"Nothing. Nothing that makes an} sense. When your father died, the police picked this room clean. There would be noth- 306.

ing left for anyone to look for now. But whoever came in last night must have thought there might be."

"And whoever came in had that deringer in his possession," I said. "But who could it have been?"

Jon shook his head and went to the box on the small table. I had closed it last night after I found what was in it, and he raised the lid. The two blunt-nosed little guns were there. The twin pistols that had been reunited.

"I wonder what time Caleb left Jasper last night," I said. "I wonder if he could have come into this room before he went off."

Jon was silent, and another question rose in my mind. What if it had been Persis herself who had kept the second pistol? What if she had asked Caleb to replace it last night?

"You'll have to tell your grandmother," Jon said.

"No-not now! It's better not to!"

My vehemence alerted him, and he must have guessed what I was thinking, for he let the matter go.

Further speculation was futile, and we returned to stand for a few moments longer on the porch.

"How are you?" I asked, not wanting to let him go.

"Never felt better." But if there might have been a moment of intimacy between us he turned it aside. "Hillary may have a ( good idea about attending Ingram's ball and calling his bluff. Maybe we can show a united front if we go."

"In costume?"

Jon's mood had lightened. "It's not hard to look like a fortyniner. Save me a dance, Laurie. Or don't you dance with cowboys?"

"I dance with cowboys every chance I get," I told him.

But already he was looking away from me, off up the valley toward Old Desolate.

"I'm itching to get started out there," he said. "We need to be ready for next year."

37.

"Can you really graze cattle in the valley?"

"Sure. It's big enough, and there's plenty of gra.s.s. In the summertime, anyway. We'll need to do some planting, and we'll need more land down on the flats during the winter, and that can be managed. The cows that are held back for breeding and not sent to market can be fed with our own hay. We can swing it if your grandmother holds onto her courage. Are ou going to be a partner in this, Laurie?"

"I am if you'll have me."

I couldn't hold back what I felt any longer. It was there in my eyes, on my lips, whether I wanted it to be or not. He couldn't help seeing it. He pulled me into his arms, kissed me almost roughly, and then set me away from him.

"The heiress and the cowboy!" he said. "That's not what I'm after, Laurie."

I watched him move away with that easy lope that covered ground so quickly. My heart was thudding, and my thoughts were angry. Now I knew what stubborn pride I would ha" e to confront. Somehow I would have to manage that. How er few times in my life had I ever been determined about anything. But I was determined now. I had my directions finallv, and I knew where I was going. No more fantasy and makebelieve and escape, but only the reality of Jon Maddocks and the life I wanted to spend with him.

When I whistled for Red, he came bounding around a corner of the house, and I took him for a run that we both needed. More than ever I knew that Mark Ingram had to be defeated. Really stopped. Sent away, once and for all. Jon had to have his chance at the valley, and Persis and I had to have our chances too.

But as I returned to the house, I found myself wishing that there weren't times when I still felt afraid. Something faceless always seemed to be working against us, and I would hae to 308.

look past Mark Ingram to find it. He was involved, but there was something more.

Two days later this feeling in me was reinforced when an attempt was made upon Ingram's life. The whole thing was cornmon knowledge in Jasper within an hour of when it happened. Belle learned about it and brought the news to us.

One of the few sports Ingram could enjoy was riding, and he was often out on the mettlesome gray that was his favorite mount. On this morning he was riding over to Domino when he was fired upon from behind a clump of rocks. The first two shots missed, but the third cut through his jacket and resulted in a slight flesh wound in his upper arm. He had the good sense to get out of there as fast as he could, and he rode Juniper back to town at a gallop. While his arm was being bandaged, he ordered his men out to search the area from which the shots had come. A rifle was missing-the hunting rifle that had always stood behind the bar at the Timberline, and anyone could have picked it up.

At Morgan House we talked over the shooting, and Belle showed how much it had upset her. If it hadn't been for Persis' need, I think she might have returned to him then. But not even Belle, who knew Ingram so well, could guess what had happened. Caleb was home by that time, and he had no suggestions to offer either.

"Sure, Mark has enemies," Belle said. "He's always made plenty of them along the way. He can be dangerous, and dangerous men draw lightning. But who knows which enemy has turned up again to try to get rid of him now?"

