Part 12 (2/2)

”I told you it would be to-day--didn't I?” She s.n.a.t.c.hed him to her and kissed him fiercely. She opened the door. ”Good-bye, old scout,” she whispered. Then she turned to Frank. ”Go!” she panted and her lips trembled. ”Go!”

Outside the car Frank stood by, quivering with pride while the boy pa.s.sed from the mother's high up into the father's arms. He saw the light in their faces, the flash of the sun on the boy's curls, the smiles of the men who looked on. Then the shadow of terrible days and nights fell across his happiness and for the second time that day he saw red. For the woman had stepped out of the car, and the big sheriff had caught her by the arm.

The dog glanced up, bewildered, into the faces about him. But none of them had seen. He ran to the woman; he took his stand beside her, looking up at the sheriff with fierce, pleading eyes. But the sheriff still held her arm, and the dog growled, partly in anger, partly in trouble. Then Tommy saw, too. He wriggled loose from his father; he came running to their help.

”Let go of her!” he screamed, and caught the woman's skirt with both hands, ”Papa, make him let her go!”

But it was his mistress who understood, who came to them with s.h.i.+ning face and caught the woman by both hands. He knew it was all right now, even when the woman sank down on the car step and sobbed brokenly, her face buried in her hands. For the sheriff had stepped back, and his mistress was at her side, an arm about her shoulder.

”No, Sheriff,” she said, looking up at him, and the sun sparkled in her eyes.

”We won't say anything about this, gentlemen,” Earle said quietly to the men.

That night Frank lay in the crowded lobby of the hotel, ears p.r.i.c.ked toward the wide-screened dining-room door. He had already had his supper, out in the rear courtyard near the kitchen where many dishes rattled.

”Two porterhouse steaks--raw,” Steve Earle had said.

”And a big dish of ice cream,” Marian Earle had added with a smile, for old Frank was an epicure in his way.

And now the sheriff was telling the crowd about him.

”He followed that car for two hundred miles. That was nothin'--been huntin' all his life. But he kept out of sight--that's the thing! They never saw him, and he never left them. That's what put us on the trail.

That's the reason the boy's eatin' supper with his father and mother in there instead of bein' out in the woods with them brutes.”

He puffed at his cigar.

”Some men fis.h.i.+ng in the mountains pa.s.sed him. He tried to flag 'em.

Yes, sir--that's what he tried to do. But they didn't catch on. Might have, but didn't. Next day they read in the papers about a boy and Irish setter being lost. Then they caught on and telephoned Mr. Earle.”

”The woman that came in with the mother and went upstairs with her,”

asked a man, ”who's she?”

The big sheriff took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at the questioner with narrow, disapproving eyes.

”She didn't have a thing to do with it, sir!” he declared.

From the dining room came the sound of chairs pushed back, and Frank rose to his feet. He met them at the door, he stood beside the boy while the people gathered around, he went upstairs with them, the boy holding tight to his heavy red mane.

”That old Joe!” Tommy was saying breathlessly, as they went down the carpeted hall. ”He can't get us any more. The sheriff he locked him up in a jail. He can't get Nita, either. Mama's goin' to take care of her.

Mama says so!”

He was still talking, his eyes big, when they went into a brightly lighted room where a little bed set beside a big one. He was still talking while his mother undressed him. Then before he got into bed a spasm of virtuous reaction seized him. He and F'ank were never going to leave the yard any more, he declared. They never were going to get in any more automobiles with people!

”No,” smiled Earle from his great height down at the little figure in borrowed pyjamas, ”I guess you're cured, old man!”

The rug beside Tommy's bed was very soft, and Frank was very tired. But sometime in the silent darkness of that night he barked hoa.r.s.ely in the agony of a dream. For they were on top of a mountain, and a weird moon had risen, and a woman had screamed.

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