Chapter IV: Part 4

I repeated the interview, while he leaned back and listened, his hands clasped behind his head.

"She _was_ communicative," he reflected, at the end. "In a mood like that, after months of silence, a woman will tell anything. As you say, if she had been guilty she might easily have given herself away. What a problem it would have put up to you," he mused, "if she _had_ been guilty and _had_ confessed! On the one hand, loyalty to the _Searchlight_--you'd have had to publish the news. On the other hand, sympathy for the woman--for it would be you who sent her to the electric chair, or remained silent and saved her."

He looked at me quizzically. "Which would you have done?" he asked.

It seemed no problem at all to me, but I gave it an instant's reflection. "I think you know," I told him.

He nodded. "I think I do," he agreed. "Just the same," he rose and started for his desk, "don't you imagine there isn't a problem in the situation. There's a big one."

He turned back, struck by a sudden idea. "Why don't you make a magazine story of it?" he added. "I believe you can write fiction. Here's your chance. Describe the confession of the murderess, the mental struggle of the reporter, her suppression of the news, and its after-effect on her career."

His suggestion hit me much harder than his problem. The latter was certainly strong enough for purposes of fiction.

"Why," I said, slowly, "thank you. I believe I will."

Before Mr. Morris had closed the door I was drawing a fresh supply of copy-paper toward me; before he had left the building I had written the introduction to my first fiction story; and before the roar of the presses came up to my ears from the basement, at a quarter to two in the morning, I had made on my last page the final cross of the press-writer and dropped the finished manuscript into a drawer of my desk. It had been written with surprising ease. Helen Brandow had entered my tale as naturally as she would enter a room; and against the bleak background of her cell I seemed to see her whole life pass before me like a series of moving-pictures which my pen raced after and described.

The next morning found me severely critical as I read my story. Still, I decided to send it to a famous novelist I had met a few months before, who had since then spent some of her leisure in good-naturedly urging me to "write." I believed she would tell me frankly what she thought of this first sprout in my literary garden, and that night, quite without compunction, I sent it to her. Two days later I received a letter which I carried around in my pocket until the precious bit of paper was almost in rags.

"Your story is a corker," wrote the distinguished author, whose epistolary style was rather free. "I experienced a real thrill when the woman confessed. You have made out a splendid case for her; also for your reporter. Given all your premises, things _had_ to happen as they did. Offer the story to Mrs. Langster, editor of _The Woman's Friend_. Few editors have sense, but I think she'll know enough to take it. I inclose a note to her."

If Mrs. Appleton had experienced a thrill over my heroine's confession we were more than quits, for I experienced a dozen thrills over her letter, and long afterward, when she came back from a visit to England with new honors thick upon her, I amused her by describing them. Within twenty-four hours after receiving her inspiring communication I had wound my way up a circular staircase that made me feel like an animated corkscrew, and was humbly awaiting Mrs. Langster's pleasure in the room next to her dingy private office. She had read Mrs. Appleton's note at once, and had sent an office boy to say that she would receive me in a few minutes. I gladly waited thirty, for this home of a big and successful magazine was a new world to me--and, though it lacked the academic calm I had associated with the haunts of literature in the making, everything in it was interesting, from the ink-spattered desks and their aloof and busy workers to the recurrent roar of the elevated trains that pounded past the windows.

Mrs. Langster proved to be an old lady, with a smile of extraordinary sweetness. Looking at her white hair, and meeting the misty glance of her near-sighted blue eyes, I felt a depressing doubt of Mrs. Appleton's wisdom in sending me to her with a work of fiction which turned on murder. One instinctively associated Mrs. Langster with organ recitals, evening service, and afternoon teas in dimly lighted rooms. But there was an admirable brain under her silver hair, and I had swift proof of the keenness of her literary discrimination; for within a week she accepted my story and sent me a check for an amount equal to the salary I received for a month of work. Her letter, and that of Mrs. Appleton, went to Sister Irmingarde--was it only a year ago that I had parted from her and the convent? Then I framed them side by side and hung them in a place of honor on my study wall, as a solace in dark hours and an inspiration in brighter ones. They represented a literary ladder, on the first rung of which I was sure I had found firm footing, though the upper rungs were lost in clouds.

Mrs. Langster allowed my story to mellow for almost a year before she published it; and in the long interval Helen Brandow was acquitted, and disappeared from the world that had known her.

I myself had almost forgotten her, and I had even ceased to look for my story in the columns of _The Woman's Friend_, when one morning I found on my desk a note from Mr. Hurd. It was brief and cryptic, for Mr. Hurd's notes were as time-saving as his speech. It read:

Pls. rept. immed.
N. H.

Without waiting to remove my hat I entered Mr. Hurd's office. He was sitting bunched up over his desk, his eyebrows looking like an intricate pattern of cross-stitching. Instead of his usual assortment of newspaper clippings, he held in his hand an open magazine, which, as I entered, he thrust toward me.

"Here!" he jerked. "What's this mean?"

I recognized with mild surprise the familiar cover of _The Woman's Friend_. A second glance showed me that the page Mr. Hurd was indicating with staccato movements of a nervous forefinger bore my name. My heart leaped.

"Why," I exclaimed, delightedly, "it's my story!"

