"You see, th' open air would help her, an' bein' with you, another woman, even if you an' she don't talk th' same language, would help too," he ended.
"I see," Nora answered after a moment, as she tilted a chair to one leg and stooped low to rub the dust from its spindles. "I understand, Bruce. I'll take her to ride ... every day, if you think it's best."
Something about her made Bayard pause, and the moment of silence which followed was an uneasy one for him. The girl kept on with her task, eyes averted, and he did not notice that she next commenced working on a chair that she had already dusted.
"That's a good girl, Nora," he said. "That'll help her."
He left then and, when the ring of his spurs had been lost in the lazy afternoon, the girl sat suddenly in the chair on which she had busied herself and pressed the dustcloth hard against her eyes. She drew a long, sharp breath. Then, she stood erect and muttered,
"Oh, God, has it come?"
Then, stolidly, with set mouth, she went on with her work, movements a little slower, perhaps, a bit lethargic, surely, bungling now and then. Something had gone from her ... a hope, a sustaining spark, a leaven that had lightened the drudgery.
Upstairs in her room Ann Lytton lay face down on her bed, hands gripping the coarse coverlet, eyes pressed shut, breath swift and irregular, heart racing. What had gone from the girl below—the hope, the spark, the leaven which makes life itself palatable—had come to her after those years of nightmare, and Ann was resisting, driving it back, telling herself that it must not be, that it could not be, not in the face of all that had happened; not now, when ethical, moral, legal ties bound her to another! Oh, she was bound, no mistaking that; but it was not Ann's heart that wrenched at the bonds. It was her conscience, her trained sense of right and wrong, the traditions that had moulded her. No, her heart was gone, utterly, to the man who crossed the hard, beaten street of Yavapai, head down, dejection in the swing of his shoulders, for her heart knew no right, no wrong ... only beauty and ugliness.
Bayard, too, fought his bitter fight. The urge in him was to take her, to bear her away, to defy the laws that men had made to hurt her and to devil him; but something behind, something deep in him, forbade. He must go on, nursing back to strength that mockery of manhood who could lift his fuddled, obscene head and, with the blessing of society, claim Ann Lytton as his—her body, her soul! He must go on, though he wanted to strangle all life from the drunken ruin, because in him was the same rigid adherence to things that have been which held the woman there on her bed, face down, even though her limbs twitched to race after him and her arms yearned to twine about his neck, to pull herself close to his good chest, within which the great heart pumped.
And Nora? Was she conscienceless? Indeed, not. She had promised to befriend this strange woman because Bruce Bayard had asked it. It was not for Ann's sake she dully planned diversion; it was because of her love for the owner of the Circle A that she stifled her sorrow, her natural jealousy. She knew that to refuse him, to follow her first impulses, would hurt him; and that would react, would hurt her, for her devotion was that sort which would go to any length to make the man of her heart happier.
To Ann's ears came Bruce's sharp little whistle, and she could no longer lie still. She rose, half staggered to the window and stood holding the curtains the least bit apart, watching him stand motionless in the middle of the thoroughfare. Again, his whistle sounded and from a distance she heard the high call of the sorrel horse who had moved along the strip of grass that grew close beside the buildings, nibbling here and there. The animal approached his master at a swinging trot, holding his head far to the right, nose high in the air, that the trailing reins might not dangle under his feet. All the time he nickered his reassurance and, when he drew to a halt beside his master, Abe's voice retreated down into his long throat until it was only a guttural murmur of affection.
"Old Timer, if I was as good a man as you are horse, I'd find a way," Bruce said half aloud as he gathered the reins.
He mounted with a rhythmical swing of shoulder and limb, and gave the stallion his head, trotting out of town with never a look about.
That which followed was a hard night for both Bayard and Lytton. The wounded arm was doing nicely, but the shattered nervous system could not be repaired so simply. Since the incident of the ransacked house and the pilfered whiskey, Lytton had not had so much as one drink of stimulant and, because of that indulgence of his appetite, his suffering was made manifold. Denial of further liquor was the penalty Ned was forced to pay for the abuse of Bayard's trust. Much of the time the sick man kept himself well in hand, was able to cover up outward evidence of the torture which he underwent, and in that fact rested some indication of the determination that had once been in him. But this night the effects of his excesses were tearing at his will persistently and sleep would not come.
He walked the floor of the room into which his bed had been moved from the kitchen after the first few days at the ranch; his strength gave out and for a time he lay on the bed, muttering wildly,—then walked again with trembling stride.
Bayard heard. He, too, was suffering; sleep would not come to ease him. He did not talk, did not yearn for action; just lay very quiet and thought and thought until his mind refused to function further with coherence. After that, he forced himself to give heed to other matters for the sake of distraction and became conscious of the sounds from the next room. When they increased with the hours rather than subsiding, he got up, partly dressed, made a light and went to Lytton.
Quarrelling followed. The sick man raved and cursed. He blamed Bayard for all his suffering, denounced him as a meddler, whining and storming in turn. He declared that to fight against his weakness was futile; the next moment vowed that he would return to town, and face temptation there and beat it; and within a breath was explaining that he could easily cure himself, if he could only be allowed to taper off, to take one less drink each day. Before it all, Bayard remained quietly firm and the incident ended by Lytton screaming that at daylight he would leave the ranch and die on the Yavapai road before he would submit to another day of life there.
But when dawn came he was sleeping and the rancher, after covering him carefully, retired to his room for two hours' rest before rousing for a morning's ride through the hills.
He was back at noon and found Lytton white faced, contrite. Together they prepared a meal.
"I was pretty much of an ass last night," Lytton said after they had eaten a few moments in silence. It was one of those rare intervals in which a bearing of normal civility struggled through his despicability and Bayard looked up quickly to meet his indecisive gaze, feeling somehow that with every flash of this strength he was rewarded for all the work he had done, the unpleasantness he had undergone. Rewarded, though it only made Lytton a stronger, more enduring obstacle between him and a consummation of his love.
"I'm sorry," the man confessed. "It wasn't I. It was the booze that's still in me."
"I understand," the cowman said, with a nod. A moment of silence followed.
"There's something else, I'm sorry about," Lytton continued. "The other day I tried to get nasty about a girl, the girl Nora at the Manzanita House, didn't I?"
"Oh, you didn't know what you said."
"Well, if I didn't, that's no excuse." He was growing clearer, obtaining a better poise, assuming a more decided personality. "I apologize to you for what I said, and, if you think best, I'll go see her and apologize for the advances I made to her."
"No, no,"—with a quick gesture. "That wouldn't do any good; she'll never know."
"As you say, then. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry; that's all. I know how a fellow feels when his girl's name is dragged into a brawl that way. I've noticed you sort of dolling up lately when you've started for town,"—with a faint twinkle in his eyes and a smile that approximated good nature. "I know how it is with you fellows who still have the woman bug,"—a hint of bitterness. "I know how touchy you'll all get. You ... you seem to be rather interested in that Nora girl."
