Chapter 10

What Stormont saw was a masked man, riding his own horse, with menacing rifle half lifted for a shot! What Eve Strayer thought she saw was too terrible for words. And before Stormont could prevent her she sprang in front of him, covering his body with her gown.

At that the horseman tore off his red mask:

"Eve! Jack Stormont! What the devil are you doing over _here!_"

Stormont walked slowly up to his own horse, laid one unsteady hand on its silky nose, kept it there while dusty, velvet lips mumbled and caressed his fingers.

"I knew it was a calvaryman," he said quietly. "I suspected you, Jim. It was the sort of crazy thing you were likely to do. ... I don't ask you what you're up to, where you've been, what your plans may be. If you needed me you'd have told me.

"But I've got to have my horse for Eve. Her feet are wounded. She's in her night-dress and wringing wet. I've got to set her on my horse and try to take her through to Ghost Lake."

Darragh stared at Stormont, at the ghostly figure of the girl who had sunk down on the sand at the lake's edge. Then he scrambled out of the saddle and handed over the bridle.

"Quintana came back," said Stormont. "I hope to reckon with him some day. ... I believe he came back to harm Eve. ... We got out of the house. ... We swam the lake. ... I'd have gone under except for her----"

In his distress and overwhelming mortification, Darragh stood miserable, mute, irresolute.

Stormont seemed to understand: "What you did, Jim, was well meant," he said. "I understand. Eve will understand when I tell her. But that fellow Quintana is a devil. You can't draw a herring across any trail he follows. I tell you, Jim, this fellow Quintana is either blood-mad or just plain crazy. Somebody will have to put him out of the way. I'll do it if I ever find him."

"Yes. ... You people ought to do that. ... Or, if you like, I'll volunteer. ... I've a little business to transact in New York, first. ... Jack, your tunic an breeches are soaked; I'll be glad to chip in something for Eve. ... Wait a moment----"

He stepped into cover, drew the morocco box from his grey shirt, shoved it into his hip pocket.

Then he threw off his cartridge belt and hunting coat, pulled the grey shirt over his head and came out in his undershirt and breeches, with the other garments hanging over his arm.

"Give her these," he said. "She can button the coat around her waist for a skirt. She'd better go somewhere and get out of that soaking wet night-dress----"

Eve, crouched on the sand, trying to wring out and twist up her drenched hair, looked up at Stormont as he came toward her holding our Darragh's dry clothing.

"You'd better do what you can with these," he said, trying to speak carelessly. ... "_He_ says you'd better chuck -- what you're wearing----"

She nodded in flushed comprehension. Stormont walked back to his horse, his boots slopping water at every stride.

"I don't know any place nearer than Ghost Lake Inn," he said ... "except Harrod's."

"That's where we're going, Jack," said Darragh cheerfully.

"That's _your_ place, isn't it?"

"It is. But I don't want Eve to know it. ... I think it better she should not know me except as Hal Smith -- for the present, anyway. You'll see to that, won't you?"

"As you wish, Jim. ... Only, if we go to your own house-----"

"We're not going to the main house. She wouldn't, anyway. Clinch as taught that girl to hate the very name of Harrod -- hate every foot of forest that the Harrod game keepers patrol. She wouldn't cross my threshold to save her life."

"I don't understand, but -- it's all right -- whatever _you_ say, Jim."

"I'll tell you the whole business some day. But where I'm going to take you now is into a brand new camp which I ordered built last spring. It's within a mile of the State Forest border. Eve won't know tat it's Harrod property. I've a hatchery there and the State lets me have a man in exchange for free fry. When I get there I'll post my man.

It will be a roof for to-night, anyway, and breakfast in the morning, whenever you're ready."

"How far is it?"

"Only about three miles east of here."

"That's the thing to do, then," said Stormont bluntly.

He dropped one sopping-wet sleeve over his horse's neck, asking care not to touch the handle. He was thinking of the handful of gems in his pocket; and he wondered why Darragh had said nothing about the empty case for which he had so recklessly risked his life.

What this whole business was about Stormont had no notion. But he knew Darragh. There was sufficient to leave him tranquil, and perfectly certain that whatever Darragh was doing must be the right thing to do.

Yet -- Eve had swum Star Pond with her mouth filled with jewels.

