Starr, of the Desert

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT

  Sommers took his cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully down upon theedge of the table, although he was plainly unconscious of the movement.He lifted his head with a little toss that threw back a heavy lock of hisjet-black hair. He glanced around the table, and his eyes dominated thoseothers hypnotically.

  "I have here," he began in the sonorous voice and the measuredenunciation of the trained orator, "a letter from our esteemed--andunfortunate--comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca. Without takingyour valuable time by reading the letter through from salutation tosignature, I may say briefly that its context is devoted to our cause andto the inconvenience which may be entailed because of our comrade'spresent incarceration, the duration of which is as yet undetermined.

  "Comrade Apodaca expresses great confidence in his ultimate release. Hemaintains that young Medina is essentially a traitor, and that hisevidence at the preliminary hearing was given purely in the spirit ofrevenge. That Comrade Apodaca will be exonerated fully of the charge ofmurder, I myself can entertain no scintilla of doubt. We may thereforedismiss from our minds any uneasiness we may, some of us, haveentertained on that score.

  "The question we are foregathered here to decide to-night is whether thedate set for our public demonstration shall remain as it stands; whetherwe shall seek permission to postpone that date, or whether it shall bedeemed expedient to set it forward to the earliest possible moment. Asyou all are doubtless aware, our esteemed compatriots in Mexico are readyand waiting our pleasure, like hounds straining at the leash. The work oforganization on this side of the line has of necessity been slow, becauseof various adverse influences and a slothful desire for present ease andsafety, which we have been constrained to combat. Also the accumulationof arms and ammunition in a sufficient quantity for our purpose withoutexciting suspicion has required much tactful manipulation.

  "But we have here assembled the trusted representatives from our twelvedistricts in the State, and I trust that each one of you has comeprepared to furnish this Junta with the data necessary for anintelligent action upon the question we have to decide to-night. Am Iright, gentlemen, in that assumption?"

  Eleven men nodded assent and looked down at the slips of paper they hadproduced from inner pockets and held ready in their hands.

  "Then I shall ask you, compadres, to listen carefully to the report fromeach district, so that you may judge the wisdom of foreshortening theinterval between to-night and the date set for the uprising.

  "Each representative will give the number, in his district, of armedmembers of the Alliance; the amount of ammunition at hand; the number ofagents secretly occupying positions of trust where they can give the mostaid to the movement; the number of Spanish-Americans who, like ourunfortunate neighbor, Estancio Medina, have refused thus far to come intothe Alliance; the number, in his district, who may be counted upon tocome in, once they see that the cause is not hopeless; who may beexpected to take the purely American side, and who may be safely dependedupon to remain neutral. I shall ask each of you to tell us also theextent and nature of such opposition as your district must be prepared tomeet. There has been a rumor of some preparation for resistance to ourmovement, and we shall want to know all that you can tell us of thatphase of the situation as observed in your district.

  "These seemingly unimportant details are absolutely essential, gentlemenof the Junta. For in this revolutionary movement you must bear in mindthat brother will rise up against brother, as it were. You will be calledupon, perchance, to slay the dearest friend of your school days; yourneighbor, if so be he is allied against you when the great day comes. Wemust not weaken; we must keep our eyes fixed upon the ultimate good thatwill come out of the turmoil. But we must know! We must not make theirretrievable error of taking anything for granted. Keeping that in mind,gentlemen, we will hear first the report from Bernalillo district."

  A man at the right of Sommers unfolded his little slip of paper, clearedhis throat and began, in strongly accented English, to read. The elevenwho listened leaned forward, elbows on the table, and drank in theterrible figures avidly. Sommers set down the figures in columns and madenotes on the pad before him, his lips pressed together in a straight linethat twisted now and then with a sinister kind of satisfaction.

  "That, gentlemen, is how the Cause stands in the county that has thelargest population and approximately the smallest area of any county inthe State. While this report is not altogether new to me, yet I amstruck anew with the great showing that has been made in that county.With the extensive yards and shops of the Santa Fe at Albuquerque seizedand held by our forces, together with the junction points and--"

  Starr did not wait to hear any more, but edged hastily back to the poleand began to climb down as though a disturbed hornets' nest hung abovehim. The report that had so elated Sommers sent a chill down Starr'sback. If one county could show so appalling an insurrectory force, whatof the whole State? Yes, and the other States involved! And the thingmight be turned loose at any time!

