The President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank looked up from the papers on his desk as his secretary entered from the adjoining room and stood before him.
“Well, George?”
The secretary smiled as he spoke: “Mr. Ward, there is an old lady out here who insists that you will see her. The boys passed her on to me, because,—well, she is not the kind of woman that can be refused. She has no card, but her name is Wakefield. She—”
The dignified President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank electrified his secretary by springing from his chair like a schoolboy from his seat at the tap of the teacher's dismissing bell. “Auntie Sue! I should say she couldn't be refused! Where is she?” And before the secretary could collect his startled thoughts to answer, Homer T. Ward was out of the room.
When the smiling secretary, the stenographers, and other attending employees had witnessed a meeting between their dignified chief and the lovely old lady, which strengthened their conviction that the great financier was genuinely human, President Ward and Auntie Sue disappeared into the private office.
“George,” said Mr. Ward, as he closed the door of that sacred inner sanctuary of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, “remember I am not in to any one;—from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Sheriff, I am not in.”
“I understand, sir,” returned the still smiling George. And from that moment until Homer T. Ward should open the door, nothing short of a regiment could have interrupted the interview between Auntie Sue and her old pupil.
Placing the dear old lady tenderly in a deep, leather-upholstered chair, Mr. Ward stood before her as though trying to convince himself that she was real; while his teacher of those long-ago, boyhood days gazed smilingly up at him.
“What in the name of all that is unexpected are you doing here, Auntie Sue?” he demanded; “and why is not Betty Jo with you? Isn't the girl ever coming home? There is nothing the matter with her, is there? Of course not, or you would have wired me.”
It was not at all like the bank president to ask so many questions all at once.
Auntie Sue looked around the private office curiously, then smilingly back to the face of the financier.
“Do you know, Homer,” she said with her chuckling little laugh, “I—I—am almost afraid of you in here. Everything is so grand and rich-looking; and there were so many men out there who tried to tell me you would not see me. I—I am glad I didn't know it would be like this, or I fear I never could have found the courage to come.”
Homer T. Ward laughed, and then—rather full-waisted as he was—went down on one knee at the arm of her chair so as to bring his face level with her eyes.
“Look at me, Auntie Sue,” he said; “look straight through me, just as you used to do years and years ago, and tell me what you see.”
And the dear old lady, with one thin soft hand on his heavy shoulder, answered, as she looked: “Why, I see a rather naughty boy, whom I ought to spank for throwing spitballs at the old schoolroom ceiling,” she retorted. “And I am not a bit afraid to do it either. So sit right over there, sir, and listen to me.”
They laughed together then; and if Auntie Sue wiped her eyes as the schoolboy obediently took his seat in the big chair at the banker's desk, Homer T. Ward's eyes were not without a suspicious moisture.
“Tell me about Betty Jo first,” the man insisted. “You know, Auntie Sue, the girl grows dearer to me every year.”
“Betty Jo is that kind of a girl, Homer,” Auntie Sue answered.
“I suppose it is because she is all I have to love,” he said, “but, you know, ever since Sister Grace died and left the fatherless little kid to me, it seems like all my plans have centered around her; and now that she has finished her school; has travelled abroad, and gone through with that business-college course, I am beginning to feel like we should sort of settle down together. I am glad for her to be with you this summer, though, for the finishing touches; and when she comes home to stay, you are coming with her.”
Auntie Sue shook her head, smiling: “Now, Homer, you know that is settled: I will never leave my little log house by the river until I have watched the last sunset. You know, my dear boy, that I would be miserable in the city.”
It was an old point often argued by them, and the man dismissed it, now, with a brief: “We'll see about that when the time comes. But, why didn't you bring Betty Jo with you?”
“Because,” Auntie Sue answered, “I came away hurriedly, on a very important trip, for only a day, and it is necessary for her to stay and keep house while I am gone. The child must learn to cook, Homer, even if she is to inherit all your money.”
“I know,” answered the banker;—“the same as you make me work when I visit you. But your coming to me sounds rather serious, Auntie Sue. What is your trouble?”
The dear old lady laughed, nervously; for, to tell the truth, she did not quite know how she was going to manage to present Brian Kent's case to Homer T. Ward without presenting more than she was at this time ready to reveal.
“Why, you see, Homer,” she began, “it is not really my trouble as much as it is yours, and it is not yours as much as it is—”
“Betty Jo's?” he asked quickly, when she hesitated.
“No! no!” she cried. “The child doesn't even know why I am here. Just try to forget her for a few minutes, Homer.”
“All right,” he said; “but you had me worried for a minute.”
Auntie Sue might have answered that she was somewhat worried herself; but, instead, she plunged with desperate courage: “I came to see you about Brian Kent, Homer.”
It is not enough to say that the President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank was astonished. “Brian Kent?” he said at last. “Why, Auntie Sue, I wrote you nearly a year ago that Brian Kent was dead.”
“Yes, I know; but he was not—that is, he is not. But the Brian Kent your detectives were hunting was—I mean—is.”
Homer T. Ward looked at his old teacher as though he feared she had suddenly lost her mind.
“It is like this, Homer,” Auntie Sue explained: “A few days after your detective, Mr. Ross, called on me, this stranger appeared in the neighborhood. No one dreamed that he was Brian Kent, because, you see, he was not a bit like the description.”
“Full beard, I suppose?” commented the banker, grimly.
“Yes: and every other way,” continued Auntie Sue. “And he has been working so hard all winter; and everybody in the country respects and loves him so; and he is one of the best and truest men I ever knew; and he is planning and working to pay back every cent he took; and I cannot—I will not—let you send him to prison now.”
The lovely old eyes were fixed on the banker's face with sweet anxiety.
Homer T. Ward was puzzled. Strange human problems are often presented to men in his position; but, certainly, this was the strangest;—his old teacher pleading for his absconding clerk who was supposed to be dead.
At last he said, with gentle kindness: “But, why did you come to tell me about him, Auntie Sue? He is safe enough if no one knows who he is.”
“That is it!” she cried. “Some one found out about him, and is coming here to tell you, for the reward.”