Bayard made no answer. He was uneasy, apprehensive.
"I've heard 'em talk about it in town. Funny that she's the only woman you've fallen for, Bayard. They tell me you won't look at another, that you brought her to Yavapai yourself several years ago. You're so particular that you have to import one; is that it?"
He laughed aloud and a hint of nastiness was again in the tone. The other man did not answer with more than a quickly passing smile.
"Well, you fellows have all got to have your whirl at it, I suppose," Lytton went on, the good nature entirely gone. "You'll never learn except from your own experience. Rush around with the girls, have a gay time; then, it's some one girl, next, it's marriage and she's got you,"—holding up his gripped fist for emphasis. "She's got you hard and fast!"
He stirred in his chair and broke another biscuit in half.
"Believe me, I know, Bayard! I've been there. I.... Hell, I married a girl with a conscience,"—drawling the words, "That's the kind that hangs on when they get you ... thatgoodkind! She's too damn fine for human use, she and her kind. You know," ... laughing bitterly—"she started out to reform me. One of that kind; get me? A damned straight-laced Puritan! She snivelled and prayed and, instead of helping me, she just drove me on and on. She's got me. See? I can't get away from her and the only good thing about being here is that there are miles between us and I don't hear her cant and prating!"
"Seems to me that a woman who sticks by a man when he goes clean to hell must amount to something," observed Bayard, gazing at him pointedly.
Lytton shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe ... in some ways, but who the devil wants that kind hanging around his neck?" He pushed his plate away and stared surlily out through the door. Bayard tilted back in his chair and looked the Easterner in the face critically.
"Suppose somebody was to come along an' tell you they was goin' to take her off your hands. What'd you say then?"
"What do you mean?" disgruntled at the challenge in Bayard's query.
"Just what I say. You've been tellin' me what a bad mess mixin' with women is. I'm askin' you what you'd do if somebody tried to take your woman. You say it's bad, bein' tied up. How about it, if somebody was to step in an' relieve you?"
The other moved in his chair.
"That's different," he said. "To want to be away from a woman until she got some common sense, and to have another mantakeyour wife are two different things. To have a man take your wife would make anybody want to kill, no matter what trouble you might have had with her. Breaking up marriages, taking something that belongs to another man, has nothing to do with what I was talking about."
"You don't want her yourself. You don't want anybody else to have her. Is that it?"
"Didn't I say that those were two different—"
"You want to look out, Neighbor!" Bayard said, with a smile, dropping the forelegs of his chair to the floor and leaning his elbows on the table. "You're talking one thing and meaning another. You want to keep your head, if you want to keep your wife. Don't make out you want to let go when you really want to hang on. Women are funny things. They'll stick to men like a burr, they'll take abuse an' suffer and give no sign of quittin', because they want love, gentleness, and they hate to give up thinkin' they'll get it from the man they'd planned would give it to 'em.
"But some day, while they're stickin' to a man who don't appreciate 'em, they'll see happiness goin' by ... then, they're likely to get it. And sometime that's goin' to happen to your wife; she'll see happiness somewhere else an' she'll go after it; then, she won't be around your neck, but somebody else'll have her!
"Oh, they're queer things ... funny things! You can't tell where th' man's comin' from that'll meet 'em an' take their heart an' their head. He may be right near 'em all th' time an' they never wake up to it for years; he may come along casual-like, not lookin' for anything, an' see 'em just by chance an' open his heart an' take 'em....
"Once I was in th' Club in Prescott an' I heard a mining engineer from th' East sing a song about some man who lived on th' desert.
"'From th' desert I come to thee,'
"'From th' desert I come to thee,'
"it went,
"'On a stallion shod with fire....'
"'On a stallion shod with fire....'
"An' then he goes on with th' finest love song you ever heard, endin' up:
"... 'a love that shall not dieTill th' sun grows cold,An' th' stars are old,An' th' leaves of th' Judgment Book unfold!'
"... 'a love that shall not dieTill th' sun grows cold,An' th' stars are old,An' th' leaves of th' Judgment Book unfold!'
"... That's the sort of guy that upsets a woman who's hungry for happiness. It's that kind of love they want. They'll stand most anything a long, long time; seems like some of 'em loved abuse. But if a realhombreever comes along ... Look out!
"You can't tell, Lytton. This thing love comes like a storm sometimes. A man's interest in a woman may be easy an' not amount to much at first. It's like this breeze comin' in here now; warm an' soft an' gentle, th' mildest, meekest little breeze you've ever felt, ain't it? Well, you can't tell what it'll be by night!
"I've seen it just like this, without a dust devil on th' valley or a cloud in th' sky. Then she'd get puffy an' dust would commence to rise up, an' th' sky off there south an' west would begin to look dirty, rusty. Then, away off, you'd hear a whisper, a kind of mutter, growin' louder every minute, an' you'd see trees bend down to one another like they was hidin' their faces from somethin' that scared 'em. Dust would come before it like a wall an' then th' grass would flatten out an' look a funny white under that black and then ... Zwoop! She'd be on you, blowin' an' howlin' an' thunderin' and lightnin' like hell itself.... When an hour before it'd been a breeze just like this."
He paused an instant.
"So you want to look out ... if you want to keep her. Some man on a 'stallion shod with fire' may ride past an' look into your house an' see her an' crawl down an' commence to sing a love song that'll make her forget all about tryin' to straighten you up.... Some feller who's never counted with her may wake up and go after her as strong as a summer storm.
"She's young; she's sweet; she's beau ..."
"Say, who told you about my wife?" Lytton demanded, drawing himself up.
Bayard stopped with a show of surprise. His earnestness had swept his caution, his sense of the necessity for deception, quite away, but he rallied himself as he answered:
"Why, I judge she is. She's stickin' by you like a sweet woman would."
"Well, what if she is?" Lytton countered, the surprise in his face giving way to sullenness. "We've discussed me and my wife enough for one day. You're inexperienced. You don't know her kind. You don't know women, Bayard. Why, damn their dirty skins, they—"
"You drop that!" Bruce cried, rising and leaning across the table. "You keep your lying, dirty mouth shut or I'll..."
He drew his great fists upward slowly as though they lifted their limit in weight. Then suddenly went limp and smiled down at the face of the other man. He turned away slowly and Lytton drawled.
"Well, what's got into you?"
"Excuse me," said the rancher, with a short laugh. "I'm ... I'm only worked up about a woman myself," reaching out a hand for the casing of the doorway to steady himself. "I'm only wondering what th' best thing to do is.... You said yourself that ... experience was th' only way to learn...."
