Ransford

“ Pemberton Bryce was not the only person in Wrychester who was watching Ransford with keen attention during these events. Mary Bewery, a young woman of more than usual powers of observation and penetration, had been quick to see that her guardian's distress over the affair in Paradise was something out of the common. She knew Ransford for an exceedingly tender-hearted man, with a considerable spice of sentiment in his composition: he was noted for his more than professional interest in the poorer sort of his patients and had gained a deserved reputation in the town for his care of them. ”

“ She doesn't like you—and she doesn't want to, either. Why can't you take your answer like a man?”
“What's your conception of a man?” asked Bryce.
“That!—and a good one,” exclaimed Ransford.
“May satisfy you—but not me,” said Bryce. “Mine's different. My conception of a man is of a being who's got some perseverance. You can get anything in this world—anything!—by pegging away for it.”
“You're not going to get my ward,” suddenly said Ransford. “That's flat! She doesn't want you—and she's now said so three times. And—I support her.” ”

“ What's Ransford doing about all that?”
“About all what, Mr. Folliot?” asked Mary, at once on her guard. “I don't understand you.”
“You know—all that suspicion—and so on,” said Folliot. “Bad position for a professional man, you know—ought to clear himself. Anybody been applying for that reward Ransford offered?”
“I don't know anything about it,” replied Mary. “Dr. Ransford is very well able to take care of himself, I think. Has anybody applied for yours?”
Folliot rose from his chair again, as if he had changed his mind about lingering, and shook his head. ”

“ Naturally no man wishes to marry unless he knows as much as he can get to know about the woman he wants, her family, her antecedents—and all that. Now, pretty nearly everybody in Wrychester who knows them, knows that there's a mystery about Dr. Ransford and his two wards—it's been talked of, no end, amongst the old dowagers and gossips of the Close, particularly—you know what they are! Miss Bewery herself, and her brother, young Dick, in a lesser degree, know there's a mystery. And if there's one man in the world who knows the secret, it's Ransford. ”

“ The Coroner looked round him, and waited a moment.
“You are at liberty to explain—that last remark,” he said at last. “That is—if you wish to do so.” “Certainly!” answered Ransford, with alacrity. “Those pills are, as you will observe, coated, and the man would swallow them whole—immediately after his food. Now, it would take some little time for a pill to dissolve, to disintegrate, to be digested. If Collishaw took one of my pills as soon as he had eaten his dinner, according to instructions, and if poison had been in that pill, he would not have died at once—as he evidently did. ”

“ And as for having any wounds concealed about my person”—Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and back—“they can search me. So, if the paymaster will only stick to that story—that he hit the man—it will help me a lot.” Ranson seated himself on the table and swung his leg. “And of course it would be a big help, too, if you could remember who was in your Exchange when I was planning to rob the coach. For someone certainly must have overheard me, someone must have copied my disguise, and that someone is the man we must find. Unless he came from Kiowa.” ”

“ The sentry's bayonet was just disappearing behind the corner of the hut. To the four hundred other eyes around the parade-ground Lieutenant Ranson's attitude suggested that he was explaining to Cahill's daughter what he wanted for his luncheon. His eyes held her as firmly as though the palings he clasped were her two hands.
“Mary,” he said, and the speaking of her name seemed to stop the beating of his heart. “Mary,” he whispered, as softly as though he were beginning a prayer, “you're the bravest, the sweetest, the dearest girl in all the world. ”

“ When one of the men who guarded Ranson reported this good news the prisoner said, “Still, I hope they'll hang whoever did it. They shouldn't hang a man for being a good shot and let him off because he's a bad one.”
At the time of the hold-up Mary Cahill had been a half-mile distant from the post at the camp of the Kiowas, where she had gone in answer to the cry of Lightfoot's squaw. When she returned she found Indian Pete in charge of the exchange. Her father, he told her, had ridden to the Indian village in search of her. As he spoke the post-trader appeared. ”

