CHAPTER XIV
A MYSTERY IS UNRAVELLED
Lieutenant Burrell was considerably taken aback when, a quarter of anhour after the young lover's ecstatic return to his quarters, Galeknocked at his door, for the trader's visit, coupled with the late hourand his sombre countenance, forecast new complications.
"He's here to object, but it won't go," thought the Lieutenant, as hemade his visitor welcome.
It was the trader's first glimpse of the officer's quarters, and hecast a roving eye over the room, as if measuring the owner's characterby his surroundings.
"I've got to have a long talk with you, Burrell," he began, with aneffort. "It's liable to take me an hour or two."
"Then take this chair and be comfortable."
Meade swung his big reading-chair out beneath the hanging-lamp, and,going to the sideboard, brought back a bottle, some glasses, and apouch of tobacco. Noting the old man's sigh of fatigue as he sathimself down heavily, he remarked, sympathetically:
"Mr. Gale, you've made a long trip to-day, and you must be tired. Ifthis talk is to be as lengthy as you say, why not have a drink with menow, and postpone it until to-morrow?"
"I've been tired for eighteen years," the other replied; "to-night Ihope to get rested." He lapsed into silence, watching his host pour outtwo glasses of liquor, fill his pipe, and then stretch himself outcontentedly, his feet resting on another chair--a picture of youthfulstrength, vitality, and determination. Beneath the Lieutenant's flannelshirt the long, slim muscles showed free and full, and the firm set ofjaw and lip denoted a mind at rest and confident of itself. Gale foundhimself for a moment jealously regarding the youth and his enviablestate of contentment and decision.
"Well, let's get at it," the younger man finally said.
"I suppose you'll want to interrupt and question me a heap, but I'llask you to let me tell this story the way it comes to me, till I get itout, then we can go back and take up the queer stuff. It runs backeighteen or twenty years, and, being as it's part of a hidden life, itisn't easy to tell. You'll be the first one to hear it, and I reckonyou're enough like other men to disbelieve--you're not old enough, andyou haven't knocked around enough to learn that nothing is impossible,that nothing is strange enough to be unreasonable. Likewise, you'llwant to know what, all this has to do with you and Necia--yes, she toldme about you and her, and that's why I'm here." He paused. "You reallythink you love her, do you?"
Burrell removed his pipe and gazed at its coal impersonally.
"I love her so well, Mr. Gale, that nothing you can say will affect me.I--I hesitated at first about asking her to be my wife, because--you'llappreciate the unusual--well, her unusual history. You see, I come froma country where mixed blood is about the only thing that can't be liveddown or overlooked, and I've been raised with notions of family honorand pride of race and birth, and so forth, that might seem preposterousand absurd to you. But a heap of conceits like that have been bred intome from generations back; they run in the blood of every old family inmy country, and so, I'm ashamed to say, I hesitated and tried to reasonmyself into giving her up, but I've had my eyes opened, and I see howlittle those things amount to, after all. I'm going to marry Necia, Mr.Gale. I'd like to do it the day after to-morrow, Sunday, but she isn'tof age yet, and if you object, we'll have to wait until November, whenshe turns eighteen. We'd both like your consent, of course; I'd besorry to marry her without it; but if you refuse, we'll be forced todisplease you." He looked up and met the father's gaze steadily. "Now,I'll be glad to listen as long as you care to talk, but I don't thinkit will do any good."
The other man's lips framed a faint smile.
"We'll see. I wish to God I'd had your decision when I was your age,this story would be different, and easier to tell." He waited a moment,then settled to his self-appointed task. "I was mining at the time upin the Mother Lode country of California, which was the frontier then,pretty much as this is now, only we had better things to eat. I camefrom the East, or my people did, but I was ranch-raised, and loved thehills and woods and places where you don't talk much, so I went toprospecting because it took me out where the sun was bright and I couldsee the wild things at play. I was one of the first men into a campnamed Chandon--helped to build it, in fact, and got hold of some groundthat looked real good. It was hard mining, however, and, being poor, Iwas still gripping my drill and hammer after the town had grown up.
"A woman came out from the East--Vermont, it was--and school-teachingwas her line of business, only she hadn't been raised to it, and thiswas her first clatter at the game; but things had broke bad for herpeople, and ended in her pulling stakes and coming West all alone. Herfolks died and left her up against it, I gathered from what little shetold me--sort of an old story, I guess, and usual too, only for her.She was plumb unusual."
