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CHAPTER VII


Somewhere within the soul of civilized woman burns a craving for that
higher power of sensation which we dub sensationalism. Girls of Io
Welland's upbringing live in an atmosphere which fosters it. To outshine
their rivals in the startling things which they do, always within
accepted limits, is an important and exciting phase of existence. Io had
run away to marry the future Duke of Carfax, partly through the charm
which a reckless, headlong, and romantic personality imposed upon her,
but largely for the excitement of a reckless, headlong, and romantic
escapade. The tragic interposition of the wreck seemed to her present
consciousness, cooled and sobered by the spacious peace of the desert,
to have been providential.

Despite her disclaimer made to Banneker she felt, deep within the placid
acceptances of subconsciousness, that the destruction of a train was not
too much for a considerate Providence to undertake on behalf of her
petted and important self. She clearly realized that she had had a
narrow escape from Holmesley; that his attraction for her was transient
and unsubstantial, a surface magnetism without real value or promise.

In her revulsion of feeling she thought affectionately of Delavan Eyre.
There lay the safe basis of habitude, common interests, settled liking.
True, he bored her at times with his unimpeachable good-nature, his easy
self-assurance that everything was and always would be "all right," and
nothing "worth bothering over."

If he knew of her escapade, that would at least shake him out of his
soft and well-lined rut. Indeed, Io was frank enough with herself to
admit that a perverse desire to explode a bomb under her imperturbable
and too-assured suitor had been an element in her projected elopement.
Never would that bomb explode. It would not even fizzle enough to alarm
Eyre or her family. For not a soul knew of the frustrated scheme, except
Holmesley and the reliable friend in Paradiso whom she was to visit; not
her father, Sims Welland, traveling in Europe on business, nor her aunt,
Mrs. Thatcher Forbes, in whose charge she had been left. Ostensibly she
had been going to visit the Westerleys, that was all: Mrs. Forbes's
misgivings as to a twenty-year-old girl crossing the continent alone had
been unavailing against Io's calm willfulness.

Well, she would go back and marry Del Eyre, and be comfortable ever
after. After all, liking and comprehension were a sounder foundation for
matrimony than the perishable glamour of an attraction like Holmesley's.
Any sensible person would know that. She wished that she had some older
and more experienced woman to talk it out with. Miss Van Arsdale, if
only she knew her a little better....

Camilla Van Arsdale, even on so casual an acquaintance, would have told
Io, reckoning with the slumbering fire in her eyes, and the sensitive
and passionate turn of the lips, but still more with the subtle and
significant emanation of a femininity as yet unawakened to itself, that
for her to marry on the pallid expectancies of mere liking would be to
invite disaster and challenge ruin.

Meantime Io wanted to rest and think.

Time enough for that was to be hers, it appeared. Her first night as a
guest had been spent in a semi-enclosed porch, to which every breeze
wafted the spicy and restful balm of the wet pines. Io's hot brain
cooled itself in that peace. Quite with a feeling of welcome she
accepted the windy downpour which came with the morning to keep her
indoors, as if it were a friendly and opportune jailer. Reaction from
the mental strain and the physical shock had set in. She wanted only, as
she expressed it to her hostess, to "laze" for a while.

"Then this is the ideal spot for you," Miss Van Arsdale answered her.
"I'm going to ride over to town."

"In this gale?" asked the surprised girl.

"Oh, I'm weather-proof. Tell Pedro not to wait luncheon for me. And keep
an eye on him if you want anything fit to eat. He's the worst cook west
of the plains. You'll find books, and the piano to amuse you when you
get up."

She rode away, straight and supple in the saddle, and Io went back to
sleep again. Halfway to her destination, Miss Van Arsdale's
woods-trained ear caught the sound of another horse's hooves, taking a
short cut across a bend in the trail. To her halloo, Banneker's clear
voice responded. She waited and presently he rode up to her.

"Come back with me," she invited after acknowledging his greeting.

"I was going over to see Miss Welland."

"Wait until to-morrow. She is resting."

A shade of disappointment crossed his face. "All right," he agreed. "I
wanted to tell her that her messages got off all right."

"I'll tell her when I go back."

"That'll be just as well," he answered reluctantly. "How is she
feeling?"

"Exhausted. She's been under severe strain."

"Oughtn't she to have a doctor? I could ride--"

"She won't listen to it. And I think her head is all right now. But she
ought to have complete rest for several days."

"Well, I'm likely to be busy enough," he said simply. "The schedule is
all shot to pieces, and, unless this rain lets up, we'll have more track
out. What do you think of it?"

Miss Van Arsdale looked up through the thrashing pines to the rush of
the gray-black clouds. "I think we're in for a siege of it," was her
pronouncement.

They rode along single file in the narrow trail until they emerged into
the open. Then Banneker's horse moved forward, neck and neck with the
other. Miss Van Arsdale reined down her uneasy roan.

"Ban."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever seen anything like her before?"

"Only on the stage."

She smiled. "What do you think of her?"

"I hardly know how to express it," he answered frankly, though
hesitantly. "She makes me think of all the poetry I've ever read."

"That's dangerous. Ban, have you any idea what kind of a girl she is?"

"What kind?" he repeated. He looked startled.

"Of course you haven't. How should you? I'm going to tell you."

"Do you know her, Miss Camilla?"

"As well as if she were my own sister. That is, I know her type. It's
common enough."

"It can't be," he protested eagerly.

"Oh, yes! The type is. She is an exquisite specimen of it; that's all.
Listen, Ban. Io Welland is the petted and clever and willful daughter of
a rich man; a very rich man he would be reckoned out here. She lives in
a world as remote from this as the moon."

"Of course. I realize that."

"It's well that you do. And she's as casual a visitant here as if she
had floated down on one moonbeam and would float back on the next."

"She'll have to, to get out of here if this rain keeps up," observed the
station-agent grimly.

"I wish she would," returned Miss Van Arsdale.

"Is she in your way?"

"I shouldn't mind that if I could keep her out of yours," she answered
bluntly.

Banneker turned a placid and smiling face to her. "You think I'm a fool,
don't you, Miss Camilla?"

"I think that Io Welland, without ill-intent at all, but with a period
of idleness on her hands, is a dangerous creature to have around. She's
too lovely and, I think, too restless a spirit."

"She's lovely, all right," assented Banneker.

"Well; I've warned you, Ban," returned his friend in slightly dispirited
tones.

"What do you want me to do? Keep away from your place? I'll do whatever
you say. But it's all nonsense."

"I dare say it is," sighed Miss Van Arsdale. "Forget that I've said it,
Ban. Meddling is a thankless business."

"You could never meddle as far as I'm concerned," said Banneker warmly.
"I'm a little worried," he added thoughtfully, "about not reporting her
as found to the company. What do you think?"

"Too official a question for me. You'll have to settle that for
yourself."

"How long does she intend to stay?"

"I don't know. But a girl of her breeding and habits would hardly settle
herself on a stranger for very long unless a point were made of urging
her."

"And you won't do that?"

"I certainly shall not!"

