Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 18

She had planned her action, forestalling possibilities as well as she was able. She was determined to be bold, trusting to events as they developed.

"You will kindly remember that I'm on this case along with you, and you can't make me jump through hoops!" Crowley, fresh from the city, narrow in his urban conceit, was seeing red because of a petty humiliation he had suffered in public.

Another man was seeing red for a different reason. Latisan strode across the room, nabbed Crowley by the ear, and led him into the tavern office, where the aching ear was twisted until the city man subsided into a chair.

The girl appraised at its full value the rancor that was developing in the Vose-Mern operative; his glaring eyes were accusing her.

But the adoring eyes of Latisan promised really more complicated trouble for her.

It was borne in on her that there were dangerous possibilities in the frank atmosphere of the north woods. Lida had the poignant feeling of being very much alone just then--and she was afraid!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Suppers were always over with early in Adonia. The red west was banded with half on hour's April daylight when the new waitress finished her work. She hurried up to her room; she locked her door with the panic-stricken air of one who desires to shut out danger.

She was in no mood to question the worthiness of the impulse which had sent her into the north, but she was realizing in fuller measure the difficulties with which she must deal. In the dining room she had felt recklessly intrepid and the utter mystification of Buck Crowley had amused her. But she had had plenty of opportunity in her Vose-Mern work to know the nature of Crowley--he had the sh.e.l.l of an alligator and the scruples of a viper and would double-cross a twin brother if the project could help the fortunes of Buck himself.

Once more she admitted that she was afraid. It was if she had touched levers and had started machinery which she could not stop; she had launched two men at each other and had observed the first ominous clinches--and Crowley had warned her that she was in the region of "he-men." But Crowley was not of a sort to use the manly weapons of the frank fighters of the north.

With the sense of hiding away from impending trouble, sorry for her share in starting it, she sat by the window, put her forehead on her arms, wept weakly, and told herself that she was a very poor article of a heroine.

However, the sunset soothed and invited her when she wiped her eyes. She beheld the honest outdoors of the forest country. She was hungry for those open places of earth. She knew that her resolution was ebbing the longer she hid herself in that hole of a room, like a terrified animal.

She put on a hat and a wrap and started out.

She was perfectly well aware of the gantlet she must run.

Crowley was patrolling the porch; she issued from a side door of the tavern, but she was obliged to pa.s.s him in order to get into the street.

His high sign to her was peremptory and unmistakable--Mr. Crowley had business with her! Right then, in spite of her planned intent to bluff out the situation just as long as she could at that distance from Mern, she was not in a state of mind to meet Crowley.

She heard steps behind her and was accosted, but her frown of apprehensiveness became a smile of welcome when she turned and beheld Latisan; the welcome was not so much from interest in Latisan as from the sense that she would have a respite from Crowley.

"If you're going to look the place over, won't you allow me to go along?" he pleaded. "I'll follow behind like a terrier, if you tell me to. I want to keep you from being bothered by anybody."

She showed concern and looked about her.

"Oh, by that cheap drummer, I mean. You needn't ever be afraid of woodsmen up here. I was watching him when you came out. If it wasn't for starting a lot of tattle I'd beat him up on the street."

"Really, you'd better come along with me, Mr. Latisan, out of the reach of any such temptation."

"Perhaps you'd like to get a view of the falls from the best point," he suggested, as they walked on.

When they turned into a path and disappeared from Crowley's ken the latter b.u.t.toned his coat and started leisurely on their trail.

On the edge of the gorge there was a niche in the cliff, a natural seat padded with moss. Latisan led her to the spot. He did not indulge his longing to sit beside her; he stood at a little distance, respectfully, and allowed her to think her thoughts. Those thoughts and her memories were very busy just then; she was glad because the everlasting diapason of the falls made conversation difficult.

Until then, in her reflections, she had been considering Ward Latisan merely as her stricken grandfather's staff of hope, an aid so essential that the Comas had determined to eliminate him. She surveyed him as he stood there in his own and fitting milieu and found him rea.s.suringly stalwart as a dependable champion.

Alone with him, making estimate with her eyes and her understanding, she was conscious that her first surprise at sight of the real Latisan was giving way to deepening interest.

She reflected again on the character which had been given this man by Rufus Craig, and remembered more vividly what she had written about him for the guidance of the Vose-Mern agency.

There must be something wrong in Craig's estimate! She felt that she had an eye of her own for qualities in a man, and this man's clean sincerity had impressed her in their first meeting in the New York cafeteria.

