Lanty Foster's Mistake

Lanty Foster's Mistake

Lanty Foster was crouching on a low stool before the dying kitchen
fire, the better to get its fading radiance on the book she was
reading. Beyond, through the open window and door, the fire was
also slowly fading from the sky and the mountain ridge whence the
sun had dropped half an hour before. The view was uphill, and the
sky-line of the hill was marked by two or three gibbet-like poles
from which, on a now invisible line between them, depended certain
objects--mere black silhouettes against the sky--which bore weird
likeness to human figures. Absorbed as she was in her book, she
nevertheless occasionally cast an impatient glance in that
direction, as the sunlight faded more quickly than her fire. For
the fluttering objects were the "week's wash" which had to be
brought in before night fell and the mountain wind arose. It was
strong at that altitude, and before this had ravished the clothes
from the line, and scattered them along the highroad leading over
the ridge, once even lashing the shy schoolmaster with a pair of
Lanty's own stockings, and blinding the parson with a really
tempestuous petticoat.

A whiff of wind down the big-throated chimney stirred the log
embers on the hearth, and the girl jumped to her feet, closing the
book with an impatient snap. She knew her mother's voice would
follow. It was hard to leave her heroine at the crucial moment of
receiving an explanation from a presumed faithless lover, just to
climb a hill and take in a lot of soulless washing, but such are
the infelicities of stolen romance reading. She threw the clothes-
basket over her head like a hood, the handle resting across her
bosom and shoulders, and with both her hands free started out of
the cabin. But the darkness had come up from the valley in one
stride after its mountain fashion, had outstripped her, and she was
instantly plunged in it. Still the outline of the ridge above her
was visible, with the white, steadfast stars that were not there a
moment ago, and by that sign she knew she was late. She had to
battle against the rushing wind now, which sung through the
inverted basket over her head and held her back, but with bent
shoulders she at last reached the top of the ridge and the level.
Yet here, owing to the shifting of the lighter background above
her, she now found herself again encompassed with the darkness.
The outlines of the poles had disappeared, the white fluttering
garments were distinct apparitions waving in the wind, like dancing
ghosts. But there certainly was a queer misshapen bulk moving
beyond, which she did not recognize, and as she at last reached one
of the poles, a shock was communicated to it, through the clothes-
line and the bulk beyond. Then she heard a voice say impatiently,--

"What in h-ll am I running into now?"

It was a man's voice, and, from its elevation, the voice of a man
on horseback. She answered without fear and with slow
deliberation,--

"Inter our clothes-line, I reckon."

"Oh!" said the man in a half-apologetic tone. Then in brisker
accents, "The very thing I want! I say, can you give me a bit of
it? The ring of my saddle girth has fetched loose. I can fasten
it with that."

"I reckon," replied Lanty, with the same unconcern, moving nearer
the bulk, which now separated into two parts as the man dismounted.
"How much do you want?"

"A foot or two will do."

They were now in front of each other, although their faces were not
distinguishable to either. Lanty, who had been following the lines
with her hand, here came upon the end knotted around the last pole.
This she began to untie.

"What a place to hang clothes," he said curiously.

"Mighty dryin', tho'," returned Lanty laconically.

"And your house? Is it near by?" he continued.

"Just down the ridge--ye kin see from the edge. Got a knife?" She
had untied the knot.

"No--yes--wait." He had hesitated a moment and then produced
something from his breast pocket, which he however kept in his
hand. As he did not offer it to her she simply held out a section
of the rope between her hands, which he divided with a single cut.
She saw only that the instrument was long and keen. Then she
lifted the flap of the saddle for him as he attempted to fasten the
loose ring with the rope, but the darkness made it impossible.
With an ejaculation, he fumbled in his pockets. "My last match!"
he said, striking it, as he crouched over it to protect it from the
wind. Lanty leaned over also, with her apron raised between it and
the blast. The flame for an instant lit up the ring, the man's
dark face, mustache, and white teeth set together as he tugged at
the girth, and Lanty's brown, velvet eyes and soft, round cheek
framed in the basket. Then it went out, but the ring was secured.

"Thank you," said the man, with a short laugh, "but I thought you
were a humpbacked witch in the dark there."

"And I couldn't make out whether you was a cow or a b'ar," returned
the young girl simply.

