Louis Tracy

It chanced that Peter Granite occupied the fore part of the canoe; consequently, great as was the distance, he saw Willard and Nancy leaving the hut and disappearing among the trees. He tossed a question over his shoulder.

“You hain’t been expectin’ anyone, hev you?” he demanded.

“How do you mean?”

“I’ve a sort o’ notion Mrs. Power has just quit, with a man.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Someone must have happened on the cabin. Perhaps she is showing him the road to the divide. Was the dog with her?”

“I hain’t seen Guess; but a mile an’ a half across this yer shinin’ water is a long ways ter spot a dawg.”

“Oh, well, there’s nothing to worry about. We don’t quite own the earth; though one might come to think along that line after living here a spell.”

Nothing more was said; but both men plied their paddles with strong, sweeping strokes that drove the canoe onward at a rare pace. When she grounded, Power sprang ashore, and did not wait, as was his wont, to help with the packages. Already he felt anxious, because Nancy had not appeared in or about the hut, and the dog was now plainly visible, lying in front of the open door.

“Nancy!” he shouted.

There was no answer; but Guess rose, yawned, and stretched his limbs, his vigil being ended. Power shouted again, more loudly, and Granite, having drawn the canoe high and dry, joined him, leaving the unloading of the provisions until a less troubled moment.

“It ain’t jest like Mrs. Power not ter be within hail,” said the guide. “Hurry up to the shack, Mr. Power, an’ put Guess on her trail if she ain’t havin’ a snooze in the back room.”

“She wouldn’t be asleep at this hour. And you saw her, you said?”

“I might ha been mistook. My eyes ain’t so good as they was.”

Power broke into a run, and Granite followed slowly, those keen eyes of his, which ill-deserved the charge he had levied against them, searching the trees and the broken ground behind the hut for some sign of the two people whom he had undoubtedly observed.

With one last cry of “Nancy!” Power hurried past the dog, who was greeting him with tail-wagging and a rumbling growl which meant, “I’m glad you’ve come back, but why didn’t you come sooner?” He peered through the doorway into the room beyond, and his glance fell on the note, resting on the table beside the gun.

“Oh, it’s all right,” he announced, in a tone of vast relief. “Someone has called her away, and here is the explanation.”

Meanwhile, the dog was obviously inviting his master to a scouting expedition among the trees and brushwood to the left of the cabin’s front, and Granite was so puzzled by the animal’s behavior that he paid no heed to Power during the next few seconds; moreover, the fact that Nancy had left a written message showed that, although something unusual might have occurred, it was not necessarily alarming. Then he heard a queer sort of sob, or groan, and, glancing at Power, saw that in his face which brought a dismayed question to his own lips.

“God A’mighty, Mr. Power, what’s got ye?” he cried.

Power made no reply. He seemed as though stricken with a palsy. He absolutely reeled, and would have tumbled headlong had he not, by chance, staggered back against the jamb of the door. Granite caught him by the arm lest he should fall, and Nancy’s letter dropped from his nerveless fingers, and fluttered to the ground.

“Don’t give way like that,” urged the guide. “She ain’t dead, anyhow. Has she left you bad news?”

Power looked at the man as though he did not recognize him. A baleful light gleamed in his eyes. Had Willard been present then, it was not he who would have been the slayer, unless he contrived to be extraordinarily quick with his weapons.

“She has gone,” he said, in the monotone of tragedy; for there are moments in life when the voice loses its flexible notes, and mere speech becomes a mechanical effort.

“Gone?” echoed Granite. “Wall, I allow she’ll come back?”

“No, she has left me forever. She says so.”

“What, in that theer bit o’ writin’?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Power, air you joshin’ me, er what?”

Power drew a deep breath. The dizziness which had benumbed his faculties was passing, and fortunately so; for his sympathetic companion, despairing of obtaining any lucid statement from this dazed man, was stooping to pick up the letter.

