CHAPTER XXI THE MAN IN THE DOOR

When the doctor from the agency arrived at dawn, hours after Mrs. Mathews, he found everything done for the wounded man that skill and experience could suggest. Mrs. Mathews had carried instruments, antiseptics, bandages, with her, and she had no need to wait for anybody’s directions in their use. So the doctor, who had been reinforced by the same capable hands many a time before, took a cup of hot coffee and rode home.

Mrs. Mathews moved about as quietly as a nun, and with that humility and sense of self-effacement that comes of penances and pains, borne mainly for others who have fallen with bleeding feet beside the way.

She was not an old woman, only as work and self-sacrifice had aged her. Her abundant black hair—done up in two great braids which hung in front of her shoulders, Indian-wise, and wrapped at their ends with colored strings—was salted over with gray, but her beautiful small hands were as light and swift as any girl’s. Good deeds had blessed them with eternal youth, it seemed.

She wore a gray dress, sprinkled over with twinkling little Indian gauds and bits of finery such as the squaws love. This barbaric adornment seemed 281 unaccountable in the general sobriety of her dress, for not a jewel, save her wedding-ring alone, adorned her. Frances did not marvel that she felt so safe in this gentle being’s presence, safe for herself, safe for the man who was more to her than her own soul.

When the doctor had come and gone, Mrs. Mathews pressed Frances to retire and sleep. She spoke with soft clearness, none of that hesitation in her manner that Frances had marked on the day that they rode up and surrounded her where the Indians were waiting their rations of beef.

“You know how it happened—who did it?” Frances asked. She was willing to leave him with her, indeed, but reluctant to go until she had given expression to a fear that hung over her like a threat.

“Banjo told me,” Mrs. Mathews said, nodding her graceful little head.

“I’m afraid that when Chadron comes home and finds him here, he’ll throw him out to die,” Frances whispered. “I’ve been keeping Mr. Macdonald’s pistols ready to—to—make a fight of it, if necessary. Maybe you could manage it some other way.”

Frances was on her knees beside her new friend, her anxiety speaking from her tired eyes, full of their shadows of pain. Mrs. Mathews drew her close, and smoothed back Frances’ wilful, redundant hair with soothing touch. For a little while she said nothing, but there was much in her delicate silence that told she understood.

“No, Chadron will not do that,” she said at last. 282 “He is a violent, blustering man, but I believe he owes me something that will make him do in this case as I request. Go to sleep, child. When he wakes he’ll be conscious, but too weak for anything more than a smile.”

Frances went away assured, and stole softly up the stairs. The sun was just under the hill; Mrs. Chadron would be stirring soon. Nola was up already, Frances heard with surprise as she passed her door, moving about her room with quick step. She hesitated there a moment, thinking to turn back and ask Mrs. Mathews to deny her the hospital room. But such a request would seem strange, and it would be difficult to explain. She passed on into the room that she had lately occupied. Soothed by her great confidence in Mrs. Mathews, she fell asleep, her last waking hope being that when she stood before Alan Macdonald’s couch again it would be to see him smile.

Frances woke toward the decline of day, with upbraidings for having yielded to nature’s ministrations for so long. Still, everything must be progressing well with Alan Macdonald, or Mrs. Mathews would have called her. She regretted that she hadn’t something to put on besides her torn and soiled riding habit to cheer him with the sight of when he should open his eyes to smile.

Anxious as she was, and fast as her heart fluttered, she took time to arrange her hair in the way that she liked it best. It seemed warrant to her that he 283 must find her handsomer for that. People argue that way, men in their gravity as well as women in their frivolity, each believing that his own appraisement of himself is the incontestable test, none rightly understanding how ridiculous pet foibles frequently make us all.

But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the eyes of men.

Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in grass, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was dead.

Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an assuring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the door.

“No, he is far from dead,” she said.

“Then why—why are you leaving?”

