An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West

“Oh, that-a beesa a lettle a da game-a. He, he, he, he,” he laughed low and gleefully, in strange contrast to the white of his eyeballs, which shone with sinister effect as he leered at her.

“Two play-a dees-a da trick, Signora! Wouldn’t yous-a look-a da well bees-a compan-e-on ove-a mine, in a da pen, eh, Signora. He, he, he, he,” he again laughed.

“Eesa don-a da know some-a da ting about eesa da Duc, eh! Eesa don-a da hear a da game between ee mand a da Signora da Virginia, eh! Sacremento!” He fairly ground out the last word between his teeth.

Virginia shuddered and then involuntarily exclaimed: “Villain!”

Jack turned upon her swiftly, ceremoniously bowed, and again leered at her. Then, with a most offensive smirk playing about his mouth, said: “Tank-a da Signora, my a da pard.”

Her face burned with the red that flushed up. She felt that even the darkness could not conceal her flaming cheeks. She bent her head in humiliation and shame at the all too well merited rebuke.

For a moment there followed intense stillness. She thought of what he had possibly heard at the Harris reception. “His disclosure would incriminate me with Rutley. Still, it matters not. My duty to my God, my home and Constance is to make reparation for the wrong I have done.”

She broke the silence in an assumed, haughty tone. “Well, as you are poor and in need, I will give you five hundred dollars upon return of the child; but if you do not comply by noon tomorrow I shall inform the police.”

“Eesa bett-a note!” he replied, with an unmistakable menace in his voice. “Eef yourse da squeal on a da ma, Signora – look-a da out!” And so saying, he slowly drew his finger across his throat.

The action was most significant. “Eesa bett-a da keep a da mum! Understand-a! Youse-a geeve a me a da twenty da thouse-a dollair, youse-a take a da kid – but youse-a da squeal!” and he drew close and hissed at her – “Bett-a da look a for her eesa mong a da weeds in a da Willamette.”

His attitude was so threatening, and his speech uttered with such savage earnestness, that it drove all courage from her heart. Again she felt, as once before, at the Harris reception, how puny a thing she was in the presence of a strong, masculine rascal.

She, however, quickly mastered the momentary sickening alarm that had seized her, and assuming a bold, threatening manner, in which she astonished herself, for she felt anything but defiant just then, said in a voice low and determined:

“Scoundrel! If you harm that child, I, myself, will weave the rope to hang you!”

Jack leered at her. “So Signora” – laughed, laughed low and derisively. “Ha, ha, ha, Signora lak-a da job, eh? Eesa mak-a da boss a hang-a man, eh?”

Jack could not repress a smile of admiration at her courage, and his lips quivered to exclaim: “God, she is game!”

“An-a deesea lettle white-a da hands-a,” he sneered. “Stain ’em all a da red, eh?” and he chuckled low, as though amused. “Oh, ha, ha, ha.” Suddenly he changed his tone and again continued threateningly. “Now look-a da ere. Eef-a youse-a da want a kid, gett-a da mon a da quick – twenty da thous, for eesa tink a da move-a da way. May bees gett-a da organ en-a da monk, go down South Amereek. Eef youse-a danna da squeal, da kid bees-a da safe; but effe youse-a da tell a po-lis, eesa mak-a da me a devil,” and he again drew close to her and hissed out between his teeth.

“When eesa be lik-a dat, Eesa does a da murda,” and so saying, he thrust his hand inside his double-breasted short coat, and partially drew out a glittering knife. “Eesa you da see?” – and he leaned over to her, a sinister glint shooting from the corner of his eye – “Eesa slit more’s a da one-a windpipe.” As he replaced the knife, a low whistle sounded off toward the right. It startled him, for he muttered as if alarmed. “Ha, some one is watching me.” And without another word or moment of delay, glided off southward, and disappeared in the darkness.

Sam having seen the glitter of a knife against the dim city lights, unconsciously gave a low whistle of warning, and sprang to his feet. He believed Virginia was in imminent peril.

For a moment he stood irresolute, unwilling to uncover his identity to her or to in any wise have her think he had been shadowing her. Then feeling satisfied she was not hurt, he sped away on the track of the Italian.

