The Law-Breakers

CHAPTER XL

THE DAWN

A girl was leaning against a solitary post, a hundred yards or so from where the descent into the valley of Leaping Creek began. All about her stretched the vast plains of grass, which seemed to know no end. The wide flat trail, so bare and hard, passed her by, and vanished into the valley behind her. In the opposite direction, at long intervals, it showed up in sections as it passed over the rises in the prairie ocean, until the limits of her vision were reached.

Not a single object stood out to relieve the monotony of that desert of grass. Any dwelling of man within reach of the searching eye must have been hidden in the troughs between the crests of summer grass. It was all so wide, so vast, so dreadful in its unspeakable solitude.

Helen’s eyes were upon the last section of the trail, away to the northwest, just as far as her bright eyes could see. She was searching, searching. Her heart was beating with a great and buoyant hope, and every little detail she beheld in that far-off distance she searched, and sought to mould into the figure of the horseman she was waiting for.

The sun was hot. It’s relentless rays, freed from the wealth of shade in the valley below, beat down upon the parching land with a fiery intensity which must have been insupportable to unaccustomed human life. But to Helen it meant nothing, nothing but the fact that its brilliant light was in keeping with every beat of the warm, thrilling heart within her bosom.

He was on the road. Bill – her Big Brother Bill. He was on the road, and must be somewhere near now, for the telegram in her hand warned her that he hoped to reach the valley by sundown.

Four long weeks since the dreadful day. Four long weeks in which her aching heart and weary thought had left her in wretched unhappiness. Four weeks of doubt and trouble, in which her sister seemed to have shut herself out of her life, leaving her to face all her doubts and fears alone.

Bill was away on his dead brother’s affairs. Loyal Bill, seeking by every means in his lumbering power to shield the memory of the dead man from the effects of the manner of his death. Helen honored her lover for it. He was just the good, loyal soul she had believed. And now, as she stood with the tinted paper message, announcing his return in her hand, she smiled, and wondered tenderly what blunders he would contrive in the process.

Sundown. Sundown would not be for at least two hours. Two hours. Two hours meant some fourteen or sixteen miles by horse upon the trail. She told herself she could not see for sixteen miles, nor even for eight. It was absurd waiting there. She had already been waiting there over an hour. Then she smiled, laughing at herself for her absurd yearning for this lover of hers. He was so big, so foolish, so honest and loyal – and, he was just hers.

She sat down again on the ground, as already she had seated herself many times. She would restrain her impatience. She would not just get up at every —

She was on her feet again at the very moment of making her resolve. This time her eyes were straining and wide open. Every nerve in her body was at a tension. Some one was on the trail this time. Certain. It was a horseman, too. There was no mistake, but he was near, quite near, comparatively. How had she come to miss him in the far distance?

She saw the figure as it came over a rising ground. She watched it closely. Then she saw it was not on the trail, but was making for it – across country. Now she knew. Now she was certain, and she laughed and clapped her hands. It must be Bill, and – of course he had lost himself, and now, at last, had found his way.

The horseman came on at a great pace.

As he drew nearer a frown of doubt crossed the girl’s face. He did not appear big enough – somehow.

He dropped down into a hollow, and mounted the next crest. In a moment, as he came into view, Helen felt like bursting into tears of disappointment.

The next moment, however, all thought of tears passed away and a steady coldness grew in her eyes. She felt like hiding herself back there in the valley. She had recognized the man. Without a doubt it was Stanley Fyles. But he wore no uniform. He was clad in a civilian costume, which pronouncedly smacked of the prairie.

It was too late to hide. Besides, to hide would be undignified. What was he coming to the valley for? Helen’s eyes hardened. Nor did she know quite why she felt resentful at the sight of him. Yes, she did. It was for poor Charlie, Bill’s brother. And Kate had sworn that Charlie was innocent.

She stood thinking, thinking, and then a further change came over her. She remembered this man’s work. She remembered his duty. Ought she to feel badly toward him?

And Kate? What of Kate? Would she – What on earth brought him to the valley – now?

It was too late to avoid him now, if she had wanted to. And, somehow, on reflection, she was not sure she did want to. So she stood her ground as he came up.

He reined Peter in as he came abreast, and his dark eyes expressed his surprise at sight of the waiting girl.

