"Good." Kars rose from the bed. "Get dressed, Alec," he said kindly.
"You"ll sign that bond before you eat. After that I"ll hand you all the talk you need. Call round at my apartment when you"re fixed."
As John Kars pa.s.sed out of the Gridiron one thought alone occupied him.
Murray McTavish had lied. He had lied deliberately to Bill Brudenell.
He had made no attempt to save the boy from the mire into which he had helped to fling him. On the contrary, he had thrust him deeper and deeper into it. Why? What--what was the meaning of it all? Where were things heading? What purpose lay behind the man"s doings?
CHAPTER XX
THE "ONLOOKERS" AGAIN
The prompt action of John Kars looked as if it would achieve the desired result. His plan had been without any depth of subtlety. It was characteristic of the man, in whom energy and action served him in all crises. Alec had to be saved. The boy was standing at the brink of a pit of moral destruction. He must be dragged back. But physical force would be useless, for, in that direction, there was little if any advantage on the side of the man who designed to save him. Kars had won through the opportunities that were his. And he sat pondering his success, and dreaming of the sweet gray eyes which had inspired his effort, when Alec reached his apartment in fulfilment of his promise.
It was a happy interview. It was far happier than Alec could have believed possible, in view of his pa.s.sionate regret at abandoning Leaping Horse, and the woman, whose tremendous attractions had caught his unsophisticated heart in her silken toils, for something approaching a year. But then Kars was using all the strength of a powerful, infectious personality in his effort.
He listened to the boy"s story of his love and regret with sympathy and apparent understanding. He encouraged him wherever he sought encouragement. He had a pleasantry of happy expression wherever it was needed. In a word he played to the last degree upon a nature as weak as it was simply honest.
The net result was the final departure of Alec in almost buoyant mood at the prospects opening out before him, and bearing in his pocket the signed agreement, whereby, at the price of absolute secrecy, and a year"s supreme effort, he was to achieve everything he needed to lay at the feet of a woman he believed to be the most perfect creature on G.o.d"s beautiful earth.
Kars watched him go not without some misgivings, and his fears were tritely expressed to Bill Brudenell, who joined him a few minutes later.
"There"s only one thing to unfix the things I"ve stuck together," he said. "It"s the--woman."
And Bill"s agreement added to his fears of the moment.
"Sure. But you haven"t figgered on--Pap."
"Pap?"
Bill nodded.
"There"s fourteen days. Pap"s crazy mad about Maude and the boy. The boy won"t figger to quit things for fourteen days. If I"m wise he"ll boost all he needs into them. Well--there"s Pap."
Bill was looking on with both eyes wide open, as was his way. He had put into a few words all he saw. And Kars beheld in perfect nakedness the dangers to his plans.
"We must get busy," was all he said, but there was a look of doubt in his usually confident eyes.
Maude lived in an elaborate house farther down the main street, and Alec Mowbray was on his way thither. He had kept from Kars the fact that his midday meal was to be taken with the woman who had now frankly abandoned herself to an absorbing pa.s.sion for the handsome youth from the wilderness "inside."
It was no unusual episode in the career of a woman of her cla.s.s. On the contrary, it was perhaps the commonest exhibition of her peculiar disposition. Hundreds of such women, thousands, have flung aside everything they have schemed and striven for, and finally achieved as the price of all a woman holds sacred, for the sake of a sudden, unbridled pa.s.sion she is powerless to control. Perhaps "Chesapeake"
Maude understood her risks in a city of lawlessness, and in flinging aside the protection of such a man as Pap Shaunbaum. Perhaps she did not. But those who looked on, and they were a whole people of a city, waited breathless and pulsating for the ensuing acts of what they regarded as a human _comedy_.
Alec, his slim, powerful young body clad in the orthodox garb of this northern city, swung along down the slush-laden street, his thoughts busy preparing his argument for the persuading of the woman who had become the sun and centre of his life. He knew his difficulties, he knew his own regrets. But the advantages both to her, and to him, which Kars had cleverly pointed out, outweighed both. His mind was set on persuading her. Nor did he question for a moment that for her, as for him, the bond between them was an enduring love that would always be theirs, and would adapt itself to their mutual advantage. The northern wilderness was deeply bred in him.
