HILLYER'S DILEMMA
Hillyer's loyal heart was near to bursting with joy. In all the days
of his eager courtship Marion had never seemed so close to him, so
fairly within his grasp, as now. She had welcomed him with totally
unexpected warmth, considering the many times she had rejected him,
and considering, too, the letter he had received from her on her
departure. Absence, he thought, had advanced his cause for him. A
dozen times he was on the point of boldly violating the six months'
embargo she had placed upon his pleadings; but as often as the fervent
words rose to his lips fear froze them there, and he was silent.
As for Marion, she was for the moment absorbed in a little plan that
was not for Robert's knowledge. She was intent upon meeting Philip in
Robert's company; she wanted to bow to him, and smile, and let him see
that there was one man at least who prized her, if he did not. But the
imp of perversity seemed to have come to abide permanently in the
Park. Though Marion, in the first two days of Robert's visit, guided
him, in the big automobile, everywhere except beyond the Ridge and to
the glade of the columbines, she had never a glimpse of Philip. All
this maddened her; and if Robert had but spoken, there were times
when--But Robert did not speak.
Near noon of the third day they met Smythe in the main valley road a
mile or so below the post-office. At sight of him bobbing along toward
them, almost lost between his horse and his sombrero, Marion's first
impulse was to speed past him without stopping. She was not sure she
could trust his discretion; for she had told Robert nothing about
Philip Haig. But she did not wish to offend the faithful Smythe; and
so, on second thought, she hurriedly acquainted Robert with the
identity of the approaching figure, and warned him to control his
inevitable mirth.
"He is funny," she said, laughing in spite of herself, "but he can't
help that. He's been very good to me, in his way."
In the meantime Smythe's horse was deciding the matter on his own
account. This was the first automobile the pony had ever seen, and he
made up his mind promptly that he did not like it. He reared and
bucked, bolting first to one side and the other of the road, and
refused to consider Smythe's well-worded assurance that wise horses
were really fond of automobiles, which were taking a great deal of
work off their shoulders.
Hillyer stopped the machine, and cut off the power. But the pony's
suspicions had been thoroughly aroused, and the sudden silence seemed
to him more portentous than even the noise of the motor. Smythe
thereupon had his work cut out for him, but he would not compromise
either by dismounting, or by turning and riding away. Slowly and
patiently he urged the frightened pony toward the automobile until,
after many setbacks and panics, he had brought him near enough for
conversation.
"There now, Peanuts!" he said to the prancing animal. "You see you
were quite mistaken." Then, to Hillyer and Marion: "He's a little like
myself. He doesn't really believe in ghosts, but he's dreadfully
afraid of them."
"I didn't know you were such an accomplished horseman," said Marion.
"Didn't you? Well, you see--"
At that instant the pony suffered a fresh access of alarm. He bounded
suddenly sideways, and at the same time ducked as if he purposed to
stand on his head, though what good that would have done only he knew.
The movement threw Smythe over the pony's head, and flat on his back
in the dust; and in a twinkling Peanuts was dashing up the road, with
his tail in the air, and the stirrups flapping at his sides.
For some seconds Smythe lay half-stunned; but before Marion and
Hillyer, leaping from the automobile, were able to reach him, he sat
up, and began to straighten out his crushed sombrero, eyeing it
critically. He was covered with dust, and one end of his white collar,
torn from the button, stuck out above his coat. But his aplomb was
perfect.
"As I was saying, when interrupted," he began, continuing to minister
to the sombrero, "you see I am an accomplished horseman."
Marion and Hillyer broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Then Hillyer
hastened to assist Smythe to rise.
"Not hurt, I hope?" said Robert.
"Objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. Sartorially, a wreck."
They laughed now without restraint, which seemed to please Smythe
immensely. He proceeded to tuck the end of the torn collar back into
its place, where it refused to stay; to brush his clothes; to adjust
the abused sombrero in exactly the long-studied angle on his head.
"I hope you'll forgive us for laughing," said Marion, "but--"
"Say no more about it, please!" protested Smythe. "I'd rather make you
laugh than weep--assuming that anybody would weep for me."
"Oh, I'd have felt very badly if you'd been hurt," Marion assured him.
"And you might have been, too."
"No, a cropper like that's nothing. Peanuts isn't--" He paused just a
second to look into Marion's eyes with an expression that arrested her
attention sharply. "Peanuts isn't Sunnysides."
"Sunnysides?" she cried out unguardedly.
Smythe's eyes warned her, as he waited to give her time for
self-control. He did not know how far Hillyer was in her confidence.
"Is there news--about--Sunnysides?" she faltered, struggling
desperately with herself.