Virginia was alone. She, also, had seen the figure of a man suddenly loom up on the right and then hasten after the supposed Italian.

The terror that now had seized her, the strain that gave artificial courage, so worked upon her nerves as to produce a trembling of her limbs, and to avoid a threatened collapse she sank down on the grass.

Her strength gradually returned, her agitation quieted and she began to think with lucidity. She had been followed by whom? Most likely a detective in the pay of her brother.

“Thank God!” His unknown presence at a perilous moment had been sweetly welcome. “Dorothy is not dead,” she thought. “Thank Heaven for that, too; but she is in the hands of a murderous scoundrel, who would not hesitate to shed innocent blood were his own safety jeoparded.”

An attempt at rescue by the police would, no doubt, result in the death of Dorothy. She must act alone, act at once. Having arrived at that conclusion, she arose to her feet. To get Dorothy home was the first thing to be done – the mother’s life depended upon that.

How could she get twenty thousand dollars to pay the ransom? She bent her head in thought. She had been instrumental in the ruin and disgrace of her only brother’s happy home. If it was in human power to restore happiness to that home, she would do it. The Italian is in desperate need of money. She could hypothecate her income; sell her jewels.

“I will offer him all I can possibly obtain – then, if he will not release Dorothy,” and her voice took on a soft, strange, resolute calmness. “God helping me, I will take her from him, even though,” and she looked at her own little white hands, “these do become stained red in the work.”

Then she made her way out of the park, and returned to her home.

CHAPTER VI

Sam had followed Virginia and stood unseen within ten yards of her when that morning she sat under the maple after she had left Constance. He noted how absorbed she was in thought – noted her grave, white, shocked face, and her bowed head. His sympathy went out to her. Oh, what wouldn’t he then have given to be able to clasp her in his arms, to comfort her – the woman he so madly loved! Though free and impulsive in his manner with other women, to her he was as coy and modest and respectful as a boy of fifteen.

He lingered near the premises for a time, from an impelling sympathy to be near her in her trouble, and hoping she would re-appear, but in that he was disappointed.

He returned again in the evening, resolved to call on her. He ascended the piazza steps and crossed to the door, but somehow at the moment could not muster courage to push the button. After meditating for a moment, he turned and softly passed along the piazza. On reaching the south extension he halted, for the sound of a door softly closing caught his ear, and then he saw Virginia emerging from the side entrance, closely veiled. In a moment Sam was all alertness.

He wondered at her veiled appearance at that hour, about half past ten, and at her avoiding the main front entrance. He followed at a distance and saw her enter a Washington and Twenty-third street car. He boarded the next one that came along.

Fortunately the interval between the two cars was short, there having been a breakdown on Fifth and Washington streets, resulting in the cars being bunched. Sam stood at the front end of the car beside the motorman, and in the darkness – the front inside blinds being down – was able to keep a sharp lookout at the car just ahead.

At the intersection of Washington and Twenty-third streets, the forward car stopped, and he distinctly saw a woman alight. “Virginia!” he muttered, and as his car passed on, he saw her walking toward the park entrance. One block further along Twenty-third street Sam alighted, and rapidly retraced his steps to Washington street. On rounding the corner, and coming into view of the park entrance, where blazed an arc light, he caught sight of her again, entering the gateway.

Sam briskly covered the distance, keeping well under the line of shadows.

“Did you notice the path a lady took, who entered the park a minute since?” he inquired of a park policeman.

“Yes; that way!” and the policeman waved his hand to the left.

“Thank you,” and Sam followed the direction indicated. A strange foreboding hurried him on. He was then fully aroused to something extraordinary about to happen. He walked on the grass whenever possible to muffle the sound of his footfalls, and soon was rewarded by making out the dim form of a woman some distance ahead, being still in the range of the gate arc light. There was no mistaking the figure. From that moment he never lost sight of her.

To avoid suspicion of shadowing her, he took a diverging path and boldly clambered over the hill, and proceeded toward the children’s playgrounds, apparently away from her. Passing on and in the direction of the reservoirs, he at length stopped at the fountain.

He was the “man near the fountain” whom she discovered while she was standing under the cedar.

