Helen said this in a low voice with just a sob in her breath; but she met his gaze fairly. Her big eyes were all aglow, alight with girlish appeal, and yet proud with a woman's honest demand for fair exchange. Promise was there, too, could he but read it, of wonderful possibilities.
"No," he answered gently.
Helen was not prepared for such a rebuff. She was interested in him, and not ashamed to show it. She feared only that he might misunderstand her; but to refuse her proffered friendship, that was indeed unexpected. Rude she thought it was, while from brow to curving throat her fair skin crimsoned. Then her face grew pale as the moonlight. Hard on her resentment had surged the swell of some new emotion strong and sweet. He refused her friendship because he did not dare accept it; because his life was not his own; because he was a borderman.
While they stood thus, Jonathan looking perplexed and troubled, feeling he had hurt her, but knowing not what to say, and Helen with a warm softness in her eyes, the stalwart figure of a man loomed out of the gathering darkness.
"Ah, Miss Helen! Good evening," he said.
"Is it you, Mr. Brandt?" asked Helen. "Of course you know Mr. Zane."
Brandt acknowledged Jonathan's bow with an awkwardness which had certainly been absent in his greeting to Helen. He started slightly when she spoke the borderman's name.
A brief pause ensued.
"Good night," said Jonathan, and left them.
He had noticed Brandt's gesture of surprise, slight though it was, and was thinking about it as he walked away. Brandt may have been astonished at finding a borderman talking to a girl, and certainly, as far as Jonathan was concerned, the incident was without precedent. But, on the other hand, Brandt may have had another reason, and Jonathan tried to study out what it might be.
He gave but little thought to Helen. That she might like him exceedingly well, did not come into his mind. He remembered his sister Betty's gossip regarding Helen and her admirers, and particularly Roger Brandt; but felt no great concern; he had no curiosity to know more of her. He admired Helen because she was beautiful, yet the feeling was much the same he might have experienced for a graceful deer, a full-foliaged tree, or a dark mossy-stoned bend in a murmuring brook. The girl's face and figure, perfect and alluring as they were, had not awakened him from his indifference.
On arriving at his brother's home, he found the colonel and Betty sitting on the porch.
"Eb, who is this Brandt?" he asked.
"Roger Brandt? He's a French-Canadian; came here from Detroit a year ago. Why do you ask?"
"I want to know more about him."
Colonel Zane reflected a moment, first as to this unusual request from Jonathan, and secondly in regard to what little he really did know of Roger Brandt.
"Well, Jack, I can't tell you much; nothing of him before he showed up here. He says he has been a pioneer, hunter, scout, soldier, trader—everything. When he came to the fort we needed men. It was just after Girty's siege, and all the cabins had been burned. Brandt seemed honest, and was a good fellow. Besides, he had gold. He started the river barges, which came from Fort Pitt. He has surely done the settlement good service, and has prospered. I never talked a dozen times to him, and even then, not for long. He appears to like the young people, which is only natural. That's all I know; Betty might tell you more, for he tried to be attentive to her."
"Did he, Betty?" Jonathan asked.
"He followed me until I showed him I didn't care for company," answered Betty.
"What kind of a man is he?"
"Jack, I know nothing against him, although I never fancied him. He's better educated than the majority of frontiersmen; he's good-natured and agreeable, and the people like him."
"Why don't you?"
Betty looked surprised at his blunt question, and then said with a laugh: "I never tried to reason why; but since you have spoken I believe my dislike was instinctive."
After Betty had retired to her room the brothers remained on the porch smoking.
"Betty's pretty keen, Jack. I never knew her to misjudge a man. Why this sudden interest in Roger Brandt?"
The borderman puffed his pipe in silence.
"Say, Jack," Colonel Zane said suddenly, "do you connect Brandt in any way with this horse-stealing?"
"No more than some, an' less than others," replied Jonathan curtly.
Nothing more was said for a time. To the brothers this hour of early dusk brought the same fullness of peace. From gray twilight to gloomy dusk quiet reigned. The insects of night chirped and chorused with low, incessant hum. From out the darkness came the peeping of frogs.
Suddenly the borderman straightened up, and, removing the pipe from his mouth, turned his ear to the faint breeze, while at the same time one hand closed on the colonel's knee with a warning clutch.
Colonel Zane knew what that clutch signified. Some faint noise, too low for ordinary ears, had roused the borderman. The colonel listened, but heard nothing save the familiar evening sounds.
"Jack, what'd you hear?" he whispered.
"Somethin' back of the barn," replied Jonathan, slipping noiselessly off the steps, lying at full length with his ear close to the ground. "Where's the dog?" he asked.
"Chief must have gone with Sam. The old nigger sometimes goes at this hour to see his daughter."
Jonathan lay on the grass several moments; then suddenly he arose much as a bent sapling springs to place.
"I hear footsteps. Get the rifles," he said in a fierce whisper.
"Damn! There is some one in the barn."
"No; they're outside. Hurry, but softly."
Colonel Zane had but just risen to his feet, when Mrs. Zane came to the door and called him by name.
Instantly from somewhere in the darkness overhanging the road, came a low, warning whistle.
"A signal!" exclaimed Colonel Zane.
"Quick, Eb! Look toward Metzar's light. One, two, three, shadows—Injuns!"
"By the Lord Harry! Now they're gone; but I couldn't mistake those round heads and bristling feathers."
"Shawnees!" said the borderman, and his teeth shut hard like steel on flint.
"Jack, they were after the horses, and some one was on the lookout! By God! right under our noses!"
"Hurry," cried Jonathan, pulling his brother off the porch.
Colonel Zane followed the borderman out of the yard, into the road, and across the grassy square.
"We might find the one who gave the signal," said the colonel. "He was near at hand, and couldn't have passed the house."
Colonel Zane was correct, for whoever had whistled would be forced to take one of two ways of escape; either down the straight road ahead, or over the high stockade fence of the fort.
"There he goes," whispered Jonathan.
"Where? I can't see a blamed thing."
"Go across the square, run around the fort, an' head him off on the road. Don't try to stop him for he'll have weapons, just find out who he is."
"I see him now," replied Colonel Zane, as he hurried off into the darkness.
During a few moments Jonathan kept in view the shadow he had seen first come out of the gloom by the stockade, and thence pass swiftly down the road. He followed swiftly, silently. Presently a light beyond threw a glare across the road. He thought he was approaching a yard where there was a fire, and the flames proved to be from pine cones burning in the yard of Helen Sheppard. He remembered then that she was entertaining some of the young people.