"You once served an apprenticeship?" repeated Philip quickly. "You mean
you are now able to conduct one of your own. And--you know a man who
can take charge of the dope at that old hotel. See here, tell me this,
have you tried the experiment there, already?"
Stratton nodded his head. "Several times. I had to, Captain. It was
my only way to make the final payments on my schooner; she cost me more
than I expected; and I had to outfit her."
"What I want to know is, did you smuggle any of the stuff over on my
yacht?"
Again Stratton nodded. "You see how well the scheme worked. You never
suspected it."
"I could inform on you," said Kingsley hotly. "I will do it, by George,
the first time I see Bates."
"No,"--Stratton watched his victim's face,--"you will not, Captain, when
you stop to think."
"Why not?"
"Because you yourself would be implicated."
Instantly Kingsley was on his feet. His brilliant eyes flashed. But
while he expressed his indignation Stratton remained in his lounging
position, smiling, mocking, almost indifferent. "I would like to know,
though," said Philip at last, with tempered heat, "just how you would
settle the question of the purchase price at Victoria."
Then Stratton rose and came over to the helm. "Leave that with me,
Captain," he said. "Understand, all you've got to do is to run the
_Phantom_; nothing else concerns you. And I promise to hurry the
business through, and see you out of the hole, with firm ground to stand
on, in one grand coup."
Kingsley was silent. Presently he went forward into the bows, and stood
looking off to where the silver smoke film met the shining sea. Finally
his lips breathed a whistle. Stratton had taken his place at the
tiller. He lighted a cigar and settled himself comfortably, but his
eyes were fixed watchfully on the man forward. It was the look of a
gambler who has staked high, and is sure, yet not sure of his
antagonist.
At last a shadow cut the Sound far out, northward; the streak broadened,
the mainsail flapped loosely, and the _Phantom_ heeled to the sudden
flaw. Kingsley sprang to the sheets. The gust passed but was followed
by another, veering westerly, and another still, that steadied to a
freshening breeze.
Philip came back to the helm. "Well," he said, "it looks like Seattle
to-night, after all; dinner, perhaps, at the Arlington."
But Stratton, looking in his companion's face, started a little, and
with his hand still on the tiller, swung the _Phantom_ slowly around,
shaping a course for Victoria.
They did not dine in Seattle that night, but the next evening found them
at _table d'hote_ in the English city. Later, in the long northern
twilight, the little yacht crept out of the winding harbor and coasted
the island northward to an obscure, forest-girt cove, where she came to
anchor.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*HIDE AND SEEK*
An hour after the _Phantom_ left her moorings in Victoria harbor, Bates,
of the United States Customs, reported to his superior officer on board
the cutter at anchor in the stream. When he had finished with the
matter on which he had been detailed, he stopped to state that on his
way through Chinatown he had noticed Stratton entering the house of a
certain merchant and highbinder. "And," he continued, "returning,
probably two hours later, my attention was attracted to a coolie who
came out of the same place. He carried the baskets of a vegetable
vender, suspended from the usual shoulder pole, but it was singular
that, at the close of the day, and so far from the Chinese garden tracts
in the suburbs, from which he must have been supplied,--those baskets
should be full. I was walking in the same direction, and, at the end of
the second block, a second fellow came up the cross street and fell in
behind. His baskets also were heaped, apparently with produce, to the
brim. They moved away in their swinging trot, more and more rapidly,
and so bent on a direct course, that I felt justified in taking a hansom
and following. On the edge of the town they turned out of the main
thoroughfare, which would have led them to the gardens, and entered a
little used trail; what seemed to be a short cut through the forest to
some obscure harbor on the coast. I could go no farther in the cab,
but, coming back by the park road, I saw from a height of Beacon Hill,
which overlooks the channel, a small yacht with the lines and rigging of
the _Phantom_, stealing up the shore."
This self-imposed task had delayed Bates an extra hour, during which he
had held the cutter, which was under steam and ready to make the run
across the Straits to the American port of entry. But his commanding
officer accepted the information without comment. However, when the
revenue boat had steamed out of the Arm, headed for her home port, he
remained on the bridge, searching with his binoculars, first the
Vancouver coast astern, and then, slowly, the great reach of running
sea, that stretched away to the distant and tawny pall which hung over
the American side and showed the vast sweep of the forest fires.
There was a strong wind, drawing in from the Pacific, and the little
steamer labored in an ugly trough. When she staggered, quartering, up a
mother wave, she plunged down, and half seas over, in the next crest.
She made her harbor, decks streaming, port light stove in, at midnight,
and, after a brief stop and slight repairs, she was under way again,
moving southward into the smoke. Finally, at the end of several hours,
she was brought to, and, under slow bells, began to patrol a certain
course.
The smoke gathered density. It was permeated with a lurid glare, and,
driven by cross winds, it moved around a center, enfolding the cutter
with the effect of a vast, brassy, electrical cloud. It was also a
place of conflicting seas. The long, white, wicked fingers of a
tide-rip reached out ceaselessly, and withdrew to the center of the
whirlpool. The moon hung like a crimson lantern directly above and cast
a red trail through the vortex. Then suddenly, while the little steamer
skirted, listing to the maelstrom, a great gust tore the smoke asunder
and Foulweather Bluff loomed through the rift. At the same moment a
small yacht, under full sail bore down upon the headland.
The next instant she veered and coming around in the narrow space
between the cutter and the cliff, raced out, all but grazing the side of
the steamer, and heeled to the whirlpool. Her great mainsail dipped
lower and lower; the white fingers of the tide-rip clutched at it,
caught it, held it, dragged it slowly in. The decks were awash. Then
the grip of the maelstrom relaxed; the little craft righted, shivering;
her canvas filled with a big gust from the Straits and she swung away
into the night.
