Gibbs George
The Vagrant Duke
McGuire leaned forward, his face in his hands for a moment, trying to finish.
"But I didn't go back, Nichols. I didn't go back. That's the crime I'm payin' for now – not the other – not the murder of Ben Cameron – I didn't do that – the murder of Hawk Kennedy – who has come back."
"What happened then?"
"I turned Ben Cameron's horse and burros loose where there was water and grass and went on to Bisbee. I told them my buddy had died of a fever. I thought he had by now. They didn't ask any questions. I was safe. The rest was easy. I filed a claim, found some real money and told what I'd found. I waited a month, then went back to Madre Gulch with Bill Munroe, the fellow that helped stake us. There was no one there. We searched the rocks and plains for miles around for signs of Hawk Kennedy's body, for we knew he couldn't have got far in that heat without water. But we found nothin'. Hawk Kennedy had disappeared."
"Then," said Peter, "you built a railroad in and sold out for half a million dollars – ?"
McGuire looked up, mystified.
"Or thereabouts," he muttered. "But Hawk Kennedy was alive. I found that out later when he wrote from London. We steered him off the track. But I knew he'd come back some day with that paper I'd signed. That's what's been hangin' over me. An' now it's fallen. I've told you the truth. I had to. You believe me, don't you?" he asked appealingly.
Peter had watched him keenly. There seemed little doubt that what he told was the truth. There was no flaw in the tale.
"Yes," he said after a pause. "I believe you've told me the truth. But you can hardly blame Hawk Kennedy, murderer though he is, for hating you and wanting what he thinks is his."
"No. That's true."
"And you can't blame me for being angry at the trick you played me – "
"I was desperate. I've been desperate since I saw him in New York. Sometimes I've been a bit queer, I reckon – thinkin' about Peggy hearin' this. I wanted to kill him. It was a good chance last night. Nobody would have blamed me, after his being around the place. It was an easy shot – but my hand wasn't steady – "
"Pity you didn't know that before you put me in danger."
"I'm sorry, Nichols – sorry. I'll do anything you like. What do you want me to do?"
Instead of replying at once Peter took out a cigarette and lighted it carefully. And then,
"You've never taken the trouble to make any inquiries as to the whereabouts of the family of Ben Cameron?" he asked.
The old man shook his head.
"Why not?"
"I was afraid to ask."
"I see. Don't you think it's about time you did? It's his money that made your fortune."
"He was no good. Nobody knew him. So far as I ever heard, nobody ever asked about him."
"Nevertheless he must have had some friends somewhere."
"Maybe. I don't know. I'm willing to help them if I can, providing this thing can be kept quiet." And then, pleadingly, "You're not going to talk – to use it against me, Nichols?"
Peter's pity for McGuire had come back. The man's terror, his desperation of the past weeks had burned him out, worn him to a shell.
"No, I'm not going to talk. Hawk Kennedy didn't dare tell what you've told me. That's why I believe you."
"And you'll stay on here and help me?"
"Yes – We'll see how we can balk Hawk Kennedy."
"I'll pay him fifty thousand – a hundred thousand – for that agreement – "
"Not a dollar. I've got a better use for your money than that."
McGuire thought Peter referred to the necessary improvements of the estate. But Peter had another idea in mind.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CHASE
Peter had discovered the means of providing for Beth's musical education. Upon inquiry he had found that McGuire hardly knew Beth except as a dependent relative of Mrs. Bergen, who came in sometimes to help her aunt with the cleaning – usually before McGuire came down from New York. Their little home was not on his visiting list.
He delayed telling McGuire. There was plenty of time and there was no doubt of his employer's doing the right thing by the daughter of the murdered man. Meanwhile, having completed his plans for the estate, he had suggested that McGuire go off for a trip somewhere to rest and recover his poise. Peter had promised his allegiance to McGuire when Hawk Kennedy returned, but he knew that he would have to fight fire with fire. For Hawk had proved himself both skillful and dangerous, and would struggle desperately to get what he thought was his own. It was his last chance to make a big stake – to be independent for the rest of his life. He was tasting luxury now and wouldn't give up without a fight to the death. Something must be thought of – some plan to outwit him, to circumvent the schemes which would come out of his visit of investigation to the copper country.
