CHAPTER VJUNE ASKS QUESTIONS
Houck, an unwelcome guest, stayed at the cabin on Piceance nearly two weeks. His wooing was surely one of the strangest known. He fleered at June, taunted her, rode over the girl’s pride and sense of decorum, beat down the defenses she set up, and filled her bosom with apprehension. It was impossible to score an advantage over his stolid strength and pachydermous insensibility.
The trapper sweated blood. He neither liked nor trusted his guest, but he was bound hand and foot. He must sit and watch the fellow moving to his end, see the gains he made day by day, and offer no effective protest. For Houck at a word could send him back to the penitentiary and leave June alone in a world to which her life had been alien.
Pete knew that the cowman was winning the campaign. His assumption that he was an accepted suitor of June began to find its basis of fact. The truth could be read in the child’s hunted eyes. She was still fighting, but the battle was a losing one.
Perhaps this was the best way out of a bad situation, Tolliver found himself thinking. In his rough way Houck was fond of June. A blind man could see that. Even though he was a wolf, there were moments when his eyes were tender for her. He would provide well for a wife. If his little Cinderella could bring herself to like the man, there was always a chance that love wouldfollow. Jake always had the knack of fascinating women. He could be very attractive when he wished.
On a happy morning not long since June had sung of her wings. She was a meadow-lark swooping over the hills to freedom, her throat throbbing with songs of joy. Sometimes Pete, too, thought of her as a bird, but through many hours of anguished brooding he had come to know she was a fledgling with broken wings. The penalty for the father’s sins had fallen upon the child. All her life she must be hampered by the environment his wrongdoing had built up around them.
Since the beginning of the world masterful men have drawn to them the eyes and thoughts of women. June was no exception. Among the hours when she hated Houck were increasing moments during which a naïve wonder and admiration filled her mind. She was primitive, elemental. A little tingle of delight thrilled her to know that this strong man wanted her and would fight to win what his heart craved. After all he was her first lover. A queer shame distressed the girl at the memory of his kisses, for through all the anger, chagrin, and wounded pride had come to her the first direct realization of what sex meant. Her alarmed innocence pushed this from her.
Without scruple Houck used all the weapons at hand. There came a day when he skirted the edges of the secret.
“What do you mean?” she demanded. “What is it you claim to know about Dad all so big?”
He could see that June’s eyes were not so bold as the words. They winced from his even as she put the question.
“Ask him.”
“What’ll I ask? I wouldn’t believe anything you told me about him. He’s not like you. He’s good.”
“You don’t have to believe me. Ask him if he ever knew any one called Pete Purdy. Ask him who Jasper Stuart was. An’ where he lived whilst you was stayin’ with yore aunt at Rawlins.”
“I ain’t afraid to,” she retorted. “I’ll do it right now.”
Houck was sprawled on a bench in front of the cabin. He grinned impudently. His manner was an exasperating challenge. Evidently he did not believe she would.
June turned and walked to the stable. The heavy brogans weighted down the lightness of her step. The shapeless clothes concealed the grace of the slim figure. But even so there was a vital energy in the way she moved.
Tolliver was mending the broken teeth of a hay-rake and making a poor job of it.
June made a direct frontal attack. “Dad, did you ever know a man named Pete Purdy?”
The rancher’s lank, unshaven jaw fell. The blow had fallen at last. In a way he had expected it. Yet his mind was too stunned to find any road of escape.
“Why, yes—yes, I—yes, honey,” he faltered.
“Who was he?”
“Well, he was a—a cowpuncher, I reckon.”
“Who was Jasper Stuart, then?”
An explanation could no longer be dodged or avoided. Houck had talked too much. Tolliver knew he must make a clean breast of it, and that his own daughterwould sit in judgment on him. Yet he hung back. The years of furtive silence still held him.
“He was a fellow lived in Brown’s Park.”
“What had you to do with him? Why did Jake Houck tell me to ask you about him?”
“Oh, I reckon—”
“And about where you lived while I was with Aunt Molly at Rawlins?” she rushed on.
The poor fellow moistened his dry lips. “I—I’ll tell you the whole story, honey. Mebbe I’d ought to ’a’ told you long ago. But someways—” He stopped, trying for a fresh start. “You’ll despise yore old daddy. You sure will. Well, you got a right to. I been a mighty bad father to you, June. Tha’s a fact.”
She waited, dread-filled eyes on his.
“Prob’ly I’d better start at the beginnin’, don’t you reckon? I never did have any people to brag about. Father and mother died while I was a li’l’ grasshopper. I was kinda farmed around, as you might say. Then I come West an’ got to punchin’ cows. Seems like, I got into a bad crowd. They was wild, an’ they rustled more or less. In them days there was a good many sleepers an’ mavericks on the range. I expect we used a running-iron right smart when we wasn’t sure whose calf it was.”
He was trying to put the best face on the story. June could see that, and her heart hardened toward him. She ignored the hungry appeal for mercy in his eyes.
“You mean you stole cattle. Is that it?” She was willing to hurt herself if she could give him pain. Had he not ruined her life?
