Lemuel Huntington, as has been suggested, was not a forceful character. Even in this desperate moment when the strength of his life’s mania was being directed to gain that which would make the fulfillment of that mania possible, he lacked the stubbornness of will, the blind conquering egoism, to win his demands at all costs. He had never had occasion to present such a furious front to his daughter before. That he was doing it now, exerted a disconcerting influence upon him, embarrassed him, made him a little uncertain as to the fairness of his methods.
On the other hand, he had never even so much as suspected the existence of a broad strain of high-spiritedness in Dot’s nature and that firmness of purpose which he himself did not have. The launching of his threat roused her like the sting of a whip. Her terror vanished and left her cold. She strode up close to him now and let her eyes burn into his.
“Father! Another word from you, and I’ll leave the house. And I’ll never come back!”
He did not answer. He looked at her in a queer, dumb frenzy. Then slowly, amazement, incredulity, indecision grew on his face. He had never seen her so dreadfully calm, so white before. She had never threatened such a fearful thing before! A long minute dragged by.
From out in the darkness came the weird shriek of a predacious nighthawk. Presently, he turned away from her, walked back to his chair, and began filling with clumsy, trembling fingers his forgotten pipe. His mouth was distorted with what seemed to be some forlorn grief; his breath broke from his lungs in low distressful gasps.
It grew very quiet. The old clock on the shelf ticked tiredly. Some time afterward he heard a sob and, glancing around, saw Dot leaning against the wall, her face buried in her hands. Thereupon he put down his pipe and went over and took her in his arms. Hungrily he held her to his breast, and there was in his eyes the reflection of the fierce struggle that was taking place in his soul.
“Your poor, lonesome leetle heart,” he said, in a voice that shook with sobs. “I didn’t aim to act so cussed, darlin’. God knows, I wouldn’t do nuthin’ to hurt you, Dot! You know yore dad’d do anythin’ to make you happy. Don’t you, honey? I’d go through fire an’ brimstone, I’d die for your daughter, Emily, like I always said,” he added, his face turned to the rafters under the roof.
Some time afterward, as he lighted his candle to go to his room and kissed her good night, he reassured her gently. “I jest git so disapp’inted with myse’f, dearie. Yore poor ma an’ me used to plan so many big things for our leetle gal. I’ve wanted to do so much for you an’ I ain’t done nuthin’. Anyway, Dot, we’ll ferget all about this here Billy Gee. It ain’t worth quarrelin’ over, it ain’t worth it, hon.”
Dot lingered in the kitchen until she was sure he had gone to bed. Then she began hurried preparations to spirit her outlaw patient out of the house. Filling a bottle with hot coffee, she threw some bread and meat into a paper bag. After this she tiptoed to her room, stealthily unlocked the door, closed it behind her, and lit the candle on the bureau.
One glance, and she saw that her bed was empty, the window open. Billy Gee was gone; so were his saddlebags!
For an instant she stood perplexed. But she breathed easier, vastly relieved that he had thus chosen to steal out of the house without her aid. Stepping over to the window she flashed the candle outside and listened into the quiet night. There was no sign of him, no sound. He must have found his way into the hayloft, she told herself, recalling the fact that she had described the location of his new hiding place to him that afternoon. But from reflecting on his weak condition she became more and more concerned about him, resolving finally to investigate his whereabouts and take him the food.
It was only a matter of four feet from the window sill to the ground, and a far safer means of exit from the house at this late hour, particularly after her father’s furious outburst, so unexpected and ominous. She put out the light and let herself down noiselessly into the strip of garden outside, and flitted off like a shadow for the barn. With a subdued little cough to herald her coming to the fugitive, she climbed the short flight of steps to the loft and struck a match.
He was there, standing knee-deep in the loose hay, spectral, sinister, a six-shooter glinting in his hand. At sight of her, he lowered the weapon and clutched a tie beam for support. Ere the match went out, she reached his side.
“I was leary it’d go hard on you if he ketched me in there, so I sneaked out,” he explained in low tones. “I heerd it all an’ I’m sorry I got you in so much trouble. I’m goin’ to resk it, to-night.”
“No, no! You mustn’t,” she whispered quickly. “The plains are alive with posses. You’d never escape.”
He chuckled softly. “Wunst I git a-goin’, I’ll be orright. The moon’s comin’ up, an’ I got folks livin’ handy.”
“Here’s something for you to eat. You must be terribly hungry—weak.” She thrust the bottle and the paper bag into his hand as she spoke. “I’d counted on you staying till you were stronger—three days, anyway. You’d be perfectly safe here. I’d see that you were. Why don’t you?”