The banker whistled softly. “And you—you—grabbed a train, and beat 'em to it!” he exclaimed. “Well, if that doesn't—”
Auntie Sue clasped her thin hands to her breast, and her sweet voice trembled with anxious fear: “You won't send that poor boy to prison, now, will you, Homer? It—it—would kill me if such a terrible thing were to happen now. Won't you let him go free, so that he can do his work,—won't you, Homer? I—I—” The strain of her anxiety was almost too much for the dear old gentlewoman's physical strength, and as her voice failed, the tears streamed down the soft cheeks unheeded.
In an instant the bank president was again on his knees beside her chair.
“Don't, Auntie Sue: don't, dear! Why, you know I would do anything in the world you asked, even if I wanted to send the fellow up; but I don't. I wouldn't touch him for the world. It is a thousand times better to let him go if he is proving himself an honest man. Please, dear, don't feel so. Why, I will be glad to let him off. I'll help him, Auntie Sue. I—I—am as glad as you are that we didn't get him. Please don't feel so about it. There, there,—it is all right, now.”
So he comforted and reassured her until she was able to smile through her tears. “I knew I could depend on you, Homer.”
A few minutes later, she said: “And what about that man who is coming to claim the reward, Homer?”
“Never you mind him!” cried the banker; “I'll fix that. But, tell me, Auntie Sue, where is young Kent now?”
“He is working in the neighborhood,” she returned.
He looked at her shrewdly. “You have seen a lot of him, have you?”
“I have seen him occasionally,” she answered. Homer T. Ward nodded his head, as if well pleased with himself. “You don't need to tell me any more. I understand, now, exactly. It is very clear what has reformed Brian Kent; you have been up to your old tricks. It is a wonder you haven't taken him into your house to live with you,—to save him from associating with bad people.”
He laughed, and when Auntie Sue only smiled, as though humoring him in his little joke, he added: “By the way, has Betty Jo seen this latest patient of yours? What does she think of his chances for complete recovery?”
“Yes,” Auntie Sue returned, calmly; “Betty Jo has seen him. But, really, Homer, I have never asked her what she thought of him.”
“Do you know, Auntie Sue,” said the banker, reflectively, “I never did believe that Brian Kent was a criminal at heart.”
“I know he is not,” she returned stoutly. “But, tell me, Homer, how did it ever happen?”
“Well, you see,” he answered, “young Kent had a wife who couldn't somehow seem to fit into his life. Ross never went into the details with me, fully, because that, of course, had no real bearing on the fact that he stole the money from the bank. But it seems that the youngster was rather ambitious,—studied a lot outside of business hours and that sort of thing. I know he made his own way through business college before he came to us. The wife didn't receive the attention she thought she should have, I suppose. Perhaps she was right at that. Anyway, she wanted a good time;—wanted him to take her out more, instead of spending his spare time digging away at his books. And so it went the usual way,—she found other company. Rather a gay set, I fancy; at least it led to her needing more money than he was earning, and so he helped out his salary, thinking to pay it back before he was caught, I suppose. Then the crash came,—some other man, you know,—and Brian skipped, which, of course, put us next to his stealing. I don't know what has become of the woman. The last Ross knew of her she was living in St. Louis, and running with a pretty wild bunch,—glad to get rid of Brian, I expect. She couldn't have really cared so very much for him.
“Do you know, Auntie Sue, I have seen so many cases like this one. I have been glad, many times, that I never married. And then, again, sometimes, I have seen homes that have made me sorry I never took the chance. I am glad you saved the boy, Auntie Sue: I am mighty glad.”
“You have made me very happy, Homer,” Auntie Sue returned. “But are you sure you can fix it about that reward? The man who is coming to claim it will make trouble, won't he, if he is not paid, somehow?”
“Yes, I expect he would,” returned the president, thoughtfully. “And my directors might have something to say. And there are the Burns people and the Bankers' Association and all. Hum-m-m!”
Homer T. Ward considered the matter a few moments, then he laughed. “I'll tell you what we will do, Auntie Sue; we will let Brian Kent pay the reward himself. That would be fair, wouldn't it?”
Auntie Sue was sure that Brian would agree that it was a fair enough arrangement; but she did not see how it was to be managed.
Then her old pupil explained that he would pay the reward-money to the man who was coming to claim it, and thus satisfy him, and that the bank would hold the amount as a part of the debt which Brian was expected to pay.
Auntie Sue never knew that President Ward himself paid to the bank the full amount of the money stolen by Brian Kent in addition to the reward-money which he personally paid to Jap Taylor, in order to quiet him, and thus saved Brian from the publicity that surely would have followed any other course.
It should also be said here that Judy's father never again appeared in the Ozarks; at least, not in the Elbow Rock neighborhood. It might be that Jap Taylor was shrewd enough to know that his reputation would not permit him to show any considerable sum of money, where he was known, without starting an investigation; and for men of his type investigations are never to be desired.
Or it is not unlikely that the combination of money and the city proved the undoing of the moonshiner, and that he came to his legitimate and logical end among the dives and haunts of his kind, to which he would surely gravitate.
The day following that night of Brian Kent's uneasy wakefulness was a hard day for the man and the woman in the little log house by the river.
For Brian, the morning dawned with a sense of impending disaster. He left his room while the sky was still gray behind the eastern mountains, and the mist that veiled the brightness of the hills seemed to hide in its ghostly depths legions of shadowy spirits that from his past had assembled to haunt him. The sombre aisles and caverns of the dimly lighted forest were peopled with shadowy memories of that life which he had hoped would never again for him awake. And the river swept through its gray world to the crashing turmoil at Elbow Rock like a thing doomed to seek forever in its own irresistible might the destruction of its ever-living self.
As one moving in a world of dreams, he went about his morning's work. “Old Prince” whinnied his usual greeting, but received no answer. “Bess” met him at the barnyard gate, but he did not speak. The sun leaped above the mountain-tops, and the world was filled with the beauty of its golden glory. From tree and bush and swaying weed, from forest and pasture, and garden and willow-fringed river-bank, the birds voiced their happy greetings to the new day. But the man neither saw nor heard.
When he went to the house with his full milk-pail, and Betty Jo met him at the kitchen-door with her cheery “Good-morning!” he tried resolutely to free himself from the mood which possessed him, but only partially succeeded. Several times, as the two faced each other across the breakfast table, Brian saw the gray eyes filled with questioning anxiety, as though Betty Jo, also, felt the presence of some forbidding spectre at the meal.
