Read Ebook: The Law-Breakers by Cullum Ridgwell

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Ebook has 2912 lines and 120002 words, and 59 pages

She flung out an arm dramatically, pointing down at the slight figure of a man coming toward them, slowly toiling up the slope of the valley.

"There he is," she cried. "Your artist-patient. Your dypsomaniac rancher. A symbol, a symbol of the bonds which are crushing the brave spirits of our--ahem!--young hearts."

But Kate ignored the approaching man. She had eyes only for the bright face before her.

"You're a great child," she declared warmly. "I ought to be angry. I ought to be just mad with you. I believe I really am. But--but the cabbage business has broken up the storm of my feelings. Cabbage? Oh, dear." She laughed softly. "You, with your soft, wavy hair, dressed as though we had a New York hairdresser in the village. You, with your great gray eyes, your charming little nose and cupid mouth. You, with your beautiful new frock, only arrived from New York two days ago, and which, by the way, I don't think you ought to wear sprawling upon dusty ground. You--a cabbage! It just robs all you've said of, I won't say truth, but--sense. There, child, you've said your say. But you needn't worry about me. I'm not changed--really. Maybe I do many things that seem strange to you, but--but--I know what I'm doing. Poor old Charlie. Look at him. I often wonder what'll be the end of him."

Kate Seton sighed. It seemed as though there were a great depth of motherly tenderness in her heart, and just now that tenderness was directed toward the man approaching them.

But the lighter-minded Helen was less easily stirred. She smiled amusedly in her sister's direction. Then her bright eyes glanced swiftly down at the man.

"If all we hear is true, his end will be the penitentiary," she declared with decision.

Kate glanced round quickly, and her eyes suddenly became quite hard.

"Penitentiary?" she questioned sharply.

Helen shrugged.

"Everybody says he's the biggest whisky smuggler in the country, and--and his habits don't make things look much--different. Say, Kate, O'Brien told me the other day that the police had him marked down. They were only waiting to get him--red-handed."

The hardness abruptly died out of Kate's eyes. A faint sigh, perhaps of relief, escaped her.

"They'll never do that," she declared firmly. "Everybody's making a mistake about Charlie. I'm--sure. With all his failings Charlie's no whisky-runner. He's too gentle. He's too--too honest to descend to such a traffic."

Suddenly her eyes lit. She came close to Helen, and one firm hand grasped the soft flesh of the girl's arm, and closed tightly upon it.

"Say, child," she went on, in a deep, thrilling tone, "do you know what these whisky-runners risk? Do you? No. Of course you don't. They risk life as well as liberty. They're threatened every moment of their lives. The penalty is heavy, and when a man becomes a whisky-runner he has no intention of being taken--alive. Think of all that, and see where your imagination carries you. Then think of Charlie--as we know him. An artist. A warm-hearted, gentle creature, whose only sins are--against himself."

But the younger girl's face displayed skepticism.

"Yes--as we know him," she replied quickly. "I've thought of it while he's been giving me lessons in painting, when I've watched him with you, with that wonderful look of dog-like devotion in his eyes, while hanging on every word you uttered. I've thought of it all. And always running through my mind was the title of a book I once read--'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' You are sure, and I--I only wonder."

Kate's hand relaxed its hold upon her sister's arm. Her whole expression changed with a suddenness which, had she observed it, must have startled the other. Her eyes were cold, very cold, as she surveyed the sister to whom she was so devoted, and who could find it in her heart to think so harshly of one whom she regarded as a sick and ailing creature, needing the utmost support from natures morally stronger than his own.

"You must think as you will, Helen," she said coldly. "I know. I know Charlie. I understand the gentle heart that guides his every action, and I warn you you are wrong--utterly wrong. Everybody is wrong, the police--everybody."

She turned away and moved a few steps down the slope toward the approaching figure.

CHARLIE BRYANT

As Kate stood out from the shadow of the trees, the man approaching, looking up, beheld her, and his dark eyes gladdened with a smile of delight. His greeting came up to her on the still air in a tone thrilling with warmth and deep feeling.

"Ho, Kate," he cried, in his deeply musical voice. "I saw you and Helen making this way, and guessed I'd just get around."

He was breathing hard as he came up the hill, his slight figure was bending forward with the effort of his climb. Kate watched him, much as an anxious mother might watch, with doubtful eyes, some effort of her ailing child. He reached her level and stood breathing heavily before her.

"I was around watching the boys at work down there on the new church," he went on. His handsome boyish face was flushing. The delicate, smooth, whiskerless skin was almost womanish in its texture, and betrayed almost every emotion stirring behind it. "Allan Dy came along with my mail. When I'd read it I felt I had to come and tell you the news right away. You see, I had to tell someone, and wanted you--two to be the first to hear it."

Kate's eyes were full of a smiling tender amusement at the ingenuousness of the man. Helen was looking on with less tenderness than amusement. He had not come to tell her the news--only Kate. The Kate whom she knew he worshipped, and who was the only rival in his life to his passionate craving for drink.