"No; I suppose not. You've been awfully good to her."

"Hospitality to the shipwrecked," smiled Miss Van Arsdale as she crossed
the track toward the village.

Late afternoon, darkening into wilder winds and harsher rain, brought
the hostess back to her lodge dripping and weary. On a bearskin before
the smouldering fire lay the girl, her fingers intertwined behind her
head, her eyes half closed and dreamy. Without directly responding to
the other's salutation she said:

"Miss Van Arsdale, will you be very good to me?"

"What is it?"

"I'm tired," said Io. "So tired!"

"Stay, of course," responded the hostess, answering the implication
heartily, "as long as you will."

"Only two or three days, until I recover the will to do something.
You're awfully kind." Io looked very young and childlike, with her
languid, mobile face irradiated by the half-light of the fire. "Perhaps
you'll play for me sometime."

"Of course. Now, if you like. As soon as the chill gets out of my
hands."

"Thank you. And sing?" suggested the girl diffidently.

A fierce contraction of pain marred the serenity of the older woman's
face. "No," she said harshly. "I sing for no one."

"I'm sorry," murmured the girl.

"What have you been doing all day?" asked Miss Van Arsdale, holding out
her hands toward the fire.

"Resting. Thinking. Scaring myself with bogy-thoughts of what I've
escaped." Io smiled and sighed. "I hadn't known how worn out I was until
I woke up this morning. I don't think I ever before realized the meaning
of refuge."

"You'll recover from the need of it soon enough," promised the other.
She crossed to the piano. "What kind of music do you want? No; don't
tell me. I should be able to guess." Half turning on the bench she gazed
speculatively at the lax figure on the rug. "Chopin, I think. I've
guessed right? Well, I don't think I shall play you Chopin to-day. You
don't need that kind of--of--well, excitation."

Musing for a moment over a soft mingling of chords she began with a
little ripple of melody, MacDowell's lovely, hurrying, buoyant
"Improvisation," with its aeolian vibrancies, its light, bright surges
of sound, sinking at the last into cradled restfulness. Without pause or
transition she passed on to Grieg; the wistful, remote appeal of the
strangely misnamed "Erotique," plaintive, solemn, and in the fulfillment
almost hymnal: the brusque pursuing minors of the wedding music, and the
diamond-shower of notes of the sun-path song, bleak, piercing, Northern
sunlight imprisoned in melody. Then, the majestic swing of ;se's
death-chant, glorious and mystical.

"Are you asleep?" asked the player, speaking through the chords.

"No," answered Io's tremulous voice. "I'm being very unhappy. I love
it!"

Bang! It was a musical detonation, followed by a volley of chords and
then a wild, swirling waltz; and Miss Van Arsdale jumped up and stood
over her guest. "There!" she said. "That's better than letting you
pamper yourself with the indulgence of unhappiness."

"But I want to be unhappy," pouted Io. "I want to be pampered."

"Naturally. You always will be, I expect, as long as there are men in
the world to do your bidding. However, I must see to supper."

So for two days Io Welland lolled and lazed and listened to Miss Van
Arsdale's music, or read, or took little walks between showers. No
further mention was made by her hostess of the circumstances of the
visit. She was a reticent woman; almost saturnine, Io decided, though
her perfect and effortless courtesy preserved her from being
antipathetic to any one beneath her own roof. How much her silence as to
the unusual situation was inspired by consideration for her guest, how
much due to natural reserve, Io could not estimate.

A little less reticence would have been grateful to her as the hours
spun out and she felt her own spirit expand slowly in the calm. It was
she who introduced the subject of Banneker.

"Our quaint young station-agent seems to have abandoned his
responsibilities so far as I'm concerned," she observed.

"Because he hasn't come to see you?"

"Yes. He said he would."

"I told him not to."

"I see," said Io, after thinking it over. "Is he a little--just a wee,
little bit queer in his head?"

"He's one of the sanest persons I've ever known. And I want him to stay
so."

"I see again," stated the girl.

"So you thought him a bit unbalanced? That _is_ amusing." That the
hostess meant the adjective in good faith was proved by her quiet
laughter.

Io regarded her speculatively and with suspicion. "He asked the same
about me, I suppose." Such was her interpretation of the laugh.

"But he gave you credit for being only temporarily deranged."

"Either he or I ought to be up for examination by a medical board,"
stated the girl poutingly. "One of us must be crazy. The night that I
stole his molasses pie--it was pretty awful pie, but I was starved--I
stumbled over something in the darkness and fell into it with an awful
clatter. What do you suppose it was?"

"I think I could guess," smiled the other.

"Not unless you knew. Personally I couldn't believe it. It felt like a
boat, and it rocked like a boat, and there were the seats and the oars.
I could feel them. A steel boat! Miss Van Arsdale, it isn't reasonable."

"Why isn't it reasonable?'

"I looked on the map in his room and there isn't so much as a mud-puddle
within miles and miles and miles. Is there?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then what does he want of a steel boat?"

"Ask him."

"It might stir him up. They get violent if you question their pet
lunacies, don't they?"

"It's quite simple. Ban is just an incurable romanticist. He loves the
water. And his repository of romance is the catalogue of Sears, Roebuck
and Co. When the new issue came, with an entrancing illustration of a
fully equipped steel boat, he simply couldn't stand it. He had to have
one, to remind him that some day he would be going back to the coast
lagoons.... Does that sound to you like a fool?"

"No; it sounds delicious," declared the girl with a ripple of mirth.
"What a wonderful person! I'm going over to see him to-morrow. May I?"

"My dear; I have no control over your actions."

"Have you made any other plans for me to-morrow morning?" inquired Miss
Welland in a prim and social tone, belied by the dancing light in her
eyes.

"I've told you that he was romantic," warned the other.

"What higher recommendation could there be? I shall sit in the boat with
him and talk nautical language. Has he a yachting cap? Oh, do tell me
that he has a yachting cap!"

Miss Van Arsdale, smiling, shook her head, but her eyes were troubled.
There was compunction in Io's next remark.

"I'm really going over to see about accommodations. Sooner or later I
must face the music--meaning Carty. I'm fit enough now, thanks to you."

"Wouldn't an Eastern trip be safer?" suggested her hostess.

"An Eastern trip would be easier. But I've made my break, and it's in
the rules, as I understand them, that I've got to see it through. If he
can get me now"--she gave a little shrug--"but he can't. I've come to my
senses."

Sunlight pale, dubious, filtering through the shaken cloud veils,
ushered in the morning. Meager of promise though it was, Io's spirits
brightened. Declining the offer of a horse in favor of a pocket compass,
she set out afoot, not taking the trail, but forging straight through
the heavy forest for the line of desert. Around her, brisk and busy
flocks of pi;on jays darted and twittered confidentially. The warm spice
of the pines was sweet in her nostrils. Little stirrings and rustlings
just beyond the reach of vision delightfully and provocatively suggested
the interest which she was inspiring by her invasion among the lesser
denizens of the place. The sweetness and intimacy of an unknown life
surrounded her. She sang happily as she strode, lithe and strong and
throbbing with unfulfilled energies and potencies, through the
springtide of the woods.

