Hidden Gold, Wilder Anthony [best fiction books to read TXT] 📗

Her lips, which usually framed a smile for him, curled disdainfully and he winced in spite of himself. He avoided the keen appraisement of her gaze, which seemed now to size him up, as though to probe his most secret thoughts, whereas before she had always accepted him lovingly on faith.

"Certainly, they were not matters that you would want an outsider to hear," she said, in a hard voice, "but I am very glad that I listened, father. Glad"—her voice broke a little—"even though I shall never be able to think of you again as I...."

He went to her and put his heavy hands on her shoulders, which shrank under his touch.

"Now, don't say things that you'll regret, Helen. You're the only girl I have, and I'm the only father you have, so we ought to make the best of each other, oughtn't we, eh? You're prone to hasty judgments. Don't let them run away with you now."

"Don't touch me!" He made way for her as she got to her feet. "Father,"—she tremblingly faced him, leaning for support against a corner of the bureau,—"I heard all that you said to Mr. Moran. I don't want you to tell me what we've been to each other. Don't I know that? Haven't I felt it?"

The Senator swallowed hard, touched to the quick at the sight of her suffering.

"You want me to explain it—more fully?"

"If you can. Can you?" Her lips twitched spasmodically. "I want you to tell me something that will let me continue to believe that you are—that you are—Oh, you know what I want to say." Rexhill blushed a deep purple, despite his efforts at self-control. "But what can you say, father; what can you say, after what I've heard?"

"You mean as regards young Wade? You know, I told you last night about his attack on the Sheriff. You know, too"—the blush faded as the Senator caught his stride again—"that I said I meant to crush him. You even agreed with me that he should be taught a lesson."

"But you should fight fairly," Helen retorted, with a quick breath of aggression. "Do you believe that he killed Jensen? Of course you don't. The mere idea of such a thing is absurd."

"Perhaps he planned it."

"Father!" The scorn in her tone stung him like a whip-lash. "Did he plan the warrants, too? The warrant that hasn't been issued yet, although you are going to swear that it was issued yesterday. Did he plan that?"

Once in his political career, the Senator had faced an apparent impasse and had wormed out of it through tolerant laughter. He had laughed so long and so genially that the very naturalness of his artifice had won the day for him. Men thought that if he had had a guilty conscience, he could not have seemed so carefree. He tried the same trick now with his daughter; but it was a frightful attempt and he gave it up when he saw its ill-success.

"See here, Helen," he burst out, "it is ridiculous that you should arraign me in this way. It is true that no warrant was out yesterday for Wade, but it is also true that the Sheriff intended to issue one, and it was only through my influence that the warrant was not issued. Since then Wade, besides insulting me, has proved himself a lawbreaker. I have nothing to do with the consequences of his actions, which rest entirely with him. You have overheard something that you were not intended to hear, and as is usually the case, have drawn wrong conclusions. The best thing you can do now is to try to forget what you have heard and leave the matter in my hands, where it belongs."

He had spoken dominantly and expected her to yield to his will. He was totally unprepared, well as he knew her spirit, for what followed.

She faced him with glowing eyes and her trembling lips straightened into a thin, firm line of determination. He was her father, and she had always loved him for what she had felt to be his worth; she had given him the chance to explain, and he had not availed himself of it; he was content to remain convicted in her eyes, or else, which was more likely, he could not clear himself. She realized now that, despite what she had said in pique, only the night before, she really loved Wade, and he, at least, had done nothing, except free a friend, who, like himself, was unjustly accused. She could not condemn him for that, any more than she could forget her father's duplicity.

"I won't forget it!" she cried. "If necessary, I will go to Gordon and tell him what you've done. I'll tell it to every one in Crawling Water, if you force me to. I don't want to because, just think what that would mean to you! But you shall not sacrifice Gordon. Yes, I mean it—I'll sacrifice you first!"

"Don't talk so loud," the Senator warned her anxiously, going a little white. "Don't be a fool, Helen. Why, it was only a few hours ago that you said Wade should be punished."

She laughed hysterically.

"That was only because I wanted to get him away from this awful little town. I thought that if he were—punished—a little, if he was made a laughing stock, he might be ashamed, and not want to stay here. Now, I see that I was wrong. I don't blame him for fighting with every weapon he can find. I hope he wins!"

