Joan of Arc of the North Woods by Holman Day (librera reader .TXT) 📕

season when the waters _are_ high and the river is rushing.
A keener mind than Crowley's would have detected in Mern's letter all the chief's inability to understand. What Crowley did get from the letter was the conviction that Miss Kennard was not to be molested at that time. Mern made that clear, though he was vague on other points. The chief was wondering whether excess of zeal might be the reason for Miss Kennard's amazing performance. He remembered certain hints which she had dropped as to her financial needs, and she had not seemed averse when he had told her on occasions that he thought of giving her a commission when the right kind of a case came along. To turn a trick for a rich corporation--working alone so that she might claim full credit--undoubtedly had appealed to her as her great opportunity, Mern reflected, and she had set off on her own hook, fearful that he would not alter the arrangements he had made. He was angry; he muttered oaths as he weighed the situation. But he did not put any of his anger into his letter to Crowley. Miss Kennard knew too much about the general inner workings of the agency! In this new case there was specifically a five-thousand-dollar net fee in case Latisan could be eliminated and his crew left to the mercies of Comas bluster and cash. Miss Kennard, if unduly molested, could say two words in the north country and put that contingent fee into limbo.
Therefore, Chief Mern was treading softly at first.
But from the letter which treated the general situation so gingerly the strong-arm operative extracted one solid and convincing command. He was to watch Miss Kennard. The command seemed entirely natural. Had he not been sent up there to watch--or watch over--no matter which--Miss Elsham? His instructions in regard to Miss Kennard seemed to make her a particularly valuable person in the Vose-Mern plans. He was not to allow anything to interfere with his watching of Miss Kennard, not even for the sake of Miss Elsham. He was to observe every movement, catch every word, if possible, mark every detail of Miss Kennard's operations.
Crowley did not show the letter to Miss Elsham, nor did he speak of it. He would mortally offend her by revealing his double-crossing tactics; as a woman she would be more offended by being relegated to the background in favor of the newcomer.
Crowley found his espionage an easy job at first. All he had to report to Mern for three or four days was that "Patsy Jones" did her work in the hotel and remained in her room till after dark--and then went out and strolled aimlessly. She would not talk with Crowley when he grasped at opportunities to speak to her on her walks. She reminded him that fellow operatives must be careful; furthermore, scandal might oblige her to abandon her job; he would be responsible if he insisted on dogging her about the village.
However, Crowley was able, a few days later, to slip her a letter from Mern; the chief had inclosed it in a missive containing further instructions to the operative to make sure of every move of Lida. The inclosed letter was addressed to "Patsy Jones."
Lida read it when she was back in her room. She noted with satisfaction that Chief Mern was still guessing and that his detective mind was unable to solve the mystery except on the ground that she was so loyal to the agency and so ambitious for herself that she had tackled the job as a speculation. He chided her because she had not reported her intention. He asked for a full statement.
She hid the letter carefully in her bureau. Having put it away for further reference in case she did make up her mind to answer the questions when forced to do so, she delayed replying. She did not want to lie needlessly to Mern--she was willing to let him do imagining, too, seeing how well it was working, to all appearances, in the cases of Elsham and Crowley.
She had her own reasons for keeping withindoors in the daytime. The matter of Rickety Dick was worrying her. He had seen her as a girl of sixteen, worn with her vigils beside a sick mother; the light through the area windows had been dim, and he had stumbled against chairs in the room as if his vision were poor.
However, she discovered at the outset of her stay in Adonia that she had become the object of old Dick's intent regard whenever he found opportunity. He often trudged past the tavern on his errands; he dragged slow steps and squinted and peered. Once she caught him peeping at her through the open door of the dining room. She had feared some such closer inspection and had drawn back her hair and twisted its waviness into an unsightly pug; the moment she saw him she slipped into her mouth a piece of spruce gum which an admiring woodsman had presented, and then she chewed vigorously and slatted herself about in a tough manner. He sighed and went away muttering.
He ventured another and a last sortie, as if he wanted to make an end of his doubts. He also made a sensation.
Rickety Dick came to take dinner at the tavern!
He was in his best rig, with which he was accustomed to outfit himself for the funerals of his old friends. There was a faded tail coat which flapped against baggy gray trousers. A celluloid collar on a flannel shirt propped up his wrinkled chin.
Martin Brophy stared at old Dick and then cast a look up at the office clock, whose hands, like Dick's in the moment of mental stress, were upraised on the stroke of twelve.
"Flagg dead?" inquired Brophy, unable otherwise to account for Dick's absence from the big house at the dinner hour.