Mr. Hurd's hand held the magazine against the instinctive pull I gave it. His manner was unusually quiet. Unusual, too, was the sudden straight look of his tired eyes.

"Sit down," he said, curtly. "I want to ask you something."

I sat down, my eyes on the magazine. As Mr. Hurd held it, I could see the top of one illustration. It looked interesting.

"See here," Mr. Hurd jerked out. "I'm not going to beat around the bush. Did you throw us down on this story?"

I stared at him. For an instant I did not get his meaning. Then it came to me that possibly I should have asked his permission to publish any work outside of the _Searchlight_ columns.

"But," I stammered, "you don't print fiction."

Mr. Hurd tapped the open page with his finger. The unusual quiet of his manner began to impress me. "_Is_ it fiction?" he asked. "That's what I want to know."

Godfrey Morris rose from his desk and came toward us. Until that instant I had only vaguely realized that he was in the room.

"Hurd," he said, quickly, "you're in the wrong pew. Miss Iverson doesn't even know what you're talking about." He turned to me. "He's afraid," he explained, "that Mrs. Brandow confessed to you in Fairview, and that you threw us down by suppressing the story."

For an instant I was dazed. Then I laughed. "Mr. Hurd," I said, "I give you my word that Mrs. Brandow never confessed anything to me."

Mr. Hurd's knitted brows uncreased. "That's straight, is it?" he demanded.

"That's straight," I repeated.

Hurd dropped the magazine on the floor and turned to his papers. "'L right," he muttered, "don't let 't happen 'gain."

Mr. Morris and I exchanged an understanding smile as I picked up the magazine and left the room.

In the outer room I met Gibson. His grin of greeting was wide and friendly, his voice low and interested.

"Read your story last night," he whispered. "Say, tell me--_did_ she, really?"

I filled the next five minutes explaining to Gibson. He looked relieved. "I didn't think there was anything in it," he said. "That woman's no murderess. But, say, you made the story read like the real thing!"

Within the next few days everybody on the _Searchlight_ staff seemed to have read _The Woman's Friend_, and to be taking part in the discussion my story aroused. Those of my associates who believed in the innocence of Mrs. Brandow accepted the tale for what it was--a work of fiction. Those without prejudice were inclined to think there was "something in it," and at least half a dozen who believed her guilty also firmly believed that I had allowed an acute and untimely spasm of womanly sympathy to deprive the _Searchlight_ of "the best and biggest beat in years." For a few days I remained pleasantly unconscious of being a storm-center, but one morning a second summons from Mr. Hurd opened my eyes to the situation.

"See here!" began that gentleman, rudely. "What does all this talk mean, anyway? They're saying now that you and Morris suppressed the Brandow confession between you. Jim, the elevator-boy, says he heard you agree to do it."

Godfrey Morris leaped to his feet and came toward us. "Good Lord, Hurd," he cried, fiercely, "I believe you're crazy! Why don't you come to me with this rot, if you're going to notice it, and not bother Miss Iverson? We joked about a confession, and I suppose Jim heard us. The joke was what suggested the magazine story."

"Well, _that's_ no joke." Hurd spoke grudgingly, as if unwillingly impressed. "Suppose the woman had confessed," he asked me, suddenly--"would you have given us the story?"

I shook my head. "Certainly not," I admitted. "You forget that I had agreed not to print a word she said."

Hurd's expression of uncertainty was so funny that I laughed. "But she didn't," I added, comfortingly. "Do you think I'd lie to you?"

"You might." Hurd was in a pessimistic mood. "To save her, or--" A rare phenomenon occurred; he smiled--all his boyish dimples suddenly revealed--"to save Morris from losing his job," he finished, coolly.

I felt my face grow hot. Morris rushed to the rescue. "The only thing I regret in this confounded mess," he muttered, ignoring Hurd's words, "is the effect on Mrs. Brandow. _The Woman's Friend_ has half a million readers. They'll all think she's guilty."

"Good job," said Hurd. "She _is_ guilty!"

"Rot! She's absolutely innocent," replied Morris. "Why, even the fool jury acquitted her on the first ballot!"

I left them arguing and slipped away, sick at heart. In the sudden moment of illumination following Morris's words it had come to me that the one person to be considered in the whole episode was the person of whom I had not thought at all! I had done Helen Brandow a great wrong. Her case had been almost forgotten; somewhere she was trying to build up a new life. I had knocked out the new foundations.

It was a disturbing reflection, and the events of the next few days deepened my depression. Several reviewers commented on the similarity of my story to the Brandow case. People began to ask where Mrs. Brandow was, began again to argue the question of her innocence or her guilt. Efforts were made to find her hiding-place. The thought of the injury I had done the unhappy woman became an obsession. There seemed only one way to exorcise it, and that was to see or write to my "victim," as Hurd jocosely called her, make my confession, and have her absolve me, if she would, of any intent of injury.

On the wings of this inspiration I sought Mr. Davies, and, putting the situation before him, asked for his client's address.

"Of course I can't give you her address," he explained, mildly. "But I'll write to her and tell her you want it. Yes, yes, with pleasure. I know how you feel." He smiled reflectively. "She's a wonderful woman," he added. "Most remarkable woman I ever met--strongest soul." He sighed, then smiled again. "I'll write," he repeated; and with this I had to be content. I had done all that I could do. But my nerves began to feel the effect of the strain upon them, and it was a relief when I reached my home in Madison Square late one evening and found Mrs. Brandow waiting for me.