“Well, I—I—Yes, I reckon that’s it. Our crowd picked up calves that belonged to the big outfits like the Diamond Slash. We drove ’em up to Brown’s Park, an’ later acrost the line to Wyoming or Utah.”
“Was Jake Houck one of your crowd?”
Pete hesitated.
She cut in, with a flare of childish ferocity. “I’m gonna know the truth. He’s not protecting you any.”
“Yes. Jake was one of us. I met up with him right soon after I come to Colorado.”
“And Purdy?”
“Tha’s the name I was passin’ under. I’d worked back in Missouri for a fellow of that name. They got to callin’ me Pete Purdy, so I kinda let it go. My father’s name was Tolliver, though. I took it—after the trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“It come after I was married. I met yore maw at Rawlins. She was workin’ at the railroad restaurant waitin’ on table. For a coupla years we lived there, an’ I wish to God we’d never left. But Jake persuaded ’Lindy I’d ought to take up land, so we moved back to the Park an’ I preëmpted. Everything was all right at first. You was born, an’ we was right happy. But Jake kep’ a-pesterin’ me to go in with him an’ do some cattle runnin’ on the quiet. There was money in it—pretty good money—an’ yore maw was sick an’ needed to go to Denver. Jake, he advanced the money, an’ o’ course I had to work in with him to pay it back. I was sorta driven to it, looks like.”
He stopped to mop a perspiring face with a bandanna. Tolliver was not enjoying himself.
“You haven’t told me yet what the trouble was,” June said.
“Well, this fellow Jas Stuart was a stock detective. He come down for the Cattlemen’s Association to find out who was doing the rustlin’ in Brown’s Park. You see, the Park was a kind of a place where we holed up. There was timbered gulches in there where we could drift cattle in an’ hide ’em. Then there was the Hole-in-the-Wall. I expect you’ve heard of that too.”
“Did this Stuart find out who was doing the rustlin’?”
“He was right smart an’ overbearin’. Too much so for his own good. Some of the boys served notice on him he was liable to get dry-gulched if he didn’t take the trail back where he come from. But Jas was right obstinate an’ he had sand in his craw. I’ll say that for him. Well, one day he got word of a drive we was makin’. Him an’ his deputies laid in wait for us. There was shooting an’ my horse got killed. The others escaped, but they nailed me. In the rookus Stuart had got killed. They laid it on me. Mebbe I did it. I was shooting like the rest. Anyhow, I was convicted an’ got twenty years in the pen.”
“Twenty years,” June echoed.
“Three—four years later there was a jail break. I got into the hills an’ made my getaway. Travelin’ by night, I reached Rawlins. From there I came down here with a freight outfit, an’ I been here ever since.”
He stopped. His story was ended. June looked at the slouchy little man with the weak mouth and the skim-milk, lost-dog eyes. He was so palpably wretched, so plainly the victim rather than the builder of his ownmisfortunes, that her generous heart went out warmly to him.
With a little rush she had him in her arms. They wept together, his head held tight against her immature bosom. It was the first time she had ever known him to break down, and she mothered him as women have from the beginning of time.
“You poor Daddy. Don’t I know how it was? That Jake Houck was to blame. He led you into it an’ left you to bear the blame,” she crooned.
“It ain’t me. It’s you I’m thinkin’ of, honey. I done ruined yore life, looks like. I shut you off from meeting decent folks like other girls do. You ain’t had no show.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Dad. I’ll be all right. What we’ve got to think about is not to let it get out who you are. If it wasn’t for that big bully up at the house—”
She stopped, hopelessly unable to cope with the situation. Whenever she thought of Houck her mind came to animpasse. Every road of escape it traveled was blocked by his jeering face, with the jutting jaw set in implacable resolution.
“It don’t look like Jake would throw me down thataway,” he bewailed. “I never done him a meanness. I kep’ my mouth shut when they got me an’ wouldn’t tell who was in with me. Tha’s one reason they soaked me with so long a sentence. They was after Jake. They kep’ at me to turn state’s evidence an’ get a short term. But o’ course I couldn’t do that.”
“’Course not. An’ now he turns on you like a coyote—after you stood by him.” A surge of indignationboiled up in her. “He’s the very worst man ever I knew—an’ if he tries to do you any harm I’ll—I’ll settle with him.”
Her father shook his unkempt head. “No, honey. I been learnin’ for twelve years that a man can’t do wrong for to get out of a hole he’s in. If Jake’s mean enough to give me up, why, I reckon I’ll have to stand the gaff.”
“No,” denied June, a spark of flaming resolution in her shining eyes.
CHAPTER VI“DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM!”
Inside the big chuck tent of the construction camp the cook was busy forking steak to tin plates and ladling potatoes into deep dishes.
“Git a move on you, Red Haid,” he ordered.
Bob Dillon distributed the food at intervals along the table which ran nearly the whole length of the canvas top. From an immense coffee pot he poured the clear brown liquid into tin cups set beside each plate. This done, he passed out into the sunshine and beat the triangle.
