Ware disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob and Amy standing side by
side in silence, watching him go. When the lean, long figure of the old
mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the light, eddying dust, peculiar
to the Sierra country, had died, Amy closed her eyes, raised her hand to
her heart, and sank slowly to the bank of the little creek. Her vivid
colour, which had for a moment returned under the influence of her
strong will and her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from
her cheeks.
Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side and passed his
arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the presence of his support, she
let slip the last desperate holdings of physical command, and leaned
back gratefully, breathing hard, her eyes still closed.
After a moment she opened them long enough to smile palely at the
anxious face of the young man.
"It's all right," she said. "I'm all right. Don't be alarmed. Just let
me rest a minute. I'll be all right."
She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour gradually
flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.
The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was concerned merely
with the supporting of the slight burden; careful to hold her as
comfortably as possible. Then the warmth of her body penetrated to his
arm. A new emotion invaded him, feeble in the beginning, but gaining
strength from instant to instant. It mounted his breast as a tide would
mount, until it had shortened his breath, set his heart to thumping
dully, choked his throat. He looked down at her with troubled eyes,
following the curve of her upturned face, the long line of her throat
exposed by the backward thrown position of her head, the swell of her
breast under the thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob's
heart. For the first time Amy--the vivid, self-reliant, capable,
laughing Amy--appealed to him as a being demanding protection, as a
woman with a woman's instinctive craving for cherishing, as a delicious,
soft, feminine creature, calling forth the tendernesses of a man's
heart. In the normal world of everyday association this side of her had
never been revealed, never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to throw
into insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he had known.
Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the chance that had revealed
to him this unguessed, intimate phase of womanhood.
And then the insight with which the significant moment had endowed him
leaped to the simple comprehension of another thought--that this
revelation of intimacy, of the woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the
comradeship of everyday life, was after all only a matter of chance. It
had been revealed to him by the accident of a moment's faintness, by
which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the
defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her
ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright,
cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would
be as before. But--and here Bob's breath came quickest--in the great
goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the
call of some one person, for that one and no other, this inner beautiful
soul of the feminine appeal would come forth freely, consciously,
willingly.
Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and laughed.
"I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very much ashamed."
"Amy!" he stammered.
She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her feet.
"We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume," said she,
in the most matter-of-fact tones.
"I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn back all
the strongly set currents of life without at least a temporary turmoil.
Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to herself.
For in these matters, while men are more analytical after the fact,
women are by nature more informed. She said nothing, but stooped to the
creek for a drink. When she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had
come to himself. The purport of Amy's last speech had fully penetrated
his understanding, and one word of it--the word _testify_--had struck
him with an idea.
"By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"
"What?" said Amy.
"This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted George
Pollock of killing Plant."
"What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly. "Was he
there? How do you know about it?"
A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before confiding his
secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the world of relations had
shifted.
"I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but this is
serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any one!"
"Certainly not!" cried Amy.
"Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was, and he knew
it. He could have made me testify by informing the prosecuting
attorney."
Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held Pollock's
horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy listened
attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob had begun to
draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.
"So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of this Modoc
Land case," said she.
Bob nodded.
"That was it."
"But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she pointed out.
"Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."
She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown hands.
"Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. "Oh, I'm _glad_ you
told me this! I was trying so hard to think you were doing a high and
noble duty in ignoring the consequences to that poor old man. But I
could not. Now I see!"
"What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she paused.
"You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger," she told
him.
"Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't going to be bluffed
out by that gang!"
"That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better than you do yourself.
You don't suppose," she cried, as a new thought alarmed her, "that
Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be
valuable."
Bob shook his head.
"The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the prosecution had
intended calling me, I should have been summoned long since. There's
dust; they are coming. You'd better stay here."
She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove up. On
the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in behind.
They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the team.
"Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said Welton. "That
gang's getting pretty desperate! I've heard of this man Oldham around
this country for a long while, but I always understood he was interested
against the Power Company."
"Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ from the first,
but I never thought he'd go in for quite this kind of strong-arm work.
He doesn't look it, do you think?"
"I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never been near the
mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere else."
By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to the tree
under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton surveyed the
prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then turned to Bob, a curious
expression on his face.
"It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he. "He saw to it.
Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"
"I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."
"Before that--in Michigan--many years ago."
"His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob slowly. "I can't
place it--yes--hold on!"
A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood memories. It was
of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods in the distance. A single
hickory stood near its centre, and under this a group lounged, smoking
pipes. A man, perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil.
Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder
hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were
snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and browner, but
with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted
eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the scorer's
drawling voice calling the next contestant, his memory supplied the
name.
"It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.
"Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't changed much. He
disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight years old; didn't
he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody had suspicions.... Well;
let's get him in."
They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the road. At the
little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was agreed that all danger
to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man would do better to accompany
Amy back to headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the
whole matter out at the coroner's inquest, but in view of the
circumstances, Ware's safety was assured.
At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials summoned,
and everything put in order.
"What I really started over to see you about," then said Bob to Welton,
"is this matter of the Modoc Company." He went on to explain fully Amy's
plan for checkmating Baker. "You see, if I get in my word first, Baker
is as much implicated as you are, and it won't do him any good to turn
state's evidence."
"I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.
"Baker might be willing to put himself in any position," said Bob; "but
I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of criminal punishment. I think
this will head him off completely; but if it doesn't, every move he
makes to save his own skin saves yours too."
"It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."
"I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to think I was
starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame good reason."
"I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He stared moodily at
the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick for an old-timer," he broke
out at last. "I'm just a plain, old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know
is to cut lumber. I pass this mess up. I wired your father he'd better
come along out."
"Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.
"I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph office. He'll
be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there. Didn't I tell you?"
"Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that we'll meet him
there," said Bob instantly. "It's getting about time to beard the lion
in his den."