"What's that?" snapped Bromfield.
"I was just figurin' on what would happen if you got sick and couldn't attend that annual meeting this afternoon," drawled the Westerner. "I reckon mebbe some of the stockholders you've got lined up would break away and join Whitford."
The New Yorker felt a vague alarm. What idea did this fellow have in the back of his head. Did he intend to do bodily violence to him? Without any delay Bromfield reached for the telephone.
The large brown hand of the Westerner closed over his.
"I'm talkin' to you, Mr. Bromfield. It's not polite for you to start 'phoning, not even to the police, whilst we're still engaged in conversation."
"Don't you try to interfere with me," said the man who paid the telephone bill. "I'll not submit to such an indignity."
"I'm not the only one that interferes. You fixed up quite an entertainment for me the other night, didn't you? Wouldn't you kinda call that interferin' some? I sure ought to comb yore hair for it."
Bromfield made a hasty decision to get out. He started for the door.
Clay traveled in that direction too. They arrived simultaneously.
Clarendon backed away. The Arizonan locked the door and pocketed the
key.
His host grew weakly violent. From Whitford he had heard a story about two men in a locked room that did not reassure him now. One of the men had been this cattleman. The other—well, he had suffered. "Let me out! I'll not stand this! You can't bully me!" he cried shrilly.
"Don't pull yore picket-pin, Bromfield," advised Lindsay. "I've elected myself boss of the rodeo. What I say goes. You'll save yorese'f a heap of worry if you make up yore mind to that right away."
"What do you want? What are you trying to do? I'm not a barroom brawler like Durand. I don't intend to fight with you."
"You've ce'tainly relieved my mind," murmured Clay lazily. "What's yore own notion of what I ought to do to you, Bromfield? You invited me out as a friend and led me into a trap after you had fixed it up. Wouldn't a first-class thrashin' with a hawsswhip be about right?"
Bromfield turned pale. "I've got a weak heart," he faltered.
"I'll say you have," agreed Clay. "It's pumpin' water in place of blood right now, I'll bet. Did you ever have a real honest-to-God lickin' when you was a boy?"
The New Yorker knew he was helpless before this clear-eyed, supple athlete who walked like a god from Olympus. One can't lap up half a dozen highballs a day for an indeterminate number of years, without getting flabby, nor can he spend himself in feeble dissipations and have reserves of strength to call upon when needed. The tongue went dry in his mouth. He began to swallow his Adam's apple.
"I'm not well to-day," he said, almost in a whisper.
"Let's look at this thing from all sides," went on Clay cheerfully. "If we decide by a majority of the voting stock—and I'm carryin' enough proxies so that I've got control—that you'd ought to have a whalin', why, o' course, there's nothin' to it but get to business and make a thorough job."
"Maybe I didn't do right about Maddock's."
"No mebbe about that. You acted like a yellow hound."
"I'm sorry. I apologize."
"I don't reckon I can use apologies. I might make a bargain with you."
"I'll be glad to make any reasonable bargain."
"How'd this do? I'll vote my stock and proxies in the Bromfield Punishment Company, Limited, against the whalin', and you vote yore stock and proxies in the Bird Cage Company to return the present board and directorate."
"That's coercion."
"Well, so it is."
"The law—"
"Did you go hire a lawyer for an opinion before you paid Durand to do me up?"
"You've got no right to hold me a prisoner here to help Whitford."
"All right, I won't. I'll finish my business with you and when I'm through, you can go to the annual meetin'—if you feel up to travelin' that far."
"I'll give you a thousand dollars to let me alone."
"That'd be a thousand and fifty you had given me, wouldn't it?" returned Lindsay gayly.
Tears of vexation stood in Bromfield's eyes. "All right. Let me go.
I'll be fair to Whitford and arrange a deal with him."
"Get the stockholders who're with you on the 'phone and tell 'em to vote their stock as Whitford thinks best. Get Whitford and tell him the fight's off."
"If I do, will you let me go?"
"If you don't, we'll return to the previous question—the annual meeting of the Bromfield Punishment Company, Limited."