Sam had stopped but a moment when, to his amazement, he discovered Virginia suddenly had disappeared down the hillside. He at once followed her, and was the man she again saw on the driveway beneath her. Again she disappeared, and he shrewdly suspected, into the deep shadow of the clump of firs nearby.

He was straining his eyes diagonally up the slope, trying to penetrate the gloom, when a low scream of terror assailed his ears, and was quickly followed by a low, reassuring masculine voice. He determined to get near them. He threw himself flat against the bank and, shielded some by the unmowed grassy slope, dragged himself along for about fifty feet, to where the driveway, rounding westward, divided them from the long flight of steps. He passed within fifty feet of the couple, then cautiously pulled himself near the summit. The ridge was strategically of great value. It enabled him to flank them unseen.

He immediately availed himself of its cover and sneaked slowly and cautiously along the side of the crest to a point which he judged to be near enough to them, and then he peered above the summit. The couple were between him and the dim city lights. He strained his ears to catch their words, and drew himself closer, inch by inch, fearing discovery, yet desperately anxious to catch the purpose of the meeting, and when he saw the glittering knife, his alarm gave expression in the low whistle.

When he sprang on in pursuit of Jack, it was with a determination to ascertain who he was, where he lived, and, if possible, to gain some knowledge of his purpose in this meeting with Virginia at such an unseasonable time and place.

The few words of low-spoken conversation he had heard gave him no clue to the real object of the meeting; but he was convinced that some grave and momentous purpose was involved to have induced Virginia to keep so perilous an appointment alone.

“Did she make the appointment?” The thought was no sooner uttered than it gave place to another equally as suggestive, for just then thoughts raced through Sam’s brain with amazing rapidity. “Or, rather, was she not compelled to meet the stranger by some power which he had obtained over her – some secret of her life which she feared – a deathly fear, of disclosure, and which this man knew, and its power he knew only too well, how to wield.”

The more he thought about it, the more the mystery, for such it appeared to him, deepened. He determined to fathom it. Inured to a rough, open-air life on the Texas plains, his constitution was hard and tough, and well seasoned for the job presented – and, it must be confessed, it was to his liking.

Sam felt his blood tingle as his enthusiasm rose to the prospect of a genuine adventure, and he hurried along, over the soft, yielding grass, to catch sight of the fellow ahead. A clump of low bushes suddenly confronted him. It was an unusually dark spot, and then, for the first time, he thought of the ugly knife the stranger had displayed, and realized that he himself was unarmed.

He almost halted – wary of running into an ambush, and cautiously made a wide detour, meanwhile alert for any sudden surprise from the direction of the bush. Discovering no sign of a crouching figure there, he hastened on, and finally caught sight of a moving shadow, as it crossed a faint shaft of light shot from a window of a dwelling on Ford street, to his left.

“Ah, I guess so. That’s the party,” he muttered to himself, and from that moment Sam was as keen on the trail as a sleuth on the scent, never losing sight of his quarry, but himself avoiding, as he believed, discovery.

Occasionally, as the moon cleared from an obscuring cloud, he could make out the man halting under the shelter of a fir or clump of saplings, evidently to listen for sounds of a pursuer, and then, seemingly satisfied, again move on.

So far the direction of his course was toward the reservoir, but of a sudden he turned, and sharply cutting across Sam’s front, swiftly entered the deep gloom of a cluster of cedars, where he was lost to the eyes of the pursuer.

It was plain that his man intended to avoid exit by the main gate, or by Park avenue, a circumstance to cause Sam keen chagrin, for he hoped by an adroit move to get a good square look at the fellow’s face as he would pass under the entrance arc light.

To the right, a foot path wound its way to the main gate. To the left of a cluster of dark firs stretched a comparative level, past the bear pit, and right down to the deer corral; but what park features lay beyond and between the firs and corral, he could not determine. In his effort to mislead Sam, the fugitive had doubled on his track, and at that moment was but a short distance west of the starting point. Sam reasoned that this man would not cross that smooth, grassy plot, nor emerge from his retreat and go down the path, but most likely would take a direct course through the cluster of firs, and under the shelter of their dark shadow strike the fence directly opposite, and so reach the Barnes road, a hundred yards or so west of the park gate.

