CHAPTER XVI
A PROMISE
Dr. Slavens rode in before dawn, more concerned about Agnes than aboutthe person in whose behalf he had been summoned. On the way he askedSmith repeatedly how the tragedy affected her; whether she wasfrightened or greatly disturbed.
"She's as steady as a compass," said Smith; and so he found her.
Somewhat too steady, in fact. It was the steadiness of a deep andsettled melancholy, through which his best efforts could do no more thanstrike a feeble, weary smile.
Immediately upon the death of the herder, one of the men had ridden toMeander and carried word to the coroner. That official arrived in themiddle of the forenoon, bringing with him the undertaker and a wagon.After some perfunctory inquiries, the coroner concluded that an inquestwas not necessary. He did not go to the trouble to find Boyle andquestion him, but he looked with a familiar understanding in his piggisheyes at Agnes when she related the circumstances of the tragedy.
Coroners, and others who knew the Governor's son, had but one measurefor a woman who entertained Jerry Boyle alone in her tent, or evenoutside it, at night. Boyle's associations had set the standard of hisown morality, as well as that of his consorts. The woman from up theriver, and the little bride from across the ford, drew off together,whispering, after Agnes had told her story. Presently they slipped awaywithout a word.
Even Dr. Slavens, cool and just-minded as he was, felt the hot stirringof jealous suspicion. It brought to his mind unpleasantly theruminations of his solitary days in camp among the rocks, when he hadturned over in his mind the belief that there was something of the pastbetween Agnes and Boyle.
He had not convicted her in his own judgment of any wrong, for thesincerity of her eyes had stood between him and the possibility of anysuch conclusion. Now the thought that, after all his trust, she might beunworthy, smote painfully upon his heart.
When the others had gone away, after a little standing around,hitch-legged and wise, in close discussion of the event, the doctorsitting, meantime, with Agnes in front of the tent, he spoke of thenecessity of getting back to his claim. She was pale after the night'sstrain, although apparently unconscious of the obloquy of her neighbors.Nevertheless, she pressed him to remain for the midday meal.
"I've not been very hospitable, I'm afraid," said she; "but this thinghas stunned me. It seems like it has taken something away from theprospect of life here."
"Yes, it has taken something away," he responded, gravely thoughtful,his look bent upon the ground.
She sprang up quickly, a sharp little cry upon her lips as if from theshock of a blow from a hand beloved.
"I saw it in their eyes!" she cried. "But you--but you! Oh--oh--I_trusted_ you to know!"
"Forgive me," he begged. "I did not mean to hurt you. Perhaps I wasthinking of the romance and the glamour which this had stripped awayfrom things here. I think my mind was running on that."
"No," she denied. "You were thinking like that little woman across theriver with the fright and horror in her big eyes. You were thinking thatI am guilty, and that there can be but one answer to the presence ofthat man in my camp last night. His notorious name goes before him likea blight."
"You'll have to move your camp now," as if seeking delicately to avoidthe ghost that seemed to have risen between them; "this place will haveunpleasant associations."
"Yes; it cannot be reconsecrated and purified."
He stood as if prepared to leave. Agnes placed her hand upon hisshoulder, looking with grieved eyes into his face.
"Will you stay a little while," she asked, "and hear me? I want to partfrom you with your friendship and respect, for I am entitled to both, Iam worthy of both--if ever."
"Let me move your stool out into the sun," he suggested. "There's achill in the wind today. Of course I'll stay, and we'll have some moreof that excellent coffee before I go. You must teach me how you make it;mine always turns out as muddy as a bucket of Missouri River water."
His cheerfulness was like that which a healthy man displays at thebedside of a dying friend--assumed, but helpful in its way. He placedher folding canvas stool in the sun beyond the shadow of the tent andfound a box for himself. Thus arranged, he waited for her to speak.
"Still, I am not sure of what I protested in regard to your friendshipand respect," said she after a little brooding silence. "I am a fraud,taken at the best, and perhaps a criminal."
Dr. Slavens studied her face as she paused there and looked away, as ifher thoughts concentrated beyond the blue hills in the west.
