Sinclair

“ Westport Bay itself lay in a beautifully wooded, hilly country, and Sinclair’s house stood on an elevation, with a huge sweep of terraced lawn before it, running down to the water’s edge.
As we pulled up under the wide stone ivy-covered porte-cochère, Sinclair, who had been awaiting us anxiously after the receipt of a telegram from Burke, greeted us and led the way into his library, a large room crowded with curios and objects of art which he had collected on his travels in Latin-America.
Sinclair was a tall, lithe, wiry man with a seamed and furrowed face. ”

“ The man that is stirring up all this trouble with your Cousin Lance and in this whole country is your kind and good-natured neighbor, Mr. Sinclair. I am prejudiced against him; let us admit that on the start, and remember it in estimating what I say. But Sinclair is the man who has turned your cousin’s head, as well as made things in other ways unpleasant for several of us. Sinclair—I tell you so you will understand everything, more than your cousin, Mr. McCloud, or Marion Sinclair understand—Sinclair is a train-wrecker and a murderer. That makes you breathe hard, doesn’t it? ”

“ United we stand, divided we fall, Sinclair; and let there be no moaning of the bar when a Cardigan puts out to sea.”
Smiling, he rose from his desk, patted the bewildered Sinclair on the latter's grizzled head, and then reached for his hat. “I'm dining out to-night, Sinclair, and I wouldn't be a kill-joy at the feast, for a ripe peach. Your confounded figures might make me gloomy; so we'll just reserve discussion of them till to-morrow morning. Be a sport, Sinclair, and for once in your life beat the six o'clock whistle. ”

“ Murray Sinclair is in town; he feels bad over this thing, like any railroad man would. He’s a mountain man, quick as the quickest with a gun, a good trailer, rides like a fiend, and can catch a streak of sunshine travelling on a pass. ”

“ No man, having once seen this, ever wants to witness it again. Concentrated hell and torture with every moment, stabbing and pulling at each heart and then—then the sad, mournful face of Andrew Marshall as he steps forward slowly past Mag Robertson, past Jean Fleming, past Jenny Maitland, past them all, and at last putting a kindly hand on the shoulder of Nellie Sinclair, he says, with a catch in his voice that would break a heart of granite: "Come awa' hame, Nellie. Come awa' hame. Ye'll need to bear up." ”

“ He admired and envied George Sinclair profoundly. To return after three years’ fighting with a pierced lung and covered with glory was a splendid record in young John’s estimation. He awaited Sinclair’s return impatiently, eager for first-hand information of the wonderful doings in which he had longed to take part; while Esmé awaited his coming with misgivings, and wondered what she would find to say to him when they met. She recalled very vividly his coming to say goodbye to her on the evening before he sailed. ”

“ Sinclair noted, furthermore, that the other had a proper cowpuncher's pride in his dress. His bench-made boots molded his long and slender feet to a nicety and fitted like gloves around the high instep. The polished spurs, with their spoon-handle curve, gleamed and flashed, as he stepped with a faint jingling. The braid about his sombrero was a thing of price. These details Sinclair noted. The rest did not matter.
"The kid's asleep?" asked the stranger, casting a careless glance at the slim form of Jig. ”

“ He determined to raise a mob, but not to accomplish his wife's desires. What she had said about the weakness of jails, the strength of Sinclair, and the probability that once out he would take the trail of the rancher, appealed vigorously to his imagination. He did not dream that such a man as Sinclair would hesitate at a killing. And, loving the girl, the first thing Sinclair would do would be to remove the obstacle through the simple expedient of a well-placed bullet. ”

“ Sinclair was an elderly man, and would be of little assistance in such a desperate struggle as was before him, and the appearance of lights in the house would warn the rangers of the resistance awaiting them. O for his partner the Boss, for Chicago Bill, for any one of twenty gallant men who would have come at his call and stood by him in such a quarrel! He turned into the narrow pathway. ”