  He dropped to the ground, sending a scared glance for the watchman whohad gone to the fire. He was nowhere to be seen, and Starr, running tothe rear of the lot, skirted the high wall at a trot; crossed a narrow,black alley, hurried down behind the next lots to the cross street,walked as fast as he dared to the next corner, turned into the mainstreet, and made for the nearest public telephone booth.

  He sweated there in the glass cage for a long ten minutes before he hadmanaged to get in touch with Sheriff O'Malley and the chief of police,and to tell each in turn what he wanted and where they must meet him, andhow many minutes they might have to do it in. He came out feeling asthough he had been in there an hour, and went straight to the rendezvoushe had named, which was a shed near the building of _Las Nuevas_, only onanother street.

  They came, puffing a little and a good deal mystified. Starr, notdaring to state his real business with them, had asked for men tosurround and take a holdup gang. All told, there were six of them whenall had arrived, and they must have been astounded at what Starr toldthem in a prudent undertone and speaking swiftly. They did not sayanything much, but slipped away after him and came to the high wallthat hid so much menace.

  "There was a hombre on guard across the street," Starr told the sheriff."He went off to the fire, but he's liable to come back. Put a man overthere in the shade of that junk shop to watch out for him and nab himbefore he can give the alarm. This is ticklish work, remember. AnyMexican in town would knife you if he knew what you're up to.

  "Johnson, you can climb the pole and pull down on 'em through theskylight, but wait till you see by their actions that they've got the tipsomething's wrong, and don't shoot if you can help it. Remember this isSecret Service work, and the quieter it's done, the better pleasedthey'll be in Washington. There can't be any hullabaloo at all. You twofellows watch the front and back gates, and the no-shooting rule goeswith you, too. If there's anything else you can do, don't shoot. But it'sbetter to fire a cannon than let a man get away. Sabe? Now, Chief, youand the sheriff can come with me, and we'll bust up the meetin' for 'em."

  He went up on the shoulder of the man who was to watch outside the rearwall, and straddled the wall for a brief reconnoiter. Evidently the Juntafelt safe in their hidden little room, for no guard had been left in theyard. The back door was locked, and Starr opened it as silently as hecould with his pass key. Close behind him came Sheriff O'Malley and thechief of police, whose name was Whittier. They had left their shoesbeside the doorstep and walked in their socks, making no noise at all.

  Starr did not dare use his searchlight, but felt his way down past thepress and the forms, to where the stairs went up to the second floor. Onthe third step from the bottom, Starr, feeling his way with his hands,touched a dozing watchman and choked him into submission before thefellow had emitted more than a sleepy grunt of surprise. They left himgagged and tied to the iron leg of some heavy piece of machinery, andwent on up the stairs, t
reading as stealthily as a prowling cat.

  Starr turned to the right, found the door locked, and patiently turnedhis key a hair's breadth at a time in the lock, until he slid the boltback. Behind him the repressed breathing of O'Malley fanned warmly theback of his neck. He pushed the door open a half inch at a time, foundthe outer office dark and silent, and crossed it stealthily to the closetbehind the stove. O'Malley and Whittier were so close behind that hecould feel them as they entered the closet and crept along its length.

  Starr was reaching out before him with his hands, feeling for the doorinto the secret office, when Sheriff O'Malley struck his foot against theold tin spittoon, tried to cover the sound, and ran afoul of the brooms,which tripped him and sent him lurching against Starr. There in thatsmall space where everything had been so deathly still the racket wasappalling. O'Malley was not much given to secret work; he forgot himselfnow and swore just as full-toned and just as fluently as though be hadtripped in the dark over his own wheelbarrow in his own back yard.

  Starr threw himself against the end of the closet where he knew the doorwas hidden in the wall, felt the yielding of a board, and heaved againstit with his shoulder. He landed almost on top of a fat-jowledrepresentative from Santa Fe, but he landed muzzle foremost, as it were,and he was telling the twelve to put up their hands even before he hadhis feet solidly planted on the floor.

  Holman Sommers sat facing him. He had been writing, and he still held hispencil in his hand. He slowly crumpled the sheet of paper, his vivid eyeslifted to Starr's face. Tragic eyes they were then, for beyond Starr theylooked into the stern face of the government he would have defied. Theylooked upon the wreck of his dearest dream; upon the tightening chains ofthe wage slaves he would have freed--or so he dreamed.

  Starr stared back, his own mind visioning swiftly the havoc he hadwrought in the dream of this leader of men. He saw, not a politicaloutlaw caught before he could do harm to his country, but a man fated tobear in his great brain an idea born generations too soon into a brawlingworld of ideas that warred always with sordid circumstance. A hundredyears hence this man might be called great. Now he was nothing more thana political outlaw chief, trapped with his band of lesser outlaws.