That afternoon Lytton slept deeply. Of this fact Bayard made sure when, from his work in the little blacksmith shop, he saw a horseman riding toward the ranch from a wash that gouged down into Manzanita Valley. When he saw the man slumbering heavily on his bed, worn from the struggle and the sleeplessness of last night, he closed the door softly and returned to resume the shoeing of the pinto horse that stood dozing in the sunlight.
"Oh, you is it, Benny Lynch?" Bayard called, as the horseman leaned low to open the gate and rode in.
"Right again, Bruce. How's things?"
"Fine, Benny. Ain't saw you in a long time. Get down. Feed your horse?"
"No, thanks, we've both et."
The newcomer dismounted and, undoing his tie rope, made his pony fast to a post. He was a short, thick set young chap, dressed in rough clothing, wearing hobnailed shoes. His clothes, his saddle, the horse itself belied the impression of a stock man and his shoes gave conclusive evidence that he was a miner. He turned to face Bayard and pushed his hat far back on his head, letting the sun beat down on his honest, bronzed face, peculiarly boyish, yet lined as that of a man who has known the rough edges of life.
"Mind if I talk to you a while, Bruce?" he asked, serious, preoccupied in his manner.
"Tickled to death, Benny; your conversation generally is enlightenin' an' interestin'."
This provoked only a faint flash of a smile from the other. Bayard kicked a wooden box along beside the building and both seated themselves on it. An interval of silence, which the miner broke by saying abruptly:
"I've done somethin', Bruce, that I don't like to keep to myself. I'm planning on doin' somethin' more that I want somebody to know so that if anything happens, folks'll understand.
"I come to you,"—marking the ground with the edge of his shoe sole, "because you're th' only man I know in this country—an' I know most of 'em—I'd trust."
"Them bouquets are elegant, Benny." Bayard laughed, trying to relieve the tension of the other. "Go ahead, I love 'em!"
"You know what I mean, Bruce. You've always played square with everybody 'round here, not mindin' a great deal about what other folks done so long as they was open an' honest about it. You've never stole calves, you've never been in trouble with your neighbors—"
"Hold on, Benny! You don't know how many calves I've stole."
The other smiled and put aside Bayard's attempt at levity with a gesture of one hand.
"You understand how it is, when a fellar's just got to talk?"
"I understand," said Bayard. "I've been in that fix myself, recent."
"I knew you would; that's why I come."
He shifted on the box and pulled his hat down over his eyes and said:
"I tried to kill a feller th' other night. I didn't make good. I'm likely to make another try some time, an' go through with it."
Bayard waited for more, with a queer thrill of realization.
"You know this pup Lytton, don't you, Bruce? Yes, everybody does, th' ——! I tried to get him th' other night in Yavapai. I thought I'd done it an' lit out, but I heard later I only nicked his arm. That means I've got to do it later."
"It's that necessary to kill him, is it, Benny?" Bayard asked. "I know he was hit.... Fact is, I found him an' took him into th' Hotel an' fixed him up."
Their gazes met. Benny Lynch's was peculiarly devoid of anger, steady and frank.
"That was like you, Bruce. You'd take care of a sick wolf, I guess. Next time, though, I'll give somebody a job as a gravedigger, 'stead of a good Samaritan....
"But what I stopped in to-day for was to tell you th' whole story, so you'd know it all."
"Let her fly, Benny!"
"Prob'ly you know, Bruce, that I come out here from Tennessee, when I was only a spindly kid, with th' old man an' my mammy. We was th' last of our family. They'd feuded our folks down to 'n old man 'n old woman and a kid—me. We come 'cause th' old man got religion and moved west so he wouldn't have to kill nobody. I s'pose some back there claims to have druv him out, but they either didn't know him or they're lyin'. He'd never be druv out by fear, Bruce; he wasn't that kind.
"Well, we drifted through Colorado an' New Mex an' finally over here. We landed out yonder on th' Sunset group which th' old man located an' commenced to work. I growed up there, Bruce. I helped my mammy an' my pap cut down trees an' pick up stone to make our house. I built my mammy's coffin myself when I was seventeen. Me an' pap buried her; me shovelin' in dirt an' rocks, him prayin' an' readin' out of th' Bible."
He paused to overcome the shaking of his voice.
"We hung on there an' was doin' right well with th' mine, workin' out a spell now an' then, goin' back an' developin' as long as our grub an' powder lasted. We got her right to where we thought she was ready to boom, when hard times come along, an' made us slow up. I started out, leavin' th' old man home, 'cause he was gettin' so old he wasn't much use anywhere an' it ain't right that old folks should work that way anyhow.
"I landed over in California and was in an' 'round th' Funeral Range for over two years, writin' to pap occasional an' hearin' from him every few months. I didn't make it very well an' our mine just had to wait on my luck, let alone th' hard times. We wouldn't sell out, then, 'cause we'd had to take little or nothin' for th' property. It worried me; my old man was gettin' old fast, he'd never had nothin' but hard knocks, if he was ever goin' to have any rest an' any fun it'd have to come out of that mine....
"Well, while I was away along come this here Eastern outfit, promised to do all sorts of things, formed a corporation, roped th' old man in with their slick lies, an' give him 'bout a quarter value for what we had. They beat him out of all he'd ever earnt, when he was past workin' for more! Now, Bruce, a gang of skunks that'd do that to as fine an old man as my dad was, ought to be burnt, hadn't they?"
"They had. Everybody sure loved your daddy, Ben."
"Well, the' was nothin' we could do. Them Eastern pups just set down an' waited for us to get tired an' let 'em have a clear field. So we moved out, left our house an' all, went to Prescott an' went to work, both of us, keepin' an eye on th' mine to see they didn't commence to operate on th' sly. After a while I got what looked like a good thing down on th' desert in a new town an' I went there.
"While I was gone, along comes this here Lytton an' finishes th' job. His dad had owned most of th' stock, an' he'd come here to start somethin'. He begun with my pappy. He lied to him, took advantage of an old man who was trustful an' an easy mark. He crooked it every way he could, he got everythin' we had; all th' work of my hands,"—holding their honest, calloused palms out—"all th' hopes of a good old man. It done him no good; he couldn't get enough backin' to do business.... But it killed my dad."
He stared vacantly ahead before saying:
"You know th' rest. Dad died. That killed him, Bruce, an' Lytton was to blame. Ain't that murder? Ain't it?"
"It's murder, Benny, but they won't call it that."
"No, but what they call it don't make no difference in th' right or th' wrong of it, does it? An' it don't matter to me. I've got a law all my own, Bruce, an' it's a damn sight more just 'n theirs!" He had become suddenly alert, intent. "Th' last thing that my old man said was that th' wickedest of th' world had killed him. He wouldn't blame no one man but I will ... I do!"
He moved quickly on the box, bringing himself to face Bayard.
