MOLLY EXPLAINS
Two o’clock found Johnny mounting the stairs to the Eldorado’s
parlor. Molly awaited him, but the boy found her cast down. Her
appearance prompted him to plain speaking.
“Listen, girl,” he said. “There’s somethin’ wrong. Now, tell me what
it is. I felt it this mornin’. It ain’t your way to steal off, and
that’s what you did this trip. You’re worried, and I know it.”
“I am, Johnny,” Molly answered readily. “I’d have told you without
your asking. I did come here hurriedly and without a word to any
one. Maybe I’ve been foolish, but it sounded so genuine that I had
to do as I have. I won’t talk in riddles any longer. Hughie brought
me this letter night before last. It rather upset me, and then, too,
I was curious. I want you to read it.”
Johnny’s face whitened as he obeyed her, for without question it was
a communication from Crosbie Traynor.
The letter ran:
“Miss Molly Kent, Diamond-Bar Ranch:
“Please do not be alarmed by this letter. One who wishes
you well writes it. Although I am a stranger, I have
traveled many hundred miles to see you.
“I am an old man—old beyond my time. Seeing you is one
of the two ambitions I have left me. Let the fact that I
have loved your mother, living and dead, these forty
years, explain my interest in you. It is of her that I
want to talk to you.
“Will you come to Winnemucca on the sixth? I’ll look for
you in the parlor of the Eldorado Hotel at noon.
“For reasons that you will understand then, I hope you
will come alone and that you will not go to the shipping
pens until you have seen me.
“My name would mean nothing to you, so I will sign
myself just
“Your Friend.”
A sigh escaped Johnny as he handed back the letter.
“Well, what do you make of it?” Molly asked earnestly.
The boy could only shake his head. Here was the final proof of the
dead man’s interest in the girl Johnny loved. What lay in back of it
was still a closed book, but certainly Traynor had felt himself
close to her.
His death may have been without connection with his proposed
intention to see Molly, but Johnny just could not believe it.
There was old Kent’s attitude toward Johnny; the whole sorry
business at Standing Rock; the bickering; the stupidity of men who
were solid citizens.
Was it all a play, a staged show to block justice?
The boy tried to close his eyes to the pictures his sorely puzzled
brain conjectured, but in spite of every resolve an inner voice kept
on dinning in his ears: “Jackson Kent killed this man! Hired it
done! Paid for it!”
But why? Molly’s mother? What other reason could a rich man have for
ordering a crime of this sort?
It was not to be supposed that Johnny’s excitement would escape
Molly’s eyes. In comparison she was less nervous than he.
“Are you reading something between the lines?” she demanded. “Your
face is white.”
“Miss Molly, how long have you been waiting?”
“On and off since eleven. But tell me, shouldn’t I have come? Don’t
be mysterious that way, Johnny. You actually frighten me.”
“No harm in coming,” he told her. He was only marking time. Johnny
knew that he would have to tell some part of what had happened to
the man who had written her this letter. “Can you make a guess as to
who wrote that note?” he went on, still playing against the minutes.
“Why, no. I haven’t the slightest memory of my mother. And I do
believe the man was what he claimed to be.”
“He was,” Johnny answered succinctly. “What you intendin’ doin’
now?”
“I thought I’d wait here the rest of the afternoon.”
Now he had to tell her.
“No use doin’ that, little girl. No use at all.”
Johnny’s manner brought the girl to her feet.
“What _are_ you saying?” she asked falteringly.
“He won’t come.” The words left the boy’s lips slowly. “The man
you’re waiting for is dead!”