In the middle of the following September, Radlett arrived in Tucson from
the East. He was on his way to pay his first visit to his property in
Kay, since Stephen had taken charge. As he signed his name on the hotel
register, his eye was caught by the names of the arrivals of the day
before.
“Donald Cameron.”
“Miss Cameron.”
A flush came to his cheeks and a light to his eyes as he looked steadily
at the page. Strange what power a written word may have to stir a man to
the depths of his being! As Radlett read the names, he felt the years
slip away from him. Five, six years was it since that summer at Bar
Harbor when he and Jean Cameron had climbed together about the cliffs of
the spouting horn or, staff in hand, had explored Duck Brook or floated
idly in his canoe around the islands in the harbor? Like Loring he had
dreamed his dream of what might be. By the end of the summer he knew it
was only a dream of what might have been. He carried away with him an
ideal, an aching heart, and a knot of ribbon of the Cameron plaid. But
he was a man of too much force and energy to spend his life in bewailing
the past. He had shut the knot of ribbon in a secret drawer, set the
ideal in a shrine, and flung his heart into business with such success
that to-day, while he was still a young man, he was already a power to be
reckoned with in the financial world, while a golden career opened ahead
of him.
A man so loyal in his friendship could not be other than loyal in his
love; but he had put the possibility of winning Jean Cameron definitely
out of his mind, and he would have sworn that the years had reduced the
fever of his feeling to a genial tranquillity of friendship, when now at
the very sight of her name on a hotel register, all his philosophy was
put to flight and he was conscious only of a burning desire to see her
once more.
Being a man of action, he wasted no time on reminiscence; but inquired in
quick incisive terms whether Mr. Cameron and his daughter were still at
the hotel. Learning that they were, he sent up his card. Then he lighted
a cigarette and walked the floor of the lobby, smoking nervously till the
bell-boy returned to say that Mr. Cameron would be glad to receive him in
his private sitting-room. Before following the boy, Radlett stopped at
the desk to arrange for his room and get his key.
“How good a room do you wish, sir, and how long will you stay?”
“The best you have, and as long as I choose,” Radlett answered with
characteristic brevity. A moment later he stood before the door of the
Camerons’ sitting-room, which opened at his knock to reveal Mr. Cameron’s
bristling red head in the foreground, and in the background a figure in a
traveling dress of gray cloth, with a hat to match and a knot of plaided
ribbon under the brim.
At sight of Radlett, Jean rose, smiling, but with a slight consciousness
in her manner, a consciousness resulting from the remembrance of a
painful scene, the hope that the man before her had quite forgiven and
the slighter hope, a mere faint ashamed shadow of a hope, that he had not
quite forgotten.
Her mind must have been quickly set at rest on that point, for such
a rush of feeling swept over Radlett that he could scarcely make his
greetings intelligible. Mr. Cameron gave him a firm grip, and Jean held
out a gray gloved hand which Radlett clasped tremulously. Mr. Cameron
looked at the man and girl as they stood talking together, and the longer
he looked the better he liked the combination.
“There would be a son-in-law to be proud of,” he thought, naturally
enough perhaps considering him in that relation first. “Baird Radlett
has everything that a girl could ask,—a hard head, a long purse, a free
hand and an endless stock of common sense. And then, if I had him to help
me, what a property I could build up! He used to seem devoted to Jean.
But she could not have refused him—no, and by heaven she should not.”
(Mr. Cameron liked to keep up even to himself the illusion that he was a
tyrannical parent whose will was law.) “Rather different this man from
Loring! Jean must see that. If she does not, she must be made to see it.
I was afraid at one time that she might be foolish enough to fall in love
with Loring; but I took it in time—I took it in time. Yet she is too
efficient not to make some one big mistake in her life. We Camerons all
do it sooner or later. If it is not one thing it is another—misdirected
energy, I suppose—” Then aloud, in answer to a question from Radlett as
to how he happened to be in that part of the world: “Why, about a year
and a half ago I became interested in a mine in Arizona which was not
being run properly, and so for the present I am giving up my time to
managing it myself.”
“And have you too become a mining engineer?” Radlett asked of Jean.
“Not quite,” she laughed.
“Jean came rather near it at first,” added her father; “but I think that
now she is half tired of the life out here. It has not the charm for her
that it had at first.”
“I should think not!” exclaimed Radlett emphatically. “Do you mean that
you have spent a whole year out in the hills here?” he asked Jean.