  Sommers' eyes lightened impishly. His thin lips twisted in a smile at thedamnable joke which Life was playing there in that room.

  "Gentlemen of the Junta," he said in his sonorous, public-platformvoice, "I find it expedient, because of untoward circumstances, toadvise that you make no resistance. From the unceremonious andunheralded entry of our esteemed opponents, these political prostituteswho have had the effrontery to come here in the employ of a damnablesystem of political tyranny and frustrate our plans for the liberationof our comrades in slavery, I apprehend the fact that we have beenbasely betrayed by some foul Judas among us. I am left with noalternative but to advise that you surrender your bodies to theseminions of what they please to call the law.

  "Whether we part now, to spend the remaining years of our life in somefoul dungeon; whether to die a martyr's death on the scaffold, or whetherthe workers of the land awake to their power and, under some wiser,stronger leadership, liberate us to enjoy the fruits of the harvest wehave but sown, I cannot attempt to prophesy. We have done what we couldfor our fellowmen. We have not failed, for though we perish, yet ourblood shall fructify what we have sown, that our sons and our sons' sonsmay reap the garnered grain. Gentlemen, of the Junta, I declare ourmeeting adjourned!"

  Starr's eyes were troubled, but his gun did not waver. It pointedstraight at the breast of Holman Sommers, who looked at him measuringlywhen he had finished speaking.

  "I can't argue about the idea back of this business," Starr said gravely."All I can do is my duty. Put on these handcuffs, Mr. Sommers. They standfor something you ain't big enough to lick--yet."

  "Certainly," said Holman Sommers composedly. "You put the case like aphilosopher. Like a philosopher I yield to the power which, I grant you,we are not big enough to lick--yet. In behalf of our Cause, however,permit me to call your attention to the fact that we might have comenearer to victory, had you not discovered and interrupted this meetingto-night." Though his face was paler than was natural, he slipped on themanacles as matter-of-factly as he would have put on clean cuffs, androse from his chair prepared to go where Starr directed.

  "No, sit down again," said Starr brusquely. "Sheriff, gather up all thosepieces of paper for evidence against these men, and give them to me. Giveme a receipt for the men--I'll wait for it. I want you and Chief Whittierto hold them here in this room till I come back. I won't be long--half anhour, maybe." He took the slips of paper which the sheriff folded andhanded to him, and slipped them into his pocket.

  He was gone a little longer than he said, for he had some trouble inlocating the railroad official he wanted, and in convincing that sleepyofficial that he was speaking for the government when he demanded anengine and day coach to be placed on a certain dark siding he mentioned,ready for a swift night run to El Paso and a little beyond--to FortBliss, in fact.

  He got it, trust Starr for that! And he was only twenty minutes behindthe time he had named, though the sheriff and the chief of policebetrayed a nervous relief when he walked in upon them and announced thathe was ready now to move the prisoners.

  They untied the terrified watchman and added him to the group. In thedark, and by way of vacant lots and unlighted streets, he took them to acertain point where an engine had just backed a single, unlighted daycoach on to a siding and stood there with air-pump wheezing and theengineer crawling around beneath with his oil can. By the rear steps ofthe coach a mystified conductor stood waiting with his lantern hiddenunder his coat. A big man was the conductor; once a policeman andtherefore with a keen nose--don't laugh!--for mysteries.

  He wore a satisfied look when he saw the men that were being hustled intothe car. His uniform tightened as he swelled with the importance of hismission. He nodded to Sheriff O'Malley and the chief of police, cast anobliquely curious glance at Starr, who stayed on the ground, and whenStarr gave the word he swung his lantern to the watching fireman, andcaught the handrail beside the steps.

  "Fort Bliss it is; and there won't nothing stop us, buh-lieve me!" hemuttered confidentially to Starr, whom he recognized only as the man whostood behind the mystery. The engine began to creep forward, and he swungup to the lower step. "We may go in the ditch or something; but we'll getthere, you listen to me!"

  "Go to it, and good luck," said Starr, but there was no heartiness in hisvoice. He stood with his thumbs hooked inside his gun-belt and watchedthe coach that held the peace of the country within its varnished wallsgo sliding out of the yard, its green tail lights the only illuminationanywhere behind the engine. When it had clicked over the switch and waspicking up speed for its careening flight south through the cool hours ofearly morning, he gave a sigh that had no triumph in it, and turned awaytoward his cabin.

