CHAPTER XVIII. VAL'S DISCOVERY

“Men live and love and die in that lonely land,”—

he had no very clear idea of what it was all about. Certain lines seemed to go bumping along, and one had to mispronounce some of the final words to make them rhyme with others gone before, but it was all right—Val wrote it.

“I think I do better at stories,” she ventured modestly. “I wrote one—a little story about university life—and sent it to a magazine. They wrote a lovely letter about it, but it seems that field is overdone, or something. The editor asked me why, living out here in the very heart of the West, I don't try Western stories. I think I shall—and that's why I said I should need your help. I thought we might work together, you know. You've lived here so long, and ought to have some splendid ideas—things that have happened, or that you've heard—and you could tell me, and I'd write them up. Wouldn't you like to collaborate—'go in cahoots' on it?”

“Sure.” Kent regarded her thoughtfully. She really was looking brighter and happier, and her enthusiasm was not to be mistaken. Her world had changed. “Anything I can do to help, you know—”

“Of course I know, I think it's perfectly splendid, don't you? We'll divide the money—when thereisany, and—”

“Will we?” His tone was noncommittal in the extreme.

“Of course. Now, don't let's quarrel about that till we come to it. I have a good idea of my own, I think, for the first story. A man comes out here and disappears, you know, and after a while his sister comes to find him. She gets into all kinds of trouble—is kidnapped by a gang of robbers, and kept in a cave. When the leader of the gang comes back—he has been away on some depredation—you see, I have only the bare outline of the story yet—and, well, it's her brother! He kills the one who kidnapped her, and she reforms him. Of course, there ought to be some love interest. I think, perhaps, one member of the gang ought to fall in love with her, don't you know? And after a while he wins her—”

“She'll reform him, too, I reckon.”

“Oh, yes. She couldn't love a man she couldn't respect—no woman could.”

“Oh!” Kent took a minute to apply that personally. It was of value to him, because it was an indication of Val's own code. “Maybe,” he suggested tentatively, “she'd get busy and reform the whole bunch.”

“Oh, say—that would be great! She's an awfully sweet little thing—perfectly lovely, you know—and they'd all be in love with her, so it wouldn't be improbable. Don't you remember, Kent, you told me once that a man would doanythingfor a woman, if he cared enough for her?”

“Sure. He would, too.” Kent fought back a momentary temptation to prove the truth of it by his own acquiescence in this pal business. He was saved from disaster by a suspicion that Val would not be able to see it from his point of view, and by the fact that he would much rather be pals than nothing.

She would have gone on, talking and planning and discussing, indefinitely. But the sun slid lower and lower, and Kent was not his own master. The time came when he had to go, regardless of his own wishes, or hers.

When he came again, the story was finished, and Val was waiting, with extreme impatience, to read it to him and hear his opinion before she sent it away. Kent was not so impatient to hear it, but he did not tell her so. He had not seen her for a month, and he wanted to talk; not about anything in particular—just talk about little things, and see her eyes light up once in a while, and her lips purse primly when he said something daring, and maybe have her play something on the violin, while he smoked and watched her slim wrist bend and rise and fall with the movement of the bow. He could imagine no single thing more fascinating than that—that, and the way she cuddled the violin under her chin, in the hollow of her neck.

But Val would not play—she had been too busy to practice, all spring and summer; she scarcely ever touched the violin, she said. And she did not want to talk—or if she did, it was plain that she had only one theme. So Kent, perforce, listened to the story. Afterward, he assured her that it was “outa sight.” As a matter of fact, half the time he had not heard a word of what she was reading; he had been too busy just looking at her and being glad he was there. He had, however, a dim impression that it was a story with people in it whom one does not try to imagine as ever being alive, and with a West which, beyond its evident scarcity of inhabitants, was not the West he knew anything about. One paragraph of description had caught his attention, because it seemed a fairly accurate picture of the bench land which surrounded Cold Spring Coulee; but it had not seemed to have anything to do with the story itself. Of course, it must be good—Val wrote it. He began to admire her intensely, quite apart from his own personal subjugation.

Val was pleased with his praise. For two solid hours she talked of nothing but that story, and she gave him some fresh chocolate cake and a pitcher of lemonade, and urged him to come again in about three weeks, when she expected to hear from the magazine she thought would be glad to take the story; the one whose editor had suggested that she write of the West.

In the fall, and in the winter, their discussions were frequently hampered by Manley's presence. But Val's enthusiasm, though nipped here and there by unappreciative editors, managed, somehow, to live; or perhaps it had developed into a dogged determination to succeed in spite of everything. She still wrote things, and she still read them to Kent when there was time and opportunity; sometimes he was bold enough to criticize the worst places, and to tell her how she might, in his opinion, remedy them. Occasionally Val would take his advice.

