The Short Cut

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XII

  THE TALES OF MR. WILLIE DART

  Being a girl very much in love, her lover had been already as long outof her thoughts as he could ever be, and now he came back into them andbecame the centre of them.

  She sat down just outside the doorway of the cave, hat, gauntlets,glasses and camera at her side, her knees clasped in her hands andstared away through the cedar's intricate, rustling needles and acrossthe tops of the forest sweeping away from the cliffs across the verdantmiles, and day dreamed. This newly found cave was her own, absolutelyher own. No other man or woman in the world knew of it. She wouldcome here again, always careful that no chance eye saw her; she wouldbring little things to make of it a lady's bower set above the leafyworld. There would come, in due season, cushions which she would worksecretly in her bedroom at home and which she would fill here withfragrant pine needles and sweet scented herbs; there would be a book ortwo; little, unused things would disappear from Julia's kitchen, a teapot, a bit of coffee, knives, forks and spoons; and some day when thefull summer had brought the sunshine that would dissipate the shadowsof these last days Wayne Shandon would come here, would stand under thecliffs looking up wonderingly; would climb her magic ladder and dinewith her.

  As she sat, leaning back against the rocks, daydreaming as Youth cannothelp doing, her eyes wandered far across her father's ranch. She foundthe view new to her. Yonder nothing but the fresh green of the topsfir and pine had thrust upward in the spring; beneath them, seen onlynow and then as it frisked out of shadow and glinted in sunlight, EchoCreek; beyond the creek--

  She sat up straight, suddenly picking up her field glasses. Yes,beyond all this she saw the knoll upon which her father's house stood,even the building itself through its clump of cedars. But her glasses,raised higher sweeping back and forth, had found the river, andtravelling on picked up the Bar L-M buildings and corrals!-- Next timeshe would bring the larger glasses, and leave them here, hidden in thecave.

  For a long time she gazed across the river, her heart beating quicklywith the hope that she might see, somewhere in the wide view, the manwho was in her heart. Finally, with a sigh, she lowered her glasses,letting them follow Echo Creek speeding down the long slope of herfather's valley. And, doing so, it happened that there came into thedisc of her vision a man whom she knew she had never seen before. Fora few minutes she watched him riding up the valley, idly amused at theawkward manner of his progress. When his horse walked he clungtenaciously to the saddle horn; when the animal trotted he gave her theimpression that at any step he was going to fall off. At last, whenshe had lost sight of him among the trees, and her interest lagged, shemade her way down from the cliff, went back to Gypsy and turned herhorse's head toward home.

  The man whom she had watched clinging to his horse's back sodesperately was not only a new-comer to the Sierra and a stranger, buta poor sort of person to be alone where there is a dearth of pavedsidewalks and streets with names and numbers. He had lost himself manytimes since leaving El Toyon the day before, and now, with the mainvalley road as plain before him as a man could wish a road to be, heforsook it and came on blindly along a second road that the Echo Creekwagons had travelled last week for wood. And Wanda, riding down to thecreek, met him when he had reached a state of perspiring despair.

  "Say!" he called shrilly when, barely in earshot, he caught his firstview of her. "Say, wait a minute, won't you?"

  Wanda, smiling a little at the evident distress which gave her herfirst impression of the man, came on to meet him. She stopped Gypsywith a swift, gentle touch upon the reins, while he yanked his sweatinghorse about by pulling manfully at both reins held one in each hand.

  "Say," was his next word of greeting, "ain't this the doggondest,peskiest wild man's land you ever shot a glimmer of your eye at? Gee,ain't it fierce, lady?"

  Wanda's smile brightened in spite of her. He shook his head and pursedhis underlip and mopped his reeking face.

  "I'm just in a cold sweat all over," he confided ruefully. "What withthe rubbing of this saddle on the outside,--an old pirate with eyeslike a young sheep and whiskers like Santa Claus robbed me of twentybucks for it back yonder in that jay town,--and my bones inside tryingto poke through the skin, I'm just peeled like a seal whose skin someflash dame is wearing for a coat. Say," with a groan as he shifted alittle in the saddle which he blamed for his woes, "you don't live soawful far from here, do you?"

  "No," she smiled. "Just across the valley."

  "Nix on that!" he cried sharply, as if in sudden alarm. "They beentalking that way to me ever since I got lost the eighty-second time.'Down to a cross road,' they'd say, lying as would shame a second storyman caught with the goods. 'Then turn to your right and go straightahead and it's just a little piece.' I ain't ever hurt you, lady, andI wouldn't, not for a hundred dollars. But I'm awful sore being toldit's just over yonder. How far is it, measured in something civilised,like blocks?"

