The next morning there were only faint traces of the excitement of the
day before. Men began to cross Main street from one side to the other,
at first with cautious, apprehensive glances that swept the hostile
territory and penetrated open doors and windows, but, as the day wore
quietly on, with increasing confidence and unconcern. At noon Colonel
Whittaker and Pierre Delarue walked over to the Palmleaf saloon, and
while they clinked the ice in their mint juleps, good-natured and
smiling, they leaned on the bar and chatted with the two or three
Democrats who were in the room. An hour or so later, Judge Harlin
strolled across to the White Horse saloon and called for a whisky
straight. Then all Las Plumas knew that the war was over and went
about its usual affairs as amiably as if the day before had never
been.
At the breakfast table Pierre Delarue told his daughter about the
mass-meeting, its balked determination to lynch Emerson Mead, and
Mead's subsequent arrest.
"But, Father, how could they be so sure that Mr. Mead killed him? Did
they have any evidence?"
"Ah," he replied, shrugging his shoulders protestingly, "you women
never understand such things! Because Mead is a handsome young man and
looks good-natured, you think he can't possibly be a murderer. But it
is well known that he had killed more than one man before he murdered
poor Whittaker, and he is notorious as one of the worst cattle thieves
in the southwest."
"Father! These are dreadful things! Do you know them to be true?"
She looked across the table at him with horror in her face and eyes.
Delarue considered her indulgently.
"Everybody knows them to be true. There is plenty of proof."
"Then why hasn't he been arrested and tried and--punished?"
"That is what many are saying now--why has he not been punished long
before this? People have been lenient with him for a long time, but he
has at last reached the end of his career. They are now determined
that a stop shall be put to his crimes and that he shall suffer the
punishment he has so long deserved."
Marguerite was accustomed to having the remnants of her father's
down-town speeches served up at home, and her cooler judgment had
learned not to put much dependence upon them. She gave a perfunctory
assent and made another effort to reach facts.
"Yes, Father, it is certainly very dreadful that such things should
be allowed to go unpunished. But did any one see him stealing the
Fillmore Company's cattle, and do they really know that he killed Mr.
Whittaker?"
"The proof is as clear as any unprejudiced person need want. Will
Whittaker and some of his men caught Mead in the very act of driving
into his own herd a steer plainly marked with their brand. They
stopped him, and he foolishly tried to crawl out of his predicament
by accusing them of driving the branded steer into his herd. A most
absurd story! They had a quarrel, and Mead threatened to kill
Whittaker. Immediately after that Will disappeared and has not been
seen since. Evidently, he has been killed, and there is no one except
Mead, who had threatened to kill him, who could possibly have had any
motive for murdering him. The evidence may be circumstantial, but it
is conclusive. Besides, if Mead had not known that the case against
him was complete, he would not have given himself up last night as he
did. And if he had not done so he would certainly have been lynched.
The people were thoroughly aroused, and it was impossible to control
their indignation."
A little shiver ran through Marguerite's frame and she turned away,
looking much disturbed. Her father patted her head indulgently.
"There, there, my dear child, these things do not concern you in the
least. Don't trouble yourself about public affairs."
He hurried down-town and she sat alone, a little frown on her
forehead and her mouth drooping, as she thought: "I can not believe he
is a thief and a murderer, without more evidence than this. And
still--how can it be that so many men are so sure of his guilt
that--and he is in jail now--Oh, a thief and a murderer!"
She hurried from the room calling, "Paul! Paul!" The boy ran in from
the veranda and she caught him in her arms and pressed him to her
bosom, kissing him over and over again and calling him her darling,
her treasure, and all the dear names with which womankind voices its
love, and at last, sobbing, buried her face in his flaxen curls. The
child put his arms about her head and patted her cheek and said, "Poor
sister! Poor Daisy!" until, frightened by her emotion, he too began to
cry. The necessity of soothing and comforting him gave her that
distraction which has been woman's chief comfort since woman first had
trouble. But her face was still sad and anxious when Wellesly appeared
on the veranda in the late afternoon.