Peter had said nothing to Beth or to Mrs. Cameron of what he had discovered. He was under no oath of secrecy to the old man, but he realized that while Hawk Kennedy held the "confession" McGuire was in a predicament which would only be made more difficult if the facts got abroad. And so Peter had gone about his work silently, aware that the burden of McGuire's troubles had been suddenly shifted to his own shoulders. He spent most of his days at the lumber camp and now had every detail of the business at his fingers' ends. Timbers had been hauled to the appointed sites and under his direction the fire towers were now half way to completion.
He had found Shad Wells down at the mills, morose, sullen and disposed to question his authority, but McGuire had visited the bunk-house one night before he went away, and it was soon discovered that Peter and no other was the boss of the job. Peter for reasons of his own retained Shad, much to that gentleman's surprise, as foreman of the lumbering gang, but Peter wasn't at all satisfied with conditions as he had found them at the lumber camp and mills and, as he discovered later, the continuance of Shad in the foreman's job was a mistake. If Peter had hoped by this act of conciliation to heal Shad's wounds and bring about a spirit of useful coöperation with the man, he soon found that the very reverse of this had been accomplished. The lumbermen were an unregenerate lot, some of them "pineys," a few Italians, but most of them the refuse of the factories and shipyards, spoiled by the fatal "cost plus" contracts of war time. All of these facts Peter learned slowly, aware of an undercurrent moving against him and yet entirely dependent upon this labor – which was the best, indeed the only labor, to be had. He made some improvements in the bunk-house for their comfort, increased the supply of food and posted notices that all complaints of whatever nature would be promptly investigated. But day after day new stories came to him of shirking, of dissatisfaction and continued trouble-making.
This labor trouble was no new thing at Black Rock, and had existed practically since the beginning of the work on the lumber contract six months before Peter had been employed. But it was not long before Peter discovered through Jesse Brown, whose confidence he had gained, that there were agitators in the camp, undoubtedly receiving their inspiration and pay from sources inimical to all capital in the abstract and to all order and decency at Black Rock in the concrete, who were fomenting the unrest and dissatisfaction among the men. In order to investigate the difficulties personally Peter went down to the camp and lived there for a time, bunking with the men and listening to their stories, winning some of them to his side and tracing as far as he could the troubles to their sources, two men named Flynn and Jacobi. He discharged these two men and sent them out of the camp over Wells's protest. But even then he had a sense of failure. The trouble was deeper than was manifest upon the surface. No mere raise in wages would clear it away. It was born of the world's sickness, with which the men from the cities had been inoculated.
One night while he sat in the bunk-house smoking a pipe and talking with Jesse Brown, Shad Wells suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed against the darkness. Shad's gaze and Peter's met – then Peter's glance turned to Shad's companion. As this man saw Peter he turned his head and went down the length of the bunk-house. Peter got up at once, followed him and faced him. The man now wore a dark beard, but there was no mistake. It was the fellow of the black mustache – the stranger whom Peter had seen in the Pennsylvania Station in New York, the same man he had caught prowling some weeks ago around his cabin in the darkness.
Peter stared at him for a moment but the man would not meet his gaze.
"Who are you?" asked Peter at last. And then, as he made no reply, "What were you doing prowling around my cabin up by the creek?"
The stranger shook his head from side to side.
"No understan'," he muttered.
At this point, Shad Wells, who had followed with Jesse Brown, came in between them.
"That's right, Nichols," he growled. "No understan' – He's a 'guinea.'" To Wells all men were "guineas" who didn't speak his own language.
"Italian? Are you? French? Spanish? Slovak?"
Each time the man shook his head. And then, with an inspiration, Peter shot at him a quick phrase in Russian. But the man gave no sign of comprehension.
"Who put this man on?" asked Peter, turning to Wells.
"I did," said the native sullenly.
"Why?" said Peter, growing warmer. "Didn't I tell you that in future I would hire all the men myself?"
"We're short-handed, since you fired two of the best axmen we got – "
"You disobeyed orders – "
"Orders– Hell!"
"All right. We'll see who's running this camp, you or me. To-morrow morning Jesse Brown starts as foreman here. Understand?"