“Yore dad’s too sespicious. He’ll start huntin’ me up; you see if he don’t.” He broke off, resuming: “I—I won’t ever ferget what you’ve done for me, Miss Huntington. An’ you wouldn’t give me away, would you? An’ you’re desp’rate for money. I ain’t ever had anybody give me such a square deal—chuck over a fortune to help——” His voice trailed off into silence.
“You poor, wounded wild animal!” said Dot gently. “Even a coyote is better off than you. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know any different? Is it so much easier to be bad, so much more pleasing to have a pack of legalized killers always on your heels? Or don’t you care?” She paused and added: “Do you really want to repay me for everything I’ve done for you?”
Through a square hole under the eaves, the first white beams of the moon were just struggling in. She could see the man’s face indistinctly; the white bandage around his head.
“I do. Say it! Anythin’ you want done, Miss Huntington,” he nodded.
“Then, quit this miserable life. Be a man. Go far away, where no one will ever recognize you, and start fresh. Be honorable—somehow. You can do it, if you want to. But will you? To pay me back?” There was a strange, dramatic note in her voice.
He caught her hand suddenly, fervently. “I’ll do it, Miss Huntington. Listen! You turned down ten thousand dollars; you stuck by me. I’m goin’ to show you what I kin do for you. Some of these days you’re goin’ to hear from me.”
“I’m so glad,” she breathed. “I’d be so proud to know that I helped remake the wild animal, Billy Gee, into a God-fearing human being.”
A short, heavy silence fell. From somewhere in the ground floor of the barn, a board expanding with the cool night air snapped sharply.
“I come up here to take a coupla these old blankets, sence I can’t lug my saddle; it’s too heavy,” he announced, after a little while. “Would you mind fixin’ ’em for me?”
She found them half folded, made a neat roll of them, and looped them for slinging over the shoulders with strips she tore from her calico apron. As she prepared to leave him, he spoke again.
“Miss Huntington, I’d sorter like you to know that I ain’t near’s bad as they tell it around. I ain’t never killed a man—wounded ’em, yes, an’ only jest when I had to. An’ with all I’ve got away with, I’m next thing to broke this minute. That’s honest——”
“But you held up the paymaster’s car last night, didn’t you?” she interrupted.
“Yes’m. But I didn’t hold onto the money, bein’ wounded, an’ Warburton——”
“What was in your saddlebags that you said you couldn’t afford to lose?”
“My mother’s pitcher, some clothes, an’ a lot of leetle doodads I’m keepin’. I always have ’em along with me. But I want to tell you ag’in that I ain’t fergettin’ yore kindness. You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time. An’—an’ I hope you’ll be proud, like you jest said.”
Dot crept down the steps shortly afterward, shut the barn door behind her, and darted across the moonlit yard. Climbing back into her room she cautiously lowered the window. Then, with a sigh of relief and satisfaction, she went to bed. For the remainder of the night, she lay wide-eyed, snug in the bewitching embraces of romance and imagination.
Following her departure, Billy Gee remained in the hayloft for a long interval and leisurely ate the food she had brought him. Periodically, he looked at his watch by the aid of a moonbeam streaming in through a crack in the boards. When one o’clock came, he got carefully to his feet, took up the roll of blankets, and started downstairs.
From far out on Soapweed Plains, rose the wail-bark of a foraging coyote. There was no other sound. That semiarid land lay mute and mysterious and teaming with tragic potentialities.
“Creepy,” he muttered under his breath. “Reckon I’m a leetle flighty—leaked too much blood.”
He reached the ground floor and noiselessly made his way toward the rear door of the barn, heading for the field and his horse. As he fumbled in the dark for the hasp an invisible figure emerged from under the steps back of him. He felt the sharp dig of a six-shooter between his shoulders. A voice hissed in his ear.
“Steady, pardner! Make a move, an’ I’ll kill you!”
In a twinkling, he was stripped of his guns. Then his captor—Lemuel Huntington—unhasped the barn door and herded him outside and down a narrow lane between two corrals, until they stood in the open field.
“Turn yore face to the moon, an’ let’s git a squint of you, Billy Gee,” said Lemuel. He studied the outlaw a few seconds. “So my gal was passin’ up ten thousand dollars for the likes of you, eh? Well, I won’t! Now, listen clost an’ don’t make no mistake about what I tell you! Me an’ you’s goin’ on into Geerusalem right off, see? Warburton wants you dead or ’live, an’ it’s up to you how you care to be deelivered to him. I don’t. Savvy! Now, march acrosst to them hosses!”