It all happened very swiftly, and the smoke closed in, curtaining
Foulweather, with a greater density. Bates, who was on the bridge, had
seen that the yacht carried no headlight, and he had recognized clearly,
one of the two men who sailed her. The face of the first was hidden,
for he leaned, straining every muscle, on the stumbling helm; but the
second stood on the slanting deck, bracing his back on the canting
cabin, alert, watchful, like a man on guard. His glance was raised to
the steamer's bridge, and fixing his eyes on the inspector, his right
hand crept to his hip pocket. There was no doubt; he was Stratton. And
even while the little vessel hovered on the edge of the maelstrom, the
officer gave the command to back, turn, go ahead. The cutter was in hot
pursuit. Directly the gun on her port bow boomed through the thick
atmosphere. No response. Again the report rang peremptory,
threatening. And still no answer.
At daybreak the steamer doubled back on her course and headed for the
lower end of Whidby Island, which divides the Sound into two long broad
channels. She patrolled this point for a long interval, and finally the
lookout saw the bowsprit and rigging of a small yacht detach from the
gray pall that shrouded the west passage. But instantly she swung away
from the cutter and vanished like a phantom in the smoke. Once more the
gun thundered a halt; and once more the silence was broken only by the
noise of the ship's machinery, and the breaking of the sea on the
cutwater. The revenue vessel steamed on under slow bells toward
Seattle.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*FOR LITTLE SILAS*
The lamps across the harbor began to show red spots through the smoke;
the nearer lights on the landings of the mills, and at the ends of the
wharves, shone with pale rings around their disks. With twilight a fog
was creeping in. The burning slab-pile sent up its great tongues of
flame against the blackness of the bluff, and became a beacon for such
craft as groped along the Head, feeling a way to the city. It
illuminated the usual groups of workmen, and singled out the old
watchman's square figure. He was seated on a block, shaping a miniature
boat for little Silas, and the child, standing by his knee, with his
hands clasped loosely behind him, awaited the results with grave
interest.
The boy's mother had just left him, with permission to stay until the
toy was finished. She felt the increasing dampness in the air, but she
stopped at her gate, shrinking from the silence of the house, and looked
back to the group at the fire. Presently she turned and walked slowly
in the direction of the old hotel. The swell broke with a long tramp
and swash at the foot of the bluff, for it was flood-tide. In dark
places, where the water ruffled about the piers, there were flashes of
phosphorous light. Louise watched it, leaning from the railing. It was
a light she loved. She liked, too, those night voices of the sea. They
intruded on her loneliness with a mild insistence; in sympathy, yet
expostulation.
But it was at such times she most excused Philip. "Men seldom are as
constant as women," she told herself. "Marriage to them can never mean
as much. Our work, our whole living must hinge on it; every hour is
shaped to it; but with them it is only a halt at the end of the day."
She lifted her glance and started erect. She brushed her clouding eyes
and stood staring out into the thick atmosphere. Something loomed there
from the sea. It was the bowsprit and forward rigging of a small
vessel, close in beyond the walls of the ruin. There was a familiar dip
in the lines of the loosely furled jib. "The _Phantom_," she exclaimed.
"She has missed the landing in the smoke." And she hurried up the
approach to the front entrance and on through the empty bar-room to the
rear balcony.
But the hail that sprang to her lips failed, and she shrank back into
the shadow of the interior. This craft carried no lights. There was no
stir of landing; none of the excitement of going unintentionally
aground. Instead there was a great hush, strange, sinister. Then,
while Louise wavered, afraid of she knew not what, a tender pushed out
from the side, and was pulled with muffled oars to the ruin. She heard
the bow touch the piling, and the two men in her stood up, head and
shoulders above the platform. But the light was too uncertain for her
to determine whether or not one was Philip, and she withdrew farther
into the room.
They lifted some bulky object, apparently a trunk, up to the balcony,
She lacked the courage to stay and meet them, and she ran softly through
to the walk, but there she wavered again. It flashed over her that if
this were not Philip it might mean some peril to the mills; something
that Forrest should know about. She went back and concealed herself
behind the bar. It was very dark there, and she dropped to her knees,
creeping under and drawing her skirts close.
The men brought their burden in, walking with the crunching sound made
by rubber boots. They came behind the bar to the tap-room door and set
the chest down, while one felt in his pocket for a key, and groping,
found the lock. It seemed, in that strained silence, they must hear the
thumping of her heart. They went in and left the chest and came out
directly, closing and relocking the door. But as the key was withdrawn
it fell with a muffled clink to the floor. She knew that it rested
partly on the edge of her skirt but she dared not stir. She remained
crouching, on her knees, another breathless interminable moment, then
one said impatiently, "I've left my match-safe on board."
She knew that quick, incautious voice, and yet she could not master her
unreasoning terror. It was Philip, but Philip shrouded in mystery; and
the Philip she had known, with all his faults, had been open, above
concealment, clear as day.
"Hush, you don't want any matches here," the other answered softly, and
he dropped to his knees, feeling the floor. "Never mind," he said,
rising, "Smith has the duplicate. Come, we must get away."
Louise waited, listening, until the tender pushed off, then she took the
key and rose from her cramped position. She walked unsteadily around the
bar and stopped, supporting herself on it for a moment. She was facing
the dim square of light that marked the rear entrance, and she saw the
mast of the little vessel rising tall and spectral through the gloom.
Then presently her jib unfolded, her mainsail ran up, and she stood away
and like a phantom dissolved in the smoke.
Louise turned and walked to the front door and on down towards her gate.
Her fingers locked and unlocked over the key. "It was Philip," she told
herself. "He comes here to the mills, secretly, at night, where he is
master, and puts something in hiding. And I--I dared not speak to him.
I crept like a coward--out of sight. I had done nothing--wrong--and yet
I was--afraid."
