The White Desert Part 38

Barry looked earnestly at the man before him.

"That's all true, isn't it, Thayer?"

"I haven't made any objection, have I?" came surlily.

"I merely wanted to be sure. But to go on: 'Then I thought of a way to get what I wanted from Miss Jierdon. This was several months afterward, just before the trial. I argued that I was sure young Houston hadn't committed the murder, and that if some woman could testify to the fact that Langdon had that mallet, it might free Houston, and make a hit with the old man and that maybe he would make good on his promises. I did it pretty skilfully and she listened to me, largely, I guess, because she was in love with me. Anyway, it ended with her testifying at the trial in a sort of negative way. I didn't care about that--it was something else I wanted. Later after the old man had died, I used it. I wanted her to switch some papers on young Mr. Houston for me, and she bucked against it. Then I told her that she had done worse things, that she had perjured herself, and that unless she stayed by me, she could be sent to the penitentiary. Of course, I didn't tell her in those exact words--I did it more in the way of making a criminal out of her already, so that the thing she was going to do wouldn't seem as bad to her. I wasn't foolish enough to threaten her. Besides, I told her that the mill should have been rightfully mine, that the old man had lied to me and gotten me to work for him for years at starvation wages, on promises that it would be mine some time, and that he had neither taken me in partnership, nor left it to me in the will. She got her cousin to help her in the transfer of the papers; it was a lease and stumpage contract. He affixed a notary seal to it. The thing was illegitimate, of course.

Shortly after that, young Houston came out here again, and I got her to come too. I wanted to see what he was up to. He fired me, and while he was in Denver, and Renaud away from the mill, I got Miss Jierdon and took her for a walk, while one of the other men kept watch for the cook who was asleep. But she didn't wake up. On the way back, Miss Jierdon saw that the mill was burning, and I directed her suspicion toward Renaud. She accused him, and it brought about a little quarrel between Miss Jierdon and young Houston. I had forced her, by devious ways, to pretend that she was in love with him--keeping that perjury thing hanging over her all the time and constantly harping on how, even though he was a nice young fellow, he was robbing us both of something that was rightfully ours. All this time, I had dodged marrying her, promising that I would do it when the mill was mine. In the meantime, with the lease and contract in my hands, I had hooked up with this man here, Blackburn, and he had started a mill for me. I guess Miss Jierdon had gotten to thinking a little of Houston, after all, because when I forced her to the final thing of telling some lies about him to a young woman, she did it, but went away mad at me and threatening never to see me again. But a little while later, she came back. Our relations, while she had been at the Houston camp, hadn't been exactly what they should have been. Miss Jierdon is dead--she had stayed in a little cabin in the woods. I had lived with her there. About ten days ago, the baby died, while I was laid up at camp with a sprained hip.

To-day I went there to find her dead, and while I was there, Renaud and young Houston caught me. This is all I know. I make this statement of my own free will, without coercion, and I swear it to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me G.o.d.'"

The little lobby milled and buzzed, drowning the scratching of the pen as a trembling man signed the confession, page by page. Then came the clink of handcuffs. A moment later two figures had departed in the dusk,--the sheriff and Fred Thayer, bound for the jail at Montview.

Houston straightened, to find a short, bulky form before him, Henry Blackburn.

"Well?" questioned that person. "I guess it's up to me. I--I haven't got much chance against that."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply this," and the bulky Blackburn drew a nervous, sweating hand across his brow. "I ain't above dealing with crooks, I'll admit that.

I've done a few things in my life that haven't been any too straight, or any too n.o.ble, and when Thayer came to me with this contract and lease, I didn't ask any questions. My lawyer said it was O. K. That was enough for me. But somehow or other, I kind of draw the line at murder. I'm in your hands, Houston. I've got a mill up there that I've put a lot of money in. It ain't worth the powder to blow it up now--to me, anyway. But with you, it's different. If you want to make me a fair offer, say the word, and I'll go more than half-way. What say?"

