"We"re looking for Ham Rutherford, the murderer." Sylvie"s heart contracted in her breast.
"Well, sir," laughed Pete, in his most boyish, light-hearted fashion, "that sounds interesting. But it"s a new name to me."
"It"s an old case, however," said the man, the man who spoke more like an Easterner than the sheriff. "Fifteen years old! They"ve dug it up again back East. The daughter of the man that was killed came into some money and thinks she can"t spend it any better than in hunting down her father"s murderer. Now, we"ve traced Rutherford to this country, and pretty close to this spot. He made a getaway before trial, and he came out here fifteen years ago. About two years later he sent back East for his kid brother--he"d be about your age now, Mr.--what you say your name was?--Garth, Peter Garth. You"ll have to excuse the sheriff; he"s bound to search your place." Sylvie had heard the footsteps going through the three rooms. "A woman named Bertha Scrane, a distant cousin of Rutherford"s to whom he"d been kind, brought the child out. Now, Missis--what"s your name?"
"Bella Garth," she said tranquilly. "I came out here with my husband, who died six years ago. He"s buried out there under the snow. I"ve lived here with my son and my son"s wife."
"Yes. It"s not the household we"d been expecting to find. It"s a lonely place, Missis." He looked at Sylvie. "I should think you"d prefer going to some town."
"We"re used to it here now," Bella answered.
"How"d your husband happen here, ma"am?"
"His health was poor; he"d heard of this climate, and he wanted to try trapping. He got on first-rate until the illness came so bad on him, and Pete"s done well ever since. We haven"t suffered any."
"No, I guess not. You don"t look like you"d suffered."
The talk went on, an awkward, half-disguised cross-questioning as to Bella"s birthplace, her life before she came out, her husband"s antecedents. She was extraordinarily calm, ready and reasonable with her replies.
"Well, sir"--the sheriff strolled back into the room--"I reckon these aren"t the parties we"re after. But look a-here, this is a description of Ham Rutherford. Likely you might have had a glimpse of him since you came into the country. When he made his getaway he was about thirty-two, height five feet eight, ugly, black-haired, noticeable eyes, manner violent. He was deformed, one leg shorter, one shoulder higher than the other, mouth twisted, and a scar across the nose. He"d been hurt in a fire when he was a child--"
Sylvie broke into a spontaneous ripple of mirth, the full measure of her relief. "Goodness," she said with utter spontaneity. "There"s certainly never been a monster like that in this house, has there, Pete?"
It did more than all that had gone before to convince the inquisitors.
From that minute there was a distinct relaxation; the evening, indeed, turned to one of sociability.
"We hate to inconvenience you, ma"am, but it seems like at this distance from town we"ve got to ask you for supper and a place to sleep."
If it had not been for the thought of Hugh in hiding, that supper and the evening about the hearth would have been to Sylvie a pleasant one.
The men, apparently laying aside all suspicion, were entertaining; their adventurous lives had bristled with exciting, moving, humorous experience. It was Sylvie herself, prompted by curiosity, believing as she did that the monster the sheriff had described bore no possible resemblance to the man she loved, who asked suddenly:
"Do tell us about the man you"re hunting for now--this Rutherford? Tell us about what he did."
The Easterner gave her a look, and Bella, seeing it, chimed in: "Yes, sure. Tell us about his crime."
Pete stood up and rolled another cigarette. Try as he might to steady his fingers, they trembled. He had never heard Hugh"s story. He did not want to hear it. The very name of Rutherford that had, in what now seemed to him another age, belonged to Hugh and to him was terrible in his ears. A sickness of dread seized him. Fortunately the eyes of neither of the men were upon him. Sylvie had their whole attention.
The detective spoke. "He was a storekeeper back in a university town, way East, where I came from. He kept a bookshop and had a heap of book-learning. I remember him myself, though I was a youngster. He was a wonderful, astonishing sort of chap, though as ugly as the devil; had a great gift of narration, never told the truth in his life, I guess, but that only made him all the more entertaining. And he had a temper--phew!
Redhot! He"d fly out and storm and strike in all directions. That"s what did for him. Some fool quarrel about a book it was, and the man, a frequenter of the shop, a scholar, a scientist, professor at the university, accused Rutherford of lying. Rutherford had a heavy bra.s.s paper-cutter in his hand. The professor had a nasty tongue in his head.
Well, a tongue"s no match for a paper-cutter. The professor said too much, called Rutherford a hump-backed liar and got a clip on the head that did for him."
"It"s an ugly story," said Sylvie. Bella and Pete retained their silence.
"Murder ain"t pretty telling, as a general thing," remarked the sheriff.