So the months passed. The winds blew and brought storm and heat and sunshine and cloud. Nothing, in that big land, appreciably changed, except the people; and they so imperceptibly that they failed to realize it until afterward.

With a blood-red sun at his back and a rosy tinge upon all the hills before him, Manley rode slowly down the western rim of Cold Spring Coulee, driving five rebellious calves that had escaped the branding iron in the spring. Though they were not easily driven in any given direction, he was singularly patient with them, and refrained from bellowing epithets and admonitions, as might have been expected. When he was almost down the hill, he saw Val standing in the kitchen door, shading her eyes with her hands that she might watch his approach.

“Open the corral gate!” he shouted to her, in the tone of command. “And stand back where you can head 'em off if they start up the coulee!”

Val replied by doing as she was told; she was not in the habit of wasting words upon Manley; they seemed always to precipitate an unpleasant discussion of some sort, as if he took it for granted she disapproved of all he did or said, and was always upon the defensive.

The calves came on, lumbering awkwardly in a half-hearted gallop, as if they had very little energy left. Their tongues protruded, their mouths dribbled a lathery foam, and their rough, sweaty hides told Val of the long chase—for she was wiser in the ways of the range land than she had been. She stood back, gently waving her ruffled white apron at them, and when they dodged into the corral, rolling eyes at her, she ran up and slammed the gate shut upon them, looped the chain around the post, and dropped the iron hook into a link to fasten it. Manley galloped up, threw himself off his panting horse, and began to unsaddle.

“Get some wood and start a fire, and put the iron in, Val,” he told her brusquely.

Val looked at him quickly. “Now? Supper's all ready, Manley. There's no hurry about branding them, is there?” And she added: “Dear me! The round-up must have just skimmed the top off this range last spring. You've had to brand a lot of calves that were missed.”

“What the devil is it to you?” he demanded roughly. “I want that fire, madam, and I want itnow. I rather think I knew when I want to brand without asking your advice.”

Val curved her lips scornfully, shrugged and obeyed She was used to that sort of thing, and she did not mind very much. He had brutalized by degrees, and by degrees she had hardened. He could rouse no feeling now but contempt.

“If you'll kindly wait until I put back the supper,” she said coldly. “I suppose in your zeal one need not sacrifice your food; you're still rather particular about that. I observe.”

Manley was leading his horse to the stable, and, though he answered something, the words were no more than a surly mumble.

“He's been drinking again,” Val decided dispassionately, on the way to the house. “I suppose he carried a bottle in his pocket—and emptied it.”

She was not long; there was a penalty of profane reproach attached to delay, however slight, when Manley was in that mood. She had the fire going and the VP iron heating by the time he had stabled and fed his horse, and had driven the calves into the smaller pen. He drove a big, line-backed heifer into a corner, roped and tied her down with surprising dexterity, and turned impatiently.

“Come! Isn't that iron ready yet?”

Val, on the other side of the fence, drew it out and inspected it indifferently.

“It is not, Mr. Fleetwood. If you are in a very great hurry, why not apply your temper to it—and a few choice remarks?”

“Oh, don't try to be sarcastic—it's too pathetic. Kick a little life into that fire.”

“Yes, sir—thank you, sir.” Val could be rather exasperating when she chose. She always could be sure of making Manley silently furious when she adopted that tone of respectful servility—as employed by butlers and footmen upon the stage. Her mimicry, be it said, was very good.

“'Ere it is, sir——thank you, sir—'ope I 'aven't kept you wyting, sir,” she announced, after he had fumed for two minutes inside the corral, and she had cynically hummed her way quite through the hymn which begins “Blest be the tie that binds.” She passed the white-hot iron deftly through the rails to him, and fixed the fire for another heating.

Really, she was not thinking of Manley at all, nor of his mood, nor of his brutal coarseness. She was thinking of the rebuilt typewriter, advertised as being exactly as good as a new one, and scandalously cheap, for which she had sold her watch to Arline Hawley to get money to buy. She was counting mentally the days since she had sent the money order, and was thinking it should come that week surely.

She was also planning to seize upon the opportunity afforded by Manley's next absence for a day from the ranch, and drive to Hope on the chance of getting the machine. Only—she wished she could be sure whether Kent would be coming soon. She did not want to miss seeing him; she decided to sound Polycarp Jenks the next time he came. Polycarp would know, of course, whether the Wishbone outfit was in from round-up. Polycarp always knew everything that had been done, or was intended, among the neighbors.

Manley passed the ill-smelling iron back to her, and she put it in the fire, quite mechanically. It was not the first time, nor the second, that she had been called upon to help brand. She could heat an iron as quickly and evenly as most men, though Manley had never troubled to tell her so.