"Is to-morrow time enough?"

"To-morrow--or the next day--or the next week. Suits me. I'm in your hands."

Then he went on, leaving only three figures in the lobby,--the bent, silent form of Ba'tiste Renaud, grave, but rewarded at last in his faithful search; the radiant-eyed Houston, free with a freedom that he hardly believed could exist; and a girl who walked to the window and stood looking out a moment before she turned to him. Then impetuously she faced him, her eyes searching his, her hands tight clasped, her whole being one of supplication.

"I'm sorry," she begged. "Can you--will you forgive me?"

Boyishly Barry Houston reached forward and drew away a strand of hair that had strayed from place, a spirit of venture in his manner, a buoyant tone in his voice.

"Say it again. I like it!"

"But I am--don't you believe me?"

"Of course. But then--I--I--" Then he caught her hands. "Will you go with me while I telegraph?" he asked in sudden earnestness. "I want to wire--to the papers back in Boston and tell them that I've been vindicated. Will you--?"

"I'd be glad to."

They went out the door together, Houston beaming happily downward, the girl close beside him, her arm in his. And it was then that the features of Ba'tiste Renaud lost their gravity and sorrow. He looked after them, his eyes soft and contented. Then his big hands parted slowly. His lips broke into a smile of radiant happiness.

And it was with the same glad light in his eyes that three months later Ba'tiste Renaud stood on the sh.o.r.es of Empire Lake, his wolf-dog beside him, looking out over the rippling sheen of the water. The snow was gone from the hills now; the colors were again radiant, the blues and purples and greens and reds vying, it seemed, with one another, in a constantly recurring contest of beauty. Afar off, logs were sliding in swift succession down the skidways, to lose themselves in the waters, then to bob along toward the current that would carry them to the flume. The jays cried and quarreled in the aspens; in a little bay, an old beaver made his first sally of the evening, and by angry slaps of his tail warned the rest of the colony that humans were near.

Distantly, from down the bubbling stream which led from the lake, there sounded the snarl of giant saws and the hum of machinery, where, in two great mills, the logs traveled into a manufactured state through a smooth-working process that led from "jacker" to "kicker", thence to the platforms and the shotgun carriages; into the mad rush of the bank saws, while the rumbling rolls caught the offal to cart it away; then surging on, to the edgers and trimmers and kilns. Great trucks rumbled along the roadways. Faintly a locomotive whistled, as the switch engine from Tabernacle clanked to the mills for the make-up of its daily stub-train of lumber cars. But the attention of Ba'tiste Renaud was on none of these. Out in a safe portion of the lake was a boat, and within it sat two persons, a man and a woman, their rods flashing as they made their casts, now drawing slowly backward for another whip of the fly, now bending with the swift leap of a captive trout. And he watched them with the eyes of a father looking upon children who have fulfilled his every hope, children deeply, greatly beloved.

As for the man and the woman, they laughed and glanced at each other as they cast, or shouted and shrilled with the excitement of the leaping trout as the fly caught fair and the struggle of the rod and reel began, to end with another flopping form in the creel, another delicacy for the table at camp. But at last the girl leaned back, and her fly trailed disregarded in the water.

"Barry," she asked, "what day's to-morrow?"

"Wednesday," he said, and cast again in the direction of a dead, jutting tree, the home of more than one three-pounder. She pouted.

"Of course it's Wednesday. But what else?"

"I don't know. Let me see. Twentieth, isn't it?"

This time her rod flipped in mock anger.

"Barry," she commanded. "What day is tomorrow?"

He looked at her blankly.

"I give it up," came after deep thought. "What day is to-morrow?"

She pressed tight her lips, striving bravely for sternness. But in vain. An upward curve made its appearance at the corners. The blue eyes twinkled. She laughed.

"Foolish!" she chided. "I might have expected you to forget. It's our first monthiversary!"