The Cow Puncher Part 29

"h.e.l.lo, is that the office of _The Call_? Will you let me speak to----"

Her mother interrupted almost frantically. "Irene, you are not going to tell the papers? You mustn't do that. Think of what it means--the disgrace--a shooting affair, almost, in our home. Think of me, your mother----"

"I'll think of you on one consideration--that you explain what happened last night, and tell me where Dave Elden is."

"I can't explain. I don't know. And I don't know----"

"And you don't want to know. And you don't care, so long as you can keep it out of the papers. I do. I'm going to find out the facts about this, if every paper in the country should print them. h.e.l.lo?

Yes, I want to speak to Miss Morrison."

In a few words she explained Dave's sudden disappearance, stripping the incident of all but vital facts. Bert Morrison was all sympathy.

"It's a big story, you know," she said, "but we won't think of it that way. Not a line, so far as I am concerned. Edith Duncan is the girl we need. A sort of adopted sister to Dave. She may know more than any of us."

But Edith knew absolutely nothing; nothing, except that her own heart was thrown into a turmoil of emotions. She spent the day and the evening down town, rotating about the points where Dave might likely be found. And the next morning she called on Irene Hardy.

In spite of all her efforts at self-control she trembled as she pressed the bell; trembled violently as she waited for the door to open. She had never met Irene Hardy; it was going to be a strange experience, introducing herself to the woman who had been preferred over her, and who had, apparently, proven so unworthy of that preference. She had difficult things to say, and even while she said them she must fight a battle to the death with the jealousy of her natural womanhood. And she must be very, very careful that in saying things which were hard to say she did not say hard things. And, most difficult of all, she must try to pave the way to a reconciliation between Dave and the woman who stood between her and happiness.

Irene attended the door, as was her custom. Her eyes took in Edith's face and figure with mild surprise; Edith was conscious of the process of a quick intellect endeavouring to cla.s.sify her;--solicitor, music teacher, business girl? And in that moment of pause she saw Irene's eyes, and a strange commotion of feeling surged through her. There was something in those eyes that suggested to Edith a new side to Dave's nature; it was as though the blind had suddenly been drawn from strange chambers of his soul. So this was the woman Dave had chosen to love.

No; one does not choose whom one will love; one loves without choosing.

Edith was conscious of that; she knew that in her own life. And even as she looked this first time upon Irene she became aware of a subtle attraction gathering about her; she felt something of that power which had held Dave to a single course through all these years. And suddenly a great new truth was born in Edith Duncan. Suddenly she realized that if the steel at any time prove unfaithful to the magnet the fault lies not in the steel, but in the magnet. What a change of view, what a reversion of all accepted things, came with the realization of that truth which roots down into the bedrock of all nature! . . .

"Won't you come in?" Irene was saying. Her voice was sweet and musical, but there was a note of sadness in it which set responsive chords atremble all through Edith's heart. Must she love this woman?

Must she, in spite of herself, love this, of all women?

"I am Edith Duncan," she managed to say. "I--I think I have something to say that may interest you."

There was a quick leap in Irene's eyes; the leap of that intuitive feminine sense of danger which so seldom errs in dealing with its own s.e.x, and is yet so unreliable a defence from the dangers of the other.

Mrs. Hardy was in the living-room. "Won't you come up to my work shop?" Irene answered without change of voice, and they ascended the stairs together.

"I draw a little," Irene was saying, talking fast. "Oh yes, I have quite commercialized my art, such as it is. I draw pictures of shoes, and s.h.i.+rt waists, and other women's wear which really belong to the field of a feminine artist. But I haven't lost my soul altogether. I daub in colour a little--yes, daub, that's the word. But it keeps one's soul alive. You will hardly recognize that," she said, indicating an easel, "but here is the original." She ran up the blind of the window which looked from the room out to the westward, and far over the brown shoulders of the foothills rose the Rockies, majestic, calm, imperturbable, their white summits flas.h.i.+ng in the blaze of autumn suns.h.i.+ne. "No warfare there," Irene went on. "No plotting, no cruelty, no cowardice, no misunderstanding. And to think that they will stand there forever; forever, as we know time; when our city, our civilization, the very memory of our age shall have gone out. I never look at them without feeling how--how--how----"

She trembled, and her voice choked; she put out her arm to a chair.

When she turned her face there were tears on it. . . . "Tell me,--Edith," she said. . . . "You know" . . .

"I know some things," Edith managed to say. "I know, _now_, that I do not know all. Dave and I are old friends--my father took a liking to him and he used often to be in our house--he made him think of our own boy that was killed and would have been just his age--and we got to know each other very well and he told me about you, long ago. And last night I found him at his rooms, almost mad, and swearing to shoot Conward. And then he told me that--that----"

"Yes? Yes? What did he tell you? I am not afraid----"

Edith turned her eyes to where the white crests of the mountains cut like a crumpled keel through a sea of infinite blue. "He told me he saw Conward here . . . upstairs . . . and Conward made a boast . . .

and he would have shot him but you rushed upon him and begged him not to. He said you would have taken the bullet yourself rather than it should find Conward."

