The Bee Hunter (serial)/Part 4

by Zane Grey

PART IV

 

WILCOX SWAYED ASIDE FROM EDD. “SHE—SHE WAS—” HE GASPED THICKLY AS HE LAY DOUBLED IN A HEAP

 

XIII

ON THE night of Lucy's return from her four weeks' visit to Felix and her momentous and self-revealing interview with Edd in the Denmeade yard, she lay in bed wide-eyed, long after Clara slept, nestled with an arm around her as in childish days. The night wind moaned through the forest, mournful, wild, lonely, as if voicing the inscrutable cry in Lucy's soul.

She had no regrets. She had burned her bridges behind her. The visit to Felix had clarified in her mind all the perplexing doubts and dreads about the past. She and Clara had not had the training, the love and the home life necessary to equip girls to deal with life happily. All her childhood she had suffered under the ban of position; all her girlhood had been poisoned by longings she could not attain, ignominies she could not avoid. She had grown to young womanhood terribly sensitive to the class distinctions so ruthlessly adhered to in all cultivated communities. She was old enough now to realize that true worth always was its own reward, and seldom failed of ultimate appreciation. But city life, multitudes of people, the social codes had all palled upon her. Never again could she live under their influence. Her victory over environment had come too late. The iron had entered Lucy's soul.

It was good to find herself at last. Every hour since her return to the Denmeades had been fraught with stirrings and promptings and misgivings now wholly clear to her. The wild-bee hunter in his brotherly love had hugged away her vanity and blindness.

Poor, groping Edd! It was what he was that had made her love him, not what she wanted to make him. The cold sensation of shock round her heart seemed to warm at the consciousness of his growth.

HER sister slept on, with that little hand clinging close even in slumber. Lucy listened to her gentle breathing and felt the soft undulations of her breast. The mystery of life was slowly dawning upon Lucy. She had no wish to change what was, and the prayer she mutely voiced eliminated herself.

Outside the night wind rose, from mournful sough to weird roar. A hound bayed off in the forest. A mouse or ground squirrel rustled in the brush under the floor of the tent. The flicker of the fire died out. A frosty air blew in the window. These things were realities, strong in their importunity for peace and joy of living. It was only the ghosts of the past that haunted the black midnight hour.

Denmeade's prediction of the preceding evening that the boys and girls of the vicinity would “storm Mertie tomorrow, shore” was verified the next morning. Before noon of the next day the younger members of the neighboring families began to ride in, nonchalant, casual, as if no unusual event had added significance to their visit.

Then when another string headed in from the Cedar Ridge trail Denmeade exploded. “Wal, you're 'goin' to be stormed,” he said warningly to the bride and groom. “Shore it'll be a Jasper too.”

“For the land's sake,” exclaimed his good wife. “They'll eat us out of house an' home. An' us not ready!”

“Now, ma, I gave you a hunch yestiddy,” replied Denmeade. “Reckon you can have dinner late. Mrs. Claypool will help you an' Allie.”

“But that young outfit will drive me wild,” protested Mrs. Denmeade.

“Never mind, ma. I'll take care of them,” put in Edd. “Fact is, I've a bee tree only half a mile from home. I've been savin' it. I'll rustle the whole caboodle up there, an' make them pack honey back.”

“Mertie will want to stay home, dressed all up,” averred his mother.

“Wal, she can't. We'll shore pack her along, dress or no dress,”

Early in the afternoon Edd presented himself before Lucy's tent and announced: “Girls, we're packin' that spoony couple away from home for a spell. The womenfolks got to have elbow room to fix up a big dinner. Whole country goin' to storm Mert.”

Clara appeared at the door, eager and smiling. “Edd, this storm means a crowd coming to celebrate?”

“Shore. But a storm is an uninvited crowd; they raise a ruction. Between us, I'm tickled. I never thought Mertie would get a storm. She wasn't any too well liked. But Bert's the best boy in this country.”

“Maybe he is,” retorted Clara archly. “I know a couple of boys left. Edd, give us a hunch what to wear.”

“Old clothes,” he grinned. “An' some kind of veil or net to keep from gettin' stung. Wild bees don't like a crowd. An' Sam Johnson thinks he's a bee tamer. This tree I'm goin' to cut is a hummer. Full of sassy bees. An' there's goin' to be some fun.”

LUCY and Clara joined the formidable group of young people waiting in the yard, all armed with buckets. Lucy sensed an amiable, happy spirit wholly devoid of the vexatious bantering common to most gatherings of these young people. Marriage was the consummation of their hopes, dreams, endeavors. Every backwoods youth looked forward to a homestead and a wife.

Mertie assuredly wore the bright silk dress, and ribbons on her hair, and white stockings, and low shoes not meant for the woods. Bert, however, had donned blue-jean overalls.

The merry party set out, with Edd in the lead and the gay children, some dozen or more, bringing up the rear. Edd carried an ax over his shoulder and a huge assortment of different sized buckets on his arm. He led out of the clearing, back of the cabin, into the pine woods so long a favorite haunt of Lucy's, and up the gradual slope. The necessities of travel through the forest strung the party mostly into single file. Lucy warmed to the occasion. It was happy. How good to be alive! The golden autumn sunlight, the flame of color in the trees, the fragrant brown aisles of the forest, the flocks of birds congregating for their annual pilgrimage south—all these seemed new and sweet to Lucy. They roused emotion that the streets and houses of the city could not reach.

Bert might have been aware of the company present, but he showed no sign of it. He saw nothing except Mertie. Half the time he carried her, lifting her over patches of dust, logs and rough ground. Only where the mats of pine needles offered clean and easy travel did he let her down, and then he still kept his arm round her. Mertie was no burden for his sturdy strength. He swung her easily up and down, as occasion suited him. Lucy was struck by his naturalness.

MERTIE however, could not forget herself. She posed. She accepted. She bestowed. She was the beginning and the end of this great day. Yet despite exercise of the ineradicable trait of her nature, the romance of her marriage had changed her. She had awakened. She saw Bert now as he actually was, and she seemed reaping the heritage of a true woman's feelings.

Aside from these impressions, Lucy received one that caused her to sigh. Clara reacted strangely to the sight of Mertie and Bert. Lucy caught a glimpse of the mocking half smile that Clara's face used to wear. No doubt this bride-and-groom procession through the woods, the open love-making, oblivious at least on Bert's part, brought back stinging memories to Clara.

Edd led the gay party out of the woods into a beautiful cañon, wide and uneven, green and gold with growths, dotted by huge gray rocks and by trees. A dry stream bed wound by stony steps up the cañon. Edd followed this bowlder-strewn road for a few hundred yards, then climbed to a wide bench. Maples and sycamores spread scattered patches of shade over this cañon glade. A riot of autumn colors almost stunned the eyesight. The thick grass was green, the heavy carpet of ferns brown.

“Wal, there she is,” said Edd, pointing to a gnarled, white-barked tree perhaps a hundred paces distant. “First sycamore I ever found bees in. It's hollow at the trunk where she goes in. I reckon she's a hummer. Now you-all hang back a ways while I look her over.”

Edd strode off toward the sycamore, and his followers approached, mindful of his admonition. They got close enough, however, to see a swarm of bees passing to and fro from the dark hollow of the tree trunk. Edd's perfect sangfroid probably deceived the less experienced boys. He circled the sycamore, gazed up into the hollow, and made what appeared to be a thorough examination. Sam Johnson showed that he was holding back only through courtesy. The remarks of the boys behind him were not calculated to make him conservative. Sadie Purdue and Amy Claypool expressed diverse entreaties, the former asking him to cut down the bee tree and the latter begging him to keep away from it. Lucy had an idea that Amy knew something about bees.

PRESENTLY Edd returned from his survey and drew the “honey-bucket outfit,” as he called it, back into the shade of a maple. Mertie draped herself and beautiful dress over a clean rock, as if she, instead of the bees, was the attraction. Lucy sensed one of the interesting undercurrents of backwoods life working in those young men. Edd's position was an enviable one, as far as bees were concerned. This was a bee day. Sam Johnson could not possibly have kept himself out of the foreground. There were several boys from Cedar Ridge, including Bert, who ran a close second to Sam.

On the other hand, the boys who inhabited this high country, especially Gerd Claypool, appeared unusually prone to let the others have the stage. Joe Denmeade wore an inscrutable expression, and had nothing to say. Edd was master of ceremonies, and as he stood before the boys, his ax over his shoulder, Lucy conceived a strong suspicion that he was too bland, too drawling, too kind to be absolutely honest. Edd was up to a trick.

Lucy whispered her suspicions to Clara, and that worthy whispered back, “I'm wise. Why, a child could see through that hombre. But isn't he immense?”

“Sam, I reckon you ought to be the one to chop her down,” Edd was saying after a rather elaborate preamble. “'Course it ought to fall to Bert, seein' he's the reason for this here storm party. But I reckon you know more about wild bees, an' you should be boss. Shore it'd be good if you an' Bert tackled the tree together.”

“I'll allow myself aboot three minutes' choppin' to fetch that sycamore,” replied Sam. “But Bert can help if he likes.”

“Somebody gimme an ax,” said Bert, prowling around. Dick Denmeade had the second ax, which he gladly turned over to Bert.

“Bert, I don't want you gettin' all stung up,” protested Mertie.