But when she emerged upon the desert, she fell silent. A spaciousness as
of endless vistas enthralled and, a little, awed her. On all sides were
ranged the disordered ranks of the cacti, stricken into immobility in
the very act of reconstituting their columns, so that they gave the
effect of a discord checked on the verge of its resolution into form and
harmony, yet with a weird and distorted beauty of its own. From a little
distance, there came a murmur of love-words. Io moved softly forward,
peering curiously, and from the arc of a wide curving ocatilla two wild
doves sprang, leaving the branch all aquiver. Bolder than his companions
of the air, a cactus owl, perched upon the highest column of a great
green candelabrum, viewed her with a steady detachment, "sleepless, with
cold, commemorative eyes." The girl gave back look for look, into the
big, hard, unwavering circles.

"You're a funny little bird," said she. "Say something!"

Like his congener of the hortatory poem, the owl held his peace.

"Perhaps you're a stuffed little bird," said Io, "and this not a real
desert at all, but a National Park or something, full of educational
specimens."

She walked past the occupant of the cactus, and his head, turning,
followed her with the slow, methodical movement of a toy mechanism.

"You give me a crick in my neck," protested the intruder plaintively.
"Now, I'll step over behind you and you'll _have_ to move or stop
watching me."

She walked behind the watcher. The eyes continued to hold her in direct
range.

"Now," said Io, "I know where the idea for that horrid advertisement
that always follows you with its finger came from. However, I'll fix
you."

She fetched a deliberate circle. The bird's eyes followed her without
cessation. Yet his feet and body remained motionless. Only the head had
turned. That had made a complete revolution.

"This is a very queer desert," gasped Io. "It's bewitched. Or am I? Now,
I'm going to walk once more around you, little owl, or mighty magician,
whichever you are. And after I've completely turned your head, you'll
fall at my feet. Or else..."

Again she walked around the feathered center of the circle. The head
followed her, turning with a steady and uninterrupted motion, on its
pivot. Io took a silver dime from her purse.

"Heaven save us from the powers of evil!" she said appreciatively.
"Aroint thee, witch!"

She threw the coin at the cactus.

"Chrr-rr-rrum!" burbled the owl, and flew away.

"I'm dizzy," said Io. "I wonder if the owl is an omen and whether the
other inhabitants of this desert are like him; however much you turn
their heads, they won't fall for you. Charms and counter-charms!... Be a
good child, Io," she admonished herself. "Haven't you got yourself into
enough trouble with your deviltries? I can't help it," she defended
herself. "When I see a new and interesting specimen, I've just _got_ to
investigate its nature and habits. It's an inherited scientific spirit,
I suppose. And he is new, and awfully interesting--even if he is only a
station-agent." Wherefrom it will be perceived that her thoughts had
veered from the cactus owl, to another perplexing local phenomenon.

The glaring line of the railroad right-of-way rose before her feet, a
discordant note of rigidity and order in the confused prodigality of
desert growth. Io turned away from it, but followed its line until she
reached the station. No sign of life greeted her. The door was locked,
and the portable house unresponsive to her knocking. Presently, however,
she heard the steady click of the telegraph instrument and, looking
through the half-open office window, saw Banneker absorbed in his work.

"Good-morning," she called.

Without looking up he gave back her greeting in an absent echo.

"As you didn't come to see me, I've come to see you," was her next
attempt.

Did he nod? Or had he made no motion at all?

"I've come to ask important questions about trains," she pursued, a
little aggrieved by his indifference to her presence.

No reply from the intent worker.

"And 'tell sad stories of the death of kings,'" she quoted with a fairy
chuckle. She thought that she saw a small contortion pass over his
features, only to be banished at once. He had retired within the walls
of that impassive and inscrutable reserve which minor railroad officials
can at will erect between themselves and the lay public. Only the broken
rhythms of the telegraph ticker relieved the silence and furnished the
justification.

A little piqued but more amused, for she was far too confident of
herself to feel snubbed, the girl waited smilingly. Presently she said
in silken tones:

"When you're quite through and can devote a little attention to
insignificant me, I shall perhaps be sitting on the sunny corner of the
platform, or perhaps I shall be gone forever."

But she was not gone when, ten minutes later, Banneker came out. He
looked tired.

"You know, you weren't very polite to me," she remarked, glancing at him
slantwise as he stood before her.

If she expected apologies, she was disappointed, and perhaps thought
none the less of him for his dereliction.

"There's trouble all up and down the line," he said. "Nothing like a
schedule left west of Allbright. Two passenger trains have come through,
though. Would you like to see a paper? It's in my office."

"Goodness, no! Why should I want a newspaper here? I haven't time for
it. I want to see the world"--she swept a little, indicating hand about
her; "all that I can take in in a day."

"A day?" he echoed.

"Yes. I'm going to-morrow."

"That's as may be. Ten to one there's no space to be had."

"Surely you can get something for me. A section will do if you can't get
a stateroom."

He smiled. "The president of the road might get a stateroom. I doubt if
anybody else could even land an upper. Of course I'll do my best. But
it's a question when there'll be another train through."

"What ails your road?" she demanded indignantly. "Is it just stuck
together with glue?"

"You've never seen this desert country when it springs a leak. It can
develop a few hundred Niagaras at the shortest notice of any place I
know."

"But it isn't leaking now," she objected.

He turned his face to the softly diffused sunlight. "To be continued.
The storm isn't over yet, according to the way I feel about it. Weather
reports say so, too."

"Then take me for a walk!" she cried. "I'm tired of rain and I want to
go over and lean against that lovely white mountain."

"Well, it's only sixty miles away," he answered. "Perhaps you'd better
take some grub along or you might get hungry."

"Aren't you coming with me?"

"This is my busy morning. If it were afternoon, now--"

"Very well. Since you are so urgent, I _will_ stay to luncheon. I'll
even get it up myself if you'll let me into the shack."

"That's a go!" said Banneker heartily. "What about your horse?"

"I walked over."

"No; did you?" He turned thoughtful, and his next observation had a
slightly troubled ring. "Have you got a gun?"

"A gun? Oh, you mean a pistol. No; I haven't. Why should I?"

He shook his head. "This is no time to be out in the open without a gun.
They had a dance at the Sick Coyote in Manzanita last night, and
there'll be some tough specimens drifting along homeward all day."

"Do you carry a gun?"

"I would if I were going about with you."

"Then you can loan me yours to go home with this afternoon," she said
lightly.

"Oh, I'll take you back. Just now I've got some odds and ends that will
take a couple of hours to clear up. You'll find plenty to read in the
shack, such as it is."

