THE Story of Hilary Legh.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 21, 15 September 1911, Page 7

THE Story of Hilary Legh.

BY HAROLD BINDLOSS, Author of "la Nifter Laad," "Ainslie'B Ju-Ju," "A Brave Man's Love," etc., etc.

CHAPTER X. The Shadow of the Sin-Verguenn. "You can't get anything for nothing," the American said one evening with the air of an oracle. "Lay out your best with two hands aud it will come back to you. Now we're here we're nowhere else, and right here we're going to stay until we strike the pocket that makes us rich. So when we've filled the bag up a little I'm going into Vancouver to take the hardware men round, pay them something and get the rest on credit. .Spring is coming, and the freshets may bring us new gold down. Going along to the ranche to-night, ain't you?" "Yes," said Legh, with, a sombre air. "Our main hope is the freshets, though there's another I don't care to talk of yet. It might either give us a fair start or end us. In any case, we're going to play out the game, and I'll try a last big risk before we're beaten." He departed for a long tramp through slushy snow, and Morsley, who sat beside the twinkling stove in the deckhouse of the scow, said half-aloud, "The ' more you grind down his kind the more grain shows up, and I guess the grinding is good for folks like him, though I'm not fond of it myself. Doesn't know when he's beaten—that's a different man from the one who same on board the Magnolia—and he'll get her. Oh, yes, you can get most things if you only wait long enough." It happened that Wilfred Huntington also rode over to Cedar Ranche that same evening. Robert Crighton, who could afford to leave his business largely to his brother and manager, spent much of his time there, and was not wholly sorry that for the present Lilian preferred the stillness of the forest to the bustle of the city. Though a successful business man, he loved the coast and the bush, where his younger days had been spent; and if Mrs Crighton, who was much younger than her husband, chafed at his simple tastes, she had diplomacy enough to endure them for a season. Why Lilian desired to stay there the girl dare hardly ask herself. Perhaps what happened at Las Nieves had given her a distaste for society, but though she tried to hide the fact from herself she looked forward to the miner's visits with eagerness.

Robert Crighton sat alone in his study, which was littered with charts and survey maps, when Huntington was shown in; but looking up with a nod thrust a cigar-box towards him. "Sit down there, Wilfred, and help yourself. I'm not too busy to talk awhile," he said.

Huntington dropped uneasily into an armchair and shoved the box away. "I have something to say to you first," he commenced, and fidgeted when (Brighton, straightening himself, turned his keen gaze upon him. "It's just this: I shall shortly have the option of two good appointments, one here in British Columbia, the other way back in Ontario, and it depends on a circumstance which I take. Now, I've known Lilian for over ten years, and you and she were always good friends to me until some time ago, when Cedar grew freezing. I want to ask you a square question—was there a reason?"

'There was a reason—a good one!" said Robert Crighton, grimly. "Stop a minute. It was in no way our fault, and did not interfere with my liking for you. No, I was never afraid of plain talk—why did you want to bow?"

"I'm thankful," said the surveyor, with a gasp which was partly relief and partly nervousness. "That's just what I'm proceeding to, and it's simply this: Tlie best and prettiest woman in the world is Lilian Crighton—at least, that's what she is to me—and I've long been hoping she would learn to like me. Sometimes I tllink she does, and then I'm afraid she doesn't—not in the way" I want her to—but I guess I can be patient and wait. Only it seemed honest after the—freezing, now I've two good chances of prosperity, to come straight and ask what you had against me, and say that if Lilian will have me I mean to marry her some day." Robert Crighton, laying down his cigar, leaned forward and placed one hand on the young man's shoulder. "Spoken like an honest man. I would be glad to trust her to*"you, Wilfred, but you must wait a little longer if you are wise," he said. "Well, in return, there is something I must tell you on your word of honor—l guess I can take it—never to repeat, not even to Lilian, one syllable of it. There, it's a mighty hard thing to do. Would you marry the wife of a Central American bandit?"

Huntington started as if he had been shot, and Crighton, whose face was furrowed, strode twice across the room, then flung himself into his chair again toying huskily, "God knows how it hurts me, but it's my duty. Sit still there, Wilfred, and wait until I have done."

