章节正文
range, and in Art's pocket was a month's leave of
absence from his duties. Once she heard Lite laugh, and
she stood with one hand full of hairpins and the other
holding the brush and listened, and smiled a little. It
all sounded very companionable, very care-free,--not
in the least as though they were about to clear up an old
wrong.
She got into bed and thumped the hard pillow into
a little nest for her tired head, and listened languidly
to the familiar voices that came to her mingled with
confused noises of the street. Lite was on guard; he
would not lose his caution just because Art seemed
friendly and helpfully inclined, and had meant no
treachery over in that queer restaurant. Lite would not
be easily tricked. So she presently fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
A LITTLE ENLIGHTENMENT
Sometime in the night Jean awoke to hear footsteps
in the corridor outside her room. She sat up
with a start, and her right hand went groping for her
gun. Just for the moment she thought that she was
in her room at the Lazy A, and that the night-prowler
had come and was beginning his stealthy search of the
house.
Then she heard some one down in the street call out
a swift sentence in Spanish, and get a laugh for an
answer. She remembered that she was in Nogales,
within talking distance of Mexico, and that she had
found Art Osgood, and that he did not behave like a
fugitive murderer, but like a friend who was anxious
to help free her father.
The footsteps went on down the hall,--the footsteps
of Lite, who had come and stood for a minute outside
her door to make sure that all was quiet and that she
slept. But Jean, now that she knew where she was,
lay wide awake and thinking. Suddenly she sat up
again, staring straight before her.
That letter,--the letter Art had taken to her father,
the letter he had read and put in the pocket of his
chaps! Was that what the man had been hunting for,
those nights when he had come searching in that secret,
stealthy way? She did not remember ever having
looked into the pocket of her father's chaps, though they
had hung in her room all those three years since the
tragedy. Pockets in chaps were not, as a general thing,
much used. Men carried matches in them sometimes,
or money. The flap over her dad's chap-pocket was
buttoned down, and the leather was stiff; perhaps the letter
was there yet.
She got up and turned on the light, and looked at her
watch. She wanted to start then, that instant, for Los
Angeles. She wanted to take her dad's chaps out of
her trunk where she had packed them just for the comfort
of having them with her, and she wanted to look
and see if the letter was there still. There was no particular
reason for believing that this was of any particular
importance, or had any bearingwhatever upon the
crime. But the idea was there, and it nagged at her.
Her watch said that it was twenty-five minutes after
two o'clock. The train, Lite had told her, would leave
for Tucson at seven-forty-five in the morning. She told
herself that, since it was too far to walk, and since she
could not start any sooner by staying up and freezing,
she might just as well get back into bed and try to
sleep.
But she could not sleep. She kept thinking of the
letter, and trying to imagine what clue it could possibly
give if she found it still in the pocket. Carl had sent
it, Art said. A thought came to Jean which she tried
to ignore; and because she tried to ignore it, it returned
with a dogged insistence, and took clearer shape in her
mind, and formed itself into questions which she was
compelled at last to face and try to answer.
Was it her Uncle Carl who had come and searched
the house at night, trying to find that letter? If it were
her uncle, why was he so anxious to find it, after three
years had passed? What was in the letter? If it had
any bearingwhatever upon the death of Johnny Croft,
why hadn't her dad mentioned it? Why hadn't her
Uncle Carl said something about it? Was the letter
just a note about some ranch business? Then why else
should any one come at night and prowl all through the
house, and never take anything? Why had he come
that first night?
Jean drew in her breathsharply. All at once, like
a flashlight turned upon a dark corner of her mind, she
remembered something about that night. She remembered
how she had told her Uncle Carl that she meant
to prove that her dad was innocent; that she meant to
investigate the devious process by which the Lazy A
ranch and all the stock had ceased to belong to her or
her father; that she meant to adopt sly, sleuth-like
methods; she remembered the very words which she
had used. She remembered how bitter her uncle had
become. Had she frightened him, somehow, with her
bold declaration that she would not "let sleeping dogs
lie" any longer? Had he remembered the letter, and
been uneasy because of what was in it? But what
COULD be in it, if it were written at least a day before
the terrible thing had happened?
She remembered her uncle's uncontrolled fury that
evening when she had ridden over to see Lite. What
had she said to cause it? She tried to recall her words,
and finally she did remember saying something about
proving that her own money had been paying for her
"keep" for three years. Then he had gone into that
rage, and she had not at the time seen any connection
between her words and his raving anger. But perhaps
there was a connection. Perhaps--
"Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed aloud. She was
remembering the telegram which she had sent him just
before she left Los Angeles for Nogales. "He'll just
simply go WILD when he gets that wire!" She recalled
now how he had insisted all along that Art Osgood
knew absolutely nothing about the murder; she recalled
also, with an uncanny sort of vividness, Art's manner
when he had admitted for the second time that the letter
had been from Carl. She remembered how he had
changed when he found that her father was being punished
for the crime.
