Gordon saw the action and understood it. He never forgot it. He said nothing, but gave his friend an illuminating smile that Langford understood. Neither ever spoke of it, neither ever forgot it. How tightly can quick impulses bind—forever.
Outside, they encountered the Judge in search of his delinquent charges.
“I’m sorry, Dick,” he said. “Dead loss, my boy. This beastly wind is your undoing.”
“I’m not worrying, Judge,” responded Gordon, grimly. “I intend for some one else to do that.”
“Hellity damn, Dick, hellity damn!” exploded Jim Munson in his ear. The words came whistling through his lips, caught and whirled backward by the play of the storm. The cold was getting bitter, and a fine, cutting snow was at last driving before the wind.
Gordon, with a set face, plunged back into the room—already fire licked. Langford and Munson followed. There sat the little tea-service staring at them with dumb pathos. The three succeeded in rolling the safe with all its precious documents arranged within, out into the street. Nothing else mattered much—to Gordon. But other things were saved, and Jim gallantly tossed out everything he could lay his hands on before Gordon ordered everybody out for good and all. It was no longer safe to be within. Gordon was the last one out. He carried a battered little teakettle in his hand. He looked at it in a whimsical surprise as if he had not known until then that he had it in his hand. Obeying a sudden impulse, he held it out to Louise.
“Please take care of—my poor little dream,” he whispered with a strange, intent look.
Before she could comprehend the significance or give answer, the Judge had faced about. He bore the girls back to the hotel, scolding helplessly all the way as they scudded with the wind. But Louise held the little tin kettle firmly.
Men knew of Richard Gordon that night that he was a marked man. The secret workings of a secret clan had him on their proscription list. Some one had at last found this unwearied and doggedly persistent young fellow in the way. In the way, he was a menace, a danger. He must be removed from out the way. He could not be bought from it—he should be warned from it. So now his home—his work room and his rest room, the first by many hours daily the more in use, with all its furnishings of bachelor plainness and utility, that yet had held a curious charm for some men, friends and cronies like Langford—was burning that he might be warned. Could any one say, “Jesse Black has done this thing”? Would he not bring down proof of guilt by a retaliation struck too soon? It would seem as if he were anticipating an unfavorable verdict. So men reasoned. And even then they did not arise to stamp out the evil that had endured and hugged itself and spit out corruption in the cattle country. That was reserved for—another.
They talked of a match thrown down at the courthouse by a tramp, likely,—when it was past midnight, when the fire broke out with the wind a piercing gale, and when no vagrant but had long since left such cold comfort and had slept these many weeks in sunnier climes. Some argued that the windows of the court-room might have been left open and the stove blown down by the wind tearing through, or the stove door might have blown open and remains of the fire been blown out, or the pipe might have fallen down. But it was a little odd that the same people said Dick Gordon’s office likely caught fire from flying sparks. Dick’s office was two blocks to westward of the court-house and it would have been a brave spark and a lively one that could have made headway against that northwester.