CHAPTER V

Allston, at first, was not inclined to take the situation seriously. The scene, like an act of melodrama, was not sufficiently motivated to convince him. Here was a dark, scowling figure of a man on horseback planted squarely in the middle of the moonlit road--a villain made to order. Clinging to his arm, Allston felt the tight grip of Roxie’s warm fingers--the heroine if one wished so to consider her. And he--well, it looked as though he were cast for the part of hero. But he did not know his lines.

Had this been France and a year ago, he would have been quick enough to react to the danger. The world was at war then and he was tuned up to it. Often enough on night patrol he had walked straight into the heart of even grimmer drama than this and played his rôle like a veteran, with life the penalty of a miscue.

But he had left all that behind him. The world was now at peace. It was surprising how quickly he had been able to forget that trees meant possible ambush and that moonlight in open spaces was a source of deadly danger. Men no longer were enemies and beautiful young women no longer needed rescuers. Civilization had reasserted her rights and bade men walk once again relaxed and at their ease.

Even at this moment, Allston viewed the scene more as an effective picture than anything else. Bud, lank and lean, made rather a striking figure of the solitary horseman type. He had jerked up the mare’s head, and she, a bit frightened by the figures in the shadows, pricked forward her ears and snorted impatiently. In the silver light the two were rather spooky. As they stood there, silent and immobile now, it would not have greatly surprised Allston if it developed that the rider had no head.

But Roxie Kester knew better. The man before her was no apparition. He was a grim reality. And his silence did not imply passiveness. She understood the meaning of that slight forward bend of his head and the significance of that quietly moving arm creeping towards the gun at his hip. And she knew better than anything else the interpretation Bud would place upon the presence of this stranger by her side. Her wildly beating heart--beating like a frightened bird at the approach of a hostile hand--told her that.

Yet for a moment she also stood transfixed. She like the two men resembled a figure cut out of black paper. It was as though the night birds had also come to this conclusion, for softly, here and there in the trees and bushes roundabout, they ventured forth once more into cooing calls.

Roxie was the first to speak. She moved forward a step, and thereby, without any realization on Allston’s part of what she was doing, placed herself between the two men.

“Hullo, Bud,” she said.

“Hullo, Roxie,” he answered.

“I’m goin’ hum ’cause ma’s sick,” she explained.

“Yo’ ma’s sick?”

“Little Tom Culley--he sent word.”

“Needed a stranger ter show the way, I reckon?”

“He’s a frien’ o’ Miss Wilmer,” she answered almost eagerly.

“Then,” said Bud, deliberately--“then he oughter stay with Miss Wilmer. It ain’t healthy in these hills--fer strangers.”

Bud had reached his gun. He brought it forward, at this point, rather ostentatiously, and rested it on the pummel of his saddle.

“Bud!” cried Roxie.

But Allston, in the meanwhile, had reached his own gun. He had no desire to force any issue here unless it proved necessary. His instinct, however, warned him that he could no longer keep himself in the background. His temper, moreover, had been pricked by the studied insolence of Bud’s reference to strangers. When he acted, he acted quickly. With his raised automatic he jumped forward.

“Throw down that gun,” he ordered.

Bud made a motion and Allston fired. He was a sure shot and he had learned well his lesson that when any firing is to be done, it is well to fire first. He aimed at the weapon in Bud’s hand and the gun spun out of the lean fingers into the bushes. The mare jumped and Roxie screamed. The birds in the woods became instantly hushed. With an oath Bud checked his horse and turned as though to ride the two down. But the automatic was still leveled and the brown eyes behind it quite untroubled.

“Steady there,” warned Allston.

“You ugly, pink-cheeked hornyhead,” choked Bud, “I’ll cut yer heart out fer that.”

“Steady,” repeated Allston.

“It ain’t healthy here fer strangers, particular when they messes in somethin’ that don’t concern ’um.”

“But when it does concern them?” questioned Allston.

Bud turned from Allston to Roxie. She shrank closer to her protector which exasperated Bud still more.

“Like ’um pink-cheeked and white-fingered, don’ cha,” he growled.

Allston lost the last remnant of his patience at that. He pulled the girl to the side of the road.

“Now,” he commanded, “you move on.”

Helpless Bud turned his horse in the direction of the Kester house.

“Not that way--this,” ordered Allston pointing to his rear.

His voice was metallic. His words were as decisive as a military order. Men from Gibraltar to Timbuktu recognize that quality.

Bud swung his horse and with an oath cantered past the two. Allston stood facing in the same direction until assured by the receding clatter of the hoofs merging into the forest silence that the man did not pull up when out of sight. Then he thrust his automatic back in his pocket.

