From the Valley of the Missing Part 12

The boy toiled up the rocks to the top of the cave, and Flea heard his departing steps for a moment, then seated herself in tremulous fear.

Flukey pushed open the cabin door, listened a moment, and stepped in. No sound save of loud breathing came from the back room where the old woman slept. At the top of the ladder he could hear Lon snoring loudly. Flukey crawled upon his knees to a small box against the wall. He pulled out a pair of brown overalls and a blue s.h.i.+rt, and with great caution crept back. Almost before Flea realized that he had gone, he was in the cave again with s.n.a.t.c.het in his arms, displaying his plunder.

"Put 'em on quick!" ordered Flukey. "Here, hold still!" As he spoke, he gathered Flea's black curls into his fingers and cut them off boylike to her head. "If Pappy Lon catches us," he went on, "he'll knock h.e.l.l out of us both."

The girl, having surrendered her spirit of command, crawled into the trousers and donned the blue s.h.i.+rt. After extinguis.h.i.+ng the candle, which Flukey slipped into his pocket, they clambered out of the cave, leaving the rocky floor strewn with locks of hair, and stole softly along the sh.o.r.e toward the college hill.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Horace Sh.e.l.lington, newly fledged attorney and counsellor-at-law, sat in his luxurious library, his feet c.o.c.ked upon the desk in true bachelor fas.h.i.+on. He was apparently deep in thought, his handsome head resting against the back of the chair, when his meditations were broken by a knock at the door.

"Come in. Is it you, Sis?" he said.

"Yes, Dear," was the answer as the girl entered. "Everett wants us to go in his party to the Dryden fair. Would you like to?"

Horace glanced up quizzically and smiled as the blush mounted to her fair hair. "The question, Ann dear, rests with you."

"I never tire being with Everett," Ann said slowly.

"That's because you're in love with him, Sis. When a girl is in love she always wants to be with the lucky chap."

"And doesn't he want to be with her?" demanded Ann eagerly.

"Of course. And, Ann, I shouldn't ask for a better fellow than Everett is, only that I don't want you to leave me right away. Without you, Dear, I think I should die of the blue devils!"

"Do you want me to stay at home until you, too, get ready to marry?" Ann asked laughingly. "I'm afraid I should never have a chance to help Everett make a home if you did; for you simply won't like any of the girls I know."

"I want to get well started in my profession before I think of marrying. I am happy over the fact that I have been able to enter Vandecar's law office. He's the strongest man in the state in his line, and it means New York for me some day. Vandecar is even more powerful than Brimbecomb."

"I'm glad for you, Horace, because it seems to me that you have an opportunity that few men have. Nothing can ever keep you back! And you are so very young, Dear!"

"No, nothing can keep me back now, Ann. Sit down, do."

"Not now, Dear; I'll run away from you, and tell Everett that you will go to Dryden with us--and I do hope that the weather will be fine!"

Ann tripped out, her heart light with contentment. Her star of happiness had reached its zenith when Everett Brimbecomb had asked her to be his wife. Rich in her own right, of the bluest blood in the state, soon to marry the man who had been her ideal since their childhood days, why should she not be happy?

After leaving Horace, Ann went to the side window and tapped upon it.

Receiving no response, she lifted the sash and called softly to her fiance. Hearing her voice, Everett Brimbecomb appeared at the opposite window. The girl's heart thrilled with happiness as he smiled upon her.

"Run over a minute, Everett," she called.

"All right, dear heart."

His voice was so vibrantly low and rich that the girl experienced a feeling of thanksgiving as she stood waiting for him at the door. When he came, the lovers went into the drawing-room, where a grate fire burned dim.

"Horace says he'll go to Dryden, Everett," Ann announced, "and I'm so glad! I thought he might say that he was too busy."

Everett smiled, slipped his arm about the girl's waist, and for a moment she leaned against him like a frail, sweet flower.

Presently Ann noticed that a shadow had settled on her lover's face.

Womanlike, she questioned him.

"Is there anything the matter, Dear?" she asked, drawing him to the divan.

"Nothing serious. I've been talking with Father."

"Yes?"

She waited for him to continue; but he sat silent, wrapped in thought for a long minute. At last, however, he spoke gloomily:

"Ann, I wish I knew who my own people were."

"Aren't you satisfied with those you have, Everett?" There was sweet reproof in the girl's tones.

"More than satisfied," he said; "but somehow I feel--no I won't say it, Ann. It would seem caddish to you."

"Nothing you could say to me would seem that," she answered.

Everett rose and walked up and down the room. "Well, it seems to me that, although the blood of the Brimbecomb's is blue, mine is bluer still; that, while they have many famous ancestors, I have still more ill.u.s.trious ones. I feel sometimes a longing to run wild and do unheard-of things, and to make men know my strength, to--well, to virtually turn the world upside down."

A frightened look leaped into the girl's eyes. He was so vehement, so pa.s.sionate, so powerful, that at times she felt how inferior in temperment she was to him. Her heart swelled with grat.i.tude when she realized that he belonged to her and to her alone. How good G.o.d had been! And every day in the solitude of her chamber she had thanked the Giver of every gift for this perfect man--since he was perfect to her.

In a few moments she rose and walked beside him, longing to enter into the hidden ambitions of his heart, to read his innermost thoughts.

Everett appreciated her feeling. Again he pa.s.sed his arm around her, and for a time they paced to and fro, each thankful for the love that had become the chief thing in life.

"I have an idea, Ann," began Everett presently, "that my mother will know me by the scar on me here." He raised his fingers to his shoulder and drew them slowly downward as he continued. "And I know that she is some wild, beautiful thing different from any other woman living. And I've pictured my father in my mind's eyes a million times, since I have found out I am not really Everett Brimbecomb."

"But Mr. and Mrs. Brimbecomb have done everything for you--"

"So they have," broke in Everett; "but a chap wants to know his own flesh and blood, and, since Mother told me that I was not her own son, I've looked into the face of every woman I've seen and wondered if my own mother was like her. I don't want to seem ungrateful; but if they would only tell me more I could rest easier." A painful pucker settled between his brows.

"Sit down here, Everett," Ann urged, "and tell me if you have ever tried to find them."

"I asked my fath--Mr. Brimbecomb today." His faltering words and the change of appellation shocked Ann; but she did not chide him, for he was speaking again. "I told him that, now I was through college and had been admitted to the bar, I insisted upon knowing who my own people were. But he said that I must ask his wife; that she knew, and would tell me, if she desired me to know. I promised him long ago that I would register in his law office at the same time that Horace went to Vandecar's. Confound it, Ann!--I beg your pardon, but I feel as if I had been created for something more than to drone over petty cases in a law office."

"But, Everett, it has been understood ever since you went to Cornell that you should enter Mr. Brimbecomb's office. You would not fail him now that he is so dependent upon you?"

"Of course not; I intend to work with him. But I tell you this, Ann, that I am determined to find my own people at whatever cost!"

"Did you ask Mrs. Brimbecomb about them?"

"Yes; but she cried so that I stopped--and so it goes! Well, Dear, I don't want to worry you. It only makes a little more work for me, that's all. But, when I do find them, I shall be the proudest man in all the world."

Ann rose to her feet hastily. "Here comes Horace! Let's talk over the fair--and now, Dear, I must kiss away those naughty lines between your eyes this moment. I don't want my boy to feel sad."