It was obvious that time was an important factor. There being no possible place of concealment between his present position and the firs, he must either go back and take a circuitous route, or boldly approach by the path. He chose the latter. Skirting the firs – for he dared not enter the cluster’s gloomy precincts in his defenseless condition – he soon passed them and discovered a succession of odd-looking shrubs, trained to fantastic growths by the gardener. They afforded excellent cover right down past the bear pit to the deer corral fence, which ran along the brow of the hill; farther down, a second fence, which still exists, bounded the deer corral and separated the park from the Barnes road. A little further along and against the upper picket fence (since removed), a mass of tangled ivy and Virginia creeper foliage, revelled in wild luxuriance.

The vines had seized upon and had grown about and over some dwarf locust trees, forming a series of natural bowers, rather picturesque by daylight, but at night, dismally dark and forbidding.

Sam hesitated, which was well for him, for under the shadow of these dark vines, Rutley and Jack Shore had met by previous arrangement. They were silently watching him.

“I cannot shake him off. He tracks me like a bloodhound,” Jack informed his companion, in a whisper.

“The meddlesome fool!” replied Rutley. “If he will not stop following you – why – he carries his life in his hands.”

“No, no! Not that. We don’t want any killing in ours, Phil, anything but that. Who is he?”

“Sam Harris. I saw him follow Virginia and was sure he would run foul of you.”

“The simpleton is harmless anyway. He is moving to the fence. See him? Hist!”

After studying the wild growth for a few moments, Sam decided to approach it by way of the fence. There he suddenly dropped to his knees and crept noiselessly – very close beside the fence, toward the tangle. As he neared it he could make out its black cavernous recesses. Twice he paused, his eyes strained with the utmost tension of watchfulness against a surprise, for he now fully believed that the man he was attempting to shadow was a desperate character.

However, he crept nearer, hardly stirring a blade of grass, so cautious was his progress – so silent his movements. He listened intently, scarcely breathing, lest its sound should betray his presence. His hands gently touched a vine to part the leaves – instantly he was greeted with a hiss and a rattle, and then something glittered close to his eyes, which in the moment of his startled alarm he believed to be the glitter of a reptile’s fangs. It caused him to bolt suddenly with a panicky feeling at his heart, and then it brought from Jack a soft chuckle of merriment.

“He’s not as plucky as the girl. We must throw him off the scent at any cost,” whispered Rutley, “or we will be trapped.” Suddenly he laid his hand on Jack’s arm and continued with a low, sardonic laugh: “I have it, Jack. You lead him down on the Barnes road; I’ll meet him there,” and without any further delay Rutley slipped down the steep slope to his automobile, which lay in the deep shadow of the canyon walls, a little further to the west, where he waited with the evil purpose in his heart for the climax.

Sam was no coward. He had faced dangerous situations fearlessly, but that hiss and rattle, in the stillness of a dark, lonely and forbidding place, fairly raised his hair, and lent a lightness to his feet that amazed him, when he halted and noted the distance covered in the few moments of his flight.

“One of those deadly reptiles got out of the park zoo,” he thought, “sneaked his way into that jungle – I guess so!” and he wiped the beads of perspiration from his face as he added aloud: “An almighty close call! But,” and he looked up at the dark sky, and then around and about, and as gathering confidence returned to him, continued: “I shall not give up yet, not yet. I guess not.”

Yet it was apparent his pursuit of the stranger had signally failed, and he stood motionless wondering what course then best for him to adopt.

True, he was in a dilemma, and instinctively realized that to remain in the park was useless. So, without forming any practical conclusion, and for the purpose of keeping active, he again moved toward the fence. It was then he conceived the notion to climb over the fence and make a short descent to the gate, in order to catch sight of Virginia, for she could not be far away yet, and to follow her and secretly to protect her on her return to her home. With that object in mind, he climbed the fence, and, securing a position on its top, looked cautiously about. He was some distance to the west of the tangle of vines, from which he was screened by the foliage of a small tree that grew nearby.

The gate light threw a faint glimmer along the fence, and on the Barnes road in the gorge below. He peered down the steep hillside, and looked up and down the road. There being no one in sight, he let his legs slip quietly down the other side of the fence, and gradually lowered himself, without sustaining other injury than a few trivial scratches. As he brushed mechanically the debris which had clung to his clothes, he was surprised to see the figure of a man step out, seemingly from the fence itself, and slip down the hillside, and climbing the lower fence, cross the almost dry bed of the stream, close to the road, and proceed cityward.