Bromfield got busy with the telephone.
When he had finished. Clay strolled over to a bookcase, cast his eyes over the shelves, and took out a book. It was "David Harum." He found an easy-chair, threw a leg over one arm, and presently began to chuckle.
"Are you going to keep me here all day?" asked his host sulkily.
"Only till about four o'clock. We're paired, you and me, so we'll both stay away from the election. Why don't you pick you a good book and enjoy yoreself? There's a lot of A 1 readin' in that case over there. It'll sure improve yore mind."
Clarendon ground his teeth impotently.
His guest continued to grin over the good stories of the old horse-trader. When he closed the book at last, he had finished it. His watch told him that it was twenty minutes to five. Bromfield's man was at the door trying to get in. He met Lindsay going out.
"No, I can't stay to tea to-day, Mr. Bromfield," the Arizonan was saying, a gleam of mirth in his eyes. "No use urging me. Honest, I've really got to be going. Had a fine time, didn't we? So long."
Bromfield used bad language.
CHAPTER XXXIX
IN CENTRAL PARK
Johnnie burst into the kitchen beaming. "We're gonna p'int for the hills, Kitty. Clay he's had a letter callin' him home."
"When are you going?"
"Thursday. Ain't that great?"
She nodded, absently. Her mind was on another tack already. "Johnnie,
I'm going to ask Miss Whitford here for dinner to-night."
"Say, you ce'tainly get the best notions, honeybug," he shouted.
"Do you think she'll come?"
"Sure she'll come."
"I'll fix up the bestest dinner ever was, and maybe—"
Her conclusion wandered off into the realm of unvoiced hopes, but her husband knew what it was as well as it she had phrased it.
When Clay came home that evening he stopped abruptly at the door. The lady of his dreams was setting the table in the dining-room and chatting gayly with an invisible Kitty in the kitchen. Johnnie was hovering about her explaining some snapshots of Clay he had gathered.
"Tha's the ol' horn-toad winnin' the ropin' championship at Tucson. He sure stepped some that day," the Runt boasted.
The delicate fragrance of the girl's personality went to Clay's head like wine as he stepped forward and shook hands. To see her engaged in this intimate household task at his own table quickened his pulse and sent a glow through him.
"You didn't know you had invited me to dinner, did you?" she said, little flags a-flutter in her cheeks.
They had a gay dinner, and afterward a pleasant hour before Clay took her home.
Neither of them was in a hurry. They walked through Central Park in the kindly darkness, each acutely sensitive to the other's presence.
Her gayety and piquancy had given place to a gentle shyness. Clay let the burden of conversation fall upon her. He knew that he had come to his hour of hours and his soul was wrapped in gravity.
She had never before known a man like him, a personality so pungent, so dynamic. He was master of himself. He ran a clean race. None of his energy was wasted in futile dissipation. One could not escape from his strength, and she had already discovered that she did not want to escape it. If she gave herself to him, it might be for her happiness or it might not. She must take her chance of that. But it had come to her that a woman's joy is to follow her heart—and her heart answered "Here"
when he called.
She too sensed what was coming, and the sex instinct in her was on tiptoe in flight. She was throbbing with excitement. Her whole being longed to hear what he had to tell her. Yet she dodged for a way of escape. Silences were too significant, too full-pulsed. She made herself talk. It did not much matter about what.
"Why didn't you tell us that it was Mr. Bromfield who struck down that man Collins? Why did you let us think you did it?" she queried.
"Well, folks in New York don't know me. What was the use of gettin' him in bad?"
"You know that wasn't the reason. You did it because—" She stopped in the midst of the sentence. It had occurred to her that this subject was more dangerous even than silence.
"I did it because he was the man you were goin' to marry," he said.
They moved side by side through the shadows. In the faint light he could make out the fine line of her exquisite throat. After a moment she spoke. "You're a good friend, Clay. It was a big thing to do. I don't know anybody else except Dad that would have done it for me."
"You don't know anybody else that loves you as much as I do."
