The morning following the exciting experiences of the raiders' attack
and repulse at the New Pike gate, soon after the clearing away of the
breakfast dishes, Sally, on the alert, caught sight of Squire Bixler's
buggy coming over the hill, the loose side-curtains idly flapping to and
fro in the fresh morning breeze like the wings of some bird of ill-omen.
Indeed, she felt, on seeing the vehicle, that its very appearance
presaged evil, if not to her, at least to one very dear to her.
Usually she let her mother open the gate to the Squire if his coming was
noticed in time for an avoidance, but this morning she made it
convenient to be out on the platform, sweeping away industriously, when
he drove up.
"Good morning, Miss Sally! I suppose you are quite glad to find yourself
alive, and with the toll-house roof still over you."
"Yes," she answered promptly, "glad and grateful, too!"
"What brings you out so early this morning?" she asked, smiling
pleasantly on the Squire as she raised the gate which had so fortunately
escaped the raider's axe the night previous.
"Business," answered he with emphasis, "important business. Before the
day is over, I hope to have a warrant served on the owner of that hat
which was picked up last night. If I can get only one of the rascals
caught and safely jailed, it will not be such a difficult matter to
ferret out the rest of the gang."
"Have you discovered anything more?" asked Sally, trying to disguise the
anxiety in her tones as she made the inquiry.
"Nothing definite, although there's one man among the guards who thinks
he can identify the hat. I'm taking it to town now to show to the
merchant that probably sold it."
The girl's heart sank within her at the words. It would be little short
of a miracle if the tell-tale names were not found and the hat's
ownership revealed.
While the Squire was speaking, Mrs. Brown came out on the platform.
"Let me see that hat," she said. "It's likely I may know the wearer
myself. I was so busy last night attendin' to George Scott's arm that I
didn't do more than glance at the hat."
The squire handed out a package done up in a piece of newspaper, which
Mrs. Brown opened, and taking the hat held it up at arm's length,
perched on her outspread fingers, viewing it critically, her head
slightly askew.
"I've seen that hat before," she said thoughtfully; "now who was
a-wearin' it?"
"There's likely a hundred such hats in the county," interposed Sally
quickly. "I've seen a dozen or more myself."
"No, you don't see so many of these light gray felts," avowed her
mother, bringing the hat nearer. "Mebbe it's got a cost mark, or the
maker's name; that would tell a body more concernin' it."
She turned the hat upside down and looked carefully at the lining.
"Let me take it into the house and brush some of the dust off it,"
interposed Sally hastily, fearing every moment that the hidden names
would be revealed, under her mother's inquisitive scrutiny.
"No! no! let it be, just as it is," said the Squire, perchance put on
the alert by Sally's manner, and suspicious of her ill-concealed desire
to get the hat in her possession.
"Look here! what's this on the underside of the lining of this band?"
asked Mrs. Brown, as she ran her fingers around the inside of the crown,
and pulled down the lining. "It looks like writing, only it's red," she
added, squinting her eyes after the manner of one whose vision has begun
to fail.
At that moment Sally felt as though she fairly hated her mother's prying
nature.
"What is it, Sally?" asked her mother; "your eyes are younger than
mine."
The girl, after a careless glance, but with a sickening sense of fear
taking possession of her as she recognized the arrow-pierced heart and
the two names written underneath, answered in as calm and collected
voice as she could command, "It looks like streaks of blood."
She partly averted her face as she spoke, for she felt that her mother
or the Squire would read in her very eyes the secret she was striving to
hide. There was no longer a doubt of the hat's ownership. It was
Milton's Derr's beyond all questioning, and the discovery of his name
and hers written therein was now but a matter of brief delay, as the
Squire's next words seemed to indicate.
"I'll have it closely examined when I get to town. It will not be a hard
matter to locate its owner, I think."
"Would you mind giving me a seat to town?" asked the girl suddenly,
beset with a new resolve.
"Certainly not." The Squire was plainly tickled. "I'll be only too glad
of your company," he said, smiling genially.
"What's goin' to happen?" asked Mrs. Brown wonderingly. It was a new
mood for Sally.
"I've just thought of something that I've got to do, and if the
Squire'll take me along with him, it'll save me the trouble of saddling
Joe. I'll be ready as soon as I get my cloak and hat," added she,
disappearing in the house.
"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, looking first after her daughter, then at
the Squire. "This looks a little as if Sally was comin' to her senses at
last."
"Just give her a little time, my dear madam, a little time," advised
the Squire, smiling all over his fat, red face. "She'll come around all
right by and by."
When the Squire and Sally drove off, she seemed lost in thought, and
only answered in monosyllables to her companion's gallant attempts to be
agreeable.
"What's the matter, Miss Sally?" he asked at last, piqued at her silence
and indifference. "You act as if you might be in love," he added with a
jocose look.
"Perhaps I am," acknowledged Sally turning the full battery of her
pretty eyes upon her companion, until his pulse quickened as it had not
done in years. He made an effort to speak, but the words failed him, and
he only edged a little closer to her. For a wonder, she did not attempt
to draw farther away. Was she really coming to her senses, as her mother
had predicted?
