The Delafield Affair Read online

  THE DELAFIELD AFFAIR

  by

  FLORENCE FINCH KELLY

  Author of "With Hoops of Steel," etc.

  With Four Illustrations in Color by Maynard Dixon

  ChicagoA. C. McClurg & Co.1909

  CopyrightA. C. McClurg & Co.1909

  Published March 6, 1909

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

  "HE SMILED DOWN AT HER GLOWING YOUNG FACE, AND HISEYES SHONE WITH ADMIRATION" [Page 26]]

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. VENGEANCE AVOWED 9 II. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO 32 III. MISTAKE, OR BLUNDER? 39 IV. THE POWERS CONFER 52 V. CHASTISEMENT CONDIGN 64 VI. A STERN CHASE 78 VII. TALK OF MANY THINGS 90 VIII. SPECTRES OF THE PAST 114 IX. PERILS IN THE NIGHT 136 X. BY A HAIR'S BREADTH 145 XI. BATTLING THE ELEMENTS 160 XII. THE FIRST SHOT 177 XIII. THE SECOND SHOT 192 XIV. THREE LETTERS 210 XV. VILLAINY UNMASKED 221 XVI. A DOUBLE BLUFF 238 XVII. SENTENCE OF DEATH 256 XVIII. PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS 278 XIX. THE WORD UNSPOKEN 299 XX. NARROWING THE QUEST 321 XXI. THE SILENT DUEL 345 XXII. REFLECTION AND REACTION 360 XXIII. LOVE TO THE RESCUE 380 XXIV. THE HEAVENS OPEN 397 XXV. FULFILMENT OF THE LAW 414

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  "He smiled down at her glowing young face, and his eyes shone with admiration" _Frontispiece_

  "Upon man and beast the sand-storm beat bitterly" 168

  "Like a flash Jose's arm swung back, ... and Curtis sprang lightly aside as the knife struck deep into the tree" 308

  "It had come, the question she had meant not to let him ask" 404

  THE DELAFIELD AFFAIR

  CHAPTER I

  VENGEANCE AVOWED

  Curtis Conrad turned from superintending repairs on the adobe wall, andwalked across the corral to the gate at the opposite side. As he filledhis pipe he looked across the wide, greenish-gray New Mexican plateaustretching far to east and south and west. It was dotted here andthere with little groups of grazing cattle, and he noted a stragglingprocession of the creatures, their figures wavering and distorted in theheat haze, coming down from the distant foot-hills. They were followinga trail that cut across the plain in a straight line to the pond acrossthe road from the house, beyond a grove of cottonwood trees.

  "Poor devils!" he thought. "They're tramping miles for a drink ofwater, and to-morrow they'll tramp back again for their breakfast. TheCastletons are going to lose big money in dead cattle this Summer,unless there's more rain than there was last. It's awful to see thepoor brutes dropping in their tracks. I'll begin looking for a job in awetter country if this Summer doesn't bring more rain." He turned hisattention to his pipe, sheltering bowl and match in his hollowed hand."No use, in this wind," he muttered. "What a blast it's blowing to-day!Well, there's no sand in it."

  The plain stretched away from the ranch-house in low, rolling hills, soevenly sized that it gave the impression of a level surface. Up from oneof the little valleys rose a horseman, as if he had sprung suddenly fromthe depths of the earth. Through the heat that wavered over the plainhis horse's legs drew out into long, knobby sticks, and both man andsteed became an absurd caricature of the sinewy pony and cowboy riderthat presently cantered up to the gate with the mail for which Conradhad been waiting.

  "Three cow-brutes are down on the pond trail, just where it crosses theroad. One of 'em's got a calf."

  "Are they dead?"

  "Mighty nigh--will be by night."

  "You and Red Jack go and skin them in the morning." Conrad turned towardthe house, looking at his letters. His mind still lingered over thecalf. "Poor little devil, it ought to have a chance," he was thinking,when his eye caught the name on one of the envelopes. He turned upon thecowboy a gaze suddenly grown preoccupied.

  "No, Peters," he said; "the calf won't go with the other cattle whileits mother is alive, and I saw that gray wolf skulking along the drawthis afternoon. You and Red Jack'd better go down now and put the cowsout of their misery. Skin them and bring the calf into the corral tillnight, and then put it down by the pond with the other cow-brutes."

  His eyes quickly returned to the letter that had attracted hisattention. "Tremper & Townsend!" he exclaimed with eager surprise. "Why,they were Delafield's attorneys!" He tore open the envelope with animpatient jerk and the rushing wind almost blew from his fingers thecheck it contained. As his eye ran quickly down the half-dozen lines ofthe letter his face lighted with satisfaction and amusement.

  The sound of a carriage distracted his attention. It turned in at hishouse-gate and he hastened forward, a lean, long-legged figure of a man,hat doffed and hand outstretched.

  "How are you, Bancroft? Glad to see you! And Miss Bancroft, too! Ofcourse you're coming in. Thirsty? I'll bet you are! And you know we'vegot the best water in Silverside County here. How much better yourdaughter's looking, Aleck! If you keep on like this, Miss Bancroft,you'll soon forget you were ever ill."

  "Oh, I've forgotten that already, there's such magic in the winds youhave here," the girl replied laughingly as he lifted her to the ground."They're strong enough to blow the past out of your memory and make youforget even your own name!" Her father suddenly turned away and began tohitch the horses. He sent back a covert glance at her as she stood atConrad's side, a slender figure, her face still thin from recent illnessbut aglow with the pink of returning health, the breeze fluttering theshort brown curls that clustered over her bare head.

  "Oh, my hat, please!" she exclaimed, with sudden remembrance of thehead-covering she had left hanging in the carriage top. Curtis took itdown for her and looked on with undisguised admiration while she tied itwith a big bow of ribbon under her chin. Bancroft came back, explainingthat they had driven since mid-forenoon from the base of Mangan's Peak,and asking if Conrad did not think they had made pretty good time withtheir new team of horses. Curtis looked them over critically, praisingtheir good points, and approving heartily when Bancroft told him theyhad been bought for both riding and driving, for he wanted Lucy, nowthat she was growing strong again, to become an expert horsewoman.

  A big cottonwood tree grew beside the gate, and a little plot of grass,enclosed on three sides by whitewashed adobe walls, made a square ofwelcome green. Lucy Bancroft exclaimed with delight as they entered thetiny yard, stepping mincingly across the grass with lifted gown, andsmiling back at the two men, while fleeting dimples played hide-and-seekin her cheeks.

  "I'm so glad, Mr. Conrad," she laughed, "that you haven't any signs upto 'keep off the grass,' for I simply must walk on it. I never sawanything so lovely as this little lawn and this beautiful big greentree, after our long ride across the plain. It makes me think of thatline in the Bible about 'the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.'"

  "Yes," replied Curtis as he threw open the
door. "I never knew until Icame to New Mexico how much comfort and pleasure there can be in a fewblades of grass. When I come in from a long ride and look at this littlechecker-board square of turf I feel as if I uncurled a whole yard ofwrinkles and squints from around my eyes."

  The Socorro Springs ranch-house was a rambling sequence of adobe rooms,so joined one to another that they formed the eastern and part of thenorthern side of the big square corral. It was low and flat-roofed, andstruggling tufts of weeds and grass grew along the top and trailed overthe edge, adding their chapter to Nature's endless tale of the unwearieddetermination of Life to evade and overcome Death. The rooms opened outof one another in a long row, all with outside doors looking toward theeast and some with additional doors into the corral. A bare adobe yardsloping eastward was bordered by a trickling stream of water along whichgrew some willows and cottonwoods. Beyond it spread a golden-green fieldof young alfalfa, and beyond that the greenish-gray plain stretched tothe far horizon. Across the front of the house was a narrow woodenporch, and house and porch, walls and sheds, were all a dazzling whitethat in the vivid sunshine smote the sight like a blow across theeyeballs. In the low, large room in front gayly colored Navajo rugs werespread on the floor, white muslin curtains hung at the windows, androse-bedecked paper covered the walls and ceiling. Unpainted shelves ofpine above a battered, flat-topped desk were filled with books, and theround table in the middle of the room was littered with newspapers,magazines, tobacco pouches, and pipes.

