The Helpers

"Why did Mr. Bartrow have to go back so unexpectedly?" asked Myra. "He told Uncle Stephen he would be in Denver two or three days."

Lansdale was not under bonds to keep the truthful peace at the behest of any eyes save those of Constance Elliott; wherefore he drew upon his imagination promptly, and, as it chanced, rather unfortunately.

"He had a telegram from his foreman about a – a strike, I think he called it."

"A strike in the Little Myriad!" This from both of the young women in chorus. Then Connie thankfully: "Oh, I'm so glad!" and Myra vindictively: "I hope he'll never give in to them!"

Lansdale collapsed again. "What have I done!" he exclaimed.

Constance set her cousin right, or tried to.

"It isn't a strike of the men; it's pay-ore – isn't it, Mr. Lansdale?"

"Now how should I know?" protested the amateur apologist. "A strike is a strike, isn't it? But I don't believe it was the good kind. He wasn't at all enthusiastic about it."

"That will do," said Connie. "Poor Dick!" And Miss Van Vetter, who was not of the stony-hearted, rose and went to the piano that she might not advertise her emotion.

Lansdale picked himself up out of the ruins of his attempt to do Bartrow a good turn, and hoped the worst was over. It was for the time; but later in the evening, when Myra had gone to the library for a book they had been talking about, Connie returned to the unfinished inquisition.

"You know more than you have told us about Dick's trouble," she said gravely. "Is it very serious?"

"Yes, rather." Lansdale made a sudden resolve to cleave to the facts in the case, telling as few of them as he might.

"It wasn't a strike at all, was it?"

"No; that was a little figure of speech. It is rather the lack of a strike – of the kind you meant."

"Poor boy! I don't wonder that it made him want to run away. He has worked so hard and so long, and his faith in the Little Myriad has been unbounded. What will he do?"

"I don't know that. In fact, I think he is not quite at the brink of things yet. But he is afraid it is coming to that."

"How did he talk? Is he very much discouraged? But of course he isn't; nothing discourages him."

Lansdale was looking into the compelling eyes and he forgot his rôle, – forgot that he had been giving Constance to understand that the prospective failure of the mine was the only cloud in Bartrow's sky.

"I'm sorry I can't confirm that." He spoke hurriedly, hearing the rustle of Miss Van Vetter's skirts in the hall. "He decided rather suddenly, – to go back, you know. He intended coming here with me this evening. I don't think he had ever considered all the possibilities and consequences; and we were talking it over. Then he decided not to come. He is the soul of honor."

Constance nodded intelligence, and made the proper diversion when her cousin came in with the book. But Miss Van Vetter had overheard the final sentence, and she put it away for future reference.

Lansdale said good-night a little later, and they both went to the door with him. When he was gone Myra drew Connie into the library and made her sit down where the light from the shaded chandelier fell full upon her.

"Connie, dear," she began, fixing her cousin with an inquisitorial eye, "who is 'the soul of honor'?"

"It isn't nice to overhear things," said Connie pertly.

"I might retort that it isn't nice to have confidences with a gentleman the moment your cousin's back is turned, but I sha'n't. Will you tell me what I want to know?"

"We were talking about Dick."

Myra's hands were clasped over her knee, and one daintily shod foot was tapping a tattoo on the rug. "Was it anything that I ought not to know?"

Connie's pertness vanished, and the steadfast gray eyes brightened with quick upwellings of sympathy. "No, dear; it will doubtless be in everybody's mouth before many days. You remember what I told you once about Dick's prospects? – that day we were on top of El Reposo?"

"Yes."

"Well, I think the Little Myriad isn't going to keep its promise; Dick thinks so."

Myra sat quietly under it for a little while, and then got up to go to the window. When she spoke she did not turn her head.

"He will be ruined, you said. What will you do, Connie?"

"I? What can I do? Poppa would lend him more money, but he wouldn't take it, – not from us."

Silence while the bronze-figured clock on the mantel measured a full minute. Then: —

"There is one way you can make him take it."

"How?"

Myra gave a quick glance over her shoulder, as if to make sure that her cousin was still sitting under the chandelier.

"He believes – and so does your father – that it is only a question of time and more money. He couldn't refuse to take his wife's money."

Miss Van Vetter heard a little gasp, which, to her strained sense, seemed to be more than half a sob, and the arc-light swinging from its wire across the avenue was blurred for her. Then Connie's voice, soft and low-pitched in the silence of the book-lined room, came to her as from a great distance.

"You are quite mistaken, Myra, dear; mistaken and – and very blind. Dick is my good brother, – the only one I ever had; not my father's son, but yet my brother. There has been no thought of anything else between us. Besides" —

Myra heard light footfalls and the rustle of drapery, and stole another quick glance over her shoulder. The big pivot-chair under the chandelier was empty. The door into the hall was ajar, and Connie's face, piquant with suppressed rapture, was framed in the aperture.

"Besides, you good, dense, impracticable cuzzy, dear, – are you listening? – Dick is head over ears in love with – you."

The door slammed softly on the final word, and there was a quick patter of flying feet on the stairs. Myra kept her place at the window; but when the arc-light had parted with its blurring aureole she drew the big pivot-chair to the desk and sat down to write.

What she had in mind seemed not to say itself readily, and there was quite a pyramid of waste paper in the basket before she had finished her two letters. She left them on the hall table when she went up to her room, and Connie found them in the morning on her way to the breakfast-room to pour her father's coffee.

"I wish I might read them," she said, with the mischievous light dancing in her eyes. "It's deliciously suspicious; a letter to Dick, and one to her man of business, all in a breath, and right on the heels of my little bomb-shell. If she ever tries to discipline me again, – well, she'd better not, that's all."

CHAPTER XXV

Two days after his return to the mine on Topeka Mountain, Bartrow received a letter. It came up from Alta Vista by the hands of one of the workmen who had been down to the camp blacksmith shop with the day's gathering of dulled tools, and was considerably the worse for handling when it reached its destination. Connie's monogram was on the flap of the envelope, but the address was not in Connie's handwriting. So much Bartrow remarked while he was questioning the tool-carrier.

"Took you a good while, didn't it? Was Pat sober to-day?"

"Naw; swimmin' full, same as usual."

"Spoil anything?"

"Burnt up a drill 'r two, spite of all I could do. Laid off to lick me when he got through, but I lit out 'fore he got round to it."