She was sitting in a little reception-room off the main hall of the building, and as I passed the door on my way to the elevator she rose and came toward me. She wore a thick veil, but something in me recognized her even before I caught the flash of her eyes through it, and noticed the characteristically erect poise of the head which every reporter who saw her had described.

"Mr. Davies said you wanted to talk to me," she began, without greeting me. "Here I am. Have I come at the wrong time?"

I slipped my hand through her arm. "No," was all I could say. "It was very good of you to come at all. I did not expect that." In silence we entered the elevator and ascended to my floor. As I opened the door with my latch-key and waited for her to go in I spoke again. "I can't tell you how much I've been thinking of you," I said.

She made no reply. We passed through the hall into my study, and while I turned on the electric lights she dropped into a big arm-chair beside a window overlooking the Square, threw back her veil, and slipped off the heavy furs she wore. As the lights flashed up we exchanged a swift look. Little more than a year had passed since our former meeting, but she seemed many years older and much less beautiful. There were new lines about her eyes and mouth, and the black hair over her temples was growing gray. I started to draw down the window-shades, for it was snowing hard, and the empty Square below, with a few tramps shivering on its benches, afforded but a dreary vista. She checked me.

"Leave them as they are," she directed, imperiously, adding as an afterthought: "Please. I like to be able to look out."

I obeyed, realizing now, as I had not done before, what those months of confinement must have meant to her. When I had removed my hat and coat, and lit the logs that lay ready in my big fireplace, I took a chair near her.

"First of all," I began, "I want to thank you for coming. And then--I want to beg your forgiveness."

For a moment she studied me in silence. "That's rather odd of you," she murmured, reflectively. "You know I'm fair game! Why shouldn't you run with the pack?"

My eyes, even my head, went down before that. For a moment I could not reply. Then it seemed to me that the most important thing in the world was to make her understand.

"Of course," I admitted, "I deserve anything you say. I did a horrible thing when I printed that story. I should never have offered it to an editor. My defense is simply that I didn't realize what I was doing. That's what I want to make clear to you. That's why I asked to see you."

"I see," she said, slowly. "It's not the story you're apologizing for. It's the effect."

"Yes," I explained, eagerly, "it's the effect. I hadn't been out of school more than a year when I came to you in Fairview," I hurried on. "I was very young, and appallingly ignorant. It never occurred to me that any one would connect a fiction story with--with your case."

She looked at me, and with all the courage I could summon I gazed straight back into her strange, deep eyes. For a long instant the look held, and during it something came to me, something new and poignant, something that filled me with an indescribable pity for the loneliness I now understood, and for the courage of the nature that bore it so superbly. She would ask nothing of the world, this woman. Nor would she defend herself. People could think what they chose. But she would suffer.

I leaned toward her. "Mrs. Brandow," I said, "I wish I could make you understand how I feel about this. I believe it has made me ten years older."

She smiled. "That would be a pity," she said, "when you're so deliciously young."

"Is there anything I can do?" I persisted.

She raised her eyebrows. "I'm afraid not," she murmured, "unless it is to cease doing anything. You see, your activities where I am concerned are so hectic."

I felt my face burn. "You're very hard on me, but I deserve it. I didn't realize," I repeated, "that the story would suggest you to the public."

"Even though you described me?" she interjected, the odd, sardonic gleam deepening in her black eyes.

"But I didn't describe you as you are," I protested, eagerly. "I made you a blonde! Don't you remember? And I made a Western city the scene of the trial, and changed some of the conditions of the--" I faltered--"of the crime."

"As if that mattered," she said, coolly. "You described _me_--to the shape of my finger-nails, the buttons on my shoes." Suddenly she laughed. "Those dreadful buttons! I see them still in my dreams. It seems to me that I was always sewing them on. The only parts of me I allowed to move in the court-room were my feet. No one could see them, under my skirt. I used to loosen a button almost every day. Then of course I had to sew them on. I had a sick fear of looking messy and untidy--of degenerating physically."

She faced the wide windows and the snow-filled sky. In my own chair, facing the fire, I also directly faced her.

"I'm going to Europe," she announced at last. "I'm sailing to-morrow morning--to be gone 'for good,' as the children say. That's why I came to-night." For a moment she sat in silence, wholly, restfully at her ease. Dimly I began to realize that she was enjoying the intimacy of the moment, the sense of human companionship, and again it came to me how tragically lonely she must be. She had no near friends, and in the minds of all others there must always be the hideous interrogation-point that stood between her and life. At best she had "the benefit of the doubt." And I had helped to destroy even the little that was left to her. I could have fallen at her feet.

"I'm going away," she added, "to see if there is any place for me in the life abroad. If there is I want to find it. If I were the sort of woman who went in for good works, my problem would be easier; but you see I'm not."

I smiled. I could not see her as a worker in organized charity, parceling out benefits tied with red tape. It was no effort, however, to picture her doing many human and beautiful kindnesses in her own way.

