Part 10

"I do, Dad," was the swift response. More Ned could not say, but he enveloped his father in a strong, steady embrace, tenderly holding the gray head that sobbed upon his breast. His eyes were wet. What they wanted just then was Kitty Belaire.

*XVIII*

*THE BIRD OF THE COULEE*

There is life on the road--a rush into the April shine; muffled clatter of galloping hoofs; the rhythmic sway of a girlish form to the drum and flute of flying feet and carolling lips. Youth and beauty in the saddle of spring!

Mary McClure was enjoying the leisure of the open trail and halted Bobs on the floor of a coulee, a narrow, stream-like depression with abrupt banks. It was a pretty green dip zigzagging out of sight into east and west, and lined on either bank with rounded clumps of willow. There were gleams of a tiny creek. From the willows near her came the soft twitter of nesting birds. Restraining the impatient Bobs, she strove to discern the sweet singers. The cries were familiar--all but one. It was a strange little call with a plaintive, human-like wail and a ventriloquistic quality that led one to think it came from far away. She was positive it was the cry of some rare bird hidden in the leaves.

Swinging Bobs she trotted close to the trees. The birds, alarmed, took flight down the coulee. She followed cautiously and listened again, delighted at length to distinguish the voice of the feathered stranger. A sudden impulsive advance of Bobs, who essayed to crop a mouthful of leaves, put the birds to flight once more. They doubled back in a cloud of whirring wings. She was about to follow when the cry of the strange bird came again out of the tree before her. It alone had remained. She searched the tree, but no sign could she discover of the mysterious creature. Concluding at length that the sound came from a more distant clump, she rode further into the east. The sound now seemed much nearer. Tree after tree was passed, with the strangely recurring result of a growing clearness. She was deeply puzzled and intensely curious as to the enigma. Finally she reached the end of the bluff and still she could hear the call coming with an undoubted increase of volume. Pondering the circumstance she suddenly concluded that her bird was a weird illusion.

"Bobs!" she cried perplexedly, "our bird is not a bird. It is a disembodied voice."

Then as the cry broke clearly from a distance, she said in alarm:

"It is a human voice, Bobs. Somebody is in distress far down the coulee. Let us listen carefully. No champing of that bit, please."

The voice came again. It was indeed a human cry, smothered in some inexplicable way. The tone was one of plaintive terror. Urging the horse ahead, she cantered along the creek. Rounding a bend, she realized that the sound came from some point very near. Rising in her stirrups, she searched the coulee. The only unusual object that met her eye was the carcass of a horse. It lay in a sharp curve of the north bank close in. The noise was emanating from the vicinity of the dead animal. Riding toward it, she was thrilled to catch sight of a bit of red clothing.

"Bobs, Bobs! What a terrible thing!" was her horrified cry as she leaped to the ground beside the horse.

Crowded into a hole between the horse and the bank lay the figure of a little boy, scarcely five years of age. He was stretched upon the ground with his small body half twisted into the bank. His bare limbs, right arm and left leg, were clutched in the steel fangs of a brace of great wolf traps. The dead horse had been used as a bait by some trapper who had set his traps between the horse and bank, at head and feet, in order to catch his wolf as it sought the entrails. Instead they had caught the curious child. Both limbs were torn and bloody from the grip of the biting steel as the boy twisted under the torture. His cry for help had been muffled by the encroaching bank.

The little fellow moaned for release as he caught sight of the girl. Looking up with wild, dazed eyes he cried:

"Take me, Mummie! Take me away!"

"You poor laddie!" comforted the girl. "I will help you, darling. You will be out in a minute. Do just what I say."

The sight of the small unfortunate made a powerful appeal to the sympathies. The little face was streaked with the pitiable wash of tears. The child could scarcely see. At a glance she saw that he was near collapse. She acted swiftly. Placing her foot upon the spring of the trap imprisoning the leg, she rested her whole weight upon it and it sank. With a quick motion of her deft fingers she opened the jaws and took out the limb. A moment later the arm, too, was free. Released, the little form rolled upon its back and lay helpless. Stooping she picked him up gently and carried him to the bank of the creek, laying him upon the grass.

