A long day of anxiety and fevered apprehension merged into a night of terror. It was the outcome of a conviction that was irresistible. The shadow of disaster was marching hard upon her heels. Nor had she the power to avoid it.
As night came on Elvine remained alone in her twilit bedroom. She had no desire to come into contact with the servants, she had no desire for human companionship of any sort. So, with the fading light, she betook herself to the bedroom.
But there was no relief. It was haunted to-night, teeming with the fancies of a dreading imagination. It seemed to her like the cell of a condemned prisoner.
The day had passed heavily, drearily. Every moment of it had been filled with the thought that Jeff was on his way to Orrville. On his way to meet Dug McFarlane. On his way to meet the one man in whose hands her whole fate lay. He alone knew the source of the ten thousand dollars which she had carried back to her paternal home as the net result of her first marriage. He alone knew it to be the price of the blood of men, amongst whom was the twin brother of her present husband.
Memory was alive, and full of a poignant torture. It brought back to her the scene when she had driven her first husband to help her to the money she had desired to possess. He had spoken, in his horror and anger, of "blood money," of "Judas," and she would not hear. She had derided him, she had lashed him with the scorn of an unbridled tongue, she had turned upon him in her selfish craving, without a thought of any principle.
Now she understood what she had done, but she only understood because of the threat which overshadowed her. It was no spiritual awakening. It was again the self in her, threatened in its desires as a result of her earlier wanton actions. Her motives, even the picture of the carnage in that hidden valley, which came back to her unbidden, had no power to add to the hopelessness of her feelings. Every emotion was wrapped in the thought that she was about to be robbed of all the fruits of the one great passion of her life.
She had one desire now, one motive in life only. It was the man she had married. The man she had designed to marry for the station and wealth he could offer her, and who had almost instantly become the centre of her whole life. Nothing of any worldly consideration counted any longer. There was nothing could interest her of which he did not occupy the centre of the focus. Self dominated still, but it was a more human type of self, which had, perhaps, some rightful claim on human sympathy.
The shadows grew, and the wide airy room was filled with a hundred added terrors which claimed reality in the troubled brain. The silence of the world about her became a threat. The darkening of the cloudless sky beyond the open window. She sat on, refusing to invoke the aid of lamp-light to banish the gathering legions of her dread. She knew it was impossible to banish them.
Oh, she had no physical fear of the world about her. What was there to fear? Did she not know it all? Had she not lived it all before? The two wide open windows invited her. She moved to one of them, and drew a chair so that she could rest upon the sill and gaze out into the space so perfectly jeweled. And the cool night air fanned her cheeks, and seemed to relieve the fever that was raging behind her hot eyes.
The morrow. There was no other concern with her now but—the morrow. To-morrow Jeff would return. To-morrow she would know the worst, she would know if the purpose of Fate were for or against her. Oh, that to-morrow! And in the meantime there were interminable hours of darkness to endure, when sleep was impossible. And after that the daylight, when she must fear every eye that was turned in her direction, when every moment brought nearer the possibility of the end for her of all things in the world which mattered.
The night wore on. Midnight came and passed. She had not moved again. Her straining eyes had watched the starry groups as they set beyond the horizon. There was no moon to create shadows upon the wide, rolling pasture before her. Everything was in shadow, just as her every thought was similarly enwrapped. There was no relief anywhere.
Once she heard a sound that set her jarred nerves hammering. It was a distant sound, and, to her fancy, it was the rapid beat of horse's hoofs sweeping across the wide valley. But it died out. She had been caught by the thought of the possibility of her husband's return, suddenly, in the night. She pictured for one brief instant the headlong race of the man to charge her with the crime of his brother's life.
She saw that keen, stern face with its cold blue eyes and the grimly tightened lips. She had seen some such expression there before, and she knew there were depths within his soul which she had never probed, and hoped that she might never have to probe.
It was the mystery of these unknown depths which had inspired her passion. It was because of that cognizance of something unusual, profound, in his personality that he had first become so completely desirable. Then as she grew to know him, so she found she knew him less, and desired to know him more. Her love and worship of him was of the primitive. It was such as is the love of all women when inspired by an emotion not untouched by fear.
So, when the sounds of hoof-beats broke the night silence, she became panic-stricken, because such a return, at such an hour, could have but one meaning.
Then the sounds passed, and her nerves steadied, and presently a stirring night breeze rustled the lank grass. It came over the plain toward her. It reached her window and fanned her cheeks with its chill breath. Then it passed, sighing round an angle of the house. Then, in its wake, came the plaintive dole of a scavenging coyote. The combination, to her fancy, was an echo of her feelings. It was the sigh of despair, and the cry of a lost soul.
Presently the drowse of utter weariness descended upon her. The dread of thought remained heavily overshadowing, but a certain distortion displayed the reaching of limits beyond which human power could not go, even in suffering. It was a merciful nature asserting itself. Her eyes closed, slowly, gently, with a drowsy helplessness. Once her elbow slipped from the sill of the window and awoke her. A somnolent thought that she would go to bed passed dully through her mind. But she did not act upon it. She propped her head upon her hand once more, and, in a moment, everything was forgotten.
She awoke with a start. There was no drowse in her wakefulness now. Her eyes were wide, and her thoughts alert. The sensation of a blow, a light, unforceful blow was still tingling through her nerves. The blow, it seemed, had fallen upon her forehead, and she thrust a hand up mechanically to the spot. But the action yielded her no enlightenment. There was no pain, no sign.
She peered through the open window and realized that the moon had risen. She stared at it, and presently it occurred to her that she must have slept, and, by the position of the moon above the horizon, for at least an hour.
Then her thoughts returned to the blow which had awakened her, and the conclusion followed that it must have been the result of the half-blind flight of one of those great winged beetles.
She closed the window abruptly. She closed the second one. Then, having drawn the curtains, she fumbled for the matches and lit the candles upon her dressing bureau. It was her intention to search for the intruding beetle, and then retire.
But her search terminated abruptly. It terminated even as it began. That which had struck her was lying almost at her feet upon the soft rug on which she stood, and within a yard of where she had been sitting. It was a piece of paper tied about a small ball of soil.
She stared down at it for some startled moments. The effects of her dread were still upon her, and they set up a sort of panic which made her fearful of touching the missile. But it could not remain there uninspected. There could be no thought of retiring without learning the meaning of what lay there on the floor.
Gingerly she stooped with a candle in her hand. She stooped lower, but making no attempt to touch the thing which had disturbed her. The candle revealed a folded sheet of white paper. A string bound it round the rooted portion of a grass tuft.
After a few moments she reached out and picked it up. The next moment she was standing erect at her bureau, and with a pair of scissors she severed the string and dropped the grass tuft to the floor.
