Helen was instantly alarmed. "Oh no!" she protested. "My father is not
at all well. Please give him my room. I'll go down below."
"It won't be necessary for either of you to go below," interposed the
sheriff. "Hanscom, I'll put Kauffman in your charge. You can take him to
your boarding-house if you want to."
"You're very kind," said Helen, with such feeling that the sheriff
reacted to it. "I hope it won't get you into trouble."
"Oh, I don't think it will," he said, cheerily. "So long as I know he's
safe, it don't matter where he sleeps."
"Well, you'd better all stay to supper, anyhow," said Mrs. Throop. "It's
ready and waiting."
No one but Helen perceived anything unusual in this hearty offhand
invitation. To Hanscom it was just another instance of Western
hospitality, and to the sheriff a common service, and so a few minutes
later they all sat down at the generous table, in such genial mood (with
Mrs. Throop doing her best to make them feel at home) that all their
troubles became less than shadows.
Although disinclined to go into a detailed story of his return to the
hills, Hanscom described the capture of the housebreakers and, in spite
of a careful avoidance of anything which might sound like boasting,
disclosed the fact that at the moment when he threw open the door of
the cabin he had exposed himself to the weapons of a couple of reckless
young outlaws and might have been killed.
"You shouldn't have risked that," Helen protested. "Our poor possessions
are not worth such cost."
"I couldn't endure the notion of those hoodlums looting the place," he
explained.
At the thought of Rita (who was occupying a cell in the women's ward)
Helen grew a little sad, for, according to the ranger's own account, she
was hardly more than a child, and had been led away by her first
passion.
At the close of the meal, upon Mrs. Throop's housewifely invitation,
they all took seats in the "front room" and Helen quite forgot that she
was a prisoner, and the ranger almost returned to boyhood as he faced
the marble-topped table, the cabinet organ, and the enlarged family
portraits on the walls, for of such quality were his mother's adornments
in the old home at Circle Bend. Something vaguely intimate and a little
confusing filled his mind as he listened to the voice of the woman
before him. Only by an effort could he connect her with the cabin in the
high valley. She was becoming each moment more alien, more aloof, but at
the same time more desirable, like the girls he used to worship in the
church choir.
Speech was difficult with him, and he could only repeat: "It makes me
feel like a rabbit to think I could not keep you from coming here, and
the worst of it is I had nothing to offer as security. All I have in the
world is a couple of horses, a saddle, and a typewriter."
"It really doesn't matter," she replied in hope of easing his mind. "See
how they treat us! They know we're unjustly held and that we shall be
set free to-morrow."
Strange to say, this did not lighten his gloom. "And then--you will go
away," he said, soberly.
"Yes; we cannot remain here."
"And I shall never see you again," he pursued.
Her face betrayed a trace of sympathetic pain. "Don't say that! _Never_
is such a long time."
"And you'll forget us all out here--"
"I shall never forget what you have done, be sure of that," she replied.
Nevertheless, despite the tenderness of her tone and her gratitude
openly expressed, something disconcerting had come into her eyes and
voice. She was more and more the lady and less and less the recluse, and
as she receded and rose to this higher plane, the ranger lost heart,
almost without knowing the cause of it.
At last he turned to Kauffman. "I suppose we'd better go," he said. "You
look tired."
"I am tired," the old man admitted. "Is it far to your hotel?"
"Only a little way."
"Good night," said Helen, extending her hand with a sudden light in her
face which transported the trailer. "We'll meet again in the morning."
He took her hand in his with a clutch in his throat which made reply
difficult; but his glance expressed the adoration which filled his
heart.
* * * * *
Kauffman left the house, walking like a man of seventy. "My bones are
not broken, but they are weary," he said, dejectedly; "I fear I am to be
ill."
"Oh, you'll be all right in the morning," responded the ranger much more
cheerily than he really felt.
"Is it not strange that any reasonable being should accuse my daughter
and me of that monstrous deed?"
"That is because no one knows you. When the towns-folk come to know you
and her they will think differently. That is why I am glad the coroner
is to hold his court here in the town."
"Well, if only we are set free--We shall be set free, eh?"
"Surely? But what will you do then? Where will you go?"
