In the Shadow of the Hills by George C. Shedd (the best ebook reader for android txt) 📕

my life," he remarked at last. "What, may I ask, is your particular reason for declining my services?"

She was dumb for a little, while she tucked back a stray tendril of hair. The act was performed with the left hand; and Weir's eyes, which seldom missed anything, observed a diamond flash on the third finger.

"Well, I'd choose not to explain," said she, afterwards, "but if you insist----"

"I don't insist, I merely request ... your highness."

A flash of anger shot from her eyes at this irony.

"Don't think I'm afraid to tell you!" she cried. "It's because you're the manager of the construction camp; and if you've never seen me before, I've at least had you pointed out to me. I wish no assistance from the man who turns off his poor workmen without excuse or warning, and brings want and trouble upon the community. It was like striking them in the face. And then you break your promise not to bring in other workmen!"

As she had said, she did not lack courage. Her words gushed forth in a torrent, as if an expression of pent up and outraged justice, disclosing a fervent sympathy and a fine zeal--and, likewise, a fine ignorance of the facts.

"Well, why don't you say something?" she added, when he gave no indication of replying.

Steele could have smiled at this feminine view of the matter that violent assertions required affirmations or denials.

"What am I supposed to say?" he asked.

Apparently that exhausted her patience.

"You'll please molest me no longer," she stated, icily.

"Very well."

He raised the hood and inspected the engine. During his attempts to start it, she sat nonchalantly humming an air and gazing at the mountains as if her mind were a thousand miles away--which it was not.

"Something wrong; it will have to be hauled in," said he finally.

No reply. Steele returned to his own car and descending into the creek bed worked his way around her. When he was on the far bank, he rejoined her again, carrying a coil of rope. One end of this he fastened securely to the rear axle of her runabout.

"What are you going to do, sir?" she demanded, whirling about on her seat and glaring angrily.

"Drag you out."

"You'll do nothing of the kind!"

"Oh, yes," was his calm response.

"Against my wishes, sir?"

"Certainly."

"This is abominable!"

"Perhaps."

"I'll put on the brakes." And put them on she did, with a savage jerk.

But nevertheless Weir's powerful machine drew her car slowly up out of the creek upon the road, where he forced it about until it pointed towards San Mateo. Then he retied the rope on the front axle.

"Now for town," said he.

"Why did you haul me out of there, I demand to know?"

"Why? Because you were a public obstruction blocking traffic. If you had remained there long enough you would have become a public nuisance; and it's the duty of every citizen to abate nuisances. No one would call you a nuisance, of course,--not to your face, at any rate. But travelers might have felt some annoyance if compelled to drive around you; they might even have had you arrested when they learned you were acting out of willful stubbornness."

In a sort of incredulous wonder, of charmed horror, the girl heard herself thus unfeelingly described.

"You--you barbarian!" she cried.

"Ready? We're off for town now."

"I'll run my car in the ditch and wreck it if you so much as pull it another inch!"

"I don't like to be frustrated in my generous acts; they are so few, according to common report. Well, we'll leave the car, but it must be drawn off the road."

When this was accomplished, Weir replaced the rope in his machine. Then he returned to her.

"What now? Do you intend to sit here in the hot sunshine, to say nothing of missing your dinner?"

"That doesn't concern you."

Weir shook his head gravely.

"You must be saved from your own folly," said he.

Before she had realized what was happening, he had opened the door of the runabout, swung her out upon the ground and was marching her towards his own machine. Stupefaction at this quick, atrocious deed left her an automaton; and before she had fully regained her control they were speeding towards San Mateo, she at his side.

"This is outrageous!" she gasped.

Steele Weir did not speak until they entered town.

"Where is your home?" he asked.

"Turn to the right at the end of the street."

It was before a house of modern structure, banked with a bewildering number of flowers and shaded by trees, that he halted the car. He alighted, bared his head, assisted her to descend, bowed and then without a word drove away, leaving her to stare after him with a baffling mixture of feelings and the single indignant statement, "And he didn't even wait long enough for me to thank him!" Nor did her perplexity lessen when her car was left before the door during the afternoon by one of the camp mechanics to whom Weir had telephoned from San Mateo and who had put it in running order.

Weir himself proceeded to Bowenville, where matters regarding shipments and the unloading of machinery engaged him the rest of the day. Into his mind, however, there floated at moments the image of the girl's face, banish it as he would. He had learned her name by asking who was the owner of the house where she had alighted, information necessary to direct the mechanic as to the delivery of the stalled car. Hosmer it was; and the residence was that of Dr. Hosmer. Presumably she was his daughter. And what a vivid, charming, never-surrender enemy! Lucky the chap who had won this high-spirited girl.