  "Well, there goes the revolution," he said somberly to himself. "And hereI go to do the rest of the job; and alongside what I've got to do, hellwould be a picnic!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  STARR TAKES ANOTHER PRISONER

  With a slip of paper in his pocket that would have gone a long way towardclearing Helen May, had he only taken the trouble to look at it, Starrrode out in the cool early morning to Sunlight Basin. He looked white andworn, and his eyes were sunken and circled with the purple of too littlesleep and too much worry, for in the three days since he had seen her,Starr had not been able to forget his misery once in merciful sleep. Onlywhen he was busy with capturing the Junta had he lost for a time the keenpain of his hurt.

  Now it was back like an aching tooth set going again with cold water orsweets. He tried to make himself think that he hated Helen May, and thata girl of that type--a girl who could lend herself to suchtreachery--could not possibly win from him anything but a pityingcontempt. He told himself over and over again that he was merely sorebecause a girl had "put something over on him"; that a man hated to have
a woman make a fool of him.

  He tried to gloat over the fact that he had found her out before she hadany inkling of how he felt toward her; he actually believed that! Hetried not to wince at the thought of her at Fort Bliss, a Federalprisoner, charged with conspiring against the government. She must haveknown the risk she took, he kept telling himself. The girl was no fool,was way above the average in intelligence. That was why she had appealedto him; he had felt the force of her personality, the underlying strengthof her character that had not harshened her outward charm, as strength sooften does for a woman.

  That was the worst of it. Had she been weak she would never have mixedwith any political conspiracy; they would not have wanted her, forintrigue has no place for weaklings. But had she been weak she wouldnever have attracted Starr so deeply, however innocent she might havebeen. So his reasoning went round and round in a circle, until he wasutterly heartsick with no hope of finding peace.

  There was one thing he could do: it would be tightening the screws of historture, but he meant to do it for her sake. He would take her to FortBliss himself, shielding her from publicity and humiliation; and he wouldtake charge of Vic, and see that the kid did not suffer too much onaccount of his sister.

  He would make a man of Vic; he never guessed that he was taking upmentally the burden which Peter had laid upon Helen May. He believedthere was good stuff in that kid, and with the right handling he wouldcome out all right. He would put in a plea to his chief for leniencytoward the girl too. He would say that she was young and inexperiencedand that Holman Sommers had probably drawn her into his scheme--Starrcould see how that might easily be--and that her health was absolutelydependent upon open air. They couldn't keep her shut up long; a girlcould not do much harm, if the rest of the bunch was convicted. Maybethe lesson and the scare would be all she needed to pull her back intolawful living. She was not a hardened adventuress; why, she couldn't bemuch over twenty-one or two! After a while, when she had straightenedup, maybe ...

  So Starr thought and thought, fighting to keep a little hope alive, tosee a little gleam of light in the blackness of his soul. His head bent,his eyes staring unseeingly at the yellow-brown dust of the trail, herode along unconscious of everything save the battle raging fiercelywithin. He did not know what pace Rabbit was taking; he even forgot thathe was on Rabbit's back. He did not know that his duty as a man and hisman's love were fighting the fiercest battle of his life, or if he did,he never thought to call it a battle.

  There had been one black night in the cabin--the night before this lastone, it was--when he had considered for a while how he might smuggleHelen May out of the country, suppressing the fact of her complicity. Heplanned just how he could put her on a train and "shoot her to LosAngeles," as he worded it to himself. How she could take a boat there forVancouver, and how he could hold back developments here until he knew shewas safe. He figured the approximate cost and the hole it would make inhis little savings account. He thought of everything, even to marryingher before she left, so that he could not be compelled to testify againsther, in case she was caught.

  He had dozed afterwards, and had dreamed that he put his plan to the testof reality. He had married Helen May and taken her himself to LosAngeles. But there had not been money enough for him to go any farther,and his chief had wired him peremptorily to return and arrest the leadersof the Alliance and all connected with it. So he had bought a steerageticket for Helen May and put her aboard the boat, where she must herdwith a lot of leering Chinamen. He had stood on the pier and watched theboat swing out and nose its way to the open sea, and a submarine hadtorpedoed it when it had sailed beyond the three-mile limit off thecoast, so he could not go after her. He was just taking off his coat totry it, anyway, when he awoke.

