by Zane Grey
When Eburne got on the Grand Canyon train his mood underwent a change. For weeks he had forced out of his mind certain thoughts, fancies, dreams in regard to Patricia Clay. He had learned that they were not conducive either to peace or good work. With a rush now they all returned; and he found himself face to face with the momentous query: What was he going to the Canyon for? Only one answer occurred to him, and its significance was staggering. He felt like a soldier who had done his duty and had burned the last bridge behind him.
The train puffed and labored up the grade from the flat desert country to the cedars and pines, winding along the side of a shallow valley. A thin covering of snow lay in shady places. As the train climbed, however, the snow areas increased until, at the station, the ground was all white. It was a clear, crisp winter afternoon, just cold enough to keep the snow from melting.
Eburne walked up the stairway and out to the rim before going into the hotel. Far across the haze-filled chasm he saw the jagged, fringed line of Buckskin Forest. How remote and inaccessible it seemed from this side!
As always, it gave him courage and calmness. He had not seen it for weeks and now realized what it had come to mean in his life. Even if circumstances removed him far from this cataclysm of nature, he would want to return now and then, as to a shrine. The Grand Canyon was his Mecca.
Then he went into the El Tovar. The lobby appeared comparatively deserted, most of the guests, no doubt, being out on rides and trips. Eburne had not been here for months, and the clerks were unknown to him. When he inquired for Miss Clay he was informed she was not there but had wired she would return that evening on the train. Eburne turned away from the desk, conscious of a double relief, that he was unknown, and that an ordeal both thrilling and portentous had been postponed for a few hours.
Eburne seated himself in one of the big leather armchairs in front of the open fireplace, where a bed of blazing logs gave forth a genial heat. When he stretched a palm to the warmth, he was surprised to see his fingers slightly trembling. He knew that this visit to the El Tovar was in some way, not now possible to divine, going to change his whole life. Already that life back there among the deer and the pines seemed vaguely far away. His thoughts had been like flying wheels, endlessly revolving, carrying him unconsciously far from the past. He had about settled himself comfortably, ready to surrender to these same thoughts, when a light, quick step attracted his attention, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman approach him.
“Why, Thad! Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” she cried, effusively.
Eburne gazed up with a start, to see a rather handsome young woman beaming warmly down upon him. Clara Hilton! He had absolutely forgotten her. Rising, somewhat confused, he reached for the hand she extended.
“Miss—Miss Hilton,” he stammered. “How—do you do?”
“Miss Hilton?” she queried archly. “It used to be Clara.”
“Well, Clara, then. You must excuse me,” replied Eburne, recovering himself and shaking hands with her. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine and dandy. Little sick of this job here,” she returned.
“I’d like to get out to California, somewhere away from this awful canyon.”
“I suppose it’s natural you should get tired of it. But isn’t it of the job and the visitors instead of the canyon?”
“You said a lot, Thad. I sure do get weary of these tourists, especially these eastern ones who think they’re so superior. What are you doing here?”
Eburne’s geniality suffered a slight check and he answered rather at random:
“Well, I was just enjoying the open fireplace. Always liked that sort of thing.”
“I suppose you’re raving over McKay’s deer drive and are on your way to meet him?” she asked rather sharply, with speculative eyes on him.
“Why, yes, I am, in a roundabout way, but my coming here has nothing to do with that.”
“Come to see me, Thad?” she added, with a coquetry that did not hide a nervous, hungry eagerness.
“No, Clara, I didn’t, I’m sorry to say,” replied Eburne simply.
“Come to see your eastern friend,” she asserted, with bitter change in tone and face.
Eburne’s mind adjusted itself to the situation. How singular that he had utterly forgotten this young woman! He had been friendly with her at one time, not in a sentimental way, but kindly, and frankly glad to see her and talk with her. That she had appeared to respond more warmly than called for by his attitude had been the deciding factor in his failure to keep up the acquaintance.
“Yes, I’m here to see Miss Clay,” he said, looking at her.
“Clay?” snapped the woman, suddenly losing her attractiveness. “Don’t you know her name isn’t Clay?”
“Pardon me, I don’t believe I understand you,” rejoined Eburne.
She flushed at his tone. “The party you mean is named Edgerton.”
“No, her name is Clay. Miss Patricia Clay,” he returned.
“That’s what you think. And what we all thought here, for she’s registered as Clay. But that’s an assumed name, I believe.”
Eburne gazed blankly at the woman. Succeeding his astonishment, there came a rush of conflicting feelings.
“Miss Hilton, you are making a serious statement,” he said coldly. “Are you quite sure you can substantiate it?”
“Yes, I can,” she retorted, angered at his tone. “But I don’t have to. You can’t bluff me, Thad Eburne. I don’t see that it’s any of your business, anyway. Just because you loafed around on the North Rim with this Edgerton woman and Sue Warren! She’s made a fool of you. Oh, I heard all about your camping and riding—about the pet fawn Bopeep you gave her. Why, Thad Eburne, you’re a ranger at one twenty-five per month—a deer stalker—and this Edgerton party is a New York society woman worth millions.”
