The Eagles Heart | Page 7

her little white teeth prettily. "Now, don't get mad,
Harry; I was thinking of something else. Please tell me again."
"I won't. I'm done with you." A big lump arose in his throat and he
turned away to hide tears of mortified pride. He could not have put it
into words, but he perceived the painful truth. Dot had considered him
a boy all along, and had only half listened to his stories and plans in the
past, deceiving him for some purpose of her own. She was a smiling,
careless hypocrite.
"You've lied to me," he said, turning and speaking with the bluntness of
a boy without subtlety of speech. "I never'll speak to you again;
good-by."
Dot kept swinging her foot. "Good-by," she said in her sweet,
soft-breathing voice.
He walked away slowly, but his heart was hot with rage and wounded
pride, and every time he thought of the tone in which she said
"Good-by," his flesh quivered. He was seventeen, and considered
himself a man; she was eighteen, and thought him only a boy. She had
never listened to him, that he now understood. Maud had been right.
Dot had only pretended, and now for some reason she ceased to
pretend.
There was just one comfort in all this: it made it easier for him to go to
the sunset country, and his wounded heart healed a little at the thought
of riding a horse behind a roaring herd of buffaloes.
CHAPTER III
THE YOUNG EAGLE STRIKES

A farming village like Rock River is one of the quietest, most
humdrum communities in the world till some sudden upheaval of
primitive passion reveals the tiger, the ram, and the wolf which decent
and orderly procedure has hidden. Cases of murder arise from the dead
level of everyday village routine like volcanic mountain peaks in the
midst of a flowering plain.
The citizens of Rock River were amazed and horrified one Monday
morning to learn that Dot Burland had eloped with the clerk in the
principal bank in the town, a married man and the leader of the choir in
the First Church. Some of the people when they heard of it, said: "I do
not believe it," and when they were convinced, the tears came to their
eyes. "She was such a pretty girl, and think of Mrs. Willard--and then
Sam--who would have supposed Sam Willard could do such a thing."
To most of the citizens it was drama; it broke the tedious monotony of
everyday life; it was more productive of interesting conversation than a
case of embezzlement or the burning of the county courthouse. There
were those who smiled while they said: "Too bad, too bad! Any
p'ticlers?"
Some of the women recalled their dislike of the lazy, pink-and-white
creature whom they had often seen loitering on the streets or lying day
after day in a hammock reading "domestic novels." The young girls
drew together and conveyed the news in whispers. It seemed to
overturn the whole social world so far as they knew it, and some of
them hastened to disclaim any friendship with "the dreadful thing."
Of course the related persons came into the talk. "Poor Mrs. Willard
and Harry Excell!" Yes, there was Harry; for a moment, for the first
time, he was regarded with pity. "What will he do? He must take it very
hard."
At about eleven o'clock, just as the discussion had reached this
secondary stage, where new particulars were necessary, a youth, pale
and breathless, with his right hand convulsively clasping his bloody
shoulder, rushed into the central drug store and fell to the floor with
inarticulate cries of fear and pain. Out of his mouth at last came an

astonishing charge of murderous assault on the part of Harold Excell.
His wounds were dressed and the authorities notified to arrest his
assailant.
When the officers found Harold he was pacing up and down the narrow
alley where the encounter had taken place. He was white as the dead,
and his eyes were ablaze under his knitted brows.
"Well, what do you want of me?" he demanded, as the officer rushed
up and laid hands upon him.
"You've killed Clint Slocum," replied the constable, drawing a pair of
handcuffs from his pocket.
"Oh, drop those things!" replied Harold; "I'm not going to run; you
never knew me to run."
Half ashamed, the constable replaced the irons in his pocket and seized
his prisoner by the arm. Harold walked along quietly, but his face was
terrible to see, especially in one so young. In every street excited men,
women, and children were running to see him pass. He had suddenly
become alien and far separated from them all. He perceived them as if
through a lurid smoke cloud.
On most of