“No bees would sting me to-day,” replied Bert grandly.

“Don't you fool yourself,” she retorted.

“Aw, she's tame as home bees,” interposed Edd. “Besides there's been some heavy frosts. Bees get loggy along late in the fall. Reckon nobody'll get stung. If she wakes up, we can run.”

“I'm a-rarin' for that honey,” declared Sam, jerking the ax from Edd. “Come on, Bert. Start your honeymoon by bein' boss.”

That remark made a lion out of the bridegroom, while eliciting howls and giggles from his admirers. Sam strode toward the sycamore, and Bert followed.

“Reckon we-all better scatter a little,” said the wily Edd, and he punched Gerd Claypool in the ribs.

Gerd, it appeared, was doubled up in noiseless contortions.

“SERVE Sam just right,” declared Sadie, “for bein' so darn smart. He never chopped down a bee tree in his life.”

“Well, if I know anythin', he'll never try another,” added Amy. “Oh, Edd Denmeade, you're an awful liar—sayin' wild bees won't sting!”

“Shore Sam wanted to cut her down. He asked me back home,” declared Edd.

Some of the party stood their ground, notably Mertie, who rather liked the clean, dry rock. Edd gravitated toward Lucy and Clara, presently leading them unobtrusively back toward some brush.

“Dog-gone!” he whispered chokingly, when he was out of earshot of the others. “Chance of my life! Sam's cut a few bee trees in winter, when the bees were froze. But gee! These wild bees are mad as hornets. I got stung on the ear, just walkin' round.

“She's been worried by yellow jackets. Now there's goin' to be some fun. She'll be a hummer. Girls, put on whatever you fetched along an' be ready to duck into this brush.”

“Edd, you're as bad as a cowboy,” said Clara, producing a veil.

“Looks like great fun for us, but how about the bees?” rejoined Lucy.

“There you go, sister—always thinking about the underdog. Edd, do you know, I can't see how anyone could help loving Lucy,” retorted Clara mischievously.

“Shore. I reckon nobody does,” drawled Edd. “Wal, Sam's began to larrup it into my sycamore. Now watch!”

Sam had sturdily attacked the tree, while the more cautious Bert had cut several boughs, evidently to thresh off bees. Scarcely had he reached the objective spot when Sam jerked up spasmodically as if kicked from behind.

“Beat 'em off!” he yelled.

Then, as the valiant Bert dropped his ax and began to thresh with the boughs, Sam redoubled his energies at the chopping. He might not have possessed much knowledge about wild bees, but he could certainly handle an ax. Quick and hard rang his blows.

Lucy stole a glance at Edd. He was manifestly in the grip of a frenzied glee. Never before had Lucy seen him so. He was shaking all over; his face presented a wonderful study of features in convulsions; his big hands opened and shut. All at once he burst out in a stentorian yell, “Wow! There she comes!”

LUCY flashed her glance back toward the ax man, just in time to see a small black cloud, like smoke, puff out of the hollow of the tree and disintegrate into thin air. Sam let out a frantic yell and, dropping the ax, plunged directly toward his admiring comrades.

“You darn fool!” roared Edd. “Run the other way!”

But Sam, as if pursued by the furies, sprang, leaped, wrestled, hopped, flew, flapping his hands like wings and yelling hoarsely. Bert suddenly became as if possessed of a thousand devils, and he raced like a streak, waving his two green boughs over his head till he plunged over a bank into the brush. Some of the Cedar Ridge boys had approached a point within a hundred feet of the sycamore. Suddenly their howls of mirth changed to excited shouts, and they broke into a run. Unfortunately they were not on the moment chivalrously mindful of the girls.

“Run for your lives,” screamed Amy Claypool.

Lucy found herself being rushed into the bushes by Edd, who had also dragged Clara. He was laughing so hard he could not speak. He fell down and rolled over.

CLARA had an attack of laughter that seemed half hysterical. “Look! Look!” she cried.

Lucy was more frightened than amused, but from the shelter of the bushes she peered forth, drawing aside her veil so she could see better. She was in time to see the bright silk dress that incased Mertie soaring across the ground like a spread-winged bird. Mertie was noted for her fleetness of foot. Sadie Purdue, owing to a rather short, stout figure, could not run very well. Sam, by accident or design, had fled in her direction.

It did not take a keen eye to see the whirling dotted circle of bees he brought with him. Some of them sped like bullets ahead of him to attack Sadie. Shrieking, she ran away from Sam as though he were a pestilence. She was the last to flee out of sight.

Presently Edd sat up, wet-faced and spent from the energy of his emotions. “Reckon I've played hob; but dog-gone, it was fun!” he said. “Shore Sam's a bee hunter! I'll bet he'll look like he had measles. Did you see Sadie gettin' stung? She was that smart. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Joe came crawling to them through the bushes. For once his face was not quiet, intent. He showed his relationship to Edd. “Say, Sam will be hoppin' mad,” he said.

“He shore was hoppin' when last I seen him,” replied Edd. “Wal, I reckon I'll have to finish the job. You girls stay right here, for a while anyhow.”

“I—I LOVE YOU NOW, YOU BIG—BIG——” LUCY BURST OUT, AND KISSING HIS CHEEK, SHE SANK ON HIS SHOULDER

Whereupon Edd pulled a rude hood from his pocket and drew it over his head and tight under his chin. It was made of burlap and had two round pieces of window screen sewed in to serve as eyeholes. Then, putting his gloves on, he got up and tramped out toward the sycamore.

Lucy left Clara with Joe and slipped along under the bushes until she reached the end nearest the tree. Here she crouched to watch.

She could see the bees swarm round Edd, apparently without disturbing him in the least. He picked up the ax, and with swift, powerful strokes he soon chopped through on one side of the hollow place, so that the other side broke, letting the tree down with a splitting crash. After the dust cleared away, Lucy saw him knocking the trunk apart. The swarm of bees spread higher and wider over his head. Lucy could hear the angry buzz. She felt sorry for them. How ruthless men were! The hive had been destroyed; the winter's food of the bees would be stolen.

“Hey, Joe,” called Edd, “round up that outfit to pack honey back home. There's more here than we got buckets to hold. Tell them I'll fetch it part way, so they won't get stung no more.”

LUCY caught glimpses of the members of the party collecting a goodly, safe distance away, along the edge of the timber. Judging by gestures and the sound of excited voices coming faintly, Lucy concluded that the storm party were divided in their attitude toward Edd. Sadie Purdue evidently was in a tantrum, the brunt of which fell upon Sam. Amy's high, sweet laugh pealed out. Presently the girls were seen entering the forest, no doubt on their way back to the cabin; the boys showed indications of standing by Edd, at least to the extent of waiting for him to collect the honey.

Lucy saw him filling the buckets. He used a small wooden spoon or spade, with which he reamed the honey out of the hollow log. She was intensely eager to see this beehive and Edd's work at close hand, but felt it wise to remain under cover. The screams of the girls who had been stung were a rather potent inhibition to curiosity.

The honey had a grayish-yellow cast and a deep-amber color, from which Lucy deduced that one was the comb, the other the honey. When Edd had filled four buckets he took them up and proceeded to carry them toward the waiting boys. A number of bees kept him company. How grotesque he looked with that homemade hood over his head!

“Hey, you better lay low,” he called to Lucy, seeing her peeping out of her brushy covert, “unless you want your pretty little pink nose stung.”

“Edd Denmeade, my nose isn't little or pink,” protested Lucy.

“Wal, no matter; it shore will be pink if you don't watch out. Didn't you get stung on it once?”

Halfway between the bee tree and the boys Edd set the buckets down on a rock, and cutting some brush he covered them with it. Then he shouted, “Pack these home, you storm-party honey suckers!”

Upon his return to the fallen sycamore he scraped up a bundle of dead grass and sticks, and kindled a fire, then added green boughs to make a heavy smoke. Lucy saw him vigorously slap his back and his legs, from which action she surmised that he, too, was getting stung.

Next with two leafy boughs he made an onslaught on the whirling, shining mill wheel of bees. He broke that wheel, and either killed or scattered most of the swarm. Then he proceeded to fill more buckets, which he carried away as before.

MEANWHILE Joe and Gerd Claypool had come for the first buckets. Lucy crawled back through the bushes to where she had left Clara. She found her prone on the grass, her chin propped on her hands, musingly watching the proceedings.

“Funny how we are,” she said. “It's a long time since I felt so good over anything. Sam and Sadie were immense. Pride—and conceit, too—goes before a fall.”

“You remember I was stung on the nose by one of these wild bees,” replied Lucy. “It hurts terribly.”

They remained in the shade and security of this covert until Edd had filled all his buckets. “Hello, girls,” he called. “Go back through the bushes to the bank, an' get down. Wait for us below.”

Lucy and Clara scrambled away into the thicket and down into the stream bed, which they followed to the woods. Joe and Gerd and Dick came along laden with heavy buckets, and rather harassed by a few persistent bees.

“Keep away from us,” cried Lucy. “I've been initiated into the wild-bee fraternity.”

“But Clara hasn't,” replied Joe.

“Young man, if you know when you're well off you'll not lead any wild bees to me,” warned Clara, gathering up her skirts ready to flee into the woods.