Whatever his private suspicions might have been, Mark Ingram shrugged off the incident. The wound was slight and to be ignored. Though it was noted that he never rode out alone after that. Always two or three of his men rode with him wherever he went, and they looked a grim lot when they followed 39.

the trails around Jasper together. Like something out of the old West.

The remaining days before the Forty-niners' Ball went by without any further event. And that was just as well. Even the mysterious attack upon Mark Ingram, which seemed to indicate that someone was on our side, had been disturbing. We needed a spell of calm to rest us and to give us a chance to be braced for whatever was to come.

Persis ate her meals with a new appet.i.te, and she even exercised a little, and slept better at night. She began to come downstairs more often, and even walked about outside. Pretty soon, she said, she would be up on a horse again. Belle was delighted with her improvement, but afraid she would overdo.

Caleb had returned from Denver looking subdued, but with the new will in hand, and it had now been properly executed. I was Persis Morgan's main heir. If that fact served only to increase my uneasiness and my sense that I might be in even greater danger than before, I told no one how I felt.

There was one uncomfortable moment when I met Caleb alone in the hall near my room and told him about the deringer that had appeared with its twin in the mahogany box in the back parlor. I watched for his reaction, and even in the hall light that was always so dim, I could see how shaken he was. He took me by the arm and led me quickly back to his room.

"Who knows about this?" he asked.

"Only Jon. No one else."

"Sit down for a minute," he directed, and I sat in a worn leather chair and looked about a room that had been kept almost bare of decoration. This was the room he must stay in whenever he stopped in this house, and right now he was living here. Yet apparently he had never set any stamp of his own personality upon it, and it was as coldly austere as I had once thought him to be. I wondered what Caleb would be like if he ever really let himself go to the point of explosion.

While I sat waiting for him to speak, he stood at a window and stared unseeingly out at Jasper.

"Who do you think placed the gun in that box?" I asked him finally.

"I think I know," he said. "But I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to guess. I just want to suggest that you should not mention this to your grandmother. Can I ask for your word on that?"

I wondered if he suspected what I suspected.

"I won't promise anything unless I understand why."

"I think you've come to love her. That's why. You won't want to damage her in any way."

"But she has only to walk into that room to see for herself that two guns are there."

"I don't think she'll do that. But it's a good thing you told me about this."

"I thought you might have put it there."

Dislike for me showed in his eyes, and our interview was over. Whatever he could have told me, he had no intention of putting it into words. I left him feeling more frustrated than ever and defeated by the secrets that were still being held all around me.

During those days before the ball I saw nothing of Hillary, since he had gone to Denver. He phoned before he left to tell me that he wanted to buy materials in order to decorate the Opera House for Ingram's party. I was just as relieved not to see him for a little while.

Jon was being especially wary with me. It was as though he wore a sign to hold off anyone who might come close to him.

Nor did we see Mark Ingram during this period, but Belle, who lived with us now, warned us not to be optimistic. She had a feeling that he meant to spring something unexpected at the ball.

As my state of anxiety grew, I began to wish that Persis v ould change her mind about attending the party. I wasn't sure whether she could stand up to whatever he might be planning. Her strength wasn't as great as she was trying to pretend.

Of Gail we saw nothing, but Belle reported scornfully that she continued to ingratiate herself with Mark Ingram and that something was definitely going on there.

In spite of Belle's defection I knew there was still a bond between her and Mark Ingram, growing out of a long relationship. They were still fond of each other, and there were moments when I even wondered if Belle Durant was to be trusted.

Once Jon came to see my grandmother when she was sitting in the downstairs parlor, and this time I was present.

"I'd like an answer to something," he told her. "I want to know where you had Caleb put the jewels that were sacrificed in the cause of that story you cooked up for the press. Caleb won't tell me."

"He's under orders from me not to. Bringing them out again won't help, though I know it's been in your mind for a long time. It could be dangerous, so don't ask me again."

"I won't ask }ou, but I'll look," he said. "As I've alreadybeen doing for a while-with no result."

"What do you think you can learn from them?"

"I'm not sure I'd learn anything. But I don't think you've plaxed fair with us, and I'm wondering why."

She would say nothing, and the exchange ended there.

