“My father lost his life because he dared to tell the truth,” Victor replied.
“Oh, glorious!” Elinor cried, earnestly.
“I have always loved my father's memory for his courage,” Victor continued. “He was a believer in law enforcement and he was a terror to the bootleggers who carried whisky into our settlement. A man named Gresh was notorious for selling whisky to the claim holders. He gave it, Elinor, gave it, to a boy, a widow's son, made him drunk, robbed him, and left him to freeze to death in a blizzard. The boy lived long enough to tell my father who did it, and it was his testimony that helped to convict Gresh and start him to the penitentiary. He escaped from the sheriff on the way—and, so far as I know, there's one bad man still at large, a fugitive before the law. Whisky is the devil's own best tool, whether a man drinks it himself or gets other people to drink it.”
“That's a bad name,” Elinor said. “My grandfather adopted a boy named Gresh, who turned out bad. I think he was killed in a saloon row in Chicago. Did this Gresh ever trouble you again?”
Burleigh's face was grim as he answered:
“My father was waylaid and murdered with a club by this man. He escaped afterward into Indian Territory. He left his own name, Gresh, scrawled on a piece of paper pinned to my father's coat to show whose revenge was worked out. He was a volcano of human hate—that man Gresh. After my father's name was written—'The same club for every Burleigh who ever crosses my path.' I expect to cross his path some day, and if I ever lay my eyes on that fiend it will go hard with one of us.” The yellow glow burned again in Victor Burleigh's eyes and his fists clinched involuntarily. They were silent a while, until the sweetness of the day and the joy of being together wooed them to happier thoughts. Then Elinor remembered her disordered hair and, throwing aside her hat, she deftly put it into place.
“Am I presentable for the supper at the Kickapoo Corral?” she asked, as she picked up her hat again.
“You suit me,” Burleigh replied. “What are the Kickapoo requirements?”
“That Victor Burleigh shall be satisfied,” she answered, roguishly. “Really, that's right. Four girls offered to substitute for me in this penitential pilgrimage and write some long translations for me beside.”
“Four, individually or collectively?” he asked.