"My name is not Horton," she resumed, facing him suddenly. "It is Gates,and my father is in the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth."
"But there was no call for you to tell me this," he protested softly.
"Yes, every reason for it," she averred. "The fabric of all my troublesrests on that. He was president of a bank--you remember the scandal,don't you? It was nation-wide."
He nodded.
"I spoke to you once of the ghosts of money. They have worried me forfour years and more, for nothing but the ghosts are left when one losesplace and consequence before the world. It was a national bank, and thecharge was misapplication of funds. He had money enough for all the saneuses of any man, but the pernicious ambition to be greater assailed him,even old as he was.
"He never said, and I never have held it so, that his punishment wasunjust. Only it seemed to us unfair when so many greater evildoersescape or receive pardons. You will remember, perhaps, that none of thedepositors lost anything. Wild as his schemes appeared, they turned outsound enough after a while, and everything was liquidated.
"We gave up everything of our own; mother and I have felt the rub ofhardship before today. The hardest of all was the falling away of thosewhom we believed to be friends. We learned that the favors of societyare as fickle as those of fortune, and that they walk hand in hand.
"No matter. Father's term will expire in less than one month. He is anold, broken, disgraced man; he never will be able to lift up his facebefore the world again. That is why I am here. Mother and I concludedthat we might make a refuge for him here, where he would be unknown. Weplanned for him to leave his name, and as much of his past as he couldshake off, behind him at the prison door.
"It was no sacrifice for me. All that I had known in the old life wasgone. Sneers followed me; the ghosts of money rose up to accuse. I was afelon's daughter; but, worse than that--I was poor! This country heldout its arms to me, clean and undefiled. When I got my first sight ofit, and the taste of its free air in my nostrils, my heart began tounfold again, and the cramped wrinkles fell out of my tired soul."
The sunshine was around them, and the peace of the open places. They satfor the world to see them, and there was nothing to hide in the sympathythat moved Dr. Slavens to reach out and take the girl's hand. Hecaressed it with comforting touch, as if to mitigate the suffering ofher heart, in tearing from it for his eyes to see, her hoarded sorrowand unearned shame.
"There is that freedom about it," said he, "when one sees it by day andsunlight."
"But it has its nights, too," she shuddered, the shadow of last night inher eyes.
"Yet they all pass--the longest of them and the most painful," hecomforted her.
"And leave their scars sometimes. How I came here, registered, drew aclaim, and filed on it, you know. I did all that under the name ofHorton, which is a family name on mother's side, not thinking what theconsequence might be. Now, in payment for this first breach of the law,I must at least give up all my schemes here and retreat. I may beprosecuted; I may even go to prison, like my father did."
"Surely not!" he protested. "Who is there to know it, to lay a chargeagainst you?"
"Such person is not wanting in the miserable plot of my life," sheanswered. "I will reach him soon in my sorry tale."
"Boyle!" Slavens said, as if thinking aloud. "He's the man!"
"You take the name from my mouth," she told him. "He has threatened mewith prosecution. Perjury, he says i
t would be called, and prison wouldbe the penalty."
"It might be so here," he admitted.
"I met Jerry Boyle about five years ago, when father was in Congress.His father was at that time Senator from this state. We lived inWashington, and Jerry Boyle was then considered a very original anddelightful young man. He was fresh in from the range, but he had thepolish of a university education over his roughness, and what I know nowto be inborn coarseness was then accepted for ingenuousness. He passedcurrent in the best society of the capital, where he was coddled as abutterfly of new species. We met; he made love to me, and I--I am afraidthat I encouraged him to do it at first.
"But he drank and gambled, and got into brawls. He stabbed an attache ofthe Mexican Legation over a woman, and the engagement to marry him whichI had entered into was broken. I was foolish in the first instance, butI plead the mitigation of frivolity and youth. My heart was not in it. Ibeg you to believe, Dr. Slavens, that my heart was not in it at all."
She looked at him with pleading sincerity, and from her eyes his heartgathered its recesses full of joy.
"I need no further assurance of that," he smiled.