The memory of her eyes and her personality was still with him when he ate his supper that evening in a restaurant in Bowenville. His own past in relation to the other sex had been starred by no love affair, not even by episodes of a sentimental nature; the character of his work had for long periods kept him away from women's society, but further than this there was the shadow upon his life, the shadow of mystery that obliged him to follow a solitary course. He considered himself unfree to seek friendships or favors among women. By every demand of honor he was bound to solicit no girl's trust or affection until that mystery was cleared and his father's innocence established. It was for this reason that he seemed even to himself to grow more hard, more harsh, more silent and aloof, until at last he had come to believe that no fair face had the power to arouse his interest or to quicken his pulse.

But now, this girl he had met at the ford!

Long-stifled emotions struggled in his breast. Sleeping desires awoke. His spirit swelled like a caged thing within the shell of years of indurated habit. A strange restlessness pervaded him. He had a fierce passion somehow to rip in pieces the gray drab pattern of his commonplace life.

Perhaps it was this revolt against the fetters of fate that caused him to welcome the chance for action that presently was offered. The restaurant was of an ordinary type, with a lunch counter at one side, a row of tables down the middle and half a dozen booths along the wall offering some degree of privacy. In one of these Steele Weir was smoking a cigar and finishing his coffee before making his ride back to camp. From the booth adjoining he had for some time been hearing scraps of conversation; now all at once the voices rose in protest and in answering explanation, in perplexed appeal and earnest assurance.

Weir's own reflections ceased. His head turned and remained fixed to listen, while the cigar grew cold between his fingers. For ten minutes or so his attitude of concentrated harkening to the two voices, a girl's and a man's, remained unchanged. Little by little he was piecing out the thread of the confidential dialogue--and of the little drama being enacted in the booth.

His brows became lowering as he gathered its significance, his lips drew together in a tight thin line. He did not move when he heard the man push back his chair to leave the place, nor alter his position until there came the sound of the door closing at the front of the restaurant. Then he reached for his hat, stood up and went lightly around into the other booth, where he pulled the green calico curtain across the opening.

A girl of about seventeen, of plump clean prettiness, still sat at the table, which was littered with dishes. The cheap finery of her hat and dress showed a pathetic attempt to increase her natural comeliness. At this minute her face showed amazement and a hint of apprehension.

"What are you coming in here for?" she demanded.

"I want to talk to you for a little while," Weir replied, seating himself. "You will please listen. I've overheard enough of your talk to catch its drift; you came here to be married, but now this man wants to induce you to go to Los Angeles first."

"That isn't any of your business," the girl flashed back, going white and red by turns.

"I'm making it mine, however. You live up on Terry Creek, by what I heard; that's not far from my camp. I'm manager at the dam and my name's Weir."

At this statement the girl shrank back, beginning to bite the hem of her handkerchief nervously and gazing at him with terrified eyes.

"I'm here to help you, not harm you. You've run away from home to-day to marry this fellow. Did he promise to marry you if you came to Bowenville?"

"Yes."

"And now he wants you to go with him to Los Angeles first, promising to marry you there?"

The girl hesitated, with a wavering look.

"Yes."

"He gives you excuses, of course. But they don't satisfy your mind, do they? They don't satisfy mine, at any rate. It's the old trick. Suppose when you reached the coast he didn't marry you after all and put you off with more promises and after a week or two abandoned you?"

"Oh, he wouldn't do that!" she cried, with a gulp.

"That's just what he is planning. He didn't meet you here until after dark, I judge. You'll both go to the train separately--I overheard that part. Afterwards he could return from the coast and deny that he had ever had anything to do with you, and it would simply be your word against his. And which would people hereabouts believe, tell me that, which would they believe, yours or his, after you had gone wrong?"

The girl sat frozen. Then suddenly she began to cry, softly and with jerks of her shoulders. Weir reached out and patted her arm.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Mary--Mary Johnson."

"Mary, I'm interfering in your affairs only because I know what men will do. You must take no chances. If this fellow is really anxious to marry you, he'll do it here in Bowenville."

After a few sobs she wiped her eyes.

"He said he didn't dare get the license in San Mateo, or his folks would have stopped our marriage."

"Then you should stay here to-night, go to the next