The Odds - Ethel May Dell (read full novel .TXT) 📗

whisky into a glass. He gave her a sidelong glance. "Now that's a very clever guess," he said. "What put you on to that?"
She smiled, mainly because he had meant her to smile. "I've been half expecting you all day," she said.
He looked down at her more fully as he finished his task. "That's very interesting," he said. "Who told you to expect me?"
"My brother--Jack Burton," she explained.
"Oh! Jack Burton is your brother, is he?" He contemplated her thoughtfully for a second or two. "Well, I seem to have turned up at the right moment," he said.
"Yes." She leaned forward with flushed face upraised. "And I haven't said 'Thank you' yet. I'm so grateful to you. I can't tell you how grateful."
"Don't!" he said. "Don't! Drink this instead! Drink to the lucky chance that sent me your way! I'm proud to have been of use to you."
She took the glass unwillingly. "I'm sure I shall hate it."
"It's the best antidote to snake-poison out," he said. "I swear it won't upset you. If it makes you sleepy, well, you're in the right place and safe enough."
She liked his utterance of the last words. They had a genuine ring. "But, if I drink, so must you!" she said. "And eat, too! Jack said I was to give you a meal if you came."
He smiled again, a large, humorous smile. "That's the kindest thing Jack Burton has ever done," he said, with warm approval. "I'll join you with pleasure, missis. This man-trapping business is hungry work for all of us."
Dot frowned a little. It did not please her to be reminded of his mission. Her former prejudice began to revive within her, his kindness notwithstanding.
"I don't like the thought of it myself," she told him abruptly. "But, of course, I'm only a 'new chum.'"
"What?" he said, pausing in the act of pouring himself out a drink. "That sounds as if you want that scoundrel Bill to get away."
She coloured in some confusion under his look. How could she expect to make a policeman understand? "No--no!" she said, with vehemence. "I'm not quite so soft as that. I'd shoot him myself if he came my way. But I hate to think of a dozen men all on the track of one. It really isn't fair."
He laughed, but without superiority. "And yet you'd swell the odds? Do you call that fair?"
Dot paused to collect her arguments. It seemed that possibly even this machine of justice carried a small fragment of sympathy in his soul. Certainly he was not the judicial automaton she had expected him to be.
"It's like this," she said. "I'd shoot him if he came my way because he has done us a lot of mischief, and I want to stop it. But I'd do it squarely. I wouldn't do it when he wasn't looking. And I wouldn't--ever--make it my profession to hunt down criminals and even employ black men to help. I think that's hateful. I couldn't live that way. I'd be above it."
"I see." He lifted his glass to her in a silent toast, and drank a deep draught. "Then if you chanced to know where he was, I take it you'd just settle him yourself, if you could. But you wouldn't in any case give him away to the police. Is that your point of view?"
"It isn't unreasonable, is it?" she said, with a touch of eagerness. "I mean, if you weren't what you are, wouldn't you do the same?"
"I don't know," he said, smiling at her whimsically. "You see, being what I am handicaps me rather. I haven't much time for working out nice problems."
Dot leaned back again. He had disappointed her. But she could not neglect her duty on that account. She took her arm out of the water and dried it. Then she arose.
"How does it feel?" he said.
"Oh, only a little stiff," she answered, turning away. "Now I am going to get you something to eat. Sit down, won't you?"
Her tone was distant, but he did not seem to notice any change. He thanked her and sat down, facing the open door. Robin sat pressed against his knee. It was evident that the dog entertained no doubts regarding the visitor. Having passed him as respectable, he accepted him without reserve.
This fact presently occurred to Dot as she waited upon her visitor, and, since it was not her nature to prolong an uncomfortable situation, she broke the silence to comment upon it.
"He doesn't take to everyone at sight," she said.
"No?" She saw again that frank, disarming smile. "You see, missis, I know the ways of animals, and a very useful sort of knowledge I've found it."
"I wonder why you call me missis," she said. "I'm Jack's sister, not his wife."
He looked up at her. "But you're the boss of the establishment, I take it?"
She smiled also half against her will. "I'm rather new at present. But no doubt I shall learn."
"And then you'll go and boss some one else?" he suggested.
She coloured a little. "No. I shall stick to Jack," she said, with decision.
"Lucky Jack!" he said. "But you're quite right. There's no one good enough for you around here. We're a low breed mostly."
"I didn't mean that!" she protested, in quick distress. "I never thought that!"
"I know," he said. "I know. But you've sort of felt it all the same. Me, for instance!" His intensely blue eyes challenged her suddenly. "Haven't you said to yourself, 'That man may be up to local standard, but he's made of shocking crude material'? Straight now! Haven't you?"
