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

with her for a moment in the hallway, "the Purnells seem to think that you and Mr. Moran had better not go too far. The people here are very much wrought up."

He patted her shoulder affectionately.

"You leave all that to me and go write to your mother."

There was nothing else for her to do, so she returned to the parlor. When she had finished her letters, she idly picked up a week-old copy of a Denver newspaper which lay on the table and glanced through the headlines. She was yawningly thinking of bed, when Moran came into the room.

"Oh, are you and father through at last?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling. "That is, we're through upstairs. I'm on my way over to the office to straighten up a few loose ends before I turn in. There's no rest for the weary, you know."

"Don't let me keep you, then," she said dryly, as he lingered. "I'm going to bed."

"You're not keeping me. I'm keeping myself." He quite understood her motive, but he was not thin-skinned, and he had learned that he had to make his opportunities with her. "Your father told me you were getting anxious."

"Not anxious, tired."

"Things are getting a little warm here, but before there's any real danger we expect to have the soldiers here to take charge."

He rather ostentatiously displayed his bandaged wrist, hoping to win her sympathy, but she professed none. Instead, she yawned and tapped her lips with her fingers, and her indifference piqued him.

"I was talking with Dorothy Purnell this afternoon," Helen finally remarked, eyeing him lazily, "and she seems to be of the opinion that you'll have hard work arresting Gordon Wade. I rather hope that you do."

"Well—" He teetered a little on his feet and stroked his mustache. "We may have, at that. Miss Purnell is popular and she can make a lot of trouble for us if she wants to. Being very fond of Wade, she's likely to do all that she can."

"Would she really have so much influence?" Helen asked, carefully guarding her tongue.

He laughed softly as though amused at the thought.

"Influence? Evidently you don't realize what a good looking girl means in a frontier town like this. She's part sister, part mother, sweetheart and a breath from Heaven to every man in Crawling Water. On that account, with one exception, I've had to import every last one of my men. The exception is Tug Bailey, who's beyond hope where women are concerned. To all the rest, Dorothy Purnell is 'Wade's girl,' and they wouldn't fight against her, or him, for all the money in Wyoming."

He was watching her keenly as he spoke, and was gratified to see spots of color spring to her cheeks.

"How interesting!" Helen could make her tone indifferent to the point of languor, but she could not keep the gleam of jealousy out of her eyes. "Gordon is a fortunate man to have such an able ally, isn't he?"

"The finish will decide that, I should say," Moran replied sneeringly. "She may stir up more trouble than all her friends can take care of."

For all of her social schooling, Helen was not proof against the sneer in his words, even though she fully saw through his purpose to wound her. She felt her temper rising, and with it came curiosity to learn how far the relationship between Wade and Dorothy Purnell had really gone. That Moran would exaggerate it, she felt sure, for he had his own ends to gain, but possibly from out of his exaggeration she could glean some truth. Yet she did not want to go so far in her anger as to gratify his malice, and this placed her in something of a dilemma.

"I don't believe that she is 'Wade's girl,' as you call her, at all," she said coldly. "They may be good friends, and if so, I'm glad; but they are nothing more than that. There is no 'understanding' between them."

Moran carelessly waved his hand in the direction of the rain-swept street, illuminated now and then by the lightning.

"Ask any one in Crawling Water."

"That sounds well, but it's impracticable, even if I wanted to do it. I prefer to draw my own conclusions."

The agent drew up a chair with his well hand, and sat down with that easy familiarity that came so natural to him. Helen watched him, lazily impertinent.

"I've been wanting to have a talk with you, Helen," he began, "and this looks like a good chance to me. You've been foolish about Wade. Yes, I know that you're thinking that I've got my own ends to further, which is true enough. I have. I admit it. But what I am going to tell you is true, also. Fortune's been playing into my hand here lately. Now, if you'll be reasonable, you'll probably be happier. Shall I go on?"

"Wild horses couldn't stop you," she answered, amused that he seemed flattered. "But if we were in Washington, I fancy I'd have you shown out."

"We're not in Washington, my dear girl." He wagged his finger at her, in the way her father had, to give emphasis to his words. "That's where you've made your mistake with Wade. We're all just plain men and women out here in the cattle country, and I'm talking its language, not the language of drawing-rooms." He was himself a little surprised at the swift dilation of her pupils, but his words had probed deeper than he knew, reminding her as they did of the truth which she had so fully realized that afternoon. "Wade liked you—loved you, maybe, in Chicago, but this ain't the East. He cares nothing for you here, and he'd never be happy away from here. You know that picture of yourself that you sent to him?" She nodded. "Well, we found it on the floor of his room, covered with dust. He hadn't even troubled to pick it up from where it must have fallen weeks ago."