Little Silas was waiting with Mason at the gate. She stopped in the
light of the slab-fire to admire the fine lines of the finished boat.
The old sailor stumped away radiant, and she went in with the child and
lighted the swinging lamp and set the crimson shade. She drew the
blinds and seated herself in the low wicker chair by the open fire to
give the boy his hour. But afterwards, when he had been tucked snugly
in his bed and she came back to the room, she took the key from her
pocket and studied it, turning it slowly in her hands, as though she
expected to find in it some difference from other keys; some clue to
that mystery in the tap-room. There was a lurking dread in her eyes;
lines settled at the corners of her sweet mouth. "The other man was Mr.
Stratton," she said at last. "And some one else has the duplicate. Oh,
I don't understand. I don't understand."
She returned the key to her pocket and went over to the piano. But she
played mechanically, in fragments. Why had the tap-room been fitted with
a strong lock? What was this terrible thing Philip had brought ashore?
Awful crimes she had read of in newspapers flashed through her mind.
What did this chest contain? She rose and began to walk the floor.
Suddenly the great silence that hung over the mills at night was broken
by a hoarse whistle. The color went from her lips. Her body rocked
slowly; she stood locking and unlocking her slender hands. The echo
died along the bluff. She drew a great breath. "Why," she said, and
laughed mirthlessly, "it is only one of the tugs; the _Tyee_ probably,
coming in for wood or water."
But her hand stole to her pocket and closed over the key. She went to
the front door and stood alert, listening, on the piazza, straining her
eyes to define the lines of the steamer which was making her landing in
the mingled smoke and fog. "Of course it's one of the tugs," she
repeated, and walked the length of the porch, hurriedly, and halted,
again listening.
The few men who had lingered near the slab-fire commenced to go down to
the dock. She watched their figures grow dimmer, until they were only
moving shadows in the thick atmosphere. The moon, rising above the
lower, heavier strata, began to show a crimson run. Then, after a
while, she heard Forrest's step on the walk. She went to the steps to
meet him. She saw that two men waited a few yards behind him at the
branch walk.
He followed her into the hall, and pushing the door to, stood with his
hand on the knob. "The revenue cutter is here," he said. "The
inspectors think they have located dope. They are coming in here, now,
to go through the house." He paused, looking down into her white face.
"I tried my best to prevent it," he added, "but they will do it very
quietly. One of them is my friend Bates. You have nothing to fear."
But the terror grew in her eyes. She made an effort to speak, but the
words failed her. She shaped her lips again. It was hardly more than a
whisper. "What did you say they were looking for?"
"Opium. It generally is opium, and of course it's just a matter of form
to come in here. A man is detailed to go through the mills and he makes
a clean sweep of every building."
She caught the sound of the clicking gate. "Paul," she said, "make some
excuse for me. Do it. Stay yourself, and light them through the rooms.
Delay them if you can."
She turned and ran through the hall, and pausing to snatch up Mason's
candle and matches at the back door, ran out around the house to the
walk, in the moment Forrest admitted the officers.
It did not seem strange to Forrest that she had wished to avoid these
men; he, himself, had felt the humiliation of their visit, for, though
it was not remarkable that suspicion should have fallen on any of that
rough Freeport crew, it was carrying the matter pretty far to include
Mrs. Kingsley's home. He had asked the inspectors to exempt it, but
Bates had replied, "I'm sorry, but the fact is, Forrest, that's the
place I'm detailed specially to search." And what had she meant by
"Delay them if you can?"
He took a lamp and lighted the officers through the rooms. Little Silas
wakened and sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. He saw these men open
his mother's bureau, drawer after drawer, and thrust their hands through
her things, and he turned to Forrest for explanation. But the young man
stood back, waiting in silence, with frowning brows.
There was no one on the walk when Louise hurried to the ruin. The fog
and smoke had become very dense along the front of the bluff, but the
moonlight filtered through enough to show objects, with the
indistinctness of wet nights. The walls of the hotel loomed out of the
pall, lonesomely. The floor complained at her tread. She went quickly
behind the bar, and drawing the key from her pocket, found the lock.
Inside the tap-room she lighted the candle. The floor was strewn with
sand, dust, pebbles and bits of broken board. The tide still swashed
under the worm-eaten planks; they shook at her step.
She put the candle down and tried to move the chest. It yielded slowly
to her straining effort. Her first impulse had been to drag it through
to the rear balcony and push it over into the sea, but she had not
considered its weight. She locked the door and stood briefly scanning
the floor. The short, uneven strips were rotting about the old
nail-heads, which in places had worked up from the boards. There were
widening cracks where ends joined. She knelt down and tried to start
some of these rusty nails, but they were firmer than they looked. She
moved from one to another in growing haste, still on her knees, and
tugged at the stubborn iron with her tender hands. The jagged roughness
tore her fingers, imbedding splinters at every wrench. She reached a
looser nail. Her renewed effort forced the wood around it, and she
began to use it as a claw, prying and digging faster and faster, working
out the next. Presently she was able to lift this plank, and she used it
as a lever under the second, bearing gradually with increasing weight.
It gave without breaking and she laid it aside while she raised a third
strip. There was an increased rush of air. The flickering candle-flame
was snuffed out. Still the light from the high window showed the chest,
and she dragged it to the aperture. It fell slanting, and caught in the
flooring. At the same instant some one outside tried the tap-room door.
She grasped the chest with the strength of desperation. It slowly
righted and went through. The tide closed over it with a deeper swash.
Again she heard that cautious noise. Some one was trying to force a key
in the lock. It was obstructed by the one she had left there, and the
attempt was followed by a muttered curse. She laid the planks back in
their order, and brushing the sand and pebbles hastily over them, rose,
panting, and faced the door. There was no further disturbance, but the
room suddenly darkened. She turned, lifting her eyes to the high window,
and saw against the light the head of a man. It appeared briefly and
moved down, but she caught the brutish profile. It was the face that
had once alarmed her, peering into her room out of the night.