Five times she heated the iron, and heard, with an inward quiver of pity and disgust, the spasmodic blat of the calf in the pen when the VP went searing into the hide on its ribs. She did not see why they must be branded that evening, in particular, but it was as well to have it done with. Also, if Manley meant to wean them, she would have to see that they were fed and watered, she supposed. That would make her trip to town a hurried one, if she went at all; she would have to go and come the same day, and Arline Hawley would scold and beg her to stay, and call her a fool.

“Now, how about that supper?” asked Manley, when they were through, and the air was clearing a little from the smoke and the smell of burned hair.

“I really don't know—I smelled the potatoes burning some time ago. I'll see, however.” She brushed her hands with her handkerchief, pushed back the lock of hair that was always falling across her temple, and, because she was really offended by Manley's attitude and tone, she sang softly all the way to the house, merely to conceal from him the fact that he could move her even to irritation. Her best weapon, she had discovered long ago, was absolute indifference—the indifference which overlooked his presence and was deaf to his recriminations.

She completed her preparations for his supper, made sure that nothing was lacking and that the tea was just right, placed his chair in position, filled the water glass beside his plate, set the tea-pot where he could reach it handily, and went into the living room and closed the door between. In the past year, filed as it had been with her literary ambitions and endeavors, she had neglected her music; but she took her violin from the box, hunted the cake of resin, tuned the strings, and, when she heard him come into the kitchen and sit down at the table, seated herself upon the front doorstep and began to play.

There was one bit of music which Manley thoroughly detested. That was the “Traumerei.” Therefore, she played the “Traumerei” slowly—as it should, of course, be played—with full value given to all the pensive, long-drawn notes, and with a finale positively creepy in its dreamy wistfulness. Val, as has been stated, could be very exasperating when she chose.

In the kitchen there was the subdued rattle of dishes, unbroken and unhurried. Val went on playing, but she forgot that she had begun in a half-conscious desire to annoy her husband. She stared dreamily at the hill which shut out the world to the east, and yielded to a mood of loneliness; of longing, in the abstract, for all the pleasant things she was missing in this life which she had chosen in her ignorance.

When Manley flung open the inner door, she gave a stifled exclamation; she had forgotten all about Manley.

“By all the big and little gods of Greece!” he swore angrily. “Calves bawling their heads off in the corral, and you squalling that whiny stuff you call music in the house—home's sure a hell of a happy place! I'm going to town. You don't want to leave the place till I come back—I want those calves looked after.” He seemed to consider something mentally, and then added:

“If I'm not back before they quit bawling, you can turn 'em down in the river field with the rest. You know when they're weaned and ready to settle down. Don't feed 'em too much hay, like you did that other bunch; just give 'em what they need; you don't have to pile the corral full. And don't keep 'em shut up an hour longer than necessary.”

Val nodded her head to show that she heard, and went on playing. There was seldom any pretense of good feeling between them now. She tuned the violin to minor, and poised the bow over the strings, in some doubt as to her memory of a serenade she wanted to try next.

“Shall I have Polycarp take the team and haul up some wood from the river?” she asked carelessly. “We're nearly out again.”

“Oh,Idon't care—if he happens along.” He turned and went out, his mind turning eagerly to the town and what it could give him in the way of pleasure.

Val, still sitting in the doorway, saw him ride away up the grade and disappear over the brow of the hill. The dusk was settling softly upon the land, so that his figure was but a vague shape. She was alone again; she rather liked being alone, now that she had no longer a blind, unreasoning terror of the empty land. She had her thoughts and her work; the presence of Manley was merely an unpleasant interruption to both.

Some time in the night she heard the lowing of a cow somewhere near. She wondered dreamily what it could be doing in the coulee, and went to sleep again. The five calves were all bawling in a chorus of complaint against their forced separation from their mothers, and the deeper, throaty tones of the cow mingled not inharmoniously with the sound.

Range cattle were not permitted in the coulee, and when by chance they found a broken panel in the fence and strayed down there, Val drove them out; afoot, usually, with shouts and badly aimed stones to accelerate their lumbering pace.

After she had eaten her breakfast in the morning she went out to investigate. Beyond the corral, her nose thrust close against the rails, a cow was bawling dismally. Inside, in much the same position, its tail waving a violent signal of its owner's distress, a calf was clamoring hysterically for its mother and its mother's milk.

Val sympathized with them both; but the cow did not belong in the coulee, and she gathered two or three small stones and went around where she could frighten her away from the fence without, however, exposing herself too recklessly to her uncertain temper. Cows at weaning time did sometimes object to being driven from their calves.

“Shoo! Go on away from there!” Val raised a stone and poised it threateningly.

The cow turned and regarded her, wild-eyed. It backed a step or two, evidently uncertain of its next move.

