ANNIE
Doc Crombie and his men had returned to Barnriff after a long and
fruitless hunt. Two days and two nights they had spent on the trail.
They had found the haunt of the rustlers; they had seen the men--at
least, they had had an excellent view of their backs; they had
pursued--and they had lost them all four. But this was not all. One of
the boys had been shot down in his tracks by the man they believed to
be the leader of the gang. So it was easy enough to guess their
temper.
The doctor said little, because that was his way when things went
wrong. But the iron possessed his soul to a degree that suggested all
sorts of possibilities. And Barnriff was a raging cauldron of fury and
disappointment. So was the entire district, for the news was abroad,
travelling with that rapidity which is ever the case with the news of
disaster. Every rancher was, to use a local phrase, "up in the air,
and tearing his sky-piece" (his hair), which surely meant that before
long there would be trouble for some one, the nature of which would be
quite easy to guess.
The "hanging committee," as the vigilantes were locally called,
returned at sundown, and the evening was spent in spreading the news.
Thus it was that Annie Gay learned the public feeling, and the general
drift of Barnriff's thought. Her husband dutifully gave her his own
opinions first, that there might be no doubt in her own mind; then he
proceeded to show her how Barnriff saw these things.
"Of course," he said. "What ken you expect wi' folk like Smallbones
an' sech on a committee like this! Doc's to blame, sure. Ef he'd sed
to me, 'Gay, you fix this yer racket. I leave it to you,' I'd sure 'a'
got _men_ in the gang, an' we'd 'a' cleared the country of all sech
gophers as rustlers. But ther', guess I don't need to tell you 'bout
Doc."
Annie's loyalty to him stood the test, and she waited for the rest. It
came with his recounting of the details of their exploits. He told her
of their journey, of the race. Then he passed on to the story of the
Little Bluff River, as he had been told it by Smallbones. He assured
her that now everybody, urged on by Smallbones, wanted to hang
somebody, and, as far as he could make out, unless they quickly laid
hands on the real culprit, Jim Thorpe was likely violently to
terminate his checkered career over the one-way trail.
He was convinced that the venom of Smallbones, added to the tongues of
the women, which were beginning to wag loudly at what they believed
was Jim's clandestine intimacy with Eve during her husband's absence,
would finally overcome the scruples of Doc Crombie and force him to
yield to the popular cry.
He gave her much detail, all of which she added to her own knowledge.
And, with her husband's approval, decided to go to Eve, and, in her
own phraseology, "do what she could." Her husband really sent her, for
he liked Jim Thorpe.
So, on the third morning, Annie set out on her errand of kindly
warning. The position was difficult. But she realized that this was
no time to let her feelings hinder her. She loved Eve, and, like her
husband, she had a great friendliness for Jim.
Then she was convinced that there was nothing between these two yet,
other than had always existed, a liking on the woman's part and a
deep, wholesome, self-sacrificing love on the man's. She saw the
danger for Eve well enough, since her husband had turned out so badly;
but her sympathetic heart went out to her, and she would never have
opened her mouth to say one word to her detriment, even if she knew
the women's accusations to be true. In fact, in a wave of sentimental
emotion, she rather hoped they were true. Eve deserved a little
happiness, and, if it lay in her power to help her to any, she would
certainly not hesitate to offer her services.
To Eve, fighting her lonely battle in the solitude of her small home,
amidst the cloth and trimmings of her trade, the sight of Annie's
cheerful, friendly face always had a rousing effect. She lived from
day to day in a world of grinding fear. Her mind was never clear of it
now. And she clung to her work as being the only possible thing. She
dared not go out more than she was actually obliged for fear of
hearing the news she dreaded. There was nothing to be done but wait
for the sword to fall.
But these last three days her fears had been divided, and she found
herself torn in two different directions by them. Where before it had
always been her husband, now, ever since the night of Jim Thorpe's
going, he was rarely out of her thoughts. Now, even more than at the
time when she first understood the sacrifice he was about to make for
her. And the nobleness of it appealed to her simple woman's mind as
something sublime. He was a branded man before, but now, so long as he
remained in Barnriff, or wherever he met a man who had lived in
Barnriff at this time, so long as Will escaped capture, the pointing
finger would be able to mark honest Jim Thorpe as a--cattle-thief. He
was powerless to do more than deny it. The horror of it was dreadful.