The paper was folded and thumb-marked by dirty hands. With shaking fingers and tense nerves she deliberately unfolded it.
It was a note, and she read it eagerly.
"You sold the lives of men for a price. You had it your way then. We're goin' to have our way now. You'll pay for that deal the only way we know."
* * * * * *
Elvine sat watching the scenes of the work of the range. The men were returning from distant points making for the ranch house where their evening meal was awaiting them at the bunkhouse. Teams were moving toward the barns, and barn-hands were watering those which had already returned. There was a general stir everywhere. Certain stock was being corralled and hayed for the night. In the hay corral men were busy cutting and hauling feed. There was no loneliness, no solitude. The business of so great an enterprise as the Obar Ranch involved many hands, and seemingly endless work.
But Elvine watched these things without interest. In her present state of mind they meant nothing to her, they could mean nothing. She was waiting, waiting in a perfect fever for the home-coming of her husband.
Strangely, too, she was not without a glimmer of hope. Somehow the belief had taken possession of her that had Jeff learned anything of her story he must have been home before this. It seemed to her that he must have flung every consideration to the winds, and rushed in fevered haste to denounce her as the murderess of his twin brother.
The mysterious note which had been flung in through her open window had left her sleepless for the rest of the night, but, even so, now, in the broad light of day, it was only relatively alarming. The other terror overwhelmed it.
The sun was already tinting the hilltops with ruddy, golden hues. The frigid snow-caps no longer wore their sheen of alabaster. There was a golden radiance everywhere, a suggestion of a perfect peace, such as the woman felt could never again find place in her heart.
She turned her eyes from the splendor of the scene in silent protest. The green of the wide-spreading valley, even the dark purple shadows of the lower mountain slopes were better in harmony with her mood. But even these she denied in her nervous irritation, and again, and yet again, her searching gaze was flung out to the northwest along the trail over which she knew her husband must come.
The waiting seemed endless. And the woman's heart literally stood still when at last she detected an infinitesimal flurry of dust away on the far distance of the trail. A mad desire surged through her to flee for hiding to those vast purple solitudes she knew to lie in the heart of the hills.
She remained where she was, however. She stirred not a muscle. She was powerless to do so. What, what had the coming of the man for her? It was the one absorbing question which occupied her whole brain and soul.
The dust flurry grew to a long trail in the wake of a horseman. In five minutes he stood out ahead of it, clear to the eye. In ten his identity was distinguishable. And, presently he rode swiftly at a gallop past the ranch buildings and drew up before the house.
The rack of that moment was superlative. The woman's hands clenched and her finger nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. There was no greeting upon her lips. She only had power to stare; her wide beautiful eyes were searching the face of the man she loved, searching it as the criminal in the dock might search the face of the judge about to pass sentence.
Her tongue was ready for its release. Pent words lay deep in her soul for an outpouring at the lightest sign. But these things were dependent, dependent upon the reading she found in the man's eyes.
The horse stood drooping at the termination of its effort. The man sprang from the saddle. A barn-hand took the beast away to its stable. Elvine's tongue remained almost cleaving to the roof of her mouth.
The man's fair brows were depressed. His eyes were sternly cold. And not once did they turn in her direction. He spoke in his usual tone to the barn-hand. He issued his orders without a sign of emotion.
Elvine could stand no more. She stirred. Then slowly she passed within the house.
Presently Jeff's step sounded on the veranda. It was quick. There was nothing lagging in it. The woman gripped the back of a chair in the living-room in which she had taken refuge. She was seeking support.
The man entered the room. Nor did he remove his hat. He stood just within the window opening, and his eyes, cold as the gleam of the mountain glaciers, regarded her steadily.
"I see you understand," he said. "You realized what must happen when I visited Dug McFarlane in the matter of Peters, who bought your dead husband's farm. You knew it when you read that letter I gave you. And so you protested. So you assured me of—your regard."
He came a step nearer. The movement was almost involuntary.
"I have prayed to God that some day he might bring me face to face with the person who sold my brother's life. He has granted me my prayer. But it never entered my wildest dreams that it could be the woman I married. I never questioned your past. To me it was sufficient that you had taught me the meaning of love. To me you must be all you seemed. No more, no less. God help me, I had no imagination to tell me that so fair a body could contain so foul a heart. Were you not my wife, were you a man, I should know how to deal with that which lies between us. As it is you must thank the difference in our sex for that which nothing else could have done for you. As yet I have not had the time to arrange the details of our future. To-morrow, perhaps, things will have cleared in my mind. I shall sleep to-night over at Bud's——"
"Oh, Jeff, Jeff, have mercy. I——"
"Mercy? Mercy?" A sudden fire blazed up where only a frigid light had shone. The man's tones were alive with a fury of passion. "Did you have mercy? Was there one merciful, womanly emotion in your cruel, selfish heart when you sent those men, that man to his death for ten thousand filthy dollars? Pray to God for mercy, not to me."
A curious sullen light dawned in the woman's eyes. But even as it dawned it faded with the man's movement to depart.
"You—you won't leave me?" she pleaded. "Oh, Jeff, I love you so. What I did was in ignorance, in cruel, selfish longing. I had been reduced to the life of a drudge without hope, without even a house fit for existence. I believed I had honest right. I believed even that my act was a just one. Jeff, Jeff, don't leave me, don't drive me out of your life. I cannot bear it. Anything, anything but that. My God, I don't deserve it. I don't—true. Jeff—Jeff!"
Her final appeal came as the man, without a word, passed through the open window. She followed him in a desperate hope. But the hope was vain. She saw him mount the fresh horse which had been brought round and left at the tying post.
As he turned the beast about to depart, just for one instant he looked in her direction.
"I will see you again in the morning. By that time I shall have decided what is best for us both."
He waited for no more. There was nothing to wait for. He lifted the reins and his horse set off. The dust rose up and screened him from view.
Once more Elvine was standing on the veranda. Once more her gaze was following the trail of rising dust. But there was no fever of suspense in her beautiful eyes now. There were not even tears. The blow had fallen. Fate had caught up with her. Its merciless onrush had overwhelmed her. She was crushed. She was broken under its sledge-hammer blow. She stood drooping, utterly, utterly broken and spiritless before the man's swift, brief indictment and action.
The end had come. Nor had it anything of the end she had visualized in her dread. It was ten times more cruel than she had even dared to dream.
Supper was over when Jeff arrived. He came straight into the room where the colored girl had just finished clearing the table. Nan was returning a few odds and ends to their places. Bud had already lit his evening pipe preparatory to settling down for the brief interim before turning in for the night.
There was no preamble. There was no sign of emotion, even at the moment of his arrival. Jeff launched his request at father and daughter in a voice such as he might have used in the most commonplace of affairs.
It was a request to be put up for the night.