“Yes,” she answered. “This trip marks the first time that I have been
back to the East since last fall; but I have not yet become such a savage
that I can dispense with afternoon tea. I hope you will join us,” she
added.
“Yes, with thanks,” Radlett answered. Up to this moment he had never
found any use for Tucson. Now he discovered that it existed to hold a
tea-table and Jean Cameron.
“What brings you to Tucson, Baird?” she asked, while the waiter laid the
cloth.
“I am in the mining business myself, in a small way,” he rejoined. “Last
year I bought a property in Pinal County on speculation. I am going up
to visit it now for the first time. I do not really need to go. In fact
I shall probably do more harm than good. I have a manager up there who
has accomplished wonders. He has made the mine pay in six months after he
took control. As far as I can learn, he has done practically everything
himself, from mining the ore to putting it on the cars. I bought the mine
at a big risk, and now it is about the most satisfactory investment that
I own.”
“I wish that I had such a man to put in charge of Quentin. When I am not
there the whole plant seems to go to pieces.”
“Quentin!” exclaimed Radlett in surprise. “Is that the name of your
property?”
“It is,” said Mr. Cameron. “Why? Had you ever heard of it?”
Radlett opened his lips to speak; but the arrival of the tea turned the
subject of conversation for the moment. As he watched Jean pouring the
tea all thoughts of mines and business vanished from Radlett’s mind. He
wondered how he had ever existed throughout the years in which he had not
seen her.
While Jean Cameron talked to Radlett, she glanced at him over her teacup
with that interest which a girl naturally bestows upon a man who might
have been a part of her life had she so willed it. In the past year the
standards by which she judged men had changed considerably. She had much
more regard for the qualities of steadiness and determination which Baird
possessed than she had felt at the time when she refused him. From her
widened experiences she had learned that ability without reliability was
useless. Perhaps, too, now that disappointment in her new surroundings
had set in, she looked back with more tenderness upon those who had
peopled her life in the East.
The talk ranged over many scenes and people familiar to them all, then
gradually drifted to the plans of each for the future. Baird’s mind had
been working fast. Seeing Jean for an hour had made him wish to see her
for many more hours, and by the time that he had finished his second cup
of tea, he had evolved a plan by which he hoped to achieve that end. If
he could persuade Mr. Cameron, when on his way to Quentin, to stop over
at Kay, and to make an expert report on the property, it would enable
him to have at least a week more with Jean. Turning to Mr. Cameron, he
approached him on the subject.
“I wish very much that I could persuade you to stop over and examine
my property for me. If you had the time I should greatly value your
professional opinion.”
“Where is your mine situated?”
“At Kay,” answered Radlett. “I think it is on the direct route to
Quentin.”
“So you are the man who bought that property. I had not heard who owned
it.”
“Yes,” said Baird. “Now do you think that you could possibly spare four
or fives days to investigate the place for me?”
“I do not know whether I can possibly spare the time,” reflected Mr.
Cameron, half aloud. If it had been any man besides Radlett, Mr. Cameron
would have refused at once, as he had for some time given up all such
work. But he was glad to do a favor to Baird, and also he felt that he
would like to have him and Jean thrown together for a while. “Still
I can get in touch with Quentin, and if they need me there I can get
there at short notice. Yes, I think that I can take the time. I shall be
interested to see how the mine is doing with this wonderful new manager
of yours. Frankly, it never used to be much good.”
“Don’t be discouraging, Father!” said Jean. “You might at least be an
optimist until you have seen Baird’s mine.”
“If your father should be a pessimist after seeing it, I should certainly
give up the mine, I have such respect for his judgment.”
Mr. Cameron expanded under the compliment. “By the way, did you not have
a big riot or something up there this spring? I read about it, I think,
in the Eastern papers. They said that there had been a race riot in Kay
which, but for the coolness and nerve of the manager, would have been a
desperate outbreak.”
“Yes, there was a desperate state of affairs,” answered Radlett, and he
proceeded to give an account of the riot, the details of which he had
learned through a postscript added by Reade to one of Loring’s reports.
When he reached the part of the story which told how the manager had
held the mob at bay until the arrival of the deputies, both Jean and
her father exclaimed with approval. Jean’s eyes were shining with the
enthusiasm which she always felt for a brave act well carried out.
“And,” said Radlett in conclusion, “since then there has not been a hint
of trouble in the camp. In fact a labor agitator came up there last
month, and the men themselves ran him out of camp.”
