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answer. Her face had not yet regained its natural color.
"He faced that bandit and his gang alone--he fought them?" demanded
Mr. Gale, his voice stronger.
"Dick mopped up the floor with the whole outfit!"
"He rescued a Spanish girl, went into the desert without food, weapons,
anything but his hands? Richard Gale, whose hands were always useless?"
Belding nodded with a grin.
"He's a ranger now--riding, fighting, sleeping on the sand, preparing his own
food?"
"Well, I should smile," rejoined Belding.
"He cares for his horse, with his own hands?" This query seemed to be the
climax of Mr. Gale's strange hunger for truth. He had raised his head a
little higher, and his eye was brighter.
Mention of a horse fired Belding's blood.
"Does Dick Gale care for his horse? Say, there are not many men as well loved
as that white horse of Dick's. Blanco Sol he is, Mr.
Gale. That's Mex for White Sun. Wait till you see Blanco Sol! Bar one, the
whitest, biggest, strongest, fastest, grandest horse in the
Southwest!"
"So he loves a horse! I shall not know my own son....Mr. Belding, you say
Richard works for you. May I ask, at what salary?"
"He gets forty dollars, board and outfit," replied Belding, proudly.
"Forty dollars?" echoed the father. "By the day or week?"
"The month, of course," said Belding, somewhat taken aback.
"Forty dollars a month for a young man who spent five hundred in the same time
when he was at college, and who ran it into thousands when he got out!"
Mr. Gale laughed for the first time, and it was the laugh of a man who wanted
to believe what he heard yet scarcely dared to do it.
"What does he do with so much money--money earned by peril, toil, sweat, and
blood? Forty dollars a month!"
"He saves it," replied Belding.
Evidently this was too much for Dick Gale's father, and he gazed at his wife
in sheer speechless astonishment. Dick's sister clapped her hands like a
little child.
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Belding saw that the moment was propitious.
"Sure he saves it. Dick's engaged to marry Nell here. My stepdaughter, Nell
Burton."
"Oh-h, Dad!" faltered Nell; and she rose, white as her dress.
How strange it was to see Dick's mother and sister rise, also, and turn to
Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized some blunder
he had made. Nell's white, appealing face gave him a pang. What had he done?
Surely this family of Dick's ought to know his relation to Nell. There was a
silence that positively made Belding nervous.
Then Elsie Gale stepped close to Nell.
"Miss Burton, are you really Richard's betrothed?"
Nell's tremulous lips framed an affirmative, but never uttered it.
She held out her hand, showing the ring Dick had given her. Miss
Gale's recognition was instant, and her response was warm, sweet, gracious.
"I think I am going to be very, very glad," she said, and kissed
Nell.
"Miss Burton, we are learning wonderful things about Richard,"
added Mr. Gale, in an earnest though shaken voice. "If you have had to do
with making a man of him--and now I begin to see, to believe so--may God bless
you!...My dear girl, I have not really looked at you. Richard's
fiancee!...Mother, we have not found him yet, but I think we've found his
secret. We believed him a lost son. But here is his sweetheart!"
It was only then that the pride and hauteur of Mrs. Gale's face broke into an
expression of mingled pain and joy. She opened her arms. Nell, uttering a
strange little stifled cry, flew into them.
Belding suddenly discovered an unaccountable blur in his sight.
He could not see perfectly, and that was why, when Mrs. Belding
entered the sitting-room, he was not certain that her face was as sad and
white as it seemed.
XV
BOUND IN THE DESERT
FAR away from Forlorn River Dick Gale sat stunned, gazing down into the purple
depths where Rojas had plunged to his death. The Yaqui stood motionless upon
the steep red wall of lava from which he had cut the bandit's hold. Mercedes
lay quietly where she had fallen.
From across the depths there came to Gale's ear the Indian's strange, wild
cry.
Then silence, hollow, breathless, stony silence enveloped the great abyss and
its upheaved lava walls. The sun was setting. Every instant the haze
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reddened and thickened.
Action on the part of the Yaqui loosened the spell which held Gale as
motionless as his surroundings. The Indian was edging back toward the ledge.
He did not move with his former lithe and sure freedom. He crawled, slipped,
dragged himself, rested often, and went on again. He had been wounded. When
at last he reached the ledge where Mercedes lay Gale jumped to his feet,
strong and thrilling, spurred to meet the responsibility that now rested upon
him.
Swiftly he turned to where Thorne lay. The cavalryman was just returning to
consciousness. Gale ran for a canteen, bathed his face, made him drink. The
look in Thorne's eyes was hard to bear.
"Thorne! Thorne! it's all right, it's all right!" cried Gale, in piercing
tones. "Mercedes is safe! Yaqui saved her! Rojas is done for! Yaqui jumped
down the wall and drove the bandit off the ledge.
Cut him loose from the wall, foot by foot, hand by hand! We've won the fight,
Thorne."
For Thorne these were marvelous strength-giving words. The dark horror left
his eyes, and they began to dilate, to shine. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]