Harley was uneasy, and would have left them had not the act called attention to himself too pointedly, and he was forced to listen to Tremaine's rambling comment, knowing that all the others had him in their thoughts as they heard. Fortunately, Tremaine did not require any comment from others, preferring an unbroken stream of his own talk, and Harley was able to regain his hotel in silence.
They were confronted the next morning by an announcement that sent sorrow through the whole group. Mrs. Grayson felt that the events of the night before were too much for a young girl, and unless she were removed for a time to quieter scenes and a less arduous life they would leave lasting effects. Moreover, the campaign was about to enter upon a phase in which women would prove burdensome, hence she and Sylvia were going to Salt Lake City for a stay of two weeks, and then they would rejoin the party at some point in the Northwest.
It was with no counterfeit grief that they heard this news. The ladies had added brightness and variety to a most toilsome campaign, and their daily travel would seem very black indeed without them. Even Churchill was loud in his regrets, because Churchill had some of the instincts of a gentleman, and he never failed in what was due to Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia. But he could not keep from making one nasty little stab at Harley.
"Harley," he said, "do you know that they are going to have a very stalwart escort to Salt Lake?"
"I do not," replied Harley, in some surprise. "I think they are quite able to take care of themselves."
"Perhaps they are, but 'King' Plummer is going with them, nevertheless. At his age it is well for a man to keep watch over a young girl whom he expects to marry, or some husky youth may carry her off."
Harley was surprised at the strength of his desire to strike Churchill in the face, and he was also surprised at the fact that he resisted it. He accounted for it by his theory that Churchill could not help being mean at times, and, therefore, was not wholly responsible. So he contented himself with saying:
"Churchill, you are a fool now and then, but you never know it."
Then he walked carelessly away before Churchill had made up his mind whether to get angry or to return a sarcastic reply. Churchill liked to use sarcasm, as it made him feel superior.
But Harley was much disturbed by Churchill's statement. Sylvia was going away, and her stay of two weeks might lengthen into months or become permanent. And Mr. Plummer was going with her. Harley's own absence would put him at a great disadvantage, and for a moment he suspected that this stop at Salt Lake City was an artful movement on the part of the "King," but reflection made him acquit Mr. Plummer, first, because the "King" was too honest to do such a thing, and, second, because he was not subtle enough to think of it.
While he was planning what he would do to face this unforeseen development, a boy from the hotel handed him a note. Harley's heart jumped when he saw that it was in the handwriting of Sylvia Morgan, and it fluttered still further when she asked to see him in the hotel parlor for a few minutes. He was apprehensive, too, because if she had anything good to tell him she certainly would not send for him.
Sylvia was sitting in the parlor beside a window that looked out upon a vast range of snow-covered mountains, rising like the serrated teeth of a saw, and, although she heard his footsteps, she did not turn her face until Harley stood beside her. Then she said, irrelevantly:
"Isn't that a grand view!"
"You did not send for me to tell me that," said Harley, with a certain protecting tenderness in his tone, because what he took to be the sadness in her face appealed to his manly qualities.
"No, I did not. I have been thinking over what we said to each other when we were coming back from Crow's Wing, and I have concluded that it was wrong."
"Why was it wrong? I love you, and I had the right to tell you so."
"No, you did not. You would have had were I free, but I am promised to another. I was wrong to let you speak; I was wrong to listen to you."
"I will not admit it," said Harley, doggedly, "because Mr. Plummer is going to give you up. He will see that he ought not to hold you to this promise."
She smiled sadly.
"I must be loyal to him," she said, "and before starting for Salt Lake City I want to tell you that you must not again speak to me of this."
"But I shall write to you in Salt Lake."
"You must not write of this. If you do, I will not open another one of your letters."
"I promise not to write to you of love, but I make no promise after that. You are not going from Salt Lake to Idaho? This is not an excuse to leave us for good?"
