The master awoke the next morning, albeit after a restless night, with
that clarity of conscience and perception which it is to be feared is
more often the consequence of youth and a perfect circulation than of
any moral conviction or integrity. He argued with himself that as the
only party really aggrieved in the incident of the previous night, the
right of remedy remained with him solely, and under the benign influence
of an early breakfast and the fresh morning air he was inclined to
feel less sternly even towards Seth Davis. In any event, he must first
carefully weigh the evidence against him, and examine the scene of the
outrage closely. For this purpose, he had started for the school-house
fully an hour before his usual time. He was even light-hearted enough to
recognize the humorous aspect of Uncle Ben's appeal to him, and his
own ludicrously paradoxical attitude, and as he at last passed from the
dreary flat into the fringe of upland pines, he was smiling. Well for
him, perhaps, that he was no more affected by any premonition of the
day before him than the lately awakened birds that lightly cut the still
sleeping woods around him in their long flashing sabre-curves of flight.
A yellow-throat, destined to become the breakfast of a lazy hawk still
swinging above the river, was especially moved to such a causeless and
idiotic roulade of mirth that the master listening to the foolish bird
was fain to whistle too. He presently stopped, however, with a slight
embarrassment. For a few paces before him Cressy had unexpectedly
appeared.
She had evidently been watching for him. But not with her usual indolent
confidence. There was a strained look of the muscles of her mouth, as of
some past repression, and a shaded hollow under her temples beneath the
blonde rings of her shorter hair. Her habitually slow, steady eye was
troubled, and she cast a furtive glance around her before she searched
him with her glance. Without knowing why, yet vaguely fearing that
he did, he became still more embarrassed, and in the very egotism of
awkwardness, stammered without a further salutation: “A disgraceful
thing has happened last night, and I'm up early to find the perpetrator.
My desk was broken into, and”--
“I know it,” she interrupted, with a half-impatient, half uneasy putting
away of the subject with her little hand--“there--don't go all over it
again. Paw and Maw have been at me about it all night--ever since those
Harrisons in their anxiousness to make up their quarrel, rushed over
with the news. I'm tired of it!”
For an instant he was staggered. How much had she learned! With the
same awkward indirectness, he said vaguely, “But it might have been YOUR
letters, you know?”
“But it wasn't,” she said, simply. “It OUGHT to have been. I wish it
had”--She stopped, and again regarded him with a strange expression.
“Well,” she said slowly, “what are you going to do?”
“To find out the scoundrel who has done this,” he said firmly, “and
punish him as he deserves.”
The almost imperceptible shrug that had raised her shoulders gave way as
she regarded him with a look of wearied compassion.
“No,” she said, gravely, “you cannot. They're too many for you. You must
go away, at once.”
“Never,” he said indignantly. “Even if it were not a cowardice. It would
be more--a confession!”
“Not more than they already know,” she said wearily. “But, I tell you,
you MUST go. I have sneaked out of the house and run here all the way to
warn you. If you--you care for me, Jack--you will go.”
“I should be a traitor to you if I did,” he said quickly. “I shall
stay.”
“But if--if--Jack--if”--she drew nearer him with a new-found
timidity, and then suddenly placed her two hands upon his shoulders:
“If--if--Jack--I were to go with you?”
The old rapt, eager look of possession had come back to her face now;
her lips were softly parted. Yet even then she seemed to be waiting some
reply more potent than that syllabled on the lips of the man before her.
Howbeit that was the only response. “Darling,” he said kissing her, “but
wouldn't that justify them”--
“Stop,” she said suddenly. Then putting her hand over his mouth, she
continued with the same half-weary expression: “Don't let us go over all
that again either. It is SO tiresome. Listen, dear. You'll do one or
two little things for me--won't you, dandy boy? Don't linger long at the
school-house after lessons. Go right home! Don't look after these men
TO-DAY--to-morrow, Saturday, is your holiday--you know--and you'll have
more time. Keep to yourself to-day as much as you can, dear, for twelve
hours--until--until--you hear from me, you know. It will be all right
then,” she added, lifting her eyelids with a sudden odd resemblance to
her father's look of drowsy pain, which Ford had never noticed before.
“Promise me that, dear, won't you?”
With a mental reservation he promised hurriedly--preoccupied in his
wonder why she seemed to avoid his explanation, in his desire to know
what had happened, in the pride that had kept him from asking more or
volunteering a defence, and in his still haunting sense of having been
wronged. Yet he could not help saying as he caught and held her hand:--
“YOU have not doubted me, Cressy? YOU have not allowed this infamous
raking up of things that are past and gone to alter your feelings?”
She looked at him abstractedly. “You think it might alter ANYBODY'S
feelings, then?”
