Chapter 16. "Slim's Sister"

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_ CHAPTER XVI. "SLIM'S SISTER"

Bruce Burt! the murderer! Of all things in the world that he should be "The Man from the Bitter Roots"--dining at the Strathmore--the guest of Winfield Harrah! Weren't people punished for murder in the West? Sprudell had intimated that he would hang for it. Helen's grey eyes were big with amazement and indignation while she watched him being seated.

She saw the widening of his eyes when he recognized Sprudell, the quick hardening of his features and the look that followed, which, if not exactly triumph, was certainly satisfaction. Involuntarily she glanced at Sprudell and the expression on his face held her eyes. It fascinated her. For the moment she forgot Bruce Burt in studying him.

She thought she had read his real nature, had seen his dominant characteristic in the blatant egotism that had shown itself so strongly in his elation. But this was different, so different that she had a queer feeling of sitting opposite an utter stranger. It was not dislike, resentment, fear; it was rather a sly but savage vindictiveness, a purposeful malice that would stop at nothing. In the unguarded moment Sprudell's passion for revenge was stamped upon his face like a brand. Helen had thought of him contemptuously as a bounder, a conceited ignoramus--he was more than these things, he was a dangerous man.

But why this intense antagonism? Why should they not speak? Sprudell had not told her of a quarrel.

"Who are those men!" he asked in an undertone, and she noticed that he was breathing hard in an excitement he could not conceal.

As she named them in turn she saw that Bruce Burt was regarding her with the puzzled, questioning look one gives to the person he is trying to place.

The one stipulation which Bruce had made when he consented to meet the "Spanish Bull-dog" was that his name should not be known in the event of the match being mentioned in the papers; so Harrah had complied by introducing him to his friends by any humorous appellation which occurred to him. It proved a wise precaution, since directly Bruce's challenge had been sent and it was known that he was Harrah's protege, the papers had made much of it, publishing unflattering snapshots after he had steadily refused to let them take his picture.

It was true enough, as Helen had said, he had whipped the "Spanish Bull-dog," loosened his tenacious grip in a feat of strength so sensational that the next morning he had found himself featured along with an elopement and a bank failure.

They called him "The Man from the Bitter Boots," and a staff artist depicted him as a hairy aborigine that Winfield Harrah had had captured to turn loose on the Spanish gladiator. Which humor Bruce did not relish, for Sprudell's taunt that "muscle" was his only asset still rankled.

The betting odds had been against him in the Athletic Club, for Bruce's size ofttimes made him look clumsy, but if Bruce had a bear's great strength he had also a bear's surprising quickness and agility. And it was the combination which had won the victory for him. Unexpectedly, with one of the awkward but swift movements which was characteristically bear-like, Bruce had swooped when he saw his opening and thrown the "Bull-dog" as he had thrown "Slim"--over his shoulder. Then he had whirled and pinned him--both shoulders and a hip touching squarely. There had been no room for dispute over the decision. Friends and foes alike had cheered in frenzy, but beyond the fact that the financial help which Harrah promised was contingent upon his success, Bruce felt no elation. The whole thing was a humiliation to him.

But Harrah had been as good as his word. They had filed in to Bruce's top floor room one evening--Harrah's friends headed by Harrah. They had seemed to regard it as a lark, roosting on his bed and window-sill and table, while Bruce dropped naturally to a seat on his heel, camp-fire fashion, with his back against the wall, and to their amusement outlined his proposition and drew a map of the location of his ground on the carpet with his finger.

But they had not taken much interest in detail, they were going into it chiefly to please Harrah. Bruce saw that clearly and it piqued him. He felt as though his proposition, his sincerity, counted for nothing, but while it nettled him more than ever, it put him on his mettle.

Bruce's brief acquaintance with Harrah already had opened up new vistas, shown him unknown possibilities in life. They were sport-loving, courteous, generous people that Harrah drew about him--merry-hearted as those may be who are free from care--and Bruce found the inhabitants in this new world eminently congenial. He never had realized before how much money meant in the world "outside." It was comfort, independence, and most of all the ability to choose, to a great extent, one's friends instead of being forced to accept such as circumstances may thrust upon one.

