"You are not going to get up?" She sat down on the bed and put her hand on his brow. Her face was soft and pleading. It held a sweetness, a womanly strength he longed to lean upon.
He caught her hand and held it nervously.
"I don"t believe I"ve got a single friend on earth," he said. "I don"t deserve any; I"m a bad man."
"Don"t talk that way," she replied. There was something in his plaintive tone that seemed to touch her deeply, for she took his hand in both of hers and pressed it.
"I don"t want to die, for your sake," he said, "for if I was to go under, it would be awkward for your--your friend. He might really have to swing for it."
She released his hand suddenly, a pained look in her face. "Did you want to put your letter in your coat pocket?" she asked.
"Yes."
She took the coat from a chair, gave it to him, and then went back to the fireplace. He thrust his hand into the pocket and took out Sally Dawson"s last letter, and put it and her mother"s into the same envelope. As he was putting them away he found in the same pocket a folded sheet of paper. He opened it. It was a letter from John Wambush to his son Toot. Then Westerfelt remembered the paper Harriet had picked up and given him in the street after the fight. Hardly knowing why he did so, he read it. It was as follows:
"DEAR TOOT,--Me an yore mother is miserable about you. We have prayed for yore reform day and night, but the Lord seems to have turned a deef ear to our pet.i.tions. We hardly ever see you now an we are afraid you are goin to git into serious trouble. We want you to give up moonshinin, quit drinkin an settle down. We both think if you would jest git you a good wife you would act better. I wish you would go an marry that girl at the hotel--you know who I mean. I am as sorry for her as I ever was for anybody, for she dont think you love her much.
She told me all about it the night the revenue men give you sech a close shave. I was standin on the hotel porch when you driv the wagon up with the whiskey barrel on it an I heerd them a-lopin along the road after you. I thought it was all up with you for I knowed they could go faster than you. Then I seed her run out on the back porch an help you roll the whiskey in the kitchen an close the door. An when the officers com up you was a-settin on the empty wagon talkin to her as if nothin had happened. I heard all the lies she told em about seein another wagon go whizzin down the road an I thought it was a great pity for her to do it, but she was doin it for a man she loved an I wouldent hold that agin her. A woman that loves as hard as she does would do a sight wuss than that if it was necessary. After you loaded the whiskey back on the wagon and got away to the woods, I went round an told her what I had seed an she bust out cryin an throwed her arms round my neck an said she loved you better than she did her own life an that she never would love any other man as long as breeth was in her body. Son, that night she come as nigh beggin me to git you to marry her as a proud girl could, an when I left I promised her I would talk to you about it. She"s a good girl, Toot, and it would make a man of you to marry her. I like her mighty well an so does yore mother. Please do come out home soon. It looks like a pity for you to be away so much when it worries yore ma like it does.
"Yore affectionate father,
"JOHN WAMBUSH."
Westerfelt folded the letter deliberately, and then in a sudden spasm of jealous despair he crumpled it in his hand. He turned his head on the side and pressed down his pillow that he might see Harriet as she sat by the fire. The red firelight shone in her face. She looked tired and troubled.
"Poor girl!" he murmured. "Poor girl! Oh, G.o.d, have mercy on me! She loves him--she loves him!"
She looked up and caught his eyes. "Did you want anything?" she asked.
He gave the letter to her. "Burn it, please. I wish I had not read it."
She took it to the fire. The light of the blazing paper flashed on the walls, and then went out.
He remained so silent that she thought he was sleeping, but when she rose to leave the room she caught his glance, so full of dumb misery that her heart sank. She went to her mother in the kitchen. Mrs.
Floyd was polishing a pile of knives and forks, and did not look up until Harriet spoke.
"Mother," she said, "I am afraid something has gone wrong with Mr.
Westerfelt."
"What do you mean?" asked the old lady in alarm.
"I don"t know, but he got a letter this morning, and after he read it he seemed changed and out of heart. He gave it to me to burn, and I never saw such a desperate look on a human face. I know it was the letter, because before he read it he was so--so different."