After several vain attempts to find something they could talk about, Betty Jo boldly acknowledged the situation by saying: “What in the world is the matter with us, this morning, Mr. Burns? I am possessed with the feeling that there is some one or something behind me. I want to look over my shoulder every minute.”
At her words, Brian involuntarily turned his head for a quick backward glance.
“There!” cried Betty Jo, with a nervous laugh, not at all like her normal, well-poised self. “You feel it, too!”
Brian forced a laugh in return: “It is the weather, I guess.” He tried to speak with casual ease. “The atmosphere is full of electricity this morning. We'll have a thunder-storm before night, probably.”
“And was it the electricity in the air that kept you tramping up and down your room last night until almost morning?” she demanded abruptly, with her characteristic opposition to any evasion of the question at issue.
Brian retorted with a smile: “And how do you know that I tramped up and down my room last night?”
The color in Betty Jo's cheeks deepened as she answered, “I did not sleep very well either.”
“But, I surely did not make noise enough for you to hear in your room?” persisted Brian.
The color deepened still more in Betty Jo's checks, as she answered honestly: “I was not in my room when I heard you.” She paused, and when he only looked at her expectantly, but did not speak, continued, in a hesitating manner quite unlike her matter-of-fact self: “When I could not sleep, and felt so as though there were somebody or something in the house that had no business here, I became afraid, and opened my door so I would not feel so much alone; and then I saw the light under the door of your room, and,—” she hesitated, but finished with a little air of defiance,—“and I went and listened outside your door to see if you were up.”
“Yes?” said Brian Kent, gently.
“And when I heard you walking up and down, I wanted to call to you; but I thought I better not. It made me feel better, though, just to know that you were there; and so, pretty soon, I went back to my room again.”
“And then?” said Brian.
“And then,” confessed Betty Jo, “whatever it was that was keeping me awake came back, and went on keeping me awake until I was simply forced to go to you for help again.”
Poor Betty Jo! She knew very well that she ought not to be saying those things to the man who, while he listened, could not hide the love that shone in his eyes.
And Brian Kent, as he thought of this woman, whom he loved with all the strength of his best self, creeping to the door of his room for comfort in the lonely night, scarcely dared trust himself to speak. At last, when their silence was becoming unbearable, he said, gently: “You poor child! Why didn't you call to me?”
And Betty Jo, hearing in his voice that which told her how near he was to the surrender that would bring disaster to them both, was aroused to the defense. The gray eyes never wavered as she answered, bravely: “I was afraid of that, too.”
And so Betty Jo confessed her love that answered so to his need; but, in her very confession, saved their love from themselves. If she had lowered her eyes—Brian Kent, in reverent acknowledgment, bowed his head before her. Then, rising, he walked to the window, where he stood for some time looking out, but seeing nothing.
“It was that horrid man coming yesterday that has so upset us,” said Betty Jo, at last. “We were getting on so beautifully, too. I wish he had gone somewhere else for his vegetables and eggs and things!”
Brian was able to smile at this as he turned to face her again, and they both knew that,—for that time, at least,—the danger-point was safely past.
“I wish so, too,” he agreed; “but never mind; Auntie Sue will be home in a day or two, and then everything will be all right again.”
But when he had taken his hat and was starting out for the day's work, Betty Jo asked, “What are you doing to-day?”
“I was going to work on the fence around the clearing,” he answered. “Why?”
“I—I—wish you could find something to do nearer the house,” came the slow answer. “Couldn't you work in the garden, perhaps?”
“I should say I could!” he returned heartily.
All that forenoon, as Betty Jo went about her household duties she felt the presence of the thing that filled her so with fear and dread. With vigorous determination she scolded herself for being so foolish, and argued with herself that it was all a nervous fancy born of her restless night. But, the next moment, she would start with a sudden fear and turn quickly as if to face some one whose presence she felt behind her. And Brian, too, as he worked in the garden, caught himself often in the act of pausing to look about with nervous apprehension.
During the noonday meal they made a determined effort to laugh at themselves, and by the time dinner was over had almost succeeded. But when Brian, as he pushed back his chair, said, jestingly, “Well, am I to work in the garden again this afternoon?” Betty Jo answered, emphatically, “Indeed you are! I will not stay another minute in this house alone. Goodness knows what I will do to-night!”
There was no jest in the man's voice as he answered: “I'll tell you what you will do to-night,—you will go to bed and you will go to sleep. You will leave the door to your room wide-open, and I shall lie right there on that couch, so near that a whisper from you will reach me. We will have no more of this midnight prowling, I promise you. If any ghost dares appear, we—”
The reassuring words died on Brian Kent's lips. His eyes, looking over Betty Jo's shoulders, were fixed and staring, and the look on his face sent a chill of horror to the girl's heart. She dared not move nor look around as he sat like a man turned to stone.
A woman's laugh broke the dead silence.
With a scream, Betty Jo sprung to her feet and whirled about.
As one in a trance, Brian Kent arose and stood beside her.
The woman, who stood in the open doorway, laughed again.
Martha Kent's heavy drinking the night before, when her clubhouse friends in a wild debauch had tried to help her to forget, was the climax of many months of like excesses. The mood in which she had sent the man Green from her room was the last despairing flicker of her better instincts. Moved by her memories of better things,—of a better love and dreams and ideals,—she had spent a little hour or two in sentimental regret for that which she had so recklessly cast aside. And then, because there was within her no foundation of abiding principle for her sentiment, she had again put on the character which had so separated her from the life of the man to whom she was married, indeed, but with whom she was never one. With the burning consciousness of what she might have been and of what she was ever tormenting her, she sank, as the hours passed, deeper and deeper into the quicksands of physical indulgence until, in her mad determination to destroy utterly her ability to feel remorse, she lost all mental control of herself, and responded to every insane whim of her drink-disordered brain.
As she stood there, now, in the doorway of that little log house by the river,—face to face with the man and the woman who, though they were united in their love, were yet separated by the very fact of her existence,—she was, in all her hideous, but pitiful, repulsiveness, the legitimate creation of those life-forces which she so fitly personified.
