Chapter XVI

To the delight of his young passengers Kurt drove at a speed never before attempted when they were with him. At the hotel there was a rallying reunion of the Top Hill family.

"Where is Pen?" Mrs. Kingdon was finally permitted to ask.

"She didn't come with us," said Kurt, grimly enjoying Hebler's quick attention. The children had been previously and carefully coached to make no mention of Pen's departure.

He made an excuse to leave the hotel parlor and went down to the office.

"Is there an aviator registered here?" he asked the clerk.

"Sure there is," replied the clerk proudly. "Larry Lamont. Some flier, too. He's going over to France soon--into the French service."

Lamont! Kurt turned a little pale. "Is he here now?"

"His things are here, but he's out with his aeroplane somewhere."

Kurt breathed a little easier and resolved to remain at the hotel until the aviator should return.

When the rest of the party came through the office on their way to the dining-room, Francis lagged behind and handed Kurt a letter which the latter abstractedly slipped into his pocket.

At dinner he was seated at the end of the table farthest removed from Mrs. Kingdon, so he had no opportunity for a word with her in regard to Pen. As they were going out from dinner she called to him:

"The children are clamoring for a movie. They don't get many opportunities to see one, and I haven't the heart to refuse them their first request after my long absence. So we are all going. Will you come, too?"

"I can't, I fear. I have a little matter of business to attend to, but I will be here after the picture show."

"I imagine we will not be back very soon. Billy always insists on seeing a picture twice at least."

Kurt remained in the office when the others had gone. Presently the clerk said to him: "Here comes Lamont now!"

A slim, graceful-looking young man smoking a cigarette was just swinging in from the street.

Instantly Kurt went forward to meet him.

"Mr. Lamont?" he asked.

"Yes," admitted the aviator warily.

"My name is Walters. I'm from the ranch where Miss Lamont has been visiting. Are you her brother?"

Lamont shook the ashes from his cigarette.

"I beg your pardon," he replied coldly. "I have no sister."

He passed on, leaving Kurt still at sea as to the relationship of the aviator and Pen.

Then he heard Lamont addressing the clerk.

"I want to leave an early call for the first east-bound."

Kurt went out on the street. He could always think more clearly in the open, and he felt that he had much need for thought. Added to his other disturbing emotions was the most stinging one of jealousy. The truth that struck home was the knowledge that the supposed theft of the ring hadn't made him so wretched as the assurance that she loved another--was another's. He hadn't been jealous before--not of Jo nor even of Hebler, but he instinctively felt that this Romeo-like youth whom she had sought was the one who had the first claim.

"He shall not have her!" he muttered when he had walked the streets for some time. "I'll take her from him--from everyone."

He went to the little theatre to tell the Kingdons that he should remain in town all night. Kingdon could drive the car home and Hebler could run the racer.

He walked into the little lobby. The bill boards showed him it was a wild and wholly western scenario, and he felt certain that no less than two performances would satisfy Billy's cravings. He went inside and stood scanning the well-filled house until he located his little party well up in front--children's choice of seats. He started down the aisle. The preliminary pictures of the cast were being shown. On the screen flashed the lines:

THE THIEF
or
MEG O' THE PRAIRIES
_By Bobbie Burr_

A picture of "Meg O' the Prairies" followed. Kurt turned and walked back to the last row of seats, the only ones vacant.

The theatre was dark. An improvised orchestra was essaying something that sounded like strains of Dixie, Columbia, America and the Star-Spangled Banner combined, and the audience were continually standing up and sitting down, in a state of bewilderment and doubt as to which was the national air.

Then suddenly on the white screen was enacted the regulation, popular style of Western play. Ranch settings, tough bar-room, inevitable cowboys, bandits, Indians, and lovers twain, held the audience enthralled. There were the many hair-breadth escapes, pursuits, timely rescues featuring the one girl, daughter of a ranchman, attired in semi-cowboy regalia, who rode like mad and performed all kinds of wonderful feats, and for whose hand the hero, villain and cowboys hazarded their lives and fortunes. The old, old picture that came with the first film and will last while there are boys and men with the hearts of boys. Look upon it tenderly, promoters of educational pictures and uplifting reels, for it carries a romance never attained in reality and irresistibly appeals to the idealism of young blood and young hearts.

For an instant, when the first picture of "The Thief" was thrown on the screen, Kurt felt a queer sensation as one who intuitively perceives something of danger in the dark. A swift, warning note like a sharp pain struck him.

With tense nerves, he waited for the scenes in which she would appear. All the little well-remembered gestures, the graceful movements, the tender graces which he had been wont to steel himself against were there. They brought him a feeling that was exquisite in its pain. With no outward show of emotion his whole being quivered and throbbed at each appearance of the boyish figure ever recurring on the screen.

Once her eyes, wistful and entreating, seemed to meet his in mute reproach. Then the little theater was lighted, the improvised orchestra renewed its efforts. He went quickly out and stopped at the hotel to leave a note for Kingdon. Again he walked and lost himself in memories, seeing as in a mirror all the incidents that had so intrigued his interest, but which now in the light of his new understanding seemed so very patent.

