The League of the Leopard

"They're all dead a long time ago," he said ramblingly. "Poor Elsie, who was worlds too good for me, lies in clean English earth a long way across the sea; but Lyle, who understands everything and why I forgot him, is waiting for me. I could not have a better comrade wherever he is."

These were his last comprehensible words, for he passed out of existence, sleeping, with the chill of early morning, and was, as usual, laid to rest that day. Maxwell returned thoughtfully from the simple funeral, feeling that the legacy might well prove an unmixed blessing.

On reaching the veranda stairway, he heard somebody moving softly about what had been the sick man's room. He had good ears, and felt tolerably certain that the next sound he caught was that made by cotton garments being quickly unfolded or wrapped together. Somebody, it appeared, was searching Niven's apparel. In spite of Maxwell's quickness, he had not reached the doorway when a man came out of it and advanced, smiling toward him. He was rather dark in face and full in flesh for an European who had dwelt any time in Western Africa. He also was more elaborately dressed, in spotless white duck, fine linen, and silk sash, than the average trader; but if his lips were a trifle thick, and his eyes cunning, he had an easy, good-humored air, and saluted Maxwell gracefully.

"Monsieur Maxwell, is it not? I have the honor to present myself – Victor Rideau," he said. "By grand misfortune, I arrive too late to change the adieux with my friend of long time, the estimable Niven, and so wait to ask if he left any paper for me. We have affair together, and there is small debt he owe me, voyez vous?"

Maxwell was a man of keen perceptions, and he would have distrusted the speaker even if he had not been warned against him.

"He left you no papers. Neither, so far as I can discover, did he leave a single franc piece in money."

"Grand misfortune!" exclaimed Rideau. "Possible it is he tell you of his affair. The estimable Niven, you understand, was old friend of me. That is why I have the pleasure of wait your company."

"He told me very little about his business affairs, and the rest was spoken in strict confidence," said Maxwell; and for a few seconds the two men eyed each other – Maxwell curious but expressionless in face; Rideau somewhat uneasy. The advantage was with the Briton, for he was seldom loquacious, while the man of Latin extraction seemed to find the silence irksome.

"You are perhaps busy," he said at length. "You grieve for the estimable Niven. Me, I grieve for him also. So, if it is not intrusion, to-morrow, by the morning, I come for condole with you."

Rideau withdrew, and Maxwell first packed his few belongings – a homeward bound steamer was due to call on the morrow – and then sat down to make a copy of the dead man's itinerary, with the sketches attached to it. He was surprised to find that, mad or sane, Niven had noted the magnetic direction of each day's march, as well as taken cross bearings of prominent objects wherever there was open country. These details increased his hopefulness; and when he had enclosed the copy in a sealed envelope and handed it to the French postmaster, he buttoned the original in an inside pocket and sat down on the veranda, smoking thoughtfully.

"It appears that other men beside myself believe Niven actually did find gold up there, as two attempts to steal his diary seem to prove," he reflected. "Whoever goes up to look for it will probably have to deal with Monsieur Victor Rideau as well as the Leopards; and a little delay in setting about the search may throw him off the scent. The first necessity is a reliable partner, and I can think of nobody better than Hyslop."

The homeward bound mailboat arrived before Rideau the next day, and when she stopped at the first port connected by cable, Maxwell despatched a message to London:

"Wire Hyslop to meet me by Malemba."

Before the steamer proceeded he received the answer:

"Hyslop dead South America, according to Dane."

"Poor Andrew!" thought Maxwell. "That is check number one. Still, there must be many suitable men at home, and I dare say I shall find one. Who Dane is, Carslake, parsimonious as usual, does not explain."

CHAPTER II

AN UNDERSTANDING

It was a pleasant summer evening when Hilton Dane leaned against a beech trunk outside Thomas Chatterton's villa which stands upon a hillside above the Solway shore. He was a tall, fair-haired man who looked older than his age, twenty-five, with steady blue eyes, and usually a somewhat masterful air; but just then his eyes were wistful, and his face, which betokened an acquaintance with the tropical sun, expressed somewhat tempered satisfaction. He had certainly cause for the latter feeling, because, after toiling hard at railroad building in a foreign land, it was comforting to know that he had earned the right to rest a while in that peaceful retreat.

The sun still touched the velvet lawn, though the shadows lengthened across it, and the larch wood behind the red-tiled building diffused resinous odors. The grass sloped to a river which came down amber-tinted from the stretch of heather growing black against the east, and, curving round two meadows, flashed through the gloom of fir branches into a deep pool. All this was pleasant to the wanderer newly returned from the glare of the desolate pampa and the turmoil of dusty construction camps; but Dane found the keenest pleasure in watching his companion.

Lilian Chatterton, niece of the childless owner of The Larches, was worth inspection. She was a year or two younger than the man, and lay in a low chair opposite him, her fingers busy with a ball of colored thread, while the last of the sunlight sparkled in her hair. Dane noticed how its bronze color flashed into lustrous gold, and decided that the changing lights in the hazel eyes matched it wonderfully well. Nevertheless, he had seen them burn with quick indignation, for the girl possessed a spice of the Chatterton temper, which was never remarkably equable. Presently he allowed several loops of thread to slip from the skein he held, and she looked up with a trace of indignation.

"That is the second time! You cannot be tired already," she said.

Dane smiled a trifle grimly. He had toiled for twelve hours daily under burning heat and then spent half the night poring over plans, not long ago.

