CHAPTER FIVE--THE CRY IN THE DUSK
MONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixedin eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grassesand field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between thedown-curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrablethickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon anoble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off southernhorizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give rock-studded accessto the beach. Outside of the miniature forests in the hollows there isno tree-growth on the whole forty square miles of land, excepting thedeep-shaded tangle of the Hither Wood on the far northwest, into whichnone makes his way except an occasional sportsman on a coon hunt.
Except for the lighthouse family at the eastern tip, the threelife-saving stations with their attendant houses, and a little huddleof fisher-huts on a reach of the Sound, there were no habitants inthe mid-September of 1902, the few summer cottagers having fled thesharpened air. All day long the pasturing sheep of the interior mightrove without the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies, alonelier stretch of land would be difficult of discovery.
To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart after a sleep unvexedof labelled bottles, this loneliness was a balm, provided only it provedto be loneliness for two. For, with an eagerness strange and disquietingto his straightforward and rather unsentimental soul, he longed to lookagain upon the girl whose eyes had met his when he staggered back fromthe clutching hands of death. And with that longing was mingled anamused curiosity to clear up the puzzle of the impetuous souvenir shehad left him. Within himself he resolved to solve this problem at thefirst opportunity; but just at this moment the opportunity was receding.
Far and clear against the sky-line, he could see from his window twomounted figures. Miss Ravenden and her father were riding to Amagansett,to be gone, as he learned later with disgust, all day. Helga Johnstonhad gone up to the lighthouse to stay until the following morning, andHaynes was working on his investigation of Petersen's death.
Nothing was left for the lone guest except to amuse himself as best hemight.
The morning he spent in wandering meditation. Leisure for thought is aquick developer of certain processes. The Ravendens were to be at ThirdHouse for the month, he understood. One might get very well acquaintedin a month, under favourable circumstances. At present the immediatecircumstances were far from favourable. But Dick slapped the pocketbookto which he had transferred his keepsake from Miss Ravenden.
"That'll break _some_ ice, I guess," he observed.
At dinner he contemplated a vacant place with an expression of suchunhappiness that old Johnston took pity on him.
"The white perch'll likely be risin' in the lake yonder this evening,"he said.
Here was antidote for any bane. Dick took his rod and went. The fishnobly fulfilled Johnston's word of them, and Dick had just landed ahandsome one, when glancing up he saw a net moving along the line of asmall ridge.
"The bug-hunter," he surmised.
"Oh, Professor Ravenden!" he called; and was instantly stricken with thedilemma: "What the dickens shall I say to him?"
The net paused, half-revolved and ascended, and Dick gasped as notProfessor Ravenden, but his daughter, mounted the ridge.
"Did you want my father?" she asked.
"Oh--er--ah, good-evening, Miss Ravenden," stammered Colton. "I--I--I'vebeen wanting to see you."
"There is some mistake," said she coldly. "I don't know who you are."
"My name is Colton," he said. "I'm staying at Third House, and----"
"Does the mere fact of your staying at the same hotel give you theprivilege of forcing your acquaintance upon people?" she asked sharply.
Then--for Dick Colton was good for the eye of woman to look upon,and not at all the sort of man in appearance to force a vulgarflirtation--she added:
"I don't want to be unpleasant about it, but really, don't you think youtake things a little too much for granted?"
"But you spoke to me first," blurted out Dick. "I'm awfully sorry tohave you think me rude, but I want to know what this is."
Curiosity drew Dorothy Ravenden as powerfully as it commonly draws lessimperious natures.
Somewhat peculiar this man might be, but it seemed a harmlessaberration, and it certainly took an interesting guise. She bent forwardto look at the object extended to her.
"Why, it's a twenty-dollar bill!"
"Then my eye-sight is still good," he observed contentedly. "Questionnumber two: Why did you give it to me?"
"To you?" To Dick Colton, as she stood there poised, the gracious colourflushing up into her cheeks, her lips half-opened, she was the loveliestthing he ever had seen. The hand that held the bill shook. "To you?" sherepeated. "I didn't."
"It was just like an operatic setting," he expounded slowly. "Backgroundof cliffs, firelight in the middle, ocean surf in front. Out of themagic circle of fire steps the Fairy Queen and hands to the poor butdeserving toiler what in common parlance is known as a double saw-buck.Please, your Majesty, why? And do you want a receipt?"
"Oh!" she said in charming dismay. And again "Oh!" Then it came out: "Itook you for one of the life-savers."
"The life-savers?" repeated Dick.
"Yes. Is that strange? You were so big and shaggy and----" she stoppedshort of the word "splendid" which was on her lips. "How could I tell?You looked as much like a seal as a man." The ripple of her laughter,full of joyousness, yet with a little catch of some underlying feelingin it, was a patent of fellowship, which would have astonished most ofMiss Ravenden's hundreds of admirers, among whom she was regarded as arather haughty beauty. "I don't know many men who would have done it--orcould have done it," she added simply, and gave him her eyes, full.
Dick turned red. "Anyone would have," he said. "It was the only thing todo."
She nodded slowly as if an impression had been confirmed to hersatisfaction.
"As for this," he continued, looking from her to the greenback, andstriving to speak calmly, when his heart was a-thrill with the desire totell her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, "if it's intended asa reward of merit, I'll turn it over to Miss Johnston."
"Wasn't she magnificent?" cried the girl. "I'll slay Helga!" she addedwith a sudden change of tone. "She's a beast of the field. She knewabout the--the bill and she never told me."
"That'll cost her just twenty dollars," declared Colton judicially,"because now I won't turn it over to her."
"Give it back to me, please," said the girl, holding out a tanned andslender hand.
"Give it back?" cried Colton in assumed chagrin. "Why, I already hadspent that twenty in imagination."