“No,” he managed to say. “You must not read that. It is meant for me alone. But give it to me. I—I am afraid of falling. My head——”

Vastly puzzled, the guide handed him the half-folded sheet of paper. The bald explanation that Mrs. Power had “left” her husband “forever” sounded like the wildest variety of moon-madness. In Granite’s own phrase, he had never before clapped eyes on two sich genuwine love-birds as Nancy and Derry, not in all his born nateral, and to be told that one had deserted the other merely went to prove that the speaker had gone plumb crazy. For a time, indeed, he was convinced that Power was suffering from a slight sunstroke, because they had paddled nearly two miles while facing the sun, whose rays were reflected in a glowing path on the surface of the lake. Such attacks, though infrequent, were not unknown in that high region. When reaction set in, and Mrs. Power returned, the patient would become violently sick, and a few hours of complete rest would complete his cure.

“Jest go right inside an’ set yerself daown,” he said cheerfully. “Me an’ the dawg’ll git on Madam’s trail in a brace o’ shakes. We’ll bring her back, you bet, an’ ef you kinder feel as though you’d swallered a live rabbit, wall, let it bolt!”

Power uttered no protest. If he was capable of any definite sensation, it was one of relief that the friendly guide meant to leave him alone. He stumbled into the hut, and collapsed on a chair, burying his face in his hands. He heard Peter’s lively command to the dog, “After her, Guess! Hark to it, Pup! Keep yer nose to the ground, an’ I’ll do the rest,” as if the man’s voice and the eager whimpering of the hound had traveled through a long tunnel before reaching his ears. The sounds of the chase soon died away among the trees. A great silence fell, and seemed to wrap him in a pall that would never unfold again. Fearing lest his brain might yield under the strain, he spread the letter open on the table, and read it many times. At first eyes and mind were equally incapable of mastering its contents; but a subconscious knowledge that he must either understand those vague words or go mad in time enabled their sense to penetrate the gathering mists.

And this is what he read:

“Derry, I am leaving you. Mr. Willard has followed us. He is here with me now. He has forced me to believe that duty demands my return to Hugh Marten; so I am going. It is best so. Derry, don’t grieve for me. If I thought——[these three words were canceled]. Derry, forgive me. I can write no more. My poor heart is breaking.

“Nancy.”

Slowly, through a haze of pain, certain incongruities were revealed in the curt, disconnected sentences. Never before, in all the years he had known her, had Nancy alluded to her father as “Mr. Willard.” Even during these later days, when the discovery of a parent’s treachery was a prime factor in her seemingly irrevocable decision to dissolve her marriage, she spoke of him invariably in terms of affection. Indeed, Power had practised some measure of duplicity by pretending to agree with her hopeful prophecy of a speedy reconciliation between Willard and himself. He believed he had summed up the man’s character only too well. Such a mean nature would assuredly remain stubborn in its hostility; in fact, he was prepared to encounter greater difficulties and annoyance from Willard than from Marten, and meant to persuade Nancy to take a world-tour of some years’ duration as soon as the divorce was secured, and they were legally married. Why, then, should it be “Mr. Willard” who had followed them, and not “my father,” or “Dad”?

And what an extraordinary plea she had put forward to excuse her precipitate flight? “He has forced me to believe that duty demands my return to Hugh Marten!” When had woman ever convinced herself more thoroughly than Nancy that “duty” did not “demand” the sacrifice of her whole life? Had she not weighed “duty” in the balance, and found it wanting, before she cast all other considerations to the winds, and fled from Newport with the man she loved? But “Mr. Willard” had “forced” that view upon her. Forced! A strange word! Had he threatened to murder her? Had she written that letter at the dictation of a maniac? Why, of course! The notion stung Power to the quick, and he groaned aloud. How crass and blind had been his anguished spirit when first it quivered under the shock of her disappearance! How much wiser and saner was Peter Granite! Even Guess, the dog, read the riddle aright, and had urged instant action. And how fortunate that these two faithful friends had raced off in pursuit rather than wait at the cabin until belated reason shed its light on the brain of the one person in the world Nancy must have trusted to understand her dilemma. At the thought of his failure to grasp the essential elements of a mystery that was simplicity itself when analyzed in cold logic, the blood rushed through his veins like a stream of molten metal, and he leaped to his feet, all afire now to be up and doing. He ran out, and was plunging wildly into the tangle of forest and scrub, when it occurred to him that undirected search in that wilderness was worse than useless. He was no Indian, skilled in jungle lore, that he should discern the tracks of pursued and pursuers, and follow them unerringly. Better possess his soul in patience until some sight or sound announced the return of Peter—with Nancy. Oh, yes, Peter and the dog would soon overtake that vengeful old man and his terrified victim! Pray Heaven there might be no opportunity given Willard to do evil to the girl who had thwarted his plans! Yet how often had the chance to do ill deeds made ill deeds done. Power wilted now under a horrible doubt which brought fresh tortures. He listened for the distant pistol-shot which might shatter his new-found hope. Perforce, he stilled his frenzy, and stood in anguished silence.