She was smiling, yet earnest. How pretty she looked, her eyes flashing, her brown cheeks flushed, her blue veil flying round her golden hair! Lucy saw what Joe saw.

Next Edd came striding out of the willows, down into the gully. He carried four buckets, all manifestly laden. He had removed his hood, and his face was wet with sweat, and wreathed in smiles.

“Run along ahead till she gets tired followin' me,” he called to the girls.

They were not slow to act upon his advice, yet did not get so far ahead that they could not see the boys coming. The forest seemed so shady and cool after the hot sunny open.

“Why does Edd speak of bees as she?” queried Clara curiously.

“He told me once that he had captured and tamed queen bees, and after that he always called bees she, whether collectively or individually. It is funny.”

“He'll be making you queen bee of his hive some day,” said Clara tantalizingly.

“Oh, will he? It requires the consent of the queen, I imagine. As to queen-bee hives, Joe's is being built, I hear.”

CLARA squeezed Lucy's arm and cringed close to her, as if to hide a shamed or happy face. “Oh, what will become of us? When I don't think, I'm full of some new kind of joy. When I remember, I'm wretched.”

“Clara, we are two babes lost in the woods,” declared Lucy half sadly. “But, if you must think, do it intelligently. We could be worse off.”

“I love it here,” answered Clara swiftly, with a flash of passion.

Then Edd's halloo halted them. Presently Lucy had opportunity to see wild honey fresh from the hive. The buckets were full of the yellow combs and amber honey, all massed together, in which numbers of bees had been drowned.

“Shore, it's got to be strained,” explained Edd.

“What'll become of the bees, those you didn't kill?” she inquired.

“Wal, now, I wish you hadn't asked that,” complained Edd. “Shore you always hit on the sufferers. Lucy, I hate to treat a bee tree like we did this one. But I can't capture an' tame the old swarms. They're too wild. I have to destroy them. Sometimes I burn them out. She'll hang round that sycamore, an' starve to death or freeze. It's too bad. I reckon I'm no better than the yellow jackets.”

The bee-tree episode had taken the younger element of the storm party away from the Denmeade home for the greater part of the afternoon, a fact for which Mrs. Denmeade was devoutly thankful. She and Allie, with the kind assistance of the Claypool women, prepared on short notice an adequate feast for this formidable array of uninvited guests.

All the chair, bench and porch space was necessary to seat this merry company. It was quite impossible for Lucy to keep track of what followed. But she had never seen the like of that dinner. Uproarious, even violent, it yet gave expression to the joy and significance of marriage in that wilderness.

After dinner the young people nearly tore the cabin down with their onslaughts upon the bride and groom, the former of whom they hugged and kissed and the latter of whom they mauled. Dancing was not on this program. Then, evidently, for the young backwoodsmen present, it was a natural climax to fly from their felicitations of the bride to salutations to the possible brides to-be in that gathering. They were like young bears.

Lucy and Clara fled to the security of their tent and refused to come out. Certain it was that both of them were more than amused and frightened. Manifestly a storm party on a bride was regarded as an unexampled opportunity.

“Whew!” gasped Clara, with wide eyes on Lucy. “I thought cowboys were wild. But alongside these fellows they're tame.”

“Deliver—me,” panted Lucy. “Almost it'd be—safer to be—in Mertie's boots!”

The celebration, however, turned out to be as short as it had been intense. Before dark the older people were riding down the lane, calling back their merry good nights, and not long after the boys and girls followed. Soon the homestead of the Denmeades was as quiet as ever; and a little later, when Lucy peeped out, yard and cabin were shrouded in the blackness of the melancholy autumn night.

XIV

THE coming of spring was marked by Allie Denmeade's marriage to Gerd Claypool. These young people, wise in their generation, invited everybody to their wedding, which took place in Cedar Ridge. Lucy and Clara remained at home with the children.

March brought surprisingly fine weather, the morning and evening cold, but the middle of the day sunny and warm. Soon the wet red soil dried out. The men, liberated from the confines of winter, were busy taking up the tasks that had been interrupted by the first fall snow. One of these was the completion of Joe's cabin. Lucy, using a walk with the children as excuse, climbed the mesa trail to see the men at work. Clara did not want to go. She was more studious and complex than ever, yet seemed strangely, dreamily happy.

The mesa, with its open glades, its thickets of red manzanita, its clumps of live oak, and giant junipers and lofty pines, manifested a difference hard to define. Lucy thought it had to do with spring. The birds and squirrels and turkeys voiced the joyfulness of the season.

Joe's homestead edifice was a two-cabin affair, similar to that of the Denmeades. Lucy particularly liked the clean, freshly cut pine and its fragrant odor. She urged Joe to build in several closets and to insist on windows and kitchen shelves and a number of improvements new to the cabin of the backwoodsman.

“Joe, are you going to live here alone?” queried Lucy.

“On an' off, while I prove up on my homesteadin' patent,” he replied. “You see I have to put in so many days here for three years before the Government will give me the land.”

HIS frank answer relieved Lucy, who had of late been subtly influenced by a strangeness, an aloofness in Clara, which mood somehow she had attributed to Joe's infatuation for her. The boy had no pretense. His soul was as clear as his gray eyes. Lucy was compelled to believe that the erecting of this cabin was solely to forestall a threatened invasion of the mesa by other homesteaders.

On the way home Lucy stopped awhile at the beautiful site Edd had selected for his cabin. She found that thought of the place, during the fall and winter months, had somehow endeared it to her.

Mr. Jenks arrived at the Johnsons' in the latter part of March and attended the meeting of the school board. He wanted to turn over the teaching to Clara, but in case she did not accept the position he would be glad to remain another summer. Denmeade returned from that board meeting to place a proposition squarely before Clara. And in his own words it was this: “Reckon we don't want to change teachers so often. Every schoolmarm we've had just up an' married one of the boys. Wal, if you will agree to teach two years, whether you get married or not, we'll shore be glad to let you have the job.”

“I give my word,” replied Clara, with a firmness Lucy knew was a guaranty that the promise would be kept.

What struck Lucy markedly on the moment was the fact that Clara did not disavow any possibility of marriage.

The deal was settled then and there, and later, when the girls had gone to the seclusion of their tent, Clara evinced a deep emotion.

“Lucy, I'll be independent now,” she said. “I can pay my debt. I—I need money——”

“My dear, you don't owe me any money,” interposed Lucy, “if that's what you mean.”

Clara's reply was more evasive than frank, again rousing in Lucy the recurrence of a surprise and a vague dread. But she dismissed them from her consciousness.

“WE'LL have to settle another thing too,” said Lucy. “Once before you hinted you didn't want to go to Claypool's with me.”

“I don't, but I'll go if you insist,” rejoined Clara.

“If you will be happier here than with me, by all means stay,” replied Lucy in a hurt tone.

“Don't misunderstand, Lucy darling,” cried Clara, embracing her. “I'm used to this place, these Denmeades. It's like a sanctuary after——” She broke off falteringly. “It will be hard enough for me to teach school, let alone live among strangers.”

Lucy divined then that there was something Clara could not tell her, and it revived the old worry.

Edd Denmeade alone of all the family did not take kindly to Lucy's going to the Claypools. The others, knowing that Clara was to continue to live with them and that Lucy would probably come back in the fall, were glad to propitiate their neighbors at so little loss.

“But, Edd, why do you disapprove?” Lucy demanded, when she waylaid him among his beehives. She did not want to lose her good influence over him. She wanted very much more from him than she dared to confess.

“I reckon I've a good many reasons,” returned Edd.

“Oh, you have? Well, tell me just one,” said Lucy.

“Wal, the Claypools live right on the trail from Sprall's to Cedar Ridge.”

“Sprall's! What of it?” demanded Lucy, nonplused.

“Bud Sprall rides that trail.”

“Suppose he does. How can it concern me?” rejoined Lucy, growing irritated.

“Wal, it concerns you more'n you think. Bud told in Cedar Ridge how he was layin' for you.”

“I don't understand. What did he mean?”

“Lucy, that hombre isn't above ropin' you an' packin' you off up over the Rim, where he holds out with his red-faced cowboy pard.”

“NONSENSE! The day of the outlaw is past, Edd. I haven't the least fear of Bud Sprall. Indeed, so little that I intend some day to take up my work with the Spralls.”

“I reckon your work is somethin' fine an' good. I don't begrudge that to Spralls. But you can't go there, unless just in daytime, an' then with somebody. You think I'm jealous. Wal, I'm not. Ask pa an' ma about this Sprall idea of yours.”

“But, Edd, weren't you somewhat like Bud Sprall once? Didn't you tell me I helped you? Might I not do the same for——”

Edd shoved her away with violence. “Ahuh! So you want to work the same on Bud? Wal, the day you make up to him as you did to me, I'll go back to white mule. An' I'll kill him.” As he stalked away, Lucy shook off a cold clutch of fear and remorse and ran after him. “Edd! You must not talk so—so terribly,” she cried appealingly. “You seem to accuse me of—of something—oh, that I haven't been fair to you!”

“Wal, have you now?” he queried, glaring down at her.

“Indeed—I—I think so.”

