The Law Of Hemlock Mountain Part 42

"At first I saw only the game, dear heart," he confessed, "never the unfairness. I'm ready to pay the price. Ruin me--but in G.o.d's name, believe that I love you."

Her hand came out waveringly at that, and for a moment rested on his shoulder with a little gesture of tenderness.

"I thought I hated you," she said. "I tried to hate you. I've dedicated myself to my people and their rights--but if you trust me enough, call them in and let me talk with them."

"Trust you enough!" he exclaimed pa.s.sionately, then he caught her to him, and, when he let her go, he stood again transformed and revivified into the man he had seemed before she appeared in the doorway. It was as though the touch of her lips had given him the fire from which he rose phoenixlike.

With an unhesitant step he went to the door and opened it, and the men who had gone out trooped back and ranged themselves again about the table.

"Mr. Spurrier did all in your interests that a man could do," said Glory. "He failed to secure your charter and he failed to secure the one tract that serves as the key. I am a mountain woman seeking only to protect my people. I hold that tract as trustee for Bud Hawkins. I mean to do business, but only at a fair price. It's for you to determine whether I deal with you or your compet.i.tors."

A look of consternation spread over the faces of the lesser men, but Harrison inquired with a grim smile:

"Madam, haven't I seen you somewhere before to-day?"

"Once before--down in the hills."

"Then you are this man's wife! Was this dramatic incident prearranged between you?"

She raised an imperative hand, and her voice admitted no question of sincerity.

"Make no such mistake. Mr. Spurrier knew nothing of this. He was loyal enough--to you. From him I never even learned the nature of his business. Without his knowledge _I_ was loyal to my people."

Then for ten minutes she talked clearly, forcefully, and with the ring of indubitable sincerity giving fire to voice and manner. She told of the fight she and her father had made to keep heart in mountain folk, enraged by what they believed to be the betrayal by a man they had trusted and attacked by every means of coercion at the disposal of American Oil and Gas.

She told of small local reservoirs, mysteriously burned by unknown incendiaries; of neighborhood pipe lines cut until they spilled out their wealth again into the earth; of how she herself had walked these lines at night, watching against sabotage.

As she talked with simple directness and without self-vaunting, they saw her growing in the trust of these men whose wrath had been, in the words of old Cappeze, "Like that of the wolf-b.i.t.c.h robbed a second time of her whelps." They recognized the faith that had commissioned her to speak as trustee, and to act with carte-blanche powers.

Harrison and his subordinates were not susceptible men, easily swayed by a dramatic circ.u.mstance, so they cross-examined and heckled her with shrewd and tripping inquiries, until she reminded them that she had not come as a supplicant, but to lay before them terms, which they would, at their peril, decline to accept.

The realization was strong in them that she had spoken only the truth when she declared that she held the key. When they were convinced that she realized, in full, the strength of her position, they had no wish to antagonize longer.

The group of financiers drew apart, but after a brief consultation Harrison came forward and offered his hand.

"Mrs. Spurrier," he announced crisply, "we have gone too far to draw back. After all, I think you come rather as a rescue party than an attacker. Spurrier, you have married a d.a.m.ned brilliant woman."

Glory accepted the extended hand of peace, and Harrison, with a jerk of his head to the door, led his followers out, leaving them alone again.

Then Glory held out her arms, and into the bright depths of her eyes flashed the old bewitching merriment.

"Thar's a lavish of things I needs ter know, Jack," she said. "You've got to l'arn 'em all ter me."

"I come now, not as teacher but as pupil, dear heart," he declared, "and I come humbly."

Then her face grew serious and her voice vibrant with tenderness.

"I have another gift for you, Jack, besides myself, I can give you back an untarnished name."

THE END