But no sound of death-dealing weapon jarred on the brooding solitude of that lake amid the hills; the earliest intimation he received of the real nature of his loss was when Granite and the dog came back—alone.

He strode a few paces to meet his allies, and in that moment of black despair the pride of his manhood sustained him, and choked the bitter words, the fierce ravings, the storming of the very heavens, which tore and raged for utterance, yet were so futile and helpless in the one way that mattered—the rescue of his lost love.

“So, then, you could not overtake them?” he said, and, if Granite had not seen Power when the blow fell, he would never have estimated the volcanic fury of the furnace hidden under Power’s unemotional voice and manner.

“No, sir,” came the quiet answer. “Thar was hosses in waitin’, three hosses. They’ve circled the head of the lake, an’ I saw Mrs. Power’s dress as they rode away from the hotel.”

The perplexed guide deemed it best to blurt out the actual facts. He thought, and rightly so, that any attempt to minimize the full extent of the tragedy would only add to Power’s suffering when he knew the truth. Nor was he comforted in the least by the unnatural calm with which his news was received.

“But, look-a here, Mr. Power!” he protested earnestly. “I’m ready to swear on the biggest Testament ever prent that your good lady didn’t vamoose of her own free will. Leave you? Gol-darn it, that’s a bit too rich fur me ter believe! Who’s tuk her, anyhow? Why did she go? What sort of a spiel did the cuss put up that she walked off with him—when she had a gun, an’ Guess was here, an’ she must ha seen you an’ me comin’ in the canoe?”

“The man was her father. This quarrel is between him and me. Peter, we must cross the lake at once. We can hire horses at the hotel?”

Granite shook his head sorrowfully. The affair was beyond his comprehension; but it was his business to undeceive his employer if he was counting on the chance of overtaking the vanished pair.

“Sorry,” he said. “This yer plot was well laid. They run three nags at the hotel, an’ the hull blamed bunch hit the pike fur Racket.”

Racket was the nearest station, the terminus of a short railway serving the Forked Lake district. It lay six miles away! With the start Willard had secured, he would be at the rail-head before the others had crossed the lake. But Power knew he would go mad if compelled to remain in the cabin when Nancy was not there, and Granite made no further effort to detain him.

“We’ll travel a heap quicker if we unload them stores,” was all he said, and Power turned instantly to help in the work. When Peter had occasion to enter the cabin, he examined the gun, and found the two cartridges.

“Gosh!” he muttered. “She tuk ’em out herself. I allow she didn’t want ter shoot her own father; but she must hev’ damn well felt like it!”

Then he eyed the dog.

“Wish you could talk, Pup,” he said. “Your long lugs heerd what passed atween them two, an’ I guess it kinder tried you good hard ter keep yer teeth outen that old sinner’s leg.”

