“If his death means this to you, think of what it means to me!”
A flood of sympathy bore them together. The moment was hardly one for interruption, but the despatcher’s door opened and Rooney Lee halted, thunderstruck, on the threshold.
Dicksie’s hand disappeared in her handkerchief. McCloud had been in wrecks before, and gathered himself together unmoved. “What is it, Rooney?”
The very calmness of the two at the table disconcerted the despatcher. He held the message in his hand and shuffled his feet. “Give me your despatch,” said McCloud impatiently.
Quite unable to take his hollow eyes off Dicksie, poor Rooney advanced, handed the telegram to McCloud, and beat an awkward retreat.
McCloud devoured the words of the message at a glance.
“Ah!” he cried, “this is from Gordon himself, sent from Sleepy Cat. He must be safe and unhurt! Listen:
“Three of the Tower W men trailed into Williams Cache. In resisting arrest this morning, Du Sang was wounded and is dying to-night. Two prisoners, Karg and Seagrue. G. S.
“Those are Gordon’s initials; it is the signature over which he telegraphs me. You see, this was sent last night long after Blake left. He is safe; I will stake my life on it.”
Dicksie sank back while McCloud re-read the message. “Oh, isn’t that a relief?” she exclaimed. “But how can it be? I can’t understand it at all; but he is safe, isn’t he? I was heartbroken when I heard he was killed. Marion ought to know of this,” she said, rising. “I am going to tell her.”
“And may I come over after I tell Rooney Lee to repeat this to headquarters?”
“Why, of course, if you want to.”
When McCloud reached the cottage Dicksie met him. “Katie Dancing’s mother is sick, and she has gone home. Poor Marion is all alone this morning, and half dead with a sick headache,” said Dicksie. “But I told her, and she said she shouldn’t mind the headache now at all.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“I am going to get dinner; do you want to help?”
“I’m going to help.”
“Oh, you are? That would be very funny.”
“Funny or not, I’m going to help.”
“You would only be in the way.”
“You don’t know whether I should or not.”
“I know I should do much better if you would go back and run the railroad a few minutes.”
“The railroad be hanged. I am for dinner.”
“But I will get dinner for you.”
“You need not. I can get it for myself.”
“You are perfectly absurd, and if we stand here disputing, Marion won’t have anything to eat.”
They went into the kitchen disputing about what should be cooked. At the end of an hour they had two fires going––one in the stove and one in Dicksie’s cheeks. By that time it had been decided to have a luncheon instead of a dinner. Dicksie attempted some soup, and McCloud found a strip of bacon, and after he had cooked it, Dicksie, with her riding-skirt pinned up and her sleeves delightfully rolled back, began frying eggs. When Marion, unable longer to withstand the excitement, appeared, the engineer, flushed with endeavor, was making toast.
The three sat down at table together. They found they had forgotten the coffee, but Marion was not allowed to move from her chair. When the coffee was made ready the bacon had been eaten and more had to be fried. McCloud proved able for any part of the programme, and when they rose it was four o’clock and too late, McCloud declared, to go back to the office that afternoon.
Marion and Dicksie, after a time, attempted jointly to get rid of him, but they found they could not, so the three talked about Whispering Smith. When the women tried to discourage McCloud by talking hats he played the wheezy piano, and when Dicksie spoke about going home he declared he would ride home with her. But Dicksie had no mind that he should, and when he asked to know why, without realizing what a flush lingered in his face, she said only, no; if she had reasons she would give none. McCloud persisted, because under the flush about his eyes was the resolve that he would take one long ride that evening, in any event. He had made up his mind for that ride––a longer one than he had ever taken before or expected ever to take again––and would not be balked.
Dicksie, insisting upon going home, went so far as to have her horse brought from the stable. To her surprise, a horse for McCloud came over with it. Quiet to the verge of solemnity, but with McCloud following, Dicksie walked with admirable firmness out of the shop to the curb. McCloud gave her rein to her, and with a smile stood waiting to help her mount.
