A Pagan of the Hills Part 10

He was introduced as Jerry O'Keefe, but Halloway would not have needed the name, once he had seen the lazy challenging twinkle in the gray-blue eyes, to spot him as a man of Irish blood. O'Keefe had need to look up to meet the glance of the giant, but that was for him unusual. Into most eyes he looked down, for when he stood in his socks he was six feet two inches of hard-bitten sinew and man-flesh.

"Where's Brent?" asked Halloway, and Bud Sellers, whose manner had fallen into the stillness of one chafing against delay, replied tersely, "He hain't come back yit."

Soon, though, he arrived, and by now the west was reddening toward sunset.

In a situation calling for absolute parsimony in the economy of time it would have meant moments salvaged for the trio of men, who must act as commanders of the rest, to have gone at once into a discussion of the results of their several investigations. Yet that was impossible, since for Halloway to tell his story to both would mean revealing his knowledge of telegraphy. So while he and Brent talked first alone, Bud Sellers stood apart, and into that fertile soil of mountain suspicion crept a vague questioning as to why full confidence was denied him--a suspicion which was later to bear fruit.

When he had been told all, save of Halloway's eavesdropping, he made his own report.

"Myself, I hain't found out much, save thet I've got ther men ready, an' thet I seed Lute Brown talkin' with Jase Mallows a spell back."

It was arranged that half of the force should proceed at top speed to Crabapple post office and mobilize there; that Halloway himself should push through to Viper and eavesdrop on the telegraph key, and that the others should loaf about Coal City watching the suspects and gleaning what information they could. The men of the last named contingent were to play hounds on the heels of the plotters and seek to follow them without being discovered.

While the three were still in council at one end of the raft, Bud came suddenly to his feet and his jaw dropped in amazement. There striding down the bank to the boom, with a face as freshly pink as a wild rose, was Alexander herself, with her pack on her back.

She saw the gathering of men, some with faces that were unfamiliar to her, and halted to inspect them. Into her eyes came something like a smoulder as though in resentment of unwarranted trespa.s.sing, then seeing Bud and Halloway and Brent she came aboard and demanded curtly, "What be all these men doin' hyar?"

For an instant no one responded to her question. The reaction of unexpected relief from driving anxiety left them wordless. Finally Brent laughed nervously.

"It would appear that they are here for no reason whatsoever," he said, "though a few minutes ago we thought it a matter of life and death."

Her nonplussed expression was sufficiently full of interrogation to cue a fuller explanation and Brent embarked upon the summarized recital of what they had discovered.

Alexander's eyes widened into amazement, and she caught one lip between her white teeth. She stood very straight and indignant, and the men acknowledged to themselves that she had never seemed so beautiful before, nor so militant.

"So they aimed ter lay-way me," she murmured incredulously and Halloway made prompt answer. "Yes, and ye mighty nigh walked right into th'ar dead-fall. Don't ye see now how plum reckless yore plan is? Whar was ye at anyhow?"

The girl impatiently tossed her head. "I fared out a leetle way ter see how ther roads looked," she said. "I wanted ter mek sure that I could get a daybreak start in the morning. I hain't n.o.body's sugar ner salt that I kain't stir abroad without meltin', be I?"

"We saw that your pack was gone too--and we 'lowed----" began Halloway, but she interrupted him with a curt explanation. "Thet shack war leakin' like a sieve. I didn't aim ter hev all my belongin's mildewed an' rusted--so I left 'em at ther store."

"This crowd kin see ye through without mishap, I reckon. We've done planned hit all out." That contribution came from the giant who seemed to have become general spokesman but the young woman stood silent and absorbed; a delicate pucker between her brows, and the violet pools of her eyes cloud-riffled. At last she announced firmly, "I'm beholden ter all of ye but I've got ter study this matter out by myself. I'll come back hyar in a little spell an' tell ye what decision I've done reached."

"As for getting a daybreak start," Brent observed as she turned away, "You can't get into the bank until it opens."

Once more she had overlooked the unfamiliar complications of financial usage.

Jerry O'Keefe had been lounging with the other recruits of Bud's gathering, looking river-ward until the sound of voices, whose words he could not distinguish, brought him lazily around. As he stood when the first view of Alexander broke on his vision, so he remained--immovable.

The low and bantering laughter of his companions for his rapt statuesqueness, fell on deaf ears. His lips parted and his eyes held as under hypnotism.

Jerry stared with a craned neck at Alexander McGivins until slowly his body came round to an easier posture, but upon his steady and unmoving fixity of eye, the rest of him moved as upon an axis. Into the gray-blue irises came a live kindling and with seeming unconsciousness of those about him, he said solemnly, "Afore G.o.d, I aims ter wed with thet gal!"

Alexander had strolled outward along a bluff, leaving the town at her back, because she wanted to think without interruption. In her home over yonder across the broken ridges her father might be lying, anxiety ridden--or he might be already dead. An obsession of haste spurred her with the roweling of suspense and with the companionship of her troubled thoughts she walked on and on.

When at length she turned she had decided certain matters, and in the growing dusk she met a man who smilingly accosted her and halted in her path. It was Jase Mallows and she confronted him with a high head and, in remembrance of his swaggering impertinence, spoke imperiously.

"I don't want ter hev no speech with ye, Jase, now ner never, but I owes ye wages fer ther wuck ye done on them rafts. Come ter ther bank termorrer at openin' time and I'll pay ye off."

