Chapter 5

“Don't,” said Miss Cahill. “Please let me go on. After I brought you your breakfast here, I couldn't begin to work just at once. I was thinking about--something else. Everyone was talking of you--your arrest, and I couldn't settle down to take account of stock.” She threw a look at Ranson which asked for his sympathy. “But when I did start I began with the ponchos and the red kerchiefs, and then I found out something.” Cahill was regarding his daughter in strange distress, but Ranson appeared indifferent to her words, and intent only on the light and beauty in her face. But he asked, smiling, “And that was?”

“You see,” continued Miss Cahill, eagerly, “I always keep a dozen of each article, and as each one is sold I check it off in my day-book. Yesterday Mrs. Bolland bought a poncho for the colonel. That left eleven ponchos. Then a few minutes later I gave Lightfoot a red kerchief for his squaw. That left eleven kerchiefs.”

“Stop!” cried Ranson. “Miss Cahill,” he began, severely, “I hope you do not mean to throw suspicion on the wife of my respected colonel, or on Mrs. Lightfoot, 'the Prairie Flower.' Those ladies are my personal friends; I refuse to believe them guilty. And have you ever seen Mrs. Bolland on horseback? You wrong her. It is impossible.”

“Please,” begged Miss Cahill, “please let me explain. When you went to hold up the stage you took a poncho and a kerchief. That should have left ten of each. But when I counted them this morning there were nine red kerchiefs and nine ponchos.”

Ranson slapped his knee sharply. “Good!” he said. “That is interesting.”

“What does it prove?” demanded Cahill.

“It proves nothing, or it proves everything,” said Miss Cahill. “To my mind it proves without any doubt that someone overheard Mr. Ranson's plan, that he dressed like him to throw suspicion on him, and that this second person was the one who robbed the paymaster. Now, father, this is where you can help us. You were there then. Try to remember. It is so important. Who came into the store after the others had gone away?”

Cahill tossed his head like an angry bull.

“There are fifty places in this post,” he protested, roughly, “where a man can get a poncho. Every trooper owns his slicker.”

“But, father, we don't know that theirs are missing,” cried Miss Cahill, “and we do know that those in our store are. Don't think I am foolish. It seemed such an important fact to me, and I had hoped it would help.”

“It does help--immensely!” cried Ranson.

“I think it's a splendid clue. But, unfortunately, I don't think we can prove anything by your father, for he's just been telling me that there was no one in the place but himself. No one came in, and he was quite alone--” Ranson had begun speaking eagerly, but either his own words or the intentness with which Cahill received them caused him to halt and hesitate--“absolutely--alone.”

“You see,” said Cahill, thickly, “as soon as they had gone I rode to the Indian village.”

“Why, no, father,” corrected Miss Cahill. “Don't you remember, you told me last night that when you reached Lightfoot's tent I had just gone. That was quite two hours after the others left the store.” In her earnestness Miss Cahill had placed her hand upon her father's arm and clutched it eagerly. “And you remember no one coming in before you left?” she asked. “No one?”

Cahill had not replaced the bandaged hand in his pocket, but had shoved it inside the opening of his coat. As Mary Cahill caught his arm her fingers sank into the palm of the hand and he gave a slight grimace of pain.

“Oh, father,” Miss Cahill cried, “your hand! I am so sorry. Did I hurt it? Please--let me see.”

Cahill drew back with sudden violence.

“No!” he cried. “Leave it alone! Come, we must be going.” But Miss Cahill held the wounded hand in both her own. When she turned her eyes to Ranson they were filled with tender concern.

“I hurt him,” she said, reproachfully. “He shot himself last night with one of those new cylinder revolvers.”

Her father snatched the hand from her. He tried to drown her voice by a sudden movement toward the door. “Come!” he called. “Do you hear me?”

But his daughter in her sympathy continued. “He was holding it so,” she said, “and it went off, and the bullet passed through here.” She laid the tip of a slim white finger on the palm of her right hand.

“The bullet!” cried Ranson. He repeated, dully, “The bullet!”

There was a sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch of the sentry's heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back of the barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack of the bat as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that while one half of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the other was wondering whether the runner had made his base. It seemed an interminable time before Ranson raised his eyes from Miss Cahill's palm to her father's face. What he read in them caused Cahill to drop his hand swiftly to his hip.