Crighton iecovered his serenity with 81 effort, and sitting erect with a benched hand on the table told the story of what happened at Las Nieve9, a « lie knew it, ivith eyes fixed steadily °n the surveyor's face. He lost no change of expression, and noted how dismay gave place to pity, and pity to ' a ge, until the young man's eyes were "lied with a chivalrous compassion *gain. Then he ceased, and only the fi ighing of the cedars outside disturbed the silence of the room. Crighton's c 'i?ar had gone out, and the veins were swollen on the surveyor's forehead. 'Well," said the former, "does that •Bake a difference in your opinion of , "No," said Huntington, almost chdklnß with passion. "How dare you ask ■•? Who am I to think lightly of berP

She was the innocent victim of some in--1 fernal villain's plot, and I would give my last drop of blood to wipe out the memory of it. But I ban wait and search until I fi>d that man and Ml Trim."

"You cannot," said Robert Crighton, with a curious smile. "I haven't told you the sequel—the man is dead—shot a few weeks after the mock wedding. She never saw him again." Huntington seemed to choke, but it was with almost delirious relief. "It's like a reprieve oh the gallows," he said, wiping his beaded face. "Dead! and Lilian free from any blame, is free as air again. Were you trying to drive me mad?"

"No," said the old man, drily. "I was discharging a painful duty, and putting my daughter's future husband to a scathing test. He has stood it well. Wilfred, if she will take you it will make me glad, but she must make her own choice without pressure from me. If you are a Vise man you will be in no hurry, and not enlist her mother on your side too plainly. In fact, you had better leave me to say what is needed to Mrs Crighton. And now if we stay any longer they will be getting suspicious below."

They descended the stairway together and it was a coincidence that on entering the big central hall Huntington said to, the first of its occupants he came across, "Have you done well at the dredging lately, Lea?" A great fire of pine branches burned in the huge open hearth, two nickelled lamps swung by brass chains from the log rafters overhead, and there were costly paintings the trophies of skins and heads on the match-boarded wall. On either side of the chimney breast stood a rack in which rifles and London-made guns glistened with the oil well rubbed into the blue steel or Damascene barrels. Polished bits of fine workmanship, salmon spears, besides ancient silver-studded Mexican horse-gear hung in another corner, and Persian rugs were spread on the cedar floor, for there was a mingling of modern luxury and primitive bush simplicity about the fitting of Cedar Ranche.

Huntington crossed the room and seated himself by the piano, where Lilian was turning over some music, under the rose-shaded sconces, and she looked round to speak to him before laying her white fingers on the keys again. The Kermodys were present too and while Lawrence talked with Mrs Crighton, Legh sat listening to the ingenuous chatter of the fair Carrie until there was a hush when Lilian's clear voice rose up. Then the miner, who scarcely heard the song, felt a wide longing and fierce jealousy awake within him as Huntington, bending over her to turn the music, touched her shoulder while once the singer smiled up at him. Miss Kermody's whisper set his nerves on edge, as, showing her white teeth in a mischievous smile, she said: "I guess they're a handsome pair. He's a straight, good-natured man with prospects, and Liliau's sweetly pretty i.-i spite of her kind of empress air. Yes, I guess they were just made for each other," she added reflectively. "You see, the old. man Crighton 'figures a good deal on Wilfred, and the mother wants her married and out of the way. When she goes back to the cities it's awkward to have a daughter of that age twice as handsome as herself. I like Wilfred; don't you ? Did vou sav 'Confound him?' Really. Mr Lea!""

Legh said nothing, anly smothered a groan, though he certainly thought this and more, and as the two moved away from the piano he followed them wivh his eyes. They were certainly a handsome pair, the man tall, bronze-skinned and vigorous with a clean life in the open air, and the girl statuesque in form, with a clean-cut if somewhat too pale face, and a carriage which, as Miss Kermody said, suggested quenuiness.

