From down there at the boom as the blackest hours of the night passed,
Halloway and Brent sat rubber-coated on the raft watching the inflamed
redness that was wiping out all that end of the village. The
age-seasoned frame houses there huddled close enough for the hot
contagion to sweep them with typhoon speed and they went up in spurts
like pitch barrels. The wind was high enough to romp ruthlessly with
spark and blaze, until even the effort at fire-fighting had been
abandoned. Happily the bluster had settled to a constant gale out of
the south-west and the fire-tide rolled with it to the edge and not the
core of the town and when it lapped at the reeking woods it hissed out
in defeat.
Alexander had withdrawn to her improvised shack and wrapped herself in
her blanket. Brent gazed with a sort of hypnotized intentness on the
wildness of the picture before him--an orgy of fire, wind and water.
Through the wet mountains the wind shrieked and buffetted until ancient
trees, made brittle by long freezing, went down. At his back, beyond
the boom, sounded the dirge of the swollen waters running out. That
was like the wail of a maniac exhausted by his ravings. The stage was
dropping as rapidly as it had risen. Ahead, tossing a mane of smoke
and a spume of spark, reveled the demoniac spirit of Fire. Brent
shuddered but Halloway struck a match just then for his dead pipe under
the protection of his coat lapel and in the brief flare Brent saw that
his eyes were agleam, feral and animal-like, and that his lips were
wolfishly drawn back from his teeth.
"This is elemental!" Halloway burst out suddenly. "I glory in it.
I've been sitting here drunker than any moonshine guzzler back there at
that tavern to-night. Drunk on the wild wine of the elements--drunk
from the skulls of Valhalla. Great God, I love it!"
Brent rose at last and sought refuge under the insufficient roof of one
of the shacks, for a down-pour had come with the wind and in key with
all the extravagance of the night's mood, it was a cloud-burst.
The city man tossed restlessly and once looking out across the stretch
of the rafted logs, he saw a single figure stripped to the skin in the
sheeted down-pour of cold rain. He saw it only when the lightning
flashed with the spectral effect of beauty. It stood straight with
back-flung shoulders and head upturned into the rain like some wild
high-priest of storm worship. When a flare, brighter than the others
limned the whole prospect into a dazzling instant, the features burst
into clarity with eyes glowing like madness, and lips parted in wild
exaltation.
"He'll have a chill before morning," growled Brent, but his
astonishment at the hardihood of such a shower-bath would have been
more severely taxed had he been able to see behind the screening walls
of Alexander's shack.
For if the colossal man standing there as God made him, reveling in the
sluicing of icy sheets of water, was a picture for a painter's delight,
the figure of the woman, sheltered from any eye, but likewise stripped
to the flesh was one almost as heroic and far lovelier. Alexander too,
was availing herself of that strong tonic which would have brought
collapse to a weakling. She stood tall, beautiful, a Diana with her
wet and flowing hair loosed about her white shoulders and her bosom
rising and falling to the elation of the storm-bath.
The hurricane passed in the forenoon of that day leaving the ridges wet
and inert, with the dejection of spent violence, but from gray clouds
that hung in trailing wisps along the upper slopes a steady rain sobbed
down. After breakfast Bud Sellers who had after all not availed
himself of Alexander's permission to spend the night on the raft, came
aboard and diffidently approached the girl.
He wore a hang-dog air but in his eyes was that same wistfulness of
unspoken worship. Brent knew that he was trying to explain to
Alexander his torture of self accusation because of the disaster born
of his moment of drunken frenzy.
The girl stood looking at him, entirely oblivious to the devotion that
was clear-writ in his eyes. While he talked she accorded him a
hearing, but with lips tight pressed and the unforgettable picture in
her mind of the stricken man who might even now be dead. He might have
passed, with the pain of uncertainty clouding his last moments as to
the success or failure of her venture.
With that burden on her heart it was difficult to listen to apologies
and explanations. She knew that Bud would have burned his body to a
crisp last night if need be in the effort to save her from a similar
fate, but that only irritated her. She had not called for help. She
had not needed help and this rush of volunteers to her rescue was,
after all, only a denial of the principle for which she so militantly
fought; the postulate that when she played a man's game she wished to
be treated as a man, asking no favors.
Brent and Halloway overheard a little of what was said, for the two
voices rose in inflection, under the urge of his earnestness and her
feeling.
