The Short Cut Part 21

"If it wasn't so far we could talk on our fingers!"

"Do I have to remind you again that this is my discovery, my invention?"

She tried so charmingly to be severe, and failed so delightfully that he a.s.sured her he was going to put down his coffee cup and come over and kiss her. But when she threatened that if he misbehaved she would not stir out of the house again for a week he sighed and finished his coffee and listened obediently.

"Suppose," she went on, "that you stood very still on your porch, both hands holding your spygla.s.s? That would mean one thing. Suppose you leaned lazily against the door post? That would mean another. If you came down the steps, if you took off your hat, if you put on your hat, if you sat down on the bench, if you turned your back to me, if you lifted both arms above your head as if you were yawning and stretching, if you stooped to pick up something, if you stooped once, walked five steps and stooped again--don't you see that even with your whole outfit looking on we can say 'Good morning,' and 'Good night,' and anything else we choose to say? Isn't it splendid?"

For an hour they worked on what Wayne termed the Wanda-code. She had a pencil and tiny memorandum book and they made duplicate copies of their code of signals as they worked them out. Thus:

_1. Standing straight, both hands up--I love you, dear, with my whole heart. (That was Wayne's contribution to the code, and he insisted that it be number one in the book.)_

_2. Leaning against a tree or post--I must see you immediately._

_3. Removing hat--Be careful. We are being watched._

_4. Turning back--Something has happened to prevent our meeting to-day._

_5. Stooping once--That's all. Good bye._

And so on until there were no less than two dozen signals each with its meaning, each to carry across the miles a lover's message.

They agreed upon the exact time when every day their love would laugh at the miles separating them; an early hour when they had waited just long enough to give Wanda time to ride hither and the Bar L-M men time to have gone about the day's work. And if Wayne were not upon his porch then Wanda was to understand that he was already riding to meet her.

"But your mother," he said. "Doesn't she often go with you?"

"Not when I want to be alone," Wanda smiled back at him. "Mamma knows, Wayne."

"You have told her? Your father told her?"

"It isn't something that papa talks about, dear. I told. And, Wayne--"

Suddenly they ceased to be children playing and became very serious.

For while the love br.i.m.m.i.n.g their young hearts had been like a fountain from which laughter bubbled up, still its song had not deafened their ears to the murmur of life about them. There were things to be told each other, questions to ask and answer, their own future to look soberly in the face.

Day after day Shandon had looked for word from Martin Leland, had counted on receiving from him an offer for the water to be employed in bringing fertility to Dry Valley. He told her of Ruf Ettinger and his counter scheme, how close he had come to being drawn into it; he wondered if something had happened to cause Leland and Hume to give up their proposition.

No, whatever this proposition was they had not given it up, Wanda was sure of that. Her father was away much of the time; she knew that he had been often in Dry Valley, that he had had some sort of dealings with Ruf Ettinger. She had heard him say to her mother last night that the man was a hog, that when offered an unheard of price for his land he had held out for something still better, and that Leland had broken off negotiations with him entirely. Yes, it must be the same proposition about which Ettinger had gone to Shandon. Strange that Garth had not told him anything. She knew that Garth regularly met her father and Sledge Hume; she knew that whatever the business was that had drawn Leland and Hume together had drawn Conway into it also.

That matter finally disposed of, left with the unsatisfactory conclusion that Garth had his own reasons for remaining silent, and that Shandon would soon hear from Leland, Wanda broached the other subject which had all along been the one cloud upon her happiness.

Driven to the rim of her mind by her gayer moods it was still there, sinister and black upon the horizon.

"I should have told you the other day," she said slowly, "the day when we found so much else to talk of. You will understand why papa has refused to let you come to the house."

"What is it, Wanda?" he asked eagerly, hoping there would be a direct charge so that he might vindicate himself.

"Have you no idea, Wayne?" a little curiously. "Have you never had a suspicion of the reason that makes papa hate you so?"

