The Preacher of Cedar Mountain Part 14

"Oh! fool that I am. Oh, G.o.d! Ruined. All is ruined. I wish I were dead!" he exclaimed. "Oh! G.o.d forgive me."

As they pa.s.sed the fence where Blazing Star had been hitched, Hartigan stopped and stared. Charlie said:

"It's all right, Mr. Hartigan, I took care of him. He is in the stable."

Coming to Bylow's house, Jim pa.s.sed the entrance and went on to the stable. With trembling hands he opened the door and hesitated. He half expected Blazing Star to spurn and disown him. He was prepared for any and every humiliation, but the long, joyous neigh that greeted him was a shock, and a help.

"Oh! Blazing Star, if you only knew, you would not even look at me."

Charlie took the Preacher by the arm and led him to the house.

"Here, Mr. Hartigan, take off your clothes and go to bed. I will give you a wet towel for your head and, by and by, I will bring you some coffee."

"Oh! G.o.d be merciful, or strike me dead," and Jim broke down in an agony of remorse. "This is the end. All I hoped for gone. I don't want to live now."

"Mr. Hartigan, sure now I know how you feel. Ain't I been through it?

But don't be after making plans that are rash when you ain't just yourself. Now go to bed and rest awhile," and his kind Irish heart was wrung as he looked on the utter degradation of the manly form before him, and the shocking disfigurement of the one-time handsome face.

Charlie and his wife left Hartigan alone. They shut the door and Charlie went back to his brother's shanty to help the other victims of the orgy.

Jim tossed around uneasily, winning s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep, groaning, talking, abasing himself.

"Oh, Belle!" he moaned aloud. "Will you ever look at me again? Oh, G.o.d!

And me a preacher."

Cedar Mountain was not so big but that every one knew everybody else's business; and Mary Bylow understood when she heard the name "Belle." But she didn't know just what to do. After an hour she again heard him.

"Oh! Belle, Belle, what will you say?"

Taking the hot coffee from the stove, Mrs. Bylow knocked at the door and went in.

"Take this, it will make you feel better."

She hoped he would talk, but he didn't. He only thanked her feebly. Then Charlie came back from his brother's shanty. He had remembered that, it being Sunday, the Preacher would be missed and he saddled his horse to set out for Cedar Mountain. As he left, his wife came out and said:

"While you are there, drop a hint to Belle Boyd," and Charlie nodded.

Arriving at Dr. Jebb's, Charlie explained the case to the pastor without detail:

"Sure, Mr. Hartigan had a little accident at our corner last night and sprained his ankle. My wife is nursing him, but he won't be able to preach to-day."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Well, it is all right, I will take both services,"

and the blind and gentle old man turned to his books.

Then Bylow rode to the Boyd home. Here, he realized, was a much more difficult job. But he was determined to go into no details. It was Belle who answered his knock. Charlie began:

"My wife told me to tell you that Mr. Hartigan got hurt last night. He is at our house. He won't be in town to-day."

"What? Did he interfere in a spree?"

"Yes."

"Is he shot?"

"No."

"Is he wounded?"

"No, not exactly."

"What is the matter?"

"Only a general shakeup, he had a bad fall," and Bylow moved uneasily.

It was a simple matter to bluff a simple old clergyman, but it was another thing altogether to mislead an alert young woman. Belle knew there was something wrong--something more and different from what she had been told.

"Is the doctor with him?"

"No."

"I will get the doctor and come at once."

"No, I wouldn't; at least, not till morning."

Bylow's manner roused Belle all the more to prompt action. Seeing that all his explanations made things worse, Charlie abruptly left, mounted his broncho, and went "rockity rockity" as the pony's heels went "puff, puff" on the dusty trail around the hill and away.

The doctor was not to be found that morning and Belle found it hard to await his return. In the meantime, some strange rumour must have reached the town for in Sunday-school Belle met Eliza Lowe, the recently arrived sister of the schoolteacher. The look on her face, the gleam in her eye, were unmistakable. She had not yet learned of her brother's part in the affair. Belle found herself avoiding the sister's gaze.

As the hours pa.s.sed the conviction deepened in Belle that there was something seriously wrong; she could feel it in the air. It was something more than an accident to Hartigan. There was the indefinable shadow of shame about it. The oppression became unbearable and on leaving Sunday-school, she went down to the doctor's house. He had just got in from a case near Fort Ryan and was eating a belated meal. Belle went straight to the point:

"Dr. Carson, I want you to take me at once to Bylow's Corner."

"Why?"

"There's something wrong. Mr. Hartigan is in serious trouble. I don't believe that he has fallen from his horse as they say. I want to know the truth."

Her face was pale, her mouth was set. The doctor looked keenly at her a moment and then, comprehending, said:

"All right, I will"; and in ten minutes the mudstained buckboard with a fresh horse in it was speeding over the foot of Cedar Mountain on the trail to Bylow's.

While Belle was fretting under the delay and marshalling her forces for the trip to the Corner, Hartigan lay in the quiet Bylow cabin and under the influence of cold water, coffee, and a more collected mind, gradually acquired some degree of composure. He had risen and dressed and was sadly musing on the wreck of all his life which that one fiery sip had brought about, when the thought of Blazing Star came to him. He went eagerly to the stable and as he rubbed the animal down he found help in the physical action. He hammered the currycomb on a log to clean it before putting it in the box, then gazing to the eastward along the trail that climbed around the shoulder of Cedar Mountain, he saw a buckboard approaching. In the Black Hills one identifies his visitor by his horse, and Jim recognized the Carson outfit. Sitting beside the doctor was a woman in a light-coloured dress with a red parasol raised above her. It smote him as no man's fist had ever done. He turned into the stable, put saddle and bridle on Blazing Star, swung to the seat, gave rein to the willing beast and, heading away from Cedar Mountain on the Deadwood Trail, went bounding, riding, stricken, too hard hit and shamed to meet the eyes of the woman whose praise he had come to value as the best approval he might hope to win.

The doctor's buckboard came to the door, tied up, and the two occupants went in.

"Where is your patient, Mrs. Bylow?"

The woman pointed to the bedroom door, went to it, knocked, opened it, and finding the room empty said: