To saddle two horses when the night has grown black and to lead them,
unobserved, so short a distance as two hundred yards or so seems a simple
thing; and for two healthy young people with full use of their wits and
their legs to steal quietly away to where those horses are waiting
would seem quite as simple. At the same time, to prevent the successful
accomplishment of these things is not difficult, if one but fully
understands the designs of the fugitives.
Hawley Hotel did a flourishing business that night. The two long tables in
the dining room, usually not more than half filled by those who hungered
and were not over-nice concerning the food they ate, were twice filled to
overflowing. Mrs. Hawley and the “breed” girl held hasty consultations in
the kitchen over the supply, and never was there such a rattling of dishes
hurriedly cleansed for the next comer.
Kent managed to find a chair at the first table, and eyed the landlady
unobtrusively. But Fred De Garmo sat down opposite, and his eyes were
bright and watchful, so that there seemed no possible way of delivering a
message undetected--until, indeed, Mrs. Hawley in desperation resorted to
strategy, and urged Kent unnecessarily to take another slice of bacon.
“Have some more--it's _side_!” she hissed in his ear, and watched anxiously
his face.
“All right,” said Kent, and speared a slice with his fork, although his
plate was already well supplied with bacon. Then, glancing up, he detected
Fred in a thoughtful stare which seemed evenly divided between the landlady
and himself. Kent was conscious of a passing, mental discomfort, which he
put aside as foolish, because De Garmo could not possibly know what Mrs.
Hawley meant. To ease his mind still further he glared insolently at Fred,
and then at Polycarp Jenks _te-hee_ing a few chairs away. After that he
finished as quickly as possible without exciting remark, and went his way.
He had not, however, been two minutes in the office before De Garmo
entered. From that time on through the whole evening Fred was never far
distant; wherever he went, Kent could not shake him off though De Garmo
never seemed to pay any attention to him, and his presence was always
apparently accidental.
“I reckon I'll have to lick that son of a gun yet,” sighed Kent, when a
glance at the round clock in the hotel office told him that in just twenty
minutes it would strike nine; and not a move made toward getting those
horses saddled and out to the stockyards.
There was much talk of the wedding, which had taken place quietly in the
parlor at the appointed hour, but not a man mentioned a _charivari_. There
were many who wished openly that Fleetwood would come out and be sociable
about it, but not a hint that they intended to take measures to bring him
among them. He had caused a box of cigars to be placed upon the bar of
every saloon in town, where men might help themselves at his expense.
Evidently he had considered that with the cigars his social obligations
were canceled. They smoked the cigars, and, with the same breath, gossiped
of him and his affairs.
At just fourteen minutes to nine Kent went out, and, without any attempt
at concealment, hurried to the Hawley stables. Half a minute behind him
trailed De Garmo, also without subterfuge.
Half an hour later the bridal couple stole away from the rear of the hotel,
and, keeping to the shadows, went stumbling over the uneven ground to the
stockyards.
“Here's the tie pile,” Fleetwood announced, in an undertone, when they
reached the place. “You stay here, Val, and I'll look farther along the
fence; maybe the horses are down there.”
Valeria did not reply, but stood very straight and dignified in the shadow
of the huge pile of rotting railroad ties. He was gone but a moment, and
came anxiously back to her.
“They're not here,” he said, in a low voice. “Don't worry, dear. He'll
come--I know Kent Burnett.”
“Are you sure?” queried Val sweetly. “From what I have seen of the
gentleman, your high estimate of him seems quite unauthorized. Aside from
escorting me to the hotel, he has been anything but reliable. Instead of
telling you that I was here, or telling me that you were sick, he went
straight into a saloon and forgot all about us both. You know that. If he
were your friend, why should he immediately begin carousing, instead of--”
“He didn't,” Fleetwood defended weakly.
“No? Then perhaps you can explain his behavior. Why didn't he tell me you
were sick? Why didn't he tell you I came on that train? Can you tell me
that, Manley?”
