When Dot awoke next morning, after a fitful few hours’ sleep, it was nine o’clock. She sprang out of bed and hurried through her dressing, certain that her father was considerately waiting his breakfast rather than disturb her, late though the hour was. But upon entering the kitchen, she found that he had not yet been about. This fact at first astonished, then filled her with alarm. She ran to his door and rapped sharply, calling him, and experienced a feeling of deep relief when she heard him yawn out a reply.
Nevertheless, as she walked back into the kitchen and began scraping the ashes out of the grate, she reflected on the usual circumstance of Lemuel oversleeping; for not in many years—and then only on the several rare occasions that they had been out late together the night before, attending a party at some neighboring ranch—had he failed to have the fire in the stove going for her. Later on she told herself that it was quite probable their quarrel had disturbed him, that worry had kept him awake, and out of this conviction was born an acute feeling of remorse which determined her to make no reference to the time of day or to anything that might recall the unhappy scene of the night.
For that matter, he also was silent on the subject. He came into the kitchen, stretching himself tremendously, grinning, in the best spirits she had seen him in for many months. She could not help but notice a remarkable change in him, but attributed it to his desire to have her forget their recent differences. So she met him halfway in the effort and laughed merrily when he jested about the professional fraternity he hobnobbed with in camp and at his sly insinuations that Agatha Liggs would make an adorable stepmother for some girl. As he picked up his hat to look after his chores he caught her in his arms, told her how fondly he loved her, and that her happiness meant everything in the world to him.
But alone, back of the barn, his display of buoyancy vanished. He gazed down the lane between the two corrals and reënacted in his mind’s eye his brave capture of the notorious train robber, Billy Gee, and the way he had marched the outlaw into Sheriff Warburton’s room in the hotel before daybreak and turned his prisoner over to the astounded, sleepy-eyed official. Again, he felt an ecstatic thrill over the realization that he had the certified check of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad for ten thousand dollars in his pocket that very moment!
Nor could he subdue the wild surge of elation that swept through his breast at thought that his Dot was to receive the long-cherished education, that here at last, after long, trialsome years of waiting, was the crystallization of his dead wife’s precious dreams all but fulfilled. Why couldn’t this sacred woman of his heart have lived to enjoy this great moment of happiness with him, to know that all her trying and skimping and dreaming had not been done in vain? Yes, he decided, Dot would be educated “to the queen’s taste;” nothing would be spared, nothing would be left undone to make her the wonderful lady of accomplishments Emily had so desired.
But with all the deep sense of gratification that his reavowal of intentions gave him and the delight he got from planning the glorious future, he could not put out of his mind Billy Gee’s last words to him in Warburton’s room that morning—what Billy Gee had said, the look in his eyes as he spoke.
“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!”
There had been something so frightful, so murderously frightful, in the threat as it fell from the outlaw’s tight-drawn lips. Try as he would, Lemuel had not been able to forget the hatred in the man’s fiery eyes, the icy cut in his voice. He was doomed to be haunted by them, to have memory rehearse them over and over to him.
True, Billy Gee was even now being taken out of the country, southwest to the county seat, San Buenaventura, heavily shackled, under the hawklike eye of Bob Warburton; and countless things would happen ere the train robber served out the long prison sentence that confronted him. But the mere fact that he would serve it out, that he would be free some time, was an overshadowing menace that laid a firm, clammy hand on Lemuel’s heart.
For many minutes he stood and stared across the plains. Doubtless Billy Gee would hunt him up and kill him, he told himself nervously. A vicious bandit of Billy Gee’s ilk would stop at nothing to get revenge. He shook his head, feeling strangely insecure. After a little, he recalled Dot’s interest in the fellow. One thing was certain; she must not even so much as suspect what her father had done. Not until the episode was old and forgotten must she know what had happened to the fugitive.
He knew it was not love for Billy Gee that had prompted her to hide him, help him to escape. Dot was sentimental, romantic; she was just sorry for the scamp. Most women were that way. But after their quarrel last night she must never surmise how he had treacherously spied on her, seen her go into the barn, and lain in wait to capture the man she was trying to save.
So while Dot prepared their breakfast her father made plans whereby she might not know for years to come just what had befallen the magnificent bandit who had ridden into her life out of the magical violet and yellow scallop of hills. In the first place, Lemuel was determined to hurry her out of the locality that she might not hear of the heroic leading rôle he had played; secondly, he cast about for a logical explanation of how he came to have sufficient money to afford a journey such as he contemplated. He knew Dot was too familiar with his affairs not to question his sudden acquisition of any considerable amount of money. He struck upon a happy solution.
During the meal he mentioned rather casually that he was going to Geerusalem to see if he could negotiate a loan from Bob Warburton, and he backed up the propriety of his action by declaring that he had once come to the sheriff’s assistance when the latter was financially down and out.
Dot was interested. To her query as to how much he intended borrowing, Lemuel grinned confidently:
“A coupla thousand dollars, anyway. An’ I’m purty sure to git it, at that.”