Thus casually dismissed, Io murmured a "Thank you" which was not as meek
as it sounded, and withdrew to rummage among the canned edibles drawn
from the inexhaustible stock of Sears-Roebuck. Having laid out a
selection, housewifely, and looked to the oil stove derived from the
same source, she turned with some curiosity to the mental pabulum with
which this strange young hermit had provided himself. Would this, too,
bear the mail-order imprint and testify to mail-order standards? At
first glance the answer appeared to be affirmative. The top shelf of the
home-made case sagged with the ineffable slusheries of that most popular
and pious of novelists, Harvey Wheelwright. Near by, "How to Behave on
All Occasions" held forth its unimpeachable precepts, while a little
beyond, "Botany Made Easy" and "The Perfect Letter Writer" proffered
further aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant
Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking
compartment. But just below--Io was tempted to rub her eyes--stood
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably
jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same
author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's
translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io
touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish
volume so worn and obscured that she at once took it down and made
explorative entry. She was still deep in it when the owner arrived.

"Have you found enough to keep you amused?"

She looked up from the pages and seemed to take him all in anew before
answering. "Hardly the word. Bewildered would be nearer the feeling."

"It's a queerish library, I suppose," he said apologetically.

"If I believed in dual personality--" she began; but broke off to hold
up the bulky veteran. "Where did you get 'The Undying Voices'?"

"Oh, that's a windfall. What a bully title for a collection of the great
poetries, isn't it!"

She nodded, one caressing hand on the open book, the other propping her
chin as she kept the clear wonder of her eyes upon him.

"It makes you think of singers making harmony together in a great open
space. I'd like to know the man who made the selections," he concluded.

"What kind of a windfall?" she asked.

"A real one. Pullman travelers sometimes prop their windows open with
books. You can see the window-mark on the cover of this one. I found it
two miles out, beside the right-of-way. There was no name in it, so I
kept it. It's the book I read most except one."

"What's the one?"

He laughed, holding up the still more corpulent Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

"Ah," said she gravely. "That accounts, I suppose, for the top shelf."

"Yes, mostly."

"Do you like them? The Conscientious Improvers, I mean?"

"I think they're bunk."

"Then why did you get them?"

"Oh, I suppose I was looking for something," he returned; and though his
tone was careless, she noticed for the first time a tinge of
self-consciousness.

"Did you find it there?"

"No. It isn't there."

"Here?" She laid both hands on the "windfall."

His face lighted subtly.

"It _is_ there, isn't it! If one has the sense to get it out."

"I wonder," mused the girl. And again, "I wonder." She rose, and taking
out "March Hares" held it up. "I could hardly believe this when I saw
it. Did it also drop out of a car window?"

"No. I never heard of that until I wrote for it. I wrote to a Boston
bookstore that I'd heard about and told 'em I wanted two books to cheer
up a fool with the blues, and another to take him into a strange
world--and keep the change out of five dollars. They sent me 'The Bab
Ballads' and this, and 'Lavengro.'"

"Oh, how I'd like to see that letter! If the bookstore has an ounce of
real bookitude about it, they've got it preserved in lavender! And what
do you think of 'March Hares'?"

"Did you ever read any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?" he
questioned in turn.

"Now," thought Io, "he is going to compare Frederic to Wheelwright, and
I shall abandon him to his fate forever. So here's his chance ... I
have," she replied aloud.

"It's funny," ruminated Banneker. "Mr. Wheelwright writes about the kind
of things that might happen any day, and probably do happen, and yet you
don't believe a word of it. 'March Hares'--well, it just couldn't
happen; but what do you care while you're in it! It seems realer than
any of the dull things outside it. That's the literary part of it, I
suppose, isn't it?"

"That's the magic of it," returned Io, with a little, half-suppressed
crow of delight. "Are you magic, too, Mr. Banneker?"

"Me? I'm hungry," said he.

"Forgive the cook!" she cried. "But just one thing more. Will you lend
me the poetry book?"

"It's all marked up," he objected, flushing.

"Are you afraid that I'll surprise your inmost secrets?" she taunted.
"They'd be safe. I can be close-mouthed, even though I've been
chattering like a sparrow."

"Take it, of course," he said. "I suppose I've marked all the wrong
things."

"So far," she laughed, "you're batting one hundred per cent as a
literary critic." She poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to him.
"What do you think of my coffee?"

He tasted it consideringly; then gave a serious verdict. "Pretty bad."

"Really! I suppose it isn't according to the mail-order book recipe."

"It's muddy and it's weak."

"Are you always so frank in your expression of views?"

"Well, you asked me."

"Would you answer as plainly whatever I asked you?"

"Certainly. I'd have too much respect for you not to."

She opened wide eyes at this. Then provocatively: "What do you think of
me, Mr. Banneker?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why not?" she teased.

"I don't know you well enough to give an opinion."

"You know me as well as you ever will."

"Very likely."

"Well, a snap judgment, for what it's worth.... What are you doing
there?"

"Making more coffee."

Io stamped her foot. "You're the most enraging man I ever met."

"It's quite unintentional," he replied patiently, but with no hint of
compunction. "You may drink yours and I'll drink mine."

"You're only making it worse!"

"Very well; then I'll drink yours if you like."

"And say it's good."

"But what's the use?"

"And say it's good," insisted Io.

"It's marvelous," agreed her unsmiling host.

Far from being satisfied with words and tone, which were correctness
itself, Io was insensately exasperated.

"You're treating me like a child," she charged.

"How do you want me to treat you?"

"As a woman," she flashed, and was suddenly appalled to feel the blood
flush incredibly to her cheeks.

If he noted the phenomenon, he gave no sign, simply assenting with his
customary equanimity. During the luncheon she chattered vaguely. She was
in two minds about calling off the projected walk. As he set aside his
half-emptied cup of coffee--not even tactful enough to finish it out of
compliment to her brew--Banneker said:

"Up beyond the turn yonder the right-of-way crosses an arroyo. I want to
take a look at it. We can cut through the woods to get there. Are you
good for three miles?"

"For a hundred!" cried Io.

The wine of life was potent in her veins.




CHAPTER VIII


Before the walk was over, Io knew Banneker as she had never before, in
her surrounded and restricted life, known any man; the character and
evolution and essence of him. Yet with all his frankness, the rare,
simple, and generous outgiving of a naturally rather silent nature
yielding itself to an unrecognized but overmastering influence, he
retained the charm of inner mystery. Her sudden understanding of him
still did not enable her to place him in any category of life as she
knew it to be arranged.

The revelation had come about through her description of her encounter
with the queer and attentive bird of the desert.

"Oh," said Banneker. "You've been interviewing a cactus owl."

"Did he unwind his neck carefully and privately after I had gone?"

"No," returned Banneker gravely. "He just jumped in the air and his body
spun around until it got back to its original relation."

"How truly fascinating! Have you seen him do it?"

"Not actually seen. But often in the evenings I've heard them buzzing as
they unspin the day's wind-up. During the day, you see, they make as
many as ten or fifteen revolutions until their eyes bung out. Reversing
makes them very dizzy, and if you are around when they're doing it, you
can often pick them up off the sand."

"And doesn't it ever make _you_ dizzy? All this local lore, I mean, that
you carry around in your head?"

"It isn't much of a strain to a practiced intellect," he deprecated. "If
you're interested in natural history, there's the Side-hill Wampus--"

"Yes; I know. I've been West before, thank you! Pardon my curiosity, but
are all you creatures of the desert queer and inexplicable?"

