OLSON TELLS A STORY
When Rose heard from Esther next day she and Kirby took the Interurban
for Golden. Esther had written that she wanted to see her sister
because Cole was going to take her back to Wyoming at once.
The sisters wept in each other's arms and then passed together into
Esther's bedroom for an intimate talk. The younger sister was still
happy only in moments of forgetfulness, though she had been rescued
from death in life. Cole had found her comfortably situated at a
farmhouse a mile or two back from the cañon. She had gone there under
the urge of her need, at the instigation of James Cunningham, who could
not afford to have the scandal of his relations with her become public
at the same time as the announcement of his marriage to Phyllis
Harriman. The girl loved Cole and trusted him. Her heart went out to
him in a warm glow of gratitude. But the shadow of her fault was a
barrier in her mind between them, and would be long after his kindness
had melted the ice in her bosom.
"We've got it all fixed up to tell how we was married when I come down
to Denver last April only we kep' it quiet because she wanted to hold
her job awhile," Cole explained to his friend. "Onct I get her back
there in God's hills she'll sure enough forget all about this trouble.
The way I look at it she was jus' like a li'l' kid that takes a
mis-step in the dark an' falls an' hurts itself. You know how a
wounded deer can look at a fellow so sorrowful an' hurt. Well, that's
how her brown eyes looked at me when I come round the corner o' the
house up Platte Cañon an' seen her sittin' there starin' at hell."
Kirby shook hands with him in a sudden stress of emotion. "You'll do
to take along, old alkali, you sure enough will."
"Oh, shucks!" retorted Cole, between disgust and embarrassment. "I
always claimed to be a white man, didn't I? You can't give a fellow
credit for doin' the thing he'd rather do than anything else. But prod
a peg in this. I'm gonna make that li'l' girl plumb happy. She thinks
she won't be, that she's lost the right to be. She's 'way off, I can
see her perkin' up already. I got a real honest-to-God laugh outa her
this mo'nin'."
Kirby knew the patience, the steadiness, and the kindliness of his
friend. Esther had fallen into the best of hands. She would find
again the joy of life. He had no doubt of that. Gayety and laughter
were of her heritage.
He said as much to Rose on the way home. She agreed. For the first
time since she left Cheyenne the girl was her old self. Esther's
problem had been solved far more happily than she had dared to hope.
"I'm goin' to have a gay time apologizin' to Jack," said Kirby, his
eyes dancing. "It's not so blamed funny at that, but I can't help
laughin' every time I think of how he must 'a' been grinnin' up his
sleeve at me for my fool mistake. I'll say he brought it on himself,
though. He was feelin' guilty on his brother's account, an' I didn't
get his embarrassment right. James is a pretty cool customer. From
first to last he never turned a hair when the subject was mentioned."
"What about him?" Rose asked.
The cattleman pretended alarm. "Now, don't you," he remonstrated.
"Don't you expect me to manhandle James, too. I'm like Napoleon.
Another victory like the battle of last night would sure put me in the
hospital. I'm a peaceable citizen, a poor, lone cowboy far away from
home. Where I come from it's as quiet as a peace conference. This
wildest-Denver stuff gets my nerve."
She smiled into his battered face. A dimple nestled in her soft, warm
cheek. "I see it does. It's a pity about you. I didn't suppose your
cousin Jack had it in him to spoil your beauty like that."
"Neither did I," he said, answering her smile. "I sure picked on the
wrong man. He's one handy lad with his dibs--put me down twice before
we decided to call it off. I like that young fellow."
"Better not like him too much. You may have to work against him yet."
"True enough," he admitted, falling grave again. "As to James, we'll
ride close herd on him for a while, but we'll ride wide. Looks to me
like he may have to face a jury an' fight for his life right soon."
"Do you think he killed your uncle?"
"I don't want to think so. He's a bad egg, I'm afraid. But my
father's sister was his mother. I'd hate to have to believe it."
"But in your heart you do believe it," she said gently.
He looked at her. "I'm afraid so. But that's a long way from knowing
it."
They parted at her boarding-house.
A man rose to meet Kirby when he stepped into the rotunda of his hotel.
He was a gaunt, broad-shouldered man with ragged eyebrows.
