Gibbs George
The Vagrant Duke

Death such as this, he thought, was very pleasant.

And then later he was aroused by a shrill clear call… Then saw lights flashing… Heard men's voices… Felt himself carried in strong arms … but all the while there were soft fingers in his own.

CHAPTER XXII
RETRIBUTION

When they lifted him into the automobile and Beth got in beside him, his fingers moved in her own.

"Beth," she heard him whisper.

"Peter – I'm here."

"Thank God. And – and Shad – ? He – he was with me – "

"He's asking for Shad," she repeated to Brierly, unaware that her cousin, like his Biblical namesake, had come scatheless through the fiery furnace. But some one heard the question and replied:

"Shad's here, Miss. He's all right – "

"Oh," gasped Peter. "And there's something else – "

"No, no – we must go. Your wound – "

But he insisted. "I – I'm all – right. Something else, – Beth – some one must get – paper – blue envelope – Hawk Ken – "

His words ended in a gasp and he sank back in her arms.

Beth was frightened at the sudden collapse and the look in his face, but she knew that his injunction was important. And keeping her courage she called Shad Wells to the side of the car and gave quick directions. There was a note of appeal in her voice and Shad listened, his gaze over his shoulder in the direction she indicated.

"If he ain't burned to a crisp by now – "

"Go, Shad – please! And if you can get to him bring the papers in his pocket to me."

He met her gaze and smiled.

"I reckon I'll get to him if anybody can."

"Oh, thanks, Shad – thanks – " she muttered, as the lumberman turned, followed by one of the others, and silently moved toward the flames.

And in a moment the car was on its way to Black Rock, Brierly driving carefully over the rough road. That was a terrible ride for Beth. She supported the wounded man against her shoulder, her gaze on his pallid face. Her poor blistered arm was about his waist, but she had no thought for her own suffering. Every ounce of strength that remained to her was given to holding Peter close to her so that he would not slip down, every ounce of faith in her soul given to combat with the fears that assailed her. It seemed to Beth that if the Faith that had brought her through this day and out of that furnace were still strong enough she could combat even the Death that rode with them. And so she prayed again, holding him closely. But he was so cold and inert. She put her hand over his heart and a tiny pulsation answered as though to reassure her. Her hand came away dry, for the wound was not near his heart. She thanked God for that. She found it high up on the right side just below the collar bone and held her fingers there, pressing them tightly. If this blood were life and she could keep it within him she would do it. But he was so pale…

Brierly drove to Black Rock House instinctively. Here were beds, servants and the telephone. He sounded his horn as they came up the driveway and an excited group came out upon the porch. But Beth saw only McGuire.

"Mr. Nichols has been shot, Mr. McGuire – he's dangerously hurt," she appealed. "He's got to have a doctor – at once."

"Who – who shot him?"

"Hawk Kennedy."

"And he – Hawk – ?"

"He's dead, I think."

She heard McGuire's sudden gasp and saw Aunt Tillie come running.

"He's got to be put to bed – Aunt Tillie," she pleaded.

"Of course," said McGuire, finding his voice suddenly, "Of course – at once. The blue room, Mrs. Bergen. We'll carry him up. Send Stryker."

And Aunt Tillie ran indoors.

Peter was still quite unconscious, but between them they managed to get him upstairs.

McGuire seemed now galvanized into activity and while the others cut Peter's coat away and found the wound he got Hammonton and a doctor on the 'phone. It was twelve miles away but he promised to be at Black Rock House inside half an hour.

"Twenty minutes and you won't regret it. Drive like Hell. It's a matter of life or death."

Meanwhile, Aunt Tillie, with anxious glances at Beth, had brought absorbent cotton, clean linen, a basin of water and a sponge, and Stryker and Brierly washed the wound, while McGuire rushed for his bottle and managed to force some whisky and water between Peter's teeth. The bullet they found had gone through the body and had come out at the back, shattering the shoulder-blade. But the hemorrhage had almost ceased and the wounded man's heart was still beating faintly.

"It's the blood he's lost," muttered Brierly sagely.

"He'll come around all right. You can't kill a man as game as that."

Beth clung to the arms of the chair in which they had placed her. "You think – he – he'll live?"

"Sure he will. I've seen 'em worse'n that – "

She sank back into her chair, exhausted. She had never fainted in her life and she wasn't going to begin. But now that all that they could do had been done for Peter, they turned their attention to Beth. She had not known how much she needed it. Her hair was singed, her wrists were raw and bleeding, and her arms, half naked, were red and blistered. Her dress, soaked with mud and water, was partly torn or burned away.

"She must be put to bed here, Mrs. Bergen," said McGuire. "She'll need the doctor too."