He seemed to ponder this a moment, and then resumed:
"It don't make any difference to you how I first saw her, and how Ibegan to forget that anything else in the world was worth having buther. I'd lived in the woods all my life, as I said, and knew more aboutbirds and bugs and bees than I did about women; I hadn't been brokeproper, and didn't know how to act with them; but I laid out to getthis girl, and I did fairly well. There's something wild in every womanthat needs to be tamed, and it isn't like the wildness that runs inwood critters; you can win that over by gentleness, but you have totake it away from a woman. Every live thing that couldn't talk was myfriend; but I made the mistake of courting my own kind the same way,not knowing that when two of any species mate the male must rule. I wastoo gentle. Even so, I reckon I'd have won out only for another man.Dan Bennett was his name--the kind that dumb animals hate, and--well,that takes his measure. His range adjoined mine, and, though I'd neverseen him, I heard stories now and then--the sort of tales you can'ttell to a good woman; so it worried me when I heard of his attentionsto this girl. Still, I thought she'd surely find him out and recognizethe kind of fellow he was; but, Lord! a woman, can't tell a man from adog, and there wasn't any one to warn her. There were plenty of womenwho knew him, but they were the ones who flew by night, while she livedin the sunshine; and women of that kind don't make complaint, anyhow.
"This Bennett came from the town below, where he ran a saloon and abrace game or two; but being as he rode into our camp and out again inthe night, and as I didn't drink nor listen to the music of the littlerolling ball, why, we never met, even after he began coming to Chandon.Understand, I wasn't too good for those amusements; I just didn'thappen to hanker after them, for I was living with the image of thelittle school-ma'am in my mind, and that destroyed what bad habits I'dformed.
"It was along in the early spring that she began to see I had notionsabout her, but my damned backwardness wouldn't let me speak, and, inaddition, I was getting closer to ore every shot at the mine, and washolding off until I could lay both myself and my goldmine at her feet,and ask her to take the two of us, so if one didn't pan out the othermight. But it seemed like I'd never get into pay. The closer I got theharder I worked, and, of course, the less I saw of her, likewise theoftener Bennett came. I reckon no man ever worked like I did--twoshifts a day, eighteen hours, with six to sleep. The skin came off ofmy hands, and I staggered when I came out into the daylight, for therock was hard, and I had no money to hire a helper; but I was young andstrong, and the hope of her was like drink and food and sleep to me. Atlast I struck it, and still I waited awhile longer till I could besure. Then I went down to my little shack and put on my other clothes.I remember I'd gone so thin that they hung loose, and my palms were soraw I had hard work handling the buttons, and got my shirt all bloody,for I'd been in the drift forty hours, without sleep and breathingpowder smoke, till my knees buckled and wobbled under me. To this daythe smell of stale powder smoke makes a woman of me; but that morning Isang, for I was going for my bride, and the world was brighter than ithas ever been for eighteen years. The little school-house was closed,at which I remembered that the term was over. I'd been livingunderground for weeks an
d lost track of the days, so that I had tocount them up on my fingers. It took me a long time, for I was prettytired in my head; but when I'd figured it out I went on to where shewas boarding.
"The woman of the place came to the door, a Scotch-woman. She had amole on her chin, I remember, a brownish-black mole with three hairs init. She wore an apron, too, that was kind of checkered, and threebuttons were open at the neck of her dress. I recall a lot more oflittle things about her, though the rest of what happened is ratherdreamy.
"I asked for Merridy, and she told me she'd gone away--gone withBennett, the night before, while I was coughing blood from the powdersmoke; that they were married in the front room, and that the bridelooked beautiful. She had cried a bit on leaving Chandon,and--and--that was about all. I counted the buttons on theScotchwoman's waist eight or ten times, and by-and-by she asked if Iwas sick. But I wasn't. She was a kind-hearted woman, and I'd been toher house a good deal, so she asked me to come in and rest. I wasn'ttired, so I went away, and climbed back up to the little shack and themine that I hated now."
The trader paused, and, reaching for the bottle, poured himself out aglass of brandy, which he spilled into his throat raw, then continued:
"I turned into a kind of hermit after that, and I wasn't good toassociate with. Men got so they shunned me, and I knew they toldstrange stories, because I heard them whisper when I went to the storesfor grub once a month. I changed all over, till even my squirrels andpartridges and other friends quit me; once in awhile I got out a ton ortwo of rock and sold it, but I never worked the mine or opened it up--Icouldn't bear to go inside the drift. I tried it time and again, butthe smell of its darkness drove me out; every foot of its ragged wallshad left its mark on me, and my heart was torn and gouged and shiveredworse than its seams and ledges. I could have sold it, but there was noplace for me to go, and what did I want with money? I was shy of theworld, like a crippled child that dreads the daylight, and I shrankfrom going out where people might see my scars; so I stayed there bymyself nursing the hurt that never got any better. You see, I'd beenraised among the hills and rocks, and I was like them in a way; Icouldn't grow and alter and heal up.
