The Lookout Man, B. M. Bower [free ebooks for android .TXT] 📗

the professor, and doing little things to annoy him. Kate could not see how any one could do that, kind as Douglas was, and courteous. And there were times when Marion seemed actually to be trying to interest Fred; other times she purposely irritated him, as though she were deliberately amusing herself with him. All this was not taking into account Marion's penurious habit of charging Kate for every facial massage and every manicure she gave her. When Kate looked ahead to the long winter they must spend together in that cabin, she was tempted to feel as though she, for one, would be paying an exorbitant price for her timber claim.

With all that tucked away in the back of her mind, Kate still believed—or at least she successfully pretended to believe—that she liked Marion personally as much as she ever had liked her. She did not see why any one must be absolutely blind to the faults of a friend. She merely recognized Marion's faults. But if she ever criticised, she condoned the criticism by saying that it was for Marion's own best interests.

Just now, while she cleared away the litter of Fred's dinner, she meditated upon the proper manner of dealing with Marion's latest defection. Should she warn the professor to say nothing to Fred? It might turn Fred against Marion to know what she had done; Fred was so queer and old-fashioned about women. Still, he would be sure to hear of it somehow, and it might be best to tell him herself, as tactfully as possible, because she knew so well just how best to approach Fred. She told Fred and was amazed at the result.

"Well, what of it?" Fred demanded with brotherly bluntness. "It takes a woman, by thunder, to knife her friends in the back. What are you trying to build up anyway? Take it from me, old girl, you want to cut out this picking away at Marion behind her back—or to her face, either, for that matter. You two women are going to see a good deal of each other between now and spring, and you'll be ready to claw each other's eyes out if you don't shut them to a lot you don't like."

"Well, upon my word! I was merely telling you of Marion's adventure. I'm not saying—"

"No, but you're thinking, and you want to quit it." Whereupon Fred went off to his tent and indulged in a much needed siesta.

Kate was angry as well as hurt. The injustice of Fred's condemnation stirred her to action. She got hurriedly into her khaki skirt and tramping shoes, slung a canteen over her shoulder, tied her green veil over her hat and under her chin, put on her amber sun-glasses, and took her stout walking stick.

She was careful not to wake Fred or the professor, though that would have been more difficult than she imagined. She did not want them to know where she was going. If they missed her and were worried it would serve them both right; for now she remembered that the professor had also been very unsympathetic. Neither of them had seemed to realize what a terrible night she had spent there alone, with that terrible fire raging through the forest and with Marion gone, without saying one word to Kate about where she was going or when she expected to return.

She meant to climb Mount Hough in spite of the altitude, and find out for herself what sort of a fellow that lookout man was. Fred and Douglas might make light of the matter if they wished, but she was in a sense responsible for Marion Rose, and she considered it her duty to think of the girl's welfare.

There was a good deal of determination in Kate's character, once you roused her out of herself. She climbed Mount Hough, but she did not find out what sort of a fellow the lookout man was, for Jack heard her puffing up the pack trail and retired, with the precipitateness of a hunted fox, to his niche between the boulders. She did not stay long. As soon as she had rested a little and made sure that the station door was locked, and had peered in and seen that everything was in perfect order, she decided that the lookout man was probably off fighting fire with the rest of the forest rangers. Convinced of that, she straightway jumped to the conclusion that he had not been there at all since the fire started, and Marion must have stayed up there alone, and she had simply been trying to worry Kate over nothing.

Well, at any rate, she couldn't play that trick the second time. Kate felt well repaid for the climb even if she did not get a glimpse of the lookout man. Let Marion pretend, if she wanted to. Let her rave about the lookout man's mouth and eyes and temper; Kate was armed against all future baitings. She could go back now and be mistress of the situation.

So she went, and Jack listened to her retreating footsteps scrunching down the trail, and heaved a deep sigh of relief when the silence flowed in behind her and the mountain top was all his own. Nevertheless he felt uneasy over the incident. Kate, climbing alone to the station, trying the door, waiting around for a few minutes and then going back the way she had come, did not strike Jack as being a tourist come to view the scenery. So far as he had been able to judge as he peeped out through a narrow rift in the ledge, she had paid very little attention to the scenery. She seemed chiefly concerned with the station, and her concern seemed mostly an impatience over its locked door.

He got his telescope and watched her as she came down through the rocks into sight. No, she certainly did not strike him as being a tourist, in spite of her tourist's khaki and amber glasses and heavy tan boots. Women tourists did not climb mountains without an escort of some kind, he had learned.

"By heck, I'll bet that's Kate!" he exclaimed suddenly, staring at her retreating form. "Now, what does the old girl want—?" Straightway he guessed what she wanted, and the guess brought his eyebrows together with the lump between which Marion had described. If she had come up there to see him, it must be because she had heard something about him that had stirred her up considerably. He remembered how she had refused to climb the peak with Marion, that first afternoon.

You know how self-conscious a secret makes a person. Jack could think of only one reason why Kate should climb away up there to see him. She must know who he was, and had come up to settle any doubt in her mind before she did anything. If she knew who he was, then Marion Rose must have told her. And if Marion Rose had gone straight and told her friends—

Jack went so far as to pack everything he owned into his suitcase and carry it to the niche in the ledge. He would not stay and give her the satisfaction of sending the sheriff up there. He was a headlong youth, much given to hasty judgments. All that night he hated Marion Rose worse than he had ever hated any one in his life. He did not leave, however. He could not quite bring himself to the point of leaving while his beloved mountain was being scarred with fire. He knew that it was for the sake of having him there in just such an emergency as this fire that the government