Chapter 13

Charlie Blair's Sister

The summer sped hot and with but little rain. Some ten days before the state convention, the Doctor and Danvers went to Helena. A strong opposition to Judge Latimer's renomination had developed, which was not traceable to any definite source. Although Danvers avowed a dislike for politics, in reality he had the inherent instinct for political life characteristic of the upper-class Englishman, and he threw himself into the maelstrom with all his forces well in hand. Office-seeking was disgusting to him, but the fight for his friend seemed worth the effort.

In the midst of the political excitement, Mrs. Latimer gave a dinner-party, and Philip Danvers could not refuse his invitation without causing comment, and, what was of more consequence to his independent nature, wounding his friend Arthur. He had met Eva Latimer occasionally when they lived at Fort Benton, but had preferred to lure Arthur to his own quarters, or the doctor's office, for an old-time visit, rather than invade the formalities of the Latimer residence. Since his friend had been on the supreme bench Danvers had not often seen Eva, and now the great house in the suburbs of Helena--so much more elaborate than Latimer could afford, impressed him, as it had on previous calls, unpleasantly. It was not a home for Arthur; it was an establishment for social functions, and a burden of expense; yet Danvers knew it was the goal of Arthur's thoughts, where his little son awaited him at the close of the day.

Danvers rang the bell, not a moment too early; nevertheless he found the Western men standing self-conscious and ill at ease, waiting for the announcement of dinner. Arthur greeted him warmly, and Eva sparkled, smiled and chatted, moving among her guests and tactfully putting each at his best, while they waited for the last arrival--a Miss Blair, who was to be, so Philip learned, his own partner at dinner.

Presently the tardy one arrived, beautiful in her serene, straightforward gaze from under fine brows and a wealth of dark hair that caught threads of light even under the gas-jets, and made hurriedly breathless excuses to her hostess. Danvers was introduced to her immediately, and the dining-room was invaded.

"So awkward of me," she explained in an undertone. "I turned my ankle as I came across the lawn, and had to wait quite a bit before I could move. I was afraid at first I couldn't come to dinner, but I hated to disappoint Eva. Little Arthur must have left his hoop on the lawn, and I tripped on it. We live in the next house, and always come across lots. Doesn't that sound New England-y?" She laughed softly. "My brother says I'll never drop our Yankee phrases. I say pail for bucket, and path for trail, and the other day I said farm for ranch."

"Your voice has more of _Old_ England than of New England," said Danvers, appreciatively. He had not spoken before except to acknowledge Mrs. Latimer's hurried introduction.

"Oh, thank you!" Miss Blair smiled, frankly pleased. "Not that I'm a bit of an Anglo-maniac," she hastened to affirm, "but, do you know," she leaned toward Danvers in an amusingly confidential way, "I've always felt mortified over my throaty voice--that is, I used to be."

Philip smiled, a smile that but few had ever seen. He listened with enjoyment. Something in his companion's tacit belief that he would understand her feeling was wonderfully pleasing. He seemed taken into her confidence at once as being worthy, and it did not lessen his pleasure to observe that the Honorable William Moore, who sat at the left of Miss Blair, received only the most formal recognition, despite his effort at conversation, to the neglect of his own dinner partner.

Wit and merriment flashed from one to another, and all but the host seemed overflowing with animation. Although Latimer looked after the needs of his guests, he was often preoccupied.

"Why so silent, judge?" asked the doctor in a lull of conversation.

"I beg your pardon," Arthur apologized. "I fear I was rude. Perhaps I was trying to work out the salvation of my country--from my own point of view."

"Planning for re-nomination?" asked Moore, innocently.

"And your ankle?" asked Danvers of Miss Blair, under cover of the laugh that followed Moore's attempt at wit. "I hope that you are not suffering from it." His observant eye had noted the smooth contour of the girl's face, but as the moments passed the natural lack of high coloring seemed to grow more colorless.

"It hurts--a little," confessed the girl. "But it is of no consequence. Mrs. Latimer's dinner must not be marred by my blundering in the dark. I should have come by the walk."

