Langford of the Three Bars Part 14

"Mr. Gordon is the best man I know," she said, thoughtfully.

"There you are right, Miss Williston," he a.s.sented, heartily, despite a quick little sting of jealousy. "He is the best man I know. I wish you would shake hands on that-will you?"

"Surely."

He held the smooth brown hand in his firmly with no thought of letting it go-yet.

"I am not such a bad chap myself, you know, Miss Williston," he jested, his bold eyes flashing a challenge.

"I know it," she said, simply. "I do not know what I should do without you. You will be good to me always, wont you? There is no one but me-now."

She was looking at him trustingly, confident of his friendship, innocent, he knew, of any feminine wile in this her dark hour. The sweetness of it went to his head. He forgot that she was in sorrow he could not cure, forgot that she was looking to him in all probability only as the possible saviour of her father. He forgot everything except the fact that there was nothing in all the world worth while but this brown-eyed, white-cheeked, grieving girl, and he went mad with the quick knowledge thereof. He held the hand he had not released to his face, brushed it against his lips, caressed it against his breast; then he bent forward-close-and whispering, "I will be good to you-always-little girl," kissed her on the forehead and was gone just as Gordon, filled with the life of the new day, came swinging into the house for his well-earned breakfast.

The sheriff and his party of deputies made a diligent search for Williston that day and for many days to come. It was of no avail. He had disappeared, and all trace with him, as completely as if he had been spirited away in the night to another world-body and soul. That the soul of him had really gone to another world came to be generally believed-Mary held no hope after the return of the first expedition; but why could they find no trace of his body? Where was it? Where had it found a resting place? Was it possible for a man, quick or dead, even west of the river in an early day of its civilization when the law had a winking eye, to fall away from his wonted haunts in a night and leave no print, neither a bone nor a rag nor a memory, to give mute witness that this way he pa.s.sed, that way he rested a bit, here he took horse, there he slept, with this man he had converse, that man saw his still body borne hence? Could such a thing be? It seemed so.

After a gallant and dauntless search, which lasted through the best days of September, Langford was forced to let cold reason have its sway. He had thought, honestly, that the ruffians would not dare commit murder, knowing that they were being pursued; but now he was forced to the opinion that they had dared the worst, after all. For, though it would be hard to hide all trace of a dead man, infinitely greater would be the difficulty in covering the trail of a living one,-one who must eat and drink, who had a mouth to be silenced and strength to be restrained. It came gradually to him, the belief that Williston was dead; but it came surely. With it came the jeer of the spectre that would not let him forget that he should have foreseen what would surely happen. With it came also a great tenderness for Mary, and a redoubled vigilance to keep his unruly tongue from blurting out things that would hurt her who was looking to him, in the serene confidence in his good friendship, for brotherly counsel and comfort.

In the first dark days of his new belief, he spoke to Gordon, and the young lawyer had written a second letter to the "gal reporter." In response, she came at once to Kemah and from thence to the White homestead in the Boss's "own private." This time the Boss did the driving himself, bringing consternation to the heart of one Jim Munson, cow-puncher, who viewed the advent of her and her "mouse-colored hair"

with serious trepidation and alarm. What he had dreaded had come to pa.s.s. 'T was but a step now to the Three Bars. A fussy woman would be the means of again losing man his Eden. It was monstrous. He sulked, aggrievedly, systematically.

Louise slipped into the sad life at the Whites' easily, sweetly, adaptably. Mary rallied under her gentle ministrations. There was-would ever be-a haunting pathos in the dark eyes, but she arose from her bed, grateful for any kindness shown her, strong in her determination not to be a trouble to any one by giving way to weak and unavailing tears. If she ever cried, it was in the night, when no one knew. Even Louise, who slept with her, did not suspect the truth for some time. But one night she sat straight up in bed suddenly, out of her sleep, with an indefinable intuition that it would be well for her to be awake. Mary was lying in a strange, unnatural quiet. Instinctively Louise reached out a gentle, consoling hand to her. She was right. Mary was not sleeping. The following night the same thing happened, and the next night also; but one night when she reached over to comfort, she found her gentle intention frustrated by a pillow under which Mary had hidden her head while she gave way guardedly to her pent-up grief.