“You certainly have a wonderful man there,” said Mr. Cameron. “If I had
chanced upon him first, you would never have had him. If there is one
thing on which I pride myself, it is my power to read character at first
sight. I should have snapped up a man like that in no time. What is his
name?”
“His name,” said Radlett, “is Stephen Loring.” He watched Mr. Cameron
closely as he uttered the name, and was amused to see the expression of
blank dismay and astonishment upon that gentleman’s face.
“Loring! Stephen Loring!” cried Mr. Cameron, completely taken aback.
“Stephen Loring,” repeated Radlett doggedly.
“Why, we dismissed him from Quentin for—”
“Father, don’t!” ejaculated Jean suddenly. Her cheeks burned, while her
eyes pleaded with her father to spare Loring’s past. Radlett looked at
her with a quick glance of appreciation.
“It is all right, Jean,” he said. “Loring told me all about it himself.”
“He told you,” queried Mr. Cameron incredulously, “about the accident,
about his drunkenness and all; and after that you put him in charge of
the mine? How could you?”
“I believed in him,” replied Radlett quietly, “and he has justified my
belief. I have known him all my life, and I trust and respect him.”
“You say that he has made good with you?” inquired Mr. Cameron sharply.
“He has.”
Mr. Cameron was a man of honest enthusiasms, but of equally honest
hatreds. When man had once failed him, he was loath to believe that there
could be good in him.
“I hope you will find that he keeps it up,” was all that he said. He did
not say it with complimentary conviction, either.
“He will,” Radlett answered shortly.
Jean was moved by Baird’s faithful defense of his friend.
“It is characteristic of you to stand by him as you have done,” she said,
“and if ever a man needed a good friend, it was Mr. Loring.”
“You knew him well?” asked Radlett, with surprise. From what Loring had
told him of his position in camp, he had not imagined that he would know
Miss Cameron personally at all.
“He saved my life,” answered Jean. Her voice was soft, but there was a
hint of challenge in the glance that she sent toward her father.
“Saved your life!” ejaculated Radlett. “He never said anything to me
about that. Just like him! He told me only of his failures.”
“You have known him all your life. What was he?” asked Mr. Cameron.
“Another case of a worthless fellow whom every one liked?”
“He never was worthless,” said Baird. “Only until now he never showed
what he was worth, and never was there a man whom his friends loved so
much, to whom they forgave so much, and from whom they continued to hope
so much.”
“He took a peculiar way of showing his worth with me,” remarked Mr.
Cameron. “Really now, Radlett, killing men by your carelessness is a
pretty serious thing. And from what I can gather, I judge that for the
past few years his life has been far from creditable; that he has been
getting into trouble of some sort all the time. His record shows that he
has been permanently inefficient and frequently drunk.”
“Yes, it is all true,” answered Baird, “but in all those years he was
being hammered and forged, and in the end the experience has strengthened
him. The things that he has gone through, even the wrong things which he
has done, all have molded his character, and for the better. It was a big
risk, a big chance, but by it the metal in him has been turned to steel.”
“Is not that rather an expensive process by which to obtain a product
like Loring?” asked Mr. Cameron dryly.
“I hope very much that when you see what Loring has done at Kay, you will
change your mind,” said Radlett. “I understand of course what you must
feel about him; but I think that he has wiped his slate clean. If two
lives were lost through him at Quentin, by preventing a fight at Kay he
has saved twenty.”
“Not to mention saving my life,” added Jean, rising.
“That alone should extenuate everything,” said Radlett earnestly.
He looked after Jean as she left the room to dress for dinner, admiring
her proud, erect carriage, and devoutly thankful that he should have
several days in which to be with her.
When she had gone, the two men resumed their seats, and proceeded to
discuss the plans and business arrangements for Mr. Cameron’s prospective
visit to Kay. But even while he was talking, Mr. Cameron’s decision
in regard to the visit was wavering, and later, as he went upstairs,
he shook his head and said to himself: “No, I can’t do it. Under the
circumstances that visit is an impossibility.”
That night, when they had come upstairs from dinner, he went to Jean’s
door and knocked.
“Jean,” he called.
“Yes, Father.”
“Can you come into my sitting-room? I want to talk with you.”
They returned to his sitting-room, and Jean seated herself while her
father walked slowly up and down the room.
“I have been thinking about our going with Baird up to his mine. I told
him that we would go; but if this fellow Loring is the manager there, I
do not think that we can. I shall tell Baird that we find it impossible.”