But that damsel had no intention of letting him sink into a reverie, for she commenced again: "You have done nothing to amuse us, Mr Lea: just lay back there thinking like a carved image instead of helping. Now they asked me to sing, and I'm to- - something nice and lively. Say, must have taught you music in England and you're going to play for ms.'" Stirred into sudden bitterness by what he had heard and seen Legh forgot his usual caution, or he might have answered that there were no opportunities for studying music on board sealing schooners; but as it was bo obeyed, and Lilian watched him intently as he rapped out the prelude to Miss Kermody's ballad with hardened fingers which, nevertheless, had not lost their cunning. She sang in a thin, girlish treble, prettily, but it was the accompaniment which attracted the listeners' attention, and when ihe last chords died away Mrs Crighton, whose suspicious eyes were also fixed upon the musician, said: "We did not know you were so accomplished, Mr Lea. I wonder if you would add to the favor and sing for us?" "That would be sweet," said Miss Kermody. "Let it be a love song, too." Legh recognised distrust and hostility in the older lady's tone and, stung into recklessness, accepted the challenge, answering with a smile, "The best one I know is Spanish." Then Lilian Crighton after a start leaned back in her chair, for the prelude suggested the tinkle of guitars, and she remembered too clearly that quaint semi-Moorish air. The trophies of deerhoads and bearskins faded before her, and instead she saw the great black ridge of the Sierra de Las Nieves rise in fire-rent grandeur over a wliite-wall- ! Ed Spanish city. Guitars were tinkling tin the hot streets below, and again, but tnow with a deeper meaning in it, she heard the song of love and vines, while the fingers of one hand tightened on a fold of her dress, for there was an answering echo within her. Her blood coursed faster, she listened to every syllable.greedily, trying to ignore the intuitive perception that the song was sung for her alone. In this she was not mistaken, for Legh momentarily lost all prudence and self-control, and flung all he dare not tell her into the words of •the balled, until with a shiver she closed her. eyes, trying to blot out the memories it conjured up, for By some trick of fancy she saw a wounded desperado whose head was swathed in a clotted bandage looking down on her

with honeless ejes. It was a relief when the, singer rose from the piano, and Miss Kermody said: "My! that was touching. I don't understand one word of it."

"Where did you learn that" song?" asked Mrs Crighton; aud she stared hard at him from under half-closed lashes when Legh answered truthfully, "In Servilla, Madame, nearly ten years ago. Do you like that kind of ballad —Miss Crighton?"

"No," said Lilian, coldly, though she wondered at her own steadiness. "You rendered it very well," but it is an exaggeration of sentiment, and the song singularly displeases me."

Shortly afterwards Legh took his leave and trudged back through the firs towards the scow until he halted where the melting-snow was thinner beside the moonlit river.

"You fool. You earned your lesson," he said. "Could any woman have put more contempt into her tone ? And the other man?—well, if she can be happy with him the dead shall sleep on. Outlaw, brigand, beggarly gold-digger, would you bring more sorrow on that radiant creature, Hilary Legh?" Legh spoke liis thoughts half-aloud, and the roar of hurrying waters seemed to answer him as they rang dowit the deep valley they had fretted out during countless centuries; and while he listened, following the sombre forests and splintered peaks upwards into the blue above them with weary eyes, the worst of the bitterness passed. * A man's life was but a brief transition from shadow to shadow—that gorge had taken ten thousand years to hew, and was not yet finished, he thought. At least it would soon be over, and, if his endurance failed, one plunge from t!ie reef near the cannon would bring swift oblivion. If she loved the other man, could he not suffer a few years in silence for her sake? But he must wait until it was clear that she did love him.

He had hardly recommenced his journey when a shadowy figure, which seemed to be dripping water, blundering past him through the undergrowth turned and shook his fist in his direction, saying, "I'll get even with you anl your blamed partner if I'm shot for it."

"If you're not mistaken you can have a fair chance now," was the answer, for Legh felt in the mood when it would be consoling to annihilate somebody, but the figure vanished suddenly. He charged into a thicket after it, but a fallen branch tripped liiim, and he went down headlong into a bank of slushy snow, from which he picked himself up and shook the wet mass out of his sleeves ruefully. Nevertheless, the occurence helped him to throw off the utter depression, for it not infrequently happens tih«t some ludicrous trifle relieves a climax. It did so in this case, and the man who, ten minutes earlier, felt that there was nothing left on earth worth fretting over, swore with vigor as lie clawed out handfuls of melted snow from beneath his collar. Then he laughed as he said: "A case of Big Louis' bad whisky, or that fool mistook me for somebody else. Right down the back of my neck as well—confound him! He is gone, or it would have been a consolation to half-bury him." The man, however, had not mistaken him, and before long he 'heard what led up to the incident. While he was singing at Cedar Hanche Morsley sat in tlie scow's deckhouse chewing an unlimited pipe as he figured on a scrap of paper with a stumpy pencil. He was worrying out the assets and liabilities of the partnership, and though the former were easily reckoned he found it more difficult to convince himself that they were in a financial position to prepare for fihe spring campaign. The more he figured the more difficult it became, and several times he shook his head, and, turning over the poper, would commence again. Outside, the roar of tike river, which was daily increasing in volume, vibrated among the pines, and after listening to it for a space abstractedly Morsley tore up the paper in disgust . "Six into four won't go, and leave a balance, nohow," lie said aloud. "Well, since we can't practise Sin-verguenza tactics here and requisition what Ave want, we'll have to strike the Vancouver storekeepers for credit or bust."