She threw the door open, and relocking it from the outside, ran swiftly
through the bar-room and down the walk. Presently she glanced back
fearfully, but the man had not followed, and she paused to hurl the key
and the candle far out in the tide.
As she approached her gate she saw that Forrest was waiting at the foot
of the piazza steps, while the inspectors came along the side of the
house from the rear. They moved slowly, prodding the sawdust and
planking that built up the yard, and she hoped to gain the porch before
they came that far. But they met her while she was still on the walk.
Bates swept her with his keen glance, but the lantern, which the other
man was adjusting, flashed that moment full in his face, and, blinded,
he passed without stopping her, going in the direction of the ruin.
Forrest saw her and stood holding the gate. The slab-fire suddenly
burst into brighter flame. It showed him clearly the stains of earth
and brine upon her gown; the grime of dust and moisture on her worn
face. She raised her hand to ward off his look, and her sleeve, rent to
the elbow, fell back from her beautiful forearm, baring a long deep,
bleeding hurt, ploughed there by the brass-bound end of the falling
chest. "Louise, Louise," he said. "What is it? Tell me."
She pushed him aside and went up the steps.
"Trust me," he said. "Let me help you."
"No," she answered, "No. Don't ask me." Then she turned and looked
down at him, and through the anguish in her eyes he saw the old
heart-breaking appeal. "I--I did it--for--little Silas." Her voice
broke in a great tearless sob. She went in and closed the door.
After a moment Forrest turned and followed the officers around to the
ruin. As he approached he heard the sound of blows. What wall had they
found to require such battering? He was there in time to see the hinges
of the old tap-room door wrenched out of the soft wood. It fell inward,
starting a cloud of dust from the rotting floor. Bates stepped on it,
and flashed his lantern over the interior. His keen eyes swept the
empty place and came back to meet the glance of the other inspector. He
laughed. "Well, Bates," he said, "I guess we're fooled."
Bates's eyes moved to the fallen door. "This lock was put on this room
for a purpose," he said. "And the _Phantom_ could land almost under
these walls at high tide. She may be stumbling around out there now,
feeling her way in through the smoke."
"The _Phantom_?" Forrest started. He leaned an instant on the bar
behind him, then he pulled himself erect and stood staring into the
empty tap-room. The lantern shining in his face showed it hard and gray
with the deepening furrow cleaving his brows. "The _Phantom_ was here,"
he told himself. "The stuff was left in there--and _she_--knew it. She
concealed it, moved it, somehow, while those men were at the house."
Bates turned and looked at him. "I suppose, Forrest," he said, "you
can't account for this lock? You could hardly think of using this old
ruin for storage purposes."
"No, no." His voice rang. He met the inspector's look clearly, with
his quick, upward fling of the head. "I ought to know all about it, but
I never saw it before. My work kept me in the other direction, at the
mills."
"Of course," said Bates slowly, "of course, as I thought. I've simply
got to patrol this beach, to-night, and wait for daylight to pick up a
clue."
Forrest walked with the officers back towards the cutter. "I should have
known about that lock," he told himself. "I should have found out why
that horse was up there on the bluff that day. I should have learned
what brought Stratton here alone. A little investigation would have
shown how things were going. I might have kept Philip out of the
scheme; brought things to a climax in time."
When the trio made the turn in the bluff that shut them off from a view
of the ruin, Smith swung himself down from the rear balcony to the rim
of beach which the ebbing tide had bared. He groped under the stringers
and found a dark lantern, which he lighted and held beneath the
building. It showed the top of the chest above the water, and he pushed
along between the wall and the bluff to the side of the tap-room, and
dipped under the floor. Presently he emerged, dragging the chest. He
stooped and lifted, worked it on to his shoulder, and went splashing
knee-deep and waist-deep in hollows, around to the western exposure of
the headland. When it seemed accessible he used his lantern again and
found the path. A short distance up he wormed himself, crouching,
through a tangle of hazel and salal and reached a little spur flanked by
an old cedar snag.
He put his burden down, and by the light of his lantern took two pairs
of saddle-bags from the hollow heart of the trunk, and filled them with
the contents of the chest. What remained he put into a coarse sack.
Then he picked up the empty chest and ran back a pace or two and hurled
it out into the tide. He waited, listening, but he heard only the rush
and ebb of the sea, and he returned to the cedar, and taking the
weighted bags on his shoulders, pushed on up to the summit.
He stopped there, gathering breath. The ledge where he stood seemed to
run shelf wise along an abyss. The mingled fog and smoke gave immensity
to the distance below. He bent his head, listening again, and caught
faintly the voice of the sea, nothing more. Then suddenly out of the
night behind him there came a gentle nicker. His big lips broke in a
leer. He ran, groping along the ridge trail to his horse.
He threw the bags across his saddle and stopped to fold the sack inside
his blanket, which he carried rolled at the crupper. Then he moved away
up the ridge, running afoot with the horse. Once he swung himself up
behind the load for a brief interval, while he gathered wind, but he was
down again directly and slipping over the ground with the same ease.
Finally he halted. Out of the stillness he heard the sound of hoofs
crossing a bridge. He fell to his knees an instant with his ear to the
ground, and when he rose his lips again broke in their horrible leer.
He moved on to a point where the trail cut a thoroughfare, and,
presently, Stratton joined him. He took one pair of the saddlebags with
him on the chestnut, and Smith mounted and they rode on together in the
direction of the Nisqually.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*"AS LONG AS WE TWO LIVE"*
Forrest stood on the upper landing of the mills. It was hardly midday
and the air was charged with the singing and buzzing of saws and the
rumble of the tramway. The town across the harbor was hidden in the
thick pall, and the sun hung overhead a blood-red ball. Ashes and
cinders fell everywhere; one breathed, tasted smoke.