Betty Jo instinctively drew closer to Brian's side.
“Hello, Brian, dear!” said the woman, with a drunken leer. “Thought I'd call to see you in your charming love-nest that Harry Green raved so about. Can't you introduce me to your little sweetheart?”
“No?” she continued, and laughed again. Then coming an unsteady step toward them, she added, thickly: “Very well, Brian, old sport; you won't introduce me,—I'll have to introduce myself.” She grinned with malicious triumph at Betty Jo: “Don't be frightened, my dear. It's all right. I'm nobody of importance,—just his wife,—that's all,—just his wife.”
Betty Jo, with a little cry, turned to the man who stood as if stricken dumb with horror. “Brian?” she said. “Oh, Brian?”
It was the first time she had ever addressed him by his given name, and Brian Kent, as he looked, saw in those gray eyes no hint of doubt or censure, but only the truest love and sympathy. Betty Jo had not failed in the moment of her supreme testing.
“It's true, all right, isn't it, Brian?” said Martha Kent. “I'm his wife fast enough, my dear. But you don't need to worry,—you two. I'm a good sport,—I am. I've had my fun. No kick coming from me. Just called to pay my respects,—that's all. So-long, Brian, old sport! Good-bye, my dear!”
With an uncertain wave of her hand, she staggered through the doorway and passed from their sight.
In the little log house by the river the two who had kept the fineness of their love stood face to face.
For Betty Jo, the barrier which Brian Kent had maintained between them to protect her from his love was no longer a thing unknown. But the revelation, coming as it did, had brought no shadow of distrust or doubt of the man to whom she had so fully entrusted herself. It had, indeed, only strengthened her faith in him and deepened her love.
For one glorious triumphal moment the very soul of the man exulted in the truth which Betty Jo made known to him. Then he turned slowly away, for he dared not trust himself to look at her a moment longer.
With bowed head he paced up and down the room. He went to the table which held Auntie Sue's sewing-basket, and fingered the trifles there. Then, slowly, he passed through the open door to the porch, where Betty Jo, through the window, near which she stood, saw him look away over the river and the mountains.
Suddenly, she saw him start, and stare intently at some nearer object that had caught his attention. As Betty Jo watched, he moved to the edge of the porch, and, stooping, grasped the railing with his hands;—his head and shoulders were thrust forward; his lips were parted; his whole attitude was that of the most intense and excited interest. Then, straightening up, he threw back his head, and laughed aloud. But his laughter alarmed the girl, who ran to the door, crying, “What is it, Brian?”
“Look!” he shouted, madly, and pointed toward the river. “Look, Betty Jo!”
Martha Kent, alone in one of the clubhouse boats, was rowing with drunken clumsiness toward the head of the Elbow Rock rapids.
The woman's friends had missed her, and, guessing, from some remark she had made, where she had gone, had sent four men of the party after her; for they realized that she was in no condition to be alone in a boat on the river, particularly on that part of the stream near Auntie Sue's place. After leaving Brian and Betty Jo, she had gone back to her boat in the eddy at the foot of the garden, and was pulling out into the stream when she saw her friends approaching. With a drunken laugh, she waved her hand, and began rowing from them directly toward the swift water. The men shouted for her to stop, and pulled with all their strength. But the woman, taking their calls as a challenge, rowed the harder, while every awkward pull of the oars carried her nearer the deadly grip of the current.
Betty Jo, as she reached Brian's side, and saw what was happening on the river, grasped the man's arm appealingly, with a cry: “Brian! Brian! She is going into the rapids! She will be carried down to Elbow Rock!”
But Brian Kent, for the moment, was beside himself. All that he had suffered,—all that the woman out there on the river had cost him in anguish of soul,—all that she had taken from him of happiness,—came before him with blinding vividness; and now,—now,—in her drunkenness, she was making her own way to her own destruction.
“Of course she is!” he shouted, in answer to Betty Jo. “Her friends yonder are driving her to it! Could anything be more fitting?”
As though grasped by powerful unseen hands beneath the surface, the boat shot forward. The woman, feeling the sudden pull of the current, stopped rowing, and looked about as if wondering what had happened. Her friends, not daring to follow closer to the dangerous water, were pulling madly for the landing at the foot of the garden. The boat in the middle of the river moved faster.
“Look, Betty Jo, look!” shouted the man on the porch, madly. “It's got her now—the river has got her—look!”
With a scream of fear, the woman in the boat dropped her oars, and grasped the gunwale of the little craft.
Brian Kent laughed.
Betty Jo shrank back from him, her eyes, big with horror, fixed upon his face. Then, with a quick movement, she sprang toward him again, and, catching his arm, shook him with all her strength and struck him again and again with her fist.
“Brian! Brian!” she cried. “You are insane!”
The man looked down at her for an instant with an expression of bewildered astonishment on his face, as one awakened from a dream. He raised his hand and drew it across his forehead and eyes.
The boat with the helpless woman was already past the front of the house.
Betty Jo cried again as if calling the man she loved from a distance: “Brian! Brian!”
With a sudden movement, the man jerked away from her. The next instant, he had leaped over the railing of the porch to the ground below and was running with all his might toward the river, at an angle which would put him opposite or a little below the boat when he reached the bank.
With a sob, Betty Jo followed as fast as she could.
As Brian Kent raced toward the river's edge, the powerful current drew the boat with the woman into the first rough water of the rapids, and, as the skiff was shaken and tossed by the force that was sweeping it with ever-increasing speed toward the wild turmoil at Elbow Rock, the woman screamed again and again for help.
The warring forces of the stream whirled the little craft about, and she saw the man who was nearing the bank. She rose to her feet in the rocking boat, and stretched out her arms,—calling his name, “Brian! Brian! Brian!” Then the impact of the boat against a larger wave of the rapids brought her to her knees, and she clung to the thwarts with piteous cries.
Betty Jo and the clubhouse men, who had overtaken her, saw Brian as he reached the river opposite the boat. For a little way he raced the tumbling waters until he had gained a short distance ahead of the skiff; then they saw him, without an instant's pause, leap from the high bank far out into the boiling stream.