His way took him past Adler"s Hotel, and, in a lucid moment, he remembered that Murray was stopping there. An impulse made him pause and look at his watch. It yet wanted half an hour to his appointment.
Yes, he would see if Murray were in. He must tell him of his purpose to leave the city a while. It would be necessary to send word to his mother, too.
Murray was in. He was just contemplating food when he received Alec"s message. He sent down word for him to come up to his room, and waited.
Murray McTavish was very much the same man of methodical business here in Leaping Horse as the Fort knew him. The attractions of the city left him quite untouched. His method of life seemed to undergo no variation. A single purpose dominated him at all times. But that purpose, whatever it might be, was his own.
His room was by no means extravagant, such as was the room Alec occupied at the Gridiron. Adler"s Hotel boasted nothing of the extravagance of either of the two leading hotels. But it was ample for Murray"s requirements. The usual bedroom furnishing was augmented by a capacious writing desk, which was more or less usual throughout the hotel.
He was at his desk now, and his bulk filled the armchair to the limits of its capacity. He pushed aside the work he had been engaged upon, turned away from the desk, and awaited the arrival of his visitor.
There was no smile in his eyes now, nor, which was more unusual, was there any smile upon his gross features. His whole pose was contemplative, and his dark, burning eyes shone deeply.
But it was a different man who greeted the youth as the door was thrust open. The smiling face was beaming welcome, and Murray gripped the outstretched hand with a cordiality that was not intended to be mistaken.
"Sit right down, boy," he said. "You"re around in time to eat with me.
But I"ll chase up a c.o.c.ktail."
But Alec stayed him.
"I just can"t stay, Murray," he said hastily. "And I"m not needing a c.o.c.ktail just now. I was pa.s.sing, and I thought I"d hand you the thing I got in my mind, and get you to pa.s.s word on to my mother and Jessie."
He took the proffered chair facing the window. Murray had resumed his seat at the desk, which left him in the shadow.
"Why, just anything you say," Murray returned heartily. "The plans?"
The contrast between them left the trader overwhelmed. Alec, so tall, so clean-cut and athletic of build. His handsome face so cla.s.sically molded. His fair hair the sort that any woman might rave over.
Murray, insignificant, except in bulk. But for his curious dark eyes he must inevitably have been pa.s.sed over without a second thought.
Alec drew up his long legs in a movement that suggested unease.
"Why, I can"t tell you a thing worth hearing," he said, remembering his bond. "It"s just I"m quitting Leaping Horse in two weeks. I"m quitting it a year, maybe." Then he added with a smile of greater confidence, "I"ve hit a big play. Maybe it"s going to hand me a pile.
Guess I"m looking for a big pile." Then he added with a cordial, happy laugh, "Same as you."
Murray"s smile deepened if anything.
"Why, boy, that"s great," he exclaimed. "That"s the greatest news ever. Guess you couldn"t have handed me anything I like better. As for your mother, she"ll be jumping. She wasn"t easy to fix, letting you get around here. You"re going to make good. I"ll hand her that right away. I"m quitting. I"m getting back to the Fort in a few days.
That"s bully news. Say, you"re quitting in two weeks?"
"Yep. Two weeks."
Alec felt at ease again. He further appreciated Murray in that he did not press any inquisition.
They talked on for a few minutes on the messages Alec wished to convey to his mother, and finally the boy rose to go.
It was then that Murray changed from his att.i.tude of delight to one of deep gravity, which did not succeed in entirely obliterating his smile.
"I was going to look you up if you hadn"t happened along," he said seriously. "I was talking to Wiseman last night. You know Wiseman, of the Low Grade Hills Mine, out West? He"s pretty tough. Josh Wiseman"s a feller I haven"t a heap of use for, but he"s worth a big roll, and he"s in with all the "smarts" of Elysian Fields. Say, don"t jump, or get hot at what I"m going to say. I just want to put you wise."
"Get right ahead," Alec said easily. He felt that his new relations with Murray left him free to listen to anything he had to say.
"Why, it"s about Pap," Murray went on, deliberately. "And your news about quitting"s made me glad. Wiseman was half soused, but he made a point of rounding me up. He wanted to hand me a notion he"d got in his half-baked head. He said two "gun-men" had come into the city, and they"d come from "Fris...o...b..cause Pap had sent for them. He saw them yesterday and recognized them both. Josh hails from "Frisco, you see.