Hillary, too, troubled me during those few days. When he got back from Denver, he came to see me, behaving as naturally as though I had never tried to tell him that everything was over between us. I had the feeling that he, too, was up to something and that it concerned Mark Ingram. He hinted at 312.

the mysterious and wondrous, and sometimes got carried away with his own playacting. Certainly he was busy working on the Opera House. All construction in Jasper had ceased while the men gave full effort to the theater. Hillary reported that progress was considerable. Of course complete refurbishing wasn't possible in this short time, but at least it would be clean and some painting would have been done. All those ratty old seats were being cleared out, and the orchestra floor would be fine for dancing. Only reels and square dancing would be permitted, and several mountain fiddlers were coming in to call the dances.

It was going to be quite a party, Hillary said, and I knew he was excited about it. Too excited.

Once I tried to pin him down. "What about Mark Ingram? What is he really planning?"

Hillary looked as though he hadn't been really focusing on me. But now he concentrated, though not by answering my question.

"I'll wait for you, Laurie. All this will wear off, you know. I'll be there when you need me. Remember that."

I made no attempt to answer because I didn't know what he was talking about and I didn't believe there would ever again be a time when I would turn to Hillary Lange for anything. We had grown away from each other, though he hadn't really accepted that as yet. Only once, in a moment of anger, had he believed, and he had clearly talked himself out of that.

Persis insisted that I wear one of the old dresses from a trunk full of clothes dating back to before the turn of the century. No one in her family had ever thrown anything away, apparently. One could live like that in a house that came down through the generations. I brought out a pile of old garments, and she selected for me a dress that her mother had worn in the early igoos. It was of black lace over nile green satin, cut straight, with a little train. All the bustles and flounces and 3*3.

hoops of the last century had been abandoned by that time. The neck was low and square, and Grandmother loaned me an emerald necklace to wear with it. The black pumps that I'd brought would serve, being well hidden by the length of the gown.

On the night of this party that I had no wish to attend, Belle came to my room and dressed my hair in an upswept, puffy style that was not unbecoming. She had put on one of her green hourgla.s.s gowns and a red wig she had adopted for use at the Timberline, and she looked perfectly in character.

"I'm not sure what I represent," I said.

She considered me in the minor. "You're a lady from the East who wears the latest Paris fashions and is visiting a quaint mining town. Wait till you see your grandmother!"

Persis Morgan was not wearing the daisy-sprigged dress, but was decidedly the grande dame in gleaming black satin. About her throat sparkled a diamond dog collar that had once belonged to Sissy, and a diamond crescent of Sissy's shone in her beautiful gray hair.

As we went downstairs, Jon came through the door and stared at the three of us. "Resplendent! I'll hardly dare to be seen in your company."

He had managed a minimum of costume in a miner's rough clothes, with a coil of rope over one shoulder and a pan for washing dust under his arm. All he needed to look authentic was a beard.

Caleb was the real surprise, having unearthed a long frock coat and stovepipe hat. Thus garbed in lugubrious black, he looked the sober old-time lawyer-which perhaps he really was. A throwback from another age. An even less scrupulous age?

Earlier Mark Ingram had phoned that he was sending his station wagon for us, so we needn't come in the jeep. VvTnle Belle and Caleb helped Grandmother Persis down the front steps and into the car, Jon held me back for a moment "Tiy to stay near her as much as possible tonight," he warned me. "I don't know what may happen, but she may need you."

"Where will you be?"

"Around. Don't worry about me." And then, almost absently, "Laurie, you look beautiful. Who are you-Sissy Tremayne?"

"I think I'm trying to be Laurie Morgan," I said.

For just an instant his eyes wanned with approval, and then he looked away. I really didn't know what to do about Jon Maddocks.

We all went down the steps together and toward whatever this uncertain night might hold for us all. Mainly I was aware of Jon's hand over mine for a moment as I took his arm. So small a thing to take comfort from.

XIX.

The Timberline was ablaze with lights as we drove toward it, and a spotlight had been set up to shine upon the white face of the Opera House. Not exactly a forty-niner's touch, but then the jeeps and other four-wheel-drives that had poured into town belonged to a later era too. The upper street had been cleared to use for parking, but as guests of honor we were brought straight to the theater.

Ingram's informal summons must have been considered as a great lark, for the foyer was filled with men and women dressed in hastily conceived costumes and ready for adventure.

