"Mr. Pape has been painting your picture with a brush dipped in colors of the Yellowstone," observed Curtis Lauderdale as he sipped the fragrant amber brew which his daughter had poured and pa.s.sed.

The girl flashed their guest an indignant glance. "Attacking dad at his weakest point? For that I should paint him an awful picture of you."

"With a brush dipped in colors of the truth?"

At her threat and Pape's meek retort, the old man's eyes continued to beam their way, as only sightless eyes can beam.

"You needn't, Jen-Jen. It doesn't matter what Mr. Pape looks like. Men show less on the outside what they are than women. I'd rather see him as he is inwardly. Already I know that he has both an imagination and a sense of humor. And he is direct with the _skook.u.m_ talk, which doesn't lend to lies. As for his exterior, I imagine him as moderately sizeable and well-muscled and plain, or you wouldn't have brought him around."

"Immoderately plain," she corrected, still with a punishing air.

"Good. Then I've got him-" her parent with a chuckle. "Now it seems to me, if he's done for us all you say he has, that we owe him some explanation."

At once Jane's quasi-disapproval of their quickly established fellowship turned into real.

"Explanation has been our downfall, dad," she warned. "You know your failing. You trust too much and too soon. You seem to have got worse instead of better-positively-since you went to the war."

"She's right, Mr. Lauderdale," Pape advised. "It is too soon to trust me in _skook.u.m_ or any other foreign language. But you seem shy some sort of help which I'd like to supply if I can. Why waste time explaining?

You're ent.i.tled-on face value, you know-to the best I can give. There'll be plenty of time to explain after we've horned off all these nesters that seem to be rooting around your ranch."

"Another good quality-generosity," commented the older man in an argumentative way to his daughter. "Don't you think, dear, that it would be safe enough to tell him a certain amount of the truth, even though he should prove to be an active agent of our enemies? If on the other side, he'd know it anyhow. If on ours, he'd be at a serious disadvantage without some of the facts. We are in no position to despise an ally, Jane, and--"

Pape was determined that her confidence should not be forced, even by her father. He interrupted briskly:

"Which or whether, let me trust you folks first. I am almost as much a stranger to you as you to me-and no more given to explanations than our young friend here. I feel kind of called to tell you who I am and why I'm stranded in this Far East of New York. You may scent something in common in the sad little story of my life, for I, too, am on a still hunt for an enemy or enemies unknown."

He offered his tea cup for a refilling, climbed to his feet and steadied the china across to the white marble mantelpiece. There he stood and drank the beverage between the deliberate lines of his opening. He began at the beginning-or thereabouts-of Peter Pape. Over the early days of his stock-raising struggle to those of comparative, present success on the Queer Question Ranch he pa.s.sed in fair style and with reasonable rapidity. Thence he slowed down to the near past and its sudden, oleaginous wealth.

As is so often the case in oil, he, as owner of the land, had been the last to suspect the presence of this liquid "gold" beneath his acres.

Only the fact that he loved his ranch and would not sell the heart of it had saved him. Price proffers had risen slowly but surely until they reached figures which caused him to suspect, not the worst, but the best. He had drilled on a chance to a ceaseless flow of fortune.

His account carried its own conviction and fulfilled his preface except for one point. Where had he any cause, in this generous deal of Fate, to be resenting or seeking to punish enemies, unknown or otherwise? The blind man pointed the omission.

"Notwithstanding the enough-and-to-spare that I've got, sir, they stung me, these sharpers, through a lot of poor folks who couldn't afford even a nettle p.r.i.c.k. Before I got hep to what was up I had sold a small tract for which I had no further use to an alleged student of agriculture who had interested me in a new scheme for making alfalfa grow where nothing much ever had grown before. When my wells began to gush by fifties and hundreds of barrels, the backer of this fake farmer organized an oil company on the strength of his buy and floated stock right and left."

He paused to clinch and thump a fist upon the mantel-shelf; then glowered unreasonably at the nervous quivers of the wax flowers within the gla.s.s case which formed its centerpiece.

"When widows with orphans from everywhere and some of my friends from nearby cow-towns began to write and ask me about their promised dividends-Well, folks, in time I got wisened to the fact that my name had been used along with the fame of Queer Question production. I asked myself a question that didn't sound as queer to me as to the bunch of sharpers that I soon put it to. After I'd gathered them in and the Federal Court had helped me hand 'em what was over-due, I started on a long, long trail after the big guy that had planned the crooked deal.

I'm still stalking him. He's lurking down in that gulch of Wall Street to-day or I'm clean off the trail. You see, friends, the Montana Gusher Oil Fields, Inc., hasn't even a smell of oil. When I find the promoter--"

"Montana Gusher-was that the company's name?" Jane's interruption was more than interested; was voiced with suppressed excitement. She turned toward her father. "You remember my telling you of Aunt Helene's narrow escape from buying a block of worthless oil stock a year ago? She was only saved by--"

"Child, child, don't name names," the blind man reproved her. On his face, however, was the reflex of her startled look.

