The Law-Breakers Part 17

Then she gathered up the money, and flung it in after the other things.

As the door burst open and Helen ran into the room, her eyes bright with excitement, and her breathing hurried and short from her run, Kate was in the act of locking the drawer.

Helen halted as she came abreast of the table, and her dancing eyes challenged her sister.

"At your Bluebeard's chamber again, Kate?" she cried, in mock reproval. Then she raised a warning finger. "One of these days--mind, one of these days, I surely will have a duplicate key made and get a peek into that drawer, which you never open in my presence. I believe you're carrying on an intrigue with some man. Maybe it's full of letters from--Dirty O'Brien."

Kate straightened herself up laughing.

"Dirty O'Brien? Well, he's all sorts of a sport anyway, and I like 'sports,'" she said lightly.

Helen took up the challenge.

"'Sports'? Why, yes, there are plenty of 'sports'--of a kind--in this place. I'll have to see if I can find one who can make skeleton keys.

I'd surely say that sort of 'sport' should be going round the village all right, all right."

She nodded her threat at her sister, who was in no way disconcerted.

She only laughed.

"What's brought you back on the run?" she inquired.

"Why, what d'you s'pose?"

Kate shrugged, still smiling.

"I'd say the only thing that could fix you that way was a--man."

"Right. Right in once. A man, Kate, not a mouse," Helen declared, "although I allow they're both motive forces calculated to set me running. The only thing is, one attracts, and the other repels. This is distinctly a matter of attraction."

"Who's the man?" demanded the practical Kate, with a look of real interest in her handsome eyes.

"Why, Big Brother Bill, of course, the man I promised you all I'd marry."

Helen suddenly dashed at her sister and caught her by the arm in pretended excitement.

"I've seen him, Kate, seen him!" she cried. "And--and he raised his hat to me. He's big--ever so big, and he's got the loveliest, most foolish blue eyes I've ever seen. That's how I knew him. Say, and when I saw him with Inspector Fyles, I remembered what Charlie said about him having no sense, and I had to laugh, and I think he thought I was grinning at him, and that's why he raised his hat to me. It seemed so comical--looked just as if he was being brought in charge of a policeman for fear he'd lose himself, and would never find himself again. He's surely a real live man, and I've fallen in love with him right away, and, if you don't find something to send me up to see Charlie about right away, I'll--I'll go crazy--or--or faint, or do something equally foolish."

Kate's amus.e.m.e.nt culminated in a peal of laughter. She knew Helen so well, and was so used to her wild outbursts of enthusiasm, which generally lasted for five minutes, finally dying out in some whimsical admission of her own irresponsibility.

She promptly entered into the spirit of the thing.

"Let's see," she cried, gazing thoughtfully about the room, while Helen still clung to her arm. "An excuse--an excuse."

"No, no," cried the impetuous Helen. "Not an excuse. I never make any excuse for wanting to be in a man's company. Besides----"

"Hush, child," retorted Kate. "How can I think with you chattering?

I've got to find you an excuse for going across to Charlie's place.

Now what shall it be? I know," she cried, suddenly darting across the room, followed by the clinging Helen. "I've got it."

"Got what?" cried the other, with difficulty retaining her hold.

"Why, the excuse, of course," cried Kate, grabbing up two books from a chair under the window. "Here, I promised to send these to Charlie days ago. That's it," she went on. "Take these, and," she added mischievously, "I'll write a note telling him to be sure and introduce you to Big Brother Bill, as you're dying to--to make love to him!"

"Don't you dare, Kate Seton, don't you ever dare," cried Helen threateningly. "I'll shoot you clean up to death with one of your own big guns if you do. I never heard such a thing, never. How dare you say I want to make love to him? I--I don't think I even want to see him now--I'm sure I don't. Still, I'll take the books up if you--really want Charlie to have them. You see, I sure don't mind what I do to--to help you out."

Kate's eyes opened wide. Then, in a moment, she stood convulsed.

"Well, of all the sauce," she cried. "Helen, you're a perfect--imp.

Now for your pains you shan't take those books till after supper."

Helen's merry eyes sobered, and her face fell.

"Kate--I----"

"No," returned the other, with pretended severity. "It's no use apologizing. It's too late. After supper."

Helen promptly left her side, and, with a laugh, ran to the wall where a pair of revolvers were hanging suspended from an ammunition belt.

She seized one of the weapons by the b.u.t.t, and was about to withdraw it from its holster. But, in a flash, Kate was at her side.

"Don't Helen!" she cried, in real alarm. "Let go of that gun. They're both loaded."

Helen withdrew her hand in a panic, her pretty face blanching.

"My, Kate!" she cried horrified. "They're--loaded?"

The other nodded.

"Whatever do you keep them loaded for? I--I never knew. You--you wouldn't dare to--use them?"

Kate's dark eyes were smiling, but the smile was forced.

"Wouldn't I?" she said, with a curious set to her firm lips. Then she added in a lighter tone: "They're all that stand between us and--the ruffians of Rocky Springs."

For a moment Helen looked into her sister's eyes as though searching for something she had lost.

"I--I thought you'd changed, Kate," she said at last, almost apologetically. "I thought you'd forgotten all--that. I--thought you'd become a sort of 'hired girl' in this village. Guess I'll have to wait until after supper--seeing you want me to."

CHAPTER XII

THE DISCOMFITURE OF HELEN

It was well past six o'clock in the evening when the two brothers completed the discussion of their future plans. It had been a great day for Bill. A day such as one may look forward to in long antic.i.p.atory moments of dreaming, but the ultimate realization of which often falls so desperately short of the antic.i.p.ation. In the present instance, however, no such calamity had befallen. He felt that his weary journeyings, with their many discomforts and trials, had not proved vain. Many of his hopes had been fully realized.

The unselfishness of the man was supreme. He wanted nothing for himself, but the delight of sharing in the life of his less fortunate brother, and changing the course of that fortune into the happier channels wherein his own lay. And Charlie seemed to accept the position. He certainly offered no opposition, and, if his manner of acceptance was undemonstrative, even to an excess of reserve, at least it was sufficiently cordial to satisfy the unsuspicious mind of Big Brother Bill.