In the little valley by Westcott's, Pen stood waiting and staring upward.
At last she heard the sharp sound of an engine and saw the plane
describing a sweeping circle. It came gently down, the little wheels
rolling along the grass.
"I'm in debt to Hebler," said Larry. "It was only your fear of him that
overcame your fear of flying."
Then looking at her, he continued, confidingly, "I wouldn't take up the
average girl, Pen, and especially one who owned up to being afraid. But I
know you. You'll forget fear in the thrills. All you've got to do is to
sit still, hold on and look out on the level. We won't do any swivels;
just straight stuff, and you'll be as safe as you would any place."
She put on the hood and goggles and was adjusted to the seat.
"Now where do you want to go?" he asked.
"Anywhere to lose myself. Hebby is in town and so--are others. Let us take
the opposite direction and you can land me at some place where the
east-bound stops and I can get some more luggage. Then we'll make plans."
"Suits me. First thing we'll do is to have a grand flight. Then I'll leave
you at a nice, little, sky-high inn I know up in the clouds. I'll fly back
to town, pay my bill, pack my traps and join you by train."
He started the engine. The plane skipped along for a few paces, then
arose, it seemed to Pen, to great and dizzy heights. In spite of her
instructions she ventured to look down. Everything earthly was
disappearing. They dodged the clouds, went above them and then slid down
to the splendors of the sunlight. Over the hills at full speed they swept
along, Larry's air-wise, lightning-swift sensibilities making naught of
change of currents and drafts. Then came the joy and thrill of a
sixty-mile straightaway spurt.
It was wonderful, but the most wonderful part of it to Pen was that she
had not even a second of fear, although always this thought of being shot
up suddenly straight into an unknown realm had been most terrifying.
Up there above the hills and in the clouds, she felt entranced,
spiritualized. It was with a feeling of depression that she saw they were
spinning down until they hovered over a field, scudding smoothly and
slowly along.
"You weren't afraid!" exclaimed Larry triumphantly, as they walked along
toward a little inn resting at the base of one of the undulating hills.
"No;" she answered, "only awed."
"Was it anything like you expected?"
"No," she replied.
A man came out of the inn to meet them.
"Halloa, Larry! Too bad I couldn't have had a full house to see. The last
tourist left on the train to-day."
"Then you'll have more room for us. This is Miss Lamont, Nat. Mr. Yates,
the proprietor," he explained to Pen. "Can you give us supper and put Miss
Lamont up for the night? I have to fly back to my hotel. I'll return by
train in the morning."
"Sure thing! House is yours."
He showed Pen to a neat little room and told her "supper'd be on in a
jiffy."
She sat down dazedly. Presently she was roused to her surroundings by
Larry's "Oh, Pen!" from below.
When she came down to the dining-room, Larry's clear young eyes looked at
her keenly.
"Not down to earth yet, Pen? I know how you feel. First time I made the
sky route, I went off by myself for a day."
"Larry, I can't talk about it yet. I will tell you now why I joined you. I
thought I would like to go to France--with you. I thought I might be
useful some way, but now--"
"We won't think of plans now. We'll talk it all over in the morning when I
am back. You'll be safe here. Nat would as lief shoot Hebby or anyone else
who trailed you. Supper's on the table, so come on."
Throughout the meal Larry did most of the talking, Pen scarcely
responding. Then he was off, steering in great circles toward town, Pen
watching with the quickening of pulse and a renewal of the elation she had
felt when taking the air. When he was but a mere speck in the sky, she
went up to her little room.
"You'll never look quite so high or so wonderful to me again," she
thought, as she looked out on the hills. "It's because I've looked down on
you, I suppose--the law of contrast. I learned a great deal up there--in
the vapors. I put out my feelers, something I never did before. I see I've
always faked my sensations. But my wings are pin feathers as yet. I have
to look at everything from a new angle of vision. All my life I've been
longing for thrills--real thrills, my own thrills; not other peoples. I
had a few little shivers when I was riding to Top Hill that morning; a few
more last night--but my first true thrill of rapture came when I was
challenging the sky, an argonaut."
It was a hard struggle for Pen to adjust her new self that she had found
up in the high altitudes where all the tepid, petty things of life had
dropped from her--where she had found the famous fleece, the truth. In the
vastness of that uncharted land, like a flash in the dark something had
leaped at her. Her dream of a dream had come true. She had learned the
great human miracle, the meaning of a love that had the strength to
renounce. A god-made love, sweet and strong, conceived on earth, but
brought forth on high where the call of destiny had sounded with clarion
clearness. She knew now what she had missed; that he was not of the world
of miniature men who exact and never return.
She was roused from her visions of the new and radiant world which had
been opened unto her by a knock at her door.
"Yes," she answered vaguely.
"There's a man downstairs to see you," said the proprietor.
She was at once alert and on the defensive, thinking of an encounter with
Hebler.
"Do you know who he is?" she asked apprehensively.