Power spoke no word until the canoe rested by the side of the small landing-stage provided by the hotel. Bidding the guide await his return, he hastened into the building, and found the proprietor. Yes, a Mr. Francis had registered two days ago. He had rented a room overlooking the lake, and had hired the hotel’s three horses this morning. Two of the animals were carrying him and a lady to Racket, and the rider of the third was a groom, who had charge of Mr. Francis’s grip, and who would bring the nags back from the depot. Mr. Francis seemed to be in a desperate hurry; but that was not to be wondered at if he meant to catch the next south-bound train, there being just fifty minutes in which to cover the five miles. There was no other train until the night mail, which was due to leave Racket at seven o’clock. The hotel possessed a buggy; but Mr. Francis refused to use it. In fact, he was willing to pay any price for the horses; though it was most inconvenient that there should not even be one horse left in the stable, as it might be wanted in an emergency.

Power thanked his informant, who doubtless wondered what whiff of excitement had stirred this remote corner of New York state that morning; but gleaned little from his cool, self-contained questioner. Indeed, Power raised only one more point—could he be driven to Racket for the late train?—and was assured that there would be no difficulty in that respect.

Then Peter received his orders.

“Pack Mrs. Power’s baggage and mine, and bring everything here,” said Power. “I want you to remain in the cabin till you hear from me; but come to the hotel every day for a letter or telegram.”

Granite nodded, and paddled off silently and swiftly. He understood, not all, but some part, of Power’s mood. There were ordeals from which any man would flinch, and high among these for the bereaved husband (as the guide deemed him) would rank the heartbreaking task of sorting out and folding Nancy’s clothes, and replacing her toilet requisites in a dressing-case. Each garment would speak of her with a hundred mouths, each tiny silver article and cut-glass bottle would recall the grace of her gestures when she was brushing her luxuriant hair or shrugging her slim shoulders in laughing protest against Derry’s clumsiness as a lady’s-maid.

Before Peter returned, a luncheon-gong boomed from the porch of the hotel, and a number of men came in from their canoes or fishing-punts. One of a small party noticed Power sitting on a shaded seat in the little garden which ran down to the water’s edge.

“Isn’t that the man with the pretty wife who lives in Granite’s shack?” he asked. “He looks as though he’d lost a dollar and found a nickel.”

“P’r’aps he’s lost his missis,” laughed another.

“No fear. They’re a honeymoon couple if ever there was one. Why, when he comes here for stores she stands at the door of the hut the whole time he is absent, watching him all the way here and waving to him all the way home again.”

The hotelkeeper, noting Power’s absence from the dining-room, sent a maid to remind him that the meal was being served.

Power started violently when the girl’s soft-spoken words broke in on his reverie. For an instant he dreamed that Nancy had come, that he would feel her fingers clasped over his eyes, hear her voice.

“It is so hot and quiet here,” he explained, smiling pleasantly, “that I was nearly asleep. I don’t need any lunch, thank you.”

Yet never had man seemed more wakeful. The girl thought that surely he must be ill, and in pain, and she wondered why his wife had left him; for Nancy’s departure was already known to the hotel servants, since nothing could happen in that secluded nook without their cognizance, and Willard’s corner in horse-flesh that morning had been much discussed in the kitchen.

Granite, however, put in an appearance soon, and insisted that Power should eat.

“You’ll be headin’ for N’ York, I reckon,” he said, “an’ there ain’t no sort o’ sense in makin’ that long trip on an empty stummick. You jest take my say-so, Mr. Power, an’ eat yer meals reg’lar, an’ you’ll size up things altogether different when you set down to yer breakfast tomorrow.”

His well-meant advice caused a thrill of agony. Breakfast without Nancy! The dawn of the first day when she was not by his side! The mind often works in grooves, and Power’s thoughts flew back to that other day when he lay crushed on the ledge. As he walked to the hotel with the guide, his leg seemed to be almost broken again, and he moved with difficulty.

Afterward, he spoke and acted in a curiously mechanical way. He was aware that he gave Granite detailed instructions, and paid him far more than the friendly disposed fellow was inclined to accept, and stowed himself and various portmanteaus in the buggy when the hotel proprietor warned him it was time he should set out. He remembered, too, being told that a young lady and an elderly man had taken tickets for New York by the midday train from Racket; but the journey thenceforth was a meaningless blank. He gave no heed to the passing of the hours. He did not even know when the train reached the Grand Central Station. Before he realized that he must bestir himself, one of the attendants had to ask him sarcastically where he wanted to go, as the engineer thought he wouldn’t butt into Park Avenue that morning.