Beth protested and would not leave the room until the doctor came. But McGuire, who seemed – and somewhat justly – to have complete faith in the efficacy of his own remedy, gave her some of the whisky and water to drink, while Aunt Tillie washed her face and rubbed vaseline upon her arms, crooning over her all the while in the comforting way of women of her kind, to the end that Beth felt the pain of her body lessen.

It was not until the doctor arrived with a businesslike air and made his examination, pronouncing Peter's condition serious but not necessarily fatal, that the tension at Beth's heart relaxed.

"He – he'll get well, Doctor?" she asked timidly.

"I think so," he said with a smile, "but we've got to have absolute quiet now. I'd like some one here to help me – "

"If you'd only let me – "

But she read refusal in his eyes as he looked at her critically, and saw him choose Stryker.

"You're to be put to bed at once," he said dryly. "You'll need attention too, I'm thinking."

And so Beth, with McGuire's arm supporting and Aunt Tillie's arm around her, was led to the room adjoining, – the pink room of Miss Peggy McGuire. McGuire closed the door and questioned her eagerly.

"You say Hawk Kennedy was killed – ?"

"I think so – or – or burned," said Beth, now quivering in the reaction of all that she had experienced. "I – I sent Shad Wells to see. We left him lying there. We just had time to get away. The fire was all around. We got to the swamp – into the water – but he – " She put her face into her hands, trembling with the recollection. "It was horrible. I can't talk about it."

Aunt Tillie glared at McGuire, but he still questioned uneasily.

"You – you saw nothing of a blue envelope, a paper – "

With an effort Beth lowered her hands and replied:

"No – Peter – Mr. Nichols thought of it. Shad Wells will bring it – if it isn't burned."

"Oh, I see – "

"But what you can't see," broke in Aunt Tillie with spirit, "is that the poor child ain't fit to answer any more questions to-night. And she shan't."

"Er – no – of course," said McGuire, and went out.

If it had been an eventful day for Peter and Beth, the night was to prove eventful for McGuire, for not content to wait the arrival of Shad Wells, he took his courage in his hands and with Brierly drove at once to the scene of the disaster. The wind had died and a gentle rain began to fall, but the fire was burning fiercely.

The other matter in McGuire's thoughts was so much the more important to him that he had given little thought to the damage to his property. His forests might all be burned down for all that he cared.

At the spot to which Beth and Peter had been carried he met Shad and the party of men that had been looking for Hawk Kennedy, but the place where the fight had taken place was still a mass of fallen trees and branches all flaming hotly and it was impossible for any one to get within several hundred yards of it.

There seemed little doubt as to the fate of his enemy. Jonathan K. McGuire stood at the edge of the burned area, peering into the glowing embers. His look was grim but there was no smile of triumph at his lips. In his moments of madness he had often wished Hawk Kennedy dead, but never had he wished him such a death as this. He questioned Shad sharply as to his share in the adventure, satisfying himself at last that the man had told a true story, and then, noting his wounded arm, sent him back with Brierly in the car to Black Rock House for medical treatment with orders to send the chauffeur with the limousine.

The rain was now falling fast, but Jonathan K. McGuire did not seem to be aware of it. His gaze was on the forest, on that of the burning area nearest him where the fire still flamed the hottest, beneath the embers of which lay the one dreadful secret of his life. Even where he stood the heat was intense, but he did not seem to be aware of it, nor did he follow the others when they retreated to a more comfortable spot. No one knew why he waited or of what he was thinking, unless of the damage to the Reserve and what the loss in money meant to him. They could not guess that pity and fear waged their war in his heart – pity that any man should die such a death – fear that the man he thought of should not die it.

But as the hours lengthened and there was no report brought to him of any injured man, being found in the forest near by, he seemed to know that Peter Nichols had not struck for Beth in vain.

When the limousine came, he sent the other watchers home, and got into it, sitting in solitary grandeur in his wet clothing, peering out of the window. The glow of the flames grew dimmer and died at last with the first pale light to the eastward which announced the coming of the dawn. A light drizzle was still falling when it grew light enough to see. McGuire got down and without awakening the sleeping chauffeur went forth into the spectral woods. He knew where the old tool cabin had stood and, from the description Wells had given him, had gained a general idea of where the fight had taken place – two hundred yards from the edge of the swamp where Nichols and the Cameron girl had been found, and nearly in a line with the biggest of the swamp-maples, the trunk of which still stood, a melancholy skeleton of its former grandeur.

The ground was still hot under the mud and cinders, but not painfully so, and he was not aware of any discomfort. Clouds of steam rose and among them he moved like the ghost of a sin, bent, eager, searching with heavy eyes for what he hoped and what he feared to find. The old tool house had disappeared, but he saw a heap of ashes and among them the shapes of saws and iron picks and shovels. But he passed them by, making a straight line to the eastward and keeping his gaze upon the charred and blackened earth, missing nothing to right and left, fallen branches, heaps of rubbish, mounds of earth.