She was drawing on her second glove. “You are not going with me.”
“You’ll let me ride the same road, won’t you––even if I can’t keep up?”
Dicksie looked at his mount. “It would be difficult to keep up, with that horse.”
“Would you ride away from me just because you have a better horse?”
“No, not just because I have a better horse.”
He looked steadily at her without speaking.
“Why must you ride home with me when I don’t want you to?” she asked reproachfully. Fear had come upon her and she did not know what she was saying. She saw only the expression of his eyes and looked away, but she knew that his eyes followed her. The sun had set. The deserted street lay in the white half-light of a mountain evening, and the day’s radiance was dying in the sky. In lower tones he spoke again, and she turned deadly white.
“I’ve wanted so long to say this, Dicksie, that I might as well be dead as to try to keep it back any longer. That’s why I want to ride home with you if you are going to let me.” He turned to stroke her horse’s head. Dicksie stood seemingly helpless. McCloud slipped his finger into his waistcoat pocket and held something out in his hand. “This shell pin fell from your hair that night you were at camp by the bridge––do you remember? I couldn’t bear to give it back.”
Dicksie’s eyes opened wide. “Let me see it. I don’t think that is mine.”
“Great Heaven! Have I been carrying Marion Sinclair’s pin for a month?” exclaimed McCloud. “Well, I won’t lose any time in returning it to her, at any rate.”
“Where are you going?” Dicksie’s voice was faint.
“I’m going to give Marion her pin.”
“Do nothing of the sort! Come here! Give it to me.”
“Dicksie, dare you tell me, after a shock like that, it really is your pin?”
“Oh, I don’t know whose pin it is!”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“Give me the pin!” She put her hands unsteadily up under her hat. “Here, for Heaven’s sake, if you must have something, take this comb!” She slipped from her head the shell that held her knotted hair. He caught her hand and kissed it, and she could not get it away.
“You are dear,” murmured Dicksie, “if you are silly. The reason I wouldn’t let you ride home with me is because I was afraid you might get shot. How do you suppose I should feel if you were killed? Or don’t you think I have any feeling?”
“But, Dicksie, is it all right?”
“How do I know? What do you mean? I will not let you ride home with me, and you will not let me ride home alone. Tie Jim again. I am going to stay with Marion all night.”
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LAUGH OF A WOMAN
Within an hour, Marion, working over a hat in the trimming-room, was startled to hear the cottage door open, and to see Dicksie quite unconcernedly walk in. To Marion’s exclamation of surprise she returned only a laugh. “I have changed my mind, dear. I am going to stay all night.”
Marion kissed her approvingly. “Really, you are getting so sensible I shan’t know you, Dicksie. In fact, I believe this is the most sensible thing you were ever guilty of.”
“Glad you think so,” returned Dicksie dryly, unpinning her hat. “I certainly hope it is. Mr. McCloud persuaded me it wasn’t right for me to ride home alone, and I knew bett
er than he what danger there was for him in riding home with me––so here I am. He is coming over for supper, too, in a few minutes.”
When McCloud arrived he brought with him a porterhouse steak, and Marion was again driven from the kitchen. At the end of an hour, Dicksie, engrossed over the broiler, was putting the finishing touches to the steak, and McCloud, more engrossed, was watching her, when a diffident and surprised-looking person appeared in the kitchen doorway and put his hand undecidedly on the casing. While he stood, Dicksie turned abruptly to McCloud.
“Oh, by the way, I have forgotten something! Will you do me a favor?”
“Certainly! Do you want money or a pass?”
“No, not money,” said Dicksie, lifting the steak on her forks, “though you might give me a pass.”
“But I should hate to have you go away anywhere–––”
“I don’t want to go anywhere, but I never had a pass, and I think it would be kind of nice to have one just to keep. Don’t you?”