. There was a step outside —a crafty step it seemed to him—and he looked up angrily when the door opened, saying, "Who asked you to come in? How long have you been listening?" A man in an old deerskin jacket with a battered slouch 'liat and shifty eyes walked coolly forward towards the stove, answering: "I just asked myself. Listening—couldn't do it, but I could hear you shouting that you were busted, and it kind of encouraged me. I was raised down to your own country, and you ought to know me." "That's no great recommendation," said Morsley. "They raise a few precious low-grade rascals down in the States, and ship the meanest-no-man has-any-use-for ones to the Cannucks. Guess you came with the last consignment. I know too much about you. You were insect who sculled her clear to save yourself when the President's soldiers made a dash for the Magnolie's boat, and left your partners to get out as best they could. The only question is, What do you want?" "It's quite simple. I'm open to deal with you. Met the bo's'n down to Spokane, across the border, and! he said he'd had trouble with you. Didn't say no more until he got pretty well full up with whisky one night, and told me you two had struck it prosperous, and were getting virtuous and proud of yourselves. In fact, he allowed Jim Morsley had turned honest, and I said, 'What's that cute old fox turning honest for?' " "Maybe you were right," said Morsley, with an almost suspicious serenity. "Honesty doesn't work out more than a hundred cents to the dollar—ever tried it? What did you think?" And the other grinned as he answered: "I just told him he was very drunk, or he would have known better.''

The hand that lay on tlio miner's knee slowly doubled! itself into a formidable fist, but the stranger, who did not notice this, continued: . "I stirred the bo's'n up, and he told me some more. Said Ilario Legh was masquerading round here as a high-

toned Englishman turned miner, and was hoping to many.a girl with a heap of dollars at Gedar Ranche. He'd been lyin' low findiing out things at the settlement before he held you tip. Then the blame bo's'n he goes off to sleep, and I had to clear out in the morning because certain parties I didn't want to see were asking after me. But I didn't forget it, and when I struck a job up here chopping on the now trail from the railroad I figured considerable over it." *

/'Chopping a trail?" said Morsley, with ironical sympathy. "Work from sun-up to sun-down—that won't fit you ?''

And the other answered with the air of a martyr: "It doesn't, but I struck right down to it, and on an off day trailed round through the tousli to oora'e in the back way to Cedar Ranche. &aid 1 was lost and hungry, and a young.woman made them bring me in and feed me. If that's the girl Ilario's after she's worth paying something for, and I says, 'This is the poor man's opportunity, and there's not a cunninger rascal unhung than Jim Morsley, so we'll tap both sides if he stands in with me. If not, he'll have to pay up through Jiis partner—see?" "You're quite a genius," said Morsley, wrinkling his forehead, and apparently thinking hard!, though the result of his deliberation was that the stranger carried a pistol in his hip pocket. "The question is, how much do you know? There's no use calling the game without a hand to show."

"Well, I don't allow to show all my cards," said the other. "There was a story about the Alcalde's daughter who stabbed herself in Santa Rosalia, and I can prove" how Ilario crossed the frontier after Whitney swore he was dead. But what I want to know is, do you stand in with me?"

Morsley tunned towards the stove to hide ihas triumph. The man clearly knew nothing about the marriage or he would have given some hint. Then he said: "Do you hear anything? It wouldn't work out well if niy partner found you here before we had our programme fixed. Besides, he generally carries a gun with him." Opening the door the stranger thrust his head out of it, and as he did so Morsley, who leapt upon him, snatched the pistol from his pocket. "Get off the scow, you thief. ] s that all you know—that blamed played-out lie about Santa Rosalia. How much will you stake the 'girl doesn't know more than that already—can't you figure that a-strange man would tell her?" he shouted. "Jim Morsley's the cunningest rascal unhung, is he? You crawling insect, I'll convince you. The girl's booked to marry another man, too. Get out, you blamed verinillion mosquito!" The man gave back before him until he halted on the very edge of the deck, with the dark water swirling beneath him, and said: "Don't heave me off, Jim Morsley, and I'll swear to keep it secret. I tell you it's murder; I can't swim.''