“The little lady of the ranch has stepped into my 284 place—but you need not be afraid for yours.” Mrs. Mathews smiled again as she said that. “He asked for you with his first word, and he knows just how matters stand.”

The color swept back over Frances’ face, and ran down to hide in her bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their faces.

“But that little Nola isn’t competent to take care of him—she’ll kill him if she’s left there with him alone!”

“With kindness, then,” said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking her head in deprecation. “A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King, he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been barred from the room where he lies. There’s a soldier guarding the door to keep you away from his side.”

“That’s Nola’s work,” Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her cheek, “she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away.”

“Rest easy, my dear, sweet child,” counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on Frances’ shoulder. “Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that.”

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“But he—he doesn’t understand; he’ll think I’ve deserted him!” Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes.

“He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they ousted me. I’d have taken time to tell him, even if I’d had to—pinch somebody’s ear.”

The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this assurance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain.

Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the door.

Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to find Maggie, for her young appetite was clamoring. Nola’s eyes were round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest.

“Isn’t this an outrage, this high-handed business of Major King’s?” She ran up all flushed and out of breath, as if she had been wrestling with her indignation and it had almost obtained the upper hand.

“What fresh tyranny is he guilty of?” Frances inquired, putting last night’s hot words and hotter feelings behind her.

“Ordering a soldier to guard the door of Mr. 286 Macdonald’s room, with iron-clad instructions to keep you away from him! He sent his orders back by Doctor Shirley—isn’t it a petty piece of business?”

“Mrs. Mathews told me. At least you could have allowed her to stay.”

“I?” Nola’s eyes seemed to grow. She gazed and stared, injury, disbelief, pain, in her mobile expression. “Why, Frances, I didn’t have a thing to do with it, not a thing! Mother and I protested against this military invasion of our house, but protests were useless. The country is under martial law, Doctor Shirley says.”

“How did Major King know that Mr. Macdonald had been brought here? He rode away without giving any instructions for his disposal or care. I believe he wanted him to die there where he fell.”

“I don’t know how he came to hear it, unless the lieutenant here sent a report to him. But I ask you to believe me, Frances”—Nola put her hand on Frances’ arm in her old wheedling, stroking way—“when I tell you I hadn’t anything to do with it. In spite of what I said last night, I hadn’t. I was wild and foolish last night, dear; I’m sorry for all of that.”

“Never mind,” Frances said.

“Don’t you worry, we’ll take care of him, mother and I. Major King’s orders are that you’re not to leave this house, but I tell you, Frances, if I wanted to go home I’d go!”

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“So would I,” returned Frances, with more meaning in her manner of speaking than in her words. “Does Major King’s interdiction extend to the commissary? Am I going to be allowed to eat?”

“Maggie’s got it all ready; I ran up to call you.” Nola slipped her arm round Frances’ waist and led her toward the kitchen, where Maggie had the table spread. “You’ll not mind the kitchen? The house is so upset by those soldiers in it that we have no privacy left.”

“Prisoners and pensioners should eat in the kitchen,” Frances returned, trying to make a better appearance of friendliness for Nola than she carried in her heart.

Maggie was full of apologies for the poor service and humble surroundings. “It is the doings of miss,” she whispered, in her native sibilant Mexican, when Nola found an excuse to leave Frances alone at her meal.

“It doesn’t matter, Maggie; you eat in the kitchen, both of us are women.”

“Yes, and some saints’ images are made of lead, some of gold.”

“But they are all saints’ images, Maggie.”

“The kitchen will be brighter from this day,” Maggie declared, in the extravagant way of her race, only meaning more than usually carries in a Castilian compliment.

She backed away from the table, never having it in her delicate nature to be so rude as to turn her 288 back upon her guest, and admired Frances from a distance. The sun was reaching through a low window, moving slowly up the cloth as if stealing upon the guest to give her a good-night kiss.