Running along the bank, the helpless watchers saw the man fighting his way toward the boat. One moment, he disappeared from sight, dragged beneath the surface by the powerful currents with which he wrestled. The next instant, the boiling waters would toss him high on the crest of a rolling wave, only to drag him down again a second later. But, always, he drew nearer and nearer the object of his struggle, while the rapids swept both the helpless woman and the tossing boat and the swimming man onward toward the towering cliff, and the thunder-roar of the mad waters below grew louder and louder.
The splendid strength of arms and shoulders which Brian Kent had acquired by his months of work with his ax on the timbered mountain-side sustained him now in his need. With tremendous energy, he breasted the might of the furious river. To the watchers it seemed at times that it was beyond the power of human muscles to endure the terrific strain. Then he gained the boat, and they saw him striving with desperate energy to drag it toward the opposite shore and so into the currents that would carry it past the menacing point of the cliff and perhaps to the safety of the quiet water below.
All that human strength could do in that terrible situation, Brian Kent did. But the task was beyond the power of mortal man.
For an instant the breathless watchers on the bank thought there was a chance; but the waters with mad fury dragged their victims back, and, with terrific power, hurled them forward toward the frowning rocks.
It was quickly over.
In that wild turmoil of the boiling, leaping, seething, lashing, hammering waves, the boat, with the woman who crouched on her knees on the bottom, and the man who clung to the side of the craft, appeared for a second lifted high in the air. The next instant, the crash of breaking wood sounded above the thundering roaring of the waters. The man and the woman disappeared. The wreck of the boat was flung again and again against the cliff, until, battered and broken, it was swept away around the point.
Against the dark wall of rock Brian Kent's head and shoulders appeared for an instant, and they saw that he held the woman in his arms. The furious waters closed over them. For the fraction of a second, the man's hand and arm appeared again above the surface, and was gone.
Betty Jo sank to the ground with a low cry of anguish, and hid her face.
Another moment, and she was aroused by a loud shout from one of the men who had caught a glimpse of the river's victims farther out at the point of the rocky cliff.
Springing to her feet, Betty Jo started madly up the trail that leads over the bluff. The men followed.
Immediately below Elbow Rock there is a deep hole formed by the waters that pour around the point of the cliff, and below this hole a wide gravelly bar pushing out from the Elbow Rock side of the stream forces the main volume of the river to the opposite bank. In the shallow water against the upper side of the bar they found them.
With the last flicker of his consciousness, Brian Kent had felt his feet touch the bottom where the water shoals against the bar, and, with his last remaining strength, had dragged himself and the body of the woman into the shallows.
Betty Jo was no hysterical weakling to spend the priceless seconds of such a time in senseless ravings. The first-aid training which she had received at school gave her the necessary knowledge which her native strength of character and practical common sense enabled her to apply. Under her direction, the men from the clubhouse worked as they probably never had worked before in all their useless lives.
But the man and the woman whose life-currents had touched and mingled,—drawn apart to flow apparently far from each other, but drawn together again to once more touch, and, as one, to endure the testing of the rapids,—the man and the woman had not brought to the terrible ordeal the same strength.
One was drawn into the Elbow Rock rapids by the careless indifference and the reckless spirit that was born of the life she had chosen; by her immediate associates and environment; and by the circumstances that were, at the last analysis, of her own making.
The other braved the same dangers, strong in the splendid spirit that had set him against such terrible odds to attempt the woman's rescue. From his work on the timbered mountain-side, from his life in the clean atmosphere of the hills, and from the spiritual and mental companionship of that little log house by the river, he had brought to his testing the splendid strength which enabled him to endure.
Somewhere in that terrible conflict with the wild waters at Elbow Rock, while the man whose life she had so nearly ruined by her wantonness was fighting to save her, the soul of Martha Kent went from the bruised and battered body which Brian drew at last from the vicious grasp of the currents.
But the man lived.
In the early evening twilight of the day following the tragedy at Elbow Rock, Betty Jo was sitting on the porch, to rest for a few minutes in the fresh air, after long hours of watching beside Brian's bed.
A neighbor woman had come to help, but Betty Jo would not leave the side of the man she loved as he fought his way slowly out of the dark shadow of the death that had so nearly conquered him. Nor, indeed, would Brian let her go, for even in those moments when he appeared most unconscious of the life about him, he seemed to feel her presence. All through the long, long hours of that anxious night and day she had watched and waited the final issue;—feeling the dark messenger very close at times, but gaining hope as the hours passed and her lover won his way nearer and nearer to the light;—courageous always;—giving him the best of her strength, so far as it was possible to give him anything;—making him feel the steady, enduring fullness of her love.
At last, they felt that the victory was won. The doctor, satisfied that the crisis was safely past, went his way to visit other patients. By evening, Brian was resting so easily that the girl had stolen away for a few minutes, leaving the neighbor to call her if he should waken.
Betty Jo had been on the porch but a short time when a step sounded on the gravel walk that led from the porch steps around the corner of the house. A moment more, and Judy appeared.
The mountain girl stopped when she saw Betty Jo, and the latter went to the top of the steps.
“Good-evening, Judy!” said Betty Jo, quietly. “Won't you come in?”
Slowly, with her black beady eyes fixed on Betty Jo's face, Judy went up the steps.
As the mountain girl reached the level of the porch-floor, Betty Jo drew a little back toward the door.
Judy stopped instantly, and stood still. Then, in a low tone, she said: “You-all ain't got no call ter be afeared, Miss Betty Jo. You hain't never goin' ter have no call ter be scared of me again, never.”
“I am so glad for you to say that, Judy,” returned Betty Jo, smiling. “I don't want to be afraid of you, and I am not really; but—”
“Ain't you-all plumb a-hatin' me for what I done?” asked Judy, wonderingly.
“No, no; Judy, dear, I don't hate you at all, and you must know that Auntie Sue loves you.”
“Yes,” Judy nodded her head, thoughtfully. “Auntie Sue just naturally loves everybody. Hit wouldn't be no more'n nature, though, for you-all ter hate me. I sure have been poison-mean.”
“But that is all past now, Judy,” said Betty Jo, heartily. “Come and sit down?” She started toward the chairs.
But the mountain girl did not move, except to shake her head in refusal of the hospitable invitation.