"I come back to this country an' waited. I've been thinkin' it over most two years, Bruce, an' I don't see no way out but to fix my old man's case myself. Maybe if things was different, I'd feel some other way about it, but this here Lytton is worse 'n scum, Bruce. You know an' everybody knows what he is. He's a drunken, lyin' ——! That's what he is!
"I've been watchin' him close for weeks, seein' him drink every cent of my dad's money, seein' him get to be less 'n less of a man.
"One day I was in town. I'd been drinkin' myself to keep from goin' crazy thinkin' 'bout this thing. Just at dusk, just when th' train come in an' everybody was down to th' station, I walked down th' street toward Nate's corral to get my horse. I seen him comin' towards me, Bruce. He was drunk, he could just about make it. He didn't know me, never has knowed who I was, but he looks up at me an' commences to cuss, an' I ... Well, I draws an' fires."
He leaned back against the building.
"He dropped an' I thought things was squared, so I lit out. But I found out I shot too quick ... or maybe I was drunker 'n I thought.
"Where was he hit, Bruce?"
"Left forearm, Benny ... right there."
"Hum ... I thought so. I had a notion that gun was shootin' to th' right."
They sat silent a moment, then he resumed:
"When I got to thinkin' it over I was glad I hadn't killed him. I made up my mind that wasn't the best way. That's a little too much like killin' just 'cause you're mad, so I made up my mind I'd go on about my business until I was meddled with.
"I'm livin' at my home, now, Bruce. I'm back at th' Sunset, livin' in th' cabin me an' my folks built with our hands, workin' alone in our mine, waitin' for good times to come again. I'm goin' to stay there ... right along. It's goin' to be my mine 'cause it rightfully belongs to me, no matter what Lytton's damn corporation papers may say.
"Some day, when he sobers up, he'll start back there, Bruce. I'll be waitin' for him. I won't harm a hair, I won't say a word until he steps on to them claims. Then, by God, I'll shoot him down like he was a coyote tryin' to get my chickens!"
Bayard got up and thoughtfully stroked the hip of the pinto horse.
"I guess I understand, Benny," he said, after a moment. "I'm pretty sure I do."
"He's ... He's as low as a snake's belly, ain't he, Bruce?"—as if for reassurance.
"Yes, an' he'd be lower, Benny, if there was anythin' lower," he remarked, grimly.
"He can shoot though; watch him, Benny! I've seen him beat th' best of us at a turkey shootin'."
"That's what makes me feel easy about it. I wouldn't want to kill a man that couldn't shoot as good as I can, anyhow."
Benny Lynch departed, still unsmiling, very serious, and, as Bayard watched him ride away, he shook his head in perplexity.
"I wish I was as free to act as you are," he thought. "But I ain't; an' your tellin' me has dug my hole just that much deeper!"
He looked out over the valley a long moment. It was bright under the afternoon sun but somehow it seemed, for him, to be queerly shadowed.
The next day the puzzled cowman rode the trail to Yavapai to find that Ann was out. He was told that Nora had taken her riding, so he waited for their return, restless, finding no solace in the companionship that the saloon, the town's one gathering place for men, afforded.
He stood leaning against the front of the general store, deep in thought, when a distant rattle attracted his attention. He glanced down the street to his right and beyond the limits of the town saw a rapidly moving dust cloud approach. As it drew near, the rattling increased, became more distinct, gave evidence that it was a combination of many sounds, and Bayard smiled broadly, stirring himself in anticipation.
A moment more and the dust cloud dissolved itself into a speeding mantle for a team of ponies and a buckboard, on the seat of which sat the Rev. Judson A. Weyl. The horses came down the hard street, ears back, straining away from one another until they ran far outside the wheel tracks. The harnesses, too large for the beasts, dangled and flopped and jingled, the clatter and clank of the vehicle's progress became manifold as every bolt, every brace, every bar and slat and spoke vibrated, seeming to shake in protest at that which held it to the rest, and, above it all, came the regular grating slap of the tire of a dished hindwheel, as in the course of its revolutions it met the metal brake shoe, as if to beat time for the ensemble.
The man on the seat sat very still, the reins lax in his hands. The spring under him sagged with his weight and his long legs were doubled oddly between the seat and broken dash. He appeared to give no heed to his team's progress; just sat and thought while they raced along, the off horse breaking into a gallop at intervals to keep pace with its long stepping mate.
Across from where Bayard stood, the team swung sharply to the right, shot under a pinyon tree, just grazing the trunk with both hubs of the wheels, and rounded the corner of a low little house, stopping abruptly when out of sight; and the rancher laughed aloud in the sudden silence that followed.
He went across the thoroughfare, followed the tracks of the buckboard and came upon the tall, thin, dust covered driver, who had descended, unfastened the tugs and was turning his wild-eyed, malevolent-nosed team of half broken horses into a corral which was shaded by a tall pine tree. He looked up as Bayard approached.
"Hel-lo, Bruce!" he cried, flinging the harness up on a post, and extending a hearty hand. "I haven't seen you in an age!"
"How are you, Parson?" the other responded, gripping the offered hand and smiling good-naturedly into the alert gaze from the black eyes. "I ain't saw you for a long time, either, but every now and then, when I'm ridin' along after my old cows, I hear a most awful noise comin' from miles away, an' I say to myself, 'There goes th' parson tryin' to beat th' devil to another soul!'"
The other laughed and cast a half shameful look at his buckboard, which Bayard was inspecting critically. It was held together with rope and wire; bolts hung loosely in their sockets; not a tight spoke remained in the wheels; the pole was warped and cracked and the hair stuffing of the seat cushion was held there only by its tendency to mat and become compact, for the cover was three-quarters gone.
"It's deplorable, ain't it," Bayard chuckled, "how th' Lord outfits his servants in this here country?"
The clergyman laughed.
"That's a chariot of fire, Bruce!" he cried. "Don't you understand?"
"It'd be on fire, if I had it, all right! It ain't fit for nothin' else. Why, Parson, I should think th' devil'd get you sure some of these nights when you're riskin' your neck in this here contraption an' trustin' to your Employer to restrainin' th' wickedness in that pair of unlovely males you call horses!"
"Well, maybe I should get a new rig," the other admitted, still laughing. "But somehow, I'm so busy looking after His strays in this country that I don't get time to think about my own comfort. Maybe that's the best way. If I took time to worry about material discomforts, I suppose I'd feel dirty and worn and hot now, for I've had a long, long drive."
"A drink'd do you a lot of good, Parson," said Bruce, with a twinkle in his eye. "I don't mind drinkin' with you, even if you are a preacher."
"AndbecauseI'm a member of the clergy I have to drink with you whether I like it or not, Bruce!"—with a crack of his big hand on Bayard's shoulder. "A bottle of pop would taste fine about now, son!"
"Well, you wait here an' I'll get that brand of sham liquor," said Bruce, turning to start for the saloon.