Here, however, he quickly mounted his horse, but in the action
something slipped from his clothes, struck a stone, and bounded
away into the darkness.

"My knife," he said hurriedly. "Please hand it to me." But
although the girl dropped on her knees and searched the ground
diligently, it could not be found. The man with a restrained
ejaculation again dismounted, and joined in the search.

"Haven't you got another match?" suggested Lanty.

"No--it was my last!" he said impatiently.

"Just you hol' on here," she said suddenly, "and I'll run down to
the kitchen and fetch you a light. I won't be long."

"No! no!" said the man quickly; "don't! I couldn't wait. I've
been here too long now. Look here. You come in daylight and find
it, and--just keep it for me, will you?" He laughed. "I'll come
for it. And now, if you'll only help to set me on that road again,
for it's so infernal black I can't see the mare's ears ahead of me,
I won't bother you any more. Thank you."

Lanty had quietly moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in
her hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few
moments he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick
dust of the highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising to
his nostrils.

"Thank you," he said again, "I'm all right now," and in the pause
that followed it seemed to Lanty that he had extended a parting
hand to her in the darkness. She put up her own to meet it, but
missed his, which had blundered onto her shoulder. Before she
could grasp it, she felt him stooping over her, the light brush of
his soft mustache on her cheek, and then the starting forward of
his horse. But the retaliating box on the ear she had promptly
aimed at him spent itself in the black space which seemed suddenly
to have swallowed up the man, and even his light laugh.

For an instant she stood still, and then, swinging the basket
indignantly from her shoulder, took up her suspended task. It was
no light one in the increasing wind, and the unfastened clothes-
line had precipitated a part of its burden to the ground through
the loosening of the rope. But on picking up the trailing garments
her hand struck an unfamiliar object. The stranger's lost knife!
She thrust it hastily into the bottom of the basket and completed
her work. As she began to descend with her burden she saw that the
light of the kitchen fire, seen through the windows, was augmented
by a candle. Her mother was evidently awaiting her.

"Pretty time to be fetchin' in the wash," said Mrs. Foster
querulously. "But what can you expect when folks stand gossipin'
and philanderin' on the ridge instead o' tendin' to their work?"

Now Lanty knew that she had NOT been "gossipin'" nor "philanderin',"
yet as the parting salute might have been open to that imputation,
and as she surmised that her mother might have overheard their
voices, she briefly said, to prevent further questioning, that she
had shown a stranger the road. But for her mother's unjust
accusation she would have been more communicative. As Mrs. Foster
went back grumblingly into the sitting-room Lanty resolved to keep
the knife at present a secret from her mother, and to that purpose
removed it from the basket. But in the light of the candle she saw
it for the first time plainly--and started.

For it was really a dagger! jeweled-handled and richly wrought--
such as Lanty had never looked upon before. The hilt was studded
with gems, and the blade, which had a cutting edge, was damascened
in blue and gold. Her soft eyes reflected the brilliant setting,
her lips parted breathlessly; then, as her mother's voice arose in
the other room, she thrust it back into its velvet sheath and
clapped it into her pocket. Its rare beauty had confirmed her
resolution of absolute secrecy. To have shown it now would have
made "no end of talk." And she was not sure but that her parents
would have demanded its custody! And it was given to HER by HIM to
keep. This settled the question of moral ethics. She took the
first opportunity to run up to her bedroom and hide it under the
mattress.

Yet the thought of it filled the rest of her evening. When her
household duties were done she took up her novel again, partly from
force of habit and partly as an attitude in which she could think
of IT undisturbed. For what was fiction to her now? True, it
possessed a certain reminiscent value. A "dagger" had appeared in
several romances she had devoured, but she never had a clear idea
of one before. "The Count sprang back, and, drawing from his belt
a richly jeweled dagger, hissed between his teeth," or, more to the
purpose: "'Take this,' said Orlando, handing her the ruby-hilted
poignard which had gleamed upon his thigh, 'and should the caitiff
attempt thy unguarded innocence--'"

"Did ye hear what your father was sayin'?" Lanty started. It was
her mother's voice in the doorway, and she had been vaguely
conscious of another voice pitched in the same querulous key,
which, indeed, was the dominant expression of the small ranchers of
that fertile neighborhood. Possibly a too complaisant and
unaggressive Nature had spoiled them.