“ The sun rose hot, for in the Red Desert sky there is rarely a cloud. Sinclair took the little hill nearest the switch to bellow his orders from, running down among the men whenever necessary to help carry them out. Within thirty minutes, though apparently no impression had been made on the great heaps of wrenched and splintered equipment, Sinclair had the job in hand.
Work such as this was the man’s genius. In handling a wreck Sinclair was a marvel among mountain men. He was tall but not stout, with flashing brown eyes and a strength always equal to that of the best man in his crew. ”

“ Sinclair's life has passed is destined to feel its heaviest curse. Its streets are filled with soldiery. The dark canopy of smoke from which now and then a lurid flame shoots upward, shows that their work is destruction, and that they will do it well. Terrified women flit hither and thither, mingling their shrieks in a wild and fiend-like concert with the crack of musketry, the falling of houses, and the loud huzzas and fierce outcries of excited men. ”

“ Sinclair saved his life. He's gone away, and I've waited and waited for him to come back—and perhaps I'll never see him again. But oh! dear lady, I'll never forget what your husband did. He's a good man, and he deserves the love of a dear good woman like you, and if I dared I'd pray for you both, night and day.”
She stopped suddenly and sank back in her seat, pale as before, and as if frightened by her own emotion. Mrs. Sinclair had listened with sympathy and increasing interest. ”

“ Sinclair exploded. "You're a queer bird, Jig. What do you mean by 'friend'?"
"Why not?" asked this amazing youth, and the quiet of his face brightened into a smile. "I'd be swinging from the end of a rope if it weren't for you, you know."
Sinclair shrugged away this rejoinder. He trod heavily to the bookshelves, took up two or three random volumes, and tossed them heedlessly back into place.
"Well, kid, you're going to be yanked out of this little imitation world of yours pretty pronto." ”

“ No wonder Dr. Sinclair began to think how cheerless his house (which hitherto had appeared to be all that was desirable) looked on his arrival home, and how different it would all be if there was someone always waiting to receive him. In summer-time he would picture this person sitting in the porch, perhaps, with needlework, and when winter came, in a cozy sitting-room all aglow with firelight, with possibly a pair of slippers warming near the fender. ”

“ Medicine Bend took Sinclair’s grievance as its own. No other man in the service had Sinclair’s following, and within a week petitions were being circulated through the town not asking merely but calling for his reinstatement. The sporting element of the community to a man were behind Sinclair because he was a sport; the range men were with him because his growing ranch on the Frenchman made him one of them; his own men were with him because he was a far-seeing pirate and divided liberally. Among the railroad men, too, he had much sympathy. Sinclair had always been lavish with presents ”

“ I doubted if Sinclair had remembered him either. Yet he must have been unconsciously sharing our watch from start to finish; must even have heard the cry as only a waking man could hear it. Should I ask him if this was so? No. Perhaps I had not the courage to hear his answer.
Shortly after my return into the main hall I heard steps on the grand staircase. Looking up, I saw the two girls descending, followed by Sinclair. He had been successful, then, in inducing Dorothy to come down. What would be the result? Could I stand the suspense of the impending interview? ”

“ Sinclair, holding his breath, pressed the trigger. The rifle kicked more than usual—in fact, Colin noticed it, notwithstanding the greater issue.
Almost simultaneously with the sharp crack of the rifle the bull elephant dropped. Carried on by the impetus of its rush, the enormous bulk plunged forward for another eight or ten yards and then stopped, quivering and struggling, within a couple of feet of Colonel Narfield, who had contrived to roll away from the very place where the vanquished animal had come to a standstill. ”

“ Sinclair was an English artist who had settled in Canada some time previous to our arrival, and, being generally well informed, as well as a shining light in his own profession, he was made much of by the English residents here, and had as pupils many of the wives and daughters of the officers of the garrison, besides some of the more cultivated Canadians. Mrs. Sinclair was a refined English lady of good family, and had several children, mostly girls, who were greatly admired not only for their beauty, but also for their many and various accomplishments. ”