“Please be lady enough to be impersonal as far as I’m concerned,” returned Eburne. “You made a grave statement which I have a right to question.”
“Oh, you have?” she flashed out maliciously.
“I question your right to discuss Miss Clay.”
“Oh, I see. Old friends for new. You’re sweet on her. You don’t want to hear about her. You want to think she’s sweet on you. Well, there are a lot of other sapheads who think the same as you, Thad Eburne,” she added.
“You are adding insult to injury,” returned Eburne, growing colder with the need to keep his temper. “I came here to ask Miss Clay to marry me. And I cannot permit you to demean yourself by any further—”
“My, but you’re the ambitious ranger,” she interrupted furiously. “Marry you? That woman! Why, you’re out of your mind. And don’t you insult me. I’m an honest girl. Nobody can even hint anything against my good name. But this woman you want to marry—why, everybody on two continents knows her disgrace. She’s notorious. You poor fish of a ranger! You’ve mushed around your pet deer so much that you’re not only out of the world but you’re a love-sick fool…. Patricia Edgerton is a famous fashionable beauty. She’s worth millions. She has had lovers galore. She ruined her reputation and had to leave New York. That’swhyshe’s parading under the name of Clay.”
“You can’t prove that,” asserted Eburne hoarsely and low.
“I should say I can,” fumed the woman. “Just you wait here.” She strode, almost ran, to the stairway and started to ascend. Eburne did not move out of his tracks, but his gaze traveled to the fire and remained fixed there. He did not seem to be able to see or think clearly. He felt that he was waiting there for something dreadful to happen. Presently a touch on his arm aroused him. The woman had returned. She was panting. Her face was white. She seemed agitatedly aware of the presence of other people in the lobby, especially toward the office. She drew Eburne across the lobby and into the writing room. It was vacant. Then she halted, with one hand behind her back.
“Promise you’ll give this back.”
“I don’t want to see what you have,” he replied stiffly. “
I followed you here to escape an undesired audience.”
“You’re afraid of the truth. Look here,” she retorted and spread a newspaper before him on the desk.
Beneath his gaze lay the scandal sheet of one of the great New York dailies. Among the faces printed there shone Patricia’s, the largest on the page, a likeness that struck him forcibly with its fidelity to her loveliness. No shadow of doubt! This was Patricia. She resembled a queen in royal raiment, her face proud, serene, lovely, her regal neck encircled with pearls. He had never seen her in anything save outdoor garb. Underneath the picture were printed words that he scanned with lightning-swift glance, the content of which he only half grasped before his sense of loyalty made him turn his eyes from the scandal sheet. But his reaction had been simple, natural, not the motive of a suspicious mind.
“What a vile lie!” he muttered through his teeth as he crushed the paper with firm hands.
Then all the tremendous forces of will and passion within him united to cast that ridiculous news story out of his mind. There was no truth in it! His code would not admit even the possibility that the girl he knew and loved ever had been involved in such a cheap scandal. He had spent hours alone on the rim of the Grand Canyon with Patricia Clay—or Edgerton, if that really was her right name; and he would have stalked his life and the salvation of his soul upon her honor. The poison of yellow journalism, both in newspapers and magazines, was something of which he was fully aware, isolated as his life had been. That was why he despised them so heartily. His mind went back to those summer days on the North Rim. He recalled the shadow in her lovely eyes. He remembered that evening at sunset when she had confessed that there was something secret she could not or would not divulge. But Eburne had gazed into her eyes with the searching and spiritual power of love, and what he had seen was sorrow and renunciation. Almost she had betrayed herself to him. It was some deed of sacrifice that had made her an exile. What it was he did not care to know until she was ready to confide in him.
Presently he got up, and unclenching his fists from the crushed paper, he made it as presentable as possible and refolded it. Then he went back through the lobby to Miss Hilton’s desk. When she looked up to see him her face turned white.
“Have you showed this to anyone besides me?” he inquired curtly.
“Certainly—I—have,” she replied haltingly but with a courage rising with the sound of her voice.
“How long have you had it?”
“Since last night. But I saw a copy of it some time ago. I didn’t pay any attention to it at the time. But when this Edgerton woman arrived here in the spring, I remembered her face.”
“Well, where did you get this paper?” queried Eburne as she hesitated.
“From a hotel guest who arrived last night from New York.”
“Woman, of course. No man would carry around a thing like that and hand it over to you.”
“Wrong again, Thad. Really you should wake up and hear the birdies sing. It was a man.”
“Someone you knew?”
“Perfect stranger,” she replied, growing tart and showing color in her cheeks. An irresistible propulsion was at work within her. How greedily her eyes devoured his face for signs of pain!
“You couldn’t have got that from a stranger,” he declared incredulously. “How could you?”
“That’s my affair, Thad,” she returned mockingly.
“Does Miss—does she know?” he asked in a low voice.
“Not yet!” she exclaimed, with a singular gleam in her eyes. Eburne had a revelation then, new in his experience—the passion of hate and jealousy in a woman.
