Chapter XXXI
Goodheart Makes a Promise and Breaks It
Pauline was a singularly honest little soul, but she now discovered inherself unsuspected capacity for duplicity. She went singing about herwork, apparently care-free as a lark. Presently, still humming a Frenchchanson, she appeared on the porch swinging a key, passed the two menwith a gay little nod, and disappeared around the corner of the houseto the cellar.
The rancher apologized for the key. "We've had to lock the cellar latelysince so many movers have been going through on this road. Eh bien! Ourhams--they took wings and flew."
Polly rattled the milk pans for a moment or two and then listened. Fromabove there came to her the sound of three faint raps on the woodwork ofthe bed. She crept up the stairs that led from the cellar into the house.At the top of them was a trapdoor. Very slowly and carefully she pushedthis up. Through the opening she passed into a bedroom.
Softly the girl stole to the bed. From the cellar she had brought abutcher knife and with this she sawed at the rope which bound theprisoner.
"But your handcuffs. What can we do about them?" she whispered.
Clanton stretched his stiff muscles. He made no answer in words. For amoment or two his arms writhed, then from out of the iron bracelet hislong slender hand slowly twisted. Soon the second wrist was also free.
"I've had a lot of fun poked at my girl hands, but they come in usefulsometimes," he murmured.
"I'll have to hurry back or I'll be missed," she told him. "You'll find asaddled horse in the aspens."
He caught her by the shoulders and held her fast. "You've been thetruest little friend ever a man had. You've stuck by me an' believed inme even when I didn't believe in myself any longer. No matter what folkssaid about me or about you for takin' an interest in such a scamp, younever quit fightin' to keep me decent. I've heard tell of guardianangels--well, that's what you've been to me, little pilgrim."
"I haven't forgotten the boy who rode up Escondido Canon to save me fromdeath and dishonor," Pauline cried softly.
"You've paid that debt fifty times. I owe you more than I can tell. Iwisht I knew a way to pay it."
Her soft and dusky eyes clung to his pleadingly. "If you get away, Jim,you _will_ be good, won't you?"
"I'll be as good as I've got it in me to be. I don't know how good thatis, Polly. But I'll do my level best."
"Oh, I'm so glad," she whispered. "Good luck--heaps of it."
He was not quite sure whether it was his privilege to kiss the parted redlips upturned to him, but he took a chance and was not rebuked.
Pauline went noiselessly down the steps again into the cellar whileClanton held the trapdoor. He lowered it inch by inch so that it wouldnot creak, then spread over it the Navajo rug that had been there beforethe entrance of the girl.
Pierre Roubideau was still on his first pipe when Polly came round thecorner of the house and stopped at the porch steps.
"I want to show you our new colt, Jack," she said to the deputy. Thismatter-of-fact statement came a little shyly and a little tremulouslyfrom her lips. Her heart was beating furiously.
The officer rose at once. "Just a minute," he said, and went into thehouse.
He unlocked the door of the room where Clanton was and glanced in. Theprisoner lay on the bed in the moonlight, the blankets drawn over him.From his deep, regular breathing Jack judged him to be asleep. Herelocked the door and joined Pauline.
The face of the girl was very white in the moonlight. Her big eyesflashed at him a question. Had he discovered that his prisoner was free?
They walked slowly toward the corral. From it Goodheart could see thefront of the house, but not the cellar entrance at the side. Neither ofthem spoke until they reached the fence. He turned and leaned his elbowsagainst it, facing the house.
Pauline was under great nervous tension. Her lips were dry and her throatparched. If the guard at the rear caught sight of the prisoner while hewas escaping, Clanton would certainly be shot down. She knew Jim betterthan to hope that he would let himself be taken again alive.
The conscience of the girl troubled her too. She was doing this to savethe life of a friend, but it was impossible not to feel a sense oftreachery toward this other friend whose approval was so much morevital to her happiness. Would Jack think that she had conspired againsthis honor in an underhanded way? He was a man of strict principles. Wouldhe cast her off and have no more to do with her?
She woke from her worries to discover that an emotional climax wasimminent. Jack was telling her, in awkward, broken phrases, of his lovefor her. Polly had waited a long time for his confession, but coming atthis hour it filled/her with shame and distress. What an evil chance thathe should be blurting out the story of his faith and trust in herwhile she was in the act of betraying him!
"Don't, Jack, don't!" she begged.
"It's all right," he said gently. "I know you don't care for me. But Ihad to tell you. Just had to do it. Couldn't keep still any longer. It'sall right, Polly. I can stand it. I didn't go for to worry you."