Albert Wellesly, who lived in Denver, disliked very much the
occasional visits to Las Plumas which his financial interests made
necessary. He was still on the under side of thirty, but his business
associates declared that he possessed a shrewdness and a capacity that
would have done credit to a man of twice his years. Possibly people
not infatuated with commercial success might have said that his
ability was nothing more than an unscrupulous determination to grab
everything in sight. Whatever it was, it had made him remarkably
successful. The saying was common among those who knew him that
everything he touched turned to gold. They also prophesied that in
twenty years he would be one of the financial giants of the country.
Las Plumas bored him to desperation, but on this occasion he thought
it would be the part of wisdom to stay longer than had been his first
intention. As long as the town was feverish with excitement he found
it endurable. But when the dullness of peace settled over the streets
again he walked about listlessly, wondering how he could manage to get
through the day. At last he thought of Miss Delarue.
"That's so!" he inwardly exclaimed. "I can go and find out if the
English girl is in love with this handsome big fellow who has been
stealing my cattle. I suppose it will be necessary for me to drink a
cup of tea, but she will amuse me for an hour."
Marguerite Delarue's friends always thought of her and spoke of her as
English, notwithstanding her French paternity. For her appearance and
her temperament she had inherited from her English mother, who had
given her also English training. Miss Delarue laughed at the forlorn
dejection of Wellesly's face and figure.
"My face is a jovial mask," he gravely told her. "You should see the
melancholy gloom that shrouds my mind."
"I hope nothing has happened," she exclaimed, with sudden alarm.
"That's just the trouble, Miss Delarue. It's because nothing does
happen here, and I have to endure the aching void, that I am filled
with such melancholy."
"Surely there was enough excitement yesterday and last night."
"Ah, yesterday! That was something like! But it was yesterday, and
to-day the deadly dullness is enough to turn the blood in one's veins
to mud!"
"Then everything is quiet down-town? There is no more danger of
trouble?"
"There is no danger of anything, except that every blessed person in
the place may lie down in his tracks and fall into a hundred years'
sleep. I assure you, Miss Delarue, the town is as peaceful as the
plain out yonder, and birds in their little nests are not nearly so
quiet as are the valiant warriors of Las Plumas."
"Oh, that is good! I am very glad, on my father's account. He is so
aggressive in his opinions that whenever there is any excitement of
this kind I am anxious about him until the trouble is over." She
hesitated a moment, her lips trembling on the verge of further speech,
and he waited for her to go on. "Mr. Wellesly," she said, a note of
uncertainty sounding in her voice, "you are not prejudiced by the
political feeling which colors people's opinions here. I wish you
would tell me what you think about this matter. Do you believe Mr.
Mead has killed Will Whittaker?"
Wellesly noted her earnest expression and the intentness of her voice
and pose, and he decided at once that this was not mere curiosity. He
paused a moment, looking thoughtful. His keen, brilliant eyes were
bent on her face.
"It's a hard question you've asked me, Miss Delarue. One does not like
to decide against a man in such serious accusations unless he can be
sure. The evidence against Emerson Mead, in this murder case, is all
circumstantial, it is true, but, at least to me, it is strongly
convincing." His eyes were almost closed, only a strip of brilliant
gray light showing between their lids, but he was watching her
narrowly. "We know that he has been stealing cattle from us. We have
found many bearing our brand among his herds. Our men have even caught
him driving them into his own bands. In fact, there is no doubt about
this matter. Emerson Mead is a cattle thief of the wiliest sort." He
paused a moment, noting the horrified expression on her downcast face.
But she did not speak, and he went on:
"About this murder, if murder it is, of course nobody knows anything
with certainty. But in my judgment there is only one tenable theory of
Will Whittaker's disappearance, and that is, that he was murdered and
his body hidden. Mead is the only enemy he was known to have, and Mead
had threatened to kill him. The evidence, while, of course, not
conclusive, is shockingly bad for Mead."