"I hope Helen will return to her people." He sighed deeply. "It was all
very foolish to come out here. But it was natural. She was stricken, and
sensitive--so morbidly sensitive--to pity, to gossip. Then, too, a
romantic notion about the healing power of the mountains was in her
thought. She wished to go where no one knew her--where she could live
the simple life and regain serenity and health. She said: 'I will not go
to a convent. I will make a sanctuary of the green hills.'"
"Something very sorrowful must have happened--" said Hanscom,
hesitatingly.
The old man's voice was very grave as he replied: "Not sorrow, but
treachery," he said. "A treachery so cruel, a betrayal so complete, that
when she lost her lover and her most intimate girl friend (one nearer
than a sister) she lost faith in all men and all women--almost in God. I
cannot tell you more of her story--" He paused a moment, then added:
"She believes in you--she already trusts you--and some time, perhaps,
she herself will tell the story of her betrayal. Till then you must be
content with this--she is here through no fault or weakness of her own."
The ranger, pondering deeply, dared not put into definite form the
precise disloyalty which had driven a broken-hearted girl to seek the
shelter of the hills, but he understood her mood. Hating her kind and
believing that she could lose herself in the immensity of the landscape,
she had come to the mountains only to be cruelly disillusioned. The
Kitsongs had taught her that in the wilderness a woman is more
noticeable than a peak.
Just why she selected the Shellfish for her retreat remained to be
explained, and to this question Kauffman answered: "We came here because
a friend of ours, a poet, who had once camped in the valley, told us of
the wonderful beauty of the place. It is beautiful--quite as beautiful
as it was reported--but a beautiful landscape, it appears, does not make
men over into its image. It makes them seem only the more savage."
Hanscom, refraining from further question, helped the old man up the
stairway to his bed and then returned to the barroom, in which several
of the regular boarders were loafing. One or two greeted him familiarly,
and it was evident that they all knew something of the capture and were
curious to learn more. His answers to their questions were brief:
"You'll learn all about it to-morrow," he said.
Simpson, the proprietor of the hotel, jocosely remarked: "Well, Hans, as
near as I can figure it out, to-morrow is to be your busy day, but you'd
better lay low to-night. The Kitsongs'll get ye, if ye don't watch
out."
"I'll watch out. What do you hear?"
"The whole of Shellfish Valley is coming in to see that your Dutchman
and his girl gets what's coming to them. Abe has just left here, looking
for you. He's turribly wrought up. Says you had no right to arrest them
youngsters and he'll make you sorry you did."
One of the clerks dryly remarked: "They's a fierce interest in this
inquest. Carmody will sure have to move over to the court-house. Gee!
but he feels his feed! For one day, anyhow, he's bigger than the
_en_tire County Court."
The ranger had a clearer vision of his own as well as Helen's situation
as he replied: "Well, I'm going over to see him. When it comes to a
show-down he's on my side, for he needs the witnesses I've brought him."
"Abe sure has got it in for you, Hans. Your standing up for the Dutchman
and his woman was bad enough, but for you to arrest Hank without a
warrant has set the old man a-poppin'." He glanced at the ranger's empty
belt. "Better take your gun along."
"No; I'm safer without it," he replied. "I might fly mad and hurt
somebody."
The loafers, though eager to witness the clash, did not rise from their
chairs till after Hanscom left. No one wished to betray unseemly haste.
"There'll be something doing when they meet," said Simpson. "Let's
follow him up and see the fun."
As he walked away in the darkness the ranger began to fear--not for
himself, but for Helen. The unreasoning ferocity with which the valley
still pursued her was appalling. For the first time in his life he
strongly desired money. He felt his weakness, his ignorance. In the face
of the trial--which should mean complete vindication for the girl, but
which might prove to be another hideous miscarriage of justice--he was
of no more value than a child. Carmody had seemed friendly, but some
evil influence had evidently changed his attitude.
"What can I do?" the ranger asked himself, and was only able to answer,
"Nothing."
From a sober-sided, capable boy, content to do a thing well, he had
developed at thirty into a serious but singularly unambitious man.
