Lightnin'

But as he reached the middle of the lobby he heard some one on tiptoe behind him. He turned to see Marvin, crouched down by the desk, so that any one coming from up-stairs could not see him.

"'Sh!" Bill put up a warning hand. "Blodgett's outside there some place."

"He's snoring in his buggy," Marvin whispered back, with a half-smile. "Bill," he added, quickly, "I've been outside and I've heard every word they've been saying to you. I haven't time to tell you all I want to just now. Promise me again that you won't sign that deed until you've talked further with me about it."

Bill hesitated. "Well, mother wants to awful bad," he answered, slowly.

From the dining-room voices could be heard. "Ye'd better get out," said Bill.

"Not until you promise," persisted Marvin.

Bill wavered an instant. He wanted mother to be happy, and yet, another day did not make so much difference – especially when Marvin was in danger. The door in back of him swung open. Leaning quickly down to Marvin, as the latter crept toward the outer door, he whispered: "All right. I promise."

Mrs. Jones walked into the room with a swagger, half of indignation, half of sorrow. She was still wiping the tears from her eyes. The deed and the pen were in her hand.

Bill went to her, placing an affectionate hand on her bare arm. "Mother, ain't you cold?" He could not resist another tilt at her unusual costume.

"No." She stamped her foot at him, withdrawing her arm from his hand. "I'm hot all over at you, insulting me before those gentlemen." Hurrying to the California desk, she buried her head on her crossed arms and began to cry. "Makin' fun of me," she sobbed, "because I try to look presentable for once in my life."

Following her to the desk, Bill patted her gently on the back. "It's gettin' late, mother," he coaxed. "You're tired and you've been working hard. You're all tuckered out. Now you go up-stairs and put on some clothes and go to bed."

Mrs. Jones shook him from her and went to the other desk, where she stood facing him, her face red and swollen from her tears. "Oh!" she wrung her hands as she looked at him with blazing eyes. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself with the gentlemen here to buy the place and you around the office drinking liquor."

"No, I ain't." Bill answered her outburst mildly, backing away from her lest she should discover the flask in his back pocket.

He was too late. Her eye, accustomed to just such investigations, had detected the lines of the flask as it protruded from his back pocket. Taking hold of him, she put her hand in his pocket and produced the flask, holding it, half empty, to the light.

"That belongs to Mr. Harper," was Bill's ready excuse, given in the monotone which invariably masked a world of guilt. Seeing the doubt in his wife's eye, he added, "You can go up-stairs and ask him, if you don't believe it."

Mrs. Jones did not reply to his last remark. Instead of which she went back to the California desk, where she set down the flask, taking up the deed and holding it out to him. "Now, Bill," she said, in a coaxing voice, "I want you to put your name to this paper." She smiled kindly upon him for the first time in many hours.

Bill wavered before her smile. It was difficult for him to withstand it, especially as he knew how sorely he had tried her. But a promise was a promise with Bill, and his one pride was that he had kept intact through all the years of his digressions this one principle – he never broke his word. He had told Marvin he would not sign the deed without consulting him further, so he turned his eyes from his wife's face and answered, in a low voice, "I can't, mother."

"What's the reason you can't?" Mrs. Jones planted herself in front of him, determined that he should not evade her this time.

"Because I promised my lawyer I wouldn't," he answered, his head turned away from her.

Mrs. Jones took him by the arm and swung him into line with her gaze. "Now see here, Bill," she snapped, "I've been working my fingers to the bone and I'm entitled to a rest and you sha'n't stop my having it. Mr. Thomas is going to take Millie and me to the city to live. If you sign that you can come with us. If you don't you've got to look out for yourself for a while."

Bill had not paid much heed to Hammond's threat delivered a few minutes back. But now something in his wife's tone brought it, recurrent, to his mind. He wondered if, after all, there was some truth behind it.

Pausing to gather his points together, Bill nodded toward the stairs. "Mother, that fellow, Hammond, said he'd throw me out. Do you want me to get out? Is that what you mean?"