"Lie here quiet, laddie," she enjoined in a soothing voice, "and I'll ride back to the village for a carriage. I'll be back in a few minutes."

But the child clung to her crying fearfully:

"Take me! Take me! Brubbie afraid!"

Kneeling beside him she gathered the small bundle into her arms.

"I will not leave you, darling," she soothed, hushing his fears. "I will take you with me. Bobs will have to be a very gentle stretcher bearer. You must trust me, little one, and be careful to obey me. Bobs will carry us back. But first I must cover these poor torn limbs."

Producing clean bandages, with the resource of a former occasion, she wrapped the wounds securely from air and dirt. Then she placed the boy upon Bobs' neck while the intelligent brute stood motionless, obedient to her low voiced commands. Climbing carefully into the saddle she took the child in her arms and guiding Bobs by voice and knee, rode back along the coulee. The child slept almost instantly, lulled by the gentle pace of the horse and endearing cooings of the girl.

Aware that the surgeon's skill was urgently needed, she made her way to the doctor's office. He discovered her approach and running out to the curb relieved her of her burden. In a few words she informed him of her discovery of the boy and his misfortune.

"Will you come in?" said he. "You have done wonderfully and can help me with this operation. There is no nurse in the village just now."

"Gladly, if I can be of service," was the quick reply.

"Rest assured you can. With your assistance I shall be able to avoid the anaesthetic, though these wounds are a ragged mess. The poor little kid must have lain in those traps for hours. Pierre Leduc set them out for wolves. These curious little busybodies fall into surprising adventures. Brubbie will not forget this day for the rest of his life."

Swiftly the doctor performed his work, cleaning the frayed lacerations and stitching with nimble address, while Mary beguiled the boy from his pain by the charm of her caress and the soothing touch of her woman's hand.

"There now, Brubbie!" said the doctor at length. "You are fit. Come, we'll take you to your mother. Miss McClure had better come along and take charge of this most difficult phase of the operation. Will you, Miss McClure?"

"Still at your service, Doctor. But who is Brubbie, as you call him?"

"Brubbie? Why, Brubbie is the young scamp of Pellawa, general town favourite and Nick Ford's baby. Brubbie is an incorrigible little vagrant. I'll warrant his mother hasn't even missed him. This will be some shock to her."

It was a very startled and white-faced woman who gathered the small form to her breast.

"Mummie, Mummie!" was the penitent cry. "Brubbie run away. He step on traps and dey bite him. Brubbie think he will die and cry, cry, cry. But the leddy come and take Brubbie out of the traps and bring him home on the nice horse. Oo, oo!"

He encircled the woman's neck with a strangling hug.

Mary smiled, relieved that the explanation had been made.

"Brubbie has given you all the facts, Mrs. Ford," corroborated she. "I heard the cry of a strange bird in the coulee and followed it. The bird turned out to be Brubbie. Bobs carried him to the doctor here, who has fixed him up splendidly. He will soon be around again."

The mother was dumb. For some minutes she could only nestle the child to her breast. Suddenly, as she thought upon the circumstance, a shudder swept her. A gruesome possibility had occurred to her.

"What would have happened to my baby if you had not heard him crying, Miss McClure? To-night the wolves would have come. God bless you for this."

The woman's eyes filled with tears. Under the impulse of her natural gratitude she seized the girl's hand and kissed it reverently.

"You saved Brubbie! You saved him! You saved him!" she cried again and again, in a quiet, grateful voice. "Nick will thank you with all his heart. Cod bless you!"

As Mary passed through the coulee on her way home, she pulled Bobs again and listened to the birds afresh. This time the strange call was missing and a serious look crept into the girl's eyes as she thought upon it.

"Little birds!" she whispered. "Happy little birds! Your sweet singing saved a dear little life to-day."

The happiest musings attended her as she let Bobs follow the trail of his own sweet will. The mission of the birds was not yet ended.