Ranson saw the gesture and threw out both his hands. He gave a hysterical laugh, strangely boyish and immature, and ran to place himself between Cahill and the door. “Drop it!” he whispered. “My God, man!” he entreated, “don't make a fool of yourself. Mr. Cahill,” he cried aloud, “you can't go till you know. Can he, Mary? Yes, Mary.” The tone in which he repeated the name was proprietary and commanding. He took her hand. “Mr. Cahill,” he said, joyously, “we've got something to tell you. I want you to understand that in spite of all I'VE done--I say in spite of all I'VE done--I mean getting into this trouble and disgrace, and all that--I've dared to ask your daughter to marry me.” He turned and led Miss Cahill swiftly toward the veranda. “Oh, I knew he wouldn't like it,” he cried. “You see. I told you so. You've got to let me talk to him alone. You go outside and wait. I can talk better when you are not here. I'll soon bring him around.”

“Father,” pleaded Miss Cahill, timidly. From behind her back Ranson shook his head at the post-trader in violent pantomime. “She'd better go outside and wait, hadn't she, Mr. Cahill?” he directed.

As he was bidden, the post-trader raised his head and nodded toward the door. The onslaught of sudden and new conditions overwhelmed and paralyzed him.

“Father!” said Miss Cahill, “it isn't just as you think. Mr. Ranson did ask me to marry him--in a way--At least, I knew what he meant. But I did not say--in a way--that I would marry him. I mean it was not settled, or I would have told you. You mustn't think I would have left you out of this--of my happiness, you who have done everything to make me happy.”

She reproached her father with her eyes fastened on his face. His own were stern, fixed, and miserable. “You will let it be, won't you, father?” she begged. “It--it means so much. I--can't tell you--” She threw out her hand toward Ranson as though designating a superior being. “Why, I can't tell HIM. But if you are harsh with him or with me it will break my heart. For as I love you, father, I love him--and it has got to be. It must be. For I love him so. I have always loved him. Father,” she whispered, “I love him so.”

Ranson, humbly, gratefully, took the girl's hand and led her gently to the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his riding-breeches and nodded his head. “Well,” he exclaimed, “you've made a damned pretty mess of it, haven't you?”

Cahill had sunk heavily into a chair and was staring at Ranson with the stupid, wondering gaze of a dumb animal in pain. During the moments in which the two men eyed each other Ranson's smile disappeared. Cahill raised himself slowly as though with a great effort.

“I done it,” said Cahill, “for her. I done it to make her happy.”

“That's all right,” said Ranson, briskly. “She's going to be happy. We're all going to be happy.”

“An' all I did,” Cahill continued, as though unconscious of the interruption, “was to disgrace her.” He rose suddenly to his feet. His mental sufferings were so keen that his huge body trembled. He recognized how truly he had made “a mess of it.” He saw that all he had hoped to do for his daughter by crime would have been done for her by this marriage with Ranson, which would have made her a “lady,” made her rich, made her happy. Had it not been for his midnight raids she would have been honored, loved, and envied, even by the wife of the colonel herself. But through him disgrace had come upon her, sorrow and trouble. She would not be known as the daughter of Senator Ranson, but of Cahill, an ex-member of the Whyo gang, a highway robber, as the daughter of a thief who was serving his time in State prison. At the thought Cahill stepped backward unsteadily as though he had been struck. He cried suddenly aloud. Then his hand whipped back to his revolver, but before he could use it Ranson had seized his wrist with both hands. The two struggled silently and fiercely. The fact of opposition brought back to Cahill all of his great strength.

“No, you don't!” Ranson muttered. “Think of your daughter, man. Drop it!”

“I shall do it,” Cahill panted. “I am thinking of my daughter. It's the only way out. Take your hands off me--I shall!”

With his knuckles Ranson bored cruelly into the wounded hand, and it opened and the gun dropped from it; but as it did so it went off with a report that rang through the building. There was an instant rush of feet upon the steps of the veranda, and at the sound the two men sprang apart, eyeing each other sheepishly like two discovered truants. When Sergeant Clancey and the guard pushed through the door Ranson stood facing it, spinning the revolver in cowboy fashion around his fourth finger. He addressed the sergeant in a tone of bitter irony.

“Oh, you've come at last,” he demanded. “Are you deaf? Why didn't you come when I called?” His tone showed he considered he had just cause for annoyance.