  He was the most anxiously earnest little man Wanda had ever seen, andthe most dejectedly miserable. Still vastly amused she began to feel alittle sorry for him. He was such a veritable babe in the wood forhelplessness.

  "Really, it isn't far," she assured him. "Just a trifle over threemiles."

  "Lord," he groaned, staring at her reproachfully. "The way you folkstalk about distance out here makes my flesh creep. But, say, is thatthe nearest place?"

  "Yes."

  "Then can I go home with you, Miss? And will you scare up somethingfor me to eat? I'm so starved I'd eat egg shells."

  He was such a harmless looking, innocent, pitiable creature with hisplaintive voice and childish eyes that her amusement turned to pity.

  "If you are very hungry and tired," she suggested gently, "you canlunch with me now. I always bring something along to eat."

  His eyes brightened and a smile set quick dimples in the round face.He released his bridle reins promptly, put his two hands on the horn ofthe saddle--Wanda noticed that they were hands like a girl's, soft andwhite with beautiful, tapering fingers and rosy nails--got a stiff legover the cantle, wriggled over on his stomach and as his horse moved alittle he fell off. For a moment he remained sitting.

  "Birds was made to fly and fishes to swim," he remarked impersonallyand philosophically. "Me, I'm going to walk after this. I ain't evergoing to split myself in two over a horse again."

  "You'll have to ride to the house."

  "You don't know me, Miss. I'm Mr. Willie Dart, and when I make up mymind like I done just now it's final. I'll walk those three miles onfoot, and when I can't walk no further I'll crawl, and when I can'tcrawl I'll lay down and die. But I'm through being a cowboy."

  Thereupon he arose rheumatically, carefully dusted his gay checkeredsuit, gave much attention to the crease in his jaunty little hat,adjusted his bright blue tie, daintily tapped his cuffs back into hiscoat sleeves and bestowed a beaming, cherubic smile upon Wanda.

  "Let's eat," he suggested.

  She dismounted and spread out her luncheon upon the paper in which ithad been wrapped, kneeling down on a grassy plot near the creek. Mr.Dart hovered over her in frank eagerness, giving vent to variouschuckling sounds bespeaking deep satisfaction as he saw that there wascold chicken and ham, cheese and buttered bread. Then they ate, Wandasparingly, pretending to have little appetite, Mr. Dart swiftly andjoyously and noisily. And, with his mouth crammed full and his cheekspuffed out gopher-wise, he talked. He demanded her name and herfather's business; he wanted to know what she was doing so far fromhome and if she wasn't afraid; he ascertained that buffaloes wereextinct in this part of the West if they had ever been here which wasto be doubted; he thrilled and drew closer to the girl upon learningthat a bear had been shot near this spot; and, abruptly, he asked ifshe knew a guy named Shandon?

  "Wayne Shandon?" she asked curiously.

  "That's him. Red Head for sure, ain't he?"

  She admitted that he was, hesitated a moment at his next question, andthen answer
ed it by saying that Mr. Shandon was a friend of her family.

  "Good kid, ain't he?" he went on, a little flushed from his eating."Friend of mine, too. We're great chums, me and Red. Ain't he evertold you about me, Willie Dart?"

  "I don't think so. You have known him long?"

  He poked into his mouth the last quarter of the sandwich in his lefthand, secured a bit of cheese with his right, and answered:

  "Long? Say, Wanda, I've known that boy since he was a kid! Me and himworked together and slept together and et together up in the Klondikeall year back in ninety-six."

  "Ninety-six?" she frowned. "Mr. Shandon wasn't in the Klondike inninety-six! He was right here."

  "Oh," admitted Mr. Dart easily, "I ain't sure it was ninety-six. Mighthave been ninety-seven. Funny he ain't ever told you about me. Nevermentioned, did he, how we got into a snow drift one time and had to eatour dogs and I got him out final?"

  "No," she said, wondering a little what sort of being he would prove tobe if one came to know him. He did not look as though he had everlived the rough life he mentioned so glibly; certainly his hands werenot the hands of a frontiersman.

  "Maybe it's because I made him promise not to talk about it," he wenton carelessly. "The papers was full of it up there and I got kindasore being made so much of. He's grateful though. But he hadn't oughtto be. He more than squared the deal six months ago when we run upagainst one another in New York. It was this way:"

  And asking no encouragement he plunged eagerly into his tale. Itdevolved from the first word that Red was sure a corker, a guy youcould tie to until snowballs foregathered in a clime in which,according to popular fancy, they are an extreme rarity. He was on thedead level, he was at once a game kid and a red hot sport. Red hadseen the name of his friend in a society sheet and had looked him up atthe Astoria. Mr. Dart had been naturally overjoyed to renewacquaintance with an old pal. And as it happened Red was to step inbetween him and certain death.

