CHAPTER VI.The SecretThe first minute I heard that the Canneziano girls were coming to the Desert Moon, I was certain that they were not coming for the peace of the mountains and the deserts. Going on from there, I questioned myself as to what reason any Canneziano had ever had for coming to the ranch, or for writing to the ranch. The answer was, to get money. I tried to think that they would stay a few months, long enough to put themselves in Sam’s good graces, ask him for a tidy sum, and leave. But they had not been on the place two days before I knew that, though that might be a minor part of their plan, it was not the major part; that there was something far less simple, something, probably, treacherous and sinister at the root of this visit of theirs to the Desert Moon.On the evening of their arrival the girls had unpacked their trunks in their bedrooms. The next morning the boys carried their trunks to the attic. Going through the upper hall, later that same morning, I saw one of the empty drawers that had fitted into their new-fangled trunks, lying beside the door to the attic stairway.I hate clutter. I picked it up and carried it upstairs. I went in all good faith: but I wear rubber-soled shoes around the house, and the stairs are thickly carpeted; so the girls, who were up there, did not hear me coming. Just before I got to the turn in the stairs, I heard one of them say:“I am sure that there is no use in searching the house. In the first place, he never could have gotten it into the house without being seen.”“You are too sure of everything, when you are unsure of anything,” the other girl answered, and I thought, since the voice was louder and, somehow, richer, that it was Gaby’s. “Stop being sure, and try being sensible. We must find it. We have very little time. How do you know whether he could have brought it into the house or not? There is a back stairway.”Fool that I was, I kept right on going up the stairs. It took me a while to develop the poll-prying, eavesdropping, sneaking, and generally despicable character that I did develop later.“Did you girls lose something?” I asked, when my head had poked up to where I could see them.Danny jumped, from being startled, but Gaby never turned a hair.“Only a trinket of Dan’s,” she said. “Possibly she never packed it at all.”I gave them the trunk drawer and came back downstairs, wracking my brain with questions.Who was the “he” who had, or who had not, gotten something into the house? The something that they must find, and had very little time in which to find it. And, land’s alive, what was the something?I resolved to say nothing, but to watch those two girls, like a hawk, from then on. I did so. But it was three weeks before I heard anything more at all, though I saw a great deal.I saw those girls searching, searching everlastingly, the entire place. I saw them go to the cabin, and stay inside of it for hours. I saw them in the barnyards, and in the barns, searching. I saw them down in the outfit’s quarters when the men were all away. I heard them get up late at night, and sneak out of the house, and come back in the early hours of the morning. And, once or twice, I thought that I saw them seeing me, as I watched them, and then I was afraid.It was during these three weeks that Danny and John announced their engagement. My own opinion is that they got themselves engaged the first five minutes they were alone together; but that they had gumption enough to wait for ten days before telling it.Sam gave them his blessing. That is to say, he said that any agreement they wanted to make was all right with him, if Danny was sure she would be satisfied to live on the Desert Moon, and if they would wait a year to be married. They agreed to this, the year of waiting, reluctantly. Sam, whose one bad habit, not counting his pipe, is using suitable and unsuitable quotations on all suitable and unsuitable occasions, assured them that a year was as a day on the Desert Moon; but that didn’t seem to make them any happier. The only people who were downright pleased with Sam’s decision were Gaby and myself. I, for certain reasons of my own. Gaby, because she was choosing to consider herself also in love with John.I realize that this is crowding pretty fast what the books call “love interest.” I realize, too, that I have not given any description of John that would account for two traveled ladies coming to the Desert Moon and, at once, falling in love with him.He had, as I guess I’ve signified, a heap more than his share of masculine good looks. Outside of hat and collar advertisements, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen even pictures of men that were any better looking than John was. The way he lived, and dressed, and rode, made him sort of romantic, too, I suppose. A Santa Fe man, who met him once when he was taking cattle back east for Sam, offered him a surprising salary to come to the Grand Canyon and live around there, in order to impress and delight the eastern young lady tourists. John was simple-hearted, and slow spoken; but I guess most women don’t mind that in men. Too, he was a good boy, all the way through. And, of course, he had plenty of money, now, and would have a million or more, not counting the ranch, when Sam died.Gaby