  That was all the good his sleep had done him: set him upright in bed witha cold sweat on his face and his hands shaking. But the reaction fromthat nightmare had been complete, and Starr had not again planned how hemight dodge his plain duty. But he kept thinking around and around thesubject for all that, as though he could not give up entirely the hope ofbeing able to save her somehow.

  He did not know, until he passed the corral, that he was already inSunlight Basin, and that the house stood just up the slope before him.Rabbit must have taken it for granted that Starr was bound for this placeand so had kept the trail of his own accord, for Starr could not rememberturning from the main road. He did not even know that he had passed notmore than a hundred yards from Vic and the goats, and that Vic hadshouted "hello" to him.

  He took a long breath when he glanced up and saw the house so close, buthe did not attempt to dodge or even delay the final tragedy of hismission. He let Rabbit keep straight on. And when the horse stoppedbefore the closed front door, Starr slid off and walked, like a tired oldman, to the door and knocked.

  Helen May had been washing the breakfast dishes, and Starr heard themuffled sound of her high-heeled slippers clicking over the bare floorfor a minute before she came into the front room and opened the door. Shehad a dish towel over her right arm, opening the door with her left.Starr knew that the dish towel was merely a covering for her six-shooter,and his heart hardened a little at that fresh reminder of herpreparedness and her guile.

  "Why, good morning, desert man," she said brightly, after the firstlittle start of surprise. "Come on in. The coffee's fine this morning;and I just had a hunch I'd better not throw it out for a while yet.There's a little waffle batter left, too."

  Starr had choked down a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the station lunchcounter before he left San Bonito, and he was glad now that he was nothungry. He stepped inside, but he did not smile back at Helen May; norcould he have accepted her hospitality to save himself from starvation.He felt enough like Judas as it was.

  "Don't put down your gun yet," he said abruptly, standing beside the doorwith his hat in his hand, as though his visit would be very short. "Youcan shoot me if you want to, but that's about all the leeway I can giveyou. I rounded up the revolution leaders last night. They're likely atFort Bliss by now, so you can take your choice between handing me abullet, or going along with me to Fort Bliss. Because if I live, that'swhere I'll have to take you. And," he added as an afterthought, "I don'tcare much which it is."

  Helen May stood with her chin tilted down, and stared at him from underher eyebrows. She did not speak for a minute, and Starr leaned backagainst the closed door with his arms folded negligently and his hatdangling from one hand, waiting her decision. He stared back at her,somberly apathetic. He had spoken the simple truth when he said he didnot care which she decided to do. He had come to the limit of suffering,it seemed to him. He could look into her tawny brown eyes now without anyemotion whatever.

  "You don't smell drunk," said Helen May suddenly and very bluntly, "andyou don't look crazy. What is the matter with you, Starr of the desert?Is this a joke, or what?"

  "It didn't strike me as any joke," Starr told her passionlessly."Thirteen of them I rounded up. Holman Sommers was the head of the wholething. Elfigo Apodaca is in jail, held for the shooting of Estan Medina.Luis Medina is in jail too, held as a witness and to keep Apodaca's menfrom killing him before he can testify in court. I hated to see the kidtangled up with it--and I hate to see you in it. But that don't give meany license to let you off. You're under arrest. I'm a Secret Serviceman, sent here to prevent the revolution that's been brewing all springand summer. I guess I've done it, all right." He stared at her withgrowing bitterness in his eyes. His hurt began dully to ache again."Helen May, what in God's name did you tangle up with 'em for?" heflashed in a sudden passion of grief and reproach.

  Helen May's chin squared a little; but she who had not screamed when shefound her father dead in his bed; she who had read his letter withoutwhimpering held her voice quiet now, though womanlike she answeredStarr's question with another.

  "What makes you think I am tangled up with it? What reason have you gotfor connecting me with such a thing?"

  A stain of anger reddened Starr's
cheek bones, that had been pale. "Whatreason? Well, I'll tell you. In the office of _Las Nuevas_, in thatlittle, inside room with the door opening out of a closet to hide it,where I got my first real clue, I found two sheets of paper with somestrong revolutionary stuff written in English. Also I found a pamphletwhere the same stuff had been printed in Spanish. I kept that writing,and I kept the pamphlet. I've got it now. I'd know the writing anywhereI saw it, and I saw a sample of it here in this very room, when the windblew those papers off your desk."

  "You--in this room!" Helen May caught her breath. "Why--why, you couldn'thave! I never wrote any revolution stuff in my life! Why--I don't knowthe first thing about _Las Nuevas_, as you call it. How could mywriting--?" She caught her breath again, for she remembered.