"Hold on, Bruce. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't feel that I want to let you buy anything for me out of that place. Get me some at the drug store."
The younger man hesitated.
"Well, I got a few convictions myself, Parson. Maybe there ain't much to be said for s'loon men, but your friend who runs that pill foundry sells booze to Indians, I suspect, which ain't right an' which no self-respectin' s'loon man would do."
"Son, all life is a compromise," laughed Weyl. "You go buy what you like to drink; I'll buy mine. How's that?"
"That's about as fair as a proposition can be, I guess."
Ten minutes later they were seated in the shade of the pine tree, backs against the corral where the sweat-crusted horses munched alfalfa. Bayard drank from a foaming bottle of beer, Weyl from a pop container. Both had removed their hats, and their physical comfort approached the absolute.
The cowman, though, was not wholly at ease. He listened attentively to the rector's discourse on the condition of his parish, but all the while he seemed to be bothered by some idea that lurked deep in his mind. During a pause, in which the brown pop gurgled its way through Weyl's thin lips, Bruce squinted through the beer that remained in his bottle and said,
"Somethin's been botherin' me th' last day or so, Parson, an' I sure was glad when I seen you comin' up in this here ... chariot of fire."
"What is it, Bruce?"
"Well, here's th' case. If a jasper comes to you an' tells you somethin' in confidence, are you bound to keep your mouth shut even if somebody's likely to get hurt by this here first party's plan? I know your outfit don't have no confession—'tain't confession I want.... It's advice ... what'd you do if you was in that fix?"
The other straightened his long limbs and smiled gravely.
"I can tell you what I would do, Bruce; but, if it's a matter of consequence, I can't advise you what to do.
"That's one of the hardest things I have to meet—honest men, such as you, coming to me with honest questions. I'm only a man like you are; I have the same problems, the same perplexities; it's necessary for me to meet them in the way you do. Because I button my collar behind is of no significance. Because I'm trying to help men to know their own souls gives me no superiority over them. That's as far as I can go—helping men to know themselves. Once that is accomplished, I can't guide their actions or influence their decisions. So far as I can determine, that's all God wants of us. He wants us to see ourselves in the light of truth; then, be honest with ourselves.
"In your particular matter, I couldn't stand by and see a man walk into danger unaware and yet it would mean a lot for me to betray another man's confidence. I suppose I'd do as I do in so many matters, and that is to compromise. I would consider it my duty to keep a confidence, if it was made in the spirit of honesty and, just as surely, it is my duty to save men from harm. My word of honor means much ... yes. But my brother's safety, if I am his keeper, is of as much consequence, surely. If I couldn't compromise—if taking a middle course wouldn't be practical—then I think I would choose the cause which I considered most just and throw all my influence and energy into it.
"That's what I would do, my friend. Perhaps, it is not what you would do, but so long as you are honest in your perplexity then, basically, whatever action you decide on, must be right."
Bayard drank again, slowly.
"I've never been inside your church," he said at length. "I'm like a lot of men. I don't care much about churches. Do you preach like that on Sunday?"—turning his face to Weyl.
The other laughed heartily.
"I don't preach, Bruce! I just talk and try to think out loud and make my people think. Yes ... I try to be before my people just as I am before you, or any other friend."
"Some day, then, I'm likely to come along and ask to throw in with your outfit ... your church. I'll bet that after I've let a little more hell out of my system, I could get to be a top deacon in no time ... in your church!"
The clergyman smiled and rested his hand affectionately on Bayard's knee.
"We're always glad to have stoppers come along," he replied. "Every now and then one drops in to see what we're like. Some have stayed and gone to work with us and turned out to be good hands."
Bruce made no response and the other was not the sort to urge. So they sat a time in companionable silence until the younger man asked,
"Had you come far to-day?"
"Wolf Basin. I went over there yesterday and married old Tom Nelson's girl to a newcomer over there."
Bayard looked at him keenly. He had wanted to bring up another question, but had been unable to decide upon a device for the manipulation of the conversation. This was a fortunate opening.
"Did you hear the yarn they was tellin' 'bout old Newt Hagadorn, when they 'lected him justice of th' peace in Bumble Bee? At his first weddin' Newt got tangled up in his rope an' says,
"'Who me 'nd God has j'ined together let no man put apart!'"
Weyl threw back his head and laughed heartily. Bruce shook with mirth but watched his friend's face, and, when the clergyman had sobered again, he asked,
"How about this who-God-hath-joined-together idea anyhow, Parson? Does it always work out?"
"Not always, Bruce,"—with a shake of his head—"You should know that."
"Well, when it don't, what've you parsons got to say about it? You've hogtied 'em in th' name of all that's holy; what if it don't turn out right? They're married in th' name of God, ain't they?"
Weyl drained the last of his pop and tossed the bottle away.
"I used to think they were ... they all were, Bruce. That was when I was as young in years, as I try to be young in heart now. But the more couples I marry, the stronger is my conviction that God isn't a party to all those transactions, not by a long sight!
"If my bishop were to hear me say that, he'd have me up for a lecture, because he is bothered with a lot of traditions and precedent, but many men are calling on Him to bless the unions of young men and women when He only refuses to answer. Men don't know; somehow they can't see that God turns his face from marriage at times; they keep on thinking that all that is necessary is to have some ordained minister warn society to keep hands off, that it is the Father's business ... when it is not, when love, when God, isn't there."
"How are young goin' to tell when He's missin' from those present?"
Weyl shrugged his shoulders.
"The individuals, the parties concerned, are the only ones who know that."
"When they do know, when they don't give up even then? What are you goin' to do 'bout that?"
The other man shook his head sadly.
"There are many things that you and I—that society—must do, Bruce, my son. It's up to us to change our attitude, to change our way of looking at human relations, to pull off the bandages that are blinding our eyes and see the true God. Other things besides marriage demand that unerring sight, too....'
"But what I'm gettin' at," broke in the other, pulling him back to the question of matrimony, "is, what are you goin' to do, when you know God ain't ridin' with a couple, when it's a sin for 'em to be together, but when th' man holds to his wife like I'd hold to a cow with my brand on her, an' when th' woman—maybe—hangs to him 'cause she thinks th' Lordhashad somethin' to do with it."
"In that case, if she thinks of the Father's connection as an affair of the past, she must know it is no longer holy; someone should open her eyes, someone who is unselfish, who has a perspective, who is willing to be patient and help her, to suffer with her, if need be."
"You wouldn't recommend that a party who sort of hankered to wring th' husband's neck an' who thought the wife was 'bout th' finest thing God ever put breath into, start out to tackle th' job, would you?"
Weyl rubbed his chin in thoughtful consideration; then replied slowly:
"No, it is our duty to give the blind sight; we can only do that by knowing that our motives are holy when we undertake the job. That is the first and only matter to consider. Beyond motives, we cannot judge men and women....
