Chapter 17

BUCK AND WINNIE.

Shortly after nightfall, Badger started again for the residence of Fairfax Lee. He had no definite plans, but rather blindly hoped something might turn up to favor him. He confessed to himself that he was "all gone to pieces," but he had no desire to go into some liquor den and load up with bad whisky, as he was once accustomed to do when trouble or disappointment struck him.

"It was red-eye that got me into this, I reckon, and I'll let the stuff alone hereafter. I've promised to, and I will, no matter what comes. That's whatever!"

And when Buck Badger put his foot down he usually put it down hard.

"I'd feel better if I could only meet Don Pike and swell up his eyes for him," he continued to growl. "But the coward has sloped."

It did, indeed, seem that Pike was making an effort to keep out of the way of the Westerner. The very sight of the Lee home quickened Badger's heart-beats. He felt that he would give anything to know if Winnie was in the house, or had been spirited away.

"Like enough, her father has locked her in her room! But there ain't any keys whatever that are made strong enough to keep me from seeing her. I'll do it sooner or later."

Fortune favored the Westerner--fortune and his sweetheart, Winnie Lee. Winnie was as wildly anxious to see Buck as he was to see her. She had been locked in her room for stubbornness in refusing to promise never to see Badger again, and the other girls had been told that she was ill and could not be seen. They knew better now, for Winnie had finally bribed and coaxed one of the servants to tell them the truth. They had not known it long, but long enough for Inza--indignant as she was brave, and brave as she was indignant--to send to Winnie a note, signed by herself and Elsie, assuring the unhappy girl of their sympathy and firm friendship. And that note was wrapped round a door-key which fitted Winnie's door, which the servant was bribed to carry.

So it came about that shortly after nightfall Winnie let herself out of her room, and creeping down some familiar halls and stairways, emerged into the grounds surrounding the house. Then she turned toward the street. She did not know what she meant to do, only she had a feeling that Buck was somewhere in the vicinity trying to find an opportunity to speak to her. She had felt sure that he would not abandon the attempt to communicate with her. She had on her jacket, with a scarf thrown over her head. She felt that she would not be easily recognized.

She stopped as she drew near the corner which gave a view down the street. There was a stir beyond the wall. The next instant a form came flying over the fence.

"Winnie!"

"Buck!"

It was Badger!

"I have been crazy to see you!" he whispered, clasping her tightly in his arms. "I knew it wasn't your fault that I did not get to see you. Have they had you locked up?"

"Yes," she answered, fervently returning the kiss. "I just got out of the room. Somehow, I felt that you were down here, and I slipped down as soon as I could."

"I knew you were true as steel," he fervently declared. "Nothing whatever could ever have made me believe otherwise."

"Did father write to you?"

"Yes. He told me never to come here again, and that I must not try to see you. I came to the house, and the servant said you were not in, and would not admit me even when I asked for Elsie and Inza. I have had an awful time."

"I have nearly died!" she confessed. "Oh, it has simply been terrible! I thought once I was going crazy. Father does not understand how he has tortured me, or he would not do it, I know. He cannot realize what it means. He simply thinks I am still a child, and that I ought to submit to him in this matter, as I have always done in all other things."

"You are old enough now to have a mind of your own, I allow!"

"And he has heard such awful stories about you, Buck. Just terrible things."

That deep rage against Donald Pike struggled again in the heart of the Kansan.

"I think I know who told him. What were the things, anyway?"

He said this with a great dread, for he already knew.

"Oh, I knew you were not guilty, Buck! Never fancy for a moment that I thought you guilty. I told him you were innocent. I knew that it couldn't be true that you were"--she sobbed--"drunk when you went aboard the _Crested Foam_."

Badger winced as if stabbed. The dying boat-keeper, Barney Lynn, confessed to drugging Badger, but did not tell Winnie that Badger was drunk at the time. The Westerner knew this, and had been, as he had admitted to Merriwell, just coward enough to be glad that Lynn did not tell Winnie the whole truth. Now, as the sweat of a great inward struggle came out on his face, he wished he had been courageous enough to inform her of the real facts, instead of sheltering himself behind that palatial confession of the boat-keeper. It was a virtual falsehood that was coming home to him in a most unpleasant manner.

"I have stood up for you, Buck, against everything that father could say," Winnie artlessly and innocently continued. "When he insisted that you were drunk at the time, I told him I knew it was not so; and I have stood by it. He thinks he has discovered proofs from a saloon-keeper named Connelly, who keeps a vile resort somewhere down in the worst part of New Haven. Connelly says you were intoxicated at his house that night. But I told father that the same fellow who gave him the information against you in the first place must have hired Connelly to say that. A man who will sell liquor will lie, you know, Buck!"

