Part 3

"'"Indeed I am not," I signed hastily. "I came here ignorant of what I was to do, and now they say that I must stay until the notes are written out and the experiment is made. If it fails it is likely to go hard with both of us."

"'The invalid received my communication quietly, without asking how I gained my knowledge. Then, after asking and receiving answers to several questions in regard to my history, he nodded as if satisfied, and signed me to take down with extreme accuracy what he should give me. He then dictated by means of the sign alphabet what seemed like a technical article, many words of which he was obliged to spell for me, and including the finest weights and measures relating to metallurgy. After he had completed it he asked me to read it to him by signs, so that he could be sure that it was correct. When I had done so he looked up, smiled faintly to see that mother and son had left the room, and beckoned me to him. He took my hands, clasped them in his, and then signed: "Swear that you will never permit that paper to fall into the hands of Mrs. Westinghouse or her son."

"'In my fright I took the oath.

"'"Guard it well," he signified, "for it is a fortune beyond your dreams. Now sit down and take a bogus paper, which you must give to Mrs. Westinghouse. But first conceal this paper in your dress."

"'I did so. He then dictated another paper, different in every way from the first as to its methods; and then motioned that I must write out the second paper as soon as possible, give it to Mrs. Westinghouse, and then effect my escape before the fraud was discovered.

"'As I looked at him doubtingly, he added: "Trust me. I will provide the way."

"'"But you?" I said.

"'He tried to laugh. "I shan't live twenty-four hours," he said.

"'I asked if they were to blame. He shrugged his shoulders. "Her son's treachery robbed me of health and fortune. And now in their fiendish greed to inherit the secret they have locked me in this room and tried to wring it from me by their soft words and wheedling caresses. But they shall not succeed. They shall never know this."

"'As he spoke he drew from under his pillow a small blade in a sheath. It was a bright brownish yellow; the edge was sharp as a razor. He handed it to me, signifying that I was to keep it.

"'Hardly had I sheathed the strange weapon and concealed it in the folds of my bodice when the door opened and the woman again entered. I showed her the pages that I had taken and pencilled a note, saying that the formula was complete, but that it would take at least half a day to write it out, as it contained many unfamiliar terms which I should need to refer to a dictionary. For just a moment the woman scanned my face and that of the invalid with that strange air of suspicion that never wholly deserted her.

"'Apparently, what she saw satisfied her, for she signified her pleasure that I had succeeded in gaining the information in so short a time, and added that, as it was now past midnight, I might leave the rest of my work for the next day. Upon this, she led me to a room opening out of her own, indicating that she thought I might feel less lonely if I were near her. Later, I heard the key turn softly in the lock on the outside of the door leading from my room into the hall, and—well, you can imagine that I got very little sleep that night.

"'Early the next morning the woman unlocked my door, and, after I had eaten a hasty breakfast, led me to a library well equipped with reference books, where, so she wrote, I was to finish my work.

"'Then she left me, locking me in once more.

"'I had reached about the middle of the false formula when the door opened and the woman entered in great haste. From her hurried movements and the anxious expression of her face I judged that some new complication had arisen. I was right. Snatching up my pad, the woman wrote, "He is sinking fast. The experiment must begin at once. How much of the formula remains?"

"'I wrote: "Over one half."

"'"Never mind," she wrote in return. "Victor can begin with what you have. Give me the papers. You may finish the rest in my brother's room and bring it to us in the laboratory."

"'As we entered the invalid's room, I tried to exchange a look with the sick man, but the woman drew me away to a large French window at the end farthest from the bed, and, opening the sashes, which swung inward, motioned me to look out. To my surprise, I saw that the bridge that I had noticed the night before as connecting the house and laboratory was approached from this window. It was a rough affair, resembling those used on shipboard, and consisted of a wide plank guarded only by two ropes stretched one on either side of the plank, about three feet above it, as a sort of guard rail. On the laboratory side the bridge terminated at what seemed to be a heavy door, made of one solid piece of timber and provided one third of the way from the top with two small windows, or, rather, panes of glass, about eight inches square. Behind each there was a heavy iron bar.

