CHAPTER IX

THE GIRL FROM FAR AWAY.

It was like a dream to Frank, and he looked up at that face, which was now filled with an expression of agony, as the girl’s lips moved, and he heard her whisper:

“My hero! my hero! Did I save you from the powder-keg only to see you killed like this?”

It was still a dream, but these words suddenly changed the scene, and he was transported to the depths of a deep forest, far away in Maine, close to the Canadian border. He saw himself helpless and bound fast to a keg of powder in a deserted hut, while two brutal men hurried out by the open door, one of them pausing and turning back long enough to say:

“In one minute the fuse’ll reach the powder! Good-by!”

Behind him he heard a spluttering, hissing sound, while over his shoulder rose a mass of smoke. He could turn his head and see the burning end of a lighted fuse that ran down into the keg.

Those men had tied him there and lighted that fuse, their intention being to blow him into eternity. He knew their murderous purpose would be accomplished the moment the fire reached the powder.

Outside, the forest was dark and grim, but he could see the sunshine sifting through the trees, and to his ears came the chattering bark of a squirrel. Life was very sweet to him, a mere boy on the brink of eternity, but he could make no move to save himself.

He tried to reach the fuse with his teeth, but in vain, and his horror was unspeakable as he saw the gleaming speck of fire swiftly eating its way along the smoking fuse. Even now, in his dream of that time, the feeling of horror again seized upon him and benumbed his entire body.

There alone, far from his comrades and the friends he loved, was he to meet such a terrible death?

A prayer rose to his lips, for he knew that in a few more moments no human hand could save him.

“God help me!” he breathed.

But he did not cry aloud and shriek, for he believed himself far from human beings who could hear and render aid, and he would not give his enemies the satisfaction of hearing him express fear. If die he must, he would die bravely.

Then, outside the window, sounded a footstep. Then, at the broken window, appeared the face of this girl. Instantly she seemed to understand his peril. In her hand she had a revolver. There was no time to run round the corner and enter the hut, for now the burning end of the fuse protruded hardly more than an inch from the hole in the keg. And so, quick as a flash, she had lifted the revolver and fired into that room.

That shot saved Frank’s life, for the bullet cut the fuse and the burning end died out and did no harm.

Then she came running into the hut and released him with a few swift slashes of a gleaming knife.

He was weak and numb, but her strong hands lifted him to his feet and she urged him from the hut, telling him that the shot must be heard by the two men, one of whom was her own father, while the other was a despised suitor for her hand.

She had brought a rifle, his own, which she put into his hands. As he grasped it strength came back to him, and he knew that he owed his life to this strange girl of the woods, whose father was a smuggler, and one of the worst men in the business.

As they emerged from the hut the two were seen coming toward the hut at a run. They saw Frank come out, and one of them lifted a revolver and fired at him.

The girl had seen the movement, and, with a cry of warning and in an attempt to keep the man from shooting, she sprang before Merry. A moment later she fell into his arms, wounded by a bullet from her father’s pistol.

With an awful cry of rage, Merry had returned the shot, breaking the man’s wrist. Then he had vowed to drop both men if they advanced another step, and that had stopped them.

He had feared the girl was dead, but she recovered, declaring the wound of no consequence. Then she had breathlessly urged him to get away, saying those men would surely kill him if he did not. He had consented only when he knew that she had been hurt too much for him to take her along. The best he could do was to leave her to the care of the men, for her father loved her in his way, ruffian though he was.

In that moment of their parting she had clung to him. He had made her promise to write him and tell him just how much she was hurt. Then he said:

“It seems cowardly to leave you this way.”

“You must!” she panted. “Good-by! I don’t know—perhaps—you may never see me again alive. You won’t think worse of me—will you—if I ask you to—to kiss——”

She had been unable to say more, and she stopped, her cheeks flushed with shame.

What sort of fellow would he have been had he refused this request of the girl who had saved his life!

He pressed his lips to hers, and she whispered:

“You are my hero, Frank! Good-by!”

And so he left her. As he hurried along the dim old wood road he heard her ordering one of the men to drop his rifle, vowing she would shoot him if he did not.

This adventure had been one of the most thrilling of Frank’s eventful life, and often he had wondered if Hilda Dugan had died from the wound received at her own father’s hands. If she had not, why had she failed to write to him, as she promised?

But now he knew Hilda Dugan was not dead, for it was she who knelt there on the cold pavement and lifted his head to her lap, while all the scenes of this thrilling adventure rushed through his mind in a moment.

“Frank!” she whispered huskily, “are you badly hurt—are you killed?”

Then he stirred and struggled to sit up.

