PRIMROSE DELORAINE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10276, 1 July 1911, Page 2

PRIMROSE DELORAINE

By MAISIE BENDBNNIS, Author of "Sir Reginald's Whim," "The Forgotten Heir/' "Rival Beauties,' 'etc.

OUR SERIAL.

THE MISER'S DAUGHTER.

I CHAPTER ll.—Continued. j "Anyway," Captain Jack laughed. | "I shan't have to toss up now. This night's work decides it. I was going to say heads England, tails Australia; but I needn't bother Heads has ft. It's England," Ho patted the gray mare's shoulder ■mce more with his strong hand. "Buck up, old girl," he said. "We have got to get home." The gray mare threw up her head and bounded forward in answer <■•• his touch, but a second later she swerved and shied right across the road. A man had come suddenly from behind a budi, and now stood directly in their path. Quick as lightning Captain Jack vb.inped f;itt Ins revolver and covered him. "Hullo!" he said resonantly, as he quieted the startled mare. - "Who are you, and what do you want?" The man advanced a step. "I only v> ant a little talk withyou," lie said. "Put that thing away, I'm not armed." He moved nearer still, and looked up in Captain Jack's face. "I have never seen you without your mask.before," he said, "but I should have known you anywhere. I shall know you anywhere if I see you again —Captain Jack." Captain Jack laughed—a low, amused laugh. "That's all right," he said. "I will <tand you a drink the next time —if .you ever do see me again. And now, if you've no objection, I'll say good night. No doubt you are very good company, but I feel homesick, and homeward I am going." But the man still stood in front of him, barring his way, an evil expression on his sinister face. "Hold hard," he said. "Didn't I tell you I wanted a little, talk' with | you?" Captain Jack laughed again. i "It isn't always good for people to have what they want," he said, in his cool way. Then suddenly bis tone changed. "Don't hesitate," he said sternly. "Say what you have to say, and be done with it. I'm in a hurry." The man looked at him again. "You didn't," he said, "seem in any special hurry when you went into the miser's hut a while ago, and you | didn't seem in any special kind of a hurry whea you said good-by to the miser's daughter just now." t Captain Jack smiled. The situation was beginning to amuse him. "I wasn't in any special hurry just at that moment," he said placidly. "The hurry's come on since then, and I've got it badly."' The cruel, vicious lines that a cruel, vicious life had carved on the strang- . er's brutal mouth deepened and grew harder. 1 "You'll have something else pretty , badly before long," he said. "You'll ' have it so badly, that you'll wish that you'd never been born, if you don't shun Primrose, of Red Tree Camp." .! Captain Jack raised his eyebrows, -i :.- "Really!" he said. "That i&'lhost j interesting." ! - "Is it?'' the man retorted.' "Pm glad "you find it so, but it may get too interesting to be pleasant. Take my 1 ' tip, Captain Jack, and shun Primrose, of Red Tree Camp. That's my tip, " and it's a straight one." Captain Jack looked at him reflectively. "A straight tip, is. it?" he repeated. "I shouldn't, have thought you were capabkfof a straight anything from the look of you; but life is made up of the unexpected. I don't think much of tips, even if they are straight. I've had a good many in my day, but somehow they never worked out well." -._ "You'll find this one will work out well if you take it;" said! the man. '.'lf you don't— ■-—" he. paused, and a threatening light gleamed dully in his sunken eyes. Captain Jack looked at him coolly. "I don't think you are very good company, after all," he said. 'I have changed my mind. And now, come to tl ink of it, I know who you are quite* well—l've seen you before. You are Poker Bill, of Red Tree Camp." "Yes, I am," the other returned defiuntly. "I'm Poker Bill, of Red Tien Camp, and I am as good a man as you are, any day. Perhaps you will find mo even a better man than you if you don't leave Primrose alone." Captain Jack smiled again. The situation w,as getting more and., more: amusing. "I .should rather enjoy meeting a man who is better than myself," he said. "I never have yet. It would be a novelty, and novelty is proverbially charming." Poker Bill clenched his fists, and his eyes -narrowed tea mere slit under his shaggy brows. "I suppose," he said, "that means that you are not going to leave Primrose alone ; but you had better. I know you and your games; I've heard enough about you, and I'm not going to have them played here."

