The Candidate Part 17

The appeal and terror in her eyes changed to momentary surprise. "What do you know of me?" she exclaimed.

"Very little of you, but more of your father. Years ago I was at his house in the Kentucky mountains. He was a leader in the Simpson-Eversley feud. I knew him to-night, but I have said nothing. Now, tell me, what is the matter?"

His voice was soothing--that of a strong man who would protect, and the girl yielded to its influence. Brokenly she told the story. Many men had been killed in the feud, and the few Eversleys who were left had been scattered far in the mountains. Then old Daniel Simpson said that he would come out on the Great Plains, more than a thousand miles, and they had come.

"There was one of the Eversleys--Henry Eversley--he was young and handsome. People said he was not bad. He, too, came to Nebraska. He found out where we lived; he has been here."

"Ah!" said Harley. He felt that they were coming to the gist of the matter.

The girl, with a sudden pa.s.sionate cry, threw herself upon her knees.

"He is here now! He is here now!" she cried. "He is in the cellar, bound and gagged, and my father is going to kill him! But I love him! He came here to-night, and my father caught us together, and struck him down.

But we meant nothing wrong. I declare before G.o.d that we did not! We were getting ready to run away together and to be married at Speedwell!"

Harley shuddered. The impending tragedy was more terrible than he had feared.

"You can do nothing!" exclaimed the girl. "My father is armed. He will have no interference! He cares nothing for what may come after! He thinks--"

She could not say it all; but Harley knew well that what she would say was, "He thinks that he has been robbed of his honor by a mortal enemy."

"Can you stay quietly in this room until morning?" he asked. "I know it is hard to wait under such circ.u.mstances, but you must do it for the sake of Henry Eversley."

"And will you save him?"

"He shall be saved."

"I will wait," she said.

Harley slipped noiselessly out, and, closing the door behind him, went to his room, where he at once awakened the candidate.

Jimmy Grayson listened with intense attention to Harley's story. When the tale was over, he and Harley whispered together long and earnestly, and Jimmy Grayson frequently nodded his head in a.s.sent. Then they awoke the driver, a heavy man, but with a keen Western mind that at once became alert at the news of danger.

"Yes, I got my bearings now," he said, in reply to a question of Harley's. "I asked the old fellow about it when I came up from the stable, and Speedwell is straight north from here. I can take one of the horses and hit the town before daylight. I know everybody there."

"But how about the dogs?" asked Jimmy Grayson. "Can you get past them?"

"No trouble there at all. After we came, the old fellow locked 'em up in a stall in the stable and left 'em there. I guess he didn't want to look to us as if he was too suspicious."

"Then go, and G.o.d go with you!" said Jimmy Grayson, with deep feeling.

The driver left at once, not by the stairway, near the foot of which the old man might be watching, but by a much simpler road. He raised the window of the room and swung out, sustained by Jimmy Grayson's powerful arms until his feet were within a yard of the ground. Then he dropped, ran lightly across the lawn, sprang over the wire fence, and soon disappeared in the grove where the girl had said that the horses were waiting. Jimmy Grayson closed the window with a deep sigh of relief.

"He will do his part," he said; "now for ours."

He did not seek to sleep again, and Harley could not think of it. One task occupied him a little while--the replacing of the lock on the door--but after that the hours pa.s.sed heavily and in silence. The flush of dawn appeared in the east at last, and then they heard a faint step in the hall outside and the gentle turning of a key in a lock. Jimmy Grayson and Harley looked at each other and smiled grimly, but they said nothing. A half-hour later there was a loud knock on their door, and old Daniel Simpson bade them rise and get ready for breakfast.

"It is chiefly in your hands now," said Harley, in a low tone to Jimmy Grayson.

"We'll be down in a few minutes, and we have had a good night's sleep, for which we thank you," he called to the old man.

"You're welcome to it," replied Simpson. "You'll find water and towels on the porch down-stairs, and then you can come straight in to breakfast."

They heard his step pa.s.sing down the hall to the stairway, where it died away, and then they dressed deliberately. On the porch they found the water and towels as Simpson had said, and bathed and rubbed their faces.

A golden sun was just rising from the prairie, and beads of water from the night's rain sparkled on the trees and gra.s.s. The wind came out of the southwest, fresh and glorious.