“The gun brought me, I--” began Clancey.

“Yes, I hoped it might. That's why I fired it,” snapped Ranson. “I want two whiskey-and-sodas. Quick now!”

“Two--” gasped Clancey.

“Whiskey-and-sodas. See how fast one of you can chase over to the club and get 'em. And next time I want a drink don't make me wake the entire garrison.”

As the soldiers retreated Ranson discovered Miss Cahill's white face beyond them. He ran and held the door open by a few inches.

“It's all right,” he whispered, reassuringly. “He's nearly persuaded. Wait just a minute longer and he'll be giving us his blessing.”

“But the pistol-shot?” she asked.

“I was just calling the guard. The electric bell's broken, and your father wanted a drink. That's a good sign, isn't it? Shows he's friendly, What kind did you say you wanted, Mr. Cahill--Scotch was it, or rye?” Ranson glanced back at the sombre, silent figure of Cahill, and then again opened the door sufficiently for him to stick out his head. “Sergeant,” he called, “make them both Scotch--long ones.”

He shut the door and turned upon the post-trader. “Now, then, father-in-law,” he said, briskly, “you've got to cut and run, and you've got to run quick. We'll tell 'em you're going to Fort Worth to buy the engagement ring, because I can't, being under arrest. But you go to Duncan City instead, and from there take the cars, to--”

“Run away!” Cahill repeated, dazedly. “But you'll be court-martialled.”

“There won't be any court-martial!”

Cahill glanced around the room quickly. “I see,” he cried. In his eagerness he was almost smiling. “I'm to leave a confession and give it to you.”

“Confession! What rot!” cried Ranson.

“They can't prove anything against me. Everyone knows by now that there were two men on the trail, but they don't know who the other man was, and no one ever must know--especially Mary.”

Cahill struck the table with his fist. “I won't stand for it!” he cried. “I got you into this and I'm goin'--”

“Yes, going to jail,” retorted Ranson. “You'll look nice behind the bars, won't you? Your daughter will be proud of you in a striped suit. Don't talk nonsense. You're going to run and hide some place, somewhere, where Mary and I can come and pay you a visit. Say--Canada. No, not Canada. I'd rather visit you in jail than in a Montreal hotel. Say Tangier, or Buenos Ayres, or Paris. Yes, Paris is safe enough--and so amusing.”

Cahill seated himself heavily. “I trapped you into this fix, Mr. Ranson,” he said, “you know I did, and now I mean to get you out of it. I ain't going to leave the man my Mame wants to marry with a cloud on him. I ain't going to let her husband be jailed.”

Ranson had run to his desk and from a drawer drew forth a roll of bills. He advanced with them in his hand.

“Yes, Paris is certainly the place,” he said. “Here's three hundred dollars. I'll cable you the rest. You've never been to Paris, have you? It's full of beautiful sights--Henry's American Bar, for instance, and the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and Maxim's. All good Americans go to Paris when they die and all the bad ones while they are alive. You'll find lots of both kinds, and you'll sit all day on the sidewalk and drink Bock and listen to Hungarian bands. And Mary and I will join you there and take you driving in the Bois. Now, you start at once. I'll tell her you've gone to New York to talk it over with father, and buy the ring. Then I'll say you've gone on to Paris to rent us apartments for the honeymoon. I'll explain it somehow. That's better than going to jail, isn't it, and making us bow our heads in grief?”

Cahill, in his turn, approached the desk and, seating himself before it, began writing rapidly.

“What is it?” asked Ranson.

“A confession,” said Cahill, his pen scratching.

“I won't take it,” Ranson said, “and I won't use it.”

“I ain't going to give it to you,” said Cahill, over his shoulder. “I know better than that. But I don't go to Paris unless I leave a confession behind me. Call in the guard,” he commanded; “I want two witnesses.”

“I'll see you hanged first,” said Ranson.

Cahill crossed the room to the door and, throwing it open, called, “Corporal of the guard!”

As he spoke, Captain Carr and Mrs. Bolland, accompanied by Miss Post and her aunt, were crossing the parade-ground. For a moment the post-trader surveyed them doubtfully, and then, stepping out upon the veranda, beckoned to them.

“Here's a paper I've signed, captain,” he said; “I wish you'd witness my signature. It's my testimony for the court-martial.”