“Ah, miss!” sighed Maggie, her hands clasped as in adoration, “no wonder that he lives with a well in his body. He has much to live for, and that is the truth from a woman’s lips.”

“It is worth more because of its rarity, then, Maggie,” Frances said, warming over with blushes at this ingenuous praise. “Do they let you go into his room?”

“The door is open to the servant,” Maggie replied, with solemn nod.

“It is closed to me—did you know?”

“I know. Miss tells you it is orders from some captain, some general, some soldier I do not know what”—a sweeping gesture to include all soldiers, great and small and far away—“but that is a lie. It came out of her own heart. She is a traitor to friendship, as well as a thief.”

“Yes, I believed that from the beginning, Maggie.”

“This house of deceit is not a place for me, for even servant that I am, I am a true servant. But I will not lie for a liar, nor be traitor for one who deceives a friend. I shall go from here. Perhaps when you are married to Mr. Macdonald you will have room in your kitchen for me?”

“We must not build on shadows, Maggie.”

“And there is that Alvino, a cunning man in a 289 garden. You should see how he charms the flowers and vegetables—but you have seen, it is his work here, all this is his work.”

“If there is ever a home of my own—if it ever comes to that happiness—”

“God hasten the day!”

“Then there will be room for both of you, Maggie.”

Frances rose from the table, and stood looking though the window where the sun’s friendly hand had reached in to caress her a few minutes gone. There was no gleam of it now, only a dull redness on the horizon where it had fallen out of sight, the red of iron cooling upon the anvil.

“In four weeks he will be able to kneel at the altar with you,” said Maggie, making a clatter with the stove lids in her excitement, “and in youth that is only a day. And I have a drawn piece of fine linen, as white as your bosom, that you must wear over your heart on that day. It will bring you peace, far it was made by a holy sister and it has been blessed by the bishop at Guadalupe.”

“Thank you, Maggie. If that day ever comes for me, I will wear it.”

Maggie came nearer the window, concern in her homely face, and stood off a little respectful distance.

“You want to be with him, you should be there at his side, and I will open the door for you,” she said.

“You will?” Frances started hopefully.

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“Once inside, no man would lift a hand to put you out.”

“But how am I going to get inside, Maggie, with that sentry at the door?”

“I have been thinking how it could be done, miss. Soon it will be dark, and with night comes fear. Miss is with him now; she is there alone.”

Frances turned to her, such pain in her face as if she had been stabbed.

“Why should you go over that again? I know it!” she said, crossly. “That has nothing to do with my going into the room.”

“It has much,” Maggie declared, whispering now, treasuring her plot. “The old one is upstairs, sleeping, and she will not wake until I shake her. Outside the soldiers make their fires and cook, and Alvino in the barn sings ‘La Golondrina’—you hear him?—for that is sad music, like his soul. Very well. You go to your room, but leave the door open to let a finger in. When it is just creeping dark, and the soldiers are eating, I will run in where the one sits beside the door. My hair will be flying like the mane of a wild mare, my eyes bi-i-i-g—so. In the English way I will shout ‘The rustlers, the rustlers! He ees comin’—help, help!’ When you hear this, fly to me, quick, like a soul set free. The soldier at the door will go to see; miss will come out; I will stand in the door, I will draw the key in my hand. Then you will fly to him, and lock the door!”

“Why, Maggie! what a general you are!”

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“Under the couch where he lies,” Maggie hurried on, her dark eyes glowing with the pleasure of this manufactured romance, “are the revolvers which he wore, just where we placed them last night. I pushed them back a little, quite out of sight, and nobody knows. Strap the belt around your waist, and defy any power but death to move you from the man you love!”

“Maggie, you are magnificent!”

“No,” Maggie shook her head, sadly, “I am the daughter of a peon, a servant to bear loads. But”—a flash of her subsiding grandeur—“I would do that—ah, I would have done that in youth—for the man of my heart. For even a servant in the back of a house has a heart, dear miss.”

Frances took her work-rough hands in her own; she pressed back the heavy black hair—mark of a vassal race—from the brown forehead and looked tenderly into her eyes.

“You are my sister,” she said.

Poor Maggie, quite overcome by this act of tenderness, sank to her knees, her head bowed as if the bell had sounded the elevation of the host.

“What benediction!” she murmured.

“I will go now, and do as you have said.”

“When it is a little more dark,” said Maggie, softly, looking after her tenderly as she went away.

Frances left her door ajar as Maggie had directed, and stood before the glass to see if anything could be done to make herself more attractive in his 292 eyes. It did not seem so, considering the lack of embellishments. She turned from the mirror sighing, doubtful of the success of Maggie’s scheme, but determined to do her part in it, let the result be what it might. Her place was there at his side, indeed; none had the right to bar her his presence.

The joy of seeing him when consciousness flashed back into his shocked brain had been stolen from her by a trick. Nola had stood in her place then. She wondered if that slow smile had kindled in his eyes at the sight of her, or whether they had been shadowed with bewilderment and disappointment. It was a thing that she should never know.

She heard Mrs. Chadron leave her room and pass heavily downstairs. Hope sank lower as she descended; it seemed that their simple plot must fail. Well, she sighed, at the worst it could only fail. As she sat there waiting while twilight blended into the darker waters of night, she reflected the many things which had overtaken her in the two days past. Two incidents stood out above all the haste, confusion, and pain which gave her sharp regret. One was that her father had parted from her to meet his life’s heaviest disappointment with anger and unforgiving heart; the other that the shot which she had aimed at Saul Chadron had been cheated of its mark.

There came a trampling of hoofs from the direction of the post, unmistakably cavalry. She strained from the window to see, but it was at that period 293 between dusk and dark when distant objects were tantalizingly indefinite. Nothing could be made of the number, or who came in command. But she believed that it must be Major King’s troops returning from escorting the raiders to Meander.

Of course there would be no trying out of Maggie’s scheme now. New developments must come of the arrival of Major King, perhaps her own removal to the post. Surely he could not sustain an excuse that she was dangerous to his military operations now.

Doors opened, and heavy feet passed the hall. Presently all was a tangle of voices there, greetings and warm words of welcome, and the sound of Mrs. Chadron weeping on her husband’s breast for joy at his return.

Nola’s light chatter rose out of the sound of the home-coming like a bright thread in a garment, and the genteel voice of Major King blended into the bustle of welcome with its accustomed suave placidity. Frances felt downcast and lonely as she listened to them, and the joyous preparations for refreshing the travelers which Mrs. Chadron was pushing forward. They had no regard, no thought it seemed, for the wounded man who lay with only the thickness of a door dividing him from them.

She was moved with concern, also, regarding Chadron’s behavior when he should learn of Macdonald’s presence in that house. Would Nola have the courage to own her attachment then, and stand between the wrath of her father and his wounded enemy?

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She was not to be spared the test long. There was the noise of Chadron moving heavily about, bestowing his coat, his hat, in their accustomed places. He came now into the dining-room, where the sentinel kept watch at Macdonald’s door. Frances crept softly, fearfully, into the hall and listened.

Chadron questioned the soldier, in surprise. Frances heard the man’s explanation of his presence before the door given in low voice, and in it the mention of Macdonald’s name. Chadron stalked away, anger in the sound of his step. His loud voice now sounded in the room where the others were still chattering in the relief of speech after long silence. Now he came back to the guarded door, Nola with him; Mrs. Chadron following with pleading words and moanings.

“Dead or alive, I don’t care a damn! Out of this house he goes this minute!” Chadron said.

“Oh, father, surely you wouldn’t throw a man at death’s door out in the night!”

It was Nola, lifting a trembling voice, and Frances could imagine her clinging to his arm.

