“Who in the world are you?” he asked, wonderingly. “And what in the world are you doing here in the backwoods?”
Smiling at his puzzled expression, she answered: “I am Auntie Sue. I am LIVING here in the backwoods.”
“But, your real name? Won't you tell me your name? I must know how to address you.”
“Oh, my name is Susan E. Wakefield—MISS Wakefield, if you please. I shall be seventy-one years old the eighteenth day of next November. And you must call me 'Auntie Sue,'—just as every one else does.”
“Wakefield—Wakefield—where have I seen that name?” He wrinkled his brow in an effort to remember. “Wakefield—I feel sure that I have heard it, somewhere.”
“It is not unlikely,” she returned, lightly. “It is not at all an uncommon name. And now that I am properly introduced, don't you think—?”
He hesitated a moment, then said, deliberately, “My name is Brian Kent.”
“That is an Irish name,” she said quickly; “and that is why your hair is so nearly red and your eyes so blue.”
“Yes,” he returned, “from my mother. And please don't ask me more now, for I can't lie to you, and I won't tell you the truth.” And she saw, again, the dark shadows of painful memories come into the blue eyes.
Bending over the bed, she laid her soft hand on his brow, and pushed back his heavy hair; and her sweet old voice was very low and gentle as she said: “My dear boy, I shall never ask you more. The river brought you to me, and you are mine. You must not even think of anything else, just now. When you are stronger, and are ready, we will talk of your future; but of your past, you—”
A loud knock sounded at the door of the living room.
“There is someone at the door,” she said hastily. “I must go. Lie still, and go to sleep like a good boy; won't you?”
Swiftly, she leaned over, and, before he realized, he felt her lips touch his forehead. Then she was gone, and Brian Kent's Irish eyes were filled with tears. Turning to the wall, he hid his face in the pillow.
CHAPTER VII.
OFFICERS OF THE LAW.
As Auntie Sue was closing the door of her guest's room carefully behind her, Judy came from the kitchen in great excitement, and the knocking at the front door of the house was repeated.
“Hit's the Sheriff, ma'm,” whispered Judy. “I was just a-comin' ter tell you. I seed 'em from the kitchen-winder. He's got two other men with him. Their hosses is tied ter the fence in front. What in hell will we do, now? They are after him in there, sure 's death!”
Auntie Sue's face was white, and her lips trembled—but only for a moment.
“Go back into the kitchen, Judy, and stay there,” she commanded, in a whisper; and went to open the front door as calmly as if nothing unusual had happened.
Sheriff Knox was a big man, with a bluff, kindly manner, and a voice that made nothing of closed doors. He returned Auntie Sue's greeting heartily, and, with one of his companions—a quiet, business-looking gentleman—accepted her cordial invitation to come in. The third man of the party remained near the saddle-horses at the gate.
“Well, Auntie Sue,” said the Sheriff, settling his ponderous bulk in one of the old lady's rocking-chairs, which certainly was not built to carry such a weight, “how are you? I haven't seen you in a coon's age. I'll swear, though, you ain't a minute older than you was when you first begun teachin' the little Elbow Rock school up there on the hill, are you?”
“I don't know, Sheriff,” Auntie Sue returned, with a nervous little laugh. “I sometimes think that I am a few days older. I have watched a good many sunsets since then, you know.”
The big officer's laughter almost shook the log walls of the house. To his quiet companion, who had taken a chair near the window, he said: “I'll have to tell you, Ross, that Auntie Sue owns every sunset in these Ozark Mountains. What was it you paid for them?” He turned again to their smiling hostess. “Oh, yes; fifty cents an acre for the land and fourteen dollars and a half for the sunsets. You'll have to be blamed careful not to trespass on the sunsets in this neighborhood, Ross.” Again, his hearty laugh roared out, while his chair threatened to collapse with the quaking of his massive body.
The gentleman seated at the window laughed quietly, in sympathy.
“You'll be all right, though, Ross,” the Sheriff continued, “as long as you're with me. Auntie Sue and me have been friends for about twenty year, now. I always stop to see her whenever I'm passing through the Elbow Rock neighborhood, if I ain't in too big a hurry. Stayed with her a week, once, five years ago, when we was after that Lewis gang. She knows I'd jail any man on earth that would even touch one of her sunsets.”
Then, as if the jesting allusion to his office reminded him of his professional duties, he added: “I plumb forgot, Auntie Sue, this gentleman is Mr. Ross. He is one of William J. Burns's crack detectives. Don't be scared, though, he ain't after you.”
Auntie Sue, while joining in the laughter, and acknowledging the introduction, regarded the business-looking gentleman by the window with intense interest.
“I think,” she said, slowly—and the sweetness of her low, cultured voice was very marked in contrast to the Sheriff's thundering tones—“I think, sir, that this is the first time in my life that I ever saw a real detective. I have read about them, of course.”
Mr. Ross was captivated by the charm of this beautiful old gentlewoman, who regarded him with such child-like interest, and who spoke with such sweet frankness and dignity. Smilingly, he returned:
“I fear, madam, that you would find me very disappointing. No one that I ever knew in my profession could hope to live up to the reputation given us by the story-books. No secret service man living can remotely approximate the deeds performed by the detectives of fiction. We are very, very human, I can assure you.”
“I am sure that you, at least, must be very kind,” returned Auntie Sue, gently. And the cheeks of the experienced officer flushed like the cheeks of a schoolboy.
“Mr. Ross, Auntie Sue,” said the Sheriff, “is, as I was telling you, one of William J. Burns's big men.”
Auntie Sue gave her attention to her big friend: “Yes?”
The Sheriff continued: “Now, the Burns people, you see, protect the banks all over the country.”
“Yes?” came, again, in a tone so low and gentle that the monosyllable was scarcely heard.
The officer's loud voice went on: “And Mr. Ross, here, works most of his time on these bank cases. Just now, he is trailing a fellow that got away with a lot of money from the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, of Chicago, about a month ago;—that is, the man disappeared about a month ago. He had been stealing along from the bank for about a year—worked, for them, you see.”
“The Empire Consolidated Savings Bank!” Auntie Sue spoke the words in a voice that was little more than a whisper. It was to the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank that she had sent the money which she had received from her brother in Buenos Aires; and Homer T. Ward, the president of that bank, was one of her