by Unknown
"I could keep that up as a side-line."
"So you could. But if you use my time for your own profit, you ought to pay me a royalty on your intake."
His eyes lit with laughter. "I reckon that can be arranged. Any percentage you think fair It will all be in the family, anyway."
"I think that is one of the things about which we don't agree," she made answer softly, flashing him the proper look of inviting disdain from under her silken lashes.
He leaned forward, elbow on the chair-arm and chin in hand. "We'll agree about it one of these days."
"Think so?" she returned airily.
"I don't think. I know."
Just an eyebeat her gaze met his, with that hint of shy questioning, of puzzled doubt that showed a growing interest. "I wonder," she murmured, and recovered herself little laugh.
How she hated her task, and him! She was a singularly honest woman, but she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to forgetfulness, with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity her manner invited. She knew her part, the heartless enticing coquette, compounded half of passion and half of selfishness. It was a hateful thing to do, this sacrifice of her personal reticence, of the individual abstraction in which she wrapped herself as a cloak, in order to hint at a possibility of some intimacy of feeling between them. She shrank from it with a repugnance hardly to be overcome, but she held herself with an iron will and consummate art to the role she had undertaken. Two lives hung on her success. She must not forget that. She would not let herself forget that--and one of them that of the man she loved.
So, bravely she played her part, repelling always with a hint of invitation, denying with the promise in her fascinated eyes of ultimate surrender to his ardor. In the zest of the pursuit the minutes slipped away unnoticed. Never had a woman seemed to him more subtly elusive, and never had he felt more sure of himself. Her charm grew on him, stirred his pulses to a faster beat. For it was his favorite sport, and this warm, supple young creature, who was to be the victim of his bow and arrow, showed herself worthy of his mettle.
The clock downstairs struck the half-hour, and Bannister, reminded of what lay before him outside, made a move to go. Her alert eyes had been expecting it, and she forestalled him by a change of tactics. Moved apparently by impulse, she seated herself on the piano-stool, swept the keys for an instant with her fingers, and plunged into the brilliant "Carmen" overture. Susceptible as this man was to the influence of music, he could not fail to be arrested by so perfect an interpretation of his mood. He stood rooted, was carried back again in imagination to a great artiste's rendering of that story of fierce passion and aching desire so brilliantly enacted under the white sunbeat of a country of cloudless skies. Imperceptibly she drifted into other parts of the opera. Was it the wild, gypsy seductiveness of Carmen that he felt, or, rather, this American girl's allurement? From "Love will like a birdling fly" she slipped into the exquisitely graceful snatches of song with which Carmen answers the officer's questions. Their rare buoyancy marched with his mood, and from them she carried him into the song "Over the hill," that is so perfect and romantic an expression of the _wanderlust._
How long she could have held him she will never know, for at that inopportune time came blundering one of his men into the room with a call for his presence to take charge of the situation outside.
"What do y'u want, Bostwick?" he demanded, with curt peremptoriness.
The man whispered in his ear.
"Can't wait any longer, can't they?" snapped his chief. "Y'u tell them they'll wait till I give the word. Understand?"
He almost flung the man out of the room, but Helen noticed that she had lost him. His interest was perfunctory, and, though he remained a little time longer, it was to establish his authority with the men rather than to listen to her. Twice he looked at his watch within five minutes.
He rose to go. "There is a little piece of business I have to put through. So I'll have to ask y'u to excuse me. I have had a delightful hour, and I hate to go." He smiled, and quoted with mock sentimentality:
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary! My rosary!"
"Dear me! One certainly lives and learns. How could I have guessed that, with your reputation, you could afford to indulge in a rosary?" she mocked.
"Good night." He offered his hand.
"Don't go yet," she coaxed.
He shook his head. "Duty, y'u know."
"Stay only a little longer. Just ten minutes more."
His vanity purred, so softly she stroked it. "Can't. Wish I could. Y'u hear how noisy things are getting. I've got to take charge. So-long."
She stood close, looking up at him with a face of seductive appeal.
"Don't go yet. Please!"
The triumph of victory mounted to his head. "I'll come back when I've done what I've got to do."
"No, no. Stay a little longer just a little."
"Not a minute, sweetheart."
He bent to kiss her, and a little clenched fist struck his face.
"Don't you dare!" she cried.
The outraged woman in her, curbed all evening with an iron bit, escaped from control. Delightedly he laughed. The hot spirit in her pleased him mightily. He took her little hands and held them in one of his while he smiled down at her. "I guess that kiss will keep, my girl, till I come back."
"My God! Are you going to kill your own cousin?"
All her terror, all her detestation and hatred of him, looked haggardly out of her unmasked face. His narrowed eyes searched her heart, and his countenance grew every second more sinister,
"Y'u have been fooling me all evening, then?"