She stared across the table at him, perplexed for the moment. What in the world possessed her father this morning? He was so changed, so self-confident, so resolute—as if he were laboring under some suppressed emotion, some unusual good tidings that he was with difficulty keeping to himself. The strange way in which she studied him made him hasten to put at rest any suspicion she may have entertained.
“I bin thinkin’ it all over, Dot, an’ I decided that what me an’ you needs most is a leetle more pleasure an’ not so much stickin’ to a cussed ol’ ranch year in an’ year out like we bin doin’. So I’m goin’ to borry some real money off Bob, an’ we’re takin’ a trip—Frisco, Noo York, or any place you say. Le’s be good an’ happy wunst anyway, an’ see how it feels. What d’you say?”
She brightened instantly. Her eyes widened, sparkled with expectation. “It’d be just wonderful, daddy,” she cried. “But—but you’d have to pay the money back some time, and it would be so hard——”
“We ain’t goin’ to stop to think o’ that, hon. We’re out for one grand cut-up, me an’ you. Leave it to me. I’ll do the worryin’. If I git it you’ll go, won’t you?”
“Go?” she echoed joyously. “Oh, daddy! I’ve been wishing and wishing and wishing, months and months and years, to see cities and orchards and rivers and steamers and street cars and the ocean, and——”
They talked on, Lemuel controlling by a desperate effort the wild enthusiasm that consumed him, Dot giving her eagerness unbridled play, planning and scheduling an itinerary with a dispatch and thoroughness that made him fairly marvel at her cleverness. Shortly afterward, however, as he was galloping toward camp he laughed aloud to the boundless desolation of plain over the shrewd way in which he had deceived his daughter, clever though she was.
Dot stood on the front porch looking after him. She watched him out of sight, her brain in a delicious stupor at the glorious prospect of seeing for the first time in her life the great fairyland far to the north, that wonderful region she had read and dreamed so much about. For a long interval she reveled in the thought, until her eyes turned to the violet and yellow scallop of range in the distance. Her mind swung back to the present, then to Billy Gee. How was he faring?
The day was hot, similar to yesterday. It was very silent, too. Presently it began dawning on her that to-day was different from any she had ever known. She glanced over the garden. It seemed lonesome; she had never thought it lonesome before. The feel of the ranch, too, filled her with an odd depression. Everything looked so colorless, so uninteresting, so awfully the same. Her eyes went back to the violet and yellow scallop of hills again. That bleak playground of mirages where she had visualized the figments of her imagination, appeared to have lost its magic. The whole range seemed faded, so wrinkled, so woefully unattractive, like the bleached outlines of some shabby old crayon. She turned into the house and entered the parlor.
For many seconds she stood and gazed down at the lounge and began reviewing, as she had done a number of times, her meeting with the notorious Billy Gee, from the moment of his coming, until she bade him good-by in the half light of the hayloft.
“He isn’t the terrible person they say,” she told the parlor lounge. “There are a lot of worse men in Geerusalem who wear white collars and polish their shoes every morning. They know how to rob according to law. They haven’t the courage to take to the open with a six-shooter. Poor fellow! He was so grateful, and his voice was so lonely, so gentle.”
She walked into her bedroom, still thinking of him, and it came to her suddenly that she had hidden the worst criminal of the generation in that bedroom, that he had occupied her bed even! She halted in the middle of the floor and blushed furiously over the reflection. What would her father say if he knew? And her dear old lady friend, the good Mrs. Agatha Liggs? Or Sheriff Warburton? The utter recklessness of her act now struck her with full force.
But the next instant she was defending herself with the argument that Billy Gee was bent on mending his ways. He had promised her he would reform. She believed him. If he were captured——
For some reason she felt no anxiety on that score. He had been too confident of his ability to evade the posses, had shown no alarm over the information that they were out in numbers; besides, he had mentioned having relatives living close at hand, denoting that he would find safety with them until such time as he could leave the country.
“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time,” he had said.
She experienced a strange little thrill when she recalled that he was giving up his vicious career solely because she had asked him to. It was such a satisfying thought, such a proud conceit, to feel that she, Dot Huntington, had exerted an influence over this elusive terror of the Southwest who laughed at the law and recognized nothing binding upon him save the fulfillment of his own personal desires. Yet, she told herself, she would look forward from now on, hopefully, with keen anticipation, to the day when she would hear from him.
While thinking thus, she had been standing near her bed, gazing abstractedly at the old-fashioned bureau opposite. Now her eyes became attracted to a narrow edge of green showing just over the top of the middle drawer. Thoughtfully, she reached down and plucked at it with thumb and forefinger. She drew it out—a ten-dollar greenback. For one long instant she stared dumfounded at it. Then she pulled out the drawer and fell back with a low cry, gazing at the interior in wide-eyed, fearful amazement. The drawer was piled high with a disordered mass of currency of all denominations.