"You are thoughtful." Danvers looked again at the girl, and wished for the first time that he could use the small talk of society. Politics was debarred from the table conversation, but when they were again in the parlors Miss Blair turned to Danvers.

"Aren't you the senator from Chouteau?"

"Not yet," smiled Philip.

"Oh, but you will be. My brother says so."

"I'm glad some one is optimistic. I'm afraid I shall not be the deciding party."

"Who will be our United States senator?"

"That is hard to tell. So many straws sticking out of the tangle make it difficult to prophesy which will be pulled out."

"Your party is so split up this year," said the girl. "Which wing are you affiliated with?"

This was not "small talk," as Danvers recognized with an amused feeling that he had not expected a lady to know anything outside his preconceived idea of feminine chat.

"Montana politics have no wings," he quibbled.

Miss Blair laughed. "Really, haven't you decided which of the candidates you'll support for United States senator?" She ran over the names.

"That's rather a leading question, isn't it?" evaded Philip. "If a _man_ asked me, I'd give him no satisfaction. I will say to you, though, that I am going to do my best to send some one to Washington who is pledged to place community interests before his own."

"I did not mean to ask impertinent questions, or to cross-examine," quavered Miss Blair. "One who finds out anything from you must have taken his thirty-third degree in Masonry. I am not trying my hand at lobbying," she added as an afterthought. "You mustn't think that. I'm just interested in the political situation. And brother Charlie won't talk politics with me any more than he'll recount his experiences as a freighter."

"Charlie? Brother Charlie?" A dim memory revived. "I beg your pardon! Is Scar Faced Charlie your brother?"

"Yes. Didn't you know?"

"Then you are the little girl----"

"Winifred. I thought you didn't recognize me, though I knew you at once. But you would scarcely remember me, while I--you know you saved my life."

"And to think that you have so changed--grown up! And that you are here! I remember asking for you when Charlie was in Fort Benton, shortly after I went there to live; but you were away at school. I don't recall ever hearing your brother called Blair, though as a matter of fact I wasn't thinking of your name. I was thinking of you!"

"What a pretty speech! And Mrs. Latimer is always telling what a woman-hater you are!"

"I was not aware that I was of enough importance to be the subject of Mrs. Latimer's strictures," replied Danvers, his brow contracting. "But I believe I do have that reputation," he added, and smiled into her unbelieving brown eyes.

"Moore is not running for office this year," said Danvers presently, finding it easier to talk of matters politic.

"No. Charlie wants a place in the Senate--perhaps you know." She changed the subject by asking, "Do you think that a man should ever vote for a candidate not in his own party?"

"If he votes for the better man--especially in local politics--yes. Is it a political crime in your eyes?"

"I believe most politicians think so." Miss Blair also resorted to evasion.

They were joined by other guests, and the conversation became general. The Honorable Mr. Moore, resplendent in a new dress suit, was saying pleasant things to his hostess.

"What a lucky dog the judge is, my dear Mrs. Latimer! You would carry off any situation. You deserve a wider field than this small Western city."

"Really?" cooed the flattered lady.

As she moved away, Moore's glance followed her, and a look of sudden inspiration illumined his shiny face. Wild Cat Bill, with his rotund form, resembled a domesticated house cat far more than the agile creature which had given him his frontier title. The incongruity struck Danvers, and he smiled at Winifred Blair as she drifted to another part of the room--a smile that she returned with a friendly nod of farewell. He did not see her again that evening, and not long afterward he and the doctor bade their hostess good-night.

"Not sorry you went, are you, Phil?" asked the doctor, as they walked to their hotel. "Goodness knows, Arthur and I labored hard enough to get you there."

"I have always disliked dinner parties." The observant doctor noticed the wording of the reply and drew his own conclusions.

"Come in and have a smoke with me," said the doctor, as they reached his room, and he bent over to insert the key. For years it had been Danvers' habit to drop into the physician's office during the late afternoon or evening, to talk or smoke in silence, as the case may be. To-night he followed the doctor, and sat down for a half-hour's chat.

