"Unprotected as you were!"

"We girls would have little need for protection if you men were all as gentlemanly as he was. He seemed to be an old acquaintance of yours.

Who is he?"

Brenchfield shrugged his shoulders.

"Pshaw!--that kind would claim acquaintance with the very devil himself. You don't suppose I ever met him before. He is a dangerous criminal escaped from Ukalla."

"He told me so," put in Eileen, as if tired of the interview, "and he seemed quite annoyed when I refused to believe the _dangerous criminal_ part."

"But the police tell me he _is_. It was only for your sake that I let him go."

Brenchfield tried to turn her to the seriousness of her misdemeanour.

"For the sake of your good name, you had no right admitting him. You know what Vernock is like for gossip. You know the construction likely to be placed on your action."

Eileen drew herself up haughtily.

"You'll excuse me, Mr. Brenchfield! When did you earn the right to catechise Eileen Pederstone?"

He changed suddenly and his peculiarly strong and handsome face softened.

"I am sorry. I did not mean it in that way, Eileen. And this is no time to speak, but--but I hope--some day----"

The girl held up her hand, and he stopped.

He was tall, full-chested and tremendously athletic of figure and poise, with dark eyes that fascinated rather than attracted and a bearing of confidence begotten of five years of triumphal success in business ventures and real-estate transactions; a man to whom men would look in a crisis; a man whom most men obeyed instinctively and one to whom women felt drawn although deep down in their hearts they were strangely afraid of him.

He held Eileen with his eyes.

"There is something I wish to ask you some day, Eileen. May I?"

"Nothing serious, I hope, Mr. Brenchfield?" she returned lightly, for she at least had never acknowledged any submission to those searching eyes of his. "And please remember, it is past midnight. My father isn't here."

"Serious!--yes!" he returned, ignoring her admonition, "but some day will do."

"It is an old story;--some day may never come, good sir!"

He smiled indulgently.

Eileen, despite her apparent unconcern, placed her hand over her heart as if to stay a fluttering there.

Mayor Brenchfield was a young man, a successful man; to many women he would have been considered a desirable man.

He professed friendship with Eileen's father. He put business her father's way. He was of the same political leanings. He had met Eileen on many occasions. Brenchfield was a tremendously energetic man; he seemed to be everywhere at once.

Eileen, like other women, could not help admiring him for his forceful handling of other men, for his keen business ac.u.men, for his almost wizardly success.

He had many qualities that appealed strongly to the romantic in her youthful nature; but, girl-like, she had not stopped at any time to a.n.a.lyse the feelings he engendered in her.

And now, up there on the hill, in the chill of the night air, under the stars that hung so low and prominently that one felt one might almost reach up and pluck them from the heavens,--now there came a sudden dread.

It was this inexplicable dread that set her heart athrob.

Brenchfield took her hand from her bosom and patted it gently.

His touch annoyed her. She drew away imperiously, and she shivered.

"Why, little woman!--you are cold and it is very late. How thoughtless of me! Good night, Eileen!"

"Good night!" she returned wearily, closing the door.

The moment he heard the bolts shoot home, Brenchfield's whole nature changed. An oath came to his lips. He crushed his hat down on his head, leapt the fence and rushed headlong by the short cut down through the orchards--townward.

At the Kenora Hotel corner his low whistle brought two men from the saloon.

The three conversed together earnestly for a few moments, then they separated to different positions in the shadows but commanding a full view of the road leading down the hill from the east of the Main Street of Vernock.

But of all this Eileen Pederstone--alone in the little bungalow up on the hill--was blissfully ignorant.

CHAPTER III

At Pederstone's Forge

Pederstone the blacksmith--or, to give him his full name which he insisted on at all times, John Royce Pederstone--was busy on his anvil, turning a horse shoe. His sleeves were rolled up almost to his shoulders and his lithe muscles slipped and rippled under his white skin in a rhythm of harmony. His broad chest was bare as his arms, and his chubby apple-red cheeks shone with perspiration which oozed from his every pore. He was singing to himself in happy unconcern about his being a jovial monk contented with his lot. Two horses were tied inside the shop waiting to be shod, chafing and pawing in their impatience.

Pederstone's right-hand man, Sol Hanson, a great chunk of a bachelor Swede, was at the back door swearing volubly because an iron tire refused to fit the wooden rim of a cart wheel to his satisfaction.

Horseshoes, ploughs, harrows, iron gates and cart and buggy wheels of all kinds were lying about in disorderly profusion.

The noonday sun was pouring in aslant at the front door, while at the back door, away from Hanson, a Russian wolf-hound was stretched out lazily gnawing at a bone which it held between its fore paws.

The furnace fire was blazing, and Pederstone's anvil was ringing merrily, when suddenly the melodious sounds were interrupted by a deep growl and then a yelp of pain from the hound as it sprang away from the spurred boot of a great, rough, yet handsome figure of a man of the cowboy type, who came striding in, legs apart, dressed in sheepskin chaps.

"Say, Ped!--ain't you got that hoss o' mine shod? Can't wait all day in this burg!"

The smith stopped suddenly and glared at the newcomer.

"None of that Ped stuff, you untamed Indian! Mr. Royce Pederstone to you and your kind; and, if you don't like it and can't wait your turn, take your cayuse out of here and tie her up at the back of the hotel for an hour or two. You're not half drunk enough yet to be going back to Redmans Creek."

"All right, Mister-_Royce-Pederstone_--but I ain't Indian, and don't you forgit it. The fact that I git all the booze I like from Charlie Mac settles that in this burg."

It was a sore point with the newcomer, for at least three-quarters of him was white, and part of it first-cla.s.s white at that.

He took off his hat.