"Yes!--no!" said Lanty abstractedly, "what did he say?"

"If you wasn't taken up with that fool book," said Mrs. Foster,
glancing at her daughter's slightly conscious color, "ye'd know!
He allowed ye'd better not leave yer filly in the far pasture
nights. That gang o' Mexican horse-thieves is out again, and
raided McKinnon's stock last night."

This touched Lanty closely. The filly was her own property, and
she was breaking it for her own riding. But her distrust of her
parents' interference was greater than any fear of horse-stealers.
"She's mighty uneasy in the barn; and," she added, with a proud
consciousness of that beautiful yet carnal weapon upstairs, "I
reckon I ken protect her and myself agin any Mexican horse-
thieves."

"My! but we're gettin' high and mighty," responded Mrs. Foster,
with deep irony. "Did you git all that outer your fool book?"

"Mebbe," said Lanty curtly.

Nevertheless, her thoughts that night were not entirely based on
written romance. She wondered if the stranger knew that she had
really tried to box his ears in the darkness, also if he had been
able to see her face. HIS she remembered, at least the flash of
his white teeth against his dark face and darker mustache, which
was quite as soft as her own hair. But if he thought "for a
minnit" that she was "goin' to allow an entire stranger to kiss
her--he was mighty mistaken." She should let him know it "pretty
quick"! She should hand him back the dagger "quite careless like,"
and never let on that she'd thought anything of it. Perhaps that
was the reason why, before she went to bed, she took a good look at
it, and after taking off her straight, beltless, calico gown she
even tried the effect of it, thrust in the stiff waistband of her
petticoat, with the jeweled hilt displayed, and thought it looked
charming--as indeed it did. And then, having said her prayers like
a good girl, and supplicated that she should be less "tetchy" with
her parents, she went to sleep and dreamed that she had gone out to
take in the wash again, but that the clothes had all changed to the
queerest lot of folks, who were all fighting and struggling with
each other until she, Lanty, drawing her dagger, rushed up single-
handed among them, crying, "Disperse, ye craven curs,--disperse, I
say." And they dispersed.

Yet even Lanty was obliged to admit the next morning that all this
was somewhat incongruous with the baking of "corn dodgers," the
frying of fish, the making of beds, and her other household duties,
and dismissed the stranger from her mind until he should "happen
along." In her freer and more acceptable outdoor duties she even
tolerated the advances of neighboring swains who made a point of
passing by "Foster's Ranch," and who were quite aware that Atalanta
Foster, alias "Lanty," was one of the prettiest girls in the
country. But Lanty's toleration consisted in that singular
performance known to herself as "giving them as good as they sent,"
being a lazy traversing, qualified with scorn, of all that they
advanced. How long they would have put up with this from a plain
girl I do not know, but Lanty's short upper lip seemed framed for
indolent and fascinating scorn, and her dreamy eyes usually looked
beyond the questioner, or blunted his bolder glances in their
velvety surfaces. The libretto of these scenes was not exhaustive,
e.g.:--

The Swain (with bold, bad gayety). "Saw that shy schoolmaster
hangin' round your ridge yesterday! Orter know by this time that
shyness with a gal don't pay."

Lanty (decisively). "Mebbe he allows it don't get left as often as
impudence."

The Swain (ignoring the reply and his previous attitude and
becoming more direct). "I was calkilatin' to say that with these
yer hoss-thieves about, yer filly ain't safe in the pasture. I
took a turn round there two or three times last evening to see if
she was all right."

Lanty (with a flattering show of interest). "No! DID ye, now? I
was jest wonderin"'--

The Swain (eagerly). "I did--quite late, too! Why, that's
nothin', Miss Atalanty, to what I'd do for you."

Lanty (musing, with far off-eyes). "Then that's why she was so
awful skeerd and frightened! Just jumpin' outer her skin with
horror. I reckoned it was a b'ar or panther or a spook! You ought
to have waited till she got accustomed to your looks."

Nevertheless, despite this elegant raillery, Lanty was enough
concerned in the safety of her horse to visit it the next day with
a view of bringing it nearer home. She had just stepped into the
alder fringe of a dry "run" when she came suddenly upon the figure
of a horseman in the "run," who had been hidden by the alders from
the plain beyond and who seemed to be engaged in examining the hoof
marks in the dust of the old ford. Something about his figure
struck her recollection, and as he looked up quickly she saw it was
the owner of the dagger. But he appeared to be lighter of hair and
complexion, and was dressed differently, and more like a vaquero.
Yet there was the same flash of his teeth as he recognized her, and
she knew it was the same man.