"I am not quite worn out; but is it not an unfair question, considering my present employment? This skein is getting mixed, and I was wondering if you would allow me to help you in straightening it."

Miss Chatterton glanced at him keenly before she shook her head. It was not surprising that she had grown used to masculine homage, but none of her other cavaliers had quite resembled this one. He was slower and more solid, and, while he had a way of anticipating her wishes, he lacked their versatility. Sometimes she wished, with a sense of irritation, that she could dismiss him as summarily as she had done the rest, but that could not be done without incurring Thomas Chatterton's displeasure, which was no small thing to risk.

"No," she said decisively. "I believe you tangled it yourself. Don't you think it would run more smoothly if you gave the thread more length? Well, why don't you act upon the suggestion?"

"I was thinking," the man answered with a meditative air; and Miss Chatterton laughed.

"It is a bad habit of yours. Of the famous mining pump, or the lawsuit, presumably?"

There was something in the speaker's manner which qualified the smile in her hazel eyes, and warned the man that his companion was merely bent on discovering how far he was disposed to respect the wishes she had not directly expressed. He, on his part, was wondering how he could best intimate that certain fears she entertained were groundless. He laughed softly, though a tinge of darker color crept into his tanned face as he remembered the uncompromising frigidity with which she had at first received him.

"I feel that I ought to say something civil," he said. "How could one think of the things you mention in such surroundings?"

The girl was in a variable mood, and she smiled mischievously.

"That is not civil. It implies that I expected you to. Tell me instead how the pump is progressing."

"The pump is not progressing," said the man. "In fact, it is standing still; and, though the court upheld my patent, it will probably continue to stand still for lack of capital. Capital is hard to acquire, you know."

"But you were well paid, and promoted several times on your merits in South America, were you not?" asked Miss Chatterton.

"I was lucky," Dane said quietly. "It was due to no merit of mine that my superiors died off with yellow fever; but when the inventor desires a fair share of the profit himself, it requires a good deal of money to start off pumps and similar inventions successfully."

"You are growing avaricious," declared Miss Chatterton, and let her eyes fall a little under the man's gaze.

"You are right," he said. "I would sell half my life to any one for the few thousand pounds the invention would repay twenty-fold; and somehow I shall get them."

The listener fancied that this was possible, for there was a stamp of force and endurance upon the man; but she did not inquire why he was so anxious for wealth. While she considered her answer, and he wondered how he could best express what must be said, there was an interruption; for it happened a few moments earlier that the owner of The Larches flung down the balance-sheet he was perusing in a room which did not look out upon the lawn.

"Those new directors are a pack of fools," he observed. "They are throwing away all I so painfully built up. I'm going to catch a trout in the moss pool; and, as I saw Maxwell's rascals putting up the fence again, I'll demolish his iniquitous obstruction on my way. Helen, where have these stupid people hidden my flybook again?"

Mrs. Chatterton smiled a little, and, reminding her husband that the book was in his pocket, followed him to the door.

Thomas Chatterton and the father of Hilton Dane had set up a little wire mill when both were struggling men, and, though Dane's rolling machinery had started them on the way to prosperity, its inventor died too soon. Chatterton was always considered an upright man; but, because Dane's widow did not long survive her husband, nobody knew exactly whether his success was due to his own energy or the dead man's invention. Chatterton, however, recognized a moral debt, and would have discharged it, but that Hilton Dane had inherited his mother's pride as well as his father's skill. When the famous business was sold to a company, the iron-master, purchasing a small estate in Scotland, aspired to play the part of a country gentleman, in which he was not wholly successful. He was at once too autocratic and too democratic; and the local magnates of ancient descent resented his habit of doing exactly what pleased himself in defiance of their most cherished traditions. He had accordingly embroiled himself with Maxwell of Culmeny over what he contended was an ancient right of way.

When he reached the door he turned and smiled significantly at his wife.

"They seem well contented, do they not?" he said.

Mrs. Chatterton understood him, though she did not smile as she glanced at the two on the lawn. Lilian's white-robed figure was forced up sharply in a manner that emphasized its comeliness by the somber background of larches; and the last of the ruddy light deepened the faint, warm tinge in her cheeks. Dane's face was in the shadow, as he looked down upon the girl, but his form showing darkly against the light was that of a vigorous, well-made man; and Mrs. Chatterton, knowing his disposition, reflected that her niece might make a less desirable choice. It was, however, she thought, unfortunate that her husband was seldom addicted to leaving those he desired to benefit any choice at all; and she considered that he had made his intentions respecting Dane and his niece too plain, for Lilian had a tolerably strong will of her own.

Chatterton moved forward, and the two turned sharply at the sight of the stout, thick-necked, elderly gentleman, in vivid red leggings and slouch hat adorned with gaudy flies.

"We had neither time nor taste for needle-work when I was young, Hilton, but these are degenerate days," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Do you feel inclined to help me to catch a trout during the evening rise?"

Dane glanced appealingly toward his companion. He would have felt no great inclination for being sent into the river to free the iron-master's line, which usually formed part of the program on such excursions, even if he had not a better reason for refusing.

"I am afraid the water is too clear, sir, for an indifferent angler; and it might spoil this skein if I left it partly wound," he answered lamely.

Lilian, however, possibly for Chatterton's benefit, ignored the appeal.

"So far you have only succeeded in entangling it," she said.