“Go on away!” Val was just on the point of throwing the rock, when she dropped it unheeded to the ground and stared. “Why, you—you—why—theidea!” She turned slowly white. Certain things must filter to the understanding through amazement and disbelief; it took Val a minute or two to grasp the significance of what she saw. By the time she did grasp it, her knees were beading weakly beneath the weight of her body. She put out a groping hand and caught at the corner of the corral to keep herself from falling. And she stared and stared.

“It—oh, surely not!” she whispered, protesting against her understanding. She gave a little sob that had no immediate relation to tears. “Surely—surely—not!” It was of no use; understanding came, and came clearly, pitilessly. Many things—trifles, all of them—to which she had given no thought at the time, or which she had forgotten immediately, came back to her of their own accord; things she triednotto remember.

The cow stared at her for a minute, and, when she made no hostile move, turned its attention back to its bereavement. Once again it thrust its moist muzzle between two rails, gave a preliminary, vibrantmmm—mmmmm—m, and then, with a spasmodic heaving of ribs and of flank, burst into a long-drawnbaww—aw—aw—aw, which rose rapidly in a tremulous crescendo and died to a throaty rumbling.

Val started nervously, though her eyes were fixed upon the cow and she knew the sound was coming. It served, however, to release her from the spell of horror which had gripped her. She was still white, and when she moved she felt intolerably heavy, so that her feet dragged; but she was no longer dazed. She went slowly around to the gate, reached up wearily and undid the chain fastening, opened the gate slightly, and went in.

Four of the calves were huddled together for mutual comfort in a corner. They were blatting indefatigably. Val went over to where the fifth one still stood beside the fence, as near the cow as it could get, and threw a small stone, that bounced off the calf's rump. The calf jumped and ran aimlessly before her until it reached the half-open gate, when it dodged out, as if it could scarcely believe its own good fortune. Before Val could follow it outside, it was nuzzling rapturously its mother, and the cow was contorting her body so that she could caress her offspring with her tongue, while she rumbled her satisfaction.

Val closed and fastened the gate carefully, and went back to where the cow still lingered. With her lips drawn to a thin, colorless line, she drove her across the coulee and up the hill, the calf gamboling close alongside. When they had gone out of sight, up on the level, Val turned back and went slowly to the house. She stood for a minute staring stupidly at it and at the coulee, went in and gazed around her with that blankness which follows a great mental shock. After a minute she shivered, threw up her hands before her face, and dropped, a pitiful, sorrowing heap of quivering rebellion, upon the couch.

Polycarp Jenks came ambling into the coulee, rapped perfunctorily upon the door-casing, and entered the kitchen as one who feels perfectly at home, and sure of his welcome; as was not unfitting, considering the fact that he had “chored around” for Val during the last year, and longer.

“Anybody to home?” he called, seeing the front door shut tight.

There was a stir within, and Val, still pale, and with an almost furtive expression in her eyes, opened the door and looked out.

“Oh, it's you, Polycarp,” she said lifelessly. “Is there anything—”

“What's the matter? Sick? You look kinda peaked and frazzled out. I met Man las' night, and he told me you needed wood; I thought I'd ride over and see. By granny, you do look bad.”

“Just a headache,” Val evaded, shrinking back guiltily. “Just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. I think—I don't believe the chickens have had anything to eat to-day—”

“Them headaches are sure a fright; they're might' nigh as bad as rheumatiz, when they hit you hard. You jest go back and lay down, and I'll look around and see what they is to do. Any idee when Man's comin' back?”

“No.” Val brought the word out with an involuntary sharpness.

“No, I reckon not. I hear him and Fred De Garmo come might' near havin' a fight las' night. Blumenthall was tellin' me this mornin'. Fred's quit the Double Diamond, I hear. He's got himself appointed dep'ty stock inspector—and how he managed to git the job is more 'n I can figure out. They say he's all swelled up over it—got his headquarters in town, you know, and seems he got to lordin' it over Man las' night, and I guess if somebody hadn't stopped 'em they'd of been a mix-up, all right. Man wasn't in no shape to fight—he'd been drinkin' pretty—”

“Yes—well, just do whatever there is to do, Polycarp. The horses are in the upper pasture, I think—if you want to haul wood.” She closed the door—gently, but with exceeding firmness, and, Polycarp took the hint.