  The housekeeper, Mrs. Peters, brought a pitcher of water, and Conradexplained to Lucy that the springs from which the ranch took itsappellation, _Los Ojos del Socorro_, "The Springs of Succor," had beenso named nearly three hundred years before by a party of Spanishexplorers, because they had come unexpectedly upon the pure waters whenthey were almost dead from thirst. At the housekeeper's suggestion Lucywent into the next room to lie down for a half-hour's rest before theyshould start for their home in Golden, twenty miles farther westward.The door, accidentally left ajar, swung part way open and she could hearplainly the voices of her father and Conrad as she lay with eyes closedand thoughts wandering, scarcely heeding what they said.

  The two men were absorbed in a discussion of local politics. "DanTillinghurst is all right," said Conrad. "He's made a good sheriff andhe ought to have the office again. I shall do all I can to have himrenominated and to help elect him afterwards. But Dellmey Baxter forCongress again! That's where I buck, and buck hard, and keep a-buckin'."

  "But he's the head of the party in the Territory," objected Bancroft."He can bring out more votes than any other man we can put up. If weturn him down in the convention they'll beat us at the polls."

  "We'll deserve to be beaten if we nominate him, anyway. I can't stomachhim any longer, Aleck, and I don't see how you can."

  "Oh, you're prejudiced, Curt," said the other, good-naturedly. "You knowyou can never see any good in a man you dislike, and you took a disliketo Baxter the first day you set foot in the Territory."

  "Maybe I am prejudiced; but in Dell Baxter's case there's ample reasonto be, and I'd be ashamed of myself if I wasn't. I know he's a friendof yours, but that doesn't prevent him from being the worst scoundrel inthe whole Territory. I tell you, Aleck, there's nothing that manwouldn't do, unless it was something square and honest."

  "Come, come, Curt, that's rank exaggeration. I've been associated withDell Baxter financially ever since I located in this part of thecountry, and I've always found him strictly on the square."

  "Then it was because it was to his interest to be square. He'll do youup yet, if he gets the chance and thinks it worth while. He's had hisfinger in every crooked scheme that's been put through from Raton to ElPaso, and his hands are as bloody as his pockets are dirty."

  "Don't you think it's going a little too far," asked Bancroft, smilingcalmly, "to accuse a man in that wholesale way when you haven't anybasis for your assertions but the merest idle gossip?"

  Conrad gave an indignant snort. "Oh, I'm not saying he's done the jobshimself. He thinks too much of that fat paunch of his to put that intoany danger. But why does he keep those Mexican thugs hanging around himif it isn't to use them for things he wouldn't dare do himself? Why, Iheard from Santa Fe only last week that he's taken into his pay thatMexican cutthroat, Liberato Herrara, whom he saved last Winter fromconviction for the Paxton murder."

  "No, Aleck," he went on. "I buck when it comes to Dell Baxter forCongress again. If he gets the nomination and the other side puts upJohnny Martinez, as it's likely they will, I'm going to support Johnny."

  "But he's a Mexican."

  "I don't care what he is as long as he's a decent man. He won't be adisgrace to the Territory in Washington, and that's more than you cansay of Baxter."

  Bancroft's impassive face lighted with a bantering smile. "There's nolimit to your bad opinion of a man, is there, Curt, if he once gets intoyour disfavor? By the way, is it true that the Castletons are behindJohnny Martinez?"

  "I don't know, and I don't care. I'm their hired man here on the ranch,but my vote's my own, and so's what little influence I may have, andI'll do with both of 'em just what I damn please. And if it came to ashow-down, I'd be perfectly willing to lose my job if that would keepDell Baxter from going back to Congress."

  Bancroft laughed again. Conrad's eye, as he turned to his desk for morecigars, fell upon the little pile of letters and papers he had justreceived. On the top lay the Tremper & Townsend envelope. "By the way,Aleck, you're from Boston, ain't you?" he exclaimed impulsively.