Manley, for a very good reason, could not; so he put his arms around her
and tried to coax her into good humor.
“Sweetheart, let's not quarrel so soon--why, we're only two hours married!
I want you to be happy, and if you'll only be brave and--”
“Brave!” Mrs. Fleetwood laughed rather contemptuously, for a bride. “Please
to understand, Manley, that I'm not frightened in the least. It's you and
that horrid cowboy--_I_ don't see why we need run away, like criminals.
Those men don't intend to _murder_ us, do they?” Her mood softened a
little, and she squeezed his arm between her hands. “You dear old silly,
I'm not blaming _you_. With your head in such a state, you can't think
things out properly, and you let that cowboy influence you against your
better judgment. You're afraid I might be annoyed--but, really, Manley,
this silly idea of running away annoys me much more than all the noise
those fellows could possibly make. Indeed, I don't think I would mind--it
would give me a glimpse of the real West; and, perhaps, if they grew
too boisterous, and I spoke to them and asked them not to be quite so
rough--and, really, they only mean it as a sort of welcome, in their crude
way. We could invite some of the nicest in to have cake and coffee--or
maybe we might get some ice cream somewhere--and it might turn out a very
pleasant little affair. I don't mind meeting them, Manley. The worst of
them can't be as bad as that--but, of course, if he's your friend, I
suppose I oughtn't to speak too freely my opinion of him!”
Fleetwood held her closely, patted her cheek absently, and tried to think
of some effective argument.
“They'll be drunk, sweetheart,” he told her, after a silence.
“I don't think so,” she returned firmly. “I have been watching the street
all the evening. I saw any number of men passing back and forth, and I
didn't see one who staggered. And they were all very quiet, considering
their rough ways, which one must expect. Why, Manley, you always wrote
about these Western men being such fine fellows, and so generous and
big-hearted, under their rough exterior. Your letters were full of it--and
how chivalrous they all are toward nice women.”
She laid her head coaxingly against his shoulder. “Let's go back, Manley.
I--_want_ to see a _charivari_, dear. It will be fun. I want to write all
about it to the girls. They'll be perfectly wild with envy.” She struggled
with her conventional upbringing. “And even if some of them are slightly
under the influence--of liquor, we needn't _meet_ them. You needn't
introduce those at all, and I'm sure they will understand.”
“Don't be silly, Val!” Fleetwood did not mean to be rude, but a faint
glimmer of her romantic viewpoint--a viewpoint gained chiefly from current
fiction and the stage--came to him and contrasted rather brutally with the
reality. He did not know how to make her understand, without incriminating
himself. His letters had been rather idealistic, he admitted to himself.
They had been written unthinkingly, because he wanted her to like this big
land; naturally he had not been too baldly truthful in picturing the place
and the people. He had passed lightly over their faults and thrown the
limelight on their virtues; and so he had aided unwittingly the stage and
the fiction she had read, in giving her a false impression.
Offended at his words and his tone, she drew away from him and glanced
wistfully back toward the town, as if she meditated a haughty return to the
hotel. She ended by seating herself upon a projecting tie.
“Oh, very well, my lord,” she retorted, “I shall try and not be silly, but
merely idiotic, as you would have me. You and your friend!” She was very
angry, but she was perfectly well-bred, she hoped. “If I might venture a
word,” she began again ironically, “it seems to me that your friend has
been playing a practical joke upon you. He evidently has no intention of
bringing any fleet steeds to us. No doubt he is at this moment laughing
with his dissolute companions, because we are sitting out here in the dark
like two silly chickens!”
“I think he's coming now,” Manley said rather stiffly. “Of course, I don't
ask you to like him; but he's putting himself to a good deal of trouble for
us, and--”
“Wasted effort, so far as I am concerned,” Valeria put in, with a chirpy
accent which was exasperating, even to a bridegroom very much in love with
his bride.