Badger was violently trembling, but Winnie, in the ecstatic joy of meeting him, did not notice it. There was a tempest in the Kansan's soul. Winnie's sweet and trusting faith in him filled him with an anguishing shame. Could he tell her now that he was drunk that night--that all the things said against him by Connelly and that unknown informant were true? Would she not turn against him if he did? Would she not despise him? Would not her love be obliterated? Badger felt as if the ground were reeling under his feet.

Once he was about to give away to the evil impulses that were fighting against him. But he did not. At last, as she chattered on, so strongly asserting her faith in his innocence, he caught her convulsively to him.

"Winnie!" he gasped, and his voice was so hoarse and unnatural that she was startled. "My God! Winnie, don't say those things! I know that when I confess the truth to you you will feel that I am the biggest scoundrel that ever walked. But I must tell you. I was a coward and a fool, I reckon, for not telling you before. But I just couldn't, Winnie! But those things are true! I was drunk that night--I was at Connelly's--I was----"

Her form seemed to grow rigid in his arms.

"I must tell you the truth now, if it kills me!" he continued, almost gasping out the words. "And if you cast me off, I believe it will kill me! But it seems to me that I'd rather die than to have you think me innocent when I am guilty. I could never stand it in the world. I'm a dog, I allow! I'm not fit to associate with you whatever--not in the least! Your father is right about that. I see it now, though I didn't before. But, Winnie, I love you, and I love you! That is all I can say. I allow I haven't a right to say that now, but I must say it. You won't cast me off for this? You will give me another show? Before God, I haven't touched the stuff since that night! Not a drop! And I'll never touch it again!"

"Buck," she whispered, at last, "I wish you had told me that at the very first."

"And you wouldn't have spoken to me again?"

"Yes, Buck, I should have spoken to you again. I should have been very sorry, Buck. I should have grieved over it, as I do now. But I should have loved you just the same, Buck."

"Then you do love me? You do not intend to tell me to go and never speak to you again?"

"Don't you understand a girl's heart any better than that, Buck? She never casts a man off for such things, if she truly loves him--though, perhaps, she ought to! Love isn't a thing of the head, but of the heart. I love you, Buck, and I am very sorry!"

He held her as if he meant never to let her go, and she submitted to his crushing caress.

"You are true--true--true as steel!" he exultantly cried.

"Be careful, or you will be heard, dear! We are right by the house, remember."

"Is your father in?"

"No, but he may return at any time. It would be terrible if he should discover us here."

"What are we to do?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had time to think. What you have confessed has so upset me that I seem to know nothing else. I can't think of anything else. You see, Buck, I can't tell father any more that you were not--drunk that night!"

The hated word seemed to choke her.

"No!"

"And what shall I say to him?"

"I reckon that is entirely too much for me."

"But I will stand up for you all I can!"

"I allow that you are an angel!" he enthusiastically declared.

"You have a low conception of angels. I can't imagine one meeting a man in this surreptitious fashion. Really, Buck, when you come to think of it, it is almost as bad as--as--what you did at Connelly's, you know!"

"Not on your life, it isn't! It's the thing I knew you would do--and there isn't any truer or better girl whatever on this earth!"

"I am glad you think so, Buck."

The Westerner was trembling as much now with delight and pleasure as he had before been trembling with apprehension. The fear that Winnie would cast him off when she knew the truth about the _Crested Foam_ affair, that had so distressed him, had given place to a deep satisfaction.

"It would be dreadful if father should discover us here. I am really getting scared!" she continued.

"I reckon that there isn't any other place whatever where we can go?" he anxiously asked.

"No. But we can stand and talk here a little while. Then I shall have to hurry back into the house before my absence is noticed. One of the servants I can trust to help me, but, I am afraid, not the others."

"And Elsie and Inza?"

"Yes, of course, all they can. They have just heard about the trouble I have been having. They thought I was sick. I don't know what they can do."

"Carry notes," Badger suggested.

"Yes. Oh, they will do what they can! They sent me a key that fits the door of my room. And they are coming up to see me to-night and to-morrow, they said in their note, in spite of the prohibition. But, of course, they will have to be careful. Father is very set when he makes up his mind to do anything, and he is very stern at times, though he loves me. He thinks he is doing the thing that he ought to do, and that he is really keeping me from throwing myself away----"

"On a drunkard!" said the Westerner bitterly.