Suddenly he recalled her letter still unread. That might show some motive for her incognito and explain her arrest by Bender.

He returned to the hotel. The hour was very late. He learned that the ranch party had long since departed and that Larry Lamont had gone to his room.

With a queer little catch of expectancy in his throat, he held the letter for a moment pressed tight in his hand. Then he opened it.

"TO KURT WALTERS, EX-ACTING SHERIFF.

"In taking _French_ leave, I feel that it is due you to inform you
who your prisoner really is.

"I was to the stage born. In fact, nearly stage-born, as my mother
played her part almost up to the night I made my debut in the great
game of Life. My childhood was spent mostly in the flies, and my
earliest memories are of being propped up on an impromptu, triangular
divan formed by a piece of wood stuck between two joists and covered
with cushions; of watching my mother use lip stick and other make-up
things; of hearing the warning knock and admonition: 'Thirty minutes,
Miss Lamont;' (No 'Mrs.' in stage lore, you know) and later, 'Fifteen
minutes Miss Lamont;' of her cheery response, 'Yes, Parks,' and of
her never hurrying or being flustered by the flight of time; of her
giving me a sticky kiss as the final peremptory call came. Everyone
in the company mothered me, so I was not neglected--doubtless
received too much attention. I was a very nimble kidlet, and at an
early age the stage carpenter, who had once been in a circus, taught
me to walk a taut rope and to perform acrobatic feats.

"In due course I played juvenile leads. When I attained the young and
tender grass age, I was sent away to school, my mother having been a
shrewd manager and investor. The school was equipped with a fine
gymnasium; riding and dancing academies were attached. In all of
these institutions I excelled.

"When I was sixteen, my mother died, and I went on the stage. I
didn't inherit her talent as an actress, having only mediocre
ability, but I had a carrying voice, personality, and could dance, so
I soon left the legitimate stage for vaudeville where I made
something like a hit.

"Bruce Hebler, who is a motion picture man, persuaded me to come into
film land, and if you didn't live at the end of the trail and forego
all things that make good cheer, you might have recognized me from
billboard pictures and magazine pages as the star of certain woolly
West productions. Jo recognized me at once as Bobbie Burr.

"This spring I was a bit under the weather, because we really have to
work like dogs and some of our daring stunts--which are not always
faked--do get on our nerves, you see. I had to have a vacation, after
which I needed another, and was advised to seek recuperation in your
hills. My objective point was one hundred or more miles from here at
a sort of little isolated inn. En route I missed connections, and
having no enthusiasm about my destination, I stayed over in the town
nearest Top Hill. In a local paper I read of the arrest of a
'hardened young criminal.' I was curious to see what species of my
sex that might be, and followed my impulse to visit her at the jail.
Your friend, Bender, gave me permission to visit the 'hardened young
criminal.' She was a girl of my own age, size, and altogether what I
or any girl could easily have been had it not been for the accident
of birth, conditions and environment.

"Fortunately she was an admirer of Bobbie Burr, and I won her
confidence and story--Marta's story, which you already know. Things
and people had made her put up a bluff of being hardened, but there
had come, as you know, the newly awakened desire to 'live
straight--like folks who didn't get caught.' To use her own words,
'she wasn't going to let a grand man like _him_ wish himself on such
as me.' I felt, then, that thief or no thief, she was the real thing.
I only knew one way to get her release and I was rather keen for
adventure. We exchanged dress skirts, shoes, hats and coats. I gave
her some money, the key to my hotel room, trunk and suitcase and told
her to take the next train out while the going was good, and not to
show up at the hotel until the night clerk, who had not seen me, came
on. I also gave her a letter to some good friends of mine in a town
farther west, I knew they would be kind to her, ask no questions and
let her stay until she was squared about.

"It was done on an impulse--in a flash--one of those kaleidoscopic
impulses we have, but back of it was the wish to help some one, and
the curiosity to see if her love, aided by the opportunity, would
suffice to reform the kind of girl she was supposed to be.

"She left the jail in my outer clothes, and I stayed in her shabby
garments. Old Bender never suspected the transfer. It would have been
very easy for me with my agility gained in screen stunts to have
swung out from any part of that old jail, and still easier to have
given you the slip en route to Top Hill, but I wanted Marta to have
plenty of time to get to a far cover before the mistake was
discovered.

"Playing a part was second nature to me. I really felt that for the
time being I was Marta, but a different Marta from the real one. I
always enter into my roles with all my being, so I set the role of a
real thief for myself and played up to it so intently that I all but
lost my own personality. It was the kind of Marta that Bender
supposed her to be who talked to you on that memorable ride to Top
Hill. Your wish to be helpful to an unfortunate girl touched me and
might have won me to confiding in you, but you were so stern and
sometimes so repellant in your manner, I was afraid to trust you. I
wasn't sure you would be equal to rising above your chagrin at
finding you had been taken in by a 'movie actress' and that you might
apprehend poor little Marta.

