CHAPTER XXVI

MR. HORTON CAPITULATES

I had not been very polite to Mr. Horton before that morning, but when he made the abrupt declaration that he had made a fool of himself long enough, I was civil enough to refrain from contradicting him.

"I ain't had no breakfast," he went on, presently, glancing at his torn dress. "I'm a pretty tough-looking subject, too, I reckon." Again I did not dispute the statement. Looking away from me, he took a step or two toward the spot where his horse awaited him, then turned resolutely back again. "Say, I'm going to own up while I've got courage to do it!" he exclaimed, speaking rapidly and with suppressed excitement: "I ain't treated you and your folks right, Miss Leslie; I've knowed it all along; but, you see, I'd got my mind set on that bit of land that your father took up--not that I needed it, or anything of that kind--a claim would 'a' been more bother than good to me as a general thing; but I'd said to folks that I meant to have it and I'd managed to get up a kind of ugly pride in showing folks that what I said went, whether or no.

"My wife--she's a good woman--I do'no what she'd do if she was to know all that I've done or tried to do, but I reckon you know pretty well, Miss Leslie. Well, you've known Jake Horton as he was. I'm going to give you all a chance to know him as he is now. When a man undertakes to do a bit of spite work like this; work that he's no call to feel proud of, and knows that so well that he tries to do it alone and in the dark, and is held back from making a consummate idiot of himself, and a criminal, too, like enough, by a dog and a young girl, it's time to call a halt. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to call a halt and travel a new trail from this on. I don't ask you to believe anything that I say, Miss Leslie, there ain't no reason at present why you should, but there will be!" He paused to moisten his dry lips. I looked up at him expectantly. "I'm going to do what's right by you and yours, from this on," he said, in answer to the look. Despite my past acquaintance with him I believed him, and indignantly strove to smother the tormenting little recollection that would keep obtruding itself--the recollection that, from the moment that the deed to the homestead was secured this man would be powerless to injure us, unless he did it openly and in ways that might be easily brought home to him, and it was now too late for him to do us any harm at the Land Office.

I am ashamed to be obliged to record that Mr. Horton's declaration of a change in his feelings toward us, and his promises of better conduct toward us in the future were accompanied in my secret thought by such damaging reflections, but such was the case. The dictionary was under my arm and glancing down at it I said: "I would like to know, if you don't mind, Mr. Horton, how this book--and you--came to be under the ruins of that shack?"

There was a big black and blue bruise on the back of Mr. Horton's right hand, the hand that some weeks previously had been injured by an oak splinter, as he told his wife, on the night that I had fired at a man fleeing up the hillside. Looking attentively at the bruise, and not at all at me, Mr. Horton replied:

"Well; it was an easier thing to undertake than it is to tell; that's so. 'Bout as easy to tell though as it was to go through with. That's a wide-awake dog of yours, Miss Leslie, lives up to his name, too. He was living right up to it last night when I sneaked up to your window after watching you and Miss Jessie go out to the corral, and making sure that the boy was asleep. I opened the window, got the book that, I made sure, was the Bible that I had seen put on the window ledge that morning, and started back toward my horse. But I'd forgot one thing, I'd forgot about the dog. He didn't forget himself, though; he came round the corner after me and I had to leg it like scat. I had studied some about him earlier in the day; enough so that I had thrown a piece of poisoned meat near the upper trail. Not seeing anything of him in the evening I never thought of him again until I felt him a-holt of my coat-tail, for he caught up with me in a minute. I do'no how it would 'a' come out between us, but jest then while I was pulling up the hill and he was pulling back for all he was worth, we come to the meat, stumbled over it, in fact. The dog let go my coat--he's young, I reckon--" the victim interpolated, impartially; "an old dog wouldn't 'a' give up his game for such a thing as that--and stopped to sniff the meat. That give me time to reach my horse, but he come tearing after me like a whole pack o' bloodhounds. After I was fairly in the saddle, though, I didn't hear anything more of the dog. I 'lowed that he'd given up and gone back, or else that he'd swallered the meat and the poison had got in its work. I rode down along the ravine, feeling good. As I said, I'd planned it out beforehand. I knew jest what I was going to do with the Bi--dictionary. I didn't 'low to plumb destroy it. I 'lowed that when it was too late for it to be of any use to you--that is, after I'd entered the claim--I'd see to it that it accidentally come to light again. I didn't want to plumb destroy it," he repeated apologetically.