From every tent men poured like seeds squirted from a squeezed lemon. They were all in a hurry and they jostled each other in their eagerness to get through the open flap. Straw boss, wood walkers, and ground men, they were all hungry. They ate swiftly and largely. The cook and his flunkey were kept busy.
“More spuds!” called one.
“Coming up!” Dillon flung back cheerfully.
“Shoot along more biscuits!” a second ordered.
“On the way!” Bob announced.
The boss of the outfit came in leisurely after the rush. He brought a guest with him and they sat down at the end of the table.
“Beans!” demanded a line man, his mouth full.
“Headed for you!” promised the flunkey.
The guest of the boss was a big rangy fellow in theearly forties. Bob heard the boss call him “Jake,” and later “Houck.” As soon as the boy had a moment to spare he took a good look at the man. He did not like what he saw. Was it the cold, close-set eyes, the crook of the large nose, or the tight-lipped mouth gave the fellow that semblance to a rapacious wolf?
As soon as Bob had cleaned up the dishes he set off up the creek to meet June. The boy was an orphan and had been brought up in a home with two hundred others. His life had been a friendless one, which may have been the reason that he felt a strong bond of sympathy for the lonely girl on Piceance. He would have liked to be an Aladdin with a wonder lamp by means of which he could magically transform her affairs to good fortune. Since this could not be, he gave her what he had—a warm fellow-feeling because of the troubles that worried her.
He found June waiting at their usual place of meeting. Pete Tolliver’s forty-four hung in a scabbard along the girl’s thigh. Bob remembered that she had spoken of seeing a rattlesnake on the trail yesterday.
“’Lo, boy,” she called.
“’Lo, June. I met yore friend.”
“What friend?”
“Jake Houck. He was down at the camp for dinner to-day—came in with the boss.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” she said sulkily.
“Don’t blame you a bit. Mr. Houck looks like one hard citizen. I’d hate to cross him.”
“He’s as tough as an old range bull. No matter what you say or do you can’t faze him,” she replied wearily.
“You still hate him?”
“More ’n ever. Most o’ the time. He just laughs. He’s bound an’ determined to marry me whether or not. He will, too.”
Bob looked at her, surprised. It was the first time she had ever admitted as much. June’s slim body was packed with a pantherish resilience. Her spirit bristled with courage. What had come over her?
“He won’t if you don’t want him to.”
“Won’t he?” June was lying on a warm flat rock. She had been digging up dirt at the edge of it with a bit of broken stick. Now she looked up at him with the scorn of an experience she felt to be infinitely more extensive than his. “A lot you know about it.”
“How can he? If you an’ Mr. Tolliver don’t want him to.”
“He just will.”
“But, June, that don’t listen reasonable to me. He’s got you buffaloed. If you make up yore mind not to have him—”
“I didn’t say I’d made up my mind not to have him. I said I hated him,” she corrected.
“Well, you wouldn’t marry a fellow you hated,” he argued.
“How do you know so much about it, Bob Dillon?” she flared.
“I use what brains I’ve got. Women don’t do things like that. There wouldn’t be any sense in it.”
“Well, I’ll prob’ly do it. Then you’ll know I haven’t got a lick o’ sense,” she retorted sullenly.
“You ce’tainly beat my time,” he said, puzzled.“I’ve heard you say more mean things about him than everybody else put together, an’ now you’re talkin’ about marryin’ him. Why? What’s yore reason?”
She looked up. For a moment the morose eyes met his. They told nothing except a dogged intention not to tell anything.
But the boy was no fool. He had thought a good deal about the lonely life she and her father led. Many men came into this country three jumps ahead of the law. It was not good form to ask where any one came from unless he volunteered information about antecedent conditions. Was it possible that Jake Houck had something on Tolliver, that he was using his knowledge to force June into a marriage with him? Otherwise there would be no necessity for her to marry him. As he had told her, it was a free land. But if Houck was coercing her because of her fears for Tolliver, it was possible this might be a factor in determining June to marry him.
“Don’t you do it, June. Don’t you marry him. He didn’t look good to me, Houck didn’t,” Dillon went on. He was a little excited, and his voice had lifted.
A man who came at this moment round the bend of the creek was grinning unpleasantly. His eyes focused on Dillon.
“So I don’t look good to you. Tha’s too bad. If you’ll tell me what you don’t like about me I’ll make myself over,” jeered Houck.
Bob was struck dumb. The crooked smile and the stab of the eyes that went with it were menacing. He felt goose quills running up and down his spine. This man was one out of a thousand for physical prowess.
“I didn’t know you was near,” the boy murmured.
“I’ll bet you didn’t, but you’ll know it now.” Houck moved toward Dillon slowly.
“Don’t you, Jake Houck! Don’t you touch him!” June shrilled.
“I got to beat him up, June. It’s comin’ to him. D’you reckon I’ll let the flunkey of a telephone camp interfere in my business? Why, he ain’t half man-size.”
Bob backed away warily. This Colossus straddling toward him would thrash him within an inch of his life. The boy was white to the lips.