It was not what Mrs. Jones had meant at all. But the events of the day had strained her nerves to breaking-point. Since daylight Thomas and Hammond had been after her to force Bill to do as she wished him to. To their suggestions that she teach him a lesson by leaving him for a while she had turned a deaf ear. But now they came surging back and, in answer to her call for a method of persuasion, clamored for recognition. Before she had time to stifle them they had their way. "I mean just that, Bill." There was silence as she thrust the words from her mouth. Bill stood still, gazing steadily at her.

She lowered her lids.

Then he came closer and looked up under her eyes, in the hope that he would find a relenting gleam there. But she turned away from him.

"All right, mother – I'll go."

Without another word he turned and walked toward the door. Mrs. Jones took a quick step forward, then paused. "Where'll you go?" she asked, half in surprise, half in defiance, for she had not believed that he would accept her challenge.

"Oh, 'most anywhere," he said, gaily, forcing a whistle, though his lips quivered. "I'll be all right, mother."

His wife stepped forward again, extending a staying hand, but her resentment had her in its grip. Her hand fell back to her side.

"Well," she called out to him as suddenly she turned from him and hurried up the stairs, "I mean every word I've said! It's one thing or the other! Either you make up your mind to sign this," and she tapped the paper in her hand, "or I'm through with you!" Without a backward glance – fearing, perhaps, that she might weaken – she disappeared along the upper hallway.

Bill took his hand from the door and came slowly back into the room. He strolled to the California desk, pushed back his old hat, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully. Of a sudden his absent eyes lighted on the flask resting on the desk, where Mrs. Jones had put it down. Bill stroked his stubbled chin and gazed at the flask. It seemed to suggest an idea to him. Satisfying himself that there was no one around at the moment, he strolled to the door, poked his head out, and gave a peculiar whistle; then he walked back to the desk and leaned against it, waiting.

In a few minutes Zeb's unkempt visage silently framed itself in the softly opened door. Lightnin' jerked his head as a sign to enter. Stealthily, with many a wary glance to right and left, his disreputable partner of the past eased himself across the lobby and stood before Bill, childlike, trustful inquiry in his eyes.

"What's the idee, Lightnin'?" he rumbled, puffing at the frayed remains of a cigar.

With a gesture of calm triumph Bill pointed to the flask on the desk.

"I said I had it, Zeb," he remarked, in the tone one uses when confronting and confounding a skeptic with ocular proof, "an' there it is!"

"Why, so it be!" said Zeb, reaching out for the prize.

But Lightnin' stopped him. "Hold on a minute, partner. The evidence ain't to be absorbed just yet. In fact, brother, we better keep it intact for future use, 'cause you're goin' on a long journey, Zeb. You an' me is goin' to hit the trail again, old-timer!"

"Gosh! You mean it, Lightnin'?" Zeb showed almost human delight and anticipation. "But for why? You had a row with your old woman?"

"Nope," Bill replied. "Can't call it that, exactly. You needn't worry them brains o' yours about why we're goin', Zeb. It's just that I got a notion to teach some people 'round here a lesson, an' – an' maybe I can bring poor mother to her senses," he added, gently.

"When we goin'?" Zeb questioned, his eyes on the flask.

"Right away – this here minute, in fact," said Bill.

Zeb looked at him dazedly. "Just as we is? Where 're we hittin' fer?"

"I ain't telling that just yet," said Bill, slowly. "Where we are goin' is a secret."

"Oh," Zeb answered, with a nod of wisdom. "I – see. You ain't tellin' 'em you be goin' – not even your old woman, eh?"

"Them brains o' yours is pickin' up a bit, ain't they, Zeb?" Bill commented, with encouraging approval. "Well, you hit it, all right! Nope, we ain't tellin' nobody. We're goin' to kinder disappear completely for a pretty good space. Mother ain't to be able to locate me a-tall. There's some others as 'll likely find out, but I ain't worryin' about them – they want to get rid o' me, an' they ain't likely to exhaust themselves any tryin' to find me. I got a object, Zeb. It ain't none o' your business what that object is – by which I merely mean to say, old-timer, that you wouldn't have no particular interest in it. Come on – let's get out now, afore they begins to gather 'round me again!"

Picking up the flask and sliding it into his coat pocket, Lightnin' walked away toward the door. Nodding wisely, Zeb followed, eyes hopefully on the pleasant bulge in his old partner's coat.

