Trailin'!

  CHAPTER V

  ANTHONY IS LEFT IN THE DARK

  "It will explain why I changed my clothes after I came home. You see,toward the end of the show a lot of the cowboys rode in. The ringmasterwas announcing that they could ride anything that walked on four feetand wore a skin, when up jumped an oldish fellow in a box opposite mineand shouted that he had a horse which none of them could mount. Heoffered five hundred dollars to the man who could back him; and made itgood by going out of the building and coming back inside of five minuteswith two men leading a great stallion, the ugliest piece of horsefleshI've ever seen.

  "As they worked the brute down the arena, it caught sight of my whiteshirt, I suppose, for it made a dive at me, reared up, and smashed itsforehoofs against the barrier. By Jove, a regular maneater! Brought myheart into my mouth to see the big devil raging, and I began to yearn toget astride him and to--well, just fight to see which of us would comeout on top. You know?"

  The big man moistened his lips; he was strangely excited.

  "So you climbed into the arena and rode the horse?"

  "Exactly! I knew you'd understand! After I'd ridden the horse to astandstill and climbed off, a good many people gathered around me. Oneof them was a big man, about your size. In fact, now that I look back atit, he was a good deal like you in more ways than one; looked as if timehad hardened him without making him brittle. He came to me and said:'Excuse me, son, but you look sort of familiar to me. Mind telling mewho your mother was?' What could I answer to a--"

  A shadow fell across Anthony from the rising height of his father. As helooked up he saw John Woodbury glance sharply, first toward the Frenchwindows and then at the door of the secret room.

  "Was that all, Anthony?"

  "Yes, about all."

  "I want to be alone."

  The habit of automatic obedience made Anthony rise in spite of thequestions which were storming at his lips.

  "Good-night, sir."

  "Good-night, my boy."

  At the door the harsh voice of his father overtook him.

  "Before you leave the house again, see me, Anthony."

  "Yes, sir."

  He closed the door softly, as one deep in thought, and stood for a timewithout moving. Because a man had asked him who his mother was, he wasunder orders not to leave the house. While he stood, he heard a faintclick of a snapping lock within the library and knew that John Woodburyhad entered the secret room.

  In his own bedroom he undressed slowly and afterward stood for a longtime under the shower, rubbing himself down with the care of an athlete,thumbing the soreness of the wild ride out of the lean, sinewy muscles,for his was a made strength built up in the gymnasium and used on thewrestling mat, the cinder path, and the football field. Drying himselfwith a rough towel that whipped the pink into his skin, he looked downover his corded, slender limbs, remembered the thick arms and Herculeantorso of John Woodbury, and wondered.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, wrapped in a bathrobe, and pondered.Stroke by stroke he built the picture of that dead mother, like apainter who jots down the first sketch of a large composition. JohnWoodbury, vast, blond, grey-eyed, had given him few of his physicaltraits. But then he had often heard that the son usually resembled themother. She must have been dark, slender, a frail wife for such a giant;but perhaps she had a strength of spirit which made her his mate.

  As the picture drew out more clearly in the mind of Anthony, he turnedfrom the lighted room, threw open a window, and leaned out to breathethe calm, damp air of night.

  It was infinitely cool, infinitely fresh. To his left a row of youngtrees darted their slender tops at the sky like shadowy spearheads. Thesmell of wet leaves and the wet grass beneath rose up to him. To theright, for his own room stood in a wing of the mansion, the houseshouldered its way into the gloom, a solemn, grey shadow, netted in ablack tracery of climbing vine. In all the stretch of wall only twowindows were lighted, and those yellow squares, he knew, belonged to hisfather. He had left the secret room, therefore.

  As he watched, a shadow brushed slowly across one of the drawn shades,swept the second, and returned at once in the opposite direction. Backand forth, back and forth, that shadow moved, and as his eye grewaccustomed to watching, he caught quite clearly the curve of theshoulders and the forward droop of the head.

  It was not until then that the first alarm came to Anthony, for he knewthat the footsteps of the big grey man were dogged by fear. He could nomore conceive it than he could imagine noon and midnight in conjunction,and feeling as guilty as if he had played the part of an eavesdropper heturned away, snapped off the lights, and slipped into bed.

  The pleasant warmth of sleep would not come. In its place the images ofthe day filed past him like the dance of figures on a motion picturescreen, and always, like the repeated entrance of the hero, the otherimages grew small and dim. He saw again the burly stranger wadingthrough the crowd in the arena, shaking off the packed mob as the prowof a stately ship shakes off the water, to either side.

  At length he started out of bed and glanced through the window. Themoving shadow still swept across the lighted shades of his father'sroom; so he donned bathrobe and slippers and went down the long hall. Atthe door he did not stop to knock, for he was too deeply concerned bythis time to pay any heed to convention. He grasped the knob and threwthe door wide open. What happened then was so sudden that he could notbe sure afterward what he had seen. He was certain that the door openedon a lighted room, yet before he could step in the lights were snappedout.

  He was staring into a deep void of night; and a silence came about himlike a whisper. Out of that silence he thought after a second that hecaught the sound of a hurried breathing, louder and louder, as thoughsomeone were creeping upon him. He glanced over his shoulder in a slightpanic, but down the grey hall on either side there was nothing to beseen. Once more he looked back into the solemn room, opened his lips tospeak, changed his mind, and closed the door again.

  Yet when he looked down again from his own room the lights shone oncemore on the shades of his father's windows. Past them brushed the shadowof the pacing man, up and down, up and down. He turned his eyes away tothe jagged tops of the young trees, to the glimpses of dark fieldsbeyond them, and inhaled the scent of the wet, green things. It seemedto Anthony as if it all were hostile--as though the whole outdoors werebesieging this house.

  He caught the sway of the pacing figure whose shadow moved in regularrhythm across the yellow shades. It entered his mind, clung there, andfinally he began to pace in the same cadence, up and down the room. Withevery step he felt that he was entering deeper into the danger whichthreatened John Woodbury. What danger? For answer to himself he steppedto the windows and pulled down the shades. At least he could be alone.