"It's all right to say 'child, child,'" insisted the girl vehemently.

"You never would believe ill of any one until it was proved at your expense. Doesn't it strike you as strange that _he_ should have been the one to know all about these far-away oil fields without time for investigation-that _he_ was able to dissuade Auntie against the smooth arguments of a salesman whose claim on him as a friend he had acknowledged? Do you suppose the promoter of Montana Gusher could have been--"

"Wait, Jen-Jen. You'd better be sure before suggesting such a charge to this young man. You can see that he is in earnest. If you should be wrong--"

"You're plumb right about my being in earnest," Pape cut in. "But I'm willing to go into all details before asking you to name me that name. I shouldn't have minded so much had it been my bank account that was tapped. What they did me out of, though, was the good-faith of my friends and neighbors. When they made _me_ look like the robber of widows and orphans instead of themselves-Well, if ever I get a rope around the scrub neck of that--"

On account of an interruption he did not finish the threat. A peculiarly tuneful auto siren sounded up from the street through the open windows.

Jane got to her feet with such suddenness as to jeopard the entire China population of the tea-table. She crossed to one of the windows; held the Swiss curtain before her face; looked out and down.

"I thought I couldn't be mistaken." Her report was low-spoken, but tense. "The Allen car has stopped in the street, across from the house."

"Not-Sam Allen couldn't have found me over here?" The blind man also arose. With hands out, he swayed after her. "You must be mistaken, Jane.

Look again!"

"How could I be mistaken? They are out of the car now. They're looking at the house number. What-_what_ can this mean?"

Jane drew in from the window; leveled upon her parent a look of acute alarm; saw and remembered Pape. With an attempt at naturalness she explained:

"Mr. Allen was my father's lawyer and one of his oldest friends. We are surprised by this visit because he isn't supposed to know even that dad is alive, let alone his address in New York."

"You said 'they,' Jane," her father puzzled. "Who else--"

"Mills Harford is with him."

The old man seemed shaken anew. "How could Harford know that we're here unless Jasper--"

"No, dad, not Jasper. He is faithful as the moon. You know that. It strikes me as more possible that-" In a return rush of suspicion she faced the Westerner. "Mr. Pape met both Mills and Judge Allen at the opera and later at Aunt Helene's. He is the only person who, to my knowledge, has discovered my disguise and our whereabouts."

Pape returned her look steadily and rather resentfully. "That is true, Miss Lauderdale. But I have had no communication with either of them since, although I did visit both their offices with the hope of locating you. Only yesterday I was told that Harford was out of town."

The blind man threw up his hands intolerantly. "Out of town, was he, and leaving a love-letter a day at the Sturgis house for Jasper to deliver, all written at his club? Do you think that hare-hound would go out of town so long as he suspects that Jane is in it? What are they doing now?"

"Crossing straight toward our steps-" the girl in low, quick tones from the window. "Judge Allen probably recognizes the house, despite its condition. He was here several times in granddad's day. He won't have to ask the way up."

"But, Jane, they mustn't come up here-mustn't get in. What shall we do?"

"I don't know, dad. Let me think. Meantime you, Mr. Pape--"

Again the Westerner heard that persistent suspicion of him in her voice and saw that she had whipped from out her blouse a very small, very black, very competent-looking something which he was glad to know she wore.

"You are not to show your face at the window and you are not to cross the room when they knock," she told him. "If you so much as cough--"

Pape eyed her interestedly and decided that she meant the implied threat. The puzzle of the Lauderdales, far from being solved, was growing more intricate. Why should these two delightful and, he felt sure, innocent persons so fear the prospective visit-the old man from his lawyer and friend, his daughter from the personable and wealthy young real-estater whom Irene Sturgis had declared to be her most ardent suitor? Truly, the case was one for a show of blind, dumb and deaf faith.

The increase of tension as heavy steps began to scroop up the stairs seemed to emanate from the figure of Jane Lauderdale. Straight and strong she stood in the center of the room, her face more marble-like than the mantel. Her head was thrown up in an att.i.tude of alert listening. The black something in her right hand continued to command the suspect of circ.u.mstance.

He, although in a somewhat easy att.i.tude, demonstrated that he knew how to behave when "covered." He did not so much as glance toward the window. And he showed no tendency to cough. His one deflection was a scarcely audible whisper.

"If I should have to sneeze, you won't shoot me, Jane? If you do, you'll miss a lot of love."

At the first light rap on the door, Lauderdale's knees seemed to weaken and he sat down upon one end of the Davenport. The younger pair stiffened; held their breath; eyed each other.

A second knock sounded, then a more imperative third. An advisory discussion outside, too low-voiced for intelligibility, ended in a fourth demand for admittance, knuckled to carry to the rear of the house and waken any sleeper within.