When Dot awoke next morning, after a fitful few hours’ sleep, it was
nine o’clock. She sprang out of bed and hurried through her
dressing, certain that her father was considerately waiting his
breakfast rather than disturb her, late though the hour was. But
upon entering the kitchen, she found that he had not yet been about.
This fact at first astonished, then filled her with alarm. She ran
to his door and rapped sharply, calling him, and experienced a
feeling of deep relief when she heard him yawn out a reply.
Nevertheless, as she walked back into the kitchen and began scraping
the ashes out of the grate, she reflected on the usual circumstance
of Lemuel oversleeping; for not in many years—and then only on the
several rare occasions that they had been out late together the
night before, attending a party at some neighboring ranch—had he
failed to have the fire in the stove going for her. Later on she
told herself that it was quite probable their quarrel had disturbed
him, that worry had kept him awake, and out of this conviction was
born an acute feeling of remorse which determined her to make no
reference to the time of day or to anything that might recall the
unhappy scene of the night.
For that matter, he also was silent on the subject. He came into the
kitchen, stretching himself tremendously, grinning, in the best
spirits she had seen him in for many months. She could not help but
notice a remarkable change in him, but attributed it to his desire
to have her forget their recent differences. So she met him halfway
in the effort and laughed merrily when he jested about the
professional fraternity he hobnobbed with in camp and at his sly
insinuations that Agatha Liggs would make an adorable stepmother for
some girl. As he picked up his hat to look after his chores he
caught her in his arms, told her how fondly he loved her, and that
her happiness meant everything in the world to him.
But alone, back of the barn, his display of buoyancy vanished. He
gazed down the lane between the two corrals and reënacted in his
mind’s eye his brave capture of the notorious train robber, Billy
Gee, and the way he had marched the outlaw into Sheriff Warburton’s
room in the hotel before daybreak and turned his prisoner over to
the astounded, sleepy-eyed official. Again, he felt an ecstatic
thrill over the realization that he had the certified check of the
Mohave & Southwestern Railroad for ten thousand dollars in his
pocket that very moment!
Nor could he subdue the wild surge of elation that swept through his
breast at thought that his Dot was to receive the long-cherished
education, that here at last, after long, trialsome years of
waiting, was the crystallization of his dead wife’s precious dreams
all but fulfilled. Why couldn’t this sacred woman of his heart have
lived to enjoy this great moment of happiness with him, to know that
all her trying and skimping and dreaming had not been done in vain?
Yes, he decided, Dot would be educated “to the queen’s taste;”
nothing would be spared, nothing would be left undone to make her
the wonderful lady of accomplishments Emily had so desired.
But with all the deep sense of gratification that his reavowal of
intentions gave him and the delight he got from planning the
glorious future, he could not put out of his mind Billy Gee’s last
words to him in Warburton’s room that morning—what Billy Gee had
said, the look in his eyes as he spoke.
“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m
huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that!
Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!”
There had been something so frightful, so murderously frightful, in
the threat as it fell from the outlaw’s tight-drawn lips. Try as he
would, Lemuel had not been able to forget the hatred in the man’s
fiery eyes, the icy cut in his voice. He was doomed to be haunted by
them, to have memory rehearse them over and over to him.
True, Billy Gee was even now being taken out of the country,
southwest to the county seat, San Buenaventura, heavily shackled,
under the hawklike eye of Bob Warburton; and countless things would
happen ere the train robber served out the long prison sentence that
confronted him. But the mere fact that he _would_ serve it out, that
he would be free some time, was an overshadowing menace that laid a
firm, clammy hand on Lemuel’s heart.
For many minutes he stood and stared across the plains. Doubtless
Billy Gee would hunt him up and kill him, he told himself nervously.
A vicious bandit of Billy Gee’s ilk would stop at nothing to get
revenge. He shook his head, feeling strangely insecure. After a
little, he recalled Dot’s interest in the fellow. One thing was
certain; she must not even so much as suspect what her father had
done. Not until the episode was old and forgotten must she know what
had happened to the fugitive.
He knew it was not love for Billy Gee that had prompted her to hide
him, help him to escape. Dot was sentimental, romantic; she was just
sorry for the scamp. Most women were that way. But after their
quarrel last night she must never surmise how he had treacherously
spied on her, seen her go into the barn, and lain in wait to capture
the man she was trying to save.
So while Dot prepared their breakfast her father made plans whereby
she might not know for years to come just what had befallen the
magnificent bandit who had ridden into her life out of the magical
violet and yellow scallop of hills. In the first place, Lemuel was
determined to hurry her out of the locality that she might not hear
of the heroic leading rôle he had played; secondly, he cast about
for a logical explanation of how he came to have sufficient money to
afford a journey such as he contemplated. He knew Dot was too
familiar with his affairs not to question his sudden acquisition of
any considerable amount of money. He struck upon a happy solution.
During the meal he mentioned rather casually that he was going to
Geerusalem to see if he could negotiate a loan from Bob Warburton,
and he backed up the propriety of his action by declaring that he
had once come to the sheriff’s assistance when the latter was
financially down and out.