"'Hastily signifying that I must cross the bridge in order to bring her the remainder of the formula, the woman sent Victor ahead and then turned to follow. Before going she intimated to me that while I wrote I was to remain beside this window where I could see any sign from the workers in the laboratory and be seen by them.

"'For the next two hours nothing was to be heard in the room save the scratching of my pen over the paper and the labored breathing of the dying man. He seemed to be sinking rapidly, but whenever he caught my glance would smile reassuringly, as though to say: "Do not be afraid. All will come right." As the hands of the clock on the mantel approached the hour of eleven, however, he appeared to grow suddenly stronger; a faint color tinged his cheeks, and he half rose in bed, as though awaiting some new developments. On the stroke of eleven he turned to me and signed: "It is time to go."

"'"But there are still a few pages to write out," I answered.

"'"It's all right," he rejoined. "It is enough. Only go—go at once. It is your way of escape."

"'For a moment I hesitated. The words sounded senseless; sick men, I reasoned, had strange fancies. But the glance of his eyes was sane; it was more,—it was convincing.

"'Without another word, I gathered up my papers and started across the bridge. It swayed, but only slightly. There was not the slightest danger of an accident. And yet in my passage across that bridge I trembled violently. When finally I reached the strangely guarded door I had barely strength enough to knock upon the heavy timbers. There was no reply. Evidently they were absorbed in their experiment, I thought, and knocked again. Still no reply, though this time I seemed to hear a faint movement within. I tried to peer through the tiny window-panes in the door. They were somewhat above the level of my face and partly obscured by the iron bars. So I raised myself on tiptoe and, shading my eyes with my hands, looked in.

"'For a moment I could see nothing. Then, as I became accustomed to the gloom, I made out a few objects near by,—a charcoal stove, a table holding a pair of scales, pincers, blowpipe, a graduating glass, and other apparatus with which I was unfamiliar. At the farther end of the table sat a motionless female figure, the head thrown back, one hand clutching a crumpled sheet of paper, while the other hung limply at her side. Directly opposite a man sat, also motionless, his bowed head resting on the edge of the table. As I looked, I fancied the hand holding the paper twitched slightly.

"'I shifted my position. A faint light fell upon the face of the woman. It was that of Mrs. Westinghouse, but white and rigid, with sightless, staring eyes.

"'"They are dead!" I cried, as I rushed back into the room of the dying man. Then, recollecting myself, I succeeded in repeating my words with fingers that trembled so that I could hardly give the signs.

"'For a moment he seemed unmoved; then, with a ghastly smile, he signalled:—

"'"This is your time to escape."

"'"But you—"

"'"Never mind me. All I care for is to keep my secret from them. Remember your vow—and now go—go—and God bless you."

"'I grasped his hand, then rushed from the room. I snatched my hat and coat in the hall below, and ran out of the house and down the road, never stopping until I reached the station. There I took the next train and reached the city only half an hour ago.'"

Here Mr. Gilbert began to light a cigar, as though his story were finished.

"But what became of the dying man—of the mother and son—the little stenographer?"

"Oh, yes, to be sure," said the detective; "you wish to know the sequel. Well, I went up there that day with two or three men and found everything as she'd described it. The mother and son had simply been evidently stupefied by drugs purposely introduced into the false formula, and soon recovered their senses, but the uncle had breathed his last. Mrs. Westinghouse had been smart enough to get a physician, who was there when we arrived, and who, honestly enough, I suppose, ascribed his death to natural causes. We could do nothing from lack of evidence."

"But the secret,—the mysterious formula?"

