AN UNCONVENTIONAL TEA PARTY
As the flames broke through the roof, Langford came rushing up where the
group stood a little apart from the press.
“Dick! I have been looking for you everywhere,” he cried, hoarsely.
“What’s the trouble, old man?” asked Gordon, quietly.
“I have something to tell you,” said Langford, in a low voice. “Come
quick—let’s go back to your rooms. Why, girls—”
“We will go, too,” said Mary, with quiet decision. She had caught a
glimpse of Red Sanderson’s face through the crowd, and she thought he
had leered at her. She had been haunted by the vague feeling that she
must have known the man who had attempted to carry her off—that dreadful
night; but she had never been able to concentrate the abstract, fleeting
impressions into comprehensive substance—never until she had seen that
scar and glancing away in terror saw that Langford, too, had seen; but
she was not brave enough to lose herself and Louise in the crowd where
that man was. She could not. He had leered at Louise, too, last night at
supper. They could not ask the protection of Gordon and Langford back to
the hotel then, when Langford’s handsome, tanned face was white with the
weight of what he had to tell.
“It will be best,” he agreed, unexpectedly. “Come—we must hurry!”
It was Williston’s “little girl” whom he took under his personal
protection, diving up the street in the teeth of the gale which blew
colder every moment, with a force and strength that kept Mary half the
time off her feet. A gentler knight was Gordon—though as manly. All was
dark around the premises. There was no one lurking near. Everybody was
dancing attendance on the court-house holocaust. Gordon felt for his
keys.
“How good it is to get out of the wind,” whispered Louise. This
proceeding smacked so much of the mysterious that whispering followed as
a natural sequence.
They stepped within. It was inky black.
“Lock the door,” said Langford, in a low voice.
Gordon complied, surprised, but asking no question. He knew his friend,
and had faith in his judgment. Then he lighted a lamp that stood on his
desk.
“Why did you do that?” asked Louise, gravely.
“What?”
“Lock the door.”
“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly. “I didn’t think you would notice
the click. Ask Paul.”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” said Langford. He stepped to the windows and
drew the blinds closely.
“Now that I have you safe,” he said, lightly, “I’ll confess I had an old
woman’s scare. It came to me that as long as you are not, strictly
speaking, on kind and loving terms with—every one west of the river,—and
this being such an all-round nasty night anyway, why, I’d just spirit
you home and give the charged atmosphere a chance of clearing a little.”
Gordon looked at him steadily a moment. His face did not pale. Yet he
knew that Langford had heard—or suspected—more than he intended to
tell—then. It was good to see him shrug his shoulders in unconcern for
the sake of the two white-faced girls who sat there in his stiff office
chairs.
“You are an old duffer, Paul,” he said, in pretended annoyance. “You
treat me like a child. I won’t stand it always. You’ll see. Some day
I’ll rebel—and—then—”
“Meanwhile, I’ll just trot these ladies back to the hotel,” said
Langford. “But you must promise to keep your head inside. We’re fixtures
until we have that promise.”
“What, lock me up and run off with—all the ladies! I guess not! Why
didn’t we round up that way, I’d like to know? This isn’t Utah, Paul.
You can’t have both.”
Paul meant for him to lie low, then. He was also in a hurry to get the
girls away. Evidently the danger lay here. There was a tightening of the
firm mouth and an ominous contraction of the pupils of the eyes. He
stirred the fire, then jammed a huge, knotted stick into the sheet iron
stove. It seemed as if everybody had sheet iron stoves in this country.
The log caught with a pleasant roar as the draught sent flames leaping
up the chimney. But Paul made no movement to go. Then he, Gordon, had
not understood his friend. Maybe the menace was not here, but outside.
If so, he must contrive to keep his guests interested here. He would
leave the lead to Paul. Paul knew. He went back to his living-room and
returned, bringing two heavy buggy robes.
“You will find my bachelor way of living very primitive,” he said, with
his engaging smile. He arranged the robes over two of the chairs and
pushed them close up to the stove. “I haven’t an easy chair in the
house—prove it by Paul, here. Haven’t time to rock, and can’t afford to
run the risk of cultivating slothful habits. Take these, do,” he urged,
“and remove your coats.”
“Thank you—you are very kind,” said Louise. “No, I won’t take off my
jacket,” a spot of color staining her cheek when she thought of her gay
kimono. Involuntarily, she felt of her throat to make sure the muffler
had not blown awry. “We shall be going soon, shan’t we, Mr. Langford? If
Mr. Gordon is in any danger, you must stay with him and let us go alone.
It is not far.”
“Surely,” said Mary, with a big sinking of the heart, but meaning what
she said.
“Not at all,” said Gordon, decidedly. “It’s just his womanish way of
bossing me. I’ll rebel some day. Just wait! But before you go, I’ll make
tea. You must have gotten chilled through.”
He would keep them here a while and then let them go—with Langford. The
thought made him feel cheap and cowardly and sneaking. Far rather would
he step out boldly and take his chances. But if there was to be any
shooting, it must be where Louise,—and Mary, too—was not. He believed
Paul, in his zeal, had exaggerated evil omens, but there was Louise in
his bachelor rooms—where he had never thought to see her; there with her
cheeks flushed with the proximity to the stove—his stove—her fair hair
windblown. No breath of evil thing must assail her that night—that
night, when she had glorified his lonely habitation—even though he
himself must slink into a corner like a cowardly cur. A strange elation
took possession of him. She was here. He thought of last night and
seemed to walk on air. If he won out, maybe—but, fool that he was! what
was there in this rough land for a girl like—Louise?