But both Bud and Nan were startled. Nan's cheeks paled, and imagination gripped her. She said nothing. With Bud to be startled was to instantly resort to verbal expression.
"Wot's wrong?" he demanded.
Then the storm broke. It broke almost immoderately before these two who were the intimates of Jeff's life. All that had been withheld before Dug McFarlane, all which he had refused to display before the wife he had set up for his worship, Jeff had no scruples in laying before these two. It was the sure token of the relations between them, relations of perfect trust and sympathy.
Bud sat gazing at the outward sign of the passionate fires he had always known to lie smouldering in the depths of this man's soul. Nan stood paralyzed before such violence. Both knew that hell was raging under the storm of emotion. Both knew that the wounds inflicted upon this man's strong heart were well-nigh mortal.
The whole story was told, broken, disjointed. For the first time Nan learned the result of the search for an erring twin brother, and her horror was unbounded. A heart full of tenderness bled for the man whose sufferings she was witnessing. The story of Elvine's own actions filled her with revolting, yet with pity. It was not in her to condemn easily. She felt that such acts were beyond her powers of judgment.
The man's grief, his bitter, passionate resentment smote her beyond any sufferings she had ever known herself. Elvine absorbed all the anger she could bestow, but even so it was infinitesimal beside the harvest of grief which the sight of this man's suffering yielded her. That was the paramount emotion of the moment with her. That, and the injustice she deemed to have been meted out to him.
It was not until the great crescendo of the man's storm of grief had passed that Nan bethought herself of the need in which he stood. Nor was that need apparent until his whole note had changed to a moody bitterness with which he regarded the future. Then she understood the demon that was knocking at the door of his soul.
Immediately her decision was taken. She left the two men together and went to make the necessary preparations for this refugee's accommodation. Curiously enough, these preparations were not complete for nearly an hour, at the time, in fact, that it was her father's habit to seek his bed.
When she returned to the parlor the place was full of the reek of Bud's tobacco, but it was only from the one pipe. Neither of the men were talking when she entered the room, and her glance passed swiftly from one to the other.
She moved over to where Jeff was sitting with his back turned to her, and stood behind his chair.
"Everything's fixed for you, Jeff," she said. "But—but maybe you don't feel like turning in yet. My Daddy usually goes at this time, and—he's had a hard day."
Bud looked across at her. His pipe was removed from his mouth for the purpose of protest. But the protest remained unspoken in face of the meaning he beheld in the girl's brown eyes. Instead he rose heavily from his rocker.
"Say, jest take your time, Jeff, boy," he said. "Guess you'll need to think hard before mornin'. I don't guess it's your way to jump at things. I ain't never see you jump yet. Anyway, when you're thinkin', boy, it'll be best to remember that a woman's jest a woman, an' her notions ain't allus our notions."
Nan came over to him, and he rested one great arm about her shoulders, and stooped and kissed her.
"Good-night, little gal," he said. "Maybe Jeff'll excuse me. An' maybe you ken tell him some o' them things that don't come easy to me. So long, Jeff. I'll sure see you in the mornin' before you quit."
He stood uncertainly for a moment with his arm upon Nan's shoulders.He seemed to want to say more, and was at a loss how to say it.Finally he stuck his pipe back into his mouth with a savage thrust andlumbered heavily from the room.
Nan understood. She knew he was laboring under profound emotion, and a feeling of self-disgust at his own inability to help his partner and friend.
As the door closed she moved over to the table and leaned against it. Jeff's back was toward her, and his face was turned in the direction of the window, across which the curtains had not yet been drawn.
He was leaning forward, his gaze intent and straight ahead out into the black night beyond. His elbows were on his knees, and his hands were clasped, and hanging between them. To the sympathetic heart of Nan there was despair in every line of his attitude. She nerved herself to carry out her decisions.
"Jeff!"
There was no movement in response. But a reply came. It was in the tone of a man indifferent to everything but the thought teeming through his brain.
"Well?"
"Why did you come around here—to-night?"
The question achieved its purpose. The man abandoned his attitude in a movement of fierce resentment. He swung round on the questioner, his eyes hot with feeling.
"Because I guess I need to sleep somewhere. Because nothing on earth could make me share roof with the woman who's my wife. Gee, my wife! Say, Nan, the thought of it nearly sets me crazy."
"Does it? You didn't feel that way—two nights ago."
The man's eyes met the girl's incredulously.
"How can you talk that way?" he demanded roughly. "I didn't know a thing then. I thought she was all she seemed. Maybe I was just a blind fool, crazy with love. Anyway—I hadn't learned the hell lying around her heart."
"I s'pose there is hell lying around her heart?"
Nan's words were provocative. Yet they were spoke in such a tone of simplicity as to rob them of all apparent intent.
Jeff was in no mood for patience. Swift resentment followed upon his incredulous stare.
"Do you need me to give it you all again?" he cried fiercely. "It don't need savvee to grip things." Then his voice rose. "And to think those dollars have fed her, and clothed her, a body as fair as an angel's, and a heart as foul as hell." Then his tone dropped as if he were afraid of the sound of his own voice. "Say, thank God I kept my hands off her. If she'd been a man——"
He left his sentence unfinished. In her mind Nan completed it. But aloud she gave it another ending.
"If she'd been a man I don't guess she'd have been there to have you lay hands on her."
There was a new note in the girl's tones. But it passed Jeff by.
"No," he said with almost foolish seriousness.
"Say, Jeff," the girl went on gently, a moment later, "aren't you acting a teeny bit crazy over this? I mean talking of souls foul as hell. And—an' not sharing the same roof with the woman you've sworn to love, and—and cherish as long as you both live. She hasn't done a thing wrong by you since you said—an' meant that. She hasn't done a thing wrong anyway."
The denial was so gentle yet so decided. Had there been heat in it it must have been ineffective. As it was Jeff stared incredulously and speechless, and the girl went on:
"You think I'm wrong," she said. "Maybe you think I'm crazy, same as I guess this thing's made you feel." She shook her head. "I'm not—sure. Take us here. Maybe I'm chasing around through the hills. Chance runs me plumb into the camp of these rustlers who're cutting into your profits on the Obar. I come right in and hand you the story. You and Bud round up a bunch of boys and I take you to where the camp's hidden. You hold 'em up, and you hang them. Well, I guess the pleasantest moment of that racket for you would be to get back to home and hand me a bunch of dollars. Say, I can see you doing it. I can see your smile. I can hear you sayin': 'Take 'em, little Nan, an' buy yourself some swell fixing.' And say, Jeff, I wouldn't have done a thing less than your Evie's done. That's how I'd say now, acting as you are, you aren't the 'Honest Jeff' I've always known. You're not fair to Evie, you aren't just—before God."
