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<h3>Chapter XXVIII</h3> Starr was coming up to the city for a little shopping on the early morning train with Michael. The summer was almost upon her and she had not prepared her apparel. Besides, she was going away in a few days to be bridesmaid at the wedding of an old school friend who lived away out West; and secretly she told herself she wanted the pleasure of this little trip to town with Michael. She was treasuring every one of these beautiful days filled with precious experiences, like jewels to be strung on memory’s chain, with a vague unrest lest some close-drawing future was to snatch them from her forever. She wished with all her heart that she had given a decided refusal to her friend’s pleading, but the friend had put off the wedding on her account to wait until she could leave her father; and her father had joined his insistance that she should go away and have the rest and change after the ordeal of the winter. So Starr seemed to have to go, much as she would rather have remained. She had made a secret vow to herself that she would return at once after the wedding in spite of all urgings to remain with the family who had invited her to stay all summer with them. Starr had a feeling that the days of her companionship with Michael might be short. She must make the most of them. It might never be the same again after her going away. She was not sure even that her father would consent to remain all summer at the farm as Michael urged. And on this lovely morning she was very happy at the thought of going with Michael. The sea seemed sparkling with a thousand gems as the train swept along its shore, and Michael told her of his first coming down to see the farm, called her attention to the flowers along the way: and she assured him Old Orchard was far prettier than any of them, now that the roses were all beginning to bud. It would soon be Rose Cottage indeed! Then the talk fell on Buck and his brief passing. “I wonder where he can be and what he is doing,” sighed Michael. “If he only could have stayed, long enough for me to have a talk with him. I believe I could have persuaded him to a better way. It is the greatest mystery in the world how he got away with those men watching the house. I cannot understand it.” Starr, her cheeks rosy, her eyes shining mischievously, looked up at him. “Haven’t you the least suspicion where he was hiding?” she asked. Michael looked down at her with a sudden start, and smiled into her lovely eyes. “Why, no. Have you?” he said, and could not keep the worship from his gaze. “Of course. I knew all the time. Do you think it was very dreadful for me not to tell? I couldn’t bear to have him caught that way before you’d had a chance to help him; and when he used to be so good to you as a little boy; besides, I saw his face, that terrible, hunted look; there wasn’t anything really wrong in my opening that window and throwing them off the track, was there?” “Did you open the window?” Starr nodded saucily. “Yes, and Sam saw me do it. Sam knew all about it. Buck went up the chimney right through that hot fire. Didn’t you hear the tongs fall down? He went like a flash before you opened the door, and one foot was still in sight when that sheriff came in. I was so afraid he’d see it. Was it wrong?” “I suppose it was,” he said sadly. “The law must be maintained. It can’t be set aside for one fellow who has touched one’s heart by some childhood’s action. But right or wrong I can’t help being glad that you cared to do something for poor Buck.” “I think I did it mostly for—you?” she said softly, her eyes still down. For answer, Michael reached out his hand and took her little gloved one that lay in her lap in a close pressure for just an instant. Then, as if a mighty power were forcing him, he laid it gently down again and drew his hand away. Starr felt the pressure of that strong hand and the message that it gave through long days afterward, and more than once it gave her strength and courage and good cheer. Come what might, she had a friend—a friend strong and true as an angel. They spoke no more till the train swept into the station and they had hurried through the crowd and were standing on the front of the ferryboat, with the water sparkling before their onward gliding and the whole, great, wicked, stirring city spread before their gaze, the light from the cross on Trinity Church steeple flinging its glory in their faces. “Look!” said Michael pointing. “Do you remember the poem we were reading the other night: Wordsworth’s ‘Upon Westminster Bridge.’ Doesn’t it fit this scene perfectly? I’ve often thought of it when I was coming across in the mornings. To look over there at the beauty one would never dream of all the horror and wickedness and suffering that lies within those streets. It is beautiful now. Listen! Do you remember it? “‘Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at its own sweet will: Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!’” Starr looked long at the picture before her, and then at the face of her companion speaking the beautiful lines word by word as one draws in the outlines of a well-loved picture. Michael’s hat was off and the beauty of the morning lay in sunlight on his hair and cheek and brow. Her heart swelled within her as she looked and great tears filled her eyes. She dared not look longer lest she show her deep emotion. The look of him, the words he spoke, and the whole wonderful scene would linger in her memory as long as life should last. Two days later Starr started West, and life seemed empty for Michael. She was gone from him, but still she would come back. Or, would she come back after all? How long could he hope to keep her if she did? Sad foreboding filled him and he went about his work with set, strained nerves; for now he knew that right or wrong she was heart of his heart, part of his consciousness. He loved her better than himself; and he saw no hope for himself at all in trying to forget. Yet, never, never, would he ask her to share the dishonor of his heritage. The day before Starr was expected to come back to Old Orchard Michael took up the morning paper and with rising horror read: BANDIT WOUNDED AS FOUR HOLD UP TRAIN. Express Messenger Protects Cash During Desperate Revolver Duel in Car. Fort Smith, Ark.