The cutter, which had steamed over to the town during the night, had
returned and was lying at the lower wharf, and Forrest was watching
Bates. He had stayed to patrol the mills but had gone aboard when the
steamer arrived, and had now come over the gangway and was walking up
from the dock. Presently he mounted the stairs to the landing, but the
manager did not turn, and he came over and stood by him, looking off
into the smoke. "Of course, Forrest," he said at last, "you think a lot
of the Judge. You are under obligations to him."
"I think a great deal of him, yes." Forrest gave the inspector a level
look. "He is one of the best friends I ever had; but 'obligations' is
hardly the word." He paused, looking off again into the smoke, then
said, "Judge Kingsley is able to meet and brave through--what he must.
It's Kingsley's wife I've got to think of. You don't know her, Bates."
He paused, steadying his voice. "She has the old, rigorous New England
sense of duty; the blood and principles of generations of Puritans are
condensed in her. And yet she is so gentle, so sweet--but you can't
understand without seeing her."
"I see," said Bates slowly, "I see. But, Forrest, suppose Kingsley is
left out of this, could you put us on Stratton's track?"
Forrest swung around. "You ought to know, Bates, I'm not that sort of a
man. And she--isn't that kind of a woman. She would wring the misery
out of a thing like this, as no other woman would, and suffer the shame
of it all her life,--but the expiation would mean something to her. She
could stand the disgrace better, when it came to it, than covered
guilt."
"I understand all that, Forrest,"--Bates lifted his hand with a sweeping
gesture that dismissed that side of the question,--"but it's this way:
the _Phantom_ was at her moorings over there at Seattle, when the cutter
ran across last night. The captain boarded her immediately, and found
Kingsley sleeping like a kid in his cabin below. Stratton had come up
from Victoria with him, yes, but he had gone ashore. He couldn't tell
just where he was at that time, but he usually put up at the Arlington.
And, yes, they had run pretty close to Foulweather Bluff, just as we
saw, and he was sorry about the matter of the headlight,--the glass had
smashed in and he hadn't the chance to rig another,--but he was ready if
they had come to collect the fine. And of course he had heard the
cutter's salute, but it was too great a risk to bring the _Phantom_
around in the smoke; we had just come mighty near a collision. Then,
when the captain told him he would have to make a thorough search of the
yacht, he sat coolly advising him where to look. Hadn't he better cut
up the cushions? He never had been certain what was inside. And there
was a place on the port side that had always sounded a little hollow.
They would find a hatchet in that locker if they wanted to rip off a few
boards. In short, Forrest, there was absolutely nothing to show, beyond
the fact that the _Phantom_ brought over our man. But, whatever
Kingsley knows, or doesn't know, I must get on Stratton's track right
away. That thoroughbred which he usually keeps in the Arlington stables
when he is in town is gone; and that's about the only clue I have to
work on."
"Then," said Forrest, with another level look, "if I were you I would go
up to the top of this bluff and look around."
Bates started. A sudden understanding leaped in his face.
"And," continued Forrest, "if I happened to miss my trail anywhere up
the ridge, I think I would shape a course straight through to a
shooting-box he owns, up the Nisqually."
"Thank you for that, Forrest," Bates grasped his hand warmly, "thank
you. When you went into the milling business the Government lost the
chance of a mighty good man."
He turned with this and ran lightly down the stairs. A moment later the
noon whistle sounded and the workmen began to come out on the landing.
Forrest stood waiting while Bates hurried back to the cutter. A small
vessel moved out from the shrouded city front, her set jib showing
lighter in the dense grayness, and like a spectre drifted towards the
mills. But Forrest saw her absently. He was thinking that he must go
over to the little dining-room. Louise had not met him there at the
usual breakfast hour, but she would hardly miss the midday meal. Young
Silas would make it necessary for her to come. And he must sit there,
passively, as though nothing had occurred, while she was in such
desperate straits. How could he look into her face? How could he crush
down any longer what he thought of Philip? What he hoped for Stratton?
The recollection of him, his handsome, mocking face, his fascination,
incredible power over Kingsley, most of all his responsibility for the
wrecked life of this sweet woman, made his muscles tingle, and sent the
blood with a rush through his veins. It was the passion of a strong and
much-enduring man brought to his limit. His arms ached for physical
contact. Some day, soon, he would like to set his hands on Stratton in
one tremendous, unforgettable grip.
But Louise was not coming to the dining-room. Little Silas, mounting
the stairs with Mason, was saying so. His "muvver" was not hungry; she
was going to have some tea at home. But he was ready, and he had told
Sing to watch, and when he saw him coming with Uncle Paul, to bring in
the soup.
Forrest went over to the dining-room with the boy, and a little later
the _Phantom_ swung in to her wharf. Kingsley came ashore and went
directly up the walk to his house. His wife did not meet him at the
door. He did not find her in the parlor. Of course she was at lunch,
or was it dinner here at the mills? He sat down to the piano and ran
his fingers over the keys. Presently the noise brought her into the
room, and he looked up with a nod and smile, drumming on to the end of
his tune. Then he wheeled around on the stool and rose to his feet.
"Well, Louise," he said, "I have good news for you." She received his
kiss on her cheek, at which he laughed, and putting his hand under her
chin, compelled her sweet lips. "We are going home to Olympia."
He waited for her to speak, but she did not. She only stood locking and
unlocking her slim hands, and looking at him with tragic, circle-rimmed
eyes. "You'll be glad to get away from Freeport," he added.
"Yes," she answered slowly, "I shall be very--glad--to leave Freeport; I
am going--but not to Olympia; not with you."
"You are not going to Olympia, Louise? Not with me?"
