Part 18 (1/2)
Again she stopped him with the imperative little gesture.
”Did you see them do it?”
”Naturally, no one saw them do it. But it was done, nevertheless.”
She rose and faced him fairly.
”You found my note last evening--when you were returning with Sheriff Beckwith?”
”I found an unsigned note on a little barrier of tree-branches on the trail; yes.”
”I wrote it and put it there,” she declared. ”I told you you were about to commit an act of injustice, and you have committed it--a very great one, indeed, Mr. Ballard.”
”I am open to conviction,” he conceded, almost morosely. She was confronting him like an angry G.o.ddess, and mixed up with the thought that he had never seen her so beautiful and so altogether desirable was another thought that he should like to run away and hide.
”Yes; you are open to conviction--after the fact!” she retorted, bitterly. ”Do you know what you have done? You have fallen like a hot-headed boy into a trap set for you by my father's enemies. You have carefully stripped Arcadia of every man who could defend our cattle--just as it was planned for you to do.”
”But, good heavens!” he began, ”I----”
”Hear me out,” she commanded, looking more than ever the princess of her father's kingdom. ”Down in the canyon of the Boiling Water there is a band of outlaws that has harried this valley for years. a.s.suming that you would do precisely what you have done, some of these men came up and dynamited your ca.n.a.l, timing the raid to fit your inspection tour. Am I making it sufficiently plain?”
”O my sainted ancestors!” he groaned. And then: ”Please go on; you can't make it any worse.”
”They confidently expected that you would procure a wholesale arrest of the Arcadia ranch force; but they did not expect you to act as promptly as you did. That is why they turned and fired upon you in Dry Valley Gulch: they thought they were suspected and pursued, not by you or any of your men, but by our cow-boys. Your appearance at the cabin at the mouth of Deer Creek yesterday morning explained things, and they let you go on without taking vengeance for the man Mr. Bigelow had shot in the Dry Valley affray. They were willing to let the greater matter outweigh the smaller.”
Ballard said ”Good heavens!” again, and leaned weakly against the commissary counter. Then, suddenly, it came over him like a cool blast of wind on a hot day that this clear-eyed, sweet-faced young woman's intimate knowledge of the labyrinthine tangle was almost superhuman enough to be uncanny. Would the nerve-shattering mysteries never be cleared away?
”You know all this--as only an eye-witness could know,” he stammered.
”How, in the name of all that is wonderful----”
”We are not without friends--even in your camps,” she admitted. ”Word came to Castle 'Cadia of your night ride and its purpose. For the later details there was little d.i.c.k. My father once had his father sent to the penitentiary for cattle-stealing. In pity for the boy, I persuaded some of our Denver friends to start a pet.i.tion for a pardon. d.i.c.k has not forgotten it; and last night he rode to Castle 'Cadia to tell me what I have told you--the poor little lad being more loyal to me than he is to his irreclaimable wretch of a father. Also, he told me another thing: to-night, while the range cattle are entirely unguarded, there will be another raid from Deer Creek. I thought you might like to know how hard a blow you have struck us, this time. That is why I have made Jerry drive me a hundred miles or so up and down the valley this afternoon.”
The situation was well beyond speech, any exculpatory speech of Ballard's, but there was still an opportunity for deeds. Going to the door he called to Bigelow, and when the Forestry man came in, his part in what was to be done was a.s.signed abruptly.
”Mr. Bigelow, you can handle the runabout with one good arm, I'm sure: drive Miss Craigmiles home, if you please, and let me have Blacklock.”
”Certainly, if Miss Elsa is willing to exchange a good chauffeur for a poor one,” was the good-natured reply. And then to his hostess: ”Are you willing, Miss Craigmiles?”
”Mr. Ballard is the present tyrant of Arcadia. If he shows us the door----”
Bigelow was already at the car step, waiting to help her in. There was time only for a single sentence of caution, and Ballard got it in a swift aside.
”Don't be rash again,” she warned him. ”You have plenty of men here. If Carson can be made to understand that you will not let him take advantage of the plot in which he has made you his innocent accessory----”
”Set your mind entirely at rest,” he cut in, with a curtness which was born altogether of his determination, and not at all of his att.i.tude toward the woman he loved. ”There will be no cattle-lifting in this valley to-night--or at any other time until your own caretakers have returned.”
”Thank you,” she said simply; and a minute later Ballard and young Blacklock stood aside to let Bigelow remove himself, his companion, and the smart little car swiftly from the scene.
”Say, Mr. Ballard, this is no end good of you--to let me in for a little breather of sport,” said the collegian, when the fast runabout was fading to a dusty blur in the sunset purplings. ”Bigelow gave me a hint; said there was a sc.r.a.p of some sort on. Make me your side partner, and I'll do you proud.”