The man made a gesture of fierce impatience. He seemed on the verge of a furious outburst. But the steady light of Nan's eyes was upon him. For some moments he gazed into their sweet depths, and their courage, their steadfastness, seemed to abash him. He flung out his arms in a helpless gesture of appeal.
"Nan, Nan!" he cried, in a voice of hopelessness. "I can't argue it. I just can't. I can't see things right. I sure nearly am crazed. The only thing I can see is the blood of poor Ronny on her—her hands. The hands I've held in mine. The hands I've kissed. Oh, was there ever so foul——"
"Yes, Jeff, there was. There is."
Nan's voice was low but thrilling with deep feeling. She moved forward from her place at the table with a little rush. The rustle of her skirts only ceased as she fell upon her knees at the man's side, and her warm brown hands clasped themselves upon the strong arm propped upon his knee.
"It's a far, far fouler thing, this thing you've got fixed in your mind to do. Oh, Jeff, dear, if I could speak the things as I feel them. But I can't. It's all inside me mussed up and maybe foolish. But, oh, I know I'm right I want to tell you something, and I don't just know how."
Her eyes were gazing up into his, the soft brown eyes of the beautiful soul within. She strove to compel his gaze, but it moodily withheld its regard.
"Jeff, you'll kill poor Evie. You'll break her heart by robbing her of all you've brought into her life through your love. Say, can't you see it all? And you'll do it for a shadow. Yes, it's a shadow, an ugly shadow, this crazy thought of yours for a brother who was just a low-down cattle rustler, same as these toughs you're making a bid of ten thousand dollars to see hanged the same as he was. Think of it, Jeff. She's just a woman, weak and helpless, and you're going to rob her of all that makes her life worth while. Would you act that way by a mother, or—or a sister? And she's your wife, Jeff, who's given you all a loving woman has to give. I could tell you of the things this means to you, and the schemes and plans you've sort of set your heart on, but I don't need to. I just want you to see what you're doing by her, and all the time she's done you no wrong. Do you get that, dear? Evie's never done you a wrong, and in return you're going to do all you know to kill her heart dead."
"Done me no wrong?" There was a desperate sort of sneer in the words.They were the words of a man who is robbed of denial but still protests.
But Nan rejected even that. She swiftly flung it back in her sense of the injustice of it.
"It's as I said, Jeff. Just as I said," she declared solemnly. She drew a deep breath. She was about to take a plunge which might bear her she knew not whither. "Oh, I could get mad with you for that. I could so, Jeff. I know the story of it. You've told it yourself, and I don't guess you've spared her any. But you're blinding yourself because you're crazy to do so. You're blinding yourself to all sense of justice to defend a wretched scallawag who happened to be your brother. Say, you're trying to fix on your wife, the woman who loves you, and who you guess you love, all the dirt you should heap on the worthless man who lived by theft, and maybe, even, was a murderer. Say, don't speak. Not just a single word. Guess you can say all you need when I'm through," she cried, as the man, with eyes ablaze, sought to break in. "When I'm through I'll listen. Say, bring this right home here. We're being robbed by cattle thieves. I don't guess they're better or worse than your brother. What if he'd been one of this gang? If you'd got this gang, with him in it? Would you've let him go and hanged the others? Tell me. Tell me right here and now."
The man sprang from his seat. He moved away to the window.
"You're talking foolish," he flung over his shoulder. "It's not the position. My brother's deserts aren't in question. It's Evie's act. My wife's act. You're a woman and defend her. How could you be expected to see a man's point of view?"
"There can be no man's point of view in it," Nan cried warmly. "I guess there's just one point. The point of right and justice. In justice she's not done a thing to make you act this way. For your sake, for hers, for the sake of justice you'll have to go back to her."
The man swung round.
"You'd have me go back to her?" he cried in fierce derision. "Say, you're crazy! Go back to her feeling as I do?"
"Feeling as you've no right to feel," Nan retorted swiftly. Then in a flash her voice changed, dropping to a note of deep tenderness and sympathy. "Say, Jeff, won't you go back? Won't you?" she pleaded. "Think of all it means to her, to you. Think of a poor woman driven to the depths of despair for a shadow you've nursed in your brain these years. That's what it comes to. I know. Oh, Jeff, as sure as ther's just a great big God above us you'll pay for it if you don't. You surely will."
The man shifted his gaze. The lids of his eyes drooped and hid from the waiting girl all that passionate feeling he had not hesitated to display. She wondered as she waited. She was fearful, too.
In the man every sort of emotion was surging through him in a chaotic tangle. Nothing seemed clear; anger, revolting, even hatred, all fought for place. And through it all the pleading tones of the girl would not be denied.
After a moment he suddenly flung out his arms.
"I—I just can't, Nan!" he cried desperately.
A wave of relief swept through Nan's heart. He was yielding, and she knew it. His manner had completely and abruptly changed. She drew nearer to him. Every honest art of persuasion was in her tender manner. All self was forgotten in that moment of spiritual purpose.
"But you can—if you will," she said, her brown eyes uplifted to his. "There isn't a thing you can't do—and you will. And this is so small, Jeff. So small. Just think of that great big God somewhere up above waiting, waiting to help you. He's always waiting to help us—any of us. Ask Him. Ask His help. He'll give it you. He surely will. And He can clear away all this dreadful feeling. It'll pass right away easy. I know. He's done things for me. You just can't guess how much. Say, Jeff, and when He's fixed you right, feeling that way, He'll show you, and tell you more. He'll show you that Evie's act was not hers, but—His. It was just His way of bringing Ronny's punishment back to you. You see, Jeff, Ronny was part of you. You said so. And oh, He's wiser than you an' me. And He figures this thing is best so. It's a little Cross, such a teeny one, He's set you to bear, and if you're the man I know and believe in, why, you'll just carry it without a squeal. Then later you'll understand, and—you'll be real glad for it. Will you—will you go back to her—to-morrow, Jeff?"
Nan waited almost breathlessly. She was watching him with a gaze that searched every detail of his face. She saw the strong veins at his temples standing out, the usually clear eyes stained and bloodshot. She saw him raise one hand wearily to his forehead, and pass it back over his hair. She knew the movement so well. The sight of it thrilled her. There was little about him she did not know and understand.
"You've made it seem I'll have to, Nan," he said with desperate reluctance.
For a moment a strange feeling of weakness came over the girl. But she resolutely thrust it aside.
"It's not me, Jeff," she disclaimed. "You know it's not me. And you'll—promise?"
He nodded.
"I'll go back to her, because—of you."
A curious look of fear crept into the girl's eyes.
"You'll go back, because—of her," she persisted.
The man shook his head.
"Anyway—I'll go back."
The words were roughly spoken. But Nan accepted them. It was all she could hope for. And—well, she had done her best.