“Nobody's who really loved another”--he stammered.
“Don't let us talk of it any more,” she said suddenly stretching out
her arms, lifting them above her head with a wearied gesture, and then
letting them fall clasped before her in her old habitual fashion. “It
makes my head ache; what with Paw and Maw and the rest of them--I'm sick
of it all.”
She turned away as Ford drew back coldly and let her hand fall from
his arm. She took a few steps forward, stopped, ran back to him again,
crushed his face and head in a close embrace, and then seemed to dip
like a bird into the tall bracken, and was gone.
The master stood for some moments chagrined and bewildered; it was
characteristic of his temperament that he had paid less heed to what
she told him than what he IMAGINED had passed between her mother and
herself. She was naturally jealous of the letters--he could forgive her
for that; she had doubtless been twitted about them, but he could easily
explain them to her parents--as he would have done to her. But he was
not such a fool as to elope with her at such a moment, without first
clearing his character--and knowing more of hers. And it was equally
characteristic of him that in his sense of injury he confounded her with
the writer of the letters--as sympathizing with his correspondent in her
estimate of his character, and was quite carried away with the belief
that he was equally wronged by both.
It was not until he reached the schoolhouse that the evidences of
last night's outrage for a time distracted his mind from his singular
interview. He was struck with the workmanlike manner in which the locks
had been restored, and the care that had evidently been taken to remove
the more obvious and brutal traces of burglary. This somewhat staggered
his theory that Seth Davis was the perpetrator; mechanical skill and
thoughtfulness were not among the lout's characteristics. But he was
still more disconcerted on pushing back his chair to find a small
india-rubber tobacco pouch lying beneath it. The master instantly
recognized it: he had seen it a hundred times before--it was Uncle
Ben's. It was not there when he had closed the room yesterday afternoon.
Either Uncle Ben had been there last night, or had anticipated him this
morning. But in the latter case he would scarcely have overlooked his
fallen property--that, in the darkness of the night, might have readily
escaped detection. His brow darkened with a sudden conviction that
it was Uncle Ben who was the real and only offender, and that his
simplicity of the previous night was part of his deception. A sickening
sense that he had been again duped--but why or to what purpose he hardly
dared to think--overcame him. Who among these strange people could he
ever again trust? After the fashion of more elevated individuals, he had
accepted the respect and kindness of those he believed his inferiors as
a natural tribute to his own superiority; any change in THEIR feelings
must therefore be hypocrisy or disloyalty; it never occurred to him that
HE might have fallen below their standard.
The arrival of the children and the resumption of his duties for a time
diverted him. But although the morning's exercise restored the master's
self-confidence, it cannot be said to have improved his judgment.
Disdaining to question Rupert Filgee, as the possible confidant of Uncle
Ben, he answered the curious inquiries of the children as to the broken
doorlock with the remark that it was a matter that he should have to
bring before the Trustees of the Board, and by the time that school was
over and the pupils dismissed he had quite resolved upon this formal
disposition of it. In spite of Cressy's warning--rather because of
it--in the new attitude he had taken towards her and her friends, he
lingered in the school-house until late. He had occupied himself
in drawing up a statement of the facts, with an intimation that his
continuance in the school would depend upon a rigid investigation of the
circumstances, when he was aroused by the clatter of horses' hoofs. The
next moment the school-house was surrounded by a dozen men.
He looked up; half of them dismounted and entered the room. The other
half remained outside darkening the windows with their motionless
figures. Each man carried a gun before him on the saddle; each man wore
a rude mask of black cloth partly covering his face.
Although the master was instinctively aware that he was threatened by
serious danger, he was far from being impressed by the arms and disguise
of his mysterious intruders. On the contrary, the obvious and glaring
inconsistency of this cheaply theatrical invasion of the peaceful
school-house; of this opposition of menacing figures to the scattered
childish primers and text-books that still lay on the desks around him,
only extracted from him a half scornful smile as he coolly regarded
them. The fearlessness of ignorance is often as unassailable as the
most experienced valor, and the awe-inspiring invaders were at first
embarrassed and then humanly angry. A lank figure to the right made a
forward movement of impotent rage, but was checked by the evident leader
of the party.
“Ef he likes to take it that way, there ain't no Regulators law agin it,
I reckon,” he said, in a voice which the master instantly recognized as
Jim Harrison's, “though ez a gin'ral thing they don't usually find it
FUN.” Then turning to the master he added, “Mister Ford, ef that's the
name you go by everywhere, we're wantin' a man about your size.”