"From time to time I heard of her, but the news, instead of gladdeningme, as it would have gladdened some men, wrung out what bits ofsuffering were left in me, and I fairly ached for her. Nobody comes tosee clearer than a woman deceived, so it didn't take her long to findout the kind of man Bennett was. He wasn't like her at all, and thereason he had courted her so hotly was just that he had had everythingthat rightly belongs to a man like him, and had sickened of it, so hewanted her because she was clean and pure and different; and realizingthat he couldn't get her any other way, he had married her. But she wasa treasure no bad man could appreciate, and so he tired quickly, evenbefore the little one came.
"When I heard that she had borne him a daughter I wrote her a letter,which took me a month to compose, and which I tore up. One day a storycame to me that made me saddle my horse to ride down and kill him--and,mind you, I was a man who made pets of little wild, trusting things.But I knew she would surely send for me when her pain became too great,so I uncinched my gear and hung it up, and waited and waited andwaited. Three long, endless years I waited, almost within sound of hervoice, without a word from her, without a glimpse of her, and everyhour of that time went by as slowly as if I had held my breath. Thenshe called to me, and I went.
"I tell you, I was thankful that day for the fortune that had made metake good care of my horse, for I rode like Death on a wind-storm. Itgrew moonlight as I raced down the valley, and the foam from theanimal's muzzle lodged on my clothes, and made me laugh and swear thatthe morning sun would show Dan Bennett's blood in its place. I rodethrough the streets of Mesa, where they lived, and past the lights ofhis big saloon, where I heard the sound of devil's revelry and ashrill-voiced woman singing--a woman the like of which he had tried tomake my Merridy. I never skulked or sneaked in those days, and no manever made me take back roads, so I came up to his house from the frontand tied my horse to his gate-post. She heard me on the steps andopened the door.
"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Where is he?' But he had gone away to aneighboring camp, and wouldn't be back until morning, at which I feltthe way a thief must feel, for I'd hoped to meet him in his own house,and I wasn't the kind to go calling when the husband was out. Icouldn't think very clearly, however, because of the change in her. Shewas so thin and worn and sad, sadder than any woman I'd ever seen, andshe wasn't the girl I'd known three years before. I guess I'd changed aheap myself; anyhow, that was the first thing she spoke about, and thetears came into her eyes as she breathed:
"'Poor boy! poor boy! You took it very hard, didn't you?'"
"'You sent for me,' said I. 'Which road did he take?'"
"'There's nothing you can do to him,' she answered back. 'I sent foryou to make sure that you still love me."
"'Did you ever doubt it?' said I, at which she began to cry, sobbinglike a woman who has worn out all emotion.
"'Can you feel the same after what I've made you suffer?' she said, andI reckon she must have read the answer in my eyes; for I never was muchgood at talking, and the sight of her, so changed, had taken the speechout of me, leaving nothing but aches and pains and ashes in its place.When she saw what she wished to know, she told me the story, the wholemiserable story, that I'd heard enough of to suspect. Why she'd marriedthe other man she couldn't explain herself, except that it was awoman's whim--I had stayed away and he had come the oftener--part piqueand part the man's dare-devil fascination, I reckon; but a month hadshown her how she really stood, and had shown him, too. Likewise, shesaw the sort of man he was and the kind of life he lived. At last hegot rough and cruel to her, trying every way to break her spirit; andeven the baby didn't stop him--it made him worse, if anything--till heswore he'd make them both the kind he was, for her goodness seemed torile and goad him; and, having lived with the kind of woman you have tobeat, he tried it on her. Then she knew her fight was hopeless, and shesent for me."
"'He's a fiend,' she told me. 'I've stood all I can. He'll make a badwoman of me as sure as he will of the little one, if I stay on here, soI have decided to go and take her with me.'"
"'Where?' said I."
"'Wherever you say,' she answered; and yet I did not understand, nottill I saw the look in her eyes. Then, as it dawned on me, she brokedown, for it was a terrible thing for a good woman to offer."
'"It's all for the little girl!' she cried. 'More than her life dependsupon it. We must get her away from him.'"