She sighed deeply. She glanced about her. For a moment they dwelt upon the man who was denied her. The man in whom she saw all that could ever make life worth while.
"Good-night, Jeff."
Her voice was very low and soft.
"Good-night, Nan." Then with a sudden outburst, as forceful as it was spontaneous: "God, if the world were only made up of women like you!"
But the door had closed. And as Nan crept to her bedroom, unrestrained tears coursed down her soft cheeks. The full force of the irony of it all was too great for her. He was going back to Elvine, and—she had sent him.
Jeff was abroad at daylight. Even Bud, whose habit was sunrise, had not yet wakened from his heavy slumbers. But Nan was stirring. She heard Jeff moving, and she saw him beyond her window. She saw him bring his horse from the barn, saddled and bridled. In a moment he had mounted and ridden away. Then she dressed, and, for the rest, wondered at the possible outcome of it all. Half an hour later the sun rose and the day's work began.
When Jeff reached his home it was still wrapped in the habit of night. There was no one and nothing stirring, for, as yet, only the golden glow of the eastern sky promised the coming of day.
His mood was bitter. But his purpose was calculated and deliberate. He had given his promise in answer to Nan's irresistible pleading. But otherwise the man was completely unchanged. He moved away down to the corrals, and leaned against the great lateral rails which closed the entrance. The beasts within were chewing the cud, and still picking at the remains of their overnight feed.
They were a goodly sight to eyes that understood the meaning of such things. It was only one of a number of corrals similarly crowded with beasts, that were, for various reasons, herded in shelter at night. These were a few, a very few of the vast numbers which bore the familiar "O——" brand. There were the outlying stations which harbored their hundreds. There were the pastures with their complement of breeding cows. Then there were the herds of two- and three-year-olds roaming the plains at their will, fattening for the buyers who came at intervals.
Thoughts of these things compelled Jeff now. And he saw what Nan had saved him from. Wreck had been threatening in the course he had marked out for himself at first. How could prosperity have maintained under the conditions he would have imposed? Even now, under the modification which Nan had appealed for, he failed to see the continuation of that success he had striven so hard for. The incentive was no longer in him, he told himself. Where lay the use, the purpose in it all? The future? That dream future which had come to him could never mature now. It was no longer a dream. It was nightmare.
He wondered why he had yielded to Nan's entreaty. It all seemed so purposeless now in the broad light of day. He could force himself to live with his wife—under the same roof. Perhaps in time he could even meet her in daily intercourse. She might even become a factor in the great work of the Obar. But the joy of achievement had been snatched from him. All that he had foreseen might be achieved in the work, even. But the process would have been completely robbed of its inspiration, and was therefore not to be counted worth while.
The thought of the woman's regard for him left him cold. He dwelt upon it. Suddenly he wondered. Two days ago he could not have thought of it without a thrill. Now it meant—nothing. He remembered Nan's appeal. Why—why had it affected him last night? It had not been because of—Evie.
Nan had talked of justice—duty. He could see no appeal in either now. Why should he be forced to observance of the laws of justice, or—duty toward a woman who——?
He stirred restlessly. His attention was drawn to his horse. He moved over to it and off-saddled. Then he returned to his place at the corral. The sun was just breaking the horizon. He heard sounds of life coming from the bunkhouse.
Nan's appeal no longer convinced him—now that he was away from her. But—he had pledged his word. He could not break his word to Nan, although he longed—madly longed to resaddle his horse and ride away, and leave behind him forever this place which had suddenly become so full of bitter memories. No—he had pledged his word.
Soon he must once more confront his wife. He reviewed the possibilities. The night long he had spent in considering the position he intended to place before her. Would she accept it? And—what then? The long days of work, unlit by any hope of the future. The process of building, building, which all men desire, without that spark of delight which inspires the desire. Just the drudgery of it. The resulting wealth and commercial power of it maybe, but not one moment of the joy with which only two days before he had regarded the broad vista of the future.
Now the smell of cooking reached him from the bunkhouse. Several men were moving down toward the corrals. He passed on toward the house. A moment or so later he stood on the veranda gazing out at the streaming cattle as they moved toward the wide home pastures, under the practised hands of the ranchmen. It was a sight to inspire any cattleman, and, for a moment, the brooding eyes of the master of it all lit with a flash of their former appreciation. But the change was fleeting. The blue depths clouded again. The question once more flashed through his brain—what—what was the use of it all?
None, none at all. Every dream had been swept from his waking thoughts. Every enchanting emotion was completely dead. The woman who had inspired the rose-tinted glasses through which he had gazed upon the future no longer had power so to inspire him. By her own action she had taken herself out of his life. She could never again become a part of it. He would live on with her, under the same roof, a mockery of the life which their marriage imposed upon them. He had pledged that to Nan, and he would not break his word to—Nan. But love? His love was gone. It was dead. And he knew that the ashes of that once passionate fire could never be stirred into being again.
There was a rustle of skirts behind him. He heard, but did not turn. A fierce passion was rising to his brain, and he dared not turn until he had forced it under restraint.
"You have come back, Jeff?"
The voice was low and soft. There was something tragically humble in its tone.
The man turned.
"Yes, Evie." Then he added: "I told you I would."
His voice was gentler than he knew. The harshness of their previous meeting had gone out of it. Nor was he aware of the change, nor of the reason, although in his mind was the memory of his promise to Nan.
"And you'll tell me your decision—now?"
The humility was heart-breaking. Nor was the man unaffected by it. He looked into the beautiful face, for the dark eyes were averted. Then his gaze dropped to the charming figure daintily clad in a simple morning frock of subtle attraction. But his eyes came back to the face with its crowning of beautiful dark hair, nor was there any change in their expression as a result of their survey.
"As well now as later."
"What is it?"
For the first time Jeff found himself gazing into the wide dark eyes. There was pain in them. Apprehension. There were the signs about them of long sleepless nights. He shut the sight of these things out by the process of turning away to observe the general movement going on in the near distance.
"Guess there's no use to say a deal," he said, a curiously moody note taking possession of his voice. "If I did, why, I'd likely say a whole heap more than a man may say to his wife. Guess the right an' wrong of things had best lie in our hearts. You know just what you did, and why you did it. I know what you did, an' can only guess why you did it. I don't figger any talk could convince either of us different to how we think and feel. Maybe there's Someone knows the rights of this thing better than either of us. That being so, I allow He'll ultimately fix things as He intends. Meanwhile it's for us to do as we feel, just so far as our personal earthly concerns go."
The coldness in his voice had grown, and it left Evie with a complete sense of hopelessness that was harder to bear than any fears which violence of language might have inspired.