"Yes, and hating you every minute of the time."
"Y'u dared?" His face was black with rage.
"You would like to kill me. Why don't you?"
"Because I know a better revenge. I'm going out to take it now. After your lover is dead, I'll come back and make love to y'u again," he sneered.
"Never!" She stood before him like a queen in her lissom, brave, defiant youth. "And as for your cousin, you may kill him, but you can't destroy his contempt for you. He will die despising you for a coward and a scoundrel."
It was true, and he knew it. In his heart he cursed her, while he vainly sought some weapon that would strike home through her impervious armor.
"Y'u love him. I'll remember that when I see him kick," he taunted.
"I make you a present of the information. I love him, and I despise you. Nothing can change those facts," she retorted whitely.
"Mebbe, but some day y'u'll crawl on your knees to beg my pardon for having told me so."
"There is your overweening vanity again," she commented.
"I'm going to break y'u, my beauty, so that y'u'll come running when I snap my fingers."
"We'll see."
"And in the meantime I'll go hang your lover." He bowed ironically, swung on his jingling heel, and strode out of the room.
She stood there listening to his dying footfalls, then covered her face with her hands, as if to press back the dreadful vision her mind conjured.
CHAPTER 19
. WEST POINT TO THE RESCUE
It was understood that the sheriff should make a perfunctory defense against the mob in order to "square" him with the voters at the election soon to be held. But the word had been quietly passed that the bullets of the prison guards would be fired over the heads of the attackers. This assurance lent an added braggadocio to the Dutch courage of the lynchers. Many of them who would otherwise have hung back distinguished themselves by the enthusiasm which they displayed.
Bannister himself generaled the affair, detailing squads to batter down the outer door, to guard every side of the prison, and to overpower the sheriff's guard. That official, according to programme, appeared at a window and made a little speech, declaring his intention of performing his duty at whatever cost. He was hooted down with jeers and laughter
, and immediately the attack commenced.
The yells of the attackers mingled with the sound of the axe-blows and the report of revolvers from inside the building. Among those nearest to the door being battered down were Denver and the few men he had with him. His plan offered merely a forlorn hope. It was that in the first scramble to get in after the way was opened he and his friends might push up the stairs in the van, and hold the corridor for as long as they could against the furious mob.
It took less than a quarter of an hour to batter down the door, and among the first of those who sprang across the threshold were Denver, Missou, Frisco and their allies. While others stopped to overpower the struggling deputies according to the arranged farce, they hurried upstairs and discovered the cell in which their friends were fastened.
Frisco passed a revolver through the grating to McWilliams, and another to Bannister. "Haven't got the keys, so I can't let y'u out, old hoss," he told the foreman. "But mebbe y'u won't feel so lonesome with these little toys to play with."
Meanwhile Denver, a young giant of seventy-six inches, held the head of the stairs, with four stalwart plainsmen back of him. The rush of many feet came up pell-mell, and he flung the leaders back on those behind.
"Hold on there. This isn't a free-lunch counter. Don't you see we're crowded up here already?"
"What's eating you ? Whyfor, can't we come?" growled one of the foremost nursing an injured nose.
"I've just explained to you, son, that it's crowded. Folks are prevalent enough up here right now. Send up that bunch of keys and we'll bring your meat to you fast enough."
"What's that? What's that?" The outlaw chief pushed his way through the dense mob at the door and reached the stairway.
"He won't let us up," growled one of them.
"Who won't?" demanded Bannister sharply, and at once came leaping up the stairs.
"Nothing doing," drawled Frisco, and tossed him over the railing on to the heads of his followers below.
They carried Bannister into the open air, for his head had struck the newel-post in his descent. This gave the defense a few minutes respite.
"They're going to come a-shooting next time," remarked Denver. "Just as soon as he comes back from bye-low land you'll see things hum."
"Y'u bet," agreed Missou. We'll last about three minutes when the stampede begins."
The scream of an engine pierced the night.
Denver's face lit. "Make it five minutes, Missou, and Mac is safe. At least, I'm hoping so awful hard. Miss Helen wired for the militia from Sheridan this nothing. Chances are they're on that train. I couldn't tell you earlier because she made me promise not to. She was afraid it might leak out and get things started sooner. "
Weak but furious, the miscreant from the Shoshones returned to the attack. "Break in the back door and sneak up behind on those fellows. We'll have the men we want inside of fifteen minutes," he promised the mob.
"We'll rush them from both sides, and show those guys on the landing whether they can stop us," added Bostwick.
Suddenly some one raised the cry, "The soldiers!" Bannister looked up the street and swore a vicious oath. Swinging down the road at double time came a company of militia in khaki. He was mad with baffled fury, but he made good his retreat at once and disappeared promptly into the nearest dark alley.