He had done it for her. And her woman's heart told her why. Her
thoughts flew back to those days, such a little way back, yet, to her,
so far, far away, when his kind serious eyes used to look into hers in
their gentle caressing fashion, when his unready tongue used to halt
over speaking those nice things a woman, in her simple vanity, loves
to hear from a man she likes. She thought of the little presents he
used to make her so awkwardly, all prompted by his great, golden,
loving heart.
And she had passed him by for that other. The man with the ready,
specious tongue, with the buoyant, self-satisfied air, with the
bright, merry eyes of one who knows his power with women, who rarely
fails to win, and, having won easily, no longer cares for his
plaything. But she had loved Will then, and had Jim been an angel sent
straight from heaven he could not then have taken her from him.
But now? Ah, well, now everything was different. She was older. She
was, perhaps, sadly wiser. She was also married, and Jim was, could
be, nothing to her. His nobleness to her was the nobleness which was
not the result of a selfish love that looks and hopes for its reward,
she told herself. It was part of the man. He would have acted that way
whatever his feelings for her. He was a great, loyal friend, she told
herself again and again, and her feeling for him was friendliness, a
friendliness she thanked God for, and nothing more. She told herself
all this, as many a woman has told herself before, and she fancied, as
many another good and virtuous woman has fancied, that she believed
it.
When Annie entered her workroom she looked up with a wistful smile of
welcome, but the sight of the clouds obscuring the sunshine of the
girl's face stopped her sewing-machine at once, and ready sympathy
found prompt expression in her gentle voice.
"What is it, dear?" she inquired. "You look--you look as if you, too,
were in trouble."
Annie tried to smile back in response. But it was a poor attempt. She
had been thinking so hard on her way to Eve. She had been calculating
and figuring so keenly in her woman's way. And curiously enough she
had managed to make the addition of two and two into four. She felt
that she must not hesitate now, or the courage to display the accuracy
of her calculation, and at the same time help her friend, would
evaporate.
"Trouble?" she echoed absently. "Trouble enough for sure, but not for
me, Eve," she stepped round to the girl's side and laid a protecting
arm about her shoulders. "You can quit those fears you once told me
of. I--think he's safe away."
Had Annie needed confirmation of her deductive logic she had it. The
look of absolute horror which suddenly leaped into Eve's drawn face
was overwhelming. Annie's arm tightened round her shoulders, for she
thought the distraught woman was about to faint.
"Don't say a word, Eve, dear. Don't you--now don't you," she cried.
"I'm going to do the talking. But first I'll just shut the door." She
crossed to the door, speaking as she went. "You've just got to sit an'
listen, while I tell you all about it. An' when we've finished, dear,"
she said, coming back to her place beside her, "ther's just one thing,
an' only one person we've got to think an' speak about. It's Jim
Thorpe."
Annie's intuition must have been something approaching the abnormal,
for she gave Eve no chance whatever to reply. She promptly sat down at
the table, and, gazing straight into the stricken woman's face, told
her all that her husband had told her, and all that she had gleaned
for herself, elsewhere. She linked everything together in such a
manner as to carry absolute conviction, showing the jeopardy in which
Jim stood.
Never once did she refer to Will, or hint again that she had
discovered Eve's secret, the secret which Doc Crombie and the whole of
Barnriff would have given worlds to possess, but she told her story
from the point of view of Jim's peril as a suspected cattle-thief, and
his apparent interest in her, Eve, which the whole of the village
women were beginning so virtuously to resent.
"An' if all that wasn't sufficient to set a wretched lot o' scallywags
hanging him, along comes this business of the Little Bluff River," she
finished up.
Eve's face was a study in emotion during the girl's recital. From
terror it passed to indignation, from horror to the shrinking of
outraged wifehood. Now she stammered her request for Annie to go on.
"I--I don't understand," she declared, "what has that----?"