"She saw it was her only course, and went where her heart was calling."
The Lieutenant met the look of appeal in the trader's eyes, and noddedto imply his complete understanding and approval.
"We love some women for their goodness, others we love for theirfrailness, but there never was one who combined the two like her, and,now that I knew she loved me, I began to believe again there was a Godsomewhere. I'd never seen the youngster, so she led me in where it wassleeping, and I remember my boots made such a devil of a thumping onthe floor that she laid her slim white finger on her lips and smiled atme. All the fingers in the world began to choke at my throat, and allthe blood in me commenced to pound at my heart, when I looked on thatlittle sleeping kiddie. The tears began to roll out of my eyes, and,because they had been dry for four years, they scalded like meltedmetal. That was the only time I ever wept--the sight of her baby did it.
"'I love her already,' I whispered, 'and I'll spend my life making herhappy and making a lady of her,' which clinched what wavering doubt themother had, and she began to plan quickly, the fear coming on her of asudden that our scheme might fail. I was for riding away with both ofthem that night, back through the streets of Mesa and up into thehills, where I'd have held them single-handed against man or God ordevil, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"'We must go away,' she said, 'a long way from here, where the worldwon't find us and the little one can grow to womanhood without k
nowing.She must never learn who her father was or what her mother did. We willstart all over, you and I and the baby, and forget. Do you love me wellenough to do it?'
"I uttered a cry and took her in my arms, the arms that had ached forher all those years. Then I kissed her for the first time."
The old man tried to light his pipe, which had gone out, but hisfingers shook so that he dropped the match; whereupon, withoutspeaking, Burrell struck another and held it for him. The trader drew anoisy puff or two in silence and shot his host a grateful glance.
"Her plan was for me to take the youngster away that night, and for herto join us later, because pursuit was certain, and three could betraced where one might disappear; she would follow when the opportunityoffered. I saw that he had instilled a terror into her, and that shefeared him like death; but, as I thought it over, her scheme seemedfeasible, so I agreed. I was to ride west that hour with the sleepingbabe, and conceal myself at a place we selected, while she would saythat the little one had wandered away and been lost in the canon, oranything else to throw Bennett off. After a time she would join us.Well--the little girl never waked when I took her in my arms, nor whenthe mother broke down again and talked to me like a crazy woman. Hercollapse showed the terrible strain she had been living under, and theragged edge where her reason stood. She had been brave enough to plancoolly till the hour for giving up her baby, but when that came she wasseized with a thousand dreads, and made me swear by my love for her,which was and is the holiest thing in all my life, that if anythinghappened I would live for the other Merridy. I begged her again to comewith me, but her fears held her back. She vowed, however, that Bennettshould never touch her again, and I made her swear by her love for thebabe that she would die before he ever laid hands on her. It woke asavage joy in me to think I had bested him, after all.
"I never thought of what I was giving up, of the clean name I wassoiling, of the mine back there that meant a fortune anytime I cared totake it, for things like that don't count when a man's blood is hot, soI rode away in the yellow moonlight with a sleeping baby on my breast,where no child or woman had ever lain except for that minute before Ileft. She stood out from beneath the porch shadow and smiled hergood-bye--the last I ever saw of her....