She did not know, just yet, how all these tangled
facts were going to work out. She had not yet come to
the final question that she would presently be asking
herself. She felt sure that her uncle knew more,--
a great deal more,--about Johnny Croft's death than
he had appeared to know; but she had not yet reached
the point to which her reasonings inevitably would
bring her; perhaps her mind was subconsciously delaying
the ultimate conclusion.
She got up and dressed; unfastening her window,
she stepped out on the veranda. The street was quiet
at that time in the morning. A sentry stood on guard
at the corner, and here and there a light flared in some
window where others were wakeful. But for the most
part the town lay asleep. Over in what was really the
Mexican quarter, three or four roosters were crowing
as if they would never leave off. The sound of them
depressed Jean, and made her feel how heavy was the
weight of her great undertaking,--heavier now, when
the end was almost in sight, than it had seemed on that
moonlight night when she had ridden over to the Lazy
A and had not the faintest idea of how she was going
to accomplish any part of her task which she had set
herself. She shivered, and turned back to get the gay
serape which she had bought from an old Mexican
woman when they were coming out of that queer
restaurant last evening.
When she came out again, Lite was standing there,
smoking a cigarette and leaning against a post.
"You'd better get some sleep, Jean," he reproved her
when she came and stood beside him. "You had a
pretty hard day yesterday; and to-day won't be any
easier. Better go back and lie down."
Jean merely pulled the serape snugger about her
shoulders and sat down sidewise upon the railing. "I
couldn't sleep," she said. "If I could, I wouldn't be
out here; I'd be asleep, wouldn't I? Why don't you
go to bed yourself?"
"Ah-h, Art's learned to talk Spanish," he said drily.
"I got myself all worked up trying to make out what
he was trying to say in his sleep, and then I found out
it wasn't my kinda talk, anyway. So I quit. What's
the matter that you can't sleep?"
Jean stared down at the shadowy street. A dog ran
out from somewhere, sniffed at a doorstep, and trotted
over into Mexico and up to the sentry. The sentry
patted it on the head and muttered a friendly word or
two. Jean watched him absently. It was all so peaceful!
Not at all what one would expect, after seeing
pictures of all those refugees and all those soldiers
fighting, and the dead lying in the street in some little
town whose name she could not pronounce correctly.
"Did you hear Art tell about taking a letter to dad
the day before?" she asked abruptly. "He wasn't
telling the truth, not all the time. But somehow I believe
that was the truth. He said dad stuck it in the
pocket of his chaps. I believe it's there yet, Lite. I
don't remember ever looking into that pocket. And I
believe--Lite, I never said anything about it, but somebody
kept coming to the house in the night and hunting
around through all the rooms. He never came into my
room, so I--I didn't bother him; but I've wondered
what he was after. It just occurred to me that
maybe--"
"I never could figure out what he was after, either,"
Lite observed quietly.
"You?" Jean turned her head, so that her eyes
shone in the light of a street lamp while she looked up
at him. "How in the world did you know about him?"
Lite laughed drily. "I don't think there's much
concerns you that I don't know," he confessed. "I saw
him, I guess, every time he came around. He couldn't
have made a crooked move,--and got away with it.
But I never could figure him out exactly."
Jean looked at him, touched by the care of her that
he had betrayed in those few words. Always she had
accepted him as the one friend who never failed her,
but lately,--since the advent of the motion-picture people,
to be exact,--a new note had crept into his friendship;
a new meaning into his watching over her. She
had sensed it, but she had never faced it openly. She
absence from his duties. Once she heard Lite laugh, and
she stood with one hand full of hairpins and the other
holding the brush and listened, and smiled a little. It
all sounded very companionable, very care-free,--not
in the least as though they were about to clear up an old
wrong.
She got into bed and thumped the hard pillow into
a little nest for her tired head, and listened languidly
to the familiar voices that came to her mingled with
confused noises of the street. Lite was on guard; he
would not lose his caution just because Art seemed
friendly and helpfully inclined, and had meant no
treachery over in that queer restaurant. Lite would not
be easily tricked. So she presently fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
A LITTLE ENLIGHTENMENT
Sometime in the night Jean awoke to hear footsteps
in the corridor outside her room. She sat up
with a start, and her right hand went groping for her
gun. Just for the moment she thought that she was
in her room at the Lazy A, and that the night-prowler
had come and was beginning his stealthy search of the
house.