"He said to tell you 'twas Jo."
Joyfully she hastened down to the deserted office of the little inn.
"Jo, I am so glad it's you!"
"So am I. Come outside and take a walk with me."
"How did you ever track me up here, Jo?" she asked as they walked up a
hillside.
"Not hard to track the first skycraft that ever came up to these parts. I
saw one land near Westcott's, and I had a hunch it was lighting for you.
Then I thought no more about it until things happened that made it up to
me to find you. I inquired around and about and found a big balloon had
come this way, so I figured this was about your goal for a train."
"Why was it up to you to find me, Jo?"
"Well, Miss Penny Ante, I am a little interested in you, seeing as it was
you who brought Marta to me. And I knew you would be interested in knowing
Marta didn't take the ring."
"Oh, Jo! I tried to think it wasn't Marta, but--"
"She says she acted just as though she had taken it. It was old Merlin,
nosing around the hall, who tucked it away. But the real reason I had to
run you down was for my pal. He wants you."
"Why?" she asked. "To apologize? You didn't tell him, Jo--"
"I told him nothing."
"Then he must want me as an ex-sheriff."
"Cut that out, Miss Penny Ante. He wants to find you because he loves
you."
"What makes you think so, Jo?"
"He 'fessed up when he found you had gone."
"He didn't love me--not as you love Marta," she reminded him. "It made no
difference with you that Marta--"
He made a quick gesture of protest.
"You forget," he said soberly, "that when I met Marta and fell in love
with her, I didn't know about--her. Bender had told him about you before
he met you, and then he thought you belonged to me."
"Jo, if you had known Marta stole before you met her, wouldn't you have
loved her and asked her to marry you?"
"I don't know," he said frankly, "and I don't care about 'might have
beens.' I know I love her now and always shall. That is enough."
"Miss Penny Ante," he continued, as she did not answer him, "you don't
know Kurt Walters as I do. He is a square man, square as a die."
"Yes, Jo," she said softly. "He is a real man--a square man. I know it
now, too late."
"Not too late. Not if you care. Go back with me to the ranch. He has gone
to town with the children to meet the Kingdons. Mrs. Kingdon is there,
too. They will all be back to-night."
"No, Jo; it's too late."
"Why?"
"Because I gave Francis a letter telling him everything. He might overlook
what he did know, but I understand his pride. He'll never overlook the
other. He'll not forgive the deception."
"Go to him unexpectedly, Miss Penny Ante. A man off guard, you know. Come
back to Top Hill with me."
"No; I am going to wait here until Larry comes back. I must."
"Who is he, and what is he to you?" asked Jo resentfully and
suspiciously.
"So you see, Jo," she said, when she had finished a brief account of
Larry's entrance into her life, "I can't go back with you. Don't tell
anyone but Marta where you found me. Ask her to forgive me for being so
stupid about the ring. I'll walk down to your car with you."
They walked slowly without speaking until they came to the inn. She looked
at the car wistfully.
"I haven't been in this poor, little old car since that first ride to Top
Hill," she said reminiscently.
He made no reply, but got into the car and put his hand on the wheel.
"Jo!"
"Well," he answered in the tone of one balked in his intentions.
"He'll get over it."
"No; men like Kurt don't get over anything like that. I know what it is to
love without hope. I am sorry for Kurt. You'll be sorry for him, too, some
day."
She had come close to the car, and he looked into her eyes as he said
impressively:
"He loved you from that very first night."
"That very first night!" she echoed. "Not surely on that ride from
town--from jail to Top Hill! Why, he fairly hated me then!"
"You're not hep to Kurt," he declared. "He said to me in just these words:
'I have loved her since that first night I saw her, when we camped on the
trail--when she lay asleep in the moonlight.'"
After making this enlightening remark, he motored away, while Pen stood
motionless with the shock of amazement in her eyes.
* * * * *
When Larry returned on the early east-bound, he found Pen on the veranda
of the little inn.
"Why, Pen!" he exclaimed. "Is this a stay-up late, or a get-up early?"
"Both, Larry. I couldn't sleep. I am still thinking of our flight
up--where I found myself."
"I know," he said comprehendingly. "You have to get away from people and
things to do that--to get the right line on yourself; and that is the only
place you can do it. But I met a man at the hotel who knows you."
"Not Hebby!"
"No; I dodged Hebby for fear he'd quiz me or follow me. This other man
began a cross exam., so I beat it. He said he was from the ranch where you
stopped. I asked the clerk when I paid my bill who he was, and he said he
was a sheriff, or had been one. Maybe Hebler got him to track you. I
dodged his questions so as not to put him wise."
"He isn't a colleague of Hebby's," denied Pen. "He is the foreman of the
ranch where I stayed. I think he was there in town to meet the Kingdons."
"He met some people who went out to the ranch, but this man stayed on at
the hotel. The night clerk said he would be there until noon to-day. We
had better get ready for the next train."
"I am ready," said Pen quietly.