"What"s the trouble here? What"s wrong?" she demanded sharply, catching the weeping woman by the arm, even as she reached out a hand toward the suffering Arabella.
"Poison!" wailed the woman from Kansas again. "She"s goin" to die!
There ain"t no way to help it."
"What poison--what has the child taken?" asked Constance.
"It was strychnine, ma"am, like enough," ventured Curly. "There was some--"
"Nonsense! It"s not strychnine," cried the girl. In an instant her eye had caught what every other individual present had overlooked, although it was certainly the most obvious object in all the landscape,--the half-empty can which still remained tightly clutched in Arabella"s free hand.
"Why, here it is!" she exclaimed. "The child has eaten concentrated lye.
Quick! Get her in somewhere. What are you standing around here for--get out of the way, you men!"
They scattered, and Constance glanced about her. "Where"s some grease--some lard? Quick!" she called out to Whiteman, who was looking on.
"In here, lady--dis vay," he answered eagerly; but she outfooted him to the rear of the store, carrying Arabella in her arms. Spying a lard tin, she thrust off the cover, and plunged in a hand. Immediately the sobs of Arabella changed to sputterings, for the physician in charge had covered her face, lips, and a goodly portion of the interior of her mouth and throat with the ameliorating unguent! At this act of first aid, the wails of the woman from Kansas ceased also, and a vast sigh of relief arose from the confederated helplessness of Heart"s Desire.
"Is she going to die?" gasped the woman from Kansas.
"No," said Constance, scornfully. "I"ve seen much worse burns. The lye has perhaps lost a little of its strength, too. The burns are all well in the front of the mouth and tongue, and I don"t think she swallowed any of it. Lard is as good as anything to stop the burn. Why didn"t you think of it?"
"I don"t know, ma"am," confessed the woman from Kansas.
A sudden loquacity now seized upon all those recently perturbed and silent.
"Now," said Curly, "it"s this-a-way; the women they must have left that can of lye settin" around. It"s mighty careless of "em. I _needed_ my strychnine, but there ain"t no _sense_ in leavin" lye settin" around.
Them twins was due to eat it, sh.o.r.e. Why, they was _broke_ to eat anything that comes in tin cans!"
Constance gathered Arabella in her arms. The tailored gown was ruined now. One hand remained gloved, but both were grease-laden to the wrists.
She was unconscious of all this. Her gaze, frowning, solicitous, maternal, bent itself upon the face of her patient. The men of Heart"s Desire looked on, silent, relieved, adoring. A few began to edge toward the open air.
"You ain"t no kind of a drug-store man," said the postmaster, scornfully, to Tomlinson.
"Why ain"t I?" retorted the latter, hotly. "What _chance_ does a merchant get in this town? What do I get for carrying a full line of drugs here for years? Now, _lard_ ain"t drugs. It ain"t in the pharmacopy."
"I don"t know but it"s a good thing for that kid," said Curly. "She ought to be plumb soft-spoken all her life, after all that lard in her frontispiece. But it won"t do "em no good,--they"ll eat my strychnine next. This here stage-coach--with her along," jerking his thumb towards the physician in charge, "won"t be any more"n out of sight before that twin corporation will be fryin" dynamite on the kitchen stove. I sh.o.r.e thought that set of twins was busted this time for keeps. Unless there"s two of "em, twins ain"t no good!"
"Ma"am, your dress is just ruined," said the woman from Kansas; "you are lard clean from head to foot!"
"I know it," cried Constance, gayly, the color coming to her cheeks; "but never mind, the baby"s all right now."
"Well, you"ve got to come over to our house and get fixed up. Was you goin" out on the stage? You stay here for a day or so and watch that child; we"d like it mighty well if you would."
It was a flag of truce from Heart"s Desire. Nevertheless, Constance seemed to hesitate. Ah! wily Constance. A great many things might happen which had not yet happened, but which ought to happen. And in all that group Dan Anderson was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps after a time he might come!
Constance hesitated just long enough. The dignity of Bill G.o.dfrey had to be sustained. His stagecoach had not started on the appointed and stipulated time any day these many months; yet for that stage, ready equipped for its journey, to stand waiting idly upon the convenience of any mortal after the "mails" had been brought out from the post-office and placed safely in the boot, was mortal affront to any stage-driver"s reputation. Bill G.o.dfrey again looked solemnly at his watch and gathered up the reins. "All aboard!" he cried. "Git up!" and so swung a wide circle and headed down the street to the hotel. Presently he departed.
He carried a solitary pa.s.senger. Constance and her father were still prisoners, or guests, in Heart"s Desire for an indefinite time! And in an indefinite time many things may occur.
