Read Ebook: A Tar-Heel Baron by Smith Mabell S C Mabell Shippie Clarke Holloway Edward Stratton Illustrator

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Ebook has 1588 lines and 47084 words, and 32 pages

"Mended?"

"Yes, in health, if they--stop drinking." Bob brought it out with a jerk. "This climate's great, you know."

"But not with improved finances?"

"Yes, that too. It's a fine place for economy."

"For what purpose did this German come?" asked Katrina.

"He's one of the mysteries," said Patton, rising to take his leave.

Bob called Sydney from the drawing-room into the hall, and handed her a letter.

"Father got it this afternoon," he said. "It's awfully funny."

Sydney took it from its envelope. Bob, bending to buckle on his spurs, did not see her flush at the signature and then grow pale as she read.

"Bob," she whispered, hoarsely, "promise me,--promise that you'll let me know--if they do it--when it's going to be."

And Bob, who had no thought but to amuse her, said, heartily, "Why, of course."

Had von Rittenheim, sitting before his fire awaiting Bud's return, been able to see into the minds of his neighbors, he would have found matter more productive of mental confusion than were English irregular verbs to him.

That Bob could regard the incident as a joke was even farther from his grasp. An indifference caused by a lack of fear,--that was within his range. But that this method of wiping out an insult should be regarded as funny,--of such an emotion under such circumstances he could not conceive.

Sydney's feeling, could he have known it, was closer to his comprehension, because it is not beyond man's imagination to guess, approximately, the frame of mind into which a woman would be thrown upon hearing of such a prospective meeting. What he could not see was the importance that his own part played in the girl's fear.

The thing seemed to her barbaric, mediaeval, horrible. She shook to think of harm that might come to her good old friend, the Doctor. She became an abject coward when she remembered that the old man was noted throughout the mountains as a perfect shot.

She could not understand herself. She had not had this feeling at all when Ben Frady had cleared the open space before the post-office of all loafers, and she unwittingly had ridden on to the scene, and, grasping the situation, had demanded his revolver from him and had received it.

Not until afterwards had she had any such sensations as this, when a message had come to the house that the negroes on the farm were cutting each other, and she had walked in upon them and had ordered them to separate.

Bob had told her that he didn't know what it was all about, and the uncertainty made the situation only more disquieting. Like most Southern women, it did not occur to her to interfere before the event in any affair that was men's own; but she began to formulate a plan that depended for its success upon Bob's keeping her informed as to the course pursued by his father. Could she depend on him? Her anxiety was cruel.

Sydney Rides against Time

Three days later Bud brought to von Rittenheim the following note:

"DEAR BARON,--I say again that I haven't any idea what you are driving at, but I never yet went back on a fight, so if you still want one I'll meet you at twelve o'clock to-morrow on top of Buck Mountain. I think you went to a picnic there when the chestnuts were ripe last fall, so you know the place. I'll take the weapons along with me, and you can examine them when you get there. I don't want any second.

"Yours truly,

"HENRY MORGAN."

Von Rittenheim puzzled over the English of this document, and nodded his head in satisfaction.

"At last he performs his duty. Buck Mountain I know. It is a distant spot, ten miles from here. He is strange not to say what are the weapons; but what can you expect?"

With a shrug derogating the social experience of his adopted land, he proceeded to negotiate with Bud for the use of his mule on the next day.

It was nearly eleven o'clock on the following morning when Bob Morgan drew rein before the Carrolls' door, and asked to see Sydney.

"Beg her to come to the door just a moment, Uncle Jimmy. No, I'll not send the horse around. And she'll want Johnny saddled at once. Send word to the stable, please."

When she appeared he ran up the steps as far as his bridle would allow, and spoke in a low voice, with a glance at the windows.

"It's this morning, Sydney, at twelve. Will you come? Father didn't tell me about it until just as he was leaving the house, and he said he didn't want me, but I'd promised you, and we'll be in time if we hurry, I've ordered Johnny."

The girl clutched her throat with a feeling that every bit of strength was leaving her body. Bob, buckling his curb rein, saw nothing. His only thought was to give her some sport. A fight, more or less, counted but little with him personally; and he did not think that this one actually would take place, else he would not have considered taking a girl to it.

The blood surged back to her brain and she mastered herself.

"We have so little time," she panted. "I'll be ready in a minute."

Before the horse was at the mounting-block she was awaiting him, buttoning her gloves, while she extended her foot for Bob to buckle her spur. She had put on her riding-skirt, but otherwise was as she had come to the door.

"Don't you-all want a coat, Sydney?" asked Bob, solicitously. "Or a hat?"

"No, I'm quite warm. Where is that boy? Hurry, Clint," she called to the little negro, who was bringing the horse around with a slowness born of his enjoyment of the brief ride.

"Off with you, quick, now, boy!" It was Bob, who was catching the girl's impatience. "Here, take Gray Eagle."

He flung his bridle to the lad, and threw Sydney into the saddle as quickly as she could wish. She adjusted herself carefully, for she knew how the discomfort of a twisted skirt may make a difference of a minute in the mile, or may mean real danger at a jump.

"There's no time to lose, it's five minutes past eleven now," she said, glancing at a strap watch on her wrist, and touching Johnny with her spur.

Bob's horse was off in pursuit before his master was well on his back.

"I declare, she might have given me a fairer start!" he growled, as the sorrel settled down ahead of him into a run that bade fair to keep even the advantage. They had had many a race, Bob and Sydney, and usually it was the girl who was the more cautious rider of the two. To-day, however, she took risks that amazed even her old-time playmate, who thought he knew her every mood.

"She certainly is keen for the fun," thought Bob, as he saw Sydney turn from the avenue and drive Johnny at a gate which he knew that she did not care often to take.

"Too high for Johnny. I must tell her not to do that again," he commented, as he noticed during his own flight that the top rail was split from contact with the first horse's heels.

Down the hill and across the field tore the sorrel, leaping the branch, and slackening to allow the gray's approach only when he came to a fence whose position at the top of a sharp ascent forbade his taking it.

Sydney looked back impatiently as Bob covered the dozen lengths between them and swung off to open the gate.

"You might wait for a fellow," he grumbled, but already the girl was through, and her white blouse and ruddy hair shone half-way across the unenclosed meadow upon which she had entered. For the first time her pale face impressed Bob.

"Looks like she saw something," he thought, with a remnant of old superstition. "I do believe she thinks there's going to be bloodshed." And with a view to reassuring her, he caught up with her in the path through the belt of woods that led from the field to the road. Their horses were nose on tail, and of necessity going slowly.

Here the path debouched into the open road, and Johnny was off again before Bob could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney, had sounded to her only like a desire for his own reassurance, and had alarmed her more than ever.

A mad feeling within pricked her to tear on without slackening. She felt that she could have galloped to the very top of the mountain without fatigue. Her horsewoman's intelligence, however, warned her to think of her animal, and she took him along quietly through the open place before the post-office, giving Bob a chance to catch up.

He was thoroughly out of temper now. Never before had Sydney been so careless of him. He couldn't understand it; but he was beginning to realize that she was taking the adventure seriously, and, with boyish malice, he resolved to make no further effort to undeceive her.

Indeed, as they rode on slowly and silently, side by side, for a few hundred yards, he became not so sure himself that the duel was the joke that he had considered it.

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