When she had handed the morocco box to Quintana, Stormont now realised that she must have played her last card on the utterly desperate chance that Quintana might go away without examining the case.

Evidently she had emptied the case before she left her room. He recollected that, during all that followed, Eve had not uttered a single word. He knew why, now. How could she speak with her mouth full of (diamonds)?

A slight sound from the shore caused him to turn. Eve was coming toward him in the dusk, moving painfully on her wounded feet. Darragh's flannel shirt and his hunting coat buttoned around her slender waist clothed her.

The next instant he was beside her, lifting her in both arms.

As he placed her in the saddle and adjusted one stirrup to her bandaged foot, she turned and quietly thanked Darragh for the clothing.

"And that was a brave thing you did," she added, "-- to risk your life for my father's property. Because the morocco case which you saved proved to be empty does not make what you did any less loyal and gallant."

Darragh gazed at her, astounded; took the hand she stretched out to him; held it with a silly expression on his features.

"Hal Smith," she said with perceptible emotion, "I take back what I once said to you on Owl Marsh. No man is a real crook by nature who did what you have done. That is `faithfulness unto death' -- the supreme offer -- loyalty----"

Her voice broke; she pressed Darragh's hand convulsively and her lip quivered.

Darragh, with the morocco case full of jewels buttoned into his hip pocket, stood motionless, mutely swallowing his amazement.

What in the world did this girl mean, talking about an _empty_ case?

But this was no time to unravel that sort of puzzle. He turned to Stormont who, as perplexed as he, had been listening in silence.

"Lead your horse forward," he said. "I know the trail. All you need do is to follow me." And, shouldering his rifle, he walked leisurely into the woods, the cartridge belt sagging _en bandouliere_ across his woollen undershirt.

* * * * *

II

When Stormont gently halted his horse it was dawn, and Eve sagging against him with one arm around his neck, sat huddled up on her saddle fast asleep.

In a birch woods, on the eastern slope of the divide, stood the log camp, dimly visible in the silvery light of early morning.

Darragh, cautioning Stormont with a slight gesture, went forward, mounted the rustic veranda, and knocked at a lighted window.

A man, already dressed, came and peered out at him, then hurried to open the door.

"I didn't know you, Captain Darragh----" he began, but fell silent under the warning gesture that checked him.

"I've a guest outside. She's Clinch's step-daughter, Eve Strayer. She knows me by the name of Hal Smith. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir----"

"Cut _that_ out, too. I'm Hal Smith to you, also. State Trooper Stormont is out here with Eve Strayer. He was a comrade of mine in Russia. I'm Hal Smith to him, by mutual agreement. _Now_ do you get me, Ralph?"

"Sure, Hal. Go on; spit it out!"

They both grinned.

"You're a hootch runner," said Darragh. "This is your shack. The hatchery is only a blind. That's all you have to know, Ralph. So put that girl into my room and let her sleep till she wakes of her own accord.

"Stormont and I will take two of the guest-bunks in the L. And for heaven's sake make us some coffee when you make your own. But first come out and take the horse."

They went out together. Stormont lifted Eve out of the saddle. She did not wake. Darragh led the way into the log house and along a corridor to his own room.

"Turn down the sheets," whispered Stormont. And, when the bed was ready: "Can you get a bath towel, Jim?"

Darragh fetched one from the connecting bath-room.

"Wrap it around her wet hair," whispered Stormont. "Good heavens, I wish there were a woman here."

"I wish so too," said Darragh; "she's chilled to the bone. You'll have to wake her. She can't sleep in what she's wearing; it's almost as damp as her hair----"

He went to the closet and returned with a man's morning robe, as soft as fleece.

"Somehow or other she's got to get into that," he said.

There was a silence.

"Very well," said Stormont, reddening. ... "If you'll step out I'll -- manage. ..." He looked Darragh straight in the eyes: "I have asked her to marry me," he said.

* * * * *

When Stormont came out a great fire of birch-logs was blazing in the living-room, and Darragh stood there, his elbow on the rough stone mantel-shelf.

Stormont came straight to the fire and set one spurred boot on the fender.

"She's warm and dry and sound asleep," he said. "I'll wake her again if you think she ought to swallow something hot."

