Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 26

If Latisan proposed to go back to work because his love and allegiance caused him to obey a girl's commands, he would do the opposite of what she asked if his love and confidence were destroyed. It seemed to be a case of two and two making four, as Crowley viewed the thing. He was done with tangled subtleties.

He put his hand again on his breast pocket as he walked with the drive master down the hill. There was a letter in that pocket; Crowley had purloined it from the girl's bureau that day when he had so quickly returned from following her. And he also had a telegram in that pocket; the wire had come along that morning, addressed to Miss Patsy Jones, in his care.

The job, as Crowley understood orders, was to keep Latisan off the river that season. Crowley saw a way of doing that job and of getting the credit for the performance.

The girl, staring through the window with strained attention, noting every detail of the meeting, seeing the appearance of amity and of understanding, beholding Crowley put his hand on Latisan's shoulder in the pose of friendly adviser, suspected the worst; she was stricken with anguished certainty when Latisan strode toward the tavern; according to her belief, two men were now arrayed against her. The drive master's haste indicated that she had been betrayed by the sullen botcher of methods.

In that room she felt like a creature that had been run to cover--cornered. She wanted to escape into the open. There was honesty outside, anyway, under the sky, at the edge of the forest, where the thunder of the great falls made human voices and mortal affairs so petty by contrast.

She ran through the tavern office and faced Latisan in the yard; there were curious spectators on the porch, the loungers of the hamlet, but she paid no attention to them; she was searching the countenance of Latisan, avidly anxious, fearfully uncertain regarding what mischief had been wrought in him.

He smiled tenderly, flouris.h.i.+ng a salute. "All serene in the big house!"

The white was succeeded by a flush in her cheeks. She looked up into his honest eyes and was thrilled by an emotion that was new to her. It was impossible not to answer back to that earnest affection he was expressing. Grat.i.tude glowed in her--and grat.i.tude is a sister of love!

"I beg your pardon," put in Crowley, "But can't the three of us step inside and have a little private talk?"

He made a gesture to indicate the gallery of listeners on the tavern porch.

Once that morning Lida had found protection by handling an important crisis in a public place. She was having no time just then to think clearly. She was feeling sure of Latisan, after his look into her eyes.

She mustered a smile and shook her head when the drive master mutely referred the matter to her, raising his eyebrows inquiringly.

"You'd better," warned Crowley, bridling.

The girl felt that she had no option except to keep on in the bold course she had marked for herself. She could not conceive that the operative would prejudice the Vose-Mern proposition in public. "I cannot understand what private matters we three have in common, sir. I have no desire to listen. Mr. Latisan has no time, I'm sure. He is leaving for the north country."

"That's true," agreed Latisan, under the spell of her gaze, won by her, loyal in all his fiber, determined to exclude all others in the world from the partners.h.i.+p of two. He had put aside his anxiety to know what she had been in the city, as Crowley knew her; that quest seemed to be disloyalty to her. "I'm starting mighty sudden! Sorry, sir! Let Brophy put your business with us in his refrigerator till the drive is down."

Careless of the onlookers, the girl patted his cheek, encouraging his stand. "Till _our_ drive is down. Remember, it's ours!" she whispered.

"Harness in my horses," Latisan called to Brophy's nephew in the door of the tavern stable.

She was human; she was a girl; Latisan's manner a.s.sured her that she had won her battle with Crowley, whatever might have been the methods by which he had tried to prevail over the drive master. She could not resist the impulse to give the Vose-Mern operative a challenging look of triumph that was lighted by the joy of her victory.

Crowley's slow mind speeded up on its one track; he opened the throttle, smash or no smas.h.!.+ He marched up to Latisan and displayed a badge, dredging it from his trousers pocket. "That's what I am, mister, an operative for a detective agency. So is she!"

"I am not," she declared defiantly.

"Maybe not, after your flop in this case. But you were when you struck this place, if your word means anything!"