She wept.
Her tears distressed him. He urged her to forget his presumption. She hadbeen so good to him that he had spoken in spite of himself.
Pauline found she could not let him deceive himself. If she let him gonow, perhaps he might never come back.
"You goose!"
Though the words came smothered through her handkerchief, he gainedincredible comfort from them.
"Polly!" he cried.
"Don't you say a word, Jack," she ordered. "Let me do the talking."
"If you'll tell me that--that--you care anything for--for--"
"--For a big stupid who is too modest ever to think enough of himself,"she completed. "Well, I do. I care a great deal for him."
"You don't mean--"
"I do, too. That's just what I mean. No, you keep back there till I'mthrough, Jack. I want to find out if you love me as much as I do you."
"Polly!" he cried a second time.
Her small face was very serious and white in the moonshine.
"Suppose we don't agree about something. Say I do a thing that seemsright to me, but it doesn't seem right to you. What then?"
"It'll seem right to me if you do it," he answered.
"That's just a compliment."
"No, it's the truth. Whatever you do seems right to me."
"But suppose I do something that you think is wrong. Perhaps it may seemto you disloyal."
"If you do it because you think you ought to I'll not find it disloyal."
"Sure, Jack?"
"Certain sure," he answered.
"It's a promise?"
"It's a promise."
Little imps of mischief bubbled into the brown eyes. "Then why don't youkiss me, goose?"
He caught her to him with a fierce rapture.
There came to them the sudden sound of drumming hoofs. A shot rang out inthe night. Goodheart, with the first kiss of his sweetheart almost on hislips, flung Pauline aside and ran to the house.
The other guard met him at the front steps. "By God, he's gone!" the mancried.
"Clanton?"
"Yep."
"Can't be. He was handcuffed, tied to the bed, and locked in. I've gotthe key in my pocket."
The deputy sheriff took the steps at one bound, flung himself across theparlor, and unlocked the door. One glance showed him the empty bed, thedisplaced rug, and the trapdoor. He stepped forward and picked up thebits of rope and the handcuffs.
"Some one cut the rope and freed him," he said, confounded at theimpossibility of the thing that had occurred.
"Must of slipped his hands out of the cuffs, looks like," the guardsuggested.
"He got me to give him a bigger size--complained they chafed his wrists."
"Some trick that, if he _has_ got kid hands."
The chill eyes of Goodheart gimleted into those of his assistant. "Didyou do this, Brad? God help you if you did."
A light step sounded on the thresho
ld. Pauline came into the room. "I didit, Jack," she said.
"You!"
"I came up through the trapdoor when I was in the cellar. I cut the ropeand told him there was a horse saddled in the aspens."
Thoughts raced in his bewildered mind. She had planned all thiscarefully. Almost under his very eyes she had done it. Then she had luredhim from the house to give Clanton a better chance. She had let him makelove to her so that she could keep him at the corral while the prisonerescaped. It was all a trick. Even now she was laughing up her sleeveat the way she had made a fool of him.
"You saddled the horse and left it there." His statement was a question,too.
"Yes. I had to save him. I knew he was innocent."
All the explanations she had intended shriveled up before the scorn inhis eyes. He brushed past her without a word and strode out of the house.
Pauline went to her room and flung herself on the bed. After a time herfather came in and sat down beside the girl. He put a gentle hand on hershoulder.
"I know what you think, dad," she said without turning her head. "But Icouldn't help it, I had to do it."
"It may make you trouble, ma petite."
"I can't help that. Jim didn't kill Mr. Webb. I know it."
"After a fair trial a jury said he did, Polly. We have to take their wordfor it."
"You think I did wrong then."
"You did what you think was right. In my heart is no blame for you."
He comforted her as best he could and left her to sleep. But she did notsleep. All through the night she lay and listened. She was miserablyunhappy. Her head and her heart ached. Jack had promised that she shouldbe the judge of what was right for her to do, and at the first test hehad failed her. She made excuses for him, but the hurt of herdisappointment could not be assuaged.
In the early morning she heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard.During the night she had not undressed. Now she rose and went out to meether lover. He was at the stable, a gaunt figure, hollow-eyed, dusty, andstern. He had failed to recapture his prisoner.
"Jack," she pleaded, reaching out a hand timidly toward him.
Again he rejected her advance in grim silence. Swinging to the saddle, herode out of the gate and down the road toward Live-Oaks.
With a little whimper Polly moved blindly to the house through her tears.