Tangled Trails: A Western Detective Story Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  NOT ALWAYS TWO TO MAKE A QUARREL

  Kirby put Wild Rose on the morning train for Denver. She had escapedfrom the doctor by sheer force of will. The night had been a wretchedone, almost sleepless, and she knew that her fever would rise in theafternoon. But that could not be helped. She had more importantbusiness than her health to attend to just now.

  Ordinarily Rose bloomed with vitality, but this morning she lookedtired and worn. In her eyes there was a hard brilliancy Kirby did notlike to see. He knew from of old the fire that could blaze in herheart, the insurgent impulses that could sweep her into recklessness.What would she do if the worst she feared turned out to be true?

  "Good luck," she called through the open window as the train pulledout. "Beat Cole, Kirby."

  "Good luck to you," he answered. "Write me soon as you find out howthings are."

  But as he walked from the station his heart misgave him. Why had helet her go alone, knowing as he did how swift she blazed to passionwhen wrong was done those she loved? It was easy enough to say thatshe had refused to let him go with her, though he had several timesoffered. The fact remained that she might need a friend at hand, mightneed him the worst way.

  All through breakfast he was ridden by the fear of trouble on herhorizon. Comrades stopped to slap him on the back and wish him goodluck in the finals, and though he made the proper answers it was withthe surface of a mind almost wholly preoccupied with another matter.

  While he was rising from the table he made a decision in the flash ofan eye. He would join Rose in Denver at once. Already dozens of carswere taking the road. There would be a vacant place in some one ofthem.

  He found a party just setting out for Denver and easily madearrangements to take the unfilled seat in the tonneau.

  By the middle of the afternoon he was at a boarding-house on CherokeeStreet inquiring for Miss Rose McLean. She was out, and the landladydid not know when she would be back. Probably after her sister gothome from work.

  Lane wandered down to Curtis Street, sat through a part of a movie,then restlessly took his way up Seventeenth. He had an uncle and twocousins living in Denver. With the uncle he was on bad terms, and withhis cousins on no terms at all. It had been ten years since he hadseen either James Cunningham, Jr., or his brother Jack. Why not callon them and renew acquaintance?

  He went into a drug-store and looked the name up in a telephone book.His cousin James had an office in the Equitable Building. He hung thebook up on the hook and turned to go. As he did so he came face toface with Rose McLean.

  "You--here!" she cried.

  "Yes, I--I had business in Denver," he explained.

  "Like fun you had! You came because--" She stopped abruptly, struckby another phase of the situation. "Did you leave Cheyenne withoutriding to-day?"

  "I didn't want to ride. I'm fed up on ridin'."

  "You threw away the championship and a thousand-dollar prize to--to--"

  "You're forgettin' Cole Sanborn," he laughed. "No, honest, I came onbusiness. But since I'm here--say, Rose, where can we have a talk?Let's go up to the mezzanine gallery at the Albany. It's right nextdoor."

  He took her into the Albany Hotel. They stepped out of the elevator atthe second floor and he found a settee in a corner where they might bealone. It struck him that the shadows in her eyes had deepened. Shewas, he could see plainly, laboring under a tension of repressedexcitement. The misery of her soul leaped out at him when she lookedhis way.

  "Have you anything to tell me?" he asked, and his low, gentle voice wasa comfort to her raw nerves.

  "It's a man, just as I thought--the man she works for."

  "Is he married?"

  "No. Going to be soon, the papers say. He's a wealthy promoter. Hisname's Cunningham."

  "What Cunningham?" In his astonishment the words seemed to leap fromhim of their own volition.

  "James Cunningham, a big land and mining man. You must have heard ofhim."

  "Yes, I've heard of him. Are you sure?"

  She nodded. "Esther won't tell me a thing. She's shielding him. ButI went through her letters and found a note from him. It's signed 'J.C.' I accused him point-blank to her and she just put her head down onher arms and sobbed. I know he's the man."

  "What do you mean to do?"

  "I mean to have a talk with him first off. I'll make him do what'sright."

  "How?"

  "I don't know how, but I will," she cried wildly. "If he don't I'llsettle with him. Nothing's too bad for a man like that."

  He shook his head. "Not the best way, Rose. Let's be sure of everymove we make. Let's check up on this man before we lay down the law tohim."

  Some arresting quality in him held her eye. He had sloughed the gaydevil-may-care boyishness of the range and taken on a look of strongpatience new in her experience of him. But she was worn out andnervous. The pain in her arm throbbed feverishly. Her emotions hadheld her on a rack for many hours. There was in her no reserve powerof endurance.

  "No, I'm going to see him and have it out," she flung back.

  "Then let me go with you when you see him. You're sick. You ought tobe in bed right now. You're in no condition to face it alone."

  "Oh, don't baby me, Kirby!" she burst out. "I'm all right. What's itmatter if I am fagged. Don't you see? I'm crazy about Esther. I'vegot to get it settled. I can rest afterward."

  "Will it do any harm to take a friend along when you go to see thisman?"

  "Yes. I don't want him to think I'm afraid of him. You're not inthis, Kirby. Esther is my little sister, not yours."

  "True enough." A sardonic, mirthless smile touched his face. "ButJames Cunningham is my uncle, not yours."

  "Your uncle?" She rose, staring at him with big, dilated eyes. "He'syour uncle, the man who--who--"

  "Yes, an' I know him better than you do. We've got to use finesse--"

  "I see." Her eyes attacked him scornfully. "You think we'd better notface him with what he's done. You think we'd better go easy on him.Uncle's rich, and he might not like plain words. Oh, I understand now."

  Wild Rose flung out a gesture that brushed him from her friendship.She moved past him blazing with anger.

  He was at the elevator cage almost as soon as she.

  "Listen, Rose. You know better than that. I told you he was my unclebecause you'd find it out if I'm goin' to help you. He's no friend ofmine, but I know him. He's strong. You can't drive him by threats."

  The elevator slid down and stopped. The door of it opened.

  "Will you stand aside, sir?" Rose demanded. "I won't have anything todo with any of that villain's family. Don't ever speak to me again."

  She stepped into the car. The door clanged shut. Kirby was leftstanding alone.