Abruptly Eburne whirled on his heel and strode away, biting his lips lest he speak the scorn he felt and the threat that burned within him. As he passed the office, he was aware of close scrutiny and whispers, the meaning of which he did not catch. He went to a far corner of an alcove-extension of the lobby, and here he sat in the shadow.
When comparative calmness returned, Eburne realized that Patricia would utterly ignore this calumny and those who chose to hear it or speak it. He could do no less. How it galled him not to be able to save her from covert, if not open, insult! But what would she care about the sneers of such persons as Clara Hilton or her chance acquaintances from the east?
As the afternoon waned to a close, guests of the hotel began to return from rides and trail trips, some of them weary, but all of them enthusiastic over some special feature of the canyon.
About dark, a motorcar stopped outside and a driver came banging in the storm door carrying bags and a robe. Then Eburne, from his corner, espied a tall, slender figure enter the lobby. Patricia! There was color in her cheeks, and there were snowflakes on the rich black fur around her neck. She walked briskly, pulling off her gloves, and she tarried a moment to extend chilled hands to the open fireplace. Then she passed on down the corridor and out of sight. Eburne became conscious of a relaxing of the tension that had bound him all day. How wonderful just to see her! He rose and went to one of the desks in the writing room—the very one upon which had been spread Miss Hilton’s scandal-mongering newspaper—and sat down to write:
Dearest Patricia:
I was a long time keeping my promise to come to the El Tovar, but I am here at last. You will be interested to hear of the rest of my experiences with the deer investigation committee and among the tame-deer murderers on the west side of Buckskin.
No doubt you will have news for me from Flagstaff. I am on my way there, and must leave on tonight’s train. I must make every effort to hurry to McKay.
I have a question of tremendous import to ask you, Patricia. Wherefore won’t you please take dinner with me? I am anticipating the pleasure of seeing you, not as I know you, only in outdoor garb, like a boy, really, but as a woman in one of the beautiful gowns Sue raved to me about. Indeed, I have dreamed of you so long, and have conjured you up in so many enchanting visions, it seems wonderful that I am about to have the happiness of realizing one of them. In truth, I dare say I will not recognize you at all.
Faithfully,
Thad Eburne
This note he gave to a bellboy to deliver with a request for an answer. Presently the boy returned and said, “Miss Clay says she will take dinner with you in a half hour, sir.”
Eburne drew a great breath of relief. It eased the feeling of oppression in his breast. She would see him! He had not expected anything else, nevertheless the fact that she wanted to see him too set his heart to pounding.
Gradually the lobby filled with guests dressed for dinner, chattering, laughing, calling out to each other. Eburne gave his chair before the fire to an agreeable old lady, who had appreciative eyes for his stalwart figure in its close-fitting ranger uniform. Then an elderly man, evidently with the woman, spoke genially to him and stood beside him, back to the fire. Eburne welcomed a little conversation, and the next quarter of an hour saw him cool and collected, confident of himself and that he could meet any situation. Meanwhile his eyes were keen to note newcomers to the lobby. And presently, when three men came sauntering down the wide stairway, easterners by the look of them and the cut of their clothes, Eburne had an intuitive flash that these were the guests he particularly wanted to observe. When they approached Miss Hilton’s desk and she rose to greet them, effusively, it appeared, Eburne was sure he was on the right track. Casually moving over to the office desk, he glanced at the register until he had found listed together the names of three men from New York. Then, engaging the clerk in conversation, he took the opportunity deliberately to study the trio. Two were good-looking young men, not long out of college, with the keen, sharp, pale faces characteristic of New Yorkers. The third was older, past thirty, a well-fed, debonair person, whose smooth-shaven face bore a heat not from healthy exercise, and puffy lines not conducive to manly beauty. His hair was a little thin at the temples, his eyes were hard, his lips cynical and sensual. It was this individual who was talking to the vivacious and self-conscious Miss Hilton.
> Eburne approached them in time to hear the stranger say: “Give me back that newspaper, girlie. I’m leaving tonight for Los Angeles.”
“Oh, here it is,” she replied, stepping back to fumble in her desk. She produced the paper and handed it to him. “Strange you should happen along—someone who knew her.”
“It’s a small world,” he said. “I knew Patricia Edgerton had come west and rather expected to run across her at Santa Barbara, Del Monte, or San Francisco. But not here. When did she leave for the coast?”
“I never said she left,” returned the woman with an enigmatic smile. “She has been here on and off all summer and fall. Makes this her headquarters and has been gadding all over the desert. She’s here now. Just got in.”
“Here! Tonight!” he ejaculated in amazement. Then quickly he added, “You didn’t use that paper for anything except identification?”
“You showed it to me. Why shouldn’t I show it too?” she retorted.
“Oh say, now, all I wanted to find out from you was whether she really had been here,” he returned, evidently ill at ease and resentful.
“Well, you were sure eager to hear all I could tell you,” said Miss Hilton with an air of triumph at her cleverness. “And you told me that if Patricia Edgerton was really the Miss Clay who registered here it wasn’t any wonder, considering she was a ruined and notorious woman. Now didn’t you?”