“Stop! Right now!” June faced Houck resolutely, standing between him and his victim.
The big fellow looked at the girl, a slim, fearless little figure with undaunted eyes flinging out a challenge. He laughed, delightedly, then brushed her aside with a sweep of his arm.
Her eyes blazed. The smouldering passion that had been accumulating for weeks boiled up. She dragged out the six-shooter from its holster.
“I won’t have you touch him! I won’t! If you do I’ll—I’ll—”
Houck stopped in his stride, held fast by sheer amazement. The revolver pointed straight at him. It did not waver a hair’s breadth. He knew how well she could shoot. Only the day before she had killed a circling hawk with a rifle. The bird had dropped like a plummet, dead before it struck the ground. Now, as his gaze took in the pantherish ferocity of her tense pose, he knew that she was keyed up for tragedy. She meant to defend the boy from him if it resulted in homicide.
It did not occur to him to be afraid. He laughed aloud, half in admiration, half in derision.
“I b’lieve you would, you spunky li’l wild cat,” he told her in great good humor.
“Run, Bob,” called June to the boy.
He stood, hesitating. His impulse was to turn and fly, but he could not quite make up his mind to leave her alone with Houck.
The cowman swung toward the girl.
“Keep back!” she ordered.
Her spurt of defiance tickled him immensely. He went directly to her, his stride unfaltering.
“Want to shoot up poor Jake, do you? An’ you an’ him all set for a honeymoon. Well, go to it, June. You can’t miss now.”
He stood a yard or so from her, easy and undisturbed, laughing in genuine enjoyment. He liked the child’s pluck. The situation, with its salty tang of danger, was wholly to his taste.
But he had disarmed the edge of June’s anger and apprehension. His amusement was too real. It carried the scene from tragedy to farce.
June’s outburst had not been entirely for the sake of Bob. Back of the immediate cause was the desire to break away from this man’s dominance. She had rebelled in the hope of establishing her individual freedom. Now she knew this was vain. What was the use of opposing one who laughed at her heroics and ignored the peril of his position? There was not any way to beat him.
She pushed the six-shooter back into its holster andcried out at him bitterly. “I think you’re the devil or one of his fiends.”
“An’ I think you’re an angel—sometimes,” he mocked.
“I hate you!” she said, and two rows of strong little white teeth snapped tight.
“Sho! Tha’s just a notion you got. You like me fine, if you only knew it, girl.”
She was still shaken with the emotion through which she had passed. “You never were nearer death, Jake Houck, than right now a minute ago.”
His back to Dillon, the cowman gave a curt command. “Hit the trail, boy—sudden.”
Bob looked at June, whose sullen eyes were fighting those of her father’s guest. She had forgotten he was there. Without a word Bob vanished.
“So you love me well enough to shoot me, do you?” Houck jeered.
“I wish I could!” she cried furiously.
“But you can’t. You had yore chance, an’ you couldn’t. What you need is a master, some one you’ll have to honor an’ obey, some one who’ll look after you an’ take the devil outa you. Meanin’ me—Jake Houck. Understand?”
“I won’t! I won’t!” she cried. “You come here an’ bully me because—because of what you know about Father. If you were half a man—if you were white, you wouldn’t try to use that against me like you do.”
“I’m using it for you. Why, you li’l’ spitfire, can’t you see as Jake Houck’s wife you get a chance to live? You’ll have clothes an’ shoes an’ pretties like otherfolks instead o’ them rags you wear now. I aim to be good to you, June.”
“Yousaythat. Don’t I know you? I’d ’most rather be dead than married to you. But you keep pesterin’ me. I—I—” Her voice broke.
“If you don’ know what’s best for you, I do. To-morrow I got to go to Meeker. I’ll be back Thursday. We’ll ride over to Bear Cat Friday an’ be married. Tha’s how we’ll fix it.”
He did not take her in his arms or try to kiss her. The man was wise in his generation. Cheerfully, as a matter of course, he continued:
“We’ll go up to the house an’ tell Tolliver it’s all settled.”
She lagged back, sulkily, still protesting. “It’s not settled, either. You don’t run everything.”
But in her heart she was afraid he had stormed the last trench of her resistance.
CHAPTER VIIAN ELOPEMENT
Bob Dillon was peeling potatoes outside the chuck tent when he heard a whistle he recognized instantly. It was a very good imitation of a meadow-lark’s joyous lilt. He answered it, put down the pan and knife, and rose.
“Where you going?” demanded the cook.
“Back in a minute, Lon,” the flunkey told him, and followed a cow trail that took him up the hill through the sage.
“I never did see a fellow like him,” the cook communed aloud to himself. “A bird calls, an’ he’s got to quit work to find out what it wants. Kinda nice kid, too, if he is queer.”
Among the piñons at the rock rim above Bob found June. He had not seen her since the day when she had saved him from a thrashing. The boy was not very proud of the way he had behaved. If he had not shown the white feather, he had come dangerously close to it.
“How are cases, June?”
His eyes, which had been rather dodging hers, came to rest on the girl at last. One glance told him that she was in trouble.