“Women is queer,” he muttered, as he left the house. “Now, she knows Man drinks like a fish—and she knows everybody else knows it—but if you so much as mention sech a thing, why—” He waggled his head disapprovingly and proceeded, in his habitually laborious manner, to take a chew of tobacco. “No matter how much they may know a thing is so, if it don't suit 'em you can't never git 'em to stand right up and face it out—seems like, by granny, it comes natural to 'em to make believe things is different. Now, she knows might' well she can't foolme. I've hearn Man swear at her like—”

He reached the corral, and his insatiable curiosity turned his thoughts into a different channel. He inspected the four calves gravely, wondered audibly where Man had found them, and how the round-up came to miss them, and criticized his application of the brand; in the opinion of Polycarp, Manley either burned too deep or not deep enough.

“Time that line-backed heifer scabs off, you can't tell what's on her,” he asserted, expectorating solemnly before he turned away to his work.

Prom a window, Val watched him with cold terror. Would he suspect? Or was there anything to suspect? “It's silly—it's perfectly idiotic,” she told herself impatiently; “but if he hangs around that corral another minute, I shall scream!” She watched until she saw him mount his horse and ride off toward the upper pasture. Then she went out and began apathetically picking seed pods off her sweet-peas, which the early frosts had spared.

“Head better?” called Polycarp, half an hour later, when he went rattling past the house with the wagon, bound for the river bottom where they got their supply of wood.

“A little,” Val answered inattentively, without looking at him.

It was while Polycarp was after the wood, and while she was sitting upon the edge of the porch, listlessly arranging and rearranging a handful of long-stemmed blossoms, that Kent galloped down the hill and up to the gate. She saw him coming and set her teeth hard together. She did not want to see Kent just then; she did not want to see anybody.

Kent, however, wanted to see her. It seemed to him at least a month since he had had a glimpse of her, though it was no more than half that time. He watched her covertly while he came up the path. His mind, all the way over from the Wishbone, had been very clear and very decided. He had a certain thing to tell her, and a certain thing to do; he had thought it all out during the nights when he could not sleep and the days when men called him surly, and there was no going back, no reconsideration of the matter. He had been telling himself that, over and over, ever since the house came into view and he saw her sitting there on the porch. She would probably want to argue, and perhaps she would try to persuade him, but it would be absolutely useless; absolutely.

“Well, hello!” he cried, with more than his usual buoyancy of manner—because he knew he must hurt her later on. “Hello, Madam Authoress. Why this haughty air? This stuckupiness? Shall I get a ladder and climb up where you can hear me say howdy?” He took off his hat and slapped her gently upon the top of her head with it. “Come out of the fog!”

“Oh—I wish you wouldn't!” She glanced up at him so briefly that he caught only a flicker of her yellow-brown eyes, and went on fumbling her flowers. Kent stood and looked down at her for a moment.

“Mad?” he inquired cheerfully. “Say, you look awfully savage. On the dead, you do. What doyoucare if they sent it back? You had all the fun of writing it—and you know it's a dandy. Please smile.Prettyplease!” he wheedled. It was not the first time he had discovered her in a despondent mood, nor the first time he had bantered and badgered her out of her gloom. Presently it dawned upon him that this was more serious; he had never seen her quite so colorless or so completely without spirit.

“Sick, pal?” he asked gently, sitting down beside her.

“No-o—I suppose not.” Val bit her lips, as soon as she had spoken, to check their quivering.

“Well, what is it? I wish you'd tell me. I came over here full of something I had to tell you—but I can't, now; not while you're like this.” He watched her yearningly.

“Oh, I can't tell you. It's nothing.” Val jerked a sweet-pea viciously from its stem, pressed her hand against her mouth, and turned reluctantly toward him. “What was it you came to tell me?”

He watched her narrowly. “I'll gamble you're down in the mouth about something hubby has said or done. You needn't tell me—but I just want to ask you if you think it's worth while? You needn't tell me that, either. You know blamed well it ain't. He can't deal you any more misery than you let him hand out; you want to keep that in mind.”

Another blossom was demolished. “What was it you came to tell me?” she repeated steadily, though she did not look at him.

“Oh, nothing much. I'm going to leave the country, is all.”

“Kent!” After a minute she forced another word out. “Why?”

Kent regarded her somberly. “You better think twice before you ask me that,” he warned; “because I ain't much good at beating all around the bush. If you ask me again, I'll tell you—and I'm liable to tell you without any frills.” He drew a hard breath. “So I'd advise you not to ask,” he finished, half challengingly.

Val placed a pale lavender blossom against a creamy white one, and held the two up for inspection.

“When are you going?” she asked evenly.

“I don't know exactly—in a day or so. Saturday, maybe.”

She hesitated over the flowers in her lap, and selected a pink one, which she tried with the white and the lavender.

“And—whyare you going?” she asked him deliberately.

Kent stared at her fixedly. A faint, pink flush was creeping into her cheeks. He watched it deepen, and knew that his silence was filling her with uneasiness. He wondered how much she guessed of what he was going to say, and how much it would mean to her.