Shad's eyes shot fire, then smoldered and went out as he turned with a sneering laugh and walked away.
"As for you," said Peter to the stranger, who stood uncertainly, "you go to the office in the morning and get your envelope." Then repeated the sentence in Russian. "If you don't understand – find somebody who does."
That the stranger had understood Peter's demeanor if not his language was evident, for in the morning he had vanished.
After that clearing of the air things went somewhat better at the camp. Jesse Brown, though not aggressive, was steady and honest and had a certain weight with the Jerseymen. As to the others, there was doubt as to whether anything would have satisfied them. For the present, at least, it was a question of getting on as well as possible with the means at hand. There was a limit to Peter's weekly pay roll and other men were not to be had. Besides, Peter had promised McGuire to keep the sawmills busy. He knew that when he had come to Black Rock the work on the lumber contract had already fallen behind the schedule, and that only by the greatest perseverance could he make up the time already lost.
As he rode back to his cabin on the afternoon after his encounter with Shad Wells and the stranger with the black mustache, he found himself quite satisfied with regard to his summary dismissal of them both. On Beth's account he had hesitated to depose Shad. He knew that before he had come to Black Rock they had been friends as well as distant relatives, and Beth in her frequent meetings with Peter had expressed the hope that Shad would "come around." Peter had given him every chance, even while he had known that the Jerseyman was working against both McGuire's and Peter's interests. Flynn and Jacobi, the men Peter had sent away, were radicals and agitators. Flynn had a police record that did not bear close inspection, and Jacobi was an anarchist out and out. Before Peter had come to Black Rock they had abused Shad's credulity and after the fight at the Cabin, he had been their willing tool in interrupting the completion of the contract. For of course Shad had hoped that if Peter couldn't get the lumber out when promised, McGuire would put the blame on the new superintendent and let him go. That was Shad's idea. If he had ever been decent enough to warrant Beth's friendship, his jealousy had warped his judgment. Peter was no longer sorry for Shad Wells. He had brought all his troubles on himself.
As to the stranger with the black mustache, that was a more serious matter. Every circumstance – the recognition in New York, the skill with which the man had traced him to Black Rock, the craft with which he had watched Peter and his success in finally getting into the camp and gaining Shad's confidence, made a certainty in Peter's mind that the stranger had some object in remaining near Peter and keeping him under observation. And what other object than a political one? The trail he had followed had begun with the look of recognition in the Pennsylvania Station in New York. And where could that look of recognition have sprung from unless he had identified Peter Nichols as the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch? It seemed incredible, but there could be no other explanation. The man had seen him somewhere – perhaps in Russia – perhaps in Paris or London, or perhaps had only identified him by his portraits which had been published frequently in the Continental magazines and newspapers. But that he had really identified him there could not be the slightest doubt and Peter's hope that he would have been able to lose his identity in the continent of America and become merged into a different civilization where he could work out the personal problem of existence in his own time, by his own efforts and in his own way, seemed destined to failure.
If the stranger knew that Peter was in New Jersey there was no doubt that there were others who knew it also, those who employed him – those in whose interests he was working. Who? The same madmen who had done Nicholas to death and had killed one by one the misguided Empress, Olga, Tania, the poor little Czarevitch and the rest… Did they consider him, Peter Nichols, lumber-jack extraordinary, as a possible future claimant to the throne of Russia? Peter smiled grimly. They were "straining at a gnat while swallowing the camel." And if they feared him, why didn't they strike? The stranger had already had ample opportunity to murder him if he had been so disposed, could still do it during Peter's daily rides back and forth from the Cabin to the camp and to the Upper Reserve.
All of these thoughts percolated slowly, as a result of the sudden inspiration at the bunk-house which had liberated a new train of ideas, beginning with the identification of the Russian characteristics of the new lumberman, which were more clearly defined under the beard and workman's shirt than under the rather modish gray slouch hat and American clothing in which Peter had seen him earlier. And Peter had merely let the man go. He had no proof of the fellow's purposes, and if he had even discovered exactly what those purposes were, there was no recourse for Peter but to ask for the protection of Washington, and this he had no desire to do.