“Not after what he’s done for us, Saul—not after what he’s done!” Mrs. Chadron sounded almost tearful in her pleading. “Why, he brought Nola home—didn’t you know that, Saul? He brought her home all safe and sound!”

“Yes, he stole her to make that play!” Chadron said, either still deceived, or still stubborn, but in any case full of bitterness.

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“I’ll never believe that, father!” Nola spoke braver than Frances had expected of her. “But friend or enemy, common charity, common decency, would—”

“Common hell! Git away from in front of that door! I’m goin’ to throw his damned carcass out of this house—I can’t breathe with that man in it!”

“Oh, Saul, Saul! don’t throw the poor boy out!” Mrs. Chadron begged.

“Will I have to jerk you away from that door by the hair of the head? Let me by, I tell you!”

Frances ran down stairs blindly, feeling that the moment for her interference, weak as it might be, and ineffectual, had come. Now Major King was speaking, his voice sounding as if he had placed himself between Chadron and the door.

“I think you’d better listen to your wife and daughter, Chadron. The fellow can’t harm anybody—let him alone.”

“No matter for the past, he’s our guest, father, he’s—”

“Hell! Haven’t they told you fool women the straight of it yet? I tell you I had to shoot him to save my own life—he was pullin’ a gun on me, but I beat him to it!”

“Oh Saul, my Saul!” Mrs. Chadron moaned.

“Was it you that—oh, was it you!” There was accusation, disillusionment, sorrow—and more than words can define—in Nola’s voice. Frances waited to hear no more. In a moment she was standing in 296 the open door beside Nola, who blocked it against her father with outstretched arms.

Chadron was facing his wife, his back to Frances as she passed.

“Yes, it was me, and all I’m sorry for is that I didn’t finish him on the spot. Here, you fellers”—to some troopers who crowded about the open door leading to the veranda—“come in here and carry out this cot.”

But it wasn’t their day to take orders from Chadron; none of them moved. Frances touched Nola’s arm; she withdrew it and let her pass.

Macdonald, alone in the room, had lifted himself to his elbow, listening. Frances pressed him back to his pillow with one hand, reaching with the other under the cot for his revolvers. Her heart jumped with a great, glad bound, as if it had leaped from death to safety, when she touched the weapons. A cold steadiness settled over her. If Saul Chadron entered that room, she swore in her heart that she would kill him.

“Don’t interfere with me, King,” said Chadron, turning again to the door, “I tell you he goes, alive or dead. I can’t breathe—”

“Stop where you are!” Frances rose from her groping under the cot, a revolver in her hand.

Chadron, who had laid hold of Nola to tear her from the door, jumped like a man startled out of his sleep. In the heat of his passion he had not noticed one woman more or less.

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“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said, catching himself as his hand reached for his gun.

“Frances will take him away as soon as he’s able to be moved,” said Nola, pleading, fearful, her eyes great with the terror of what she saw in Frances’ face.

“Yes, she’ll go with him, right now!” Chadron declared. “I’ll give you just ten seconds to put down that gun, or I’ll come in there and take it away from you! No damn woman—”

A loud and impatient summons sounded on the front door, drowning Chadron’s words. He turned, with an oath, demanding to know who it was. Frances, still covering him with her steady hand, heard hurrying feet, the door open, and Mrs. Chadron exclaiming and calling for Saul. The man at the door had entered, and was jangling his spurs through the hall in hasty stride. Chadron stood as if frozen in his boots, his face growing whiter than wounded, blood-drained Macdonald’s on his cot of pain.

Now the sound of the newcomer’s voice rose in the hall, loud and stern. But harsh as it was, and unfriendly to that house, the sound of it made Frances’ heart jump, and something big and warm rise in her and sweep over her; dimming her eyes with tears.

“Where’s my daughter, Chadron, you cutthroat! Where’s Miss Landcraft? If the lightest hair of her head has suffered, by God! I’ll burn this house to the sills!”

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