One afternoon several days later, Christopher Allonby drove over to Cedar
Range, and, though he endeavoured to hide his feelings, was evidently
disconcerted when he discovered that Miss Schuyler and Hetty were alone.
Torrance had affairs of moment on hand just then, and was absent from
Cedar Range frequently.
"One could almost have fancied you were not pleased to see us, and would
sooner have talked to Mr. Torrance," said Miss Schuyler.
The lad glanced at her reproachfully.
"Hetty knows how diffident I am, but it seems to me a lady with your
observation should have seen the gratification I did not venture to
express."
"It was not remarkably evident," said Miss Schuyler. "In fact, when you
heard Mr. Torrance was not here I fancied I saw something else."
"I was thinking," said Allonby, "wondering how I could be honest and, at
the same time, complimentary to everybody. It was quite difficult. People
like me generally think of the right thing afterwards, you see."
Hetty shook her head. "Sit down, and don't talk nonsense, Chris," she
said. "You shouldn't think too much; when you're not accustomed to it, it
isn't wise. What brought you?"
"I had a message for your father," said the lad, and Flora Schuyler
fancied she saw once more the signs of embarrassment in his face.
"Then," said Hetty, "you can tell it me."
"There's a good deal of it, and it's just a little confusing," said
Allonby.
Flora Schuyler glanced at Hetty, and then smiled at the lad. "That is
certainly not complimentary," she said. "Don't you think Hetty and I could
remember anything that you can?"
Allonby laughed. "Of course you could. But, I had my instructions. I was
told to give Mr. Torrance the message as soon as I could, without
troubling anybody."
"Then it is of moment?"
"Yes. That is, we want him to know, though there's really nothing in it
that need worry anybody."
"Then, it is unfortunate that my father is away," said Hetty.
Allonby sat silent a moment or two, apparently reflecting, and then looked
up suddenly, as though he had found the solution of the difficulty.
"I could write him."
Hetty laughed. "That was an inspiration! You can be positively brilliant,
Chris. You will find paper and special envelopes in the office, as well as
a big stick of sealing-wax."
Allonby, who appeared unable to find a neat rejoinder, went out; and when
he left Flora Schuyler smiled as she saw the carefully fastened envelope
lying on Torrance's desk, as well as something else. Torrance was
fastidiously neat, and the blotting pad from which the soiled sheets had
been removed bore the impress of Christopher Allonby's big, legible
writing. It was, however, a little blurred, and Miss Schuyler, who had her
scruples, made no attempt to read it then. It was the next afternoon, and
Torrance had not yet returned, when a mounted man rode up to the Range,
and was shown into the room where the girls sat together.
"Mr. Clavering will be kind of sorry Mr. Torrance wasn't here, but he has
got it fixed quite straight," he said.
"What has he fixed?" said Hetty.
"Well," said the man, "your father knows, and I don't, though I've a kind
of notion we are after one of the homestead-boys. Any way, what I had to
tell him was this. He could ride over to the Cedar Bluff at about six this
evening with two or three of the boys, if it suited him, but if it didn't,
Mr. Clavering would put the thing through."
Hetty asked one or two leading questions, but the man had evidently
nothing more to tell, and when he went out, the two girls looked at one
another in silence. Hetty's eyes were anxious and her face more colourless
than usual.
"Flo," she said sharply, "are we thinking the same thing?"
"I don't know," said Miss Schuyler. "You have not told me your notions
yet. Still, this is clear to both of us, Mr. Clavering expects to meet
somebody at the Cedar Bluff, and your father is to bring two or three men
with him. The question is, what could they be wanted for?"
"No," said Hetty, with a little quiver in her voice, "it is who they
expect to meet. You know what day this is?"
"Wednesday."
Once more there was silence for a few seconds, but the thoughts of the two
girls were unconcealed now, and when she spoke Hetty closed her hand.
"Think, Flo. There must be no uncertainty." Miss Schuyler slipped out of
the room and when she came back she brought an envelope, splashed with red
wax, on a blotting-pad.
"There's the key. All is fair--in war!" she said.
A pink tinge crept into Hetty's cheeks, and a sparkle into her eyes as she
looked at her companion.
"Don't make me angry with you, Flo," she said. "We can't read it."
"No?" said Miss Schuyler quietly, holding up the pad. "Now I think we can.
This is another manifestation of the superiority of the masculine mind.
Give me your hand-glass, Hetty."
"Of course," said Hetty, with a little gasp. "Still--it's horribly mean."
There was a slightly contemptuous hardness in Flora Schuyler's eyes. "If
you let the man who rides by the bluff on Wednesdays fall into Clavering's
hands, it would be meaner still."