*XIX*

*CHESLEY SYKES UNCOVERS HIS HAND*

The night of the day upon which Mary McClure hunted the bird of the coulee, an interesting council was held in the realty office of Reddy Sykes. The councillors comprised McClure, Foyle and the agent himself. They sat about the flat-topped desk, three shadows in the blue fog of the dim lamplight. There were the usual convivial evidences, Foyle having been the first to arrive at that affable condition obtaining in the mazy borderlands of sobriety and inebriety.

"Pards!" said he, smashing the desk with his open hand, "I'm taking yer lead and tickled to do it. Yer shore handing me the whole deck. I'll see that Ford gets his little share all right and a bit over."

"You've tumbled, Foyle," replied Sykes. "You have been mighty apt at getting the hang of things. You have nothing to do but sit tight. I give my cheerful and professional guarantee there isn't a flaw in the deal. If Pullar is fool enough to hold you off we'll turn on the screw and evict him. The law is the prettiest, most efficient automatic instrument invented by the genius of that good fellow, man. The law is behind us everywhere. Don't you do any talking. Meanwhile, mosey around and make yourself generally useful. That bunch of scrub out of Athabasca Landing won't need your tender offices any more. Leave it to Pullar and Son. They are mighty good farmers."

"Ha! That's the big noise!" agreed Foyle, with a chuckle. "I've taken to the climate hereabouts. Got to stay. Doctor's orders. Ha, ha! You'll find Hank Foyle sticking around any old time you want him."

"You're a good sort," commended Sykes warmly. "I'll want the help of a reliable man in a day or two. In fact I'll want you bad, Hank."

"Put it here," cried Foyle, springing to his feet with extended hand. "I'm spoiling for exercise. Used to scrubbing, you know. Anything you want done kind of quiet-like just drop a wink."

"Hank, you're a game sport," was the hearty response. Then he added: "You're a marked man. I'll trail you when I want you. And now, this ends our confab for the present. Rob and I have a pile of work to go through before we get out of here to-night. You are overdue at the Dominion House. Bye, bye!"

Foyle laughed good-naturedly.

"I'll scoot," said he. "And don't forget I'm handy when you want a leg up."

For a considerable time after he left there was silence between the partners. Then McClure fixed his eyes curiously on Sykes. There was something in his companion's eyes he had never seen there before. He instantly realized that something momentous was being debated in the mind of the agent.

"Pulling a bluff on Hank just now?" was his quizz.

"Better have an eye-opener, Rob," was the reply, as he pushed a glass and bottle to his companion's elbow. "You are keen enough on some things and mighty dense on others. I have a surprise for you. In a few days I am pulling down my shingle."

McClure knit his eyebrows in perplexity.

"This is one thing you've been hopelessly opaque on, Rob," said he as he casually filled his own glass. "Did you expect I had come to stay?"

"No-o," was the slow reply. "I knew you had a card up your sleeve. I hold no hand in the game."

Sykes smiled.

"A clear case of cobwebs," observed the other to himself. "You are in this game very much and have been all along. There will be nothing obscure in your mind as to my intentions when I'm through with you to-night. Since the onus of revelation is upon me you will maintain a purely receptive attitude. This is coming to me.

"Now to begin. Here are some photographs. You have heard of John Sykes, millionaire broker? Here he is and there is the mater. This is our hang-out on the Crescent. John Sykes is a rather close relative of mine. Here is the prospectus of Sykes and Sykes, the new partnership replacing John Sykes. I hold a third of the stock, the old man the balance."

Sykes paused while the other was examining the photographs. McClure was visibly impressed. The faces looking at him were handsomely autocratic. John Sykes had a set to his jaw that was familiar.

"They have some class," said he, handing back the photographs. "This looks like the firm may have a pretty tidy turnover."

He continued to make a careful perusal of the prospectus.

"Cold figures," agreed Sykes. "We have the best connections, private wires through to London, New York, etc., all of which means a big place in the financial world. Here are our ratings."

McClure looked them over, his eyes evincing the most intense interest. Before he could speak Sykes thrust into his hand a paper.

"A little bit of Who's Who? Read it over; it will acquaint you with public opinion. It speaks well of us."