Then she heard some one down in the street call out
a swift sentence in Spanish, and get a laugh for an
answer. She remembered that she was in Nogales,
within talking distance of Mexico, and that she had
found Art Osgood, and that he did not behave like a
fugitive murderer, but like a friend who was anxious
to help free her father.
The footsteps went on down the hall,--the footsteps
of Lite, who had come and stood for a minute outside
her door to make sure that all was quiet and that she
slept. But Jean, now that she knew where she was,
lay wide awake and thinking. Suddenly she sat up
again, staring straight before her.
That letter,--the letter Art had taken to her father,
the letter he had read and put in the pocket of his
chaps! Was that what the man had been hunting for,
those nights when he had come searching in that secret,
stealthy way? She did not remember ever having
looked into the pocket of her father's chaps, though they
had hung in her room all those three years since the
tragedy. Pockets in chaps were not, as a general thing,
much used. Men carried matches in them sometimes,
or money. The flap over her dad's chap-pocket was
buttoned down, and the leather was stiff; perhaps the letter
was there yet.
She got up and turned on the light, and looked at her
watch. She wanted to start then, that instant, for Los
Angeles. She wanted to take her dad's chaps out of
her trunk where she had packed them just for the comfort
of having them with her, and she wanted to look
and see if the letter was there still. There was no particular
reason for believing that this was of any particular
importance, or had any bearingwhatever upon the
crime. But the idea was there, and it nagged at her.
Her watch said that it was twenty-five minutes after
two o'clock. The train, Lite had told her, would leave
for Tucson at seven-forty-five in the morning. She told
herself that, since it was too far to walk, and since she
could not start any sooner by staying up and freezing,
she might just as well get back into bed and try to
sleep.
But she could not sleep. She kept thinking of the
letter, and trying to imagine what clue it could possibly
give if she found it still in the pocket. Carl had sent
it, Art said. A thought came to Jean which she tried
to ignore; and because she tried to ignore it, it returned
with a dogged insistence, and took clearer shape in her
mind, and formed itself into questions which she was
compelled at last to face and try to answer.
Was it her Uncle Carl who had come and searched
the house at night, trying to find that letter? If it were
her uncle, why was he so anxious to find it, after three
years had passed? What was in the letter? If it had
any bearingwhatever upon the death of Johnny Croft,
why hadn't her dad mentioned it? Why hadn't her
Uncle Carl said something about it? Was the letter
just a note about some ranch business? Then why else
should any one come at night and prowl all through the
house, and never take anything? Why had he come
that first night?
Jean drew in her breathsharply. All at once, like
a flashlight turned upon a dark corner of her mind, she
remembered something about that night. She remembered
how she had told her Uncle Carl that she meant
to prove that her dad was innocent; that she meant to
investigate the devious process by which the Lazy A
ranch and all the stock had ceased to belong to her or
her father; that she meant to adopt sly, sleuth-like
methods; she remembered the very words which she
had used. She remembered how bitter her uncle had
become. Had she frightened him, somehow, with her
bold declaration that she would not "let sleeping dogs
lie" any longer? Had he remembered the letter, and
been uneasy because of what was in it? But what
COULD be in it, if it were written at least a day before
the terrible thing had happened?
She remembered her uncle's uncontrolled fury that
evening when she had ridden over to see Lite. What
had she said to cause it? She tried to recall her words,
and finally she did remember saying something about
proving that her own money had been paying for her
"keep" for three years. Then he had gone into that
rage, and she had not at the time seen any connection
between her words and his raving anger. But perhaps
there was a connection. Perhaps--
"Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed aloud. She was
remembering the telegram which she had sent him just
before she left Los Angeles for Nogales. "He'll just
simply go WILD when he gets that wire!" She recalled
now how he had insisted all along that Art Osgood
knew absolutely nothing about the murder; she recalled
also, with an uncanny sort of vividness, Art's manner
when he had admitted for the second time that the letter
had been from Carl. She remembered how he had
changed when he found that her father was being punished
for the crime.
She did not know, just yet, how all these tangled
facts were going to work out. She had not yet come to
the final question that she would presently be asking
herself. She felt sure that her uncle knew more,--
a great deal more,--about Johnny Croft's death than
he had appeared to know; but she had not yet reached
the point to which her reasonings inevitably would
bring her; perhaps her mind was subconsciously delaying
the ultimate conclusion.