Loving the outdoor life and being sufficiently resourceful to live alone
in a wilderness cabin without becoming morbid, he had naturally drifted
into the Forest Service. Without being slothful, he had been foolishly
unaspiring, and he saw that now. "I must bestir myself," he said,
sharply. "I must wake up. I must climb. I must get somewhere."
He took close grip on himself. "Carmody must squeeze the truth out of
these youngsters to-morrow, and I must help him do it. If Brinkley can't
help, I must have somebody else." And yet deep in his heart was the
belief that the sight of Helen as she took the witness-chair would do
more to clear her name than any lawyer could accomplish by craft or
passionate speech.
At the door of Carmody's office he came upon Kitsong and a group of his
followers, waiting for him. Abe was in a most dangerous mood, and his
hearers, also in liquor, were listening with approval to the description
of what he intended to do to the ranger.
"You can't arrest a man without a warrant," he was repeating. "Hanscom's
no sheriff--he's only a dirty deputy game-warden. I'll make him wish he
was a goat before I get through with him."
Although to advance meant war, Hanscom had no thought of retreating. He
kept his way, and as the band of light which streamed from the saloon
window fell on him one of the watchers called out, "There's the ranger
now."
Kitsong turned, and with an oath of savage joy advanced upon the
forester. "You're the man I have been waiting for," he began, with a
menacing snarl.
"Well," Hanscom retorted, "here I am. What can I do for you?"
His quiet tone instantly infuriated the ruffian. Shaking his fist close
to the ranger's nose, he shouted: "I'll do for you, you loafer! What
right had you to arrest them kids? What right had you to help them
witnesses to the train? You're off your beat, and you'd better climb
right back again."
Righteous wrath flamed hot in the ranger's breast. "You keep your fist
out of my face or I'll smash your jaw," he answered, and his voice was
husky with passion. "Get out of my way!" he added, as Kitsong shifted
ground, deliberately blocking his path.
"You can't bluff me!" roared the older man. "I'm going to have you
jugged for false arrest. You'll find you can't go round taking people to
jail at your own sweet will."
The battle song in the old man's voice aroused the street. His
sympathizers pressed close. All their long-felt, half-hidden hatred of
the ranger as a Federal officer flamed from their eyes, and Hanscom
regretted the absence of his revolver.
Though lean and awkward, he was one of those deceptive men whose muscles
are folded in broad, firm flakes like steel springs. A sense of danger
thrilled his blood, but he did not show it--he could not afford to show
it. Therefore he merely backed up against the wall of the building and
with clenched hands awaited their onset.
Something in his silence and self-control daunted his furious opponents.
They hesitated.
"If you weren't a government officer," blustered Abe, "I'd waller
ye--But I'll get ye! I'll put ye where that Dutchman and his--"
Hanscom's fist crashing like a hammer against the rancher's jaw closed
his teeth on the vile epithet which filled his mouth, and even as he
reeled, stunned by this blow, the ranger's left arm flashed in another
savage swing, and Abe, stunned by the swift attack, would have fallen
into the gutter had not one of his gang caught and supported him.
"Kill him! Kill the dog!" shouted one of the others, and in his voice
was the note of the murderer.
Eli Kitsong whipped out his revolver, but the hand of a friendly
bystander clutched the weapon. "None of that; the man is unarmed," he
said.
At this moment the door of the saloon opened and five or six men came
rushing, eager to see, quick to share in a fight. Believing them to be
enemies, Hanscom with instant rush struck the first man a heavy blow,
caught and wrenched his weapon from his fist, and so, armed and
desperate, faced the circle of inflamed and excited men.
"Hands up now!" he called.
"Don't shoot, Hans!" shouted the man who had been disarmed. "We're all
friends."
In the tense silence which followed, the sheriff, attracted by the
noise, emerged from the coroner's door with a shout and hurled himself
like an enormous ram into the crowd. Pushing men this way and that, he
reached the empty space before the ranger's feet.
"What's the meaning of all this?" he demanded, with panting intensity.
"Put up them guns." The crowd obeyed. "Now, what's it all about?" he
said, addressing Abe.
"He jumped me," complained Kitsong. "I want him arrested for that and
for taking Henry without a warrant."
"Where's _your_ warrant?" asked Throop.