“Why, yes; you might put it in the bank and have it drawing interest.”
“This steak is. Do they give interest on passes?”
“Well, a good deal of interest is felt in them––on this division at least. What is the favor?”
“Yes, what is it? How can I think? Oh, I know! If they don’t put Jim in a box stall to-night he will kill some of the horses over there. Will you telephone the stables?”
“Won’t you give me the number and let me telephone?” asked a voice behind them. They turned in astonishment and saw Whispering Smith. “I am surprised,” he added calmly, “to see a man of your intelligence, George, trying to broil a steak with the lower door of your stove wide open. Close the lower door and cut out the draft through the fire. Don’t stare, George; put back the broiler. And haven’t you made a radical mistake to start with?” he asked, stepping between the confused couple. “Are you not trying to broil a roast of beef?”
“Where did you come from?” demanded McCloud, as Marion came in from the dining-room.
“Don’t search me the very first thing,” protested Whispering Smith.
“But we’ve been frightened to death here for twenty-four hours. Are you really alive and unhurt? This young lady rode in twenty miles this morning and came to the office in tears to get news of you.”
Smith looked mildly at Dicksie. “Did you shed a tear for me? I should like to have seen just one! Where did I come from? I reported in wild over the telephone ten minutes ago. Didn’t Marion tell you? She is so forgetful. That is what causes wrecks, Marion. I have been in the saddle since three o’clock this morning, thank you, and have had nothing for five days but raw steer garnished with sunshine.”
The four sat down to supper, and Whispering Smith began to talk. He told the story of the chase to the Cache, the defiance from Rebstock, and the tardy appearance of the men he wanted. “Du Sang meant to shoot his way through us and make a dash for it. There really was nothing else for him to do. Banks and Kennedy were up above, even if he could have ridden out through the upper canyon, which is very doubtful with all the water now. After a little talk back and forth, Du Sang drew, and of course then it was every man for himself. He was hit twice and he died Sunday night, but the other two were not seriously hurt. What can you do? It is either kill or get killed with those fellows, and, of course, I talked plainly to Du Sang. He had butchered a man at Mission Springs just the night before, and deserved hanging a dozen times over. He meant from the start, he told me afterward, to get me. Oh, Miss Dunning, may I have some more coffee? Haven’t I an agreeable part of the railroad business, don’t you think? I shouldn’t have pushed in here to-night, but I saw the lights when I rode by awhile ago; they looked so good I couldn’t resist.”
McCloud leaned forward. “You call it pushing in, do you, Gordon? Do you know what this young lady did this morning? One of her cowboys came down from the Cache early with the word that you had been killed in the fight by Du Sang. He said he saw you drop from your saddle to the ground with Du Sang shooting at you. She ordered up her horse, without a word, and rode twenty miles in an hour and a half to find out here what we had heard. She ‘pushed in’ at the Wickiup, where she never had been before in her life, and wandered through it alone looking for my office, to find out from me whether I hadn’t something to contradict the bad news. While we talked, in came your despatch from Sleepy Cat. Never was one better timed! And when she knew you were safe her eyes filled again.”
Whispering Smith looked at Dicksie quizzically. Her confusion was delightful. He rose, lifted her hand in his own, and, bending, kissed it.
They talked till late, and when Dicksie walked out on the porch McCloud followed to smoke. Whispering Smith still sat at the table talking to Marion, and the two heard the sound of the low voices outside. At intervals Dicksie’s laugh came in through the open door.
Whispering Smith, listening, said nothing for some time, but once she laughed peculiarly. He pricked up his ears. “What has been happening since I left town?”
“What do you mean?” asked Marion Sinclair.
He nodded toward the porch. “McCloud and Dicksie out there. They have been fixing things up.”
“Nonsense! What do you mean?”
“I mean they are engaged.”
“Never in the world!”