Bruce saw what anyone may see who looks facts in the face, namely, that money is the greatest contributory factor to happiness, no matter how comforting it may be to those who have none to assure themselves to the contrary. There may even be doubts as to whether the majority of rich invalids would exchange their check-books for the privilege of being husky paupers in spite of the time-honored platitude concerning health.

Yet Bruce could not help a certain soreness that all he had fought for so doggedly and so unavailingly came so easily as the result of a rich man's whim.

Laughingly, with much good-humored jest, they had made up the $25,000 between them and then trailed off to Harrah's box at the opera, taking Bruce with them, where he contributed his share to the gaiety of the evening by observing quite seriously that the famous tenor sounded to him like nothing so much as a bull-elk bugling.

Harrah's subscription which had headed the list had been half of his winnings and the other half had gone to his favorite charity--The Home For Crippled Children. "If you get in a hole and need a little more I might dig up a few thousand," he told Bruce privately, but the others stated plainly that they would not commit themselves to further sums or be liable for assessments.

Bruce had gone about with Harrah since then and with so notable a sponsor the world became suddenly a pleasant, friendly place and life plain sailing; but now every detail had been attended to, and, eager to begin, Bruce was leaving on the morrow, this dinner being in the nature of a farewell party.

To see Bruce in the East and in the company of these men on top of Dill's telegram was a culminating blow to Sprudell, as effective as though it had been planned. Stunned at first by the loss of the water-right which made the ground valueless, then startled, and astonished by Bruce's unexpected appearance, all his thoughts finally resolved themselves into a furious, overmastering desire to defeat him. Revenge, always his first impulse when injured, was to become an obsession. Whatever there was of magnanimity, of justice, or of honor, in Sprudell's nature was to become poisoned by the venom of his vindictive malice where it concerned Bruce Burt.

Bruce had altered materially in appearance since that one occasion in his life, in Sprudell's office, when he had been conscious of his clothes. Those he now wore were not expensive but they fitted him and for the first time in many years he had something on his feet other than hob-nailed miner's shoes. Also he laid aside his stetson because, as he explained when Harrah deplored the change, he thought "it made folks look at him." "Folks" still looked at him for even in the correct habiliments of civilization he somehow looked picturesque and alien. Powerfully built, tanned, with his wide, forceful gestures, his utter lack of self-consciousness, there was stamped upon him indelibly the freedom and broadness of the great outdoors.

He was the last person, even in that group, all of whose members were more or less notable, who would have been suspected of a cold-blooded murder.

Against her will Helen found herself looking at him. It seemed unnatural; she was shocked at herself, but he attracted her irresistibly. Her brother's murderer was handsome in a dark, serious, unsmiling way which appealed to her strongly.

She tried to fix her attention upon the food before her, to keep up a conversation with Sprudell, who made no pretense of listening; but just so often as she resolved not to look again, just so often she found herself returning Bruce Burt's questioning but respectful stare.

Helen took it for granted that his object in coming East was to meet the "Spanish Bull-dog," but Sprudell knew better. He had seen enough of Bruce to guess something of his fixity of purpose when aroused and Dill's telegram confirmed it. But he had thought that, naturally, Bruce would return to the West at once from Bartlesville to try and hold his claims, from which, when he was ready, through a due process of law, if necessary, Sprudell would eject him.

To find him here, perhaps already with formidable backing, for the moment scattered Sprudell's wits, upset him; the only thing in his mind which was fixed and real was the determination somehow to block him.

A vaguely defined plan was already forming in his mind, and he wanted to be alone to perfect it and put it into immediate execution. Besides, he was far from comfortable in the presence of the man who, temporarily at least, had outwitted him, nor was he too preoccupied to observe Bruce's obvious interest in Helen. He made the motion to go as soon as possible and in spite of his best efforts to appear deliberate his movements were precipitate.

Bruce found it impossible to keep his attention upon the conversation at his own table. After his first surprise at seeing Sprudell his mind and eyes persisted in fixing themselves upon Sprudell's companion. He could not rid himself of the notion that somewhere he had seen her, or was it only a resemblance? Yet surely if he ever had known a girl with a profile like that--such hair, such eyes, such a perfect manner--he would not have forgotten her! Was it the face of some dream-girl that had lingered in his memory? It was puzzling, most extraordinary, but whoever she was she looked far too nice to be dining with that--that--. His black brows met in a frown and unconsciously his hands became fists under the table.