"Yes," he answered. Then he continued slowly, in as light a manner as
possible, the while he held her with a concentrated gaze: "I'd been
down the valley as far as the mouth of the canyon. Coming back, about
two miles below where Haig's road joins this, I saw the sorrels in a
cloud of dust. 'Hello!' I said. 'Something's up, or the sorrels
wouldn't be driven like that.' In a minute or two I made out Bill
Craven, one of Haig's men, leaning forward in the seat of a road
wagon, and laying on the whip. 'If Haig saw that!' I thought. And so
I--"
"Go on, please!" said Marion shrilly.
But Smythe was purposely deliberate; for he saw Hillyer looking at her
curiously.
"I wasn't going to let anybody abuse his horses if I could prevent it.
Besides, how did I know but Craven was stealing the sorrels? I threw
my pony straight across the road. Craven reined the sorrels up on
their hind legs, almost on top of me.
"'What in hell?' he yelled.
"'That's what I want to know,' I answered.
"'Can't you see I'm in a hurry, damn you?' he shouted angrily.
"'That's exactly what I do see,' I replied. 'But Haig never whips
those horses.'
"'That's none of your business, and Haig ain't carin' much now,' he
fired back at me. 'Get out o' my way, or I'll--'
"'Now just keep cool!' I told him. 'What's the trouble?'
"Craven snorted, but he told me, as the quickest way out of it. Haig
had been hurt--trying to ride Sunnysides. He's--"
"Hurt? How?" asked Marion; and Smythe was relieved to detect a new
steadiness in her voice. She had passed the danger point.
"The horse went over backwards, pinning him to the ground, with the
saddle horn in his stomach. Craven's gone for the doctor."
She gave him one long, searching look, as if to pluck out anything he
might have been hiding from her. Then she turned swiftly toward the
automobile.
"Come, Robert! Quick!" she commanded.
She climbed quickly into the machine, followed by Hillyer, who was
puzzled and alarmed by what he had seen in Marion's face.
"You too, Mr. Smythe. Hurry!" cried Marion.
"But my horse?" objected Smythe.
"He'll run home," answered Marion impatiently. "Come! We may need
you."
Smythe obeyed, and jumped into the tonneau, while Robert cranked up
and threw in the clutch.
"Fast!" cried Marion.
Hillyer glanced at her. She was very white; her lips were pressed
together, her eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The machine lurched
under them.
"Faster!" urged Marion, in another minute.
The machine, with a kind of shudder, responded to Hillyer's hand, and
shot out with fresh speed.
Another brief silence.
"The cut-out!" she ordered.
Hillyer bent to the mechanism, and the engine, with the muffler off,
roared and shrieked as it took the smooth white road, with every bar
and rivet throbbing under the pressure. Only then did Marion turn, and
motion to Smythe. He leaned forward, clinging to the back of her
seat.
"The doctor?" she shouted in his ear.
"Craven had started for Tellurium," he yelled back. "Said he'd kill
the sorrels. I told him there was a doctor at Lake Cobalt--Doctor
Norris of Omaha--just arrived, with his family. 'You're not such a
fool after all,' said Craven. (I'll talk with him about that later.)
'Thanks!' I said, and pulled my horse out of the way. 'That saves two
days.' He gave the horses the whip again, and I started for
Huntington's to tell you--Watch out! There's the turn!" he shouted in
Hillyer's ear.
The wheels tore up the sand as the machine, with the power off but
still going at more than half-speed under its momentum, skidded and
scraped around the turn into Haig's road.
"Now!" cried Marion.
Again the automobile shivered, and plunged, and went clamoring like a
mad thing up the little valley, the hills echoing back its roar. The
white road leaped up at them, gulping them in. A red steer, astray
from some pasture, crossed the road far ahead of them, and Marion
closed her eyes as the machine, with a sickening swerve, missed it by
inches. The next instant she was pointing to the group of buildings
squatting under the hill; and then she was out of the automobile, and
running to Farrish at the door of the barn. His face confirmed her
worst fears.
"Where is he?" she asked, with a swift look around.
He pointed toward the larger of the two cottages. With Hillyer and
Smythe silently following, she ran to the cottage, and through the
open door. There she found herself in a bare, uncarpeted room,
furnished only with two chairs and a table. On the table lay a faded
and battered gray hat. For an instant her gaze rested on it, and a
lump rose in her throat. But she resolutely turned away, tightening
her lips.
There were two inner doors, one of which, ajar, revealed a glimpse of
brightly polished pans hanging on the wall. The other door was closed.
After an instant of hesitation, she walked straight toward it.
"Marion!" called Hillyer warningly.
