Part 17 (1/2)
The appeal and terror in her eyes changed to momentary surprise. ”What do you know of me?” she exclaimed.
”Very little of you, but more of your father. Years ago I was at his house in the Kentucky mountains. He was a leader in the Simpson-Eversley feud. I knew him to-night, but I have said nothing. Now, tell me, what is the matter?”
His voice was soothing--that of a strong man who would protect, and the girl yielded to its influence. Brokenly she told the story. Many men had been killed in the feud, and the few Eversleys who were left had been scattered far in the mountains. Then old Daniel Simpson said that he would come out on the Great Plains, more than a thousand miles, and they had come.
”There was one of the Eversleys--Henry Eversley--he was young and handsome. People said he was not bad. He, too, came to Nebraska. He found out where we lived; he has been here.”
”Ah!” said Harley. He felt that they were coming to the gist of the matter.
The girl, with a sudden pa.s.sionate cry, threw herself upon her knees.
”He is here now! He is here now!” she cried. ”He is in the cellar, bound and gagged, and my father is going to kill him! But I love him! He came here to-night, and my father caught us together, and struck him down.
But we meant nothing wrong. I declare before G.o.d that we did not! We were getting ready to run away together and to be married at Speedwell!”
Harley shuddered. The impending tragedy was more terrible than he had feared.
”You can do nothing!” exclaimed the girl. ”My father is armed. He will have no interference! He cares nothing for what may come after! He thinks--”
She could not say it all; but Harley knew well that what she would say was, ”He thinks that he has been robbed of his honor by a mortal enemy.”
”Can you stay quietly in this room until morning?” he asked. ”I know it is hard to wait under such circ.u.mstances, but you must do it for the sake of Henry Eversley.”
”And will you save him?”
”He shall be saved.”
”I will wait,” she said.
Harley slipped noiselessly out, and, closing the door behind him, went to his room, where he at once awakened the candidate.
Jimmy Grayson listened with intense attention to Harley's story. When the tale was over, he and Harley whispered together long and earnestly, and Jimmy Grayson frequently nodded his head in a.s.sent. Then they awoke the driver, a heavy man, but with a keen Western mind that at once became alert at the news of danger.
”Yes, I got my bearings now,” he said, in reply to a question of Harley's. ”I asked the old fellow about it when I came up from the stable, and Speedwell is straight north from here. I can take one of the horses and hit the town before daylight. I know everybody there.”
”But how about the dogs?” asked Jimmy Grayson. ”Can you get past them?”
”No trouble there at all. After we came, the old fellow locked 'em up in a stall in the stable and left 'em there. I guess he didn't want to look to us as if he was too suspicious.”
”Then go, and G.o.d go with you!” said Jimmy Grayson, with deep feeling.
The driver left at once, not by the stairway, near the foot of which the old man might be watching, but by a much simpler road. He raised the window of the room and swung out, sustained by Jimmy Grayson's powerful arms until his feet were within a yard of the ground. Then he dropped, ran lightly across the lawn, sprang over the wire fence, and soon disappeared in the grove where the girl had said that the horses were waiting. Jimmy Grayson closed the window with a deep sigh of relief.
”He will do his part,” he said; ”now for ours.”
He did not seek to sleep again, and Harley could not think of it. One task occupied him a little while--the replacing of the lock on the door--but after that the hours pa.s.sed heavily and in silence. The flush of dawn appeared in the east at last, and then they heard a faint step in the hall outside and the gentle turning of a key in a lock. Jimmy Grayson and Harley looked at each other and smiled grimly, but they said nothing. A half-hour later there was a loud knock on their door, and old Daniel Simpson bade them rise and get ready for breakfast.
”It is chiefly in your hands now,” said Harley, in a low tone to Jimmy Grayson.
”We'll be down in a few minutes, and we have had a good night's sleep, for which we thank you,” he called to the old man.
”You're welcome to it,” replied Simpson. ”You'll find water and towels on the porch down-stairs, and then you can come straight in to breakfast.”