The sheriff came to dinner rather shamefacedly, but Calvin, being
profoundly pleased, was on his very best behavior. "This being deputy
suits me to the ground," said he to Wilson, as he rose in answer to the
call to dinner.
As they were crossing the road he said, confidentially: "Now see here,
you mustn't talk politics round the ladies over there, sheriff."
"Politics?"
"You know what I mean. You keep to the weather and the crops, and let
this murder case alone for a minute or two, or I'll bat you one for
luck."
Winters took this threat as a sign of their good understanding, and
remarked, jocosely, "You damned young cub, I'd break you in two for a
leather cent."
"That's all right, but what I say goes," replied Calvin. And remembering
old Joe Streeter's political pull, the sheriff did not reply.
Jennie kept the talk pleasantly inconsequential during dinner by a
cheery tale of the doings of a certain Chinaman she had once tried to
train into a cook, and Calvin, laughing heartily, matched her experience
with that of his mother while keeping house in Pinon City one winter.
This left Elsie to a little conversation with Curtis.
"You must let me see this council to-night," she said, and her request
had the note of a command.
"I know how you feel," he said, "and I wish I could do so; but I can't
make an exception in your favor without offending the Parkers."
"Are you not the general?" she asked, smilingly. "If you see fit to
invite me and leave them out, they can only complain. I'm going to stay
here with Jennie, anyhow."
"In that case we can manage it."
"Do you know what I think? You've instigated this whole affair to
convert me to your point of view. Really, the whole thing is like a
play. I'm not a bit frightened--at least, not yet. It's precisely like
sitting in a private box and seeing the wolves tear holes in Davy
Crockett's cabin. You are the manager of the show."
"Well, why not? When the princess tours the provinces it is customary to
present historical pageants in her honor. This drama is your due." And
as he spoke he observed for the first time the absence of the ring from
her significant finger. The shock threw him into a moment's swift
surmise, and when he looked up at her she was flushed and uneasy. She
recovered herself first, and though her hand remained on the table it
had the tremulous action of a frightened small animal--observed yet
daring not to seek cover.
"I hope this council to-night will not fail. I am eager to see what you
will do with them," she hastened to say.
"They will come!" he replied.
Calvin was relating a story of a mountain-lion he had once treed for an
Eastern artist to photograph.
"Just then the dern brute jumped right plum onto the feller and knocked
him down, machine and all; for a minute or two it was just a mixture o'
man and lion, then that feller come up top, and the next thing I seen he
batted the lion with his box, and that kind o' stunted the brute, and he
hit him again and glass began to fly; he was game all right, that feller
was. When the lion stiffened out, he turned to where I was a-rollin' on
the pine-needles, and says, quiet-like, 'Give me your revolver, please.'
I give it to him, and he put it to the lion's ear and finished him. When
he got up and looked at his machine he says, 'How much is a
mountain-lion skin worth?' ''Bout four dollars, green,' I says. He
looked at the inwards of his box, which was scattered all over the
ground. Says he, 'You wouldn't call that profitable, would you--a
seventy-dollar instrument in exchange for a four-dollar pelt?'"
Everybody laughed at this story, and the dinner came to an end with the
sheriff in excellent temper. Lawson offered cigars, and tolled him
across the road to the office, leaving Curtis alone in his library.
He resolutely set to work to present the situation of the sheriff's
presence concisely to the department in a telegram, and was still at
work upon this when Jennie entered the room, closed the curtains, and
lit the lamp.
Elsie came in a little later to say, sympathetically:
"Are you tired, Captain Curtis?"
He pushed his writing away.
"Yes, a little. The worst of it is, I keep saying: _If so and so
happens, then I must do thus and thus_, and that is the hardest work in
the world. I can deal with actual, well-defined conditions--even riots
and mobs--but fighting suppositions is like grappling with ghosts."
"I know what you mean," she replied, quickly. "But I want to ask
you--could father be of any help if I telegraphed him to come?"
He sat up very straight as she spoke, but did not reply till he turned
her suggestion over in his mind. "No--at least, not now. What troubles
me is this: the local papers will be filled with scare-heads to-morrow
morning; your father will see them, and will be alarmed about you."
"I will wire him that I am all right."
"You must do that. I consider you are perfectly safe, but at the same
time your father will think you ought not to be here, and blame me for
allowing you to come in; and, worst of all, he will wire you to come
out."
"Suppose I refuse to go, would that be the best of all?" Her face was
distinctly arch of line.
His heart responded to her lure, but his words were measured as he
answered: "Sometimes the responsibility seems too great; perhaps you
would better go. It will be hard to convince him that you are not in
danger."