It was out at last, quietly and without any dramatics. A flash of soft eyes darted at him, then veiled the shining tenderness beneath long lashes. She paced a little faster, chin up, nerves taut.
"I've had an attack of common sense," he went on, and in his voice was a strength both audacious and patient. "I thought at first I couldn't hope to win you because of your fortune and what it had done for you. Even when I knew you liked me I felt it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you. I couldn't offer you the advantages you'd had. But I've changed my mind. I've been watching what money does to yore friends. It makes them soft. They flutter around like butterflies. They're paupers—a good many of them—because they don't pay their way. A man's a tramp if he doesn't saw wood for his breakfast. I don't want you to get like that, and if you stay here long enough you sure will. It's in my heart that if you'll come with me we'll live."
In the darkness she made a rustling movement toward him. A little sob welled up in her throat as her hands lifted to him. "Oh, Clay! I've fought against it. I didn't want to, but—I love you. Oh, I do love you!"
He took her lissom young body in his arms. Her lips lifted to his.
Presently they walked forward slowly. Clay had never seen her more lovely and radiant, though tears still clung to the outskirts of her joy.
"We're going to live—oh, every how!" she cried to the stars, her lover's hand in hers.
CHAPTER XL
CLAY PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE
Johnnie felt that Kitty's farewell dinner had gone very well. It was her first essay as a hostess, and all of them had enjoyed themselves. But, so far as he could see, it had not achieved the results for which they had been hoping.
Clay came home late and next morning was full of plans about leaving.
He discussed the packing and train schedules and affairs at the
B-in-a-Box. But of Beatrice Whitford he made not even a casual mention.
"Two more days and we'll hit the trail for good old Tucson," he said cheerfully.
"Y'betcha, by jollies," agreed his bandy-legged shadow.
None the less Johnnie was distressed. He believed that his friend was concealing an aching heart beneath all this attention to impending details. As a Benedict he considered it his duty to help the rest of the world get married too. A bachelor was a boob. He didn't know what was best for him. Same way with a girl. Clay was fond of Miss Beatrice, and she thought a heap of him. You couldn't fool Johnnie. No, sirree! Well, then?
Mooning on the sad plight of these two friends who were too coy or too perverse to know what was best for them, Johnnie suddenly slapped himself a whack on the thigh. A brilliant idea had flashed into his cranium. It proceeded to grow until he was like to burst with it.
When Lindsay rose from breakfast he was mysteriously beckoned into another room. Johnnie outlined sketchily and with a good deal of hesitation what he had in mind. Clay's eyes danced with that spark of mischief his friends had learned to recognize as a danger signal.
"You're some sure-enough wizard, Johnnie," he admitted. "I expect you're right about girls not knowin' their own minds. You've had more experience with women than I have. If you say the proper thing to do is to abduct Miss Whitford and take her with us, why—"
"That's whatever. She likes you a heap more than she lets on to you. O' course it would be different if I wasn't married, but Kitty she can chaperoon Miss Beatrice. It'll be all accordin' to Hoyle."
The cattleman gazed at the puncher admiringly. "Don't rush me off my feet, old-timer," he said gayly. "Gimme a coupla hours to think of it, and I'll let you know what I'll do. This is real sudden, Johnnie. You must 'a' been a terror with the ladies when you was a bachelor. Me, I never kidnaped one before."
"Onct in a while you got to play like you're gonna treat 'em rough," said Mr. Green sagely, blushing a trifle nevertheless.
"All right. I'll let you engineer this if I can make up my mind to it after I've milled it over. I can see you know what you're doin'."
When Johnnie returned from a telephone call at the office two hours later, Kitty had a suspicion he was up to something. He bubbled mystery so palpably that her curiosity was piqued. But the puncher for once was silent as a clam. He did not intend to get Kitty into trouble if his plan miscarried. Moreover, he had an intuition that if she knew what was under way she would put her small, competent foot through the middle of the project.
The conspirators arranged details. Johnnie was the brains of the kidnaping. Clay bought the tickets and was to take charge of the prisoner after the train was reached. They decided it would be best to get a stateroom for the girl.
