"Daddy! Daddy!" she cried delightedly. "I have had such a glorious ride. Bobs pranced down the trail a thing of wildest life, making the trip from The Craggs in less than an hour."
Throwing her arms about his neck she drew his head gently to her. Swept off his feet by the swift dénouement of the last few minutes, he submitted to her will. For the first time in years she felt the absence of chilling repulse. Holding him close in her ecstasy she kissed his forehead again and again. With a final caress she laid her cheek against his for one silent, happy moment, then broke away and ran off to her room thrilling with pleasant emotion.
Mary McClure did not know that her glad arrival had held her father's hand from an unspeakable crime. He was indeed grateful to her for the interposition, though his face showed no repentance. There was, though, a regretful pang in the breast. It was caused not by any faint penitence for his evil design but by the memory of Mary's cheek against his. The "feel" of her soft, tender touch was there. For some strange reason the memory of it sank deep. The sound of her footsteps had scarcely died away, however, when the old ruthlessness returned. The relief he now felt was that of one who had been saved from committing a violent inexpediency. Glancing through the window he saw the horseman cantering leisurely down the trail. As he watched the hard lines drew about his mouth. He began casting about for the package of money, finding it at length near the door. Picking it up he looked at it a moment with bright eyes that acknowledged an enigma. Walking to the window he looked out, smiling secretively and shaking the wad ominously at the Valley boss.
"It will help to break you, Pullar," was his threat.
Going to the desk he opened a large drawer and deposited the money carefully in a tin box.
Above in her room Mary watched Ned ride out of sight into the Valley. She was greatly mystified as to the purpose of his visit. She regretted missing a meeting with him, but reflected with deepest happiness on the friendliness of her father. The moment, she felt, was full of happy augury.
IX
A LAND SHARK
Reddy Sykes had drifted into Pellawa during the early weeks of summer. Though at first an anomaly in the little town, the citizens grew used to his presence. It was hard to define Sykes' business. He was not a lawyer, though he had a distinctly legal turn of mind. He had acquired the title of Commissioner. He began work in the village with a command of considerable capital. His most lucrative line was real estate. He bought and sold farms and manipulated the transfer of large acreage blocks. A few city shingles decorated his window but the great urban boom of the West was as yet on the verge and the subdivisional mania had not got properly under way. The ability of the new arrival in his selected field was so surprising and apparent that his presence in Pellawa was a poser to the shrewd minds of the plains. He could have made things hum in a bigger world.
Personally, Sykes was a character that invited scrutiny. He was comparatively young, still in the early thirties, possessing a full-blooded interest in life. His face was unusually hard for so young a man and wore an habitual calculating expression. He was a man of scheme and intrigue. His motion as he moved about was very like that of Reynard as he slunk through the night en route to Mr. Farmer's chicken coop. He lived by his wits, searching the trail closely for tracks of his prey. His nose was always in the wind. He was alert for the lucky cast of the die that should tumble fortune into his lap. Inventive and resourceful, his mind stored a great fund of premises. He could adopt and discard twenty viewpoints in as many minutes. The stolid, common-place farmers fought shy of Sykes, shunning his speciousness, afraid of a snare. They felt the unrelenting, unscrupulous thing in the man, though unable to detect it in his handsome face.