She looked away, toward the Hermosa mountains looming sharp and jagged
in the fierce afternoon sunlight, and he saw her lips tremble. Then,
as if her will caught and held them, the movements ceased with a
little inrush of breath. He lowered his voice and made it very kindly
and sympathetic as he leaned toward her and went on:
"For your sake, I am very sorry for all this if Mr. Mead is a friend
of yours. He is a very taking young fellow, with his handsome face and
good-natured smile. But, also for your sake," and his voice went down
almost to a murmur, "I hope he is not a friend."
There were tears in her eyes and distress, perplexity and pain in her
face as she turned impulsively toward him, as if grasping at his
sympathy.
"I have it!" he thought. "She is in love with Mead! Now we'll find out
how far it has gone. Papa Frenchy couldn't have known of it."
"I can not say he is a friend," she said slowly. "He is scarcely an
acquaintance. I have not met him, I think, more than half a dozen
times, and only a few minutes each time. But he has always been so
kind to my little brother that I find it hard to believe a man so
gentle and thoughtful with a child could be so--criminal."
"Ah! Love at first sight, probably not reciprocated!" was Wellesly's
mental comment. "I guess it is a case in which it would be proper to
offer consolation, and watch the effect." Gradually he led the
conversation away from this painful topic and talked with her about
other places in which she had lived. Then they drifted to more
personal matters, to theories upon life and duty, and he spoke with
the warmest admiration of what he called the ideal principles by which
she guided her life and declared that they would be impossible to a
man, unless he had the good fortune to be stimulated and helped by
some noble woman who realized them in her own life. It was admiration
of the most delicate, impersonal sort, seemingly directed not to the
girl herself, but to the girl she had wished and tried to be. It set
Marguerite Delarue's heart a-flutter with pleasure. No one had ever
given her such open and such delicate admiration, and she was too
unsophisticated to conceal her delight. He smiled to himself at her
evident pleasure in his words, and, with much the same feeling with
which he might have cuddled a purring, affectionate kitten, he went a
step farther and made love--a very shadowy, intangible sort of love,
in a very indefinite sort of way.
Albert Wellesly usually made love to whatever woman happened to be at
hand, if he had nothing else to do, or if he thought it would advance
his interests. With men he was keen and forceful, studying them
shrewdly, seeing quickly their weak points, turning these to his own
advantage, and helping himself over their heads by every means he
could grasp. In his dealings and relations with women he aimed at the
same masterful result, but while with men this might be attained in
many ways, with women he held there was but one way, and that was to
make love to them.
Marguerite bade him good-by with the same deep pain still in her
heart, but pleased in spite of herself. His words had been laden
heavily with the honey of admiration of a sort that to her serious
nature was most pleasing, while about them had hovered the faintest,
most elusive aroma of love. In her thought, she went over their long
conversation again and again, and dwelt on all that he had said with
constant delight. For to women admiration is always pleasing, even
though they may know it to be insincere. To young women it is a wine
that makes them feel themselves rulers of the earth, and to their
elders it is a cordial which makes them forget their years.
Marguerite Delarue had had little experience with either love or
admiration. Her heart had been virgin ground when her face had first
flushed under the look in Emerson Mead's brown eyes. And the first
words of love to fall upon her ears had been the uncertain ones of
Wellesly that afternoon. She conned them over to herself, saying that
of course they meant only that he was a high-minded gentleman who
admired high ideals. She repeated all that he had said on the subject
of Mead's guilt.
"He seemed fair and unprejudiced," she thought, "but I can not believe
it without certain proof. I know more about Mr. Mead than some of
those who think they know so much, for I have seen him with my little
Bye-Bye, and until they can prove what they say I shall believe him
just as good as he seems to be."
So she locked up in her heart her belief in Mead's innocence, saying
nothing about the matter to any one, till after a little that belief
came to be like a secret treasure, hidden away from all other eyes,
but in her own thought held most dear.