Willock took the first train south and rode with the car window up--the outside breath was the breath of balmy summer though the trees stood bleak and leafless against the sky.Two days ago,snow had fallen--but the birds did not remember it.Seven hours brought him to a lonely wagon-trail called Ozark Lodge because after winding among hills several miles it at last reached the clubhouse of that name overlooking the lake.He left the train in the dusk of evening,and walked briskly away,the only moving figure in the wilderness.
His pace did not slacken till a gleam as of fallen sky cupped in night-fringe warned him that the club-house must be near.A turn of a hill brought it into view,the windows not yet aglow.Nearer at hand was the boat-house,seemingly deserted.But as Willock,now grown wary,crept forward among the post-oaks and blackjacks,well screened from observation by chinkapin masses of gray interlocked network,he discovered two figures near the platform edging the lake.Neither was the one he sought;but from their being there--they were Edgerton Compton and Annabel,--he knew Gledware could not be far away.
No,Annabel was saying decisively,and yet with an accent of regret,No,Edgerton,I can't.
But our last boat-ride,he urged.Don't refuse me the last ride--a ride to think about all my life.I'm going away tomorrow at noon,as I promised.But early in the morning--
I have promised HIM,she said with lingering sadness in her voice.So I must go with him.He has already engaged the boatman.He'll be here at seven,waiting for me.So you see--
Annabel,I shall be here at seven,also!he exclaimed impetuously.But why?I must go with him,Edgerton.You see that.
Then I shall row alone.
Why would you add to my unhappiness?she pleaded.
I shall be here at seven,he returned grimly;while you and he take your morning boat-ride,I shall row alone.
She turned from him with a sigh,and he followed her dejectedly up the path toward the club-house.
She had lost some of the fresh beauty which she had brought to the cove,and her step was no longer elastic;but this Willock did not notice.He gave little heed to their tones,their gestures,their looks in which love sought a thin disguise wherein it might show itself unnamed.He had seized on the vital fact that in the morning,Annabel and Gledware would push off from the boat-house steps,presumably alone;and it would be early morning.Perhaps Gledware would come first to the boat-house,there to wait for Annabel.In that case,he would not ride with Annabel.The lake was deep--deep as Willock's hate.
Willock passed the night in the woods,sometimes walking against time among the hills,sometimes seated on the ground,brooding.The night was without breath,without coolness.Occasionally he climbed a rounded elevation from which the clubhouse was discernible.No lights twinkled among the barren trees.All in that wilderness seemed asleep save himself.The myriad insects that sing through the spring and summer months had not yet found their voices;there was no trill of frogs,not even the hooting of an owl,--no sound but his own breathing.
At break of dawn he crept into the boat-house like a shadow,barefooted,bareheaded--the club-house was not yet awake.He looked about the barnlike room for a hiding-place.Walls,floor,ceiling were bare.Near the door opening on the lake was a rustic bench,impossible as a refuge.Only in one corner,where empty boxes and a disused skiff formed a barricade,could he hope for concealment.He glided thither,and on the floor between the dusty wall of broad boards and the jumbled partition,he found a man stretched on his back.
At first,he thought he had surprised a sleeper,but as the figure did not move,he decided it must be a corpse.He would have fled but for his need of this corner.He bent down--the man was bound hand and foot.In the mouth,a gag was fastened.Neck and ankles were tied to spikes in the wall.
Willock swiftly surveyed the lake and the sloping hill leading down from the club-house.Nobody was near.As he stared at the landscape,the front door of the club-house opened.He darted hack to the corner.Pardner,he said,I got to ask your hospitality for a spell,and if you move so as to attract attention,I got to fix you better.I didn't do this here,pardner,but you shore look like some of my handiwork in days past and gone.I'll share this corner with you for a while,and if you don't give me away to them that's coming,I promise to set you free.That's fair,I guess.'A man ain't all bad,'says Brick,'as unties the knots that other men has tied,'says he.Just lay still and comfortable,and we'll see what's coming.
Presently there were footsteps in the path,and to Willock's intense disappointment,Gledware and Annabel came in together.They were in the midst of a conversation and at the first few words,he found it related to Lahoma.The boatman who had promised to bring the skiff for them at seven--it developed that Gledware had no intention of doing the rowing--had not yet come.They sat down on the rustic bench,their voices distinctly audible in all parts of the small building.
Her closest living relative,Gledware said,is a great-aunt,living in Boston.As soon as I found out who she was--I'd always supposed her living among Indians,and that it would be impossible to find her--but as soon as I learned the truth,without saying anything to HER,I wrote to her great-aunt.I've never been in a position to take care of Lahoma--I felt that I ought to place her with her own family.