If the man suspected from the quickly spoken Russian sentence that Peter now guessed his mission, he had given no sign of it. But that meant nothing. The fellow was clever. He was doubtless awaiting instructions. And unless Peter took his case to the Department of Justice he could neither expect any protection nor hope for any security other than his own alertness.
At the Cabin Beth was waiting for him. These hours of music and Beth were now as much a part of Peter's day as his breakfast or his dinner. And he had only failed her when the pressure of his responsibilities was too great to permit of his return to the Cabin. The hour most convenient for him was that at the close of the day, and though weary or discouraged, Peter always came to the end of this agreeable hour rested and refreshed, and with a sense of something definitely achieved. For whatever the days brought forth of trouble and disappointment, down at the logging camp or the mills, here was Beth waiting for him, full of enthusiasm and self-confidence, a tangible evidence of success.
The diligence with which she applied his instructions, the ease with which she advanced from one step to another, showed her endowed with an intelligence even beyond his early expectations. She was singing simple ballads now, English and French, and already evinced a sense of interpretation which showed the dormant artist. He tried at first, of course, to eliminate all striving for effect, content to gain the purity of tone for which he was striving, but she soared beyond him sometimes, her soul defying limitations, liberated into an empyrean of song. If anything, she advanced too rapidly, and Peter's greatest task was to restrain her optimism and self-confidence by imposing the drudgery of fundamental principles. And when he found that she was practicing too long, he set her limits of half-hour periods beyond which she must not go. But she was young and strong and only once had he noted the slightest symptom of wear and tear on her vocal chords, when he had closed the piano and prohibited the home work for forty-eight hours.
As to their personal relations, Peter had already noticed a difference in his own conduct toward Beth, and in hers toward him, – a shade of restraint in Beth's conversation when not on the topic of music, which contrasted rather strangely with the candor of their first meetings. Peter couldn't help smiling at his memories, for now Beth seemed to be upon her good behavior, repaying him for her earlier contempt with a kind of awe at his attainments. He caught her sometimes in unguarded moments looking at him curiously, as though in wonder at a mystery which could not be explained. And to tell the truth, Peter wondered a little, too, at his complete absorption in the task he had set himself. He tried to believe that it was only the music that impelled him, only the joy of an accomplished musician in the discovery of a budding artist, but he knew that it was something more than these. For reducing the theorem to different terms, he was obliged to confess that if the girl had been any one but Beth, no matter how promising her voice, he must have been bored to extinction. No. He had to admit that it was Beth that interested him, Beth the primitive, Beth the mettlesome, Beth the demure. For if now demure she was never dull. The peculiarity of their situation – of their own choosing – lent a spice to the relationship which made each of them aware that the other was young and desirable – and that the world was very far away.
However far Beth's thoughts may have carried her in the contemplation of the personal pulchritude of her music master (somewhat enhanced by the extirpation of the Hellion triplet in her own behalf) it was Peter Nicholaevitch who made the task of Peter Nichols difficult. It was the Grand Duke Peter who wanted to take this peasant woman in his arms and teach her what other peasant girls had been taught by Grand Dukes since the beginning of the autocratic system of which he had been a part – but it was Peter Nichols who restrained him. Peter Nicholaevitch feared nothing, knew no restraint, lived only for the hour – for the moment. Peter Nichols was a coward – or a gentleman – he was not quite certain which.
When Peter entered the Cabin on the evening after the appointment of Jesse Brown as foreman at the lumber camp, Beth could not help noticing the clouds of worry that hung over Peter's brows.
"You're tired," she said. "Is anything wrong at the camp?"
But he only shook his head and sat down at the piano. And when she questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. Music always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the "Elégie" of Massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French – like a parrot – written them out phonetically, because the French words were beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she was not slow to comprehend.
"I didn't know that music could mean so much," she sighed as she sank into a chair with a sense of failure, when the lesson was ended. "I always thought that music just meant happiness. But it means sorrow too."
"Not to those who hear you sing, Beth," said Peter with a smile, as he lighted and smoked a corncob pipe, a new vice he had discovered at the camp. Already the clouds were gone from his forehead.
"No! Do you really think that, Mr. Nichols?" she asked joyously.
She had never been persuaded to call him by his Christian name, though Peter would have liked it. The "Mr." was the tribute of pupil to master, born also of a subtler instinct of which Peter was aware.