Louise changed her tactics. She took Mary on long walks over the prairie, endeavoring to fatigue her into sleep. The length of these jaunts grew gradually and systematically. It came at last to be an established order of the day for the two girls to strike off early, with a box of luncheon strapped over Louise's shoulder, for-nowhere in particular, but always somewhere that consumed the better part of the day in the going and coming. Sometimes the hills and bluffs of the river region drew them. Sometimes a woman's whim made them hold to a straight line over the level distance for the pure satisfaction of watching the horizon across illimitable s.p.a.ce remain stationary and changeless, despite their puny efforts to stride the nearer to it. Sometimes, when they chose the level, they played, like children, that they would walk and walk till the low-lying horizon had to change, until out of its hazy enchantment rose mountain-peaks and forests and valleys and cities. It proved an alluring game. A great and abiding friendship grew out of this _wanderl.u.s.t_, cemented by a loneliness that each girl carried closely in the innermost recesses of her heart and guarded jealously there. It was a like loneliness in the littleness and atom-like inconsequence of self each must hug to her breast,-and yet, how unlike! Louise was alone in a strange, big land, but there was home for her somewhere, and kin of her own kind to whom she might flee when the weight of alienism pressed too sorely. But Mary was alone in her own land; there was nowhere to flee to when her heart rebelled and cried out in the bitterness of its loneliness; this was her home, and she was alone in it.

Louise learned to love the plains country. She revelled in its winds; the high ones, blowing bold and free with their call to throw off lethargy and stay from drifting; the low ones, sighing and rustling through the already dead gra.s.s-a mournful and whispering lament for the Summer gone. She had thought to become reconciled to the winds the last of all. She was a prim little soul with all her sweet graciousness, and dearly desired her fair hair ever to be in smooth and decorous coil or plait. Strangely enough, the winds won her first allegiance. She loved to climb to the summit of one of the barren hills flanking the river and stand there while the wind just blew and blew. Loosened tendrils of hair bothered her little these days. She relegated hats and puny, impotent hat-pins to oblivion. Her hair roughened and her fair skin tanned, but neither did these things bother her. It was the strength of the wind and the freedom, and because it might blow where it listed without regard to the arbitrary and self-important will of strutting man, that enthralled her imagination. It came about that the bigness and loneliness of this big country a.s.sumed a like aspect. It was not yet subjugated. The vastness of it and the untrammelled freedom of it, though it took her girl's breath away, was to dwell with her forever, a sublime memory, even when the cow country-unsubjugated-was only a retrospection of silver hairs.

Mary, because of her abounding health, healed of her wound rapidly.

Langford took advantage of the girls' absorption in each other's company to ride often and at length on quests of his own creation. With October, Louise must join Judge Dale for the Autumn term of court. He haunted the hills. He was not looking now for a living man; he was seeking a cleverly concealed grave. He flouted the opinion-held by many-that the body had been thrown into the Missouri and would wash ash.o.r.e some later day many and many a mile below. He held firmly to his fixed idea that impenetrable mystery clouding the ultimate close of Williston's earthly career was the sought aim of his murderers, and they would risk no river's giving up its dead to their undoing.

It had been ascertained beyond reasonable doubt that Williston could not have left the country in any of the usual modes. His description was at all the stations along the line, together with the theory that he would be leaving under compulsion.

Meanwhile, Gordon had buckled down for the big fight. He was sadly handicapped, with the whole prop of his testimony struck from under him by Williston's disappearance. However, those who knew him best-the number was not large-looked for things to happen in those days. They, the few, the courageous minority, through all the ups and downs-with the balance in favor of the downs most of the time-of the hardest-fought battle of his life, the end of which left him gray at the temples, maintained a deep and abiding faith in this quiet, una.s.suming young man, who had squared his shoulders to this new paralyzing blow and refused to be knocked out, who walked with them and talked with them, but kept his own counsel, abided his time, and in the meantime-worked.

One day, Langford was closeted with him for a long two hours in his dingy, one-roomed office on the ground floor. The building was a plain wooden affair with its square front rising above the roof. In the rear was a lean-to where Gordon slept and had his few hours of privacy.

"It won't do, Paul," Gordon said in conclusion. "I have thought it all out. We have absolutely nothing to go upon-nothing at least but our own convictions and a bandaged arm, and they won't hang a man with Jesse's diabolical influence. We'll fight it out on the sole question of 'Mag,'

Paul. After that-well-who knows? Something else may turn up. There may be developments. Meanwhile, just wait. There will be justice for Williston yet."

CHAPTER XIII

MRS. HIGGINS RALLIES TO HER COLORS

The Kemah County Court convened on a Tuesday, the second week in December. The Judge coming with his court reporter to Velpen on Monday found the river still open. December had crept softly to its appointed place in the march of months with a gentle heralding of warm, southwest winds.

"Weather breeder," said Mrs. Higgins of the Bon Ami, with a mournful shake of her head. "You mark my words and remember I said it. It's a sorry day for the cows when the river's running in December."

She was serving the judicial party herself, and capably, too. She dearly loved the time the courts met, on either side of the river. It brought many interesting people to the Bon Ami, although not often the Judge.

His coming for supper was a most unusual honor, and it was due to Louise, who had playfully insisted. He had humored her much against his will, it must be confessed; for he had a deeply worn habit of making straight for the hotel from the station and there remaining until Hank Bruebacher, liveryman, who never permitted anything to interfere with or any one to usurp his prerogative of driving his honor to and from Kemah when court was in session, whistled with shameless familiarity the following morning to make his honor cognizant of the fact that he, Hank, was ready. But he had come to the Bon Ami because Louise wished it, and he reflected whimsically on the astonishment, amounting almost to horror, on the face of his good landlord at the Velpen House when it became an a.s.sured fact that he was not and had not been in the dining-room.