"That is what I said." Her breast heaved and she went on with apparent
effort. "We made a--terrible mistake; I have known it for a long time.
Still, I believed we could live out our lives together--for the sake of
little Silas."
"Do you mean--our marriage, Louise? Do you think that was a mistake?"
"Yes." Her face grew very white, and she put one hand on a table,
leaning a little on the support.
His own face clouded. It was the way of this man to value things
according to the difficulty of possession; and he found himself suddenly
shaken by a new and strange tenderness for his wife, while at the same
time he felt a swift and bitter suspicion. He turned and walked the
floor, retracing his steps, and going the length of the room again. "It
is true, then," he said. "It is true."
"What is true?"
"What Stratton told me. This thing the mill-hands are bruiting about."
She started and stood quivering from head to foot, and he added slowly,
watching her, "This story about you and Paul."
She did not speak directly. She was like one brutally struck. Then
infinite contempt rose in her face; her deep eyes flamed, and her voice,
when she found speech, took its contralto notes. "You say that. You.
When you know the situation was thrust upon him. When you, yourself,
left me alone with our baby, in this rough milling camp, for weeks
together, with no possible protection but his. Think of it. When I
told you I was afraid, you asked him to see that the house had special
watch at night; when I said that I missed you, you asked him to bring
his violin and spend his evenings with me; even when Si's hard illness
came, it was not you who shared my anxiety; it was not you who quieted
him, carried him in your strong arms. No, it was not you, but Paul
Forrest. And he saved--little Silas; you know he risked his own life for
him." Her voice broke. "Oh, you must see that he was forced into it;
you must. He had enough else to do--but--you left him no alternative."
"I left him no alternative? Well, I own it. But you, Louise, come, out
with it. It's true. You do love him."
"No," and her voice thrilled him, "No. When a woman is married and has
her little child--to think of, she doesn't turn so easily to--other
loves."
At this he began to walk the floor again. She watched him with lifted
head and flaming eyes.
"I wonder," he said, stopping suddenly and regarding her with a touch of
humor in his face, "I wonder if you think I don't care anything for
you."
"Yes, you have led me to think so."
He laughed aloud. "Why, I couldn't care that," he snapped his fingers,
"for any other woman. I couldn't love any woman but you. Don't you
know it, Sweetheart?" He put his arm around her, drawing her head
against his shoulder. "Come, say you forgive me."
But she drew away, freeing herself desperately with her two arms. His
own fell. She moved back and the step was immeasurable space between
them. "No," she said. "No. Do not ask it."
He took another turn across the floor, uncertainly, his hands seeking
his pockets. "Tell me this," he said quietly, stopping before her. "Is
there something else? Something more than--well--my neglect. Something
I don't know about."
"How can I tell you?" She pressed her hands to her head and let them
fall, meeting his look. "Your way of loving has never been my way. I
could never make you understand how much I cared for you. You were
everything to me, Philip; everything. I worshipped you. To have you
indifferent, away, to lose you as I did, was to have nothing. But I
still could teach Silas to respect you, to believe in you. No slight,
no neglect of me could make me doubt you in--other ways. You were a man
of honor among men; you had your place--until--last night."
His glance wavered while she spoke. He felt an unaccountable weakness,
a sudden tightness at the throat, and he reached back to a chair behind
him and sank down.
"Philip," she said, "how could you do it? How--could--you?" Tears
rushed to her eyes; she brushed them impatiently away. "Think of it.
To lend the _Phantom_, that clean, white yacht, to an opium smuggler; to
make him your companion, friend; to be his willing tool. Oh, the shame
of it! The shame of it! How could you?"
He dropped his face in his hands. He felt suddenly that a court of
justice might be more merciful than this proud, sweet, unrelenting
woman. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. "I see," he
said, "you saw the revenue boat and you accepted Forrest's version. The
captain of the cutter would have told you different. There is some
suspicion hanging over Stratton, I admit, and those inspectors were
looking for the _Phantom_, in fact they boarded her, merely because he
happened to make the cruise with me over from Victoria. They of course
found nothing."
"No," she said slowly, "they found--nothing." There was a brief
silence, then she went on. "I was there, in the old hotel, when you
landed. I often walked that way when the house seemed
too--unbearably--lonely. I liked the sounds of the tide. I believed, at
first, the _Phantom_ had missed the dock in the smoke; then I thought it
might be another boat, and some secret plot going on about the mills;
something Paul should know. I am not a very brave woman, as you have
often said, and I crept under the bar to wait. I was even afraid when I
knew it was you. The key you dropped fell on my skirt. Afterwards, when
the cutter came, I understood. And while the inspectors searched
through these rooms, I went back to the ruin and lifted enough of the
floor to get--the chest--through."
"You did that? Oh, Louise, Louise!" He dropped his face again in his
hands. He saw in a flash the magnitude of what she had done; the
terrible moral as well as the physical effort it had cost her. But he
felt more, in that bitter moment, that it was to her, the one in all the
world from whom he had most cared to hide his dishonor, he owed his
salvation. "Oh, Louise," he repeated, "and you did it for me."
"No." Her voice rang. "No. I did it for little Silas; to save him the
disgrace. I am going to take him away, where the smallest hint or
suspicion can never reach him. But I will not have a divorce--unless you
wish." And the break in her voice, the white stillness of her face more
than her words convinced him.
He rose to his feet. "The scheme was all Mark Stratton's," he said.
"He took advantage of my being in a tight place. He promised to assume
the whole risk; let him shoulder the disgrace."
She was silent.
"Louise," he said desperately, "you can't be so hard. I know what I did.
I know there isn't the shadow of excuse for me, but you can't be so
hard. You don't mean a separation. You are only trying me. Fix a
limit; give me a certain time to prove myself. Give me some sort of
hope, Louise."
