“Very well; set your beautiful red wig straight and then tell me why you wanted to come here among your enemies. It seems to me a hardy challenge, a most unnecessary risk.”
“No risk is unnecessary that brings me to you,” he said, his voice trembling in earnestness. “I dared to come because I hoped to meet you on equal ground.”
“You’re a bold man—in more ways than one.” She shook her head as in rebuke of his temerity.
“But you don’t believe I’m a thief,” said he, conclusively.
“No; I have made public denial of it.” She laughed lightly, but a little nervously, an uneasiness over her that she could not define.
“An angel has risen to plead for Alan Macdonald, then!”
“Why should you need anybody to plead for you if there’s no truth in their charges? What is a man like you doing in this wild place, wasting his life in a land where he isn’t wanted?”
They had turned into a path that branched beyond the lanterns. The white gravel from the river bars with which it was paved glimmered among the shadowy shrubs. Macdonald unclasped his plaid from his shoulders and transferred it to hers. She drew it round her, wrapping her arms in it like a squaw, for the wind was coming chill from the mountains now.
“It is soon said,” he answered, quite willingly. “I am not hiding under any other man’s name—the one they call me by here is my own. I was a ‘son of a family,’ as they say in Mexico, and looked for distinction, if not glory, in the diplomatic service. Four 47 years I grubbed, an under secretary in the legation at Mexico City, then served three more as consul at Valparaiso. An engineer who helped put the railroad through this country told me about it down there when the rust of my inactive life was beginning to canker my body and brain. I threw up my chance for diplomatic distinction and came off up here looking for life and adventure, and maybe a copper mine. I didn’t find the mine, but I’ve had some fun with the other two. Sometimes I’d like to lose the adventure part of it now—it gets tiresome to be hunted, after a while.”