Almost impatiently, he turned to the girl. He found her bright eyes upraised to his. Her pretty face was flushed with excitement--and something more. In the tender, softening light of the moon--lovers’ light--he caught an expression which brought the color to his own cheeks. He breathed a little faster as he allowed his eyes to meet her eyes. Her lips were tight as though she were deliberately making them tight to imprison her tongue. Her head was a little back--a quite unconscious pose of silent supplication. Her body was lax. Her arms hung loosely by her side--the long, slender arms of a girl.

To Allston at the moment she seemed almost a product of the forest, like some delicate fern bred in the wild, but possessing an exquisiteness beyond the reach of the most skilled florists; possessing, too, the sturdiness that Nature gives, but which the hothouse sacrifices. Again she reminded him of some of those young women of France at once so intensely human and so instinctively spiritual. There were such faces, passed in the day’s grim work, which still haunted him. So, he felt, this face before him always would haunt him.

The moonlight--the moonlight! The silence--the silence! The hush of a stilled world with all harsh things made beautiful by night! The girl with eager, motionless lips, one with the growing things that bid a man take as he finds!

Allston shook himself free from the spell, breathing deeply.

“Come,” he said, “it--it is time we went on.”

Slowly, like a drooping flower, Roxie’s head lowered. Her limp arms stiffened. Her lips tightened even more. She fell into step by his side as he led the way at a faster pace than before along the mountain road leading to her home.

Where the circuitous path ended in a clearing before her house, Allston left her.

“I guess you’re safe enough now, Roxie.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“And I hope you won’t find your mother very sick. If you think there’s anything more I can do--”

“No, sir,” she broke in hurriedly, “I reckon there ain’t--isn’t.”

“Then we’ll see you in the morning?”

“I’ve gotter git yo’ breakfast.”

“Not if your mother needs you.”

“I’ve gotter git yo’ breakfast.”

“We can manage somehow.”

“I’ve gotter cook you hot muffins. Miss Wilmer she cain’t do that.”

“Can’t she?” he smiled. “Then we must manage without them.”

“No, sir. I gotter do that.”

“Well, we’ll see. If you don’t come I’ll call here in the morning.”

She looked frightened.

“I reckon yer better not,” she decided.

“Eh?”

“Yer better not.”

“But I will,” he replied.

“Please, Mister Allston--that Bud--”

Allston shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“I’ll let him do the worrying.”

“Only yer don’t know Bud. He don’t ferget.”

“That ought to be in my favor--if he doesn’t forget,” he suggested. “But you don’t think for a moment he’s going to keep me off the road?”

“No,” she answered instantly. “That’s why I’m afeard fer you.”

There was almost a mother light in her eyes. Impulsively Allston took one of her warm hands in his.

“You’re a good little girl,” he said tenderly. “But you’ve got worries enough of your own without including me. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” she answered.

Her voice was as cooing low and sweet as that of a night bird. He dropped her hand and started to retrace his steps. Once he turned. He found her looking after him.

“Good-night,” he called back. “Don’t worry.”

But Roxie stood there, never moving until she could no longer hear even the lightest trace of his footsteps. Then she lifted her eyes to the stars. They smiled back at her. She thought they were like his eyes. Only they were so high--so dizzily far away. They were above the house, above the trees, above even the heights of Caterpillar Ridge, above Green Mountain, which was the highest place she knew about. They were almost as high as God. He lived there among them. And yet the preacher said that He was always near--right around us everywhere. So the stars must be nearer than they looked. So perhaps the eyes of the Prince might be nearer than they seemed. Things could be far away and yet very near. That was confusing. Also it was comforting. The puzzled frown left her face as she pushed open the door and went in.

She found her mother busy about her normal tasks and showing no evidence of illness. But the sight, instead of bringing her relief, roused a new fear.

“Tom Culley said yuh was tuk sick,” explained Roxie, as her mother observed her entrance with as much surprise as she ever showed about anything. Her emotions had ceased to be more than the ghostly relics of emotions long since dead. She had exhausted them years before. Resignation had taken their place.

“I ain’t sick,” she answered with a slow shake of her head. “How cum Tom Culley to say thet?”

Her pale eyes squinting from a meager, desiccated face, white as wax, listlessly met the quick young eyes of her daughter.

The answer was clear enough to Roxie. It explained the presence of Bud Childers in the middle of the road. The girl turned towards the door.

“I’m a-goin’ back,” she said.

“Goin’ back?”

But Roxie sprang for the latch. If Bud Childers had laid for her such a plot as this, the incident would not end there. He would be waiting for Allston to return. She threw open the door and ran out into the night; straight down the rocky mountain road. And as she ran, she called his name.

“Mister Allston! Mister Allston!”

There was no answer. Allston, far ahead, was walking fast.