“All right—I'll tell you why, fast enough.” His tone was grim. “I'm going to leave the country because I can't stay any longer—not while you're in it.”

“Why—Kent!” She seemed inexpressibly shocked.

“I don't know,” he went on relentlessly, “what you think a man's made of, anyhow. And I don't know whatyouthink of this pal business; I know what I think: It's a mighty good way to drive a man crazy. I've had about all of it I can stand, if you want to know.”

“I'm sorry, if you don't—if you can't be friends any longer,” she said, and he winced to see how her eyes filled with tears. “But, of course, if you can't—if it bores you—”

Kent seized her arm, a bit roughly, “Have I got to come right out and tell you, in plain English, that I—that it's because I'm so deep in love with you I can't. If you only knew what it's cost me this last year—to play the game and not play it too hard! What do you think a man's made of? Do you think a man can care for a woman, like I care for you, and—Do you think he wants to be just pals? And stand back and watch some drunken brute abuse her—and never—Here!” His voice grew testier. “Don't do that—don't! I didn't want to hurt you—God knows I didn't want to hurt you!” He threw his seem around her shoulders and pulled her toward him.

“Don't—pal, I'm a brute, I guess, like all the rest of the male humans. I don't mean to be—it's the way I'm made. When a woman means so much to me that I can't think of anything else, day or night, and get to counting days and scheming to see her—why—being friends—like we've been—is like giving a man a teaspoon of milk and water when he's starving to death, and thinking that oughta do. But I shouldn't have let it hurt you. I tried to stand for it, little woman. These were times when I just had to fight myself not to take you up in my arms and carry you of and keep you. You must admit,” he argued, smiling rather wanly, “that, considering how I've felt about it, I've done pretty tolerable well up till now. You don't—you never will know how much it's cost. Why, my nerves are getting so raw I can't stand anything any more. That's why I'm going. I don't want to hang around till I do something—foolish.”

He took his arm away from her shoulders and moved farther off; he was not sure how far he might trust himself.

“If I thought you cared—or if there was anything I could do for you,” he ventured, after a moment, “why, it would be different. But—”

Val lifted her head and turned to him.

“There is something—or there was—or—oh, I can't think any more! I suppose”—doubtfully—“if you feel as you say you do, why—it would be—wicked to stay. But you don't; you must just imagine it.”

“Oh, all right,” Kent interpolated ironically.

“But if you go away—” She got up and stood before him, breathing unevenly, in little gasps. “Oh, you mustn't go away! Please don't go! I—there's something terrible happened—oh, Kent, I need you! I can't tell you what it is—it's the most horrible thing I ever heard of! You can't imagine anything more horrible, Kent!”

She twisted her fingers together nervously, and the blossoms dropped, one by one, on the ground. “If you go,” she pleaded, “I won't have a friend in the country, not a real friend. And—and I never needed a friend as much as I do now, and you mustn't go. I—I can't let you go!” It was like her hysterical fear of being left alone after the fire.

Kent eyed her keenly. He knew there must have been something to put her into this state—something more than his own rebellion. He felt suddenly ashamed of his weakness in giving way—in telling her how it was with him. The faint, far-off chuckle of a wagon came to his ears. He turned impatiently toward the sound. Polycarp was driving up the coulee with a load of wood; already he was nearing the gate which opened into the lower field. Kent stood up, reached out, and caught Val by the hand.

“Come on into the house,” he said peremptorily. “Polly's coming, and you don't want him goggling and listening. And I want you,” he added, when he had led her inside and closed the door, “to tell me what all this is about. There's something, and I want to know what. If it concerns you, then it concerns me a whole lot, too. And what concerns me I'm going to find out about—what is it?”

Val sat down, got up immediately, and crossed the room aimlessly to sit in another chair. She pressed her palms tightly against both cheeks, drew in her breath as if she were going to speak, and, after all, said nothing. She looked out of the window, pushing back the errant strand of hair.

“I can't—I don't know how to tell you,” she began desperately. “It's too horrible.”

“Maybe it is—I don't know what you'd call too horrible; I kinda think it wouldn't be what I'd tack those words to. Anyway—what is it?” He went close, and he spoke insistently.

She took a long breath.

“Manley's a thief!” She jerked the words out like as automaton. They were not, evidently, the Words she had meant to speak, for she seemed frightened afterward.

“Oh, that's it!” Kent made a sound which was not far from a snort. “Well, what about it? What's he done? How did you find it out?”

Val straightened in the chair and gazed up at him. Once more her tawny eyes gave him a certain shock, as if he had never before noticed them.

“After all our neighbors have done for him,” she cried bitterly; “after giving him hay, when his was burned and he couldn't buy any; after building stables, and corral, and—everything they did—the kindest, best neighbors a man ever had—oh, it's too shameful for utterance! I might forgive it—I might, only for that. The—the ingratitude! It's too despicable—too—”

Kent laid a steadying hand upon her arm.