Dot was interested. To her query as to how much he intended
borrowing, Lemuel grinned confidently:
“A coupla thousand dollars, anyway. An’ I’m purty sure to git it, at
that.”
She stared across the table at him, perplexed for the moment. What
in the world possessed her father this morning? He was so changed,
so self-confident, so resolute—as if he were laboring under some
suppressed emotion, some unusual good tidings that he was with
difficulty keeping to himself. The strange way in which she studied
him made him hasten to put at rest any suspicion she may have
entertained.
“I bin thinkin’ it all over, Dot, an’ I decided that what me an’ you
needs most is a leetle more pleasure an’ not so much stickin’ to a
cussed ol’ ranch year in an’ year out like we bin doin’. So I’m
goin’ to borry some real money off Bob, an’ we’re takin’ a
trip—Frisco, Noo York, or any place you say. Le’s be good an’ happy
wunst anyway, an’ see how it feels. What d’you say?”
She brightened instantly. Her eyes widened, sparkled with
expectation. “It’d be just wonderful, daddy,” she cried. “But—but
you’d have to pay the money back some time, and it would be so
hard——”
“We ain’t goin’ to stop to think o’ that, hon. We’re out for one
grand cut-up, me an’ you. Leave it to me. I’ll do the worryin’. If I
git it you’ll go, won’t you?”
“Go?” she echoed joyously. “Oh, daddy! I’ve been wishing and wishing
and wishing, months and months and years, to see cities and orchards
and rivers and steamers and street cars and the ocean, and——”
They talked on, Lemuel controlling by a desperate effort the wild
enthusiasm that consumed him, Dot giving her eagerness unbridled
play, planning and scheduling an itinerary with a dispatch and
thoroughness that made him fairly marvel at her cleverness. Shortly
afterward, however, as he was galloping toward camp he laughed aloud
to the boundless desolation of plain over the shrewd way in which he
had deceived his daughter, clever though she was.
Dot stood on the front porch looking after him. She watched him out
of sight, her brain in a delicious stupor at the glorious prospect
of seeing for the first time in her life the great fairyland far to
the north, that wonderful region she had read and dreamed so much
about. For a long interval she reveled in the thought, until her
eyes turned to the violet and yellow scallop of range in the
distance. Her mind swung back to the present, then to Billy Gee. How
was he faring?
The day was hot, similar to yesterday. It was very silent, too.
Presently it began dawning on her that to-day was different from any
she had ever known. She glanced over the garden. It seemed lonesome;
she had never thought it lonesome before. The feel of the ranch,
too, filled her with an odd depression. Everything looked so
colorless, so uninteresting, so awfully the same. Her eyes went back
to the violet and yellow scallop of hills again. That bleak
playground of mirages where she had visualized the figments of her
imagination, appeared to have lost its magic. The whole range seemed
faded, so wrinkled, so woefully unattractive, like the bleached
outlines of some shabby old crayon. She turned into the house and
entered the parlor.
For many seconds she stood and gazed down at the lounge and began
reviewing, as she had done a number of times, her meeting with the
notorious Billy Gee, from the moment of his coming, until she bade
him good-by in the half light of the hayloft.
“He isn’t the terrible person they say,” she told the parlor lounge.
“There are a lot of worse men in Geerusalem who wear white collars
and polish their shoes every morning. They know how to rob according
to law. They haven’t the courage to take to the open with a
six-shooter. Poor fellow! He was so grateful, and his voice was so
lonely, so gentle.”
She walked into her bedroom, still thinking of him, and it came to
her suddenly that she had hidden the worst criminal of the
generation in that bedroom, that he had occupied her bed even! She
halted in the middle of the floor and blushed furiously over the
reflection. What would her father say if he knew? And her dear old
lady friend, the good Mrs. Agatha Liggs? Or Sheriff Warburton? The
utter recklessness of her act now struck her with full force.
But the next instant she was defending herself with the argument
that Billy Gee was bent on mending his ways. He had promised her he
would reform. She believed him. If he were captured——
For some reason she felt no anxiety on that score. He had been too
confident of his ability to evade the posses, had shown no alarm
over the information that they were out in numbers; besides, he had
mentioned having relatives living close at hand, denoting that he
would find safety with them until such time as he could leave the
country.
“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time,” he had
said.
She experienced a strange little thrill when she recalled that he
was giving up his vicious career solely because she had asked him
to. It was such a satisfying thought, such a proud conceit, to feel
that she, Dot Huntington, had exerted an influence over this elusive
terror of the Southwest who laughed at the law and recognized
nothing binding upon him save the fulfillment of his own personal
desires. Yet, she told herself, she would look forward from now on,
hopefully, with keen anticipation, to the day when she would hear
from him.
While thinking thus, she had been standing near her bed, gazing
abstractedly at the old-fashioned bureau opposite. Now her eyes
became attracted to a narrow edge of green showing just over the top
of the middle drawer. Thoughtfully, she reached down and plucked at
it with thumb and forefinger. She drew it out—a ten-dollar
greenback. For one long instant she stared dumfounded at it. Then
she pulled out the drawer and fell back with a low cry, gazing at
the interior in wide-eyed, fearful amazement. The drawer was piled
high with a disordered mass of currency of all denominations.