XXI THE COUNTERPLOT

Following their interview with Mary, Rob McClure and Sykes concluded it expedient to make a flying visit to the city. Mary found her father in remarkably good humour on his return. So affable was his mood that she was beginning to hope for a reprieve of the fates to avert the calamity she feared. But her hope was short lived. Riding into the stable after a long evening canter through the Valley she was greeted pleasantly by her father.

"Is Bobs going good to-day?" was his interested question.

"Bobs never misses," was the reply. "He danced along in wonderful form, but I could not enter into his gaiety. I bounced around upon his back a most unresponsive dreamer."

He lifted his eyebrows.

"Surely you are not yet worrying over our conversation?"

The kindliness of his tone drew the simple admission:

"Yes, Daddy."

"Have you decided to fall in with your good prospects?"

She studied his eyes with a keenness that alarmed him. He read her answer in the wearied face and, speaking quickly, forestalled her reply.

"I will say no more about Ned Pullar," said he. "I am willing to leave it all with you. I am confident you will see after a while that it is best to forget him. Lest you should act rashly I want you to know that not only your own happiness but my future career rests wholly with you. I am now a partner in the new firm of brokers, Sykes, McClure and Sykes. Nothing but a foolish spurning of your wonderful opportunity with Chesley Sykes can hold back the most astonishing possibilities for us all."

The girl's head drooped. She realized that snares were being skilfully and cruelly laid. To her father she had become a mere chattel.

"Daddy," she said gently, "it grieves me to disobey you, to disappoint you. But once for all you must know that no inducement, however tempting to me or however disappointing to you in my refusal of it, will persuade me to do the thing you urge."

Again to her surprise, he showed no great chagrin. Instead he betrayed an over anxiety in his desire to conciliate her.

Through the long, sleepless hours of the night she brooded, striving to think a way out. The sense of personal peril grew upon her. She remembered the light in her father's eyes as he told her of his good fortune. She shuddered as she recalled it. In the morning, as she rode over the Valley, she decided to see Ned at the earliest moment.

Rob McClure was greatly alarmed at the invulnerable front the girl presented. Arrived in his office, he drew a bundle of documents from a drawer and examined them. The title fascinated him. He rocked back in his chair to con its lure when his eyes caught the vision of the two faces above. Suddenly he realized that upon the inscrutable and inviolable will behind the sweet face of Mary rested his fortune. With Mary and not with himself rested the decision that should ratify or destroy his arrangement with Sykes. It all depended upon the girl above with the innocent face. Could he leave it to her? A keen study of the pure eye and firm brow shook his confidence in a desirable outcome. Rising, he leaned toward the picture with an abandon that betrayed his intensity of desire.

"Mary!" he whispered. "You will throw me down. I feel it. Sykes is right. There is no other way. The little chit is blind. I shall be forced to do it. I will see Sykes. She will surrender when there is nothing else to do."

This colloquy with the silent photograph had momentous results for the fair original.

At noon there was the clatter of hoofs outside the Pullar homestead and the winding of a silvery halloo. Ned went out.

"To saddle!" cried Mary as Ned appeared. "Get Darkey and come! We'll ride at high noon! We'll brew a tale on the King's Highway."

Aware that some serious matter prompted Mary's visit Ned was up on Darkey in a trice and they rode out on an endless trail of the undulating plain. When deep out in the lonely stretch Mary drew Bobs to a walk.

"Ned," she said, "are you prepared for a most unusual proposition?"

"Anything you propose will meet with my entire support."

"Then hear me. The danger you feared so long ago is imminent. Father has learned of our engagement from the lips of Chesley Sykes. I have talked with Father. You can easily surmise what that interview involved. But a few minutes before Sykes had submitted a personal offer to the present rider of Bobs. The offer was declined respectfully if summarily. Father has backed his friend and forbids me you, Ned. I am to instantly and casually forget you. In the selfsame instant I am to foster the tenderest regard for Sykes. This very interview is a disobedience."

She paused, looking up at Ned, her face a compound of anxiety and mischief. Ned sent Darkey to Bobs' flank and threw his arm about the lithe little rider.

"Mary," said he, "you are a brave girl. Will you marry me to-day? This very day?"

"Hush, Ned!" was her cry as she placed her hand upon his lips. "You are stealing my fire. That is my proposition. Only I put it this way. Will you marry me not to-day or to-morrow but the day after?"

"I'll marry you to-day and to-morrow and the day after," was the happy response. "But why put it off?"

"Now I have broken the ice, Ned, it will be easier. I am a frightened little prairie chicken running for cover. I was going to ask you to do this trifling thing for me the day after to-morrow when you anticipated by two days. It is very good of my big farmer to ask no questions and to be willing even to advance dates, but I have a little to say in justification of this bold visit.

"Since my interview with Father the firm of Sykes and Sykes has become the firm of Sykes, McClure and Sykes. Last night Father informed me that if I throw down Chesley Sykes I therewith crash to the ground his whole brilliant future—that is Father's."

"You are in a hard place, Mary," said Ned solicitously. "It is troubling you terribly despite your brave front. You are grieving, I know."

"A little worried, Ned," was the simple acknowledgment. "It has been difficult and it will be. It is not Father's anger that has driven me to you. It is abject fear. I am afraid of Sykes—and Father. I turn down Sykes. It does not anger him. He remains congenial. I withstand Father and promise to wreck his whole career. He is scarcely disturbed. Why are they not provoked? Because they are not. They are confident of realizing the thing they want. Ned, I have become such a frightened little goose that I carry this."

She drew an automatic gun from some mysterious repository in the breast of her riding habit. At sight of the weapon Ned's eyes flashed their dangerous light.

"You are wise to provide defense," said he soberly, "since your enemy is Sykes. Your intuition has not led you astray. For all his suavity and culture Sykes is a savage. He is the monster our civilization rears in the lap of luxury. He has been trained to expect full satiation of his desires. He has a maxim that he gets what he goes after. He knows utterly nothing of self-mastery. He has never denied himself. He never will. Nor will he yield to fate. You are in great danger and have been for months. Some conspiracy is on foot. Its execution may be a matter of but a few hours. There is but one thing to do, Mary. You must marry me to-day."

The girl looked into his eyes.

"I am glad you understand," said she. "I will marry you, Ned, but at the time I have proposed. They shall lead me into nothing undesirable before then. To-day, to-night I want to myself to think it all out. To-morrow I shall teach and to-morrow night I shall tell all to Mother and consult with her. She will agree to our marriage upon 'the day after.'"

Ned demurred but to no purpose.

"Since you insist on your date," said Ned with a smile, "will you grant me the privilege of planning the elopement?"

"Your plans first. This is my escapade."

"Very well. The 'day after' you ride out to The Craggs as usual. I shall meet you at the Peak of the Buffalo Trails and together we shall ride to The Fort. It is only a canter of twenty miles. There we shall be wed in the parsonage of Oliver Darwin. He is our good friend. Father will go over to the school and inform the children that Miss McClure is 'indisposed.'"

"My saddle for a bridal coach! Ned! That is an inspiration. We'll ride the winding trail into the mystic West."

She held her lips to him and their kiss was the pure caress of a noble passion.

That night Ned rode to The Fort and made full arrangements, reaching home by the gray light of dawn.