Still behaving like one in a dream, he wandered out of the station into 42d Street, drifted down Fifth Avenue, and entered the Waldorf Hotel. Here, luckily, he was recognized by a clerk—an expert who never forgot a patron’s name or face—and was allotted rooms. Otherwise, he would certainly have been turned away politely; for his unkempt appearance and half-demented air offered the poorest of recommendations to one of New York’s palatial hotels.

“What about your baggage, Mr. Power?” inquired the clerk, whose private opinion favored the view that this erstwhile spick-and-span client had been “hitting it up some.”

“Baggage? Let me think? I have some recollection——”

Power searched in his pockets, and found a number of brass checks. He really had not the slightest notion as to when and where that detail was attended to, but habit had evidently proved stronger than emotion, and some sense of gratitude stirred in him that he had not mislaid his own few belongings—and Nancy’s.

Then, worn out physically and mentally, he threw himself on a bed and slept. He awoke after three hours, and some of the cloud had lifted off his brain. He felt able to think clearly, and plan a course of action, and that in itself was a blessing. He saw now that, if Nancy were actually humoring a homicidal maniac, she would lead her father straight to Newport, knowing full well that he, Derry, would come there without fail. True, there were sentences in that terrible letter which hardly bore out this argument; but, then, it was probably written under Willard’s watching eyes, and that last heartrending farewell might have been the only formula she could devise for a final leave-taking compelled by a loaded revolver.

At any rate, he would telegraph to Dacre, in whose discretion he trusted implicitly; so, not without a strenuous effort needed to collect his wits, he drafted an ambiguously worded telegram.

It was a relief to think that he had taken one decisive step. During the two hours of inaction before a reply could come to hand, he bathed, changed his clothes, and ate some food, for which he was ravenous, having refused to dine on the train.

Bethinking himself, too, that Nancy might have found some means of telegraphing on her own account, he inquired, first at the hotel bureau, but without result, since any communications received there would have been sent to his room, and secondly at his bank. Yes, here were letters and telegrams galore, some readdressed from Newport, and others sent direct. He tore open the telegrams feverishly.

But what was this?

And another:

The messages latest in arriving were naturally on top of the bundle, and his trembling fingers were tearing at another envelop when someone touched him on the shoulder. It was an official of the bank, who had spoken to him twice in vain across the counter, and was now standing at his side.

“I’m afraid you have bad news from Bison, Mr. Power,” he said gently. “Your manager—or partner, is it?—Mr. MacGonigal, has been telegraphing us repeatedly during the past five days; but unfortunately we did not know where to find you. Your mother is ill, very ill.”

“Is she dead?”

Power could only whisper the words, and the other noted in voice and manner what he construed as a son’s natural agitation at such a moment.

“No,” he said, “but she is undoubtedly in danger. It seems to me, from what MacGonigal says, that a telegram from you telling her you are on board a west-bound train will be more effective than any doctor’s treatment.”

Power was shaking as though from ague. He alone knew the frightful alternative that faced him now. If he went to Newport, he would be deserting his mother, who was perhaps dying. If he went to Bison, he was deserting Nancy in the hour of her utmost need. At that instant he dared not, he could not, decide, and the knowledge that he even hesitated was like the thrust of a sword through his heart.

“I—I——” he began, and his tongue seemed to refuse its office.

“I quite understand, Mr. Power,” said the official, an assistant manager, as it happened, and a shrewd and kindly man. “It is useless to think of leaving New York before tonight. Come to my desk. I’ll write a telegram for you which will straighten things out. Will you travel by the Pennsylvania and Rock Island Route? I thought so. The train starts at seven o’clock; so you have plenty of time to receive an answer from Bison. Now, how will this do?”

And he wrote:

Power muttered what he conceived to be words of thanks. Then, rushing to his rooms in the hotel like a hunted animal seeking sanctuary, he read MacGonigal’s earlier telegrams. There were letters, too, no less than three from his mother, who seemed perplexed and uneasy because of the varying postmarks on his correspondence, but made no mention of her illness.

