Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 15

"May I ask, Miss Perry, what reason you have for fearing the authorities?"

"That of course is what you would like to know!" she replied tearfully.

"But you know too much! If you have told me the truth your meddlesomeness will have far-reaching consequences too dreadful to think about! Your a.s.sumed name tells its own story and convinces me that you have not told the truth. I went aboard that train to look for some one I hoped I might meet, and you know perfectly well why I am here."

He could only stammer a futile expostulation at the gross injustice of this.

"Everything has gone wrong," she continued, "and you may have all the satisfaction you can get out of your interference, your intrusion upon affairs of the greatest delicacy, in which my a.s.sistance and my honor are pledged. That car standing yonder belongs to me and before I leave I want you to walk away from here as rapidly as possible and not turn your head!"

He did not even confirm her statement as to the propinquity of the car but crossed the platform with the crestfallen air of a child in disgrace. She had loftily ignored the kissing of Mrs. Abijah Strong. The osculatory adventure with Sally shrank at once in importance from the fact that Isabel had not only ignored it but had made it wholly unnecessary for him to explain that transaction.

He knew nothing save that he was enormously tired and he went to the hotel and crawled wearily into bed.

IV

It was close upon six o'clock when a knock roused him from a sleep that had not been easily won.

"It's yo' baggage, boss!"

"Baggage?" repeated Archie.

He had told the clerk he had no baggage and had paid in advance for his room. His suitcase was at Walker's and it was hardly possible that Walker had forwarded his effects. He opened the door cautiously and saw at a glance that the bag was undeniably his. He groped for his trousers and gave the waiting porter half a dollar.

"How did it get here?" he asked with attempted indifference.

"Don't know nuffin' 'bout it, suh; gemmen tole me tote 'er up. If it ain't all right--"

"Oh, it's all right enough!" Archie exclaimed hastily, fearing to pursue the inquiry.

He opened the bag and found that it not only contained all his belongings but they had been packed neatly by an experienced hand. The unaccountable arrival of his luggage sent his thoughts flying to Walker's farm and the Governor.

Pleased as he was by the arrival of his effects, the reappearance of the bag brought him back to earth with a reverberating jar. He was confident that malevolent agencies were responsible; and to be reminded thus sharply of the powers of evil just when he craved nothing so much as slumber's oblivion was disturbing and ominous.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed idly smoothing the wrinkles out of a pet necktie when a gently insinuating knock unpreluded by a step in the hall caused him to start.

"Come!"

The door opened slowly, wide enough to permit a man's head to be thrust in. A face wearing an amused smile, a familiar face but the last he expected to see, met his gaze.

"Hist!"

The Governor widened the opening in the door and squeezed through.

"My dear Archie!" he exclaimed as he locked the door, "how infinitely relieved I am! I was afraid some harm had befallen you, but to find you here safe and sound fills my heart with grat.i.tude."

He flung down his cap and linen duster, chose a chair by the window and seated himself with a little sigh.

"I hope," Archie ventured timidly, "that you came alone?"

"Oh, yes; I'm alone! Trust me for that; but my friend Walker was not easily shaken. A strong pa.s.sionate nature, Walker; a man long habituated to the lethal knife, the unerring pistol. No easy task you may well believe to get rid of him. And his provocation! O my boy, his provocation to justifiable homicide and all that sort of thing!"

"Well, I only did what I thought was right," Archie declared doggedly.

"I wasn't weighing the consequences."

The Governor, filling his pipe, lifted a hand to emphasize the "splendid" with which he received this statement.

"Splendid, my dear Archie, to see how beautifully you rose to the situation--a situation that spoke powerfully to your generous heart! If there has been any error it is mine. I should have known from the way you played up to the Seebrook girl that you were far too susceptible to be trusted with women. The error is mine; not yours, Archie; I don't blame you a particle. Indeed the incident warms my heart to you. Sally is a winsome la.s.s; she has a way with her, that girl!"

"I would have done the same thing for any girl in like circ.u.mstances,"

Archie declared, pacing the floor with shoulders erect.

