CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSION
As he crawled slowly back to life and clear thinking, Harold's wild heart was filled with a peace and serenity of emotion such as it had not known since childhood. He was like a boy in a careless dream, forecasting nothing, remembering nothing, content to see Mary come and go about the room, glad of the sound of her skirts, thrilling under the gentle pressure of her hand.
She, on her part, could not realize any part of his dark fame as she smiled down into his big yellow-brown eyes which were as pathetic and wistful as those of a gentle animal.
Mrs. Raimon spoke of this. "I saw 'Black Mose' as he stood in the streets of Wagon Wheel, the most famous dead-shot in the State. I can't realize that this is the same man. He's gentle as a babe now; he was as terrible and as beautiful as a tiger then."
Reynolds sent fifty dollars with an apology for the delay and Mr. Excell offered his slender purse, but Mrs. Raimon said: "I'll attend to this matter of expense. Let me do that little for him—please!" And he gave way, knowing her great wealth.
But all these things began at last to trouble the proud heart of the sick man, and as he grew stronger his hours of quiet joy began to be broken by disquieting calculations of his indebtedness to Mrs. Raimon as well as to Mary and Jack. He wished to be free of all obligations, even gratitude. He insisted on his father's return to his pastorate—which he did at the end of the week.
Meanwhile Mary and Jack conspired for the Eagle's good. Together they planned to remove him to some fairer quarter of the city. Together they read and discussed the letters which poured in upon them from theatrical managers, Wild West shows, music halls, and other similar enterprises, and from romantic girls and shrewd photographers, and every other conceivable kind of crank. The offers of the music halls Jack was inclined to consider worth while. "He'd be a great success there, or as a dead-shot in a Wild West show. They pay pretty well, too."
"I don't believe he'd care to do anything like that," Mary quietly replied.
They both found that he cared to do nothing which involved his remaining in the East. As his eyes grew brighter, his longing for the West came back. He lifted his arms above his quilts with the action of the eaglet who meditates leaping from the home ledge. It was a sorrowful thing to see this powerful young animal made thin and white and weak by fever, but his spirit was indomitable.