"I don't act pi'zen mean when I'm sober, Alexander--an' I strives not
ter drink, knowin' full well thet hit plum crazes me-- Hit don't seem
like no common thirst-- Hit comes on me like a plague and hit masters
me ther same as spells or fits----. God, He knows I'd es lief hev
raised my hand ergin my own daddy, ef I hed one, es erginst yore paw--I
war frenzied."
"I don't know what made ye do hit, but I knows what ye done, Bud," said
Alexander and her rich voice trembled under the tautness of her effort
at control. "Ef a man kain't holp goin' mad like a dog--an' seekin'
ter slay folks, I reckon he----" It was on her tongue to say that he
ought to pay the mad-dog's penalty but she checked herself shortly and
went on with less cruelty, "I reckon he's a right dangerous sort of
feller ter hev 'round."
"All I asks, Alexander," he pleaded, "air thet ye gives me ther chanst
ter make amends. Ef I feels ther cravin' masterin' me ergin, I'll go
ter town an' git ther police ter lock me up in ther jail-house an' keep
me thar, tell I comes back ter my senses."
"Hit hain't a thing ye kin handily make amends fer," she reminded him,
"but I've done pledged myself ter let hit go unavenged and I knows too,
thet I'm beholden ter ye fer last night. None-the-less----" The color
paled from her cheeks and she shook her head. "None-the-less until I
gits back home--an' knows whether my paw is livin' or dead----" her
words came very slowly and with an effort, "I kain't say thet thar
won't be black hatred in my heart erginst ye."
He nodded somewhat miserably. "No, I don't hardly reckon ye kin tutor
yore feelin's no different," he acknowledged as he turned away, but
from that moment he had dedicated himself to a vasselage out of which
he hoped to salvage no personal reward.
When she had watched him tramp up the muddy slope from the bank to the
street, Alexander lifted her chin and tossed her head, as if to shake
away some cobwebbing thought from the brain. Then with an energetic
step she came over and without preamble announced, "Mr. Brent, I don't
aim ter tarry hyar no longer then ther soonest time I kin git out.
Let's me an' you talk business."
Brent nodded. "Is it confidential? Do you want me to send this man
away?" he inquired, with a mischievous glance at the giant whose eyes,
save when they dropped before her own, remained fixed on the girl with
a devouring intentness.
Alexander shook her head. "What fer?" she demanded. "I reckon we
hain't got no need of whisperin' erbout our transactions."
She paused for an instant and went on. "Paw an' you measured up that
timber back yon, didn't ye? An' ye agreed on ther price too, didn't
ye?"
"We settled both points. I have a memorandum, but----"
"I knows what ye aims ter say," interrupted Alexander. "Ye means ter
name hit ter me thet them logs hain't all hyar because some of 'em
busted loose comin' through ther gorge. What I wanted ter ask ye is
thet you an' me should measure up thet raft now an' figger out what's
gone, so thet I kin tell paw----" She halted as abruptly as though a
blow on the mouth had broken off the utterance and a paroxysm of pain
crossed her face. The ever present dread had struck back that there
might be no father to whom she could report. With a swift recovery,
though, she finished. "So thet I kin fotch tidin's back home es ter
how much we gits."
When these reckonings had been made Brent inquired: "Do you understand
the terms of this contract between your father and myself?"
Her reply was guarded. "We've done talked hit over."
"It was agreed," the buyer told her, "that I was to accept this stuff
and pay for it at some point from which I could deliver it in the
Bluegrass either by rail or navigable water. If you like, I'm ready to
pay now."
He had seen Alexander under some trying circumstances and never with
any hint of breakdown, yet just now he wondered if unexpected good
tidings were not about to accomplish what bad news could not--carry out
the dam of her own hard-schooled repression on a flood of tears. Her
eyes became suddenly misty and her lips trembled. She started to
speak, then gulped and remained silent. But gradually the color flowed
back into her cheeks, as pink as the laurel blossom's deep center, and
once more she gave her head that characteristic toss as though in
contempt for her moment of weakness.
"Mr. Brent, I hain't seekin' no favors an' I don't want nothin' but my
dues. I didn't know ye stood obleeged ter pay us 'twell ther logs went
down ter ther lowlands, but----" Though her words were slowly, even
tediously enunciated they seemed to come with difficulty. "But ef I
could take thet money back thar--an' tell him hit war all settled
up----" The fullness of what that meant to her gained in force because
she got no further with her explanation and Brent said with a
brusqueness, affected to veil his own sympathy: "Come on, let's go to
the bank."