"My bishop would drop dead before me, Bruce, if he heard that."
The other was silent a moment; then he said, slowly, "I wish some of us miser'ble sinners could be so open minded as some of you God fearin', hell-preachin' church goers!"
After a long interval, in which their discussion rambled over a score of topics, Bayard left.
"If you ever get near th' Circle A in that chariot of fire, I hope she goes up in smoke, so you'll have to stay a while!" he said. "An' I hope M's. Weyl's with you when it happens."
"Your wishes for bad luck are only offset by the hope that sometime we can come and spend some days with you, my friend!" laughed the minister as they shook hands.
Ann and Nora had returned when Bruce reached the Manzanita House and in the former's room a few moments later, after he had reported on Lytton's slow gaining of strength, Bayard said to her,
"Do you believe what I tell you, ma'am?"
She looked at him as though she did not get his meaning, but saw he was in earnest and replied,
"I've never doubted a thing you've told me."
"Then I want you to believe one more thing I'm goin' to tell you, an' I don't want you to ask me any questions about it, cause I'm so hogtied—that is, situated, ma'am—that I can't answer any. I just want to tell you never to let your husband go back to th' Sunset mine."
"Never tolethim? Why, when he's himself again that's where his work will be—"
"I can't help that, ma'am. All I can say is, not to let him. It means more to you than anybody can think who don't know th' ways of men in a country like this. Just remember that, an' believe that, will you?"
"You want him to give up everything?"
"All I want, ma'am, is for you to say you'll never let him go there."
Finally, she unwillingly, uncomprehendingly, agreed to do all she could to prevent Ned's return to the mining camp.
"Then, that's all, for now," Bayard announced, dryly, and went from the room.
Their hands had not touched; there had been no word, no glance suggestive of the emotional outburst which characterized their last meeting, and, when he was gone, the woman, with all her conscience, felt a keen disappointment.
True to her promise to Bruce, Nora had taken Ann in hand. She proposed that they ride together the day after the man had suggested such a kindness and the step was met most enthusiastically by the eastern woman, for it promised her relief from the anxiety provoked by mere waiting.
"I know nothing about this, so you'll have to tell me everything, Nora," she said as, in a new riding skirt, she settled herself in the saddle and felt her horse move under her.
"I don't know much either," the girl replied, fussing with her blouse front. "I was learnt to ride by a fine teacher, but I was so busy learnin' 'bout him that I didn't pay much attention to what he said."
She looked up shyly, yet her mouth was set in determination and she forced herself to meet Ann Lytton's gaze, to will to be kind to her ... because Bruce had asked it. Her thinly veiled declaration of interest in Bayard was not made without guile. It was a timid expression of her claim to a free field. Perhaps, beneath all her sense of having failed in the big ambition of her life, was a hope. This eastern woman was married. Nora knew Bruce, knew his close adherence to his own code of morals, and she believed that something possibly might come to pass, some circumstance might arise which would take Ann out of their lives before the control that Bayard had built about his natural impulses could be broken down. That would leave her alone with the rancher, to worship him from a distance, to find a great solace in the fact that though he refused to be her lover no other woman was more intimately in his life. That hope prompted her mild insinuation of a right of priority.
Ann caught something of the subtle enmity which Nora could not wholly cover by her outward kindness. She had heard Nora's and Bruce's names associated about the hotel, and when, on speaking of Bayard, she saw her companion become more shy, felt her unconscious hostility increase perceptibly, she deduced the reason. With her conclusion came a feeling of resentment and with a decided shock Ann realized that she was prompted to be somewhat jealous of this daughter of the west. Indignant at herself for what she believed was a mean weakness she resolved to refrain from talking of Bruce to Nora for the sake of the girl's peace of mind, although she could not help wondering just how far the affair between the waitress and her own extraordinary lover had gone.
Keeping off the subject was difficult, for the two were so far apart, their viewpoints so widely removed, that they had little or no matter on which to converse, aside from Yavapai and its people; and of the community Bayard was the outstanding feature for them both.
"How long have you been here, Nora?" Ann asked.
"Three years; ever since Bruce got me my job."
There you were!
"Do you like it here?"
"Well, folks have showed me a good time; Bruce especially."
Again the talk was stalled.
"Were you born out here?"
"Yes; that's why I ain't got much education ... except what Bruce gave me."
Once more; everything on which they could converse went directly back to Bayard and, finally, Ann abandoned the attempt to avoid the embarrassing subject and plunged resolutely into it, hoping to dissipate the intangible barrier that was between them.
"Tell me about Bruce," she said. "He brought you here, he educated you; he must have been very kind to you. He must be unusual,"—looking at the other girl to detect, if she could, any misgiving sign.
Nora stared straight ahead.
"He's been good to me," she said slowly. "He's good to everybody, as I guess you know. The' ain't much to know about him. His name ain't Bayard; nobody knows what it is. He was picked up out of a railroad wreck a long time ago an' old Tim Bayard took him an' raised him. They never got track of his folks; th' wreck burnt.
"Tim died four years ago an' Bruce's runnin' th' outfit. He's got a fine ranch!"—voice rising in unconscious enthusiasm. "He ain't rich, but he'll be well fixed some day. He don't care much about gettin' rich; says it takes too much time. He'd rather read an' fuss with horses an' things."
"Isn't it unusual to find a man out here or anywhere who feels like that? Are there more like him in this country, Nora?"
"God, no!"—with a roughness that startled her companion. "None of 'em are like him. He was born different; you can tell that by lookin' at him. He ain't their kind, but they all like him, you bet!He'ssmarter'n they are. Feller from th' East, a perfesser, come out here with th' consumption once when Tim was alive an' stayed there; he taught Bruce lots. My!"—with a sigh of mingled pride and hopelessness—"he sure knows a lot. Just as if he was raised an' educated in th' East, only with none of th' frills you folks get."
Then she was silent and refused to respond readily to Ann's advances, but rode looking at her pony's ears, her lips in a straight line.
That was the beginning. Each day the two women rode together, Nora teaching Ann all she knew of horses and showing her, in her own way, the mighty beauty of that country.
After the first time, they said little about Bruce; with a better acquaintance, more matters could be talked about and for that each was thankful.
Removed as they were from one another by birth and training, each of these two women, strangers until within a few days, found that a great part of her life was identical with that of the other. Yet, at the very point where they came closest to one another, divergence began again. Their common interest was their feeling for Bruce Bayard, and their greatest difference was the manner in which each reacted to the emotion. The waitress, more elemental, more direct and child-like, wanted the man with an unequivocal desire. She would have gone through any ordeal, subjected herself to any ignominious circumstances, for his pleasure. But she did not want him as a possession, as something which belonged to her; she wanted him for a master, longed with every fiber of her sensory system to belong to him. She would have slaved for him, drudged for him, received any brutal outburst he might have turned on her, gratefully, just so long as she knew she was his.