“I don’ know what to do, Bob,” she broke out. “Jake will be back to-day—by dinner-time, I reckon. He says I’ve got to go with him to Bear Cat an’ be married to-morrow.”
Dillon opened his lips to speak, but he said nothing. He remembered how he had counseled her to boldness before and failed at the pinch. What advice could he give? What could he say to comfort his friend?
“Haven’t you got any folks you could go to—some one who would tell Houck where to head in at?”
She shook her head. “My father’s all I’ve got.”
“Won’t he help you?”
“He would, but—I can’t ask him. I got to pretend to him I’d just as lief marry Jake.”
“Why have you?”
“I can’t tell you why, Bob. But that’s how it is.”
“And you still hate Houck?”
“Ump-ha. Except—sometimes.” She did not explain that elusive answer. “But it don’t matter about how I feel. When he comes back I’ve got to do like he says.”
June broke down and began to weep. The boy’s tender heart melted within him.
“Don’t you. Don’t you,” he begged. “We’ll find a way, li’l’ pardner. We sure will.”
“How?” she asked, between sobs. “There ain’t—any way—except to—to marry Jake.”
“You could run away—and work,” he suggested.
“Who’d give me work? And where could I go that he wouldn’t find me?”
Practical details stumped him. Her objections were valid enough. With her inexperience she could never face the world alone.
“Well, le’s see. You’ve got friends. Somewhere that you could kinda hide for a while.”
“Not a friend. We—we don’t make friends,” she said in a small, forlorn voice with a catch in it.
“You got one,” he said stoutly. “Maybe he don’t amount to much, but—” He broke off, struck by an idea. “Say, June, why couldn’t you run off with me? We’d go clear away, where he wouldn’t find us.”
“How could I run off with you?” A pink flood poured into her face. “You’re not my brother. You’re no kin.”
“No, but—” He frowned at the ground, kicking at a piece of moss with his toe to help him concentrate. Again he found an idea. “We could get married.”
This left her staring at him, speechless.
He began to dress his proposal with arguments. He was a humble enough youth who had played a trifling part in life. But his imagination soared at seeing himself a rescuer of distressed maidens. He was a dreamer of dreams. In them he bulked large and filled heroic rôles amply.
June was a practical young person. “What d’ you want to marry me for?” she demanded.
He came to earth. He did not want to marry her. At least he had not wanted to until the moment before. If he had been able to give the reason for his suggestion, it would probably have been that her complete isolation and helplessness appealed to the same conditions in himself and to a certain youthful chivalry.
“We’re good pals, ain’t we?” was the best he could do by way of answer.
“Yes, but you don’t—you don’t—”
Beneath the tan of her dark cheeks the blood poured in again. It was as hard for her to talk about love as forhim. She felt the same shy, uneasy embarrassment, as though it were some subject taboo, not to be discussed by sane-minded people.
His freckled face matched hers in color. “You don’t have to be thataway. If we like each other, an’ if it looks like the best thing to do—why—”
“I couldn’t leave Dad,” she said.
“You’ll have to leave him if you marry Jake Houck.”
That brought her to another aspect of the situation. If she ran away with Bob and married him, what would Houck do in regard to her father? Some deep instinct told her that he would not punish Tolliver for it if she went without his knowledge. The man was ruthless, but he was not needlessly cruel.
“What would we do? Where would we go—afterward?” she asked.
He waved a hand largely into space. “Anywhere. Denver, maybe. Or Cheyenne. Or Salt Lake.”
“How’d we live?”
“I’d get work. No trouble about that.”
She considered the matter, at first unsentimentally, as a workable proposition. In spite of herself she could not hold quite to that aspect of the case. Her blood began to beat faster. She would escape Houck. That was the fundamental advantage of the plan. But she would see the world. She would meet people. Perhaps for the first time she would ride on a train. Wonderful stories had been told her by Dillon, of how colored men cooked and served meals on a train rushing along forty miles an hour, of how they pulled beds down from the roof and folks went to sleep in little rooms just as thoughthey were at home. She would see all the lovely things he had described to her. There was a court-house in Denver where you got into a small room and it traveled up with you till you got out and looked down four stories from a window.
“If we go it’ll have to be right away,” she said. “Without tellin’ anybody.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I could go back to the house an’ get my things.”
“While I’m gettin’ mine. There’s nobody at the camp but Lon, an’ he always sleeps after he gets through work. But how’ll we get to Bear Cat?”
“I’ll bring the buckboard. Dad’s away. I’ll leave him a note. Meet you in half an hour on Twelve-Mile Hill,” she added.
It was so arranged.
June ran back to the house, hitched the horses to the buckboard, and changed to her best dress. She made a little bundle of her other clothes and tied them in a bandanna handkerchief.
On a scrap of coarse brown wrapping-paper she wrote a short note:
Dear Dad,I’m going away with Bob Dillon. We’re going to be married. Don’t blame me too much. Jake Houck drove me to it. I’ll write you soon. Don’t forget to take the cough medicine when you need it.June
Dear Dad,
I’m going away with Bob Dillon. We’re going to be married. Don’t blame me too much. Jake Houck drove me to it. I’ll write you soon. Don’t forget to take the cough medicine when you need it.