In the darkness that muffled the land, save where the yellow flare of lamps
in the little town made a misty brightness, came the click of shod hoofs.
Another moment and a man, mounted upon a white horse, loomed indistinct
before them, seeming to take substance from the night. Behind him trailed
another horse, and for the first time in her life Valeria heard the soft,
whispering creak of saddle leather, the faint clank of spur chains, and the
whir of a horse mouthing the “cricket” in his bit. Even in her anger, she
was conscious of an answering tingle of blood, because this was life in
the raw--life such as she had dreamed of in the tight swaddlings of a smug
civilization, and had longed for intensely.
Kent swung down close beside them, his form indistinct but purposeful. “I'm
late, I guess,” he remarked, turning to Fleetwood. “Fred got next, somehow,
and--I was detained.”
“Where is he?” asked Manley, going up and laying a questioning hand upon
the horse, by that means fully recognizing it as Kent's own.
“In the oats box,” said Kent laconically. He turned to the girl. “I
couldn't get the sidesaddle,” he explained apologetically. “I looked where
Mrs. Hawley said it was, but I couldn't find it--and I didn't have much
time. You'll have to ride a stock saddle.”
Valeria drew back a step. “You mean--a man's saddle?” Her voice was
carefully polite.
“Why, yes.” And he added: “The horse is dead gentle--and a sidesaddle's no
good, anyhow. You'll like this better.” He spoke, as was evident, purely
from a man's viewpoint.
That viewpoint Mrs. Fleetwood refused to share. “Oh, I couldn't ride a
man's saddle,” she protested, still politely, and one could imagine how her
lips were pursed. “Indeed, I'm not sure that I care to leave town at all.”
To her the declaration did not seem unreasonable or abrupt but she felt
that Kent was very much shocked. She saw him turn his head and look back
toward the town, as if he half expected a pursuit.
“I don't reckon the oats box will hold Fred very long,” he observed
meditatively. He added reminiscently to Manley: “I had a deuce of a time
getting the cover down and fastened.”
“I'm very sorry,” said Valeria, with sweet dignity, “that you gave yourself
so much trouble--”
“I'm kinda sorry myself,” Kent agreed mildly, and Valeria blushed hotly,
and was glad he could not see.
“Come, Val--you can ride this saddle, all right. All the girls out here--”
“I did not come West to imitate all the girls. Indeed, I could never think
of such a thing. I couldn't possibly--really, Manley! And, you know, it
does seem so childish of us to run away--”
Kent moved restlessly, and felt to see if the cinch was tight.
Fleetwood took her coaxingly by the arm. “Come, sweetheart, don't be
stubborn. You know--”
“Well, really! If it's a question of obstinacy--You see, I look at the
matter in this way: You believe that you are doing what is best for my
sake; I don't agree with you--and it does seem as if I should be permitted
to judge what I desire.” Then her dignity and her sweet calm went down
before a flash of real, unpolished temper. “You two can take those nasty
horses and ride clear to Dakota, if you want to. I'm going back to the
hotel. And I'm going to tell somebody to let that poor fellow out of that
box. I think you're acting perfectly horrid, both of you, when I don't want
to go!” She actually started back toward the scattered points of light.
She did not, however, get so faraway that she failed to hear Kent's “Well,
I'll be damned!” uttered in a tone of intense disgust.
“I don't care,” she assured herself, because of the thrill of compunction
caused by that one forcible sentence. She had never before in her life
heard a man really swear. It affected her very much as would the accidental
touch of an electric battery. She walked on slowly, stumbling a little and
trying to hear what it was they were saying.
Then Kent passed her, loping back to the town, the led horse shaking his
saddle so that it rattled the stirrups like castanets as he galloped. “I
don't care,” she told herself again very emphatically, because she was
quite sure that she did care--or that she would care if only she permitted
herself to be so foolish. Manley overtook her then, and drew her hand under
his arm to lead her. But he seemed quite sullen, and would not say a word
all the way back.