CHAPTER XII

"Well!" Millie, appearing with a tray of late supper to take up-stairs to one of the guests' rooms along about ten o'clock that evening, almost ran into Marvin, who had returned to the hotel in the hope of seeing Bill and giving him the full reason for his not being a party to the sale of the place. The lights in the lobby were turned low and he had managed to evade the sheriff, who was sitting in his buck-board outside, waiting for Lemuel Townsend, who was to return to Reno with him.

Millie's exclamation, because of her surprise in seeing Marvin again, escaped her in pleasant tones, but her memory asserted itself and the smile rapidly faded from her face and she gave a haughty toss of her head, saying, as he stepped in front of her when she started for the stairs, "Will you please let me pass?"

But Marvin had wanted to see her quite as much as he did Bill, the impression she had given him of her liking for Thomas having cut deeper than the events of the earlier part of the day had given him time to realize. Ignoring her request, he removed his hat and said, as he searched her eyes for some play of the old light that had often gladdened his heart in the days when they were together in Thomas's office in San Francisco, "I suppose you are surprised to find me here still?"

Millie swayed toward the Nevada desk, depositing her tray upon it. She faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was not to answer him. She could not understand his interference in the matter of the deed. Neither did she believe one word he had uttered against Hammond and Thomas. On the contrary, Thomas's apparent interest in her and her mother and his constant flattery and attentions had attained their end. She believed in him implicitly and therefore had given credence to every word he had said against Marvin. Nevertheless, the charge that he was not honest could not quite overcome the quickening of her interest which had manifested itself lately in a heart that ran far ahead of itself at his approach.

After a silence in which she stared at him steadily, his eyes answering hers with an unflinching candor mixed with a vague wistfulness, she answered him. "I don't think anything you could do would surprise me, after all that has happened to-day and all that I've been told about you."

"Millie!" Marvin awkwardly rolled his hat in his hands, while his speech faltered. "I've been waiting around here now for two hours in the hope that I could explain to you why I wanted to stop that sale. And I cannot bear to have you believe that I am a thief and – "

Millie was touched by his attitude. Her hand left her hip and started toward his arm in friendly contact. But again returned the whole picture of the afternoon's events and she coolly turned from him and went to take up her tray again.

"Will you please let me pass?" she asked a second time, as he tried to prevail upon her by taking the tray from her and setting it down again. "I wish to have nothing to say to you. I do not believe your excuses. Mr. Thomas is the best friend I have in the world. I won't listen to a word against him, and I am sure he is too fine a gentleman to say anything about any one unless he were sure that it was true." As she came to the last words she swallowed to keep back the tears, for although they were uttered in perfect faith, her words burned into her own heart with as much bitterness as they were directed toward Marvin.

He was too filled with his mission and too sure that Millie's interest in him was gone to notice the catch in her voice or to attribute it to any sense of affection for him, had he noticed it. He took her hands in his and shook them gently in an endeavor to get her to look into his eyes again. "Millie, please listen to me! I know what I'm talking about when I say that Mrs. Jones is being cheated and robbed – "

She broke away from him, and stood glaring at him, as she stamped her foot. "Don't you dare to say another word about Raymond Thomas to me! Anyway, it is none of your business if he is cheating us!"

"Millie, Millie." Marvin's voice was full of pleading as he persisted, going close to her again and shaking his head sadly. "Why do you allow yourself to be taken in this way? Don't you know that the only reason I am concerned is because I care – Oh, well." He turned away with a sigh and went over to the Nevada desk and took up the tray. "I won't say any more. Will you let me carry the tray up-stairs for you? I'll go then, and you won't be bothered with me any more."

The glare in her eyes melted and she made a gesture as if she would call him to her side again. But she could not forget so easily, and she said, without turning to look at him, in tones less sharp, "Why didn't you tell me before that you suspected him?"

"How could I? You told me how much you thought of Raymond Thomas. I hadn't realized that before – " He put the tray down and came to her side once more.

"Do you mean to say," Millie was again angered, "that I told you I loved Mr. Thomas?"

"That's what I understood," Marvin replied.

