The Spoilers (26 page)

“I'm afraid so, but it's all I can offer. Will you give me the horse?”

“No! He's only a pony, and you'd founder him in the tundra. The mud is knee-deep. I'll go myself.”

“Good Heavens, girl, in such a night! Why, it's worth your life! Listen to it! The creeks will be up and you'll have to swim. No, I can't let you.”

“He's a good little horse, and he'll take me through.” Then, coming close, she continued: “Oh, boy! Can't you see that I want to help? Can't you see that I—I'd
die
for you if it would do any good?” He gazed gravely into her wide blue eyes and said, awkwardly: “Yes, I know. I'm sorry things are—as they are—but you wouldn't have me lie to you, little woman?”

“No. You're the only true man I ever knew. I guess that's why I love you. And I do love you, oh, so much! I want to be good and worthy to love you, too.”

She laid her face against his arm and caressed him with clinging tenderness, while the wind yelled loudly about the eaves and the windows drummed beneath the rain. His heavy brows knit themselves together as she whispered:

“I love you! I love you! I love you!” with such an agony of longing in her voice that her soft accents were sharply distinguishable above the turmoil. The growing wildness seemed a part of the woman's passion, which whipped and harried her like a willow in a blast.

“Things are fearfully jumbled,” he said, finally. “And this is a bad time to talk about them. I wish they might be different. No other girl would do what you have offered to-night.”

“Then why do you think of that woman? “she broke in, fiercely. “She's bad and false. She betrayed you once; she's in the play now; you've told me so yourself. Why don't you be a man and forget her?”

“I can't,” he said, simply. “You're wrong, though, when you think she's bad. I found to-night that she's good and brave and honest. The part she played was played innocently, I'm sure of that, in spite of the fact that she'll marry McNamara. It was she who overheard them plotting and risked her reputation to warn me.

Cherry's face whitened, while the shadowy eagerness that had rested there died utterly. “She came into that dive alone? She did that?” He nodded, at which she stood thinking for some time, then continued: “You're honest with me, Roy, and I'll be the same with you. I'm tired of deceit, tired of everything. I tried to make you think she was bad, but in my own heart I knew differently all the time. She came here to-day and humbled herself to get the truth, humbled herself to
me,
and I sent her away. She suspected, but she didn't know, and when she asked for information I insulted her. That's the kind of a creature I am. I sent her back to Struve, who offered to tell her the whole story.”

“What does that renegade want?”

“Can't you guess?”

“Why, I'd rather—” The young man ground his teeth, but Cherry hastened.

“You needn't worry; she won't see him again. She loathes the ground he walks on.”

“And yet he's no worse than that other scoundrel. Come, girl, we have work to do; we must act, and act quickly.” He gave her his message to Dextry, then she went to her room and slipped into a riding-habit. When she came out he asked: “Where is your raincoat? You'll be drenched in no time.”

“I can't ride with it. I'll be thrown, anyway, and I don't want to be all bound up. Water won't hurt me.”

She thrust her tiny revolver into her dress, but he took it and upon examination shook his head.

“If you need a gun you'll need a good one.” He removed the belt from his own waist and buckled his Colts about her.

“But you!” she objected.

“I'll get another in ten minutes.” Then, as they were leaving, he said: “One other request, Cherry. I'll be in hiding for a time, and I must get word to Miss Chester to keep watch of her uncle, for the big fight is on at last and the boys will hang him sure if they catch him. I owe her this last warning. Will you send it to her?”

“I'll do it for your sake, not for her—no, no; I don't mean that. I'll do the right thing all round. Leave it here and I'll see that she gets it to-morrow. And—Roy—be careful of yourself.” Her eyes were starry and in their depths lurked neither selfishness nor jealousy now, only that mysterious glory of a woman who makes sacrifice.

Together they scurried back to the stable, and yet, in that short distance, she would have been swept from her feet had he not seized her. They blew in through the barn door, streaming and soaked by the blinding sheets that drove scythelike ahead of the wind. He struck a light, and the pony whinnied at recognition of his mistress. She stroked the little fellow's muzzle while Glenister cinched on her saddle. Then, when she was at last mounted, she leaned forward:

“Will you kiss me once, Roy, for the last time?”