His pause was prolonged. She made no effort to break it, she dared not break it. For the man, he was gathering the threads of what he had to say so as to deliver it concretely. He feared to prolong this interview. In view of his decision he must not risk any violent outbreak such as his feelings were even now striving to force upon him.
"Maybe you'll remember what I said to you about Ronny just after we were—married. I don't guess you'll have forgotten, seeing things are as they are. What I said then stands now. If you'd been a man I'd have shot you down in your tracks when I got to home last night. That should say all that need be said about how I'm feeling now. You aren't a man, and you're my wife. Well—you're still my wife. That means it's up to me to keep you as though this thing hadn't broken things up. I intend to act as right as I can by you. This is your home. You must use it, if you feel that way. The Obar has to go on. It's your means of living. It's my means of living. Then there are others concerned in it. For these reasons I shall carry on things, and your knowledge of this sort of work should hand you a reasonable share in the running of this place. If you feel you can act this way, without remembering we're man and wife, why, I guess we can agree to live our—separate—lives under the same roof. If you don't feel you can do this, why, you need to say so right here an' now, an' state your wishes. I'll do my best to carry them through, provided you understand our lives are separate from now on. Do you get that?"
Did she get it? Could there be any mistaking those cold tones, that ruthless decision?
From slightly behind him Elvine had stood watching with straining eyes the still figure, speaking with so obvious a repression of feeling, his eyes steadily fixed upon the distant horizon. Once or twice an ominous flush had suddenly flamed up in her eyes. A deep flush had stained her cheeks. But as he ceased speaking the same shrinking, the same humility marked her attitude. She knew instinctively she dared not say the things she was yearning to pour out. She knew instinctively that any such course would at once break down that thin veneer of restraint he was exercising. And for perhaps the first time in her life she stood awed and cowed by a man.
But this woman was the slave of her passions, and she knew it. It was this now that made a coward of her. With all the power of self in her she had abandoned herself to her love for her husband. And, with slavish submission, she was prepared to accept his words rather than banish herself out of his presence altogether. A mad, wild hope lay somewhere deep down in her heart that some day he could be made to forget. That some day, through what looked to her like endless days of devotion and help, she might win back something of what she had lost. She knew her own attraction. She knew her own powers. Might there not then be hope in the dim future?
She had no pride where Jeff was concerned. She wanted him. His love was all life to her now. If she had followed the natural course which should have been hers and refused his proposal, she would have been closing the door, finally, upon all that made life possible. If she submitted there still remained to her the vaguest possible shadow of hope. This was her thought and motive in the crisis with which she was faced, and her calculations were made out of her yearning, and without true understanding of the man with whom she was dealing.
Jeff awaited her decision under an enforced calm.
"It's for you to say," she said, after some moments. "Nor is the choice mine. I shall obey. You've said I can help in the work. Maybe it's my right. I'll claim that right anyway. It's the only right I'll claim. I've only one other thing to say, and maybe you'll let me speak it this once."
"Go on."
"I didn't guess I was doing wrong. I don't know now I did wrong. Anyway, if what I did was wrong it's against God's laws and not man's. Maybe you've a right to punish me. I don't know. Anyway, my life and interests are bound to yours, and I want you to know every effort of mine will be to further—your interests. This has made no change in me—that way. You can trust me as you'd trust yourself. I'm not here to squeal for any mercy from you, Jeff. And maybe some day you'll—understand. I guess your breakfast's ready. I'll have mine later."
* * * * * *
Later in the day Elvine rode out from the ranch house. Nor did she concern herself with her object, nor her course, beyond a wild desire for the solitude of the hills. The full torture of the new life, on the threshold of which she now stood, had not come upon her until after the effects of her interview with her husband had had time to calm down. Then to remain in the house, which had become a sort of prison to her, was made impossible. She must get out. She must break into activity. She felt that occupation alone could save her reason.
So she struck out for the hills. Their claim of earlier days was upon her. The hills, and their wooded valleys. Their brooding calm, their dark shadows, their mysterious silence. These things claimed her mood.
She rode recklessly across the wide spread of Rainbow-Hill Valley. She had no thought for the horse under her. She would have welcomed the pitfalls which mighty have robbed her of the dreadful consciousness of the disaster which had overwhelmed her. She was striving to flee from thoughts from which she knew there was no escape. She was striving to lose herself in the activities of the moment.
The switchback of the plain rose and fell under her horse's busy hoofs. It rose higher, and ever higher, as she approached the western slopes. She left the fenced pastures behind her, and the last signs of the life to which she was now committed. Before her the woodlands rose up shrouded in their dark foliage. The mourning aspect of the pines suited her temper; she felt as though their drooping boughs were in harmony with the bereavement of her soul.
She plunged amidst the serried aisles of leafless trunks with something like welcome for their shadows. She rode on regardless of distance and direction.
From the crest of a hill she looked down upon narrow mountain creek surging between borders of pale green foliage. The sound of the waters came up to her, and the wilderness of it all appealed, as, at that moment, nothing else could have appealed. She pressed her blowing horse forward, and rode down to the banks so densely overgrown.
She leaped from the saddle. She relieved her horse of its saddle and flung herself upon the mossy ground in the shelter of a cluster of spruce. The humid heat was oppressive. The tumbling waters were unable to stir the atmosphere. But their music was soothing, and the sight of their turbulent rush seemed to hold sympathy for her troubled heart. And so she lay there, her head propped upon a supporting hand, and yielded herself to the sway of her emotions.
After a while tears dimmed her eyes. They overflowed down her cheeks. She had reached the end of endurance before yielding to her woman's pitiful weakness. Time had no meaning now. Place had lost its influence. She saw nothing, knew nothing but the trouble which had robbed her of all she lived for.
Then came the inevitable. Her tears eventually relaxed the tension of her nerves, and, after several ineffectual attempts to keep them open, the weight of the atmosphere closed her eyes and yielded her the final mercy of sleep.
* * * * * *
Elvine awoke with a start. She awoke with the conviction of the presence of the man she had met in the hill regions before. She knew some one was near her, but, for the moment——
Yes. She sat up. A pair of brown eyes were gazing down into hers. Then came the voice, and it was low, and gentle. It had nothing startling in it.
"Why, say, an' I've been hunting your trail this hour, taking you for—some one else."
Nan had been standing with her arm linked through her horse's reins. Now she relinquished them, and flung herself upon the ground before the startled woman.
Elvine stared at her with unease in her dark eyes. Nor did she gain reassurance from the pretty face with its soft brown hair, and the graceful figure beneath its brown cloth riding suit. Yet she was not insensible to the companionship. Her greater fears had been of the man, Sikkem, who had been in her waking thoughts.
"You were following my tracks?" she demanded uncertainly.
Nan's eyes grew grave.