She surveyed the man now with searching eyes. What was it that inspired in her such mixed feeling? She knew she had a dislike and liking for him, all in the same moment. There was something fascinating about him. Yes, there certainly was. He was darkly handsome. Unusually so. He had big, soft, almost womanish eyes, full of passionate possibilities. The delicate moulding of his features was certainly beautiful. They were too delicate. Ah, that was it. They were womanish. Yes, he was womanish, and nothing womanish in a man could ever appeal to the essentially feminine heart of Helen. His figure was slight, but perfectly proportioned, and quite lacking in any suggestion of mannish strength. Again the thought of it brought Helen a feeling of repugnance. She hated effeminacy in a man. And yet, how could she associate effeminacy with a man of his known character? Was he not the most lawless of this lawless village? Then there was his outward seeming of gentleness. Yes, she had never known him otherwise, even in his moments of dreadful drunkenness, and she had witnessed those frequently enough during the past few years.

The whole personality of the man was an enigma to her. Nor was it altogether a pleasant enigma. She felt that somehow there was an ugly streak in him which her sister had utterly missed, and she only half guessed at. Furthermore, somehow in the back of her mind, she knew that she was not without fear of him.

In spite of Kate's denial, when the man came under discussion between them, her conviction always remained. She knew she liked him, and she knew she disliked him. She knew she despised him, and she knew she feared him. And through it all she looked on with eyes of amusement at the absurd, dog-like devotion he yielded to her strong, reliant, big-hearted, handsome sister.

"What's your news, Charlie?" she demanded, as Kate remained silent, waiting for him to continue. "Good, I'll bet five dollars, or you wouldn't come rushing to us."

The man turned to her as though it were an effort to withdraw his gaze from the face of the woman he loved.

"Good? Why, yes," he said quickly. "I'd surely hate to bring you two anything but good news." Then a shadow of doubt crossed his smiling features. "Maybe it won't be of much account to you, though," he went on, almost apologetically. "You see, it's just my brother. My big brother Bill. He's coming along out here to--to join me. He--he wants to ranch, so--he's coming here, and going to put all his money into my ranch, and suggests we run it together." Then he laughed shortly. "He says I've got experience and he's got dollars, and between us we ought to make things hum. He's a hustler, is Bill. Say, he's as much sense as a two-year-old bull, and just about as much strength. He can't see the difference between a sharp and a saint. They're all the same to him. He just loves everybody to death, till they kick him on the shins, then he hits out, and something's going to break. He's just the bulliest feller this side of life."

Kate was still smiling at the man's enthusiasm, but she had no answer for him. It was Helen who did the talking now, as she generally did, while Kate listened.

"Oh, Charlie," Helen cried impulsively, "you will let me see him, won't you? He's big--and--and manly? Is he good looking? But then he must be if he's your--I'm just dying to see this Big Brother Bill," she added hastily.

Charlie shook his head, laughing in his silent fashion.

"Oh, you'll see him all right. This village'll just be filled right up with him." Then his dark eyes became serious, and a hopeless shadow crept into them. "I'm glad he's coming," he went on, adding simply, "maybe he'll keep me straight."

Kate's smile died out in an instant. "Don't talk like that Charlie," she cried almost sharply. "Do you know what your words imply? Oh, it's too dreadful, and--and I won't have it. You don't need anybody's support. You can fight yourself. You can conquer yourself. I know it."

The man's eyes came back to the face he loved, and, for a moment, they looked into it as though he would read all that which lay hidden behind.

"You think so?" he questioned presently.

"I'm sure; sure as--as Fate," Kate cried impulsively.

"You think that all--all weakness can be conquered?"

Kate nodded. "If the desire to conquer lies behind it."

"Ah, yes."

The man's eyes had become even more thoughtful. There was a look in them which suggested to Helen that he was not wholly thinking of the thing Kate had in her mind.

"But what?" Kate's demand came almost roughly.

Charlie shrugged his slim shoulders. "Nothing," he said. "I--I was just thinking. That's all."

"But it isn't all," cried Kate, in real distress.

Helen saw Charlie smile in a half-hearted fashion. For some moments his patience remained. Then, as Kate still waited for him to speak, his eyes abruptly lit with the deep fire of passion.

"Why? Why?" he cried suddenly. "Why must we conquer and fight with ourselves? Why beat down the nature given to us by a power beyond our control? Why not indulge the senses that demand indulgence, when, in such indulgence, we injure no one else? Oh, I argue it all with myself, and I try to reason, too. I try to see it all from the wholesome point of view from which you look at it, Kate. And I can't see it. I just can't see it. All I know is that the only thing that makes me attempt to deny myself is that I want your good opinion. Did I not want that I should slide down the road to hell, which I am told I am on, with all the delight of a child on a toboggan slide. Yes, I would. I surely would, Kate. I'm a drunkard, I know. A drunkard by nature. I have not the smallest desire to be otherwise, from any moral scruple. It's you that makes me want to straighten up, and you only. When I'm sober I'd be glad if I weren't. And when I'm not sober I'd hate being otherwise. Why should I be sober, when in such moments I suffer agonies of craving? Is it worth it? What does it matter if drink eases the craving, and lends me moments of peace which I am otherwise denied? These are the things I think all the time, and these are the thoughts which send me tumbling headlong--sometimes. But I know--yes, I know I am all wrong. I know that I would rather suffer all the tortures of hell than forfeit your--good will."

Kate sighed. She had no answer. She knew all that lay behind the man's passionate appeal. She knew, too, that he spoke the truth. She knew that the only reason he made any effort at all was because his devotion to herself was something just a shade stronger than this awful disease with which he was afflicted.

The hopelessness of the position for a moment almost overwhelmed her. She knew that she had no love--love such as he required--to give him in return. And when that finally became patent to him away would go the last vestige of self-restraint, and his fall would be headlong.

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