"But you don't drink now, Buck! And you never were a drunkard!"

"Perhaps I oughtn't to blame him any whatever!" he grumbled.

"His intentions are good, but it is going to make it hard for us, for, of course, I do not mean to give you up, if he keeps on ordering me to do so from now until the day of----"

"Our marriage!"

She laughed.

"I was going to say the day of my death!"

"I allow that the day of our marriage sounds a good deal better."

"I think it does myself," she admitted, and the Kansan took this as an excuse to kiss her again.

"We'll pull out of this snarl in some way," he hopefully declared. "I don't know just how, but we'll plan something."

"Oh, I'm afraid of father!" and she shivered.

"I don't see just how we are to get round the old man's objections myself at this moment, but something may come our way. If we can continue to meet, I reckon we can plan something."

"We can meet to-morrow evening right here."

"Good. That's all right."

"And many more nights, if we are not discovered. I'll be as nice to father as I can, and perhaps he will not dream I am such a disobedient thing, after all. But I do hate to deceive him! I never did before in my life, and it strikes me as something awful. He doesn't dream that I would do such a thing."

"I think he does, or he wouldn't have locked you in. If he had trusted you, there would have been no need of that."

"True," she admitted.

"And I shall be a living lie, just as you were, Buck, when you made me think I knew all about that _Crested Foam_ affair. So you see I am not much better than you were, if any. But you will never deceive me about anything again, will you, Buck?"

"Never!" the Kansan asserted.

"And if you should find out who told father?"

"I'll punch his head."

"And get into more trouble? You mustn't!"

"I know who it was. Don Pike did that, I'm certain, and if I don't pay him for it, I allow it will be because I don't get a chance."

"Don't get into more trouble!" she begged.

"There won't be any trouble--for me!"

Her fear of discovery was so great that she would not remain out long, but crept back into the house and up to her room. Badger, however, lingered, staring up at the house and vainly endeavoring to think of some plan which would enable them to overcome the violent objections of Mr. Lee.

"I allow I am in a hole," he grumbled. "But as long as Winnie has no notion of throwing me over, I shall not let any coyote weakness get the better of me! Not on your life!"

He was about to leap the fence and make his way back to the campus, when he saw a man sneak into the yard and drop down behind some shrubbery not far from the front door. He could not make out the man's face and form because of the darkness.

"Mighty queer, that is!" thought the Westerner, staring at the spot where the man had disappeared. "He don't act as if he intended to try to rustle the ranch. I reckon I'll wait a bit."

Badger had not long to wait. Fairfax Lee came down the walk from the street scarcely a minute later.

"If this wasn't New Haven, in the great and cultivated East, I should say the fellow is laying for Lee with a gun, or a lariat!"

As Lee came down the path, the man appeared from behind the shrubbery, as if he had just returned from a visit to one of the side doors, and placed himself in front of the politician. Lee stopped in a hesitating way, and it was clear to Badger that he was afraid of this intruder.

"What are you doing here?" Lee demanded. The man advanced a step, with a threatening whine.

"You wouldn't see me at your office, and I have come here, Lee. When are you going to get me that appointment?"

Lee was one of New Haven's prominent politicians.

"I have told you that I can't do anything for you, Gaston!" he declared.

"But you said before the election that you'd git me a job!"

"I said nothing of the kind!"

"That's a lie!" the man addressed as Gaston fiercely asserted. "You wouldn't see me at the office, so I've come here, and I want justice done. You have been turning me away every day. I was right so long as I could hustle votes for you, and now I'm dirt!"

"You are simply a lunatic."

"And you mean to put me in an asylum?" the man hissed.

"That is the appointment I'll get for you, Gaston, if you trouble me."

"I'll kill you!" Gaston snarled, drawing a knife. "That's what I have made up my mind to do to you!"

"Stand aside, sir, and let me pass!" Lee commanded, though his voice was shaky. "I shall have you arrested if you----"

For reply, the man leaped at Lee with a snarl like that of an enraged dog.

"Loony as a locoed cowboy!" thought Badger. He was on the point of rushing to Lee's assistance. But there was no need. Lee, who was light on his feet, avoided the rush and ran for a side door, through which he escaped into the house, leaving Gaston to rave and mutter, and at last retreat into the street and hurry away.

Not until the man had disappeared did the Westerner leave the grounds. Then he leaped the fence, and hurried back to the campus. Here a large number of students were rollicking in the somewhat wild and reckless student fashion, to their own great delight and the amusement of hundreds of spectators.