"On what?" asked the girl rather impatiently.
"It's a long list," replied Colton cunningly. "You'd better sit downwhile I tell it over." He threw his coat over a rock, and she perchedherself on it daintily.
"First, a hundred packages of plug tobacco. All coast-guards use plug,I believe. Then five dollars' worth of prints of prominent actors andactresses in gaudy colours. The rest in Mexican lottery tickets," heconcluded lamely, his invention giving out.
"It wasn't worth sitting down for," she said disparagingly. "If you hadintended to get something really useful, I might have let you keep it.Please!" The little hand went forth again.
Hastily he produced a ten-dollar bill and two fives. "You don't mindhaving it in change?" he said anxiously. "You see, this is the firstmoney I ever earned outside of my profession, and I mean to frame it."
"If twenty dollars means so little to you that you can have it hangingaround framed----"
"This particular twenty means a great deal to me," he interrupted.
She rose. "I was going down to try a cast or two," she said.
"With a net?" asked Dick. "I should like to see that."
"There's a fishing rod in the handle of the net," she explained,ignoring the hint. "I keep the net rigged because I help my fathercollect. Ent
omology is his specialty, and there are a few rare mothshere that he hopes to get."
"Am I sufficiently introduced now to ask if I may walk along with you?"
"I'm sorry I was so--so snippy," she said sweetly. "To make up for it,you may."
"Are you here particularly for collecting moths?" he asked, stepping toher side.
"Yes, one or two kinds that my father and I are studying. I playbutterfly in the winter and hunt them in the summer. Everyone here hasa purpose. Father and I are adding to the sum of human knowledge on_Lepidoptera_. Mr. Haynes is spending his vacation with Helga. Helgais resting, before taking up her musical studies. You ought to have apurpose. What has brought you here?"
Now, Dick Colton, like many big men, was awkward, and like most awkwardmen, was shy about women. Therefore, it was with a sort of stunnedamazement and admiration for his own audacity that he found himselflooking straight into Dorothy Ravenden's unfathomable eyes as he repliedbriefly:
"Fate."
"Well, upon my soul!" gasped that much-habituated young woman ofthe world, surprised for a brief instant out of her poise. Quicklyrecovering, she added: "A fortunate fate for Helga, surely. Except foryou, she and Mr. Haynes must have been drowned."
"You knew her before, didn't you?"
"Yes; we visit at the same house in Philadelphia, and father and I havebeen coming down here for several years. I know her well. If I were aman, I should go the world over for Helga Johnston."
"She and Haynes are engaged, are they not?"
"No, not engaged," said the girl. "She is everything in the world to Mr.Haynes; but she isn't in love with him. He has never tried to make her.There is some reason; I don't know what. Sometimes I think he doesn'tcare for her in that way either. Or perhaps he doesn't realise it."
"Surely she seems fond of him."
"She is devoted to him. Why shouldn't she be? He has done everything forher."
"How happens that?"
"It's the kind of story that makes you love your kind," said the girldreamily. "When Mr. Haynes first came here he was a young reporter witha small income, and Helga was a child of twelve with an eager mind andthe promise of a lovely voice. He gave her books and got the Johnstonsto send her to a good school. Then as she grew up and he came tobe 'star man' (I think they call it) on his paper, he went to theJohnstons, who had come to know him well, and asked them to let him sendHelga to preparatory school and then to college. It was agreed that shewas not to know of the money that he put in their hands, and she neverwould have known except for something that happened in her freshmanyear. She held her tongue to save a classmate. They were going to expelher, when Mr. Haynes got wind of it, took the first train, ferreted outthe truth, and went to the president.
"'Here are the facts,' he said. 'I'll leave them for you to act on, orI'll take them with me for publication, as you decide.'
"The case was hushed up; but in the adjustment Helga found out aboutMr. Haynes' part in her education. Now he is arranging for her musicaleducation. He has no family, nor anyone dependent on him; all hisinterests in life are centred in her. And the best of it is that she isworthy of it."
"It must be a great deal to such a man to inspire such absolute trust ina woman as he has in her," said Colton after a pause. "'I knew hewould come after me,' she said when I asked her how she dared take sodesperate a chance."
Miss Ravenden nodded at him appreciatively. "Yes; you see it too," shesaid. "You did something worth while when you saved those two. But whatabout your Portuguese? Do you really think he had anything to do withkilling that poor sailor? Helga told me about it. What an extraordinarycase it is!"
"What puzzles Haynes with his trained mind is surely too much for me,"said Colton. "It seems that the man--great Heaven! What was that?" Fromthe direction of the beach came a long-drawn, dreadful scream of agony,unhuman, yet with something of an appeal in it, too. The pair turnedblanched faces toward each other.
"I must go over there at once," said Colton. "Someone is in trouble.Miss Ravenden, can you make your way to the house alone?"
The girl's small, rounded chin went up and outward. "I shall go withyou," she said.
"You must not. There's no telling what may have happened. Please!"
With a swift, deft movement she parted the heavy handle of hernet-stock, disclosing an ingeniously set revolver, which she pressedinto his hand.
"I'm going with you," she repeated, with the most alluring obstinacy.
"Come, then," said Colton, and her pulses stirred to the tone. He caughther by the hand, and they ran, reaching the cliff-top breathless.
Barely discernible, on the sand, a quarter of a mile east of GraveyardPoint where the wreck had struck, was a dark body. They hurried downinto the ravine and out of it, Colton in advance. Suddenly he burst intoa laugh of nervous relief.
"It's a dead sheep," he said. "I thought it was a man."
He bent over it and his jaw dropped. "Look at that!" he cried.
Across the back of the animal's neck, half-sever-ing it from the head,was a great gash, still bleeding slightly. They peered out into thedusk. As far as the eye could see, nothing moved along the sand.