"We wantta make it as easy as we can for her," said Johnnie. "O' course it's all for her own good, but we don't figure to treat her noways but like the princess she is."
"Yes," agreed Clay humbly.
According to programme, carefully arranged by Johnnie, Beatrice rode down to the train with him and Kitty in their taxicab. She went on board for the final good-byes and chatted with them in their section.
The chief conspirator was as easy as a toad in a hot skillet. Now that it had come down to the actual business of taking this young woman with them against her will, he began to weaken. His heart acted very strangely, but he had to go through with it.
"C-can I see you a minute in the next car, Miss Beatrice?" he asked, his voice quavering.
Miss Whitford lifted her eyebrows, but otherwise expressed no surprise.
"Certainly, Johnnie."
"What do you want to see Miss Whitford about, Johnnie?" his spouse asked. There were times when Kitty mistrusted Johnnie's judgment. She foresaw that he might occasionally need a firm hand.
"Oh, nothin' much. Tell you about it later, honey." The kidnaper mopped the perspiration from his forehead. At that moment he wished profoundly that this brilliant idea of his had never been born.
He led the way down the aisle into the next sleeper and stopped at one of the staterooms. Shakily he opened the door and stood aside for her to pass first.
"You want me to go in here?" she asked.
"Yes'm."
Beatrice stepped in. Johnnie followed.
Clay rose from the lounge and said, "Glad to see you, Miss Whitford."
"Did you bring me here to say good-bye, Johnnie?" asked Beatrice.
The Runt's tongue stuck to the root of his mouth, His eyes appealed dumbly to Clay.
"Better explain to Miss Whitford," said Clay, passing the buck.
"It's for yore good, Miss Beatrice," stammered the villain who had brought her. "We—we—I—I done brought you here to travel home with us."
"You—what?"
Before her slender, outraged dignity Johnnie wilted. "Kitty, she—she can chaperoon you. It's all right, ma'am. I—we—I didn't go for to do nothin' that wasn't proper. We thought—"
"You mean that you brought me here expecting me to go a
long with you—without my consent—without a trunk—without—"
Clay took charge of the kidnaping. "Johnnie, if I were you I'd light a shuck back to the other car. I see I'll have to treat this lady rough as you advised."
Johnnie wanted to expostulate, to deny that he had ever given such counsel, to advise an abandonment of the whole project. But his nerve unexpectedly failed him. He glanced helplessly at Clay and fled.
He was called upon the carpet immediately on joining Kitty.
"What are you up to, Johnnie? I'm not going to have you make a goose of yourself if I can help it. And where's Mr. Lindsay? You said he'd meet us here."
"Clay, he's in the next car."
"You took Miss Beatrice in there to say good-bye to him?"
"No—she—she's goin' along with us."
"Going along with us? What do you mean, Johnnie Green?"
He told her his story, not at all cheerfully. His bold plan looked very different now from what it had two days before.
Already the chant of the wheels had begun. The train was in the sub-Hudson darkness of the tunnel.
Kitty rose with decision. "Well, of all the foolishness I ever heard, Johnnie, this is the limit. I'm going right to that poor girl. You've spoiled everything between you. She'll hate Mr. Lindsay for the rest of her life. How could he be so stupid?"
Her husband followed her, crestfallen. He wanted to weep with chagrin.
Beatrice opened the door of the stateroom. She had taken off her hat and Clay was hanging it on a hook.
"Come in," she said cordially, but faintly.
Kitty did not quite understand. The atmosphere was less electric than she had expected. She stopped, taken aback at certain impressions that began to register themselves on her brain.
"Johnnie was tellin' me—"
"About how he abducted me. Yes. Wasn't it dear of him?"
"But—"
"I've decided to make the best of it and go along."
"I—your father, Mr. Whitford—" Kitty bogged down.
Beatrice blushed. Little dimples came out with her smile. "I think
I'd better let Clay explain."
The Big-Town Round-Up Page 22