Her eyes wavered before his. It may be that she had intended to abandon the campaign permanently, but, with his straight and masterful glance demanding an honest answer, she could not say it.
"Yes, I will come back," she said, and then, with a sudden burst of feeling: "Oh, I like your group; I like all of you. This great journey has been something fresh and wonderful to me, and I do not want to leave it!"
"I thought not," said Harley, with returning confidence, "and I am glad that you sent for me here, because it has given me a chance to tell you that, while you mean to keep your promise, I also mean to keep mine. Mr. Plummer will yet yield you up. You are mine, not his, you know you are!"
He bent suddenly and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and every nerve in her tingled at the first touch of the lips of the man whom she loved. Yet with the sense of right, of loyalty to another, strong within her, she was about to protest, but he was gone, and the first kiss still tingled on her forehead. She felt as if he had put there an invisible seal, and that now in very truth she belonged to him.
The two ladies under the escort of Mr. Plummer left an hour later for Salt Lake City, and everybody was at the station to see them go. Mrs. Grayson was quiet as usual, and Sylvia was noticeably subdued, a fact which most of them ascribed to the tragedy of Flying Cloud and her coming absence of two weeks from a most interesting campaign.
"You ought to cheer up, Miss Sylvia," said Hobart, "because you are not half as unlucky as we are. You can spare us much more easily than we can spare you."
"I am really sorry that I must go," she said, sincerely.
"But you will come back to us?"
"I have promised to do so."
"That is enough; we know that you will keep a promise, Miss Sylvia."
Sylvia at first would not look at Harley. His kiss still burned upon her brow, and she yet felt that it was his seal, his claim upon her. And her conscience hurt her for it, because there was "King" Plummer, strong, protecting, and overflowing with love for her and faith in her. But as she was telling them all good-bye she was forced to say it to Harley, too, in his turn, and when he took her hand he pressed it ever so little, and said, for her ear only:
"I am still hoping. I refuse to give you up."
She retreated quickly into the Salt Lake car to hide her blush.
When they saw the last smoke of the train melting into the blue sky, Harley and Mr. Heathcote walked back to the hotel together. A strong friendship had grown up between these two, and each valued the other's opinion.
"A fine woman," said Mr. Heathcote, looking towards the silky blue of the sky where the smoke had been.
"Yes, Mrs. Grayson has always impressed me as a woman of great dignity and strength," said Harley, purposely misunderstanding him.
"That is apparent, but I was not speaking of her. I meant Miss Morgan; she seems to me to be of a rare and noble type. The man who gets her, whoever he may be, ought to think himself lucky."
Harley noticed that Mr. Heathcote did not take it for granted that "King" Plummer would get her, but he said nothing in reply.
XVII
THE SPELLBINDER
An hour after the smoke of the Salt Lake train was lost in the blue sky, the special car bearing the candidate whirled off in another direction, deep into the wonderland of the mountains. Now white peaks were on one side and mighty chasms on the other; then both chasm and peak were lost behind them, and they shot through an irrigated valley, brown with the harvest, neat villages snuggling in the centre. But always, whether near or far, the mountains were around them, blue on the middle slopes, white at the crests, unless those crests were lost in the clouds and mists.
The people in the car were more quiet than usual, the candidate absorbed in somewhat sad thoughts, the state politicians respecting his silence, and the correspondents planning their despatches. But all missed Mrs. Grayson and Miss Morgan, who, whether they talked or not, always contributed brightness and a gentler note to their long campaign. "King" Plummer, too, with his loud laugh and his large, sincere manner, left a vacancy. Every one felt that there was now nothing ahead but business--cold, hard business--and so it proved.
Every campaign enters upon successive phases, in which the contestants advance, through politeness and consideration, first to wary feint and parry, and then to the stern death-grip of the battle which can mean nothing but the victory of one and the defeat of the other. They were now approaching this last stage, and great piles of Eastern newspapers, which reached them in Utah, reflected all the progress of the combat.