A Prairie Courtship

"Get a light!"

In a few moments, Bill pushed through the crowd with a lantern in his hand, but before he crossed the veranda another light sprang up again in the room and streamed out through the door and window. It fell upon the waiting men and the two dominant figures in the narrow clear space in front of them – Nevis, standing still, looking about him savagely with a darkly suffused face, and Hunter, gripping his quirt, very quiet and very grim. He was, however, breathing heavily, and signs of the conflict were plain on both of them.

There was an impressive silence, and everybody stood tensely expectant, until it was suddenly broken by a murmur and a movement of those nearest the steps. They drew back, and Mrs. Farquhar and Mrs. Hunter, with Alison and Lucy Calvert, came up on the veranda. Moving forward a few paces they stopped in very natural surprise, and the stillness grew deeper when Hunter suddenly flung down his quirt. This was a change in the situation which nobody had anticipated.

Then a cry rose sharply from somewhere below.

"Miss Leigh! Get back there! Let me up!"

It was followed by a shout from the crowd.

"Winthrop!"

The next moment a man came scrambling up the steps. He was hot and dusty and apparently in desperate haste, but to Thorne's astonishment he ran toward Alison. As he did so, Nevis sprang toward the veranda rails.

"Slaney!" he shouted.

He was still almost breathless from the struggle, and it scarcely seemed possible that his hoarse voice would carry far, but Winthrop turning suddenly, grabbed up a shotgun that lay on a chair. One of the outlying farmers had brought it with him, for there were duck about just then.

"Call out again and I'll plug you sure!" he threatened, and the look in his face suggested that he fully meant it. "You've hounded me from place to place up and down the prairie; you've got my money, more than you lent, and that wouldn't satisfy you. Two weeks ago I was working quietly when you put the blamed police on my trail again. Now I guess I've got you, and we're going to straighten things."

He broke off as Lucy stepped forward and laid her hand on the gun, and Thorne noticed that she placed it with deliberate purpose over the muzzle.

"Let me have it, Jake! The boys will see that he doesn't call out."

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd, and Thorne seized Winthrop's arm.

"What do you want Miss Leigh for, anyway?" Lucy asked Winthrop.

The instinct which had prompted the question seemed so natural to Thorne that, strung up and intent as he was, he smiled; but just then Winthrop lowered the gun and turned to Alison.

"Have you got that mortgage deed and shown it to the lawyer man?" he asked.

"It's here," said Alison. "Mr. Parsons is in the settlement; I expect to see him in the next few minutes."

It struck Thorne that Nevis started, but before any of those most concerned could speak there was a rapid thud of horse-hoofs approaching down the street. Then a man on the steps cried out:

"Here's Slaney and a trooper! You've got to quit, Jake!"

Winthrop plunged into the lighted room and the door closed behind him with a crash; a moment or two later another door banged somewhere below and the men poured tumultuously down the steps. Lucy followed them, and almost immediately the veranda was deserted except for Thorne and Alison and Hunter, who remained there with his wife, though he did not speak to her. Mrs. Farquhar had apparently been hustled down the steps by the others in their haste, and Nevis had also vanished. Nobody had noticed what became of him in the confusion that succeeded Winthrop's flight.

The thud of hoofs, which had ceased for a moment, almost immediately began again. Once the corporal's voice rose sharply, and then there were disconnected cries, a sound of running feet, and a clamor that rapidly receded down the street. When it grew very faint Thorne turned to Alison.

"Haven't you got something to explain?" he asked.

"It's very simple," said Alison. "Winthrop gave me his mortgage deed some time ago; he said it would be wiser not to hand it to Lucy. Nevis had got it from him by an excuse, but he crept into his office for it late one night. I understand it proves that Nevis hadn't an indisputable claim to the cattle he sold. About a fortnight ago, Winthrop wrote to me that the police were on his trail again and I was to show the deed to a lawyer and see if it would clear him. I don't know why he came here, unless it was because the troopers had cut off any other means of escape and he fancied some of his friends would hide him; and it's also possible that he took the risk of being arrested because of his anxiety to find out what the lawyer thought."