“ Isn't Miss Chancellor your cousin?"
"We don't insist on the relationship," said Ransom, smiling. "Are they very much united, the two young ladies?"
"You would say so if you were to see Miss Chancellor when Verena rises to eloquence. It's as if the chords were strung across her own heart; she seems to vibrate, to echo with every word. It's a very close and very beautiful tie, and we think everything of it here. They will work together for a great good!"
"I hope so," Ransom remarked. "But in spite of it Miss Tarrant spends a part of her time with her father and mother." ”

“ Ranson,” the colonel's wife added, with dignity, “that I am not here officially as Mrs. Bolland, but as a friend of these ladies.”
“You are welcome in whatever form you take, Mrs. Bolland,” cried Ranson, “and, believe me, I am in no trouble—no trouble, I assure you. In fact, I am quite the most contented man in the world. Mrs. Bolland, in spite of the cloud, the temporary cloud which rests upon my fair name, I take great pride in announcing to you that this young lady has done me the honor to consent to become my wife. Her father, a very old and dear friend, has given his consent. ”

“ Crosby and Curtis were in command of the pay escort—that's their alibi—and as far as I can see, lieutenant, that puts it up to you.”
Ranson laughed and shook his head. “Yes, it certainly looks that way,” he said. “Only I can't see why you need be so damned pleased about it.” He grinned wickedly. “If you weren't such a respectable member of Fort Crockett society I might say you listened at the door, and rode after me in one of your own ponchos. As for the Indian village, that's no alibi. A Kiowa swear his skin's as white as yours if you give him a drink.” ”

“ And one night, after he had been telling the mess of a Filipino officer who alone had held back his men and himself, and who at last died in his arms cursing him, she went to sleep declaring to herself that Lieutenant Ranson was becoming too like the man she had pictured for her husband than was good for her peace of mind. He had told the story as his tribute to a brave man fighting for his independence and with such regret that such a one should have died so miserably, that, to the embarrassment of the mess, the tears rolled down his cheeks. ”

“ Ranson looked sheepishly at Miss Cahill and laughed. “Well, so I was—then,” he said. “Anybody would be a devil of a fellow who'd been brought up as I was, with a doting parent who owns a trust and doesn't know the proper value of money. And yet you expect me to be happy with a fifty-cent limit game, and twenty miles of burned prairie. I tell you I've never been broken to it. I don't know what not having your own way means. And discipline! Why, every time I have to report one of my men to the colonel I send for him afterward and give him a drink and apologize to him. ”

“ Listen to me; for Heaven's sake don't be an ass! They'll shoot you, you'll be killed—-”
—“And court-martialed,” panted Curtis.
“You'll go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life!”
Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a lower shelf he snatched a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged a rubber poncho, and buttoned it high about his throat. He picked up the steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero. It fell before his face like a curtain. ”

“ He could have heard nothing.”
“If you ask me, I think you've begun at the wrong end,” said Ranson. “If I were looking for the Red Rider I'd search for him in Kiowa City.”
“Why?”
“Because, at this end no one but a few officers knew that the paymaster was coming, while in Kiowa everybody in the town knew it, for they saw him start. It would be very easy for one of those cowboys to ride ahead and lie in wait for him in the buttes. There are several tough specimens in Kiowa. Any one of them would rob a man for twenty dollars—let alone ten thousand. ”

“ He turned on Ranson with a triumphant chuckle. “You'll not be dismissed this regiment, if I can help it,” he cried.
Ranson gave an ugly laugh, like the snarl of a puppy over his bone. “If you try to follow me, or interfere with me, Lieutenant Crosby,” he said, “I'll shoot you and your troopers!”
“With a pair of shears?” jeered Crosby.
“No, with the gun I've got in my pocket. Now you listen to me. I'm not going to use that gun on any stage filled with women, driven by a man seventy years old, but—and I mean it—if you try to stop me, I'll use it on you. ”

“ When he had hurried away again, Ransom said to the policeman—"Who is Mr. Filer?"
"Oh, he's an old friend of mine. He's the man that runs Miss Chancellor."
"That runs her?"
"Just the same as she runs Miss Tarrant. He runs the pair, as you might say. He's in the lecture-business."
"Then he had better talk to the public himself."
"Oh, he can't talk; he can only boss!" ”

