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CHAPTER III

LIVING A MELODRAMA

"OUR dad ain't showed up here to-day?" The very quietness of Tom's question alarmed Nan.

"Has he come back?" She made an impulsive forward step.

"Yes, but I ain't seen him. Hank Redbird-you know he's town marshal at Big Grove an' a friend of mine was tellin' me. Seems he was down by the stockyards early this mornin' an' saw your Dad climb down out of a stock car an' beat it out of town by a back way. Then two fellows came in on the ten o'clock passenger train from Texas. . . . Well-"

"Oh, go on, Tom; what is it?" Nan's eyes compelled his for a moment, but he dropped his gaze again as he went on:

"Hank's a good friend of mine, an' he hunted me up to tell me them two are officers from Fort Tyler. Your Dad was at Fort Tyler, wasn't he, Nan ?”

"Yes. What else did Hank say?"

"They're after your Dad. Seems like he had some trouble with a man an' pulled out. These here marshals from Texas hunted Hank up an' showed him

their authority, but Hank didn't tell 'em he'd seen your Dad. Still"

"Where do you think Dad is?" Nan demanded.

"Well," Tom replied deliberately, "if it was me lookin' for him, I'd go down to the Little Walnut Road south of here an' whistle; though I don't think it'd do me any good to whistle-see?"

"Yes. Oh, what had I better do, Tom?" Nan was gripping his arm.

"I was wonderin' if I ought to tell Mr. Dines?" Tom's suggestion was tentative.

"What do you think?" Nan asked.

"Well, I was figurin' it out this way. You could

tell your uncle to-night, an' maybe.

.. Looks to me

...

like the best thing is to wait for him to show up. Of course," Tom lied reluctantly, "I don't know what they want your Dad for, but I sh'd think he'd need time to think things over. If there's a chance for me to help in any way, Nan?"

"I don't see how you could, Tom." Nan's words came from between tight-shut teeth, advertising the effort she was making to crush down the panic fear that was rising in her breast. "Anyway," and she called upon the fine courage in her own heart to sustain her faith in her father's courage, "whatever it is, Dad'll face it!"

"I bet he sure will!" Tom's assent was prompt and forceful, though he believed nothing of the kind. He stood silent for a time, shifting restlessly. "Well,"

he ventured, "I'll be ridin' if you don't think I ought to stay."

"No, don't stay, Tom; go on to Big Grove an' take the train just as if you didn't know anything."

"Yes, that's the thing to do, but I sure don't like to leave you this way. . . . Well," he removed the glove from his right hand, gripping Nan's with it a bit timidly, a look of pride in his eyes at her self-control-an instinctive acknowledgment of a change in the girl. She was Nan now, not "Sis," meeting a difficult crisis with sense and courage. He resumed cheerfully: "You'll sure see me back here some of these days! I'm goin' to fetch Gabe Horner up here next spring if I have to hog-tie the old timer an' ship him up in a caboose. We're sure goin' to have some G. H. steers out on this long grass. . . . Give my re

gards to your Dad-an' good luck, Nan!"

She released the work-hardened hand of her friend and whispered, as he turned to go to his horse: "Good luck yourself, Tom!"

She sat on the kitchen doorstep to think over carefully what Tom had told her, to fight off the fear that was clutching at her heart. Her Dad was somewhere near the Little Walnut Road, concealed in the bordering woods, waiting until after dark to come to Uncle Billy's.

Did he know that the officers from Fort Tyler were at Big Grove? Oughtn't he to be warned? Perhaps the Texans were watching the road? But Nan had

said, and she believed, that he would face his trouble. Then what had she to fear from going to him?

The result of her deliberations was that half an hour before sunset Nan closed the kitchen door and set off on foot along the rough wagon track that led to Little Walnut Road. If he was there and watching the road, he would see her coming.

She walked slowly, pretending, in obedience to an instinctive childish inspiration, to examine the sagging wire and leaning posts of the quarter mile of fence she skirted. Under the surface of her concern for her father ran a current of vivid memories: she had held every one of these insecurely planted posts with her twelve-year-old hands while her Dad, standing in the rear end of the wagon, pounded them into the rainsoaked sod with a sixteen-pound iron sledge hammer. She had helped to stretch the wire and staple it to the posts; not an expert job, for many of the staples had fallen out. Inside the fence, in the midst of the struggling corn, rank cockleburs and tall horse-weed rose to reproach her for not taking time from school in early spring to fight them with a hoe.

She passed beyond the field, and her thoughts turned back to the little pile of paper-covered thrillers she had examined. What kind of trouble had Dad encountered? Had he, by chance, attempted to live a scene from one of their lurid pages? The thought brought a wry smile to her lips. No, you couldn't believe in their reality after laying them down any more than

you could go on living a nightmare after waking! Forgetting her resolve to approach Little Walnut Road cautiously, she began to walk faster.

Sunset shadows were barring the road when she reached it. She stopped, looked around cautiously, whistling softly the familiar lark-call summons used between her and her father.

Almost instantly he stepped out from a clump of wild plum bushes and beckoned to her. She ran to him swiftly, was seized by a trembling hand and drawn into the shelter of the bushes. She flung her arms around his neck and reached to kiss him; and as her eyes came close to his face she saw that under the red mustache pale lips were trying for coherent utterance. In the grayish blue eyes was a glancing specter of

terror.

"Dad!" she cried, trembled for some moments in his embrace, then said rapidly: "I thought maybe I'd find you here. Tom came out from Big Grove and said there were two men from Texas in town looking and asking-they were looking for you, Dad!"

"Yes, I know." Forest managed to force speech from his lips, short, hurried sentences: "From Fort Tyler. They followed me. I knowed they'd come." She felt his fingers closing and unclosing on the hand he held. "I was goin' to lay here till after dark. I was headin' for Billy's. I got to go on the scout, Nancy! Billy's got to help me. He's got to lend me some money, if I ever get there."