He felt a sharp pang when he saw that they were preparing to go. Why couldn't it be his luck to know a girl like that? He wondered how it would seem to be sitting across the table from her, talking intimately. And he found considerable satisfaction in the fact that she had not smiled once at Sprudell during the conversation. He would not have said that she was enjoying herself particularly.

Then she arose and the gloves in her lap fell to the floor. He had an impulse to jump and slide for them but the waiter was ahead of him. Sprudell looked back impatiently.

"Thank you so much." She smiled at the waiter-fellow and Bruce knew her.

Slim's sister! There was no mistaking the sweetly serious eyes, the smiling lips with which he had grown familiar in the yellowish picture. She was older, thinner, the youthful roundness was gone, but beyond question she was Slim's sister!

She passed the table without a glance and in something like a panic he watched her leave the room. He would never see her again! This was the only chance he'd ever have. Should he sit there calmly and let it pass! He laid his napkin on the table, and explained as he rose hastily:

"There's someone out there I must see. I'll be back, but don't wait for me."

He did not know himself what he meant to say or do, beyond the fact that he would speak to her even if she snubbed him.

She had stepped into the cloak room for her wrap and Sprudell was waiting in the corridor. Immediately when he saw Bruce he guessed his purpose and the full significance of a meeting between them rushed upon him. He was bent desperately upon preventing it. Sprudell took the initiative and advanced to meet him.

"If you've anything to say to me, Bruce, I'll meet you to-morrow."

"I've nothing at all to say to you except to repeat what I said to you in Bartlesville. I told you then I thought you'd lied and now I know it. That's Slim's sister."

"That is Miss Dunbar."

"I don't believe you."

"I'll prove it."

"Introduce me."

"It isn't necessary; besides," he sneered, "she's particular who she knows."

"Not very," Bruce drawled, "or she wouldn't be here with you." He added obstinately: "That's Slim's sister."

Helen came from the cloak room and stopped short at seeing Bruce and Sprudell in conversation. Certainly this was an evening of surprises.

"Are you ready, Miss Dunbar?" Sprudell placed loud emphasis upon the name.

She nodded.

Sprudell, who was walking to meet her, glanced back at Bruce with a smile of malice but it was wasted upon Bruce, who was looking at the girl. Why should there be that lurking horror and hostility in her eyes? What had Sprudell told her? On a sudden desperate impulse and before Sprudell could stop him, he walked up to her and asked doggedly, though his temerity made him hot and cold:

"Why do you look at me as if I were an enemy? What has Sprudell been telling you?"

"I forbid you to answer this fellow--" Sprudell's voice shook and his pink face had again taken on the curious chalkiness of color which it became under stress of feeling. Forgetting prudence, his deferential pose, forgetting everything that he should have remembered in his rage at Bruce's hardihood, and the fear of exposure, he shook his finger threateningly before Helen's face.

On the instant her chin went haughtily in the air and there was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes as she replied:

"You are presumptuous, Mr. Sprudell. Your manner is offensive--very."

He ignored her resentment and laid his hand none too gently upon her arm, as though he would have turned her forcibly toward the door. The action, the familiarity it implied, incensed her.

"Take your hand away," Helen said quietly but tensely.

"I tell you not to talk to him!" But he obeyed.

"I intend to hear what Mr. Burt has to say."

"You mean that?"

"I do."

"Then you'll listen alone," he threatened. "You can get home the best you can."

"Suit yourself about that," Helen replied coolly. "There are taxicabs at the door and the cars run every six minutes."

Bruce contributed cordially:

"Sprudell, you just dust along whenever you get ready."

"You'll repent this--both of you!" His voice shook with chagrin and fury--"I'll see to that if it takes the rest of my life and my last dollar."

Bruce warned in mock solicitude:

"Don't excite yourself, it's bad for your heart; I can tell that from your color."

Sprudell's answer was a malignant look from one to the other.

