CHAPTER XXII

The sensation which came over the gentle girl as she went out into the cool morning air was indescribable. She felt almost as if the balmy sunlight were some joy-giving fluid to be drunk like wine. Her step was buoyant. She told herself that a veritable miracle had happened. She could not explain it, but it had happened. Her unspoken prayer constantly framed in heart-sinking desire had been answered. She didn't want aid to come from Albert Frazier, and it had not.

This thought reminded her that she must try to see him before he had put himself to the trouble of getting the money at the bank. So she hastened toward the square.

She was soon entering the bank, and in the little vestibule she saw Frazier in earnest conversation with an employee of the bank. Frazier's heavy brow was clouded over as with displeasure. He failed to note her presence at first, and she heard him say, angrily:

"I don't see any necessity of waiting for him. It is a mere matter of form, anyway. I'm in a hurry right now."

The embarrassed clerk was about to reply when Frazier noticed Mary and turned to meet her, his hat in hand.

"I've been delayed by these idiots," he said, fuming. "I've always had my check honored without delay, but simply because I overchecked a little yesterday they want me to wait and see the president. Bosh! I'll show them a thing or two! We need another bank here, anyway, and I'll get one started. These fellows have a monopoly and are getting entirely too particular. I suppose you got tired waiting for me, and—"

"No, it wasn't that," Mary corrected him. "The Keiths have already got the money."

"Got the money!" he repeated. He took her arm, and in almost benumbed astonishment led her out to his buggy in front. She explained as well as she could, and noted the slow look of sullen chagrin steal over his face. "And you say they don't know who sent it? That sounds fishy to me. Who ever heard of such a thing?"

Mary was unable to make an adequate reply. His face was clouded over and growing darker every minute.

"Well," he asked, "what are you going to do this morning?"

"I want to call on Mrs. Quinby at the hotel," she answered. "I promised to come the next time I was in town. You mustn't bother about me. I shall take dinner with her."

As she spoke Mary turned toward the hotel, and Frazier walked along with her, taking care to be on the outside of the pavement, as was the custom. The look of disappointed anger was leaving his face and a shrewd expression was taking its place.

"I'll be around to take you home after dinner, then," he remarked, his glance failing to meet her upturned eyes. "The truth is, I must see my brother and have a roundabout chat with him in regard to the boys."

"In regard to them?" Mary said, in a startled undertone.

"Yes. It is like this," he went on, his shrewd expression deepening. "Things are not quite in as good shape as they were, little girl. I didn't intend to tell you yet, but I reckon I may as well. It seems that the grand jury has been criticizing my brother in a roundabout way for not making a more thorough effort to—to locate the boys, and I'm a little bit afraid that he may telegraph to Texas and make inquiry of the man whose name was signed to the letter I showed him. I'll have to watch him closely and try to prevent that, you know."

"Oh!" Mary muttered, in alarm. "Then he might—"

"Yes, if he got on to that trick he would be furious and maybe see through the whole thing—find out about my interest in you and all the rest. He saw me with you the other day, and I had to pretend that I was pumping you on the sly to help him locate your brothers. It went down, for he is none too bright, but there is no telling when he may suspicion the truth and then, you see, he might take a notion to search the mountains. That would be bad, wouldn't it? But I'm going to work hard to-day to throw him off. If he should happen to see us together I'll tell him—you see, he knows I've had financial deals with your father—I'll tell him that you came to pay me some interest or something like that. As a last resort I may—I don't say it would come to that—but as a last resort I may just come out flat with the truth and tell him, you know, that you are—well, what you are to me, and throw our case on his mercy. I don't know how he would act about it, I'm sure, but he might, you know, give the boys a chance to—to—"

He seemed unable to proceed further in his crude diplomacy, and Mary, blinded by terror to his designs, suppressed a deep sigh, and with tight lips remained silent. They were now at the entrance of the hotel.

"I'll find out all I can," he said, as he was leaving her, "and will let you know when I come for you this afternoon. By the way, I'll drive around to the rear door, and we can go out by the back street without passing through the square. We have to be very careful. It is a wonder folks haven't got on to my trips out your way, but they haven't so far, it seems, and they must not just now. It might upset things awfully."

Mary went into the office of the hotel. Sam Lee was behind the counter, and came to her quickly.

"How d' do, Miss Mary?" he cried, flushing to the roots of his smoothly matted hair, which lay over his eyebrows like the bang of a mountain school-girl. "Mrs. Quinby is out the back way, buying a load of frying-chickens from a farmer. She will be in in a minute. Will you wait here, or will you go up to the parlor?"

Mary decided to go to the parlor, dreading the entrance of some acquaintance and not being in the mood for greetings or conversation. Sam accompanied her, gallantly opening the parlor door and going in to raise the blinds of the shaded windows.

"Oh, by the way, Miss Mary," he said, as he was about to leave, "how did you come out with that circus man I told you about that wanted to do farm work?"

"Very well," the girl replied.

"And he is satisfactory?"

"Yes, quite," Mary answered.

"I was wondering how he would suit," Lee pursued, thoughtfully, "for he seemed a sort of a misfit to me. You see, I meet all sorts of characters from everywhere, almost, and I'd never have put him down as a good farm-hand."

"He does very well," Mary said, evasively. "We are entirely satisfied."

"Well, he is odd in many ways," Lee continued, observantly. "He never comes in town in the daytime, but always at night, and late at that. He was here last night about midnight. There was a queer chap here that refused to register. I say refused, but I can't say he did that, either, for he simply paid for a whole day in advance at the transient rate and was assigned a room. We always require a guest to register, but he was so busy asking questions about the people and the town that I overlooked it. Well, if that looks odd, it seems a little more so that your man should come in last night, wake me up after twelve, and want to see the fellow. The funny part of it was that when I asked him who he wanted to see he didn't know, or pretended that he didn't, anyway. He set in to describe him—said he had on a dark-gray sack-suit and wore a green necktie, and the like. It was No. 37 that he was after, all right, and I showed him up to the room. They must have had an appointment, for Thirty-seven was up, reading a paper, when I knocked. Then I remembered that he had questioned me about the circus and the men that dropped out here. I remembered then that I told him about getting Brown a job on your farm. It was all odd, but I run across so many strange things here in this joint that I have quit keeping track of 'em. However—now I hope you will take this as coming from a friend, Miss Mary?—I believe, if I was you, and in as much trouble as you are already, why, I'd be on my guard with that fellow Brown. I heard the sheriff talking one day to his brother about the outlaws that was with that circus, and I must say, while I am not a detective of the first water, I think for a common hired hand your Mr. Brown is a mystery. I noticed that the two did not shake hands, and that looked as though they had met that day before. They just waited till I left, and then the man in the gray suit closed the door. They must have stayed there an hour or more, and then—now comes the strange part—they come down, passed through the office, and went out on the square. They may have been gone an hour when the fellow came back alone and slipped up to his room."

"A dark-gray suit!" Mary said to herself, recalling Mrs. Keith's description of the mysterious visitor at her house, "and a friend of Mr. Brown!" Her heart was beating rapidly now. She was afraid that the clerk would note the excitement which was fast mastering her, and she abruptly changed the subject. Going to the window, she looked out, and then said:

"I see Mrs. Quinby is coming in. Please tell her that I am up here, but ask her not to hurry on my account."

"I will—I'll do that, Miss Mary," said Lee, backing from the room, a mystified look in his observant eyes. "Yes, I'll tell her, and she will be right up."