"Then you can walk along the bottom," said Morsley. "Your secret's not worth a bent cent. Off yo\i go," and the blackmailer did! so, as though propelled by a catapult. He plunged headlong into the river, which, though running fast, was thereabouts only three or four feet deep, and accordingly, after rolling under the swift current several times, scrambled out again, and disapj)earcd across the shingle leaving the air sulphurous behind him. Then Morsley sat down and chuckled until Legh appeared 1 . He told his partner what had transpired, and added : "That affair at Santa Rosalia made an ugly storv."

"It did," said Legh, soberly. "I needn't tell you I had no hand in it, and the brute Mauuel has'gone to answer for his doings. I was one of the guard, but it was only afterwards I

knew what took place inside, and 1 held him off with the bayonet when lie would have run the old man .through. It was that which commenced il'ie trouble between Captain Manuel and me. On© would almost hope Don Salvador shot every man left of the Sinverguenza. But won't this rascal proclaim the whole thing out of revenge?" "I don't think he will; I scared him pretty bad," said Morsley. "Heaving him into the river would pretty well convince him we hadn't any reason to o-et nervous about whatever he could tell, besides washing the blame insect | good. You see, he would make nothing by striking the other side unless you were married, and if you once start in to buy his kind up you've got to go on buying, a steeper, price each time. You eaii'ti appeal to their feelings, because they haven't got any, and the best way's to smash them at the start. That's why I get home witlln the thick end of the pistol solid into his body. Allowed Jim Morsley hadn't turned honest for nothing, did he?" Morsley, like other men, was subject to errors of judgment, and his usual insight failed him in the trail-chopper's case. Hewing down the giant redwoods is an arduous task, and the would-be levier of blackmail had been born with a chronic distaste for hard work, so, as his intelligence by no means equalled his avarice, he determined to get even, with the partners before abandoning his vocation, and if possible at the same time convert his secret into currency at Cedar Banche. Morsley, he reflected, might not have told him all the truth. Ho Iliad seen Robert Crighton, and did not consider him likely to fall an easy victim, and accordingly decided to try his wife first. Had he been a more observant man he would have known better. He found! her alone, and Mrs Crighton, like most women of Spanish extraction, had a genius for following the intrioaoies of any kind of intrigue, guessed he meant mischief at a glance. This rather pleased her than otherwise, and she made the first move without waiting for his attack. "We don't encourage loafers round this ranche," she said.. "Every man who can work is wanted on the trail, and I believe there were chickens missing the last time you came. You won't find any to-day, because we have turned a big dog loose," "I don't come after chickens, ma'am," said 1 the nian-jvith an ugly scowl. "If I had, would I have looked for them hereP I guesa you don't findj

chickens on the verandah. I've got something to teil you, something you'd give a good deal to know. .It's about that mining- imposter."

"Perhaps you came after watches!" was the ironical answer, and the stray shot told, for the trail-chopper had ferreted out all the bo's'n's story. "In any case, I'll let the clog see you. Venacca, Campeador! Something to tell me; that is good of you." A splendid Cuban bloodhound answered the call, sniffed round the stranger suspiciously, then obeying its mistress's signal crouched beside her, growling. at him. It was as well to be prudent, for there were no mankind within hail just then.

"I want a hundred dollars first," said the man; and when Mrs Crighton answered, "You certainly wont get tihem," made a move towards the verandah stairway, saying: "Then it's time I was going." He stopped abruptly, for the woman beckoned to the dog, and it stood before him with white fangs bare, while a satirical voice said, "Don't be in a hurry. Sit down there.. It's curious that beast—who is a judge of character—doesn't seem to like vou. Down Campeador, down! Why don't you begin your story?"

The clog barred the llnapless informer's way of exit, and obeying, he asked sullenly: ,L Do you know who that fellow is that's hanging round after your daughter?"

"Perfectly!" said Mr s Crighton, mastering her anger, for it had never struck her that the miner dan; even think of Lilian. "Gold-dredger Lea, but as to my daughter your statement is quite out of the question." "Anyway, ho comes here," persisted the other; "and if you knew ivhat he had been you would chase him off the ranche. I guess that man's not fit company for any decent citizen, and it's my duty to denounce him, only——" "You want something as a reward for such virtue," said Mrs Crighton; and reading malice ugainst Legln, and disappointed avarice in his glance, .she carefully avoided all signs of interest. "1 don't want to encourage any disreputable characters here. Why' don't you tell me what he was:"' "Is it worth fifty dollars:-"' The lady answered: "No." "Forty?—thirty ?—can't go lower; I'm off."

Airs Orighton said something in Castillian to the dog, which rose" up and moved, growling, towards tihe visitor. "Hadn't you better begin?" she suggested, sweetly. (To be continued.)