June
June
She added a postscript.
I’ll leave the team at Kilburn’s Corral.
I’ll leave the team at Kilburn’s Corral.
Unexpectedly, she found herself crying. Tearssplashed on the writing. She folded the note, put it in the empty coffee pot, and left this on the table.
June had no time just now for doubts. The horses were half-broken broncos. They traveled the first hundred yards tied in a knot, the buckboard sometimes on four wheels, but more often on two.
At the top of the hill she managed to slacken them enough for Bob to jump in. They were off again as though shot from a bow. June wound the reins round her hands and leaned back, arms and strong thin wrists taut. The colts flew over the ground at a gallop.
There was no chance for conversation. Bob watched the girl drive. He offered no advice. She was, he knew, a better teamster than himself. Her eyes and mind were wholly on the business in hand.
A flush of excitement burned in June’s cheeks. Tolliver never would let her drive the colts because of the danger. She loved the stimulation of rapid travel, the rush of the wind past her ears, the sense of responsibility at holding the lines.
Bob clung to the seat and braced himself. He knew that all June could do was to steady the team enough to keep the horses in the road. Every moment he expected a smash, but it did not come. The colts reached the foot of Twelve-Mile safely and swept up the slope beyond. The driver took a new grip on the lines and put her weight on them. It was a long hill. By the time they reached the top the colts were under control and ready to behave for the rest of the day.
The sparkling eyes of June met those of Bob. “Great, ain’t it?”
He nodded, but it had not been fun for him. He had been distinctly frightened. He felt for June the reluctant admiration gameness compels from those who are constitutionally timid. What manner of girl was this who could shave disaster in such a reckless fashion and actually enjoy it?
At the edge of the town they exchanged seats at June’s suggestion and Bob drove in. It was mid-afternoon by the sun as he tied the horses to the rack in front of the larger of the two general stores.
“You stay here,” the boy advised. “I’ll get things fixed, then come back an’ let you know.”
He had only a hazy idea of the business details of getting married, but he knew a justice of the peace could tell him. He wandered down the street in search of one.
Half a dozen cowpunchers bent on sport drifted in his direction. One of them was riding down the dusty road. To the horn of his saddle a rope was tied. The other end of it was attached to a green hide of a steer dragging after him.
The punchers made a half-circle round Bob.
One grinned and made comment. “Here’s one looks ripe, fellows. Jes’ a-honin’ for a ride, looks like.”
“Betcha he don’t last ten jumps,” another said.
Before Bob could offer any resistance or make any protest he had been jubilantly seized and dumped down on the hide.
“Let ’er go,” some one shouted.
The horse, at the touch of the spur, jumped to a gallop. Bob felt a sudden sick sense of helplessness. The earth was cut out from under him. He crouched low andtried to cling to the slippery hide as it bounced forward. Each leap of the bronco upset him. Within three seconds he had ridden on his head, his back, and his stomach. Wildly he clawed at the rope as he rolled over.
With a yell the rider swung a corner. Bob went off the hide at a tangent, rolling over and over in the yellow four-inch-deep dust.
He got up, dizzy and perplexed. His best suit looked as though it had been through a long and severe war.
A boyish puncher came up and grinned at him in the friendliest way. “Hello, fellow! Have a good ride?”
Bob smiled through the dust he had accumulated. “It didn’t last long.”
“Most generally it don’t. Come in to Dolan’s an’ have a drink.” He mentioned his name. It was Dud Hollister.
“Can’t.” Bob followed an impulse. “Say, how do you get married?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“I don’t,” Dud answered promptly. “Not so long as I’m in my right mind.”
“I mean, how do I?” He added sheepishly, “She’s in the buckboard.”
“Oh!” Dud fell to sudden sobriety. This was serious business. “I’d get a license at the cou’t-house. Then go see Blister Haines. He’s the J. P.”
Bob equipped himself with a license, returned to June, and reported progress.
The bride-to-be was simmering with indignation. In those days she had not yet cultivated a sense of humor.
“I saw what they did to you—the brutes,” she snapped.
“Sho! That wasn’t nothin’, June. The boys was only funnin’. Well, I got things fixed. We gotta go to the J. P.”
The justice was having forty winks when they entered his office. He was enormously fat, a fact notable in a country of lean men. Moreover, he had neither eyebrows nor hair, though his face announced him not more than thirty in spite of its triple chin. Mr. Haines was slumped far down in a big armchair out of which he overflowed prodigally. His feet were on a second chair.
Bob wakened him ruthlessly. He sat up blinking. Bob started to speak. He stopped him with a fat uplifted hand.
“I r-reckon I know whatyouwant, y-young man,” he said.
CHAPTER VIIIBLISTER GIVES ADVICE
Blister Haines, J. P., was by way of being a character. His waggish viewpoint was emphasized by a slight stutter.
“S-so you want to h-hitch up to double trouble, do you?” he asked.
“We want to get married,” Bob said.
“S-same thing,” the fat man wheezed, grinning. “C-come right in an’ I’ll tie you tighter ’n a d-drum.”
“I’ve only got six dollars,” the bridegroom explained.
“No matter a-tall. My f-fee is jus’ six d-dollars,” the justice announced promptly.
Bob hesitated. June nudged him and whispered. The husband-elect listened, nodded, and spoke up.
“I’ll pay you two dollars.”
Blister looked at the bride reproachfully. “L-lady, if you ain’t worth s-six dollars to him you ain’t worth a c-cent. But I’ll show you how good a sport I am. I’ll m-make you a wedding present of the j-job. Got any witnesses?”
“Do we have to have witnesses?” asked Bob helplessly. Getting married was a more formidable and formal affair than he had supposed.
“Sure. I’ll dig ’em up.”
The justice waddled to the door of the saloon adjoining and stuck his head inside. A row of cowpunchers were lined up in front of the bar.
“Y-you, Dud Hollister an’ Tom Reeves, I’m servin’ a subpoena on you lads as w-witnesses at a w-weddin’,” he said in the high wheeze that sounded so funny coming from his immense bulk.
“Whose wedding?” demanded Reeves, a lank youth with a brick-red face, the nose of which had been broken.
“N-none of yore darned business.”
“Do we get to kiss the bride?”
“You h-hotfoot it right to my office or I’ll throw you in the c-calaboose for c-contempt of court, Tom Reeves.”
The puncher turned to Hollister, grinning. “Come along, Dud. Might ’s well learn how it’s done, ol’ Sure-Shot.”
The range-riders jingled into the office at the heels of the justice. Blister inquired for the names of the principals and introduced the witnesses to them. The gayety and the audacity of the punchers had vanished. They ducked their heads and drew back a foot each in a scrape that was meant to be a bow. They were almost as embarrassed as June and Bob. Which is saying a good deal.
June had not realized what an ordeal it would be to stand up before strangers in her dingy dress and heavy cracked brogans while she promised to love, honor, and obey. She was acutely conscious of her awkwardness, of the flying, rebellious hair, of a hole in a stocking she tried to keep concealed. And for the first time, too, she became aware of the solemnity of what she was doing. The replies she gave were low and confused.
Before she knew it the ceremony was over.
Blister closed the book and dropped it on a chair.
“Kiss yore wife, man,” he admonished, chuckling.
Bob flushed to the roots of his hair. He slid a look at June, not sure whether she would want him to do that. Her long dark lashes had fallen to the dusky cheeks and hid the downcast eyes.
His awkward peck caught her just below the ear.
The bridegroom offered the justice two dollars. Blister took it and handed it to June.
“You keep it, ma’am, an’ buy yorese’f somethin’ for a p-pretty. I’d jes’ b-blow it anyhow. Hope you’ll be r-real happy. If this yere young s-scalawag don’t treat you h-handsome, Tom an’ Dud’ll be glad to ride over an’ beat him up proper ’most any time you give ’em the high sign. Am I right, boys?”
“Sure are,” they said, grinning bashfully.
“As j-justice of the peace for Garfield County, S-state of C-colorado, I’m entitled to k-kiss the bride, but mos’ generally I give her one o’ these heart-to-heart talks instead, onloadin’ from my chest some f-free gratis g-good advice,” the fat man explained in his hoarse wheeze. “You got to r-remember, ma’am, that m-marriage ain’t duck soup for n-neither the one nor the other of the h-high contractin’ parties thereto. It’s a g-game of give an’ take, an’ at that a h-heap more give than take.”
“Yes, sir,” murmured June tremulously, looking down at the hole in her stocking.
“Whilst I n-never yet c-committed matrimony in my own p-person, me being ample provided with t-trouble an’ satisfied with what griefs I already got, yet I’ve runcows off an’ on, an’ so have had workin’ for me several of this sex you’ve now got tangled up with, ma’am,” Blister sailed on cheerfully. “I’ll say the best way to keep ’em contented is to feed ’em good, treat ’em as if they was human, an’ in general give ’em a more or less free rein, dependin’ on their g-general habits an’ cussedness. If that don’t suit a p-puncher I most usually h-hand him his hat an’ say, ‘So long, son, you ’n’ me ain’t c-consanguineously constructed to ride the same range; no hard feelin’s, but if you’re w-wishful to jog on to another outfit I’ll say adios without no tears.’ You can’t g-get rid of yore husband that easy, ma’am, so I’ll recommend the g-good grub, s-seventy-five s-smiles per diem, an’ the aforesaid more or less f-free rein.”
Again June whispered, “Yes, sir,” but this time her honest eyes lifted and went straight into his.
“An’ you.” The justice turned his batteries on the groom. “You w-wanta recollect that this r-road you’ve done chose ain’t no easy one to t-travel. Tenderfoot come in the other day an’ w-wanted to know what kind of a road it was to S-stinking Creek. I tell him it’s a g-good road. Yesterday he come rarin’ in to f-find out what I told him that for. ‘Fellow,’ I says, ‘Fellow, any r-road you can g-get over is a good road in this country.’ It’s t-thataway with marriage, son, an’ don’t you forget it a h-holy minute. Another thing, this being u-united in wedlock ain’t no sinecure.”