She hesitated, her face burning under his direct look. "Do you--do you really want to know what I think?" she said.
"I do." There was something uncompromising in the brief rejoinder, yet somehow she did not find him formidable.
She answered him without difficulty in spite of her embarrassment. "I think, then, that it isn't you yourself at all that I feel like that about. It's just your profession."
"Ah!" He began to smile again. "Once live down that, and I might be possible. Is that it?"
She nodded, still flushed, yet curiously not uneasy. "Something like that. Why can't you be a farmer like Jack?"
"I wish I were," he said, unexpectedly.
"Why?" The word slipped out almost in spite of her, but she felt she must have an answer.
He answered her with his eyes full on her. "Because I'd like to lead the sort of life you would approve of," he said. "I've a notion it would be worth while."
She turned aside from his look. "It's only a matter of opinion, of course," she said.
"Is it?" he said. He turned his attention to the meal before him, and ate rapidly for a few moments while he considered the matter. At length: "Yes," he said. "I suppose you're right. Anyhow, you don't feel drawn that way. You won't feel a bit pleased if Buckskin Bill gets caught by the police this journey after this?"
Dot shook her head. "I don't think a man ought to be tracked down like a wild beast," she said, resolutely.
The blue eyes that watched her kindled a little. He finished what was on his plate and pushed it from him.
"I'm greatly obliged to you," he said, "for your hospitality. I needed it--badly enough. You'll thank Jack for me, won't you? I must be going now. But there's just one thing I'd like to say to you first."
He got up and stood before her. It was impossible not to admire his splendid height and breadth of chest. He could have lifted her easily with one hand. And yet, strangely, though she felt his power he did not make her aware of her own weakness.
She looked up at him. "Yes? What is it?"
"Just this, Miss Burton," he said, and somehow he lingered over the name in a fashion that made it sound musical in her ears. "I'd like to strike a bargain with you--because you've made a sort of impression on me. I'm not meaning any impertinence. You know that?"
"Go on!" she whispered, almost inaudibly.
He went on, bending slightly towards her. "The odds are dead against Buckskin Bill escaping, but--he may escape. If he does, will you--the next time I come to see you--treat me--without prejudice?"
He also was almost whispering as he uttered the last words.
She drew a sharp breath and looked at him. "You--you--are going to let him go?" she said, incredulously.
He did not answer. His eyes were drawing hers with a magnetism she could not resist. And they thrilled her--they thrilled her!
"The odds are dead against him," he said again, after a moment. "Is it--a bargain?"
Her heart gave a queer little jerk within her. She stood motionless for a space. Then, with a little quivering smile, she very, very slowly gave him her hand.
He took it into his great brown one, and though his touch was wholly gentle she felt the force of the man throbbing behind it, and it seemed to surge all around and within her.
He stood for a second as if irresolute or uncertain how to treat her. Then, with a wordless sound that needed no interpretation, he pushed back the sleeve from the place whence he had sucked the poison. It showed only a little red now. He bent very low until his lips pressed it again. Then for one burning moment they neither moved nor breathed.
The next thing that Dot realized was the passing of his great figure through the doorway out of her sight. She saw him don his slouch hat as he went.
* * * * *


She cleared the table again and sat down to her work. But somehow all energy had gone from her. A great lassitude hung upon her. Perhaps it was caused by the heat, or possibly by the whisky he had made her drink. There was no resisting it. It pressed her down like a physical weight. She gave herself up to it at last, and leaning back in her chair like a tired child she slept.
Robin lay at her feet. The afternoon crawled away. Like the enchanted princess of old, she reclined in a slumber so deep that life itself seemed to be suspended.
The sun began to slant towards the west, and the pastures took on a golden look. The lambs gambolled together with shrill bleatings. But Dot Burton slept on in her chair, a faint smile on her face of innocence. Though she could not have been dreaming in so deep a repose, her last thought ere she slept must have held happiness. Her serenity lay like a tender veil upon her.
It was drawing towards evening when Robin suddenly raised his head again with a deep growl. There came the sound of footsteps through the open door. The girl stirred and slowly awoke.
She stretched up her arms with a sleepy movement, and then, as voices reached her, roused herself completely and got to her feet.
Her brother and another man--a tall, lantern-jawed stranger--were on the point of entering.
Jack led the way. "Halloa, Dot!" he said. "Have you seen anything of our man? He's broken cover in this direction in spite of us. You haven't shot him by any chance, I suppose?"
Dot looked from him to the man behind him.
"Inspector Hill," said Jack. "Eh? What's the matter?"
"Nothing--nothing!" said Dot. Yet she had gone back a step as if she had been struck. She held out her hand to