The bank at Coal City is a small box of brick, with two rooms. At the
front the cashier's grating stands. At the rear is a bare chamber
furnished with a small stove, a deal table and a few hickory-withed
chairs. It is here that directors meet and hinterland financiers
negotiate. Into this sanctum Brent led Alexander Macedonia McGivins,
and for no particular reason, save that no one had forbidden it,
Halloway accompanied them.
The timber buyer scribbled his calculations on the back of an envelope
and submitted the results to the girl, who gravely nodded her
satisfaction.
"Then," said Brent with an air of relief, "there remain only two things
more. I shall now draw you a check for four thousand and ninety-one
dollars and fifty cents, and you will sign a receipt."
Halloway was sitting in the background where he could indulge in all
the staring he liked, and since Alexander had swum into his ken, that
had become a large order. As Brent finished, the girl who had been
sitting at the table with a pen in her hand, suddenly pushed back her
chair and into her eyes came an amazed disappointment--a keen anxiety.
For a moment she looked blankly at the man who was opening his check
book. She suddenly felt that she had been confronted with a financial
problem that lay beyond her experience and one which she deeply
distrusted. It was as though affairs hitherto simple, except for
physical dangers, had run into a channel of subtler and therefore more
alarming complication.
None of this escaped Halloway's lynx-like gaze but to Brent who was
smoothing out the folded check, it went unobserved.
Suddenly Alexander bent forward, her cheeks coloring with embarrassment
and caught at the signer's wrist as spasmodically as though it were a
death warrant to which he meant to set his signature.
"Don't write me no check!" she exclaimed somewhat desperately, then,
covered with confusion she added, "I don't aim ter insult ye none--but
I don't know much erbout fotched-on ways. I wants ter tote thet thar
payment back home--in real money."
Except with Brent, Halloway had never thus far broken out of character.
Having assumed to be a mountain lumberman, he had consistently talked
as one--acted as one.
Now he came out of his chair as though a mighty spring had uncurled
under him, and slapped an outspread hand to his forehead.
"Great jumping Jehosaphat!" he exclaimed, and turning in her chair, the
young woman studied him in perplexity. But Halloway's slip was brief
and his recovery instant. Since Brent sat there staring in speechless
bewilderment at Alexander, the giant launched himself into the breach.
"Tote four thousand dollars in silver an' paper an' gold across them
trails in saddle bags!" His voice suddenly mounted into domineering
vehemence. "Tote hit over wild an' la'relly mountings with this hyar
country full of drunken scalawags thet would do murder for a ten dollar
bill! Hev ye done gone plum bereft of reason?"
Alexander's first confusion of manner had come from the fear that her
refusal of a check might seem tainted with the discourtesy of
suspicion. Now in the face of actual opposition it stiffened instantly
into hostility. The perplexity died from her face and her eyes blazed.
For a moment she met the excited gaze of the man who towered over her
and then in a coldly scornful voice she spoke, not to him, but to
Brent. "I reckon ye war right, Mr. Brent, when ye asked me whether I
wanted this man sent way. Thar hain't no need of his tarryin' hyar."
"Just a moment, Alexander," smiled Brent, enjoying in spite of himself
his friend's discomfiture. "We'll pack him off, if you say so, but
first hear what we both have to say. He's right. With this gang of
scoundrels in and about town it would be madness to carry that much
money. The size of this deal will set tongues wagging. When you start
out everyone will know it. You'd never get home alive."
"I don't know nothin' about checks an' sometimes banks bust," she
obdurately insisted. "I wants ter show my paw cash money. Ef he 'lows
I'm man enough ter do his business thet's enough, hain't it?"
"A rifle-gun in ther la'rel hes done overcome plenty of men afore ye,"
asserted Halloway with the deep boom of sullenness in his voice. "Ye
hain't no army of men, I reckon."
They wrestled with her in argument for the better part of an hour but
she was as immovable as the bed-rock of her mountains.
Brent even raised the point, despite the withering contempt with which
he knew she would greet it, that he might decline to recognize her
authority to act for her father but from a hip pocket of her trousers
she produced a worn wallet and from the wallet she extracted a general
and properly attested power of attorney to transact all business.
"I hed ter hev thet," she announced coolly, "because so many damn fool
men 'lowed thet a woman couldn't do business."