The two stood there, Millie glancing at him in contempt, while his whole heart went out to her from his eyes.

He was the first to break the silence. Almost touching her hand with his, he said, softly, "You mean you don't love him?"

Millie snatched her hand away and went back to the desk. "You're always wrong! I told you he was my best friend and he is. I never said I loved him."

If Marvin had not been attracted by the arabesque of the faded rose-garlanded rug at that moment, he would have found some solace in the lowered lids and half-smile which Millie vouchsafed him. But he did not see it. Slowly he followed her back to the desk, this time standing aside as she made her way toward the stairs. "Well, say it now – I mean" – he hesitated, embarrassed, then went on – "I mean – say you don't care for him. And then if you'll only give me time I'll find out what their game is."

Millie stood at the newel-post, steadying the tray against it. Looking down at him, the hard gleam returned to her eyes as she replied, emphatically: "Oh, I don't want you to find out anything about it! I know you're mistaken and you're not going to prevent mother's selling the place, because it's already sold. As soon as daddy's name is signed to it we get the money."

"Well, you sha'n't have that, Millie." Marvin swung his hat against the post without looking up at her. Through the window he traced the moonbeams as they filtered through the pines outside. Above the hoot of an owl the swish of the lake came in to them. They both stood there, gazing out to where so few weeks ago they had walked in the happiness of an unconscious awakening.

It was within Millie's heart to relax as she saw him sigh. From above just then came the sound of Mrs. Jones's voice. It brought back her concern for the tired woman above-stairs. With it returned her anger at Marvin. "You're trying to prevent this sale just to hurt Mr. Thomas in my eyes!" she snapped.

He turned and met her with the question, "Thomas told you that, didn't he?"

She nodded.

"Just the same, Millie," and here Marvin mounted the step and stood close to her as he looked squarely in her eyes, "I'll never let Bill sign that deed. Some day you'll thank me for it."

This was more than her patience could stand. In her anger she almost dropped the tray, but she managed to hold it taut against the balustrade as she frowned at him and stamped her foot.

"Thank you?" she asked, in no gentle voice. "I shall always hate and despise you for it. Always! I hope I shall never see you again, and if I do I shall never notice you – nor speak to you the longest day I live!" Exhausted with her temper, she turned to mount the stairs, when she looked out toward the veranda and saw a figure slowly and stealthily coming up the steps. She recognized it at once and shrieked out, just as the sheriff entered the door, "John, look out!"

But Marvin had been watching her, and the fear in her eyes as she saw Blodgett had been warning enough for him. He gave three quick skips to the other side of the lobby, making mock obeisance toward her, laughter in his voice because of her betrayal of her solicitude in spite of all that she had said.

"Thank you, Miss Buckley," he called as he went up the California stairs to the hall above, just as the sheriff had reached out for him, "thank you, Miss Buckley! I shall be grateful to you – always!"

CHAPTER XIII

Bill's disappearance brought quick changes to the little hotel at Calivada. His ready acceptance of Mrs. Jones's alternative was a complete surprise, and it was several days before she and Millie realized that he had taken her at her word. Even then they thought he had gone off on one of his temporary jaunts in the hills. When the days grew into a fortnight and he did not return they instituted a search among the near-by villages and mining-camps. Everett Hammond and Raymond Thomas were solicitous aids in the inquiry, not for the two women they were defrauding, nor because they felt any concern for Bill's welfare. Rather was their full attention turned toward securing a deed which the Pacific Railroad would consider law-proof. Had the property been entirely within the state of Nevada, Bill's signature would not have been imperative, but the California laws regarding the sale of property were evadable by numerous small technicalities, and shrewd counsel demanded that bona-fide deeds must appear as freewill transfers from both the husband and wife. It was for this reason that Bill's disappearance was a matter of deep satisfaction to both Hammond and Thomas. They had begun to despair of his putting his name to the deed. Now, should he not return within six months, they evolved a new scheme and one which would be law-proof if it could be carried through.

