Part 46 (1/2)
The sheriff poured his libation, swallowed it, and wiped his long mustache on the back of his hand. Then he said: ”U-um! A-ah!” Whereupon Zack poured another and pa.s.sed it to him. Old Zack did not understand the drift of things in the least, but he did know that this thirty-year-old bourbon of the Colonel's was a tremendously potent mollifier in all times of stress. Jess held the gla.s.s fondly up to the light, and was more careful now to brush away his mustache. It evidently dawned on him that the flavor of the first ”three fingers” had been neglected through haste.
”I don't remember Tyse,” he said at length, reaching for one of Zack's store cigars. ”When was that?”
”Three years before,” Dale answered.
”Three yeahs befoh Tusk?”
”No, three years before Bill.”
”Wall, I'll be--heah, Zack, give me another snifter!” Jess nervously drank it, handed back the gla.s.s and looked at Dale. ”In my jedgment, the statters of limintation is clean busted on that case, too. But I'll jest tell you as a friend, that if you go resurrectin' any moh of them man slaughters--I don't care if they're older'n the 'sa.s.sination of Garfield--I'll hang you for bein' a plain d.a.m.n fool.” With this he uttered a loud guffaw, but once more grew sober and laid his hand on Dale's shoulder: ”Don't you go killin' no moh fellers 'round heah! I do mean that! Leastwise, don't do it while you're stayin' at the Cunnel's.
It ain't right to his folks, an' I won't stand for it!”
”Then Tusk'd better keep away,” the mountaineer grumbled.
”Wall, if the Cunnel don't want him 'round, I can mighty easy give him a tip to vamoose--but you let me 'tend to it, understand? Now,” he chuckled, ”I'd better git back an' unlock Brent from them steps!”
So it was that, when he mounted and rode away, his mind was distinctly on Brent and the caressing quality of the Colonel's thirty-year-old bourbon, and not at all concerned with the mission which had taken him to Arden.
Dale stood looking after him, but not thinking. He stood in a sort of ferment of happy thrills and deepest sorrow. The bars that had momentarily been put up between him and his pasture of learning, now lay again at his feet. He could pa.s.s through at will, any time he desired.
But what of Jane? Would she be there to welcome, to help him?--to take his hand again and lead him into the cool places, into the mazy shadows, through vista after vista of appealing outlook? He turned back to the library and, with hesitation, stepped through the low window.
The room was empty. His eyes glanced down at the book which she had torn from his hand and flung away. He saw that it had fallen, sprawled and awkward, and was leaning drunkenly against the legs of the dictionary stand. Across from it, by a deep leather chair, lay, also on the floor, a dainty handkerchief, moist and pressed into a little ball. Each of these held him with an esoteric charm; but his eyes remained upon the tear-moistened, scented linen as though at any moment it might begin to accuse him. He was afraid to touch it, and afraid to touch the book. He felt that he had obtruded an unwelcome presence upon these two mute evidences of pa.s.sion which seemed now to be drawn momentarily apart for breath before re-engaging in the fray. In this strained expectancy the measured ticking of the old clock in the corner was startlingly loud.
One might have counted a hundred, and then, as quietly as he came, he tiptoed out, crossed the porch and pa.s.sed on through the trees.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
OUT OF THE DYING DAY
When the sheriff turned away, Jane had for an instant closed her eyes in a prayer of happy thankfulness; but then a torture, a tearing and racking mortification because she had proved herself so weak before the mountain man so strong--and in contrast to Brent! (ah, G.o.d, what sacrifice would he not make for her!)--thrust its claws into her sensitive nature, and she blindly fled to the long room whose musty silence promised solitude. At the far end of this she threw herself straight out upon a sofa, and for more than an hour buried her face in its linen coverlet. Her brows were drawn into a frown as she wilfully shut out the image of Brent, for something sterner must first be faced.
Something must be done to re-establish Dale's faith in her, or she must forever abandon him to other hands and other influences. Today--now--she must act. And this left her helpless, because she could find no way. His nature had made a complete revolution in that moment of crisis before the sheriff came; his words had carried her beyond her understanding of him! She did not know this new Dale, and how could she re-establish faith with a stranger?
But at any hazard it must be tried. Were she to fail him, he would be like a compa.s.s with no magnetic pole--spinning, vacillating. Suppose he should go spinning off from his now safe orbit? And then suppose he should come rus.h.i.+ng back to her for help?--could she ever again enter those former halls of confidence with this new, strange man, as he had grown to be?
This was the price, she told herself, of having been weaker than he; of having behaved more ign.o.bly! The contemplation of it sapped her self-a.s.surance, and as self-a.s.surance vanished there began to enter a new feeling which she unwillingly recognized as fear.
She was not afraid of Dale--not the man! No personal element had ever existed between them. But she was most decidedly afraid of the far-reaching consequences which might be wrought by her failure to hold him steadfast. For if he could rise to a place whose height had dazzled her, why should she not in his eyes have sunk as astonis.h.i.+ngly low? By what incentive would he then come again for guidance? How could she have the effrontery to offer it?
Between remorseless reasonings and the stings of wounded pride, she pressed her face still deeper into the old sofa.
It must have been an hour later when she sprang up and looked anxiously at the darkening windows. She had formed no definite plan, but her dominant impulse was to act before he should have a night to a.n.a.lyse, to settle, to censure. Stopping at the first wall mirror she made a few touches to her hair and searched her face for signs of tears; then pa.s.sed out, closing the heavy door with a firmness which might have meant all fears were shut within.
At the library she hesitated, experiencing a momentary relief when it was found to be deserted. She went to the porch but it, too, was vacant; and as far as she could see out through the grounds no one stirred. Yet, as her search continued, her self-a.s.surance came bounding back, and when she started across the gra.s.s to an old arbor, where he had sometimes been known to go at this hour, she became once more the courageous, dauntless mountain girl.
He was there, just as she suspected. Through the gathering shadows he could be seen leaning heavily against one of the upright posts, his shoulders stooped, and his face set upon the west which was a fiery red.
Going softly along the tanbark path, and stopping within a pace of him, she waited to see if he would turn; then asked: