in the middle of the following september, radlett arrived in tucson from the east. he was on his way to pay his first visit to his property in kay, since stephen had taken charge. as he signed his name on the hotel register, his eye was caught by the names of the arrivals of the day before.
“donald cameron.”
“miss cameron.”
a flush came to his cheeks and a light to his eyes as he looked steadily at the page. strange what power a written word may have to stir a man to the depths of his being! as radlett read the names, he felt the years slip away from him. five, six years was it since that summer at bar harbor when he and jean cameron had climbed together about the cliffs of the spouting horn or, staff in hand, had explored duck brook or floated idly in his canoe around the islands in the harbor? like loring he had dreamed his dream of what might be. by the[255] end of the summer he knew it was only a dream of what might have been. he carried away with him an ideal, an aching heart, and a knot of ribbon of the cameron plaid. but he was a man of too much force and energy to spend his life in bewailing the past. he had shut the knot of ribbon in a secret drawer, set the ideal in a shrine, and flung his heart into business with such success that to-day, while he was still a young man, he was already a power to be reckoned with in the financial world, while a golden career opened ahead of him.
a man so loyal in his friendship could not be other than loyal in his love; but he had put the possibility of winning jean cameron definitely out of his mind, and he would have sworn that the years had reduced the fever of his feeling to a genial tranquillity of friendship, when now at the very sight of her name on a hotel register, all his philosophy was put to flight and he was conscious only of a burning desire to see her once more.
being a man of action, he wasted no time on reminiscence; but inquired in quick incisive terms whether mr. cameron and his daughter were still at the hotel. learning that they were,[256] he sent up his card. then he lighted a cigarette and walked the floor of the lobby, smoking nervously till the bell-boy returned to say that mr. cameron would be glad to receive him in his private sitting-room. before following the boy, radlett stopped at the desk to arrange for his room and get his key.
“how good a room do you wish, sir, and how long will you stay?”
“the best you have, and as long as i choose,” radlett answered with characteristic brevity. a moment later he stood before the door of the camerons’ sitting-room, which opened at his knock to reveal mr. cameron’s bristling red head in the foreground, and in the background a figure in a traveling dress of gray cloth, with a hat to match and a knot of plaided ribbon under the brim.
at sight of radlett, jean rose, smiling, but with a slight consciousness in her manner, a consciousness resulting from the remembrance of a painful scene, the hope that the man before her had quite forgiven and the slighter hope, a mere faint ashamed shadow of a hope, that he had not quite forgotten.
her mind must have been quickly set at[257] rest on that point, for such a rush of feeling swept over radlett that he could scarcely make his greetings intelligible. mr. cameron gave him a firm grip, and jean held out a gray gloved hand which radlett clasped tremulously. mr. cameron looked at the man and girl as they stood talking together, and the longer he looked the better he liked the combination.
“there would be a son-in-law to be proud of,” he thought, naturally enough perhaps considering him in that relation first. “baird radlett has everything that a girl could ask,—a hard head, a long purse, a free hand and an endless stock of common sense. and then, if i had him to help me, what a property i could build up! he used to seem devoted to jean. but she could not have refused him—no, and by heaven she should not.” (mr. cameron liked to keep up even to himself the illusion that he was a tyrannical parent whose will was law.) “rather different this man from loring! jean must see that. if she does not, she must be made to see it. i was afraid at one time that she might be foolish enough to fall in love with loring; but i took it in time—i took it in time. yet she is too efficient not to make some[258] one big mistake in her life. we camerons all do it sooner or later. if it is not one thing it is another—misdirected energy, i suppose—” then aloud, in answer to a question from radlett as to how he happened to be in that part of the world: “why, about a year and a half ago i became interested in a mine in arizona which was not being run properly, and so for the present i am giving up my time to managing it myself.”
“and have you too become a mining engineer?” radlett asked of jean.
“not quite,” she laughed.
“jean came rather near it at first,” added her father; “but i think that now she is half tired of the life out here. it has not the charm for her that it had at first.”
“i should think not!” exclaimed radlett emphatically. “do you mean that you have spent a whole year out in the hills here?” he asked jean.
