The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 26

"Do you know what you have got here, Larry?" he asked.

Grant stretched out his hand and took the packet, then laid it upon the table with the address downwards.

"It's something that dropped out of the wallet," he said.

The other man laughed a little, but his face was intent. "Oh, yes, that's quite plain; but if I know the writing it's a letter with something in it from Torrance to the Sheriff. There's no mistaking the way he makes the 'g.' Turn it over and I'll show you."

Grant laid a brown hand on the packet. "No. Do you generally look at letters that don't belong to you, Chilton?"

Breckenridge saw that Grant was recovering, and that the contemptuous manner of his question was intentional, and guessed that his comrade had intended to sting the other man to resentment, and so lead him from the point at issue. Chilton coloured, but he persisted.

"Well," he said, "I guess that one belongs to the committee. I didn't mean to look at the thing, but, now I'm sure of it, I have to do what I can for the boys who made me their executive. I don't ask you how you got it, Larry."

"I got it by accident."

Chilton looked astonished, and almost incredulous. "Well, we needn't worry over that. The question is, what you're going to do with it?"

"I'm going to send it back."

Chilton made a gesture of impatience. "That's what you can't do. As we know, the cattle-men had a committee at Cedar a day or two ago, and now here's a packet stuffed with something going to the Sheriff. Doesn't it strike you yet that it's quite likely there's a roll of dollar bills and a letter telling him what he has to do inside it?"

"Well?" said Grant, seeing that he must face the issue sooner or later.

"We don't want their dollars, but that letter's worth a pile of them to us. We could get it printed by a paper farther east, with an article on it that would raise a howl from everybody. There are one or two of them quite ready for a chance of getting a slap at the legislature, while there's more than one man who would be glad to hawk it round the lobbies. Then his friends would have no more use for the Sheriff, and we might even get a commission sent down to straighten things up for us."

"The trouble is that we can't make any use of it," said Grant.

"No?" said Chilton, and the men looked at each other steadily.

"No," repeated Grant. "It wasn't meant that I should get it, and I'm going to send it back."

"Then, while I don't want to make trouble, I'll have to mention the thing to my committee."

"You'll do just what you believe is right. Any way, we'll have supper now.

It will be ready."

Chilton stood still a moment. "You are quite straight with us in this?"

"Yes," said Grant, "but I'm not going to give you that letter. Are you coming in to supper? It really wouldn't commit you to anything."

"I am," said Chilton simply. "I have known you quite a long while, and your a.s.surance is good enough for me; but you would have found it difficult to make other folks believe you."

They sat down at table, and Larry smiled as he said, "It's the first time I have seen your scruples spoil your appet.i.te, Chilton, but I had a notion that you were not quite sure about taking any supper from me."

"Well," laughed Chilton, "that just shows how foolish a man can be, because the supper's already right here inside me. When I came in Breckenridge got it for me. Still, I have driven a long way, and I can worry through another."

He made a very creditable attempt, and when he had been shown to his room Grant glanced at Breckenridge.

"You know how I got the letter?"

"Yes," said Breckenridge. "Miss Torrance must have inadvertently slipped it into the wallet. You couldn't have done anything else, Larry; but the affair is delicate and will want some handling. How are you going to get the packet back?"

"Take it myself," Grant said quietly.

It was ten o'clock the next night, and Hetty Torrance and Miss Schuyler sat talking in their little sitting-room. Torrance was away, but his married foreman, who had seen service in New Mexico, and his wife, slept in the house, and Cedar Range was strongly guarded. Now and then, the bitter wind set the door rattling, and there was a snapping in the stove; but when the gusts pa.s.sed the ranch seemed very still, and Miss Schuyler could hear the light tread of the armed cow-boy who, perhaps to keep himself warm, paced up and down the hall below. There was another at a window in the corridor, and one or two more on guard in the stores and stables.

"Wasn't Chris Allonby to have come over to-day?" asked Miss Schuyler.

"Yes," said Hetty. "I'm sorry he didn't. I have a letter for the Sheriff to give him, and wanted to get rid of the thing. It is important, and I fancy, from what my father told me, if any of the homestead-boys got it they could make trouble for us. Chris is to ride in with it and hand it to the Sheriff."

"I wouldn't like a letter of that kind lying round," said Miss Schuyler.

"Where did you put it, Hetty?"

Hetty laughed. "Where n.o.body would ever find it--under some clothes of mine. Talking about it makes one uneasy. Pull out the second drawer in the bureau, Flo."

Miss Schuyler did so, and Hetty turned over a bundle of daintily embroidered linen. Then, her face grew very grave, she laid each article back again separately.

"Nothing there!" said Miss Schuyler.

Hetty's fingers quivered. "Pull the drawer out, Flo. No. Never mind anything. Shake them out on the floor."

It was done, and a litter of garments lay scattered about them, but no packet appeared, and Hetty sat down limply, very white in the face.

"It was there," she said, "by the wallet with the dollars. It must have got inside somehow, and I sent the wallet to Larry. This is horrible, Flo."

"Think!" said Miss Schuyler. "You couldn't have put it anywhere else?"

"No," said Hetty faintly. "If the wrong people got it, it would turn out the Sheriff and make an outcry everywhere. That is what I was told, though I don't know what it was about."

"Still, you know it would be safe with Mr. Grant."

"Yes," said Hetty. "Larry never did anything mean in his life. But you don't understand, Flo. He didn't know it was there, and it might have dropped out on the prairie, while, even if he found it, how is he going to get it back to me? The boys would fire on him if he came here."

Flora Schuyler looked frightened. "You will have to tell your father, Hetty."

Hetty trembled a little. "It is going to be the hardest thing I ever did.

He is just dreadful in his quietness when he is angry--and I would have to tell him I had been meeting Larry and sending him dollars. You know what he would fancy."

It was evident that Hetty was very much afraid of her father, and as clear to Miss Schuyler that the latter would have some cause for unpleasant suspicions. Then, the girl turned to her companion appealingly.

"Flo," she said, "tell me what to do. The thing frightens me."

Miss Schuyler slipped an arm about her. "Wait," she said. "Your father will not be here until noon to-morrow, and that letter is in the hands of a very honest man. I think you can trust him to get it back to you."

"But he couldn't send anybody without giving me away, and he knows it might cost him his liberty to come here," said Hetty.

"I scarcely fancy that would stop him."