Part 27

“What in h-ll am I running into now?”

It was a man's voice, and, from its elevation, the voice of a man on horseback. She answered without fear and with slow deliberation,--

“Inter our clothes-line, I reckon.”

“Oh!” said the man in a half-apologetic tone. Then in brisker accents, “The very thing I want! I say, can you give me a bit of it? The ring of my saddle girth has fetched loose. I can fasten it with that.”

“I reckon,” replied Lanty, with the same unconcern, moving nearer the bulk, which now separated into two parts as the man dismounted. “How much do you want?”

“A foot or two will do.”

They were now in front of each other, although their faces were not distinguishable to either. Lanty, who had been following the lines with her hand, here came upon the end knotted around the last pole. This she began to untie.

“What a place to hang clothes,” he said curiously.

“Mighty dryin', tho',” returned Lanty laconically.

“And your house? Is it near by?” he continued.

“Just down the ridge--ye kin see from the edge. Got a knife?” She had untied the knot.

“No--yes--wait.” He had hesitated a moment and then produced something from his breast pocket, which he however kept in his hand. As he did not offer it to her she simply held out a section of the rope between her hands, which he divided with a single cut. She saw only that the instrument was long and keen. Then she lifted the flap of the saddle for him as he attempted to fasten the loose ring with the rope, but the darkness made it impossible. With an ejaculation, he fumbled in his pockets. “My last match!” he said, striking it, as he crouched over it to protect it from the wind. Lanty leaned over also, with her apron raised between it and the blast. The flame for an instant lit up the ring, the man's dark face, mustache, and white teeth set together as he tugged at the girth, and Lanty's brown, velvet eyes and soft, round cheek framed in the basket. Then it went out, but the ring was secured.

“Thank you,” said the man, with a short laugh, “but I thought you were a humpbacked witch in the dark there.”

“And I couldn't make out whether you was a cow or a b'ar,” returned the young girl simply.

Here, however, he quickly mounted his horse, but in the action something slipped from his clothes, struck a stone, and bounded away into the darkness.

“My knife,” he said hurriedly. “Please hand it to me.” But although the girl dropped on her knees and searched the ground diligently, it could not be found. The man with a restrained ejaculation again dismounted, and joined in the search.

“Haven't you got another match?” suggested Lanty.

“No--it was my last!” he said impatiently.

“Just you hol' on here,” she said suddenly, “and I'll run down to the kitchen and fetch you a light. I won't be long.”

“No! no!” said the man quickly; “don't! I couldn't wait. I've been here too long now. Look here. You come in daylight and find it, and--just keep it for me, will you?” He laughed. “I'll come for it. And now, if you'll only help to set me on that road again, for it's so infernal black I can't see the mare's ears ahead of me, I won't bother you any more. Thank you.”

Lanty had quietly moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in her hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few moments he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick dust of the highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising to his nostrils.

“Thank you,” he said again, “I'm all right now,” and in the pause that followed it seemed to Lanty that he had extended a parting hand to her in the darkness. She put up her own to meet it, but missed his, which had blundered onto her shoulder. Before she could grasp it, she felt him stooping over her, the light brush of his soft mustache on her cheek, and then the starting forward of his horse. But the retaliating box on the ear she had promptly aimed at him spent itself in the black space which seemed suddenly to have swallowed up the man, and even his light laugh.

For an instant she stood still, and then, swinging the basket indignantly from her shoulder, took up her suspended task. It was no light one in the increasing wind, and the unfastened clothes-line had precipitated a part of its burden to the ground through the loosening of the rope. But on picking up the trailing garments her hand struck an unfamiliar object. The stranger's lost knife! She thrust it hastily into the bottom of the basket and completed her work. As she began to descend with her burden she saw that the light of the kitchen fire, seen through the windows, was augmented by a candle. Her mother was evidently awaiting her.

“Pretty time to be fetchin' in the wash,” said Mrs. Foster querulously. “But what can you expect when folks stand gossipin' and philanderin' on the ridge instead o' tendin' to their work?”

Now Lanty knew that she had NOT been “gossipin'” nor “philanderin',” yet as the parting salute might have been open to that imputation, and as she surmised that her mother might have overheard their voices, she briefly said, to prevent further questioning, that she had shown a stranger the road. But for her mother's unjust accusation she would have been more communicative. As Mrs. Foster went back grumblingly into the sitting-room Lanty resolved to keep the knife at present a secret from her mother, and to that purpose removed it from the basket. But in the light of the candle she saw it for the first time plainly--and started.

For it was really a dagger! jeweled-handled and richly wrought--such as Lanty had never looked upon before. The hilt was studded with gems, and the blade, which had a cutting edge, was damascened in blue and gold. Her soft eyes reflected the brilliant setting, her lips parted breathlessly; then, as her mother's voice arose in the other room, she thrust it back into its velvet sheath and clapped it into her pocket. Its rare beauty had confirmed her resolution of absolute secrecy. To have shown it now would have made “no end of talk.” And she was not sure but that her parents would have demanded its custody! And it was given to HER by HIM to keep. This settled the question of moral ethics. She took the first opportunity to run up to her bedroom and hide it under the mattress.

Yet the thought of it filled the rest of her evening. When her household duties were done she took up her novel again, partly from force of habit and partly as an attitude in which she could think of IT undisturbed. For what was fiction to her now? True, it possessed a certain reminiscent value. A “dagger” had appeared in several romances she had devoured, but she never had a clear idea of one before. “The Count sprang back, and, drawing from his belt a richly jeweled dagger, hissed between his teeth,” or, more to the purpose: “'Take this,' said Orlando, handing her the ruby-hilted poignard which had gleamed upon his thigh, 'and should the caitiff attempt thy unguarded innocence--'”

“Did ye hear what your father was sayin'?” Lanty started. It was her mother's voice in the doorway, and she had been vaguely conscious of another voice pitched in the same querulous key, which, indeed, was the dominant expression of the small ranchers of that fertile neighborhood. Possibly a too complaisant and unaggressive Nature had spoiled them.