Thorne nodded.

"That probably accounts for it; though there are still one or two points which are far from clear."

A few minutes later, a distant clamor broke out again, and by degrees confused voices and a sound of footsteps drew nearer. Then while Thorne and Alison leaned over the balustrade a crowd poured past in front of the hotel with a mounted figure showing above the shoulders of those about it. Thorne looked round at the girl.

"They've got him at last," he said.

Hunter crossed the veranda and drew him into the adjoining room, and Alison was left alone with Mrs. Hunter. The latter said nothing to her and she sat silent for some time until the lawyer walked up the steps.

"I was told that I should find Miss Leigh here."

Alison said that was her name, and the man, drawing a chair forward, sat down opposite her.

"I understand that you have Winthrop's mortgage deed in your possession. He now desires you to hand it to me."

"I shall be very glad to get rid of it," declared Alison, taking the document out of a pocket in her light jacket. "Will you be able to get him off with it?"

"That's a matter on which I can't very well express an opinion until I have read the deed and had a talk with Winthrop. I've no doubt you have heard that he has just been arrested while endeavoring to escape, but I contrived to get a word or two with him and Corporal Slaney. The latter considers it advisable to get his prisoner out of the settlement as soon as possible, and I understand he means to spend the night at a homestead a few miles away. He has promised me an opportunity for speaking to Winthrop when he gets there."

"I should very much like to hear what you decide," Alison informed him.

The lawyer rose.

"It's probable that I may find it necessary to make a few inquiries in connection with the affair, and I have another piece of business which will keep me a day or two in the neighborhood. If Winthrop has no objections, I could no doubt call on you at the Farquhar homestead on Monday."

Alison thanked him, and soon after he withdrew Hunter came out of the hotel with Thorne. Alison accompanied Thorne down to the street in search of Mrs. Farquhar. Then Hunter turned toward his wife.

"If you have nothing more to do here, we may as well be getting home," he said.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE NEW OUTLOOK

It was unusually dark when Florence Hunter drove out of the settlement with her husband riding beside the wagon, and the roughness of the trail made conversation difficult. Florence was, on the whole, glad of this, because, although she felt that there was a good deal to be said, she could not express herself befittingly while her attention was concentrated on the team. Besides, she wanted to see the man and watch his face when she spoke to him.

She was accordingly content that he should ride in silence except for an occasional disconnected observation about the horses or the trail, to which she merely made a casual answer. It was late when they reached the homestead, and though a light or two was burning nobody seemed to be about, which was, however, only what she had expected. Hunter led the horses away toward the stables, and entering the house she sat down to wait for him somewhat anxiously, though she realized that the possibility of his being angry would not have troubled her a little while ago.

He came in at length and stood looking down at her. Now that the light was better than it had been on the veranda of the hotel, she noticed that his lips were cut and that there was a bruise above one cheekbone. His jacket was also torn and there was no doubt that, taking it all round, his appearance was far from reputable. That, however, did not trouble her, for she had seen enough at the hotel to realize that the man had been injured while fighting in her cause. Still, she was wise enough not to begin by pitying him.

"Elcot," she said, "I want you to tell me exactly what happened at the settlement."

"I hadn't arrived at the beginning of it," the man replied. "I had a talk with Thorne afterward, however, and he confirmed my conclusion that Nevis had been informing anybody who cared to hear that you were in the habit of borrowing money from him. This was objectionable in itself, but he added in my hearing that I knew nothing about your action, and the way in which he said it was insufferable."

Florence's face flushed.

"What did you do about it?"

"First of all, I denied the most damaging statement – that I knew nothing about the thing. It seemed necessary to prove the contrary, which I did, though I had to admit the borrowing."

"And then?"