Sam was sure the man, whoever he was, had not been on the corral side of the fence a moment before, and to give the mysterious appearance a deeper significance, the point of exit was about the location of the tangled vines. The appearance of the man differed from the one he had followed, inasmuch that one had on a long coat and bushy beard, the other wore a short pilot coat and mustache. For a moment Sam was puzzled, and he scratched his head. Suddenly he broke out in an unconscious whisper to himself, as though urged on by some supernatural agency, for afterward it surprised him when he thought of that moment: “Damned if I don’t think he’s the same party I’ve been after, disguised.”

And he made straight for the place, as near as he could estimate, where the man had emerged.

It was a few moments before he found it, but a close examination soon revealed two yielding pickets of the fence. True, just sufficient to admit a man’s body sideways, but there it was, as he afterwards discovered, and perfectly screened from observation by masses of slender leaf-laded branches and twigs. The inner, bushy part being skilfully cut away. The trick employed to evade him was now palpable. The hiss, the buzzing rattle, the glitter – “Ah; it was the glitter of a steel blade” – and at the thought he shivered, as with an icy chill, for he realized how dangerously near a death-trap he had ventured. As the reaction came, his face flamed with the hot blood of indignation and chagrin at the smart dodge by which he had been temporarily baffled.

In the distance, down near the park entrance, was still dimly visible the retreating form of a man. Sam determined to follow him.

He slid and partly tumbled down the steep hillside, sprang over the lower fence, and crossed the bed of the creek and on to the road – and was so intent on his mission that he did not hear or see, until it was almost upon him, a dark, noiseless machine, approaching from the rear. He moved hastily aside to let it pass, but to his intense astonishment, the automobile followed him with evident intention of running him down. Again he sprang aside, but too late. The front wheel grazed his left leg and swung him around on to the rear wheel, which hurled him violently to the ground.

Having accomplished his purpose, Rutley at once stopped the machine, alighted, and examined Sam.

He was soon joined by Jack, who asked, in a low voice: “Have you killed him?”

“I don’t think so. Bad gash on the side of his head, though.”

“Dangerous?”

“Impossible for me to say.”

“Just unconscious?” anxiously inquired Jack.

“Yes; but I don’t think he will interfere with us again for some time. What shall we do with him?”

“Take him home.”

“Good idea,” grunted Rutley. “It becomes you decidedly well, Jack, after being a villain, to play the good Samaritan. Well, take this handkerchief and bind his wound,” and he raised Sam’s head while Jack bound up the wound.

“It will make old Harris feel under an obligation to me.”

“And you can touch him for the loan of ten thousand, to square accounts,” added Jack. And again Rutley laughed.

“Come, let’s pack him on to the machine.”

CHAPTER VII

Shortly after the insult forced upon him by John Thorpe at the Harris reception, and finding it impossible to enjoy the spirit of the gay throng, Mr. Corway took his departure.

Disappointed in his endeavor to communicate with Hazel, who deemed it discreet to avoid his presence until after the affair had been cleared up – and actuated by the purest motives, he could not but feel that he was the mistaken victim of some foul play with which fate had strangely connected him.

He recalled the profound respect he had always entertained for and on every occasion he had shown Mrs. Thorpe. And as his thoughts of the affair deepened, his natural fire of resentment softened and died out as effectually as though he had been summoned to stand beside the deathbed of some very dear friend. And the more he thought of it, the more disagreeable and repugnant a quarrel with John Thorpe appeared to him; yet his honor as a gentleman grossly insulted, forbade any other way out of it.

Finally he decided to consult Mr. Harris on the best course to pursue, and for that purpose determined to visit Rosemont the next day.

It was well on in the afternoon that he left his hotel for the Jefferson street depot, and while walking along First street he noticed a closed “hack,” drawn by a pair of black horses, rapidly proceeding in the same direction.

As it passed him, he felt sure that he had caught a glimpse of Lord Beauchamp’s profile, through the small, glazed lookout at the back of the vehicle.