Ford knew that he was in hopeless peril. He knew that he was physically
defenceless and at the mercy of twelve armed and lawless men. But he
retained a preternatural clearness of perception, and audacity born
of unqualified scorn for his antagonists, with a feminine sharpness of
tongue. In a voice which astonished even himself by its contemptuous
distinctness, he said: “My name IS Ford, but as I only SUPPOSE your name
is Harrison perhaps you'll be fair enough to take that rag from your
face and show it to me like a man.”
The man removed the mask from his face with a slight laugh.
“Thank you,” said Ford. “Now, perhaps you will tell me which one of you
gentlemen broke into the school-house, forced the lock of my desk,
and stole my papers. If he is here I wish to tell him he is not only a
thief, but a cur and a coward, for the letters are a woman's--whom he
neither knows nor has the right to know.”
If he had hoped to force a personal quarrel and trust his life to the
chance of a single antagonist, he was disappointed, for although his
unexpected attitude had produced some effect among the group, and even
attracted the attention of the men at the windows, Harrison strode
deliberately towards him.
“That kin wait,” he said; “jest now we propose to take you and your
letters and drop 'em and you outer this yer township of Injin Springs.
You kin take 'em back to the woman or critter you got 'em of. But we
kalkilate you're a little too handy and free in them sorter things to
teach school round yer, and we kinder allow we don't keer to hev our
gals and boys eddicated up to your high-toned standard. So ef you choose
to kem along easy we'll mak' you comf'ble on a hoss we've got waitin'
outside, an' escort you across the line. Ef you don't--we'll take you
anyway.”
The master cast a rapid glance around him. In his quickness of
perception he had already noted that the led horse among the cavalcade
was fastened by a lariat to one of the riders so that escape by flight
was impossible, and that he had not a single weapon to defend himself
with or even provoke, in his desperation, the struggle that could
forestall ignominy by death. Nothing was left him but his voice, clear
and trenchant as he faced them.
“You are twelve to one,” he said calmly, “but if there is a single man
among you who dare step forward and accuse me of what you only TOGETHER
dare do, I will tell him he is a liar and a coward, and stand here ready
to make it good against him. You come here as judge and jury condemning
me without trial, and confronting me with no accusers; you come here as
lawless avengers of your honor, and you dare not give ME the privilege
of as lawlessly defending my own.”
There was another slight murmur among the men, but the leader moved
impatiently forward. “We've had enough o' your preachin': we want YOU,”
he said roughly. “Come.”
“Stop,” said a dull voice.
It came from a mute figure which had remained motionless among the
others. Every eye was turned upon it as it rose and lazily pushed the
cloth from its face.
“Hiram McKinstry!” said the others in mingled tones of astonishment and
suspicion.
“That's me!” said McKinstry, coming forward with heavy deliberation. “I
joined this yer delegation at the crossroads instead o' my brother, who
had the call. I reckon et's all the same--or mebbe better. For I perpose
to take this yer gentleman off your hands.”
He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first time to the master, and at
the same time put himself between him and Harrison. “I perpose,” he
continued, “to take him at his word; I perpose ter give him a chance to
answer with a gun. And ez I reckon, by all accounts, there's no man
yer ez hez a better right than ME, I perpose to be the man to put
that question to him in the same way. Et may not suit some gents,”
he continued slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the lank figure
behind him, “ez would prefer to hev eleven men to take up THEIR private
quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man who is the most injured hez
the right to the first say and that man's ME.”
With a careful deliberation that had a double significance to the
malcontents, he handed his own rifle to the master and without looking
at him continued: “I reckon, sir, you've seen that afore, but ef it
ain't quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kalkilate, will be
high-toned enuff to giv you the chyce o' theirs. And there's no need o'
trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this yer affair; I perpose to
do it in ten minutes in the brush yonder.”
Whatever might have been the feelings and intentions of the men around
him, the precedence of McKinstry's right to the duello was a principle
too deeply rooted in their traditions to deny; if any resistance to it
had been contemplated by some of them, the fact that the master was now
armed, and that Mr. McKinstry would quickly do battle at his side with a
revolver in defence of his rights, checked any expression. They
silently drew back as the master and McKinstry slowly passed out of the
school-house together, and then followed in their rear. In that interval
the master turned to McKinstry and said in a low voice: “I accept
your challenge and thank you for it. You have never done me a greater
kindness--whatever I have done to YOU--yet I want you to believe that
neither now nor THEN--I meant you any harm.”
“Ef you mean by that, sir, that ye reckon ye won't return my fire, ye're
blind and wrong. For it will do you no good with them,” he said with a
significant wave of his crippled hand towards the following crowd, “nor
me neither.”
Firmly resolved, however, that he would not fire at McKinstry, and
clinging blindly to this which he believed was the last idea of his
foolish life, he continued on without another word until they reached
the open strip of chemisal that flanked the clearing.