We talked of Europe. I had never been there. She spoke of northern Africa, of rides over Morocco hills, of a caravan journey from Tangier to Fez, of Algerian nights, of camping in the desert, of palms and ripe figs and of tropical gardens. It was fascinating talk in the purple lights of my driftwood fire, with a snow-storm beating at my windows. Suddenly she checked herself.

"I think, after all," she said, lightly, "you're rather good for me. You've done me good to-night. You did me good the day you visited me at Fairview. You were so young, so much in earnest, so much in love with life, and you saw so much with your big, solemn eyes. You gave me something new to think about, and I needed it. So--don't regret anything."

I felt the tears spring to my eyes.

She drew on her gloves and buttoned them slowly, still smiling at me.

"I might never even have seen your story," she went on, quietly, "if my maid had not brought it to me. I don't read _The Woman's Friend_." There was a hint of the old superciliousness in her tone and about her upper lip as she spoke. "On the whole, I don't think it did me any harm. The opinion of strangers is the least important thing in my little arctic circle. So, forget me. Good night--and good-by."

I kept her hand in mine for a moment. "Good-by," I said. "Peace be with you."

She drew her veil down over her face, and moved to the door. I followed and opened it for her. On the threshold she stopped and hesitated, looking straight at me; and in that instant I knew as surely as I ever knew anything in my life that now at last her guard was down--that from the fastness of her soul something horrible had escaped and was leaping toward me. She cast a quick glance up and down the outer hall. It was dim and empty. I hardly dared to breathe.

"There is one thing more," she said, and her words rushed out with an odd effect of breathlessness under the continued calm of her manner. "The only really human emotion I've felt in a long time is--an upheaval of curiosity."

I looked at her, and waited.

She hesitated an instant longer, then, standing very close to me, gripped my shoulders hard, her eyes deep in mine, her voice so low I hardly caught her meaning.

"Oh, wise young judge!" she whispered. "Tell me, before we part--_how did you know_?"

VI

THE LAST OF THE MORANS

On my right rose a jagged wall of rock, hundreds of feet high and bare of vegetation save for a few dwarfed and wind-swept pines. On my left gaped the wide mouth of what seemed to be a bottomless ravine. Between the two was a ledge not more than six feet wide, along which "Jef'son Davis," my mountain horse, was slowly and thoughtfully making his difficult way. Occasionally from the pit's depths a hawk or turkey-buzzard rose, startling me with the flapping of its strong wings, and several times the feet of Jef'son Davis dislodged a bit of rock which rattled across the ledge, slipped over the side, and started on a downward journey whose distance I dared not estimate.

For more than an hour I had not met a human being. I had not seen a mountain cabin or even a nodding plume of smoke. I had not heard the bark of a dog, the tinkle of a cow-bell, nor any other reassuring and homely testimony that I was in a world of men. Yet I knew that somewhere around me must be lurking figures and watchful eyes, for I was in the stronghold of the Morans and the Tyrrells, and the Morans and Tyrrells were on the war-path, and therefore incessantly on guard.

This journey through the Virginia mountains to "write up family feuds" was the result of an inspiration recently experienced by Colonel Cartwell, our editor-in-chief. He was sure I could uncover "good dramatic stuff."

"They're potting at each other every minute down there," he explained to me when he sent me off on the assignment. "Give their time to it. Morans and Tyrrells are the worst. Tyrrell has killed six Morans. Get his story before the Morans get him. See? And find out what it's all about, anyway."

According to the map I had made that morning under the direction of the postmaster of Jayne's Crossroads, I knew I must be even now within a mile of the cabin of the Morans.

"'Tain't healthy travelin' fo' men," that gentleman had volunteered languidly, "but I reckon a lady's safe 'nuff, 'specially ef yo' leave the jou'ney to the hawse. Jef'son Davis, he knows ev'ry inch of that thar trail. All yo' got t' do is t' give Jef'son his haid."

Jef'son Davis was having his head, and he had thus far been true to his trust. At a certain point on the trail I was to look for huge boulders in a strange position, with a big and lonely cedar standing guard near them. At the right of this cedar was an almost hidden trail, which, followed for twenty minutes, would lead me to the Moran cabin. I was not to be alarmed if a bullet whispered its sinister message in my ear. To kill women was no part of the Moran traditions, and a fatality to me would be a regrettable incident, due wholly, if it occurred at all, to the impulsive nature of Samuel Tyrrell, who had formed the careless habit of firing at moving objects without pausing to discover what they were. It was because of this eccentricity, I gathered, that the sympathy of the mountain people lay largely with Moran--who, moreover, though both men were the last of their respective lines, was a boy of twenty-two, while Tyrrell was well on in middle life.

I rode slowly along the trail, which, clear in the high lights of the noonday sun, was now widening and turning to the right. The ravine appeared to be growing more shallow. Flashes of red haw and scarlet dogwood began to leap out at me from the edges. Presently, beyond the turn, I discovered the boulders, silhouetted sharply against the soft October sky. Near them was the lonely cedar, and after twice passing it I found the side-trail, and rode peacefully down its dim corridor.

