The Bail Jumper Part 22

"I do not wish to be unkind, Mr. Gardiner, nor to coach you in your suit, but-don't you think you are arguing your case too much from your point of view? To put it plainly, you present reasons why you should want to marry me. Would it not be more to the point to suggest reasons why I should want to marry you?"

"Perhaps you are right. I admit I was speaking from my own view point.

But, if I must say it, surely I am not without recommendations. I can keep you comfortably, and gratify your tastes and ambitions anywhere within reason. I have a good business, and some investments--"

"I said I didn't wish to coach you, but I see I must. Can't you see that tastes and ambitions and business and investments are nothing-absolutely nothing-without love? Love is the only argument that can appeal to a true girl's heart, and when love argues it needs not to be supplemented by any other consideration. Without love there can be no marriage. There may be a ceremony, but it is a hollow mockery-an outraging of every principle of real virtue. That is the argument you need, Mr. Gardiner, the only argument that can ever persuade me. And that argument is lacking."

"Which is a roundabout way of saying you don't love me?"

"Love may be denied, but it needs not to be confessed. Where it exists it will proclaim itself."

"So you have not yet learned to love me?"

She did not answer.

"You are still thinking of someone else?"

She did not answer.

"I do not wish to pursue an unpleasant subject, Miss Vane, but if you are still hoping for Burton's return let me urge you to disillusion yourself. He will not return. If you care for him you should hope that he will not return. Return can mean only one thing to him, and he must know that. And he will not be brought back. I may say that I used my influence with the Department to have no effort made to apprehend him.

He will not come back."

"I think he will come back."

"I will wager anything-I would lay any odds, that he will not come back.

Listen-I lay you a wager. If Burton voluntarily returns to trial I promise never to press this question again. If he does not your answer is to be 'Yes.' Have you faith enough in Burton for that?"

For a moment she hesitated.

"You are not so sure of him," he urged.

"Yes, I am sure of him."

"Then our wager is placed, and bound by the honour of each," he cried, exultantly.

CHAPTER XVI-KIT MCKAY

"Ned McCann owned the Double Star 'way back in the early days; He had come out here with a sickly wife and a kid he hoped to raise Where the climate suited the feeble-lunged, but life was scarce at its brim, Till a little mound by a prairie hill held half of the world for him; And his double love would have spoiled the child had she been like me or you, But her only thought was for her dad and the mother she scarcely knew."

_Prairie Born._

The sun was setting on their second day's drive when Burton and Mr.

McKay crested a ridge behind which lay the farmer's buildings and his sweeping fields of grain, already glowing yellowish in the long bars of amber sunlight that bathed their gently rustling ma.s.s. Before them stretched the prairie trail, down a gentle incline until it lost itself in a little gulley; there was the plain bald scar where it climbed out at the other side, and immediately beyond was the farmhouse. Burton's eyes drank in the magnitude and peace of the scene with a sense that here at least was a haven where his troubles might not follow him. And he mentally blessed the old farmer, for whom he already felt a strong friends.h.i.+p.

"Waal, thar she be, all the same as we left her," proclaimed the farmer, jerking his whip-hand forward. "Yep, thar she be, all right."

The farmer was not emotional, and the words seemed a very commonplace statement of fact, but Burton guessed that beneath his rough exterior the old man carried a heart that turned to his home with that fervent loyalty to place so often found among the rural cla.s.ses. It was his home-his own home, chopped from the bush and dug from the hillside, largely by the force of his own right arm. And between the home that is built and the home that is acquired is a gulf as broad as between birth and adoption.

"So that is your home," the young man ventured. "What a beautiful place!"

"It is purty, haint it?" said the farmer, looking around, and there was a light of gratification in his eye. "An' yet," he continued, "yu'll find men 'at wonder how a man can live in a place like this. They think electric lights an' telephones and movin' pictures an'-an' the left foot on the rail most uv the time-they think that's what makes life. Well, by hang, Ah spend a little money myself when Ah go to town." The farmer paused and chuckled meditatively for a minute or two. "Yep. Some of 'em holler 'Ol' Sport' soon's they see me comin'. But Ah take my spice as an appetiser, not as a food. Why, hang it, youngster, Ah wouldn't live in a city if they let me sleep in the Crystal Palace and sent my breakfast up with the mayor! Ah got twelve hundred and eighty acres of land here, an'

more cattle 'an it's worth while countin'; Ah got all outdoors to stretch myself, and Ah ain't wantin' tuh trade with n.o.body."

The farmer shaded his eyes with his hand. The rays of the sun, now almost horizontal, blinded their vision of the valley.

"Yep," he said at last, with a sigh of satisfaction. "There's Kid comin'. Ah reckoned she'd be watchin' fer us."

A cloud of dust rose lazily from the ravine; then stretched in a thin ribbon along the hot prairie trail. Burton's eye was not trained to horsemans.h.i.+p, but it needed no experienced observer to know that the rider was approaching furiously. The streak of dust lengthened out as though shot from a gun.

"That's my daughter," the old man said, and Burton was conscious of a deep thrill of pride in his voice. "She allus rides like thet. She's the girl fer a rusty cayuse, an' don't forget it. By hang, she'd ride a rabbit if she could saddle it. Yep, she's a-comin' to meet us."

"To meet _you_, I guess," corrected Burton.

The old man looked at him quizzically. "Waal, Ah guess thet is more technically keerect," he admitted. "Ah ain't sayin' she's comin' out particular to meet you _this trip_."

There was an emphasis on the last words which Burton had not fathomed when a chestnut horse swung up beside the wagon, and a young girl, as brown and lithe as her beautiful mount, brought her gauntletted hand down with a resounding smack on Mr. McKay's shoulder.

"Ho, Dad," she cried, "you're a sight for the angels."

"Yep," a.s.sented the old man, "fer my angel, Ah reckon that's right."

"I declare," laughed the girl, "how you do learn those cunning speeches when you go to town! Tell me, now, who taught you that?"

"You're gettin' a bigger tease than ever, Kid. Tell me, how's ever'thing goin' on the farm?"

"Oh, that's too big an order. I know I have been all right-fine-fit. But say, Dad, haven't you forgotten something?"

"Waal, that might be, easy enough," said the farmer, looking back and surveying the heavy load. "There's the binder twine and the groceries and machine oil an' the mail--"

"Dad, you're a chump. Here you let me live in the wilderness, with nothing more exciting than bronchoes and mustangs, and when a real live-possibility-comes along you-you won't even introduce me!" The sentence ended in a burst of mimic sobbing.

"Waal, by hang, one does sorta ferget his sa.s.siety manners, usin' 'em so little. This is my daughter Kid--"

"Not Kid!" exclaimed the girl. "Kath--"

"All right. Kath-er-een. Kate for short. Kid fer shorter. She allus gets shorter--"

But by this time the chestnut had flashed around to the other side of the wagon, and the girl had ridden up beside Burton.

"All right, Dad," she interrupted. "I am sufficiently designated. Now tell me _his_ name."

"Waal, thet's just what Ah'm kinda killin' time over. Ah did hear his name too, but hang me if Ah ain't plumb fergot it."

Burton looked up in the bright face now close by his side. "I find I must always a.s.sist your father in a case of this kind," he said, smiling. "And as he does not appear to be much of a formalist-just call me Ray."