The Westerners Part 37

The men stood about with awe-stricken faces. They saw now that there was more in this than they had at first supposed. "Nutty," they whispered to each other in undertones.

"Such a long way down, a long way down," went on the girl. "I could jump from there very easily; such a long way down!"

Graham took her quietly by the shoulders.

"Listen, Molly, it's I, Jack Graham."

"Yes, Jack."

"And I want you to do just as I say. Will you do it?"

"Yes, Jack."

"I want you to go with me. Do you trust me, Molly?"

She began to sob violently, almost convulsively, dabbing uncertainly at her eyes.

"What is it, Jack? What am I doing here?"

"Nothing; it's all right. Will you come with me? Ah, that's better."

She looked about her with intelligence.

"What is it, boys? How did I come here?" Her glance wandered past them to the dance hall, and she turned away suddenly. "Ah! I remember!" The strained look began to come back into her face.

"Here, here, Molly!" cried Graham in alarm, "that won't do! Here, you must do just exactly as I say. You must come with me now, and get something to eat and some sleep. Don't you trust me, Molly?"

He looked steadily into her eyes, his brow contorted with anxiety.

"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried suddenly, "whom else could I trust but you?

You have been the only man whom I could have trusted from the very first, the only man I should have trusted. I see that now. I have known it all the while, but I would not acknowledge it."

"Will you go with me then, Molly?" asked Graham again.

This time it was she who raised her hands to his shoulders. "Jack,"

said she solemnly, "a few minutes ago I was on the point of killing myself because I saw nothing but death or that dance hall before me. I had forgotten. I will never do so again. I will go with you now, Jack, wherever you want me to; and I will go with you, Jack, forever, to the end of the world."

She leaned suddenly forward and kissed him, and then as suddenly fell to weeping again, with great sobs that shook her slender body cruelly.

Never was a stranger love scene; never was one more in keeping with the wayward, capricious, yet intrinsically sterling character of Molly Lafond. She did not understand it; but she felt to her inmost soul that it was real; and that if she did not love Jack Graham now, at least she respected him above all men and above herself, and that her affection for him would never diminish, but rather increase as the time went on. And this the event proved to be true. Nor did Graham understand, but he too felt the sincerity of it. As for the men before whose audience the curious drama had been enacted, they understood still less.

But it was very simple after all.

In her nature, as in all other natures, two forces had struggled for the mastery. With her they happened to be called heredity, or the East; and education, or the West. Her training, her environment, her mental atmosphere had powerfully affected her general conduct of life; but in the great crisis her deeper nature had spoken, and she had obeyed.

x.x.xV

OUT OF THE PAST

Michal Lafond drove on slowly down the valley of Copper Creek, although, if he intended to reach Rapid before dark, there would seem to be every reason for haste.

He usually conducted his affairs so carefully, so shrewdly, so calculatingly. How had he happened to give way so to an impulse? He regretted lashing the girl with his whip, because he felt that it was unnecessary. Doing unnecessary evil had always been against Lafond's principles. He considered it bad luck, and somehow that spectre of bad luck seemed to be coming very close. He had lost confidence.

Therefore he made mistakes.

Just outside of town he encountered Blair's stage crawling along on a mended axle. Naturally both vehicles pulled up. After explanations of the accident, Blair remarked casually--

"Struck Billy down the road a piece."

"Yes," said Mike, "he left this morning."

"Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard that was just on his way to visit Billy. Nice old cuss, too. Name Buckley, or Bulkley, or something like that. Come from out Wyoming way."

Lafond clamped on his brake again.

"Yes," said he, "I used to know him. He went off with Billy, you say?"

"Yes, bag _an'_ baggage."

"Goin' to Rapid?"

"Near as I could make out," said Blair. "They reversed the proposition on the spot. Place of him a visitin' of Billy, Billy he aims to visit him. Things movin' at camp?"

"They'll tell you up there," replied Lafond and drove on.

What a fiendish stroke of luck! This one man in all the West who knew of the affair at Spanish Gulch in the seventies, who would remember the doctor's wife, who would recognize the strong resemblance of her daughter to her, who might stir up that dust of the past which Lafond had so carefully laid--that he should come just at this time! To be sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to implicate him--Lafond.

But Buckley was a tenacious sort of individual; he would insist on investigating. That would mean explanations by Lafond, a detailed account. The details would have to be invented. And then a chill struck his heart as he realized that he could not recall all the story he had told the Indian agent when he had left the little girl in his charge!

He pulled his horses down to a walk and set himself to thinking earnestly. He went over in sequence, as nearly as he could remember them, every word and action, from his meeting with Durand to his departure from the agency. It was no use. Even at the time, he had invented the story lightly, without much thought of its importance except as a temporary expedient. Now the matter had quite escaped him.

Jim Buckley's return West, which had before seemed merely fortunate, he saw now had been providential. It was a narrow escape. He must visit the agent as soon as possible, for the purpose of refreshing his memory.

He came to Durand's cabin. The old man stood near the doorway examining something which he held flat in the palm of his hand. At his feet, Jacques, the little racc.o.o.n, was curled up in a bright-eyed ball of fur, enjoying the early sun. Out behind the cabin, Isabeau, the ta.s.selled lynx, stepped lightly to and fro along the length of his chain; and the great Pantalon sat drolly on his s.h.a.ggy haunches sniffing the air. Lafond stopped. He felt he must talk to some one or give way to this incomprehensible impulse to shriek aloud.

They exchanged greetings. At once Lafond saw something suspicious in the old man's att.i.tude. He was preternaturally grave. He seemed to be thinking of something behind his actual speech.

"I've something to show you, Lafond," he remarked after a little.

"It's very queer," and with what Lafond saw at once to be an accusing motion he held before the latter's eyes the little ivory miniature of Prue Welch.

He had found it under a _mesquite_ bush. Ever since he had been struggling vainly to place the familiarity of the features. He had not seen enough of the girl at the camp to be able to do so definitely, but he had succeeded in bringing his mind almost to the point of a recognition which was continually just escaping him.

Lafond started violently, and stared at the portrait.

"Why, what's the matter?" cried Durand. "You look as though you'd seen a ghost!"

On the instant Lafond recovered his self-possession. He glanced with side-long evil look at the old man.