At that moment the fish-culturist came in with a pot of steaming coffee.

"This is my friend, Ralph Wier," said Darragh. "I think you'd better give Eve a cup of coffee." And, to Wier, "Fill a couple of hot water bags, old chap. We don't want any pneumonia in this house."

When breakfast was ready Eve once more lay asleep with a slight dew of perspiration on her brow.

Darragh was half starved: Stormont ate little. Neither spoke at all until, satisfied, they rose, ready for sleep.

At the door of his room Stormont took Darragh's offered hand, understanding what it implied:

"Thanks, Jim. ... Hers is the loveliest character I have ever known. ... If I weren't as poor as a homeless dog I'd marry her to-morrow. ... I'll do it anyway, I think. ... I _can't_ let her go back to Clinch's Dump!"

"After all," said Darragh, smiling, "if it's only money that worries you, why not talk about a job to _me!_"

Stormont flushed heavily: "That's rather wonderful of you, Jim----"

"Why? You're the best officer I had. Why the devil did you go into the Constabulary without talking to me?"

Stormont's upper lip seemed inclined to twitch but he controlled it and scowled at space.

"Go to bed, you darned fool," said Darragh, carelessly. "You'll find dry things ready. Ralph will take care of your uniform and boots."

Then he went into his own quarters to read two letters which, conforming to arrangements made with Mrs. Ray the day he had robbed Emanuel Sard, were to be sent to Trout Lodge to await his arrival.

Both, written from the Ritz, bore the date of the day before: the first he opened was from the countess Orloff-Strelwitz:

"Dear Captain Darragh:

"-- You are so wonderful! Your messenger, with the _ten_ thousand dollars which you say you already have recovered from those miscreants who robbed Ricca, came aboard our ship before we landed. It was a godsend; we were nearly penniless, -- and oh, _so_ shabby!

"Instantly, my friend, we shopped, Ricca and I. Fifth Avenue enchanted us. All misery was forgotten in the magic of that paradise for women.

"Yet, spendthrifts that we naturally are, we were not silly enough to be extravagant. Ricca was wild for American sport-clothes. I, also. Yet -- only _two_ gowns apiece, excepting our sport clothes. And other necessaries. Don't you think we were economical?"

"Furthermore, dear Captain Darragh, we are hastening to follow your instructions. We are leaving to-day for your chateau in the wonderful forest, of which you told us of that never-to-be-day in Riga.

"Your agent is politeness, consideration and kindness itself. We have our accommodations. We leave New York at midnight.

"Ricca is so excited that it is difficult for her to restrain her happiness. God knows the child has seen enough unhappiness to quench the gaiety of anybody!

"Well, all things end. Even tears. Even the Red Terror shall pass from our beloved Russia. For, after all, Monsieur, God still lives.

"VALENTINE."

"P.S. Ricca has written to you. I have read the letter. I have let it go uncensored."

* * * * *

Darragh went to the door of his room:

"Ralph! Ralph!" he called. And, when Wier hurriedly appeared:

"What time does the midnight train from New York get into Five Lakes?"

"A little before nine----"

"You can make it in the flivver, can't you?"

"Yes, if I start _now._"

"All right. Two ladies. You're to bring them to the _house,_ not _here._ Mrs. Ray knows about them. And -- get back here as soon as you can."

He closed his door again, sat down on the bed and opened the other letter. His hand shook as he unfolded it. He was so scared and excited that he could scarcely decipher the angular, girlish penmanship:

* * * * *

"To dear Captain Darragh, our champion and friend--

"It is difficult for me, Monsieur, to express my happiness and my deep gratitude in the so cold formality of the written page.

"Alas, sir, it will be still more difficult to find words for it when again I have the happiness of greeting you in proper person.

"Valentine has told you everything, she warns me, and I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to know what I should write to you.

"Yes, I know very well what I would write if I dare. It is this: that I wish you to know -- although it may not pass the censor -- that I am most impatient to see you, Monsieur. _Not_ because of kindness past, nor with an unworthy expectation of benefits to come. But because of friendship, -- _the deepest, sincerest of my_ WHOLE LIFE.

"Is it not modest of a young girl to say this? Yet, surely all the world which was once _en regle,_ formal, artificial, has been burnt out of our hearts by this so frightful calamity which has overwhelmed the world with fire and blood.