"What's it got to do with it?" cried Annie, with hot anger at the
thought. "Why, just this. It's that mean Smallbones for sure. It's him
at the bottom of it. They're saying that Jim did see the rustler, an'
helped him get clear away while he pretended to be chasin' him. That's
what the mildest of 'em sez. But ther's others swear, an' Smallbones
is one of 'em, that Jim himself was the rustler, an' they rec'nized
him from the start. But someways he jest managed to fool Doc, 'cause
his horse was cool, and didn't show no signs of the chase."
The girl's pretty eyes were wide with anger at these accusers. But her
anger was nothing to compare with the fury which now stirred Eve.
"Oh, they're wicked, cruel monsters! They hate him, and they only want
to hang him because they hate him. It's--it's nothing to do with the
cattle stealing. Smallbones has always hated Jim, because--because
Jim's better educated and comes from good people. Jim a cattle-thief?
Jim wouldn't steal a--a--blade of grass. He's too noble, and good,
and--and honest. Oh, I hate these people! I hate them all--all!"
Annie sat aghast at the storm she had roused. But her woman's wit at
once told her the nature of the real feeling underlying the girl's
words. She had suspected before, but now she understood what, perhaps,
Eve herself had no definite understanding of. With the wrecking of her
love for her husband it had been salved and safely anchored elsewhere.
And Jim was the man who had--anchored it.
However, she wisely refrained from revealing her discovery. She was
delighted, sentimentally, foolishly delighted, but unhesitatingly
continued with the purpose of her coming.
"Yes, dear," she agreed, nodding her pretty head sagely. "And so do I.
But we've sure got to think of Jim Thorpe. And--and that's why I came
along. Gay knows why I came, too. You know how queer Gay is 'bout some
things. He said to me, 'You best get along. Y'see, I got Jim down fer
buryin' proper when his time comes, an' I don't figger to get fooled
by any low-down hanging.' That's what Gay said, an' I didn't think it
quite elegant of him at the time. But there," with a sigh, "men are
curious folk 'bout things. Still," she bustled on alertly, "we got to
give him warning. We got to make him keep away for a while anyway. He
hasn't been seen in the village since, and there's folks say we ain't
likely to see him again. I--I almost hope they're right, for his sake.
It won't never do for him to come along--true--true it won't."
The girl's earnestness and alarm were reflected in Eve's face. She saw
the necessity, the emergency. But how--how to get word to him? That
was the difficulty. How? Neither of them knew where he was, and
certainly none of the villagers did.
Eve shook her head desperately.
"I--I don't seem to be able to think," she said piteously. "I've done
so much thinking, and--and scheming, that my head feels silly, and
I--I--don't know what to suggest."
But Annie was paying only slight attention. Now her round eyes
suddenly brightened.
"I've got it," she cried. "There's--there's Peter Blunt. He's sure to
know where Jim is, or be able to find him. Yes, and there's your
Elia--if Peter fails."
But Eve shook her head at the latter suggestion.
"Peter, yes. He'll help us, surely. But we must not think of Elia.
He's--he's too--delicate."
"Then it's Peter," cried Annie, impulsively. "Now I'll tell you what
we'll do. I'll find Peter some time to-day, and--and tell him to come
along and see you to-night, after dark. You see," she added naively,
"he best not be seen visitin' you in daylight. Then you can tell him
all I've told you, and he'll sure know the best to do. He likes Jim."
"Yes, yes," agreed Eve, brightening visibly and catching something of
Annie's confidence in her scheme. "Peter will help me, I know. Oh,
Annie, you are a dear, good thing! I don't know how I'd get through
all this without you. But--but--you'll be secret, won't you, dear? You
see, I'm quite helpless, and--and you know so much."
"You can trust me, Eve, you can trust me like you can trust--Jim
Thorpe. Good-bye, dear, an' keep bright. I'll come along after you've
seen Peter. Yes, we've got to help Jim out--that's how my man said,
too. Good-bye."
She hurriedly kissed her friend and bustled out of the house. All this
scheming had got hold of her busy brain, and she was eager to get to
work on it.