Chapter 19 - Page 2

against Mrs. Grayson, who had been bold enough to tell him what he was least willing to hear. His heart, too, was full of unspoken threats, as "King" Plummer was a passionate man who had lived a rough life, close to the ground, and full of primitive emotions. And the threats he expressed in words were such as these: "They shall pay for it!" "I helped put that husband of hers where he is, I helped make him, and I can help unmake him; and, by thunder, I will do it, too!" In the hour of his wrath he hated Jimmy Grayson, and his head was filled with sudden schemes. He would "teach the man what it was to play the King of the Mountains for a sucker," and, still raging, he cast from him all the ties of party and association.

Within an hour he was on his swiftest horse, riding furiously towards Boisé, his heart full of anger and his head full of plans for revenge.

Nor was he sparing in speech when he reached Boisé. His words cracked so loud that the echo of them travelled several hundred miles and reached Mrs. Grayson, who was waiting vainly for a reply to a letter that she had written nearly two weeks before. Now, no reply was necessary, because this news was what she had feared, but which she had hoped would not come.

The report was winged and full of alarms. "King" Plummer, shooting out of the mountains like a cannon-ball, had made his appearance in the streets of Boisé, openly denouncing Jimmy Grayson, calling him a traitor, and saying that he would beat him if he had to ruin himself to do it. What had caused this sudden change nobody knew, but it must be something astonishing, and it behooved the candidate to explain himself quickly.

The loyal soul of the candidate's wife flashed back an angry reply across the five hundred miles of mountain and desert. If "King" Plummer was not the man she had hoped he was, then they preferred that they should fight him rather than have him as a false friend. Yet there was in her heart a throb of admiration for him, because he was willing to throw everything overboard for the love of a woman.

The defection clothed the whole train in the deepest gloom. Tremaine spoke for the group when he said it was all up with Jimmy Grayson, and the others did not have the heart even to pretend to a different belief. With a Plummer defection on one side and a Goodnight falling away on the other, there was no hope left for a party which even with these wings faithful had only a desperate fighting chance.

Harley was thoroughly miserable. He could guess--no, he did not guess, he knew the cause of "King" Plummer's bolt, and he knew, too, that if it were not for himself it would never have occurred; he had wrecked all the future of others, nor in making such a wreck had he secured his own happiness, provided even that he was selfish enough to be happy when others were ruined.