made no bones about her feelings for John. I did not do as John did, and set all of her open advances toward him down to sister-in-lawly affection. Still, I didn’t believe that she really thought she was in love with John, until I hid in the clothes-closet that evening and heard Danny and her talking together.The closet arrangement was a fortunate one for my purposes. It was between the girls’ rooms, with heavily curtained doorways leading into each room, and a door at the end with a transom for ventilation, leading into the hall. This closet had originally been a part of the hall, going down between the two rooms. But, in 1912, when Sam had had the ranch-house remodeled, inside, they had turned the closet spaces for these rooms into two bathrooms, necessitating the present arrangement of a double closet.The dozens of gowns and frocks—nothing so ordinary as mere dresses—that the girls had brought with them, hanging on padded hangers from the long rods, made as good a hiding place as anyone could ask for; especially, since I always took care to unscrew the light globe in the closet when I went in, so that it seemed to be all right, but would not light when the wall switches were pressed.I had gone in there so many evenings, during the past three weeks, and had heard nothing for my pains that it was a wonder I had decided to try it again that evening. It was not luck, though. Gaby’s actions, that evening, toward John had been so downright disgusting, sitting on the arm of his chair, and trying to coax him out of the house to see the mountains by moonlight, and hanging herself around his neck when they danced together, and so on, that I had a notion Danny might have a little conversation ready for her when she could get her alone.I had waited about ten minutes when I heard the door of Gaby’s room open. I was so tickled I all but squealed, when I heard that Danny had come in with her, instead of going on down the hall to her own room. Evidently they had begun their conversation in the hall, for Gaby’s first words were, “Jealous, my dear Dan?”“I don’t know. But it is silly for you to act as you do. John is in love with me.”“Since you are so certain of that, why do you object to my poor little efforts?”“I’ve told you. Because they are silly. And—not kind. Why should you try to take him away from me, when you don’t want him yourself?”“Are you sure of that, too?”“Yes, I am. His good looks fascinate you, and so does his unsophistication. You’d like the fortune he is to inherit. But you would never be satisfied to marry him and live right here for the remainder of your life.”“No, I would not. I’d marry him, if he didn’t have a penny—it is you who are always thinking about his fortune—but I wouldn’t allow him to bury himself, and his beauty, and charm in this God-forsaken country. I’d get him out into the world, and have him take his place there. With his ability and energy, and with me to help him, what a place it might be! For you to have him is—waste. Waste. You don’t know anything about love. You’ll never learn. I—I tell you I can’t bear it. It isn’t fair——” She began to cry, hollow sounding sobs, that seemed to catch in her throat and wrench free from it.“Gaby. Gaby, dear. Please don’t. I am sorry——”“Waste. Waste. Waste. You are not sorry. Don’t touch me!”“I am sorry, Gaby. But what can I do? I couldn’t give John to you, if I wished to.”“You could give me a chance.”“No, I couldn’t.”“You are a coward.”“Perhaps. I love him. He means to me, too, peace, and security, and decent living—the things I want most for my life. Why should I risk it all?”“Coward! Coward! Peace and security! He means life to me. All of it; full and complete. Love, and passion, and adventure and attainment, for him and for me, too. Do you think I’ll stand by, and allow you to have him, to bury his wonder in your peace, and smother his possibilities with your security and decent living?”“I think,” Danny answered, “that you will have to. John and I love each other; and we are going to keep each other. You, nor anyone, can change that.”“Suppose I should tell John why we came here?”“You won’t do that. You can’t harm me without harming yourself. But, if you threaten that, just once more, I will go straight to John and tell him the truth——”“You promised——”“I haven’t broken my promise. I shan’t, if you don’t. But you must know that I haven’t any interest left in the thing.”“What about your desire for revenge?”“That desire was yours, not mine. I never considered that side of it at all.”“Coward! Quitter! Stool-pigeon——”“That isn’t fair, Gaby. I’ll help if I can. I have been helping, haven’t I? I won’t hinder in any way. But the time is short now. Remember that.”“Danny——” There was a new tone in Gaby’s voice, sweet like, and appealing. I did not trust it for a minute; but I think Danny did, for she answered, gently, “Yes, dear?”“Forgive me. Let’s be twinny again. Friends?” I could hear the treachery in that as plainly as I could hear the words. I think Danny did not hear it, for she answered, “I do want to be friends, Gaby. I do, truly. Only—please, dear, won’t you leave my man alone?”“And you’ll help me. And you won’t tell him—anything?”“Of course I won’t tell, Gaby. It is really your secret, now; not mine. And I’ll help you all I can.”