"You're a liar," shouted Latisan. He doubled his fist and drew it back; the girl seized the hand and unclasped the knotted grip and braided her fingers with his.

"I don't blame you, Latisan. It's natural for you to feel that way toward me right now," agreed Crowley. "She has slipped the cross-tag onto you. But you're no fool. I don't ask you to take my word. Go down to that railroad station and wire to an address I'll give you in New York. Ask her if she dares to have you do it."

There was no longer a smolder in Latisan--it was all a red flame!

He had not realized till then how penetratingly deep had been his conviction that this girl was something other than she a.s.sumed to be.

Crowley pulled a letter from his pocket, flapped it open, and shoved it under Latisan's nose.

There was no further attempt to deal behind doors with the affair. It was in Crowley's mind, then, that spreading the situation wide open before the gaping throng, which was increasing, crowding about in a narrowing circle, would a.s.sist his plan to make intolerable Latisan's stay in that region.

"Look at the letterhead--Vose-Mern Agency! Look and you'll see that it's addressed to Miss Patsy Jones, Adonia. Take it and read it! It's orders to her from the chief!"

Latisan was plainly in no state of mind to read; he crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed the paper into his trousers pocket.

"Here's a telegram," continued the operative. "It's for her to go back to New York. It hasn't been enough for her to double-cross you; she's doing the same thing to the folks who have hired her. Nice kind of dame, eh? I don't know just what her game is, friend! But I'm coming across to you and tell you that the big idea is to keep you off the drive this season. Good money has been put up to turn the trick."

In the midst of the whirling torches which made up his thoughts just then, Latisan was not able to give sane consideration to her zeal in urging him to duty; he was conscious only of the revelation of her character. Out of the city had come some kind of a design to undo him!

The village was still agog with the news of his engagement; the news bureaus on legs had gone north to tattle the thing among all the camps; and she was a detective sent to beguile him! The faces of the bystanders were creasing into grins.

"Ask her!" urged Crowley, relentlessly. "Or ask New York."

Postponement of the truth was futile; denial was dangerous; a confession forced by an appeal to New York would discredit her motives; she had not formally severed her connection with the agency. She determined to meet this man of the woods on his own plane of honesty.

"Come with me where we can talk privately," she urged; her demeanor told Latisan that she was not able to back the defiant stand he had taken with Crowley a moment before.

"It's too late now," he objected, getting his emotions partly under control. "The thing has been advertised too much to have any privacy about it now. When they are left to guess things in this section the guessing is awful! I'm never afraid to face men with the truth. He has said you came here as a detective. Those men standing around heard him.

What have you to say?"

"Won't you let me talk to you alone?"

"If I'm to stand up here before men after this, the facts will have to come out later; they may as well come out now."

He spoke mildly, but his manner afforded her no opportunity for further appeal; he was a man of the square edge and he was acting according to the code of the Open Places. She put away womanly weakness as best she was able and continued with him on his own ground.

"There is a plot to keep you away from your duty on the drive this season. You know as well as I do what interests furnished the money for such a purpose."

"And you know about it, do you, because you are one of the detective gang?"

"I have worked for the Vose-Mern agency."

She could not deny the evidence of that letter which he had shoved deep down into his pocket. He had reminded her of it by whacking his hand against his thigh.

"So that's what you are!" Again he was losing control of himself.

Men in the crowd snickered. They were perceiving much humor in the situation.

"I can explain later." She, too, was breaking down under the strain. She whimpered, pleading with him. "After you have brought down the drive I can explain and----"

"Now! It must be now! I can't bring down any drive till you do explain."

She did not understand.

But he knew all too bitterly under what a sword of Damocles he was standing. Ridicule was ready to slay him! The Big Laugh was already gurgling deep in the throats of all the folks. The news of his engagement had gone ahead of him to the north country; the Big Laugh would roar along in the wake of that news.

"The truth! It must come out now!" he shouted. "All the truth--the whole truth about yourself!"