They entered the dining-room, where the breakfast smoked on the table, and the old man and his wife were waiting. Harley could not see that they had changed in appearance in the morning glow. Simpson was still rugged and grim, while the woman yet cowered and now and then raised terrified and appealing eyes.

"Whar's your driver?" asked Simpson.

"He has gone down to the stable to feed and care for his horses,"

replied the candidate, easily. "He's a very careful man, always looks after his horses before he looks after himself. He told us not to wait for him, as he'll be along directly."

"Then be seated," said the old man, hospitably. "We've got corn-bread and ham-and-eggs and coffee, an' I guess you kin make out."

"I should think so," said Jimmy Grayson. "Why, if I had not been as hungry as a wolf already, it would make me hungry just to look at it."

The three sat down at the table, while Mrs. Simpson served them, going back and forth to the little kitchen adjoining for fresh supplies of hot food. Mr. Grayson did most of the talking, and it was addressed in an easy, confidential manner to old Daniel Simpson. The candidate's gift of conversational talk was equal to his gift of platform oratory, but never before had Harley known him to be so interesting and so attractive. He fairly radiated with the quality called personal magnetism, and soon the old man ate mechanically, while his attention was riveted on Jimmy Grayson. But by-and-by he seemed to remember something.

"That driver of yourn is tarnal slow," he said; "he ought to be comin'

in to breakfast."

"You have diagnosed his chief fault," said Jimmy Grayson, with an easy laugh. "He is slow, extremely slow, but he will be along directly, and he doesn't mind cold victuals."

Then he turned back to the easy flow of anecdote, chiefly about his political campaign, and Harley saw that the interest of the old man was centred upon him. The woman, without a word, brought in hot biscuits from the kitchen, but she did not lose her frightened look, glancing from one to another of the three with furtive, lowered eyes. But Jimmy Grayson, the golden-mouthed, talked gracefully, and the note of his discourse that morning was the sweetness and kindness of life; he saw only the sunny side of things; people were good and true, and peace was better than strife. His smiling, benevolent face and the mellow flow of his words enforced the lesson.

The old man's face softened a little, and even Harley, though a prey to anxieties, felt the influence of Jimmy Grayson's spell. The little dining-room where they sat was at the rear of the house. Harley saw the golden suns.h.i.+ne of a perfect October day, and the wind that sang across the plain had the soft strain of a girl's voice. He felt that it was good to live that morning, and his spirits rose as he saw the old man fall further and further under the spell of Jimmy Grayson's eloquence.

But Simpson raised himself presently and glanced at the door.

"That driver of yourn is tarnal slow," he repeated. "Seems to me he'll never finish feedin' an' curryin' them horses!"

"He is slow, extremely slow," laughed Jimmy Grayson. "If he were not so we should not have got lost last night, and we should not be here now, Mr. Simpson, trespa.s.sing on your hospitality. Perhaps the man does not want any breakfast; it's not the first time since he's been with us that he's gone without it."

Then he launched again into the stream of a very pretty story that he had been telling, and the wavering attention of the old man returned.

Harley gave all a.s.sistance. Despite his anxiety and his listening for sounds without, he kept his eyes fixed upon Jimmy Grayson's face as if he would not miss a word.

The breakfast went on to an unusual length. The candidate and Harley called again and again for hot biscuits and more coffee, and always the old woman served them silently, almost furtively.

The story was finished, and just as it came to its end Simpson said, with a grim inflection:

"It 'pears to me, Mr. Grayson, all you said about that driver of yourn is true. He hasn't come from the stable yet."

There was the sound of a step in the hall, and the candidate said, quickly:

"He's coming now; he'll be in presently, as soon as he washes his hands and face on the porch. No, sit down, Mr. Simpson; he needs no directions. We were speaking of the sacrifices that people make for one another, and it reminds me of a very pretty story that I must tell you."

The old man sank into his chair, but his look wandered to the door. It seemed to Harley that light sounds came from the other part of the house, and the old man, too, seemed for a moment to be listening, but Jimmy Grayson at once began his story, and Simpson's attention came back.

"This is a story of the mountains of eastern Kentucky," began the candidate, "and it is a love story--a very pretty one, I think."