“Why – Miss Helen, this – ” He broke off abruptly, and, turning in his saddle, looked back over the long, long trail. When his eyes came back to the girl’s face they were smiling. “It’s kind of hot out here,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid of the sun?” Then he became silent altogether, while he interpreted to himself the somewhat stony regard in her eyes.

In a moment something of the awkwardness of the encounter occurred to him. His mind was full of other things, which before he had missed the possibility of.

“I don’t mind the sun, Mr. Fyles,” said Helen coldly. “Besides, I guess I’m not standing around here for – fun. I’m waiting for some one.”

Fyles glanced back over the trail. Then he nodded. “He’s coming along,” he said quietly. “Guess he started out from Amberley before me. Say, he’s a bully feller, sure enough, and I like him. I’ve seen a good deal of him in Amberley. But I guessed he wouldn’t be thanking me for my company on the trail, so I came another way, and passed on ahead. You see – I, well, I had to do my duty – here, and – well, he’s a bully feller, Miss Helen, and – you’ll surely be happy with him.”

While he was talking, just for a moment, a wild impulse stirred Helen to some frigid and hateful retort. But the man’s evident sincerity won the day and the girl’s eyes lit with a radiant smile.

“He’s – on the trail?” she cried, banishing her last shadow of coldness. “He is? Say, tell me where, and when he’ll get in. I – I had this message which said he’d be here by sundown, and – and I thought I’d just come right along and meet him. Have – have you seen him? And – and – ”

Fyles shook his head. “Not until just now,” he said kindly. “He’s about four miles back. Say,” he added, with less assurance, “maybe your sister’s home?”

For a moment Helen stared incredulously. “Yes,” she answered slowly. Then in agitation: “You’re not going to – ?”

The man nodded, but his smile had died out. “Yes. That’s why I’ve come along,” he said seriously. “Is – is she well? Is she – ?”

But Helen left him no time to finish his apprehensive inquiries. At that moment she caught sight of a distant figure on the trail. It was the figure of a big man – so big, and her woman’s heart cried out in love and thankfulness.

“Oh, look! It’s Bill – my Bill! Here he comes. Oh, thank God.”

Stanley Fyles flung a glance over his shoulder. Then without a word he lifted Peter’s reins. Then he seemed to glide off in the direction of the setting sun.

As he went he drew a long sigh. He was wondering – wondering if all the happiness in the world lay there, behind him, in the warm heart of the girl who was waiting to embrace her lover.

Kate Seton was standing at the window of her parlor. Her back was turned upon the room, upon the powerful, loose-limbed figure of Stanley Fyles.

Her face was hidden, she wanted it to remain hidden – from him. She felt that he must not see all that his sudden visit, without warning, meant to her.

The man was near the center table. One knee was resting upon the hard, tilted seat of a Windsor chair, and his folded arms leaned upon the back of it. His eyes were full of a deep fire as he gazed upon the woman’s erect, graceful figure. A great longing was in him to seize her, and crush her in arms that were ready to claim and hold her against all the world.

All the atmosphere of his calling seemed to have fallen from him. He stood there just a plain, strong man of no great eloquence, facing a position in which he might well expect certain defeat, but from which there was no thought of shrinking.

Silence had fallen since their first greeting. That painful silence when realization of that which lies between them drives each to search for a way to cross the barrier.

It was Kate who finally spoke. She moved slightly. It was a movement which might have suggested many things, among them uncertainty of mind, perhaps of decision. Her voice came low and gentle. But it was full of a great weariness and regret, even of pain.

“Why – why did you come – now?” she asked plaintively. “It seems as though I’ve lived through years in the last few weeks. I’ve tried to forget so much. And now – you come here to remind me – to stir once more the shadows which have nearly driven me crazy. Is it merciful – to do that?”

The woman’s tone was baffling. Fyles searched for its meaning. Resentment he had anticipated. He had been prepared for it, and to resist it, and break it down by the ardor of his appeal. That dreary regret was more than he could bear, and he hastened to protest.

“Say, Kate,” he cried, his sun-tanned features flushing with a quick shame. “Don’t think I’ve come here to remind you. Don’t think I’ve come along to taunt you with the loss of our – our mad wager. I want to forget it. It became a gamble on a man’s life, and – and I hate the thought. You’re free of it, and I wish to God it had never been made.”