Indeed, the last letter, dated only a week earlier, spoke of a shopping expedition to Denver she and Mrs. Moore and the two girls had taken the previous day. MacGonigal, too, was not explicit. “Mrs. Power very ill and desperately anxious to see you,” ran one telegram. Another told of Dr. Stearn being summoned, and remaining in constant attendance; but the burden of each and every message was that he, Power, must come home.

It was not surprising that the unhappy son should see in his mother’s sudden collapse the hand of the Almighty. Deep in the heart of every man and woman is planted the conviction that an unseen and awful deity deals out retribution as well as justice to erring humanity. Power was under no delusion as to his personal responsibility for his actions. He had done wrong, and now he was being punished. “A man’s heart deviseth the way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” Sternly and terribly had his feet been turned to the new path; but if he flung himself on his knees and prayed now, it was not for forgiveness of his own sin, but in frenzied petition that it should not be visited on his mother and Nancy. Even in this new delirium of suffering he did not forget the woman he loved. Though his torment was as the torment of a scorpion, he asked that Nancy, too, might be spared. On his head be the punishment; but let the Divine Ruler of the world have pity on her youth, and find innocence in her, for she had been hardly dealt by!

He was still kneeling in anguish of spirit when an awe-stricken page entered the room with a telegram. If aught were needed to crush him into the dust, it was forthcoming in Dacre’s guarded words:

Then, and not until then, did some Heaven-sent clarity of vision reveal to Power that Nancy had not been acting a part when she wrote the letter he found in the hut. It was only too true that, as he told Peter Granite in the first mad words which burst from his lips, she had left him forever. He did not pretend to understand her motives—he was sure he never would understand them—but her action, at least, was finite. He knew now she was gone beyond recall. By some malign trick of fate she was probably stating her unalterable resolve over the telephone to his friend at the very moment he was reeling under the shock of MacGonigal’s frantic messages with reference to his mother.

Well, be it so! His dream of a life’s happiness had been shattered by a thunderbolt from a summer sky, and, crowning misery, here was his mother at death’s door, in a state of mind surely aggravated by distress because of uncertainty as to his whereabouts! Sheer despair was again calming if benumbing him when, by ill-chance, his haggard eyes dwelt on Nancy’s letter. The concluding words seemed to grip him by the throat:

“I can write no more. My poor heart is breaking.”

God of mercy, what did it all mean? He gave way utterly. A strong man weeping is a pitiable sight, and Nancy’s high resolve might have weakened had she seen him in that bitter hour.

Perhaps she knew. She must have known. Her forlorn soul must have gaged his distress by the measure of her own sorrowful longing. But she had deceived Power so thoroughly that not for many a year did he even guess that her flight was undertaken solely on his account. And it was better so; for the story of their love might have been stained by a sordid tragedy, and Power, instead of going West that night, would have taken a special train to Newport with fixed intent to choke Willard’s wretched life out of him. As it was, he crossed two-thirds of the great land which had given him vast wealth, and much tribulation, and little joy. At New York, and elsewhere en route, he received telegrams from his trusty friend at Bison. They were not reassuring; but they did, at least, contain one grain of comfort in the tidings that his mother still lived.

But therein MacGonigal allowed his heart to control his pen; for Mrs. Power breathed her last before her son had quitted New York, and it was to a town in mourning that Power returned. His mother had endeared herself to every soul in the place. The people looked on her as their guardian angel. They almost scowled on John Darien Power when the flying feet of his horse clattered along the main street in his haste to soothe the fretfulness of a woman who was already three days dead. Why did he leave her? they asked. Where had he hidden that the country should be scoured for him during the last week, and none could find him? He used to be a decent, outspoken sort of fellow, Derry Power; but wealth had spoiled him, as it seemed to spoil every man who secured it. Queer thing! Deponent thought that he, or she, would risk the experiment at the price.

Thus, light-hearted gossip, which talks in headlines, and recks little of the subtler issues of life.