"Well," said Mrs. Floyd, "it may be only some business matter that"s troubling him. Men have all sorts of things to worry about. As for me, I"ve made a discovery, Harriet, at least I think I have."
"Why, mother!"
Mrs. Floyd put the knives and forks into the knife-box.
"Hettie Fergusson was here just now," she said.
"This early!" exclaimed Harriet, incredulously. "Why, mother, where did she spend the night?"
"At home; that"s the curious part about it; she has walked all that three miles since daylight, if she didn"t get up before and start through the dark. I never could understand that girl. All the time she was working here she puzzled me. She was so absent-minded, and would jump and scream almost when the door would open. I am glad we didn"t need her help any longer. Sometimes I wish she had never come to the hotel."
Harriet stared wonderingly at her mother; then she said:
"Did she want to help us again?"
Mrs. Floyd laughed significantly.
"That"s what she pretended she wanted, but she didn"t have no more idea of working here than I have of flying through the air at this minute.
Harriet, she is dead crazy in love with Toot Wambush. That is the truth about it."
"Why, mother, I can"t believe it!" cried Harriet, her brow wrinkling in perplexity. "He hardly ever went with her or talked to her."
"He took her out home with him in a buggy six or seven times to my knowledge," declared Mrs. Floyd, "and there"s no telling how often he saw her at home. He is awfully thick with her father. I never was fooled in a woman; she is in love with him, and right now she is worried to death about him. She couldn"t hide her anxiety, and asked a good many round-about questions about where he was gone to, and if we knew whether the sheriff was hunting for him now, and if we thought Mr.
Westerfelt would prosecute him."
Harriet laughed. "Well, I never dreamt there was a thing between those two. When he asked her to go with him in his buggy out home, I thought it was because she lived on the road to his father"s, and that he just did it to accommodate her, and--"
"Oh, I"ve no doubt that is what _he_ did it for, darling, but she was falling in love with him all the time, and now that he is in trouble, she can"t hide it. Do you know her conduct this morning has set me to thinking? The night you and I spent over at Joe Long"s I heard Wambush came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he was talking to Hettie in our back yard. Do you know it ain"t a bit unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow? They say he was laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip.
I"ll bet she helped him."
"If she is in love with him she did, I reckon," returned Harriet, wisely. "I wish he was in love with her. He is getting entirely too troublesome."
"He"ll never care a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted the old lady. "I"m sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much.
He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him whether or no. He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt." Mrs. Floyd lowered her voice. "If he hadn"t been, he wouldn"t have fought him as he did.
That is at the bottom of it, daughter, and now that he is a regular outlaw I am awfully uneasy. If I ever get a chance, I"m going to convince him that it is useless for him to worry you as he does. I"d rather see you in your grave than married to a man like that."
Chapter IX
It was a week before John Westerfelt was strong enough to leave his room in the hotel. Inflammation of his wound had set in, and at one time his condition was thought to be quite critical.
One day Luke Bradley came in his buggy to drive him out to his house.
"Marthy won"t heer to a refusal," he said. "She"s powerful" troubled.
She "lowed ef we"d "a" made you stay with us you"d not "a" been apt to "a" met Wambush that day, an" "a" been laid up like this. She"s jest dyin" to git to cook things fer you an" doctor you up."
"I"ll go and stay a day, anyway," promised Westerfelt. He glanced at Harriet Floyd, who stood behind the curtains looking out of the window.
"I don"t need any finer treatment than I"ve had, Luke. Miss Harriet"s been better than a sister to me. She saved my life the other night, too. If she hadn"t interfered that gang would have nabbed me as sure as preaching, and I was unarmed and too weak to stand rough handling."
Harriet came from the window. She took the roll of blankets that Bradley had brought and held one of them before the fire.
"It"s chilly out to-day," she said. "You"d better wrap him up well, Mr. Bradley."