"You are right, Mrs. Higgins," a.s.sented the Judge gravely to her weather predictions, "and the supper you have prepared for us is worthy the hand that serves it. Kings and potentates could ask no better. Louise, dear child, I am fond of you and I hope you will never go back East."

"Thank you, Uncle Hammond," said Louise, who knew that an amusing thought was seeping through this declaration of affection. "I am sorry to give you a heartache, but I am going back to G.o.d's country some day, nevertheless."

"Maybe so-maybe not," said the Judge. "Mrs. Higgins, my good woman, how is our friend, the canker-worm, coming on these days?"

"Canker-worm?" repeated Mrs. Higgins. "Meanin', your honor-"

"Just what I say-canker-worm. Isn't he the worm gnawing in discontent at the very core of the fair fruit of established order and peace in the cow country?"

"I-I-don't understand, your honor," faltered the woman, in great trepidation. Would his honor consider her a hopeless stupid? But what was the man talking about? Louise looked up, a flush of color staining her cheeks.

"Maybe fire-brand would suit you better, madame? My young friend, the fire-brand," resumed the Judge, rising. "That is good-fire-brand. Is he not inciting the populace to 'open rebellion, false doctrine, and schism'? Is it not because of him that roofs are burned over the very heads of the helpless homesteader?"

"For shame, Uncle Hammond," exclaimed Louise, still flushed and with a mutinous little sparkle in her eyes. "You are poking fun at me. You haven't any right to, you know; but that's your way. I don't care, but Mrs. Higgins doesn't understand."

"Don't you, Mrs. Higgins?" asked the Judge.

"No, I don't," snapped Mrs. Higgins, and she didn't, but she thought she did. "Only if you mean Mr. Richard Gordon, I'll tell you now there ain't no one in this here G.o.d-forsaken country who can hold a tallow candle to him. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it, will you?"

She piled up dishes viciously. She did not wait for her guests to depart before she began demolishing the table. It was a tremendous breach of etiquette, but she didn't care. To have an ideal shattered ruthlessly is ever a heart-breaking thing.

"But my dear Mrs. Higgins," expostulated the Judge.

"You needn't," said that lady, shortly. "I don't care," she went on, "if the president himself or an archangel from heaven came down here and plastered d.i.c.k Gordon with bad-smellin' names from the crown of his little toe to the tip of his head, I'd tell 'em to their very faces that they didn't know what they was a talkin' about, and what's more they'd better go back to where they belong and not come nosin' round in other people's business when they don't understand one single mite about it.

We don't want 'm puttin' their fingers in our pie when they don't know a thing about us or our ways. That's my say," she closed, with appalling significance, flattering herself that no one could dream but that she was dealing in the most off-hand generalities. She was far too politic to antagonize, and withal too good a woman not to strike for a friend.

She congratulated herself she had been true to all her G.o.ds-and she had been.

Louise smiled in complete sympathy, challenging the Judge meanwhile with laughing eyes. But the Judge-he was still much of a boy in spite of his grave calling and mature years-just threw back his blonde head and shouted in rapturous glee. He laughed till the very ceiling rang in loud response; laughed till the tears shone in his big blue eyes. Mrs.

Higgins looked on in undisguised amazement, hands on hips.

"Dear me, suz!" she sputtered, "is the man gone clean daffy?"

"Won't you shake hands with me, Mrs. Higgins?" he asked, gravely. "I ask your pardon for my levity, and I a.s.sure you there isn't a man in the whole world I esteem more or hold greater faith in than d.i.c.k Gordon-or love so much. I thank you for your championship of him. I would that he had more friends like you. Louise, are you ready?"

Their walk to the hotel was a silent one. Later, as she was leaving him to go to her own room, Louise laid her head caressingly on her uncle's sleeve.

"Uncle Hammond," she said, impulsively, "you are-incorrigible, but you are the best man in all the world."

"The very best?" he asked, smilingly.

"The very best," she repeated, firmly.

There was a full calendar that term, and the close of the first week found the court still wrestling with criminal cases, with that of Jesse Black yet uncalled. Gordon reckoned that Black's trial could not possibly be taken up until Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week.

Long before that, the town began filling up for the big rustling case.

There were other rustling cases on the criminal docket, but they paled before this one where the suspected leader of a gang was on trial. The interested and the curious did not mean to miss any part of it. They began coming in early in the week. They kept coming the remainder of that week and Sunday as well. Even as late as Monday, delayed range riders came scurrying in, leaving the cattle mostly to shift for themselves. The Velpen aggregation, better informed, kept to its own side of the river pretty generally until the Sunday, at least, should be past.