  In the next room, Lucy, listening sleepily to the two voices, had beennoting the difference in their quality. Conrad's was high and clear, hisspeech rapid and incisive. Her father's, lower and more deliberate, hadin it a subtle, persuasive quality. "Dear daddy!" she whispered softly,her heart warm with affection. Then the new, sharp edge in Conrad's tonegripped her attention and sent her eyes flying open. Wide awake on theinstant, she listened for the sound of her father's voice again. Had shebeen on the scene, she might have noted that he turned an instant's keengaze upon his companion before he answered, carelessly enough:

  "Yes; originally. But I've come from so many other places since thenthat I almost forget it, unless somebody reminds me. I haven't beenback there, or known much about the old place, for years."

  Conrad's boyish smile illuminated his face and twinkled in his blueeyes. "Yes," he said; "'most everybody out here is so everlastingly onthe lope that it's no wonder some of 'em lose their names every once ina while and have to pick up 'most anything that comes handy. I'm noexception, though I've not yet forgotten 'what was my name back in theStates.' But did you know anything about the Delafield affair in Boston,fifteen or sixteen years ago?"

  "I heard of it at the time, but it was after I left the city. It was solong ago that I forget the details. Skipped, didn't he, with a lot offunds? Or was he the one who defaulted and jumped into the CharlesRiver?"

  Conrad had an eagerness of speech and manner that in a man of less vigorwould have been accounted nervousness. Voice, face, and gesture werealive with it as he responded: "Jump nothing! except to get out of reachof his creditors! He's alive yet and making money somewhere, and I meanto find him! I've got a particular interest in that man, and when I comeup with him he'll have a particular interest in me. For I'm going togive him such a song-and-dance as he's never had before."

  Bancroft listened calmly, his face and manner as impassive as usual, buthis eyes narrowed as they met his companion's excited gaze. Smilingslightly, he replied, "What has he done to stir you up so? You must havebeen too young to be interested in financial investments then."

  "So I was, directly. Nevertheless, it happens, Aleck, that the Delafieldaffair has influenced me and my life more than any other one thing.My father lost everything he had in Sumner L. Delafield's smash-up.I was fifteen years old then, and getting ready to go to MichiganUniversity--afterward I was to study law and be a prominent citizen. Myfather met Delafield first during a business trip to Bos
ton--we lived incentral Illinois, and father was well-to-do--and, just like everybodyelse, he gave the man his entire confidence. You remember, of course,how Delafield came to the top as a regular young Napoleon of business,and soon made a reputation as one of the big financiers. When he turnedup missing one fine morning, and it was found that the bottom haddropped out of everything, most people believed he had killed himself.But he hadn't, I happen to know, and he's still alive. Well, my fatherhad been so influenced by Delafield--the fellow must have been apersuasive cuss--that he had put everything he could raise into theman's schemes, and had even mortgaged our home. He had a weak heart, andwhen he read the news of Delafield's default and disappearance he fellout of his chair dead. The sudden shock of it all prostrated my mother,and she died in giving premature birth to a child. So there was I, afifteen-year-old boy, suddenly dropped to the bottom of poverty, withtwo younger sisters and a little brother to take care of.

  "I tell you, I swore vengeance on that man. I promised myself I'd hunthim down if it took a lifetime. I'm on his trail now, and I'm not goingto leave it until I run him into his hole. Then I'm going to stand himup and call him to his face all he deserves; and give him a gun, so hecan have a fair chance for his worthless life, and take one myself; andthen I'll put a bullet through his scoundrel brain if I have to hang forit afterward!"

  In the adjoining room Lucy Bancroft, with wide eyes and heightenedcolor, was listening to Conrad's story. The thrill of keen-edgedpurpose in his tense and eager tones had set her nerves to vibratinguntil her body was a-tremble. At his last sentence Curtis brought hisfist down on the table with a crash that almost startled her intooutcry. A moment of silence followed, and then she heard her father'scool and even voice, "But suppose he should put one through yoursfirst?"