Alas for her preparation! Without the knife she could not make
that haughty return of it which she had contemplated. And more
than that, she was conscious she was blushing! Nevertheless she
managed to level her pretty brown eyebrows at him, and said sharply
that if he followed her to her home she would return his property
at once.

"But I'm in no hurry for it," he said with a laugh,--the same light
laugh and pleasant voice she remembered,--"and I'd rather not come
to the house just now. The knife is in good hands, I know, and
I'll call for it when I want it! And until then--if it's all the
same to you--keep it to yourself,--keep it dark, as dark as the
night I lost it!"

"I don't go about blabbing my affairs," said Lanty indignantly,
"and if it hadn't BEEN dark that night you'd have had your ears
boxed--you know why!"

The stranger laughed again, waved his hand to Lanty, and galloped
away.

Lanty was a little disappointed. The daylight had taken away some
of her illusions. He was certainly very good-looking, but not
quite as picturesque, mysterious, and thrilling as in the dark!
And it was very queer--he certainly did look darker that night!
Who was he? And why was he lingering near her? He was different
from her neighbors--her admirers. He might be one of those
locaters, from the big towns, who prospect the lands, with a view
of settling government warrants on them,--they were always so
secret until they had found what they wanted. She did not dare to
seek information of her friends, for the same reason that she had
concealed his existence from her mother,--it would provoke awkward
questions; and it was evident that he was trusting to her secrecy,
too. The thought thrilled her with a new pride, and was some
compensation for the loss of her more intangible romance. It would
be mighty fine, when he did call openly for his beautiful knife and
declared himself, to have them all know that SHE knew about it all
along.

When she reached home, to guard against another such surprise she
determined to keep the weapon with her, and, distrusting her
pocket, confided it to the cheap little country-made corset which
only for the last year had confined her budding figure, and which
now, perhaps, heaved with an additional pride. She was quite
abstracted during the rest of the day, and paid but little
attention to the gossip of the farm lads, who were full of a daring
raid, two nights before, by the Mexican gang on the large stock
farm of a neighbor. The Vigilant Committee had been baffled; it
was even alleged that some of the smaller ranchmen and herders were
in league with the gang. It was also believed to be a widespread
conspiracy; to have a political complexion in its combination of an
alien race with Southwestern filibusters. The legal authorities
had been reinforced by special detectives from San Francisco.
Lanty seldom troubled herself with these matters; she knew the
exaggeration, she suspected the ignorance of her rural neighbors.
She roughly referred it, in her own vocabulary, to "jaw," a
peculiarly masculine quality. But later in the evening, when the
domestic circle in the sitting-room had been augmented by a
neighbor, and Lanty had taken refuge behind her novel as an excuse
for silence, Zob Hopper, the enamored swain of the previous
evening, burst in with more astounding news. A posse of the
sheriff had just passed along the ridge; they had "corraled" part
of the gang, and rescued some of the stock. The leader of the gang
had escaped, but his capture was inevitable, as the roads were
stopped. "All the same, I'm glad to see ye took my advice, Miss
Atalanty, and brought in your filly," he concluded, with an
insinuating glance at the young girl.

But "Miss Atalanty," curling a quarter of an inch of scarlet lip
above the edge of her novel, here "allowed" that if his advice or
the filly had to be "took," she didn't know which was worse.

"I wonder ye kin talk to sech peartness, Mr. Hopper," said Mrs.
Foster severely; "she ain't got eyes nor senses for anythin' but
that book."

"Talkin' o' what's to be 'took,'" put in the diplomatic neighbor,
"you bet it ain't that Mexican leader! No, sir! he's been
'stopped' before this--and then got clean away all the same! One
o' them detectives got him once and disarmed him--but he managed to
give them the slip, after all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and
disguises thar ain't no spottin' him. He walked right under the
constable's nose oncet, and took a drink with the sheriff that was
arter him--and the blamed fool never knew it. He kin change even
the color of his hair quick as winkin'."