The first minute I heard that the Canneziano girls were coming to the Desert Moon, I was certain that they were not coming for the peace of the mountains and the deserts. Going on from there, I questioned myself as to what reason any Canneziano had ever had for coming to the ranch, or for writing to the ranch. The answer was, to get money. I tried to think that they would stay a few months, long enough to put themselves in Sam’s good graces, ask him for a tidy sum, and leave. But they had not been on the place two days before I knew that, though that might be a minor part of their plan, it was not the major part; that there was something far less simple, something, probably, treacherous and sinister at the root of this visit of theirs to the Desert Moon.
On the evening of their arrival the girls had unpacked their trunks in their bedrooms. The next morning the boys carried their trunks to the attic. Going through the upper hall, later that same morning, I saw one of the empty drawers that had fitted into their new-fangled trunks, lying beside the door to the attic stairway.
I hate clutter. I picked it up and carried it upstairs. I went in all good faith: but I wear rubber-soled shoes around the house, and the stairs are thickly carpeted; so the girls, who were up there, did not hear me coming. Just before I got to the turn in the stairs, I heard one of them say:
“I am sure that there is no use in searching the house. In the first place, he never could have gotten it into the house without being seen.”
“You are too sure of everything, when you are unsure of anything,” the other girl answered, and I thought, since the voice was louder and, somehow, richer, that it was Gaby’s. “Stop being sure, and try being sensible. We must find it. We have very little time. How do you know whether he could have brought it into the house or not? There is a back stairway.”
Fool that I was, I kept right on going up the stairs. It took me a while to develop the poll-prying, eavesdropping, sneaking, and generally despicable character that I did develop later.
“Did you girls lose something?” I asked, when my head had poked up to where I could see them.
Danny jumped, from being startled, but Gaby never turned a hair.
“Only a trinket of Dan’s,” she said. “Possibly she never packed it at all.”
I gave them the trunk drawer and came back downstairs, wracking my brain with questions.
Who was the “he” who had, or who had not, gotten something into the house? The something that they must find, and had very little time in which to find it. And, land’s alive, what was the something?
I resolved to say nothing, but to watch those two girls, like a hawk, from then on. I did so. But it was three weeks before I heard anything more at all, though I saw a great deal.
I saw those girls searching, searching everlastingly, the entire place. I saw them go to the cabin, and stay inside of it for hours. I saw them in the barnyards, and in the barns, searching. I saw them down in the outfit’s quarters when the men were all away. I heard them get up late at night, and sneak out of the house, and come back in the early hours of the morning. And, once or twice, I thought that I saw them seeing me, as I watched them, and then I was afraid.
It was during these three weeks that Danny and John announced their engagement. My own opinion is that they got themselves engaged the first five minutes they were alone together; but that they had gumption enough to wait for ten days before telling it.
Sam gave them his blessing. That is to say, he said that any agreement they wanted to make was all right with him, if Danny was sure she would be satisfied to live on the Desert Moon, and if they would wait a year to be married. They agreed to this, the year of waiting, reluctantly. Sam, whose one bad habit, not counting his pipe, is using suitable and unsuitable quotations on all suitable and unsuitable occasions, assured them that a year was as a day on the Desert Moon; but that didn’t seem to make them any happier. The only people who were downright pleased with Sam’s decision were Gaby and myself. I, for certain reasons of my own. Gaby, because she was choosing to consider herself also in love with John.
I realize that this is crowding pretty fast what the books call “love interest.” I realize, too, that I have not given any description of John that would account for two traveled ladies coming to the Desert Moon and, at once, falling in love with him.
He had, as I guess I’ve signified, a heap more than his share of masculine good looks. Outside of hat and collar advertisements, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen even pictures of men that were any better looking than John was. The way he lived, and dressed, and rode, made him sort of romantic, too, I suppose. A Santa Fe man, who met him once when he was taking cattle back east for Sam, offered him a surprising salary to come to the Grand Canyon and live around there, in order to impress and delight the eastern young lady tourists. John was simple-hearted, and slow spoken; but I guess most women don’t mind that in men. Too, he was a good boy, all the way through. And, of course, he had plenty of money, now, and would have a million or more, not counting the ranch, when Sam died.
Gaby made no bones about her feelings for John. I did not do as John did, and set all of her open advances toward him down to sister-in-lawly affection. Still, I didn’t believe that she really thought she was in love with John, until I hid in the clothes-closet that evening and heard Danny and her talking together.