“Then someone else had better sign it,” said Carr. “Might look prejudiced if I did.” He turned to the ladies. “These ladies are coming in to see Ranson now. They'll witness it.”

Miss Cahill, from the other end of the veranda, and the visitors entered the room together.

“Mrs. Truesdale!” cried Ranson. “You are pouring coals of fire upon my head. And Miss Post! Indeed, this is too much honor. After the way I threatened and tried to frighten you last night I expected you to hang me, at least, instead of which you have, I trust, come to tea.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Bolland, sternly. “These ladies insisted on my bringing them here to say how sorry they are that they talked so much and got you into this trouble. Understand, Mr. Ranson,” the colonel's wife added, with dignity, “that I am not here officially as Mrs. Bolland, but as a friend of these ladies.”

“You are welcome in whatever form you take, Mrs. Bolland,” cried Ranson, “and, believe me, I am in no trouble--no trouble, I assure you. In fact, I am quite the most contented man in the world. Mrs. Bolland, in spite of the cloud, the temporary cloud which rests upon my fair name, I take great pride in announcing to you that this young lady has done me the honor to consent to become my wife. Her father, a very old and dear friend, has given his consent. And I take this occasion to tell you of my good fortune, both in your official capacity and as my friend.”

There was a chorus of exclamations and congratulations in which Mrs. Bolland showed herself to be a true wife and a social diplomatist. In the post-trader's daughter she instantly recognized the heiress to the Ranson millions, and the daughter of a Senator who also was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Brevets and Promotions. She fell upon Miss Cahill's shoulder and kissed her on both cheeks. Turning eagerly upon Mrs. Truesdale, she said, “Alice, you can understand how I feel when I tell you that this child has always been to me like one of my own.”

Carr took Ranson's hand and wrung it. Sergeant Clancey grew purple with pleasure and stole back to the veranda, where he whispered joyfully to a sentry. In another moment a passing private was seen racing delightedly toward the baseball field.

At the same moment Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis and the regimental adjutant crossed the parade ground from the colonel's quarters and ran up the steps of Ranson's hut. The expressions of good-will, of smiling embarrassment and general satisfaction which Lieutenant Crosby observed on the countenances of those present seemed to give him a momentary check.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, disappointedly, “someone has told you!”

Ranson laughed and took the hand which Crosby held doubtfully toward him. “No one has told me,” he said. “I've been telling them.”

“Then you haven't heard?” Crosby cried, delightedly. “That's good. I begged to be the first to let you know, because I felt so badly at having doubted you. You must let me congratulate you. You are free.”

“Free?” smiled Ranson.

“Yes, relieved from arrest,” Crosby cried, joyfully. He turned and took Ranson's sword from the hands of the adjutant. “And the colonel's let your troop have the band to give you a serenade.”

But Ranson's face showed no sign of satisfaction.

“Wait!” he cried. “Why am I relieved from arrest?”

“Why? Because the other fellow has confessed.”

Ranson placed himself suddenly in front of Mary Cahill as though to shield her. His eyes stole stealthily towards Cahill's confession. Still unread and still unsigned, it lay unopened upon the table. Cahill was gazing upon Ranson in blank bewilderment.

Captain Carr gasped a sigh of relief that was far from complimentary to his client.

“Who confessed?” he cried.

“'Pop' Henderson,” said Crosby.

“'Pop' Henderson!” shouted Cahill. Unmindful of his wound, he struck the table savagely with his fist. For the first time in the knowledge of the post he exhibited emotion. “'Pop' Henderson, by the eternal!” he cried. “And I never guessed it!”

“Yes,” said Crosby, eagerly. “Abe Fisher was in it. Henderson persuaded the paymaster to make the trip alone with him. Then he dressed up Fisher to represent the Red Rider and sent him on ahead to hold him up. They were to share the money afterward. But Fisher fired on 'Pop' to kill, so as to have it all, and 'Pop's' trying to get even. And what with wanting to hurt Fisher, and thinking he is going to die, and not wishing to see you hanged, he's told the truth. We wired Kiowa early this morning and arrested Fisher. They've found the money, and he has confessed, too.”

“But the poncho and the red kerchief?” protested Carr. “And he had no stirrups!”

