Jean of the Lazy A

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A LITTLE ENLIGHTENMENT

  Sometime in the night Jean awoke to hear footsteps in the corridoroutside her room. She sat up with a start, and her right hand wentgroping for her gun. Just for the moment she thought that she was inher room at the Lazy A, and that the night-prowler had come and wasbeginning his stealthy search of the house.

  Then she heard some one down in the street call out a swift sentence inSpanish, and get a laugh for an answer. She remembered that she was inNogales, within talking distance of Mexico, and that she had found ArtOsgood, and that he did not behave like a fugitive murderer, but like afriend who was anxious to help free her father.

  The footsteps went on down the hall,--the footsteps of Lite, who hadcome and stood for a minute outside her door to make sure that all wasquiet and that she slept. But Jean, now that she knew where she was,lay wide awake and thinking. Suddenly she sat up again, staringstraight before her.

  That letter,--the letter Art had taken to her father, the letter he hadread and put in the pocket of his chaps! Was that what the man hadbeen hunting for, those nights when he had come searching in thatsecret, stealthy way? She did not remember ever having looked into thepocket of her father's chaps, though they had hung in her room allthose three years since the tragedy. Pockets in chaps were not, as ageneral thing, much used. Men carried matches in them sometimes, ormoney. The flap over her dad's chap-pocket was buttoned down, and theleather was stiff; perhaps the letter was there yet.

  She got up and turned on the light, and looked at her watch. Shewanted to start then, that instant, for Los Angeles. She wanted totake her dad's chaps out of her trunk where she had packed them justfor the comfort of having them with her, and she wanted to look and seeif the letter was there still. There was no particular reason forbelieving that this was of any particular importance, or had anybearing whatever upon the crime. But the idea was there, and it naggedat her.

  Her watch said that it was twenty-five minutes after two o'clock. Thetrain, Lite had told her, would leave for Tucson at seven-forty-five inthe morning. She told herself that, since it was too far to walk, andsince she could not start any sooner by staying up and freezing, shemight just as well get back into bed and try to sleep.

  But she could not sleep. She kept thinking of the letter, and tryingto imagine what clue it could possibly give if she found it still inthe pocket. Carl had sent it, Art said. A thought came to Jean whichshe tried to ignore; and because she tried to ignore it, it returnedwith a dogged insistence, and took clearer shape in her mind, andformed itself into questions which she was compelled at last to faceand try to answer.

  Was it her Uncle Carl who had come and searched the house at night,trying to find that letter? If it were her uncle, why was he soanxious to find it, after three years had passed? What was in theletter? If it had any bearing whatever upon the death of Johnny Croft,why hadn't her dad mentioned it? Why hadn't her Uncle Carl saidsomething about it? Was the letter just a note about some ranchbusiness? Then why else should any one come at night and prowl allthrough the house, and never take anything? Why had he come that firstnight?

  Jean drew in her breath sharply. All at once, like a flashlight turnedupon a dark corner of her mind, she remembered something about thatnight. She remembered how she had told her Uncle Carl that she meantto prove that her dad was innocent; that she meant to investigate thedevious process by which the Lazy A ranch and all the stock had ceasedto belong to her or her father; that she meant to adopt sly,sleuth-like methods; she remembered the very words which she had used.She remembered how bitter her uncle had become. Had she frightenedhim, somehow, with her bold declaration that she would not "letsleeping dogs lie" any longer? Had he remembered the letter, and beenuneasy because of what was in it? But what COULD be in it, if it werewritten at least a day before the terrible thing had happened?

  She remembered her uncle's uncontrolled fury that evening when she hadridden over to see Lite. What had she said to cause it? She tried torecall her words, and finally she did remember saying something aboutproving that her own money had been paying for her "keep" for threeyears. Then he had gone into that rage, and she had not at the timeseen any connection between her words and his raving anger. Butperhaps there was a connection. Perhaps--

  "Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed aloud. She was remembering thetelegram which she had sent him just before she left Los Angeles forNogales. "He'll just simply go WILD when he gets that wire!" Sherecalled now how he had insisted all along that Art Osgood knewabsolutely nothing about the murder; she recalled also, with an uncannysort of vividness, Art's manner when he had admitted for the secondtime that the letter had been from Carl. She remembered how he hadchanged when he found that her father was being punished for the crime.

  She did not know, just yet, how all these tangled facts were going towork out. She had not yet come to the final question that she wouldpresently be asking herself. She felt sure that her uncle knewmore,--a great deal more,--about Johnny Croft's death than he hadappeared to know; but she had not yet reached the point to which herreasonings inevitably would bring her; perhaps her mind wassubconsciously delaying the ultimate conclusion.

  She got up and dressed; unfastening her window, she stepped out on theveranda. The street was quiet at that time in the morning. A sentrystood on guard at the corner, and here and there a light flared in somewindow where others were wakeful. But for the most part the town layasleep. Over in what was really the Mexican quarter, three or fourroosters were crowing as if they would never leave off. The sound ofthem depressed Jean, and made her feel how heavy was the weight of hergreat undertaking,--heavier now, when the end was almost in sight, thanit had seemed on that moonlight night when she had ridden over to theLazy A and had not the faintest idea of how she was going to accomplishany part of her task which she had set herself. She shivered, andturned back to get the gay serape which she had bought from an oldMexican woman when they were coming out of that queer restaurant lastevening.

