The Claim Jumpers Part 24

"No, I haven't received any letters. Did you write?"

"Did we write! Well, I should think so! We wrote three times, telling you we were coming and when to expect us. Jeems and I wondered why you didn't meet us. That explains it. Seems funny you didn't get any of those letters!"

"No, I don't believe it is so funny after all," responded Bennington, who had been thinking it over. "I remember now that Davidson told the others he had been intercepting my letters from the Company, and I suppose he got yours too."

"That's it, of course. I'll have to interview that Davidson later.

Well, we used to train around here off and on, as I told you once, and this year Jeems and I thought we'd do our summer sketching here, and sort of revive old times. So we packed up and came."

"I'm mighty glad you came, anyway," replied Bennington fervently.

"So'm I. We're just in time to help foil the villain. As foilers Jeems and I are an artistic success. We have studied foiling under the best masters in the Bowery and Sixth Avenue theatres."

"Where's Bill?" asked Jim suddenly.

"Will be around in the morning. You're to report progress at once.

Didn't dare to come up until after the row. Dreadful anxious though.

Would have come if Jeems and I hadn't forbidden it."

Bennington wondered vaguely who Bill might be, but he was beginning to feel a little tired from the excitement and his wound, so he said nothing.

"The next thing is grub," remarked Fay, rising and gathering his pony's reins. "I'll mosey up to the shack and see about supper. You fellows can sit around and talk until I get organized."

He turned to move away, leading his horse.

"Hold on a minute, Jim," called Bert. "You might lend me your bronc, and I'll lope down and set Bill's mind easy. It won't take long."

"Good scheme!" approved Jim heartily. "That's thoughtful of you, Bertie!"

He dropped the reins where he stood, and the pony, with the usual well-trained Western docility, hung his head and halted. Bert arose and looked down the shaft.

"Supper will be served shortly, gentlemen," he observed suavely. He turned toward the pony.

"Bert," called Bennington in a different voice, "did you say you were going down the gulch?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to do something for me?"

"Why, surely. What is it?"

"Would you just as soon stop at the Lawtons' and tell Miss Lawton for me that it's all right! You'll find the Lawton house----"

"Yes, I know where the Lawton house is," interrupted Bert, "but Miss Lawton, you said?"

"Don't you remember, Bert," put in James, "there is a kid there--Maude, or something of that sort?"

"No, no, not Maude," persisted Bennington, still more bashfully. "I mean Miss Lawton, the young lady."

He felt that both the youths were looking keenly at him with dawning wonder and delight. "Hold on, Bert," interposed James, as the other was about to exclaim, "do you mean, Ben, the one you've been giving such a rush for the last two months?"

"Miss Lawton and I are very good friends," replied Bennington with dignity, wondering whence James had his information.

Bert drew in his breath sharply, and opened his mouth to speak.

"Hold on, Bert," interposed James again. "There are possibilities in this. Don't destroy artistic development by undue haste. What did you call the young lady, Ben?"

"Miss Lawton, of course!"

"Daughter of Bill Lawton?"

"Why, yes."

"Oh, my eye!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed James.

"And you have eyes in your head!" he cried after a moment. "You have ears in your head! Blamed if you haven't everything in your head but brains! She's a good one! I didn't appreciate the subtlety of that woman before. Ben, you everlasting idiot, do you mean to tell me that you've seen that girl every day for the last two months, and don't know yet that she's too good to belong to Bill Lawton?"

Bert began to laugh hysterically.

"What do you mean!" cried Bennington.

"What I say. _She_ isn't Bill Lawton's daughter. Her name isn't Lawton at all. O glory! He don't even know her name!" James in his turn went into a fit of laughing. In uncontrollable excitement Bennington seized him with his sound hand.

"What is it? Tell me! What is her name, then?"

"O Lord! Don't squeeze so! I'll tell you! Letup!"

James dashed the back of his hand across his eyes.

"What is her name?" repeated Bennington fiercely.

"Wilhelmina Fay. We call her Bill for short."

"And Jim Fay?"

"Is her brother."

"And the Lawtons?"

"They board there."

Across Bennington's mind flashed vaguely a suspicion that turned him faint with mortification.

"Who is this Jim Fay?" he asked.

"He's Jim Fay--James Leicester Fay, of Boston."

"Not----"

"Yes, exactly. The Boston Fays."