"Is he a real Mexican,--a regular Greaser?" asked the paternal
Foster. "Cos I never heard that they wuz smart."

"No! They say he comes o' old Spanish stock, a bad egg they threw
outer the nest, I reckon," put in Hopper eagerly, seeing a strange
animated interest dilating Lanty's eyes, and hoping to share in it;
"but he's reg'lar high-toned, you bet! Why, I knew a man who seed
him in his own camp--prinked out in a velvet jacket and silk sash,
with gold chains and buttons down his wide pants and a dagger stuck
in his sash, with a handle just blazin' with jew'ls. Yes! Miss
Atalanty, they say that one stone at the top--a green stone, what
they call an 'em'ral'--was worth the price o' a 'Frisco house-lot.
True ez you live! Eh--what's up now?"

Lanty's book had fallen on the floor as she was rising to her feet
with a white face, still more strange and distorted in an affected
yawn behind her little hand. "Yer makin' me that sick and nervous
with yer fool yarns," she said hysterically, "that I'm goin' to get
a little fresh air. It's just stifling here with lies and
terbacker!" With another high laugh, she brushed past him into the
kitchen, opened the door, and then paused, and, turning, ran
rapidly up to her bedroom. Here she locked herself in, tore open
the bosom of her dress, plucked out the dagger, threw it on the
bed, where the green stone gleamed for an instant in the
candlelight, and then dropped on her knees beside the bed with her
whirling head buried in her cold red hands.

It had all come to her in a flash, like a blaze of lightning,--the
black, haunting figure on the ridge, the broken saddle girth, the
abandonment of the dagger in the exigencies of flight and
concealment; the second meeting, the skulking in the dry, alder-
hidden "run," the changed dress, the lighter-colored hair, but
always the same voice and laugh--the leader, the fugitive, the
Mexican horse-thief! And she, the Godforsaken fool, the chuckle-
headed nigger baby, with not half the sense of her own filly or
that sop-headed Hopper--had never seen it! She--SHE who would be
the laughing-stock of them all--she had thought him a "locater," a
"towny" from 'Frisco! And she had consented to keep his knife
until he would call for it,--yes, call for it, with fire and flame
perhaps, the trampling of hoofs, pistol shots--and--yet--

Yet!--he had TRUSTED her. Yes! trusted her when he knew a word
from her lips would have brought the whole district down on him!
when the mere exposure of that dagger would have identified and
damned him! Trusted her a second time, when she was within cry of
her house! When he might have taken her filly without her knowing
it? And now she remembered vaguely that the neighbors had said how
strange it was that her father's stock had not suffered as theirs
had. HE had protected them--he who was now a fugitive--and their
men pursuing him! She rose suddenly with a single stamp of her
narrow foot, and as suddenly became cool and sane. And then, quite
her old self again, she lazily picked up the dagger and restored it
to its place in her bosom. That done, with her color back and her
eyes a little brighter, she deliberately went downstairs again,
stuck her little brown head into the sitting-room, said cheerfully,
"Still yawpin', you folks," and quietly passed out into the darkness.

She ran swiftly up to the ridge, impelled by the blind memory of
having met him there at night and the one vague thought to give him
warning. But it was dark and empty, with no sound but the rushing
wind. And then an idea seized her. If he were haunting the
vicinity still, he might see the fluttering of the clothes upon the
line and believe she was there. She stooped quickly, and in the
merciful and exonerating darkness stripped off her only white
petticoat and pinned it on the line. It flapped, fluttered, and
streamed in the mountain wind. She lingered and listened. But
there came a sound she had not counted on,--the clattering hoofs of
not ONE, but many, horses on the lower road! She ran back to the
house to find its inmates already hastening towards the road for
news. She took that chance to slip in quietly, go to her room,
whose window commanded a view of the ridge, and crouching low
behind it she listened. She could hear the sound of voices, and
the dull trampling of heavy boots on the dusty path towards the
barnyard on the other side of the house--a pause, and then the
return of the trampling boots, and the final clattering of hoofs on
the road again. Then there was a tap on her door and her mother's
querulous voice.

"Oh! yer there, are ye? Well--it's the best place fer a girl--with
all these man's doin's goin' on! They've got that Mexican horse-
thief and have tied him up in your filly's stall in the barn--till
the 'Frisco deputy gets back from rounding up the others. So ye
jest stay where ye are till they've come and gone, and we're shut
o' all that cattle. Are ye mindin'?"