Ann Lytton, complicated in her manner of thought by the life she had lived, hampered by conventions, by preconceived standards of conduct, would not let herself be whiffed about so wholly by emotion. It was as though she braced backward and moved reluctantly before a high wind, urged to flight, resisting the tugging by all the strength of her limbs, yet losing control with every reluctant step. For her, also, Bruce Bayard was the most wonderful human being that she had ever experienced. His roughness, his little uncouth touches, did not jar on her highly sensitized appreciation of proprieties. With another individual of a weaker or less cleanly type, the slips in grammar, even, would have been annoying; but his virility and his unsmirched manner of thought, his robust, clean body, overbalanced those shortcomings and, deep in her heart, she idolized him. And yet she would not go further, would not willingly let that emotion come into the light where it could thrive and grow with the days; she tried to repress it, keeping it from its natural sources of nourishment and thereby its growth—for it would grow in spite of her—became a disrupting progress. One part of her, the real, natural, unhampered Ann, told her that for his embraces, for his companionship, she would sell her chances of eternity; she had no desire to own him, no urge to subject herself to him; the status she wanted was equal footing, a shoulder-to-shoulder relationship that would be a joyous thing. And yet that other part, that Puritanical Ann, resisted, fought down this urge, told her that she must not, could not want Bayard because, at the Circle A ranch, waited another man who, in the eyes of the law, of other people, of her God, even, was the one who owned her loyalty and devotion even though he could not claim her love. Strange the ways of women who will guard so zealously their bodies but who will struggle against every natural, holy influence to give so recklessly, so uselessly, so hopelessly, of their souls!
Nora was the quicker to analyze her companion-rival. Her subjection to Bayard's every whim was so complete that, when he told her to be kind to this other woman, she obeyed with all the heart she could muster, in spite of what she read in his face and in Ann's blue eyes when that latter-day part of the eastern woman dreamed through them. She went about her task doggedly, methodically, forcing herself to nurse the bond between these two, thinking not of the future, of what it meant to her own relationships with the cattleman, of nothing but the fact that Bayard, the lover of her dreams, had willed it. The girl was a religious fanatic; her religion was that of service to Bayard and she tortured herself in the name of that belief.
And in that she was only reflecting the spirit of the man she loved. Back at the ranch, Bayard underwent the same ordeal of repressing his natural desires, only, in his case, he could not at all times control his revulsion for Lytton, while Nora kept her jealousy well in hand. As at first, he centered his whole activity about bringing Lytton back to some semblance of manhood. He nursed him, humored him as much as he could, watched him constantly to see that the man did not slip away, go to Yavapai and there, in an hour, undo all that Bruce had accomplished.
Lytton regained strength slowly. His nervous system, racked and torn by his relentless dissipation, would not allow his body to mend rapidly. He had been on the verge of acute alcoholism; another day or two of continued debauchery would have left him a bundle of uncontrollable nerves, and remedying the condition was no one day task. A fortnight passed before Lytton was able to sit up through the entire day and, even then, a walk of a hundred yards would bring him back pale and panting.
Meager as his daily improvement was, nevertheless it was progress, and the rehabilitation of his strength meant only one thing for Bruce Bayard. It meant that Lytton, within a short time, must know of Ann's presence, must go to her, and that, thereafter, Bayard would be excluded from the woman's presence, for he still felt that to see them together would strip him of self-restraint, would make him a primitive man, battling blindly for the woman he desired.
As the days passed and Bruce saw Lytton steadying, gaining physical and mental force, his composure, already disturbed, was badly shaken. He tried to tell himself that what must be, must be; that brooding would help matters not at all, that he must keep up his courage and surrender gracefully for the sake of the woman he loved, keeping her peace of mind sacred. At other times, he went over the doctrine of unimpeachable motive, of individual duty that the clergyman had expounded, but some inherent reluctance to adopt the new, some latent conservatism in him rebelled at thought of man's crossing man where a woman was at stake. He did not know, but he formed the third being who was held to a rigid course by conscience! Of the four entangled by this situation, Ned Lytton alone was without scruples, without a code of ethics.
Between the two men was the same attitude that had prevailed from the first. Bayard kept Lytton in restraint by his physical and mental dominance. He gave up attempting to persuade, attempting to appeal to the spark of manhood left in his patient, after that day when Lytton stole and drank the whiskey. He relied entirely on his superiority and frankly kept his charge in subjection. When strength came back to the debauched body, Bayard told himself, he could begin to plead, to argue for his results; not before.
For the greater portion of the time Lytton was morose, quarrelsome. Now and again came flashes of a better nature, but invariably they were followed by spiteful, reasonless outbursts and remonstrances. To these Bayard listened with tolerance, accepting the other man's curses and insults as he would the reasonless pet of a child, and each time that Ned showed a desire to act as a normal human being, to interest himself in life or the things about him, the big rancher was on the alert to give information, to encourage thought that would take the sick man's mind from his own difficulties.
One factor of the life at the ranch evidently worried Lytton, but of it he did not speak. This was the manner with which Bayard kept one room, the room in which he slept, to himself. The door through which he entered never stood open, Lytton was never asked to cross the sill. Bayard never referred to it in conversation. A secret chamber, it was, rendered mysterious by the fact that its occupant took pains that it should never be mentioned. Lytton instinctively respected this attitude and never asked a question touching on it, though at times his annoyance at being so completely excluded from a portion of the house was evident.
Once Lytton, sitting in the shade of the ash tree, watched Bayard riding in from the valley on his sorrel horse. The animal nickered as his master let him head for the well beside the house.
"He likes to drink here," Bruce laughed, dropping off and wiping the dust from his face. "He thinks that because this well's beside the house, it's better than drinkin' out yonder in th' corral. Kind of a stuck up old pup, ain't you, Abe?" slapping the horse's belly until he lifted one hind foot high in a meaningless threat of destruction. "Put down that foot you four-flusher!" setting his boot over the hoof and forcing it back to earth.
He pulled off the saddle, dropped it, drew the bridle over the sleek, finely proportioned ears and let the big beast shake himself mightily, roll in the dooryard dust and drink again.
"Where'd he come from?" Lytton asked, after staring at the splendid lines of the animal for several minutes.
"Oh, Abe run hog-wild out on th' valley," Bayard answered, with a laugh, waving his hand out toward the expanse of country, now a fine lilac tinted with green under the brilliant sunlight, purple and uncertain away out where the heat waves distorted the horizon. "He was a hell bender of a horse for a while....