"Not me," he returned promptly if ungrammatically, "if you're looking in
my direction."

"I'll admit that I find you as interesting as the owl--almost. And quite
as hard to understand."

"Nobody ever called me queer; not to my face."

"But you are, you know. You oughtn't to be here at all."

"Where ought I to be?"

"How can I answer that riddle without knowing where you have been? Are
you Ulysses--"

"'Knowing cities and the hearts of men,'" he answered, quick to catch
the reference. "No; not the cities, certainly, and very little of the
men."

"There, you see!" she exclaimed plaintively. "You're up on a classical
reference like a college man. No; not like the college men I know,
either. They are too immersed in their football and rowing and too
afraid to be thought high-brow, to confess to knowing anything about
Ulysses. What was your college?"

"This," he said, sweeping a hand around the curve of the horizon.

"And in any one else," she retorted, "that would be priggish as well as
disingenuous."

"I suppose I know what you mean. Out here, when a man doesn't explain
himself, they think it's for some good reason of his own, or bad reason,
more likely. In either case, they don't ask questions."

"I really beg your pardon, Mr. Banneker!"

"No; that isn't what I meant at all. If you're interested, I'd like to
have you know about me. It isn't much, though."

"You'll think me prying," she objected.

"I think you a sort of friend of a day, who is going away very soon
leaving pleasant memories," he answered, smiling. "A butterfly visit.
I'm not much given to talking, but if you'd like it--"

"Of course I should like it."

So he sketched for her his history. His mother he barely remembered;
"dark, and quite beautiful, I believe, though that might be only a
child's vision; my father rarely spoke of her, but I think all the
emotional side of his life was buried with her." The father, an American
of Danish ancestry, had been ousted from the chair of Sociology in old,
conservative Havenden College, as the logical result of his writings
which, because they shrewdly and clearly pointed out certain ulcerous
spots in the economic and social system, were denounced as "radical" by
a Board of Trustees honestly devoted to Business Ideals. Having a small
income of his own, the ex-Professor decided upon a life of investigatory
vagrancy, with special reference to studies, at first hand, of the
voluntarily unemployed. Not knowing what else to do with the only child
of his marriage, he took the boy along. Contemptuous of, rather than
embittered against, an academic system which had dispensed with his
services because it was afraid of the light--"When you cast a light,
they see only the resultant shadows," was one of his sayings which had
remained with Banneker--he had resolved to educate the child himself.

Their life was spent frugally in cities where they haunted libraries,
or, sumptuously, upon the open road where a modest supply of ready cash
goes a long way. Young Banneker's education, after the routine
foundation, was curiously heterodox, but he came through it with his
intellectual digestion unimpaired and his mental appetite avid. By
example he had the competent self-respect and unmistakable bearing of a
gentleman, and by careful precept the speech of a liberally educated
man. When he was seventeen, his father died of a twenty-four hours'
pneumonia, leaving the son not so much stricken as bewildered, for their
relations had been comradely rather than affectionate. For a time it was
a question whether the youngster, drifting from casual job to casual
job, would not degenerate into a veritable hobo, for he had drunk deep
of the charm of the untrammeled and limitless road. Want touched him,
but lightly; for he was naturally frugal and hardy. He got a railroad
job by good luck, and it was not until he had worked himself into a
permanency that his father's lawyers found and notified him of the
possession of a small income, one hundred dollars per annum of which,
they informed him, was to be expended by them upon such books as they
thought suitable to his circumstances, upon information provided by the
deceased, the remainder to be at his disposal.

Though quite unauthorized to proffer advice, as they honorably stated,
they opined that the heir's wisest course would be to prepare himself at
once for college, the income being sufficient to take him through, with
care--and they were, his Very Truly, Cobb & Morse.

Banneker had not the smallest idea of cooping up his mind in a college.
As to future occupation, his father had said nothing that was definite.
His thesis was that observation and thought concerning men and their
activities, pointed and directed by intimate touch with what others had
observed and set down--that is, through books--was the gist of life. Any
job which gave opportunity or leisure for this was good enough.
Livelihood was but a garment, at most; life was the body beneath.
Furthermore, young Banneker would find, so his senior had assured him,
that he possessed an open sesame to the minds of the really intelligent
wheresoever he might encounter them, in the form of a jewel which he
must keep sedulously untarnished and bright. What was that? asked the
boy. His speech and bearing of a cultivated man.

Young Banneker found that it was almost miraculously true. Wherever he
went, he established contacts with people who interested him and whom he
interested: here a brilliant, doubting, perturbed clergyman, slowly
dying of tuberculosis in the desert; there a famous geologist from
Washington who, after a night of amazing talk with the young prodigy
while awaiting a train, took him along on a mountain exploration; again
an artist and his wife who were painting the arid and colorful glories
of the waste places. From these and others he got much; but not
friendship or permanent associations. He did not want them. He was
essentially, though unconsciously, a lone spirit; so his listener
gathered. Advancement could have been his in the line of work which had
by chance adopted him; but he preferred small, out-of-the-way stations,
where he could be with his books and have room to breathe. So here he
was at Manzanita. That was all there was to it. Nothing very mysterious
or remarkable about it, was there?

Io smiled in return. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Errol. But every one calls me Ban."

"Haven't you ever told this to any one before?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"I don't know really," hesitated the girl, "except that it seems almost
inhuman to keep one's self so shut off."

"It's nobody else's business."

"Yet you've told it to me. That's very charming of you."

"You said you'd be interested."

"So I am. It's an extraordinary life, though you don't seem to think
so."

"But I don't want to be extraordinary."

"Of course you do," she refuted promptly. "To be ordinary is--is--well,
it's like being a dust-colored beetle." She looked at him queerly.
"Doesn't Miss Van Arsdale know all this?"

"I don't see how she could. I've never told her."

"And she's never asked you anything?"

"Not a word. I don't quite see Miss Camilla asking any one questions
about themselves. Did she ask you?"

The girl's color deepened almost imperceptibly. "You're right," she
said. "There's a standard of breeding that we up-to-date people don't
attain. But I'm at least intelligent enough to recognize it. You reckon
her as a friend, don't you?"

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"Do you suppose you'd ever come to reckon me as one?" she asked, half
bantering, half wistful.

"There won't be time. You're running away."

"Perhaps I might write you. I think I'd like to."

"Would you?" he murmured. "Why?"

"You ought to be greatly flattered," she reproved him. "Instead you
shoot a 'why' at me. Well; because you've got something I haven't got.
And when I find anything new like that, I always try to get some of it
for myself."

"I don't know what it could be, but--"

"Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only
detachment? That can't last, you know."

He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. "Why not?"

"You're too--well, distinctive. You're too rare and beautiful a
specimen. You'll be grabbed." She laughed softly.

"Who'll grab me?"

"How should I know? Life, probably. Grab you and dry you up and put you
in a case like the rest of us."

"Perhaps that's why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself."

"Is that your fondest ambition?"

