"Good-morning, Mrs. Baker," he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in his hand, "I"m Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled clinging hair, and then--fell upon the leathern mailbag still lying across the table. Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire of the amorous expressman that yet remained hanging from the bra.s.s wards of the lock, and he reached his hand toward it.
But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and had seized it in her arms. She had been too preoccupied and bewildered to resent his first intrusion behind the part.i.tion, but this last familiarity with her sacred official property--albeit empty--capped the climax of her wrongs.
"How dare you touch it!" she said indignantly. "How dare you come in here! Who are you, anyway? Go outside, at once!"
The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a long silent laugh. "I"m afraid you don"t know me, after all!" he said pleasantly. "I"m Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems to have miscarried too."
Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept silent.
"I ought to have explained," he went on smilingly; "but you are quite right, Mrs. Baker," he added, nodding towards the bag. "As far as you knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to defend Uncle Sam"s property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to know" (pointing to the wire) "if that thing was on the bag when it was delivered to you?"
Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all, this official was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should understand her power. "It"s only the expressman"s foolishness," she said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. "He thinks it smart to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down."
Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not inhuman or unpardonable folly. "As long as he doesn"t meddle with the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said laughingly. A dreadful recollection, that the Hickory Hill postmaster had used the inside of the bag to convey HIS foolishness, came across her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal, half-rea.s.suring air: "But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to my business here. Briefly, then, it doesn"t concern you in the least, except so far as it may relieve you and some others, whom the Department knows equally well, from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps, anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns Laurel Run, and I think" (with a slight bow) "we"ve known all about you and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night in receiving the "Omnibus Way Bag," that you know arrives here at 9.30, doesn"t it?"
"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Baker hurriedly; "but it never has anything for us, except"--(she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as she remembered the sighing Green"s occasional offerings) "except a notification from Hickory Hill post-office. It leaves there," she went on with an affectation of precision, "at half past eight exactly, and it"s about an hour"s run--seven miles by road."
"Exactly," said Mr. Home. "Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and dispatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday."
"But," said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure it offered, "there are the people who come for letters, you know."
"I thought you said there were no letters at that time," said Mr. Home quickly.
"No--but--but"--(with a slight hysterical stammer) "the boys come all the same."
"Oh!" said Mr. Home dryly.
"And--O Lord!"--But here the spectacle of the possible discomfiture of Laurel Run at meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead of her own smooth cheeks, at the window, combined with her nervous excitement, overcame her so that, throwing her little frilled ap.r.o.n over her head, she gave way to a paroxym of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home waited with amused toleration for it to stop, and, when she had recovered, resumed.
"Now, I should like to refer an instant to my first communication to you. Have you got it handy?"
Mrs. Baker"s face fell. "No; I sent it over to Mr. Green, of Hickory Hill, for information."
"What!"
Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the man"s voice, she managed to gasp out, however, that, after her usual habit, she had not opened the official letters, but had sent them to her more experienced colleague for advice and information; that she never could understand them herself,--they made her head ache, and interfered with her other duties,--but HE understood them, and sent her word what to do.
Remembering also his usual style of indors.e.m.e.nt, she grew red again.
"And what did he say?"
"Nothing; he didn"t return them."
"Naturally," said Mr. Home, with a peculiar expression. After a few moments" silent stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the frightened woman.
"You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more frankly to you than I had intended. You have--unwittingly, I believe--given information to a man whom the Government suspects of peculation. You have, without knowing it, warned the postmaster at Hickory Hill that he is suspected; and, as you might have frustrated our plans for tracing a series of embezzlements to their proper source, you will see that you might have also done great wrong to yourself as his only neighbor and the next responsible person. In plain words, we have traced the disappearance of money letters to a point when it lies between these two offices. Now, I have not the least hesitation in telling you that we do not suspect Laurel Run, and never have suspected it. Even the result of your thoughtless act, although it warned him, confirms our suspicion of his guilt. As to the warning, it has failed, or he has grown reckless, for another letter has been missed since. To-night, however, will settle all doubt in the matter. When I open that bag in this office to-night, and do not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was last checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, I shall know that it remains in Green"s possession at Hickory Hill."
She was sitting back in her chair, white and breathless. He glanced at her kindly, and then took up his hat. "Come, Mrs. Baker, don"t let this worry you. As I told you at first, YOU have nothing to fear. Even your thoughtlessness and ignorance of rules have contributed to show your own innocence. n.o.body will ever be the wiser for this; we do not advertise our affairs in the Department. Not a soul but yourself knows the real cause of my visit here. I will leave you here alone for a while, so as to divert any suspicion. You will come, as usual, this evening, and be seen by your friends; I will only be here when the bag arrives, to open it. Good-by, Mrs. Baker; it"s a nasty bit of business, but it"s all in the day"s work. I"ve seen worse, and, thank G.o.d, you"re out of it."