The end of it was that Brent himself cashed his check, and counted out
in specie and currency a sum large enough to become in effect a price
on her head. When the money had been done up in heavy paper, sealed by
the cashier with wax, and identified with her own signature, she
consented to permit it to lie in the safe overnight since the roads
were not yet passable, though even then she cannily inquired of the
bank employe: "I reckon ye hain't got no objection ter my countin' hit
up afresh afore I sets out, hev ye?"
Later that day Lute Brown, who it may be said in passing, had served a
term in state prison for house-breaking, dropped casually into the bank
and asked the cashier to "back a letter" for him, since writing was not
one of his own strong points. The cashier was obliging, and in as much
as gossip was usually sparse in that community went on the while
chatting with the president of the institution, who had just come in.
"True as text," said the cashier, while Lute Brown waited. "She
wouldn't take no check. She was plum resolved to have her money in
cash--and she aims to hire a mule and start out soon to-morrow morning
toting it along with her."
"I'd hate to undertake it," said the president briefly and the cashier
agreed: "Me an' you both. Why she wouldn't even hear of takin' no
bodyguard along with her."
Later in the day Lute Brown addressed a caucus attended by a half dozen
men, including Jase Mallows.
That meeting took place behind closed doors and though a general accord
of purpose prevailed there was some dissension as to detail.
"We kain't skeercely shoot her outen hand es she rides along," demurred
a conscientious objector, who, however, fully endorsed the plan of
lightening her financial burden. "She's a woman, fer all her brashness
in her callin' herself a man."
The virtuous sentiment was not popularly received. It might even have
been scoffed into limbo had not Jase Mallows leaned forward, twirling
his mustache, and made himself heard.
"Ye're damn right hit won't do ter kill her. I aims ter wed that gal
some day, an' afore I'd see her lay-wayed an' kilt, I'd tell this hull
story ter ther town marshall."
An ominous growl went up at that but Jase continued staunchly.
"Howsomever we needn't hev no fallin' out over that. I've got a plan
wharby she kin be robbed without hurtin' her an' wharby atter ye've
done got ther money, I kin 'pear ter rescue her an' tek her offen yore
hands."
As he outlined his guileful proposition the scowls of his listeners
gave way to grins of full approval and admiration.
"Who's goin' ter diskiver what route she rides?" demanded one of those
annoyingly exact persons who mar all great dreams by the injection of
practicalities.
Again Jase laughed. "Thar hain't but one way she kin go--hit'll be
days afore any other route's fordable. She's got ter fare past
Crabapple post office an' through Wolf-pen gap."
That afternoon Brent went to the telegraph office. He wanted to wire
his concern that the timber was safe and the deal closed, but while
still a short distance from the railroad station, which was also the
telegrapher's office, he saw Lute Brown go into the place and fell to
wondering what business carried him hither. So he timed his entrance
and sauntered in just as the fellow was turning away from the
operator's chair.
Brent himself lounged about idly, because the man at the table had
opened his key and begun sending. Neither Brown nor the operator gave
any indication of interest in the arrival of a third person.
To neither of them did it occur that Brent was versed in the Morse
code, and Brent volunteered no information on the subject.
None the less he was listening and as the dots and dashes fell into
letters and the letters into words, he read, as if from a book, this
message:
"Woman starts out in morning with bundle by way of Crabapple post
office. Lute."
Brent filed his own message and passed the time of day with the
operator, but when he was outside he cursed the need of slow walking as
he made his way to the rafts. Alexander was not there. No one had
seen her for two hours and, from her shack, both pack and rifle had
been removed.
Halloway's face when Brent found him and told him his story, first
blackened into the thunder cloud darkness, then as suddenly paled into
dread.
"By God, Brent," he whispered hoarsely, catching the other's arm in a
grip that almost broke it, "what if she suspects us too--and has
already set out to give us the slip? She hasn't a chance to get
through before these outlaws intercept her. She'd have to
stop--somewhere this side the gap--and go on in the morning."
"Come on," snorted Brent, "we've got to go to the livery stable and see
if she's hired a mule."
"If she's seeking to give us the slip, she's probably changed that plan
too--and set out on foot. It's a safe bet, though, that she didn't go
without her precious money. Let's try the bank."
They went, Brent needing to strike a sort of dog-trot to hold the long
striding pace of the other.
The bank was closed for the day.