change came in his grim deep-lined face. He simply knew it was not to be–let the fool plan! He found himself wondering dully why he no longer hated Gledware with that vindictive fury that gloats over the death-grip, lingers in fiendish leisure over the lifted scalp. He scarcely remembered the wrong done his daughter; it was almost as if he had banished the cause of his revenge; as if vengeance itself had become a simple stroke of destiny. Gledware had chosen his possession, and the Indian was Fate’s answer.

“Beautiful one,” he heard Gledware say, speaking in an altered tone, “all that is in the future–but see what I have brought you; this is for today. It’s yours, dear–let me see it around your neck with the sun full upon it–“

Red Feather turned his head, curiously.

Gledware held outstretched a magnificent diamond necklace which shot forth dazzling rays as it swung from his eager fingers.

Annabel uttered a smothered cry of delight as the iridescence filled her eyes. She looked across the water toward the pagoda-shaped club-house where her mother stood, faintly defined as a speck of white against the green wall-shingles of the piazza. It seemed that it needed this glance to steady her nerves. Edgerton was forgotten. She reached out her hand. And then, perplexed at the necklace being suddenly withdrawn, she looked up. She caught a glimpse of Gledware’s face, and her blood turned cold.

That face was frozen in horror. At the turning of the boatman’s head, he had instantly recognized under the huge-brimmed hat, the face of his enemy as if brought back from the grave.

There was a moment’s tense silence, filled with mystery for her, with indescribable agony for him, with simple waiting for the Indian. Annabel turned to discover the cause of Gledware’s terror, but she saw no malice, no threat, in the boatman’s eyes.

Gledware ceased breathing, then his form quivered with a sudden inrush of breath as of a man emerging from diving. His eyes rolled in his head as he turned about scanning the shore, glaring at Edgerton’s distant boat. Why had he come unarmed? How could he have put faith in Red Kimball’s assurances? He tortured his brain for some gleam of hope.

“This is all I have,” he shrieked, as if the Indian’s foot was already upon his neck. “This is all I have.” He flung the necklace into the water. “It was a lie about the California ranch–it’s a lie about all my property–I’ve got nothing, Annabel! I sold the last bit to get you the necklace, but I shouldn’t have done that. Now it’s gone. I have nothing!”

The Indian rose slowly. The oars slipped down and floated away in the flashing stream of the sun’s rays.

Annabel, realizing that the Indian, despite his impassive countenance, threatened some horrible catastrophe, started up with a scream. Edgerton had already turned toward them; alarmed at sound of Gledware’s terror. He bent to the oars, comprehending only that Annabel was in danger.

“Edgerton!” she shrieked blindly. “Edgerton! Edgerton! Edgerton!”

Gledware crouched at her feet, crying beseechingly, “I swear I have nothing–nothing! I sold everything–gave it away–left it–nothing in all the world! I’m willing to beg, to starve–I don’t want to own anything–I only want to live–to live…. My God! TO LIVE…”

Red Feather did not utter a word. But with the stealthy lightness and litheness of a panther, he stepped over the seat and moved toward Gledware.

Then Gledware, pushed to the last extremity, despairing of the interposition of some miraculous chance, was forced back upon himself. With the vision of an inherent coward he saw all chances against him; but with the desperation of a maddened soul, he threw himself upon the defensive.

Red Feather had not expected to see him offer resistance. This show of clenched teeth and doubled fists suddenly enraged him, and the old lust of vengeance flamed from his eyes. Hat and disguising coat were cast aside. For a moment his form, rigid and erect, gleamed like a statue of copper cut in stern relentless lines, and the single crimson feather in his raven locks matched, in gold, the silver brightness of his upraised blade.

The next moment his form shot forward, his arm gripped Gledware about the neck, despite furious resistance, and both men fell into the water.

The violent shock given to the boat sent Annabel to her knees. Clutching the side she gazed with horrified eyes at the water in her wake. The men had disappeared, but in the glowing white path cut across the lake by the sun, appeared a dull red streak that thinned away to faint purple and dim pink. She watched the sinister discoloration with fascinated eyes. What was taking place beneath the smooth tide? Or was it all over? Had Red Feather found a rock to which he could cling while he drowned himself with his victim? Or had their bodies been caught in the tangled branches of a submerged forest tree? It was one of the mysteries of the Ozarks never to be solved.

She was still kneeling, still staring with frightened eyes, still wondering, when Edgerton Compton rowed up beside her.

“He said he had nothing,” she stammered, as he helped her to rise. “He said he had nothing…. How true it is!” Edgerton gently lifted her to his skiff, then stepped in beside her. He, too, was watching the water for the possible emergence of a ghastly face.

Annabel began trembling as with the ague. “Edgerton!… He said it was all a lie–about his property–and so it was. Everything is a lie except–this…”

She clung to him.

CHAPTER XXVI
JUST A HABIT

When Bill Atkins with an air of impenetrable mystery invited Wilfred Compton to a ride that might keep him from his bride several days, the young man guessed that Willock had been found. Lahoma, divining as much, urged Wilfred to hasten, assured him that she enjoyed the publicity and stirring life of the Mangum hotel and expressed confidence that should she need a friend, Mizzoo would help her through any difficulty. So Wilfred rode away with Bill, and Willock was not mentioned.