“Aw, you're lyin'. Maybe you're as deep as your sister. Shore I'd never deny you'd been an angel to my family. But you worked different on me. I was only a wild-bee hunter. You made me see what I was. Made me hate my ignorance an' habits. You let me be with you, many an' many a time. You talked for hours an' read to me, an' worked with me, all the time with your sweet, sly girl ways. An' I changed. I don't know how I changed, but it's so. You're like the queen of the bees. All you told me love meant, I've come to know. I'd do any an' all of those things you once said love meant. But if you work the same on Bud Sprall, you'll be worse than Sadie Purdue. She had sweet, purry cat ways, an' she liked to be smoothed. That was shore where Sadie didn't cheat.”

“CHEAT! Edd Denmeade, do you mean—you think—I made you love me—just to save you from your drinking, fighting habits?” queried Lucy very low.

“No. I reckon I don't mean that. You just used your—yourself—your smiles an' sweet laugh, your talk, your pretty white dresses, your hands—lettin' me see you, lettin' me be with you, keepin' me from other girls, workin' on me with yourself. Now didn't you? Be honest.”

“Yes. You make me see it. I did,” confessed Lucy bravely. “I'm not sorry, for I—I——”

“Wal, you needn't figure me wrong,” he interrupted. “I'm not sorry either. Reckon, for my family's sake, I'm glad. Shore I have no hopes of ever bein' anythin' but a lonely wild-bee hunter. But I couldn't stand your workin' that on Bud Sprall.”

“You misunderstand me, Edd,” returned Lucy. “I couldn't have done what you imagined. Now I fear I can never do anything. You have made me ashamed—made me doubt myself.”

“Wal, I reckon that won't be so awful bad for you,” he drawled almost caustically, and left her.

XV

CONGENIAL work with happy, eager, simple people—the Claypools—made the days speed by so swiftly that Lucy could not keep track of them. She let six weeks and more pass before she gave heed to the message Clara sent from the schoolhouse by the Claypool children.

From other very reliable sources Lucy learned that Clara was the best teacher ever employed by the school board. She was making a success of it, both from a standpoint of good for the pupils and occupation for herself.

Joe Denmeade happened to ride by Claypool's one day, and he stopped to see Lucy. Even in the few weeks since she left the Denmeades there seemed to be marked improvement in Joe, yet in a way she could hardly define. Something about him rang so true and manly.

During Joe's short visit, it chanced that all the Claypools gathered on the porch, and Gerd, lately come from Cedar Ridge, narrated with great gusto the gossip. It was received with the interest of lonely people who seldom had opportunities to hear about what was going on. Gerd's report of the latest escapade of one of the village belles, well known to them all, was received with unrestrained mirth. Such an incident would have passed unmarked by Lucy, had she not caught the expression that fleeted across Joe Denmeade's face. That was all the more marked, because of the fact of Joe's usually serene, intent impassibility. Lucy conceived the certainty that this boy would suffer intensely if he ever learned of Clara's misfortune. It might not change his love, but it would surely kill something in him, the very something that appealed so irresistibly to Clara.

THE moment was fraught with a regurgitation of Lucy's dread, the strange premonition that had haunted her that out of the past must come reckoning. It remained with her more persistently than ever before and was not readily shaken off.

Some days later, one Friday toward the end of May, Lucy rode down the schoolhouse trail to meet Clara, and fetch her back to Claypool's to stay over Sunday. She lingered along the trail until a meeting with the Claypool and Miller children told her that school was out.

Then she urged her horse into a lope, and in a short time she reached the clearing and the schoolhouse.

The door was open. Lucy rushed in, to espy Clara at the desk, evidently busy with her work. “Howdy, little schoolmarm,” shouted Lucy.

Clara leaped up, suddenly radiant. “Howdy, yourself, you old backwoods Samaritan,” returned Clara, and ran to embrace her.

“Where's Joe?” queried Lucy, desirous of coming at once to matters about which she had a dearth of news.

“He and Mr. Denmeade have gone to Winbrook to buy things for Joe's cabin.”

“Are you riding the trails alone?” asked Lucy quickly.

“I haven't yet,” replied Clara with a laugh. “Joe has taken good care of that. Edd rode down with me this morning. He went to Cedar Ridge to get the mail. Said he'd get back to ride up with us.”

“You told him I was coming after you?”

“Shore did, an' reckon he looked silly,” drawled Clara.

“Oh! Indeed?” Lucy had not set eyes upon Edd since the day she had shut her door in his face, after the audacious and irreparable kiss she had bestowed upon his cheek. She did not want to see him either, and yet she did want to tremendously. “Let's not wait for him,” she said hurriedly.

“What's wrong with you?” demanded Clara. “Edd seems quite out of his head these days. When I mention you, he blushes. Yes!”

“HOW funny—for that big bee hunter,” replied Lucy, essaying a casual laugh.

“Well, I've a hunch you're the one who should blush,” said Clara dryly.

“Clara, sometimes I don't know about you,” observed Lucy musingly, as she gazed thoughtfully at her sister.

“How many times have I heard you say that,” returned Clara, with a mingling of pathos and mirth. “Lucy, the fact is you never knew about me. You never had me figured. You were always so big yourself that you couldn't see the littleness of me.”

“Ahuh!” drawled Lucy. Then more seriously she went on. “Clara, I'm not big. I've a big love for you, but that's about all.”

“Have it your own way. All the same I'm going to tell you about myself. That's why I sent word by the children. You didn't seem very curious or anxious to see me.”

“Clara, I was only in fun. I don't want to—to know any more about you—unless it is you're happy and have forgotten your—your trouble,” rejoined Lucy soberly.

“That's just why I must tell you,” said her sister with swift resolution. “I did forget because I was happy. But my conscience won't let me be happy any longer until I tell you.”

Lucy's heart contracted. She felt a sensation of inward chill. Why had Clara's brown tan changed to pearly white? Her eyes had darkened unusually and were strained in unflinching courage, yet were full of fear. “All right. Get it over then,” replied Lucy.

Notwithstanding Clara's resolve, it was evidently hard for her to speak. “Lucy, since—March the second I've been—Joe Denmeade's wife,” she whispered huskily.

Lucy, braced for something utterly different and connected with Clara's past, suddenly succumbed to amaze. She sat down on one of the school benches. “Good heavens!” she gasped, and then could only stare.

“Darling, don't be angry,” implored Clara, and came to her and knelt beside her. Again Lucy felt those clinging, loving hands always so potent in their power.

“I'M NOT angry—yet,” replied Lucy. “I'm just flabbergasted. I—I can't think. It's a terrible surprise. Your second elopement!”

“Yes. And this made up for the—the other,” murmured Clara.

“March the second? That was the day you took the long ride with Joe? Got back late—on a Saturday. You were exhausted, pale, excited. I remember now. And you never told me!”

Lucy took the palpitating Clara in her arms and held her close. After all, she could not blame her sister. If no dark shadow loomed up out of the past, then it would be well. Then as the first flush of excitement began to fade, Lucy's logical mind turned from cause to effect.

“Clara, you didn't tell Joe about your past,” asserted Lucy very low. She did not question. She affirmed. She knew. And when Clara's head drooped to her bosom, to hide her face there, Lucy had double assurance.

“I couldn't. I couldn't,” said Clara brokenly. “Between my fears and Joe's ridiculous faith in me, I couldn't. Time and time again, when he was making love to me. He wouldn't listen to me. Then when I fell in love with him, it wasn't easy—the idea of telling. I quit trying until the night before the day we ran off to get married. Honestly I meant seriously to tell him. And now suppose Joe should find out—all about me. It's not probable, but it might happen. He would never forgive me. He's queer that way. He doesn't understand women. Edd Denmeade now, he could. He'd stick to a girl, if—if—— But Joe wouldn't, I know. At that I can tell him now, if you say I must. But it's my last chance for happiness, for a home. I hate the thought that I'm not the angel he believes me. I know I could become anything in time, I love him so well. Always I remember that I wasn't wicked. I was only a fool.”

“DEAR regrets are useless,” replied Lucy gravely. “Let's face the future. It seems to me you should tell Joe. After all, he hasn't so much to forgive. He's queer, I know——”

“But, Lucy,” interrupted Clara, and she looked up with a strange, sad frankness, “there was a baby.”

“My God!” cried Lucy, horrified.

“Yes; a girl—my own. She was born in Kingston at the home of the woman with whom I lived—a Mrs. Gerald. She had no family. She ran a little restaurant for miners. No one else knew, except the doctor, who came from the next town, and he was a good old soul. In my weakness I told Mrs. Gerald my story; who I'd run off with—all about it. She offered to adopt the baby if I'd help support it. So we arranged to do that.”

“That was the debt you spoke of,” replied Lucy huskily—“why you needed money often.”

“Yes. And that's why I was in such a hurry to find work—to take up this teaching. She had written me she would return the child or write to its—its father unless I kept my part of the bargain. I was so scared I couldn't sleep. I was late in sending money, but I'm sure it's all right.”

“You married Joe—with this hanging over you?” queried Lucy incredulously.

“I told you how that came about. I know what I felt. I suffered. But it all came about. It happened,” answered Clara, as if driven to desperation.

“Only a miracle can keep Joe from learning it some day.”

“Miracles sometimes happen. For instance, your giving me a home—and my love for this boy. Kingston is a long way off. This is a wilderness.”

“OH, THE pity of it!” wailed Lucy, wringing her hands. “Clara, how can you repudiate your own flesh and blood?”