He turned from his survey of the waters and met her gaze. "I was pretty much fl.u.s.tered that day in New York, Miss Jones. I was more so to-day at the railroad station. I don't know how to act with girls very well," he confessed navely. "I want to say something right here and now. There are mean stories going the rounds about me up in this country. I'm afraid you'll hear some of them. I don't want you--I don't want everybody to think I'm what they are trying to make out I am--they lied over Tomah way to hurt me in business. But perhaps you don't care one way or the other," he probed, wistfully.

He found encouragement in her expression and went on. "I was away at Tech, taking a special course, and they lied about me. I was trying to make something more of myself than just a lumberjack. And I thought there was a chance for me to help things on the Tomah after I learned something about engineering. I was doing my best, that's all, and the liars saw their opening and took it. If you hear the stories I hope you won't believe them."

Hastily she looked away from his earnest and imploring eyes and gave her attention to the turbid freshet flood, shredded into a yellow and yeasty riot of waters.

Her recollection of childhood became clearer now that she was back beside the cataract which was linked with all her early memories. He did not venture to disturb her with more talk.

She remained there until the chill from the air and the mist from the falling waters and the growing dusk warned her.

They were back at the edge of the village street before he spoke again.

"The falls are pretty wild now; they're beautiful in the summer when the water is low. When I was a boy I footed it over here from the Tomah a few times and sat in that niche and listened to the song the waters seemed to sing. It was worth the long hike. Being there just now brought back something I'd almost forgotten. One day the waters sung me to sleep and when I woke up there was a little girl dancing in front of me and pointing her finger, and I looked at myself and saw she had made a chain of daisies and hung it around my neck and had stuck clover blooms all over me. And when she saw that I was awake she scampered off with some other children. Queer how the funny little thoughts like that pop up in a person's mind!"

Fresh from the scene, softened by her ponderings, Lida felt the surge of an impulse to tell him that the same memory had come to her while she sat in the niche. She was the child who had made the daisy chain--who had been bolder than the other children in approaching the sleeping stranger. And she was not ready to agree with him that the memory was "queer." She wished she could confess her ident.i.ty to him right then, because the confession would enable her to bring up a topic which had been interesting her very much--how personalities, meeting as strangers, often prompt each other through subtle psychic qualities of past a.s.sociation; there were instances in the books she had read where persons claimed to have recognized each other from past incarnations; but Lida did not believe that stuff, she had told herself. As to the mutual remembrance of the daisy chain--that was different--it seemed quite natural. She could remember just how comically that boy's nose twitched when she was waking him up with a b.u.t.tercup blossom.

Latisan was conscious of a queer unwillingness to have her leave him. He wondered what excuse he could offer to prolong the companions.h.i.+p of the evening. He wanted to link up her affairs with his in some way, if he could--that there might be something in common between them. To solicit her aid--her counsel; it is the first hankering of a man in his striving toward a woman's favor.

In this case, the drive master, desperately casting about for an excuse, was guilty of something like an enormity in venturesomeness. His own business was calling him to the big house on the ledges; in his new state of softened spirit he was dreading any run-in with Echford Flagg.

Perhaps gossip had already carried to Flagg the reason why the drive master had not hastened to report about the dynamite victory. To exhibit the actual reason for the delay, in her own winning person, seemed a very proper thing to do according to Latisan's clouded judgment of the moment.

"Let me tell you!" he urged. "I've got to run up to Flagg's on business.

You'll have something to talk to him about--those friends----"

"No, no!" She hurried on toward the tavern.

He ventured to clasp her arm, detaining her. "He's a poor, sick old man.

A little talk with you will do him good."

Her memory was vivid. "But you told me in New York that he won't have a woman near his house."

"He's different nowadays," persisted Latisan. "He's sick and it will be a treat for him to have a girl say some kind words. I want him to meet you----"

But she shook off his hand and resolutely kept on her way. "I must go in. I'm tired after my long journey--and my work." There were loafers in front of the tavern. "I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Latisan," she called so that all could hear, "for your kindness in showing me the way to the falls. Good night!" She disappeared.

There was nothing for Latisan to do but to brave the old tiger of the big house alone. Outside of his desire to keep her with him as long as possible, he had wanted her to go along into the presence of Flagg as a guaranty of the peace; he did not believe that Flagg would launch invective in the hearing of the girl; furthermore, Latisan was conscious of a proud anxiety to exhibit her.

Flagg tipped the shade of the lamp so that Latisan's face was illuminated when the drive master was in the room.

"Shaved!" snorted the tyrant. "All duded up and beauing around a table girl. I know all about it. Latisan, you----"

"Just a moment, Mr. Flagg!"