One by the route I've taken.One may be too much love of money,of women,or of having your own way.You can ruin your soul by getting it set on one thing above everything else.Education,for instance,like the Wreams back there in Cambridge.""The Wreams!"Burgess exclaimed.
"Yes,old Joshua Wream sold himself to an appetite for musty old Sanscrit till he'd sacrifice anybody's comfort and joy for it,same as I sold out to a fool's craving for drink.
You'll know the Wreams sometime as I know 'em now.
Fenneben's only a stepbrother and the West made a man of him.
He was always a gentleman."
"Go on!"Vincent's voice was hardly audible.
"This outlaw,boot-legger,thief,and murderer was a respectable fellow once,the adopted son of a wealthy family back East,who began by spoiling him,lavished money on him,and let him have his own way in everything.
He was a gay youngster on the side,given to drinking and fast company.
He fell in love with a pretty girl,but when she found him out,she cut him.Then he went to the dogs,blaming her because she had sense enough to throw him over where he belonged.
She fell in love--the right kind of love--with another man.
And this young fool who had no claim on her at all,swore vengeance.
Her family wanted her to marry the young sport because he had money.
They were long on money--her father was,anyhow.But she would n't do it.""Did she marry the one she really cared for?"Burgess asked eagerly.
"No;but that's another story.Meantime this fellow's father died,leaving the boy he,himself,had started on the wrong road,entirely out of his will.The boy went to the devil--and he's still there."
Saxon paused and looked once more at the tiny wavering smoke column,hardly visible now.
"He's over yonder hiding away from the light of day under the bluffs by the fire that sends that curl of smoke up through the crevices in the rock,an outlaw thief."Saxon gazed long at the landscape beyond the Walnut.When he spoke again,it was with an effort.
"Professor,this outlaw got a hold on me once when I was drunk,drunk by his ******.It would do no good to tell you about that.
You could n't help me,nor harm him.You'll trust me in this?"A picture of Dennie down in the Kickapoo Corral,with the flickering firelight on her rippling hair,the weird,shadowy woodland,and the old Indian legend all came back to the young man now,though why he could not say.
"I certainly would never bring harm to you nor yours,"he said kindly.
"I can't inform on the scoundrel.I can only watch him.The woman he was in love with years ago,who would n't stand for his wild ways--that's the gray-haired woman at Pigeon Place.Her life's been one long tragedy,though she is not forty yet."The anguish on the old man's face was pitiful as he spoke.
"She has a reason of her own for living here,and she is the soul of courage.
On the night of the Fenneben accident,I was out her way--yes,running away from Bond Saxon.I knew if I stayed in town,I'd get drunk on a bottle left at my door.So I tore out in the rain and the dark to fight it out with the devil inside of me.And out at Pigeon Place I run onto this fiend.
When I ordered him back to his hiding place,he vowed he'd get Fenneben and put him in the river.There's one or two human things about him still.
One is his fear of little children,and one is his love for that woman.
He really did adore her years ago.I tracked home after him,and you know the rest.He put up some story to the Dean to entice him out there."He hesitated,then ceased to speak.
"Why the Dean?"Burgess asked.
"Because Lloyd Fenneben's the man she loved years ago,and her folks wouldn't let her marry,"Bond Saxon said sadly.
Burgess felt as if the limestone ridge was giving way beneath him.
"Where is she now?"
She's gone,nobody knows where.I hope to heaven she will never come back,"the old man replied.
"And it was she who saved Dr.Fenneben's life?Does he know who she is?""No,no.She's never let him know,and if she does n't want him to know,whose business is it to tell him?"Saxon urged.
"I have hung about and protected her when she never knew I was near.
But when I'm drunk,I'm an idiot and my mind is bent against her.
I'd die to save her,and yet I may kill her some day when I don't know it."Bond Saxon's head was drooping pitifully low.
"But why live in such slavery?Why not tell all you know about this man and let the law protect a helpless woman?"Burgess urged.
Old Bond Saxon looked up and uttered only one word--"Dennie!"Vincent Burgess turned away a moment.Dennie!Yes,there was Dennie.
"This woman had a husband,you say?"he asked presently.
Bond Saxon stared straight at him and slowly nodded his head.
"What became of him?Do you know?Vincent questioned.
Saxon leaned forward,and,clutching Vincent Burgess by the arm,whispered hoarsely,"He's dead.I killed him.But I was drunk when I did it.And this man knows it and holds me bound,"SERVICE
If you were born to honor,show it now;if put upon you,make the judgment good that thought you worthy of it.
--SHAKESPEARE