"If ever on earth there was a time when we might venture to express with candour what is hidden within our minds and hearts, it would seem, Monsieur, that the time is now.

"True, I have known you only for one day and one evening. Yet, what happened to the world in that brief space of time -- and to us, Monsieur -- brought _us_ together as though our meeting were but a blessed reunion after the happy intimacy of many years. ... I speak, Monsieur, for myself. May I hope that I speak, also, for you?

"With a heart too full to thank you, and with expectations indescribable -- but with courage, always, for any event, -- I take my leave of you at the foot of this page. Like death -- I trust -- my adieu is not the end, but the beginning. It is not farewell; it is a greeting to him whom I most honour in all the world. ... And would willingly obey if he shall command. And otherwise -- _all_ else that in his mind -- and heart -- he might desire.

"THEODORICA."

* * * * *

It was the most beautiful love-letter any man ever received in all the history of love.

And it had passed the censor.

* * * * *

III

It was afternoon when Darragh awoke in his bunk, stiff, sore, confused in mind and battered in body.

However, when he recollected where he was he got out of bed in a hurry and jerked aside the window curtains.

The day was magnificent; a sky of royal azure overhead, and everywhere the silver pillars of the birches supporting their splendid canopy of ochre, orange, and burnt-gold.

Wier, hearing him astir, came in.

"How long have you been back! Did you meet the ladies with your flivver?" demanded Darragh, impatiently.

"I got to Five Lakes station just as the train came in. The young ladies were the only passengers who got out. I waited to get their two steamer trunks and then I drove them to Harrod Place----"

"How did they seem, Ralph -- worn-out -- worried -- ill?"

Wier laughed: "No, sir, they looked very pretty and lively to me. They seemed delighted to get here. They talked to each other in some foreign tongue -- Russian, I should say -- at least, it sounded like what we heard over in Siberia, Captain---"

"It was Russian. ... You go on and tell me while I take another hot bath!----"

Wier followed him into the bath-room and vaulted to a seat on the deep set window-sill:

"-- When they weren't talking Russian and laughing they talked to me and admired the woods and mountains. I had to tell them everything -- they wanted to see buffalo and Indians. And when I told them there weren't any, enquired for bears and panthers.

"We saw two deer on the Scaur, and a woodchuck near the house; I thought they'd jump out of the flivver----"

He began to laugh at the recollection: "No, sir, they didn't act tired and sad; they said they were crazy to get into their knickerbockers and go to look for you----"

"Where did you say I was?" asked Darragh, drying himself vigorously.

"Out in the woods, somewhere. The last I saw of them, Mrs. Ray had their hand-bags and Jerry and Tom were shouldering their trunks."

"I'm going up there right away," interrupted Darragh excitedly. "-- Good heavens, Ralph, I haven't any clothes here, have I?"

"No, sir. Bu those you wore last night are dry----"

"Confound it! I meant to send some decent clothes here---- All right; get me those duds I wore yesterday---- and a bite to eat! I'm in a hurry, Ralph----"

He ate while dressing, disgustedly arraying himself in the grey shirt, breeches, and laced boots which weather, water, rock, and brier had not improved.

In a pathetic attempt to spruce up, he knotted the red bandanna around his neck and punched Salzar's slouch hat into a peak.

"I look like a hootch-running Wop," he said. "Maybe I can get into the house before I meet the ladies----"

"You look like one of Clinch's bums," remarked Wier with native honesty.

Darragh, chagrined, went to his bunk, pulled the morocco case from under the pillow, and shoved it into the bosom of his flannel shirt.

"That's the main thing anyway," he thought. Then, turning to Wier, he asked whether Eve and Stormont had awakened.

It appeared that Trooper Stormont had saddled up and cantered away shortly after sunrise, leaving word that he must hunt up his comrade, Trooper Lannis, at Ghost Lake.

"They're coming back this evening," added Wier. "He asked you to look out for Clinch's step-daughter."

"She's all right here. Can't you keep an eye on her, Ralph?"

"I'm stripping trout, sir. I'll be around here to cook dinner for her when she wakes up."