There was nothing to mark the Moran home, and that, too, I almost passed before I noticed it, a strongly built log cabin, backed against the side of a hill, and commanding from its three barred windows the approaches on every side. As I rode up, the door opened and an old woman in a homespun dress stood before me. Her shoulders sagged under the burden of seventy-five years, but the flame of an unconquerable spirit burned in the keen black eyes set bead-like in her withered little brown face. This, I knew, was Betsy Moran, who had helped to bury her husband, four sons, and a grandson, all killed by the Tyrrells, and who was said finally to have seized a gun herself and added at least one Tyrrell to the row in the family burial-lot.

"How do you do?" I asked, cheerfully. "May I come in and rest for a few moments?"

Her face did not soften, nor did she speak, but there was neither suspicion nor fear in her steady regard; it held merely a dispassionate curiosity. I slipped from the back of Jef'son Davis and hesitated, looking around for a post or tree to tie him to, and the old woman, stirred to a quick instinct of hospitality, looked uncertainly behind her into the cabin. At the same instant a young giant appeared behind her, pushed her lightly to one side, and strode toward me with a nod of greeting. Then, taking the bridle-rein from my hand, and still in silence, he led the horse away. Evidently the Morans were not a talkative family.

Wholly forgetting the old woman, I stared after him. Here, obviously, was young "Shep," the last of the Morans; and from the top of his curly black hair to the boot-soles six feet two inches below it, he looked extremely well able to take care of himself. He was powerfully built, and he moved with the natural grace of the superb young animal he was. He wore a rough homespun blue shirt, open at the neck, and a pair of corduroy trousers tucked into high boots. From the swing of his back as he strode off with Jef'son Davis I should hardly have been surprised to see him throw that weary animal across his mighty shoulders.

When he had disappeared I walked thoughtfully to the cabin door, meeting again the level gaze of my hostess. A sudden gleam in her eyes and a quick lift of her white head showed me she had caught my unconscious tribute to the strength and beauty of the young man, who was not only the last of her line, but, according to mountain traditions, the "apple of her eye."

"Come 'long in," she said, quietly; and she added as I crossed her threshold, "Ef yo' rid 'crost th' Gap, yo' mus' be mi-i-ghty ti'ed."

She pushed a chair in front of the great fireplace which filled one side of the cabin, and I dropped gladly into it and took off my hat, while she bustled about with hospitable enterprise, heating water and rattling tea-cups. Suddenly she disappeared, and in another instant I heard the despairing, final squawk of an unfortunate hen. I knew that within the hour it would be served to me in a strange dish in which the flavors of burnt feathers and of tough, unseasoned meat would struggle for recognition, and I sighed. But the great logs burning in the old fireplace were good to watch, and their warmth was comforting, for the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud and an autumn wind had begun to whine around the cabin and in the big chimney.

There were only five pieces of furniture in the room--a narrow, home-made wooden bed occupying one corner, a large spinning-wheel, a pine table, a rough log settle, and the chair in which I sat. At the right of the fireplace a ladder led to a trap-door which evidently opened into a low attic--young Moran's quarters, I assumed. Just outside the open door stood a low, flat-topped tree-trunk, holding a tin basin full of water; a homespun towel on a nail below it testified mutely to its past usefulness. While I was regarding these, the master of the house reappeared, plunged his black head into the basin, flung the water in a spray over his face and hands, wiped them on the towel, and entered the cabin, ready for dinner. His immediate impulse was to attend to the fire, and as he approached it he cast a side glance at me, as shy and curious as that of some half-tamed creature of the open. When he had put on another log he spoke without looking at me, his brown cheeks flushing with the effort.

"Done fed th' critter," he announced, laconically.

I thanked him, and mercifully kept my eyes on the fire. For a time he remained there, too, with occasional darting glances at me, which finally, as I seemed unaware of them, settled into a steady and close inspection. I realized what a strange, new type I presented to him--a young woman from New York, wearing a riding-habit and riding-boots, trim and slim and tailor-made. His glance lingered a long time on my hair and my hands. There was nothing offensive about it. At first merely curious, it had finally become reflective and friendly. At last I began to talk to him, and after several false starts he was able to respond, sprawling opposite me on the big settle, his hands clasped behind his curly head, his legs extended toward the fire, while I told him of New York and answered his extraordinary questions.

It had seemed somehow fitting that the sun should go behind a cloud when I entered this tragic home; but for a long time there was no intimation in our talk of the other shadows that lay over the cabin, of the bloody trail that led to it, of the tragic row of graves on the hill beside it, or of the bullets that had whispered the failure of their mission in this boy's ears. We were a fairly cheerful company as we drew up to the pine table when the old woman announced dinner, and even the stoic calm of her face relaxed over the story of some of my experiences on the trail with Jef'son Davis. She did the honors of her house a little stiffly, but with dignity; and always, except when she was thus engaged, her black eyes focused on the face of her grandson and clung there, fixed. Her contribution to our talk consisted of two eloquent sentences:

"Sometimes we got but'r," she remarked, as we sat down, "sometimes we hain't. T'day we hain't."