“yes,” she answered. “this trip marks the first time that i have been back to the east since last fall; but i have not yet become such a savage that i can dispense with afternoon tea. i hope you will join us,” she added.
[259]
“yes, with thanks,” radlett answered. up to this moment he had never found any use for tucson. now he discovered that it existed to hold a tea-table and jean cameron.
“what brings you to tucson, baird?” she asked, while the waiter laid the cloth.
“i am in the mining business myself, in a small way,” he rejoined. “last year i bought a property in pinal county on speculation. i am going up to visit it now for the first time. i do not really need to go. in fact i shall probably do more harm than good. i have a manager up there who has accomplished wonders. he has made the mine pay in six months after he took control. as far as i can learn, he has done practically everything himself, from mining the ore to putting it on the cars. i bought the mine at a big risk, and now it is about the most satisfactory investment that i own.”
“i wish that i had such a man to put in charge of quentin. when i am not there the whole plant seems to go to pieces.”
“quentin!” exclaimed radlett in surprise. “is that the name of your property?”
“it is,” said mr. cameron. “why? had you ever heard of it?”
[260]
radlett opened his lips to speak; but the arrival of the tea turned the subject of conversation for the moment. as he watched jean pouring the tea all thoughts of mines and business vanished from radlett’s mind. he wondered how he had ever existed throughout the years in which he had not seen her.
while jean cameron talked to radlett, she glanced at him over her teacup with that interest which a girl naturally bestows upon a man who might have been a part of her life had she so willed it. in the past year the standards by which she judged men had changed considerably. she had much more regard for the qualities of steadiness and determination which baird possessed than she had felt at the time when she refused him. from her widened experiences she had learned that ability without reliability was useless. perhaps, too, now that disappointment in her new surroundings had set in, she looked back with more tenderness upon those who had peopled her life in the east.
the talk ranged over many scenes and people familiar to them all, then gradually drifted to the plans of each for the future. baird’s[261] mind had been working fast. seeing jean for an hour had made him wish to see her for many more hours, and by the time that he had finished his second cup of tea, he had evolved a plan by which he hoped to achieve that end. if he could persuade mr. cameron, when on his way to quentin, to stop over at kay, and to make an expert report on the property, it would enable him to have at least a week more with jean. turning to mr. cameron, he approached him on the subject.
“i wish very much that i could persuade you to stop over and examine my property for me. if you had the time i should greatly value your professional opinion.”
“where is your mine situated?”
“at kay,” answered radlett. “i think it is on the direct route to quentin.”
“so you are the man who bought that property. i had not heard who owned it.”
“yes,” said baird. “now do you think that you could possibly spare four or fives days to investigate the place for me?”
“i do not know whether i can possibly spare the time,” reflected mr. cameron, half aloud. if it had been any man besides radlett, mr.[262] cameron would have refused at once, as he had for some time given up all such work. but he was glad to do a favor to baird, and also he felt that he would like to have him and jean thrown together for a while. “still i can get in touch with quentin, and if they need me there i can get there at short notice. yes, i think that i can take the time. i shall be interested to see how the mine is doing with this wonderful new manager of yours. frankly, it never used to be much good.”
“don’t be discouraging, father!” said jean. “you might at least be an optimist until you have seen baird’s mine.”
“if your father should be a pessimist after seeing it, i should certainly give up the mine, i have such respect for his judgment.”
mr. cameron expanded under the compliment. “by the way, did you not have a big riot or something up there this spring? i read about it, i think, in the eastern papers. they said that there had been a race riot in kay which, but for the coolness and nerve of the manager, would have been a desperate outbreak.”
“yes, there was a desperate state of affairs,” answered radlett, and he proceeded to give an[263] account of the riot, the details of which he had learned through a postscript added by reade to one of loring’s reports. when he reached the part of the story which told how the manager had held the mob at bay until the arrival of the deputies, both jean and her father exclaimed with approval. jean’s eyes were shining with the enthusiasm which she always felt for a brave act well carried out.
“and,” said radlett in conclusion, “since then there has not been a hint of trouble in the camp. in fact a labor agitator came up there last month, and the men themselves ran him out of camp.”