"On the square," said Bruce ruefully when the last turn of the revolving door had shut Sprudell into the street, "I hadn't an idea of stirring up anything like this when I spoke to you."

"It doesn't matter," Helen answered coldly. "It will disabuse his mind of the notion that he has any claim on me."

"It did look as though he wanted to give that impression."

Bruce was absurdly pleased to find himself alone with her, but Helen's eyes did not soften and her voice was distant as she said, moving toward the nearest parlor:

"If you have anything to say to me, please be brief. I must be going."

"I want to know what Sprudell has told you that you should look at me almost as if you hated me?"

"How else would I look at the man who murdered my brother in cold-blood."

He stared at her blankly in an astonishment too genuine to be feigned.

"I murdered your brother in cold-blood! You are Slim's sister, then?"

"I'm Frederic Naudain's sister, if that's what you mean--his half-sister."

The light of understanding grew slowly on Bruce's face. The revelation made many things plain. The difference in the name accounted for his inability to trace her. It was easy enough now to account for Sprudell's violent opposition to their meeting.

"He told you that it was a premeditated murder?"

Watching him closely Helen saw that his tanned skin changed color.

She nodded.

"Why, I came East on purpose to find you!" he exclaimed. "To make amends--"

"Amends!" she interrupted, and the cold scorn in her voice made the perspiration start out on his forehead.

"Yes, amends," he reiterated. "I was to blame in a way, but not entirely. Don't be any harder on me than you can help; it's not any easy thing to talk about to--his sister."

She did not make it easier, but sat waiting in silence while he hesitated. He was wondering how he could tell her so she would understand, how not to shock her with the grewsome details of the story. Through the wide archway with its draperies of gold thread and royal purple velvet a procession of bare-shouldered, exquisitely dressed women was passing and Bruce became suddenly conscious of the music of the distant orchestra, of the faint odor of flowers and perfume, of everything about him that stood for culture and civilization. How at the antipodes was the picture he was seeing! For the moment it seemed as though that lonely, primitive life on the river must be only a memory of some previous existence. Then the unforgettable scene in the cabin came back vividly and he almost shuddered, for he felt again the warm gush over his hand and saw plainly the snarling madman striking, kicking, while he fought to save him. He had meant to tell her delicately and instead he blurted it out brutally.

"I made him mad and he went crazy. He came at me with the axe and I threw him over my shoulder. He fell on the blade and cut an artery. Slim bled to death on the floor of the cabin."

"Ugh--how horrible!" Bruce imagined she shrank from him. "But why did you quarrel--what started it?"

Bruce hesitated; it sounded so petty--so ridiculous. He thought of the two old partners he had known who had three bloody fights over the most desirable place to hang a haunch of venison. "Salt," he finally forced himself to answer.

"Sprudell told me that and I could not believe it."

She looked at him incredulously.

"We were down to a handful, and I fed it to a band of mountain-sheep that came to the cabin. I had no business to do it."

"You said that he went crazy--do you mean actually?"

"Actually--a maniac--raving."

"Then why do you blame yourself so much?"

"Because I should have pulled out when I saw how things were going. We had quarrelled before over trifles and I knew he would be furious. You can't blame me more than I blame myself, Miss Dunbar. I suppose you think they should hang me?" There was a pleading note in the question and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead while he waited for her answer.

She did not reply immediately but when she finally looked him squarely in the eyes and said quietly: "No, because I believe you," Bruce thought his heart turned over with relief and joy.

"What you have told me shows merely that he had not changed--that my hopes for him were quite without foundation. Even as a child he had a disposition--a temper, that was little short of diabolical. We have all been the victims of it. I should not want to see another. He disgraced and ruined us financially. Now," Helen said rising, "you must go back to your friends. I'll take a taxicab home--"

"Please let me go with you. They can wait for me--or something," he added vaguely. The thought of losing sight of her frightened him.

She shook her head.

"No--no; I won't listen to it." She gave him her hand: "I must thank you for sending back my letter and picture."

"Sprudell gave them to you!"

"Yes, and the money."

"Money?"

"Why, yes." She looked at him inquiringly.