As McClure finished he looked up, his eye fascinated by some alluring mental object. Sykes was sitting back nonchalantly in his swivel chair, his partially emptied glass poised in his hand. He observed his companion with a smile.

"What do you make of it all?" was his question.

"It is a great surprise to me and yet--I long ago surmised something like this. I knew of John Sykes as a prominent financier, but had not the faintest idea there was any connection between you."

"There may not be," said Sykes, with a peculiar laugh. "I may be faking. It would be easy to frame up a setting like this."

McClure shook his head.

"You look too much like John Sykes. He is the only man I have ever seen with a jaw like yours."

Sykes laughed silently at the personal allusion as he handed over another photograph.

"Here," said he, "is a picture the mater insisted on having."

It was a likeness of himself and his mother.

"I'll complete this personal art exhibition by troubling you to run through this folio."

It was a set of athletic photographs, splendid pictures of an eight-oared crew. In the first a superb figure stood before him holding a long scull. In the second the athlete was seated in a single shell, his sculls poised for the long sweep. There were others of the "Eight" in various poses of rest and action, several with the setting of foreign regattas. One caught the crew sweeping along the Thames. The athlete was Sykes.

"McClure!" said he seriously, "I had a fairly free fling in the younger days. But I kept the going under hand. Do you think the type of physical man you see there would go very far wrong?"

McClure laughed in some embarrassment.

"No use putting such a decision up to me," said he. "But you shape up prime in your racing stumps."

"That will do," commented Sykes with a grin. "The art display is over. You may think this irrelevant to the business in hand. Perhaps it is. At any rate keep everything you have learned in the back of your head while I spiel a bit.

"You are right in your guess. I am not in Pellawa to push petty finance. I am here hunting the biggest game that runs. We have been associated in some rustic ventures and they have not all come through. Forget it. These have been trivial undertakings. Study that Who's Who? and you'll find that I get every big thing I go after. I am after the biggest thing right now I have ever set out to lift. You probably can tell me what it is."

McClure shook his head.

"I am not guessing to-night," said he, holding Sykes' glance.

"Then prepare for a sweeping away of all cobwebs. My sole object in this visit to Pellawa, Rob, is your daughter, Miss Mary McClure. I have been playing the game for that stake right through. The time has come for a show-down. It is up to us to deal a new hand. I have approached your girl from every conceivable angle. She is obdurate. There is a mighty good reason. She is the victim of a silly infatuation. She has a local rube."

McClure sprang to his feet.

"It's a lie!" was the swift retort.

Sykes smiled darkly, shaking his head.

"No, Rob, this is not hearsay. This is personal knowledge. I hold the facts and I will lay them before you--later. There is this infatuation. These youthful attachments seldom result in happy matrimonial alliances. This amour is no more promising than any other. It is not disturbing and need have no undesirable results if we act quickly. I am willing to accept Mary on any terms and by means of any expedient. I offer her everything a woman could desire. Give me your complete cooeperation in my plan to gain my purpose and I promise you unheard-of compensation. Just a moment!"

He lifted his hand silencing McClure, who was about to speak.

"I have told you to listen while I spiel. That is the only thing for you to do yet. I want you to be confident of this. With Mary as my wife, she will gain everything and lose nothing. For yourself it means a chance that does not come to one man in a million.

"I have watched you, Rob McClure, as you went to it in this world of small farmers. You are too big a man for Pellawa. Don't misunderstand me. I do not propose to flatter you. What I am about to propose is frankly my own project to gain my personal purposes. Were it not for this I certainly would not dream of handing out the deal I am going to offer you. But the fact remains. You have the gray matter to come through if you decide to avail yourself of this opportunity. You will be at home in the big financial world. Take a look at that rating."

He handed his companion a certified document.

"A third of that is mine. That gets me into seven figures. What is your own rating, land and all?"

McClure calculated swiftly.

"Roughly, seventy-five thousand."

"Rather a difference! However, it is not your fault. It is your fate. You have done wonderfully well. But you have been playing a small game. I had the luck to be reared in a bigger world. The pater assures me that I have added a million to the total during my university years when I had been supposedly engaged in the serious task of reading law. You may think this egotism or even bluff. Perhaps it is."