“Yes—but what is it?” he interrupted.

Val shook off his hand unconsciously, impatient of any touch.

“Oh, the bare deed itself—well, it's rather petty, too—and cheap.” Her voice became full of contempt. “It was the calves. He brought home five last night—five that hadn't been branded last spring. Where he found themIdon't know—I didn't care enough about it to ask. He had been drinking, I think; I can usually tell—and he often carries a bottle in his pocket, as I happen to know.

“Well, he had me make a fire and heat the iron for him, and he branded them—last night; he was very touchy about it when I asked him what was his hurry. I think now it was a stupid thing for him to do. And—well, in the night, some time, I heard a cow bawling around close, and this morning I went out to drive her away; the fence is always down somewhere—I suppose she found a place to get through. So I went out to drive her away.” Her eyes dropped, as if she were making a confession of her own misdeed. She clenched her hands tightly in her lap.

“Well—it was a Wishbone cow.” After all, she said it very quietly.

“The devil it was!” Kent had been prepared for something of the sort; but, nevertheless, he started when he heard his own outfit mentioned.

“Yes. It was a Wishbone cow.” Her voice was flat and monotonous. “He had stolen her calf. He had it in the corral, and he had branded it with his own brand—with a VP.With my initials!” she wailed suddenly, as if the thought had just struck her, and was intolerably bitter. “She had followed—had been hunting her calf; it was rather a little calf, smaller than the others. And it was crowded up against the fence, trying to get to her. There was no mistaking their relationship. I tried to think he had made a mistake; but it's of no use—I know he didn't. I know hestolethat calf. And for all I know, the others, too. Oh, it's perfectly horrible to think of!”

Kent could easily guess her horror of it, and he was sorry for her. But his mind turned instantly to the practical side of it.

“Well—maybe it can be fixed up, if you feel so bad about it. Does Polycarp—did he see the cow hanging around?”

Val shook her head apathetically. “No—he didn't come till just a little while ago. That was this morning. And I drove her out of the coulee—her and her calf. They went off up over the hill.”

Kent stood looking down at her rather stupidly.

“You—what?What was it you did?” It seemed to him that something—some vital point of the story—had eluded him.

“I drove them away. I didn't think they ought to be permitted to hang around here.” Her lips quivered again. “I—I didn't want to see him—get—into any trouble.”

“You drove them away? Both of them?” Kent was frowning at her now.

Val sprang up and faced him, all a-tremble with indignation. “Certainly, both!I'mnot a thief, Kent Burnett! When I knew—when there was no possible doubt—why, what, in Heaven's name,couldI do? It wasn't Manley's calf. I turned it loose to go back where it belonged.”

“With a VP on its ribs!” Kent was staring at her curiously.

“Well, I don't care! Fifty VP's couldn't make the calf Manley's. If anybody came and saw that cow, why—” Val looked at him rafter pityingly, as if she could not quite understand how he could even question her upon that point. “And, after all,” she added forlornly, “he's my husband. I couldn't—I had to do what I could to shield him—just for sake of the past, I suppose. Much as I despise him, I can't forget that—that I cared once. It's because I wanted your advice that I—”

“It's a pity you didn't get it sooner, then! Can't you see what you've done? Why, think a minute! A VP calf running with a Wishbone cow—why, it's—you couldn't advertise Man as a rustler any better if you tried. The first fellow that runs onto that cow and calf—well, he won't need to do any guessing—he'llknow. It's a ticket to Deer Lodge—that VP calf. Now do you see?” He turned away to the window and stood looking absently at the brown hillside, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

“And there's Fred De Garmo, with his new job, ranging around the country just aching to cinch somebody and show his authority. It's a matter of days almost. He'd like nothing better than to get a whack at Man, even if the Wishbone—”

Outside, they could hear Polycarp throwing the wood off the wagon; knowing him as they did, they knew, it would not be long before he found an excuse for coming into the house. He had more than once evinced a good deal of interest in Kent's visits there, and shown an unmistakable desire to know what they were talking about. They had never paid much attention to him; but now even Val felt a vague uneasiness lest he overhear. She had been sitting, her face buried in her arms, crushed beneath the knowledge of what she had done.

“Don't worry, little woman.” Kent went over and passed his hand lightly over her hair. “You did what looked to you to be the right thing—the honest thing. And the chances are he'd get caught before long, anyhow. I don't reckon this is the first time he's done it.”