  When she came out again, Lite was standing there, smoking a cigaretteand leaning against a post.

  "You'd better get some sleep, Jean," he reproved her when she came andstood beside him. "You had a pretty hard day yesterday; and to-daywon't be any easier. Better go back and lie down."

  Jean merely pulled the serape snugger about her shoulders and sat downsidewise upon the railing. "I couldn't sleep," she said. "If I could,I wouldn't be out here; I'd be asleep, wouldn't I? Why don't you go tobed yourself?"

  "Ah-h, Art's learned to talk Spanish," he said drily. "I got myself allworked up trying to make out what he was trying to say in his sleep,and then I found out it wasn't my kinda talk, anyway. So I quit.What's the matter that you can't sleep?"

  Jean stared down at the shadowy street. A dog ran out from somewhere,sniffed at a doorstep, and trotted over into Mexico and up to thesentry. The sentry patted it on the head and muttered a friendly wordor two. Jean watched him absently. It was all so peaceful! Not at allwhat one would expect, after seeing pictures of all those refugees andall those soldiers fighting, and the dead lying in the street in somelittle town whose name she could not pronounce correctly.

  "Did you hear Art tell about taking a letter to dad the day before?"she asked abruptly. "He wasn't telling the truth, not all the time.But somehow I believe that was the truth. He said dad stuck it in thepocket of his chaps. I believe it's there yet, Lite. I don't rememberever looking into that pocket. And I believe--Lite, I never saidanything about it, but somebody kept coming to the house in the nightand hunting around through all the rooms. He never came into my room,so I--I didn't bother him; but I've wondered what he was after. Itjust occurred to me that maybe--"

  "I never could figure out what he was after, either," Lite observedquietly.

  "You?" Jean turned her head, so that her eyes shone in the light of astreet lamp while she looked up at him. "How in the world did you knowabout him?"

  L
ite laughed drily. "I don't think there's much concerns you that Idon't know," he confessed. "I saw him, I guess, every time he camearound. He couldn't have made a crooked move,--and got away with it.But I never could figure him out exactly."

  Jean looked at him, touched by the care of her that he had betrayed inthose few words. Always she had accepted him as the one friend whonever failed her, but lately,--since the advent of the motion-picturepeople, to be exact,--a new note had crept into his friendship; a newmeaning into his watching over her. She had sensed it, but she hadnever faced it openly. She pulled her thoughts away from it now.

  "Did you know who he was?"

  It was like Jean to come straight to the point. Lite smiled faintly;he knew that question would come, and he knew that he would have toanswer it.

  "Sure. I made it my business to know who he was."

  "Who was it, Lite?"

  Lite did not say. He knew that question was coming also, but he didnot know whether he ought to answer it.

  "It was Uncle Carl, wasn't it?"

  Lite glanced down at her quickly. "You're a good little guesser."

  "Then it was that letter he was after." She was silent for a minute,and then she looked at her watch. "And I can't get at those chapsbefore to-morrow!" She sighed and leaned back against the post.

  "Lite, if it was worth all that hunting for, it must mean something tous. I wonder what it can be; don't you know?"

  "No," said Lite slowly, "I don't. And it's something a man don't wantto do any guessing about."

  This, Jean felt, was a gentle reproof for her own speculations upon thesubject. She said no more about the letter.

  "I sent him a telegram," she informed Lite irrelevantly, "saying I'dlocated Art and was going to take him back there. I wonder what hethought when he got that!"

  Lite turned half around and stared down at her. He opened his lips tospeak, hesitated, and closed them without making a sound. He turnedaway and stared down into the street that was so empty. After a littlehe glanced at his own watch, with the same impulse Jean had felt. Thehours and minutes were beginning to drag their feet as they passed.

  "You go in," he ordered gently, "and lie down. You'll be all worn outwhen the time comes for you to get busy. We don't know what's ahead ofus on this trail, Jean. Right now, it's peaceful as Sunday morningdown in Maine; so you go in and get some sleep, while you have achance, and stop thinking about things. Go on, Jean. I'll call youplenty early; you needn't be afraid of missing the train."

  Jean smiled a little at the tender, protective note of authority in hisvoice and manner. Whether she permitted it or not, Lite would go righton watching over her and taking care of her. With a sudden desire toplease him, she rose obediently. When she passed him, she reached outand gave his arm a little squeeze.

  "You cantankerous old tyrant," she drawled in a whisper, "you do loveto haze me around, don't you? Just to spite you, I'll do it!" She wentin and left him standing there, smoking and leaning against the post,calm as the stars above. But under that surface calm, the heart ofLite Avery was thumping violently. His arm quivered still under thethrill of Jean's fingers. Your bottled-up souls are quick to sense themeaning in a tone or a touch; Jean, whether she herself knew it or not,had betrayed an emotion that set Lite's thoughts racing out into agolden future. He stood there a long while, staring out upon thedarkness, his eyes shining.