“I ain't a-goin' ter put my foot inside this house, nor set with you-all, nor nothin' 'til I've said what I done come ter say.”
Betty Jo turned back to her again: “What is it, Judy?”
“Auntie Sue done told me not ter let you-all er Mr. Burns see me 'til she come back. But I can't help hit, an' if I don't talk 'bout that none, I reckon she ain't a-goin' ter mind so much. You-all don't know that I seed Auntie Sue that night 'fore she went away, an' that hit was me took her ter the station with 'Old Prince,' an' brung him back, did you?”
“No,” said Betty Jo, “I did not know; and if Auntie Sue told you not to tell us about it, I would rather you did not, Judy.”
“I ain't aimin' ter,” Judy returned; “but Auntie Sue don't know nothin' 'bout what's happened since she went away, an' hit's that what's a-makin' me come ter you-all.”
Betty Jo, seeing that the poor girl was laboring under some intense emotional stress, said, gently: “What is it that you wish to tell me, Judy? I am sure Auntie Sue will not mind, if you feel so about it.”
The mountain girl's eyes filled and the tears streamed down her sallow cheeks, while her twisted shoulders shook with the grief she could not suppress, as she faltered: “My God-A'mighty! Miss Betty Jo, I—I—didn't aim ter do hit! I sure didn't! 'Fore God, I'd er let 'em kill me first, if I'd only had time ter think. But hit—hit—was me what told that there woman how Mr. Burns was Brian Kent. Hit's—hit's—me what's ter blame for gittin' her killed in the river an' him so nigh drowned. O God! O God! If he'll only git well!
“An' I ain't a-feelin' toward you-all like I did, Miss Betty Jo. I can't no more. I done left them clubhouse folks, after I knowed what has happened, an' all day I been hangin' 'round here in the bresh. An' Lucy Warden she done told me, this afternoon, 'bout how you-all was takin' care of Mr. Burns, an' how you just naturally wouldn't let him die. An'—an'—I kin see, now, what hit is that makes Auntie Sue and him an' you-all so different from that there clubhouse gang an' pap an' me. An' I ain't a-wantin' ter be like I been, no more, ever. I'd a heap rather jump inter the river an' drown myself. 'Fore God, I would! An' I want ter come back an' help you-all take care of him; an' live with Auntie Sue; an'—an'—be a little might like youuns, if I kin. Will you let me, Miss Betty Jo? Will you? I most know Auntie Sue would, if she was here.”
Before the mountain girl had finished speaking, Betty Jo's arm was around the poor twisted shoulders, and Betty Jo's eyes were answering Judy's pleading.
And so, when Auntie Sue came home, it was Judy who met her at the station, with “Old Prince” and the buggy; and as they drove down the winding road to the little log house by the river, the mountain girl told the old gentlewoman all that had happened in her absence.
Brian Kent recovered quickly from the effects of his experience in the Elbow Rock rapids, and was soon able again to take up his work on the little farm. Every day he labored in the garden, or in the clearing, or at some task which did not rightly fall to those who rented the major part of Auntie Sue's tillable acreage.
Auntie Sue had told him about her visit to the President of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, and of the arrangement made by the banker—as she understood it—for Brian's protection. But while the dear old lady explained that Homer T. Ward was one of her pupils, she did not reveal the relation between Brian's former chief and Betty Jo. Neither Auntie Sue nor Betty Jo, for several very good reasons, was ready for Brian to know the whole truth about his stenographer. It was quite enough, they reasoned, for him to love his stenographer, and for his stenographer to love him, without raising any more obstacles in the pathway of their happiness.
As the busy weeks passed, several letters came from the publishers of Brian's book,—letters which made the three in the little log house by the river very happy. Already, in the first reception of this new writer's work, those who had undertaken to present it to the public saw many promises of the fulfillment of their prophecies as to its success. When the third letter came, a statement of the sales to date was enclosed, and, that afternoon, Betty Jo went to Brian where he was at work in the clearing.
When they were comfortably, not to say cozily, seated on a log in the shade at the edge of the forest, she announced that she had come for a very serious talk.
“Yes?” he returned; but he really looked altogether too happy to be exceedingly serious.
“Yes,” she continued, “I have. As your accredited business agent and—” she favored him with a Betty Jo smile—“shall I say manager?”
“Why not managing owner?” he retorted.
“I am glad you confirm my promotion so readily,” she returned, with a charming touch of color in her cheeks, “because that, you see, helps me to present what I have to say for the good of the firm.”
“I am listening, Betty Jo.”
“Very well; tell me, first, Brian, just exactly how much do you owe that bank, reward-money and all, and Auntie Sue, interest and everything?”
Brian went to his coat, which lay on a near-by stump, and returned with a small pocket account-book.
“I have it all here,” he said, as he seated himself close beside her again. And, opening the book, he showed her how he had kept a careful record of the various sums he had taken from the bank, with the dates.
“Oh, Brian, Brian!” she said with a little cry of delight, “I am so glad,—so glad you have this! It is exactly what I want for my wedding present. It was so thoughtful of you to fix it for me.”
Thus by a characteristic, Betty Jo turn she made the little book of painful memories a book of joyous promise.
When they again returned to the consideration of business matters, Brian gave her the figures which answered her questions as to his total indebtedness.
Again Betty Jo exclaimed with delight: “Brian, do you see? Take your pencil and figure quick your royalties on the number of books sold as given in the publishers' statement.”
Brian laughed. “I have figured it.”
“And your book has already earned more than enough to pay everything,” said Betty Jo. “Isn't that simply grand, Brian?”
“It is pretty 'grand,' all right,” he agreed. “The only trouble is, I must wait so long before the money is due me from the publishers.”
“That is exactly what I came to talk about,” she returned quickly. “I tried to have it different when I made the arrangements with them, but the terms of payment in the contract are the very best I could get; and so I have planned a little plan whereby you—that is, we—won't need to wait for your freedom until the date of settlement with the publishers.”
“You have a plan which will do that?” Brian questioned, doubtfully.
She nodded vigorously, with another Betty Jo smile. “This is the plan, and you are not to interrupt until I have finished everything: I happen to have some money of my very, very own, which is doing nothing but earning interest—”
At the look on Brian's face, she stopped suddenly; but, when he started to speak, she put her hand quickly over his mouth, saying: “You were not to say a single word until I have finished. Play fair, Brian, dear; please!”