"Do you remember the ride we took a few weeks ago, an' what you said to
me?" she asked slowly, and with averted eyes.
"My dear, I have thought of little else, I do assure you," answered the
Squire promptly, suddenly finding speech, now that the dazzling battery
was withdrawn.
"Well, I have thought a good deal of it myself of late," admitted Sally
thoughtfully. "You profess to think a lot of me, but I expect you would
refuse me the least little favor I might ask of you."
"Have you usually found me a hard-hearted old skinflint?" asked the
Squire reproachfully.
"I've never put your kindness to a very great test, as yet. I thought I
would begin with asking a little favor. You wouldn't refuse me that now,
would you?"
The girl looked up smiling into the old man's face, and brought all the
coquetry at her command into play.
"What is the favor?" asked the Squire shrewdly. "I never like to make a
promise till I know what I'm promising."
"It's about the smallest possession you have, and the one least valuable
to you."
"Well, what is it?"
"I want the hat that was picked up last night."
"Hum--m--m!" said the Squire meditatively. "In what manner does that
hat concern you?"
"How it concerns me, does not concern _you_," retorted the girl
promptly, with an arch glance.
"I don't know about that. Whatever concerns you, concerns me deeply,
ducky!"
"Will you give me that hat?" persisted Sally.
"You fear it will be recognized?" ventured the Squire, and the girl
winced under the words. "Well, it will be, before I've done with it. Of
course I know it's that rascally Milt's hat," added the Squire shrewdly
following up the clue the girl's manner and request had given him.
"Haven't I seen him wear it, time and again? He had it on Court day,"
hazarded the speaker.
He noted the quick start his companion gave, and the look of fear that
overspread her face and crept into her eyes. A sudden thought occurred
to him. He was now in a better position to strike a bargain than he soon
would be again.
"Now, suppose we put this matter on a strictly business footing," he
said blandly. "You want the hat and I want a wife. A fair exchange is
no robbery."
"Don't say that!" exclaimed Sally, as though a sharp pain had suddenly
entered her heart. "You are cruel!"
"Not in the least!" retorted the Squire. "It's you that's cruel, my
dear! You have it in your power to make me the happiest of men, and
incidentally keep a friend of yours out of the penitentiary. The whole
matter rests with you."
The girl made no answer.
"The case stands thus," he persisted. "If my nephew is a lawbreaker, he
deserves punishment. As I am president of this road, and a large
stockholder, too, and he's doing his utmost to injure and destroy my
property, I fail to see why I should show him any sympathy or favor. If
I do, it will be solely on your account, not his. It's up to you whether
Milt goes free or is punished."
"On just what conditions will you let him go free?" asked the girl
quickly.
"On your promise to marry me."
"Oh, no!" she cried sharply, "not that!"
"Just that," insisted the Squire.
"And if I don't promise?" she asked in a low tone.
"It puts him in a place where you can't marry _him_," answered her
companion promptly.
They drove on in silence until the edge of the town was reached.
"Here we are in town," the Squire said. "Shall I drive you to the
sheriff's office with me?"
"Why are you going there?" asked his companion faintly.
"To give up this hat and swear out a warrant for its owner."
"Don't go!" pleaded Sally.
"It all rests with you as to whether I go or not," replied the Squire,
his bold, unpitying eyes bent full upon her. "Milt can either be a free
man or a felon--which shall it be?"
His eyes were fixed on hers in a concentrated gaze that seemed to
fascinate her like the gaze of the wily serpent charms the ensnared
bird. There was a confused buzzing in her head, a thousand small voices
crying out, "Save Milt! Save Milt!" Her very power of will appeared to
be ebbing away. She saw only those hard, unyielding eyes, she heard
only those inner voices crying out in her lover's behalf.
"I'll promise!" she faltered.
"When?" asked the Squire.
"I don't know, some of these days," she cried desperately, quite at her
wits' end.
"That's too indefinite," insisted her companion. "S'pose you marry me a
week from to-day?"
"Oh! no! no! not that soon! Give me a little more time," she pleaded.
Something would surely come to her aid, if she gained time, she knew not
what. A wild thought came into her head that perhaps she might yet run
away with her lover. At all events, a delay would give him time to get
away, whether she went or not.
"Two weeks, then," said the Squire slowly, "no longer."
"Well," she said faintly.
"Then you'll agree to marry me?"
"Yes," she answered recklessly.
"Two weeks from to-day?" he insisted.
"Yes," she answered again, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.
"All right! A bargain's a bargain!" cried the Squire gleefully. "I'll
drive to the sheriff's and tell him I lost the hat coming to town."
"Give it to me!" asked the girl eagerly.
"Oh, no, my dear, not yet!" he answered, with a grimace, thrusting the
bundle into an inner pocket of his great-coat. "I'll just keep it next
to my heart as a reminder of your promise. I'll give it to you the
morning of our wedding--as a token of love and affection," added he with
a chuckle of satisfaction.