I made no comment, and Mr. Horton, plucking a pine branch, began divesting it of its needles with fingers that shook a little in spite of himself as he proceeded:

"I'd made up my mind to hide the Bi--dictionary in the old shack here until it was time to bring it to light again. When I got to that break in the cañon wall, down here, I put the horse up the break and rode to the shack, and then--I made a mistake." He paused to silently review this mistake, then continued: "Instead of dismounting and carefully covering the book with the leaves, as I'd ought to 'a' done, I jest slung it into the shack, letting it fall where it would. I heard it fall, soft like, on the leaves, and then I went on home. My wife, she had supper all ready, and I sot down and et it. I told her I was going to start right off, as soon as I'd done eating, for town. She kind o' objected to my going then; said she'd been wanting to go herself, to help you folks when it come to proving up. That made me some mad, for I wan't figuring on helping you then. But all the time that I was eating supper, and all the time that she was talking, I kept thinking: 'S'pos'n some one should come along past that shack, look in there, and see that book lying there?' I felt that I'd ought to 'a' covered it up with leaves"--"and Robin Redbreast painfully did cover them with leaves," ran the silent under-current of my thought, while I listened gravely to Mr. Horton's elucidation of the mystery of the book. "I felt it so strong that nothing would suit me, at last, but I must make my way back there and cover it before I started for town. So, while my wife thought, after I'd mounted again, that I was riding toward town, I was sneaking back up the cañon. I tied my horse near the break in the wall, and went to the shack on foot, this time. It was as dark as a stack of black cats inside the shack. I couldn't see a thing--I stooped down, and was feeling 'round 'mong the leaves for the book, when I run up ag'in' a surprise." Mr. Horton dropped the branch, now denuded of its needles, and stared thoughtfully at the bruise on his hand. "That dog--he wan't dead, as it turned out; he hadn't even gone back, or gone before. He was all there and ready for business--I had time to study the thing out whilst I was a lyin' on my back, last night, starin' up into his eyes that was glarin' down into mine, through a chink in the logs--and I figured it out that he'd follered me, quiet, after I'd mounted; then, when I threw the book into the shack, he'd gone in there and stayed with it. He knew that it belonged to his folks, and he meant to guard it. He did, too. As I was stoopin' down, feeling 'round, something gave a yell, all at once, that made my hair stan' up, stiff and spiky, all over my head, and, next thing, something--some animal--sprung at me with such force that I reeled and fell back ag'in' the side of the shack, and then--the shack it fell, too. I do' know's I fainted!" Mr. Horton continued, reflectively; "I never have lost conscientiousness as I know of, but there was quite a spell that I didn't realize where I was, nor what had happened. When I did come to I found that I was pinned to the ground, and the animal--I hadn't recognized him for your dog yet--was stretched out on the rubbish above my body, looking down at me and growling. The critter growled so ferocious whenever I tried to move that I gin up trying. I had found out, though, that the animal was a dog, and, natterally, I'd a pretty clear idea whose dog it was."