Rexhill, who had been really frightened at her hysterical threat of exposure, and assailed by it in his pride as well, felt his fear begin to leave him and his confidence in himself return. In the next minute or two, he thought rapidly and to considerable purpose. In the past he had resolutely refused to use his child in any way to further his own ends, but the present occasion was an emergency, and major surgery is often demanded in a crisis. If she were willing, as she said, to sacrifice him, he felt that he might properly make use of her and her moods to save himself and her as well. He realized that if she were to shout abroad through Crawling Water the conversation that had passed between him and Moran, the likelihood of either of the two men getting out of the county alive would be extremely remote.

"So that was it, eh? And I complimented you upon your good sense!" His laugh was less of an effort now. "Well, doesn't it hold good now as well as it did then? Come, my dear, sit down and we'll thresh this out quietly."

She shook her head stubbornly, but the woman in her responded to the new note of confidence in his voice, and she waited eagerly for what he had to say, hopeful that he might still clear himself.

"You tell me that I must fight fair. Well, I usually do fight that way. I'm doing so now. When I spoke yesterday of crushing Wade, I meant it and I still mean it. But there are limits to what I want to see happen to him; for one thing, I don't want to see him hung for this Jensen murder, even if he's guilty."

"You know he isn't guilty."

"I think he isn't." Her eyes lighted up at this admission. "But he must be tried for the crime, there's no dodging that. The jury will decide the point; we can't. But even if he should be convicted, I shouldn't want to see him hung. Why, we've been good friends, all of us. I—I like him, even though he did jump on to me yesterday. That was why"—he leaned forward, impelled to the falsehood that hung upon his tongue by the desperate necessity of saving himself his daughter's love and respect—"I arranged with Moran to have the boy arrested on such a warrant. He is bound to be arrested"—Rexhill struck the table with his fist—"and if he should need a basis for an appeal after conviction, he could hardly have a better one than the evidence of conspiracy, which a crooked warrant would afford. I wanted to give him that chance because I realized that he had enemies here and that his trial might not be a fair one. When the right moment came I was going to have that warrant looked into."

"Father!"

Helen dropped on her knees before him, her eyelashes moist with tears and her voice vibrant with happiness.

"Why didn't you explain all that before, Father? I knew that there must be some explanation. I felt that I couldn't have loved you all my life for nothing. But do you really believe that any jury would convict Gordon of such a thing?"

"I hope not."

Never had Senator Rexhill felt himself more hopelessly a scoundrel than now as he smoothed her hair from her forehead; but he told himself that the pain of this must be less than to be engulfed in bankruptcy, or exposure, which would submerge them all. Moreover, he promised himself that if future events bore too heavily against Wade, he should be saved at the eleventh hour. The thought of this made the Senator's position less hard.

"I hope not, Helen," he repeated. "Of course, the serving of the warrant at this time will help my own interests, but since a warrant must be served, anyway, I feel justified, under the circumstances, in availing myself of this advantage."

"Y-e-s, of course," Helen agreed doubtfully. "Oh, it is all too bad. I wish none of us had ever heard of Crawling Water."

"Well, maybe the Grand Jury will not indict him, feeling runs so strong here," her father continued, and she took fresh hope at this prospect. "But, anyway, he will feel the pressure before all is done with, and very likely he'll be only too glad to dispose of his ranch and say good-by to Wyoming when he is free to do as he pleases. Then you and he can make a fresh start, eh? All will be sunshine and roses then, maybe, forever and aye."

"That's what I want to do—get away from here; and that was all I meant when I said to punish Gordon."

The Senator patted her cheek tenderly and drew a deep breath of relief.

"By the way, father," Helen said casually, when she started back to her room, a little later, "I saw Miss Purnell on the street yesterday. You know, she was out when Gordon took me to see her."

"Well, is she dangerous?"

Helen looked at him in amusement, and shrugged her shoulders.

Relieved though Helen was to some extent, by her father's assurances and by the explanation which he had given, she was far from being in a tranquil frame of mind.

She knew that whatever might be the outcome of the graver charge against Gordon, he would probably have to suffer for his release of Santry, and she found herself wishing more than ever that her lover had never seen the West. What little it had contributed to his character was not worth what it had cost already and would cost in the future. Surely, his manhood was alive enough not to have needed the development of such an environment, and if his lot had been cast in the East, she could have had him always with her. A long letter, which she had recently received from Maxwell Frayne, recounting the gayeties of New York and Washington, made her homesick. Although she could scarcely think of the two men at the same moment, still, as she sat in the crude little hotel, she would have welcomed a little of young Frayne's company for the sake of contrast. She was yearning for