She looked at him dumbly, unable to keep her lips from twitching. He knew that she believed him, and he was glad; that she had to believe him, because his story bore the impress of truth. It was not something that he could have made up.

"And while your picture was lying there, Wade and this Purnell girl were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Why, it was she that rode out to warn him that we were after Santry." Helen's lips curled. "I can't swear to that, but I heard it and I believe it myself. They must've met on the trail somewhere in the dark, and you can bet he was grateful. I don't imagine that they stopped at a hand-shake. I imagine they kissed, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm tired, worn out," Helen declared, forcing a smile so artificial that it could not deceive him. "Do go, please. I am going upstairs to bed."

"Wait one minute." He put out his injured arm, and, thinking that he reached for her hand, she brushed it aside, accidentally striking his wound.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said coldly, as he winced.

"Maybe I've hurt you worse," he persisted, with a tenderness that was intolerable to her, "but, if I have, your wound'll heal just as mine will." He gently pushed her back into her chair as she started to get up.

"Are you making love to me, Race?" Under the ridicule of her tone his face darkened. "If you are, it's insufferable in you."

"Go easy, now," he warned her. "I'll not be made a fool of."

She did not heed his warning. Glad to have him on the rack, where she had been, she laughed at him.

"Haven't you sense enough to know that, for that very reason, I'd refuse to believe anything you might say against Gordon Wade? I know how you hate him. Listen to me. Oh, this is absurd!" She laughed again at the picture he made. "You've pursued me for months with your attentions, although I've done everything but encourage you. Now I want you to know that I shall never again even listen to you. What Gordon is to Dorothy Purnell is for him, and her, and perhaps for me to be interested in, but not for you. Now I'm going to bed. Good night!"

He caught her by the arm as she stood up, but immediately released her, and stepped in front of her instead.

"Hold on," he begged, with a smile that meant wonderful mastery of himself. "I've got feelings, you know. You needn't walk on them. I love you, and I want you. What I want, I usually get. I mean to get you." She looked up at him with heavy-lidded insolence. "I may fail, but if I do, it'll be one more notch in my account against Wade. I know now where to strike him—to hurt."

"You be reasonable, and you'll be happier," she retorted. "May I go?"

"Certainly." He stepped out of her way. "Good night."

CHAPTER XII DESPERATE MEASURES

If Moran or Helen, early in their conversation, had looked out of the window of the hotel, during one of those vivid lightning flashes, they might have seen a woman stealthily approaching the agent's office across the street. Taking advantage of the deeper shadows and of the darkness between lightning flashes, she stole to the rear of the building, where she found an unlatched window, through which she scrambled with the agility of a boy.

Within, the place was pitch dark, but like one amid familiar surroundings, she crossed the hall and found the room she sought; the office room now of Moran, but formerly occupied by Simon Barsdale. She bent over the big safe, and was twirling the combination knob in her slim, cold fingers, when she was startled by a noise in the hallway outside. With a gasp of fright, she stood motionless, listening acutely, but there was no further sound; reassured, she produced a bit of candle, which she lighted and placed to one side of the safe, so that the flame was shaded from the windows. She was in the act of manipulating the combination again when, her whole body rigid with fear, she stood erect once more, holding her breath and striving for self-control. There was no doubt about the noise this time. Some one had entered the adjoining room.

Hastily snuffing out the candle, she crouched into the darkness of a corner. She never doubted that the newcomer was Race Moran, or that he would almost immediately discover her. She tried to summon enough resolution to bluff things through when the moment of discovery should come.

But, as the seconds slipped by and the lights were not turned on, she began to regain her courage. Perhaps Moran was sitting in the dark of the other room, smoking and thinking, and perhaps she could complete her task without being caught, if she moved swiftly and silently. She bent again over the shining knob, at the same time watching in the direction of the door, which was still closed as she had left it. It was difficult to work the lock in the dark, and, as she became engrossed with her purpose, she ceased temporarily to listen acutely. She had just succeeded in effecting the combination, when something touched her side.

"Don't move!" a voice hissed behind her. "I'll shoot if you do!"

She wanted to cry out, "Please don't shoot!" but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, which had suddenly gone dry. She had fallen forward against the door of the safe, and was curiously conscious how cold it felt. She was on the point of fainting, when in a rush of relief it dawned upon her that she knew the voice; it was not Moran's.

"Gordon!" she cried joyously, finding the use of her tongue as quickly as she had