The Land of Strong Men Part 70

"On the same legal forms," the judge conceded. "But law stationers as a rule don't manufacture their own paper." His face became grim, his voice rose, and he drove his accusation home as in the old days of his greater prosperity he had broken other carefully prepared testimony.

"That one detail, Braden, overlooked by you and French, destroys entirely the plausible story you have invented. I am prepared to prove, and prove to the hilt, that the deeds delivered by French to my client are forgeries, prepared by you both to defraud a young woman of land which, instead of being worthless as you supposed it to be when you sold it to her father in fraudulent collusion with French, you suddenly discovered to have a high potential value. I say I am prepared to prove this, including the writing of the forged instruments on the same machine. I am prepared to prove, too, how the original deeds pa.s.sed from French's possession to yours. You are in danger of standing in the dock facing a charge which carries a very heavy penalty. You must decide here and now, whether or not you will face that charge, and the d.a.m.ning evidence which I am prepared to bring against you."

Mr. Braden quailed before the stern voice and menacing finger of the old lawyer. He was not of the stuff to fight up hill, to play out a losing game to the last chip. What was the use? The judge had the goods on him.

He sagged in his chair, all fight gone, his face white, his heart choking him.

"Don'--don't prosecute me, Riley!" he pleaded in a shaking voice. "I'll do anything you say. What do you want?"

CHAPTER XL

SIGNS AND OMENS

The reason of the temporary residence of Angus and his wife at her cottage lay princ.i.p.ally in her whim. Angus laughed at it, but yielded, and found it rather pleasant to be alone with his wife. From force of habit he found a number of jobs which needed doing, things which should be put in order before the winter; but Faith insisted that it was to be a holiday. And so by day they rode leisurely along the base of the hills, rested at noon beside clear springs, ate with healthy appet.i.tes, and in the evenings returned to the cottage. Then there would be the cheery open fire against the chill of the fall night, and by its flickering light the banjo would talk and whimper, and chuckle, until Faith, laying it aside, would snuggle against her husband, watching the red heart of the fire, giving free rein to fancy.

So, she thought and said, men and women had sat in the dim, forgotten nights of the world, when the Red Flower first bloomed on the rude hearts of cave and forest and beside the lone beaches of dead seas.

Angus laughed at her fancies, but in his own heart the spell of gut and string and fire stirred something, too; and when the winds soughed around the cottage and strained through the tree-tops he found himself listening subconsciously for he knew not what.

"You are a dreamer, too," Faith accused him.

"I will be in about ten minutes."

"You might as well 'fess up. I wonder if you and I ever sat before a fire in a cave, together?"

"I don't remember it, myself."

"Oh, you may laugh, but it seems real to me--to-night. The wind in the trees is like the hiss and roar of squall-swept seas. I can hear other things, too--the soft padding of feet, and heavy, grunting, snuffling breaths. That is the tiger or the great cave bear. But they can't get in, because you have rolled the stone against the mouth of our cave."

"Suppose I forgot it?"

"Then to pay for your carelessness, you would have to fight old Sabre Tooth. You would fight to the death for me, wouldn't you?"

"And for myself."

"Be gallant, please."

"Cave men weren't gallant. They walloped ladies with clubs and abducted them."

"Happy thought. You have abducted me. No, not that, either, because I was never anybody's but yours. But there is a very great warrior who is trying to take me from you."

"The old warrior sure has some nerve. What am I doing about that time?"

"You fight," she told him, her eyes on the heart of the fire, "while I stand by praying to the unknown G.o.d that you may kill him. And you do kill him. And then you set your foot on his body and shake your war club on high and shout a great wild song to the stars. Oh, I can see you now!

There is blood on your face, and the club is dripping with it, and I can hear the fierce song!"

"I'll bet the singing is fierce, too," Angus commented. But to his surprise she was trembling in his arms, every nerve aquiver. "What the d.i.c.kens! Old girl, you're shaking! There now, that's plenty of that nonsense. It isn't good for sleeping."

