Bright Arrows (23 page)

Thus he mused there on that mountaintop with that awesome sky staring down into his soul--he hadn't believed before that he had a soul, but there was no question now. He had a soul, and he felt already that it was doomed. He cast frightened eyes around, shook his fist at the wide sky, and turned his glance downward. Was that the messenger coming back?

It was!

He strode down the mountainside to meet him, to grasp the newspaper the man held out, and there he saw his own name in large letters, as a suspect in a murder case!

His eyes hurried down the page. There was his own life history written out, staring him in the face. The sky above and the newspaper below, and he caught between! What should he do now?

Quickly his eyes hurried down the page, taking in whole sentences in a word or two. Yes, they had dug up the story of his life. It hadn't been a long life, but there were as many crime situations as if he had been an old man. It was somehow terrible to be confronted by these things he had done; so many of them he had considered mere jokes when he began. He had never faced his life as a whole. One crime at a time hadn't been so bad, but here was a lifetime of them. It is true that some of the crimes listed were not his; they rightly belonged to the people for whom he was working, those older in crime than he was. But they were charged on him because he had been the blind to save the others. A mere lock tampered with, and he was charged with robbery of hundreds of thousands of dollars. A little note delivered innocently it seemed, and he was charged with a kidnapping crime that almost resulted in the death of the child kidnapped, and did result in what promised to be lifelong illness for the mother of the child. A moment's use of a pen in his skilled fingers, forging a check, and a whole family was plunged into poverty. So it read in the words of a skilled columnist.

Suddenly horror, conviction, and fear greater than he had ever felt before were in Ellery's eyes as he turned to look at the grim messenger who was grinning admiringly at him.

"Well, I see you got away with a good deal, kid! I guess you really rate being one of us at last! What d'ye say, men?" And he turned toward the other men who had straggled down from the cabin where they herded and were reaching for the paper, stretching their necks to read the stark headlines! "Shall we take the kid inta the innermost and give him a really big job to celebrate with?"

And the voices of the other men were raised in a furtive growl of assent.

Then suddenly there was a hush, as a hand of an old one was raised in a warning gesture. The hush was intense, to men who lived continually under caution driven by fear.

"Psst!" came a low hiss. "What's
that
?"

A dozen pairs of eyes went down the mountainside, in the direction from which the messenger had just arrived, a devious path that they thought was only known to themselves.

Yes, there was a sound! A falling stone! Snapping of dry twigs and branches. A second more and then the quick measured tramping of feet. Horses' hooves ringing against the rock.

One look! The shadow of dark forms among the trees. But the men had scattered in every direction until there was not a hint of one of them anywhere. Not even in the cabin. They had long been drilled for an occasion like this. They knew where to hide.

But it was Ellery who felt that he was the main target for this arrival of the law. They were coming to take him away forever. The state police!

He turned with a great gasp, his hands raised above his thrown-back head, and dashed away from the oncoming posse. Then a bullet whistled through the air, a sharp pain went through his left hand, and his right hand sought the gun that was always his companion now. But a second whistled past his ear, a third shot the gun out of his hand, shattered his wrist, and made him know that the end had come. In desperation he turned, dashed straight for the cliff, and was gone! Down, down to the depths of a frightful chasm, where he lay crumpled on the sharp stones below. It was the final resort of all who came to that hideout, in case of discovery.

It was the mounted police who had at last penetrated the till then mysterious hideout of the gang of outlaws. The authorities had been sure for some time that the gangsters were entrenched somewhere in this part of the mountain, and when that day, early in the morning, an unknown Westerner, riding a swift horse, came into town, purchased a few eatables, sent a strange coded message by telegraph, and then disappeared, they gathered their forces furtively and watched him until he started out of town.

No watching citizen saw them follow him, for they had well canvassed what they would do if there was any chance of following a stranger. They hastened one by one to a place appointed and, keeping in the distance, followed the swift horse. So they had arrived just after the messenger had climbed up to the rendezvous.

But now they scattered and searched out the different hiding places around the cabin, set fire to the cabin itself, and shot or disabled all the gang, piling them into the truck they had left just below the last rise of the hill. They were all there save one, and he was lying at the foot of the gorge.

They sent a couple of men down to find his broken body, and the next day the papers came out with an account of the raid and capture of all the gang then present and the death of the man whose crimes had been enumerated in the paper the day before. People read, exclaimed, shook accusing heads, and murmured how everyone ought to be sure their sin would find them out.

But the word did not get back to Glencarroll for several days, except to the police and the few who had been most interested, and when it finally got into the papers, the whole matter was toned down so that the town gossips did not get hold of it. Just a notice that the robber who had tried to break into the Thurston house had been found and was dead from the effect of a fall over a cliff after he had been shot by the state troopers. Some wise, kind friends saved Eden from further gossipmongers, and the matter passed into the unknown. Eden was only told that the Fanes had been caught and would worry her no more.

 

But Eden was having troubles of her own and didn't even realize that she had not seen the paper that morning. Niles Nevin had just arrived and asked to see her, and she was hastening to change into pleasant garments and go down to meet him, wondering if his mother was better or worse and how she should greet him. She was rather surprised that her immediate conviction was that she still did not want to go to New York to visit them. Well, she would try to be pleasant and friendly, but she would make him understand that she hadn't much time to write letters, either.

The young man came eagerly out to the hall to meet her as she arrived downstairs.

"Eden!" he said. "I'm so glad to see you. It has been wretched to have to have you stay away from us so long, and this is the first opportunity I've had to get away from home. One can't say much over the telephone, especially when the whole family, including nurses and doctors, are around, barging in and listening to everything you say. And besides, Dad hasn't been well, either, and I've had to be down at the office with him a lot. An awful bore. I just hate business. But I knew you would understand why I have been so silent."