"Yes," he replied generously, "you'll sing that very well in time – "
"When I've suffered?" she asked quickly.
He glanced up from the music in his hand, surprised at her intuition.
"I don't like to tell you so – "
"But I think I understand. Nobody can sing what she doesn't feel – what she hasn't felt. Oh, I know," she broke off suddenly. "I can sing songs of the woods – the water – the pretty things like you've been givin' me. But the deep things – sorrow, pain, regret – like this – I'm not 'up' to them."
Peter sat beside her, puffing contentedly.
"Don't worry," he muttered. "Your voice will ripen."
"And will I ripen too?"
He laughed. "I don't want you ever to be any different from what you are."
She was thoughtful a moment, for Peter had always taken pains to be sparing in personalities which had nothing to do with her voice.
"But I don't want always to be what I am," she protested, "just growin' close to the ground like a pumpkin or a squash."
He laughed. "You might do worse."
"But not much. Oh, I know. You're teachin' me to think – and to feel – so that I can make other people do the same – the way you've done to me. But it don't make me any too happy to think of bein' a – a squash again."
"Perhaps you won't have to be," said Peter quietly.
"And the factory – I've got to make some money next winter. I can't use any of Aunt Tillie's savin's. But when I know what I might be doin', it's not any too easy to think of goin' back there!"
"Perhaps you won't have to go," said Peter again.
Her eyes glanced at him quickly, looked away, then returned to his face curiously.
"I don't just understand what you mean."
"I mean," said Peter, "that we'll try to find the means to keep you out of the glass factory – to keep on with the music."
"But how – ? I can't be dependent on – " She paused with a glance at him. And then quickly, with her characteristic frankness that always probed straight to her point, "You mean that you will pay my way?"
"Merely that I'm going to find the money – somehow."
But she shook her head violently. "Oh, no, I couldn't let you do that, Mr. Nichols. I couldn't think of it."
"But you've got to go on, Beth. I've made up my mind to that. You'll go pretty fast. It won't be long before you'll know all that I can teach you. And then I'm going to put you under the best teacher of this method in New York. In a year or so you'll be earning your own way – "
"But I can't let you do this for me. You're doin' too much as it is – too much that I can't pay back."
"We won't talk of money. You've given me a lot of enjoyment. That's my pay."
"But this other – this studyin' in New York. No, I couldn't let you do that. I couldn't – I can't take a cent from you or from any man – woman either, for that matter. I'll find some way – workin' nights. But I'm not goin' back," she added almost fiercely between her teeth, "not to the way I was before. I won't. I can't."
"Good. That's the way great careers are made. I don't intend that you shall. I'm going to make a great singer of you, Beth."
She colored with joy.
"Are you, Mr. Nichols? Are you? Oh, I want to make good – indeed I do – to learn French and Italian – " And then, with a sharp sigh, "O Lord, if wishes were horses – !" She was silent again, regarding him wistfully. "Don't think I'm not grateful. I'm afraid you might. I am grateful. But – sometimes I wonder what you're doin' it all for, Mr. Nichols. And whether – "
As she paused again Peter finished for her.
"Whether it wouldn't have been better if I hadn't let you just remain – er," he grinned, "a peach, let's say? Well, I'll tell you, Beth," he went on, laying his pipe aside, "I came here, without a friend, to a strange job in a strange country. I found you. Or rather you found me– lost like a babe in the woods. You made fun of me. Nobody had ever done that before in my life, but I rather liked it. I liked your voice too. You were worth helping, you see. And then along came Shad. I couldn't have him ordering you about, you know – not the way he did it – if he hadn't any claim on you. So you see, I had a sense of responsibility for you after that – About you, too – ," he added, as though thinking aloud.
His words trailed off into silence while Beth waited for him to explain about his sense of responsibility. She wasn't altogether accustomed to have anybody responsible for her. But as he didn't go on, she spoke.
"You mean that you – that I – that Shad forced me on you?"
"Bless your heart, child – no."
"Then what did you mean?" she insisted.
Peter thought he had a definite idea in his mind about what he felt as to their relationship. It was altruistic he knew, gentle he was sure, educational he was positive. But half sleepily he spoke, unaware that what he said might sound differently to one of Beth's independent mind.
