by Bower, B M
"Open it, desert man! Open it, and see if there's a note! And you can ask the 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 of newspaper. "See? That's an El Paso paper—and I don't take anything but the 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 can prove by Vic—"
Starr had unfolded the sheet of tablet paper, and Helen May interrupted herself to listen. Starr's voice was uneven, husky when he tried to control the quiver in it. And this he read, in the handwriting of which he had such bitter knowledge:
"My Dear Miss Stevenson:
"I am enclosing herewith a part of Chapter Two, which I have revised considerably and beg you to retype for me. If you have no asterisk sign upon your machine, will you be so kind as to make use of the period sign to indicate a break in the context of the quotations from the various authors whom I have cited?
"I wish to inform you that I am deeply sorry to place this extra burden of work upon you, and also assure you that I am more than delighted with the care you have exercised in deciphering correctly my most abominable chirography.
"May I also suggest, with all due respect to your intelligence and with a keen appreciation of the potent influences of youth and romance upon even the drudgery of an amanuensis, that in writing "stars of the universe" in a scientific document, the connotation is marred somewhat when stars is spelled "Starr's."
"Very apologetically your friend,
"HOLMAN SOMMERS."
It took several seconds for the full significance of that last paragraph to sink into minds so absorbed with another matter. But when it did sink in—
"Oh-h!" gasped Helen May, and backed a step, her face the color of a red hollyhock.
Starr looked up from reading those pregnant words a second time to himself. He reached out and caught Helen May by her two shoulders.
"Did you do that?" he whispered impellingly. "Did you spell my name into that man's manuscript?"
"No, I didn't! I don't believe I did—I never noticed—well, even if I did, that doesn't mean—anything." I hope the printers will set that anything in their very smallest type, just to show you how weak and futile and scarcely audible and absolutely unconvincing the word sounded. For one reason, Helen May did not have much breath to say it with; and for another reason, she knew there was not much use in saying it.
* * * * *
Helen May, sitting unabashed on Starr's lap, with an arm around his neck and her head on his shoulder, with her dish towel and gun lying just where she had dropped them on the floor some time before, took Peter's last letter from Starr's fingers and drew it tenderly down along her cheek.
"I only wish you could have known dad," she said with a gentle melancholy that was a great deal lightened by her present happiness. "He wasn't at all striking on the surface; he was so quiet and so unassuming. But he was just the dearest and the bravest man—and when I think what he did for me…"
"I know he was dear and brave; I can judge by his daughter." Starr reached up and prisoned hand and letter together and held them against his lips. "Seems like a nightmare now that I ever thought—And to think I headed out here to…"
"Well, I am your prisoner." Helen May answered that part of the sentence 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 advised himself as he went. "But say! When you get around to it, I'd like something to eat, Helen Blazes!"
THE END
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