Part 26 (2/2)
”We'll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought those animals and paid gold for them. They wanted to know where I got the gold. I told them where they'd never get it. They asked me ten prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me, and all that took time.”
The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. ”And what next?” asked Harry King.
”Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of their things up here, and there may be some of your own among them--they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered it--and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something.
It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that's not likely.
”I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did him, but it comforted her heart. It's a good religion for a woman, where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a priest's word for it all. And now they're here, and you're here, and my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me--I can't.”
Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. ”Nor can I--help--but to take myself off.”
”Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn't so bad. As long as they stay you'll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to winter,--and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the world's hard on women. I've seen much.”
Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other's mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he followed up the advantage toward confidence that he had thus gained.
He also came to the entrance and laid his kindly hand on the younger man's shoulder, and there in the pale light of that cloudy fall morning, standing in the cool, invigorating air, with the sound of falling water in their ears, the two men made a compact, and the end was this.
”Harry King, if you'll be my son, I'll be your father. My boy would be about your age--if he lives,--but if he does, he has been taught to look down on me--on the very thought of me.” He cast a wistful glance at the young man's face as he spoke. ”From the time I held him in my arms, a day-old baby, I've never seen him, and it may be he has never heard of me. He was in good hands and was given over for good reasons, to one who hated my name and my race--and me. For love of his mother I did this. It was all I could do for her; I would have gone down into the grave for her.
”I, too, have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. At first I lived in India--in China--anywhere to be as far on the other side of the earth from her grave and my boy, as I vowed I would, but I've kept the memory of her sweet in my heart. You need not fear I'll ask again for your name. Until you choose to give it I will respect your wish,--and for the rest--speak of it when you must--but not before. I have no more to ask. You've been well bred, as I said, and that's enough for me. You're more than of age--I can see that--but it's my opinion you need a father. Will you take me?”
The young man drew in his breath sharply through quivering lips, and made answer with averted head: ”Cain! Cain and the curse of Cain! Can I allow another to share it?”
”Another shares it and you have no choice.”
”I will be more than a son. Sons hurt their fathers and accept all from them and give little. You lifted me out of the abyss and brought me back to life. You took on yourself the burden laid on me, to save those who trusted me, knowing nothing of my crime,--and now you drag my very soul from h.e.l.l. I will do more than be your son--I will give you the life you saved. Who are you?”
Then the big man gave his name, making no reciprocal demand. What mattered a name? It was the man, by whatever name, he wanted.
”I am an Irishman by birth, and my name is Larry Kildene. If you'll go to a little county not so far from Dublin, but to the north, you'll find my people.”
He was looking away toward the top of the mountain as he spoke, and was seeing his grandfather's house as he had seen it when a boy, and so he did not see the countenance of the young man at his side. Had he done so, he would not have missed knowing what the young man from that moment knew, and from that moment, out of the love now awakened in his heart for the big man, carefully concealed, giving thanks that he had not told his name.
For a long minute they stood thus looking away from each other, while Harry King, by a mighty effort, gained control of his features, and his voice. Then although white to the lips, he spoke quietly: ”Harry King--the murderer--be the son of Larry Kildene--Larry Kildene--I--to slink away in the hills--forever to hide--”
”No more of that. I'll show you a new life. Give me your hand, Harry King.” And the young man extended both hands in a silence through which no words could have been heard.
CHAPTER XVII
ADOPTING A FAMILY
As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in the clouds, gazing up at the towering mountain and listening to the falling water. She spied them and came swiftly to them, extending both hands in a sweet, gracious impulsiveness, and began speaking rapidly even before she reached them.
”Ah! So beautiful is your home! It is so much that I would say to you of grat.i.tude in my heart--it is like a river flowing swiftly to tell you--Ah! I cannot say it all--and we come and intrude ourselves upon you thus that you have no place where to go for your own sleeping--Is not? Yes, I know it. So must we think quickly how we may unburden you of us--my mother and myself--only that she yet is sleeping that strange sleep that seems still not like sleep. Let me that I serve you, sir?”
Larry Kildene looked on her glowing, upturned face, gathering his slower wits for some response to her swift speech, while she turned to the younger man, grasping his hands in the same manner and not ceasing the flow of her utterance.
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