“Oh-h—but to think—to think thatIshould do it—when I wanted to save him! He—Kent, I despise him—he has killed all the love I ever felt for him—killed it over and over—but if anybody finds that calf, and—and if they—Kent, I shall go crazy if I have to feel thatIsent him—to—prison. To think of him—shut up there—and to know that I did it—I can't bear it!” She caught his arm. She pressed her forehead against it. “Kent, isn't there some way to get it back? If I should find it—and—and shoot it—and pay the Wishbone what it's worth—oh,anyamount—or shoot the cow—or—” she raised her face imploringly to his—“tell me, pal—or I shall go stark, raving mad!”

Polycarp came into the kitchen, and, from the sound, he was trying to enter as unobtrusively as possible, even to the extent of walking on his toes.

“Go see what that darned old sneak wants,” Kent commanded in an undertone. “Act as if nothing happened—if you can.” He watched anxiously, while she drew a long breath, pressed her hands hard against her cheeks, closed her lips tightly, and then, with something like composure, went quietly to the door and threw it open. Polycarp was standing very close to it, on the other side. He drew back a step.

“I wondered if I better git another load, now I've got the team hooked up,” he began in his rasping, nasal voice, his slitlike eyes peering inquisitively into the room. “Hello, Kenneth—Ithoughtthat was your horse standin' outside. Or would you rather I cut up a pile? I dunno but what I'll have to go t'town t'-morrerr or next day—mebby I better cut you some wood, hey? If Man ain't likely to be home, mebby—”

“I think, Polycarp, well have a storm soon. So it would be good policy to haul another load, don't you think? I can manage very well with what there is cut until Manley returns; and there are always small branches that I can break easily with the axe. I really think it would be safer to have another load hauled now while we can. Don't you think so?” Val even managed to smile at him. “If my head wasn't so bad,” she added deceitfully, “I should be tempted to go along, just for a dose sight of the river. Mr. Burnett is going directly—perhaps I may walk down later on. But you had better not wait—I shouldn't want to keep you working till dark.”

Polycarp, eying her and Kent, and the room in all its details, forced his hand into his trousers pocket, brought up his battered plug of tobacco and pried off a piece, which he rolled into his left cheek with his tongue.

“Jest as you say,” he surrendered, though it was perfectly plain that he would much prefer to cut wood and so be able to see all that went on, even though he was denied the gratification of hearing what they said. He waited a moment, but Val turned away, and even had the audacity to close the door upon his unfinished reply. He listened for a moment, his head craned forward.

“Purty kinda goings-on!” he mumbled. “Time Man had a flea put in 'is ear, by granny, if he don't want to lose that yeller-eyed wife of hisn.” To Polycarp, a closed door—when a man and woman were alone upon the other side—could mean nothing but surreptitious kisses and the like. He went stumbling out and drove away down the coulee, his head turning automatically so that his eyes were constantly upon the house; from his attitude, as Kent saw him through the window Polycarp expected an explosion, at the very least. His outraged virtue vested itself in one more sentence; “Purty blamed nervy, by granny—to go 'n' shut the door right in m' face!”

Inside the room, Val stood for a minute with her back against the door, as if she half feared Polycarp would break in and drag her secret from her. When she heard him leave the kitchen she drew a long breath, eloquent in itself: when the rattle of the wagon came to them there, she left the door and went slowly across the room until she stood close to Kent. The interruption had steadied them both. Her voice was a constrained calm when she spoke.

{Illustration: To draw the red hot spur across the fresh VP did not take long}

“Well—is there anything I can do? Because I suppose every minute is dangerous.”

Kent kept his eyes upon the departing Polycarp.

“There's nothing you can do, no. Maybe I can do something; soon as that granny gossip is outa sight, I'll go and round up that cow and calf—if somebody hasn't beaten me to it.”

Val looked at him with a certain timid helplessness.

“Oh! Will you—won't it be against the law if you—if you kill it?” She grew slightly excited again. “Kent, you shall not get into any trouble for—for his sake! If it comes to a choice, why—let him suffer for his crime. You shall not!”

Kent turned his head slowly and gazed down at her. “Don't run away with the idea I'm doing it for him,” he told her distinctly. “I love Man Fleetwood like I love a wolf. But if that VP calf catches him up, you'd fight your head over it, God only knows how long. I know you! You'd think so much about the part you played that you'd wind up by forgetting everything else. You'd get to thinking of him as a martyr, maybe! No—it's for you. I kinda got you into this, you recollect? If I'd let you see Man drank, that day, you'd never have married him; I know that now. So I'm going to get you out of it. My side of the question can wait.”

She stared up at him with a grave understanding.

“But you know what I said—you won't do anything that can make you trouble—won't you tell me, Kent, what you're going to do?”

He had already started to the door, but he stopped and smiled reassuringly.

“Nothing so fierce. If I can find 'em, I aim to bar out that VP. Sabe?”

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