“I don’t think I’m hurt much,” he said. “The fall stunned me, that’s all.”

A crowd had gathered about, and both Frank and the girl were lifted to their feet. Hands were brushing Merriwell’s clothes, but he paid no heed, turning to the girl, who now seemed on the point of taking to flight.

“Hilda—Miss Dugan,” he said earnestly, “please don’t run away! You have no cause to be afraid of me.”

She was blushing with confusion and shame.

“Oh, what have I done!” she whispered, thinking how she had flung herself on her knees and lifted his head before this crowd.

Two policemen were near. One asked Frank if he hadn’t better go to a hospital and should he send in a call for an ambulance?

“No, no!” exclaimed Merry. “Don’t do it, officer! I am all right—not a bone broken, and scarcely an abrasion. Move these staring people along, and then we’ll get away from here as soon as possible.”

Then, as the two policemen scattered the crowd, Frank spoke to the girl.

“You have done nothing unladylike, Miss Dugan.”

“What will you think of me?” she gasped.

“What I have always thought—that you are one of the bravest girls I ever met. You saved my life once. Did you think I could forget that?”

“I did not know.”

“But you forgot to keep your promise—you never wrote me a line.”

“I could not! When I thought it all over, I was so ashamed of myself that I resolved never to write to you, and I thought we could never meet again.”

“You had no cause to be ashamed.”

“Yes, I had. I was so bold! I saw it all afterward, and I knew how I must look in your eyes.”

“You saw it in a wrong light, Miss Dugan. I never thought of you as bold. Indeed, I have thought of you in quite a different light.”

“Truly?”

“On my word of honor.”

“I believe you!” she joyously exclaimed. “Nothing could make me doubt you.”

“Come,” said Frank; “the officer has scattered the crowd. I see my cabby is being taken away in an ambulance. Poor fellow! And the one who ran us down escaped. Well, you and I will take another cab to escape from the curious eyes that are watching us.”

Frank was himself again. He called a cab, assisted Hilda to enter, said “Up Broadway,” and was quickly beside her.

Frank’s head was still humming, and he was badly shaken up. Had he not been an athlete in the finest possible condition it is probable he would have been injured far more severely; but the fellow who can quickly recover after being tackled while at full run on the football-field and hurled heavily to the frozen ground is not easily knocked out by any kind of fall.

It is true that the man who keeps himself in the very best physical condition can withstand shocks and injuries that would surely maim or kill weak and flabby persons. This explains why time after time Frank was able to endure without serious or permanent injury things which must have wrecked and ruined a weakling.

He had helped Hilda into a hansom, and now he was seated beside her. He glanced at her, and his eyes told him she was even more attractive than when he had seen her far away in the wilds of northern Maine. Often since that meeting he had wondered if she would have appeared so pretty to his eyes had he seen her first in a city, and now his question was answered.

Outdoor life had developed her till her body was graceful, supple, athletic, and yet she was not coarse, for she had brains in that finely shaped head, and she had known enough to use them to advantage. She had been educated in a city school, but even then she had not been satisfied till her father sent her to Boston, where she attended the Conservatory of Music and came forth one of the most brilliant pupils.

In the home of old Enos Dugan on that lonely island of Grand Lake was a handsome rosewood piano of the very best make, and the music old Dugan’s daughter could conjure from the instrument was the wonder and comment from Vanceborough to Houlton. She could play wild dance tunes that set the feet of all hearers to shuffling, or she could draw from the polished box sad, sweet melodies which brought the unbidden tear welling to the eye. Then, again, she could make the piano thunder and roar with the wild music of Wagner till all the forest rumbled and boomed and shuddered with the sound. Again, her fingers tinkled over the ivory keys, and the piano laughed and sang like a dancing brook in the June sunshine, drawing the birds and the squirrels to the open window, where they listened in wonder and admiration.

Few and ill-favored were the men freely permitted to visit the Dugan home, but they sat and wondered to see Hilda’s white fingers fluttering over the keys so fast that the eye could scarcely follow their swift movements. To them it was a marvel they never understood.

Hilda’s fame spread afar, but the sturdy youths of the region were brave indeed if they ventured near Dugan’s island. Even the officers were afraid of the man, and though he was reputed to be a smuggler, they generally kept as far from him as possible.

When Frank had first seen Hilda on board the little steamer that plied on the lake, she was in company with a ministerial-looking man by the name of Jones. This individual pretended that he was earnestly seeking to spread the “holy light” in dark places, but Jones it was who aided Dugan in capturing Frank, and Merry found that the pretended minister was nothing more than one of the old smuggler’s chosen allies in crime.