The mountaineer's face fell into a scowl of resentment. To be rebuffed was galling enough. To be relegated to a servile status was unendurable, yet he refashioned his expression at once into a smile.

"Thar hain't no tormentin' haste, Alexander," he a.s.sured her evenly.

"Any time'll do--any time at all, but I'm leavin' town ternight."

"Suit yerself," she answered with calculated curtness and would have gone on but he fell into step with her and dropped his voice into so earnest a _timbre_ that despite her dislike for him she listened.

"Alexander--hit hain't none of my business--an' I knows ye're mad at me but yore paw an' me dwells neighbors--an' I'm goin' ter forewarn ye about somethin'."

"Alright," the voice was frigid. "Go ahead. Everybody's forewarnin'

me right now."

"I've done heered thet this Brent party air a mighty slick customer.

Don't give him no undue lee-way ter fleece ye. Ther man Halloway, thet's hangin' around him's a pretty desperate sort too, by ther repute folks gives him. When ye settled up accounts with thet outfit, ye kain't skeercely be too heedful. I'd either make 'em give me cash money--or else hev a lawyer 'round ter see thet everythin's alright."

"My paw," declared the girl indignantly, "he's got full trust in Mr.

Brent an' so hev I." She dismissed him with a glance under which his own bravado wilted and he made no further effort to walk at her side.

But in the gathering dusk, the wet desolation about her seemed to creep into Alexander's heart. With so many charges of foul play floating about, of whom could she feel certain? Then the answer came. There was, perhaps, only one. So long as he remained sober, Bud Sellers would remain dependable. From the bank overlooking the boom she called his name and when he had leaped to respond, she led him out of hearing.

"Bud," she said tensely. "Ye knows how heavy-hearted with dread I be about my paw. Ye knows thet when I left him I wasn't no ways sure I'd ever lay eyes on his livin' face ergin. I ain't sure now." Her voice threatened to break and to control it she pitched it into a harder tone. "Ye knows, too, who's fault thet air."

He answered very low and very miserably. "Yes, I knows full well--an'

I've done been in torment--ever since."

"Ef he's still alive an' gits well----" she went on, "thar won't be no grudge atween us. Ye says ye seeks ter make amends. Ye knows what hit means ter him whether I gits thet money back safe or not."

"Yes, I knows thet too."

Alexander laughed a little bitterly. "I've jest been forewarned thet I kain't trust nuther Brent ner Halloway. I hain't sayin' I believes. .h.i.t; I reckon hit's sheer slander--but----" All unconsciously a note of pathos crept into her voice, the pathos of one who must fight alone against unseen forces. "But, how am I goin' ter tell, fer dead sure, who I kin trust?"

Sellers remembered that all he knew of the robbery plot was hearsay--that his informants had excluded him from a part of their consultations. An ugly possibility took vague shape in his mind, but his answer was brief.

"Ye kin trust me 'twell h.e.l.l freezes."

Alexander nodded. "Ye're ther one man I ought ter hev a blood-hatred erginst--an' yit, so long es ye stays sober, I knows what ye says air true."

Suddenly she laid both her hands on his shoulders and under her touch a tremor raced through his arteries. The mountains seemed to grow unsteady. "Ye're ther only man hyar I kin plum, teetotally depend on.

When the bank opens termorrer, I wants ye ter be thar. I don't want ye ter go with me on ther trip back home. I hain't goin' ter suffer n.o.body ter do that--but thar's a thing I may need ye ter do."

"Es G.o.d's lookin' down on us, ef a man kin do hit----" he swore in an emotion-shaken voice, "hit'll be done."

Later that evening Alexander announced her decision and from it she refused to depart. As soon as she could transact business at the bank the next day she would set out on a hired mule, with the money in her saddle-bags. She would tolerate no escort, because one person could travel secretly where several could not. However when she had progressed a certain distance she would turn the mule back. The only reason for its use, at all, would be to make it appear that she was going by the route which the robbers a.s.sumed.

Then, depending upon a woodcraft which she trusted, she would swing out at a circle on foot, holding to the laurel thickets and pa.s.s, not through but around and above the Gap, which seemed the logical place for a holdup. She consented that her a.s.sembled body-guard should, if they insisted, push on and mobilize at Viper, where if suspicious circ.u.mstances warranted, they might be near enough to take emergency action. If she came through safely to Perry Center, she would be secure in the house of a kinsman and from there on would have little to fear.

At ten o'clock the next morning Alexander came out of the bank, followed by Bud Sellers, who carried his own saddle-bags over his arm, as if he too contemplated a journey. Brent, in order to avoid the appearance of too close a partic.i.p.ation in her affairs, did not accompany her--nor was Halloway anywhere in evidence.

As the girl went out to where her hired mule stood hitched, various observers along the ragged street noted that her rifle was strapped under the saddle skirt in such a way that it could not be speedily loosened. They also watched as, with no pretense of concealment, she stuffed into her saddle-hags a parcel done up in heavy brown paper, and made conspicuous by the bank's red sealing wax. Then, still scornful of evasion, she mounted and rode away as straight-shouldered and militant a figure as Jeanne d'Arc herself.

Bud Sellers, looking after her from the door of the bank, was gloomy of countenance beyond his wont.