However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no
sign of hurt in his reply.

"Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn't like to
be grabbed and dried up."

"Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth, and eventually
dried up and set in our proper places."

"Not you, certainly."

"Because you haven't seen me in my shell. That's where I mostly live.
I've broken out for a time."

"Don't you like it outside, Butterfly?" he queried with a hint of
playful caress in his voice.

"I like that name for myself," she returned quickly. "Though a butterfly
couldn't return to its chrysalis, no matter how much it wanted to, could
it? But you may call me that, since we're to be friends."

"Then you do like it outside your shell."

"It's exhilarating. But I suppose I should find it too rough for my
highly sensitized skin in the long run.... Are you going to write to me
if I write to you?"

"What about? That Number Six came in making bad steam, and that a
west-bound freight, running extra, was held up on the siding at Marchand
for half a day?"

"Is that all you have to write about?"

Banneker bethought himself of the very private dossier in his office.
"No; it isn't."

"You _could_ write in a way all your own. Have you ever written anything
for publication?"

"No. That is--well--I don't really know." He told her about Gardner and
the description of the wreck.

"How did you happen to do that?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, I write a lot of things and put them away and forget them."

"Show me," she wheedled. "I'd love to see them."

He shook his head. "They wouldn't interest you." The words were those of
an excuse. But in the tone was finality.

"I don't think you're very responsive," she complained. "I'm awfully
interested in you and your affairs, and you won't play back the least
bit."

They walked on in silence for a space. He had, she reflected, a most
disconcerting trick of silence, of ignoring quite without embarrassment
leads, which in her code imperatively called for return. Annoyance
stirred within her, and the eternal feline which is a component part of
the eternal feminine asserted itself.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "you are afraid of me."

"No; I'm not."

"By that you mean 'Why should I be'?"

"Something of the sort."

"Didn't Miss Van Arsdale warn you against me?"

"How did you know that?" he asked, staring.

"A solemn warning not to fall in love with me?" pursued the girl calmly.

He stopped short. "She told you that she had said something to me?"

"Don't be idiotic! Of course she didn't."

"Then how did you know?" he persisted.

"How does one snake know what another snake will do?" she retorted.
"Being of the same--"

"Wait a moment. I don't like that word 'snake' in connection with Miss
Van Arsdale."

"Though you're willing to accept it as applying to me. I believe you are
trying to quarrel with me," accused Io. "I only meant that, being a
woman, I can make a guess at what another woman would do in any given
conditions. And she did it!" she concluded in triumph.

"No; she didn't. Not in so many words. But you're very clever."

"Say, rather, that _you_ are very stupid," was the disdainful retort.
"So you're not going to fall in love with me?"

"Of course not," answered Banneker in the most cheerfully commonplace of
tones.

Once embarked upon this primrose path, which is always an imperceptible
but easy down-slope, Io went farther than she had intended. "Why not?"
she challenged.

"Brass buttons," said Banneker concisely.

She flushed angrily. "You _can_ be rather a beast, can't you!"

"A beast? Just for reminding you that the Atkinson and St. Philip
station-agent at Manzanita does not include in his official duties that
of presuming to fall in love with chance passengers who happen to be
more or less in his care."

"Very proper and official! Now," added the girl in a different manner,
"let's stop talking nonsense, and do you tell me one thing honestly. Do
you feel that it would be presumption?"

"To fall in love with you?"

"Leave that part of it out; I put my question stupidly. I'm really
curious to know whether you feel any--any difference between your
station and mine."

"Do you?"

"Yes; I do," she answered honestly, "when I think of it. But you make it
very hard for me to remember it when I'm with you."

"Well, I don't," he said. "I suppose I'm a socialist in all matters of
that kind. Not that I've ever given much thought to them. You don't have
to out here."

"No; you wouldn't. I don't know that _you_ would have to anywhere....
Are we almost home?"

"Three minutes' more walking. Tired?"

"Not a bit. You know," she added, "I really would like it if you'd write
me once in a while. There's something here I'd like to keep a hold on.
It's tonic. I'll _make_ you write me." She flashed a smile at him.

"How?"

"By sending you books. You'll have to acknowledge them."

"No. I couldn't take them. I'd have to send them back."

"You wouldn't let me send you a book or two just as a friendly memento?"
she cried, incredulous.

"I don't take anything from anybody," he retorted doggedly.

"Ah; that's small-minded," she accused. "That's ungenerous. I wouldn't
think that of you."

He strode along in moody thought for a few paces. Presently he turned to
her a rigid face. "If you had ever had to accept food to keep you alive,
you'd understand."

For a moment she was shocked and sorry. Then her tact asserted itself.
"But I have," she said readily, "all my life. Most of us do."

The hard muscles around his mouth relaxed. "You remind me," he said,
"that I'm not as real a socialist as I thought. Nevertheless, that
rankles in my memory. When I got my first job, I swore I'd never accept
anything from anybody again. One of the passengers on your train tried
to tip me a hundred dollars."

"He must have been a fool," said Io scornfully.

Banneker held open the station-door for her. "I've got to send a wire or
two," said he. "Take a look at this. It may give some news about general
railroad conditions." He handed her the newspaper which had arrived that
morning.

When he came out again, the station was empty.

Io was gone. So was the newspaper.




CHAPTER IX


Deep in work at her desk, Camilla Van Arsdale noted, with the outer
tentacles of her mind, slow footsteps outside and a stir of air that
told of the door being opened. Without lifting her head she called:

"You'll find towels and a bathrobe in the passageway."

There was no reply. Miss Van Arsdale twisted in her chair, gave one
look, rose and strode to the threshold where Io Welland stood rigid and
still.

"What is it?" she demanded sharply.

The girl's hands gripped a folded newspaper. She lifted it as if for
Miss Van Arsdale's acceptance, then let it fall to the floor. Her throat
worked, struggling for utterance, as it might be against the pressure of
invisible fingers.

"The beast! Oh, the beast!" she whispered.

The older woman threw an arm over her shoulders and led her to the big
chair before the fireplace. Io let herself be thrust into it, stiff and
unyielding as a manikin. Any other woman but Camilla Van Arsdale would
have asked questions. She went more directly to the point. Picking up
the newspaper she opened it. Halfway across an inside page ran the
explanation of Io's collapse.

BRITON'S BEAUTIFUL FIANC;E LOST

read the caption, in the glaring vulgarity of extra-heavy type, and
below;

_Ducal Heir Offers Private Reward to Dinner Party of Friends_

After an estimating look at the girl, who sat quite still with hot,
blurred eyes, Miss Van Arsdale carefully read the article through.

"Here is advertising enough to satisfy the greediest appetite for
print," she remarked grimly.

"He's on one of his brutal drunks." The words seemed to grit in the
girl's throat. "I wish he were dead! Oh, I wish he were dead!"

Miss Van Arsdale laid hold on her shoulders and shook her hard. "Listen
to me, Irene Welland. You're on the way to hysterics or some such
foolishness. I won't have it! Do you understand? Are you listening to
me?"

"I'm listening. But it won't make any difference what you say."