  "Why, Starr of the desert, that was Holman Sommers' writing you saw! Iremember now. Some pages of his manuscript blew off the desk when youwere here. See, I can show you a whole pile of it!" She ran to the desk,Starr following her mechanically. "See? All kinds of scientific junk thathe wanted typed. Isn't that the writing you meant? Isn't it?" Her handstrembled so that the papers she held close to Starr's face shook, butStarr recognized the same symmetrical, hard-to-read chirography.

  "Yes, that's it." His voice was so husky that she could hardly hear him.He moistened his lips, that had gone dry. Was it possible? His mind keptasking over and over.

  "And here! I don't ask you to take my word for it--I know that just thosepages don't prove anything, because I might have written that stuffmyself--if I knew enough! But here's a lot that he sent over by thestage driver yesterday. I haven't even opened it yet. You can see thesame handwriting in the address, can't you? And if he has written anote--he does sometimes--and signed it--he always signs his name infull--why, that will be proof, won't it?" Her eyes burned into his andsteadied a little his whirling thoughts.

  "Open it, desert man! Open it, and see if there's a note! And you can askthe stage driver, if you don't believe me; here, break the string!"

  She was now more eager than he to see what was inside the wrapping ofnewspaper. "See? That's an El Paso paper--and I don't take anything butthe _Times_ from Los Angeles! Oh, goody! There is a note! You read it,Starr. Read it out loud. If that doesn't convince you, why--why I canprove by Vic--"

  Starr had unfolded the sheet of tablet paper, and Helen May interruptedherself to listen. Starr's voice was uneven, husky when he tried tocontrol the quiver in it. And this he read, in the handwriting of whichhe had such bitter knowledge:

  "My Dear Miss Stevenson:

  "I am enclosing herewith a part of Chapter Two, which I have revisedconsiderably and beg you to retype for me. If you have no asterisk signupon your machine, will you be so kind as to make use of the period signto indicate a break in the context of the quotations from the variousauthors whom I have cited?

  "I wish to inform you that I am deeply sorry to place this extra burdenof work upon you, and also assure you that I am more than delighted withthe care you have exercised in deciphering correctly my most abominablechirography.

  "May I also suggest, with all due respect to your intelligence and with akeen appreciation of the potent influences of youth and romance upon eventhe drudgery of an amanuensis, that in writing "stars of the universe" ina scientific document, the connotation is marred somewhat when stars isspelled "Starr's."

  "Very apologetically your friend,

  "HOLMAN SOMMERS."

  It took several seconds for the full significance of that lastparagraph to sink into minds so absorbed with another matter. But whenit did sink in--

  "Oh-h!" gasped Helen May, and backed a step, her face the color of a redhollyhock.

  Starr looked up from reading those pregnant words a second time tohimself. He reached out and caught Helen May by her two shoulders.

  "Did you do that?" he whispered impellingly. "Did you spell my name intothat man's manuscript?"

  "No, I didn't! I don't believe I did--I never noticed--well, even if Idid, that doesn't mean--anything." I hope the printers will set that_anything_ in their very smallest type, just to show you how weak andfutile and scarcely audible and absolutely unconvincing the word sounded.For one reason, Helen May did not have much breath to say it with; andfor another reason, she knew there was not much use in saying it.

  * * * * *

  Helen May, sitting unabashed on Starr's lap, with an arm around hisneck and her head on his shoulder, with her dish towel and gun lyingjust where she had dropped them on the floor some time before, tookPeter's last letter from Starr's fingers and drew it tenderly downalong her cheek.

  "I only wish you could have known dad," she said with a gentle melancholythat was a great deal lightened by her present happiness. "He wasn't atall striking on the surface; he was so quiet and so unassuming. But hewas just the dearest and the bravest man--and when I think what he didfor me..."

  "I know he was dear and brave; I can judge by his daughter." Starrreached up and prisoned hand and letter together and held them againsthis lips. "Seems like a nightmare now that I ever thought--And to think Iheaded out here to..."

  "Well, I _am_ your prisoner." Helen May answered that part of thesentence which Starr had left unspoken. "Listen, desert man o' mine.I--I want to be your prisoner forever and ever and ever!"

  "You won't get anything less than a life sentence, lady! And--"

  "Hully gosh!" Vic, bursting open the door just in the middle of a kiss,skidded precipitately through to the kitchen. "Fade out!" he advisedhimself as he went. "But say! When you get around to it, I'd likesomething to eat, Helen Blazes!"

  THE END