Captain Jack nodded pleasantly. ' "May-1 inquire," he asked, "if Primrose, of Red Tree Camp, belongs to you?" The niai swore a savage oath between his set teeth, and his heavy, angry face became darker and darker. "You can ask what you choose," he said, and his rough voice was hoarse with rage and passion. "But you won't get any answer, unless it's one that you don't like." Then he moved to the side of the road. "I'm off now," he said. "I've said my say, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it." And he vanished. After the man had disappeared Captain Jack still lingered on the moonlit track, and once more his eyes wandered back to the little hut. Should he, he wondered, go back and tell Primrose what had just happened? Should he go back and tell her of Poker Bill's threats? He did not for a moment think that Primrose had any liking for Poker Bill—the very thought was sacrilege, but it had been very easy to grasp the fact that Poker Bill had a very strong liking for Primrose, and a very strong liking was, as he knew, very dangerous in such a man as Poker Bill. Moreover, the girl was enly a girl, and alone and unprotected. As all these thoughts passed across his mind he half turned the mare's head in the direction whence he had come, then suddenly pulled her round again, and sent her galloping away from the hut as racing pace. Just now his face looked very grave and determined. "I won't go back," he said, between his set teeth. "If I did—if I did " he broke off suddenly, and shook the reins. "The old reason still holds good. I won't go back." CHAPTER 111. BY FAIR MEANS OR FOUL.

i Primrose knelt by the bed on which lay the cold, stiff form of the only friend that she had in the world, and covered her face with her hands, and cried pitifully. She felt very sad, lonely and desolate; and in her terrible trouble all things looked dark to her. Mr Deloraine had been a most affectionate and indulgent father, and their constant and close companionship had made them in many ways almost more like brother and sister than father and daughter. ' Now he was gone from her forever, and she felt that she was indeed alone in the world. There was nobody to whom she could turn for help, comfort i and companionship. The wsmen of Red Tree Camp were kindly enough, and would, she knew, be ready to do anything they could for her; but although kindly, they were really not in sympathy with her, for they were not of her.'class. She and her father had lived somewhat apart from,the ordinary camp life, and, now that he was Tgone, a terrible sense of desolation oppressed her. The prospect of leaving the only home that she had ever known, the home that, in spite of its wildness and roughness she had grown to love dearly, because it was home, oppressed her. She did not like the thought of going to strange people in a strange land. It was an appalling thought to her, but her father's dying wishes must be obeyed. In that moment she felt as if she had not a friend in the world, but even as the thought entered her mind a memory aiose in her heart. It was onjy the memory of a strong, brown face, and quizzical gray eyes, and a low, lazy voice—the memory of a face that she had seen, a voice that she had heard, for the first time that night —but already it seemed to. her one of the sweefcest. memories that shr> had | ever known. | Would she, .she wondered wistfully, ever see that face or hear thai; voice again? Would she ever again feel the close clasp of the strong, brown hands, a clasp that seemed +o carry help and comfort with it? < As she knelt there, suddenly there came a knock at the door of the hut, which sha had barred securely after saying godd-by to Captain Jack. With a weary sigh she arose, and threw back! the heavy bolts, expecting to find that j one of the' women from -the camp had somehow heard of her trouble and had come to her aid. ; But it,was not a woman's figure she saw standing out in bold relief in the bright moonlight. It was a man's fig-' ure heavy, slouching, powerfully built, and a strange dread gripped suddenly at her heart, for it was the man she feared and disliked more than anything on earth. She sharnk back, and would have closed the door again, but Poker Bill had put his foot just inside, and she stood there helpless, looking up at him with frightened eyes. The Imperial Cadet Rifle match at (So be Continued).