The girl nodded.
"I think I am glad of your decision," she said simply. "You see, when you have established your innocence----"
"I fear that result is--doubtful."
The man"s admission was quite frank. Nor was there even a suggestion of regret in his voice. But Joan"s heart gripped with alarm. The thought of such a contingency had never occurred to her simple mind.
He had not committed murder. Then, of course, he was innocent. It had all been made so simple. Now--now she was suddenly overwhelmed with a new terror.
"You mean--you cannot prove--your innocence?" she cried incredulously.
"You forget I was the only man with him. I was the last person with him. And--I fled when I should have stayed to--help. The circ.u.mstances are terribly against me."
Joan"s throat had suddenly parched. She struggled to speak, but no sound came. She looked to Buck for help and the man ran to her side.
The gentle pressure of his protecting arm, as he rested one caressing hand upon her shoulder, gave her the relief she needed.
"Oh, Buck, Buck! For the love of Heaven say something--do something,"
she appealed. "They will kill him for a crime--of which he is innocent."
Suddenly the Padre"s eyes glowed with a strange light of happiness.
The girl"s appeal to Buck had been the one saving touch in the midst of the cloud of tribulation overshadowing him. The daughter of his best friend, the daughter of the man he was supposed to have done to death, had given her verdict. She believed in his innocence. He sighed with the depth of his thankfulness. He could now face whatever lay before him with perfect equanimity.
But Buck had yet to play his part in the little drama so swiftly working itself out. His part was far different to the pa.s.sive att.i.tude of the other man. He had no tolerance for the possible sacrifice of an innocent life at the demand of a crazy woman who had come so nearly wrecking the life of the girl he loved. As Joan appealed to him his eyes lit with a sudden fire of rebellion. And his answer came in a hot rush.
"You think I"m goin" to let him die, Joan?" he cried, the hot blood staining his cheeks and brow. "I tell you he won"t. I swear to you, sure, sure, he shan"t die a murderer"s death! I tell you right here, little gal, ther" ain"t a sheriff in the country big enough to take him. He says he must give up to arrest when the time comes. Wal, he"ll have to do it over my dead body."
His words were in answer to Joan"s appeal, but they were hurled at the man beside the fire, and were a defiance and a challenge from the depths of a loyal heart.
The Padre"s smile was good to see. But he shook his head. And instantly Joan caught at the enthusiasm which stirred her lover and hugged it to herself. She sprang to her feet, and a wonderful light shone in her eyes.
"Buck is right, Padre. He is right," she cried. "Do you hear? You shall not take the risk, you must not. Oh, Padre! you must live for our sakes. We know your innocence, then what more is needed after all these years? For once let us be your mentors--you who have always been the mentor of others. Padre, Padre, you owe this to us. Think of it!
Think of what it would mean. A murderer"s death! You shall not, you cannot give yourself up. Buck is right. I, too, am with him."
She turned to the man at her side, and, raising her arms, clasped her hands about his neck.
"Buck--my Buck. Let us swear together that, while we have life, he shall never be the victim of this crazy, terrible woman. It shall be our fight--yours and mine."
Buck gazed down into her beautiful, pleading eyes as he clasped her slim body in his strong, young arms. Her eyes were alight with a love, radiant in its supremacy over her whole being. Her championship of his innocent friend would have endeared her a thousandfold had such a thing been possible. In that moment it was as though her courage, her loyalty, had completed the bond between them. His jaws gritted tight.
His eyes shone with a fervent resolution.
"It goes, little gal," he cried. "It"s our lives for his. It sure goes--every time."
CHAPTER XXIX
BEASLEY IN HIS ELEMENT
The camp was sweltering under an abnormal heat. There was not one breath of the usual invigorating mountain air. A few more degrees of humidity, and the cup of endurance would have been filled to overflowing and toiling humanity breathing something like sheer moisture. The sky was heavy and gray, and a dull sun, as though it too had been rendered faint-hearted, was painfully struggling against the laden atmosphere.
The work of the camp went on. For hours human nature wrestled with a growing inertia which robbed effort of all snap. But gradually, as the day wore on, the morning impetus gave way, and peevish tongues voiced the general plaint. Men moved about slowly, their tongues actively cursing. They cursed the heat as they mopped their dripping brows.
They cursed the flies, and hurled mighty blows for their destruction.
They cursed all work, and gold became the last thing in the world they desired at such a price. They cursed the camp, the country, but more than all they cursed the black hill from which they drew their living.
Then came acknowledgment of defeat. One by one at first, and finally in batches, they shouldered their tools and moodily withdrew from the attack. As they went weary eyes glanced back with hate and disgust at the frowning b.u.t.tresses of the hill, with awe at the steaming cloud hanging above the simmering waters of the suspended lake. The depressing shadow of Devil"s Hill had for the moment become intolerable.
Beasley hated the heat just as cordially as these toilers, but he would have hated still more its sudden going, and the consequent appeas.e.m.e.nt of unnatural thirsts, which it was his pleasure and profit to slake. His own feelings were at all times subservient to his business instincts. This sudden, unaccountable heat meant added profit to him, therefore his complaint was half-hearted. It was almost as if he feared to give offense to the G.o.ds of his good fortune.
Then, too, Beasley had so many things to occupy his busy brain. His trade was one that required much scheming, a matter in which he reveled at all times. Problems of self-interest were his salt of life, and their accurate solution brought him as near earthly happiness as well could be.
Curiously enough problems were always coming his way. He chanced upon one that morning while busy in his storeroom, his attention divided between pricing and stacking new dry goods and smashing flies on the back of his superheated neck. And it served him with food for thought for the rest of the day.
It took him quite unawares, and for that very reason gave him ample satisfaction. He was bending over a pile of rolls of fabric when a voice suddenly hailed him from the doorway.
"Are you the proprietor of the livery stables?"
He turned about with a start. Such a question in that camp seemed superfluous. It was absurd. He looked up, and his astonished eyes fell upon the vision of an extremely well-dressed, refined-looking woman whom he judged to be anything over fifty. But what held his attention most was the lean, emaciated face and penetrating eyes. There was something of the witch about it, as there was about the bowed figure.
But more than all she was a _stranger_.
He admitted the impeachment in the midst of his astonishment with an abruptness equal to her own.
"Sure," he said, and waited.
"Where will I find the sheriff of this place?"
Beasley"s eyes opened wider.
"Guess ther" ain"t no sheriff in this camp."
The woman"s next words came impatiently.
"Why isn"t there? Is there a lawyer?"
Beasley grinned. His astonishment was giving place to curiosity and speculation. He tapped the revolver at his hip.
"We"re mostly our own lawyers around here," he said easily.
But the woman ignored his levity.
"Where can I find one--a lawyer, or sheriff?" she demanded with an added imperiousness.
"Guess Leeson b.u.t.te"s nearest."
The stranger considered a moment. Beasley"s eyes never left her. He had noticed the refinement of her accent, and wondered the more.
"How can I get there--best?" the woman next demanded.