The Light in the Clearing Part 38

We went on and in a moment a bee lighted on the honey. Nervously she struck at it and then cried out with pain.

"The bee has stung you," I said.

She covered her face with her handkerchief and made no answer.

"Wait a minute--I'll get some clay," I said as I ran to the river bank.

I found some clay and moistened it with the water and returned.

"There, look at me!" she groaned. "The bee hit my nose."

She uncovered her face, now deformed almost beyond recognition, her nose having swollen to one of great size and redness.

"You look like Rodney Barnes," I said with a laugh as I applied the clay to her afflicted nose.

"And I feel like the old boy. I think my nose is trying to jump off and run away."

The clay having been well applied she began surveying herself with a little hand mirror which she had carried in the pocket of her riding coat.

"What a fright I am!" she mused.

"But you are the best girl in the world."

"Don't waste your pretty talk on me now. I can't enjoy it--my nose aches so. I'd rather you'd tell me when--when it is easier for you to say it."

"We don't see each other very often."

"If you will come out on this road next Sat.u.r.day afternoon I will ride until I find you and then we can have another talk."

"All right. I'll be here at four-thirty and I'll be thinking about it every day until then."

"My nose feels better now," she said presently and added: "You might tell me a little more if you want to."

"I love you even when you have ceased to be beautiful," I said with the ardor of the young.

"That is grand! You know old age will sting us by and by, Bart," she answered with a sigh and in a tone of womanly wisdom.

We were nearing the village. She wiped the mud from her prodigious nose and I wet her handkerchief in a pool of water and helped her to wash it.

Soon we saw two men approaching us in the road. In a moment I observed that one was Mr. Horace Dunkelberg; the other a stranger and a remarkably handsome young man he was, about twenty-two years of age and dressed in the height of fashion. I remember so well his tall, athletic figure, his gray eyes, his small dark mustache and his admirable manners. Both were appalled at the look of Sally.

"Why, girl, what has happened to you?" her father asked.

Then I saw what a playful soul was Sally's. The girl was a born actress.

"Been riding in the country," said she. "Is this Mr. Latour?"

"This is Mr. Latour, Sally," said her father.

They shook hands.

"I am glad to see you," said the stranger.

"They say I am worth seeing," said Sally. "This is my friend, Mr.

Baynes. When you are tired of seeing me, look at him."

I shook the hand he offered me.

"Of course, we can't all be good looking," Sally remarked with a sigh, as if her misfortune were permanent.

Mr. Horace Dunkelberg and I laughed heartily--for I had told him in a whisper what had happened to Sally--while Mr. Latour looked a little embarra.s.sed.

"My face is not beautiful, but they say that I have a good heart," Sally a.s.sured the stranger.

They started on. I excused myself and took a trail through the woods to another road. Just there, with Sally waving her hand to me as I stood for a moment in the edge of the woods, the curtain falls on this highly romantic period of my life.

Uncle Peabody came for me that evening. It was about the middle of the next week that I received this letter from Sally:

"DEAR BART--Mr. Latour gave up and drove to Potsdam in the evening.

Said he had to meet Mr. Parish. I think that he had seen enough of me. I began to hope he would stay--he was so good looking, but mother is very glad that he went, and so am I, for our minister told us that he is one of the wickedest young men in the state. He is very rich and very bad, they say. I wonder if old Kate knew about him. Her charm worked well anyway--didn't it? My nose was all right in the morning. Sorry that I can't meet you Sat.u.r.day. Mother and I are packing up to go away for the summer. Don't forget me. I shall be thinking every day of those lovely things you said to me.

I don't know what they will try to do with me, and I don't care. I really think as you do, Bart, that G.o.d has married us to each other.

"Yours forever, SALLY DUNKELBERG."

How often I read those words--so like all the careless words of the young!

CHAPTER XIV

THE BOLT FALLS

Three times that winter I had seen Benjamin Grimshaw followed by the Silent Woman clothed in rags and pointing with her finger. Mr. Hacket said that she probably watched for him out of her little window above the blacksmith shop that overlooked the south road. When he came to town she followed. I always greeted the woman when I pa.s.sed her, but when she was on the trail of the money-lender she seemed unaware of my presence, so intent was she on the strange task she had set herself. If he were not in sight she smiled when pa.s.sing me, but neither spoke nor nodded.

Grimshaw had gone about his business as usual when I saw him last, but I had noted a look of the worried rat in his face. He had seemed to be under extreme irritation. He scolded every man who spoke to him. The notion came to me that her finger was getting down to the quick.

The trial of Amos came on. He had had "blood on his feet," as they used to say, all the way from Lickitysplit to Lewis County in his flight, having attacked and slightly wounded two men with a bowie knife who had tried to detain him at Rainy Lake. He had also shot at an officer in the vicinity of Lowville, where his arrest was effected. He had been identified by all these men, and so his character as a desperate man had been established. This in connection with the scar on his face and the tracks, which the boots of Amos fitted, and the broken gun stock convinced the jury of his guilt.

The most interesting bit of testimony which came out at the trial was this pa.s.sage from a yellow paper-covered tale which had been discovered hidden in the haymow of the Grimshaw barn:

"Lightfoot waited in the bushes with his trusty rifle in hand. When the two unsuspecting travelers reached a point nearly opposite him he raised his rifle and glanced over its shining barrel and saw that the flight of his bullet would cut the throats of both his persecutors. He pulled the trigger and the bullet sped to its mark.

Both men plunged to the ground as if they had been smitten by a thunderbolt. Lightfoot leaped from cover and seized the rearing horses, and mounting one of them while he led the other, headed them down the trail, and in no great hurry, for he knew that the lake was between him and Blodgett and that the latter's boat was in no condition to hold water."

It was the swift and deadly execution of Lightfoot which Amos had been imitating, as he presently confessed.

I knew then the power of words--even foolish words--over the minds of the young when they are printed and spread abroad.