  "Oh, he's welcome to do that if he can draw quicker or shoot straighterthan I can. He'll get one through his head before the _baile_ is over,and that's all I care about. The round-up's coming, and I reckon heknows it. For to-day I got a letter from Tremper & Townsend of Boston,who settled up his affairs after his disappearance, enclosing a checkfor five hundred dollars, saying he wished it sent to me as the firstinstalment of the amount he owed my father, which he hopes, before long,to be able to pay in full."

  Bancroft flicked the ash from his cigar with unusual care, looked at itwith contemplative interest, and drew a whiff or two before he spoke.Turning to Conrad with a quizzical smile, he said: "Well, Curt, doesn'tthat rather take the edge off your purpose? Why are you still shakingyour gory locks and roaring like a wounded bull at him when he'sevidently doing the square thing by you? Why don't you let up on yourchase and give him a chance?"

  "Not on your life," was Conrad's emphatic rejoinder. "It's too late inthe game for me to take repentance and an honest purpose on the hoof!He's found out that I'm getting hot on the scent and he wants to buy meoff--that's all that check means. It's not the loss of the money thatsticks in my craw; it's the deviltry he worked years ago. Whenever Ifind that he's discharging his debts to all his other creditors, whoaren't after him hot-foot, then I'll consent to wait for my parley untilhe has settled the whole score."

  Lucy arose from the bed depressed with a vague sense of trouble. Thelonging seized her to be out-of-doors again, alone with her father onthe wide plain, with the wind smiting her face and filling her lungs andmaking her forget everything but her own joy in being alive. She rubbedher eyes, smoothed her face, and forced herself to smile at thereflection in the mirror until her agitation was subdued. And presently,smiling and self-possessed, she opened the door into the front room,just as her father was finishing some friendly advice to Conrad.

  "Well, Curt, it's your affair," he had said, "and if you are so dead-seton getting that kind of revenge I suppose you'll go ahead and get it.But you'd better be careful; if this man is desperate he might try tohead you off by the same means. And you couldn't exactly blame him forobjecting to being shot in his tracks, or for taking measures to keepyou from doing it. For my part, I never thought revenge was a payinginvestment, and I still believe you're foolish to waste your time,energy, and money in that sort of business.

  "Ah, Lucy, is that you?" he went on, as she opened the door. "Come in,dear. Have you had a nap, and do you feel better?"

  "Yes, thank you, I've rested beautifully, and I'm ready to startwhenever you wish," she replied.

  Conrad produced a bottle of port wine, telling them as he filled theirglasses that it had been sent him by a friend in California in whosecellars it had lain for twenty years, and that it would be a good tonicfor Miss Bancroft. The friend had promised to send him more, and withher permission he would take a bottle to her the next time he went toGolden.

  As they stepped out of the house Lucy looked toward the west, whence thewind came, and as it struck her full in the face she gasped for breathand her slender body swayed in its rushing current. She grasped her widehat brim with both hands and held it down so that it made a frame forher face. Laughing with joy she turned to Curtis.

  "Oh, I love these winds, Mr. Conrad! I know they blow sand into youreyes and pelt your face with gravel, but they make you feel so good! Ialways want to dance when I've been out in a wind like this for a minuteor two." She took half a dozen dancing steps across the little lawn."And they are so pure and sweet," she went on more seriously, "and makeyou feel so--so right that it seems as if they ought to blow all thewickedness out of one's mind."

  "Jiminy! I wonder if she heard what I said in there!" thought Conradwith inward panic. But he smiled down at her glowing young face and hiseyes shone with admiration as he replied: "That is a beautiful theory,Miss Bancroft, but I'm afraid it doesn't pan out much in practice. Itrather seems to me that most people who come to New Mexico have thatsort of thing blown into them instead of out of them. As for myself,"and he grinned broadly, "I can't say that I feel any increase inrighteousness, no matter how much I waltz around in these zephyrs."

  "And you must have given them a fair trial, too!" she laughed back. "Butyou may make all the fun you like of my little pet theory, Mr. Conrad. Ishall believe in it just the same, and like the country just as much."

  "No; she didn't hear, and, besides, she said she'd been asleep, so it'sall right," thought Curtis with much relief, as he went on eagerly: "I'mglad you're pleased with us and our winds, so that you'll want to stay.I assure you, Miss Bancroft, you can't find such a superior quality ofwind anywhere else in the United States."