“Ain’t no which kind of a sin?” inquired Reeves.
Dud Hollister grinned admiringly. “Blister sure ropes an’ hogties a heap of longhorn words.”
The justice scratched his bald poll and elucidated.“A s-sinecure, boys, is when a f-fellow rides the g-grub line habitual an’ don’t rope no d-dogies for his stack o’ wheats an’ c-coffee.” He wagged a fat forefinger at Bob. “You gotta quit hellin’ around now an’ behave yorese’f like a respectable m-married man. You gotta dig in an’ work. At that you ’n’ the little lady will have yore flareups. When you do, give her the best of it an’ you’ll never be sorry. Tha’s all.”
Blister slid a hand furtively into a drawer of the desk, groped for a moment, then flung a handful of rice over bride and groom.
The newly married couple left the office hurriedly. They did not look at each other. An acute shyness had swept over both of them. They walked to the buckboard, still without speaking.
June opened a perspiring little brown palm in which lay two warm silver dollars. “Here’s yore money,” she said.
“It’s yours. He gave it to you,” Bob answered, swallowing hard. “For a weddin’ present.”
“Well, I ain’t no pockets. You keep it for me.”
The transfer was accomplished, neither of them looking into the eyes of the other.
Blister Haines, flanked on each side by one of the witnesses, rolled past on his way to the bar of the Bear Cat House. His throat was dry and he proposed to liquidate his unusual exertion. He always celebrated a wedding by taking a few drinks. Any excuse was a good excuse for that. He waved a hand toward the newlyweds in greeting.
Bob answered by lifting his own. He had not takenthree drinks in his life, but he felt that he would like one now. It might cheer him up a little.
What in the world was he to do with June? Where could he take her for the night? And after that what would they do? He had not money enough to pay stage fare to get them away. He did not know anybody from whom he could borrow any. Yet even if he found work in Bear Cat, they dared not stay here. Houck would come “rip-raring” down from the hills and probably murder him.
Anyhow, it would not do for him to act as though he were stumped. He managed a smile.
“We’d better take the team to the corral, then go get something to eat, June. I’m sure enough hungry. Ain’t you?”
She nodded. Even to go to the hotel or a restaurant for dinner was an adventure for her, so little of experience had her life offered.
As they walked from the barn to the Bear Cat House, the girl-bride was still dumb. The marriage ceremony had brought home to her the solemnity of what she had done. She had promised to love, honor, and obey this boy, to care for him in sickness and in health, till death came to part them.
What did she know about him? What manner of man had she married? The consequences of the step they had taken began to appall her. She would have to live with him in all the intimacies of married life, cook for him, wash his clothes, sit opposite him at the table three times a day for fifty years. He was to be the father of her children, and she knew nothing whatever about him except that he was gentle and friendly.
From under long curving lashes she stole a shy look at him. He was her husband, this stranger. Would she be able to please him? June thought of what Blister Haines had said. She was a pretty good cook. That was one thing. And she would try not to let herself sulk or be a spitfire. Maybe he would not get tired of her if she worked real hard to suit him.
The hotel was an adobe building. In the doorway stood a woman leaning against the jamb. She was smoking a cigar. June looked twice at her before she believed her eyes.
The woman took the cigar from between her lips. “Are you the children Blister Haines just married?” she asked bluntly.
“We—we’ve just been married by Mr. Haines,” Bob replied with an attempt at dignity.
The blue eyes of the woman softened as she looked at June—softened indescribably. They read instantly the doubt and loneliness of the child. She threw the cigar into the street and moved swiftly toward the bride. A moment before she had been hard and sexless, in June’s virgin eyes almost a monstrosity. Now she was all mother, filled with the protective instinct.
“I’m Mollie Gillespie—keep the hotel here,” she explained. “You come right in an’ I’ll fix up a nice room for you, my dearie. You can wash up after yore ride and you’ll feel a lot better. I’ll have Chung Lung cook you both a bit of supper soon as he comes back to the kitchen. A good steak an’ some nice French frys, say. With some of the mince pie left from dinner and a good cup of coffee.” Mollie’s arm was round June, petting and comforting her.
June felt and repressed an impulse to tears. “You’re mighty good,” she gulped.
The landlady of the Bear Cat House bustled the girl into a room and began to mother her. Bob hung around the door. He did not know whether he was expected to come in or stay out, though he knew which he wanted to do.
Mollie sent him about his business. “Scat!” she snapped. “Get outa here, Mr. Husband, an’ don’t you show up till five o’clock prompt. Hear me?”
Bob heard and vanished like a tin-canned pup. He was the most relieved youth in Bear Cat. At least he had a reprieve. Mrs. Gillespie would know what to do and how to do it.
If being a married man was like this, he did not wonder that Dud Hollister and Blister Haines felt the way they did toward that holy estate.