The Price of the Prairie Part 26

"On the point of rock by the bushes on Cliff Street."

"What were you doing there?"

"Looking at the moonlight on the river."

"Did you see him first?"

"No, or he would not have seen me."

"Phil, save my time now. It's a matter of great importance to my business. Also, it is serious with you. Begin at the party. Whose escort were you?"

"Lettie Conlow's."

My father looked me straight in the eyes. I returned his gaze steadily.

"Go on. Tell me everything." He spoke crisply.

"I was late to the party. Tillhurst asked Marjie for her company just as I went in. Judson was going her way, and she chose the lesser of two--pleasures, we'll say. Just before the party broke up, Judson was called out. He had asked Lettie for her company, and he shoved her over to my tender mercies."

"And you went strolling up on Cliff Street in the moonlight with her till after midnight. Is that fair to Marjie?" I had never heard his voice sound so like resonant iron before.

"I, strolling? I covered the seven blocks from Anderson's to Conlow's in seven minutes, and stood at the gate long enough to let the young lady through, and to pinch my thumb in the blamed old latch, I was in such a hurry; and then I made for the Baronets' roost."

"But why didn't you stay there?" he asked.

I blushed for a certainty now. My actions seemed so like a brain-sick fool's.

"Now, Phil," my father said more kindly, "you remember I told you when you came to let me know you were twenty-one, that you must not get too old to make a confidant of me. It is your only safe course now."

"Father, am I a fool, or is it in the Baronet blood to love deeply and constantly even unto death?"

The strong man before me turned his face to the window.

"Go on," he said.

"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our valentines and put little notes for each other years ago."

"The post-office is safer, Phil."

"Not with Tell Mapleson as postmaster."

He a.s.sented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It was Jean Pahusca."

Briefly then I related what had taken place.

"And after that?" queried my questioner.

"I ran into Lettie Conlow. She may have been there all the time. I do not know, but I felt no obligation to take care of a girl who will not take care of herself. It was rude, I know, and against my creed, but that's the whole truth. I may be a certain kind of a fool about a girl I know. But I'm not the kind of gay fool that goes out after divers and strange women. Bill Mead told me this morning that he and Bud Anderson pa.s.sed Lettie somewhere out west alone after one o'clock. He was in a hurry, but he stopped her and asked her why she should be out alone. I think Bud went home with her. None of the boys want harm to come to her, but she grows less pleasant every day. Bill would have gone home with her, but he was hurrying out to Red Range. Dave's girl died out there last night. Poor Dave!"

"Poor Dave!" my father echoed, and we sat in silence with our sympathy going out to the fine young man whose day was full of sorrow.

"Well," my father said, "to come back to our work now. There are some ugly stories going that I have yet to get hold of. Cam Gentry is helping me toward it all he can. This land case will never come to court if Mapleson can possibly secure the land in any other way. He'd like to ruin us and pay off that old grudge against you for your part in breaking up the plot against Springvale back in '63 and the suspicion it cast on him. Do you see?"

I was beginning to see a little.

"Now, you go out to the stone cabin to-morrow afternoon and make a thorough search for any papers or other evidence hidden there. The man who owned that land was a degenerate son of a n.o.ble house. There are some missing links in the evidence that our claim is incontestable. The other claimant to the land is entirely under Tell Mapleson's control.

That's the way it shapes up to me. Meanwhile if it gets into court, two or more lines are ready to tighten about you. Keep yourself in straight paths and you are sure at last to win. I have no fear for you, Phil, but be a man every minute."

I understood him. As I left the courthouse, I met O'mie. There was a strange, pathetic look in his eyes. He linked his arm in mine, and we sauntered out under the oak trees of the courthouse grounds.

"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more.

Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost orphan boy, worth nothin' to n.o.body, you risked life an' limb to drag me back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin'

its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I know I'd die for your sake."

"O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?"

"Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You can't be touched."

Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill.

"Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's.

Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school tracts to improve ye."

There was only one pa.s.senger in the stage, a woman whose face I could not see.

That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time.

"Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said.

"What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them.

"I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied.

"Whose business?" snapped Judson.

"Me own," responded O'mie calmly.

"I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings running around over the country taking my time."

"Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear of him.

"I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was the life of the business, the best a.s.set in the store. "It may be a slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it.

Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; have to let some others have their way once in a while. We'll consider it settled now. You are to stay right here."

"Ye'll consider it settled that I'm nadin' a tin days' vacation right away, an' must have it."

"I can't do it, O'Meara; that's it. I would not give you your place again, and I won't pay you a cent of this quarter's salary."

Judson's foolish temper was always his undoing.