When he signified that he would not speak, she continued in her most matter-of-fact and businesslike tone: “There is every reason in the world, Brian, why you should pay off your debt to the bank and to Auntie Sue at the earliest possible moment. You can think of several reasons yourself. There is me, for instance.
“Very well. You have the money to your credit with the publishers; but you can't use it yet. I have money that you can just as well use. You will make an assignment of your royalties to me, all in proper form, to cover the amount you need. You will pay me the same interest my money is now earning where it is.
“I will arrange for the money to be sent to you in the form of a cashier's cheque, payable to the banker, Homer T. Ward, so the name Brian Kent does not appear before we are ready, you see. You will make believe to Auntie Sue that the money is from the publishers. You will send the cheque to Mr. Bank President personally, with a statement of your indebtedness to him properly itemized, interest figured on everything. You will instruct him to open an account for you with the balance. And then—then, Brian, you will give dear Auntie Sue a cheque for what you owe her, with interest of course. And we will all be so happy! And—and—don't you think I am a very good managing owner? You do, don't you?”
When he hesitated, she added: “And the final and biggest reason of all is, that I want you to do as I have planned more than I ever wanted anything in the world, except you, and I want this so because I want you. You can't really refuse, now, can you?”
How, indeed, could he refuse?
So they worked it out together as Betty Jo had planned; and when the time came for the last and best part of the plan, and Brian confessed to Auntie Sue how he had robbed her, and had known for so long that she was aware of his crime against her, and finished his confession by giving her the cheque, it is safe to say that there was nowhere in all the world more happiness than in the little log house by the river.
“God-A'mighty sure helped me to do one good turn, anyway, when I jumped inter the river after that there book when Mr. Burns done throw'd hit away,” commented the delighted Judy.
And while they laughed together, Betty Jo hugged the deformed mountain girl, and answered: “God Almighty was sure good to us all that day, Judy, dear!”
It was only a day later when Auntie Sue received a letter from Homer T. Ward which sent the dear old lady in great excitement to Betty Jo. The banker was coming for his long-deferred vacation to the log house by the river.
There was in his letter a kindly word for his former clerk, Brian Kent, should Auntie Sue chance to see him; much love for his old teacher and for the dearest girl in the world, his Betty Jo.
But that part of Homer T. Ward's letter which most excited Auntie Sue and caused Betty Jo to laugh until she cried was this: The great financier, who, even in his busy life of large responsibilities, found time for some good reading, had discovered a great book, by a new and heretofore unknown writer. The book was great because every page of it, Homer T. Ward declared, reminded him of Auntie Sue. If the writer had known her for years, he could not have drawn a truer picture of her character, nor presented her philosophy of life more clearly. It was a remarkable piece of work. It was most emphatically the sort of writing that the world needed. This new author was a genius of the rarest and best sort. Mr. Ward predicted boldly that this new star in the literary firmament was destined to rank among those of the first magnitude. Already, among the banker's closest book friends, the new book was being discussed, and praised. He would bring a copy for Auntie Sue and Betty Jo to read. It was not only the book of the year;—it was, in Homer T. Ward's opinion, one of the really big books of the Century.
“Well,” commented Betty Jo, when they had read and reread that part of the letter, “dear old Uncle Homer may be a very conservative banker, but he certainly is more than liberal when he touches on the question of this new author. Won't we have fun, Auntie Sue! Oh, won't we!”
Then they planned the whole thing, and proceeded to carry out their plan.
Brian was told only that Mr. Ward was coming to visit Auntie Sue, and that he must be busy somewhere away from the house when the banker arrived, and not come until he was sent for, because Auntie Sue must make a full confession to her old pupil of the part she had played in the Re-Creation of Brian Kent before Homer T. Ward should meet his former clerk.
Brian, never dreaming that there were other confessions to be made, smilingly agreed to do exactly as he was told.
When the momentous day arrived, Betty Jo met her uncle in Thompsonville, and all the way home she talked so continuously of her school, and asked so many questions about his conduct and life and their many Chicago friends, that the helpless bank president had no chance whatever of asking her a single embarrassing question. But, when dinner was over (Brian had taken his lunch with him to the clearing), Homer T. Ward wanted to know things.
“Was Brian Kent still working in the neighborhood?”
Auntie Sue informed him that Brian was still working in the neighborhood.
“Betty Jo had seen the bank clerk?” Betty Jo's uncle supposed. “What did she think of the fellow?”
Betty Jo thought Brian Kent was a rather nice fellow.
“And how had Betty Jo been amusing herself while her old uncle was slaving in the city?”
Betty Jo had been doing a number of things: Helping Auntie Sue with her housework; learning to cook; keeping up her stenographic work; reading.
“Reading?” That reminded him, and forthwith Mr. Ward went to his room, and returned with the book.
And then those two blessed women listened and admired while he introduced them to the new genius, and read certain favorite passages from the great book, and grew enthusiastic on the new author, saying all that he had written in his letter and many things more, until Betty Jo could restrain herself no longer, but ran to him, and took the book from his hands, and, with her arms around his neck, told him that he was the dearest uncle in the world, because she was going to marry the man who wrote the book he so admired.
There were long explanations after that: How the book so highly valued by Banker Ward had actually been written in that very log house by the river; how Auntie Sue had sent for Betty Jo to assist the author with her typewriting; how the author, not knowing who Betty Jo was, had fallen in love with his stenographer, and, finally, how Betty Jo's author-lover was even then waiting to meet her guardian, still not knowing that her guardian was the banker Homer T. Ward.
“You see, uncle, dear,” explained Betty Jo, “Auntie Sue and I were obliged to conspire this little conspiracy against my man, because, you know, authors are funny folk, and you never can tell exactly what they are going to do. After giving your heart to a genius as wonderful as you yourself know this one to be, it would be terrible to have him refuse you just because you were the only living relative of a rich old banker;—it would, wouldn't it, uncle, dear?”
And, really, Homer T. Ward could find reason in Betty Jo's argument, which ended with that fatal trick question.
