His narrowed eyes held a cold glitter. "Why?"

"You must know he is innocent. You must--"

"I know only what the evidence shows," he cut in, warily on his guard.

"He may or may not have been one of my attackers. From the first blow I was dazed. But everything points to it that he hired--"

"Oh, no!" interrupted the Irish girl, her dark eyes shining softly. "The way of it is that he saved your life, that he fought for you, and that he is in prison because of it."

"If that is true, why doesn't he bring some proof of it?"

"Proof!" she cried scornfully. "Between friends--"

"He's no friend of mine. The man is a meddler. I despise him."

The scarlet flooded her cheeks. "And I am liking him very, very much,"

she flung back stanchly.

Macdonald looked up at the vivid, flushed face and found it wholly charming. He liked her none the less because her fine eyes were hot and defiant in behalf of his rival.

"Very well," he smiled. "I'll get him out if you'll do me a good turn too."

"Thank you. It's a bargain."

"Then sing to me."

She moved to the piano. "What shall I sing?"

"Sing 'Divided.'"

The long lashes veiled her soft eyes while she considered. In a way he had tricked her into singing for him a love-song she did not want to sing. But she made no protest. Swiftly she turned and slid along the bench. Her fingers touched the keys and she began.

He watched the beauty and warmth of her dainty youth with eyes that mirrored the hunger of his heart. How buoyantly she carried her dusky little head! With what a gallant spirit she did all things! He was usually a frank pagan, but when he was with her it seemed to him that G.o.d spoke through her personality all sorts of brave, fine promises.

Sheba paid her pledge in full. After the first two stanzas were finished she sang the last ones as well:--

"An' what about the wather when I'd have ould Paddy's boat, Is it me that would be feared to grip the oars an' go afloat?

Oh, I could find him by the light of sun or moon or star: But there's caulder things than salt waves between us, so they are.

Och anee!

"Sure well I know he'll never have the heart to come to me, An' love is wild as any wave that wanders on the sea, 'Tis the same if he is near me, 'tis the same if he is far: His thoughts are hard an' ever hard between us, so they are.

Och anee!"

Her hands dropped from the keys and she turned slowly on the end of the seat. The dark lashes fell to her hot cheeks. He did not speak, but she felt the steady insistence of his gaze. In self-defense she looked at him.

The pallor of his face lent accent to the fire that smouldered in his eyes.

"I'm going to marry you, Sheba. Make up your mind to that, girl," he said harshly.

There was infinite pity in the look she gave him. "'There's caulder things than salt waves between us, so they are,'" she quoted.

"Not if I love you and you love me. By G.o.d, I trample down everything that comes between us."

He swung to a sitting position on the lounge. Through the steel-gray eyes in the brooding face his masterful spirit wrestled with hers. A lean-loined Samson, with broad, powerful shoulders and deep chest, he dominated his world ruthlessly. But this slim Irish girl with the young, lissom body held her own.

"Must we go through that again?" she asked gently.

"Again and again until you see reason."

She knew the tremendous driving power of the man and she was afraid in her heart that he would sweep her from the moorings to which she clung.

"There is something else I haven't told you." The embarra.s.sed lashes lifted bravely from the flushed cheeks to meet steadily his look.

"I don't think--that I--care for you. 'Tis I that am shamed at my--fickleness. But I don't--not with the full of my heart."

His bold, possessive eyes yielded no fraction of all they claimed.

"Time enough for that, Sheba. Truth is that you're afraid to let yourself love me. You're worried because you can't measure me by the little two-by-four foot-rule you brought from Ireland with you."

Sheba nodded her dusky little head in nave candor. "I think there will be some truth in that, Mr. Macdonald. You're lawless, you know."

"I'm a law to myself, if that's what you mean. It is my business to help hammer out an empire in this Northland. If I let my work be cluttered up by all the little rules made by little men for other little ones, my plans would come to a standstill. I am a practical man, but I keep sight of the vision. No need for me to brag. What I have done speaks for me as a guidepost to what I mean to do."

"I know," the girl admitted with the impetuous generosity of her race.

"I hear it from everybody. You have built towns and railroads and developed mines and carried the twentieth century into new outposts. You have given work to thousands. But you go so fast I can't keep step with you. I am one of the little folks for whom laws were made."

"Then I'll make a new code for you," he said, smiling. "Just do as I say and everything will come out right."

Faintly her smile met his. "My grandmother might have agreed to that.

But we live in a new world for women. They have to make their own decisions. I suppose that is a part of the penalty we pay for freedom."

Diane came into the room and Macdonald turned to her.

"I have just been telling Sheba that I am going to marry her--that there is no escape for her. She had better get used to the idea that I intend to make her happy."

The older cousin glanced at Sheba and laughed with a touch of embarra.s.sment. "Whether she wants to be happy or not, O Cave Man?"

"I'm going to make her want to."

Sheba fled, but from the door she flung back her challenge. "I don't think so."

CHAPTER XX

GORDON FINDS HIMSELF UNPOPULAR

Macdonald kept his word to Sheba. He used his influence to get Elliot released, and with a touch of cynicism quite characteristic went on the bond of his rival. An information was filed against the field agent of the Land Department for highway robbery and attempted murder, but Gordon went about his business just as if he were not under a cloud.

None the less, he walked the streets a marked man. Women and children looked at him curiously and whispered as he pa.s.sed. The sullen, hostile eyes of miners measured him silently. He was aware that feeling had focused against him with surprising intensity of resentment, and he suspected that the whispers of Wally Selfridge were largely responsible for this.