If Mrs. Jones could be persuaded into a divorce, and the decree obtained with full rights to the property, the deed would be legal without Bill's name. It was for this reason that Hammond and Thomas put themselves at Mrs. Jones's service and did everything in their power to discover Bill's whereabouts. It was several weeks before they traced him to Sacramento and from there to the veterans' home at Yountville. By this time Mrs. Jones was quite beside herself, for, in spite of Bill's shiftlessness, which was quite enough to wear away the patience of the average woman, she felt a deep affection for the generous-hearted, whimsical old creature and his companionship through fifteen years, and at a time when her father's death had left her desolate had relieved the monotony of a life which had had little else but hard work. Millie, too, missed her foster-father, whose frequent sallies kept humor alive when work and poverty pressed hard. In reverent and grateful memory she held the thought of his care for her when she had been left a waif by her own father's death. And so, together, Millie and Mrs. Jones pressed Thomas for news of Bill.

He knew that if they learned his whereabouts they would not rest until they had brought him home again. Mrs. Jones's persistent melancholy since Bill's departure told Thomas that in order to get Bill back, the deed itself would be abrogated by her, should that be one of his conditions of return. Therefore both he and Hammond determined that they would not let the two women know of Bill's whereabouts. Instead, they said they had traced him as far as Placerville, known to old-timers as the Hangtown of the gold days, and that from there he had taken the trail up over the Georgetown Divide, where he said he was going to find work in the mines. Search throughout the entire district, Hammond and Thomas informed her, had failed to locate him, and they assured her and Millie that inquiry should be kept up until he was found.

Winter came, bringing with it no news from Bill, and Mrs. Jones settled into a melancholy resignation wherein she seldom smiled and where she spent most of her time in the rocking-chair by the front window, gazing down the path up which Bill had usually zigzagged his recalcitrant way. Thomas was quick to recognize her symptoms and he resolved upon his master-stroke.

One day toward the end of March when a heavy storm had blown up from the lake and the entire forest was torn and twisted by a wind in high and angry mood, Mrs. Jones sat crying in front of the window, wondering where Bill was and beset with the fear that some place beyond the ridge in that vast ocean of mountain billows Bill might be homeless and cold and without food. A sudden gust shook the hillside, bringing down a grizzled pine that had stood close to the house. The crash of its falling resounded down the slope and Mrs. Jones, keyed to high pitch by her vigil of three months, was brought to a sudden burst of despair just as Thomas, who had come to Calivada to superintend the wiring of the house which was now to be put on modern basis, came down the stairs. It was his chance and he took it.

"Mrs. Jones!" There was a surcharge of pity in his voice as he glided across the room and stood over her chair, placing a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "I hate to see you upset. We've done everything in our power to find Mr. Jones and we will leave no stone unturned until we succeed. In the mean time you must think of yourself and Millie."

"It was thinking of myself and Millie that drove him out of his home." Mrs. Jones buried her head on her hand and leaned against the window-sill. The wind, with renewed shock, beat the sleet against the window-pane. "He may be out this minute wandering the hills with no place to go," she sobbed, "and he ain't young no more, neither.

"Of course, I thought all along," she went on, "that by selling the place I could take care of him in his old age, and now he ain't here and the place can't be sold."

"The place can be sold, Mrs. Jones, and you will then have enough money to institute a real search for Mr. Jones." Thomas's emphasis of the possibility of a sale without Bill's signature relaxed Mrs. Jones's mood and she sat up straight in her chair, lifting questioning eyes toward him.

"There is a way." He answered her unspoken inquiry with calm deliberation, while he scrutinized her for the least sign of encouragement or of antagonism as his plan unfolded. "It is a difficult way and one which you may balk at pursuing, but it will justify itself in the end."

"Oh, what is it, Mr. Thomas?" Mrs. Jones's brown eyes widened and hope returned to them as she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her gingham apron and folded her arms across her waist, rocking expectantly back and forth. "I'd do 'most anything if I thought it'd bring Bill back," she exclaimed, raising her voice to an enthusiastic pitch.

Thomas brought an arm-chair from the center-table and sat down beside her. Clasping his hands, he leaned forward, "You can get a divorce, and – "

"Oh, I could never do that!" Mrs. Jones protested and stopped rocking as she lifted up her hands in horror. "He 'ain't never done anything; and besides – "