Brophy was distinctly inhospitable when Lida walked into the tavern.
She curtly stated her errand as she passed him on her way to the stairs,
and when she returned with her bag he allowed her to leave without
opening his mouth. She took the money he offered and put it in her
pocket without counting it.
The men who were about the place were silent, too. The fact that Flagg
was sending her away in his own hitch stirred their curiosity and had
considerable to do with keeping their rude tongues off a person who had
evidently come to an understanding with the master of the big house.
"Where are ye headed, Dick?" asked a bystander while the girl was in the
tavern.
"Up and down," stated the old man, cryptically.
"Well, if you want to overtake them chums of hers you'll have to lay on
the braid pretty smart! If they kept on going at the rate they started
off they're halfway to the junction by now."
When the girl was in her seat Dick sent the bays along at a sharp clip
down the highway by which Crowley and his companion had departed.
Lida had conferred with Dick on the way down from the big house and had
decided on a bit of guile to divert the attention of the gossips of
Adonia from her real objective. According to all appearances she was in
full flight toward the city, or else was chasing up Ward Latisan; the
cynics, after that affair in the street when she had pleaded with the
young man, opined that she was brazen enough to do almost anything that
a girl should not.
Brophy watched her out of sight.
"If it ain't one thing it's another with these table girls," was his
sour comment. "I don't know what I'm liable to draw next; the Queen of
Sheby, maybe!"
When a hill shut off the view from Adonia the bays swung into a side
lane which connected with the tote road leading north along the Noda
waters.
A girl who wore for her armor Latisan's jacket and his cap, and carried
as credentials the woods baton of the last of the independent timber
barons of the Noda, was hastening on her mission with the same sort of
fervent zeal that made Joan of Arc a conqueror.
Family fealty, the eager desire to right in some measure the wrong done
by her father, anxious determination to repair her own fault--all these
were animating impulses in this Joan of the Northland. But now
especially was she aware that she was seeking by service to absolve
herself in the estimation of a poor chap whose love for her had made him
forget his duty.
There was no talk between the girl and her charioteer. She had plenty of
thought to occupy her, and he drove on with his gaze straight between
the ears of the nigh horse.
The road was crooked; when she glanced behind, the woods seemed to be
shutting doors on her, closing out the world with which she had been
familiar; and ahead, as the road turned, she was looking into vistas
which led to the unknown--to a duty of tremendous import--to a task
which seemed too great for a girl to accomplish. One knowledge comforted
her--it was a knowledge which came from her childhood memories--she
could trust those rough men of the woods to treat a girl with respect if
she deserved it; but would she be able to convince them that the girl
who wrought such mischief to Ward Latisan deserved respect? They might,
as her grandfather said, ridicule a man who had been fooled by a girl,
if that man appeared to them and tried to make good his authority; but
there would be no laugh in the north country behind Latisan's back, now
that he had fled desperately from the wreck of his prospects.
She perceived only silent rebuke, even resentment, in Dick's countenance
when she stole glances at the hard profile above the old man's knitted
scarf. It was plain that he did not relish his job. She wondered whether
he believed that her errand was useless. When, after a time, she tried
to draw some opinion out of him he gave her no replies that aided her.
She felt acutely that she needed sympathy--something for her
encouragement. The old man's taciturnity hinted that he could be trusted
with a secret so far as outsiders were concerned; as to Flagg, she was
not sure of Dick's reliability in keeping anything away from a master to
whom he was devoted. But if the old man were kept away from Adonia----
"Do I understand that you're to stay north until I'm ready to go back?"
"I've got to. It's orders."
She was choking with the desire to tell him who she was. The lie which
she had told him in the tavern was a rankling memory--he had been such a
pitiful figure that day.
Again she looked behind. There were many miles between her and Adonia,
and the doors of the woods kept closing.
"I need all your help in this thing. I must have a faithful friend. It
is the one great effort of my life. You can understand so well! I--I
_am_ Lida Kennard!"
Rickety Dick threw up his arms. The reins fell from his hands. "Praise
the Lord!" he yelled. The discarded reins slapped the big bays, the
shout in that silence caused them to leap wildly. The tote road was
rough and rocky and the equipage was light. Almost instantly the horses
tore the tongue from the jumper, which was trigged by a bowlder. The
animals crashed around in a circle through the underbrush, leaped into
the tote road, and went galloping back toward Adonia, seeking their
stalls and safety.
Dick rose from where he had fallen and rushed to the girl, who was
clinging to the seat of the jumper. He took her in his arms, comforting
her as he would have soothed a child. He wept frankly and babbled
incoherently. A part of his emotion was concern for her, but more
especially was it joy because she had discovered herself to him.
"It was in me--the hope that it was you. But I buried it; I buried it,"
he sobbed.
For some moments he was too much absorbed to note the plight in which
they had been left. Then his laments were so violent that the girl was
obliged to soothe him in her turn.
"But when those horses rush into the yard! Think of it! He'll cal'late
we're killed. Him penned there in his chair with worry tearing at him! I
must get the word to him." In his frantic care for the master's peace of
mind he ran away down the road, forgetting that he was abandoning the
girl.
But in a few moments he came running back to her. "That's the way it
always is with me! Him first! But after this it's you--and I was leaving
you here in the lurch. But I don't know what to do!" He looked at her,
then at the broken jumper; he gazed to the north and he stared to the
south; in that emergency, his emotions stressed by what she had told
him, he was as helpless as a child.
Her own concern just then was for her grandfather as well as for
herself. Those runaway horses appearing in the yard would rouse his
bitter fear; they would also start a hue and cry which would follow her
into the north country.
"You must go back, at once!" she urged Dick. "Follow as fast as you can.
The horses will quiet down; they'll walk. You may overtake them. You
must try."
"But you!" he mourned.
She lifted the cant dog from the floor of the jumper. "I shall keep on
toward the drive--somehow--some way. This will protect me; I'm sure of
it."
He puckered his face and shook his head and expressed his fears and his
doubts.
"Then I'm showing more faith than you in what this stands for," she
said, rebukingly. "I believe in it. I trust to it. Haven't you the same
kind of loyalty where my grandfather is concerned--after all your years
with him?"
She had appealed to zealous, unquestioning devotion, and it replied to
her. "I reckon you're right. It wouldn't be showing proper respect if I
didn't meet you halfway in the thing." He reached out his hand and
patted the staff. "I'm only a poor old bent stick beside that one. I
even let the horses run away. Yes, they have run away--and now it's all
the long miles to the drive! How'll ye ever get there, Miss Lida?"
"By starting!" she returned, crisply, with something of Flagg's manner.
"There are tote teams going north. Anybody'll be glad to give you a
lift. There are bateaus above here, ferrying supplies up the broad
water, and you may see a canoeman----" He was wistfully grabbing at
hopes.
"I'm not afraid," she assured him bravely.
He helped her with advice while he busied himself by hooking the handle
of her bag over the staff; she carried it across her shoulder and had
something cheerful to say about poverty making light luggage.
In that fashion she fared toward the north, after she had forced a
pledge from the old man that he would keep her secret until her work was
done; she was guilelessly unaware that Flagg's perspicacity had
penetrated her secret.
Dick plodded toward the south.
There, in the midst of the forest, dwarfed by the big trees, they
seemed to be weak reeds for the support of the Flagg fortunes.
Before a bend of the road shut them from sight of each other they turned
and waved a farewell which renewed the pledge.