A Master's Degree [68]
"You are through with the Burleighs; Vic settled you and you know it."
Even with the words the clutch of Vic's fingers on the outlaw's throat seemed to choke him now.
"If my last Burleigh is gone," he growled with an oath, "I'm not done yet. There's Elinor Wream. Don't forget that her mother was my adopted sister. Don't forget that my old foster father cut me off without a cent and gave her all his money. That's why Nathan Wream married her. He wanted her money for colleges." The sneer on the man's face was diabolical. "I can hit the old man through Elinor, and I'll do it some time, and that's not the only blow that I can strike here, and I am going to finish this thing now." He pointed toward the cottage where the unprotected woman sat alone. "Twice I've nerved myself to do it and been fooled each time. One October day you were here drunk. I could have laid it on you easy, and maybe fixed Fenneben too, if a little child's voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her."
Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned all the powers nature had left to him.
"Tom Gresh," he cried, "in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way. You thought, you fool, that she might care for you then. I've carried the curse of that deed on my soul night and day. I'll wipe it partly away now by saving her life from you. So surely as tonight, tomorrow, or ever you try to harm her, I'll not show you the mercy Vic Burleigh showed you once."
Strange forms the guardian angel takes!
Hence we entertain it unawares.
Of all Lagonda Ledge, old Bond Saxon, standing between a woman and the peril of her life, looked least angelic. Gresh understood him and turned first in fawning and tempting trickery to his adversary. But Saxon stood his ground. Then the outlaw raged in fury, not daring to strike now, because he knew Bond's strength. And still the old man was unmoved. A life saved for the life he had taken was steeling his soul to courage.
At last in the dim light, Gresh stood motionless a minute, then he struck his parting blow.
"All right, Bond Saxon, play protector all you want to, but it's a short game for you. The sheriff is out of town tonight, but tomorrow afternoon he will get back to Lagonda Ledge. Tomorrow afternoon I go with all my proofs--Oh, I've got 'em. And you, Bond Saxon, will be behind the bars for your crime, done not so many years ago, and your honorable daughter, disgraced forever by you, can shift for herself. I've nothing to lose; why should I protect you?"
He leaped down the bank into the swiftly flowing river, and, swimming easily to the farther side, he disappeared in the underbrush.
The next afternoon, somebody remembered that Bond Saxon had crossed the bridge and plunged into the overflow of the river around the west end. But Bond had been drunk much of late and nobody approached him when he was drunk. How could Lagonda Ledge know the agony of the old man's soul as he splashed across the Walnut waters and floundered up the narrow glen to the cave? Or how, for Dennie's sake, he had begged on his knees for mercy that should save his daughter's name? Or how harder than the stone of the ledges, that the trickling water through slow-dragging centuries has worn away, was the stony heart of the creature who denied him? And only Victor Burleigh had power to picture the struggle that must have followed in that cavern, and beyond the wall into the blind black passages leading at last to the bluff above the river, where, clinched in deadly combat, the two men, fighting still, fell headlong into the Walnut floods.
Down at the shallows Professor Burgess and Dennie had found the waters too deep to reach the Kickapoo Corral, so they strolled along the bluff watching the river rippling
Even with the words the clutch of Vic's fingers on the outlaw's throat seemed to choke him now.
"If my last Burleigh is gone," he growled with an oath, "I'm not done yet. There's Elinor Wream. Don't forget that her mother was my adopted sister. Don't forget that my old foster father cut me off without a cent and gave her all his money. That's why Nathan Wream married her. He wanted her money for colleges." The sneer on the man's face was diabolical. "I can hit the old man through Elinor, and I'll do it some time, and that's not the only blow that I can strike here, and I am going to finish this thing now." He pointed toward the cottage where the unprotected woman sat alone. "Twice I've nerved myself to do it and been fooled each time. One October day you were here drunk. I could have laid it on you easy, and maybe fixed Fenneben too, if a little child's voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her."
Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned all the powers nature had left to him.
"Tom Gresh," he cried, "in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way. You thought, you fool, that she might care for you then. I've carried the curse of that deed on my soul night and day. I'll wipe it partly away now by saving her life from you. So surely as tonight, tomorrow, or ever you try to harm her, I'll not show you the mercy Vic Burleigh showed you once."
Strange forms the guardian angel takes!
Hence we entertain it unawares.
Of all Lagonda Ledge, old Bond Saxon, standing between a woman and the peril of her life, looked least angelic. Gresh understood him and turned first in fawning and tempting trickery to his adversary. But Saxon stood his ground. Then the outlaw raged in fury, not daring to strike now, because he knew Bond's strength. And still the old man was unmoved. A life saved for the life he had taken was steeling his soul to courage.
At last in the dim light, Gresh stood motionless a minute, then he struck his parting blow.
"All right, Bond Saxon, play protector all you want to, but it's a short game for you. The sheriff is out of town tonight, but tomorrow afternoon he will get back to Lagonda Ledge. Tomorrow afternoon I go with all my proofs--Oh, I've got 'em. And you, Bond Saxon, will be behind the bars for your crime, done not so many years ago, and your honorable daughter, disgraced forever by you, can shift for herself. I've nothing to lose; why should I protect you?"
He leaped down the bank into the swiftly flowing river, and, swimming easily to the farther side, he disappeared in the underbrush.
The next afternoon, somebody remembered that Bond Saxon had crossed the bridge and plunged into the overflow of the river around the west end. But Bond had been drunk much of late and nobody approached him when he was drunk. How could Lagonda Ledge know the agony of the old man's soul as he splashed across the Walnut waters and floundered up the narrow glen to the cave? Or how, for Dennie's sake, he had begged on his knees for mercy that should save his daughter's name? Or how harder than the stone of the ledges, that the trickling water through slow-dragging centuries has worn away, was the stony heart of the creature who denied him? And only Victor Burleigh had power to picture the struggle that must have followed in that cavern, and beyond the wall into the blind black passages leading at last to the bluff above the river, where, clinched in deadly combat, the two men, fighting still, fell headlong into the Walnut floods.
Down at the shallows Professor Burgess and Dennie had found the waters too deep to reach the Kickapoo Corral, so they strolled along the bluff watching the river rippling