Just in time Bruce caught and stopped a grin that was appearing at the thought that Sprudell had had to "dig up" the money he had returned to him out of his own pocket.

"That's so," he agreed. "I had forgotten. But Miss Dunbar," eagerly. "I must see you on business. Your brother left property that may be valuable."

"Property? Mr. Sprudell did not mention it."

"I suppose it slipped his mind," Bruce answered drily. "You'll give me your address and let me come to-morrow?"

"Will you mind coming early--at nine in the morning?"

"Mind! I'll be sitting on the steps at sunrise if you say so," Bruce answered heartily.

How young she looked--how like the little girl of the picture when she laughed! Bruce looked at his watch as he returned to his party to see how many hours it would be before nine in the morning.

* * * * *

The shabbiness of the hotel where Helen lived surprised him. It was worse than his own. She had looked so exceptionally well-dressed the previous evening he had supposed that what she called ruin was comparative affluence, for Bruce had not yet learned that clothes are unsafe standards by which to judge the resources of city folks, just as on the plains and in the mountains faded overalls and a ragged shirt are equally untrustworthy guides to a man's financial rating. And the musty odor that met him in the gloomy hallway--he felt how she must loathe it. He had wondered at the early hour she'd set but when Helen came down she quickly explained.

"I must leave here at half past and if you have not finished what you have to say I thought you might walk with me to the office."

"The office?" It shocked him that she should have to go to an office, that she had hours, that anybody should have a claim upon her time by paying for it.

Quizzically:

"Did you think I was an heiress!"

"Last night you looked as though you might be." His tone told her of his admiration.

"Relics of past greatness," Helen replied smiling. "A remodelled gown that was my mother's. One good street suit at a time and a blouse or two is the best I can do. I am merely a wonderful bluff in the evening."

Bruce felt that it was a sore spot although she was smiling, and he could not help being glad, for it meant she needed him. If he had found her in prosperous circumstances the success or failure of the placer would have meant very little to her. He must succeed, he told himself exuberantly; his incentive now was to make her life happier and easier.

"If everything goes this summer as I hope--and expect--" he said slowly, "you need not be a 'bluff' at any hour of the day."

Her eyes widened.

"What do you mean?"

Then Bruce described the ground that he and Slim had located. He told of his confidence in it, of his efforts to raise the money to develop it, and the means by which he had accomplished it. Encouraged by her intelligent interest he talked with eager enthusiasm of his plans for working it, describing mercury traps, and undercurrents, discussing the comparative merits of pole and block, Hungarian and caribou rifles. Once he was well started it seemed to him that he must have been saving up things all his life to tell to this girl. He talked almost breathlessly as though he had much to say and an appallingly short time to say it in.

He told her about his friend, Old Felix, and about the "sassy" blue-jays and the darting kingfisher that nested in the cut-bank where he worked, of the bush-birds that shared his sour-dough bread. He tried to picture to her the black bear lumbering over the river bowlders to the service berry bush across the river, where he stood on his hind legs, cramming his mouth and watching over his shoulder, looking like a funny little man in baggy trousers. He told her of his hero, the great Agassiz, of his mother, of whom even yet he could not speak without a break in his voice, and of his father, as he remembered him, harsh, silent, interested only in his cattle.

It dawned upon Bruce suddenly that he had been talking about himself--babbling for nearly an hour.

"Why haven't you stopped me?" he demanded, pausing in the middle of a sentence and coloring to his hair. "I've been prattling like an old soldier, telling war stories in a Home. What's got into me?"

Helen laughed aloud at his dismay.

"Honest," he assured her ruefully, "I never broke out like this before. And the worst of it is that I know with the least encouragement from you I'll start again. I never wanted to talk so much in my life. I'm ransacking my brain this very minute to see if there's anything else I know that I haven't told you. Oh, yes, there is," he exclaimed putting his hand inside his coat, "there's some more money coming to you from Slim--I forgot to tell you. It isn't a great deal but--" he laid in her hand the bank-notes Sprudell had been obliged to give him in Bartlesville after having denied finding her.

Helen looked from the money to Bruce in surprised inquiry:

"But Mr. Sprudell has already given me what Freddie left."