"Ah, that is the saddest part of the whole affair. Half crazed by her horrible experience in this house, and recalling her vow to make no use of any information gained while there, Miss Wood had no sooner escaped than she tore the true formula into pieces and threw it away. Had she kept it, it would undoubtedly have brought her an enormous fortune, for an expert metallurgist who examined the strange dagger given to her by the dying man pronounced it to be an example of a priceless art,—that of tempering copper to the consistency of steel,—a process understood by the ancients, but lost now these thousands of years."

Her Hoodoo.

BY HAROLD KINSABBY.

It was because the doctor insisted that my system needed ozone that I went to Colorado on a hunting trip. It was there that I met her, and it was there, by the way, that I became convinced that when a man with a lame lung undertakes to hunt ozone in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains he ought to provide himself with a guide. I went alone, and that's why I got lost.

For two days I had tramped, half starved, toward the rising sun, with the hope of reaching some cattle ranch near Denver. On the morning of the third day, as I was trudging through a thick undergrowth, I was suddenly startled by a woman's voice:—

"You didn't happen to spy a little speckled heifer back yonder, did you, stranger?"

It is said that upon the approach of a human being the first impulse of a man who has been lost in the woods is that biblically ascribed to the wicked, namely, "to flee when no man pursueth." But at this time I was too far gone with hunger and weariness to flee from anything.

I simply leaned against a tree trunk and awaited the appearance of the voice's owner. She came riding a bronco across the crest of a hillock. She was slight and wiry, and she wore her huge sombrero and man's canvas shooting-coat with an air that at first suggested the cowboy. A later glimpse of feminine drapery, however, proclaimed her something infinitely more interesting,—a real Rocky Mountain cow-girl in all her glory.

"No," I answered weakly to her repeated question as to the heifer's whereabouts. "No, I've seen neither hoof nor hide of your heifer, which is lucky for you, as I should probably have eaten it if I had."

"You do look hungry," said the strange horsewoman; and as she spoke the bold lines of her aquiline face relaxed into an expression of womanly solicitude.

"Here, take this," she added in a business-like tone, producing from a bag that lay, meal sack fashion, across her saddle, a can of pressed beef and a square foot or so of corn bread. "No," as I tried to speak, "never mind explanations. Have some lunch with me and talk afterwards; that is, if you ain't afraid to eat with a cow-girl.

"You see," she continued, when we were comfortably seated on a moss-grown log that served as a whole set of dining-room furniture, "I know myself what it is to get lost and nearly starve to death. 'Having experienced misfortune myself, I know how to pity others.'"

I choked over a morsel of corn bread and stared at my companion with ill-bred astonishment. A cow-girl who quoted Virgil, even in a translation, was something not dreamed of in my philosophy.

"Yes, I don't wonder that you look surprised," said my hostess good-naturedly. "I suppose I don't look as though I was up in the classics, but the fact is I'm a graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University, and I've studied Latin, Shakespeare, geometry, and all the rest.

"Yes," musingly, "once I expected to pursue a literary career. Indeed, my professors all told me that I might become the George Eliot or Mrs. Browning of America. But that speckled heifer I was asking you about just now knocked all my plans into a cocked hat."

"How was that?" I asked.

"Well, it was like this," said the cow-girl college graduate, as she pushed aside her corn bread, untasted, and, planting her elbows upon her knee, propped her chin upon her palms, man fashion. "In the spring of 1885, several years after I had graduated, my father died, and mother and I came to Colorado and bought a ranch at Plum Creek, some twenty-three miles south of Denver. You see, my father had been an invalid, and ever since I can remember we'd been chasing round from pillar to post, trying to find a climate that agreed with him; so this was really what you might call the first chance I had to go to work in earnest. It was a lovely quiet spot, an ideal place, I thought, for communing with nature and pursuing a literary career. But it was not so to be. Like—what's his name with a tender heel?"

"Achilles?" I suggested.