Bill was evidently in deep trouble, and when Wilfred and he had let themselves down into the stone corridor whose only entrance was a crevice in the mountain-top, he understood the old trapper’s deep despondency–Brick Willock was there; and Brick declared his intention of giving himself up. He announced his purpose before greetings had subsided. Bill called him an old fool, used unpruned language, scolded, rather than argued. Wilfred, on the other hand, delayed events by requesting full particulars of the last few weeks.

“He’s told me all he’s been up to,” Bill objected; “there’s no call to travel over that ground again. What I brought you here for, Wilfred, is to show him how foolish he’d be to let himself be taken when he’s free as the wind.”

“I tells my tale,” declared Brick, “and them as has heard it once can take it or leave it.” He was discursive, circumstantial, and it was a long time before he led them in fancy to the door of the boat-house and showed them Red Feather and Gledware disappearing forever beneath the surface of the lake.

“There I waited,” he said, “expecting first one head, then the other to come to light, but nothing happened. Seemed like I couldn’t move. But Edgerton, he began rowing towards me with Annabel, she happy despite herself, and when I see it wouldn’t do to tarry no longer, I cuts loose the old deaf boatman and unstops his mouth. Well, sir, he lets out a yell that would a-done credit to a bobcat fighting in the traps. I had to run for it fellows from the club-house took after me thinking I’d been murdering somebody–I skinned them Ozark hills and I skinned myself. But Brick, he says, ‘When you turns loose a bobcat, expect scratches,’ says he.”

“Don’t tell about how you hid in the hills waiting for a night train,” Bill pleaded.

“I tells it all;” Brick was inflexible. “You are here, I’m here, and it’s a safe place. We may never be so put again.”

“A safe place!” Bill snarled. “Yes, it IS a safe place. But you’ve lost your nerve. WAS a time, when you’d have stood out creation in a hole like this. But you’ve turned to salt, you have a regular Bible character–giving up to the law, letting them clap you in jail, getting yourself hanged, very likely! And all because you’ve lost your nerve. See here, Brick, stand ’em out! I’ll steady you through thick and thin. I’ll bring you grub and water.”

“YOU couldn’t do nothing,” Brick returned contemptuously, “you’re too old. As for that, I ain’t come to the pass of needing being waited on, I guess. It ain’t dangers that subdues me, it’s principles. Look here!”

He walked to the cross-bar that was set in the walls to guard the floor from the unknown abyss. “I found out they was a hole in the rock just about five feet under the floor. I can take this rope and tie one end to the post and let myself down to that little room where there’s grub enough to last a long siege, where there’s bedding and common luxuries, as tobacco and the like. I ain’t been smoked out, into the open, I goes free and disposed and my hands held up according.”

When he had finished the last morsel of his story and had warmed some of it over for another taste, there came an ominous silence, broken at last by the querulous voice of Bill, arguing against surrender.

Willock waited in patience till his friend had exhausted himself. “I ain’t saying nothing,” he explained to Wilfred, “because he ain’t pervious to reason, and it does him good to get that out of his system.”

“Let me make a suggestion,” exclaimed Wilfred suddenly.

Willock looked at him suspiciously. “If it ain’t counter to my plans–“

“It isn’t. It’s this: Suppose we drop the subject till tomorrow–it won’t hurt any of us to sleep on it, and I know I’D enjoy another night with you, as in the old days.”

“I’m willing to sleep on it, out of friendship,” Willock conceded unwillingly, “though I’d rest easier on a bed in the jail. There never was no bird more crazy to get into a cage than I am to be shut up. But as to the old days, they ain’t none left. Them deputies is in the dugout, they’re in the cabin I built for Lahoma, they think they owns our cove. Well, they’s no place left for me; life wouldn’t be nothing, crouching and slinking up here in the rocks. Life wouldn’t be nothing to me without Lahoma. I’d have a pretty chance for happiness, now wouldn’t I, sitting up somewheres with Bill Atkins! I ain’t saying I mightn’t get out of this country and find a safe spot where I could live free and disposed with an old renegade like HIM that nobody ain’t after and ain’t a-caring whether he’s above ground or in kingdom come. But I couldn’t be with Lahoma; I’m under ban.”

“If you were on my farm near Oklahoma City,” Wilfred suggested, “and Lahoma and I lived in the city, you could often see her. Up there, nobody’d molest you, nobody’d know you. That’s what I’ve been planning. You could look after the farm and Bill could go back and forth. As soon as the news comes that Red Feather killed Gledware, it’ll be taken for granted that he killed Red Kimball and attacked the stage. You’ll be cleared of all that and nobody will want you arrested.”

Willock rose. “Are we going to sleep on this, or shall I answer you now?” he demanded fixedly.

Wilfred hastily asked for time.

They passed the night in the mountain-top, but Willock had spoken truly; there were no old days. The one subject forbidden was the only subject in their minds. All attempts at reminiscence, at irrelevant anecdotes, were mere pretense. The fact that Wilfred and Lahoma were now married seemed to banish events of a month ago as if they were years and years in the past.

They partook of breakfast in the gray dawn of the new day, eating by lantern-light. And when the light had been extinguished,