—Four bandits bungled the hold-up of a Kansas City passenger train, between Hatfield and Mena, Ark., early today. One was probably fatally wounded and captured and the others escaped after a battle with the Express Messenger in which the messenger exhausted his ammunition and was badly beaten. When the other robbers escaped the wounded bandit eluded the conductor, and made his way into the sleeper, where he climbed into an empty berth. But he was soon traced by the drops of blood from his wound. The conductor and a brakeman hauled him out and battled with him in the aisle amid the screams of passengers. The bandit aimed his revolver at the conductor and fired, but a sudden unsteady turn of his wrist sent the bullet into himself instead of the conductor. The wounded bandit received the bullet in his left breast near the heart and will probably die. The Express Messenger is in the hospital at Mena and may recover. Had the bullet of the bandit gone as intended it would more than likely have wounded one or two women passengers, who at the sound of trouble had jumped from their berths into the aisle and were directly in the path of the bullet. There is some likelihood that the captured bandit may prove to be the escaped convict, named “Buck,” who was serving long sentence in the state penitentiary, and for whom the police have been searching in vain for the last three months. Michael was white and trembling when he had finished reading this account. And was this then to be the end of Buck. Must he die a death like that? Disgrace and sin and death, and no chance to make good? Michael groaned aloud and bowed his head upon the table before him, his heart too heavy even to try to think it out. That evening a telegram reached him from Arkansas. “A man named ‘Buck’ is dying here, and calls incessantly for you. If you wish to see him alive come at once.” Michael took the midnight train. Starr had telegraphed her father she would reach Old Orchard in the morning. It was hard to have to go when, she was just returning. Michael wondered if it would always be so now. Buck roused at Michael’s coming and smiled feebly. “Mikky! I knowed you’d come!” he whispered feebly. “I’m done for, pardner. I ain’t long fer here, but I couldn’t go ’thout you knowin’. I’d meant to git jes’ this one haul an’ git away to some other country where it was safe, ’nen I was goin’ to try’n keep straight like you would want. I would a’got trough all right, but I seen her,—the pretty lady,—your girl,—standing in the aisle right ahin’ the c’ndct’r, jes’ es I wuz pullin’ the trigger knowed her right off, ’ith her eyes shinin’ like two stars; an’ I couldn’t run no resks. I ain’t never bin no bungler at my trade, but I hed to bungle this time ’cause I couldn’t shoot your girl! So I turned it jes’ in time an’ took it mese’f. She seen how ’twas ’ith me that time at your house, an’ she he’ped me git away. I sent her word I’d do the same fer her some day, bless her—an’ now—you tell her we’re square! I done the bunglin’ fer her sake, but I done it fer you too, pard—little pard—Mikky!” “Oh, Buck!” Michael knelt beside the poor bed and buried his face in the coverlet. “Oh, Buck! If you’d only had my chance!” he moaned. “Never you mind, Mikky! I ain’t squealin’. I knows how to take my dose. An’ mebbe, they’ll be some kind of a collidge whar I’m goin’, at I kin get a try at yet—don’t you fret, little pard—ef I git my chancet I’ll take it fer your sake!” The life breath seemed to be spent with the effort and Buck sank slowly into unconsciousness and so passed out of a life that had been all against him. Michael after doing all the last little things that were permitted him, sadly took his way home again. He reached the city in the morning and spent several hours putting to rights his business affairs; but by noon he found himself so unutterably weary that he took the two o’clock train down to the farm. Sam met him at the station. Sam somehow seemed to have an intuition when to meet him, and the two gripped hands and walked home together across the salt grass, Michael telling in low, halting tones all that Buck had said. Sam kept his face turned the other way, but once Michael got a view of it and he was sure there were tears on his cheeks. To think of Sam having tears for anything! Arrived at the cottage Sam told him he thought that Mr. Endicott was taking his afternoon nap upstairs, and that Miss Endicott had gone to ride with “some kind of a fancy woman in a auto” who had called to see her. Being very weary and yet unwilling to run the risk of waking Mr. Endicott by going upstairs, Michael asked Sam to bolt the dining-room door and give orders that he should not be disturbed for an hour; then he lay down on the leather couch in the living-room. The windows were open all around and the sweet breath of the opening roses stole in with the summer breeze, while the drone of bees and the pure notes of a song sparrow lulled him to sleep. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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