"All right, maw; 'taint no call o' mine, anyhow," returned Lanty,
through the half-open door.

At another time her mother might have been startled at her passive
obedience. Still more would she have been startled had she seen
her daughter's face now, behind the closed door--with her little
mouth set over her clenched teeth. And yet it was her own child,
and Lanty was her mother's real daughter; the same pioneer blood
filled their veins, the blood that had never nourished cravens or
degenerates, but had given itself to sprinkle and fertilize desert
solitudes where man might follow. Small wonder, then, that this
frontier-born Lanty, whose first infant cry had been answered by
the yelp of wolf and scream of panther; whose father's rifle had
been leveled across her cradle to cover the stealthy Indian who
prowled outside, small wonder that she should feel herself equal to
these "man's doin's," and prompt to take a part. For even in the
first shock of the news of the capture she recalled the fact that
the barn was old and rotten, that only that day the filly had
kicked a board loose from behind her stall, which she, Lanty, had
lightly returned to avoid "making a fuss." If his captors had not
noticed it, or trusted only to their guards, she might make the
opening wide enough to free him!

Two hours later the guard nearest the now sleeping house, a farm
hand of the Fosters', saw his employer's daughter slip out and
cautiously approach him. A devoted slave of Lanty's, and familiar
with her impulses, he guessed her curiosity, and was not averse to
satisfy it and the sense of his own importance. To her whispers of
affected, half-terrified interest, he responded in whispers that
the captive was really in the filly's stall, securely bound by his
wrists behind his back, and his feet "hobbled" to a post. That
Lanty couldn't see him, for it was dark inside, and he was sitting
with his back to the wall, as he couldn't sleep comf'ble lyin'
down. Lanty's eyes glowed, but her face was turned aside.

"And ye ain't reckonin' his friends will come and rescue him?" said
Lanty, gazing with affected fearfulness in the darkness.

"Not much! There's two other guards down in the corral, and I'd
fire my gun and bring 'em up."

But Lanty was gazing open-mouthed towards the ridge. "What's that
wavin' on the ridge?" she said in awe-stricken tones.

She was pointing to the petticoat,--a vague, distant, moving object
against the horizon.

"Why, that's some o' the wash on the line, ain't it?"

"Wash--TWO DAYS IN THE WEEK!" said Lanty sharply. "Wot's gone of
you?"

"Thet's so," muttered the man, "and it wan't there at sundown, I'll
swear! P'r'aps I'd better call the guard," and he raised his rifle.

"Don't," said Lanty, catching his arm. "Suppose it's nothin',
they'll laugh at ye. Creep up softly and see; ye ain't afraid, are
ye? If ye are, give me yer gun, and I'LL go."

This settled the question, as Lanty expected. The man cocked his
piece, and bending low began cautiously to mount the acclivity.
Lanty waited until his figure began to fade, and then ran like fire
to the barn.

She had arranged every detail of her plan beforehand. Crouching
beside the wall of the stall she hissed through a crack in
thrilling whispers, "Don't move. Don't speak for your life's sake.
Wait till I hand you back your knife, then do the best you can."
Then slipping aside the loosened board she saw dimly the black
outline of curling hair, back, shoulders, and tied wrists of the
captive. Drawing the knife from her pocket, with two strokes of
its keen cutting edge she severed the cords, threw the knife into
the opening, and darted away. Yet in that moment she knew that the
man was instinctively turning towards her. But it was one thing to
free a horse-thief, and another to stop and "philander" with him.

She ran halfway up the ridge, and met the farm hand returning. It
was only a bit of washing after all, and he was glad he hadn't
fired his gun. On the other hand, Lanty confessed she had got "so
skeert" being alone, that she came to seek him. She had the
shivers; wasn't her hand cold? It was, but thrilling even in its
coldness to the bashfully admiring man. And she was that weak and
dizzy, he must let her lean on his arm going down; and they must go
SLOW. She was sure he was cold, too, and if he would wait at the
back door she would give him a drink of whiskey. Thus Lanty, with
her brain afire, her eyes and ears straining into the darkness, and
the vague outline of the barn beyond. Another moment was
protracted over the drink of whiskey, and then Lanty, with a faint
archness, made him promise not to tell her mother of her escapade,
and she promised on her part not to say anything about his
"stalking a petticoat on the clothesline," and then shyly closed
the door and regained her room. HE must have got away by this
time, or have been discovered; she believed they would not open the
barn door until the return of the posse.