“I had to,” replied Clara sadly. “But I've lived with the memory, and I've changed. I'll meet Mrs. Gerald's demands, and some day I'll make other and happier arrangements.”

“If you only hadn't married Joe! Why, oh, why didn't you come to me?” cried Lucy.

Clara offered no reply to that protest. She straightened up and turned away. “I hear a horse,” she said, rising to look at Lucy.

“Must be Edd,” returned Lucy nervously.

“Riding pretty fast for Edd. You know he never runs a horse unless there's a reason.”

Lucy reached the threshold just as her keen ear caught the musical jingle of spurs—then a step too quick and short for Edd! In another second a tall, slim young man confronted her. He wore the flashy garb of a rider. Lucy wondered where she had seen that striking figure, the young, handsome, heated red face with its wicked blue eyes. He doffed a wide sombrero.

When Lucy saw the blaze of his golden hair she recognized him as the individual once pointed out to her at Cedar Ridge—a comrade of Bud Sprall.

“Howdy, Luce. Reckon your kid sister is heah,” he said coolly.

Lucy's heart seemed to sink within her. Dread and anger leaped to take the place of softer emotions now vanishing. “How dare you?” she demanded.

“Wal, I'm a darin' hombre,” he drawled, taking a step closer. “An' I'm goin' in there to even up a little score with Clara.”

“Who are you?” queried Lucy wildly.

“None of your business. Get out of my way,” he said roughly.

Lucy blocked the door. Open opposition did much to stabilize the whirl of her head. “You're not coming in,” cried Lucy. “I warn you. Edd Denmeade's expected here any moment. It'll be bad for you, if he finds you.”

“WAL, I reckon Edd won't get heah pronto,” rejoined this cowboy jauntily. “I left my pard, Bud Sprall, down the trail. An' he's ararin' to stop Edd one way or another. Bud an' I have been layin' for this chance. Savvy, Luce?”

She gave him a stinging slap in the face, so hard a blow that even her open hand staggered him. “Don't you believe it, Mr. Redface,” retorted Lucy furiously. “It'd take more than you or Bud Sprall to stop Edd Denmeade.”

“Wildcat, huh? All same Clara!” he ejaculated, with his hand going to his face.

The wicked eyes flashed like blue fire. Then he lunged at her and, grasping her arm, in a single pull swung her out of the doorway. Lucy nearly lost her balance. Recovering, she rushed back into the schoolhouse in time to see this stranger confront Clara. For Lucy it was a terrible thing to see her sister's face.

“Howdy, kid. Reckon you was lookin' for me,” he said.

“Rex Wilcox!” burst out Clara in a queer, strangled voice. Then she slipped limply to the floor in a faint.

For Lucy uncertainty passed. She realized her sister's reckoning had come, like a lightning flash out of a clear sky, and it roused all the tigress in her. Running to Clara, she knelt at her side, to find her white and cold and unconscious. Then she rose to confront the intruder with a determination to get rid of him before Clara recovered consciousness.

“So you're Rex Wilcox?” she queried in passionate scorn. “If I had a gun I'd shoot you. If I had a whip I'd beat you as I would a dog. Get out of here. You shall not talk to my sister. She hates you. Nothing you can have to say will interest her.”

“WAL, I'm not so shore,” returned Middleton, without the coolness or nonchalance that before had characterized his speech. He looked considerably shaken. What contrasting gleams of passion, hate, wonder, love changed the blue gaze he bent upon Clara's white face! “I've a letter she'll want to read.”

“A letter—from Mrs. Gerald?” flashed Lucy, quivering all over as his hand went to his breast.

“Yes, if it's anythin' to you,” retorted the cowboy, shaking a letter at her.

“Mrs. Gerald wants money?” Lucy went on.

“She shore does,” he answered resentfully.

“I suppose you're going to send it to her.”

“I am like——”

“Also I suppose you'll want to right the wrong you did Clara? You'll want to marry her truly?” demanded Lucy with infinite sarcasm.

“You've got the wrong hunch, Luce,” he replied, laughing coarsely. “I jest want to read her this letter. Shore I've been keepin' it secret these days for her to see first. Then I'll tell Joe Denmeade an' every other man in this woods.”

“Haven't you made Clara suffer enough?” queried Lucy, trying to keep her voice steady and her wits working.

“She ran off from me. I reckon with another man.”

“You're a liar. Oh, I'll make you pay for this,” cried Lucy in desperation.

Suddenly she saw him turn his head—listening. He had not heard her outburst. Then Lucy's strained hearing caught the welcome clatter of hoofs. Quick as a flash she snatched the letter out of Wilcox's hands.

“Heah, give that back!” he shouted fiercely.

Like a cat Lucy leaped over desks into another aisle, and then facing about she thrust the letter into the bosom of her blouse.

WILCOX leaned forward, glaring in amaze and fury. “I'll tear your clothes off,” he shouted low and hard.

“Rex Wilcox, if you know when you're well off, you'll get out of here and out of the country before these Denmeades learn what you've done,” returned Lucy.

An' I'll beat you good while I'm tearin' your clothes off,” he declared as he crouched.

“Edd Denmeade will kill you,” whispered Lucy, beginning to weaken.

“Once more,” he hissed venomously, “give me that letter. It's my proof about the baby.”

And on the instant a quick, jangling step outside drew the blood from Lucy's heart. Wilcox heard it and wheeled with a muttered curse.

Edd Denmeade leaped over the threshold and seemed to fill the schoolroom with his presence. Blood flowed from his bare head, down his cheek. His eyes, like pale flames, swept from Lucy to Wilcox and on to the limp figure of the girl on the floor, and then back to Lucy. The thrill that flooded over her then seemed wave on wave of shock. He had been fighting. His clothes were in rags and wringing wet.

He advanced slowly, with long strides, his piercing gaze on Wilcox. “Howdy, cowboy. I met your pard, Bud Sprall, down the trail. Reckon you'd better go rake up what's left of him an' pack it out of here.”

With a fierce ejaculation Wilcox stepped to meet Edd halfway. He was slow, cautious, menacing, and somehow sure of himself. “Wal, I'd as lief meet one Denmeade as another,” he remarked. 'An' I've shore got somethin' to say.”

“You can't talk to me,” returned Edd with measured coldness. “I don't know nothin' about you, 'cept you're a pard of Sprall's. That's enough. Now go along with you, pronto.”

The red of Wilcox's face had faded to a pale white, except for the livid mark across his cheek. But to Lucy it seemed his emotion was a passionate excitement rather than fear.

He swaggered closer to Edd. “Say, you wild-bee hunter, you're goin' to heah somethin' aboot this Watson girl.”

Edd took a slow, easy step, then launched body and arm into pantherish agility. Lucy did not see the blow, but she heard it. Sharp and sodden, it felled Wilcox to the floor half a dozen paces toward the stove. He fell so heavily that he shook the schoolhouse.

FOR a moment he lay gasping, while Edd stepped closer. Then he raised himself on his elbow and turned a distorted face, the nose of which appeared smashed flat. He looked a fiend inflamed with lust to murder.

But cunningly as he turned away and began to labor to get to his feet, he did not deceive Lucy.

“Watch out, Edd, he has a gun,” she screamed.

Even then Wilcox wheeled, wrenching the gun from his hip. Lucy saw its sweep as she saw Edd leap, and suddenly bereft of strength, she slipped to the floor, back against a desk, eyes tight shut, senses paralyzed, waiting for the report she expected. But it did not come. Scrape of boots, clash of spurs, hard expulsions of breath attested to another kind of fight.

She opened wide her eyes. Edd and Wilcox each had two hands on the weapon, and were leaning back at arm's length, pulling with all their might.

Suddenly there burst out a muffled bellow of the gun. Edd seemed released from a tremendous strain. He staggered back toward Lucy. For a single soul-riving instant she watched, all faculties but sight shocked into suspension. Then Wilcox swayed aside from Edd, both his hands pressed to his breast. He sank to his knees. Lucy's distended eyes saw blood gush out over his hands. Dragging her gaze up to his face she recoiled in a fearful awe.

“She—she was——” he gasped thickly, his changed eyes wavering, fixing down the room. Then he lurched over on his side and lay doubled up in a heap.

Edd's long arm spread out and his hand went low, to release the smoking gun, while he bent rigidly over the fallen man. “It went off,” he panted. “I was only—tryin' to get it—away from him. Lucy, you saw.”

“Oh, yes, I saw,” cried Lucy. “It wasn't—your fault. He'd have killed you. Is he—is he——”

Edd straightened up and drew a deep breath. “Reckon he's about gone.”

THEN he came to help Lucy to her feet and to support her. “Wal, you need a little fresh air. An' I reckon some won't hurt me.”

“But Clara—oh, she has fainted again.”

“No wonder. Shore she was lucky not to see the—the fight. That fellow was a fiend compared to Bud Sprall.”

“Oh, Edd, you didn't kill him too?” implored Lucy.

“Not quite. But he's bad used up,” declared Edd as he half carried her across the threshold and lowered her to a seat on the steps. “Brace up now, city girl. Reckon this is your first real backwoods experience. Wal, it might have been worse. Now wouldn't you have had a fine time makin' Bud an' his pard better men? There, you're comin' around. We need to do some tall figurin'. But I reckon, far as I'm concerned, there's nothin' to worry over.”