"You are generous. It was on the afternoon of the day that followed yourdisappearance from Comanche that Boyle came into camp there. I had notforgotten him, of course, nor his influential position in this state;but I never thought of meeting him there. It was a sickening shock tome. I denied his protestations of acquaintanceship, but it passed offpoorly with all of them who were present, except William Bentley,generous gentleman that he is."
"He is so," testified Slavens.
"I left Comanche because I was afraid of him, but he rode post the nightthat I engaged passage and beat me to Meander; but he wasn't hurrying onmy account, as you know. He tried to see me there in Meander, but Irefused to meet him. The day before yesterday he came here and solicitedmy help in carrying out a scheme. I refused. He threatened me withexposure and arrest on account of false entry and affidavit."
Agnes told then of her ride into the hills, the meeting with the herder,and subsequent events up to the shooting. But she said nothing ofBoyle's base proposal to her, although her face burned at therecollection, giving Slavens more than half a guess what was behind thatvirtuous flame.
"And so, you poor little soul, all your plans for your City of Refugeare shattered because you refuse to sacrifice somebody to keep themwhole," said he.
"No matter," she returned in that voice of abnegation which only a longmarching line of misfortunes can give a woman or a man command over. "Ihave decided, anyway, to give it up. It's too big and rough and lonesomefor me."
"And that person whom you put up your heart and soul to shield," he wenton, looking steadily into her face and pursuing his former thought, "hassomething in his possession which this man Boyle covets and thinks hemust have? And the cheapest and easiest way to get it is to make you payfor it in the violation of your honest principles, if he can drive youto it in his skulking way?"
She bowed assent, her lips tightly set.
"Yes," said he. "Just so. Well, why didn't Boyle come to me with histhreats, the coward!"
"No, no!" she cried in quick fright. "Not that; it is something--somethingelse."
"You poor dissembler!" he laughed. "You couldn't be dishonest if youwanted to the worst way in the world. Well, don't you worry; I'll takeit up with him today."
"You'll _not_ give it up!" she exclaimed vehemently. "All your hopes arethere, and it's yours, and _you'll not_ give it up!"
"Never mind," he soothed, again taking her hand, which she had withdrawnto aid in emphasizing her protest. "I don't believe he'd carry out histhreats about the United States marshal and all that."
"You'll not give it up to him unless he pays you for it," shereiterated, ignoring her own prospect of trouble. "It's valuable, or hewouldn't be so anxious to get it."
"Perhaps," Slavens assented.
"I'm going to leave here," she hurriedly pursued. "It was foolish of meto come, in the first place. The vastness of it bewildered me, and 'thelonesomeness,' as Smith calls it, is settling in my heart."
"Well, where will you go?" he asked bewilderedly.
"Somewhere--to some village or little farm, where we can raise poultry,mother and I."
"But I haven't planned it that way," Slavens smiled. "If you leave, whatam I going to do?"
"I don't know," she acknowledged, "unless--unless you come some time."
"Look here, Agnes," said he, taking the matter entirely in hand. "Whenwe leave this place, we'll leave together. I've arranged that all in mymind and intention. It's all disposed of and settled. Here comes Boylenow, I think."
Boyle left his horse standing a few rods distant and came over to wherethey sat.
"You look comfortable," he commented, as serene and unperturbed as ifthe load of one more human life on his soul were a matter too light tobe felt with inconvenience.
"Very comfortable," answered Slavens, rising stiffly. "We have nothingon our hands that common water will not wash off."
"Oh, that nut!" depreciated Boyle. "He'd talked around for a year or twoabout getting me. I only beat him to it when he tried; that's all."
"But there was another occasion--another attempt that didn't turn outquite like you intended," said Slavens. "Do you remember me?"
"Yes; you're the tin-horn doctor that held a man up in Comanche andstole the coat off of his back," Boyle retorted with easy insolence.
Agnes looked at the doctor imploringly, plainly begging him not toprovoke Boyle to another outbreak of violence. She was standing besidehim, the fear and loathing which Boyle's presence aroused undisguised inher frank face.