We had, however, the expected chicken, with corn bread and tea, and in the perfect flowering of his hospitality, young Shep Moran heaped these high upon my plate, and mourned when I refused to devour the entire repast. He was chatting now with much self-possession, while under his talk and his occasional shy but brilliant smile his grandmother expanded like a thirsty plant receiving water. He had, he told me proudly, learned to read, and he owned two books--the Bible and some poems by a man named Whittier. He knew most of the poems "by hea't." He had never ridden on a railroad-train, but he could ride any animal that traveled on four legs, and he had heard a fiddle played upon during his one expedition out into the great world--his solitary visit to Jayne's Crossroads, two years before.

When dinner was over he smoked a clay pipe before the fire, and gradually his talk grew more intimate. He and his grandmother were going to leave the cabin, he said, and live on the other side of the mountain. A man had offered him a job in some coal-mines that were being opened up. But he could not go yet--there was something he had to do first. The shadow over the cabin seemed to deepen as he spoke. I knew what he had to do--he had to kill Samuel Tyrrell, who had killed his father. His uncles, his brother, and Samuel Tyrrell's sons had killed one another. There were only himself and Samuel Tyrrell left.

He turned and looked at me. His whole expression had changed--his brow was somber, his eyes brooding, his lips drawn back from his teeth in an odd, unconscious snarl. Quite naturally he took it for granted that I knew of him and his feud.

"Sam Tyrrell, he'd--" he hesitated, then added under his breath, as he glanced at the old woman moving toward the cupboard with her dishes--"he'd even shoot at gran ef he ketched 'er on the trail."

I rose and put on my hat. Before my eyes my mountain demigod had suddenly been transformed into a young beast, lusting for blood. I felt that I must get away from the oppression of the place. He made no comment, but picked up his hat and went for my horse. When he returned he was leading Jef'son Davis and riding his own horse, a rough-coated mountain animal which, powerful though it was, seemed hardly up to the huge bulk astride it. With a jerk of his head, he checked my protest and the little cry that broke from his grandmother's lips.

"I'm jes' gwine ter th' bend," he told her, "t' p'int aout th' trail t' Clapham's. She's gwine t' stay all night thar. Look fo' me home 'fore sundown."

The grandmother cast a quick glance at me, then dropped her eyes. The fire seemed to have flickered and died out. Her steps dragged. In an instant she had become a feeble, apprehensive old woman.

"Don't you take Shep no furder 'n th' bend," she quavered. "Will yuh?"

I met her look squarely. "You may be sure I will not," I promised, and we rode away.

Young Moran's horse proved better than he looked. With the greatest ease and lightness he carried his rider along the trail, a little in advance of me where it was narrow, and close beside me when it widened out. As we rode, the young man became all boy again. He knew every mountain tree and shrub, every late plant that had raised a brave head above the pall of autumn leaves, every bird whose note sounded near us or which winged its flight above us. He pointed out the bright yellow blossoms of the evening primrose, the bursting pods of the milkweed, the "purty look" of asters, gentian, and white everlasting against the somber background of the hills. He was delighted when we flushed a covey of quail, and at one point he stopped abruptly to show me the old swimming-hole which he and his brother had used, and on the banks of which, he added grimly, his brother had been killed by Tyrrell's eldest son. At this memory the shadow fell upon him again, and it was while we were riding on in a silence broken only by the padded hoof-beats of the horses that we heard a shot. Something from the underbrush at our right went humming past me, clipped a leaf from an overhanging bough above my companion's head, and sped onward to its harmless finish. Moran's horse, jerked back on its haunches by the rider's powerful grip on the bridle, stopped, trembling. Jef'son Davis shied violently, only to be caught and steadied by the instantaneous grasp of Moran's right hand. In the same second the young man himself was transformed from the simple, gentle nature-lover of the trail to a half-human spirit of hatred and revenge.

"The polecat!" he hissed. "I know whar he is. I'll _git_ him this time!" With a quick swing he turned his horse. "Thar's your trail," he called back over his shoulder. "Straight on tuh th' bend--then go left."

He put his horse at a low but sharp incline on the right, and the animal scrambled up it with straining muscles and tearing hoofs that sent back a shower of stones and earth. In another moment horse and rider were out of sight.

It had all happened so suddenly that I had felt no fear. Now, left alone, it seemed incredible that it should have happened at all. Outwardly, everything was as it had been a moment before. The soft haze of the October atmosphere still lay over the silent hills; the reassuring whir of crickets was in the air. Jef'son Davis, happy in the comfort of a lax bridle, was eagerly cropping the leaves from an overhanging tree-branch. Yet within pistol-shot of this spot an assassin had crouched. Even now he and his enemy were perhaps having their last struggle.

With a deep breath, I gathered up the bridle and rode back at full speed along the trail over which I had come. When I drew near the Moran cabin I checked Jef'son Davis's pace and proceeded at a gentle canter. I did not wish to alarm Betsy Moran, but the door flew open while I was still some distance away, and the old woman hurried to meet me. Almost as soon as I had jumped from the saddle she was beside me, her eyes staring into mine with the question she dared not ask.

"Nothing serious has happened," I said, quickly, "but--" As I hesitated, she finished the sentence.

"They're arfter each othe'?" she said, dully. "They're shootin'?"

I nodded. Without another word, she turned and entered the cabin. I tethered my horse to a tree and followed her. There was nothing of helpless age about her now. Instead there was something horrible in her silence, something appalling in the preparations she at once began to make. She had gone through it all before--many, many times. She was ready to go through it again whenever the hour struck, and she had developed a terrible efficiency.

