The Short Cut | Page 6

It is Wayne's brother," cried Wanda brokenly from her
mother's arms. "He is dead!"
She told them briefly, hurriedly. Her father, his eyes strangely hard and
inscrutable swore softly and turning without a word to either of the
women went back to the house as Wayne had done, got his hat and
hurried to the stable. His voice, hard and expressionless like his eyes,
floated up to them as he gave his brief orders to Jim to drive straight
back to the spot Wanda had described. The girl saw him enter the stable
and in a little while come out, riding a saddled horse. Already Wayne
Shandon had ridden off along the trail, travelling with a fury of speed
that took no heed of the miles ahead of him.
Mother and daughter turned and went slowly up the steps, their arms
about each other, their cheeks wet.
"Who killed him, mamma?" whispered the girl, her moist eyes lifted.
"Who could have killed him?"
The silent tale that a pearl handled revolver had told her was a lie, a
hideous lie. She did not believe it, she was never going to believe it.
For an instant there had been a horrible suspicion in her breast, then her

loyalty had risen and crushed it and killed it and cast it out. But now
she sought some new explanation to take its place, sought it with
intense eagerness.
"Who killed him?" Mother's and daughter's eyes met furtively for a
quick second. And then the mother's answer was no answer at all, but a
broken, tremulous prayer: "Dear God, may they never know who did
this thing!"
They did not look at each other again as they crossed the length of the
veranda, on the north exposure of the great square house and turned
into the spacious living room.
"I am going to my room, mamma," said the girl faintly. "I want to be
alone just a little."
She knew that her mother was watching her as she passed through the
living room and out through the double doors to the veranda at the east.
But she did not turn. She did not ask what her mother had meant, she
did not wish to know. She wanted just now more than anything in the
world, to be alone in her own room, to take from her bosom the thing
which she felt every one would know she had there, to hide it where it
would be safe.
To the east of the house in a little sheltered hollow her father, twenty
years ago, had planted an orchard. She could see the white and delicate
pink of the blossoms, could catch the hint of perfume that a little
frolicking breeze brought to her.
She heard voices out there and saw two men coming toward the house.
There came to her ears, too, the sound of cool, contemptuous laughter.
She knew who it was insolently jeering at the other, knew before she
saw them that it was the big, splendidly big fellow, as tall as Red
Reckless and heavier, who was known to her only as "Sledge" Hume.
She had heard her father say last night that both Hume and Arthur
Shandon were coming to-day upon some matter of business in which
the three men were interested.

"You're a little fool, anyway, Conway," the deep voice said with that
frank impudence which was a part of Hume.
Garth Conway, not a small man by two inches or fifty pounds, although
he appeared so beside his companion, made a reply which Wanda did
not hear in full, but which reached her sufficiently to tell her that the
two men were talking about some trifling matter of range management
and that his theory had provoked Sledge Hume's blunt comment. The
two men came on, Hume striding a couple of paces in front of Conway,
until they caught sight of her. Conway lifted his hat, his sullen eyes
brightening. Hume, staring at her with the keen eye of appraisal, did
not trouble himself to touch his hat and gave her no greeting beyond
one of his curt nods.
"They have not heard," Wanda thought with a little thrill of pity for
Garth Conway who was so soon to learn of the death of the man who
had been more like a brother than cousin to him. "Mamma will tell
them."
She hurried down the veranda to her room which was at the far end, at
the southeast corner of the house. But she paused at the door as she
heard her mother's voice, shaken and tearful, and the reply that one of
the men made.
It was Garth Conway. As though the utterance were drawn from him by
the shock of the surprise, jerked from him involuntarily, he cried:
"Dead? Murdered?