She got up and dressed; unfastening her window,
she stepped out on the veranda. The street was quiet
at that time in the morning. A sentry stood on guard
at the corner, and here and there a light flared in some
window where others were wakeful. But for the most
part the town lay asleep. Over in what was really the
Mexican quarter, three or four roosters were crowing
as if they would never leave off. The sound of them
depressed Jean, and made her feel how heavy was the
weight of her great undertaking,--heavier now, when
the end was almost in sight, than it had seemed on that
moonlight night when she had ridden over to the Lazy
A and had not the faintest idea of how she was going
to accomplish any part of her task which she had set
herself. She shivered, and turned back to get the gay
serape which she had bought from an old Mexican
woman when they were coming out of that queer
restaurant last evening.
When she came out again, Lite was standing there,
smoking a cigarette and leaning against a post.
"You'd better get some sleep, Jean," he reproved her
when she came and stood beside him. "You had a
pretty hard day yesterday; and to-day won't be any
easier. Better go back and lie down."
Jean merely pulled the serape snugger about her
shoulders and sat down sidewise upon the railing. "I
couldn't sleep," she said. "If I could, I wouldn't be
out here; I'd be asleep, wouldn't I? Why don't you
go to bed yourself?"
"Ah-h, Art's learned to talk Spanish," he said drily.
"I got myself all worked up trying to make out what
he was trying to say in his sleep, and then I found out
it wasn't my kinda talk, anyway. So I quit. What's
the matter that you can't sleep?"
Jean stared down at the shadowy street. A dog ran
out from somewhere, sniffed at a doorstep, and trotted
over into Mexico and up to the sentry. The sentry
patted it on the head and muttered a friendly word or
two. Jean watched him absently. It was all so peaceful!
Not at all what one would expect, after seeing
pictures of all those refugees and all those soldiers
fighting, and the dead lying in the street in some little
town whose name she could not pronounce correctly.
"Did you hear Art tell about taking a letter to dad
the day before?" she asked abruptly. "He wasn't
telling the truth, not all the time. But somehow I believe
that was the truth. He said dad stuck it in the
pocket of his chaps. I believe it's there yet, Lite. I
don't remember ever looking into that pocket. And I
believe--Lite, I never said anything about it, but somebody
kept coming to the house in the night and hunting
around through all the rooms. He never came into my
room, so I--I didn't bother him; but I've wondered
what he was after. It just occurred to me that
maybe--"
"I never could figure out what he was after, either,"
Lite observed quietly.
"You?" Jean turned her head, so that her eyes
shone in the light of a street lamp while she looked up
at him. "How in the world did you know about him?"
Lite laughed drily. "I don't think there's much
concerns you that I don't know," he confessed. "I saw
him, I guess, every time he came around. He couldn't
have made a crooked move,--and got away with it.
But I never could figure him out exactly."
Jean looked at him, touched by the care of her that
he had betrayed in those few words. Always she had
accepted him as the one friend who never failed her,
but lately,--since the advent of the motion-picture people,
to be exact,--a new note had crept into his friendship;
a new meaning into his watching over her. She
had sensed it, but she had never faced it openly. She
- restaurant [´restərɔnt]
n.饭店，菜馆 (初中英语单词) - presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- mexico [´meksikəu] n.墨西哥 (初中英语单词)
- behave [bi´heiv] v.举止；表现；举止端正 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- connection [kə´nekʃən] n.联系；关系；联运 (初中英语单词)
- telegram [´teligræm] n.电报 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- caution [´kɔ:ʃən] n.&vt.小心；告诫；警告 (高中英语单词)
- corridor [´kɔridɔ:] n.走廊；指定航路 (高中英语单词)
- murderer [´mə:dərə] n.杀人犯，凶手 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- ignore [ig´nɔ:] vt.忽视，不理，不顾 (高中英语单词)
- declaration [,deklə´reiʃən] n.宣布；宣言；申报 (高中英语单词)
- uneasy [ʌn´i:zi] a.不安的；不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- ultimate [´ʌltimit] a.最终的 n.终极；顶点 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- shadowy [´ʃædəui] a.有阴影的；模糊的 (高中英语单词)
- crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
- openly [´əupənli] ad.公开地；直率地 (高中英语单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- ridden [´ridn] ride 的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- inevitably [in´evitəbli] ad.不可避免地；必然地 (英语四级单词)
- veranda [və´rændə] n.游廊；阳台 (英语四级单词)
- railing [´reiliŋ] n.栏杆 (英语四级单词)
- advent [´ædvent] n.来临；降临 (英语四级单词)
- hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)
- insistence [in´sistəns] n.坚持；坚决主张 (英语六级单词)
- uncanny [ʌn´kæni] a.神秘的；离奇的 (英语六级单词)
- sentry [´sentri] n.哨兵 v.站岗，放哨 (英语六级单词)
- doorstep [´dɔ:step] n.门阶 (英语六级单词)
- absently [´æbsəntli] ad.心不在焉地 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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