After a moment he let go of Lucy and rose from the step. “Lucy, what was it all about?” he queried quietly.

She covered her face with her hands and a strong shudder shook her frame.

“Wal,” he went on very gently. “I heard that fellow ravin' as I come in. But all I understood was 'proof about the baby.'”

“That was enough to hear, don't you think?” replied Lucy, all at once recovering her composure. Out of the chaos of her conflicting emotions had arisen an inspiration.

“Reckon it was a good deal” he said simply, and smiled down on her. “But you needn't tell me nothin' unless you want to. I always knew you'd had some trouble.”

“TROUBLE,” sighed Lucy. Then averting her gaze she continued, “Edd, I ask you to keep my secret. The baby he spoke of was—is mine.”

He did not reply at once, nor in any way she could see or hear express whatever feeling he might have had. Lucy, once the miserable falsehood had crossed her lips, was stricken as by a plague. When she had thrown that off, there was a horrible remorse pounding at the gates of her heart. Her body seemed first to receive the brunt of the blow she had dealt herself.

“Wal, wal—so that's it,” said Edd in a queer, broken voice. He paused a long moment, then went on in a more usual tone: “Shore I'll never tell. I'm dog-gone sorry, Lucy. An' I'm not askin' questions. I reckon it doesn't make no difference to me. Now let's think what's best to do. I'll have to send word from Johnson's about this fight. But I'm goin' to see you home first, unless you think you can get there all right.”

“But what shall I say about—about this?”

“Say nothin',” he replied tersely. “I'll do the talkin' when I get home. An', Lucy, on my way to Johnson's I'll take a look at my old friend, Bud Sprall. If he's alive, which I reckon he is, I'll tell him mighty good an' short what happened to his pard, an' that he'll get the same unless he moves out of the country. These woods ain't big enough for us two.”

“He might waylay you again as he did this time—and shoot you,” said Lucy fearfully.

“Wal, waylayin' me once will be enough, I reckon. Bud has a bad name, an' this sneaky trick on you girls will fix him. They'll run him out of the country.”

While Edd saddled Clara's horse, Lucy walked her to and fro a little.

“Let's go. I can ride,” averred Clara. “I'd rather fall off than stay here.”

EDD helped her mount and walked beside her to where the trail entered the clearing. Lucy caught up with them, full of misgiving, yet keen to get out of sight of the schoolhouse.

“Go right home,” said Edd. “I'll stop at Claypool's on my way up an' tell them somethin'. Shore I won't be long. An' if you're not home I'll come ararin' down the trail to meet you.”

“Oh, Edd, be careful,” whispered Lucy. She hardly knew what she meant, and she could not look at him.

Clara rode on into the lea-bordered trail. Lucy made haste to follow. Soon the golden light of the clearing no longer sent gleams into the forest. They entered the green, silent sanctuary of the pines. Lucy felt unutterable relief. How shaded, how protecting, how helpful the great trees! They had the primitive influence of Nature. They strengthened her under the burden she had assumed. Whatever had been the wild prompting of her sacrifice, she had no regret for herself, nor could she alter it.

At the conclusion of the ride, Clara collapsed and had to be carried into her tent, where she fell victim to hysteria and exhaustion. Lucy had her hands full, attending to her sister and keeping the kindly Denmeades from hearing some of Clara's ravings.

Next day Clara was better, and on Sunday apparently herself again. Nevertheless Lucy would not hear of Clara's going to teach for at least a week. Amy Claypool would be glad to act as substitute teacher for a few days, or, failing that, the pupils could be given a vacation. Clara did not readily yield this point, though at last she was prevailed upon. During these days Lucy avoided much contact with the Denmeades. It was not possible, however, not to hear something about what had happened.

UPON his return, Edd had conducted himself precisely as before the tragedy, a circumstance that had a subtle effect upon Lucy. By degrees this bee hunter had grown big in her sight, strong and natural in those qualities which to her mind constituted a man. From Joe she learned certain developments of the case. Bud Sprall late on the day of the fight had been carried to Johnson's, the nearest ranch, and there he lay severely injured. Wilcox had not been removed until after the sheriff had viewed his remains on Saturday. Gossip from all quarters was rife, all of it decidedly favorable to Edd. The dead cowboy had not been well known at Cedar Ridge, and not at all by the name of Wilcox.

On Monday Lucy returned to her work at Claypool's, leaving the situation unchanged so far as she was concerned. She and Edd had not mentioned the thing that naturally concerned them both so vitally; nor had Lucy confessed to Clara what she had taken upon herself. There would be need of that, perhaps, after the sheriff's investigation.

Lucy's work did not in this instance alleviate a heavy heart. Once more alone, away from the worry about Clara's health and the excitement of the Denmeades, she was assailed by grief.

Clara's act, viewed in any light possible, seemed a sin, no less terrible because of unfortunate and mitigating circumstances. It was something that had been fostered long ago in the family. Lucy had expected it. She blamed the past, the lack of proper home training and ideals, the influence inevitable from her father's business.

After her work hours, each day she would walk off into the deep forest, and there, hidden from any eyes, she would yield to the moods of the moment. They seemed as various as the aspects of her trouble. But whatever the mood happened to be, grief was its dominant note. Clara had got beyond her now. She was married and settled, providing Joe Denmeade was as fine a boy as he seemed. But if Clara's true story became public property and Joe repudiated her, cast her off, then her future was hopeless. Lucy could not face this possibility. It quite baffled her.

THEN there was something else quite as insupportable to face. Sooner or later she must take up the burden she had claimed as her own. It would be hard. It meant she must abandon her welfare work there among the people she had come to love. They needed her. She would have to go farther afield, or take up some other kind of work. It was not conceivable that her sister's child could be left to the bringing up of strangers. That would only be shifting the responsibility of the weak Watson blood upon someone else. It did not make in the least for the ideal for which Lucy was ready to lay down her life.

Perhaps hardest of all was the blow to what now she recognized as her unconscious hopes of love, dreams of happy toil as a pioneer's wife. She knew now, when it was too late, what she could have been capable of for Edd Denmeade. She had found a fine, big love for a man she had helped to develop. She would rather have had such consciousness than to have met and loved a man superior in all ways to Edd. Somehow the struggle was the great thing, and yet she had loved Edd also because he was self-sufficient without her help. How she cared for him now, since the killing of one enemy and crippling of another, was hard for her to define. So that this phase of her grief was acute, poignant, ever-present, growing with the days.

She found out presently that going into the forest was a source of comfort.

A Saturday in June was the day set for an investigation of the fight that had resulted in the death of Rex Wilcox. It would be an ordeal for which Lucy had endeavored to prepare herself. Cedar Ridge was full of people, to judge from the horses, cars and vehicles along each side of the main street.

Lucy was conducted into the hotel parlor by the sheriff, who seemed very gallant and apologetic, and most desirous of impressing her with the fact that this meeting was a pleasure to him.

“Set down, miss, an' pray don't look so white,” said the magistrate with a kindly smile. “We see no call to take this case to court. Jest answer a few questions, an' we'll let you off. You was the only one who see the fight between Edd an' thet cowboy?”

“YES, my sister had fainted and lay on the floor,” replied Lucy. “But just at the last of it I saw her sit up. And after, when I looked back she had fainted again.”

“Now we know thet Harv Sprall threw a gun on Edd——”

“Sprall!” interrupted Lucy. “You're mistaken. The other fellow was Bud Sprall, and he wasn't in the schoolroom. Edd had the fight for the gun with——”

“Excuse me, miss,” interrupted the judge in turn, “the dead cowboy was Harv Sprall, a cousin of Bud's. He wasn't well known in these parts, but we got a line on him from men over Winbrook way. Now just tell us what you saw.”

Whereupon Lucy began with the blow Edd had delivered to the so-called Harv Sprall, and related hurriedly and fluently the details of the fight.

“Wal, thet'll be aboot all,” said the judge, with his genial smile, as he bent over to begin writing. “I'm much obliged.”

During the several hours she remained in town, Lucy was destined to learn a good deal, and that by merely listening. The name Rex Wilcox was mentioned as one of several names which Harv Sprall had long carried on dealings not exactly within the law. He had been known to absent himself for long periods from the several places where he was supposed to work. If Bud Sprall had known anything about his cousin's affair with Clara, he had kept his mouth shut. The investigation had turned a light on his own unsavory reputation, and what with one thing and another, he was liable to be sent to state prison. The judge had made it known that he would give Sprall a chance to leave the country.

It seemed to be the universally accepted idea that the two Spralls had planned to waylay Edd or Joe Denmeade, and then surprise the young school-teacher or overtake her on the trail. Their plans had miscarried, and they had gotten their just deserts; and that evidently closed the incident.

Before dark that night Lucy got back with the Claypools, too tired from riding and weary with excitement and the necessity for keeping up appearances to care about eating or her usual walk after supper. She went to bed, and in the darkness and silence of her little hut she felt as alone as if she were lost in the forest. Tomorrow would be Sunday. She would spend the whole day thinking over her problem and deciding how to meet it. If only the hours could be lengthened, time made to stand still!