He was very handsome at that moment. He possessed great personal
magnetism; his emotion softened his voice and the brilliancy of his
black eyes. He came a step towards her, opening his arms impetuously.
"I will do anything you say, Sweetheart; only don't leave me."
She stood shrinking against the table. "I could never respect
myself--again," she said slowly, with manifest effort, "unless--you
accepted your share of the atonement; and--my own confession--would
follow; but--little Silas--would begin life--handicapped."
"Silas. Well, it's all right, put him first; I deserve it. But count in
old Si, too; it would cut him pretty bad. After all, we are in the same
boat. Let us forget it and make a new start." Her face was very white;
her body rocked. He thought that she was falling. He took her in his
arms. "Sweetheart," he said, "don't send me away; I love you so."
But she laid her palms against his breast, holding herself aloof. His
arms fell. "Then make it a probation," he pleaded. "I will be good.
Promise me you will come back--in a year."
She shook her head. She was almost past speaking. She braced herself
with her hand on the table again, her whole body trembling. "No," she
said at last, "no. Please go; don't say any more. It must be
separation--nothing less--as long as we two live!"
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*"A MAN OF STRAW"*
Smith, having slower horses and the bulk of the outfit, started for the
Pass at daybreak, with the understanding that Stratton would overtake
him at the crossing of the Nisqually; and it was hardly two hours later
that the thoroughbred forded the Des Chutes above the lodge, and,
followed by a pack-animal, made a sharp ascent to the rock tower, where
his master halted to load the remainder of the cache.
The forest fires that had been the salvation of the _Phantom_, had
proved a disadvantage on the road from Seattle. The two horsemen had
been forced to make wide detours around blazing timber; sometimes the
trail was lost in the charred ruins of burned out tracts, and arriving
at the ranch where Stratton had expected to pick up pack-animals, they
found the buildings completely wiped away, and all signs of humanity and
life gone. But Smith annulled these delays by starting a red trail
backward from the Nisqually plains through the untouched woods they had
travelled; cutting off any chance of pursuit for several days.
Stratton had been further handicapped by the pain in his head, which the
heat and glare brought on with increasing violence. There were moments
when riding became impossible, and he threw himself from the saddle,
prone on the earth, to wait for harder paroxysms to pass. But as they
approached the headwaters, they came into the shade of clean, unbroken
timber; the smoke decreased to scarcely more than a haze, and, while
Smith pressed Laramie to forage for the necessary pack-horses, Stratton
was able to allow himself twenty-four hours of absolute rest, induced by
a few drops of the mixture he had learned to use in the solitude of his
lodge, and this put him on his feet again.
Still he made slow progress down the rough path from the tower that
morning, and even when he struck the main trail he halted repeatedly,
like a man of two minds. Finally he wheeled and, encumbered by the
pack-horse, which led indifferently, paced back, and turned into a
by-way that brought him into the school branch. He held Sir Donald at a
walk and studied the ground, until, though he noticed Mose's footprints
in a moist place, he was satisfied the black had not yet passed.
Presently he stopped, listening. The track, there, doubled a trunk of
great girth; a hollow cedar stump, roofed like an arbor by the branches
of young alders, which also screened a break in the inner wall, like a
curtain before a door.
The sound became a brisk and steady lope. To this man, who had waited
for it often, who was accustomed to read the individuality of horses as
a psychologist studies men, it was unmistakable. He backed the
pack-animal into the salal, and held the thoroughbred in, while Colonel,
falling to a gentle pace, rounded the curve and came to a playful
standstill.
"Good morning." Alice's glance moved from Stratton to the laden
pack-horse. "But it looks like good-by," she said.
"Yes, I turned back to say it. I missed seeing you at the homestead,
yesterday, and I am starting on another trading and hunting trip. I
should find elk now, in the mountains, and I hope to bring you the horns
of a goat."
"I'll have a place for all you bring," she answered, her lips dimpling.
"Mose told me you were going. But," she added seriously, "I'm glad you
are going alone. Mose saw Pete Smith, late last evening, creeping along
from the foot-bridge, and this morning, of course you know, Mill
Thornton's horse was gone."
"Not the sorrel?" Sir Donald, accustomed to every fluctuation of his
master's voice, trembled and wheeled. But the hand on the bridle
steadied and brought him around. "No," Stratton added, "No, I had not
heard. I came the other way, by the ford and the canyon trail, and so
missed seeing Mrs. Mill. And Thornton believes it was Smith?"
"Yes, he is sure of it. There was a clear track on the wet grass across
my claim to strike the canyon trail. He followed it far enough to be
certain, then started for the prairie to get Jake's horse. Ketchem is
very swift and he expected to bring the Government detectives back with
him. They have tracked Pete to the settlement, and spent last night at
the Myers homestead."
Stratton put his hand on the black's glossy neck, giving it a quick,
firm stroke. "And they are looking for--Smith?" he asked.
"Yes. He has committed some new crime; Samantha didn't understand what.
I doubt if the man who told Mill knew. But," she halted an instant,
compelling his eyes with her clear, steadfast look that seemed to expect
a best in him, "you will help the Government now. You will stop him if
the opportunity comes. And you know how Mill needs his horse. Think if
it was Sir Donald; think how it must go all against the grain of a fine,
mettlesome creature to be touched, even, by those unclean, wicked
hands."
"I will do what I can about the sorrel," he answered. "But I am going a
long and hazardous journey; I may never see you again." He gave the
black another quick, firm stroke, then, meeting her eyes, once more lost
himself. "Smith is with me," he said. "Those men are looking for me.
Think. Go back to that day at the tower when you stumbled on that
strange, leaking tin. Go back farther to that time on Orcas Island; the
story I told you there on the summit. I was that boy."
"You were that boy?"