“Oh, no, that will be too much trouble,” gasped Louise, in some alarm
and thinking of Aunt Helen.
“Thanks, old man, we’ll stay,” spoke up Langford, cheerfully. “He makes
excellent tea—really. I’ve tried it before. You will never regret
staying.”
Silently he watched his friend in the inner room bring out a battered
tea-kettle, fill it with a steady hand and put it on the stove in the
office, coming and going carelessly, seemingly conscious of nothing in
the world but the comfort of his unexpected guests.
True to her sex, Louise was curiously interested in the housekeeping
arrangements of a genuine bachelor establishment. Woman-like, she saw
many things in the short time she was there—but nothing that diminished
her respect for Richard Gordon. The bed in the inner chamber where both
men slept was disarranged but clean. Wearing apparel was strewn over
chairs and tables. There was a litter of magazines on the floor. She
laid them up against Langford; she did not think Gordon had the time or
inclination to cultivate the magazine habit. She did not know to whose
weakness to ascribe the tobacco pouch and brier-wood pipe placed
invitingly by the side of a pair of gay, elaborately bead-embroidered
moccasons, cosily stowed away under the head of the bed; but she was
rather inclined to lay these, too, to Langford’s charge. The howling
tempest outside only served to enhance the cosiness of the rumbling fire
and the closely drawn blinds.
But tea was never served in those bachelor rooms that night—neither that
night nor ever again. It was a little dream that went up in flame with
the walls that harbored it. Who first became conscious that the tang of
smoke was gradually filling their nostrils, it was hard to tell. They
were not far behind each other in that consciousness. It was Langford
who discovered that the trouble was at the rear, where the wind would
soon have the whole building fanned into flames. Gordon unlocked the
door quietly. He said nothing. But Paul, springing in front of him,
himself threw it open. It was no new dodge, this burning a man out to
shoot him as one would drown out a gopher for the killing. He need not
have been afraid. The alarm had spread. The street in front was rapidly
filling. One would hardly have dared to shoot—then—if one had meant to.
And he did not know. He only knew that deviltry had been in the air for
Gordon that night. He had suspected more than he had overheard, but it
had been in the air.
Gordon saw the action and understood it. He never forgot it. He said
nothing, but gave his friend an illuminating smile that Langford
understood. Neither ever spoke of it, neither ever forgot it. How
tightly can quick impulses bind—forever.
Outside, they encountered the Judge in search of his delinquent charges.
“I’m sorry, Dick,” he said. “Dead loss, my boy. This beastly wind is
your undoing.”
“I’m not worrying, Judge,” responded Gordon, grimly. “I intend for some
one else to do that.”
“Hellity damn, Dick, hellity damn!” exploded Jim Munson in his ear. The
words came whistling through his lips, caught and whirled backward by
the play of the storm. The cold was getting bitter, and a fine, cutting
snow was at last driving before the wind.
Gordon, with a set face, plunged back into the room—already fire licked.
Langford and Munson followed. There sat the little tea-service staring
at them with dumb pathos. The three succeeded in rolling the safe with
all its precious documents arranged within, out into the street. Nothing
else mattered much—to Gordon. But other things were saved, and Jim
gallantly tossed out everything he could lay his hands on before Gordon
ordered everybody out for good and all. It was no longer safe to be
within. Gordon was the last one out. He carried a battered little
teakettle in his hand. He looked at it in a whimsical surprise as if he
had not known until then that he had it in his hand. Obeying a sudden
impulse, he held it out to Louise.
“Please take care of—my poor little dream,” he whispered with a strange,
intent look.
Before she could comprehend the significance or give answer, the Judge
had faced about. He bore the girls back to the hotel, scolding
helplessly all the way as they scudded with the wind. But Louise held
the little tin kettle firmly.
Men knew of Richard Gordon that night that he was a marked man. The
secret workings of a secret clan had him on their proscription list.
Some one had at last found this unwearied and doggedly persistent young
fellow in the way. In the way, he was a menace, a danger. He must be
removed from out the way. He could not be bought from it—he should be
warned from it. So now his home—his work room and his rest room, the
first by many hours daily the more in use, with all its furnishings of
bachelor plainness and utility, that yet had held a curious charm for
some men, friends and cronies like Langford—was burning that he might be
warned. Could any one say, “Jesse Black has done this thing”? Would he
not bring down proof of guilt by a retaliation struck too soon? It would
seem as if he were anticipating an unfavorable verdict. So men reasoned.
And even then they did not arise to stamp out the evil that had endured
and hugged itself and spit out corruption in the cattle country. That
was reserved for—another.
They talked of a match thrown down at the courthouse by a tramp,
likely,—when it was past midnight, when the fire broke out with the wind
a piercing gale, and when no vagrant but had long since left such cold
comfort and had slept these many weeks in sunnier climes. Some argued
that the windows of the court-room might have been left open and the
stove blown down by the wind tearing through, or the stove door might
have blown open and remains of the fire been blown out, or the pipe
might have fallen down. But it was a little odd that the same people
said Dick Gordon’s office likely caught fire from flying sparks. Dick’s
office was two blocks to westward of the court-house and it would have
been a brave spark and a lively one that could have made headway against
that northwester.