"Oh, oh," the girl cried, in the pain of one mortally hurt. "How could he think that? I didn't care for him--for Conward--but for Dave. I knew there had been a quarrel--I didn't know why--and I knew if Dave shot him--and he _can_ shoot--I've seen him break six bottles out of six on the gallop--it wasn't self-defence--whatever it was he couldn't plead that--and they'd hang him, and that was all I saw, Edith, that was all I saw, and I would--yes I _would_ rather have taken the bullet myself than that that should happen----"

"You poor girl!" said Edith. "You poor girl," and her arms found the other's neck. "You have been hurt, hurt." And then, under her breath, "More than me."

. . . "What has he done?"

"He talked his problems over with me, and after he had talked awhile he became more reasonable. He had already been convinced that he should offer his services to his country, in these times. And I think I persuaded him that it was better to leave vengeance where it belonged.

He said he couldn't remain here, and he has already left for England.

I am afraid I encouraged him to leave at once. You see, I didn't understand."

Irene had taken a chair, and for some minutes she sat in silence. "I don't blame you," she said at length. "You gave him good advice. And I don't blame him, although he might have been less ready to jump at conclusions. There remains only one thing for me to do."

"What?" said Edith, after a moment's hesitation.

"Follow him! I shall follow him, and make him understand. If he must go into battle--with all that that means--he must go in knowing the truth. You have been very kind, Miss Duncan. You have gone out of your way to do me a great service, and you have shown more kindness than I have any right to claim from a stranger. . . . I feel, too, the call for vengeance," she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "but first I must find Dave. I shall follow him at once. I shall readily locate him in some way through the military service. Everything is organized; they will be able to find his name."

She accompanied her visitor to the door. They shook hands and looked for a moment in each other's eyes. And then Edith burst away and hurried down the street.

Irene had searched London for two weeks. The confidence of her earlier inquiries had diminished with each successive blind trail, which, promising results at first, led her into a maze of confusion and disappointment. The organization of the military service commanded less enthusiasm than she had felt a month before. She saw it struggling with the apparently impossible; it was as though she, in her little studio, had been suddenly called upon to paint all the portraits in the world . . . In some degree she understood the difficulties. In equal degree she sympathized with those who were striving to overcome them and she hung on from day to day in her search with a dogged determination which set its teeth against admitting that the search was hopeless. Her little store of money was fast dwindling away; she looked into the face of every man in uniform with a pathetic earnestness that more than once caused her to be misunderstood.

At last one great fear had settled on her heart. It came upon her first suddenly on s.h.i.+pboard; she had resolutely thrown it out of her mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a country already swarming with its citizen soldiery. . . . And yet there was nothing to do but keep on.

She had sought a park bench where groups of soldiers were continually moving by. The lights shone on their faces, and her own tired eyes followed them incessantly. Always her ear was alert for a voice that should set her heart a-pounding, and more than once she had thought she heard that, voice; more than a score of times she had thought she had seen that figure with its stride of self-reliance, with strength bulging in every muscle. And always it had been to learn that she had been mistaken; always it had been to feel the heart sink just a little lower than before. And still she kept on. There was nothing to do but keep on.

Often she wondered how he would receive her. That cold look which had frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray and go on.

As she turned her eyes to follow a group of men in uniform she became aware of a soldier sitting alone in the shadow a short distance away.

Some quality about him caught her attention; his face was not discernible, and his figure was too much in the shadow to more than suggest its outline, but she found herself regarding him with an intentness that set her pulses racing. Some strange attraction raised her from her seat; she took a step toward him, then steadied herself.

Should she dare risk it again? And yet there was something. . . . She had a sudden plan. She would make no inquiry, no apology; she would walk near by and call him by name. If that name meant nothing to him he would not even notice her presence, but if it should be----

She was within three paces. Still she could discern nothing definitely, but her pulses were raging more wildly than ever. They had deceived her before; could it be that they were deceiving her again?

"Dave," she said.

He turned quickly in his seat; the light fell on her face and he saw her; he was on his feet and had taken a step toward her. Then he stopped, and she saw his features harden as they had on that dreadful occasion which now seemed so long ago. Would he turn on his heel? If he did she must rush upon him. She must tell him now, she must plead with him, reason with him, prevail upon him at all costs.

"Well?" he said. His voice was mechanical, but in it was something which quickened her hope; something which suggested that he was making it mechanical because he dared not let it express the human emotion which was struggling for utterance.

"Let me talk to you, Dave," she pleaded. "I have followed you around the world for this. Let me talk. I can explain everything."

He stood still so long that she wondered if he never would speak. She dared not reach her hands to him, she could only stand and wait.

"Irene," he said, "why did you follow me here?"

"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you, and would follow you anywhere. No one can stop me doing that; no one, Dave--except you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you."]

And again he stood, and she knew that he was turning over in his mind things weightier than life and death, and that when he spoke again his course would be set. Then, in the partial shadow, she saw his arms slowly extend; they rose, wide and strong, and extended toward her.

There was a quick step, and they met about her, and the world swooned and went by. . . .

"I can explain everything," she said, when she could talk.

"You need explain nothing," he returned. "I have lived the torments of the d.a.m.ned. Edith Duncan was right; she said if it were real love it would never give up. 'Endureth all things,' she said. 'All things,'

she said. . . . There is no limit."

She caressed his cheeks with her fingers, and knew by the touch that they were brown again as they had been in those great days of the foothills. "But I must tell you, dear," she said, "so that you may understand." And then she patched together the story, from what she knew, and from what Edith Duncan had told her, and Dave filled in what neither had known, including the incident earlier on that fateful evening. She could see his jaws harden as they pieced the plot together, and she knew what he was thinking.