"He disliked my father--"

"It is not that. Maybe that makes him the more ready to suspect you--"

And then she blurted it out, a little defiantly, laying her hand softly upon his arm. "He thinks, he has thought all along, that you killed Arthur!"

He stared at her gravely, the shock of such a charge too great to be appreciated to its fullest extent in a moment.

"He thinks that I killed Arthur?" he repeated incredulously. And then, bitterly, "My G.o.d, Wanda. This is too horrible."

"Listen, Wayne. We must talk this over calmly and see what is to be done. You see papa has disliked you because he hated your father. Oh, it's unjust but it's so human! He has believed all the hard things men have said of you and they have said many. He knows that the day before Arthur was killed you and he quarrelled. Then you went away, you were gone a year and he didn't think that you would ever come back. You came back, you made me love you. Believing as he did, papa did the natural thing when he refused to let you come again."

"He had no right to believe it," he cried angrily. "I shall tell him so. I shall make him tell me of a single thread of the wildest circ.u.mstantial evidence to point to this hideous thing!"

"It will do no good," she said simply. "Nothing in the world can be done unless--oh, I have thought so much about this, Wayne--unless the real murderer can be found. Surely if you offered rewards, if you hired detectives, if you talked with MacKelvey--"

"Wanda," he interrupted, his voice at once stern and troubled. "Do you remember when you gave me the revolver that morning? I didn't explain to you, even you. I couldn't. If I went away and stayed so long, if I didn't remain here doing the thing you suggest, offering rewards, hiring detectives to hunt his murderer down, couldn't you guess why?

You found the revolver that killed him."

"Wayne!"

"And the day Arthur and I rode into El Toyon I gave the thing to him.

It was his own then. He shot himself. G.o.d knows why. I should have spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down.

I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it for Arthur's sake."

He broke off sharply, moved strongly by his own words that conjured up something he had striven manfully to shut out of his mind, strongly moving the girl who heard him. She watched him with piteous, sad eyes while he strode up and down, back and forth in the candle lighted cave.

Suddenly he stopped, exclaiming bitterly,

"Your father thinks this of me. Who else? Does half the countryside believe me a murderer? Does Garth believe it? Does Hume? Does your mother?"

"I don't know what Garth and Sledge Hume think," she answered. "I do know about mamma. Wayne, even she was afraid at first, even mamma.

But she knows you too well, dear. She says that you are the other Wayne Shandon, over and over; that you may have been a spendthrift and a brawler,--forgive me,--dear, but that you have always been an honest and manly man. She knows that we love each other, Wayne. She knows that I have expected to see you. Isn't that enough?"

"Next to you, Wanda, she is the sweetest woman in the world." He took the girl's hands in his and stood looking down at her gravely. "And you, you have never been afraid? You recognised the revolver, you brought it to me. Are you very sure--"

"Kiss me, Wayne," she said for answer.

And yet, when they parted lingeringly, the little cloud was still upon the horizon, the uneasy feeling of uncertainty upon them. If, at this late hour, he went to the sheriff and told the truth, what would be the result? Would it sound like the truth to MacKelvey? To Martin Leland?

CHAPTER XV

WILLIE DART PICKS A LOCK

The summer sped by like one long golden day under its rare blue sky; yet always upon the horizon was that single black cloud. Not until summer had gone its bright way and winter had come, locked the mountain pa.s.ses and departed again, was the way to be made clear.

If Wayne Shandon could have had the opportunity to act at once when Wanda told him the reason of her father's open enmity he would have gone immediately in his headlong way to MacKelvey. He would have told the sheriff his own version of the tragedy; he would have recounted the finding of the revolver by Wanda, her giving it to him, his certainty that Arthur had taken his own life. But having promised Wanda to do nothing rashly, without again talking with her, having pondered deeply as he rode back to the Bar L-M and during the days which followed, he came to see sanely that for his own sake and for the sake of the girl he loved it would be better if he held his peace until time and thought brought clear vision.