The Trail to Yesterday

“It’s a lie!” he shouted. “I didn’t kill him! Ned Keegles – ”

“Wait!” Dakota rose from his chair and walked to a shelf, from which he took a box, returning to Langford’s side and opening it. He drew out a knife, shoving it before Langford’s eyes and pointing out some rust spots on the blade.

“This knife was given to me by Ned Keegles,” he said slowly. “These rust spots on the blade are from his father’s blood. Look at them!” he said sharply, for Langford had turned his head.

At the command he swung around, his gaze resting on the knife. “That’s a pretty story,” he sneered.

Dakota’s laugh when he returned the knife to the box chilled Sheila as that same laugh had chilled her when she had heard it during her first night in the country – in this same cabin, with Dakota sitting at the table – a bitter, mocking laugh that had in it a savagery controlled by an iron will. He turned abruptly and walked to his chair, seating himself.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a pretty story. But it hasn’t all been told. With a besmirched name and the thoughts which were with him all the time, life wasn’t exactly a joyful one for Ned Keegles. He was young, you see, and it all preyed on his mind. But after a while it hardened him. He’d hit town with the rest of the boys, and he’d drink whiskey until he’d forget. But he couldn’t forget long. He kept seeing his father and Langford; nights he’d start from his blankets, living over and over again the incident of the murder. He got so he couldn’t stay in Dakota. He came down here and tried to forget. It was just the same – there was no forgetfulness.

“One night when he was on the trail near here, he met a woman. It was raining and the woman had lost the trail. He took the woman in. She interested him, and he questioned her. He discovered that she was the daughter of the man who had murdered his father – the daughter of David Dowd Langford!”

Langford cringed and looked at Sheila, who was looking straight at Dakota, her eyes alight with knowledge.

“Ned Keegles kept his silence, as he had kept it for ten years,” resumed Dakota. “But the coming of the woman brought back the bitter memories, and while the woman slept in his cabin he turned to the whiskey bottle for comfort. As he drank his troubles danced before him – magnified. He thought it would be a fine revenge if he should force the woman to marry him, for he figured that it would be a blow at the father’s pride. If it hadn’t been for a cowardly parson and the whiskey the marriage would never have occurred – Ned Keegles would not have thought of it. But he didn’t hurt the woman; she left him pure as she came – mentally and physically.”

Langford slowly rose from his chair, his lips twitching, his face working strangely, his eyes wide and glaring.

“You say she married him – Ned Keegles?” he said, his voice high keyed and shrill. He turned to Sheila after catching Dakota’s nod. “Is this true?” he demanded sharply. “Did you marry him as this man says you did?”

“Yes; I married him,” returned Sheila dully, and Langford sank limply into his chair.

Dakota smiled with flashing eyes and continued:

“Keegles married the woman,” he said coldly, “because he thought she was Langford’s real daughter.” He looked at Sheila with a glance of compassion. “Later, when Keegles discovered that the woman was only Langford’s stepdaughter, he was mighty sorry. Not for Langford, however, because he could not consider Langford’s feelings. And in spite of what he had done he was still determined to secure revenge.

“One day Langford came to Keegles with a proposal. He had seen Keegles kill one man, and he wanted to hire him to kill another – a man named Doubler. Keegles agreed, for the purpose of getting Langford into – ”

Dakota hesitated, for Langford had risen to his feet and stood looking at him, his eyes bulging, his face livid.

“You!” he said, in a choking, wailing voice; “you – you, are Ned Keegles! You – you – Why – ” he hesitated and passed a hand uncertainly over his forehead, looking from Sheila to Dakota with glazed eyes. “You – you are a liar!” he suddenly screamed, his voice raised to a maniacal pitch. “It isn’t so! You – both of you – have conspired against me!”

“Wait!” Dakota got to his feet, walked to a shelf, and took down a small glass, a pair of shears, a shaving cup, and a razor. While Langford watched, staring at him with fearful, wondering eyes, Dakota deftly snipped off the mustache with the shears, lathered his lip, and shaved it clean. Then he turned and confronted Langford.

The latter looked at him with one, long, intense gaze, and then with a dry sob which caught in his throat and seemed to choke him, he covered his face with his hands, shuddered convulsively, and without a sound pitched forward, face down, at Dakota’s feet.

CHAPTER XX

INTO THE UNKNOWN

After a time Sheila rose from the bunk on which she had been sitting and stood in the center of the floor, looking down at her father. Dakota had not moved. He stood also, watching Langford, his face pale and grim, and he did not speak until Sheila had addressed him twice.

“What are you going to do now?” she said dully. “It is for you to say, you know. You hold his life in your hands.”

“Do?” He smiled bitterly at her. “What would you do? I have waited ten years for this day. It must go on to the end.”

“The end?”

“Yes; the end,” he said gravely. “He” – Dakota pointed to the prostrate figure – “must sign a written confession.”

“And then?”

“He will return to answer for his crime.”

Sheila shuddered and turned from him with bowed head.

“Oh!” she said at last; “it will be too horrible! My friends in the East – they will – ”

“Your friends,” he said with some bitterness. “Could your friends say more than my friends said when they thought that I had murdered my own father in cold blood and then run away?”

“But I am innocent,” she pleaded.

“I was innocent,” he returned, with a grave smile.

“Yes, but I could not help you, you know, for I wasn’t there when you were accused. But you are here, and you can help me. Don’t you see,” she said, coming close to him, “don’t you see that the disgrace will not fall on him, but on me. I will make him sign the confession,” she offered, “you can hold it over him. He will make restitution of your property. But do not force him to go back East. Let him go somewhere – anywhere – but let him live. For, after all, he is my father – the only one I ever knew.”

“But my vengeance,” he said, the bitterness of his smile softening as he looked down at her.

“Your vengeance?” She came closer to him, looking up into his face. “Are we to judge – to condemn? Will not the power which led us three together – the power which you are pleased to call ‘Fate’; the power that blazed the trail which you have followed from the yesterday of your life; – will not this power judge him – punish him? Please,” she pleaded, “please, for my sake, for – for” – her voice broke and she came forward and placed her hands on his shoulders – “for your wife’s sake.”

He looked down at her for an instant, the hard lines of his face breaking into gentle, sympathetic curves. Then his arms went around her, and she leaned against him, her head against his shoulder, while she wept softly.

An hour later, standing side by side in the open doorway of the cabin, Sheila and Dakota watched in silence while Langford, having signed a confession dictated by Dakota, mounted his pony and rode slowly up the river trail toward Lazette.

He slowly passed the timber clump near the cabin, and with bowed head traveled up the long slope which led to the rise upon which, in another time, Sheila had caught her last glimpse of the parson. It was in the cold, bleak moment of the morning when darkness has not yet gone and the dawn not come, and Langford looked strangely desolate out there on the trail alone – alone with thoughts more desolate than his surroundings.

Sheila shivered and snuggled closer to Dakota. He looked down at her with a sympathetic smile.

“It is so lonesome,” she said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Out there – where he is going.”

Dakota did not answer. For a long time they watched the huddled form of the rider. They saw him approach the crest of the rise – reach it. Then from the mountains in the eastern distance came a shaft of light, striking the summit of the rise where the rider bestrode his pony – throwing both into bold relief. For a moment the rider halted the pony, turned, glanced back an instant, and was gone.

THE END