"Yes, like Achilles, I had one weak spot that was going to be my ruin. I was crazy about pets. Why, if it hadn't been for that weak spot I might be wearing literary laurel instead of lassoing cattle—but this is neither here nor there. What I was going to say was that before I'd been settled on that ranch three days some men came our way driving a herd of Texas cattle to Denver, and, as a late snowstorm came up just then, they decided to camp on good feed in the hills in front of my ranch. That afternoon they came over to our house to buy bread, and while they were there they mentioned to me that they had a nice cow that had just calved, and offered if I would buy the cow to throw in the calf, as they were just going to kill it. Well, here was where my weak spot came in. No sooner did I hear about those animals than nothing would do but that I should have them for pets. Besides, the cow was offered mighty cheap, only eighteen dollars, while I'd been going without milk rather than pay the fifty or seventy-five dollars asked for a milch cow; so now I thought was my chance to close a good bargain and get two nice pets, beside. Yes, sir, I even planned while the men were gone after those animals how I would domesticate them in a few days."

"And it took longer?" I asked.

"Domesticate! I might as well have tried to domesticate an active volcano—but I mustn't anticipate.

"My first impression of my pet cow wasn't exactly encouraging. I had imagined her ambling serenely up to the house, mild-eyed and gentle, with the little calflet trotting at her side. Instead, she was dragged upon the scene by four men who had spent at least an hour in catching her and bringing her to me. The calf, meantime, after an equally exciting chase had been led up and tied to a large plum bush.

"However, I wasn't one to let a little thing like that phase me. I was determined to make friends with that cow; so when, about two hundred yards from the house, the men threw her and took off the rope I advanced with that idea. But I wasn't half so anxious to make friends as the cow was. As soon as she set eyes on me—and if ever an animal had the evil eye, that cow did—she made a bee line for yours truly.

"'Look out,' shouted the men. But I was already footing it pretty lively towards the thicket where the calf was tied, the cow after me, snorting like a steam engine almost in my ear. The next thing that I knew I had slipped and fallen on the ice in the north side of the bushes with the cow on top. I believe that I tried to grab the creature by her horns, with a wild hope that I might hold her down until the men came to the rescue.

"I might as well have tried to hold down a hurricane. As she rose so did I, and was on my feet twenty yards away before she could see where she was at. Just as she rushed from the bush and lunged after me, I saw a rope swing through the air, and the next thing that devil-possessed cow knew she was tied to a clump of thicket and left to meditate upon the evil of her ways."

"What did the men say to this?" I asked.

"Of course they made out that they were awfully surprised at the cow's antics, fearfully scared at my close call, and all that; but I saw them grinning and chuckling as if they were ready to burst as they rode off, and I felt dead sure they'd planned to have a double funeral, cow and calf both, if they hadn't found a tender-foot to unload them on.

"However, I never was one to give in that I was beaten by anything, first off, especially by a cow. Besides, that idea of having two nice pets had got a great hold on me. I made up my mind that if kindness could reclaim that erring cow she should be coddled like an infant. So next morning, bright and early, I started for the plum bush where she and the calf were tied, determined to make peace. Fortunately, two gentlemen, who had heard of the episode of the day before, rode over to see me that morning and joined me on my peace-making expedition. No sooner did the cow see me within thirty feet of her than she gave a fearful surge; the rope that she was tied with—worn thin by rubbing against the tree all night—gave way, and the cow made for me as though fifty devils had taken possession of her and were urging her on.

"I tell you I didn't stop to think about the power of kindness on the brute creation. I simply yelled, 'Murder,' and made for a sand gulch near by as though a band of wild Indians were on my trail. As I reached the gulch and dropped ten feet or so down the steep bank, digging my heels into the loose sand to stop myself, that acrobatic cow sailed straight over my head and lit about twenty yards below. At first I thought that she was dead, but no such luck. In a moment she got up, looking foolish and dazed, but very much alive, and began shaking her head and pawing fiercely, when the two gentlemen reached down and lifted me out, as much as to say, 'This is what I'll do when I get hold of you.'"

"Which she didn't, I hope," I put in.