"Yes. The time has come; I want you to know it from me. I was that
boy. And you,"--he paused, and the quiver that was the surface stir of
unsounded depths swept his face. "You were that woman. I can't give
you up. You don't know how I love you. Wait. Listen. Never mind that
friendliness; I break the truce. Never mind your impossible duty to the
Judge. When a woman loves a man, as you are capable of loving, she
doesn't hold him off the breadth of the whole continent; she goes when
he calls. Wait. Listen. Forget that Puritan conscience of yours, this
one half-hour, and I pledge myself to live up to it the rest of my life.
Trust me. Promise you will join me in Chicago, New York, Montreal,
whenever, wherever I write."
The color flamed in her face. "I shall be late to school," she said.
"Turn Sir Donald, please."
She spoke to her horse, but the thicket crowded close and the chestnut
continued to hold the way. "Wait, just one moment more," Stratton went
on, "you do not understand. I will take you away, to the ends of the
earth, if I must, and make a new start. I can do it; I can become the
most rigid patriot, I swear, with you to back me. It rests completely
with you, to make of me your kind of man, or to send me--I don't care
where."
"I could never be any man's prop," she answered. "I thought you knew
that!" Then suddenly her manner changed. Her face softened; her eyes
filled with a great appeal. "Face it out, pay the price," she said. "I
will help you; only be the man of character, of force, I have believed
you to be, and not--a man of straw."
"Force," he caught at the word. "Force. Would you like me better if I
should carry you away? I could do it, now, to-day; over the mountains,
into the big Palouse wilderness. Sir Donald is very fleet,"--he watched
her narrowly,--"and so is the black."
"Carry me away? Carry me?" Again her manner changed. She tipped back
her head, laughing in soft derision.
"I know every byway northward to the British boundary and far beyond,"
he went on hurriedly. "Only give me the start over the divide, and the
whole roused Northwest could never find you."
"But you forget my part; I should find a way back." And she laughed
again, less merrily, still in derision.
He backed his horse a little among the alders, close to the cedar trunk,
and swung himself from the saddle, moving to the chestnut's head and
thrusting his arm through the bridle. The position brought him again to
the neck of the black, and he slipped the same hand on through the coil
of Colonel's lariat. "At least you are not afraid of me," he said. "I
am glad of that."
"Afraid? Afraid of you? Oh, no. Why should I be? But the children
will be waiting." Though the words were brave her voice trembled. It
was not the first time she had tried to laugh this man off dangerous
ground, but now, suddenly looking into his face, for the first time, she
felt he had passed beyond her influence.
She was afraid. This was not the Stratton she had known; whose
companionship hitherto had seemed a security on the trail; whose
frequent visits to the headwaters had kept her in touch with the outside
world; the friend who had once saved her from fire; whom, earlier, she
had rescued from an ice-crevasse. That Stratton had been mocking,
debonair; a few times she had seen him shaken with passion, but he had
shown her strong under-currents of fine feeling; and, always, in any
mood, he had remembered to be courteous, chivalrous; that was bred in
the bone. But this man--it was as though she had not seen him before.
His face was determined, hard. It might have been chiseled of rock. His
silence was a threat. And, clearly, he did not mean to let her pass.
She turned in her saddle to look at the space behind her and gathered
her rein. And instantly Stratton laid his palm on her hand and drew the
bridle from her surprised hold. "You will hate me at first," he said,
"perhaps hard and long; but--I can be patient--you will love me in the
end and marry me."
He made a hitch in the rein and dropping it on the black's neck, lifted
his hand to the silk handkerchief knotted at his throat.
"I will not," she said, and caught a great breath, "I will not." She
reached for the bridle, but again his hand closed over hers. She
flashed him a look; unspeakable contempt, aversion, rose in her face.
"You ruffian," she added. "You common ruffian, outlaw."
And he let the hand go. He released, too, his hold on the coiled
lariat, and stood back like a man unexpectedly struck. He had ceased to
bar the way; she was free to ride on, but she failed to notice that.
She saw only this "ruffian" and her eyes stormed. "Listen," she said,
and her voice, like her sister's, deepened to contralto notes. "I warn
you. I can die just once and it will come to that before I ever bring
myself to marry you. As long as I live I shall never love any man
but--_Paul Forrest_."
So, at last, in this moment of great anger, the truth which she had not
even admitted to herself, was surprised from her. Then she was silent.
A wave of color surged and ebbed in her face. She began to tremble, a
little at first, then harder; her whole body rocked.
And Stratton watched her. The light like a blade flashed in his eyes,
but he gathered himself, slowly, in check, the Stratton she knew once
more. "So," he said, finally, "so, after all, it is the black's master,
as I thought, as I feared at the beginning. You might have told me; it
was hardly fair to me to fabricate that yarn about the Judge, and stay
by it so long."
"It was not a fabrication. I am going to marry Judge Kingsley," her
voice broke and she finished almost in a whisper, "as I told you."
"I see," he answered slowly, "I see." He paused and went on yet more
slowly. "To think of it, the irony of it, that Forrest should love your
sister."
Colonel had started, but she drew him in and turned, again facing this
man. "Hush," she said, and he saw that she shook once more, from head
to foot. "Hush. Deny it. Own that you know, it isn't true."
He folded his arms, one drawn still through his bridle, and met her look
steadily. "But I believe it," he answered. "I am sorry, but I believe
it. How do you know it isn't true?"
"You know them both, yet you can ask. You--you must have seen that she
could never care for any man but Philip Kingsley."
"I grant that," he answered and smiled. "I spoke merely of Forrest. It
is he who is generally blamed."
"Blamed?" She lifted her chin high; her eyes storming.
"Yes, it is common talk among the mill men; I have overheard it
discussed in a hotel lobby at Seattle, and at Olympia, where they are
generally and intimately known."
"But you--you have denied it?"