Chapter Fourteen
_Her Little Joke_
A brief ten minutes of waiting beside the front door of the house, andthen Ronicky Doone heard a swift pattering of feet on the stairs.Presently the girl was moving very slowly toward him down the hall.Plainly she was bitterly afraid when she came beside him, under the dimhall light. She wore that same black hat, turned back from her whiteface, and the red flower beside it was a dull, uncertain blur. Decidedlyshe was pretty enough to explain Bill Gregg's sorrow.
Ronicky gave her no chance to think twice. She was in the very act ofmurmuring something about a change of mind, when he opened the door and,stepping out into the starlight, invited her with a smile and a gestureto follow. In a moment they were in the freshness of the night air. Hetook her arm, and they passed slowly down the steps. At the bottom sheturned and looked anxiously at the house.
"Lady," murmured Ronicky, "they's nothing to be afraid of. We're goingto walk right up and down this street and never get out of sight of thefriends you got in this here house."
At the word "friends" she shivered slightly, and he added: "Unless youwant to go farther of your own free will."
"No, no!" she exclaimed, as if frightened by the very prospect.
"Then we won't. It's all up to you. You're the boss, and I'm thecow-puncher, lady."
"But tell me quickly," she urged. "I--I have to go back. I mustn't stayout too long."
"Starting right in at the first," Ronicky said, "I got to tell you thatBill has told me pretty much everything that ever went on between youtwo. All about the correspondence-school work and about the letters andabout the pictures."
"I don't understand," murmured the girl faintly.
But Ronicky diplomatically raised his voice and went on, as if he hadnot heard her. "You know what he's done with that picture of yours?"
"No," she said faintly.
"He got the biggest nugget that he's ever taken out of the dirt. He gotit beaten out into the right shape, and then he made a locket out of itand put your picture in it, and now he wears it around his neck, evenwhen he's working at the mine."
Her breath caught. "That silly, cheap snapshot!"
She stopped. She had admitted everything already, and she had intendedto be a very sphinx with this strange Westerner.
"It was only a joke," she said. "I--I didn't really mean to--"
"Do you know what that joke did?" asked Ronicky. "It made two men fight,then cross the continent together and get on the trail of a girl whosename they didn't even know. They found the girl, and then she said she'dforgotten--but no, I don't mean to blame you. There's something queerbehind it all. But I want to explain one thing. The reason that Billdidn't get to that train wasn't because he didn't try. He did try. Hetried so hard that he got into a fight with a gent that tried to holdhim up for a few words, and Bill got shot off his hoss."
"Shot?" asked the girl. "Shot?"
Suddenly she was clutching his arm, terrified at the thought. Sherecovered herself at once and drew away, eluding the hand of Ronicky. Hemade no further attempt to detain her.
But he had lifted the mask and seen the real state of her mind; and she,too, knew that the secret was discovered. It angered her and threw herinstantly on the aggressive.
"I tell you what I guessed from the window," said Ronicky. "You wentdown to the street, all prepared to meet up with poor old Bill--"
"Prepared to meet him?" She started up at Ronicky. "How in the worldcould I ever guess--"
She was looking up to him, trying to drag his eyes down to hers, butRonicky diplomatically kept his attention straight ahead.
"You couldn't guess," he suggested, "but there was someone who couldguess for you. Someone who pretty well knew we were in town, who wantedto keep you away from Bill because he was afraid--"
"Of what?" she demanded sharply.
"Afraid of losing you."
This seemed to frighten her. "What do you know?" she asked.
"I know this," he answered, "that I think a girl like you, all in all,is too good for any man. But, if any man ought to have her, it's thegent that is fondest of her. And Bill is terrible fond of you, lady--hedon't think of nothing else. He's grown thin as a ghost, longing foryou."
"So he sends another man to risk his life to find me and tell me aboutit?" she demanded, between anger and sadness.
"He didn't send me--I just came. But the reason I came was because Iknew Bill would give up without a fight."
"I hate a man who won't fight," said the girl.
"It's because he figures he's so much beneath you," said Ronicky. "And,besides, he can't talk about himself. He's no good at that at all. But,if it comes to fighting, lady, why, he rode a couple of hosses to deathand stole another and had a gunfight, all for the sake of seeing you,when a train passed through a town."
She was speechless.
"So I thought I'd come," said Ronicky Doone, "and tell you the insidesof things, the way I knew Bill wouldn't and couldn't, but I figure itdon't mean nothing much to you."
She did not answer directly. She only said: "Are men like this in theWest? Do they do so much for their friends?"
"For a gent like Bill Gregg, that's simple and straight from theshoulder, they ain't nothing too good to be done for him. What I'd dofor him he'd do mighty pronto for me, and what he'd do for me--well,don't you figure that he'd do ten times as much for the girl he loves?Be honest with me," said Ronicky Doone. "Tell me if Bill means anymoreto you than any stranger?"
"No--yes."
"Which means simply yes. But how much more, lady?"
"I hardly know him. How can I say?"
"It's sure an easy thing to say. You've wrote to him. You've had lettersfrom him. You've sent him your picture, and he's sent you his, andyou've seen him on the street. Lady, you sure know Bill Gregg, and whatdo you think of him?"