She did not heed him, but turned the knob, softly opened the door, and
with Robert and Smythe at her heels, stepped into a dimly lighted room
where the aroma of a pine log blazing in the fireplace mingled with
the pungent odor of ammonia. Smythe was quick to observe, over
Marion's shoulder, that the room was a sort of library and bedroom
combined, carpeted in dark red, the walls papered in red also, and the
windows curtained with heavy tapestry silk of the same rich hue. There
were low bookcases on two sides of the room, with pictures above them;
several marble statuettes on the bookcases; and a little jade Buddha
beside a two-foot bronze god of terrifying aspect on the mantelpiece.
In the middle of the apartment stood a solid library table, of which
the cover was a curious strip of faded yellow silk embroidered with a
dragon in green, a fragment of an old Chinese banner.
At the left of the door, its head against the wall, was a brass bed in
which a figure moved restlessly under the covers. Near the head of the
bed, on the side nearest the door, stood the Indian, his stolid,
bronzed face turned toward Marion as she entered. On the other side,
holding one of Haig's hands, knelt Slim Jim in his blue silks, his
yellowish face as expressionless as Pete's, except for an alert and
questioning look in his eyes. There was no sound except the low
crackling of the fire, and the rasp of heavy breathing, with sharp
catches in it that spoke eloquently of pain.
Marion stepped to Pete's side, and looked down into the face of Philip
Haig. In the dim light it had the pallor of death, with the parted
lips and the staring eyes of the dead, or the dying. But he breathed;
and presently her steady, searching, pitying gaze brought his eyes to
meet her own, and she saw that they were living eyes, though clouded
and darkened with agony. Almost was she on her knees, weeping over
him, regardless of those in the doorway watching her. And it was not
their presence so much as the necessity for action that restrained and
steadied her. She did not even speak his name; but after her one long
look, she turned away, and with every outward sign of calm, removed
her gloves and hat and coat, and placed them on a chair in a corner of
the room. Then she beckoned to Pete, who followed her, with Smythe and
Hillyer, into the bare outer room.
"Close the door, please!" she commanded quietly.
Smythe closed it.
"Where is he hurt?" she asked the Indian.
"Here." He laid a hand on his stomach.
"Was he unconscious?"
"Yes. Long time."
"How long has he been like that--awake?"
"Maybe two hours."
"What have you done? What have you given him?"
"Whisky."
"Nothing else?"
"Water. Ammonia on face and breast."
"Was there blood?"
"Yes. From mouth."
She had another struggle then, and the tears started in spite of all
that she could do. But she conquered them.
"Much blood?"
"No. Little, only at first."
"Thank you, Pete." Then, turning to Hillyer: "I want you, Robert,
please, to drive home, and tell Mrs. Huntington to make up a bundle of
the things I shall need. Wait! A pencil and a bit of paper, please."
For a moment he did not move to comply.
"What are you going to do, Marion?" he asked, his voice shaking
slightly with the effort of speaking calmly.
"I'm going to nurse him," she replied, meeting his look without
flinching.
"But, Marion! I don't--"
"Pencil and paper, Robert!" she said firmly.
He tore a leaf from a notebook, and gave it to her with his pencil.
"Thank you," she said; and seated herself at the table to write.
But there was the dilapidated hat again--so stained and soiled, a
crumpled, tragic, intimate thing--arresting her. How it had filled her
dreams! How she had laughed at it, fondly, tenderly, as a mother
smiles at the battered school hat of her boy! Once, she had fancied it
hanging on the pink wall in her room, a trophy, with a ribbon tied
around its sweated band. And now she wanted to grab it up, and hug it
to her breast. But she only lifted it gently, and placed it a little
farther away, on the other side of the table. Then she made her
notes.
"There, Robert!" she said, rising, and handing the list to him.
"Claire will know where to find them."
He took the paper mechanically, his eyes fixed on Marion.
"Will you come down, to the car for a moment?" he asked.
She saw the look, and softened under it. But she could not answer his
questions then.
"No," she said. "Later, if you wish it."
For a moment he hesitated. But he could say no more in the presence of
Smythe and Pete, though they were talking together at the other side
of the room. So he moved slowly away, but was suddenly stopped by a
cry from Marion.
"Oh! Oh!" she exclaimed. "Why didn't somebody--why didn't I think of
it before? The car? Run, Robert! Drive down the road toward the lake.
You'll overtake the sorrels--or meet them. Bring the doctor in the
car. Fast, please!"
Hillyer, without another word, ran and leaped into the automobile, and
was soon bringing the echoes out of the hills again. He sank low in
the seat, and fixed his eyes on the road that stretched out blinding
white in the sunlight.