Suddenly startled, McGuire halted and stood for a long moment… Then, his hand before his eyes he turned away and slowly made his way back to his automobile. But there was no triumph in his eyes. A power greater than his own had avenged Ben Cameron.

His vigil was over – his nightly vigil – the vigil of years. He made his way to his car and, awakening his chauffeur, told him to drive to Black Rock House. But when he reached home, the set look that his face had worn for so many weeks had disappeared. And in its place among the relaxed muscles which showed his years, sat the benignity of a new resolution.

It was broad daylight when he quietly knocked at the door of the room in which the injured man lay. The doctor came to the door. It seemed that all immediate danger of a further collapse had passed for the heart was stronger and unless there was a setback Peter Nichols had an excellent chance of recovery. McGuire himself offered to watch beside the bed; but the doctor explained that a trained nurse was already on the way from Philadelphia and would arrive at any moment. So McGuire went to his own room and, sinking into his armchair, slept for the first time in many weeks at peace, smiling his benignant smile.

Beth awoke in the pink room of Miss Peggy McGuire in which she had been put to bed. She lay for a moment still stupefied, her brain struggling against the effects of the sleeping potion that the doctor had given her and then slowly straightened to a sitting posture, regarding in bewilderment the embroidered night-robe which she wore and the flowered pink hangings at the windows. She couldn't at first understand the pain at her head and other aches and pains which seemed to come mysteriously into being. But she heard a familiar voice at her ear and saw the anxious face of Aunt Tillie, who rose from the chair at her bedside.

"Aunt Tillie!" she whispered.

"It's all right, dearie," said the old woman. "You're to lie quite still until the doctor sees you – "

"The doctor – ? Oh, I – I remember – " And then with a sudden awakening to full consciousness – "Peter!" she gasped.

"He's better, dearie."

"But what does the doctor say?"

"He's doin' as well as possible – "

"Will he get well?"

"Yes, yes. The doctor is very hopeful."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. He's sleepin' now – quiet – ye'd better just lie back again."

"But I want to go to him, Aunt Tillie. I want to."

"No. Ye can't, dearie – not now."

And so by dint of reassurance and persuasion, Aunt Tillie prevailed upon the girl to lie back upon her pillows and after a while she slept again.

But Beth was no weakling and when the doctor came into her room some time later, the effects of her potion wearing away, she awoke to full consciousness. He saw the imploring question in her eyes, before he took her pulse and answered it with a quick smile.

"He's all right. Heart coming on nicely – "

"Will h-he live?" she gasped.

"He'll be a fool if he doesn't."

"What – ?"

"I'd be, if I knew there was a girl like you in the next room with that kind of look in her eyes asking for me."

But his remark went over Beth's head.

"He's better?"

"Yes. Conscious too. But he'll have to be kept quiet."

"D-did he speak of me?"

The doctor was taking her pulse and put on a professional air which hid his inward smiles and provoked a repetition of her question.

"D-did he?" she repeated softly.

"Oh, yes," he said with a laugh. "He won't talk of anything else. I had to give him a hypodermic to make him stop."

Beth was silent for a moment. And then timidly —

"What did he say?"

"Oh, just that you saved his life, that's all."

"Nothing else?"

"Oh, yes. Now that I come to think of it, he did."

"What?"

"That he wanted to see you."

"Oh! And can I – ?"

The doctor snapped his watch and relinquished her wrist with a smile.

"If everything goes well – to-morrow – for two minutes – just two minutes, you understand."

"Not until to-morrow?" she asked ruefully.

"You ought to be glad to see him alive at all. He had a narrow shave of it. An inch or two lower – " And then with a smile, "But he's going to get well, I promise you that."

"Oh, thanks," said Beth gratefully.

"Don't worry. And if you behave yourself I'll let you get up after lunch." He gave some directions to Mrs. Bergen as to the treatment of Beth's blistered arms, and went out.

So in spite of the pain that she still suffered, Beth was content. At least she was content until Aunt Tillie brought her Miss Peggy McGuire's silver hand-mirror and she saw the reflection of her once beautiful self.

"Aunt Tillie!" she gasped. "I'm a sight."

"Maybe – but that's a sight better than bein' burned to death," said the old lady, soberly.

"My hair – !"

"It's only frizzled. They say that's good for the hair," she said cheerfully.

"Oh, well," sighed Beth as she laid the mirror down beside her. "I guess I ought to be glad I'm alive after – "

And then with an uncontrollable shudder, she asked, "And – and —him?"

"Dead," said Aunt Tillie with unction. "Burned to a crisp."

Beth gasped but said nothing more. She didn't want to think of yesterday, but she couldn't help it – the horrors that she had passed through – the fate that might have been in store for her, if – Peter hadn't found her in time!