For a moment she clung to him. "I'm awfully silly. But somehow it seemed real--to-night. I wonder if it ever did happen?"

"Of course not."

"Well, it's funny. I was just making it up. And then suddenly I felt that instead of making it up I was _recollecting_."

As she paused, Angus' ear caught a faint sound from without. To him it resembled the faint creak of a board beneath a stealthy footstep. For an instant his body tensed.

"What's the matter?" Faith asked. "Have you nerves, too?"

"Not that I know of. Turn in now and get a good rest, and don't dream of things."

But when she had gone to her room he yawned, stretched himself, wound the clock and pa.s.sed into the hall leading to the kitchen. There hung his belt with holster and gun. He took the gun, went swiftly through the kitchen and outside. He circled the house, but neither saw nor heard anything, and so he went in again. But when he turned in, having extinguished the light, he laid the gun on the floor beside the bed, and in the morning smuggled it out without Faith's knowledge. Before she had risen he examined the ground around the house, but found no footprints other than their own. And so he came to the conclusion that whatever he had heard had not been a footstep.

He pottered around all morning, and in the afternoon decided to ride in to town and see Judge Riley. The latter might have some news.

"Well, I won't go," Faith decided. "I have bread to bake, and it's too far, anyway. I'll have supper ready when you get back."

But when Angus reached the judge's office it was closed. In the post office he found a note from him, consisting of four words: "Want to see you," and upon inquiry he learned that the lawyer had driven out with Dr. Wilkes to see a rancher named McLatchie who being taken suddenly ill had sent for legal as well as medical a.s.sistance. Angus decided to wait.

As he strolled down the street he met Rennie emerging from Dr. Wilkes'

office.

"h.e.l.lo," he said. "What's the matter with _you_?"

"Nothing with me," Rennie returned. "I was just doin' an errand. But they tell me the doc's out."

"What is it?" Angus asked, for Rennie's face was troubled.

"You ain't heard? Well, Mary, that granddaughter of old Paul Sam, has been missin' some days, and to-day they find her--drowned."

"Good Lord!" Angus exclaimed. "How did it happen?" Rennie's face darkened.

"I dunno. They say she drowned herself. They say some white man is mixed up in it. She was a notch or two above the ordinary klootch, and so--oh, well, it's just the same old rotten mess!"

"Poor girl!" Angus said after a moment of silence. "This will be hard on old Paul Sam. Do the Indians know this white man?"

"I dunno. I heard--mind you I dunno what there is in it--that Blake French is the man. He's dirty enough. But I dunno's the Injuns know it.

I seen old Paul Sam. He wasn't talkin'. Just sittin' starin' straight ahead. And the klootch lyin' on her bed alongside him where they'd put her down. Ugh! Some of 'em wanted to send the doc out. He makes reports of deaths and such to the government, and then he's coroner. So I come."

The event touched Angus deeply. He had known the dead girl all his life.

She was, as Rennie said, a notch or two above the ordinary klootch. Paul Sam, too, was a good Indian, a friend of his and of his father's, so far as the white man who knows the Indian admits him to friendship. It would be a heavy blow for the old man. But unless some of the young bucks took the law into their own hands it was unlikely that the man responsible for the tragedy--Blake French or another--would suffer at all.

It was long after dark when the judge drove in, and Angus waiting at the livery stable, greeted him.

"How's McLatchie?" he asked. The judge, with emphasis, consigned McLatchie to torment.

"A bellyache!" he exclaimed, "and he thought he was going to die. I wanted Wilkes to cut him open, just as a lesson. And will you believe me, the d.a.m.ned Scotch--I beg your pardon, Angus, I mean the d.a.m.ned lowlander--when the fear of G.o.d produced by the fear of death left his rotten heart with the pain from his equally rotten stomach, refused to make his will. I made him do it, though--and pay for it. Well, you got my note. Come up to the office, where we can talk."