The bitter sincerity of his final words was not without its effect. Kate stirred. Then she turned. Her beautiful eyes, so full of pathos, so full of remorse, looked straight into his.

“Then – why did you come here?” she asked.

The man started up. The chair dropped back on to its four legs with a clatter. His arms were outstretched, and the passionate fire of his eyes blazed up as the quick, hot words escaped his lips.

“Why? Why?” he demanded, his eyes widening, his whole body vibrant with a consuming passion. “Don’t you know? Kate, Kate, I came because I couldn’t stay away. I came because there’s just nothing in the world worth living for but you. I came because I just love you to death, and – there’s nothing else. Say, listen. I went right back from here with one fixed purpose. Maybe it won’t tell you a thing. Maybe you won’t understand. I went back to get quit of the force – honorably. I’d made my peace with them. Oh, yes, I’d done that. Then I demanded leave of absence pending my resignation. They had to grant it. I am never going back. Oh, yes, I knew what I was up against. I wanted you. I wanted you so that I couldn’t see a thing else in any other direction. There is no other direction. So I came straight here to – to ask you to forget. I came here to tell you all I feel about – the work I had to do here. I came here with a wild sort of forlorn hope you could forgive. You see, I even believed that but for – for that – there was just a shadow of hope for me. Kate – !”

The woman suddenly held up her hand. And when she spoke there was nothing of the Kate he had always known in the humility of her tone.

“It is not I who must forgive,” she said quickly. “If there is any forgiveness on this earth it is I who need it.”

“You? Forgiveness?”

The man’s face wore blank incredulity.

Kate sighed. It was the sigh of a broken-hearted woman.

“Yes. If there is any forgiveness I pray that it may come my way. I need it all – all. I can never forgive myself. It was I who caused Charlie’s death.”

Quite suddenly her whole manner changed. The humility, the sadness of her tone rose quickly to a passionate self-denunciation.

“Yes, yes. I will tell you now. Oh, man, man. Your words – every one of them, have only stabbed me more and more surely to the heart. You don’t understand. You can’t, because you do not know what I mean. Oh, yes,” she went on desperately, “why shouldn’t I admit it? I love you. I always have loved you. Let me admit everything fully and freely.”

“Kate!” The man stepped forward, his eyes alight with a world of happiness, of overwhelming joy. But she waved him back.

“No, no,” she cried, almost harshly. “I have told you that just to show you how your words have well nigh crazed me. I can be nothing to you. I can be nothing to anybody. It was I who brought about Charlie’s death. He, the bravest, the loyalest man I ever knew, gave his life to save me from the police, who were hunting me down. Oh,” she went on, at sight of Fyles’s incredulous expression, “you don’t need to take my word alone. Ask Charlie’s brother. Ask Bill. He was there. He, too, shared in the sacrifice, although he did not understand that which lay in the depths of his brother’s brave heart. And now – now I must live on with the knowledge of what my wild folly has brought about. For weeks the burden of thought and remorse has been almost insupportable, and now you come to torture me further. Oh, God, I have paid for my wanton folly and wickedness. Oh, God!”

Kate buried her face in her hands, and abruptly flung herself into the rocker close behind her.

Fyles looked down upon her in amazed helplessness. He watched the woman’s heaving shoulders as great, dry, hard sobs broke from her in tearless agony. He waited, feeling for the moment that nothing he could say or do but must add to her despair, to her pain. Her self-accusation had so far left him untouched. He could not realize all she meant. All that was plain to him was her suffering, and he longed to comfort her, and help her, and defend her against herself.

The moments slipped away, heavy moments of intense feeling and bitter grief.

Presently the grief-stricken woman’s sobs grew less, and with something like a gesture of impatience she snatched her hands from her face, and raised a pair of agonized eyes to his.

“Leave me,” she cried. “Go, please go. I – I can’t bear it.”

Her appeal was so helpless. Again the impulse to take her in his arms was almost too strong for the man, but with an effort he overcame it.

“Won’t you – go on?” he said, in the gentlest possible tone. “It will help you. And – you would rather tell me.”

The firmness of his manner, the gentleness, had a heartbreaking effect. In a moment the woman’s eyes were flooded with tears, which coursed down her cheeks. It was the relief that her poor troubled brain and nerves demanded, and so Fyles understood.