"You see, he come from some stock that wasn't intended to get out. Probably, an army stallion got away from some officer at Whipple Barracks and fell in with a range mare. That kind of a sire accounts for his weight and that head and neck, an' his mammy must have been a leather-lunged, steel-legged little cuss—'cause he's that, too. He's got the lines of a fine bred horse, with the insides of a first class bronc."
"He attracted attention when he was a two year old and some of th' boys tried to get him, but couldn't. They kept after him until he was four and then sort of give up. He was a good horse gone bad. He drove off gentle mares and caused all kind of trouble and would 'a been shot, if he hadn't been so well put up. He was no use at all that way; he was a peace disturber an' he was fast an' wise. That's a bad combination to beat in a country like ours,"—with another gesture toward the valley.
"But his fifth summer was th' dry year—no rain—creeks dryin' up—hell on horses; Tim and I went to get him.
"There was just three waterin' places left on that range. One on Lynch Creek, one under Bald Mountain, other way over by Sugar Block. We fenced the first two in tight so nothin' but birds could get to 'em, built a corral around th' third, that was clean across th' valley there,"—indicating as he talked-"an' left th' gate open."
"Well, first day all th' horses on th' valley collected over other side by those fenced holes, wonderin' what was up,"—he scratched his head and grinned at the memory, "an' Tim and I set out by Sugar Block in th' sun waitin'.... Lord, it was hot, an' there wasn't no shade to be had. That night, some of the old mares come trailin' across th' valley leadin' their colts, whinnerin' when they smelled water. We was sleepin' nearby and could kind 'a' see 'em by th' starlight. They nosed around th' corral and finally went in and drunk. Next day, th' others was hangin' in sight, suspicious, an' too thirsty to graze. All of 'em stood head toward th' water, lookin' an' lookin' hours at a time. 'Long toward night in they come, one at a time, finally, with a rush; unbranded mares, a few big young colts, all drove to it by thirst.
"Old Abe, though, he stood up on th' far rim of a wash an' watched an' hollered an' trotted back an' forth. He wouldn't come; not much! We had a glass an' could see him switch his tail an' run back a little ways with his ears flat down. Then, he'd stop an' turn his head an' stick up his ears stiff as starch; then he'd turn 'round an' walk towards us, slow for a few steps. Never got within pistol shot, though. All next day he hung there alone, watchin' us, dryin' up to his bones under that sun. Antelope come up, a dozen in a bunch, an' hung near him all afternoon. Next mornin' come th' sun an' there was Mr. Abe, standin' with his neck straight in th' air, ears peekin' at our camp to see if we was there yet. Gosh, how hot it got that day!" He rose, drew a bucket of water from the well and lifting it in his big hands, drank deeply from the rim at the memory.
"I thought it was goin' to burn th' valley up.
"'This'll bring him,' says Tim.
"'Not him,' I says! 'He'll die first.'
"'He's too damn good a sport to die,' Tim said. 'He'll quit when he's licked.'
"An' he did."
The man walked to the sorrel, who stood still idly switching at flies. He threw his arm about the great head and the horse, swaying forward, pushed against his body with playful affection until Bayard was shoved from his footing.
"You did, didn't you, Abe? He didn't wait for dark. It was still light an' after waitin' all that time on us, you'd thought he'd stuck it out until we couldn't see so well. But it seemed as if Tim was right, as if he quit when he saw he was licked, like a good sport. He just disappeared into that wash an' come up on th' near side an' walked slow toward us, stoppin' now an' then, sidesteppin' like he was goin' to turn back, but always comin' on an' on. He made a big circle toward the corral an', when he got close, 'bout fifty yards off, he started to trot an' he went through that gate on a high lope, comin' to stop plumb in th' middle of that hole, spatterin' water an' mud all over himself an' half th' country.
"'Twasn't much then. We made it to th' gate on our horses. He could see us, but we knew after bein' dried out that long he'd just naturally have to fill up. When I reached for th' gate, he made one move like he tried to get away but 'twas too late. We had him trapped. He was licked. He looked us over an' then went to lay down in th' water."
He stroked the long, fine neck slowly.
"After that 'twas easy. I knew he was more or less man even if he was horse. We put th' first rope on him he'd ever felt next mornin'. Of course, 'twas kind of a tournament for a while, but, finally we both tied on an' started home with him between us. He played around some, but finally let up; not licked, not discouraged, understand, but just as if he admitted we had one on him an' he was goin' to see our game through for curiosity.
"We put him in th' round corral an' left him there for a straight month, foolin' with him every day, of course. Then I got up an' rode him. That's all there is to it.
"He was my best friend th' minute I tied on to him; he is yet. We never had no trouble. I treat him square an' white. He's never tried to pitch with me, never has quit runnin' until I told him to, an', for my part, I've never abused him or asked him to go th' limit."
He walked out to the corral then, horse following at his heels like a dog, nosing the big brown hand that swung against Bayard's thigh.
"That's always been a lesson to me," Bruce said, on his return as he prepared to wash in the tin basin beside the wall. "Runnin' hog-wild never got him nothin' but enemies, never did him no good. He found out that it didn't pay, that men was too much for him, an' he's a lot happier, lot better off, lot more comfortable than he was when he was hellin' round with no restraint on him. He knows that. I can tell.
"So,"—as he lathered his hands with soap—"I've always figured that when us men got runnin' too loose we was makin' mistakes, losin' a lot. It may seem a little hard on us to stop doin' what we've had a good time doin' for a while, but, when you stop to consider all sides, I guess there's about as much pleasure for us when we think of others as there is when we're so selfish that we don't see nothin' but our own desires."
Lytton stirred uneasily in his chair and tossed his chin scornfully.
"Don't you ever get tired playing the hero?" he taunted. "That's what you are, you know. You're the hero; I'm the villain. You're the one who's always saying the things heroes say in books. You're the one who's always right, while I'm always wrong.
"You know, Bayard, when a man gets to be so damn heroic it's time he watched himself. I've never seen one yet whose foot didn't slip sooner or later. The higher you fly, understand, the harder you fall. You're pretty high; mighty superior to most of us. Look out!"
The other regarded him a moment, cheeks flushing slowly under the taunt.
"Lytton, if I was to ask a favor of you, would you consider it?"
"Fire away! The devil alone knows what I could do for anybody."
"Just this. Be careful of me, please. I might, sometime, sort of choke you or something!"
He turned back to the wash basin at that and soused his face and head in the cold water.
A moment before he had looked through that red film which makes killers of gentle men. He had mastered himself at the cost of a mighty effort, but in the wake of his rage came a fresh loathing for that other man ... the man he was grooming, rehabilitating, only to blot out the possibility of having a bit of Ann's life for himself. He was putting his best heart, his best mind, his best strength into that discouraging task, hoping against hope that he might lift Lytton to a level where Ann would find something to attract and hold her, something to safeguard her against the true lover who might ride past on his fire-shod stallion. And it was bitter work.