It was reported that Hilda Dugan was to marry this man, but Merry had seen that his attentions were decidedly unpleasant to her.

Sitting beside her in the cab, Frank fancied that her face was a trifle thinner and more refined than when he had seen her last. He had sometimes wondered in thinking of her if she had remained pretty or if time had hardened and turned her into a woman of the wilds. Now he realized that there was something in this girl that had battled with and conquered the commoner part of her nature.

For, as true as Enos Dugan was her father, there must be a coarse strain in her. Merry wondered what sort of woman her mother could have been, and he caught himself fancying her a sweet, gentle, delicate creature who had been driven to an early grave by the wickedness of her brutal husband.

But even Merry had not seen all the sides of Dugan’s nature, for the man, apparently a perfect ruffian, could be as gentle and tender as a baby toward one he loved, and he had loved both his wife and his daughter. For long years he had kept the truth from his wife, leading her to believe him an honest trader, but one day, when an officer came to arrest Dugan, the truth came out. The officer escaped with his life because Mrs. Dugan begged her husband not to stain his hands with blood; but from that time she shrank from him in terror, and within a year she died. The shock of her horrible discovery that she was the wife of a criminal killed her; at least, the men of the woods said so.

Then, having buried his wife, Dugan disappeared with his baby daughter. Years after he returned, and Hilda grew to budding girlhood near Vanceborough, where she once attended school. Later, when the officers became too troublesome and old Enos retired to the island far up the lake, where his cabin was built so that one-half of it stood in Maine and the other half in New Brunswick, the girl was sent away to school.

Hilda’s return created a sensation, for she wore stylish clothes and she was the prettiest girl ever seen in that region. The young men talked of her, but the fear of old Enos kept them at a distance.

As she sat beside Frank in the hansom cab her eyes were downcast and she showed signs of painful embarrassment that was entirely foreign to her usual self-possession.

“We have escaped before the reporters could get hold of us, Miss Dugan,” smiled Frank, “so we may keep our names out of the papers. That was one object of my haste. Now, if you will tell me where you wish to go, I’ll give further instructions to the driver.”

She hesitated.

“Never mind,” she said, still showing embarrassment. “It will be better, perhaps, if you do not know where I am living.”

Her words gave him a painful shock. Why should she wish to conceal from him where she was living? The question brought all sorts of frightful possibilities to his mind, but he tried to thrust them away. True, it seemed most remarkable that she should be here in New York, so far from her home, and the words of the stranger who had twice attacked him began to sound again in his ears. He had been accused of doing her a wrong of some sort, and did that mean——

“I’m afraid you do not understand,” she went on, beholding the look of bewilderment on his face. “I hope you will not think it very strange, but there is a reason why I do not wish you to know where I am stopping.”

“Very well,” he said. “That is your privilege, Miss Dugan, but I fear you have no confidence in me.”

“Oh, yes, I have!” she quickly cried.

“Then——”

“I don’t know! I can’t tell you everything. But—father is dead, and I am here.”

Enos Dugan, the smuggler, was dead! What had his life of lawlessness availed him? Had he been able by his unlawful operations to get together a fortune that placed this girl in comfortable circumstances?

Again she seemed to read his thoughts, for she added:

“He died poor. At least, that is the way it seemed.”

“I am sorry,” said Merry sincerely, “for your sake. Was his death sudden?”

“Yes,” she nodded painfully; “he was shot by revenue officers.”

This confession cost her an effort, but she went on:

“He had no time to tell me if he had anything saved or hidden away. I have thought that he had, but I cannot be sure. If he did, some one else got it all.”

“Who?”

“You know the man. His name is Jones.”

“Yes, I know the man,” said Merry grimly. “His name will be Mud if I ever get another good chance at him. I’ve often wondered if—if you——”

“Had married him? No! no! no! I have fought against it ever since. Father tried time after time to compel me to, but I could get the best of him, for, no matter what else he was, he did care for me. He really thought Huck Jones would make me a good husband, and that was why he wished me to have the man. Father had lived a life that made him see everything in a wrong light.

“He sneered at honest men, for he said they were like cowering curs that did not dare fling themselves at the throat of their brutal master, the law. Therefore he admired Jones because he would not be restrained by the law. If my father had saved anything, that man Jones was the only one who knew where it was hidden. After father’s death, finding myself alone in the world and poor, I was in a desperate strait. Then Jones forced his attentions upon me. He was not the only one. But I could not marry any of them, and—I am here!”

What had brought her to New York? What could a poor girl like her do in that wicked, heartless city, where often a pretty face is a curse and the purest heart falters, faints, and falls before the gnawing wolf of hunger.