"Why, of course," said Eden briskly. "I think it is perfectly excusable. You know, I've been accustomed to caring for sick people, so I understood at once. And I've been awfully busy myself. How is your mother now? Is she really better? I suppose she must be, or you wouldn't be here today."

"Why, I can't say that she's really a whole lot better," said the young man. "She seems terribly weak and not a bit like herself. But they took her to the hospital today for some special treatment that couldn't very well be done at home, and that let me out. The doctor feels this treatment may help her a lot, and he didn't think I should go with her today, so I ran off the first thing this morning. Of course, I'll have to go back tonight, for they may bring Mother home this evening, but when I got a chance I had to run right down here to see you. There is something I've been meaning to tell you, Eden, for a long time. In fact, the thought came to me when I first saw you, but you've been so standoffish, and all the time making excuses, that I thought I would wait until you came to see us. That would be a more propitious time. I wanted you to see my home and know my family, though, of course, you're fond of Vesta, and that ought to tell you a good deal what the rest are like."

"Yes," said Eden. "Well, of course, I was sorry not to accept your delightful invitation, and I'm sure I shall like your family when I have the opportunity of knowing them, but you mustn't be apologetic. I understood, of course, you couldn't have company when there was sickness in your home."

"Oh, but you don't understand," said the young man earnestly. "I haven't come down here to apologize or to try to be polite or anything. And I haven't time to be artistic or conventional about it. I
must
get back this afternoon, so I haven't any time to waste. I think, if you don't mind, I'll just go to the point at once."

"Why, yes, of course," said Eden. "What is it?"

"Well, if you want it bluntly, all right. I came over to--ask you to marry me. If it's all right with you, I thought we could go ahead and get the knot tied today maybe, and then you could go home along with me. We could have all kinds of a good time. Hit the high spots, you know. It may sound a bit rushing to you, but we certainly have had time enough to think it over, and my mind is made up. Besides, it isn't as if it were out of the ordinary. Everybody's doing it now, you know, getting married in a hurry. How about it? Are you satisfied to have it that way? If there are any details, we can talk them over on the way back to New York. Okay with you, Eden?"

Eden looked at him in startled astonishment, and then when she saw he was awaiting an answer, she simply smiled as if he had been joking, and answered very firmly.

"No, it certainly is not all right with me. I have no idea of marrying you, Niles, either now or at any other time. Sorry to disappoint you, but really that's no reason to get married, you know, to have a good time and hit the high spots." She gave him another of her amused smiles and settled back in her chair more at ease than she had been since he arrived.

"Oh, now, Eden, don't be difficult! Don't say you have to get a lot of togs for a trousseau and all that. We both have money enough to get you about what you want in any line afterward, and just now it's an emergency on account of my mother. It seems it's important that I'm along with her on the journey to California and afterward, or she won't hear of going. I guess it's got to be that way. The doctor says he can't cross her now. Her life depends on her being calm and happy."

"Why, yes, of course. I should think you'd go, of course."

"But I can't go without you, Eden. I'm awfully fond of you, you know, and we've been separated long enough. I just won't take it any longer. You know you're fond of me, Eden, and we've really been so little together that you haven't any idea how nice I am."

Eden laughed good-naturedly.

"Oh, yes, Niles, I know you're nice. Haven't I lived with your adoring sister for a good many months and heard her sing your praises every waking hour in the day? And I really like you a lot, Niles. But not enough to marry you. I don't think just liking is the basis for marriage, do you? And until I find somebody I really love with all my heart and who loves me that way, I shall not consider marriage."

"You're crazy, Eden. That's ridiculous! I suppose what I feel for you is really what
you
call love, though the word is a bit out-of-date, isn't it? Really smart people don't use it anymore. It smacks too much of what they used to call 'passion,' to be in vogue with nice people, don't you think?"

Eden stared at the young man speculatively and then shook her head.

"No, I don't feel that way," she said decidedly. "I think
love
is the grandest word in the world. It is used all the way through the Bible. You can't find any higher source than the Bible. And marriage in the Bible is intended to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and His Church. Something most dear and precious and wonderful."

"Good night!" said the self-sufficient young man annoyedly. "If you are going to hark back to antiques like the Bible, I don't see that we are ever to agree on real essentials. The Bible doesn't count in these days. Don't you know that yet? Of course, I always knew you were religiously inclined, and I shouldn't at all object to that, provided you kept it in the background, but this bringing it up to hinder your marriage to me is a little too much. I couldn't be expected to stand that. You'll have to leave the Bible out of the discussion."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to leave me out," said Eden. "The Bible is to me the dearest book on earth. It not only is precious, but I have taken it to be my guide in living. So you can see plainly that you and I would never fit together. Suppose we change the subject. What does the doctor say about your mother? Is she really going to get entirely well, and will she be able to take the Western trip soon?"

"Why, certainly," said the young man crossly. "But I do not think it is pleasant of you to change the subject when I have been trying to make it plain to you that you are the one I have chosen out of the whole world to make my wife, and you act as if you were simply playing with me, as a cat would play with a mouse."

Eden looked at him gravely.

"No, Niles, I am not playing. I certainly made it plain to you from the start that I could not go away this season and that I was
not
'crazy' about you, as you say. I am a good friend, if that is what you want, but that is
all
, and I am
not
in love with you. I am not marrying anybody that I do not love."

"Is there someone else you do love?" asked the young man suddenly, looking at her with demanding eyes. "
Is
there? Because I've
got
to know that, or I can't go on."