The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 27

Hetty turned, and looked at her friend curiously. "Flo, I wonder how it would have suited if Larry had been fond of you."

Miss Schuyler did not wince; but the smile that was on her lips was absent from her eyes. "You once told me I should have him. Are you quite sure you would like to hand him over now?"

Hetty did not answer the question; instead, she blushed furiously. "We are talking nonsense--and I don't know how I can face my father to-morrow,"

she said.

It was at least an hour later, and the cow-boy below had ceased his pacing, when Hetty, who felt no inclination for sleep, fancied she heard a tapping at the window. She sprang suddenly upright, and saw apprehension in Miss Schuyler's face. The cow-boys were some distance away, and a little verandah ran round that side of the house just below the window.

Flora Schuyler had sufficient courage; but it was not of the kind which appears to advantage in the face of bodily peril, and the colour faded in her cheeks. It was quite certain now that somebody was tapping at or trying to open the window.

"Shake yourself together, Flo," said Hetty, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "When I tell you, turn the lamp down and open the door. I am going to see who is there."

The next moment she had opened a drawer of the bureau, while as she stepped forward with something glinting in her hand, Flora Schuyler, who heard a whispered word, turned the lamp right out in her confusion, and, because she dared not stand still, crept after her companion. With a swift motion, Hetty drew the window-curtains back, and Miss Schuyler gasped. The stars were shining outside, and the dark figure of a man was silhouetted against the blue clearness of the night.

"Come back," she cried. "Oh, he's coming in. Hetty, I must scream."

Hetty's fingers closed upon her arm with a cruel grip. "Stop," she said.

"If you do, they'll shoot him. Don't be a fool, Flo."

It was too dark to see clearly, but Flora Schuyler realized with a painful fluttering of her heart and a great relief whose the white face outside the window must be.

XVI

LARRY SOLVES THE DIFFICULTY

For the s.p.a.ce of several seconds the girls stood staring at the figure outside the window. Then, the man turned sharply, and Hetty gasped as she heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow below. There was a little of it on the verandah, and the stars shone brilliantly.

"Catch hold of the frame here, Flo," she said breathlessly. "Now, push with all your might."

Miss Schuyler did as she was bidden. The double sashes moved with a sharp creaking, and while she shivered as the arctic cold struck through her, Hetty stretched out an arm and drew the man in. Then with a tremendous effort she shut the window and pulled the curtains together. There was darkness in the room now, and one of the cow-boys called out below.

"Hear anything, Jake?"

"Somebody shutting a door in the house there," said another man, and Hetty, pa.s.sing between the curtains, could see two figures move across the snow, and the little scintillation from something that was carried by one of them, and she realized that they had very narrowly averted a tragedy.

"Flo," she said, with a little quiver in her voice, "light the lamp quick.

If they see the room dark they might come up."

Miss Schuyler was unusually clumsy, but at last the light sprang up, and showed Larry standing just inside the curtain with the dust of snow on his fur coat and cap. His face looked a little less bronzed than usual, but he showed no other sign of discomposure. Hetty was very pale as she stood in front of him with the pistol still in her hand. She dropped it on a chair with a shiver, and broke into a little strained laugh.

"You are quite sure they didn't see you, Larry? You took a terrible risk just now."

Grant smiled, more with his lips than his eyes. "Yes," he said, "I guess I did. I taught you to shoot as well as most men, Hetty."

Hetty gasped again and sank limply into the nearest chair. "What brought you here?" she said. "Still, you can't get away now. Sit down, Larry."

Grant sat down with a bow to Miss Schuyler, and fumbled in the pocket of his big fur coat. "I came to give you something you sent me by mistake,"

he said. "I would not have come this way if I could have helped it, but I saw there was a man with a rifle every here and there as I crept up through the bluff, and it was quite a while before I could swing myself up by a pillar on to the verandah. You have been anxious about this, Hetty?"

He laid a packet on the table, and Hetty's eyes shone as she took it up.

"Couldn't you have given it to somebody to bring me? It would have been ever so much safer," she said.