The next moment Hetty was out of the room, and Miss Schuyler sat down with
a face that had grown suddenly weary. But it betrayed nothing when Hetty
came back with the glass, and when she held up the blotter in hands that
were perfectly steady, they read:
"I have fixed it with the Sheriff. Clavering's boys had, as you guessed,
been watching for Larry on the wrong day; but now we have found out it is
Wednesday we'll make sure of him. If you care to come around to the bluff
about six that night, you will probably see us seize him; but if you would
sooner stand out in this case, it wouldn't count. We don't expect any
difficulty."
Hetty flushed crimson. "Flo," she said, "it was the letter arranging his
own arrest he brought me back."
"That is not the point," said Miss Schuyler sharply. "What are you going
to do?"
Hetty laughed mockingly. "You and I are going to drive over to the
Newcombes and stay the night. You get nervous when my father is away. But
we are not going there quite straight; and you had better put your warmest
things on."
An hour later two of the best horses in Torrance's stable drew the
lightest sleigh up to the door, and Miss Schuyler turned with a smile to
the remonstrating housekeeper.
"Nothing would induce me to stay here another night when Mr. Torrance was
away," she said. "You can tell him that, if he is vexed with Hetty, and
you needn't worry. We will be safe at Mrs. Newcombe's before an hour is
over."
The housekeeper shook her head. "I guess not. It's a league round by the
bridge, and you couldn't find the other trail in the dark."
Miss Schuyler laughed. "Then, look at the time, and we'll let you know
when we get there," she said.
Hetty whipped the team, and with a whirling of dusty snow beneath the
runners, they swept away. Both sat silent, until the beat of hoofs rang
amidst the trees as they swept through the gloom of the big bluff at a
gallop, and Hetty laughed excitedly.
"Hold fast, Flo. You did that very well; but we have our alibi to prove,
and are not going near the bridge," she said.
She flicked the horses, and the trees swept away behind them and the long
white levels rolled back faster yet to the drumming hoofs. The rush of
cold wind stung Miss Schuyler's face like the lash of a whip, her eyes
grew hazy, and she held the furs about her as she swayed with the lurching
of the sleigh. Darkness was closing in when they came to the forking of
the trail, and, with a little cry of warning, Hetty lashed the team. The
lurches grew sharper, and Miss Schuyler gasped now and then as she felt
the sleigh swing rocking down a long declivity. Scattered birches raced up
out of it, and the hammering beat of hoofs swelled into a roar as it
rolled along a thicker belt of trees.
They rose higher and higher, a dusky wall athwart the way, and Miss
Schuyler felt for a better hold for her feet, and grasped the big strapped
robe as she looked in vain for any opening. That team had done nothing for
more than a week, and there was no stinting of oats and maize at Cedar.
Hetty, however, did not attempt to hold them, but sat swaying to the
jolting, leaning forward as the shadowy barrier rushed up towards them,
until, before she quite realized how they got there, Miss Schuyler found
herself hurled forward down what appeared to be a steadily sloping tunnel.
Dim trees swept by and drooping boughs lashed at her. Now and then there
was a sharp crackling or a sickening lurch, and still they sped on
furiously, until a faint white shining appeared ahead.
"What is it?" she gasped.
"The river," said Hetty. "Hold fast! There's a piece like a toboggan-leap
quite near."
She flung herself backwards as the lace-like birch twigs smote her furs;
and when one of the horses stumbled Miss Schuyler with difficulty stifled
a cry. The beast, however, picked up its stride again, there was a lurch,
and the rocking sleigh appeared to leap clear of the snow. A crash
followed, and they were flying out of the shadow again across a strip of
faintly shining plain with another belt of dusky trees rolling back
towards them. Beyond them, low in the soft indigo, a pale star was
shining. Hetty glanced at it as she shook the reins, and once more
something in her laugh stirred Miss Schuyler.
"I know when that star comes out," she said. "If Larry's only there we can
warn him and make our ride on time."
In another minute they were in among the trees, and Hetty, springing down,
plodded through the loose snow at the horses' heads, urging them with hand
and voice up the incline which wound tortuously into the darkness. Now and
then, one of them stumbled, and there was a great trampling of hoofs, but
the girl's mittened hand never loosed its grasp; and it was with a little
breathless run she clutched the sleigh and swung herself in when the team
swept out on the level again. Still, at least a minute had passed before
she had the horses in hand. The trail forked again somewhere in the
dimness they were flashing through, and it was difficult to see the dusky
smear at all.
A lurch that flung Miss Schuyler against her showed that Hetty had found
the turning; and a little later, with a struggle, she checked the team,
and they slid behind one of the low, rolling rises that seamed the prairie
here and there. There was no wind in the hollow behind it and a great
stillness under the high vault of blue studded with twinkling stars. The
dim whiteness of a long ridge cut sharply against it, and the pale
colouring and frosty glitter conveyed the suggestion of pitiless cold.
Flora Schuyler shivered, and drew the furs closer round her.
"Is this the place?" she asked.
"Yes," said Hetty, with a little gasp. "If we don't meet him here he will
have passed or gone by the other trail, and it will be too late to stop
him. Can you hear anything, Flo?"