"That was a fetching gown that Mrs. Latimer wore; I don't envy Arthur the bills!" remarked the astute doctor, as he filled his pipe.

"I didn't notice," was Philip's indifferent reply. "I never know what women have on."

"And how lovely Miss Blair looked in blue!"

"Soft rose!" came the correction from the man who never noticed.

The doctor's mouth twitched, but he smoked on in silence, and when he bade Philip good-night he gave him a God-bless-you pat on the shoulder, which the coming senator from Chouteau interpreted solely as due to his long friendship.

Danvers was wakeful that night, and a name sang through his drowsy brain until he roused, impatient.

"It was only her voice that interested me!" he exclaimed aloud. "She's probably like the rest of them." The nettle of one woman's fickleness had stung so deeply when he first took to the primrose path of love that he had never gone farther along the road leading to the solving of life's enigma, and now the overgrowth of other interests had almost obliterated the trail.

Although the days at Helena were busy ones for Philip Danvers, he found time before the convention to make his dinner call at the Latimer's. On the shaded lawn before the house he found Miss Blair entertaining little Arthur while she kept watch over the baby asleep in its carriage.

"Mrs. Latimer is away for the afternoon. She will be sorry to have missed you," exclaimed the girl, as Arthur ran to greet the visitor, always a favorite.

"You called on Aunt Winnie and me! Didn't you? Didn't you?" chanted the boy, tugging at the hand of the visitor.

"May I stay?" asked Danvers, smiling at the eager little man. "And how is the sprain?"

"Of course you may," assented Winifred brightly. "And as for the sprained ankle, wicked and deceitful creature that I am, I made it the excuse for not going with Mrs. Latimer. Good people, really good people, would think that I merited punishment for not doing my duty in my small sphere of life. Yet see! Instead of that I'm rewarded--here _you_ come to entertain Arthur and me!"

"It is a bad example!" decided Danvers, with a stern eye that did not deceive anyone. He was amused at her naivete, and had no wish to decry such open good-will.

"But I do limp! Don't I, Arthur?" Miss Blair appealed to the child, gravely.

He nodded and stooped to examine the low, narrow shoe, peeping from her sheer summer gown. Winifred pulled the foot back with a sudden flush. "I am, perhaps, helping along in this world as much as though I were playing cards, by staying with the children instead of their being with the maid," she said hastily.

Philip leaned over to look at the baby. Arthur pulled the parasol to one side proudly.

"Her name is Winifred," he announced.

"I believe I never saw a really little baby before," said Danvers, looking with awe at the tiny sleeper. "My sister and I were near of an age; we grew up together. How _little_ babies are!"

Miss Blair laughed. "Winifred is a very nice baby--big for her few months of life. I'm very proud to be her godmother." Danvers watched as she pulled the fleecy covering around the sleeping child. With the act a maternal look came into her lovely face, unconscious as she was of scrutiny, and a thrill of manhood shook him deeply.

"So you did not care for the party?" inquired the caller, presently. "I thought all ladies adored card parties and enjoyed fighting for the prizes."

"Play cards when the mountains look like that?" Winifred rejoined. "It would be a sacrilege!"

"I do not care for cards myself," agreed Danvers.

"Wouldn't you like to be out there?" Winifred seemed scarcely to have heard him.

Following the direction of her gaze, he thought her wide-flung gesture a deserved tribute to the view. The Prickly Pear Valley lay before them, checkered in vivid green or sage-drab as water had been given or withheld. The Scratch Gravel Hills jutted impertinently into the middle distance; while on the far western side of the plain the Jefferson Range rose, tier on tier, the distances shading the climbing foothills, until the Bear's Tooth, a prominent, jagged peak, cleft the azure sky. A stretch of darker blue showed where the Missouri River, itself unseen, broke through the Gate of the Mountains. The view took one away from the affairs of men. On their side of the valley towered Mount Helena and Mount Ascension with auriferous gulches separating and leading up to the main range of the Rockies. As the foothills sank into the valley the gulches, washed of their golden treasure, were transformed into the streets of Helena--irregular, uneven, unpaved often; in the residence part of the town young trees ambitiously spread their slender branches; the main street and intersecting steeper ones were bordered with business blocks as ambitious, in their way, as the transplanted trees.