"No," said the man simply, "I don't think I could."

Hetty understood him, and so did Miss Schuyler, while the meaning of the glance her companion cast at her was equally plain. Miss Torrance's face was still pallid, but there was pride in her eyes.

"I wonder if you guessed what was in that letter, Mr. Grant?" Flora Schuyler asked.

Larry smiled. "I think I have a notion."

"Of course!" said Hetty impulsively. "We knew you had, and that was why we felt certain you would try to bring it back to me."

"If it could have been managed in a different fashion it would have pleased me better," Grant said, with a little impatient gesture. "I am sorry I frightened you, Hetty."

The colour crept back into Hetty's cheeks. "I was frightened, but only just a little at first," she said. "It was when I saw who it was and heard the boys below, that I grew really anxious."

She did not look at the man as she spoke; but it was evident to Miss Schuyler that he understood the significance of the avowal.

"Then," he said, "I must try to get away again more quietly."

"You can't," said Hetty. "Not until the man by the store goes away. You have taken too many chances already. You have driven a long way in the cold. Take off that big coat, and Flo will make you some coffee."

Grant, turning, drew the curtains aside a moment, and let them fall back again. Then, he took off the big coat and sat down with a little smile of contentment beside the glowing stove on which Miss Schuyler was placing a kettle.

"Well," he said, "I am afraid you will have to put up with my company until that fellow goes away; and I need not tell you that this is very nice for me. One hasn't much time to feel it, but it's dreadfully lonely at Fremont now and then."

Hetty nodded sympathetically, for she had seen the great desolate room at Fremont where Grant and Breckenridge pa.s.sed the bitter nights alone. The man's half-audible sigh was also very expressive, for after his grim life he found the brightness and daintiness of the little room very pleasant.

It was sparely furnished; but there was taste in everything, and in contrast with Fremont its curtains, rugs, and pictures seemed luxurious.

Without were bitter frost and darkness, peril, and self-denial; within, warmth and refinement, and the companionship of two cultured women who were very gracious to him. He also knew that he had shut himself out from the enjoyment of their society of his own will, that he had but to make terms with Torrance, and all that one side of his nature longed for might be restored to him.

Larry was as free from sensuality as he was from asceticism; but there were times when the bleak discomfort at Fremont palled upon him, as did the loneliness and half-cooked food. His overtaxed body revolted now and then from further exposure to Arctic cold and the deprivation of needed sleep, while his heart grew sick with anxiety and the distrust of those he was toiling for. He was not a fanatic, and had very slight sympathy with the iconoclast, for he had an innate respect for the law, and vague aspirations after an ampler life made harmonious by refinement, as well as a half-comprehending reverence for all that was best in art and music.

There are many Americans like him, and when such a man turns reformer he has usually a hard row, indeed, to hoe.

"What do you do up there at nights?" asked Hetty.

Larry laughed. "Sometimes Breckenridge and I sit talking by the stove, and now and then we quarrel. Breckenridge has taste, and generally smooths one the right way; but there are times when I feel like throwing things at him. Then we sit quite still for hours together listening to the wind moaning, until one of the boys comes in to tell me we are wanted, and it is a relief to drive until morning with the frost at fifty below. It is very different from the old days when I was here and at Allonby's two or three nights every week."

"It must have been hard to give up what you did," said Hetty, with a diffidence that was unusual in her. "Oh, I know you did it willingly, but you must have found it was very different from what you expected. I mean that the men you wanted to smooth the way for had their notions too, and meant to do a good deal that could never please you. Suppose you found they didn't want to go along quietly, making this country better, but only to trample down whatever was there already?"

Flora Schuyler looked up. "I think you will have to face that question, Mr. Grant," she said. "A good many men of your kind have had to do it before you. Isn't a faulty ruler better than wild disorder?"

"Yes," said Hetty eagerly. "That is just what I mean. If you saw they wanted anarchy, Larry, you would come back to us? We should be glad to have you!"

The man turned his eyes away, and Flora Schuyler saw his hands quiver.