"I travelled hard that night and swapped horses at daylight; then,leaving the wild country behind, I came into a region I didn't know,and found a Mexican woman who tended the child for me, for I was closeby the place where Merridy was to come. Every night I went into thevillage in hopes that some word had arrived, and I waited patiently fora week. Then I got the blow. I heard it from the loafers around thelittle post-office first, but it dazed me so I wouldn't believe it tillI borrowed the paper and read the whole story, with the type dancingand leaping before me. It took some hours for it to seep in, even afterthat, and for years I recalled every word of the damned lie as if ithad been branded on me with hot irons. They called it a shocking crime,the most brutal murder California had ever known, and in the head-lineswas my name in letters that struck me between the eyes like a hammer.Mrs. Dan Bennett had been foully murdered by me, in a fit of suddenjealousy, and I had disappeared with the baby! The husband had returnedunexpectedly to find her dying, so he said, but too far gone to callfor help, and with barely sufficient strength to tell him who did itand how! Then the paper went on with the tale of my courting her, andher turning me down for Bennett. It told how I had gone off alone upinto the hills, turning into a bear that nobody, man or child, couldapproach. It said I had brooded there all this time till the mania gotuppermost, and so came down to wreak my vengeance. They never even didme the credit of calling me crazy; I was a fiend incarnate, a beastwithout soul, and a lot of things like that; and, remember, I had neverharmed a living thing in all my life. However, that wasn't what hurt.What turned me into a dull, dead, suffering thing was the knowledgethat she was gone. For hours I couldn't get beyond that fact. Then camethe realization that Bennett had done it, for I reasoned that he haddragged a hint of the truth from her by very force of the fear he heldher in--and slain her. God!--the awful rage that came over me! Butthere was nothing to do; I had sworn to guard the little one, so Icouldn't take vengeance on him. I couldn't go back and prove myinnocence, for that would give the child to him. What a night I spent!The next day I saw I had been indicted by the grand jury and was awanted man. From a distance I watched myself become an outlaw; watchedthe county put a price upon my head, which Bennett doubled; watchedpublic opinion rise to such a heat that posses began to scour themountains. What I noted in particular was a statement in the paper that'The sorrowing husband takes his bereavement with the quiet couragewhich marks a brave man'! That roused me more than the knowledge thathe had made me a wolf and set my friends on my track, which I hadn'tcovered very well, having ridden boldly. It happened that the Mexicanwoman couldn't read and talked little; still, I knew they'd find mesoon--it couldn't be otherwise--so I made another run for it, swearingan oath, however, before I left that I'd come back and have thatgambler's heart.
"It was lucky I went, for they uncovered my sign the next day, and thecountry where I'd hidden blazed like a field of dry grass. They wereclose on my heels, and they closed in from every quarter, but, pshaw! Iknew the woods like an Indian, and the wild things were my friendsagain, which would have made it play if I'd been alone, but a girlchild of three was harder to manage. So I cowered and skulked day afterday like a thief or the murderer they thought me, working alwaysfarther into the hidden places, travelling by night with the little oneasleep on my bosom, by day playing with her in some leafy glen, with mypursuers so close behind that for weeks I never slept; and my love forthe child increased daily till it became almost an insanity.
"She was the only woman thing I had ever possessed, and it seemed likemy love for the mother came back and settled on her. And she loved me,too, and trusted me. Every little smile, every clasp of her tiny,dimpled fingers showed it, and tied her to me with another knot tillthe fear of losing her became greater than I could bear, till it keptthe chill of death in my bones and filled my veins with glacier water.I became an animal, a cowardly, quailing coyote, all through the loveof a child.
"We had close squeezes many times, but I finally won, in spite of thefact that they tracked us clear to the edge of the desert, for I hadhit for the state line, knowing that Nevada was a wilderness, andfeeling that I'd surely lose them there. And I did. But in doing it Inearly lost Merridy. You see, the constant travel and hardship was toomuch for a prattling baby, and she fell sick from the heat and the dustand the thirst. I'd been going and going till I was a riding skeleton,till my arms were crooked and dead from holding her, but this new thingfrightened me like those men and dogs had never done. Here was a thingI couldn't hide from nor outride, so I doubled back and came boldlyinto the watered country again, expecting they would take me, ofcourse, for a runaway man with a babe in his arms isn't hard toidentify, but I didn't care. I was bound for the nearest ranch ormining-camp where a woman could be found; but, as luck would have it, Iwent through without trying. I had gone farther from men and things,however, than I thought, and this return pursuit was a million timesworse than the other, for I couldn't go fast enough to shake Death, whoran with his hand on my cantle or rode on my horse's rump. It was thenI found Alluna. She was with a hunting-party of Pah-Utes, who knewnothing of me nor of the white man's affairs, and cared less; and whenI saw the little squaw I rode my horse up beside her, laid the sickchild in her arms, then tumbled out of the saddle. They had a harderjob to pull me through than they did to save Merridy, for I'd given thebaby all the water and hadn't slept or rested for many years, so itseemed.
"The little one was playing around several days before I got back myreason. Meanwhile the party had moved North, taking us with them, and,as it happened, just missing a posse who were returning from the desert.
"When I was able to get about I told Alluna that I must be going, butas I told her I watched her face, and saw the sign I wanted--the whitegirl had clutched at her like she ha
d at me, and she couldn't give herup, so I made a dicker with her old man. It took all the money I had tobuy that squaw, but I knew the kiddie must have a woman's care; and thethree of us started out soon after, alone, and broke, and aimless--andwe've been going ever since.
