Blacksheep! Blacksheep!

by Meredith Nicholson

I

The Governor and Archie were waiting on the Huddleston wharf when Putney and Leary returned from Calderville, bringing two sacks of Heart o' Dreams mail. Putney had loafed about the Calderville post-office and made purchases in several shops to learn if possible whether Carey's purpose in establishing himself in the woods was known to the villagers. He had, it seemed, represented himself as an investigator for a lumber company engaged in appraising timber. This was the story he had told in Calderville and the villagers had not questioned it.

"That's all right," said the Governor, "and serves our purpose well. Archie, you and Leary take the launch and carry the mail over to Heart o' Dreams. The tug will be within call in case you need help. At twelve o'clock meet me about a quarter of a mile this side of Carey's barricade; Leary's got the place spotted so he can find it in the dark. Use a canoe; no noise and no lights. Hurry along but don't blow up the launch."

"I have a surprise for you," said Ruth when Archie delivered the mail at the camp office. "I'm going to be busy sorting this mail, but if you will step to the door, bear left ten yards and stop by a bench under our tallest pine, some one you pretend to like rather particularly may appear, but just for a moment, remember! You ought to be eternally grateful to me for this; I had to overcome both the doctor and the nurse and the prejudices and suspicions of the particular person—"

"Isabel!" he exclaimed. He hadn't dreamed that he might see Isabel.

She came toward him out of the shadows, wrapped in a long cloak, carrying a lantern, and paused by the bench.

"These old-fashioned lanterns are a lot nicer than the electric flash things," she remarked.

They sat down with the lantern between them, her right hand resting upon its wire guard for a moment. The glow emphasized its fine length and firmness. The left hand was bandaged and he saw her thrust it quickly out of sight.

"You haven't let me say how happy I am that you are able to be up, or how grateful I am for this glimpse of you. It's always just glimpses."

"Maybe it's better that way! But so much happens between our meetings; there was never anything like it in all the world. Never was an acquaintance so pursued by storms! I wonder where the blow will fall next?"

"Not on your head," he answered decisively, "not if the Governor and I can prevent it. But let us not waste time on that; I want your assurance that you are really well."

"Oh, perfectly; not an ache from the ducking; only this little reminder my hand will carry for a day or two; but that's nothing to worry about!"

There was a restraint upon them, due perhaps to the calming influence of the stars, the murmurings of the shore in conference with the pines.

"The things that have happened since we first met would make a large book," he said with an accession of courage, "but a separate volume would have to be written about your hands."

She fell back at once upon her defenses.

"Oh, are they as large as that!"

"They are as dear as that!"

"How absurd you are! Here we are with only a few minutes to talk; not more than ten—that's official from the doctor; and you're talking foolishness. If I were extremely sensitive I might imagine that my face was displeasing to you!"

"The face is too remote, too sacred; I wouldn't dare let myself think about it. The hand encourages belief in our common humanity; but the face is divine, a true key to the soul. The hand we think of commonly as a utilitarian device of nature, and in your case we know it to be skilled in many gracious arts, but beyond its decorative values—"

"Dear me! Just what are you quoting?"

"Please suffer the rest of it! Your hands, I was about to say, not only awaken admiration by their grace and symmetry, but the sight of them does funny things to my heart."

"That heart of yours! How did it ever manage to survive the strain and excitement of last night?"

"Oh, it functioned splendidly. But it was at work in a good cause. Pray permit me to continue. Your hands are adorable; I am filled with tenderest longings to possess them. If I should touch them I might die, so furious would be my palpitations!"

"The minutes fly and you are delivering an oration on the human hand, which in the early processes of evolution was only a claw. If you are not careful you'll be writing poetry next!"

"The future tense does me an injustice. I've already committed the unpardonable rhyme! I never made a verse before in my life, and this hasn't been confided to paper. I thought it out at odd moments in my recent travels. The humming of the wheels on the sleeper coming up gave me the tune. If you will encourage me a little I think I can recite it. It needs smoothing out in spots, but it goes something like this:

"I view with awe and wonder

Her hands so slim and long,—

I must not make the blunder

Of clasping them—in song!

"But sweet the memory lingers

Of happy fleeting times

When I have kissed her fingers

And folded them in rhymes.

"Hands shouldn't be so slender,

So dear and white and strong,

To waken thoughts so tender

That fold them like a song!"

"Charming! I never thought when I talked to you that night at your sister's that I was addressing my inanities to a poet. Those are very nice jingles. I'm struck by the imagination they show—in the second verse I think it is—?"

He repeated the verse.

"Are you daring me?" he asked.

"I dared you once and got you into a lot of trouble. Please remember that we are unchaperoned and the dear little girls asleep in those tents back yonder would be shocked—"

"I shall make the shock as gentle as possible," he said and kissed her unresisting hand.

"The poem seems in a way to have been prophetic!" she remarked. "I must run now or the doctor will scold me, or I shall be scolding you! I must say one thing before we part. I've had time today to do a good deal of thinking, and my opinion of myself isn't very high. Out of sheer contrariness that night in Washington I teased you into doing things that led you into grave danger—and the danger is still all about us. I'm sorry; with all my heart I'm sorry! If anything should happen to you, it would be my fault—my very grievous sin! And maybe there are other men that I may have said similar things to—oh, you were not the first!" she laughed forlornly. "They, too, may have plunged into the same pit I dug for you. Oh, how foolish I've been!"

There was no questioning the sincerity of her dejection and contrition, and he felt moved to tell her of Putney's confession in the park at Chicago, that they might laugh together at the curious fling of fate that had brought two of her victims together In deadly combat. But her mood did not encourage the idea that she would view the matter in a humorous light.

"I wish you could tell me truly," she went on, "that what I said that night really didn't impress you; that it wasn't responsible for your giving up your plans for going to the Rockies?"

"Honestly, I can't say anything of the kind! And if we hadn't had the talk, and if you hadn't sent the verse, I shouldn't be here trying to help you now."

"But it was flirting; it was the silliest kind of flirting!"

"That is always a legitimate form of entertainment, a woman's right and privilege! Please put all this out of your mind!"

"It's not a thing to be dismissed so lightly. I'm very unhappy about it; I'm deeply ashamed of myself!"

"You exaggerate the whole matter," he urged. "You are making me out a miserable weakling indeed when you think I ambled off toward perdition just because you dared me to assert myself a little!"

"I want you to promise," she said slowly, "that you won't in any way interfere with my cousin here. I can't have you taking further risks. After last night I doubt whether he bothers us. Ruth feels as I do about it; you must go away. You will promise, please—"

"You would have us run just as the game grows interesting! Of course we're not going to quit the field and leave that fellow here to annoy you! He's a dangerous character and we're going to get rid of him."

She was depressed, much as Ruth had been a few hours earlier and his efforts to win her to a happier frame of mind were unavailing.

"I love you; I love you!" he said softly.

"You must never say that to me again," she said slowly and determinedly. "After my stupid, cruel thoughtlessness you must hate me—"

"But, Isabel—"

She seized the lantern and hurried away, her head bowed, the cloak billowing about her. He watched the lantern till its gleam was swallowed up in the darkness.

It was ten o'clock. Leary had got the outgoing mail—a week's accumulation, and they crossed to Huddleston where one of Perky's men was waiting with a machine to carry it to Calderville.

"The Governor didn't want the launch goin' up there ag'in," Leary explained. "He dug up that car somewhere."

"The Governor's a great man," said Archie.

"The greatest in the world!" Leary solemnly affirmed.