"No, though I"ve heard of cases where a man was justified in killing another man--I mean to save some one he loved from dreadful suffering,"
Sylvie replied.
"Well, ma"am, I don"t know about that. I"ve read stories that make it look that way, but in all my experience, it"s the cowards and the fools that kill, and they do it because they"re lower down, closer to the beast, or perhaps to an uncontrolled child, than most of us."
"But there was a time," Bella said, with a smothered pa.s.sion, "when an insult to a gentleman"s honor had to be avenged."
"Yes, ma"am," drawled the sheriff, "in them history days things was fixed up to excuse animal doin"s, kind of neater and easier and more becomin" than they are now. Well, Mr. Garth, can we have our beds? We"ve kept these ladies up talkin" long enough. Your mother looks plum wore out."
They slept in the bed usually shared by Pete and Hugh. Pete lay on the floor in the living-room not far from his brother"s hiding-place--lay there rigid and feverish, staring at the night. Sylvie, at Bella"s side, slept no better. Her imagination went over and over the story of Ham Rutherford"s crime. She saw the little dark bookshop, the professor"s thin, sneering face, the hideous anger of the cripple, the blow, the dead body, Rutherford"s arrest. And when her brain was sick, it would turn for relief to the n.o.ble story of Hugh"s self-sacrifice, only to be balked by a sense of unreality. What the detective had told, briefly and dryly, lived in her mind convincingly; but Hugh"s romance, that had glowed on his tongue, now lay lifeless on her fancy. Back her mind would go to the bookshop, the gibing professor, the heavy paper-cutter.
In the dawn she heard Bella get up with a deep-shaken sigh and go about her preparations for breakfast. But it was noon before the two men left.
CHAPTER VIII
Hugh came up from his hiding-place like a man risen from the dead. They helped him to his chair before the fire; they poured coffee down him, rubbed his blue, stiff hands. He sat looking up pitifully, his eyes turning from one to the other of them like those of a beaten hound. All the masterfulness, all the bombast, had been crushed out of him; even the splendor of his flaring hazel eyes was dimmed--they were hollow, hopeless, old. For a long time he did not speak, only drank the coffee and submitted himself meekly to their ministrations; then at last he touched Sylvie with a trembling hand.
"Sylvie," he whispered brokenly.
"Hugh, dear, you"re safe now; please speak; please laugh; you frighten me more than anything--why is he so silent, Pete? Bella, tell me what"s wrong?"
"He"s been crouching there on the damp, cold ground for hours," said Bella, "not knowing what might happen." Her voice trembled; she pa.s.sed a hand as shaking as her voice across Hugh"s bent head. "You"re safe now.
You"re safe now," she murmured.
Hugh"s teeth chattered, and he bent closer to the fire.
"Ugh--it was cold down there," he said, "like a grave! Sylvie, come here." Just an echo of his old imperious fashion it was--though the look was that of a beggar for alms. "Give me those warm little hands of yours." She knelt close to him, rubbed his hands in hers, looking up at Pete with a tremulous mouth that asked for advice.
"He"ll be all right in a minute," said Pete. "You talk to him, Sylvie."
"Yes, you talk--you talk. Do you remember how I talked to you when you were afraid of the bears--ah!" He drew her head savagely against his breast, folded his arms about it, stroked the hair. "Sylvie! Is it all right? Can it be--the same?"
"Yes, yes, why not?"
"Were you frightened?"
"Not after the first. After they had described you, I knew that they were looking for the wrong man, and then I felt all right. I didn"t know--poor Hugh!--how cold and cramped you were. What a shame that you took a false alarm and hid yourself! I don"t believe there would have been a bit of danger if you"d stayed out. They"d never even heard of you, I suppose."
Her talk, so gay, so strangely at cross-purposes with reality, was like a vivifying wine to him. The color came back into his face; a wild sort of relief lighted his eyes.
"Then it didn"t occur to you, Sylvie, that that brute might have been me--that the men might, after all, have been describing me--eh?" he asked, risking all his hope on one throw.
She laughed, and, lifting herself a little in his arms, touched her soft mouth to his. "But, Hugh, you told me your story, don"t you remember?
And it is gloriously, mercifully different from Rutherford"s."
He put his chin on his fist and stared over her head into the fire.
She felt the slackening of his embrace and searched his arms with questioning fingers. "Why are you cross, Hugh? Did I say anything to hurt you? Let"s forget Ham Rutherford. I wonder where he is, poor, horrible wretch!"
"Dead--dead--dead," Hugh muttered. "Dead and buried--or he ought to be.