Taking his agreement for granted, Betty Jo continued: “And, you see, Auntie Sue and I were simply forced to conspire a little against you, uncle, dear, because you know perfectly well that, much as I needed the advantage of associating with such an author-man in the actual writing of his book, you would never, never have permitted me to fall in love with him before you had discovered for yourself what a great man he really is, and I simply had to fall in love with him because God made me to take care of a genius of some sort. And if you don't believe that, you can ask Judy. Judy has found out a lot about God lately.
“You won't think I am talking nonsense, or am belittling the occasion will you, uncle, dear?” she added anxiously. “I am not,—truly, I am not,—I am very serious. But I can't help being a little excited, can I? Because it is terrible to love a banker-uncle, as I love you, and at the same time to love a genius-man, as I love my man, and—and—not know what you two dearest men in the world are going to do to each other.”
And, at this, the girl's arms were about his neck again, and the girl's head went down on his shoulder; and he felt her cheek hot with blushes against his and a very suspicious drop of moisture slipped down inside his collar.
When he had held Betty Jo very close for a while, and had whispered comforting things in her ear, and had smiled over her shoulder at his old teacher, the banker sent the girl to find her lover while he should have a serious talk with Auntie Sue.
The long shadows of the late afternoon were on the mountain-side when Brian Kent and Betty Jo came down the hill to the little log house by the river.
The girl had said to him simply, “You are to come, now, Brian;—Auntie Sue and Mr. Ward sent me to tell you.”
She was very serious, and as they walked together clung closely to his arm. And the man, too, seeming to feel the uselessness of words for such an occasion, was silent. When he helped her over the rail-fence at the lower edge of the clearing, he held her in his arms for a little; then they went on.
They saw the beautiful, tree-clad hills lying softly outlined in the shadows like folds of green and timeworn velvet, extending ridge on ridge into the blue. They saw the river, their river, making its gleaming way with many a curve and bend to the mighty sea, that was hidden somewhere far beyond the distant sky-line of their vision; and between them and the river, at the foot of the hill, they saw the little log house with Auntie Sue and Homer T. Ward waiting in the doorway.
When the banker saw the man at Betty Jo's side, his mind was far from the clerk whom he had known more than a year before in the city. His thoughts were on the author, the scholar, the genius, whose book had so compelled his respect and admiration. This tall fellow, with the athletic shoulders and deeply tanned face, who was dressed in the rude garb of the backwoodsman, with his coat over his arm, his ax on his shoulder, and his dinner-pail in his hand,—who was he? And why was Betty Jo so familiar with this stranger,—Betty Jo, who was usually so reserved, with her air of competent self-possession? Homer T. Ward turned to look inquiringly at Auntie Sue.
His old teacher smiled back at him without speaking.
Then, Betty Jo and Brian Kent were standing before him.
“Here he is, Uncle Homer,” said the girl.
Brian, hearing her speak those two revealing words, and seeing her go to the bank president, who put his arm around her with the loving intimacy of a father, stood speechless with amazement, looking from Homer T. Ward and Betty Jo to Auntie Sue and back to the banker and the girl.
Mr. Ward, still not remembering the bank clerk in this re-created Brian Kent, was holding out his hand with a genial smile.
As the bewildered Brian mechanically took the hand so cordially extended, the older man said: “It is an honor, sir, to meet a man who can do the work you have done in writing that book. It is impossible to estimate the value of such a service as you have rendered the race. You have a rare and wonderful gift, Mr. Burns, and I predict for you a life of remarkable usefulness.”
Brian, still confused, but realizing that Mr. Ward had not recognized him, looked appealingly at Betty Jo and then to Auntie Sue.
Auntie Sue spoke: “Mr. Ward is the uncle and guardian of Betty Jo, Brian.”
“'Brian'!” ejaculated the banker.
Auntie Sue continued: “Homer, dear, Betty Jo has presented HER author, Mr. Burns;—permit me to introduce MY Brian Kent!”
And Judy remarked that evening, when, after supper, they were all on the porch watching the sunset: “Hit sure is dad burned funny how all tangled an' snarled up everythin' kin git 'fore a body kin think most, an', then, if a body'll just keep a-goin' right along, all ter onct hit's all straightened out as purty as anythin'.”
They laughed happily at the mountain girl's words, and the dear old teacher's sweet voice answered: “Yes, Judy; it is all just like the river, don't you see?”
“Meanin' as how the water gits all tangled an' mixed up when hit's a-boilin' an' a-roarin' like mad down there at Elbow Rock, an' then all ter onct gits all smooth an' calm like again,” returned Judy.
“Meaning just that, Judy,” returned Auntie Sue. “No matter how tangled and confused life seems to be, it will all come straight at the last, if, like the river, we only keep going on.”
And when the dreamy Indian-summer days were come and the blue haze of autumn lay softly over the brown and gold of the beautiful Ozark hills, the mountain folk of the Elbow Rock neighborhood gathered one day at the little log house by the river.
It was a simple ceremony that made the man and the woman, who were so dear to Auntie Sue, husband and wife. But the backwoods minister was not wanting in dignity, though his dress was rude and his words plain; and the service lacked nothing of beauty and meaning, though the guests were but humble mountaineers; for love was there, and sincerity, and strength, and rugged kindliness.
And when the simple wedding feast was over, they all went down to the river-bank, at the lower corner of the garden, where, at the eddy landing, a staunch John-boat waited, equipped and ready.
When the last good-byes were spoken, and Brian and Betty Jo put out from the little harbor into the stream, Auntie Sue, with Judy and Homer T. Ward, went back to the porch of the little log house, there to watch the beginning of the voyage.
With Brian at the oars, the boat crossed the stream to the safer waters close to the other shore, and then, with Betty Jo waving her handkerchief, and the neighbor men and boys running shouting along the bank, swept down the river, past the roaring turmoil of the Elbow Rock rapids into the quiet reaches below, and away on its winding course between the tree-clad hills.
“I am so glad,” said Auntie Sue, her dear old face glowing with love, and her sweet voice tremulous with feeling, “I am so glad they chose the river for their wedding journey.”
reader a knowledge and understanding of the life-work, aims and purposes of the author as expressed through his books. It is reprinted on these pages in response to popular demand.—The Publishers.
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