Mr. Horton concluded abruptly. He got up slowly and stiffly, and again started toward his horse. Watching him, as he walked away, I saw that he looked broken and humbled, and an impulsive desire to help him, who had so often hindered us, took possession of me. "Wait," I cried, starting up suddenly, for I had also found a seat on one of the fallen logs; "wait a minute, Mr. Horton!" He stopped, and I went up to him. "Mr. Horton," I said, earnestly, "I want to do what's right. I am sure that you are sorry for what you have done--"

"I am, you may believe me, Miss Leslie; I am sorry. I've done many a mean thing in my life, but none meaner than this job of persecutin' a couple of orphan girls and their baby brother, and I've known it, and been ashamed of it, all along in my own heart. But I'd never 'a' given in, nor given nor owned up to what I'm telling you this minute, Leslie Gordon, if you'd 'a' shown less spunk and courage; and I'll be as good a friend to you after this as I've been merciless enemy before it. I don't ask you to believe me--"

"But I do believe you! I do believe you! If I--if we can begin again--if keeping still about what happened last night--and--about other things; the button, and the fire, and the crops, with your cattle brand on them," I stammered, eagerly, not making things very clear in my haste, but Mr. Horton understood me.

"You are a good girl, Leslie," he said, looking away from me; "you are a good girl. You see, my wife believes in me--she's a better man than I am."

"Yes; she must not know. No one need know anything about it, for I have told no one. I have kept my own counsel, and I will keep it still."

Mr. Horton faced me now, holding out his hand. There was a mist over his hard eyes, and wonderfully softened and improved those same eyes were in such unaccustomed setting. I laid my hand in his, he clasped it closely for an instant, then dropping it, observed in his usual tones:

"Well, I reckon I'll ride over to the fur pasture; then I'll git home again jest about the time the folks come in from town."

"No," I said; "come home with me first and have some breakfast, and get brushed up a little."

"I will," he replied, readily, adding, with a rueful glance at his torn clothing, "I need a little mending done about as bad as any one I've seen lately."

Guard and I walked along the ravine with him, while he led his horse. On emerging from the ravine Mr. Horton suddenly stopped, and began looking anxiously around. "That meat, now," he observed, at length, "it ought not to be left layin' around."

I had put the poisoned meat up in the fork of a pine tree, and now showed it to him. "We'd better dispose of it," he said, taking it down. Reaching the house, I went on in to prepare breakfast for my unlooked-for guest, who lingered outside until his horse was cared for; then he came in, and, going straight to the stove, lifted the lid and dropped the meat on the glowing coals. "There!" he exclaimed, replacing the lid, "that bit of death won't hurt anything now."

An hour afterward, washed, brushed, and partially mended--for I do hate mending, even in a righteous cause, like this--breakfasted, and with his horse equally refreshed, Mr. Horton rode away, looking like, and, I am sure, feeling like, another man.

Early in the afternoon I went over to the Wilsons', and brought Ralph back with me. Long before they could possibly arrive we were both watching for Jessie's and Joe's return. The stars were shining big and bright, and Ralph was nodding sleepily in his high chair when the bays and the light wagon, with Jessie and Joe perched on the front seat, came rattling down the homeward road. Snatching Ralph, who was wide awake on the instant, up in my arms, I ran out to meet them.

"We didn't have one bit of trouble, Leslie!" cried Jessie, jubilantly, as the team stopped at the gate; "Mr. Horton never came near us. I'm afraid we've been almost too ready to believe evil of him; but it won't matter now, anyway, for the land is ours, Leslie, ours!"

"Hit is so, honey, chile!" echoed old Joe's gentle voice. His black face was one expansive grin of satisfaction. "Young Mas'r Ralph Gordon ain't nebber gwine want fur place to lay he head, now; yo' listen at dat!"

"Neither is Joe!" said Jessie, brightly, as she sprang to the ground. "Every one has been so kind, Leslie," she continued, as we turned back into the house, while Joe drove on to the barn with the horses. "Lots of the neighbors were down there, besides our witnesses. I feel so cheered, Leslie, dear. We have so many friends."

That was true, indeed; but, as time passed, not one among them all proved to be more helpful, steadfast, and efficient than was our erstwhile enemy, Mr. Jacob Horton.

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.