"No, indeed; you can be precious sure that I took particular care that she didn't have another chance to get hold of me or to get back into the yard again. For an hour or so after she had hoisted herself out of the gulch she stood outside the fence that separated the yard from the field, shaking her head and pawing whenever she saw any of us at the doors or windows. At last, towards evening, she trotted off with a zigzag wabble down the bank towards the creek among the willows, and there she lay in ambush, you might say, so that for a week after we didn't dare to go down to make a garden or do anything else, for fear of having that cow descend like a wolf on the fold."

"And after that week?" I inquired.

"Well, finally she grew bolder, and ventured on the mesa near the railroad track, where she made war on the section hands, and I was warned that I must take her out of the field or they would shoot her. So to prevent her from demoralizing the entire neighborhood I had her killed and used her for beef. And tough eating she was," said my hostess, laughing; "but in any case she was better dead than alive, for there wasn't room for that cow and me in the same country."

"But you've been telling me about the cow. What about the heifer? I thought that you said that she was the cause—"

"Oh, yes. The heifer was the calf. Now, whether the cow disowned the calf, or the calf the cow, I never found out. Anyway, the day that the cow disappeared into the bottom land that little calf trotted up to the house and tearfully begged to be loved. Well, you might have thought I'd had enough of pets for one while, but, no; the helplessness of that poor little calf so went to my heart that for weeks I rode nine miles every day for milk, and fed it to that little creature with my own hands."

"A sort of foster-mother," I suggested.

"Yes, I was a mother to that little orphan calf. But, if you'll believe me, it was a case of 'how sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child,' or however that goes. Yes, sir, that calf followed in the evil course of its mother, only if anything it was worse, sort of like Agrippina and her son, Nero, only this was a daughter.

"You see, the cow was perfectly open about her evil deeds, but the calf was underhanded. After trotting around me, looking as innocent as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, she'd all of a sudden disappear, and come back after a few days with an ear torn and the skin raked off her side; and pretty soon I'd hear that she'd been attacking horses or fighting other cows.

"One day she chased an unlucky workman out onto the railroad bridge and kept him there until a train came along and the engineer slackened enough to take him on and carry him to Plum Station. Another time she got after a tramp that was camping on the bottom land among the willows, and forced him to take refuge in the forks of a crooked tree, where he roosted until one of us went down and called off Miss Bossie. In fact, the only return that calf ever made for all my loving care was to scare away tramps. If I could have kept her around the house just for that purpose she would have been one of the best investments I ever made.

"But as years went by that calf became more and more abandoned to evil. She would wander farther and farther from home, until now I spend half my nights worrying about her and more than half the day following her up and taking her home with me."

"I should think you'd get rid of the creature," I interrupted.

"Kill her? Yes, I suppose that would be the most sensible thing to do, but you know how it is about always loving the prodigal son the most. Yes, sir; wherever that animal goes it takes my heart with it, and, though it's nigh onto eleven years old, I never can think of it as anything but a pet calf."

"And so it was bringing up that heifer that interfered with your literary career?"

"Interfered? Well, I should say so! Back at the start I did publish some poems in the local papers, and I read one or two essays at the Zion Church literaries. But people wouldn't believe they were original. No woman, they said, who spent her time chasing wild cows over the country could write odes to spring and essays on Shakespeare.

"My literary career was killed, blighted in the bud. And, as my income was small and I had to do something to make out a living, I've just turned my hand to anything that came along.

"Instead of gaining fame as the American George Eliot, I've been called Colorado Cow-girl and Bronco Buster. Instead of wielding the pen, I've driven a four-horse stage, branded cattle, broken saddle horses, sung in a church choir, run a blacksmith's shop, kept school, given music lessons, run a hotel, taught painting, carried mail, roughed it on horseback all the way from Colorado to Oregon, and taken a hand in pretty much everything else, except shoveling wind off the roof. But there"—breaking off suddenly—"you aren't interested in all this. What you want now is rest and shelter.

"Take my outfit and make tracks for Wilkins ranch. Just give the pony his head and he'll land you all right.