In his house across the _arroyo_ Dan Anderson endured the silence and loneliness as long as he could, turning over and over again in his mind the old questions to which he had found no answer. Most of all, one question was insistent. Had he been just to her, to Constance, in allowing himself to accept her alleged conduct as a motive for his own actual conduct? He had taken for granted much--all--and upon what manner of testimony? The babblings of a half-witted herder! He had asked the men of Heart"s Desire to hear both sides of his own case. The men of Heart"s Desire had heard both sides of the railroad"s case. But he had condemned without trial the woman whom he loved--her--Constance! It was impossible, unbelievable of any man.
When the horror of this thought broke upon him fully, Dan Anderson sprang up, caught his hat, and started fast as he might for the hotel. He crossed the _arroyo_ below the post-office, and so did not know, at the time, of the peril and rescue of Arabella. Nor did he know that all of Heart"s Desire was penitent regarding her and her father; nor that both were to remain for yet a little time.
Dan Anderson approached the stone hotel in time to watch the stage depart, himself un.o.bserved. Then he stepped farther toward the hotel door. He met the Littlest Girl just emerging from the building, whither she had gone upon the same errand as his own.
"She ain"t here, Mr. Anderson," explained the Littlest Girl; "her and her pa has just went to the post-office."
He looked at her silently. "Oh, I know who you come to see," a.s.serted the Littlest Girl, "and I don"t blame you. It"s _time_ you did, too."
Without a word he turned and walked with her up the street, there to miss Constance by three moments, which, potentially, might have been a life-time.
CHAPTER XXI
JUSTICE AT HEART"S DESIRE
_The Story of a Sheriff and Some Bad Men; showing also a Day"s Work, and a Man"s Medicine_
"Dad, you"ve been drinking!" burst out Constance as her father met her at the door of Curly"s house. She had heard footsteps, and hastened to meet the visitor. Perhaps it was disappointment, perhaps indignation with herself that she had listened, that she had waited, which caused her to greet her parent with such asperity.
"You wrong me, daughter!" protested Mr. Ellsworth, solemnly; "only took one or two little ones, to celebrate the saving of the twin. You"ve made a great hit with those people over there. They"d all celebrate, if there was anything to drink. I had to stock the Lone Star myself out of my valise. They won"t have anything in till Tom Osby comes.
"I say," he resumed, taking his daughter"s arm with genial gallantry as they stepped out into the sunlight together, "these people are not so bad. They"re warming up right along now. If you and I could stay here awhile, we"d get along with "em all right--better understanding all around."
Her face brightened. "Then you don"t give up the railroad?"
"No; by no means. I never give up a thing I want. Besides, I wouldn"t mind coming here to live for a while. The climate"s glorious."
"You live here? You"d look well in a wide hat and a blue shirt, wouldn"t you, dad?"
"More irreverence! Of course I"d look well. And it"s worth something to eat the way I do here. I"m getting better every day. Why, they tell me no one has died out here in a hundred years. A man can eat anything from cactus to sole leather, and keep hearty. I saw a lot of fellows over there just now, sitting flat on the ground in the sun out in the middle of the street, eating dried beef and canned tomatoes, and they looked so happy that I sat down and took a bite with them. They are just travelling through,--sheriff"s party from somewhere, going somewhere after somebody."
"What"s that, Mr. Ellsworth?" the woman from Kansas came out and inquired; for she knew better than he what that meant. "Sheriff? Was he a tall, slim man, longish mustache, sorter thin?"
Ellsworth nodded; the woman wiped her hands on her blue-checked ap.r.o.n.
Constance glanced at her serious face, and wondered.
"Then it"s Ben Stillson," the woman from Kansas said, "the sheriff of Blanco. He"s after somebody. Did he summons any of our men along?"
"I don"t know, madam," answered Ellsworth. The woman said no more; she only watched and listened.
It was this posse, headed by the sheriff of Blanco, that Dan Anderson and the Littlest Girl saw when they reached a point midway between Uncle Jim Brothers"s hotel and the post-office. The little group of riders, dusty and travel-stained, had come at a steady trot down the street. Stillson, tall, grim-featured, and bronzed, looked neither to the right nor to the left. He stopped, and ordered his men to dismount and eat. They swung out of their saddles without a word, loosening the cinches to breathe their horses. The men of Heart"s Desire began to gather around them.
"What"s up, Ben?" asked McKinney, the one most apt to be concerned; for cow men had borne the brunt of outlawry in that land for more than a generation. "Has Chacon come across from Arizona, or has the Kid broke out again?"
The sheriff looked at him gravely. "The Kid"s out," said he. "We had him and two others at Seven Rivers, but he broke out four days ago. He killed the jailer and a couple of Mexicans farther up the river.
There"s four in his bunch now, and we"ve trailed them this far.
They"re likely headed for Sumner. We dropped in here, across the Patos, to get a couple of men or so. How are you fixed here?"