The Lookout Man by B. M. Bower (electronic reader txt) 📕

or to Jack. Hot-headed, selfish children, what did they know about the deeper problems of life? Of course his mother must be told. And of course, Kate was the person who could best write so difficult a letter. So she wrote it, and explained just how she came to know about Jack. But the professor was a conscientious man. He believed that the authorities should be notified at once. Jack Corey was a fugitive from the law, and to conceal the knowledge of his whereabouts would be nothing short of compounding a felony. It was thoughtful to write his mother, of course. But duty demanded that the chief of police in Los Angeles should be notified also, and as speedily as possible. By George, the case warranted telegraphing the news!

Now, it was one thing to write sympathetically to a social leader that her wayward son has been found, but it is quite another thing to turn the wayward son over to the police. Kate had not considered the moral uprightness of the professor when she showed him the letter, but she managed the difficulty very nicely. She pleaded a little, and flattered a little, and cried a good deal, and finally persuaded the professor's conscience to compound a felony to the extent of writing Fred instead of wiring the chief of police. Fred could notify the authorities if he chose—and Kate was wise enough to pretend that she was satisfied to leave the matter in Fred's hands.

She thought it best, however, to add a postscript to her letter, saying that she feared for Jack's safety, as the authorities had begun to be very inquisitive and hard to put off; but that she would do all in her power to protect the poor boy. She did not feel that it would be wise to write Fred, because the professor would think she was working against him and would be angry. Besides, she knew that it would be of no use to write Fred. He would do as he pleased anyway; he always did.

In the face of a keen wind the professor started down the mountain to leave the letters at Marston with the agent, who was very obliging and would see that they were put on the "down" train that evening.

Marion did not see any sense in his going away that day, and she told Kate so very bluntly. With the professor gone she could not meet Jack and have those broiled bear steaks, because some one had to stay with Kate. When Kate suggested that she have Jack come to the cabin with his bear steaks, she discovered that she could not do that either. She was afraid to tell Jack that Kate knew. Of course, it was all right—Kate had promised faithfully never to tell; but Jack was awfully queer, lately, and the least little thing offended him. He would refuse to see that it was the best to take Kate into the secret, because it gave Marion more freedom to do things for his comfort. He would consider that she had been tattling secrets just because she could not hold her tongue, and she resented in advance his attitude. Guiltily conscious of having betrayed him, she still believed that she had done him a real service in the betrayal.

It was a complicated and uncomfortable state of mind to be in, and Kate's state of mind was not much more complacent. She also had broken a promise and betrayed a trust, and she also believed she had done it for the good of the betrayed. To their discomforting sense of guilt was added Marion's disappointment at not meeting Jack, and Kate's sprained ankle, which was as swollen and painful as a sprained ankle usually is. They began by arguing, they continued by reminding each other of past slights and injuries, they ended by speaking plain truths that were unpalatable chiefly because they were true. When the professor tramped home at sundown he walked into an atmosphere of icy silence. Kate and Marion were not on speaking terms, if you please.

The next day was cold and windy, but Marion hurried the housework in a way that made Kate sniff disgustedly, and started out to signal Jack and bring him down to their last meeting place. Flash after flash she sent that way, until the sun went altogether behind the clouds and she could signal no more. Not a glimmer of an answering twinkle could she win from the peak. The most she did was to stimulate old Mike to the point of mumbling wild harangues to the uneasy pines, the gist of which was that folks better look out how they went spyin' around after him, an' makin' signs back and forth with glasses. They better look out, because he had good eyes, if Murphy didn't have, and they couldn't run over him and tromp on him.

He was still gesticulating like a bear fighting yellow-jackets when Marion walked past him, going up the trail. She looked at him and smiled as she went by, partly because he looked funny, waving his arms over his head like that, and partly by way of greeting. She never talked to Mike, because she could not understand anything he said. She did not consider him at all bright, so she did not pay much attention to him at any time; certainly not now, when her mind was divided between her emotions concerning Jack and her fresh quarrel with Kate.

Mike struck his axe into a log and followed her, keeping in the brush just outside the trail. His lips moved ceaselessly under his ragged, sandy mustache. Because Marion had smiled when she looked at him, he called her, among other things, a she-devil. He thought she had laughed at him because she was nearly ready to have him hanged. Marion did not look back. She was quite certain today that Kate would not follow her, and the professor was fagged from yesterday's tramp through the snow. She hurried, fully expecting that Jack had gone down early to the meeting place and was waiting for her there.

Mike had no trouble in keeping close to her, for the wind blew strongly against her face and the pines creaked and mourned overhead, and had he called to her she would scarcely have heard him. She left the road at the top of the hill and went across to the gully where Kate had sprained her ankle. Today Marion did not trouble to choose bare ground, so she went swiftly. At the top of the gully where Jack had met her before, she stopped, her eyes inquiring of every thicket near her. She was panting from the stiff climb, and her cheeks tingled with the cold. But presently she "who-whoed" cautiously, and a figure stepped out from behind a cedar and came toward her.

"Oh, there you—oh!" she cried, and stopped short. It was not Jack Corey at all, but Hank Brown, grinning at her while he shifted his rifle from the right hand to the left.

"Guess you thought I was somebody else," he drawled, coming up to her and putting out his hand. "Pretty cold, ain't it? Yuh travelin' or just goin' somewheres?" He grinned again over the ancient witticism.

"Oh, I—I was just out for a walk," Marion laughed uneasily. "Where are you going, Mr. Brown?"

"Me, I'm travelin' fer my health. Guess you aim t' git walkin' enough, comin' away over here, this kind of a day."

"Why, I hike all over these mountains. It gets lonesome. I just walk and walk everywhere."

Grinning, Hank glanced down at her feet. "Yes,