"Oh, this is another matter--a collection I made for him after Sprudell left," he replied glibly. It was considerable satisfaction to think that Sprudell had had to pay for his perfidy and she would benefit by it.

The last thing that Helen had expected to do was to cry, but the money meant so much to her just then; her relief was so great that the tears welled into her eyes. She bit her lip hard but they kept coming, and, mortified at such an exhibition, she laid her arm on the back of the worn plush sofa and hid her face.

Tears, however embarrassing, have a way of breaking down barriers and Bruce impulsively took in his the other hand that lay in her lap.

"What is it, Miss Dunbar? Won't you tell me? If you only knew how proud and happy I should be to have you talk to me frankly. You can't imagine how I've looked forward to being allowed to do something for you. It means everything to me--far more than to you."

Bruce remembered having seen his mother cry, through homesickness and loneliness, softly, uncomplainingly, as she went about her work in the ugly frame house back there on the bleak prairie. And he remembered the roars of rage in which Peroxide Louise had voiced her jealousy. But he had seen few women cry, and now he was so sorry for her that it hurt him--he felt as though someone had laid a hand upon his heart and squeezed it.

"It's relief, I suppose," she said brokenly. "It's disgusting that money should be so important."

"And do you need it so badly?" Bruce asked gravely.

"I need it if I am to go on living." And she told him of the doctor's warning.

"You must go away at once." Brace's voice was sharp with anxiety. "I wish you could come West," he added wistfully.

"I'd love it, but it is out of the question; it's too far--too expensive."

Bruce's black eyebrows came together. His poverty had never seemed so galling, so humiliating.

"I must go." She got up quickly. "I'm late. Do my eyes look very badly?"

"They're all right." He turned abruptly for his hat. He knew that if he looked an instant longer he should kiss her! What was the matter with him anyhow? he asked himself for the second time. Was he getting maudlin? Not content with talking a strange girl to death he would put on the finishing touch by kissing her. It was high time he was getting back to the mountains!

He walked with her to the office, wishing with all his heart that the blocks were each a mile long, and in his fear lest he miss a single word she had to say he pushed divers pedestrians out of his way with so little ceremony that only his size saved him from unpleasant consequences.

It was incredible and absurd that he should find it so hard to say good-bye to a girl he had just met, but when they reached the steps it was not until he had exhausted every infantile excuse he could think of for detaining her just an instant longer that he finally said reluctantly:

"I suppose you must go, but--" he hesitated; it seemed a tremendous thing to ask of her because it meant so much to him--"I'd like to write to you if you'd answer my letter. Pardners always write to each other, you know." He was smiling, but Helen was almost startled by the wistful earnestness in his eyes. "I'd like to know how it feels," he added, "to draw something in the mail besides a mail-order catalogue--to have something to look forward to."

"To be sure--we are partners, aren't we?"

"I've had a good many but I never had one I liked better." Bruce replied with such fervor that Helen felt herself coloring.

"I don't like being a silent partner," she returned lightly. "I wish I could do my share. I'm even afraid to say I'll pray for your success for, to the present, I've never made a prayer that's been answered. But," and she sobered, "I want to tell you I do believe in you. It's like a fairy tale--too wonderful and good to be true--but I'm going to bank on it and whatever happens now--no matter how disagreeable--I shall be telling myself that it is of no importance for in a few months my hard times will all be done."

Bruce took the hand she gave him and looked deep into her eyes.

"I'll try--with all my might," he said huskily, and in his heart the simple promise was a vow.

He watched her as she ran up the steps and disappeared inside the wide doors of the office building--resenting again the thought that she had "hours"--that she had to work for pay. If all went well--if there were no accidents or miscalculations--he should be able to see her again by--certainly by October. What a long time half a year was when a person came to think of it! What a lot of hours there were in six months! Bruce sighed as he turned away.

He looked up to meet the vacant gaze of a nondescript person lounging on the curbing. It was the fourth or fifth time that morning he thought he had seen that same blank face.

"Is this town full of twins and triplets in battered derbies?" Bruce asked himself, eying the idler sharply as he passed, "or is that hombre tagging me around?" _

Read next: Chapter 17. A Practical Man

Read previous: Chapter 15. Millions!

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