"It was an outrage against one of the honest men who tried to murderme," said the doctor. "But, vicious as it was, neither Shanklin nor you,his side-partner, has ever made a squeal. If it was a holdup, whyhaven't you sent one of your little sheriffs out after me?"
"I'm no partner of Hun Shanklin's!" denied Boyle.
"Maybe you've parted company since the night you slugged me and nailedme up in that box for the river to hide your work."
"I'll make you prove that charge!" threatened Boyle hotly.
"I can't prove it," admitted the doctor. "If I could, I'd have you incourt tomorrow. But you were one of them, and I want you to understandfully that I know it, and will treat you accordingly in any privatedealings that may come up between you and me."
"If you keep spoutin' it around that I ever slugged you, I'll pull youinto court and make you prove it! It'll either be put up or shut up withyou, mister!"
"Whenever you're ready," invited Slavens.
With somewhat more of ostentation than the simple act seemed to warrant,Boyle unbuttoned his coat, displaying his revolver as he made anexploration of his vest-pockets for a match to light his cigarette.
"Well, I guess you know what I'm here for?" Boyle suggested, passing hisglance significantly from one to the other of them.
"Dr. Slavens is acquainted with your proposal," said Agnes; "and itought to be needless for me to say that I'll not permit him to make anyconcession to shield myself."
"Fine! fine!" said Boyle in mock applause, throwing his head back andsnorting smoke.
"In the first place," said Slavens, "your bluff don't go. Miss Gates hasnot broken any law in registering and entering this land under an_alias_. There's no crime in assuming a name, and no felony in acquiringproperty under it, unless fraud is used. She has defrauded nobody, andyou could not make a case against her in a thousand years!"
"I can get an indictment--that's a cinch!" declared Boyle.
"Go ahead," said the doctor. "We've got some new blood in this countrynow, and we can find a jury that you don't own and control when it comesto trial."
"And after the indictment comes arrest and jail," Boyle continued,overlooking the doctor's argument in the lofty security of his position."It would make a lot of noisy talk, considering the family reputationand all that."
"And the outcome of it migh
t be--and I doubt even that--that Miss Gateswould lose her homestead," Slavens supplied.
"You don't know the Federal judge in this district," Boyle grinned."Jail's what it means, and plenty of it, for the judge has to approve abond, if you know what that means."
"Why don't you pay Dr. Slavens for his homestead, as you were ready topay that man Peterson if you could have filed him on it?" Agnes asked.
"Because it's mine already," said Boyle. "This man stole the descriptionof that land, as I have told you before, at the point of a gun."
"Then you lied!" Slavens calmly charged.
Boyle hitched his hip, throwing the handle of his pistol into sight.
"You can say that," said he, "because I've got to have your name on apaper."
"I'll never permit Dr. Slavens to sign away his valuable claim to you,"declared Agnes. "I'll not allow----"
Slavens lifted his hand for silence.
"I'll do the talking for this family from now on," said he, smilingreassuringly as he held her eyes a moment with his own.
He turned abruptly to Boyle.
"And the fighting, too, when necessary. You keep that little gun in itsplace when you're around me, young man, or you'll get hurt! One morebreak like that to show me that you've got it, and you and I will mix.Just put that down in your book."
"Oh, all right, pardner!" returned Boyle with that jerky insolence whichmen of his kind assume when they realize that they have been called, andcalled hard. He buttoned his coat.
"And as far as Miss Gates is concerned, consider her out of this case,"said Slavens. "But I want to have some private talk with you."
They walked over to the place where Boyle's horse stood, and there, outof the hearing of Agnes, Slavens sounded Jerry sharply on hisintentions. It was plain that there was no bluff in Boyle; he meant whathe threatened, and he was small enough to carry it through.
As an illustration of his far-reaching influence, Boyle pointed out toSlavens that nobody had approached the physician with an offer to buyhim out, although one had appeared anxious enough to open negotiationsthe day he filed.
"When we tell a man to lay down in this part of the country, he laysdown," said Boyle; "and when we order him to walk on his hind legs, hewalks. Nobody will offer you any money for that place; it isn't worthanything to a soul on earth but me. You couldn't sell out in a century.You'll get that through your nut if you hang around here long enough."