Beth relaxed in comfort while Aunt Tillie bathed and anointed her, brushed out the hair that was "frizzled," refreshing and restoring her patient, so that after lunch she got up and put on the clothing that had been brought from her home. Her arms were swathed in bandages from wrists to shoulders but the pain was much less, so, when McGuire knocked at the door and asked if he might see her, she was sitting in a chair by the window and greeted him with a smile.

He entered timidly and awkwardly, rubbing his fingers uncomfortably against the palms of his hands.

"They tell me you're feelin' better, Miss Cameron," he said soberly. "I – I'd like to talk to you for a moment," and with a glance at Aunt Tillie, "alone if you don't mind."

Aunt Tillie gathered up some bandages and grudgingly departed.

McGuire came forward slowly and sank into a chair beside Beth's, laying his hand timidly on hers.

"I thank God nothing happened to you, child, and I hope you believe me when I say it," he began in an uncertain voice.

"Oh, yes, sir, I do."

"Because the only thing that matters to me now is setting myself straight with you and Mr. Nichols."

He paused in a difficulty of speech and then went on.

"He – Mr. Nichols has told you everything – ?"

Beth wagged her head like a solemn child and then laid her other hand on his.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for you," she said.

"You mustn't say that," he muttered. "I – I've done you a great wrong – not trying to find out about Ben Cameron – not trying to find you. But I've suffered for it, Miss – " And then eagerly – "You don't mind my calling you Beth, do you?"

"No, Mr. McGuire."

"I ought to have told what happened. I ought to have tried to find out if Ben Cameron had any kin. I did wrong. But I've paid for it. I've never had a happy hour since I claimed that mine that didn't belong to me. I've made a lot of money but what I did has been hanging over me for years making an old man of me before my time – "

"Oh, please don't be unhappy any more – "

"Let me talk Miss – Beth. I've got to tell you. It'll make me feel a lot easier." Beth smoothed his hand reassuringly and he clasped hers eagerly as though in gratitude. "I never was much good when I was a lad, Beth, and I never could get along even after I got married. It wasn't in me somehow. I was pretty straight as young fellows go but nothing went right for me. I was a failure. And then – "

He paused a moment with bent head but Beth didn't speak. It was all very painful to her.

"Hawk Kennedy killed your father. But I was a crook too. I left Hawk there without water to die. It was a horrible thing to do – even after what he'd done to me. My God! Maybe I didn't suffer for that! I was glad when I learned Hawk didn't die, even though I knew from that time that he'd be hanging over me like a curse. He did for years and years. I knew he'd turn up some day, I tried to forget, but I couldn't. The sight of him was always with me."

"How terrible!" whispered Beth.

"But from that moment everything I did went well. Money came fast. I wasn't a bad business man, but even a bad business man could have put that deal through. I sold out the mine. I've got the figures and I'm going to show them to you, because they're yours to see. With the money I made some good investments. That money made more money and more besides. Making money got to be my passion. It was the only thing I cared for – except my girls – and it was the only thing that made me forget."

"Please don't think you've got to tell me any more."

"Yes, I want to. I don't know how much I'm worth to-day." And then in a confidential whisper – "I couldn't tell within half a million or so, but I guess it ain't far short of ten millions, Beth. You're the only person in the world outside the Treasury Department that knows how much I'm worth. I'm telling you. I've never told anybody – not even Peggy. And the reason I'm telling you is because, you've got to know, because I can't sleep sound yet, until I straighten this thing out with you. It didn't take much persuading for Mr. Nichols to show me what I had to do when he'd found out, because everything I've got comes from money I took from you. And I'm going to give you what belongs to you, the full amount I got for that mine with interest to date. It's not mine. It's yours and you're a rich girl, Beth – "

"I won't know what to do with all that money, Mr. McGuire," said Beth in an awed voice.

"Oh, yes, you will. I've been thinking it all out. It's a deed by gift. We'll have to have a consideration to make it binding. We may have to put in the facts that I've been – er – only a sort of trustee of the proceeds of the 'Tarantula' mine. I've got a good lawyer. He'll know what to do – how to fix it."

"I – I'm sure I'm very grateful."

"You needn't be." He paused and laid his hand over hers again. "But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have much talk about it – just what's said in the deed – to explain."

"I'll say nothin' you don't want said."

"I knew you wouldn't. Until the papers are drawn I'd rather you wouldn't speak of it."

"I won't."

"You're a good girl. I – I'd like to see you happy. If money will make you happy, I'm glad I can help."

"You've been very kind, Mr. McGuire – and generous. I can't seem to think about all that money. It's just like a fairy tale."

"And you forgive me – for what I did – ? You forgive me, Beth?"

"Yes, I do, Mr. McGuire. Don't say anythin' more about it – please!"

The old man bent his head and kissed her hand and then with a great sigh of relief straightened and rose.

"Thank God!" he said quietly. And bidding her good-by he walked from the room.