"I certainly was. Though I didn't guess they were yours. Say, you must have crossed the tracks I was following," she added thoughtfully. "Did you see anybody? Four fellers? Mighty tough-looking citizens, an' strangers?"
The frankness of the girl reestablished confidence.
Elvine sat up.
"No," she said. Then the wonder of it possessed her. "But you—you alone were following on the tracks of four tough strangers?" she cried incredulously.
Nan smiled. Her smile was pretty. It was a confident, wise little smile.
"Sure," she said. "I saw them, and it was up to me. You see, Evie, we folks out here kind of need to think diff'rent. A girl can't just help being a girl, but when rustlers are around, raising small Cain with her men-folks' goods, why, she's got to act the way they would when they light on a suspicious trail. I was guessing that track would lead me somewhere. But," she added with a grimace, "I wasn't as smart as I figgered. You must have crossed it, an' I lost 'em."
"But can't you get back to it? Maybe I can help some. I've followed a trail before," Elvine added, in a tone which Nan understood better than the other knew.
But the girl shook her head.
"My plug is tired, and there's the chase back to home. I guess we'll leave 'em, and just—report. But there's something doing. I mean something queer. These folk don't reckon to show themselves in daytime, and I guess they were traveling from the direction of Spruce Crossing."
"That's where the man Sikkem's stationed," said Elvine.
"Sure. But I don't guess they been near his shanty. They wouldn't fancy gettin' around Sikkem's lay-out in daytime. You see, he's—sudden."
Nan's confidence was not without its effect. But Elvine was less sure.
"This Sikkem. I don't like him. But——"
Nan dismissed the matter in her own way.
"Sikkem's been on the ranch nigh three years. He's a cattleman first, and hates rustlers worse than poison. But he's tough. Oh, he's tough, all right. I wouldn't gamble a pea-shuck he hasn't quite a dandy bunch of notches on his gun. But we're used to his sort."
Then she went on in a reflective fashion as though hollowing out a train of thought inspired by the man under discussion:
"Sort o' seems queer the way we see things. Right here on the prairie we mostly take folks on trust, an' treat 'em as we find 'em. Maybe they're wanted for all sorts of crimes. Maybe they done a turn in penitentiary. Maybe they even shot up folk cold. These things don't signify a cent with us so they handle cattle right, and are ready to push lead into any bunch of rustlers lyin' around. Guess it's environment makes us that way. The prairie's so mighty wide it helps us folks to get wide."
Evie was watching the play of the girl's expressive eyes.
"I wonder—if you're right."
"Mostly, I guess."
"Mostly?"
Nan nodded.
"It isn't easy to condemn amongst folks on the prairie," she said with a sigh.
Elvine shook her head. Her eyes were turned from the girl. They were staring down into the turbulent stream.
"I don't think I've found it that way."
"How?"
The interrogation was natural. But it brought Elvine's eyes sharply to the girl's, and, for a moment, they gazed steadily into each other's.
Then the woman's graceful shoulders went up.
"I see you know."
"And—you aren't mad with me for knowing? You aren't mad with Jeff for me knowing? I wanted you to know I knew. I wanted to tell you I knew, only I didn't just know how to tell you. Then I wanted to tell you—something else."
There was simple sincerity in every word the girl spoke. The light in her eyes was shining with truth. Elvine saw it, and knew these things were so, and, in her loneliness of heart, in her brokenness of spirit, she welcomed the chance of leaning for support upon a soul so obviously strong and sympathetic. She yielded now as she would never have believed it possible to yield.
Suddenly she raised her hands to her head and pressed her fingers to her temples.
"Oh, I—I don't know what to do. I sort of feel I just can't—can't stop around. And yet—— Oh, I love him so I can't, daren't leave him altogether. You can't understand, child, no one can. You—oh, you've never known what love is, my dear. I'm mad—mad for him. And—and I can never come into his life again."
She dropped her hands from her head in a movement that to Nan seemed as though she were wringing them. Nan's own heart was thumping in her bosom. She, too, could have cried out. But her eyes steadily, and almost tenderly, regarded the woman who had taken Jeff from her.
"You must stop around," she said in a low, firm tone. "Say, Evie, I don't guess I'm bright, or clever, or anything like that. I don't reckon I know things different to other folk. But just think how it would be if you went away now. You'd never see Jeff again, maybe, and he'd never know just how you love him. You see, men-folk are so queer, too. Maybe Jeff's right, and you and me are wrong. Maybe we're right, and he's all wrong. I can't say. But I tell you Jeff needs you now—more than ever. He don't know it, maybe. But he wants you, and if you love him you'll just—stand by. Oh, I could tell you of a thousand ways you can help him. A thousand ways you can show him your love without telling him. It means a hard fight for you. I know. And maybe you'll think he isn't worth it. But he is—to you. You love him. And any man a woman loves is worth to her every sacrifice she can make. I don't know. Maybe you got to be punished, not by us folk, not for what you done to Jeff. But Someone guesses you got to be punished, and this is the way He's fixed it. Say, Evie, you won't let go of things, will you? Maybe you can't see ahead just now. But you will—later. You love Jeff, and he just loves you, though he's sort of blind to it now. But he loves you, an' no one else. He wouldn't act the way he's doing if it weren't so. I sort of felt I must say all this to you. I—I don't know why—just. But I won't ever talk like this again. I haven't a right, I know. But I don't mean harm. I don't sure. And if you'll let me help you anyway I can I'll—be real glad."
The offer of reward for the rustlers operating in Rainbow Hill Valley was without the desired effect. It was worse. The men against whom it was directed received it with deliberate but secretly expressed contempt. Nor did Chance serve the masters of the Obar, as four years before She had served Dug McFarlane.
Nor was the failure due to lack of effort. Bud left no stone unturned. And Jeff—well, Jeff did all a man could. The hills were scoured, and the deeps and hidden hollows of the greater foothills. The notices of reward were sent broadcast, even penetrating to the Orrville country. They were set up as Jeff had promised, on tree trunks in the remoter hills where any chance eye might discover them. Where undoubtedly the men who constituted the gang must sooner or later discover them.
The only response was a continuation of the raids.
But a distinct change had taken place in the method of these. Whereas, originally, they had been directed against not only the Obar Ranch, but wherever opportunity offered in the district, they now fastened their vampire clutches upon the Obar only, and, finally, on only one section of its territory: the land which belonged to Jeff's side of the partnership.
So marked was this that it could not be missed.
The partners were out at a distant station where they had been urgently summoned. A young "hand" had been wounded, a nasty flesh wound in the arm. He had been bringing in a small bunch of steers which had strayed to a distant hollow in the hills. It had been overnight. He was held up, and shot by three outlaws, and his cattle run off.
It was Bud who voiced the thought of both partners immediately after a close interrogation of the injured man.