For a little while Slavens thought it over, walking away a few paces andappraising the situation studiously. Suddenly he wheeled and confrontedBoyle, leveling his finger at his face.
"Your bluff don't go, Boyle!" said he. "You'd just as well get on yourhorse and light out; and if you want to bring it to a fight, then let itbe a fight. We'll meet you on any ground you pick."
"You're a fool!" snarled Boyle.
"Then I'll be a bigger one--big enough to call you to account beforeanother day has passed over your head for your part in that dirty workin Comanche that night. And I want to lay it off to you right now thatall the influence you can command in this state isn't going to save youwhen I go after you!"
Boyle picked up his bridle-reins and threaded his arm through them,standing so, legs wide apart, while he rolled a cigarette. As it dangledbetween his lips and the smoke of it rose up, veiling his eyes, hepeered narrowly through it at the doctor.
"There's a man in the graveyard up at Cheyenne that made a talk likethat one time," he said.
"I'll have to take your word for that," returned Slavens, quite unmoved."I'll meet you at the hotel in Meander tomorrow morning at nine o'clockfor a settlement, one way or the other."
"One way or the other," repeated Boyle.
He mounted his horse and rode away toward Meander, trailing a thin lineof smoke behind him.
Agnes hurried forward to meet Slavens as he turned toward her. Her facewas bloodless, her bosom agitated.
"I heard part of what you said," she told him. "Surely you don't mean togo over there and fight him on his own ground, among his friends?"
"I'm going over there to see the county attorney," said he. "He's fromKansas, and a pretty straight sort of chap, it seemed to me from what Isaw of him. I'm going to put this situation of ours before him, citing ahypothetical case, and get his advice. I don't believe that there's ashred of a case against you, and I doubt whether Boyle can bluff thegovernment officials into making a move in it, even with all hisinfluence."
"And you'll come back here and tell me what he says, no matter what hisopinion may be, before you act one way or another?"
"If you wish it, although--Well, yes--if you wish it."
"I do, most earnestly," she assured him.
"You need a good sleep," he counseled. "Turn in as soon as I'm gone, anddon't worry about this. There's a good deal of bluff in Boyle."
"He's treacherous, and he shoots wonderfully. He killed that poor fellowlast night without ever seeing him at all."
"But I'm not going to take a shot at him out of the dark," said he.
"I know. But I'll be uneasy until you return."
"There's too much trouble in your face today for one of your years," hesaid, lifting her chin with rather a professional rebuke in his eyes."You'll have to put it down, or it will make you old. Go right ondreaming and planning; things will come out exactly as you havedesigned."
"Perhaps," she agreed, but with little hope in her voice.
Slavens saddled his horse after they had refreshed themselves withcoffee. Agnes stood by, racked with an anxiety which seemed to grind herheart. The physician thought of the pioneer women of his youth, of thosewho lived far out on the thin edge of prairie reaches, and in the gloomof forests which groaned around them in the lone winds of winter nights.There was the same melancholy of isolation in Agnes' eyes today as hehad seen in theirs; the same sad hopelessness; the same hunger, and thelonging to fly from the wilderness and its hardships, heart-weariness,and pain.
Her hand lay appealingly upon his shoulder for a moment before hemounted, and her face was turned up to him, unspoken yearning on herlips.
"Promise me again before you go that you will come back here before yourelinquish your homestead to Boyle," she demanded. "Promise me that, nomatter what the lawyer's opinion may be, you'll return here before youdo anything else at all."
"I promise you," said he.
When he had ridden a little way he halted his horse and turned in hissaddle to look back. She was sitting there in the sun, her head bowed,her hands clasped over her face, as if she wept or prayed. A littlewhile he waited there, as if meditating a return, as if he had forgottensomething--some solace, perhaps, for which her lips had appealed to hisheart dumbly.
Yet a sincere man seldom knows these things, which a trifler is so quickto see. He did not know, perhaps; or perhaps he was not certain enoughto turn his horse and ride back to repair his omission. Presently herode on slowly, his head bent, the bridle-reins loose in his hand.