“ Half a dozen “toughs” faced him.
“Major,” said their spokesman, “we want that man.
“You can not have him, boys.”
“Major, we're a-goin' to take him.”
“You had better not try,” said Sinclair, with perfect ease and self-possession, and in a pleasant voice. “I have given him shelter, and you can only get him over my dead body. Of course you can kill me, but you won't do even that without one or two of you going down; and then you know perfectly well, boys, what will happen. You know that if you lay your finger on a railroad man it's all up with you. ”

“ Behind Sinclair were nearly all the cattlemen, not alone because he was on good terms with the rustlers and protected his friends, but because he warred openly on the sheepmen. The big range interests, as a rule, were openly or covertly friendly to Sinclair, while against him were the homesteaders, the railroad men, the common people, and the men who everywhere hate cruelty and outrage and the making of a lie. ”

“ Sinclair shook him by the hand; then he looked at his watch. It was half-past eight. He passed through the baggage and express cars, finding in the latter the agent sitting behind his safe, on which lay two large revolvers. On the platform-car he found the soldiers and their commander, sitting silent and unconcerned as before. When Sinclair reached the latter and nodded, he rose and faced the men, and his fine voice was clearly heard above the rattle of the train. ”

“ Sinclair, whose husband, a judge and a prominent Democrat in Ohio, played cards with Mr. Harding very often; or whether I beheld his picture, ubiquitously displayed in almost every store window on Main and Center Streets, as I walked to and from high school. My early recollections are not so much concerned with actually seeing him as with the unforgettable sensations I experienced after I had once seen him and knew that he was for me my “ideal American.” ”

“ In especial, Sinclair’s presence at the barbecue was recalled. He had some cronies with him from among his up-country following, and was introducing his new bridge foreman, Karg, afterward known as Flat Nose, and George Seagrue, the Montana cowboy. Sinclair fraternized that day with the Williams Cache men, and it was remarked even then that though a railroad man he appeared somewhat outside the railroad circle. When the shooting matches were announced a brown-eyed railroad man was asked to enter. ”

“ When at the close of the year the king resolved on a raid into England, he secretly determined that Sinclair should be appointed lieutenant-general. The choice is somewhat unaccountable, for Sinclair, though descended from an illustrious line, was not himself of sufficiently high rank to entitle him to command the higher nobles. It has been attributed to mere favouritism, but it is probable that the king cherished a high opinion of Sinclair's abilities, while he may have thought that his selection was the least likely of any possible one to occasion jealousy. ”

“ Were you with Bowman this morning?"
"Yes, we went out in the woods together. I had a few New York papers which he read with interest."
"Have you them with you?" asked Sinclair eagerly. "You don't know how I hunger for home news."
"Yes, I brought them along, as I thought you might like to read them."
"I will read them after you are gone. Now we will converse."
"Have you a family?" asked Fred.
"I am not a married man but I have a mother," answered Sinclair, his eyes filling. ”

“ I declare I have never known a worse business," this amiable man bemoaned. "Let me send for Sinclair; he is more interested than any one else in Gilbertine's relatives; or stay, what if I should send for Miss Camerden herself? She should be able to tell how she came by this box."
I subdued my own instincts, which were all for clearing Dorothy on the spot, and answered as I thought Sinclair would like me to answer. ”

“ Sinclair was full of zeal and set off next day after breakfast. From the drawing-room window we watched his triumphant entry into the farm-yard at the foot of the hill. But he came back in a dejected frame of mind.
"She's called Suzanne," he told us, "and she's quite a nice-looking sort of woman, and she handles a turnip-cutter like an expert; but she talks nothing but Flemish."
"We might have thought of that," said the Reverend Henry. "Still, I daresay they'll manage all right."
"On the contrary," said Sinclair. "Henderson sent Suzanne to get the letters last night. ”

“ Sinclair opened the packet and handed the contents to Halley who turned white with relief.
“At last,” he said taking out the faded document, which meant so much to him. Without a word he handed it to Ena. It was much faded, and had been soaked with sea water, but was still readable.
Sinclair rose and put the record on the Dictaphone which he wound up and started. Of all the gruesome things that this room had witnessed this was the strangest. The now familiar words of the quarrel were repeated between the dead and the living. ”