THAT Sunday passed by and then another, leaving Lucy more at sea than ever. But she finished her work with the Claypools. July was to have been the time set for her to go to Johnson's or the Millers'. When the date arrived Lucy knew that she had no intention of going. Her own day of reckoning had come. Somehow she was glad in a sad kind of way.

The Denmeades welcomed her as one of the family and their unstinted delight did not make her task any easier. They all had some characteristic remark to thrill and yet hurt her. Denmeade grinned and said, “Wal, I reckon you're back for good. It shore looks like a go between Joe an' your sister.”

Meeting Clara was torturing. “Well, old mysterious, get it off your chest,” said her sister, with a shrewd, bright look. “Something's killing you. Is it me or Edd?”

“Goodness! Do I show my troubles as plainly as that?” replied Lucy pathetically.

“You're white and almost thin,” returned Clara solicitously. “You ought to stay here and rest—ride around—go to school with me.”

“Perhaps I do need a change. And you, Clara—how are you? Don't you ever think of—of——” faltered Lucy, hardly knowing what she meant.

“Of course, you ninny,” retorted Clara. “Am I a clod? I think too much. I have my fight. But, Lucy, I'm happy. Every day I find more in Joe to love. I'm going to pull out and make a success of life. First I thought it was for Joe's sake—then yours. But I guess I've begun to think of myself a little.”

“Have you heard from Mrs. Gerald?” queried Lucy finally.

“Yes. As soon as she got my letter, evidently it was all right again. But she never mentioned writing to Rex.”

“She would be glad to get rid of her charge, I imagine,” went on Lucy casually.

“I've guessed that myself,” rejoined Clara soberly. “It worries me some, yet I——”

SHE did not conclude her remark; and Lucy did not press the subject any further at the moment, though she knew this was the time to do it. But Lucy rather feared a scene with Clara and did not want it to occur during the waking hours of the Denmeades.

“Have you and Joe told your secret?” queried Lucy.

“Not yet,” replied Clara briefly.

“Where is Joe now?”

“He's working at his homestead. Has twenty acres planted, and more cleared. They're all helping him. Edd has taken a great interest in Joe's place since he lost interest in his own.”

“Then Edd has given up work on his own farm. Since when?”

“I don't know. But it was lately. I heard his father talking about it. Edd's not the same since he—since that accident. Joe comes home here every night, and he tells me how Edd's changed. Hasn't he been to see you, Lucy?”

“No.”

“Of course Edd's down in the mouth about you. I don't think killing that cowboy worries him. I heard him say he was sorry he hadn't done for Bud Sprall, too, and that if he'd known the job those two put up on him there'd have been a different story to tell. No. It's just that Edd's horribly in love with you.”

“Poor—Edd, if it's so.” Lucy drew a deep breath, and cast off the fetters that bound her.

“CLARA, do you remember the day of the fight in the schoolhouse—that you were unconscious when Edd arrived?” queried Lucy in low voice.

“Yes,” whispered Clara.

“Then of course you could not have heard what Rex Wilcox said. He was about to leap upon me to get the letter I had snatched. He threatened to tear my clothes off. Then he said it was his proof about the baby. Edd ran in just in time to hear the last few words. Later he said he'd heard, and he asked me—whose it was. I told him—mine!”

“Good—God!” cried Clara faintly, and sat down upon the bed as if strength to stand had left her.

“I spoke impulsively, yet it was the same as if I had thought for hours,” went on Lucy hurriedly. “I never could have given you away, and I couldn't lie by saying it—it was somebody's else.”

“Lie! It's a terrible lie,” burst out Clara hoarsely. “It's horrible. You've ruined your good name. You've broken Edd's heart. Now I know what ails him. But I won't stand for your taking my shame, my burden on your shoulders.”

“The thing is done,” declared Lucy with finality.

“I won't, I won't,” flashed her sister passionately. “What do you take me for? I've done enough.”

“Yes, you have. And since you've shirked your responsibilities, cast off your own flesh and blood to be brought up by a greedy, callous woman, I intend to do what is right by that poor, unfortunate child.”

Clara fell back upon the pillow, disheveled, white as death under the pale, moonlit tent. Her nerveless hands loosened their clutch on her breast. She shrank as if burned, and her tragic eyes closed to hide her accuser. “Oh, Lucy, Lucy,” she moaned, “heaven help me!”

XVI

LUCY walked alone in the dark lane, and two hours were but as moments. Upon her return to the tent, she found Clara asleep. Lucy did not light the lamp or fully undress, so loath was she to awaken her sister; and, exhausted herself, in a few moments she sank into slumber. Morning found her refreshed in strength and spirit.

Never before had the forest been so enchanting as on that summer morning. She punished herself ruthlessly by going to the fragrant glade where she had learned her first lessons from the wilderness. Weeks had passed, yet every pine needle seemed in its place. It was hot in the sun, cool in the shade. The scent of pine was overpoweringly sweet. A hot, drowsy summer breeze stirred through the foliage. And the golden aisle near Lucy's retreat seemed a stream for myriads of Edd's homing bees, humming by to the hives.

Lucy sat under her favorite pine, her back against the rough bark, and she could reach her hand out of the shade into the sun. She thought for what seemed a long time. Then she forgot herself in a moment of abandon. She kissed and smelled the fragrant bark; she crushed handfuls of the brown pine needles, pricking her fingers till they bled; she gathered the pine cones to her, soiling her hands with the hot pitch.

And suddenly overcome by these physical sensations, she lifted face and arms to the green canopy above and uttered an inarticulate cry, poignant and wild.

Then a rustling in the brush startled her; and as if in answer to her cry, Edd Denmeade strode out of the green wall of thicket.

“RECKON you was callin' me,” he said in his cool, easy drawl.

“Oh-h! You frightened me,” she exclaimed, staring up at him.

He wore his bee-hunting garb, ragged from service and redolent of the woods. His brown, brawny shoulder bulged through a rent. In one hand he carried a short-handled ax. His clean-shaven tanned face shone almost golden, and his clear gray eyes held a singular, piercing softness. How tall and lithe and strong he looked! A wild-bee hunter—but that was only a name. Lucy would not have had him any different.

“Where'd you come from?” she asked, suddenly realizing the imminence of some question that dwarfed all other problems.

“Wal, I trailed you,” he replied.

“You saw me come here? You've been watching me?”

“Shore. I was standin' in that thicket of pines, peepin' through at you.”

“Was that—nice of you, Edd?” she faltered.

“Reckon I don't know. All I wanted to find out was how you really felt about leavin' us all—an' my woods.”

“Well, did you learn?” she asked very low.

“I shore did.”

“And what is it?”

“Wal, I reckon you feel pretty bad,” he answered simply. “First off, I thought it was only your old trouble. But after a while I could see you hated to leave our woods. An' shore we're all part of the woods. If I hadn't seen that, I'd never have let you know I was watchin' you.”

“Edd, I do hate to leave your woods—and all your folks—and you—more than I can tell,” she said sadly.

“Wal, then, what're you leavin' for?”

“I must.”

“Reckon that don't mean much to me. Why must you?”

“It won't do any good to talk about it. You wouldn't understand, and I'll be upset. Please don't ask me.”

“But, Lucy, is it fair not to tell me anythin'?” he queried ponderingly. “You know I love you, like you told me a man does when he thinks of a girl before himself.”

“Oh, no, it isn't,” burst out Lucy poignantly, suddenly strangely overcome by his unexpected declaration.

“Wal, then, tell me all about it,” he entreated.

LUCY stared hard at the clusters of fragrant pine needles she had gathered in her lap. Alarming symptoms in her breast gave her pause. She was not mistress of her emotions. She could be taken unawares. This boy had supreme power over her, if he knew how to employ it. Lucy struggled with a new and untried situation.

“Edd, I owe a duty to—to myself—and to my family,” she said, and tried bravely to look at him.

“An' to somebody else?” he demanded, with sudden passion.

He dropped on his knees, and reached for Lucy. His hands were like iron. They lifted her to her knees and drew her close. He was rough. His clasp hurt. But these things were nothing to the expression she caught in his eyes, a terrible flash that could mean only jealousy.

“Let me go!” she cried wildly, trying to get away. Her gaze drooped. It seemed she had no anger. Her heart swelled as if bursting. Weakness of will and muscle attacked her.

“Be still an' listen,” he ordered, shaking her. He need not have employed violence. “Reckon you've had your own way too much. I lied to you about how I killed that cowboy.”

“OH, EDD, then it wasn't an accident?” cried Lucy, sinking limp against him. All force within her seemed to coalesce.

“It shore wasn't,” he replied grimly. “But I let you an' everybody think so. He was tryin' his best to murder me. I had no gun. I told him I wouldn't hurt him. Then what'd he do? He whispered things, hissed them at me like a snake, vile words about you, what you were. It was a trick. Shore he meant to surprise me, make me lose my nerve. So he could get the gun. An' all the time he pulled only the harder. He could feel I loved you. An' his trick near worked. But I seen through it, an' I turned the gun against him.”

“Oh, you killed him intentionally?” exclaimed Lucy.

“Yes. An' it wasn't self-defense. I killed him because of what he called you.”

“Me? Oh, of course,” cried Lucy hysterically.

A deadly sweetness of emotion was fast taking the remnant of her sense and strength. In another moment she would betray herself—her love was bursting its dam—and what was infinitely worse, her sister.