Miss Schuyler strained her ears, but, though the horses were walking now,
she could hear nothing. The deep silence round them was emphasized by the
soft trample of the hoofs and thin jingle of steel that seemed unreal and
out of place there in the wilderness of snow and stars.
"No," she said, in a strained voice; "I can hear nothing at all. It almost
makes one afraid to listen."
They drove slowly for a minute or two, and then Hetty pulled up the team.
"I can't go on, and it is worse to stand still," she said. "Flo, if he
didn't stop--and he wouldn't--they would shoot him. He must be coming.
Listen. There's a horrible buzzing in my ears--I can't hear at all."
Miss Schuyler listened for what appeared an interminable time, and
wondered afterwards that she had borne the tension without a sign. The
great stillness grew overwhelming now the team had stopped, and there was
that in the utter cold and sense of desolation that weighed her courage
down. She felt her insignificance in the face of that vast emptiness and
destroying frost, and wondered at the rashness of herself and Hetty and
Larry Grant who had ventured to believe they could make any change in the
great inexorable scheme of which everything that was to be was part. Miss
Schuyler was not fanciful, but during the last hour she had borne a heavy
strain, and the deathly stillness of the northwestern waste under the
Arctic frost is apt to leave its impress on the most unimaginative.
Suddenly very faint and far off, a rhythmic throbbing crept out of the
darkness, and Flora Schuyler, who, fearing her ears had deceived her at
first, dared not speak, felt her chilled blood stir when Hetty flung back
her head.
"Flo--can't you hear it? Tell me!"
Miss Schuyler nodded, for she could not trust her voice just then; but the
sound had grown louder while she listened and now it seemed flung back by
the rise. Then, she lost it altogether as Hetty shook the reins and the
sleigh went on again. In a few minutes, however, there was an answer to
the thud of hoofs, and another soft drumming that came quivering through
it sank and swelled again. By and by a clear, musical jingling broke in,
and at last, when a moving object swung round a bend of the rise, a voice
that rang harsh and commanding reached them.
"Pull right up there, and wait until we see who you are," it said.
"Larry!" cried Hetty; and the second time her strained voice broke and
died away. "Larry!"
It was less than a minute later when a sleigh stopped close in front of
them, and, leaving one man in it, Grant sprang stiffly down. It took Hetty
a minute or two more to make her warning plain, and Miss Schuyler found it
necessary to put in a word of amplification occasionally. Then, Grant
signed to the other man.
"Will you drive Miss Schuyler slowly in the direction she was going,
Breckenridge?" he said. "Hetty, I want to talk to you, and can't keep you
here."
Hetty was too cold to reflect, and, almost before she knew how he had
accomplished it, found herself in Grant's sleigh and the man piling the
robes about her. When he wheeled the horses she was only conscious that he
was very close to her and that Breckenridge and Miss Schuyler were driving
slowly a little distance in front of them. Then, glancing up, as though
under compulsion, she saw that Grant was looking down upon her.
"It is not what I meant to tell you, but doesn't this remind you of old
times, Hetty?" he said.
"I don't want to remember them--and what have they to do with what
concerns us now?" said the girl.
There was a new note in the man's voice that was almost exultant in its
quietness. "A good deal, I think. Hetty, if you hadn't driven so often
beside me here, would you have done what you have to-night?"
"No," said the girl tremulously.
"No," Grant said. "You have done a rash as well as a very generous
thing."
"It was rash; but what could I do? We were, as you remind me, good friends
once."
"Yes," he said. "I can't thank you, Hetty--thanks of any kind wouldn't be
adequate--and there is nothing else I can offer to show my gratitude,
because all I had was yours already. You have known that a long while,
haven't you?"
The girl looked away from him. "I was not good enough to understand its
value at first, and when I did I tried to make you take it back."
"I couldn't," he said gently. "It was perhaps worth very little; but it
was all I had, and--since that day by the river--I never asked for
anything in return. It was very hard not to now and then, but I saw that
you had only kindness to spare for me."
"Then why do you talk of it again?"
"I think," said Grant very quietly, "it is different now. After to-night
nothing can be quite the same again. Hetty, dear, if you had missed me and
I had ridden on to the bridge----"
"Stop!" said the girl with a shiver. "I dare not think of it. Larry, can't
you see that just now you must not talk in that strain to me?"
"But there is a difference?" and Grant looked at her steadily.
For a moment the girl returned his gaze, her face showing very white in
the faint light flung up by the snow; but she sat very straight and still,
and the man's passion suddenly fell from him.
"Yes," she said softly, "there is. I was only sure of it when I fancied I
had missed you a few minutes ago; but that can't affect us, Larry. We can
neither of us go back on those we belong to, and I know how mean I was
when I tried to tempt you. You were staunch, and if I were less so, you
would not respect me."