"No! Toothache! Can't eat to-day. He let me off to go to a burying."
"Whose?"
Old Dick shook his head and passed on into the dining room, peering hard into the face of the waitress as he plodded toward her. "Burying!" he muttered. "May as well make sure it's dead--and put it away."
Lida met him as she was meeting her other problems up there--boldly.
She leaned over him when he was seated and recited the daily bill of fare. He did not take his eyes off her face, now close to his.
"Lida Kennard," he whispered, hoarsely, panting, pulling the hard collar away from his throat with trembling fingers, "why ain't ye home with your poor old grandfather, where ye belong? Lida Kennard, why ain't ye home?"
Her eyes did not waver. Brophy had followed, to be better informed as to the funeral, and stood in the doorway.
"Who's the nut?" inquired Patsy Jones, acridly, turning her gaze to the landlord. "He's calling me names." Her hard tones made the old man wince.
"He's all right--safe--only a little crazier than usual," returned Brophy. "If you want to eat, Dick, go ahead and eat--but don't bother Miss Jones. I don't allow anybody to bother her. And where's that funeral, I ask you again?"
"Here!" said the old man, rapping his knuckles on his breast. "It's buried. I guess I am crazy. Oh yes, I'll admit it. I see things that ain't so."
"Well, go ahead and eat," commanded Brophy.
"I don't want to eat--I can't, now." He pushed back his chair and rose.
"What names did he call you?" demanded the landlord, truculently. "I won't have your feelings hurt, you know!"
"Oh, only made some funny noises," retorted Miss Jones, flippantly. "Let him go. I don't mind."
Rickety Dick plodded out as he had plodded in; he was shaking his head, dismissing all his hopes and his dreams.
Miss Jones went to another guest. "The world is full of 'em," she said. "We have lamb, beef, and pork."
Brophy retired, entertaining no further curiosity.
The surge of homesickness that swept through the girl choked her--its spray blurred her eyes as she gazed after old Dick, pitying his bent shoulders under the sun-faded coat. But even in her sorrow, because she had been obliged to deny his wistful plaint so heartlessly, she was conscious of relief. She had been afraid of his recognition of her; after this she would be more free to come and go.
That evening at supper there was a guest who troubled her thoughts more than had Rickety Dick, but in another way. Ward Latisan was down again from the drive, still adoring her frankly and unabashed with his eyes, following all her movements; it was plain that he had taken counsel with himself while he had been away from her and that his love had been made acute by separation. She was of a mind to hide away from him in her room after her work was done. But there was the cultivation of his friendship to consider! She must keep up that friendship in order to be able to influence him.
Timorously, wondering what was to come from the coil of events as she saw them shaping in that region of barehanded conflict, she put on her hat and went forth. Latisan stepped off the porch and joined her, plainly no longer concerned with what the gossipers of Adonia might say or think.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As on a previous occasion, when the gloom of the night had settled, they were again at the side of the village street, at the mouth of the path by which they had returned from the cliff above the falls.
She had sought the falls that evening because the din of the waters would keep him from talking too much. She was afraid of the light in his eyes and of the repressed feeling in his tones. She knew that she must repulse him if he wooed. Her emotions were mixed, but she was sure there was no love in her heart--all her thoughts were concerned with her quest. If love should by any possibility develop in her and she should allow him to see it, what would become of his man's appetite for fight and danger? She felt obliged to view surrender to him in that light. On the other hand, she could not afford to offend him deeply by allowing matters to come to a climax between them right then; the climax must disclose her lack of affection. She had been estimating that hale man of the woods--she was certain that what she felt toward him was only friendly respect for his character, and she could not lie to him or fawn falsely for her purposes.
"I must go up now and face the usual music," he said, sourly. "I'm getting to be afraid of myself with Flagg."
"I've heard he's afflicted with the toothache to-day. You must make all allowances," she entreated, with a dash of jest in her earnestness.
"Then I especially need a protector. I'm going to ask you again to go along with me. Really, you're needed if I'm expected to stay on my job. Why," he went on, jest mingling with seriousness in his own case, "if the Flagg drive comes down all right through my efforts, you can take the credit of the victory because you were present to-night and smoothed things; he'll just have to be decent, with a strange young lady in the room."
She was not ready with peremptory refusal, as she had been on the other occasion; she had met the bugbear of Rickety Dick and had prevailed over the old man's suspicions. As Latisan averred, her presence might help matters; she would entertain strange and acute regrets if her absence should allow the split that Latisan seemed to apprehend.
He timidly put his hand on her arm. "Please!"
"I'll be intruding on a business talk. I may make