“you certainly have a wonderful man there,” said mr. cameron. “if i had chanced upon him first, you would never have had him. if there is one thing on which i pride myself, it is my power to read character at first sight. i should have snapped up a man like that in no time. what is his name?”
“his name,” said radlett, “is stephen loring.” he watched mr. cameron closely as he uttered the name, and was amused to see the expression of blank dismay and astonishment upon that gentleman’s face.
[264]
“loring! stephen loring!” cried mr. cameron, completely taken aback.
“stephen loring,” repeated radlett doggedly.
“why, we dismissed him from quentin for—”
“father, don’t!” ejaculated jean suddenly. her cheeks burned, while her eyes pleaded with her father to spare loring’s past. radlett looked at her with a quick glance of appreciation.
“it is all right, jean,” he said. “loring told me all about it himself.”
“he told you,” queried mr. cameron incredulously, “about the accident, about his drunkenness and all; and after that you put him in charge of the mine? how could you?”
“i believed in him,” replied radlett quietly, “and he has justified my belief. i have known him all my life, and i trust and respect him.”
“you say that he has made good with you?” inquired mr. cameron sharply.
“he has.”
mr. cameron was a man of honest enthusiasms, but of equally honest hatreds. when man had once failed him, he was loath to believe that there could be good in him.
[265]
“i hope you will find that he keeps it up,” was all that he said. he did not say it with complimentary conviction, either.
“he will,” radlett answered shortly.
jean was moved by baird’s faithful defense of his friend.
“it is characteristic of you to stand by him as you have done,” she said, “and if ever a man needed a good friend, it was mr. loring.”
“you knew him well?” asked radlett, with surprise. from what loring had told him of his position in camp, he had not imagined that he would know miss cameron personally at all.
“he saved my life,” answered jean. her voice was soft, but there was a hint of challenge in the glance that she sent toward her father.
“saved your life!” ejaculated radlett. “he never said anything to me about that. just like him! he told me only of his failures.”
“you have known him all your life. what was he?” asked mr. cameron. “another case of a worthless fellow whom every one liked?”
“he never was worthless,” said baird. “only until now he never showed what he was worth, and never was there a man whom his friends loved so much, to whom they forgave so much,[266] and from whom they continued to hope so much.”
“he took a peculiar way of showing his worth with me,” remarked mr. cameron. “really now, radlett, killing men by your carelessness is a pretty serious thing. and from what i can gather, i judge that for the past few years his life has been far from creditable; that he has been getting into trouble of some sort all the time. his record shows that he has been permanently inefficient and frequently drunk.”
“yes, it is all true,” answered baird, “but in all those years he was being hammered and forged, and in the end the experience has strengthened him. the things that he has gone through, even the wrong things which he has done, all have molded his character, and for the better. it was a big risk, a big chance, but by it the metal in him has been turned to steel.”
“is not that rather an expensive process by which to obtain a product like loring?” asked mr. cameron dryly.
“i hope very much that when you see what loring has done at kay, you will change your[267] mind,” said radlett. “i understand of course what you must feel about him; but i think that he has wiped his slate clean. if two lives were lost through him at quentin, by preventing a fight at kay he has saved twenty.”
“not to mention saving my life,” added jean, rising.
“that alone should extenuate everything,” said radlett earnestly.
he looked after jean as she left the room to dress for dinner, admiring her proud, erect carriage, and devoutly thankful that he should have several days in which to be with her.
when she had gone, the two men resumed their seats, and proceeded to discuss the plans and business arrangements for mr. cameron’s prospective visit to kay. but even while he was talking, mr. cameron’s decision in regard to the visit was wavering, and later, as he went upstairs, he shook his head and said to himself: “no, i can’t do it. under the circumstances that visit is an impossibility.”
that night, when they had come upstairs from dinner, he went to jean’s door and knocked.
“jean,” he called.
[268]
“yes, father.”
“can you come into my sitting-room? i want to talk with you.”
they returned to his sitting-room, and jean seated herself while her father walked slowly up and down the room.
“i have been thinking about our going with baird up to his mine. i told him that we would go; but if this fellow loring is the manager there, i do not think that we can. i shall tell baird that we find it impossible.”
“why?” asked jean, although she well knew the reason.