“Lucy, it don't make no difference what that cowboy said, even if it was true,” he went on, now huskily. “But were you—were you his wife or anybody's?”

“No!” flashed Lucy passionately, and she spoke the truth in a fierce pride that had nothing to do with her situation or the duty she had assumed.

“Aw, now!” he panted, and let go of her. Rising, he seemed to be throwing off an evil spell.

Lucy fell back against the pine tree, unable even to attempt to fly from him. Staring at Edd, she yet saw the green and blue canopy overhead, and the golden gleam of the great wall. Was that the summer wind thundering in her ears? How strangely Edd's grimness had fled! Then—there he was looming over her again, eager now, rapt with some overwhelming thought.

HE KNELT beside her, close, and took her hand in an action that was a caress. “Lucy, will you let me talk—an' listen close?” he asked in a tone she had never heard.

She could not see his face now, and dared not move. “Yes,” she whispered, her head sinking a little, drooping away from his eyes.

“Wal, it all come to me like lightnin',” he began, in a swift, full voice, singularly rich. And he smoothed her hand as if to soothe a child. “I've saved up near a thousand dollars. Reckon it's not much, but it'll help us start. An' I can work at anythin'. Shore you must have a little money too. Wal, we'll get your baby an' then go far off some place where nobody knows you, same as when you come here. We'll work an' make a home for it. Ever since you told me, I've been findin' out I was goin' to love your baby. It'll be the same as if it was mine. We can come back here to live, after a few years. I'd hate never to come back. I've set my heart on that mesa homestead. Wal, no one will ever know. I'll forget your—your trouble, an' so will you. I don't want to know any more than you've told me. I don't hold that against you. It might have happened to me. But for you, it would have happened to my sister Mertie. Life is a good deal like bee huntin'. You get stung a lot. But the honey is only the sweeter. All this seems to have come round for the best, an' I'm not sorry, if only I can make you happy.”

LUCY sat as if in a vise, shocked through and through with some tremendous current. “Edd Denmeade,” she whispered, “are you asking me to—to marry you?”

“I'm more than askin', Lucy darlin'.”

“After what I confessed?” she added unbelievingly.

“Shore. But for that I'd never had the courage to ask again. I've come to hope maybe you'll love me some day.”

This moment seemed the climax of the strain under which Lucy had long kept up. It had the shocking power of complete surprise and unhoped-for rapture. It quite broke down her weakened reserve.

“I—I love you now, you big—big——” she burst out, choking at the last, and blinded by tears she turned her face to Edd's, and, kissing his cheek, she sank on his shoulder.

But she was not so close to fainting that she failed to feel the effect of her declaration upon him. He gave a wild start, and for a second Lucy felt as if she were in the arms of a giant. Then he let go of her, and sat rigidly against the tree, supporting her head on his shoulder. She could hear the thump of his heart. Backwoodsman though he was, he divined that this was not the time to forget her surrender and her weakness. In the quiet of the succeeding moments Lucy came wholly into a realization of the splendor of her love.

It was late in the day when they returned to the clearing. Hours had flown on the wings of happiness and the thrill of plans. Lucy forgot the dark shadow. And not until they emerged from the forest to see Clara standing in the tent door, with intent gaze upon them, did Lucy remember the bitter drops in her cup.

Clara beckoned imperiously, with something in her look or action that struck Lucy singularly. She let go of Edd's hand, which she had been holding almost unconsciously.

“Wal, I reckon your sharp-eyed sister is on to us,” drawled Edd.

“It seems so. But, Edd, she'll be glad, I know.”

“Shore. An' so will Joe an' all the Denmeades. It's a mighty good day for us.”

“The good fortune is all on my side,” whispered Lucy as they approached the tent.

CLARA stood on the threshold, holding the door wide. Her face had the pearly pallor and her eyes the purple blackness usual to them in moments of agitation. She did not seem a girl any longer. Her beauty was something to strike the heart.

“Lucy, come in—you and your gentleman friend,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. Yet there was a faint note of pride or mockery of self or of them in it.

“Wal, Clara, you may as well kiss me an' be done with it,” drawled Edd, as he entered behind Lucy. “For you're goin' to be my sister two ways.”

Clara's response was electrifying. Her face seemed to blaze with rapture, and the swift kiss she gave Edd admitted of no doubt as to her acceptance of Edd's blunt speech. But she made no move to approach Lucy.

Joe Denmeade sat on the edge of the bed, white and spent. Sight of him caused Lucy's heart to leap to her throat.

“Howdy, Lucy,” he said, with a smile that was beautiful. “Is my brother Edd talkin' straight?”

“Yes, Joe, I'm going to be doubly your sister,” she replied

“I couldn't ask no more,” he rejoined with deep feeling.

There followed a moment of constraint. Lucy could not grasp the situation, but she felt its tensity. Then trembling she turned to face Clara.

“I have told Joe,” said Clara, as Lucy met her eyes.

LUCY received this blow fully, without preparation, and following hard on stress of feeling that had left her spent. Her intelligence was swift to accept the wondrous and almost incredible fact of Clara's regeneration, but her emotions seemed dead or locked in her breast. Mutely she stared at this beloved sister. She saw an incalculable change, if she saw clearly at all. She might have been dazed. In that endless moment there was a slow action of her own mind, but something she expressed wrought havoc in Clara. The glow, the rapture, the exaltation that so enhanced Clara's beauty suddenly faded and died. Even her moment of supreme victory had been full of thought of self. But Lucy's agony transformed it.

“I told him,” burst out Clara, sobbing. “I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted him to know. I could have gone on—living a lie, if you had not taken my—my shame. But that was too much. It killed something in me. So I told him. I couldn't let you do it. I must do it myself. And I gave Joe up. But, Lucy, he forgave me! He will stand by me!”

“Oh, Joe, how—splendid of you!” gasped Lucy, and with the hard utterance her bound faculties seemed to loosen. She ran to his side. “But how can you meet this—this terrible situation?”

Joe took her trembling hands in his. “Why, Lucy, don't be upset,” he said. “It's not so bad. If Clara had told me long ago, I reckon you'd both been saved a lot of heart-breakin'. There's only one way. The preacher who married Clara an' me will keep our secret. An' he'll marry us again. We'll just leave out tellin' anybody that this—this cowboy forgot to marry Clara himself.”

“Yes—yes!” cried Lucy wildly.

“Reckon thet's aboot all,” continued Joe with his rare smile. “Clara an' I will tell the folks, an' leave at once. An' we'll come back with the baby.”

HERE Edd Denmeade strode to a position before them and, though he seemed to be about to address Joe, he certainly looked at Lucy. “Reckon you'd do well to have the parson meet you in Cedar Ridge an' marry you there,” he said.

Lucy could have laughed had she not been fighting tears. “Edd, are you talking to Joe—or me?”

“Lucy, would you marry me at the same time?” he queried hoarsely.

“I—I fear the crowd at Cedar Ridge. They'll storm us,” faltered Clara.

“Shore we can fool them,” returned Edd.

“All right. We've settled it all,” said Joe in a grave kind of happiness. “I'll go in an' tell the folks.”

“Wal, I'm goin' with you,” rejoined Edd as Joe rose. They strode out together, and Edd's brawny arm went round his brother's shoulder.

“Joe, I reckon it's as good one way as another. It's all in the family. The three of them'll be Denmeades.”

Lucy closed the tent door after them and turned to her sister.

Clara's eyes were shining through tears. “Aren't they good?” she murmured. 'It's all in the family,' Edd said. Oh, I did not appreciate them. I did not understand Joe, or you, or myself. I did not know what love was. Now I can atone for the past.”

At sunset Lucy escaped the hilarious Denmeades and slipped into the forest, to hide in an unfrequented glade. She had to be alone.

THE profound transformations of the day were less baffling and incredible, once she found herself in the loneliness and solitude of the forest. Life was real and earnest, beautiful and terrible, inexplicable as the blaze of the setting sun, so fiery golden on the rugged, towering Rim. In the depths of the quiet woods she could understand something of simplicity. For her and Clara life had been throbbing and poignant. For the Denmeades life seemed like that of the trees and denizens of the forest.

The sun sank, the birds ceased their plaintive notes, and a dreaming silence pervaded the green world of foliage. Late bees hummed by. The drowsy summer heat began to cool.

Lucy's heart was full of reverent gratitude to whatever had wrought the change in Clara. Love, suffering, the influence of Nature, all had combined to burn out the baneful, selfish weakness that had made Clara a victim of circumstances.

How inscrutably had things worked to a happy end! She tried to look backward and understand. But that seemed. impossible. Yet she realized how stubbornly, miserably she had clung to her ideal. If she had only known the reward!

The great, solemn forest land was after all to be her home. She would go on with her work among these simple people, grateful that she would be received by them, happy that she could bring good to their lonely homes. The thing she had prayed most for had become a reality. If doubt ever assailed her again, it would be of short duration. She thought of the bee hunter. She would be his wife on the morrow!

Dusk mantled the forest. A faint night wind arose, mournful and sweet. Lucy threaded her way back toward the clearing. And the peace of the wilderness seemed to have permeated her soul. She was just one little atom in a vast world of struggling humans, like a little pine sapling lifting itself among millions of its kind toward the light. But that lifting was the great and the beautiful secret.

THE END