"That's the heart of the story, Lieutenant, and that's how I started todrift. Since then we three have never rested. I left them once in Idahoand went back to Mesa, riding all the way, mostly by night, but Bennettwas gone. He'd run down mighty fast after Merridy died, so I heard,growing sullen and uglier day by day--and I reckon I was the only onewho knew why--till he had a killing in his place. It was unprovoked,and instead of stopping to face it out the yellow in him rose to thesurface and he left before sunup, as I had left, making a cleangetaway, too, for there was no such hullabaloo raised about killing aman as there was about--the other. So my trip was all for nothing.
"I was used to disappointment by now, so I took it quiet and went backto Alluna and the little one, knowing that some day we two men wouldmeet. You see, I figured that God had framed a cold hand for me, but Hewould surely give me a pair before the game closed. Of course, neverhaving seen Bennett, I was handicapped, and, added to that, he changedhis name, so the search was mighty slow and blind, but I knew the daywould come. And it would have come only for--this.
"There isn't much more to tell. I did what most men would have done, Ireckon, because I was just average in every way. I took Alluna, andtogether we drifted North, along the frontier, until we landed here.Every year the little girl got more beautiful and more like her mother,and every year we two loved her more. We changed her name, of course,for I've always had the dread of the law back of me, and then the othertwo kiddies came along; but we were living pretty easy, the womancontented and me waiting for Bennett, till you stepped in and Neciafell in love. That's another thing I never counted on. It seems likeI've always overlooked the plainest kind of facts. I've held offtelling you the last few weeks, hoping you two wouldn't make itnecessary, for I reckon I'm sort of a coward; but she informed meto-night that she couldn't marry you, being what she thinks she is, andknowing the blood she has in her I knew she wouldn't. I figured itwouldn't be right to either of you to let you go it blind, and so Icame in to tell you this whole thing and to give myself up."
Gale stopped, then poured himself another drink.
"To give yourself up?" echoed Burrell, vaguely. "How do you mean?" Hehad sat like one in a trance during the long recital, only his eyesalive.
"I'm under indictment for murder," said the trader. "I have been forfifteen years, and there's no chance in the world for me to prove myinnocence."
"Have you told Necia?" the young man inquired.
"No, you'll have to do that--I never could--she might--disbelieve.What's more, you mustn't tell her yet. Wait till I give the word. Itwon't be long, perhaps a day. I want to go free a little while yet, forI've got some work to do."
Burrell rose to his feet and stamped the cramps from his muscles. Hewas deeply agitated, and his mind was groping darkly for light to layhold of this new thing that confronted him.
"Why, yes, yes--of course--don't come until you're ready," he muttered,mechanically, as if unaware of the meaning of his words. "To be sure,I'm a policeman, am I not? I had forgotten I was a jailer, and--and allthat." He said it sneeringly, and with a measure of contempt for hisoffice; then he turned suddenly to the trader, and his voice was richand deep-pitched with feeling.
"John Gale," he said, "you're the bravest man I ever knew, and thebest." He choked a bit. "You sacrificed all that life meant when thisgirl was a baby, and now when she has come into womanhood you give upyour blood for her. By God! You are a man! I want your hand!"
In spite of himself he could not restrain the moisture that dimmed hiseyes as he gripped the toil-worn palm of this great, gray hulk of aman, so aged and bent beneath the burden of his life-long, fadelesslove, who, in turn, was powerfully affected by the young man'simpulsive outburst of feeling and his unexpected words of praise. Theold man looked up a trifle shyly.
"Then you don't doubt no part of it?"
"Certainly not."
"Somehow, I always figured nobody would believe me if ever I told thewhole thing."
The soldier gazed unseeingly into the flame of his lamp, and said:
"I wonder if my love for the daughter is as great and as holy as yourlove for the mother. I wonder if I could give what you have given, if Ihad nothing but a memory to live with me." Then he inquired,irrelevantly; "But what about Bennett, Mr. Gale? You say you neverfound him?"
The trader answered, after a moment's hesitation, "He's still atlarge." At which his companion exclaimed, "I'd love to meet him in yourstead!"
Gale seemed seized with a desire to speak, but, even while hehesitated, out of the silent night there came the sound of quickfootsteps approaching briskly, as if the owner were in haste and knewwhither he was bound. Up the steps they came lightly; then the room andthe whole silence round about rang and echoed with a peremptory signal.Evidently this man rapped on the board door to awaken and alarm, forinstead of his knuckles he used some hard and heavy thing like agun-butt.
"Lieutenant Burrell! Lieutenant Burrell!" a gruff voice cried.
"Who's there?" called the young man.
"Let me in! Quick! I've got work for you to do! Open up, I say! This isBen Stark!"