“ I am ashamed of being a man; but I am, and I can't help it, and I'll do penance any way you may prescribe. Must she go, Miss Olive?" he asked of his cousin. "Do you flee before the individual male?" And he turned to Verena.
This young lady gave a laugh that resembled speech in liquid fusion. "Oh no; I like the individual!"
As an incarnation of a "movement," Ransom thought her more and more singular, and he wondered how she came to be closeted so soon with his kinswoman, to whom, only a few hours before, she had been a complete stranger. ”

“ Ranson interrupted, bowing gallantly. “Yes, I know, Miss Cahill,” he said, “but I didn't come here from a convent. I came here from the blood-stained fields of war. Now, out in the Philippines there's always something doing. They give you half a troop, and so long as you bring back enough Mausers and don't get your men cut up, you can fight all over the shop and no questions asked. But all I do here is take care of sick horses. Any vet. in the States has seen as much fighting as I have in the last half-year. ”

“ That can't hurt us.”
As Cahill crossed the parade-ground from Captain Carr's quarters on his way to Ranson's hut his brain was crowded swiftly with doubts, memories, and resolves. For him the interview held no alarms. He had no misgivings as to its outcome. For his daughter's sake he was determined that he himself must not be disgraced in her eyes and that to that end Ranson must be sacrificed. It was to make a lady of her, as he understood what a lady should be, that on six moonlit raids he had ventured forth in his red mask and robbed the Kiowa stage. ”

“ Bolland bought a poncho for the colonel. That left eleven ponchos. Then a few minutes later I gave Lightfoot a red kerchief for his squaw. That left eleven kerchiefs.”
“Stop!” cried Ranson. “Miss Cahill,” he began, severely, “I hope you do not mean to throw suspicion on the wife of my respected colonel, or on Mrs. Lightfoot, 'the Prairie Flower.' Those ladies are my personal friends; I refuse to believe them guilty. And have you ever seen Mrs. Bolland on horseback? You wrong her. It is impossible.” ”

“ Carr took Ranson's hand and wrung it. Sergeant Clancey grew purple with pleasure and stole back to the veranda, where he whispered joyfully to a sentry. In another moment a passing private was seen racing delightedly toward the baseball field.
At the same moment Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis and the regimental adjutant crossed the parade ground from the colonel's quarters and ran up the steps of Ranson's hut. The expressions of good-will, of smiling embarrassment and general satisfaction which Lieutenant Crosby observed on the countenances of those present seemed to give him a momentary check. ”

“ He saw that all he had hoped to do for his daughter by crime would have been done for her by this marriage with Ranson, which would have made her a “lady,” made her rich, made her happy. Had it not been for his midnight raids she would have been honored, loved, and envied, even by the wife of the colonel herself. But through him disgrace had come upon her, sorrow and trouble. She would not be known as the daughter of Senator Ranson, but of Cahill, an ex-member of the Whyo gang, a highway robber, as the daughter of a thief who was serving his time in State prison. ”

“ Ransom isn't in the hands of the police!" wailed Mrs. Tarrant, from her sofa.
"I have been, madam, for the last quarter of an hour." Ransom felt more and more that he could manage it, if he only kept cool. He bent over Verena with a tenderness in which he was careless, now, of observation. "Dearest, I told you, I warned you. I left you alone for ten weeks; but could that make you doubt it was coming? Not for worlds, not for millions, shall you give yourself to that roaring crowd. Don't ask me to care for them, or for any one! What do they care for you but to gape and grin and babble? ”

“ He's a man worthy of all the assistance which money can bring. You do not need her wealth; Anitra—well, she will be cared for, but Auchincloss—promise—brother."
Ransom half drew back in his amazement. Then started forward again. This man whom he had always distrusted, whom he had looked upon as Georgian's possible enemy, certainly his own, was looking into his eyes with a gaze of trust, almost of affection. The money was not for himself; he showed it by the noble, almost grand look with which he waited for his answer; a look that carried conviction despite Ransom's prejudice and great dislike. ”