"Looks like some low-bred son-of-a-hobo owes you a reckonin' he's yearnin' to git quit of, Jeff," he said, the moment they were alone. "They're workin' this way all the time. They ain't so much as smelt around the old 'T.T.' territory in days. D'you make it that way?"
Jeff nodded.
"Sure."
But he made no attempt to throw enlightenment.
"Guess you signed the reward."
Bud watched the shadowed serious face of his friend.
"Maybe it's that." There was something like indifference in the younger man's manner.
Perhaps it was this manner which stirred Bud's impatience and drove him to resentment.
"Say," he cried, in fiercely vibrant tones, "d'you know what it is I got in my head? It's the 'hands' on our range. Sure. Ther's some lousy guy on the Obar working in with the gang. Cowpunchers are a mongrel lot anyway. Ther' ain't one but 'ud souse the sacrament wine ef the passon wa'an't lookin' on. I guess we'll need to chase up the penitentiary re-cord of every blamed thief on our pay-roll. Maybe the cinch we're lookin' fer lies that way."
"It's curious."
"Curious? Gee, it's rotten!"
The old man's patience completely gave way.
"See right here, Jeff. I ain't rattled. Not a thing. But ther's got to be some guts put into this thing, an' you an' me's got to find 'em. See? I'm sick to death. Right here an' now I tell you ther's goin' to be a rotten piece of trouble around this lay-out, an' I'm goin' to be in it—right up to my back teeth."
It was perhaps the first time Bud had displayed impatience with the man who had always been the leading spirit of their enterprise. The truth was, something seemed to have gone out of Jeff. He neglected nothing. He spared himself no pains. His physical efforts seemed even to have become greater as the days passed. Frequently, now, night as well as day found him in the saddle watching over their interests. He had become a sort of restless spirit urging forward the work, and watching, watching with the lynx eyes dreaded so much by the men who served him. But for all that something had certainly gone out of him, and Bud knew and feared its going.
If Bud knew and feared the change, he also knew the cause of it. Neither he nor Nan were blind to the drama silently working out in the other household. It was bitterly plain and almost heart-breaking to the onlookers. The same roof sheltered husband and wife. But no unnecessary word was spoken between them. Their meals were taken apart. They were as completely and coldly separate as though they occupied opposite poles. And the girl who recognized these things, and the man who watched them, only wondered how long it must be before the final disaster came upon them.
Jeff's moods had become extraordinarily variable. There were moments when his moroseness became threatening. The canker at his heart was communicating itself to his whole outlook, and herein lay the failure in his work.
It was the realization of all this which stirred Bud's impatience. He knew that unless a radical change was quickly brought about, the vaunted Obar had certainly reached and probably passed its zenith.
Finally, he opened his heart to the sure sympathy of Nan. He had purposely taken her with him on a boundary inspection amongst the foothills. They were riding through a silent hollow where quiet seemed to lie on the top of everything. Even their horses' hoofs failed to make an impression upon it. Peace was crowding the woodland slopes, a peace profound and unbreakable.
"The Obar's struck a mighty bad patch, Nan," he said abruptly. "Ef things kep hittin' their present gait, why, I don't jest see wher' we're to strike bottom. The pinch ain't yet, but you can't never kick out a prop without shakin' the whole darned buildin' mighty bad. An' that's how the Obar's fixed. Ther's a mighty big punch gone plumb out o' Jeff's fight, an', well, I guess we're needin' all our punch to fix the things crowdin' around us."
"You mean the rustlers?" Nan drove to the heart things without hesitation.
"Sure. Them an'—other things."
The girl nodded. She knew the other things without asking.
"Jeff's in a heap of—trouble," she said with a sigh.
"An' looks like carryin' us along with him—ef we ain't watchin' around."
"We've always kind of leaned on Jeff."
"Most folks are ready to lean, Nan. It sort o' saves 'em a deal of trouble."
"Yes. Till you kick the prop away."
"Sure. Our prop's been kicked away, an' we've jest got to git right up on to our hind legs an'—git busy. The leanin' racket's played out fer us. We got to hand Jeff a prop now, an' see it don't git kicked away. See?"
For some moments the girl's gaze searched straight ahead of her down the valley. And into her eyes there grew a gentle light of enthusiasm. Suddenly she turned upon the great figure on its horse beside her.
"We've stood up on our own years, Daddy—before Jeff came along. We can stand now, can't we? I guess we're not going to fail Jeff now he's in trouble. Jeff's been all for us. We're going to be all for him. He needs us, Daddy, and—I'm glad in a way. Say, my heart nigh breaks every time I peek into his poor sad an' troubled face. Jeff's just beating his soul dead. And if the Obar gets wrong, it'll sure be the end of everything for him. It mustn't, Daddy. Things mustn't go wrong. 'Deed they mustn't. It's up to us. You must show me how, Daddy. You're wise to it all. You're strong. You know. Show me. Put me wise, an' I'll—take Jeff's place."
The girl's words came full of a passionate sincerity. There were no half measures in this child of the prairie. Her love was given, a wealth of generous feeling and loyal self-sacrifice. Her father read with a rare understanding. And in his big heart, so rough, so warm, he cursed with every forceful epithet of his vocabulary the folly of the man he had marked out for a son.
"We'll make good, or—bust," he said, with a warmth that almost matched the girl's.
Then he pointed ahead where the hollow opened out, and a large clump of trees marked dividing ways.
"I guessed you'd best see this. It's one o' them notions o' Jeff's.That play ain't worth a cent."
"Ah!"
They rode up to the bluff in silence. And after a moment's search Bud drew rein before a heavy tree trunk, to which was secured a printed sheet. He pointed at it, and, for a while, neither spoke. Nan was taking in the disfigurements with which it was covered, and she read the words written across it in bold but illiterate characters:
"We're wise to her. She don't git no second chanst."
The rest of the disfigurings were mischievous, and of almost indecent character.
"Does Jeff know?" Nan's question was almost a whisper.
"I ain't told him."
Bud's reply was one of doubt.
"He—he ought to be told."
Then Bud suddenly abandoned the restraint he had been exercising.
"Oh ——! Ther' ain't no use. He can't do a thing. He wouldn't do a thing. I tell you we're jest suckin'-kids in this racket. We got to lie around crazy enough to fancy we're goin' to git the drop on these bums. What a country! What a cuss of a lay-out wher' you got to set around watching a darnation gang o' toughs whittlin' away your work till they got you beat to a mush. Here, I'm goin' to start right in. I'm goin' to get around Calthorpe. The sheriff's got to git busy, an' earn his monthly pay check. We'll hev to raise vigilantes. I tell you they'll break us else. Ef Jeff can't see, why, he'll hev to be made to. Blast their louse-bound souls to hell!"