“Why?” asked Jean, although she well knew the reason.
“Why?” echoed her father irritably. “Do you remember the insulting letter
which he wrote to me after my offer of help to him at Dominion? Do you
think it would be a pleasure to meet him again with that letter in mind?”
“You never told me what you wrote in your letter to him,” replied Jean,
parrying the question.
“I offered him work in the north because I said we were under obligation
to him for saving—That is, to repay my debt to him.”
“I suppose that you made no conditions?”
“Only that he should never cross our path again,” responded her father.
“Of course I felt bound to tell him what I thought of him.”
“In other words,” exclaimed Jean with spirit, “you insulted him, and now
are angry that he was gentleman enough to refuse your offer. When he
was practically starving, as Baird told me he was, he refused to take
advantage of an unwilling obligation. Is that why you do not want to go
to Kay?” There was pride in the quiver of her nostrils, and pity in her
eyes, as she spoke.
Mr. Cameron, like many strong men, was at a disadvantage in an argument
with his daughter. Her strength of will was as great as his, and with it
she combined an intuitive knowledge of whither to direct her questions,
as a good fencer instinctively knows the weak points in his opponent’s
defense.
“You are trying to put me in the wrong, Jean,” said her father testily,
“but the fact remains that we cannot go.”
“The fact remains, Father, that you owe it to yourself to go, not only
because you have promised Baird” (here she scored a strong point, for the
keeping of his word was her father’s great pride), “but because you owe
it to Mr. Loring to atone for the wrong that you did him.”
Mr. Cameron was in a quandary. On the one side was his desire not to see
Loring again or to have Jean meet him; on the other was the fact that
he had promised Radlett and that he wished to have him and Jean thrown
together. With his usual bluntness he asked his daughter: “Jean, have you
thought much of Loring since he left Quentin?”
“A great deal, Father.”
“Often?”
“Very often.”
“Damn me! I was afraid of it. But you may as well understand now that I
absolutely forbid your thinking of him any more.”
“Be careful, Father, that you do not add to my real interest the
fictitious one of defiance which has always been strong in the Cameron
blood. What I have been thinking all these months about Mr. Loring is
that he is a man to whom we are under deep obligation, and one to whom
you have been unjust.”
“I thought,” said Mr. Cameron helplessly, and foolishly allowing his
attack to be changed to defense, “that I had done everything possible
for Loring. I do not wish to be thought ungrateful to any man; but that
letter—”
Jean was touched and coming over to her father, put her arms around him
saying: “Can’t you see, Father dear, that the letter he sent to you was
the only one which a gentleman could write under the circumstances.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps,” answered Mr. Cameron. “And anyhow,” he went on
rather weakly, “I have promised Baird, and Jean, I want you to see more
of him. He is, I think, of all the men whom I know, the best and the most
trustworthy. He told me that some time ago you refused to marry him.”
“Yes,” said Jean.
“Have you ever changed at all? Do you not like him better than you did?
He is the man of all others whom I should rather see you marry.”
“I always liked him and I like him better than ever now,” replied Jean,
with her usual frankness. “Only it would take me at least a week to fall
in love with him,” she added laughing, as she kissed her father and bade
him good night.
That evening she sat up until it was late, thinking. She had begun to
see life in the West rather differently since her first rose-colored
impressions. She was beginning to realize the facts that her father had
quoted to her. The shoddiness of that life had begun to make itself felt.
She had believed in Loring with all the trust to which a reserved nature
yields itself when it becomes impetuous, and his complete failure had
been a deep shock to her. She had not forgotten him, however, though,
had she analyzed her thoughts, she would have been puzzled to know why
he had not passed from her memory. Now that he was to be brought into
her life again, her thought of him grew deeper and more personal. She
opened her trunk and drew out of it her journal of the past year. For an
hour she sat reading over the pages, and there were certain pages which
she reread. When she closed the book it was close to midnight. She sat
staring out of the window, thinking, wondering. The light in her eyes
was like the harbor lights veiled by night mist to the mariner homeward
bound,—now flashing clear and lambent, now dim, brilliant with the
seaward flash or soft in the afterglow.
At length she rose as one tired of thinking; but as she brushed out the
long waves of her hair she hummed softly the old refrain:
“Young Frank is chief of Errington
And lord o’ Langly Dale—
His step is first in peaceful ha’
His sword in battle keen—
But aye she let the tears doon fa’
For Jock o’ Hazeldean.”