"I think--"
"Is he a square sort of gent?"
"Y-yes."
"The kind you'd trust?"
"Yes, but--"
"Is he the kind that would stick to the girl he loved and take care ofher, through thick and thin?"
"You mustn't talk like this," said Caroline Smith, but her voicetrembled, and her eyes told him to go on.
"I'm going back and tell Bill Gregg that, down in your heart, you lovehim just about the same as he loves you!"
"Oh," she asked, "would you say a thing like that? It isn't a bit true."
"I'm afraid that's the way I see it. When I tell him that, you can layto it that old Bill will let loose all holds and start for you, and, ifthey's ten brick walls and twenty gunmen in between, it won't make nodifference. He'll find you, or die trying."
Before he finished she was clinging to his arm.
"If you tell him, you'll be doing a murder, Ronicky Doone. What he'llface will be worse than twenty gunmen."
"The gent that smiles, eh?"
"Yes, John Mark. No, no, I didn't mean--"
"But you did, and I knew it, too. It's John Mark that's between you andBill. I seen you in the street, when you were talking to poor Bill, lookback over your shoulder at that devil standing in the window of thishouse."
"Don't call him that!"
"D'you know of one drop of kindness in his nature, lady?"
"Are we quite alone?"
"Not a soul around."
"Then he is a devil, and, being a devil, no ordinary man has a chanceagainst him--not a chance, Ronicky Doone. I don't know what you did inthe house, but I think you must have outfaced him in some way. Well, forthat you'll pay, be sure! And you'll pay with your life, Ronicky. Everyminute, now, you're in danger of your life. You'll keep on being indanger, until he feels that he has squared his account with you. Don'tyou see that if I let Bill Gregg come near me--"
"Then Bill will be in danger of this same wolf of a man, eh? And, inspite of the fact that you like Bill--"
"Ah, yes, I do!"
"That you love him, in fact."
"Why shouldn't I tell you?" demanded t
he girl, breaking down suddenly."I do love him, and I can never see him to tell him, because I dreadJohn Mark."
"Rest easy," said Ronicky, "you'll see Bill, or else he'll die trying toget to you."
"If you're his friend--"
"I'd rather see him dead than living the rest of his life, plumbunhappy."
She shook her head, arguing, and so they reached the corner of BeekmanPlace again and turned into it and went straight toward the houseopposite that of John Mark. Still the girl argued, but it was in awhisper, as if she feared that terrible John Mark might overhear.
* * * * *
In the home of John Mark, that calm leader was still with Ruth Tolliver.They had gone down to the lower floor of the house, and, at his request,she sat at the piano, while Mark sat comfortably beyond the sphere ofthe piano light and watched her.
"You're thinking of something else," he told her, "and playingabominably."
"I'm sorry."
"You ought to be," he said. "It's bad enough to play poorly for someonewho doesn't know, but it's torture to play like that for me."
He spoke without violence, as always, but she knew that he was intenselyangry, and that familiar chill passed through her body. It never failedto come when she felt that she had aroused his anger.
"Why doesn't Caroline come back?" she asked at length.
"She's letting him talk himself out, that's all. Caroline's a cleveryoungster. She knows how to let a man talk till his throat is dry, andthen she'll smile and tell him that it's impossible to agree with him.Yes, there are many possibilities in Caroline."
"You think Ronicky Doone is a gambler?" she asked, harking back to whathe had said earlier.
"I think so," answered John Mark, and again there was that tightening ofthe muscles around his mouth. "A gambler has a certain way of maskinghis own face and looking at yours, as if he were dragging your thoughtsout through your eyes; also, he's very cool; he belongs at a table withthe cards on it and the stakes high."
The door opened. "Here's young Rose. He'll tell us the truth of thematter. Has she come back, Rose?"
The young fellow kept far back in the shadow, and, when he spoke, hisvoice was uncertain, almost to the point of trembling. "No," he managedto say, "she ain't come back, chief."
Mark stared at him for a moment and then slowly opened a cigarette caseand lighted a smoke. "Well," he said, and his words were far moreviolent than the smooth voice, "well, idiot, what did she do?"
"She done a fade-away, chief, in the house across the street. Went inwith that other gent."
"He took her by force?" asked John Mark.
"Nope. She slipped in quick enough and all by herself. He went in last."
"Damnation!" murmured Mark. "That's all, Rose."
His follower vanished through the doorway and closed the door softlyafter him. John Mark stood up and paced quietly up and down the room. Atlength he turned abruptly on the girl. "Good night. I have business thattakes me out."
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
He paused, as if in doubt as to how he should answer her, if he answeredat all. "In the old days," he said at last, "when a man caught a poacheron his grounds, do you know what he did?"
"No."
"Shot him, my dear, without a thought and threw his body to the wolves!"
"John Mark! Do you mean--"
"Your friend Ronicky, of course."
"Only because Caroline was foolish are you going to--"
"Caroline? Tut, tut! Caroline is only a small part of it. He has donemore than that--far more, this poacher out of the West!"
He turned and went swiftly through the door. The moment it was closedthe girl buried her face in her hands.