“I may be slow in reading a trail,” said Smith modestly, “but when a woman laughs like that I think there’s something doing. Don’t you believe it? Call them in and ask them. You won’t? Well, I will. Take them in separate rooms. You ask her and I’ll ask him.”
In spite of Marion’s protests the two were brought in. “I am required by Mr. Smith to ask you a very silly question, Dicksie,” said Marion, taking her into the living-room. “Answer yes or no. Are you engaged to anybody?”
“What a question! Why, no!”
“Marion Sinclair wants to know just one thing, George,” said Whispering Smith to McCloud after he had taken him into the dark shop. “She feels she ought to know because she is in a way Dicksie’s chaperone, you know, and she feels that you are willing she should know. I don’t want to be too serious, but answer yes or no. Are you engaged to Dicksie?”
“Why, yes. I–––”
“That’s all; go back to the porch,” directed Whispering Smith. McCloud obeyed orders.
Marion, alone in the living-room, was waiting for the inquisitor, and her face wore a look of triumph. “You are not such a mind-reader after all, are you? I told you they weren’t.”
“I told you they were,” contended Whispering Smith.
“She says they are not,” insisted Marion.
“He says they are,” returned Whispering Smith, “And, what’s more, I’ll bet my saddle against the shop they are. I could be mistaken in anything but that laugh.”
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIV
A MIDNIGHT VISIT
The lights, but one, were out. McCloud and Whispering Smith had gone, and Marion was locking up the house for the night, when she was halted by a knock at the shop door. It was a summons that she thought she knew, but the last in the world that she wanted to hear or to answer. Dicksie had gone to the bedroom, and standing between the portières that curtained the work-room from the shop, Marion in the half-light listened, hesitating whether to ignore or to answer the midnight intruder. But experience, and bitter experience, had taught her there was only one way to meet that particular summons, and that was to act, whether at noon or at midnight, without fear. She waited until the knocking had been twice repeated, turned up the light, and going to the door drew the bolt; Sinclair stood before her, and she drew back for him to enter. “Dicksie Dunning is with me to-night,” said Marion, with her hand on the latch, “and we shall have to talk here.”
Sinclair took off his hat. “I knew you had company,” he returned in the low, gentle tone that Marion knew very well, “so I came late. And I heard to-night, for the first time, that this railroad crowd is after me––God knows why; but they hav
e to earn their salary somehow. I want to keep out of trouble if I can. I won’t kill anybody if they don’t force me to it. They’ve scared nearly all my men away from the ranch already; one crippled-up cowboy is all I have got to help me look after the cattle. But I won’t quarrel with them, Marion, if I can get away from here peaceably, so I’ve come to talk it over once more with you. I’m going away and I want you to go with me; I’ve got enough to keep us as well as the best of them and as long as we live. You’ve given me a good lesson. I needed it, girlie–––”
“Don’t call me that!”
He laughed kindly. “Why, that’s what it used to be; that’s what I want it to be again. I don’t blame you. You’re worth all the women I ever knew, Marion. I’ve learned to appreciate some few things in the lonely months I’ve spent up on the Frenchman; but I’ve felt while I was there as if I were working for both of us. I’ve got a buyer in sight now for the cattle and the land. I’m ready to clean up and say good-by to trouble––all I want is for you to give me the one chance I’ve asked for and go along.”
They stood facing each other under the dim light. She listened intently to every word, though in her terror she might not have heard or understood all of them. One thing she did very clearly understand, and that was why he had come and what he wanted. To that she held her mind tenaciously, and for that she shaped her answer. “I cannot go with you––now or ever.”
He waited a moment. “We always got along, Marion, when I behaved myself.”
“I hope you always will behave yourself; but I could no more go with you than I could make myself again what I was years ago, Murray. I wish you nothing but good; but our ways parted long ago.”
“Stop and think a minute, Marion. I offer you more and offer it more honestly than I ever offered it before, because I know myself better. I am alone in the world––strong, and better able to care for you than I was when I undertook to–––”
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