She was right. It was near daybreak when they returned, and, again
crouching low beside her window, she heard, with a fierce joy, the
sudden outcry, the oaths, the wrangling voices, the summoning of
her father to the front door, and then the tumultuous sweeping away
again of the whole posse, and a blessed silence falling over the
rancho. And then Lanty went quietly to bed, and slept like a
three-year child!

Perhaps that was the reason why she was able at breakfast to listen
with lazy and even rosy indifference to the startling events of the
night; to the sneers of the farm hands at the posse who had
overlooked the knife when they searched their prisoner, as well as
the stupidity of the corral guard who had never heard him make a
hole "the size of a house" in the barn side! Once she glanced
demurely at Silas Briggs--the farm hand and the poor fellow felt
consoled in his shame at the remembrance of their confidences.

But Lanty's tranquillity was not destined to last long. There was
again the irruption of exciting news from the highroad; the Mexican
leader had been recaptured, and was now safely lodged in Brownsville
jail! Those who were previously loud in their praises of the
successful horse-thief who had baffled the vigilance of his pursuers
were now equally keen in their admiration of the new San Francisco
deputy who, in turn, had outwitted the whole gang. It was HE who
was fertile in expedients; HE who had studied the whole country, and
even risked his life among the gang, and HE who had again closed the
meshes of the net around the escaped outlaw. He was already
returning by way of the rancho, and might stop there a moment,--so
that they could all see the hero. Such was the power of success on
the country-side! Outwardly indifferent, inwardly bitter, Lanty
turned away. She should not grace his triumph, if she kept in her
room all day! And when there was a clatter of hoofs on the road
again, Lanty slipped upstairs.

But in a few moments she was summoned. Captain Lance Wetherby,
Assistant Chief of Police of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff and ex-
U. S. scout, had requested to see Miss Foster a few moments alone.
Lanty knew what it meant,--her secret had been discovered; but she
was not the girl to shirk the responsibility! She lifted her
little brown head proudly, and with the same resolute step with
which she had left the house the night before, descended the stairs
and entered the sitting-room. At first she saw nothing. Then a
remembered voice struck her ear; she started, looked up, and
gasping, fell back against the door. It was the stranger who had
given her the dagger, the stranger she had met in the run!--the
horse-thief himself! No! no! she saw it all now--she had cut loose
the wrong man!

He looked at her with a smile of sadness--as he drew from his
breast-pocket that dreadful dagger, the very sight of which Lanty
now loathed! "This is the SECOND time, Miss Foster," he said
gently, "that I have taken this knife from Murietta, the Mexican
bandit: once when I disarmed him three weeks ago, and he escaped,
and last night, when he had again escaped and I recaptured him.
After I lost it that night I understood from you that you had found
it and were keeping it for me." He paused a moment and went on: "I
don't ask you what happened last night. I don't condemn you for
it; I can believe what a girl of your courage and sympathy might
rightly do if her pity were excited; I only ask--why did you give
HIM back that knife I trusted you with?"

"Why? Why did I?" burst out Lanty in a daring gush of truth,
scorn, and temper. "BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE THAT HORSE-THIEF.
There!"

He drew back astonished, and then suddenly came that laugh that
Lanty remembered and now hailed with joy. "I believe you, by
Jove!" he gasped. "That first night I wore the disguise in which I
have tracked him and mingled with his gang. Yes! I see it all now--
and more. I see that to YOU I owe his recapture!"

"To me!" echoed the bewildered girl; "how?"

"Why, instead of making for his cave he lingered here in the
confines of the ranch! He thought you were in love with him,
because you freed him and gave him his knife, and stayed to see
you!"

But Lanty had her apron to her eyes, whose first tears were filling
their velvet depths. And her voice was broken as she said,--

"Then he--cared--a--good deal more for me--than some people!"

But there is every reason to believe that Lanty was wrong! At
least later events that are part of the history of Foster's Rancho
and the Foster family pointed distinctly to the contrary.

-THE END-
Bret Harte's short story: Lanty Foster's Mistake

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