He took her rain-wet face between his hands and kissed her upon the lips as he would have saluted a little maid. As he did so, unseen by both of them, a face was pressed for an instant against the pane of glass in the stable wall.

“You're a brave girl and may God bless you,” he said, extinguishing the light. He flung the door wide and she rode out into the storm. Locking the portal, he plunged back towards the house to write his hurried note, for there was much to do and scant time for its accomplishment, despite the helping hand of the hurricane. He heard the voice of Bering as it thundered on the Golden Sands, and knew that the first great storm of the fall had come. Henceforth he saw that the violence of men would rival the rising elements, for the deeds of this night would stir their passions as A Eolus was rousing the hate of the sea.

He neglected to bolt the house door as he entered, but flung off his dripping coat and, seizing pad and pencil, scrawled his message. The wind screamed about the cabin, the lamp flared smokily, and Glenister felt a draught suck past him as though from an open door at his back as he wrote:

        
“I can't do anything more. The end has come and it has brought the hatred and bloodshed that I have been trying to prevent. I played the game according to your rules, but they forced me back to first principles in spite of myself, and now I don't know what the finish will be. To-morrow will tell. Take care of your uncle, and if you should wish to communicate with me, go to Cherry Malotte. She is a friend to both of us.

“Always your servant,     R
OY
G
LENISTER
.”

As he sealed this he paused, while he felt the hair on his neck rise and bristle and a chill race up his spine. His heart fluttered, then pounded onward till the blood thumped audibly at his ear-drums and he found himself swaying in rhythm to its beat. The muscles of his back cringed and rippled at the proximity of some hovering peril, and yet an irresistible feeling forbade him to turn. A sound came from close behind his chair—the drip, drip, drip of water. It was not from the eaves, nor yet from a faulty shingle. His back was to the kitchen door, through which he had come, and, although there were no mirrors before him, he felt a menacing presence as surely as though it had touched him. His ears were tuned to the finest pin-pricks of sound, so that he heard the faint, sighing “squish “of a sodden shoe upon which a weight had shifted. Still something chained him to his seat. It was as though his soul laid a restraining hand upon his body, waiting for the instant.

He let his hand seek his hip carelessly, but remembered where his gun was. Mechanically, he addressed the note in shaking characters, while behind him sounded the constant drip, drip, drip that he knew came from saturated garments. For a long moment he sat, till he heard the stealthy click of a gun-lock muffled by finger pressure. Then he set his face and slowly turned to find the Bronco Kid standing behind him as though risen from the sea, his light clothes wet and clinging, his feet centred in a spreading puddle. The dim light showed the convulsive fury of his features above the levelled weapon, whose hammer was curled back like the head of a striking adder, his eyes gleaming with frenzy. Glenister's mouth was powder dry, but his mind was leaping riotously like dust before a gale, for he divined himself to be in the deadliest peril of his life. When he spoke the calmness of his voice surprised himself.

“What's the matter, Bronco?” The Kid made no reply, and Roy repeated, “What do you want?”

“That's a hell of a question” the gambler said, hoarsely. “I want you, of course, and I've got you.”

“Hold up! I am unarmed. This is your third try, and I want to know what's back of it.”

“Damn
the talk!” cried the faro-dealer, moving closer till the light shone on his features, which commenced to twitch. He raised the revolver he had half lowered. “There's reason enough, and you know it.”

Glenister looked him fairly between the eyes, gripping himself with firm hands to stop the tremor he felt in his bones. “You can't kill me,” he said. “I am too good a man to murder. You might shoot a crook, but you can't kill a brave man when he's unarmed. You're no assassin.” He remained rigid in his chair, however, moving nothing but his lips, meeting the other's look unflinchingly. The Kid hesitated an instant, while his eyes, which had been fixed with the glare of hatred, wavered a moment, betraying the faintest sign of indecision. Glenister cried out, exultantly:

“Ha! I knew it. Your neck cords quiver.”