"Look at me. Don't stare into nothingness that way. Have you read this?"

"Enough of it. It ends everything."

"I should hope so, indeed. My dear!" The woman's voice changed and
softened. "You haven't found that you cared for him, after all, more
than you thought? It isn't that?"

"No; it isn't that. It's the beastliness of the whole thing. It's the
disgrace."

Miss Van Arsdale turned to the paper again.

"Your name isn't given."

"It might as well be. As soon as it gets back to New York, every one
will know."

"If I read correctly between the lines of this scurrilous thing, Mr.
Holmesley gave what was to have been his bachelor dinner, took too much
to drink, and suggested that every man there go on a separate search for
the lost bride offering two thousand dollars reward for the one who
found her. Apparently it was to have been quite private, but it leaked
out. There's a hint that he had been drinking heavily for some days."

"My fault," declared Io feverishly. "He told me once that if ever I
played anything but fair with him, he'd go to the devil the quickest way
he could."

"Then he's a coward," pronounced Miss Van Arsdale vigorously.

"What am I? I didn't play fair with him. I practically jilted him
without even letting him know why."

Miss Van Arsdale frowned. "Didn't you send him word?"

"Yes. I telegraphed him. I told him I'd write and explain. I haven't
written. How could I explain? What was there to say? But I ought to have
said something. Oh, Miss Van Arsdale, why didn't I write!"

"But you did intend to go on and face him and have it out. You told me
that."

A faint tinge of color relieved the white rigidity of Io's face. "Yes,"
she agreed. "I did mean it. Now it's too late and I'm disgraced."

"Don't be melodramatic. And don't waste yourself in self-pity. To-morrow
you'll see things clearer, after you've slept."

"Sleep? I couldn't." She pressed both hands to her temples, lifting
tragic and lustrous eyes to her companion. "I think my head is going to
burst from trying not to think."

After some hesitancy Miss Van Arsdale went to a wall-cabinet, took out a
phial, shook into her hand two little pellets, and returned the phial,
carefully locking the cabinet upon it.

"Take a hot bath," she directed. "Then I'm going to give you just a
little to eat. And then these." She held out the drug.

Io acquiesced dully.

Early in the morning, before the first forelight of dawn had started the
birds to prophetic chirpings, the recluse heard light movements in the
outer room. Throwing on a robe she went in to investigate. On the
bearskin before the flickering fire sat Io, an apparition of soft
curves.

"D--d--don't make a light," she whimpered. "I've been crying."

"That's good. The best thing you could do."

"I want to go home," wailed Io.

"That's good, too. Though perhaps you'd better wait a little. Why, in
particular do you want to go home?"

"I w-w-w-want to m-m-marry Delavan Eyre."

A quiver of humor trembled about the corners of Camilla Van Arsdale's
mouth. "Echoes of remorse," she commented.

"No. It isn't remorse. I want to feel safe, secure. I'm afraid of
things. I want to go to-morrow. Tell Mr. Banneker he must arrange it for
me."

"We'll see. Now you go back to bed and sleep."

"I'd rather sleep here," said Io. "The fire is so friendly." She curled
herself into a little soft ball.

Her hostess threw a coverlet over her and returned to her own room.

When light broke, there was no question of Io's going that day, even had
accommodations been available. A clogging lassitude had descended upon
her, the reaction of cumulative nervous stress, anesthetizing her will,
her desires, her very limbs. She was purposeless, ambitionless, except
to lie and rest and seek for some resolution of peace out of the tangled
web wherein her own willfulness had involved her.

"The best possible thing," said Camilla Van Arsdale. "I'll write your
people that you are staying on for a visit."

"Yes; they won't mind. They're used to my vagaries. It's awfully good of
you."

At noon came Banneker to see Miss Welland. Instead he found a curiously
reticent Miss Van Arsdale. Miss Welland was not feeling well and could
not be seen.

"Not her head again, is it?" asked Banneker, alarmed.

"More nerves, though the head injury probably contributed."

"Oughtn't I to get a doctor?"

"No. All that she needs is rest."

"She left the station yesterday without a word."

"Yes," replied the non-committal Miss Van Arsdale.

"I came over to tell her that there isn't a thing to be had going west.
Not even an upper. There was an east-bound in this morning. But the
schedule isn't even a skeleton yet."

"Probably she won't be going for several days yet," said Miss Van
Arsdale, and was by no means reassured by the unconscious brightness
which illumined Banneker's face. "When she goes it will be east. She's
changed her plans."

"Give me as much notice as you can and I'll do my best for her."

The other nodded. "Did you get any newspapers by the train?" she
inquired.

"Yes; there was a mail in. I had a letter, too," he added after a little
hesitation, due to the fact that he had intended telling Miss Welland
about that letter first. Thus do confidences, once begun, inspire even
the self-contained to further confidences.

"You know there was a reporter up from Angelica City writing up the
wreck."

"Yes."

"Gardner, his name is. A nice sort of fellow. I showed him some nonsense
that I wrote about the wreck."

"You? What kind of nonsense?"

"Oh, just how it struck me, and the queer things people said and did. He
took it with him. Said it might give him some ideas."

"One might suppose it would. Did it?"

"Why, he didn't use it. Not that way. He sent it to the New York Sphere
for what he calls a 'Sunday special,' and what do you think! They
accepted it. He had a wire."

"As Gardner's?"

"Oh, no. As the impressions of an eye-witness. What's more, they'll pay
for it and he's to send me the check."

"Then, in spite of a casual way of handling other people's ideas, Mr.
Gardner apparently means to be honest."

"It's more than square of him. I gave him the stuff to use as he wanted
to. He could just as well have collected for it. Probably he touched it
up, anyway."

"The Goths and Vandals usually did 'touch up' whatever they acquired, I
believe. Hasn't he sent you a copy?"

"He's going to send it. Or bring it."

"Bring it? What should attract him to Manzanita again?"

"Something mysterious. He says that there's a big sensational story
following on the wreck that he's got a clue to; a tip, he calls it."

"That's strange. Where did this tip come from? Did he say?"

Miss Van Arsdale frowned.

"New York, I think. He spoke of its being a special job for The Sphere."

"Are you going to help him?"

"If I can. He's been white to me."

"But this isn't white, if it's what I suspect. It's yellow. One of their
yellow sensations. The Sphere goes in for that sort of thing."

Miss Van Arsdale became silent and thoughtful.

"Of course, if it's something to do with the railroad I'd have to be
careful. I can't give away the company's affairs."

"I don't think it is." Miss Van Arsdale's troubled eyes strayed toward
the inner room.

Following them, Banneker's lighted up with a flash of astonished
comprehension.

"You don't think--" he began.

His friend nodded assent.

"Why should the newspapers be after her?"

"She is associated with a set that is always in the lime-light,"
explained Miss Van Arsdale, lowering her voice to a cautious pitch. "It
makes its own lime-light. Anything that they do is material for the
papers."

"Yes; but what has she done?"

"Disappeared."

"Not at all. She sent back messages. So there can't be any mystery about
it."