McClure read the fellow's face. He was instantly convinced of the truth of his words. He was silent.

"Now, Rob!" said Sykes, levelling at the other a glance at once piercing and calculating. "Take in what I am about to say. It means tremendous things for you. At the same time what may seem remarkable to you is as nothing to me compared with the big thing I am out after. Help me to get this thing and---- But wait a minute. My rating upsets yours thirty to one. How would a ratio of fifty-fifty place you? Think in the totals. A million and a quarter! You will never reach that in this little world of Pellawa. Never. Yet that would be commensurate with your sheer ability. Are you ready to take in that dream? Listen, Rob McClure! It is yours now, to-day. I have an immense mellon. I will cut that mellon exactly in half and give you one half for the hand of Mary McClure. I offer you a partnership on the basis of fifty-fifty. To show that I mean business, I will give half the legal grip even before Mary becomes my wife. The balance after. There shall be this one stipulation only. The partnership is conditioned on the fact that Mary joins hands with me in a legal marriage."

Sykes ceased to talk.

McClure was mute, the great eyes darting flames. Sykes knew that the crucial moment had arrived. For months he had fostered this friendship, spun his web. Would the victim break through the mesh and go free? The farmer looked at him, his face convulsed in conflict. At one instant the eagerness of an overmastering ambition looked out craftily; the next it was swept with a mighty anger. While the fierce debate raged, Sykes addressed him in a low, steadying voice.

"Rob," said he considerately, "this is a fairly sizable proposition. Don't make a snap decision and regret--anything. Keep the lid on a little longer. You have not yet heard all. You have not learned who is the rube that has fascinated Mary. Perhaps you already know or can guess?"

"I will not guess," he flung out fiercely. "There is nothing in it. If there had been, Mary would have let me know long ago. She has never hinted such an attachment."

"You are logical, Rob. But you are wrong. You have hit the wrong premise. Sometimes a good girl is induced into a clandestine amour. It has often happened. It has happened now. Unsympathetic parents are not auspicious persons in which to confide the tender sentiments. The parent might have a positive hostility to the dear object of one's regard. This is pointedly true in your own case. I know there is no love lost between you. And now you know the party."

McClure leaned forward, a sudden intelligence flashing a wild light in his eye.

"You don't mean----?"

McClure read Sykes' cold, bright eyes. He understood.

"It is Ned Pullar?"

"Pullar's the man, Ned Pullar," was the deliberate agreement.

Slowly the indecision vanished from McClure's face and in its place appeared a black resolution. A malignant light darted from his eyes. Seizing the neck of the black bottle before him, he clutched it menacingly, as if about to hurl it at his companion.

"Rather be excused," said Sykes, lifting a defensive hand. "Remember I am not Pullar."

Banging the bottle on the desk, McClure whirled about and began pacing about the room, muttering vengeful execration, oblivious apparently of the other's presence.

At this moment of his fell triumph, the real Sykes looked forth once more. A repulsive delight played in his eyes and they shut to, in a sort of gloating muse. While the evil light glittered through the lashes, an unsightly grin contorted his face, drawing slowly to a wolfish snarl about mouth and nose. The face was grotesque and hideous to look upon. Could he have trained one rational, though fleeting glance upon that unspeakable face, McClure would surely have been forewarned. But he was blind with rage. Out of the fury of that fatal moment flew the foul bird of a pitiless resolution. He chuckled balefully. At the sound Sykes laughed softly. Ripping out an oath McClure whirled about. Thrusting his head forward he searched Sykes' face with blazing eyes. He was too slow, however. The malign thing had hidden itself with swift adroitness. What he saw was the open, sympathetic countenance of a gentleman.

"I want the facts," challenged McClure. "What do you know?"

Dissembling his intensity of interest, Sykes divulged what information he deemed expedient to his purpose. The effect on McClure was powerfully cumulative.

"Look here," said the agent finally, picking up a photograph of the eight-oared crew. "You did not detect this party."

McClure looked surprised to recognize the face of Ned Pullar.