  "Oh, I'm going to stay, not on account of the wind, but on account of myfather, who, I assure you, Mr. Conrad, is the most superior quality offather to be found anywhere in the United States! I've been away fromhim so much that now I'm perfectly happy to be with him all the time.You see, when my dear mother died five years ago, father put me in aboarding-school, and afterward sent me to Chicago for a year to studymusic, and there I had that attack of typhoid fever that came so near tokilling me. But I'm here with him at last, and I mean to stay. And I'mlearning to ride now, Mr. Conrad, and father thinks I'm getting on verywell; don't you, daddy?" She turned to her father, as he came besidethem at the carriage wheel, with a fond smile and a touch of her handupon his arm.

  "Oh, yes," he answered, returning her smile and patting her shoulder;"you are doing bravely, Lucy. You'll soon be scouring the plain like theheroine of a dime novel."

  "No New Mexican girl," said Conrad as he helped her into the carriage,"thinks she can really ride until she can rope a steer. If you're goingto be such an enthusiastic New Mexican you'll have to learn tricks ofthat sort. Get your father to bring you out here some day, and I'll giveyou lessons in cowboy riding."

  "Agreed! that would be great fun!" she exclaimed, smiling down at him,her eyes twinkling and the dimples dancing in and out of her cheeks."We'll come out, won't we, daddy, after Miss Dent comes. I shallremember your promise, Mr. Conrad."

  Curtis waved a last good-bye as they turned the corner of his corral,and went back to his desk and his interrupted mail. "A mighty goodfellow Aleck Bancroft is," he said in
a half-aloud tone. "He doesn'tpalaver a lot, but he makes you feel he's your friend. I wonder if Isaid too much about Delafield. That check had wound me up and I suretalked more than I meant to." Long hours of solitude out-of-doors withonly a silent plain around him and a silent sky above are likely to makea man so yearn for the sound of a human voice, though it be only hisown, that he falls into the habit of thinking aloud. Conrad had thesocial temperament and it had not taken the wide and silent spaces ofearth and air long to engender in him the habit of making companionshipout of his own speech.

  He pulled thoughtfully at his sunburned moustache for a moment as heconsidered the matter. "It might have been just as well if I hadn't saidso much," he went on aloud, "but he's close-mouthed and a good friend ofmine. No, she didn't hear me--that's sure. How pretty she is when hereyes twinkle and her dimples come and go! I hope that wine will come intime for me to take her a bottle the next time I go to Golden. Well, Ican call on her, anyway, and apologize because it hasn't. Hello! Here'sa letter from Littleton! Has he got hold of something new aboutDelafield?"

  "I was down in the northern part of your Territory last week on other business," he read, "and I happened to meet a man who is, I think, on the trail of the very same person we're after, though he's been working it from the other end. If I'm right about it, the man we want is now some prominent and respected citizen of New Mexico, and maybe some good friend--or enemy--of yours at this moment. The man I met is Rutherford W. Jenkins, of Las Vegas. You probably know him--"

  "Sure! And know him to be a skunk!" Conrad exclaimed with a contemptuoussnort.

  "I couldn't get much out of him," the letter went on, "although I gave him a tip about the trail we're on and a little of Delafield's history as a bait. He snapped at it, and then began to dissemble his satisfaction, so I'm sure it is of value to him. But not even firewater would make him give up anything more. However, I feel pretty sure that he either knows already who Delafield is or expects soon to find out. I think he's working at it with an eye to the possibilities of blackmail of one sort or another. Perhaps if you see him yourself you can get something out of him."

  Conrad's face glowed with satisfaction as he finished the letter. "Thebirds won't get a chance to make any nests in my hair this trip! I'llsashay up the line this very night and I'll find out who Delafield isfrom Jenkins, if I have to choke the life out of him to do it. God!"His vengeful desire glowed like a blue flame in his eyes. He jumped tohis feet, stretched out his arms, and clenched his fists. "Sumner L.Delafield, it's getting time for you to say your prayers!"