The gambler grimaced. “I can't do it. If I could, I'd have shot you before you turned. But you'll have to fight, you dog. Get up and draw.”

Roy refused. “I gave Cherry my gun.”

“Yes, and more too,” the man gritted. “I saw it all.”

Even yet Glenister had made no slightest move, realizing that a feather's weight might snap the gambler's nervous tension and bring the involuntary twitch that would put him out swifter than a whip is cracked.

“I have tried it before, but murder isn't my game.” The Kid's eye caught the glint of Cherry's revolver where she had discarded it. “There's a gun—get it.”

“It's no good. You'd carry the six bullets and never feel them. I don't know what this is all about, but I'll fight you whenever I'm heeled right.”

“Oh, you black-hearted hound,” snarled the Kid. “I want to shoot, but I'm afraid. I used to be a gentleman and I haven't lost it all, I guess. But I won't wait the next time. I'll down you on sight, so you'd better get ironed in a hurry.” He backed out of the room into the semi-darkness of the kitchen, watching with lynxlike closeness the man who sat so quietly under the shaded light. He felt behind him for the outer door-knob and turned it to let in a white sheet of rain, then vanished like a storm wraith, leaving a parched-lipped man and a zigzag trail of water, which gleamed in the lamplight like a pool of blood.

G
LENISTER did not wait long after his visitor's departure, but extinguished the light, locked the door, and began the further adventures of this night, The storm welcomed him with suffocating violence, sucking the very breath from his lips, while the rain beat through till his flesh was cold and aching. He thought with a pang of the girl facing this tempest, going out to meet the thousand perils of the night. And it remained for him to bear his part as she bore hers, smilingly.

The last hour had added another and mysterious danger to his full measure. Could the Kid be jealous of Cherry? Surely not. Then what else?

The tornado had driven his trailers to cover, evidently, for the streets were given over to its violence, and Roy encountered no hostile sign as he was buffeted from house to house. He adventured cautiously and yet with haste, finding certain homes where the marshals had been before him peopled now only by frightened wives and children. A scattered few of the Vigilantes had been taken thus, while the warring elements had prevented their families from spreading the alarm or venturing out for succor. Those whom he was able to warn dressed hurriedly, took their rifles, and went out into the drifting night, leaving empty cabins and weeping women. The great fight was on.

Towards daylight the remnants of the Vigilantes straggled into the big blank warehouse on the sand-spit, and there beneath the smoking glare of lanterns cursed the name of McNamara. As dawn grayed the ragged eastern sky-line, Dextry and Slapjack blew in through the spindrift, bringing word from Cherry and lifting a load from Glenister's mind.

“There's a game girl,” said the old miner, as he wrung out his clothes. “She was half gone when she got to us, and now she's waiting for the storm to break so that she can come back.”

“It's clearing up to the east,” Slapjack chattered. “D ‘you know, I'm gettin' so rheumatic that ice-water don't feel comfortable to me no more.”

“Uriatic acid in the blood,” said Dextry. “What's our next move?” he asked of his partner. “When do we hang this politician? Seems like we've got enough able-bodied piano-movers here to tie a can onto the whole outfit, push the town site of Nome off the map, and start afresh.”

“I think we had better lie low and watch developments,” the other cautioned. “There's no telling what may turn up during the day.”

“That's right. Stranglers is like spirits—they work best in the dark.”

As the day grew, the storm died, leaving ramparts of clouds hanging sullenly above the ocean's rim, while those skilled in weather prophecy foretold the coming of the equinoctial. In McNamara's office there was great stir and the coming of many men. The boss sat in his chair smoking countless cigars, his big face set in grim lines, his hard eyes peering through the pall of blue at those he questioned. He worked the wires of his machine until his dolls doubled and danced and twisted at his touch. After a gusty interview he had dismissed Voorhees with a merciless tongue-lashing, raging bitterly at the man's failure.