"I mean," he said, "that I wanted to look after you – that I wanted our friendship to be what it has proved to be – without the flaw of sentiment. I wouldn't spoil a single hour by any thought of yours or mine that led us away from the music."
And then, while her brain worked rapidly over this calm negation of his, "But you can't be unaware, Beth, that you're very lovely."
Now "sentiment" is a word over which woman has a monopoly. It is her property. She understands its many uses as no mere man can ever hope to do. The man who tosses it carelessly into the midst of a delicate situation is courting trouble. Beth perked up her head like a startled fawn. What did he mean? All that was feminine in her was up in arms, nor did she lay them down in surrender at his last phrase, spoken with such an unflattering air of commonplace.
Suddenly she startled Peter with a rippling laugh which made him sit up blinking at her. "Are you apologizin' for not makin' love to me?" she questioned impertinently. "Say – that's funny." And she went off into another disconcerting peal of laughter.
But it wasn't funny for Peter, who was now made aware that she had turned his mind inside out upon the table between them, so to speak, that she might throw dust in the wheels. And so he only gasped and stared at her – startlingly convinced that in matters of sentiment the cleverest man is no match for even the dullest woman and Beth could hardly be considered in this category. At the challenge of his half expressed thought the demureness and sobriety of the lesson hour had fallen from her like a doffed cloak.
Peter protested blandly.
"You don't understand what – "
But she broke in swiftly. "Maybe you were afraid I might be fallin' in love with you," she twitted him, and burst into laughter again.
"I – I had no such expectation," said Peter, stiffening, sure that his dignity was a poor thing.
"Or maybe – ," she went on joyfully, "maybe you were afraid you might be fallin' in love with me." And then as she rose and gathered up her music, tantalizingly, "What did you mean, Mr. Nichols?"
He saw that he was losing ground with every word she uttered, but his sense of humor conquered.
"You little pixie!" he cried, dashing for her, with a laugh. "Where have you hidden this streak of impudence all these weeks?" But she eluded him nimbly, running around the table and out of the door before he could catch up with her.
He halted at the doorsill and called to her. She emerged cautiously from behind a bush and made a face at him.
"Beth! Come back!" he entreated. "I've got something to say to you."
"What?" she asked, temporizing.
"I want to talk to you – seriously."
"Good Lord – seriously! You're not goin' to – to take the risk of – of havin' me 'vamp' you, are you?"
"Yes. I'll risk that," he grinned.
But she only broke off a leaf and nibbled at it contemplatively. "Maybe I won't risk it. 'I don't want to spoil a single hour,'" she repeated, mocking his dignity, 'by any thought of yours or mine that would lead us away from the music.' Maybe I'm in danger." And then, "You know you're not so bad lookin' yourself, Mr. Nichols!"
"Stop teasing, Beth."
"I won't."
"I'll make you." He moved a step toward her.
"Maybe I hadn't better come any more," she said quizzically.
"Beth!"
"Suppose I was learnin' to love you a little," she went on ironically, "with you scared I might be – and not knowin' how to get out of it. Wouldn't that be terrible! For me, I mean. 'She loved and lost, in seven reels.'"
She was treading on precarious ground, and she must have seen her danger in Peter's face, for as he came toward her she turned and ran down the path, laughing at him. Peter followed in full stride but she ran like a deer and by the time he had reached the creek she was already halfway over the log-jam below the pool. Her laugh still derided him and now, eager to punish her, he leaped after her. But so intent he was on keeping her in sight upon the farther bank that his foot slipped on a tree trunk and he went into the water. A gay peal of laughter echoed in his ears. And he caught a last glimpse of her light frock as it vanished into the underbrush. But he scrambled up the bank after her and darted along the path – lost her in the dusk, and then deep in the woods at one side saw her flitting from tree to tree away from him. But Peter's blood was now warm with the chase – and it was the blood of Peter Nicholaevitch too. Forgotten were the studious hours of patience and toil. Here was a girl who challenged his asceticism – a beautiful young female animal who dared to mock at his self-restraint. She thought that she could get away. But he gained on her. She had stopped laughing at him now.