"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,'" quoted Winifred, softly. "What a singer David was. But these mountains seem worthy of the grand old psalms."

"Yes," assented Danvers, simply; and he liked her better on this second meeting than he had at the dinner party--a crucial test where a woman is concerned.

"I never weary of looking," she breathed.

"I think--I never should, either," he declared, and looked--at her!

Unconscious of his gaze, she absently jogged the carriage while the baby slept, and Arthur, holding Danvers' hand, waited his turn.

"Mamma hates Helena," was his contribution.

"Sh-h-h!" warned Winifred.

"Then if I can't talk, make Uncle Phil show us a good time." The lad turned appealing, beautiful eyes toward Danvers, so like his father's that Philip drew him closer. "Tell us about the Crow Indians stealing the Blackfeet ponies." This was a favorite story.

"Not to-day, laddie," refused Philip, gently. "Miss Blair would not----"

"Yes, I should," contradicted Winifred.

"Aunt Winnie will just love to hear that story," affirmed Arthur. "_I_ do! She tells me lots of stories. She was telling one when you came--the one I like the best of all. It had a be-u-ti-ful trooper in it who rescued her from a water-y grave!" The child's recital was as melodramatic as his words. "He held her just so!" Arthur illustrated by a tight clasp of the embarrassed girl. "Now, you tell one."

Philip saw that Winifred had a real interest in the old days, and while relieving her embarrassment by gratifying the little story-teller, he spoke of the Whoop Up Country.

Winifred had the rare gift of bringing out the best in people. Danvers needed such incentive; although denying it, he was a good conversationalist. Now his whole being responded to this clear-eyed, pleasant-voiced girl who sat in the low rocker beside him. She would understand. The few times he had essayed to speak to others of his service in the Mounted Police, he had met with such indifference that the words were killed; and with the exception of the Doctor, Danvers had never shared his experiences with any one. To the women he had met in Helena and Fort Benton that lonely life had brought a shudder, and to the men unpleasant reminiscences. So far as his associates of the early days were concerned it was a closed chapter.

To the child Winifred, Danvers had been a hero--handsome, debonair; to the woman Winifred, he found himself talking as easily as to the little girl who listened years before. The life at Fort Macleod was the one subject that would win Danvers from his silence, and in the next hour Miss Blair had good reason to think that she would not exchange this call for all the card parties in the world.

Presently he challenged, "You are bored?"

"I've been delightfully entertained. It is all fascinating to me. Charlie will seldom speak of the freighting days, and I remember very little of Fort Benton."

"The old place isn't big enough for most of us. The Macleod men are scattered, too."

"Have you ever been back?"

"Never! I could not bear to see the country fenced in, the old cottonwood barracks replaced, the railroad screaming in the silence, and Colonel Macleod dead. No, I shall never go back."

The baby awoke and diverted them, and soon the maid came for both children. Half-way to the house little Arthur ran back.

"I'm going to be a Police when I grow up," he announced. "I prayed about it last night. I know God'll fix it. I put it right to Him. It was peachy!"

"Arthur is always saying the drollest things," remarked Miss Blair as the child ran out of hearing distance. "Yesterday he told me that when he went fishing with his papa his fish wouldn't hook on tight."

"I'm afraid he'll find the same difficulty later in life," laughed Philip, and rose to say good-afternoon.

"I will not wait longer for Mrs. Latimer, but leave my card," he decided. "The doctor will be wondering what has become of me."

But the doctor found him very silent over his pipe that evening. The sight of Arthur Latimer's little son had wakened the old longing, the inborn desire of every Englishman to bestow the ancestral name upon the heir of his house. Philip Danvers! For eight generations a son had borne the name. Would he be the last to inherit it in this far country that had come to be his own?