"Well, I came," he said, and his voice was harsh.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Olson. Come up to my room. We can talk there
more freely."
The Scandinavian rancher followed him to the elevator and from there to
his room.
"Why don't they arrest Hull?" he demanded as soon as the door was
closed.
"Not evidence enough."
"Suppose I can give evidence. Say I practically saw Hull do it. Would
they arrest him--or me?"
"They'd arrest him," Kirby answered. "They don't know you're the man
who wrote the threatening letter."
"Hmp!" grunted the rancher suspiciously. "That's what _you_ say, but
you're not the whole works."
Kirby offered a chair and a cigar. He sat down on the bed himself.
"Better spill your story to me, Olson. Two heads are better than one,"
he said carelessly.
The Swede's sullen eyes bored into him. Before that frank and engaging
smile his doubts lost force. "I got to take a chance. Might as well
be with you as any one."
The Wyoming man struck a match, held it for the use of his guest, then
lit his own cigar. For a few moments they smoked in silence. Kirby
leaned back easily against the head of the bed. He did not intend to
frighten the rancher by hurrying him.
"When Cunningham worked that crooked irrigation scheme of his on Dry
Valley, I reckon I was one of them that hollered the loudest. Prob'ly
I talked foolish about what all I was gonna do about it. I wasn't
blowin' off hot air either. If I'd got a good chance at him, or at
Hull either, I would surely have called for a showdown an' gunned him
if I could. But that wasn't what I came to Denver for. I had to
arrange about gettin' my mortgage renewed."
He stopped and took a nervous puff or two at the cigar. Kirby nodded
in a friendly fashion without speaking. He did not want by anything he
might say to divert the man's mind from the track it was following.
"I took a room at the Wyndham because the place had been recommended to
me by a neighbor of mine who knew the landlady. When I went there I
didn't know that either Cunningham or Hull lived next door. That's a
God's truth. I didn't. Well, I saw Hull go in there the very day I
got to town, but the first I knew yore uncle lived there was ten or
maybe fifteen minutes before he was killed. I wouldn't say but what it
was twenty minutes, come to that. I wasn't payin' no attention to
time."
Olson's eyes challenged those of his host. His suspicion was still
smoldering. An unhappy remark, a look of distrust, might still have
dried up the stream of his story. But he found in that steady regard
nothing more damnatory than a keen, boyish interest.
"Maybe you recollect how hot those days were. Well, in my cheap,
stuffy room, openin' on an air-shaft, it was hotter 'n hell with the
lid on. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I went out into the
corridor an' down it to the fire escape outside the window. It was a
lot cooler there. I lit a stogie an' sat on the railin' smokin', maybe
for a quarter of an hour. By-an'-by some one come into the apartment
right acrost the alley from me. I could see the lights come on. It
was a man. I saw him step into what must be the bedroom. He moved
around there some. I couldn't tell what he was doin' because he didn't
switch on the light, but he must 'a' been changin' to his easy coat an'
his slippers. I know that because he came into the room just opposite
the fire escape where I was sittin' on the rail. He threw on the
lights, an' I saw him plain. It was Cunningham, the old crook who had
beat me outa fifteen hundred dollars."
Kirby smoked steadily, evenly. Not a flicker of the eyelids showed the
excitement racing through his blood. At last he was coming close to
the heart of the mystery that surrounded the deaths of his uncle and
his valet.
"I reckon I saw red for a minute," Olson continued. "If I'd been
carryin' a gun I might 'a' used it right there an' then. But I hadn't
one, lucky for me. He sat down in a big easy-chair an' took a paper
from his pocket. It looked like some kind of a legal document. He
read it through, then stuck it in one o' the cubby-holes of his desk.
I forgot to say he was smokin', an' not a stogie like I was, but a big
cigar he'd unwrapped from silver paper after takin' it from a boxful."
"He lighted the cigar after coming into the small room," Kirby said, in
the voice of a question.
"Yes. Didn't I say so? Took it from a box on a stand near the chair.
Well, when he got through with the paper he leaned back an' kinda shut
his eyes like he was thinkin' somethin' over. All of a sudden I saw
him straighten up an' get rigid. Before he could rise from the chair a
woman came into the room an' after her a man.
"The man was Cass Hull."