She filled the great kettle with water. She turned down the covers of the bed. From a closet in the wall she brought out linen and bandages, a few bottles, and several bundles of herbs, of which she began to make some sort of brew. At last she came and sat by the fire, crouched over it, waiting and listening. Occasionally she rose, went to the door, and looked out. Once or twice she whimpered a little, but she did not speak.

Darkness came. Several times I rose and put fresh logs on the fire. I found and lit a candle, to help out the firelight. It had become impossible to sit longer in that dim room, with its shadows and its memories, watching the terrible patience of the mountain woman and picturing a dead man, or a wounded one, lying helpless near the trail.

"Can't I ride somewhere and get some one?" I suggested once.

"No," the old woman answered, curtly. Half an hour later she added, more gently, and as if there had been no interval between her words: "They ain't no doctor in thirty miles. Ef Shep gits home, I kin tend t' him."

It was after ten o'clock before we heard a sound outside. I jumped to my feet, but the old woman was before me. Hurrying to the door, she flung it wide, and, shielding the candle with her hand, peered out into the blackness. Then, with a little cry, she handed the candle to me and ran forward. In the darkness something was crawling toward us, something that stumbled and rose and stumbled again. It collapsed just as it reached us, and fell near the threshold.

Someway, together, we dragged the last of the Morans into his home, and closed the door between him and his mountain world. His great body seemed to fill the cabin as it lay upon the floor, the arms and legs sprawling in incredible helplessness, the boots and trousers covered with mud, the blue shirt torn and blood-stained. Seizing one of her bottles, the old woman forced some of its contents between the boy's teeth, and as she did so he opened his eyes. For a moment he stared at her, at me, and around the cabin, dim in the flickering light of logs and candle. Then a gleam lit up his black eyes. His lips drew back over his teeth in a hideous, wolflike grin.

"He's done daid, gran," he choked out. "I got 'im!"

The old woman, who had been bending above him, dropped the bottle and sat back suddenly, flinging her lean arms above her head in a movement of wild exultation. A high cackle of joy broke from her. Then, remembering his need, she bent over him again and tried to force him to take more of the liquor; but he frowned it away, his stiff tongue seeking to form words.

"I--watched--him--die," he finally articulated, "'fo'--ever--I--tho't--o'--home!"

He closed his eyes and lapsed into unconsciousness. The old woman rocked above him.

"He's daid," she crooned. "He's daid, daid, daid!"

For a moment I thought it was her grandson she meant, but I saw that she was continuing her ministrations, accompanying them with this reassurance to those deaf ears. For a long time the hideous lullaby went on, while she washed the wound in the boy's breast and checked its flow of blood, bandaging it as skilfully as any surgeon could have done the work. She let me help her now--keeping cold compresses on his hot head, for he was moaning with pain and fever, and giving him from time to time the medicine she had brewed. We could not move his great body, but we made him as comfortable as we could on the floor, and worked over him there while the night wore on, and the cries of prowling animals came to us from the mountainside.

Toward dawn the fever subsided. The boy's high color faded, and he hardly seemed to breathe. In my inexperience I was not sure whether these were good or bad signs, and I had no indication from Betsy Moran, whose face never changed as she hung above him. At sunrise she rose and went to the door, motioning to me to accompany her. There, following the direction indicated by her pointing, shaking old finger, I saw on the side of the hill, at the left of the cabin, six low mounds marked by six great boulders. For a long time the mountain woman looked at them in silence. Then she turned to me.

"He's daid," she whispered, with a kind of fierce delight. "_Tyrrell's daid._ Here's the e-end."

She leaned against the jamb of the door, staring up at the row of mounds defined against the desolate mountain by the first clear rays of the sun. A light breeze lifted the loose locks of her white hair and blew them about her face. In her eyes shone the wild exultation that had burned there the night before, when her boy had gasped out his message.

"Mrs. Moran," I asked, quietly, "how many Tyrrell graves are there?" She answered me somberly, almost absently. "Five," she said. Then, on a sudden memory, her shriveled arm went up in a gesture of triumph. "_Six!_" she corrected herself, exultantly. "Be six in th' Tyrrell lot t'-morrer."

Six in the Tyrrell lot to-morrow. Six in the Moran lot to-day--perhaps seven there to-morrow. And why? Unconsciously I uttered the word aloud, and the hills seemed to fling back the ironic question. Beside me the old woman stirred, thinking I was speaking to her. As if the words had touched a hidden spring, her confidence gushed forth, and as she talked she lifted her hands and began to twist into the tiny knob of hair at the back of her head the white locks that blew about her eyes.

"'Twas fo'ty yeahs back," she said, at last, almost to herself. "Come Christmas, hit's fo'ty yeahs back. Er yearlin' o' ourn had tooken up with neighbor cattle, an' Tyrrell, he done claimed hit. They was always polecats, th' Tyrrells. Words come o' that, an' licks follered clost. At las' Tyrrell, he shot Amos--my man. 'Twa'n't long fo' Jep, my oldest, Shep's father, he killed Tyrrell. That's th' sta't of it. Now we've come t' th' e-end," she finished, and drew a long breath. "He's daid--Tyrrell's daid. Shep, he seen 'um die."