"By morning I was curious to know your idea of 'the best woman in the
world.' Then, too, I thought I could find my needed tonic in your
hills and better accommodations than I could obtain at a hotel. So I
continued to play my part. When I saw Mrs. Kingdon, I realized she
_was_ the best woman in the world. She, like Jo, recognized me at
once, having seen me rehearsing in San Francisco. I had the whim to
stay incognito and she humored me, insisting, however, that you
should be told the next day. But the next day you had gone. In the
week that followed I learned the beauty of a home life, hitherto
unknown to me.

"Of course those stunts you saw me doing on field day were mere
'horse play' compared with what I have to do in making the pictures.
When I met you for a brief space of time that afternoon, I had no
opportunity to make my disclosure. When you returned, Mrs. Kingdon
was away and I couldn't resist the temptation to play on in my new
part. Any one's personality seems more pleasing to me than my own,
and I still felt as if I were really Marta.

"My early ideals of manly suitors were patterned slightly on your
model; it piqued me, I admit, that you didn't seem to fall for a
little romance with me, as many suitors had done.

"When I saved Francis from being thrown (I've turned that trick many
a time in pictures) I felt that I had in a way repaid Mrs. Kingdon
for her hospitality. You were so homey and nice that night, I almost
'fessed up. I did my best to make you care more--and I thought I had
succeeded; but you still made reservations and I thought your
reluctance came from my past--Marta's past--

"That night as I stood at my window vaguely regretting my deception,
Jo came along. I flew down to him and told him that I had heard from
Marta, and we had a nice long talk together. I told him she was
living 'straight,' but I respected her wish not to let him know where
she was.

"I don't know why, as time went on, I didn't tell you who I was.
Maybe it was natural perversity, or the fateful habit of playing a
part.

"I ran away to town that day you were all absent and met Larry
Lamont, my cousin, the only kinsman I have. He was once a
harum-scarum lad and did some flying acts for a company I was with,
and one day when he was laid off for 'reasons,' I gave him a calling
down and advised him to go to an aviation school and learn to fly
scientifically. I hadn't heard from him until I saw him at the hotel,
and found he had made good and joined the flying service of France.

"Marta's unexpected arrival upset things. I knew that Mrs. Kingdon
was interested in my account of her and in her love for Jo; also that
she intended to help them eventually, but I did not know she had
communicated with Marta during her own absence. Hebler's sudden
appearance was the last straw. He insists I am under contract for
another of the wild and woolly pictures I am so tired of playing. I
am not posted on the legality of contracts, and it seemed easier to
dodge him until he should have to secure some one else. You were very
nice about offering to help me evade him. Some way the return of
Marta and the sudden arrival of Hebler made me realize I had been
playing a part. That night in the library when you told me you loved
me and asked me to marry you, I was really myself. I was surprised by
the discovery that you loved me; but I wasn't sure of my own
feelings. I felt I must think more about it, so pursuing my usual
tactics I ran away.

"On passing Hebby's door, that gaudy diamond flashed before me. I'll
leave the theft an unsolved mystery.

"When I was forced to reveal my presence to Hebler, I felt that I had
balled things up hopelessly and that the only avenue of escape lay in
flight--my long suit.

"My only solace in all this bungling mess I have made is that I have
brought Jo and Marta together.

"With you at the ranch and Hebler in town, I don't know how I could
make my getaway but for Larry. I have telephoned him and he is to
meet me near here, and by the time my little carrier dove delivers
this, I shall be en route--for France. I'm weary of movies, and life
is a delusion anyway.

"I admit it was wrong to deceive you--after the necessity for so
doing had passed. You were kind--in intent; still, you might have
been a wee bit nicer, don't you think?

"Regretfully,
"PENELOPE."

"P. S. Does it hurt _now_ that I use your mother's name?"

He read this letter as one who dreams and is but half conscious that it is a dream. He read it again and again, each time grasping bit by bit the realization of its contents and what they meant to him.

"She was right," he thought. "I didn't know what love meant. I do now--now that I missed it. I've lost her more surely than if she were a 'hardened, young criminal.' I shall never try to find her."

It was hardly sunrise when he went down to the office.

"I should like to speak to Mr. Lamont when he comes down," he said to the clerk.

"He has gone," was the reply. "He came down before his call and has gone to the train."

"Maybe it is just as well," thought Kurt. "There is really no message I could send to her."

"See the picture last night?" asked the clerk chattily. "The Thief, or Meg O' The Prairies. Great picture!"

"Yes; I saw it," replied Kurt dismally.

"I always go to see Bobbie Burr. She's my favorite. There was a girl here the other day who was a dead ringer for her. She had dinner with Lamont here. I read in a magazine that she gets a big salary. I forget the figures, but it was more per week than some folks earn in a lifetime."

Kurt's heart registered more downward beats.

He hung about the office until the dining-room was open and then went in and perfunctorily consumed some food. Later he called up an acquaintance and asked the loan of his car. It was sent around to the hotel, and he was just about to start for the ranch when a well-known voice behind him said:

"May I ride out to Top Hill with you?"

For a moment the blood left his heart and then returned so rapidly it left him quite pale.

"Larry said you were here. I came back on the train just now. I want to go to the ranch for--my things. Will you take me?"

"Yes," he said abstractedly.