The closet arrangement was a fortunate one for my purposes. It was between the girls’ rooms, with heavily curtained doorways leading into each room, and a door at the end with a transom for ventilation, leading into the hall. This closet had originally been a part of the hall, going down between the two rooms. But, in 1912, when Sam had had the ranch-house remodeled, inside, they had turned the closet spaces for these rooms into two bathrooms, necessitating the present arrangement of a double closet.
The dozens of gowns and frocks—nothing so ordinary as mere dresses—that the girls had brought with them, hanging on padded hangers from the long rods, made as good a hiding place as anyone could ask for; especially, since I always took care to unscrew the light globe in the closet when I went in, so that it seemed to be all right, but would not light when the wall switches were pressed.
I had gone in there so many evenings, during the past three weeks, and had heard nothing for my pains that it was a wonder I had decided to try it again that evening. It was not luck, though. Gaby’s actions, that evening, toward John had been so downright disgusting, sitting on the arm of his chair, and trying to coax him out of the house to see the mountains by moonlight, and hanging herself around his neck when they danced together, and so on, that I had a notion Danny might have a little conversation ready for her when she could get her alone.
I had waited about ten minutes when I heard the door of Gaby’s room open. I was so tickled I all but squealed, when I heard that Danny had come in with her, instead of going on down the hall to her own room. Evidently they had begun their conversation in the hall, for Gaby’s first words were, “Jealous, my dear Dan?”
“I don’t know. But it is silly for you to act as you do. John is in love with me.”
“Since you are so certain of that, why do you object to my poor little efforts?”
“I’ve told you. Because they are silly. And—not kind. Why should you try to take him away from me, when you don’t want him yourself?”
“Are you sure of that, too?”
“Yes, I am. His good looks fascinate you, and so does his unsophistication. You’d like the fortune he is to inherit. But you would never be satisfied to marry him and live right here for the remainder of your life.”
“No, I would not. I’d marry him, if he didn’t have a penny—it is you who are always thinking about his fortune—but I wouldn’t allow him to bury himself, and his beauty, and charm in this God-forsaken country. I’d get him out into the world, and have him take his place there. With his ability and energy, and with me to help him, what a place it might be! For you to have him is—waste. Waste. You don’t know anything about love. You’ll never learn. I—I tell you I can’t bear it. It isn’t fair——” She began to cry, hollow sounding sobs, that seemed to catch in her throat and wrench free from it.
“Gaby. Gaby, dear. Please don’t. I am sorry——”
“Waste. Waste. Waste. You are not sorry. Don’t touch me!”
“I am sorry, Gaby. But what can I do? I couldn’t give John to you, if I wished to.”
“You could give me a chance.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“You are a coward.”
“Perhaps. I love him. He means to me, too, peace, and security, and decent living—the things I want most for my life. Why should I risk it all?”
“Coward! Coward! Peace and security! He means life to me. All of it; full and complete. Love, and passion, and adventure and attainment, for him and for me, too. Do you think I’ll stand by, and allow you to have him, to bury his wonder in your peace, and smother his possibilities with your security and decent living?”
“I think,” Danny answered, “that you will have to. John and I love each other; and we are going to keep each other. You, nor anyone, can change that.”
“Suppose I should tell John why we came here?”
“You won’t do that. You can’t harm me without harming yourself. But, if you threaten that, just once more, I will go straight to John and tell him the truth——”
“You promised——”
“I haven’t broken my promise. I shan’t, if you don’t. But you must know that I haven’t any interest left in the thing.”
“What about your desire for revenge?”
“That desire was yours, not mine. I never considered that side of it at all.”
“Coward! Quitter! Stool-pigeon——”
“That isn’t fair, Gaby. I’ll help if I can. I have been helping, haven’t I? I won’t hinder in any way. But the time is short now. Remember that.”
“Danny——” There was a new tone in Gaby’s voice, sweet like, and appealing. I did not trust it for a minute; but I think Danny did, for she answered, gently, “Yes, dear?”
“Forgive me. Let’s be twinny again. Friends?” I could hear the treachery in that as plainly as I could hear the words. I think Danny did not hear it, for she answered, “I do want to be friends, Gaby. I do, truly. Only—please, dear, won’t you leave my man alone?”
“And you’ll help me. And you won’t tell him—anything?”
“Of course I won’t tell, Gaby. It is really your secret, now; not mine. And I’ll help you all I can.”