Darragh glanced across the brook at the hatchery. It was only a few yards away. He nodded and started for the veranda:

"That'll be all right," he said. "Nobody is coming here to bother her. ... And don't let her leave, Ralph, till I get back----"

"Very well, sir. But suppose she takes it into her head to leave----"

Darragh called back, gaily: "She can't: she hasn't any clothes!" And away he strode in the gorgeous sunshine of a magnificent autumn day, all the clean and vigorous youth of him afire in anticipation of a reunion which the letter from his lady-love had transfigured into a tryst.

For, in that amazing courtship of a single day, he never dreamed that he had won the heart of that sad, white-faced, hungry child in rags -- silken tatters still stained with the blood of massacre, -- the very soles of her shoes still charred by the embers of her own home.

Yes, that is what must have happened in a single day and evening. Life passes swiftly during such periods. Minutes lengthen into days; hours into years. The soul finds itself.

Then mind and heart become twin prophets, -- clairvoyant concerning what hides behind the veil; comprehending the divine clair-audience what the Three Sisters whisper there -- hearing even the whirr of the spindle -- the very snipping of the Eternal Shears!

* * * * *

The soul finds itself; the mind knows itself; the heart perfectly understands.

He had not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem.

Yet, that night, when at last in safety she had said good-bye to the man who had secured it for her, he knew that he was in love with her. And, at such crises, the veil that hides hearts becomes transparent.

At that instant he had seen and known. Afterward he had dared not believe that he had know.

But hers had been a purer courage.

* * * * *

As he strode on, the comprehension of her candour, her honesty, the sweet bravery that had conceived, created, and sent that letter, thrilled this young man until his heavy boots sprouted wings, and the trail he followed was but a path of rosy clouds over which he floated heavenward.

* * * * *

And half an hour later he came to his senses with a distinct shock.

Straight ahead of him on the trail, and coming directly toward him, moved a figure in knickers and belted tweed.

Flecked sunlight slanted on the stranger's cheek and burnished hair, dappling face and figure with moving, golden spots.

Instantly Darragh knew and trembled.

But Theodorica of Esthonia had known him only in his uniform.

As she came toward him, lovely in her lithe and rounded grace, only friendly curiosity gazed at him from her blue eyes.

Suddenly she knew him, went scarlet to her yellow hair, then white: and tried to speak -- but had no control of the short, rosy upper lip which only quivered as he took her hands.

The forest was dead still around them save for the whisper of painted leaves sifting down from a sunlit vault above.

Finally she sad in a ghost of a voice: "My -- friend. ..."

"If you accept his friendship. ..."

"Friendship is to be shared. ... Ours mingled -- on that day. ... Your share is -- as much as pleases you."

"All you have to give me, then."

"Take it ... All I have. ..." Her blue eyes met his with a little effort. All courage is an effort.

Then that young man dropped on both knees at her feet and laid his lips to her soft hands.

In trembling silence she stood for a moment, then slowly sank on both knees to face him across their clasped hands.

So, in the gilded cathedral of the woods, pillared with silver, and azure-domed, the betrothal of these two was sealed with clasp and lip.

Awed, a little fearful, she looked into her lover's eyes with a gaze so chaste, so oblivious to all things earthly, that the still purity of her face seemed a sacrament, and he scarcely dared touch the childish lips she offered.

But when the sacrament of the kiss had been accomplished, she rested one hand on his shoulder and rose, and drew him with her.

Then _his_ moment came: he drew the emblazoned case from his breast, opened it, and, in silence, laid it in her hands. The blaze of the jewels in the sunshine almost blinded them.

That was _his_ moment.

The next moment was Quintana's.

* * * * *

Darragh hadn't a chance. Out of the bushes two pistols were thrust hard against his stomach. Quintana's face was behind them. He wore no mask, but the three men with him watched him over the edges of handkerchiefs, -- over the sights of levelled rifles, too.

The youthful Grand Duchess had turned deadly white. One of Quintana's men took the morocco case from her hands and shoved her aside without ceremony.

Quintana leered at Darragh over his levelled weapons:

"My frien' Smith!" he exclaimed softly. "So it is you, then, who have twice try to rob me of my property!

"Ah! You recollec'? Yes? How you have rob me of a pacquet which contain only some chocolate?"

Darragh's face was burning with helpless rage.