She heard his footsteps retreat into the outer office and die out of the platform; the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat of his horse"s hoofs that seemed to find a dull echo in her own heart, and she was alone.
The room was very hot and very quiet; she could hear the warping and creaking of the shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that followed, a woodp.e.c.k.e.r took up his interrupted work on the roof, and seemed to beat out monotonously on her ear the last words of the stranger: Stanton Green--a thief! Stanton Green, one of the "boys" John had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! She remembered now, as a thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his extravagance and fast living, of which she had taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of presents sent her, that she now clearly saw must have been far beyond his means.
What would the boys say? What would John have said? Ah! what would John have DONE!
She started suddenly to her feet, white and cold as on that day that she had parted from John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her hat and mantle, and going to that little iron safe that stood in the corner, unlocked it and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond.
CHAPTER II.
Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to the right, and came upon an open slope of Burnt Ridge, where she knew Jo Simmons" mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot reata from his head-stall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The tool-shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo"s saddle and bridle always hung, was but a canter farther on. She reached it unperceived, and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side-saddle from Simmons" Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under one knee, and let it fall over her horse"s flanks. By this time Blue Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.
The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road.
There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges were separating their ma.s.ses, and showing individual silhouettes against the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to antic.i.p.ate it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST arrive before it left!
There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now, Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse"s back, she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, cruel ascent of the Divide.
Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now.
Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit, bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, "loping" on three legs and recreating himself,--as only a California mustang could,--the invincible Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The evening star had just p.r.i.c.ked itself through the golden mist of the horizon line,--eight o"clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, she knew the trail, she knew herself,--but did she know THE MAN to whom she was riding? A cold chill crept over her, and then she shivered in a sudden blast; it was Night at last swooping down from the now invisible Sierras, and possessing all it touched. But it was only one long descent to Hickory Hill now, and she swept down securely on its wings. Half-past eight! The lights of the settlement were just ahead of her--but so, too, were the two lamps of the waiting stage before the post-office and hotel.
Happily the lounging crowd were gathered around the hotel, and she slipped into the post-office from the rear, unperceived. As she stepped behind the part.i.tion, its only occupant--a good-looking young fellow with a reddish mustache--turned towards her with a flush of delighted surprise. But it changed at the sight of the white, determined face and the brilliant eyes that had never looked once towards him, but were fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning mouth was still open and propped up beside his desk.
"Where is the through money letter that came in that bag?" she said quickly.
"What--do--you--mean?" he stammered, with a face that had suddenly grown whiter than her own.
"I mean that it"s a DECOY, checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, and that Mr.
Home, of San Francisco, is now waiting at my office to know if you have taken it!"
The laugh and lie that he had at first tried to summon to mouth and lips never reached them. For, under the spell of her rigid, truthful face, he turned almost mechanically to his desk, and took out a package.
"Good G.o.d! you"ve opened it already!" she cried, pointing to the broken seal.
The expression on her face, more than anything she had said, convinced him that she knew all. He stammered under the new alarm that her despairing tone suggested. "Yes!--I was owing some bills--the collector was waiting here for the money, and I took something from the packet.
But I was going to make it up by next mail--I swear it."
"How much have you taken?"
"Only a trifle. I"--
"How much?"
"A hundred dollars!"
She dragged the money she had brought from Laurel Run from her pocket, and counting out the sum, replaced it in the open package. He ran quickly to get the sealing wax, but she motioned him away as she dropped the package back into the mail-bag. "No; as long as the money is found in the bag the package may have been broken ACCIDENTALLY. Now burst open one or two of those other packages a little--so;" she took out a packet of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot until the tape fastening was loosened. "Now give me something heavy."
She caught up a bra.s.s two-pound weight, and in the same feverish but collected haste wrapped it in paper, sealed it, stamped it, and, addressing it in a large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, dropped it in the bag. Then she closed it and locked it; he would have a.s.sisted her, but she again waved him away. "Send for the expressman, and keep yourself out of the way for a moment," she said curtly.
An att.i.tude of weak admiration and foolish pa.s.sion had taken the place of his former tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but without a word.
Mrs. Baker wiped her moist forehead and parched lips, and shook out her skirt. Well might the young expressman start at the unexpected revelation of those sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth at the little window.
"Mrs. Baker!"