“Justin,” she said, “it’s too bad to have to ask you to do it in this storm, but I wish you would go back to Mr. Jasper’s and get Ben’s pony, which he left there in the stable. I have a horse there, too, which I rode out from town. Get both of them, and put them in the stable here. You won’t mind the extra trip? I ought to have spoken to you of it before.”
Justin was about to assure her that he would go willingly; when she continued, in lower tones:
“And Justin! Don’t say anything about getting the horses from there, please. I will tell you why later. And I will explain everything to Uncle Philip.”
She had lifted the closed flap that protected the rear end of the wagon, and in the flame of the lightning which still burned across the skies he saw her pale and anxious face. She had always been beautiful in his eyes, but never more so than at that moment, while making this distressed appeal, even though her clothing exuded moisture and her hair was plastered to her head by the rain. Her pleading look haunted him for hours afterward.
“I’ll go,” he said promptly, “and I will have the horses here in a little while.”
“Thank you, Justin,” she said, in a way she had never spoken to him before. “And say nothing to anybody! I think you will not find Mr. Jasper at home; but you know where the stable is, and how to get into it.”
The wagon rolled on into the ranch house grounds, where Ben was helped out and into the house; and Justin galloped back along the trail to Sloan Jasper’s, having been given another surprise and further food for thought.
When he returned with Ben’s pony and the horse Lucy had hired in the town, and had put them in the stable with his own dripping animal, he entered the ranch house. Pearl opened the door for him; and as he removed his wet slicker he heard Philip Davison explaining to Steve Harkness that the farmers’ dam had been torn out by the storm. Then Fogg came toward him, and in the light at the farther end of the long hall he saw Lucy, who had changed her clothing and descended from her room. Ben Davison was not to be seen.
“I reckon you’re as wet as they make ’em,” said Fogg, “but, just the same, if you’ll step in here we’ll see what I’ve got on this plate.”
He was on his way to the dark room he had fitted up in the house for his photographic work.