She led the way back into the cabin, and stopped at the foot of the ladder. "Go up thar," she said, almost gently. "Git some sleep. I reckon ye're perished fo' it."

I protested, but in vain. It finally became plain that for some reason she wished to be rid of me. She brought me a cup of some dark liquid and urged me to drink it. It was not tempting in appearance or flavor, but I drank it down. Then, as she still waited, I ascended the ladder and found myself in Shep's room--a tiny attic, its rafters hung with drying herbs, its pallet on the floor surprisingly clean, its one narrow window covering the Tyrrell trail. I had not expected to sleep, but I did--slept while the day mounted to high noon and waned to a gorgeous autumnal sunset.

I was awakened by the sound of hoof-beats, of men's voices, of many steps on the floor of the room below. For an instant I lay in puzzled silence, staring at the rafters above my head. Then, as memory awakened in its turn, I rose hurriedly and began to dress, my fingers shaking with excitement and nervousness. I understood the meaning of those pawing hoofs, of those heavy steps and rough voices, and as I dressed I listened. But all I caught was the tramp of feet, the scrape of furniture dragged across the floor, the whinnying of horses, impatient in the rising evening wind. Once I heard the old woman's voice, but I could distinguish only the word "sheriff." Soon I heard the heavy steps pass out of the house, and the creak and rattle of saddles and bridles as the visitors mounted their horses and rode away. They went slowly. They had arranged, I assumed, some sort of litter for the wounded man. In the room below there was absolutely no sound.

For a moment I hesitated. How could I go down and face that stricken old creature to whom life had just given this final turn of its relentless screw? Then, very slowly, I descended the ladder, my back to the room, afraid to move my eyes for fear of the scene they might rest upon. It was not until I stood on the cabin floor that I dared to look around me.

The living-room was swept and in perfect order. The last reflection of the setting sun lay in a brilliant line across its immaculate floor. The door was open, affording a view of the long trail, along which the horsemen could be seen, riding slowly in single file. The kettle hung on the crane, the table was set for supper, and in the center of this peaceful scene my hostess sat alone, knitting a blue yarn sock.

Slowly she looked up at me. "Ef yo' slep' well," she said, quietly, "mou't be yer ready t' eat?"

She rose, laid down the blue sock, and began to move about the room. Speechless, I stared at her. I had thought the night before that, coming from her, no evidence of self-control could surprise me. But this uncanny poise filled me with a sort of awe. I dared not even ask a question. She had erected between us the barrier of her primitive dignity, her terrible courage. I could no more pass it than I could have broken through the thick walls of her cabin.

She placed the chair at the table, and in silence I sat down. She poured tea for me, and cut a wedge of corn bread, but I could not eat. After a few moments I gave up the effort, rose, and took my hat from the nail on which it hung. She watched me as I drew on my gloves. The action seemed to recall something to her.

"Shep," she said, casually, "he had t' borry yo' critter. Ye'll git it back soon's he kin send it."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, startled. "But--but was he able to ride--with his wound?"

She looked at me, her eyes showing the scorn of the primitive woman for such softness. "Lordy! Hawseback's same's a cradle to Shep," she muttered.

I drew a deep breath.

"They rode very slowly," I said. "I hope it won't hurt him. Good-by," and I held out my hand. "I'll walk to Clapham's. I know the way."

She put her hand in mine. In her eyes danced a sudden light, half mocking, half ecstatic. "Shep, he got off 'bout sun-up," she drawled. "Fo'ty mile along he wuz 'fo' ever sheriff come a-nigh this place!"

I could not speak, but something, I know, flashed in my face and was reflected in hers. For a moment longer her wrinkled old hand lay still in mine. She seemed loath to withdraw it, anxious to say more. Perhaps she was recalling the long vigil of the night, when we two had worked together over the unconscious form of the last of the Morans. But her vocabulary offered her nothing with which to clothe those naked hours.

"Good-by," she repeated. And she ended primly: "I wish yo' well, miss. I sho'ly hev inj'yed yo' comp'ny!"

VII

TO THE RESCUE OF MISS MORRIS

I met Grace Morris for the first time at Mrs. Hatfield's musical tea--a unique affair at which the half-dozen world-famous artists our hostess had engaged for the afternoon strove vainly to make their music heard above the care-free voices of her guests. I had isolated myself behind a potted palm in the great music-room, and was trying to distinguish the strains of Mischa Elman's playing from the conversational high notes around me when a deprecating little laugh sounded in my ear.

"It's no use," said a clear, languid young voice. "We might as well chat, too. But first _do_ rise on your toes, look over the purple plume on the fat woman's hat, and catch one glimpse of Elman's expression! He thinks we're all insane, or that he is."

I did not follow this stimulating suggestion. Instead I looked at the speaker. She was a typical New York society girl of twenty-three, or possibly twenty-four, dressed to perfection and bored to extinction, her pale, pretty features stamped with the avid expression of the chronic seeker of new sensations.

"You're Miss Iverson, aren't you?" she went on, when I had smiled my acknowledgment of her swift service across the conversational net. "My brother pointed you out to me at the theater the other night. He wants us to meet. He's one of your editors on the _Searchlight_, you know--Godfrey Morris."