The press was there with cameras and reporters, and at once my grandmother was besieged. Mark Ingram himself strode through the lobby to rescue her from the flashbulbs, leading her into the theater grandly on his arm. The rest of us trailed after them. I noted that Ingram, of all the crowd, had not troubled to wear a costume, but then for him costume wasn't necessary. He was already a dramatic, always costumed figure in his gray cords. He seemed to belong to a Jasper that no longer existed, and his manner of total a.s.surance worried me. But if Mark Ingram seemed confident, Grandmother Persis could carry the charade still further because she was the real thing. Her own air of aristocratic poise could put him to shame. It was an American aristocracy she represented-from mining camp child to grande dame in one lifetime.

Belle and Caleb, Jon and I followed the conspicuous two with a bit of jostling because of the group that forever gathered around Ingram. Once we were inside, Jon gave my arm a rea.s.suring squeeze and slipped away into the crowd. I watched his tall figure disappear and wished that he had stayed with us. With me.

Hillary found us quickly, looking handsome and dramatic in a trapper's fringed jacket that he must have found in Denver. He, too, was a costume man. It was his natural habit.

These details of what we wore and how we looked I can still remember with a strange clarity. Much of the rest is a blur because of what happened that night to wipe out trivial detail and leave only the stark and tragic.

I know that at first I tried to stay close to my grandmother, as Jon had suggested. But when a fiddler struck up his first tune and the calling of the dances began, I was swept away to be partnered by strangers, swept into reels and do-si-dos, and other unfamiliar steps. Not knowing what I was doing didn't really matter. The few who knew carried the rest of us along on an , exciting outpouring of energy, and we caught on quickly. At least I knew that Belle was with Persis. Caleb was with her too, usually standing against the wall, not far from her chair, looking as though he thoroughly disapproved of all these festivities. Looking somehow watchful as well, as though he waited-for what? Like Caleb, Ingram was not dancing either, this being one of the things he couldn't manage gracefully, but I glimpsed him now and then, always with a lady on his arm and an air of triumph about him that made me uneasy.

In the beginning I was swept along on a flow of energy. Even the sparkle of light spilling from the great center chandelier added to my state of excitement, and I was entranced by the color from great swaths of crimson and gold materials that Hillary had draped over dusty boxes to give an illusion of richness and drama. The slanted floor of the orchestra sometimes lent unexpected speed to our steps, and sometimes made it an effort to dance uphill. Spare fiddlers sat on the stage, taking turns to music that never ended-an integral part of the total exhilaration.

Later, Ingram had said, refreshments would be served at the Timberline, but in the meantime a bar had been set up in the theater lobby, and it was already well patronized. All this ran by in reels of color and light and sound, borne on waves of that vitality and excitement that Mark Ingram could generate.

Once I danced with Hillary and saw that he was in his element, caught up by an excitement that was really his norm. Once I saw him dancing with Gail and thought what a handsome pair they made-he with the fringe on his trapper's jacket making a blur of graceful movement; she dressed as if for a rodeo in frontier pants and embroidered jacket, a Stetson set jauntily atilt on her head, with a thong under her chin to hold it in place. The time was when I might have felt a pang of jealousy, but now I only wished happiness for Hillary-away from rne.

I even danced once, briefly, joyfully, with Jon. The music had changed to a sentimental waltz, and he whirled me around the room, laughing a little, though his eyes were grave. After that he disappeared again, and I didn't see him until later that evening, when it was all over.

One impression has stayed with me especially. As I danced, a sense of unreality grew in me. I seemed to have lost touch with everything that was familiar. Grandmother Persis was sitting somewhere across the floor and Belle was with her. Probably Caleb too. But for me they existed on a distant plane. None of this was real-none of it existed. If I closed my eyes, all the make-believe would vanish in a flash. I was sure of that.

As the first intoxication died, I began to feel oddly frightened of what was happening to me. The chandelier shone with too dazzling a light, the fabric draped over the boxes was too richly scarlet, too metallically gold, the noise and the music and the laughter-all were too shrill, too artificial.

What I was feeling was a little like that intensity of sensation that can come just before a storm, to be dissipated only when the crash of thunder follows the slash of lightning. I found that I feared the storm, the sense of imminent disaster, and I knew that I had to escape the crowd. I had to find a quiet s.p.a.ce where I could breathe more easily, and where I would be out of reach of the thunderbolt when it came.