Part 22 (1/2)

DILLON MEDITATES

When Stannard reached the settlements he was again examined by the police. He knew where frankness paid and was frank, but he owed something to trooper Simpson's narrative and something to his personal charm. A magistrate ordered him to pay a rather heavy fine and give up the big-horn heads, and then let him go, but Stannard doubted if the police were altogether satisfied. The officer who examined him was remarkably keen.

On the evening Stannard returned to the hotel, Laura and Dillon occupied chairs at the table on the terrace. Electric lights burned on the veranda, for the days got short, but the sunset was not altogether gone.

Dillon saw Laura's face in profile against the fading reflections. She looked away from him to the north, where pines and rocks and snow were all deep, soft blue. Her arm was on the table, her body was partly turned, and Dillon thought her strangely beautiful. All the same, he wanted her to look round.

”You are quiet,” he remarked.

”I'm thinking about Jimmy in the wilds. Do you mind?”

”Not at all,” Dillon declared. ”When Jimmy was around the hotel, I had no use for the fellow; now he's in the mountains, I'm bothered about him. Somehow one likes Jimmy, and if I knew how I could help, I'd start.”

Laura turned her head and gave him a curious glance.

”Why do you like Jimmy? He's English and you're frankly American.”

”That is so. To begin with, I've no pick on Jimmy because he loved you; if he had not loved you, I'd have known his blood wasn't red. Then, although he's English, in a sense he's our type. He's sincere; we are sincere, you know, and perhaps, from your point of view, we don't use much reserve. You can move us and when we're moved we talk and get busy.

Well, Jimmy's like that; he's marked by something generously human, but I doubt if he got it at London clubs. Maybe it's his inheritance from the folks who built the cotton mill.”

Laura said nothing. She doubted if Frank's willingness to state his grounds for liking Jimmy altogether accounted for his rather unusual effort. Indeed, she imagined he labored to get a light on a subject that puzzled him.

”Well,” he resumed, ”to know Deering went after Jimmy is some comfort.

If Jimmy gets up against it in the rocks, Deering will see him through.”

”Your trust in Deering is remarkable!”

”He's a white man,” said Dillon with a smile. ”To be his friend cost me high, but now I've cut out bets and cards, I'd sooner he'd got my money than another. You see, I got something back. The fellow's big.”

Laura was annoyed. She wanted to feel Deering was her antagonist and had exploited Frank's trust. The trouble was, she could not altogether do so, but she dared not admit that Stannard shared his guilt and perhaps his reward. To chastise Deering, so to speak, exculpated her father.

”He is certainly muscular, and rather gross,” she remarked.

”He's flesh and blood. I doubt if you quite get us yet. In the West, we haven't cultivated out rude emotions; we like a fellow who plunges at an obstacle, sweats and laughs, and sometimes gets mad. We're up against savage Nature and our job is a man's first job, to satisfy human needs.

Well, you know my father; he's a pretty good Western type. When he started in, his food was frugal and his clothes were overalls. Now he's moving forests, and architects come to study the office block he built; but if things go wrong in the woods, his superintendents know he can use their talk and handle a cant-pole. His power springs from the primitive streak.”

”We'll let it go,” said Laura, and indicated the long rows of pines melting into the gloom. ”Dark now comes soon.”

”Before long the frost will come and in the mountains the cold is pretty fierce. On Puget Sound the soft Chinook blows and the white Olympians stand between you and the winds from the Rockies. The old man's keen for me to bring you back. What about our starting?”

Laura blushed, for she had agreed to marry Dillon soon, but she said, ”My father cannot go yet. So long as Jimmy is in the mountains and the warden cannot tell his story, I think he will remain in Canada. Perhaps he ought to remain.”

”Oh, well; you can reckon on Mr. Stannard's taking the proper line,”

Dillon agreed rather moodily. ”You feel the thing's mechanical. Mr.

Stannard is like that.”

”Mechanical?” said Laura, lifting her brows.

”His taking the proper line's mechanical. He doesn't bother about it. In the West, his correctness is somehow exotic.”