"I dare say you would! Your heart and your sword are at the command of any pretty jade who squints at you! But when I suggested that it might be well for you to keep in practice I didn't mean for you to make a monkey of yourself. Your true love--what did you say her name is?"

To recall Isabel to his memory was a greater mockery than the Governor knew, but Archie met the question with well-feigned unconcern.

"I didn't say," he answered; "but her name is Isabel."

"Ah! One of the few really perfect names in the whole list! Rather more style to it than Sally! And yet Sally has been used to good advantage by the balladists. To 'Sally in Our Alley,' we might add Sally at the Churn or Sally Softly Singing in the Corn, or Sally Leading Archie by the Ear.

The possibilities are exquisite."

"If you don't mind," said Archie with dignity, "we'll stop talking nonsense. I want to know what happened."

"Just a little curious, are you, as to what followed your amazing breach of hospitality? Ran away with a pretty girl, a.s.sisted in marrying her to an undesirable son-in-law, and now you want to know how the old folks take it! Oh, Archie, for sheer innocence you are a wonder!"

"Walker had no right to force a girl like Sally to marry an old curmudgeon she hated. I never hesitated as to the course I should take after she told me her story. The marriage was in proper form and I haven't a single regret!"

The Governor rocked with delight.

"You didn't miss a stroke!" he exclaimed wiping the tears from his eyes.

"The marriage satisfied all legal requirements. Your work was only too well done!"

"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Archie spitefully. "And if Walker is a sensible man he will welcome the young couple home and make the best of it."

"It saddens me to be obliged to speak the grievous truth when your conscience is so pleased with itself. Let me deal in surmises a moment before I hand you a few unhappy facts. Sitting with Sally down by the brook and probably holding her hand"--(Archie flinched)--"holding her hand perhaps, and strongly tempted to kiss her, you fell an easy prey to her fascinations. She told you a plausible yarn as to Walker's cruelty in wanting her to marry a tottering old widower and asked you to a.s.sist her to elope with a st.u.r.dy young farmer who was even then waiting for her by the old mill or the school house, or something like that. And your heart swelled to bursting with the thought of serving one so fair!

Wholly natural, Archie, for I too have dwelt in Arcady! If that minx hadn't told you she had a lover loitering in the background, you'd probably have thrown yourself into the breach and eloped with her yourself. Yes, you would, Archie! I must have a care of you or your Isabel will never meet you at the altar!"

"We're not talking of Isabel," Archie interrupted haughtily. "I'll trouble you to say all you have to say about Sally and Abijah."

"Abijah!" squeaked the Governor, again overcome by mirth.

For the first time Archie disliked the Governor. His unsympathetic att.i.tude toward the elopement was intolerable. A round of abuse would have been more palatable than this ironic jesting. The Governor saw that he had gone too far and immediately s.h.i.+fted the key.

"What you did, Archie," he resumed paternally, "what you did was to marry Sally, the incomparable, Sally the divine, to Pete Barney, the diamond thief. He took refuge with Walker a couple of weeks ago, and the old man extended him his usual generous hospitality. Barney had been well vouched for and had all the pa.s.s-words and countersigns of the great fraternity, but Walker mistrusted him. A week is the usual limit for a pilgrim's stay, and seeing how Sally and Barney were hitting it off the old man gave the chap a hint to move along. He didn't go, it seems, but hung round the neighborhood waiting for a chance to pull off the elopement in which you so kindly a.s.sisted even to the extent of bolting with Slippery Abe's car."

"You mean--you mean I married the girl to a crook?" gasped Archie.

"One of the smoothest in the game! And Sally knew he was a crook! I suppose it was the diamonds that fetched her. If you'd looked at his hands you would have noticed that he hadn't the paws of an honest Green Mountain farmer. Pick-pocket originally and marvelously deft; but precious stones are his true metier. The trifling little necklace he had on his person when he struck Walker's is worth a cool hundred thousand.

He'll have to break it up and sell 'em in the usual way and it will take time."