“why?” echoed her father irritably. “do you remember the insulting letter which he wrote to me after my offer of help to him at dominion? do you think it would be a pleasure to meet him again with that letter in mind?”
“you never told me what you wrote in your letter to him,” replied jean, parrying the question.
“i offered him work in the north because i said we were under obligation to him for saving—that is, to repay my debt to him.”
“i suppose that you made no conditions?”
“only that he should never cross our path[269] again,” responded her father. “of course i felt bound to tell him what i thought of him.”
“in other words,” exclaimed jean with spirit, “you insulted him, and now are angry that he was gentleman enough to refuse your offer. when he was practically starving, as baird told me he was, he refused to take advantage of an unwilling obligation. is that why you do not want to go to kay?” there was pride in the quiver of her nostrils, and pity in her eyes, as she spoke.
mr. cameron, like many strong men, was at a disadvantage in an argument with his daughter. her strength of will was as great as his, and with it she combined an intuitive knowledge of whither to direct her questions, as a good fencer instinctively knows the weak points in his opponent’s defense.
“you are trying to put me in the wrong, jean,” said her father testily, “but the fact remains that we cannot go.”
“the fact remains, father, that you owe it to yourself to go, not only because you have promised baird” (here she scored a strong point, for the keeping of his word was her father’s great pride), “but because you owe it to mr.[270] loring to atone for the wrong that you did him.”
mr. cameron was in a quandary. on the one side was his desire not to see loring again or to have jean meet him; on the other was the fact that he had promised radlett and that he wished to have him and jean thrown together. with his usual bluntness he asked his daughter: “jean, have you thought much of loring since he left quentin?”
“a great deal, father.”
“often?”
“very often.”
“damn me! i was afraid of it. but you may as well understand now that i absolutely forbid your thinking of him any more.”
“be careful, father, that you do not add to my real interest the fictitious one of defiance which has always been strong in the cameron blood. what i have been thinking all these months about mr. loring is that he is a man to whom we are under deep obligation, and one to whom you have been unjust.”
“i thought,” said mr. cameron helplessly, and foolishly allowing his attack to be changed to defense, “that i had done everything possible[271] for loring. i do not wish to be thought ungrateful to any man; but that letter—”
jean was touched and coming over to her father, put her arms around him saying: “can’t you see, father dear, that the letter he sent to you was the only one which a gentleman could write under the circumstances.”
“perhaps so, perhaps,” answered mr. cameron. “and anyhow,” he went on rather weakly, “i have promised baird, and jean, i want you to see more of him. he is, i think, of all the men whom i know, the best and the most trustworthy. he told me that some time ago you refused to marry him.”
“yes,” said jean.
“have you ever changed at all? do you not like him better than you did? he is the man of all others whom i should rather see you marry.”
“i always liked him and i like him better than ever now,” replied jean, with her usual frankness. “only it would take me at least a week to fall in love with him,” she added laughing, as she kissed her father and bade him good night.
that evening she sat up until it was late,[272] thinking. she had begun to see life in the west rather differently since her first rose-colored impressions. she was beginning to realize the facts that her father had quoted to her. the shoddiness of that life had begun to make itself felt. she had believed in loring with all the trust to which a reserved nature yields itself when it becomes impetuous, and his complete failure had been a deep shock to her. she had not forgotten him, however, though, had she analyzed her thoughts, she would have been puzzled to know why he had not passed from her memory. now that he was to be brought into her life again, her thought of him grew deeper and more personal. she opened her trunk and drew out of it her journal of the past year. for an hour she sat reading over the pages, and there were certain pages which she reread. when she closed the book it was close to midnight. she sat staring out of the window, thinking, wondering. the light in her eyes was like the harbor lights veiled by night mist to the mariner homeward bound,—now flashing clear and lambent, now dim, brilliant with the seaward flash or soft in the afterglow.
at length she rose as one tired of thinking;[273] but as she brushed out the long waves of her hair she hummed softly the old refrain:
“young frank is chief of errington
and lord o’ langly dale—
his step is first in peaceful ha’
his sword in battle keen—
but aye she let the tears doon fa’
for jock o’ hazeldean.”