The mob scattered by universal impulse; disintegrated so promptly that within five minutes the soldiers held the ground alone, save for the officials of the prison and Denver's little band.
A boyish lieutenant lately out of the Point, and just come in to a lieutenancy in the militia, was in command. "In time?" he asked anxiously, for this was his first independent expedition.
"Y'u bet," chuckled Denver. "We're right glad to see you, and I'll bet those boys in the cage ain't regretting your arrival any. Fifteen minutes later and you would have been in time to hold the funeral services, I reckon."
"Where is Miss Messiter?" asked the young officer.
"She's at the Elk House, colonel. I expect some of us better drift over there and tell her it's all right. She's the gamest little woman that ever crossed the Wyoming line. Hadn't been for her these boys would have been across the divide hours ago. She's a plumb thoroughbred. Wouldn't give up an inch. All day she has generaled this thing; played a mighty weak hand for a heap more than it was worth. Sand? Seh: she's grit clear through, if anybody asks you." And Denver told the story of the day, making much of her unflinching courage and nothing of her men's readiness to back whatever steps she decided upon.
It was ten minutes past eleven when a smooth young, apple-cheeked lad in khaki presented himself before Helen Messiter with a bow never invented outside of West Point.
"I am Lieutenant Beecher. Governor Raleigh presents his compliments by me, Miss Messiter, and is very glad to be able to put at your service such forces as are needed to quiet the town."
"You were in time?" she breathed.
"With about five minutes to spare. I am having the prisoners brought here for the night if you do not object. In the morning I shall investigate the affair, and take such steps as are necessary. In the meantime you may rest assured that there will be no further disturbance."
"Thank you I am sure that with you in command everything will now be all right, and I am quite of your opinion that the prisoners had better stay here for the night. One of them is wounded, and ought to be given the best attention. But, of course, you will see to that, lieutenant."
The young man blushed. This was the right kind of appreciation. He wished his old classmates at the Point could hear how implicitly this sweet girl relied on him.
"Certainly. And now, Miss Messiter, if there is nothing you wish, I shall retire for the night. You may sleep with perfect confidence."
"I am sure I may, lieutenant." She gave him a broadside of trusting eyes full of admiration. "But perhaps you would like me to see my foreman first, just to relieve my mind. And, as you were about to say, his friend might be brought in, too, since they are together."
The young man promptly assented, though he had not been aware that he was about to say anything of the kind.
They came in together, Bannister supported by McWilliams's arm. The eyes of both mistress and maid brimmed over with tears when they saw them. Helen dragged forward a chair for the sheepman, and he sank into it. From its depths he looked up with his rare, sweet smile.
"I've heard about it," he told her, in a low voice. "I've heard how y'u fought for my life all day. There's nothing I can say. I owed y'u everything already twice, and now I owe it all over again. Give me a lifetime and I couldn't get even."
Helen's swift glance swept over Nora and the foreman. They were in a dark alcove, oblivious of anybody else. Also they were in each other's arms frankly. For some reason wine flowed into the cream of Helen's cheeks.
"Do you have to 'get even'? Among friends is that necessary?" she asked shyly.
"I hope not. If it is, I'm sure bankrupt Even my thanks seem to stay at home. If y'u hadn't done so much for me, perhaps I could tell y'u how much y'u had done But I have no words to say it."
"Then don't," she advised.
"Y'u're the best friend a man ever had. That's all I can say."
"It's enough, since you mean it, even though it isn't true," she answered gently.
Their eyes met, fastened for an instant, and by common consent looked away.
As it chanced they were close to the window, their shadows reflected on the blind. A man, slipping past in the street on horseback, stopped at sight of that lighted window, with the moving shadows, in an uncontrollable white fury. He slid from the saddle, threw the reins over the horse's head to the ground, and slipped his revolver from its holster and back to make sure that he could draw it easily. Then he passed springily across the road to the hotel and up the stairs. He trod lightly, stealthily, and by his very wariness defeated his purpose of eluding observation. For a pair of keen eyes from the hotel office glimpsed the figure stealing past so noiselessly, a
nd promptly followed up the stairway.
"Hope I don't intrude at this happy family gathering."
Helen, who had been pouring a glass of cordial for the spent and wounded sheepman, put the glass down on the table and turned at sound of the silken, sinister voice. After one glance at the vindictive face, from the cold eyes of which hate seemed to smolder, she took an instinctive step toward her lover. The cold wave that drenched her heart accompanied an assurance that the man in the doorway meant trouble.
His sleek smile arrested her. He was standing with his feet apart, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, as natty and as well groomed as was his wont.