  Mr. Dart had been going it a bit and had got into a foreign set. Hementioned casually a couple of French dukes and a German prince withfat, puffy eyes. There were others of them. They had played cardstogether at one time and another and it seemed a general truth thatforeigners were bad losers. Besides, one of the French dukes, a shinyman like a waiter in a cheap cafe, had a very lovely wife. Mr. Dartesteemed her with a snow white friendship. But the French Duke wasjealous.

  Mr. Dart's fine, white fingers gracefully annexed a piece of butteredbread and the tale went on. They had decoyed him to a dreary downtownhaunt. They were all there, all armed with revolvers. In a moment itwould be all night with Mr. Willie Dart. Enter Red, the game kid. Ascene of thrilling unreality in which the game kid temporarily disabledor permanently crippled every man of the would-be assassins. Mr. Dartfinished the tale and his bit of bread together, offering thethoughtful, concluding remark, that so much powder smoke in the closeroom had made him cough.

  "You seem to be on very intimate terms with the foreign nobility,"Wanda replied quietly, though she kept her dancing eyes away from him.

  Willie Dart lifted his shoulders.

  "Them rummies don't qualify for finals, when you come to know 'em,Wanda. Honest, they don't. I never got the mit of one of 'em in myfist it didn't feel like a dead fish. There ain't a one. Say! Didn'tRed ever tell you about Helga?"

  "Helga?" She shook her head. "Who is Helga?"

  "The only decent piece of nobility I ever sat across the table from,"enthusiastically. He had produced a pack of Little Soldier cigarettesand lighted one before resuming. "She's Roosian, is Helga; a RoosianPrincess. Funny Red never told you about her. Gee, he's just like anoyster, that kid, ain't he? Here's the straight dope on that business;I know because I was along."

  It seemed that Mr. Dart and Red had been two of a fashionable yachtingparty that had gone frisking down under the Palisades and out into theopen sea. The Princess Helga, a sure enough stunner, take it from Mr.Dart, had the men all dippy from the crack of the gun to the break ofthe tape. He admitted with a sigh which absorbed a great deal of hiscigarette smoke, which after an eloquent pause made pale exit throughhis nostrils, that he hadn't got over her effect on him yet.

  Well, they were out beyond Sandy Hook, and the wind was blowing and thewhite foam flying and the yacht beating it down the coast like the milltails of--like anything, you know. Suddenly there was a scream and thePrincess Helga was overboard. The yacht passed her about a half milebefore anybody thought about turning it around, they were all thatexcited. But Red, say he didn't lose his head two seconds, not him.Say, he was overboard like a shot, and he had gone down under the waterand had come up with the Princess Helga in his arms. After that--

  Well, Mr. Dart rather guessed, with another sigh and subsequentexpulsion of cigarette smoke, that it was a pretty hard case. ThePrincess Helga hadn't looked at another man since.

  Wanda having conceded merrily that Mr. Dart's tales were intenselyinteresting and marked by the ring of truth, was further informedconcerning the private affairs of Mr. Dart himself. He had taken thenotion to come out and see his old friend; his one reason in the worldfor being here lay in that determination.

  "I'm surprising him," he admitted complacently. "Red'll be cleantickled to death to see me. Most likely we'll go into business outhere together. I'm looking for an invest--"

  Suddenly he let out a wild scream, scrambled to his feet, and fledbehind Wanda, his ruddy cheeks suddenly paling.

  "My God!" he chattered. "Look at that thing!"

  Wanda looked and saw what since a child she had called a"Snake-lizard," a very frightened snake-lizard at that, which with tailaloft was scampering wildly from near Dart's place at luncheon into thenearby thicket. Her own sudden fright that had been aroused by Dart'sheadlong dash and piercing yell gave way to a peal of laughter.

  "Look here, Wanda," he said sharply. "On the level, that thing ain'tdeadly, is it? I been setting on it for half an hour, I know. Itmight have been biting me all the time, I'm so numb I wouldn't havefelt it."

  She assured him, chokingly, that there was no cause for alarm. Dartrubbed himself and brightened. But his face fell again as she went onto inform him that the creatures were so numerous that in his walk homehe might encounter a dozen.

  So it was that Mr. Willie Dart changed his mind and decided to ride thethree miles across the valley.