The rude preliminaries were soon settled. The parties armed with rifles
were to fire at the word from a distance of eighty yards, and then
approach each other, continuing the fight with revolvers until one
or the other fell. The selection of seconds was effected by the elder
Harrison acting for McKinstry, and after a moment's delay by the
volunteering of the long, lank figure previously noted to act for the
master. Preoccupied by other thoughts, Mr. Ford paid little heed to his
self-elected supporter, who to the others seemed to be only taking that
method of showing his contempt for McKinstry's recent insult. The master
received the rifle mechanically from his hand and walked to position.
He noticed, however, and remembered afterwards that his second was half
hidden by the trunk of a large pine to his right that marked the limit
of the ground.
In that supreme moment it must be recorded, albeit against all
preconceived theory, that he did NOT review his past life, was NOT
illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sentimental memory, and did NOT
commend his soul to his Maker, but that he was simply and keenly alive
to the very actual present in which he still existed and to his one idea
of not firing at his adversary. And if anything could render his conduct
more theoretically incorrect it was a certain exalted sense that he was
doing quite right and was not only NOT a bad sort of fellow, but one
whom his survivors might possibly regret!
“Are you ready, gentlemen? One--two--three--fi . . . !”
The explosions were singularly simultaneous--so remarkable in fact that
it seemed to the master that his rifle, fired in the air, had given a
DOUBLE report. A light wreath of smoke lay between him and his opponent.
He was unhurt--so evidently was his adversary, for the voice rose again.
“Advance! . . . Hallo there! Stop!”
He looked up quickly to see McKinstry stagger and then fall heavily to
the ground.
With an exclamation of horror, the first and only terrible emotion he
had felt, he ran to the fallen man, as Harrison reached his side at the
same moment.
“For God's sake,” he said wildly, throwing himself on his knees beside
McKinstry, “what has happened? For I swear to you, I never aimed at you!
I fired in the air. Speak! Tell him, you,” he turned with a despairing
appeal to Harrison, “you must have seen it all--tell him it was not me!”
A half wondering, half incredulous smile passed quickly over Harrison's
face. “In course you didn't MEAN it,” he said dryly, “but let
that slide. Get up and get away from yer, while you kin,” he added
impatiently, with a significant glance at one or two men who lingered
after the sudden and general dispersion of the crowd at McKinstry's
fall. “Get--will ye!”
“Never!” said the young man passionately, “until he knows that it was
not my hand that fired that shot.”
McKinstry painfully struggled to his elbow. “It took me yere,” he said
with a slow deliberation, as if answering some previous question, and
pointing to his hip, “and it kinder let me down when I started forward
at the second call.”
“But it was not I who did it, McKinstry, I swear it. Hear me! For God's
sake, say you believe me.”
McKinstry turned his drowsy troubled eyes upon the master as if he were
vaguely recalling something. “Stand back thar a minit, will ye,” he said
to Harrison, with a languid wave of his crippled hand; “I want ter speak
to this yer man.”
Harrison drew back a few paces and the master sought to take the wounded
man's hand, but he was stopped by a gesture. “Where hev you put Cressy?”
McKinstry said slowly.
“I don't understand you,” stammered Ford.
“Where are you hidin' her from me?” repeated McKinstry with painful
distinctness. “Whar hev you run her to, that you're reckonin' to jine
her arter--arter--THIS?”
“I am not hiding her! I am not going to her! I do not know where she is.
I have not seen her since we parted early this morning without a word
of meeting again,” said the master rapidly, yet with a bewildered
astonishment that was obvious even to the dulled faculties of his
hearer.
“That war true?” asked McKinstry, laying his hand upon the master's
shoulder and bringing his dull eyes to the level of the young man's.
“It is the whole truth,” said Ford fervently, “and true also that I
never raised my hand against you.”
McKinstry beckoned to Harrison and the two others who had joined him,
and then sank partly back with his hand upon his side, where the slow
empurpling of his red shirt showed the slight ooze of a deeply-seated
wound.
“You fellers kin take me over to the ranch,” he said calmly, “and let
him,” pointing to Ford, “ride your best hoss fer the doctor. I don't,”
he continued in grave explanation, “gin'rally use a doctor, but this yer
is suthin' outside the old woman's regular gait.” He paused, and then
drawing the master's head down towards him, he added in his ear, “When
I get to hev a look at the size and shape o' this yer ball that's in
my hip, I'll--I'll--I'll--be--a--little more kam!” A gleam of dull
significance struggled into his eye. The master evidently understood
him, for he rose quickly, ran to the horse, mounted him and dashed
off for medical assistance, while McKinstry, closing his heavy lids,
anticipated this looked-for calm by fainting gently away.