"But there might be what the howling headlines call 'romance.' In fact,
there is, if they happen to have found out about it. And this looks very
much as if they had. Ban, are you going to tell your reporter friend
about Miss Welland?"

Banneker smiled gently, indulgently. "Do you think it likely?"

"No; I don't. But I want you to understand the importance of not
betraying her in any way. Reporters are shrewd. And it might be quite
serious for her to know that she was being followed and hounded now. She
has had a shock."

"The bump on the head, you mean?"

"Worse than that. I think I'd better tell you since we are all in this
thing together."

Briefly she outlined the abortive adventure that had brought Io west,
and its ugly outcome.

"Publicity is the one thing we must protect her from," declared Miss Van
Arsdale.

"Yes; that's clear enough."

"What shall you tell this Gardner man?"

"Nothing that he wants to know."

"You'll try to fool him?"

"I'm an awfully poor liar, Miss Camilla," replied the agent with his
disarming smile. "I don't like the game and I'm no good at it. But I can
everlastingly hold my tongue."

"Then he'll suspect something and go nosing about the village making
inquiries."

"Let him. Who can tell him anything? Who's even seen her except you and
me?"

"True enough. Nobody is going to see her for some days yet if I can help
it. Not even you, Ban."

"Is she as bad as that?" he asked anxiously.

"She won't be any the better for seeing people," replied Miss Van
Arsdale firmly, and with that the caller was forced to be content as he
went back to his own place.

The morning train of the nineteenth, which should have been the noon
train of the eighteenth, deposited upon the platform Gardner of the
Angelica City Herald, and a suitcase. The thin and bespectacled reporter
shook hands with Banneker.

"Well, Mr. Man," he observed. "You've made a hit with that story of
yours even before it's got into print."

"Did you bring me a copy of the paper?"

Gardner grinned. "You seem to think Sunday specials are set up and
printed overnight. Wait a couple of weeks."

"But they're going to publish it?"

"Surest thing you know. They've wired me to know who you are and what
and why."

"Why what?"

"Oh, I dunno. Why a fellow who can do that sort of thing hasn't done it
before or doesn't do it some more, I suppose. If you should ever want a
job in the newspaper game, that story would be pretty much enough to get
it for you."

"I wouldn't mind getting a little local correspondence to do," announced
Banneker modestly.

"So you intimated before. Well, I can give you some practice right now.
I'm on a blind trail that goes up in the air somewhere around here. Do
you remember, we compared lists on the wreck?"

"Yes."

"Have you got any addition to your list since?"

"No," replied Banneker. "Have you?" he added.

"Not by name. But the tip is that there was a prominent New York society
girl, one of the Four Hundred lot, on the train, and that she's
vanished."

"All the bodies were accounted for," said the agent.

"They don't think she's dead. They think she's run away."

"Run away?" repeated Banneker with an impassive face.

"Whether the man was with her on the train or whether she was to join
him on the coast isn't known. That's the worst of these society tips,"
pursued the reporter discontentedly. "They're always vague, and usually
wrong. This one isn't even certain about who the girl is. But they think
it's Stella Wrightington," he concluded in the manner of one who has
imparted portentous tidings.

"Who's she?" said Banneker.

"Good Lord! Don't you ever read the news?" cried the disgusted
journalist. "Why, she's had her picture published more times than a
movie queen. She's the youngest daughter of Cyrus Wrightington, the
multi-millionaire philanthropist. Now did you see anything of that kind
on the train?"

"What does she look like?" asked the cautious Banneker.

"She looks like a million dollars!" declared the other with enthusiasm.
"She's a killer! She's tall and blonde and a great athlete: baby-blue
eyes and general rosebud effect."

"Nothing of that sort on the train, so far as I saw," said the agent.

"Did you see any couple that looked lovey-dovey?"

"No."

"Then, there's another tip that connects her up with Carter Holmesley.
Know about him?"

"I've seen his name."

"He's been on a hell of a high-class drunk, all up and down the coast,
for the last week or so. Spilled some funny talk at a dinner, that got
into print. But he put up such a heavy bluff of libel, afterward, that
the papers shied off. Just the same, I believe they had it right, and
that there was to have been a wedding-party on. Find the girl: that's
the stunt now."

"I don't think you're likely to find her around here."

"Maybe not. But there's something. Holmesley has beaten it for the Far
East. Sailed yesterday. But the story is still in this country, if the
lady can be rounded up.... Well, I'm going to the village to make
inquiries. Want to put me up again for the night if there's no train
back?"

"Sure thing! There isn't likely to be, either."

Banneker felt greatly relieved at the easy turn given to the inquiry by
the distorted tip. True, Gardner might, on his return, enter upon some
more embarrassing line of inquiry; in which case the agent decided to
take refuge in silence. But the reporter, when he came back late in the
evening disheartened and disgusted with the fallibility of long-distance
tips, declared himself sick of the whole business.

"Let's talk about something else," he said, having lighted his pipe.
"What else have you written besides the wreck stuff?"

"Nothing," said Banneker.

"Come off! That thing was never a first attempt."

"Well, nothing except random things for my own amusement."

"Pass 'em over."

Banneker shook his head. "No; I've never shown them to anybody."

"Oh, all right. If you're shy about it," responded the reporter
good-humoredly. "But you must have thought of writing as a profession."

"Vaguely, some day."

"You don't talk much like a country station-agent. And you don't act
like one. And, judging from this room"--he looked about at the
well-filled book-shelves--"you don't look like one. Quite a library.
Harvey Wheelwright! Lord! I might have known. Great stuff, isn't it?"

"Do you think so?"

"Do I think so! I think it's the damndest spew that ever got into print.
But it sells; millions. It's the piety touch does it. The worst of it is
that Wheelwright is a thoroughly decent chap and not onto himself a bit.
Thinks he's a grand little booster for righteousness, sweetness and
light, and all that. I had to interview him once. Oh, if I could just
have written about him and his stuff as it really is!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why, he's a popular literary hero out our way, and the biggest
advertised author in the game. I'd look fine to the business office,
knocking their fat graft, wouldn't I!"

"I don't believe I understand."

"No; you wouldn't. Never mind. You will if you ever get into the game.
Hello! This is something different again. 'The Undying Voices.' Do you
go in for poetry?"

"I like to read it once in a while."

"Good man!" Gardner took down the book, which opened in his hand. He
glanced into it, then turned an inquiring and faintly quizzical look
upon Banneker. "So Rossetti is one of the voices that sings to you. He
sang to me when I was younger and more romantic. Heavens! he can sing,
can't he! And you've picked one of his finest for your floral
decoration." He intoned slowly and effectively:

"Ah, who shall dare to search in what sad maze Thenceforth their
incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death?"

Banneker took the book from him. Upon the sonnet a crushed bloom of the
sage had left its spiced and fragrant stain. How came it there? Through
but one possible agency of which Banneker could think. Io Welland!

After the reporter had left him, Banneker bore the volume to his room
and read the sonnet again and again, devout and absorbed, a seeker for
the oracle.




CHAPTER X