“Oh, Fisher had the make-up all right,” laughed Crosby; “Henderson says Fisher's the 'only, original' Red Rider. And as for the stirrups, I'm afraid that's my fault. I asked the colonel if the man wasn't riding without stirrups, and I guess the wish was father to the fact. He only imagined he hadn't seen any stirrups. The colonel was rattled. So, old man,” he added, turning to Ranson, “here's your sword again, and God bless you.”

Already the post had learned the news from the band and the verandas of the enlisted men overflowed with delighted troopers. From the stables and the ball field came the sound of hurrying feet, and a tumult of cheers and cowboy yells. Across the parade-ground the regimental band bore down upon Ranson's hut, proclaiming to the garrison that there would be a hot time in the old town that night. But Sergeant Clancey ran to meet the bandmaster, and shouted in his ear. “He's going to marry Mary Cahill,” he cried. “I heard him tell the colonel's wife. Play 'Just Because She Made Them Goo-goo Eyes.'”

“Like hell!” cried the bandmaster, indignantly, breaking in on the tune with his baton. “I know my business! Now, then, men,” he commanded, “'I'll Leave My Happy Home for You.'”

As Mrs. Bolland dragged Miss Cahill into view of the assembled troopers Ranson pulled his father-in-law into a far corner of the room. He shook the written confession in his face.

“Now, will you kindly tell me what that means?” he demanded. “What sort of a gallery play were you trying to make?”

Cahill shifted his sombrero guiltily. “I was trying to get you out of the hole,” he stammered. “I--I thought you done it.”

“You thought I done it!”

“Sure. I never thought nothing else.”

“Then why do you say here that YOU did it?”

“Oh, because,” stammered Cahill, miserably, “'cause of Mary, 'cause she wanted to marry you--'cause you were going to marry her.”

“Well--but--what good were you going to do by shooting yourself?”

“Oh, then?” Cahill jerked back his head as though casting out an unpleasant memory. “I thought you'd caught me, you, too--between you!”

“Caught you! Then you did--?”

“No, but I tried to. I heard your plan, and I did follow you in the poncho and kerchief, meaning to hold up the stage first, and leave it to Crosby and Curtis to prove you did it. But when I reached the coach you were there ahead of me, and I rode away and put in my time at the Indian village. I never saw the paymaster's cart, never heard of it till this morning. But what with Mame missing the poncho out of our shop and the wound in my hand I guessed they'd all soon suspect me. I saw you did. So I thought I'd just confess to what I meant to do, even if I didn't do it.”

Ranson surveyed his father-in-law with a delighted grin. “How did you get that bullet-hole in your hand?” he asked.

Cahill laughed shamefacedly. “I hate to tell you that,” he said. “I got it just as I said I did. My new gun went off while I was fooling with it, with my hand over the muzzle. And me the best shot in the Territory! But when I heard the paymaster claimed he shot the Red Rider through the palm I knew no one would believe me if I told the truth. So I lied.”

Ranson glanced down at the written confession, and then tore it slowly into pieces. “And you were sure I robbed the stage, and yet you believed that I'd use this? What sort of a son-in-law do you think you've got?”

“You thought _I_ robbed the stage, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And you were going to stand for robbing it yourself, weren't you? Well, that's the sort of son-in-law I've got!”

The two men held out their hands at the same instant.

Mary Cahill, her face glowing with pride and besieged with blushes, came toward them from the veranda. She was laughing and radiant, but she turned her eyes on Ranson with a look of tender reproach.

“Why did you desert me?” she said. “It was awful. They are calling you now. They are playing 'The Conquering Hero.'”

“Mr. Cahill,” commanded Ranson, “go out there and make a speech.” He turned to Mary Cahill and lifted one of her hands in both of his. “Well, I AM the conquering hero,” he said. “I've won the only thing worth winning, dearest,” he whispered; “we'll run away from them in a minute, and we'll ride to the waterfall and the Lover's Leap.” He looked down at her wistfully. “Do you remember?”

Mary Cahill raised her head and smiled. He leaned toward her breathlessly.

“Why, did it mean that to you, too?” he asked.

She smiled up at him in assent.

“But I didn't say anything, did I?” whispered Ranson. “I hardly knew you then. But I knew that day that I--that I would marry you or nobody else. And did you think--that you--”

“Yes,” Mary Cahill whispered.

He bent his head and touched her hand with his lips.